No Peace for Amelia

by Siobhán Parkinson

  After that, she turned away with a swish of her skirts and went upstairs to take a fresh look at her Easter bonnet.

  Holy Week

  Edmund was curious about the little evergreen twig that Mary Ann brought home from church on the Sunday before Easter. She flounced in, twirling it between her finger and thumb, said she was ‘kilt with the long gospel’ and put her ‘poor feet’ up on a butter box in the kitchen to rest them while she had her breakfast. She always had breakfast after church, which Amelia thought an odd custom, but Mary Ann explained that you had to go to Mass fasting.

  ‘Like a pilgrim,’ said Amelia, recognising an idea from stories of the Middle Ages.

  ‘Not really. It’s only down the road,’ said Mary Ann. ‘That’s a palm, Edmund,’ she went on. ‘I got it below in the church out of a big wicker basket. It’s specially blessed, and everyone gets a bit today.’

  ‘It’s not a palm,’ said Edmund, regarding it suspiciously and sniffing its sharp, sweet, hair-oily scent. He thought it a very odd idea to bless a piece of tree, even if it was a special blessing.

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Mary Ann, jabbing her fork joyfully into a thick wedge of black pudding, studded with suet. ‘It’s Palm Sunday. Thanks be to God for Sunday and a bit of meat for breakfast.’

  Amelia and Edmund raised their eyebrows at each other over Mary Ann’s head. (Edmund had only just learned to do this, and he looked comical, his thin, fair eyebrows disappearing like a shot under his fringe.) They both thought it didn’t necessarily follow. No matter what day it was, you couldn’t discount botany. But they didn’t like to argue, especially since it was blessed. And anyway, it didn’t do to argue with Mary Ann just now. She hadn’t been quite her sparky self since the raid and they were all careful not to upset her.

  In spite of everyone’s thoughtful avoidance of conflict with her, Mary Ann was as nervous as a hen all that week coming up to Easter. She jumped every time anyone came into the kitchen, and she seemed to listen with a special intensity to everything people said, as if she was afraid of missing something. Amelia asked her once or twice if anything was the matter, but Mary Ann strenuously denied it. She said the last days of Lent always made her a bit edgy, that was all. Amelia couldn’t worm any more out of her, but she was sure there was more to it.

  She was quite right. There was much more to it. Mary Ann had been unnerved by the raid, but she had been even more dismayed by a letter she had just received. It was from her brother Patrick, again. This is what he wrote:

  Baile Átha Cliath

  April, 1916

  My dear Mary Ann,

  I know things haven’t been right between us ever since you refused to help me out with that little matter of a storage problem I had some short time ago. At the time, I admit it, I was very angry and resentful. I thought it was but a small sarcrifice to ask you to make for Ireland, and I felt very let down when you refused me. But I have been thinking it all over in these past days, and I see now that it was all for the best. The Sasanaigh would have found the stuff in any case, and then you would have been in mortle trouble. Not that you would have minded for yourself. I know that you are a strong and loyal girl and a true daughter of Ireland, and that you would play your part without heed for your own skin. But you are right that it would have been a grave wrong to that grand lady who was so good to our Ma in her last days if you had brought trouble on her and her family. Even if they are Protestants, they mean no harm.

  I want now to let byegones be byegones, Mary Ann, and to make my peace with you, because God only knows if we will ever meet again in this life. I would like to wish you a very Happy Easter, my dear sister, and I will be thinking of you on Sunday, as I am going about my business with my friends, you know who and what it is I mean.

  Beannacht Dé ort, a dheirfiúir dhílis, and if you don’t here from me for a good while after Easter, I hope you will remember me with kindness always and pray for the ripose of the soul of

  Your affectionate brother

  Pádraig Ó Maoil Eoin

  PS. Keep your eyes pealed for news of our manuvres in the papers, the way you will know when it’s happening.

