House of Memories

by Taylor, Alice

  “Big job clearing that,” Shiner said grimly.

  “You are lucky that you were not tackling it, because Fr Brady had the idea of bringing in the Kilmeens on a work night…” Danny began.

  “Holy shit, sure, some of them would be pure useless and wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “Well, Bill Brady felt that too and decided that he would do a better job even though it might take a bit longer,” Danny said.

  “Fr Brady, God bless him, has a heart that sometimes runs away with his head,” Jack smiled, and then stepping back looked up at the roof. “I wonder how much they have covered up there?” he said, and looking around he saw the long ladders stowed away against the wall.

  “Come on, lads,” he told them, “get these ladders up and I’ll have a look around up there.”

  “Jack, that’s a mighty high perch for an ould fellow,” Shiner told him, but as Jack began to rise the ladder he went to help. Jack climbed the ladder, years of experience having taught him to mount slowly, and when he reached the top he peered across the expanse of roof, delighted at the smooth clean job that met his eye.

  “These boys certainly know how to do a good job,” he called down, and then without warning it happened. The roof spun around in front of him and mist rolled in front of his eyes as his hands went numb. But he held on grimly, waiting for it to pass as it had many times before, and sure enough the fog cleared and the roof settled down and the feeling came back into his hands. Up here is a bad place for a dizzy head, he decided and began to back down gingerly step by step.

  “Are you all right?” Shiner’s voice sounded worried, and Jack did not answer until he was safely on solid ground.

  “Grand, lads,” he told them in a relieved voice.

  “Well, you don’t look too grand,” Shiner declared, peering closely at him.

  “God bless you, Shiner,” Jack told him, “but you’re full of tact.”

  “I think that we should all go across to the house and have a cup of tea,” Danny intervened.

  “Have you something to have with it?” Shiner demanded.

  “Shiner, people don’t go visiting the neighbours because they’re hungry,” Jack said indignantly.

  “Well, you wouldn’t want to be hungry when you visit this fella,” Shiner told him, and Jack was glad to see Danny smile in amusement. These two understood each other very well.

  “We’ve apple cake,” Danny announced.

  “Who came?” Shiner demanded.

  “Agnes Lehane came yesterday,” Danny told him.

  “Conway boy, you wouldn’t do at all only for the neighbours,” Shiner proclaimed.

  “Don’t I know,” Danny agreed heartily.

  As they walked across the yard, Jack felt the strength come back into his legs, but he was glad to reach the kitchen and sit down in the wobbly chair. Shiner piled sticks and turf on the fire and had the kettle steaming in a short time. Danny laid the cups and saucers on the table and cut up the apple tart and doled out three pieces.

  “Are we on rations?” Shiner asked in an amused voice.

  “Would you ever shut up,” Jack told him in exasperation.

  “Yerra, Jack, we must keep this lad in line, because when he gets into this grand house, he might start spitting down on us,” Shiner told him.

  When they had finished the tea, the two lads wanted to accompany him down to the river, but he refused point blank, and when they persisted he told them in exasperation, “Don’t be trying to make an invalid out of me,” and headed out the door on his own.

  As he walked down the high field, the moon came up behind Mossgrove and lit up the whole valley. He looked across at his beloved place and decided that he had never before seen it look so peaceful. When he reached the river, he walked carefully across the stepping stones and on through the two troublesome fields, as he had always thought of them. Then he was across the ditch into Clover Meadow, and it was there that the pain came back. He felt it gripping his chest and knew that this time it was not going to go away. Thank God he had written that letter to Kate. He lay down on the long grass, and between the waves of pain came the knowledge that he was going to die. Now at last he would meet Nellie and Ned again. Then the moon came from behind the trees and filled the whole meadow with light.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  WHEN PETER AND Shiner arrived at the stalls and there was no Jack and no cows, they were instantly alarmed. Shiner, with the memory of the previous night still fresh in his mind, was galvanised into action.

  “Run in and tell them inside and I’ll go up to the cottage,” he yelled. As he ran he called back, “Send someone down to the river, because he came up there late last night.”

