With difficulty Ben forced out, ‘Er, I’ve come to light the fire … your granda …’ Her mother appeared behind the girl. She had the same open, rosy face as the daughter, and a soft, motherly double chin. She stared at him for a moment. ‘Oh yes,’ she said then. ‘Zaida said you’d come.’ Zaida must be the granda. Funny name, he thought.
And then he looked up to see the younger girl descending the stairs with a plump, fair-haired baby in her arms and the puppy at her heels. She stopped dead at the sight of Ben. He saw again the mass of dark curly hair, the thin tense face, the arresting blue gaze, the scowl.
‘Zaida sent him,’ said Mabel. ‘He’s the new Shabbos goy. I’m Mabel,’ she introduced herself, ‘and this is Hetty.’ As he’d expected, Hetty glared at him.
Ben knew he should say something about the puppy, but couldn’t think what, even when it jumped up excitedly and barked a welcome. ‘Come here, Mossy,’ snapped Hetty. Her mother took the baby, who smiled at Ben and dribbled and waved his little fat hands about.
In a friendly tone, Mabel asked Ben his name. When he told her she seemed surprised. ‘Ben? Short for Benjamin? But that’s a Jewish name!’
‘Oh no,’ he protested, startled. ‘It’s short for Benedict. He was my granda, though I didn’t know him.’
There was a brief silence. Then Mabel said: ‘Right, well, I’d better get ready for the synagogue. Zaida’s warned us not to be late.’
‘Hetty, show Ben what’s what while I dress Solly,’ said their mother.
Ungraciously, Hetty brought newspaper, kindling and matches, and showed Ben the woven basket to be refilled with the turf stacked to dry in the passage outside the kitchen, and the pile of logs in the yard.
Back inside there was a tap at the front window and Hetty opened the door for Zaida.
‘I thought I’d call by for you to make sure you’re all on time! Ah!’ he said genially at the sight of Ben, ‘the brand new Shabbos goy.’ He turned to Hetty, ‘I can smell your Ma’s cholent cooking right out in the street.’ Ben, who’d also noticed the delicious smell, felt his stomach rumble and wondered what on earth a ‘cholent’ was.
‘It’s a stew with dumplings that we have for the Sabbath,’ Zaida told him, as if Ben had spoken aloud. ‘Maybe you’ll stay and have some.’ Hetty looked up sharply, and Zaida added hastily, ‘Or maybe another time.’
Ben smiled weakly, wishing they would all go and let him get on with his task and get home quickly. And they finally did go, all in a flurry, and he was alone with a sleeping dog in the empty, alien house.
***
Ben, thankful he knew how to light a fire properly from the Wolf Hound Patrol at school, knelt down before the hearth, carefully brushing out the clouds of powdery ash with the brush and pan. He crumpled sheets of newspaper into balls and placed them in the grate, criss-crossing thin sticks on top, and finally clods of turf from the basket.
Striking a match, he lit the paper spills. The tiny blue and gold flame ate its way into the paper, slowly then faster, until the sticks lit up with crackling sparks which died down when they met the heavy, damp turf. Ben grabbed the bellows, pumping them violently till the turf began to smoulder, filling the room with clouds of smoke that made his eyes water.
After a few minutes, he added a couple of logs, waiting patiently until they too caught fire, the smoke thinned and the warm rose-gold flames leaped in the polished grate.
Ben put back the fireguard, pocketed the two pence left for him on the mantelpiece, and with enormous relief slipped out the front door and back to the safety of Number 19. He went straight up to his bedroom and took out the shoebox he had hidden under the bed. He would save all his earnings in it until he had the five shillings to repay the old man.
***
On Sunday after tea, seated on the unsteady stool in his and Sean’s freezing bedroom labouring over his arithmetic homework, he chewed the end of his pen, recalling Saturday morning.
When Granny’d asked about the Goldens’ house, he’d told her that the wooden kitchen chairs, the shiny patterned oilcloth covering the table, and the row of white mugs hanging from hooks on the dresser were like their own, except there was a battered armchair in place of their own súgán chair by the fire.
