by Babs Horton
“Nice! Give over. Who are you kidding! I look a right bleeding eejit! And guess what?”
“What?”
“I have to wear two pairs of drawers at the same time! Can you believe that? White cotton underneath and blue regulation baggies on the top! And three pairs when we have games lessons. Imagine, all that rushing about and the blood will rush to my arse and 111 probably drop dead of heatstroke.”
Donny blushed with embarrassment Siobhan Hanlon didn’t care what she said or who she said it to.
Siobhan looked Donny up and down inquisitively. His socks and shoes were soaked and his grubby face was smudged with dirt and tears; he was doing his best to stop his lip from wobbling. Donny Keegan was sweet If she ever had a little boy she’d like one like him.
“What’s up, Donny? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Nothin’s up. I just had sand blow in my eye.”
“Where are you off to?”
“Nowhere much. Just up around the famine wall for a walk.”
“Can I come with you?”
Donny nodded half reluctantly; he was a bit afraid of Siobhan with her bold ways and her big gob.
“I’ll catch you up in a minute. I’ll just go and take this pile of shite off. I won’t be half a tick.”
Donny squelched away up Clancy Street.
A breathless Siobhan caught up with him just as he was passing Mankey’s Alley. They wandered away down past the silent station and climbed the rotten stile that led into the tinkers’ field.
It was quiet in the tinkers’ field as they walked side by side through the long prickly grass towards the famine wall. Poor, starving people in the great famine in the olden times had been made to build the wall. It didn’t serve any purpose, they were just made to do it to earn some money.
All around them dandelion clocks bobbed in the breeze and red poppies bent under the weight of early bees.
Over the years people had scratched their names on the wall. Along with the names there were dates and faded love hearts with arrows through them; and filthy messages that made Siobhan laugh out loud. Donny thought that she had a real dirty laugh for a doctor’s daughter.
SISTER VRONICKER IS A FLABBY ARSED OLD COW SO THERE. SISTER AGATHA STINKS.
They wandered slowly round the wall together.
“Look,” said Siobhan. “Theresa Patricia Drew. Ugh! Hey, Donny, did you know that the old witch is back?”
“Who, Miss Drew? From the pilgrimage? Are they all back?” he asked hopefully.
“No. Only her, worse luck. She got back yesterday morning and came straight to see Daddy, and guess what?”
“I don’t know.”
“She has a bruise on her ARSE the size of the whole of Ireland!”
“Siobhan! How do you know?”
“Because I looked through the keyhole when she was showing Daddy!”
“You did not!” Donny giggled.
“I did too. She’s shown him three times already. Do you want to know what it looked like?”
“No,” he said.
He did though. She was terrible rude was Siobhan but he couldn’t help laughing. He was never ever going to get married but if he did he reckoned it would be fun to be married to someone like Siobhan who made you laugh all the time.
“It was this big!” she said, stretching out her arms as wide as she could. “And her bum is covered all over in enormous pimples!”
“No way, you dirty devil!”
“And in between the pimples it was black and blue!”
“Give over! Why did she come back though?”
“Well, afterwards I heard her telling Mammy in the kitchen that she’d had the most terrible time out in Spain…She fell through a roof and was attacked by a mad donkey, and if that wasn’t enough she was forced to eat octopus and there was a robber on every street corner. And she was disgusted because the other pilgrims were more interested in an old treasure chest that fell through the roof than her injuries.”
“What sort of treasure?”
“I never heard because Mammy opened the door then and gave me a right crack around the chops for listening at keyholes. Look. There. Martin Sean Donahue. That must be old Donahue from the bar. I can’t imagine Donahue ever being a little boy. He’s a miserable old bastard.”
“Siobhan, shh. Someone might hear you!”
“There’s no one here to hear us. My name’s there, look.”
SIOBHAN MARY JANE HANLON. AGED 10 AND THREE QUARTERS.
Donny blushed. She had written her name as close to Padraig’s as was possible.
