Touchy Subjects: Stories

  Her sister sighed. "It's just a party. With some dykes at it. I hope."

  "Is Telisse going?"

  "I don't know. She's not really doing the dyke thing anymore, anyway."

  "Oh."

  "Why," her sister teased her, "did you like Telisse?"

  "No, I just thought you did," said Martie stiffly. She checked her watch in the yellow streetlight. "Come on, Laz," she muttered. "I bet he's doing this deliberately. Testing our limits."

  "God, you're so parental," May hooted. "No wonder Laz hates you."

  "He does not."

  "He so does! He's always telling you to get off his case. 'Get her off my fuckin' case, May!' he says to me." May's imitation of her brother's voice was gruff with testosterone.

  "He doesn't mean he hates me," said Martie. "He doesn't actually hate any of us."

  May groaned and shifted in her seat, leaned her head back, and shut her eyes. "G'night, Ma Walton..."

  The minutes lengthened. Martie stared into the rearview mirror. A truck went by slowly, picking up garbage bags. "We could call Laz on your cell phone," she said, "except he probably wouldn't hear it over the music. Maybe I should go in and look for him," she added under her breath. "Or no, I can't leave the car, in case it needs to be moved. Maybe you should go."

  Her sister gave no sign of hearing that.

  "There he is." Martie threw open the door in relief. "Laz!"

  The boy was stumbling a little, head down.

  "Come on," she cried. "We've been waiting. May's got a party to get to."

  "What do you know, the boy is wasted," said May in amusement, turning her head as Laz struggled to fold his long legs into the backseat.

  "He couldn't be," Martie told her, "it was a juice bar."

  May giggled. "Now there's a first. Teens Gain Access to Alcoholic Beverage!""

  "Okay, okay," said Martie, starting the car with a rumble. "Laz, are you in? Your seat belt." She waited.

  "Can we just drive?" asked May.

  "Anyone who doesn't wear a seat belt is a human missile," Martie quoted. "If I had to slam on the brakes suddenly, he could snap your neck."

  "Oh Jesus, I'll snap yours in a minute if you don't get going. Laz!" snapped May, turning to face her brother. "Get your belt on now."

  He grinned at her, his eyes drowned in his dark hair. His fingers fumbled with the catch of the seat belt.

  The car moved off at last. "Good night, was it?" May asked over her shoulder at the next traffic light.

  The only answer was the sound of retching.

  "For god's sake," wailed Martie, taking a sharp right. "Not on the seat covers!"

  But the noises got worse.

  "That's really vile," said May, breathing through her mouth as she rolled down her window as far as it would go.

  "Are you all right now?" Martie asked her brother, peering in the mirror. "Do you want a Kleenex?" But he had slid down, out of sight. She wormed one hand into the back of the car, grabbed his knee. "Sit up, Laz."

  "Leave him alone for a minute, why can't you?"

  "May, he could choke on his own vomit."

  "You're being hysterical."

  Martie twisted round again. "I said sit up now!"

  "OK, pull over," said May, for once sounding like the eldest.

  "But-"

  "You're going to crash. Stop the car."

  Martie bit her lip and braked beside a fire hydrant.

  May got out and slammed her own door. She opened the one behind and bent in. "Laz?"

  No answer.

  She pulled him upright, wiped his mouth with his own sleeve. "He stinks." After a long minute, she said, in a different voice, "I think he may be on something."

  "On something?"

  "Laz? Wake up! Did you take something?"

  "Like what? Like what?" repeated the younger sister, her hands gripping the steering wheel.

  "Oh, Martie, I don't even know the names for what kids are taking these days. Laz!" May shouted, trying to lift his left eyelid.

  The boy moaned something.

  Martie let go of the wheel and started scrabbling in her sister's bag. "Where's your phone, May? I'm going to call 911."

  May climbed over her brother's legs and wrenched the passenger door shut. "Are you kidding? Do you know how long they take to respond? We'll be faster driving to Emergency."

  "Which? Where?"

  "I don't know, try St. Jude's."

  "You'll have to navigate for me," stammered Martie.

