Heap Earth Upon It, page 9
She asks me, presumably wary of me not saying anything. This time, I have every intention to answer her, but just as I open my mouth, I notice the ball of her hair caught on the grass. It takes me for a moment. That is exactly what I want to be. That is the level of peace I have been trying to reach. To exist as nothing more than a loose tangle of hair. Her hair. In the breeze, and then on the grass. Just waiting for a bird. So still and so easy. I am brought back by Betty’s humming.
‘Would I immigrate?’
I try to centre myself again, to bring my mind back into my body, because I’m not a tangle of hair. I’m a person, being spoken to by the creator of the tangle.
‘No, no I couldn’t. Sure who would look after my lot?’
There was a short while when my life was filled with effervescent conversations about going to America with Milly Hayes, the milkman’s wife. We were very good friends, at one time. If she had really wanted to go, I would have gone with her. But, obviously, she wanted to marry the milkman more. It’s a shame when things are one-sided like that. I used to pretend to talk to her sometimes after that. An unhealthy habit, I suppose, that I should never have allowed to develop. It was the loneliness that did it. I must admit it’s come back a bit since you’ve been gone.
After that, with Milly, I never gave any serious consideration to moving out of Kilmarra. But look at me now, long gone from there, and only rarely thinking about Milly and all she once meant to me.
I wonder if Betty would think I was pathetic if I said I can’t envision living anywhere but in a cottage with my siblings. Would she think I was pathetic if I said that I want to move so little that I would be glad to simply stand in this doorway for the rest of my life?
‘The three of my brothers went to New York after I got married. Declan, Michael and Joe. Twenty-five years since I saw them last.’
Betty says, almost sighing, and it feels like I am being fed by the details of her life.
‘I know they’re all there together, sure they’ve all wives and children out there now. But I still get so afraid that they’d be lonely. If I knew one of them was lonely for even a minute my heart would break.’
‘Don’t men always break your heart?’
Something sincere, which makes her laugh. The sound of her soul. When those brothers of hers left, I wonder did they consider her loneliness as much as she considers theirs.
Every day she says a prayer for them, and although it’s been years since she saw them, she says that she knows she will see them again. When you’re lonely for a person in that way, you’ll believe anything to keep yourself going. This would be the right time to tell her that I know what it is to miss somebody, to know that you won’t see them again but to go on behaving like you will.
Bill is the only family she has left. Isn’t it sad for her? But now, she has me. Somebody who understands exactly what she feels. What a blessing.
‘Sure they might as well be on the moon, they’re so far away!’
Once more, she echoes my thoughts, and somehow manages to laugh, even when she is sad. When people are far away like that, how can we be sure that they even exist anymore? Perhaps she has an answer for that. Perhaps she could let me know whether anybody from Kilmarra is still in Kilmarra, if it exists as it did, or if it still exists at all. You know? Like does the butcher still open for an hour on Sundays, and do your sisters still remember my name? I look at her for a long moment and allow myself to move a little bit closer to her warmth.
Betty shifts her weight, moves away from me, out of the doorframe to step onto the grass, bending down to stroke the yard cat and then leaning against the house.
‘If you were to go, I’m sure Tom and Jack would look after themselves. They might be encouraged to be married.’
Something about this puts a twinge of insecurity through me. As though Tom and Jack don’t really need me, as though they could replace me with any woman they came by. And I’m sure it means nothing, but I feel it as something.
No, she wouldn’t want me to leave the country. As unknown as we are to each other, she would miss me calling down in the evenings. This new and precious routine is all that is pulling us out of the winter. She would miss me. And I would miss her.
‘Tom used to talk about going off somewhere, I don’t know why he never did.’
This seems to intrigue her, but I don’t want to tell her all the reasons that Tom’s life hasn’t worked out the way that he wanted it to. There isn’t time. Moreover, I don’t know if I’m allowed. Before she can ask about it, I put the topic of conversation back to myself.
‘I wouldn’t want to go all that way just to find myself in the same situation as I’m in here. Cooking and cleaning and looking after people. Even if it was as someone’s wife.’
Surprising, how quickly that came to me. It seems rather a fully formed opinion to have spat out. I didn’t know I felt that way.
‘What harm is it being someone’s wife?’
She asks, and I wonder what other opinions would come out if I let myself speak. The truth is too embarrassing. That I’ve never had a chance at being somebody’s wife, and so the idea of it has made me bitter. I wonder if she would still want to be my friend if she knew what a failure my romantic life has been.
Would she understand it if I said there was never anyone with enough patience for me? That there was never anyone worth my patience? When I can scarcely hold on to friends, what chance have I with a lover?
There was one short week with the father of a holidaying family from Leitrim. I thought that I would have to fight myself not to fall for him. That I would want so much more than a week, and that when it was over I would think of him all the time; that I’d be crying into my pillow, trying to feel the last of him on my lips. But in the end, a week of being pressed up against him was more than enough. Besides the very odd occasion that somebody mentions Leitrim, I don’t think of him at all. That was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a relationship – what do you make of that?
