The Insect Rosary

by Sarah Armstrong

  ‘No, no time for a stopover. We were just so eager to get here after all that getting ready, sorting out the packing and stuff. It took us about a month, getting the house sitter organised and, wow, just choosing what to bring. We’re here a while, I know, but it’s always an upheaval. Holidays, why do we do it to ourselves?’ He laughed his tight, nervous laugh. ‘But it’s going to be great, seriously. It’s going to be great.’

  Donn held his cup out for a refill. ‘It will be busy when Bernadette gets here.’

  Agatha snorted.

  ‘What?’ said Nancy. ‘What do you mean, she’s coming? After us?’

  Donn shrugged and held his cup out. Nancy took the teapot over, filled his cup and returned with the milk. She sat down heavily at the table and held her hands together. Elian started coughing and spitting tea back into his cup.

  ‘God, sorry. There’s something in the bottom of this cup. What the hell is it?’ He spat again.

  Agatha crossed herself and looked up to the ceiling.

  ‘It’s tea leaves, Elian,’ said Nancy, quietly.

  ‘Oh.’ He flushed.

  ‘Does your boy not talk?’ asked Donn.

  Hurley kept his face turned to the window.

  ‘Not much,’ said Nancy.

  ‘Doesn’t take after his da then.’

  Elian tried to laugh but it turned into a nervous cough. Nancy wanted to hide somewhere and cry all the tiredness and disappointment away.

  ‘I think we might have a lie down before dinner,’ she said. ‘Where are we sleeping?’

  ‘In the best bedroom. Bernadette’s family can have the girls’ bedroom.’

  ‘All of us in one room?’ asked Elian.

  Agatha nodded, ‘All of you in one room. The house hasn’t got any bigger.’

  ‘But Bernadette isn’t going to be here at the same time, is she?’ asked Nancy.

  ‘How would we know?’ said Agatha.

  ‘Let’s get the bags upstairs,’ said Nancy. They must have got it wrong. They were confused. Bernadette couldn’t be coming at the same time. Someone would have said something.

  Elian held the bags and gestured with his head for Nancy to open the door. Hurley followed them out of the room and up the stairs.

  ‘Hurley, go back and close the parlour door, please.’

  He frowned, but he did it. The hallway that Nancy had thought would impress Elian wasn’t commented on. She’d forgotten how dark it was when the outer door was closed. The large, peaked glass panel in the ceiling above the stairs was covered in leaves and moss, giving a green undersea tinge to the stairs. The stair carpets were worn to creamy threads in the middle, still brown and red at the edges. Nancy led them in silence to the best bedroom, and hesitated before she opened the door. It wouldn’t strike them as the best bedroom.

  She pointed back down to the first, smaller landing. ‘The bathroom is there, if you want it.’

  Elian and Hurley looked blankly back at her. She opened the door.

  The room had two windows, one facing the front drive and the other facing a field on the left of the house. Or the right as you approached it. She wondered how she had described this room, if she had at all. Her parents had slept in this room and she didn’t really come in here much. The one thing she remembered was a commode hidden inside a normal looking chair.

  ‘Wow, what an old chair,’ said Elian, with no enthusiasm at all.

  She decided not to tell him. The bed had fresh bedding on, at least. She didn’t remember the last time she’d slept in a bed with sheets and scratchy woollen blankets. If Elian called it quaint she might thump him, but looking at him he didn’t look like he was going to say anything else for quite some time.

  ‘Where am I sleeping?’ asked Hurley.

  ‘They didn’t mean we should sleep in the same bed, did they?’ asked Elian.

  ‘No,’ said Nancy, unsurely. She noticed a fold down bed next to the wardrobe. ‘There’s a z-bed. But I think you could stay in the girls’ bedroom.’

  ‘You want me to sleep in a girl room?’ said Hurley.

  ‘I mean the kids’ room. It used to have the girls because there were more of them. The boys were in one room, but Donn sleeps in there now. There were four boys in one bed, so you could always share with him if you’re going to be picky.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘I’ll show you the room,’ said Nancy, picking up his backpack.