But on the walls, instead of the Sacred Heart lamp and pictures of Our Lady or the Pope or St Martin de Porres – who, it was said, never refused a request – there was a tinted print of an ancient city with domes and walls of golden stone. In the parlour were photographs of family groups in long, old-fashioned clothes. An old man with a white beard, wearing a captain’s hat, had a commanding look – not unlike Hetty’s that day at the canal. His plump wife sat beside him, her hair in a plait around her head, holding a solemn baby wrapped in a lace shawl, probably a grandchild; other adults and children sat or stood together, all gazing at the camera with serious intensity.
And on the table he’d noticed a pile of heavy black books, the titles printed in gold in a weird script that definitely wasn’t English.
So, in a way Number 17 was the same as their home, yet it was also strange and different …
Then, thinking of Monday morning, and the trouble he’d get into for not doing his homework, he firmly switched his mind back to his sums.
6
The Sanatorium
The ball came zooming down towards Ben out of the damp, misty afternoon air. He tensed his body and ran to meet it, putting all his strength into the kick. The ball flew from the scuffed toe of his boot, curved in a wide arc, bounced sideways on the uneven setts of the street and, amazingly, rolled between the two bundled-up jackets, to the fury of burly Billy Flynn, Sean’s friend, who’d made the wrong judgement and leapt high in the air.
A cheer went up and Smiler, his face aglow, rushed over to pat Ben on the back. ‘Grand shot!’ Sean just gave him a grudging nod.
But even after that goal, Ben found it hard to concentrate, gnawed as he was by anxiety since the day last week when his Mam had been taken in an ambulance to Crooksling sanatorium. The house felt different, emptier. And now that Mam wasn’t there to defend him, he had to be even more careful not to provoke his dad.
The previous day, in Kevin Street library, where his mother used to take them to borrow books, he’d looked up TB, learning that the real name of Mam’s illness was tuberculosis, but people feared even using the word, often calling it ‘consumption’. One time he’d heard Granny explaining to a neighbour that Mam was delicate, with a weak chest.
Although the book didn’t say so, everyone knew that having a family member with TB was a disgrace for the whole family, partly because it was contageous. Ben wondered how his mam had caught it. Who could be to blame for bringing this awful disease that had reduced his lively mother – full of laughter and opinions, the only person who could tease Dad out of his black moods – to such weakness?
On the day before she was taken in, Ben had seen her white pillow stained scarlet after a coughing fit. From that moment, a sharp sliver of fear had entered his heart like the blade of a knife, and never left.
Still, Granny had told him and Sean that Mam would have proper treatment in the sanatorium, and they must all pray for her.
‘She’ll come home a new woman,’ Dad had said, too heartily. But Ben missed her badly.
***
Then one morning at breakfast, Granny, holding the toasting fork with a thick slice of bread out to the fire, turned to him. ‘Ben, pet, would you like to come and see your mam?’
His heart leapt. ‘I thought children weren’t allowed?’
‘Well, Uncle Matt knows the ward nurse,’ said Granny. ‘But we’d have to stay outside because of infection.’
The following Sunday after early Mass, Ben and Granny walked in the rain through Kevin Street, past the Meath hospital to wait with the crowd at Aston Quay for the Wicklow bus.
Beneath the low granite wall the waters of the Liffey slid sluggishly, like dark curds, under the arches of O’Connell bridge. Opposite, McBirney’s us
ually bustling store was enveloped in a Sunday hush.
When the bus arrived the crowd climbed on, Ben and Granny carrying a basket with goodies for Mam: freshly made scones, a wedge of cheese, fresh eggs supplied by a neighbour from the chickens in her back yard, and sweet, shrivelled apples from the orchards of the big houses in Bloomfield Avenue where, Ben knew, Sean and his friends had gone ‘boxing the fox’ a few weeks earlier.
Granny fished in her purse to pay the uniformed conductor. When he’d clipped two tickets in the machine slung round his neck she pulled out her rosary beads and closed her eyes, muttering prayers under her breath, until, still clutching the beads, she nodded off.
Ben wiped his steamed-up glasses and stared out of the mud-splashed windows at fields scarred with frost, the leafless skeletons of the trees, and in the distance the rising Wicklow hills, their peaks scalloped with snow. He was torn between longing to see Mam and dread of seeing her in this alarming place.