  Sensing that Shiner knew more than he had time to explain, Peter ran into the kitchen where Nora was getting ready to go to school. When she saw his face she froze.

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded in a frightened voice.

  “Something’s happened. Jack, he’s not down,” he gasped. “Norry, run down to the river, because he came up that way last night, and I’ll go up to see if he’s above with the cows. I’ll send Mom up the other way in case he’s with the cow that was going to calve.”

  Peter’s panic shot her into action, and with her heart thumping and her mouth dry with fright, she ran up past the stalls and along the path over to the gate leading down to the river. Oh dear God, she prayed, don’t let anything happen to Jack. I can’t bear it if anything happens to Jack. Nothing can happen to Jack. Oh please, please, God, let nothing be wrong with Jack. She ran down through the Horses’ Field, and they galloped off in fright at her sudden appearance, but she kept running. She was over the ditch and down the next field, and then through the gap into Clover Meadow. Bran and Toby were down there, and when Bran saw her he came loping across the high grass, but Toby stayed below barking and running around in circles.

  “Oh Bran, Bran,” she gasped as they ran together towards Toby, “is Jack all right?” Jack had to be down there because the two dogs would not be here otherwise. She had to get to him and ran faster but dreaded arriving. Coming closer she could hear Toby whining as he circled a sunken patch in the high grass. Then she could see the toes of Jack’s boots. Maybe he is only asleep, she thought desperately. Maybe he was down the fields and felt tired and is just resting. She gasped with lack of breath and terror. Then she was looking down at him. The frozen realisation that he was dead struck her with blinding force. She felt her head go light and thought that she was going to faint. Her heart was thumping so hard that she could hardly breathe. She fell on her knees and put her arms around him. His cold face sent shivers of horror through her.

  “Oh, Jack, Jack,” she sobbed, “you can’t be dead … you can’t be gone like Dad.”

  She rubbed his face and hands as if she could rub life back into him, and Toby ran between the two of them, licking their faces and whimpering in distress. How could Jack be dead when last night at the supper he had been full of fun and laughing? But then it had been like that with Dad too … now the two of them were gone … but when it happened to Dad, Jack was here … Jack was always here … but now it had happened to Jack … why did it have to happen to Jack? Just as he was leaving last night he had whispered to her that he was going over to see Furze Hill … was he coming home from there when it happened? … had he been here all night? Oh God, was he out here all night? … while she was up late above in the parlour studying, poor Jack was out here dying … Oh why didn’t I know? … I could have come down. But it couldn’t be true, he couldn’t be dead … he just couldn’t be dead … no … no … no.

  She heard screaming, and it was only when she felt Peter’s arms around her and heard his soothing “Easy, Norry; easy, Norry” that she knew that she was screaming.

  “Jack can’t be dead, Peter,” she yelled, thumping him with her fists. “Jack can’t die like Dad … he can’t, he can’t.”

  Then Shiner and Danny were there just staring at Jack with stunned faces, and Shiner beg
an to cry. She reached over and put her arms around him and he sobbed.

  “We shouldn’t have let him go home alone last night. Jesus, we shouldn’t have listened to him.”

  She didn’t know what he was talking about. Nothing made sense. The four of them knelt around Jack in stupefied silence, broken by sobs and the whining of Toby.

  Martha arrived and, kneeling at his head, gently closed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. She put her hand in his waistcoat pocket and brought out his rosary beads and placed them around his fingers.

  “We’ll say the rosary,” she said quietly. “He was a rosary man.”

  And there in the quiet meadow to the sound of the birds singing and the cock pheasant crowing in the headland, they said the rosary around Jack. Slowly the sobbing eased, and even Nora felt able to say her decade as she had said it with him every night since she was a child in the kitchen in Mossgrove.

  When the rosary was over, Martha said quietly, “We will say the act of contrition for him now, not that he needs it because he is gone straight to heaven, but it is what he would do himself if he was here.” As they prayed even the dogs were quiet. For a little while they knelt in silence and Nora thought, I will always remember the pain and beauty of this terrible morning, and words that she had read in one of Uncle Mark’s books floated into her mind: “Where there is sorrow, there is sacred ground.”

