An Irish Heart

by C M Blackwood

  Now that the snow approached, Thea and I made frequent trips out of doors, in order to stock up on the things she would need all winter long – ice or no. She assured me that the weather never kept her customers away.

  Though she did not say much about her parents at first, she did go so far as to say that she had never had much other family, save for them. (I learnt of one other relative, shortly afterwards; and you, of course, shall learn of him too.)

  Those days on Lennox Lane passed in a way so that you hardly even noticed they had come and gone. Life became a thing to enjoy, not to endure. I found myself not inclined to think about the gruesome, depressing things that I could have dwelt upon, if I had only chosen.

  ***

  There was a tree in the backyard which I loved to sit under. It was quite special, so it shall have an account all its own.

  I once asked Thea what kind of tree it was; for I had never seen anything like it. She only shook her head, and shrugged, and said that she did not know. The silver-tree, her mother had always called it.

  After I had heard the name, it really did seem quite sensible. I stood there looking at it, and puzzling over it, and studying with great interest its bark that did, in fact, look rather silver. Its bole was very wide, perhaps twenty feet around. It was smooth to the touch, without those rough edges that seem to characterise most trees. Not a birch tree, as some people called it (for it seemed that the colour white was as close as they could get to that of silver; even though most who had seen it claimed that it was coloured only light grey, which was quite usual, you know, for a tree). But no, no – not anything I had ever seen before.

  A silver-tree, it was.

  The most fantastic part of it, I think, was its golden leaves. Not yellow, not orange; but gold. Perfectly round, they were. They were the last to fall as winter approached, and the first to appear as spring came to call. They produced a lovely shade with the thick branches overhead, which hung down almost level with one’s nose, despite the fact that the tree towered almost thirty feet above the ground. When you sat beneath it, you became instantly filled with a calm and contentment that cured the sadness of even the longest rainstorms. The moment you dropped to the ground beside the bole, your eyelids began to droop; and even though the air was filled with the chill of late autumn, you began to feel as though the warmth of spring had entered your bones. That, I believe, is why it was my very favourite place out of doors.

  But that’s all that I have to say about it for now.

  ***

  I woke one morning to a strange sound. It was something of a harsh scraping, not inordinately loud, but possessive of an irritating, echoing quality.

  I pushed off my hillock of blankets, shivering with the cold. I stood up and cocked an ear, the better to locate the source of the sound. It was a scratching, grating, bothersome sound. It seemed to waft up into my ears, straight through the floor. I set off down the stairs in search of it.

  I found Thea in the kitchen, cleaning the hearth with a wire brush.

  “Did I wake you?” she asked.

  “No,” I lied, looking at the spot of soot on the end of her nose.

  “Good. But, since you’re up anyway, what do you say to giving me a hand with this thing?”

  I grinned stupidly through my lingering shroud of drowsiness.

  Twenty minutes later, we both sat at the kitchen table, wiping the soot off of our arms and faces.

  “Messy job, isn’t it?” Thea asked, rubbing determinately at a black spot on her left hand. Her sleeveless jersey was covered in smearing, sticking black powder. “I wouldn’t bother, but for the smoke that comes to swirl all round the room when I don’t.”

  We sat quietly for a few minutes, enjoying the early morning sunlight that flowed all through the windows. I could hear what sounded like a small army of birds outside, chirping loudly. I couldn’t help thinking that I detected a hint of anger from their ranks, high above the house in their battlements (otherwise known as oak trees). I wondered what sort of arguments took place between birds. I wondered, really, if their words made any more sense to them than to me. (“Stole my worm again, did you, Polly?” “What’s it to you, Rufus?” “I told you what would happen if you did it again.” “Do you think I’m afraid of you, you hot-tempered feather-head?” “Why, I ought to! . . .”)

  I realised, eventually, that Thea was looking at me.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  I laughed, shaking my head. “You don’t want to know.”

  “That funny, is it?”

  “Only to me, I think.”

  “It happens that way sometimes,” she said, somewhat seriously.

  I laughed again – this time at her seemingly ill-fitting solemnity.

  “Why, aren’t we full of bubbles today.”

  I stopped laughing and looked at her oddly.

  “Never heard the expression?”

  I shook my head.

  “My mother used to say it, all the time. Mostly when I wouldn’t stop giggling. She’d be cooking breakfast in her apron, saying things that she knew would make me laugh. Then I’d fall off my chair and roll all over the floor, crying and holding my stomach. ‘Aren’t we all full of bubbles today,’ she would say.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh at that or not. It seemed inappropriate. So I made my face grave instead, waiting for her to say something else.

  It was she who laughed this time. “You don’t have to look quite so sobre about it,” she said. “It doesn’t make me sad to talk about her. I like remembering her. Memories are important, I think – especially when they’re of someone you loved.”

  “How did she die?” I asked without thinking (immediately wanting to retract my question and clap a hand to my forehead).

