I remember quite clearly an incident with a young man named Arthur Fitzgerald, a handsome young fellow with a slightly crooked nose, and a fungal infection upon his foot. He was nearly in love with Thea. I sat at the table when he came in one day, and I smiled at him. He returned my smile, for he had as of yet no reason not to – but his attentions, of course, were all on Thea.
He followed her all about the kitchen while she gathered up his order. Once, he was bold enough even to lay a hand upon her waist, in what he obviously hoped would come off as a friendly gesture; but I saw her freeze up instantly. Her hand, still reaching in mid-air for a jar atop the shelf, was as still as anything.
Arthur Fitzgerald seemed to construe her hesitation as pleasure at his touch. As she stood before the counter, he mustered up the courage to slip his arm all the way round her waist.
“Need me to reach that for ye?” he asked, indicating the jar.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I said loudly. “After all – why would we put our bottles in places where we couldn’t reach them? It isn’t always a young, strapping man like yourself who comes to call, Arthur.”
His grin faltered then, and he let his arm fall. Thea smiled at me over her shoulder, and then went back for the jar.
Once she had all of Fitzgerald’s things together in a small bag, she reached for the bottle of ink under the cabinet, so that she might write down the directions for his order. She spoke aloud as she jotted down the words.
I am sure that I did not hear any of them, so busy was I with watching every sneaky little movement of that shifty little creature. I watched him gaze adoringly into her face, and gazed hard at him in response – though of course he did not know it.
Thea told him the price, then, and took a seat beside me at the table. He paid her without a word – but instead of exiting out the kitchen door, he stood before the table, hat in his hands, looking expectant.
“Is there something else you need, Arthur?” Thea asked.
“No, no, I have all I’ve come for. Except . . .”
“Except what, Arthur?”
Arthur Fitzgerald swallowed, then spun his hat about in a way that seemed to restore a bit of his confidence. “Well,” he continued, “I was just wondering if ye’d like to come and dance with me in town on Sat’rday night. I’ve been wanting to ask ye for some months now.” He laughed. “But ye know, I’m a little shy.”
Thea only stared blankly. “I understand, Arthur,” she said. “But I’m sorry to inform you that you’re a little too late. Perhaps you shouldn’t have waited quite so many months.”
He looked confused. “What d’ye mean?”
“Well, I have Kate here to think about.”
He glanced at me. “Well, ye’re more than welcome to come along with us, Kate. I’m sure that any one o’ the gen’elmun there would love to have a twirl around with ye.”
“I don’t think you understand, Arthur,” Thea went on. “I’m afraid I can’t go dancing with you on Saturday – for my lover wouldn’t think very much of it. Not very much at all.”
“Yer – yer lover?” stammered Arthur.
I could not keep from smiling, as Thea looped her arm round my own, and laced her fingers through mine.
Arthur opened his mouth to speak – but no words came. He put his hat on his head, but removed it quickly so as to be able to twist it about in his hands. He looked from me to Thea several times; and every time his eyes came upon me, they filled with something that made me think that he thought I was just about the vilest thing to ever walk the earth.
“Surely ye’re joking,” he said finally.
Thea shook her head. “I’m afraid not, Arthur. So I suppose you’ll be going?”
He left, then, hat and bag in hand. I heard him muttering, “This must be some joke,” as the door swung shut behind him.
***
Winter passed in a blur of snow and fire. I watched the storms rage outside the window, feeling safe beside the warm hearth. I could sit for hours at a time like that. When an especially rough storm blew in, I stood with my nose pressed against the windowpane, mesmerised by the endless swirls of snow that danced through the air. (Which certainly did not mean that I would have favoured a walk through the powdery drifts; or that I was not plagued by the pangs which resulted from watching the leaves fall from the silver-tree.)
When the thaw began in March, I think that I and the tree were both yearning, with all of our hearts, for spring. I had started to tire of the endless days spent indoors. I longed for the sunshine; the warm breezes; the cool grass beneath my bare feet.
It wasn’t until April that the snow finally left us. I felt my heart blooming, right along with the flowers that sprang up at the back of the house, painted all the different colours of the rainbow. I saw some of those, too – after the rains, they would appear bright as anything against the brilliantly blue sky. I imagined that if I travelled to the end of one of them, I would find the pot of gold that a leprechaun had left there.
The trouble was finding the end. It’s not as easy as you might think.
The days rolled into weeks, and before I knew it, my birthday was an imminent date. I would not take the time to note such a trivial thing; but perhaps worth mentioning is the strange behaviour that its imminence seemed to stir up in me. I was struck by the knowledge, at times, that I would soon be of a whole three-and-twenty years; and the thought of it sobered me enough to quit the rainbows, and to take just a little less pleasure from the enchantments of the silver-tree.
