A Swift Pure Cry

by Siobhan Dowd

  'That all?'

  'And boiled eggs.'

  'Ugh.' The thought of a boiled egg made Shell's stomach turn. She'd been off eggs for months, she realized, just like Mrs Duggan was off smoked salmon.

  'Works, honest,' Theresa said. 'I've tried it.'

  Shell shrugged. 'Seen Bridie?'

  'She's not talking to you.'

  'I know. But is she here?'

  'Nah.'

  'Where is she?'

  'How'd I know?'

  'Was she here last week?'

  'Not a sign of her. They say she's gone off to her aunt in Kilbran.' Theresa came up close. 'I know better, though.'

  'What?'

  'She told me something over the summer. A secret.'

  'What?'

  'She said she was going to run away from home. From Ireland. Maybe she's already gone.'

  'No.'

  ''S true. Know what I think?'

  'What?'

  'She and Declan.' Theresa Sheehy nodded, as if it were obvious.

  'What about them?'

  'Maybe they've run off. Together.'

  Shell stared. She shook her head. 'To America? No!'

  'Why not?'

  'They stopped going months back. Bridie told me.'

  Theresa smirked. 'That's old news.'

  'What d'you mean?'

  'They got together again. In the summer. At a dance in Castlerock.'

  Shell's mouth opened. No words came out.

  'I saw them. On the disco floor. Jiving and squirming. Like two cats on a case.'

  'You're lying.'

  'Am not.' Theresa shook her head and looked down her long red nose. 'Don't know what you two saw in him. The dirty devil.'

  She turned and walked off.

  The bell rang.

  Shell didn't move. She watched as the maroon ants filed into the school in long lines. When the playground was deserted, she got to her feet and dusted down her skirt. She walked to the back entrance where the deliveries came in and slipped out.

  She drifted her way through town. At the pier the librarian had walked down she paused, then turned onto it and strolled down to the end. A pier is a disappointed bridge, Mam used to say as they'd often walked down it, hand in hand. It's trying to get somewhere, but it runs out of faith.

  She imagined Declan and Bridie, skipping down the streets of Manhattan, among dustbins and skyscrapers, crazed Americans, glittering limousines. Lights flashed, sirens blared, the great city pulsed with life. They were gone, leaving her behind. Forgotten. A Coke can rolled at her feet. She stamped on it, squashing it flat. She picked it up and threw it out as far as she could into the sea. Perhaps it's not true, she thought. But perhaps it was. Bridie had always gone on about how one day she'd run off to Hollywood and become a star. With her dirty blonde hair, she'd fancied herself as a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Meryl Streep. Maybe she was halfway across America by now, heading for California and endless sun. The next thing Shell would hear of her, she'd be starring in the pictures at the Castlerock Palace.

  The crushed can bobbed jauntily, floating further out from the tip of the pier into the open water. She leaned on the railing, watching it. It would take its time, but eventually it would get to the mouth of the harbour and reach the open sea.

  Then she knew what she had to do.

  Twenty-five

  Dad was in Cork again that day, so she had a clear field. She went home from town on the eleven o'clock bus and packed the holdall she, Trix and Jimmy had used to pick up the stones in the back field. She put in her jeans and T-shirts, her spare bra-the old one Bridie had stolen for her-her underwear, her one Sunday dress. She changed out of her uniform into Mam's pink dress, which she hadn't worn since Easter-time.

  She'd no passport, but she didn't need one where she was going. She took her bus pass just in case it came in handy as ID.

  She packed a sandwich and a drink.

  She popped in her toothbrush with its splayed, old bristles.

  She put in her little bag of crocheted powder-blue, the one Mam had given her for church.

  She tried the weight of the holdall. 'Light as a feather,' she said out loud. She smiled. No. Light as a shell.

  She picked up Nelly Quirke the dog. It had been hers once. Mam had given it to her when she was small. Shell swore she could remember opening it as a present on her birthday, aged two. It was Trix's now, but Shell itched to take it. She nursed its worn ear, and stroked its snub black nose and soft white whiskers. Then she tucked it into Trix's bed, with the sheets folded daintily around its neck.