  Mary Ann was all in a dither on receiving this letter. She knew perfectly well what it was that Patrick and his friends were planning, and she knew from the inept and dangerous way he underlined the words that the Rising against English rule was planned for Easter Sunday. She knew too that she should be glad in her heart that this wonderful day was at last about to dawn, when her country would strike for freedom and the power of the oppressor of centuries would be overturned. But she was deeply shaken by the tone of foreboding in her brother’s letter. He clearly didn’t expect to survive the uprising. He wrote without any mention of a hope of victory, only in the expectation of death.

  And Mary Ann knew he was right. England might be a little shaken up by the action of the Volunteers, a little put out that Ireland should rise up against her while she was at war in Europe. Certainly she would be distracted. But there wasn’t much chance that anything these passionate and committed friends of Patrick’s could do was going to make much of an impact on a world imperial power the like of England. It was like a mouse trying to overthrow an elephant. Sincere though they were, they were only playing at soldiers, like Edmund with his toy gun.

  Mary Ann felt powerless and confused. She knew it was going to happen, this foolhardy, glorious, illadvised and utterly splendid and passionate action, and there was nothing she could do about it, only hope and pray. She hadn’t much hope, but she could pray. Panic-stricken, she realised there wasn’t even time to make a novena. It would all be upon them within a week. All she could do was pray like mad for the time that was left.

  But she wasn’t sure what it was that she should pray for. She knew that if her prayers were to be successful, she must pray with a clean heart, sincerely and without reservations. Really, she should be praying that the whole wretched thing would never happen, that their plans would be discovered, the leaders imprisoned, the rest disarmed and the whole thing end in fiasco. But she knew how passionately Patrick and his friends believed in the justice of their cause, and she couldn’t bring herself to pray for such a drastic outcome to their action.

  She thought then she might pray that nobody would be hurt, but she soon realised that that was a cowardly prayer. She knew that if there were guns they would be fired, and it wasn’t into the air to frighten the horses that they would be fired. You couldn’t have it both ways – not pray that the Rising would be abandoned or discovered before it happened and at the same time pray that there would be no bloodshed. It was a conundrum. Of course, she could pray simply that Patrick might be safe, but that was a selfish prayer, and Mary Ann knew of old that God wasn’t likely to look kindly on someone who prayed that her brother might be saved while others were killed, others who had nobody to pray for them, perhaps. She puzzled and worried a lot over it all, and all the time she was thinking it through, it irritated her no end that she was wasting time on worrying that she could be spending on praying – for whatever it was she wanted.

  In the end, she thought that she would just pray that all would be well, and she would leave it to God to figure out the best solution. And she had a very good week in which to pray – it was Holy Week, the week before Easter, and her employers were most anxious to ensure that she was able to attend all the special Easter ceremonies of her church. They told her just to down tools and go at any time when there was a service she wished to attend.

  And there were plenty of those. First there was a long service on the Thursday. Amelia asked her about it, why it took so long, and Mary Ann shrugged her shoulders and said the priests took ages to wash the men’s feet. Amelia was intrigued and horrified and thrilled all at once. It sounded much more interesting than sitting in silence at a Meeting for Worship with nothing to watch, but at the same time slightly nauseating.

  ‘You mean really their feet? Did they take their shoes and socks off?’ Amelia was imagining c
orns and long yellow horny toenails and ripe red bunions sticking out at odd angles and wondering whether there wasn’t an unpleasant smell of sweaty sock.

  Mary Ann gave her a curious look.

  ‘What do you mean, really their feet? If I say they washed their feet, then of course they took off their shoes, didn’t they?’

  Really, Amelia’s questions were so bothersome when Mary Ann had such a lot of serious praying to do.

  ‘Well,’ replied Amelia stoutly, ‘if you say to wipe your feet, you don’t really mean your feet, you mean wipe your shoes on the doormat. This might be the same thing.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t the same thing,’ said Mary Ann, illogically exasperated. ‘They take off their shoes and socks and they really have their feet washed with real water in a real white enamel kitchen basin with a blue rim, just like that one over there in the sink.’

