“Go on, say it, Dermot Michael Coyne.”
“That the poor child is her mother’s daughter and herself taking responsibility for the whole world? Why would I be surprised?”
She sighed loudly.
“So long as she doesn’t take responsibility for the wrong people?”
“I only did it once,” she said, squeezing my arm.
Everyone was happy to see us, especially the Yuppies, who were taking over West Lincoln Park. Me wife, to tell the truth and despite her national reputation as a concert singer, was in fact at her best when she was singing in a pub. She became the ur-Nuala, a peasant matron from the bogs of Connemara. Mary Anne was faithful to her promise.
“Mick is doing his arithmetic and the little kids are in bed and I’m reading a book by Graham Greene. He’s a strange man, isn’t he, Pa?”
Haunted by God, I think.
“Yeah . . .”
I had time to talk with Finnbar Burke, who was wearing his tattered “Old Head” cap, jeans and a tattered windbreaker over a T-shirt which proclaimed CORK CITY.
“You play much golf here?” I asked.
“Busy with work and school, but I wouldn’t mind having a go at it.”
“What’s your handicap at Old Head?”
“Three on a day when I’m feeling good.”
“That’s impressive.”
“It would be lower if I was better with a driver . . . Where do you play, Dermot, if it’s not improper to ask?”
“I try to stay a moving target. When we’re over across in the summer, it’s Polerama, where they give me four and herself a three. She won the women’s championship there when she was seventeen.”
“She never did!” This was a cry of wonder, not disbelief.
“I don’t play against her when we’re home, as she calls it. She out-drives most of the men in the club.”
“A wife who is wicked with the driver.”
He had the strange Irish habit of echoing your last comment, though in different words. Me wife rarely did that, because it takes too much time.
“In the summer we play at a place near our home on the other side of the lake called Lost Dunes, where they give me a three because they like her.”
“They have the sense to like a beautiful woman who hits a wicked driver . . . But I’m not sure I can afford to lose the golf balls that they tell me the place eats up.”
“My home course is Ridgemoor out in my old neighborhood . . . Would you ever be able to shoot a round with me? I’ll give you a five handicap, seeing that it’s a new course for you.”
“I’d rather play you even,” he said firmly.
“It’s a deal . . . When can you be free?”
“It’s an Irish firm I work for, so we’re relaxed about days off. My boss thinks I work too hard and meself going to school every night. How about Wednesday?”
“Wonderful! I’ll pick you up . . . Where do you live?”
“You know the Adlon Hotel?”
“On Huron street?”
“It’s one of our properties, and I have a small room down there. An easy walk from school . . . which is really hard, Dermot. They expect you to think. The golf game might clear me addled brain a bit.”
“I am fairly warned.”
We both laughed uneasily.
This cherubic little guy could prove dangerous.
The songfest ended with Nuala Anne singing the sad tale of Molly Malone.
As always, there were tears in everyone’s eyes. Poor little Julie sobbed.
“Gotta get home to the brats!” Nuala exclaimed.
“Come back more often!” Flannery (née Osmanski) begged.
“We will, Seano!”
A local Yuppie, named Reilly I think, took me aside as we were going through the rituals of saying good-bye (which in Nuala’s case dragged on like an old-style Solemn High Mass).
“What’s going on across the street at the school? It sounds to me like they’re deliberately trying to ruin it. The monkeys are running the zoo? Does Ryan know about it?”
“I don’t see how he couldn’t know about it. I’m sure he’s being deluged with complaints.”
“Do they pick on your kids?”
“Yeah, but mine want us to stay out of it . . . Why don’t you write to the Cardinal yourself?”
“He won’t hold it against us. Some of those guys do, you know.”
“My brother’s a priest, and he says that one should never, never mess with Blackie Ryan.”
“Sounds good . . . He looks like such a diffident little guy.”
“That’s what makes him so dangerous.”
Back at our house, Mary Anne and the dogs, all three of them yawning, went quietly to bed. Me wife departed to her exercise room and I went to the office to begin the story of Angela Tierney.
4
THERE WERE three aged sheets of paper on top of the manuscript. One was a letter from Galway dated in 1875 to Mrs. Patrick Gaughan at a Union Park address in Chicago.
Dearest Mae,
It’s been a long time since I’ve written you. There are hard times again here in the West of Ireland, the most god-forsaken part of the world, thanks to the English tyranny. We’ve been suffering from another famine, not like the big one back in ’45, but bad enough, and the winter has been terrible cold all together. There’s sickness too, some kind of affliction which wipes out whole families, even ones which seemed healthy are all dead in twenty-four hours, Lord have mercy on them. Then the weather has been terrible, bitter cold and piles of snow which melts and then turns to ice so that neither man nor beast can walk down the roads.
