Mo said she was quirky (15 page)

tired and dark

Something good happened today, what was it?

She had to think. Mo had whispered it to her. He would have been smiling. If she could see his face. She would have had to raise her head.

Helen got sick of smiling. Smiles were sewn on. Sometimes she wondered.

Positives and negatives, he talked about that, where there is darkness there is light. Something good happened today.

People can be smilers. She needed to smile. There were nice smiles. Natural honest smiles. She didnt have one. She didnt trust her smiles. They were not ordinary as from one person to another. It was why she needed him. She did need him. He made silly comments but they were true. Negatives became positives. He had that knack and it was so necessary. If she didnt find that in a person, if the other person wasnt positive, just down-in-the-dumps all the time, except how things happened in life. Not everybody was happy families. Experiences
werent all good. A negative
was
a negative; it was only positive if it was positive. Everybody was different and it had to be remembered. People had their own personalities, each and every one. It applied to babies in the pram. Try to get one to do something. If she didnt want to. Boys too. They go off and do what they want. That was Brian. Off he went. A row with Dad and away. Was that responsible? Not to contact his own mother, even to contact her. That was boys. What an easy life they had in comparison.

Helen was not a brooder. Her ex called her that. Brood. Like a big hen. A woman was a big hen. A woman brooded and had a brood. A word for a woman but not a woman’s word. It was like ‘women’s work’, even to say it: women’s work. Every week was every week. A brooder. Who did the ironing? Who did the washing who did everything

what did it matter, week in week out, Sophie not wearing the same clothes twice, what did it matter, everything having to be just so, none of it, it didnt matter, it was all like meaningless nonsense. She didnt want anything to do with it.

Mo and his criticisms about her worrying all the time. He didnt know, he really didnt. What world did he come from that people worrying was news?

Men didnt understand.

Mo’s breathing, he was having a wee doze. That was nice, if she could too. This was the amusing part of it, how she had been asleep; she was, then he came home so now, of course, she wasnt. Oh well.

She would have loved a sister. Or a cousin with children and they could just maybe share, if one could babysit or else just meet up for a chat or it could even be Brian, if he was married and his wife was there and just like a friend, a good friend, and they could meet up, just shopping together or taking the children to the swing park or wherever, if there were not too many
boys rushing around, it was off-putting for Sophie; she was at that stage. Mo tried to laugh her out it but she just looked at him. On her dignity at six years of age? Yes. It was so important. Women dont have many weapons but that was one of the best.

Less than twelve hours from now and she would be at the table so she needed to sleep, she did need it. She would though. She was tired. Oh so tired, so so tired, she was.

Every time her eyes closed she opened them. Anyway, she knew what a living death was. She had been married to one.

Her brains full to capacity; family family family, she was sick of it. Why does family rear its ugly head but it does, a lifetime, it is jail for a life sentence, families and ghosts

Mo’s too, she hadnt even met them, why hadnt she met them?

Oh God if she could sleep. In one position then another, unable to settle, if she could settle, she couldnt settle, and she had to to sleep. You worked on automatic pilot as a dealer but only to a point and if your mind was someplace else like family problems. Everybody made mistakes. But not too many else you would be out on the street, and you couldnt blame them like for mistakes, mistakes are money.

She had been asleep, till he woke her up. He actually woke her up. So then
he
went to sleep and she stayed awake. Oh well. Perhaps a pill, nightshift workers took pills. Sex didnt knock
her
out.

The heat from his body. She wouldnt have needed the socks and hot bottle. If he had told her in advance, I’m coming back to bed

Only the waiting, how much of your life, waiting, and always for other people, their life is the important one, theirs and not yours.

That was Caroline, everybody waiting, she was the one,
they were due the taxi and waiting for her, she was the one preening, so if they hadnt waited, if she hadnt been so selfish because that is it, selfish.