  "I'm busy holding Laz's head out of this pool of vomit," said May, shrill. "Just go down Fourth; there'll be signs on Thirtieth. Move it!"

  Martie drove above the speed limit for the first time in her life. Laz didn't make a sound. May gripped him hard.

  "You should be talking to him," Martie told her, at a red light. "Keep him awake."

  "I don't think he is awake."

  "Is he asleep? He could be asleep."

  "He's out of it; he's unconscious," snapped her sister. "Is his windpipe open? Check his pulse."

  "I can't tell." May was gripping her brother's limp wrist. "There's a pulse but I think it's mine."

  The light was still red. "Let me." Martie burst open her seat belt, squeezed one knee through the gap between the seats. "Laz?" she shouted, pressing her fingers against the side of her brother's damp throat.

  "Shouldn't you-"

  "Shut up. I'm listening."

  Silence in the car, except for a little wheeze in Martie's breathing. She put her ear against her brother's mouth, as if she was asking for a kiss. Then the car behind sounded its horn, and Martie jerked back so fast she hit her head on the roof. "He's not—"

  "What? What?"

  More horns blared. "Green," roared May, blinking at the lights, and Martie slammed the car into drive.

  "I think it fucked him up when Mom went off," said May. The sisters were sitting on the end of a row of orange seats in the Emergency waiting area, their legs crossed in opposite directions.

  "They say the younger you are when something like that happens, the more it messes up your head."

  "That's garbage," said Martie unsteadily, examining her cuticles. "Laz was too young; he wasn't even three. He doesn't remember Mom being at home; he doesn't know what she looked like apart from photos."

  "He must remember her being missing," May pointed out. "You do."

  "That's different. I was five." Elbows on her knees, Martie stared up at the wall, where a sign said UNNECESSARY NOISE PROHIBITED.

  "That first couple of years, when all Dad fed us was out of cans—"

  "She had postpartum depression that never got diagnosed," Martie put in. "That's what Dad says."

  After a second, May shrugged.

  "What does that mean?" Martie imitated the shrug.

  "Well yeah, that's what Dad would say," said May. "He'd have to say something. He couldn't just tell us, 'Hey kids, your mom took off for no reason.'" May pulled out her cigarettes. "I mean, we could all have something undiagnosedshe added scornfully.

  Martie pointed at the NO SMOKING sign.

  "I know. I know. I'm just seeing how many I've got left. What's taking them so long? You'd think at least they could tell us what's going on," barked May in the direction of the reception desk.

  Her younger sister watched her.

  "At the hotel, did they say where Dad was?"

  Martie shook her head. "Just that he wasn't back yet. They'll give him our message as soon as he comes in."

  "He's probably boinking some Texan hooker."

  "He's in New Mexico," said Martie furiously, "and you can just shut up. You don't know why Mom left any more than any of us—you were only eight," she added after a second. "I think it makes sense that she was depressed."

  "Well sure, it must have been pretty depressing pretending to be our mom if all the time she was longing to take off and never see us again."

  "I hate it when you talk like that," said Martie through her teeth.

  No an
swer.

  "You think you're so savvy about the ways of the whole, like, world, when really you're just bitter and twisted."

  May raised her eyes to heaven.

  The woman behind the reception desk called out a name, and Martie jumped to her feet. Then she sat down again. "I thought she said Laurence. Laurence Coleman."

  "No, it was something else."

  "I forgot to get milk," said Martie irrelevantly. "Unless you did?"

  May shook her head.

  "Laz didn't eat any dinner. I kept some couscous for him to microwave, but he didn't want it; he said it looked gross." Martie put her face in her hands.

  "Take it easy," said her sister.

  "They say if there's nothing lining the stomach..."

  "He probably got some fries on the way to the club. I bet he had a burger and fries," said May.

  Martie spoke through her fingers. "What could he have taken?"

  "Nothing expensive," said May. "He's always broke."

  "I just wish we knew, you know, why he did it."

  "Oh, don't start the whole eighth-grade lecture on self-esteem and peer pressure," snapped May. "Look, everyone takes something sometime in their life."

