The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  A few days later, Pat left Bromwich with the rest of the gang. They walked into Birmingham and took a train to Liverpool. Once or twice Pat thought he saw withered leaves in potato fields, but he dismissed them from his mind.

  They crossed to Dublin by steamer. Sometimes they fell in with other returning harvesters. The blight in the potato fields was becoming more widespread as they travelled west.

  When they crossed into Connaught, the potatoes were being dug. The men were digging, the women following, picking out rotten potatoes and keening. It was a weird, unnerving sound. No one said anything.

  Pat wondered what he should do. Perhaps the sensible thing would be to write a quick note to his father, and return to England to find work on the rails. But since he was so near to Mayo, he decided to go on. Two days later, he arrived at Carrigard.

  That evening Murty and Aileen came down to the house.

  ‘Where’s Murteen?’ Murty asked him directly.

  ‘Did he not write to you?’

  ‘We haven’t heard from him for over a month. Where is he?’

  Aileen’s eyes were fixed on the flagstones at her feet.

  ‘He’s gone to Leeds,’ Pat answered.

  ‘Leeds?’ Murty exclaimed. ‘But why didn’t he tell us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pat said. ‘I’d thought he had.’

  ‘Well. he didn’t.’

  Eleanor was standing behind Aileen, her hand on Aileen’s shoulder.

  ‘He promised,’ Aileen whispered. ‘He said he’d come back. He promised us all.’

  ‘I know,’ Eleanor said.

  There was a long silence again, until Michael spoke. ‘I know it’s hard on you,’ he said. ‘None of us wanted him to stay away. But he’ll be sending you money too. God knows, you’ll need that.’

  ‘We will,’ Murty said. ‘With the potatoes looking the way they are, we’ll need as much as we can get.’

  ‘He promised,’ Aileen whispered again.

  ‘Shush there, now,’ Eleanor said, running her hand through her sister’s hair.

  For a few moments, no one said anything. Aileen was weeping. When he could bear it no longer, Luke spoke. ‘Did the rest of them come home with you?’

  ‘Not all of them,’ Pat answered. ‘Jamesy McManus, Mikey Jordan, Johnny Roughneen and Bernie McDonnell – they’re all gone up to Leeds to join Danny and Martin. They went with Murtybeg.’

  ‘So who did you travel home with?’

  ‘Eddie Roughneen…’

  ‘Eddie came home, and Johnny went to Leeds?’

  ‘That’s right. Michael O’Brien came back with us though. Johnny Walsh and Fergus Brennan too.’

  Eleanor brought a bottle of poitín and handed a mug to Pat. He drained it in one gulp. She handed a second mug to Luke. She noticed his hands were trembling. ‘Are you alright, Luke?’

  ‘Yes, Mother, I’m fine.’ No one else had noticed.

  ‘What about ye, though?’ Pat asked as Eleanor refilled his mug. ‘How’s the potatoes?’

  ‘Bad enough,’ Michael said.

  ‘So what will we do now?’

  ‘We’ll wait it out a few days. We’ve money enough to last for a month or two, buy a little corn.’

  ‘And little enough too,’ Eleanor said, still stroking Aileen’s hair. ‘The price is going to rise, you know that as well as I do.’

  ‘Let’s see how much it does. In a few days, we’ll have a better idea – see what the reports on the crop are like from around the county. I hope to God they don’t all have the same story as us.’

  ‘And what if they do, Father?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Pat might have to return to England, go on the railways too. We’ll need money, a lot more than we have now.’

  ‘After me just coming home?’ Pat said.

  ‘We’ll see,’ Michael said. ‘If it has to be done, it can’t be helped, and that’s all about it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Murty said, ‘and it’s just as well Murtybeg decided to stay on too, even if he did break his promise. Danny says there’s no problem getting work on the rails. It’s like last year, they’re building railway lines in every direction. We’ll be fine, one way or another we’ll have food to eat.’

  ‘We will,’ Eleanor said. ‘But what about everyone else around?’

  ‘God alone knows the answer to that,’ Murty said.

