Ruby Flynn Read Free Page A

what to do or how to behave, so she is mimicking what I do, God bless her.
    ‘Will she be fully educated, Mother?’ The expression on Con’s face said clearly that he would not be fobbed off with prattle of vases and rich American benefactors.
    The reverend mother felt slightly uncomfortable.
    ‘Of course she will. We will do all we can for these unfortunate storm orphans, but please don’t bring me any more children to look after. There are practical limitations to what we can achieve here. You haven’t brought me this girl just for one day, as you well know. She will be here until we can place her into service. But, goodness knows, some of these children we have taken in from the bogs are as good as feral. Now, please sit yourself down, while I ask Sister Francis to fetch some tea and brack, then you can tell us all you know.’
    *
    Ruby stood next to the chair on which Con was now sitting. He had slipped his hand into hers, to reassure her, and now she stood still clinging onto him, scared to let him go. She was exhausted and the heat from the fire thawed her bones and stung her eyes, while the lack of sleep made her feel drowsy. She looked at the turf stacked up in the wicker basket and her heart constricted with pain. They would only have needed a few sods, she and her brother, to warm up their ma and da. The snow still fell heavily, but here in Belmullet, the wind was nowhere near as fierce as it had been in Doohoma.
    The trees outside were thick with the snow, their branches creaking and groaning under the weight of it. She had spent every day of her life with the noise of the ocean breaking on the sands and pounding in her ears. Now, her ears tingled as they adjusted to the unfamiliar sound of voices in deep discussion. The kind man and the reverend mother were talking about her. Their words reverberated in her brain.
    Her mammy’s dead. Her daddy’s dead. Her brother’s dead. They are all dead .
    ‘We are full to the rushes here. The last thing we need is another child. We cannot manage with those we have, can we, Sister Francis? Overrun we are.’
    Sister Francis, who had brought in the tea, caught Ruby’s eye and gave her a sympathetic smile. No one offered Ruby a drink.
    They didn’t want her. She was not welcome. Her face burned hot with shame. The man, Con, had taken her from a cold hell to his own fireside. His soothing. His wife. She had sat on the pregnant woman’s knee and felt a new life kicking her in the back, as her frozen hair was rubbed with a hot towel. She felt the burning then too, and had wanted to turn around and kick the unborn baby back. Over and over.
    ‘He’s off again,’ the wife had said to Con, with a knowing smile. He smiled back as he placed his hand on his wife’s shoulder and even though Ruby was sitting there on the knee of his wife, for that moment, she did not exist.
    For almost a week, she had squatted on the earth floor by her mammy’s side and done her very best. Every word her mammy had cried out was burned into her memory. During interludes, when her mother recognized Ruby and spoke, she had stared into her eyes, desperately wanting her mother to say something that would help, to make the cottage warm or to tell her where to find food. The words were still there, sitting in her gut, gnawing at her, telling her she was Ruby Flynn and that no man or woman on this earth was better than she.
    ‘You have family, Ruby. Find my family,’ her mother had croaked.
    Ruby had whispered in her ear, ‘Where are they, Mammy?’
    ‘No one is better than you Ruby Flynn, remember that.’
    As she held the melted snow to her mother’s lips, she turned to look at her brother. He lay next to their daddy on the mattress. Something was wrong with Daddy. He didn’t speak or move at all and was very cold.
    The dog, Max, lay next to where the fire should have been burning and he looked at Ruby with wide doleful eyes. We are in trouble , they said to Ruby, what can I do?
    Where was