by Kalyan Ray
Up and down did the skeletal strangers walk and beg, and I was reluctant to go outside now unless I had to. Mr. Rafferty, whose work took him to the neighbouring counties, came by in his cart one day and told us that government people had set up their few depots and were giving out small doles of yellow sulphurous American maize pellets, telling starving folks how to cook these.
“At least that’s something,” I said, resolving to ask for directions.
“Nay”—he waved his hand—“that was soon consumed, and on the morrow there was nothing. They also opened a number of soup kitchens and an uncontrollable number lined up.”
“Was there enough?” asked Mr. O’Flaherty, who had joined us by now.
“No chance of that,” said Mr. Rafferty, spitting on the ground in disgust. “One in four fought to get fed. The other three were too weak to protest when ’twas gone. Now these soup kitchens are gone.”
In spite of what Rafferty had said, I set out next morning for Sligo to see if any other succor was available. At the outskirt of town I saw people lying down, covering themselves with what rags they had. I recognized some of the evicted ones. The children had oddly swollen bellies, and clung to their mothers’ wrinkled dugs. In Sligo, I heard rumours that in County Cork some dogs that had escaped being caught and eaten had turned feral and begun to prey on people. Ned Behan, whom I met at the quay, swore it was in Limerick. He told me about his brother-in-law Sam Clarke, a bachelor who lived near Cliffoney, had been found dead, lying in a ditch and wearing his fine coat. No one had wanted to buy his fine apparel, for food or coins were not to be had. Ned also told me of a stranger who had come by two heads of cabbage, eating them under a leafless tree. Returning the next day, Ned found him lying there dead. As so often happened when the starving ate, their unaccustomed stomachs gave way.
• • •
NOW WE WERE beginning to hear that the great landowners away in England had decreed that it was best to clear out the land and have far fewer tenants. After all, most of them produced little above their own sustenance. Where their tenants would go was no concern of theirs: They were free to go where they pleased. ’Twas a free country, our Ireland, and no slavery here, surely.
One day, my last remaining pupil, Ruairi Doyle, brought news to our schoolroom; Mr. Arkwright’s men were coming from the direction of Lough Gill. They had two horse-drawn carriages. Ruairi had seen a strange contraption on one of these carts.
Mr. O’Flaherty was abed with a fever and a hard cough. Having little but worry to occupy myself, I sauntered down towards the village, when a commotion greeted me. Now I saw it was a battering ram. Balanced with ropes on what was a huge timber tripod, it was a machine, true enough—but a crude machine that bespoke our own tragic ingenuity. The three logs were tied together, as if it were a stook, with a heavy log suspended from the top.
When I came down to the village, it was as if I had been transported to that day of our childhood when Padraig and I watched the felling of Fintan’s home.
The men had arrived at Purdy’s cottage, and were trampling about, their boots covered with mud and manure, quite unmindful of Mrs. Purdy’s flowerbed and the sundial their little boys had set up from learning about it at school. Mr. Purdy sat hunched and woebegone on the dirt, but his wife was going on pleading, with Mr. Arkwright shaking his head from side to side as if bothered by a slow fly.
“ ’Tis that long we’ve been here . . . Mr. Arkwright, sir . . . All that time that my husband was a boy himself. Forty years now. You know what a hardscrabble living ’tis here, and now the potatoes rotten in the ground. We done paid our taxes year in and year out—and look, sir—our youngest is but six months old.” Twisting her arms helplessly by her side, tears streaming down her smudged cheeks, Mrs. Purdy, staring ruin in the face, and her small children looking up at her in wonder, did the ugly weeping of the desperate poor, her mouth distended, veins standing out on her throat.
The men had set up the contraption close to a miserable cottage at Mr. Arkwright’s bidding for the game they called Tumbling.
Mr. Arkwright was not even looking at her when the first thud sounded. Mrs. Purdy cried out. The men grunted and pulled it back again as far as it would go. Mrs. Purdy’s balled hands unwound and dropped by her sides as she watched, as if entranced by the action.
