Matters of Life & Death

by Bernard Maclaverty

  ‘And run the tap for a while,’ said Aunt Cissy laughing. ‘Bring him in.’

  ‘The more the merrier,’ said my father.

  ‘Wait till you hear this, Mr Tully. Our Hugo.’ Brendan went into the kitchen and ran the tap very fast into the sink. He carried a full cup into the room and called Hugo from the door. Hugo edged into the room and accepted the cup. There was silence and everybody watched him drink. Hugo was a serious young man who was trying to grow a beard.

  Father Barney joined his hands behind his back and rose on his toes. He said, ‘So you like to run the tap for a while?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘The pipes here are lead. And lead is poison. Not good for the brain.’

  ‘The Romans used a lot of lead piping,’ said Father Barney, winking at Charlie. ‘Smart boys, the Romans. They didn’t do too badly.’

  ‘No – you’re right, Father. But maybe it’s what destroyed their Empire,’ said Hugo. ‘Being reared to drink poison helps no one.’

  Father Barney sucked in his cheeks and rolled his eyes. ‘I need a whisky after that slap down.’ Aunt Cissy moved to the sideboard where the bottle was kept. ‘Cissy fill her up with water, lead or no lead. Will anybody join me? What – no takers, at all?’ He held up his glass. ‘To Mr Tully here. God guide your golden boots.’ Granda came downstairs and had to push the door open against the people inside.

  ‘What am I missing?’ he said.

  ‘A drink,’ said Father Barney. Granda looked around in mock amazement.

  ‘He’s getting no drink at this time of the day,’ said Aunt Cissy. Granda was still wearing his dark Sunday suit and the waistcoat with his watch-chain looped across it. On his way to mass he wore a black bowler hat.

  ‘It’s getting a bit crowded in here,’ Granda said, looking around the room. ‘Reminds me of the day McCormack sang in our house in Antrim. There was that many in the room we had to open the windows so’s the neighbours outside could hear him.’

  ‘Count John McCormack?’ said Charlie Tully.

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘How did the maestro end up in your house?’

  ‘Oh, he was with Terry there, some organ recital.’

  ‘And what did he sing?’

  ‘Everything. Everything but the kitchen sink. “Down by the Sally Gardens”, “I Hear You Calling Me”.’

  ‘It was some show,’ said Terry Lennon, putting his head back as if listening to it again.

  ‘Would you credit that?’ said Charlie. ‘I met a man who knows Count John McCormack.’

  There was a strange two-note cry from the hallway: ‘Yoo-hoo.’

  ‘Corinna,’ said Cissy and pulled a face. The door was pushed open and Corinna and her sister, Dinky, stood there.

  ‘Full house the day,’ said Corinna. She eased herself into the room. Dinky remained just outside.

  ‘The house is crowded out, even to the door,’ said my father.

  ‘Is there any chance of borrowing an egg, Cissy? I’d started the baking before I checked.’ Cissy went into the kitchen and came back with an egg which she handed to Corinna.

  ‘Thanks a million. You’re too good.’ Corinna stood with the egg between her finger and thumb. ‘What’s the occasion?’ She vaguely indicated the full room.

  ‘Charlie Tully,’ said Cissy. ‘This is Corinna Coyle. And her sister Dinky.’ Cissy pointed over heads in the direction of the front hall. Dinky went up on her toes and smiled.

  ‘A good-looking man,’ said Corinna.

  ‘Worth eight thousand pounds in transfer fees,’ said Father Barney.

  ‘He’s above rubies, Cissy. Above rubies.’ And away she went with her egg and her sister.

  ‘So,’ said Granda, ‘will we ever see Charlie Tully playing again on this side of the water?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Internationals,’ said Hugo.

  ‘But it’s not the same thing,’ said Granda, ‘as watching a man playing week in, week out. That’s the way you get the whole story.’

  ‘There’s talk of a charity game with the Belfast boys later in the year,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Belfast Celtic and Glasgow Celtic?’ Granda was now leaning forward with his elbows on the table. ‘There wouldn’t be a foul from start to finish.’

  ‘Where’d be the fun in that?’ said Father Barney. ‘Cissy, I’ll have another one of those.’

