by Molly Aitken
‘Is typing hard?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘Could I come and live with you in Galway?’ I asked.
‘They’d be broken-hearted without you.’ Her eyes danced about my face.
I looked at my dirty feet. ‘Do you not like me, Kate?’
‘Don’t be like that. I can’t just steal you away. When you’re grown up you can decide to leave yourself if you want. But I bet you’ll marry some rosy-cheeked boy here.’
‘I’d jump off a cliff if I’d have to stay here for ever.’ I gulped.
‘What’s the matter? It’s good to talk things out.’
Words pouring, easy. I told her about waking up and finding Mam on the floor, my dead baby sister under her skirt.
‘Mam killed her,’ I finished.
Kate rubbed her lips, smudging her lipstick. ‘Christ, give me your shawl.’ Kate wiped her face.
‘I know babies don’t always stay but Mam wanted her gone. She drank a poison from Aislinn.’
‘Listen, being a mother is not easy.’ She pulled on the pipe and knocked it out in the fire. ‘Women don’t get a choice often but your Mam was able to and I’m proud of her for it.’
‘Proud?’
I’d wanted to tell Kate how I had brought my sister to Aislinn’s to heal her and how I’d had to throw her in the sea.
‘God, I’m sweating. How do you all sit in these hearths so long? I need some air.’
I wanted to call after her ‘Don’t tell Mam on me’, but it was too late. There was a pain in the back of my throat from speaking and Kate was gone. She didn’t go to Mam and instead sat with Pegeen and a few others, chatting the evening away with them. I did catch her now and then glancing at me, and when our eyes met she’d give a forced smile that looked all wrong on her.
Kate watched Mam too. She watched us all. She was the outsider who might have seen us better than we saw ourselves.
Evening wilted into night and the villagers drifted away until it was just us family. All the lamps but one had been blown out. Dad was dozing, head propped against the wall. We were lulled by the soothing sound of Enda carding the wool for Mam. Even Kieran’s chewing of his nails had slowed and he was only spitting the bits into the last glimmer of the fire, not at me where I hid in the nook, hoping Mam wouldn’t send me to bed, but soon everyone went except Mam and Kate.
Long into the night the women’s voices whispered. I strained to hear, but caught no meanings. It was all a tangle. Like all that lived in the adult world, I was still somehow unable to unravel it.
In the morning, while the cottage was still filled with gentle snores, I crept through the kitchen where Kate slept in the hearth bed and out into the wet behind the cottage, lifting my face up to the rain.
‘You told her.’ Mam was stood by the barrel, her eyes red-rimmed. ‘I couldn’t lie, Mam.’
‘You’re never to speak to Kate again.’
‘You told me God punishes liars but you lie to everyone. You never told Dad.’
The slap rang in my head. Mam had never hit me before.
I turned and ran back inside.
‘Oona?’
Kate was sat at the table and beckoned me over.
‘Your mam’s just upset. She’s been through a difficult time of it over the last few years.’
Tears were pressing at my eyes and I turned so she wouldn’t see them fall. I wouldn’t beg her to take me away with her. One day I’d find my own way out.
‘Listen, Oona,’ Kate said. ‘It always gets better.’
She left that afternoon on a gust of wind.
Broken Wings
It was late summer, the wind picking up its winter nip again, the soles of my feet beating the road on the way to school. Ahead of me the younger children were clustered, laughing and shoving each other as they walked to the schoolhouse. Many were missing, taken out by dads to finish up the rye harvest. None of them had tried to become my friends, having formed their groups before I came. My first day Jonjoe appeared even though he was too old and sat beside me but the boys hooted until he slunk away, lobster-coloured.
Enda had got the priest to tell Mam a girl of twelve needed to go to school; my brother had freed me, but schooling wasn’t what I’d dreamed. I was years behind the other children, and Father Finnegan was as sleep-making in school as he was in church, but still, every day I focused on everything he scratched out on the board, trying to catch up. When I came home, full of new knowings, Mam still made me pray but the skin on my knees had thickened. The days sped by and before I knew it was winter and my backside had to thaw the school bench and I learned that the good Father Finnegan lit a small gas stove under his desk but the rest of us shivered together. The warm rains came again and I longed to be out and off, not stuck indoors listening to his droning.
