Our neighbour Sam, with his Seventh-day Adventism and not belonging to a mainstream Protestant denomination, bucked the trend slightly; nobody quite knew where to place him. So he was put in a ‘harmless cretur’ box, along with the Quakers, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The main tenet of Adventism is the belief that the second coming of Jesus Christ is imminent. Sam believed it, and his goodness was a reflection of that readying conviction. He worked the land, treated others well and cared for his sick wife, all without complaint.
He was a tall, rangy man with a shiny bald head and a wart between his eyebrows which moved up and down as he talked. Often, when his chores were done, he’d drop in for the obligatory tea and talk. When Sam sat down on our couch he resembled a collapsed deckchair, reclining on his backbone, knees scissored wide in front, arms strung across his chest, with only the head in motion, roving around for that essential eye contact as he chatted.
Not surprisingly, he shared his sister Isa’s enthusiasm for the prattle. He’d speed in and out of subjects, giving loud opinions on everything. He’d brake briefly for my mother’s feeble additions of ‘You don’t say, Sam’, ‘Away a that’ or ‘Are you sure now?’ And then he’d be off again, gritting his lines with his own brand of swear-words – ‘heck’ and ‘dang’ and ‘gee’ – each calculated not to offend the Lord. Being neither Prod nor Taig he wisely steered clear of politics at all costs, seeing only shattered friendships and the dangerous glint of wreckage up ahead if that road were taken. And all the while he talked, mother’s offerings would lie ignored, the tea going cold, the scone untouched.
His days began and ended with his two loves: his land and his wife. The land was his livelihood: the farm. His wife, disabled, unable to get about, meant that Sam had as much work inside the house as out.
I never met Anna but imagined a restive soul trapped in a wheelchair, compensating for the scourge of useless legs by reading, knitting, and creating. Every Christmas we received a card which she had lovingly made with tissue and lace; inside, the greetings of the season were rendered in a shaky hand. Sam would bring us the customary cake and a pot of his home-made jam. These gifts were so caringly created and all had an air of thoughtfulness and sincerity about them; they came from naturally benevolent people.
Then, without warning, the unthinkable happened. Sam – loving husband, loyal neighbour and endless talker – vanished, and there was consternation in the locality.
Farmers of that era – and indeed the same holds true today – were forced to live according to the limits of their routines, in synergy with their land, their livestock and fellow farmers. When someone stepped outside the paradigm it created a warp, a stasis. Sam’s untimely disappearance caused just this: a temporary faltering of hearts and minds.
His brother flew in from Toronto, leaving Isa to grieve, and the hunt got under way. For days the neighbours searched the surrounding countryside. They looked in sheds and trawled the rivers, but their efforts went unrewarded and everyone was left further perplexed. In our rambling rosaries we asked for Sam’s safe return and – as the days collapsed into weeks and then months and the mystery deepened – we prayed for his heartbroken sister Isa so far, far away, enduring all that bafflement and despair.
Nine months later the agony of our not knowing was over. Sam’s body, weighted with concrete, was recovered from a lake outside Draperstown. He’d been murdered by bank robbers whom he’d happened across in one of his barns. His threat to inform the authorities had betrayed him, and precipitated the end of the principled, decent man that he was.
With his passing, the Yankees withdrew. They could never ‘come home’ again. And their absence left a dull and empty present. I was so sad. All that former glamour and elegance had died along with Isa’s brother.
When I think of Sam now I see him relaxing on that couch, the engine of his discourse forever running. I see my mother hovering in attendance with the tea. And I muse at the irony of how his speech could have betrayed him, and how his honesty could hasten such a brutal exit from all of our lives.
A PORT OF DREAMS
In my childhood Sundays to me meant boredom. They seemed to be such listless days, hung like hammocks between the bustle of Saturdays and Mondays. Weekends meant release from torturous school but, if Sunday mass meant the preface of confession – and every three weeks it did – then the imminence of that ordeal tightened all my thoughts into a great ball of panic. My mother was a diligent auditor of our souls, and if she said you had to go, ‘attending to your duties’, as she called it, then there was no escape.
