Six at the Table

by Sheila Maher

  ‘A few, Dad,’ I whimpered.

  ‘Yeah, just a few, Dad,’ copied Kevin.

  ‘Yeah, Dad, they weren’t very full when he gave them to us, really.’ I was trying to save a hopeless situation.

  One good thing about a tent was that parents could not raise their voices to the same extent they did at home. Children’s screaming and shouting was acceptable and almost to be expected on a camp site, but parents didn’t like to have their parenting overseen or overheard. With this in mind, Dad’s voice lowered to a deep, even more threatening growl.

  ‘Off to bed with you now. Not another thing you’re getting to eat till tomorrow. Now go!’

  We turned to Mum to see where she stood. It was obvious she was completely behind Dad this time.

  ‘Don’t ever do anything like that again! That was so greedy! That’s a sin, you know!’ She too struggled to keep her voice down. ‘And to lie about it and make your father go back to the chipper. I don’t want to see or hear from either of you till morning.’

  There was audible moaning and whingeing from Catherine and Lucy who had returned hungry from their first flirting. On seeing what remained of their dinner, they complained to Mum and Dad that it wasn’t fair and pleaded for more chips.

  I was exposed and embarrassed in front of my own family, finally found out as a greedy guts – something I’m sure they’d always suspected – and as one who couldn’t be left in charge of chips. I felt contrite and remorseful. I wanted to apologise but felt incapable of doing so. Too proud to surrender and lay bare my new self-knowledge for all to examine in the close proximity of the trailer tent, I resolved to say sorry to Mum, privately, in the morning.

  Dad frogmarched us to the toilet without saying a word. Then, in the painful brightness of an early evening, Kevin and I lay side by side for several long hours, listening to other children playing and chasing outside, and to my parents and sisters talking in whispers on the other side of the canvas.

  Teddy’s Whippies

  I hated being dragged up and down Dún Laoghaire pier for a walk on Sunday afternoons. I was lazy and there seemed little point to me, walking the length of the promenade and back again. However, this family walk would be transformed if there was a promise of a Teddy’s Whippy at the end.

  The purchase of six ice-cream cones was an extravagance reserved only for special occasions. Throughout the summer, as the tinkle of the ice cream van that circuited our neighbourhood was heard, we were consistently denied the treat. To halt my whining, Mum told me that the small white and blue van was dirty; she told us of some mysterious neighbourhood child who got seriously ill after eating a cone from the van. When that didn’t work, she got cross and told me they were too expensive. All of these reasons were insufficient to dim my desire. But Mum never once gave in. However, the imminent return to school was, for her, the right time to treat us to a Teddy’s. It would be the last Teddy’s of the year, as the little hatch in the wall would soon close its blue shutters and remain padlocked for the long winter months.

  I was terrified of walking on the upper level of the pier. I stayed back from the edge for fear of falling twelve feet, down onto the hard tarmac of the level below. I didn’t like the lower level much either, with its twelve-foot drop into the cold lapping waters of the harbour. While Kevin ran on ahead and skirted the edges in daredevil fashion, with Mum and Dad shouting at him to get back, I walked along the flat pier, hugging the wall and holding Mum’s hand.

  After getting to the lighthouse at the end of the pier, the halfway mark of our walk, we joined the other Sunday strollers, sitting on the blue benches, looking out across the Irish Sea towards England. If the big ferry was arriving or departing, we waved furiously at the tiny figures leaning on the deck rails. I’d wonder if I would ever get a chance for exotic travel to far-off places like England. When we finished looking at the horizon, simultaneously, as if on some unspoken cue, we all stood up and headed back.

  The six of us waited patiently in the long queue outside the Teddy’s hatch – this was an open window high up in the wall that Dad leaned into and placed our order. If I stood on my tiptoes, I could look through the hatch and see the lady with the white coat and hat, working her ancient-looking piping machine. We waited a long time for our turn to approach the hatch. I was nervous that Dad would lose his patience and call the treat off, but our turn came just as his sighing reached danger level. The choice on offer was either a plain cone or a 99. We never got 99s. Dad had made his views on that matter quite clear. ‘An extra five pence for a small piece of chocolate – bloody robbery!’ He ordered six plain cones.