  Cissy went to the sideboard and refilled the glass. ‘Remember you’ve a car to drive.’

  Barney ignored her and pointed at my father. ‘Johnny there would design you a programme for that game. For nothing. He’s a good artist.’

  ‘Like yourself Charlie,’ said Granda.

  ‘Is that the kinda thing you do?’ Charlie said.

  ‘Yeah sure,’ said my father. Barney started mock shouting as if he was selling programmes outside the ground. Some of his whisky slopped over the rim of the glass as he waved his arms. My father smiled.

  ‘Have you been somewhere – before here?’

  ‘On a Sunday morning?’

  Barney looked over to Charlie Tully. ‘Johnny does work for every charity in the town. The YP Pools, the St Vincent de Paul, the parish, even the bloody bishop – no friend of mine – as you well know – his bloody nibs. Your Grace.’ He gave a little mock inclination of the head. Cissy ordered Brendan out of his chair and told Barney to sit and not be letting the side down.

  ‘So Charlie,’ said Granda, ‘the truth from the insider – is there no chance of Belfast Celtic starting up again?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘We gave in far too easily. In my day when somebody gave you a hiding, you fought back.’

  ‘Aye, it’s all up when your own side makes you the scapegoat,’ said Aunt Cissy.

  ‘I mean to say,’ Granda’s voice went up in pitch. ‘What were they thinking of?’

  ‘The game of shame.’

  ‘A crowd of bigots.’

  ‘They came streaming onto that pitch like . . . like . . . bloody Indians.’

  ‘Indians are good people,’ said Hugo.

  ‘. . . and they kicked poor Jimmy Jones half to death. Fractured his leg in five places. And him one of their own. It ended his career.’

  ‘Take it easy, Da,’ said Father Barney and slapped the arm of his chair.

  ‘You were at the game?’ said Charlie Tully.

  ‘Aye and every other one they’ve ever played,’ said Granda. ‘I don’t know what to do with myself on a Saturday afternoon now. I sometimes slip up to Cliftonville’s ground but it’s not the same thing. Solitude. It’s well named.’ Granda was shaking his head from side to side. ‘I just do not understand it. What other bunch of people would do it? The board of directors,’ he spat the words out. ‘The team gets chased off the pitch, its players get kicked half to death and what do they do? OK, we’re going to close down the club. That’ll teach you. In the name of Jesus . . .’ Granda stopped talking because he was going to cry. He looked hard at the top of the window and he kept swallowing. Again and again. Nobody else said anything. ‘Why should we be the ones sacrificed? Is there no one on our side who has any guts at all?’

  ‘Take it easy,’ said my father. ‘They have the sectarian poison in them.’ He reached out and put his hand on Granda’s shoulder. Shook him a little.

  Granda recovered himself a bit and said, ‘It would put you in mind of the man who got a return ticket for the bus – then he fell out with the conductor so, to get his own back, he walked home. That’ll teach him.’

  There were smiles at that. The room became silent.

  ‘It was a great side,’ said Charlie Tully at last. ‘Kevin McAlinden, Johnny Campbell, Paddy Bonnar . . .’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘And what a keeper Hugh Kelly was.’

  ‘Aye and Bud Ahern . . .’

  ‘Billy McMillan and Robin Lawlor.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Jimmy Jones and Eddie McMorran and who
else?’

  ‘You’ve left out John Denver.’

  ‘And the captain, Jackie Vernon.’

  ‘And yourself, Charlie,’ said Granda. ‘Let’s not forget yourself, maestro.’

  Sometime later that year – which became known to Granda as ‘the year Charlie Tully called’ as opposed to ‘the year McCormack sang in the house in Antrim’ – I noticed drawings and sketches of my father’s lying about the house. They were of players in Celtic hoops in the act of kicking or heading a ball. Their bodies were tiny cartoons but their heads were made from oval photos of the real players.

  * * *

  It was many years later – half a century, in fact – before I would remember these drawings again. My father died when I was twelve and my mother was so distraught that she threw out all his things. If she was reminded of him she would break down and weep so every scrap of paper relating to him had to be sacrificed.

