Anna Mary
By Amelie Rose
Copyright 2011 Icon Management Ltd
Smashwords Edition
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
The small neatly-dressed woman shivered in the early November chill and hugged her arms about her. As she stared out across the yellow and green patchwork of neatly-formed, walled paddocks, memories, some so distant as to be almost forgotten, jostled for recognition in her mind.
The rush of remembrance startled her with its immediacy - it all seemed so now, as though the void of intervening years had suddenly filled up and returned her to where she had started.
The press of the stones beneath her bare feet as she skipped along this very lane, seemed suddenly real and immediate.
A darting breeze dived playfully beneath her short bob and whipped it across her face in silvered streaks. She turned her head to the side, one hand raised to rake back the fine strands. A row of neatly trimmed fingernails glistened in the pale sunlight like tiny smooth chips of mother-of-pearl.
Pulling her light jacket about her she wandered towards the stone wall that bordered the lane and, reaching into her pocket, drew out a crisply pressed handkerchief. Shaking the dainty scrap from its neat folds, she wafted it across the smooth stone of an ancient stepping stile before seating herself upon its worn surface.
Things had changed in this rural corner of Ireland, where Anna Mary Fenton had been born and raised. People drove smart cars and had inside toilets and colour TV, and many of the narrow rutted lanes had been smoothed with tarmac.
But beneath the modern casing, she had been gratified to discover that the people were still the same. Although bearing different faces and names the same hospitable, hard-working, caring neighbours she remembered, remained; their values passing seamlessly from one generation to the next.
It was hard to believe that almost 50 years had passed since she had left this gentle place of green hills and ribboned accessways with her new husband; young people seeking adventure in a new country. And although she would have returned time and again, he had never wanted it. In fact, she thought, with a small ache of sadness, had Derek still been alive she doubted she would be here now.
Her eyes closed as she leaned back against the sturdy stone wall, willing the memories into being. And as the mantle of the respectable middle class widow slipped away, Anna Mary, the child, gave a deep sigh and fidgeted into a more comfortable position.
***
Hefting the laden food basket from one arm to the other, Anna Mary shook her freed arm so that the blood rushed, tingling, to her fingertips. When she’d left Ma’s kitchen it hadn’t seemed like a burden and she’d skipped the first way down the stony lane heading for the O'Halloran cottage. Swapping an afternoon of chores for a walk on such a beautiful warm spring day was a welcome treat but, with a way still to go, the basket of tatie bread and corn felt like a sack of rocks and already she could feel the pins and needles starting again.
Up ahead was the stile she and James climbed every weekday to cut across the fields to the village school. That meant she was halfway there. She’d go to the stile and sit awhile, she decided, and, gripping the ropy handle in both hands, swung the basket against her hip and shuffled, crab-like, towards it.
She’d barely put Ma’s offering to the ground and squatted on the stone step when a loud hail sounded from behind. Shadowing her eyes from the sun’s glare with the palm of her hand she looked back the way she’d come.
“Anna Mareee!”
She waited as, puffing noisily, a small white-haired boy skidded to a stop before her in boots that he’d yet to grow into and pushed a muslin-wrapped parcel at her.
“Ma said t’ stick this in the basket too.”
Anna Mary looked aghast. “I can’t.”
“Why not? Ma said...”
“Cos I can hardly carry this lot.” She nodded down towards her feet, “I’ll never get there if I have t’ take more.”
She batted a skinny arm at the bundle he was still holding out towards her.
“You take it.”
“Can’t, I’ve gotta clean Ben n’ Blackie’s cage,” he asserted, bending towards the basket.
“Forget yer scraggy rats,” she shrieked, pushing him away, “I told you, I can’t carry what I’ve got.”
The boy’s elfin face spread wide.
“Tatie bread n’ yer deeaad,” he chanted, echoing their grandmother’s favored maxim for disobedient children, as he backed out of reach. “Ma says you gotta take it cos the O'Hallorans are all sick as dogs and they need some of her med’cin.”
Anna Mary continued to glare but already her temper was beginning to cool. And as the angry red freckles on her winter-white cheeks slowly faded, she gave a loud sigh and rolled her eyes heavenward. When she looked back she pulled a face and returned his cheeky grin.
