‘Her name is Jenny, miss, and she’s my twin.’
‘Do you miss her?’
I knew the answer already, of course I did. I knew how much I missed Hannah and May during the week. I think I just wanted to hear Lily say that she missed her sister terribly: I wanted to be sure that for a servant-girl like Lily, having a sister meant the same thing as it did to me.
Her face suddenly crumpled and she cried without restraint. I felt guilty and sorry then: I had been cruel. I had got my answer, my curiosity had been satisfied, and now Lily was suffering.
I stood and put my arms across her shoulders, just as Mama had done many times to one or other of us. I felt awkward standing there, awkward and compassionate at the same time.
‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered. ‘She’ll get better, you’ll see.’
That afternoon was the first time in my young life that I had ever experienced true empathy. I am grateful to Lily; it is a quality which I have been fortunate enough to possess, and nurture, all through my adult life.
Up to that moment, the concept of suffering for me meant only sore feet, or cold hands, or having to eat the vegetables I detested. Lily’s tears spoke of another kind of suffering – one that was altogether foreign to me. It spoke of a wider world than the one I knew, of separations and loneliness which I had never even begun to imagine.
I think, too, that I was shocked: I regard that occasion as the first time when I became aware of personal conscience – the ability to discern justice and injustice, the rights and wrongs of an unequal world which, up until that afternoon, seemed to have functioned perfectly well around me. It was the first time I can remember ever having questioned the arrangement of my own life, and the lives of others.
Mary and Cecilia: Spring 1893
ST MARY’S HAD filled up more rapidly than any other Sunday Mary could remember. Those men who rarely attended Mass now crowded into the porch, crushing their caps between their large hands as they waited, shuffling occasionally from foot to foot as the waiting became uncomfortable. It was a strangely ill-at-ease group: the men looked out of place, unfamiliar with their surroundings. They had stood in a tight knot, and parted almost unwillingly to allow Mary and Cecilia through. The two young women blessed themselves quickly at the holy water font and walked up the centre aisle of the church. As soon as they had moved away, the group closed over again. It was as though they each needed the comfort and safety of numbers, even before any trouble began.
Inside, Mary and Cecilia had pushed their way into a packed bench midway down the church, and now sat stiffly together. Mary was squeezed tight against the wooden arm of the pew, almost unable to breathe. The other women had moved up without a word, crowding more closely together, taking children on to their knees in order to make room for the two sisters. It was understood among them: you didn’t even try to separate the McCurrys. Even the way people greeted them spoke of the sisters’ public indivisibility. Friends and neighbours would call out to them on the streets, waving cheerfully, nodding and smiling to Maryancelia, making no individual distinctions. Although Mary was three years older than her sister, most people referred to them as, simply, ‘the twins’.
The men’s benches had filled up, too, packed tightly with the usual scrubbed faces in their Sunday clothes. Mary caught a brief glimpse of Myles McNiff, along with his brother, Peter. She glanced away quickly, hoping that no one had seen her looking. But there were no covert glances being exchanged among the young people this Sunday: none of the whispering, or sly grinning and nudging that went on before Mass began every other week.
Where the women sat the air was almost unnaturally still: the small children seemed to know somehow to be silent, and sat quietly on their mothers’ knees, no longer needing to be shushed.
Father MacVeigh walked out on to the altar and everybody stood. Tension hovered over the men like the threat of an electric storm. Faces grim with expectation, they knelt, waited: their eyes were fixed on the figure at the altar. It seemed as though they were looking for answers in the priest’s broad back.
Finally, the time came. There was a brief scuffling of boots, a ripple of coughing as everyone sat once more, watching as Father MacVeigh ascended the pulpit. This was why they had been summoned; this was the part they had come for.
Father MacVeigh rested both hands on the pulpit and looked down at his congregation. His hands seemed larger than usual, strangely white against the bright red velvet surround. All shuffling ceased at once, coughing died away. Hundreds of faces were raised, tense, attentive, waiting for him to speak.
