M. Hyland - Carry Me Down

Her words are strange and her head jerks up and down as though she’s trying to get a fly off her face. It’s not the kind of lie my father tells; it’s a white lie, a lie about how she feels; a lie to make me feel better. But it’s a lie.

I’m standing now, and my voice is loud and spitting. ‘You think I’m weird. If I were smaller everything would be different. The way it used to be.’

She swallows and looks away, afraid of me. ‘No, John, that’s not it at all.’

I move towards the door.

‘John, darling. Stay a minute. Let’s finish our tea and biscuits and then you can come and help me wash my hair.’

I stand near the door.

‘You’re very dear to me, John. Very dear to me.’

I ignore her and go to my room. A few minutes later she comes to me. She has a towel in her hand. ‘Come. Help me wash my hair. It’s in a desperate state. Don’t you love to help me wash my hair?’

She pulls her long brown hair over the top of her head so that it covers her face and she sticks her arms out in front like a ghoul and walks around my room bumping into things.

I get up and we go to the bathroom. I help her wash her long brown hair in the sink. I like how, when she dunks her head, her hair fills the sink and floats to the top and reaches out like seaweed.

I tell her about Brendan and Kate.

She stands and wraps the towel around her head and puts her hands on my shoulders.

‘If your friend is not tugging at your arm or calling you back, then he isn’t a friend. A friend must need you as well as love you. Wait and see whether he comes to you and tugs at your arm.’

‘Like you did before,’ I said.

‘Did I?’ she says.

‘Yes. Twice.’

‘Well then, I practise what I preach.’

I will write about this in The Gol of Seil. I will write that a person can change during a conversation, tell the truth, then tell lies; change from mean to kind, suddenly, without any warning at all.

At the end of school the next day, Kate bumps into me when I’m taking my coat off the rack in the corridor outside our classroom. ‘Whoops,’ she says. ‘So sorry.’

‘That’s all right,’ I say.

‘I’ve heard all about you,’ she says. ‘Brendan’s told me.’

I try to put my coat on, but it falls from my numb fingers.

‘The smell of urine makes me feel sick,’ she says. ‘It puts me off drinking my milk. I’m already squeamish about milk and your smell just puts me off my milk even more.’

I’m hurt and I’m curious. I’ve never heard the word squeamish before, and it swims in my head.

‘Do you know what surreptitious means?’ I ask.

‘No, but I bet you don’t either,’ she says.

‘I do,’ I say. ‘It means in secret. The day I wet my pants, I was breaking a world record for not going to the toilet. I was doing it surreptitiously.’

I have an itch in the back of my throat, the kind of itch that threatens to turn into an uncontrollable cough. This is probably because I have lied. It will be good to learn to lie without my body doing anything bad to me.

‘You?’ she laughs. ‘How hilarious.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say.

I walk away.

But I can barely manage it. My legs, like my fingers, feel numb. The sound of my shoes on the floor is odd, one shoe making a louder noise than the other. My steps are out of rhythm; the stride on my right side is longer than the stride on my left.

I hold my breath and wonder if I might fall over. I want to lean against something. I have lost the knack of walking. I hold my breath until I’m out of the school grounds, until I reach the first tree at the start of the laneway. My heart is hurting. I walk quickly, then stop.

It’s a bright, clear day and the birds seem to know it. I look around and pay attention to the trees. I pay attention to the clouds between the trees. I turn three full circles like a discus thrower and throw a stone as hard as I can at the sky.

It’s a good, strong throw.

I wait for the sound of the stone, but it doesn’t come back down — at least, I don’t hear it land — and I stand in the laneway, puzzled about where it might have gone. And still the stone doesn’t land, and I smile at the sky.

By the time I arrive home, I’m not as sad as I expect to be. I go to the living room; there’s nobody there. I go to the kitchen; there’s nobody there either. Granny isn’t in her room but she has a fat, white candle lit on her dresser. She must be saying a novena. That was what she meant about having nine days of patience left. The novena will take nine days. But what is she praying for? For my father, praying that he’ll get a job? I will tell him when he comes home. I sit at the kitchen table and wait.

When my mother comes home, she goes straight upstairs to her bedroom. It’s night-time and when I see my father standing in the kitchen doorway, I realise that I’ve been sitting in complete darkness.

He comes to me and puts his hand on my head. ‘I’ll make you some sausages for tea,’ he says.

‘Where have you been?’ I ask.

‘Working,’ he says as he turns on the lamps.

‘Where? What work?’

‘Let me make these sausages and then we can watch the idiot box together and we can talk. All right?’

‘Granny is saying a novena so you’ll get a job. It must have worked already.’

He throws his head back and opens his mouth and keeps it open and his head thrown back. This is his way of laughing without making any sound.

‘Why are you laughing like that?’ I ask.

‘Is laughing a crime now?’

‘No.’

‘Just as well, because I’m in the mood for it.’

He tousles my hair and smiles at me.

‘Where’s Mam?’ I ask.

‘Upstairs. Bedroom. Leave her in peace.’

‘I want to talk to her,’ I say. ‘I have to tell her something important.’

‘Is something the matter?’

‘There’s nothing the matter with me. But isn’t there something wrong with you and Granny?’

He pulls hard at his fringe, tugs the thick hair, using his fingers to pull it down, straight and flat over his right eye. ‘We’ve had a few discussions and we’ve disagreed over a few things, but we’ve made our peace. Anyway, it’s not anything for you to worry about.’

‘I’m going upstairs,’ I say.

‘I said to leave her.’

‘I have to talk to her about something.’

‘John, can you not just leave your mam in peace? You’ll see her soon enough.’

We are silent while he makes the sausages and then he leaves the kitchen with his plate and goes to the living room. I follow. He sits on the settee and I sit down with him. We each have a plate of sausages; four sausages each.

‘If you’ve anything to get off your chest, you can always tell me,’ he says.

I pick up a sausage and put it back down again. ‘Brendan’s not talking to me,’ I say.

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know.’

He eats a whole sausage without chewing, swallows it in three mouthfuls. The chunks of sausage are so big I can see them going down his throat.

‘Have you asked him why?’

‘No,’ I say, looking at my plate.

‘Well if you don’t ask him you won’t find out, will you?’

I don’t want to talk about the day I wet my pants. ‘He’s made friends with the new girl.’

‘Oh. Well then, I think you should make friends with her.’

‘But I don’t think he wants me to be his friend any more.’

My father has already finished his sausages. ‘Are you going to eat yours?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘I think you should talk to Brendan.’ He scratches his chin. ‘I think you should talk to your friend and not go running to your mother.’