After a week of rain, on a Thursday, the letter comes. It is not so much a surprise as a shock. Already I have seen the signs: the shampoo for head lice in the chemist’s shop, the fine-toothed combs. In the gift gallery there are copy books stacked high and different coloured biros, rulers, mechanical drawing sets. At the hardware, the lunchboxes and satchels and hurling sticks are left out front, where the women will see them.
We come home and take soup, dipping our bread, breaking it, slurping a little, now that we know each other. Afterwards, I follow Kinsella out to the hayshed where he makes me promise not to look while he is welding. I am following him around today, I realise, but I cannot help it. It is past the time for the post to come but he does not suggest I fetch it until evening, until the cows are milked and the milking parlour is swept and scrubbed.
‘I think it’s time,’ he says, washing his boots with the hose.
I get into position, using the front step as a starting block. Kinsella looks at the watch and slices the air with his hand. I take off, race down the yard, the lane, make a tight corner, open the box, get the letters, and race back to the step, knowing my time was not as fast as yesterday’s.
‘Nineteen seconds faster than your first run,’ Kinsella says. ‘And a two second improvement on yesterday, despite the heavy ground. It’s like the wind, you are.’
He takes the letters and goes through them, but today, instead of making jokes about what’s inside of each, he pauses.
‘Is that from Mammy?’
‘You know,’ he says. ‘I think it could be.’
‘Do I have to go home?’
‘Well, it’s addressed to Edna – so why don’t we give it in to her, and let her read it.’
We go into the parlour where she is sitting with her feet up, looking through a book of knitting patterns. There’s a coal fire in the grate, and little plumes of black smoke sliding back down into the room.
‘This chimney, we never got it cleaned, John. I’m sure there must be a crow’s nest.’
Kinsella slides the letter onto her lap, over what she is reading. She sits up, opens the letter and reads it. It’s one small sheet with writing on both sides. She puts it down then picks it up and reads it again.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘you have a new brother. Nine pounds, two ounces.’
‘Great,’ I say.
‘Don’t be like that,’ Kinsella scolds.
‘What?’ I say.
‘And school starts on Monday,’ she says. ‘Your mother has asked us to leave you up at the weekend so she can get you togged out and all.’
‘I have to go back, then?’
‘Aye,’ she says. ‘But didn’t you know that?’
I nod and look at the letter.
‘You couldn’t stay here forever with us two old forgeries.’
I stand there and stare at the fire, trying not to cry. It is a long time since I have done this and, in doing it, remember that it is the worst thing you can possibly do. I don’t so much hear as feel Kinsella leaving the room.
‘Don’t upset yourself,’ the woman says. ‘Come over here.’
She shows me pages with knitted jumpers and asks me which pattern I like best – but all the patterns seem to blur together and I just point to one, a blue one, which looks like it might be easy.
‘Well, you would pick the hardest one in the book,’ she says. ‘I’d better get started on that this week or you’ll be too big for it by the time it’s knitted.’
Now that I know I must go home, I almost want to go, to get it over with. I wake earlier than usual and look out at the wet fields, the dripping trees, the hills – which seem greener than they did when I came. I think back to this time and it seems so long ago, when I used to wet the bed and worry about breaking things. Kinsella hangs around all day doing things but not really finishing anything. He says he has no discs for the angle grinder, no welding rods, and he cannot find the vice grip. He says he got so many jobs done in the long stretch of fine weather that there’s little left to do.
We are out looking at the calves, who are feeding. With warm water, Kinsella has made up their milk replacement which they suck from long, rubber teats until the teats run dry. It’s an odd system, taking the calves off the cows and giving them milk replacement so Kinsella can milk their mothers and sell the milk, but they look content.
‘Could ye leave me back this evening?’
‘This evening?’ Kinsella says.
‘Yes.’ I nod.
‘Any evening will have to suit me,’ he says. ‘I’ll take you whenever you want, petal.’
I look at the day. The day is like any other, with a flat grey sky hanging over the yard and the wet hound on watch outside the front door.
‘Well, I had better milk early, so,’ he says. ‘Right,’ and goes on down the yard past me as though I am already gone.
The woman gives me a brown leather bag. ‘You can keep this old thing,’ she says. ‘We go nowhere and I never have use for it.’
We fold what clothes I have and place them inside, along with the books we bought at Webb’s in Gorey: Heidi, What Katy Did Next, The Snow Queen. At first, I struggled with some of the bigger words, but Kinsella kept his fingernail under each, patiently, until I guessed it or half-guessed it and then I did this by myself until I no longer needed to guess, and read on. It was like learning to ride the bike; I felt myself taking off, the freedom of going places I couldn’t have gone before, and it was easy.
Mrs Kinsella gives me a bar of yellow soap and my facecloth, the hairbrush. As we gather all these things together, I remember the days we spent, where we got them, what was sometimes said, and how the sun, for most of the time, was shining.
Just then a car pulls into the yard. It’s a neighbouring man I remember from the night of cards.
‘Edna,’ he says, in a panic. ‘Is John about?’
‘He’s out the dairy,’ she says. ‘He should be finishing up now.’