As Father Monacle, our confessor, ripened with the years, so his brain seemed to take on a worrying life of its own. He frequently nullified the solemnity of the confessional by repeating your list of sins out loud for the benefit of waiting penitents.
The disturbing part of all this was his unpredictability. Sometimes he’d repeat only one or two of your sins; at other times, if you were really lucky, none at all. But there were those unfortunate moments when he’d blast out the whole, shameful lot.
And not only that. If you’d really shocked him he was likely, as an afterthought, to stick his head out of the cubicle and demand that you go ‘right up to the altar’ to say your lengthy penance. I had already experienced this very embarrassment by the age of seven. It seemed that children and adults were all equal sinners in the eyes of the good father.
Naturally, having to endure this humiliation took its toll. Adults would push their hapless offspring into the box first – to test the waters, so to speak. Father Monacle would start his admonishings, each word highly amplified.
‘Don’t ever be stealing chocolate biscuits!’ he’d thunder. ‘Don’t ever take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.’
You could sense a degree of fearful editing going on in the assembled row of heads.
Miss Collins, the local blatherskite, seemed always to be present, taking up a prime position near the box. My mother claimed this was more to do with nosiness than piety, which was probably correct. After all, who needed to forage among ‘unreliable villagers’ when Father Monacle could provide you with an amplified monologue via the confessional every Saturday evening?
Public embarrassment aside, when you came through this wall of fire the liberation felt like a Damascene conversion. I’d go home elated, get scrubbed and put to bed, to lie there in the dark, contemplating my shriven state and wondering if this sensation of holiness was what Miss McKeague had meant by ‘being in a state of grace’.
Mass held little meaning for me when I was a child. During those rambling sermons, when the adults dozed off, I’d daydream that I was a glamorous singer in a band. Every Sunday I performed the chart-toppers of the hit parade – until the priest’s voice woke me up with the Declaration of Faith.
Mass was an effortless affair, except when it came to receiving Communion. The bolt to the altar was fine; it was the return journey that presented difficulties; I’d sometimes lose my way and be unable to find my seat again.
Using ladies’ hats as markers was not dependable because sometimes the owner of a hat could lose her place too. I tried using the Stations of the Cross as guides, but all that looking up at the paintings on the way down meant less concentration on where I was going, resulting in collisions with the oncoming ‘traffic’. I ended up counting radiators; they didn’t have the tendency to move.
Not surprisingly, the last thing I’d contemplate was the host I’d just received; the solemnity of the occasion never entered my head. When I finally regained the wretched seat in the correct pew, the race was on to swallow the host and get the prayers over and done with – in time to study that fetching hat of Mrs Convery’s or my friend Doreen’s new frock.
Did I gain any solace from these weekly trysts with God? The short answer is ‘no’. These were perfunctory events which induced boredom and fear and gave me a heightened sense of my own inferiority. Sunday was God’s day in name only.
My mother ma
de a special effort on the Sabbath. There was the obligatory roast and – hallelujah! – a dessert: bowls of custard with a tinned pear or peach afloat in a deep lake of syrup.
After lunch, weakened by her labours, she would collapse into bed for an hour. Father, weakened by the thought that she was getting time off and, never one to be outdone, would retire to the couch, injuring it a little more. He’d scan the Sunday Press until all that lunch took its toll; the paper would rustle and droop, in concord with his snores.
Occasionally there were those luckless Sundays when there’d be an important GAA football match on the radio, a match that seemed interminable. Mícheál O’Hehir’s volleying commentary was enough to drive a saint to drink. O’Hehir flung out the names and moves of players in high-pitched, wailing torrents. That familiar sound was enough to drive us children from the house.
