Carry Me Down (10 page)

‘Good morning, class,’ says Miss Collins. ‘I’d like you all to meet a new pupil.’

The new girl stands straight, with her feet together and her hands by her side. ‘Hello, everybody. My name is Kate Breslin. I am an only child, and I’ve just moved here from Dublin.’

She has long brown hair – down to her waist – and green eyes and a straight posture. ‘My father has taken over a deceased estate in Gorey,’ she says. ‘We are four miles from the school.’

She sounds as
though she’s reading. I wonder what a deceased estate is, and I want to put my hand up and ask, but I lose my nerve and open the lid of my desk to hide.

‘We lived near the Shelbourne Hotel,’ she says. ‘Where all the famous people stay.’

Miss Collins gives Kate the spare desk in the front row, next to Brendan’s, and appoints him, and Mandy, as Kate’s minders. I watch them carefully. During the first lesson, Kate leans across and says something to Brendan. He smiles when he answers and pushes his hair back with his hand.

In the second and third lessons, Kate leans across and speaks to Brendan again. I wish I could hear. At the beginning of break-time I go to Brendan’s desk and they both look at me, then at
each other. Brendan gives the impression that he has known Kate for a long time.

I leave the classroom and go around to the window where I see Brendan run his hand through his hair and give one of his exercise books to Kate. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she says as she touches him on the arm. I want to be touched on the arm like this. I like the way it looks. And even though Brendan is being touched and not me, I can feel it in my stomach. I keep watching.

On the way home from school I throw a rock at the doll in the tree, but it misses her and hits the branch instead. I bury the rock in the ground near the trunk. When I get home, my mother and father are sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of letters and bills in front of them.

My father gathers them up when I sit down. ‘Good day at school?’ he asks.

‘All right,’ I say. ‘A new girl started today.’

I tell him about Kate Breslin. He is surprised that a new girl has started in the middle of the school year.

‘It’s because of a diseased estate,’ I say. ‘They moved into one.’

My father laughs in the loud and horrible way he sometimes does when my uncles are with him or when somebody has made a fool of himself on the television. My mother lowers her eyes to the table.

‘A deceased estate,’ he says, still laughing at me. ‘Not a diseased estate.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘That’s what I said.’

‘No you didn’t,’ he says. ‘You said a diseased estate.’

‘No I didn’t,’ I say.

Crito jumps onto the kitchen table and, instead of pushing her off, my father pats her on the head. ‘Crito? You heard. Didn’t John say a diseased estate?’

‘Michael,’ says my mother, ‘he just had a slip of the tongue. Let it rest! Leave him be.’

The three of us sit in silence. There’s no tea on the range, no food on the table, and nothing to do. My mother takes the papers from the pile and looks through them. My father pushes Crito off the table so hard that she wails.

I watch my mother, hoping she’ll tell me what those letters and bills and papers are. I want my father to leave so we can talk. Then it occurs to me: they are both waiting for me to leave. They are willing me to leave.

I won’t.

I look at my mother and keep looking at her as she rifles through the papers.

‘Stop staring at me,’ she says.

‘I’m only looking,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing wrong with looking.’

‘You’re staring. I want you to stop.’

‘You never tell me not to stare when we’re by ourselves.’

My father puts his book down, suddenly interested. ‘Go to your room and leave us in peace,’ he says. ‘We’ve things to talk about.’

My mother is running hot and cold, just like him. Just like my father, she has become two different people. Now there are four of them. Four different people instead of two.

I go straight to my room and get under the blankets. I listen to them eat and talk and laugh. I lie on my side, all my weight on my arm. I turn to my other side. I want to sleep to stop the thinking. My blood is pumping so fast and so hard it makes my whole body shudder. My blood pummels me, pumping through my arm; there’s too much of it, like a dam that wants to burst, and it won’t let me sleep.

At half eight my mother comes to me. ‘John,’ she says. ‘Come and eat something. You can’t go to sleep without food.’

‘I can,’ I say. ‘What difference does it make?’

‘You’re too old to sulk. Come out to the kitchen and make yourself a sandwich.’

She closes the door and a minute later my father comes. He doesn’t knock. ‘I’ve made you a blackcurrant jam sandwich. Here.’

He puts the sandwich on the bed, near my feet. I want to kick the plate onto the floor, but I can see there’s thick butter on the fresh bread and I’m very hungry.

‘Thanks,’ I say. I want to say more, but I’d prefer him to start. I want him to say something first, so that it is his idea to talk to me. I look at the sandwich and wait.

‘John? Is anything the matter?’