She could never stay mad at her cousin for long. Although there were only two years between them, James seemed much younger than ten. Ma said that was because he looked just like his mam and she was a tiny titch.
Anna Mary knew that both she and James had come to live with Ma and Pa when their mams died; hers from TB when she was too little to remember and his from having him, only days after he was born. Besides, in spite of his cheeky ways, he was her best friend in the world.
“Alright,” she grinned finally, “but you come too. I’ll help with your darned rats when we get back.”
Reaching down she picked up the basket. It felt light again and the pins and needles were gone.
“Anna Mary?” said James sending a stone flying with a kick from his outsized boot as they trod forward.
“Yeh?”
“Matt Logan told me that his da knows your da an that he’s got a bunch of kids.”
Anna Mary was silent.
“Anna Mary?”
“Yeh?”
“Does that mean you’ve got family?”
“I s’pose,” she murmured and, after a few seconds, added thoughtfully, “but Ma says she n’ Pa’s all the family we need.”
James aimed a kick at a piece of turf and turned, a worried look on his small face.
“Hey, Anna Mary.”
“Yeh?”
“You won’t leave us for your other family will you?”
Shifting the basket to her other side she draped a skinny arm about his narrow shoulders.
“Course not,” she muttered and wondered why, suddenly, she felt all twisted and strange inside.
***
Later that day, after she’d helped James clean his pets’ cage, Anna Mary sought out Ma, who she found in the old potting shed out back. There was only room in the shed for one and Anna Mary waited outside while Ma finished potting some new seedlings, her generous behind protruding from the narrow opening as she bent over the sack of compost Pa had deposited there.
“Ma,” she said when there was a gap in the old lady’s muffled mutterings, “did’ya know me da’s back?”
A round flushed face suddenly appeared over the shoulder of Ma’s crouched body and, with a grunt, she straightened up.
“What’s that?” she asked, giving her granddaughter a narrowed stare. “Where’d you get this from, then?”
Anna Mary hunched her shoulders forward then let them fall.
“Nowhere, I mean...James said Matt Logan said his da knows `im an’ that he’s got a bunch of kids.”
Ma sucked in a big rush of air through her nose, momentarily increasing her already considerable chest size, then let it out noisily.
“Hmmmph!” she snorted. “I suppose ye’ll be telling me next that you want to go and stay with him.”
“Oh, no, Ma,” protested Anna Mary, “I was just askin’, that’s all. I mean, he couldn't look after me when me mam died, just like James’s da, but I was just wonderin’ about him. That’s all.”
To both Anna Mary and James, their grandparents were everything. Anna Mary couldn’t imagine living anywhere but with Ma and Pa.
Even though she was four when she came to them she still remembered Ma saying to her, `You can call me Ma, cos that’s what I’m goin’ to be to you from now on, yer mother. And Pa’s goin’ to be yer Da. So there’ll be no more of this Gran’ma and Gram’pa name callin’.’
And that was the way it had always been. She knew her da had given her to them after her mam had died, saying he couldn’t work and look after a little `un and then he’d shot out and no one knew where he’d gone.
But now, it seemed he’d come back - and with a family in tow.
***
The first light of dawn filtered through the muslin curtains and Anna Mary shifted restlessly on her narrow bed. She had a tummy ache and the night had seemed to drag on forever. Outside, she could hear the first early morning sounds as the yard animals started to wake and Jago, Pa’s plough horse, snorted softly from his stall in the barn. Soon Oddie would start to crow, telling her it was time to get up and begin her chores.
In an attempt to ease the discomfort she pulled her knees up tight but it didn’t help, the ache was just as bad. Finally, she threw back the coarse woolen blanket and slid out of bed, moving stiffly as she made it up and pulled the bedspread Ma had made from sugar bags and ticking and a few squares of checked cotton to make it look pretty, over the top.
In the kitchen she lit the range then took a blackened cast iron pot from its hook above and dumped three heaped mugs of oats into it. Just inside the door stood a large enamel pitcher and from this she poured a jug of thick creamy milk to add to the oats. First up as always Pa had already milked the cow and Anna Mary knew he’d be down at the sty by now, stoking the fires to boil the pigs’ feed.
