The Killing Snows

by Charles Egan

  Pat glared at his brother. ‘Well, no one asked me. What if I want to stay on with the Union?’

  ‘The Union! Why the devil would you want to stay there?’

  ‘Maybe because I like it. There’s not many places would give you thirty five pounds a year, all found. A good position for life.’

  Eleanor glanced at Michael.

  ‘What’s that you say?’ he asked. ‘Thirty five pounds per year. Where did you get that from?’

  ‘The Union is offering it to me. Voisey said it was mine for the taking.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘I hadn’t decided to accept. But the more I thought about it, the better it seemed. Thirty five pounds a year, you don’t get that everywhere.’

  There was a silence around the table. Then Eleanor spoke.

  ‘But if you don’t sign for the farm in two years, Luke will have to come back from America.’

  ‘Then let him come back.’

  ‘Come back?’ Luke said. ‘That’s easy for you to say. Sure why bother going if I’m to come back after two years?’

  ‘Because we’d all be together,’ Eleanor answered him. ‘One family – Carrigard or Knockanure.’

  ‘And what if the blight returns?’

  ‘But the blight’s gone, can’t you see it with your own eyes. It won’t come back.’

  ‘You’ve no way of knowing that.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Eleanor said. ‘But if it stays away two years, would you come back then?’

  Luke hesitated.

  Winnie put her hand on his arm. ‘She’s right, a ghrá. We’d all be together.’

  He looked from Winnie to Eleanor, bewildered.

  ‘Fine so,’ he said at last. ‘If there’s no blight for two years, I’ll come back.’

  ‘Promise,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘I’ll do my damnedest, but I can’t promise.’

  *

  That night Pat stayed in Carrigard. He lay awake in his bed, thinking. In spite of everything, he was still uncertain.

  Luke would come back, and he himself would stay in Knockanure. Did he believe that? And even if it turned out that way, it would mean abandoning the farm which he had wanted for so many years. Blight or no blight, he wanted to keep some sort of claim to it. But how?

  If he returned to Carrigard, Luke and Winnie would stay away, and he would have to give up his position in the Union. And with it, thirty five pounds a year and any chance of promotion. Why would he do that? What future had the farm anyhow? Did he really want it?

  And Sarah? Two years she had asked. A few years, his own mother had asked. He would have to be twenty-one years old to co-sign for the farm. And twenty-one to propose to Sarah. What if Luke stayed away though, and he had to farm in Carrigard – no choice? What kind of future could he offer her then?

  He rose before dawn, and walked back to Knockanure. He avoided the crowd at the front gate, and went around the back instead. There were a few families there, but one of the inmates opened the gate a few inches, and he squeezed in. He walked along the edge of the trench. For a few moments he stopped there, staring at the corpses below. The scene no longer upset him, as it once did. It was as if it was unreal, not of this world.

  He walked on to the administration block.

  ‘So what now?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘I don’t know. ‘

  ‘What happens if you don’t take it?’

  ‘Luke has to come home, and farm it.’

  ‘Will he though?’

  ‘I don’t know that neither. He says he will, but I don’t know that I’d believe him. America’s a long way away, and I’ve not heard of many returning. And if he doesn’t come back I’d be trapped.’

  ‘Maybe you could sign the lease, and rent out the farm.’

  ‘No chance of that. There’s a nasty little clause in the lease about no sub-letting. No, if the farm wasn’t being worked, the agent would want to let it to someone else. And there’s only one house.’

  ‘So if ye both stayed away, they’d be evicted.’

  ‘That’s the way it’s looking. They could move in with Sabina though.’

  ‘Who?’ she asked.

  ‘My aunt. Ian McKinnon’s widow. She runs a bar in Kilduff. She’ll be lonely enough as it is.’

  Sarah worked on for a few minutes, writing out a requisition form. Then she put her pen in the inkpot.

  ‘Well, you’ve two years to think about it.’

  ‘If Father lasts out that long.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look, he’s an old man. I’m not sure that he could keep the farm and the quarry running with Luke gone. In fact, I’m sure he couldn’t.’

  He totted another column. ‘Isn’t it strange. All these years I’ve wanted the farm, thinking Luke had it. And now that I can have it, I don’t know if I want it or not.’

  ‘But at the same time, it mightn’t be a bad idea,’ Sarah said.

  He looked at her in surprise. ‘Do you really think that?’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. It’s just that I’m sick of the Workhouse and the fever sheds. All these years living in Workhouses, I usen’t mind it when I was a child. It’s only as you get older you can see how hard it is. Maybe like Voisey says it’s getting better. This thing of shipping people off to America though – I don’t know. But one way or another, money or no money, we’ve done our share.’

  ‘But you’d never settle in to Carrigard. You’ve never worked on a farm in your life.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I haven’t. But all I know is this – your mother, she’s a strong woman, from all you tell me. We’d get on well, your mother and me, I’m sure of it. And that would make it all possible. Maybe we should give it a try.’

