Now & Then

by Jacqueline Sheehan

  He didn’t understand how groups formed so quickly in high school, how the coolest kids knew precisely where to stand, how to speak, who to speak to, what to wear. Everyone wanted to be with the kids who were casually clever, without blemishes, who walked with the ease of ownership, owning the very oxygen in the dank school halls. But there was room for only a predetermined few, and once the slots were filled, the rest scattered like drowning sailors and grabbed the first piece of flotsam that came their way, then paddled to any rickety port within their grasp: the football team, the skateboarders, the wannabe Goths, or, in his case, the wrestling team. That had been his only life raft, and it had hardly been a reliable port. More like an emergency landing.

  Joseph stood up and ran his hands down his jacket and the legs of his pants. He could already feel her breath on his face, could sense the quiver of his flesh rising to contract, pulling him tight like an arrow. He could think of nothing else. Taleen would be with her mother now in the vast lower level of the kitchen, where servants cooked for the manor. He walked past his bed and looked out the window, hoping to catch sight of her.

  This is what made his flesh tingle, the thought of her hair, her wide eyes turned on him like searchlights. No one had ever looked at him like that before, illuminating his heart and belly.

  He heard the colonel’s voice trumpet downstairs.

  “Where is my good lad? Where is our young Canadian?”

  Joseph glanced at his image in the mirror. He buttoned the top button of his vest, pulled his spine taller than it had ever been, and ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Coming, sir.”

  They were headed for a day of riding.

  “Let me tell you about the Irish, lad,” said the colonel. “They’re difficult to manage. They’re sly, clever in dark and thieving sorts of ways. And do you see how many children they have? They can’t control themselves, nor can they feed their own lot. If it wasn’t for the British, they’d perish.”

  The colonel rode a gorgeous chestnut horse, and right beside him rode Joseph, on a similar but smaller horse. Joseph thought this line of reasoning sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite remember where he had heard it. He regretted every missed assignment in history class, every book that he had resentfully skimmed, every time his grandmother had wanted to talk about what had been happening in places like Ethiopia or Darfur, places that hadn’t mattered to him. That was it—the colonel sounded like his great-uncle Elliot, who said that Mexicans were coming to America to take our jobs and have babies and go on welfare. He remembered that his grandmother had come unglued when her brother had staged a political debate at one Christmas dinner. She’d finally ended with, “Shut up, you sanctimonious idiot. I want to enjoy my family and the food that Mexicans have grown for us.” Grandma didn’t hesitate to speak her mind.

  “Sir, what do you think the Irish people would do if the British went home?”

  The colonel stopped his horse, and Joseph did too. He tried to do everything the colonel did. The older man turned slightly in his saddle to look at the boy, and the saddle creaked with the effort. The chestnut horse flicked his tail and turned his head to see what was happening.

  “If we left? Why would we leave? Do you mean abandon our responsibility here, our right to govern lawless people who have no regard for the very value of life? What an absurd question. We’ve invested in this place; it’s part of our empire, our destiny. You’ve only seen my estate, my well-managed estate that employs over forty Irish men and women to work it. You’d like to see what the Irish people would do if left to their own? You and I shall leave the estate and I’ll show you what we’re up against.”

  The colonel pulled the reins and his horse turned around. “Come along, boy. We’ll ride back now. We’ll leave in the morning, head up to Clonmel. A good week in the country should answer all your questions.”

  He urged his horse on, and Joseph did the same. He had already learned that this horse responded to the slightest pressure from his legs, his wrists along the reins. This horse was better than driving a car. Not that he’d had all that much experience with cars, but the horse was definitely better. He gripped tighter with his inner thighs and tried to loosen his hips, letting his pelvis hinge freely with the horse. This adventure sounded like a camping trip with the colonel, and Joseph was ready to explore more than just the grounds of the estate.

