Heap Earth Upon It, page 12
Anna
When Peggy goes out the door, something leaves me. My inhibition, perhaps, I don’t know, but I say something I’m not supposed to say.
‘Jack nearly was a father, in Kilmarra.’
Her eyes widen, but she is too polite to give a big reaction. It’s just because we were talking about babies, that’s all. And if nothing else, it will keep her interested in us. In me. For some reason, I feel compelled to share it with her. I suppose there is no reason I should be keeping this a secret. It didn’t even happen in the end. There was no baby, why hide from it?
Suddenly I feel faint. I turn away to look out the window. And I must be looking out the window for a long time, because the next thing I know, Betty is sitting right next to me, holding my hand, asking if I’m okay. All the power of her touch, resurfacing.
The lads come in the door of the house, with Peggy between them. It’s time to leave. I don’t have time to explain what I’ve said.
Tom starts doing his Gay Byrne voice for Betty. I wouldn’t have known that’s who he was impersonating if I wasn’t told. But her laugh sounds genuine. I feel so stupid, standing here listening to them all laughing, smiling, and I have to pretend that it doesn’t bother me that I wasn’t invited to watch The Late Late Show with them, and that I wouldn’t have liked to try American peppers. That I was too busy to be there anyway, but I’m so glad that everybody had a nice time. That I don’t feel like a perpetual afterthought.
‘Have you all your bits, love?’
Betty asks, and I know better than to think she is talking to me. Peggy answers her, I don’t listen, but I see them hugging. Betty looks at me like she wants to keep talking. I have to ignore it. Tom pats the top of Peggy’s head, and she shoves his hand away.
‘Oh, those boys have no idea about beauty, have they, Peggy?’
Betty says, winking at Tom, and smooths down Peggy’s hair. I stand still, watching it all. Unsure how to make myself a part of this moment so it doesn’t become another memory that doesn’t involve me. Bill mentions the name of an old neighbour that sometimes helps him on the farm, Paddy Murphy, and I sense Tom sharpening. Jealousy. Maybe Tom will try to spook that man away from the Nevans’ farm. Maybe the next time he shows up to the farm, he will be limping, not meeting Tom’s eye. I try to put myself in the conversation, but there’s no room for me. It’s time we left.
As we walk out the gate, I hear Betty asking Bill,
‘Did you ever hear of a place called Kilmarra?’
We leave, and I feel like she is being taken from me. Walking home, I can’t find my centre. I’m sure it’s fine that I told her about Jack and the baby. Sure we were talking about babies, weren’t we, and when they don’t come to be. I’m sure it’s fine. I’m sure it won’t make a blind bit of difference.
My Betty, unable to have a child of her own. Imagine. I must admit, something about it warms me. And with a jolt I realise how much she has already come to mean to me, and how afraid I would be to lose her. She makes my thoughts feel real. Not like abstract things I can’t get a hold of or pin down or make sense of. She grounds me. Maybe she is the centre I have lost. I want to touch her. To hold on to her for just a moment and let her know what her company means to me. Although, given the chance, I couldn’t really put it into words.
Jack
Deep in the summer, there will be mornings so sunny and bright that I won’t feel anything but grateful, and I won’t do anything but smile. I hold on to this thought on mornings like this, when the day stretches out ahead of me, intimidatingly empty. Anna has gone out to see Betty Nevan. Peggy is gone to school. Tom is my last chance today.
As he is getting ready to head out to work, I leave what’s left of my pride aside and approach him. All morning, there has been tension heating up between us. I’m sure he could guess what’s coming. I’m sure it puts him on edge, my looming request. And I’m sure it feels worse than expected when I land it on him.
‘I could give ye a hand down on the farm today, if ye need it?’
My throat nearly closes from the embarrassment of having to ask. I stand still, hands by my side. Waiting for a begrudging ‘yes’, so that I can put my cap on and start my day. My life.
But Tom says nothing. ’Tis often easier to say nothing than to say no. A part of me expected this. Being his brother, I know how to combat him before he has even moved.
