M. Hyland - Carry Me Down

‘Oh.’

‘You go to school now, and I’ll meet you outside the nurse’s office at eleven o’clock.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s where I’ve been told to take you.’

‘I won’t go to school.’

‘You must.’

‘Please don’t tell Da.’

‘No, I won’t. But I can’t promise he won’t find out for himself.’

I get dressed and go to the kitchen for some breakfast, but when I look at my half-eaten boiled egg, hatched and jagged in its eggcup, I can’t be bothered sticking another piece of toast into its yolk.

I get up from the table and walk to school but I don’t go to class. I wait around by the back of the shed and pace up and down and try to keep warm.

At five to eleven I go to the front door of the convent and ring the bell. Sister Ursula lets me in and then returns to her position behind the glass and grille. It’s dark and warm inside and two old women are told to sit in the corner and wait for the priest. I stand by the front door and they look at me as though I have stolen their place in the queue.

My mother comes in and we go through to the nurse’s office.

‘Don’t worry,’ says my mother. ‘It’ll be over in a minute.’

Sister Bernadette is waiting outside the nurse’s door. When she see us, she runs her hands along her rosary beads as though to get the dust off them, then she knocks and puts her head through the gap.

‘Nurse, I have John Egan and his mother here to see you.’

‘Tell them to come in,’ says the nurse, and Sister Bernadette leaves.

In the small, square room, which smells of laundry powder, there is a desk, a filing cabinet, and a gurney covered in a white sheet. I look at the gurney while my mother talks to the nurse. I try to work out how I might climb on, if I’m asked to.

I like the idea of lying on the white sheet and having my temperature taken. The retractable legs of the gurney are like the blades of my Swiss army knife, which can slide easily and neatly in and out of their home. I think about faking an illness; clutching my stomach and groaning, so that the nurse might ask me to lie down and cover me with the soft blue blanket that is folded at the gurney’s end.

‘I’m very surprised,’ says my mother. ‘He’s never done anything like this.’

The nurse looks at me as though I wet my pants on purpose. I want to tell her that I was conducting an experiment; that the wetting wasn’t the accident of a baby.

‘Is your boy enuretic?’ asks the nurse. ‘Is he a bed-wetter, Mrs Egan?’

‘No,’ says my mother.

I’ve been in the nurse’s room only once. When I first came to this school, a few days after our move from Wexford, I had nose-bleeds every day for a week. I was eight years old, and the nurse sat me down and told me to put my head back while she pinched the bridge of my nose to stop the bleeding.

Because I swallowed some blood, I felt sick, and when I told her she gave me a brown kidney dish to vomit into. I tried but nothing came out. After my failed attempts to vomit, she said, ‘Be careful not to cry wolf too often, little boy.’

Now, as then, she smiles weakly and rocks her head from side to side, as though she has just stood out of the bath and is trying to drain the water from her ears.

I want to leave. I want to go home. ‘My bladder burst,’ I say. ‘It won’t happen again.’

‘I don’t understand,’ says my mother.

The nurse suggests possible causes — nervousness, anxiety, trouble at home — and my mother denies each one. I begin to feel ashamed.

The nurse blames the fact that I’m an only child. She asks my mother if perhaps I am lonely.

‘He is not lonely,’ says my mother. ‘He has the company of his parents and his grandmother who love him very much.’

‘And my cat,’ I say.

The nurse ignores me and holds out a piece of paper for my mother to take. My mother looks at the piece of paper but doesn’t take it.

‘You should read this,’ says the nurse. ‘And maybe John should take the day off today. He can start again on Monday.’

But then it occurs to me: taking the day off school is a terrible idea. It would give my classmates more time to think up torments. I should go back in and behave as though nothing has happened, as though I don’t care. Even better, I will make it not exist. I will act. It won’t have happened.

‘I want to go to class today,’ I say.

The nurse tucks her chin into the folds of fat in her neck. I look past her and out the window. Joseph the Tinker is walking his piebald horse across the field. I want to wave, but he probably wouldn’t see me.

‘It’s up to you, Mrs Egan. He’s your boy.’

The break-time bell rings and my mother reaches out for my hand but I don’t let her hold it.

‘Are you sure you want to go back today?’

‘Yes. I’m sure.’

We stand to leave and the nurse follows us out. ‘Mrs Egan,’ says the nurse, holding the same piece of paper, ‘you’ve forgotten this.’

My mother shakes her head. ‘We won’t need it,’ she says, ‘Sister … I’m sorry. I’ve forgotten your name.’

My mother has met the nurse before but she forgets names deliberately. It’s her way of making unpleasant people feel inferior.

The nurse looks at me as though it is my fault. ‘My name’s Sister Carmel,’ she says.

My mother takes my hand and we walk down the corridor to classroom 5G.

I look up at her when we are outside the door. My classmates are standing behind their desks: it must be a spelling test, and I would like to win it. ‘Why am I an only child?’ I ask.

‘You ask me that every time somebody else talks about it.’

‘I want to know again.’

‘You’re an only child because I wanted you to be the only one. Is that all right with you?’

I wait for her to say more, but she turns and walks down the corridor without saying goodbye, without kissing me.

As soon as I sit at my desk, the whispering and laughing begins. Mandy, the girl on my right, sings, ‘Wee, wee, wee, all the way home’ and the boy on my left joins in. I look at Mandy until she stops, and the boy stops soon after. Jimmy, the redhead, puts a ruler against the crotch of his pants and makes a pissing sound. I look away. Miss Collins doesn’t call on me during lessons and Brendan doesn’t turn in his desk to make funny faces or pass signals.

When my classmates tease me and whisper things against me, I use a new trick. When Miss Collins speaks, I repeat what she has said three times in my mind. When she says ‘The Tuskar Rock is a dangerous low-lying rock six nautical miles north east of Carnsore Point on the south east of Ireland and the lighthouse was lit for the first time on the 4th June 1815’, I say the same thing in my head three times and promise I will never forget it.

I know I haven’t the brain of a scholar and that, if I did, a good memory would come naturally. But I can make myself clever. There’s no reason whatsoever why not. So I practise. When I read a sentence in a book, I read every sentence three times, close my eyes after each one, and repeat the sentence in my mind. This trick is not only good for my brain, it helps me to ignore the whispering and teasing, and it helps me not to think bad thoughts. The more I do it, the more I begin to see that it will help me with other things too. If I am going to do important things, and become a great person, then having a good memory is sure to come in handy.

I check in the Guinness Book and see that, on the 14th October, 1967, a man recited 6666 verses of the Koran from memory, in six hours. This man, Mehmed Ali Halici, has an eidetic memory and he can remember everything he has read.

By the time the lunch bell rings, I have spent several hours without feeling nervous, and I have discovered a new way to think. I get my lunch and meet Brendan at his desk. ‘Let’s go,’ I say.