Foster

‘Have you caught cold?’ Ma asks.

‘No,’ I say, hoarsely.

‘You haven’t?’

‘Nothing happened.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I didn’t catch cold,’ I say.

‘I see,’ she says, giving me another deep look.

‘The child’s been in the bed for the last couple of days,’ says Kinsella. ‘Didn’t she catch herself a wee chill.’

‘Aye,’ says Da. ‘You couldn’t mind them. You know yourself.’

‘Dan,’ Ma says, in a steel voice.

Mrs Kinsella looks uneasy, like she was the day of the gooseberries.

‘You know, I think it’s nearly time that we were making tracks,’ Kinsella says. ‘It’s a long road home.’

‘Ah, what’s the big hurry?’ Ma says.

‘No hurry at all, Mary, just the usual. These cows don’t give you any opportunity to have a lie-in.’

He gets up then and takes my little brother from his wife and gives him to my father. My father takes the child and looks across at the baby suckling. I sneeze and blow my nose again.

‘That’s a right dose you came home with,’ Da says.

‘It’s nothing she hasn’t caught before and won’t catch again,’ Ma says. ‘Sure isn’t it going around?’

‘Are you ready for home?’ Kinsella asks.

Mrs Kinsella stands then and they say their good-byes and go outside. I follow them out to the car with my mother who still has the baby in her arms. Kinsella lifts out the box of jam, the four-stone sack of potatoes.

‘These are floury,’ he says. ‘Queens they are, Mary.’

We stand for a little while and then my mother thanks them, saying it was a lovely thing they did, to keep me.

‘No bother at all,’ says Kinsella.

‘The girl was welcome and is welcome again, any time,’ the woman says."

"‘She’s a credit to you, Mary,’ Kinsella says. ‘You keep your head in the books,’ he says to me. ‘I want to see gold stars on them copy books next time I come up here.’ He gives me a kiss then and the woman hugs me and then I watch them getting into the car and feel the doors closing and a start when the engine turns and the car begins to move away. Kinsella seems more eager to leave than he was in coming here.

‘What happened at all?’ Ma says, now that the car is gone.

‘Nothing,’ I say.

‘Tell me.’

‘Nothing happened.’ This is my mother I am speaking to but I have learned enough, grown enough, to know that what happened is not something I need ever mention. It is my perfect opportunity to say nothing.

I hear the car braking on the gravel in the lane, the door opening, and then I am doing what I do best. It’s nothing I have to think about. I take off from standing and race on down the lane. My heart does not so much feel that it is in my chest as in my hands, and that I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside of me. Several things flash through my mind: the boy in the wallpaper, the gooseberries, that moment when the bucket pulled me under, the lost heifer, the mattress weeping, the third light. I think of my summer, of now, mostly of now.

As I am rounding the bend, reaching the point where I daren’t look, I see him there, putting the clamp back down on the gate, closing it. His eyes are down, and he seems to be looking at his hands, at what he is doing. My feet batter on along the rough gravel, along the strip of tatty grass in the middle of our lane. There is only one thing I care about now, and my feet are carrying me there. As soon as he sees me he stops and grows still. I do not hesitate but keep on running towards him and by the time I reach him the gate is open and I am smack against him and lifted into his arms. For a long stretch, he holds me tight. I feel the thumping of my heart, my breaths coming out then my heart and my breaths settling differently. At a point, which feels much later, a sudden gust blows through the trees and shakes big, fat raindrops over us. My eyes are closed and I can feel him, the heat of him coming through his good clothes. When I finally open my eyes and look over his shoulder, it is my father I see, coming along strong and steady, his walking stick in his hand. I hold on as though I’ll drown if I let go, and listen to the woman who seems, in her throat, to be taking it in turns, sobbing and crying, as though she is crying not for one now, but for two. I daren’t keep my eyes open and yet I do, staring up the lane, past Kinsella’s shoulder, seeing what he can’t. If some part of me wants with all my heart to get down and tell the woman who has minded me so well that I will never, ever tell, something deeper keeps me there in Kinsella’s arms, holding on.

‘Daddy,’ I keep calling him, keep warning him. ‘Daddy.’

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Richard Ford for all his kindness; Declan Meade of The Stinging Fly, and Redmond Doran of Davy Byrne’s pub who sponsored the award."