by Margo Gorman
She spent time by the bedside just talking quietly about her own life unsure whether her mother heard any of it. Putting things in place. Say it aloud even if she is sleeping. Let her go with ‘I love you, Mammy’. Harsh words. Hard thoughts go with the words. The last time she said those words was as a child. Then the eyes flickered and lips said ‘I love you too, Biddy’. When did I last say to Katharina, ‘Ich liebe dich.’? Too long ago. I will never tell how I learnt to love the German father in my Katharina. ‘I love you’ were empty words before she came. The child and the angry adult in her gave me back the words love and hate
Murmuring familiarity, Hail Mary, Holy Mary. Mother of God. My two loves. My mother and my daughter. I haven’t a heart big enough for more. Yet there is room for shame there and guilt. A clear out needed. Time to declutter, Mama, Katharina would say, using an English word I have never heard before.
During those days they thought would be the last, Liam would often come and sit with her in the kitchen and they kept the range on all night. Brigitte sometimes fell asleep there on the sofa unless Liam decided the few hundred yards to his house weren’t worth the bother, and then she left the sofa to him and climbed the stair. During the day, she was glad to see him come and sit with their mother. She liked time alone outside walking the lanes, watching the lake change in the light.
Their mother surprised the doctor by regaining a level of awareness and attention in the second week Brigitte was there. Liam had a brief moment of joy when he arrived in one day to find his mother back in her armchair by the range watching the door. She recognised Brigitte and called now for Biddy as well as Liam. The old mix of rebellion, frustration and love that had been buried for half a century came back. Merging Mother, Daughter, Mother. Scrubbing baby nappies in cold water in post-war Berlin. Changing her mother’s nappy at night, wiping her bottom. Never able to forget the dysentery days with skitter hardened on her legs as she worked in the cold. Waiting with the others in a queue for the blast of ice to dislodge it. Protected here by the supply of large nappies Liam picked up from the health centre in his van. Grateful if a neighbour sat with Mammy and Brigitte could come with him to save his blushes. Changed, clean nightie. Comfortable. Mammy took her hand and kissed it. This was not the Mammy she knew. It was Hannelore kissing the hand of farmers in gratitude for fried potatoes. The Lager was there and far away at the same time. The two worlds crashed together.
‘I’m sorry for sending you away.’
Quatsch. Nonsense. Brigitte bit her tongue. I was the one who went and left you here at the mercy of the parish pump. Irish eyes are smiling. German whips are cracking. Both guilty. Both innocent
‘No, Mammy. No, Mammy, no. You didn’t send me. I wanted to go.’ No more to be said. ‘All in the past now. You did your best for all of us. Shall we say a decade of the rosary?’
No word of the scandal in walking out with a protestant boy from Manorhamilton. Brigitte had long forgotten him. Poor Mammy. He wasn’t the reason for going and not coming back. She had told Mammy that Katharina’s father was a Catholic. Would it be a comfort or hurt her more? A married man. None of it matters now.
She tried to tell Katharina later but the words would not come. The grief shocked her. Missing Mammy after all these years. Memories of the early days in Berlin. A happy missing in the days when she swung herself onto the tram and thought if Mammy could see me now. Mammy alive and busy. Back to the days of no Katharina. The time between and the day Katharina came with news of cancer. Time of being Mammy. She wanted to look after her baby again but Monika took over. Did Katharina want her to or did she do it to please her? No pleasing Mama.
Katharina and Monika. We want to live together, Mama. Forty she was then. Too old to have children. Too late to marry. Forty years and then nothing. At least Brigitte had her work for a couple of years more. Then nothing. Nix. There was no reason not to go to Ireland to look after her own mother. Those weeks in Leitrim it was good to be needed. A second stroke drew the inevitable closer. The hospital was rampant with infection. Better off at home. A steady decline with a very low level of consciousness blurred the days into forever. There was no jealous fighting for the right to sit up at night any more. Liam was always in and out of course. Even Marion – give her due – took her turn to sit with their mother in those last days. One early morning while Brigitte prepared the mixture the doctor had prescribed to substitute for food, she heard her mother call ‘Mammy, Mammy, Mammy’. It was not the first time but now it was followed by a murmured litany of names of people already dead. Yet there was no sign of full consciousness. It was more like talking in her sleep. Brigitte felt her bones say ‘Ring Liam’.
