by Honor Harlow
“And are there eejits in Liverpool like those two?” Ev said pointing to Ricky Martin and Kevin Fitzgerald who were always following Ann around everywhere on their bikes, even up to Clonthu Hill to Nan Gormley’s.
Nan was Ann’s grandmother and the English girl wanted to be with her ‘Gran’ all the time. It was hard to get her to go anywhere except Clonthu but once we managed to get her back to river where Kevin, Seán, Tom and Mel McNally were fishing with a line, hook and cork. The lads acted stupid telling Ann they were big and boasting they had done their Primary Cert. They were sorta mocking us saying we were in a lower class than them and only going into sixth class and still had another year to do before we finished primary school. Ev got fed up with them and said that as least our voices didn’t croak and go squeaky like theirs did.
When Ann and her family were leaving, we went to the station with Úna to say goodbye and were sad for a while without her, but then, two weeks before Sports Day, Kait told us her uncle, Mr Ward, Eithne and her cousins Shelia and Ciaran were coming to stay in her house. We wanted to go to the station to meet them, but we couldn’t because it was the same day as Sport’s Day, and we were in Castle Fields when they arrived.
The next day we met Kait in Kilmartin Road. She was complaining about her cousin.
“Shelia is a silly goose.”
“Why?”
“Well, the first thing she said to me was, ‘Are you Oirish?’ And I said to her, ‘No, I’m Kait.’ She didn’t know who I was, so she didn’t.”
Shelia had a funny way of talking from the roof of her mouth and asking us, ‘Ave you been ove’ ‘ere long?’ After a few days running around Kilmartin Road, Shelia began to sound a bit more like us. Sheila’s father, Mr Ward, wanted Nanny to go and live with him in London and told her to give away her furniture.
“A cailíní, it is hard to be old and going to a land that is strange.”
“Nanny, why don’t you stay here and not go to London with Uncle Martin?”
“Marteen thinks he’s doing the right thing taking me to live with him. He’s wanting to mind me like I minded him when his father died and him only a garsoon.”
We didn’t want Nanny to leave and take all her piseogs and stories about the fairies and the Black and Tans with her, as well as her clay pipe and snuff. Nan Gormley wasn’t going away but she said a brónach mór was on her on account of Molly going away. She told us not to torment her for a while as her heart was heavy and weighing her body down but come and see Nanny as much as we could while she was still in her house on Clonthu Hill.
Mammy didn’t know where I went. If she had known, she’d have had a fit, because she didn’t like people from council-houses. Herself and her coffee friends were always tutting about how country girls and the ones from council houses were getting notions, thinking they were too good to work as servant girls. Mammy seemed to forget our daily help, as she called Mrs McLoughlin, lived in a council house on Kilmartin Road. She came every day, except Saturday and Sunday, chatting to Mammy, telling her how she had finished the ironing and was going clean the windows or hoover the stairs.
At least Mammy spoke to Mrs McLoughlin when we saw her uptown or at Mass, but she didn’t salute my friends’ mothers, only Mrs Curry. Mrs Curry was Ev’s mammy who came to our house for elevenses with the others from the golf course and the bridge club. Evelyn’s mother was such a special friend of Mammy’s that Mr Delaney promised he’d get her a coffee percolator the next time he went to Rome. He also helped Mrs Curry choose the new carpets and curtains for her house.
Ev said Mr Delaney gave her the creeps. “He’s an eejit, talking about how an orangey-yellow would be ideal for the tiles in the bathroom. When I said it would match the shite that goes down the toilet, Mammy got cross.”
“Did you say that? Mammy would have a fit if I said that to Mr Delaney.”
“She only told me not to be annoying them and to go out to play or she’d tell Daddy I was bold when he got home.”
Evelyn was a bit of a devil. She loved doing bold, tomboy things like jumping over ditches, walking on high walls, playing rough stuff with the football, robbing apples from the trees, swimming in the river, talking to the tinkers in their caravans or going up to Nanny’s house to sit beside the fire, drinking tea out of the tin mug and smoking the clay pipe or putting snuff up her nose.
