LITMIR.BIZ

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Ireland.’

      Tillie loved to hear the stories of Bridget’s upbringing in Kilkenny. ‘Tell me again, what do you miss most?’ she asked eagerly.

      Bridget was pleased to answer. ‘I miss the rolling valleys and the way the sun goes down behind the hills of an evening. I miss my folks and I miss other people – like the old fella that used to sit outside the pub of an evening and play his accordion, so the people would throw a generous handful of coins into his cap as they sauntered by.’

      ‘What else, Bridget?’ Tillie persisted. ‘Tell me what else.’

      Bridget laughed. ‘How many times must I tell you, before you’re satisfied? I shall have to be careful, so I will, or you’ll be up and off and across the water one of these foine days, so ye will!’

      ‘Just tell me about the music, and the dancing,’ Tillie urged, her grey eyes bright with anticipation in her homely young face.

      ‘Ah, the dancing!’ Rolling her eyes, Bridget leaned back in her chair; she could see and hear the festivities in her mind and her heart ached. ‘I remember the fair in Appleby, when the horsemen would come from all over Ireland and even across the Atlantic from ’Merica, just to show their horses and traps and watch the goings-on. And if somebody took a liking to one of their best horses, they’d offer a price and when the haggling was done, they’d do the spitting of the handshake and the deal was agreed.’

      Tillie cringed. ‘Ugh! I don’t think I’d want anybody spitting on my hand!’ She hid her hands behind her back as if to protect them.

      Bridget roared with laughter. ‘It’s the way things are done, so it is,’ she said. ‘Sure it’s been that way for a hundred years and more, and likely it’ll be that way for many more years to come!’

      Caught up in the housekeeper’s excitement, Bridget continued, ‘When the deals are all done, the men go down to the pub and celebrate, drinking and singing and dancing, too – and oh, the good crack they have!’ She threw out her arms with sheer joy. ‘I’m telling you, Tillie me darlin’, it is pure magic, so it is.’

      ‘And what about the dancing, Bridget? Tell me about that!’

      Bridget leaned forward. ‘Sometimes it would be one couple on the floor and everybody watching, and when their feet got a-tapping and their hands got a-clapping and they couldn’t watch no longer, they’d all link arms, so they would. Then they would all dance in a line, every one of them in tune with the other – feet crossing and jumping, and going high in the air as though they were one, and the tapping and the rhythm, and the noise against the boards …’

      Her voice rose higher and higher and soon her own feet were a-tapping and her hands a-clapping, and, ‘Sure, there’s no magic in the world like an Irish jig!’

      Suddenly she was calling for Tillie to clap a tune, and when the girl started, Bridget leaped to her feet and holding her skirt high, she began kicking out to the sound of the clapping. And soon the clapping got faster and faster and Bridget danced and laughed and it wasn’t long before she fell into the chair, face bright red and aglow with delight. ‘Come on!’ she told Tillie. ‘Get up and I’ll show you how to do it.’

      But before Tillie could do so, the sound of a child crying brought the laughter to an end. ‘Oh, the poor little divil, we’ve woke him, so we have!’

      Quickly now she ran through to the cot and took the child out – a healthy-looking little chap with a chubby face, startled from his afternoon nap by all the tapping and the clapping and the laughter that rang through the house.

      ‘Ah, sure he’s a bonny little fella, so he is,’ Bridget cooed, and soon he was quiet on her lap, his mouth open like a fish at feeding time and his small hand stroking her blouse as he woke up properly.

      ‘Will ye look at him,’ she laughed tenderly. She handed the child to Tillie. ‘Best get his supper ready, me darling,’ she suggested. ‘Then you might take him upstairs for his bath. It’ll soon be his bedtime, so it will.’

      Tillie put him in his high chair and there he sat, quiet as a mouse, chewing on his knuckles and watching Bridget as she gazed down on him. ‘I can’t believe how he’s grown,’ she declared. ‘How old is he exactly?’ She was never a one for figures – unless it was a strong man with a gorgeous arse and broad shoulders.

      Tillie looked round from buttering his fingers of freshly-baked bread. She added some little squares of cheese for Jamie to nibble on while she cooked his soft-boiled egg. ‘He’s a year and six months old,’ she enlightened Bridget. ‘A real little boy now, no longer a baby.’ She chuckled girlishly. ‘He walked along the sofa-edge yesterday, and his fat little legs went all bandy.’

      Bridget laughed. ‘If he keeps on like that, it won’t be long before he’s off to work with his pack on his back,’ she teased.

      The women were tender with the little lad, as he had been born with one of his legs shorter than the other, and found it hard to balance. Bridget studied the child’s features. Unlike his mammy, whose eyes were golden-brown, he had the darkest eyes; his hair, though, was the same colour as hers – the shiny rich brown of ripe chestnuts.

      Like his mammy, the child had that same quick smile and infectious laughter; though these last two years Lucy had not laughed overmuch, because she was lonely and sad, though as with every deep emotion, she tried hard not to show it. But Bridget knew, and she wondered now about the man who had come to her door. ‘There was a man here today,’ she told Tillie, who had returned with the egg-cup and spoon, and a small beaker of milk for the child.

      ‘I know.’ Tillie was as discreet as ever. ‘I heard him knocking the door down. He was determined to be heard.’

      ‘Lynette answered the door, didn’t she?’ Bridget wondered if Tillie knew more than she was saying.

      ‘Yes, I was changing this one’s napkin. The others were out. They’re still out, as far as I know.’ She held the beaker-lip to Jamie’s mouth again, cautioning him when he snatched at it and almost sent it flying. ‘Why?’

      Bridget thought a moment, then in a quiet voice she told Tillie, ‘Lynette described him to me.’

      ‘Did she?’ The girl wiped the child’s mouth and put the beaker to the floor. ‘I didn’t see him.’ But she had heard him. She had heard them. Yet she never spoke of what she heard in this house. Bridget had given her a roof over her head and she never questioned or judged what went on here.

      Bridget was quiet for a time, then she spoke, again in a quiet voice as though she was deep in thought. ‘I’ve a feeling it’s him!’

      Tillie had spooned a helping of yolk into the child’s mouth, but it was now all over his face, so she was wiping him with the flannel she had in her pocket. She looked up at Bridget’s statement. ‘Who?’

      ‘Edward Trent – the baby’s father. I think Lucy told you how things started with him. He followed her home from Wavertree Park one day and was all over her, the bad bugger. Had his way with her, promised the earth then cleared off about three months later. After that, her parents split up and she lost her home. Fat lot of good her so-called boyfriend was then, eh?’

      Having finished the feeding, Tillie lifted the child out onto her lap. ‘Crikey!’ Her eyes grew wide as saucers. ‘I thought he’d upped and gone to sea. Got fed up wi’ working on the docks, didn’t he? An’ he ain’t never been in touch since.’

      ‘That’s right – and good shuts to him. But bad pennies have a way of turning up again. And he was a bad penny if ever there was one – though she never saw it.’

      ‘She loved him, that’s why.’ Lucy had spoken long and deep to Tillie about her sweetheart, the father of her child. ‘He was good to her, wasn’t he?’

      ‘Not all the time.’ Bridget’s expression hardened. ‘I reckon he used to hit her – oh, not so’s you’d notice from the outside, but he hurt her all the same.

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