“Maybe I’ll come out tomorrow and say hello,” said Scarlett.
“Okay,” said Mary.
They walked out of the car park and along the path, through the people in dressing gowns who were smoking outside the front doors of the hospital, and into the place itself, past the shop that sold sweets and flowers that made Mary sneeze nearly every time she passed it, and down the long corridor that was full of people’s whispers and the squeaks of their shoes and slippers. And into the empty lift that was wide enough for a car but was actually that size so that gurneys with people lying on them could fit into it, on their way to and from the operating theaters. Mary always expected to see a gurney with the sheet pulled over the person’s face.
“Why do they put the sheet over the face?” she asked her mother now, as the lift went up so slowly they weren’t even sure it was moving.
“When someone’s dead, do you mean?”
“Yeah,” said Mary. “Obviously.”
“Don’t be rude.”
“I’m not being rude,” said Mary. “It never happens any other time.”
“I don’t know,” said Scarlett. “What about very shy people?”
“What about them?”
“I’m sure they want the sheet over their faces when they’re being rolled around.”
“That’s a joke, is it?” Mary asked.
“Yes, it is,” said Scarlett.
“It’s quite good,” said Mary. “But I don’t think this is either the time or the place for joking.”
Scarlett laughed.
“You’re impossible,” she said.
“If I’m impossible,” said Mary, “then how come I’m here? In this very slow lift?”
Finally, it stopped. About two days later—actually, five seconds—the doors slid slowly open and Mary and Scarlett got out.
They passed the nurse that Mary didn’t like and the other one she did like.
“How is she?” Scarlett asked.
“She’s grand,” said the nice nurse.
Mary’s granny was asleep.
They sat beside her bed. She didn’t wake up. This hadn’t happened before. Mary’s granny had either been awake or had woken when they’d arrived to see her. But now she lay there. Her head looked tiny against the pillow.
Mary sat up on the bed, but her granny stayed asleep.
“She looks happy,” Scarlett whispered.
It was true—if they wanted it to be true. Her face was calm. Her wrinkles were the ones she’d had as far back as Mary could remember, the wrinkles that had always been part of her granny. The wrinkles that were like lights, or paths that lit up, whenever her granny laughed—which was often. Paths that led to her granny’s eyes—all the better to see you with, my dear.
They sat for a while longer—twenty minutes—hoping she’d wake up. Scarlett held her mother’s hand. Then Mary did. It frightened her a bit, just before she touched the hand—just in case the hand was cold. But it wasn’t. It was warm, and Mary thought she felt her granny’s fingers squeeze her own, just slightly.
“We’d better go,” Scarlett whispered. “The boys will be home.”
Mary nodded, but still they sat until Mary heard the scrape, the squeak of her mother’s chair and her mother leaned down to the face in the pillow and kissed it.
Mary slid off the bed, then leaned against the bed and tried to do what her mother had just done. But she wasn’t tall enough to reach her granny without climbing back up. So she got up on the bed and kissed her granny’s cheek.
“Ah, now,” said her granny, although her eyes didn’t open. “I know that kiss.”
“Granny?”
She didn’t answer.
“Granny?”
No answer.
“We’d better go,” said Scarlett.
“She spoke to me,” said Mary.
“I know,” said Scarlett. “It’s lovely.”
Mary kissed her granny again, on her dry cheek, and got down off the bed.
Then she remembered something.
She got back up on the bed.
“Granny?”
Her granny’s eyes stayed closed. Mary looked at her granny’s mouth, and saw it move slightly, letting out a pop of air. Mary decided: her granny was listening, even if she was asleep.
“Granny,” she said—she leaned down near to her granny’s ear. “Tansey says it’ll all be grand.”
She watched, to see if her granny had heard, some sort of sign that the words had gone in. The eyes stayed shut, but the lines beside them shifted, very slightly.
“It’ll all be grand,” Mary said again, and tried to sound like Tansey.
