The Woodcutter and his Family

by Frank McGuinness

  The more she tried to deny this, the more she’d correct them, being well able to give chapter and verse exactly when she and she alone had been the hand that plucked these chords from nowhere, the more she was scorned by all and sundry, until once in the heat of argument a fat woman slapped her across the face with a mackerel that the beggar swore smiled at her tauntingly, daring her to blame an innocent fish for her lies and deceptions and all the bad cess that had brought her to this lowly status where she now found herself.

  I listened and believed her. Then she asked had I the price of a night’s lodgings?

  How could I as a child have such a sum of money on me? Then ask the lady of the house, she urged. But I knew my grandmother’s answer to that. It was the answer she gave to most requests. We are poor people, she would inform whoever asked for anything. We are poor people. These are the words I hate most in the English language, and when I told that to himself – was it in Dublin I first confessed this? If it was, then you would have heard him laughing in Galway.

  Why did he think it so amusing? Why was he mocking me? Was it, I said, because he thought himself better than me and mine? Didn’t he spring from the loins of an old windbag that couldn’t leave that walking waif of his mother alone for the space of time to let her draw breath before she was up the pole with another babby? What right have you, I roared at him, what right have you to upcast my want when you are no better your good self?

  I have no right, he said, that was why I was laughing. He left it at that, and I let him.

  Others might have been tempted to regard what he said as no more than a back-answer you’d expect from a maid standing up to the housekeeper in a cheap hotel that would fleece you as soon as look at you, but I have enough gumption to admit when I’m wrong, and while wrong might not be the way to describe how I reacted to what he said, still and all I felt his honesty, when it came down to it, that we were, me and him, cut from the same cloth, and we’d never forget it.

  Does he forget it now, lying there, near lifeless? How could I waken him? Will I tell him I’m going to pray for him? Would the shock of that stun him into saying something?

  We were taught all the prayers in our school in Galway. My favourite was to Our Blessed Lady, the ‘Memorare’. I did believe once upon a time very long ago that if I recited it, I would be heard and given everything I wanted, so I was careful, very careful not to be a greedy gut and look for too much. It would not do, I knew, to expect the heavens to open and douse me with divine blessings – not with clothes or shoes or a big sofa.

  What was it I tried to cajole then out of Mary, Queen of Heaven? Days off school likely, forget sweets and toys, I accepted such favours were of the wrong sort and I should be ashamed to torment her looking to receive these childish pleasures. No, I had drummed it into my head that when you put the poor mouth on with the purpose of the Virgin listening to your needs and wants, then it should concern itself – the prayer – with health or the necessity to find a job or pass an exam.

  Not that this lady talking here concerned herself too avidly with the examinations, as my mother used delight to remark, but she was one who shouldn’t pass comments. My grandmother always said of her daughter, that lassie, she could not spell shite without a Q. Christ, was Ma livid when that was brought back into the conversation long after she believed it dead and buried. No, some cousin in her wandering mind or else a crone of a neighbour – there was one nicknamed Joan the Crone – they would bring it back again into circulation and there she was marked out for slander once more, if slander be the same as the truth.

  And I did believe in the truth of that prayer. Long after I let all faith in so much of what had been nailed into us as God’s tenets cease to trouble me in the very slightest, it would come back in the dark night and console me, even if I might be too young at the time to need much consolation. Jesus, I suppose you’re never too young not to need that – even the infant in the cradle. I’m told when I was in the crib, I took to the holy water like a Wexford whore to whiskey, so all the more surprising I was not what they used to describe in Galway as gospel greedy.

  Funny thing about that town, the way it divided its people into those who would not stray outside their front door without a scapular round their neck or row of medals reputedly blessed by a cardinal or bishop on their Confirmation day, and the others who would not give the same bishop or cardinal the wind of their fart in honoured greeting. As always with my crowd, nobody knew who was what, so you could rely on someone being offended and slamming the front door shut in a fit of pique, vowing never to address another word to that shower of infidels or holy Joes. You wouldn’t know if you were coming or going having a conversation, should the subject of religion arise.

