As she listened now, Mary Kate heard her father’s rocking chair creak to a standstill. Then came his footsteps as he walked towards the press. ‘Go on,’ he said, with a smile in his voice, ‘just another drop.’ Mary Kate smiled too. Everything was fine and just as it should be. As she heard the reassuring pop of the straw stopper and the chink of the porter mugs, she pulled the covers up over her shoulders and snuggled into the pillow.
Downstairs, Sarah finally took her eyes off the ceiling. Her daughter had fallen quiet again and she could have a second mug of porter without worrying. She changed the subject quickly, hating any discussion about the Maughans in the house. ‘’Tis a full moon tomorrow night. Bee and Captain Bob are coming over with Ciaran. I’m roasting a quarter pig and they can take the rest back with them when they leave.’
*
‘’Tis one reason to look forward to a full moon,’ said Michael. ‘For the visitors from the shore. That and the fact that you are always warm and ready and as randy as a sow on heat.’ He grinned as Sarah threw a ball of wool at him. The summer that year was warm and bountiful for the harvest and the wild fruit. Mary Kate and Sarah roamed the hills with Bee, Ciaran, Keeva, Aedan and Iain, collecting basketsful to take home and preserve to last them through the winter. As with the harvest, the women moved from one kitchen to another to help with the storing and preserving. Bee always came to Sarah’s kitchen for the entire day, along with the Devlins and Nola.
With the doors open to let the draught through from the shop to the back and the sound of the river roaring in the background, the women worked away through the warm and dusty afternoon. Josie and Keeva were on wild elderberry syrup, which they were decanting into glass jars ready to be poured onto fruit pies in the winter. Sarah carried a large copper pan over from the stove, the overheated deep purple redcurrant liquid almost splashing over the side. Bee picked up the big wooden spoon and began stirring to prevent it from sticking.
‘God, even that makes me feel sick. I think I might be caught again,’ said Keeva as she slipped onto one of Sarah’s stools.
‘Again?’ said Sarah, looking up, and they all noticed the dismay in her tone.
Bee caught her eye and raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, don’t be looking at me like that,’ said Sarah defiantly as tears sprang from nowhere.
Bee said nothing but placed an arm around her niece’s waist and pulled her handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘Here, go on,’ she said.
Sarah took it gratefully. ‘God, I am so sorry, Keeva, it’s just that every month I hope that will be me and it never is. It’s Shona’s fault, she cursed me the day this place opened, and that’s it, there will be no more for me.’
Nola was already making the tea and searching for the emergency Powers whiskey in the press. ‘Shona is so old,’ she said, ‘all she worries about is waking up every morning and wondering if she can keep breathing in and out all day. Here, take the tea and a drop of whiskey for your nerves.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ Sarah wiped her eyes. ‘Only weeks ago they were here for the baccy and her flaming barley sugars – God, why do we have to sell to them? – and she’s still driving the horses with the strength of a man.’
Josie took her tea from Nola, who continued. ‘Well, whatever Shona said or did, it hasn’t worked, has it? Look at ye, the house is lovely, and the shop is growing as fast as Macy’s, or so I’m told every time I get a letter from New York. I tell them all about it and they write straight back and say, sure, we think Michael will be on his way here and taking over by the sounds of it. And look at what you have – everything you wish for. ’Tis all grand. Stop yer worrying, it will happen if God means it to.’
Bee had moved over to the oven and was removing the jars she’d placed inside to warm and lining them up on the table. Using a cloth, Keeva unscrewed the lids ready to receive the steaming fruit syrup; she was too afraid to say anything to Sarah.
Sarah, having had a sip of her strong tea, took over the stirring. ‘I’m grateful for the shop and how ’tis all going, so I am, but, Bee, there’s been no other babby after our Mary Kate and ’tis not for the want of trying.’
At that moment, Keeva’s two little boys came charging into the kitchen, then raced straight out again.
‘Would you look at them!’ said Bee. ‘Surely to God they grow more in a hot summer, don’t they? ’Tis not just the oats sprouting up at a grand rate.’
