Work Text:
Eilish had been standing beside the open door of the shed with the late-afternoon sun catching the old scar across one knuckle, sorting through a biscuit tin of bolts while two small bikes waited upside down on their handlebars. One belonged to a six-year-old whose chain had come loose for the third time that month. The other had been abandoned there by an older boy who’d assured her there was only a little sound coming from the back wheel, though the wheel itself had been wobbling like it was considering leaving the rest of the bicycle behind. Eilish had been halfway through telling him exactly what she thought of that description when a younger child noticed the shape of her upper arm beneath her faded black vest.
Then a little girl in a pink tracksuit had come trotting over, dragging her younger brother by the hand and shouting that Eilish was going to lift something. She had no evidence for this beyond Eilish’s arms being bare and a spanner lying on the ground nearby, but certainty travelled faster than fact among the site’s children. Within minutes, heads had appeared around caravan corners. Doors had opened. Older sisters had come out carrying toddlers. Two lads who’d been pretending to play cards on an upturned crate abandoned the pretence without even gathering the cards. A cluster of girls between ten and thirteen approached together, trying to look as though they’d merely happened to be walking that way.
Even the older teenagers drifted nearer, though they stationed themselves around the outer edge of the crowd and adopted the bored, sceptical faces of people who hadn’t hurried at all.
Eilish’s arms had grown steadily more impressive through the past few years, though she still carried less of the outright bulk she would develop later. At nineteen, she was compact, taut and cut through with the visible beginnings of formidable power. Her shoulders sat broad beneath the vest. Her forearms were browned by outdoor work and training, their tendons shifting plainly whenever she tightened a spanner or closed one hand around a stubborn nut. There was no softness to the strength and no vanity in how she displayed it. It belonged to her body in the same practical way the spanners belonged in the shed, there to be used, reliable when needed, and not a subject she ordinarily discussed.
The little boy turned his head without looking away from her and called, “C’mere Martin. Lookit the arm on ’er.”
That brought Martin first, then his sister, followed by two cousins who had been kicking a flattened football between the caravans. Within another minute there were eight children around the shed, and within three there were nearly twenty spread across the gravel, the strip of patchy grass and the low wall beside the nearest caravan. The news travelled without anybody needing to state what the news actually was. Eilish was strong. Eilish might lift something. Eilish might do something impossible if enough of them watched her with the proper intensity.
The youngest stood at the front because young children always assumed proximity was a right rather than a danger. A little girl in a pink cardigan had both hands wrapped around the bars of the half-repaired bicycle, peering through them as if they were the gates of a private arena. Beside her, a boy of four held a plastic dinosaur by the tail and whispered that Eilish could probably lift a horse. His sister, who was seven and therefore considered herself beyond foolishness, told him, “She couldn’t lift a horse, ye dope. Horses is heavier’n cars.”
“They’re not heavier’n all cars,” an older boy argued from the wall. “A small pony’s not.”
“Would ye ever shut up about ponies?” another girl said. “She’s not liftin’ one. Where’d she get a pony from?”
The smallest boy looked personally offended by the practical objection. “There’s one down beyond the field.”
“That’s not ours.”
“Could ask.”
“Ask the pony, is it?”
Their chatter overlapped and multiplied. The older children made predictions with the solemn expertise of people who had never lifted anything heavier than a younger sibling and yet believed themselves qualified to judge every feat of strength known to humankind. One boy said Eilish could pick up the front of a car if the handbrake was on. Another insisted the handbrake had nothing to do with the weight of it.
A girl of about eleven said she had once seen Eilish carry a washing machine without anyone helping her, which was nearly true but improved with every retelling. Two smaller children claimed she had lifted the entire washing machine over her head. The eldest teenagers remained a little farther back, leaning against walls and pretending they had not come running with everyone else, though their eyes kept returning to Eilish’s arms.