‘My dear people,’ he began. ‘It is a great comfort to see so many of you here today. As your priest, and friend, and member of this parish for over twenty years, I have asked you all to be with me this morning, to pray with me to God to give us strength to face one of the most difficult weeks we are ever likely to know as a community.’
He paused. All eyes continued to be fixed on his face. He hardly needed to raise his voice.
‘I know that some of you have felt the rumblings already, some of you have known disturbances in your place of work, and violence on the streets. All of that is nothing to what I fear is going to happen next Friday and Saturday, when the results of Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill become known in this divided city.’
The congregation shifted; a murmur arose, grew to an angry buzz, and stopped suddenly when Father MacVeigh raised his hand. When he spoke again, his voice was louder, more powerful; his whole demeanour was suddenly commanding.
‘You have the right to feel angry, but more than that, you have the duty to protect your children, your families, your neighbours from the certain thugs of this city who will come looking for trouble no matter what happens next Friday night.’
Nobody moved. His words were measured, emphatic. Cecilia looked at Mary, her eyes troubled. Mary took her hand and squeezed it.
‘Mr Gladstone is presenting his Home Rule Bill to the Government on Friday evening. The results will be known in the early hours of Saturday morning. I don’t have to tell you that there are elements in this city that will want to punish our communities if that bill is passed. If it is not passed, those same elements will no doubt rampage in triumph through Catholic areas as they have done on other occasions in the past. You already know what their behaviour will be like. And although it grieves me deeply to say so, we can expect no proper level of protection from the police.’
His voice grew warmer.
‘I do not wish to see one act of provocation, one act of retaliation, or one act in response to villainy, from any one of you sitting here in front of me, nor from any of your friends and family not present here today. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: we are not responsible for what happens among government men in London. We have no control over anything: the bill’s success or its failure; the behaviour of loyalist gangs; the attitude of the police on the ground.’
Older heads were nodding sagely now. Younger ones were held high, necks and backs speaking silently of defiance. Some of the men were seeking out other faces in the congregation. Their expressions were satisfied, urgent in their attention to the priest’s words. It was as though they had not expected to hear this today; they looked vindicated, almost triumphant as the rightness of their own thoughts was now echoed by this good priest, revered by all as a man of God.
‘The one thing we do have control over is our own response to the behaviour of others, our own sense of responsibility towards ourselves and our community. We must be blameless. The priests of the Catholic parishes in Belfast have consulted with the Bishop of Down and Connor. Our committee will monitor the situation over the next few days very carefully, and we will be making our report to the Home Secretary, Mr Morley. But we can have no control over ruffians.
‘I appeal to you, to your dignity, to your pride in your community, to your love for your families: do not make the doing of evil any easier for those who have hatred in their hearts, for those who are bent on destruction. Stay
home, I beg of you. Keep to your own firesides next Friday and Saturday nights. I will visit as many of you as I can during the next few days, I will help in any way I can. But you must keep your doors and windows closed, keep them shut fast.’
His hands were now gripping the top of the pulpit, fingers bloodless with strain. Those close to him could see the beads of perspiration across his forehead.
‘Wives and mothers, I appeal to you to use your best influence with your families. Husbands and fathers, fulfil your God-given duty to protect your wives and children. I want no coffins leaving this parish church because one man was unable to keep a check on his anger. Hold fast. Put your trust in Jesus Christ Our Lord. Let each one of us make sure that we do not let down ourselves or any member of our community. Now let us pray together.’
The parishioners filed out of the church afterwards, unusually subdued. Groups of neighbours gathered all along Chapel Lane, despite the driving rain, and lingered, talking. The women had anxious faces, men for the most part looked restless, edgy, on the verge of anger. Some of them stood apart from the larger groups, smoking, waving their cigarettes intently, stabbing the air now and again for emphasis. Others seemed disappointed, almost resentful, as though they had expected something different from this morning. It had been the most powerful sermon anybody could remember from their normally affable, kindly parish priest. Because he so rarely spoke strongly, his words had had a profound effect.
