Free In the Forest by Edna O’Brien Page A

paintings and mobiles; stars, dinosaurs and fishes. He could hear singing.
    Just by the vegetable garden a young fellow was emptying horse manure from a trailer and dumping it onto a pile.
    ‘Howya,’ he said as he passed him.
    ‘Shovelling shit,’ the fella said and laughed.
    He followed her to the very end building and then went around to the back to have a view through a side window. They were infants and they were all in little wooden armchairs around a table, like they were grown ups eating their breakfast. When she went in they jumped up and ran to her. The child she was carrying thumped her at being put down and then lay on the floor kicking.
    From a cupboard she took out things that were not school things at all, mats and bits of coloured rope and sun umbrellas. Then she took off her shoes and started clowning and they clowned with her. She walked a tightrope holding the umbrella and when she fell they cheered and started clambering over her. Then they took turns walking the tightrope and they fell.
    Eamonn, the fellow shovelling shit was standing beside him laughing as well. ‘It’s a new kind of school . . . no curriculum, no beatings, no punishment.’
    ‘You want a hand shovelling that shit?’ he asked and picked up a spare shovel and the two of them worked and whistled.
    ‘Don’t put the fork through it when you lift it ... it stirs up the gas . . . gives out a rotten aul smell,’ Eamonn says.
    ‘I’ll split your skull,’ he says aiming the shovel at him.
    ‘Sorry sorry.’
    ‘Are you local?’
    ‘I’m not . . .I work with a man that owns the equestrian centre ... I muck out . . .’
    ‘Spend your life shovelling shit.’
    ‘Nearly. He’s going to bring me to the horse show in Dublin in August . . . Jesus don’t put the fork through it . . . sorry sorry.’
    ‘What do they do with this shit?’
    ‘It’s great for rhubarb . . . they make a rhubarb bed . . . ’
    A tall grey-haired woman came as they were talking, carrying a tiny mug of coffee. She was surprised to find that there were two workmen, but at once said she was glad of the extra help, as many hands make light work. She went on to praise the manure and the generosity of the man who gave it to them for free. She said that it did wonders for the rhubarb bed, the fruit trees and the little birches that were growing apace. She liked all trees but the rowan tree was her favourite because of the bright red berries. Suddenly she became very girlish and put a strand of hair behind her ear and told them -‘When I was a little girl in the Forest, my mother told me that the rowan-berries were poison, but they are not . . . they are bitter but they are not poison . . . you will get a wonderful dinner with Ronnbarsgele, perhaps you have had it sometimes with game or venison . . . no?’
    ‘Game or venison,’ O’Kane said when she left, and they sniggered and shared the mug of coffee. The rim of it was white with white dribbles leaking onto the earth-brown glaze. They had a few slugs each.
    When he looked again the young, red-haired woman was wearing an apron over her jeans and carrying a skillet on which there were little loaves of bread.
    ‘Hi Eamonn,’ she said as she passed them. The children followed in a drove, behind her, their faces painted every colour and streaks of paint in their hair.
    ‘They love you Missus,’ Eamonn says.
    ‘They love anyone that lets them play and make bread.’
    She carried the tray of loaves to a clay oven that was built on bricks and shaped like an igloo. She used a toasting fork to open the slide door and a big blaze of fire leapt out and lit her face and it was all ruddy like she was blushing.
    ‘What’s her name,’ O’Kane asked.
    ‘Catherine I think.’
    ‘You think.’
    ‘Maybe I’m mixing her up ... bewitching isn’t she?’ ‘What the fuck would you know about bewitching.’ Soon the smell of warm dough drifted across to them and the children flopped around and the woman talked to