Irish Chain

by Barbara Haworth-Attard

  Winnie scowled at me.

  “I’d like to go see, myself,” Duncan said. “But there are people waiting for their milk delivery.”

  He slapped the reins against the horse’s flank. “Have a good day at school, girls.”

  There was no such thing as a good day at school, I wanted to tell him, but by the time I thought to say it, he was gone.

  “Winnie, we have to go.” But my feet couldn’t move as I watched a ball of yellow fire climb up inside the black smoke. I shivered and wrapped my arms about myself.

  “Holy cow! Did you see that? Can’t we just go look for a minute? Everyone else is. I bet Fred and Da are watching,” Winnie begged. “Look at all those people on the roof over there. I bet they can see everything.”

  I shook my head and grabbed her hand. A sense of urgency moved my feet quickly toward St. Joseph’s School, and it wasn’t all fear of Sister Frances. I was suffering an attack of the nerves, as Granny would say. We arrived to find the schoolyard deserted.

  “See, now we’re late. Just because you had to stop and look,” I hissed. I gave Winnie’s arm a sharp poke.

  Winnie stuck out her tongue at me and ran into the school. I followed, hurrying past the statue of the Virgin Mary and the piano to the stairs. Catherine and Martha climbed in front of me. I wasn’t surprised to see Catherine—she wasn’t Catholic, so the Sisters excused her from morning prayers—but Martha was late like me. They turned at the sound of my steps.

  “Why, Rose. I really didn’t think you’d be coming back,” Catherine said.

  “I don’t know what would make you think that,” I said airily.

  Martha ducked her head and looked ill at ease. Well, I thought, she should. How could she be my friend one day and not the next? A fair-weather friend, that’s what she was.

  “Well, you have so much trouble with your schoolwork and all, because you’re slow, and your mother was here yesterday to see the principal,” Catherine went on.

  She made me so mad, I swear my blood boiled. I pushed past them both, head held high. “I have every intention of getting an education. I’m planning to work in a bank like my sister Mary.”

  Catherine might have a war hero father in France, but she didn’t have a sister who worked in a bank.

  We had reached the top of the stairs. My classroom was off to the right, Catherine’s and Martha’s to the left; we shared a cloakroom at the back of the hall. Catherine gave me a small shove as she went to hang up her coat.

  “Girls.” Sister Frances stuck her head around the classroom door. Her eyes narrowed angrily. “You’re late and you’re interrupting morning prayers. Get your coats off immediately and get to your classrooms.”

  I scurried to the cloakroom. Catherine and Martha had hung up their coats and were walking rapidly to their class, Martha ahead of Catherine. My fingers fumbled with buttons as I struggled to remove my jacket. Sister Frances had the effect of making me all thumbs. I suddenly looked up, alert. Too quiet, the air too still, then, no breath in my body. A brilliant flash. A tremendous boom. Weightless, I flew backward into the cloakroom. Windowpanes sucked inward and shattered. Sharp silver darts fell on my head and arms. I instinctively raised my hands to protect my head. Walls collapsed and plaster rained down as the building exploded. Then, utter silence and blackness. I’d been struck deaf and blind. Someone screamed. Me? No—Catherine, I thought. On and on she shrieked, then others joined. I wished I couldn’t hear.

  I tried to open my eyes but the lids stuck together. Panicked, I clawed at them. My fingers came away sticky wet, but at least I could partially see again. Through swirling dust, I could make out the shadowy form of Catherine laying outside her classroom door. A large portion of the floor between us was gone. She screamed again.

  “Stop it,” I croaked, then said more loudly, “Be quiet!” I crawled toward her, keeping to the perimeter of the cloakroom and hall. I didn’t want to be sucked down into that black hole. I stretched out a hand and wrapped my fingers around Catherine’s wrist. “Stop it.” I shook her arm. It was important she stop screaming, because I still wasn’t sure it wasn’t me making that terrible noise.

  “Where’s Martha?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” Catherine gasped. “What is it? What happened?”

