December Girl

by Nicola Cassidy

  ‘What were you talking about?’ he asks.

  ‘Never you mind,’ and I point down the bridge and tell Patrick I think I can see the monkey man. They’re so innocent, the boys. They don’t remember things like I do. They’ve taken to McKenna’s house, with his strap and his ways, like they always lived there. Like there was never a before. They don’t talk about Daddy, they don’t talk about the countryside. They’re only interested in the today and tomorrow, in the boats they can make out of wood and go sailing in the park. I watch them run ahead, all smiles, running right up to the monkey man and giggling when the creature runs across their necks and down their arms, like a funny looking cat. I give the man the pennies and they stand stroking the monkey; making noises for him and feeding him the little nuts the man gives them.

  It’s only me who is sad, walking around with them, with the weight of the news of Montgomery and his son upon me. When we’ve gone through the crowds and watched the hurdy-gurdys and gotten some barley sugar and laughed at a man with a white face and black marks on it putting his hands all in the air like he’s climbing a wall, I tell the boys that I’m feeling very tired and that if they run back to Mam and Mr McKenna, I’m going to go back to home for a while.

  Chapter Eight

  MOLLY

  I need to be on my own. The crowds are too much, the spectacle is gone for me now. People block my path every step I take and I can smell the stink of summer sweat and tobacco. I watch the boys walking over the bridge, back to the Marsh Road and slowly I walk up the street, past all the revellers, who are shouting now and full of the drink. A man calls out to me and makes to grab for my shoulder but I’m quick and step out of his way and scowl at him as I walk away.

  I always knew it was Montgomery who was behind the court case and the eviction. That he wanted what my daddy had and he wasn’t going to stop till he got it. Now he had it; his own son living in our house, in our yard, on our farm.

  I walk slowly, all the thoughts going through my head, up and down off the footpath, out of the way of the traps trying to pass by through the crowds and the young boys with the handcarts saying they were selling papers, but you knew they had a bottle of whiskey hidden beneath. I’m going home to try and get a bit of peace, to be all alone, to think.

  When I get to the house and in the back door, my thoughts are still tumbling over each other and I stand in the kitchen, poking at the stove, not hearing the door open behind me. I turn around and Mr McKenna is there on his own, the boys and Mam left behind at the regatta.

  ‘Oh?’ I say, wishing he hadn’t come back and that I had the house to myself like I planned. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘I wanted to catch you on your own,’ he says. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

  I say nothing but listen to him as he tells me he’s been at something in the shed and if I come with him, he’ll show me - I’m not to tell my mother because it’s a surprise. I’m a bit intrigued. I haven’t seen him do anything for my mother. Not since the yellow tulip.

  I don’t really want to go out to the shed with him but he takes off out the back door. I pause for a moment and then follow him. I realise as I go through the green shed door that Mr McKenna has been spending time out here lately. He says it’s the only place he can give his head some peace, but I never acknowledge him when he says that because he means it as an insult to us and my family and I think, well why did you take us on then, if you don’t like the noise or the company?

  The smell of fresh wood shavings fills the air. It reminds me of the barns at Dowth, musty and earthy. The shed has a big bench along one side, where he has all his tools spread out and he tells me that if he didn’t own the shop, which his daddy passed to him, then he would have been a carpenter.

  He’s bent over, rummaging in a box on the floor, his bony arse sticking up, black trousers to match the purple jacket he’s so proud of. I think that it’s strange that he’s back here with me, at home in his shed, when the regatta is still going on and there are plenty of snobs for him to be hanging around with.

  ‘Come in,’ he says. ‘Close that door behind you.’

  I don’t know why he wants me to close the door, there’s nobody here, but I do anyway, considering it’s a big secret he’s going to show me. I move inside and watch him pull out a small wooden crate covered with a rag. From under the rag he takes five little pieces of wood. They’re shaped like figurines, like people.

  ‘What are they?’ I say, holding the one he gives me to look at.