‘No, not really. But there’s something the matter with you and Mammy. You seem different.’

‘Different from what?’

‘Different from yourselves.’

‘In what way?’

‘I don’t know. You seem strange around me.’

‘Maybe you’re strange.’ He laughs but when I don’t join in, he pulls at his fringe and keeps pulling at it until it covers the right side of his forehead and right eye.

‘Sorry, son. I just don’t know what you mean. The only thing I can think of is that we’re worried about you. We want you to be all right.’

‘Are you sure? Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?’

‘No, the only thing wrong with us is the worry about you. Worried a bit about how you’re getting on.’

‘I’m getting on fine. I’m better than anybody realises.’

‘That’s good to know. Shall we stop worrying so?’

‘Yes. Stop worrying.’

‘Will you eat the sandwich I made specially?’

‘Probably not.’

‘Will I give it to Crito then?’

‘No. Leave it. I’ll give it to her myself. Later.’

‘Shall I send her in to you then? Will I tell her she’s wanted in the master’s bedroom?’

He is smiling now and I can’t help it. I smile back and once I start I notice that I feel happy. Happiness makes my body warm, my stomach and all the way down. He laughs and I laugh too.

‘Wait here. I’ll fetch the jam-eating contraption.’

I want to act out my happiness, get to my feet, jump up and down on the spot and clap my hands. I want to get up off the bed and run and go after him and not be ashamed and keep him with me longer, just now, just the way he is now, just us, and with him smiling at me the way he did.

I wait for him. But he doesn’t come back straight away. I won’t go out to the hall and I won’t go to the living room. I take my watch off and wait for the second hand to get to twelve and then I start the countdown to sixty seconds. If he doesn’t come in one minute, I’ll never wait for him again. The second hand reaches the nine and he comes back, with Crito wrapped in a blanket, her black-and-white face sticking out.

‘Special delivery for Master Egan,’ he says. ‘A four-legged friend in need of jam.’

No
, my brain says to me,
the only thing wrong with us is the worry
about you
.

‘Thanks, Da.’ And he goes and I keep Crito in her blanket while I eat the blackcurrant sandwich.

At school the next day, I am alone during the break, sitting in the empty classroom reading a book about Harry Houdini and eating chocolate cake, biscuits and a ham sandwich. I like reading about Houdini’s underwater escapes from locked containers while handcuffed and shackled with irons. But I’m disappointed to learn that his escapes were ‘protracted and agonised’ and that the fastest
straitjacket escape he performed was 138 seconds. I know from the
Guinness Book
that this is a long way from the world record broken last year by Jack Gently. On 26th July, 1971, in front of an audience of 600 witnesses, Gently escaped from a standard straitjacket in forty-five seconds.

A few minutes before the end-of-break bell, the mongoloid boy comes in. His name is Osmond and he spends one day a week here and the other days at the special school in Enniscorthy. Every Tuesday he spends break and lunchtime alone, walking around the playing field, talking, and singing off-key. I’ve never been up close to his droopy face and I’ve never spoken to him.

He stands in the doorway with his mouth open and shifts his weight from one leg to the other, smiling at me, humming, waiting for me to speak. I look away but he comes closer and, when I look up, he is standing by my desk, an inch from my arm. He doesn’t speak, but smiles at me, rocking from one foot to the other. I don’t want him near me.

‘Nice book,’ he says.

He smells of vomit. I don’t want to talk to him. If I’m seen talking to him, it will be as though I am his friend, that I’m the same as him: the two of us lonely. ‘Nice book,’ he says. ‘Nice pictures.’

His spit falls out when he speaks and there’s a glob of it shining on my jumper sleeve. I close the book to stop him looking at Harry Houdini. But he is staring at my food.

‘Nice biscuits. Nice cake. Nice sandwich.’

Could he be hungry? I check my watch: only five minutes until the bell for the end of break.

‘Are you hungry? Do you want some cake? You can take it to your class? Take it to room 3G? Wouldn’t that be good?’

He holds out his fat hand and I put the last of my chocolate cake in his palm. He pushes the cake into his mouth, like a tractor shovelling dirt, and then he closes his mouth, moves his closed lips from side to side and, finally, swallows. He has dissolved the
cake in his mouth without chewing. I like that I can stare at him; he lets me stare and doesn’t mind.

‘Nice brown cake,’ he says. His voice is not too spastic, but too loud and it sounds strangled, as though somebody is sitting on his neck.

‘Ssssh,’ I say. ‘Please be quiet.’ My leg is jumping up and down and I put my hand on my knee to stop it.

