‘Black Spot’ by Deirdre Sullivan

You pass it always on your way to work. And there are flowers. Petrol station bouquets all in cellophane. Carnations, babies’ breath and hot pink daisies. Sometimes there are roses from a garden. Or the wilder sort. Marigolds and buttercups and clover. Little bunches picked and wrapped in kitchen paper. Made at home.

Bunches added, never cleared away. Piles of them are rotting. Petals gone and stalks melted onto coloured rain with time. It makes you sad. It makes you sad to  see the care and lack of care at once, all sellotaped together.

In your little Mazda with the heater blasting window mist at full cry. It ruins your skin. You moisturise but dryness it collects around the nose and when you scratch it’s red, not raw, but sore. You look like you’ve been crying when you get to work a lot. In the face but never in the eyes.

You live far out the country, in a house you could afford. You drive when it is dark and arrive when it is getting bright. You leave work when it’s dark and get home darker. You stay late most of the time. You have to. People never pick their children up on time and then there’s tidying and sorting art supplies and things. Construction paper. Glue. You don’t use glitter now. It is forbidden, it gets everywhere. Karen, the manager, found some in her knickers two Mother’s Days ago and said no more.

Karen’s younger than you are. She hasn’t worked in the creche for half as long, but when Michelle retired, she took the reins. You wonder if you’d spoken up, could you have. What you could have done to be that woman. The one who makes things happen for herself. You do not feel like that is ever you.

When Karen tells you to do things, you resent it sometimes and she feels it. You used to get on better. It’s not that you don’t listen. It’s that she’s younger. It’s that she doesn’t always do her best. She expects you to do the grunt work and you don’t get paid enough to like that.

Every morning, every evening. Flowers. You look at them. You always think, ‘One day I’ll stop the car, get out and tidy.’ It would be a nice thing to do, but there are reasons not to get involved. You don’t know who died here. You don’t know who left flowers and for whom. You want a cup of tea. It’s getting late.

Maybe in the summer, when it’s nice again. Then maybe you could do it. When it’s nice again. It has been years and still the flowers rot and you do nothing. Forty-two deaths changed to forty-three. Then forty-seven. Accident Black Spot.

It has been a cold day. The storage heater on the wall at work made little difference. The walls are thin, when the children were indoors it was okay. Their bodies little stoves, wolfing down Ready Brek. Spaghetti hoops.

Sometimes their mothers drop them off at half seven, collect them after six. You give them breakfast, lunch and dinner, tea. You hug them when they cry. You’re not supposed to now with child protection but you always do. Their shrivelled little faces full of woe. You have to give them love. They’re hurting, hurting and you’re not their mum but you are close enough and you are there.

You look after the pre-schoolers. Karen has the after-school club, she helps out different places and does paperwork till half past one. Laura has the babies, small and squat. The wee triangley things. You all help out each other, and there’s Paula who is being trained and floats. Karen was like Paula once. You trained her up. She’s good at what she does but so are you.

She wants to buy a house.

Don’t bother you tell her. Time enough when you’re a little older.

She doesn’t roll her eyes but you can feel her wanting to. You wipe the desks down savagely, scratching them with nails through J-cloth fabric. Every little piece of crayon gone when you are done. Every daub of Pritt Stick.

It isn’t enough. Work, home. It isn’t enough and still it’s all you have and you are tired. You do your make-up in the car on the way there. Cleanse your face each evening before bed with heavy hands. Scrubbing at the corners of your eyes. You do not wear an awful lot of make-up. Just enough to show you’ve made an effort. Taking pride.

It is November when it happens first. The morning dark and soft, the man on the radio joking about something and his voice is kind. You think he must be handsome in real life. Your hands on the steering wheel are tight. The skin on them is chapping. You should wear gloves. You should put on your gloves.

You’re not sure when the beeping starts. You notice it before the little shop where you buy milk when you run out of milk. The light. The seat belt light. But yours is on, you fasten it each morning. Working with the children makes you safe. You wait for the green man, look right, look left. Rub in the soap and put your hands under the water rubbing for a count of ten, a count of ten again. Your hands are clean and you don’t get knocked down. You set examples. The seat belt light is beeping.

It is strange. It passes three miles down the road, beside a little dormer bungalow with plywood in the windows and no door. You forget about it till tomorrow and the next day and the next.

It always happens on the way to work. The little seat belt light, all red and soft. It doesn’t glare. It’s like a little sunset. You go to the mechanic on day six. ‘It starts and stops,’ you tell him. ‘It’s always different places.’

He shrugs and charges you for being shrugged at. He did lift up the bonnet after all.

Work is softer for the next few weeks. The children come and go. You only hug them loosely round the shoulders. Wipe their noses, tears. Clean them up when they have little accidents. Sometimes they don’t make it there in time. And that’s okay. You have a box of gender neutral clothes that you put on them. Things you’ve bought and things the older children left behind. The dear departed. You miss them all a little. Wonder how they’re doing.

