Heap Earth Upon It, page 22
There is Tom now, a definite shape on the horizon, heading down to the farm. Where he is a welcomed, wanted presence. I wonder did he notice that I was missing this morning. He looks troubled. But doesn’t he always?
Here she is! My god, it sends a stroke of lightning through me to see her up and about. Moving and living, out of the house to greet Tom.
And suddenly it lands on me. Such lovely manners. If I called down to the house, Betty would be far too polite and kind to ask me to leave. Even as another rain begins, and I realise I am surely going to catch my death, I’ll wait until the men go, so I can have her alone. Mammy’s headscarf is soaked.
Time passes, I couldn’t say how long, and while I wonder about lying down in the hedge to sleep, Tom comes out of the house with Bill. Whatever they talked about for so long seems finished with. Such lovely friends. Bill is such a lovely supporter of my Tom. A bit like you were. And I wonder, are you the barrier that stands between Betty and me?
With the pair of them making their way down to the farm, I slip back down the hill, to the house I spent half the night in. Only this time, I want to be known. I don’t want to be something that Betty could ignore. Not anymore. Look, she sharpens when she sees me. All her muscles jump and tighten. She is ready for me.
‘Look, I know you wanted to keep a distance.’
I begin to close all of the rancid space that she has laid out between us. If she really wanted me to stay away from her, she would at least take a step back from me now, don’t you think? An awful shame that she has let it come to this.
‘I just wanted to talk to you.’
A big, defeated sigh. She steadies herself against the wall of her house and nods to me. I suppose she’s all too aware that the cake I made for her is in a bucket of chicken feed inside. I won’t mention that I’ve already seen it.
She is ready to listen. How best do I tell her that where once I wanted to be a flicker of light, I now want to be a wildfire, avidly burning everything around me to keep her warm? I move closer to her. I only want to be near her. What salvation it would bring me, to feel her breathing, to know she is breathing. To put myself into the air that she is breathing and be within her.
‘I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your friendship, Betty, and how good you’ve been to me.’
I love you so much I want to be you, is what I wanted to say. But I’m doing very well at making all of this palatable.
‘I think I’ve been a bit much for you. I just want to explain myself.’
She looks down at the ground, pausing on my bare feet. Suddenly I am embarrassed. I want to let her know how deeply I have loved in the past, and how cruelly each of those women has been taken from me. I want her to understand that I love her, and that when she takes herself away from me, it causes my earth to shake.
Betty
The most unnerving thing about Anna is how unpredictable she is. Out of nowhere, she has appeared, barefooted, soaked. Looking as though she has slept outside all night. Maybe she has. Maybe if I’d had five minutes to prepare for this, I would handle it all a little bit better. But she likes to spring herself on me, and whatever was keeping me involved with her – sympathy, or patience, or being a good Catholic – has run out. Just as I start to tell her that I don’t want to talk, she cuts across me.
‘Do you remember I told you that Jack was nearly a father in Kilmarra? Her name was Lillian.’
Jack’s girl. Lillian Kealey. I try to keep the look of intrigue from my face. What else am I going to learn about that poor girl? Why is she telling me this now? My breath comes in ripples. I nod my head, hoping it will be enough. Don’t cry now, Betty, keep it together.
‘She was amazing. I’d never met anyone like her before. I loved people before, but never as much as I loved her. And she died.’
I am reminded of Ciara, asking if Anna might be attracted to me. I brushed it all off before. But now I don’t know if I should have. Is that how she loved Lillian Kealey? Perhaps a moment too late, I put on a look of surprise. I can’t let Anna know that Peggy has been talking; all that I already know about Lillian. And although I have been itching to find out what happened to her, suddenly I am petrified to know.
The morning sun is faint. She peers her head down to try to look in my eyes, and then lets out a heavy breath. As though preparing herself.
‘I had blocked it out of my head, but last night it all came back to me. The way that she died.’
Take it back. I don’t want to hear it. It’s none of my business.
Why has she chosen me? Of all the women in Ballycrea, why has Anna targeted me?
She reaches a hand out, and I dodge it. It hurts to treat her like this, when she so clearly needs some empathy. But I can’t give it to her.
Anna
My hand falls away from her. It feels as though it will fall forever without anybody to catch it.
I really need her to listen now. To be on my side. This is the nearest I’ve ever gotten to what happened to you, to how I really feel, and I need her to look after me while I carefully unravel it all. The truth isn’t something I have been able to reach for a long time. It stands somewhere, always, around a corner in the back of my mind. In a place that I can’t get to. Always running parallel to me, and now I am turning to look at it. Whether I tell a lie or the truth now, I need Betty to hold me up while I do it.
‘It was a nightmare.’
If pressed, this is all I have ever been able to say on the matter.
Bloodied floor. Bloodied hair. Yes, I remember all of that brutal, feral night.
Her face remains stiff, unchanged as I expose you entirely. All of the ways that Jack loved you, and all of the ways that I loved you. The shape you took at the bottom of the stairs, the rapidly changing colour of your skin. Jack crying about the baby, and Peggy trying to run out of the house. Tom wrapping me up in a blanket; I still feel how tightly he wrapped me up, as though I was about to fall apart. How strange it is to tell her your name. Betty. Lillian. Two beams of light, intercepting each other.
