by Honor Harlow
“William, that baby was born knowing.”
“Dervla, Arlene is a bright child and there is nothing wrong with that.”
“Babies like Mary have to be watched.”
When I was bigger and could sit up, Daddy used to lie beside me on a blanket spread on the kitchen floor and we chatted away. Mammy didn’t think it was natural a baby could say so many words. She gave out to Daddy because she thought I was somewhere else before I came to our house.
“William, when that child was born, I told you it wasn’t her first time around.”
When I got big and could walk, Daddy used to sit me on his lap and read me stories and nursery rhymes from a big book with pictures. It was great except Mammy didn’t like it. If she was sitting in the sofa or at her sewing machine, she’d tell Daddy, “William, you have the girl ruined, filling her head with nonsense about girls going through looking glasses. She has enough imagination as it is.”
I didn’t know why Mammy didn’t like ‘Alice in Wonderland’. The stories were smashing about hares with hats and rabbits with watches. They were not stupid like the one we had at school about a cat. All that cat did was sit on a mat. I told Daddy I was fed up with it.
“Daddy, in the book at school there is a cat on one page and a mat on another page. On the next page the cat is sitting on the mat. It’s stupid cos the cat does nothing but sit on the mat.”
“Arlene, that is the way the nun has for teaching ye how to read with the picture of a cat on the mat and underneath the words, ‘The cat sat on the mat’.”
“But Daddy I get fed up sitting listening to the same story every day.”
Mammy wanted me to be like the cat and sit all day long without moving. She gave out to Daddy when he was showing me how to kick a ball around in the back garden. She said that was what boys do.
“William, that girl has the toes of her shoes all scuffed with you showing her how to play football. Maybe girls act like boys in Cavan but where I come from, girls are girls.”
Even when I wasn’t ruining my shoes kicking the ball but only playing cards at the kitchen table, she still spoke to him like he was bold, “William, put that pack of cards away. God Almighty, whatever is wrong with you? Teaching a child to play twenty-five? Before I know it, you’ll have her at your weekly card games with Dr Kelly.”
“William, will you stop wrestling with Mary. Do you think it’s a boy she is?”
“William, let that be the last time you take Mary to the game with you. How am I supposed to teach my daughter to behave like a nice girl if she is up at the pitch listening to the lot of ye shouting and roaring like lunatics.” I went to the GAA games, boxing and everywhere with Daddy without Mammy knowing.
Mammy Always Sick
Mammy was always in bed sick and Dr Kelly was forever coming to see her. In the evening time when he called, he’d sit in the kitchen with Daddy and they talked about the game. Mrs McLoughlin would get me ready for bed before she left to go home to Maura and Catherine and a short while after Daddy would pig-back me up the stairs and help me say my prayers.
One day when I came from school, Dr Kelly was in Mammy’s room and Daddy was going up and down the stairs the whole time, not talking or smiling. Mrs McLoughlin gave me my tea and got me ready for bed. Instead of going home, she stayed in our house until Maura knocked on our door and told her mother Catherine was crying because she was hungry. Mrs McLoughlin waited at the bottom of the stairs and one of the times Daddy came down, she spoke to him in a whisper saying she had to go to her house but would be back early in the morning.
After she left, I played with my doll in the kitchen. When it was getting dark, Daddy came into the kitchen and brought me up my bed. He tucked me in, but he didn’t help me say my prayers. After Daddy kissed me on the forehead, I pretended to fall asleep and he went back downstairs to where Dr Kelly was. I waited a few seconds and crept out of bed. I opened the door and peeked over the banister. The two of them were talking low. I heard odd words like hospitals and good hands. Then Daddy took his bike from under the stairs and pushed it out the door, saying he’d call Galway from the barracks.
I tiptoed across the hall to the window that looks out on to the garden and waited for Daddy to come back. I was looking out the upstairs front window, but my eyes kept closing. I must have fallen asleep sitting on the windowsill because my head jerked up when I heard the swish of the tires. Daddy was pedalling hard. He threw the bike against the gable end and rushed into the house. I went into my room.
