‘I’m sure she did.’
‘A good woman and a good mother. She always did her best for us and them were hard times.’
‘They were, Mum, very hard.’
It was only three o’clock, but dusk was creeping up to the window. The candle’s yellow light emphasized her waxy complexion and the shadows under her eyes.
‘There’s a noise of an aeroplane in here,’ she said more urgently. ‘Is there a fella flying about?’
I swallowed. ‘No, no aeroplanes in here. You’re okay, it must be something you’re imagining. The medicine can do that to you.’
She rubbed her lips with the sheet. ‘Me skin’s terrible dry.’
‘Here.’ I applied some of her lip-cream. She pursed her lips up for me, making me smile.
‘Yeer hair needs a cut,’ she told me. ‘Ye have good hair, like me.’
‘Maybe I’ll get a chance to have it done in Fermoy.’
‘Don’t forget; nice cards.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Did ye speak to Father Brady at all?’
‘Not really, just hallo.’
‘I suppose, Rory, ye might come back to the faith one day. I pray to God every night of me life that ye will.’
I clenched my jaw, then relaxed. I stood and smoothed her sheet, looking down on my helpless tormentor.
‘Maybe, Mum. You never know what’ll happen, do you? Now have a sleep and if you’re up to it we’ll write your cards this evening.’
Fermoy was busy and rain-swept. I looked at Christmas lights and decorations and gave a pound to a Santa who shook a collection tin at me. I knew that Christmas was approaching, the signs were all around me, but I felt distant from it. It was going to have to happen and I thought that we should make an effort to observe it, but I felt no involvement. I wandered through shops, buying food, wondering what I could tempt my mother with. She was eating very little. I decided on a raspberry sorbet and a pack of lemon ice-lollies; her mouth was constantly dry. In the chemist’s I noticed a pack of 4711 cologne wet-wipes and bought them. It was the only scent she had ever worn; it brought back train and coach and boat journeys. I sniffed at the box as I handed the money over. Maybe, I thought, I would put some in the coffin with her, tucked into her shroud. In the card shop I bought several packs; scenes of the adoration of the Magi, shepherds watching flocks, a Madonna and baby. I checked that they all contained rhyming Christmas wishes. Several people stopped me in the street, people I recognized vaguely, and asked me how my mother was. I thanked them for their good wishes, remembering to check their names so that I could tell her. I found that this interest from strangers pierced me, bringing tears to my eyes. I had my hair cut in a barber’s, day-dreaming as he trimmed. I saw my mother in her bed, her rosary clasped by her ear. Part of me was back there, in the cottage. I knew that until she died I wouldn’t feel at home in my own body. I had an urgent wish to get back and startled the barber by twitching in the chair and asking him to finish quickly.
That night she came out into the living-room for a while and ate a couple of spoons of sorbet. Then we formed a Christmas card production line; she dictated what she wanted me to write and when I’d finished I handed the card to my father who addressed and stamped the envelope. Although she’d been keen to do the cards, she seemed half-hearted and distracted again. I had to keep prompting her and my father gazed at her anxiously.
‘Are you all right, Kitty? Do you want to stop?’
‘No, no. Carry on there. We need to get the job done.’
I understood, I thought, that she was setting herself little tasks. There were formalities to be observed: the priest, the cards, the visit from my father’s family, calls from neighbours. When, I wondered, might she decide that they were completed and would that be the moment when she’d go?
There was one subject I’d been loath to bring up, but this seemed the right time. I’d mentioned it to my father, but I could tell from his daunted expression that he couldn’t tackle it.
‘Mum, do you want any of your family contacted? I could do that if you like.’
She chewed at her lip and pulled her blanket around her. My father tidied the stack of cards, squaring them.
‘Ye could write to Biddy, if she’s still there. Maybe she’s dead. They might all be dead and buried for all I know.’ She shivered. ‘I’m cold, this ould room’s awful draughty.’
