As soon as this leaves me, I wonder if it was too far. If he isn’t ready to talk about women yet. But he takes the shovel from me, forcing himself to have the craic. The earth crumbles off it through the air, as he spins and dips it as though it’s a woman he’s dancing with.
‘’Tis like this, look. You were never a natural dancer, Tom.’
He tells me. As though he would ever dance with a woman like that. And what if we were to meet a pair of women? What then? I laugh with him. The sky is turning to a pale purple. Soon, the fine weather will find us. For a minute, I feel like we are boys again. Like we are young. Like any minute, Daddy will come out of the house and tell us to stop fooling and get back to work. It could be. Is he in there now, alive all this time? I feel like I am alive.
Yes, I would love to go to a dance. Oh, for the days when we were a social family. Always out, always meeting people and invited places. I bite my cheeks, unable to consider all the many reasons we dropped that. There is so much I want from this new start. More than anything, I want to hold my head up high in the town.
—
Just as I am beginning to consider forgetting all about Bill and his farm and moving onto other ventures, on Sunday, he asks for me after Mass. And then Monday he asks for me in town, and on Tuesday. By Friday, I have stopped waiting to be asked.
Daddy might have said I was a fool, waiting on Bill Nevan like this. That I should try to make a go of things on my own, without answering to somebody else. Even sixteen years on from his death, I still feel I need to impress him. Today, I realise that it doesn’t matter very much either way if I impress Daddy. The world goes on turning, and I need to put dinner on the table. Having somebody to answer to suits me. This job may be the bettering of me.
Anything at all to start the bettering of me, because there is so much I want from life.
I want to be everything that, currently, I am not. A well-off man. A purposeful man. More important, less imposing. Oh, to be anything but this, Tom O’Leary, broad and burdened. Let me work my way to the top. I follow Bill around his field, taking in everything that he tells me. There isn’t a terrible amount of work between the two of us, just more work than he can manage on his own. Paddy Murphy used to help him, but he’s getting too old now. He talks about work and trivial things at the same time, so I have to keenly gather every word he drops.
‘Did you ever seeSixty Fivebroadcast on the television? They’d a thing on last night,Heart of Thy Neighbour,all about the North.’
He knows I don’t have a television. It’s nice to be caught up on what is being shown, so I don’t feel behind on things.
‘There was a man on saying that the Protestants up there are actually afraid of the Roman Catholics! Now can you credit that?’
I know about as much as any other man does on the topic, but it doesn’t feel like enough when talking to Bill. I’m only guessing, but he seems well-educated. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, to seem ignorant.
‘They don’t seem very afraid to me.’
I offer, and he laughs. Sure I don’t know where he stands on the whole thing.
‘On the Landis what I like, ’tis a farming programme. Betty hates it.’
He goes on laughing, telling me about the presenter and the topics they cover. How it’s the best thing that Telefís Éireann broadcast, besides the news.
Isn’t he lovely to listen to? I never thought I’d be chatting to a man as clever as Bill Nevan. No, for a long time, I thought that a man is born into the life he is to live. Some men are born to go to the likesof Trinity College, and study law and politics. To occupy dignified spaces and make money, and to cultivate culture. And then there are those like myself, born to turn turf and plough fields in a never-ending loop. Sharing our grand ideas and opinions with the animals and the soil. I always thought it was the luck of the draw which side you ended up on. And I have resented my side, until I met Bill: a good man, with a good life, who wants to give me a start.
The days are starting to stretch out, making space for me and my ambition. The sea air is filling up my lungs, cleaning me. And the dark weeks of January are so close to being behind me as I push a shovel through Bill’s land. I am well on my way. I will make this work for them. For myself. Peggy will grow up here as though she never lived anywhere else. By the time she is my age, Kilmarra will be such a far-off memory that we will question whether we were ever there at all. The poor bastard child will never know what trouble she caused us.
Without people always asking us about you, Jack will find his rhythm again and get back to himself. He will lighten up and find things to keep him going. More than that, he will be happy. All the trouble will lift off Anna, and she will know such sweet, holy peace.
What a wonderful chance he has given me. Yes, I’m well on my way. What a charming family we will be. Admired by everyone, with the finest of everything. The happiest people in Ballycrea. We will shed the people we have been. Leave it to me. Our dignity reclaimed. Our trouble forgotten. Yes, watch will you, and give me all your strength while I smother the O’Leary name in glory.
The last few days have reminded me of how young I really am. I realise that it doesn’t matter that I haven’t made it yet, because I am going to make it now. It doesn’t matter if people think I’m clinging too tightly to my siblings. Let us cling to each other if we need it; what harm does it do to anybody? If it makes us feel better, then it makesus feel better. We all latch onto people now and again. Don’t pretend you never did.
Each morning at seven, I wait for Bill at his gates, and we get to work as the world turns from dark to light. It seems that he is glad of the help. I think he might be glad of a new man in the town. Bill says that I have refreshing ideas, an interesting way of seeing things. Isn’t that a fine compliment? I recite poems from memory for him, I sing songs while we work. Sometimes, if I can get away with it, I pass things off as my own. Sometimes, I will attribute something I’ve written to Yeats, and take his belief as a compliment.
‘’Tis on the stage you should be, Tom. Not working out on the fields.’
I don’t know what to do with this but nod and laugh.
In the evenings, I see Anna and Betty come to the door. Brightly, joyously, every evening Anna comes down the hill to walk me home. How lovely it is to see her lightening up. Often, she sits in with Betty for a half an hour, and they talk. It gives her a chance to be a woman.
Such a fine house, bigger than two people need. They stand in the doorway, looking out at us. Isn’t it all so quiet? So soft?
Anna
‘HAVE YOU ALWAYS LIVED HERE?’
I ask Betty, from where we lean against the door frame, watching the lads in the field. The sky, gone the colour of buttercream and rose. The night will be in soon. A tiny birdsong starts, and the chickens are clucking in the coop. A yard cat passes us by, here to walk around in the last colour of the day. Briefly bewildered by the beauty of it all, I take a moment to breathe deeply. I didn’t realise how badly I needed to take a proper breath. A minute of quiet, in a perfect place. A pretty evening and somebody good by my side. I feel like I could fall asleep. I feel safe. A feeling I had forgotten.