‘Nice biscuit.’

‘Here,’ I say.

He eats the biscuit by the same method – no chewing – and then he says, ‘Nice book.’

‘You can’t eat the book,’ I say.

I’ve made him laugh and he jumps up and down. ‘Cookie monster! Cookie monster!’

He’s not so stupid. He can say what he wants to and he only wants somebody to say things to. That’s all. But I put my finger against my lip to tell him to be quiet. He looks hurt and walks away. I look at my watch: one more minute before the bell.

‘Look,’ I say. I open the book to the page with the photograph of Harry Houdini in a glass cage, his body covered in thick chains. ‘Harry Houdini,’ I say, quietly. ‘He could do magic.’

‘Magic! Magic makes rabbits.’

‘Can you whisper?’

‘Yes,’ he whispers. ‘Magic makes rabbits.’

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘Magic makes hats and ace of diamonds and no rabbits and rabbits.’

‘Yes,’ I say. I didn’t know he had so many words. If he had a normal face I’d probably want to talk to him. I keep whispering and hope he will too. ‘Do you know what an escape is?’

‘Escape.’

‘Yes. Get out of trouble. Escape from boxes and glass cages.’

He points at Houdini. ‘He escapes from glass jar!’

His voice is loud again, but I don’t mind. He’s right. He understands. I smile at him. Even though his face is droopy, he looks better than I thought he did and he looks better when you are closer to him, paying attention. I thought they all looked like identical twins, but now I see that isn’t true. Osmond has his own nose, his own lips, his own eyes, and his own expressions.

The bell rings and, when it finishes ringing, and we can hear the sounds of people coming down the hall, he says, ‘Nice book.’ His voice is even louder than when he first came to me, as though he thinks the bell is still ringing and he needs to shout to be heard.

‘Sssssh,’ I say.

‘Nice book, nice cake, nice biscuit, nice big boy. Nice John.’ He reaches out to touch my eyes.

‘No!’ I say. ‘Don’t touch! Go away.’

I don’t want him to know my name. No, that’s not right. I do. But I don’t want him to say it. He stops smiling and steps away, backwards. There are tears in his eyes.

‘I go,’ he says.

‘Bye, so,’ I say.

‘I go. I escape backwards. I go out of way of John.’

‘All right,’ I say, and then, even though I haven’t planned it, and even though I think I shouldn’t, I smile again and I say, ‘See you next week.’

He smiles back. ‘Giant biscuit escape backwards from cookie jar.’

I laugh and, when Brendan walks to his desk with Kate, they look at me, and they see that I am laughing and seem to wonder what they have missed. I stare at them until they look away and, when they smirk at each other, I don’t think I care.

When I go to breakfast, nobody is there. My mother has left a note.

I decide not to go to school. When they get home I’ll tell them I wasn’t feeling well. I eat some porridge and fried eggs on toast in the living room in front of the fire while watching TV and then I eat some chocolate and two bananas. Crito sits on my lap and together we watch some of a Carry On film set at the seaside and then, at half eleven, I go to my grandmother’s bedroom.

‘Hello,’ I say.

She’s sitting in a recliner by the fireplace, facing the door, and she has her feet up on the empty armchair across from her. She’s not reading or sewing or knitting; just plain sitting. There’s a songbook by her feet so maybe she has been learning new songs to sing for us from the bath.

‘Hello, John. Why aren’t you at school?’

‘I’m sick,’ I say.

‘You don’t look sick.’

‘I am.’

‘Then you should be in bed.’

‘I don’t feel as sick when I’m standing up or sitting.’

Lying like this makes my heart feel squeezed, as though there’s a belt tied around my chest.

‘All the same, if you’re really sick you should be in bed.’

‘I will,’ I say. ‘I just wanted to talk to you.’

‘Why don’t you get the thermometer from the toilet cabinet and we’ll see if you have a temperature?’

‘In a minute. I want to have an important talk first.’

‘Well then, come in and close the door behind you.’

It’s cold, but she has no fire burning. ‘Let me take off my glasses,’ she says, ‘so I can hear better.’

I want to sit in the armchair she has her feet on because I’d rather not sit on her sagging mattress which is stuffed full of horsehair and stinks of wet animal. I stand by the armchair until she moves her feet. I sit.

‘What’s new and exciting?’ she asks.

‘Nothing really,’ I say.

‘Well, aren’t you lovely company? I thought you wanted to chat.’

I clear my throat. ‘Has anybody said anything to do with me and lies?’

‘Have you been caught telling fibs?’

