Read Online Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan - Free Book Online
Authors: Claire Keegan
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coming in. She shuts the door and walks into the scullery to fill the kettle. There on her sink is the retriever and with Deeganâs good china cups, her two youngest stand rinsing the suds off his back. She doesnât really care but the girl sees her and Martha feels compelled to scold.
âDid I say you could wash that dog in here?â
âYou said nothing about Judge.â
âJudge. Is that his name?â
âI called him that yesterday.â
âYouâll not bathe him in that sink again. Do you hear?â
âHeâs my birthday present. At least Daddy bought me a dog. You bought me nothing.â
âAre you jealous?â asks the boy.
âWhat did you say?â asks Martha.
âWho cares?â he says. Itâs a phrase heâs heard a neighbour use which he thinks is worth repeating.
âI care,â says the girl, reaching again for water.
Martha takes her tea out to the yard where things always seem a fraction easier. She looks down the lane. The oaks are losing their leaves so quickly now. She drinks her tea, takes the stake off the henhouse door and opens it wide. Her fowl rush past in a sweep of red feathers and dust, racing for the feed and the open air. She stoops and reaches into their nests for eggs.
She strides back in to make the breakfast, feeling treacherous . She often feels treacherous in the mornings. She wishes her husband and her children were gone for the day. Always a part of her craves the solitude that will let her mind calm down and her memory surface.
On a hot pan she watches the eggs grow white and harden . Never has she been able to eat them. This morning she longs again for sheepâs liver or a kidney. Sheâs always had a taste for such things but Deegan wonât have it. What would the neighbours think? The Deegans never ate but the best and heâll not see his wife standing at the butcherâs stall, ordering liver. She stands there in her apron on a Tuesday wishing sheâd married another man, a Dubliner, perhaps, who would stroll down to a butcherâs shop andbuy whatever she craved, a man who couldnât care less what neighbours think.
With the pan spitting, she walks outside and at her loudest , shouts. The desperation in her voice travels all the way down into Aghowleâs valley, and the valley sends back her words.
âMy God,â says Deegan when he comes in from the milking , âweâll be lucky if we donât have the whole parish here.â
The Deegans eat and, with full stomachs, go their separate ways. The eldest cycles off to the Vocational School. He has just the one year left and will then become apprentice to his uncle, the plasterer who lives at Haroldâs Cross. The simpleton heads off to the parlour, gets down on his knees and sets to work on his farm. So far heâs built a boundary with dead fir cones and marked out the fields. Today he will start on his dwelling house. Before the week comes to an end, heâll have it thatched. Judge walks with the girl down the lane to the school bus. When he gets back, Martha places the frying pan on the kitchen floor and watches while he licks it clean. Without so much as a wipe she hangs it back up on its hook. Let them all get sick, she thinks. She doesnât care. Something has to happen.
She takes Judge up the wood. The sun is striking against the hazel. It is almost ten. Martha can, by now, tell what time it is without ever glancing at the clock. A blue sky is shedding rain. Some things she will never understand. Why is the winter sun whiter than Julyâs? Why hadnât the girlâs father ever written? She had waited for so long. She shakes her head at the absurd part of her that hasnât given up, and shelters for a while under the chestnut.
Judge is glad he cannot speak. He has never understood the human compulsion for conversation: people, when they speak, say useless things that seldom if ever
âDid I say you could wash that dog in here?â
âYou said nothing about Judge.â
âJudge. Is that his name?â
âI called him that yesterday.â
âYouâll not bathe him in that sink again. Do you hear?â
âHeâs my birthday present. At least Daddy bought me a dog. You bought me nothing.â
âAre you jealous?â asks the boy.
âWhat did you say?â asks Martha.
âWho cares?â he says. Itâs a phrase heâs heard a neighbour use which he thinks is worth repeating.
âI care,â says the girl, reaching again for water.
Martha takes her tea out to the yard where things always seem a fraction easier. She looks down the lane. The oaks are losing their leaves so quickly now. She drinks her tea, takes the stake off the henhouse door and opens it wide. Her fowl rush past in a sweep of red feathers and dust, racing for the feed and the open air. She stoops and reaches into their nests for eggs.
She strides back in to make the breakfast, feeling treacherous . She often feels treacherous in the mornings. She wishes her husband and her children were gone for the day. Always a part of her craves the solitude that will let her mind calm down and her memory surface.
On a hot pan she watches the eggs grow white and harden . Never has she been able to eat them. This morning she longs again for sheepâs liver or a kidney. Sheâs always had a taste for such things but Deegan wonât have it. What would the neighbours think? The Deegans never ate but the best and heâll not see his wife standing at the butcherâs stall, ordering liver. She stands there in her apron on a Tuesday wishing sheâd married another man, a Dubliner, perhaps, who would stroll down to a butcherâs shop andbuy whatever she craved, a man who couldnât care less what neighbours think.
With the pan spitting, she walks outside and at her loudest , shouts. The desperation in her voice travels all the way down into Aghowleâs valley, and the valley sends back her words.
âMy God,â says Deegan when he comes in from the milking , âweâll be lucky if we donât have the whole parish here.â
The Deegans eat and, with full stomachs, go their separate ways. The eldest cycles off to the Vocational School. He has just the one year left and will then become apprentice to his uncle, the plasterer who lives at Haroldâs Cross. The simpleton heads off to the parlour, gets down on his knees and sets to work on his farm. So far heâs built a boundary with dead fir cones and marked out the fields. Today he will start on his dwelling house. Before the week comes to an end, heâll have it thatched. Judge walks with the girl down the lane to the school bus. When he gets back, Martha places the frying pan on the kitchen floor and watches while he licks it clean. Without so much as a wipe she hangs it back up on its hook. Let them all get sick, she thinks. She doesnât care. Something has to happen.
She takes Judge up the wood. The sun is striking against the hazel. It is almost ten. Martha can, by now, tell what time it is without ever glancing at the clock. A blue sky is shedding rain. Some things she will never understand. Why is the winter sun whiter than Julyâs? Why hadnât the girlâs father ever written? She had waited for so long. She shakes her head at the absurd part of her that hasnât given up, and shelters for a while under the chestnut.
Judge is glad he cannot speak. He has never understood the human compulsion for conversation: people, when they speak, say useless things that seldom if ever
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