  Best then say nothing, but can you imagine the likes of us holding our tongues?

  Speaking of Confirmation, we all chose another name, and I took Felicity, largely to annoy that grandmother I mentioned in relation to my own mother’s lack of learning. The same woman could provide you with all the songs ever heard through the confines of the city and the wilds of County Galway, but was not so hot when it came to putting pen to paper. They were united in wonder and a bit of disgust at the choice of Felicity. How in under good Christ did you come up with that gander of a name – is it a saint’s? Will you be allowed to use it?

  That was their response when I let slip they would have to dig me into the grave before I’d pick Bernadette, as they both were urging.

  Bernadette’s a lovely name, they insisted, what do you find wrong with it? Because it sounds like a sheep. I’m sure she did mind sheep in her day, I was informed, there’s nothing untoward with that at all – wasn’t she singled out for special honour at Lourdes and her a poor country girl like yourself? Then it’s hardly likely to happen twice, is it, I maintained, I’m not going to see any visions and even if I were, I’d stick to Felicity. Do as you please, do as you always do, my mother nodded to her mother, expecting and finding agreement. I’ll never get my tongue round it, she insisted. Who do we know called that? Nobody, I assured her. What was she? A martyr, I informed them.

  Why don’t you go the whole hog and call yourself Robert Emmet, they asked, now there was a martyr, a man who died for Ireland, would your Felicity have done likewise? She was a martyr in Rome for the Christian faith, I informed them, if you read your prayer book you’d know that. The age of that one, advising me to read my missal, you have some cheek, my lady. I’d slap the badness out of her if I didn’t think she’d hit me back, my mother chuckled, an old saying and a true saying, you have them as you reared them, I’ve made the stick to beat my back. You said it, my grandmother noted, so how did they martyr poor Felicity?

  Saint Felicity, I corrected her, give her the proper title, for she earned it considering how she died. That’s what I’m asking, how did she go? Grandmother repeated. I had no more notion than the man in the moon what way the poor bitch popped her clogs, so I had better find something they’d believe. Was it by fire? Granny wondered, or did they knife her? Maybe they flayed the skin from her and fed her bones to the dogs? They had a great fondness for that class of activity in Rome back then. How would you know? my mother demanded. The same thing happened to a woman in Moycullen, well before you were born, my granny said, the husband was the culprit, he got away with it though. How? He ate the evidence, he ate what was left of her, his poor wife. Wouldn’t it make you think twice about marrying? Though such advice is a bit late in the day for us, she observed.

  Nothing like that happened to Saint Felicity, I said, she did not die by any of the methods you mentioned. They set fire to her, and she was consumed by flames. Just like Joan of Arc. In fact as a homage to her and maybe as an omen of what was to become her destiny, the same Joan took Felicity as her Confirmation name, also much against her parents’ wishes.

  Weren’t they right? my mother sneered, didn’t she too go up in flames? I have only one thing to say about all this, my granny added, for I’m thinking of that poor girl, w
hatever you call her, and the sore end she came to, being eaten alive by the blazes of hell, and her a good-living, decent being – why in the midst of all this horror, why in such peril, why when all hope was lost, did she not turn to the sweet mother of God? Why did she not know Mary would have protected her as she tried to protect her only beloved son? Why didn’t that Roman girleen not say her ‘Memorare’?

  You see now how I was reared? You can understand why I’d turn in that direction? How such recourse was ingrained through me? Himself thinks he knows it all about me and mine, but he wouldn’t credit the half of it. How could he, when I haven’t told him? That’s my look-out, but if I were to wonder why I kept my secrets – as many as I did – what would I answer? What would be my defence?

  That he could never, ever keep anything to himself. The man even told his son how he was born. If the boy’s head were not turned by knowing such things about his mother, who would wonder at it? When the child looked, what could he not see but that same mother naked, swimming with blood? That planted firmly in his poor brain – how could the boy not have the most confused ideas about women?