My father rattled the fire and stacked turf on. She had always loved a big fire with a red-hot glow. In Tottenham she would build chimney roarers, defying the law and continuing to use ordinary coal instead of smokeless because she said it gave out better heat. One evening, when my father was on a late shift, she had set the chimney ablaze and had had to call the fire brigade. The head fireman had gazed at her in awe and asked her what had she been trying to do, roast an ox? She had muttered to his departing back that he was so sharp he’d better watch out or he might cut himself. Then she had set about clearing away all signs of the disaster, saying that I wasn’t to mention it to my father; he’d be tired out when he got in and it wasn’t worth worrying him. I knew that this was nonsense and that the reason she didn’t want him to know was because he’d warned her many times about her enthusiastic fires, predicting just such an event.
Dermot rang, as he did every night, speaking first to me or my father, then to my mother. Afterwards, as she made her tortuous way to the bathroom, leaning on her stick, she spoke to herself: ‘Ah sure, we didn’t do so bad with our children, not so bad at all.’
A Test from God
A point would come, during each summer holiday near Bantry, when my mother and grandmother had a falling out. A coolness would set in for a couple of days. This falling out was sometimes over an incident, such as the time when my mother let the pig into the vegetable garden and it decimated the cabbages, but more often than not there was no apparent cause. I would know that the falling out was signalled when my grandmother headed off up the fields to see her neighbours, the Donavans. Then my mother would take me on a trip to Cork.
We would rise early and walk the three miles to Bantry to wait for the bus or the bone-shaker, as my mother called it. It was a low-slung vehicle with a long-lost suspension, driven by a distant cousin of hers, Denny Sullivan. Denny had thick pebble glasses, a fat upper lip and a permanently lop-sided grin. He wore wellingtons all year round.
My grandmother had told me that Denny was a bit gone in the head, that one of the fairies had sneaked into his cot when he was a baby and stolen some of his sense for the fairy king. Now and again, about three times a year, Denny would have one of his ‘episodes’ and take off with the bus. Ignoring his waiting passengers he accelerated past them and headed for Athlone. Apparently he liked the safe feeling of being in the very middle of Ireland. The police in Athlone knew him, and would ring the bus company in Bantry to tell them he was back. He would park overnight in the main street, buy himself chips, chocolate and Little Nora lemonade and sleep in the bus after feasting royally. The next day he drove home and carried on as normal, comforted by his trip to Ireland’s womb.
Although Denny spoke extremely slowly I found his rolling accent almost impenetrable, but my mother would chat away to him as he lazed his way to Cork at twenty miles an hour. He was fascinated by all things English and would ask her about London.
‘Tell me now, have ye been to see de Towerrr and Buckingham Palis?’
‘Oh, ages ago. The Queen was there when we went to the palace.’
‘Did ye see herrr?’
‘No, no. But the flag was up.’
‘And do ye have dem moving shtairrs, dem tings?’
‘Escalators. Oh, we do. We have loads of them in the Underground.’
‘And what’s dat?’
‘There’s trains that go under the ground all around London.’
‘Yerra Jaysus God! Arrre ye takin’ de mickey?’
‘Not at all. Sure it’s been there years.’
‘And tell me now, do ye have dem colourrred people
in London, de ones wit de darrrk shkins?’
‘There’s people from India living a few doors away, sure.’
‘And would dere be an odourrr frrrom deirrr shkins now?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well now, tell me; do ye tink ’tis betterrr to live in London or New Yorrrk?’
That would have her flummoxed. ‘Well sure, I couldn’t be saying that because I haven’t been to New York.’
‘New Yorrrk is verrry big altogetherrr,’ Denny would remark sagely and my mother would nod, unable to argue with that.
He must have been terribly fired up by his conversation with her one year because to her horror, he turned up on the doorstep in Tottenham on a fine September morning, the sun glinting off his jam jar specs. He was still wearing his wellingtons. He had broken the habit of fifteen years and driven the bus to Ringaskiddy, where he had caught the ferry to Swansea. He announced that he wanted to get a job on de big rrred London buses and drrrive past de Towerrr and de Palis. In de meantime, did my mother have any Little Norrra limonade as he was terrrible parrrched and dey’d had divil a dhrop on de trrrain.