  Then quietly and firmly her mother took charge. Nora marvelled that she could think straight; her own thinking was crippled, and a hard rock of pain was lodged in her gut.

  “Peter, will you go into the village and tell Kate, and she will bring Fr Brady and Dr Robert with her. And call to the Nolans and Sarah as well. Maybe if you called to Sarah on the way in, she might go with you to be there to tell Kate.”

  As Peter headed up the field, Nora looked after him with pity that he had to tell Kate. Kate loved Jack just as much as herself and Peter. Her mother’s voice was continuing: “Davey and Danny, will you go up to the old turf house, and there is a little door in there. Bring it down and we will carry Jack up on it later.” As the two lads went up the field, her mother came over and, kneeling down beside her, she wrapped her arms around her.

  “Norry, he loved you more than if you were his own,” and silent tears ran down her mother’s face. She had never seen her mother cry. They cried together, Martha quietly while wrenching sobs tore through Nora.

  “I’m a terrible crier,” she said tremulously. “It erupts up from the bottom of my belly.”

  “You loved him with every fibre of your being, and now every fibre of your being is erupting,” her mother told her. “Would you mind being here on your own, because I might go up and get the parlour ready for the wake.”

  “No,” she said, “I’d kind of like to be on my own with him.”

  “I thought you might,” her mother smiled gently, nodding her head. “Jack was always there for you, and you would probably like to be here with him now. This time together will be blessed time for you.”

  When her mother was gone, she moved closer to Jack and put her hand on his cold one. She ran her fingers over his rosary beads. He had the same rosary beads for as far back as she could remember. Nana Nellie had brought one each to Dad and himself from Knock years ago, and Dad’s one had been in his hands the day of his wake. She could still remember the little piece of string that he had used to repair it hanging between his fingers that terrible day. Dad’s had been brown and Jack’s was black. Jack’s had fared better and was still in “perfect working order”, as he used to say, and he had loved that rosary beads. Now, like Dad, it would be around his fingers for his wake.

  She looked at his kind face and thought of all the times that he had comforted her and listened to her problems, and even if he had no solution, she always felt better after telling him her troubles. To her as a child he had been the grandfather she never had, but when Dad had died he had become her father. She had always known that he loved her unquestioningly and that to him she was perfect, and maybe it was because she was so like Nana Nellie, but it was for herself too. No one might ever again love her as dearly as Jack. She leaned over and fixed his tweed cap properly on his head and her tears poured over his face. Then she thought of the words of a poem that he had taught her a long time ago as they had looked over the ditch at one of Nolan’s fields of barley:

  There’s music in my heart all day,

  I hear it late and early.

  It comes from fields far far away.

  It’s the wind that shakes the barley.

  This would be the last time that she would ever sit with him, and she did not want it to end. Then suddenly she heard a rustle in the grass at the other side of Jack, and she looked up in amazement to see a russet hare on his haunches looking at her. He did not move for a few seconds and then in a flash of golden brown was gone. Did I imagine that? she wondered. But it would not have surprised Jack. He had often talked of the mystic world of the hare. Now, she thought, Jack knows everything about everything.

  Bran and Toby arrived with lolling tongues, and Nora saw Kate coming across the field. She ran towards her and they clung to each other in raw grief.

  “I can’t believe it,” Nora whispered between her sobs.

  “This shock would blow the head off you,” Kate said, and taking her hand they walked back to Jack. The dogs were there before them, nuzzling around him, and Nora wondered how much they understood. Toby especially had never known any other master. Kate knelt and sobbed and then quietly talked to Jack.

  “You would have wanted it no other way, my darling, but to die out here in your beloved fields. This was your heaven on earth, and now you are gone into the big mystery, as you called it. You always wanted the old ticker to give up before you started to rust away like an old mowing machine in a dyke. You have your wish, and I wouldn’t take it from you, but we are going to miss you … miss you … miss you,” Kate cried in great racking sobs, and Nora just stood helplessly watching her. She knew that there was nothing that anyone could do or say to make this easy. An amputation was taking place; they were letting go of Jack who had been part of them for so, so long. Jack and herself had talked of death many times, especially when they were talking about Dad, and she could hear him now.