  Recently I was in Belfast and I wondered if there might be a copy of the programme lying around Smithfield Market. I found a small shop entirely devoted to football programmes so I went in and told them what I was looking for – a Belfast Celtic v Glasgow Celtic match programme from the early fifties.

  The man looked at me and said, ‘Put it this way. I’m a collector and I’ve never seen one.’

  I was disappointed. Then he said, ‘If you do catch up with it, you’ll pay for it.’

  ‘How much?’ I was thinking in terms of twenty or thirty quid.

  ‘A thousand pounds. Minimum.’

  I’m not really impressed by that kind of rarity value – but in this case I thought, ‘Good on you, Johnny. After all the work for charity.’ If that price is accurate I don’t want to own the real thing – but I wouldn’t mind seeing a photocopy. A photocopy would be good. Above rubies, in fact.

  THE WEDDING RING

  Ellen Tierney 1884–1904

  Annie Walsh, a stout woman in her early sixties, stood at the ironing board smoothing a white pillowcase. She liked to use two irons so that she could work continuously – smoothing with one while the other was heating. Her sister Susan, younger by twelve years, sat on a stool by the kitchen range with a hanky in her hand. She had not cried for some time, but it was at the ready because she knew she would cry again soon.

  ‘Will you be using the goffering iron?’ she asked.

  ‘Aye – a wee touch.’

  Susan put the poker between the bars into the red heart of the fire.

  ‘One more should finish it,’ said Annie. The ironing board creaked as she put her full weight on the material. Susan set the next hot iron on its heel near her sister’s hand. Annie picked it up and spat the tiniest of spits onto its surface, testing it. The moisture fizzed and danced on the black shine, then disappeared. Annie finished the pillowcase and started on the nightgown. When she came to the lace at the neck she nodded for the poker. Susan tried to withdraw it from the fire but the handle was hot, even through the handkerchief. Annie made an exasperated noise with her tongue. The poker was red hot and when dust motes touched it they momentarily sparked white. Annie quickly inserted it into the hollow tube of the goffering iron, then grasped the moist lace in her hands and pressed it over the tube. The material made sighing noises here and there as she worked her way around it. When she was finished she held her work at arm’s length.

  ‘Ready?’ Her sister sat, not saying anything. ‘I could still send for Emily Mooney to help. But I feel it’s something we should do ourselves. Keep it in the family.’

  Annie always wore a gold cross pinned horizontally to the dark material at her throat. If she wore it the right way up the top irritated the underside of her double chin. And she was forever looking down – at her prayer book or her embroidery. Even on other people. She was taller than most and bigger in girth. Mr McDonald, the boarder who had stayed with them longest, described her as ‘a ship in full sail’.

  ‘Some soap.’ Susan lifted a bar of carbolic from the wall cupboard and sawed a slice off it.

  ‘Is that enough?’

  ‘Remember to wash that knife – or it’ll taste the bread.’ Annie picked up the pillowcase and ran her hand over its surface. ‘The Belfast linen looks so rich.’ You could see by her eyes that she had been crying too. But she had finished and was determined not to start again.

  Susan thought her sister the strongest person she knew. Everything she did, she did with determination. The knock at the door at all hours of the day and night would be for her – to bring somebody into the world or to lay somebody out. And there were times the two things happened together. Their younger sister, Elizabeth Tierney, had died giving birth to her first child, Ellie. Five years later Ellie’s father had died of consumption and the two of them had reared the child as if she was one of their own. All this as well as running a boarding house for three, sometimes four gentlemen.

  Annie made a pile of the sheets and pillowcases and set the soap and face-cloth on top of the nightgown. Her white apron was stiffened with starch and it created small noises in the silence as she moved about her business.

  ‘It’s all about appearances, Susan – giving the right impression.’ Susan washed the bread knife then filled the ewer from the steaming kettle and set it in the basin. She looked distraught.

  ‘Be brave,’ said Annie.

  ‘I can hardly believe we’re sisters,’ said Susan.

  ‘Is that water warm enough?’ Annie cupped her hand to the side of the delft but pulled it away quickly. She picked up all her paraphernalia and began climbing the narrow staircase. Susan followed her to the return room carrying the ewer and basin.

