Chapter 4 #22
“S-sorry,” he stammered, “I’ll—go…I—”
“Tomás?”
A figure was standing up, separating itself from the huddle.
“Yes,” he said.
A silhouette moved towards him, its outline blurred, but he could see a mass of curls about its head, and feet that were stepping precisely over the boards.
Then a slight, cold hand was taking his, claiming him.
Tomás pressed the hand in his, pulled it close to his side.
Then they were stepping out of the door together and he could see more of her: the dust-coloured dress she was wearing, that she was thinner and taller, of course, but her eyes were still the same frank blue, and the way she held his hand was full of such trust, such certainty, and his heart seemed to quiver within his chest because he had never felt these things before, or had no memory of feeling them, and he had no idea what he had done to deserve her faith, but he pulled her through the bowels of the ship, through the hordes of people, moving quickly.
At one point, near the second ladder, they were accosted by the workhouse warden, who squawked at them, at Tomás, saying to let go of the girl, what did he think he was doing, he was a blackguard and a gurrier, but Tomás put his elbow into the man’s chest and shoved him hard up against the wall of the ship—it was the only time he let go of Phina—and he was forced to punch the man in the jaw, which was a sad thing because the man was old and not nearly as big as Tomás, and there was blood, but it had to be done, he would not let this man take Phina from him and send her to a penal colony to be a servant or worse, and Tomás wiped his knuckles on his trousers, took Phina’s hand again, and then they were up on the deck, and he made straight for the gangway, and then they were down it and onto the dockside, and Tomás said, Run, can you run, we need to get away from here.
So she ran beside him, and he could see she was weakened, but she was brave, this he knew, and she did the best she could, and before much time, they had left the docks behind them and were mingling with the people on the streets, losing themselves, but still Tomás was uneasy, so he struck a bargain with a family who were heading away from the marketplace with their children on a cart, and he asked them could they put Phina up there with them for a spell, and he would walk alongside, and they said yes, and an hour or so after they had escaped from the ship, Tomás and Phina were taking the road away from the town.
Their hands were still joined, it didn’t seem safe to let go, not yet, and Phina turned to him and said, I knew you’d come for me, I knew it.
Impossible, Phina thinks (as she crouches over a tub by the pump at the top of the Lanes, scrubbing at an inexplicable stain on a smock of Enda’s), the situation is impossible.
She doesn’t know what to do: her husband, returned but unrecognisable, scarcely enough money in his pocket.
She doesn’t raise her eyes to meet those of her neighbours today; she hasn’t the appetite for talk, doesn’t know what to tell people who ask after Tomás.
He is sitting up in bed, he is taking a little food and drink, but he still stares off into space, he whispers to himself, he starts and jumps at nothing, he still wakes screaming in the night, he barely speaks.
It is as if his very soul has been stolen away.
Perhaps, she thinks (as she pegs out the damp laundry, clothes-pegs gripped between her teeth), it is best to do nothing, to wait.
On the other hand (as she takes a comb to Rose’s hair, trying to untangle the knots and snarls, blocking her ears to the shrieks of protest), maybe she should be trying to find out what has caused this change, to get him to speak.
What would be the best thing? What would a good wife do?
She feels, yet again (as she leans uncomfortably over the hearth, blowing on the wood, trying to coax the embers into life), the lack of a mother in her life, someone with experience of marriage, someone to advise her, to say, yes, husbands do this, they take to their beds in silence and look like the living dead, just wait it out, or, no, this is not usual, and this is what you must do.
But no use, of course, to dwell on these things.
She has him, she has her children, and that is more than some.
All the same, she thinks (as she stirs strips of hot cabbage into broken-up bread crusts over the sulking fire), for all Tomás’s strangeness and taciturnity, this is not like him.
All the same, the other men on the street go to and from their jobs, if they have them.
Tomás has always been a good worker, never squandered his money or time in bars, never taken to his bed like this.
The problem, as she sees it (she is dipping a ladle into the bucket of water to make the tea), is that there is no one for her to ask.
