by Orna Ross
Yet a daughter was someone you could talk to and she was gripped with the need to talk, while she still could.
“I hated this place when I came here first. I never told you that, did I, Peg? When we came home here after our honeymoon in Killarney, every customer in the place was lined up along the counter to have a look at me. I was only eighteen and I found it awful hard. Only eighteen, younger than you are now. That’s why they were so curious, your father being so much older.”
It had always stayed with her, the way their male eyes had all harboured the same low thought, their curiosity like another body following her around all through those first weeks. “They could be as ignorant as they liked to us but I had to have a smile for all and never let on what I really thought about any of them. You know how it is, you’ve grown up with it, but I had never set foot in a pub in my life.”
“It must have been hard, all right.”
“I had to learn everything. But I did learn. I kept my side of the bargain.”
“Bargain?”
“A marriage is a bargain, isn’t it?”
“I suppose.” Peg looked pained, wearing the face she used to make as a child when you’d give her her cod-liver oil. Oh, young ones and their notions. She hardly expected her mother and father to be a pair of turtle doves, did she?
What sort of a face would she make if Máire was to tell her that she had spent the first months of her marriage making lists in her head of all the things she hated about her new husband, this old man who up to then had been nothing to her but her own father’s oldest friend?
A fine lengthy list it was too: the pink scalp that beamed through the combed-across streaks of his papery hair; the explosion of red veins across his nose and cheeks; the long, yellowing teeth, his breath blowing hot and stale between them; the fuzz of grey hair like moss across his chest; the bulge in his long-johns like a small animal curled up between his legs; his toenails, thick and tough as bone…
What if she was to tell her daughter that for years she was haunted by the image of the two men shaking hands over their deal, as JJ had told her they’d done? If she told her that he himself knew she had been wronged? That as she was passed to him at the altar, he wasn’t able to look her in the face, wasn’t able to raise his eyes any higher than her eighteen-year-old neck?
If she told her that a year into their marriage, she went to a priest in town about it?
“Does your husband mistreat you?” he’d asked.
“No, Father.”
“Is he perhaps too fond of the drink?”
“No, Father.”
“A gambler?”
“No, Father.”
“Have you any complaint against the man?”
I can’t bear him to touch me, Father. I can’t bear the touch of him.
But how could you say the like of that to a priest?
What if she were to tell that after she became pregnant with her, Peg, she had turned her back on him, only allowing him the run of her one more time, when she wanted a second child?
And what, oh what, if she was to tell her daughter of the flirtation she ran herself into with Billy Ffrench, one of the customers, a fascination that nearly ruined them all, only Lil Hayes pulled her back from the brink? Young Billy, wiry as a whippet. Nothing special to look at, with a face that looked like nothing as much as a skin-shrouded skull, but very tall, with a certain strange presence. And young.
Young.
One day she found herself wondering what it would be like to have someone like him kissing you, putting his hands on you, and once the thought had been allowed, she couldn’t rid herself of it. After a while, she didn’t even bother to try; it gave her solace. After another while, she found that she was going over to him whenever he was in the shop, leaning into the counter to have a laugh and a joke.
Harmless, she’d told herself. She was just being agreeable the way JJ explained you had to be with the customers, but she knew it was a lie and that the truth was Billy coming into the shop more often, his eyes skimming the counter to see if she was there, an echo of her own eyes scanning the place whenever she came through from the house. Soon they were the butt of talk. Trouble so distressed her husband that now it was she who wasn’t able to look at him straight — but on she went, making a fool of herself for the bold Billy.
Until word of the carry-on got back to his father.
The night Mr Ffrench heard what was going on he beat Billy with the leg of a kitchen chair, beat him until every part of his body except his face and hands, was a bruise. Beat him and then forbade him from going “next, nigh or near Parle’s” until he had sorted matters out.
It was her friend Lil Hayes who told her what had happened, not Billy himself. Lil was kind about it, in her straightforward way, kinder than any other woman in the village would have been, but blunt. Told her straight out that she had been a fool, that every man in the pub, every woman in the grocery and others too who never came near the place were talking about her.
Maybe the priest. Maybe even her own father, above on the little farm towards the mountain had heard. It was altogether possible that word had stretched that far.
Nothing had happened between them, she told Lil. “Even bigger fool you, then,” was Lil’s reply.
And nothing had, nothing more than their hands touching for a second too long when she’d be giving him back his change. For that, she had thrown away her reputation because once there was talk, people always thought the worst.
It was as if that conversation with Lil tore a film from her eyes; everything afterwards looked different. Her admirer did what his daddy told him to do, got engaged, then married, and never came near her with a sincere word again. She saw that he had little real feeling for her, that the thrill for him had been in having a woman, a good-looking woman and a married woman at that, making it obvious that she had a fancy for him. He had loved not her, but the winks and nudges of the other men.
It was the lowest point for her, lower even than her engagement, or the black hours of her wedding night. She took to her knees. Weeks and months she spent praying, asking God to show her how to live, how to make amends, how to do right. And, in time, her prayers were answered. She came to understand her flirtation for what it was, a foolishness born out of resentment for her situation. Weakness might have made her consent to this marriage her father forced on her but now she came to believe that the way to show strength was not by resistance but resignation.