  There was no ice cream for us like a Teddy’s. Each cone was piped five inches high, with a slightly wilting peak dripping to one side like Elvis’s quiff. The ice cream was softer and creamier than any of the numerous blocks we had devoured greedily during the summer months. We wandered slowly and carefully back to our parked car, licking irreverently at our cones and our sticky hands. Somewhere in the back of my mind was a warning from Mum that it was rude to be seen eating and whistling out in public, especially for us girls. But this rule, if it existed at all, was abandoned as each of us, Mum included, indulged, noisily slurping, sucking and making little exclamations of pleasure as we went. We sat back into the car, satisfied, and waited while Dad carefully licked and crunched his way to the bottom of his cone. Then he turned the key in the ignition and we headed for home. I’d have to wait until next summer to get another Teddy’s Whippy.

  The Winter Menu

  My enjoyment of the last two weeks in August was overshadowed by preparations for the return to school. The freedom of the last days of summer was tainted by the arrival in the post of next year’s book and uniform list. This meant a trip into Greene’s Bookshop and lots of pushing and shoving to try to get my books before stocks ran out. Then another excursion across town with Mum and more queuing in Arnotts to get those disparate pieces of uniform that were not being passed down from Catherine or Lucy this year.

  This was followed by many hours at the kitchen table covering every single book in brown paper or bumpy leftover wallpaper, to preserve them for the next in line or to ensure a good resale price at the end of the year. Initially I enjoyed cutting out the paper to the right size, making the necessary slits so that it would fold easily at the spine of the book, then folding in the corners and making sure never to get Sellotape on the book itself. The last step was to take my new six-inch ruler from my pink furry pencil case, make three neat lines on the front cover, and carefully write:

  Sheila Maher

  3rd Class

  English

  After the fourth book my interest in the task waned, but with Mum watching, there was no getting up from the table until the job was done.

  The return to school not only brought that sinking, sick feeling to the pit of my stomach, it also marked a change in the menu at our dinner table. There would be no more strawberries and raspberries for a long time, ice cream would now only make an occasional appearance alongside a slice of warm apple tart. The salad days were over until next summer. School term meant the return of stews, pies, roasts and puddings – not that these were unwelcome, they just seemed less exciting than the foods of summer.

  Mum never bored us with the same meal two nights in a row. She tried to keep mealtimes interesting with new recipes she cut out of magazines or scribbled down from some television programme in her Pitman shorthand that only a Second World War code-breaker could decipher. Sometimes she received new recipes in the post from her more worldly older sister in England. Aunty Mary was privy to new food trends years before us. She was wrapping her chicken breasts in Parma ham, while Mum was still bread-crumbing hers; she was boning and rolling her turkey, while Mum was continuing to stuff the main cavity; she had made tiramisu and banoffee, while we were still being served pavlova.

  Even with all of these new recipes at her fingertips, as winter progressed I could usually guess on the way home from school what dinner was
likely to be, or at least I’d know the options. As I sat doing my homework at the table Mum buzzed around me, spelling out the occasional word as Gaeilge or helping me learn my maths tables. She was an excellent speller and she regularly gave me mini spelling tests as she multitasked our dinner together. For years there had been a certain rhythm to our week’s food.

  Monday: Stewed or minced meat in some form. This could be a rustic steak and kidney pie or a more fancy ‘casserole’ laced with some red wine. Rice pudding would always be served for dessert after stew – ‘as it’s a shame to waste the oven’.

  Tuesday: The leftover roast from Sunday would be served today – Monday acted as a buffer to ensure we didn’t have to endure the same meat two nights in a row. Sometimes the meat was sliced, covered in leftover gravy, reheated and served with boiled potatoes and fresh vegetables. Or it would be minced for shepherd’s pie. Mum had a heavy steel grinder that she screwed onto the side of the table for this sole purpose. She fed chunks of cooked meat into the opening at the top, turned the handle slowly, and I watched with amusement as tiny worms of meat came out of the bottom into her waiting bowl. I was allowed to help with this job; she considered it safe enough – as long as I kept my fingers out of the grinder.

