Читать книгу The China Factory - Mary Costello - Страница 9

YOU FILL UP MY SENSES

She loves when she is alone with her mother in the car, like this. They are driving to check on the cattle and sheep in the summer grazing seven miles away. They stop at Burke’s for petrol and buy loose pineapple cubes and cigarettes. Her mother smokes two cigarettes very quickly as if she’ll be caught. Her mother never smokes in front of her grandmother. At night when her grandmother has gone to bed, and her mother and father and all the children are together in the kitchen—a normal family at last—she is happiest. Then her mother puts her youngest sister up to bed and afterwards walks along the landing calling out Holy Mary Mind Me so that her little sister will hear her voice and not be afraid, and her sister calls back Holy Mary Mind Me too, and they keep up this singsong as her mother comes down the stairs and in along the hall. Then her mother is in the kitchen making the supper. She is humming softly. The television is on. She watches her mother putting out the bowls and spoons, the sugar bowl and the milk jug. She loves her mother very much. When she grows up she wants to be exactly like her.

They walk to opposite ends of the land—her mother to count the cattle and she the sheep. She is nine now. As she tramples through the fields she forgets all about the sheep. She stands under a tree looking up at the undersides of the leaves and the little veins almost make her weak. She walks on, avoiding the thistles and the cow dung until she gets to the hill. There are crooked stones on the far side where unbaptised babies were buried long ago. She stands at the top of the hill. She opens her arms wide and runs down the hill, her hair blowing, her eyes watering in the breeze. She goes up the hill again and stands still and starts to sing. She raises her face to the sun. She would like to be a singer on TV. She would like to make her mother and father proud. She would like to bring tears to their eyes.

Her mother is not cross when she finds her—her mother is never cross with her. Together they start to count the sheep. How many are in the other field, her mother asks her, and she runs to the gap and counts them and runs back again, breathless, and the number is right. They walk back to the car. She hands her mother a pineapple cube from the paper bag and as they drive home they make sucking noises and laugh. Her mother is not like other mothers. She is young and girlish and runs in the mothers’ race on sports days and tickles her and her brothers and sisters at bedtime and grinds sweets as hard and fast as they do. On Sundays when they have Neapolitan ice cream for dessert, her mother takes spoonfuls from her own bowl and drops them into the bowls of her younger brother and sister until her own ice cream is almost gone. She does not know how her mother can bear to give away her ice cream. She does not mind not getting any from her mother’s bowl, and her mother knows this. Her mother understands everything about her.

As they drive her mother sighs. When her mother is far away like this she tries to bring her back. She asks her about her life when she was a child. Were there really three hundred and sixty-five windows in your house? she asks, though she already knows the answer.

—Yes, one for every day of the year, her mother says.

—And two stairs?

—Two stairs. One lovely wide one in the front hall and a narrow one near the back kitchen.

Her mother’s home was called Easterfield. She remembers it from when she was very small, a big house with tall windows and a wide lawn facing the wrong way—facing out to the fields instead of to the road—and a gravel yard with barns where her father parked the car. And upstairs long landings with creaking floorboards and rooms with no light bulbs, and the creepy backstairs at the far end. She has a faint memory of her mother’s father with snow-white hair and round glasses sitting by the range holding a red plastic back scratcher in his hand. The house is all closed up now. On the day of her mother’s fourth birthday a blackbird flew into the dining room and tore a piece of wallpaper from a spot above the window. The wallpaper had swirling ivy and serpents, and was very old. She sees her four-year-old mother standing in the room looking up at the blackbird. Suddenly her thoughts turn dark. She is getting too close to the sadness of her mother’s life.

At home her father and her older brother are gathering in the sheep and lambs and flocking them in the yard, for dosing. She hates when there are big jobs going on. The night before the sheep-shearing or silage-making or cattle-testing she cannot sleep. She lies there, rehearsing it all in her mind, searching for dangers—open gates, charging cattle, escaping children—or the rage of her father when an animal breaks loose or the baler breaks down. By morning she is exhausted, and all day long she keeps watch. She is not as quick at the farm work as her brother and sister—at turning the turf or stacking the bales—and she is relieved when evening comes. She is always waiting for evenings and happy endings.

In the yard her father and her brother make hooshing sounds at the sheep and Captain the sheepdog rushes in and nips them on the legs. When they are penned tightly she looks in through the rungs of the gate at the ewes’ big faces. They look calmly back at her. She has the feeling that they know more than she does and that, somehow, like her mother, they understand her. And maybe even love her.

One day when she was seven she turned to her mother, smiling, and said, What was your mammy like? Her mother stopped for a second.

