Betty
Tom calls after us, so loud and exuberant that I can still hear him even after we have gone.
There’s something about Tom that I can’t quite explain.
Something pity-inducing, that is endearing and off-putting at once.
It’s the way that he shouts goodbyes to us in a manner that even Peggy is too old for.
Never mind anyway. He isn’t the O’Leary I’m worried about at the minute.
I cling onto Bill all of the walk home. Frost takes over the ditches, and I feel unsteady in my shoes. How do I begin to tell him about what happened with Anna?
I look up to see him smiling at me. Oh, isn’t he good?
Something about the dark of tonight puts me in mind of when we were young.
When he would walk me home from dances, with my brothers following us.
The smell of his jacket, still the same as it was then.
He loves me more than anything. And knowing that gives me the courage to say something that I have been avoiding.
Something I haven’t wanted to think about, but that comes to me again and again.
Which came to me countless times tonight.
‘They’re a bit much, aren’t they? The O’Learys.’
He looks surprised, but he never notices half of the things that I notice.
I would have been amazed if he agreed with me.
This is why I’ve avoided the subject. It’s one thing to say that I’m not sure about the O’Learys.
It’s another thing altogether to begin to explain why.
Tom’s neediness, Anna’s ever-changing moods, and uncertainty of Lillian.
‘How do you mean?’
He asks, and I feel already I’ve started something that I don’t want to finish. Still, I swallow back my reservation.
‘Just the way that Tom is sort of like a child sometimes, and Anna is such an intense girl.’
Let’s leave Lillian out of it for now. There’s no point ringing alarm bells for no reason.
‘She does nothing by halves.’
He laughs.
‘Ah Bill, no, listen, I’d be afraid of her if she wasn’t so innocent.’
This is as much as I can say about what passed between us, because I really don’t have the words for it.
‘Now, Betty, if you’re afraid of her it’s another story. Why are you afraid of her?’
‘I’m not afraid of her, I said I’m not afraid. Sure I’ve nothing to be afraid of.’
And in convincing Bill, I begin to convince myself.
I still haven’t told him about the scarf, or about Lillian.
It seems the longer I keep it a secret, the harder it is to tell him.
I just want to keep it small for now. I feel the smaller it is, the better I’ll be able to control it. And perhaps even solve it.
Although I thought that Liam Hennessey was going to solve it. Maybe it’s going to take more than I imagined. All the walk home, and all night in bed, I hear her taunting me. Pecking at me, addicted to attention. I wonder what would satiate her, or if anything could at all.