Then she slid off the bed, and stood up straight when she felt her feet touch the floor.
“What was that about?” her mother asked, as they waited again for the lift.
“A message,” said Mary.
“A message?”
“Yeah,” said Mary.
“A message from who?”
“Tansey.”
“The old woman.”
“No. The footballer.”
“Don’t be cheeky.”
“Sorry,” said Mary.
“The old woman.”
“She isn’t old,” said Mary. “But, yes.”
“Does Tansey know your granny?”
“Yes,” said Mary. “I think so.”
mer remembered it all her life. The day her mammy stopped. She was only three when it happened. She knew that all her life too. Her grandmother told her, and her daddy and her aunts and uncle.
You were only three.
You were only three, God love you.
A brave girl you were, and you only a little thing.
She remembered the egg. Her own egg. She’d brought it into the kitchen, to show it to her grandmother. She remembered running into the dark of the kitchen. But she couldn’t remember what she’d run in from. And that saddened her, because she’d been out there with her mammy—she was told that—and, try as hard as she could—and she did try, for years—she couldn’t pull her memory back, back out to the yard where her mammy had been walking behind her. She ran into the kitchen, too excited—too happy—to slow down, and before she could properly see, the egg was out of her hands, and she heard it smack the stone floor. Just a little flat noise, like a cheek full of air being tapped, and she knew she’d lost the egg before she could see the proof of it. She was crying before she fully understood. She’d nothing now to show her grandmother. She’d killed the egg.
She waited to be picked up. She knew she would be. It was still dark in the kitchen—her eyes weren’t ready yet—but she could see her grandmother, the shape of her, at the range, worrying the food. Her daddy used to say that, about the way her grandmother stood at the range while she cooked. Worrying the food, she is.
Emer remembered this. She remembered it like it was yesterday, or even today, like it was something that had just finished happening. She was waiting to be picked up. And hands did pick her up. Two hands, and arms, went around Emer, hands that came from behind her. Her mammy had come into the kitchen—Emer hadn’t heard her. Now she felt herself being lifted, lifted gently, and turned so that her face was at her mammy’s shoulder, then a little higher, and she was looking straight at her mammy.
“What’s the matter with you, at all?”
She remembered her mammy’s voice. Each word was like a white cloud going past her eyes.
“The hegg!” she’d shouted.
This, she didn’t remember. The egg—“the hegg.” Her grandmother had told her about the “h” she used to put in front of the egg.
“You dropped it?”
“I did!”
“Ah, sure.”
“It’s dead.”
Her memory took over again. These were words she could still hear, hers and her mammy’s.
“It’s not dead, love. It’s only smashed.”
“I kilted it.”
“No.”
“I did!”
She was so happy in her mammy’s arms, up there in the air at her face. She’d have cried and complained forever, just to stay up there.
“No, no,” said her mammy. “There’s no life in an egg that isn’t under its hen. And, sure, look it. We’ve a whole basketful of them. D’you want another one, do you?”
“No,” said Emer.
“Suit yourself, so.”
The egg didn’t matter anymore. Emer didn’t care about the egg. She could see it now, on the stone floor. She had her mammy all to herself, for a while, at least. Her little brother, James the Baby, was still asleep. There isn’t a peep out of him. She loved James the Baby—he’s the dote—but sometimes she felt like she was at a window looking in at all the people she loved but who didn’t know she was there. They were all fussing around James the Baby in his cot. But now James the Baby was fast asleep.
“It was only a hegg,” said Emer.
“It was,” said her mammy. “A fine class of an egg, mind, but only an egg.”
She carried Emer across to the fire and Granddad’s chair. Granddad was dead and up in heaven—these years—but the chair was still his. Her grandmother never sat in it. And Emer knew, because she’d heard her mammy and daddy talk about it, that Daddy hadn’t dared get married until after Granddad had died and the farm had become Daddy’s. He was a difficult man. She’d heard that whispered. The farm was Daddy’s, but the big chair still belonged to Granddad. But even so, her mammy sat down in it whenever she wanted and no one ever complained, and not a peep from Granddad—up above.