He had been going to scratch his own name next to Padraig’s with a penknife but she’d beaten him to it.
“When do you go off to your new school?”
“In a couple of days’ time. I’m going over on the boat and men a nun is going to pick me up on the other side. That’s if I don’t throw myself overboard on the way!”
“Don’t say things like that!”
“Only joking, but I don’t want to go. Donny, if I give you the address of the school will you give it to Padraig for me when you see him and tell him to write me?”
“Sure. If I see him. Why are you going so soon? I thought it was after the summer holidays.”
“Nope. Now the school is going to close I’m being sent early.”
“What do you mean the school will close? Course it won’t.”
“It will. I heard Daddy say that once you lot are all sent off to Australia there’ll be hardly any kids left.”
“I’m not going to Australia.”
“Sure, you’ll have to.”
“My daddy will come for me before then,” Donny mumbled.
“Where is your daddy?”
“In England I think.”
“How long since you’ve seen him?”
“I’ve never seen him.”
Siobhan put her head on one side and drew a circle with the toe of her sandal in the dusty bare earth.
“You’ve never ever seen him?”
Donny shook his head.
“You don’t even know what he looks like?”
“No.”
“How will you know it’s him when he comes?”
“I don’t know. Ah, sure hell just say I’ve come for my son Donny Keegan, won’t he?”
Siobhan supposed he would. It was funny to think someone had never seen their own daddy. She’d hate not to have seen her daddy, she loved him to bits.
Then it hit her like a thump in the belly from a wet sack of flour. Soon she’d be away from her daddy for whole weeks and months at a time. Her heart raced and her eyes felt scratchy with tears.
“What’s up, Siobhan?”
“Nothin’.”
“Then why are you sad all of a sudden?”
“I’m not, all right? Look, what sort of a name is that anyhow?” Siobhan said, blinking rapidly and pointing at a name on the wall.
Fatgit Flaherty!
“There’s another one, look. Bigbollocks O’Grady!” said Donny.
“Donny, did you know that Padraig sometimes used to get out of St Joseph’s at night and walk about the place on his own?”
Donny grinned widely.
“Yep, he told me. It’s a secret, though, and you mustn’t tell.”
“How did he get out?”
“There’s a way of getting into Sister Veronica’s room through a cupboard in the old laundry. Sister Immaculata showed him,” Donny said, lowering his voice to a whisper.
“Is that the poor old thing that drowned herself?”
Donny nodded and sniffed and felt for the rosary in his pocket.
“That was sad, wasn’t it?”
“I know. She was real nice to everyone and they can’t even bury her without a body.”
“Why do you think she did it?”
“She was always saying she wanted to escape or that someone was going to come and rescue her, but no one believed her.”
“Was she nuts?”
“A bit, but not in a sc
ary way. She told Padraig that once she nearly got away.”
“How?”
“She said there was a peddler selling pencils who came to save her but that they locked her up and wouldn’t let him in. She used to say all sorts of daft things like that. Just made it up as she went along, I reckon.”
“Well, she has escaped now, but what a way to go. God, fancy killing yourself like that. She’ll have been eaten up by fish by now.”
“Shut up, Siobhan.”
“Or swallowed whole by a whale. Imagine being tea for a whale!”
“Don’t!”
“That wouldn’t be so bad, though, you can survive inside a whale’s belly for ages and then hope that they sneeze or sick you up and then you can swim like billy-o for the shore.”
Donny brightened up a little at the thought. He imagined Sister Immaculata crawling exhausted up a faraway beach and someone kind finding her and looking after her.
“That would be good,” he said with a smile.
“Why did she show Padraig the secret way?”
“They were real good friends and they got in there once to listen to a meeting that was going on. Padraig was real upset after because that’s when he found out they wouldn’t let him go to that posh school.”
“Have you ever got in there?”
“You must be joking. But Padraig worked out that he could get out of the cupboard into the study and then climb out the study window and escape.”
