He doesn’t believe what he is saying. When he is sure that Peggy is settled, we walk down to the farm together, in somewhat of a silence. He wants to ask me something, I can hear it ramming against his teeth, dying to get out. But in the end, I have to be the one to bring it up first.
‘Look, Bill. About New York.’
His shoulders drop when I mention it, but he seems occupied by something else. I wish he would just tell me what. If I could tell him how tempted I am to accept the offer. To disappear and leave every hideous part of myself behind. To become something new, unmarred and promising. He pats me on the back as we walk.
‘That’s alright, Tom. We’ll talk about it another time. Alright?’
Bill looks ahead, deep in thought. If I only knew what he was thinking.
How I hate the separation of our two minds. All his thoughts, half formed opinions and desires, trapped, unsaid. The uncontrollable unknown. I hate it.
He tries to do some work on the farm, but in the end, he ends up going back to the house. Captured by the thoughts that he will not share. Leaving me with the grass and the earth.
Without him, I don’t allow myself to think of much. All I’ve done lately is get caught in sharp, spiralled thoughts. New York and the offer. The admission that Betty doesn’t like Anna anymore. The burden of Peggy. The ineptitude of myself.
There was a time, very recently, when I’d call into their kitchen after a day’s work and find Betty and Anna talking the ears off each other. My God, how easy we had it then. Anna is never down there anymore. Well, maybe they have just run out of things to talk about for the minute. ’Tisn’t anything, I’m sure. So I won’t allow it to amount to anything in my head.
She is such a sensitive girl, my sister. I hope that Betty hasn’t done anything to upset her. It’s the last thing Anna deserves. Such a terrible girl, my sister.
Three o’clock comes and brings rain along with it. This is as good a time as any to stop. There’s been no more sign of Bill all day, I don’t think he’s too worried about any particular work getting done.
And knowing that Anna won’t be here, I call into Betty. Just to check on everything. Just in case there is something I don’t know. I might see the thing keeping Anna away, filling Bill’s head.
But it is only Betty, alone. Without him. Black hair melting into the dark room around her, as she stares into the fire like a cat. I saw thislook a few times in you, I remember now.
‘Goodnight, God bless, Betty.’
I say, poking my head around the door, not wanting to appear as an interruption to her thoughts. Fully knowing I have shattered them. But with some urgency, Betty hops up off the chair, and she takes a loaf of bread from the side and puts it into my hands.
‘Mind yourself, Tom. We’ll see you tomorrow, please God.’
Her voice is as deep and as serious as the grave. And only when her door is closed behind me, I realise that her urgency was to get rid of me.
All the walk home, I don’t think of Anna once. I don’t feel as weak as cobwebs. And I don’t think of the instability I showed Bill on Friday night. Not imagining all the ways in which my life is about to fall down around me, or the mass of unknown thoughts occupying the Nevans. Not of the reasons that Betty might think we cannot make our own bread. Not of the next steps, or an exit strategy.
Honestly now, all I’m thinking of is how perfectly kind Betty is to make us this bread. Especially when she knows that we are perfectly capable of baking our own bread. How perfectly it will pair with our tea this evening, and what a perfect life I have made for us here in Ballycrea. Unpuncturable perfection.
Up at home, I am met by Peggy playing outside. All on her own, in the grey evening. I feel a deep streak of guilt for not letting her have one of John Moore’s pups.
However, this guilt is never long lasting. There is always something more pressing that demands my attention. In this instance, it is Anna’s face at the window. Pale, watching us.
Anna
IN TOM COMES, WITH– is that a loaf of bread under his arm?
‘That’s from herself.’
He doesn’t dare say Betty’s name. It’s like he knows that something has soured. Is it so obvious? He leaves the bread on the table.
All day long, I’ve sat here. Rejecting my every instinct, holding myself back so that I don’t run to her. All day long, I’ve imagined the smell of her mouth, and whether it would be cold or warm inside. I’ve allowed the distance between us to grow, just to keep her happy. And yet, she sends Tom home with a loaf of bread for me. What does that mean? Softly, she is rubbing at our boundaries. Blurring them away to nothing.
Surely the bread is a message. Something to let me know that she is thinking of me. That she wants me to be eating, and that she doesn’t hate me. Perhaps it’s her way of beginning to close the gap between us. Our slow migration back to each other. Back home.
‘Had they any news? Did they ask for me?’
A pathetic thing to ask, in a pathetic tone of voice. But if there was ever anybody I could be authentic with, it’s Tom. He has guided me through the most vulnerable parts of my life. He will guide me through this, too. After a thoughtful pause, he answers both of my questions at once.
‘No.’