I couldn’t really count the afternoon with the man whose name I can’t recall in Cork city.
Or the scattered winter nights I shared with Niall Schumaker, an unmarried schoolteacher in Fernmore. He was good to me, he really liked me. I could tell. But there was more passion in five minutes of conversation with Milly Hayes. More love in just the suggestion of your smile. Imagine. Pathetic.
I don’t remember these affairs often, or with any particular fondness. They were exciting when they were happening, but as soon as each one ended I was just embarrassed.
Just things that happened, void of romance. Void of meaning. I try to convince myself that I used those men in the same way that they used me. I wouldn’t want Betty to know that I had so little regard for my virginity that I threw it at the first man that came my way.
It’s too much for me to think about, and so I know it would be too much to tell her. Instead I wait for myself to reveal another new opinion.
‘There’s nothing wrong with being somebody’s wife. I think I just want to try being independent, that’s all.’
It sounds like an impressive, forward-thinking idea; at the very least, it smooths over my mistake. So I commit to it, even when, really, independence is the very last thing that I want. What I actually want is for somebody to hold on to me so tightly that we become one thing, never separating. To be married with children tying me to somebody. To have a sister, the bond of blood keeping us together. To have anything more than meaningless sex and adulterated friendships.
‘You could have independence, Anna. Of course you could.’
How quickly and easily she validates me. That’s what it is. I realise now, Betty validates me. She makes me feel like a person. That’s why I want to be around her so badly. She sees me as new, without my siblings and without my past, and makes me feel like I am my own clean thing. My own woman. That perhaps I don’t need to lean on my brothers so much. Perhaps they don’t define me. Perhaps my past doesn’t need to follow me. Exhilarating. Betty could show me how to leave everything that happened behind me. How to close the door on it and start living a new life.
‘But I’m glad to hear you’ve no intention of immigrating. It’s nice to have a new family in the town. The young people are always leaving, it’s good to have a few coming in for a change.’
Betty could be the person I’ve been looking for. Somebody with patience for me. Somebody worth my patience. Who could give me more than a few scattered nights, more than a week of her time. Who might want to stay in my life, always. Don’t you think that I deserve that? Suddenly I want to hug her, to have her wrapped around me. So tightly that I would melt into her skin, and stay warm inside her for a while.
‘Would you ask your small girl to call up to me after school on Monday? I want her to make a few Brigid’s Crosses for me. ’Tis a way easier for little nimble fingers.’
I nod, in awe. What a good woman. Taking my worry off me. Taking my responsibility off me.
Leaving her house, I feel a foot taller than everybody. Ready to enjoy myself, to be a new person.
And I think of her hair caught on the grass. If she ever does that again, I will catch the hair and keep it in my pocket.
The sky is darkening as Tom and I go.
‘Would you ever immigrate, Tom?’
When I ask, he rolls his eyes. But he surprises me with an honest answer.
‘I used to think of it often. New York. Boston. Philadelphia. Those kinds of places. The big wide skies and the skyscrapers.’
He looks up at the sky. It’s years since he talked about leaving Ireland. I thought he had it all forgotten. But perhaps it’s lingering inside him. I didn’t expect this.
‘Wouldn’t you feel lost, so far from home?’
I would feel lost without him. Tom is one of the great weights in my life. He keeps me on the ground. I can’t believe the idea is still in his head.
‘I would. Absolutely.’
He smiles. I can’t understand why that would make him smile. The idea of being one little Irishman among a million Irishmen among millions of Americans. Such startling insignificance.
We come into the warmth of the house. Tom blesses himself. Jack is nudging the fire back to life, telling a fairy story of some sort to Peggy. I realise now that he must be the one who taught her ‘Weila Waile’. I suppose he thought that was funny. I suppose he didn’t consider how it would reflect on me. I think sometimes we have to remind ourselves that Peggy is a person, not a pastime.
Jack
I managed to get myself out of the house and down to Doyle’s pub, where Tom said he would meet me at six. But ’tis twenty-five past now, and there’s no sign of him.
Just as I draw up a sigh, Teresa Doyle passes me and my breath halts. The same green dress she wore in John Moore’s front room. The same eyes, glinting for a second as she moves by. I sit up straight. I want to talk to her.
It’s shocking to think that I should want to talk to a girl when this time last year I didn’t think I would ever speak to anybody, ever again. When only last Christmas I was gearing up to become a father. How fast it all changes. If I think about it for too long, I feel taken over by a panicked happiness, as though you have just told me that you were pregnant.
Teresa pauses before me, the bar between us, looking at me while she touches a match to her cigarette. She puts the box between us.
‘Help yourself.’
Her voice comes with an unexpected rasp. A small thrill. And I hate that I have to push the box back to her.
‘I’m not a smoker anymore.’