“Fancy creeping around in the dark of night! I’d be terrified, but he is a brave bugger. Can you keep a secret, Donny?”
“Sure I can.”
“He told me that one night when he escaped he saw Miss Carmichael in the horse trough dancing naked.”
Donny giggled.
“He did not!”
“He did so! It was only her reflection, though!”
“Well, that’s not what he told me.”
“What did he tell you, Donny?”
Donny lowered his voice.
“He said he saw the face of his mammy.”
“But his mammy’s dead.”
“Exactly, Siobhan, so it was her ghost that he saw.”
Siobhan felt a shiver of fear skedaddle up her backbone.
“Padraig said that seeing her face was a sure sign that somehow he was going to escape from St Joseph’s.”
Siobhan bit her lip. She wondered why he’d told her that old nonsense about Miss Carmichael. She swallowed hard. He hadn’t told her because he knew she couldn’t keep a secret and he was right. She’d gone and told Sinead about the Black Jew’s little girl, hadn’t she? Still, ringers crossed, she didn’t think Sinead would tell. If she did she’d paste the piss out of her.
“Would you like to get into the cupboard, Donny?”
“No way,” Donny said, and stared at her nervously.
“Are you scared to?”
“Nope.”
“Bet you are, too. Padraig O’Mally isn’t afraid of anything.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Let’s get in there then and have a snoop around.”
“We couldn’t.”
“I dare you, Donny Keegan. Double. Triple dare. Come on. Race you back to the stile. Last one there is a shitey stinkpot!”
Siobhan ran in front Donny hot on her heels, the pair of them racing wildly through the long grass, leaving an explosion of dandelion clocks and buttercup pollen in their wake.
On her way back from Dr Hanlon’s, Miss Drew called into Donahue’s for a few odds and ends. As she opened the door the bell jingled above her head and Donahue looked up from the newspaper he was reading.
She was surprised to see Donahue looking quite bright eyed and bushy tailed, he usually looked a wreck whatever the time of day you came in.
“Morning, Mr Donahue.”
“Miss Drew.”
Donahue had known Miss Drew for most of his life and yet they still weren’t on first-name terms. They’d sat in the same classroom together at the Ballygurry school; she’d been a spiteful little thing then, quick to tell tales, quick to drop anyone in it to get on the good side of the schoolmaster.
He still had the marks on his legs where she’d once jabbed him with a sharpened pencil.
“Well,” she said, “it’s grand to be back in Ballygurry amongst friends. No more foreign travel for me, that’s for sure, as long as I live. Thanks be to God.”
“Ah, and how is that?”
Miss Drew leaned conspiratorially towards him and lowered her voice even though the bar was empty except for the ginger torn cat And the cat, who had felt the toe of her boot up his backside many a time, slipped away hastily under the high-backed old settle.
“It was a nightmare out there. A terrible, hellhole of a place. It was full of savages and light-fingered lunatics. Oh, and the stink! It was enough to turn your stomach.”
“Your friend Miss Carmichael liked it enough to stay on then?”
Miss Drew twisted up her face into a hideous grimace.
“Miss Carmichael is no longer a friend of mine and I told it to her straight,” she said emphatically.
“Ah, get away with you. You’ve been friends for years, like a pair of them Pekinese twins.”
“Siamese, Donahue. Pekinese are a type of cat. Ah well, they say you never really know someone that well, someone secretive like Nancy Carmichael.”
Donahue scratched his head.
“Ah, she’s not a bad old stick, a bit hoity toity at times but we’ve all got our faults, Miss Drew.”
“Well, Nancy Carmichael is not all that she’s cracked up to be, you know.”
Donahue busied himself with wiping glasses that didn’t need wiping, but Miss Drew pressed on relentlessly.
“Course we never really heard what happened to her father, did we?”
Donahue sighed. “Died young as far as I can remember,” he said with a shrug.
Miss Drew cleared her throat and spat out the words as if they were slivers of glass.
“Illegitimate, more like. And I have the proof.”
