by Honor Harlow
“What a wonderful idea,” Aunt Hazel said smiling but Mammy was looking at me as though she was trying to see inside my head.
After dinner, Mammy and Aunt Hazel went into the room that had a wall lined with books, from the ceiling to the floor. A lamp with glass, spidery legs hung from the ceiling and shone light on two beautiful pink armchairs, with wide backs, in front of a fire surrounded by a white mantlepiece. Aunt Hazel sat on one of the chairs and Mammy went to the other. Daddy brought me upstairs in case I wanted to do wee-wee. He got my cardigan out of the case and told me to put it on. When we went downstairs, I ran to Mammy and gave her a kiss. Aunt Hazel put her cheek out, so I kissed and hugged her as well. Then it was time to go the bonfire with Sammy.
The fire was up to the sky, a hundred times bigger than the ones Úna and Kait told me about. It was built with wooden boxes with wide slits in them like a garden gate. They were piled on top of each other, making a round tower, like the one that is outside Drumbron, in the place where the monks used to live. The flames leaped at the sides and there was a sound of crackling as the wooden pieces were blackened by the fire. The tablecloths of different colours hanging on the sides were burned into grey ashes, disappearing like pepper and salt among the red fire. It was smashing with sparks blowing about.
I took my cardigan off because the heat was making us all warm. When Daddy said it was time to go, I didn’t want to leave. I fell asleep in the car and don’t remember going to bed.
The next morning the woman, Mrs Tuttle, knocked on the door and came in to wake us. When the woman was dressing my cousin, Mammy came in to comb my hair and put on my communion shoes.
Then we had breakfast at the long table downstairs. Sammy didn’t want to eat his sausages so I whispered to Aunt Hazel if I could have them. She looked at me with her eyes the same way Daddy looked at me and nodded her head. As I was wearing my communion shoes, I showed them to Aunt Hazel when I stood up and told her about my dress that Mammy had made. The car was parked outside the door and before I sat in the back seat with Sammy to go to the parade, I gave my auntie another hug.
In the town of the parade, I said to Daddy, “Look at all the tablecloths fluttering on the lamp posts.” He laughed and said they were flags.
People filled the footpaths and were smiling and talking as they watched the bands banging drums and blowing tin whistles and marching along on the road. The parade was better than smashing. At the very beginning there was a big, huge banner with a gold fringe around it. It had a picture of a man dressed in a lovely, velvet jacket riding on a horse with its legs up in the air. The man looked beautiful with long, black, curly hair. The men who marched behind the banner wore suits and pot-round, black hats and some even had white gloves. They walked with umbrellas and had lovely orange ribbons on their chests and moved their legs stiffly but in time to the music. Plenty of the bands had only flutes and drums but a few had accordions. They were the best.
I whispered to Daddy, “I want to learn to play the accordion.”
“You will, missy. I’ll arrange for you to have classes with Pete Canny.”
The parade was great fun like Sports Day at school. Everyone was happy and smiling even though the men playing the big drums, that nearly went down to the ground and up to their chins, had to be tired banging away real hard to make them sound like thunder.
“It’s smashing here Daddy, why did we never come to Cavan before?”
“Ach, it’s a long way to come for Mammy.”
“But now we have a car.”
“We do but before we didn’t and besides, Mammy doesn’t like Cavan.”
“Why doesn’t she?”
“She feels trapped between the hills.”
“That’s silly.”
“People from the West are used to flat, open land. On our honeymoon, Mammy said she missed Galway.”
“Did you fall in love with Mammy in Galway?”
“I did. The minute I set eyes on her.”
“Did you meet her at a ball like the Prince met Cinderella?”
“You’re a funny wee lass and before you ask, Mammy had no ugly sisters. Or brothers, just a mother and father.”
“Did you go to the church in a chariot and have a wedding banquet like Cinderella and the Prince?”
“We got married at the side chapel in your mother’s town.”
“The part of the chapel where the confession boxes are and then you came to Cavan?” I said, thinking maybe that is why Mammy likes to go to the side chapel where the statue of Our Lady is.