As the ram was released, it moved forward with a rude elegance, rising a little at the end of the short trajectory before crushing the wall. The roof leant forward, the sodded wall and thatch tilting. The hut appeared an animal gut-hit, fallen on its knees before lying dead. The weak wall fell, and then a lower chunk of the sill. The interior of the mean little cottage with its tawdry poverty lay open. The ram swung again, and this time the roof cracked, and the hut lurched.
There was hoarse weeping, a terrible noise—and everyone was startled. It was Mr. Purdy, squatting on the ground, beating his open palm on the dirt by the road. His stubbled cheek looked like red bellows. It is a terrible thing to hear a grown man weep, out in the open before everyone, forgetting everything. Such crying is kept muffled, secret, for it shreds the heart of the weeper and taints the sweetness of our humanity. His children watched open-mouthed as their father wept. I felt like a felon myself, but there was nothing I could do.
But one person did not feel so. Padraig’s ma had emerged from her shop and, running as swiftly as she could, she flung herself on the machine. The pole she had pushed with flying frantic strength buckled and came collapsing down. Amid the confusion, Mrs. Aherne picked up a shard of broken foundation rock and hit the man who had set up the machine. Before his bullyboys could do anything, the man fell like a dropped sack.
The bullyboys were upon her instantly, but she was a lynx, sharp and agile. She had kept hold of the sharp rock and threw herself forward and hit out at the midriff of one of them. He staggered back, but then a second one took a mighty swing and knocked her to the ground. The rock fell out of her grasp, and lay under her helpless palm. Mr. Arkwright’s assistant moved quickly for a large man and held her down, and the young man who had knocked her over smashed the heel of his boot down on her white palm, trampling it hard underfoot against the foundation rock under it.
What happened after, I do not exactly remember. “Let her go, let her go, Burridge,” Mr. Arkwright was screaming. “Let the woman go, she is known to his lordship. Don’t hurt her, let her loose!”
I must have done something too, though by God, I am not one for fisticuffs. There would have been murder if Padraig was around, and anyone touched his ma. I carried Mrs. Aherne back to her cottage, and the village so in turmoil and roaring, that Mr. Arkwright with his tax box and his men beat a hasty retreat, leaving behind their ramming machine for the time being. The silence of rural Sligo came back with the soughing sound of the sea as the wind turned. I noticed then that the knuckles of my hand were torn and bruised and that swollen, that some must have been missing their teeth in the night.
What had Mr. Arkwright meant by saying that his lordship knew Mrs. Aherne? I remembered Father Conlon’s snide words, how Mr. Arkwright had never once come to her to collect taxes. There was surely a mystery here, but I would never be able to ask Mrs. Aherne, never.
I had washed her face, which was bruised and bleeding, and in one hand three of her fingers were mangled and purple, with marks of hobnails on her wrist and palm, where the man had stomped. It was impossible to see how deep the punctures were. I tried to wash the dirt from her hand but she kept it clenched. Opening her fist would ease the pain, I pleaded, opening it slowly in the cool basin of water I had got for her. But she looked lost in thought, keeping her palm tight shut, refusing to relinquish whatever it was in her mind, making a fist—it came to my mind—making a fist at Destiny itself. I added some drops of lavender, ever her favourite perfume, but she could not unclench that fist in the cool water of the basin. She was oblivious of all my ministrations. The blood in Mrs. Aherne’s tight-curled fist refused to melt and remained a clotted stigma. She waved me away, went
to her bed, turned her face to the wall, without bidding me goodbye, and closed her eyes. The child clung to her like a cub, silent and watchful by wild instinct.
I knew from her breathing that Padraig’s ma was not asleep, nor likely to be anytime that night. I could not get rid of the smell of blood and the faint stench of black potato rot from my head, and shut the door after her and went home.
• • •
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe
The words gonged repeatedly within my head, those lines from Mr. Blake’s poem.
In every cry of every man
In every infant’s cry of fear . . .
I was haunted by the pictures of the heap of rubble left in the wake of the tumblings, knowing there would be more. For the next three days I stayed brooding at home, and Mr. O’Flaherty stayed in bed, recovering. It was on the fourth day when I could bring myself to tell Mr. O’Flaherty of the depredations in the village. He listened, with evident displeasure at my delay in telling him, and decided that we must go immediately.
