A Small Part of Me

by Noelle Harrison

  He made Christina a bird table, and every day she and I put out some bread crumbs and a little dish of water. Then we watch them from the kitchen window. The robin is always the first, so cheeky! Christina still believes that he’ll tell Santa on her if she isn’t good! She’s such a dear. Then the tits come, mostly coal tits or great tits, not many of the little ones. Lots of sparrows. They’re so bold and come very close to the glass. Sometimes I think they can see us. We hate it when the crows come, because they scare all the little ones away. Christina runs out the back door yelling at them to go away and flapping her arms as if she could take off and chase them. I’ve told her that we’ll get special little nets full of seeds, which the big birds can’t get at.

  This world is a miracle. It surprises me when other people forget that, or have no time to look at the simple things, like a fat red robin pecking in the ice.

  The snowdrops are out. Myself and Christina went for a walk after school and picked some. Today is St Brigid’s day, the patron saint of mothers, so in her honour I made a little altar for her. I got Christina to help me. We took out the little coffee table in the corner of the sitting room and we placed my best white linen tea towel on it and the snowdrops and a bowl of milk for St Brigid.

  Let the snowdrops purify my heart, and the milk nourish me. As you are a mother, enrich my soul, dear Brigid, and bring me into the fold. Holy Brigid, hear my prayer.

  I forgot to take the altar apart and when Tomás came in he looked at me oddly and asked me what I was doing. When I told him he said I was wrong, that a good Christian would never put a bowl of milk out for Brigid. He told me that what I was doing was a pagan tradition.

  My mother used to do it.

  Still, I poured the milk down the sink because he looked displeased, and I don’t like it when he’s in that mood.

  CHRISTINA

  Christina lined up what was left on the kitchen counter – half a loaf of brown soda bread, a small amount of honey, one banana and a bag of dates. That should be fine. Cian liked all those things. Glancing at the clock, she took a knife out of the drawer and made a couple of banana sandwiches using the honey as a spread instead of butter. She was unable to think about herself, all desire to eat gone.

  She used to love cooking. Food had been such a big part of her childhood, and she had always watched Angeline when she prepared the meals. She had learned many recipes from her and the way of doing things, not just the ingredients. In time, she understood that for food to taste good it had to be handled with care, prepared with love. That was what she had hoped to nourish her family with.

  But Declan liked plain food. In the beginning he tried to eat what she made, but in the end he told her it was all a little too exotic – even garlic tasted strange to him – and so she had given in and made the usual – Irish stew, spuds and cabbage, the Sunday roast. Cooking was no longer creative, but a chore.

  She licked her fingers, sticky with honey and crumbs, and caught sight of a small spore of mould on the crust. Without thinking, she gathered up the sandwiches, took them out into the yard and threw them in the bin. The crows rose out of the trees, cawing with excitement.

  There had been good times too. Family meals when she had proudly produced something a little different, and Declan had done his best and the children had eaten well. They had all loved spaghetti bolognese. That was something they’d eat on a Saturday night, after they’d got home from shopping in Mullingar. She and Declan would share a bottle of red wine (two as time went on) and they would all squeeze up on the couch and watch the Big, Big Movie on TV. She had been happy then, anaesthetised by the wine, warm and cosy, with Cian curled around her, so tight she could feel the beat of his heart.

  Christina paused on the edge of the cool yard, watching the shadows of the crows as they landed and alighted, scavenging for crumbs. She stood as still as a stone pillar, black wings flapping around her, alone in a crowd. She touched her face, her cool cheeks, her dry mouth and quick, hot breaths.

  Could she really be about to do this? She wasn’t at all sure that it was the right thing to do, but she couldn’t stay here, transfixed. The blood rushed to her head and she pressed her hand on her forehead. She had to keep moving. It was impossible to think.

  One scraggy crow followed her all the way to the back door. She stamped her foot but he didn’t move. He held her with his unflinching shiny black eyes, as if it was a challenge.

  GRETA

  I can’t help feeling a little sad. Nothing is wrong. Oh, I’m just being silly!

  I suppose I’m still a little upset with Tomás over Brigid’s Day, and then only yesterday he said that he couldn’t eat the dinner I gave him. He said the steak was like a piece of rubber. He doesn’t realise that when you’re pregnant you become a little more sensitive. I was hurt and I answered back, saying that I didn’t make the meat like that, it came that way. It was a tough piece of meat. He pushed his knife and fork together on the plate and looked me down, saying, Jesus Christ, woman, you know nothing about food.

  He made me cry.

  As soon as the first tear fell, he said he was sorry and cradled me in his arms and asked my forgiveness, that he was just a big old fool and what did he know. But I can’t forget what he said because he’s right. Ever since the day we got married I’ve been trying to cook decent meals for my family, but it’s a constant hit and miss. And I’m pretty hopeless at housework as well. I don’t seem to have enough time for all the cleaning. This house is so big, and everything gets dirty very quickly, and I’m so very slow. Thorough, mind you, but slow. Being pregnant is no excuse. All the other women in Tomás’s family, his sisters and sisters-in-law, work so hard, right up until they have their babies. Maybe I’m just not made of the same stuff.

