‘I’d better hit the road,’ Da says. ‘What hurry is on you?’ Kinsella says. ‘The daylight is burning, and I’ve yet the spuds to spray.’ We’re in Ireland again, back with the wonderful Claire Keegan and her intimate descriptions of all the small things that make up a life. Another top class novella from a writer fast becoming my favourite. Here a girl is sent from a struggling household to stay with an older couple, her mother’s people, on a Wexford farm. Her mother is pregnant again and unable to cope, her siblings run wild. Her dad drops her off and hits the road.
Against the stereotype of stories, the foster parents treat her kindly, in a way that takes her a while to believe. They like having her. “It’s a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be. He takes shorter steps so we can walk in time. I think about the woman in the cottage, of how she walked and spoke, and conclude that there are huge differences between people.”
The girl, perhaps, feels this growing affection for these guardians as a disloyalty. Kinsella holds her hand and it’s a simple thing, but her father has never held her hand and she thinks she wants to pull away. There is the feeling, without ever being said, of how impoverished her life has been until now.
One thing I love about Keegan is the way she writes good men. Like Bill Furlong in Small Things Like These. Men who simply do the right thing. The world is full of men such as these, though we don’t often find them in stories. Kinsella takes our girl for a walk along the beach after his wife has negotiated an interfering neighbour. “‘Ah, the women are nearly always right, all the same,’ he says. ‘Do you know what the women have a gift for?’ ‘What?’ ‘Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what’s coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.’”
So much feeling is conveyed in this book with action. He ties her shoelaces for her. She is hugged. Mrs Kinsella makes special puddings for her, knits her a jersey. She drinks milk from the cow. There is a lot of love in the household which needs somewhere to go.
A letter arrives saying our girl has a new baby brother and it is time to go home.
This is a story of everyone who has ever left home and looked back to realise that families can live differently. A simple enough concept, absolutely brilliant in the telling.
Cristina Sanders' blog 