The Scattering by Jaki McCarrick Page B

Intensely, with lots of tears and fury. And because of this, I see that Isabel likes Jack. I can tell. He seems to be telling her that there is something else to the story Francie told him, which seems not to have much to do with Mammy at all.
    â€˜He made me promise,’ Jack says.
    â€˜And what’s your promise worth, you big shit?’ Isabel replies. She is crying and Jack is touching her hair.
    â€˜He said, Francie said, someone had done something to him.’ Nora is trying to pull me away from the two of them now but I think of the ban gharda and how I stood my ground and so I do it again.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ Isabel asks. Jack stiffens, shakes his head as if he has said too much already.
    â€˜You need to spill it love, come on,’ Isabel pleads, and she becomes all soft with Jack. ‘What did Francie say? He’s not talking to us so you need to spill it. Or Daddy will take you to court. You understand? He’s in your house right now, probably waiting for you.’
    â€˜Ah Jesus, I can’t…’ Jack says, and he keeps looking at me. ‘Francis said… ah, Jesus… he said that someone touched him up , like … held him against a wall … and.’ And then he whispers to Isabel who whispers to Nora who does not whisper to me. Then they all look at me and I can see shock on their faces, almost like the time when Mammy died.
    â€˜You go home now Jack Duffy and you tell this to my father, you hear?’ Isabel says. She sounds very strict and Jack is nodding his head. We watch as he goes to his house and lets himself in.
    â€˜What happened to Francie at the wall?’ I plead. My sisters, both of them, are welling up and shaking and Nora calls for Mammy who is dead now not even a year and I break from them and run towards home.
    *
    Dada has put a sign in the window of the shop saying that someone he knows has died in England and he will open in a week. He asks his customers to go to Joe Gallagher’s bakery on Bridge Street while he is away. But this is not true. Dada is not in England. When Sunday comes, Dada makes the meal like he always does. A roast and a pudding. Usually he makes a trifle or a crumble, something simple, but the pudding today looks different. It is deep, fleshy, has berries all over. It smells spicy, cinnamon or allspice. I ask what sort of pudding it is and Dada says it’s a celebration for ‘the great long summer of ’76, the best since ’59’. I ask if I can help and he teases me about the cake I tried to make blue from Francie’s pills and that he is better off by himself. We ask if Ed is coming this Sunday and Dada says no and that we are to go to Sarah’s to celebrate the great summer with our cousins on Patrick Street. Nora and Isabel are looking at each other the whole time Dada is getting ready the dinner, talking about the amount of tayberries and raspberries he has used.
    The day goes slowly at Aunt Sarah’s. Our cousins take Francie, Nora and Isabel to the Castletown River to show them where our great-uncle drowned in a whirlpool as a child. I would like to see this whirlpool but Sarah says I’m too young. To keep me occupied, Sarah brings out the albums that have photos in them of her and my mother when they are my age. She says I am the spit of my mother. ‘It’s the hair,’ she says, ‘real lobster-red,’ and I smile though I have never seen a lobster. As Sarah pours herself a glass of wine, I look through the photos all neatly pasted into the album, and I see one of Mammy, Dada and Ed. Straight away I ask Sarah a question. (And I see once I’ve asked it there is something heavy in the air, some secret.) ‘What was it, Aunt Sarah, made Ed so sick in London?’ Sarah bites the corner of her lip, looks up at me.
    â€˜Well, your mammy, daddy and Ed were all at a dance one night in Kilburn,’ she says. (I know this bit already.) ‘And during