She could try one of the other women or even the priest, but what would she say?
He went away out west and then came back like a ghost?
We’ve no money coming in and what savings I have won’t stretch for long and I don’t know what to do and I’ve another on the way?
She’s tried asking Liam what happened but the child just looks fearful and mutters about the maps and the redcoats and how the widow they lodged with helped him.
Her husband has gone from her, is what she thinks in dark moments (turning over in bed, trying to find a comfortable position, listening for the individual rhythms of her children’s breathing, and that of her man beside her), and will perhaps never come back, might never work again.
She will birth this child, God willing, and then what will become of them?
Even if she could find more sewing work—and there’s always a desire for new frocks in the big houses—whatever will she do when this baby comes?
She’ll have her hands too full for fine needlework and won’t be able to afford the embroidery silks, the narrow pins.
Tomás needs to get well, and fast, if they are to keep a roof over their heads, and have coal in the grate.
She doesn’t like to dip into the money she keeps in a pouch behind the flour barrel, but it will soon come to that.
Some mornings she finds it hard not to yank the blankets off him and say: Stir yourself, for the love of God, and go out to work.
On a day when the rain has been coming down since dawn, Rose is fractious, unable to play out.
Phina has had to devise tasks for her to keep her occupied until her brother and sister come back from school—holding a hank of wool while Phina winds it into a ball, shaping a bit of bread dough into animals.
Instead of staring blankly out of the window, Tomás watches them with an unsettling intensity from the bed, his face unmoving; he doesn’t respond when Rose pats his arm or asks him, will she fetch him a cup of water?
So Phina is astounded when he suddenly pulls back the covers and rises to his feet.
He seems unaccountably tall as he stands there. Rose is as surprised as Phina is, staring up at her father with an open mouth, the scrap of dough clutched in one hand.
“Are you…?” Phina says, her throat fluttering with equal parts relief and panic. “Do you feel…?” not knowing how her sentences will end.
“I have decided,” he says, “what we must do. I have made a plan for us.”
Phina, unnerved, blinks. “And what is that?”
He seems not to hear or acknowledge her question.
“We are rootless,” he says, apparently to the ceiling, “we are landless. And worse than that, we are at the beck and call of the enemy. My father,” he mutters, “is ashamed of me.”
Phina gropes blindly for Rose’s hand and grips it in her own. “Tomás,” she begins, in a voice that sounds calmer and more amenable than she feels, “let’s not be hasty in whatever it is you’ve—”
“Do not concern yourself, woman,” he cuts across her. “Because I know what to do. How to save us.”
Tomás moves quickly about the room. He picks up his trousers, which have lain over the back of a chair for the weeks he’s been in bed.
He pulls them on, tightens the belt; he reaches for the jacket, which is hanging behind the door.
All the time, Phina follows him, anxiety mounting as she asks, where is he going, what will he do, and whatever did he mean about his father?
But he has lapsed back into silence and there is a peculiar glint in his eye, that of a man with a task on his mind, that of someone who has reached a decision.
He fits his hat to his head, nods at his wife and daughter, then leaves, the door swinging closed behind him.
“Da’s gone out,” Rose remarks, reaching for the button tin in her mother’s workbox.
“He has.”
Rose is regarding her, trying to glean what all this means.
Phina is careful to keep her face expressionless; she turns to scrape at the base of a pot, trying to quell the urge to hurry out the door after him, to see where he goes.
Rose lifts the lid of the tin and all the buttons, shiny and smooth, spill out onto the table.
Their paired holes stare up at Phina like so many tiny eyes.
Enda and Liam are seated at the table, giving exemplary performances of children concentrating on their exercises, Enda with the end of a pencil in her mouth, Liam with his chin resting in his hand.
Their mother is across the room, darning a rent in Enda’s jersey, Rose cross-legged at her feet.
Every few minutes, Enda cannot help but raise her eyes to regard her mother, and Liam also looks up; their gazes will lock for an almost unbearable moment and then they will look down at their schoolwork once more.