—I never knew my mother, she said. She died when I was three. A week later the bird flew in and tore the wallpaper in the dining room.

The mother was in bed, coughing, for a long time and her mother’s older sisters came home from boarding school to mind her and their baby brother. Her mother remembers being lifted up on the bed to give her mother a kiss.

—She had a white nightdress on and long hair. I put out my hand to touch her hair but they must have thought I was going to pull it so they lifted me down and took me away.

She wanted to say something but she was afraid she would make her mother cry.

—She told my sisters which dress to lay her out in. And to be sure to use the linen tablecloth for the meal after the funeral. I remember the men carrying the coffin down the stairs.

Her mother stands on the steps at the front door and calls her in. In the kitchen her grandmother is sitting by the range knitting. She tells her to take the brush and sweep the floor. Afterwards she plays with her small sister and brother on the floor. Her other sister, who is eight and the middle child, is cutting out cardboard shapes with scissors that are too big for her hands. Her mother is making bread at the kitchen table, and every now and then turns to check the steaming saucepans on the cooker. Her mother is always working, inside and out—putting down fires, making meals, bringing in turf. She is always tired. Sometimes at Mass she falls asleep and she or her sister has to wake her up to stand for the prayers. The work is never done. Every week brings new jobs on the farm. She tries to see ahead and help her mother—she hoovers the house on Sunday mornings before Mass and stuffs the chicken and sews up its behind with a needle and thread, the way her grandmother taught her.

It is not her father’s fault, all this work—he is tired too. But at night when he sits down to watch television, her mother is still at the cooker frying the tea, or at the table making apple tarts, or ironing, and the television is blaring and the kitchen is hot and the younger kids are arguing and fighting. Sometimes her mother snaps at her father and her father snaps back and her grandmother tells the kids crossly to have manners and then her mother cries. One winter’s night her mother flung a plate of rashers and sausages down on the table in front of her father and ran out of the kitchen. The food bounced on the plate. She followed her mother into the hall, begging her, but her mother put on her purple coat and walked out the front door. She ran after her, pulling at the coat, crying Come back, but her mother ran down the steps, and off into the night. She stood at the open door not knowing which way to turn. She thought she should be loyal to her mother but the little ones were crying in the kitchen. She ran in to her father. She’s gone, she cried. Are you happy now? His face was dark and lonely. She remembered that look on him before, when she woke one night and came down for a drink, and he was sitting in the armchair watching a film. Go after her, she said softly, you have to go after her. But he just sat there, sad and silent. When the kids were fed she stood at the front door again looking out into the dark. Her heart was shattered. Then her grandmother called her in. An hour later she heard the front door close quietly and her mother’s footsteps on the stairs. Later when she went up to her own room her mother was in her bed. She put her arms around her and kissed the top of her head. Her mother only ever kisses her when she is sad. She thought her mother must have walked to the end of the lane, and might have kept going if the lane hadn’t ended.

*

The dinner is ready and she goes outside and calls down to her father and brother in the yard. Her brother is inside the pen, holding a lamb like a baby in his arms, its legs in the air. She knows that sometimes they are happy, the whole family is happy. Some mornings when they are at the breakfast and her mother is standing by her father’s side pouring out his tea he touches her waist and she sees the look they give each other. Last winter when her grandmother went on holidays to an uncle’s house, her father carried the record player out to the kitchen every night and put on Jim Reeves, and taught herself and her sister to dance. He lifted them, in turn, onto his stockinged feet and waltzed them around the floor. When they were finished she said to him, Dance with Mammy, and she ran and tugged on her mother’s arm. But her mother was tired. She was sewing buttons on a jacket. Her father stayed standing in the middle of the kitchen for a minute with his arms by his side, staring at the tiles.

At the dinner table an argument starts and her middle sister grabs a crayon from her small brother’s hand and he starts to bawl. Give it back to him, her mother tells her. It’s mine, her sister says. She doesn’t care. She gives backchat to her mother and father all the time. To her grandmother too. Her mother is cutting open an apple tart now. Sometimes she is helpless; she does not know what to do or how to be a mother. She gives her sister a look across the table but her sister is defiant. The little brother thumps her sister and she thumps him back, harder, and her father shouts at her. Her grandmother says, That’s the family ye’re rearing now. Her sister looks across at her grandmother. Shut up, you, she says. Her heart is pounding and she kicks her sister under the table to make her stop. But her sister keeps on going. Then as her grandmother turns to get up from the table her mother reaches across and slaps her sister on the elbow with the tip of the bread knife. Her sister’s mouth falls open and she howls. Blood falls from her elbow onto her plate. Her mother has a terrified look and she jumps up and runs to the sink. Her father’s face darkens and his mouth clenches in anger. She expects he will pound the table with his fist and knock over the chair and storm out. But he doesn’t move. He is staring at her mother. They are all staring at her mother, and at the big drops of blood falling on the plate. She doesn’t feel sorry for her sister at all—her heart is raging at her sister.