You go home and you go home. Not like everything else, like the whole world and you are not able to, why cant you just go home? not like waiting and waiting

wee souls, all running around, you saw them in the school playground and Sophie was one, and she would be waiting, and if people are late, parents can be

if it is standby, a machine on standby, if she had no choice like brains functioning with or without like a purring, engines purring purring and we dont know the thing is on

What came first? Knowing they were there? Or seeing them?

There are enemies of children

What did God do there? It was just like bad luck

for Dad too, poor old Dad.

horrible horrible feeling. If it didnt happen in casinos, there was a privacy there. She felt that anyway. Others perhaps didnt, if they felt panicky, some would, and ogling ones looking at you and just staring,

wee souls

Hey … Helllenn, Helenn …

Mo the smiler. His breathing too, the regularity, you listen to someone’s breathing. Breathing and voices, faces, distinguishing features, hear their breathing, people’s breathing.

You are very welcome to sleep m’dear, most very welcome … Mo was already out the bed, halfway, about to lower his feet to the floor.

I was hardly asleep at all.

You were snoring.

No I wasnt.

He was about to turn from her but she raised her hand. I’m sorry, she said, but what does it matter about the neighbours?
That’s six months now and I still havent met your family. You talk about your community and how about tradition and everything, the culture and everything, but to me it’s like neighbours, that’s ‘the community’, that’s how it sounds to me. Oh heavens, what will the
neighbours
think? You tell one person and then everybody knows, the whole world. So it’s like oh she’s a white woman and got her own child. When your mother said ‘English woman’, that’s what she meant, just like
white woman
.

She waited for him to say something but he didnt. I’m not bothered, she said, only it would be good to know like I dont care about meeting them, not if you dont want me to but if it’s only the neighbours and worrying what they’ll say. If that is all it is.

Again she waited. She adjusted her pillow and smiled: Now you wont talk to me.

Yeh I will, I will, but make it later.

She settled down on her back.

You took me by surprise. I want it the best way, he said, like when things are good love not now like now, I mean, everything’s going on all the time, you know how it is. I want it to be right when it happens.

When what happens? Do you mean when I meet them? when
we
meet them, because Sophie will be there too.

Of course.

Things are never right Mo, not like that, because that isnt life. Not in families; there are too many people and too many lives, all different, and you cant wait for one because everybody else’s goes on, it doesnt stop just because of you, because of one person. People think that but it’s not true and like

Helen shut her eyes.

What is it?

Clenching her eyelids shut.

Hey love. Hey … We’ll talk later, you need a sleep.

Mo’s hand on her shoulder. He didnt smile when she looked at him. He would have wanted to but didnt, was not able to. She raised her hand to his face and smoothed his cheek, then pulled the sheet to her chin, turned onto her side. His hand touched her forehead. Thanks, she said. She heard him leave the room.

Anyway, she didnt care about it. Not really. And it was a bad time for his family because with Mo’s uncle and the cancer, it was true, his mother and father were up and down to the hospital most days of the week, so her being critical, it wasnt fair. It wasnt. She shouldnt have said it. Silly. Worse than silly. She was worse than silly. What was worse than silly? She was. Everything was going on for his mother and father and him too. She shouldnt have raised the matter, better telling him about Brian. Brian was who she

She should have told him. She meant to, she thought she was going to; she started off to, to tell him.

She didnt need Mo’s opinion. Because there was nothing else, only to find him, she had to find him, she knew she did. Brothers are brothers, that would have been Mo. You have to find him. If it is him it is him: he is your brother.

And a good brother. Only things had been tough for him, like they are for most people. One person cant do anything, something but not everything.

He had survived. He was not a weakling. However he managed, he did it, and was managing now, him and the other one, they were managing else they wouldnt have been there at the traffic lights, from wherever they had come, they had come from somewhere. Soup and bread. Shelters for the homeless. They would have been someplace.

Except if they had nowhere, people can have nowhere. So where do they go? Why one place and not another? If there is
nothing there, so like no reason, if they have no reason, just walking about else sitting down. Or if they sold the Big Issue. But some arent allowed. They scare people too much. Nobody would buy the magazine, not if the ones selling it are scary-looking,
too
scary-looking, if it is like daylight, the police would move them on. They walk about and keep out the way until it is safe, using side streets, all the quiet places, the riverbank, and if there were benches to sit, him with the limp, he had to rest, then if it was raining, what if it was raining, and the toilet, where do people go?

