Father Aquinas was silent, and Liam feared he was going to get a clout for having the cheek to ask. Eventually he spoke.
‘I don’t know why she said it. But I do know that she is not well. Not like the flu or chicken pox or something, but she isn’t well in her head. She thought she was in love with your father and she believed he felt the same about her. None of it was true, Liam, that’s the important thing, none of it. It all happened in her head.’
‘But I don’t understand...’ Liam was more confused than ever.
‘I know, Liam, it seems very hard to take in. I realise this is very difficult for you all, but it’s very important for you, and for your whole family that you believe him when he tells you that he didn’t do anything wrong.’
Every night in bed, Liam relived that terrible night three weeks ago. Mrs Kinsella knocked at the door when he was in bed and Mammy and Daddy were having their tea by the stove. As usual, he was half dozing and half listening to them. He couldn’t hear what they said but hearing their voices, still made him feel safe and happy. Daddy still had no work and he was talking about going over to England again, but Mammy wasn’t keen on the idea. They were just about to go to bed, he heard Daddy locking the back door when there was a knock on the front. He heard Daddy answer it and then Mammy’s voice in a loud whisper. ‘Mrs Kinsella! It’s nearly midnight. What on earth do you want at this time of night?’ She sounded very cross.
‘I want Seán,’ was all she kept repeating over and over, louder and louder.
Then she started screaming. ‘Seán, you have to come away with me now, we can go away, you and me and Marion, we could have our own family. I can make you happy, we can be together. You know it’s what we both want!’ She was crying then. Con woke at the noise and sat up in bed and then he crept out to the top of the landing, with Liam following behind. Kate was already there and the twins appeared moments later. He remembered watching his older brother and sisters’ faces register shock and horror at what they were hearing.
‘Yerra get away out of our house now, disturbing us at this hour of the night with all your old nonsense, God love you and your foolish notions. My husband is going nowhere with you or with anyone else.’ Mammy was ushering her out the door.
‘Tell her, Seán,’ Mrs Kinsella screamed. ‘Tell her the truth. It’s me he loves, not you. Not you.’ She spat the last words into Mammy’s face. Her hair was all hanging down in front of her face and she sounded drunk, slurring her words. Tears were coursing down her cheeks and her make-up was all smeared, she looked frightful.
Mammy turned to look Daddy in the face. ‘Well, Seán? What have you to say for yourself?’
They couldn’t see their father, he was standing at the kitchen door, directly below where they were sitting, but they could hear him. When he spoke, he sounded shocked.
‘Mary, I swear on our children’s lives I don’t know what she’s talking about. I never touched her, I swear to you.’ Liam willed his mother to believe him and wished Mrs Kinsella would just drop dead and all of this horrible thing would never have happened.
There was silence, only broken by Mrs Kinsella’s sobs. Mammy looked back the hall, straight at Daddy.
Then she turned to Mrs Kinsella and said in a voice Liam didn’t even recognise, ‘Listen here to me, you, my husband has shown you nothing but kindness, we all have. And this is how you repay us, coming in here, making all sorts of wild accusations in the dead of night and upsetting me and my family? You are never to darken this door again, do you hear me? I don’t care if the roof falls in or if the place is overrun by rats; my husband and my children’s father will not be coming to your rescue. You must think I’m some kind of a simpleton, I’ve seen what you’ve been trying to do, with your, “Oh Seán, help me with this, and Oh Seán, that thing is broken,” but I’ve the measure of you, lady. You have a child to rear and this is the example you are setting her? You aren’t fit to be her mother! I don’t know what you did with your own man if you ever had one, nor do I care, but you won’t be having mine. Now, get yourself out of my home before I fire you out by that stupid peroxide head of yours.’
Mrs Kinsella changed then; she stopped crying and was livid. ‘Are you going to let her talk to me like that, Seán? Are you?’ She was screaming now. Liam felt Kate put her arm around him and hold him close to her.
