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Kieran Marsh
When I Lay My Burden Down
THE BILE ROSE IN BRENDA’S BELLY AS THE ARCHWAY OF TREES REACHED DOWN THEIR thick fingers towards the car. The road to Ballydove was renowned, ten miles of willows on both sides, planted in the famine as work for the starving. They were alive with ghosts and memories. The willow whips slapped at her, then twisted around her ankles and wrists. They were like echoes of his hands on her, the brute Mal Donovan. She remembered the hairy wrists, the stagnant odour that always hung about him. The bile caught in her mouth but she must swallow it long enough to get this thing done. 'You're quiet,' said Jim. She turned to look at him. His eyes were glued to the surface ahead. It was a rotten road, twisted and pot-holed; the willows obstructed the view and left a skim of soft, decaying organics that made the surface slimy. He was a fine man; not the handsome, world-striding hero she had once imagined was her destiny, but a gentle and straightforward man who filled the places of her heart that Ballydove had left empty and dark. She pulled down the vanity mirror and checked out her face. She was plain to look at, she knew. She'd had lovely long hair once, her one good feature, but she had cut it short in the wake of that summer and had never let it grow back. Jim had never seen it long. Now it was grey and gone a little wiry. Her long face was beginning to show the signs of ageing. Without any makeup, she felt bleak. What had Jim seen in her at all? 'Would you marry again?' she asked him. 'What?' He looked across at her, confusion stretching his gaze until he almost lost the road. 'What in God's name are you on about?' theincubatorjournal.com