‘No!’ It came out louder than anyone expected. Molly had never raised her voice to anyone in her life before, and especially not her parents, but she wouldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
Her father stood, and for the first time, she saw the greed for land in his eyes. It was a feature of life round there, men who dedicated their lives to the acquisition of land by fair means or foul, but her daddy wasn’t one of those men – or at least she used not to think so. Her father loved her. He brought her sweets from the mart and always hit the boys a clatter if they were teasing her. He would never want her to be unhappy, of course he wouldn’t. He just didn’t understand how deeply she felt her vocation.
She tried to keep her voice calm but failed. ‘I won’t, Daddy. I won’t marry him. I have a vocation. I belong to the Lord and I want to dedicate my life to Him. I can’t marry. I don’t want to.’ The last words escaped as a sob.
‘Molly’ – he moved to stand before her and he held her arms, but not hard – ‘the deal is struck, I’ve agreed, the papers are drawn up and everything. It’s all arranged. You’ll marry the Casey lad next month, and that’s all I want to hear about it.’
Molly wrenched herself free of his hold as she fought back the tears. ‘I’m not a cow you can sell at the mart, Daddy. I don’t want to marry anyone. I don’t care what you or Mammy say, you can’t make me. I’ll tell Father O’Rourke that I’m being forced into it, and he’ll stop it and –’
The sting across her cheek was more shocking than painful. Daddy had taken the belt to the boys so many times she’d lost count, but he had never once slapped her. Mammy neither. She never gave them cause.
‘Seamus!’ Her mother rushed to her side and put her arm around her.
‘She’ll do as she’s told,’ he barked, and went out of the kitchen door into the yard, where he roared at the boys for slacking off work, slamming the door behind him.
The remainder of the night was spent with her mother cajoling and wheedling, going on about cakes and dresses and shoes, but Molly didn’t respond. Surely she couldn’t be forced to marry someone? Surely it wasn’t allowed? And even if it was, her parents, the people who were supposed to love and protect her, they wouldn’t do it to her, would they?
It became evident that everyone was convinced the wedding was going ahead. Father O’Rourke had mentioned it to Mother Raphael before Molly even knew herself, she’d discovered, which is why the principal seemed reticent. Molly had tried several times to speak to her father, but he ignored her and left the room. The atmosphere in the house was horrible, and even the boys had stopped teasing her. In record time, a dress had been bought and shoes and food ordered for the wedding breakfast, and Molly felt like she was living a nightmare. No matter how much she cried or begged or pleaded, it fell on deaf ears. The plans for the wedding went ahead. Nobody, not even Father O’Rourke, who she waylaid one morning after early Mass, was willing to listen to her side.
The previous week, Finbarr came around for tea, in a clean shirt and with a cut on his face where he’d nicked himself with the razor. The boys were warned to within an inch of their lives that there was to be no messing or smart talk, and her mother made Molly wear a corset under a flowery dress. She could hardly breathe, it was so tight, and she felt so self-conscious because squeezing her middle made her breasts look even bigger. She voiced those concerns to her mother, who dismissed them, but she knew the moment she walked into the kitchen she was right. Her brothers looked mortified, and Finbarr seemed to fix his gaze into the corner over her head.
After tea everyone was moved into the good room, only used at Christmas and for the Stations, the annual Mass in the house. Pius and Billy were excused to hose down the milking parlour, and Kevin, who was the same age as Finbarr, looked uncomfortable on the overstuffed armchair with the antimacassars. The room smelled musty and vaguely of damp. Mammy wittered on about some nonsense, while her father, Finbarr and Kevin remained silent, each balancing a cup of tea in the good china dusted off for the occasion. Molly felt like she was in a play.
Afterwards, her mother suggested that she and Finbarr go to check on the calves, an activity Molly had never once engaged in before, so it was obviously a way of getting her and Finbarr alone together.
She hated every second of the evening – the horrible dress that was too tight, the way her mother had clipped her hair back from her face, the way Finbarr looked at her. He was all right, a nice lad, and she was sure he’d not been given much choice either.