  “Nora girleen, to grieve is the most natural thing in the world. Death is a pulling up of roots. It rocks our foundations because loving roots are intertwined. All this religion thing about praying and God comforting you is grand when it’s not yourself that’s bruised and broken. Nothing, girlie, helps only time and nature and the kindness of others who share your sorrow. When your father died, the animals and the fields helped me. Grieving is natural, and we need God’s natural world to heal us.”

  She looked around and for the first time she fully understood why this was called Clover Meadow. Jack was in a bed of wild clover, and all around him the bees and butterflies were fluttering on the tall grasses and wild flowers. She wanted to talk to Jack about it. She wanted Jack here with her to talk her through this terrible thing. Jack had always been here. Whenever anything went wrong, Jack was always here …Jack should be here … and he was … only he wasn’t.

  The dogs ran off again to meet Danny and Shiner as they came bearing the door between them. She wondered where Peter was and then remembered that he had gone to the village to tell Kate, but why was Kate here on her own?

  “Aunty Kate, where’s Peter?” she asked in confusion.

  “He’s gone to the village for Fr Tim and Dr Robert and to tell Sarah and the Nolans. I met him at the cottage. I had called in to see Jack on my way home from a call, but I knew by the cottage that there was something wrong because he had not been home.”

  “Oh,” Nora said dully, “so poor Jack had been here all night.”

  The boys laid the door on the ground by Jack and waited for Kate to tell them what to do.

  “We’ll wait for Fr Tim and Dr Robert. I think that Jack would like to take leave of his fields with a little c
eremony,” she told them, looking across the meadow. “They’re coming.”

  Dr Robert put his arms around Kate and silently hugged her and then opened his arms to Nora, who sobbed as he rocked her back and forth and gently rubbed her head. Then Fr Tim said quietly, “Now we’ll anoint this saint of a man to help him on his journey.” He put the purple stole around his neck, knelt beside Jack and slipped the holy oils out of his pocket. As he anointed him he prayed:

  Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo!

  Saints of God, come to his aid!

  Come to meet him angels of the Lord.

  Go forth upon thy journey, O faithful Christian soul,

  Go forth from this world; from your family, your friends, your home.

  In the name of God the Father who created you and gave you life,

  In the name of Jesus the Son of Mary who gave his life for you,

  In the name of the Holy Spirit of God who was poured into your heart.

  May your home this day be in paradise with the angels and saints

  And with your own people who have gone before you on the great journey.

  May you see the face of the living God.

  May you have the fullness of life and peace for ever.

  May Jesus the gentle shepherd number you among the faithful ones

  And bring you to the waters of peace.

  May you have eternal rest. Amen.

  As Nora listened in a daze, she wondered if all of this was really happening or was she dreaming, but the sight of Peter’s ashen face as he joined the circle around Jack drove home the terrible reality. Then Peter and Shiner eased Jack on to the door, and with the two of them at one end and Danny and Fr Tim at the other, they carried him across the meadow. David’s father put an arm around Kate and herself and they followed behind. Nobody spoke, but when they came to the stalls the boys stopped for a few seconds, and Nora felt the pain in her gut swell up and choke her as she thought of Jack carrying his bucket of milk from the stalls every morning as she passed up to school. If he was not there, she always called into the stalls, “’Bye, Jack,” and he’d call back, “’Bye, girlie,” and sometimes added, though it was never necessary, “Say hello to Toby.” Now Toby was running alongside their makeshift stretcher and every so often looked up at it questioningly. Poor Toby, she thought. When they reached the house they went straight up into the parlour where Martha and Sarah had the big black bed with the brass knobs set up. The table and all her books were stowed away, and now the parlour had changed into a wake room. They eased Jack on to the bed and Martha asked, “Who will lay him out?”