The addition of the bathroom sealed off the East wind and finally made our little living room into the cosiest room in the house. Mother had a fantastic collage of family pictures hanging on Eily’s wall. Father had tried hanging this collage originally with a six inch nail, and the nail went right through into Eily Paddy’s house next door. She came running out complaining, and after father pulled the nail back he became convinced that we would never again have a secret, because Eily could hear everything we said. He became paranoid about filling the hole and later hung the picture on what was a rarity for him - a much smaller nail. The collage had amazing photos in it, and I loved to look at it. Across from this picture hung a huge wooden mirror and it seemed to be held up by a mantelpiece resting over the fire grate. The mirror and mantelpiece held all of mother’s little knick knacks, ornaments, and post cards. As she rose to a television set, we put it in under the stairs, which by then father had redirected to the front shop. She had a little cabinet under the stairs as well as the television set, and that completed our two walls and a roof home.
Lill’s eel snake
My brother Kyrle took up fishing when he was about twelve and tried to get me interested in it, but that was a complete waste of time. I had no patience for it at all and never caught a single thing, and as far as I know he didn’t have much luck either because I never saw him arrive home with an actual fish. A lot of fish talk was heard, but never an actual fish was seen by me.
Our sister Lill, who was a few years younger than us, was always a potential victim for our practical jokes, and we would play one of our best jokes on her using the one thing Kyrle did actually catch. On one fishing expedition to the river, Kyrle caught an eel: not a fish in my view, just an eel. It looked like a small snake and even I was unwilling to touch it as it wriggled on the line. We didn’t have the heart or the courage to kill it, unless it suffocated from being out in the air, and it did seem to be alive all the time. We did not know what to do with it either, and I’m sure it was Kyrle’s idea to put it in Lill’s bed and scare her. I admit to concocting the story we used as we walked back home from the river. Our story would hinge around a zoo truck transporting a load of dangerous snakes through Buttevant on the way to a zoo. Then after an accident, a crate of the snakes would have burst open and they all escaped. Where else would this happen but just up the street from our house of course. As we walked home with our eel well hidden, we worked out every detail and how it was to be played out. We would nonchalantly ask mother (in the presence of Lill) if she had heard anything about the crash up the street, and then drop the subject completely. Then later the crash was to be resurrected again with a detailed description of the deadly snakes and a lot of questions being thrown at father to add validity to our story. The snakes were deadly Black Mambas obviously, and using my ‘Knowledge books’ we would, if necessary, prove how deadly a bite might be. Our knowledge of antidotes was going to be used (and of course the lack of them), and details of how slow and painful death would be if bitten. I was in Heaven playing out this scene in my head with Kyrle. Lill would inevitably go to the father and start asking about these snakes on the quiet, if our plan was working.
I checked out the lie of the land while Kyrle snuck the eel into the house in an old bag with his fishing gear. No sign of anyone, so he took the eel up to her room and placed it under the covers at the end of the bed. He told me that it was still wriggling away as he left it there. After a long time Lill and mother arrived, and after the tea I says to Kyrle, “I wonder if they found em all”. Mother says, “Found what?” Kyrle, feigning disinterest says, “The snakes, didn’t you hear of the crash?” Mother seemed not to hear, but Lill did and goes, “What snakes, I hate snakes, I’m scared of them”. I say to her in my older brother voice, “Don’t be worried Lill I'm sure they got them all”. “What do you mean all? How many snakes, how did they get there? Where did it happen?” She flooded us with questions, now looking really concerned. I said I had to go home to Nannie’s for my dinner and left Kyrle to handle her questions. We didn’t want to over do it.
