A Death in the Family by Billy O'Callaghan

Author:Billy O'Callaghan [O'Callaghan, Billy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The morning of that last day had started off gray and mild but by afternoon had thickened with mist, an icy fur that smoked the air and turned everything soft and silver. All day, the cottage was mostly silent, apart from the occasional shuffle of arriving visitors. A couple of times, morning and again in the late afternoon, the priest; but mainly relatives and neighbors, coming through the door and carrying the dampness on their backs, pressing cold hands into ours, even mine, young as I was, and whispering how sorry they were for our trouble.

In the living room, we all stood or sat around, May and Annie on the floor beside the settled fire, my mother in the armchair, numb with grief, soft-boned with it. Dixie and Mata held up the room’s corners, restless in their stretching, afraid to disturb the stillness too much, but not knowing quite what to do or where to put themselves. I remained a long time at the window, leaning into the draught just where the wooden frame had separated a crack from the stone and feeling its kiss on my cheek or, when I inclined my head just right, in some thrilling way against the corner of my mouth. Beyond the glass, out in the mist, the world felt full of ghosts. The forge was doing quiet business, so I caught only the occasional thrum of an arriving or departing horse, that heavy yet somehow delicate sound of iron shoes laid down on stone. It was weather for tears but we were all dry from weeks of that, and once the light seeped finally from the day, everything outside began to thicken until even the outline of the road was lost to me. The hedges dulled to silhouette and only the stubs of nearby daffodils remained distinct, their brightness odd now and somehow out of place.

Then the bedroom door opened, and my father appeared. His mouth was tight, as if holding in screams, and his eyes seemed fixed on distant things. My mother looked up and bit at half a breath, and it took me a second to understand what she was thinking, and my father even longer. When he did, he gasped, and said in a quick whisper: “He’s asleep again. But he’s fierce restless.”

All day, Jimmy had been lost in the depths of a bad sleep. The doctor had left medication, a thick, brown syrup that reeked of hops and something like liquorice, and it was just about strong enough to keep him out but scarcely dulled the pain. He moaned and sometimes wept, sitting with his knees folded to his chest, his face even in that unconscious state so twisted with suffering that all trace of boyishness had been entirely stripped back. From the doorway, when I chanced to look, I saw a monster, not a boy.

On better nights, when a wind was blowing hard in the chimney and we could persuade my mother to frighten us with a ghost

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