I awaited the thirteenth of May all by myself, waking each morning with the intention of telling Thea that my birthday would soon arrive (not feeling, as I said before, that it was particularly important, but wanting to have someone to tell, anyway), but going to bed each night without having revealed my bit of news.
I expected that she would soon guess of it, since she always seemed to guess at anything I was thinking, before I had even thought to speak on it. But the days went by with neither of us mentioning the thirteenth of May; and though I was not quite sure why I was so unwilling to mention it, I was silent just the same.
May the twelfth seemed to sneak up on me. It was an ordinary day, no different from the one before it, or from the one before that. I went about my chores as usual, hardly speaking, shying frequently away from Thea when she approached me. It was as though the next day signified something that even I was unsure of. I was unsure of so many things – it was almost like bringing a piece of my past, into this new home I had found. That, you see, would have been simply intolerable.
But it was so silly! What did it even matter? I had certainly never made such a fuss about it before. If you had asked my father (had he not been dead, of course), he would not have even been able to tell you the date of my birth.
By the time Thea and I sat down to supper that night, I had not spoken for six consecutive hours. I felt a bit sick as I took my place at the table. I had no appetite; I stared with disinterest at the food on my plate.
I went to bed early, not answering Thea when she asked if I wasn’t feeling well. I pulled the covers up to my chin, staring up at the ceiling that glowed orange in the flickering candlelight. (I had lit the candle on the bedside table; for a familiar discomfort had started up in me, under the heavy blackness.) My head felt muddled, so packed with thoughts that I could not sort through them quickly enough to realise what they were. So I just lay, desperate to fall asleep – but sleep would not come.
I closed my eyes when Thea came in. I did not move. I tried to make my breathing even, for I did not want her to talk to me; I did not want her to look at me any longer than was necessary to determine that I was, in fact, asleep.
“Kate?”
I was silent.
She said nothing else, but I felt her lean over me to blow out the candle. I almost wanted to reach out for her; but I didn’t.
“I know you’re awake,” she said softly.
I didn’t answer.
“I suppose you
don’t have to talk to me – but I don’t understand why you won’t.”
I let out my breath, rolling over onto my side, my back to her.
“I knew you were awake,” she said. I could feel her smiling in the dark.
“You’ve been snapping at me all day,” she said. “ ‘Leave me be, I don’t need any help; I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to do that; I want to be a proper bitch all day long. . .’ ”
I tried to sigh, but my breath caught in my chest, and came as something like a half-sob. I would not speak, for I did not trust my voice.
“I have only one question,” said Thea, “and then I’ll leave you be, if that’s what you want. Are you angry with me – or is it something else?”
“I’m not angry at all.”
“Well, I think you’re lying. And here’s the catch, darling. If it is my fault, then I shall have to continue to pretend to be interested, just long enough for you to expose my deepest faults. If it isn’t me, then well – I suppose I can just go to sleep, and cease to care altogether.”
My shoulders shook with rage; but again, my voice would issue as nothing but a sob. “Just leave me alone,” I pleaded.
“You should think more carefully, before you make that request. You may find your world grown just a little colder, without the presence of my warm concern!”
She laughed wildly.
“I shall leave, if you wish me to,” I said quietly. I began to buckle under the weight of a slow-sinking depression. It caved in like weather-beaten rock, crumbling and falling down into my lungs, where it mixed with my breathing and made me choke.
“Oh, be sensible, why don’t you. Where in the world would you go?”
My anger began to fade, and replaced itself quickly with torment. I felt a sharp pain in my heart; almost heard something tear, as she spoke. My shoulders continued to shake; but they shook now only with my uncontrollable weeping.
“Crying again?” she asked. “Don’t you ever tire of it?”
The darkness wasn’t enough. I put my hands to my face, desperate to hide myself from her. I wanted to get up, wanted to run. But I lay frozen, legs drawn up under me, shivering and quaking so terribly, that I feared the last of the rock would crumble. I felt it turning to dust as I sobbed; and soon I would be no more.
“What are you waiting for?” she demanded. “Get out of my bed – or I’ll push you out myself.”
I turned to her. The pale moonlight was just enough, that I could see almost into her eyes; but they did not need much illumining, to show that they were completely and utterly empty. “Please, Thea,” I begged, holding out my hands to her. Her face twisted in disgust, and she shrank away from me.
“Please what?” she demanded. “Please what, Kate? I’m tired of saving you. Get out!”
She darted across the bed; and an instant later, I lay with the hot wax from the extinguished candle, covering the side of my face. I screamed in pain, wiping madly at the wax with burning fingers.
“Do you need more than that? Get out of my bed. Get out of my house!”
I kept screaming, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to stop the burning of the wax.
I woke to Thea’s voice, loud and persistent. I thrashed about, trying to peel the drying wax from my cheek. I felt the skin come with it.
