Maggie's Breakfast

by Gabriel Walsh

  We walked around the corner as the first bus of the day was approaching. The bus conductor was happy to have company so early in the morning.

  “Good morning,” he said as my mother and I found our seats at the back.

  “Mornin’, sir,” Molly said with her reverence for anyone wearing a uniform.

  He then slapped the bell, signalling the driver to depart. My mother sat quietly and passively next to me. The bus had just been washed and smelled of disinfectant and was sparkling clean. I looked out the window at the neighbourhood. The unseasonable morning light made it look more pleasant than I had ever before imagined.

  As the bus rolled further away from Inchicore, my mother finally turned and faced me.

  “Son, I want you to know I did me best with ya. I did me best. What more could I do with nothin’ in the home? A few ha’pence and a few shillin’ to feed a family on. Who could do it? Me whole body is filled with rheumatism from scrubbin’ the cold marble floors of Hume Street Hospital. I did that for years when you were just a very young fella. I can hardly move me legs or me fingers from soakin’ them in the water. Only God knows the pain I’m in. Divine Jesus knows how much pain I’ve known. Respectful Heart of Jesus, smile on me and help me in me pain. I don’t know how to hold onto meself any more. I don’t. Me prayers are the only thing I have left. Dear God, help me with the pain I carry around with me.” My mother began to cry out loud.

  I was hoping other people getting on the bus wouldn’t see or hear us. I didn’t want anybody to know that I was frightened and not able to hide or hold back the tears that were welling up in my eyes. I turned my face but I couldn’t hold the tears back any longer.

  “I’m sorry, Ma, I’m sorry.”

  My mother took out her rosary beads and wrapped them around her fingers. As she looked out the bus window, tears came to her eyes. “You remember your brother Nicholas, don’t you, Gabriel?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was a lovely boy but God called him and sure that’s God’s way. I still have a few locks of his hair. I took them the day he was laid out on the slab in Hume Street morgue. He had a smile on his face that day. I think he was happy that he was going to Heaven. Ah, but he was so young! Only a twelve-year-old! May God have mercy on his soul! I know he’s up in Heaven with our Heavenly Father. That’s the one bit of consolation I have, Gabriel. You know he’s lookin’ down at us even this mornin’, son! Sure you know that, Gabriel, don’t you? I’ll meet me poor son Nicholas again some day. Please God, in any case.” Tears were streaming down my mother’s face. “The two of you spent half your childhood in that chip shop. Angelo Fusco the Italian man who owned it was as nice a man as you could find anywhere.” My mother put her hand on the top of my head and looked directly at me again and as always I became self-conscious. “You’re the spittin’ image of your father. The spittin’ image! He’ll never be dead while you’re alive.”

  It was difficult for me to look at her without thinking she was seeing Paddy. I reminded her of something she either loved or hated in him. I didn’t know what it was but it was something she had lost or something she wished she had never found.

  “There are times, son, when I look back on me life and wonder why I’ve never been able to live a life off me knees. If I’m not kneelin’ and scrubbin’ I’m kneelin’ and prayin’. Even when I met your father I was washin’ and scrubbin’. The Walshes didn’t want any part of me in them days. I don’t know what they were always complainin’ about but that’s the way they were. Who knows what life would have been like had your father and me stayed down in the country instead of runnin’ away up here to Dublin? County Kildare wasn’t such a bad place if you ask me. No, it wasn’t! God help me!” She cried out as if God had no place else to go and nothing better to do than live and work in Inchicore.

  After about ten minutes the conductor called out “James’s Street!”

  When I stepped from the bus I felt I was walking in some kind of dream and was beginning to think that soon I’d wake up from it.

  My sister Rita was waiting. She was standing by a pram with her baby in it.

  “Are ya wearin’ the stockin’s I bought for ya?” she asked me.

  “I am.”

  “Ya have another pair, don’t ya?”

  “I do.”