  I’d be the first to admit that I was the one who said my son married an invisible woman – I swear to Jesus that she was just not there. It was not so much a question of what he saw in her as of what he saw at all? Did she exist? Well, she must have, for they signed the contract legally uniting them, but the bitch was anaemic to the extent that I doubt if there was a drop of blood in her veins. Was there a vein even in her body? Was there an ounce of solid flesh to be found in her? At the end it’s said she did a runner back to her own people, but would they have noticed her returning?

  I doubt it.

  And of course the finger of blame for the ruination of my son’s happiness was pointed in his mother’s direction. I’ll pay it no heed. What crime am I guilty of? Have I not always tried to do the best for me and mine, and what thanks were ever offered? The mockery of himself. I could hear the sneering if I were to admit to the divine goodness I turned to for succour and mercy when there was neither in the vicinity of my home as we wandered through whatever city of Europe where he might find the few shillings to keep me in drawers and himself in drink and a bite in the mouth of our bonhams. That, to the likes of you, is a suckling pig. An uncle from Sligo passed on its usage, and it’s always been fondly employed by our ones. Himself though, my one and only, he would not be too fond if he knew whose blessing I craved on the whole shower of us. Or maybe he would, contrary fucker as he was, and me his match, I admit.

  I look at him lying helpless on this bed in the lonely city where we’ve ended up on the run from the bastards who’d eat us without salt should we stumble into them. What makes people hate? It must be the roughest thing in the world to live with a heart so hardened that it can’t hear another being weeping in pain. Dear Christ, let no one say that about me after I’m dead and buried. Let me receive a softer word as a woman. I tried my best to harm nobody. That dying man, he is my witness. He would back me up in that claim. And what am I doing talking about death being so near? Am I hastening it on its way to him? And why do I hesitate to say the words of the prayer that never failed me, or if it did I’ve forgotten when? Is it just because I fear he’d laugh at me and jeer?

  No, it can’t be, for I’d give anything even for him to deride me – to have even that much life in him. Then what is halting me?

  I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to. Just say it and be done.

  Who knows what reaction it will provoke? Might get a rise out of him. One time everything did. Not today or yesterday. Still, I’m one to talk. You could now parade a whole naked hurling team in front of me and I wouldn’t thank you. I’m talking serious. I wouldn’t know now what to do with a bare cock. Smoke it maybe. Get a bit of satisfaction that way if no other. I’ll be struck down for that kind of chat and me intending to invoke the Blessed Virgin.

  What kind of woman was she at all, I wonder? From what little I know, I’d say she was fierce for the cleaning. Likely never had a scrubbing brush out of her hand. The talk of Nazareth for being house proud. Had she St Joseph and Jesus in a state if they dirtied a clean shirt she’d spent hours scrubbing? Worn the knees off herself polishing.

  A neighbour of ours, Mrs Rooney, was notorious for leaving her kitchen floor slippery as ice. When queried why, she said she lived in hope her husband’s mother might visit. There was a chance the old witch might break her neck if she slipped, for she showed little other sign of ceasing to torment those afflicted by any connection to her. The Rooneys were widely regarded as not being right in the head, although I was pally with the eldest girl, Suzie. Poor Suzie – she took to the drink badly, and the last I heard was walking the streets of Cardiff, if you please, whatever notion took her there.

  I wonder did she pray as I’m about to? A fine-looking youngster, gorgeous hair, thick, jet black. The old lady they all hated, she threatened to put a stop to her gallivanting, as courting was sometimes called in those distant days. She waited for Suzie to come home one night. Now it was late, after two in the morning. That must be acknowledged. She had two big thick sons of hers in attendance – boys you wouldn’t dare look crooked at in case they’d break your mouth for having the monstrous cheek to set eyes on them. One of them intended to wear a knuckleduster but the other persuaded him not to. Far too rough a punishment surely to use against a girl. There was no necessity for any other instrument than a pair of shears. They could work vengeance as well as any weapon or boot against a woman. They lay in wait for her, hiding inside the gateway of an abandoned forge.

