M. Hyland - Carry Me Down

They leave.

I go to my room and get under the covers and wait there until I hear my mother come home. She goes straight to her room.

I make a fresh pot and bring it to her.

She is sitting up in bed with the radio on, the volume turned up loud. ‘Has he gone?’ she asks, although she must know he has left.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, what now then?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say.

‘I don’t suppose your father gave you any money?’

It sounds to me like she said ‘the fecker’ and not ‘your father’ and so I feel confused and don’t answer straight away.

‘Well, did he?’

‘He did. He gave me a tenner, and Uncle Jack and Tony gave me five more each. And Granny can send some money, can’t she? So we won’t be poor.’

‘Being poor is the least of our worries.’

‘That’s good, then, isn’t it?’

She shrugs, and smiles weakly. ‘Will you go to the chipper and get yourself something? I’ll not be cooking.’

‘All right. What do you want?’

‘Just go. And when you’ve had your tea, do your chores.’

In the morning my mother calls the school headmaster and tells him that I have a fever and won’t be in for a few days.

‘Stay in, please, but don’t make too much noise. I’m going to bed for a while,’ she says.

‘But you just woke up.’

‘I’ve been awake all night.’

I follow her into the bedroom and stand next to her by the bed. ‘Did you know that if you don’t sleep for eleven days in a row you will die?’ I say.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Not sleeping will kill you faster than not eating. Most human beings can last twelve weeks without food.’

She is like another person, her voice so flat, her face creased around her mouth.

‘How many days without water?’ I ask.

‘I don’t know.’ She takes her dressing gown off, and closes her eyes. Her head falls and her teeth scrape together.

‘You nearly fell asleep just now. Standing up!’

‘I’ll lie down then.’

‘Maybe I should sleep in here with you again, and that will help you sleep.’

‘I think I’d better be alone in the bed.’

‘Will you let Da come back if he says he’s sorry?’

‘I’m too tired to talk about this now and you know far too much already.’

‘But can’t you tell me what’s going to happen?’

‘Enough, John. Please leave me alone. I’m going to try to sleep now.’

It’s the middle of the night and my mother comes to my bedroom door. This is the fourth night in a row she has come to my door during the night and she says the same thing, more or less, each time.

‘I didn’t mean to wake you. I just came to see how you were. Just came to see whether you were having trouble sleeping too.’

‘I was sound asleep.’

‘Sorry. Go back to sleep then.’

The first two nights I got up with her and went to the kitchen and we made hot milk and, on the third night, we played backgammon for an hour or so, until she said she was sleepy enough and she went back to bed.

But tonight is different. She turns on the light and is leaning against the doorframe, as though she can’t stand up.

‘Mammy, what’s wrong?’

‘Oh, it’s just the worry. I miss Michael.’

‘Do you want me to come and sleep in your bed?’ I ask.

‘If you’d like,’ she says.

‘OK,’ I say.

I get out of bed and go with her to her bedroom. I like the smell of her bedclothes now that my father has gone. They smell like the soil after it has rained.

‘I’ll keep my light on for a while and read my book. Will that disturb you?’

‘No,’ I say, and go quickly back to sleep.

In the morning, she doesn’t wake me, and when I go into the kitchen at half nine she is there, sitting at the table, with a letter in her hand.

‘It’s from your granny,’ she says. ‘Your father has gone back to Gorey.’

‘When did the post come?’

‘It’s from yesterday.’

‘Why didn’t you read it then?’

‘I didn’t have the courage.’

‘But it’s from Granny. You should have opened it. It’s from Granny.’

‘I know well enough who it’s from. I don’t need you to tell me.’

She hasn’t been angry with me since the day I came home from school and found her sitting on the hallway floor.

‘And who cares when it came? I’ve read it now and it says Michael has gone back to his mammy. And isn’t that what you wanted? Did you not want to see the back of him?’

This doesn’t make any sense to me and I begin to shake with anger. If anybody is going back to Gorey, it should be us, not him. ‘Why is he back in Gorey?’ I ask.

I am hardly able to breathe.

‘Your father has promised your granny that he’ll continue to work. They’ve made a truce.’

‘So, then we can go back?’

‘Come here to me a minute,’ she says. ‘Come and sit.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Suit yourself.’

I take the letter from the table and read it.

‘But Granny says she wants to see us. Doesn’t that mean we’ll be going back too?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But what does she mean?’

‘Why don’t you ring her and find out? Then I want you to go to school.’

‘But I’ll be too late.’

‘You’ll only be a bit late.’

It takes my grandmother a long time to answer the phone.

‘Hello, Mrs Egan here,’ she says.

‘Hello, Granny? It’s me, John.’

‘Hello, John. How are you getting on?’

‘I’m getting on fine.’

‘And your mother? How is she?’

‘She’s fine too.’

‘That’s grand.’

‘How’s Crito?’

I have a picture in my mind of Crito sitting on my bed, looking out the window at the trees and chewing on her foot, her nose snuffling.

‘Crito’s fine. She’s asleep by the fire at the moment, purring away.’

‘Is Da there?’

‘He is indeed. He arrived on Saturday night.’

‘But he said he was going to live with Uncle Tony.’

‘Well, he came here, and he’s safe and that’s the main thing.’

My breathing is short and shallow; to speak without sounding puffed I must go slowly, one word at a time.

‘But … did … he … tell … you … what … he … did? Did … he … tell … you … what … he … did … to … me … and … Mammy?’

She sighs. ‘You’ll be wanting to talk to your father about that.’

I can’t speak. The world has turned upside down. I want her to fill in the silence and ask me one simple question, a question like ‘Are you all right?’, but she is silent and I can hear my breath against the mouthpiece.

I sense she wants to say goodbye. I say ‘Don’t you know that I told Mammy the truth? Don’t you know that I can tell when people are lying?’

‘Now, now. This is not for us to talk about. This is not a soap opera where people blurt things out whenever they feel the urge.’

I hear a man’s voice in the background. ‘Was that Da? What did he say?’

‘Yes, that was your father. He was only after calling out to tell me that the postman is here.’

‘Does he want to talk to me?’

‘I’ll see. Wait a moment.’

She calls out to my father and says something else too, something about Dublin, all of it in Irish, so that I won’t understand.

I wait and wait but the phone is quiet and I wonder if she has hung up. I wait and wait some more, and when she comes back, at last, she sounds out of breath.

‘He says to say he loves you.’

‘Doesn’t he want to say hello?’

‘He does sure, but he has something he has to do at the moment.’

‘Oh.’

‘Shall I tell you a story about a mouse in Gorey?’