  When they returned to the manor, two groomsmen were waiting to take their horses. How had they known when the colonel would return? “Get the horses ready for an expedition,” he said. “Tell the kitchen to prepare food for us to take for a week. You, you’ll be coming with us to take care of the horses. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

  Joseph dismounted in what he hoped was the way the colonel had—sharp and swift, a bit of a snap at the end when his highly polished boots hit the ground.

  He didn’t want to leave Taleen, nor the odd comfort that Deirdre provided, but the excitement of an expedition tipped the balance. After all, Taleen would still be here when he got back.

  After a supper of organ meats and pork, Joseph a bit queasy, the colonel continued his instruction about the Irish even as he continued to stab at the meat with pleasure, popping dark hunks of it into his mouth. Con had lit a strong fire that beat back the late October chill in the vast manor. The heat from the fire made Joseph sleepy, and he wished for the lesson to be over. The colonel had to admit that the Irish had a particular way with horses; had an odd kinship with them, which had to do with the animal nature of the Irish.

  “That makes them closer to the horses. They speak the same language, all grunts and snorts,” said the colonel, emphasizing his relentless point.

  Joseph had overheard two men speaking in the stables, and he realized they hadn’t been speaking English. He asked, “What language do the horsemen speak?”

  “While they work here, they’ll speak only the King’s English. We fight the Irish language day and night. It’s the tongue of rebellion, disloyalty, and papists. There’s no excuse. Thank you, lad, you’re another set of ears for me.”

  Joseph didn’t want to be another set of ears for him, but he was intoxicated by the sudden sense of privilege, the order, the ease of having cooks, men to select his clothes, to saddle and unsaddle a horse for him. It felt so right, as if he had been waiting all his life for this, as if he’d been born into the wrong family. The colonel liked and appreciated him, but Joseph didn’t want to squeal on anyone. He backpedaled as furiously as he could.

  “I think it was just their accent, I mean my accent. As you have noted, my accent is quite strong; you said so. They could have been speaking English. Yes, they were speaking English all along, and I couldn’t get the accent.”

  The colonel put down his whiskey with enough force that the amber liquid jumped into a panicked peak.

  “There’s one way to find out. We’ll bring them in and ask them, not that they can be trusted one inch, but I’ve learned to detect their lies. They’re like small children; they can’t lie properly.”

  He rang a bell that rested on the table. “Edwards, call the stable boys into the manor. Have them take off their boots before they come in.” He pushed away his plate of greasy meat, sending a small pool of oily liquid to the table.

  Joseph began to sweat, and his fine clothes grew tighter around his waist, binding him. His prized boots locked him in place like anchors. He would rather have been anywhere than in the grand hall with the colonel as they waited for the unsuspecting stable boys. They were men really. Why was he calling them boys?

  Joseph heard Mr. Edwards’s shoes along the stairway from the kitchen. Behind him were the men from the stable. What were their names? Owen and Sean, their hats in their hands. The clean rich scent of the horses surrounded them, along with a burst of hay and leather.

  The colonel gave Joseph a conspiratorial wink. “Good evening, gentlemen. Our young guest from Canada was wondering what language you speak. Could you explain to the lad?”

  Jos
eph thought for sure that Owen and Sean would look at him, glare at him, accuse him, but they did not flick a glance in his direction.

  Owen spoke. “It is your rule for all of us to speak English. And that is what we speak, just as we are now, and just as we should. But there are small moments, between men, when the old language serves to let us speak of those who have died, our grandparents, who spoke only Irish. Surely that is what Mr. Joseph heard.”

  Mr. Joseph? Owen was a well-built man who looked to be somewhere in his early twenties. Joseph was suddenly embarrassed to have an adult call him Mister anything.

  The colonel turned to Joseph. “Do you see how longwinded they are? Could you hear an answer to my question in that papal sermon?”

  Joseph cleared his throat and prayed that his voice wouldn’t crack. “After hearing them speak, I can see that I was mistaken. This is exactly the sort of English that they were speaking when I heard them. I can’t understand everything that they say, that’s the problem. But honestly, I heard only English. I made a mistake.”

