Chapter Two

My finger travelled lightly along the iridescent black feathers. It hadn't moved, just sat staring up at me with it's head cocked to one side, a slight darkening of color visible in the centre of it’s beady eye. The rose tinted breast inflated with each breath. I knew they were watching me from the window as I petted the wild Bullfinch on that sultry Summer’s day, the kind we don’t get anymore. Someone took a picture of me but I only noticed the flash when it caused the bird to fly away out of reach. That photo is still in a box somewhere, a reminder of when times were simpler. They did the same thing when I sat in the field with the surprise foal the mare Daddy bought me had thrown one cold, December day. She’d had it down in the back field called The Screen behind the Haggard, on her own. He’d found it shivering a little way off, curled up against the low stone wall, picked it up in his arms and carried it to the cowshed. The mare made a mad dash up the field behind him and frightened the shite out of him, on account of him not being from the country and used to animals and the like. They told me about it when I got in from school that evening and I’d ran as fast as my legs could carry me down to the yard. Sliding the hinged door back slowly, the weak wintry sun had granted just enough light for me to make out the shape of four spindly legs in the darkness. The mare only turned her head slightly and resumed chewing her mouthful of hay but the little guy had stumbled under her belly and taken a few steps towards the door, before a sharp whinny warned him off. Every day since, I’d begged to be allowed up to my grandparent's farm to see him. I had my wine colored bike that Grandad had brought home off some neighbor or other and he’d fixed the wheels, taking a little tin bicycle wheel repair kit out of his overcoat pocket. He picked it up and balanced it on the seat and handlebars while he spun the wheels, all the while watching like a hawk for the first sign of a hole or swoosh of air that might give the game away. The offending puncture was then plastered up like a cut on your knee might be and the air blown back into the rubber tyre like the air in your lungs being restored after the heavy fall. 'Right says he says Tom Martin, there ya go now' and the bike would be righted and you’d jump up on to torn leather saddle and go flying down the haggard lane in a cloud of dust and stones. I never knew who Tom Martin was, just presumed it was another neighbour or acquaintance or may be one of the tinkers that would sneak down the lane and try to get him to buy carpets or a settee ‘for the missis’ and he very nearly would cause mammy always said he'd give you the shirt off his back and I used to feel fierce sorry for Grandad with no shirt going around in the wind and the rain. He was the only one who'd fix my bike too so if he got pneumonia and died then I wouldn't be able to cycle up that big torturous hill after school to see Miracle, cause thats what he was, a miracle. 

My auntie Bren had snorted at me when she heard the foals name. Some f****n’ miracle it is alright. That prick of a Whelan must have done some laughing’ at your eijit of an aul lad knowing full well she was in foal when he sold her. Plenty of money to be throwing around, the big man with the wallet full of cash in the bar and it empty when he gets home and nare a field of his own to graze his purchases in. I didn't care what they said about him though. He’d promised he’d buy me a pony and that's what he did. And now she had a foal and he was all mine too so I’d sit on the broken stump of a tree in the middle of their field every day after school and wait for him to come up to me. He was soon lying at my feet like a puppy and then one day he put his two front legs up on my bended knees and half lay down on me and I drank in the lovely smell of him and his shaggy brown coat and nearly drowned in happiness.

