Heap Earth Upon It

Jack

Didn't they all tell me that this would come with time? Healing. Things getting lighter. Things meaning less. I thought it was just something people were saying to fill silences. But it appears that they were right. The trouble is running off me. I am moving on. Such quare liberation.

While the others sleep, I step out of the house to take in the last of Kilmarra. Knowing without really understanding that in the morning we will leave the place we come from and never come back again.

Big bloodied sky, yellow clouds hanging in the thick air. The bare winter trees reach up to be touched by lightning. I do the same. I wait for the weather to break over me. For the rumble of thunder. For God to make Himself known to me. But when the sky opens, no god or heaven is there. Only miles of navy dark.

And I realise that over the last year, I've been so focused on the darkness of my skies that I've let the rest of the world pass me by. I wonder have the others noticed this? I wonder have they seen the gloomy fire that cuts up my horizon, and know how gladly I have let it blaze?

I go back inside to start loading up the cart. To wake the rest of them.

Leaving the house for the last time, my mind turns away from you, and to the whole year that has passed. A year of things left unsaid, unacknowledged. As though their happening didn't ruin me.

I'm woken by the bumps in the road, the cart rolling on. All the rest sat up and awake. High time I sat up with them. A little birdsong. A clear evening. White fog lining the roads, smudging the town before us. And yet without the haze of mourning, I see clearly.

'How are ye now?'

Tom calls, nodding at two passing men. How he has strained to hold us all together. How well he has done. Say what you want about Tom, but thanks to him, we are now just an ordinary family, leaving our ordinary past behind as we come into a new town. When we're settled, I'll sort him out with a few pints. To say thanks.

'Fine morning.'

Tom smiles at the man and woman standing into the hedge to let us pass. His eyes widening. The woman smiles obligingly. It might seem like a small thing, but when she looks at me, I feel able to hold my head up and nod at her. Just yesterday that would have felt like an immeasurably big task. Anna mutters something to herself. I look at her for what feels like the first time all year. And although it makes her uncomfortable, I find it hard to look away.

Beneath a sky of soft clouds, we trickle into the square of Ballycrea. Our wheels meet their potholes, I taste the salted wind, and we are irreversibly here.

It looks just the same as all of the other small towns we've travelled through. Post office, shop, pubs. Weathered walls, horse shit, county flags. A girl in a miniskirt and her mother in a shawl. Donkeys and carts among Fords. Modernity is doing what it can to make its impact here, just like in Kilmarra. I'm not sure why I expected this new place to be any different from home.

The further our cart rolls into the town, the more heads turn to take us in. How perfectly dull this is. How wonderful you would look among it all. Warm skinned and blonde, in your pink frock. Glowing in the crowd. Smiling at everyone, wanting to be known, reaching out to shake the hands of the locals like some sort of pageant queen.

But there is none of that. It's just a quiet day, like every day. All achingly plain. Although I want to leave my sentimentality behind and embrace my new start, I cannot help but long for the immediate vibrancy that you brought to everything. The absolute wonder of you. Darling. Anyway.

A big, unexpected sigh leaves me. It feels good to let the shoulders drop.

'Hello, hello, folks.'

Ah, he's loving this. Tall, square-jawed Tom, who our mother would describe as strapping, trying desperately to catch the eye of anyone he can. Look how he holds himself, as though the world is watching. As though god himself has taken audience to see Tom bring us into town, holding the reins of the pony as though she is some unbroken stallion. Glancing out of the corner of his eye to see who is looking. The torn lapel of his coat, burying him with embarrassment. Even before all the effort he had to take to make us appear like a happy family, Tom was always obsessed with appearances.

And yet, here are Peggy's socks, browned at the soles. A pile of battered trunks and cases, and the chicken pressed against the wire of her cage. Anna in Mammy's faded red headscarf. My cap, low over my eyes.

'How are ye keeping?'

Tom asks through a stiff smile. So strange that he can't just drive the cart through the square without trying to connect with people.

