Free Foster by Claire Keegan Page B

sandwich spread and salad cream. My father watches closely as he does this. Already there’s a bowl of tomatoes and onions, chopped fine, a fresh loaf, a block of red cheddar.
    ‘And what way is Mary?’ the woman says.
    ‘Mary? She’s coming near her time.’ Da sits back, satisfied.
    ‘I suppose the last babby is getting hardy?’
    ‘Aye,’ Da says. ‘It’s the feeding them that’s the trouble. There’s no appetite like a child’s and, believe you me, this one is no different.’
    ‘Ah, don’t we all eat in spurts, the same as we grow,’ says the woman, as though this is something he should know.
    ‘She’ll ate but you can work her.’
    Kinsella looks up. ‘There’ll be no need for any of that,’ he says. ‘The child will have no more to do than help Edna around the house.’
    ‘We’ll keep the child gladly,’ the woman echoes. ‘She’s welcome here.’
    ‘She’ll ate ye out of house and home,’ Da says, ‘but I don’t suppose there’ll be a word about it this time twelve months.’
    When we sit in at the table, Da reaches for the beetroot. He doesn’t use the serving fork but pitches it onto the plate with his own. Itstains the pink ham, bleeds. Tea is poured. There’s a patchy silence as we eat, as our knives and forks break up what’s on our plates. Then, after some time, the tart is cut. Cream falls over the hot pastry, into pools.
    Now that my father has delivered me and eaten his fill, he is anxious to light his fag and get away. Always, it’s the same: he never stays in any place long after he’s eaten, not like my mother who would talk until it grew dark and light again. This, at least, is what my father says even though I have never known it to happen. With my mother it is all work: us, the butter-making, the dinners, the washing up and getting up and getting ready for Mass and school, weaning calves, and hiring men to plough and harrow the fields, stretching the money and setting the alarm. But this is a different type of house. Here there is room, and time to think. There may even be money to spare.
    ‘I’d better hit the road,’ Da says.
    ‘What hurry is on you?’ Kinsella says.
    ‘The daylight is burning, and I’ve yet the spuds to spray.’
    ‘There’s no fear of blight these evenings,’ the woman says, but she rises anyway, picks up the sharp knife and goes out the back door. I want to go with her, to shake the clay off whatever she cuts and carry it back into the house. A type of silence climbs and grows tall between the men while she is out.
    ‘Give this to Mary,’ she says, coming in. ‘I’m snowed under with rhubarb, whatever kind of year it is.’
    My father takes it from her but it is as awkward as the baby in his arms. A stalk falls to the floor and then another. He waits for her to pick it up, to hand it to him. She waits for him to do it. Neither one of them will budge. In the end, it’s Kinsella who stoops to lift it.
    ‘There now,’ he says.
    Out in the yard, my father throws the rhubarb onto the back seat, gets in behind the wheel and starts the engine.
    ‘Good luck to ye,’ he says. ‘I hope this girl will give no trouble.’ He turns to me then. ‘Try not to fall into the fire, you.’
    I watch him reverse, turn into the lane, and drive away. I hear the wheels slam over the cattle grid, then the changing of gears and the noise of the motor going back the road we came. Why did he leave without so much as a good-bye, without ever mentioning that he would come back for me? The strange, ripe breeze that’s crossing the yard feels cooler now, and big white clouds have marched in across the barn.
    ‘What’s ailing you, Child?’ the woman says.
    I look at my feet, dirty in my sandals.
    Kinsella stands in close. ‘Whatever it is, tell us. We won’t mind.’
    ‘Lord God Almighty, didn’t he go and forget all about your bits and bobs!’ the woman says. ‘No wonder you’re in a state. Well, hasn’t he a head like a sieve, the same