Hartnett - Thursdays Child

N ow I would like to tell you about my brother, Tin. James Augustin Barnabas Flute, he was, born on a Thursday and so fated to his wanderings, but we called him Tin for short. He wasnt my youngest brother, because its right to count in Caffy, but I never saw Tin an old man or even a young one, so he stays just a boy in my mind. Tins bound up in childhood forever, as far as my recollection goes, although the last time I saw him he was wizened and looking ancient as the hills. Memory is eccentric, how it stalls when it wants to. The dogs that we owned I dont remember a single one of them ever being a puppy. They were born antiquated and rickety, those hounds, whelped under the veranda with their prime well and truly past them. Da when he was in his moods would sometimes threaten to shoot the lot of them, but Mam would put a stop to that. Mam had a heart too soft for herself her heart got put in the wrong body. Her heart wanted to do its living somewhere clement and florally. Her face would crush as if that misplaced pump of hers was agonized and she would say, Dont you touch a hair of their heads, Court Flute. God loves old dogs.

Now Thora, hed say, contrite and holding his hands in the air, you know I never meant to.

So the dogs got away with being dozy and good for nothing and never bailed up so much as a possum with the excuse being their venerable age, and Tin got away with being young, though wizened, and something of a curiosity in the surroundings, and never had to answer for being grown-up and sensible. God loves old dogs and children and kept things, at our house, the way He wanted them.

Its proper I mention Caffy because Caffy was born the day Tin learned to dig and everyone says that if it hadnt been for Caffy coming then things might have been different, though no one really believes thats so. Everyone knows Tin was born to burrow, he was born to the task like a hare or one of those white blind hairless moles that comes into the world itching to get its claws into the safety of the ground. And what that means is that, if Caffy hadnt come, if I hadnt taken Tin to the creek, if it hadnt been such wet weather or wed lived some other place, things would have started an alternative way, but started nonetheless.

Mam had been groany most of the time Caffy was getting up to be a fully fledged baby, and on the day he was finished and ready Mam was groaniest of all, and the mood in the house was dire. My brother Devon took off for help with having the delivering done, my sister Audrey was locked away attending Mam, and Da looked worriedly down at little Tin and me. He scooped Tin to him and gave him a kiss. Tin wasnt mad for being caressed, he was never as fond of anyone as everyone was fond of him and you could see poor Da would have liked to hold him forever, as though Tin were comfort or a shield. But Tin turned his cheek, and with a sigh Da freed him. Harper, he said, take your brother and go to play.

I didnt dispute, just did what I was told. I was glad to get away. Tin, he was too young to know what was going on. He was only four at this time. He came uncomplaining, although at that age he didnt usually like to go far from the shanty and would fret and whimper if its roof went out of sight. He came that day, however, quiet as a mouse. I took his hand, which was a clenched flower bud. I felt a touch sorry for him because it might be his last day of being the baby of the family and his coddling days could be done. He was too small and knowledgeless to know it, though, so I guessed the loss couldnt hurt him. Besides, his being born was what put an end to the coddling days of my own. Come on, Tin, I said, and gave his arm a bit of a yank, for vengeance.

I didnt know where to take him or how long Da wanted us to stay away and I was worrying, too, about Mam, whod been gasping and muttering back at the house. When we reached the crest of a lumpy hill I turned to look behind me and saw the shanty with the dogs lying in the gray sunlight and Devons summer bed folded on the veranda and no grass, just earth and slime, in a wide circle all around the building, and beyond the circle the grass began and you could see where Tin and I had stomped through it, patches of it being trampled. Our house had two windows and one of them looked into the bedroom where Mam had been pacing all morning, but I had no hankering for going and peeping through. It felt like something dangerous was going on in that room. I knew a fair amount about babies, being almost seven years old at this time. I knew that delivering meant coming into the world, not arriving on the doorstep like a package. And Id experienced my share of newborns; thered been one arrive between me and Tin, which I had seen and didnt remember, and one between Tin and this latest, which I hadnt seen and did. The first lasted only a moment and the other not even that, so I reckoned babies coming shouldnt cause all that much trouble. They either came and stayed, or came and didnt. Only a baby, but everything seemed dismaying somehow, everyone was so grim. I didnt want to be anywhere near the place.

The land where we lived was by nature dry and dusty but that winter thered been more rain than a duck would have dreamed of and when I glanced at Tin the mud was seeping up between his toes and he was sinking into the earth, shivering and half asleep. I shook him wakeful and hurried him along. Where will we go, Tin? I asked, not expecting any answer because he was generally reticent. Will we go fishing?

I had him moving at a trot and his head was joggling up and down, which I took to signify his agreement. There werent any fish in the creek but he was at the age where you can fool them. He was certain to start whining sooner or later, anyway, no matter what we did, and the best I could do was stall that commotion as long as I could. I had a pin in the hem of my dress and I stopped to unfasten it and give it to him. He examined it carefully before looking at me quizzically through tangles of dandelion hair. You can spike a fish with that, I explained. Thats your hook.

I could see he liked that sharp reflecting thing. It was half a mile to the creek and I put him on my back and hiked him most of the way, he being light as a feather. I talked to keep him distracted, telling him it was callous to stab my throat with the pin and what would the baby be, a new boy or a new girl? We had two of each already, not counting Mam and Da, so things were pretty equal as they stood and it would be a hard blow to the side that came away the minority. I thought it was a shame that only babies could be born, whichever it turned out being. I could think of plenty of other things I would have preferred to get for nothing.

The creek was typically a drool of a waterway but that afternoon it was running high because of all the rain and the bank was soft and oozy; Tins feet disappeared to his ankles and he was covered in mud before he even reached the water. He was a dark child anyway, so it didnt look too bad on him. I set on a rock and left him to his devices and looked around, bored. There were white-trunked trees on either side of the creek and you could see where the rain had washed away the earth that had hidden their roots and the roots poked out knotted and naked, groping. It was that quiet, cold kind of day when the birds are surly and refusing to sing and the leaves on the branches arent moving and seem like they never could. The creek was sluggish, hardly rippling, made from something thick and heavier than water. I was hungry, and could hear my stomach rumbling. I would have exchanged a new baby a hundred times over for a plate of something warm to eat.