Within minutes, she heard the key turn in the front door. ‘Is she gone?’ Liam asked it like an accusation but she shook her head. They sat one on each side of the bed and waited for the doctor who took one look and said, “It won’t be long now” before leaving again. The next two hours they waited with the rattling breath, wondering which would be the last. When it came, it was more of a final shudder than a breath.
Waiting there by the bedside for something to happen next, for someone to come who knew what to do. ‘Death is always sudden no matter how long you wait for it.’ It was Mary’s voice and Mary’s hand in hers. Then Mary’s son turned up and Mary said, ‘I’ll go and make a nice cup of tea. You’ll take one too Jim, won’t you?’ She last saw Jim when they were at school together; he looked now like his own father. Puzzling through the blur of sleeplessness. Why is he here in his dark clothes talking to Liam before they had put the word out of her mother’s death? Then she saw his father in him – his father with the taxi and the hearse. His father dead, he was the undertaker now. In his wake, neighbours she hadn’t seen for sixty years came, carrying food and murmuring: sorry for your loss; died at home; in her own bed; of all of them you look the most like her; long life; hard work; good death; lucky you could come from Germany mingling with the hail Mary, holy Mary, mother of God. Girls, she had been to school with, turned into their own mothers.
Where shall I put this? Where shall I put that? What about your mother’s bedroom upstairs? Brigitte could nod and leave them to it. Later after a rest in her mother’s bed, she brought them two clean white sheets, the last from the pile she had ironed under her mother’s eye of approval on those days she sat up. Two linen sheets, saved from a pile inherited from Biddy’s grandmother, who was given them when she left service when the old woman she looked after died. Biddy replacing the arms her mother had used to wash and iron those sheets before her father died. She put her face between the stiff sheets, breathing the smell of a clean death. She was glad her mother had that.
Peggy-now-Margaret arrived late and then went to bed, tired after the long drive. It was John-Joe, now Joe, who was so like her father, who did most to bring her mother’s presence back into the house as it emptied of neighbours. Joe made her life and death merge with his talk of the Celtic tiger and the days when her father turned from cattle to sheep and Liam going back again now to cattle. Cycles and rotation. She stepped back from the arrangements. It was down to Liam and so it should be – he was always her mother’s favourite and hers too. Peggy, please-remember-to-call-me-Margaret-not-Peggy, was last as she had to come from Dublin. Her son would pick up James from Boston on the way. Liam was business-like and good-humoured but she knew he was the one who would grieve most. The one who came every morning for all those years of her mother living alone. Peggy was quick to point out that he had to come anyway to feed the cattle he had on the farm. Self-interest is quick to spot self-interest. No shame in that.
Brigitte kept that image of the last rosary, with all her siblings together for the first time in half a century, as a comfort when images of the past brought their ghosts into the present. Peggy led the rosary. James stood at the head of the coffin. He died in the States three years later, as lavishly as he had lived, by Peggy’s account. Michael’s large red nose was beacon to how he had spent the small fortune he had earn
ed in the building trade in England. John-Joe, now the local big time business man, stood beside Michael, looking lost without his wife, Marion, beside him. He had taken over a petrol pump in the village street and turned it into one of those garage-supermarkets. His children sold the business and the big house when Marion died at the height of the property boom in Ireland. Apparently he was now in a nursing home. Beside him, Liam with his jaw set. Liam who thought more of the animals on his farm than he did of his brothers and sisters who had let him down so badly in their mother’s final months.
