A Small Part of Me

by Noelle Harrison

  She waited a couple of hours until she had the courage to ring Paddy and tell him it was over. He was shocked. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. ‘Only yesterday we were together, making love like there was no tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s the problem, Paddy. I want a tomorrow.’

  He didn’t give too much of a fight. He was a realist too. They were both married, for God’s sake. It was never going to last forever.

  ‘If you ever need me,’ he said, ‘you know I’m here, Christina.’ He laughed. ‘For sex, that is!’

  She’d hung up then, smiling, feeling resolute. She licked maple syrup off her fingers and washed up with more enthusiasm than she had done in ages. It was a new beginning. She was going to be okay.

  GRETA

  Christina calls it the cotton reel song, although there are no words. She likes listening to me use the machine while she sits in her pyjamas, drinking her night-time cocoa and looking at the fire. She loves the sound when I have to transfer the thread from the spool to the bobbin and to watch it spinning from one reel to the next. I like it too, as I turn the handle and watch the coloured thread fly. There’s great satisfaction when you see the bobbin all neat and spun, and sometimes the reel is empty.

  Last night I found a beautiful old wooden spool in the back of my sewing box and I had an idea. I thought I would make some kind of memento, so I cut a long strand of my hair and then I cut a strand of Christina’s hair, and Angeline was in the room, reading, so I asked her if I could cut a piece of hers as well. She looked amused but she said all right. Tomás was having none of it, so I decided that what I was doing would be about just women and I explained to Christina that one day she could add on the hair of her daughters too. So I knotted together Angeline’s thick black strand to my red, and then Christina’s delicate mousy thread, which I was afraid would snap, and then I wound it around the large wooden spool.

  There, I said, this is better than a photograph because it’s something physical from us, of now.

  You’ve made a metaphor, Angeline said, putting down her book.

  What’s a metaphor? Christina asked.

  It’s a comparison between two things. For instance, that cotton reel with our hair could be a metaphor for life. The thread represents us, as we spin around the reel, which is our destiny.

  So what happens when you transport the thread onto the bobbin? I teased.

  Well, then you’re changing your destiny, aren’t you?

  She laughed then, and Tomás shook his head. I don’t understand one word you females are jabbering on about, he said.

  Oh, don’t mind us, I laughed, we’re just talking about life and destiny, nothing too serious!

  I’d feel more comfortable if you were talking about fashion than the meaning of life. Tomás flicked on the television and Angeline winked at me.

  CHRISTINA

  Christina woke up. The pillow was wet next to her head, and strands of her hair were stuck to her face. She sat up, shocked, and touched her cheeks. She had been crying in her sleep. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and glanced at Cian. He was up and watching telly quietly, transfixed by cartoons.

  She was beginning to remember her mother. A moment in the firelight, her mother looking down at her, the sound of the cotton reel song. She had blue eyes with long dark lashes and very faint eyebrows, and her hair was a colour in between gold and orange. It was clipped back in a butterfly slide, and a few wisps were loose and fluttering off her face.

  She remembered the day they built the snowman. Why had she always thought she had done that with Angeline?

  But what came back to her in Technicolor was a picture of her mother sitting on the windowsill, looking at the snow. She approached her in slow motion, as if in a dream, and she could see the cotton reel in her lap as her mother twisted the hair around her fingertips. This day her hair was loose and unkempt and looked dark against the white sky. She was dressed in black clothes, a silhouette against the bright window. Her mother, playing with the cotton reel, paused and looked at the sky, pushing her hair behind her ears. Christina saw her chewing her lips. The tip of her nose was red, her eyelids flickering as she watched the falling snow. She was right next to her, looking at her skin. It was nearly as pale as the snow outside. She could see fine blond hairs and it was as soft as the pink underside of her tabby kitten’s paw.

  She reached out to touch it.

  But her hand passed through the picture and slapped against the cold glass.

  Christina pushed the covers off the bed and got up.