He played a blinder so that when I came back later that night she was in a state. Father had arrived in and Kyrle was asking him about Mambas, and which type were the worst. I piped up that I knew already which were real bad, as I had just been reading about them in my ‘Knowledge books’. I knowingly explained that the black type were the most vicious and deadly. I also confirmed that they don’t like cold and would seek out warmth always, even at the cost of being discovered. Poor Lill was beside herself with impending terror. Then once again we changed the subject and began playing chess. Lill could not get it out of her head though. She kept asking about the mambas and I kept telling her they were well gone, and that the zoo people just do not allow deadly snakes to escape. Kyrle says, “But they did escape”. Mother told him to shut up and not to be frightening his sister. This only made Lill even more scared, as by then she felt that something was definitely up and we were trying to play it down.
I’d say she was about eight years old then and used to be sent to bed early, and as it neared her bedtime, I was having difficulty holding in the impending laughter. I knew that one look at Kyrle would blow it all, so I said I had to go out the back to the toilet. Lill clings on to the mother and begs her to make sure the door is closed after me in case the snakes come in. I arrived back in trying to look shaken but deliberately doing a bad job of hiding it. Kyrle asks what’s the matter, and I say, “Nothing, nothing at all”. He keeps hounding me, and Lill is listening intently as I get real close to him and whisper out loud that I thought I saw a mamba out the back. She shrieks out and clings onto mother again. At this stage she is refusing to go to bed unless father checks the room, which he does. I was sure it was blown, but he only gave a cursory look, probably suspecting we were just playing tricks on her.
He takes her up to bed and again checks the room for her. She got in bed, and still there is no sign of the ‘snake’. He had hardly got down the stairs when we heard this unmerciful scream. “Ma… ma….. I’m bit…. the snake, the snake, I’m bit I’m going to die ahhhhh ma maaaa!” Lill came tearing down the stairs screaming in terror and crying her eyes out, clutching her mother while all the time pointing to her foot. I fell off the chair laughing. Kyrle almost collapsed with the laughter as well. Father jumped up and ran to her, telling her to stop, that there were no snakes in Ireland. She kept screaming and pointing at her foot. She seemed so sure that she was bit in the foot that father takes a look and saw some kind of mark. At that stage I thought I would be sick from the laughing. He quickly gave her to mother and ran upstairs, and found the eel. He got real mad and I hightailed it home to Nannie’s fast. I do think in hindsight that Lill might have been bitten. She swore that she was, and I suppose it may have left a scar on her mind ever since, fearing snakes still, but Kyrle and I laughed at it for weeks and weeks. I was not welcome over there for weeks either, as I believe Kyrle convinced the mother that it was all my idea, and that it was I who put the eel in the bed. Eventually all was forgiven but not forgotten. Lill was saved from further jokes for years after that as I think she did get a terrible fright and we felt sorry for her. Besides, soon after that we had Eunice and Hugh as new victims.
Lill was close in age to Kyrle and me, and as such, when we were all small she felt like ‘one of us’ though we usually just used her for testing out our practical jokes. We all began to grow older together and soon we three became teenagers.
My two other sisters were many years apart, with Eunice being born in such hard times that she was gladly handed over to Nannie to rear, unlike me who was stolen by the Nan. Eunice became a virtual slave to Nannie and ultimately became her great confidante in later years. She loved her Nan in a way that my mother loved her: selfless, forgiving and everlasting. In Eunice’s schooldays she was a bright girl, being constantly harassed by Nannie to be even better than she was, and no matter how well she did, it was never good enough. Michael loved Eunice and called her
‘Wally’. I have no idea where he got that name from. Years after I was well gone they would both be in cahoots against the Nan as she got older and crankier and fought the two of them daily. The Nan’s house then was almost as dramatic as my mother’s place.
As I got older and became addicted to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon I needed a sound system that did justice to that amazing album, so I built my own version because I had no money to buy a professional one.
This strange extravaganza was built into a wooden box, and for effect I added a lot of red indicator lamps which gave off a good red glow in the dark. I had placed my system under my bed for extra effect and the Nan believed it was just a matter of time before I became incinerated. She would not have liked that, but she was vehemently against joining me in the conflagration. My room was very small and was directly below the Nan’s bedroom, and she had to pass through it to go upstairs. Every night she had this ritual of looking under my bed, expecting to see flames and threatening to have me out the next day if my system was not gone out before me.