She and her father had not spoken since that night he slapped her. The boys knew what was going on but they would never take her side; they wanted the land as much as her father did, even more maybe.
She remembered the cool breeze that night as they rounded the yard. It had rained all day and the ground was wet and muddy underfoot, the familiar smells of milk and dung combining. The calves were lowing in the barn, having been taken from their mothers. Her father cared no more for her feelings than he did for the poor little calves.
Daddy was in foul form, as he was trying to save all the hay and it was vital the rain stayed off, but Mother Nature had other plans and it had poured for days. The temperatures were much lower than normal too, and Molly felt like the world was in sympathy with her plight. She pulled her cardigan around her and Finbarr asked her if she was cold.
‘I am,’ she said sullenly. ‘Will we go back in?’
‘Or we could go to the barn,’ he suggested. ‘It’s nice and warm in there. I got you some barley sugars in the shop – Mrs Farrell said you liked them.’
Molly cursed Biddy Farrell for her nosey ways. So what if she liked barley sugars; there was no need to go blabbing her business to all and sundry.
She didn’t want to go to the barn with Finbarr, but if she went back in now, so soon, there would be questions. ‘All right.’ She sighed.
She walked quickly and he followed, he barely two inches taller than her and broad-shouldered, with a pleasant, open face. His nose was crooked where he’d had it broken playing hurling. There was a rumour he was good enough to make the county team. She knew some of the girls in school thought the Casey twins handsome, but she couldn’t see it. Mammy was right about one thing: If she had been looking for a husband, Finbarr would have been out of her league. He could have had any one of the pretty girls in Ballymichael, and if there wasn’t land involved, she was under no illusion that Finbarr would have looked sideways at her. Part of her felt sorry for him too; he could do so much better than her. She tried to reserve her resentment for her father and Donal Casey, because Finbarr was just a pawn in the game of getting more land the same as she was. He should be allowed to pick one of the pretty girls for himself, because she knew he wasn’t interested in her. She’d heard Pius sniggering about it with Kevin, wondering if she would crush him on the wedding night.
She stepped into the barn, where at least it was warmer. It was turning dusk, so she lit a lamp and sat on a bale. Finbarr took out the paper bag of wrapped barley sugars and handed it to her.
‘Thank you,’ she said. An idea occurred to her. ‘Do you want to marry me, Finbarr?’ she asked bluntly.
‘I do, of course. Sure you’re a fine hold of a girl, and you’d produce good strong boys.’ He now seemed mesmerised by her bust, and she pulled her cardigan tighter.
‘Really?’ Molly fixed him with a stare and he reddened.
‘Yeah, sure, why not. And ’twill make a grand job of the farms, joining them like we will. And sure as I said, you’d be well able to help with working the farm, not like the town girls running at the sight of a mouse. You’re a great cook, and sure what more would a man want from a wife?’
‘But you could have anyone, Finbarr…’ she began, hoping to lure him away from the marriage, which might be her only hope.
‘But I want you,’ he said, slowly moving towards her. He tried to kiss her but she recoiled. To her amazement he just smiled.
‘I’m sorry, Molly. I should have known better. You’re a good
girl and you don’t want any of that till we’re married. Fair enough.’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘We’ll be happy out, Molly, I promise. I’m a simple man. I want to work the farm, have children with you, a good feed in my belly every evening and a woman in my bed at night and that’s all I want from life. I’ll be good to you, I swear.’
She couldn’t bring herself to answer. Finbarr may have been used too, but he would benefit from it. He would never call it off, that much was sure.
‘I’ll go back in now,’ she said, her voice sounding strange to her own ears.
