An Irish Heart

by C M Blackwood

  “Oh, you just stop that. You know you love me to pieces.”

  I kissed his forehead, and then leant down to kiss Michael’s.

  “You’ve found me out,” I said. “Now you know that it’s worth it.”

  “I figured it would be.”

  “Well, you were always a smart boy.”

  With all of the marriages that were made, and all of the children that were had (Mary-Anne gave birth to a daughter named Elizabeth; and Jeremiah and his wife, Leah, had a son named Quentin), the house on Lennox Lane eventually ran out of air to breathe (even with the additional rooms Myrne had built onto it, over the years.) Mary-Anne’s and Jeremiah’s families moved a short ways away, but never failed to visit the house on weekends.

  It became something of a habit: Thea, Myrne, Kerry, Joseph, Mary-Anne, Jeremiah, Susan, Gilbert and Leah would all go to church on Sunday mornings, and then come back to the house for lunch.

  They left the babies with me, because I never went. Don’t misunderstand – I came a long way over the years, and grew to believe again in those things which I once had turned my back upon. I took up, with a light heart, my dreams of the arks of the angels, and looked forward to the prospect of spending eternity as sailor of the ship which would hold all things that I loved.

  But still I never liked church.

  ***

  We were a picture-perfect family. I remember, even, how we went down to get our photograph taken in 1943 – all thirteen of us.

  It was a crowded day in Mr Woley’s picture room.

  You would think, though, that I’d have learnt my lesson over the years. You would think I’d have known, that things might not stay always as they were; you would think I’d have known, that they could change in an instant! One thinks much less of the little things that happen, the little things that change – like the light bulbs that were eventually present (so strange to me in 1916) in every room of the house; and our very first stand-up refrigerator, which Joseph and Jeremiah hauled into the kitchen with sweaty faces, and settled into its place against the wall, with a merry kind of pride glowing in their eyes.

  Those little things happen to all of us; and we take very little notice, and think nothing at all strange about the fact that they were not there before. Yet also present are the larger things, the more terrible things which you wish so desperately you could change. To reverse them – to undo them – you would give all of those little things back, each and every one.

  But those thoughts never even seemed to cross my mind. Things were too perfect, and I was too comfortable with them being that way.

  I suppose that, when this happens, one is often in for a rude awakening.

  There are a million things that I would have traded, if only something had happened that day, other than what really happened.

  In the fall of 1954, my only son died.

  It happened on the fifteenth of October; and I have not to look at any piece of paper to remember it. The date is burned upon my brain, forever visible to the backs of my eyes.

  Joseph was on his way to town, with a load of Gilbert Bean’s hats (Gilbert had taken ill that week, and was unable to set up stand for himself). By that time, there were a great number of motorcars buzzing about the place, mingling less than efficiently with the horses and buggies.

  It was a man named Evan Kent who crashed into Joseph’s wagon. (I remember that, because you never do forget the name of a man you dream of murdering.)

  By then, of course, Charlie and Moonlight were gone. We had only one horse, by the name of Speedy (whom little Michael had named as a joke, on account of the fact that he was not very speedy at all, but rather walked as if he had always to pull his hooves from a bed of tar).

  When the wagon overturned, Speedy was cut loose from his reins, and came immediately back to the house.

  When I saw the horse without his wagon (and without my son inside it), I jumped right up onto his back, and let him take me back to the scene of the chaos.

  I believe that it was the only time I ever saw that horse canter.

  When I came in sight of the wagon, lying on its side in the middle of the road, I dismounted in mid-trot and began to run – faster than I have ever seen a woman run, who had thus far acquired two-and-sixty years unto herself.

  But I came too late. Several men had already pulled Joseph from the wagon, and he was lying in the dirt, a pool of blood growing slowly round his head. His eyes were closed, and his chest was still.

  Evan Kent was already gone. I had not very much time to think about him, then – but I certainly would, in the days to come.

  Someone had already run to fetch the doctor; but by the time he arrived, he was only in time to tell me what I already knew.

  My baby was dead. He was thirty-seven years old, with a wife and a son who loved him so.

  And a mother who would never be the same again.

  ***

  I locked myself in my room, for long weeks after that. Myrne knocked on the door at least once a day, and told me each time that, whenever I was feeling up to coming out, I could punch him right in the nose, so long as it would make me feel better. And as hard as I wanted, too.

  No one else dared to knock. Sometimes, I could hear someone come up to the other side of the door – and they always stood there for a few minutes, breathing softly but saying nothing. No doubt they had no idea as to what they should say – they just wanted to say something. But they never did.

  The only one I could stand to see during that time was Thea. She brought me food three times a day; and even though I seldom ate it, she continued to bring it. She came in to bed every night, and lay down beside me, perfectly silent but undeniably present. She asked me nothing; and she told me nothing, as to how it would get better with time, or how the pain in my heart would eventually ease. She just lay there, holding my hand and waiting for me to speak.

