Bina Page 8

  It’s a lot of work, thinking.

  People don’t realize how much work it is.

  Even if you’re lying down.

  It’s not easy to tame time or tether the glorious mind.

  Of course, you do a bit of scheming if you’re heading to bed long-term. You don’t just hop in. You need a few basics if you are planning on not moving. These are the things I would warn you to organize before you get into the bed.

  1. Kettle

  2. Bucket

  3. Tea

  4. Biscuits

  5. Books, knitting, tasks

  6. Electric blanket

  7. Clean vests.

  8. Mouthwash

  9. Small plastic container

  10. Any medicine you take daily

  11. Phone with long extension to pass under the door

  12. Big stick in case of intruders

  13. Whistle in case stick doesn’t deter

  14. Sweets

  15. Tight stockings for your varicose veins

  16. Radio

  17. Torch as light and weapon

  18. Knife in case big stick, whistle & torch fail you

  19. Paracetamol

  20. Ginger cake (unlikely to be stolen, it’s an acquired taste & doesn’t mould quick)

  I could have planned it better, but all in all I did well. Like I said, I am very good at going to bed. When I’ve had enough, my mind shuts and into the bed I take myself.

  This is the most frightening state a woman can enter because if you are in bed you are suddenly no use to anybody and it’s only then they realize how much use you were. If I were to warn you in relation to going to bed, I would only advise not to wait too long to do so, but hold out as long as you can once supine. Do not budge or they won’t take you serious. And you won’t take yourself serious either.

  An agreement was reached.

  An agreement was reached between the two women.

  The way women agree to such things.

  Phil & I had agreed to it the way we have agreed to things for the lifetime we have known each other. We agree this way. One or the other of us says something and the other doesn’t disagree. That’s all it takes. We knew we’d agreed because when she’d asked me, every other single time, whether I would do what she wants me to do, I had a reply for her and she, in turn, had an answer for me. I said only I’d think about it, fully intending never to think about it. This time my response was different. My response was a quietly considered but firm grand. She was probably taken aback because, although she knew agreement might one day come, she probably had not expected it that soon. I had not known that all agreement would require was for me to lie down. Once I lay down in my bed, Phil’s reasoning about her exit made absolute sense.

  You’ve to understand I am not warning you not to lie down or to reach this conclusion faster. If anything, anytime I’ve lain down it has been a great deal more fruitful than whenever I’ve stood up. Generally, as long as you put a bit of planning into it and bar the door, the bed is about the only place you can be guaranteed peace. No sooner have you peace do you see what needs to be done. And what did I see? I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw my own bed empty and I saw Phil’s bed needing emptying. It flushed over me: it was time for me to be gone and her to be gone because if I were gone, or to go first, she’d have no one who’d be anywhere near being able to get her gone, only herself. And this had long been her contention, that had she the means she’d already be gone and I was doing no justice to either of us by holding her up.

  I failed to see her logic when she pinned it me this way. I couldn’t even see the border of her wallpapered reasoning. I thought she was clean crackers, which was a local murmured rumour I personally paid no heed to. There’s nothing the matter with that woman, I told them that time at the hospital. And hasn’t she levelled that back to me bang, bang, boomerang between my eyes? You, she said into the phone in my ear—for when I took to the bed we sometimes held thrice daily conversations—sure it was you warned me not to let them put anything in my mouth nor up the other end either, and if they had done, maybe now I wouldn’t be stuck marooned, maybe they would have finished me off.

  Ah that was different.

  How was it different?

  They were against you then.

  And it’s you who are against me now?

  I’m not a bit against you, I said. I’m for you. I’m all for you sticking around.

  Who’s going to wipe my arse when I can’t reach it? Will you wipe it?

  I will.

  And how will you wipe it laid up there in your bed?

  I’ll get out of my bed.

  Get out of your bed now.

  I’m not ready to get out of my bed.

  I was stubborn on this point, as I’d only just gotten into my bed.

  And Phil resorted to they’d given her three months to live and I resorted to they’d given her anywhere from three months to three years and we both resorted to silence. The kind of silence that drips, where all that needed to be said was being thought and we would never get beyond these thoughts without one or the other of us protesting.

  We’re no good to one another in these states, Phil said to me another time on the phone.

  We’re grand, I said. There’s worse than us.

  She didn’t believe me. And I didn’t believe me. But we moved on from the big old fencepost staking the truth and the two of us apart.

  Has Forty Guts gone? Phil said.

  He has in his arse.

  I know how you can get him gone, she said as she sat in her chair looking weaker than I’d ever seen her. Her right hand was failing her. It’s like a claw, she said, and what use have I for a claw.

  It’s true I went to bed that first time to think, but quite honestly, I also took to the bed for safety.