When I was nearly asleep again, I heard the sound of a car outside our house. I ran to the window and saw the white ambulance. They carried Mammy out on a stretcher and put her in the back. I ran down the stairs, but Daddy caught hold of me and wouldn’t let me out the door even when I kicked and screamed, shouting, “Mammy, Mammy!”
“Arlene, be still. Have a bit of wit and stop screaming. Be a good girl so Mammy gets better.”
I put my head into Daddy’s shoulder and sobbed with my fist in my mouth so he wouldn’t hear me. I must have fallen asleep in his arms because I woke up the next morning in Mammy and Daddy’s bed. Mammy was gone.
I was going to be a good girl and Mammy would come home again to us. I was going to be a good girl to stop Daddy worrying about me going to jail. I was going to be a good girl to stop Mammy giving out to Daddy.
Mrs McLoughlin got me up. I went to school half asleep on Daddy’s bike thinking of Mammy in the ambulance. Daddy told me to wait for him inside the gate of the small garden behind the wall and railings.
“Mammy told me it’s called Cork Road, Daddy,” I said.
In the class, I sat still without budging beside Loretta and pushed my fists into my eyes when I wanted to cry. In the yard, I told Úna my mammy was sick, and the ambulance took her away.
“Arlene, your mammy will come back with a new baby.”
“She won’t. Daddy found me under a head of cabbage in the back garden and there are no cabbages in the garden now.”
“She will because one time the ambulance came for my mammy and she came home with a new baby.”
I was hoping it was true. Everyone in my class had brothers and sisters and I had none.
After school I was going to ask Daddy if Mammy would find a baby in Galway and bring it home to us. He wasn’t outside on Cork Road so and I knelt in front of the statue of Our Lady in the small garden and joined my hands like the big people do at Mass. I asked the statue to make Mammy better so she could come home. I was after blessing myself and about to stand up when Daddy came along on his bike. He was smiling and told me Mammy would be home on Friday. Mrs McLoughlin was going to make dinner for us and clean the house so Mammy could rest when she got out of hospital.
While he was picking me up to put me on the handlebars, his face changed. I looked where he was looking and saw the Home Babies coming out through their door. Dad’s eyes were looking at the string of a girl and the boy with the sticking-out bones, beside her.
“Daddy, Mammy told me not to have anything to do with the Home Babies. Stop looking at them or she’ll get vexed with you.”
He didn’t say anything. His face was cross-looking, maybe he was worried Mammy would give out to him. I pretended I was falling off the bike so he would laugh and called me a daredevil, but he didn’t.
When we got home, Mrs McLoughlin had cabbage and bacon ready on plates for us. She peeled my potatoes for me, but Daddy did his own by sticking his fork into the middle of one and taking the skin off, with his knife in the other hand.
Mammy came home on Friday. Me and Daddy were good. We didn’t vex her so she wouldn’t go away to hospital again. At school, I was a good girl too. My bottom wanted to lift itself off the seat all the time Sr Ignatius was telling us about the cat and the mat, but I sat still and only let my legs swing back and forward under the desk. Every time Sr Ignatius turned her back to write on the blackboard I waved over to Úna.
At sums time, we put a two and another two underneath the fir
st two and then put a cross at the side of them and then drew a line and wrote the answer underneath it. It was always four, so I don’t know why Loretta didn’t know the answer and had to copy me. She gripped the chalk tight and took ages to write down the twos and cross at the side. The two were like ducks so they were easy to draw but I didn’t tell her cos she wasn’t my friend. The nun knew Loretta took a long, long time and didn’t come to look at our sums until Loretta was finished.
I passed the time making my chalk squeak as I scribbled on the slate and imaged it was a mouse. When I pressed hard on the chalk, it made a cracking sound. When the nun didn’t come for a long time, I rubbed the side of the chalk up and down the black slate until it was white. Then I shook it off and piles of white power fell on the desk. I pushed it together into a heap and then spread it out and pushed my finger through it and make a rabbit’s face or the watch from Alice in Wonderland. When I saw the nun coming, I wiped it out with my sleeve.