With the sound system under my bed I could easily reach down and turn up the volume or change the tape without getting out of bed, and this was the ultimate in pleasure for me. She was constantly hassling me about the volume and the red glow under the bed, and no matter how much I tried to assure her of its safety, she would say, “You’re a Cahill and fire follows that crowd, and I’m not burning for you, so turn that thing off, now”. In her mind, useless Michael would probably escape because he would be writing late into the night below in the kitchen, but not her and Eunice. It was a constant battle and the Floyd had to win. When she got really mad though, I would simply pull the plug to the light in her room above, as I had originally wired it. What she didn’t know was that her light was far more likely to set the place on fire than my sound system due to my poor wiring skills.
My sound came out of two old car speakers that I had mounted on either side of my bed on the wall, and this sound, coupled with the red glow in the dark, was amazing to me. I used to come in late from an outing with my friends and immediately start up the Dark Side. For those who know that music, the ‘Heart Beat’ at the start would be vibrating the wall, and about then the Nan would be shouting down to me to turn it off, “Or you’re out, you’re out in the morning, I tell you”. This was her usual meaningless threat and I would be waiting in suspense for the ‘alarm clocks’ part of the music to go off and drive her totally demented. I loved it. Each time it happened the result was almost predictable. Nannie would then demand that Eunice go down and, “Tell him tomorrow he’s out, tell him Eunice. I said he is out for sure, tell him that I said it, that I have spoken”. Then she would exhort poor Eunice to, “Turn that thing off so we can get some sleep in the name of God”. This ritual happened quite often and Nannie would always lose out in the end because after the whole album played out, it would automatically switch off leaving only the red glow lighting my room, and by then I would be sound asleep myself while the others higher up would still be seeing the imaginary flames coming up the stairs to cremate them. I was a bastard I have to admit, as I was addicted to that music and didn’t care a bit how they felt about it. Eunice was so brainwashed by the Floyd that she can still remember the words of some of their songs. Oftentimes Nannie would become so convinced that the place was ‘on fire’ that no matter how cold it was, or how late, she would make Eunice get up and go down and check out my room, which was ‘haunted’. No one ever told me that till I had a very frightening experience there some years later, and even then they denied that it was haunted, but Nannie would never sleep there herself.
Recently, while researching this book, Eunice told me that when I began working, Nannie also had other rituals that she insisted were applied to me. I was always to be given the ‘second’ cut of the bread, “Because John is earning now, and he is to get only the best’. My inedible dinner was to be kept warm on top of a pot of boiling water so that it didn’t dry out, and Eunice was warned to present me with this dinner on a special tray kept especially for me. And finally, I was to be given all this attention while sitting on the warmest chair by the fire because I had just come in from the cold. It’s a wonder that both Eunice and Michael didn’t hate me. In my defence I don’t remember asking for any of this attention, but Eunice swears I demanded it. One time, in a rage, Eunice took the second cut of bread for herself, and Nannie saw her do it. She beat her while shouting at her, “Don’t you dare take John’s bread again, you little bitch”. Poor Eunice was indeed a slave twice over, and like mother, never once complained.
Across the road Tishie was born on March the sixteenth, the day before Paddy’s day, and I clearly remember that particular Paddy’s day because I had just made a microphone from carbon granules and an Andrews tin, and we could hear the parade on it as it marched up the town. That same day Lill was cooking a chop for the father, who had just returned from Kit’s bar and from a drowning of the Shamrock escapade, while our mother was in the Mallow hospital having our new sister Tish. Lill, knowing no better, only cooked the chop on one side, and the other side was bloody and raw. Father, always a squeamish man at the best of times, but by then full of porter, sat down and began to eat his chop cooked by a ten year old child. Suddenly he saw the blood and flew into a rage. He threw the whole chop out the back as he puked all over the place. I find it so strange how some memories stick in us for an eternity, and other ones vanish in hours.