  She – the old one – got the men to grab Suzie when she ventured past and hold her against a wall. She hacked the girl’s beautiful hair off so you could see her scalp. If they expected the youngster to cry out of shame and beg their mercy, they had the wrong soldier. She didn’t even blink an eye – just kept looking straight ahead of her, saying nothing. That defiance must have been infuriating. Didn’t the old bitch skelp Suzie across the face? See how many of your fancy men like the look of you now, the witch jeered, hoping to provoke at least a tear out of the girl.

  Suzie didn’t oblige. Not so much as a sob left her lips. She kept her eyes bored into her tormentor, ignoring the guffaws of the two centurions attending the scene. Finally she spoke, and word has it this is what she declared: Did you enjoy inflicting on me what you’ve just done? I hope you have, for it will be the last time you raise your hands against me in any shape or form. Remember that the next time you’re seen beating the breast of yourself at the altar rails. Remember what I’m about to deliver you.

  And with that didn’t Suzie start to say the ‘Memorare’, much to the consternation of the three who assaulted her.

  – Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary–

  – Why are you invoking the name of Mary, stop it at once, you heathen, her grandmother demanded, to no avail.

  – That never was it known–

  – Will you stop this blaspheming, what are you trying to do? The old one was now panicking.

  – That anyone who fled to thy protection–

  – Stop it, Suzie, the grandmother warned.

  – Implored thy help–

  – You know what bad luck will follow this.

  – Or sought thine intercession was left unaided.

  – Make her shut her lying mouth, the older and more frightened of the bullies pleaded.

  – Inspired by this confidence–

  – Our Lady is listening to all of this, the old woman threatened.

  – Jesus, I hope she’s not, the other bruiser stuck his oar in.

  – I fly unto thee–

  – What are you going to ask for anyway? they questioned her.

  – O Virgin of virgins, my mother–

  – I’m sure the same virgin is having a good laugh listening to that whore try to defile something so holy as this prayer, the younger bucko said.

  – To thee do I come, before thee I stand–

  –
She has no shame, her grandmother observed.

  – Sinful and sorrowful.

  – Sinful for certain, but I’d not be too sure about the sorrow, would you be, boys? she asked.

  – O Mother of the Word Incarnate–

  – I’ve often wondered what in hell that all means, how can you mother a word? the younger lad wondered.

  – It’s a mystery, just believe it, the grandmother menaced him.

  – Despise not my petitions–

  – Will you enlighten us what they may be? she was asked.

  – But in thy mercy hear–

  – You will not be heard, rest assured of that.

  – And answer me.

  They let Suzie finish her prayers. She did not give them time to plague her further. Rather she eyeballed them and said out straight, in case you want to learn what I want, it is that all of you, from the oldest to the youngest, die roaring and it is within my earshot. I would not so much as offer you a sip of water to ease your suffering. Know this much – you are hated from this hour onward. I have no time nor respect for you. You are the dirt beneath my feet.

  So that’s the thanks I get at the end of my days, the granny was near crying, that’s all I need expect, well, you’ve shown me your true colours, I should have seen them years ago. Don’t darken my door again – you’ll never cross under my roof. If you act like a tinker and talk like one, you can live like one. Never come back.

  I have no intention of ever doing so, Suzie assured her. I won’t wait for tomorrow. I’ll go this night. You’ll never set eyes on me again, nor will any in Galway.

  And we never did. Not a sign of our pal.

  You’d hear things in passing – hence the story about her in Cardiff from an Oranmore man who’d been working in Wales down the pits, but who knows, was it her at all he’d glimpsed? I always thought that our paths would cross, especially when I was working in that hotel in Dublin. She might call asking for me. But no, no. It never happened. Still, I thought of her often, especially at the end of October. That might have been her birthday, I’m not sure, but I am certain the two of us loved that part of the year when it would soon be Hallowe’en. How long since I celebrated that feast day? All Souls, 31 October, All Saints, 1 November. My family always threw a big party, the envy of Galway.