Crisis in the Potting Shed
As soon as she had finished her work that evening, Mary Ann made a big hearty sandwich for Patrick and poured hot strong tea into the largest mug she could find, and, carrying an oil-lamp carefully in front of her so that she wouldn’t be outlined in its light should anyone look out of the windows, she made her way to the potting shed. She creaked the door open. The shed smelt of earth and onions and green firewood, and it was cold, but at least it was out of the weather. She could hear Patrick’s breathing, like a cat with a cold snoring in a corner, but she couldn’t quite see him in the dim interior of the shed. She put the oil-lamp on the workbench and turned up the wick so that the steady light intensified and light-filled shadows sought out the corners of the tiny building.
‘Patrick,’ she whispered, toeing her brother in the ribs, to make him sit up and take his tea.
The young man shuddered in his sleep, and the pattern of his breathing shifted a gear, but he went on sleeping.
Mary Ann leant over him. His face was flushed bright red and his hair, already dark, was gleaming black with sweat and plastered to his head and the sides of his face. She put her hand to his forehead, as she had seen her mother do countless times to one of the little ones she was worried about. His skin was burning under her cool touch. He opened his eyes and murmured something, but he seemed to be talking in his sleep, and his eyes looked like two glassy marbles in his head.
Mary Ann sat down on the edge of his makeshift mattress, sitting on one of his feet by mistake. He pulled his foot away with an angry movement, but still he didn’t wake. She could feel the cold of the floor coming through the thin layer of sacking. Now what was she going to do?
She tried shaking him, but he merely flailed his arms about and moaned. He must have moved his bad arm in his irritation and hurt it. Mary Ann reached up and took down the mug of tea from the bench and buried the tip of her nose in the thin steam that came off it. There was no point in wasting it, she thought, her careful upbringing showing through, even at a moment of distress.
She took a deep draught of the tea, and it travelled with a wave of warmth through her body, which had begun to shiver with cold and apprehension. It made her toes tingle, and the palms of her hands, which were pressed against the comforting sides of the mug, sweated gently. It was as good as brandy, thought Mary Ann, who had never tasted strong liquor in her life.
She drained the tea and regarded the pattern made by the tea-leaves and the half-melted sugar (she had forgotten to stir it) in the bottom of the mug and half-way up one side, and tried to see a picture or an omen there, screwing up her eyes in the thin light. Was that a star? Or a dog with its paws splayed? That was surely a candle over there, with a guttering flame and a wisp of sugary smoke. She licked her finger and ran it around the inside of the mug to gather the sweet remains, and sucked it thoughtfully.
Patrick was obviously in no fit state to travel, on foot, out of sight of the security forces, and with a wounded arm, all the way to Ashbourne. He wasn’t even conscious at this moment, not to mind roadworthy. Mary Ann looked at him anxiously. He couldn’t stay here – he was too ill, and it was too dangerous, both for himself and for the family, which was already under suspicion. If the government or the police or the Castle or whoever it was that was in charge of these things got to hear that he had been in the Rising, this was the first place they would look for him. Or the second place, after her da’s.
What could she do with him? One thing was sure: she couldn’t just leave him here. Suppose he was discovered by the powers that be. He’d be hanged for a traitor, and what would happen to the Pims? Gaol sentences, maybe, for harbouring a felon, or whatever he was. Accessories after the act, or something. Oh lawny!
She was going to have to tell Amelia. She had known this from the first moment she had put her hand on Patrick’s feverish forehead, but only now had she gathered enough strength to admit it to herself. Amelia would know what to do. Well, she mightn’t, but at least she would be somebody to talk to about it. And Mary Ann badly needed to share this trouble with someone. She had been worrying about her brother and his subversive activities ever since the day she had got the first letter from him. She had lost sleep over it, but she had kept silent. Then she had had the dreadful experience of the raid, and she had kept silent then, too. In silence she had received his second, conciliatory letter, in silence she had prayed and worried about the proposed activities of Easter Sunday, and in silence she had rejoiced and puzzled over the countermanding order in the newspaper. Even on Easter Monday, when the trams were off and she knew, she knew before anyone said a thing about rebellion, that it had happened, she hadn’t uttered a word. And today, she had kept a tumultuous silence through the afternoon and evening, knowing Patrick was out here in the dark cold shed, but expecting he would be off at any moment, north to Ashbourne. But now she could keep silence no longer. Now was the time to speak.
