‘God,’ she’d complain, ‘it’s not that John Mallon again – coming on a Saturday night, of all nights, when I haven’t a wain or a stitch washed for mass! Me heart’s a breakin’; I may give this place up.’
But there he’d be, making his gradual approach on the Bella, the black coat winging out leisurely at his sides. In the twilight glow of those summer evenings he could have passed for an overweight Count Dracula (if you can imagine Dracula in a flat cap). His generous frame dwarfed the little bike so much that it appeared as though he moved towards us under some supernatural propulsion.
From the Bella he graduated to a bubble car, a curious little vehicle; it had a windscreen that looked like the bulbous eye of some intergalactic monster. This three-wheeler was steered by handlebars, had a large, front-opening door and a top speed of 35mph.
It was designed and built in 1953 by one Ernst Heinkel, the man responsible for the Heinkel-111 bomber. The story goes that after the war the Germans, their struggle having ended prematurely, were left with a surplus of forward turrets from their Luftwaffe bombers. In the interests of economy they employed Mr Heinkel to come up with a solution and his answer was the bubble car. It was in production for four years, after which time the Germans sold the design to Dundalk Engineering in the Irish Republic – and so it was that Mr Mallon acquired his Heinkel bubble car.
Of course I was unaware of its history back then. John used to give me a lift from school in this contraption which, even as a child, caused me great embarrassment. I was not to know, as I sat in the bubble watching the hedgerows gliding past, that the humble plexiglas dome I gazed out of might well have soared above the cumulus and borne witness to the fear and fury of some hapless RAF fighter pilot as he screamed his way towards eternity.
On stopping in our yard John would raise the car door and emerge from his bubble like a chick hatching. He’d ceilidh for a good hour or two, dispensing the stories and latest gossip of the day. In winter he carried an oil heater in the little car and would transfer it indoors on arrival. This heater was as weird looking as the bubble: it was a large, round dish-like affair – much like today’s TV satellite-dish – with a tiny, red mantle at its core. John would sit at the roaring range with the heater strategically placed between his legs (central heating of another mode entirely) and discourse with father at length.
Their tedious conversation was the remit of all the visitors to our house. There were no heated discussions on Darwinian principles of natural selection here, I’m afraid; no debate on the importance of Cocteau’s contribution to European modernism, or even Kandinsky’s influence on abstract expressionism in the 20th century. No, sadly there was little to send my imagination rampaging down new thought-provoking paths.
What I got instead from father and Mr Mallon went something like this.
Mallon: ‘Saw a son of Johnny the Digger’s up on the brae face with a brand new tractor and a buckrake this morning. Aye, a brand new one, no less. The gleam of it would damn near have blinded a body, so it would.’
Father: ‘Boys a dear, is that the nixt of it? They’ve a lot a call for that, sure there was nothing wrong wi’ the wan they had.’
Father rarely approved of anyone spending money. In his book farm machinery especially should last over several lifetimes.
Mallon: ‘Aye, ye know what’s wrong with that crowd? Too much ground under them. Sure them young boys are not content unless thir rippin’ and tearin’ and roarin’ the guts outta cars and trucks and God knows what else. That tractor got fierce abuse, so it did. No wonder it didn’t last.’
Mr Mallon made the noises father liked to hear. Extravagance and the follies of ‘young boys’ were favoured topics.
Father: ‘Aye, ye may quet the craic. There were less new tractors in my day, I’m tellin’ ye.’
Mallon: ‘Now you’re talkin’, Mark.’
Then mother might weigh in.
Mother: ‘Saw Josie the Digger at mass last Sunday. She’s a trig blade, Josie, so she is. Hat on her the size of a cartwheel. Johnny doesn’t mind spendin’ a bit of money on his wife, I’ll say that for him, John – not like that man in the corner.’
John, not wanting to get embroiled in a marital dispute, would counter.
Mallon: ‘Now, Mary, you’d look well in anything. Josie the Digger needs all the help she can get. No matter how much paint or powder, begod, even if they hung the crown jewels round her there’d be no difference.’
Then poor Josie’s physical appearance would come in for a mauling.
