Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars

by Jean Grainger

  eBook formatting by Maureen Cutajar

  www.gopublished.com

  Print ISBN: 978-1517115258

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  The Tour

  So Much Owed

  Shadow of a Century

  Dedicated to my inspirational friend, Pauline

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Also by the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Close friends are truly life’s treasures. Sometimes they know us better than we know ourselves. With gentle honesty, they are there to guide and support us, to share our laughter and our tears. Their presence reminds us that we are never really alone.

  —Vincent Van Gogh

  Chapter 1

  Cork City, Ireland, 1963

  The clanging bells broke through his dream, just as an angel was explaining in great detail how to score a point from a sideline cut at the fifty-yard line. The noise was deafening since the house was only seven doors down from the entrance to the hallowed church of St Teresa on the north side of Cork city. Mammy always said how lucky they were to live so close to God’s house, some people had miles to go to get to Mass on a Sunday or during Lent but the Tobin family was blessed; they only needed to run up the street anytime to be in God’s house.

  ‘Pop in and say a prayer on your way home, Liam,’ she would always say as she brushed his brown curly hair neatly and sent him off to school to the brothers armed with a bottle of milk and a doorstep of bread and jam for his lunch. He was luckier than most of the lads in his class he knew, to have a lunch every day and good shoes and an overcoat in the winter.

  Liam dragged himself out of bed, the edges of the mattress cold to his skin as he blearily looked for his clothes. He sighed as he spotted his trousers, shirt and pullover on the floor as usual, despite his folding of them last night. Con always threw his clothes off the chair when he came in. Liam was sure he did it as a matter of course just to annoy his younger brother. It was hard being the youngest. The girls more or less ignored him or laughed at his seven-year-old thoughts on things and Con liked winding him up. He was four years older than Liam and much bigger and stronger, but to be fair he wasn’t the worst big brother, some other fellas had desperate things to put up with altogether from their older siblings—Con was all right. He always played hurling with Liam even though he was way better. He taught him some great tricks of the national game, and Liam always made the school team because of Con’s help. Sometimes, he even gave Liam a sweet if he got a shilling for doing a job for one of the neighbours. He’d hate anyone to know that he had a nice side though; Con liked his hard man image.

  Liam opened the grey, shabby net curtains to see what kind of a day it was. Mammy washed them every week, but there was no money for new ones so they were grey with age, the smoke from the neighbours’ fires, and the mist off the River Lee didn’t help either. He heard her sighing as she hung them back up week after week, and Liam vowed that when he grew up he’d go into Murray’s on the Grand Parade and buy her the whitest net curtains they had. Everything looked a bit grey this morning though and as he dressed quickly, he could see his breath in the cold bedroom. At least, the range would be lit downstairs, Daddy banked it down before he went to bed and stoked it up in the morning when he was going out to work so that the kitchen was nice and warm for his family, even if the bedrooms were freezing.

  Liam looked out into the street as he put his foot on the windowsill to tie his shoes. Even the famous golden fish weathervane, which adorned the top of the church, seemed less luminescent in the gloom of the morning. Everyone round there called it ‘de Goldie Fish’ and it was put on top of the church for the whole city to see. Stories varied as to why it was there and what it represented. Some people said it was there as a symbol of Cork being a port city but Mammy said it was because the Lord Jesus was a fisher of men. Whatever it meant, the generations who lived and died under the Goldie Fish considered themselves the luckiest people on earth. There was even a prayer that they learned in school, asking Our Lord and the Virgin Mary and St Finbarr to bless Cork as it lay beneath Heaven’s shining stars. A fella in his class asked Brother Aquinas why was Cork so special and wasn’t the whole world under Heaven’s shining stars, not just Cork, but the priest replied, ‘No wonder you don’t understand, and your father from Kerry,’ and gave him a clout across the head for impertinence.

