Fiction

Foster
By Claire Keegan

February 7, 2010

Illustration by Simon Pemberton

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arly on a Sunday, after !rst Mass in

E Clonegal, my father, instead of
taking me home, drives deep into
Wexford
W exford toward the coast, where my
mother’s people came from. It is a hot
August day,
day, bright, with patches of
shade and greenish sudden light along
the road. We pass through the village of
Shillelagh, where my father lost ouro ur red
shorthorn in a game of forty-!ve, and
on past the mart in Carnew, where the
man who won her sold her not long
afterward.
after ward. My father throws his hat on
the passenger seat, winds down the
window,, and smokes. I shake the plaits
window
out of my hair and lie "at on the back
seat, looking up through the rear
window.. I wonder what it will be like,
window
this place belonging to the
t he Kinsellas. I
see a tall woman standing over me,
making me drink milk still hot from the
cow. I see another, less likely version of
her, in an apron, pouring pancake batter
into a frying pan, asking would I like
another, the way my mother sometimes
does when she is in good humor. The
man will be her size.
siz e. He will take me to
town on the tractor and buy me red
lemonade and crisps. Or he’ll make me
clean out sheds and pick stones and pull
ragweed and docks out of the !elds. I
wonder if they live in an old farmhouse
or a new bungalow, whether they will
have an outhouse or an indoor
bathroom, with a toilet and running
water..
water

An age, it seems, passes before the car

slows and turns in to a ttarred,
arred, narrow
lane, then slams over the metal bars of a
cattle grid. On either side, thick hedges
are trimmed square. At the end of the
lane, there’s a white house with trees
whose limbs are trailing the ground.

“Da,” I say. “The trees.”

“What
“W hat about them?
them?””

“They’re sick,” I say.

“They ’re weeping willows,” he says, and

“They’re
clears his throat.

On the housefront, tall, shiny

windowpanes re"ect our coming. I see
myself looking out from the back seat,
as wild as a tinker’s child, with my hair
all undone, but my father, at the wheel,
looks just like my father. A big, loose
hound lets out a few rough, halfhearted
barks, then sits on tthe
he step and looks
back at the door
doorway
way,, wher
wheree the man has
come out to stand.
s tand. He has a square body
like the men my sisters
sist ers sometimes draw,
but his eyebrows
e yebrows are white, to match his
hair. He looks nothing like my mother’s
people, who are all tall, with long arms,
and I wonder if we have not come to the
wrong house.

“Dan,” he says, and tightens himself.

“What way are you?”

“John,” Da says.

They stand looking out over the yard for

a moment and then they are talking
rain: how little rain there is, how the
priest in Kilmuckridge prayed for rain
this very morning, how a summer like
this was never before
bef ore known. There is a
pause, during which my father spits, and
then the conversation turns to the price
of cattle, the E.E.C., butter mountains,
the cost of lime and sheep-dip. I am
used to it, this way men have of not
talking: they like to kick a divot out of
the grass with a boot heel, to slap the
roof of a car before it takes o#, to sit
with their legs wide apart, as though
they do not care.

When the woman comes out, she pays

no heed to the men. She is eeven ven taller
than my mother, with the same black
hair,, but hers is cut tight like a helmet.
hair
She’s wearing a printed blouse and
brown, "ared trousers. The car door is
opened and I am taken out, and kissed.

“The last time I saw you, you were in

the pram,” she says, and stands back,
expecting an answer
answer..

“The pram’s broken.”

“What happened at all?”

“My brother used it for a wheelbarrow

and the wheel fell o#.”

She laughs and licks her thumb and

wipes something o# my face. I can feel
her thumb, softer than my mother’s,
wiping whatever it is away.
away. When she
looks at my clothes, I see my thin cotton
dress, my dusty sandals through her
eyes. Neither one of us knows what to
say. A queer, ripe breeze is crossing the
yard.

“Come on in, a leanbh.”

