‘I pray th’ worst is over-for th’ night, anyway.’
A barefoot Fletcher appeared in the hall, a wraith in a white nightgown. ‘She’s burned our ears off shouting at God, givin’ him th’ devil if I ever heard it. I was lookin’ for lightning to strike th’ place.’
‘What can I do?’
‘Eileen’s with her, an’ Seamus is up if you’d like tea. I’m telling you, Rev’rend, even with th’ lorazepam, her mind is a steel trap, I’ve never seen its equal in an old lady.’ The nurse drew her hands through her hair, looked at her night-dress, her bare feet. ‘Excuse my getup; round here, we must hit th’ floor runnin’.’
‘Liam said I was wanted. Has she asked for me?’
‘She’s been askin’ for you, yes, we hated to rout you at such an hour.’
‘No rest for the wicked, as we say back home. Perfectly fine. Paddy?’
‘Dr. Feeney packed him off drunk as a lord an’ blubberin’ like a babby. Some gosser from Jack Kennedy’s came for him.’
‘Blubbering because he didn’t want to leave?’
‘Oh, no, he wanted to leave, for all that, I don’t know why he was blubberin’. Th’ drink does that with some, you know.’
‘Dublin?’
‘That’s th’ plan.’
‘Anything else going on?’
‘Until a bit ago, it was weeping an’ gnashin’ of teeth like in th’ book of Revelation-my uncle told me all about the end times, which he shouldn’t have done as I was a nervous child. Talkin’ out of her head, calling for her mum an’ sisters enough to break your heart. And God above, th’ screamin’ she can do. It elevates th’ pain, but she does it anyway, to see how much she can dish out to herself.’
‘How are you getting on?’
‘Even after what I went through with my father, it still scares th’ daylights out of me. ’t is like the devil himself gets loose. But I’m fine, I’m keepin’ up. Eileen goes on short hours soon, her brother’s in a bad way; I’ll be th’ one-armed paper hanger for a time.’
‘Is she sleeping?’
‘She slept for a bit after wearin’ herself out, but she’s awake now, has something to ask you that’s agitating her. If you don’t mind, Rev’rend, I’ll just try an’ catch a wink, as God knows I’ve had none. There’s Eileen if you need her, and Seamus. Overlook th’ smell, we got a bite down her an’ back it came an’ more. We’ll air out tomorrow.’
A single lamp burning. Eileen in a chair by the door, Cuch sleeping. He stepped into the room.
‘Eileen.’
‘Yes, mum?’
‘You may leave.’
The nurse left at once.
‘Reverend.’
‘Yes, Mrs. Conor. I’m here.’ The desperate panting; her reddened fingers thick with swelling.
‘Call me Evelyn. Everything must be simplified now.’
The ghastly leg uncovered. He pulled the chair up and leaned close, as if offering fire to a cold hearth.
‘You can do this,’ he said.
He was gripped by the look of her, as if she were going away to nothing, would be but an impression on the pillow the next time he came. And yet her will was there, he felt the iron of it.
‘I have a question,’ she said.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Something happened tonight.’ Her finger movement rapid. ‘After all the promises to myself that I could do this, I felt I couldn’t bear it, after all. The agony was overcoming; I knew I was dying. I wanted to die. If I could be said ever to pray, then I prayed I would die.
‘But I didn’t wish to pass until I told God what monstrous evil he is and how he had fooled so many but not myself, not Evelyn McGuiness, no, he could not mock me. I emptied myself of my last strength-with everything in me I obliterated him, I erased him from the heavens.’
Her quick breath stirring the sour air.
‘There was nothing left then of either of us, I thought I had died. But I had not died, as you see. What I thought was death was a peace such as I’ve never felt or believed possible. It was completely strange to me, and cannot be explained. I knew it had nothing to do with God, for God was dead, I had killed him in retribution for the many killings he has laid upon me. The peace did not pass quickly, as I believed it might. I thought, if this is dying, then I am not afraid to die.’
‘Don’t die,’ he said, simply.
‘There’s no reason to live. I only wished to live as proof I couldn’t be made to die.’
‘You must rest, Evelyn. You must give yourself time to heal.’
She licked her dry lips. ‘I cannot rest.’
‘Is the peace still with you?’
‘No. I did not deserve it, and it left me.’ Tears.
He sat, head down, feeling called out of himself, beyond his powers.
‘Water,’ he said, taking up the glass and bending the straw to her lips. She sucked.
‘So sick,’ she said, turning away.
He took a cotton-tipped stick from the jar and opened the lip balm and dressed the tip. ‘Let me,’ he said.
She opened her eyes to him, and he succored her lips as he had done for his mother. She was too frail to wrack herself like this, it was suicidal.
He stepped to the door to call Eileen, remembering for some reason his mother’s eyelids in death, how thin they seemed, and blue, like the wings of a moth. She had died at home, whispering that the garden gates were closed.
He turned and looked back and saw that she had gone to sleep, her mouth open in the awful gasping.
Wait, he wanted to say, you had a question. He went to her bed and fell to his knees and with his own last strength did what he could in the face of the impossible.