Eilish let the noise continue while she put the bolts back into the tin. She closed the lid, set it on the workbench and wiped her palms down the thighs of her black tracksuit bottoms. The attention did not make her nervous. Very little made her nervous in any visible way. It did, however, make her suspicious.
She looked over the children, her expression flat beneath the shadow of her dark brows. “Which wan started this?”
Every child pointed at someone else.
The little boy with the dinosaur pointed at Martin. Martin pointed at his sister. His sister pointed at the older boys on the wall. One of them pointed directly at the little boy again, completing the circle.
Eilish watched the accusations travel around the gathering and gave a low grunt. “Aye. Fierce brave, the lot of ye.”
“We only wanna see,” the girl behind the bicycle said, rocking herself forward against the handlebars. “Go on, Eilish. Show us yer muscles.”
“I’ve no muscles,” Eilish replied.
The children howled at the lie. The younger ones laughed because everyone else had, while the older ones shouted objections over one another. A boy near the back yelled, “Ye’ve arms like a fella!” and immediately ducked behind his cousin in case Eilish objected to the comparison.
She did not move towards him. She only looked in his direction and said, “I’ve arms like me own, and ye’ll have no arms at all if ye’re not careful.”
The children laughed harder, including the boy she had threatened. They understood the difference between actual anger and the low, dry warning Eilish used when she was allowing herself to be entertained. She had an unusual popularity among the site’s children precisely because she never spoke to them as if they were decorative or dim. She expected sense from them, even when there was very little evidence available. She fixed their bicycles, found lost footballs, settled rows before they turned cruel, and carried injured children home without making their fright worse. She was severe enough to be impressive and dependable enough to be safe. The combination made her magnetic.
A girl of twelve folded her arms and called, “Lift the motorbike.”
“No.”
“The back of it only.”
“No.”
“The wheel, then.”
Eilish glanced at the motorbike half-hidden beneath a tarpaulin. “That wheel’s stayin’ where it is.”
“Lift Martin.”
Martin straightened at once, delighted to have been nominated. “Aye, lift me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause I don’t like ye.”
That earned another explosion of laughter. Martin clutched his chest and staggered against the wall as if mortally wounded, though he was grinning too broadly to sell it. “That’s rotten, that is.”
“Ye’ll live.”
“Lift two of the small ones together,” somebody suggested.
“No.”
“Lift three.”
“Are ye all after tryin’ to kill one another, or what?”
The little girl gripping the bicycle bars raised one hand. “I’m not.”
“No, love. Ye’re only after pullin’ that bike back down on yer head.”
The child released the handlebars immediately and stepped away with a guilty expression. Eilish gave a small nod, approving the correction, then looked over the crowd again. There were toddlers pressed beside preteens, teenagers pretending indifference, children perched on steps and walls, and one baby balanced on the hip of a girl who could not have been more than ten herself. The growing expectancy had changed the atmosphere. The chatter dropped into whispers whenever Eilish shifted her stance, only to swell again when she did nothing remarkable.
From near the side of the gathering, Nee-Nee watched the whole thing with an expression of mild amusement.
At fifteen, she had already perfected the ability to stand among a crowd without being absorbed by it. She wore her dark hair pulled back neatly, gold studs at her ears and a fitted cardigan over a pale top, her clothes tidier than the gravel and dust around her had any intention of permitting. Her arms were folded loosely beneath her chest, and one trainer rested against the low edge of a concrete block. She looked neither eager nor impressed. That was part of the arrangement.
The idea had been tested two evenings before, out of sight behind the shed after most of the younger children had been called indoors. Eilish had approached it as seriously as any physical task. She had explained where Nee-Nee’s hands needed to go, how her wrists should remain aligned, when she should tighten her grip, how she should hold her middle steady and bend her knees once her feet left the ground. They had practised the lift first by inches, then by a foot, then high enough that Nee-Nee could no longer pretend she had not been impressed herself.
