An Irish Heart

by C M Blackwood

“And you let the rest die?”

  “Well, pardon me! Where were you when I was pulling these people from a house of death?”

  “I myself was waiting in fear outside a second-storey window,” said Myrne. “And I am quite proud of myself.”

  “You had a gun,” I said to Abbaline. “You both had guns. I thought you said you were a soldier?”

  “Are you saying that I’m not?”

  “Not much of one, from where I stand.”

  “You have no idea of the circumstances, you little –”

  “Stop it,” Thea said loudly. “There’s been enough violence tonight. We need to work together now.”

  “You’re right enough,” said Abbaline, “but you stand up for Kate when you shouldn’t.”

  “Meaning what?” Thea snapped.

  “Meaning exactly what I said.”

  “You know nothing about any of it.”

  “I know more than you think.”

  “How could you? You’re heartless.”

  The staring competition which ensued created palpable sparks in the cold night air.

  I was suddenly ashamed of the quarrel I had started; and realised that, the only reason I had started it, was the feeling I became filled with as I looked upon the dead bodies of Abbaline’s guests.

  Two parlours. Two times. So many dead!

  “Are we going to kill each other now?” Myrne asked, obviously trying to make evident how strangely everyone was behaving. (Though ineffective, it was an admirable attempt.)

  “Maybe we should just go our own way,” I said. (Despite the disgrace I felt I was slowly bringing upon myself, I could not find it in me to apologise.) “Or, at least,” I added, “I’ll go mine.”

  Thea turned her head. As she was closest to me, she had only to whisper when she said, “You don’t mean that.”

  “It’s a good thing you’re here to tell me what I mean.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  Abbaline stepped up to me, then. “Listen, you,” she said quietly. “I’m not going to deal with this for one more moment. You can do whatever you please; I won’t argue with you. But if you’re going your own way, then give me that baby! I won’t see him die because of you.”

  “Oh now, Miss Elson,” said the Dashing Gentleman, looking towards me with pity. “Just give her a moment, eh? I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

  Abbaline glared at him, and the Queen of Smoke looked on with interest. She had already (and unsurprisingly enough) lit a cigarette, and stood blowing billows of grey smoke into the blackness, which hovered over our heads as if to mark us as the children of misery.

  Finally I relented. I marched quietly behind the rest, watching without speaking as Shealittle Road began to fall away forever. My rising emotions were caught somewhere in the vicinity of my throat, as we passed Niamh’s house. I realised that I would never see her again – but was not very upset about it. I just looked at Thea, and realised that, even if I had wanted to, I could not have told her anything. At least not right then.

  Or perhaps never. Would I ever be able to tell her anything, about that? If you had asked me for a definitive answer in that moment, I would have said no.

  And could you really have blamed me?

  Chapter 43

  “Why can’t we just go home?” I asked, hours later. We had stopped to set up camp for the night – with extremely meagre supplies.

  Of course I had no bedroll. If I had cared (which I didn’t), I would have tried to move away from the rock under my head.

  “Do you really think that wise?” asked Thea.

  “Under the circumstances, yes.”

  “Under what circumstances?”

  I sighed. “Do you know what, Thea? We’ve spent more time arguing than anything else, ever since you came back.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “It would have been hard not to.”

  There were a few minutes of heavy silence, before she said my name quietly. I did not reply; but she went on anyway.

  “Why do things feel so different between us?” she asked. “Is it because they just can’t be the same, or because you won’t let them be?”

  “Is there really a difference? They are what they are.”

  She became aggressive, then – more so than I think I could have ever remembered. She rolled towards me and grabbed my face, more than just firmly; I could feel the bones of her fingers digging into my flesh.

  “There’s a difference – and you know what it is. You are not stupid.”

  I could see her eyes in the dark. If I had not already been aware, I would not have known that they were blue; for they were like tiny silver moons, revolving quickly and frantically all around me.

  “I love you, Katie,” she whispered. “You’re my life, and you know it. But if you keep pushing me – well, I’ll push you back. You may have to fall many times before you remember the truth; but I’m willing to wait.”

  I fought back the tears that were lining up behind my eyes. “I don’t feel like the same person anymore,” I said. “I feel like everything’s been taken out of me.”

  Her hands on my face grew soft. There were no more sharp bones – just cool fingertips.

  “Then let me try to replace it.”

  I didn’t have to say anything; for she sensed my doubt. “If anyone can do it,” she whispered, her lips brushing my ear, “it’s me.”

  The night seemed to slip away from me, then. I was not sure if the feeling would last, but I did feel, at that moment, like I was being filled warmth. Not a new feeling, oh no – but oh so very familiar.

  ***

  “Where are we going?” I asked Abbaline next day.

  “We’re hiding, for the moment,” she said. She seemed to have already forgotten that she was angry with me.

  “But where are we going to do that?” I persisted.

  “The safest place we end up, I suppose.”

  “Is anywhere safe?” asked Kerry.

  “Some places are better than others,” replied Jonathan Banks.

  “I still think it would be better just to go home,” I said quietly to Thea.

  She looked at me, seeming for the first time like she was actually contemplating what I was saying.

