The China Factory Read Online Free PDF Page A

The little brother thumps her sister and she thumps him back, harder, and her father shouts at her. Her grandmother says, That’s the family ye’re rearing now. Her sister looks across at her grandmother. Shut up, you, she says. Her heart is pounding and she kicks her sister under the table to make her stop. But her sister keeps on going. Then as her grandmother turns to get up from the table her mother reaches across and slaps her sister on the elbow with the tip of the bread knife. Her sister’smouth falls open and she howls. Blood falls from her elbow onto her plate. Her mother has a terrified look and she jumps up and runs to the sink. Her father’s face darkens and his mouth clenches in anger. She expects he will pound the table with his fist and knock over the chair and storm out. But he doesn’t move. He is staring at her mother. They are all staring at her mother, and at the big drops of blood falling on the plate. She doesn’t feel sorry for her sister at all—her heart is raging at her sister.
    After the dinner her father and brother go back out to the sheep and she walks around the back of the house. There are a few puffy clouds at the far end of the sky. The afternoon is very still, and the day seems long. She goes back inside, to the sitting room and sits at the piano. The room is full of sunlight. She practises her scales three times, and the arpeggios three times, and then the piece from her exam book three times, too. When she is finished she opens the sideboard and takes out the wedding album. Her father and mother are about to walk down the aisle. She knows their whole story—how they met, their wedding, their honeymoon. She has asked her mother many times. She has read, too, the little piece clipped from the local newspaper. Her mother’s dress was embroidered French brocade, ballet length. She carried a bouquet of pink carnations and maidenhead fern. There were seventy guests at the wedding breakfast. The happy couple toured the south of Ireland on their honeymoon.
    She turns the pages slowly, searching their faces. Their shyness almost makes her cry. And knowing that their wedding day is over, over and gone forever, and they will never be this happy again. There is a photograph taken on the honeymoon at the back of the album. They are standing at the bonnet of a black car, smiling. The lakes of Killarney are behind them. Her mother is wearing a white sleeveless blouse and her Dorene skirt, the pale grey wool skirt that hangs under plastic in her wardrobe. It is the most beautiful skirt,with green and pink lines, the same bright pink as a stick of rock. Sometimes when they are going on a day out to the seaside she runs into her mother’s room and tells her to put it on. She thinks if her mother wears the Dorene skirt she might forget all about the work and the arguments and the five kids, and she and her father might be in love again, and happy. She gazes at their faces in the honeymoon photograph. They do not know what is ahead of them. If they knew what was ahead of them they might never have left the lakes of Killarney.
    She hears her father’s voice and looks out the window. A lamb has escaped through the gate and her brother runs after it and scoops it up. She puts the wedding album away and goes to the record player and puts on a John Denver record. His photograph is on the cover. She sits back on the couch and he starts to sing. Rocky Mountain High. Sunshine on my Shoulders. She thinks of her father out in the fields all summer long. Sounds from the kitchen drift down the hall: the clatter of delft, the radio, her mother’s voice. She gets up and sits at the piano and places her fingers on the keys. She hears the back door close, and footsteps coming around the gable end. She plays high C. Her mother is crossing the yard. She plays each note, C, B, A, C, B, A and hums. She feels the sun on her mother’s face. She closes her eyes. You fill up my