Anna
HEAPS OF GOLDEN ONIONS, SOFT stalked carrots, stacks of eggs and bunches of flowers.
A bright morning. The Saturday market here is much larger than in Kilmarra.
Women call out to each other. Men knock into me as though they can’t see me.
Peggy snatches her little hand out of mine.
And Betty is just up ahead, moving in and out of sight.
I like to keep an eye on her when I can.
I like to take note of when she drops into Doyle’s.
When the car is missing from her driveway, and if she comes back with groceries or new clothes in the boot.
I notice when she goes on her evening walks with Ciara Moore.
I watch from six pews back in Mass, and although I can only see the back of her head, her face is clear to me. Her thoughts are clear to me.
Everything moves fast. It’s hard to feel settled when she is out of my line of vision.
All the big men smell of sweat, and somebody steps on my foot as I try to catch Peggy’s hand again.
We push through the people, and I feel her trying to pull away from me.
Among the crowd I realise how small she is.
I hate the uneven line between being her sister and her parent.
If I was only her sister, I could shout at her, I could push her down and run off without her.
But I am not only her sister. There were days when I could drop Peggy over to you while I came into the market.
You’d spend the afternoon reading to her, singing with her, showing her how to play your fiddle.
Jack used to say you were snooty for not sitting her in front of the television, remember?
And you would smirk and tell him to feck off, that clever girls like Peggy shouldn’t waste their time with television.
There was a time when you would smirk at me like that.
Something got in the way, though, and then came the sad time when you only gave me polite, obliging smiles. Like you didn’t know me at all.
Betty appears in the crowd again, much closer than she was before. Too close, perhaps. I don’t want her to catch me, I just want to know what she’s up to. Who she’s with. Where she goes.
I lift Peggy onto my back. She is too big for this, we look stupid. She kicks me, but I hold on to her.
‘We’ll be faster like this.’
I say to her, and she buries her face into my hair, presumably mortified.
‘Faster to where? Where are we going?’
The benefit of being her big sister and her parent at once is that I can ignore her when it suits me.
She stays quiet up on my back, as I wander around the market, seeing who Betty buys her messages from, who she makes small talk with and who she avoids.
I just want to learn her better, in the ways she won’t tell me in words.
A mass of people separates us. Wide backs and big coats, boots and caps.
And then, a gap in the crowd. And Betty’s face, looking right back at me.
She jumps back. Like she has seen a ghost.
I drop Peggy onto the ground, and she races to Betty.
‘Hello, pet!’
She says, kneeling down to Peggy’s height. Fussing over her. Pulling the cardigan up over her shoulders and rolling her sleeves down. It’s embarrassing for me to realise how scruffy Peggy looks, and know that Betty probably thinks this is my fault. Why doesn’t she fix my cardigan, too?
‘Anna, would you let Peggy come with me down to mine for a while? I’ve a big, long list of jobs she can help me with. We might go and see Ciara’s puppies!’
She says, and winks at Peggy. And I feel the wink like a knife through my muscle.
But no, actually, no it’s fine. Peggy is bouncing at the thought of the puppies, the thought of an afternoon in Betty’s perfect home, and time away from me, I presume.
I’m not jealous of how mad Peggy is for Betty; sure I’m the same myself.
‘Absolutely! Sure we’ll all go, will we?’
I say, and Betty hesitates for a second, but only to think of what Peggy can do first. The whole walk, Peggy holds Betty’s hand like a tiny child.
They talk about baking and school and clothes.
Things that they seem to have spoken about before, private jokes between the two of them that jump up to hit me in the face.
Down at Betty’s house, I take my usual seat at the table. And I relax.
‘Right so, Peggy, will you fold these sheets with me?’
Betty asks, lifting a basket of washing onto the table.
The chaos of the town leaves me. The high-up, dizzy heat begins to dissolve.
I would be alright if Peggy wasn’t here.
This scary feeling comes over me, that I am being forgotten already.
This crucial new friendship of mine doesn’t hold the weight I thought that it did.
The ache of this is too familiar, our relationship being underplayed for the company of a child.
For the company of Tom. I feel I am coming in last again.
Like Betty will soon stop smirking and start offering obliging smiles.
Her headscarf catches my eye, thrown on the table.
Cerulean blue. Thrown down like it doesn’t mean a thing.
She gives Peggy a set of sheets to put in her bedroom and takes some bits down to the hot press.
I hear them in the hall, Peggy asking Betty if she has ever been to Dublin Zoo, and Betty suggesting that they go together someday.
Christ almighty. While they occupy each other, I am left alone in the kitchen.
Only me and the perfect afternoon light, and her headscarf. And I am taken, pulled, overwhelmed by an urge to try it on. To stuff it down my skirt. To hold on to it, and not let go.
She could come back any second and catch me out.
But I feel if I don’t put this scarf on now, I’ll never be right again.
So I put it on, just quickly. Why deny myself?
Just for a minute. Just long enough to admire myself in the gleam of her sink.
The threat of being caught is softened by the sensation of her against my cheeks.
The smell of her all around me. The feeling of being enveloped by Betty Nevan.
Who is surely about to catch me. Here she comes.
Snatching her scarf off my head, I feel her being ripped from me. Quickly, I put it into my handbag. Two of her black hairs, now laying on the shoulder of my dress. She notices nothing missing. She doesn’t even notice as I take her hair from my dress and plait it into my own.