its shadows about
the room. “I’d appreciate you leaving it there, we were reared with it like,” the farmer had said when giving her the key. The flowing golden locks fell on Christ’s
shoulders and he pitied her. Once upon a time those same eyes had spent their days overseeing the daily life of God-fearing decent people, who toiled and trudged long hours in the fields and
returned only at night to be fortified by griddle cake and buttermilk before falling on their knees to give thanks for their little bit of ground and the strength in their limbs. Eyes that kept a
constant vigil in a town that had yet to know even the prosperity of the railway never mind meat plants, ruled then with an iron fist by a red-faced bull of a clergyman who rode his mare with his
riding crop in hand, who could by his own admission perform miracles. Cassie, Josie’s mother had known that town in her youth and had heard at first hand the story of the miracle he had
performed, instructing a distraught mother to put her sick infant into a barrel of holy water to cure her consumption, and not a whimper out of the people when it died three days later, of
pneumonia. A long way from the Carn of the Turnpike Inn and the fluttering bunting.
The eyes of the Sacred Heart had looked kindly down on Cassie Keenan every night of her life as she knelt on the stone floor of the kitchen where her husband lay snoring, her whispers drifting
like moths out into the silence as she pleaded with Him for a glimpse into the world to which He belonged, a world that was blue and never-ending, where her and her one wee Josie would fuse as one
and nothing bad would touch them ever again.
And when he went away to the markets and fairs, she combed her daughter’s hair and said a Hail Holy Queen into her ear for she knew that the kindness in the eyes on the picture above the
fireplace was the only hope she had.
Even at the end, Josie’s father had turned to those eyes and that face too, clawing at the grave as he cried out, “Don’t take my Cassie away from me, please Jesus please give
me my Cassie back.”
But there was no reply then either, not a finger twitch, the same immobile stare, and somewhere beyond, her mother, pale and serene beneath a blue sky in a meadow that never ended, waiting for
her daughter to come and be a part of her.
And when the Buyer Keenan called her to come to him in the days after her burial, she did not hear.
Cassie, Cassie can you hear me calling you come to me Cassie!
Cassie lay with her arms folded on her chest and if he called for all the days that would ever exist she would never hear him, and that was how the Sacred Heart made the Buyer Keenan sorry for
all the wrongs he had perpetrated on her and his child.
His face loomed up before Josie, his bottom lip quivering. He reached out to her with an unsteady hand. “I didn’t know pet. You were the apple of my eye. I swear I wouldn’t do
anything to hurt you. You don’t know what it’s like for a man. I’d kill myself dead if I thought I hurt you.”
Josie tried to turn away from it, but then she thought of her classmates at school, all those frail bodies in patched dresses, grown now like herself to women and some of them already with her
mother.
Was that where they were or was it all a dream? A blue and never-ending place? Or a handful of bones and a grinning skull, a stopover for worms under a cross on a hill outside the town.
Is
that what you are Molloy? You’re a long way from it now, with your flashlight shaking and your bitter words
. The side of Josie’s face tightened and she stroked it to ease the
pain.
The gas fire in the corner flickered. On the sideboard, Josie smiled in a London street, behind her the teeming crowds and flashing neon of the city. Her skirt was pulled tight against her
behind, her bosom visible just above the neckline of her sweater. She held her sunglasses delicately in her right hand. In those days she was Gina Lollobrigida.
the room. “I’d appreciate you leaving it there, we were reared with it like,” the farmer had said when giving her the key. The flowing golden locks fell on Christ’s
shoulders and he pitied her. Once upon a time those same eyes had spent their days overseeing the daily life of God-fearing decent people, who toiled and trudged long hours in the fields and
returned only at night to be fortified by griddle cake and buttermilk before falling on their knees to give thanks for their little bit of ground and the strength in their limbs. Eyes that kept a
constant vigil in a town that had yet to know even the prosperity of the railway never mind meat plants, ruled then with an iron fist by a red-faced bull of a clergyman who rode his mare with his
riding crop in hand, who could by his own admission perform miracles. Cassie, Josie’s mother had known that town in her youth and had heard at first hand the story of the miracle he had
performed, instructing a distraught mother to put her sick infant into a barrel of holy water to cure her consumption, and not a whimper out of the people when it died three days later, of
pneumonia. A long way from the Carn of the Turnpike Inn and the fluttering bunting.
The eyes of the Sacred Heart had looked kindly down on Cassie Keenan every night of her life as she knelt on the stone floor of the kitchen where her husband lay snoring, her whispers drifting
like moths out into the silence as she pleaded with Him for a glimpse into the world to which He belonged, a world that was blue and never-ending, where her and her one wee Josie would fuse as one
and nothing bad would touch them ever again.
And when he went away to the markets and fairs, she combed her daughter’s hair and said a Hail Holy Queen into her ear for she knew that the kindness in the eyes on the picture above the
fireplace was the only hope she had.
Even at the end, Josie’s father had turned to those eyes and that face too, clawing at the grave as he cried out, “Don’t take my Cassie away from me, please Jesus please give
me my Cassie back.”
But there was no reply then either, not a finger twitch, the same immobile stare, and somewhere beyond, her mother, pale and serene beneath a blue sky in a meadow that never ended, waiting for
her daughter to come and be a part of her.
And when the Buyer Keenan called her to come to him in the days after her burial, she did not hear.
Cassie, Cassie can you hear me calling you come to me Cassie!
Cassie lay with her arms folded on her chest and if he called for all the days that would ever exist she would never hear him, and that was how the Sacred Heart made the Buyer Keenan sorry for
all the wrongs he had perpetrated on her and his child.
His face loomed up before Josie, his bottom lip quivering. He reached out to her with an unsteady hand. “I didn’t know pet. You were the apple of my eye. I swear I wouldn’t do
anything to hurt you. You don’t know what it’s like for a man. I’d kill myself dead if I thought I hurt you.”
Josie tried to turn away from it, but then she thought of her classmates at school, all those frail bodies in patched dresses, grown now like herself to women and some of them already with her
mother.
Was that where they were or was it all a dream? A blue and never-ending place? Or a handful of bones and a grinning skull, a stopover for worms under a cross on a hill outside the town.
Is
that what you are Molloy? You’re a long way from it now, with your flashlight shaking and your bitter words
. The side of Josie’s face tightened and she stroked it to ease the
pain.
The gas fire in the corner flickered. On the sideboard, Josie smiled in a London street, behind her the teeming crowds and flashing neon of the city. Her skirt was pulled tight against her
behind, her bosom visible just above the neckline of her sweater. She held her sunglasses delicately in her right hand. In those days she was Gina Lollobrigida.
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