Part 14 (1/2)

And in his mind's eye, young Robert came down the rise, to see all the neighbours striding through the grand man's hayfields with their scythes; Papa Robert's father in their midst, and the farm dogs loose, leaping through the crop as it fell, tearing after the rabbits it had sheltered. All the men locked in the rhythm of work, just like the last year, all the years before.

But Lindsey's grey gaze held him, sceptical.

”Aye, right.”

Like she just couldn't recognise this common-cause Ireland he was describing.

So then Eric sighed: ”I know. I know.”

For all that the farming year rolled onwards, they weren't peaceful times: there'd been war and slaughter all Papa Robert's young life. Even after the country cut itself loose from the mainland, its king and its garrison, the fighting hadn't ended there, it had only turned inward. Eric told the girl: ”Papa Robert's mother. She came fae further south, an she knew folk had been burned out.”

The grand house just by Drogheda where she'd worked before she was married. The grand family hounded for a.s.sisting the Crown, servants and tenants scattered to the mercy of the four winds. She had a sister who'd fled north. What if that happens to us?

”Papa Robert never saw it, but,” Eric insisted. ”No in their corner ae Louth. He said it never touched them, an he never thought it would do.”

”More fool him then.”

Lindsey gave a hard smile, and then she shoved his picture away from herself.

It took Eric aback.

For a moment there he could only sit.

He considered the girl before him, and how she hadn't shown him this hard edge before now. But then Eric nodded, slow, retrieving his drawing, pulling it close again.

”Aye, hen,” he told her. ”I took my Da for a fool as well. When I was your age.”

Eric thought he'd shown that same hardness to his father, right enough, when he was courting Franny.

”I reckoned I could hold my ain wae Papa Robert by that time,” Eric said. And then he sat forward, fixing his eyes on Lindsey: ”See that Greenock room I tellt you about?”

She nodded, hesitant. Aware maybe she'd irked him.

”I took it because I wanted tae get married,” Eric went on, thinking if he talked about that time, instead of Ireland, maybe she would listen to him.

”I never tellt my Da how far advanced my plans were,” he said. ”Papa Robert was nae innocent, but. He saw what was transpirin. An how I never brought Franny home tae visit.”

Eric had always gone alone, and the way he remembered it now, he'd only ever gone home to argue. It had him squinting, that thought, as he told the girl: ”I went dressed in my work suit, an my good shoes.” It was uncomfortable to admit this. ”I was already earnin mair than my faither did.”

Eric had felt that he knew more too; it made him sigh: ”I was sure ae that, aye.” So b.l.o.o.d.y sure of himself. ”I had an answer for every objection my Da raised.”

Lindsey stayed quiet, watching him talk. Still a little wary, but he could see she wanted him to go on now.

Brenda had told Eric later how she'd learned to dread those Sat.u.r.day afternoons. He thought Papa Robert must have too. Eric said: ”I mind how my faither would be sittin in his chair when I came in the door, newspaper open on his lap, only not like he'd been reading it, but. Just waitin.”

Braced, Eric thought. Papa Robert had sat in that same chair while he did his schoolwork, just a few years before, and he must have been bewildered at the change in his son.

”Papa Robert tried so many arguments against. He tellt me Frances was too much older, she'd been poorly, we'd mebbe never have children, an children were life's purpose.”

Eric looked at the girl: ”Except I'd learned tae see where my faither stood in life by that time. You get me?”

Few boys at the High School had come from housing schemes, so Eric had come to keep quiet about his origins.

”Naebody had a faither in the Orange.”

Not one of the friends he'd made since leaving.

”It felt like comin up for air. Like lifting my heid and seein a whole world where none ae that mattered.”

Lindsey nodded, grim, like she could well imagine it: how Papa Robert would have come to seem wanting, narrow by comparison. But still, it pained Eric to think of this.

Convinced of his own rightness, he'd told his father to look on the bright side.

You'll have nae grandkids raised in the Romish church.

And that was when all h.e.l.l broke loose.

”What did Papa Robert say then?” Lindsey's eyes were on him, searching.

”He raged at me,” Eric told her, blunt.

Papa Robert had raged at his lack of respect. You think that's what this is, son? You never listened tae me? You never heard what I tellt you aw these years?

”He brought it back tae Louth, aye. How it ended there, for our faimly.”

Lindsey let out her breath, as though she might have known it, but Eric went on: ”My Da, see. He tied hissel in knots over me gettin wed.”

Papa Robert had let Eric truss him up, that's what it felt like: he got himself backed into a corner, inarticulate in fury. You think it'll work, son. It'll come apart. I've seen what happens when it does.

Lindsey was right, of course: Ireland was always his father's argument of last resort. But Eric still didn't like to think how he'd responded.

”I knew the Bible backwards. So I knew how tae hurt him.”

Eric had chosen his Dad's favourite pa.s.sages to fling at him in return.

”Oh ye blind guides, I tellt him. Ye fools an blind. Hear the instruction ae thy faither. For that shall be an ornament ae grace unto thy head. Aye, right, I seid. Mair like chains about my neck.”

Lindsey nodded, like that must have been satisfying to say.

But Eric could only think how hard it must have been to take. So dismissive. Such an onslaught. How could Papa Robert back down? What room was he left for coming round?

”I felt I was strong then,” he told the girl. ”Stronger than my faither. That was before I understood, but. What Papa Robert learned in boyhood. Back in the Free State, aye?”

Lindsey looked at him, confused now.

So Eric told her, simple: ”Life can send you reelin, hen. It can deal you blows you never recover from.”

And then he waited, to see how she would respond.

Pushed into speaking, she s.h.i.+fted a bit against the cus.h.i.+ons. Then she said: ”You mean like when Franny fell ill again?”