Cynthia's Poppy Field
 
Welcome to my corner of the Earth
 
Here is the home of my NIP- novel in progress.
In fact, here is a small sample of my work- part the first.
 

(Our Father, who art in heaven)
He stared at me. I saw nothing in his eyes. The boy held a starved gray cat who rubbed its scarred face into his coat. The boy looked about at well off as the old tomcat. Belfast, I had noticed, was a place that doesn't forget and never forgives. It's history was written on the boy's face, nearly black with bruises. The child was unattractive- even ugly with his long nose and upper lip. He watched me with his empty gold eyes, scratching the cat behind the ears. The hideous, one-eyed creature hissed at me. The boy rubbed his face against the cat's. As he smoothed away he cat's loose fur, I noticed that the animal lacked more than it actually owned.
What's his name? He looked up at me.
Tommy.
(hallowed be thy name.)
Your name? He looked at his feet, stepping on one foot with the other, then lifting the shoe to see the dusty imprint it had made. His hair was reddish, just as hers had been. The cat leapt from his arms and staggered away like an old drunkard after his last swill of the night. I saw then that the boy looked very frail, as though his early childhood had been surrounded in disease and he had nearly met death more than once.
Can't tell...can't speak with strangers. He came closer, though.
Take me to your Mum...I'll give you a crown... I held the piece of money in the palm of my hand. He seemed uninterested. I made another attempt...
(Thy kingdom come.)
See? I'll give you this much.... He peered at the hand.
See what? The poor child was desperately hard of sight. He motioned to an open door. I walked closer, trying to make out any figures in the darkened rooms.
Don't want the money.... He seemed insulted and hurt by the mere suggestion. I shouldn't have underestimated his fiery pride. He was, of course, his mother's son. He gestured again to the open door.
Er...thank you...
Fer nothing.He shrugged and wiped his nose. He ran ahead of me into the hovel. I noticed Shannon sitting in the darkness.
(Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.)
He's your son, Michael. She did not look at me.
You knew it was me?
Where else would you hear an accent like that? Her head turned quickly to face me.Her voice was rough with drink or smoke. Or tears.
Yer son's an Englishman, too...No one 'bout these parts wants him. They throw stones at us on the way from church.
(Give us this day our daily bread.)
Still half-hidden in the shadows, I could see her pulled back red hair that was thinning at the temples. The tiny cross I had once given her glimmered.
The boy's a dreamer..Wants more that this. She indicated the rest of the room. One curtain hung sadly from a boarded window.
The boy's nearly blind. Shannon...He needs glasses...and a bath...and that cat-
The damned thing loves him more than I do! She shrieked as she had upon my departure. I saw the child out of the corner of my eye.
(And forgive us our trespasses,)
He's a bastard, Michael! He stood in the doorway, mouthing the familliar word to himself and wincing at the pain.
Shannon- The boy! I had left her screaming there years ago. I had looked back to see her standing that silently in the door. I didn't want the child then. It had been the reason I left. Things were never supposed to work out that way. She charged at him from the shadows and seized him by the arms.
(as we forgive those who trespass against us.)
Mum?
Bloody stupid little...Monster! With the last word she threw him backwards. He landed in a small heap.

Nona! You've killed him! A small moan from the child. She lifted the boy and held him at an arm's length. She had once beaded dresses in a workshop. For rich women. Her eyes were too ruined for that. I wondered what had destroyed the boy's sight by the age of eight. Too much work in the dark.
(And lead us not into temptation,)
This is what your beloved Sinn Fein teaches? You'll never have home rule...Take the boy to a doctor...
I haven't got...
Take the money...send him to a grammar school...Get him out of this place. As I emptied my pockets on the table as I had eight years ago, I noticed a wedding band on one of her red-knuckled fingers. She was married.
Nona..You'll kill him...
( but deliver us from evil.)
What am I suppose to do? They won't take him in Ulster, because they're like you....they won't take him here beacuse they're like me... Belfast was a city of fallen angels. The boy's eyelids fluttered. He was listening. She noticed the movement and was about to strike him again. Before I could intervene, he threw another faint.
(For thine is the kingdom, and the power,)
Blood ran down his face from a gash in his forehead. He would be lucky to see his ninth year. Or unlucky enough to see it.
Don't you even want to know your son's name? Aye? Her lips curled back in a smile of mockery.
Wynston. She had given him an English name. Branded him. I slapped her hard. She seemed horrified that I would strike another person.
( and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.)
Take care of your son, Shannon. I heard the boy murmur from the floor
�r n-athair, at� ar neamh: go naofar d'ainm. Go dtaga do riocht. Go nd�antar do thoil ar an talamh, mar dh�antar ar neamh. �r n-ar�n laethi�l tabhair d�inn inniu, agus maith d�inn �r bhfiacha, mar mhaithimid d�r bhf�ichi�naithe f�in. Agus n� lig sinn i gcath�, ach saor sinn � olc. �ir is leatsa an R�ocht agus an Chumhacht agus an Ghl/oir, tr� shaol na saol. Amen. I ran from that place before the tears blinded me, as I recognized the words of the Lord's prayer.


