She removed her leather bookmark and read another few pages about the mean old Ewell family before her mind began to drift. It was always going places, like when she was in maths class, or in the night-time when she couldn’t sleep, or when the ancient priest said mass on Sundays. He spoke with a stop-start Wexford accent and sounded like a donkey. Once, they’d had to leave mass before Communion because Elaine and Mammy couldn’t stop sniggering.
The house seemed silent now, kind of dead, without them in it. Not for the first time, Kate wished she’d been allowed to do horse riding. She’d probably have her period already, for one. But she knew it was better for them to form their own identities. Mammy had been saying so for years. And it was important to do what you were good at too, which for Kate was the piano, maybe. She got off the couch and went to straighten the blinds on the window. The tractors had stopped but the silence in the room was heavy with the memory of the humming. Kate was too big and too small for the farm, that was the problem. Her jobs only took an hour, and most of them were over in the morning: feeding the chickens, collecting the eggs, unspooling the green hose to fill up the waterers. Her father wouldn’t have minded if she did nothing at all. He didn’t expect it of her, or of Elaine. Their mother had set the rules for women before they were even born. It was an old family joke that although she was married to a farmer, she was not a farmer’s wife. Elaine had stopped helping around fourth class, but Kate continued on in the hope that they might one day trust her with some of the trickier tasks, the ones that Peter and her father bonded over at dinner times. She would even do the finishing in the sheds out the far fields. But Daddy said the cattle were too fat and greedy this time of year. What would happen if she got squashed? They had four men working full-time, and two of their sons came in for the harvest. They only had sixty acres of tillage anyway. The rest was the damn cows. There was just so little for Kate to do. The outdoor pool in Bagenalstown was too far away for regular trips. They were even a fifteen-minute drive from the nearest teenager, poxy Conor Doyle who only talked to Kate because he fancied Elaine. All their school friends lived in Tullow, or beyond in Carlow town, and though they came over for occasional play dates—she hated that her mother still called them that, as if they were in senior infants—there was always too much faff involved, outfits and cakes and the feeling that she was responsible for people. Because who else would be? Certainly not Elaine, who tried to force her cigarettes on anyone who visited. The real problem was the location of the farm, out here in the back of beyond. Kate wished they lived in town and she could come and go as she pleased. No one would mind what she did. When she grew up, she would marry a man from the city, a businessman who needed to live in a place with more people than cows.
There was a jolly padding across the kitchen floor. She let go of the last blind, rushed to her feet. Too late—Copernicus headbutted the door and bolted across the russet gold carpet.
‘No, Copernicus!’ He came straight for her and left a warm line of drool on her thigh. ‘Bad dog,’ she said. His tongue hung out like a melted Wham bar. The kitchen door banged and his ears went into triangles. ‘Robbers,’ she said, pointing at the door. He cocked his head at her. ‘Go get them.’ He was gone like a shot. Kate followed after him, checking the carpet as she went.
In the kitchen, her father was at the sink, splashing water on his face. Ray and Peter were in some sort of stand-off at the back door, and she couldn’t tell who was blocking who. Ray tried to give Peter a karate chop in the side. He was always picking fights. It was like he’d been born with that jutty face.
‘You might use that energy to muck out the barn, son.’ Her father turned off the tap and shook his wet hands over the clean sink.
‘Be careful, Daddy,’ said Kate.
Copernicus had gone to Peter, was trying to sniff his crotch.
‘Get that dog out of here,’ Ray said. ‘He stinks, Katie.’
‘He does not,’ she said.
Katie, do this. Katie, do that. They never asked Elaine.
‘You could do with a shower yourself, brother,’ said Peter, waving his hand in front of his nose. ‘When’s the last time you washed that T-shirt? Is it a tribute to Kurt Cobain, or what?’
Something had happened to Peter in America. It was like he’d brought home a sense of humour with the sachets of Kool-Aid.
‘Piss off.’ Ray attempted another chop. ‘Hilary Clerkin was telling everyone at the Meadowlands last night that you’re a loser.’
‘Ray—watch your mouth,’ her father said. ‘And would you get dressed, for the love of God?’ He looked at the back wall. ‘Where’s the clock?’
