Free Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan

taken another. Their young look demented. In the chaos they keep searching but every wing they find is not their mother’s. Judge stares at Deegan but all Deegan does is fire a few shots off in the air – as though that would make any difference to a fox.
    The next morning the forester goes out to pluck the hens. He looks up at the beam where he hung them but there’s nothing there, just the bits of baling twine he strung them up with. Martha is already burying them in the garden. Her eyes are red.
    â€˜Such waste,’ Deegan says, and shakes his head.
    â€˜We’d be hard up if we had to eat Sally and Fern. You dig them up. You eat them. I’ll make the sauce.’
    â€˜You never in your married life made sauce.’
    â€˜Do you know, Victor Deegan, neither did you.’
    The nights between Christmas and the New Year are long. The simpleton, with bits of ceiling boards, builds haysheds for his farm, which he crawls through. The girlwrites down her resolutions and with her brother’s sense of wonder reads the chapter entitled ‘Reproduction’ in the eldest’s new biology book. Aghowle stinks of varnish and there isn’t much money. Deegan is uneasy. He keeps having the same dream: every night he puts his hand in his pocket and there, his wallet, bulging with all the money he’s ever earned, is cut in two. All the notes are in halves and he can convince neither shopkeeper nor bank clerk that they are genuine. Towards the end, all the neighbours stand there laughing, saying there will be no improvements now.
    He dreams a strange dream also; of coming home through a blue evening feeling anxious because no smoke is rising, of walking inside and his house being empty. There is a note that makes him sad for a while but the sadness doesn’t last and in the end he is a young man again on his knees, lighting the fire. After this dream he wakes and, in an attempt at intimacy, tells his wife.
    Martha, still half asleep, says, ‘Why would I leave you?’ and turns over.
    Deegan straightens himself. Such a strange thing to say. He never thought she’d leave him, never thought such a thing had crossed her mind. The house itself seems strange tonight. Martha’s roses have, through the years, crawled up along the walls and, in the wind, paw the windows. On the staircase, a green shadow like water trembles. He goes downstairs feeling brittle, to get a drink. Some day it will all be over. He will get back the deed, buy a steel box and bury it under the oaks. Without Aghowle to worry about, his future will be an open hand. Martha, the mother of his children, will be happy, for there will be nights in B&Bs and brand-new clothes. They will travel to the West of Ireland. She’ll eat liver and onions for her breakfast. Theywill walk again on a warm strand and Deegan won’t care about the sand under his feet.
    He takes his drink in the parlour. The retriever is lying on the hearth rug, soaking up what is left of the heat. Deegan never found anyone who’d buy him. The dog is wearing a jacket of red velvet which Martha, to please the girl, has sewn during the holidays. His wife has stitched a zip along the belly and trimmed the sleeves. Deegan shakes his head. In all their time together, never once has she sewn so much as a patch onto his trousers.
    He opens the ledger and looks over the bills. The price of schoolbooks is beyond reason. The thermostat in the cooler will have to be replaced. There is house insurance to renew but he can leave that for another while as he has the car to tax. He totals his income and the outgoings, sits back and sucks a breath in through his teeth. The spring will be lean but he’ll be careful and get through it as he always does. One thing the neighbours can’t say is that Victor Deegan is a bad provider. There isn’t so much as a lazy notion in that man’s head. Fifty-nine more payments. He does the arithmetic in his head.