A little crowd appears to have gathered around us. Tom has made us interesting. I suppose he is waiting to be asked for a song.
‘Little Peggy is around somewhere. Jack is two years below me, and Anna is a year below him. Our mother had her hands full, God rest her.’
People are laughing around us, chatting around us, to us and about us. I’m sure that until Tom mentioned our mother, half of the locals were still wondering which one of us was married to Anna and which of us was Peggy’s father. A part of me would like to clear my throat and let them know that any chance I had of getting married is deadand buried, and as far as anyone is concerned, I am Peggy’s mother and father.
‘There’s a book club, Annie, you might like to come along.’
A woman says to Anna, and I see her biting her cheeks and looking straight through the woman, not responding. When she has the chance, Anna slips away to the other side of the room.
And while watching Anna, I catch the Doyle girl looking at me again. Whispering to her sister and looking right at me. The flood of heat. The thrill that I wanted to ignore comes back to me. Instincts re-emerge. What she sees in me, I don’t know. You used say I was like a hare. That was fine at the time, when I had found a woman who wanted a man like a hare. If any of these strangers meet me on the road home tonight, they’ll be telling everybody they saw the púca; a ghoul. The state of me. The perfect way you used to laugh at me. Ah darling, would you ever laugh at me?
What I wouldn’t give to be back in Kilmarra now, instead of looking at a room of strangers. For the first time, I wonder why Tom chose Ballycrea as our new home. Or whether any thought went into it at all. Maybe he just closed his eyes and pointed to a village on the map. Maybe he let the pony lead us wherever she wanted. And with all these people around, potential friends and pretty girls, I realise that I don’t know how to start again. I don’t know what to do.
‘Miltown.’
Tom tells his little crowd.
‘We were there all our lives, until our mother died. We packed up then. It was just too much.’
He is offered sad sighs. A woman’s hand comes to his arm.
‘The Lord have mercy on the dead.’
Anna watches from across the room. I’ve never heard of Miltown. Why is he making things up? Why is he pretending to be completelyheartbroken over Mammy, when he hasn’t cried a tear for her since 1956? The dirty liar. I wait for the mention of you, for the real reason we’re here. But it doesn’t come.
With a sharp breath, I realise he won’t say your name. He isn’t going to mention you at all. Somehow, he is happy to let you go. Suddenly I feel sick for looking at the Doyle sisters.
We’ve had this conversation a hundred times. I know we agreed it would be better if nobody knew about the way that you died. I just didn’t realise that meant we would pretend you never existed. I didn’t think there would be any harm in acknowledging you. Maybe I was stupid to think we would go on remembering you the way we have. And I understand what he is trying to do. To get us all to move on. But I don’t know. I still call you mine.
I try to settle it in my mind. But it doesn’t settle. In just a few words, Tom has made you a secret. And in my silence, I have allowed it. In this moment, I hate Tom.
Anna
HE HAS THEM ALL INthe palm of his clammy hand. The meagre social skills I once had seem to have vanished, but not Tom’s. The desperation is radiating off him, but they all appear to like him. It was always Jack who did the charming, before.
Once, we were a very social family. Mammy and Daddy used to always be out. I remember the smell of Mammy’s nail varnish taking over the air as they were getting ready to leave. She always did her nails last. Peach Gloss. It made her look so grand. She never cared that other women thought she had notions, or that it would all chip off the next day when she was setting the fire or pulling up weeds. My Mammy had standards.
‘Turf, back home I was the turf man. But there’s plenty other things I’m capable of.’
‘It isn’t often we get a capable man around here!’
Even after Daddy died, she kept herself very well, and she was always out. None of that black shawl business. Mammy was only a widow on pension day. By that time, the style had changed, but she still wore her Peach Gloss. Now and again, at Easter and in the summer, she would paint my nails. I was old enough to buy my own nail polish then, but I always liked her doing it. She was gentle.
After she died, I really wanted to be a Peach Gloss sort of woman.To keep it up in her honour, I suppose. But I wore it only once, because the sight of it made me cry like a little child. My hands were so like Mammy’s, but also, so frightfully different. A taunting reminder that she would never really be close to me again.
The Peach Gloss I had was left in Kilmarra. I can still smell it, though. Still see the sheen of it on her nails. Your nails were always bitten. Jack never seemed to mind. I tried to tell you a few times about how nice Mammy’s nails were. But you didn’t take it as advice. You just smiled and told me how good I was to remember little details about my mother.
‘And will you give us a song tonight, Tom?’
‘Betty, I’ll give ye a song when Mrs Moore wants the house cleared!’
I was never much like her when I was out; tonight has confirmed that hasn’t changed. Mammy was a real social woman. She could talk to anyone, you know, and everyone wanted to talk to her. The same gift that you had. The same gift Tom is trying to prove he has now. That Jack seems to have lost track of. Mammy knew the name of every person in every family in Kilmarra. I found I could barely make it past small talk. I stand with my handbag clutched to my side, and watch as the conversations happen around me.
Although it feels like another life entirely, it really was very recently that we were known by everyone. That Tom had a career. That Jack had the town in his pocket. Yes, it was all so recent. How quickly things change. How well you know.
Another woman goes to sing. The same one who asked Tom for a song. Was it Betty he called her? I don’t want to stare at her, but where else am I to look? She rocks back and forth while she sings. These slow, minute movements. Almost imperceptible.
It puts me in mind of you. But doesn’t everything? Always singing. While you were clearing up after the dinner, and running around inthe yard with Peggy, and reading the paper to your father. Humming away to yourself. I remember thinking that you were such a beautiful singer, but looking back, maybe you were just persistent.
