WHEN PEGGY GOES OUT THEdoor, something leaves me. My inhibition, perhaps, I don’t know, but I say something I’m not supposed to say.
‘Jack nearly was a father, in Kilmarra.’
Her eyes widen, but she is too polite to give a big reaction. It’s just because we were talking about babies, that’s all. And if nothing else, it will keep her interested in us. In me. For some reason, I feel compelled to share it with her. I suppose there is no reason I should be keeping this a secret. It didn’t even happen in the end. There was no baby, why hide from it?
Suddenly I feel faint. I turn away to look out the window. And I must be looking out the window for a long time, because the next thing I know, Betty is sitting right next to me, holding my hand, asking if I’m okay. All the power of her touch, resurfacing.
The lads come in the door of the house, with Peggy between them. It’s time to leave. I don’t have time to explain what I’ve said.
Tom starts doing his Gay Byrne voice for Betty. I wouldn’t have known that’s who he was impersonating if I wasn’t told. But her laugh sounds genuine. I feel so stupid, standing here listening to them all laughing, smiling, and I have to pretend that it doesn’t bother me thatI wasn’t invited to watchThe Late Late Showwith them, and that I wouldn’t have liked to try American peppers. That I was too busy to be there anyway, but I’m so glad that everybody had a nice time. That I don’t feel like a perpetual afterthought.
‘Have you all your bits, love?’
Betty asks, and I know better than to think she is talking to me. Peggy answers her, I don’t listen, but I see them hugging. Betty looks at me like she wants to keep talking. I have to ignore it. Tom pats the top of Peggy’s head, and she shoves his hand away.
‘Oh, those boys have no idea about beauty, have they, Peggy?’
Betty says, winking at Tom, and smooths down Peggy’s hair. I stand still, watching it all. Unsure how to make myself a part of this moment so it doesn’t become another memory that doesn’t involve me. Bill mentions the name of an old neighbour that sometimes helps him on the farm, Paddy Murphy, and I sense Tom sharpening. Jealousy. Maybe Tom will try to spook that man away from the Nevans’ farm. Maybe the next time he shows up to the farm, he will be limping, not meeting Tom’s eye. I try to put myself in the conversation, but there’s no room for me. It’s time we left.
As we walk out the gate, I hear Betty asking Bill,
‘Did you ever hear of a place called Kilmarra?’
We leave, and I feel like she is being taken from me. Walking home, I can’t find my centre. I’m sure it’s fine that I told her about Jack and the baby. Sure we were talking about babies, weren’t we, and when they don’t come to be. I’m sure it’s fine. I’m sure it won’t make a blind bit of difference.
My Betty, unable to have a child of her own. Imagine. I must admit, something about it warms me. And with a jolt I realise how much she has already come to mean to me, and how afraid I would beto lose her. She makes my thoughts feel real. Not like abstract things I can’t get a hold of or pin down or make sense of. She grounds me. Maybe she is the centre I have lost. I want to touch her. To hold on to her for just a moment and let her know what her company means to me. Although, given the chance, I couldn’t really put it into words.
Jack
DEEP IN THE SUMMER, THEREwill be mornings so sunny and bright that I won’t feel anything but grateful, and I won’t do anything but smile. I hold on to this thought on mornings like this, when the day stretches out ahead of me, intimidatingly empty. Anna has gone out to see Betty Nevan. Peggy is gone to school. Tom is my last chance today.
As he is getting ready to head out to work, I leave what’s left of my pride aside and approach him. All morning, there has been tension heating up between us. I’m sure he could guess what’s coming. I’m sure it puts him on edge, my looming request. And I’m sure it feels worse than expected when I land it on him.
‘I could give ye a hand down on the farm today, if ye need it?’
My throat nearly closes from the embarrassment of having to ask. I stand still, hands by my side. Waiting for a begrudging ‘yes’, so that I can put my cap on and start my day. My life.
But Tom says nothing. ’Tis often easier to say nothing than to say no. A part of me expected this. Being his brother, I know how to combat him before he has even moved.
‘They’re awful long days in the house, you know.’
Rattling around on my own, all the time. He can’t imagine what maddening length my days stretch to. Uncomfortable. Obviously. We are both uncomfortable.
‘Look, Jack, if there was work there I’d give it to you. But Bill keeps cows and bulls. I don’t think you’d manage.’
And ’tis often easier to say no than to be kind. Really, I know, Tom probably hasn’t the authority to be giving me any work. It’s Bill I should be asking.
He leaves the house, and when the door closes, I hear my exhaling echo off the walls. Nothing to be at. Nothing at all to be at. Nothing to look at or to read. Nobody to talk to. Nobody holding out a hand for me.
I catch myself in the mirror, in need of a shave and a haircut. It isn’t at all surprising that Tom told me no. This is how he used to behave with Daddy. He had to be the favourite, so I could never be the favourite. I believe one of the things currently plaguing Tom is that if I had the chance, and made a friend of Bill Nevan, I could be asked to take his place on the fields. I could be the one staying late in the Nevan’s, watchingThe Late Late Showand impressing Betty. I apply the shaving cream, and imagine Tom acts on the Nevans’ farm just as he used to act on our farm. Carrying things that are too heavy, walking too far, working too late. Sweating for approval. All the while knowing that I’m much more like Bill than he is. Funnier, more charming. He hates me for this. He should count himself lucky that I’m not vindictive enough to try to topple him from his spot at the top. I just wish he hadn’t made it about bulls. As though he can handle a bull better than I could.
A stack of pages sits under the newspaper, Tom’s handwriting. His most recent attempts at poetry and writing. He thinks he’s Yeats; but Yeats didn’t keep all of his scribblings a complete secret, did he? In an act of kindness to us both, I decide not to look through them.
In the mirror, I start with the razor. And all I can think of is Daddy. As I draw the blade down my chin, my mind races away from the bull. I don’t remember much after the time that Daddy died, but those lastmoments come back to me with more clarity than the moment I’m in. Even with shaving cream lining my nostrils, I can get a huff of Daddy’s blood on the wet grass. The strength of the bull, like something I could never have imagined. All the strength I once saw in my father, vanishing. Dilating eyes. Clay on my collar. His futile attempt to fight, and his delayed attempt to flee. A small cut from the razor appears on my cheek.
I blot away the blood and wonder if Daddy would be upset about how little I remember. I get flashes of Mammy sending us out while herself and Margaret and Mrs Hayes prepared the house. And vaguely, Niall Hegarty bringing myself and Tom down to Mahoney’s shop to get supplies for the wake. Tom gave me a jaunt on his bicycle. He could hardly steer the thing he was crying so much. I’m sure that he was embarrassed to be crying like that in front of all the men. Maybe that’s part of the reason he is always trying to be the big man now. If I could have cried with him, I would have. But I was as stoic as Daddy ever was. You used to always say you wished I would show more emotion.
I appreciate what Niall Hegarty and the other men were trying to do. Maybe they thought that a funeral is the right time to start treating a boy like a man. But I didn’t feel like a man. If anything, the whole thing made me realise that I never felt like such a small child. Do you know, a part of me still feels that way. Stuck in Mahoney’s shop, shivering but unable to cry, watching as my big brother humiliates himself by feeling his feelings.