Our mothers knew we were the best of friends, so while they knew Evelyn was with me and I was with her, we had no problem and we could spend all the time up on Clonthu Hill, telling Nanny not to worry about Mick the Sticks. When the man with only one leg had no money to pay for a night’s lodgings, Nanny let him sleep in her kitchen. Now, that she was going to London, she wondered where he would spend the night when he had no money, and worried that Jack the Lantern would trick Mick into following him and his light through the countryside.
“A cailíní, be sure and let Mick the Sticks know my door is on the latch and he is free to sleep here any night he wants.”
“Why Nanny, do you want him to mind it for you?”
“I don’t but his one leg is tired of carrying the weight of his body. If that cunning little weasel with the lantern is around, when Mick hasn’t the money for a night’s lodging, he’ll trick the poor man into following him.”
“Who is the weasel with the lantern?”
“Jack the Lantern.”
“What does he do, Nanny?”
“In the darkness of night when a wanderer sees the light from Jack’s lantern, they think there is a house nearby, and head in that direction.”
“Why do they want to talk to Jack?”
“No, a storín beag, they’d be looking for somewhere to sleep after tramping the road the whole day long.”
“But the people of the house mightn’t let them in.”
“A mhuirnín, the ones who walk the roads know that. There’d be no fear of them knocking on the farmhouse door. What they want is any kind of shelter with a bit of a roof to keep them dry for the night.”
“Why don’t you want Mick following Jack the Lantern?”
“The villain would lead the poor creature along boreens, over ditches and into fields and bogs until he dropped dead from weariness and tiredness the way the tramps do when they follow his light.”
Sometimes me and my pals saw tramps around town, but we didn’t know they had no houses to sleep in. One day a beggar knocked on our door. Mammy opened it and then half closed it. The man looked like Robert Taylor from the matinee pictures, only his hair was falling down on his forehead in curly waves. Mammy spoke to him through the gap that wasn’t closed.
“Mistress, there wouldn’t be any jobs you need doing around house or yard?”
“My husband takes care of everything. There is no work for you, so be off.”
“Mistress, I’m cheap paid. At the end of the day, I only ask for a bite to eat or any auld clothes your husband mightn’t be needing.” Mammy closed the door on his face and told Daddy about him. “William, I think something should be done about the tramps who go knocking on people’s doors. I can assure you they are up to no good.”
“Dervla, most of them are harmless. They are from the industrial schools. When they leave, they have nowhere to go.”
“I don’t care where he was before he came to my door. William, he frightened me out of my wits.”
“Don’t be worrying. They won’t do you any harm. The Brothers knocked any spunk they had out of them.”
She kept on but Daddy said he had to go to the pitch and left again. When Mr Delaney called around, she told him about how the man had smelled. “I’d say he hadn’t washed in days.”
“Don’t be talking to me about them tramps. Only last week, one called to my mother’s house but thank God I was out the back and able to stop him from annoying Mother.”
“Was he looking for money too?”
“He was but before I gave him any, I made him go into the outhouse and strip off and have a wash for himself.”
�
�Weren’t you good, John.”
“He was only a young fellow and I had to show him how to wash his body.”
“He didn’t know how to wash himself?”
“I’d say he was out of an industrial school, so I made sure he washed behind his ears and wherever else that needed washing.”
“Wasn’t that very good of you.”
“I told him if he behaved, I’d give him some clothes and a few bob.”
“I hope he was grateful.”
“The looks he gave me were not to my liking. He didn’t want what I had for him, but he took it in the end.”
“We could do with more like you in this town.”
“Dervla, to put your mind at ease, I’ll drive around to find that fellow and to tell him a thing or two about frightening decent women.” Before he left, he gave Mammy the latest news. “That Legless is a case onto himself. But leaving that aside, did you hear the Wards are taking the grandmother to London with them?”
