My Notorious Life (10 page)

—Oh motherf***, I am dying, she whispered in a gasp.

—Don’t die, don’t die, I told her.

Why did the Duffys not come? I listened at the door for the footsteps of Bernice, hoping to hear them, but two hours passed, and my mother called to me again, her voice sharp now and ragged with no breath to spare. When I went to her she was lying with her knees drawn up by the round of her middle.

—The blanket, she said. She told me to put it over her legs, and I did. It made a tent when she bent them. —Get away now. Don’t look.

I promised I wouldn’t, but already I seen the coverlet beneath her was covered with dark clots of matter. Her legs was flashes of white in the dark room, smudged with swipes of blood. —Get away! she said, and I went back to the kitchen where I listened with clamped ears to my mother’s noises, such cries as a banshee’s keening, till after a long while there came some terrible last effort like dying, and a sudden new silence. My mother’s deep breaths came shuddering and occasional. After a time, she called to me in a whisper. When I went to the corner I saw her lying spent, with her one solitary arm flung over her head, the legs straight out before her again, the tent collapsed.

—The blanket, she whispered. —Lift it but only a little.

With mortal fear that I might see my mother’s naked bum, I raised a corner. There in the dimness, between her stained white knees and lying in a puddle of gore, appeared the form of my half sibling. Strings of hair were clotted on the scalp and a live rope of milky blue throbbed from the midsection, threaded with vessels and veins. It was a terrible sight to behold, my sister red and steaming in the cold air, like a coney freshly skinned.

—Lift the child up now, my mother instructed, so weak.

—But Mam.

—Do as I tell you, she said, very grim. —Mind the cord and don’t pull.

And so I lifted the wee slippery creature, my hands on the warm bare skin. The blue rope hung off, pulsing and alive, and I stared at it dumbfounded to see it was attached somewhere to my mother. She now ordered me to hold the ankles in the one hand like you do a stew rabbit and pat the child on the back to start it breathing, so I done as she said, with one finger between the ankle bones, and swatted the baby’s back. The pelt on it was wrinkled and white with matter. My sister coughed then and splayed her miniature fingers in the air. Her toes were small as kernels of corn.

—A wee girl, I said.

—God help her, whispered my exhausted mother. —Give her over to me now.

I placed her gingerly on Mam’s middle and covered her with a piece of muslin of the type we used to strain curds. The baby cried a small mew. Mam lay there wrecked. Her dark hair was plastered to her forehead, and her eyes closed. Without opening them, she ordered me to find a bit of string or a bootlace.

We had a string left off a bread packet and she instructed me to tie the umbilicus in two places, close to the baby’s little belly, then saw between the two strings with the knife. I followed her directions with as steady a hand as I could, despite the rebellions of my stomach. My mother praised me. —Good girl, Axie, there’s a good girl. What would I do without you? she said, so I felt some desperate love well up in my tonsils. Her face was ghastly pale and I feared death had come into her and nested in the place where my sister had resided.

I sat on the bed. Mam rested on my shoulder, and the two of us looked down at the wee girl yawping now in the crook of my elbow. Her miniature mouth groped sideways in the air like a blind thing, yearning. She cried her small cat noise and wobbled against the stump of our mother’s missing arm.

—Oh how will I nurse her? Mam said, suddenly weeping.

—Same as us others, I said.

Mam stared down at her new daughter, a raw look so helpless in her eyes.

—What shall we name her? I asked.

My mother did not reply.

—Call her Kathleen, I said. —For the song you like, Kathleen Mavourneen.

—Fine. Take her then.

I took Kathleen and cleaned her according to Mam’s instructions and wrapped her again in a blanket and the bunting I sewed.

—Shh there now. I will not let you go at all, at all, little scrap, I whispered, and she looked back at me so serene. A chemist had mixed an elixir in her gaze to smite me, for I loved her very fierce already, and she loved me.

Late in the evening, Mr. Duffy came home bringing sausage and tea and a hangdog look of dread, never so surprised as to find my mother still alive and with a wornout runt of a baby asleep on her chest.

She looked at him, her face unsteady. —You have a girl, Mr. Duffy.