Before she could argue herself out of this conviction, Mary Ann stood up to go in to Amelia. Her legs were stiff from sitting on the hard floor, and she struggled to her feet with a comic set of movements, like a puppet with its strings in a tangle being yanked into life. She settled her cap on her head – she knew it must be crooked, because it usually was, even without sitting on the floor in the semi-darkness – and she wiped the tip of her nose with her cuff, because it was cold and because it might be smudged with dirt or dust or earth – you never knew what you might put your nose into in this place – and she picked up the oil-lamp and left the shed and went with a light tread to find her friend.
Amelia was already in her nightgown, sitting on the end of her bed and brushing her hair, her small pink feet dangling. Mary Ann brought a cold draught of air with her as she entered the room after the briefest knock. Her face looked pinched. She came and sat on the bed next to Amelia, and she gave off a musty coldness. Amelia looked mildly surprised, but she went on brushing as she said:
‘Still in your daytime clothes, Mary Ann? Aren’t you going to go to bed at all tonight?’
‘Maybe not,’ said Mary Ann, unexpectedly.
Amelia stopped brushing.
Mary Ann started to gabble, tumbling the story out very fast:
‘My brother Patrick, well you know he’s been involved with the Volunteers and all, he’s always been that way inclined, anyway, he was in the Rising, you know, with Mr Pearse and all them in the fighting in town, and he excaped, y’see, and he’s on his way to Ashbourne, only he’s wounded, like, and he’s feverish, I think he’s unconscious, anyway I can’t wake him up, only he was supposed to go to Ashbourne tonight, with a message, but he can’t go, he can’t move, he’s dead sick, Amelia, and I’m afraid they might come looking for him, and then we’d all be in real trouble, I mean really serious trouble, and I know your people are all dead set against violence and all, and it would be just awful if they got into trouble because of me, I mean him, and them peace-loving people and not even on the side of the English in the war, because they think war is wrong, and it is, it is, but anyway I think your ma has had enough of prison after that last time, it nearly kilt her, and now look.’
‘What?’ said Amelia, her hairbrush poised in mid-air.
‘Me brother, Patrick, y’see he’s been in the …’
‘No, no, I didn’t really mean “what”,’ said Amelia impatiently. ‘No, Mary Ann, please don’t repeat it all again, I don’t think I could bear it. I meant “where” – where is he?’
‘In that little shed.’
‘What little shed, Mary Ann?’
‘The one in the garden. The back garden.’
‘Our back garden?’
‘Yes, of course, our back garden.’
‘What’s he doing in our back garden?’
‘Oh, Amelia, what does it matter what he’s doing? Nothing, sleeping, being unconscious, whatever you call it, just lying there.’
‘He can’t stay there. He just can’t.’
‘I know, I know. I mean, i
f he’s found, we’re all sunk. Oh, this is terrible altogether. The last thing I wanted was for your family to get mixed up in this. The very last thing.’
Mary Ann was rocking back and forth on the bed, with her hands cradled together like a baby animal in the folds of her skirt.
‘No, no, I mean, if he’s ill, we can’t leave him out there. He might die.’ Amelia tended to look on the bleak side when it came to illness.
‘Oh, Amelia!’ Mary Ann’s voice wavered for the first time.
‘Come on!’ Amelia climbed down from the bed and burrowed in a heap of underclothes on a chair. She fished out her stockings, and pushed her feet into them, folding down the tops. Then she slipped on a pair of dancing pumps and wrapped her outdoor coat, which was hanging on the back of her bedroom door, around her nightgown. She looked very peculiar with her long hair in a bright sheet over her shoulders, the ruffles of her nightgown showing over the top of her coat, her stockings around her ankles and dancing pumps on her feet.
