58 THENEWYORKER,DECEMBER2, 2019
pills—in the morning, with the porridge.
He’d told the cardiologist that he ate
porridge every morning. Oh, that’s great,
that’s helpful. Three tablets—he’d call
them tablets; it was better, more adult,
than pills. Where are my tablets, where
did I leave my tablets? One of each, once
a day. Two statins, one aspirin. It wasn’t
complicated. He’d manage. He’d opened
the two other boxes. One of the pill
cards had the days of the week on ser
rated squares—Mon., Tue., Wed. Did
that mean he’d have to wait till Mon
day before he started? If he started
now, he’d be taking his Monday pill—
his Monday tablet—on a Wednesday.
He was fuckin’ wild. He stood and
got himself a glass of water. He had a
look out the kitchen window while he
was at it. The branches on the tree next
door were waving; they were bending.
He could hear a siren, off somewhere.
He could hear wires whistling—he
thought he could.
- —Where are my pills?
His mother came running. Running
in her slippers, in from the kitchen.
—Where are your pills?
—That’s what I’m bloody asking.
Where are they?
She was afraid her husband would
fall dead if they didn’t find the pills. He’d
nearly died; she’d witnessed what could
happen. He’d had a heart attack, and a
triple bypass. He was sitting opposite
her at the kitchen table, then his face
was in his soup and she could see the
sweat running off the top of his head.
Like a tap, it was. Like a waterfall. S h e ’d
phoned him—her son—and told him
about the ambulance arriving, the men
with the stretcher coming into the house.
He’d gone over and driven her to Beau
mont—the hospital. He’d looked at her
face, the side of her face—the fear, the
tension. She didn’t look like his mother.
—What was the soup? he’d asked her.
—Cream of vegetable, she’d said.
And she’d smiled.
—Terrible waste.
Finding the pills, knowing exactly
where they were—that was the impor
tant thing. She’d spent years looking
for his pills, keeping his father alive.
Until the grandkids started to make a
joke of it, and the fuckin’ old tyrant de
cided to join in.
But he’d seen it before it became
part of the fun of every Sunday after
noon. He’d seen his mother’s face and
his father’s, her terror and his glee, be
fore the kids turned it into a weekly
bit of fun.
—Where are my pills?
He wouldn’t have pills; they’d be
tablets. He’d know exactly where they
were. He wouldn’t become his father.
He put them on top of the fridge.
He typed a note into his phone: tab-
lets = fridge.He sat on the bed. He could see the
trees on the street, and the leaves fall
ing, the chestnut leaves—huge brown
hands—dropping, floating, caught by
the wind and rolling uphill. If he lifted
himself slightly, he’d see the wheelies
tucked under the hedge. A guy on a
bike went past. His hood was fat, full
of the hurricane. That was all the
drama—the guy on the bike.
It was half past two. He’d listened
to the lunchtime news. The west of the
country was being chewed by the
weather; there were power cuts, roads
made impassable, tin roofs pulled off
farm sheds. Outside—here, in Dub
lin—it was a windy day. That was all.
He’d been sitting on the bed, waiting.
He wanted to see a car in the air, a hun
dredyearold oak toppling; he wanted
to witness something—anything.
And he didn’t.
The leaves were the story. The fact
that nothing was happening. The leaves
going the wrong way, and the woman
with the Teddy bear. They were his
stories.
He lay back on the bed. He turned,
into whiteness and nothing—no
thoughts or things. He slept.- He woke with an ache in his right arm;
the ache—the pain—had woken him.
Was that a sign? Was it pain in the
right or the left arm that was a pre
lude to a heart attack? Or was that the
shoulder? He didn’t know; he wouldn’t
look it up. His arm was numb—just
numb, the way he’d been lying on it.
His wife had told him he slept with
his arms folded, as if he’d been sitting
in a chair and had fallen off it, straight
onto the bed. He hadn’t believed her.
—Not every night, he’d protested.
—Yes—every night.
—How do you know?
—I see you.
—You’re awake?
—Sometimes.
—Why?
—Jesus, there’s a question.
She was there now. She was sitting
where he’d been sitting before he fell
asleep. He felt her weight on the mat
tress first, and saw her back. She was
looking out the window. It was dark.
—Anything happening out there?
—Not really, she said. Exhurricanes
aren’t what they used to be.
—Like everything else.
He’d have to tell her. He had the
widow’s block, and she was going to
be the widow.
—You made it home before the cur
few, he said.
—Just about, she said.
He hadn’t moved. He didn’t want
to sit up. He liked looking at her, from
where he was, where she was. He’d al
ways liked looking at her.
—Have we food? she asked.
—Loads.
—Grand.
—I put candles all around the house.
Just in case.
—We can pretend it’s a spa.
She hadn’t moved. She hadn’t turned
to look at him. He leaned out a bit—
the numbness in his arm had gone—
and put his hand on her back. He felt
her move, and her hand touched his,
just brushed across it.
—Get up, she said. And we’ll watch
the news. All the action is over in the
west. In Galway and Kerry and the
other lovely places.
—The wild Atlantic way.
—There you go.
He sat up now.
—I saw a thing, he said.
He told her about the woman he’d
seen, the woman with the Teddy bear.
—That’s so sad, she said.
He heard her shoes fall onto the floor,
and now she was sitting beside him.
He’d tell her in a minute. He’d tell
her about his tablets and his heart.
—I miss the kids, he said.
He started to cry. THE WRITER’S VOICE PODCAST
Roddy Doyle reads “The Curfew.”