It doesn’t need to be considered, this woman before me really is a beautiful singer. Somehow she is able to put emotions into the tune. Maybe she is a professional.
While I watch her, I feel the heat of the fire warming up my damp clothes. Stay here, Anna, don’t float off. I look around at everyone, to keep myself from drifting into faraway thoughts. The shapes of people come in and out of my eyeline, but this singing woman always comes back. Betty, did he say?
I listen dutifully, slowly, lightly tapping my foot along with her, and wonder why music has never moved me in the way that it supposedly moves other people. I always seem to be one emotion away from what everyone else is feeling. I want to be on the same page as everyone. To have an identical experience of reality. To be moored to the same comprehensible and solid emotions as they are. I wish I didn’t have to float away to safe places all the time; to you in the bath, or Mammy painting my nails. I wish I understood enough about my feelings to feel safe anywhere.
Peggy finds us again, she is frenzied over the puppies. Jack bends down to lift her and sits her on the table, whispering something in her ear. For a moment I am so deep in this woman’s curling voice that I forget to shush him. Just for a moment, I forget a lot of things. Almost everything.
Black hair lit by the fire, like countless black electricity wires you’d see in Cork city. And her cheeks reddened by the heat; freckled red apples, fit for horses. I smell the rain drying on my dress. Right now, I don’t feel like a novelty at all. I am just a collection of senses, near a song. A singing woman. Amber coloured. Damp and warm. Perhapsthis is what it is to be moved.
When the song ends, that feeling goes with it. And it is replaced by the heat of tears, as I remember all of the things that I let myself forget.
A ripple of clapping for her, Tom’s the loudest. He’s delighted that she has stopped, so he can get back to talking.
A new surge of confidence comes to me. All night I’ve heard about this supposed life we had in Miltown. And with nothing to gain or lose, I start telling people the little details I pick up.
‘You’ve probably never heard of Miltown. Or maybe you have. I don’t know, it’s only small.’
‘Would that be Miltown Malbay, in Clare?’
I have no idea. What county did Tom say we are supposed to be from?
‘I better check on the small girl.’
I say, and turn back to Peggy, asking her question upon question about the puppies. Leaving somebody who I pulled into conversation all alone. Mortifying. I’m sure it’s fine though. There must be a hundred Miltowns in Ireland. I’m not questioned any further. ’Tis mad; whatever we tell the locals, they believe. How easily it’s all washed away. My whole life and everyone I ever loved, all gone. Sorry, girl.
The night ends up being much longer than the hour Tom promised it would be. Of course it does. That’s the way that things go with Tom. It’s always just a little bit longer, I always need to try just a little bit harder. It’s always just a little bit different from what he said it would be. Well, it got me out of the house. It made me a little bit less afraid of Ballycrea. Now I’ve seen the town and met its people, I know they’re all ordinary. Ordinary thoughts and opinions, more or less. None of them with any extraordinary power over me.
—
It ends with myself and himself up at home, standing in the frame of the back door, looking out onto the empty night. He told me to wait until the others were gone to sleep, so we could talk, just the pair of us. Many of my nights have ended this way.
Peggy curls up like a cat against Jack. Over my shoulder I see them, sound asleep. I wonder when she will grow out of that. I wonder when he will let her.
Only myself and Tom, watching as the wind moves through the long grass on the hills. Rising and falling. Like standing at the sea’s edge.
He produces Daddy’s pipe from his pocket. Although he likes to think he doesn’t have any vices, one pint and that pipe is stuck to his mouth. Oh, Tom has vices alright. The dark of the night and the depth of the silence come together, creating the perfect stage for us to address them. If I only had the nerve to start, I’d stand here all night, confronting Tom.
He offers me the pipe. You used to hate smoking. Once you told me that the smell of smoke reminded you of old men. That’s when Jack gave up the fags. He was so cross for two weeks after, do you remember? I wished he would just take it back up. But he was mad to impress you.
Tom is smiling at me, as though everything is fine. Right now, I want to dig up all that he has done. To exhume the memories he has buried, peel back their flesh and have him witness their bones; not even beginning to decay. But he smiles at me. And I don’t have the nerve to stand up to him. I take the pipe.
‘You’d all that Miltown business nicely stitched together, hadn’t you?’
My feeble attempt at confronting him falls flat. I want to mention Mammy. He shrugs his shoulders. I pull on the pipe.
‘Sure ’twas just to move us along. To cover the tracks. That’s all.’
When will Tom stop trying to cover tracks? When will he settle into the life he has created for himself?
‘I hope you’re okay, Anna.’
He hasn’t asked me that for a while. It makes me forget about what we had been talking about, about what I have been feeling. It makes me think that I might not be okay; or at least, that I might not appear okay. Sure why else would he be asking? I’m not sure what he wants me to say, or how honest he wants me to be. So I just nod, and try to keep my face from souring. But I feel it happening. Slowly, the smoke leaves my mouth, white against the night sky.
Of course, I know that it’s hard to come up with pleasing answers for where our parents are, or why none of us are married. Stringing together a simple, plain backstory for ourselves will probably help us more than the truth would. Sever the cord. Keep looking ahead. I understand what he is doing, he has helped me to understand it many times. It just hits harder than expected when the plan is actioned and is no longer only a thought.
‘Don’t worry about it, girl. It’s done now. Let the locals spread it, and we just go along with it. It’s a small enough detail, really. It won’t be hard.’
Miltown is forgivable. Even your erasure, I could come to forgive. But what he said about Mammy sits like a stone inside me. I can’t move past it. Of all people for Tom to pull into his self-serving tangle of lies. You’d think that after everything, I’d be rather numbed. But moments like this remind me that I am an endless, expanding collection of exposed nerves. Constantly being touched and trapped.