‘I haven’t got a hat,’ she said, casting about. ‘Here, this’ll do.’ And she picked up an old paisley shawl she sometimes wrapped around her shoulders when she sat up reading in bed, and threw it over her head, wrapping it swiftly around her like a cowl.
Mary Ann followed Amelia meekly down the stairs, on tiptoe, through the kitchen and out into the night air, carrying the oil-lamp again.
‘He’s got a raging fever!’ whispered Amelia, after touching Patrick’s face. It was flushed and sweating.
‘I know,’ Mary Ann whispered back.
‘Let me get a look at this wound of his. Where is he hurt?’
Amelia had on her bedside voice. She fancied herself as a bit of a physician, Mary Ann knew, since she had helped cure Edmund of his pneumonia two years ago while her mother was in prison.
Mary Ann held the oil-lamp, while Amelia ripped open Patrick’s sleeve and examined a horrible sticky red gash, encrusted around the edges with dried blood, and suppurating.
‘It’s infected,’ Amelia pronounced authoritatively. ‘I need to clean it thoroughly. I need hot water, Mary Ann, clean rags – white if you can get them, and as many as you can find, lint – you’ll find that in the corner cupboard in the bathroom – and iodine – you’ll get that there too.’
‘I thought you said we couldn’t leave him here. He might die.’
‘Well, we can’t very well move him, can we?’
Mary Ann made a stifled sound.
‘Oh, Mary Ann, he won’t die if we get him cleaned up and warm. I only meant he might if we didn’t do something. He won’t die, Mary Ann. I promise. I won’t let him die.’
Amelia looked down at her patient. His skin was white, where it wasn’t flushed with fever, and delicate. She could see the pale blue tracery of veins at his temple. And his lashes lay long and blue-black on his cheeks, like a girl’s. She had an urge to take his head onto her lap and cradle it, but she didn’t of course.
‘And brandy,’ Amelia added to Mary Ann, who was opening the door. ‘And he’s lying almost directly on the floor. What can we get for a mattress? Tell you what, take the cushions off the armchairs in your room and mine. Nobody will miss those. And more blankets. Get a blanket off my bed.’
Mary Ann nodded. Then she called softly: ‘Amelia.’
‘What?’
‘We have no brandy. Will cooking sherry do?’
This was quite true. There was never any alcohol to speak of kept in the house. But there must be cooking sherry. Amelia remembered tasting it in soups and trifles. She believed Mary Ann used it to disguise her unimaginative cooking. She started to giggle at the thought of reviving a soldier of the newly proclaimed republic of Ireland with cooking sherry. Her body shook with laughter, which she tried to suppress, in case she offended Mary Ann. But she needn’t have bothered, for Mary Ann was giggling hysterically too, holding onto the metal latch and leaning against the shed door. The two girls looked at each other and laughed out loud. A wild, insane sort of laughter it was, born of tension, but it did them good.
‘Ye-es,’ sobbed Amelia as soon as she could make herself understood. ‘I’m sure Patrick won’t be in a fit state to tell the difference!’
Dr Pim
Mary Ann came back quickly with the things Amelia had ordered. Luckily the kettle wasn’t long off the boil, and the range was still warm. She groped her way through the garden by the light of the open kitchen door, for she had left the oil-lamp with Amelia in the shed.
Patrick was still unconscious, and breathing noisily. Amelia had already torn the rest of his sleeve away from his wounded arm, ready to clean it up and dress it. Between them, they worked the armchair cushions under Patrick’s body. It didn’t look very comfortable, but at least he wasn’t in contact with the shed floor any more.
Amelia worked quickly, giving Mary Ann sharp orders in a low voice as she did so. Mary Ann sat at Patrick’s head all through the operation, with a mouthful of the cooking sherry in a teacup in her hand, in case he woke up. Amelia had an idea that it would knock him out again; actually there was hardly enough alcohol in it to knock out a mouse. But Amelia’s touch must have been light, for he didn’t wake with the pain. When she had him all bandaged up to her satisfaction, she said to Mary Ann to try to force some of the sherry between his lips.
‘What for?’ whispered Mary Ann.
‘To bring him round.’
‘But you said a minute ago it would knock him out.’