Helen shifted her position and felt his side of the bed still warm. Had she been dozing? That was a while ago the outside door shut; how long? she couldnt remember. But it did shut, she heard it. Unless she
had
been dozing. That would have been good, and so needed, so so needed.

Over the grass and to the sand. She
had
been dreaming. Cutting grass. Sand grass is cutting grass. Grass-shoots out the sand, they cut your skin; draw one fast and you bled. That was Brian showing her how, cutting his own skin on purpose, making it bleed. Wee globules along the line, the red line. Blood. Was that a grown-up thing to do? A big brother? Of course not.

So much for Mum.

She wasnt in the dream except her presence, the idea of her and her arms outstretched like in a religious picture the woman with folded gowns and her hands out to you.

Helen could dream while dealing the cards. Times of the month and after sex. Men got relaxed, women the opposite. What is the opposite of relax?

Ha ha to men.

If Mum liked anybody it was males. You would have thought a granddaughter. No. How sad. Poor Mum. Because she was the loser, if she didnt know it. All wrapped up, a coat of chainmail, not letting anybody near, keep your distance keep your
distance. If that is what you call it, chainmail; chains male. Chains were male; males locked you up, they locked you into them, they did it with their chains, chaining you. The wife chained to a wall and then he bricked it up and she was suffocated there, unable to move until her dying day, her screams never heard. So horrible. Imagine her agony. The husband had gone mad. He always was. But that poor woman: what had she done? nothing at all, except being married to him, I divorce you I divorce you I divorce you. So why had she to die in such horrible agony like if it was him gone mad? Not her. That was so unfair. No wonder you got haunted houses. People said it about buildings, bricks and mortar, how a house could have a presence. Because the spirits were restless. You could have thought it about this house, considering the countless people who had passed through the doors. How many since it was built? All that suffering. People living and dying, diseases and degenerative conditions. People died in the olden days. If it was appendicitis, they died, the doctors didnt know to remove the appendix. That was so so sad. Yet with the tonsils, they took them out but didnt have to; it made no difference if the doctor took them out or left them in. People were ignorant. But happy too. Sad and happy, through all the years, all the different people. And scared! Children especially. In this one building how many children had been terrified out their wits? How many! It was a terrifying thought and there was an excruciating thing about it like how they locked them up too, forced into cupboards and cages, homemade cages.

Cages for children my God that was so evil. Who would do it to them? What animals! Men did it. Women helped. That was the worst. Whoever would terrify a child? It was the most sickening thing. Imagine terrifying a child. Who would do that? What kind of monster? bestial. They would have to be sick. Mentally ill. And not just ordinary mentally ill. Ordinary
mentally ill people wouldnt act in that way toward children; it needed a special type of mental illness, like Nazis and torturers. The men who tortured people were mentally ill, even those not classified as such and in ordinary jobs. Soldiers and policemen were like that; priests, schoolteachers too, some of them, and they terrified people, then paedophiles. Horrors, torturers; what else was a paedophile? They were torturers of children, they were just vile, coming in the night and coming to children, hearing the handle of your door, just so so vile, and ill, if they were, or just torturers, are torturers ill

Oh but she was glad it wasnt Mo worked in the casino and her in the restaurant, being alone through the night. If she was she wouldnt cope; she wouldnt. The whole night long. Sophie would come into bed with her. She used to in Glasgow.

Then having to visit the loo my God you would think she was a child. She would have to leave the light on. She would. It was beyond silliness. She was such a foolish foolish female, just like so so foolish, she was, truly. Men didnt worry about such things. Unless if they didnt tell people. If they were scared too. If they were terrified! But Helen didnt believe it, not the ones she knew. They were strong; in their own ways they were, including Mo who seemed the weakest, but he wasnt, only for fighting, and she wasnt talking about fighting.