They are all going to think that Anna is my wife, aren't they? Or they'll think that she's Tom's wife, and I'm just some poor, lonely bachelor that they have graciously taken in. I take Peggy's feet in my hands to warm them up, squeezing her little bones. Tom turns to look at me, and in the name of optimism, of healing, I pull a smile out of my mouth. I am not the same dreary old Jack that I have been. If this is going to be a new start, I need to be new.

'This is the crowd in Dr Desmond's place, I suppose.'

A woman says, as though we are too far away to hear her. Pure brazen.

'Isn't the town getting busy?'

Her friend says back. In ways I'm surprised, and in more ways I am not, when Anna calls down to her,

'We'll turn around and go so, will we?'

Peggy gasps, and laughs without meaning to. Tom's jaw tenses. And in a move of solidarity that I can't quite explain, I laugh too. Later on, I'm sure, Tom will have something to say about all of this. About how we can't waste our chance here by acting the fool. Later on, I'm sure, I will regret taking Anna's side. Tom will probably try to track those two women down and apologise to them. And I suppose he'll be right to do it. Already I'm sorry for laughing. But in that moment, Anna displayed a very rare version of herself. Somebody unbothered and happy, unburdened and funny. Healing will mean untangling the good parts of Anna from the rest of her. That'll be some job.

I open out my arms for Peggy, and she comes to sit with me. Her small head against my arm, vibrating with the gravel beneath us.

'Are we nearly there?'

She asks, getting restless, and I stroke the back of her hand. I have no idea if we are nearly there. 'Tis Tom knows where we're going, not me.

A little while out of the town, we trundle up the long grass of a steep hill. It seems cruel to let the pony pull all this weight. I suppose I should have considered that when we left home.

A white cottage, dark blue paint beginning to peel from each of its five windowsills and front door. A little beaten path starting from a seemingly random point in the grass leading up to it. And a fence around a patch of land adjoining the house. I suppose that's where the pony will live. The poor creature may never move again after this journey. Moss on the roof, moss on the walls. Suitably rundown. I can't express how much I am trying to gee myself up about this new cottage.

My knees crack as I get down from the cart, and for the first time in a long time, I am reminded of my age. I can't say I remember turning twenty-eight. And yet, here I am. This definitely isn't where I thought I would be at twenty-eight. A full, fresh start unfolding before me. A fresh start was never something that I wanted; certainly not something that I thought I would need. And yet.

Peggy is bouncing around the yard, burning off all the energy she stored up in the cart. She is happy to be here, and I try to mirror her enthusiasm. After struggling with the lock and working himself up, Tom lets us into the cottage where we are hit with the smell of dust and the look of disuse. Peggy dashes past us, unfazed. It's all on one level. That's the first thing that lands with me. No stairs, no ladder. All laid out flat here in front of us. I suppose the others notice this too. And it will be added to the ever-growing pile of things we leave unsaid.

Smaller than we are used to. All arranged in a completely different way to home. It isn't that I expected it to look the same. I just didn't expect it to look different. I wonder how long it takes to settle in somewhere new.

'There's no beds!'

Peggy shouts, running back out to me. Looking to Tom, I realise there that we don't have half the things we need to fill a home. Anna answers her.

'No, we've no bed yet. Sure we've nothing yet.'

'Obviously, Anna, I just said.'

'Don't start acting the brat the minute we arrive.'

'Era shut up will ye, girls? I'll sort ye beds. I'll sort everything we need in the next few days.'

Tom says, dragging in the two largest trunks. I stand at the window, allowing all this to happen. Peggy's lip trembles. I wonder if she has come to expect me to be passive. I lower myself to her height.

'Go on and get the chicken, will you? And we'll find a place to put her.'

Before we left, I tried to explain to Peggy it wasn't worth having only one chicken, that she wouldn't lay enough eggs for us all. But Peggy wouldn't leave her. She said a chicken isn't just for eggs. My girl. How could I refuse her?

As she turns to walk out the door, it hits me; I think it hits us all at once: we have left our...