“We did and Mrs Tuttle served us lunch when we arrived here for our honeymoon.”
“Tell me about the wedding, Daddy?”
“When you are older I’ll tell you, Arlene.”
“I want to know now.”
“Arlene, let’s watch the parade.”
I stamped my foot and put on the biggest puss I knew how to make but Daddy just kept looking at the parade and wouldn’t tell me anything else about him and Mammy. I took the puss off because Daddy said, “Enjoy yourself now, because we have to leave Aunt Hazel’s house this evening.”
“I don’t want to and besides Mammy doesn’t have the case packed.”
“She’ll be ready when we go back.”
We got home when it was dark. Daddy carried me into bed.
The next morning, I woke up because I heard the wheels of Úna’s pram going up and down Suileen Road. I got up and dressed and went downstairs really quick. Mrs McLoughlin was in the kitchen and told me Mammy was still in bed because the journey had tired her out.
“Mrs McLoughlin, my pals are outside, and I want to talk to them for a minute.”
“Do that, a girl, while I make you some toast.”
I ran out the back gate and called them. Úna said we were going to celebrate I was back, by having a picnic under the bridge of the Suileen River.
“But we have no sandwiches or anything,” I said.
“I do, so I do. Mammy gave me the heel of the loaf with jam on it and I have tea here,” Kait said showing me a bottle with beige water and a newspaper stopper in the top of the neck. Úna had bread and jam too, so I told them to start walking while I got my toast and some biscuits from Mrs McLoughlin.
On the way to the river, they asked me if I got car sick on the way to Cavan. I said I didn’t. Úna said she vomited when they went on the bus to see the eye-doctor. I told them about the parade and me and Kait started marching real stiff like the men in the round hats. Then Kait pushed the pram so Úna could march with me. When we got fed up with that we started climbing over the stone walls and running into the field and picking flowers and throwing ourselves on the grass and rolling about. Brendan and Teresa started getting cranky because they wanted to get out of the pram, so in the end we stopped playing and walked really quickly to get to the river.
As we got near, we saw a bunch of boys from St Jarlath’s Avenue, on the bank. We waved to them and they waved back. The boys had their shoes off, so we took ours off too and waded into the water. The boys were fishing with lines and hooks and told us not to splash too much or we’d frighten the fish. Then they began acting real bossy, saying it was our fault the fish were not biting, so we put on our shoes and started to leave. As we were going, Seán, the bossiest one, said to Kait, “If ye come tomorrow, we’ll show ye how to fish with a line and hook but ye need worms.”
“I’m not bringing any dirty worms,” Evelyn told him crossly.
“If you could get a small few for me, it would be great because I don’t know where to find them,” Kait said quietly and not cross at all like Evelyn was.
“A course I will,” Seán told her, “I’ll keep the good ones for you.”
The next day we were there before the lads came. We saw them strolling along the road.
Úna wanted to know what kept them.
“We had to dig for the worms in the garden.”
“Let me see them,” Úna demanded. Seán held out a can of pinky-brown worms all wiggl
ing and moving slowly.
“Where do we put them?” Evelyn asked, picking up a few of the worms and putting them onto her palm. The lads had four fat pieces of stick with a line wrapped around them.
“Here on the hook at the end of the gut,” Kevin, another boy said, as he unwound the gut a small bit. There was a pointy hook tied onto the end of it.
“I can’t do it, the worm is moving, and I don’t want to touch it,” Kait said in a small voice.
“No bother, I’ll do for you,” Seán said going over to her and picking out a worm from the can.
The other boys were good and put the worms on the hooks for us, except for Evelyn, who did it herself. We threw the line into the water. Seán helped Kait to throw hers in.
We sat on the bank waiting for the fish to bite. They weren’t hungry, so we put the small, fat stick under a rock like the way Seán had showed us. We then skipped off to another field where there was a pond. The lads had jam jars and we scooped up tadpoles. After a while we went back to the lines but there weren’t no fish on the hooks.