As she mixed the oats and milk together she wondered, as she always did, how something that looked so brown and lumpy could end up tasting so good. Ma always said that it wasn’t a person’s looks but what was inside that counted and Anna Mary guessed the same thing could be said for porridge and the like.
She had just settled the pot onto the range top when a surge of pain dragged at her belly and made her groan out loud. Waves of nausea washed over her making her feel hot and shivery at the same time. She'd had hardly any sleep and she felt terrible. All night long she’d been thinking about her da coming back and she wondered if that was the cause of her bellyache.
Hearing of somebody other than Ma and Pa actually knowing him had made him seem sort of more like a real person - someone who walked around and talked to people and did a job and had tea with his family.
Dipping the wooden spoon in the pot she began to stir. She’d be thirteen soon and Ma said that was when she’d probably start having woman’s problems and would have to watch that boys didn’t get too close.
She wasn’t sure what that meant. About the only boys she saw outside of school were James and the O’Halloran twins, who were a few years older than her, so she didn’t think about it too much. Right now she was more concerned about the ache that was turning into the worst kind of belly cramps.
Dragging the pot to the side of the range she bent double just as Ma walked into the room.
“Girl, what’s the matter?” she demanded in what Anna Mary and James called her `croaky morning voice.’
Then without waiting for a reply she gave a fierce knowing nod and asked, “You been to the outhouse yet?”
“No Ma,” Anna Mary groaned, too much in pain to wonder about the odd question. “I was just goin’ though.”
Ma wasn’t as tall as her granddaughter but she was a lot wider. Nevertheless, she was to the linen press on the far wall and back before the girl barely had time to blink.
“Take these and use them,” she said, pushing a bag of what looked like frayed strips of rag into her hand, “and when you come in, go straight up to your room and have a wash.”
The warming pan in her bed and the hot foul-tasting liquid that Ma forced her to swallow when she returned from that momentous trip to the outhouse were the last things on Anna Mary’s mind as she drifted into a deep dreamless sleep.
***
“Well, girl, looks like you’ve started your woman’s journey.”
Anna Mary’s eyes flickered and shot open to see her grandmother seated across from her beside the open window, a wide arrow of sun picking out the grey streaks in her dark chestnut hair making them glimmer like threads of silver.
Instantly, the morning’s events returned in hideous clarity and her face flooded with hot colour. Shamed, she peered out from her warm bed at Ma, who was watching her from the old rocking chair, needlework lowered to her apron covered knees.
Anna Mary knew Ma had nursed not only her and James but also their mothers, in that chair.
***
Ma’s talk, blunt and to the point as was her way, relieved Anna Mary’s bewildered mind and, two weeks later, she had all but forgotten about the dreadful experience. Now, hearing her name called, she pulled the last tatie bread out of the coal range and set it to cool on the wooden bench before dragging her feet down the short hallway to stand in the doorway of her grandmother’s bedroom.
“Put your coat on, we’re goin’ out,” said Ma, who was stood before a small wall mirror anchoring a shapeless black felt hat to her netted hair with a long silver needle.
“Where’re we goin’?” Anna Mary asked, trying not to show her reluctance.
Billy O’Halloran was helping Pa with some repair work on the barn and she’d been trying to think up an excuse to get close, or at least position herself within viewing distance of the handsome black-haired twin with the dancing eyes.
She couldn’t figure why but lately he was all she could think of. He’d been coming over to help for the past year or so, whenever Pa needed a stronger pair of hands than James’ eager but little ones, and for the most part she’d ignored him. Now she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him and knowing as how she were a woman now and weren’t meant to let boys near her, she hoped Ma didn’t notice.
“We’re goin’ to get some fresh air in our lungs and stretch our limbs, that’s where.” Ma said.
Taking a knotted stick from behind her bedroom door, Ma fixed her granddaughter with a keen stare that said she’d take no nonsense about it.
Anna Mary’s heart sank. She knew from experience that the stick meant a good long hike. Billy would probably be gone before she returned.
“Come on girl,” Ma chided, tapping the stick on the floor, “get yer coat and let’s be gone.”
