by Orna Ross
Then again, he had called up to the school for her, that was a good thing…
But no, it was too small a thing to hold up. She wanted him to like her for all to see and any to know, not this hole-in-the-corner business. She spun around and quickly retraced her steps. If her mother was watching, she’d be wondering what on earth was going on.
She marched back towards him with determination, not letting herself think too close. He was still standing where she’d left him, looking out across Coolanagh sand, towards the island and the water in the distance.
“Don’t call for me tonight,” she said when she finally reached him. “I won’t be coming out.”
Was that amusement glinting in his face?
She carried on. “I don’t want any more sneaking around. I don’t see the need for it. If you want to call for me, come to the house. Tonight or tomorrow night. Around eight o’clock would be perfect.”
He burst out laughing.
“That’s funny, is it?” she said.
He just kept laughing and she could think of no other way to keep her dignity but to turn and leave again. So that’s what she did.
He called after her – “Come back. Come back for a minute. Aw Peg, come on!” — but she let the words slide off her back as she retraced her steps all the way back to the village.
She was dead late back to the house and had to get straight into helping her mother prepare the tea. They fell, as they so often did, into talking about the Cumann na mBan work. This time it was all about Mr DeValera’s visit to Wexford to round up support for the anti-Treaty side. “Will the lads make a guard of honour?” her mother asked, “To lead the car from Enniscorthy to Wexford?”
The question, the implied criticism in it, stopped Peg in the act of laying the kitchen table. “No,” she said, knives and forks pointing upwards in her hands. “No, Mammy. We won’t have time for them to walk all that way.”
Máire folded her lips, purposefully.
Peg was stung but knew it was frustration at her own weakness that was making her mother critical. Three weeks ago, Máire handed over to Peg her part in organising the great day because she just wasn’t able for it. She strained for patience. “The Enniscorthy meeting opens at three,” she explained. “By the time Miss MacSwiney and the others say their bit, it will be nearly four before Mr de Valera gets to speak. They have to be in Wexford for five so there’s not time enough to walk it.”
“But you’ll escort them into the town, surely?”
“Ah, Mammy, of course we will. They’ll motor as far as Ferrycarraig where the troops will be waiting to lead them through.”
And after the public meeting in Wexford there would be a reception in the Talbot Hotel, and it was there that she, and two other girls, would make their presentations. Máire turned back to her frying pan, and was leaning into the press as she stood by the cooker, turning meat. Always now if she was standing, she had to rest against some surface to steady herself – a hand on the table, a hip against the chair. And she moved slowly about the place, as if weighing the wisdom of each step before putting her foot down. These changes had advanced so gradually that Peg hardly noticed them, until something reminded her of her mother’s old bustle, the way she used to come swinging through a door with five times more force than was needed.
A lot of her mother’s strength went into trying to hide her weakness, in ways that turned Peg’s heart over. She tried to catch Barney’s eye behind their mother’s back, but he had his face dug into the newspaper so she went back to setting the cutlery.
“It’ll be a great occasion,” Máire said, trying to make amends. “I might make it in myself.”
“Are you serious, Mammy?”
“What do you mean, am I serious?”
“I never thought for a minute that you’d not come.”
Her mother frowned. “I’ll do my best.”
“You have to come, Mammy. Every Republican this side of Enniscorthy will be there.”
“All right, all right,” she said, short with her again. “I’ll do my best, I said. Don’t pick me up till I fall.”
Every time Peg thought of herself handing that statue to Mr de Valera, she felt dizzy. To think of him taking her hand in his, probably addressing a few words to her. Whatever would she say back? How would she answer him without blushing?
“It will be so strange to see him in the flesh,” she said.
“He has a powerful presence all right,” said Máire from the cooker. “And Miss MacSwiney too. They say she’s a great speaker.”
Barney lifted his head. “They say she’d talk the hind leg off a donkey. Two and a half hours she went on for during the last Dáil debate. Two and a half hours!”