  Luke was repairing one of the walls when he saw Fergus Brennan walking across the field. His heart started to race. There’s no need for this, he thought. Just act as if nothing happened.

  ‘Fergus. I’d heard you were back,’.

  ‘I am,’ Brennan answered in a voice both non-committal and menacing.

  ‘How was Bromwich?’

  ‘Alright.’ He looked Luke straight in the eye. ‘I’ve been hearing stories.’

  Luke stared at him, not knowing how to answer. He thought of denying the stories, but realised Fergus would have heard and checked them through different sources. He decided to be honest.

  ‘They’re old stories. It’s all in the past now.’

  ‘Yes, I’d heard that too.’

  ‘What can I say, Fergus. I’m sorry.’

  ‘‘Sorry’ isn’t enough.’

  Luke saw the left fist move. Instinctively he brought his hands across to protect himself. He never saw the right hook coming.

  ‘Where’s Luke?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Up the top meadow,’ Michael said. ‘I sent him up repairing the wall there.’

  ‘He should be back now.’

  ‘It’s not late.’

  ‘He’s always back for his supper,’ she said.

  Michael cut into a potato, raising half of it to his mouth. ‘Arra, don’t worry. He’ll be back soon enough.’

  Eleanor fixed her shawl over her head. ‘But I do worry,’ she said. She left Michael at his dinner and walked up to the meadow.

  At first she was alarmed when she could not see him. She started to follow the wall and came to him at the far corner, sitting on the ground, trembling, his arms around his shins, his head hunched into his knees.

  ‘Luke,’ she said. He looked at her, but said nothing. She knelt beside him, holding his head into her breast. ‘You’re cold, alanna. You shouldn’t be sitting here like this.’ But she knew the trembling was not just from the cold. She tried to get him to stand, but he stayed hunched. She thought of going back to get Michael, but preferred to stay. She saw his tongue was bleeding. She stayed kneeling beside him, watching the bright harvest moon rising over the rath.

  She heard Michael’s voice in the distance. ‘Over here,’ she shouted.

  He came and looked at Luke. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘He can’t stand.’

  ‘Of course he can. Come on there, Luke.’ He tried to lift him, but Luke fell away from him.

  ‘I’ll go and get Pat,’ Eleanor said.

  A few minutes later, Pat and Michael took Luke’s arms around their shoulders, stood him up, and half walked, half dragged him back to the house. They laid him on his bed in the outshot. Within seconds he was asleep. Eleanor took off his boots and laid a blanket over him.

  He slept for most of the following morning. Eleanor would not permit Michael to disturb him. Later, when Michael and Pat came in for their midday meal, she fed Luke porridge. Michael went to speak, but Eleanor shushed him with a finger to her lips.

  For the rest of the afternoon, Luke stayed indoors. Eleanor had seen the bruises under his chin. She guessed what had happened, but said nothing.

  After midnight, long after the family had gone to bed, he lay awake, staring into the darkness. There was a movement outside the curtain.

  ‘Luke,’ his father whispered.

  ‘Yes, Father.’ The curtain was drawn back.

  ‘Are you better?’

/>   ‘Yes, much better.’

  ‘Was it Fergus?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’

  ‘He knows so?’

  ‘Of course he knows.’

  There was a silence. Luke could see the outline of his father’s head against the moonlit window.

  ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘No one, Father.’

  ‘So he just left you there?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘It’s as well he did. If you were out cold, he had plenty of time to smash your legs if he wanted. Killed you. Or worse.’

  Luke flinched. There was only one thing worse than killing. ‘I wonder why he didn’t.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Michael said, ‘and I don’t want to know. I reckon it’s over though. If he wanted to go further, he had his chance then. But he’s done what he wanted to do, and soon everyone will know it.’

  Luke thought about that. ‘I suppose I can put up with that.’

  ‘You’ll have to. And just remember this – you were lucky this time. Damned lucky. Now go back to sleep, and don’t ever get into trouble like that again.’

  One wet morning, there was a knock on the door. Kitty stood outside.