She didn’t stop sleeping with her back to her husband but, in every other way, she struggled to accept her lot. Rearing two children, looking after the house and doing her share in the shop would be enough for most women to be going along with but she also started to take an active part in the movement that was shaking up the country, her generation’s response to the ancient problem of English rule in Ireland.
Now she looked across at Peg, whose head was bent over her mending. “He let me do what I needed to do,” she told her. “That was the best thing about your father. He didn’t push his will on me. On you children either.”
Peg lifted her head and nodded. Go on, her eyes said. Tell me. “He hated it when I joined Sinn Féin. He didn’t mind the work for the Gaelic League so much. Teaching Irish-language classes was one thing but canvassing for the new political party, that was quite another, he being Irish Party himself.
“As for encouraging Barney to go raiding the farmhouses for guns, or training you into Cumann na mBan work – well, you know yourself how he hated that. But he let me off.
“Only one time, when I took money out of the leather purse under the floorboards unknown to him, to buy Barney a Webley rifle, did he lose his temper with me. And he was justified in that. It was wrong of me but our boy had to have a good gun if the others were to look up to him as they should.”
It was JJ’s shame at what had been done to her at eighteen that made him acquiescent, that was another thing she didn’t say to Peg. Neither did she explain how the work she did for I
reland restored her self-respect after that misguided business with Billy Ffrench, gave her back some pride in herself.
Those years as the impossible unfolded into reality and the English were put on the wrong foot, were the best years of her life. On the day that Barney was sent to an English jail with Dan O’Donovan, she came back to Mucknamore from Wexford town and went on her knees to God. With the sound of tin-drummers and the shouts of rioters ringing in her ears, with a bruise on her chin from where she had caught a flying police baton, she had made straight for the chapel to kneel and give thanks to God that her struggle to accept had not been in vain. Through her son, and her own efforts, something greater than herself was born.
What she never foresaw that day — now almost a year ago — when Barney was dragged off in handcuffs was that he might need more than ever to be kept on the right track after he came out. Half of County Wexford might think him a hero but she was his mother and she knew the truth: he wasn’t nearly clear enough about how this Treaty was a betrayal.
Peg had a much better grasp of the principles. “I need you to speak to Barney,” Máire said to her now. “His thoughts are everywhere but where they should be.”
“So you have noticed, Mammy. I didn’t like to say.”
“I think he might be suffering for love.”
“Love? Really?” Peg looked at her over her darning, eyes popping to hear her mother use this word.
“Maybe I’m wrong but I believe he has a fancy for Norah O’Donovan.”
Had Peg really not noticed? Too caught up in her own fascination for the brother, maybe. Neither O’Donovan appealed much to Máire and she cursed the day they arrived in the village, setting hearts a-flutter.
Oh, she could see why her children were impressed: all that family had the looks. The girl Norah was like something in a picture and as for her brother, with his jaunty walk and talk…what young girl wouldn’t be dazzled?
But young O’Donovan was inclined to make little of those who hadn’t his brains or advantages: she had seen him have a go at poor Tipsy Delaney more than once, flattening him with a fancy phrase. He was the kind who’d use a rock to smash a fly instead of swatting it away.
“Norah’s father is very strict,” Peg was saying. “Then again, he can hardly expect her to stay single forever. She won’t say a word against him, though. She’s very private about things like that.”
Máire could see Peg had the idea of Norah and Barney well turned over in her mind. Time to put a stick in their spokes. “I don’t think she’s the right girl for your brother,” she said.
“Really? Why not?”
“Those O’Donovans are too cocky altogether.”
“Ah no. You couldn’t say that of Norah. Dan, maybe. But not Norah.”
The foolish girl blushed every time she said his name.
“Peg, there’s a copybook and pencil above there on the shelf. Will you take it down for me?” Peg laid down her mending, did as she was bid. “I’d like us to make a list of those who are likely to stay sound in the weeks ahead. Forget the flag-waggers and the would-be warriors, think on those who were with us in the hard times.”
“Tipsy, Lama and those?”
“Go through them,” Máire said. “I’d say you’re right that the White boy is firm. And the Moran boys I’d nearly swear on. The three Fortunes. The Leacys. Jamsie Crean. Jack Kelly. The Connicks. And you think young Delaney?”
“Tipsy? Definitely.”
“It’s just he’s such an eejit sometimes. He could be talked into anything. Though I suppose,” Máire arched an eyebrow, “he listens to some more than others.”
Peg was writing the names, allowing her to ignore that jibe.
“The O’Donovans?” Máire then said, lightly. This was the real question, the one she’d been building up to. “Dan and his sister?”
“They’re staunch.”
“You’re sure?”
“I was only talking to Norah last night. As staunch as ourselves.”
“And her brother?”
“Of course, Mammy. You know he was the most fervent of all.”
“John O’Donovan had been making ratification speeches all round the village since the day we heard the word Treaty.”