But instead of a forbidding stone building like the TB hospital in Rialto, here white-coated nurses and patients were walking between pretty, cottage-style buildings and a small church, set in grassy slopes dotted with tall pine trees.
They walked through dim green corridors, past holy statues and people knitting, fingering rosary beads, or staring out the windows. Ben, anxious, knew he wasn’t supposed to be inside.
As they entered Mam’s ward he clutched Granny’s hand and nervously scanned the patients, lying prone or with curtains drawn around their beds. But a nurse quickly ushered them out to a long veranda with only a wooden roof and back wall for shelter. And there, in the chill air, in one of the ranks of iron beds covered with oil sheets against the rain, was his mother.
***
To his relief, she was sitting up, wearing her shawl, scarf and woolly mittens, a vivid pink glow in her cheeks, a welcoming smile making her thin face beautiful. Although she couldn’t hug them, her voice was strong.
She was thrilled to see Ben. ‘How are you, Benny love?’ she said, smiling. ‘I think you’ve grown taller!’ Ben was tongue-tied, and just gazed at her, smiling too.
Mam was hungry for news from home, and they gave her all the family news. ‘… and Sean sends love, and Matt’ll be out to see you Sunday,’ said Granny.
‘Grand,’ said Mam. There was a pause. Then Granny added awkwardly, ‘Er, I expect Stephen’ll be out as soon as he …’
Mam’s face clouded. ‘Ah sure, it’s hard for him, seeing me here like this–’
‘He misses you,’ Granny said.
‘I know he does.’ With an effort, she asked brightly, ‘Tell me, any word of young Paddy?’
‘He’s fine,’ said Granny. ‘He’s with the convoys, bringing back supplies from America for the war effort.’ She sighed. ‘Of course, Matt and Bridie worry about him. But he wanted to go.’
‘You’d worry about anyone caught up in this terrible war.’
Breaking the silence that followed, Gran told her, ‘Matt’s busy with the protest.’
Ben brightened. He knew all about this from his uncle. ‘It’s against the wage-cuts and the anti-trade union Bill,’ he explained to Mam. ‘Big Jim Larkin’s speaking.’
‘They’re expecting thousands up in College Green,’ added Granny.
‘I just hope something comes of it,’ said Mam. ‘Prices shooting up and thousands out of work–’ She gave a hoarse cough.
Noting her worried look, Granny changed the subject. ‘By the way, I told Stephen I met our new neighbour, Mrs Golden, a nice woman.’
‘I s’pose he wasn’t pleased,’ said Mam, with a rueful grin.
Granny said with a sniff, ‘Well, no – but I told him, they are neighbours.’
Mam nodded, and turned to Ben. ‘And what are you up to, Benny love?’
‘Nothing much, Mam.’ He’d have liked to tell her how the cross girl with whom he’d saved the puppies was now living next door. But Dad might hear, and get angry. He’d tell her the whole story when she was home again. She’d be really proud of him for the rescue, and for becoming a Shabbos goy and working for money. But Granny had said not to worry her about anything.
Trying to stop his voice trembling he asked, ‘When d’you think you’ll …?’
‘Oh, I’ll be out of here very soon,’ said Mam brightly.
‘Please God,’ said Granny.
‘Just let them try and keep me here,’ said Mam. They all grinned, and Ben’s heart lightened.
Looking around the veranda at the patients bundled up in shawls and coats, Ben asked, ‘Why’s everyone out here in the cold?’
‘They say it’s best for’ – his mam hesitated – ‘for the disease. You need clean air and sunshine.’ She smiled. ‘There’s plenty of fresh air, all right.’
In the next bed sat a fragile young girl, her skin pale and clear as marble with a hectic rosy spot on each cheek. Granny, handing around the food, included her. She took a scone and nibbled it. Smiling at them, she said, ‘Me family are having novenas said for me.’ She gave a series of staccato coughs. ‘Me ma’s sure it’ll help.’
As she talked on feverishly about her brothers and sisters, all living in two damp rooms in a tenement, she smoothed back her fine hair, like spun gold. Ben had a recollection of old Granny Murphy, who used to live next door, saying grimly of a sick child from the street, ‘Consumption has no pity for blue eyes and golden hair.’