  The colonel proceeded as if Joseph hadn’t said anything. “Edwards, could you tell our guest what the penalty is for speaking an outlawed language, a language of traitors?”

  “Yes, sir. For speaking Irish, there is immediate loss of employment on your manor. If the offender rents a cottage on the manor, they shall be evicted.” Mr. Edwards spoke to an invisible audience, directing his voice to the vastness of the room.

  “Have I not been lenient at times?” said the colonel. He flicked something from beneath his fingernail.

  “Yes, sir. You have been most lenient at times.”

  “Would you say I exude a sense of royal benevolence to those in my charge?”

  Joseph was not sure what benevolence meant, but he did know what royal meant, and he thought the colonel was sucking for compliments—something that was completely unnecessary, since he was the man. Joseph fidgeted in his tailored clothes and hoped that someone could bring the conversation to an end.

  “You are very much in the manner of royal benevolence, sir. And may I say that your charges are loyal, due in large part to your firm hand and your benevolence,” said Mr. Edwards.

  This guy is good, thought Joseph as he looked at Mr. Edwards with renewed interest. For the first time, Joseph understood that Edwards was working the system—he just didn’t know what system.

  “You are all dismissed,” said the colonel. “And let there be no further incidents of speaking Irish on this British soil.”

  There, there he saw a twitch come across Sean’s face. It ended in his fists tightening. Mr. Edwards displayed nothing, a perfectly studied nothing on his face.

  Chapter 15

  “She’s just the sort who could be a British spy, sent to see if we are stashing shillings under the mattress. They’d think we should feel sorry for her and that’s the way she’d wheedle into us,” said Tom.

  “I think not,” said Glenis. “It’s as likely that she’s a bit daft, imagining some grand life, working with the uppity ups. She’s just a lass with soft hands and remarkably white teeth, but a lass none the less. Her family could have turned her out.”

  Anna had stopped breathing, with her back pressed flat against the side of the barn beneath the open window. She’d been sitting in the sun, stretching and contracting the muscles of her leg. She couldn’t let them know she was there.

  “Do you think that’s why she hasn’t tried to get word to them?” said Tom.

  “Aye. If they don’t want her, that would be reason enough. But she’s lost Tom, that’s true enough to see.”

  “Lost or not, she’s got to earn her keep. And if people see her working, they’ll stop their yammering about her being a British spy.”

  Anna heard light footsteps in the barn, and then the sound of a door hinge squealing as the barn door was closed. She quickly tiptoed behind the building lest Tom and Glenis come to the side. It had not occurred to her until this moment that she was putting them at such risk. She had only been thinking of herself and they had shown her nothing but kindness. They had saved her life. Anna felt a wave of shame sour her stomach, curdling the breakfast of buttermilk and potatoes.

  Worse than the curdling was the gap that Glenis had found in her armor, her ability to out-think, out-negotiate anyone, her law review, golden-girl regalia. Glenis said that her family had turned Anna out. This worm of truth crept along Anna’s ribs and like a tropical parasite, found its way into her heart. Steve left her. Her father left her.

  Anna thought hard about what she had to offer Glenis and Tom. She asked if the children might like a tutor. The two oldest children—twelve-year-old Michael and eight-year-old Mary—were her first students. Their youngest, Nuala, was only four, and she cried bitterly at the exclusion. A third student arrived after the first week of lessons; young Phoebe hailed from an hour west of them. Phoebe was ten years old and a neighbor’s child. Anna was surprised at the designation “neighbor” since she lived so far away, she was also surprised that the child was allowed to walk by herself.

  Anna didn’t have any direct experience with teaching, but growing up with parents who were teachers had exposed her to the idea of lesson planning and presenting new information in small increments. The children each had a piece of slate on which they practiced their numbers and letters. A teacher had previously come to the area once a week for families who had been able to pay him, but he had been missing for months without explanation.

