by Jacinta Cogan
A late summer’s night in the Irish countryside. The last light has faded from the sky; the house has settled into quietness. A bedroom. The bed is in its summer position, pulled into the bay window recess. A very old bed, plain varnished headboard, rickety metallic frame that squeaks softly when she stretches and turns. The sash window nearest her pillow is raised to let in sweet, scented night air, a yaw of traffic from the distant motorway. Inside, silence, interrupted only by the odd sleep-muttering down the hall, a creak of bed-turn in another room. Outside, a dog barks clear and sharp. Somewhere, a short scream of the hunted animal, mercilessly despatched. A light rain starts to patter the ground outside, and a low moan sets in to the row of sycamores that line the road passing the house.
She reads and stops to stare into the night. She listens and reads and stops to stare again. The wind louder. There was a time when the howling and thrashing of the trees outside triggered an inexpressible dread in her, an awareness of solitude in a hostile universe. But tonight, she is hardly aware of the rising storm. A car turns onto the road outside her house. The lights come closer. She can hear the engine now. The lights appear on the wall over her head. They track around the room, as if searching for something, then slide out the window and disappear. The car continues up the road and the sounds fade away.
Pulling back the blanket, she quietly places her stockinged feet on the floor. She is fully dressed and ready to go. The old bed gives a warning shriek as she moves, and she tenses, listens, but there is no sound in the house. Her suitcase is packed and closed, the zips threatening rupture but holding. She lifts it onto the bed, raises the window higher and slides the case onto the gravel path outside. As she stretches across her foot catches the old drum she repurposed into a bedside table. The loud rattle of its contents when she kicks against it gives her another moment of panic. Hold, listen, no sound. She sits gently on the bed, her breathing shallow, letting everything settle back into silence. That was a different girl who had spent days cutting and sewing floral material to transform a dirty diesel drum into a pretty table. It came in useful in the end, for concealment purposes. Lot of good they did her, the empty contraceptive pill packets hidden away inside. Should she empty it? No time. Also, no-one is going to be looking into secret places. Not in this house.
Time to go. Easiest to wear her jacket. Pulls her handbag strap over her head and manoeuvres herself awkwardly out the window. Picks up the suitcase, hugs its bulk to her, and tiptoes awkwardly, as fast as she can to the gate. He is there, waiting. Her jaw is clenched. Her chin up. They stare at each other, don’t speak. His grin a shock. His reality a shock. The car is waiting up the road, pulled into the layby, under the trees. Her suitcase in the boot, the engine coughs into action. No looking back. No goodbyes. They pick up speed as they go, slowing down only to turn onto the slip road to the motorway, and then they are threaded onto the loop of traffic heading toward the city.
The old bed has a residual ripple of movement from her use of it to propel herself out of the window. It is a woman’s bed, mostly, and as such has seen everything. It came to this house from another old country house, brought by a woman who inherited it from her own mother. The mattress, though thin and meagre, holds microscopic material from every kind of human fluid. The greatest by quantity is tears. The springs settle down, and the bed awaits an occupant. Another one will come. Ah, here she is now.
The door pushes in with a slight creak, and a small girl appears. Streels of thin fair hair. Sucking her thumb fiercely because there is no-one to tell her not to, and the wind screaming in the sycamores blew nightmares into her head. She is looking for comfort from her older sister. There are too many babies after her to seek comfort from her mother. No-one here. But her sister will return – she often climbs in through the window just before the morning stir starts in the house. Yoisting her nightdress over her perpetually scabby knees, she climbs onto the bed. She turns her head into the worn softness of pillow with its lemon and pink stripes, which remind her of ice-cream. Child and bed fade slowly into the long ago.
Jacinta Cogan lives in rural Ireland, where she returned after years of residence in London. Despite immersion in the chaos of family life, she recently completed an M.A. in English Literature in Maynooth University. She is now returning to her love of writing and study. Her main focus now is her own writing! Mostly, short fiction and poetry.