  ‘But it’s not possible. It’s not my mother’s the problem – it’s yours. She would never agree to it, you know that. And she’d be right. She’d only agree to us marrying if she thought I’d a chance of making Master. She’d never agree to you marrying a farmer.’

  ‘Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t.’

  ‘I know she wouldn’t. And even supposing we defied her, you’d never go from this to a small farm and the chance of another hunger hanging over you. There’s no future in it, you know that as well as I do.’

  They both turned back to their work. Then Pat stopped again. ‘You know what…’

  ‘Wait till I finish this.’

  A moment later, she looked up. ‘Well, what were you going to say?’

  ‘I was just thinking. Either way we’re talking about marriage. Aren’t we?’

  She threw the pen at him.

  The building of Kilduff School was finished before the summer. It opened before the harvest, and attendance was compulsory. Because the school could not take every child in the area, compulsion was only applied to Kilduff and a radius of one mile from it, until the school in Liscreggan could be opened. As it happened, the one-mile radius included Carrigard.

  In spite of the hunger, it worked. Every morning, Murty sat alone in his school, watching the ragged children making their way to the school in Kilduff. He knew there was no chance of opening Carrigard School again. His time as a teacher was finished.

  For weeks he had been having nightmares. His fevered brain kept going back to his childhood and the horrors of 1798, dreaming of a one-eyed giant chasing him into the haggard, rebels hanging out of every branch around him. In the early hours of the morning, he would wake up, watching the dawn, thinking of the future, not knowing which way to turn.

  One evening he wrote a letter to Danny.

  When Danny received Murty’s letter, he sat staring at it for a long time. Then he stood up, and left the office, walking out along the Works.

  ‘Murteen.’

  Murtybeg ran over. He guessed from the tone of hi
s brother’s voice that there was something serious afoot.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I want you to go somewhere for me.’

  ‘Liverpool?’

  ‘A bit further than that. Mayo. Carrigard.’

  ‘Carrigard…’ Now he knew there was something wrong. Someone had died perhaps?

  ‘But…’

  ‘Here, read this,’ Danny said, thrusting the letter at him.

  Murtybeg glanced through it. ‘Closing. I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Not closing. Closed.’

  ‘But what will he do? And Mother, how will she take it?’

  ‘God only knows. That’s why I want you to go to Mayo. Go over, and bring them back here.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Damn it, I know. I don’t want it any more than you do. But we’ve no choice now. I told Luke, I told them all, they all knew this was going to happen, but they didn’t want to think about it, and now it has. Now they’re going to be begging for more and more money, sitting out the rest of their lives in Carrigard, frittering it all away. And I’m not going to have that. Pa has a brain in his head, we can use him for many years yet. He doesn’t need to understand it all, he only needs to be able to add and subtract, that’s all we need. Make him earn his keep.’

  Murtybeg thought about that. He could see that the plan had its benefits. His father had a certain pride and would wish to work. But what would his reaction be if he saw what he and Danny were doing; how railway contractors made their money. And his mother, she had never been outside Mayo in her life. She would be terrified.

  ‘But what about Ma, she’ll go to pieces.’

  ‘That’s where you come in,’ Danny said. ‘You’ll take care of her, at least while you’re not out working.’

  ‘Me!’

  ‘Yes, you. I’ve been thinking it’s about time you had a house anyhow, a nice little cottage. If we can’t find one here, we’ll build one. You can’t be in lodgings for the rest of your life. A house with two bedrooms and a kitchen. Let Ma make her brown bread as much as she wants. She’ll be happy with that.’

  ‘I suppose it’s an idea.’

  ‘It is, and anyhow it won’t be a problem for you for long. Isn’t it about time you found yourself some girl? She’d help too.’

  ‘Perhaps. Seems you’ve found one for yourself anyhow.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get to work on it, and find one too.’

  ‘Maybe I should have a word with Irene’s aunt, see if she has any more nieces.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Danny said. ‘They don’t make them like that anymore.’

  And just as well too.

  But he ran into an unexpected problem. Irene was violently against the idea of bringing his parents from Mayo. Now, for the first time, there was a battle of wills between them. She threatened to stop working for him and go back to her old employment with the solicitors, she threatened everything she could think of, but Danny held tight. He knew if he was to marry Irene, there could only be one boss, and she would have to understand who that would be.

  In the end, she relented, but conditionally. Her first condition was a ring – she would not continue living with Danny without a commitment to marriage. Danny agreed. After all, it was what he had proposed right from the start. Her second condition took him aback though.

  She wanted them to move out of the lodgings into a house of their own. If a cottage had to be found for her in-laws, then she and Danny could not continue to live in lodgings, no matter how good. Their house would have to be appropriate to the Managing Partner of Edwardes & Ryan, and even more so, to his wife. Danny agreed to this too, but the scale of her plans stunned him. She had clearly been thinking about it for many weeks, and she already had a site in mind, out near Newton on the junction of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway and the Grand Trunk Railway. The house would be built new, and would be designed to include reception rooms, four bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and a stables.

  He had won, but at what a price!

  The next week he walked into the Stockport branch of the Manchester & Salford Bank, accompanied by Rob Anderson. They laid out a copy of the proposed contract, together with the financial projections.