‘They’re awful long days in the house, you know.’
Rattling around on my own, all the time. He can’t imagine what maddening length my days stretch to. Uncomfortable. Obviously. We are both uncomfortable.
‘Look, Jack, if there was work there I’d give it to you. But Bill keeps cows and bulls. I don’t think you’d manage.’
And ’tis often easier to say no than to be kind. Really, I know, Tom probably hasn’t the authority to be giving me any work. It’s Bill I should be asking.
He leaves the house, and when the door closes, I hear my exhaling echo off the walls. Nothing to be at. Nothing at all to be at. Nothing to look at or to read. Nobody to talk to. Nobody holding out a hand for me.
I catch myself in the mirror, in need of a shave and a haircut. It isn’t at all surprising that Tom told me no. This is how he used to behave with Daddy. He had to be the favourite, so I could never be the favourite. I believe one of the things currently plaguing Tom is that if I had the chance, and made a friend of Bill Nevan, I could be asked to take his place on the fields. I could be the one staying late in the Nevan’s, watching The Late Late Show and impressing Betty. I apply the shaving cream, and imagine Tom acts on the Nevans’ farm just as he used to act on our farm. Carrying things that are too heavy, walking too far, working too late. Sweating for approval. All the while knowing that I’m much more like Bill than he is. Funnier, more charming. He hates me for this. He should count himself lucky that I’m not vindictive enough to try to topple him from his spot at the top. I just wish he hadn’t made it about bulls. As though he can handle a bull better than I could.
A stack of pages sits under the newspaper, Tom’s hand-writing. His most recent attempts at poetry and writing. He thinks he’s Yeats; but Yeats didn’t keep all of his scribblings a complete secret, did he? In an act of kindness to us both, I decide not to look through them.
In the mirror, I start with the razor. And all I can think of is Daddy. As I draw the blade down my chin, my mind races away from the bull. I don’t remember much after the time that Daddy died, but those last moments come back to me with more clarity than the moment I’m in. Even with shaving cream lining my nostrils, I can get a huff of Daddy’s blood on the wet grass. The strength of the bull, like something I could never have imagined. All the strength I once saw in my father, vanishing. Dilating eyes. Clay on my collar. His futile attempt to fight, and his delayed attempt to flee. A small cut from the razor appears on my cheek.
I blot away the blood and wonder if Daddy would be upset about how little I remember. I get flashes of Mammy sending us out while herself and Margaret and Mrs Hayes prepared the house. And vaguely, Niall Hegarty bringing myself and Tom down to Mahoney’s shop to get supplies for the wake. Tom gave me a jaunt on his bicycle. He could hardly steer the thing he was crying so much. I’m sure that he was embarrassed to be crying like that in front of all the men. Maybe that’s part of the reason he is always trying to be the big man now. If I could have cried with him, I would have. But I was as stoic as Daddy ever was. You used to always say you wished I would show more emotion.
I appreciate what Niall Hegarty and the other men were trying to do. Maybe they thought that a funeral is the right time to start treating a boy like a man. But I didn’t feel like a man. If anything, the whole thing made me realise that I never felt like such a small child. Do you know, a part of me still feels that way. Stuck in Mahoney’s shop, shivering but unable to cry, watching as my big brother humiliates himself by feeling his feelings.
That’s all I really remember about it. That, and the ache in my arms from carrying back a crate of Jameson.
Right. Come on now, Jacky. Do something with yourself. Switch on the radio and see what’s happening out in the world.
Faintly, somewhere within the static, I recognise the noise of The Beatles. Your favourite. I switch it off again. Would I be insane to suggest that the radio is mocking me? I clean the cottage. I feed the pony. I do all the womanly tasks that Anna doesn’t bother with, to give some purpose to my morning. Being the woman of the house is a career, I don’t know why she doesn’t embrace it.
The day is fresh, bright. A good day. Maybe I’ll just go down to the Nevans’ farm anyway. Tom and Bill will feel too much social pressure to turn me away. I might lie out in the field as Tom comes along with the plough, and have my throat cut by the blade, and be turned into the earth. What a fine thing it would be, to be made into the earth. To be made new again.
