by Paul Kelly
“I’d rather join the navy,” he muttered to himself. Yes, he fancied himself as a sailor. He liked the uniform and so did the girls.
“All the nice girls love a sailor
All the nice girls love a Tar.
All the nice girls love a sailor,
Well you know what sailors are ...
He sang quietly to himself and Charlie groaned and moved to lie on his side.
***
Craig Daniells was very quiet when Willie saw him at school the next day. He was a good friend to young Craigie and they got on very well together as he would listen patiently when the young boy spoke with his stuttering difficulty and could almost anticipate what he wanted to say. This gave Craigie confidence and he didn’t feel so embarrassed when Willie was near.
“What’s the matter Craigie?” Willie asked but his friend did not answer Instead, he pushed his toe into some sand that was stored in the playground for repairing the brickwork in the old school.
“What’s the matter, I’m askin’?” Willie said again, but he got no reply and at that moment, the bell rang for the start of class.
***
Wattie was telling everyone about the intended fight with the neighbouring Protestant school, where Blackie was the leader of the gang there. James Blackwood was a big boy for his age. He was only twelve, but looked more like a young teenager, with a heavy muscular body and a ‘blue chin’ as proof of his constant need to shave.
“Are you coming in for the fight Willie?” he asked and sniffed as he spoke.
“No I don’t think so. It’s not worth the trouble Wattie.”
Wattie sniffed again, without any effect on the jewel at the end of his nose.
“Oh! Yes, it is. It’s great ... You just whack ‘em one and then run that’s all.”
Willie smiled and looked at his friend.
“You’ll have the police up at your house and what’ll your Mammy think about that, eh?”
“Wattie rolled his eyes and thought about what Willie had said to him before he spoke again.
“The Billy’s deserve it, so they do.” he said, dismissing his fear of his Mammy ever finding out.
“Why?”
“Because they just do that’s why,” he answered and his mouth turned down at the sides.
Willie looked around for Craigie, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t think I’ll come to the fight either Wattie,” Ackie remarked with indifference as the battle instigator sneered and scratched at the seat of his pants.
“Chicken,” he called out to Ackie, but Willie intercepted.
“Leave it Wattie. You know Ackie’s dad’s a Billy.”
Wattie stopped scratching his behind and started on his nose.
“Well His Mammy’s a Dan, isn’t she ... and besides, his Daddy’s no’ his real Faither... he’s his step-faither and that makes awe the difference.”
“Leave it Wattie Leave it and wipe your bloody nose, will yuh?”
Chapter Four
Mary Blair studied the invitation card she held in her hand. It requested that she should attend an ‘Open Day’ at St. Bonaventure’s and she didn’t want to go. Willie’s schooling was important to her now that Charlie and the girl had left school and were either working or like Sadie ‘resting’ until she could find a suitable job. Meggie seemed more active and kept trying to get something, but Mary knew it was hard for her children to choose and there wasn’t an awful lot to choose from anyway. She had private dreams for Willie; dreams that she had never talked about to anyone and she knew that those dreams were probably because Willie reminded her so much of her late husband. Mary was like most other women she had nothing to wear, but with Mary, it was a literal statement and not a figment of the imagination. In her particular case, it was true. She didn’t have anything to wear. It was as simple as that.
She reflected on the few things that she had conjured up in her mind of how she could convert some old dress to look like something suitable for the occasion, but it all seemed so futile so hopeless, however with Aggie’s help, she managed to make herself fairly presentable for that great day ... when it dawned.
She walked hesitantly towards St. Bonaventure’s, passing some little children on the way, as they sang with urchin voices, the songs of her own youth a million or so years away and her memory flashed back.
‘One, two, three O’Leary,
Four, five, six O’Leary,
Seven, eight, nine O’Leary,
Ten O’Leary, postman’
The words didn’t make much sense well none at all really and yet the memories were vivid and her heart stood still as she listened. They were ridiculous, stupid words and she wondered who ever had the nerve to create such lines, but whoever did, sent her mind into another dimension as she walked on. She thought again of Willie, her deceased husband of the day they met and of the day he asked her to marry him. She saw him smile again and a tear came to her eye. He had been dead for nearly eleven years, but she missed him in that moment, just as much as she did on the day he died, those many years ago. So much had happened since that day. Life had gone on, like a stream racing down to the river, but yet a part of Mary Blair had stayed still. She looked at her old faded wedding ring and bit her lip.
The pit disaster had taken fifteen young men that dreadful day Young man well boys, really and all between the ages of sixteen and twenty four; Young blooded males Most of them too young to be the fodder of the Great War, but ‘ripe’ for being taken down the mines.
Mary swallowed hard and threw back her shoulders. This was not a time for sadness, she thought as she saw young Willie’s face before her and the children sang a happier song as if they knew that her heart was steeped in sorrow, but she smiled as she walked on.
“Bee baw bappity, bappity, bappity,
Bee baw bappity, I’d raither hae a wee loddie.