‘Tom told me what happened, but I don’t know if I believe it. I haven’t stopped thinking about her, and how much I loved her.’
She won’t look at me. I press on.
‘I’ve realised that I love you in the same way.’
For a moment, she is quiet. If we could only exist as this moment. This silence. All the pressure relieved. All her mercy before me. At last, her voice. I feel it vibrate through the air and shake through my body.
‘Why don’t you believe Tom?’
The lovely, trembling journey of her voice through my body stops. My admission, ignored. My love, unwanted.
And I have to consider what she has said. Why don’t I believe Tom? I’m always drifting into daydreams, talking to Mammy, thinking of the past; when I’m told something happened I tend to believe it, because I’m so rarely in the moment to witness it. But something about this, I can’t believe. A deep, churning regret forms within me. I miss you. The birds sing. She meets me with a look of uncertainty.
Betty appears to be making her own sense of this. The last thing I wanted was for her to interpret this information for herself. I want to tell her a very solid version of the truth and have her understand it exactly as I tell it.
‘Because it never felt right. What he said doesn’t seem like something that I could have done.’
Oh Tom, oh Jack, always thinking of me, putting me first. Jack always curled up with Peggy against the fire, warming her little feet in his hands. Tom always looking after me, watching without blinking, as though to miss even a second of me would be punishable. Betty is frozen. This isn’t about Lillian, it’s about love. I want her to understand my love. I cannot be misunderstood any longer.
‘I’m not sure of any of it, Betty, except how I feel about you. I’m sure of that.’
And suddenly, she is attentive.
‘Right. Okay, Anna. It’s okay, you’re okay.’
Okay. I’m okay. This is all I wanted. Betty on my side, telling me that everything is okay. She isn’t trying to shut me up, she understands me. I knew that she would.
I am coming near her again, at last. Oh, to be nearer to Betty.
I’ve never known such astonishing relief. I’ve never known such still, pale air; all that separates us now. The sun breaks over the hill, white light fills every space between us. Let me show her what this relief feels like.
Taking a risk, bringing myself to my home, I kiss her cheek. Secular flesh made holy. And I kiss the bone of her jaw. A silent, fat tear travels down the almighty curve of her cheek, and I welcome it into my mouth. Oh, yes, her tears are made of stars. Let me eat those stars. Her lustrous, salted eyes.
Wet grass against my ankles. Far-off sounds of a tractor’s engine. Her lips tighten. I kiss their corner, their centre. At last, I am within her cosmos.
Bliss, right before me. Not kissing me, but there to be kissed. Close to bliss, alright. You will never understand what this is like.
I know I must go before Tom catches me. It’s hard to leave, but no harder than any other time I’ve gone. She hurries me off, not wanting me to be caught, either. When I ask if I can come back soon, she smiles.
When I am gone, out and up the hill, I hear her saying my name. I hear her rejoicing, shrill, running down the field to tell Bill that she has just spoken to me. It takes everything not to turn around and wave at her.
Betty
As quickly as she appeared, she is gone. A little smudge on the hill. Frozen, I pray to God that she will not turn around. I pray to God that whatever Anna is going to do next has nothing to do with me.
I run my teeth down my tongue and spit onto the grass. The cold of her lips on my face, now burning.
She loves me. A crush, I could handle. If it was a crush, grand. But she said that she loves me the way that she loved Lillian Kealey. And look where Lillian Kealey ended up. What was it that Anna swears she was incapable of, that Tom swears she did?
Where is Bill? I need him. But I am stuck with the fear. I cannot run to him. And so, I remain with my back against the house, waiting for somebody to find me. Dreading to know who it will be.
And there on the horizon, I swear I see a tiny smudge of red. And I am sure it is Anna in her headscarf, settling in somewhere to watch me.
With a jolt of nerves, I stand up and run.
Tom
Imagine my heartbreak when I see Betty hurtling towards us. Half demented, her hair still in its rollers, running through the field. Shouting Bill’s name. Recoiling when I try to reach out for her. As though she hates me. She falls into his arms like she is about to collapse.
Imagine how it feels to have the people I have regarded as my saviours looking at me like they don’t know me. Betty is crying. I never thought I would see a woman like Betty Nevan crying. And yet, something has brought her to tears.
She murmurs into Bill’s chest, and I want so badly to push her out of the way. To put myself in Bill’s arms, and for him to hold on to me. To shush me and promise me that I will be alright.
And then, glaring at me, Betty regains some strength. For the first time, looking her age. Like a dog, she snarls at me.
‘Tell me now, Tom, what did Anna do to Lillian Kealey?’
Exasperated, your name in her mouth. Something I never planned for. I am completely, totally lost for words. What happened to Lillian Kealey. Where did she learn your name? What do I say to them, Lillian? What do I tell them now? I stammer, I cannot even begin to speak.
‘I don’t know what to tell ye.’