  A loud crack brought our heads up to see a large section of the floor in the classroom behind Catherine give way. Girls and desks plunged to the floor below. Dust thickened again and closed my throat. I coughed so violently I thought my lungs would burst. On hands and knees, I felt my way to the stairs. Catherine gripped my skirt, and I dragged her behind me. Still crawling, I made my way down the sides of the stairs, avoiding the empty spaces where steps had disappeared. Somehow I made it to the bottom. Through the gloom and dust, the white marble statue of the Virgin swayed back and forth in a frightening ghost dance—Winnie. I had to get to Winnie in the downstairs classroom. I shook Catherine off me and stumbled through the hall over crushed desks and plaster and bodies. Suddenly a beefy hand gripped my wrist so hard I yelped with pain. Nails dug into my flesh.

  “Get on your knees. Pray! Pray, you wicked girl. It’s the end of the world.”

  Sister Frances had hold of me and would not let go. I kicked and struggled. A snap from the ceiling distracted her momentarily. As she loosened her grip on my arm, my fingers found the beads and cross about her neck. I twisted them and broke the chain. Sister Frances released me with a cry of rage.

  I scrambled away from her on all fours. Above me, the roof dipped and white plaster drifted down. I feared it might cave in on me. I’d be no use to Winnie if I got trapped inside the school. I saw that the lid of the piano tilted toward a window. I could slide down it and out into the yard.

  “Help me,” Catherine screamed.

  I debated leaving her, then turned back. I pulled her up and shoved her to the piano. “Get up on it,” I ordered.

  Surprisingly, she did as I said and slid on her back down the lid of the piano and out the window. Another girl took her place, and I helped her, too, to slide out the window. I started to follow, when a voice in the gloom stopped me.

  “Is someone there?”

  It was Sister Therese.

  “Yes, it’s Rose,” I answered.

  “Rose, I can’t see, but I’ve brought some of the little girls from downstairs. Can you help them out?” Sister Therese asked calmly.

  A chain of girls was attached to her habit, each holding the next one’s hand. One by one I slid them down the piano top and out the window, then helped Sister Therese onto my makeshift slide. I followed her into a nightmare.

  Nuns and girls lay on red-stained ground, some moving, others still. Many wandered about aimlessly. It was eerily quiet, the only sound an occasional moan or a crack as the collapsed school shifted. As soon as she saw me, Catherine latched onto my skirt again. Nothing could remove her, so I pulled her along with me as I searched.

  “Winnie! Winnie!” I yelled, my voice overly loud in the silence.

  As I rounded the corner of the school, I saw her seated beneath a tree, arms wrapped around her body. I ran up to her.

  “Winnie, are you hurt?”

  She rocked to and fro and raised her head, but her eyes remained unfocussed. I tried to examine her, but she wouldn’t unwrap her arms from her knees. As best I could see, she had some cuts and bruises but no serious injury. I pulled her to her feet.

  “What happened?” Martha came up beside us, eyes wide and frightened in a face covered in dust. I barely recognized her.

  “I don’t know,” I told her. “How did you get out?”

  “I was in the doorway,” she replied. “I think it protected me. The whole room went down. Our classroom. I followed you and Catherine down the stairs. Then you slid me along the piano lid,” she said. “Right behind Catherine.”

  In my fear and confusion, I hadn’t realized Martha was behind us, or that I had helped her out the window.

  We stared at our ravaged school. Walls were half
collapsed, the cupola on top tilted crazily to one side. The front door swayed drunkenly on its hinges. A few men reached the school and ran into the building. They staggered back a few minutes later with girls in their arms, leaving red-ribbon trails on the ground behind them.

  My mind was ice-clear. I knew what I needed to do. I needed to find Mam and Da. They would help me wake and end this nightmare. For that was all this was—a nightmare.

  “Let’s go home, Winnie,” I said.

  Winnie said nothing, but her body shuddered violently. I took off my sweater and buttoned her into it, though I had to pry her arms from her sides to do so. I knew I should feel cold as I only had my blouse sleeves, but I didn’t feel anything. Not cold, not pain, even though blood ran down my arm and dripped from my fingers.

  “You’re bleeding,” Catherine said. “On your arm and head.”

  Somehow she still held onto my skirt. I tried to pull it from her hand, but she held tight and I didn’t have the energy to fight her.

  “You’re bleeding,” she repeated.

