by Therese Down
“There. Finished.” Caitlin pushed her hair back from her face and stood panting with exertion, leaning on the huge milking shed broom.
Her father nodded. “Right, so,” he replied, not unkindly, and she slopped away from him in her rubber boots, throwing the brush against the milking-shed wall as she did so. She consoled herself later in the kitchen, as she brought water to the boil for a wash, that she would never again be covered in cow dung after next August when the Leaving Certificate results came through. Then… then…
Donal Kelly rested a boot on the right shoulder of his spade, lifted the cloth cap from his head and, still holding it, used his sleeve to wipe away sweat from his brow. His thick, brown curls were matted with sweat, and, in spite of the biting early November chill, he pulled off the gloves he had borrowed from his father and which were moulded into fists from years of gripping a spade handle. He discarded them then yanked his jacket open, struggled free of it, and threw it on the ground next to his gloves. He had been digging and clearing ditches around his father’s fields for hours – not something people usually did in November, for the ground was more sodden than ever and the relentless rain, cold, and damp of the Irish winter was not conducive to the work. But Donal’s father had become ill in April and there was a backlog of heavy work to do if the farm was to be productive in the following year.
When Donal had managed to get home to help his father, from June 1943, he had spent the summer months digging turf and bringing in the hay and modest sugar beet crop, and so the annual clearing and re-digging of irrigation ditches around the crop fields had to wait. Without this work the fields would be sodden and unproductive, and the new crops, sown early in the spring, would rot in the ground.
Kelly sniffed, wiped his face again, screwed up his eyes, and peered into the heavy, wet fog which clung like mould to the boggy land. He pushed away the spade and it fell heavily. He leaned forward so that his hands braced his upper weight against his thighs and let his head drop low. In this position, he waited for his heart to return to a resting rhythm. He straightened up, clenching his eyes tight against the muscle pain, and leaned back to stretch his spine. Finally, he retrieved his coat and gloves, swung the spade onto his shoulder, and trod the squelching turf to higher ground where a patient, half-dozing donkey stood hitched to a cart. Grunting with the pain it caused his muscles and tendons, Donal put on his jacket and flung the spade onto the cart, levered himself with a swift movement onto the edge of it. “Move on,” said Donal gruffly, and the donkey laid back its ears, straining forward at once with its load.
One April morning in 1943, Dan Kelly, Donal’s father, had arisen at dawn to fetch the cows for milking and had collapsed in the kitchen. His daughters found him when they rose for school an hour later and could neither rouse nor move him. The doctor, when he came, helped them lift their father onto the mattress they brought downstairs for the purpose, and after a careful examination, had pronounced it was Dan’s heart that was the problem. The doctor had advised that the sisters had a choice: they could drive their unconscious father by horse and cart the nineteen miles to the new hospital at Nenagh, or he could help them to get him into his 1935 Austin car and he could drive him to the hospital. But Dan was over six feet tall, and getting him into the back seat of the car would be no easy feat; the trauma of moving him in this way, and the position in which he would be forced to travel for forty bumpy minutes, might be fatal.
And so it was that Dan Kelly was transported to the hospital at Nenagh as fast as his ageing horse could manage, while the doctor went ahead of them to warn the hospital to be ready for an acute cardiac case. The oldest daughter, Jacintha, drove the horse, while her sister, Deirdre, tended her father where he lay prostrate in the cart.
At the time his father was hospitalized, Donal Kelly was in Belfast on an IRA assignment. Twenty years old and a mathematics teacher with a law scholarship for Cork University, Kelly had not been an obvious recruit to Republican activism. Had he been content to harbour an ideological zeal for Ireland’s freedom from English oppression, he would have been well equipped for an illustrious legal career. Many influential and erudite Irish lawyers since Daniel O’Connell had shared such passion. What was prohibitive to the assumption of his scholarship place was that by the start of the university term in September 1942 Donal Kelly had committed several acts which, under the provisions of President de Valera’s 1937 Constitution, might well have attracted the death penalty.