  My first words came on November the twelfth, nearly a month after the crashing of the wagon. I left my room for the first time, going out into the kitchen in search of a cup of tea. When I had looked into the canister, though, and found it empty, I went into the parlour – where Thea was sitting with Mary-Anne and Susan.

  “Have we no tea?” I asked.

  Thea stood up straightaway, and hurried into the kitchen to pull out a box from the back of one of the cupboards. She held it out to me, smiling.

  Hard as it was, I tried to smile back. My face was stiff and rigid, from days and days of lying without expression – and it was extremely difficult to twist it into anything even resembling a smile.

  Thea threw her arms around me, and let me rest my head on her shoulder. “I’m not going to say it will be all right,” she said softly, “because I know that it won’t. But you do have a lot of people who love you. I think that, if Myrne goes one more day without seeing you, he’ll go mad.”

  “I’ve missed him, too,” I said, tea-box still in hand. “But I just couldn’t –”

  “I know,” she said, pressing a finger to my lips. “He knows. We all know.”

  “How is Susan?” I asked, going to the stove to start the kettle boiling.

  “She’s miserable, but she’s surviving. As for Michael, though – well, I just don’t know.”

  Michael was thirteen at that time. He had adored his father, and did everything he could to mirror himself in his image.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “Outside, I think.”

  I finished making the tea, and then went out to the yard in search of Michael, two steaming cups in hand.

  He was sitting in one of the chairs by the back steps, looking blankly up at the sky. I went to sit beside him, and passed him a cup of tea.

  “Hi, Grandma,” he said absently.

  I studied his face, wondering what I could say that might make any sense at all of the death of his beloved father. I came to the conclusion, there was absolutely nothing that could do that; but there is ever a need for words in times of grief, to assure the listener
that he is not alone in his pain. And so Michael O’Brien was not, on that day of terrible sadness.

  “You look so much like him,” I said, taking a sip of my tea.

  “I know,” said Michael. “Ma tells me all the time.”

  “Well, that’s because it’s true. You’re a beautiful young man – just like he was.”

  Michael turned his head to look at me, and said despondently, “I don’t think I’ll ever be as strong as he was. Da could lift eight bundles of wood at the same time – but I can only carry three.”

  “You’re not a man yet, Michael. Give yourself time.”

  “Uncle Myrne’s a grown man, and he can only lift two.”

  “That’s because he’s an old man,” I said.

  Michael laughed – and I felt something in my heart give way, like a blocked dam which had finally permitted water to flow through it again.

  “How many could he lift, when he was young?”

  I frowned. “Probably just the two.”

  He smiled brightly, all at his poor Uncle Myrne’s expense. But that was all right – because sometimes, smiles are terribly hard to come by.

  “You’re lucky, you know,” I told him.

  “Why?”

  “Because you had time to get to know your father. He never knew his, you know.”

  Michael looked down at his shoes. “I know, Grandma.”

  “I know that you can’t appreciate it now, but someday you’re going to look back on all the memories you made with your da, and you’re going to be glad that you got the chance to make them. I’m not saying it’s fair, that you didn’t get to make more; for you should have been able. Yet you did get more, than some can say they’ve gotten.”

  A few tears rolled down his face – a face that was stuck somewhere between being a boy and a man, between being weak and being strong. But it was a face that I loved.

  It seemed that his tears had come, just as he looked towards the great silver-tree, standing tall and proud there in the middle of the yard. It appeared almost as if its branches were sagging, in mourning for one its most beloved admirers.

  “Da liked that tree,” he said softly. “He used to sit under it all the time. Do you remember, Grandma?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “What kind of tree is it, Grandma?”

  “It’s a silver-tree, Michael. The only one in the world.”

  “Is it really?”

  “I do believe so.”

  I looked over at him, and saw him mouthing the words silver-tree, as he looked out into the yard. There was an expression of amazement on his shining face.

  “Can I have a hug, Grandma?” he asked.

  “When have you ever had to ask your grandma for a hug?”

  I took his skinny thirteen-year-old body in my lap, and held his head against my breast, smoothing his soft hair down over his ears.

  “I love you, you know,” I said, kissing his cheek.

  “I love you, too, Grandma.”

  I held him in my arms as the sun sank down behind the distant hills, and we watched as the sky turned from blue, to red, to purple. Thea called our names as it began to fade to black; and I kissed Michael’s face once more, knowing that there would be precious few more times, when I could sit with him like that. He was about the age Joseph had been, when he stopped asking for hugs and kisses.

  Goodness, I was getting old.

  ***

  Becoming an old woman can be very depressing – not just because you yourself are growing older, and coming ever closer to death, but because those around you seem to be falling away like grains of sand within an hourglass. Only you are standing somewhere outside the hourglass, watching helplessly as the sand continues to slip away.

  Mary-Anne’s and Jeremiah’s children eventually moved away, going so far as to take a boat over to the States.

  We heard from them very little after that.