  He took it and slouched behind her. She opened the door to the much larger room, one double bed facing the large bay window also overlooking the drive like her room, and the other single bed against the left hand wall. Another window faced the paddock at the side of the house.

  ‘Pick a bed, any bed,’ said Nancy, wondering why she was talking like that. Tired, probably. She needed a sleep, but had to face Elian on his own first.

  Hurley put his backpack down and jumped onto the bed by the window. She thought of telling him it was wrong, that wasn’t the bed she’d slept in, but decided to say nothing.

  When she got back to the best bedroom she was relieved to see that Elian was asleep. She didn’t want to talk about Bernadette again. Not yet.

  3

  Then

  They looked like two cupboard doors either side of the fireplace. The one on the left was forbidden. The one on the right was a larder built into the alcove. This was where we got the glacé cherries from. Sometimes Sister Agatha gave them to us when we’d behaved ourselves and let us pick one out, stickily pulling it from our fingers before chewing it quickly and hoping for another. More often we dared each other to climb on the armchair and fetch them down two at a time. That was mostly me, even though Nancy complained that I’d had my fingers on them. How she expected me to balance on the arm, open the door and hand her the clear, plastic pot to choose her own, I’m not sure. That was only giving me more of a chance to get caught.

  This time I did get caught. The sound of the door opening and Nancy’s gasp made me twist and I fell from the arm of the chair onto the cracked, brown tiles of the hearth. My arm hurt like Nancy had kicked it with both feet at once and I cradled it like a baby until Mum came to see why Sister Agatha was shouting. I could hear Florence crying in the distance so knew she was already in a bad mood.

  ‘She’s a thief,’ said Sister Agatha, shaking her head. ‘Stealing from her own family. I don’t know what you’ve been teaching that child. I knew someone was, but I’m not one to point the finger. And,’ she pointed at Nancy, ‘that one’s no better. She knew exactly what was going on.’

  I thought later, after I’d stopped crying, that they played with blame like me and Nancy. That when me and Nancy were old and grumpy, we’d still be the same and try to wriggle out of getting told off. Adults got told off a lot in this house. Every time Mum was angry she called her Sister Agatha, and she did now.

  ‘Oh, you’re so much better than the rest of us. If only you’d had children you could have shown us all how it was done. What a shame you married Jesus instead, Sister Agatha.’

  Sister Agatha drew her black cardigan around herself and stood, arms crossed. ‘Agatha. And I know your children call me Sister Agatha too, just to be offensive.’

  ‘Look at you, all in black, just like a pretend nun. It’s no wonder, is it? Except they chucked you out.’

  ‘I left, and you know full well why, Eithne.’

  I had quietened now and watched with amazement as they argued above my head. They’d forgotten I was there, sitting in the white ash that surrounded the fireplace. Nancy was long gone.

  ‘I know it was nothing to do with me. I don’t know why you’re so touchy about it, it was your decision.’

  ‘When your ma asks you something on her deathbed you don’t have any choice.’

  ‘It’s not my fault you had nothing better to do than move back in here. I had a family of my own. I had a life.’

  ‘You –’ Sister Agatha looked down at me. ‘Get out of the fireplace so I can clean this mess up.’

 
I tried to get up without using my hands, but the brush was underneath me, my legs arched over the fire surround.

  ‘I can’t get up.’

  Mum came over to me and pulled me up by putting her hands under my armpits. I cried out.

  ‘Where does it hurt? Can you move your fingers?’

  After a physical check she took a tea towel from the kitchen, tied it around my neck and helped me place my arm inside it.

  ‘We’ll talk about this later,’ she said, and sent me from the room.

  I looked at my sling proudly. This would impress Nancy. I was officially injured and must look sad and remember not to use my arm until at least the next day.

  By lunchtime I’d forgotten and picked up my fork in my hand.

  ‘If you can do that, you don’t need a sling,’ said Mum.

  Reluctantly I slid it over my head but was pleased to see a large blue bruise marking my fall.

  ‘You were very lucky,’ said Mum. ‘The fire could have been lit, you could have bashed your head open, all sorts of things. You must never do that again.’