She ran out of the barn. It was raining again but she didn’t care. She walked across the yard, allowing the cold summer rain to trickle down her neck, to soak the awful dress. Her feet squelched in the muddy puddles, but she just walked on slowly. The yard was neat, as her father insisted that everything be stored away at the end of each day. She passed the hens sheltering from the rain in the henhouse. The lush green fields of her home were being drenched, which would just promote more grass, more feed for more cows, more cattle, more money…more, more, more. That was all they cared about. She walked down the lane and leaned on the gate. Their bottom fields were waterlogged right enough, and the hilly part of this area was owned by the Caseys, so their land was better. She’d seen her father eyeing it jealously for years. There was a valley between them and the village, and Mrs Quinlan owned 105 acres of it. It was fine land, hilly but not too steep, with a spring too so they wouldn’t have to draw water. With their own eighty acres, and surely the Caseys had another eighty, and a hundred from Mrs Quinlan, they’d have the biggest farm for miles. She was the only fly in the ointment, the only thing standing between her parents and the emigrant ship for her brothers.
Could she become a farmer’s wife like her mother before her? Cook dinners every day, bear his children? She thought of the only marriage she knew, that of her parents, and it was good. They might not have been Romeo and Juliet, but Nora and Seamus were a team, and in their own way, they loved each other. Nora even enjoyed some aspects of farming, and she did the books for Daddy, who was terrible at maths. Sometimes when they thought there was nobody looking, Daddy would kiss her cheek or squeeze her hand, and they had four healthy children, so that end of things was probably fine. They were a match – Nora’s father and Seamus’s widowed mother did a deal – but it had all worked out. And Molly remembered Nana O’Brien living with them until she died, and she and Nora got on well. She was lovely, and Molly missed her.
She heaved herself off the gate, thoroughly soaked, walked back to the house, let herself in the back door and went straight to her room. She pulled off the horrible dress and corset and changed into her nightdress and woollen dressing gown.
Her mother came up a little while later, but Molly pretended to be asleep. She couldn’t listen to any more platitudes about how it was all going to be fine, how it was for the best. Best for them. Not best for her.
As she lay on her narrow bed in the dark that night, she knew. She had no choice. She had to get away.
The guest house in Queenstown that the lady in the ticket office had mentioned sounded nice, and also it was a bit out of the town and newly opened, so they might not look for her there. Molly wrote to book a room and watched for the postman every day for fear someone would intercept the reply. She met him on his bike up the lane and took the post with a sigh of relief.
The lady that owned it said a man would collect her with her baggage off the train and would take her there. Her plan was to remain in the guest house, in her private room, until tomorrow at midday, when she would present herself at the Cunard Line ticket office. Her ticket said the tender would leave at two o’clock and the ship would sail at 6 p.m. on the evening tide.
She would never have thought herself capable of the duplicity she’d shown in recent weeks. She’d gone to Limerick to Ryan’s, the agent on Sarsfield Street for Cunard and White Star as well as all the other companies that sailed all over the world, trying to look confident, and bought a second-class ticket, one-way, from Queenstown to Boston, sailing on the 22nd of June, 1912, on the Cunard ship the RMS Laconia. The man selling the ticket had made some soothing noises about her having nothing to fear after Titanic, but she didn’t really pay attention. Her father had said the safest place in the world to be after Titanic sinking was a ship now; they’d not make that mistake again. She paid the money and took her ticket, hiding it in her skirts and later under her mattress.
She’d packed her bag slowly, as she didn’t want her mother to notice anything missing, and stored it in the barn under the old trap they used to use to go to the mart before Daddy bought the new one. He was loathe to get rid of it, but everyone knew it would just sit in the shed and rot. Nobody would ever look there.
Outside the window of the train, the green fields sped by. Would she ever see Ireland again? Her prayer book was open to the Memorare. She didn’t need to read it – she’d known that prayer since she was a child – but just looking at it gave her peace. The opening lines soothed her soul, making her feel less alone.
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence I fly unto thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my mother…
Surely Our Lady would stay by her side?