In those flat interludes, with the sun shining and the chickens in the yard, I felt a bleak exultance. I was free to roam but at the same time aware of a paucity of feeling. I’d feel the pain of my mother’s absence acutely. Her withdrawal for me meant boredom, longing, frustration, uneasiness; I missed her so much then, and I knew that these feelings would not disappear until she woke up again.
In the meantime I filled the absence with aimless wanderings over the territory I knew so well, and sought calm through jaded fictions. I’d chase the dog for no good reason; or wander into the barn and plunge my hands into the meal bin to feel the depth of the yielding grain.
Sometimes if I felt really impish I’d climb up on the tractor to make an imaginary journey. Gaining the tractor seat was its own reward. I loved to clutch the steering wheel with all my might and feel its tense refusal as I drove through the phantom fields. I’d close my eyes and throw my head back to bathe in the ardour of that steady heat of summer. In those minutes the world tilted and I saw oblivion, and heard the commonplace as some kind of melodious score, adrift and unconnected to me. Meditation in its infancy.
In the background the hens made their clucking speculations of the yard. From the house that rapid football commentary would slow from time to time, and belly out through the open door with triumphant declarations. ‘And it’s over the bar!’ and ‘It’s a goal!’ I’d hear my father raising a shout or oath depending on which team had scored.
All those simple amusements delayed me, rending up the time until mother would wake. It seemed that as she slept she withdrew all joy from me, leaving me lonely and aimless. I knew I had to wait until she rose before I could be returned to myself. She gave me purpose and meaning, made me realise what love was.
Those monotonous Sundays could sometimes free themselves and float up, to our delight, into the dreamy heavens, if only for one day each year. That was when we’d visit the seaside at Portstewart, and round off the day in Barry’s amusement arcade in nearby Portrush. Both these heady destinations were referred to as ‘The Port’. Being the deprived little mites that we were, we looked forward to this rare event with the same fervour we reserved for Christmas Day.
My mother would appoint the chosen Sunday well in advance and proceed to steer father unwaveringly towards it. She knew if she sprang it on him – say, only a week in advance – he’d be likely to come up with excuses for not going. The farm work, for instance, took precedence over any sort of family entertainment. Those two words were an oxymoron as far as father was concerned. But we needed him, and he was keenly aware of this; he was the only driver in the family and could exert a pernicious influence when it came to our mobility.
Mother always lamented the fact that he hadn’t procured for her a driving licence when there was a free-for-all after the war. But perhaps it was for the best; being stressed most of the time, I doubt if she’d have made a good driver. Still, she used this negligence as a stick to beat him with whenever he refused to take her somewhere.
The outing always followed the same pattern. After mass and lunch we children would line up on the sofa, and wait while mother did her face: a lick of powder, lipstick and a dab of Coty scent. Meanwhile father was in the bathroom, engaged in the elaborate ritual of sleeking down his hair with the aid of water, Brylcreem and a comb; without the camouflaging hat this was a ‘botheration’, and we knew it. So we sat mutely on the couch, staring at the rhombus of sunlight moving slowly across the floor, wondering when we could get moving. No one knew better than we did that precious time was passing, but we didn’t dare tell him to get a move on. The six of us lingered in the constricted silence and waited, praying that father’s tense grooming formality might succeed, because if it didn’t he could get in a mood and decide we weren’t going ‘atall, atall’.
Finally: all of us out the door and into the car, at first the Ford Popular and later a Ford Cortina (always a Ford; father rigorously resisted too much change) and we’d trundle off, doing an average of 40mph, mostly in third gear.
None of us enjoyed this journey. Apart from having to contend with the desperate drone of an underworked gearbox, we’d have to suffer the smoke from father’s Woodbines; he insisted on all windows remaining closed, no matter how warm the day. So we’d sit in silent mutiny in the heat and sweat and smoke, suffering slow asphyxiation, knowing that if we dared complain he was liable to turn back and snatch our dream away. This being our only outing in the whole year, we could never risk jeopardising it. Instead I’d alleviate my discomfort with healing fantasies. As the fields and cluttered towns revealed themselves and receded outside the car window, I’d imagine feeling the hot sand between my toes and the waves before me: the rewards to come.