Ah widna hae a lassio, lassio, lassio,
Ah widna hae a lassio, I’d raither hae a wee loddie. “
She thought she felt some spots of rain, although the sky looked clear enough, but she took shelter in a nearby doorway. The emotions were too much for her and she knew she was going to cry as she couldn’t rid her mind of all those wonderful years she had spent with Willie. Her mind was in turmoil; a torrent of beauty had plunged into her heart as she stood there and cried and cried uncontrollably. Her shoulders shook as the emotion gripped her. She had never been ‘dressed’ for an occasion since Willie had died and it was the first time she had ever been invited to a school’s open day. She didn’t know why, since she had other children. Perhaps this was a sign Perhaps it was something to do with Willie, her youngest Something special, she liked to think, but then she quickly dismissed her thoughts as pride with the fear that ‘pride comes before a fall’. She felt that her dead husband was looking at her in her converted dress, that Aggie had helped her to make and she liked to imagine he was thinking how nice she looked and she remembered the compliments he was always paying her when he was alive. She fumbled in her handbag and took out an old photograph of him all yellow and crumpled, but the smile was still there and the strong, handsome features that had attracted her to him in those earlier days; on that particular day when she had first laid eyes on him. Oh! My ... He did look grand. Her body responded once again to his embrace as she closed her eyes and stood there in the doorway, clutching Willie’s photograph in her hand.
“Willie ... Willie, my lovely Darling If I could only see you once more, my Precious just to tell you how much I love you Dearest and how I always will.”
Just then the shop door opened and her dreams were shattered. She was startled as Tom Carey stood looking at her.
“Are you all right, Mrs. Blair?” he asked with concern and the sight of the butcher with his striped apron brought her back to reality.
Mary smiled and was about to go when Tom Carey put his hand on her sleeve.
“Come in for a minute. Sit down and have a cup of tea,” he said.
“Oh! I have to be at the school shortly St. Bon’s, you know. There’s a meeting there and I’ve been invited. I really must go but thank you.”
“What time do you have to be there?” he asked, glancing at his watch and Mary looked about her nervously.
“Two-thirty, I think,” she said, “Yes, that’s right, two- thirty.”
Tom looked again at his watch.
“Then you’ll just have time for that cup of tea and I’ll drive you there when you’ve had it. It’s only one-forty now, you know.”
Mary was hesitant but she began to feel faint, having been caught like that, with her nerves all on edge.
“Mrs. Blair ... Are you all right. You’ve come over all pale. You must let me help you.”
Tom assisted Mary into the parlour behind his butcher’s shop and made the tea. He poured, watching Mary as he did so and she realized after a few moments that his eyes were on her.
“There’s no need for you to drive me to the school, Mr. Carey. I’m fine now. I can quite easily manage on my own and the tea was most welcome. Thank you,” she stammered and was surprised at his answer and his insistence.
“Please let me take you, Mrs, Blair ...PLEASE. I would very much like to do that, really I would.”
He smiled affectionately as he put on his jacket.
“Gosh! I am eager, aren’t I. Look I’ve forgotten to take my apron off,” he joked and Mary smiled as she tried to get up from her chair and Tom helped her.
“It will be my pleasure and I won’t hear another word, do you hear?” he said and escorted her with a smile to the car. As he drove through the centre of the city, he looked up at the sky. There wasn’t a trace of rain there anywhere, nor had there been for the last few days, but Tom Carey knew how Mary felt. He had been in a ‘doorway’ with his own grief many times in his life and more than Mary would have realized.
***
As they arrived at the school, Tom Carey took Mary’s hand as she stepped nervously from his car. Cars were things she wasn’t exactly used to ...
“There you are. You’re here now and I hope you find everything as you would have expected, Mrs. Blair and please ... can I call you Mary? I know that’s your name. I’ve heard it many times when you’ve been in the shop, with the neighbours, you know. My name is Tom. It would please me if we could be friends.”
Mary was pleased that Tom had suggested they should be friends as she already felt she knew this man, even more than she had done in the many years before when she had been to the Butcher’s shop, although it was mostly to buy eggs. It was a rare thing that she should buy meat, when the children were young. She smiled.
“Hello Tom,” she said, as if she had been introduced to him for the first time in her life and he grinned as he took her hand and shook it gently.
“I’ve seen you in the shop many times Mary ... and I have often wanted to call you by your Christian name. It always seems to me to be so formal addressing people as Mrs. this and Mr. that, but then I’m rather a shy person, I suppose and it takes me a long time to open up a friendship.”
Mary looked at him for a few seconds before she spoke again.
“You’re doing very well then Tom, considering you’re still holding my hand,” she said and Tom apologized as they laughed together.
“Please Tom would you do me a favour? I mean, I hate to ask, but I would appreciate it.”
Tom Carey did not need to be asked twice.
“Of course Mary if I can ... I’d be happy to oblige.”
“Well if you wouldn’t mind and if you can spare the time would you please come into the school with me... you see, I’m not used to meetings like this and I feel so stupid as I’m sure I won’t know what to say.”
Tom held out his arm and smiled an invitation for Mary to take it.