  ‘And do they dry them with a stripey towel like the one on the back of the door?’

  ‘Lawny! No. They have a special white linen towel, like in a hotel.’

  All this talk of washing feet reminded Amelia of Frederick’s bruised and bleeding feet. It would be nice if someone washed his feet for him in a blue and white enamel basin and dried them with a fine linen towel. She hoped he had got new boots and she wondered if there was an ointment or unguent she could send him. A zinc cream perhaps, to soothe sores and blisters.

  On Friday, the afternoon service went on for hours too. This time, Mary Ann said that all the people queued up to kiss a crucifix, the thought of which sent a little shiver up Amelia’s spine. Mary Ann described to Amelia how the church was all gloomy and the statues were covered in purple drapes, like huge and knobbly parcels, and the priests wore black or purple vestments too, for mourning. She thought this was strangely appropriate to her personal circumstances, but of course she couldn’t explain this to Amelia.

  On Saturday, the main Easter ceremony was late at night. Amelia thought Mary Ann shouldn’t go out so late on her own, and she begged Mama to allow her to accompany her friend. Mama put down the book she was reading, and took off her spectacles. She thought for a moment, and then she observed that it wasn’t usual for people of different persuasions to attend each other’s places of worship.

  ‘Well, I could just sit at the back and not really participate. I could close my eyes even, and pretend not to be there. I’d be like a hansom cab driver, Mama, driving a fare to an event, and then just waiting until it was over, to drive the person home again.’

  ‘No, Amelia, that’s not my point at all. If you did go, the last thing you should do is lurk at the back like a valet at a ball. I don’t for one moment think there would be any harm at all in your attending this service if you did so in the right spirit. My concern is that you should respect other people’s practices and not ogle or watch in a spirit of vulgar curiosity.’

  ‘Oh no, Mama,’ said Amelia. She was curious of course, but she hoped she wasn’t vulgar.

  ‘Well, in that case, I think you might go.’

  Mama was a real sport.

  And so it was that on the night of Holy Saturday, Amelia Pim attended the Easter Vigil at the local Roman Catholic church, which was in fact the chapel of the Passionist community of Mount Argus – specialists in Easter, you might say. She wore her best coat and hat and her gloves, and she carried an umbrella, not because it was raining, but simply because she thought it made her look sober and respectable, and it gave her something to hold on to, but inside she felt like a little girl on her first day at school gripping her satchel with intensity and with mixed feelings of curiosity and apprehension. There was something terrifyingly, deliciously exciting, scandalous almost, in the idea of entering this forbidden territory.

  When the girls first heaved against the heavy doors and swung them slowly open, the church was in complete darkness, and it smelt of candle wax and a sweet heavy scent Amelia couldn’t identify. A tiny red light glowed far away in the distance. Amelia and Mary Ann fumbled their way to a pew. All around them, people muttered and breathed, and Amelia could hear the click of rosaries in the dark.

  Then came an eerie chanting sound in a foreign language – Italian it sounded like. The chant was almost monotonous, but every now and then the voices dipped or soared to a new note, and then fell back to the previous even tone on a single note. The effect was weird and compelling in the unlit church.

  Suddenly there was a loud thudding clap, as if a large book had been snapped shut in the darkness, and then someone started to light candles, one by one, first on the altar, high up and far away. When the altar was aglow with points of light, suspended in the darkness, the light began to move along, like a firefly leaving a gleaming trail behind it. People had small candles in their hands, and the light was passed from pew to pew, and from person to person, in a giant and sacred relay action. Gradually the light worked its way along the pews and down the nave, across the transepts and into the aisles, till at last the whole building was lit with the soft warm glow of candlelight. It was like the most spectacular birthday cake, and Amelia drew her breath in.

  As the church emerged from the gloom, she began to distinguish people around her, in their greatcoats, and the women in their hats, neighbours all of them. One or two looked askance at Amelia, and nudged each other, but Amelia looked away so as not to meet their disbelieving eyes. She stood staunchly by Mary Ann.