Kathleen fit just so with her head in the palm of his thick hand, and her scarlet feet at the bend of his arm. —Well aren’t you a poorly little chipeen, he said, but with such a soft voice and a wondering look in his expression it was as if a hard bitter shell had been peeled off him. He kissed my mother and brushed the hair off her forehead.

She wrinkled her nose at the smell off him. —You devil, you’re tanked.

—Can’t a man have a pint when he’s a new baby to celebrate? he asked, with his hand on his heart. He kissed my mother again as she tended the child and gave her a wink while she glared at him, but I saw the smile sneak up and get the better of her when he started chattering to my new sister.

—Hallo wee babby, Duffy says to Kathleen, taking her up in his arms. —Here you are at last. It’s a good thing the milk is free, as we have no money for a cow. He sang her a little song about Oats Peas Beans and Barley Grow. He laughed and danced her around the place and gave out sausage for our dinner. It was a celebration, for I had a sister again. Mam did not eat. She kept her eyes shut.

—Get up now, Mam, I said.

But Mam did not want to get up. She turned her face to the wall and said she would rest.

Duffy bounced our Kathleen and jigged her up and down with a wiry bending of his knees. He held her up and showed her things like he was a carnival barker, saying Step Right Up Young Lady and See the Wonders of the World. This is a stove. Now, repeat after me, STOVE. This is the BED.
This is the CHAIR. And, young Kathleen, miss, this lump here is your SISTER, Axie Muldoon otherwise known as Madame Grand Attitude. So say Ta to her now Kathleen, can you say TA? And here is your MOTHER isn’t she a beautiful bit of bloss there? He leaned over and puckered his lips at Mam and said, —Give Kathleen’s father a kiss Mary Duffy. But Mam was tired on the bed, so pale. Her hair was damp and she lay sidelong with her knees bent. Duffy paid her no mind and continued his tour, saying, —This ugly cove here is your UNCLE Kevin, my brother, he’s an eejit and a lowlife but his wife—your AUNTIE Bernie, now she’s a lovely piece of tackle, so she is, and can hold her pint with the best of the fellas.

Aunt Bernie slapped at him, but laughing.

—CAN’T you let me rest? Mam snapped.

—What’s the matter?

Mam did not say. Her eyelashes made dark half moons bordering sunken white sockets.

Bernie felt her head. —You’ve a fever.

Mam kept her eyes closed. I saw Duffy and Bernice exchange a bad look.

—Let her rest, Duffy said.

The baby let out a small mew.

—What’s wrong with her? Mam whispered. —Give her here to me.

It took all her strength just to sit up and take the baby and shunt her to latch on and feed. Bernie helped her. Mam lay back with her eyes closed. Kathleen fretted.

—She’s not right, Mam said. —She won’t feed.

—Sure she will, said Duffy. —You’ll make her.

—You can’t make her, Mam said.

—I can, said Duffy. —She will.

He bent over Mam and tried to coax my sister. He turned her head so her mouth covered the nipple but she would not suck more than once or twice.

—Leave her, Mam said. —Leave her. She’ll drink soon enough.

But she did not. The child was listless. She lay quiet on Mam’s chest. Her skin had a bluish cast and her miniature monkey hand was fisted up by her face like she was fighting something. Mam did not get out of her bed all night. She turned and groaned in the dark. Duffy had the baby with him.
He held her, sitting up till dawn with his back against the wall. I stayed by Mam. I mopped her head and gave her water. The coverlet was sticky where she lay.

In the daylight, there was Duffy by the doorway, pacing with the baby in his arms. —She’s not right, he said. He pulled up Kathleen’s eyelid with his thumb. He leaned over and put his ear to her chest. —Open your eyes now, he said. —Open up your blue eyes, Kathleen.

My sister did not stir.

—Mam, I said.

—Whisht, said Duffy, —I can’t wake her.

Neither could we wake my mother. She was hot and fevered. She lay sunk in misery, the sheets soiled and crusted, bloody beneath her. —Mam? I whispered. She shook her head with tiny shakes.

—This child is cold, Duffy said.

—Mam is hot, I said.

Duffy came to the bedside and felt Mam’s head. —Bernie, he said.

My Aunt Bernice came and felt Mam’s head. She looked at the baby. She and Duffy spoke in whispers.

—That’s a sick baby, Bernie said.

—Mary won’t feed her, Duffy said.

