hand half raised toward her. She knew she was half aslumber and he dead, yet there he stood. And his voice. She stopped herself from moving for fear of losing him. She watched him raise his other arm toward her, come forward to her. Be still, Norea warned herself, keeping her eyes closed. Don’t frighten him away. All his life-lost sadness reached across into a world no longer his. He stepped nearer again, eyes abrim with longing for the young woman throbbing with desire for him and then Norea had to breathe and he was gone. She lay still, trying to bring him back but he was gone and tears rolled unhindered down her old cheeks, burning holes through the cold sheets.
She struggled to sit up in bed. Where was Dagmar? She watched new ballycatter ice freeze in lacy patterns on her windows. She feared the dusk, hours of cold chafe and loneliness. Where was Dagmar? Wasting with desire for her daughter. She struggled to pull her old bird legs out from under the heavy covers to go downstairs in the dark. She had to walk out now. Try to fix things. Hadn’t she done it many a time, left her home, hitched up the milk wagon or walked off a worry?
Donal set the yellowed box at Nyssa’s feet, the music in his wide pocket, his return post haste to his restless fiddler achieved and she still there.
Open it, he said.
Nyssa lifted the lid and folded back the old shelf paper. She had never had a dress in a box before. She lifted the material and couldn’t see which end was which. The bodice had no shoulders and zipped up the side. The skirt fell full and was cut on the bias from a nipped-in waist. Nyssa held it in front of her, then dropped the few ounces of fabric to the floor, slipped out of her familiar jeans and shirt and slithered on her knees into the centre of the dress like a child crawling into a tent. Squatting, she tugged up the bodice until it lay over her breasts and she twisted sideways to do up the zipper. Then she stood in a single motion, swept back her hair and tied it up on itself to reveal her full naked shoulders and back, the skirt clinging silkily to her thin hips and muscular stomach. Donal looked at the smooth skin over her clavicle and admired the round firmness of her upper arms.
Turn around, said Donal.
Wait, said Nyssa. There’s something else in the box.
She lifted out a pair of brocade boots in gold and cranberry and blue. She undid sixteen gold ball buttons along their sides and slipped them on her feet with delight.
They’ll fit when I do them up, she said, lifting her foot and clacking down the heel.
She reached into the box for the button hook. Slowly she pushed the little curved end inside each button hole and slid it around, looking for the button to pull through with a tiny pop. When she was finally finished, she straightened up and danced, then leaned over again to admire the boots, raised gold threads of swirling leaves wrapped round her ankles and feet.
She twirled, humming a strathspey, lifting up the full skirt and stepping, listening to the clatter of those curved heels, mocking the dress and adoring her boots.
He watched and imagined how the muscles of her back would throb when she was finally persuaded to stand still, to let the fabric hide those peculiar boots, to gravely lift her violin and play. He admired how the silky black cut a straight line under the lovely V that ran from her shoulders to her breasts firm and hidden, her neck’s curve fleetingly glimpsed through kinky hair when he asked her to let a few tendrils down. He imagined how she would be angled slightly toward their audience, lift her violin and play. The eyes of strangers would glimpse the nakedness of her arms and back and clavicle, the concentrated tilt of her head and the clarity of her brow. Strangers would hear what he heard and watch what he possessed, music and muscles, sinew and flesh.
The wake-robin Nyssa picked for Dagmar died and hung brown and folded over on the bedside table. Bed mites collected on the leaves’ waxy surfaces and the stem shrivelled. The water was dried and gone.
Norea shook her daughter, wrapped up in bed, and said, Dagmar, I’ve been dreaming of your father.
Mother, he’s been