In a new story, Anne Enright responds to Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as part of a continuing series in association with Amnesty International to mark the 60th anniversary of the declaration
I SAW GRACE in a tree, so I went over to her and said "Up there for dancing". She was squatting on one foot with the other leg dangling down and her two arms were spread wide, holding on to the branches. I think it was a sycamore. But she was high enough up there, and she didn't answer the dancing line, despite the fact that the kids used it all the time. Then I had to run back over to one of the kids in question, who was stalled in that place where kids get stuck, just before they start to bawl; there beside the swings in the sunshine. I read somewhere that kids don't cry if there are no adults to see them. I suppose their parents do it the other way around, or try to. We cry when we are alone.
There's me saying, "It's the onions", weeping at the kitchen counter one day, though for the life of me I could not say what I was weeping for.
And the child who asked me what was wrong, the child I told the lie to, my youngest, he hasn't eaten onions to this day.
Fact.
He is the one who is crying now by the swings. He is crying because I am there to kiss it better. And if I wasn't there, he would just toddle on.
You can't win.
Maybe that was what had Grace up that tree, the never winning thing - where else would you go? I might climb a tree myself on the strength of it. I looked around for her little one - who she called Mary, because when she grew up it would be a really unusual name. But Mary wasn't where I saw her last, trailing that beautiful quiet boy with his microscooter, down the tarmac strip of path.
I hoped she was all right.
These days Mary kept saying that her Daddy was going to pick her up from school, but that was because it wasn't really happening any more. He used to come every now and then, very glamorous and young, making us all feel fat. He drove off with Mary bouncing around in the back of the car, which looked so funny until you realised there was no seatbelt involved. Still he was there. He was at the school gate. Which was to be commended. And we liked the look of him. He didn't even wear a coat; turning up in his T-shirt, he seemed so free.
That was because he was free, I suppose. Unlike us, with another child or two stuck to us as we talked. One day, Cathy Blake told us her husband would be doing the birthday party and all the other weekend stuff, because they had just got a separation, and I had a sudden mad burst of envy.
"Jesus, the whole weekend off," I said to Grace, who laughed. But you never really knew with Grace, what side she was on in what war. Her situation was never clear. Mary's Dad had come back from England but he didn't live with them, or probably didn't, and you could never tell if Grace wanted him to, or where the money came from, whatever money there was - at a guess it didn't come from him. So sometimes the whole complaining thing, carping about the price of cut flowers or grousing about your husband's smelly socks, seemed like the wrong thing to say.
It made Grace go a bit vague.
"God, the socks," she might say and give a shrug. But she couldn't do the chit-chat, and sometimes she couldn't do the shrug. And you wondered what went on. She seemed so old. A little slip of a thing and she looked at you sometimes, like what she had to say was so far down a road you would never have to go.
Grace said she came home one day and Mary's father had gone out - something urgent for work - and he had left the child with some guy who was drinking beer on the sofa, some guy she'd never seen before. And he was an okay guy but still.
"But still," I said.
And we looked at each other, to share the horror.
If she could just let him go, I remember thinking, it might be easier.
If she could just do the whole single thing, or admit to it. I mean, she'd already lived longer than most people - the endless nights she had put in, over the years, alone with that little baby: it's not as if she didn't know the furthest corners of her own young heart.
But then you heard the squeal Mary let out of her when she saw her Daddy in the school yard and you had to leave them to it. Morally that is. You had to let them love each other and muddle through.
Not that he was there, now, most of the time. When you thought about it, it was a good while since he had been around.
So I was watching for Mary, in the playground, as I picked up my little son. I had one eye out, for her amazing hair.
"Will I kiss it? Big kiss? All better."
I straightened up and had a proper look. Her mother was up a tree and I felt the child should be informed, somehow. I could shout for her, but Mary had something wrong with her ears these days - or maybe that was the problem all along, because there was always something a little delayed about her, a little off the beat; the way she looked at you, as though to wonder what you might do next.
"Nothing," you wanted to say to her. "I'm not going to do a single thing." She has auburn hair, Mary, real auburn like you might get in a hairdresser's bottle, and thick, creamy skin and eyes that are brown as a monkey's. She's all there - that's the only thing you can say about that child - she is all there.
But the ear thing was a blow, and the landlord was making noises about selling before the market collapsed. Grace said she couldn't give a shit because Mary was waking at night with the pain and they were both ashen, the two of them, on the morning run.
So the playground - the little bit of good weather, and bumping into pals - was a blessing; the way kids can be happy in an instant, and hare off over the grass, while the mothers stand and let the worry lift off them, like steam in the sunshine.
My own little fella was lifted to rights and trundling off to his next disaster, and my daughter was taking off her clothes and tying them around her waist - coat, sweatshirt, there was no telling where she would stop. And Mary wasn't anywhere that I could see.
It was only when I turned back to Grace that I spotted her. She had appeared under the tree and was looking up at her mother, and she was completely silent - which isn't the word you use about Mary, I don't actually think I had ever seen her standing still. And her mother looked back down at her - she was nuts about that child - and I wondered who would speak first and what they would say.
Because you never know what is going on. No one knew with Cathy Blake either before the separation; herself and Joe the most normal couple you could meet. You never know who cries and who watches them cry, or how people get through.
So Grace sat in her tree, with her arms opened wide and her leg dangling down. And Mary stood looking up at her. The wind went though the leaves and it lifted Mary's hair a little. Then it died down.
"Don't fall, Mammy," she said.
ARTICLE 25
1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of themselves and their family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond their control.
2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.
This is one in a series of 30 stories and essays by leading Irish writers marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The series was created by Sean Love for Amnesty International and continues next Saturday. www.amnesty.ie