“Come on, come now – wake up. Open your eyes.”
So I did. The room was dim; a single candle burned, well away from me. I touched my face gingerly. Nothing there.
I felt Thea’s hands, then, cool and smooth, on my face that still seemed to burn. My cheeks were wet. I stared into her face, searching for the hatred there; searching for the repulsion she had felt for me. How loathsome I had been, only moments ago – in her very own eyes!
“What’s wrong?” she asked, smoothing the hair back from my brow.
I tried to speak, but could not catch my breath. I stared up at her helplessly. There was a pounding, pulsing pain inside my chest.
“Katie?”
I shook my head, not knowing how to tell her.
It was the worst dream I’ve ever had. You didn’t love me anymore.
I sought for that darkness, that emptiness in her eyes; but there was only the familiar blue. The same blue that reminded me of water – deep, clear water that the sun shines through, all the way to the bottom. I stood there at the bottom, watching the way the light moved slowly through the water, as though weighted with the thickness of its barrier.
I closed my eyes, and took a deep, shaking breath. When I opened them again, she was still there, leaning over and against me at the same time. I felt her breath; and it was then that I knew of her realness. She had been there all along, all the time that I dreamt. She had lain beside me, sleeping as I slept.
“Are you all right?”
I nodded, but I still shook. With her body pressed up against me as it was, she could not help but feel it.
“Don’t lie to me,” she said.
But I could not speak. I thought that I had finally found the words to explain; but every time I thought I’d said them, I realised that neither of us had heard them. So I only shook my head, hoping that she would understand.
“Why do you look so afraid?” she asked. “If only you could see the look on your face.”
I was fairly certain that I did not want to.
“What did you dream?”
I could make no response.
“Can’t you tell me?”
I sighed heavily.
She started to move away, but I grabbed at her arm – still without my voice, but not without my heart. I tried to tell her. I battled with my voice, lying dormant at the bottom of my throat; and with my tongue, lying thick and useless at the bottom of my mouth. But they refused to cooperate.
She was looking at me expectantly. It was not long, though, before she seemed to understand that I would tell her nothing. So she lowered her head to her pillow, and closed her eyes against me; for that was what she thought I wanted.
I wanted to apologise. I wanted to tell her everything I had dreamt. I wanted to tell her that I did want her near me; I wanted her arms around me, and I wanted her eyes where I could see them. I would have to watch them for a while, to make sure that the darkness did not creep back into them again.
***
I woke next morning with my head close to Thea’s. I opened my eyes, and saw her face, felt my hands in hers under the blanket.
I lay still until she moved. When finally she opened her eyes, and looked just as always into mine, she seemed not to remember the night before. She ducked her head under mine, burying her face in my chest.
I felt her breath come warm upon my skin. I lowered my face into her hair, and thought of how much I loved her; how much I needed her, more than anything I had ever needed.
It’s a frightful thing, you know, to love someone so very much.
I thought of the pained expression upon her face, when I refused to tell her what I dreamt, and why I shuddered at her touch. I moved my fingers through her hair; and she put her arms around me.
Things still did not feel quite the way they should; and I had indeed forgotten altogether that it was my birthday.
May 13, 1915
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It seems that I have all I ever could have wanted – but I am still haunted by something, something which I cannot even describe. Is it guilt, creeping back up to strangle me? Or am I just incapable of happiness?
I think that, perhaps, it is something of both.
I am plagued by constant paranoia. I am fearful that Thea will realise what a mistake she has made; I am certain that I will, sooner or later, find myself alone again.
But I have no reason to think this way! What is the matter with me?
Maybe the wrong I have done is too much to allow me any joy. Maybe I am asking too much, wanting to be released from my shame, so that I can go on.
Maybe it’s just not possible.
Chapter 13
The weath
er grew hot as the months wore on. I liked to walk along the riverbank in my coolest dress, one hand shielding my eyes from the sun, and my arm looped round Thea’s. I watched the ripples in the water as the wind blew by, ruffling my hair and pressing the fabric of my dress tight against my stomach.
I found the water to be an extremely interesting thing. I often found myself staring into it for minutes at a time, silent and still. Thea would come up beside me, and tap me on the shoulder.
“What is it you see that you like so much?” she would ask.
One day, while we were walking about, I let go of Thea’s hand – and ran for the river. I stood for hardly a moment, before slipping off my dress and diving into its slightly chilly depths. I swam all the way to the middle, and when my head bobbed up to the surface, I saw Thea standing on the bank, staring out at me with her mouth hanging open.
“What are you doing?” she called.
“Swimming.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m hot. You come in, too.”
She shook her head, looking at me as if I were crazy.
“Don’t swim out so far,” she warned me.
“I promise you, Thea, nothing is going to happen! It’s perfectly safe.”
An Irish Heart Page 12