  ‘Russian dolls,’ he says. ‘I wanted to make your mother a gift, something nice.’

  I’m holding these pieces of wood not really understanding. I think my mother is a bit old for dolls.

  ‘Open it,’ he says. I don’t know what he’s talking about.

  He takes the doll from my hand and he twists it so that it splits in half. It cuts open as though somebody chopped it right around the middle. Then I watch him open up all the dolls and pop them all into each other and before I know it, he’s holding only one doll, when before there were five.

  ‘I want it ready for her birthday, Molly,’ he says. ‘But I need to paint them. Could you help me with that?’

  I think this is a very nice thing Mr McKenna is doing, I didn’t think he had it in him, but I tell him of course, I’ll help him paint them.

  ‘I’ve only ever whitewashed, though,’ I tell him. ‘What kind of painting do you mean?’

  He takes a piece of paper out of the crate, torn from a periodical, a picture of a Russian doll on it, in full colour. The biggest doll has a small, red, rosebud mouth and a yellow face. She peeks out from a painted shawl, draped in delicate dots and swirls. I really don’t think I could paint like that, but I tell him I’ll try.

  ‘Why don’t you try a bit now,’ he says. I don’t want to start now. But he’s so insistent.

  ‘I think your mother would really appreciate it.’

  I sigh, take the paintbrush he gives me and I watch him prise open a small tin with a flat screwdriver and reveal a gloop of red paint.

  I dip the tip of the brush into the tin and I paint a few strokes on the wood, watching it soak in, feeling the pull of the bristles as they go up and down the smooth surface. He’s done a good job on this, Mr McKenna. I never knew that he was capable like this with wood, but there they are, laid out in front of me, these perfect miniature dolls. I get to thinking that if he’s so good with the carving, why did he not make the boys some toys? Like the wooden boats they’re so fond of or a Noah’s Ark, or any of the wooden animals we see on the toy shelves at Duffy’s Hardware Store in West Street, that they’re always wanting but never get.

  When I’m thinking about this, I notice that Mr McKenna has moved behind me, that he’s not beside me anymore. And he has his hand on my arm, moving it down to my wrist as he says, ‘not like this, like this,’ and he’s trying to show me, but I don’t like it, it doesn’t feel right. I go to move to the right, away from him, but he just steps in closer, still holding my wrist, moving his body real close, so that I can feel his legs up against mine.

  I’m going to have to go and paint later, because I can smell the drink on him now and I didn’t know he had drink on him and I don’t like being around him when he’s like this.

  ‘Mr McKenna,’ I say and I go to sidestep to the left this time, but it’s like he was expecting it and his foot is there and I can’t move.

  I say his name again, ‘Mr McKenna,’ only firmer now, like I mean what I say, that I’m going to have to go now because this just isn’t right.

  Then my head is down. Crack. I realise that he used his other foot to swipe my legs out from under me and I’m pushed forward, his hand on the back of my head. He’s holding it now, his whole weight on my neck and head, my face right on the work bench with the smell of wood shavings and the doll, still in my hand with its paint all wet, and I’m looking at it right up at my eyes.

  I don’t think I can breathe. My neck is blocked. I don’t know
if it’s his weight or his wrist or his arm that’s taking the breath from my body, but there’s no air and I can’t scream.

  And then I feel it.

  The draught on my skin. My skirts, pulled all the way up from behind, the backs of my legs exposed.

  He grunts and he leans even harder on me and he’s pawing right inside my knickers now, pulling them to the side and his hands going at me, his fingers hurting me and inside me and I wonder if I’m really here at all.

  And then there’s a pain like I’ve never experienced before.

  A sensation so shocking I feel as though my very soul has left my body and is raised right above and is looking down on me and Mr McKenna as he goes at me, grunting and grinding and hurting me so bad that I think he’s murdering me there on the bench in his dark green shed.

