Colum McCann - Fishing the Sloe-Black River

There I was, doing a number on the corridors at about four in the morning, and the night nurses must have been sleeping or else she’s quiet as a fucking mouse. You’re a savior, she says to me, and slips four pink flowers across the floor. Syrup all over the front of her dressing gown. The flowers got a bit wet on account of the mop water, but I dried them out in the flat later on and put them in a jar. Anyway, I’ve a funny feeling she’s not half-mad at all. Asked me did I know where the caboose was. I said yeah, course I do. Then before she went waltzing back down the corridor she asked me to take some photos of the bloody thing for her. To hang above her bed because she’s homesick. Christ.

* * *

At the bloody sugar she was again tonight. And splatters of syrup all over her dressing gown. Georgie’s back, awful quiet, and she isn’t talking to a soul.

* * *

Those mining boys have the life of it up there. Two BMWs down by the gate. Barney says that the only difference between a cactus and a Beemer is that one has the pricks on the outside. He’s a funny bastard sometimes. But I wouldn’t say no if they put one out the front door for me, that’s for sure. Dublin license plates on them. Sitting outside the caboose, shiny as could be. They hired McLaverty and three of his fucking crew to make the tarmacadam road up from the main one, over the hills and down into the valley there. It’s a job all right, but it’s not mine. Still and all McLaverty said they’ll be hiring if things prove to be going all right.

There’s ructions in the Council. Johnnie Logan even said the hills are holy and they should take their mining company back to Ballyfermot and dig up a few horse bones for the knackers up there. That fella has a mouth on him for a politician. Still and all there’s no job like a job that pays, that’s what I say.

Got to thinking about old Ofeelia when I was up there snapping away. Bloody photos’d break her heart, even if she is a touch on the mad side. No flowers or anything. Anyway this security bloke comes out and asks me if I’m from the newspaper, then tells me not to be taking photos, that’s illegal. I’m not about to lose the chance of working with them, so right there I opened the back of the camera, ripped out the film and said there ya go, not a bit of harm done. Better all the way round that way. Old Ofeelia had a bit of a fit when I whispered to her as they were all traipsing out of the dining room, but that’s life isn’t it? She left me alone with the cleaning tonight, but I’ll be damned if there wasn’t another boatload of sugar in her pockets and even some of it stuffed down those long blue socks.

* * *

There’s a new magazine out that has all sorts of stuff about the films. There I was looking at a picture of Daniel Day Lewis in his Mohican rigout and who walks in but Dolores in her nursing whites, giving me all sorts of shit for not doing my job right. Slaps the magazine right out of my hands. Look who’s talking, I wanted to say. In there in the kitchen nattering about the patients all night long. And sleeping on the job too. Saw her later on in the kitchen with the other nurses, slobbering all over the magazine. They all think that Day Lewis fella is gorgeous. I’ll grow my hair long, get a number done on my teeth, and get a job in Hollywood myself. Watch out boys, here come Marty Lyons with his hatchet flying.

Anyway, Ofeelia came waltzing down the corridors when I was mopping at half past four and said to me, Some night let’s go for a walk outside, you and me, for a breath of fresh air. Didn’t say a thing, just kept on mopping. She’s fucking bonkers if she thinks I’m going to go for a stroll with her. She asked me for more syrup too, but I didn’t say a thing. I was thinking of asking her for that eighty-six pence, but I didn’t.

* * *

Barney left in his application with the mining boys today. Looking for a man to do the JCB, he said. Told them he worked for the County Council for seven bloody years before he went to the bin. So up I go myself to fill one in too. Place is fierce nice inside — done it up awful posh, expensive carpet and all that lark. Fax machines ringing like bloody Wall Street or something. They fixed the hole in the roof where the telescope used to be. Ah well, that’s progress. Three-piece asked me if I’d ever done the bulldozer thing before, so I told him the truth. Told me, natural as could be, that he already has a few men with experience but he’ll keep me on file. Bastard like that needs a lobotomy if he thinks Barney is telling the truth. That’s what you get, though. Doors slammed in your mush when you do it honest.

Georgie and Ofeelia were bulling today when they couldn’t go for a walk in the rain. I got in at five o’clock and there they were, in the dining room, sitting away from everyone, scowling like the clappers. Ofeelia had a fucking field of sugar in her pockets, you’d swear she’d been pulling beets all day. Georgie was rocking like a madwoman. Seems they’re pals now. Maybe Ofeelia’s shooting the white stuff, who knows around this bloody place. Both of them whispering and pointing the finger at me, of all people. Then they started laughing. One thing’s for sure, Barney better stop with this Hamlet shite or I’ll rip his head off and leave a long slimy one down his throat. He better be half decent to me or I’ll up and tell the mining company, not a bother on me, and that’s the fucking truth.

This place is driving me around the bend. Geraldine McCabe was slapped in the solitary after swallowing her fucking thermometer. Una Harrison’s parents left her a box of Milk Tray after six o’clock visit and Maggie the Moaner ate them up. All because the lady loves Milk Tray, I suppose. Mary Marshall left another jam rag in the toilet tank. Barney left it for me to clean up, the lazy pillock.

* * *

Two weeks now she’s been here and she’s awful nice. I don’t think she’s as mad as half the bloody people in the country. She must be a cute hoor to be able to slip past the nurses at night. Down she comes and sits near where I’m working whispering about this that and the other, the price of butter, whatever you want. One night she’s talking about things a little wacky, like how the universe is expanding and some such shite about gravity and stuff. Then she’s just staring away at the wall. The next she’s on about the flowers down by the pond, straight and narrow as could be, a little bit of a twitch in the lip but that’s all. It must be said that there’s a little bit of a tinkle in the trousers every now and then, what with her in that dressing gown with the buttons open and that bit of nipple looking like a crater on the moon. She’s got these awful big lips. Very sexy that in a woman. And those rhododendrons don’t look too bad. A man could go blind afterward. I’m surprised Barney doesn’t wear glasses after what he does in the stock room.

We’ve started taking to walks every now and then, me and Ofeelia. Nothing happens, just walking down around the grounds, but the Barney is like a fucking tape recorder. Hey, Hamlet, did you go for your midnight snack? D’ya think she could suck a golf ball through a fifty foot hose on a windy Friday? I swear that bastard’s looking for a punch, but he’s a big one. Might have to take my breakfast and lunch with me. He’ll be off and about soon enough working with the suits up there at the mining company, flinging his bulldozer around. Still and all, he’s probably right about me getting booted if they find me out walking in the grounds with Ofeelia. Not very clever, he says, even for you. All we do is go out the back door with my key, take our shoes off when we go across the gravel, go down to the flower beds, and she looks at them. Every now and then she picks one and sticks it in her hair.