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She walked beside him to the open schoolhouse door and once inside took off her old, navy-blue burberry and headscarf. She tossed her hair and ran her fingers through it. ‘I’m a mess, Liam.’
‘Were you standing up there long?’
‘No, just a minute or two.’ Nora sat in the armchair and raised her feet to the fire. The turf was burning well and the smell of it filled the room. She could hear Liam put the kettle on in the kitchen. She stared at the flames with solemn eyes. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap. When Liam came in with a plateful of griddle scones and butter and placed them on the table, she withdrew her feet from the fender and sat more primly in the chair, her hands still in her lap, her fingers twitching.
‘I’m going to change out of this wet shirt,’ he said. ‘You can wet the tea when the kettle boils. It’ll only be a minute or two.’
Liam left Nora alone and apparently distracted, and she was still in the chair when he returned, wearing a fresh white shirt with no collar. ‘Have a scone,’ he said, holding out the plate. ‘Fresh this morning from the bakery. And fresh butter too. Smuggled from Danesford by old Chucky Henderson. Oh I forgot the knife.’
Nora took the knife he fetched and spread butter thinly on a scone. Butter was so scarce now. The rations were meagre. She and her mother churned their own, and when they were lucky, like Liam today, they received some that was smuggled across the border from the Free State, usually on excursions to Portfin, or Carrickard or Dublin. A lot, like Chucky Henderson’s, came by car around the head of Drumgore Bay through Ardross or across the narrow waters of the bay by boat from Danesford, along with tea and sugar, cheese, bacon, jam, chocolate, cigarettes, lighters, and fancier goods.
‘What are you thinking about, Nora?’
‘Oh nothing much, Liam. Smuggling, I suppose.’ She ran her fingers through her hair again.
‘It’ll be nice when the war’s over and the rationing ends,’ Liam said. After a pause he asked haltingly, ‘Do … do you still hear from Joe?’
Nora lowered the scone to her lap and looked at the fire. She did not speak. Her lips trembled, and sadness dulled her eyes. Slowly tears eased out and rolled down her cheeks. Speechless, Liam watched them reach her chin and drop onto the bosom of her dress. The silence was agonising.
At last Liam said, ‘He’s all right, isn’t he, Nora?’
Libros Libertad 