Jack
IT POURS WITH RAIN THE entire walk to John and Ciara Moore’s house. Let’s see is it enough to put a dent in Tom’s determination.
‘Such a bad impression, to all land on soaked.’
Anna muttered, as we left the house, even though I gave the one umbrella we have to herself and Peggy. I don’t know what kind of weather she was hoping for in January. Doesn’t she realise that if we land on soaked, everybody else will land on soaked?
‘Should we not turn back?’
She calls out through the rain, the umbrella struggling against the wind. But Tom only throws his hand up to her, shrugging her off. Then she pulls Peggy’s arm along, so that it doesn’t seem like she is the one who is slowing us down. It must be exhausting to think the way she does.
And as expected, we arrive drenched, the smell of the rain soaking through our clothes. I can see the steam coming off Tom, raging that this is how his family is to be debuted to the parish. Anna did warn him.
Too late, I am worried that Peggy may well be the only child here.
Tom said it would be fine. I wish I hadn’t listened to him.
The poor child will be exhausted by the time we’re done.
And Anna will look like an unfit mother for bringing her out so late.
How humiliating for her. All I can hope for now is that there will be an old woman here that we can put Peggy with.
Someone whose mind has gone to water, who is just dying for something small to dote on.
Perhaps she would have room on her lap for all four of us.
‘No getting pissed tonight.’
He points at both myself and Anna, but only really means for me to take it in.
Years ago, I might have gotten carried away with the lads, drinking and messing.
I might have overshadowed him. Better able to make conversation and be told I was so like our father.
Tonight, I know he isn’t warning me out of jealousy, but because I have become a different class of drunk: unsettling and sad, hellbent on flushing you out of my system.
Better to avoid those sorts of antics for the evening.
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 the dim 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 to seem 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.
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 dead and 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 completely heartbroken 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.