“Look at the dearógs swimming,” Kevin said. There was a pile of baby fish swimming together. Seán put his hand in the water and said he was going to get some, but he couldn’t. Kevin boasted, “We caught plenty of eels yesterday.”
“Why didn’t ye keep some to show us?” Úna wanted to know. We stayed half the day, but we didn’t catch any eels, so we never got to see what they looked like. Kevin said they were grass-snakes that hid in the water when St Patrick banished all the serpents from Ireland.
“Where do you go to school, Kevin?” Evelyn wanted to know.
“The Brothers, me and Seán are in second class, next year we’re going into third class.”
“We’re going into second next year, if we’re not kept back.”
“They don’t keep anyone back in first class, but they do in second if you don’t know how to read.”
Kait got up from where we were sitting because she saw a tree in the middle in the other field and wanted to see if there was a fairy under it. Kevin and Seán jumped up and then Tom, who was leaning on a stone wall, moved and the three galloped over to the ditch she was trying to climb. They started to push each other because all of them wanted to help her.
Kait’s leg touched a nettle and she cried out. Tom looked at her and went back to lean against the wall but the other two went looking for a dock leaf for her leg. They kept pushing each other to be the first to give it to Kait. After that they were half fighting again to spit on it and rub the burned part of her leg with it. When Kevin was rubbing Kait’s leg with the dock leaf, he told her if she ever got cut and was bleeding, she had to put a cobweb on the cut to stop the bleeding. The rest of us got tired of looking at the lads making a peata out of Kait and we went back to where the jam jars with the tadpoles were.
“Lads, we are going to throw the tadpoles back into the pond, so they can grow up to be frogs,” Evelyn shouted at them.
“A course.” They didn’t mind at all, and they helped us push the pram, so we got home quicker.
Kait Kenny’s mammy had moved them to a house in Kilmartin Road because the crying from the Home Babies was driving her demented. Now Kait lived two streets away from me and only one away from Evelyn who lived in Sligo Road. It was smashing because Mrs Kenny let us play in her house.
One day me and Kait were playing house out Kait’s back and Evelyn came running in to tell us the carnival was setting up in the green. That evening the four of us went. We walked around in the muddy field looking at all the swing-boats, go-cars, bumpers, ghost train and brightly coloured rides. Me and Evelyn had money, so we went on the swing boats and bumper cars but Úna and Kait had no money, so they looked and waved at us. After a while, they got fed up looking at us on the rides and went off because they heard music and singing coming from a stripy tent that had a peak in the middle and was tied to the ground with ropes.
They waited until we got off the swing boats and told us they were going to slope in under one of the side flaps to see who was singing. We went with them. It was dark inside, so we stayed hunched down, looking at the stage with lights at the far end. It was smashing. Girls with beautiful, frilly, lacy dresses came out on the stage and danced and sang. Then a man was falling and doing silly things. We laughed, clapped and shouted like all the people who were sitting on the benches.
After plenty of songs and dances, a man came on stage and thanked everyone for coming to the variety show and the girls and the men came out from the two sides of the stage and they sang ‘There’s no business like show business’.
On the way home Kait said she wanted to stage a variety show in her backyard.
“That’s not fair, Kait. You know well I mind Brendan and Teresa every day and won’t be able to be in it,” Úna said.
“But Úna, they can play in our backyard while we are rehearsing, and they’ll be quiet watching us.”
From then we practiced singing ‘There’s no business like show business’ and dancing, like we had seen them do in the concert on the square patch of cement floor outside Kait’s backdoor. I showed my pals the Irish dancing steps from Miss Canny’s School of Irish Dancing and Music, as well as two poems from the elocution class and we all knew the songs from The Walton’s radio programme.
Thomas, Kait’s big brother, hung a line across the front of the stage that was the square, cement patch. He hung a sheet on it as the curtain. Mrs Kenny said we could use the back-kitchen as the changing room. When we dressed up and came out the back door and sang and danced, Brendan and Teresa laughed and clapped their hands.