Father: ‘Funny lookin’ head on that Josie wan.’
He’d lean back on the couch and wait for the prompt that would allow expansion and a laugh from Mallon.
Mallon: ‘Has she now, Mark?’
Father: ‘Aye. When she’s walkin’, the head’s way bobbin’ out in front of her and the rest of her’s comin’ behind. You’d think somebody was pullin’ her on a bloody lead, so ye would.’
Mallon: ‘Aye, she’s in a wile hurry to get first to the altar, y’know.’
Father: ‘Couldn’t she sit at the front then? Save all that runnin’.’
My mother would then attempt to stick up for her sex again.
Mother: ‘Josie wants to show off her nice clothes, y’know. That’s why she sits halfway down the chapel. And I’d do the same if I had Josie’s finery, John. But there’s not much chance of that. That man’ll not spen’ a ha’penny, so he won’t. You know how copper wire got invented, don’t ye?’
Mallon: ‘How’s that, Mary?’
Mother: ‘It was when two of them McKenna brothers were fightin’ over a penny between them, and neither would give way.’
Mallon: ‘Boys a dear, Mary, that’s a good ’un!’
John would laugh loudly and father would look sour.
Father: ‘Sure clothes niver made anybody. What’s a lock of oul’ pallions for anyway?’
Mallon: ‘Only for covering up the naked truth.’ (More like the dirty truth in Mr Mallon’s case.)
Father: ‘Now you’ve said it, John.’
And they both would laugh and John would clap his hands for emphasis, bathing in the afterglow of his own wit. He couldn’t bear those irksome silences that followed as the laughter died, and would whistle through his dentures and contemplate the ceiling as he riffled through his memory for fresh fodder. Inevitably, if all else failed, he’d come up with a subject that guaranteed enough mileage and mirth to keep the pair of them going until morning: our neighbour Mrs Potter.
Elizabeth Potter, a widow in her early seventies, was the cause of many wagging tongues in the locale, largely because she didn’t fit in – and, in a place like Ballinascreen, that would never do. She was the sister of Mary Catherine, the spinster-angel on the great bike, she who plied the roads and prayed for all. Mrs Potter disowned her. She’d left the area and gone to the USA, where she married a wealthy man. On his death she’d grown homesick and returned to her birthplace. But while Mary Catherine dwelt in her lonely little cottage, Elizabeth resided in what she referred to as ‘my beautiful bungalow’, entertaining the neighbours and ignoring her sibling. My mother was sometimes invited to Elizabeth’s soirées, and I was allowed to tag along. We weren’t invited in the interest of generosity or friendship but more in the spirit of showing off to the yokels Mrs P’s sense of style and how things should be done.
The bungalow had been specially built to her exacting specifications, and was bedizened with the tat of her travels. As a child I was transfixed by the bric-à-brac that crowded every surface and room in the house. The gallimaufry in Helen’s place wasn’t a patch on this. There were ornaments and figurines of every description everywhere: maidens, angels, fairies, dogs, cats, soldiers, dolls and teddy bears, fashioned in every material imaginable. Mrs Potter was like a latter-day Miss Havisham, surrounded as she was by the detritus of childhood, trying vainly to preserve the memories of that lost innocence through this welter of trinkets and knickknacks. Touching any of them was strictly forbidd
en, which was difficult for a child like me, having been raised in a house devoid of such trappings.
Mrs Potter was eccentric in her manner and had a peculiar way of dressing. She sagged in out-of-season separates, wore ganseys with frayed elbows, skirts whose hems fell down at the front and rode up at the back, exposing mottled flesh and stocking-tops. Her shoes, cracked and down at heel, had angry upturned toes. She wore what looked like a tea cosy for a hat.
Meeting her for the first time you got the impression of casual, slovenly eccentricity, but she immediately doused such ideas with her gimlet eye and cunning manner. She burned with envy and bad faith; spread sweet praise like icing-sugar in public, chopped everyone to pieces in private. ‘Lord in heaven, Mary, that Biddy McStay is intolerable.’ I was afraid of her and would quail at the very sight of her, scurrying off to play or hide when she came to visit mother. She had the same effect on me as did Uncle Robert.
