‘Isn’t the town getting busy?’
Her friend says back. In ways I’m surprised, and in more ways I am not, when Anna calls down to her,
‘We’ll turn around and go so, will we?’
Peggy gasps, and laughs without meaning to. Tom’s jaw tenses. And in a move of solidarity that I can’t quite explain, I laugh too. Later on, I’m sure, Tom will have something to say about all of this. About how we can’t waste our chance here by acting the fool. Later on, I’m sure, I will regret taking Anna’s side. Tom will probably try to track those two women down and apologise to them. And I suppose he’ll be right to do it. Already I’m sorry for laughing. But in that moment, Anna displayed a very rare version of herself. Somebody unbothered and happy, unburdened and funny. Healing will mean untangling the good parts of Anna from the rest of her. That’ll be some job.
I open out my arms for Peggy, and she comes to sit with me. Her small head against my arm, vibrating with the gravel beneath us.
‘Are we nearly there?’
She asks, getting restless, and I stroke the back of her hand. I have no idea if we are nearly there. ’Tis Tom knows where we’re going, not me.
—
A little while out of the town, we trundle up the long grass of a steep hill. It seems cruel to let the pony pull all this weight. I suppose I should have considered that when we left home.
A white cottage, dark blue paint beginning to peel from each of its five windowsills and front door. A little beaten path starting from a seemingly random point in the grass leading up to it. And a fence around a patch of land adjoining the house. I suppose that’s where the pony will live. The poor creature may never move again after this journey. Moss on the roof, moss on the walls. Suitably rundown. I can’t express how much I am trying to gee myself up about this new cottage.
My knees crack as I get down from the cart, and for the first time in a long time, I am reminded of my age. I can’t say I remember turning twenty-eight. And yet, here I am. This definitely isn’t where I thought I would be at twenty-eight. A full, fresh start unfolding before me. A fresh start was never something that I wanted; certainly not something that I thought I would need. And yet.
Peggy is bouncing around the yard, burning off all the energy she stored up in the cart. She is happy to be here, and I try to mirror her enthusiasm. After struggling with the lock and working himself up, Tom lets us into the cottage where we are hit with the smell of dust and the look of disuse. Peggy dashes past us, unfazed. It’s all on one level. That’s the first thing that lands with me. No stairs, no ladder. All laid out flat here in front of us. I suppose the others notice this too. And it will be added to the ever-growing pile of things we leave unsaid.
Smaller than we are used to. All arranged in a completely different way to home. It isn’t that I expected it to look the same. I just didn’t expect it to look different. I wonder how long it takes to settle in somewhere new.
‘There’s no beds!’
Peggy shouts, running back out to me. Looking to Tom, I realisethere that we don’t have half the things we need to fill a home. Anna answers her.
‘No, we’ve no bed yet. Sure we’ve nothing yet.’
‘Obviously, Anna, I just said.’
‘Don’t start acting the brat the minute we arrive.’
‘Era shut up will ye, girls? I’ll sort ye beds. I’ll sort everything we need in the next few days.’
Tom says, dragging in the two largest trunks. I stand at the window, allowing all this to happen. Peggy’s lip trembles. I wonder if she has come to expect me to be passive. I lower myself to her height.
‘Go on and get the chicken, will you? And we’ll find a place to put her.’
Before we left, I tried to explain to Peggy it wasn’t worth having only one chicken, that she wouldn’t lay enough eggs for us all. But Peggy wouldn’t leave her. She said a chicken isn’t just for eggs. My girl. How could I refuse her?
As she turns to walk out the door, it hits me; I think it hits us all at once: we have left our home behind, permanently. There isn’t a scrap of our past here. Nothing to identify with, nothing to hold on to. And so I will have to hold on to Tom, Anna and Peggy. It will be easier to keep my head above water if I am buoyed by them. None of us have the strength to stand on our own.
‘Has he no shame at all, not to run so much as a brush across the floor before we arrived?’
She’s only being judgemental. No bed, no curtains. A table and chairs coated in dust. No sign of life at all except for the turf, the loaf and the jam that Dr Desmond has left for us. That’s something you don’t get from most landlords. Tom and Anna stare at the doctor’s offerings, presumably embarrassed and offended at the idea that we might need a little boost to get us started. Peggy opens the jar of jamand cleans the little blobs on the lid off with her finger, licking it away. A purple stain, sugar in the grooves of her skin. Tom pulls the jar off her and turns his face into a smile, while Anna lets hers fall into a frown.
‘Wasn’t that good of him? A great sign of the people here.’
He says, and Anna responds by rolling her eyes.
‘God yeah, such charitable people.’
She looks around for somewhere to put herself, and her eyes fall on me. For the second time, I find I cannot look away from her.
‘Have a look for a sweeping brush there, Anna.’
