Thanks for the Memories

Though that is not unusual in our marriage.

Conor’s an engineer. He travels abroad to work for months before coming home for one month and going off again. I used to get so used to my own company and routine that for the first week of him being home I’d be irritable and wish he’d go back. That changed over time, of course. Now that irritability stretches to the entire month of him being home. And it’s become glaringly obvious I’m not alone in that feeling.

When Conor took the job all those years ago, it was difficult being away from one another for so long. I used to visit him as much as I could but it was difficult to keep taking time off work. The visits got shorter, rarer, then stopped.

I always thought our marriage could survive anything as long as we both tried. But then I found myself having to try to try. I dug beneath the new layers of complexities we’d created over the years to get to the beginning of the relationship. What was it, I wondered, that we had then that we could revive? What was the thing that could make two people want to promise one another to spend every day of the rest of their lives together? Ah, I found it. It was a thing called love. A small simple word. If only it didn’t mean so much, our marriage would be flawless.

My mind has wandered much while lying in that hospital bed. At times it has stalled in its wandering, like when entering a room and then forgetting what for. It stands alone dumbstruck. At those times it has been numb, and when staring at the pink walls I have thought of nothing but of the fact that I am staring at pink walls.

My mind has bounced from numbness to feeling too much, but on an occasion while wandering far, I dug deep to find a memory of when I was six years old and I had a favourite tea set given to me by my grandmother Betty. She kept it in her house for me to play with when I called over on Saturdays, and during the afternoons when my grandmother was ‘taking tea’ with her friends I would dress in one of my mother’s pretty dresses from when she was a child and have afternoon tea with Aunt Jemima, the cat. The dresses never quite fit but I wore them all the same, and Aunt Jemima and I never did take to tea but we were both polite enough to keep up the pretence until my parents came to collect me at the end of the day. I told this story to Conor a few years ago and he laughed, missing the point.

It was an easy point to miss – I won’t hold him accountable for that – but what my mind was shouting at him to understand was that I’ve increasingly found that people never truly tire of playing games and dressing up, no matter how many years pass. Our lies now are just more sophisticated; our words to deceive, more eloquent. From cowboys and Indians, doctors and nurses, to husband and wife, we’ve never stopped pretending. Sitting in the taxi beside Dad, while listening to Conor over the phone, I realise I’ve stopped pretending.

‘Where is Conor?’ Dad asks as soon as I’ve hung up.

He opens the top button of his shirt and loosens his tie. He dresses in a shirt and tie every time he leaves his house, never forgets his cap. He looks for the handle on the car door, to roll the window down.

‘It’s electronic, Dad. There’s the button. He’s still in Japan. He’ll be home in a few days.’

‘I thought he was coming back yesterday.’ He puts the window all the way down and is almost blown away. His cap topples off his head and the few strands of hair left on his head stick up. He fixes the cap back on his head, has a mini battle with the button before finally figuring out how to leave a small gap at the top for air to enter the stuffy taxi.

‘Ha! Gotcha,’ he smiles victoriously, thumping his fist at the window.

I wait until he’s finished fighting with the window to answer. ‘I told him not to.’

‘You told who what, love?’

‘Conor. You were asking about Conor, Dad.’

‘Ah, that’s right, I was. Home soon, is he?’

I nod.

The day is hot and I blow my fringe up from my sticky forehead. I feel my hair sticking to the back of my clammy neck. Suddenly it feels heavy and greasy on my head. Brown and scraggy, it weighs me down and once again I have the overwhelming urge to shave it all off. I become agitated in my seat and Dad, sensing it again, knows not to say anything. I’ve been doing that all week: experiencing anger beyond comprehension, so that I want to drive my fists through the walls and punch the nurses. Then I become weepy and feel such loss inside me it’s as if I’ll never be filled again. I prefer the anger. Anger is better. Anger is hot and filling and gives me something to cling on to.

We stop at a set of traffic lights and I look to my left. A hair salon.

‘Pull over here, please.’

‘What are you doing, Joyce?’

‘Wait in the car, Dad. I’ll be ten minutes. I’m just going to get a quick haircut. I can’t take it any more.’

Dad looks at the salon and then to the taxi driver and they both know not to say anything. The taxi directly on front of us indicates and moves over to the side of the road too. We pull up behind it.