It was already dark before Donal arrived home but the donkey knew the way.
“Hello? Donal, is it you?” Deirdre’s voice carried clear and bright above the damp darkness as she opened the cottage door onto the yard. There was a pause while she strained by the light from the open door to make out the donkey cart. In the stillness she heard the scuff of his boots and the occasional grate of a metal blade on tarmac as her brother moved away from the cart and crossed the yard to lean his spade against the outer wall of the house. The kitchen light was a welcome sight and Donal’s spirits lifted a little as the aromatic melange of freshly baked bread, tea, and stew reached him on the damp, chill air. His sisters would have stoked the range and turned down his bed, ready for a warming pan between the sheets. But there was the milking to be done and the pigs to feed; he would not sleep for hours yet. When he was close enough to answer her without having to make the effort to raise his voice, Donal responded.
“Aye.”
“Will I put the donkey away?”
“Aye.”
And as her brother made for the kitchen door, Deirdre was already talking in soothing tones to the exhausted donkey and unhitching it from the cart, leading it to a freshly littered stall and a good feed of mashed turnips and hay.
Dan Kelly had arisen as though startled when his daughter had opened the door declaring she had heard something in the yard. It did not rest easy with him that he could not cut his own turf or dig his own ditches or that Donal had sacrificed a university place to help him out on the farm. He could not be sitting down reading a paper when his boy crossed the threshold, cold and exhausted from heavy, lone labour on his land.
“Are you right, son?” Dan’s tone was concerned and affectionate.
“I’m fine, da. The ditches are good enough now to see us through sowing next year and to harvest – if it ever stops raining. We could do with another freeze.”
“That’s grand; that’s great work, Donal. Sure we’ll all help to keep them clear when the weather gets a bit warmer.”
Donal sat down heavily at the table. Jacintha smiled at him and served him a steaming cup of tea. He nodded his thanks and wrapped his freezing hands around the mug. The warmth of the kitchen was a sanctuary against the latest bone-chilling, muscle-tearing day he had spent in the fields. Deirdre came in pink cheeked and smiling from tending the donkey.
“He has a bit of a sore where the harness has rubbed him,” she announced, “but sure you’re not going out again tomorrow, are you, Donny?” She directed this with the diminutive of his name to her brother but he did not answer her. His eyes were closed and the spoon with which he had begun to eat the stew Jacintha had served him was slowly tipping upwards on the rim of the bowl as his hand relaxed in sudden sleep. Both sisters and their father exchanged looks of pity. Jacintha approached her brother and touched his shoulder gently.
“Donal,” she enquired quietly, “are you too tired for supper? Why don’t you go on up to bed for a sleep? Deirdre and I will do the milking. Sure you can eat the stew later.”
Her brother started. “No, no, I’m fine. Just give me a minute or two. I’ll be right.” He stood up, moved towards his jacket and gloves where they lay on a wooden chair inside the kitchen door.
“Ah, you’re not going out again, Donal?” enquired Jacintha. “Sure, at least finish your supper!” But Donal was already opening the door onto the now freezing darkness.
“No. I’ll away up and get the cows – it takes longer in the dark.” And he was gone, the door shutting behin
d him.
“Curse this useless…” Dan flung his newspaper to the floor, leaned forward, and covered his face with his hands. “What sort of a man am I now?” His voice was muffled by his hands but the girls thought they detected a break in it which no one would have dared name aloud for the embarrassment it would bring. Deirdre kissed her father’s head, ran to the back door, and grabbed her coat.
“I’ll go and help him,” she said. “Keep him company.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Maureen Spillane was to enter the convent in the following January on the occasion of her nineteenth birthday. The preparations were almost as consuming and costly as those for a wedding. There were habits and tunics to be bought and thick black cardigans to be knitted for the cold convent in winter. There were new rosary beads, and missals with white marble- effect plastic covers, pairs of sensible black shoes and boots to be bought, in good leather, to last years. And Maureen needed books – tales of sainthood and Christian courage – to fill her mind with comfort in the darkness of her lonely cell for the half an hour she would have to collect her thoughts and wash herself by candlelight before lights out.