She looks embarrassed. I feel embarrassed. You’d think that my greatest regret was telling Anna you were going to have a baby. But, to be honest, my biggest regret is giving up the smoking. Things are very bad when a man can’t even enjoy the brief peace of smoking a fag. There are times when I feel as though everything within me is about to boil over, out of my mouth and eyes, and I wish to god that I was in the humour to smoke a fag. But you didn’t like smoking, and so I didn’t like it, either. Then there are rare times like this, when a pretty girl puts a box of Carrolls in front of me, and I have to refuse her. Rather than staying to chat, she takes the box back and goes to clear glasses from the tables. I breathe in the smoke she left behind, and get nothing from it.
At last Tom lands on, giving me a shy wave from the door. Behind him comes Bill, and as soon as they’re in, several other men flock to them. Teresa appears again, ready to pull their pints. She looks at me only once. I want to apologise to her, but I’m not sure what I would be apologising for.
‘Jack, how’s the form?’
Bill asks, before Tom has even opened his mouth. Now that Tom is here with all of these men, I realise I am here on my own. I wonder what Bill thinks of me, the unemployed brother, drinking alone.
‘No complaints. How are things working out with himself?’
‘He’s a credit to ye.’
Bill laughs, and calls for a round of drinks. Rather than facing all the men he has met, he turns to me again.
‘And what would be your trade, Jack? If you’re anything like your brother, I could get you sorted with a job very fast.’
Tom’s face stiffens, like I’ve taken his favourite toy for myself.
‘Oh, a bit of everything. But I worked in the pub most often. I could pull five pints a minute.’
It’s easy to make Bill laugh. He’s easy to read; most people are. The flush of Tom’s cheeks deepens. Right now, he hates me. But I’m only treating him the way he treats me. He turns to the other men and starts reciting a joke or a limerick, something unfunny that will earn him a few seconds of attention.
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
Bill says to me, before turning back to his group, laughing along with Tom’s fooling. I don’t need Bill’s attention. I just wanted to remind Tom that I could take it away from him, if I wanted to.
And once more, I am on my own.
And I think about how different all of this would be if I had been married to you. I should have proposed the moment I met you. I had the ring in my pocket the day you died. Imagine.
Tom puts a pint in front of me, widens the circle to let me into the group. I smile along with what the men are saying, doing what I can to remain present.
Anna hated me when I gave up the fags. She said I was like a dog. She was the one like a dog when I told her your news. Looking back, perhaps it all reminded her too much of Mammy, dying as Peggy came to life. Maybe she was afraid the same thing would happen to you.
‘Holy God swapped Mammy for Peggy. Didn’t he?’
We used to all say, smiling, as though that little line would make things alright. The day she died was so silent, despite the new baby crying. It was the deepest silence I’ve ever known. And while the rest of us slowly let the sound back in, I don’t think that Anna ever did.
‘How’s your sister getting on, Brendan?’
‘Oh, Tom, I keep out of it. It’s the Bon Secours one day and then the Sacred Hearts the next.’
Perhaps we didn’t give Anna enough time to grieve Mammy before making her a mother to Peggy. Perhaps I shouldn’t have celebrated Peggy so relentlessly. It was only so we didn’t grow to resent the child who suddenly made parents of us all.
‘I suppose a nun is a nun, at the end of the day.’
‘Try telling her that. The decision has her driven demented.’
It was happy news, you being pregnant. I know we weren’t married, but we would be married. Sure everyone knew we weren’t far off it. ’Twas just that things came in the wrong order. Baby first, marriage second. I don’t understand why people get their backs up about that sort of thing. It sickens me, actually. There were too many good things tarnished by a pregnant woman without a ring on her finger.
Despite all my odd feelings towards god, when I think of the baby I am compelled to bless myself. In ainm an athar, agus an mhic, agus an spioraid naoimh. Isn’t it strange, what your emotions draw you to?
I’m ready to go home, I can’t keep up with what these men are saying. Just as I am about to suggest it, Tom says to Bill,
‘Sure we’ll have one more for the road, will we?’
All the men agree, and so I am staying put.
But it’s alright, because Teresa stands before me again, this time without her cigarettes, but with a bag of buttermints. I take one from her, and smile. Turning away from the lads, I take a deep breath of her.
‘I’m Jack O’Leary.’
‘I know.’
Betty
‘I was worried because we haven’t any reeds collected at home.’
Peggy tells me, sitting at my kitchen table. Today, we had the first cold kiss of February. White light coming in on the table, a pile of reeds spread out before us. Her legs dangle from the chair.
‘I thought we’d make them in school, but we just watched while teacher made one. We used always make one each in my old school.’
Such a great talker. I suppose it could be that she doesn’t get much of a chance to talk at home. Now that I’ve got her started, she may never stop.
‘I was afraid that there would be no reeds left in Ballycrea, and I wouldn’t get to make any cross.’
Later on, I will have to show her the pond, and how many reeds grow there, so that she doesn’t need to worry in the future.
‘What do you make of the school? Do you like the other children?’
She is at such a lovely age. So keen to talk and share opinions, so eager to know things.
‘It’s better than my old school.’
‘What was wrong with your old school?’
‘They used call me bastard.’
