Betty
‘I WAS AWAKE ALL NIGHT thinking about it.’
I tell Ciara, surrounded by the iron smell of stout, with a draft from a small window missing its glass. Jack O’Leary drops a pot of coffee down to us with a wink.
‘There ye are, girls.’
I didn’t realise he’d started working in Doyle’s.
Those O’Learys are everywhere. Ciara smiles, somehow drawn in by his little charm.
How I’d love to burst his bubble, tell him that Ciara is drawn in by any man with half an ounce of charisma.
Sure with her John, how could she not be?
We’ve to wait until he’s back up at the bar to keep talking.
When I told Ciara what happened with Anna last night, she was so intrigued that she made me tell her a second time.
Part of me feels guilty for suggesting to Bill that the O’Learys are too much. And even worse for saying it to Ciara this afternoon. I don’t want to seem like a gossip, but I have to talk about this, because it doesn’t feel right.
Ciara is eyeing Jack, waiting until it’s safe to talk.
‘What did Bill make of it?’
‘Sure he didn’t take any notice. He probably has it forgotten now.’
I didn’t bother mentioning it to him again this morning.
What would be the point, when I know he’d only dismiss it?
The way Bill sees it, he finally has a big, capable man to help him on the farm, who is too grateful to look for more money and too obedient to do anything but what he’s told.
Besides, amn’t I the one who told him to keep an eye on Tom and Jack in the first place?
‘So what are you going to do?’
That’s the question. What am I going to do? I keep telling myself that it takes all sorts to make a world. That everybody is different. That I don’t have to be friends with everyone. All the things I’ve been telling myself to justify the odd feeling I get from them. From her.
‘I’d cut them out, if I could. But Tom is working with Bill, and suddenly Jack is working in here, and Anna calls up to the house every evening. What can I do?’
Ciara looks at me, defeated. This family has made themselves a part of the town, I can’t do anything about that. They have made themselves a part of my life. And I can’t do anything about that, either.
I suppose I could ignore them. Smile politely at the market and shake their hands in Mass, and nothing more. But then it hits me. What about Peggy?
‘I’m mad for the little girl, Ciara. I’d be devastated if I couldn’t look after her anymore.’
I don’t want to say too much more about it. It’s embarrassing to be so desperate for a child that I latch onto the first neglected girl that comes my way. But something about her feels like fate. She needs parenting, and I want to be a parent. Ciara saves me any pity.
‘I would imagine the siblings are a package deal.’
She says, pouring out the coffee, handing me a cup.
‘Did you ever think that she might like you? Maybe she’s attracted to you, like.’
I scald my tongue on the coffee.
‘Ciara!’
She laughs like she isn’t saying something outrageous.
‘But sure maybe she does! You’d hear of things like that happening.’
It’s fine for her, she is only watching this from the sidelines. I’m the one right in the middle of it.
‘Not in Ballycrea, you don’t.’
But already it’s turning in my mind, and I wonder if there might be weight to what she’s saying.
‘Attraction is perfectly natural, Betty. You wouldn’t see an animal repressing its urges the way that we do. Besides, it’s everything else about Anna that’s unnatural.’
‘That’s right.’
I don’t know what else to say to her. Maybe she’s right. But I have enough to be considering without considering all that. Just as I want to ask her what she made of the band last night, Ciara’s eyes widen. She is fixed on the door.
Red headscarf. Yellow eyes scanning the room. Here is Anna.