  The piano panel came apart easily now she'd the knack. She reached in for the caddy and took out every last note. She counted it. Then she tucked it into the powder-blue mass-bag and hung it from her wrist.

  She put the piano back together again.

  A brisk wind blew round the bungalow, whistling in the guttering.

  Should she write a note, like Declan had? She paused, then shook her head. He had gone west; she was going east, and they'd be gone for different reasons.

  She walked out of the house, put the holdall down and closed the door behind her. She had a key in her hand and was about to lock it, before remembering Jimmy and Trix. When nobody came to pick them up from school, somebody-a teacher maybe-would take them home. It was better for all concerned that the door was open.

  But she wouldn't need a key any more. She stepped back inside and left the key on the kitchen table. It would do instead of a note. She laid it tidily in one of the navy blue squares of the checked plastic cloth. She looked around one last time.

  The fridge door was open. She was sure she'd shut it when she'd put back the cheese she'd used for her sandwich.

  She shut it again.

  She paused, listening.

  The fridge did its song, low and deep. The house settled onto its foundations. There was a creak, then a tap, like a floorboard being depressed or a door closing. She could hear her own breathing and her blood pumping around her ears.

  'Mam?' she said.

  There was no reply.

  From somewhere close came a sharp clatter. Shell froze. Dad's room.

  She darted through the hallway and opened his door. A strong breeze pushed past her face. The curtains billowed.

  A bottle of aftershave belonging to Dad had fallen over on the dressing table. That was all.

  She breathed out. She righted it and closed the window. She bit her lip. The three mirrors were begging her to sit down for a last game of Eternity. She ran her finger over the top of the panels, collecting dust. 'I'm too old for that now,' she said out loud. The words bounced back at her, making her jump.

  She fled the room and dashed down the hall to the front door. She slammed it behind her and sighed with relief. Whatever ghost was in there, it wouldn't follow her out. Retrieving the holdall, she marched up the back field to the copse. She would circuit the village and hitch a ride on the main road from a long-distance lorry. Nobody would know where she'd gone. She thought of Mary Magdalene, landing in France. She imagined the whistling dunes and the small toddler, a child of Jesus, struggling to keep up with its mam, its hand in hers. There'd be no small child in her case. She'd be landing in Fishguard Harbour, with the gulls and waves behind her, and she wouldn't be coming back. She'd be first on the night-train to London, then first queuing up at whatever hospital it was the Irish girls went to for the abortions. Wherever it was, she'd find it.

  She rounded the copse, then sat on the fallen tree to look down on the fold of slope a last time. She stared at the church steeple, the slate roofs, the swaying elms, the tired fields. She dumped the bag down at her feet. She took out the money and ran her hands over the notes.

  The ghost had followed her.

  She remembered Mam's voice, singing to her that Easter night from beyond the grave.

  She thought of Nelly Quirke, the dog, and the way Jimmy had been when he was sick last spring, with the white freckles standing out on his narrow face, asking for a spa
de.

  She thought of Trix, with her paper dollies and strange chants, cuddling up for another Angie Goodie adventure.

  They won't know to bolt the bedroom door at night.

  She remembered the night the owl had spoken to her, telling her to wa-ai-ai-t.

  The morning ticked by.

  At the end of it, she picked up her bag. The Angelus started ringing yet again, like a broken record. She didn't bother to count the peals. She trudged back down the back field to the house and unpacked all her things. She undid the piano, replaced the money in the caddy and put the piano back together again.

  She ate the sandwich she'd made. Then she turned the oven on and started on some scones.

  Twenty-six

  The willow leaves blew ghost-white in the wind. The red hawthorn berries dropped in the frost. Shell turned sixteen. She told Dad one day she'd finished with school; he nodded, as if he understood.

  He was only home nowadays on weekends. The money in the tea caddy slowly shrank. She'd given up counting it, but she could tell.

  He'd sit in his chair by the electric-bar fire most Saturdays, staring into space, jangling the change in his pocket. It was as if he'd nothing to do until Stack's opening time. There was something preying on his mind, but she didn't know what. He'd look at her sometimes, then look away. He'd clasp his hands as if in prayer, but the fingers kept kneading the knuckles, as if the prayer wouldn't come.