I am breathless. Caught off guard and facing you. Bill stands up straight, as though he is going to have to threaten me. As though I am a stranger. Maybe I am.
Betty looks almost ready to strike me. Right now, I am much more afraid of what she could do to me than of Bill.
‘Did ye kill her?’
Betty
Later on, I’m sure I will be shocked that I had the nerve to ask him this. But now, I feel I could stand before God himself and question all He has done. Something comes over Tom’s face. He is shocked himself. In disbelief, disappointed.
‘Betty, no.’
He says nothing more. Not begging me to believe him. Not afraid of what I will say next. Something in the shock and sadness of his tone makes me believe what I am told. Bill’s hands tense around me. As though he needs to protect and restrain me at once.
‘So what happened to her? Did she even exist?’
I ask more softly. Breaking away from Bill, I face Tom. Look at him shaking, like a child caught out. Later on, I will feel sorry for him. Tears in his eyes, then tears on his face. He tries to speak, but can’t.
‘You better start talking.’
Bill tells him. And immediately, like a trained dog, he answers my husband.
‘It was Anna.’
Tom
No. Wait. What should I have said? It was an accident. That’s the line, isn’t it? All the lies I’ve told fall down before me. I can’t unpick them. Bloodied wool. Mammy in her bed. Miltown and New York. A year of lying; I don’t even know what Bill thinks he knows about me anymore. What have I told him? What have I done?
All I’ve done is prepare for moments like this. But now that I am faced with it, I feel an unexpected wash of defeat. Of absolute exhaustion and nausea. Isn’t it always the way? You prepare for the worst, and when the worst happens, the preparations go away to nothing.
For a moment, they are quiet. Taking in what they have been told. I see Bill joining up the dots. Understanding that perhaps Anna has always been dangerous, and that I still choose to leave her alone with Peggy; and I let her be alone with Betty; and that I have never had any control over her at all. I could have left that lie in Kilmarra. That was the plan, wasn’t it? But I can’t take it back now. They heard me.
I expect to be hit. I expect to be pushed down into the soil and kicked and left. But Bill stays calm.
‘Go down and get dressed, pet, and we’ll follow you.’
He tells Betty. I expect he will want to speak more frankly when she goes. It isn’t fair to make her go down to the house on her own. But Betty goes.
And once more, my expectations were wrong. Every time Bill starts to speak, he falters, beaten by the gravity of it all. I wish I could think of a way to talk this away, to erase what I said. I wish he could ask me to hold him. To make it all better, the way he is always making things better for me. This is something I know how to navigate. I could show him, if he wanted to be shown.
‘Our mother used say that Anna was born during a storm. That was the reason for her swinging moods. For years, I believed that was true.’
I am trying to channel my mother now, who could talk anything down to nothing by a turn in the wind or an itch on the palm. Yes, the truths we are facing could be talked away, if I find the words.
‘I feel like my whole life revolves around her. I’ve to have a constant eye on her and her endless, delicate emotions. ’Tis cruel like, I don’t even know does she realise how much damage she’s done to me.’
Bill looks over to me, stony-eyed, as if to suggest his patience is up. It’s time to stop garnering pity. The jig is up, Tom, you’re caught out. I have to pull the veil off and reveal the hideous face of my family. Knock down everything I’ve worked so hard to build up.
‘Lillian Kealey died. And ’twas Anna killed her.’
I pray he will believe me.
My humiliation, my total and absolute heartbreak, and my greatest joy, when he says,
‘We’ll get this sorted out.’
I don’t know what to say to him. There were few times in my life I felt more fragile than this.
‘Do you believe in God, Tom?’
He asks me, and places a hand on my shoulder. He is touching me. He is not afraid of me. But what a question to ask. In a moment like this, how could I not believe in God? When is He more present than in our guilt, or humiliation, or fear? At His kindest, God is nothing more than a reminder of my failings, of my inability to be glorious. He comes to me often.
‘Of course, I believe in God.’
‘Then you had better pray for that girl.’
Given a moment of thought, I realise that since I met him, Bill has stood in as my God.
Anna
The evening finds me. At home, I am sewing curtains and waiting for a call to be brought back down to Betty’s house. She didn’t kiss me, I know, but she didn’t turn me away. She might need time. I won’t entertain the idea that it was all in my head. It wasn’t. Not this time.
Jack is out at Doyle’s. I’m not sure where Peggy is; I never really am. It was such a shame to have had to leave in a hurry this morning. Tom bursts in the door. He slams it shut, the cross falling off the wall. The windows shaking in their frames. Clearly ready to strangle me. Let him try.
‘Were you down in the Nevans’ this morning, girl?’
He asks me, trying to be gentle. But I hear the heat in his voice. I know better than to answer him. Tom is in his saviour mindset now, where he knows exactly what is best for all of us, and any deviance from that is criminal.
‘I’m fit to kill you, Anna.’
A cold streak runs through me, but the anger thins out of his voice before he finishes his sentence. He half chokes, as though he is going to cry. He doesn’t want me to answer, I know. And yet I cannot fight the compulsion to further upset him.