“I know, but worth listening to, wasn’t she?” Peg said. “All that stuff about blades of grass and dragon’s teeth…”
Máire picked up the quote, word perfect: “‘If they exterminate the men, women and children of this generation, then the blades of grass, dyed with their blood, will rise, like the dragon’s teeth of old, into armed men, and the fight will begin again in the next…’”
“Strong stuff, Barney,” Peg said. “You have to admit it.”
But of course he wouldn’t. None of the men liked Miss MacSwiney; she frightened the life out of them. And Barney, once again, was in a disagreeable mood. “Will the dinner be long, Mam?” he asked, drumming his fingers on the table. “I’m in an awful hurry.”
Peg said, “Aren’t you always in a hurry these days?”
She wouldn’t mind if it was movement work he was going to but it was only an old game of hurling, not even a match, just a friendly. Her mother crossed the room and put his plate of food on the table, pinching his cheek as she passed, like he was still a child.
Peg laid the potatoes in front of him. “Surely they’ll not start the match without the great Barney Parle? If you gave us a hand, it would be quicker for us all.”
“Don’t start, you two,” said Máire. “Leave the chap alone, Peg, and run out and see can your daddy come in for his.”
“Do you want me to take over the shop?” It was Saturday, a day that had a different routine to weekdays. Peg had no school and Pats, the hired help, had a half day. It would get busy but not usually until later on.
“See is it quiet enough to leave the door open.” They did that sometimes; the customers tapped on the counter with a coin if they had a need. Máire liked to get everybody fed at the same time, so the food didn’t spoil, but she didn’t approve of them eating behind the counter like some publicans.
The dinner was fried pork chops, one of JJ’s favourites, and he came in rubbing his hands. “Looks good and smells better,” he said, taking his seat at the top of the table. Barney was steadily advancing through his meal, his first chop shorn to the bone already. He and JJ had two, and the women one. Máire’s own plate held the smallest helping but Peg knew she wouldn’t finish even that.
“So,” said Peg to Barney, “are we expecting the Rathmeelin girls again to cheer on the heroes of the hurling field?”
He ignored her, carried on working through his plate of food, barely stopping to swallow. His cup of water sat beside him untouched.
“Some girls want their heads examined,” said Peg, “To stand for an hour-and-a-half on the side of a hurling pitch on a day like this.”
“If you had an eye for one of them,” said her father, “I’d say you’d be out there too, same as the rest.”
“Not if Pádraic Pearse himself was playing.”
“Where is the game?” Máire wanted to know.
“Creel,” Barney said, his mouth full of meat.
“You’ll be going on the bike, so. Did you get that brake fixed?”
“It’s all right.”
She frowned. “Is it fixed, is what I asked.”
“I’ll manage all right for now.”
“You didn’t manage too well when you hit that hole on Rathmeelin Hill last time, did you? Weren’t you lucky not to br
eak a limb? Daddy, tell him.”
“Your mother’s right, son. You need the brakes to be in order.”
“I’ll fix it later. I’ve no time now.”
“What has to happen to you before you get sense? What do you have to be inviting accidents into your life for?”
“I’ll fix it later, Mammy. Honest I will.” He gave her one of his humouring smiles. “Honest.”
Close under her chiding of them these days was an anxiety like gone-off milk under a film of cream. They all sensed it but none of them wanted to poke through to it.
Barney pushed back his chair.
“Are you not waiting for a cup of tea?” Máire said.
“I haven’t the time.” Already he was at the door.
“What hour of the day or night will you be back?”
“Around six. Bye.” And he was gone, leaving a space behind him.
Peg stood to gather the side plates and pile the potato peelings and the dirty cutlery. She too needed to leave – her meeting started at two thirty – but she didn’t like to take off too quickly after Barney’s sweep-out. Time was when her mother used to be the one always off somewhere in a hurry.
