Читать книгу Three Wise Men - Martina Devlin - Страница 7

‘I’m having an affair.’

The words dangle in the air, flaunting as temptingly as a Christmas bauble. Gloria’s instinct is to take them down and examine them, just as she always longs to handle glittery tree decorations – touch them to check if they’re real. She’s lying in a hospital bed, a captive audience. If in doubt say nothing: that’s her mother’s advice. Gloria ignores it.

‘Who with?’ she asks Kate.

‘With Jack,’ responds Kate, feigning interest in the wilting floral arrangement on Gloria’s locker.

The news is so startling it almost – almost – distracts Gloria from her own problems. Now she does take her mother’s recommendation to heart, although only because she’s too dumbstruck to speak. Kate glances at her covertly as she strips expiring foliage from the vase of moon daisies and seizes the silence as an invitation to elaborate.

‘We’re in love, Gloria. Neither of us planned it but it happened and now’ – she blushes – ‘we find we can’t live without one another.’

‘And love invents its own laws?’ Gloria’s tone is caustic; she’s regained her power of speech and a sense of outrage along with it.

The stain on Kate’s cheeks deepens, clashing spectacularly with her red hair. ‘We know we’re doing wrong,’ she admits. ‘This is such agony, ecstasy too, but agony. I can’t erase Eimear from my mind.’

‘You managed very nicely when you leapt into bed with her husband.’

‘Oh, Glo, don’t be angry with me, I know I’m a wicked temptress who deserves to be ducked in the village pond.’

Kate beats her chest in such mock-pious atonement that Gloria can’t help but smile. Just for a nano-second; this is no laughing matter. She hurriedly resumes her stern expression.

‘What were you thinking of, Kate McGlade, taking up with your best friend’s husband and you with a man of your own at home?’

Kate bows her head in comic humility, hoping for an encore of the smile, but Gloria is relentless now, appalled at the impact her deviancy will wreak on their triumvirate.

‘This is serious, Kate; this is beyond serious, you have to stop seeing him immediately.’

‘I can’t,’ she wails, rumpling her hair until it’s standing in peaks. ‘It’s the real thing, he’s my Coca Cola lover.’

‘Well then,’ forecasts Gloria, ‘prepare for Armageddon. And you’ll probably have your cornflake-box crown confiscated.’

They each wore one, sprayed gold and decorated with fruit gums, twenty-six years ago as the Three Wise Men. Trouble is, they grew up to be Three Unwise Women.

But Gloria’s losing sight of her own troubles with Kate and she’s not ready to shed that comforting blanket of misery just yet – especially not to tackle a situation as explosive as this. A dear little nun who calls for an uninvited visit is just about to remind her of them. The sister totters into the room, sees another figure by the bedside and starts backing out, but Kate (natural born coward that she is, thinks Gloria) insists she has errands to run and she’ll call by later.

‘There’s no need,’ Gloria tells her.

‘Holles Street Hospital is only around the corner from me, it’s no bother, Glo. I’ll bring you some flowers – these ones need urgent medical attention,’ Kate bribes her.

‘Make it freesias,’ she barters. ‘And don’t think I’ve finished with you yet, you’ve a shopping trolley full of explaining to do.’

Kate settles the nun in a chair by Gloria’s bedside and scuttles off, pulling faces at her behind the tiny sister’s back. Gloria shakes her head: The woman’s beyond redemption – one minute she’s chanting mea culpas, the next she’s behaving like a skit of a schoolgirl.

However she has a guest to take her mind off Kate’s bombshell, one who looks like she’s been paying hospital visits since the days of dancing at the crossroads. Not that nuns went in for much of that, unless of course they were late vocations. Gloria studies her covertly as she speaks: integrity and sincerity shine from the nun’s eyes; she’s in her mid-seventies, no veil, neatly cropped hair, silver band on her wedding ring finger, mysterious stain on the front of her black dress. Gin or vodka?

As she listens she stems a rising impulse to slap her visitor – a sting to shock her into silence. Gloria looks at her clasped hands on the bedspread and concentrates on controlling them. The nun is talking about God’s will and how he moves in mysterious ways; Gloria nods whenever she looks directly at her and wraps fingers around fingers, pressing until white blotches spread across the surface of the skin.