‘You heard my wife, Laura, it’s time you left. There is nothing between us, there never was. I don’t know where you’re getting this from, but I’ve never given you a reason to think there was anything going on between us as you well know. Now, go on home before we have the whole street in on top of us.’ Daddy sounded calmer than Mammy but his voice didn’t sound like his normal one either.
Liam watched his parents usher her out the door and noticed the lights from several neighbours’ houses reflected on the path outside. Everyone heard what had happened, it would have been impossible not to with the racket she was causing.
The front door was closed and the Tobin children watched their parents stand, not touching, in the hall. They were unaware of the audience they had at the top of the stairs.
Daddy tried to put his arms around Mammy but she pushed him away. Kate beckoned them back to their bedrooms. Mammy and Daddy’s room was downstairs, and the girls had the big room upstairs since there were three of them. Con and Liam went back to their room leaving the door slightly ajar.
‘Mary...Mary, look at me!’ Liam heard his father plead. ‘You can’t seriously think there’s anything in what she said. Dear God...you do, you think I was carrying on with her.’
‘I don’t know what to think.’ His mother’s voice was quiet. ‘You were in there often enough.’
‘The only reason I was in there at all was to make a few bob doing odd jobs. How else are we supposed to live?’ Seán was reasonable.
‘I’d rather starve than take her money. I’d rather beg on the street than be paid by that hussy for the use of my husband.’ Liam was terrified, he never heard his mother speak like that.
‘The use of your husband! For God’s sake! Would you listen to yourself, woman? I was painting, hanging doors, fixing things as you well know. I’ve been telling you for weeks I’ll have to go to England, but you won’t have it. Tom O’Mahony from the dockyard can get me a start. Well, let me tell you something for nothing, if my own wife doesn’t trust me, and we are on the brink of starvation since I’m out of work, I might as well go now then, hadn’t I?’ Daddy was shouting.
‘Seán, keep your voice down, the whole street will hear you,’ Mammy spat.
‘And that’s all you care about, is it? What the narrow, small-minded attitudes of the people of this place have to say? You care what they think but not what I think, is that it? You’d prefer to believe the auld tittle-tattle out of people with nothing better to do than believe the word of the man you married, who never gave you one reason to doubt him in all the years. Is that what our marriage means to you, is it?’
Daddy stormed into their bedroom and, moments later, the front door slammed with such force it shook the whole house. Liam tried unsuccessfully to hold back the tears. He could hear Mammy crying downstairs, it was horrible. Liam lay awake for the rest of the night and relief flooded his body when he heard his father come home around dawn.
The atmosphere in the days that followed was awful. The following Friday night, after the incident with Mrs Kinsella, Daddy sat them down and told them he was going to England for work and he’d be gone for a few months. He explained that the family needed the money and that he didn’t want to leave them but it was only for a while, until things got better in Cork. Liam tried to hold back the tears but failed. His father hugged him tight and told him that he loved him very much and asked him to be a good boy. The following morning, he was gone. Things with Mammy were bad when he left, they were speaking but not the way they always did. Liam would never forget the stiff way she stood as Daddy hugged her when he walked down the street to get the Innisfa
llen over to Wales. He was going to get a bus to London and then another train to Dagenham. She didn’t want him to go, Liam knew she was trying to pretend everything was fine, but her eyes were red from weeping and lack of sleep. Mrs Lynch from across the road called in most evenings and the two women chatted quietly by the range.
Liam couldn’t bear it anymore. He didn’t want to ask his mother, she seemed so sad, but he was afraid his father was never coming home again. In desperation he asked Kate, ‘Daddy is going to come home, Kate, isn’t he?’
‘Ah Liam, it’s too complicated for you to understand,’ she said. ‘Just leave it, will you?’
He persisted though and eventually she explained exasperatedly though it didn’t really make sense.
‘Look, Daddy didn’t do anything with that tart next door but Mammy was mad at him because he was in there so much and now all the neighbours are talking about us, gossiping that he did do something with her, and so because she didn’t trust him at first, he got very cross and went away to work in England.’
