Heap Earth Upon It, page 14
Anna
It doesn’t last long at all, and yet it lasts longer than perhaps it should. It was only an instinct, really. It’s just to be sure that no blood spilled onto the floor. It’s just that she wants to look after me. Just that I want to bleed onto her tongue. It’s just to feel close, as close friends should. To feel control. My heart hammering so fast that it might shatter.
I tense my hand, which stops Betty. Shameful, to stop such a shameful thing. She does not allow herself to be embarrassed, and just for a second, I let my hand fall on Betty’s cheek, leaving a moment of blood there. To feel close. To feel control. And then I go to the sink, alone, to wrap my fingers in a rag. How frightening it is to feel. For a long time after you, I felt like a bruise. Suddenly, she has reminded me that I am freely flowing blood.
It would be impossibly difficult to pretend that it didn’t happen. And we don’t. There are practical ways of explaining it away. Maternal ways, carnal ways, romantic ways. So many ways that no matter how we look at it, it loses its original meaning.
I am disappointed to realise that there is nothing left in the world to feel after I have felt the pulsing suction of her mouth. Surely there is nothing left in the world to taste now that she has tasted my blood. A quare thing, an unspoken, shared thing.
One animal looking after another.
Something that has been bubbling inside of me for the longest time has suddenly boiled over. It’s an injury I sought to cure with you. With Aoife Murray, Milly Hayes, Catherine Jennings. It is the shrill cries of a fox, waking you up from a dream. It is a horse’s hoof, firmly planted on your neck. It is a local woman, sucking your blood. It is this: the astonishing joy of a woman’s unbridled, unfiltered attention. Something I’ve so rarely known, something I now have a personal source for. Already I need another dose of it. Of her. What other ugly things can I do to get her to pour her affection into me like that? Oh, what a troublesome thrill. Not even god could touch me now.
Betty
‘Long enough service, wasn’t it?’
Bill puts his cap on. It wouldn’t have seemed so long if we hadn’t stayed up so late with the O’Learys. The right thing to do would have been to finish the night when the lads came home. Instead, Bill brought the McCarthys back down for a drink. To celebrate the new calf, they said. Although I see now it wasn’t the best idea, last night I really didn’t mind. The McCarthys were a very welcome addition after Anna cut her finger open. The most awkward hour of my life passed before the lads all burst through the door. With Anna sucking her fingers, not letting her eyes leave me. One minute, she was an adult, the next she was a child. Bleeding, and my responsibility.
Eleven o’clock Mass is something of a novelty to me. I was glad to go late and miss running into the O’Learys. With Bill always up and awake with the breaking of dawn, we never get to sleep late, we never really take our Sundays slow. Today is a nice change, even with a sore head. We pass most of Ballycrea on our walk home from Mass. Eibhlín Quiggly and her girls stop to chat with us. Maybe it’s a result of a late night, but I cannot take in a word that she is saying. And I am trying. What captures my attention are the dresses her girls are wearing. Short cut, red and yellow, with white tights. Like little dolls. That’s how young girls dress now. It makes me feel old, to look at what young people are wearing and not understand why they like it. I’m sure Eibhlín is mortified to have them walking around the town that way on an ordinary Sunday.
We walk on, I don’t let myself feel old for long. In fact, I keep myself in good humour by remembering that Eibhlín is six months younger than me but looks ten years older. Petty, but it keeps me going. Back at home, Bill hardly stops moving before announcing that he is heading down to the farm.
‘Ah, Bill, would you not spend the day with me? We could go down to town. Sure ’tis Saint Valentine’s Day, isn’t it?’
He throws his eyes up to Heaven. It isn’t that he doesn’t want to spend time with me; it’s just that, like most men his age, Bill has to be dragged away from home. He would gladly spend all day and all night pottering between the house and the farm, for the rest of his life. I’m sure that he thought that Mass would be his only excursion today.
‘Give me a minute so.’
