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I used to jump out at her from under the bridge. Like a troll, she used to say. Then she’d walk fast trying to get away and I’d run backwards in front of her, faster. Then she’d get angry with me. Then she’d stop. She’d put her hands on her hips and I’d be panting and trying to smoke. I could never find my lighter so she always had to dip in to her handbag and give me hers. She would do this with a long-suffering air and I would say, didn’t think you were supposed to be smoking, mummy. She’d be flustered. She always offered me money then, to go away, as much as I liked, leave Belfast, leave Ireland, get so fucked up I finally left the world all together. She didn’t mean it though. She couldn’t give me that sort of money. She couldn’t get that sort of money off him. She knew it. I knew it. She knew that I knew it too.
What’s the matter? I’d say, following her in to town with my hands in my pockets. We’d talk in to our upturned collars like it was Berlin in the nineteen-twenties. Like we were black and white footage. Film-noir. What’s the matter? I’d say, don’t you want to be a patron of the arts? Sometimes I’d give her my coat, if it was cold. Sometimes I’d give her a nip from my bottle, bring the colour back to her cheeks. She looks better that way, bit of colour. These two bright spots against an earl-grey face, like a retouched photograph, colourised.
You wouldn’t think she’d had four kids to look at her. You wouldn’t think the last one had been born just a year ago. You’d never guess how old she was. She spends a lot of money to keep folks guessing. Proper sphinx riddle it is. But I know. She doesn’t like that I know. She makes me promise I won’t tell. But I would never tell. Who would I tell? No one who’d give me the time of day cares. But does he know Agnes? You have to tell him. You can’t have any more kids at your time of life. It’ll finish you off. She looks at the floor when I say things like this. She doesn’t like me to talk about children.
Sometimes she’d meet me after dark. We’d try and puzzle out the stars like insoluble cryptograms. We’d try and solve the universe. She’d put her head on my shoulder, sometimes, and we’d watch an indivisible twilight. She might bring me something to eat if I was lucky. You’re looking so thin, she’d say, I wish you’d take better care of yourself. Sometimes I’d let it go. Sometimes I’d say, you could always try and take care of me again Agnes. But I’d made my choice. And she’d made hers. We both knew that.
Sometimes I’d watch her walk home from work. I didn’t jump out at her then. There were too many people. Someone would see. I just liked to watch the way the evening settled on her, fine lilac light on her bygone-blue scarf, the way the clasp on her bag and the buckles on her shoes caught the sun. I liked the way she walked too. Even when arrayed in bruises she kept her head up. A better born class of lady would wear dark glasses and head-scarves, would Jacky-O it round town, doing too-fragile-to-face-the-world close-ups at people. Tea, sympathy. Fifteen minutes of fame. Not Agnes. Agnes would have a proper shiner and she’d embarrass everyone in to silence with it. Trip everyone up on their tongues before they got the words out. And if anyone did ask she’d laugh out loud, oh we had a right corker of a row last night, but don’t you worry pet, I gave as good as I got. And they’d believe that. Although she didn’t.
I used to ask her if she wanted him dead. If she wanted me to make him dead. Why would I? She’d say. It hurt me when she said that. It hurt me a lot.
One time before the last, I stood across the street from where she worked, in the rain, all day, because I’d failed to make the rent and they’d thrown me out. I had no where to go. When she went for her lunch I cried on her shoulder and she brought me sweet tea and held my hands to the cup, keeping me warm in a dingy café under the railway arches. She tilted my chin and stroked my cheek with her right hand. Her fingers felt like tissue paper. You’re still such a handsome boy, she said, fixing me with those trapped-amber eyes of hers, despite the life you’ve lead. Road apples, me and you Agnes. She’d shaken her head. Do you still believe in God? I didn’t know what to say. Did you ever believe in God? She stops holding my face. I feel like someone pulled my crutches away. I’ve got nowhere to go Agnes, I’ve got no one to be with. Those trapped-amber eyes go pale as honey. She takes a wad of notes from her bag and leaves them on the table. I’m sorry, she says, I can’t help you. I got worse than drunk that night.
The last time, I went to the house. I saw her under the bridge in the morning, see. Her lip was all split. She could hardly walk. I told him I couldn’t have another baby, she said. The doctor said I couldn’t have another baby. So I told him. That was all she said. I held her there. She didn’t walk fast and I didn’t run backwards faster. We didn’t care who saw. Her hair like gold leaf round her chilly-pale face, her long grey wool coat, her frost-bitten fingers where she’d forgotten to pick up her gloves. I tried to memorise her. She wasn’t holding her head high anymore. He’d bowed her, hobbled her, turned her in to some kind of crooked concubine, shuffling forward with bound-foot footsteps. Bastard. Bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard. Where is he? I asked her. Is he at home now? Katsumi’s taken the children to nursery, she says absentmindedly. The baby too? The baby too. I think about the children. Brendan, the eldest, is eight years younger than me. She sends him to boarding-school so he doesn’t have to be at home with that miserable fuck. She sends them away from her as soon as they’re old enough to go. So that sick thug bully fuck can’t hurt them, can’t kill all the joy and goodness inside of them. That’s the lesson she’s had to learn in life. That’s the lesson I wish she hadn’t had to learn. That’s why she has affairs. There have been a lot of men. It isn’t the sex. It isn’t that they’ll promise her anything. It’s that they make her a cup of tea, ask after the kids. It’s that they ask her permission. It's a lot of things. Little things. Devil's in the details. I know. It’s alright Agnes, I’ll take care of it.
I took care of it. Only I didn't. I made it worse. I don't know how many days have passed. You could have killed him, she says to me. You could have killed him, he nearly killed you. You stupid, stupid boy, what am I supposed to do? You know what they’re charging you with, don’t you? I nod weakly. I’m broken. Billy’s a big man, what did you think would happen? I’m not sorry, I should have done this years ago. She picks up my hand by the tips of my fingers. You stupid boy, she says, you stupid boy, you’ll go down for this, you know you will. They’ve been looking for an excuse, you said so yourself. I shake my head, tell them Agnes, tell them while they’re listening, while they can help you, while they can find you somewhere to go, tell them, tell them what he does to you. She closes her eyes. She says her Rosary. Agnes tell them, tell them please. She shakes her head. Tell them, before he’s out of hospital. You can be free Agnes, we can be free, we can be together again.
No, she says, no we can’t. I can’t stand to look at you, that’s the truth of it, I can’t stand to look at you after what he did to you. After what I did to you, it puts me to shame. She doesn’t want me. I’m not surprised. I guess I saw it coming. Catch yourself on, what did you think would happen? I say to myself, sighing inwardly. I feel so weary, so very bloody weary. She squeezes my fingers again. We’ve been so far apart for such a long time. She only ever got to put her arms around me when I was broken so badly I had to hold still. It was too hard. In the end I stopped letting her love me. I stopped being loveable. I left. But I couldn’t leave her. I can’t leave her. Don’t make me leave you Agnes, please. I’ll go where you won’t have to look at me, just tell them why, tell them who I am, join the dots for them, please Ma, please.
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The human race, the only race I know where everybody loses.
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