There was a comfortable finality in leaving for the last time. It wasn’t the narrowness of the place. She was surprised to find how much things had changed. Young women who had children outside marriage were accepted now. There was none of the dramatic, ‘Don’t come and darken my door again with your bastard.’ The ritual of Sunday Mass was still observed but very few young people were there. Everybody had cars. They shopped and shopped in shops that had not existed before. They visited less. It seemed as if the Irish family she had left behind didn’t exist any longer for anyone.
When she got back to Berlin, she felt once more the joy of public transport, of anonymous city lights and department stores. She looked up friends and organised outings for Kaffee und Kuchen. Back to the days when she first swung her way on trams in search of the best coffee and cake. The grief hit her later. She swung between the past and present, between despair and moments of relief, knowing she would never go back to Ireland. When Katharina worried about her in the down days, she said, ‘Maybe I will’ – just to please her.
Chapter Five – Gran
They were all going over to Gran’s – to offer their sympathy.
‘So what relation is Brigitte to me, Dad?’ Aisling asked when they were in the car.
‘I don’t know whether there’s a name for it. Maybe great-aunt? She’s your Gran’s sister and you’re going to represent your Gran – don’t forget that.’
‘So her daughter, Katharina, is your cousin.’
‘That’s right. I think it means she’d be your second cousin or maybe it is first cousin, once removed. Ask your Gran.’
‘What age was this Katharina?’
‘Well she was born in 1945, so that would make her nearly 60. Poor woman – worked hard all her life by all accounts and didn’t live until she could pick up a pension. I can’t think of anything more galling.’
Diarmuid opened the front door with his key and called out, ‘Mother, it’s us.’ Gran was sitting in her usual position in her armchair by the fire watching TV. Her father had taken that into account.
‘She’ll throw us out when the ‘Late Late Show’ comes on. The TV will be off because she’ll not want us to know that she’s going to watch it at all. Anyway Aisling has to get to bed early if she’s going to make that early flight.’
Her dad knew that Gran wouldn’t be best pleased with him letting Aisling go alone – that was probably the reason for the odd look that came in her direction – but Aisling wasn’t prepared for the disapproval to overflow onto her.
On a Friday, her Gran always looked like she was dressed for Sunday Mass. She took a taxi every Friday to get her hair done and after that she would meet her friend, Anna, for coffee. She would stay dressed up for the Late, Late Show and would allow herself a little glass of sherry or port or Bailey’s. She must have kept to her usual Friday routine. The lamb-white cap of curls and the fact that she was still wearing a silk scarf around her neck were sure signs. The scarf was one that Aisling liked because it was the colour of a vivid sky shot through with bits of scattered cloud. She had probably spent most of yesterday evening choosing the combination of clothes – blue blouse, grey cardigan and skirt with its two front pleats combining with the cameo brooch at her throat.
Gran went straight into her Dad, ‘So you’re too busy now to go to a funeral. I’ll have to make sure that I die at a convenient time myself if I want any of my relations to be there.’
‘Oh come on, Mother, if it was Aunt Bridget herself, I would make more of an effort but I don’t even know this cousin and it’s not as if she’s bothered much about us over the years.’
Her Dad’s tone always carried the defensive guilt of a little boy. Why did he have to justify going or not going to his mother?
‘Oh, it’s very easy to speak ill of the dead.’ Aisling loved to see her Gran making her dad squirm and she made the mistake of letting a smile show.
‘And I don’t know what you’re laughing at – if the funeral was in Belleek rather than Berlin, you’d hardly volunteer to go.’
Aisling had long ago learnt to say nothing and just wait a while. It was too soon to tell Gran her hair looked well. ‘Will I make a cup of tea?’ Distraction was the only way to deal with Gran when she was in one of her moods. That question didn’t need an answer. It just meant she could head off to the kitchen.
‘Nobody even asked if I wanted to go myself,’ she heard her Gran say as she left the room.
So that was it. Her father and mother exchanged glances. Aisling left the door open so that she could hear them from the kitchen.
‘Well, it’s not too late. But you said last time we went to Spain that you hated travel and you would never get on a plane again.’