“I need to see Maire,” he said, uncharacteristically short with me.
I felt guilty about not having made any queries about Mrs. Aherne in all this time, for I had simply assumed that she was mending, as were my mangled knuckles, and like all the Irish of the land, we were making the best of what was left for us.
We went slowly, for Mr. O’Flaherty with his blackthorn stick seemed to poke at the world at every step before trusting his footfall. He was yet too proud to take my elbow although I would have gladly offered it. I could see his white hairs and pink pate as he bent to read the path before him. In his hurry, he had forgotten his hat.
It was a shock when we finally reached Mrs. Aherne’s door to find it ajar. To be sure, I had not expected the shop to be open, what with such want and hunger all about us. I entered and was astounded, for the store had been looted. It was not the kind of wild looting as if there were a riot, but it had been emptied, trays bare, drawers pulled open. Some useless fragments lay on the usually spotless floor. It was as if thieves had come by night, and heavy objects removed—sacks of seed potatoes, jars of biscuits and sweets, barrels of apples, rolls of fabric—but measuring ladles, the yardstick for marking off cloth, were lying neatly on the counter. The thieving had been done deliberately and thoroughly. There was no spillage, no careless tearing or hurried abandon. That was the most terrible part of it all.
I could hear Mr. O’Flaherty wheezing softly behind me. I thought him winded and worn out by this short walk. When I turned and he looked me full in the face, I could scarcely bear to read the knowledge in it. He was weeping silently, occasionally stopping for air, and his tears ran down unchecked. He saw all this about him as clearly as I did. Was Mrs. Aherne alive then? I was too terrified to look into the next room. But Mr. O’Flaherty moved purposefully.
“Maire,” he called, “Maire, it is myself, Schoolmaster O’Flaherty. I know you’re abed, but I need to speak with you.”
He walked into the inner room and slumped down in the chair at the head of the bed. In the dim room, Mrs. Aherne turned to look at him with her enormous eyes. Her face was gaunt, and it was clear that she was gravely ill; her body seemed wasted under the covers. And it was then that my eye caught the sight of her arm. It lay bare to the shoulder, and somehow it was transformed into a monstrous thing. Her nails looked now like cracked fish scales pasted loosely on a bloated claw. Along her arm, the veins stood out like black wires, twisted one over the other, or ran skittery along the inflamed skin, hopelessly distended and oozing in parts with a deadly gum.
“Brendan,” she said to me directly.
“Aye, Mrs. Aherne,” I replied, wondering what I could do.
Mr. O’Flaherty sat by the bed, his blackthorn planted between his feet, his chin on the hands with which he held the stick. I could not see his face, but could read the slump of his shoulders well.
“Brendan dear,” Padraig’s ma said again, “coax the silly child to come out from under the bed, will you?” Her voice had resumed its usual strength, as if nothing was amiss. It even sounded amused, as it used to be, by one of Maeve’s pranks. I knelt down on all fours, but the face of the child was terrified. Her eyes looked at me as if she were an animal, the small creature finally hounded to its burrow’s end. She had gathered foodstuffs around her, setting up house: a large piece of cheese, some sweets, fragments of biscuits, which indicated what she had eaten recently.
“Do you want to come out and play?” I asked, poking my head under the bed. She shook her head and shrank back farther in her nook, holding the round of cheese. I did not know what to do or say. I knew how to deal with children a little older, but children change so in a year or two that it was like trying to speak another language altogether. Maeve stared back, somber, and shook her head.
With the same strong and laughing voice, Mrs. Aherne said, “Maeve dear, I am hungry, and so are these two gentlemen who have come to visit us. Can you give them a plate of biscuits and make them your pretend tea?”
I saw then what effort it took for Padraig’s ma to speak in her normal tone. A thin sweat covered her face, and her arm that was whole clutched the counterpane, while the other lay by her side, purple and rigid. Maeve came up from under the bed. The child seemed reassured and went about her task of hospitality. While she was thus busy and growing happy in a way children can, Mrs. Aherne spoke low to Mr. O’Flaherty.