Soon after the acquisition of that beautiful bungalow, Mrs Potter bought a brand-new Mini Cooper, a status symbol in the late 1960s, much in the manner of today’s BMW. Mrs P, however, bought the car before securing her driving licence, which proved rather an oversight. Being advanced in years, she was sorely tested by motoring. She lacked concentration and aptitude, and her eyesight was poor. Driving lessons were needed, and she ended up spending a small fortune on them. It was rumoured that her instructor was able to build an extension to his house and purchase a second car on the back of Elizabeth’s incompetence.
She finally realised her ambition on the sixth attempt. John Mallon, ever the sceptic, claimed that she had bribed the examiner, which may not have been too far from the truth. I can just picture the frustrated inspector sitting beside the calamitous Mrs P, conscious of his worsening odds in the mortality stakes and thinking to himself: I cannot endure this another time.
In short she was to driving what Norrie was to the fashion industry: a magnificent disaster. For whatever reason, Mrs P had decided unwisely at 72 to take her life in a whole new direction, steering haplessly towards a world of fearsome gear shifts and shuddering hill-starts. Some of her takeoffs from our yard were spectacular events – much more enjoyable than Eddie’s motorbike. We’d stop our play and watch the Mini buck and jump for a good five minutes before suddenly shooting off like an out of control lawnmower. Mother warned us not to accept lifts from Mrs P, no doubt imagining the prospect of having to arrange a funeral. And on our leaving for school she would caution that if we saw the widow coming we were to stand well into the hedge. We took her advice to heart. At the sight and sound of that ominous Mini we would scramble for the safety of the grass verge and wait until the ‘killing’ machine had passed.
Often on our way home from mass we’d see the stranded vehicle by the side of the road, where Mrs P, having experienced yet another ‘unexpected difficulty’, had somehow found the extraordinary courage to abandon ship.
She provided John Mallon and father with a reservoir of gossip that never ran dry. The bubble car and Mini had had a number of near hits it seemed. So they’d drink the compulsory tea and blether about her to fill those lulls. They verbally ravished the neighbours with the ferocity of lions round a carcase. The wives and spinsters of the parish were the frail flesh they fed on before moving on to gnaw the more pithy hearts and bones of their fellow males. Father was an expert vitiator. No one escaped him.
Global events never featured in their talk. A nuclear bomb could have dropped on London and no one would have noticed. As I listened to those conversations I was given to understand that everybody except my father was deeply flawed. Such negativity cried out for a counterbalance; I found this in my art.
THREE DAYS IN PURGATORY
Mother was so proud of me in 1975 and I was mighty pleased myself. I’d sat my GCSE exams the previous year and now I earned the distinction of being the first pupil of St Colm’s to sit and pass an A level in art. Mr Maguire, my one-time Latin teacher, had now become principal, and it was thanks to his confidence, my art teacher’s faith, and a shaky belief in my own ability that enabled me to pass it. This pivotal qualification was the springboard that would launch me into a completely different world and land me within the esteemed walls of the Belfast College of Art.
Mother was jubilant. Finally her prayers had been answered and my talent confirmed.
I was rewarded for all my hard work in a most unusual way. I had hoped for a few days’ vacation in Portstewart, but it was not to be. I did get a few days away – not in Portstewart, however, but in Purgatory.
My mother, being the devoted beggar of favours from on high, and rarely experiencing the bounty she desired, looked on my A-level success and subsequent admission to art college as a miracle.
She thus reasoned that it was a miracle which demanded thanksgiving of a special kind. A few token rosaries on bended knee would not do – Lord, no. Instead she signed the pair of us up to endure a gruelling, three-day stint in St Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg, County Donegal.
Station Island, as it is commonly referred to, has been a centre of pilgrimage since at least the 12th century. Tradition holds that the good man sojourned there for a time yet there is no hard evidence to support this. The so-called Tirechán history puts him in the district of Donegal around the year AD 700. So it is possible that Ireland’s patron saint sought the solitude of one of the lonely caves on the lough in order to pray and do penance.