A man ahead of us gets out of the car and I freeze with one foot out of the car, to watch him. He’s familiar and I think I know him. He pauses and looks at me. We stare at one another for a while. Search each other’s face. He scratches at his left arm; something that holds my attention for far too long. The moment is unusual and goose bumps rise on my skin. The last thing I want is to see somebody I know, and I look away quickly.

He looks away from me too and begins to walk.

‘What are you doing?’ Dad asks far too loudly, and I finally get out of the car.

I start walking towards the hair salon and it becomes clear that our destination is the same. My walk becomes mechanical, awkward, self-conscious. Something about him makes me disjointed. Unsettled. Perhaps it’s the possibility of having to tell somebody there will be no baby. Yes, a month of nonstop baby talk and there will be no baby to show for it. Sorry, guys. I feel guilty for it, as though I’ve cheated my friends and family. The longest tease of all. A baby that will never be. My heart is twisted at the thought of it.

He holds open the door to the salon and smiles. Handsome. Fresh-faced. Tall. Broad. Athletic. Perfect. Is he glowing? I must know him.

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘You’re welcome.’

We both pause, look at one another, back to the two identical taxis waiting for us by the pavement and back to one another. I think he’s about to say something else but I quickly look away and step inside.

The salon is empty and two staff members are sitting down chatting. They are two men; one has a mullet, the other is bleached blond. They see us and spring to attention.

‘Which one do you want?’ the American says out of the side of his mouth.

‘The blond,’ I smile.

‘The mullet it is then,’ he says.

My mouth falls open but I laugh.

‘Hello there, loves.’ The mullet man approaches us. ‘How can I help you?’ He looks back and forth from the American to me. ‘Who is getting their hair done today?’

‘Well, both of us, I assume, right?’ American man looks at me and I nod.

‘Oh, pardon me, I thought you were together.’

I realise we are so close our hips are almost touching. We both look down at our adjoined hips, then up to join eyes and then we both take one step away in the opposite direction.

‘You two should try synchronised swimming,’ the hairdresser laughs, but the joke dies when we fail to react. ‘Ashley, you take the lovely lady. Now come with me.’ He leads his client to a chair. The American makes a face at me while being led away and I laugh again.

‘Right, I just want two inches off, please,’ the American says. ‘The last time I got it done they took, like, twenty off. Please, just two inches,’ he stresses. ‘I’ve got a taxi waiting outside to take me to the airport, so as quick as possible too, please.’

His hairdresser laughs. ‘Sure, no problem. Are you going back to America?’

The man rolls his eyes. ‘No, I’m not going to America, I’m not going on holiday and I’m not going to meet anyone at arrivals. I’m just going to take a flight. Away. Out of here. You Irish ask a lot of questions.’

‘Do we?’

‘Y—’ he stalls and narrows his eyes at the hairdresser.

‘Gotcha,’ the hairdresser smiles, pointing the scissors at him.

‘Yes you did.’ Gritted teeth. ‘You got me good.’

I chuckle aloud and he immediately looks at me. He seems slightly confused. Maybe we do know each other. Maybe he works with Conor. Maybe I went to school with him. Or college. Perhaps he’s in the property business and I’ve worked with him. I can’t have; he’s American. Maybe I showed him a property. Maybe he’s famous and I shouldn’t be staring. I become embarrassed and I turn away again quickly.

My hairdresser wraps a black cape around me and I steal another glance at the man beside me, in the mirror. He looks at me. I look away, then back at him. He looks away. And our tennis match of glances is played out for the duration of our visit.

‘So what will it be for you, madam?’

‘All off,’ I say, trying to avoid my reflection but I feel cold hands on the sides of my hot cheeks, raising my head, and I am forced to stare at myself face to face. There is something unnerving about being forced to look at yourself when you are unwilling to come to terms with something. Something raw and real that you can’t run away from. You can lie to yourself, to your mind and in your mind all of the time but when you look yourself in the face, well, you know that you’re lying. I am not OK. That, I did not hide from myself, and the truth of it stared me in the face. My cheeks are sunken, small black rings below my eyes, red lines like eyeliner still sting from my night tears. But apart from that, I still look like me. Despite this huge change in my life, I look exactly the same. Tired, but me. I don’t know what I’d expected. A totally changed woman, someone that people would look at and just know had been through a traumatic experience. Yet the mirror told me this: you can’t know everything by looking at me. You can never know by looking at someone.

