little twist in the lips as always. But I can hear, almost feel, her brain thinking. Oh, oh, she loves that pony Billy, because she has great pride in him, and in the shining light brown wood of the trap, and in the glory of the high lamps. She loves that pony in the half-lights of an autumn evening, when she can clatter along the main road of Kiltegan, the big metal rims of the wheels calling out the music of her triumph in the world, the triumph of her thirty acres and the strange but palpable dominion of the trap. Never married, too crooked in the face, she will say, to marry, but I say too crooked in the head, what with her mass of dreams and her suffering silence, her awkwardness and her oddity - never married, but got this little hill farm of Kelsha in the happy run of things, the dowry of her own mother in the old days. When Billy Kerr speaks of selling a pony, there are many other matters attached in a long necklace of importance and scripture, the very scripture that keeps Sarah happy on her hill and her mind in general a passable human mind, and not a mind to languish in the county home, as my own father’s mind once did, because the meanings and musics of his own world were torn away from him and he could not find a singing to answer that pain and change.
Sarah stands in the glooms like some old queen of old, some old monarch of France before the changes maybe. The tide of her own unimportant history laps at her sturdy brogues. Go back, go back, she cries to the hens in the yard at eventide, even as she advances to feed them, go back, go back, like King Canute to the very waves.
‘I think I would find it hard to part with Billy,’ she says, in the little voice of a cowed child. And in that instance of childish sounds, the little girl breaks from the niche and flies across the flagstones of the floor and almost hurts Sarah by the bang into her knees. Sarah’s long sturdy legs are covered in the fresh linens of her yard-dress, she barely notices the affectionate girl, or seems to. Yet a long arm with a long-fingered hand drifts down and touches the head of the little girl, her brown hair in a cow pat of curls, that I must brush before the day is any older. Sarah’s face floats there like a window with a stretch of wood nailed over it to keep the weather out, its brightness blighted, interfered with. It is a greater thing even than I thought, the question of Billy. She has the severe bereaved look of a person at a graveside, the rinse-through in the skin a mourner gets, like the influenza, staring to the middle distance as if into the realms of death itself.
‘I think I would,’ she says. ‘Is that all the worth he has now? Ten bob? He’s only four year old.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘He must be seven now, at least.’
‘Is he seven?’ she says. ‘Even so, a cob like that has years in him. And how could I sell him? I would have to look at him in another man’s field as I pass by, and not have the feeding of him, and the talking.’
‘The talking?’ says Billy Kerr.
So I carry him on from there.
‘The talking about him, she means,’ I say, ‘with me, in the evenings. He has provided many stories up here on the hill, hasn’t he, Sarah?’
‘He has. But he also has his way of talking,’ says Sarah. ‘The scuttering and the slithering of his lips, and when he doesn’t like a thing, he’ll tell you.’
‘That’s right,’ says the boy at the fireside. ‘He speaks Irish.’
‘Ah well,’ says Billy Kerr. ‘Look, it’s only ...’
Then a rare thing happens. Sarah’s high head dips down, her frosty perm shows its crown, and light enough hair it is now, not the growth of old as dense as bog cotton. You can see the fine pink skin of her inner head. I know what she is doing. Just the odd time you will see it. The little girl knows too, because she can feel the small shudders in Sarah’s legs, coming down from her eyes and face bones. Sarah’s tears. She cries as elegant now as a film star,
Sarah stands in the glooms like some old queen of old, some old monarch of France before the changes maybe. The tide of her own unimportant history laps at her sturdy brogues. Go back, go back, she cries to the hens in the yard at eventide, even as she advances to feed them, go back, go back, like King Canute to the very waves.
‘I think I would find it hard to part with Billy,’ she says, in the little voice of a cowed child. And in that instance of childish sounds, the little girl breaks from the niche and flies across the flagstones of the floor and almost hurts Sarah by the bang into her knees. Sarah’s long sturdy legs are covered in the fresh linens of her yard-dress, she barely notices the affectionate girl, or seems to. Yet a long arm with a long-fingered hand drifts down and touches the head of the little girl, her brown hair in a cow pat of curls, that I must brush before the day is any older. Sarah’s face floats there like a window with a stretch of wood nailed over it to keep the weather out, its brightness blighted, interfered with. It is a greater thing even than I thought, the question of Billy. She has the severe bereaved look of a person at a graveside, the rinse-through in the skin a mourner gets, like the influenza, staring to the middle distance as if into the realms of death itself.
‘I think I would,’ she says. ‘Is that all the worth he has now? Ten bob? He’s only four year old.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘He must be seven now, at least.’
‘Is he seven?’ she says. ‘Even so, a cob like that has years in him. And how could I sell him? I would have to look at him in another man’s field as I pass by, and not have the feeding of him, and the talking.’
‘The talking?’ says Billy Kerr.
So I carry him on from there.
‘The talking about him, she means,’ I say, ‘with me, in the evenings. He has provided many stories up here on the hill, hasn’t he, Sarah?’
‘He has. But he also has his way of talking,’ says Sarah. ‘The scuttering and the slithering of his lips, and when he doesn’t like a thing, he’ll tell you.’
‘That’s right,’ says the boy at the fireside. ‘He speaks Irish.’
‘Ah well,’ says Billy Kerr. ‘Look, it’s only ...’
Then a rare thing happens. Sarah’s high head dips down, her frosty perm shows its crown, and light enough hair it is now, not the growth of old as dense as bog cotton. You can see the fine pink skin of her inner head. I know what she is doing. Just the odd time you will see it. The little girl knows too, because she can feel the small shudders in Sarah’s legs, coming down from her eyes and face bones. Sarah’s tears. She cries as elegant now as a film star,
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