  Maybe I’m weak?

  I’m six weeks gone already, and I was never this ill with Christina. The slightest thing might set me off. Catching a whiff of one of Jim’s cigarettes if I’m in the garden, or the smell of the grease in the pan when I fry bacon, or the dog blanket when I shake it out. It’s terrible. I think it must be like being sea sick, permanently.

  Tomás can’t understand it. None of the Comyn women get sick. It’s just my luck. Rita said I should have a packet of rich tea biscuits beside the bed and a flask of hot tea so that first thing in the morning I should take that before my body has a chance to think and decide to be sick! But sometimes I don’t even have time to drink a cup of tea. Tomás gets up so early and I like to be up with him, to make his breakfast, have a few moments before he sets off. He can be gone for such a long time.

  It would be so nice if we could all go away from here, just for a couple of weeks, a little family holiday. Anywhere would do. We’ve only been away once. It was our honeymoon, in Paris. That surprised Aunt Shirley! It must have been so expensive because we could only stay a few days, but every part of it was special – getting onto an aeroplane for the first time, riding in the Metro, looking out our hotel window at Notre Dame…what an article of devotion that was! We thought of nothing else but ourselves. We walked hand in hand across the bridges, down the little narrow streets, swinging our arms, taking each step forward together. We were completely in unison.

  It would be so nice to go somewhere foreign again, and this time with Christina. But there’s no point daydreaming about that now. For a start, when would Tomás get the time to go away? And I’m pregnant; I need to be here.

  He (because I believe the baby will be a little boy, curly topped and charming like his daddy) will be born in an Indian summer, when the garden will be overflowing with apples and plums and all the trees will be heavy and green.

  Dear Lord, keep my baby safe. Bless my family – my husband, Tomás, my daughter, Christina, my sister, Maureen, my sisters-in–law, Rita, Margaret and Mae, my brothers-in-law, Martin, Brendan and Raymond, and my father-in-law, John. Please let those who have gone before us rest in peace, in particular my father and mother and my mother-in-law. Forgive me my sins, and fill me with your light. I
n the name of the father, the son and the Holy Ghost.

  Amen.

  CHRISTINA

  Christina dashed around the cottage with a duster. There really seemed very little point. By the time her cousin, Helen, came back from Australia, the place would be thick with dust again, but it made her feel better to leave the house spotless. It gave her a sense of completion, an end note.

  Helen was the only one in the family who’d helped her. Even her father had ended up being on Declan’s side. It would never have crossed Christina’s mind that Helen might have been on hers. They had never been close as children – in fact, Helen and her sisters used to slightly frighten Christina. They were horsy and had no interest in playing dolls or any of the other sissy stuff that Christina was into.

  But things had been tough for her cousin too. She had been trying to have a baby for years only to have a series of miscarriages, and then earlier that year her husband had died in a hunting accident. Helen took it on the chin and announced just one month after the funeral that she was heading off to Australia. At the time Christina had been staying in the Fincourt and running out of money fast. She could have forced her way back into her own home, but she was too ashamed.

  It was Helen who came to the rescue. They ran into each other in town, just the day before Helen was leaving. Instead of avoiding her, like everyone else, Helen looked her straight in the eyes.

  ‘So how are ya, Chrissie?’

  ‘Not great, to be honest.’

  ‘No, I’d say not.’ Helen wasn’t into long chats. She stuck her hands in her pockets and looked behind Christina’s head as if she was expecting someone.

  ‘And how are you, Helen? I hear that you’re off to Australia,’ Christina said uncomfortably.

  ‘Yep,’ she said, and taking Christina by surprise she continued, ‘you can stay at my place, so. You might as well, it’ll be empty.’

  Christina moved in two days later. The key had been left for her, above the door.

  Helen’s cottage was as far off the beaten track as you could get. Even the postman didn’t come all the way but left the post in a Quality Street tin at the end of the lane.

  To reach the cottage you had to drive down a small twisty country road, then down one tiny lane into another, even smaller, boreen, hardly more than a grass track. The cottage stood on a small rise, overlooking a messy bog of broken reeds. There wasn’t another house in sight.

  Was it its isolation that made the place so magical? Over the past few weeks, just being there had gradually made Christina feel better. And Cian loved it too. The front yard was framed by a series of mature chestnut trees and Helen had hung a car tyre for any visiting child to swing on under the largest of the trees. Around the back was a spring well and a stream that framed the entire field. Helen let the field out, and usually there were horses there, frisky geldings cantering up and down.

  It was a relief to be in Helen’s house, away from town and somewhere that wasn’t hers, that couldn’t remind her of the past.

  Nothing fit in. Helen didn’t possess one pair of matching cups or plates and none of the furniture or furnishings were co-ordinated, but she liked it. Here were all the strands of one person’s life – a rug from Morocco, a teacup from Barcelona, a Chinese lantern hanging over the light, a batik from Indonesia.

  In Christina’s house everything had matched, and nothing told a story because she had never gone anywhere or seen anything apart from Ireland. Her perfect house had been her mission, and it was never ending. How many years had she worked on it?

  Seventeen.

