Page 4 of To Hell With It
‘An entomologist isn’t a doctor, Mum.’
‘It’s something medical though.’
‘He studies bugs.’
‘Well, whatever it is, he’s highly intelligent so it doesn’t surprise me he’d be into something like that.’ She cooed.
‘Into bugs?’
‘I’m sure it’s more complex than just bugs.’
‘It’s not.’
‘How’s work going? Have you picked up any extra hours?’ she asked.
‘To fill my long, lonely days you mean?’ I said sarcastically.
‘Your father and I just want you to be happy.’ She always added my father into the conversation when she needed back-up, even when he wasn’t there. Like I would somehow listen more if they both thought it. ‘And we think you deserve to be.’
‘I am happy though, Mum.’
‘You think you are.’
‘I am.’
‘If you had someone around it would make things easier.’
‘Because you wouldn’t have to check up on me mid-week?’
‘That’s not what I’m doing,’ she said, but we both knew she was lying.
I was often short with my mum. I didn’t mean to be, but I knew she didn’t really understand any of it, and I was too tired to try and explain it to her. I could lose up to four hours sleep every night. I’d worked out that was 1,456 hours a year, and around 87,000 hours over a lifetime. Which was a lot of sleep to lose when I didn’t get much in the first place.
On average I get around five hours a night, five and a half at a push. It’s not that I go to bed late, quite the opposite actually. I could go up to bed at eight-thirty and still be awake at one-thirty in the morning. It can be anything that keeps me up – the mat trapped in the front door (even though I check it numerous times), the window latch not pushed closed properly (even though I hurt my finger every time I push it in), a tea towel on the cooker that might catch on fire (even though the cooker is switched off at the wall). Then factor in the stairs and The Lord’s Prayer and I am up and down all night. By the time I do close my eyes, it is well into the early hours and I am well and truly delirious.
It was worse when I lived at home. I drove my dad mad because he’d hear me moving around the house shutting doors, clicking windows, flicking switches, chanting prayers. One time he actually caught me in the act when I was hiding a plastic bag in the cutlery drawer. When he demanded I tell him why, his face dropped a shade of white as I explained it was because I didn’t want to stab him to death in his sleep.
I’d recently watched an interview with a woman who’d killed her entire family in her sleep and she had no idea she’d done it. I’d put the bag there so that the rustling sound would wake me up before I got to the knives. Dad never mentioned it again, but I knew I’d scared him because the next night he put one of those mini padlocks on the drawer.
‘Anyway, I’ve invited him around for dinner.’ My mum’s voice pierced through my memories.
‘Who?’
‘Niall.’
‘Why?’ I groaned.
‘He’s coming over this evening, six o’clock, will you come?’
‘No.’
‘But I told him you’d be there.’
‘Well you shouldn’t have because I won’t be there.’
‘Please, Pearl.’
‘Why the hell have you invited bloody Niall O’Callaghan over?’
