SHAPELESS ACHE ONLY LIGHT and dark and sounds all a-jumble.
Things reveal themselves slowly, ringing clear like mystery unfolding but they are things she always knew; like Dinny’s dimples, or the comfort of her mother’s heavy housecoat at her cheek. Perching like restless butterflies; real for an instant and in a quiver gone. Her mother. Her mother’s rough reassuring hands. The straight nails.
Yes, that’s them; that’s Mammy’s hands. Dry, cracked hands and soft ones are real things, yes. The fullness of them there but passing now like smells.
A light silvery thimble.
A tadpole once with legs like a beautiful monster and a tin bucket with rust and a special clang.
The cigarette smoke of the woman giving birth in a bed beside, smoking and sweating and smiling as she introduced herself and Molly not afraid then but knowing the joy of the child that was to be delivered back to her from the grief in her own dark and bloody insides.
Yes.
Yes that happened. Yes. The whole moment is here. She has it; a whiff of them, the whole of it here and then not anymore.
The going is a feat impossible for going where and to what.
The stopping.
But it is painful, staying alive here pulling each breath in and letting it siphon out. It is a swollen and numbish thing and everywhere pain and an impossible effort like birth only she is the only one in it. An effort she cannot manage, to hold the things that are not anymore now, to hold here and not to stop but the stopping too is a feat that is heavy and sore and too new and there is nothing to distinguish the edges of herself for the pain is a blurring thing and the real things are passing over; such real and beautiful things without pictures.
Yes.
Yes that’s it. That’s it. That is a real thing the tadpole a real fat-bodied thing alive and real moving legs. Yes. Yes that happened. And the bucket. And the water.
A thimble to protect.
A charm, she can feel it in her mouth, the cool smooth pebble from the beach.
The painless space around her edges. A feeling like needing to vomit but without relief for it is needing to die.
Still more things to do and it is a joyish surprise too, and a disappointment to find with every breath that she has not stopped under the weight of it.
There is a man being pious. She can hear him, foolish. And a sister saying the Rosary, poor dear thing, such soft hands. Dinny must be laughing at them but Molly cannot feel irritation now or anger. Dinny should be kind for they mean well and she should tell him that she doesn’t mind. Let them at it; she doesn’t mind. ‘Let them to their comfort.’ She wants to see Dinny for it has been so long since she has seen his face shaven so beautifully and his smile with dimples and that fine neck but he will understand that it is all this effort just to catch the sounds; that it is too much to look and see. Just to understand and catch the sound of them all here; that is enough. He will understand. And then the girls laughing – such a happy thing their young chuckles, her lovely girls who are good girls after all. Stubborn foolish little things that can stamp their feet and be cruel and jealous but good girls really.
There are others too.
They are telling her all is well.
Go on, Grandma, all is well.
A face by the bed, white fizzing around it and the eyes huge, black, melting down her face and – it couldn’t be, could it? A gold crown and great pink wings rearing up over the shoulders. A clinking, jangling sound. The face comes close, so close to kiss her and it is too much effort.
The little one with the white hair.
The little boy.
Learning things Molly never could, all white and downy lovely little baby did your mammy not feed you? That’s the little one. All is well they are telling her.
Dinny?
She is not making the words, is she?
Dinny?
Is she speaking? Where is he, Dinny?
Oh Dinny, you will mind him, won’t you? For terrible things can happen no matter how beautiful he is, our baby, and no matter how we want him terrible things have happened in the world and can happen again. You will watch him and sieve the soup, Dinny?
Not a job for a man.
She cannot hear him now and she cannot make herself look. A sister with soft hands is murmuring prayers, ‘… blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…’ Bless the fruit, yes. Kind old thing with soft hands and a trembling behind her voice, a simmering in her for a life not lived, blessing the fruit oh yes yes that’s it. Blessing the fruit for it can be a rotten thing too, needing to be dipped in vinegar and that is the thing to do is bless the fruit if you can. That is the loving thing. Thanks be to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth. Go on, Grandma, everything is okay now. Angel wings but very pink and tinselly a jingling jangling Christmas pony and cart.
Thanks be to God or the thing she knew when she prayed as a girl and felt the great pulse of the world with all the rot there is in it, and all the life that keeps coming on again and again from all the things that are burnt up and die and all the joy that comes again and again in spite of all the breaking, painful things there are, or out of them, like seedlings from the sore earth. All that is there.
The voices around her now in her little deathbed upstairs in her little house, the mothers muttering her on her way with the great love there is in them all, and the great sorrow. Another breath. Up here in her little deathbed. And down below her, down at the muck and the earth and stones and moving water, there are children playing by a stream. Three little girls and one of them only a baby, leaning in on the water like that and calling to her ‘Come and look, Mammy! Come and look!’ Oh her little boy is there too. What is it they are doing there by the water? Leaning too close. He is leaning in too close. They are making things sail – leaves and sticks and twine – and then shrieking with the miracle of weight and space and time as the things they make go spinning and twirling and sinking and bobbing and they are crying to her, ‘Come and look, Mammy, come and look!’ They need her to look, that’s all. They need her to look and see it there and say Oh yes and say Janey Mack and say I see you, I see you my darlings, I see you. There you are.
It is only a case of releasing it. It is only a case of allowing it, of trusting that thing she knew once. The great whoop of the world going on.