‘It broke,’ said Kate.
They all turned to look at her and she felt a mild panic between her ribs.
‘The battery?’ said Peter.
‘No,’ she said, looking at each of them in turn, hoping one of them might figure it out. They seemed to take up so much space. They were all men now, even Ray. When had that happened?
‘Broke, how?’ said Ray. ‘It took three Saturdays at the clinic to get that clock. It had to be ceramic. I knew she wanted the ceramic.’
Peter went over to the wall and ran his fingers over the copper hook. ‘Sturdy,’ he said.
Her father looked towards the hall. She followed his gaze, could see the sun bright outside, spilling in the long rectangular windows.
‘Well?’ Ray demanded.
‘It fell,’ said Kate.
‘I knew that hook wouldn’t hold it,’ said Ray. ‘I told you, Peter.’
‘Sturdy.’ Peter tapped it again.
Her father went to the fridge, took out the butter and the fancy sliced cheddar that Mammy had discovered in the new supermarket. He left them on the table. ‘What happened, Katie?’ he said. ‘Was there war?’ His voice was soft and kind, and she felt like she might cry.
‘I didn’t hear anything,’ said Ray. ‘It couldn’t have been that bad.’
As if the narcoleptic could be trusted to give a report.
‘Yeah, Daddy,’ Kate said, ‘it was nothing, not really. It was Elaine’s fault.’
‘The competition,’ said Peter. ‘The show.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I see,’ said her father.
Kate got the plates from the middle drawer.
‘Cheddar and chutney sangers.’ Her father sat at the head of the table and opened a button on his shirt.
‘Actually,’ said Peter. ‘I’ve a new dish to—’
‘Hold on a second,’ said Ray. ‘What about my clock? Eighty-five pounds it cost me in that rip-off pottery place. That’s a weekend ticket to Witness with camping—and you’d still have change.’ He pawed the pale yellow paint on the wall. ‘So. What the fuck happened to my clock?’
Her father banged his hand on the table, a fierce loud smack.
‘I told you to watch your mouth in this house,’ he said to Ray. ‘A grades are no substitute for manners.’ His fingers turned white as he gripped the table. He saw her watching him and he let go. Ray mumbled something, not an apology she was sure, but he was gone before her father could say another word.
‘Go after him,’ her father said to Peter. ‘He’s not going back to bed.’
Peter brushed past her in his rush out the door and she squeezed herself against the counter. She heard them both run up the stairs, taking multiple steps at a time. Left alone with her father, Kate didn’t know what to do. She wished he would look at her with his soft hazel eyes and say, Is it yourself? Instead he took up the paper and started mashing the pages together in a way that drove her mother mad. She felt frozen to the spot.
‘Can you feed that dog, Kate? Stop the blasted whining.’
She only noticed it now, the lonely howl of poor Copernicus by the utility door. It was one of those sounds that you were so used to hearing, you kind of forgot about it. Poor Copernicus. She was very neglectful.
‘Sorry, doggie,’ she said. ‘Who wants his biccies?’
He wagged his tail—long and thick as a
kangaroo’s, and proof that he wasn’t a thoroughbred.
‘Go on, Kate,’ her father said. He patted the wiry hairs at the back of his head, picked up the paper and frowned at whatever was on the cover. ‘Feed that dog.’ You couldn’t say he was in a bad mood—at Cranavon, that meant something else entirely—but he was gruff with her and she felt aggrieved. What was wrong with him at all? She closed the press drawer a little louder than necessary and went over to the dog, grabbing his studded collar. The little silver bone jangled.
In the utility, Kate dragged the sack of biscuits across the floor and shook just enough into the green plastic bowl. Copernicus would eat a mound if you gave them to him. He had no full button and was getting fat as Christmas. The waddle on that mongrel, her mother said. That mutt. She pretended not to care about him, but occasionally she would try and detangle the mat of toffee-coloured hair on his underside. He would see her coming with the brush and try to waddle off. Kate patted him on the back now as he hunched over his bowl.
‘Good dog,’ she said. ‘Best dog.’