‘That was different: that was holidays. This is a funeral.’
Aisling was glad they couldn’t hear her giggle, which reached the surface as the kettle boiled. She hunted around the drawers for one of Gran’s stores of Marks and Spencer’s chocolate biscuits. She usually sampled a few. Her dad had brought a few scones from the fresh bread stand in the garage. He and Mum would cop it for that too, the mood that Gran was in. She would be sure to give out about everybody buying scones instead of baking them ‘and the price those places charge.’ She hoped she wasn’t serious about going to the funeral – that would be a rather different trip. She buttered the scones and brought in the tray.
‘Oh fresh scones – hardly homemade, I suppose.’
‘No, Mum, they have so much fresh stuff for sale, it’s easier to buy than to bake when you only want a few.’
‘What did you pay for these?’ Gran looked from her dad to her mum.
‘I don’t remember, Mother.’ Diarmuid answered quickly.
‘Yes, it’s all very well for some – more money than you know what to do with. But when you’re on a tight budget like I was when you were growing up or now on my pension, you wouldn’t dream of buying what you could bake yourself. Kathleen told me she paid 48 cents for one the other day. I said, ‘More fool you, Kathleen; you can bake them and freeze them you know. If it weren’t for these pains of mine, I’d still be doing that. God knows maybe I should. If I could sell them at that price, I could supplement my pension.’
At least the topic had shifted. And it would soon be time for the ‘Late, Late Show’. But Gran wasn’t ready to let go that easy. ‘I suppose you haven’t even said a prayer for her. That’s gone out of fashion too – like going to Mass. Poor Bridget. It’s hard to be so far from your own at a time like this.’
‘I thought we’d say a few prayers with you, Mother – maybe a decade of the rosary.’
‘A decade indeed. So now the Rosary is rationed.’
‘We can say the whole thing if you want.’
Aisling hoped her father caught the wordless Dad-you-are-such-a-hypocrite glance she shot at him.
‘You lead then.’
The entertainment of her father forgetting the first half of the Hail Mary was nearly worth kneeling there with one eye on the clock. Luckily her Gran didn’t expect any of them to remember what the sorrowful mysteries were. By the time it got to the 4th mystery and Aisling’s turn, she could rattle off the Our Father and the ten Hail Marys and the Glory be to the Father in record time.
The last time she had said the rosary was when Michael died. Her Gran was there at the house waiting for them when the undertakers brought him back to the house. Most people didn’t have a wake in the house these days. Most peopl
e in Dublin anyway, though they probably did in the country still. When they brought Michael back from Leitrim, Gran and Mum both wanted a wake so there was no question of not having one. Her Mum wanted Michael to come home with them one last time even if it was in a coffin.
Aisling wished now she had slowed down her decade of the rosary as she saw that her Gran was the one now with her eye on the clock – the Late-Late Show would start any minute. It would be fun to see her squirm a bit for a change. What about this second cousin in Berlin; would there be a wake? Hardly likely. It was an Irish thing, or a country thing anyway. Aisling knew nothing about her and had never heard the name of any uncle. He was probably dead.
‘What about her husband, is he dead too?’ Aisling’s question hung in the air for a few seconds and her Dad gave her one of those – not in front of Gran looks. Well she should have been warned if there was something she shouldn’t ask about.
But her Gran wasn’t a bit put out; the ads were still on the telly, which she’d switched on the minute they had finished the rosary. ‘Poor Bridget never got married. As far as I know, she adopted Katharina, one of those poor war orphans. Bridget gave her the very bread out of her own mouth by all accounts – not that she got a lot of thanks for it. But sure if it was thanks we were waiting for, we’d wait a long time.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to make arrangements for you to go, Mother? It’s not too late if you really want to. It can be done; we could get you a wheelchair to take you through the airport.’ Her father knew rightly the offer was just a gesture.
‘Me in a wheelchair! How could you, Diarmuid?’ Her Gran knew too.