Mary and Cecilia hurried home together, keeping as close as possible to the shelter offered by the terraced houses, avoiding the worst of the rain. They didn’t speak until they were inside.
‘Will we be all right, Mary?’
Mary looked up from where she was poking the fire, and smiled at her sister, who was unwinding herself from her wet shawl.
‘We will, surely. We’ll not come to any harm. Just you don’t worry, now.’
Briefly, Mary wondered what possible difference any Home Rule Bill could make to them, or any report to Mr Morley for that matter, whoever he might be. Would it keep them safe and put bread on the table? Would it dampen the smouldering hatreds bred in the ranks of miserable two-up, two-downs all over the city? Or would it save the mill girls from dying in their hundreds every year from consumption? She thought not. She was suddenly, bitterly glad that Ma was no longer alive. She would have hated her to see this again, to live in fear of what might become of her girls. Aloud, Mary said to Cecilia: ‘We’ll sit tight, just as Father has bid us. Trouble won’t come to us if we don’t go looking for it. You heard what he said.’
Wanting to be reassured, Cecilia said: ‘Aye, I’m sure you’re right. Will I make the tea?’
Mary nodded.
‘Aye. Do that.’
She bent towards the fire again, hiding her face from her sister. She had indeed felt the rumblings, as Father MacVeigh had called them. Myles had said the atmosphere in the shipyards was getting uglier. He and others from the engineering room had been taunted, marked out as taigs and fenians. Stones had been thrown by unseen hands. The outside wall of the workshop had, mysteriously, been daubed with paint overnight: no one had seen anyone, heard anyone, knew anything. ‘No Pope Here’ stood out in garish orange letters, at least two feet high. Paint dribbled downwards, extending the two ‘p’s of ‘Pope’ almost to the ground below. He had tried to keep his head down, Myles said, they all had. But it wasn’t easy. The usual tacit acceptance by both sides of an uneasy peace, an unhappy truce in which nobody truly believed, had suddenly been suspended. Instead, it felt like open season. Demarcation lines had been drawn; to be Catholic was to be the enemy.
The mill, too, was a powder keg waiting to explode. Mary had felt the tension rise there as well over the last couple of weeks. The usual heat and humidity seemed to have intensified; the girls had all felt the damp atmosphere to be more suffocating than usual. Mary had been glad to welcome the return of the normal April downpour, the chilly winds which put paid to any notion of the early arrival of summer. She hoped Cecilia hadn’t felt the stirrings of bitterness: she had encouraged her sister’s complaints about the heat, about how cranky it made everyone. Keep her safe, and out of trouble. Keep her innocent for as long as possible. Mary could only hope that all those girls with their rough hands and even rougher tongues would have enough sense to keep their powder dry.
Eleanor’s Journal
THAT WEEK IN April continued to be, in so many ways, a rite of passage in my young life. It became one of those defining times after which nothing could ever be quite the same again. All memories subsequent to that week became coloured by my experience; I came to view all events prior to it in a different light, with the hard-won wisdom that is known as hindsight. I still think of that week as an ever-changing and shifting pattern, a kaleidoscope of events which I have rearranged in my imagination many times, to see if I could effect a better outcome. Lily had already shattered the comfort of my domestic view of the world, and now even greater changes awaited me. It was to be the first time that the real world intruded rudely into mine; the first time I would ever have cause to doubt Mama’s ability to make everything better; the first time that I, or anyone else, knew anything of Papa’s trouble and its enormous consequences for all our lives.
I know that we have spoken at length of this, you and I; you have indulged my painful reminiscences more than once. But this is the first occasion on which I find myself capable of real reflection: reflection without anger, without the soul-corroding rancour which, for so many years, was my father’s living legacy to me. Indulge me a little more, now – I already know that love is patient.