‘There’s a reason for everything, even if we can’t yet see it,’ explains the visitor in tones Gloria hopes to be conclusive.

‘Indeed there is, sister,’ she agrees dully.

Fourteen years of convent education are no preparation for forcibly ejecting elderly nuns from your hospital room. Besides she’s leaving now – no, it’s a false alarm. The nun lifts her bag from the floor but instead of standing up she’s rooting around for something.

Amazing, notes Gloria. You can spend a lifetime in a convent, devoting yourself to God and good works, but there are certain female traits that can never be sublimated and the instinct to cram handbags to the hilt is one of them.

The nun tracks down what she’s searching for and produces it with a magician’s flourish: a holy picture showing the Madonna and Child. Gloria holds it limply. Our Lady is wearing her usual impractical blue nightdress – who decided the poor woman always has to be kitted out in bedclothes anyway? The small blond toddler in Mary’s arms looks like a right handful, no chance of persuading him to eat his greens if he doesn’t feel like it.

Mother and tearaway have their hands joined in prayer peaks and at the bottom of the card is an invocation, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.’

Even the Virgin Mary has a baby, Gloria thinks sourly. The nun settles herself back in the chair and she stares at her mouth as it opens and closes, opens and closes.

Can the nun direct her to where the Holy Spirit will impregnate her? Otherwise she may as well leave. It doesn’t even have to be a child of God, an ordinary one will do.

A nurse’s head appears around the door. It’s Imelda, Gloria’s favourite one. She and her boyfriend are saving up to emigrate to Australia but they keep having to postpone the departure date because of sessions. Either it’s a session for a brother’s birthday or a session for a friend’s wedding (that can run into week-long celebrations) or a session for their engagement. Sessions are what make life worth living for Imelda but they don’t help her and Gerry the Guard save for their Outback Odyssey.

‘Doctor Hughes is about to make his rounds,’ she announces, a prim figure in her nurse’s white. You’d never think this was the girl who bartered a pint of Guinness and her uniform badge for the male stripper’s lurex thong at a hen party last week, claiming she wanted Gerry the Guard to try it for size. Gloria looks hopefully at her but is unable to signal the necessary distress flare.

Fortunately Imelda’s talents don’t begin and end with partying like there’s no Gomorrah. A glance at the patient’s face shows an unnatural brightness in the eyes. Instead of bustling off, Imelda comes into the room and helps the nun to her feet:

‘I think it’s time we gave you a drop of tea, sister, we’ll have you worn out with all the visits you’re paying.’

No wonder they call nurses angels, thinks Gloria. If Imelda weren’t engaged she’d marry the girl herself. Of course she’s married already, and the wrong sex to pledge herself to someone called Imelda – at least here in Ireland. Still, she feels a rush of love for the nurse in that instant.

‘Here we go, sister.’ Imelda beams down into the older woman’s face as she lifts her bag and attaches it to the bent arm.

‘Well, maybe a cup of something would be pleasant,’ concedes the nun, allowing herself to be led.

She hobbles to a halt as she passes Gloria’s bedside and pats a hand, not noticing the bone poking through the knuckles.

‘I hope I’ve helped you, dear. It’s good of you to let me talk to you. You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to be bothered these days. They tell me they’ve lost their faith, as though they could misplace it like a spool of thread.’

‘Thank you for your trouble, sister,’ whispers Gloria as she potters off.

‘I’m the world’s biggest hypocrite,’ Gloria wails to the empty room.

She buries her face in the pillow, not knowing if she hates this inoffensive nun or herself more. The misery wells up and splashes down her cheeks. It’s not fair, she sobs against the starch. The worst sort of pillow talk. But even weeping requires energy that she can’t muster – the tears peter out and she’s left with a thumping headache.

Imelda lands back with the doctor, who glances at her blotchy face and decides to jolly her along. Gloria imagines him dressed like Ronald McDonald handing out balloons.

‘Now, now, we can’t have this moping, there’ll be plenty more babies,’ he booms.

Imelda sits beside Gloria and holds her fingers in her capable, calloused nurse’s hand – Gloria is amazed at how needily she clings to it.

‘This is only a temporary setback, you’ll be pregnant again in no time,’ insists Dr Hughes.

Feck off, you quack, she says, but only inside her head. She feels better and a twitch that could pass for a half-hearted smile chases across her face. The doctor is delighted with himself.