***
Ma’s legs might not have been very long but, by the time they had walked a mile, Anna Mary was having difficulty keeping up. The stick seemed to aid the old lady’s pace and, despite a well-packed girth, she strode out with amazing speed and grace.
Anna Mary’s idea of a walk was to linger occasionally, smelling the wild flowers that grew in abundance along the hedgerows, or skim stones along the lane then pace out the distance and try to better it.
They’d passed the O’Halloran cottage long back and the sun was higher in the sky by the time Ma came to a halt on the brow of a hill. The only times Anna Mary ever came so far in this direction was when Pa took them in the cart to visit Auntie Vi, their mothers’ sister. She knew Auntie Vi lived about five miles away because, when they’d get home, Pa always had a bottle of his home-made cider - to wash ten miles of dust from his throat.
Coming alongside Ma, who had stopped beside the lane on a small grassy patch, Anna Mary followed her gaze to the paddock below where a man was tossing logs onto the back of a cart.
She was about to throw herself to the ground for a welcome rest when Ma spoke.
“Go down there and tell ‘im you’re Anna Mary,” she said, nodding in the stranger’s direction.
“What for?” Anna Mary squeaked, horrified at the thought of approaching a total stranger and blabbing out her name like a looney.
“Never mind why, girl, just do as I say.”
Knowing well the tone in Ma’s voice and how there would be no changing her mind, Anna Mary dragged her feet to the stile and climbed over thinking the sooner she got this nonsense over with the sooner they’d be on their way home.
Halfway down the field she felt her nerve slip and turned back but one look at Ma’s determined face and she let out a despondent sigh and trudged on down until she was standing within a few feet of the man, who didn’t appear to notice her.
She was wondering how to begin when he stopped what he was doing and squinted up towards the stout unmoving figure of her grandmother. Then as though realising he was no longer alone, he turned about and their eyes met.
Although he recovered quickly Anna Mary was sure she had startled him.
His expression was unreadable as he looked her up and down.
“And what can I do for ye?” he grunted finally, poking the fingers of one callused hand under the back of his flat cap and scratching.
Anna Mary watched the cap bob up and down for a moment before he removed his hand and ran the back of it over his brow, making a poor attempt at wiping away the sweat that glistened down his cheeks and into his yellowed neck scarf.
Taking a deep breath, she turned and pointed up the hill.
“Ma told me to tell you I’m Anna Mary.”
All was silent except for a faint clicking sound as the man’s stubbled jaw ground from side to side. She was about to repeat herself, thinking he hadn’t heard her, when he turned to the side, made a noise like one of Pa’s pigs, and spat on the ground.
“So,” he grunted, rubbing a grimy sleeve across his mouth, “you’re Anna Mary.”
Swaying slightly he tucked his hands under his armpits and stared at her, making sucking sounds through his teeth as he appeared to consider the information, and her. Finally, after a long drawn out moment during which Anna Mary considered several things to say and discarded each one as useless, he spoke, eyeing her down the bridge of his long pointed nose.
“Well then, girl, I have to tell ye that I’m y’ da.”
His words took a moment to sink in but when they did Anna Mary let out a strangled croak.
“M...me da?”
“Yup.”
Stooping low, he picked up a log and tossed it onto the cart then, without another word, grabbed hold of the wheel brake and swung lightly up onto the single board seat.
Reaching for the reins that were slung down at his feet he looked down and held her wide green gaze for a moment with his pale rheumy one.
“Ye look just like y’ ma,” he said briefly and, after a short silence, added gruffly, “Tell Ma to bring ye again sometime.”
Stuck for a reply Anna Mary stood there, staring.
Finally, with a hard tug on the reins, he clicked his tongue and barked, “C’mon there.”
The horse shook its great head and tried for one more bite of pasture. But it was no match for the bit in its soft mouth and, with a final reluctant toss of its head, shuffled sideways in the harness, snorted loudly, and started forward, dragging the creaking cart behind.
Anna Mary watched the laborious journey to the far side of the field. Not once did her da look back. When finally the cart came to a halt and he jumped down to swing open the field gate she waited for a wave but still he didn’t look.
It was only when he was out of sight and the groan of the heavily laden cart had faded to silence that she turned away to start back up the field.