The first ones that you had are almost grown now. You see them in the papers. One or two. Clare who got all A1s in the leaving. Norman who assaulted someone once. Poor Norman. You remember his sense of injustice. ‘She stoled my crayon’ shrill across the room. You cut the pieces out and take them home and keep them. Your nieces and your nephews in Australia are in that shoebox too. Your brother’s wife remembers you at Christmas. And once a year they clamber in your house, live up on you for weeks and leave you lonely and relieved at once. You love them but you also need your space.

When Mother was alive, you worried they would stop when she passed on. You assumed you would get stuck being her carer, moving into hers or she to yours. Nobody assigned you the role, but John lived far away and he had children. You were close. And you were all alone.

You could see it knitted in their eyebrows when they talked about the future and it percolated in your worried gut. But then she had two heart attacks and died. A big one first, a little one that killed her. And she was in the ground. And that was that.

It beeps till almost work one day. It punctuates the sunrise. You thought at first that it was something stuck. But still it comes and goes. You start to count them on the days they happen. Twelve. Fifteen. And nineteen. Thirty-six. Different places, houses, shops and flats. And sometimes fields. Just sometimes outside fields. The flowers still collect. The little tributes there still piling up. Hydrangeas. Blue. Pink. Purple. The same plant but grown in different earths, acidic, basic. You can put lime down to pink them if you want. You like the blue. You think you like the blue.

Madonna hates hydrangeas. You pick up nuggets, driving in the car. Little gossips. Stupid bits of news. You only sometimes read the papers. Sunday’s one will do you for the week. There’s online, but your connection’s slow. When Lucy sends you pictures of the children they appear in rectangles from the top down, unpuzzling bit by bit.

You like real photos. Something you can hold. Can take to work and show them. You think sometimes they don’t think you do things. Don’t have a life. You do. You go for drinks, meet friends. Go to the cinema. Take long walks in the fields or on the beach. You like a glass of wine. You like The Beatles. People choose a lot of different things. And sometimes things just happen. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The number’s higher now. A little boy. His name was Patrick. He was only twelve and walking home. They reckon that the driver was asleep. She was a junior doctor, young herself. ‘Her life’s ruined now,’ says Karen. You agree and drink your Nescafé in plastic sippy cups for health and safety. You can’t be drinking mugs around the kids. It doesn’t taste the same. But coffee’s coffee.

You wonder as the beeping punctuates the radio, if someone’s there beside you. If maybe it is different sorts of people. Or the same thing, but going other places. The car feels different when the beeping’s there. Not different bad. Just different.

The air is charged with something. You had assumed it was your own frustration. An inability to figure out what’s going on and stop it. Why had you expected you could do that? You never could. You never did before.

Heavy’s how you feel most mornings anyway. Your feet find it harder to step out of the car, to walk to work, unlock the door and turn on all the lights and start preparing. Flick on the heating. Make a cup of tea. The little chairs and all the little tables. You spend your whole day stooping, hurt your back.

The low thrum of the beep beep beep. You drive back to the spot, it doesn’t stop. You drive away, you keep on driving till your petrol’s down to dregs and gasps. The needle in the red you pull in to an Applegreens. Get a danish. Get a cup of tea and fill the tank. When you start up, the beeping’s stopped again and you’re relieved.

Is it someone, was it someone once? Can you feel anything beyond a beep? It isn’t all that different. Colder maybe. You are always cold though. It is spring, but you still wear a scarf, a winter coat. The winter mild, the bitterness stings now at hands and feet through cheap acrylic gloves and sleeves and socks.

It’s hard to sleep at night. The house is small but too big for one person. Getting out of bed to check locked doors, to switch off lights. It isn’t that you’re lonely. It’s just a lot. Living is a lot of little jobs and big ones and sometimes they all coalesce in front of you. You can’t see past them really. It’s like a hill that’s full of slippy mud and brittle rocks. You knew that it was big but now it’s dangerous. You need to get some sleep. You wake up thinking thoughts.

Karen meets with you about a child. He’s gluten-free and stealing others’ sandwiches. She says it is a health risk. He’s so quick though. Does it flying. Does it when your back is turned. His mother has complained. He’s coming home with tummy pains a lot. He’s only three. He doesn’t have the sense to not be stealing. It’s up to you to stop him doing that she says.

She writes it in her little yellow book and you want to ask her what she’s writing down but you do not. It’s about you. Collecting bits of you she doesn’t like to offer up when you ask for a raise, ask for time off. You rarely ask for things but you still want them. You work so hard. You tell her you work hard she says I know.

Her hair is highlighted, her chin a little point like someone filed it. She has cheekbones, Karen. Dresses well. Her earrings match her top. You hate your jeans. Your lap two draught excluders shoved together. Bulging as black pudding. Marked with stains. Fromage Frais and poster paint and sand. Her and Paula thick as thieves and you do all the work. You should be running the place. You almost do already. No one likes you. No one wants you here. And if you left, where would you go at your age?

