At the door, Tom straightens his collar, and then mine. He takes Anna’s chin in his big hand and looks sternly into her eyes. My hand on Peggy’s shoulder. Tom letting out a breath. On our best behaviour, we go inside.
Into the amber of a fire crackling, a small hive of people. Layers of talking and laughing, and against expectation, nobody turning to look at us. It’s more dignified than I thought.
A fiddle starts, a bodhrán follows, and a man sings ‘The Holy Ground’. It draws a sharp pain from me, it’s so long since I heard a fiddle. The bodhrán somehow beats within me.
Silence falls across the room for the music. The singing man doesn’t open his eyes to see Tom’s long shadow fall across the floor, his tall frame stooping under the door. Strapping is right. Making room for thinner, lesser me. And then Peggy, hand in hand with Anna. Not another child in sight. I want to lift her up onto my hip, I hate that she keeps getting older. There is little stir as we come in. Once more, we move unnoticed among them.
As we slip through the room, Tom whispers to us.
‘’Tis Noreen Doyle there at the fire. And against the wall is her brother, Ger Doyle, who has the pub, and Jim Ryan with him.’
He goes on with his hushed roll call until somebody shushes him. One of the many great shames of his life, no doubt. We stand still until the song is over. As the music ends, a big man makes his way over to us, his voice thunderous.
‘Tom, how’s things? This is the family so, is it?’
He asks, smiling. His two big, warm hands over mine.
‘That’s right, Bill. This is Jack, and my sister Anna, and little Peggy.’
Bill hardly looks at me and Anna, all his attention falls on Peggy.
‘Peggy! Tom is always telling us about you, Peggy. And he never said you were so big!’
Bill acts like he has known us all our lives. Like he has known Peggy since she was born and is surprised at the height she has grown to. Partly unnerving, partly comforting. I find it hard to believe that Tom has ever mentioned Peggy.
‘Did you know that the Moore’s dog had pups a few weeks ago? Will I show you?’
He offers Peggy his hand and she takes it, unafraid, glad to be led off to wherever the pups are. Tom allowing it all. And I have to let it happen, and try not to be concerned. As though a stranger hasn’t just stolen my small treasure away.
Without Peggy to watch, I take in the room. And yes, that fiddle has brought you back to me. There was never anything so gentle as your fingers on the neck of a fiddle. Nights like this remind me of you. But don’t all nights remind me of you? Sitting by the fire, playing ‘The South Wind’.
The door opens behind us abruptly, letting in a moment of the rainy night. Shocking me away from you. Two girls come in from the dark. Pretty. I suppose both of them are pretty. Almost blonde in thedim light; but in the sun, I’m sure, they are nothing but muddy, pale brunettes.
‘Mary and Teresa Doyle,’ Tom whispers to me. ‘Belonging to Ger who has the pub. Mary is the, the one who’s, you know, expecting.’
He fumbles through it. The Doyle sisters look at us as they pass by, with Teresa turning to look a second time. I catch the caramel of her irises. I like it. She smiles at me, and lingers for one warm second, and then she’s gone. Leaving me floating in her wake. It’s so long since I noticed a pretty girl.
But it’s nothing. Just one person noticing another person, that’s all. It’s being acknowledged as a man, not just a brother. A feeling I had forgotten. How quare. What an unexpected thrill. The exact sort of thrill that I want to ignore.
Anna ushers us away nearer to the fire. Tom nods at the Doyle girls, offering a faint smile. I would imagine he is already analysing it in his head and wondering if it was too much. It’s a strange thing that Tom hasn’t more luck with the women, because he isn’t a bad-looking man. He takes after Daddy; the classic, broad sort of look that women go for. If he was born in another place, he might have been a film star. But there are so few women that Tom thinks are worth his time, and as soon as those worthy women get to know him, they go off him. What harm though, it always left me with more to choose from. He was always green when I would be dancing with girls in Regan’s. But sure it never meant much to me. I was only ever trying to have a bit of craic, to hold up the O’Leary name, be social and charming, like Mammy and Daddy were. When I first met you, I never ever saw a man so jealous. The secret to women is that they want to be treated like people, not tameable creatures. That’s the secret that Tom doesn’t seem to know.
Anna pretends not to have seen either of the girls. Did you hear Tom stifling his sigh? Annoyed at her already, but not wanting toseem annoyed. When I stand back and look at my siblings objectively, they’re fairly entertaining.
‘How’s the form? How are ye now? How are ye getting on?’
Tom offers little greetings to everybody he passes, dying for somebody to stop and answer him. And then, to my surprise, somebody does. A woman and her husband. The Moores, I learn, whose house we are in.
‘Where’s the small girl?’
‘Ye keep the house gorgeous.’
‘Did ye get something to drink?’
‘Áine, is it? Annie? Anna! Sorry, Anna.’
‘Everybody is coming in drowned wet!’
I don’t know why I assumed we would be standing alone in the corner all night. Tom has been out in the town every day, working his magic. Of course he knows people, of course the hosts want to talk to him. I watch their back and forth, smiling where they need me to, nodding and mumbling along without really adding much. Ciara Moore puts a drink in my hand, she touches my shoulder. Warm. It’s good to be touched. It’s good to remember that there is life beyond the cottage, the family and the past I’ve been stuck in.
