came over the following morning. We’d been up about an hour, JJ was fed and the fire was down when she opened the door. She passed straight by me to JJ, picked him up and held him out at arm’s length to get a look at him. That’s Maureen’s way—cut straight to the heart of things, no beating around the bush. A lot different to Frank in that way; he has to know the ins and outs of everything before he can make a move. I suppose that’s what makes them a good team. Anyway, whatever it was she saw in JJ she took to him straight away.
“JJ,” she cooed. “Aren’t you the gorgeous little thing? Such dark eyes.” She turned him round so that the light fell on his face. “You’re going to break a lot of hearts with those eyes, JJ, isn’t that right, Anthony?”
Breaking hearts was something I knew nothing about so I kept quiet.
“How has he settled in, Anthony? Is he making strange with the place?”
As far as I knew he seemed to have settled in fine. I’d woken up that morning and found him sitting up in the bed beside me, looking around him. The poor fella hadn’t a clue where he was. I pulled him on to my knee and talked to him and don’t ask me what I said to him but whatever it was it seemed to put him at his ease. After he was dressed and fed he sat on the ground while I put on a fire. I’d just finished when Maureen came in. Of course she saw problems straight away.
“Does he have any clothes but these, Anthony? These could do with a wash.”
“Not a stitch but those.”
“Well, don’t go buying anything just yet. I have a load of things young Owen has grown out of. I know someone who’ll make good use of them, don’t I, JJ?”
It wasn’t the first time I was glad to have Maureen Lally for a neighbour and it wouldn’t be the last either. It was only a small thing, a child’s clothes, but it made me think for the first time that I might have bitten off more than I could chew. What did I know about a child’s clothes, or anything else for that matter? For the first time I had a feeling I had done something foolish. This wave of fright came over me. If Maureen had taken JJ away with her at that moment and told me I was never going to see him again I wouldn’t have raised a hand against her, that’s how spooked I was. She must have seen the look on my face. She handed JJ to me and laughed.
“Children are simple things,” she said. “Keep them clean and warm. The only thing they need after that is love.”
She came back an hour later and tipped a black rubbish bag of clothes on the table. After separating them out in little piles she went through them piece by piece, telling me what would go with what and holding up little sweaters under JJ’s chin and saying didn’t that go lovely with his eyes and doesn’t that suit his colouring and of course it was all lost on me. As long as he’s warm and clean I kept telling myself.
She stripped JJ then and put on a little sweater and blue pants and he looked a lot brighter in himself; I hadn’t realised how dirty those clothes were.
“We’ll bin these old things, won’t we, JJ?” Mauren said, throwing them into the black bag. “And we’ll get you a nice new coat and wellies so you can go outside and play with our Owen. Wouldn’t you like that, JJ? Of course you would. Anthony, you’ll have to bring him over this evening to meet Owen, to see how they get on.”
“I’m thinking of bringing him to the doctor tomorrow and getting him checked out. Tests and everything, whatever they do with kids. These health certs, I don’t know if they can be trusted.”
“Wait till Friday. Tomorrow is dole day, the town’ll be packed. Friday morning will be quiet, you won’t have to answer half as many questions.”
And that was another thing. How was I going to explain JJ? However hard it had been to explain him to Frank, it was going to be a lot harder to explain him to the whole of Louisburgh. Middle-aged bachelors don’t up and go to foreign countries every day of the week and arrive back with two-year-old sons under their oxter . . .
“How would you handle it, Maureen? If JJ was your child what would you say?”
JJ was standing with Maureen bending over him. She had him gripped by the shoulders and he was stepping forward awkwardly, pawing the ground with his foot like it might give way under him. Maureen looked up at me.
“He’s your child, Anthony, you’re his father now. What explaining is there?”
“There’ll be talk, Maureen, you know the way people are.”
“People will always have plenty to talk about. If talk is the only thing you have to worry about you’ll get no sympathy here. People will always find something to talk about, won’t they, JJ? One look at those lovely eyes and they’ll all be jealous. They’ll all want to know where they can get little boys like this.” She scooped JJ up into her arms. “If you want something to worry about you need look no further than that fire. The way this little fellow is going he’ll be up to every mischief in a few weeks. You need to screen off that fireplace as soon as you can.”
She left after that and we were alone together for the first time with a whole long day ahead of us. JJ had found his feet by this time. He was gripping the leg of the table and bouncing up and down, pointing out things around him. It was nearly midday and from what I could tell it was a mild grey day outside. I pulled a second sweater on him and a cap down over his ears and took him out into the yard to show him around. There was no cold in it but the sky was down on the ground and every place was running with water. We went round the sheds and barns and I told him what everything was for and what animals lived where, showed him where the calves were penned and bucket-fed in the winter and showed him where I kept the geese before selling them off before my trip abroad. I told him I’d never keep geese again because they were dirty things but that I might get in a few ducks because ducks were better company around a house. Then we sat up on the tractor—an old Ferguson 35 it was. He got a great kick out of that, twisting and swinging out of the steering wheel for a while. Then we stood under the bales of hay in the hayshed and looked out towards the sea, out towards Achill and Clare Island. I lifted him up on my shoulders and showed him that the sea was black and that that was a sure sign of rain. Sure enough as we stood there it came rolling in over the land, a dirty big shower, hammering off the roof of the hayshed and frightening JJ and setting him to cry for the very first time.
There was over a year between them. Owen was February and JJ was the middle of April. And from the beginning they were like brothers.
Maureen was in the kitchen talking to Owen in the sitting room when we went over that evening. Bring him through till we see how they get on, she said. Owen was on his feet gripping the side of the couch, running this plastic tractor up and down the length of it. I sat JJ in the middle of the floor and stood back to see what would happen. The two boys looked at each other, sizing each other up, Owen with this narrow frown on his face.
“This is JJ, Owen,” Maureen said. “Say hello to him, your new friend. Go and say hello to him, Owen.”
She took Owen by the hand and led him over to JJ. I was nervous then, afraid for JJ. It seemed to me somehow that the balance of his life hung in that moment. If he could only make a friend then nothing would be impossible for him.
I needn’t have worried. The two of them spent a few more moments sizing each other up and then Owen held out his tractor to JJ and JJ took it and turned it over in his hands and then put it in his mouth. And that’s how it was, their first moment together—one of them giving over his tractor and the other fella trying to take a bite out of it.
That