  "You just say that because you did. Do," added Martie, her cheeks red. "It just better not have been you who gave it to him."

  "For Christ's sake!" barked May. A woman with a child asleep on her stomach stared at them, and May brought her voice down. "I would never. I don't do anything scary and if I did I wouldn't give it to my moronic kid brother."

  "You can't know what's scary," said Martie miserably. "People can die after half an ecstasy tablet."

  May let out a scornful puff of breath. "They said he was fitting. Having fits, in the cubicle. E doesn't give you fits."

  Her sister sat hunched over. "You know when she asked us about our insurance provider?"

  "Yeah. Thank god Dad's got family coverage in this job, at least."

  "No, but I think she was calling them, the insurance people. She picked up the phone. Why would she call them right away?"

  May shrugged.

  Martie nibbled the edge of her thumb. "Do you think maybe they won't cover something . .. self-inflicted?"

  "It's not like he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge," said May.

  "But if he took it—"

  "Shut up! We don't know what he took or what he thought it was. Get off his case!"

  There was a long silence. "I care about Laz as much as you do," said Martie. "Probably more."

  "Fine," said May, her voice tired.

  Martie got up and walked off. She dawdled by the vending machines, and came back with something called Glucozip.

  A girl had come into the waiting area, arm in arm with her mother. The girl had a deformed face, something red and terrible bulging between her huge lips. Martie looked away at once.

  May whispered, "I didn't think that was possible."

  "Don't stare," said Martie, mortified.

  "She's put a pool ball in her mouth! I tried it once, but no way."

  Martie looked over her shoulder. So that's what it was. "You tried to do that?" she repeated, turning on her elder sister. "Why would you do that?"

  "I was thirteen or so; I don't know. It was a dare."

  "That's not a reason!"

  Her sister shrugged.

  Martie sneaked another look at the girl with the ball in her mouth. The mother was scolding loudly. "Where's your so-called friends now, then?" The girl twisted her head, made a small moan in her throat.

  Martie turned away again and offered her sister some Gluco-zip. "You should, even if you don't feel thirsty," she urged her. "We're probably dehydrated. Unless we're in shock, in which case they say you shouldn't drink anything, in case they have to operate."

  May stared at her sister.

  "Are your extremities cold?" Martie persisted.

  "What do you know?" said May, harsh.

  The younger sister looked away, took another drink. Her throat moved violently as she swallowed.

  "One crappy First Aid for Beginners course, and suddenly you're an expert?"

  Martie took a breath, paused, then spoke after all. "I know more than you."

  "Like what? Like what do you know?"

  She spoke rapidly. "For instance, if someone's got no pulse and he's not breathing, he's dead. Technically."

  "He fucking isn't!"

  "Technically he is. That's the definition of death," Martie told her sister shakily. "It's not brain death but it's technically death, until they get the heart started again."

  "It's you who's brain-dead," growled May.

  "I just-"

  "I don't want to hear it!"

  Silence. Martie, eyes shining, read the back of her can.

  "They've probably infibrillated him," May told her, "and now they're just letting him rest."

  "I think you mean defibrillate."

  "I don't think so," snapped May. "And also, they've got chemicals they can use. There was that scene in Pulp Fiction, when Uma Thurman snorts heroin by mistake, and they stick an adrenaline needle in her heart."

  "I can't stand that kind of movie," said Martie. "They're totally unreal."

  "No, they're too real," her sister told her, "that's what you can't stand." She let out a long breath. "When are they going to tell us something?" she said, leaping to her feet. "I mean, Jesus!"

  "Could you keep your voice down?" whispered Martie. "Everybody's staring."

  "So?" roared May. "I mean, what the fuck does that mean?"—throwing out her arm at the sign that said UNNECESSARY NOISE PROHIBITED. "What the hell is unnecessary noise? If I make a noise, it's because I need to."

  "You don't need to shout."

  "Yes I do!"

  Martie seized her elder sister by the hand and pulled her back into her seat. May went limp. Her head hung down. The people who had been watching looked away again.