  To an outsider, the north side of Cork city and Chapel Street in particular might look poor and unkempt, and there wasn’t much going spare in 1963 that was true, but Cork people had always pitied those other unfortunate inhabitants of the earth without the geographic good fortune to live their lives on the banks of the River Lee. And those who lived on the north side pitied those on the south side of the river, even though that’s where all the posh suburbs were. The demarcation was important, and while all Corkonians loved their home there was a respectful distance kept by both sides of the river. Life on the north side was poor and plenty of families had lost people to emigration—to the car factory at Dagenham in England mostly—but there was a pride and a passion for their home that belied its dilapidated appearance. Liam thought it was the best place in the whole wide world.

  Liam peered down the hill from his bedroom window. The fog lay heavily on the river as the dawn tried valiantly to break through the thick grey clouds. The distinctive aroma of hops hung in the air, sandwiched as they were between Beamish’s brewery on the south side and Murphy’s on the north side. Liam loved the malty bitterness that greeted your nostrils each morning. Unless of course the tide was out, then the lovely hops aroma was replaced with the stink of a river at low tide. Rats would scurry around the riverbed among the silt-covered old bicycles and bits of timber. They made Mammy shudder to look at them but Liam thought they were fascinating and Daddy was always telling him what a resourceful little fella the rat was, always managing to survive despite people doing their best to kill him off for centuries.

  The city lay at the top of Cork Harbour, the most southerly city on the island of Ireland and the safest natural harbour in the whole world, another thing Liam’s Daddy had told him proudly, more than once. The river rose way out in the country and wandered gently through the green valleys and small villages and towns to find its way to the sea, almost at Liam’s front door.

  The sound of deliveries, bringing milk, bread, and newspapers to the shops around Chapel Street, a few voices, hooves of dray horses on cobbles, and a fog horn further down the harbour were the only sounds in the early March morning. You could set your clock by the arrival of the big horse with the furry feet pulling the milk cart to a stop at their door.

  ‘Ow!’ Liam yelped as a flying hob-nailed boot hit him in the back of the head.

  ‘Close the curtain, ya big eejit.’ Con pulled the blanket and coat over himself, trying to go back to sleep.

  ‘We have to get up now anyway, Con. Mammy will be up here in a minute. If she doesn’t hear us, she’ll murder you,’ Liam pleaded with his older brother. He hated it when there was anger in the house in the mornings. Daddy and Liam’s older sister, Kate, would be gone to work already, but Mammy had to get the rest of them out to school and she took no nonsense, especially from lazy eleven-year-old Con.

>   ‘You’re serving today, Con, and Father Mac warned you about being late for Mass again. You had your soutane on backwards yesterday, lucky Mammy couldn’t find her glasses or she’d kill you.’ Liam begged his brother to cooperate. He was so lucky too, not everyone was picked to serve at Mass. Liam longed to be an altar boy like his brother, but he hadn’t yet made his First Holy Communion so he wasn’t allowed. He always vowed that if he was picked to serve Father Mac he’d never, ever, be late for Mass and his vestments would be immaculate.

  ‘’Liam, I swear I’ll bate the head off ya if you don’t close them bloody curtains!’ Con groaned, his voice muffled under the feather pillow. Reluctantly, Liam closed them, knowing only too well that Con meant every word of the threat. He checked himself in the mirror on the wardrobe door. His short trousers had seen better days, having first being owned by Con, and now him. Mammy patched the backside of them so many times they looked a bit mad, but he didn’t mind. It wasn’t like he was the only boy in the class with patched trousers. Compared to most, Daddy always said, they were lucky. Food on the table, shoes on their feet and a warm bed. And they got to stay in school till they were twelve years of age. Loads of the kids on the street either never went to school at all, or left after a few years, when they could read and write a bit. It was the law that every child was supposed to go, but the authorities didn’t bother too much with the kids who lived on Chapel Street. Most of the parents weren’t able to read or write very well either, but Mammy and Daddy were very good at it, and Daddy read them the best cowboy stories at night. He could do the voices and everything and you’d swear Buffalo Bill or Billy the Kid was talking when Daddy read to them. Even the girls loved the stories, but they pretended they wanted him to read stupid old romances.