The trick depended upon Eilish being genuinely strong enough to do nearly everything the children would believe they had seen. There was no hidden stool, no rope, no second person taking the weight. Nee-Nee would grip Eilish’s forearm with both hands. Eilish would brace through her legs, shoulder and back, then curl her arm smoothly until Nee-Nee rose with it. The rehearsal existed not to fake the strength but to make an extraordinary and difficult feat appear as casual as lifting a cup. Nee-Nee knew how to keep her body compact. Eilish knew the exact point at which her balance needed adjusting. They had repeated the descent until Nee-Nee landed without jarring her ankles or dragging unexpectedly against Eilish’s wrist.
Eilish had trusted Nee-Nee because Nee-Nee listened. She did not panic once lifted, did not kick for attention, did not turn practice into a competition or try to make the feat more dangerous for a better story. She remembered instructions exactly, and she understood without being told twice that the children’s wonder depended upon neither of them admitting how carefully that wonder had been prepared.
Now she remained by the concrete block, letting the children exhaust the obvious choices.
A boy of eight stepped forward and held out a breeze block he had somehow found beside a trailer. “Lift this with one finger.”
Eilish stared at the block. “Put that down before ye break yer toes.”
“I won’t.”
“Ye will.”
“I’m strong.”
“Then ye’ll be strong enough to put it back.”
The boy hesitated, glanced around to see whether retreat would cost him status, then carried it away with both arms wrapped around it and his face going red from the effort. The children watched him wobble for several steps before returning their attention to Eilish. One of the older girls called after him, “Mind yer foot, Superman,” and he shouted something indignant without turning around.
Eilish flexed her fingers once. She looked across the gathering towards Nee-Nee.
It was only a glance. Nobody else would have read anything into it. Nee-Nee saw the signal at once and allowed another few seconds to pass, making the timing feel spontaneous. Then she raised her hand.
The movement was unhurried and almost insolently calm. The children nearest her turned, and the ripple of attention moved through the crowd until nearly everyone was looking her way.
“I’ll do it,” she said.
For half a beat there was silence. Then the children erupted.
“Aye, Nee-Nee!”
“Lift her!”
“She’s too big!”
“She is not!”
“She’ll drop ye!”
“She won’t drop her, ye gom!”
“Go on, Nee-Nee!”
The older teenagers straightened from the walls. The smaller children bounced where they stood. The little boy with the dinosaur began striking the toy against his own leg in excitement. Someone started chanting Nee-Nee’s name, and within seconds half the gathering had joined, the rhythm uneven but forceful.
Nee-Nee let them chant. She lowered her hand, pushed away from the concrete block and sauntered towards Eilish with deliberate ease. The crowd opened for her. Children shifted sideways, dragging younger siblings with them, creating a rough path through the middle. Nee-Nee did not hurry. She walked as though she had volunteered to hold a coat rather than place her body in the control of one arm.
Eilish watched her approach without smiling. “Ye sure?”
Nee-Nee stopped in front of her and tilted her head. “What, ye scared ye can’t manage me?”
The children shrieked at the challenge.
Eilish’s eyes narrowed with a warning that was mostly performance and partly genuine appreciation of Nee-Nee’s nerve. “I’ll put ye over the wall.”
“Ye’d have to lift me first.”
A chorus of drawn-out noise rose around them, the older children responding to the exchange as if a fight had nearly begun. Eilish looked briefly towards the nearest cluster and said, “Back up, all of ye. I mean it. Give us room.”
They moved perhaps six inches.
Eilish planted both hands on her hips. “That’s not room. That’s ye breathin’ on me from farther away.”
The children shuffled back more decisively. Older girls caught the shoulders of smaller ones and pulled them behind an invisible boundary. Martin spread both arms and began directing people with an authority no one had granted him, telling them to stand back while placing himself closer than anyone else. Eilish reached out, caught the front of his hoodie and moved him two steps sideways without apparent effort.
“Stay there.”
“I was helpin’.”
“Ye were in the road.”