He snaffled the feed, his teeth grinding the dry biscuits. Crouching beside him, she folded the bag. She knew well what was wrong with her father. He was a laid-back man, horizontal, her mother said, but he hated cursing. Useless Ray and his potty mouth. Her father was old-fashioned in that way, more like a granddad than a dad. He was eleven and a half years older than Mammy, which was weird, Kate knew, and she didn’t like to talk about it with her school friends whose parents were all the same age. Her father was older. Her father was old. He sometimes used language from another place—motorcar, homestead, gnashers—and he hated swear words above all else, would visibly flinch when her mother used bad language. Elaine reckoned she came up with new ones just to annoy him.
‘Are we having lunch, or what?’ her father called from the kitchen.
Well, now. How did he expect her to do two things at once? She was not a magician. For a split second, she imagined saying, make your own sandwich, you piss artist! It was a ferocious thought.
Kate left the dog feed in the corner beside the dryer and went to the kitchen.
Her father put down the paper. ‘Will we have lunch? I’m famished.’
‘Is maith an t-anlann an t-ocras,’ Kate said.
‘Cad?’ her father smiled.
He didn’t have a word of Irish beyond cad and leithreas. When her mother was in a good mood, they would say funny things about him to his face and then roar laughing at his bemusement. Kate had taken to Irish easier than Elaine, and she loved it when her mother praised her for a new word or phrase.
‘Hunger is the best sauce,’ she said.
‘Clever clogs.’ He did his wiry eyebrows. ‘Now, can we ate this tocras, or what?’
‘Silly Daddy.’ Kate opened the cutlery drawer. ‘Do you want the double-decker?’
‘Of course.’ He smiled and stretched his long legs.
‘Forget your old sandwiches,’ said Peter, coming back just as she’d put the wooden board and bread knife on the counter. ‘I’ve a surprise for today.’ He took a tinfoiled plate from the fridge. She could smell the onions when he passed.
Leaving the plate covered in the middle of the table, he whizzed around Kate, got the mats and cutlery in one swoop and had the table set before she’d brought the four plates from the counter. She followed after him, putting the plates on the sunflower mats.
‘Well,’ her father said. ‘This is something else. The royal treatment.’
Kate took four glasses from the press beside the microwave. She put them on the table but Peter rushed by her again, placed a huge bowl of salad beside the condiments and cleared away three of the glasses.
‘Hey,’ said Kate.
‘Get your brother, Katie,’ her father said.
Kate went to the hall and called Ray, who appeared in front of her as she shouted his name.
‘I’m not deaf,’ he said. His headphones were around his neck but he was dressed at least, a black T-shirt with a collar and a little green alligator on the chest pocket. She looked at his spiky fringe. He was, in fact, suspiciously dressed.
‘Are you off to a disco?’ she said.
He gave her a soft shove and went into the kitchen.
Peter had left three of Daddy’s tall Carlsberg glasses by the mats. There were other strange items on the table: two giant wooden forks in the salad bowl, a glass jug of brown liquid beside some oil, a plate of grated cheese, a tiny bottle of bright orange sauce.
‘Sit,’ said Peter. ‘Everyone, sit.’ He smacked his lips together, the way he always did when he was pleased.
Ray sat in the chair farthest from their father. ‘What’s with the glasses?’
‘A Saturday treat,’ said Peter, opening the fridge. He brought to the table a large dark bottle that looked like wine but he told them it was beer—Belgian beer.
‘What’s this codology?’ her father said.
‘Sorry, Katie,’ said Peter. ‘I forgot your milk.’
When she came back from the fridge, he had the tinfoil off the plate and was explaining what tamales were to a sceptical-looking Ray.
‘You know tacos, right?’ Peter rested his hand on his belt buckle.
‘Of course we know tacos.’ Ray shook his head. ‘It’s 1999, Peter?’
‘So are these things tacos?’ Her father took a sip of beer and licked his lips. He hadn’t shaved that morning and already there were silvery grey bristles on his top lip.
‘Tamales are like tacos,’ Peter explained. ‘I made them from cornflour but it’s a softer dough. And then there’s pork and onion and some dried chilli inside.’
‘Chilli?’ Her father drank more beer.