  I examined the flap of skin hanging above my elbow. White bone showed beneath, but I felt as if I were looking at someone else’s arm, not my own.

  I noticed then that Catherine’s white-blonde hair was streaked red. “You’re bleeding, too,” I said.

  She put a hand up to her head and began to wail. “I want to go home. I want my grandmother.”

  “Go home then,” I told her brutally. Maybe now she’d let go of my skirt.

  She looked around bewildered. “But where is my house?”

  Every house, store and building was flattened as far as I could see. The sugar refinery, the tallest building on the waterfront, had vanished. Panic rose in my throat. I turned to find the church, my place of safety, but even it, God’s house, was destroyed. We huddled closer together as we stared at the frightening landscape before us.

  Catherine whimpered. “I can’t find my house.”

  “Everyone together now.” A nun from the convent next to the school herded children before her into the yard. “Your parents will be here soon to get you.”

  I looked out at the destroyed city. What if Mam and Da couldn’t get here? What if they couldn’t find their way? I thought of Sister Frances’s death grip on my arm. I knew how grown-ups were. Once they got hold of me, they’d never let me go and find Mam or Da. I remembered the way to our house. I could see it in my mind. I could find it even with the streets and houses gone.

  “Come on, Winnie,” I said. Catherine and Martha crowded behind us. “Why don’t you go with the nuns,” I told them.

  “Please, let us come with you,” Martha said. “Please, Rose. I’m scared.”

  “Fine, but keep up,” I agreed reluctantly. I felt sorry for Martha-with-no-gumption, though it would take some doing to feel the same for Catherine.

  I closed my eyes and pictured the school, the streets, Catherine’s house, our own, until I had it so clear in my mind that it was a shock all over again to open them and see the devastation.

  “A white picket fence,” I said to Catherine.

  “What?”

  “Your grandmother’s house had a white picket fence around it. Ours did, too—”

  “Girls.” A nun headed toward us. I quickly moved away, Winnie, Catherine and Martha at my heels.

  Chapter 11

  My eyes saw terrible sights: a woman hanging lifeless over a windowsill; a man crushed beneath the collapsed wall of a house; a girl leading her little brother, his face a bloody pulp; a dray horse dead under the wagon it had recently pulled. My eyes saw all this horror, but my brain did not register it as I calmly picked my way over the rubble. I did, though, have the presence of mind to pull Winnie close to me and bury her face in my coat. I couldn’t be sure whether she shared my nightmare or not. She shivered uncontrollably now, her skin a pale shade of blue that worried me desperately. I would take Catherine home first, I decided, as she was closest, and I would be rid of her. Then I’d find Mam and Da so they could help Winnie. Martha, I’d worry about later.

  We stumbled along, me with Winnie in my arms, Catherine gripping my skirt and Martha behind. The silence was unnerving, the only sound a bell tolling in a church spire. One Christmas I had been given a set of wooden Pick-Up Sticks as a gift. You threw them down willy-nilly and then tried to carefully pick each up without moving another. I felt like I’d walked right into the middle of a giant’s game of Pick-Up Sticks: trees uprooted, telephone and electric poles snapped off, all tossed together haphazardly. Few buildings stood, and the ones that remained had windows that stared at us emptily and rooms that were sheared off with a bed or an enamel bathtub exposed. Wires spit sparks and I made a wide circle around them, though I didn’t slow my speed. I followed a map in my mind. Black smoke billowed from where the sugar refinery had once stood. I used it as my landmark in this unfamiliar world. I squinted up at the sky to see a yellow ball through a thick grey haze—the moon, I thought at first, then realized it was the sun. A million hours seemed to have passed since I got up that morning, though it had been only a few.

  A man ran up to us, chest and arms bare. His hair and face were drenched in a black oil, through which his eyes shone brilliant blue, and wild. Martha and Catherine immediately stepped behind me. I tightened my grip on Winnie.

  “Where am I?” he panted. His eyes roved frenetically. “What street is this?”

  I stared at his chest, pumping in and out like a bellows.

  “The Germans. They bombed us from their airships. The war’s come to us.” He cringed and looked into the sky. “Look! There they are. The airships.”