  He rattles me forever and then his breathing gets real heavy and his body jerks and I feel that he is done. He withdraws and he’s muttering now, telling me not to tell my mother and if I do, that he’ll take a knife to her throat in the middle of the night.

  Then he leaves the shed and I notice there are tears in my eyes, and on my face and when I step back from the bench there’s blood, all over the floor and down my leg and it’s the exact same colour as the paint on the tips of the brush, on the body of the Russian doll that I’m still holding in my hand and was painting only moments ago.

  Drogheda Argus, June 1895

  The shocking murder has taken place of Mr Flann Montgomery at his home at Dowth, Co. Meath. The following are the particulars as they have been ascertained. On Monday last, the night of the Boyne Regatta, Mr Montgomery was attending to some matters at his home in Co. Meath, whereby his son did find him, laid out in the yard, with his throat cut. A search of the area did reveal no intruders or suspects. An inquest, the result of which was that Mr Montgomery came to his death in consequence of the stab wound to his throat, was assisted and aided by his son to no avail. The Royal Irish Constabulary has made appeals for any witnesses or persons with information to come forward. Mr Montgomery was formerly the agent for Brabazon estate, Dowth. Co. Meath.

  Part Two

  Chapter Nine

  GLADYS

  England, Southwest London, June 1895

  Every day Gladys made her husband, Albert, a boiled egg and soldiers for breakfast. She trimmed the bread nice and neat and waited until the toast was a little cooled to butter it. Albert wasn’t a fussy eater but she knew he liked his toast with the butter sitting on top - so he could see it. She made sure to order the butter in every week from the grocers. To have everything just so. To please him.

  They were in a lovely house now. It was redbrick, with white window frames, the parlour window a sash, jutting out on to a very respectable street.

  She had never expected that Albert would rise through the council ranks like he had. When they’d married at sixteen, he’d been a simple road sweeper, but with his way of managing people, with his talent for getting things done quickly, without fuss, he’d risen to be head of maintenance services, and for that, she was proud.

  She never thought they would afford a house with high ceilings, four bedrooms and the kitchen in the basement, like a posh house she had dreamed of when she was a child.

  When Albert had eaten his breakfast, wiped the crumbs from his moustache, put on his overcoat and got up on his bike for work, she would close the door, pad back to the table and sit for a few minutes. She liked her tea hot, boiling so that it scorched her throat.

  It made her feel alive.

  After her tea, she would start the housework, taking water from the boiling vat, starting with the black and white mosaic tiles that led to the front door, scouring the steps and then changing the water to wash down the door. Their house was one of the neatest on Louisville Road. Even the leaves on the green plants outside got a wash if they looked dusty.

  With the front door sparkling, ready to greet anyone who might knock on it that day, she started on the kitchen before working her way through every room in the house. She went over the bedrooms daily, even though they were untouched and not a soul had gone in or out since she’d last run her cloth round the skirtings and patted down the eiderdown.

  She changed the laundry good and regular to keep it fresh and free from damp. She hated the mould that had puckered the walls of her house when she was young, growing mucus on her chest, making her wheeze. She had promised herself that when she got married there would be no mould in a house of hers. She would wipe it away every day if she had to. Maybe that was how she got into her cleaning routine.

  She couldn’t leave the house until it was done. She wouldn’t have been able to - her body would not have let her past the front door unless every single job had been completed.

  Monday was laundry day, and she would spend the day soaking and rinsing, scrubbing at the washboard, swirling the sheets with the pole. They could afford to send it out to launder but she wouldn’t have it. She needed the work, the routine, the feeling of getting things clean. Instead, Albert bought her a mangle and she enjoyed turning the handle and watching the sheets come out, ready to dry on the line. It really was a miracle machine.

  She never left the house on Mondays, but every other afternoon of the week she would put on her coat and place her hat carefully on her head. She’d walk to the shops to pick up whatever they needed. Mostly, they didn’t need for much and there were meat men and bread men knocking on the door each day, but she liked walking to the shops with her basket over her arm.