After work, it’s hard to start the car. Your hands keep shaking when you think of Karen’s little voice. So diplomatic. Telling you these things as if you didn’t know. You made a poster when the kids went home. Their little faces gathered all together, and a little stalk with green leaf poking out. A grape bunch of kids. You think it’s funny. What if it is not? What if there’s something in it you don’t mean? You try to warp it, try to find an angle. But you can’t. It doesn’t mean she won’t. It doesn’t mean there isn’t something there that she could use.

You loved your little house when you first moved. Because it was all yours. It wasn’t pretty but you’d paint the walls. You’d put up pictures, pay a man to come and fix the bathrooms. Have a dado rail put in the hall. It suits you now, the shape of it. The colour. That doesn’t mean you like it or it’s nice. No beeping on the way home and you stop. Pull in beside the sign and slam on the emergency triangle.

A little photo of the little boy. A votive candle stand filled up with rain. So many flowers piled on top of flowers. Primroses and pansies, a baldy gang of hyacinths in a pot. You love the smell of hyacinths in the springtime. And maybe you could switch the button off. You wrap your legs inside the car again and turn the key and make your way back home. You boil some ravioli for your tea.

Your mother felt much better just before. She smiled at you. She asked about your brother. Where he was. He’d gone back to Australia you told her. It wasn’t true. He was asleep in your guest bedroom, phone on loud and waiting for a call. You don’t know why that lie came out your mouth. She smiled at you. At least I have my little girl, she said. My daughter. She held your hand. And when her eyes flicked closed again you rang him. She was dead before he hit the road.

Days pass and sometimes there is beeping. Sometimes not. You approach expecting it to start and when it comes it’s almost a relief. It’s happened and you don’t need to be scared. Just wait it out. It will be over soon. You hold your breath a little as you near the sign. The text and the black hole. Proceed with caution. How else would you though? It’s all you know.

You watch your soaps. You make enough lasagne for the week. Freeze half of it. It’s handy to have in. Cooking for one person’s hard they say but you don’t think so. All you have to please is just yourself. And if you’re tired you can leave the dishes.

Karen is engaged. A little nicer, showing off her ring and booking things, researching different venues, different looks. She doesn’t want to leave it for too long. A year’s the max, she says. The limit. It was buy a house or plan a wedding. So they’ll stay put till they’re good and married in their fancy apartment. Her fiancée’s got some big finance job. They’ve been together since she was fifteen. You get the kids to make her paper cards. Blobs in dresses. Little soft red hearts. It’s nice to do a kind thing for somebody. She posts the best one on her profile page.

In the car on the way home you turn the radio up, right up. The music’s louder, louder than the news and than the weather. Louder than the rain upon the glass. There are loose chippings on the road this evening. You can hear them crunching underwheel like bone.

Shifting fifth to fourth and fourth to third and second for the turn. You learned to drive when you were just a kid. Your mother taught you, and she drove you mad. Telling you to look when you were looking. Rolling eyes as engines spluttered out. She wanted you to have your independence. And now you do. There’s nothing tying you to anything. The house is just a house. The job’s a job. The children would be fine, you know, without you. Horsing gluten in their hungry mouths.

The rain is hard and soft and all at once. It makes the night look fiercer. The trees are budding green and skeletal above the car. The little corpses on the motorway. Cats and rats and foxes. Hard when they’re all squashed to tell what’s what.

The beeping when it starts is low, insidious. You do not notice it until the turn, but as you do you’re conscious that it’s been there for a while. Since you passed by the spot. It took your mother just a week to die. But on the road it varies. Cars can do all kinds of things to bodies. Pulverise or dent them, scrape or scar. The impact of a human skull on things. On wheels and tarmacadam.

You heard about a man who lost his mind. Not the way you’d think. Acquired brain injury, you’ve heard it called. He had a wife and children and afterwards he couldn’t count his fingers. An accountant. And he remembered what he was before. Why can’t I do this now, he’d ask, why don’t you like me? You think they later put him in a home. They’d have to do that surely. Nobody should live beside a ghost. Something asking questions out like that. Reminding you of things you should forget or put aside. Dead, but not yet dead. And always asking.

You’re turning up your driveway.

Beep beep beep.

You’re parking at your house.

It isn’t stopping.

Gentle little light and beep beep beep.

You click your seat belt off. You sit there for a long time, in the driveway between the house and road. Your hand is on the key in the ignition. The noise is there and still it isn’t stopping. You do not want to turn the engine off. And then you do, and walk into the night.

You’re not alone.

From issue #3: autumn/winter 2016

About the Author
Deirdre Sullivan is a writer from Galway. Her poetry and fiction has appeared in The Dublin Review, Mslexia, The Penny Dreadful and in previous issues of Banshee. Her most recent book, Tangleweed and Brine, is a collection of fairytale retellings.