Chapter 13
Fourteen-year-old JohnJoe O’Dwyer gazed out the window at the fields and small farms. His reflection stared back at him, with his small face, dotted with freckles, and his red-blond hair that would never lie flat no matter what he did with it. He knew he looked like his mammy, small and with a round face. His mammy used to smile and laugh all the time, and she was so tiny compared to his father. Some of the lads said they forgot what their parents looked like, but JohnJoe could picture her like he’d seen her yesterday. He could visualise every contour of her face and remembered the feel of his face against her jumper when she hugged him. But he couldn’t hear her voice in his head any more. Try as he might to recall her voice, it was gone. The only way he could remember what she sounded like was when he heard a certain song. He wished he had a recording of it, and he’d heard it only once in the years since she died.
The boys from the borstal were sometimes sent out to local farmers to pick potatoes or stones from the fields, and one time he was called in by the farmer’s wife for some dinner. It was a lovely warm kitchen and she put out a big plate of stew with meat and carrots in it, the nicest dinner he’d had in years. She’d had a gramophone playing that song. He tried not to cry but it was impossible. He told her how his mammy had died giving birth to his sister and how an aunt in England had taken his older sister, Kitty, and the new baby, Jane, but didn’t want a boy so he’d been sent to the borstal. His da wasn’t much of a worker, and he fell to pieces when Mammy died. It had been Mammy’s parents’ farm they lived on, and she was the worker in the family. She kept sheep, goats and hens and a huge vegetable garden. Daddy was only good for drinking and fighting.
She’d been so kind, the farmer’s wife, giving him a big chunk of cake when he was leaving, and he longed to be called back to work there, but it never happened. The priest saw him with the wedge of cake in his pocket and had cross-examined him, so JohnJoe knew they’d put a stop to that.
What would a city be like? Danny had shown him a picture of Boston in a book he’d brought, and it looked so different to even Cork City, where he’d been twice.
His cousin – apparently Danny was a cousin of his now – was talkative after he’d collected JohnJoe from his father’s house, but now Danny was sleeping. JohnJoe didn’t give a hoot where he was going; it could have been the moon if it meant getting out of there.
His father had come to the borstal, and JohnJoe was called to the dean’s office. JohnJoe hadn’t seen his da since he was nine, when Mammy died and his sisters were taken away. There was a smell of whiskey off Johnny O’Dwyer, and he looked so much older than JohnJoe remembered.
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‘You’ll go now with your father,’ was all the dean said to him.
He didn’t think to question it; he was sure he was being called in for fighting again, so anything other than the strap was a good result as far as he was concerned. He had to fight; they all did. It was that or be a victim. There was no choice.
His heart leapt – he was going home, to Kitty and Jane too, maybe, and his lovely warm farmhouse by the sea. He knew his mother wouldn’t be there, but at least he was away from the beatings and the cold and the hunger of the borstal. But in the trap on the way back home, his father had told him he was going to America.
‘What? Why?’ he asked, astounded.
‘Your mother’s brother Patrick lives there, and he has no child, his wife is barren, and he wants a lad to train up in the business like. So he wrote to me and asked if I’d send you.’
JohnJoe had rarely heard his father speak such a long sentence. ‘What kind of business?’ he asked.
His father shrugged and pulled the stopper out of a bottle in his pocket, swallowing the amber liquid and belching loudly. ‘I don’t know, and if you have sense, you won’t go around askin’ too many questions. And no fightin’ or blackguardin’ either, d’ya hear me?’
‘And how long am I to stay there?’ JohnJoe asked.
‘I don’t know, for good if you’re lucky.’ His father gave the old mare a flick of the stick and she trotted on.
‘And are Kitty and Jane going too?’ he asked, daring to hope.
‘Who?’ his father asked.
‘Kitty and Jane, my sisters?’ JohnJoe wondered if his father was a bit slow in the head. He never used to be. He had some good memories of him and Mammy, and despite all his faults, Mammy loved him. JohnJoe’s granda couldn’t stand his son-in-law, thought him an idle waste of time, but Mammy saw something in him. He looked very different now, though; his face was bloated and he’d put on a lot of weight. His hair was unkempt and he smelled terrible.
Last Port of Call: The Queenstown Series Page 13