I scuffed my cowhide shoes on the grass as the children vanished around the church. I didn’t want to go. My cheeks burned just thinking about how yesterday I jammed against the words of Acts, how slow they came to me, how Father Finnegan and all the children laughed. The days after Jesus’s death aren’t meant to be funny.
Enda had sat up with me, to help me make the floating words stick to the page. We only had the Bible at home, but I stole a few books from the schoolhouse. The best had pictures. One was about America, with illustrations of birds in rainbow colours.
The wind was high and squealing but curled rising over it was a twittering. I followed it, climbing over a wall, and found the nest perched in plain sight in the short grass. Inside one wet baby bird opened her beak up to me, crying out her hunger. The shell was cracked and scattered around her. The other eggs were still full. I found a worm under a rock and she slurped it up and opened her beak again, tweeping. Her eyes were black and shiny like Mam’s, like mine.
I touched the damp feathers. She was so ugly.
‘Oona.’
Above me, Felim blocked out the rain. His brown clothes were darkened with the weight of water and he didn’t have a coat or waistcoat, just a jumper that was too small, with the sleeves halfway up his forearms. He knelt beside me, his elbow brushing my arm, sending a cold shiver up into my shoulders.
‘You’ve killed it,’ he said.
My hand flew to the nest, but she twittered, beak wide again.
‘She’s fine.’
‘Its mam and dad won’t feed it now you have,’ he said. ‘It’ll die.’
‘No. She’ll be grand. I only gave her a worm.’
‘Do you never get out? Do you never see how the island is? How birds and animals and fish and men live?’
‘You don’t know everything, Felim,’ I snapped.
‘The bird will die.’
I lifted her out and held her close, gentle in the cup of my hands. I’d show him.
‘I’ve to go to school,’ I said. ‘You take her. I’ll get her off you later.’
I passed the little bird to him.
‘Will Enda be at school?’ he asked.
‘He always is. Why do you care?’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘You’ve never been to school.’
‘I have. Father knows me, but last time the other children chased me off.’
The bird chirped in his hands and I knew it was wrong, the priest would be angry and Felim should stay away, but I said, ‘Come on.’
Rain pressed against the high schoolroom windows and damp hair and damp clothes got damper in the unheated room. I twisted to look over my shoulder at Felim, who was hunched at the back, watching us like a tourist off the steamer. We all held our breaths, waiting for the priest to see the outsider in our midst.
Enda stood at the front, reading the Psalms, the priest hovering behind him. Enda was thirteen and the oldest in the class. Kieran, like most boys, had left at twelve to work the land and sea; but over the last few winters Father Finnegan had taken to Enda, teaching him in the evenings at his cottage beside the church.
Enda finished his reading and the lilting tweets of a bi
rd flowed up; giggles rippled from the back row while Father Finnegan recited the lesson, English, a poem about a mountain. Every now and then the priest stopped midway through a sentence and fixed his yellow eyes on someone, but the chirping went on and on. I glanced back at Felim, a wickedness in me, a longing for him to be caught because he was always running, always free, and I needed him to know the other side of childhood. I wanted him to suffer like me.
Before I could pull it back and tell Jesus I didn’t mean it, my prayer was answered. The priest strode across the room, a blackthorn stick clutched at his side, and yanked Felim up by the neck of his jumper and shook him. Felim opened his hands and cupped inside them was the baby bird.
‘The mother pushed it out of the nest,’ he said.
A boy bubbled with laughter, setting everyone off again.
‘Get out,’ Father Finnegan said, his voice thin, controlled.
‘No,’ Felim said.