  The bells rang again. Mass was at seven and then it was home for a bowl of porridge before being packed off to school at the top of the hill.

  ‘Con Tobin, you better be out of bed and dressed, I’m warning you. If I have to come up to you, so help me God I’ll brain you! D’ya hear me?’ Mammy shouted from downstairs. Liam went out onto the landing.

  ‘Ah, Liam pet, you’re the best boy ever, do you know that?’ she rubbed his hair as he passed her on the stairs. ‘Is that big lump of a clown out of bed yet?’

  Mammy had her second best dress on. Not the one she wore on Sundays but the blue one with the little flowers on it. She made it herself and it was Liam’s favourite. He loved how soft the fabric felt against his face when Mammy hugged him. She always made a funny sound like she was being strangled when he gave her extra squeezy hugs and it made him giggle. There was no time for hugs this morning though, they had to get to Mass. Mammy was fixing her long dark hair with pins in the small mirror over the Holy Water font in the hall before putting on her lace mantilla to cover her hair in the church. Daddy always said how lovely Mammy was, and how she was the most beautiful woman in Ireland. She usually just swatted him with the tea-towel and told him not to be trying to soft soap her with his old plamásing, but Liam knew she loved it when he said it. Her cheeks went all red and she smiled a kind of special smile at Daddy.

  She looked at herself and was sure she looked respectable.

  ‘Con!’ she shouted again. ‘Was he up, Liam, when you were coming down?’

  Liam hated being a tell-tale on Con, he mostly liked his big brother and anyway, he’d only give him a clatter for telling on him if he did, so he muttered something about getting his coat and ran out the back door.

  He pushed the heavy oak door of St Teresa’s church—he wasn’t tall enough to reach the shiny brass handle—and immediately inhaled. He loved the scent of the incense mixed with beeswax polish, the muted notes of the organ played by Mrs Hegarty who Daddy said was an old lady when he was a child, and the sense of anticipation among the congregation, waiting for the bell to announce the start of Mass. Most of the pews were almost full and he hoped that nobody would sit beside him because there would be no room for Mammy and the twins. Daddy would get Mass on his way back from the dockyard in St Peter and Paul’s church in town, and Kate took the patients to Mass in the hospital every day anyway, so in the mornings it was just Con, himself, Mammy and the twins.

  He knelt and said his prayers, asking God to make him good, good enough to be able to make his First Holy Communion in two weeks time. Father Aquinas said only very good fellas were going to be allowed to make it, and he told them that the week before the Communion he’d be sending a list to the bishop of the good fellas and the bad fellas and any bad fellas won’t be making the Communion, and what’s more, they won’t get a shiny penny, and won’t be able to go to the breakfast in the monastery where rumour had it, sticky buns and lemonade were available to all the good fellas. He tried to suppress a smile at the memory of Jackie Byrne asking Father Aquinas if the bishop was like Santie so, with a good and bold list. The entire class watched the priest’s reaction with bated breath, Father Aquinas was very scary. The priest had puffed up like a bullfrog and roared at Jackie not to be so cheeky, thumping him on the shoulder as he did so. Father Aquinas was huge and used to be a brilliant boxer so when he hit you a clatter, you knew all about it.

