PART TWO
Day 11
We're now at the part of my life where I remember things, just bits and pieces, from when I was two or three years old, more like pictures than anything, not much before then. Some of it must be from what my mammy or daddy told me. Actually, I think there must be a lot of that.
Memory's funny isn't it? We think we saw or heard something in all its detail but really we've made a lot of it up to turn it into a good story, or we're just remembering it second-hand. A tale heard on our mother's knee. I've seen you children do it, stuff you never witnessed, or were too young to have taken in, and then telling it like you were there and taking part.
This is how my next stories will be, I expect. I'd not stand up in court and swear they are all true, only as I remember the events or how they were told to me. You'll need to make up your own mind which is which.
*
Some of the spark went out of Daddy for a while after the night Mammy told him off. I don't know if there was more to him and that Dolly Feehan than he was saying, or if it was missing the freedom of going out on his own, but after the row he'd spend his nights in front of the fire, dozing or gazing through the window. Sometimes his cough was very bad. If the evening was warm enough he might carry a kitchen chair outside and sit in the sunny yard dangling Jimmy on his lap.
He worked long hours and I'd never see him on weekday mornings and, unless he was ill, he'd be out of the house early, but I think he liked his job. He and Ted McClosky had hit it off from the minute they met and McClosky had taken Daddy under his wing. The older man worked in the signal box on the sidings and was a cousin of the boss who gave out the jobs, so McClosky had lots of friends. He'd bring one or two round to King Street some nights and I'd hear them all talking and laughing on the other side of the bedroom door. One of them might throw out a song, then they'd clap and shout until Mammy gave one, though, truth to tell, she'd not a very good voice. Daddy would seem to be in a brighter mood on these nights and after they'd all gone he and Mammy would whisper and giggle in their big bed long into the early hours.
One day, Mammy lay Jimmy in his cot and asked me to sit beside her on the armchair. She put her arm around my shoulders and pulled me close.
'Mammy has something to tell you darling. You're going to have another little brother or sister soon. That'll be nice won't it? '
I don't know if she expected some kind of reply from me but she got very little. I'd have only been three or four years of age and not much idea what she was telling me. I suppose I understood the idea of a new baby, we had Jimmy after all, but I'd no thought about what this birth might mean for the family.
*
Mammy lies sweating on the bed, Mrs Costigan and a woman in a pink striped frock with a white apron are on either side, one holding her hand, the other mopping her head. I don't remember which was which. They're both telling her to relax, to take deep breaths, but all Mammy does is scream. Then there is blood. A lot of blood and it goes quiet. The two women look at each other and shake their heads.
The next thing it seems, though there must have been days in between, I'm in our room, the curtains are drawn, and I'm surrounded by grown-ups in black. Daddy has me on his knee telling me we'll be all right but I can see by the damp tracks on his cheeks that it isn't. I am asking for Mammy and can't understand why she's asleep in a wooden box in the corner. He tells me to shush.
There's a line of people walking past Mammy, all moving their lips and crossing themselves. After they pass her they come across to Daddy and me, saying 'Sorry for your trouble' then looking away. Mrs Costigan and Dolly Feehan are handing round cups of tea and slices of apple pie. I think it must be a party but no one is laughing.
*
Eighteen months gone and another move. This time back across the sea and me able to remember it all. I was six years old by this time.
Daddy had tried so hard to manage after Mammy went, but Mrs Costigan was taken into hospital and couldn't look after Jimmy and me anymore. He knew he must pack in the job and head for home where he might get some help.
When he told me we were leaving, I cried and cried and asked him why we couldn't get another Mammy. He cried himself and said it wasn't as easy as that. I didn't see why not, after all, that Dolly had being around lots of times and I could see Daddy liked her. Why couldn't he just marry her?
It was pouring down the day we left. Jimmy was in the pram with a suitcase balanced on the back. He kept complaining he was old enough to walk but Daddy told him to be quiet and it was easier this way. Daddy carried the other case and I held Dolly's hand. She walked with us all the way to the boat. At one point we stopped and Daddy pointed to a train shunting through one of the yards.
'See there, Maria, that's where I used to go to work. Up and down on that big old engine every day.'
I don't know why he told me then, I'd been with him lots of times, and Mammy would take us down sometimes to watch him when she wanted a walk. Perhaps he forgot, or maybe he just wanted to remind himself what he was leaving.