She leads me into the house. There’

There’ss a
moment of darkness in the hallway;
when I hesitate, she hesitates with me.
Wee walk through into the heat of the
W
kitchen, where
where I am told to sit down, to
make myself at home. Under the smell
of baking, there’s
there’s some disinfectant,
some bleach. She lifts a rhubarb tart out
of the oven and puts it on the bench.
Pale-yellow
Pale-y ellow roses are as st
still
ill as the jar of
water they are standing in.

“So how is your mammy keeping?”

“She won a tenner on the prize bonds.”

“She did not.”

“She did,” I say. “We all had jelly and ice

cream and she bought a new tube for
the bicycle.”

I feel, again, the steel teeth of the comb

against my scalp earlier that morning,
the strength of my mother’s
mot her’s hands as
she wove my plaits tight, her belly at my
back, hard with the next baby. I think of
the clean pants she packed in the
suitcase, the letter, and what she must
have written. Words had passed between
my mother and my father:

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“How long should they keep her?”

the y like?”
“Can’tt they keep her as long as they
“Can’

“Is that what I’ll say?”

“Say what you like. Isn’t it what you

always do.”

Now the woman !lls an enamel jug with

milk.

“Your mother must be busy.”

“She’s waiting for them to come and cut

the hay.”

“Have ye not the hay cut?” she says.

“Aren’t ye late?”

As the men come in from the yard, it

grows momentarily dark, then brightens
once again when they sit down.

“Well, Missus,” Da says, pulling out a

chair.

“Dan,” she says, in a di #erent voice.

“There’s a scorcher of a day

day.”
.”

“ ’Tis hot, surely.” She turns her back to

watch the kettle, waiting.

“Wasn’t it a great year for the hay all the

same. Never saw tthehe like of it,” Da says.
“The loft is full to capacity. I nearly split
my head on the rafters pitching it in.”

I wonder why my father lies about the

hay.. He is given to lying about things
hay
that would be nice, if they were true.
Somewhere farther o#, someone has
started up a chainsaw and it drones on
like a big, stinging wasp for a while. I
wish I was out there, working. I am
unused to sitting still and do not know
what to do with my hands. Part of me
wants my father to leave me here while
another wants him to take me back, to
what I know.
know. I am in a spot where I can
neither be what I always am nor turn
into what I could be.

The kettle rumbles up to the boiling

point, its steel lid clapping.
c lapping. Kinsella gets
a stack of plates from the cupboard,
opens a drawer and takes out knives and
forks, teaspoons. He opens a jar of
beetroot and puts it on a saucer with a
little serving fork, leaves out sandwich
spread and salad cream. Already there’s a
bowl of tomatoes and onions, chopped
!ne, a fresh loaf, ham, a block of red
cheddar.

“And what way is Mary?” the woman

says.

“Mary? She’s coming near her time.”

“I suppose the last babby is getting

hardy?”

“Aye,” Da says. “He’s crawling. It’s

feeding them that
that’’s the trouble. T
There’
here’ss
no appetite like a child’s and, believe you
me, this one is no di #erent.”

“Ah, don’t we all eat in spurts, the same

as we grow,” the woman says, as though
this is something he should know
know..

“She’ll ate but you can work her.”

Kinsella looks up at his wife. “There’ll

be no need for any of that,” he says.
“The child will have no more to do than
help Edna around the house.”

“We’ll keep the child gladly,” the

woman echoes. “She’s welcome here.”

When we sit in at the table, Da tastes

the ham and reaches for the beetroot.
He doesn’t
doesn’t use the serving fork but
pitches it onto the plate with his own. It
stains the pink ham, bleeds. Tea is
poured. There’s a patchy silence as we
eat, our knives and forks breaking up
what’s on our plates. After some little
scraps of speech, the tart is cut
cut.. Cr
Cream
eam
falls over the hot pastry, into warm
pools.

Now that my father has delivered me

and eaten his !ll, he is anxious to light
his fag and get away. Always, it’s the
same: he never stays in any place long
after he’s eaten, not like my mother, who
would talk until it grew dark and light
again. This, at least, is what my father
says. I have never known it to happen.
With my mother it is all work: us, the
butter-making, the dinners, the washing
up and getting up and getting ready for
Mass and school, weaning calves, and
hiring men to plow and harrow the
!elds, stretching the money and sett
setting
ing
the alarm for a time before the sun rises.
But this is a di#erent type of house.
Here there is room to think. There may
even be money to spare.

