by Honor Harlow
I smiled at him, but like the Home Babies, he kept his eyes down. When I turned back to Daddy, I heard Mr Delaney saying, “...the priest was there early this morning.”
Mr Fitzgerald said, “Anointed and ready to meet her maker. Tragic but now it’s our duty to make sure the children are safe, so Will...”
Daddy felt me pressing against his leg and caught my hand and started to move away but he looked at Mr Fitzgerald and Mr Delaney and said, “Rest assured, what has to be done will be done.”
“What children, Daddy?” I wanted to know but Daddy didn’t answer. Instead he said he would bet me a sweet that Mammy had bought a pink dress in Sligo.
“Did you go with her, Daddy?”
“Mammy went with Mr Delaney because I was in the barracks.”
“You were talking to Mr Delaney and he told you.”
He laughed and ruffled my hair.
“And that is why you know.”
When we got home, Mammy was sitting in the parlour, looking smashing in a new pink twinset. She was holding a silver tube and twisting it. A lipstick came up. She put it to her lips and painted them red like jelly.
“Mammy, Mammy, did you buy me anything?” I screamed running towards her.
“Manners, Mary,” she said, taking a small, white paper bag of tiny, square sweets from her handbag.
I stopped running because I knew she wouldn’t give me the lovely sweets from Woolworth’s if I didn’t have manners but I couldn’t help saying to Daddy, “Look, Mammy went for a spin to Sligo in Mr Delaney’s car and got me a bag of sweets.”
“Is there one for me, Arlene?”
“Of course there is, Daddy, and one for Mammy and for Mr Delaney,” I said, and Mammy smiled and gave me the bag. I took one out and gave it to Daddy. I was doing the same for Mammy, but she said a nice girl offers the bag and lets the other pick the sweet themselves, so I did that. Daddy was looking at Mammy, so I said, “Mammy got new lipstick, Daddy!” and put a sweet in my pocket for Liam while he was saying, “Dervla, what do you think if I get the squad car and we go to Trafada when the weather gets warm?”
“That’s a grand idea. The sea air would do Mary the world of good.”
Daddy was standing behind Mammy and put his hands on her shoulders. She shrugged them off and said, “I still have a headache from the night Mary gave me.”
“She was restless last night but she’s fine now, aren’t you lassie?”
“I am, Daddy.”
Mammy didn’t think I was fine because she said, “I’ll sleep in with her tonight, William, so I don’t have to be getting up all the time.”
“Ach, there’s no need for that. Arlene, come on, let’s have a game of ball to tire you out for the night.”
“Rough Stuff, Daddy?” I asked. Rough stuff was great to play because you just had to kick the ball around on the ground with your feet and not worry about kicking it in the air.
From the garden, I saw Úna pushing the pram along Suileen Lane with her small brother Brendan and her baby sister Teresa. I waved to her. Our housekeeper, Mrs McLoughlin, tapped on the window to call us in for tea. She was talking about Nora McHugh, who had left the world while her baby was coming into it and blessing herself said, “God between and all harm but it’s an awful thing to happen.” Mammy nodded her head and said nothing but looked at Daddy.
After tea, as soon as Mrs McLoughlin had cleaned up and went home to Maura and Catherine, Daddy changed into his uniform. I wanted to go with him to the barracks, but he said he had to go to the priest’s house on business. Mammy was hanging up her new clothes in the wardrobe, so I pulled her skirt and said I wanted to go with Daddy. With a vexed look she told me to go and play, so I traipsed down the stairs, dragging my feet and went out to the garden with a puss on me, but then I saw Úna coming back from her long walk along Suileen Lane and I ran out to her. She let me push the pram.
That night, when I went to bed, I remembered the sweet in my pocket for Liam and thought I had the best Mammy and Daddy in the whole, wide world for giving me sweets.