I’m five foot five, with medium-length hair that lands on my shoulders. My hair colour is midway between blonde and brown. I’m a medium kind of person. Not fat, not skinny; I exercise twice a week, jog a little, walk a little, swim a little. Nothing to excess, nothing not enough. Not obsessed, addicted to anything. I’m neither out-going nor shy, but a little of both, depending on my mood, depending on the occasion. I never overdo anything and enjoy most things I do. I’m seldom bored and rarely whine. When I drink I get tipsy but never fall over or get ill. I like my job, don’t love it. I’m pretty, not stunning, not ugly; don’t expect too much, am never too disappointed. I’m never overwhelmed or under it either; just nicely whelmed. I’m OK. Nothing spectacular but sometimes special. I look in the mirror and see this medium average person. A little tired, a little sad, but not falling apart. I look to the man beside me and I see the same.

‘Excuse me?’ the hairdresser breaks into my thoughts. ‘You want it all off? Are you sure? You’ve such healthy hair.’ He runs his fingers through it. ‘Is this your natural colour?’

‘Yes, I used to put a little colour in it but I stopped because of the—’ I’m about to say ‘baby’. My eyes fill and I look down but he thinks I’m nodding to my stomach, which is hidden under the gown.

‘Stopped because of what?’ he asks.

I continue to look at my feet, pretend to be doing something with my foot. An odd shuffle manoeuvre. I can’t think of anything to say to him and so I pretend not to hear him. ‘Huh?’

‘You were saying you stopped because of something?’

‘Oh, em …’ Don’t cry. Don’t cry. If you start now you will never stop. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I mumble, bending over to play with my handbag on the ground. It will pass, it will pass. Someday it will all pass, Joyce. ‘Chemicals. I stopped because of chemicals.’

‘Right, this is what it’ll look like,’ he takes my hair and ties it back. ‘How about we do a Meg Ryan in French Kiss?’ He pulls hairs out in all directions and I look like I’ve stuck my fingers in an electric socket. ‘It’s the sexy messy bed-head look. Or else we can do this.’ He messes about with my hair some more.

‘Can we hurry this along? I’ve got a taxi waiting outside too.’ I look out the window. Dad is chatting to the taxi driver. They’re both laughing and I relax a little.

‘O … K. Something like this really shouldn’t be rushed. You have a lot of hair.’

‘It’s fine. I’m giving you permission to hurry. Just cut it all off.’ I look back to the car.

‘Well, we must leave a few inches on it, darling.’ He directs my face back towards the mirror. ‘We don’t want Sigourney Weaver in Aliens, do we? No GI Janes allowed in this salon. We’ll give you a side-swept fringe, very sophisticated, very now. It’ll suit you, I think, show off those high cheekbones. What do you think?’

I don’t care about my cheekbones. I want it all off.

‘Actually, how about we just do this?’ I take the scissors from his hand, cut my ponytail, and then hand them both back to him.

He gasps. But it sounds more like a squeak. ‘Or we could do that. A … bob.’

American man’s mouth hangs open at the sight of my hairdresser with a large pair of scissors and ten inches of hair dangling from his hand. He turns to his and grabs the scissors before he makes another cut. ‘Do not,’ he points, ‘do that to me!’

Mullet man sighs and rolls his eyes. ‘No, of course not, sir.’

The American starts scratching his left arm again. ‘I must have got a bite.’ He tries to roll up his shirtsleeve and I squirm in my seat, trying to get a look at his arm.

‘Could you please sit still?’

‘Could you please sit still?’

The hairdressers speak in perfect unison. They look to one another and laugh.

‘Something funny in the air today,’ one of them comments and American man and I look at one another. Funny, indeed.

‘Eyes back to the mirror, please, sir.’ He looks away.

My hairdresser places a finger under my chin and tips my face back to the centre. He hands me my ponytail.

‘Souvenir.’

‘I don’t want it.’ I refuse to take my hair in my hands. Every inch of that hair was from a moment that has now gone. Thoughts, wishes, hopes, desires, dreams that are no longer. I want a new start. A new head of hair.

He begins to shape it into style now and as each strand falls I watch it drift to the ground. My head feels lighter.