I am writing to you about a fourteen-year-old who is the only survivor of a family of six, two parents and four children. David kept her in quarantine after the parish priest brought her to us. She did not, by the grace of God, succumb to the fever that killed the others in her family. David says she has a strong constitution which resists the miasma that spreads the fever. We kept her in quarantine even on the day her family was buried, the priest insisted. Neither David nor the priest nor the grave diggers have picked up the infection, thanks be to God, but the town lives in mortal terror of her. She is a pretty little thing with bright blue eyes and pale blond hair, like a Viking, very intelligent, plays the piano and picked up a little bit of French in our school—she works very hard. Our children love her but are afraid. There is, to tell the truth, no room for anoher child in our house though, poor weak little thing that she is, she does most of the housework.
We think of sending her to the orphanage down in Galway Town, but the nuns there are very rigid and will crush out of her what little spirit the poor child still has. We wonder if you would ever think of hiring her as a servant girl. She works very hard and never complains and her fare from Kinsale to New York would cost you only ten dollars and you could take it out of her pay until she has earned it. If you would be willing to hire her, send a draft to our bank in Galway and we will arrange for her transfer to Kinsale. David says I shouldn’t ask this of you, but I say that you and Paddy have always been very generous and that this is a request that might save a great spirit. I ask God in advance to bless your generosity to poor little Angela Tierney.
Pray for all of us here. Ireland must have committed terrible sins to have earned so much of God’s Holy Wrath.
Your Loving Cousin,
Agatha
The other slip of paper was a trans-Atlantic cable.
FIFTY DOLLARS FORWARDED YOUR ACCOUNT GALWAY BANK. STOP. OBTAIN NON STEERAGE TICKET. STOP. NEW YORK CENTRAL TICKET CHICAGO. STOP. BUY CHILD PROPER CLOTHING. STOP. THANK YOU. STOP.
PGAUGHAN MD.
Then another letter.
Dearest May,
David and I are grateful that you sent the money for Angela’s journey to America. She sailed from Kinsale on the Duke of Kent yesterday. The ship should arrive on December fifth. I hope you can arrange to have someone meet her and put her on the train to Chicago. It was a cold gray day, and the
poor child was silent as she left us to go on the boat. I believe she wants to start her life over again in America.
Angela’s baby brother, a cute, mischievous little tyke, was the last to die. She laid him on the floor next to his mother and covered him with the last sheet in the house. When the police came to bury the family, they would discover that the Tierneys kept a neat house to the bitter end.
Angela herself rested on the floor among the bodies, rosary in her hand. There would be no one to cover her. That did not matter—her soul would join the rest of the family in heaven before morning. Jesus and Mary would take her home. The smell of dead bodies was terrible. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. A terrible waste of ashes. Not my will, but thy will be done. By morning her body would smell too. What would her life have been like . . . foolish question. We will all live again.
The sun woke her up in the morning. She was still alive. Why would God not take her as he had taken all the others? She heard snow sliding off their brand-new thatch roof. Water began to fall on the floor. The thaw for which they had hoped and prayed had finally come. Too late.
She still clutched her rosary. Eternal Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and all the souls . . .
She should walk down to the parish house and tell the priest . . . wrap herself in Ma’s Irish tweed blanket.
She wanted only to stay where she was and die. Maybe God didn’t want her to die.
She struggled to her feet, went into the children’s sleeping room, “borrowed” her sister’s walking shoes and her brother’s jacket, and her mother’s blanket, walked around the bodies and paused at the door.
“Good-bye. I’ll be with you soon. I’ve gone to get the priest.”
Her mother favored her sister and brother. She felt guilty because she had taken their things. In heaven, she hoped, they would forgive her. Outside it was warm for the first time in weeks. The snow on the road was melting, she plunged into it, fell on her face, pushed herself up, and struggled down the road towards the parish house.
If the weather had changed yesterday morning, perhaps the doctor could have come and saved at least her mother and the baby. Or at least the priest might have anointed them. None of them wanted to die. Their pain was unbearable. They cursed one another and they cursed God.
“They didn’t mean it, Lord, you know that.”
Her ma had died while Angela held her hand.
“Why didn’t you get the priest?” Ma had demanded.
“You told me not to leave the house.”
“God damn your selfish little soul to hell for all eternity. Always thinking of yourself.”
Those were the last words Ma had said.
“She didn’t mean it, Lord, she was in terrible pain. Please forgive her.”
Ma had loved her and she had loved Ma back. But they had fought all the time. Ma told her often that she was too smart for her own good.
Then she began to cry, for the first time since the family began to die.
I’m not going to die, she told herself. For some reason you decided I should live. I suppose I should say thank you.
Then, shivering and exhausted, she was at the parish house.
She knocked on the door. No answer.
She pounded harder and then shouted.
“Everyone is dead,” she howled, gasping for breath.
His wolfhound howled in protest. Too early in the morning to wake the priest. The housekeeper wouldn’t answer. Soaked to the skin from melting snow, she was trembling now. Maybe she would die after all.
Then the canon, in his long crimson robe, answered the door.
“Who are you child? Why do you dare to awaken me at this hour?”
“Angela Tierney, your reverence. My family is dead, all except me. They died yesterday, first my father and then everyone else, down to the poor little baby.”