Caitlin watched these preparations and her mother’s fawning ministrations to them with growing resentment. She wanted her mother to smooth down clothes between layers of tissue paper for her, in a trunk being prepared for a journey to Dublin. This preparation in black seemed morbid. What could it mean, to become a bride of Christ? Why marriage to Christ, who was celibate, unworldly? Was this bond really all the church believed women could understand? Marriage to a man incarnate or otherwise, it seemed to Caitlin, was a conspiracy to take the life from women.
One day in early November two nuns drove from a convent in Tipperary town to visit with Maureen and take tea, but the main purpose of their journey was to discuss her dowry – a donation to the convent made by all novices’ families, to help towards their keep. Caitlin’s mother had put on her best dress and washed her hair. Maureen and Caitlin were required to do the same. Mick sat in his only suit, twitching in discomfort, trying to remember manners. He kept running his hands through his slicked-back hair, feeling naked without it bushing up from his crown and sideways like a horse’s forelock. Sister Mary Callasanctious and Sister Mary Rosario sat wreathed in smiles, though behind the thick lenses of her spectacles, Callasanctious’s eyes were pinpricks and her jaw was angular, her mouth prim.
“Will you have some more cake, sisters?” asked Mrs Spillane sweetly.
“You’re very kind, Missis,” replied Sister Callasanctious, “but we won’t, thank you.” Sister Rosario, fat and busty with a moon- round face, blinked a little uncertainly and could not disguise her disappointment.
Mick Spillane, perched on the edge of his chair, knees threatening to split his trouser cloth, reached up a tobacco- stained pincer of forefinger and thumb and pulled on the tip of his nose. Feeling it give up an unexpected indelicacy, he held on to it while he rummaged in his trouser pocket with his other hand for a handkerchief. The nuns averted their eyes and seemed to search the carpet for a way to open the conversation. Sister Rosario was inspired.
“Tell me…” But a loud snort from Mick, who had found his hanky, blasted her words from their course. She smiled again. Mick mumbled an apology. Maureen squirmed with embarrassment, which was noted appreciatively by Sister Callasanctious. “Tell me,” began Rosario again, “are you managing to find time to prepare yourself for your big step, Maureen?” Maureen smiled sweetly, nodded before she spoke.
“Oh yes, sister. I pray and meditate for at least a couple of hours a day now. And I read the Bible every evening.”
“Oh, you must do that, my child,” said Callasanctious. “After all, it is Jesus’ voice, and the very one which has called you to be his handmaid. Listen well, Maureen, for he speaks clearly for those who will open their ears to hear him.”
“I will, sister.” Maureen was eager to please; a rapt look had settled on her face. Caitlin coughed to cover an involuntary sigh.
“Good girl, good girl. And have you everything else you’ll need? We do without much, but woolly socks and a good vest you’ll be needing for sure – isn’t that right, sister?”
“Oh, indeed. Attend to the simple needs first, and then the mind is free to soar.”
Mrs Spillane was anxious to show the nuns that her daughter would be well provided for. “We have her trunk all ready, sisters – I hope we haven’t put too much in it, now! She’ll be warm enough, and if she needs anything else, sure we’ll visit her all we can – or she can write.”
The sisters nodded, hopeful that Mrs Spillane would continue the present direction of the conversation to the indelicate matter of the dowry. They had to be back at the convent for Vespers. Mrs Spillane, however, was intent upon impressing the good sisters with the suitability of Maureen for convent life, and with the support her family had been giving to her vocation.
“And Maureen has been locking herself away every evening, lately, to say her prayers and prepare herself.”
The sisters stifled sighs and smiled again in tolerance of this return to old ground. Mrs Spillane continued, turning to Caitlin, who was perched on the arm of her chair, looking obedient.
“Caitlin here is doing Maureen’s little jobs to give her sister more time, aren’t you, pet?”
