Foster

I am in a spot where I can neither be what I always am nor turn into what I could be.

The kettle lets off steam and rumbles up to boiling point, its steel lid clapping. The presence of a black-and-white cat moves on the window ledge. On the floor, across the hard, clean tiles, the woman’s shadow stretches, almost reaching my chair. Kinsella gets up and takes a stack of plates from the cupboard, opens a drawer and takes out knives and forks, teaspoons. He takes the lid off a jar of beetroot and puts it on a saucer with a little serving fork, leaves out sandwich spread and salad cream.

My father watches closely as he does this. Already there’s a bowl of tomatoes and onions, chopped fine, a fresh loaf, a block of red cheddar.

‘And what way is Mary?’ the woman says.

‘Mary? She’s coming near her time.’ Da sits back, satisfied.

‘I suppose the last babby is getting hardy?’

‘Aye,’ Da says. ‘It’s the feeding them that’s the trouble. There’s no appetite like a child’s and, believe you me, this one is no different.

’

‘Ah, don’t we all eat in spurts, the same as we grow,’ says the woman, as though this is something he should know.

‘She’ll ate but you can work her.’

Kinsella looks up. ‘There’ll be no need for any of that,’ he says. ‘The child will have no more to do than help Edna around the house.’

‘We’ll keep the child gladly,’ the woman echoes. ‘She’s welcome here.’

‘She’ll ate ye out of house and home,’ Da says, ‘but I don’t suppose there’ll be a word about it this time twelve months.’

When we sit in at the table, Da reaches for the beetroot.

He doesn’t use the serving fork but pitches it onto the plate with his own. It stains the pink ham, bleeds. Tea is poured. There’s a patchy silence as we eat, as our knives and forks break up what’s on our plates. Then, after some time, the tart is cut. Cream falls over the hot pastry, into pools."

"Now that my father has delivered me and eaten his fill, he is anxious to light his fag and get away. Always, it’s the same: he never stays in any place long after he’s eaten, not like my mother who would talk until it grew dark and light again.

This, at least, is what my father says even though I have never known it to happen. With my mother it is all work: us, the butter-making, the dinners, the washing up and getting up and getting ready for Mass and school, weaning calves, and hiring men to plough and harrow the fields, stretching the money and setting the alarm. But this is a different type of house.