damage is all in his mind.
I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to blab all this, to set one small pebble of pain on the scale against Bridie’s boulders.
It’s not something I usually tell people, I added.
Bridie asked, Why not?
Well. A sort of superstitious fear, I suppose, that once I say it in so many words, it’ll be true.
Bridie put her head to one side. Isn’t it true already?
Yes, but…more official. Permanent. I’ll be Julia with the mute brother.
She nodded. Does that mortify you?
That’s not it.
Grieves you, Bridie suggested.
I nodded, swallowing.
Well, she murmured. Lucky you, I say.
Lucky for having a mute brother?
Having a brother, she corrected me. Any kind.
She was right, I told myself. This was how Tim was. This was the brother I had now.
After a pause, she said: Or having anyone.
Oh, Bridie!
She did one of her little monkey-like shrugs.
I cleared my throat raggedly. Tim still has his sense of humour.
Well, then.
Also a magpie he’s very fond of.
There’s posh, she said teasingly.
He’s a great gardener and a good scratch cook.
The magpie?
My laughter echoed across the jagged roofline.
I divided the truffles. We scarfed up one each, then had a game to see who could take longest to melt her second one on the heat of her tongue.
Bridie said thickly, This is some condemned man’s last meal, all right.
I thought of the patient whose mind was turned by the flu, the one who’d jumped to his death from a window. But I didn’t say a word. Let Bridie enjoy her truffle.
I was cold but I didn’t care. I turned my face up to the starry sky and blew out a long steamy plume.
Did you know, other planets have lots of moons instead of just one?
Bridie said, Come off it.
It’s a fact. I got it out of a library book. Neptune has three, and Jupiter eight—or, no, scientists just found the ninth by taking a picture with a very long exposure.
Bridie tilted her head to one side, as if I were pulling her leg.
It occurred to me that Jupiter’s ninth moon might not in fact be the last; the astronomers might keep discovering more of them as the centuries slowly wheeled by. Maybe if they got stronger telescopes they’d glimpse a tenth, an eleventh, a twelfth. It made my head spin, the shining plenitude up there. And down here. The dancing generations, the busy living—even if we were outnumbered by the quiet dead.
A man was caterwauling on the street below. I said, We should drop something on that fellow.
Bridie laughed. Ah, stop. I like an old song.
Would you dignify this one by the name?
It’s “Are We Downhearted?”
It’s drunken gibberish.
She sang, Are we downhearted?
She waited for me to give the response. Then answered herself with the punch line: No! On she went: Then let your voices ring, and all together sing. Are we downhearted?
On the third verse, I finally supplied the No!
The time rolled by. At some point in our long and rambling conversation, Bridie and I agreed it must be well after midnight.
All Souls’ Day now, I remembered. We’re supposed to visit a graveyard.
Does a hospital count, since there’s always people dying in it?
Let’s say it does. Oh, I should say a prayer for Mammy.
Bridie asked, Was it in hospital she took her fever after your brother was born?
I shook my head. At home. It happens every day, the world over—women have babies and they die. No, I corrected myself, they die of having babies. It’s hardly news, so I don’t know why it still fills me with such rage.
Bridie said, I suppose it’s your fight.
I looked sideways at her.
What you said to Mr. Groyne about women being like soldiers, laying down their lives? Well, your job’s not to bear the babies, it’s to save them. And the mothers.
I nodded. My throat hurt. I said, All of them I can, anyway.
Bridie crossed herself. Bless Mrs. Power, mother of Julia and Tim.
I bent my head and tried to join in the prayer.
Bless all the departed, she added.
Silence like silk around us.
Bridie remarked, These have been the two best days I’ve ever had.
I stared at her.
The time of my life. Such an adventure! A couple more people are alive because of us—because you and me were here and did our bit. Can you credit it?
But—the very best days, really, Bridie?
Well, and I’ve met you.
(Her five syllables, like blows to my chest.)
You said I was a tonic, Julia. Indispensable. Didn’t you put balm on my hands when you didn’t even know me? Gave me your