  “Abbaline,” she said loudly.

  Abbaline looked immediately in her direction.

  “We want to go home.”

  “So do I. Too bad for you.”

  “But why can’t we?”

  “You wouldn’t be there a day before they killed you.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  “All right, fine. A day and a half.”

  “That’s ridiculous. They don’t even know where we live.”

  Abbaline looked at me. “But they know where you live.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Do you really even have to ask that by now? They’re like goddamn pirates.”

  But I kept on, mainly because the goal seemed so within my reach. “There’s no way to know for sure.”

  She sighed impatiently. “Do you really want to take that kind of a chance? Things will happen as they will. Why not sacrifice comfort for practically assured safety?”

  “Practically assured, my arse.”

  “Petulance will gain you nothing.”

  “Well, it makes me feel better.”

  Myrne chuckled.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Abbaline snapped.

  He fell quiet in an instant.

  “This is absurd,” said Thea, walking away from us. She went over to where Jonathan Banks stood, arranging wood for a fire. I could not hear what she said – but I saw him hand her his flask, which I knew had a bit of scotch in it.

  ***

  More walking, more camping in the cold – and more wrapping the baby each night, in almost all of the blankets which we had in our possession. Thea and I were forced to huddle together under a single one, with Dolly somewhere in betwixt.

  Once, when Myrne moved too close to A
bbaline in a fit of cold, we were all woken by the resulting ruckus.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” she yelled.

  “I just – I didn’t – ah, stop hitting me –”

  Needless to say, he never did that again.

  But he did not cease to complain.

  “What are we – a band of nomads?” he would frequently demand.

  “So it would seem,” said I.

  “I’ve never been much for this kind of thing,” said Thea, grimacing as she scrubbed the sticky residue out of a cooking pot.

  I watched her crinkling her nose, and could not help but smile.

  ***

  “Here’s the plan,” said Abbaline, almost four weeks later. She had disappeared in the night, and had been missing for sixteen hours. Eight grown persons, a baby and a dog gathered round her.

  “We have a plan?” I asked. “How novel of us.”

  “What is it?” Myrne asked impatiently.

  “I have to kill someone,” Abbaline replied.

  All eyes, if they had not already been turned in her direction, turned that way now. Mary-Anne looked quietly up at Kerry.

  “Who in the world are you going to kill?” asked Myrne.

  “The man responsible for our recent tragedy. I have discovered his identity – and am fully prepared to chop off his bloody head.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Well, if it isn’t already, it will be when you’re done with it.”

  “Be quiet, Kate.”

  “Yes, master.”

  “What’s his name, anyway?” Myrne inquired.

  “Abernathy.” She made a face. “Benjamin Abernathy.”

  “Can I kill him?”

  “No.”

  “Was that a no as to my estimated ability to kill him, or as to whether or not you’ll let me?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, that’s disheartening.”

  “So,” said Abbaline, ignoring Myrne (as poor Myrne so often seemed to be), “I have important business to attend to. We must all part ways.”

  “Where are we going to go?” I asked.

  “Home, I suppose. Unless there’s any other place you’d fancy visiting.”

  I felt my mouth fall open. “You’re joking.”

  “About what?”

  “I wanted to go home weeks ago!”

  “Well, that was weeks ago. This is now.”

  “How much of a difference can there possibly be?”

  “More than you know, my dear.”

  I did not understand in that moment; and ever afterward I was equally ignorant to her logic. (Yet perhaps I should add that there may have been something to that logic; for I can tell you now, that never was my home attacked by a band of English pirates.) So I sighed, and took up my place in the march.

  ***

  As we were not as far off from home as I thought we had been, Abbaline accompanied us there. Though it took us a couple of days to cover the ground, she was apparently willing to wait at least that long to run her “errand.”

  We tracked up the drive, all in single file. At first I attempted to keep my eyes fixed on the ground; but soon it became too much to ask of myself, and I found them wandering up to the house. The sight of it halted my steps immediately, and Myrne ran into me with a sharp bark. He went around me, and Thea hurried back to me, so as to pull me along the rest of the way to the door.

  Abbaline, Banks and the others stayed only long enough to rest their bones for a little, and to swallow down a considerably paltry meal. There was no edible food in the house, and they were forced to make their supper from the small supply which remained in their packs. I sat with them at the table, all silent and stiff, while they ate. It was even worse inside the house. With the walls all around me, and the roof over my head, I felt every moment as if I might faint. The air was thick and oppressive. I kept my eyes fixed on Abbaline; and felt my heart deflate when she announced it time to leave.

  I did not want her to go. Perhaps I felt unsafe without her; perhaps I feared for her. Perhaps a bit of both.

  “Don’t worry, now,” she said. “I’ll send word when my work is through, though I don’t expect that I’ll see you for quite some time.”

  “I’m not worried,” I lied. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  “Now you decide to be positive.” She shook her head. “I’ll never understand you, girl.”

  “That may be for the best.”

  We both laughed.

  “No tearful goodbye for me?” Myrne chimed in, coming to stand beside me.