  Before she did the groceries, she’d walk up to the common, breathing the fresh air into her lungs, taking the same route every day, counting the trees as she’d go. One winter, after a lightning storm, four of the trees were felled and she felt uncomfortable knowing that they had been struck down like that and she’d have to change her counting. She hated change. It unsettled her.

  After her walk, it was home to make the tea. Every day had a designated dish. There was no breaking her routine, except for Easter and Christmas Day. Sometimes, she knew by the slump of Albert’s shoulders, when she poured the lamb stew on to his plate on a Wednesday, that he’d like something different, a break from her routine. But he knew by now that this was her way.

  It was the only way.

  Lately, however, an idea had come into her head. It had started when she’d gone through a bit of a shock. She had been feeling a little sick and a tiredness had washed over her, more than the normal fatigue the cleaning brought on. She thought her stomach felt a bit taut and sure enough her monthly never came.

  For weeks, she watched her underclothes, waiting for its arrival, dashing to the toilet in the morning to make sure it hadn’t started to seep away from her unbeknownst in her sleep.

  And when it had been enough time, when she was certain that she could feel the swelling low, under her belly button, a flickering even inside her, she sat Albert down on a Friday evening after he came in from work.

  ‘I’ve something to tell you, Albert,’ she said, her hands twitching as they clasped each other on the kitchen table.

  A pained expression crossed his face, as though she was about to deliver bad news.

  ‘I’m with child,’ she said quietly, not looking him in the eye, something she’d never really been able to do with anyone. She preferred to look at a person’s chin, or ear while she was talking to them - it unsettled her to catch their gaze.

  He had stood up straight and hugged her, and when she glanced at his face she could see tears in his eyes.

  ‘Have you been to see the doctor?’ he said. She told him she hadn’t. That she wanted to tell him first.

  Albert reached in his pocket and pulled out a bundle of notes. He told Gladys to make an appointment first thing in the morning.

  ‘I’m so happy, my love,’ he said. ‘You’ve made me the happiest man in London.’

  When she got up the next day, an excitement brewing in her stomach, the affection Albert was showing her filling her with joy, she forgot to check her
underclothes when she went about her morning toilet visit and it was only later, at lunchtime when she was making preparations to leave the house and walk to the doctors, that she felt it; that familiar twinge in her pelvis.

  In a panic, she lifted her skirts, right there in the hallway. And there it was; the dark shadow, staining her cotton, knifing her heart.

  There would be no need for the doctor.

  There would be no examination.

  She was as she always was.

  She tucked the pound notes into a pillow case at the back of her wardrobe, thinking that all this excitement and breaking her routine had caused it to come. She’d forgotten herself, gone outside herself, not doing the things that made her feel safe, that had to be done to make things right.

  She vowed that she would go back to herself, to the rules and that somehow, in some way, she would fix it for Albert.

  He deserved a child.

  And at forty-two, her last chance now extinguished in her body, it was time to do something new, something that would guarantee their happiness, no waiting or wondering or panicking at the stab of a cramp.

  It was time to put her plan into action.

  All she had to do was choose.

  Chapter Ten

  MOLLY

  London, June 1896

  The mind is a wonderful thing. It has the power to take you completely away from yourself, up out of your body, floating on clouds, over people’s heads, soaring through the sky like a big, black crow, looking down, ahead - only more clouds. I have become very good at leaving my body.

  I understand now why Mam did what she did. It wasn’t about her at all. It was about us. Sometimes a smile creeps on my face and I think, we’re not that different my mam and me. We both sold ourselves for our children.

  Mr Tubular is here now. That’s not his real name, but it’s what I call him. He reminds me of the tubes on the church organ back home. Tall and empty, making long, drone noises. He goes on a bit. So, I rise above him, and I stay in the air, outside of here, looking down on the streets and cobbles and the flower sellers, pushing my way through the smog and the smoke, tiny flits of black soot nestling in my hair.