The sound of Ciaran, Aedan, Iain and Mary Kate playing out the back filled the kitchen.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, shall I take them home? They’re such a noisy pair.’ Keeva looked unsure of herself and her welcome.
‘No, you won’t, not at all. Stay here and help fill these jars,’ said Sarah with a smile that hid the hurt she felt. Keeva could be like a timid mouse, always ready to run away if she felt unwanted, and Sarah resolved never again to let her even guess at the pain the news of someone’s new pregnancy caused her. She would be ready next time.
The kitchen was warmed by the sun and the fire from the range and the women were covered in a film of perspiration. Sarah checked that the ties of her floral apron were fastened tight, then picked up a spoon, dipped it into the pan, raised it to her nose to smell it and began to slowly fill one of the jars.
Bee looked up at Sarah from under her lashes and held her own spoon mid air. ‘If Shona Maughan is wilting and we don’t think she’s as powerful as she once was, what do you think Sarah needs to do, Keeva, to have another?’
‘Well, that’s not hard, is it?’ said Keeva. ‘If you’ve had one, you can have a dozen. Are ye, you know, doing it right, Sarah?’
Sarah flushed to the roots of her hair as both she and Bee gasped. Sarah might have expected a comment like that from Bee, but not from the timid girl she still regarded as little Keeva, and not in front of her mother-in-law. ‘Oh God, of course I am!’ Sarah almost screeched. ‘I got caught with our Mary Kate, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, I know, but sometimes, if you don’t lift your hips up in a certain way, you know, you can’t get caught, that’s what Bridget McAndrew told me just before Tig and I got married. And here we are, two boys later. I had no trouble at all.’
Sarah gawped. ‘Bridget told ye that?’
Bee finished filling another jar as Josie answered. ‘Bridget knows everything, Sarah, even how to keep a smile on your husband’s face. I’ve been doing it for years.’
‘Doing what?’ Bee and Sarah asked together, mouths wide open as they stared at Josie in disbelief.
‘Aye, aye, I can’t believe you don’t know.’ Keeva laughed. ‘And Michael a man of the world, in and out of Dublin all the time.’
Sarah laughed nervously. She strongly suspected that there was something she was missing.
‘If you ask me, it would be more useful if she could tell some women around here how not to get caught,’ said Bee. ‘Theady O’Donnell was Philomena’s thirteenth child. I know that’s not so unusual, but it’s just unfortunate for the kids, with a woman like Philomena for a mother. Thank the Lord that poor boy’s escaped and gone to the seminary now. One of them finally made the woman proud at last, studying to be a priest, so he is.’ She gave Sarah an encouraging smile. ‘But go on, go and see her, Sarah. It can’t do any harm, can it. We need something to look forward to and wouldn’t that be all. An end to all the speculation. Jesus, we’d all be queuing around Shona’s caravan begging for her to put a curse on us. You’ve got rich, had a few years to get going, and then if you were to have another babby on the way… Thank you, Shona.’
The women picked up their teacups and laughed.
Draining hers, Sarah said, ‘Aye, but the tipping of the hips… What, like this?’ The whiskey had met an empty stomach and entered her bloodstream fast. She placed her hands on her waist, pushed her hips forward, looked down and began to laugh.
Keeva jumped up and stood next to her. ‘Aye, like this. Press this bit of your back onto the mattress, right in until you feel the bedste
ad, and then push up and squeeze in. As God is my judge, you’ll have Michael on top of you every five minutes. He’ll be inside you faster than he can get his pants unbuttoned, mark my words, and there’ll be a babby in that belly in no time.’
The laughter from the kitchen reached the cinder path at the front, where Michael was opening a fresh sack of potatoes. He heard it and smiled, straightened up, pushed back his cap and looked over the road. Rosie O’Hara was walking from the school to her house and she raised her hand in greeting. Michael lifted his own hand back to her and for a moment, just a fleeting moment, he remembered her kiss and felt guilty that she had never married. He knew without being told that it was his fault. She’d been at the house only yesterday and, as always, she’d done and said the right things. But there was something in her eye, an interest, a depth, a forbidden fruit, and when she fixed him with a look, locked her eyes onto his, when her hand brushed against him, he felt a quickening of his heart, a shortness in his breath and a stirring in his groin. He fought it, but the guilt swamped him and sent him running all the way to confession.
