Foster

Here there is room, and time to think. There may even be money to spare.

‘I’d better hit the road,’ Da says.

‘What hurry is on you?’ Kinsella says.

‘The daylight is burning, and I’ve yet the spuds to spray.’

‘There’s no fear of blight these evenings,’ the woman says, but she rises anyway, picks up the sharp knife and goes out the back door. I want to go with her, to shake the clay off whatever she cuts and carry it back into the house. A type of silence climbs and grows tall between the men while she is out.

‘Give this to Mary,’ she says, coming in. ‘I’m snowed under with rhubarb, whatever kind of year it is.’

My father takes it from her but it is as awkward as the baby in his arms. A stalk falls to the floor and then another. He waits for her to pick it up, to hand it to him. She waits for him to do it. Neither one of them will budge. In the end, it’s Kinsella who stoops to lift it.

‘There now,’ he says.

Out in the yard, my father throws the rhubarb onto the back seat, gets in behind the wheel and starts the engine.

‘Good luck to ye,’ he says. ‘I hope this girl will give no trouble.’ He turns to me then. ‘Try not to fall into the fire, you.’

I watch him reverse, turn into the lane, and drive away. I hear the wheels slam over the cattle grid, then the changing of gears and the noise of the motor going back the road we came. Why did he leave without so much as a good-bye, without ever mentioning that he would come back for me? The strange, ripe breeze that’s crossing the yard feels cooler now, and big white clouds have marched in across the barn.

‘What’s ailing you, Child?’ the woman says.

I look at my feet, dirty in my sandals.

Kinsella stands in close. ‘Whatever it is, tell us. We won’t mind.’

‘Lord God Almighty, didn’t he go and forget all about your bits and bobs!’ the woman says. ‘No wonder you’re in a state. Well, hasn’t he a head like a sieve, the same man.’

‘What matter,’ Kinsella says. ‘We’ll have you togged out in no time.’

‘There won’t be a word about it this time twelve months,’ the woman says.

They laugh hard for a moment then stop. When I follow the woman back inside, I want her to say something, to put my mind at ease. Instead, she clears the table, picks up the sharp knife and stands in the light under the window, washing the blade under the running tap. She stares at me as she wipes it clean, and puts it away.

‘Now, Girleen,’ she says. ‘I think it’s past time you had a bath.