The Heather Blazing Read Free Page B

couldn’t wait for the bell to ring. One day he walked up to the top of the class and asked his father if it would be much longer and the class cheered. His father told him to go down and wait in the yard.
    He learned to wait, to be quiet, to sit still. And when the schoolday was over they walked home together, the teacher whose wife had died and his son, to the empty house in the new estate up on the hill. A woman came every day, first Mrs. Doyle and then Annie Farrell, and made the dinner in the middle of the day then left them their tea on the kitchen table. His father had work to do, homework to correct, books to read, articles to write. Eamon went out to play, careful not to sit on the cold cement in case he got a cold, and notto get into fights. He was allowed to bring other boys into the house, but they had to play quietly. Often, when they left to go home and have their tea, he felt relieved. He had the house to himself again and could sit opposite his father and work quietly at his lessons. He wondered at his father’s handwriting, the strange, indecipherable script, he stared at each word and tried to tell the letters apart, but it was a mystery to him and he did not understand how anyone could read it.
    On Wednesdays after tea they walked down to the office of The Enniscorthy Echo to collect a copy of the paper, fresh from the printing presses. Once, a man tried to explain to him about printing, but it was the voice and the size of the printworks he remembered, the rattling noise of the machines and the small, thin pieces of metal with words written on them back to front.
    His father’s article appeared on an inside page. Scenes From Enniscorthy’s Past by Michael Redmond, BA, B. Comm, the headline said, and sometimes there was a photograph of a face or an old part of the town such as the Duffrey or Templeshannon. Each week when they came home his father would cut the article out and paste it into a scrap book. He brought a cloth in from the kitchen to wipe away the paste which oozed from the sides of the newspaper when it was pressed down against the cardboard of the scrap book.
    Eamon must have been eight then, or nine. The war was on. He sat in Father Rossiter’s car at the top of the Shannon waiting for his father and the priest to finish talking to a grey-haired woman at the door of her house. Each time they seemed about to walk down the cement path towards the gate they started up again. Talking. He was allowed to go with them into some of the houses, but not others. They were giving out money and food vouchers from the St. Vincent de Paul Society. There was a strange smell in some of the houses. He looked around to see if he could find whatexactly made those houses so different from his own: so bare, and often cold as well.
    Most of the men were in England; they were in the British Army or they were working in factories. In all of the visits he never saw a man in any of the houses. Some of the women were smiling and shy when they spoke, staring into the fire and leaving awkward silences until his father and the priest stood up to leave. Others were outspoken, full of words. ’Tis God’s truth now, they would say. I’m not telling you a word of a lie. May God forgive me, Father. They had long stories to tell, and letters to search for and then find and offer to the visitors to read. There was one woman who cried, who broke down in front of them and rocked back and forth in her chair, as children his own age sat helplessly watching her, who were pale-faced and suspicious of the two men and the child who had come to the house to listen to their mother telling her story, her face suddenly red and blotched from crying.
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    If they moved the car he would be able to see the town below, follow Rafter Street from the Market Square, along to Court Street and then John Street with its line of trees and then the Back Road, Lymington House, Parkton, Pearse Road and Parnell