“Sure, with the way things are going there’ll be very few families left in Kilmartin Road at all. All running for the boat and the easy life in England instead of staying in their own country and working.”
“That England is a pagan place. They have strikes every second day of the week and no respect for the family. At the same time, it good it’s there for the ones we don’t want here.”
“How’s that John?”
“Well, my father said that W T Cosgrove thought emigration was good to rid the country of the children born in workhouses.”
“My father had great respect for W T Cosgrove. What was it that he said?”
“Ah something about them who want to live at the expense of the ratepayers being better abroad, because they will have to work whether they like it or not.”
“He was right, John, but there will always be people who don’t want to work. They are the very first ones to head off when they think they’ll have it easy in England. I heard Mrs Fitzgerald saying at the golf course it is next to impossible to get a servant girl who willing to work the hours that are needed to keep a house clean and tidy.”
While they were complaining I slipped out and went up Clonthu Hill where Úna and the pram were. Evelyn was sitting by the hob, smoking Nanny’s clay pipe. Kait came five minutes later.
“Are you coming up the Sandy Hills with us?” Ev asked her.
“A course. When are we going?”
“Not until it gets dark.”
“What are you waiting for it to get dark?”
“To catch Jack the Lantern and make him promise not to lead Mick the Sticks over the hills and into a ditch,” Ev told us.
“Great but first I have something to tell Nanny about Mick the Sticks, so she’s not worried,” Kait said so we went with her to where Nanny was sitting.
“Nanny, don’t be worrying about Mick The Sticks. He can become a pirate like Long John Silver.”
“Who’s that Long John, a girleen?”
“He has a parrot on his shoulder that squawks and a black patch on his eyes and he is one-legged like Mick the Sticks.”
“I never heard tell of him, a stóir. Where would he be living now?”
“Nanny, he lives in his ship.”
“On the Suileen River?”
“We saw him in the Odeon on Sunday.”
“Why would they let a man like that with only one leg into the Odeon?”
“Nanny, he was in the picture.”
“What picture?”
“The one we went to at the matinee, and we saw the parrot on his shoulder, so we did,” Kait said.
“Devil the fear of Mick having a bird on his shoulder, more like him having it in the pot and a few spuds boiling alongside it. It’s not often the poor man gets a good feed.”
“But Nanny if Mick had a sword, he could fight Jack the Lantern.”
“Is it in Ballinacora ye want him locked up in? If the Gardaí saw Mick waving a knife about, they’d say his mind was gone with the drink and have the judge sign him into the madhouse.”
We saw she didn’t understand, so the gang of us started walking towards the Sand Hills, taking turns pushing the pram that rocked from side to side and made a squeaky noise. It was hard to push it. Francis Xavier and the other baby were getting cranky as could be, but we knew we had to save Mick the Sticks from Jack the Lantern.
“Why don’t you go home, Úna. The babies are sleepy,” Ev told her.
“I don’t want to,” she said, so we continued even though we were beginning to have doubts about the hunt.
Just outside town, Ricky Martin, Kevin Fitzgerald and Jim Smith whizzed by on their bikes. We were pushed into the side of the road as they passed by.
Úna called after them, “Do ye want us to end up in the ditch or what, ye eejits?”
“Where are ye going without a bell on yer bikes?” Evelyn roared after them.
We laughed because everyone knew the joke about the Gardaí stopping people and asking them, ‘And now where would you be going without a bell on your bike?’
They had gone on a bit but turned around and swung back towards us. Ricky Martin came whizzing to a stop in front of Evelyn, who was pushing the pram.
“What are ya doing pushing with that filthy, old thing that looks like a bathtub?”
“It’s not a bathtub, ya blind bat.”
“I know it isn’t, cos you wash in a bath and them two filthy kids haven’t seen a lick of soap or water for ages.”