The next morning when I came into the kitchen, I saw Mammy looking at Daddy with her eyes opened wide. “He took the pitchfork to you. What’s the world coming to when the priests and the Gardaí are treated like that.”
“Dervla, look who’s up early and bright?” Daddy said in the voice that meant they were talking about something I wasn’t meant to hear.
“You’re looking better, will I boil an egg for you?”
“No, Mammy, I’ll only have porridge.” I ate all my porridge and a slice of toast and went off to school with Daddy on the bike.
The Infirmary
I looked towards the bad side when the Home Babies were dragging themselves in. Liam wasn’t among them. I wanted to catch Brigid’s eye to ask her if her brother was still sick, but her eyes were looking at the floor the whole time.
After looking at the cat on the mat and talking about the children kneeling in front of the confession box, we made a line and went out to play. In the yard, Brigid wouldn’t look at me. I was going over to where she was with the sweet for Liam. Loretta saw me and said she would tell the nun, so I stayed with Úna and Kait. Back in the classroom, I kept turning around to look at Brigid.
“Mary Blake, have you worms?” Sr Ignatius said in a loud voice and all heads turned to look at me.
“I don’t,” I said in a bold voice.
“The way you are moving in your seat makes me think you have.”
I didn’t answer.
“Is all the sugar you steal from the sugar bowl for the worms?”
“It isn’t and I don’t have worms,” I muttered low and the nun didn’t hear me.
“Sit quiet and stop moving in your seat, Giddy Goat.”
Regina Burke started saying “Giddy Goat.” under her breathe and Loretta was skitting, making her head bob up and down and making her curly hair wobble. I reached out my fingers and pulled one of them out, because Úna’s cousin, Lina Gormley, told us Loretta really had straight hair.
Lina Gormley, Úna’s first cousin, was like Mrs McLoughlin who worked for us, only Lina worked for the Fitzgerald’s and was called a service-girl. She polished the shoes every evening and set the table for breakfast before she went home. That was because the following morning she had to be in the house very early to make the breakfast for the family. She said the Fitzgerald’s only eat shop-bought white sliced pan and she had to cut off the crusts for Loretta as well as doing her curls. She told us every night she wet Loretta’s hair and wrapped newspaper around the wet bits. She did this in the bathroom because the Fitzgerald’s had a bathroom and didn’t have to wash in the kitchen, like everyone else in Drumbron.
When Loretta got up in the morning, Lina took off all the papers, so Loretta’s head was full of cork-screw ringlets. Mrs Fitzgerald wanted Loretta to look like Shirley Temple. I was going to show everyone the curls were not real, and she had straight hair, so catching the end of one of Loretta’s curls, I pulled it softly towards me and then let it bounce back, thinking if I kept pulling the same curly it might stop being a curl and fall down like Kait’s hair. Loretta didn’t know what I was doing, and she screamed, “Stop it.”
“Mary Blake, I am at the end of my tether with you,” said the nun, getting up but I moved quicker and was over on the bad side before she reached me.
I rushed to the back row and sat in Liam’s place. I waited until Sister Ignatius’ mouth stopped hissing and saying pulling another girl’s hair was a new sin I had to confess, before I edged towards Brigid and whispered, “Where’s Liam?” Her chest heaved. I was afraid she would start bawling. I looked down and pointed my finger at the floor. I then bent my head towards my shoes. She did the same. We looked into each other eyes. They were a light blue, different from mine and my mammy’s.
Her bottom lip trembled as she mouthed, “Liam is sick. He…he... won’t wake up.” I wished I had some bread and jam but I opened my hand so she could see the small sweet in it. She
didn’t take it, so I left it on the floor.
“Mary Blake, what are you doing with your head under the desk?”
“Nothing sister, my hankie fell.”
“Pick it up and sit still.”
I crossed my fingers and wished Liam went to the dispensary to see the doctor. I could talk to him there, so after school I was going to ask Úna to show me where the dispensary was in case Liam was there.