  “She drowned,” said Thea. “She was teaching me to swim. She said it was ridiculous that a twenty-year-old girl didn’t know how to swim.” She paused for a moment, reflective.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. Quite all right. I was just thinking . . . Well, I don’t know, how much safer we would all be, if we didn’t intentionally do things like attempting to swim.”

  “If that were the case, we would have to avoid quite a lot of things.”

  She made no response; but seemed, instead, to fall to thinking.

  “I never understood how it happened,” she said finally. “She swam like a fish, you know. But she must have gone out too far – got a cramp, I suppose. Lord knows I couldn’t save her. I practically killed myself trying.”

  “I really am sorry.”

  “There’s no need to be sorry.” She shivered. “I just hate the water.”

  But it was not long at all, before she started up talking about her father. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “But he drowned, too.”

  “In the same place?”

  “No. In the ocean.”

  “What was he doing out there?”

  “He was a fisherman. A great fisherman, too! By the time he died, he owned his own company. But he still liked to go out on the water . . .” She shook herself again, as if still contemplating the mysterious causes of such dangerous undertakings. “He left one day in his slicker and galoshes, just like always. But he never came home.”

  “That’s very sad.”

  “I thought so too, at the time. But, you know, that was the place where he really loved to be – in his boat, out on the open sea. At least he died doing what he loved.” She rubbed at another spot of soot on her arm. “I hope that I’ll be able to say the same.”

  “I think we all do.”

  She sighed, and said, “That’s what I was doing up your way, you know.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Sorting through all of my father’s papers, with Mr Hinkley.” She looked sadly around. “Now the house is mine, and the land is mine, all the way down to the river. Then there’s the money – though I would gladly have given it all for my father back! But now it’s
mine too.” She gave another heavy sigh; and there came a catch in her throat, as though the sigh might give way to a sob. But it did not, and she held her head up again.

  “He can’t have been gone very long, then,” I said.

  “No, not very long. Mother’s been gone for four long years; and I have to admit, that Father was never quite the same after she died. I’m almost glad for him, knowing that he’s happier where he is now, with her.”

  She smiled, and we fell into an easy silence. (It was nice; for I’d not known many silences in my life, that were neither awkward nor ominous.)

  “Do you have any other family?” I eventually thought to ask.

  “It was only the three of us,” she said. Then she frowned and added, “Though my mother did have a brother, whose name is Dexter. He used to pop in at odd times, and stay for a few days – after which he would disappear without letting anyone know that he was going. I haven’t seen him –” (she paused, and screwed up her face in recollection) “– for about two years, I think. He came in mid-winter, with his head all covered with snow, and his beard hanging down to his waist. He hadn’t heard of my mother’s passing. When I told him, he only sat down here at the table, and stared at his boots for about six hours. Then he got up, tucked his beard into his belt, and went out the door without looking at me.”

  Her frown grew momentarily deeper; but then she shook her head and smiled again; and the subject of Dexter (surname then unbeknownst to me) was abandoned.

  “And what of your mother?” Thea went on to ask.

  “She died when I was two.”

  I kept the photograph (as well as my mother’s dress) hidden from sight. I’d not shown them to Thea.

  “Oh my,” she said. “That must have been very hard for you.”

  Rather mechanically, I answered in the negative; but then shook my head and added, “It was only a little difficult when I was younger; but I learnt well enough how to do without a mother. I was only a little jealous sometimes, when I saw all of the other children with their mothers. I didn’t understand why I didn’t have one, too. So I asked my father one day, ‘Da, why don’t I have a ma like all the rest?’ He said to me, ‘I guess she must not have cared too much about us, because she left when you were just a baby.’ I asked him why she would do that; and he told me that she’d grown sick of my crying. ‘You cried too much when you were little,’ he said. ‘You drove me halfway to the madhouse. That’s probably where your mother is now.’ ”

  Thea looked shocked. “That’s awful.”

  “Well, it was a silly thing to say, anyway, since he’d already told me that she was dead.”

  She smiled gently. “That’s not what I meant.”

  I wanted, so badly, to tell her how my mother had died. It was so scandalous to me, so very unacceptable to me, that I could hardly stand to keep it to myself, for just one moment longer. Yet I suspected that she would not ask; and it did not seem right to say it otherwise.

  She only reached out to take my hand. I looked at hers for a moment, not entirely familiar with the concept – and not entirely sure how I felt about its presence there in my own. I did not shake it off, though, for I presumed that to be rude.

  “Did you really have such a terrible childhood?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m sure it wasn’t the worst to have ever been had.”

  “You’re very strong, do you know that?”

  I was unsure as to the seriousness of her statement. But then I looked into her face, and realised that she was sincere – and I almost laughed.

  “I assure you, I’m nothing of the kind.”

  “I assure you that you are.”

  I sighed. “If I was strong, Thea, I would have left him a long time ago.”

  She examined my face, and was quiet for a while, but eventually said, “Come on, now, how’s about a smile?”

  I couldn’t help it; I felt one tugging up at the corners of my lips. I asked, “Did your mother say that, too?”