‘I Feel Fine’ gets stuck in my head, even when I only heard a few bars of it. Another song you never heard. I suppose you would have all the words learned by now. You’d be begging me to take you up to Dublin to see them play a concert. You’d be in love with me, and I’d feel fine.
At twelve, I walk through the town, down to Doyle’s, knowing there will be a bit of company for me there. I know that Teresa Doyle is probably a bit fond of me, but I pretend not to notice. She’s happy to talk to me, happy to listen. Happy to let her eyes melt across me. But I like her company. I want to see her. To let melt her eyes.
When I arrive, to my surprise, I see Tom and Bill, already half a pint in. Bill talking and messing with the black rings from the ring board. The sconces glowing. The fireplace lit.
‘Hard at work, I see.’
I stifle a scoff as I sit on the stool beside Tom. Bill is in an animated conversation with another man. Mary is pulling pints, but Teresa comes out from the back when I arrive, and hurries her sister away. She comes to stand with me. Radiant.
‘Actually, Jack, Bill is here on business. He’s making a deal with that man.’
‘Jack O’Leary, nice to see you.’
Teresa smiles and puts a bag of lemon drops before me. She lights a cigarette for herself. Tom tries to ignore her, but I know he is listening.
‘Hello, Teresa.’
I smile, hoping she won’t notice the cut on my cheek. I can’t help but laugh at Tom.
‘He couldn’t have left you on the farm while he came down for his meeting? You’re not a little boy.’
Teresa giggles. Tom rolls his eyes and turns away from us, unwilling to laugh at himself. Recently, Teresa has taken to asking her father to give me a few hours’ work. I suppose it’s hard for Ger Doyle to believe that I don’t have a taste for drink when I’m in the pub most days. Bill shakes the hand of the man he is talking to, pats him on the back and sends him off.
‘Job done! Another round please, Teresa. And one for our friend Jack, please!’
Bill says, rubbing his hands together. Whatever deal he has made, he is very happy with it.
‘Jack, how’s tricks?’
He asks me, and I am at once drawn to and repelled by his charisma. I used to be a man like this. Making deals in the pub, buying rounds, with everyone’s names in my mouth. I only ever did it to live up to Daddy, you know. Everyone in Kilmarra expected it from me. It feels good to let it all go for a while.
‘Quiet enough.’
I tell him. Tom shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable to have me interacting with Bill. His two worlds colliding, here in Doyle’s.
‘I’m going to ask Dad again today, Jack. Mary will be working less and less now with the baby coming, so we could do with the help.’
I smile, unsure what else to do. This is what she likes about me; I never know what to say, I’m quiet, moody. I don’t think she would have liked the old Jack at all.
‘Thanks, Teresa.’
Bill leans in, listening to all of this. Wondering, I’m sure, how he could spin his web to make it all work out for me. It isn’t that I don’t want his help, I just don’t want him to think of me as another little son, like Tom.
And anyway, to be very honest, I’m half afraid to be standing on the same side of the bar as Teresa. To be at her mercy. A few days ago, she told me very earnestly that I am something apart from everything that she knows, and everything that knows her. A novelty, I suppose she meant to say. That’s the sort of thing that comes out of her when we spend a few hours together each day. What would come out of her if we were to start working together? All our evenings and nights, side by side.
‘Did ye see there’s a dance next Friday?’
Bill says to us all. He presents this as very good news, which pulls a sigh from me, and a smile from Teresa.
‘I saw that alright.’
Looking up at me from his pint, Tom is feeling the pressure to keep up his happy persona.
‘We’ll be there, won’t we, Jack?’
I could terrorise myself with all the awful eventualities of the dance before answering. Or I could just agree now, because I know that I will end up agreeing no matter what.
‘We will, please god.’
Tom hops up, suddenly alive.
‘Oh, we will! Dancing and drinking and all that carry-on, ’tis good for the soul.’
