A Greyhound of a Girl (5 page)

“It's quare stuff,” she said.

Scarlett laughed.

“More Granny-talk!” she said.

“How did she know it was going to be spaghetti?” Mary asked herself, out loud.

“Who?!” said Scarlett. “Granny?!”

“No,” said Mary. “The woman. Tansey.”

She was still fighting with the spaghetti, making sure all the sauce got in among the strands. So she didn't realize that the kitchen was suddenly silent. She stopped stirring—her wrist was beginning to ache—and then she noticed.

“What's wrong?”

Her mother looked pale. Her mouth was hanging open, a bit.

“Tansey?” she said.

“Yeah,” said Mary. “Why?”

“Who is she?”

“The new woman,” said Mary. “I told you about her yesterday, like. I think I did.”

“Yes,” said Scarlett. “You did. You met her again today, did you?”

“Yeah,” said Mary. “She's nice. She's funny.”

“Sorry,” said Scarlett. “It was the name.”

“What about it?”

“You never hear it these days.”

Mary watched her mother. She waited for her to speak again.

“Your great-grandmother,” said Scarlett. “Granny's mother. She was called Tansey.”

he morning's work was nearly over, all the jobs that had to be done around the farm. But really, Tansey knew, that idea—morning's work—meant nothing. There was the dinner to be made for when Jim and the other men came in from the fields, and then there were the jobs that would have to be done this afternoon, right into the evening and night, right up to the side of the bed. It was one long day of work.

But she loved it. On a day like today, Tansey loved everything she had to do. It was early spring, and the muck was still hard. She loved walking across it. She could feel its ridges through her boots. She'd just been getting the eggs out from under the chickens. She had a basketful of the lads and she'd be taking them into Enniscorthy tomorrow morning, when Jim was bringing the milk to the
creamery. She'd go with him, up on the cart behind the donkey. It was something to look forward to, the shopping, the bit of chat. She'd buy herself a bag of boiled sweets. Jim's mother would look after Emer and the little lad, James the Baby, while she was gone.

Emer was running ahead of her now, holding one of the eggs in both her hands. She'd had the flu. She'd been up in the bed for more than two weeks, and they'd been frightened for a few days and nights, with the heat that had come off her. But she was grand now, fully recovered; there wasn't a bother on her. She was charging ahead there, dying to get back to the house to show the egg to her granny.

“Hegg!”

She was shouting already, announcing her arrival. Tansey could see Emer's breath, like a little cloud sailing ahead of her. Their morning breath came out in steam, but it wasn't cold. It was one of those days, like an announcement. The sky was extra blue; the lambs down in the far field sounded as if they were right beside her. Winter was over. It would still be bright when they'd be bringing the cows in for the evening milking. Emer was wearing her coat, but, soon enough, they'd hang it up on
the hook and it wouldn't come back down till the other end of the year.

Emer would be three next week. On the Tuesday, that would be. Tansey would get the ingredients for the sweet-cake tomorrow when she was doing the shop. And Emer would be able to help her make it. That would be lovely, the first real time they'd bake together.

Everything was lovely on a day like this one.

She'd make the dinner now. Jim's mother would already be at it; the spuds would be on, boiling away. There were five mouths to feed. She'd do more of the churning after the dinner, after they'd cleaned the kitchen. She'd take the butter to the creamery tomorrow, and someone in Enniscorthy or even up in Dublin would be putting it on their toast or spuds in a few days' time. The churning was a hard ol' job, but then there was the result, the satisfaction. The butter. There was nothing like it. Jim had carved a beautiful T onto each of the butter paddles, so that her sign—T for Tansey—was on every pound of butter that she made. That was a great thing. She felt like a writer with her name on the cover of a book. Jim had given her the paddles at Christmas. Blushing he was, grinning, like a handsome big child.

She loved that man, her husband. And he loved her. She saw that every time he looked at her. Every time she caught him looking. Her husband. She still wasn't really used to that—even though they'd be married four years in April and they already had two children, Emer and James the Baby. The 11th of April, 1924. That was the day she stopped being Tansey Wallace and she became Anastasia Mary Stafford. Anastasia just for the big day, and Tansey Stafford after that.

She'd feed the greyhounds before she went in. She opened the gate to their pen. Emer had run ahead with her egg, into the house. She didn't like the dogs.

“Too bony!” she said.

And she had a point. They were skinny creatures, the hounds, too bony for petting. Emer loved the old sheepdog, Parnell. He lay beside the fire all day, too deaf now to hear the sheep or care where they were off to. But Tansey liked the hounds. Their pointy snouts rubbed against her hands. They knew she'd be feeding them, so all seven of them were trailing after her.

“Sure, it's nice to be wanted,” she told them.

There'd be no food for the hounds tomorrow because Jim had them racing in Enniscorthy and he'd want them
hungry to go after the hare. The ground was soft in here. She checked again, but it was grand: she'd remembered to put the latch on the gate. This corner got the early sun; there was no skin on the muck. She'd have to wash her boots. But that was grand too. It was one of those days; there'd be no ache when she bent down to take them off. No amount of work would make her feel anything but young. Tansey was twenty-five, and on a day like today you could add the word
only
to that: Tansey Stafford was
only
twenty-five.