  ‘As you can see, we have the support of Anderson & Son, so I presume you’ll have no difficulty in supporting our application,’ Danny said.

  The manager cast his eyes down the projections. ‘These are impressive, Mr. Ryan. Can they be achieved though?’

  Anderson answered. ‘Mr. Ryan has done it before, I see no reason why he can’t do it again.’

  ‘The question is, do we have your support or not?’ Danny said.

  ‘On these figures, yes. But it’s still…’

  ‘Yes,’ Danny interrupted, ‘a matter of policy – I know. But what is your opinion.’

  ‘It’s a good proposal.’

  ‘Good. We’ll leave these with you.’

  ‘Can I have another copy to send to Head Office.’

  ‘That’s already been done. All we need is your support – a letter in writing.’

  ‘I’ll send it tomorrow.’

  ‘No,’ Anderson said, ‘you’ll give it to us today. We’re meeting with your board in Manchester this afternoon.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘If you can’t do it, Anderson & Son will have to change its account to another branch.’

  Ten minutes later, they left the bank with the letter of recommendation. They walked to Stockport station and caught the train into Manchester.

  Danny was startled when they entered the Head Office of the Manchester & Salford Bank. The reception hall was done out in marble, with crystal chandeliers hanging from a ceiling three floors above.

  A few minutes later, they were in the board room, again going through accounts, projections and contracts.

  ‘So, what’s the full amount,’ the Chairman asked. ‘How much are we lending you?’

  ‘Twelve hundred and fifty pounds to start,’ responded Danny. ‘And a facility for a further twelve hundred and fifty over the coming year.’

  One of the directors raised his eyebrows. ‘What if we have another railway panic?’

  ‘I doubt we will,’ Anderson said. ‘There’s a heavy demand for railways up and down the country. People must travel.’

  ‘You might be right, I don’t know.’

  ‘There is one other minor matter,’ Danny said, anxious to change the subject. ‘It’s more of a personal nature in fact. My fiancée and I are intending to build a house out by Newton. We will of course be looking for a loan. Three hundred pounds should be enough. And a further fifty pounds for a house for two of our senior supervisors.’

  ‘Can you wait outside, gentlemen,’ the Chairman said.

  Twenty minutes later, he came out.

  ‘All approved,’ he said. ‘Though we will require mortgages on the houses.’

  ‘Of course,’ Danny said.

  He and Anderson walked out on to Mosley Street and across Peter’s Square.

  ‘A whiskey, Danny?’

  ‘Why not?’

  They continued to the Midland Hotel on Peter Street, and went into the lounge bar. The barman came over to take their order.

  ‘Glen Fiddich, no water.’

  ‘I’ll have a Jameson,’ Danny said.

  ‘You’ll never go to Scotch, Danny?’

  ‘Never. I always remember my roots. I’m proud to be Irish, I’m proud of my country.’

  ‘I’m sure you are. It’s made you what you are.’

  The barman came back, carrying two whiskies in crystal glasses on a silver tray.

  ‘To success, Rob.’

  ‘Success, Danny.’

  They drank.

  ‘I didn’t know you were getting married.’

  ‘Sorry. I should have told you
. You’re invited of course, Mrs. Anderson too.’

  Anderson raised his glass. ‘Long life and happiness.’

  They drank again. Then Anderson put his glass down, staring Danny in the eyes.

  ‘One other thing I meant to ask you. Tell me about Neville Edwardes.’

  ‘Oh, the very best.’

  ‘I’m sure he is. Seems he’s a very shy fellow. Or he would be, if he even existed.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come, come. You wouldn’t fool a friend, would you?’

  Danny smiled. The candelabras in the foyer sparkled their reflections through the bevelled mirrors in the lounge. ‘You think Neville doesn’t exist, do you?’

  ‘I know he doesn’t.’

  ‘And when did you come to that conclusion?’

  ‘That first morning back in Stockport. ‘Edwardes & Ryan’ you said. I knew it straight away.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Danny said.

  ‘Yes, it’s true. And I thought to myself ‘God, this is one sharp fellow. Cheeky bastard too.’ I decided there and then that you and I were going to work together.’

  Danny lifted his glass. He stared into a rainbow of colours in the deep crystal cuts.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Just what you said,’ Anderson said. ‘Success.’

  That night Danny replied to his father’s letter.

  Chapter Thirty

  Telegraph or Connaught Ranger, June 1847:

  From Erris the accounts are most dreadful, and should the fever and other diseases now raging there continue as at present, we must fear that there will not be sufficient left to gather in the scanty crops which some of the inhabitants had put in the ground. We have talked with a trustworthy gentleman for some time located there. He says it is not unusual to see in some villages from 10 to 20 dead in a day; that he himself saw the cabins pulled down to cover the remains of a family of 6 or 7 dead inside, and that the dead bodies of many persons had been buried in cabbage plots and beside the hedges, without coffins!

  In Carrigard, the plans for America continued. Pat had not returned from Knockanure for some time. From the single letter they received, it appeared he was working every day.