The Catechism class was good at the beginning because the nun told us we would hear about mysteries and sacrifices and miracles and stories about angels, but it wasn’t true. All we did was learn a pile of things off by heart to tell the priest. I knew the Hail Mary, Our Father and the Act of Contrition, which was the best prayer to know. If you were bold all the time of every day of the week and said the act of contrition before you died, it saved you from spending eternity in a roasting-hot fire in hell.
The nun told us on the altar at Mass, the priest changed bread into flesh and blood. I never knew Mammy swallowed blood when she went up to the railing, knelt down and opened her mouth for the priest to put Baby Jesus into it. So, I asked her.
“Mammy, why is your mouth not red if the priest gives you the blood of Christ? Do you swallow it before you come down to our seat?”
“Mary, God is in the Communion Host that the priest puts on my tongue.”
“I know Mammy. Sr Ignatius said a miracle happened. The bread is converted into the body and blood of Christ, but I want to know if you swallow the blood.”
“Mary, there is no blood, just the Host.”
Mammy kept on saying the same thing and not answering my question right.
At school, every day the nun told us Holy Communion was a sacrament and a mystery, but nothing about why we didn’t see blood. If I was good and answered her questions, she might tell me. The next time she asked us about how many sacraments there are I put up my hand, but she asked Loretta instead of me.
“Loretta, can you tell the class how many sacraments there are?”
“Three, sister.”
“Yes Loretta, there are three and another four. Now, I want you to tell the class what the first sacrament is we receive when we are babies.”
Loretta was busy counting out three fingers on one hand and laying them flat on the desk and trying to get the thumb and the first finger to stay away from the other three fingers and didn’t hear Sister Ignatius.
The nun pointed to me and said, “You, what is it?”
“Baptism, Sister, when babies get christened and wear long white gowns.”
“Answer how I taught you to reply when the priest asks.”
“Baptism, Father.”
“God give me patience! Why do we receive the sacrament of Baptism?”
“When we are baptised, our souls are cleansed of Original Sin.”
“Why is it important our souls are cleansed from Original Sin?”
“So we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“Who cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know because you never listen. Loretta, will you tell this stupid girl the answer.”
Noeleen Pitt had counted four fingers on her hand and had put them beside Loretta’s three. Regina Burke was helping them count the fingers on the two hands. She whispered seven into Loretta’s ear and Loretta said smiling, “Seven, sister.”
“Yes, my dear, there are seven sacraments. I know you know people who are in mortal sin can’t go to Heaven.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“And who else cannot enter into heaven?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“You know it is people who are not baptised.”
“Yes, Sister.”
Before the nun asked Loretta another question, I shouted out, “Are babies people too?”
“Of course they are.”
“Can babies go to Heaven if they are not baptised?”
“If they do not receive the Sacrament of Baptism, their souls are not cleansed. Therefore, they cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
“But babies are too small to talk or walk or to do anything bad. They are good, they don’t commit sins, so why can’t they go to Heaven?”
“Babies who are not baptised cannot go to Heaven because they have the stain of Original Sin on their souls.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Mary Blake, how dare you answer like that!”
“Well, it’s not fair.”
“I am at the end of my tether with you. I can’t have this kind of behaviour in class. Your father will hear what a bold girl you are.”
“Where do the babies go when they die if they can’t go to Heaven?”
“They go to a place called Limbo and where you are going this minute is to the bad side.”
As she came flapping down to my desk, I rushed over to the other side, shouting, “It’s not fair that babies who are not baptised don’t go to heaven to where their sister is.”
“Mary Blake, I have more patience than Job, but by dad, I’ll see we put an end to your impertinence. I’m going to have to speak to your father about the way you are behaving.”
I was shouting because I didn’t want my baby brother to be on his own in Limbo.
