Michele Forbes - Ghost Moth

She switches off the radio. Lifting Stephen into his pram, she walks down the road to McGovern’s shop. The cloud of gray city smoke has broken into rills, which run across the sky. She leaves Stephen in his pram on the pavement outside the shop and goes in to buy her groceries.

Mr. McGovern is on his own. He is polishing the new glass fronts that have just been fitted on some of the shelves behind the counter. He is very impressed with how the glass fronts give a modern look to the shop. “It is worth the money,” he is saying to Katherine; “it is definitely worth the money.”

“And now, Mrs. Bedford, what can I do for you?”

“I don’t need much today, Mr. McGovern.” Katherine’s voice sounds almost monotone. “I need some butter, please, Mr. McGovern, marmalade, a small bag of potatoes, and. . eh. . what green vegetable do you have?”

“I have a lovely ruby ball cabbage for you, just in. And it’ll be lovely with that bit of butter, so it will.”

“That’ll do fine, Mr. McGovern.”

“You’ve heard the news?” Mr. McGovern seems suddenly grave. His eyes widen as he looks at Katherine.

“Yes, some of it.” Katherine knows immediately that he is referring to the civil unrest in the city.

“Word has it, Mrs. Bedford, that soldiers are to be drafted into Belfast this afternoon, this afternoon, onto the streets.” Mr. McGovern keeps his voice low. “If you ask me, that’s very serious.”

Katherine’s head begins to fill again with the words George had whispered to her in the dark, early hours of that morning.

“This afternoon?”

“Yes, as far as I know, Mrs. Bedford. There were riots all over the west of the city, spilling out in all directions. Crowds gathering on the streets, baton charges, families burned out of their homes. Reports of shootings, bombs. If you ask me, it’s very serious.” Mr. McGovern shakes his head. “They can put a man on the moon, but what good is that to us, Mrs. Bedford?”

“And the boy. There was a boy shot dead?” Katherine looks for confirmation.

“Yes,” Mr. McGovern replies solemnly. “They say it was an accident, but—”

Just then, another customer comes into the shop.

“Ah, Mrs. Forsythe.” In an instant, Mr. McGovern’s smile is back. “I’ll be with you in just one minute.” Then he turns to Katherine, “The Belfast Telegraph —it’ll be in shortly. I’ll put one aside for you, Mrs. Bedford?”

“Yes, Mr. McGovern, I can send Maureen down for it later.”

Mr. McGovern hands Katherine her little net bag of groceries.

The climb back up the road from the shops exhausts Katherine, more than she can ever remember before. She can hardly get a breath. And there is really no shopping to speak of, nothing inordinately heavy. Something is draining her.

By the time she gets back home from McGovern’s, the weather has changed. Whatever warmth there was is gone. Spats of dirty gray rain fall impatiently out of the sky. Katherine hauls Stephen’s pram up the back steps of the house and into the back room, Stephen cooing happily and clapping his hands at her efforts. Katherine lifts Stephen out of the pram and, after putting him on the floor with the little net bag full of groceries to play with, pushes the pram out into the hallway. Coming back into the kitchen, she sees how the blankets under the sink are sopping wet. She searches for the address book with Harry Gray’s number again, rifling through the household receipts, the information leaflets, the embroidery thread, the bills, the fat bundles of seed packets caught up with bits of string, the kitchen scissors, the shoelaces, which pack the kitchen drawer. She cannot find the address book. Rain hits more insistently against the windowpane.

She remembers the sheets on the clothes line and moves quickly to save them. She pulls the white cotton sheets off the line and throws them over her shoulder, leaving the pegs on the line. She rushes indoors. The heavens open. Suddenly appearing behind her is Elsa, soaking wet, her arms and legs bleeding.

“Oh my God, Elsa! What happened to you?”

“I fell into the blackberry bushes.” Elsa’s tone is sullen. Elsa looks at her mother. She wants to tell her mother what happened at the blackberry bushes, but something is stopping her, as though she feels there is something dirty about it.

“You fell into the blackberry bushes?” Katherine sounds incredulous. “But your arms. . your legs, ach, Elsa. . the side of your face! Are you all right?”

Katherine moves instinctively forward to touch Elsa, but Elsa shrinks back from her mother and lowers her head. “I’m fine,” she mumbles.

“Those scratches’ll need washing.”

“I’ll do it myself.”

“It looks so sore, Elsa.”

“It’s not.”

“It needs tending.”

“I’ll do it myself!”

“You’ll need plasters.”

“No, I won’t! I’m all right!”

Maureen stomps into the kitchen. She pulls the cupboard door open and thumps a glass down on the table. She grabs the milk bottle that has been sitting on the kitchen counter and lashes milk from it into the glass. Milk spills off the lip of the glass and spreads over the kitchen table. Maureen takes a quick mouthful of milk from the glass and then dumps it on the table and turns to go.

“You’re not leaving that mess for me to clean up, Maureen!”

“I’ll do it later, Mum.”

“You’ll do it now!”

“What happened you?” Maureen grunts at Elsa.

“Get a cloth and wipe it up, Maureen,” Katherine insists.

“What happened you ?” Elsa snaps at Maureen.

Elizabeth bursts into the kitchen.

“Mum! Maureen’s ripped my library book. She just got a pen and ripped it through the pages. The book’s ruined!”

“It was only one page!” Maureen snarls.

“It was not.”

“You weren’t reading it anyway!”

“I was so!”

“You were not!”

“Just because Richard Marr said no when you asked him to go out with you.”

“I never even asked him, so there. You just—”

Katherine cuts Maureen off.

“I don’t want to hear how it happened, or why it happened. Just sort it out between you!” Katherine’s voice is sharp.

“And what happened you ?” Elizabeth turns to Elsa.

“You shut up!” growls Elsa.

“Maureen,” Katherine adds quickly “wipe up that mess and change Stephen, will you?”

“Ma-ma,” Stephen calls.

“What?” Maureen’s tone is gruff.

“I said, change him,” Katherine says with deliberation, feeling her temperature rising at Maureen’s insolence.

“But I did that yesterday and the day before—”

Katherine’s head swings abruptly around toward Maureen. “CHANGE HIM!” she screams at Maureen. She screams more loudly than she has ever screamed before. All three girls stare at their mother. They have never heard their mother scream as loudly as this. They all stand frozen to the spot. All three of them stand as strange separate pieces. A moment more, and then Maureen suddenly grabs Stephen and rushes out of the kitchen. Elizabeth follows quickly behind them. Elsa stays for a moment longer, her eyes filling up with tears, before she leaves.

Katherine falls to her knees. Her skin goes cold and her body starts to shake. She feels disorientated and altered. She is folded over like a woman fearing an intruder or an abusive husband, immobilized and yet charged. A white heat is coursing through her. The unfamiliar sound of that voice, her voice, coming up through her, the vicious pitch of it. Like how a car crashing has its own singular, awful, distinct sound, separate from the damage done. The metal in her voice. She holds in that stiff rage and feels the surge of her ridiculous anger cleanse her body and clarify her mind.