The hair that grew the day we bought the cot. Snip.

The hair that grew the day we picked the nursery paint colours, bottles, bibs and baby grows. All bought too soon, but we were so excited … Snip.

The hair that grew the day we decided the names. Snip.

The hair that grew the day we announced it to friends and family. Snip.

The day of the first scan. The day I found out I was pregnant. The day my baby was conceived. Snip. Snip. Snip.

The more painful recent memories will remain at the root for another little while. I will have to wait for them to grow until I can be rid of them too and then all traces will be gone and I will move on.

I reach the till as the American pays for his cut.

‘That suits you,’ he comments, studying me.

I go to tuck some hair behind my ear self-consciously but there’s nothing there. I feel lighter, light-headed, delighted with giddiness, giddy with delight.

‘So does yours.’

‘Thank you.’

He opens the door for me.

‘Thank you.’ I step outside.

‘You’re far too polite,’ he tells me.

‘Thank you,’ I smile. ‘So are you.’

‘Thank you,’ he nods.

We laugh. We both gaze at our taxis queuing up waiting, and look back at one another curiously. He gives me a smile.

‘The first taxi or the second taxi?’ he asks.

‘For me?’

He nods. ‘My driver won’t stop talking.’

I study both taxis, see Dad in the second, leaning forward and talking to the driver.

‘The first. My dad won’t stop talking.’

He studies the second taxi where Dad has now pushed his face up against the glass and is staring at me as though I’m an apparition.

‘The second taxi it is, then,’ the American says, and walks to his taxi, glancing back twice.

‘Hey,’ I protest, and watch him, entranced.

I float to my taxi and we both pull our doors closed at the same time. The taxi driver and Dad look at me like they’ve seen a ghost.

‘What?’ My heart beats wildly. ‘What happened? Tell me?’

‘Your hair,’ Dad simply says, his face aghast. ‘You’re like a boy.’

EIGHT

As the taxi gets closer to my home in Phisboro, my stomach knots tighter.

‘That was funny how the man in front kept his taxi waiting too, Gracie, wasn’t it?’

‘Joyce. And yes,’ I reply, my leg bouncing with nerves.

‘Is that what people do now when they get their hairs cut?’

‘Do what, Dad?’

‘Leave taxis waiting outside for them.’

‘I don’t know.’

He shuffles his bum to the edge of the seat and pulls himself closer to the taxi driver. ‘I say, Jack, is that what people do when they go to the barbers now?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Do they leave their taxis outside waiting for them?’

‘I’ve never been asked to do it before,’ the driver explains politely.

Dad sits back satisfied. ‘That’s what I thought, Gracie.’

‘It’s Joyce,’ I snap.

‘Joyce. It’s a coincidence. And you know what they say about coincidences?’

‘Yep.’ We turn the corner onto my street and my stomach flips.

‘That there’s no such thing as a coincidence,’ Dad finishes, even though I’ve already said yes. ‘Indeedy no,’ he says to himself. ‘No such thing. There’s Patrick,’ he waves. ‘I hope he doesn’t wave back.’ He watches his friend from the Monday Club with two hands on his walking-frame. ‘And David out with the dog.’ He waves again although David is stopping to allow his dog to poop and is looking the other way. I get the feeling Dad feels rather grand in a taxi. It’s rare he’s in one, the expense being too much and everywhere he needs to go being within walking distance or a short bus hop away.

‘Home sweet home,’ he announces. ‘How much do I owe you, Jack?’ He leans forward again. He takes two five-euro notes out of his pocket.

‘The bad news, I’m afraid … twenty euro, please.’

‘What?’ Dad looks up in shock.

‘I’ll pay, Dad, put your money away.’ I give the driver twenty-five and tell him to keep the change. Dad looks at me like I’ve just taken a pint out of his hand and poured it down the drain.

Conor and I have lived in the red-brick terraced house in Phisboro since our marriage ten years ago. The houses have been here since the forties, and over the years we’ve pumped our money into modernising it. Finally it’s how we want it, or it was until this week. A black railing encloses a small patch of a front garden where the rose bushes my mother planted preside. Dad lives in an identical house two streets away, the house I grew up in, though we’re never done growing up, continually learning, and when I return to it I regress to my youth.