The fireplace was huge, the size of a room, and the big chair was right beside it, nearly in it. The bellows wheel was beside the chair, and poor Parnell was asleep beside the wheel. Emer loved turning the wheel, and the whirr of the belt, when she wanted to be busy. But not now. She wouldn’t be fussing this time, trying to get down off her mammy’s lap. She was where she wanted to be. And not a peep out of James the Baby, wrapped up in his cot. It was a smelly chair, but the smells were good ones. There was a smell like her daddy’s pipe tobacco and there was a smell of hay. Even the smell of the greyhounds was good because it was only a smell and the greyhounds didn’t come with it. The smell was the nicest part of the greyhound. It was a nice fat smell, even though the greyhounds were skinny, so skinny they frightened Emer. They were like the shadows of the animal, not the animal itself, the ghosts of beasts long dead—ghosts with teeth and claws.
Emer didn’t know if these were the exact thoughts that had played in her mind that day, when she sat with her mammy that last time, but they might have been, because they were the thoughts she often had in that corner of the kitchen. There was nothing like smells for remembering. All her life, a certain smell—when she lifted the lid off a pot, or she pushed a trowel into the earth, or she took a dried sheet off the hedge—the smell would bring memories and thoughts right behind it, and the thoughts were nearly always of her mammy.
She sat on her mammy’s lap. Her mammy’s chin was right above her head. She could feel it like a warm roof over her. Her mammy’s fingers worked at the button of Emer’s coat. The buttons were big and the holes were stiff. Emer shifted a bit, to let her mammy get the coat off her. She remembered that coat. It was green tweed with a red fleck in the green, and it used to belong to her cousin. (Years later, her own daughter wore it whenever they went down to the farm.) The coat was off, beside them on the floor, safe away from the ashes. And the lovely arms were around her again.
“My dote,” said her mammy. “How are you now?”
“I’m grand,” said Emer. “Close your eyes.”
It was their game. Emer lifted herself a little bit and kissed her mammy’s chin.
“Ah, now,” said her mammy. “I know that kiss.”
She opened her eyes.
“It’s Emer!”
Then it all changed.
It was like the fire was suddenly too warm. The heat came off her mammy like it was something dangerous. The arms around Emer went slack.
Emer knew there was something wrong. She turned—she tried to turn—until she was able to see her mammy’s face. She nearly fell off—the hands and arms weren’t minding her anymore. She shifted and nudged, and got angry while she was doing it. Then she could see. Her mammy was sitting back. And her eyes were shut. Sweat, like water, was pouring from the top of her face.
“Mammy?” said Emer. “Why have you your eyes closed?”
She knew her mammy wasn’t asleep.
There was another body over Emer, close to her. It was her grandmother. She was standing beside the chair. Emer was right under her.
She watched her grandmother put her hand on her mammy’s forehead.
“Oh, Lord, the flu,” said her grandmother. “Up to the bed with you, Tansey, girl.”
“I’ll be grand,” said her mammy.
“Don’t fight it,” said her grandmother. “And of course you’ll be grand.”
Her grandmother’s hands were on her then, and Emer was being lifted. She loved her grandmother, but she didn’t want to leave her mother’s lap. She knew—she remembered, she was certain—there was something wrong. Sudden things were often bad. She whimpered. She couldn’t think of words to say. She didn’t want to stop what her grandmother was doing. Something was wrong, and her grandmother would mend it.
Her grandmother put Emer on the floor.
“There now.”
Then she took hold of one of her mammy’s arms, and Emer watched her mammy rising out of the chair. She was like an old woman who hadn’t been budged in a long time. It was shocking. She had to look carefully, to make sure that it was her mammy.
And it was. Same dress, same face. She was standing now, shivering like she was very cold. She looked at Emer, and smiled.