“Thanks Tom. I feel a bit better now and not so alone, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean, Mary and I would be happy to take you home again whenever you want to leave the school.”
“Oh! You’ve already done more than enough for me Tom. I can’t expect you to do that, but if you just see me in until I know what they expect of me as Willie’s mother, ten I’ll be O.K. but thanks all the same.”
“It’s your youngest boy whose here then, is it?”
Mary sighed and a pleasant smile crossed her lips.
“Yes ...all my others have left school now. Willie will be leaving next year I think. I hope he is doing all right here in St. Bonaventure’s. I had hoped when he got this far he might stay on until he was sixteen and perhaps well perhaps go to University.”
“That would be nice and all the others have they all got jobs?”
Mary began to tell Tom about her family as they went around the school together. She spoke with the Headmistress and the other teachers, but nothing was said about a pair of brown brogues that the Headmistress had to throw out . as she had outgrown them somewhat. She listened carefully to the report that Miss Carson read for her, both from St. Luke’s and for Willie’s potentiality at St. Bonaventure’s. She had hoped that her youngest could have gone on to University, but the Headmistress didn’t encourage that prospect and she felt a little sad about that as Charlie had done so well when he was at school ... He was a good boy, but the building site was something that she would have hoped he would avoided and gone for something better and less dangerous. Tom Carey was sitting beside Mary and heard everything that was said and as they were preparing to go into the gymnasium where tea had been prepared and was set out on little individual tables, Tom guided Mary by the arm.
“Mary, don’t worry about Willie. He’ll find his own niche, you’ll see and so will Charlie. The world today is any young man’s oyster.”
Mary appreciated his attempt to comfort her, but there was something foreboding in her mind a presentiment that worried her; would not leave her thoughts, even if she didn’t know what it was or how she should feel that way.
“Maybe I’m psychic Tom being a Celt, you see, but I can’t help worrying for all of my children, but particularly for the boys.”
“Mary you’re a good mother and that’s why you feel this way ... Every mother wants the best for her children and worries if she thinks that may not be what they will get.”
Mary sighed and knew that Tom was being kind and she appreciated that, but she was a widow with only her own counsel to see her through and it could be lonely and frightening to be so responsible for five children.
“Hello Mrs. Blair nice to see you. I thought you might be here.” Wattie’s Mammy looked at Tom Carey with suspicious eyes as she interrupted the conversation.
“Oh! Hello Mrs. Watts yes, nice to see you too. This is Mr.Carey ... a good friend and he very kindly drove me here to the school as I was a little late in keeping the appointment.”
Tom smiled and Mrs. Watts sneered.
“I thought I recognised you, Mr. Carey. You’re the butcher, aren’t you?” she asked, but before Tom could say another word, Rita Watts started again. “Nice of you to be so considerate, Mr. Carey We widows have rather a hard time these days ... Nobody wants to do anything for us ... Nobody seems to want to help or to know how difficult it is bringing up children on your own. Now my son...”
Mrs. Watts was about to expound on the virtues and enviable characteristics of Wattie, when Mary was called to one side by one of the teachers.
“Mrs. Blair. I am pleased to see you. My name is Havers, John Havers and I am Willie�
��s Form master. Can we have a little chat ... If you and Mr. Blair would like to come with me ...this way, please ...”
Mary looked confused for a moment.
“Oh! Mr. Havers This gentleman is not my husband. He is a friend who brought me here in his car, as I was well, I was rather delayed in coming here.”
John Havers apologised.
“I am dreadfully sorry Mrs. Blair Of course, I should have realized. Please forgive me. Would you like to speak with me privately or would you rather that your friend came along?”
Mary turned to Tom.
“I’d like you to come with me Tom if you don’t mind, that is?” she said and the trio went into a little glass partitioned room at the end of the gymnasium. Mr. Havers closed the door as Mrs. Watts was about to step inside.
“Later, Mrs. Watts if you don’t mind. I will see all the parents, but I have to see each one privately.”
Rita Watts grunted and pulled her coat around her full figure as she sucked her teeth and scowled.
***
“I’m not going to start off by saying that Willie is a brilliant pupil, Mrs. Blair. I think that would be very wrong, both for you and for your son. I have only known him for a very short time and this is the first report I have had to make regarding his progress at St. Bonaventure’s, but I will say this. Willie is a good boy. He has very sensitive qualities and this is to be admired, but he is a little headstrong .do you know that?”
Mary nodded, but her fingers trembled as she clutched her handbag.
“I would say that he is NOT University material, but that mustn’t worry you. Sometimes when a child or a young man, as Willie is, goes to University when they are really not suited to be there, life can be intolerable and they feel a coercion to give something of themselves, that they do not have to give. I would rather that a boy be happy even if it meant he became a post man or a clerk in an office or even a footballer, although that seems to be a very lucrative profession these days. It is Willie’s happiness that we are talking about here. He will make a life for himself, I am sure, but he will do it in his way and in his own time and I am sure you will be proud of him. Do you understand what I am saying Mrs. Blair?”