generations of birds ago.
'That is a robin's egg maybe,' he said.
'Maybe,' I said.
'Or a lark.'
'Yes.'
'I will put it back anyhow,' he said, swallowing again, as if his tongue were hardened at the root, his throat bulging for a moment.
'I don't know where all the dust comes from,' he said. 'I sweep it every day and there is always dust, by God there is, ancient dust. Not new dust, never new dust.'
'No,' I said, 'No. Forgive me.'
He straightened a moment and looked at me.
'What is your name?' he said.
'I don't know,' I said, in a sudden panic. I have known him for decades. Why was he asking me this question? 'You don't know your own name?' 'I know it. I forget it.' 'Why do you sound frightened?' 'I don't know.'
'There is no need,' he said, and taking the dust into his dustpan neatly, began to leave the room. 'Anyhow, I know your name.'
I started to cry, not like a child, but like the old old woman I am, slow, slight tears that no one sees, no one dries.
Next thing my father knew, the civil war was upon us.
I write this to stop my tears. I stab the words into the page with my biro, as if pinning myself there.
Before the civil war there was another war against the country being ruled from England but that was not much fought in
Sligo.
I am quoting my husband's brother Jack when I write this, or at least I hear Jack's voice in the sentences. Jack's vanished voice. Neutral. Jack, like my mother, was master of the neutral tone, if not of neutrality. For Jack eventually donned an English uniform and fought against Hitler in that later war – I nearly said, that real war. He was a brother also of Eneas McNulty.
The three brothers, Jack, Tom and Eneas. Oh, yes.
In the west of Ireland by the way Eneas is three syllables, En-ee-as. In Cork I fear it is two, and sounds more like a person's backside than anything else.
But the civil war was definitely fought in Sligo, and all along the western seaboard, with fierce application.
The Free Staters had accepted the treaty with England. The Irregulars so-called had baulked at it like horses at a broken bridge in the darkness. Because left out of the whole matter was the North of the country, and it seemed to them that what had been accepted was an Ireland without a head, a body lopped off at the shoulders. That was Carson's crowd in the North that kept them linked to England.
It always puzzled me that one of Jack's proudest boasts was that he was a cousin of Carson. But that is by the way.
There was a lot of hatred in Ireland in those times. I was fourteen, a girl trying to bloom up into the world. Fumes of hatred all about.
Dear Fr Gaunt. I suppose I may say so. Never did so sincere and honest a man cause maiden so much distress. For I don't suppose for a moment he acted out of ill intent. Yet he moi-dered me, as the country people used to say. And in a time previous to that he moidered my father.
I have said he was a little man, by which I mean, the crown of his head was at an equal level to my own. Bustling, spare and neat, in his black clothes and his hair cropped tight like a condemned man.
The question breaks in on my thoughts: what does Dr Grene mean, he must assess me? So that I might go out into the world? Where is that world?
He must question me, he said. Did he not? I am sure he did, and yet it is only now I hear him properly, when he has left the room long since.
Panic in me now blacker than old tea.
I am like my father on his old motorbike, careering at speed certainly, but holding so fast to the handlebars there is a sort of safety in that.
Do not prise my fingers from the bars, Dr Grene, I beg you. Be gone from my thoughts, good doctor. Fr Gaunt, from the haunts of death, rush in, rush in, and take his place.
Be present, present before me as I scratch and scribble.
The following account may sound like one of my father's stories, part of his little gospel, but he never made a proper recitation of it, nor improved it a little in the telling,
'That is a robin's egg maybe,' he said.
'Maybe,' I said.
'Or a lark.'
'Yes.'
'I will put it back anyhow,' he said, swallowing again, as if his tongue were hardened at the root, his throat bulging for a moment.
'I don't know where all the dust comes from,' he said. 'I sweep it every day and there is always dust, by God there is, ancient dust. Not new dust, never new dust.'
'No,' I said, 'No. Forgive me.'
He straightened a moment and looked at me.
'What is your name?' he said.
'I don't know,' I said, in a sudden panic. I have known him for decades. Why was he asking me this question? 'You don't know your own name?' 'I know it. I forget it.' 'Why do you sound frightened?' 'I don't know.'
'There is no need,' he said, and taking the dust into his dustpan neatly, began to leave the room. 'Anyhow, I know your name.'
I started to cry, not like a child, but like the old old woman I am, slow, slight tears that no one sees, no one dries.
Next thing my father knew, the civil war was upon us.
I write this to stop my tears. I stab the words into the page with my biro, as if pinning myself there.
Before the civil war there was another war against the country being ruled from England but that was not much fought in
Sligo.
I am quoting my husband's brother Jack when I write this, or at least I hear Jack's voice in the sentences. Jack's vanished voice. Neutral. Jack, like my mother, was master of the neutral tone, if not of neutrality. For Jack eventually donned an English uniform and fought against Hitler in that later war – I nearly said, that real war. He was a brother also of Eneas McNulty.
The three brothers, Jack, Tom and Eneas. Oh, yes.
In the west of Ireland by the way Eneas is three syllables, En-ee-as. In Cork I fear it is two, and sounds more like a person's backside than anything else.
But the civil war was definitely fought in Sligo, and all along the western seaboard, with fierce application.
The Free Staters had accepted the treaty with England. The Irregulars so-called had baulked at it like horses at a broken bridge in the darkness. Because left out of the whole matter was the North of the country, and it seemed to them that what had been accepted was an Ireland without a head, a body lopped off at the shoulders. That was Carson's crowd in the North that kept them linked to England.
It always puzzled me that one of Jack's proudest boasts was that he was a cousin of Carson. But that is by the way.
There was a lot of hatred in Ireland in those times. I was fourteen, a girl trying to bloom up into the world. Fumes of hatred all about.
Dear Fr Gaunt. I suppose I may say so. Never did so sincere and honest a man cause maiden so much distress. For I don't suppose for a moment he acted out of ill intent. Yet he moi-dered me, as the country people used to say. And in a time previous to that he moidered my father.
I have said he was a little man, by which I mean, the crown of his head was at an equal level to my own. Bustling, spare and neat, in his black clothes and his hair cropped tight like a condemned man.
The question breaks in on my thoughts: what does Dr Grene mean, he must assess me? So that I might go out into the world? Where is that world?
He must question me, he said. Did he not? I am sure he did, and yet it is only now I hear him properly, when he has left the room long since.
Panic in me now blacker than old tea.
I am like my father on his old motorbike, careering at speed certainly, but holding so fast to the handlebars there is a sort of safety in that.
Do not prise my fingers from the bars, Dr Grene, I beg you. Be gone from my thoughts, good doctor. Fr Gaunt, from the haunts of death, rush in, rush in, and take his place.
Be present, present before me as I scratch and scribble.
The following account may sound like one of my father's stories, part of his little gospel, but he never made a proper recitation of it, nor improved it a little in the telling,
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