In that moment back there she got me, that lethal bitch, and I didn’t even see her lurking.
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!’