I knew then that it was up to me and I’d better do something, so I told her about the bath and castor–oil plot and asked would she stay, in case I got drowned or had a heart attack. I know she’d really like to have run, but she stayed. I’ll say that for her. Not that she was much use. She nearly fainted three times, what with the stream, and the greasy look of the castor oil in the cup, and me sweating and moaning and retching. I had her play “Careless Love” on the record player. She had to go out and put the needle back on that part of the record each time it changed to another song. I thought it was kind of apt. 

Suddenly I turned around in my sweating condition and she’s kneeling down with her hands joined. 

“Get up,” I said. “Get up, you lunatic.” 

“I’m praying,” she said. She hadn’t said a prayer for years, and even I thought it a bit steep that she should be asking help of someone she’d ignored for so long. 

“Nothing short of sacrilege,” said I, knowing that would put the wind up her. She was on her feet like lightning, and off to change the needle and put more coal in the boiler. I could hear that boiler roaring up the chimney and I prayed it wouldn’t burst or anything until this ordeal was over. He’d kill us. I had cramps and pains, and I began to shake all over. the whole place looked weird. The mirror was all fogged up, and steam all over the place, so that I couldn’t see my own makeup and stuff on the various glass racks. I’d look at the hot tap running, then all around, then directly down at the water, hoping to see its color change, then back to the tap again and all around, and I don’t know how long I did that. 

“Kate, Kate,” I said, holding on to the bath as if I was sinking. 

“Kate, Kate,” I yelled and roared, and she came and said I’d better get out. 

“Are you out of your mind?” I said. Imagine going through all the pain and sweat and sickness that I’d gone through and then give up in the middle. I was shaking like a leaf and she held me. 

“Good old Florence Nightingale, little old lady with the castor oil,” I kept saying, so that she wouldn’t think I’d gone too far and call a doctor or do something criminal. 

“Jesus,” I said suddenly, because it was as if I was stabbed in the butt of my back. I began to howl. 

“I’ll get brandy,” she said. 

“Don’t leave me, don’t leave me,” I said. I was dead certain that if she left me I’d fade out. Anyhow, she let go of my arms and I just lolled there, and next thing I know she’s giving me brandy from a spoon and saying, “I’m going to phone Frank.” 

Frank! That revived me. I came to for long enough to say, “If you phone Frank, I’ll take twenty-four sleeping pills right now.” She gave me more brandy and turned off the hot tap. I knew as she was turning it off that my chances were over, but I hadn’t the energy to resist. The steam, the heat, the castor oil, and then the drink had made me feel like straw. She swears that when I passed out a few seconds later I was a hefty weight to haul out of the bath. 

I came to in my own bed with two dressing gowns on me. The first thing I did was to see if anything had resulted, because I’d had a feverish dream that I was in a train and it came, and I couldn’t get off the seat, and porters were standing over me yelling at me to get up. Only in the dream had it come. 

“Hullo, little old lady with the castor oil,” I said to her, sitting there. “T.D.L.,” I said, because I was damned if I was going to get all morbid again. No man was worth it. 

“Total dead loss,” she repeated after me. She was more grave than me. 

“We’ll get our minks on and hitchhike to the Olympic Games,” I said. “I’ll enter for the egg-and-spoon race.” 

She didn’t laugh. It was about four o’clock on a lousy afternoon in March, but at least the house was warm because of the way we got the boiler whizzing. 

From Girls in Their Married Bliss in The Country Girls (462-4)

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017

First published in 1964

If you like Edna O’Brien, try: 

• Edna Ferber, So Big
• Norah Hoult, Farewell Happy Fields
• Mary Lavin, In the Middle of the Fields