The Heather Blazing Read Free Page A

he had driven through the town she spoke again.
    â€œShe went to England to have an abortion, and she couldn’t face it. She was in the hospital and everything; she had paid her money. I told her that we’d do what we could for her. Imagine Niamh having an abortion. So she’s going to have the baby and she’s going to keep it. Eamon, I wrote her a cheque. But it’s a terrible thing to happen, isn’t it?”
    â€œWhen’s it due?” he asked her.
    â€œNovember,” she said. “I can’t think how I didn’t notice.”
    He turned left at Gorey and took the road south towards Blackwater.
    â€œWell, what do you think?” she asked.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter what I think.”
    â€œIt’s so hard to talk to you sometimes,” she said.
    *  *  *
    He parked the car in the lane and opened the side gate into the garden, letting Carmel go in ahead of him. He had the key. The house had been aired; there was a fire burning in the living room, which their neighbour had lit for them, but there was still a musty smell. Carmel shivered and went over to sit by the window. Eamon carried in the first of the plants and put them in the glass porch at the front of the house. The damp smell had always been in the house, he thought, no amount of air or heat would ever get rid of it fully. And there was another smell too which he remembered now: a smell of summer dresses, a female smell. The women who had taken care of him here. He could almost smell them now, vague hints of their presence, their strong lives, their voices which had been heard in this house for so many years.
    The nettles had come back into the garden, despite the weedkiller which had been put down in the spring. The nettles seemed taller than ever this year. He would get one of the Carrolls to put the front garden right. Then there would be a new smell of cropped grass, fresh and sweet with a hint of dampness.
    He carried the suitcases and boxes in from the car. By now, Carmel had placed her plants all over the house and was in the kitchen. He went over and smelled the lilies which she had put in the porch. He took out the small cassette player and placed the two speakers at opposite ends of the room. He plugged it in, put on a cassette and turned the sound up and listened to the music as he unpacked the cases and cleared out the car.
    They were close to the soft edge of the cliff, the damp, marly soil which was eaten away each year. He listened for the sound of the sea, but heard nothing except the rooks ina nearby field and the sound of a tractor in the distance, and coming from the house the swells of the music. He rested against the windowsill and looked at the fading light, the dark clouds of evening over the sea. The grass was wet now with a heavy dew, but the air was still as though the day had been held back for a few moments while night approached. He heard Carmel moving in the front room. She wanted everything in its place, the house filled with their things, as soon as they arrived, and he stood up now and ventured in to help her.

CHAPTER TWO
    Childhood. The voice teaching was still vivid in his mind, but he could remember nothing his father said in those early years. Nor could he remember walking from the primary school across to the secondary school except for the bare, creaking stairway to the classroom where his father taught.
    He drew on the blackboard with chalk—he remembered this clearly—until he was old enough to sit at the back and listen, or read, or look out of the window at the Turret Rocks and the Wexford Road. He drew maps of main roads and side roads, using different colour chalk, he drew squiggles and matchstick figures. Behing him, the drama of the classroom went on. Sometimes a cheer, a sound like “Weee, wooo,” followed by laughter went up from the boys in the class, but soon it would die down again and his father would resume. Sometimes he was bored, he