The hounds were fed and happy. Tansey put the latch on the gate and headed for the house. She was hungry herself now. There'd be a new thatch going up on the roof in September. The decision had been made; the money was there for the job. The old thatch had been up there since before the hungry years, since the days when Jim's mother's mother was a child. There were mice up in that thatch that had never seen the light of day. One of them fell onto Tansey's lap one night, and her sitting at the fire, trying to see the hole in a sock that she was darning. A tiny little lad, but all the same, it gave her a great big fright. The scream was out of her before she could call it back. It startled Emer out of her sleep and even made
the baby jump, and him not even born yet, still snoozing away inside her. She'd felt like an eejit, especially when she saw the size of the poor creature that had fallen out of his home above. But Tansey had grown up in a house with slates. Her daddy was a policeman; she'd lived in whatever barracks he'd been sent to. Until she'd got the job in the drapery in Gorey, when she was seventeen, and she'd lived in a room above the shop with another girl, Eileen. Then she'd met Jim, when she slid on the ice outside the church and he was there just a little too late to catch her but just in time to pick her up.

“Were you deliberately slow?” she'd asked him later, when they'd become an item and everyone knew they'd be getting married.

“I was,” he said. “You'd a lovely way of falling. It was like a show.”

“It's just as well,” she'd said. “If I hadn't fallen, you wouldn't have asked me was I all right and I wouldn't have said I was and, sure, that's how it all started.”

“It was worth the bruises, so, was it?”

“Sure, I never looked to see if there were bruises.”

That was the way they were. They were easy with each other from the start, the best of friends before they knew
what each other was called. Tansey would have thanked the ice if it hadn't melted.

She stood at the door. She always did, before she went in farther. It was like walking into blackness if she didn't hesitate for a small moment. She took off the muddy boots while she was waiting for her eyes to catch up. She felt a bit of a chill now, sudden, like cold, wet fingers across her face. So she went on into the kitchen. It was full of the smells of bacon and cabbage and the cries of a child who had just dropped an egg.

She picked up Emer.

“What's the matter with you, at all?”

“The hegg!”

“You dropped it?”

“I did!”

“Ah, sure.”

“It's dead.”

“It's not dead, love. It's only smashed.”

“I kilted it.”

“No.”

“I did!”

“No,” said Tansey. “No. There's no life in an egg that isn't under its hen. And, sure, look it. We've a whole
basketful of them. D'you want another one, do you?”

“No,” said Emer.

“Suit yourself, so.”

Emer was grand. Tansey could feel it in Emer's little body. The upset was out of her and the shock was becoming a memory. Tansey looked across at Jim's mother and saw that she didn't need any help yet. Tansey could sit at the fire with Emer on her lap. James the Baby was still asleep, wrapped up in the cot.

Tansey went across to the big chair with Emer still in her arms. The chair had been Jim's father's, but Tansey had never known the man. He'd been dead for a year before she slid on the ice and met Jim. But all the same, she felt she knew him, because a part of him—his tobacco, and the smells he'd brought in from the four corners of the farm—still seemed to be in the chair. He'd been a difficult man, by all accounts, and he'd told Jim not to bother looking for a wife while himself and Jim's mother were still walking the earth.
Two wives into one kitchen won't go
. But, difficult or not, Tansey thought she'd have liked him. She always felt welcome when she decided to sit herself into the chair.

“It was only a hegg,” said Emer.

“It was,” said her mammy. “A fine class of an egg, mind, but only an egg.”

She got her fingers to the buttons of Emer's coat and helped her take it off. She felt Emer wriggle a bit so she could get out of the coat. All of Emer's fretting and upset came off with the coat. Tansey dropped it onto the floor, safe away from the ashes, and beside sleeping Parnell. She put her arms around Emer again.

“My dote,” she said. “How are you now?”

“I'm grand,” said Emer. “Close your eyes.”

It was Emer's game. Tansey closed her eyes and waited. She felt Emer shift her weight on her lap. She felt Emer's lips touch her chin.

She spoke her line—it had to be the exact same; that was the rule.

“Ah, now, I know that kiss.”

She opened her eyes, wide as she could.

“It's Emer!”

Emer squealed and Tansey got ready to do it again. But suddenly—before it became a proper thought—she didn't feel too good. A sweat came to her forehead, and she thought she was going to be sick. She sat back and hoped the dizziness would fade. She closed her eyes.

Emer knew there was something wrong. Tansey could feel it in the child's restlessness. She wanted to open her eyes, to get on with the day she'd been loving. But she couldn't. She had to sleep.

She felt a hand, a cold hand, on her forehead.

“Oh, Lord, the flu.”

It was Jim's mother who spoke.

“Up to the bed with you, Tansey, girl.”

“I'll be grand,” said Tansey.

“Don't fight it,” said Jim's mother. “And of course you'll be grand.”

Tansey felt Emer being lifted from her. She heard the protest, the whimper. She opened her eyes, but the room swam, so she shut them again and felt exhausted from the effort. She felt strong hands on her arm—Jim's mother's hands—and she tried to get out of the chair on her own steam. But she needed the help.

She was standing now, and shivering. But she opened her eyes and made sure she looked at Emer, and she smiled.