  Out of nowhere, Eddie started physically hitting/shoving/waving his hands close to my face. The threat of a hit, the start of a hit becoming a shove, a push and a bump or jostle. And the only place I felt safe was in bed. It’s very hard to hit someone if they are inside their bedroom lying flat with the door locked. See, he’d hit me in sly ways and only in the kitchen or if I’d cause to hand him a cup. I kept forgetting this. Give me that cup he’d say and I’d reach for the cup and he’d strike me every time. He would slam the bottom of his hand under the cup if there was hot liquid in it and up to scald me it would. I learned never to put a cup with liquid in it near him. He became so unpredictable that I’d be fleeing the house first thing in the morning and taking the car to do so, because there is no other way to flee without getting soaked, and it was my car, purchased for my purposes, until Eddie crawled into my life. Plus I was keen to keep him out of my car for very good reasons. He’d been stopped a few times with drink taken. And even though he had rigged up a jalopy of his own from discarded lumps of different cars, he would still swipe mine instead. It was as the Tall Man had trained me: predict and get ahead of the questions. Get up and out into the car before Forty Guts. It was how I became so committed to Meals on Wheels. It gave me a purpose for being in the car.

  Now though, I have come home, and when I am home the only safe place for me to be is in the leaba.

  A Crustie said something bothersome to me the other day. You spend a lot of time lying down, Bina, says she. Were you always that way or is this recent? You might be depressed, you might be at risk, she said. And I returned her a look that said mind who and what you are asking and give me the bag of food you are delivering and be gone.

  I used to be agoraphobic myself, she added swift, but this community has helped me overcome it. You, she said, more forcefully, have helped me overcome it.

  I believed no such thing.

  I have no agoraphobia, I told her, it’s only humans I am in here hiding from. I’ve no problem at all with the open air, if you get rid of all the humans.

  Anytime you want to come out and join us you are welcome.

  Thank you. Good night, I said. The poor girl was as thick as a pos
t and wasn’t hearing a word I was saying to her. I’m saying I don’t want to be near humans and she’s replying come out to our stinking tent and join us.

  I am challenged by these Crusties, but they are very good at doing messages and bringing me pie and if they are to be out there they need to make themselves useful or be scarce.

  I didn’t like her questions. I didn’t like that she noticed. I didn’t like that they might be out there sitting up discussing me lying down. I didn’t like it, not because I was ashamed of my lying down. I didn’t like it because the Tall Man trained me. He had trained me not to draw attention to myself and here I had launched a hundred gold balloons worth of attention and all because of going to bed. But this was what he had long warned. It’s the ordinary thing you think won’t be noticed, that’s what will send them in.*2

  But

  Maybe

  Now

  Here’s the thing

  Maybe there comes a time in every woman’s life to lie down.

  Maybe you lie down no matter if someone is abusing you or bothering you or not.

  Maybe it was just the time to lie down.

  I amn’t sure.

  Sometimes you aren’t sure.

  That’s not a warning.

  It’s factual talk.

  She missed her kitchen.

  Bina became a stranger in it.

  She hadn’t realized how much she liked her kitchen

  Until she was unwelcome in it.

  Chased out.

  Bina tried Phil’s advice.

  She tried to have a conniption.

  It was rare Bina took advice

  And she intended never to do so again.

  The conniption didn’t work exactly.

  But

  It didn’t exactly fail.

  But

  It didn’t entirely succeed.

  But

  It wasn’t enough of one.

  It was a reluctant conniption.

  That’s a lot of buts, but life is nothing but a ruler-length but. A major trouble was that the daughter of one of the Meals on Wheels cooks saw me and I could hardly lie to her about what I was up to. Hello there Bina, she said as I’d raised a vase up above my head in the home-and-style section of Dunnes Stores. I had to stop the conniption. Before it got going. I only managed to knock over a large lamp and kick a planter. A benign seizure, they said. Go home and sleep. I don’t have a bath, I told them before they could tell me to take a hot one.

  It is important to get your final exit in order. That’s what the Tall Man said to me, early on in the Group endeavour, when he implied I should join them. He went on with his explaining for a long while over an early game of Scrabble. I remember because I was struggling quite hard throughout with a combination of letters I’ve strangely never gotten since. Many more I’s or U’s than is useful. I asked him where his interest in the Group had come from.

  It was a long story, but since I was now in his confidence—and I had to understand that once I was in his confidence, I would never be out of it and did I understand that? He did not look up on that question, yet he registered my nodded reply and segued straight to more explaining.

  His involvement had come from two places. The first and most important, he said, was he was called to serve (I confess I had no clue what he meant, but assumed he received some sort of signal) but his main motivation came from watching his own mother’s death. She was taken very bad and a disagreement emerged among his two siblings. I watched my mother’s exhausted eyes. I saw her mouth globbed up with tubes and my pedant brother, who had by now turned heavily to God, insisting none of us could say what my mother wanted. My sister neither agreed nor disagreed, she just stared at our mother and subsequently said it was too distressing to see her in this state and that she could no longer visit her. I said with confidence I knew our mother did not want this. Would you want it? The Tall Man said he’d asked his brother. The brother replied he placed his future and his life in the hands of the Lord. And what if the Lord has no definite plan? We had been estranged for years and only our mother’s demise threw us together in this room, you must understand. Once inside the room, who makes the decision? Be careful whom you wind up in a room with, he warned me. I thought it was quite excellent advice given the situation I’d already gotten myself in with Eddie.