  Wednesday: This was a slightly casual day for dinner, with quiche and chips, burger and chips, or maybe fried lamb’s liver and chips. Everything was still home-made and prepared freshly that evening, so while the meal may have had the feel of fast-food dining, Mum’s workload may have actually been heavier. The deep saucepan of oil that was used to fry our weekly chips sent pungent plumes of smoke up through the entire house that lingered for days. Even my bedroom stank of old chips.

  Thursday: Today we’d have pork chops or chicken breasts, served with baked or mashed potato and carrots or marrowfat peas.

  Friday: We never had meat on a Friday. Instead, we had scrambled eggs on toast or omelette, or sometimes when Mum was flush, we had fish pie.

  Saturday: This was another casual day, with a fry or pasta – when pasta arrived in Ireland – the most likely offering. Spaghetti bolognese, lasagne or moussaka (all considered pasta dishes as far as Mum and Dad were concerned, as they were meals without potato) eventually became Saturday staples.

  Sunday: There was always a glorious roast – beef, pork, lamb or chicken – with a special dessert on Sundays. Mum marked the end of the weekend with a culinary high note, which unfortunately signalled the start of another week at school. No sooner did I have the last spoonful of dessert in my mouth than I realised I had only one hour of weekend left.

  Within this weekly rota there was always sufficient variety and flexibility for Mum to ensure that the same meals were not served on the same days, week in, week out. And there was always the odd surprise if Mum felt the urge to try one of her new recipes. She never allowed meals to get boring.

  Porridge

  When schooldays turned winter-cold, I’d pull my uniform off the floor and drag it under the covers, into bed with me. I’d let it warm up a little before wriggling into the polyester shirt and bulky gabardine skirt. With each manoeuvre, blasts of chill bedroom air would waft in under the itchy and heavy blankets. I’d arrive down into the kitchen, dressed in my crumpled uniform, and see my mother’s dressing-gown-clad frame leaning over the cooker. She’ d be pounding porridge in the thin aluminium double saucepan she kept solely for that purpose. This saucepan was her mother’s before her, passed along as though it were a precious family heirloom to ensure hearty breakfasts for successive generations. Mum made porridge the previous night and softened it up in the morning before reheating it.

  As the only other early riser, I enjoyed the cosy atmosphere in the kitchen alone with Mum. I stirred the porridge as she went upstairs to help Kevin dress himself and quicken his pace. I heard her knock again on Catherine and Lucy’s closed door and gently remind them it was now eight o’ clock and time to get up, only to get grunts and growls in reply. Then she returned to the kitchen with Kevin in tow, seated him beside me at the table and served the porridge.

  Steam rose from the piping hot bowl she placed in front of me. With a hand as steady as I could make it, I sprinkled on a heaped spoonful of sugar, being careful to get it all the way out to the edge and over the entire surface of the porridge in an even fashion. I didn’t want any large lumps of sugar or any sugarless area. I gently tipped enough cold milk into the bowl to form a thin layer over everything. Then I let it all sit for a few moments.

  Mum asked me to run upstairs and waken the girls again. My older sisters orbited around me. I observed them closely, but from a distance. I noticed how they wore their clothes; I knew when Catherine got her first bra; I watched them leave the house to play with friends that lived on streets too far for me to go to alone; I saw them laugh and play pogo stick on the road outside our house, even as it got dark. I wanted to be part of their twosome but I was excluded, so I was jealous and resentful. They never considered me for the role of playmate – as a nine-year-old, I was a baby to them. Their only interaction with me, independent of Mum and Dad, was as occasional baby-sitters, and this rarely worked out well. Their temporary position of authority went to their heads and clashed with my desperation to impress them. When Catherine and Lucy baby-sat for Kevin and me, they denied us our television rights and sent us to bed, early and hysterical.

  In trepidation, I knocked on their door and shouted, ‘Mum says it’s time to get up’ – hoping that by blaming this unwelcome interruption on Mum, it would prevent them from shouting back at me. They roared back through the closed door, ‘Go away!’ ‘We know!’ ‘Leave us alone!’ and I returned to my breakfast deflated; they had dented my mood.