Donahue jumped and almost let a glass slip from his hand.
How the hell did the spiteful old cat find that out?
“Ah, was she now? Well, Miss Drew, she won’t be the first and she won’t be the last.”
Miss Drew looked at Donahue through bright, narrowed eyes. She reminded him of a cat with a bird in its mouth.
“Well, I hardly think that she’s the right sort of person to be on the church cleaning rota, or the orphanage committee, come to that. I don’t think Sister Veronica will be ovef impressed when she finds out the truth.”
“Ah well,” said Donahue, “there won’t be any need for the committee for much longer with them orphans all being shipped off…”
“Well, anyhow, it’s my Christian duty to see that people are aware of her, um, er, background.”
Poor Nancy Carmichael, Donahue thought; by the time this evil old shite-hound had traipsed around the village telling all and sundry what she’d found out life wouldn’t be worth living when Nancy got back from Spain.
“And before I forget, 111 take a tin of pilchards and a packet of fig rolls.”
Donahue lifted down a tin of pilchards and grinned. Miss Drew looked a bit like a pilchard herself! He hoped the bloody things had bones in and choked her.
“I’m off to see Mrs Cullinane, catching up on everything that’s happened since I’ve been away.”
“You’ll have heard about the poor old nun, I take it?”
“Dreadful business. It’s a selfish thing and a sin to take one’s own life. She wasn’t really a proper nun, you know, she was a bit simple in the head and her family paid to have her looked after.”
“Well, she didn’t seem simple what I saw of her. It’s very sad all the same.”
Miss Drew did not reply but left the shop, and the bell above the door gave a mournful clang.
Donahue had a horrible taste in his mouth after the conversation with her. He was sorely tempt
ed to pour himself a stiff drink; a man deserved a drink after talking to that sour-pussed old bitch. He changed his mind, poured a glass of dandelion and burdock, crossed to the window and watched Miss Drew scuttling across the road to spread the gossip about poor Miss Carmichael to Mrs Cullinane.
Old Mrs Carmichael, Nancy’s mother, had been a friend of his own mammy. They’d been in service together when they were both young girls at Kilgerry House up near Rossmacconnarty.
He crossed the bar to look at an old photograph that had been hanging there in the bar for as long as he could remember. He took it down, fetched a cloth and began to wipe away layers of dust and grime. It was a group photograph that had been taken outside the front of Kilgerry House.
He hadn’t looked at it properly in years and yet when he was a child he used to be able to point at each face and recall the names of all the people.
He tested his memory now.
There was his own lovely mammy at the end of the line wearing her housemaid’s cap and apron, looking young, pretty and shy. God bless her, she’d been a good mother to him. At the other end of the row was his daddy, though at the time they were both single, just at the stage of making eyes at each other across the stable door or the coal scuttle. There was the cook, Miss Yeats. Lady Fitzallen. A slim, sad-faced woman with a faded prettiness about her.
“She’d the patience of a saint putting up with all his comings and goings, the dirty old goat, he’s fathered more children than an alley cat, the dirty old dog,” his mammy used to say. She’d been very fond of Lady Fitzallen and had visited her up until her untimely death.
Lord Fitzallen was standing next to his wife. A smug-looking bugger if ever there was one. A right hard-faced old bastard. Donahue’s daddy couldn’t wait to get the hell out of Kilgerry. He said old Fitzallen treated his dogs better than people, including his own family.
Hell, what was the name of the old housekeeper, a big-boned piece with arms like a navvy and the snout of a boxer? Miss Innis or something like that. She had six fingers on one hand and four on the other, or maybe it was toes?
He scoured the photograph for Miss Carmichael’s mother but couldn’t find her. Nelly Jones she was called in those days. Ah, there she was at the back. A girl with a long horsey face, haughty looking like she had a bad smell under her nose. She’d been the nanny at Kilgerry. Damn! There was something else his mother had told him about her but he was beggared if he could remember it.
