THE MIRACLE

Tuesday April 8 2014

THE MIRACLE

By Kenneth Steven

IT had been a long night. Rangers had thrashed Celtic the day before. The whole of Glasgow had echoed with shouted songs and smashed windows. The last goings home at four in the morning. And the morning itself grey and ragged as if the city was hung over. The distant rattle of a train. A newspaper unfolded itself and blew into pieces on the edge of a wind that came and went.

            Sonia Macpherson walked, her collar up against the cold and her hands buried in her pockets. She might have been the only one alive. She could have been still in bed; it was a Sunday morning, for God’s sake! But she had to go and see Marie. It was two weeks since she’d managed to go and see her last. No, that wasn’t quite true. She hadn’t been able to face it. Sometimes it was just too much going in there. It stayed with you, the memory of the place – the memory of Marie.

            Marie O’Brien, a wee Irish woman who lived three flights up a tenement in Ibrox. How on earth had she ended up in Ibrox, in that bit of Glasgow that was home to Rangers Football Club and its followers?

            For thirty years they had thundered on Marie’s door. Her name on the door was enough for that.

            Now she was dying; she’d been dying for a long time. Some people went in a second, others slid away inch by inch.

            She rattled the key in the lock and went in, thudded the door behind her. She started speaking Marie’s name at once, her voice soft – almost song-like. She went through into the bedroom and swept back the curtains, still speaking her name, not expecting any answer, as much to comfort herself as anything else. It was fear in a way – that was it, fear of all this and fear of what she might find.

            She turned round. Marie was curled away in the bed, curved into the clothes. There was nothing of her. She made noises to herself that were pieces of words, the memories of words.

            Sonia went over and brought her up against the pillow. She felt breakable; she had the frame of a bird, her bones brittle, her arms spindles.

          ‘Happy Easter, Marie!’ she said, turning round to crouch beside the bed. The eyes were there, just and no more – fragments of faded blue. Sonia nearly asked her how she was and then stopped. What was the point? Did Marie even know her now? She caught that smell again and felt sick. She ought to be gone, out of this place and away. She wanted to forget every last thing about it; she wished she wouldn’t ever have to come back.

'Is there anything I can get you, Marie? Anything you’d like?’

            She was whispering something now, her voice thin as paper.

            Sonia bent to hear; she all but had her ear against her mouth.

            ‘A service?’

            She tried to think what she meant. What service? Again the dry fragments of a word on the old woman’s lips; again Sonia had to come as close as she could to make it out.

            ‘Oh, the radio – a service on the radio!’

            The ghost of a smile. The memory of a smile. The blue eyes kindled.

            ‘Where is the radio, Marie?’

            She couldn’t keep that edge of annoyance out of her voice as she got up again. Marie’s eyes had glazed: she had no idea. Where in all this mess was there a radio? Sonia moved cushions and blankets, unearthed a pair of scissors, coins and crumbs. She didn’t want to do this. She wanted to be gone.

            There was the radio; it must have fallen behind the sofa from the window ledge.

            She clicked the dial of the ancient box and there was nothing. Not even that hiss that meant there might be something. It was dead. It was just an empty box that might have lain forgotten behind the sofa for years.

            ‘Marie, pet, I’ll go and make you a cup of tea.’

            She put the radio into the old woman’s hands tenderly. At least she had found what she’d asked for.

Read the end of the story in the April issue of Life and Work.