‘Right.’ The priest nodded, thoughtful almost, and stepped away from Felim before lunging back and dragging him down the room and out the door. There were clatters and bangs as everyone jumped up from benches and pushed against each other in their rush to follow. They scattered in front of me across the grass, the rain pelting down, the rush of it the only sound as the children formed a circle around the two figures. No one spoke, not a single voice rose up, just bright eyes staring, unable to look away from Felim curled on the ground, shrinking, his knees pulled up to his forehead. The priest licked his flaking lips and with the blackthorn stick hit every part of the thin body again, again and again.
‘Filthy. Filthy. Filthy,’ the priest said over and over, only he wasn’t the priest any more but some man with all his certainty turned upside down in him.
Enda was beside me, his chest rising and falling with each jerk of Felim’s body. He made no sound. This was what my wishing had done.
I reached for Enda’s hand, to feel skin, the realness of a touch, but Enda wasn’t beside me. He stood, arms outstretched, over Felim. The blackthorn whistled down, slashing my brother’s wrists. Father Finnegan dropped the stick like it had burned him and staggered away, a hand clamped to his mouth, but he smoothed his fingers through his hair and strode, head held high, back into the school.
We stared down at Felim curled up and inside the boat of his hands the baby bird was dead. I took it from Felim and it was so light the wind could have carried it off on a breath.
‘Felim, stand up.’ My voice was a shout. ‘Stand up.’
I was a giant above him.
The children had all drifted back to the schoolroom and now it was just Enda and me.
Enda knelt and bent his head down to Felim’s, whispering words I couldn’t hear. Felim rolled over and was sick on the grass.
‘I’ll bring you home?’ Enda said.
‘No.’ Felim spat the word. ‘She’s not there. She’s with him.’
Enda gripped his shoulder and helped Felim sit up. He was struggling to breathe, great pants coming out of him, and his hair was dark and flattened to his head.
‘Can you walk?’ Enda asked. ‘Oona, come here, we’ll bring him to ours.’ He pulled Felim up and draped a limp arm over his shoulder. ‘Take the other side.’
‘Felim, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have given you the bird.’
Felim sucked his breath through his teeth, staring between his feet, and a little bit of anger at him lodged in me because he hated me more than ever now.
I tucked the bird into my skirt pocket and we walked home slowly, Enda and me balancing Felim between us.
I didn’t know what capsized inside Father Finnegan to make him attack Felim. It must have been a fear at the fairy-boy’s far-off beauty, the way he seemed to live in another world where God was forgotten, powerless. I wanted to go there too.
‘Why does Father Finnegan hate you?’ I said as gently as I could.
He said nothing.
* * *
Mam was sat in the middle of the kitchen peeling potatoes into a tin bucket, dirt smeared on one cheek. Guilt tricked at my insides. If I was home with her, I would make sure she was always looking right for visitors. Her eyes caught on us and the potato clanged against the bucket. Her mouth opened and I saw the bitter words hanging like spit from her tongue, ready. I pushed my softness for her down somewhere deep.
‘Mam,’ Enda said. ‘He’s been hurt. Will you help?’
‘Help?’ she whispered.
Enda peeled Felim’s shirt up. Red stripes stood out across Felim’s back and chest. Mam stepped forward, one hand outstretched to him, one fluttering at her ear. A smile. A frown. Her hands dropped.
‘Father Finnegan did it,’ I said.
She’d not moved towards us. ‘This boy must’ve done evil.’ She stared at me. ‘Father was called on by God to punish him.’
‘No,’ Enda whispered.
Mam flinched.
‘It wasn’t God’s work,’ I said. ‘The Father went mad.’
‘Shut your mouth. I told yous to stay away from those people.’
‘Why?’ Enda said.
‘There’s nothing wrong with them,’ I said.
‘Is there not? What about his mother and all she gets up to? She leaves this boy wild and dirty to watch us at every turn.’ She rounded on him. ‘Oh, I’ve seen you. I know you’re after my daughter.’
Enda let go of Felim’s shirt and the boy flinched and mumbled to my brother, making him shake his head.