One time when I was small and in High Babies with Sr Paul, my mammy was sick in bed. She was crying. It was dark, but I got up out of bed to go to see her and give her a kiss to make her better. I stopped at my door when I saw Daddy on the landing outside the door and Dr Kelly coming out of the room with his hands red and holding a basin. He looked at my father and I saw his mouth say, “A boy. It was a boy, Will.” Daddy bent his head, and the two of them went downstairs to the kitchen. I ran into Mammy’s room, but she was asleep. I came out and stooped down on the landing looking out through the banisters at the light in the kitchen. After a good long time, the doctor came out with his hands clean and Daddy had a shoebox. He gave the box to the doctor while he put on his overcoat and looked up towards where Mammy was. The doctor nodded his head and said, “Let her sleep. There’s time enough to tell her. I’ll be here until you come back, Will.”
I crept back into my room. I heard the front door open and looked through the windowpane. I saw Daddy go out the gate. I put on my shoes and a cardigan on top of my nightdress. I sloped down the stairs and pulled the door open without making noise and went out the gate to follow Daddy.
We live a small bit out the country on Suileen Lane, where there are no houses and the front of our house is on Sligo Road, where there are plenty of houses. Daddy was on Sligo Road walking past the houses. He kept going until he got near the sawmills. There he turned down a boreen and walked as far as a big, fat, round rock with trees at the back and side of it. I stayed behind one of the trees and watched to see what he was doing.
He dug a hole in the ground with a small shovel and placed the box into it. I was going to go over to him but when his back shook, I moved away. I didn’t want him to know I saw him. Everyone says boys who cry are sissies.
I wanted to ask Sr Ignatius if my brother could go to heaven, too, but she would not let me talk. As she pointed to the seat beside Úna, she said, “Mary Blake, I have more patience than Job, but by dad, I’ll see we put an end to your impertinence. I’m going to speak to your father about the way you are behaving.”
To show the nun I was vexed for not letting me ask, I crossed my arms and stuck my chin out with my bottom lip over my top one.<
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“Take that puss off you.”
But I didn’t because I was thinking my brother was too small to be on his own in Limbo. It wasn’t fair to chastise him and put him in a different place from the baptised babies.
After a while I felt Úna brush her shoulder against mine. I looked and saw she had a marble between her thumb and finger on the part of the seat between us. I opened my eyes wide. She pushed the marble towards my hand. I took it and smiled at her. It was good of her to give me the marble, so I was going to tell her about my brother, and besides, when she was minding her small brother and baby sister near my house on Suileen Lane, she let me push the pram with the belly that nearly touched the ground. But I couldn’t tell her that day because I didn’t want the nun to tell Daddy I was bold and as soon as school was finished, I galloped out to the gate on Cork Road so I could tell him it was the nun who was bold. When he picked me up, I whispered in his ear the nun said the babies who were not baptised and didn’t have a name didn’t go to Heaven. I told him I got vexed with her and that she said I was bold.
He put me sitting on the handlebars and looked into my eyes and said, “Arlene, all babies are little angels who don’t need water on their foreheads to make them good. God loves them and that is why He sometimes takes some of them to heaven.” My daddy was great. I hugged him real tight. “Arlene, there’s no harm in not telling Mammy what Sr Ignatius said. It’s better she does not know the nun called you a bold girl. You know how she gets upset, so we won’t say a word.”
“Kiss my heart and swear to die if I tell her,” I said. There were plenty of secrets we forgot to tell Mammy, so as not to upset her. Now her face wasn’t white like milk, but she ‘wasn’t out of the woods yet’ as Dr Kelly used to say when I was sick.
Daddy told Mrs McLoughlin to get the small room downstairs ready so Mammy could sleep in it and not have to climb the stairs. Daddy was right because after plenty of days she was walking around the house and not in bed all the time. Some days when me and Daddy pushed in the front door, we heard the clog-clog-thud of the sewing machine and saw Mammy’s head bent over the black, shiny table the sewing machine was stuck in, one hand twisting the handle at the side and the other pushing the material under the gauge. Other times she was sitting near the fire, talking to Mr Delaney, a friend of Daddy’s.
