Bridget
I've never liked Ireland. I was born in Belfast and it was such a dreary place. Green hills, little people and blarney my arse. All I remember is cloudy, clammy days and wearing hideous black rubbers to wade through all of the puddles of dirty water on the cobblestone streets, and coming home in tears because my pretty new dress had mud splashed all over it by some gombeen boy on a motorbike. Who can love a place like that? Gray sky, gray streets, gray buildings . . . And the stuffy churches where you had to kneel silently for what seemed like hours on those terrible wooden kneelers, and you knew you were supposed to be praying and reflecting on God, but all you could really think about was how God really must not mean for you to torture your poor little knees that way and wouldn't he rather you use the pretty padded and embroidered kneelers that Mary Francis said they have in the Anglican church? And all the while, I'm thinking this and trying not to fidget and there Colum is next to me, his head bowed, his hands clasped, and his face as pious as any saint, and I know he doesn't have a single thought in his head about his nice, Sunday clothes wrinkling, but I hope, just for a moment, that he's also praying for some padded kneelers because the hard wooden ones hurt his knees too.
Then, after mass was finally over, mum would reach out a hand and take mine into it, and Colum would take my other hand, and da would take Colum's other hand, and back home we would go, just like that. It was all so quiet, so perfect, you can't hardly stand the boredom, can you? I know I never could.
And Colum was such a sweet brother, he drove me absolutely mad. He never fought with me. Almost never. There was one time when one of the neighborhood boys bloodied his nose, and I laughed at him, and then he tackled me and pulled my hair. Da laughed and pulled him away, and then he let me curl up in his lap and cry while mum tried to comfort and scold poor Colum while she wiped away the blood and tears on his face. It was the only time I ever remember him hurting me.
Mum and da were more of the same. Da was tall and strong with lovely fair hair and smiling eyes. He was always so cheerful and full of songs and stories. He also had big, strong arms and I still remember him carrying me up to bed on the nights I'd fall asleep downstairs. He smelled like soap and peat and home. No matter how much I hate peat and how it smells like wet, dirty rags, on my father the scent was a comfort.
Colum, I think, will always bring back memories of ma. We both take after her in our looks, with her red, red hair and bright green eyes. But Colum takes after her in her manner as well. She was always so pious and quiet and serious. She reminded me of the Virgin Mary - only with red hair. She was always busy just being a housewife and her hands were dry and rough from all the time she spend cooking and washing for us. I remember seeing those hands and thinking I never wanted to be like her. I wouldn't work my life away for a family that made your hands crack from all the things you did for them, or a God who hurt you knees from all the time you had to pray with not even padding to protect your poor knee bones, or a place so damp that it did dreadful things to the lovely curls you worked so hard to get into your hair. I was a vain child even then.