  The blind was down darkening the bedroom. Susan refused to look at the bed and set the ewer and basin on the marble-topped dresser. She stood facing the wall on the edge of tears again. Annie raised the blind. The light was harsh.

  ‘Maybe keep it down,’ said Susan. ‘I know nobody can see in, but . . .’ Annie thought, then shrugged and pulled the blind halfway down.

  ‘I usher them into the world and I wash them on their way out,’ she said.

  ‘But this is Ellie – family – your niece.’

  ‘Susan – you’re forgetting – it was me brought Ellie into the world.’ The figure in the bed was covered by a pink satin eiderdown, which Annie herself had quilted and sewn. She took a deep breath and pulled it back.

  The girl’s body lay straight and to attention. A pillow supported her chin and coins weighted her eyes. Annie took them off and the lids remained closed. There was a chink as she dropped the pennies into her apron pocket. The bedclothes fell quietly to the floor. Susan put both hands to her mouth and began whispering over and over again.

  ‘Ellie – oh wee Ellie.’

  ‘God rest her soul.’

  ‘I thought she was improving last night,’ said Susan, ‘when she got up for a while. Said it eased the pain – sitting on her hot-water bottle – God love her.’

  ‘And when she was anointed – that helped,’ said Annie. ‘It was more than good of Father Logan to come out so late.’

  ‘The doctors said there was nothing they could do.’

  ‘The kidney man from the Mater is supposed to be the best in the world,’ said Annie. ‘It’s amazing what they can cure nowadays. Help me lift her.’

  ‘Where’s the best place for my hands?’ Annie showed her. Ellie was cold to the touch. The two women raised the body and Annie pulled the nightgown off over Ellie’s head and down the stiffening arms. They carefully laid her flat again. Susan looked shyly away from the body’s whiteness and triangle of dark hair. Annie modestly covered it with a small linen towel. The material was dry and remained tented like cloth drying on a hedge.

  Then Annie noticed a chain – a long chain around Ellie’s neck. There was a ring on it.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘A gold ring.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I know nothing about it.’

/>   Annie turned the ring between her fingers. The fine chain holding it glittered as it moved. ‘Why would anybody want to wear the likes of that? Instead of on your finger.’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Down her bosom?’ Susan began folding the nightgown. ‘A wedding ring too,’ said Annie as she moved to the marble washstand to pour some hot water into the basin. She wetted and soaped a face-cloth and began washing Ellie’s face, damping and pushing back the black hair from her forehead, making sure the eyes stayed closed. When she had finished the face she moved onto the body. Susan watched mesmerised by the way the skin moved, just as it would in life. The chain with the ring was in the way and Annie disentangled it and took it off over Ellie’s head.

  ‘You’ve never seen this before?’ Annie wrinkled up her blunt nose and held up the chain.

  ‘No. It’s just a ring – all girls love to have rings.’

  ‘But a wedding ring?’

  ‘Especially a wedding ring.’

  ‘Ellie could never have afforded this. You know how much one of these costs?’

  Susan shook her head. No, she didn’t. Sadly.

  Annie was about to hang it on the bedpost when she paused.

  ‘There’s writing here. Inside. I can’t make it out. It’s too small. Susan, away and get me my specs.’

  Susan left the room and creaked down the stairs. It was only recently that she’d needed glasses herself. Before that her eyesight had been good but now, definitely, she needed them for close work like darning or for reading a newspaper. Annie despite being so much older claimed she’d no use for them.

  ‘Good light is all you need,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t miss much if you never read a newspaper. You have your eyes wore out, Susan.’

  On the rare occasion she did need to see fine print she’d resort to a lorgnette which she kept in the drawer of the bureau bookcase. Susan, now with the lorgnette in her hand, climbed the staircase slowly as if it was the highest and longest staircase in the world. She knew what was coming and was filled with dread.

  Susan passed the ring to her sister. Annie brought the lorgnette to her nose and focused on the inscription. ‘For Ellie – my love – and – I can’t make out whether that’s life or wife.’ Annie moved closer to the window and held it lower to catch the light coming beneath the blind. ‘What do you think?’ She passed the ring to Susan who read it off almost without looking.