  My mother was still sobbing. I was afraid to look at her because I might collapse and not go through with the journey. I was hoping when I got to the train station it was going to be the end of this bad dream. I wasn’t able to think about where I was going. Any sense of the future vanished from my thoughts. I looked back to see if my father was behind me. Maybe he woke up and discovered me missing and got the next bus. He didn’t. He might have been awake and he might have been too sad or even too afraid to say goodbye to me.

  Rita asked, “Where’s me daddy?”

  My mother blurted out, “He’s where he always is. He’s in bed.”

  “Didn’t he get up to say goodbye to Gabriel?”

  “He didn’t!” said my mother. “He was awake. I can assure you of that.”

  “An’ he didn’t get up?”

  “I think he was asleep,” I said.

  “He was awake and he was starin’ up at the ceilin’,” said my mother. “I tell you no lie either.”

  “Ah, what’s the matter with me father?” Rita said and began to cry.

  “I think he was asleep,” I said again. I didn’t want Rita to know or think that our father didn’t want to get up and say goodbye to me.

  “Maybe he was afraid to get up,” said Rita. “Maybe he just couldn’t bear it or somethin’. I know me father and I think he gets afraid of things emotional. I bet he’s cryin’ right now. I know he’s thinkin’ about you, Gabriel. He’s just afraid to let you know how much he cares. That’s the way he is. And you’re that way too if you want to know the truth. You’re just like him. You are. Isn’t he, Mother?”

  My mother was silent for a moment. “I can’t talk any more. I’m not feelin’ well. I’m very sad. I shouldn’t be lettin’ you go, son. I shouldn’t. It’s a sin of some sort. I’ll never be forgiven for lettin’ ya go, son. Say a prayer for me when you get to where you’re goin’.” Then my mother put her hand to my face and kissed me on the cheek. “You’re like Paddy. Yes, you are, son. You know what I mean? Don’t you, Gabriel? But I think your father just forgot to wake up. He just forgot to wake up.”

  In the distance I could see the train station. We continued walking.

  “How long are you goin’ to be on that bloody boat?” Rita asked.

  “I think a week.” I’d been told it would take six days. This time of year it sometimes took an extra day. Crossing the Atlantic in December was not the best time or season to be travelling. Inside the train station a voice bellowed out, announcing the departure of the train to Cork. My mother and sister grabbed me and held me close. I bit my lower lip hoping I could keep myself from crying, but I couldn’t. I broke away from them and boarded the train. When I got inside the carriage I saw my sister banging on the window. She was roaring crying. I thought I was going to pass out. I sat back in my seat, more frightened than I’d ever been in my life.

  * * *

  A few hours later the sounds of the Cork railroad station broke into my thoughts like a blacksmith hammering a horseshoe. I picked up my suitcase from the floor and stepped out of the train. Many faces and accents of Ireland were gathered in the railway station. Across the platform the smaller shuttle train was about to leave for Cobh which was on Cork Harbour to the east. Crowds of people with suitcases were piling onto it. Others were standing on the platform watching relatives hugging and kissing, crying, holding each other, perhaps for the last time. From Kerry, from Galway, from Tipperary, from all over Ireland men and women of all ages were going in the same direction as I was. Several women held very young babies in their arms and carried bags, suitcases and lots of other personal belongings. Families were breaking up.

  The noise of the smaller shuttle trai
n belched out. A man in a heavy black uniform, with a cord of green around his coat collar, called to everybody who was going to America to get on the shuttle. I walked through the crowd and found an open door on the train. The carriage was already crammed. Everyone wanted to be near the window. There was no one outside on the platform for me to see or wave goodbye to. Was my father still asleep? Was he still staring at the ceiling? I sat in a corner that faced the station wall. When the shuttle train began to depart the men and women in the carriage began to cry. Some stuck their heads out the window and yelled back to family and friends. I think I was the only passenger looking at the floor.