In the kitchen, the jars had been filled and packed into straw-lined wooden crates which were now stacked up on the table and the floor. Bee had made fresh tea and they all sat down at the scrubbed table.
‘Sarah, was Rosie O’Hara here yesterday?’ she asked.
‘She was. She came back with Mary Kate for tea after school and helped her with her homework and her reading. Why?’
Bee was stirring an extra spoon of sugar into her tea. ‘Could you ask her to keep an eye on Ciaran for me. He was doing so well in class, but Mr O’Dowd, he’s kept him behind twice now, and when I asked the man why, he spoke to me as though he had a piece of gorse stuck up his arse.’
‘Mr O’Dowd?’ said Josie. ‘Never. He’s the nicest man in the village. You probably caught him on a bad day, Bee.’
Some of the children left the village school to board, but others, like Ciaran, who were children of widows or were needed to work the land, remained there until they were thirteen or just stopped attending altogether.
Sarah put her cup in her saucer. ‘I remember Philomena O’Donnell had the same with Theady. You have never seen a boy as happy as he was the day he finished and went off to the seminary in Galway. Cried in Philomena’s arms, she said.’
‘Well, would you look at him now. Jesus, that woman has become unbearable and there’s nothing can be said to her. Being the mother of a priest in training puts her closer to Father Jerry than Teresa, or so she says. I swear to God, Teresa will let loose one of these days, she’s driving her mad, so she is.’
At just that moment, Ciaran came into the kitchen with Iain straddling his back and waving an imaginary whip in the air, as though Ciaran was his horse. Sarah noticed that his smile didn’t quite reach his lips and there was a greyness around his eyes. ‘Are you all right, Ciaran?’ she asked him. Her heart folded with concern for the boy she loved as much as she would one of her own. ‘How are you finding class with Mr O’Dowd?’
Ciaran didn’t answer. He looked to his mother, who nodded, then he took a biscuit off the plate and ran outside.
Sarah recognised the look in Ciaran’s eyes. It had once been in her own. It was fear and it had tainted her own childhood. ‘I’ll speak to Rosie tomorrow,’ she said to Bee. ‘She’ll find out what’s going on.’
Later that night, the house asleep, Sarah stood in the kitchen drinking a glass of water. She had taken Keeva’s hip advice to heart and practised it to the letter. ‘Holy Mother of God,’ she whispered to herself as she sipped on the water. ‘What was that?’ She’d been swept away by the passion, the intensity of it, and her head had seemed to explode with pleasure. She’d been lost, unthinking of everything, and what was more, she could tell that Michael had enjoyed it as much as she had.
She heard his footsteps on the stairs and his frame filled the doorway. ‘Sarah, get yourself back up these stairs now. You can do that again.’
Giggling, she ran up the stairs after him.
Chapter 18
It was a foul day. Fat raindrops battered the four-paned glass of the shop window with the force of small pebbles as Mary Kate sat on her wooden stool behind the counter and squinted at the bleak, muddy road outside. Pools of water were forming on the cinder path below the window and her bike, propped up against the limewashed wall, had been blown onto its side and was now half submerged in an oversized puddle, one pedal breaking the surface like the hand of a drowning man. The wind slipped in through the cracks in the door and howled as it ran around the shop as the candle flame dipped a curtsey and Mary Kate shivered as she checked over her shoulder for ghosts. She pulled the shawl her mother had wrapped around her even tighter.
The street was empty and the sky was heavy and almost as dark as night. Today was a Saturday and everyone Mary Kate knew would be huddled indoors right now, if they didn’t have to be out working in the fields. The road towards the river was close to becoming a river itself. Fearing that she might not see a customer for the entire day, Mary Kate gave up trying to stare out at the street, picked up her school book, sat back and sighed, her eyes on the book, her ears listening for the tinkers.
