Malarky (37 page)

Beirut consistently has only the one visitor – a woman – she learns is his mother. The mother keeps her head close to his ear and whispers instructions at him from the moment
she arrives to the moment she leaves. He turns away from her on his side and she must bend over him to be heard. Sometimes he lets a bellow out of him and the nurses come running and his mother pleads that they might give him something to send him back to himself. Send him back to me, his mother pleads. He's on about Beirut agin. On the days the Mother visits, he sleeps a great deal and it's very inconvenient for Our Woman who longs for him to tell her of the dogs and daylight of Beirut.

They're moving Beirut and Our Woman's distressed. They're moving him she is certain because they do not want her to have the information that he is here to give her. They are moving Beirut to punish her. The way Jimmy was took to punish her. Or was it she gave Jimmy away. Whatever it was it was done to punish her. When they come to take her vitals, she doesn't look at the nurse. Every time they check her, they seem to be extracting information about Beirut. Seep by seep by seep. I won't look at them anymore, she decides, and they'll get nothing from me. When Bina arrives they say Our Woman's outta sorts today. Bina winks at her. You're doing great, she says.

I only wanted a chat with him and he wouldn't answer. If I went over there at all it was to check he was still breathing. At night the nurses do crossword puzzles. They wouldn't notice if you died sure.

Now she'd found Beirut, she was happy to stay. She pleaded that they keep her. I am a danger, she said. I don' know if I am coming or going.

Dispatched home and the girls said it was great to have her back and she looked mighty and a bit of sleep and she'd be grand.

—I want to go back, she said again and again. All the way home.

Bina winked at her. Keep it up, she smiled. Its exactly what they want to hear.

I only chat with him. Do you hear me? Beirut I only wanted a chat with you. Just a chat. They made an awful fuss about me and Beirut. It was on account of his mother. They're always moaning about cuts and patients on trolleys. I'll tell them how to fix the healthcare system: leave the likes of me and Beirut to ourselves, never mind your meddling. Leave us on a trolley side by side and let us alone.

It was hard to tell was it me or was it Beirut made them nervous? Each time Beirut's mother visited, his situation got worse. It could take me hours to get sense outta him and that's why I shouted at her. Don't let them tell you otherwise, for they will, oh God they will. They have it all typed out. It's inside an envelope. That's what my husband said. Beirut's mother could prosecute me for abuse, he said. I told him go way outta that. I said it was rubbish. He didn't fool me. I saved his life, I thought. You know it, I know it and Beirut knows it.

—You can't prosecute someone for having a chat, I erupted.

—Oh you can, you most certainly can, my husband said. It was then I knew he was madder than I and I should give up the hospital bed and let him into it.

Yet when I got outta there I knew I must behave and not alarm my husband the way I had this recent spell. I could sorta see him bewildered by meself and Beirut. It was then I understood Beirut would always be found and I was right, see, here, now, if I'd made it to the Blue House, obviously I woulda found him and not just him, Jimmy besides.

Jimmy knew it, it was why he told me take my own good time to tell of his dying. He knew well I'd be busy looking after Beirut 'til then.

It's beautiful when it all makes sense, so it is. Occasionally it makes sense, just for a moment.

My husband did not want me to tell the doctors what I had done that upset me so. He said the stress of my son going to the army was the cause. He said I'd been talking a lot about horses but there was no harm done from it. He wanted to pin it all on Jimmy leaving to the army, when wasn't it he and I who caused him, even forced him to go.

I just ignored Himself and told the hospital all of it so they'd keep me there opposite Beirut. I told them every scrap of it. I told them exactly what I wanted to do with Halim and how I intended to do it. I told them how Halim refused. I told them how I still found a way to go on and do it. I told them I'd do it all again in the morning. They wrote it down. They wrote it down like I was only listing the ingredients on a Kit Kat. Then after me telling them all that, it didn't make them one bit bothered about me in the way I wanted them to be bothered. It provoked the opposite. The worse I behaved the happier they were to send me home. Beirut was impeccable and he got to stay.

They're all the same they tell you they want to hear something, then you tell them, their ears fall off and they
prostrate themselves onto the floor pleading with you to stop.

Since then I learnt to ask three times if people want to know things. Then I ask a fourth time and warn them of the implications. Then I tell them. I spare them no single detail, no single moment and they grow pale despite their protestations they want to hear. So if I did anything, it was that I simply told Beirut's mother that her every visit was driving him demented and it might be better for the pair of them if she ceased and desisted. I do not remember telling her it might be better for the two of them if she took and died. Neither do I remember offering to shoot her. Though I believe this has been typed up and recorded as coming from my mouth and is inside the envelope.