  I felt like telling her how many times I had done it without anyone knowing at all, but decided against this. I nodded and Mum’s eyes fluttered.

  ‘I know a very silly girl who stood on the side of the chair and fell into the fireplace and had to stay in hospital for three days because her brain had been squashed. You wouldn’t like that, would you?’ She seemed very cheerful about telling this gruesome story, her face tight with the effort not to smile.

  ‘Was it Nancy?’ I said, breathlessly.

  ‘No. I can’t tell you who it was as you would only think badly of them. You might even think that they had forgotten what it was like to be young and excitable.’

  I scanned the faces at the table, all blankly looking at Mum apart from Sister Agatha who was biting her lip, her face flushed.

  ‘I’m not sure concussion is a laughing matter, Eithne. No wonder your children are so badly behaved if that’s the kind of thing you think is funny.’

  Mum spluttered into her tea and took a few minutes to compose herself before she could finish her dinner.

  ‘As a punishment, Bernadette can help me prepare the dinner,’ said Sister Agatha.

  I looked pleadingly at Mum, but she shrugged and the subject passed for everyone but me. A whole afternoon spoiled by having to stay in the kitchen with long, black Sister Agatha instead of racing Nancy down the driveway to see who was quicker, or seeing who could cross the cattle grid quicker without letting their feet slip between the bars. I was getting good at that, although I had twisted my ankle twice getting good.

  ‘Can Nancy help too?’ I said, not looking at Nancy.

  ‘No,’ said Sister Agatha, ‘I have to keep my eye on you.’

  I didn’t have to look at Nancy to know I would pay for that, but it would have been worth it to have her there.

  When Sister Agatha took the plates into the kitchen Nancy leaned over to me.

  ‘Bern, I dare you,’ she said, ‘to call her name three times without stopping.’

  My eyes widened and I shook my head. Sister Agatha came back in with afters and I couldn’t look at her because I was thinking about it. Nancy knew I was too and was giggling too much to say thank you for her slice of cake.

  ‘Nancy,’ said Mum, ‘what do you say?’

  Nancy opened her mouth and laughed long and hard. When she got her breath back she managed to whisper, ‘Thank you,’ but by then I’d started laughing. I always took much longer to stop. That meant I usually got the blame. Every time I felt nearly in control I caught Mum or Sister Agatha’s disapproving stare and that was it for another few minutes.

  ‘Eithne, I don’t believe either of those girls deserves cake.’ Sister Agatha was poised to snatch them back. ‘“Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.”’

  ‘They can just sit there until they say thank you properly,’ said Mum.

  Sister Agatha sat down, cringing at each new burst of laughter. Florence looked from one face to another as she ate half her cake and sprinkled the other half in crumbs around her.

  I tried to stop. Sister Agatha had caught us and specifically banned us last week from saying someone’s name three times even though we explained that Nancy had jinxed me for saying something at the same time as her, and you can’t break a jinx without saying a name three times. And if you couldn’t break a jinx you couldn’t ever speak again.

  ‘What a blessing that would be,’ she had said. ‘I can’t believe your ma encourages all this devilish talk of jinxes.’

  ‘She doesn’t mind,’ swaggered Nancy.

  ‘But, as she well knows, calling someone’s name three times can be fatal. Why would you want to draw Satan to you, that’s what I don’t understand.’ She shook her head, ‘And when your mammy recites the rosary with you, do you thank God for the time she gives to you?’

  I knew that was a trick question, but Nancy went, ‘Oh, we ever don’t do that.’ That had been the end of that afternoon. Learning the rosary gave me very sore knees, and I didn’t want to spend another afternoon in penance, especially when I had to do the dinner anyway. But Nancy asked me to and I liked to make her laugh, especially about Sister Agatha.

  Now she scowled at Nancy instead of me, for a change.

  ‘Nancy, you’ll be washing up,’ said Sister Agatha, ‘after both meals today.’

  Nancy looked at her and appealed to Mum.

  Mum shrugged. ‘If you find everything funny you have to realise it irritates people.’