Sarah had been trying to comb out her bright copper-red hair while she sat on the stool in front of the range. She had wriggled in protest.
‘Mary Kate, will you keep still. How can I get the bird’s nest out of the back of your hair if you keep moving like that,’ Sarah had chided.
‘Mammy, I don’t want to sit still. I hate my hair.’ Mary Kate kicked her legs against the stool and began to cry. Mornings and hair were a never-ending battle. ‘I want your hair, not mine.’ Sarah’s hair was smooth and neatly gathered into a ribbon. Mary Kate’s hung loose and wavy and was prone to tangles.
‘Well, listen to me, will I be telling Granny Nola that you don’t want your hair done when you know she’s visiting with Granddaddy Seamus today? And you turning seven in a couple of months! Sure, that will make her cry when I tell her what a bold girl you’ve been, and won’t you know it, her tears will run all the way down the hill. Doesn’t she just love your hair when ’tis all tied up in nice ribbon?’
Guilt-stricken, Mary Kate stopped fussing straight away. She loved her Granny Nola and the thought of making her cry was enough to make her sit ramrod straight. She restricted her protest to clenching her teeth and squeezing her eyes together.
‘We have worse things to worry about today.’ Sarah tried a diversionary tactic. ‘The tinkers are due. They were up on the coast at the weekend, so Aunty Bee said, so sure as God is true, they’ll be here any hour now.’
Mary Kate’s brow furrowed with concern. ‘Mammy, you won’t tell Granny Nola, will you?’ She opened her big blue eyes and turned to look straight at Sarah.
Sarah’s heart constricted. She moved closer to her child and pulled her into her as she buried Mary Kate’s face in her floury apron. ‘God, no. Never. I was only kidding now because you kick up such a fuss.’ For a long, luxurious moment she stood stroking her daughter’s now silken hair, and Mary Kate, silent, absorbed the love she felt passing to her from her mother’s hands.
Half an hour later, while they were waiting for the bread to rise, Mary Kate and her mother brushed the shop floor and Mary Kate wiped down the counters and shelves. Then she went out back to the kitchen to help her mother pack up the orders to be delivered to the farms. ‘I’m going to be shopkeeper all day today,’ she said.
‘Well, you can, as I have so much to do back here, and the rabbit needs skinning for dinner, but watch out for the tinkers. The thieving kids took a skillet from the door last time they came through, when you were at school. Bought the baccy and then sent the lad back to take it when I was washing the money, so keep your eyes peeled.’
Mary Kate wasn’t as bothered as she might have been on a sunny day. She wouldn’t see the outdoors anyway.
‘We won’t be getting no customers in this weather,’ said Sarah. ‘’Twill be a poor day
for the takings and that won’t be pleasing Daddy. You’ll be fine.’
Washing the tinkers’ money was a ritual when they came into the village. The Maughans had taken to stopping outside the shop and shouting down for baccy and barley sugars. If Jay could have lived without his baccy and Shona hadn’t discovered a sweet tooth, they would never have stopped. They would pull up outside the shop and Michael would throw the baccy and barley sugars up to Shona. It was as if the earth stopped spinning when she called. The wind would drop, the birds ceased singing and Michael felt his chest tighten as though it was more difficult to breathe. Jay Maughan knew it, and he would grin as he threw the money down at the same time as Michael threw the baccy up, deliberately missing Michael’s hand so that it landed at his feet and he had no choice but to grovel. Neither Mary Kate nor Sarah were allowed to touch the money, only Michael could do that. As soon as he got back inside the shop, it was thrown into the scullery sink and scrubbed, before it could be placed into the wooden till.
‘Get your hands off. Don’t you know it’s cursed,’ he’d once shouted at Mary Kate as she’d scrabbled around on the floor to pick up one of the blackened pennies. She’d wanted to save her father the indignity of bending down. ‘Don’t ever touch the tinkers’ money, promise me?’ Mary Kate had nodded in earnest, too young to understand the meaning of a curse and too obedient to ever disobey
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