But auntie Bren was right all along, they always were. The field was empty one day when I got there. My Granny drove me back in to our estate in town, No.39, in her old gold Cortina, puffing on a f*g even though she lied to everyone that she never smoked. She told me that mammy would explain it all to me. I watched Jesus swinging on his cross at the end of the beads hanging from the mirror and wondered if he had as much of a fright as I had in my heart now when they were about to drive the nails into his hands and feet. Mammy was in the kitchen and turned to face me with a tray of Fishfingers in her hands. Before I could say anything she had it all explained in a few words, how the horse dealer Whelan had called and decreed that the pony had laminitus and that we couldn't look after them properly and they'd die beyond in the field and anyway Grandad couldn't have horses tearing up the fields he needed for the few aul cattle and sure Daddy promised that he’ll buy you a different pony, one thats easier ride too.  Sure that Misty was a wicked one anyway, didn't she leave your sister swinging on a low branch, breaking her wrist in bits too. Listening to her you'd nearly think she was telling the truth and not just lying to cover up the fact that  Daddy needed the money, like all the times he had taken our Communion and Confirmation money to put it in the Credit Union for us but we never saw sight of it again, only the spare change spilling out of Daddy’s pockets onto the bedroom floor the morning after the last of his crowd from Dublin had gone home after the party in the big hotel which had cost a fortune and sure it was our party and why shouldn't we pay for it anyway? But the mare was in foal at that time and we didn't even know and thats why she tried to get rid of my sister Rose off her back and anyway Daddy’s sister from Dublin was down squealing’ and shouting’ around the place and she frightened her. Rose had spent two days in bed deathly pale while daddy told her to dip her hand in the basin of water on the locker beside the bed and he'd wrap banana skins around it and it would be right as rain in no time. We’d laughed as usual  but the banana skins had turned brown and she’d turned white and I was afraid now for telling her to say nothing like that time she got her foot caught in the spokes of the back wheel of the Honda 50 and my other auntie Elizabeth or Lily as we called her hit her across the face and told her to shut her mouth and tell no one or she’d never bring her off on the bike again. Mammy had to eventually walk down to the phone box and call auntie Bren to come in in her fancy black Bluebird that she’d brought the whole way back from England that time she left the boyfriend. Me and Rose were afraid to go anywhere in that car because she used to shout and roar at us if we traced the raindrops sliding down the pane with our fingers and ask us were we the ones who had to wash the windows, were we, were we, no we weren't and so keep your hands off them! But Rose had to go with her that time cause Daddy was gone off in the Lorry and God knew when he'd be back. Turns out she had broken the wrist in two places and I was fierce jealous of her and all the presents and attention and sweets she got on account of that broken wrist. I thought I might be able to break my own by leaving it down on the hearth of the marble fireplace above in Grannys sitting room and jumping on it like aunt Lily and her best friend Bridie had done the time of the Leaving Cert, only difference was that they had each other to jump on the wrists and I couldn't manage it all by myself. It must be a hard thing to do  anyway cause they only bruised the shite outta themselves and weren't able to shake hands with any Mickeys at the disco that weekend and I wondered did all them lads not get confused with everyone calling their name and shaking their hands. I asked Lily and Bridie how they'd know who’d come first like and the two of them  just roared laughing at me and I had to leave the room I was so embarrassed. Now Mammy was telling me that my ponies were sold but she must have felt guilty because she told me then that they were still below in the mart waiting till Saturday for the horse and pony sale and she’d ask Lily and Bridie to bring me down to say goodbye. Sure didn't Bridie ride out for Whelan the odd time and she’d be able to get me in surely. Saturday came and I was up at dawn waiting for them. I was at the door before they could knock and mammy was trying to throw a slice of toast at me because I hadn't eaten in days but I didn't want food. As we neared the mart the sounds and smell of horses and horse shite filled my nostrils and I ran away towards the sheds. I could hear Miracle, even amongst all the other beasts. Then there they were, my horses, surrounded on all sides by metal bars and gates. But someone was in there with them. A big fat young lad with rats eyes and red jaws. He pushed past me with a bit of twine and wrapped it around the little mares head and led her out into the gangway. Then he stood on the gate and jumped on her back, riding her up and down the concrete. I begged him to stop hitting her but he laughed at me and told me to go on away out of it. I felt a sharp tug as Lily began to drag me towards the sales ring where we were to sit down and watch proceedings. I sat frozen with fear as one by horses were beaten in to the sand covered pen, with wild eyes, kicking and screaming as farmers and dealers with shite on their boots and up their jeans prodded them through  the bars with bits of wavin pipe. The smell of f*g smoke, curry chips and shite hung in the air. Tweed caps were tipped, hands spat on and backs slapped. Was there some sort of secret code amongst this lot that the rest of the world wasn't party to? Some of the horses were led in and just dropped their heads low, too tired and old and sick of life to bother anymore. They knew their fate perhaps now that their days of breeding or riding were over. Then in came my little Miracle, trotting with his high step beside his mothers flank. To my relief a kind looking girl was leading the mare with a red rope and they walked around grand. The auctioneer started shouting and mumbling to the crowd but I couldn't make out what he was saying. I followed his eyes to the back seats up top and they rested on a blonde woman about mammy’s age who kept nodding at the auctioneer like they knew each other. He asked did she want lot no. 37 as well as lot no. 36 and she just shook her head. I looked at Lily and she looked at Bridie and they both looked away from me. What does that mean, what does it mean I asked as I pulled on her jumper but I knew better than to keep it up. Suddenly the man with the loud voice banged his hammer and I jumped in fright. The horses were led out of the pen and we followed. I could see they were putting the mare back in the same stall but Miracle wasn't with her. The same blonde woman who had been nodding like a Jack in the box was putting a head collar on her and smiling away. Then I heard it, that high pitched, frantic call over and above the others. I ran as fast as I could towards it and there was my little friend, tied by a bit of rope to a dirty trailer with about five ragged looking old donkeys. He stood up on his back legs and turned his head when he saw me and tried to move towards me but the man who had bought him brought the stick crashing down so hard on his small back that the same little legs which had been curled up on mine not a week before gave way and he crashed to the ground. Everything began to swim before my eyes and the last thing I remembered was Lily and Bridie nearly carrying me back home and telling me sure weren't they grand now, they were both off to a riding school where they'd be minded like babies.