  My porridge was now cool enough, so I put my spoon deep into the hardening mound. As it pulled away from the side of the bowl it held the bowl’s smooth shape. This I felt in my mouth along with its inner bumpy lumpiness. That sweet and milky bowl was hugely soothing and palliative. Warm and comforting, it eased me into the day. I worked my way around the edge of the bowl, scooping out soft ovals of porridge in a steady rhythm, one after the other until the outer rim was gone. The centre I allowed myself to eat in a more haphazard fashion and I took spoonfuls in whatever order I felt like, all the while making sure not to mix it up too much and loose my crunchy sugar topping. Eating porridge was not a simple task of shovelling spoonful after spoonful into your mouth, it required concentration and precision. Cereal could be eaten any old way, each mouthful the same as the next; porridge deserved more respect.

  Mum went into the hall and shouted up the stairs one last time. ‘Catherine, Lucy, get up now!’

  The radio was tuned to rté. It crackled and hissed as Mum passed in front of it, going about her preparations. ‘Shush,’ she said every now and then, as she tried to catch a news headline or a scrap of information amidst my babbling. I stayed quiet for as long as I could and when I deemed enough time had elapsed, I resumed my chat. The stirrings of my sisters and Dad could be heard upstairs – coughing, steps across the landing (I could identify who was up by the weight of their footfall), toilet flushing, the occasional shower.

  At twenty minutes to nine I heard pounding on the stairs. Catherine and Lucy burst into the kitchen, both with deep red lines from their pillows scored into their cheeks. Their faces were pale and cross and their short hair stuck up in peaks at the back.

  ‘Aw, not porridge again!’ they complained, when they saw Mum preparing to spoon it out for them and they whinged for Corn Flakes or Weetabix instead. With few minutes to spare – as no child of hers was going to be late for school – Mum gave in, something she rarely did. Kevin started to snivel that he was made to eat all his porridge, while they got to eat Corn Flakes. Mum slammed the wooden spoon down on the countertop – a sure sign that her patience had run out – and pounded upstairs to get dressed.

  Dad shuffled into the kitchen. Dressed in brown slacks, a co-ordinating sports jacket with mock-leather elbow patches, and shirt and tie, his hair was stil
l damp and the lines made by the teeth of his comb were visible across it. There was the usual choking odour of Old Spice. I found the smell sickening as it mingled with the taste of my porridge and yet it was reassuring and comforting because it was Dad’s smell. He prepared his solo Weetabix with some warm milk, ate it in silence and left. Dad was quiet by nature and mornings were definitely too much for him. Generally he talked when he was talked to but he was never one to start a conversation voluntarily. He was one of life’s observers, quietly taking it all in from the sidelines and seemingly content to do so.

  I lingered around the kitchen for as long as I could – judging the length of time it was going to take me to cycle to my friend Maeve’s, ten houses up the road, wait for her, and then cycle to school together. I didn’t want to leave the warmth of the kitchen and I fancied the last bit of porridge going cold and hard in the saucepan. Thanks to the preferences of my family I usually got second helpings and the scrape all to myself. I tucked into the last bit straight from the saucepan, and then reluctantly left the house.

  I was never happy leaving home for school. I always wanted to stay around my mother all day. I knew this was not a normal feeling for a girl of my age. I was sure none of the other girls in school had such childish desires, so I never articulated them, not even to Maeve. I was at my happiest when I was by my mother’s side, helping her and watching as she prepared and cooked our food. I was confident, funny, helpful and loved when I was with Mum in the kitchen. But when I moved beyond our front door, I became unsure of myself, a weak-minded follower and a smart aleck who irritated teachers. School ripped me out of my cosy environment and I hated it for that. Annually I managed to fake a few well-acted ‘sick days’, so that I could at least lie in bed and listen to the noises of my mother pottering below in the kitchen. From time to time, she’ d pop her head into my room to see if I was okay or needed anything. It was hard faking for a whole day, but it was much nicer than being at school.