  After disembarking from the shuttle train in Cobh we were herded onto a tender type of boat. It was windy and raining and everybody going to America got very wet. The tender pulled out from Cobh and sailed towards the S.S. America, out in the harbour. The ship was too massive to anchor at the dockside in Cobh. Everybody was eerily quiet. Only the sound of the tender’s engine pushing and sloshing through the water could be heard. Faces turned to each other but seemed afraid to express the sadness of leaving. The tender continued its sputtering journey and seemed like a little duck swimming towards a big island. Most of the passengers had tears in their eyes but made no effort to wipe them away. The wind itself appeared to show a respect for the crying emigrants and left the watery beads on the faces undisturbed. As we drew closer and closer to the ship I was stunned at how big it was. The S.S. America was so massive it seemed to hold the anxious and impatient ocean still. The symbol of the future stood like a massive hungry Leviathan ready and even anxious to swallow us. In minutes two huge side doors on the ship opened and ladders and gangways appeared. A voice from the upper deck bellowed out instructions on how to approach and board the huge liner. The tender came to a halt alongside the massive boat. The heat from the flood-lights on the ship made a vapour from the chilly ocean water and it created a giant halo that made the marriage of the tender and ship rival any Benediction or religious service I had ever attended. The co-ordinated overture of clattering chains and ladders being lowered, mixed with calls and commands from the ship’s crew, equalled what I thought might happen on Judgment Day when all who rose from the dead and qualified for salvation were called to the gates of Heaven.

  In seconds and as if a magic celestial wand had been waved, people came to life again. I sensed for myself, and I believed for everybody else who stood around me, that the break had occurred. It was fast loud and clear and shrouded in fog and mist and watery air. My “past’ went into some indefinable Limbo where even prayers couldn’t reach it. The wish to leave home was manifesting itself clearer than ever before. I was now not indecisive or hesitant. Everybody grabbed their suitcases and got on board. In spite of the cold windy weather people in front and behind me were enveloped in excitement and were talking aloud.

  “Where ya off ta?”

  “Chicago, Chicago.”

  “I’m goin’ to Philadelphia,” another said out loud for everybody to hear.

  “You know anybody in Brooklyn?” somebody said to somebody else.

  Everybody seemed to be talking to one another even though they had probably never met before. All were related by their wishes for the future.

  A woman with very red cheeks was talking out loud to a small group who had gathered around her. “I know everybody in Brooklyn,” she said.

  “They all know you too, Rosy!”

  I walked along the deck a bit further and stood behind a slow-moving line. A man with two suitcases was in front of me. After a few seconds he sensed I was behind him, turned his head and asked in a very thick Cork accent, “Where you goin’ ta?”

  Before I had a chance to answer him several people called out at once.

  “Chicago!”

  “Brooklyn!”

  “Philadelphia!”

  A moment of silence followed. Somebody in the back of the line called out: “California, here I come!” There was loud laughter.

  Just as suddenly the line to the cabins began to move a bit faster. Everybody seemed to be in a forced happy mood. Maybe there was no other way to be. Strangers talked to each other, knowing that they all had the impending journey in common. I made my way to the cabin I was assigned. When I entered a big man was sitting on the bed next to the porthole. I said hello and I began to unpack my suitcase. I wasn’t bringing much: a second-hand pair of shoes, two of my brother’s shirts and a pullover that had been repaired by my mother six months earlier. I wondered why I’d taken so much time to pack so little.

  “I’m from Skibbereen,” the man sitting on the bed said as he looked at me. The sound of his voice saved me. The man had a head of silver hair. “This is a sad day for me. I’ve just been back home for the last time. All me relatives are dead and I just sold the family farm.”

  He asked me if I’d ever been to West Cork.

  “I’m from Dublin,” I told him.

  He fell silent and I noticed he had tears in his eyes.

  “Are you alright?” I asked him.

  He turned to me with tears streaming down his face. “I’m just tired and sad and what I think and say to meself doesn’t make any sense to anybody any more. If I told anybody what I was thinking they’d want me to go see a doctor.” He then managed to smile. “Who y’with?”

  “I’m on my own.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where you goin’?”

  “New York.”