There were so many boats in the docks, and so many people trying to get on to ours. There were horses everywhere, big smelly beasts hauling carts loaded high in the air, and prettier ones pulling carriages. Dolly gave us all a hug before we went up the ramp, with a good long one for Daddy and I thought she had tears running down her cheeks when she'd finished.
All the seats on the deck were taken, so we walked round and round. I asked Daddy why we couldn't go inside in the warm and he said we couldn't afford it, our tickets only let us travel on the deck. When we'd passed the same place three times Daddy was coughing badly and we were about to huddle down on the floor when two men, who looked much younger than Daddy, called him over.
'Here mister, take these seats, you look done in, and you can't have the little ones down there in the damp.'
So the three of us sat on a bench wedged in beside a very old lady with a long black coat and a grey shawl. She had a ginger cat in a wicker basket which hid in the corner every time the sheep-dog with the people next to her barked. On our other side was a family like ours, except they had a Mammy with them. Their little boy stared at me for a good long time until his mammy pushed him over to say hello. He told me his name was Mick, he was six and a half, and he usually wore glasses but his sister had grabbed them off his nose and they'd broken. I didn't really like the look of him, he screwed up his eyes and picked his nose but there was no-one else to talk to so we played catch-ball until the sea got too rough. Then I sat by Daddy, taking turns in pushing Jimmy's pram back and forward hoping he'd drop off to sleep, though he didn't for ages, then it stopped raining and the sun came out. It was warm in the sunshine and I could see the steam rising from the deck floating round the passenger's ankles. Daddy lifted me on to his shoulder so I could see over the side of the boat. It was beautiful. The water sparkled all the way into the distance where it joined the land at the foot of the mountains. Daddy pointed to them.
'That's where we're going, Maria, back to where you were born.' He bit his lip. 'We'll all be fine back there, I'll find someone to look after you and your brother and I'll find a good job. We'll get a little house with a garden, you'll like that won't you?'
I wasn't sure if I'd like it or not, I didn't remember the place much from before. All I had in my head was a picture of fields all around and thought how different it was to the city, lots and lots of green and hardly any people. In Dublin and Liverpool we'd been surrounded by neighbours, sometimes even in the same house. Out in the countryside there was hardly anyone. Still, Daddy seemed to be looking forward to it.
Jimmy woke up again so we asked the lady with the cat if she'd watch our cases while we went for a walk around the deck. She didn't look very happy but did agree when Daddy smiled at her. There was a big procession "taking the air" as Daddy called it, all bunching up when anyone stopped to take in the view. By now we were getting closer to the land, though it took hours from when we'd first seen the hills, then, gradually, it turned from blue-grey to green, and we could see buildings away in the distance. The closer we got to the landing stage, the more the passengers jammed against the front rails, shielding their eyes from the sun and squinting for a sight of friends or relatives on the dock. A crowd started to gather around the barrier where we had to get off so Daddy took us back to collect our bags from the old lady. She told him off for being away for so long so he had to say he was sorry but I could see he wasn't really sorry because he was grinning behind his serious face.
Soon afterwards there were men running and throwing ropes on to the dock and other men taking them to tie the boat to metal posts. Then the ramp was in place and everybody pushed forward with lots of shouting and waving. I was frightened but Daddy said to hold on to his trouser leg really hard and not let go until we were safely on the dock.
*
Two and half hours later we were climbing down from the bus in Avoca. We were the only ones getting off there and I looked around as it rumbled on its way. Not a soul in the street except for a man leaning against the closed door of O'Brien's bar on the other side. He waved to my dad to come over. 'Edmund Byrne, isn't it? From Ballyduff?'
Daddy looked at him then shook his head. 'I'm sorry, I can't get you, I've been away a while. Remind me.'
'Terence, Terence Doyle, I worked on the estate with your da'. You'd have seen me in the stables.'
'I have you now. So what are you doing up this part of the country?'
'Ah, you know, Edmund, you have to take the work where you can, don't you.'
Doyle used alcohol to cope with a life where he felt he'd been dealt all the bad cards. The chip on his shoulder, and the way he chose to deal with it, never failed to get him in trouble and put him back where he stood today. My granddad had given him more than one chance on the estate but Doyle's drinking and bad temper made sure he didn't last long. He was always short of money.
'Sorry for your da', Edmund. A good man.' The bolt on the bar door clattered and Doyle stuck out a hand. 'You wouldn't have the price of a jar?'
Daddy shrugged. 'Not a chance I'm afraid. Been off work myself and I've got to look after these two.'
The door now swung open and the man stepped inside without a backward glance so Daddy sat me and Jimmy on the step and followed Doyle in with the biggest case. A few minutes later he came out without it.