  "Do you think," Martie asked May half an hour later, "I know this probably sounds really stupid, but do you think it's any use, do you think it's any help to people, if you're there?"

  "Where?" asked May, eyes vacant, taking a sip of Glucozip.

  "Near them. Thinking about them."

  "Like, faith healing?"

  Martie's mouth twisted. "Not necessarily. I just mean, is it doing Laz any good that we're here?"

  "I think maybe we're irrelevant," said May, without bitterness. "He never liked either of us that much in the first place."

  "You don't have to like your family," said Martie uncertainly.

  "Just as well," said May under her breath. "Just as well."

  "Laurence Coleman? Laurence Coleman?"

  They both registered the words at last and jerked in their seats. "He's not here," said Martie confusedly to the man in the white coat, whose small badge said DR. P.J. HASSID. "They took him in there," pointing vaguely.

  "If you would come this way—"

  They both scurried after Dr. Hassid. May plucked at the doctor's sleeve. "Is he alive?" she asked, and burst into tears.

  Martie stared at her elder sister, who had tears dripping from her chin. One of them landed on the scuffed floor of the corridor.

  "Just about," said Dr. Hassid, not stopping. There were dark bags under his eyes.

  Laz, lying in a cubicle, didn't look alive. He was stretched out on his back like a specimen of an alien, with tubes up his nose, machines barricading. May wailed. Martie took hold of her elbow.

  "Laurence will get through this," said Dr. Hassid, fiddling with a valve.

  "Laz," May sobbed the word. "He's called Laz."

  "It doesn't matter," said Martie.

  But Dr. Hassid was amending the clipboard that hung at the end of the bed. "L-A-S?"

  "Zee," gulped May.

  "L-A-Z, very good. It's better to use the familiar name. Laz?" the doctor said, louder, bending over the boy. "Will you wake up now?"

  One eyelid quivered. Then both. The boy blinked at his sisters.

  Ac
knowledgments

  "Touchy Subjects" was first published as a self-contained chapter in Ladies' Night at Finbar's Hotel, devised and edited by Dermot Bolger (Dublin: New Island, and London: Macmillan; San Diego and New York: Harcourt, 1999).

  "Expecting" was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1996, and first published in You Magazine/Mail On Sunday, 8 October 2000.

  "Oops" was first published in a shorter form in Sunday Express (Summer 2000).

  "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is adapted from a short radio play, part of my Humans and Other Animals series (2003), produced by Tanya Nash for BBC Radio 4.

  "The Cost of Things" was first published in The Diva Book of Short Stories, edited by Helen Sandler (London: Diva Books, 2000), and then adapted into a short radio play as part of my Humans and Other Animals series (2003), produced by Tanya Nash for BBC Radio 4.

  "Pluck" was first published in The Dublin Review (Autumn 2002); before publication, I adapted it into a ten-minute film of the same name, directed by Neasa Hardiman and produced by Vanessa Finlow (Language, 2001).

  "Good Deed" was first published in Rush Hour, edited by Michael Cart (Volume 1,2004).

  "The Sanctuary of Hands" was first published in Telling Moments, edited by Lynda Hall (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003).

  "Team Men" was first published in One Hot Second: Stories of Desire, edited by Cathy Young (New York: Knopf, 2002).

  "Speaking in Tongues" was first published in The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica, edited by Rose Collis (London: Constable/Robinson; New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000).

  "The Welcome" was first published in Love and Sex: Ten Stories of Truth, edited by Michael Cart (New York: Simon 8c Schuster, 2001).

  "Enchantment" was first published in Magic, edited by Sarah Brown and Gil MacNeil (London: Bloomsbury, 2002).

  "Necessary Noise" was first published in Necessary Noise, edited by Michael Cart (New York: Joanna Cotler Books, 2003).

  I'd like to record my gratitude to Sinead McBrearty for providing all the soccer knowledge for "Team Men," to Dermot Bolger for editing "Touchy Subjects," to Tanya Nash for her work on the radio version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and to Vanessa Finlow and Neasa Hardiman for their work on the film version of "Pluck."