Eimear McBride - The Lesser Bohemians

When my wife was dying I wanted to contact Stephen, he said They hadn’t seen each other for a few years by then. I thought he’d want to know and have a chance to put things right. He’d always been a gentle sort of lad and what son wouldn’t want to do that before his mother died? But when I brought it up, she was completely against it, wouldn’t have me even mention his name. I thought it was because he’d run off and she couldn’t forgive him, which seemed hard but then she was a strong-willed woman. So that’s how it stayed, right up until it was clear to everyone, including herself, that the end wasn’t far off. That’s when she started to talk about him. Just a little at first but, soon enough, all the time. And not rambling, it was clear she was in her own mind. They were things I’d never really heard her say. About his father leaving her high and dry. Her family expecting her to give the baby up because that was the way. But, when she first held him, she said she knew she never could. I met her a few months later, on a bus. She said she was a widow, that her husband had been killed in a car accident. If I’m honest, I didn’t believe her even then and over the years that story changed many times but she was so young and pretty I didn’t really mind, or about the boy.

She seemed to remember him most fondly as a little boy, running round the yard, picking dandelions for her. How he’d spend hours on his stomach playing with his car. Or when he couldn’t stop kicking his ball against the back door — I remembered that myself, three times I changed that glass. And once she’d started all these memories came flowing out. The holiday when she was pregnant with our first and Stephen was just above her knee. The two of them in the rock pools, eating ice creams. She said While I was watching him I realised I didn’t love his father any more and that he was a fool for not caring about his son. But I understood how lucky I was, she said And that Stephen would always be who I loved most. She repeated that story frequently, like it was her last good memory. A few months later our son arrived and she had a very bad collapse. She was never really well again. But we all found it hard to hear her remember Stephen because of how long it had been.

So one night You’ve been talking a lot about Stephen, I said Let me contact that school of his, maybe they have an address. She refused and when I asked why she said Because I made life hard for him. I said It wasn’t that bad. No, she said You don’t understand. Something was broken, then once I got sick, it just opened up and I stopped being able to keep it inside. But I know now and I have to leave Stephen be. He’s a good boy, despite what I did. I knew she’d always been rough on him so I said He won’t hold the odd thrashing against you now. No, she said It wasn’t that. It was worse than I could think and she wished she’d cut her own throat before she’d done it. I was shocked to hear her talk that way. But she went on and what she told me then I’ll never get over for as long as I live.

From the start she knew she could never be without him and the fear of him being taken never left. People told her once she’d had more that would die down but our sons came and made no difference, didn’t even feel like her own. All the feeling she had was for him and they understood each other in ways no one else ever did. Even when she had to beat him he knew it was for his own sake. As he got older though, the worse the fear of losing him became. It grew out of proportion. It went over the edge. It ran everywhere. He was a young man by then and starting, she knew, to think of things that might take him away. She dreamt it first, only that. And it shocked her, the idea, but held onto her too. Then climbed into her and followed her, laid itself on the fear. Showed her how to find itself in the ways he looked at her. Like whispering and screaming it was with her all the time, convincing that, although unnatural, it would be natural for them. So one night, as a kindness, she took the step and afterwards knew he had also wanted it. She said I was careful to not hurt him that way, that was the difference, I thought. But sometimes she could see he wasn’t happy, as though he didn’t understand, then she’d have to beat him for tempting her. She’d swear it was the last time, they’d go back to a life without it in but she could never contain anything around Stephen so it always began again. Building up until she didn’t know how to not. Then she’d let herself and tell herself it was alright because he was just a part of her really, another part of her own body. He belonged to her, after all.

He takes his glasses off, sets them down on the bed and sits rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. I say nothing to break the silence but watch a tear run down his cheek. Are you alright? He just nods and I know to leave him to calm himself. Tic and tic and he sniffs it up, then wipes off his face.

I couldn’t speak Eily, hearing all that, coming from Marianne but up out of that different world. Like going back in time. Still being there. Feeling what was happening but looking at my mother and then off into the patch of fucking damp on the wall. And the dread of it, Eily you know like you’ll never escape.

Anyway Marianne said my stepfather became very upset but said he was glad to be rid of the burden at last. He said your mother told him you were right to get away. That you deserved a life of your own but when you left the fear went everywhere. She tried to kill herself. She wanted to die but kept vomiting the pills and only in time understood why. Staying alive was the first part of the penance, she said. Years of rising to the surface, into the realisation of what she’d done. Years of living with the guilt but still hoping you’d return. She’d have forgone even forgiveness just to see your face again. But it crept into her, the knowledge that neither would happen and all life had become without you. Acceptance, and its attendant despair, was the second part of the penance for her. Its merciful third was her absence from the world, it could be her only amends. She finally understood how to encourage death to come. Let the years of starving take their toll. And she hoped, wherever you were now, you had made your life your own. He said she never spoke again after that. He thought she may have been waiting to confess because she deteriorated so rapidly afterwards and died the following night, alone. And he decided to leave you be. He thought she’d been right about that at least and didn’t think he could face you anyway.

He stops again and takes a breath. Lights another cigarette. Apparently he’d never told anyone before Marianne — I can’t imagine he ever told anyone after. He said after she died he got rid of every trace because he couldn’t bear to think of what she’d done, on his watch. That he should have known and, when he thought about it, wondered if perhaps he had but it was easier to hang it on my difficult age and her just being a bit mad.

When I heard that story I was appalled, Marianne said And all I could think of was the night in the hospital when I told you your mother was dead. I don’t remember, what about it? I said. She said Stephen, as soon as I told you, you started to cry and you cried a long time for her. Of course I saw nothing strange in it then but later, when I knew I wondered what it meant. Because I still wanted to be with you though, I chose to forget. I never called your stepfather again. I didn’t tell you or even remember until I began needing excuses for doing what I did. And I let what happened to you get so twisted in me. It’s suited me to consider it one more awful thing. Another example of what I was protecting Grace from and I’ve never had cause to revise that opinion until I told her.