“I knew them all, moving about the shop, Mr. O’Flaherty,” she spoke in a whisper. “I knew Mrs. O’Toole by the sound of her short leg as she lifted away the seed potatoes. I knew John Shanley when he was dragging off the fabrics, for he wheezes and stops and moves again, and many others. Oh, Mr. O’Flaherty, the saddest blow was when Mrs. Purdy came in late at night and took trays of needles and my lace where I hid them under the counter, and my bundle of shillings I buried in the floor—which she must have known all along. We have been neighbours ever so long. But Mrs. Purdy and her hut being tumbled, her husband set a-weeping. I could not bear anymore.”
Her voice cracked. “Look at me now. I am done for.” She stopped to regain her breath. “I can feel the poison gathered in my neck and armpits—they are swollen so. My chest is full of pain and I know I am sinking. Look after my Padraig’s child. She is in your hands. I’ve been praying you would come.”
“As long as I have breath, Maire,” Mr. O’Flaherty said. “And when my time comes, I know that Brendan will take care of his mate Padraig’s child. Does she need worry about that, Brendan? Tell her now, on your faith, once and for all,” he said. She looked at me, eyes a-glitter with the fever.
“I promise, I do,” I said, as simply.
I reached out for her hale arm, to hold her palm for assurance. It was that hot and dry I never thought the human hand could be. As my thumb lay across her wrist, I could feel the frantic thrum of her heart.
The child Maeve came by, sprightly, with some biscuits and her tiny china service of teapot and toy cups and saucers. Mr. O’Flaherty and I nibbled on biscuits, and Maeve poured us imaginary tea with great ceremony. We drank and praised its aroma. The child was pleased and offered us more.
“Miss Maeve,” said Mr. O’Flaherty, “will you be so kind as to help Brendan at the school?”
Maeve looked puzzled. “But I live here,” she replied.
“Aye, that’s a fine point.” Mr. O’Flaherty was stumped, but he recovered. “Do ye think ye could visit with us and teach him how to make that fine tea?”
“But that’s pretend tea,” Maeve pointed out conclusively.
At great cost, Mrs. Aherne came to our rescue. She spoke again to the child in her normal voice and said, “Well, Maeve, if you want to go with the big children to school and learn to read the picture books all by yourself, Mr. Brendan’s the man to ask. He has many books with pictures.” Then, as if in doubt, she added, “But may be you are not a big girl yet for school.”
“I am a big girl!” M
aeve bridled at any suggestion otherwise.
“All right then,” said Mrs. Aherne, “why don’t you try it for a couple of days. If you don’t like it, you can come back and Brendan will bring you. Won’t you, Brendan?”
“Aye, that I will,” I agreed.
“I’ll get my things then,” decided Maeve. “But if I want to come back, I can?”
“Aye, that’s right,” Mrs. Aherne and I said together.
As the child went to get her toys and put her tea service together to improve our life at school, Padraig’s ma told us urgently, “Inside my pillow, I have a number of silver coins I’ve laid by over the years. Take it. Use it to raise Maeve.” Then she turned her intent eyes on me. “Upon your life, Brendan, take care of her as Padraig would have. Someday Padraig will come back. I know. Tell him then, this was the best I could have done for us all.”
These were bitter tears, seemingly wrung out of her blood, the first I ever saw her shed. “Go now, Brendan, for I will need to talk to Mr. O’Flaherty.”
“Shall I ask Father Conlon to come by?” I said, thinking of the last sacrament and extreme unction.
“Nay, I’ll make my own peace, through Mr. O’Flaherty here,” she said to my astonishment.
The last rites were the doors to Paradise and to Our Father. She was waving these away. Did that mean she did not care to make her last confession and leave her sins behind? But Padraig’s ma has always been that mysterious.
And now I had the care of Maeve, I took her back with me. She skipped up the path, pleased to be going to school and catching up with all the bigger children, for she was very like her da, and could not bear any who was ahead.
Mr. O’Flaherty sat with the dying woman.
Maire Aherne
Mullaghmore, County Sligo