Celia3

Uncle George sprawled across snowy white pillows like a dozing continent, with a green leather bound copy of King James Version of The Bible splayed open on his lap, which looked to Celia even older than him. He jerked upright and belched.

‘Pardon you.’

It wasn’t so much the exaggerated cheerfulness that Celia disliked, or the musky overcooked old man smell, it was the way Uncle George treated her like a child. She was sure that he didn’t even know why she’d been pushed into the room and she wasn’t sure why she was there either, apart from keeping Auntie Margaret happy, which was reason enough she supposed.

‘Hi. I just wanted to say Hi.’ Celia didn’t know what else to say and a blush began to creep and blossom on her cheeks and make her more aware there was nothing else she wanted to say and even if she did she wouldn’t want to say it to Uncle George.

Uncle George peered about the bed for his specs, running his hands up and down the folds in the blankets looking about the room past Celia as if they could be found hanging in mid air. She signalled by patting her head and his hands patted at the frames around his ears and pulled them down from the top of his head, perching them on his big nose.

‘What do you want to see me about?’

Celia’s forehead frowned for her face and her lips puckered up before blurting out: ‘Nothing’.

Uncle George’s bed squeaked as he sat up straighter and leaned forward and looked bug-eyed through his specs.

‘Nothings always is something.’

Uncle George words came with smile; an invitation for Celia’s cheeks to dimple. The King James Bible on his bed rolled to one side of him. Celia had seen any number of Bibles before, but never such a cover, which seemed to have what looked like precious stones in it. He caught her looking at it and smiled again.

‘A book about nothing and something.’ He rolled the words out so drolly and with such an expression on his face that they almost sat up and begged to be listened to. ‘What do you think it’s about?’

‘About God?’ She wasn’t sure that was what Uncle George wanted to hear, but she couldn’t think of anything else.

‘Exactly. About something and nothing.’ Uncle George giggled.

She’d never heard him giggle before and that made her feel much better, so that she edged forward and sat on the bed. If she was going to listen to him talking rubbish, she figured, the least she could do would be to make herself comfortable.

‘And what about Adam?’ Uncle George talked about the biblical figure as if he was talking about Adam the old lollipop man, or someone on TV. ‘He was something made out of nothing.’ ‘And you know something else?’ Uncle George’s voice rose in exasperation, ‘he was the world’s first gypsy made to roam from place to place and never having a home. We come from a long line of Gypsies and to God for that we are truly thankful’.

Celia knew that he knew and that somehow made him seem different, because she knew he was talking about her and was on her side.

‘I didn’t know you were a Christian.’ Celia fingered her crucifix delighted to have caught Uncle George out.

Uncle George took his time replying and seemed to grow bigger, become bloated with words:

‘I am a Christian and a Jew and a Sikh and a Hindu. I am a Greek and a Roman. I am all men and all men are me. Other folk of course call us different names and think of us as tinks. There’s no land of milk and honey for the likes of us. But their opinions matter little. As long as we know who we are. We are the red headed sons and daughters of Esau. When I was your age, hard it is for you to imagine- me being that age- I went to school, much as travelling folk do and I suppose much like the one you go to now. It didn’t matter if it was sunshine, rain, or snow I had no shoes and went barefoot. Other children wouldn’t sit next to me because they said I smelt of wood smoke and dung. But they’d have found a reason not to sit next to me anyway. The teachers were worse than the pupils and if anyone got a belting it was always me. My Mammie's fear of school inspectors was balanced by her view that time in school was dead-time, but then again, she couldn’t read or write. And my Da’ kept his counsel over the long years and the different schools, neither saying “Aye” or “No”. He left it up to me. For we were proud to be who we were. One thing he did give me was two hands and two feet and a willingness to plant them in the earth and say “no more”. And if I’d asked him there would have been another two hands and feet stood next to mine. And another. And another. As many as were needed, for that is the way of our people. So I’m telling you now, little lassie, my people are leaving their distant shores and they are coming here, not for you, not for me, but for themselves. I’ll ask you this, little lassie, do you need someone to stand beside you now?’

