The main switch

It amazed her. The turning of a pork chop was a luminous action. She put one foot in front of the other in a way that assumed trailing vestments. Her skin burned with significance and a teacup became a chalice.

Off-putting all this for a husband, not to mention teenage sons. "The old wan's a dweeb," "She's wrecking my head." Their words rustled under her feet. She swept them up with the cigarette cartons and cola cans, clamped them into the bin. Then she closed the door on the criss-cross of jeaned legs.

The ironing blanket unrolled its mapmakers' colours, the blues and golds of discovery. She drew from the basket. Each item was rimmed with its own fire. "I'm a handkerchief. Important."

"I'm important too." The Wrangler shirt.

"Of course, of course," she said as she eased out a sleeve, ran the iron lovingly over a seam. The world rounded with the murmurings of warming linens. Seam on seam; corner to corner; socks embraced; shirtsleeves were laid out in the sleep of peace. She carried all to the airing cupboard, her chin on the starched linen. The bundles were offerings on wooden slats. She shut the door on them, their serried ranks held in her mind.

Held in her mind, that is, until the next task. One thing at a time. That's how she coped. Laundry days, she saw only stains, sweat, tidemarks. Feeding times, open mouths. Shopping, she matched jars, boxes, cartons to the hieroglyphs of a list. Vacuuming was a daily duel with a daily truce. Between tasks she shut down like an appliance turned off at the mains.

"So it is at the mains we have to switch her on again," said Dr Thorpe when Gerry, her husband, brought her to see him.

"All very well if I knew where they were," said Gerry, "She's turning into a bleedin' zombie. Oh she does what she's supposed to do .. . and does it like an angel .. . but who needs an angel round the house? We'd settle for a red-blooded divil .. . me and the boys. Look at her now, for God's sake, she can hear me calling her an effing cow but what does she do? Sits there with her effing arms crossed like she was rehearsing for her coffin."

Today's dirty words would have to lie where he left them. Her next task was dinner. She stood up to go.

"Thank you Dr Thorpe for your time. I must now prepare dinner." Her husband snorted. She plucked the laundered handkerchief from his breast pocket.

"Blow your nose, Gerry."

"See what I mean, Doctor," he spluttered. "It's more than flesh and blood .. ."

Dr Thorpe stretched his neck and passed a finger round the inside of his collar. He moved his jawbone till he heard it crack. He touched the spot under his eye where the skin twitched.

"Mondays," he said, "I could .. . er .. . um . . . see your .. . wife on Mondays."

On Mondays then she sat before him, feet together, arms folded. With calm eyes she watched him cross and uncross his legs, chew the end of his pen, strain backwards in his chair. This hour a week was Thorpe time. She answered questions with a will. Yes, of course she was aware of her husband's plight. Of course she had changed, was no longer the woman he'd married. No, change back she would not. As soon ask a castaway to dismantle the raft she'd assembled, log by log, on an almost barren island.

"Your transformation was a matter of choice?" he asked.

"It was .. . and it wasn't. I was sinking under .. . circumstances."

He cracked each knuckle again. One eyebrow became a question mark on the scored forehead.

"These .. . er .. . circumstances .. . what cir .. . what would those be?"

Something palpated in her skull - just gently, mind - like the memory of some dead pain.

"When I was a child," she said, "I read about monks who hid themselves and their treasures in towers. I cried for those prisoners. The Vandals, the Danes, whatever, when they tired of butting towers, were free to roam God's earth. Those monks, holed up for months, found little comfort in silver chalices and candlesticks. Their treasures were their troubles. I learned from them. Hole up all your treasures, but leave yourself outside. Dr Thorpe I have a workaholic husband and twin sons. I treasure them all. But .. ." and here she tapped on her smooth forehead .. . "I keep them in orderly boxes, and get on with living .. . Which reminds me .. ." She rose to her feet. She could see into his notepad. He'd drawn a honeycomb, was peopling it with stickmen. He had understood her then.

"It's the start, doctor, the start. Till next Monday then .. ."

But it wasn't really the start. It was the ending. Over the next visits she brought him to the beginnings. Most were connected with the boys' schools, bad reports, summonses, suspensions, last chances, expulsions. All of these she'd faced alone, Gerry always at an urgent meeting. Once, the mere memory of these would reduce her to tears. Not any more. They were tagged, boxed, could be visited and viewed like a safe deposit box.

She let Dr Thorpe in on her first secret.

"Humming," she said, "I learned it from my sister. Verna had five children under seven, a sick mother-in-law, a husband on shift work and a half dozen sporting and artistic interests of her own. Nothing fazed her. She hummed. When things were getting too much she set up a repetitive melody till it occupied her whole mind. She had lift-off."

"Humming?" The tick under Dr Thorpe's eye was giving him trouble again. She went on with what she was saying.

"One night they brought Robert home in a police wagon. The shock of seeing the garda on my doorstep sent me into humming mode pretty sharpishly. A silent hum, mind, through the sorry tale of stone-throwing. A hum loud as bees in lavender when the door closed and I faced my sullen leather-clad lout. I hummed for a full hour. He had to sweat till I was calm and ready for him. I tell you, Doctor, the humming worked then, and has again," she said as she rose to leave. That day his notepad was covered with musical notes in rows that claimed every square centimetre.

"The humming has its limitations. Take The Rave." She was back in her Monday chair. "The noise met me at the end of the road. Seven o'clock in the morning. I'd been driving all night from my mother's. I'm not kidding, Doctor, there were twitching bodies everywhere. Richard, alias DJ Lively, in headphones, his eyeballs popping like no ball you'd call for. Robert asleep, starkers, in the bath, the shower running. Humming? No way. Shrinkage," she said, "Secret Number Two. Maybe I borrowed the idea from that Honey I Shrank The Kids movie. I narrowed my eyes to pinpoints, let fly with both lasers. Youth after spotty youth shrivelled to the Snap, Crackle and Pop of the cereal ad. No trouble then to take the yardbrush to a dozen Tom Thumbs. Within minutes they were rubbing their eyes outside our front gate. My own two beauties I swept into the back garden till they came to their senses."

Things were easier after that, she told him. "You know those pain barriers people speak of? Well I seemed to be able to pass through barrier after barrier and one day it happened. I was cutting up tomatoes for a salad, and humming like mad. Robert was draped around the phone. Richard had 500 mega somethings thumping on the ceiling. Gerry was huffing about the call he was expecting. I held a tomato in my palm. Cool. Plump. Skin gleaming. Deep scarlet paling where the dimple nested a six-pointed star. And the smell. I was high on it. My knife passed through like a silver ray and rounds dropped onto the plate. All the same. All different. All perfect. I reached for a hard-boiled egg. Then that egg became the most important object in the world . . . and so on . . . Maybe this is the way other people get struck by religion. Like everything in the world is flooded with light. You told Gerry you'd find my main switch. You won't because I can't. All I know is that there is one and I wouldn't have it otherwise. Why is it that other people's happiness bugs us? The best I can wish for Gerry, for the boys, for you Dr Thorpe, is that you find a mains for yourselves instead of resenting mine. Coming here has made me examine my life. I'm a happy woman."

This time she knew she wouldn't be coming back. He had drawn a smiling sun, the sort a child draws above a four-square house. His eyes were calm under a smooth brow. All three of his telephones rang shrilly as he showed her out. She distinctly heard Dr Thorpe hum a little tune.