  “You can’t believe how hard we must work to get our children a proper education. The Catholic children are allowed in the schools now, but they’re treated like slop. It’s the ones who’ve gone over to the Church of England that get the good treatment. We would just as soon have the bairns go to the hedge schools than have them treated like rubbish,” said Glenis as she watched Anna prepare for her weekly tutoring session.

  On the very first tutoring session held in the front room of the small cottage, Anna announced, “We’ll practice writing today. I will show you a letter that I must write to my family in America, telling them where I am, and asking for them to write back as quickly as they can. You can all write a sentence to them as well.”

  The children practiced on pieces of slate until they had perfected their achingly polite sentences. Anna caught a glance pass between Glenis and Tom at the beginning of the lesson that looked like a sliver of relief.

  Anna quickly saw that Michael was keen for numbers. She began to present him with rudimentary math, which he swallowed as if numbers had been the missing chinks in his brain. Everything about numbers made sense to the boy. Anna could nearly see his neurons galloping around his head, doing happy back flips as he chewed and savored numbers. It was on a day when both Anna and the boy had soared past long layers of addition, subtraction, and division and she’d seen through her scholar’s eyes that he was ready to launch into algebra that they heard Tom calling for his boy with an edge to his voice. Anna startled, and a deep visceral strand in her gut tightened as she assumed an old role that was as natural for her as breathing.

  “It’s OK,” she said to the boy. “Go out back, through the pantry, and I’ll say that you weren’t here. Go quickly, before your father gets here.”

  The boy looked at her quizzically. “I’ll not lie to my Da,” he said. “He needs me, and I forgot what I had promised him.”

  Anna’s heart rate was going so fast that it stuttered. She had always protected her brother from their father whenever she’d been able. She’d placated, tiptoed, lied, thrown herself between them, whatever it had taken, however she’d been able to imagine. But there was little that had stopped the stream of venom that had spewed from her father to her brother.

  And now she was suddenly to blame for causing young Michael to get in trouble with his father. She was gripped with fear. Having grown up in a house where father and son had battled nearly to the death of wills, she froze, as she had done so many times before, when she heard Tom’s footsteps on the flagstones.


  The door to the kitchen opened and Tom, his boots sticky with mud, held a bridle for one of their horses. “I can’t grow two extra arms this day. When are you planning on joining me?” he asked Michael.

  “Oh, Da, Anna was preparing to teach me the largest and strangest numbers I’d ever seen. I lost track of myself. I’m coming right now.” The boy got up and grabbed a corner of hard bread as he left to join his father, whom he touched in an easy manner as he squeezed past him in the doorway.

  Tom tipped his hat at Anna. “Sorry to drag off your student, but the horses don’t know numbers from rocks.” He smiled and gave a nod.

  Anna did not remember her father ever touching her brother Patrick with anything other than an intent to hurt him. Even when he put his hand on Patrick’s shoulder in what should have been a tender touch, Anna would see the bulge in her father’s bicep, the deep grab of his fingers into her brother’s thin shoulder, gripping bone and muscle in a promising threat. If their mother wasn’t home, Patrick’s mere presence would incite their father into a swift strike.

  Somewhere stored in Anna was a cascade of memories of her dressed in footed pajamas with her cheek pressed against her father’s stubble when he kissed her good night or swung her up on his shoulders. She never knew what was worse, the tender memories or the violent ones.

  If she and Patrick were home together after school, her stomach clenched tight with the anticipation of her father’s fresh delivery of anger. On such days, she watched Patrick attempt to become invisible so that his father would not see him and thus hate him. He became the blanket on the couch, rough and bumpy. But his boy scent would tip off the older bull of a man, who aimed his horns into the tender underbelly of the boy. Their father tore the blanket off his warm body and left the boy fluttering in the cold air.

  “What are you hiding for? What have you done? What are you smiling about?” their father would snarl. And from that moment onward, there was no way to change the trajectory of events unless their mother stepped in the door. She calmed her husband like a drug. But if their mother was not at home, or if some delay took her protective force away from them, Anna knew that she was the only one who stood between her father and her brother.