A couple of afternoons after Lily’s revelation about her ailing sister, I made my way home from school again in the freezing rain – showers which seemed to run one into the other so that they became a constant downpour of needle-fine sleet, and not the April showers which we like to think of as heralding the arrival of summer.
The wind felt like a knife-edge, peeling away at the delicate skin on my face. The chilblains on my feet were getting worse: stinging, weeping, sticking to my woollen stockings and causing me a great deal of pain. I could hardly wait to get my boots off. I wanted Mama that day, wanted her to make the pain go away.
Lily opened the front door to me before I had reached the end of the path. I saw, without really noticing, a carriage with two patient horses at the kerb outside our house. I probably thought it was for our neighbours. In any event, its significance only became apparent later on that afternoon. Lily’s face was white, and she looked intently at me. Her brown eyes were startled, more prominent than usual. I wondered for a moment whether she had been crying over her sister again. She took my hand, and her palm was clammy.
‘You come with me, Miss Eleanor,’ she said, almost in a whisper.
I noticed that the door to the drawing room was closed. Not an unusual occurrence in itself, but this time there was no sound of ladies’ laughter, no chinking of silver spoons on china cups. I thought I heard Papa’s voice, but it seemed deeper, less familiar to me than usual.
‘Where’s Mama?’ I asked.
‘She’s busy at the moment, Miss Eleanor. You just come along with me, now.’
‘But I need Mama to look at my feet; they hurt.’
I began to cry, more, I suspect, because I could sense something in the house that terrified me, an air of catastrophe which cast its long shadow on to everything around me, including Lily’s frightened face.
‘I’ll look after your feet. Come along, now, there’s a good girl. The fire’s lit in the kitchen, and I’ve just made some scones. Would you like that?’
I was won over. I wanted somebody to love me, somebody to make a fuss of me. Above all, I didn’t want to be on my own that afternoon, not when whatever was going to happen happened. I sat with my feet in a basin of warm water, sipping milk and eating scones smothered in gooseberry jam. Lily had already peeled my sore stockings from my legs, had already begun the ritual of comfort and healing which was familiar to me fr
om all the winters of my life. Mama preferred to use wintergreen ointment, but Lily’s remedy for the agony of chilblains came from her mother’s people in County Tipperary. She would put a turnip in the oven just long enough for it to soften. Then she’d cut it in half, and place thinly pared slices of its fibrous stuff over each of the broken chilblains. Next, she would carefully place a strip of cotton on top of each slice, the pieces of cloth already smeared with clarified lard.
Mama used to smile at her country ways, but I can still vividly recall the sense of warm comfort once the greasy dressing was in place, can still savour the oily, vaguely animal smells of it all. I have always found it strange how the memory of such small details remains the most potent, once the large events in our lives are over.
Poor Lily and Katie must have been frightened out of their wits that afternoon. The arrival of the police at any door was cause for anxiety, but their arrival immediately after my father, Mr Edward’s, unusually early return from his business day was especially troubling. He was an important man, they knew that. Someone very high up in the Post Office, one who was not given to returning unexpectedly from work to the bosom of his family, especially not with two detectives in tow. I know now how fearful those two good women must have been for their livelihood, how disaster for their employer signalled even more immediate and complete disaster for themselves. Nevertheless, they minded me, Katie continued her preparations for the evening meal, and Lily continued to tend to my feet, even warmed a clean pair of stockings for me on the top of the range.
Suddenly, one of the little brass bells above us sounded. I looked up. Drawing room. Lily glanced swiftly at Katie and left the kitchen. Neither Katie nor I spoke a word. I knew that we were both waiting for something, but I didn’t know what. I did not know until long afterwards, of course, that the two gentlemen in the drawing room, who had arrived some two hours before my return from school, had been sent to arrest my father. I opened the kitchen door just a little, and Katie didn’t try to stop me. Instead, she watched with me as the two sombre-looking men, dressed in black, ushered my father outside to the waiting carriage.
Another Kind of Life Page 5
