No Country: A Novel by Kalyan Ray Read Free Book Online Page B

difference between bookish Brendan McCarthaigh and bold Padraig Aherne who had to touch everything, had to go everywhere, had to risk home and hearth—aye, and heart.
    Mr. Rafferty had heard from someone passing through here to Donegal, who had seen Padraig in the great crowd heading towards Dublin, but had no other news besides. Mrs. Aherne was at her cottage door a hundred times, imagining Padraig’s tread,restless with growing worry. By the post road, which was some distance from our village, returned another traveler on the fifth day of November.
    It was Brigid, belly swollen, far gone in months.
    Abandoning her usual composure, Padraig’s ma ran to Brigid, her red hair flying, and held her. ’Twas well she did, for Brigid was near to collapse with that much tiredness, and her weeping was dry and fearful, without tears. There was no Mr. Shaughnessy in sight.
    Brigid held her belly beneath the thin dress, her legs seeming little more than bird-twigs. Mrs. Aherne led her in, then closed the shop door for the day.
    •  •  •
    W HEN M R. O’F LAHERTY heard the news, he sent me over every other day to help out Mrs. Aherne. I could see Brigid by the window behind the shop, the long afternoon beam catching her hair, her palms folded on her lap. Each day since her arrival, Brigid put on the apron to help Mrs. Aherne around the cottage, but by mid-morning she weakened, like the new November sun itself.
    Padraig’s ma let me mind her store and coaxed Brigid to come sit with her. Brigid would crane her head at whoever passed the road, and lost interest when she saw it was not who her eyes sought. At night, Mrs. Aherne told me, she would cry in her sleep, whether from discomfort or the months when she lacked any affection and perhaps food too. She would take Brigid into her bed, under a large Galway quilt, and hum some song to her, or tell her stories as if she were a baby again. Mrs. Aherne had written to Mrs. Shaughnessy. Brigid was too weak to travel. Besides, Padraigwould be back any day, and he would marry his bride and put up another room right next to his mother’s.
    So the days passed, and November grew colder. It would be a Christmas baby, Padraig’s ma told everyone, if asked. She gave Brigid some knitting, and herself fell to sewing quantities of little quilts, tiny clothes, socks and bright caps. But I noticed how Brigid’s hands would slacken, and the ball of wool lie on the floor beside her, untugged, her knitting needles forgotten on her little progress, her head, almost a burden on her thin neck, bent in shallow slumber.
    Barely another week later, Mrs. Aherne told my ma she had woken to find Brigid moaning in her sleep. She held her until the pain abated. Brigid slept unwontedly late. Maire got ready for the day, setting up the breakfast milk jug and the bread and praties as silently as she could. When she gathered her nightdress to shake out in the sun that had come out, she noticed with alarm a large scar of brown, damp to the touch, that stood out on the Aran cloth, then rushed to the bed, knocking the washbowl with a crash to the floor, but Maire was oblivious of the sound, the spilt water, or the china fragments. Brigid had not stirred. Mrs. Aherne ran on bare feet to the bed and flung back the covers. Brigid’s gown had ridden up her legs and was gathered about her thigh in a tangle, and she lying like a broken plaything in a lap of blood.
    Mrs. Aherne, her wild hair loose and voice frantic, called Brigid again and again. A thread of drool hung from Brigid’s mouth, and then Maire noticed a tear gathered under one eye. She was breathing, small and ragged. Maire reached into a low shelf in the cupboard and brought out a bottle of brandy, which she poured down Brigid’s sputtering throat. She hauled her up and sat her on the bed between pillows and pulled her dress above the waist. Thebaby was very low on her thin pelvis. Maire felt for her pulse but could not seem to locate it. She let go of