Úna and Evelyn said we were going to charge a button to everyone to see the show. Maura McLoughlin came with her brothers and sisters and put the buttons into the jam jar. Kait’s cousins Shelia and Ciaran didn’t have a button. We let them in free, because sometimes me and Kait went to their house on Kilmartin Road and their mammy, Eithne, gave us bread and jam. Seán, Kevin, Tom and the other lads from the river said they had no buttons, but they gave us a pile of worms, so we let them in.
They sat in front of the stage and started stamping their feet and whistling when Úna pulled the curtain and we appeared wearing long dresses and high heel shoes with lipstick on. She got trembly and whispered to us she was going back into the back-kitchen because the lads were mocking us but Kait said to wait and stepped out in front of us and in a shaky voice said, “Hey lads, we feel like right eejits and we are afraid we’ll forget the words with the nerves, so don’t be mocking us too much.” Straight away she started singing ‘There’s no business like show business’ and we joined in. When the lads learned it a bit, they joined in too. They clapped and cheered when we finished the song.
Kait was so happy she called down to them, “Come on up here and make the farting noises ye make with yer mouths.”
The next day, everyone was talking about the show, so we did another one with the lads acting the eejit to make everyone laugh.
The summertime was smashing. I was out all day playing. Then one day Mr Delaney began his silly goose thing, saying, “We’ll never feel until the days start getting short and the children are back at school.” All because of him, Mammy told me to come in early from playing because she had to fit my dresses on and see if they needed letting down. The she bought me a new pair of shoes for going back to school.
“Mary, I’m glad school is starting next week because you are worn out with all the playing you are doing.”
I was tired and sometimes when I went upstairs to bed, I fell asleep before I finished saying my prayers. I didn’t remember to look at Will on the mantlepiece and because of that I sort of forgot about Liam until I went back to school and saw Brigid.
When we went back to school, all the boys were gone from our class to the Brothers, so I didn’t see Liam. He would be up Cork Road in the Christian Brothers school with all the other boys because now we were big and in second class.
The first day at school, I had my new shoes on, an
d Evelyn had hers on too. They were the same kind as mine with lacers. Kait and Úna were still wearing their sandshoes. Everyone was looking at Loretta’s shoes. They were shiny with a strap and a buckle. She was still small with the bouncy curly hair, so our new nun putting her sitting in the front row.
We were in second class with Sister Kevin. She was really skinny. Evelyn told us to be careful and not blow on her or she’d go flying like the leaves do in the wind. From the first day she made a peata of Úna, letting her give out the books and clean the blackboard. Maybe it was because the nun had thick glasses the same as Úna’s ones. She wasn’t a cross nun and was nice to everyone, even the girls on the bad side. She didn’t look like she was going to vomit when she was beside the few girls from the Home that came back to school after the holidays.
Brigid was among the small group, but she was hidden inside herself, so it was no good looking at her, hoping she’d tell me something about Liam. If Brigid would come out of herself, I could talk to her because Sr Kevin was good and wouldn’t mind. Some days the nun would give the Homegirls crusts and slices of bread with a smattering of jam before they went to their part of the yard.
“I bet the nun doesn’t eat her own food. She keeps it for them,” Evelyn said.
“Maybe.”
“A course she does, that’s why she’s a bag of bones.”
Liam was a bag of bones too. He was gone from our class to the Christian Brothers so I couldn’t see him unless I went up the Cork Road and waited outside the school for the boys to come out.
I didn’t want to because after school me and my pals were out playing. If it was raining drops as big as stones, we went into Kait’s house until it stopped. Other times we rushed into her aunt Eithne’s house. Only Eithne, Shelia and Ciaran lived in the house because their daddy slept in England. My daddy slept in our house because he worked in the barracks and came home in the evenings but some daddies on Kait’s road, Kilmartin Road, and on Úna’s road, Dun na Rí Road, slept in beds in England. They were only in their own houses for a while in summer and at Christmastime, but they sent letters every week.