—She can’t, Bernie snapped. —She’s ill.

Duffy kicked the walls. He put the baby on Mam’s breast. —Feed her, will ya? he cried. —For the love of God feed her, she’ll starve.

Mam stirred and tried again weakly, but Kathleen was still. Mam leaned back against the pillow. Tears came down her cheeks.

—What now? Duffy said. —What now?

—She’s gone, Mam whispered.

Duffy stood stock still. —She’s not. Not another.

—She is.

—Let me have her, Duffy said. —Give her here to me.

He plucked my sister from Mam’s arms. She let him take her. We three looked down at miniature Kathleen, her thin arms dangling down, just a rag baby in Duffy’s hands, her features not quite formed, the nose with no bridge and the veins in her head a webbing of blue under strings of dark hair. Her fingernails were pale fish scales on the ends of matchstick fingers. Two small red patches flared on her eyelids. The dip in her skull where you
could see her heart beat just yesterday now was still. Her skin was translucent and pearly as the paper shade of a lamp.

—Mam, I whispered.

Duffy did not speak. His face bent and twisted and his hands shook as he placed the baby down next to Mam on the bed. He turned and walked the room.

—Michael, Bernie said.

He pushed her away. He cursed God and picked up the coal bucket and flung it at the wall. It hit with a terrible tin crash and clattered to the floor in a powder of black dust. My mother startled so her eyelids fluttered. Duffy made a strangled sound and went out the door. We could hear him retreat down the hall, cursing and ranting. Bernie picked up the baby and wrapped her in a blanket and lay her on the foot of the bed where Mam could not see her. She found a strip of rag by the stove which she gave to me.

—Run and tie this to the door and then tie the other half out front downstairs for the undertaker to see, she whispered.

—My Mam is not well, I said. —She has a fever.

—God love her, said Bernie. —Run along now downstairs.

When I returned Bernie was kneeling beside Mam’s bed, low by her knees. She was busy with some articles, a bowl and a burlap sack and a bunch of chicken feathers and pressing hard on Mam’s belly.

—Shh, youngster, she said when she seen me. —Your mother has a fever is all.

My eyes did not escape the bloody rags, the bowl dark with liquid. Bernice placed them in a sack with red-stained hands and took the bowl away, scolding me.

—Your mother needs her rest now.

—What’s the matter with her?

—Disorder of the bowels is all. She’ll soon be well.

But she was not well. That afternoon, and all that night her breathing grew more stilted and she kept her knees curled tight to her chest. The lids of her eyes were the blue color of a new-hatched bird, and shiny. Her chills rattled the spoon in the cup of broth I gave her. She could not hold it without spilling.

—You need a doctor, for God’s sake please, Bernie said to Mam.

—And who will pay for a doctor? Mam whispered. —I’m all right.

—You know that’s not a normal bleeding.

I did not see blood or any mark on her, just that the color was gone from her face.

—Please Mary, Bernice said, —there’s a doctor of female complaint in Chatham Square.

Mam did not resist when we pulled her upright but she could not walk. We managed her down the stairs and carried her to the curb where she sat and leaned against me with her feet in the frozen gutter while Bernie ran and borrowed a cart from the fishmonger next door. We put Mam in it and wheeled her down the crowded blocks in the cold afternoon sun, the stink of fish rising off us. The sky was a dead blue. The hard light sparkled off the mackerel scales in the cart and the flecks of mica in the paving stones and white puffs of steam blew off the hot chestnut wagons and clouded up from the horses’ nostrils and our mouths as we trundled along. Mam winced and groaned as the cart bounced. I held her hand.

After only five blocks Bernie wheezed and stopped at a dingy wooden house three stories tall in the midst of the poor section of used clothing stores and pawnbrokers with their awnings and bins of rags and windows full of provender. When we helped my mother to stand, I seen blood drops blossoming darkly on the cobbles beneath her skirt. She left a trail of them as we maneuvered up the steps. I rang the bell.

—You’ll be fine, so you will, Mary, Bernie said. —Axie’ll stay with you. I have to go return the cart to the fishman and see to arrangements.

I stared at Bernie not comprehending.

—Stay with your mother.

By the time the door before us was opened, Bernice had scuttled away on her cockroach legs, wheeling the fishmonger’s cart over the cobbles.