The class dragged on. I kept looking at Brigid wanting her to look at me. From the side of her face, I saw she had a dimple in her chin too. Before the only people I knew with dimples were Daddy and me. The one time she looked at me, there was water in her eyes ready to fall, like the drops of holy water that falls from the fat stick when the priest sprinkles the coffin in the middle aisle at the funerals. Her face was white like the loose, lacy blouse altar boys wear over the black dress for serving Mass. The grá came on me and I wanted to hug her, and I wanted her to hug me, like Mammy had hugged me last night. The ruler tapping on my desk made me look up. Sister Ignatius was standing right beside me.
“Mary Blake, when I ask a child a question, I expect an answer.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“Yes, Sister what?”
“To the question you asked me, Sister,” she turned towards the good side.
“Loretta stand up and make the line.”
I started to get up.
“Mary Blake, where do you think you are going? Get back into your seat this minute. How dare you think you can go and play after the way you pulled Loretta’s hair.”
Loretta stuck her tongue out at me and seemed delighted I was being chastised. I didn’t care because after school me, Kait and Úna were going up Clonthu Hill. We might even be cutting out the eyes and nose and mouth in the turnips Nan and Nanny were going to buy for us so we could make lanterns for Ducking Night. It would soon be Ducking Night and I was going to slope down the stairs to go out with my pals that night because Úna said it was great fun going out in the dark with the candle stuck in the turnips with the faces.
After the yard, the line came back in. Brigid didn’t look at me, but Loretta did. I couldn’t stick my tongue out at her because the nun was beside her. When class was over, I went out our door to the cloakroom, where our coats were hanging. I waited for Úna and Kait there.
“Úna, where’s the dispensary?”
“It’s stuck in a corner near the post office. Why do you want to know?”
“That’s why. Is it open now?”
“No, it’s only open in the mornings.”
“Who goes there?”
“Everyone. It’s full always and only the old women can sit on the bench.”
“What bench?”
“The one against the wall. Daddy said we should let the old people sit on the bench because they get tired standing against the wall.”
“Do you stand against the wall?”
“Sometimes but other times Daddy holds me in his arms when I am very sick.”
It was no good going to the dispensary. It was closed, so I’d just go up Clonthu Hill to cut the faces in the turnips. We had a race to see who would get to the Woods Hospital first. I won. I put my hand on the gate a second before Kait did. I wondered where Úna was and turned around to see her trailing behind, with her hands pressed close to her ears to keep her glasses from falling off. Kait was galloping down the road shouting, “Whoever put their hand on the railway gate in the next winner.” I nearly caught up to her, but she won.
We waited for Úna. She was not running fast. I suppose she was afraid she’d bang into something. After the station, we walked and talked until we got to Nanny Ward’s house. Nan Gormley and Prince were already sitting by the fire.
“Tráth, ye’re just the girls I wanted to see. Will ye bring me in a brosan of turf, a grá.” The three of us galloped out to the back door to the reek of turf.
“Arlene and you, Kait, stick out yer arms.”
“Úna, wait a sec. I have to take my cardigan off, so Mammy doesn’t see the biteens of turf on the sleeves.” Once Mammy found the hay bits that are on the sides of some sods and asked me how I got wisps of dried grass on my jumper. I told her it must have been when I was with Daddy in the football pitch.
Úna stacked the sods on our outstretched arms. When the heap reached our chins, we plodded back into the kitchen and lowered ourselves onto our hunkers near the fireplace. Úna then took the turf off our arms and piled it beside the open hearth. There were black hobs at the side of the grate. We always wanted to sit on them, but Nan and Nanny wouldn’t let us, saying we might fall into the fire, so we ended up fighting to sit on the three-legged stool. It was great being in front of the ashy sods and looking at the big kettle hanging from a chain with a hook at the end. The nannas filled the kettle with water from the pump that was near Nuns field and boiled it on the fire.
