Anna
A LACE CURTAIN OF FOG is pulled over the town. It makes it hard to know what time it is. It must be about two weeks since we arrived in Ballycrea, because we’ve been to confession twice and the market twice.
Tom puts a bowl of veg down for me to wash, humming to himself. He seems to get happier every day. I wonder how happy he will get before he bursts.
While waiting for his enthusiasm to infect me, I pass the time watching the way the light changes on the fields and feeding oats to the pony. It doesn’t really make me happy, but it keeps me going.
I’ve started walking down to the town with him; to pass the time, to stop him from asking.
I’ve come to accept that we are in Ballycrea to stay.
At least until we get a car, because the only way I’d go back over the Healy Pass on the pony and cart again would be in my coffin.
But sure I haven’t even a bed at home, I’ve no hope of seeing a car pull up anytime soon.
I haven’t let Tom take the pony out again.
’Tis all cars now, he knows that. Everybody else has one.
Why shouldn’t we have the fine things that everyone else has?
Why shouldn’t we have the life that Tom pretends we have?
He better get a bit of work soon, so that he can buy us things, and stop humming around the house with all his happiness, and leave me alone.
As deeply as I dreaded it, being in town is okay.
I don’t mind it. There isn’t a great deal in the town to mind, to be honest. A few pubs, a few shops, a tailor and a little library, all of which double up as people’s homes.
The convent on the hill, thick, broad walls that you couldn’t penetrate with a cannonball; each window a dark eye, watching.
A lot of grey and white houses with colourful doors and windowsills.
A man fixes some eroded bricks with cement.
A woman waters pink flowers in hanging baskets outside her door.
They’re keen on improvement, it seems. I could find reasons to dislike it, but really it’s no different from any other place.
Wherever we ended up, I would have felt this way, homesick for a place that is no longer home. This is home now.
Something I cannot get used to is the fish.
Boats with chipped paint and half worn names bringing it into Ballycrea every day.
Big crates of it on the pier, lofted raw through the town, wafting their sea smell all around.
Imagine how bad it looks when I gag as the fishermen walk by.
I’m meant to be blending in here, assimilating with the locals and their ways, not bringing up bile as they pass.
It’s just that I’m not used to fish, that’s all. We usen’t ever have fish in Kilmarra, not even on a Friday. Mammy was allergic to the scales, or so she said. I never questioned it. I never questioned her; not about anything. But it’s what’s popular here, and so Tom insists that we buy fish today.
‘When in Ballycrea, do as the locals do.’
My god, he is incessant. I let him into the fishmonger on his own. I can’t imagine how well I’d fare in there. It strikes me that I never walk around the town; I always wait outside whatever building Tom is in. They will think there is something wrong with my legs.
The fish is wrapped in paper and landed in my hands, and I can do nothing to get rid of it.
I wonder how much he spent on it. This reeking dead thing, heavy in my arms, no doubt leaving a smell on the sleeves of my coat.
And even though this is a fish town, and they are all eating it every day, I’m embarrassed by it.
They’ll all think the smell is off me. Imperfections aren’t charming on me the way that they were on you.
A dirty face or sweat stains were things that you somehow managed to make endearing.
I’m sure if you were here now, smelling of uncooked fish, it would only add to your appeal.
Just when I think it’s time to go home, Tom stops us, insisting that he introduces himself to Brendan O’Donovan, who he wishes he had spoken to the other night.
A flock of pretty women pass me by, as I am suddenly left alone in the street.
And I feel each of their eyes move over me.
Strawberry blondes and brunettes, all a little bit younger than me.
I want to go where they are going. I want to be one in a two, and I want to know what they think of me.
Let’s not bother with all of the reasons that I’m one on my own.
As they pass me by, in their perfect, shiny pairs, I feel more lonely, more embarrassed, than I have for a long time.
It reminds me of you and all your countless friends.
It was so rare to catch you on your own.