  “Where you from agin?”

  “Inchicore.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Dublin.”

  “Dublin? A Dublin jackeen, are ya?” He laughed and stood up. “A good night’s sleep will change everything.” He then walked out of the cabin.

  After putting my suitcase away I followed him onto the deck. It was a cold wet December day. Outside the big Corkman was staring out towards the sea. He seemed to be even sadder than before. When he noticed me standing next to him he slowly turned and walked back towards the cabin.

  “I’m goin’ in to lie down,” the man from West Cork said to me as he went.

  I remained standing and looking at the vast spread of ocean in front of me. Some lights went dark and the sounds and noises of the ship began to recede into a seemingly satisfied stillness. Standing alone on the deck I tried to convince myself that all was great in my life. I had broken away from my home and family and for the first time in a long time I sensed I was in a different place where I could only reach my past by closing my eyes. With very little knowledge of where I was going I got caught up in a flood of thoughts and began to feel like I was drowning in the baptism of suspense where images replaced words and thoughts had no beginnings or ends.

  * * *

  Eight days later and after what seemed like a lifetime of seasickness, the ship passed the Statue of Liberty. The cold December air didn’t prevent most of the travellers from gawking at the huge statue. I stood among many of my fellow passengers and thought that I was in a dream of some kind. My fantasy image of America was now as real as the fierce wind that blew across my face. In many ways I didn’t know where I was or even how I got there. It had something to do with what some of the waiters at the hotel called a crazy opera singer and my serving her breakfast under her bed. Maybe it had to do with the relationship of my parents and the big old bed they slept in. I sensed now that I’d never hear my father snore again or see him roll his cigarettes or hear him sing his soldier songs from World War I. And I knew for sure that the voice of my mother berating him for being a common labourer would not be ringing in my ears any more. The faces in my mind of screaming priests at Mass and the Communion wafers that slid down my throat began to fade as the big ship sailed further into New York Harbour. The need to seek a different future was slowly being answered by this awkward moment on the ship’s deck.

  An hour or so later we pulled into the harbour on the Upper West Side. I stood and observed the speeding back and forth of yellow taxis and about a m
illion motor cars. Loudspeakers were again blaring and directing passengers to form queues for disembarkation. I stood in line with my old suitcase and walked slowly along the deck.

  A few minutes later I saw two men in white carrying the man from West Cork on a stretcher. He didn’t get up early like the rest of us who travelled with him across the Atlantic. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. He had made it across the ocean and I wondered if he had any way of telling his people, if he had any, that he had returned to America. Before I could think about it too much I was pushed along and directed towards customs.

  I was sitting in the back of a chauffeured black limousine with Maggie Sheridan. Mrs. Axe was seated in the passenger seat next to the driver. I was in a car for the first time in my life. The car appeared to be as big as my bedroom in Inchicore. It sped along the Saw Mill River parkway towards Tarrytown which was about twenty miles north of Manhattan. Maggie kept asking me how my mother was and if she cried when I left. I was so distracted by the scenery outside of the car I didn’t really want to talk about Ireland, Dublin or my family. Images I had of America kept floating across my mind. Most of them of course were from the films I had seen in Dublin. Maggie, in her usual chastising way told me to turn my head and pay attention to what she was saying. When I finally did turn to talk to her she corrected my English and told me to mind my manners.

  Mrs. Axe looked back at both of us and laughed.

  As the car continued its journey the chauffeur commented that the Tappan Zee Bridge spanning the Hudson River had opened just recently and the event was broadcast on television. Shortly thereafter the driver pulled off the parkway and in seconds drove through two open gates and almost instantly stopped in front of a huge mansion.

  Mrs. Axe’s home, as Maggie had reminded me in Dublin, was definitely a castle and looked like it was out of another century. As I stared in wonderment, a man approached and opened the car doors. Maggie and Mrs. Axe got out first. Because of the sight and size of the place I was looking at, I hesitated for a moment before putting my feet on the ground of what was to be my new abode.