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Authors: Claire Keegan
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improvetheir lives. Their words make them sad. Why canât they stop talking and embrace each other? The woman is crying now. He licks her hand. There are traces of grease and butter on her fingers. Underneath it all her scent is not unlike her husbandâs. As he licks her hand clean, Marthaâs desire to chase him off evaporates. That desire belonged to yesterday , has become yet another thing she may never be able to do.
Back home, she lathers her underarms and shaves them, cuts her toenails, brushes her hair and fixes it into a wet knot at the back of her skull, same as she is going somewhere . Then she finds herself on her bicycle pushing herself all the way to Carnew in the rain. In Darcyâs she buys a royal blue blouse off a rail, whose buttons look like pearls. Why she buys it she doesnât know. It will be wasted in Aghowle. She will wear it to Mass on Sunday and another farmerâs wife will come up to her at the meat counter and tell her where she bought it.
When she gets back she changes into her old clothes and goes out to check her hens. Jimmy Davis had three lambs taken, and lately she feels afraid.
âCoohoooo! Cocohoooo!â she cries, rattling the bucket.
At her call they come, suspicious as always, through the fence. She counts them, goes through their names, and feels relieved. Then she is down on her knees plucking weeds out of the flowerbeds. All the flowers have by this time faded yet there is no frost in the mornings. The broomâs shadow is bending onto the second flowerbed. It is almost three. Soon the children will be home, hungry, asking what there is to eat.
As she is bringing the fire back to life, Judge comes in and paws her leg. His tail is wagging. Several times he paws her before Martha realises thereâs something in hismouth. She kneels down and opens her hand. He drops something onto her palm. Her hand knows what it is but she has to look twice. It is an egg without so much as a crack in the shell.
Martha laughs. âArenât you some dog?â
Martha gives him milk from the saucepan and says the girl will soon be home. They go down the lane to meet her. She climbs down from the school bus and tells them she solved a word problem in mathematics, that long ago Christina Columbus discovered the earth was round. She says sheâll let the Taoiseach marry her and then she changes her mind. She will not marry at all but become the captain of a ship. She sees herself standing on deck with a storm blowing the red lemonade out of her cup.
Back home, the simpleton is getting on well. In the parlour he has planted late, brown paper oaks to shelter his dwelling house. The boy likes being alone and doesnât mind the fact that people sometimes forget heâs there.
The eldest returns from the Vocational School stinking of cigarettes. Martha tells him to brush his teeth, and puts the dinner on the table. Then she goes upstairs. She has things to think about. What she is thinking isnât new. She takes her wedding coat out of the wardrobe, opens the seam and looks at her money. She doesnât have to count it. She knows how much is there. Five hundred and seven pounds so far, she has saved, mostly housekeeping money she did not put on the table. No longer is it a question of if or why. She must now decide when, exactly, she will leave.
Deegan comes home later than usual. âYou couldnât watch that new man. Heâd be gone by three if you didnât watch him.â He eats all thatâs placed before him, rises, and heads out for the milking. The cows are already at the field gate, roaring.
That night he goes to bed early. His legs are sore from walking the steep lines and his feet are cold but before he can turn over he is asleep. In sleep he dreams he is standing under the oaks. In the dream it isnât autumn but a fine, summerâs day. Agust of wind blows up out of the valley. It is so hard and sudden â whatever way this
Back home, she lathers her underarms and shaves them, cuts her toenails, brushes her hair and fixes it into a wet knot at the back of her skull, same as she is going somewhere . Then she finds herself on her bicycle pushing herself all the way to Carnew in the rain. In Darcyâs she buys a royal blue blouse off a rail, whose buttons look like pearls. Why she buys it she doesnât know. It will be wasted in Aghowle. She will wear it to Mass on Sunday and another farmerâs wife will come up to her at the meat counter and tell her where she bought it.
When she gets back she changes into her old clothes and goes out to check her hens. Jimmy Davis had three lambs taken, and lately she feels afraid.
âCoohoooo! Cocohoooo!â she cries, rattling the bucket.
At her call they come, suspicious as always, through the fence. She counts them, goes through their names, and feels relieved. Then she is down on her knees plucking weeds out of the flowerbeds. All the flowers have by this time faded yet there is no frost in the mornings. The broomâs shadow is bending onto the second flowerbed. It is almost three. Soon the children will be home, hungry, asking what there is to eat.
As she is bringing the fire back to life, Judge comes in and paws her leg. His tail is wagging. Several times he paws her before Martha realises thereâs something in hismouth. She kneels down and opens her hand. He drops something onto her palm. Her hand knows what it is but she has to look twice. It is an egg without so much as a crack in the shell.
Martha laughs. âArenât you some dog?â
Martha gives him milk from the saucepan and says the girl will soon be home. They go down the lane to meet her. She climbs down from the school bus and tells them she solved a word problem in mathematics, that long ago Christina Columbus discovered the earth was round. She says sheâll let the Taoiseach marry her and then she changes her mind. She will not marry at all but become the captain of a ship. She sees herself standing on deck with a storm blowing the red lemonade out of her cup.
Back home, the simpleton is getting on well. In the parlour he has planted late, brown paper oaks to shelter his dwelling house. The boy likes being alone and doesnât mind the fact that people sometimes forget heâs there.
The eldest returns from the Vocational School stinking of cigarettes. Martha tells him to brush his teeth, and puts the dinner on the table. Then she goes upstairs. She has things to think about. What she is thinking isnât new. She takes her wedding coat out of the wardrobe, opens the seam and looks at her money. She doesnât have to count it. She knows how much is there. Five hundred and seven pounds so far, she has saved, mostly housekeeping money she did not put on the table. No longer is it a question of if or why. She must now decide when, exactly, she will leave.
Deegan comes home later than usual. âYou couldnât watch that new man. Heâd be gone by three if you didnât watch him.â He eats all thatâs placed before him, rises, and heads out for the milking. The cows are already at the field gate, roaring.
That night he goes to bed early. His legs are sore from walking the steep lines and his feet are cold but before he can turn over he is asleep. In sleep he dreams he is standing under the oaks. In the dream it isnât autumn but a fine, summerâs day. Agust of wind blows up out of the valley. It is so hard and sudden â whatever way this
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