After the dinner her father and brother go back out to the sheep and she walks around the back of the house. There are a few puffy clouds at the far end of the sky. The afternoon is very still, and the day seems long. She goes back inside, to the sitting room and sits at the piano. The room is full of sunlight. She practises her scales three times, and the arpeggios three times, and then the piece from her exam book three times, too. When she is finished she opens the sideboard and takes out the wedding album. Her father and mother are about to walk down the aisle. She knows their whole story—how they met, their wedding, their honeymoon. She has asked her mother many times. She has read, too, the little piece clipped from the local newspaper. Her mother’s dress was embroidered French brocade, ballet length. She carried a bouquet of pink carnations and maidenhead fern. There were seventy guests at the wedding breakfast. The happy couple toured the south of Ireland on their honeymoon.

She turns the pages slowly, searching their faces. Their shyness almost makes her cry. And knowing that their wedding day is over, over and gone forever, and they will never be this happy again. There is a photograph taken on the honeymoon at the back of the album. They are standing at the bonnet of a black car, smiling. The lakes of Killarney are behind them. Her mother is wearing a white sleeveless blouse and her Dorene skirt, the pale grey wool skirt that hangs under plastic in her wardrobe. It is the most beautiful skirt, with green and pink lines, the same bright pink as a stick of rock. Sometimes when they are going on a day out to the seaside she runs into her mother’s room and tells her to put it on. She thinks if her mother wears the Dorene skirt she might forget all about the work and the arguments and the five kids, and she and her father might be in love again, and happy. She gazes at their faces in the honeymoon photograph. They do not know what is ahead of them. If they knew what was ahead of them they might never have left the lakes of Killarney.

She hears her father’s voice and looks out the window. A lamb has escaped through the gate and her brother runs after it and scoops it up. She puts the wedding album away and goes to the record player and puts on a John Denver record. His photograph is on the cover. She sits back on the couch and he starts to sing. Rocky Mountain High. Sunshine on my Shoulders. She thinks of her father out in the fields all summer long. Sounds from the kitchen drift down the hall: the clatter of delft, the radio, her mother’s voice. She gets up and sits at the piano and places her fingers on the keys. She hears the back door close, and footsteps coming around the gable end. She plays high C. Her mother is crossing the yard. She plays each note, C, B, A, C, B, A and hums. She feels the sun on her mother’s face. She closes her eyes. You fill up my senses.

In the late afternoon her mother drives her and her sister to town for their weekly music lesson. Did ye practise yere piano pieces? her mother asks. Yes, Mammy, she says. Her sister has her knees up on the back of the seat and hardly answers.

She goes in first for her music lesson, and her mother and sister walk down the street to the supermarket. Mrs Walsh, her teacher, is strict but every week she praises her. Good girl, she says when she plays her scales. Mr Walsh enters and sets down a tray with a cup and saucer, a tiny jug of milk, a plate with French toast and a pot of tea, kept warm under a tea cosy. It smells delicious and the crunch of the French toast makes her mouth water. The room is very warm. Mrs Walsh is sitting so close to her she can hear her swallowing. She follows the sound of the tea and toast travelling down into Mrs Walsh’s stomach and the click of the knife and fork on the plate and the cup touching down on the saucer, and when she starts playing her exam piece she cannot bring her mind back, and her fingers trip each other and she makes mistakes on nearly every line.

Then it is her sister’s turn. She and her mother sit under a tree in the church grounds, and wait. Her mother takes off her sandals. The air is heavy and silent, as if there is something between them, waiting to be said. Her mouth goes dry. Suddenly she knows what it is. She has been waiting for it for weeks. Her mother is sick. One morning a month ago, she woke up early and walked along the landing to the bathroom, very sleepy. Her mother was walking ahead of her and did not hear her coming behind. Her mother’s feet were bare. Her nightdress came to her knees. And then she saw the blood, bright and fresh, at the back of her mother’s nightdress. She froze. Her mother kept on going and turned into the bathroom.