  As they got older, as well, Mary-Anne and Jeremiah visited the house less and less frequently, keeping to themselves more and more. Michael was studying to be a lawyer, and was not married as of yet; but at the age of two-and-twenty, he travelled to London in pursuit of higher education. As for Susan – well, after Michael was quite grown up, I couldn’t say that I ever saw anything of her. I never did hear of her marrying again; but then, I never heard anything else of her, either.

  By the summer of 1963, only myself, Thea, Myrne and Kerry remained at Lennox Lane. We spent our time as most old people seem to do, sitting round the table with cups of tea and playing at cards.

  Which is not to say, that that time was not immensely enjoyable. Indeed, it was the very closest I had come to being alone with Thea, since 1915. When Myrne and Kerry were not about, it was almost as it had been all those years ago, when I first went to live with her.

  And I was glad of that time; more glad afterwards, I think, than at the time.

  Because Thea left before me.

  She took ill at the beginning of 1965. It was just a small cough, at first – but eventually it grew into constant hacking fits, and blood that came with them.

  I don’t know how many bloody handkerchiefs I washed that year. I would have thrown them away, you see – but I do believe that we would have had to be in possession of some thousands of them, to keep up with her coughing.

  She moved about all right in the beginning, having only to sit down every now and then to catch her breath. But she was bedridden by December, unable to so much as come to the kitchen table for supper.

  I’d never had much practise at being a nurse, but I learnt quickly enough. And there was one thing for certain: I would not have done it for anyone else.

  One day, when I was helping her to wash up, she seemingly out of nowhere began to cry. I tried to ask her what was wrong, but she only waved me away, knocking the bowl of hot water off the bedside table.

  I just sat there watching her. I knew not what to say, and I knew not what to do; so I just sat.

  “I don’t want to be old,” she whispered, leaning back against the pillows. (She was so weak in those days, even that brief fit of anger had sapped her of what little energy she had had to begin with.) “I don’t want to die.”

  I fought back my tears, and asked lightly, “Who said anything about dying?” I stooped down to pick up what remained of the bowl from the floor, as an excuse to shield her from the tell-tale misery in my eyes.

  “Oh, come off it, Katie,” she said in exasperation, clenching the sheets in her frail fists. “We both know that I’m dying.”

  At least, that was what the doctor had said. More and more often, Thea was having episodes wherein she was entirely unable to breathe. The doctor gave her a thick, foul-smelling syrup to take once a day, and suggested that she drink coffee when she was having trouble breathing, to open up her airways. But he did not dance around the fact, that nothing he could give her would keep her lungs from deteriorating. It was only a matter of time, he said.

  But I would hear none of it. I washed her, clothed her, fed her, changed her bedding once every other day, and sat with her for hours upon hours on end. I watched her when she slept, and pressed a cool cloth to her fevered head when she was awake.

  And I minded not a single second of it. I would have done it forever, had it meant that she would stay with me forever.

  “She’s gotten into a very bad spot,” the doctor had said. “You should prepare yourself for the worst.”

  But how could I let myself do that?

  “Don’t say things like that,” I said to her, finding it difficult to look her full in the face – even as I spoke the words.

  “Look at me, Katie,” she said.

  I wanted not to see the truth in her eyes.

  “Look at me.”

  I lifted my eyes to her face, allowing myself to see only the beauty – not the sickness. She was as lovely as she had ever been, blue eyes clear as a morning sunrise. There were wrinkles in her face, the effects of years of smiling, laughing and living; and
her golden hair was now almost entirely white.

  But she was the same, to me, as she had been – the very first day that I met her. I remembered sitting in the kitchen on Wimple Street, watching the back of her head and waiting for her to turn around; I remembered being absolutely amazed when she did.

  None had ever held a candle to her, because they simply couldn’t have hoped to.

  There was far too much to live up to.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have shouted. It’s just so frustrating, do you know? I have to lie here, day in and day out, and let you take care of me. I just want to take care of myself! I lie here, and see you sitting there, watching me so closely. And it makes me remember: that I don’t have very much time left, to watch you watching me. There’s not much time left to see your face . . .”

  “Shhh,” I said, putting a hand to her cheek. “I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here every second.”

  She began to cry again, and I went to lie on my own side of the bed, snuggling up to her as close as I could.

  “Things around us will fall apart,” I whispered into her ear. “We can do nothing about that. But it doesn’t even matter, don’t you see? Because we’re still right here in the middle, and I’m holding your hand.”

  “Always?”

  “Always and always.”

  She clutched my hand in her own, her face turned towards mine. “We’ve done all right, haven’t we?” she asked.

  “More than that,” I said. “We’ve done all we ever wanted. What is there besides that?”

  “I love you so much,” she said, turning onto her side so she could share my pillow.

  “And I love you,” I whispered, pulling the blanket up over her, “with every single bit of my heart.”

  We lay like that all night, two little old women curled up in bed. And when I woke in the morning sunlight, I moved at once to kiss her lips – but found them cold and still. I looked down at her face, lying in the cradle of my arm; and I saw the peace that had crept into it while I slept, whisking her away forever to a place that I could not reach.

  At least not yet.

  ***

  October 1, 1982