Teresa is taken aback. I suppose she hasn’t seen too much of Tom yet.
‘’Twould lighten us all up, I suppose.’
Bill says, as though we really need it. As though he knows what we need.
Then Tom claps his hands together, delighted that I am on his side. As though I have ever really gone against him. I feel I need to turn to Teresa and ask her if she’s going. I don’t want her to feel like she’s just watching a conversation, especially when I came in here looking for her company.
‘This will be good craic now. A bit of ruaille buaille. There might even be a bit of talent there.’
Tom says, and immediately blushes, realising Teresa can hear. I’m sure he wants to apologise to Bill more than he wants to apologise to her.
‘You’ll be there, will you, Teresa?’
I ask, and she taps the ash off her cigarette, our eyes meeting.
‘I suppose I will be.’
Anna
Just as I drift off to sleep, I swear I register the sound of a scream. Far-off, like it’s wiping past the house, but I swear I hear it. It follows me into a white-blonde dream, this dulled, drawn-out noise. And as I am waking, it almost wakes with me. Becoming more real, a sound so true I could hold it in my hands. But when I look around, I see Peggy and Jack have slept through it. Perhaps there was no scream at all. Perhaps you just want some attention. Are you jealous of my new life?
Then comes silence, and a bright morning. The brightest I have seen this year. The sun has burst across a pale sky. Slowly, wildflowers bud, and the tight beginnings of berries build up the hedges. A chorus of birds sing. And Betty pushes her bicycle up my path. Her blue coat and hat soaking up the light. These days, these moments and seconds, coming from nowhere without warning and filling me with an infinity of reasons to keep going. How violently quick my spirit has been uplifted. It begins with her fingers tapping on the window, on my heart, and her voice calling in the door. A bag of stale bread in the basket of her bicycle. Cooing at Peggy as though she is younger than nine.
‘Peggy! Come on and we’ll feed the ducks.’
There at the window, she reminds me of myself. Always looking in. I don’t even get angry at Peggy for the look she throws me when I follow them. She takes Betty’s hand, and I wonder if she’s showing off. What I wouldn’t give to take Betty’s hand. To tell her how she uplifts me. To tell her that she has made my future soft and inviting, where once it was just a far-off and impalpable threat. But I say nothing, and follow them closely.
Betty starts telling us about a man who called to them a few nights ago, with a big horoscope chart. He could read her past or future using the stars.
‘It’s all to do with your time of birth, I think. It’s a science, so he said.’
He was telling Betty and Bill about their own tendencies and proclivities, as though they didn’t know themselves. He told them parts of their future that they couldn’t guess at. Parts of their past that he shouldn’t have been able to guess at. Isn’t that interesting? Just another memory that I am not a part of; I hate missing out on these things, even when I fear all of my stars would have been void.
At the lake, Betty gets down to Peggy’s height, pointing out a patch of reeds, lifting her dress and letting the bare skin of her knees become dirty with the earth. Isn’t she wonderfully uncouth? See her fingers working, ripping the heel of the bread into pieces for Peggy, who drops them into the water. What a gift, to have such a surplus you can allow the bread to go bad. I never felt so grand. Here are the ducks. Amn’t I a lucky girl, in a lucky position? To have Betty Nevan elevating me above my own class. Right now, I am so much more than Anna O’Leary. These big, almost oppressive happinesses come on so fast and so strong. I wonder is it Betty bringing them on? When I am with her, I feel I am floating and firmly on the ground at the one time. A big feeling. An almighty feeling. You cannot imagine what this is like. I feel like I came out of the sun to be here. For the first time in so long, I feel the winter is behind me.
‘You’re going down to the hall next Friday, I assume?’
Oh, every word she utters is an injection of energy into my blood. Do you know what I like so much about Betty? She isn’t just humouring me. I can tell that she really likes me.
‘I can’t go. I’ve no one to look after herself.’
I say, nodding at Peggy, who seems frightfully close to falling into the lake. Betty draws her back with a hand. How gentle she is.