I had never really known what heartache was like until that moment. My head was exploding and I got migraine again like I did when mammy and daddy were fighting but now my heart was in bits all over my insides, digging into me so that I couldn't even breathe or eat or move without feeling pain. He’d trusted me, that little horse. He thought I’d take care of him. Now where was he, terrified, hurting, alone? Why didn't I just run up and take the stick out of that mans dirty old cruel hands and hit him over his stupid head with it? Moments of hope swirled around sometimes like bits of feathers from the killed geese below in the yard at Christmas time. Maybe I could get Bridie to find out who had bought them and I could track them down? I’d buy them back with money I’d earn from babysitting and jumble sales. I’d rent a field for them or maybe my friend Emily in school could convince her daddy to give me a little corner of one of their fields for a while. But the hope always blew away like those blood tipped feathers. The field where I once sat in absolute bliss was now empty, the same way the goose house would be empty and the goose and gander wandering all around the place looking for their goslings. They'd probably heard their screams as the neighbor called in for the job cut their throats with his sharp knife while they hung upside down from the rafters in the old forge, with their heads wrapped in bits of newspaper to catch the blood. But still they searched, night and day. I found the old pair one time, standing guard over something in the grass. It had taken me about twenty minutes to shoo them away and then I’d wished I hadn't. A head attached to a long white neck lay in the green tufts,blood caked the beak but the eye was open, looking up at me. The dogs must have dropped this one and forgotten where they left it. I cried then for the little yellow goslings who had slept so snug and warm under those protective wings and who had chirped so happily all Summer as they paraded around like they were fierce important members of the farmyard society and now here they were, bodiless and lifeless and it just wasn't fair. Why did Granny and Grandad and aunt Bren try so hard to keep them safe from foxes and magpies if they were just going to kill them in the heel of the hunt? Aunt Bren used to even put the eggs that the goose didn't want in to her bed with the electric blanket on to see if they'd hatch, that was until one morning there was a terrible bang followed by a terrible scream followed by a terrible smell and she came running out to the kitchen cursing and blinding out of her. The egg had been rotten she said and I saw Granny smile to herself out in the back kitchen and wink up at the Sacred Heart on the wall and I burnt my toast that I was holding up to the bars of the old Calor gas portable heater but it didn't matter cause the smell made me sick anyway and all I could think of was bits of goslings everywhere. 

Granny told Mammy she should have said nothing at all to me about them being below in the Mart when she called up after Mass the next Saturday evening. Mammy was sick with worry I heard her say. I wouldn't eat nor talk to anyone, just cry myself to sleep. Sure I’d missed a whole week off school but she couldn't send me in in that state. If she had of known that I was that attached to them she would have stopped Daddy from selling them in the first place. That broke my heart even more, knowing that it needn't have happened at all, it needn't have been inevitable. But thats the way of things that hurt the most I suppose. Sometimes theres a way out but by the time we realize that it's too late. She's too sensitive, you should have said nothing. Granny sprinkled bit of Holy water on my head and told me to say my prayers and she was gone. I prayed all night to the Blessed Virgin to please look after Miracle and his mother wherever they were. I prayed and asked her to please send Daddy money so he didn't always have to sell my things or go off for months and leave Mammy at home crying over him and wishing she were dead. I asked her to help make me better at maths so I wouldn't have to shake each time the Master got me up to the board to do a sum and I prayed that I wouldn't wet myself in the Master’s car on the way home from school anymore or in the line just after lunch so that it wouldn't run down my legs and out in big puddles on the lino for all the other children to laugh and point at. I fell asleep praying every night back then, just like I do now.