Part 7 (1/2)

'Oh, tiny ones. Miniature ones. It's getting darker here, is it happening there too?'

'Yes, it's happening here. Go on.'

'Is that a dog I hear howling?'

'Yes, the animals are getting nervous. I don't think they're happy with the situation. Tell me more, Dad, please.'

'Well, you put the marble up your nostril. Right or left, can't remember which.'

'I what?' she asks. 'Why would I do that?'

'Because you were two years old, and why not?'

She laughs.

'Well, I couldn't get the b.l.o.o.d.y thing out. I tried everything I could, so eventually I had to bring you to A&E. They tried tweezers, tried to make you blow your nose, which you couldn't do, you kept blowing out through your mouth until eventually Dr Punjabi, an Indian man that I subsequently had a few dealings with, did a kind of CPR. He blew into your mouth and pressed your nostril closed and pop, out it came.'

We both laugh. It is dusk now, everyone around me is looking up, gla.s.ses on and looking like wallies, me included. Lea sees me and gives me an excited thumbs up.

'When your mam got home that day you told her that an Indian man kissed you. I pretended I had no idea what you were talking about, that you'd seen it on a cartoon or something.'

'I remember that story,' she says, breathless. 'Our next-door neighbour Mary Hayes said that I told her I kissed an Indian man. I never knew where it came from.'

'You told the entire street I think.'

We laugh.

'Tell me more about the moonie,' Sabrina says.

I'm taken aback by her question. It unsettles me and I don't know why. I feel uncomfortable and a bit upset. It's all very confusing. Perhaps it's got to do with what's happening up there in the sky. Maybe everybody feels like this right now. I gather myself.

'The moonie marble,' I say, conjuring up the image in my mind. 'An appropriate story for today, perhaps that's why it came to mind. I was looking for a particular type, but couldn't find it, could only get the miniature ones. A box of two hundred and fifty of them, like little pearls, and they came in a wonderful gla.s.s jar, like an oversized jam jar. I don't know how you got your hands on one. I left you for a moment, I suppose, or wasn't watching when I should have been.'

'What did the marble look like?'

'You don't want to know about this, Sabrina, it's boring-'

'It's not boring,' she interrupts, voice insistent. 'It's important. I'm interested. Tell me about it, I want to hear.'

I close my eyes and picture it, my body relaxing. 'A moonie marble is a translucent marble, and I suppose what I like about it is that when a bright light casts a shadow on it there's a distinct fire burning at its centre. They have a remarkable inner glow.'

And it's odd, and I feel so odd, in this unusual moment when the sun has faded, disappeared behind the moon in the middle of the afternoon, that I realise why it is exactly that I hold on to my ma's photograph. It's because, just like the moonie, you can see her fire burning at her centre, and that in anything and anyone is something to behold, to collect and preserve, take it out to study when you feel the need of a lift, or rea.s.surance, maybe when the glow in you has dimmed and the fire inside you feels more like embers.

'Dad? Dad, are you okay?' she's whispering and I don't know why she's whispering.

The moon has pa.s.sed the sun entirely and the daylight has returned again. Everyone around me is cheering.

I feel a tear trickle down my cheek.

I'm sitting on the hood of my car, in a field where I've pulled over to view the eclipse. A clever local farmer has charged two euro to everybody to effectively park and view the eclipse on his land. Every car hood is filled with people wearing ridiculous gla.s.ses. I've just hung up the phone to Dad and there is a lump in my throat but I'm ignoring that and flicking manically through the pages of Dad's marble inventory. I stop suddenly.

Moonies.

He has many but I run my finger down the list and find what I'm looking for.

Miniature moonies (250) and there is the mention of the gla.s.s jar too, in mint condition. Below that is 'World's Best Moon' a Christensen Agate Company single-stream marble and Dad's description: A translucent white opalescent marble, has tiny air bubbles inside and a slightly bluish tinge to it. Courtesy of Dr Punjabi.

Everyone is cheering around me as the sun has appeared again in its total form. I don't know how long the entire thing took, a few minutes maybe, but everyone is hugging and clapping, moved by the event and on a natural high. My eyes are moist. It was the tone of Dad's voice which startled me and moved me the most. It had completely altered, it sounded like another man was talking to me. Somebody else shone through and told a story, a secret story about him and me as a child, but it wasn't just that, it was a marble story. In the thirty years of my life I don't recall that word pa.s.sing his lips and now, while I'm on this ... quest and while I watch a natural phenomenon, I feel overwhelmed. I take my eclipse-viewing gla.s.ses off to wipe my eyes. I must drive directly to Dad now, talk to him about the marbles. It didn't feel right to raise the issue before when he clearly didn't remember, but perhaps the bloodies triggered more memories today.

I exhale slowly, deliberately, and hear Aidan's voice from a previous conversation.

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing,' I snap.

'You sighed,' he says, demonstrating it. It's heavy and slow, and sad. 'You do it all the time.'

'I wasn't sighing, I was just ... exhaling.'

'Isn't that what sighing is?'

'No, it's not. I just ... doesn't matter.' I continue making the school lunch in silence. b.u.t.ter, ham, cheese, bread, slice. Next.

He bangs the fridge closed. I realise I'm not communicating again.

'It's just a habit,' I say, making an effort to communicate, not to snap, not to be angry. I must follow the counsellor's rules. I don't want to be in the spotlight again this week for all of my bad faults. I don't want to be at counselling at all. Aidan thinks it will help us. I, on the other hand, find that silence and tolerance is the best way forward, even if the tolerance is on the edge, particularly when I don't know what the problem is, or even if there is one. I'm just told that my behaviour points to the fact that there is. My behaviour being one of silence and tolerance. It's a vicious circle.

'I hold my breath and then I release it,' I explain to Aidan.

'Why do you hold your breath?' he asks.

'I don't know.'

I think he's going to get in a huff again, because he'll think I'm holding something back, some enormous secret that doesn't exist but which he thinks does. But he doesn't say anything, he's thinking about it.

'Maybe you're waiting for something to happen,' he says.

'Maybe,' I say without really thinking it through, adding the raisins to the lunch box, just happy he's not in a huff any more. Argument avoided, I don't have to worry about the eggsh.e.l.ls that surround him. Or maybe they're around me.

But I think about it now. Yeah, maybe I am waiting for something to happen. Maybe it will never happen. Maybe I will have to make it happen myself. Maybe that's what I'm doing now.

My phone rings and I don't recognise the number.

'h.e.l.lo?'

'Sabrina, Mickey Flanagan here. Can you talk?'

'Yes, of course. I'm just on my way home, I pulled in to watch the eclipse.' I wonder if he knows about my trip to his nephew. I hope not. Accusing him was one thing, accusing a nephew would be a double insult. Even though it turns out he did open the boxes.

'Ah, a remarkable thing wasn't it? I went home to watch it with my better half, Judy. We were talking about you and the marbles.' He pauses and I know something is coming up. 'We were talking about your boxes and Judy remembered that they didn't all come together on the same day in the single delivery.'