M. Hyland - Carry Me Down

I take the plate but don’t eat the sandwich.

‘Is everything OK?’

‘Everything’s fine.’

I would like to tell her about the gang; about how I owe them a sink and about how I will need to avoid them on the way home every night.

She stands next to the bed and looks down at my head. ‘You’re bleeding!’

‘I didn’t realise.’

‘I’m going to put some Dettol on that.’

She returns with the bottle and a ball of cotton wool and sits next to me on the bed as she puts the Dettol on the hole in my scalp.

‘Are you troubled by something?’ she asks.

‘No, I’m just thinking. I’ve been thinking a lot.’

‘You’re in the amusement park again? The one you told me about?’

At least she can remember this.

‘Yes.’

Then, as we lie on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, we both hear it: an aeroplane flying low, on its way down to Dublin airport. The groan of the landing gear, the low moan of the engines.

I go to the window. ‘I can see the tip of the wing,’ I say. ‘It’s very low.’

I get quite excited when I say this, even though I’m lying. I can’t see the plane. I’m a better liar than I was in Gorey. It seems likely that I will become both a great lie detector and a gifted liar. I have no intention of lying in any bad way, and I won’t be a criminal or a cheat, but it will be a crucial second stage of my art to be able to sit through a polygraph test and win. Surely this combination of talents will bring more fame.

I keep looking up at the sky, at nothing but grey clouds. And I say, ‘I can see the plane, Mam!’

I imagine being on that plane, the dinner on my lap and a blanket to sleep under. I tell my mother about the headphones, slippers and eye-masks first-class passengers are given on aeroplanes.

‘You seem to know a lot about what happens on planes for somebody who hasn’t been in one.’

‘That’s because I know I’m going to go on one. Unlike some people, like Da, I know I’m going to do the things I really want to do and not just talk about it.’

She pulls the eiderdown up under her chin. ‘John, if you can’t say something nice then don’t say anything at all.’

‘Even if it’s the truth?’

‘You’re not being fair. I think you need to learn some tolerance. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’

The Bible! I can’t speak so I make a loud and long growling noise, like a dog shouting.

‘John? What’s got into you?’

She didn’t sound like this in Gorey. She read books and used witty and interesting words and talked about making puppets, and now she is sad and weak for no good reason.

‘How can you not realise how dumb you sound?’ I shout. ‘You’re a dummy all of a sudden! A dummy lady with the voice of an old hag at the bus stop. Why do you only talk to me with these sayings all the time? You’re a dummy!’

‘That’s not fair.’ She closes her eyes.

‘Yes, it is. It’s fair and it’s true. You’re like a zombie since we moved here.’

She opens her eyes. ‘We’re all going through a very trying and difficult time.’

I don’t know what happens to me but I am suddenly on the bed, on my knees, and I have my hand over my mother’s mouth, like a gag, to stop her from speaking. To stop her from being a weak person. Repeating what she hears and making herself dumb.

‘Shut up, shut up, shut up! Don’t say any more.’

I can’t stop screaming at her to make her shut up. She struggles, which makes me frightened, but I am strong, and I keep my hand over her mouth while she tries to speak, while she struggles to get my hand away from her face.

‘Shut up!’ I scream. ‘Stop trying to talk!’

When, at last, she is silent, I take my hand off her mouth and sit on the bed next to her. She moves away from me, but doesn’t get up from the bed. She looks at me. There is no expression on her face, a blankness. Empty.

‘Just don’t talk to me,’ I say. ‘Just stay quiet.’

She looks at me. No tears, not afraid. Blank.

‘Don’t do that. Don’t just stare at me. I just want you to be quiet.’

‘I am quiet,’ she says.

She closes her eyes, as though waiting.

I am quiet too and my heart stops thumping, but there is a strange taste in my mouth; like dirt, like soil. I want her to open her eyes. ‘I’m going out to watch television now,’ I say.

She opens her eyes and stares at me again.

I leave the bedroom.

I don’t feel bad about what I’ve done, only surprised, as though I have been somewhere else, or asleep for a few minutes; in a film or a play.

I go out into the living room and my father isn’t there, and I’m not very interested in where he is.

I eat some biscuits and then I sit at the kitchen table with a pad and pen and compose another letter to the Guinness Book of Records .

At ten o’clock my mother comes into the kitchen. She stands awkwardly in the doorway. I think she was hoping I wouldn’t be here.

‘I’m sorry about before,’ I say. ‘Could I please have a stamp?’

She is tense and nervous; her posture is stooped and her pupils are black and too big. She looks shorter and her mouth is smaller, tightly shut, not as red as it is supposed to be.

‘I’ve a good mind to smack you,’ she says, her voice pinched and small. ‘I’ve been trying for hours to calm myself down so that I wouldn’t.’

I go and stand by her. ‘Go on. Smack me now.’

She doesn’t hesitate. She brings her hand up over her head and then she smacks me hard across my face. It stings the way a football does when it hits my leg on a cold day.

She goes to the table and sits down.

I follow her and sit too.

‘Don’t you ever lay a hand on me again, John. Not ever again.’

‘I’m sorry. I won’t. I promise.’

We sit for a minute, both of us looking at the kitchen table. She goes to the fridge and takes out some corned beef. She slices it and then she boils brussels sprouts and carrots. I watch her. She offers me a sandwich. I tell her I’m not hungry.

‘Is the stamp you need for your letter to the Guinness Book of Records? ’

‘Yes.’

‘I think we should forget about this lie-detection business. Don’t you?’

‘That’s what you say every time we talk about it. Don’t you understand? I’ve had to tell you twice and both times you’ve said exactly the same thing. Can’t you understand anything?’

‘I’m tired,’ she says. ‘I’m very tired.’

She licks the stamp for me, and her tongue looks swollen, too fat and red.

‘Thanks,’ I say.

‘I’m going to sleep now. Tell your father when he gets in that his tea is in the oven.’

Two days later, it’s the weekend and the sun is out, but I can’t go outside because of the gang. They are probably still waiting for me. They might want to bash me. But I’m still more afraid of being shamed than of being hit. I don’t want to be laughed at and humiliated.

I stay inside the flat and tell my mother I feel sick. She asks me if I’d like to go to the zoo, testing perhaps, to see if I’m lying about feeling sick.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I feel sick.’

She offers to take my temperature. I tell her not to worry about it.

‘Well,’ she says, ‘I’m going for a ride on a bus to Stephen’s Green and then I’m going to walk for a while and get a big dose of fresh air. I might even see a film.’

‘Where’s Da?’

‘He’s working. He’s got a job with Uncle Jack today. He’ll be home for tea.’

I lie on the settee and eat poached eggs on toast. There’s a film on television that’s set in a boy’s school in England and the well-spoken voice of the actor playing the teacher makes me think of Mr Roche.