  ‘Have you a hug for me?’ she asked Cian and he spun around, opening his arms wide. She folded herself around him. They were cheek to cheek, swaying back and forth. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his sparkling blue irises. His skin was warm and soft.

  ‘I love you, Cian,’ she whispered. She squeezed him tighter, feeling his little chest pressed into hers. ‘Do you love me?’ she asked.

  He pulled back and looked shyly at the floor. ‘Yep,’ he said.

  GRETA

  Angeline and I had a row, and then Tomás and I argued. And it was all over such silliness, really.

  Angeline took Christina shopping in Mullingar and bought her a dress for Easter Sunday.

  I was upset for three reasons. Firstly, because she didn’t tell me she was going. She said she didn’t want to disturb me because I was having a nap, and she was only going to be gone a couple of hours, but she must never take Christina out of this house without either myself or Tomás being informed first. Secondly, she bought Christina a dress, which I know was generous of her, but I had planned to make a dress for Christina. I have the material – primrose yellow, with a print of little pink buds on it and tiny shell buttons to go down the back. It was going to be a surprise so Angeline didn’t know what I was planning, but still, she should have asked my permission. And in the third place, when they arrived home Christina was singing Nam Myoho Renge Kyo at the top of her voice, and that was awful because it’s one thing if I try the chanting, but Christina is a Catholic child and her First Communion is next year and goodness knows what the priest would say if he heard her singing that, let alone Tomás.

  All these things compounded and they made me angry.

  I told Christina not to be saying those Japanese words, and she said, Why? She said it sounded pretty.

  I told her not to be cheeky and to stop it immediately, but she kept on doing it, and even Angeline told her to do as her mother said, and still Christina wouldn’t be quiet, so I went over and smacked her, and she burst into tears and hid behind Angeline. It was awful. I don’t know why I snapped. Angeline looked a bit shocked and said, That was a bit harsh, Greta. It’s my fault she’s doing it, don’t take it out on her.

  I was livid.

  How dare you brainwash my child with your heathen chants! I shouted. How dare you take her out and behave like this is your house! It’s mine! And how dare you buy her a dress without asking me!

  I was panting, and hot, and Christina was staring at me like I was a monster. Angeline stayed completely still.

  I’m sorry, she said calmly, if my presence threatens you.

  That made me even more furious.

  What do you mean? I screamed. How could you threaten me? I don’t want to be you, I’d hate to be you!

  It was an awful thing to say, I know. Dreadful. But in my anger, I saw something inside her, a flicker of something, and suddenly it seemed clear to me – she covets what I have – and that frightened me, so I lashed out.

  Now all that reasoning seems insane and I feel ashamed, especially after what happened next.

  Tomás came into the kitchen and asked what all the commotion was, and Christina ran over to him and clung to him, and said, Mammy is angry at Angeline because she bought me a dress.

  I was panting now because I was so furious. My heart was pounding, my cheeks burning and I probably looked like a mad woman, so Tomás turned to Angeline and asked her what was going on.

  Why d
on’t you ask me? I roared. I’m your wife.

  He just stared at me. What are you doing, Greta, in front of the child?

  But I had lost all my dignity by then. I said, She’s trying to take over. She’s trying to take Christina from me, and you as well. Suddenly all my anger was gone, and I felt as weak as a puppy and I began to cry.

  Tomás asked Angeline to take Christina upstairs and then he came over to me and put his arms around me.

  What’s wrong with you, Greta? Why are you suddenly so jealous of Angeline? I thought she was your friend.

  But she’s better than me – at cooking and running the house, and she’s so pretty as well.

  Just stop there, you silly moo. It’s you I love. You’re my wife, and you’re having my son.

  We don’t know it’s a boy.

  Tomás took me upstairs and made me lie on the bed. He turned out the light and told me to rest.

  While I lay there I tried to take all those nasty thoughts out of my head about Angeline. I prayed to Jesus to forgive me.

  But I could hear whispering, outside in the corridor.