“I was keepin’ the young wans safe.”
A girl beside him snorted. “Ye near stood on Saoirse.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“Would the pair of ye hush?” Eilish said. “Or there’ll be no lift.”
The threat brought instant order. Arguments died unfinished. Even the youngest sensed that silence was now the price of the spectacle. Whispers remained, breathy and urgent, travelling between children who could not contain themselves completely.
“She’ll lift her right up.”
“No, only a bit.”
“Her feet’ll be off.”
“Both feet?”
“Course both feet, ye eejit. One foot’s not liftin’ someone.”
“What if her arm snaps?”
“Whose?”
“Eilish’s.”
“Eilish’s arm’d never snap.”
Nee-Nee stepped into position. Eilish turned slightly, setting her feet apart on the firmest section of gravel. She rolled one shoulder back and extended her right arm, bending it just enough to give Nee-Nee the proper hold.
To the children it looked improvised. Nee-Nee glanced at the offered arm, then at Eilish, as if uncertain what she was expected to do.
“How’m I meant to hold ye?” she asked.
Eilish played along with the question, her tone dismissively casual. “Both hands. There. Don’t be pullin’ me fingers off.”
Nee-Nee placed her hands exactly where they had practised, one locking over the other around the thickest part of Eilish’s forearm. Her thumbs settled along the line they had chosen. She kept her wrists straight and drew her elbows close enough to her body that she would not swing once lifted.
The contact made the watching children fall nearly silent.
Eilish adjusted her stance by less than an inch. Her left hand remained loose by her side, visibly uninvolved. Her right arm was held forward with Nee-Nee hanging her weight gradually into the grip but keeping both feet planted. Beneath the relaxed line of Eilish’s shoulders, everything had already engaged. Her feet pressed into the gravel. Her knees softened. Her back tightened, and the muscles along her forearm stood out beneath the skin.
One of the little girls whispered, “She’s gonna do it.”
An older boy muttered, “She’s not. Nee-Nee’ll have to jump.”
Nee-Nee heard him. She did not look around. She only tightened her grip and said to Eilish, loud enough for the nearest children to hear, “Don’t ye be droppin’ me now.”
Eilish’s mouth twitched at one corner. “Hold on, so.”
Nee-Nee felt the first increase in pressure through Eilish’s arm, the signal they had agreed upon. She set her middle, drew her knees ready and kept her eyes on Eilish’s face.
Eilish flexed.
The movement began so smoothly that for the first second several children did not understand what they were seeing. Eilish’s forearm rose in a slow, controlled curl. Her biceps tightened into a hard, rounded shape beneath the skin, and Nee-Nee’s body came with it. The toes of her trainers dragged lightly across the gravel, then lifted free.
Both feet left the ground.
A noise passed through the gathering like wind hitting canvas. It began as a collective gasp and broke instantly into screaming, laughter and high-pitched disbelief. Children grabbed one another’s sleeves. A toddler clapped without understanding why. Martin shouted, “She has her! She has her up!” directly into the ear of the girl beside him.
Eilish kept lifting.
Nee-Nee rose until her knees hung well clear of the ground, her full weight suspended from Eilish’s flexed arm. She tucked her lower legs back exactly as rehearsed, which made the height appear greater and kept her centre close enough for Eilish to control. Her cardigan shifted at the waist. A loose strand of hair fell beside her cheek. She allowed her eyes to widen and her mouth to open in a startled laugh that sounded genuine because part of it was.
“Ah, Jaysus, Eilish!” she cried. “I’m after leavin’ the ground!”
The children lost whatever restraint remained.
“She’s flyin’!”
“Look at her feet!”
“Higher!”
“Don’t go higher!”
“Eilish, yer arm!”
“Lookit the muscle!”
“Holy God!”
One small boy ran around the outside of the crowd trying to see from every angle at once. Another crouched low to inspect the clear space beneath Nee-Nee’s trainers, then slapped both palms against the gravel in pure astonishment. The older boy who had predicted she would jump stared so hard that his entire face had gone slack.