Wherever I saw you, at the window of the butcher’s, in the doorway of the pub, from the field behind your house, there was a sister or friend in your shadow.
I was so embarrassingly insecure to see you in constant company, and to be a solitary thing, viewing it all from a distance. I can admit that now.
Those passing, pretty women remind me of all the friendships that I’ve misplaced. Those close connections that always fell short of lasting. Where are all of those girls now? Do they remember me ever?
Before they are out of sight, one of the women turns to look at me again.
Only a quick glance, but I feel a bolt of urgency strike me.
I want her to know I’ve caught her looking, to dethrone her, to humiliate her.
I pull a face at her. It’s all I can think to do.
How juvenile. But then, isn’t she juvenile too, walking around with her clique, staring me down?
She turns away, probably unsure if I really did pull a face, or if she’s just imagining it.
I bless myself and say sorry to the air.
The boys have told me that tunnelling this far into my thoughts doesn’t do me any good. I’m always being told what not to do, without being given alternatives.
Tom comes back after talking to Brendan. At long last, we make our way home, the road rising and dipping below us so frequently that I feel I am out on the sea. The big dead fish in my arms does not help.
‘I met Bill Nevan there with Brendan. Did you meet him the other night?’
He asks, fully knowing I won’t remember who Bill Nevan is.
‘He’s going to call up this evening with his wife. They’ll eat dinner with us, we can play cards maybe. A dinner party!’
A dinner party? ’Twas very far from dinner parties he was reared.
Where does he come up with it? I don’t know how to respond.
And then I realise that even if I did know, there wouldn’t be any point in responding.
Tom has made his plan. There is no backing out now.
These strangers will come to our home and judge us and inspect us, and I will have to make them feel welcome while they do it.
—
As I sit down and try to write out a plan for the evening, I feel Jack’s heavy eyes on me.
Staring at me. Or perhaps, staring through me.
Perhaps he was already deep in thought, focused on some point in the distance all day, and I sat in his eyeline.
I write down what food I know we have, and try to think of a way to stretch it to dinner for six people.
The house gets dim around us. We don’t have enough of anything, really, unless we all have slightly different meals.
Outside, Peggy is shrieking, laughing, playing with the pony.
If she would only shut up for a minute so that I can think.
If I could only get a break from Jack’s staring.
‘That’ll be beautiful.’
Tom says, tapping the wrapped fish with his knuckle. And I realise that Tom intends to serve the fish for dinner. If I could only get a break from his relentless happiness and his big notions. If the three of them would just leave me alone.
And then, an unwelcome wave hits me, and I feel that the menstruation I have been dreading and unprepared for has arrived, late. I would have been worried if I wasn’t so laughably single.
Wordless, I take myself to the bedroom. I lean against the closed door, so that none of the others can follow me in.
What good are two brothers and a child to me now?
It can be so hard to be a woman without the company of other women.
I’m not sure you ever knew what that was, with all your friends and sisters.
I remember wanting so terribly to know your cycle; to make my own less alienating, just to avoid any trouble, just to feel close to you. Just to have something shared between us.
But it was just another thing you wanted to keep from me. Wasn’t it? Just another way to put space between us. And how you loved your precious space.
Maybe it sounds stupid to you, but you don’t know what it would have meant to me to feel like somebody was on my side while I was aching and bleeding and alone. Remember, I never had a flood of sisters or friends. I didn’t have anybody. But you knew that, didn’t you?
How pathetic, I still don’t have anybody. Soon, I will need to explain all this to Peggy. Where to begin? You would have done it so gracefully, so easily.
I remember once spying a bloodstain on your bed, and you asking me not to look in your room anymore. Oh my god, I loved you so terribly. Even bleeding, I adored you. I remember the day Jack told me you were pregnant.
The shock of it all. The dread and the fear. The isolation of knowing that I really would have to bleed on my own. That horrible cycle, beginning again.