  It was Angeline and Tomás.

  Is she all right?

  Yes. I think it’s because she’s pregnant. I’m very sorry, Angeline, I do hope you weren’t too offended.

  No, it’s fine. I know she didn’t mean it, but maybe I should leave.

  That’s ridiculous. This is just one of Greta’s silly turns. She’ll be so sorry tomorrow, I’m sure. Please don’t go, Angeline, I don’t think we could do without you now.

  There was silence and for a moment I thought they were gone, but no.

  Thank you, I could hear Angeline whisper ever so quietly. That means so much to me.

  CHRISTINA

  ‘I’m starving!’ Cian announced.

  Christina sat up on her bed and pointed across the room. ‘Go and look in my bag. I think there might be a bar in there.’

  ‘Before breakfast? Am I allowed to eat chocolate before my cereal?’ Cian was grinning.

  ‘Yes, just this once,’ she smiled back.

  ‘Great!’ Cian rolled out of the bed and bounded across the room. Christina looked at the clock on the locker. It was half six. She groaned.

  Cian sat on the end of the bed, gobbling the chocolate. ‘You’re lazy!’ he said. ‘I want to get up.’

  ‘It’s not even proper morning yet. Why don’t you go back to bed and turn off the telly?’

  ‘But it’s light.’

  ‘I know, darling, it’s just that I’m so tired from the jet lag. Our body clocks are all over the place.’

  ‘What’s your body clock?’

  ‘It’s when your body thinks it’s a certain time. When you’ve been travelling it gets confused because your body thinks it’s still in Ireland where right now it’s three in the afternoon, whereas here it’s only seven in the morning, and not even time to get ready for school.’

  ‘Am I going to school here?’

  ‘No, we’re on holidays, remember?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ He was quiet for a second. ‘So what are we going to do today?’

  ‘We have to go and find Granny. We’re like two detectives, so we are, on a case.’

  That pleased him, and he turned back to his cartoons.

  Her mouth was dry and she felt pretty ropey. She crawled out of the bed and staggered across the room, switching on the coffeepot on her way into the bathroom. She leaned on the basin and looked into the mirror.

  I see my face, but I can’t see who I am.

  I look normal, she thought as she splashed her face with water, not this messed-up failure. A woman who can’t keep her husband, can’t keep her kids and can’t even get her own mother to want her.

  I wish there was a mirror for the soul.

  She watched the water trickle down her face like a veil of tears.

  Then I could really see the whole of me, and that would help because that would be a place to start.

  What would be reflected in that mirror? What does fear look like? And anger, and shame?

  And what does it look like when all one lonely soul wants is to be loved, and not the way a child loves a mother or a mother loves a child, but in a way that makes me feel as if there’s treasure inside me? What does the unloved heart look like?

  Christina went back into the bedroom and put on a tracksuit. She looked at Cian, engrossed in cartoons, his eyes hypnotised by the TV screen. She took one of the blankets off his bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. Then she made herself a coffee, took the photograph of her mother out of her bag and got back into bed. It was too dark, so she got out again and pulled the curtains back an inch.

  They were in the middle of nowhere. Where was this town, La Conner?

  All she could see was one straight road, and on the other side of it, flat fields stretching into a pale blue horizon, a large white mountain looming above. There was a big red barn just across the road with a white picket fence and a sign. She squinted.

  Strawberries, Blueberries, Huckleberries

  Fresh Farm Produce For Sale

  What were huckleberries? Was this place for real? The barn reminded her of the toy farmyard she had had as a little girl. This was a child’s place.

  Behind this quaint image, in the distance was the relentless swish of traffic shooting down the interstate. It paralleled the beat of her heart as she looked at the photograph again, tracing her mother’s face with her finger, circling their hands, where they held each other, tight.

  GRETA

  I’m feeling sick again, and I can’t seem to keep anything down. Angeline brought me breakfast in bed and I apologised and she said that it was all right, she knew I didn’t mean it, but there’s a little distance between us now. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing. I am her employer.