‘The Kilbrides are not right, Enda,’ Mam said. ‘You know this boy’s not right.’
Felim stepped slowly out the back door, his fingers flickering at his sides.
‘You judge them, but you won’t be judged,’ Enda whispered. ‘You let us all think you’re so holy but you’re a liar.’
Something in Enda was unrolling out of him and across the floor to her feet.
‘Did you know they were close to starving last winter? She has no man to get food. What would you do if you were her? Felim tries to take care of her but he’s never had a dad to show him how. I bring them food because God would want us to help them.’
‘You’re too young to know what God wants.’
‘I know enough.’ Enda glanced around. Felim was gone. My brother sprinted out into the rain without looking back.
All these years, when I had thought Felim and Aislinn were mine, my secrets, and Enda had known them better than me. A precious part of me had been stolen, but I couldn’t blame Enda. I could only blame Mam.
She went at the potatoes, slicing most of the white meat away with the peel.
Behind the cottage I dug a small hole and buried the baby bird. I placed a purple stone on the mound so I could find it again. This tiny body I could visit.
I searched the fields that rose towards the castle ruin at the top of the hill but the night had swallowed Enda and Felim.
Far off, the woman heard her daughter’s scream. It echoed off the rocks and gurgled as if drowned in sea water. Birds shot screeching into the clear sky. There was a pain in the mother’s throat and she couldn’t find her voice to shout for her daughter.
She ran to the meadow, and it felt like she was in a dream. All that was left of her child was blood-soaked petals and broken blue eggshells.
Motherland
As the plane screeches and bounces down into the mist and rain of Ireland, I picture Joyce flying this route, peering out the window, alone.
The bruises are healing on my arms but I’ve not slept for two nights in a row. I don’t dream about my sister much, there are other ghosts now, but recently while I was at the lake she visited me – her and Joyce – but I always turned and ran away each time I saw them walking hand in hand towards me.
My hands shake as I step down the rickety ladder. My feet in their canvas sneakers are unstable on the tarmac. It’s the first time in twenty years I’ve touched Ireland, touched the solidness of her, but this is not the land I knew.
Before me is a squat grey building and a wire fe
nce all around. This concrete place is a foreign country.
When the taxi pulled away from Mrs Lightly’s house, I didn’t look back. I forced my mind ahead. I couldn’t let my thoughts take me back to Pat’s collapsed body, asleep on the sofa. He will never forgive me for not telling him I knew where Joyce had gone.
I can’t see beyond finding her.
I exit from Departures and go in search of a car rental. I changed all my money before I got on the plane. Every last dollar I saved from sewing dresses, kept in a tin under the bed, is now just punts that will trickle away every day I’m here. I don’t know what I saved it all for except some half-formed thought that if I ever needed to run, I’d be able to.
I find a crooked booth manned by a spotty teen and he gives me the keys to a Ford Escort and directions to the city, but his accent is near incomprehensible.
I’m twenty minutes down the road when the exhaustion hits and my vision blurs. I wind down the window to breathe fresh air and roll it up again as the rain slices through. Cold settles into me. The sky has lowered; needles of rain prick the windshield; the odd tree and white-licked house blaze by and vanish in the wall of water. I’m driving fast. I catch a flash of sea – grey, dark, surging – and I lean towards it but it’s already vanished behind a rise of green.
The car shudders to a stop beside a farm gate. My foot is on the brake. On the steering wheel my knuckles pop white.
Once Joyce was just a weight against my chest, a warmth. My life was just me and Pat and a baby on my hip, but then suddenly she was upright, jabbering with thoughts and opinions of her own, and I was afraid for her.
A flock of seagulls in the grass are indifferent to the rain-hammering they’re taking. Water jumps along the glistening red car bonnet. It’s the only bright thing in this muddy green and grey.
Felim’s letter burns in my pocket.
The car roars back to life and I continue speeding towards Galway.
Sitting on the dashboard is a piece of paper with Kate’s address. I still don’t know what I will say to Joyce when I get there but I hope she’s gone no further.