‘She’s only Sean’s age, God love her,’ Mam murmured to Granny with a sigh.
But surely, thought Ben, both his Mam and the girl would get better, now they were in the sanatorium?
When they said goodbye Ben felt a choking lump in his throat. As they headed away down the veranda past the rows of beds, Mam called hoarsely: ‘Goodbye, Mam. Goodbye, me darling boy. Give my best love to Dad and Sean,’ and as she blew them kisses, like before her white hand appeared to Ben like a fluttering bird, rising and falling, but unable to fly.
***
Chugging home in the bus, Granny, aware of Ben’s sadness, produced from the basket a well-thumbed copy of the Reader’s Digest, the little magazine passed on to her every month by a neighbour. ‘There, pet, have a read of that,’ she said. ‘There’s usually something interesting in it.’
Listlessly, Ben leafed through it. Soon he was deep in an article about eating nutritious foods and vitamins to build up strength, especially, it said, after an illness.
He told Granny, ‘When Mam gets back, we should get her the right food–’
‘We should, Ben.’ Her forehead creased in a frown. ‘But there’s not much money to spare. Wages might be cut – and Christmas is coming.’
Seeing his crestfallen look she added quickly, ‘Sure, we’ll do what we can.’ And she got out her knitting, a familiar grey knee-sock with a brown pattern around the turnover top, which, now that Sean wore long trousers, Ben knew was intended for him. As she knitted she hummed her favourite song, ‘The Last Rose of Summer’, which she used to sing as a child on the farm in Meath where she grew up. Whenever he or Sean grumbled about having to do jobs around the house Granny would silence them with stories about getting up at four in the morning to milk the cows, deliver the milk and help with the younger children and the breakfast, all before a three-mile walk to school – hail, rain or snow.
As rain spattered the bus window, Ben watched her small, liver-spotted hands with knobbly joints flashing the pink knitting needles in and out. His head fell forward, and, dozing, he pictured again the scene he had revisited before: the Golden girl, Hetty, her face grim with determination, pulling him back across the ice.
***
At home, Dad was heaping turf on the kitchen fire. He turned and said unexpectedly to Ben, ‘I see visiting Mam did you good!’ He touched Ben’s shoulder comfortingly. ‘Let’s hope she’s home for Christmas.’
If only Dad could always be like this, Ben thought, like he often used to be, then he could stop feeling afraid of him.
Later, Granny, bemoaning shortages of sugar and the
lack of candied fruit and brandy, enlisted Sean and Ben’s help in making the Christmas pudding. As they stirred and sampled the tasty mix, Sean said, carelessly, ‘Shame about that cake though, from next door.’ Ben stopped stirring.
‘What cake?’ asked Granny.
‘Er, the young wan from next door brought it in,’ muttered Sean as Dad glared at him. ‘Something to do with their festival, she said.’
‘And where is it?’ asked Granny grimly.
‘I sent it back,’ grunted Dad. ‘We don’t need their charity.’
Granny raised her eyes to heaven. ‘They meant well, Stephen,’ she chided Dad. ‘No need to throw it back at them.’
Dad scowled, his moment of softness over. ‘I’m off out,’ he barked, banging the door after him.
Granny tied string around the pudding basin, ready for steaming. Ben felt uncomfortable about the cake. He hoped it had been the older girl, Mabel, who’d brought it. If it was Hetty, he could picture all too clearly her blue eyes blazing with anger.
7
The Festival of Lights
That Sunday morning, while Ben and Granny were on their way to the sanatorium, Hetty was bathing Solly in the galvanised iron bath in front of the kitchen fire. It was a task she actually enjoyed, though she’d never have admitted it.
‘Hospital Requests’ was playing on the big Pye wireless of polished wood that Da had bought last year after a rare win at the races. It cost eight guineas new and Ma wasn’t pleased. She thought the money should have been put aside as savings. Count John McCormack was singing a poignant song, ‘Panis Angelicus’, which Hetty knew her da would make her switch off if he came in – because it was Christian, he would say, ‘not our religion’.
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