My mother took some extra tranquillizers and phoned the priest and my father at work. After a long talk with Denny, Father Corcoran managed to persuade him that London would be an awful place to live; if people here tried to drive buses wherever they liked they got arrested and – this proved to be the clincher – Little Nora lemonade was nowhere to be found in the length and breadth of England. Denny went back quite happily two days later, but it took my mother several months to get over the shock. She was circumspect in her conversations with him after that, taking care not to make London sound attractive.
During the summer of my twelfth year my mother and grandmother had words about who’d had the last of the bacon for breakfast on one Tuesday morning. My mother and I were therefore on Denny’s bus by ten, headed for Cork. My mother had noticed in the Cork Examiner that a new shop selling religious goods had opened by the quays; Martha and Mary it was called and there were special half-price opening offers. Denny had driven even more slowly than usual because of a suspect axle and we were thirsty when we arrived. My mother decided that we’d have a snack in Maggie Murphy’s, one of her preferred watering holes, before we started shopping.
Unfortunately, Maggie Murphy’s had changed hands, although it cunningly continued with the same name. The café was up a stairs above a bakery, and the first sign that all was not well was when my mother saw that the usual pristine white linen tablecloths had been replaced with stained red-checked gingham. We gave our order for cheese sandwiches and a pot of tea to a listless young girl.
‘Sorry,’ she said, not sounding at all sorry, ‘we’ve no cheese.’
‘How d’ye mean?’ my mother asked.
‘We’re out of cheese.’
‘How can ye be out of cheese? There’s a shop that sells it over the road.’
‘We don’t get it from there, we have it delivered and it hasn’t come.’
The girl tossed her long hair back and I saw my mother stiffen.
‘I’ve been coming here for ten years and I’ve never known ye to run out of cheese.’
‘I’ll have egg,’ I volunteered, wanting to deflect an argument.
My mother shot me a look. ‘Could ye not go and get cheese from over the road just this once? I’ve a hankering for cheese.’
‘No,’ said the girl simply.
My mother’s bosom juddered. ‘I see. That’s the way of things, is it? I’ll just have tea, so, and bring egg for me son.’
The girl scribbled disinterestedly on her pad and left us.
‘Oh, hold on!’ My mother winked at me and gestured.
The girl stopped in her tracks, sighed, blinked and sloped back.
‘Have ye a scone?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll have two of them with jam. I suppose ye have jam?’
‘Yes.’
My mother picked up the tablecloth after she’d gone and fingered the wood underneath. ‘Dirty,’ she said with satisfaction. ‘This ould place has gone downhill. Look at the sugar bowl, there’s crusty bits at the edges. I wouldn’t be surprised if they bring the milk bottle to the table.’
There were crusty bits around the sugar bowl at home but I forbore to mention this. I looked at the prints of the Blasket Islands on the walls.
‘I stopped her gallop though,’ my mother commented sotto voce. ‘Did you see the way I called her back? Barefaced young jade.’
After a long quarter of an hour during which my mother drummed her fingers on the table and pronounced that if this was the way Ireland was going, Dev might as well not have bothered arguing with John Bull, the girl slouched in with a tray.
‘Did ye have to go to India for the tea?’ my mother asked.
The girl didn’t answer, but shoved our food onto the table and left a bill by the milk. Her feet slip-slopped from her shoes as she vanished.
‘Look at the cut of her,’ my mother said, attacking a scone. ‘’Twould be a long day before you’d get a civil answer out of that one.’
‘Maybe her dog’s just died,’ I said.
My mother pulled a face as she bit into her scone. ‘This ould thing’s stale, I’d say they’ve had it a week. What’s the sandwich like?’
‘All right.’
‘Hmm. Let’s try the tea. That’s always been good here, strong enough to cut with a knife.’
It was thin and pale, a poor imitation of the brew she’d been anticipating.
‘Ye wouldn’t credit it, would ye?’ my mother asked. ‘’Tis like ould donkey’s wee-wee. That one did it on purpose. I could tell she was going to do the dirty.’ She picked up the bill. ‘The cheek of it! A pound for ould rubbish that wouldn’t satisfy a starving man and it was the last thing on this earth to eat! Finish up there, will ye, I want to get out of this hellhole.’