He will complain for half the afternoon, I know, but he loves coming down town with me. Bill loves to do whatever makes me happy. Look at him grinning as he goes out the door.
A minute, he said. There’s no telling how long a minute will last with that man. I read the valentine card he gave me this morning, and then I read it again. If I sit down now I might not pull myself back up all day. I reach the unfortunate conclusion that the best way to pass the time is to clean the place up. Pulling out the chairs to sweep under the table, I see that Anna has left her handbag, in what has become her chair. The clasp untied. The corner of a handkerchief peeking out. And me, very quickly, peeking in.
Only quickly. Only to know what sort of things a girl like Anna carries in her handbag, because she isn’t the sort of girl who would carry a handbag at all. And yet, she often has this little thing under her arm. She doesn’t smoke, and I’ve never seen her wearing so much as a swipe of lipstick. What could be so necessary to her that she needs to carry it around all the time?
The handkerchief, monogrammed Kealey, a surname I don’t recognise. I hold on to it. A docket from the shop. A tissue. And then two items that shock me almost as much as each other. The first, a Mass card. Yellowed lamination, curling edges. Our Lady on one side, a prayer in ornate lettering. And on the reverse, the name Lillian Kealey. By the dates, only just a year dead. Only twenty-six. And I realise that this is Peggy’s Lillian. It must be. The one who would look after her, and make Brigid’s Crosses every February, and break Lent on Sundays. Jack’s girl, Lillian. Her handkerchief in my hand, her Mass card in my kitchen.
The shock of it is halted by the second item, which somehow scares me more. My blue headscarf. Missing since last week. Suddenly back again.
It’s a lot to stumble on at once. My mind is reeling, and doesn’t know where to stop, or to start. What I need is to go over to Ciara’s house, lay out the contents of the handbag on her kitchen table and connect all the dots with her. She will understand all of this in a way that Bill won’t. He’ll only overreact. He’ll be too concerned and want to confront Tom and Anna before we get any real information. He’ll make a scene, and that won’t solve anything. I feel hot. I need a minute to think.
I go to open the window to let some air in, and as if by some miracle, Ciara and John are there, in the distance. I know her by her coat. They are coming our way. Ciara carrying something under a tea towel, John a few steps behind her, struggling to keep up. I bless myself as they reach our gate.
‘How are ye now?’
John calls, and Ciara rolls her eyes, keeping him a few steps away.
‘You’re heading down to watch the match, are you, Bill?’
Ciara asks, but it isn’t a question. Often, Ciara becomes so irate with her husband that she has to call to mine to vent. When this happens, Bill normally ends up babysitting John.
‘I suppose I am.’
Bill looks at John, annoyed over whatever he has done to Ciara that won’t allow him to come back home for a few hours.
‘You didn’t want to go to town, did you, pet?’
‘Another time! Ye enjoy the match.’
I smile, knowing that Bill would be more than happy to go down and meet all the boys at the pitch and sink a few pints after. And right now, I would much rather have some time alone with Ciara. Divine timing, all of it.
‘Ye better strike, so.’
Ciara says, not turning to look at John. Bill laughs as they go. I’ve never known a fortnight to pass without Ciara swearing that John is on his last chance.
The lads leave, and my day has changed. Inside, Ciara lays down what she has been carrying, taking off the tea towel to reveal a tart. A part of me wants nothing more than to sit down and listen to Ciara bitching all afternoon, eating slice after slice of sweet tart with her. Warmed by the fire, laughing over our husbands. I want a nice, normal afternoon with my friend. A routine that I understand. But the handbag remains on the table. And I must show her what I’ve seen. Only how do I start?
‘Jesus give me patience and strength, that man has me driven demented.’
Ciara starts, taking cups from the press, making a pot of tea, and telling me that John has lost half their holiday money in the bookies. She sits down, cuts into the tart.
‘Anna O’Leary was here last night.’