“Lucky me,” she said. “Granny’s bringing me up to the bed.”
Everything was fine.
“Can I come with you?” said Emer.
“Granny will need your help down here,” said her mother. “Won’t you, Granny?”
“Oh, I will,” said her grandmother. “I’d be hopeless without Emer.”
They walked—her mother was able to walk—to the stairs. The passage was narrow and steep. Emer stayed where she was. There wasn’t room for her now in the passage.
Her mother went up the first two steps. Emer remembered, all her life: it was exactly two. She often sat on the second step. Her mother stopped, and turned, and smiled at Emer. Then she kept going.
want to meet her,” said Scarlett.
“Who?”
“Your Tansey,” said Scarlett.
They were driving home from the hospital. The traffic was bad; the car wasn’t moving.
“Okay,” said Mary. “If we ever get home, like.”
“We will! I know a shortcut!”
“This is the shortcut.”
“Oh, gosh, you’re right! Ah, well!”
“She mightn’t be there by the time we get home,” said Mary. “And I don’t know which apartment she lives in, like.”
“Tomorrow, then,” said Scarlett.
“Okay.”
The car in front of them moved—
“At last!”
—two feet.
“Oh, poo!”
“Language, Mammy.”
“Sorry!”
But they got home, eventually. It was dark and they found Mary’s two brothers, Killer and Dommo, in the kitchen, staring at the fridge and starving to death.
“See, boys?!” said Scarlett.
She opened the fridge door, and closed it, and opened it again.
“That’s how it works.”
They didn’t laugh. They knew sarcasm when they heard it; they didn’t like it.
Scarlett didn’t like it either, especially when she heard it coming from herself.
“Sorry, lads,” she said. “It’s just … we were at the hospital to see Granny and she didn’t open her eyes all the time we were there. So, it’s hard.”
They nodded. br />
“And it took ages to get home.”
They nodded again. One of them spoke.
“It’s okay.”
Mary filled the big pot with water.
“See, boys? This is how the tap works.”
“Mary,” said her mother. “We don’t like sarcasm.”
“You mightn’t like it,” said Mary. “But I love it.”
She put the pot on the hob and listened to the lovely, dangerous whoosh of the gas. She put the lid on the pot so the water would boil faster.
Scarlett took a packet of pasta shells out of the cupboard—and stopped. Mary saw, and the boys saw: their mother was crying.
The boys stood up, off their stools. They stood there. Mary went between them.
“Excuse me.”
And she hugged Scarlett.
“It’s called a hug, boys,” she said. “And it costs nothing, like.”
Scarlett laughed, and the boys smiled—kind of. They all ate the pasta and the boys washed the dishes, then went back upstairs.
Mary was alone with Scarlett. Her father played indoor football on Tuesdays after work, so he always came home late, sweating and stiff and usually limping.
“Will we try?” said Scarlett.
Mary knew what she was talking about.
“Okay.”
They went outside. It was raining, but not heavily, and they were soon in under the trees. It wasn’t cold. The trees always seemed louder at night, the swaying of the branches, the leaves brushing against one another. It often seemed that the trees were full of people whispering—especially tonight.
They stood on the street. There was no sign of anyone. No one walking a dog, no one heading down to the pub, no one coming home late, no one going to the bus stop. It was even quieter than usual.
But they waited.
“We’ll give it a few more minutes,” said Scarlett.
She didn’t know what she expected. She tried to make sense of what Mary had been telling her about Tansey.
Not so long ago, Mary’s bedroom had been full of her imaginary friends and animals. Mary could see them all. There were queens and elephants and other girls, and things like teddy bears that everybody could see but only Mary could see and hear. Tansey might have been Mary’s latest imaginary friend, maybe her last one—her last goodbye to her childhood. Tansey—a name Mary had heard her granny say, many times over the years. Mary had spent weekends at her granny’s house; there’d always been old photographs and chat. Her granny was dying, so Mary had made Tansey up, to fill the lonely space.