I gamely swallowed my dry sandwich, washing it down with gulps of the donkey’s wee-wee. As I finished, my mother grabbed the teapot and up-ended it, creating a lake on the table and floor. Then she took a spoon and scooped strawberry jam into the flood, smearing it in well. It looked like modern art, the kind of effort where the artist flings paint randomly at the canvas.
‘That’ll show them,’ she said, hoisting her bag.
The sullen girl appeared as she threw the money onto the sodden, jammy table.
‘Dreadfully sorry,’ my mother said in her pseudo upper-class accent, ‘we had a little accident, don’tcha kneow. I’m afraid yew’ve got some work to do, I hope yew don’t pass out with the shock.’
Martha and Mary improved my mother’s mood. She became positively gleeful when we stepped through the door. The counters and shelves were chock full of items to aid devotion, made by the needy and deserving; a heady combination. There were piles of framed holy pictures produced in a workshop for the blind, rosaries from an African cooperative, crucifixes in all sizes and three types of wood from a leper colony, prayer books sent from the Punjab, mass cards from secret Catholic groups in Poland, musical plastic holy water fonts made by polio victims and hymnals illustrated by paralysed artists who painted with their brushes in their mouths. She bought a picture of the holy family featuring a very plump baby Jesus, a holy water font that played ‘Silent Night’ when you dipped a finger in and a bottle of holy water blessed by the Bishop of Cork to go with it.
We sat down on a sun-warmed bench by the River Lee so that she could look again at her purchases. I had to hold the font while she poured some holy water in and tested it. The tinkling strains of the carol rang unseasonally forth.
‘That’s dotey,’ a wistful little voice said.
We looked around. A small girl with ginger hair tied in plaits, wearing a grubby blue-and-white dress with a sailor collar was standing by us.
‘D’ye like it?’ my mother asked, holding it near her.
‘Oh I do, I do,’ the little girl said. She had green eyes with brown flecks in them and a solemn
expression. She peered more closely. ‘Is that Our Lady at the top there?’ she asked.
‘It is, God’s blessed mother.’
The girl pressed her hands together. ‘Isn’t she beeootiful,’ she said. ‘I never knew she was so beeootiful.’
‘Would ye like to take some holy water?’ my mother offered. ‘’Twill play the tune for ye.’
‘Can I? Can I really?’ She held out a hesitant finger.
‘Wisha ye can, of course, alannah. Isn’t it lovely to see a child wanting to offer praise to Our Lady? Won’t it warm the Virgin’s heart?’
My mother’s accent was becoming more pronounced. I looked at her curiously.
The girl carefully dipped a tiny finger into the font. ‘Silent Night’ played for her. Her hands flew dramatically to her cheeks. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, ‘’tis magic! Is it Our Lady doing that?’
My mother smiled indulgently. ‘Well now, maybe ’tis. Who can be the judge? What’s yeer name, acushla?’
‘Erin.’
‘Well, God save the heroes! Isn’t that lovely! The very name of Ireland itself! And where’s yeer mammy and daddy?’
Erin glanced down. ‘Me mammy’s dead. Me daddy’s gone to sell a horse. He’ll be back here for me at six o’clock.’
‘He’s left ye alone? How old are ye?’
‘I’m eight.’ She sat down beside my mother who shifted me along to make room. ‘Me daddy has to sell the horse, he’s done it before. Then he has to have a pint to set him up.’ She tapped my mother’s arm. ‘D’ye see that hotel across the road?’
‘I do, what of it?’
Erin laughed. ‘I went in there just now and had a bath, ’twas gorgeous. Lashings of hot water and big soft towels. I hardly ever get a bath on the road.’
‘Ye little divil ye,’ my mother laughed admiringly. ‘Are ye travellers then?’
‘We are. We travel all over the country.’
‘And good for ye!’ my mother approved. ‘Aren’t ye a great little character? And ye’re all alone ’til this evening?’
Erin nodded. ‘I get a biteen lonely sometimes.’
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