by Ed Kavanagh
She burst out laughing. “Sacred Heart! You don’t pussyfoot around, do you?”
“I don’t mean you look old. You don’t look at all like most of the old women: all the ones I sees in church. You don’t even look that much older than Mrs. Hickey. And I don’t think she’s old at all, really. I mean she’s not a grandmother or anything.”
“Is that right?”
“You have a prettiness. Especially when you play. I can picture in my mind what you must have looked like when you were only as old as me.”
Annie widened her eyes in mock wonder. “You got quite an imagination.”
“Does the music do that? Keep you young?”
Annie tapped her temple. “In here maybe.”
One evening when I went in Annie immediately took out the fiddle. “Sit down,” she said. “I got a tune for you.” She wouldn’t say what, just began to play. When she’d finished she looked up and winked. “It should be faster, of course.
But I’ve slowed it down—like everything else in my life.”
“What is it?”
Annie pointed the bow at me. “Your tune.”
“What?”
“It’s called ‘The Strayaway Child.’ I haven’t played it in years. But when I’d see you draggin’ behind the other kids, you reminded me of it—the title anyway. I was trying to think on how it went and it finally came back to me last night. It’s a bit of a tangly tune: six parts to it.”
“Why is it my tune?”
“Because that’s what you’re like—a strayaway child. Separate, always off by yourself. Like the stray sheep in the Bible story.”
Sister Katherine had read us that story in school.
“But I’m not lost.”
“No? Well, you don’t need to be lost. Just off on your own. Kind of like an old cat.” She gestured toward the daybed with her bow. “Like Ginny there. Except a person. That’s you—always off playing by yourself.”
I thought carefully about what she’d said. And then something struck me. “But that’s not just me,” I said. “That’s you.”
Annie stared at me for a moment. Then she laughed. “Out of the mouths of babes! You don’t say much, but there’s not a lot that gets by you.” She got up and put away the fiddle. “I suppose you’re right, girl. It is the two of us, isn’t it? But I got it all backwards. Instead of straying away from home, I’m after straying back home.” She shook her head. “Pat, the priest, your aunt—they’re all askin’ me what I’m doin’ here, why I came back to this old place. I don’t know what to be tellin’ ’em. I suppose all I can say is that I came home because everyone belonged to me was dead— or gone. My children. My husband. Most of my close friends. And, as your uncle pointed out, I’ll be gone myself, soon enough. So I figured it was just as well to be home— real home.” She looked around the room, her eyes flickering with lamplight. “When I was first married and moved up the Shore we lived in lots of different places, and people were always asking me where I belonged to. Well, that’s here: where I started from.” Annie pointed toward the window. “I used to be out there trying to help when Mother and Father and the rest of them were clearing this bit of ground. Gettin’ in the way, I suppose, was all I was really doin’.” She sat down and looked me steadily in the eye. “I guess I wanted to come full circle. Didn’t want to forget all the work they did.” She paused and tucked back a strand of her white hair. “And where are they now? Down in the Kilbride Cemetery. And, well, I’d just as soon be with them.” Annie grinned. “You know a funny thing? Ever since I moved back here I’ve been feeling less and less like a Dooley and more and more like a Foran. It’s like I’ve gone back to being the girl who grew up in this house: Annie Foran. Now I hope that’s not showing any disrespect towards my poor husband: he was a good enough man.” Annie leaned back in her chair, laughing quietly. “Anyway, it’s probably all old foolishness.” She looked at me as if I’d suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “I can’t believe I’m saying all this to a youngster. Do you have any idea at all what I’m talking about?”
“Some of it.”
Annie’s eyebrows shot up and she laughed. “Then you understands more than Pat do!” She sat up straight and gave me her serious look. “Don’t you ever think you’d like to go back to St. John’s?”
“Sometimes . . . first when I came here. There’s stuff I misses but . . . ”
“There’s other stuff you don’t?”
“There is. Lots.”
Annie nodded knowingly. “That’s the stuff that’s after giving you that hole you got in your heart.”
“I haven’t got a hole in my heart.”