“How dare you call my brothers kids! They are children. My mother isn’t a goat, you jackass,” Úna shouted at him. At school, the nuns told us we shouldn’t use kids for children because it was an American expression. In Ireland, everyone knew kids meant baby goats.
“I wasn’t talking to you, Gingernut. I was talking to her,” he said looking at Evelyn.
Instead of answering him Evelyn pushed him off the bike and said, “I’ll break your neck if ya open your mouth again to say anything bad about Úna’s pram or about the children.”
Jim Smith had got his bike and was looking at Kait and telling her, “Me and the lads are going to Brown’s field to get some apples. Will I bring you back a few?”
“The farmer might see ya, so he might, and tell the Gardaí.”
“I don’t care if he does. The apples are lovely and sweet, so I’ll get you a big juicy one.”
The news about the apples was just what we needed to change our plans, so we decided to go to Brown’s field with the boys. They stayed on their bikes, walking more than cycling. Kevin Fitzgerald stayed near me, but I pretended I didn’t see him. When it was Kait’s turn to push the pram, Jim Smith said he’d do it for her. Evelyn got on his bike and started racing with Ricky Martin, shouting back at him, “Hurry up, slowcoach, I’m tired waiting for you to catch up.”
“You’re only winning me cos Jim’s bike is better than mine.”
When we got near Brown’s field, we saw the farmer driving his cows up the lane, so we turned around and headed back to town with the lads. We told them we were going to see Robin Hood in the Odeon on Sunday. They said they’d see us there before they sped off on their bikes.
That night in bed I was wondering did the English nannas wear long skirts and shawls like Nanny Ward did. I hope they did, otherwise people would be looking at her thinking she was odd because she didn’t wear a coat. The next day we headed up to her house. Inside I was crying when I grabbed her around her skirt and hugged her legs real tight, but I kept the tears in, because I saw Nan Gormley, who would miss her more than us, change her sad face into a happy one when she came to say goodbye.
“Molly, tráth, we’ll never feel it until you are back to us telling us how the people in London live.”
The Boat to England
Nanny and the Wards left for England. We never saw her again and she never saw Úna McNulty’s new baby sister, Eimear and wasn’t around to say ‘God bless you’ to protect Eimear from the fairies taking her and leaving a changeling in her place. She wouldn’t k
now that at end of sixth class, Úna’s daddy found another baby under a head of cabbage and that after a while Baby Patrick was put in the pram with Eimear. She wasn’t standing at the door looking at us pushing the pram with the wobbly wheels up the hill to her house. Nanny would never see the new pram the McNulty’s were thinking of buying if their father got a job in the new factory.
Everyone was talking about the new factory that was after opening near the Suileen river. Mr Delaney knew about the factory long before it was built and told Daddy and Dr Kelly to buy land around the area where the factory was going to be. He said when it was re-zoned, they would be able to build houses and make a bit of money for themselves. Úna’s family and others on her road were hoping there would be work for them, that way there’d be no need for them to go to England, like Maura McLoughlin was going to do.
“Dervla, is that another one of them young hussies off to England to get rid of her sin?” Mr Delaney said between stuffing lumps of Chester cake into his mouth.
“John, how could think that of Maura?” Mammy said in one of the few times she ever disagreed with him. “Her mother has brought her up to a good girl and she did very well in her Inter Cert. That is why she is off to work with the nuns in Liverpool.”
Maura McLoughlin and the five Honours she got in her Inter Cert exam was the talk of the town.
“That girl is a credit to you, Mrs McLoughlin,” Mammy said to Maura’s mother while she was ironing one of Daddy’s shirts.
“Indeed, she is a great girl. Never gave me a bit of trouble.”
“It’s not many the girl who can boast of getting five Honours in their Inter Cert.”
“That’s true and the poor girleen working in Wynn’s after school and not being able to go up to the convent for study time like her friends.”
“I didn’t know there was study time in the convent.”
“It starts at five and finishes at seven o’clock when the boarders go for their supper. Near the exams they go from eight to nine too.”
“A good way to have the girls study.”
