Doubting Thomas

Mum wants me to shave Dad. My elder brother died a few years before and my younger brother is too far away. But even if that wasn’t the case, she’d still want me to do it.

Home. It never changes. Not really. A Mausoleum of memories. The letterbox still bangs in high winds. The reinforced glass of the front door is still getting hit by balls toe poked towards it and the shout of ‘Goal,’ still echoes up the hallway, barging and poking through the cardboard walls. Anaglyptic wallpaper hangs in all the rooms, the patterns follow the adult smokers’ calendar and winter mood swings of hot mustard yellow and tawny red, which means jobby brown, but it always returns with a bucket of paint, to the more innocent Spring, emulsion white, of my sister’s First Communion dresses. It covers over all dunts and knocks, any loose-kneed tribe, running out of childhood, can throw.

In the corner of the living room, the polystyrene roof tiles soak up smoke like litmus paper, turn yellow, peel and hang like unwatched snow. They creak and threaten to avalanche down on a statue of Holy Joseph with his staff. Baby Jesus or some other base coloured metallic chimp, hangs onto his back, like a bundle of clothes, or forgotten rucksack. He’s got company on the mantelpiece. Big Ben is always ten minutes fast, ticking out our time, and has luminescent hands that can see in the dark. The Virgin Mary stands beside him in all her glory. She should be looking up at the roof tiles, or heaven. But someone, definitely-definitely not me, has knocked the head off, but it’s a mortal sin to put her in the bin, or make a mess of the carpet. Jesus has grown up on the wall. The chain holding the Sacred Heart has loosened, link-by-link. God’s Son leans casually over and looks for Digestive biscuit crumbs on the coloured whorls of the dark carpet. Everybody, boys and girls, brothers and sisters, as loosely assembled as the tan plastic couch, have been fully trained. The Hoovers in the hall cupboard and we are ready.
***
Dad is in his room. It’s also mum’s room. But when the door is shut, it is his room full stop, a place where he retreats and lies in bed; reads and dozes; dozes and reads. But he made forays out.

An early riser. The kitchen with a seat pulled up to the grill became his den. He didn’t believe in noise. Radio Athlone would be blaring. If you could hear Farming News and the price of pigs, whilst lying in bed, with the blankets around your ears, that was san- fre- an. He liked to make breakfast for everyone. Toast was his speciality. The white bread was grilled and buttered-with margarine-when he got up about six in the morning. He’d reheat it about eight, when it was time for us to go to school. The margarine would be glazed like pottery shards. Hot tea that had been stewing too long for even an Irish navvy would be made palatable by sugar.
***
Being busy was a full time job. It was one of those long school holidays of endless rain. He was picking at the clothes in the sink with his long grey fingernails, sloshing them under the cold water and then putting them in a twin tub one of his cronies had given him. When a cycle had finished he’d spin them. All of the windows were open to let in some air. I was trying to keep the heat in the chair by not moving and watching Bonanza.

‘Da,’ I said, ‘you don’t need to do it that way.’ I pointed at the new washing machine; we’d had since last Christmas. ‘You can just stick the clothes in there.’

Dad had his own way of doing things. It was as close as an adolescent shave, getting involved in his business. His eyes watered and face went turnip purple and then boil in the bag red. It was the stupid cycle that I was on; saying or doing anything, but I just couldn’t help myself.
***
The girls from the St Margaret’s Hospice had been. Death and the smell of bodily decay had been disinfected. The room was bright, but that might just have been the yellow bedspread, reflecting the sunshine outside. Da’ was shuttered and propped by white pillows, like a creaky boned mineshaft, underneath clean blankets. Mum had already warned him there was to be no carry on. His unshaved face and rheumy eyes turned towards me.

Mum ran a bath and got him a clean pair of pyjamas. I wasn’t sure whether I’d have to help Da’ get up. But he tilted against time and got himself up by flinging his legs over the side of the bed. His bare feet poked out of the bottom of his pyjamas. He’d always been a great walker. Ten or twelve miles were a warm up. He was bent over, but they took the journey up the hall in their stride.

I looked out a new Bic razor. I’d a kitchen chair set up in front of the bathroom sink. My secret weapon was boiling hot water from the kettle. I’d look-warm water in the enamel sink and an unused cotton face cloth. It felt strange touching him; feeling around the contours of his mouth and chin with shaving foam. Initially, I was worried about getting his pyjamas wet. Then I was worried I’d burn him with the hot water from the razor. But we worked together; him grimacing and pulling funny faces and me darting, like a Pilot fish, with the cutthroat.

Mum got him settled back into bed. I went into see him before I left, standing near the door, with one foot in the hallway.

My sisters cried at the funeral. My Uncle John said my Da’ was a great man.