  Oh you’ve no need to warn me on that front, I said. I have made every mistake possible. He placed down the word “equip” on the Scrabble board and muttered only you must get rid of him.

  Easy said.

  Be careful whom you invite into your home, my mother warned me, said he.

  And yet she wasn’t ready herself?

  Well she had failed to tally who was already in her room. You have no idea what your children will grow up to become.

  Unbearable would be my hardiest guess.

  You are not far wrong, he said. Your turn.

  The word I played was complacent

  I have never since topped it.

  Phil said her arm was weak to the point where she couldn’t bake anymore.

  You hate baking, I said. You were always complaining about baking.

  That’s not the point, she said.

  Well what is the point?

  I could bake. I could bake so I had something to complain about.

  I agreed.

  I saw her point.

  The fact of the matter is it’s important to have something to complain about, and if it is baking so be it.

  I would never want to live in a country where complaining was forbidden.

  What would you talk of, if it were so?

  One winter during Eddie, we were hit with awful bad weather

  And things deteriorated.

  It snowed.

  That was unusual.

  It was very, very cold. It’s usually very, very cold in my house. I kept it cold deliberately to tempt Eddie to leave.

  It was during this cold spell my daily escape plans could work no longer.

  We were penned in

  Eddie and I

  And things unravelled.

  Or maybe they finally came together.

  Because ultimately it trampolined his arse out of here.

  There are too many coincidences for the power of prayer not to have worked, a very sick woman once said to me as I helped her, in the way that I have been helping people, but cannot specify how here. For if I write it down, people will suffer. I don’t want suffering. I don’t want more Eddie. I want it to stop. I want the man or woman who has had enough to be able to go for a sleep without end, for I have known intermittently what it is to desire that and I haven’t even had the agony of physical pain boring 76 holes in my head all day long. If it was the power of prayer that brought me to her, and the relief I honestly only-by-chance delivered—since there are a few of us in the Group—so be it. I am not a one-woman bandit like the papers insist. How, I asked her, could she be certain that what we were about to do was the right thing for her to do?

  I have prayed about it, she said.

  But God would be frowning on what you propose here?

  I have prayed for him to send me a signal to proceed. And he has sent me you.

  I handed her the small paper cup with the flowers on it and gave her the talk that we must give. That if you. Then this will. And are you understanding me?

  Oh I am, she said. I’ve never understood any single thing better.

  She was the only person I ever witnessed who downed it all in one swig and did not plead for chocolate or apple juice nor cough or spit.

  Her head went back onto that pillow.

  She smiled peacefully.

  Mouthed the words thank you.

  I held her hand.

  Good night now, I said.

  She squeezed my hand.

  All’s well, I said.

  I was there.

  She was there.

  It was indisputable when the time for reckoning came.

  The pipes froze

  Dur
ing the very cold spell.

  We had no heat.

  Eddie and I were stuck inside the house with no hot water and no ability to escape each other.

  He received an awful lot of phone calls. People seemed to be angry with him about not picking up or dropping off stuff. He said he couldn’t get up the hill but he’d get it gone soon. He spoke in lowered mumbles and, given he was unable to speak in a normal tone of voice and usually always shouted, I confess I was suspicious about what he was up to.

  It was then that I realized Eddie had the potential to kill me.

  He could kill me rapid or continue to erode me slowly as he had been doing.

  When we weren’t frozen in

  I could duck

  I could dodge.

  I could remove myself to bed or remove myself from the house, but as long as he remained, I was at risk. I understood, like I never could have envisaged possible, why someone would want to take a shortcut and be gone. I understood because a lump like Eddie can be very hard to move. It is simply a fact that as long as he kept coming home, I was at his mercy. The only reasonable prospect of escape was to not be alive anymore and never face dealing with him again.

  I’d do well to heed my own advice when I’m declaring Phil was wrong.

  I’d do well to heed my own warnings

  But who amongst us ever heeds our own advice.

  We issue the decree

  And the day following forget whatever was decreed and boil the person an egg.

  During the most unbearable years of Eddie, I pressed the Group to allow me to help those furthest away from my home. I had good reasons. If there were a few visits involved, it would take me time to go there and back and keep me out of the house and supply a pause or period of peace, for which I was desperate. I would need the car and I could take the car with confidence knowing that if I hesitated someone else would suffer. I will tell you in the suffering that has been dealing with that man I have found great comfort in relieving the suffering of others.*3