“Oh yes you do. I’ve seen it before. I’ve had the same thing myself—many times. Sometimes I think it’s a wonder I got any heart left.”
“I don’t.”
“No? Then why are you in here all the time? Hangin’ around an old woman like me? Your friends aren’t—not like you are. I don’t see them hove off on the daybed all day long. I don’t see them watching me like a hawk when I plays.”
“I just likes the music.”
Annie waved her hand at me dismissively. “There’s more to it than that.”
“There is?”
Annie pondered for a moment. “You don’t just like it—you need it. I’ve seen what it does to you. The way you listen to it.”
“Sure I’m only watching you like you watched Jack.” Annie slapped the arm of her chair and pointed at me. “I know, girl! That’s exactly it. Don’t you think I haven’t noticed? That you haven’t reminded me of myself? You’re the only one doin’ that.”
I struggled for something to say. “Well, some of the other ones thinks you’re a witch. Except for Ruth. She thinks you’re a ghost. Or she used to.”
“Well, they’re smart.”
“Why?”
“Because I am a witch.”
I don’t know what expression had come over my face, but Annie doubled over, laughing. She pushed herself out of her chair and stepped toward me.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” she said, bending down and patting me on the knee. “But isn’t all music a kind of witchery?” Annie poked me through my thin dress. “I think there’s a bit of the witch about yourself. But you need something to fill up that hole in your heart.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” she said, “we’ll see.”
As Annie had pointed out, she didn’t have many regular visitors. At first, Ruth and Sean and a few of the other children would sometimes wander in and sit on the daybed, but once they’d seen Annie’s infamous clutter, they’d grown bored and, gradually, most had stopped coming.
Occasionally, though, Robbie or Brenda or Kieran would be there when I went in, and somehow their presence always wounded me. Pat, I didn’t mind, or Winnie, or the priest. Father Walsh would sometimes come up to pray with Annie, although I don’t think she took it too seriously. One day when we were talking about him, she laughed.
“He thinks I don’t go to church because I’m too old to get down the road. Gettin’ in and out of Pat’s truck would be too much of a strain on my old bones.”
“Would it be?”
Annie just winked.
One morning when I went in—I’d long given up knocking—I was surprised to see Father Walsh himself pouring a cup of tea by the stove. The potholes must have been too threatening for his old Ford so he’d walked all the way up from Corpus Christi. He was a tall man with a jutting Adam’s Apple, all arms and legs, awkward and bony, and when he gingerly took his place in Annie’s extra chair his knees seemed to touch his chin.
I turned around and headed back out the door, but Annie said, “Don’t go.” She motioned me to the daybed, and I sat down, shooting sidelong glances at Father Walsh. “Your ears must have been burning,” Annie said. “We were just talking about you.”
A priest was talking about me? My first thought was that Father Walsh was mad at me. That he knew in some magical, priestly way that I’d lost my scapul
ar (true), that I didn’t say my prayers at night (sometimes true), or that I found the church creepy and the hymns dreary (definitely true). But Father Walsh just sipped his tea and smiled at me.
“I know this girl. I’ve seen her at St. Joseph’s.”
“That’s Ivy,” Annie said. “She runs messages for me.
She’s a little on the quiet side.”
“You’ve had some sad losses,” Father Walsh said. “Maybe that’s why.”
I remained silent.
“Mrs. Dooley was just telling me that you like music?”
I thought of those colourless hymns at Corpus Christi. “Some. I likes her music.”
“Did you ever think you might want to play yourself?”
I blinked. Music—playing music—had never seemed like something that would ever enter my orbit.
“Answer Father, Ivy,” Annie said.
I shook my head.
“You never thought of it or you don’t want to play?”
Father Walsh said.
“I … I don’t know.”
“Well, Mrs. Dooley says she wouldn’t mind showing you a few things,” Father Walsh said. He smiled at Annie. “That’s quite an offer coming from someone her age. But, as you probably know, Mrs. Dooley is a singular woman.”
I didn’t know what “singular” meant, and for a moment I thought he’d said that Annie was a “sinful” woman. Annie, however, looked unperturbed so I didn’t protest.
