Eggshells. Caitriona Lally
yeah, why?”
“I’m having a blue party!”
The snarl on her face melts a little.
“Is it his favourite colour?” she asks.
“Whose favourite colour?”
She looks confused.
“Your little boy, are these not for his birthday party?”
I think for a moment.
“Yes, they are. And I’m making a Smurf cake!”
The woman behind me in the queue pokes her head into the conversation.
“Ah, that’s lovely, what age is he?”
“They’re six, I have boy twins.”
The words glide out of my mouth like a silk thread.
“You must have your hands full with them,” the woman behind me says, but the shop assistant only stares.
“How come you never have them in here with you?”
“Oh …”
I think for a minute.
“They’re in wheelchairs.”
“Ah, God, that’s terrible, terrible!”
“Who minds them?” asks the shop assistant. Her face is squeezed into strange shapes.
“What?”
“When you come in here to do your shopping, who minds them?”
“Oh, they’re fine on their own.”
“You leave them alone?”
Her voice sounds like a cup shattered on a tile.
I look from one angry face to the other.
“They can’t get out of the wheelchairs, they’re fine.”
They look at each other the way that girls in school used to look at each other: an eye-lock that doesn’t include me. Then they look at me with a purity of hate that stiffens me. I pack my blue items into my bag—I wish I’d remembered to bring a blue plastic bag—and pay. The woman behind me is muttering to the woman behind her, and I catch the words “… social services … shouldn’t be let have kids … something wrong with her …” I take my change and hurry off with great big gulps of marbles in my throat. When I reach the house I rush in, close the door and bolt it. If social services come, they might be angrier that I’m not neglecting children I don’t have than if I was neglecting children I did have. I feel sadder than I’ve ever felt before, sad like the end of the world has come and gone without me.
I crawl under the kitchen table with my bag, and crouch among the chair legs. This is the perfect picnic spot with no chance of rain, and it isn’t too uncomfortable if I lean forward. I lay out my blue feast on the black tiles, empty out the M&Ms and Smarties, pick out the blue ones and put the rest away. I start off with the sweet food then I eat some blue cheese—a horror of a food, so I stuff spongy blueberry muffin into my mouth to cancel out the stinking taste. This feels like cheating, because the muffin is mostly beige with only an inky blue stain. It seems right that on the day of my blue feast I’m feeling blue myself. My belly feels bruised inside, as if all the blue foods were having a fist fight among themselves. The underside of the table reminds me of the inside of a coffin lid, so I decide to practise being buried alive. I crawl out from under the table, take the thickest cushions from the sofa and lay them out under the table. I pile them on top of one another until they nearly reach the top, then I squeeze between the cushions and the table and lie down, with my nose tip touching the wood. I lie staring at the table-ceiling, in the muffled peace of the cushions. I don’t know why people talk of the terror of being buried alive—surely the terror is in being alive.
When my mind has settled, I get out and look up world news on the Internet. The news is: “Possibility of war,” “Terror Threats,” “Elections,” “Bomb Blasts,” “Nuclear Threats,” “Global Downturn,” “Anti-Government Protests,” “School Shooting,” “Potential Chemical Weapons Attacks,” “Alleged Murder,” “Suspected Abuse.” My neighbours like to speak of these potentials and possiblys as definitelys and certainlys. Next I look up national news. A politician is calling on another politician to do something. I would like to call on someone to do something, but I don’t know if anyone would listen. A dossier has been compiled about an organisation. I wonder if there’s a dossier about me somewhere. I close the laptop. The news stories are bouncing off each other in my head and words are producing more words and I picture reams of paper hurtling out of printers, filled with unspaced, unparagraphed, unchaptered words. I switch on the radio and turn the dial to the static between stations, but this isn’t enough to fetch me out of a jangle: I must walk. I put on my coat and pick up my bag. I need some gold in my life because blue has not served me well; I will buy a goldfish. I put on my great-aunt’s double-glazed spectacles as a disguise, in case I bump into anyone from the supermarket, and leave the house. I don’t bump into anyone from the supermarket, but I do bump into the garden gate and the kerb, my eyes watery and blind behind the thick glass. I walk through Phibsborough with my arms outstretched in front of me, feeling for obstacles, then I take off the glasses when I turn onto Western Way. This street makes me think of the lifestyle choices of country singers. I head down Dominick Street and swing left onto Parnell Street. A burly man stands at the door of the taxi company smoking.
“Taxi, love?”
“No, goldfish.”
I go into the pet shop and head for the fish tanks. The man behind the counter comes over with a net.
“Looking for a goldfish?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Right so.”
He lifts the lid off the tank and dips in the net.
“Wait!” I say.
“For what?”
“I haven’t decided which one I want yet. I need to see their personalities.”
The man’s top lip curls up.
“You want one with a good sense of humour?”
I laugh to show that I have a good sense of humour, even though I don’t think his joke is very funny. I lean over the tank. The fish are all swimming in the same direction, except for a slightly slower fish drifting at the bottom. He’s more yellow than orange, and some of his scales are missing. I turn to the man.
“I’ll take the yellow one, please.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
The man scoops out my Lemonfish and puts him in a plastic bag of water, then ties the top of the bag in a knot. I buy some goldfish food, pay the man and put the plastic bag in my handbag. Lemonfish will be happier in the dark of my bag than in a moving house with a see-through floor and a knotted roof. I walk back home, putting my great-aunt’s glasses loosely on my nose so that I can see out from over them. Then I let myself into the house, add water to the bowl containing the lemons I bought yesterday and pour in Lemonfish. At first he keeps crashing into lemons, but soon he swims around cautiously and noses the fruit. Maybe he thinks they’re obese, bitter-smelling new friends. I sit at the table and trace the route I just walked onto greaseproof paper: it’s shaped like a fishing rod that has caught another fishing rod.
I DECIDE TO sleep on chairs in the living room tonight. They will be kinder to me than the bed, which creaks and hisses when I can’t sleep. Tea is a comfort but it keeps me awake, so I boil the kettle and make tea in my hot water bottle. The smell of tea and rubber is a good solid combination, like grandmothers and classrooms.