“Do ya want a sup of tay, a stoirín beag?” they asked before handing us a wide tin mug they used to drink tea out of. I took one of the white, clay pipes with bacca in it.
“Nanny, I want to smoke your pipe.”
“A grá, ya have time enough for that when you grow up.”
While we were drinking the tea, Nan said, “Mary, the heart was crossways within me last night with the way the banshee was looking in at me through the pane of glass.” She pointed to the window.
“Molly, the banshee must have great grá for you because you’re the only one she lets see her, but you’re right in that she was around, sure me head was light with the wailing of her.”
“That’s two with Auld Packy Duggan and Nora McHugh. Wonder who the third will be?”
When the banshee came and cried, the whole town would be wondering who the three people were who were going to die. The nannas said death came in threes and started talking about the woman who had died that morning.
“Poor Nora McHugh. It won’t be long before the Coster Bower is rattling past their door.”
“Cathal is demented. Sure, it’s hard for a man to lose his wife but we know it’s more than the wife that will be taken from him.”
“We do.”
“The priest was there giving poor Nora the Last Rites.”
“If Kelly had got there as quick, she might be still among us.”
“Indeedin you’re right, and there’d be no need for the Coster Bower to be harnessing his horses.”
“What’s the Coster Bower, Nanny?”
“Something you’re better off not seeing, a girl.”
“Why?”
“It would put the fear of God into you.”
“Why?”
“It’s driven by a headless driver.”
“If he has no head, how does he see?”
“He has a head but not on his shoulders.”
“Where does he have his head?”
“Held in his hand.”
“That’s stupid. Why doesn’t he put it on his neck like everyone?”
“Because he needs it as a lantern to guide the horses in the dark.”
“Is there a candle stuck in his head like our turnips?”
“There isn’t. The eyes are as bright as fire of hell and light the way.”
“Like your fire?”
“Brighter.”
“How many horses does the coach have?”
“Six.”
“Does he whip the horses like Mick the Sweep.”
“He doesn’t, the six black horses pulling the coach know the house Dullahan wants to go to.”
“Is the headless driver’s name Dullahan?”
“It’s what people call him.”
“Úna, a rua, take this cailín dubh out to play. She’s making me head light with all the questions she asks.”
Instead of playing, we went home because Úna had to mind her baby brother and sister.
I slept through the night without waking Mammy. The next morning, she was looking happy eating breakfast. Daddy was the one who had a funny face on him. Mammy told him he was only
doing his duty. He gave her that look that meant he didn’t want me to know what they were talking about.
At school, we did the same thing every day. We saw the cat on the mat, we did our sums on the slates and we learned what venial sins were. On Thursday it was different for me. I went to elocution lessons with Miss Clark. She knocked on our door and opened it and waited there until Sr Ignatius called out names from a list in her hand. Me and another few girls from the good side stood up and made a line and left with the elocution teacher. Loretta and her pals didn’t go because Miss Clark went to their houses to teach them how to speak. We waited outside the door of each classroom while Miss Clark got the other pupils.
In the big hall there was a stage with wooden steps in front of it. We made a choir by standing on the steps in rows one behind the other. The teacher taught us how to speak properly and we learned a poem about a girl called Matilda. Úna and Kait said I was lucky, and they would love to go to elocution with me, but their mammies didn’t have the money for it. I told them the dump was better and I was dying to go there.
After class, only me and Kait went because Úna had to go home to mind the small ones. In the dump, I found green glass and a broken plate. I smashed it with a stone to break it into small pieces.
“Them smithereens will buy you plenty of things when we play shop,” Kate said. I carried them in my dress, like Nan carried the waste in her apron for the hens.
As we were coming back, we saw Úna pushing the big-bellied pram with her baby brother and sister. We called her and showed her all the money I found.
“Arlene, you have to find a place where you can hide it.”
“Why?”
“In case anyone steals it.”
“Where can I hide it?”
“Near your house, then you can get it quick when you need it.”