‘And does Mammy know he didn’t do anything wrong?’
‘Yes, of course she does, are you happy now?’ Kate was impatient.
Liam wasn’t one bit happy, but he knew that was the only explanation he was likely to get.
Father Aquinas seemed to know more about this situation than anyone and for some reason he wasn’t being as scary as he normally was.
‘So Daddy is definitely not gone off with Mrs Kinsella?’ Liam desperately wanted the priest’s reassurance.
‘Liam Tobin, I am a priest so I’m not allowed to tell a lie. For a priest to lie is way worse than a lay person, and I promise you that your father is not anywhere with her or any other woman, for that matter. She is somewhere where she can get help with her problems and your father is in Dagenham working in a car factory. And let me tell you something else, there are people who gossip, and there always will be. But anyone who knows your father knows he is a decent God-fearing man who is devoted to his family so don’t mind anyone who says otherwise.’
‘But why was Mammy so cross then, if he did nothing wrong?’ he asked.
‘Look, Liam, that night, the night Mrs Kinsella called, well, your mother got a shock and she reacted, we all do when we’ve had a shock. Mary Tobin is a very good woman and a devout Catholic so she takes marriage vows very seriously indeed. I’m sure once your father comes home and things pick up here, everything will go back to normal. Now, what about you? You’re coming up for the end of sixth class, have you thought about going up to the secondary?’ The priest changed the conversation.
‘I don’t think so, Father, we can’t afford it.’ His voice was flat.
‘Well, would you apply for a scholarship? There are a few available every year to lads who show promise but whose families wouldn’t be in a position to pay the fees. You might get one if you tried really hard.’
Liam was amazed at this new side to Father Aquinas, he seemed almost like a normal person. Since everything happened, Liam had given up all hope of going to the secondary. ‘I...thought about it but you have to be really brilliant at tests and I’m not, so...’ Liam answered truthfully. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t fit in, I suppose...and with everything going on at home...’
The more he thought about it, the more he realised it was probably a stupid dream anyway. All the other fellas would be from rich families and he’d be so different, and now that everyone was talking about his family, it would be even worse. The thoughts of going somewhere where, not only was he the poor boy, but also the boy whose father ran off with the neighbour filled him with nauseous dread. He’d heard from other fellas that the scholarship lads got a hard time, not just from the students but from the teachers, too. Liam knew that to be true, he saw it with his own eyes. The priests in the primary were not as hard on the sons of the richer fellas. They were not especially bad to the Tobins, who were definitely not rich, but not the poorest of the poor either but some of the fellas from the lanes, living in real squalor got an awful time from them altogether. Not all the priests, to be fair, but some of them were right snobs.
‘Well, you have to do an exam in Mathematics, English, Irish, and Latin. You have to get over 90 percent in each one and if you do, then you are eligible.’ Father Aquinas said it as if it were simple to do. Liam usually got around 70 percent in English, Irish, and Latin if he stayed up all night learning, but he struggled with Maths. He’d never get 90 percent in a test.
‘I don’t think I could do it,’ Liam admitted.
‘Well, you certainly won’t if you decide you won’t before you even start,’ Father Aquinas said sternly. ‘Nothing that is worth achieving is done without effort. You are bright enough, not a genius as I recall, but you have the capacity to learn. The information needed is in your text books, it’s simply a matter of learning it and regurgitating it on the day of the exam. Now, I’m sure your mother will be wondering where you both are, so you better get going. No doubt, news of the brawl will have reached her by now,’ he added drily.
‘Yes, Father, thank you,’ Liam answered; the meeting was clearly over. He wondered if he should wait for Con or go home and face his mother alone. On balance, he decided he might fare better without Con; he usually did in these situations.
Chapter 5
‘Absolutely not. Not under any circumstances, so you can just stop talking about it right this minute.’ Liam opened the back door to hear his mother laying down the law to someone.