‘Sensible girl,’ he nods, flicking through her notes.

He’s headmasterly, jowly and heavy-handed with the aftershave. A few checks and he’s on his way.

‘I’ll be seeing you in the maternity ward one of these days,’ he calls from the door.

Not if I see you first, you scut, she says, but naturally it’s only inside her head again.

Kate and Eimear arrive simultaneously: Kate is weighed down with bribes – a stack of magazines in her arms as well as flowers – while Eimear proffers a box of chocolates so large she should have applied for planning permission.

‘God love you, Gloria, you’ve been through the wars. How many pints of blood did they pump you full of? I wonder whose blood it was? I hadn’t a notion ectopic pregnancies were so serious – that you can actually die from them. You’re not going to die on us now, are you, break up the trio?’

Kate rattles through this without so much as drawing breath, she always did take life at the gallop. Eimear is quieter, she perches on the edge of the bed and looks steadily at her friend’s wan face.

Gloria sees Kate’s game, she’s trying to pretend she didn’t visit her earlier. While Eimear struggles to open the window – it’s painted shut – Kate gives Gloria a cautionary look, taps her finger against her lips and says loudly, ‘Mulligan here and I bumped into each other by the front desk.’

As she gushes on about what a fright they’ve had, Eimear leans across, whispers, ‘Poor you,’ and touches the invalid’s hair. It’s exactly what she needs. The stroking soothes her, she has a little wallow, then, when Eimear murmurs, ‘Such bad luck,’ she’s ready to be brave.

‘Good luck, bad luck, who knows?’ Gloria gives an elaborate shrug.

They stare at her a moment before laughing aloud – nervous peals, admittedly, but better than none at all.

‘Good luck, bad luck, who knows?’ they repeat, mimicking the shrug.

It’s their mantra, the three have parroted it for years when one of them has a setback. Unbelievably it does cheer them up.

Gloria is almost enjoying their visit. Perhaps that’s an over-statement, since she’ll never rejoice in anything again, but they do distract her from her misery – and from Kate’s atomic conversational gambit of a few hours earlier.

‘How’d you end up with a private room?’ asks Kate, as she rips the cover off Eimear’s chocolates. ‘You could fly from Dublin to Florida and back for the price of a couple of nights.’

‘Mick’s job at the bank gives us free health cover.’

Gloria is vague, she’s scrutinising the contents with the due gravity such an outsized package of cocoa solids deserves. Chinese farmers could probably grow enough rice to feed a family of eight on a patch of land the size of this box. The chocolates are called Inspirational Irish Women and they make their selection from such luminaries of Hibernian womanhood as Lady Gregory and Countess Markievicz. Kate chooses Maud Gonne so she can tell her Belfast hospital story again.

‘Remember the summer you worked as a domestic in the Royal?’ Gloria prompts her and she’s in like Flynn with the rest of the story.

‘One of the regular domestics was called Maud and if anyone asked for her when her shift was finished, I used to tell them, “Maud’s gone,” and then double over,’ she recalls. ‘None of them ever seemed to get the joke, they just thought it was a mistake to take on light-headed students.’

‘Which it was,’ interjects Eimear.

‘Which it was,’ agrees Kate. ‘The amount of pinching that went on was serious. I still have a conscience about the breast pump I stuffed into my holdall – I didn’t even know anyone who was breastfeeding. I ended up dumping it in the Lagan one night.’

‘You were young and stupid,’ consoles Eimear. ‘Weren’t we all.’

‘What’s my excuse now,’ Kate responds.

It jolts Gloria back into a recollection of her friend’s transgression. How can she giggle with Eimear about student high-jinks when she’s behaving like a low life with her husband? This needs sorting – only not just yet. She aches too much to concentrate on anything but her own hurt.

She watches her friends as they chatter, flicking through magazines and reading her get-well cards. Kate’s guessing who they’re from by the pictures on the front. She lifts one that reads ‘To My Darling Wife’ in gold lettering and says: ‘Next-door neighbour? The boss? No, it has to be from the cat.’

‘You fool,’ Eimear slaps her playfully.

If only she knew, frowns Gloria, there’d be nothing light-hearted about that blow. But she can’t be the one to tell her. Can she? She sucks on a ragged fingernail and tunes out of their conversation, content simply to have them there in the room with her. Her two best friends. They interpreted it as a sign when they were chosen for the nativity play: they’d been singled out to become a troika.