An old lady walks by and smiles at them and enters the church. Her mother is leaning against the tree. She watches her closely, afraid that any minute now she will clear her throat and start to speak the dreadful news. But her mother just tilts her head back and closes her eyes. She wonders if cancer makes you tired. That day of the bleeding her mother was pale and quiet. She watched her all the time; she followed her around the kitchen and outside for turf. That night she could not sleep. She lay listening to the sounds of the house and praying for her mother and waiting for morning to come. In the dark she remembered all the things her mother had ever told her. She imagined the small girl her mother was, and the dining-room table set for the funeral meal and the bird flying out the window with the ivy in its beak. She doesn’t know how anyone could eat a meal after burying a mother.

Her sister crosses the street after her music lesson. Her mother has dropped off to sleep against the tree. If her mother has cancer and if she dies, then they will be the same—they will both have had a dead mother. She and her sister rouse her mother now. She hops up quickly, her eyes bright, and she looks strong again. Her legs are strong. Her voice is strong. On the way back to the car they buy three Super Split ice creams and on the drive home they are quiet and content, concentrating on the ice creams. She tries to make hers last, but she keeps looking over at her mother and she licks too hard and too fast. Her mother is talking about what has to be done when they get home. She thinks the danger has passed and that her mother might be okay after all. If her mother is okay she will thank God for the rest of her life.

Late in the evening she finds her brother sitting on the wall of the pen. Captain is lying at the edge of the yard, his head resting on his paws, his eyes following her. She can hear the engine of a tractor out on the main road. The day’s work is done, and her sisters and small brother are inside, playing, and her father is drifting around the farm—closing gates, tidying the shed, folding old fertiliser bags.

—What happened? she asks her brother. The pen is filthy and wet from the sheep dirt, but it is not that. Where did all the blood come from? she asks. What were ye doing?

—Squeezing the lambs, he says.

—What’s that? she asks, pointing to the corner. There is a heap of blood and guts in the dirt, and little circles of grey wool. They are like woollen hats for tiny dolls.

—That’s where he cut them underneath with the penknife. He cut them and squeezed out the little yokes. He had to pull out the guts with the pinchers.

She cannot look at him. One day he hurt himself on the bar of his bicycle on the way home from school. Did you hurt yourself underneath? her grandmother asked him when they got home. He couldn’t talk with the pain. She remembers when her mother used to bath herself and her brother together on Saturday nights. She knows that the underneath in boys is soft and easily hurt.

She is scraping the sole of her sandal on the edge of a brick. She is afraid to look, but still she turns her head a little towards the corner. The flies are swarming around. The guts are like short fat worms, creamy-pink and shiny, with little veins all over them. There are dozens of small pale balls, like raw meat, among them. And the little wool caps. She presses her hand on her belly button and for a second she cannot breathe.

—They have to be castrated, her brother says, so they won’t grow into rams.

She is running down the road to the Well Field, Captain running beside her. She stands outside, looking through the rungs of the gate. They are all lying down over by the ditch, the lambs pressed against their mothers’ bodies. She is thinking of their underneaths, open and sore, against the ground. As she watches a lamb rises slowly. The mother rises too and the lamb lowers his head under her, for milk. He pauses and stands there. Then his front legs fold at the knees and he is down again. The mother kneels too and the lamb lets out a thin feeble bleat. She has never heard such a sound.

She finds her mother at the clothesline at the back of the house. The pine trees are leaning over them, making everything darker. As soon as she starts telling her mother, the tears come.

—They have to do it, her mother says. It’s the way things are done. She is taking clothes off the line, shirts, pants, towels, and folding them into the laundry basket.

—They weren’t dosing them at all this morning, she sobs. You said they were dosing.

Her mother says nothing. She takes the clothes pegs off her father’s socks.

—Don’t be thinking about it, she says then. Put it out of your mind.

—They shouldn’t have cut them like that.

Her mother moves along the line, drags a sheet off roughly, folds it from the corners.

—They’re not able to stand up, she says.

—They don’t feel anything, they’re only animals. Her mother is frowning. She kicks the laundry basket to move it along.

—They’re bleeding, she cries. Below in the field now, they’re bleeding.

—God Almighty, will you ever stop! Will you? Will you ever just leave me alone?

The sun is setting. The little birds are sleeping in the trees. She stands at the gable end of the house, her head tilted, listening. Now and then she hears a single bleat in the distance. Soon it will be dark and everything will be silent. They will lie huddled against their mothers, all night long. She goes inside. They are all there, in the kitchen. The nine o’clock news is on. There’s a big search for a little girl who has gone missing on a bog. There are men out looking for her, beating down the heather with sticks.

She is afraid her heart is turning. And that her mother will know this, and then her mother’s heart will turn too. She thinks there is no one in the whole world as lonely as her mother.