Chapter 4
No it is not March. But we can all pretend it's March. Say March 17. And no, I do not own The Martian or its characters. The Martian is copyright 2011, 2014 by Andy Weir, published by Crown Publishers. Image NASA/JPL/University of Arizona, public domain.
SOL 125
Potatoes
Tea
Mark Watney looked forlornly at the plate of potatoes sitting in front of him. On SOL 25, when he'd planned his meals as a part of calculating his potato farm yield, it'd seemed like such a good idea: have potatoes on St. Patrick's Day. Have nothing but potatoes on St. Patrick's Day. Yes, to help stretch his totally inadequate food rations, he'd decided that today he would eat nothing but potatoes grown on his Martian farm. After potatoes for breakfast and potatoes for lunch, they were starting to lose their appeal. Sure, he'd tried to switch it up—potatoes with grape jelly for breakfast, potatoes with Chinese mustard for lunch, and now potatoes with ketchup for dinner—but there was no denying the monotony.
"I said they'd keep me alive til SOL 584, not that I'd enjoy it," he reminded himself. He wondered aloud, "How did the Irish do it?" as he chewed morosely on his third helping of reconstituted potatoes that day. Setting down his fork, he looked around the Hab, taking in his former potato field.
"This is nothing like 'The Quiet Man.' I watched that movie every year on St. Patrick's Day growing up. Mary Kate Danaher was hot. All that red hair, and the blue blouse and red skirt, coming over the hill with the sheep. . . I remember the scene where she was serving potatoes for dinner out of a big bowl—more like flinging the potatoes. That first potato rolling off the plate onto the table," he said with a smile.
"But my favorite scene was toward the end, the fight scene with Squire Danaher and Sean Thornton. It must have lasted 10 minutes. Mom always said it was boring," he said, shaking his head in amazement.
He picked up his fork again and resolutely returned to his potatoes, scraping the last of the ketchup from his plate. "But one thing I never understood about that movie: what was with her obsession with her things? I mean, that spinet, and the table and chairs, and the china, linen, and pewter—her dowry."
Those were different times, Mark, and Ireland was—and still is—a different place than America. Even by 1952, when I played Mary Kate in the film, things had changed for women. I had a successful career as an actress—what could Mary Kate have done? She could have been a teacher, worked in a store. She could have been a nurse or a nun. Or, she could have married, as she did.
For myself, I always wondered whether she was happy in her marriage to Sean. It took me three tries before I got it right with Charles. Maybe using the seachrán—the matchmaker—was a good idea after all.
"Maureen O'Hara," Mark smiled broadly. "Welcome to the Hab. Forgive me for not seeing more of your films. Except 'Miracle on 34th Street,' of course—everyone's seen that. I'm glad you finally came around on Santa.
"But, hey—Happy St. Patrick's Day! What was it like playing a character like Mary Kate, and what the fuck—what the heck—was the deal with her stuff anyway?"
I loved that role. It was one of my favorites. I loved working with John. Many, like you, made that film a St. Patrick's Day tradition. Great publicity for an actress—
"Ms. O'Hara, was that a wink?" Mark asked, chuckling at the thought.
—even after my last film, in 1991, I could usually count on someone from the press contacting me around March 1. Such a blessing for an old actress. More even than growing old, what we feared most was being forgotten.
"I can sympathize with that," he said, looking at the neatly stacked boxes labeled Lewis, Martinez, Beck, Vogel, and Johanssen.
At first, I felt as you did about the character. I was a modern woman, making my own way in the world. Why did she need all those things? And, she had a husband, who must have been a man of some means, able to return to Ireland and purchase his ancestral home.
"Right!" Mark exclaimed, as animated as he'd been in days. During those days, he'd worked harder than ever, planning and then carrying out the repair of the Hab. Anything to keep his mind from dwelling on the fact that, unless NASA managed to come up with some new maneuver, he was going to starve long before the supply probe was due to reach him on SOL 856.
He wiped his plate with an antibacterial wipe, returned it to the shelf, and continued, "Why did she need them? She was Mrs. Sean Thornton, and life had to be looking pretty good, right?"
Mark, you're thinking like a man. She needed them because they were hers. Truly, what else did she have that belonged to her alone? She'd spent her girlhood caring for her father's house, which went to her brother on her father's passing. And now, she'd do the same for her husband's house. But neither home was hers.
"But, they were married!" Mark shouted in frustration. "What was his was hers and vice versa. Why the fuck—heck—did she need a bunch of moldy old furniture and the spinet—and what the fuck's a spinet anyway," he finished sheepishly, his temper spent.
Because, Mark, they were hers. Don't you remember what she said in the film, that her fortune was hers and her mother's—and her mother's mother's—before her? That ever since she had been a little girl, she had dreamed of having them around her? They were given to her—to her, not to her father, or her brother, or her husband. Passed down from woman to woman, those things could turn a man's house into her home. As the Rev. Mr. Playfair said, "The fortune means more to her than just the money."
"Huh," Mark said thoughtfully. "They were hers, weren't they? Thank you. I don't know how I'm going to survive 856 sols on 584 sols of food. I don't know how I'm going to get to Schiaparelli Crater. I don't know how I'm going to survive one more day listening to Lewis' damned disco. But, it's nice to have an answer about something.
"So, tell me, what was your favorite scene in the movie? It was the fight, wasn't it? Come on!"
It was better than the scene that preceded it, where I was dragged all over the county! But no, Mark, I didn't care for the fighting.
"Women," Mark muttered under his breath. Completing his nighttime shutdown of the Hab, he said, "But you yourself married a military man, didn't you?"
You're right, Mark. My third husband,—
"Impetuous! Homeric!" Mark said with a grin.
—Charles Blair, was an Air Force pilot. I was very happy with Charles. But Will, my second husband, was another story. How wretched it was to go home to him after filming those lively scenes with Duke. He was violent, and he drained our finances—the money I'd worked so hard for. Perhaps I had something in common with Mary Kate after all.
"Ms. O'Hara," Mark began.
Oh, please, call me Maureen. I'm not usually one to encourage such familiarity with the fans, but in this case, I don't think it can do any harm.
"Yeah, I don't expect we're likely to ever run into each other, are we?" Mark asked wistfully. "I really did love that movie. And it's great of you to give me those insights into the role."
Thank you, Mark. It's always good to hear from the fans. As to "running into" each other, you never know. If you're ever in Arlington, please look me up. You'll find me with Charles in Section 2, number 4966. Like I said, what we dread most is being forgotten.
"Arlington?" Mark said, puzzled. "Ohh, Arlington. Ms. O'Hara—Maureen—right now I can't even get to Earth, let alone Arlington National Cemetery. But if I'm ever in Arlington, nothing would keep me away."
With the Hab in low-power mode, Mark reached for the laptop on which he'd loaded all of the crew's personal media collections. "What I wouldn't give to have 'The Quiet Man' on this thing. But, I didn't expect to be in the Hab for Christmas, let alone St. Patrick's Day. Still, I'm sorry, Lewis, 'Saturday Night Fever' is just wrong for St. Patrick's."
And so, Mark Watney drifted off to sleep with his earbuds leaking "Well you can tell by the way I use my walk" and a woman with red hair, a blue blouse, and a red skirt moving through his dreams, coming over the hill with the sheep.