My sister Tishie, who is actually called Patricia after the Paddy’s day birth, is an amazing girl. Like Eunice and myself, she seems to be very spiritual in outlook. Since writing this memoir I realize that Kyrle, Lill and Hugh are quite the opposite, being totally science driven, living by logic and reasoning, while we others tend to live by emotions and feelings. In my view neither side is right or better, just different, but it does cause some amazing arguments when we all meet, which is way too rare these days.
Tishie was the father’s pet I think. He loved her as did mother, and all of us saw her grow into the girl that fell into much better times than we had, and we were all so glad of that. She went on to university and got her degree, and there she met her husband-to-be, John Stack. They live happily in Scotland with my nephew Hugh, a Downs Syndrome boy with great artistic talents. Eunice lives in the Isle of Man with her husband Seamus and their three girls Bree, Carrie and Ciara, while my sister Lill has two children Peter and Charlotte. Lill married a Manx man, Philip Faragher, and she too lives very happily on the Island of Man. It’s all too rare that we Cahills meet up now, but thank God our mother, the focal point of our family today, is still alive and well and she also lives on that beautiful little island.
Uncle Michael nicknamed my youngest brother Hugh as ‘The Congo’. He did this after a number of Irish soldiers were killed in a fierce battle in the Belgian Congo in Africa around nineteen sixty when Hugh was born. When he came into the mother’s world he was probably the least wanted of my parents’ children, but who am I to know this for sure. I feel he came at a real bad financial time, but no doubt he was loved by our parents like the rest of us were. However, I suspect deep down he sensed that he would be better off arriving a year or two later when things were beginning to improve.
I think Hugh grew up alone. He used to sleep with Kyrle, who was nine years older, and they fought like dogs: worse than we ever did. Hugh literally had to live by his wits and survive all by himself, and to my shame I just remember him as being almost invisible, yet I loved his smile. Mother had got bad epilepsy by then I believe, and I think another child to feed was just too much for her to take. Her poor mind cracked and she began to get what we called her ‘fits’. I only ever saw her in one of them and it scared the devil out of me. Poor father was kneeling beside her, comforting her and telling her that she was ok. That really scary event was the one time I saw him show total love for his wife. You could feel his concern as my mother jittered and moaned, looking desperate as she lay on our floor with father kneeling beside her h
olding her hand and propping her head.
Of course Hugh was totally blameless for the fits and for arriving in bad times, but I am very sure that a child, especially a very young child, can sense the feelings of those surrounding it, and if all you ever feel is fear, then you become defensive and a survivalist. You learn to live by your wits and Hugh became a master of that art right down to this day.
He was always on the defensive about everything, always trying to prove himself better and more right than Kyrle and I. I didn’t care about this at all and I would just argue for the fun of arguing, but I never took it personally. Kyrle did though, and would fly off the handle in an instant. They were always arguing about something. They once had an argument that went on for days about the principle of a draught and why and how a fire actually lights, and what is the purpose of a chimney. I still laugh at this as even today after their numerous ‘proofs’ bounced off me, I am as confused as ever and still don’t know the principle myself.
My brother Hugh was caught in between two sisters and two older brothers. He must have always felt alone and unloved I believe. This was wrong as we all do love him, but we were useless at showing it. Yet he has grown up with one of the most balanced personalities I have ever met. He makes friends instantly and easily, and has a great personality and sense of humour. He is very outspoken and is always battling the system. He’s a modern day Robin Hood who will argue for the sheer mental exercise of it, and it’s a brave person will take him on.
He was certainly a bit of a womaniser growing up too, and I still meet women today who ask how he is and where is he now. He lives in Perth where he is very happily married to Celestine, the love of his life. They have three wonderful children: Tara, Tirna and Nieve. All of them are full of life and adventure, and I can’t wait to hear of their exploits as they become adults. Hugh has, in my mind, the most inventive brain of any of us Cahills. I believe he can think laterally as the norm when most of are barely able to think at all in a crisis. I know this is true because I saw him do it in Hong Kong some years ago, but that’s another story.
Two Walls and a Roof Page 9