'Paddy O'Brien there says he'll hold on to the bag 'til I can pick it up. We've enough in the other one to see us for a day or two.'
Then we walked. Alongside the river, the same one as comes out to the sea by Arklow, up the hill past the grey chapel where Granny and Grandad were married, and out into the countryside. On my little legs it felt like miles and miles but years later I discovered it would take hardly any time to reach our destination from the town. Distances are different in the country and the city anyway. You'd walk the same length every day to school or the shops and think nothing of it, but out there, with nothing but trees and the odd farm, the road seems to go on forever.
After a while we came to a cottage set back from the lane and Daddy stopped at the end of a rutted track as if he was thinking. Jimmy started to cry and this seemed to make up his mind because he grabbed my hand and marched towards the house.
A woman a bit younger than Daddy opened the half-door to his knock and other than the long hair and glasses she looked just like him. She peered at his face, then mine, then at the baby in the carriage, and back to him.
'Edmund!' She hugged him and buried her head in his chest. 'Oh, Edmund, it's so good to see you. I have missed you.' She let go of Daddy and crouched down in front of me. 'My goodness, Maria, how you've grown.'
Daddy pushed me forward but I stepped back again.
'Maria, this is your Auntie Bridget. Say hello.' *
My Auntie Bridget Byrne lacked Mammy's good looks and failed to see men in any kind of romantic light. They were fine for carrying out the heavier jobs around the place and bringing in a regular wage, but she didn't appear to feel the need for flowers, soft words or being kept warm in bed. In the way that often happens with young people, the plain, though not unattractive, Bridget and my mother, the lovely Hannah Quinn, became the greatest of friends. What Bridget lost in looks she more than made up for in loyalty to Mammy and a wicked sense of humour.
I think my aunt knew Jimmy was too young to understand we'd lost Mammy and I wasn't. He would have missed her, of course, but didn't grasp she wouldn't be coming back. As a result I was given special attention. Every morning Auntie Bridget would take my hand and we'd walk the garden hedges looking for eggs the hens had laid away from the coop. She'd let me carry the basket and ask me to take it into the kitchen.
'Careful now, don't be dropping any' she'd said for the first few times until I repeated it back to her, wagging my finger at her the same way that she'd done, then she laughed and we played that game every day afterwards. Some days we'd gather the tools from the byre and I'd help with the weeding. Auntie Bridget would show me which plants I could pull and which ones I shouldn't, always telling me the names of these 'those are cabbages, Maria, and these are carrots, see how the tops are different.' Sometimes I could tell the difference but mostly I couldn't and she'd grab me at the last minute before I hoked out her peas or beans. Then, if she was in a really good mood I'd be lifted under the arms and swung round and round until we both fell, dizzy and giggling to the ground, with her scolding me that I'd have us all starved.
*
My grandfather and grandmother had lived in a lovely home, down a lane on a great lord's estate outside Arklow. Daddy and Mammy took me back there a few times before we moved to England. The roof was slate, not thatch like the usual country houses then, the walls were good quality stone and they had a neat vegetable patch at the side. Auntie Bridget and Uncle Mick would be there and we'd all have tea before they'd go off for a walk, leaving me with grandad. Grandad had a bad leg but he'd hoist me up onto the good one and tell me stories about his time travelling the world as a soldier, about how he'd met grandma, and how he was injured and had to go back to Wicklow. Sometimes he'd lift me high on to his shoulders and from up there I'd look down on the blue veins criss-crossing his near-bald head and he'd laugh when I twirled the grey tufts above his ears around my middle finger.
On his sideboard he'd a photograph of Daddy in uniform, in a wooden frame Grandad said he'd made himself. Daddy looked ever so smart, with a wide belt round his tunic and a cane under his arm. He'd left the army by the time I was born but I could tell Grandad was very proud of him. "Soldiers for generations" he'd say "your daddy, me, my daddy, and even his daddy I think. Back a hundred years and more."
If the other grown-ups were away a long time, Grandad would lift a big fork from a hook on the wall, and toast bread in front of the fire. When it was done, he'd spread butter all over and we'd sit close, munching like there was no tomorrow. That toast was the best thing I ever tasted.
I don't know if the stories he told me were true, but I loved to hear them time after time, in his deep, soft, voice. He died when I was only four or five, and I'd not seen him for a while before that, so I've no memory of his face, only the top of his head and that voice wrapped around me like a blanket.
*
Truly enchanting, full of life and living in all of its forms, good and bad...