The Girl from Ballymor

by Kathleen McGurl

  Finally, they reached one of the entrances to the copper mines. The hillside was riddled with tunnels and mineshafts, Patrick had told her. Generation upon generation of miners had followed the seams of copper ore, digging or blasting it out, hauling it to the surface in buckets, and handing it over to Thomas Waterman or his forefathers.

  There was a clutch of men standing by the entrance, all with worried expressions but no one actually doing anything. Patrick was not amongst them. Kitty knew they’d seen her approach, yet not one of them lifted his head to catch her eye.

  ‘What’s happening? Where’s my Patrick? Young Daithí here says you’re after having an accident in the mine – is that right?’

  ‘Ah, Mrs McCarthy,’ said one man, shaking his head sadly. Kitty recognised him as James O’Dowell, Patrick’s foreman.

  She clutched at his sleeve. ‘Tell me, what’s happened?’

  ‘’Tis a bad one. I’m very sorry, Mrs McCarthy. There’s been a collapse, down below. One of the tunnels. We were worried it was unsafe. We’d been telling Mr Waterman we needed to close that one for ages, so we had. But he wouldn’t hear of it, said it was still yielding enough ore to be worth working. Patrick was down there. He was the last one inside. We dug and dug, but couldn’t reach him, could only reach his foot, and that all crushed beneath the rock. There’s no hope.’

  At the last two words the breath left her, and she fell to the ground. Someone was wailing, keening, crying as though their heart had been torn from their body, and it was a minute before she realised the sound was coming from her. Patrick, gone, crushed, and no hope of being saved. Memories of their time together crowded through her mind – their first meeting in Ballymor at the midsummer fair; their first kiss high on the moors on a warm summer’s day; the delight in little Michael’s eyes when Patrick threw him high in the air; their wedding day when the future held so much promise; the births of the five children they’d had together – Little Pat, Gracie, Nuala, Jimmy and baby Éamonn. And now he was gone. He’d never again walk in through the door of their cottage, filling its space with his merry voice and dancing eyes. He’d never gather his children about him to tell them a story of the giant Finn McCool and how he’d tasted the Salmon of Knowledge, or of the Children of Lir turning into swans again. And she would never again feel the warmth and safety of his arms about her.

  Someone pulled her up, and she was ushered into a hut and given a cup of tea. As if tea could make up for losing Patrick! She drank it dutifully, and forced herself to appear composed, outwardly at least. She had the children to think about. They needed her. How she would provide for them without Patrick she did not know, but she would not go into the workhouse, that was for sure. Michael was old enough to work. She would take in washing. They could still tend their potato patch. Little Pat could help in the fields and Grace could take care of the little ones. They would manage. They would have to manage.

  She had walked back down the hillside with Daithí in silence, carrying Patrick’s shoe, the only thing of his the miners had been able to retrieve from the collapsed mine. Daithí had stopped outside her cottage, and oddly, awkwardly, had shaken her hand before leaving her to go inside and break the news to the children.

  They had never managed to retrieve Patrick’s body. She’d been left with not even a grave to visit. At the time, his death had seemed like the worst thing that could possibly happen to her. But losing four of her children from starvation and fever in one single winter had surpassed even that – the loss of the great love of her life, taken in his prime.

  *

  The following day, Kitty went to Ballymor along with Michael, leaving Grace alone in the cottage, sleeping to conserve her strength. There had to be something they could do – some work to be found, some charity. Kitty’s great fear was that they would all become too weak to leave the cottage, and no one would come to look for them. They would die in their beds one by one, lying undiscovered and forgotten for months, perhaps years. While she had the strength she had to do something. Anything – to keep her last two darling children alive.

  There was a crowd of men and women outside O’Sullivan’s pub. Kitty at first thought it was a gathering for another rally, and urged Michael to stay clear. But he asked some men on the fringe of the group what was happening, and received welcome news.

  ‘Public works are starting up. From today. There’s to be work widening the road from here to Cork. Employment for all who are fit, and payment at the end of each day. I’m going to stay and get work.’

  A woman wrapped in a grubby shawl nodded. ‘They’ll take women too. I’m going to stay to work, so I am. And there’s cornmeal in the stores to spend the wages on.’

  Kitty caught Michael’s arm. ‘I’ll stay too and work. This is our chance. Finally, the government are doing something to save us.’

  He nodded, but his mouth was set in a grim line. ‘It won’t be easy work.’

  *

  It wasn’t. The working party – some hundred or so men and women, with a few children tagging along – were marched out to the Cork road, on the other side of town from Kildoolin. The men were given pickaxes and shovels, and set to work levelling the ground to widen the road from its single cart-width to twice that. The women were given lump-hammers, to break stones at the side of the road for the road’s foundations. Water was provided for the workers, and in the mid-afternoon a foreman distributed a handful of cooked cornmeal to every worker. It tasted foul, but was better than nothing. Kitty wanted to save some to take home to Grace, but had no means of storing or carrying it. ‘Bring a bowl, next time,’ advised the woman working alongside her. ‘Bring your children too.’ She nodded to where the foreman was handing out a ration to some children who’d been lying on the ground near to where their mothers laboured.