  Abbaline looked at him for a moment or two, as though sizing him up for the first time. “You’re a good boy, Matthew,” she said. “You’re a good friend – and you’re growing into a fine man.”

  “Aren’t I a man already?” He looked down at himself. “I was fairly sure of it.”

  She smiled. “I’ll let you know when you are.”

  Myrne made no reply, but accepted her words just as he always did, like a fact which he had previously been unaware of.

  “Good luck, and good days to all of you,” said Abbaline. She directed these words to Thea, Kerry and Mary-Anne, who were seated at the table.

  “And you, as well,” said Thea.

  “Goodbye,” said all the others in succession, as Abbaline started out into the yard. I watched, for a moment, Jonathan Banks, the Queen of Smoke and the Dashing Gentleman, struggling to keep up with her pace – and then I closed the door.

  ***

  I took a few moments, then, to excuse myself to the bathroom. I did not really need to use it; but I did need the few moments to myself.

  Things were happening so quickly. It had taken me so long to get to where I had been, only weeks before – and now here I was, right back where I had started, in the place where I had longed to be, the entire time I was elsewhere. But now that everything else had disappeared – well, I was feeling more than a little displaced.

  Who would have thought it?

  I washed my face, if only to give myself something to do, and then stared at myself for a few seconds in the mirror. Did I look the same as I had looked, the last time I used that mirror?

  I did not know.

  Maybe not knowing was best.

  ***

  I spent the rest of the day, attempting to remain collected and objective. When I found myself staring at something, and connecting all sorts of memories to it which did nothing but rise like a tall tree that was about to tip over upon me, I simply made myself look away.

  So I was finally home; so I had not been there in over two years. So everything had changed; so there were four more people in my house than there had been, breathing my air and taking up my space, pushing and pressing against me unknowingly and without fault.

  I concentrated on simple tasks. I accompanied Myrne to the market, needing the fresh air, while Thea and the others began to tidy up the house. By the time we returned with the food, there was a bed (makeshift or no) made up for everyone. We all stayed in the kitchen that day, though Thea and Kerry were the only ones who cooked.

  After supper, we all sat round the fire – sometimes speaking, sometimes not. It was growing late as Mary-Anne began to yawn, and to rub at her eyes. She said quietly to Kerry that she did not want to be alone; so her sister followed her to the bedroom upstairs.

  “You know,” said Myrne, “I’m pretty worn out myself. I think I’ll go to my room now.”

  I laughed at him; for he himself had opted to sleep in the small storage space under the stairs. “It looks cosy,” he said. “And at least there’s a door. Why, what if I want to sleep naked?”

  “I’d recommend that you don’t,” said Thea.

  “But of course, miss,” he said with a bow. “ ‘Twas only a jest.”

  “Goodnight, Meniah,” I said.

  “Goodnight, you,” he said, disappearing into his cabinet-like bedroom.

  Just then, there came a scream; followed by quick feet on the staircase, and the reappearan
ce of Kerry and Mary-Anne in the kitchen. Myrne darted out of his cabinet to see what was happening.

  “What in the world is going on?” asked Thea, while Myrne and I looked on in confusion.

  “There’s a man upstairs!” exclaimed Kerry.

  Then came the sound of shuffling steps; and next moment, Dexter Burton presented himself to the room.

  “Uncle Dexter!” said Thea, in quite the same way as she had all that time ago, when she spotted his face in the kitchen window. “What are you doing here?”

  He reached into his pocket, pulled something out, and then held it up for Thea to see. It was a key.

  She sighed. “I forgot that you had that.”

  He went to sit down at the table, and stared quietly (as if there were any other way for him to do it) into the fire. He had begun scratching his nose; and his discomfort was obvious.

  Thea put a hand to her head, silent for a moment as she figured the element of Uncle Dexter into her plans.

  “You two can go on upstairs,” she said to Kerry and Mary-Anne. They cast another look towards the man at the table (who, I will note – and this may account for their apparent fright – had grown much more haggard and grizzled-looking since the last time I saw him), and then scurried on up the stairs.

  “Uncle Dexter,” said Thea, “you can sleep in the parlour. There should be pillows and blankets already, so –”

  But Dexter was already rising from the table. He tipped his head at me (but did not favour Myrne, who was unknown to him, with even a glance), and then went to shake hands with Thea. He crossed to the door, and slipped out into the night.

  “Is he coming back?” asked Myrne.

  “I don’t think so,” said Thea.

  We all stared at the door for a moment, as if we wished to be absolutely certain that Uncle Dexter would not be returning. But we quickly felt a re-visitation of our drowsiness; and so decided that the night was at an end.

  That was the second time I crossed paths with Dexter Burton. I would not have been at all surprised if it had been the last; but I will say now that I did see him once more, about three years later. The routine was much the same, though his visit ran for a full month (which Thea said was indeed the longest he had ever stayed). He disappeared on a Monday, I believe – and we never saw him again. I would say, as I said of yore, that he was never much talked about; but I will admit that I sometimes looked out the kitchen window, and imagined that I saw him standing there. It seems most unfortunate to have so very little to say about a person – but I suppose it is somewhat fitting, as Uncle Dexter never had anything to say about anything at all.