He runs down the yard, heavy in his wellington boots, and a minute later, Kinsella sticks his head around the door.
‘Joe Fortune needs a hand pulling a calf,’ he says. ‘Would you ever just finish off the parlour? I have the herd out.’
‘I will, surely.’
‘I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’
‘Don’t I know you will.’
She puts on her anorak and goes down the yard, to the milking parlour. I sit restless and wonder should I go out to help, but come to the conclusion that I’d only be in the way. So I sit at the range and look to where a watery light is trembling across the scullery, shining off the zinc bucket. I could go down to the well for water so she would have the well water for her tea when she gets back home. It could be the last thing I do.
I put on the boy’s jacket and take up the bucket and walk down the fields. I know the way along the track and past the cows, the electric fences, could now find the well with my eyes closed. When I cross the stile the path does not look like the same path we followed on that first evening here. The way is muddy now and slippery in places. I trudge along, towards the little iron gate and down the steps. The water is much higher these days. I was on the fifth step that first evening here, but now I stand on the first and see the edge of the water reaching up and just about sucking the edge of the step that’s one down from me. I stand there breathing, making the sounds for a while to hear them coming back, one last time. Then I bend down with the bucket, letting it float then swallow and sink as the woman does – but when I reach out with my other hand, to lift it, another hand just like mine seems to come out of the water and pulls me in.
It is not that evening or the following one but the evening after, on the Sunday, that I am taken home. After I came back from the well, soaked to the skin, the woman took one look at me and turned very still before she gathered me up and took me inside and made up my bed again. The following morning, I didn’t have a fever, but she kept me upstairs, bringing me hot drinks with lemon and cloves and honey, aspirin.
‘Tis nothing but a chill, she has,’ I hear Kinsella say.
‘When I think of what could have happened.’
‘If you’ve said that once, you’ve said it a hundred times.’
‘But—’
‘Nothing happened, and the girl is grand. And that’s the end of it.’
I lie there with the hot-water bottle, listening to the rain and reading my books, following what happens more closely and making up something different to happen at the end of each, each time. I doze and have strange dreams: of the lost heifer panicking on the night strand, of bony, brown cows having no milk in their teats, of my mother climbing up and getting stuck in an apple tree. Then I wake and drink the broth and whatever else the woman gives me.
On Sunday, I am allowed to get up, and we pack everything again, as before. Towards evening, we have supper, and wash and change into our good clothes. The sun has come out, is lingering in long, cool slants, and the yard is dry in places. Sooner than I would like, we are ready and in the car, turning down the lane, going up through the street of Gorey and on back along the narrow roads and through Carnew.
‘That’s where Da lost the red heifer playing cards,’ I say.
‘Is that a fact?’ Kinsella says.
‘Wasn’t that some wager?’ says the woman.
‘It was some loss for him,’ says Kinsella.
We carry on through Parkbridge, over the hill where the old school stands, and on down towards our car-road. The gates in the lane are closed and Kinsella gets out to open them. He drives through, closes the gates behind him, and drives on very slowly to the house. I feel, now, that the woman is making up her mind as to whether or not she should say something, but I don’t really know what it is, and she gives me no clue. The car stops in front of the house, the dogs bark, and my sisters race out. I see my mother looking out through the window, with what is now the second youngest in her arms.
Inside, the house feels damp and cold. The lino is all tracked over with dirty footprints. Mammy stands there with my little brother, and looks at me.
‘You’ve grown,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘“Yes”, is it?’ she says, and raises her eyebrows.
She bids the Kinsellas good evening and tells them they are welcome and to sit down – if they can find a place to sit – and fills the kettle from the bucket under the kitchen table. I take the playthings off the car seat under the window, to make space. Mugs are taken off the dresser, a loaf of bread is sliced, butter and jam left out.
‘Oh, I brought you jam,’ Mrs Kinsella says. ‘Don’t let me forget to give it in to you, Mary.’
‘I made this out of the rhubarb you sent down,’ Ma says. ‘That’s the last of it.’
‘I should have brought more,’ the woman says. ‘I wasn’t thinking.’
‘Where’s the new addition?’ Kinsella asks.
‘Oh, he’s up in the room there. You’ll hear him soon enough.’
‘Is he sleeping through the night for you?’
‘On and off,’ Ma says. ‘The same child could crow at any hour.’
My sisters look at me as though I’m an English cousin, coming over to touch my dress, the buckles on my shoes. They seem different, thinner, and have nothing to say. We sit in to the table and eat the bread and drink the tea. When a cry is heard from upstairs, Ma gives my brother to Mrs Kinsella, and goes up to fetch the baby. The baby is pink and crying, his fists tight. He looks bigger than the last, stronger.
‘Isn’t there a fine child, God bless him,’ Kinsella says.
‘Isn’t he a dote,’ Mrs Kinsella says, holding on to the other.
Ma pours more tea for them all with one hand and sits down and takes her breast out for the baby. Her doing this in front of Kinsella makes me blush. Seeing me blush, Ma gives me a long, deep look.
‘No sign of himself ?’ Kinsella says.