  I followed his pointing finger but didn’t see anything. “Where am I?” he repeated. He reached for me, but I stepped back, terrified.

  “Run,” I yelled. I grabbed Winnie’s hand and pulled her past the man. Frantic minutes later, I stopped to get my bearings. Our mindless flight had disoriented me. I closed my eyes for a moment to bring up the picture of our neighbourhood.

  “Germans. That man said the Germans did this,” Catherine spat at Martha. “Look what you’ve done to us!”

  “It wasn’t the Germans,” Martha said. “At least, it wasn’t us. We’re Canadians. My family are Canadians.”

  “You’re all spies. If my father was here, he’d get rid of you all,” Catherine told her.

  “Shut up,” I yelled. I didn’t care how rude I sounded, I needed to concentrate. It suddenly came to me where we were.

  “Your grandmother’s house is right here,” I said.

  “But there’s no house.” Catherine’s voice trembled. “And where’s my grandmother?”

  I picked up a few pieces of broken, white fence, then threw them down again. This was definitely the right spot. Beams, plaster, shattered glass, a chair with a broken leg and shingles were all that remained. A small curl of white smoke rose from the wreckage that had been Catherine’s home. A moment later, a lick of yellow flame shot up and took hold, no doubt fed by the coal in the overturned kitchen stove. What flitted into my mind was that Catherine’s grandmother might be beneath that pile, but I didn’t pay that thought much heed. I couldn’t.

  “Grandmother! Grandmother!” Catherine circled the yard. She gave a cry and plunged her hand into an opening in the rubble. “Look what I found.” She held up a doll, china head miraculously intact. She cradled it in her arms, crooning over it, and seemed to forget her grandmother.

  I stared at the growing flames, felt their heat on my face, and my feet wanted to fly home.

  “Maybe your grandmother is away,” I told Catherine. “I think you should go back to the school and wait for her. Maybe she’ll come looking for you there.”

  “No,” Catherine said stubbornly. “I’m going with you.”

  I sighed, but I’d already wasted enough time. I had to get home. “You can come with me,” I told Catherine, “but you can’t hold my skirt. I can’t walk properly.” At least I’d solved one problem.

  People streamed by us, so
me silent, others sobbing quietly, all dazed and shocked. Women in house clothes, no coats or boots, carried injured children in their arms. I tried not to look, but my eyes were drawn to the broken bodies. Men in nightshirts, recently abed from the late shift at the docks, tore at their destroyed homes with bare hands, shouting their wives’ and children’s names. We passed a man stripped of every article of clothing, except for his cap. Fear rose in my throat at this strange new world. A nightmare, I reminded myself. When I found Mam, she would wake me.

  “Patrick,” Winnie whispered, the first words she’d spoken.

  How she recognized him, I don’t know. He, too, was covered in the black, oily slick. I noticed then that he only had one shoe, his other foot bare.

  “Where’s your stocking and boot, Patrick?”

  It was the only thing I could think to say.

  He looked down at his foot, surprised. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “What’s all over you?” Catherine demanded.

  “It rained black,” Patrick replied.

  Suddenly, I remembered Patrick barrelling into our kitchen with news of the ships’ collision. I remembered red and yellow flames and dense smoke in the early morning sky. Patrick and Ernest had gone to look at the fire, and only Patrick stood in front of me now.

  “Where’s Ernest?” I asked him.

  “What?”

  “Ernest—where’s Ernest?”

  “He’s run home to get his binoculars so he can see the ships better. He should be back any minute now,” Patrick said.

  “What happened at the harbour?” I asked.

  He shook his head but didn’t reply. I wanted to cuff his ears in hopes it might make his brain work.

  Finally, he gathered himself together. “We went to see the ships. The fire. We started down the street, but Ernest said he needed his binoculars and went back home and then—” Patrick stopped and ran a pink tongue around his black lips. “I flew through the air. My ears hurt badly. Something hit my head, hard.” He rubbed the side of his head and his hand came away red mixed with black. “Next thing, I found myself up here, though I don’t know how I got here because I was down close to the docks.” His lips quivered as he relived his fear. “There was no one around. I thought everyone was dead except me.” Tears trickled over his oil-slick cheeks. “But Ernest should be here soon.”