  ‘But it isn’t fair!’

  ‘It stopped you laughing.’

  Nancy scowled at me and picked up her cake.

  ‘What do you say, Nancy?’ said Sister Agatha.

  ‘Thank you.’ Nancy scowled at me again. It had definitely become become my fault. Everyone was waiting for me to beg for my cake too, but I couldn’t. I would laugh again, spit crumbs everywhere probably, so I sat and watched them eat and kept my fingernails deep in my palm.

  ‘Just say sorry, Bernadette,’ said Mum.

  Sister Agatha shook her head, ‘Never has the phrase blue-eyed girl been less fitting, Eithne, than with that one there.’

  I hung my head. I hated being the only one with blue eyes, the only one with dark brown hair. I told friends at school that my dad had blue eyes but it wasn’t true. It was just me. And Uncle Ryan, but we never saw him now.

  4

  Now

  Elian looked so disappointed that Nancy became quite enraged with him.

  ‘No, it’s not quite the European experience you had in mind, but it’s important to me. It will be sold, sooner or later, and I might never be able to come back.’

  They were having a hissed argument across the emptying suitcase, even though Elian was clearly trying not to.

  He spread his hands. ‘It’s fine. I’m just tired, and it isn’t quite what I was expecting.’ He hesitated. ‘Is it what you were expecting?’

  ‘Kind of,’ Nancy hedged. ‘I thought they’d be more pleased to see us, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s all I meant.’

  Elian crossed to her side of the bed and put his arm around one shoulder. Nancy shrugged it off.

  ‘It wasn’t quite what you said.’

  ‘We’ve got a month and we can stay a month. I was just saying, I’ve never been to Europe and Italy doesn’t feel so far away now we’re here. It was a suggestion, nothing more.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t what we agreed and I’d rather you didn’t just say it again.’

  ‘Fine,’ Elian backed away with his hands raised. ‘No problem. Just saying. It might get a bit cramped when your sister gets here with everyone. Is it the family? Or just her?’

  ‘I have no idea. I think they’re just confused.’

  The sun was filtering through the thick tree canopy. It was the only sun they’d seen all day. When they flew in the cloud was thick and low. When they waited for Donn to pick them up outside the air
port it had started to drizzle, and their drive to the farm was in full downpour most of the way.

  Hurley walked in.

  ‘Why didn’t you knock?’ snapped Nancy.

  ‘They said to get you right away for dinner.’

  ‘We’re coming,’ said Elian. ‘Have you been having a nice talk downstairs?’

  Hurley looked at him and then left.

  Nancy said, ‘Can you just not talk at dinner?’

  ‘You can’t mean not talk at all.’

  ‘I do. Just slow down and speak when spoken to. You’re very overbearing at times.’

  ‘Would you like to pick any more holes in my personality?’

  ‘I may do later. And for God’s sake, nothing on the oppression of the Irish people.’

  Nancy left the room to go downstairs and realised that Hurley had been standing just outside the bedroom door.

  ‘I thought you’d gone down.’

  ‘I was waiting for you. I don’t understand them.’

  ‘You understood that they wanted you to come and get us.’

  ‘They did this.’ Hurley mimed eating, walking upstairs, the number three and walking downstairs.

  ‘Wow. Complicated.’

  They waited for Elian and went downstairs, Nancy noting all the familiar creaks. They let her go into the parlour first and sat around her at the table. Agatha and Donn had started to eat so they helped themselves to the soft potatoes and slices of chicken. The light had faded from this side of the house, not even hitting the high roofs of the garage and barns opposite. They had managed to sleep through most of the day’s sunlight. There was tea on the table and Nancy poured for them.

  ‘Tea leaves,’ she said, as she handed one to Elian. He nodded and mimed zipping his lips.

  ‘When are you going to the retreat?’ she asked Agatha.

  ‘Agatha isn’t sure she wants to go anymore,’ said Donn.

  Nancy choked on her chicken and made an effort to swallow it down.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I am sure,’ said Agatha. ‘I am going.’

  ‘You said that with a houseful –’