  She wasn't frightened of him any more.

  At night she lay in bed, listening to the sing-song breathing of Jimmy and Trix asleep. Her hands went roving over her belly. She was sure the button was about to pop right out. She could hear Declan, doing a recitation--

  Shell's belly

  'S like solid jelly...

  But she'd get stuck. Declan would have ended it somehow, more cleverly than she'd started it. Then she remembered he'd fled without a word, with Bridie in tow most probably. You're in a class of your own, Shell. The class with the school's worst dunce: that was her class. She grabbed her pillow and curled up round it, wishing she could grab Declan Ronan by his long dark curls and throw him in a cowpat. She smiled at the thought of him head first in green ooze, and sat up straight in the dark room, nodding her head. Then she shook it. No. For some reason she didn't wish that. Not quite. You're in a class of your own, Shell. New York was five hours earlier; he'd still be out on the town, drinking the beers down in an Irish bar, reciting his poems. He'd be eyeing out the main chance, going for broke.

  Go, Declan, go, she thought. He wasn't like the blacksmith in Mam's old song. Unlike him, he'd never made any promises. He'd never written a letter. He was maybe a heart-breaking smooth operator, like in the song the librarian had played, but he'd never pretended anything else.

  Then she had it:

  Shell's belly

  'S like solid jelly

  The button's inside out

  She's up the pole, without a doubt.

  She could almost hear Bridie cackling at it and went to sleep soon after.

  One Saturday morning in late October, she woke to find Trix and Nelly Quirke in bed with her. Trix was lying on her back, singing her nonsense words to the ceiling.

  'Trix-what are you doing here?'

  'You were crying, Shell. In your sleep. So I came in with you.'

  Shell stroked Trix's hair. 'Silly Shelly, crying in her sleep,' she muttered.

  Trix wriggled onto her front. 'Finger-pictures, Shell!'

  'Not again.'

  'Please.'

  Shell dipped her forefinger in an imaginary pot of paint. She drew a big tree, with branches going up to Trix's neck and shoulders, and roots growing into the small of her back.

  ''S easy. A tree.'

  Shell always started with a tree. Next she drew Nelly Quirke, right down to the chewed-up ear.

  'Dunno. Draw it again.'

  'Again?' She drew it a second time. Trix guessed it. She'd known all along, Shell knew, only she'd wanted the finger-drawing to go on longer.

  'My turn now,' Shell said, turning so her back faced Trix.

  Jimmy sat up in his bed and watched. 'Do a cement mixer,' he suggested.

  Trix began a long tracing that went round and round in spirals, right up under her arms, then down around her waist.

  'A cement mixer?' Shell tried.

  'No.' Trix kept spiralling.

  'She's making it up as she goes along,' Jimmy pronounced.

  'You're tickling, Trix! Stop!'

  'Guess. What is it?'

  'Dunno. Ocean waves?'

  'No. 'S load of snakes.' Trix's little hands reached right round Shell's stomach, tickling as they went. They stopped when they got to the middle of the bump. 'What's that?'

  'Whisht, Trix. 'S nothing. Just me.'

  'It's huge.'

  'It's just the way I'm lying.'

  ''S like Mrs Duggan was. Before she went to hospital.'

  'No, it isn't, Trix. Whisht up.'

  Jimmy hurled himself on top of them both. He yanked back the bedclothes. 'Let's see!' he shrieked.

  'Get off, the two of you. Get off.' She clouted her fists at them.

  ''S like a football in there.'

  Shell curled up tight and sobbed. 'Get off. Both of you.' She felt them withdraw. 'You'll wake Dad.'

  Then she lay still, not moving.

  'Shell. You alive?' said Trix.

  Shell opened her eyes. Trix was on one side of the bed, Jimmy on the other, staring.

  'It's a secret, right? My belly. A secret. You're not to tell anybody, right?'

  Trix nodded. Jimmy nodded.

  'If you tell anybody, Dad will kill me. D'you understand? He'll kill me.'

  They nodded again. 'He'll kill you,' Trix repeated.

  Jimmy's freckled face went off to one side. 'Shouldn't you be in hospital, Shell? Like Mrs Duggan? Isn't that where you go to have the baby pulled out?'

