The Marble Collector

18

‘Hello,’ I hear a woman say to me suddenly. She’s in a chair beside me. I wasn’t aware of her before now, not even of an empty chair, but all of a sudden there she is.

The sun is back out again, eclipse over, everybody’s eclipse glasses are off, mine too though I don’t recall doing that either. I feel like my ma, in her final years, dithery and forgetful with her glasses, when she was always previously spot on. I don’t like this part of ageing, I always prided myself on my memory. I’d a good head for names and faces, could tell you where and how I knew them, where we first met, the conversation we had and if it was a woman, the clothes that she was wearing. It works sometimes like this, my memory, but not always. I know that comes with age and I know the stroke contributed to it too, but at least I’m here being looked after, not at work having to remember things and not being able to. That happens to people and I wouldn’t like that.

‘Hello,’ I say to her politely.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks. ‘I notice you seem a bit upset. I hope you didn’t get a bad phone call.’

I look down and see I’m still holding the mobile phone. ‘No, not at all.’ But was it? Who was it? Think, Fergus. ‘It was my daughter. I was worried about her, but she’s okay.’ I can’t quite remember what we talked about, I got lost in a daydream after that but my feeling is that it’s fine, she’s fine. ‘Why do you think I was sad?’ I ask.

‘You had tears on your cheeks,’ she says, softly. ‘I sat here because I was concerned. I can leave if you like.’

‘No, no,’ I say quickly, not wanting her to leave. I try to remember why I would have been so sad speaking to Sabrina. I look over at Lea, who’s watching me, worrying, and then up at the sky and I remember the moon, the miniature marbles that would fit in her dimples and then I remember the marble up Sabrina’s nose and tell the concerned lady the story. I chuckle, picturing Sabrina’s bold face as a two-year-old, red cheeks, stubborn as anything. No to everything and everyone. She could do with learning that word now, running around after three boys all the time.

The lady’s eyes have widened as though in fright.

‘Oh, don’t be alarmed, we got the marble out. She’s fine.’

‘It’s just that… the marble story… do you…’ She seems flustered. ‘Do you have any more marble stories?’

I smile at her, amused; what an unusual question, but it’s kind of her to show interest. I wrack my brain for marble stories, not imagining that I will have any, but I’d like to please her and she seems eager to talk. There it is again, the haze, the shutters of my mind firmly down. I sigh.

‘Did you grow up with marbles, as a boy?’ she prompts.

And then a sudden memory pops up, just like that. I smile. ‘I’ll tell you what I do remember: growing up with my brothers. There were seven of us, and my ma, who was a tough woman, introduced a marble swearing jar. Any time someone swore they had to put a marble in the jar, which in our house was the worst kind of punishment. We were all marble mad.’ Were we? Yes, we were. I laugh. ‘I remember my ma lining us up in the room, wooden spoon in her hand and pointing it in our faces. “If one of you fucking swears, you’ll have to put one of those fucking marbles in here. Do you hear?” Well, sure, how could we keep a straight face to that? Hamish started laughing first, then I went. Then it was all of us. I don’t remember Joe there, if Joe was born at all, I don’t remember him around much. Probably too young. And that was it, in the first minute of its inception there were six marbles in the jar. They were our least favourites, of course, clearies that were chipped and scratched, Ma hadn’t a clue. And even though we didn’t own those marbles it would still bother us, me anyway, seeing them sitting up high on a shelf so that we couldn’t touch them.’

‘What did your mother do with them?’ she asks, eyes glistening like there’s tears in them.’

I study her for a bit. ‘Your accent. It’s peculiar.’

She laughs. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘No, not in a bad way. It’s nice. It’s a mix of something.’

‘Germany. And Cork. I moved there in my twenties.’

‘Ah.’

I look down at her hands. No wedding ring, but a ring on her engagement finger, that she keeps playing with. Rolling it back and forth on her finger.

She sees me looking and stops fiddling with it.

‘What did your mother do with the marble jar? Did you ever get them back?’