  He felt someone touch his shoulder and he started. He looked up, relieved to see Molly and Annie, the nine-year-old twins, nudging him to push in, their mother behind. He moved along as far as he could, making space for the rest of the family as the piercing ding of the bell indicated the start of Mass. Seamus Daly was on the altar with Con this week, and he walked reverentially across the altar, bowing low before the Blessed Sacrament, then kneeling on the left hand side of the pulpit. Next, came Father Mac, his bald head shining under the lights as he bent to kiss the Bible. Liam scanned the altar for Con, praying he had his soutane straight and on the right way. His stomach lurched as he realised nobody was on the other side. He glanced sideways at his mother, who was rapidly taking in the situation as the colour drained from her face. Where was Con? To shame the family like that, by not turning up for mass in front of everyone was going to be unforgivable. Mammy was going to be mortified and Daddy would go mad. Suddenly, the door behind the altar that led to the sacristy opened with much clamouring and creaking, and a mortified Con, with hair standing on end and one boot missing, crept across the altar. Molly started to giggle and that set Annie off, both girls shaking with mirth as their mother threw them dagger looks. Liam focused on the sanctuary lamp, where the sacred heart of Jesus was covered with a purple cloth for the forty days of Lent. He prayed hard that Father Mac didn’t notice Con arriving late, or that he only had one boot. He knew that Con had forgotten he had thrown the other one at Liam for opening the curtains so it was probably under the bed or something.

  The Mass went on uneventfully and Liam watched in awe as Father Mac held up the body and then the blood of Christ, but Liam could feel Mammy seething beside him. Poor old Con, she was going to go mad when they got home. The Glen and the Rockies were playing in the hurling County final down in the Park on Sunday and Daddy was taking both of them, but it was looking bad for Con now. There is no way Mammy would let him go after this, and Daddy always bought them chips afterwards and everything. Con would be heartbroken to miss it, but Daddy wouldn’t overrule Mammy.

  Liam pulled his attention back to the Mass. In school, Father Aquinas was teaching them about transubstantiation, the way that a real miracle happened in front of your very eyes when ordinary old bread, made by the nuns in the Good Shepherd’s convent in Sunday’s Well got turned into the real body of Jesus Christ.. And then how wine got turned into his blood. Liam was transfixed when Father Aquinas talked all about it, trying to make sense of how a miracle happened every day just across the road from his house, and all over the world as well.

  The wonders of Catholicism fascinated Liam. He loved to hear the stories about the missions and how brave priests were leaving the comfort of home and their families to go out and convert the black babies in darkest Africa so that they could be saved and go to heaven when
they died. At night in bed, Liam worried that there weren’t enough priests to go around, what about all the babies with their big brown eyes and curly hair that never got to meet an Irish priest? Was hell full of black babies just because they weren’t lucky enough to be in the same village as a priest?

  He’d asked Mammy about it one night and she said that they were probably not in hell, but they might be in Limbo. That place wasn’t as bad as Hell, no fires burning for all eternity or the devil and all that horrible scary stuff, but that they would never get to see the face of God because they hadn’t been baptised.

  ‘But Mammy, who minds all the babies up in Limbo so?’ Liam had asked, getting more and more upset. ‘If all the Mammies and Daddies did get baptised, there’s nobody there to mind the babies.’

  ‘Oh, Holy God and the Blessed Virgin Mary send very special angels to look after the babies so they’re fine, all playing together and lots of nice things to eat and everything,’ Mammy reassured him as she peeled the spuds for the dinner. ‘They have a great time there, buns and lollipops and everything.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it doesn’t sound that bad so,’ Liam wasn’t convinced, ‘but it would be better, wouldn’t it, Mammy, if they got baptised into the Holy Catholic Church and then when they died they could go up to heaven with all the other good people?’ He watched and waited as his mother peeled the wafer-thin layer of skin from the potato, they had enough, but just about. There was no waste in the Tobin household.

  ‘It would, of course, pet, and sure aren’t there priests and nuns going out to the missions every week, doing their best to get to as many of those poor people as they can?’ She ruffled his brown curly hair with her wet hand. Mammy always had time for him, even when his brothers and sisters told him to get lost with his endless questions, she would chat away to him as she did the jobs around the house. He got home the earliest since he was the youngest and it was his favourite time of the day, helping her to wash the sheets or get the dinner, and talking away all the time. Mammy had great devotion to St Bernadette, the Little Flower, and St Anthony. She often told him that he looked like St Anthony with his lovely brown eyes, but her favourite angel by far was St Michael the Archangel.