Words From A Glass Bubble

by Vanessa Gebbie, England

The VM sniffed. "Well, can I say it now?" she said.

"Go on."

"I told you not to take Finn Piper no letters. I said..."

"I know what you said."

This was early Saturday, and Eva was working the morning shift. She got ready slower than usual, sat on the bed for a while and watched Connor snoring. The day seemed weighted down. And it was that day that the VM again said two things for Eva to think about.

"Life," she said, "ain't no bowl of cherries." Eva ignored this one; it said nothing she didn't know anyway. She picked up Declan's photo, kissed it, and the VM said, "You be enjoying yourselves, now."

The VM wasn't looking at her any more. Her bad eye seemed to have slipped sideways and she was looking past Eva with the other eye, like there was something important on the wall behind her. Eva didn't answer with her heart or her mouth. She went to replace Declan in the niche, when something in what the VM had said came back at her like an echo and bounced around in her heart. "You be enjoying yourselves..."

Eva picked up the VM's bubble and turned it over. The glass was sealed at the base with a black plastic plug. The VM's voice was somewhat muffled, "What in the name of Paddy O'Neill are you up to?" she said. "I can't breathe upside-down." Eva pushed Declan's photo deep into her hip pocket.

It didn't take much effort with a kitchen knife to loosen the VM's plug. "Will you be telling me what's going on?" said the VM, who, being attached to the plug with a dab of hard yellow glue, lay in Eva's hand, her fronds of green plastic foliage and bright pink flowers scattered over the lino. Her bubble lay on its side on the table, completely empty.

"This might hurt a bit, sorry," said Eva's heart, as she slid the knife between the VM's robes (she didn't seem to have feet) and the base. The base fell away and rolled under the table.

"Ow," said the VM.

"Wheee!" said The Infant, his face glowing.

"There." Eva inserted them both into her breast pocket, from where the VM's face peered like a small boy's pet mouse in a blue hood.

"And me," said The Infant, face against the inside of Eva's pocket.

"Sorry," Eva said, folding a handkerchief and pushing it underneath the VM so that he could see out too. "Now. I've got to get to work."

All morning, the VM grumbled. "Me, who's never travelled," she said as Eva did her round on the estate. "What's this?" she said, as Eva put her head round the door of the corner shop on Limerick Street and put their letters on the counter. "Never been here, ugly place," she said, as Eva sent a load of brochures and brown envelopes tumbling through the glass doors of the factory office.

"Be an angel and drop us off home?" the VM said at the end of the morning.

"I'm no angel," Eva said.

"Please? I don't want to go near no kid's parties."

"No," Eva said.

It was windy at Finn Piper's farm just before two that afternoon. He was sitting on his tree stump, party invitation in one hand, the other on the neck of one of his collies. He had tied up the orange shirt - still in its cellophane packet - with blue twine, and had hung it from the pine tree, where it moved in the breeze, shining and twisting like an ill-conceived kite.

He had put on Connor's painting trousers and his legs stuck out of the ends like sticks of celery. Connor's v-necked red jumper had something indefinable down the front.

The VM sniffed. "If there's one thing I can't be doing with..."

"...it's snobbery." Eva finished the sentence as she picked her way across the yard. Finn beamed up at her, opened his mouth wide and crowed, a long doodle-doo that sent a flight of rooks skyward. The chickens grubbing about his bare feet looked up for a second, then resumed their work.

All the way down the track, all the way along the road into town, Finn Piper sat hunched in the passenger seat of the post van, his arms round his knees, craning his neck to see what was passing, then nodding to himself. The van smelled of earth and river water. Occasionally, the shrieks of eagles split the air, nearly sending Eva off the road.

"Will you be taking more care, Eva Duffy?" said her pocket.

Finn called out the names of things as they passed. "It's the sheep alright. It's a field alright. It's horses alright. It'll be men alright. It's a house. A house."

It was a house, but it was a poor one. The front gate swung on one hinge, and there were a few toys strewn to one side of a stained and cracked concrete path. A rusty tricycle, a ball, a plastic bucket and spade. A half-empty sand pit. A larger child's bicycle with a flat tyre lay on the grass in front of a football goal made from bean sticks and string. Hanging from the letter box was a single green balloon.

The presence of the post woman here on a Saturday afternoon was odd enough, but the sight of Finn Piper on the estate had roused a small gaggle of boys who watched Eva knock on the door. She heard the yap of a dog from inside the house, then another and another behind them on the road. She turned and two lads laughed, then fell quiet.

A small boy in a red jersey opened the door, a toddler clutching his leg. "Mam!" The bigger boy shouted back into the house. "He's here. It's Mister Finn Birdman." Then, to Finn Piper, he said, "I wrote it, by myself, nearly. I didn't think you'd come. It's not my birthday, it's his." He nodded at his leg, looking faintly embarrassed. "Can you show us how to make your bird noises? Please?" Finn Piper just stood, head on one side. The toddler's nose needed wiping. Eva Duffy patted Finn Piper on the back. "Go on," she said. "I'll be back at five thirty . Enjoy yourself."

An older boy appeared from the shadows, another toddler on his hip. Finn Piper growled, an old pigeon. He didn't move. The middle lad looked back into the house, and Eva could hear it now - the plink of a xylophone, earnest adults singing nursery rhymes, children giggling, the rattle and bell of a plastic toy - "Go on with you," the older boy said to Finn, "They'll not eat you." He turned to Eva, his eyes flicking to her pocket. "Would you come in too?" he asked.

Eva felt Finn Piper slide his hand into hers. She felt her other hand deep in her hip pocket, her fingers finding and curling tight round a small oval frame. She felt an intake of breath from the VM. Then Eva, whose head did not want to go in at all, stepped over the threshold.