Eilish’s expression remained infuriatingly calm. The effort was real, burning through her forearm, biceps and shoulder, but she contained it inside controlled breathing and exact posture. Her arm did not jerk. Her body did not sway. The muscles across her upper back and side carried their share invisibly beneath her clothes while the children saw only the impossible simplicity of one arm curling a teenage girl into the air.
Nee-Nee gave them one more piece of performance. She looked down at her own dangling feet as if the sight had surprised her all over again, then looked at the nearest children and laughed breathlessly. “Would one of ye catch me if she throws me?”
Every child shouted a different answer.
“I will!”
“No, me!”
“She won’t throw ye!”
“Throw her over here!”
“Don’t throw her, Eilish!”
A little girl pressed both hands against her mouth and stared with round, frightened eyes. Eilish noticed her immediately. Without turning her head, she said, “I’m not throwin’ anyone, love. She’s grand.”
The child nodded, reassured by the steadiness in Eilish’s voice even while Nee-Nee remained hanging in the air.
Eilish held the lift for another second, long enough to make the moment undeniable, then gave Nee-Nee the slightest movement of her wrist. Nee-Nee straightened her legs in preparation. Eilish lowered her with the same deliberate control, opening the curl slowly rather than letting gravity take over. Nee-Nee’s trainers approached the gravel without a drop or sudden swing. Her toes touched first. Then both soles settled flat.
Eilish did not release the tension until Nee-Nee’s balance was fully restored.
Nee-Nee let go of her arm and took one exaggerated step backwards, shaking out both hands as if she had only just survived something wild. She looked from Eilish to the children, blinking once, then said, “She never even shook.”
The children surged forward.
Eilish barely had time to lower her arm before they surrounded both of them. Small hands reached towards her forearm, her elbow and the hard curve of her biceps. She caught two wrists gently before their owners could begin pulling from opposite directions.
“Easy. I’m not a gate.”
“Do it again!”
“Lift me now!”
“No, me, I’m lighter!”
“I’m only six!”
“I’m five!”
“He’s seven, he’s lyin’!”
“Lift Martin and see can ye throw him!”
Martin immediately objected. “Why’s everyone throwin’ me?”
“’Cause ye’d bounce,” an older girl told him.
“I would not bounce.”
Eilish raised her voice just enough to carry over them. “There’ll be no more hangin’ off me arm, so quit askin’.”
The answer caused a wave of disappointment, but the wonder was too fresh for it to become sulking. The children redirected themselves towards investigation. A boy asked whether the muscle hurt. A girl demanded to know how many dinners Eilish ate. One of the younger children wanted to know whether she had bones underneath. Another poked at her forearm with one finger, then snatched his hand away and shouted, “It’s rock!”
“It’s an arm,” Eilish said.
“It’s hard as rock.”
“That’s ’cause she eats nails,” Martin said.
Eilish looked at him. “Aye, and smart little lads.”
Martin retreated behind the nearest tall girl, grinning.
Nee-Nee had become the second centre of the gathering. Children pulled at her sleeves and crowded around her legs, demanding her account of what had happened as though they had not watched it from a few feet away. The smaller ones were particularly intent upon hearing whether the air had felt different above the ground.
“Was ye scared?” a girl asked.
Nee-Nee considered the question gravely. “Only when I looked down.”
“Was it high?”
“Higher when ye’re the wan up there.”
“Did she hurt yer hands?”
“No. She told me hold on, so I held.”
“Did ye jump?”
The question came from the older boy who had doubted them. He had pushed through to the edge of Nee-Nee’s little circle and was looking at her shoes, searching for evidence.
Nee-Nee turned her steady dark eyes towards him. “Did it look like I jumped?”
He hesitated. “Maybe a small bit.”
“I’d have to be some jumper to stay up there that long.”