“But you’d need your own fiddle,” Annie said. “Mine is too big for you, and, besides, you’d need something to practise on at home. Would you like that?”
I was dumbstruck. It was as if I’d been asked if I wanted to fly to the moon. But I knew my father couldn’t afford a fiddle. Annie saw the thought forming behind my eyes.
“I was asking Father Walsh if he could help us out,” she said.
The priest shook out his cramped legs. “I don’t know much about violins myself. But I can ask Sister Angela at the convent. She looks after that kind of thing for the parish—choirs, all the musical matters. Very talented, Sister Angela is.”
“I don’t have any money,” I said.
They both laughed.
“Sure who’s got money these days?” Father Walsh said. “No one. I’m reminded of that every Sunday morning when I see the collection plates. You don’t need to worry about money. We’re trusting to providence.”
“What’s that?”
Annie rolled her eyes. “Ivy, listen to me—forget about money. It’s free. Think of it as your Christmas present.” She gave me her matter-of-fact, no-nonsense look. “But you’ll have to give the fiddle back when you gets your own—whenever that might be. It’s only a loan. Someone else might need it.” She turned to Father Walsh. “And we’ll need to get a smaller-size fiddle for her. She’s only a little scrap of a thing.” Annie glanced around the room. “I’ve got a tape here somewhere. I’ll dig it out this afternoon and measure her.”
“I didn’t even know violins came in different sizes,” Father Walsh said. “But, as I mentioned, Sister Angela will know all about that.”
Annie tilted her head and appraised me. “Now, Ivy, I don’t want Father Walsh and the good sister going to all that trouble if you don’t think you want to do it. And it’ll have to be all right with your father, too.”
“He won’t mind. He likes music. My mother used to sing. He liked that. And he always listens to the radio.”
“Good. Now you’ll have to practise. You can’t be spendin’ all your time pokin’ around the woods or beatin’ up and down the road like you do now—although I suppose some of that is my fault.”
“If I does it, will I be able to play like you?”
Annie shook her head. “No.”
Her answer was so vehement that it stopped me cold.
Annie leaned forward in her chair. “Ivy, that’s a good thing.”
“It is?”
She raised her eyebrows and nodded. “Remember one time I asked you who owned you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say to me?”
“I said . . . I owns myself.”
“So you do. And if you learn to play the fiddle, you’ll play like yourself.” Annie’s eyes softened. “But I got a feeling you’ll do all right.”
Father Walsh stood up and laid his cup on the table.
“So,” he said, picking up his hat and turning it around in his hands. “Do I ask Sister Angela if she can find you something or not?”
I looked again to Annie.
“It’s your decision,” she said, studying me closely. “Why are you so worried? This was supposed to be a nice thing.”
I glanced at Father Walsh and then stared at the floor.
“What is it?” Annie said.
“I’m . . . I’m not very smart in school.”
“Oh,” Annie said. “I see.” She got up and came and stood before me. “Well, being smart in school and being able to play the fiddle aren’t necessarily the same thing. School? I wasn’t any genius myself. But the fiddle does take a lot of work. A lot of concentration and patience. But sure you’ve got lots of patience. If you can sit on that daybed, like you do, for hours, without a peep comin’ out of you, I suppose you can do a bit of practice.”
My throat had grown so dry that when I finally spoke the words dropped from my lips like leaves.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll ask my father.”
He was surprised when I approached him about it that evening.
“Annie offered to teach you . . . what?”
“The violin—the fiddle. And for free. And her and Father Walsh are even gonna get me the loan of a fiddle. Well, they’re gonna try.”
Father scratched his head and shrugged. “Well, sure go ahead if that’s what you want. It’ll be good for you.”
A few days later, during recess at St. Joseph’s, there was a knock on the door. Sister Katherine opened it and a hand passed in a small black fiddle case. Sister Katherine took it, listening to the voice on the other side of the door. She wrinkled her brow and glanced down at me. Then she took the case and went back to her desk, gesturing for me to join her.
“You know what that is?”
“I think so.”
