She did hear me! Maisie’s eyes burned. ‘Don’t be sorry, Ma. Never be sorry.’ She raised her mother’s hand to her lips and kissed it.

Bridie nodded and turned to look out of the window at the rain pouring down. ‘Where’s my Arthur, Maisie? He’ll get soaked in this weather.’ She let go of Maisie and knotted her hands in her wet lap. ‘Come on home now, love.’

Bridie

Bridie heard herself humming but wasn’t sure which song it was. It might have been something from the radio or something she’d made up. She didn’t know. She felt wet. She was in a bath. The water prickled her skin. She felt hands on her. She was naked. What’s this? What’s happening? She tried to cover herself. She looked up at a stranger rubbing her bare skin with a facecloth. There was something she wanted to say. The words were on the tip of her tongue but she couldn’t form a sentence so instead she hit out. She slapped the stranger but they were too strong for her. She thrashed in the water and banged her arm on the hard bath.

The stranger tried to soothe her. ‘Come on, Ma, don’t be like that. Please.’ She stared at the woman calling her ‘Ma’. The bleedin’ neck of ya. I don’t know you. Why am I here? What are you doing to me?

‘Just calm down now, Ma.’

‘Stop, stop, stop.’ She’d finally found a word she was looking for. She looked at the shampoo bottle branded Timotei, grabbed it and squirted it right in the stranger’s eye. ‘Take that.’

The stranger let her go. ‘Jesus Christ, Ma. Me eyes!’

Bridie hugged herself. ‘Go …’ What’s the word? Go … what? Go where? Go away. That’s it. ‘Go away!’

‘It’ll be over in a minute.’

‘Please, leave me be,’ she begged the stranger. It was then Bridie noticed her hands, how wrinkled they were. They seemed like they belonged to someone else. I’m dreaming. It’s a bad dream. Wake up, wake up, wake up … What’s me name? Wake up who? Wake up … Who? ‘What’s happenin’? What’s happenin’?’ She held her face in her hands and sobbed.

The woman took pity on her. ‘We’re done now, and you’re good as new. You had a little accident but it’s fine. Everything’s all right now.’

Bridie took her hands from her eyes and stared at the woman standing in front of her. She was a mess. She looked like she’d been through the wars. She was soaked and she had a roaring red pinch mark on her left arm. Did I do that? Now the woman seemed familiar. She was trying her best to smile but Bridie could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

‘D’you want to get out now, Ma?’