Kate considered the foreign items. They were a bit like dog bones, with too much meat spilling out the ends, far more than you’d have in a sandwich.
‘There’s garlic.’ Ray leaned into the plate. ‘I can smell it.’
‘Well, yes,’ said Peter. ‘Everything has garlic.’
‘No garlic,’ Ray said. ‘Not for me. I’ve a date.’
Her father put down his drink and gestured for some food.
‘Who is it, Ray?’ Kate held her plate up for Peter. ‘Is it Deirdre Mahony? Is it?’
She had a bet with Elaine. One hundred marshmallow Flumps and a copy of Smash Hits.
Ray ignored her and gulped his beer. He let out a disgusting burp at the end of it.
‘Cop on,’ said Peter. ‘We’re eating.’
And they were, in fact, all of them, tucking into the delicious dough and soft, stringy meat, even Ray with his no-garlic rule. There was no conversation for the next while, just the moist sound of chewing and swallowing, and the occasional whine from the utility. The food was full of flavour, so different to the kind of dinners her mother put up. Kate would never say this out loud, but it seemed to her that the men in the house, Daddy and Peter at least, were better cooks than the women. Take the special occasion mornings where her father made omelettes, or bacon sandwiches or, her favourite, eggy bread. Or that time her mother had the three-week migraine, and Peter had made the meat and vegetables taste different every night. Kate wished he would cook more often. But their mother controlled the kitchen, that was the problem. Or rather, she controlled the kitchen and, at the same time, did not seem to like the place at all. She was always banging saucepans and cursing at carrots, like a renegade princess who’d inherited a kingdom she’d no interest in. And she was always looking for compliments too, which was especially hard when she made the cauliflower stew dish that tasted like vomit. You could never tell her the truth. She was very sensitive about cooking, which was funny because she didn’t seem to care so much about other things. Ironing, for example, or mending clothes. She often made fun of herself as she tossed a blouse or shirt into the bin, needle and thread in after it. We’ll have to go around naked, she’d say. I’m no use with my hands. Mammy took after her father—she was all brain—nothing like her mother.
When Kate finished her tama
le, the three of them were still talking about the O’Hanrahan’s game.
‘Who cares if it was only a point?’ she said. ‘Newbridge beat them. They lost.’
‘But they shouldn’t have,’ said Peter.
‘That’s life.’ She shrugged and smiled at Daddy.
He gave a hearty laugh like she knew he would.
‘Is there any more?’ Ray put his fork in the centre of the plate and patted his belly. ‘That wasn’t bad. For Mexican.’
‘All gone,’ said Peter.
‘What about beer?’ Ray said. ‘I’d take another beer.’
‘You’ve enough beer,’ her father said. ‘Have a glass of milk.’
It was a good idea. She poured herself another glass before Ray could get his hands on it. Such a treat to have the carton on the table, to reach out and have it right there when you needed it. She drank the sweet, cold liquid, delicious after the tang of the tamales. Elaine would be raging she’d missed them.
‘What are you smiling at, Katie?’ Her father was smiling too, tilting his chair backwards.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘You’re a good cook, Peter. You could open your own restaurant. A tamales restaurant.’
‘Oh, there’s this place in Mission Beach, you should see it.’ Peter’s eyes went sparkly. ‘Just tamales and tacos, and the line out the door every evening.’
‘The line?’ Ray looked amused.
‘The queue,’ said Peter. ‘They must make a fortune. Cocktails, tamales and tacos. That’s it. They could open three more like it and still get the numbers.’
‘Cocktails, is it?’ Her father shook his head. ‘Might there be another drop of that beer left?’ He held up his glass.
‘That’s the lot, I’m afraid,’ Peter said.
‘Ring the EU there and see if they’ll send us some more.’ Daddy and Peter did an identical laugh.
‘Have a glass of milk, Daddy,’ Ray said, with a sly smile. He stood and collected the plates, left them on the counter, not even close to the sink. A fork dropped to the floor, sending a milky shiver from her belly to her throat.
‘Watch it, you,’ her father said to Ray. ‘You’re lucky your brother saved you from a hiding with his fancy tacos.’
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