‘Mr O’Leary, how are things?’
Dr Desmond catches me off guard. A tall, handsome man. Too handsome for the likes of Ballycrea. Seeing me walk out of the pub at midday, with no job to go to.
‘Great! All great.’
I feel an enormous amount of pressure to impress him. Some part of me believes that if I am not funny, kind, or interesting enough, he will evict us from his cottage.
‘Everything okay above in the house?’
He looks me right in the eye. Between the damp and the dust andmy family, there is very little right above in the cottage.
‘Perfect. All perfect.’
Surely he sees through this.
‘Good stuff. You’ll let me know if you’ve any trouble.’
He pats my shoulder and turns to leave without saying goodbye. Giving me no indication of how he feels about me.
It’s almost a full week that we’re here, and I still don’t feel I’m standing on solid ground with people. Every day I’ve been in the pub, the post office, the shops and the square. Conversing, charming, appearing friendly without appearing overbearing or desperate. As though I’m only chatting for chatting’s sake. And already, I have made an acquaintance of Mic Harney in the creamery, Ger Doyle and Bill Nevan in the pub. Frank Lennox, who stands nearly all day on the corner stoop of his home across from Doyle’s, looking out on the town and commentating on all that happens before him. I know John Moore and his wife, and now Con the pig farmer. And while Anna berates me every evening for coming home without a job, at least I’m making a nice name for us in the town. At least I’m trying. And doesn’t God love a trier?
’Tis no surprise that I’m the only one of us making an effort in Ballycrea. No surprise at all. Of course, Peggy goes to school, but besides that they only exist as rumours. Imagine, your Jack, afraid to venture out beyond the front door. Not the man you left. Not at all.
And in many ways, it’s making my life easier. The less they are seen and known, the better chance I have at crafting a pleasing narrative for us. As far as Ballycrea is convinced, we’re a perfectly lovely family. Not too grand, not too shabby. Jack, a gentleman. Peggy, an angel. Anna, a homemaker. And myself, head of the house. Perhaps the locals are beginning to suspect that I’ve made up all these siblings of mine.
‘Tom, hello.’
Ciara Moore, John’s fed up-looking wife, greets me as I come into her shop. The little bell rings, an old man looks up at me from the chair by the door.
‘How are ye settling in?’
She asks, and I wonder if she already knows how poorly I just performed in conversation with her husband.
‘Oh great, yeah, ’tis a lovely place. Lovely people. Just the paper, thanks.’
I smile, hoping I look genuine, while I take a newspaper from the stand and leave it on the counter. I want to mean what I’m saying, but I can’t tell if I do.
‘I’ve a few bits inside that might be of use to ye. Plates and things, and the old armchair in the backroom. We’ve no use for it.’
Her charity is surprising. I’m not above accepting it. She’s nicer than she looks.
‘Listen, there’s a crowd calling down to ours this evening, it might be nice for you to come down and introduce the family around?’
Little things like this give me an enormous boost. They dull the feeling that every day is as hard as the first day. They take away from the sting of hearing a murmuring group rush to a silence as I approach. Knowing that people are talking about us, but not knowing what they are saying. Misremembering names and initiating unwanted handshakes, and lying awake at night thinking about it. Yes, for a while now I’ve felt stuck on the outside of an inside joke, but tonight, I am invited to John Moore’s gathering. Now that’s progress.
I nearly fall over myself accepting her offer, without a notion of how I’m going to get them three out of the house. All the trouble they could bring me if they decide to exist as people on their own, without my supervision. There’s another problem now, another thing to deal with. I better get home.
Walking out of the town, the houses begin to thin. Ours is the only cottage up the hill. A lonely walk, but I like having the time to myself where I’m not meeting anyone. Ahead, there are felled branches, looking like spines dropped in the field. Pure eldritch. Perhaps Jack was cutting firewood.
Something grey and maroon, unmoving, just before me. A lamb in the road. Its insides out. Bloodied wool. Organs pecked away by crows that don’t fly off when I come near. Warm, thin vomit fills my mouth, and just as quickly is swallowed down again. I’m glad we don’t keep sheep. This little woollen carcass isn’t my problem. I draw a smile on, and I walk into the cottage, thinking that my life is to become problem-free. At long last.
—
I’ll say this, the people of Ballycrea aren’t bad. The town isn’t bad, not at all. And that’s without the thick optimism I’ve been spreading over everything. It really is a nice little place.
And although I haven’t found any yet, there’s work here. There’s always lads out bringing their wares to the mart, repairing walls in the square. Everything seems to be beaten by the sea wind, and they are incessantly fixing. It would be easy to give up when the wind keeps blowing. But they don’t give up. Isn’t that a great attitude to have?
Up at the cottage, as has become a routine, I find Peggy making a racket in the garden, Anna at the window, so far off in her thoughts that she might as well be back in Kilmarra, and Jack in the corner. Sitting in quiet contemplation. I could guess what he’s thinking; I could probably speak it out loud as he thinks it. And while there are probably a lot of things he would like to do and say, I feel quite confident that he will remain in the corner, almost motionless.