The island is a plateau of forbidding rock rising out of the still waters. It boasts an impressive basilica with a copper dome – and at that point sadly the grandeur and glamour of St Patrick’s Purgatory ends, as I was to discover during my short captivity.
This basilica started life as a humble church, built in 1780 on the site of the caves where St Patrick is said to have prayed. The imposing structure which stands on the island today is the culmination of many years of construction and artistic endeavour. There are just three other buildings on the barren rock: a small chapel, a dormitory for the pilgrims, and the priests’ quarters.
One can still see evidence of the Celtic monastic period, particularly in the ‘penitential beds’. And it’s in these penitential beds that the true meaning of Purgatory is revealed.
‘Bed’ is hardly the term I would use. These circles which inflict so much pain are the remains of monastic cells, or oratories, where monks passed their days and nights in solitary prayer and contemplation. They are rings of boulders and rough stones embedded in the soil, some at a steep incline; in the middle of each circle stands a crucifix. There are seven in total, each of their names commemorating a saint connected with the Donegal area.
From Draperstown to the island is a 70-mile journey and mother and I travelled the first leg by coach. We had a morning start, so early that it made our WI excursions seem genteel by comparison.
Johnny the Digger (remember him?) had organised this trip. He was a large, pious farmer who wore braces and a belt, which was a wise precaution, given his girth. He was obviously in sympathy with his fellow Kerry farmers who find those twin supports necessary too, ‘just to be sure, to be sure, begod.’
When I think about it now, I believe that Johnny, at some earlier stage in his career, must have contemplated the priesthood, rejected it – and spent the remainder of his life regretting that decision.
How else to account for his passion for doing good deeds for the Church and organising pilgrimages to focal points of devotion? There was Knock, Croagh Patrick, and Station Island, they being the most popular ones in Ireland. The Digger was a dedicated and fervent church layman who took his duties very seriously indeed, that repressed ambition of his being ever to the fore. Not content with allowing us the peace and relative calm of the journey before the purgatorial storm, he would launch into the rosary at every available opportunity. We must have said six in total, with him swaying up and down the aisle, bouncing off seats like an inflated buffalo, and roaring out the decades with some choice pronunciations of those sainted words.
‘Bliss
ed art thou among wimmim!’ he’d bellow. ‘Forgive us our trispisses; and Sacred art of Jezis we place allertrust in ye!’
Whenever he detected a drop in pace or volume in our mumbling he took it as a sign of flagging zeal and blasted out the decades with so much ardour that even the bus windows rattled a response. I was hungry and tired (we’d been fasting from midnight) and now my head was beginning to throb with the Digger’s litany.
It took us over two hours to reach the island. The last leg of the journey was to be by water. When I saw the sodden-timbered boat I suddenly regretted having given in to mother. But I put aside my fear and joined about 90 others, and together we were steered across the lough to whatever it was that awaited us.
Lough Derg actually means ‘red lake’ and refers to the blood of the last great serpent Patrick is said to have slain. There was an urban myth abroad in the 1970s – and, given the superstitious nature of the Irish, probably still has currency – that if a red-haired woman happened to be sharing your boat then the chances were high that it just might capsize and drown you. The belief sprang from the only notable disaster of this nature; it occurred in 1795 when a vessel carrying 93 passengers sank just a short distance from the quay at Station Island. The only survivor was one very fortunate red-haired lady.
Mother and I were rather anxious in the light of this knowledge. Little wonder: among those we knew making the pilgrimage was a friend from my primary school, redheaded Marie. There were lots of anxious faces on that crowded boat when the innocent Marie stepped aboard. I reckon it was the only occasion when people actually prayed that they’d make it to purgatory rather than meet their end beneath the churning waters of a lake.
Not for nothing is Station Island referred to as St Patrick’s Purgatory. Upon landing, you surrender your shoes as well as your right to proper sustenance during the following three days. You also relinquish your right to sleep for the first 24 hours. This ordeal is clearly not for the faint-hearted and, after the first day, I began to question how that joyous A level could have brought down such affliction on my head.
My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress Page 16