  It was her life’s work. Apart from her two children, that was her contribution to the world. One perfectly designed, decorated, co-ordinated, executive-style bungalow in north County Meath.

  She had been passionate about that house, buying up all those interior design magazines like an addict, watching the do-it-up programmes on the telly. And it was beautiful, a shimmering testament of glimmering steel surfaces in the kitchen and spotless white leather in the sitting room, a bedroom kitted out for Marie Antoinette with fake French furniture that she herself had distressed. It was all gilt and twirling frames, with floral curtains and matching linen.

  Declan hated that room, and now he had it all to himself. The image of him lying alone in all that female opulence made her burst out laughing.

  But then, maybe he was going to change it, paint out all of her? The thought was sobering and made her angry. All that work.

  Once, not long after Johnny had started school, she suggested that she might enrol on the diploma course in art at Cavan College. It was only for a year. Declan couldn’t understand why she wanted to do it at all.

  ‘I think it’s great that you want to get a qualification,’ he had said, ‘but why don’t you do something useful, like a secretarial course, something you could get a job in?’

  ‘But don’t you remember that I always wanted to study art?’

  ‘Sure, I remember you were good at it, but it’s not going to bring any money in, is it?’ He’d stood firmly in the doorway, still in his wellies, checked shirt buttoned up, his hands leaning against the doorframe, looking at her, right into her.

  ‘Declan, aren’t you doing what you always wanted to do now?’

  And he was. He had only stuck it with her father and the pigs for a couple of years, and with determination he had made the right contacts, got into horses. It meant he had to go away a lot, travelling. This was what he had to do if he wanted to get on.

  ‘That’s different,’ he’d said. ‘I’m doing a job.’

  There was no getting past that. In the end she convinced herself he was right. Who did she think she was anyway? Then she became pregnant with Cian and so there was no need to be thinking about jobs. In the end, it was a relief. She could retreat further and further inside her shell, inside her beautiful house. It became her canvas. Through it Christina was able to pour out all her creative longings, play with colour, texture, watch the light falling through the windows, catching the tone or shadow of her handiwork. She could try to be the perfect homemaker.

  And now, it had all been for nothing.

  The past month had been so strange for her, living the single life. Suddenly she was free again. She didn’t have to organise babysitting or ferry Johnny to the football or take Cian to school or sort out the boys’ uniforms any more. Declan was doing all of that now.

  Christina felt completely dislocated. Everything that had been her life was taken away, and when all her family was out of the picture, what did she have left?

  A big fat nothing.

  That was why she had decided to do something.

  THE DINNER PARTY

  Branches scrape the windows, the boiler hisses and one of the black cats gets up, stretches and slides down to the floor. Christina is in her pyjamas, curled up in the dog basket, watching Angeline cook.

  Another gust of wind passes through the house. Christina feels it from under the door. It chills her and she pushes herself further under the dog blanket so that only her toes are sticking out. The door to the hall creaks and she looks up, expecting her father to come in, ordering her to bed, but it’s just the shadow of the wind, tricking her.

  Angeline is still at the sink. She has paused and stands staring out at the black night, grater in one hand, carrot in the other.

  Are you still here? she asks softly.

  Christina doesn’t reply.

  I know you are, you naughty girl. But still Angeline doesn’t turn around, just bends back down to her work.

  She’s trying something new tonight, she told Christina. It will be the first time that Tomás or the other guests have ever eaten Chinese food. It’s even new for Angeline. It sounds strange to Christina – lemon-glazed chicken and little deep-fried balls with prawns inside. There will be rice as well, and long ribbons of vegetables fried very fast. Angeline showed her what she was cooking it all in, a black frying pan so big and deep it could be a hat if you turned it the other way up. She
called it a wok.

  Christina couldn’t wait until she was grown up. Then she could go to dinner parties like this one.

  Would you lay the table for me, darling?

  Christina reluctantly heaves herself out of the basket and goes over to the kitchen drawer.

  Six of everything, says Angeline. Knives, spoons, forks. I’ll do the glasses, but you can arrange the napkins, can’t you? They’re over there. She waves towards a stack of white linen cloths, immaculately folded and ironed.

  Christina loads up a tray and crosses the hall into the dining room. The fire is lit but there’s only one lamp on in the corner. Flames rush up the chimney, fanned by the wind outside. A few sparks land on the rug, but die immediately. The room is dancing with light from the fire, and although there’s no one in there, it doesn’t feel empty. It feels magical and exciting.

  She puts out the placemats and then lays the table. She’s an expert at it. This is always her job, every day, that and helping Angeline make the beds.

  Shall I put out candles? Christina asks as she comes back into the kitchen.

  Just pop them on the table there, I’ll do that. Angeline bends over the oven to check the chicken. Will you taste this for me?

  Christina comes over dutifully as Angeline dips a teaspoon into the lemon-coloured sauce.

  Mmm, it’s lovely.

  Sure?

  Yes, I like it.

  Thanks, darling, you’re my best taster. Angeline beams at her and Christina thinks how she would like to be like Angeline one day, to be as pretty as her.

  Now up to bed with you before your daddy catches us, she says, patting Christina’s bottom.