‘No. But has anybody been talking about detecting lies?’

‘No. Should they have?’

‘No. It’s just that I’m reading lots of books about lie detection and I just wondered if anybody had mentioned that.’

‘No.’

‘Can I ask you something else?’

‘Yes.’

‘Has Mam spoken to you about getting money for our trip to Niagara?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know how much it would cost to go to Canada?’

‘What are you after?’ she asks.

‘Well, she’s always said she’ll take me to Niagara after my Leaving is finished, but I want to go sooner. She says we can’t afford it now and I was wondering whether you could help.’

She laughs. ‘She’s the cat’s mother.’

‘Sorry. I meant Mammy. All I want to know is whether you could help us with the money.’

‘That’s blunt.’

‘Maybe you could come too.’

‘Where do you think my money comes from?’ she asks. She laughs again and I look down at the red swirls in the carpet, but they make me dizzy. I look back up. ‘You got a whole lot of money when Grandad died, didn’t you? From all the jewellery you sold, and from the shop and things like that.’

‘And how long do you think that money will last?’ She moves forward in her recliner.

‘A long time,’ I say.

‘Maybe it would be better to wait until you’ve finished your schooling, and …’

Suddenly she stops talking. She looks past me, over my shoulder, towards the door behind me, as though I am not there.

‘Granny?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was really hoping …’

‘And I was really hoping you wouldn’t turn out like your father. Do you know he thinks he has a right to my money? Yes. He thinks if I didn’t spend any on myself, he’d have a nice living allowance.’

Her voice is loud now and she doesn’t look at me, she looks at my elbow.

‘But bearing children doesn’t make a woman a martyr. And those that sacrifice too much for their children are often sorry.’

It is as though I’m not in the room.

‘Next year I think I’ll go on a cruise around the world. Maybe I’ll go twice. Until my head spins!’

‘But why does Da have to work when he’s studying for an exam at Trinity?’

She looks at me as though I have hit her. ‘He’s had three years of study. If he was serious, he’d have done that exam by now. If I believed your father was going to study for his degree, I’d not nag him to work, but I don’t believe him.’

Now she almost shouts. ‘And I’ve got exactly nine days of patience left. Yes, that’s all. Nine days of patience left and then the light goes out!’

‘That’s not fair,’ I say.

She points behind me and laughs. ‘You’re not always as quick as you like to think you are, young John Egan.’

I look behind me at the door, and I see what she has been staring at. In the two-inch gap under the door, there is a pair of black shoes. Somebody is standing outside; somebody has been standing outside all the while.

I thought Da had gone into town on the bus, and I didn’t hear him come back in. I get out of the armchair and rush towards the door, but my grandmother stands and grabs hold of my shirt.

‘Leave it, John. There’s no point going after an eavesdropper. There’s no good whatsoever in going after him.’

But I can’t help it. I open the door and look. He has gone.

‘Sit,’ she says. ‘There’s more I need to say.’ I sit down and she reaches across to take my hand. It’s a long way for her to stretch but I don’t lean forward to make it easier.

‘Will we have to leave now?’ I ask. ‘Will you throw us out?’

‘Of course not. I’d never ask you to leave here.’

‘Do you swear?’

‘I’d swear on the Holy Bible only it’s over there on the dressing table,’ she says. ‘Maybe if I shout, the Bible will hear me.’

She jokes, but there is nothing funny in what she says and I will not laugh. Besides, she is lying.

Her voice is high-pitched, she doesn’t blink and doesn’t wave her hands the way she usually does. Her hands are dead in her lap.

‘All right,’ I say. ‘That’s good.’

‘And as for Niagara,’ she says, ‘if your mother has promised she’ll take you there when you’ve finished your Leaving, I’m certain she’ll do it. Your mother doesn’t break promises.’

Maybe Mammy forgot, but I now know she hasn’t asked Granny about Niagara like she said she would.

‘I’m going to watch TV now,’ I say.

But I don’t watch television. I look everywhere for my father. I go outside and wait for him by the front gate. It is very cold and the cows in the paddock across the road have steam blowing from their nostrils. I rub my hands together and jog up and down on the spot. Some of the cows look at me. Usually I wave at them or say hello, or stare back. Animals are good at staring and they don’t mind it.

After nearly an hour of waiting outside by the gate I go into the kitchen. I eat a jam sandwich and then I go to the living room and watch television by the fire until half five. At half six I hear my mother coming through the front door. I go out to the hallway to greet her. I watch her carefully as she removes her coat. She stands for a moment, looking around.