“We’re not going to start judging men by their fathers, I hope.” If they did, where would she and Barney be? Wasn’t JJ himself less than eager?
“Let’s hope you’re right,” said Máire. “O’Donovan is a sharp lad, if not quite as sharp as he thinks he is.”
“He’s an asset all right.” Peg couldn’t keep her face from rising red.
“I just wish he’d be a bit more respectful.”
Barney was captain of Mucknamore Company when Dan arrived to live in the village from Cork but by the time they were sent to prison, Dan had almost usurped the leadership role.
In fairness to the chap, it was not a deliberate appropriation, more a consequence of their two natures. Though he was a stranger, the other boys instinctively gave him a grudging regard. A regard of a different sort to that given to Barney, which had more to do with the Parles’ social position in the village and him being such a good hurler. “He’d take more than a few with him if he went.”
“Went where?”
“Joined the Green and Tans.” This was the name true Republicans had put on the new Free State army that was in the making.
“Dan? Never!”
“I’d like to think not, a ghrá, but I fear anything might happen now our principles are being watered down.”
“It seems to me there’s as many opinions on the Treaty as there are people to have them. And even if we do differ on some of the details…well, we can agree to differ, can’t we? They are our friends. And we’re all Republicans, that’s the important thing.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, girl. Anyone can call themselves a Republican but if this Treaty carries, the Republic dies.” Máire pulled herself up in the bed, holding her breathing steady against a paroxysm she could feel forming inside, crawling up her windpipe. “You can’t be for the Treaty and for the Republic as well.”
“Ah Mammy, that’s not –”
“It is that simple, Peg. You mark my words. Watch how it unfolds now in the weeks to come.”
She broke into a cough, discharging her beyond talk, beyond thought even, or any thought other than getting back out of the spasm’s malignant clench without too much damage done. It took her longer and longer each time, now, and after it was past, she was left fractured and scattered on her pillow. Knowing next time, it would take longer again, and so on, and on, until the time would come when she’d reach in vain, grasp for a settling, returning breath that would not come.
“I want to see this Treaty defeated,” she declared, as soon as she could trust her lungs again. She said it loud and clear into the darkening room so Peg could not misunderstand.
The way she said it stopped the girl in the act of biting a thread, made her look up with eyes full of what was not being said. But why keep it unspoken? It was too important. “I want to leave something worth leaving behind me.”
“Ah, Mammy. Don’t.”
“We’ll say no more. But I can count on you? To keep up the struggle and the work? To fight for the Republic, no matter what?”
Peg leaned across to her, fervent. “You know you can, Mammy. Of course you can. Of course.”
1968
My birthday, ten years old. For the first year in my memory, Mrs D. hasn’t baked a birthday cake. When I come home from school, in the place of my favourite home-made chocolate sponge is a square, shop-bought, fruit cake. She has slathered some icing across the top as a disguise and stuck in ten candles but I recognise it: O’Connor’s Fruit Cake, which we eat often, with the chewy raisins and the plastic red cherries like clown’s noses cut in half.
She is sitting at the table with Gran, half-smoked cigarettes squashed into zigzags in the ashtray in front of her. I suppose she hasn’t baked because she hasn’t the heart f
or it.
That’s what she says about everything these days. Some mornings she hasn’t the heart to get out of bed. When she is up, she doesn’t bustle and boss, but stays hunched over the ashtray, her eyes a world away. Everybody is kind to her. Gran and Eileen cover her hours in the shop. She has flu, the men in the pub, the women in the grocery, are told.
Yesterday Granny Peg told her that people are starting to suspect. “You’ll have to put your face out there,” she whispered, glancing across at me doing my homework by the fire in case I’m listening. I keep my eyes on my books. “Otherwise, what’s the point in trying to get him back before anyone’s the wiser?” Gran says. “You might as well write it up on the walls for all to see.”
Mammy tries: plucks up a face, plasters on a smile, takes it out to the shop. Later I’m out there myself getting milk and Mrs Cummins is in the grocery, telling her how great it is to see her about again. “Flu, was it?”
Mammy agreed that it was.
“It must have been a bad dose.” Mrs Cummins’ eyes are flecks of bone. “To have you missing Mass.”
A terrible dose, Mammy agrees, holding up a small red notebook. “You’ll want those -” she points to the groceries on the counter – “in here, I suppose?”
Mrs Cummins nods, slapped back into place by her debt.
In the shop, Mammy keeps up her front, but in the house her gloom is thick and sour and dumped all over us.
“That’s a lovely birthday cake,” I try now, coming into the kitchen and sitting down beside them. “Thank you, Mammy.”
She rolls her eyes. “Why did I ever bother baking a proper one for her before? She doesn’t even know the difference.”
I cannot win. To punish her, I say: “Will Daddy be home for my party?”
“No, your daddy’s away.”
Can she really believe that I have not noticed days of red eyes and snuffly noses and cloudy whispers steaming out under the kitchen door?
I make my voice clean of knowing, ask: “Will he be here later on?”