I had a childhood and it was happy, and the fact that my mother and Maeve were able to do that for me while the country was ate around us says probably everything anyone needs to know about them.
The sun rises on Slanbeg and us with it. I hear the soft noises of the hens, the rooster making a racket no matter what the hour. Stretching in the bed while Mam cooks eggs downstairs. The smells and the sounds and the feeling of warmth even in the winter while the panes of glass had frost the whole way across and the ice storms went on for days.
Farming in the heat. We wear hats with brims against the sun. Mine is too big and keeps falling down over my ears. The lazy sound of a bumblebee and over that, singing. The sun warm on my shoulders, the smell of wholesome things growing, of grass and peas and ripening tomatoes. Maeve passes me with her bucket full of weeds and puts her rough hand on the back of my neck for a moment, and I feel like my chest could heave full open, spilling red happiness on the hot, thirsty earth.
One happy memory is a million when you’re growing up, one summer afternoon a decade of them. How many days spent by the sea, making dams and collecting shells and seaweed. Lying on a rug in the warmth with an arm thrown over my eyes against the sun, smelling the salt on my skin and digging my toes into the sand. Straying over to watch the creatures in rock pools, only to look up with a question and see Mam and Maeve talking quietly together, stopping to kiss, fingers touching.
Or later, watching them spar, showing me the holds and pressure points and the right curve in a hit. Sitting in the wild grass watching, the chickens bawking and eyeing me to see if I’ll find a slug for them.
The water nearly warm in the big plastic basin she put before the fire. Winter again, the rain raging against the windows, and I nearly feel sorry for it being so cold and lonely and wanting to get in. There’s a towel warming for me on a rack before the hearth, and I know when I get out of the dirty water in a minute, Mam will wrap it around me, from ears to feet. She’ll tell me I’ll be as snug as a bug.
Making up stories for me once I’m in my nightclothes and we’ve finished stretches. Maeve says not to be filling that child’s head with rubbish, the half laugh that used be in her, the light the both of them gave out.
The point being, in any case, that I had a home and I was loved and that was really fucking obvious even if everything else was a mystery.