Bright Burning Things(11)
I stand, legs unsteady, smooth down my skirt and rub away any trace of tears with my knuckles. I have to fight a desire to knock myself out, my fists clenched, containers for all my rage.
Back in the living room my boys are still crouched low, still talking to each other in their own gobbledegook language. The clock says seven and we never had lunch, but dinner is on our neighbour’s table. Normalise: steady, Sonya, steady. Tommy eyes me from his position of safety. I feel sure that if I took a step too close, Herbie would spring and attack me, protecting his rightful owner. ‘Herbie, old boy, I’m sorry. Mummy’s sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’ I keep my voice low and soft, being careful not to spook him. How I wish I had a treat to tempt him back to my side. I reach out my hand to my son.
‘Sorry, darling, sorry.’
Tommy stays where he is, still staring, as if he can see right inside me.
‘I was gone there, Mr T, and now I’m back. No need to be scared. Ok?’
He remains stock-still, sniffing the air around him.
‘It’s really me, Tommy. It’s me!’
He bends to kiss Herbie on his head. ‘Yaya gone, Hewbie, gone away, now she back. Bad fairy gone.’
What the hell did he see?
‘Bad fairy in the bad bottle, Yaya.’
‘Oh, Tommy, I think you’re confusing a fairy for a genie in the bottle. Remember Aladdin?’
‘No, Yaya, not genie, badblackmean fairy and she makes you do mean things.’
What has he just witnessed – a kind of possession? Has he seen this kind of a blackout before? I shake my head, my whole body, to rid it of the bad black meanness.
‘Nothing there, Yaya.’
‘No, you’re right, my clever baby. It has all flown away.’
He moves towards me, Herbie making an unsure growling sound. ‘Ok, Hewbie, all ok now.’
I need to pull this back somehow, normalise, distract somehow, make them both forget, somehow. ‘Tommy, would you and Herbie like to go to Mary’s for scrummy dinner?’ As I say this I know I’ll have a job persuading him that our neighbour has not stepped out of the pages of a sinister tale, and there’s no way either of us could eat a beef bolognese. My mind starts its familiar looping: images of creatures being transported in concentration-camp trucks to slaughterhouses where they’re made to watch each other die. I can smell their fear, never mind eat it. Feel cruelly sober now, shocked into a moment of crystallised awareness so acute that I can see everything, all of it, reaching into eternity. Bleak and terrifying, and a future that’s so very, very fragile.
I study my dog and my son, swallowing hard, a fist punching its way deep inside me. Should I call my father? Immediately I steel myself against that particular onslaught. No one else need enter the arena right now, not until I have regained some sort of balance. I need to eat; blood sugar levels are low. Diagnosed with hypoglycaemia by a doctor back in drama school, I used to go without food for as long as possible, allowing the world to take on its own peculiar lustre. Sometimes there were blackouts, and this woozy sensation was usually a warning, accompanied by chaotic moods, which were great fodder for the characters I was playing. Perhaps that was just a character back there, and I’m in a Pirandello play, cast as the despotic director.
‘No way, Yaya.’ Tommy is shaking his head manically. ‘No way going to Witchy Mary’s for dinner.’ I place my hands lightly on each temple and hold him steady, butterfly-kiss him on the cheek with my eyelashes. His body softens, a suggestion of trust coming back into his eyes. ‘Ok so, let’s go get some pizza.’ He covers Herbie’s head with kisses. ‘You love pizza too, Hewbie. Cheesy yum.’ The dog licks his face all over, unhygienic but sweet and lovely. My eyes well.
I don’t have the energy for stealing right now; I hope I have the cash. I open drawers and check pockets for any loose change and find a fifty-euro note in the jeans I wore all week. No recollection of it being there or where it could have come from, every penny from the dole last week accounted for. Perhaps the Man Above was listening after all! As we leave the house I notice Mrs O’Malley’s door is open. I whisper to Tommy, ‘Let’s bolt for it.’ We run, hand in hand, Mrs O’Malley’s voice trailing me, a cold wind blowing at my neck: ‘Sonya. We need to talk.’ Interfering old bag.
Once we clear the corner, we slow down and Tommy turns his face towards mine. I puff up my cheeks in a parody of pudgy Mary. Tommy does the same and starts to waddle in a pretty accurate imitation, then mimes eating his arm, his fingers. ‘Scwumptious yumptious… Deelicious!’ How could I ever want more than this: this boy, who is brilliant and funny and all my own making? He is my best creation yet, the only thing I’ve ever produced to be truly proud of. Surges of heat flow through me, energy pulses like mini-shocks, as I hoist him on to my shoulders and start running again, Herbie keeping exact time, six paces to my every step, his four squat legs working hard to propel his bulk, his tongue lolling. My son’s squeaky-pitched screams of excitement peal in my ear. ‘Faster, Yaya, faster, giddy-up-hup-hup!’
‘We’ll have three large vegetarian pizzas, please.’ I can hear my voice ringing loud and high in the packed waiting area of the local pizzeria. I lift Tommy off my shoulders and put him on the floor. There’s no sign of Marco, only that surly daughter of his, who looks as if she’d rather be anywhere other than here. I see my younger self and have to suck down an urge to slap her. The girl ignores me, busying herself at the till. My voice goes an octave higher: ‘I said three large vegetarian pizzas.’ Tommy is tugging at my sleeve. ‘Say “please”, Yaya.’ How dare he chastise me like this in public? Make a show of me? My hand reaches out to cuff him around the ear. The room falls silent, heat rises in my cheeks, the palm of my hand is trembling and hot. A man’s voice: ‘No need for that.’ My tongue feels too big for my mouth. A dyed-blonde girl checks her phone obsessively, swiping the screen with her thumb, an older woman with a high starched collar looks down at the floor, two others look out the window, but the man who just spoke stares straight at me, quizzing every inch of me. Steady, steady. I flick my hair out of my eyes, square my shoulders, suck in my tummy. The daughter says loudly, ‘Two large pepperonis’, and hands the bag to the man, who is slight and wearing shorts and socks pulled up, giving him the appearance of an overgrown schoolboy. He hands the money to the girl and says to me, ‘Do you have a licence to own that dog?’