Amelia was stumped.
‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘it would have knocked him out if he’d drunk it all. I mean just wet his lips with it, to bring him round.’
Mary Ann did as she was told. Patrick spluttered and sputtered and spat the foul liquid out, but he didn’t wake up.
‘Now what’ll we do?’ asked Mary Ann anxiously.
‘How should I know?’ retorted Amelia, exhausted more from tension than from her work or the lateness of the hour. ‘Here, give me that sherry.’
And she made to take the sherry from Mary Ann.
‘Amelia Pim! You’re too young to be drinking!’ Mary Ann was horrified.
Amelia wiped the back of her hand across her forehead.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ she said. ‘Just for a moment there it seemed like a good idea.’
Amelia leant over and started to bathe Patrick’s face, hoping to reduce the fever.
‘Oh, Amelia,’ wailed Mary Ann, ‘I’ve landed us all in it now, with this blessed brother of mine. I’ll never forgive myself if your family gets into trouble with the law over this.’
‘Look, Mary Ann,’ said Amelia, ‘that is the last thing my parents would think of if they knew Patrick was out here. I know you’re afraid to involve them with this Rising of Patrick’s, and you’re right that we could all be in trouble if he’s found here. But this is not the same at all as hiding guns. This is a human being who is ill and in need of help. I know, I can promise you, that all they would be concerned about would be getting him to a hospital and to safety. So will you stop worrying about what my family would think. We have enough to do to keep him alive.’
‘Oh!’ Mary Ann sobbed.
‘Mary Ann, I think the best thing would be to wake my father and mother. Between us all we could move him. We could get an ambulance or a doctor.’
‘Oh no, Amelia, please don’t, please! If he goes to hospital, he’ll be caught. Can you not make him better?’
‘Well, I can try. But he probably needs a doctor. Will you let me go for Dr Mitchell? He’s a pal – he’d never let on.’
Mary Ann’s body shook with sobs. She didn’t answer, but she gave Amelia a pleading look.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Amelia, ‘we’ll give him till morning. We’ll keep an eye on him through the night, and if he doesn’t get any worse, we’ll take a chance on it. And in the morning we can decide.’
‘All right,’ Mary Ann sniffed. ‘Thanks, Amelia. You’re a pet. But oh!’ She started to sob again. ‘What about Ashbourne? I be
tter go myself.’
Mary Ann scrambled to her feet and began to get ready to leave.
‘Mary Ann! You can’t go to Ashbourne, on your own. It’s the middle of the night!’
‘It’s only ten to eleven.’
‘It wouldn’t matter if it was only nine o’clock. It’s dark. How do you think you’re going to get there? It’s miles away. There mightn’t be a train at this hour. I don’t even know if there’s a railway line to there. Oh, Mary Ann, you can’t go.’
‘I must.’
‘Why must you? What does it matter about the old message?’
‘Because he can’t deliver it himself. He’ll be in an awful state when he wakes up if he discovers he’s slept through it all and failed in his mission. It’ll kill him altogether. I have to go, for his sake.’
‘But you can’t go alone. And I can’t come with you. I have to mind this fellow.’
Mary Ann spread the fingers of one hand wide over her face as if to hide her terror, and with the other hand she made frantic motions in the air, as if warding off demons of fear and panic and confusion.
‘I have to go, I tell you, I must.’ Mary Ann emerged from behind her splayed hand. ‘It would be worse for him to fail in this than anything. He’d rather die in the attempt and die with honour. Oh, Amelia, think if it were Frederick!’
Frederick hadn’t been far from Amelia’s thoughts. As she had bathed and bandaged Patrick, she had wondered if some girl somewhere might do the same for Frederick if she found him wounded in France. She imagined Frederick sickly and shot, in a sweet-smelling haybarn on a French farm, and some apple-cheeked French farmer’s daughter with a blue check kerchief round her head and strong peasant hands tending her hero’s wounds. She imagined it all so vividly that she was almost jealous of the French farm girl. But she didn’t like it when Mary Ann mentioned his name, as if she had tuned into her private thoughts.
No Peace for Amelia Page 11