The Heather Blazing by Colm Tóibín Read Free Book Online Page B

“I don’t remember you. It must have been before my time.”
    â€œYes, it was before you were born. I was in Enniscorthy for a good stretch. I remember your father coming to the school, and I remember your mother, God rest her.”
    Madge gathered up the dinner plates and put a tart and a bowl of custard in the middle of the table. Eamon looked across at the Brother.
    â€œI loved Enniscorthy. I was sad to leave. It was a beautiful place. There were some great walks. And it was steeped in history.”
    There was silence then, interrupted only by Madge serving the dessert. Eamon felt that if he lifted his glass he would not be able to hold it steady, that his hand would shake. Maybe, later, he would be able to talk to the Brother alone and ask him: what were they like? What was his mother like? They began to talk again, about the weather and the crops and Mike’s house, but he could not stop wanting to know something, some detail, anything about his father and his mother. He wondered how he could make a question sound casual, how he could ask about them without showing how anxious he was.
    â€œWhat did you teach, Brother?” he asked.
    â€œI taught History and Geography,” the Brother said. “Your father taught everything; he was a great teacher,” he continued.
    â€œOh, he was. We all remember him,” Madge said. “He was a nice man.” She smiled at Eamon and Carmel. “All the Redmonds were nice.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    He stood in his suit in the hall while his father searched for the red sashes. He must have been seven then, or eight. His father had found the pins which lay on the kitchen table, and now he frantically rummaged through the drawers and wardrobes in the two bedrooms in search of the red sashes.
    â€œThey must be somewhere,” his father said.
    Eamon opened the back door and threw out crumbs from that morning’s breakfast on to the concrete of the yard. He put the plates in the sink.
    â€œHave you touched the sashes?” his father shouted. “Have you been playing with them?”
    He knew that there was no need to answer. He wished that this crisis would come to an end.
    â€œGo into Mrs. Cooney next door and ask her if she has any sashes,” his father shouted from the top of the stairs, but Eamon stayed where he was for a while, listening as his father pulled out another drawer in the small room. He opened the front door and closed it behind him to make it seem that he had gone, but instead he sat on the steps. There was no one on the street. The sun was high over Vinegar Hill. Suddenly his father came to the window.
    â€œIt’s all right,” he said. “It’s all right. You needn’t go. I found them.”
    His father put the sash around his shoulder and Eamon held the two ends together while his father put the pin into the clasp. They could go now, his father said as he folded hisown sash and put it in his pocket. Later, he said, when he got down town, he would put it on.
    Eamon left his father at the bottom of John Street and walked down to the school. He was early, and sat in the shelter until most of his classmates arrived. Already hot in their suits in the afternoon sun, they were put into a line as soon as the Brother blew his whistle. They marched down the Mill Park Road to the bottom of Friary Hill, but were stopped there and told to wait. Friary Hill and Slaney Place were festooned with bunting. At the bottom of Friary Hill there was a huge arch. The Brother in charge had moved back along the line, so it was easier now for the boys to play without anyone noticing. A fellow from the Shannon gave Eamon a kick and put his fists up, daring him to fight, but Eamon stood his ground and ignored him, knowing that the Brother would come back at any moment. Soon, the lines of four had broken up into groups of boys laughing and fighting, but one of the men in sashes came up and told them to conduct themselves or he