As she neared the fence she looked up and saw her grandmother’s arms loose from where they had been tightly folded across her bulging chest. And, at that moment, all the hurt and shock of the past short while released and rushed up into her throat.
With a deep sob she scaled the stile and threw herself, with enough force to knock them both sideways, into Ma's waiting embrace.
“Oh Ma,” she wept, “he’s me da.”
Softly Ma patted and shushed.
“He said I looked like me mam and that you should bring me back t...” Her voice choked and she gulped down a loud wet sob.
“He's right, y’ do, and you can count yerself lucky,” said Ma, pride lifting her voice. “Yer mam was a real beauty.”
Gently she put the shaking girl from her, her own eyes suspiciously bright.
“Now clean yerself up and let’s be off home for tea. I’m hungry enough to eat a hog.”
Managing a watery smile Anna Mary mopped her face and blew heartily into the muslin rag Ma shoved at her. Then feeling nine times better and realising she too was quite starved she took Ma’s offered arm and, as one, they turned back the way they’d come.
A little way down the lane Anna Mary pulled back.
“Ma?” she said.
“Whatever it is, girl, say it while we’re on the move,” Ma growled, dragging her forward.
“But, Ma...” Stumbling back into step with the old lady’s remarkably quick pace, Anna Mary persisted.
“Ma, does this mean I’ll have to go and live with `im?”
Abruptly Ma halted and Anna Mary found herself staring at a plump finger wagging vigorously under her nose.
“Over my dead body will ye!”
The words shot out so fast, from a voice so sharp, that Anna Mary sucked in a quite startled breath and gaped at her grandmother through wide anxious eyes. She was reminded, in that moment of a very prickly, very cross, hedgehog.
“He gave you t’ me when you were this high.”
With splayed fingers Ma indicated a spot near the top of her thigh. “And I’m not about to give ye back now so let no more be said on it.”
Ma's lips pursed in a fierce line between her pink quivering cheeks as she stood there, glaring back the way they’d come, as though mentally willing her words to chase after the person they were meant for.
Then without another word she turned and, re-linking her arm in Anna Mary’s, started purposefully forward.
***
The next time Anna Mary saw her father was the day she became Missus Billy O’Halloran. After the nuptials, with her new husband by her side, she watched him downing his pint of ale and wondered at how she had ever thought of him as tall.
Across the crowded kitchen, which after a lifetime she was about to leave for one of her own, sat Ma and Pa, looking proud and smart in their Sunday best. In between a stream of well-wishers and maiden aunts offering sage advice and tips to keep her new husband content and leashed, she watched them holding court with friends and relations in various states of sobriety.
Her heart warmed at the sight and, in a sudden moment of insight, she offered up a silent prayer of thanks that her life was as it was and not as it might have been.
***
Clouds filtered across the sun and the woman shivered and pulled her jacket about her. It had been a long road from that day to this and much had passed. Billy’s success in the construction industry had eventually enabled her to bring Ma and Pa to New Zealand to live with them. She’d wanted James too but nothing would shift him. Instead, he’d married, had two strong boys, and remained in the cottage making a living from Pa’s pigs and general odd jobbing for neighbouring farm owners.
He was all she had left now; there had been no children for her and Billy.
"Anna Mary, you're all I'll ever need," Billy would say if the subject arose, assuming always that she felt the same.
She’d kept quiet at first, thinking he’d change his mind but he never did. Later, when she did mention it she could see he wasn't to be budged and, as had become her habit, fell silent on the matter and managed gradually to suppress the dry emptiness until she almost forgot it was there. Then one day it was too late anyway.
Now, as she sat there, breathing deeply the crisp invigorating air and loving just being there, Anna Mary became suddenly aware of a familiar call echoing towards her.
Standing, she shaded her eyes with the palm of her hand and peered down the lane. As her eyes adjusted to the sun’s glare she felt her throat tighten and, for a moment, the basket of tatie bread and corn pressed against her foot.
"Anna Mareee," it came again.
She smiled towards the voice and the small white-haired figure, pelting towards her in boots he’d yet to grow into.
And as she started towards her cousin, who was still her best friend in the whole world, she was glad that, for now, Anna Mary was home again and things were just as they were and not as they might have been.