  Amelia couldn’t make much sense of the rest of the service. Dozens of priests and little boys in funny outfits like nightgowns moved in a strange ballet on the altar, mainly with their backs to the people. They dabbled about with water and more candles, and they poured liquids in and out of containers as if they were mixing some strange potion, all the time mumbling and muttering their secret incantations. At one point, they all went off to the side and came back with an enormous jewel, which one of them held aloft in two hands hidden in a shot silk cope, and the little red light, which had shone bravely in the dark like a nightwatchman’s lantern and was now almost invisible in the light, followed them from the side to the high altar, and was lovingly instated in a special lampstand there. At another point, the purple coverings were taken off the statues and pictures, accompanied by little surges of prayer from the congregation.

  All through the service, Amelia watched Mary Ann and followed her actions. When Mary Ann stood, Amelia stood, and when Mary Ann knelt, Amelia knelt too. But whereas Amelia was at all times aware of Mary Ann, Mary Ann seemed to remain completely oblivious to Amelia. She moved into a prayerful realm where Amelia couldn’t follow her, and she prayed with great passion and intensity, her lips moving, her head bowed, her beads slipping through her fingers. She looked as if she was praying for something very important and very urgent. Amelia wondered what it was that Mary Ann was so concerned about, and she bowed her head and tried to think prayerful thoughts too, but the atmosphere was so unlike what she was used to that no such thoughts presented themselves. So instead, she looked up again and all around at the people, most of them sunk in prayer like Mary Ann, all of them huddled in their pews and looking at the same time bulky in their outdoor clothes and rather small under the great arching roof of the church.

  Afterwards, tripping home arm-in-arm with Mary Ann in the night air, Amelia asked what all that with the dark and the candles had been. Mary Ann said it symbolised the risen Christ, the Light of the World. In Amelia’s religion, people didn’t take ideas like that quite so literally, Amelia explained. Mary Ann gave her a thoughtful look, with maybe a little hint of pity in it, as if she was thinking that, good and all as the Quakers certainly were, they were perhaps spiritually deprived in some way that was not their fault. But of course she wouldn’t dream of saying so. Amelia returned the look, as if to say that powerful and dramatic as these ceremonies were, there was something a little risqué, a little pagan even, about them, and that really while part of her was thrilled by them, another part of her was rather repelled by the whole thing too. But of course, she wouldn’t dream of saying so either. So
both girls thought their private thoughts, and both of them kept their counsel.

  Easter Sunday

  Easter Sunday was bright and warm, just as Easter should be, but rarely is in Dublin. The sun smiled on the streets and on the roofs and gardens of Casimir Road, on the stiff black railings and the little tiled paths. The daffodils in the front garden sparkled and the irises glowed like precious jewels as the Pims stepped out to walk to Meeting, Amelia pretty in her new straw bonnet, Edmund swinging from Mama’s hand. To their surprise, Mary Ann was coming along the footpath, with her arms outstretched to accommodate a spread-out copy of the Sunday Independent, which she was reading as she walked. She must have slipped out as soon as breakfast was over to get it. It wasn’t a paper the Pims took. Without looking up, she turned in at the Pims’ gate and started to stumble up the short front path to the house.

  The family clustered at the front door smiled at each other at the sight of Mary Ann, half-hidden behind the newspaper and walking blindly up the garden path. They stood in the little porch and waited for her to greet them. But Mary Ann went on reading, or at least staring at the printed words. Then she stopped, halfway up the path, and lowered the paper. She looked straight at the family, but she plainly didn’t see them. She shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe what she read there, and then she raised the paper again, and she read again, where she stood. The little tableau on the doorstep smiled again. Then Amelia broke ranks and approached Mary Ann. She put up her Sunday-gloved hand and gently pulled the paper down, so that she could see Mary Ann.

  ‘Good morning, Mary Ann, my dear,’ she said, ‘and a Happy Easter to you.’