Malarky (35 page)

I have run out on that one very quickly.

I don't know why people talk about the sky and trees in books. I find very little to say about them myself. It's a bit like talking about the wallpaper. They're there. You don't need to remind me.

To lessen the despair of being stuck out here among the soggy bog cotton it helps to remember her route over: the broom in the car may have looked suspicious, so dustpan and brush suffice. She does not want to catch the eye of anyone going over to that house. She does not want to give way to questions. She gathers only the critical, the essential, the necessary. Tho' she's long lost her religious belief, tradition hangs onto her by a slight hitch, so a statue and a small square bottle of unopened holy water go into the bag. Superstition: she's not afraid of him who owns the house; she's a feared of those who
might be passing. Gurriers tempted to vandalize or the thoughts of a person driving by. Their impulses. They worry her. Someone might choose to batter another, flat like a mole for a few bob. They could choose her because she happened to be there.

The house rests two fields over, she'll have several routes to access it. She cannot park the car nearby in case the girls see it. She has to be ever so careful with the girls, if they cop onto her, there will be an almighty row. A widow rummaging about in the dark in another man's house. Imagine! You'd never hear the end of it. She goes on foot and is limited by what she can carry. There's one route, the better route that she cannot take because that's the route she saw Jimmy at Patsy's boy, way the ways back. It helps to think of Beirut and the things he said to me. Did I ever tell you how I met him? Wait now 'til I remember.

Balloons at the end of the bed. But they were not his balloons they musta been the previous patient's balloons. Beirut was Helium before he became Beirut. I remember the day he arrived in the ward, the nurse apologizing that the strings on the balloons were tight but with the scissors she'd have them off in a minute. And him pleading that she not take them. She put the scissors through one a them and he let a bellow out of him like a hungry bullock and to calm him the nurse promised she'd let the other alone.

He mustn't a noticed me there watching and hearing for he continued to maintain it was his balloon that his daughter had given to him. I nodded along with him, the way you do, drifting from sleep to Quality Street to injection as you do in these wards, waiting for visiting hours to come around and see
who would come into you and hoping someone might and hoping all of them wouldn't come near me at exactly the same time. If you see what I mean. If it's not possible to be in two places at the same time, I have discovered it utterly possible to be in two separate minds at the same time. Come here and go away minds.

Helium started to talk to me and I was delighted. He called across details of his life. A daughter, the daughter who gave him this balloon he pointed to, is married with children living up in Ballyvary. Ballyvary, Ballavary, he never seems to stop saying the word. Up there, he calls it. Over there. Bela, Belavary. Were you ever in Belavary?

I wasn't, Our Woman says.

—Were you ever in Beirut? he asked her.

—Were you ever in Beirut? she asked him back.

—It's funny you should say it, he replied. I went to a wedding in Beirut and you're the only person ever asked me about it. He uses the word funny 13 times in relation to Beirut. Funny place it is, funny people they are, funny food it is too and very hot. He got a terrible sunburn in Beirut. His brother died of skin cancer, but the brother was never in Beirut. I was the only one who went to the wedding. I was the only one who got a sunburn.

—And who was it married who? She wants to know. There's a boreen of explanation. A second cousin married some fella in the UN peacekeepers and the only time off he could manage was enough time to get married there in Beirut.

She can't believe it.

—I was the only one who went. My wife, God Rest Her, was terrified of flying. It was only me and it was a funny place.

—My son, she told him, is in the army too.

—Is he married?

—No, he's not.

—My son is in the army, she repeated.

But Helium is only interested in marriage.

—I've four daughters married now, he continued, and every one I've gone to the wedding. There's many of them not getting married these days, he said. I am lucky with my own.

—I've hope for my girls, but my son won't get married, she admitted.

The nurse arrived to check her vitals and passed over to the Helium man's bed whispering something to him. He doesn't mention his children again. They've told him, they've told him, she thought.

—My son, she called over, confident it will annoy the nurses, was a homosexual. They're not the marrying sorts.

—Is that right? he responded politely and wondered whether she thought the weather would hold. It's hard when your children aren't the marrying sort, he added. Very hard on the woman, so it is.

—Oh it is, she agreed.

From then on he was Beirut. Beirut the only person who understood her in here.

They sneak conversations across the ward all day long. Usually when the nurses have gone out of the room. This causes friction with another fella on the same side of the ward as Beirut.

—D'ya know the women of Beirut take great care of themselves. They wear beautiful shoes. We went out in the street after the wedding. I saw eight shoes that weekend, eight shoes that were sprayed the colour of gold, feet like bullions, the women. I'd never seen a pair of gold shoes before I went to
Beirut. I tell ya now, you don't see them in Ireland. Here they are all stuck in boots, old coats on them and their hair blown sideward by the wind. There's no wind in Beirut, women don't have to contend with the same physical defeats the Irish do.

—But what about the scarves? The scarves? The women wear scarves all over them, I said.

—Oh, the scarves, the religious ones is it? No, no not in Beirut, I didn't see many scarves, them is only on the telly.

—The scarves are to keep the hair out of your eyes when you're working, I reproached him. You have to keep the wind back or you'd look a terrible state and you might run into someone you know on the road and you mightn't want to be looking that way.

—That's right, they wear the scarves to keep their hair clean in Beirut, they're very sensible, they don't want the dust getting at it, Beirut said back to me.

I was distracted by the man beside him, who was listening over. He indicates his forehead, taps it with his finger, three times. A bleedin' nutter he's telling me. He makes a curly motion. Round the bend with his gold shod women. Those indicators say.

But Beirut, Beirut was not deterred by his fellow countryman's opinion on him. And on he went.

—There's no place like it in the world. I should never have come back.

The head tappin' neighbour's had enough. He's in.

—I thought you only went there for the weekend. How can you be attached after only a weekend? Spain's lovely. Were you ever in Spain?