so how do you go about it?” I asked, I was genuinely interested in seeing Mary do something other than obsess about the house.
Within a few weeks Mary started at an acting college. It didn’t come cheap. We didn’t have a whole lot but I thought it was important so I scrimped and saved to pay for it. She spent a year learning the ropes and another six months working on unpaid pieces for students earning their stripes. By the second year Mary was getting paid work. Not a lot, but in a cut throat business she was doing ok, it was a start. Somewhere shortly after she lost interest. Over the course of a couple of months she sabotaged her own chances. First it was a reluctance to go. Every audition, it was a struggle to get her out the door. Then she got a part on a show. The first day of filming Mary was late back from lunch. Some one bawled her out for holding up production. Mary wouldn’t say what happened after that but she never went back to acting. I suspected Mary had shouted at the wrong person. It’s a very small pond in this country and a bad reputation is impossible to get rid of.
“You need to work” I insisted “It can’t always be just me”.
“She doesn’t have to work full time” Iris lectured me a few days later “She’s lucky she only has to work part time”.
“I want to go to college” I told Mary “I can’t do that and support you at the same time, you have to pull your own weight”.
“You have tickets on yourself”.
Chapter Six
Confusion and Contagion
Ten stone on the button. Six months on interferon and I had shed two stone. Food and I were enemies. Fatigue weighed me down like an old nags yoke. Some days were worse than others but none were fun. I was still able to do things but I was slower and needed frequent rest breaks.
Cheap, tacky, plastic statues of the Virgin Mary had appeared in the kids bedrooms. Iris again. My home was no longer my own, it wasn’t even Mary’s. Iris had taken over. She planted plants in my garden put condiments in my fridge and dragged my kids to church. Mary was as glued to her as Kathleen always was.
“You’re even dressing like her” I told Mary. Mary used to be a stylish dresser, it was a big turnaround to see her wear the same drab stuff as Iris.
“I have to do what my mammy says” she told me “I have to conform”.
“Why?”
No answer forthcoming and then she was gone. Mary could barely hide her disgust.
“Cancer is not I crime” I was left talking to myself “it’s not contagious”.
My body wasn’t my own. Weight was dropping off but I was only remotely aware of it. When I looked in the mirror I didn’t see a difference. The weighing scales told a different story. Once a month I went to day oncology. Bloods were checked, a once over from the doc and I was at home again. Leah and Judy were great. Judy hadn’t yet started school and we spent lots of time together. I was teaching her how to play chess. Leah was good at chess, she’d learned the basics at about the same age. Digging holes out in the back garden Mary was oblivious to us. If someone called to the house Mary feigned concern, when they were gone it stopped.
I was proud of the en-suite bathroom. DIY is not my best thing, I can fix an engine but hanging a shelf straight might take a few tries. Despite not being bob the builder I persevered. Some things worked out better than others, it was a trial and effort process. The en-suite was a success story. I’d covered the floor with marine ply spending hours with a hand saw cutting out every tricky angle around the loo, the sink and the shower tray. I got someone else in to do the tiling. The shower doors were a bargain. I’d seen them on sale in a DIY store. There was only a display model left. I haggled the sales assistant down to a hundred quid and helped him dismantle it. I was chuffed. I drove home with the doors hanging out of the boot. When I put them up in the en-suite they fitted perfectly.
Years on and the shower doors became the focus of Mary’s attention. Over the years it had been different things, certain foods, the house, pretty much everything and anything she chose. When Mary focused on something she was unrelenting. Screams, tantrums and stamping feet were all par for the course.
“It has to be perfect” she once explained to me, “everything needs to be perfect”.
The shower doors were bugging her now. She couldn’t stand to see any water marks on them she told me. So there I was, down to nine stone, skinny, sick and sore, after every shower I had to stand there buck naked, dripping wet, shivering and scrubbing the inside of the doors. If I didn’t the bomb exploded.
Looking back now I ask myself how it ever ended up that way. It doesn’t happen overnight, it happens by degrees. It starts small, but before I knew it, I was jumping through hoops to try and prevent the bomb from exploding and still the bomb exploded. Something that was not a problem yesterday was suddenly the most excruciating problem today and then suddenly a day, a week or a month later it was not, it was something else. Over the years I dropped all the personal pursuits I enjoyed, I was far too busy placating Mary. Why? Why is more complicated. I grew up with a strong sense of family. Mam and dad rode out all the tough times together. They were indivisible, we could all try and get around them but it rarely worked and even when it did it was never big stuff. Whatever chance we, the kids, had of dividing them no one else stood a chance. That’s how I thought it should work. I was a rebellious teen, if it was dangerous, stupid and against the rules, I was bound to be in the middle of it. Despite this, I still felt valued by my family and I in turn value my children. I am committed to being a dad. I love it. At the very core of why is the most basic of reasons, I loved Mary and I wanted Mary to love me. I trusted her when she said she did.
So I scrubbed the shower doors clean. It hadn’t yet dawned on me that I was scrubbing because Mary saw me as dirty and infectious. In February we had booked our flights to Spain for the last two weeks in July. In February I was relatively ok by June I was a shadow. I weighed a little less than nine stone. I was skinny like I had never been before. Clothes didn’t fit me anymore. I needed something to wear on holidays. I went to a shopping mall a few miles away. I didn’t get out much partly because I was too sick and tired and partly because I was embarrassed by how I looked. I picked up a few t-shirts and knee length shorts. It wasn’t easy to find a twenty eight inch waist in men’s clothes, I ended up getting shorts in a teenagers section.
I saw the holidays as a chance for Mary and I to get close again. I was confused by the way she was acting toward me. I thought some of it was because of the way I looked. I was sure that Iris’ constant presence was a major influence. I desperately wanted Mary to be nicer to me.
The flight over was uneventful. Mary was still as terse as ever but the kid’s excitement was contagious. They loved it all, they couldn’t wait to get into the pool. I’m sure neither of them had slept much the night before.
The journey had exhausted me. I was really struggling to stay going. When we got to the apartment, I put the bags down and went to sit on the balcony. Mary followed me out and sat down. She immediately accused me of having an affair. I was dumbstruck.
“Why are you saying this to me?” I asked.
“I saw a message on your mobile”. For as long as I can remember Mary has checked my mobile phone, my mail and computer. If I complained then she was convinced that I was hiding something, so I didn’t complain anymore. It was a no win situation.
“Someone