“All right. You can get it when school’s over.” Sister Katherine smiled. “And mind you take good care of it.”
I loved all the little rituals: the click of the clasps when opening the case, the fiddle seemingly asleep beneath its velvet blanket. For me, lifting the fiddle into the light was always a kind of birth. I loved the smell of the oiled spruce and maple, the delicate camber of the bow, the tightening and rosining of the horse hair. Tucking the fiddle beneath my chin felt both awkward and right, as if the instrument were an extension of my body, some extra limb. Handling the fiddle reminded me of Father Walsh handling his chalices and missals at Sunday mass.
But while the rituals were enticing, actually playing the fiddle was another matter. Can anyone tame a fiddle right from the beginning? Perhaps Mozart. But I was no Mozart. It was hard to equate my miserable scrapings with the lush ribbons of sound I’d heard drifting from Annie’s chimney. So I mostly practised in the hayloft. There the heat from the munching cows rose through the floor, their intermittent, bassy moos and the cackling and scratchings of the wandering chickens providing a natural counterpoint to my pitiful scratchings. The smell of cow feed and manure was strong, but somehow it seemed right for me to play in the barn with just the animals for an audience. And if the captive cows didn’t like what they heard, at least they didn’t complain—although maybe some of those moos were comments best left untranslated.
If it was too damp or cold in the barn I practised in my room. Being in the attic was convenient because if I played softly no one could hear me. But I preferred the barn, especially when it got warmer. Sometimes I practised at Annie’s and she bore my clumsy attempts with a saintly patience. Even when producing my worst whistles and squeaks she would just smile and nod
and gently correct my bow grip or fingering. One day, though, when I was especially bad and looked embarrassed, she smiled wryly. “Don’t you worry about me, duckie,” she said. “There are benefits to being a bit deaf.”
The other residents of our house didn’t quite know what to make of it when I turned up with the fiddle. My father seemed amused, smiling to himself.
“My dad played a bit, you know,” he said.
George said, “Good for you, girl.”
“You’ll be down with Francis Ruby at the dances in no time,” Winnie said.
And someone had obviously mentioned it to Mrs. Hickey, because one evening when she was taking the eggs I’d gathered, she said, “I hear you’re after startin’ up on the violin. When are you going to play for me?”
When I had first brought the fiddle home, Ruth and Sean had immediately gathered around, wanting to try it, but I wouldn’t even let them touch it, and Ruth quickly grew bored. Later, though, when I had graduated to playing simple pieces for the family, Sean would always become very solemn and stare intently at my fingers. Both of them would often eavesdrop when I was practising in the barn. I would sometimes hear muffled giggles and laughter from below, but at least they didn’t make fun to my face.
But whether in the barn or in my room or at Annie’s, it was always a struggle. I never blamed the fiddle. Even when I was most frustrated I would lie in bed at night and contemplate the black case at the foot of my dresser. I could feel the fiddle’s luminous heart pulsing within. Somehow I always felt that it wanted to be played. That became most clear to me on my very first day with the fiddle. As soon as supper was finished I ran down to Annie’s. After she’d made sure that the fiddle was the right size for me, she tuned it, rosined the bow, and played a couple of tunes.
“It’s fairly new,” she said, turning the fiddle this way and that. “A little green yet. Kind of like you. But it’ll play in nicely.” Annie laughed. “As you will too, please God.”
“When will I be able to play good?”
“Who knows? Everyone is different.”
Annie never gave me regularly scheduled lessons, just seemed to sense when it was time to move me a little further along. “Bring your fiddle tomorrow,” she’d say, “and we’ll do something.” So I always thought of those lessons— if that was the best word for them—as just another kind of visiting: a “doing something” visit. Sometimes a lesson would be ten minutes; sometimes a whole afternoon or evening. Sometimes I wouldn’t even take my fiddle out of the case: she would just play a tune and talk about technique—some of which she’d probably picked up from the nuns—or she would demonstrate how Jack used to play it. But mostly she followed the tried and true method: simple pieces first, and then, gradually, more thorny ones. It worked: soon I wanted to play for more than just the cows.