  Eleanor stared at her in a mixture of delight and horror. She looked thinner than before, and her shift hung loose. Neither said anything. Eleanor opened the door wider and let her in.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here, child.’

  ‘I know, I know. It’s just how I couldn’t stay away.’

  ‘We’ll be in terrible trouble if they find out.’

  ‘Do you think I should go?’

  ‘Sure, stay on a while,’ Eleanor said. ‘We’ll keep a good eye out for them. Sit here.’ She went behind the curtain and brought the baby out. Kitty took Brigid in her lap and hugged her.

  ‘Brigid, alanna,’ she whispered, ‘do you know how I’ve missed you?’

  Eleanor sat beside Kitty, trying hard not to stare at her face. One of her eyes was puffy, a slight but discernible gash on the cheekbone just below it. Her other cheek and her chin showed definite bruising. Eleanor decided to be direct. ‘Is he beating you, child?’

  Kitty nodded and went on rocking the baby, crooning in Irish. Her eyes welled with tears. After a few minutes, she spoke.

  ‘And Luke,’ she asked, ‘how’s Luke?’

  ‘He’s alright now,’ Eleanor replied.

  ‘Fergus said he beat him. He said he near killed him.’

  ‘He beat him right enough, but it wasn’t as bad as all that. He was up and on his feet after a day or two.’

  Now the tears were coming down her cheeks. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused.’

  ‘Don’t you be fretting yourself, child,’ Eleanor replied. ‘It’s the way we all are. You’re no different to any of us.’

  After that, Kitty came by every week. Gradually her wit and spirit returned, and again it seemed like the old days. But Eleanor could sense the gloom in her. The bruises would disappear, and Eleanor kept hoping they would not return. But they would, and on such days she would do what she could to console her. She saw too how much thinner Kitty had become.

  ‘Are you not eating?’

  ‘I am,’ Kitty said. ‘But only corn and cabbage. What good can that do for anyone? We’ve little enough money with Fergus coming home, and what we have isn’t enough to buy food for all the family with corn the price it is. And it’s worse for the old man. He’s not able to keep any of it in, he’s only a shadow of a man now.’

  But there were better days too, days when Kitty would light up as soon as she saw Brigid. Some mornings she would spend hours playing with the child, swinging her around, sitting her on her lap, tickling her and telling her stories that the baby would not yet understand.

  The need for secrecy was extreme. Always Eleanor sat by the window, keeping a sharp eye out for anyone coming. Once they were nearly surprised, but Kitty scaled the ladder into the loft, throwing herself down on the straw just as the door opened, and Luke came in with Michael. That episode gave Eleanor quite a fright, but she found that she was already infected with some of Kitty’s wilder nature, and was almost beginning to enjoy the risk.

  But one morning, they really were surprised. They were sitting close to the fire and did not see the door opening. Aileen was there. The three women looked at each other, stunned. Then Eleanor spoke. ‘I was going to bring her up to you in a wee while,’ she said, nodding towards Brigid.

  ‘I thought I’d save you the trouble,’ Aileen said.

  ‘Wasn’t it the right hurry you had.’

  Aileen looked doubtful. Eleanor stood, and put her hand on her sister’s shoulder. ‘It’s alright now. Kitty is her godmother, and she has a right to see her. The thing with Luke is all in the past, so let’s not worry about it.’

  Aileen sat at the table, looking directly at Kitty, still sitting by the fire.

  ‘I can’t leave her,’ Kitty said, in reply to the unspoken question. ‘And I won’t.’

  Aileen nodded as Eleanor handed her a small mug of buttermilk. She made no direct comment on Kitty though. Instead she placed some coins on the table. Kitty looked at Eleanor, but said nothing.

  ‘We got the money from Danny yesterday,’ Aileen explained. ‘Murty thought you might be needing some.’

  ‘We might indeed,’ Eleanor said. ‘It’s good of ye to think of it.’

  ‘And how are your potatoes now?’