“Are you finished, Mammy?”
“I am.”
JJ looked up. “Ah, Máire, eat another bit, for pity’s sake.” But she shook her head.
Peg scraped her plate, stacked it with the rest, carried them over to the board. She put the kettle on the fire. It had boiled earlier and only needed a minute. As she stood waiting for it, she felt herself wilt in the heat of the fire and realised she was tired. Between teaching in school, helping out at home and her Cumann na mBan work, she never seemed to have a minute these days. Steam and water came hissing through the spout of the kettle and she lifted it off, made the tea.
“Good girl yourself,” said her father, as she put down the pot.
“I need to go as well, Mammy,” she said, soft as she could.
“You’ve no time for tea either?”
“I’m sorry, I have to be in town by half-past two. But I’ll be back in time to give you a hand with the supper.”
She replaced the butter and salt in the pantry, put the dirty delph in the basin, poured boiling water into it.
“Leave it, so,” her mother said. “I’ll do them myself.”
“Are you sure?”
Her mother made a cross face. “You have to go is what you said.”
That wasn’t fair. How was it allowed for Barney to trot off to a hurling match without a word said about it? You couldn’t but feel for Mammy, her weakness went hard on her, but how was it Peg was always the one to get the lash of her tongue?
“Go on, then, if you’re going,” said Máire, standing up quickly, too quickly, which brought on one of her coughing attacks. This racking immediately transmuted Peg’s anger into fear. She stood, unsure whether to cross over to help or whether Mammy would rather it ignored. God, but this was a long one. Would it never stop?
Máire was scrabbling at the fabric of her dress trying to reach into her pocket – for the flask she kept there that was small enough to spit into without making a fuss, or for her handkerchief – but before she could, a spout of blood burst from her mouth. She put her hand up to try to hold it.
“Mammy!” Peg cried, rushing to catch her. She steered her towards the armchair, snatching a tea towel off the chair at the same time and pushing it into her mother’s trembling fingers.
Her father stood, helpless.
“Get water, Daddy.”
He turned to do it while Peg held her mother’s shaking frame. The eruption had eased the cough and the worst of the shock was subsiding. The scarlet stain screamed out of the grey towel. Máire tried to fold the fabric so it couldn’t be seen.
As soon as her control returned, she pulled away from Peg. “I’m…all…right,” she said. She tried to smile, unaware of the blood smearing her teeth and the ghastly look it gave her. Peg wanted to turn away from the sight of it. “Your…meeting…”
“Never mind the meeting.” Peg took the glass of water from JJ, held it to Máire’s shuddering lips. “Can you stand at all? Can you get up the stairs, do you think?”
Using the arms of the chair to lift herself, Máire moved to put weight on her feet. From the shop came the sound of a sharp rap-rap-rap on wood, followed by a yell: “Anyone at home?”
In the agitation, they had forgotten all about the customers.
JJ stood transfixed, like he was the one stricken and Peg saw that it was going to be up to her to take charge. “Daddy, go out and serve whoever needs serving. Then see who you can send for the doctor.”
Máire tried to protest. “No…need for a doctor.”
“We’re getting the doctor, Mammy, and that’s that.” She turned back to her father. “As soon as they’re looked after, come back in here to me. I’ll need your help to carry her upstairs.”
Máire opened her mouth to object again. JJ dithered, to see what she’d say.
“Quick, Daddy,” said Peg. “Go on. What are you waiting for? Go.”
So there they were, catapulted into the next stage of Máire’s illness. It wasn’t that she hadn’t coughed up blood before, they all knew she had. They knew she had been losing weight and that she’d been struggling for months with a continuous secrecy and each morning, for months, had broken with the sound of her raucous, distinctive cough. Now even JJ was going to have to admit the truth of what was happening. After months of circling around it, of never saying certain words aloud (they might as well say them now: TB, tuberculosis, consumption, phthisis, the white plague…), of making small advances and retreats from the edge of all that it might mean, the illness had reared up and insisted they face into it.