I wanted to be like Father Leannan. He was a tall, silent man with thin lips. He used to walk out after Mass and stand with all the children, still carrying his old Bible. One he'd had since he'd been a very young man, indeed. It was dog-eared at all his favourite passages. The ones he knew by heart but still looked up to read the words lovingly. I'd wished for that life since I was old enough to know what I wished for.
One day, child, (as he called me always) one day the Lord will restore your sight. As he will restore mine. He will put all things right, my child. And I believed. As children will believe a promise made to them by lips never heard to lie before. He was a very old man, and no one had ever heard him speak a false truth before. I wonder if when he was little, if he would slide into Church, praying for God to overlook the apple he took from Mrs. Kelly's yard and if he wouldn't see to it that she never discovered the loss. Many a boy that I knew kept the sling he used to pelt me with rocks in his back pocket, hidden from his mother's sight, all through the service. I don't know if God overlooked the fact that they followed us home every Sunday, finding the largest rocks they could.
Now, child...why do you not sit with Timothy or Sean? How do you explain horrors to a kind old fellow with shaking hands and a head full of silver curls? I would shut my mouth and hum the few songs I knew. He would take me by the hand and lead me out to where my tormenters lay in wait, never for a moment the wiser.
You see how beautiful it is outside? What wonders hath the Lord created- I would shake my head madly, trying to return to the stone walls of the church. I would hear mother's voice echo up.
Why does he waste his time with the boy? The Father's name meant lover. How could he be a Father and a lover?
One loves the Lord with all his heart, my child. But aren't all fathers lovers? I shook my head. Nor were all mothers. He knew her but there was nothing he could do but keep me an hour or so a day to clean there. Sometimes, he explained to me carefully, it was most necessary to be cruel to be kind. God, he explained, the Heavenly Father, worked in ways that weren't always to be understood by the human mind.

Father Leannan, as he became older, became shorter and shorter of sight. A bit like God as he became less full of anger and vengance. I still prayed- spent hours on my knees on that cold stone floor, repeating my Hail Mary's until my voice was hoarse and I couldn't feel my legs. I continued until the Father would sweep over and touch me on the shoulder with his walking stick. It was his way of embracing me- I accepted it.
Son...Causing yourself pain- He stopped dead, his mouth half open in silence. I stared at the floor until I could see the tiny cracks in the stone. I looked up at his worn face.
Aye. The one word. Then he smiled at me. He smiled at me with his look that said I want you to stay here- do not venture out beyond that door because I cannot protect you beyond it. I looked up to the glass windows that told the story of the suffering. I thought then, perhaps, that I could bear the pain of a nail through my skin. My hands, though, would not be as clean. There would have been blue-black dirt under each of the fingernails. He would touch me again with the end of his stick. I would bow my head, ashamed to cry at such a small touch. I thought often of lifting my shirt during Mass- just a bit- just enough to show God in his own house what was done when he turned away.
Child, ours is not to always know why. I know you cannot fathom this yet.... Light from the blue glass fell on his face. Yellow spotted his robes. I knelt in a pool of many shades. Wire rimmed glasses perched on his nose. I knew all the prayers by heart. Almost every psalm. I had no glasses to read them with. Why did he always call me child? As much as I had outgrown my old shirts that I still wore, he called me child still. Or his son.
We're all God's children. Every one of us. Good or evil. Weak or strong. I had known his answer all along. He knew that. He answered to reassure me. Or himself. I didn't leave then, even after he had twice touched me with his stick. He would let me stay until he knew I had to go home. Then he would lay a hand on my shoulder as gently as he could. I always expected this, but was frightened at the touch every time. It was his final reminder to go home. Some of the older people remembered him as a young man- when his Bible was fresh and neat, when his hair was a coal-black. He had the same steel-blue eyes. They had never changed. Some things about people never change. One day I had turned just slightly- enough to let a mark show. I saw Father Leannan turn away. Averting his eyes. Perhaps he hadn't known until that one clumsy moment. But he had. I know he had known. And he'd turned away so he didn't have to see me. Perhaps he thought I wouldn't be there when he turned back. I stood on legs that had no sensation.
Child...my son...I cannot protect you....Have faith in Christ, my boy...he will save you
I turned and embraced the old man. I wished I could have faith in his words.
You remind me of my brother, Aidan... I felt him muffle a sob against my shoulder. I never imagined his family. The dampness of the place had long ago crept into both of our bones. How could I have reminded him of Aidan. I wondered if Aidan had had his coal black hair and steely eyes. Where had Aidan gone- what had happened to him?
Aidan was a bright boy...right until the end. He had the unfair advantage. Aidan was a past already. A scrape on my side had begun to burn and the feeling came back to my legs in needles. He let me down to my knees again and got down himself. His robes swept the floor and his knees crackled with the motion. He looked up to the coloured glass. He couldn't avert his eyes from what his life had been based on until then. Father Leannan stared up at the windows- trying to focus on something that wasn't there any longer. I wondered aloud about his brother, trying to find our parallel. He wouldn't speak, only shook his head and mumbled his Hail Marys. I bowed my head again, ashamed at my tears the way he could never be. The stones I knelt on rubbed my knees raw as often as not. I never thought for a moment about it. I would get home late, just as the sun began to set, he having chased me from the place at last. The yard would be dark. I walked for what seemed ages in the deepening gloom, depending more on what I knew than what I saw to lead me back. I hadn't seen much since that fistful of lye on soapmaking day. Even had I run, if I could have run, I would not have made it home in enough time.
 
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