She pauses at what I’ve said, unsure why I’ve interrupted her with something so boring.
‘She left her handbag behind.’
I hold it in my hands, showing her that it’s already open. Her eyebrows raise, she knows I’m not the type to look through another woman’s things. And yet, it’s clear I have looked through Anna’s things. I don’t know how best to tell her what I’ve found, and so I take her through the exact motions that brought me to the Mass card and my headscarf.
‘I was minding Peggy a while ago, and she mentioned Jack had a girl before they arrived here. Lillian. She was mad about her. I thought they had split up or something.’
‘I remember, you were saying.’
Ciara says, through a mouthful of tart.
‘I was meaning to ask Tom or one of them what happened between himself and Lillian. Well, I’m glad now that I didn’t.’
I slide the Mass card across the table. It takes a minute for the penny to drop. Ciara’s hand covers her mouth.
‘Christ in Heaven, so young!’
She swallows the tart. I hear it in her voice.
‘Peggy was talking about her like she was still alive. Maybe she thinks that she is still alive, I don’t know.’
Then, before anything settles, I show her my headscarf. Which elicits no reaction, until I tell her,
‘This was missing for a week, and then it turns up in her handbag this morning.’
I tap the table while I talk, hoping to hammer some importance into what I’m saying. But Ciara doesn’t know what to make of it. And, given a chance to think, neither do I. And so we look at each other a while, trying to make sense of these alarming but banal clues.
‘Something is up.’
‘Oh, definitely.’
Ciara takes another mouthful of the tart. I do the same, hoping to get to the bottom of it all, fast.
‘But what could it be?’
‘I don’t know.’
A part of me knows better than to say anything bad about the O’Learys, but I let myself.
‘I only know that Anna is quare out. And they’re keeping this poor girl’s death a secret.’
The tart stings at the back of my teeth.
‘Ciara, if I had listened to you in the first place. You said they were strange people! Strange doesn’t begin to describe it.’
She doesn’t want to boast that she was right, so she just nods as I go on.
‘I just want to put a distance between us, until I can figure it all out.’
‘Sure how will you do that, aren’t they always here?’
‘They are, I haven’t a clue what I’ll do.’
But Ciara has. She has several. We talk about getting Anna a job, or involving her with volunteer work, or landing her on another woman. We go around in circles, until something good arrives with us. Didn’t I promise her a man?
‘Liam Hennessey.’
‘Liam Hennessey!’
A young man, without a mother, who recently inherited his father’s farm. Not bad-looking, just not good-looking enough to have gotten a girl yet. And so desperate for a wife, for any bit of company, that he’d take anybody we set him up with. And God knows that Anna is yearning for company.
I get the impression that Anna is the sort of woman who is proud to have never been touched by a man. All a bit old-fashioned, if you ask me. I feel sorry for her and her heavy virtue. Maybe this is just what she needs.
Yes, Liam will distract her for a while. In the best case, she will take to him, and they might get married, and I might never need to worry about this again. In the worst case, he will occupy her for just long enough for me to do some more digging and put these pieces together. When we reach a conclusion and plan it all out, Ciara sighs, finally going back to all that John has done wrong this week.
And I relax. It’s so good to have a plan in place. It is so good to have somebody to talk to who I can trust. Warm by the fire and eating slices of sweet tart, laughing over our husbands.
Tom
‘Are ye sure it’s alright to leave her with Minnie Keane? We hardly know the woman.’
Jack asks, fighting Anna for room in the mirror. I comb my fingers through Peggy’s hair, because Anna is too busy putting on lipstick to come and do this herself. Peggy wriggles around, trying to pull her head away from my hands. As though I’m running knives across her scalp.
‘Yeah, Betty said it’s fine.’
Anna says, impatience rising in her voice as Jack stands in her way. It’s strange to see what she looks like with makeup on, it’s been so long. Strange, too, to see Jack with a bottle of hair oil, preening himself.