Caitlin smiled. Little jobs! she thought. Just clearing a few little tons of cow manure and scouring a few little churns till they were spotless, twice a day; and then there were the little mountains of potatoes she had to peel every night for the dinner, and the little cows she had to fetch up and down the road at all hours for milking.
“Now isn’t that grand?” said Sister Callasanctious approvingly. “Isn’t she the good girl to help her sister? And will – Caitlin, is it? – will Caitlin be taking the veil, too?”
“No indeed,” came the firm reply from the object of interest, simultaneously with a cynical guffaw from Mick.
Mrs Spillane reddened as she began, “Caitlin is…”
“I am going to university,” Caitlin announced. “Trinity perhaps.”
“Is that right?” Callasanctious’s tone was mildly exclamatory. “Trinity, is it? Isn’t that a brave thing for a girl, now?” She looked to Mick and Mrs Spillane in turn, saw the anger on his and the pained confusion on his wife’s face, and sensed all was not well in the Spillane household. “Well, it’s not unheard of. Sure, didn’t Sister Xavier begin a degree up at Trinity, sister, a few years back?” continued Callasanctious.
“She did, sister – in theology. Sure, she’d her book half written – her thesis, is it?”
“Yes… that’s right. She had.” Callasanctious nodded, sipping her tea thoughtfully.
Mick’s tea cup looked dainty and useless in his grip. Like a gorilla at a tea party, thought Callasanctious.
Caitlin, piqued by her parents’ lack of response, spoke again. “Women do take degrees, you know!” she exclaimed, asserting her tone a little too boldly for Callasanctious’s liking. “Women have been admitted to Trinity since the turn of the century.”
“Indeed, yes.” The nun lowered her eyes, sipped her tea, and continued, “But usually only the very privileged daughters of wealthy men and, of course, religious women like ourselves, who are academically gifted. They are sponsored by the church, naturally. But even so, the cost and the prolonged periods in the outer world are often… prohibitive, and I’m afraid, well, Sister Xavier had to discontinue her studies.” She stole a sideways glance at Sister Rosario, who closed her eyes in knowledgeable agreement.
“There are scholarships – Sizars, they call them – for ‘students of limited means’…” Caitlin broke off, aware of the pleading in her tone. She felt the frustration of a child who has nurtured a longing for a special toy or favour but realizes at last there is no hope of adult indulgence. She finished lamely, “I have read about them in school.”
The nuns did not answer. Sister Callasanctious lifted her cup to her lips, stared unfocused over its rim
. Sister Rosario smiled reassuringly at Mrs Spillane, as if Caitlin had said something embarrassing and the nun was keen to show she was not offended. Mick shifted irritably in his chair. He could not decide if he should be incensed by his daughter’s implication that he was not well off; then it occurred to him that this might work in his favour, given the reason for the nuns’ visit.
“Why…” Caitlin could hardly believe she was asking the question. She knew she was testing her father’s tolerance. “Why did Sister Xavier ‘have’ to discontinue her studies?”
“What’s that, dear?” Callasanctious’s lips stretched to a tolerant smile, and she met Caitlin’s earnest gaze with cold eyes.
“Why couldn’t she finish her studies? Don’t priests study for years and years in the seminary, learning Latin and maths, Greek and philosophy? Isn’t the cost of that ‘prohibitive’? Why did Sister Xavier have to stop?”
“Caitlin, that’s enough, pet.” Mrs Spillane tapped her daughter’s trembling arm in rapid succession, as if she were communicating in code her anguished warning to beware her father’s wrath. Caitlin heard and sat back, looked down at her fingers spread in supplication in thin air, and dropped her hands to her lap. Callasanctious said that nuns were hardly to be compared with priests: priests were the ministers of Christ, the intermediaries between the Holy Ghost and poor sinners. Nuns were mere handmaids to Jesus; they devoted their lives to humility and quiet prayer and had not the terrible burdens of the priests. The priests, she reflected finally, were the soldiers of Christ and it was for nuns to pray for their success.