Ostensibly the roles went to the girls because they were the tallest in the class and the likeliest males, providing curls and dimples could be overlooked. But they knew better – it was meant to be. When three girls have been through the Loreto Convent school play together, wearing scratchy cotton-wool beards, it forms a bond. How they swanned about in their cornflake-box crowns.

Gloria is six again and decked out in her mother’s ruby quilted dressing gown, trailing sleeves and trailing hem. Eimear was the black wise man and wore not just a crown but a turban too. Of course you’re only meant to have one or the other but when Eimear saw her friends’ gilded concoctions she threw a tantrum until the nuns gave in to her. And that took some scene because nuns aren’t ones for giving in: it sets a damaging precedent.

Eimear carried the gold, Kate the frankincense and she had the mirror. That’s what they called it, initially by mistake and then as their first private joke. Gloria still has a photo of the three of them, looking bashfully exotic in their cobbled together finery, with Sister Thaddeus – the play’s director, casting manager and costumier – exposing an excessive quantity of gum alongside. She came from Dublin, the finest city in the world she claimed, and none of them could contradict her. At six you don’t tend to be well-travelled.

‘How far is Dublin from Omagh?’ they asked.

‘A hundred and twelve miles,’ she said – an immeasurable distance.

After the nativity play they became a trinity. Three was their lucky number: there were three of them, that’s one trio; they were the three wise men, that’s another; each of them was six, that’s two threes; and they were all born in September, the ninth month, three threes.

As teenagers they fantasised about forming one of those all-girl singing trios and taking on the pop world: Eimear as their lead singer, the blonde one that everyone could fancy. Kate and Gloria mopping up the stragglers – Kate with her copper hair and Gloria with her nearly black. Something for everyone in the audience. It never went beyond a few rehearsals of ‘Leader of the Pack’, with the girls cooing about meeting a biker in the candy store in dire American accents. Everyone sings in brutal American accents in Irish country towns, it’s the rule. They had their name picked out before the first rehearsal: The Unholy Trinity.

They were inseparable all through school, then diverged to colleges in Belfast, Dublin and London – but it was only a trial separation because they all ended up together in Dublin. That was down to Eimear’s machinations because she kept sending the others ads for jobs cut out of the Dublin papers.

‘We might as well have conceded defeat the first time she mentioned us moving to Dublin because Eimear always gets what she wants, she’s one of life’s winners,’ reflects Gloria. ‘I’m one of life’s runners-up and Kate doesn’t even bother going under starter’s orders because she’s not in the same race.’

Being stuck in hospital is an example of how she always falls at some hurdle or other. She wants a baby and becomes pregnant – so far so good. But it’s not a viable pregnancy, to use that delightful medical term fielded by Dr Hughes, so instead of a baby she ends up with an ambulance ride at 3 a.m., an operation and a chunk out of a fallopian tube. She thinks she’ll have a slash of a scar too, from the peek she took when Imelda was changing her dressing, although she doesn’t like looking at it. The place where they cut her baby out.

Mick was throwing up while they operated on her. Hospitals have that effect on him.

Mick’s her husband of eight years, the man she’s loved since a teenager. Wouldn’t you think they could take Dr Hughes’ advice, crassly expressed though it is, and push on with rupturing her other fallopian tube or planting a baby in the right spot? Not if her Michael has anything to do with it. He’s saying they have to take a break from babymaking, a proper break, until she mends – and Gloria has the distinct impression he means from sex as well as procreation. Not that she necessarily wants him to climb on her here and now in the hospital bed but she’d like to think there’d be some cavorting this side of the menopause.

‘The trouble is,’ she broods, I’m dealing with a man who looks relieved at the idea he’s under doctor’s orders to tuck his wife into the far end of the bed and drop a chaste kiss on her forehead.’

To add insult to injury she has a nun who tells her what’s happened is God’s will, a doctor who predicts she’ll go on to produce a brood of seven and, the final ignominy, a bedpan below her backside. Which she’s actually grateful for. But at least the nurses are human and there’s always Kate and Eimear to bring her chocolates and set her laughing. Although it hurts her right side when she does, the missing-tube side where her baby clung fleetingly to life.