  I ate some fish boiled in milk and a couple of slices of toast, but I felt nauseous the whole time. All my bones are aching, my back especially.

  By lunchtime I had stomach cramps so Tomás called Doctor Marsh and he took my temperature and told me I was fine. He said that it was probably a virus so to stay in bed and keep drinking water.

  Christina came up in tears this morning because a fox had got one of the kittens in the night. She wanted to get her daddy to try to shoot the fiend, but I told her that this was nature, a fox will kill. But she’s not convinced. She thinks the fox is evil.

  Later we played draughts and I told her how sorry I was about yesterday. She gave me a big hug and said, Don’t worry, Mammy, I’ll wear your dress if you want me to, but I said that it was just as well that Angeline had bought her a dress because now I don’t feel well enough to sew.

  And now I watch the night swallow up the land. I leave my curtains open and watch the cattle slope off to the other side of the field. The house is silent. Christina is in bed, and I don’t know where the others are. Maybe Angeline is in her room, chanting, and Tomás is doing the books. It’s that time of year, when he gets out all the old red ledgers, takes over the kitchen table and chews several pencils down to their stumps.

  I would like to get up now, but my body won’t obey me. It’s as if it has filled itself with lead. And where has the baby gone? He has retreated right into the heart of me.

  CHRISTINA

  Christina settled up in reception. She winced as she handed over her last hundred dollar bill. On the counter was a framed photograph of fields filled with red and yellow tulips against the backdrop of a blue mountain, with a snowy capped peak.

  ‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ the receptionist asked, following her gaze. ‘You should see it in the spring. We’re just blooming. We get visitors from all over the world just to see the flowers.’

  ‘That’s La Conner?’ Christina asked, thinking of the flat green fields she had been looking at that morning.

  ‘Sure. Here, take one of these.’ The woman handed her a leaflet entitled La Conner, The Elements for a Perfect Getaway.

  Christina opened it and the first page was split into four – E
arth (a picture of the tulips), Water (boats in a harbour at sunset) History (a view of clapboard houses and a large white building) and Art (a close-up of an old house with a large veranda and a small turret). There was a little street map inside the leaflet, and tracing her fingers along the streets, Christina found Chilberg Avenue.

  ‘So where are we now?’ Christina asked. ‘Where is the town centre?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just down the road. Here we are, just off Highway Twenty. It’ll just take a few minutes to drive into town.’

  ‘Are there any buses?’

  The woman looked astonished. ‘Don’t you have a car?’

  ‘No. I just want to get to here, to Chilberg Avenue.’

  ‘Sure. That’s the other side of the reservation. Okay, let me see if I can order you a cab.’ The woman took a good look at Christina, then picked up the phone.

  Christina sat down on a couch, looking out the front doors at the sun smacking off the tarmac car park. Cian had found a few nickels and was spinning them along the tiled floor.

  Why had her mother come here? She felt a glow of resentment inside her. Had she had to go so far away? It seemed as if her mother had gone as far west as she could, right to the edge, as if she wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and her family.

  Christina opened the La Conner leaflet and scanned it:

  Inspired by the magnificence and proximity of mountains and forests, river and sea and soothed by the cadence of the seasons, artists in the late thirties first sought refuge – a place and pace to nourish their creativity…

  She could already see why artists would want to live here. It was so far away from anything, and looking at the leaflet there seemed to be so many places you could get lost in. Mountains the size of which she had never encountered in her life, and proper forests, not like the woods at home, but great green colonies of cedar and fir trees, where wild animals hid. The last picture in the leaflet showed the sea, and she felt excited now, like the time she went to the Gaeltacht and caught her first sight of the Atlantic on the horizon. They’d had a glimpse of the ocean in the plane, but today she was going to be able to show Cian the Pacific. They might even be able to dip their toes in it. There was something liberating about being right by the sea, something which gave her a little courage.