The canon shook his head as if to clear it from sleep.
The dog, MacCool, pushed his way out of the house and embraced her. For some reason she was one of his favorites.
“To ask you pray over them and to say the Mass for them.”
He shook his head again. This was not a dream.
He took her little hand in his huge paw.
“I should have recognized you, Angela, and yourself with the Viking hair . . . I’ll get dressed and we’ll find the doctor.”
He didn’t ask her inside the house.
She waited outside, cold and now very hungry. Yes, she was going to live. Why, O Lord, why? Why didn’t you take me home with the others?
More tears. Ma didn’t approve of my weeping so much. She thought it was a sign of weakness.
The canon emerged, wearing the thick cloak he had brought home from his years in Rome. He handed Angela two big slices of soda bread slathered in butter.
“Eat it slowly, little one, your stomach is still unstable.”
“Everyone in my family vomited as they were dying.”
“Don’t worry,” he said gruffly. “God still loves you and so does this poor little town.”
Angela wasn’t sure that either still loved her. She wasn’t sure about anything anymore. They came to the doctor’s house. His trap and pony were waiting outside.
“Good morning, David,” the canon said. “Miss Tierney here tells me that her whole family died yesterday.”
“Dear God, no! Angie, how terrible.”
“Everyone!”
“My parents and all the children. Their bodies are out there in the house.”
“You feel all right?”
“I’m tired and terribly sad. I’m not sick. I vomited once in the house when my little Kevin died. I thought my turn would come during the night, but then the sun came out. I knew God wanted me to tell you and the canon. We must bury them properly.”
He put his hand on her forehead, looked into her eyes, took her pulse.
“Was there something your family ate recently that you did not eat?”
Angela hesitated.
“Pa found our last lamb dead in the field. Ma insisted that we eat it for supper. I didn’t want to because I loved the little thing.”
“The baby ate some of it?”
“He’s been terribly hungry.”
The doctor looked at the priest.
“Poisoned,” he said curtly. “Rotting meat.”
“You’re not going to die, Angela,” the canon said softly. “Thanks be to God.”
“We’re going to have to put you in quarantine for a few days, Angela, so the people will know that you were not affected by the poison. Do you mind?”
“What’s quarantine?”
“We’ll put you in a small room in my surgery and isolate you from others. Just for a few days. There’s lots of books in there. As I remember, you were quite a reader.”
“Can’t I go to the burial?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s for your own good.”
“I’ll say a requiem Mass for them later,” the canon said. “Just for you.”
In Ireland in those days of famine burials were quick and requiem Masses were infrequent. Doctors disagreed about whether diseases were contagious and might be spread from one person to another. Later Angela would argue for contagion against miasmas. She never forgot the horror of a week in quarantine, cut off from everyone in the village as her family was buried in the old cemetery behind the church. Nor would she forget that her family had died from eating rotting meat. The quarantine was unnecessary but the doctor had to impose it so that the town would not be afraid that she still had the disease.
The small room had been a closet in the corner of the doctor’s surgery. There was a cot and a hard chair and a tiny window.
Poor Ma killed everyone but me—the thought haunted her through the days when food was brought to the door of her tiny prison and a knock would signal that she should open the door. She waited till she heard her good friend Eileen run away, and then opened the door. The Gaughans fed her well during those d
ays, even though hard times affected the doctor too. She was taking the food out of the mouths of Eileen and her brothers and sisters. Some of her strength came back, and she still clung to her rosary. Yet she realized that she had no future. She had no family. In the West of Ireland, a time of famine meant you had to take care of yourself.
She would have to become a beggar, walking the muddy roads, seeking alms from people who had no alms to give.
She spent most of the time in the little room sleeping. She dreamed often that ma and pa and the childer were still alive.
The doctor came to see her the day of the funeral.
“It was a grand turnout, Angela. Grand altogether. The whole townland. They were greatly concerned about you. The canon explained what happened. People are dying of corrupted meat all over the West of Ireland . . . I don’t think they’ll be afraid of you . . . we’ll see what they’re saying in a day or two . . . Have you thought about what you want to do?”
She had not.
“I suppose I could become a beggar. I’m no use to anybody.”
“There are much better alternatives. I’m not without influence in the orphanage down in Galway Town. They would teach you some skills. They are too rigid altogether. The life of orphans is not easy, but there will be food and a roof over your head.”
“That would be better than walking the roads like the Travelers do.”
“Agatha had another idea. She has a cousin who lives in Chicago, married to a doctor, who is a cousin of mine.” He laughed uneasily. “Quite generous people. Wasn’t she thinking of writing to her to ask if they could find use for an intelligent and hardworking young woman? She could send a letter.”
“I can’t remain here in the village,” Angela said. “I don’t want to add to the burdens of any other family.”
America was both intriguing and terrifying. She squeezed her rosary and made a decision that would shape the rest of her life. The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to consider them.
“If they would have me, I’d love to go to America.”
Dr. David seemed surprised by her enthusiasm.
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