‘He went out there earlier, wherever he’s gone,’ Ma says.
A little bit of talk starts up then, rolls back and forth, bumping between them for a while. Soon after, a car is heard outside. Nothing more is said until my father appears, and throws his hat on the dresser.
‘Evening all,’ he says.
‘Dan,’ says Kinsella.
‘Ah there’s the prodigal child,’ he says. ‘You came back to us, did you?’
I say I did.
‘Did she give trouble?’
‘Trouble?’ Kinsella says. ‘Good as gold, she was, the same girl.’
‘Is that so?’ says Da, sitting down. ‘Well, isn’t that a relief.’
‘You’ll want to sit in,’ Mrs Kinsella says, ‘and get your supper.’
‘I had a liquid supper,’ Da says, ‘down in Parkbridge.’
Ma turns the baby to the other breast, and changes the subject. ‘Have ye no news at all from down your way?’
‘Not a stem,’ says Kinsella. ‘All’s quiet down with us.’
I sneeze then, and reach into my pocket for my handkerchief, and blow my nose.
‘Have you caught cold?’ Ma asks.
‘No,’ I say, hoarsely.
‘You haven’t?’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I didn’t catch cold,’ I say.
‘I see,’ she says, giving me another deep look.
‘The child’s been in the bed for the last couple of days,’ says Kinsella. ‘Didn’t she catch herself a wee chill.’
‘Aye,’ says Da. ‘You couldn’t mind them. You know yourself.’
‘Dan,’ Ma says, in a steel voice.
Mrs Kinsella looks uneasy, like she was the day of the gooseberries.
‘You know, I think it’s nearly time that we were making tracks,’ Kinsella says. ‘It’s a long road home.’
‘Ah, what hurry is on ye?’ Ma says.
‘No hurry at all, Mary, just the usual. These cows don’t give you any opportunity to have a lie-in.’
He gets up then and takes my little brother from his wife and gives him to my father. My father takes the child and looks across at the baby suckling. I sneeze and blow my nose again.
‘That’s a right dose you came home with,’ Da says.
‘It’s nothing she hasn’t caught before and won’t catch again,’ Ma says. ‘Sure isn’t it going around?’
‘Are you ready for home?’ Kinsella asks.
Mrs Kinsella stands then and they say their good-byes and go outside. I follow them out to the car with my mother who still has the baby in her arms. Kinsella lifts out the box of jam, the four-stone sack of potatoes.
‘These are floury,’ he says. ‘Queens they are, Mary.’
We stand for a little while and then my mother thanks them, saying it was a lovely thing they did, to keep me.
‘No bother at all,’ says Kinsella.
‘The girl was welcome and is welcome again any time,’ Mrs Kinsella says.
‘She’s a credit to you, Mary,’ Kinsella says. ‘You keep your head in the books,’ he says to me. ‘I want to see gold stars on them copy books next time I come up here.’ He gives me a kiss then and the woman hugs me and then I watch them getting into the car and feel the doors closing and a start when the engine turns and the car begins to move away. Kinsella seems more eager to leave than he was in coming here.
‘What happened at all?’ Ma says, now that the car is gone.
‘Nothing,’ I say.
‘Tell me.’
‘Nothing happened.’ This is my mother I am speaking to but I have learned enough, grown enough, to know that what happened is not something I need ever mention. It is my perfect opportunity to say nothing.
I hear the car braking on the gravel in the lane, the door opening, and then I am doing what I do best. It’s nothing I have to think about. I take off from standing and race on down the lane. My heart does not so much feel that it is in my chest as in my hands, and that I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside of me. Several things flash through my mind: the boy in the wallpaper, the gooseberries, that moment when the bucket pulled me under, the lost heifer, the mattress weeping, the third light. I think of my summer, of now, mostly of now.
As I am rounding the bend, reaching the point where I daren’t look, I see him there, putting the clamp back on the gate, closing it. His eyes are down, and he seems to be looking at his hands, at what he is doing. My feet batter on along the rough gravel, along the strip of tatty grass in the middle of our lane. There is only one thing I care about now, and my feet are carrying me there. As soon as he sees me he stops and grows still. I do not hesitate but keep on running towards him and by the time I reach him the gate is open and I am smack against him and lifted into his arms. For a long stretch, he holds me tight. I feel the thumping of my heart, my breaths coming out then my heart and my breaths settling differently. At a point, which feels much later, a sudden gust blows through the trees and shakes big, fat raindrops over us. My eyes are closed and I can feel him, the heat of him coming through his good clothes. When I finally open my eyes and look over his shoulder, it is my father I see, coming along strong and steady, his walking stick in his hand. I hold on as though I’ll drown if I let go, and listen to the woman who seems, in her throat, to be taking it in turns, sobbing and crying, as though she is crying not for one now, but for two. I daren’t keep my eyes open and yet I do, staring up the lane, past Kinsella’s shoulder, seeing what he can’t. If some part of me wants with all my heart to get down and tell the woman who has minded me so well that I will never, ever tell, something deeper keeps me there in Kinsella’s arms, holding on.
‘Daddy,’ I keep calling him... keep warning him. ‘Daddy.’