The Godforsaken Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

prayers we can say, to get himself out of purgatory.”
    “I think Daddy went straight to heaven. He never did anything wrong in his life.”
    “Nobody’s that good. Only saints go straight to heaven. Did you learn nothing from your catechism? Your father’s mother wasn’t a good one. I can say that now ’cos your father’s gone. So he’ll be in purgatory a good while, on account of her.”
    Ruby had never known the woman; Grandma Edna had died when she was a baby. She was rarely talked about, and then only in hushed tones. To add to the mystery, there were no photos of her in the house.
    “Why was she not a good one, then?”
    Martha, still imagining her husband having the dross of his earthly transgressions cleansed in the purgatorial fires, looked at Ruby, distracted.
    “Up in the attic there’s a case your father kept, belonging to her. A filthy thing, with a naked woman on the front of it. I wanted to pitch it out years ago, but he wouldn’t let me. So, I want you to go up there. Take it out the back and burn it, d’you hear me?”
    “Why d’you want it burned?”
    “You don’t need to know why. She wasn’t a good one: Edna Clare. Came from bad stock. One of them Romany soothsayers, who claimed she could see into the future and talk to the dead. She did the Divil’s work, in other words. Aye, I married beneath myself when I married your father. But he was . . . he was—”
    Had the daughter been looking her way she would have registered the sudden pall of fear tensing the mother’s features.
    But Ruby was staring past her, out the window. She set her mug down hard on the table.
    “Who the hell is that? And what the hell is he doing in Daddy’s field?”
    A tractor was driving into the field Vincent Clare had died in. The field her mother had promised Ruby she would never rent out.
    “I forget his name. He rang the other day and asked about it and—”
    Ruby pushed back the chair, her ire rising.
    “You promised me, Mammy! You promised .” She jumped up and bore down on her mother, close to tears. “I told you: any field but that one. I told you.”
    “Well, we need the money, and I own the land, and—”
    Mrs. Clare didn’t get to finish because Ruby had taken off. Out the door, belting down the yard, scattering the chickens, raising dust. She arrived, panting, at the mouth of the field, shouting at the stranger to leave.
    But the man tearing over the grass on the tractor, his cutting machine in tow, heard nothing. She caught up with him, swung round in front of him, and stood waving her arms.
    The shocked stranger braked suddenly, the grille guard of the tractor a mere foot away from Ruby’s bibbed bosom.
    “What the hell are you doing in this field?” She demanded, arms akimbo, face pink with anger. “Get outta my field this minute!”
    The man killed the engine. “Jezsis!”
    Ruby stared hard at him as he clambered down from the tractor seat. On the short side, shabby, wearing old trousers with the knees gone, held up with a set of frayed braces. His shirt could have done with a wash and he wore a cap pulled low over his eyes against the strong sun.
    “Jezsis, I could’a kilt you there!” was all he said, shoving the cap peak off his eyes to get a better look at her.
    “Get outta my field this minute!”
    “You’re not Mrs. Clare?”
    “I’m Ruby Clare, her daughter, and my father died in this field.” She pointed to the flower patch. “Right there! So it’s not for renting. Who are you? ”
    The man studied the flowers. “Jamie . . . Jamie McCloone. Well, I’m James Kevin Barry Michael, but I get Jamie for short.” He took a step toward her and held out his hand, shyly. “I’m . . . I’m sorry for yer loss.”
    Ruby was taken by surprise. She hadn’t expected the farmer to be so respectful. Hesitantly, she put her hand into his. It felt as rough and callused as her own.
    “Thank you. Daddy’s only dead these seven months.”
    “Yer . . . yer mother