The front door to my house opens just as the taxi drives off. Dad’s neighbour Fran smiles at me from my own front door. She looks at us awkwardly, failing to make eye contact with me each time she looks in my direction. I’ll have to get used to this.

‘Oh, your hair!’ she says first, then gathers herself. ‘I’m sorry, love, I meant to be out of here by the time you got home.’ She opens the door fully and pulls a checked trolley-bag behind her. She is wearing a single Marigold glove on her right arm.

Dad looks nervous and avoids my eye.

‘What were you doing, Fran? How on earth did you get into my house?’ I try to be as polite as I can but the sight of someone in my house without my permission both surprises and infuriates me.

She pinks and looks to Dad. Dad looks at her hand and coughs. She looks down, laughs nervously and pulls off her single Marigold. ‘Oh, your dad gave me a key. I thought that … well, I put down a nice rug in the hallway for you. I hope you like it.’

I stare at her with utter confusion.

‘Never mind, I’ll be off now.’ She walks by me, grabs my arm and squeezes hard but still refuses to look at me. ‘Take care of yourself, love.’ She walks on down the road, dragging her trolley-bag behind her, her Nora Batty tights in rolls around her thick ankles.

‘Dad,’ I look at him angrily, ‘what the hell is this?’ I push into the house, looking at the disgusting dusty rug on my beige carpet. ‘Why did you give a near-stranger my house keys so she could come in and leave a rug? I am not a charity!’

He takes off his cap and scrunches it in his hands. ‘She’s not a stranger, love. She’s known you since the day you were brought home from the hospital—’

Wrong story to tell at this moment, and he knows it.

‘I don’t care!’ I splutter. ‘It’s my house, not yours! You cannot just do that. I hate this ugly piece of shit rug!’ I pick up one side of the clashing carpet, I drag it outside and then slam the door shut. I’m fuming and I look at Dad to shout at him again. He is pale and shaken. He is looking at the floor sadly. My eyes follow his.

Various shades of faded brown stains, like red wine, splatter the beige carpet. It has been cleaned in some places but the carpet hairs have been brushed in the opposite direction and give away that something once lay there. My blood.

I put my head in my hands.

Dad’s voice is quiet, injured. ‘I thought it would be best for you to come home with that gone.’

‘Oh, Dad.’

‘Fran has been here for a little while everyday now and has tried different things on it. It was me that suggested the rug,’ he adds in a smaller voice. ‘You can’t blame her for that.’

I despise myself.

‘I know you like all the nice new matching things in your house,’ he looks around, ‘but Fran or I wouldn’t have the likes of that.’

‘I’m sorry, Dad. I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry I shouted at you. You’ve been nothing but helpful this week. I’ll … I’ll call around to Fran at some stage and thank her properly.’

‘Right,’ he nods, ‘I’ll leave you at it, so. I’ll bring the rug back to Fran. I don’t want any of the neighbours seeing it outside on the path and telling her so.’

‘No, I’ll put it back where it was. It’s too heavy for you to bring all the way around. I’ll keep it for the time being and return it to her soon.’ I open the front door and retrieve it from the outside path. I drag it back into the house with more respect, laying it down so that it hides the scene where I lost my baby.

‘I’m so sorry, Dad.’

‘Don’t worry.’ He seesaws up to me and pats my shoulder. ‘You’re having a hard time, that I know. I’m only round the corner if you need me for anything.’

With a flick of his wrist, his tweed cap is on his head and I watch him seesaw down the road. The movement is familiar and comforting, like the motion of the sea. He disappears round the corner and I close the door. Alone. Silence. Just me and the house. Life continues as though nothing has happened.

It seems as though the nursery upstairs vibrates through the walls and floor. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. As though like a heart, it’s trying to push out the walls and send blood flowing down the stairs, through the hallways to reach every little nook and cranny. I walk away from the stairs, the scene of the crime, and wander around the rooms. It appears everything is exactly as it was, though on further inspection I see that Fran has tidied around. The cup of tea I was drinking is gone from the coffee table in the living room. The galley kitchen hums with the sound of the dishwasher Fran has set. The taps and draining boards glisten, the surfaces are gleaming. Straight through the kitchen the door leads to the back garden. My mum’s rose bushes line the back wall. Dad’s geraniums peep up from the soil.