  “She was a woman of many words, my mother.”

  “I see.”

  She patted my hand. “You’re going to be all right, Katie.”

  I felt my brow furrow. No one had ever called me Katie before.

  Chapter 9

  We set off one morning into town, on a visit to the apothecary Leonard Ildris. He was a one-armed fellow with milky-colored eyes (either of which attributes would not have been very off-putting; but he was a terribly rude little man, and that did not help matters much at all).

  “Good day, Mr Ildris,” said Thea as we entered his shop.

  “Good day?” said Ildris, crossing his arms petulantly. “What’s so good about it?”

  Thea ignored this, and walked up to the counter to examine the many phials on the shelves behind it. She pointed to the things she wanted, and Ildris retrieved each one with a groan.

  After Ildris had accepted his payment, and I was turning towards the door, he called out after me.

  “Hey, girl there,” said he. “Who’re you?”

  “She’s a friend of mine,” said Thea, taking hold of my arm, and leading me quickly to the door. “Good day, Mr Ildris!”

  “One day it’s just the one hussy; and the next day it’s two,” muttered Ildris under his breath, shaking his head disdainfully.

  “What did you say?” I asked, turning about.

  “Oh, nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

  “Did you call me a hussy?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I heard you!” I exclaimed, resisting Thea’s attempt to pull me quite firmly across the room.

  “You didn’t hear anything, you little troublemaker. You’re what’s wrong with people today, I tell you! Young people with no respect, and women walking about the streets on their own! What comes next, tell me that?”

  I stared at him blankly; but then said, “At least I have both of my arms.”

  His mouth dropped open; and I thought it a good moment to make my leave. Thea hurried after me into the road, laughing behind her hand. She seemed unsure as to whether she wanted to scold or congratulate me.

  “It was a very nice walk,” I said, “but I don’t think I’ll be accompanying you here anymore.”

  She continued to laugh. “I think that that would probably be best.”

  ***

  “I don’t think I’m ever going to get this right.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I keep messing it up.”

  “How can you mess it up? I wrote it all down there in that book.” She tapped her finger on the page. “I didn’t even use the real names. I made up colours, and put little pieces of matching paper on the bottles.”

  We were sorting through what we had already collected in baskets, putting it all into phials, and adding to others what had been gotten from the apothecary. I was emptying one of his own bottles now, and mixing its contents with that of one of Thea’s phials. But I could not keep from scratching my neck, over and over again.

  “Is my neck red?”

  “Only because you keep scratching yourself.”

  “I think it’s a rash.”

  “Well, I can’t tell, because you’re all covered in fingernail marks.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Go and look at yourself.”

  “What’s the point of that? I’ll just try to wash it off.”

  “Wash what off?”

  “Whatever I got on me.”

  “There’s nothing on you.”

  “There has to be. I’m all itchy.”

  Her grin fell away, and she stepped towards me. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed. “You really do have a rash!”

  “I do?”

  “Go to the bathroom, quick. Come on.” She squinted at me. “Goodness, I think it’s turning purple!”

  I moaned.

  Over the bathroom sink, she scrubbed my neck with an odd-smelling bar of soap. “This should help,” she sa
id. “ It’s for just these kinds of occasions.”

  “So you’ve done this to yourself, have you?”

  “Just be quiet and let me wash it.”

  “All right!”

  I stood silently while she rubbed my skin raw. I didn’t want to say anything, because I suspected that she wouldn’t believe me, but I felt that I was having trouble breathing.

  She stopped scrubbing. “There. That should do it.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What?”

  “I think – I think . . .”

  I think I fainted, then. I woke what was apparently five minutes later, on the bathroom floor.

  “There was a bit of poison elder caught in that phial,” she said. “You seem to be deathly allergic. And I’ve said it a hundred times before, sure as the sunrise; but damn that Leonard Ildris!”

  I could, quite naturally, only agree.

  ***

  “You know,” I said one day, “I think I’m going to pay a visit to my aunt. I never even told her where I was going, and bless her if she came back to the house and found me gone!”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Thea, her eyes fixed on the pages of a book.

  “I might not be back before dark.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll wait on supper for you.”

  “Would you come with me?”

  She looked up this time. “What was that?”

  “Would you come with me, to Aunt Aggie’s?”

  “Well, I . . .”

  “Please?”

  “I’ve never even met her. Don’t you think she’d mind my coming to tea?”

  “Not at all. She’s – well, she’s Aggie. She doesn’t mind anything.”

  “I don’t know, Katie.”

  “Please?”

  She let the book fall down into her lap, and rubbed her forehead.

  “Won’t you please?”

  She sighed, and cast her book aside.

  ***

  “Oh, my girl!” Aggie exclaimed, rushing forward to wrap me in a tight hug. “Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been staying with a friend.”

  “Oh, that’s nice, dear. What friend is that?”

  I stepped aside so she could see Thea, who was lingering down near the bottom step. “This is Theodora Alaster,” I said. “She’s been very kind to me.”