A few children laughed. The boy persisted because surrendering publicly was difficult at thirteen. “Ye could’ve tucked yer legs.”
“I did tuck me legs. After she lifted me.”
“Maybe ye climbed her.”
“Climbed what? Her arm?”
The younger children laughed more loudly now, reassured that their interpretation was winning. Nee-Nee glanced towards Eilish and found her watching from over the children’s heads. Eilish’s face gave nothing away, but there was approval in the stillness of it. Nee-Nee turned back to the doubter.
“Ye saw me feet,” she said. “They were on the ground, then they weren’t. What more d’ye want, a priest down here to witness it?”
That ended the challenge. The boy shrugged as if the matter had never concerned him and muttered, “I only asked.”
“Aye, an’ she only told ye,” one of the girls said.
The little boy with the dinosaur pushed between two older children and held his toy up towards Nee-Nee. “Would she lift him?”
Nee-Nee looked down at the plastic creature. “She might, if he behaves himself.”
“He bites.”
“Then she’ll not.”
“He only bites bad people.”
Eilish heard that and reached over, taking the dinosaur gently between two fingers. She raised it to eye level and examined its painted teeth. “This fella looks troublesome.”
“He’s a T. rex.”
“Aye?”
“He’s the strongest dinosaur.”
Eilish looked from the toy to the boy. “Not today, he isn’t.”
She bent her arm and balanced the dinosaur on the rounded peak of her biceps. The child made a sound of such delighted astonishment that the others crowded nearer again to see. The absurdity of the tiny green creature perched upon the muscle that had just lifted Nee-Nee sent the older children into laughter. Eilish held the pose for barely a second before handing the toy back.
The boy hugged it to his chest. “He likes ye.”
“He’s after meetin’ me once.”
“He still likes ye.”
“Poor judgement, so.”
The crowd remained around them long after the feat itself had ended. The children retold what they had seen to one another in increasingly extravagant versions while standing beside the two people who had done it. One claimed Nee-Nee had been lifted as high as Eilish’s head. Another insisted her shoes had been level with the bicycle saddle. The smallest girl said Eilish’s arm had grown bigger during the lift and then shrunk afterwards. Martin declared he had seen the ground crack beneath Eilish’s trainers, though there was no crack and he had been looking upward the whole time.
Nee-Nee corrected only the claims that threatened to become too absurd. She did not want the truth diminished by obvious nonsense.
“She never lifted me over her head,” she told one excited child. “Would ye stop addin’ bits.”
“She could, though.”
“Maybe she could. She didn’t.”
“She might next time.”
“There’s no next time,” Eilish said.
Every child turned towards her with expressions of betrayal.
“Ah, Eilish!”
“Go on!”
“Only one more!”
“Lift Nee-Nee again!”
Eilish folded her arms. “No.”
Nee-Nee, settling easily into her new position as the only person entitled to interpret Eilish’s refusal, raised her chin towards the children. “Ye heard her. The arm’s finished for the day.”
“It’s tired,” a young boy said.
Eilish’s brows lifted. “It’s not tired.”
“Then do it again.”
“It’s tired of listenin’ to ye.”
That answer pleased them more than agreement might have. The children broke apart into new clusters, still buzzing, reenacting the event with one another. Two boys attempted to lift a third by having him hold their arms and nearly collapsed into the grass. An older girl intervened before they dislocated anything, calling them thick and ordering them to stop. Several smaller children stood with their elbows bent, staring fiercely at their own biceps and willing muscles to appear.
Nee-Nee found herself followed by a procession of younger girls as she moved towards the wall. They wanted to know exactly how Eilish’s arm had felt beneath her hands.
“Hard,” she told them.
“How hard?”
“Very hard.”
“Like wood?”
“Not like wood.”
“Like metal?”
“Would ye ever stop,” Nee-Nee said, though she was smiling now. “It felt like an arm. A fierce strong arm.”
“Could she lift two Nee-Nees?”