‘Presumptuous, considering Betty has no children of her own.’
Jack mumbles, as though Anna wouldn’t hear him. Of course, Anna hears everything. Even things that we only half think of, she hears. The way that she’s looking at him could turn him to stone. Weighted air passes through the room. For days now I have felt a storm impending. I wait for somebody to snap.
But with a cool breath, it all passes, and Anna takes Peggy off me. Positioning her in front of the mirror, she pulls Peggy’s hair into two tight plaits. She is more settled with Anna than she was with me. I don’t let myself take offence to this.
‘Why can’t I go to the dance?’
She asks Anna. I decide it isn’t my problem. Being left alone is the sort of thing she usually has tantrums over. But she’s more than happy to be alone with Betty Nevan, so I’m sure she will get on fine with Mrs Keane. I’ve met her on the road once or twice. She seems lucid enough.
‘Dances are only for adults. You can go when you’re grown up.’
Anna roots through her handbag while speaking, not giving her full attention to Peggy.
My God, I was mortified carrying that thing home for her on Monday evening. Betty insisted I took it with me. I don’t know why Anna couldn’t have just called down for it herself. Even though it was stuffed inside my coat, I was frantic with the idea that somebody would catch me carrying a handbag.
Tying my tie, I watch from the corner of my eye as Anna puts her chin on Peggy’s head. Trying to seem sisterly, perhaps. Looking at their reflection, as though something is missing.
‘We’re more alike every day.’
Anna says. And I hope, for Peggy’s sake, that isn’t true.
Anna
The nerves have my bones rattling. I want to get down to the parish hall as quickly as we can, to scope it all out and know exactly what I’m getting myself into. It’s as daunting as our first evening here, like going down to John Moore’s house all over again. I reach into my handbag and stroke Betty’s headscarf, trying to settle myself.
Cold, pale grey air all around me, all in front of me. The sort of foggy night that you might meet Jackie the Lantern in. Before dropping her off at Minnie Keane’s, we take Peggy down the sea road to watch the big waves for a little while. She twirls her hair for the whole walk, even when Jack holds one of her hands. Isn’t it pretty, the sea? Unpredictable and dark, and so full of life. The ground beneath us mosaicked by crushed mussel shells, blue and white. As the sea churns out creamy foam, I think of England and what I have heard of their seasides; little carnivals.
‘’Twould put a thirst on you. Seafoam always puts me in mind of a pint.’
Jack says to nobody in particular. The ocean air is wetting us. My hair begins to feel greasy on my neck, behind my ears.
When we get down to Minnie Keane’s little terrace house, warm light fattens the windows. Outside, four or five children are running around in the mist. Minnie Keane waves at us from the door, and I realise that she is a total stranger. Something about Betty mentioning her name made me feel like I knew her. Like it would be fine to trust her with Peggy. Well, she is smiling, she seems fine. The other children seem happy, I’m sure Peggy will be grand.
She refuses a kiss when we leave, and I pretend not to be upset by it. I could do with a hug and kiss this evening.
We had to have three conversations with Jack before he agreed to let this woman look after Peggy. Tom called to her house yesterday to check her out and make sure it was all okay. I appreciate that this woman is a stranger, but she’s hardly a witch.
‘She’s not going to eat Peggy, is she?’
I try to make Jack laugh. But with his little Peigín, there is to be no joking.
We turn and leave her, and the mood shifts altogether. How strange. No longer are we three siblings walking down to the parish hall. Suddenly, we are three separate adults, heading in the same direction by coincidence. Each with plans for the evening that don’t involve each other. It scares me to think of what they might have in mind for themselves, and so I allow myself to be taken with thoughts of dancing with Betty.
Jack
Even though we walk on without speaking, they feel too close to me. So close that they might as well be on my back. I try to walk ahead, but they catch up. Such a thick silence. Tom must feel the weight of it, too, because he is the one to break it.