Portstewart is a beautiful, timeless town with a row of dwellings, shops and cafés facing by turns the vigour and calm of the Atlantic. A Dominican college to the west juts out onto a balcony of rock, overlooking with a lofty grace the sweep of sand and sea below. The generous strand is nearly three miles long; to us it seemed to stretch to the other end of the world. For the denizens of north Ulster back then this place represented a soothing release from the stresses of life; for us children it was pure paradise.
The climax of that tedious journey brought us release from the suffering of the car, and gave us the prize of that longed-for beach. Our little legs would have grown stiff and could barely take our weight as we tumbled out. Mother had kitted us out with swimming costumes; we young ladies each had a ruched one-piece in a fetching shade of blue or pink – and each one probably part of a ‘buy one, get one free’ promotion. She herself had a rather overstated one but in a similar style. The boys had their trunks, and father – ever the party-pooper – had no swimming gear at all, since he refused to take part in such frivolity. To him the whole excursion was a blatant waste of time. While we all had fun he’d sit in the car reading the newspaper.
Changing at the beach always presented difficulties, not least because there were no facilities and we didn’t have a windbreak. So we’d all scramble up behind the sand dunes to undress.
Mother, being more worldly-wise than the rest of us, would keep a weather eye open for the ubiquitous peeping toms. On spotting one she’d fire off a volley of choice expletives. We never actually saw anyone but were assured that the ‘dirty oul’ frigger’ had been out there none the less. I often wondered what he’d been looking for. I had the idea that every year it was the same man spying on us and was puzzled as to how he always managed to know the precise day and hour of our arrival. Mother claimed that the ‘dirty oul’ frigger’ was everywhere and had eyes in the back of his head; so I’d struggle fearfully out of my dress and into my swimsuit knowing that no matter what I did, the brute could still see me. …
The sea beckoned. We’d dash into the breakers and spend ages wading and splashing with delight. I gloried in the dynamic otherness of that buoyant world, and wished to remain in it for ever. But sadly the time would come for my farewell and I’d be dragged, kicking and screaming, from its shores.
After all that excitement came the picnic. Father was depressingly tight-fisted and would rather have undergone recta
l surgery without anaesthetic than pay for us in a restaurant. So mother would spread a bath-towel on the sand and decant the contents of a large shopping bag. The lighting of the Primus stove was left to father and we’d all stand well back for the ceremony. Over his lifetime he’d perfected the art of making the simplest task look like a murderous assignment. Mother often ended up doing things herself rather than ask him because with each performance there was the petulant aftermath. When it came to the wretched stove, however, she was lost. She didn’t know how to assemble it, and had neither the time nor inclination to learn, having enough to be getting on with.
We all stood well back for the lighting of the stove, hoping it would succeed and not blow up in his face because then there’d be hell to pay. With each failed attempt and spent match, father’s face would grow longer and our hopes shorter. But it usually worked out. With the task accomplished, the parents drank their tea and we had warm milk or a cup of orange squash that had been diluted with such an alarming proportion of water that there was no discernible orange to speak of.
My mother could stretch the life out of food and drink until it begged for mercy. A single, humble tomato could sliver its way around an entire loaf; the salad cream bottle, on nearing expiry, would be watered and shaken vigorously to dislodge the last drop. She could have given Speke and Burton some useful hints on food rationing before they braved the deprivations of Africa.
Tomato and egg sandwiches did not travel well, as I recall, especially not in the boiling-hot boot of a Ford Popular. They’d emerge from their plastic bag well past their die-by date, just yearning to be squeezed into soggy balls and fired into the ocean. We didn’t dare do such a thing, of course, the consequences being unimaginable; besides we were so hungry we’d have eaten anything. Wordlessly, we consumed the fare – sometimes with ‘helpful’ dustings of breeze-blown sand – because there was nothing else.
My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress Page 7