“I’d better hit the road,” Da says.

“What hurry is on you?” Kinsella says.

“The daylight is burning, an

and
d I’ve yet
the spuds to
t o spray
spray.”
.”

“There’s no fear of blight these

evenings,” the woman says, but she gets
up anyway, and goes out the back door
with a sharp knife. A silence climbs
between the men while she is gone.

“Give this to Mary,” she says, coming in.

“I’m snowed under with rhubarb,
whatever kind of year it is.”

My father takes the rhubarb from her,

but it is as awkward as the baby in his
arms. A stalk falls to the "oor and then
another.. H
another Hee waits for her to pick them
up, to hand them to him. She waits for
him to do it himself. In the end, it’s
Kinsella who stoops. “There now,” he
says.

Out in the yard, m myy father throws the

rhubarb onto the back
bac k seat, gets in
behind the wheel, and starts the engine.
“Good luck to ye,” he says. “I hope this
girl will give no trouble.” He turns to
me. “T
“Try
ry not to fall into the !re, you.”

I watch him reverse, turn in to the lane,

and drive away. Why did he leave
without so much as a goodbye or ever
mentioning when he would come back
for me?

“What’s ailing you, child?” the woman

says.

I look at my feet, dirty in my sandals.

Kinsella stands in close. “Whatever it is,

tell us. W
Wee won’t mind.”

“Lord God Almighty, didn’t he go and

forget all about your wee bits and bobs!”
the woman says. “No wonder you’re in a
state. Well, hasn’t he a head like a sieve,
the same man.”

“Not a word about it,” Kinsella says.

“We’ll have you togged out in no time.”

When I follow the woman back inside, I

want her to say something, to put me at
ease. Instead, she clears the table, picks
up the sharp knife, and stands at the
window,, washing the blade under the
window
running tap. She stares at me as she
wipes it clean and puts it away.
away.

“Now, girleen,” she says. “I think it’s

nearly time you had a bath.”

he takes me upstairs to a bathroom,

S plugs the drain, and turns the taps
on full. “Hands up,” she says, and pulls
my dress o#.

She tests the water and I step in,

trusting her, but the water is too hot,
and I step back out.

“Get in,” she says.

“It’s too hot.”

“You’ll
“You’ll get used to it.”

I put one foot through the steam and

feel, again, the same rough scald. I keep
my foot in the water, and then, when I
think I can’t stand it any longer, my
thinking changes, and I can. The water
is deeper than any I have ever bathed in.
Our mother bathes us in what little she
can, and makes us share. After a while, I
lie back and through the steam watch
the woman as she scrubs
scr ubs my feet. The
dirt under my nails she scrapes out with
tweezers. She squeezes shampoo from a
plastic bottle, lathers my hair, and rinses
the lather o#. Then
Then she makes me stand
and soaps me all over with a ccloth.
loth. H
Her
er
hands are like my mother’s hands but
there is something else in them, too,
something I have never felt before and
have no name for. This is a new place,
and new words are needed.

“Now your clothes,”

c lothes,” she says.

“I don’t
don’t have any clothes.”

“Of course you don’t.” She pauses.

“Would some of our old things do you
for now?”

“I don’t mind.”

“Good girl.”

She takes me to a bedroom, at the other

side of the stairs,
st airs, and looks through a
chest of drawers.

“Maybe these will !t you.”

She is holding a pair of old-fashioned

trousers and a new plaid shirt. The
sleeves and legs are a bit too long but
the waist tightens with a canvas belt, to
!t me.

“There now,” she says.

“Mammy says I have to change my

pants every
ever y day
day.”
.”

“And what else does your mammy say?”

“She says you can keep me for as long as

you like.”

She laughs at this and brushes the knots

out of my hair, and turns quiet. The
windows are open and I see a stretch of
lawn, a vegetable garden, edible things
growing in rows, spiky yellow dahlias, a
crow with something in his beak which
he slowly breaks in two and eats.