‘We had to earn them.’ I smile. ‘Every month we’d have the chance to earn them back. One person would win them all, which was a game in itself, though I don’t think Ma saw it like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of us swore a few times on purpose just to up the stakes of the game. We would have to help out around the house. Do the washing, cleaning, and then Ma would decide who deserved to win.’

‘Controversial,’ she laughs.

‘It was. We had some terrible scraps after those days. Sometimes it wasn’t worth winning or you’d get your head kicked in, you’d end up giving back the marbles they owned in the first place. But if you could tough it out, they were yours.’

‘Did you ever win them?’

‘Always.’

She laughs. A musical laugh.

‘I won them every month for the first few months because Ma used to give me a note; I’d bring it to the chemist, and then I’d carry a brown paper bag back to the house. Never knew what was in it till my brothers told me I was carrying lady pads. They ripped into me so much I never did anything to help again.’

‘You lost out on your marbles.’

‘Not mine. I figured out I should just not swear in front of Ma.’

We both laugh.

‘We’ve talked before,’ I say, suddenly realising.

‘Yes,’ she says, a sad smile that she tries to hide. ‘Several times.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘That’s okay.’

‘You’re visiting someone here,’ I say.

‘Yes.’

We sit in silence, but it’s a comfortable silence. She has her shoes off, and she has nice feet. Bright pink toenails. She fidgets with her ring.

‘Who are you visiting?’ I ask. It’s not grumpy Joe, I never see her with him. It’s not Gerry or Ciaran or Tom. It’s not Eleanor or Paddy. In fact I don’t recall seeing her speaking with anyone other than me and the nurses. Though my recollection of that doesn’t count for much. Not these days.

‘You’ve never asked me that before. You’ve never asked who I’m visiting.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘You’re visiting me, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

Her eyes are bright, she’s almost breathless. She’s beautiful, there’s no doubt about that, and I study her hard, her green eyes… Something in my mind stirs, then stops again. I don’t even know this lady’s name. To ask now would feel rude, because she looks at me so intimately. She’s still fiddling with her ring, looking down. I look at it more closely.

There’s a piece of what looks like a marble embedded in a gold band, a transparent clear base with a ribbon of white and bright-coloured stripes on white in the centre. It is a machine-made marble from Germany. I know this instinctively. I know this and nothing else. No wonder she asked about the marble-story. She has a fascination with them.

‘Did I tell you the marble-swearing-jar story before?’ I ask.

‘Yes,’ she says softly, big beautiful smile.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Stop saying sorry.’ She places her hand over mine, the one with the ring. Her skin is soft, and warm. Another stir. ‘You never told me it here, though.’

I run my finger over her fingers and over the marble. Her eyes fill with tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, swiping quickly at her eyes.

‘Don’t be. It’s incredibly frustrating to forget, it must be an entirely other thing to be the forgotten.’

‘You don’t always forget, and those days are the most wonderful days,’ she says, and I see a sweet woman who holds on to the smallest hope.

‘Foreign sparkler,’ I say suddenly, and she gasps. ‘That’s what this marble is.’

‘That’s what you called me sometimes. Fergus,’ she whispers, ‘what is happening to you today? This is wonderful.’

We sit in silence for a moment.

‘I loved you, didn’t I?’ I ask.

Her eyes fill again and she nods.

‘Why don’t I remember?’ My voice cracks and I become agitated, frustrated, I want to stand up from my wheelchair and run, stride, jump, move, for everything to be the way it was.

She turns my face to her, one hand below my chin, and she looks at me with warmth and I remember my ma’s face when I was summoned to her one day when she thought I was dead, and I think of Bounce About and I think of a pub in London and a man named George who called me Paddy, handing me a Czech bullet and of seeing Hamish dead. All in a flash.

‘Fergus,’ she says, her voice bringing me back, calming me. ‘I’m not worried about you not remembering. I’m not here to remind you of anything. The past is the past. I just have been hoping that I will be lucky enough that you will fall in love with me again, a second time round.’

This makes me smile, instantly stops my agitation because, of course, it’s beautiful. I don’t know her and I know everything about her at the same time. I want to love her and for her to love me. I take her hand, the one with the ring and I hold it tight.