‘Over there.’ I indicate a spot by the window. Later on, I’ll have one of the new girls unpack for me. I could do it myself now, but best not to get them thinking I’ll do their job for them. I stand near the door, hand on the knob, watching as he carries the trunk to the designated spot and puts it down carefully.
‘Anything else, Miss O’Malley?’ he asks in a low voice.
‘No.’
‘There are other bags.’
‘Yes.’
He comes towards me, but instead of leaving he puts his hand on mine and together we close the door. I think of everything Maura ever told me about what happens between men and women, women and women, men and men. All the things Aoife didn’t mention, all the things she’d done, such terrible things to avoid me learning (poor Mrs O’Meara and her lovely boy). The idea of Aidan being the first to do this to me is unbearable.
My bright blue skirts froth between us, him pushing into me again and again, tongue and cock. And he’s staring into my face as if he’s never seen anything like me (and before this morning, to be fair, he had not). My back’s against the stone of the fireplace and I can feel the fabric of my new dress tearing and won’t Aoife be cross (and more than cross if she discovers us)? And I’m tearing and I don’t care and there’s nothing but this flame inside me and what will Aidan think to find he’s not the first to plough this particular field? It won’t matter. And won’t Aoife be angry to know that despite all her precautions, all her keeping me out here at the Hallow with no company, despite her dreadful sharp eye, I’m just like my mother?
* * *
When he’s gone – and it’s not long after we’ve finished, which suits me fine as there’s luggage to be lugged and what I wanted has been acquired – and I’m lying languid on the bed I remember the letters.
Feeling the heat of him cooling on my skin, I pull the bundle out from beneath the mattress. The ribbon is tied so tightly that I have to use Óisín’s mother-of-pearl-handled knife to slice it. I unfold the first; the paper is onion-skin thin and cheap, the ink almost bleeding through to the other side. The letter is brief:
Father, Do not look for us. I know we have stolen from you, but we have left our child as a surety. We have honoured the agreement with Mother in spirit if not entirely in deed. Let Miren be the price between us.
And it is signed Isolde.
10
‘You must have children, Miren, as soon as you can.’
In the library Aoife’s walking back and forth on the rug in front of the hearth. It’s early in the morning but she looks like she’s been here for hours, pacing and plotting; her hair’s still damp from a morning swim. There’s a fire crackling, neatly laid and lit, no doubt the work of either Ciara or Yri. And the shelves have been dusted, too, freed of a decade or more of gilings; the lacy coverings on the backs of the armchairs have been changed, furniture polished so I can see my face in surfaces as I move past. Whatever else I might think of Brigid, she’s chosen good domestics. The only thing not cleaned is the ceiling, too high for the girls to reach.
‘Three,’ Aoife says on the turn. ‘Three’s a good beginning. Maura will need to start you on a course of herbs, make sure your womb is welcoming.’ She pauses mid-stride. ‘Whatever else your father was at least he wasn’t an O’Malley. Fresh blood for the line. Myself, your mother, no… but you all new and untouched.’
I almost laugh at that. Touched rather more than you know, Grandmother.
‘That’s got to help,’ she says this last almost to herself, then repeats, ‘Three.’
I reply as if it’s an enchantment to be completed, ‘One for the house, one for the Church and one for the sea.’ I thought this was over; I thought this way was old and almost past, that it needed only Aoife’s death for it, too, to die.
She laughs. ‘And more after that besides! As many as you can.’ She points to a large crimson box on the desk by the window, the one I noticed on our arrival yesterday. ‘That’s for you. Open it. Open it!’
She still hasn’t looked at me. In my pocket I can feel the letters I read last night, weighing more than they should. My eyes feel gritty and sore; I know they are red from all the weeping I did, and not even Maura’s eyebright tincture can fix that. I can feel the burn of anger low in my belly, too, but I try to keep it tamped down for I know if I lose my temper now, I’ll never get it back. When you’re angry all logic, all reason, flies out the window, and shouting, as Óisín was fond of saying wisely, achieves nothing – which was amusing considering how many of his discussions with Aoife were conducted at spiteful volume. But the less I say, the more Aoife will offer… I learned about silence from her although she doesn’t seem to recall its lessons now, not when she’s gloating so.
But I do want to shout, gods know I do. I want to shout and scream and throw things at her that will break her brittle old bones. I want to tell her that for all she rages about my mother, Isolde was no better than her; Isolde who used me as currency to pay for her own escape, just as Aoife will use me to pay for her own grand schemes. I want to tell my grandmother what I think of her, that I’ll do whatever I can to ruin her plans, that I will never marry Aidan Fitzpatrick let alone bed him. But I don’t. Instead