‘You can’t stop me, I’m over eighteen. I don’t need your permission,’ Kate shouted in frustration. ‘It’s a great opportunity, and I’m legally an adult, you can’t tell me I can’t go, just like that.’
More arguing. He was sick of it. Their family never used to be this way, they all got along, stuck up for each other and even if they were getting on each other’s nerves, someone would intervene, and soon they’d all be laughing again. It seemed like a hundred years ago that they sat around eating dinner and chatting and laughing. Daddy was the peacemaker, that was the problem, without him, all anyone did was fight. He tried to slip unnoticed through the kitchen when Mammy spotted him and his cuts and bruises.
‘Holy Mother of God! What happened to you?’ She ran over to him, almost knocking Kate.
‘Nothing,’ he replied.
‘Well, it doesn’t look like nothing! Are you after getting beaten up? Who did this to you, Liam?’ His mother raked his face for a clue, he couldn’t lie to her and she knew it. Her voice was cracking with the emotion of it all.
Kate was now looking at him as well. ‘Mam, someone is bullying him because of the situation with Daddy...’
To Kate and Liam’s horror and, moments later, the bandaged Con who arrived in the middle of it all, their mother collapsed onto a kitchen chair and wept. They had never seen Mammy cry, even when Granny died, or when Daddy went off to get the boat to England, and to see it now was shocking.
‘Mam, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.’ Kate was kneeling beside her mother, in tears herself.
‘This is all my fault. I know it is, but I’m not keeping him away, I swear to ye, I want him home just as much as ye do.’
Liam was bewildered. Did Kate think Mammy was keeping Daddy away from them? Wasn’t he working in England, wasn’t he coming home when he got a bit of money saved up? Father Aquinas told him that Daddy was working in England so it must be true. Why wasn’t Kate saying it wasn’t Mammy’s fault?
Mammy then looked up and saw Con. Seeing him with his bandaged hand and cuts all over his face seemed to stop her crying at least.
‘Con! What happened? And I want the truth.’
Con glanced at Liam as if to say leave the talking to me. Liam knew from bitter experience that such a course of action would end badly, loads of people saw what happened so she’d hear about it soon anyway. Con would only make up something stupid that Mammy wouldn’t believe in a blue fit so he jumped in, ‘I was walking past the monastery when John-Joe Murph
y started picking on me because of Mrs Kinsella and Daddy, and then he started thumping me. Con jumped in and saved me from them because all his gang were with him. Then Father Aquinas came along and put the run on John-Joe and gave him a clatter. He took us into the monastery and cleaned us up and he told me that no matter what anyone says Daddy has nothing to do with Mrs Kinsella and that she isn’t right in the head and that Daddy is in Dagenham making cars in a car factory and she is in a place, not England, getting help for whatever is wrong with her that makes her make up mad things about other people’s husbands and fathers.’ He ran out of breath and he knew he was babbling, but it was the only way to stop Con jumping in and he also wanted to talk to his mother about it. Nobody in the family mentioned it and it was so tense and strange, at least now it was out in the open.
The silence in the kitchen was palpable. The clock ticked on the dresser as the family tried to digest what Liam had just said. The twins appeared at the door, drawn in by all the commotion.
Mammy sat in silence, planning what she was going to say. From her face, she looked stunned that Liam knew about everything, her eyes went to each of her children in turn, searching their faces for how much they knew.
‘Sit down. I should have spoken to ye about this before, but I just...’ she said quietly, gesturing that they should all sit at the kitchen table. For once, there was no arguing over who sat where. Usually nobody wanted to sit near the dresser because whoever sat there always had to get a glass or get the salt or get the twenty other things the person who was supposed to set the table forgot. The twins sat inside beside each other as usual, Kate sat in Daddy’s seat and Con and Liam sat outside.
‘So, ye all know what happened?’ It was more of a question than a statement. They nodded.
Jean Grainger Box Set: So Much Owed, Shadow of a Century, Under Heaven's Shining Stars Page 80