After getting the patient up to bed, and admitting Dr Lavin, and listening to his diagnosis and administering his prescription, and seeing Máire off to sleep, Peg and JJ – and later, after he came home from his match to be told the news, Barney too – did what everyone usually does in the face of death: they kept life going. Peg, her Cumann na mBan meeting now unfeasible, cleaned the kitchen and, while she was at it, gave the back pantry a good going over.
JJ tended to the customers and, when Pats came in, spent an hour with Barney in the bottling store, filling bottles of stout from the big vat, stocking up for the weekend rush. And Barney, as well as helping his father by putting the caps on the bottles and sticking on the labels, also, finally, fixed the brakes of his bicycle.
All the things Máire would have had to nag them to do if she was in the whole of her health were done without having to be asked and without complaint.
Máire’s eyes flickered open. Half-caught in a dream about her Aunt Hannah, her father’s sister who, years and years ago, lived in their house at home on the mountain. In the dream, she was a child, light as air, helping Auntie Hannah with the hanging of clothes in the back yard, picking pegs out of a bag and handing them up to her, as she used to do. For a moment, she lay prone and confused in a dusky room, unsure of where she was.
Turning her head towards the light of a candle, she found her daughter sitting on a chair, sewing, a basket of mending beside her. Then it all came brimming back: she was at the end of her life, not the beginning.
When Peg saw her move, she laid down her work. “You’re awake, Mammy. How are you feeling?”
“All right. Better for the sleep.”
“Are you hungry? I’ve made some soup.”
Soup? The thought of it turned her stomach. It had been months since she knew what hunger was. It was the way with her always now, to be neither hungry nor full.
“Maybe in a while.”
The blinds were pulled, but she could see it was dark outside too. “What time is it?”
“Nearly nine.”
“I’ve slept for hours.”
Peg nodded. “Are you sure I can’t get you something? You really should eat.”
“Is Barney home?”
“He is. Do you want him?”
> “No. No, just wondering.”
The way you always wondered, even when they were great strapping lads of twenty-two. Soon, she wouldn’t be here to wonder. She knew it and was not fooled by the evasions of Dr Lavin this afternoon. The black knowledge that she was going to die reared up in her and she gagged on it.
Sweet Jesus. Almighty and Everlasting God, preserver of souls...help me. She clutched the two sides of her bed like she was adrift on a raft. Help me. Mary, Queen of heaven, most blessed virgin, holy Mother of God, help me. In the blood of Jesus, in thy intercession, is my only hope. My life is over. Over though it feels like it hardly started. Over. Help me Holy Mary to deal with that.
She started to recite prayers inside her head to try to bring calm. An Our Father, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be. She fixed on the rote, familiar words, using them to drive other thoughts away. It worked, her panic subsiding enough for her to lie there without screaming.
In the clearing of her mind, something began to niggle at her. Then she remembered, and was glad of the distraction: “I’m sorry,” she said to Peg. “For the way I was with you earlier.”
“Oh Mammy, stop. No bother.”
“No, I am sorry, Peg. It’s foolish anger that gets me that way sometimes.”
Anger at my sickness, anger at God, anger at everyone who’s well, everyone who doesn’t yet know what it’s like to wake in the morning walloped by a black wave of nothing. To inhale the ash-grey, sour-water taste of death with the opening of your eyes.
“No one could blame you, Mammy.”
She was a good girl, Peg, the one the other two would rely on now, while thinking themselves in charge, the way men do. It was wrong of her to get irritated with her the way she did, for no good reason. Maybe that was the way a mother always felt about a daughter: a bond too close for ease.
Or was that just her, not able to get it right, not having known a mother herself? Her own died the day she was born, died in the having of her. Was that why her feelings for Barney had always been easier, even these days when he was acting as though her condition was a personal insult to himself?
