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.

‘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.

‘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.