‘Let’s have a cup of tea,’ she says.

I go with her into the kitchen and watch while she puts the kettle on the range and rinses two cups. When the tea is made she shuts the door. She opens a packet of Digestives and puts six
of them on a plate. I don’t want to tell her I didn’t go to school.

‘Is that all we’re having for tea?’

‘I had a big dinner at twelve o’clock at the church hall. But I’ll make you some soup if you want.’

‘Where’s Da?’ I ask. ‘Did you see him on the way home?’

‘He’s probably gone to visit your Uncle Jack while he’s in Gorey.’

‘Why is Uncle Jack in Gorey? Where is he staying? In a hotel? What is he talking to Da about?’

‘Your uncle’s here from Dublin on business.’

‘What kind of business?’

‘Boring business.’

‘What kind?’

‘Mind-your-business kind of business.’

I don’t laugh. I stand up and walk around the table. I walk around it twice. I don’t really know that I’m doing it until she says, ‘Sit down!’

I sit and scratch my head. ‘You’ve been like a crazy ghost,’ she says. ‘What’s the matter?’

I’ve been waiting for her to ask me but, now that she has, it’s not the way I wanted her to ask. ‘Why am I like a ghost?’ I ask.

She puts her hand on my hand. She looks tired. There are bags under her eyes, almost black, and she has grey hairs. I don’t know how long they’ve been there, but her hair is messy today and the grey sticks out.

‘I’m sorry, John. I only mean that you creep around. You keep appearing in places.’

‘What places?’

‘You come to my room and don’t respect my privacy, or your father’s.’

‘That’s not true.’

She ruffles my hair and pretends to laugh. I pull away. She has no choice but to speak to me in a different way. ‘Oh, but you do, John. When I lie down to take a nap, suddenly you appear. I’m
thinking of getting one of those Do Not Disturb signs from a hotel.’

She is trying to make me laugh, to cover up for the bad things she has said.

‘All right,’ I say, ‘I’ll leave you alone.’ I stand up.

‘John, darling. Please sit down. I don’t want you to leave me alone, I just want you to tell me what’s wrong. Will you tell me?’ She tugs on my arm until I sit down again.

‘Everything is different,’ I say. ‘You’re different and Da’s different and Granny’s different and even Brendan is different.’

‘Well, I don’t know about Brendan, but people who love each other sometimes have disagreements.’

‘That’s not it,’ I say. ‘Everybody is strange with me. Nobody treats me the same as they used to.’

She takes her hand away from mine and puts both hands around her cup. ‘You’re growing up, John. Sometimes things change when you grow up and it takes a while to get used to them.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like people don’t baby you any more. They don’t mollycoddle you. Be flattered by that. When people see you can stand on your own two feet, then they’ll not let you lean on them. If you can stand straight and tall, then that’s what people will expect of you. The tougher and stronger you are, the less they’ll look after you.’

Her words are strange and her head jerks up and down as though she’s trying to get a fly off her face. It’s not the kind of lie my father tells; it’s a white lie, a lie about how she feels; a lie to make me feel better. But it’s a lie.

I’m standing now, and my voice is loud and spitting. ‘You think I’m weird. If I were smaller everything would be different. The way it used to be.’

She swallows and looks away, afraid of me. ‘No, John, that’s not it at all.’

I move towards the door.

‘John, darling. Stay a minute. Let’s finish our tea and biscuits
and then you can come and help me wash my hair.’

I stand near the door.

‘You’re very dear to me, John. Very dear to me.’

I ignore her and go to my room. A few minutes later she comes to me. She has a towel in her hand. ‘Come. Help me wash my hair. It’s in a desperate state. Don’t you love to help me wash my hair?’

She pulls her long brown hair over the top of her head so that it covers her face and she sticks her arms out in front like a ghoul and walks around my room bumping into things.

I get up and we go to the bathroom. I help her wash her long brown hair in the sink. I like how, when she dunks her head, her hair fills the sink and floats to the top and reaches out like seaweed.

I tell her about Brendan and Kate.

She stands and wraps the towel around her head and puts her hands on my shoulders.

‘If your friend is not tugging at your arm or calling you back, then he isn’t a friend. A friend must need you as well as love you. Wait and see whether he comes to you and tugs at your arm.’

‘Like you did before,’ I said.

‘Did I?’ she says.

‘Yes. Twice.’

‘Well then, I practise what I preach.’

I will write about this in The Gol of Seil. I will write that a person can change during a conversation, tell the truth, then tell lies; change from mean to kind, suddenly, without any warning at all.