‘No Uncle George.’ Celia surprised herself. Her voice was firm and without fear.

‘I’ll hold you to that then.’ Uncle George picked up his Bible.

Celia thought, for a moment he was going to ask her to swear on it. But he just flicked through the pages, looking at none in particular, settling himself into the bed as if he were part of it. That was the Uncle George Celia had known. He looked over at her as if to ask why she was still there.

‘Do you know the difference between God and the Devil?’

Celia framed an answer about God being good and the Devil evil, but he continued speaking as if she weren’t there.

‘God forgives and lets you forget. The Devil just never forgets. Remember that,’ he said, pointing at the door, ‘and remember to tell your Auntie what decision you came to. She might be able to give you a few pointers. She’s a very able woman.’

‘Yes Uncle.’ Celia felt as if she should curtsey or something.

Auntie Margaret was listening to the Radio Eire rubbish she said she never listened to and kept threatening to turn off when she got caught out, whilst working her way through a few dishes at the sink. She smiled at Celia in the dreamy way she had when her thoughts were on other things, but is seemed to Celia that she knew, just knew.

‘Maybe she’s psychic,’ thought Celia. ‘Maybe I’m psychic. Maybe we’re psychic because we are Gypsies.’ And just to confirm what she’d been thinking Auntie Margaret’s first words after turning and putting the clean mugs on the draining board was a matter of fact:

‘It’s not finished you know.’

Celia did know, but was trying not to think about it and in the warm comfort of Auntie and Uncle’s house it all seemed so far away.

‘I know.’ She sighed, flouncing down on one of the chairs at the kitchen table, as if carrying the weight of the world. ‘What should I do?’

Aunt Margaret pushed herself into the gap between the table and chair and carefully sat down as if unsure whether the chair legs could hold her weight. ‘That’s up to you.’

Celia felt as if she was following the breadcrumbs of cryptic clues and Auntie Margaret was beginning to sound like Uncle George. Celia’s thoughts whirred this way and that and couldn’t settle. Auntie Margaret cupped two dish worn hands over hers, like a moth closing its papery wings and her mind seemed to settle. She took a deep breath before saying anything.

‘I know I’ve been stupid…’

‘You’ve not been stupid.’ Auntie Margaret corrected her, before letting her continue.

‘It’s just that…I don’t know what to do.’

Celia sounded as if she was going to cry and Auntie Margaret squeezed her fingers. ‘It’s just that I was so scared.’

Auntie Margaret pulled a hanky from her apron pocket and blew her nose. ‘There’s a foolish quality in courage and sometimes.’ She blew her nose again.

‘I know I can’t avoid them for the rest of my life, but that’s what I want to do.’

Auntie Margaret patted her hands and touched her cheek, a quick darting petting movement, before slowly standing up and banging the pots and pans about as she washed them, with her back to her as if she was listening to the radio she never listened to.

‘I won’t hide,’ said Celia.

The pots and pans stopped banging and Auntie Margaret turned her eyes radiant and a smile threatening to overwhelm her face.

‘No don’t hide Cilly. It’s such a waste of a life.’ Her tone was so mournful that that it was as if the corpses of all those wasted lives stood in the kitchen beckoning to them and warning of that folly.

‘I’ll need to fight won’t I?’ Celia’s lips were pursed together and she shuddered, but she knew the answer even before Aunt Margaret’s head gave an almost imperceptible nod.

‘But how?’ wailed Celia.

Auntie Margaret stood in front of her, big and solid as a carthorse. But her words were gentle. ‘You’ll find a way.’ And she nodded. ‘We’ve always found a way. Take the straight path. Take the fight to them before they take it to you.’

‘I can’t.’ Celia buried her head in the table and sobbed and sobbed, crying for herself and all that she had lost.