  She'd no idea where he'd got that from.

  She sighed and shook her head. 'Any old fool can pull a baby out,' she said. 'You can do it yourself. You see, it pops out. When it's done.'

  Jimmy's eyes opened wide. 'Like toast? In a toaster?' he asked.

  Shell wiped off the last of her tears. 'Yes, Jimmy. Just like toast.'

  Twenty-seven

  Jimmy found an old jumper, dumped on a fence near school. It was black, thick and long. He brought it home for Shell. She washed it out and put it on. It went a third of the way down her thighs and covered up the lump.

  In the mornings Trix and Jimmy took it in turns to feel the wriggling under her skin. Jimmy said it was a caught frog. Trix said it was a sparrow wing.

  Dad came and went, drunk and sober, Fridays to Mondays. Shell didn't think he noticed. He never seemed to look at her or anyone else any more. He was always staring into the middle distance, as if his doom floated there in the invisible air.

  On All Souls' Day he had them kneeling at six sharp as usual for the rosary. It was the turn of the first joyful mystery, the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel comes to tell Mary that she is with child. Today, Shell could see only its doleful side. Who would ever have believed in an immaculate conception, then any more than today? The plain people of Nazareth, she supposed, were no different from those of County Cork. As they rattled through the first Our Father, she thought of Mary's simple boudoir, a kneeler, a prayer book, flowers, a golden halo; and then the window, open to the bright sky, full of white angel. And the face of Gabriel was that of Father Rose. Dad led them on as they started on the ten Hail Mary's.

  'Hail Mary, full of grace,

  The Lord is with thee.

  Blessed art thou among women

  And blessed is the fruit of thy womb...'

  His voice tapered off. Trix and Jimmy rattled on to the end of the prayer. They stared at each other nervously, wondering why he'd gone quiet. He'd never done so before. Trix started on another Hail Mary but faltered on the word 'grace'. They knelt in silence. Something was wrong. They waited for him to explode.
But instead he got to his feet and wandered into the hallway without a word. They heard him go out into the night and he didn't come back before they'd gone to bed.

  After that, there were no more evening rosaries.

  A Sunday came when Shell couldn't get into her usual mass dress. It was a long-sleeved green corduroy, zipped at the back, gathered at the waist. The zip wouldn't go, not with Trix's tugging, nor with Jimmy's. She changed back into her jeans, which these days she kept up with a belt, covered over with the long, black jumper. She went out into the kitchen.

  'Dad,' she said. 'Can't go church today. I'm sick.'

  She tried to look pale and feeble. But she knew her cheeks were glowing.

  He looked up from his chair. He'd been stooping over to do his shoelaces.

  His eyes scooted off her onto the wall.

  'Sick?'

  'I've a pain, Dad. A headache.'

  He nodded. 'Stay at home, so. You can mind the dinner.'

  Every Sunday after that she said the same thing to him, and he made the same reply.

  During the weekdays she borrowed his rain mac whenever she went out. It hung round her, reaching halfway to her ankles. She fetched Jimmy and Trix from school, did the messages at McGraths' and nobody said a word. Miss Donoghue did stare at her once when the weather was fine.

  'Don't you like looking on the bright side, Shell?' she asked kindly.

  Shell frowned, confused.

  Miss Donoghue's firm hand caught a fold of her voluminous mac and shook it. 'There's not a drop of rain in sight, my dear.'

  'Oh.' Shell shrugged. 'That. The forecast isn't good, Miss Donoghue.'

  'No?'

  'No.'

  Miss Donoghue looked dubious.

  'There's a storm moving in,' Shell suggested. 'From the Atlantic.'

  'That's the first I've heard of it.'

  'It was on the radio, Miss Donoghue.' She rushed away as fast as she could.

  Another day, she was lingering in McGraths' shop. She'd change in her pocket and wanted a treat. The front with its counters was empty, the door to the back of the house left ajar. She could hear voices from beyond, Mrs McGrath giving out about something, Mr McGrath defending himself. Her fingers itched to pinch a bag of liquorice all-sorts, a penny more than she had, but she stopped herself. The door opened and Mrs McGrath stood at the till with a face like thunder.