  ‘Luke and Michael are still reckoning they’ll save the half of them, those of them that are clamped anyhow. They might have to kill the cow though. That will help us to the next harvest, please God. And after that, Pat will be sending money back from England again.’

  ‘Well, this might help you with a little corn in the meantime.’

  ‘It surely will.’

  Aileen looked from Eleanor back to Kitty, acknowledging her for the first time. ‘And how about ye?’ she asked. ‘Will ye make it to the harvest?’

  ‘Not with what we’ve got,’ Kitty said.

  ‘So what will ye do then?’

  ‘Fergus is talking of England again. He’s thinking of joining Danny after Christmas. They say there’s no end of money on the railways.’

  She saw the look of alarm in Aileen’s eyes. ‘But don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’m not even thinking of Luke. I’ll leave him alone, I swear it.’

  Now the balance of everything changed. There was still the risk, but it was easier with either Eleanor or Aileen standing at the window, or sometimes at the door in the mornings. Eleanor did not know if she was more concerned about making Michael angry or upsetting Luke. Twice more, the men returned early from the fields, but now the women had enough warning. Afterwards they laughed about it.

  And it was this laughter that convinced Eleanor that they could not stop meeting. Kitty’s stories, Brigid’s childish smiles, all of this brought about a change in Aileen that Eleanor had once despaired of ever seeing. She thought of saying it to Murty and Michael, but dismissed it from her mind. Murty would not object, but Michael would never understand.

  The hunger went on, and the women cut the rations for their families, determined that there would be enough seed potatoes left. The remittances from Danny and Murtybeg helped too. Eleanor promised Aileen that she would repay the money when Pat went to England again, but her sister only laughed at this. But the grim resolve to survive the hunger brought a change in the three women. They were determined that Brigid would have a different life.

  It was Kitty who first brought up the subject. The price of corn had gone up again, and Eleanor had started cooking yellow meal instead. It was hard and flinty, taking hours of boiling to soften it.

  ‘Ye’re eating meal too?’ Kitty said.

  ‘Of course we are,’ Eleanor said. ‘ We can’t afford the corn.’

>   ‘It’s hard to eat. Fergus’s father, he’s few enough teeth in his head without having to eat this stuff, and it won’t be easy for the baby either.’

  The three women lapsed into silence, Eleanor stirring the pot of meal hanging over the turf fire.

  ‘Is this the kind of life we want for Brigid?’ Kitty asked suddenly.

  ‘What else is there?’ asked Eleanor

  ‘We’ll make a start by sending her to Murty’s school,’ Kitty replied.

  ‘We will,’ Aileen said. ‘But what if the new schools come?’

  Eleanor saw the familiar look of depression return to her sister’s eyes. ‘Arra, they’ll never come here.’

  ‘Oh, but they will,’ Aileen said.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘But it’s not just us I’m thinking about,’ Aileen said. ‘It’s Brigid.’

  ‘If that’s your concern,’ Kitty said, ‘I wouldn’t worry. If the new schools come, then everyone will have to go to them, girls and boys, it doesn’t matter. The Government men, they’ll make them go, and the girls will get their schooling, whether their families want it or not.’

  ‘Yes,’ Aileen said, ‘but only for four years.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Kitty said.

  ‘So what are you saying, child?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Castlebar. They’d school her longer in Castlebar.’

  ‘Castlebar!’ Aileen echoed.

  ‘Yes,’ Kitty said. ‘And after that, Galway or Dublin even. Brigid is going to be a teacher.’

  ‘A teacher!’ Eleanor exclaimed. ‘That costs money.’

  ‘So it does,’ Kitty said, ‘but we’ll find it. After the hunger is over, some way or the other, we’ll find it.’

  Eleanor was feeding Brigid when she noticed McKinnon riding past in the direction of Knockanure. She thought a while. When she finished feeding the baby, she took her up, and walked down the Kilduff road. It was still early.

  Sabina was washing down the tables when she arrived. There was no one else in the bar. She looked at Eleanor in surprise.

  ‘I thought I’d bring the baby down for you to see,’ Eleanor said.