  To think it had come to this. Stone-breaking, eating tasteless gruel, just to survive.

  But at the end of the day she and Michael were paid, as they’d been promised, and they were able to buy a loaf of bread and a bag of cornmeal on their way home. Kitty gave thanks to God that they would live another day.

  On the following day, Kitty took Grace with her. Michael carried his sister to the worksite, wrapped in a blanket. She sat beside the road, at one time trying to help grade the stones by size until Kitty forbade her, while they worked. When the rain came, Kitty wrapped the blanket around her daughter’s head to try to keep her warm and dry. Perhaps she’d have been better off staying at the cottage after all. But the mid-afternoon ration of gruel would not go to waste, and indeed Gracie wolfed it down and seemed better for it.

  Kitty looked around at her fellow workers. They were a sorry lot, indeed. All of them dressed in rags, all far too thin. Everyone moving slowly, deliberately, trying to conserve energy. Her fellow countrymen, the proud Irish race, and look at them! They were not so proud now. Each of them was caught up in their own private fight for survival.

  And yet, despite their desperation, she noted little acts of kindness and compassion. A man stumbled, his neighbour caught him before he fell and held him till he was steady on his feet and could swing his pickaxe again. A woman, noticing a child that was not her own eyeing her portion of gruel hungrily, passed the unfinished bowl over. Even the foreman, spotting a man too weak to raise his pickaxe again, bade him sit down and rest until the end of the day, with no loss of earnings. While people cared for each other there was hope for them all, yet.

  *

  They worked daily on the roads over the next couple of months, as the winter set in. It was a hand-to-mouth existence. Their supply of potatoes at home had finished, even the rotten ones, and they relied entirely on the gruel at the works, and the occasional loaf or cornmeal they were able to buy with their wages. Some wages had to be kept back to pay the rent, for Kitty refused to let them go into the workhouse. No one who went in ever came out – the place was rife with disease, which spread like wildfire amongst the people crammed so close together. They were surviving, and as the year turned a
nd the days began to lengthen again, Kitty allowed herself to hope that things would get better, that the three of them would survive this famine, that they would be able to grow their own potatoes again, find work that was easier and better paid, raise the money for fares to America . . .

  And then the day came when the afternoon gruel rations ended. They’d still be paid, but there’d be no food provided during the day. Their only food would be what they cooked themselves when they returned home. A few days later, Kitty watched as a skeletal man laid down his pickaxe, crawled away from the road and lay down to sleep. When he failed to move at the end of the working day, she went over to rouse him, and found to her horror he was dead. Michael came to her side, and together they covered the man in stones as a makeshift grave, until his body could be collected and taken to the mass famine graveyard. The other labourers looked sadly on, but walked on by, too tired and weak to be able to help.

  From that day onwards, Kitty left Gracie at home. The child was too weak in any case to walk the three miles to the worksite and back again in the evening, and Kitty and Michael were too weak to carry her. But they had to continue labouring. It was the only way they could eat.

  CHAPTER 11

  Maria

  I was hot and sweaty by the time I got back from the walk up to the copper mines and stone circle, not to mention covered in scratches from the gorse. I went straight up to my room in O’Sullivan’s, tried once more to call Dan, but his phone was still going straight to voicemail, then put the kettle on for a cup of tea and stripped off for a shower. Fifteen minutes later, I was clean, refreshed and deciding what to wear that evening. I was only planning a meal downstairs, so it didn’t really matter what I wore, but I found myself remembering that Declan had said he might see me later in the bar. I pulled out a pair of loose cotton trousers and a lacy top, and did my make-up carefully. If I was going out with Dan I’d make an effort, so why not tonight? But was I doing this for Declan then? What was I playing at? In another life, one with no Dan in it and no baby in my belly, I might have flirted with Declan, made it obvious I was interested and seen where it took me. But I shook the thought out of my head. That was not the life I was living in. I had Dan. I was pregnant. I’d be a fool if I did anything at all to encourage Declan’s attentions. It wasn’t fair on him. Or me. Or Dan.

  Nevertheless, I found myself putting on some lipstick and dabbing scent behind my ears. Maybe it was my last hurrah as a single, childless woman.

  Maybe Declan wouldn’t even come to the pub tonight. Maybe I was just being ridiculous.

  *

  But he did come. I’d finished my dinner, exchanged a few words with Sharon and Dave from the campsite, who’d taken the kids to Blarney Castle that day, kissed the Blarney Stone and got themselves a little sunburnt, and was on my second glass of elderflower cordial when Declan entered the pub. The musicians had not yet arrived, and Sharon was just ushering her family out, so the pub was pretty quiet. Declan spoke for a few minutes with Paulie, who was propping up the bar in his usual spot, ordered a pint of Guinness from Aoife, who was in a Pink Floyd t-shirt today, black with a prism and rainbow design, and then came to sit with me in my nook beside the window, as though we did this every night of the week. I smiled as he approached, feeling myself light up inside. Stop it, Maria, I told myself. You are practically engaged. I noticed Aoife frown slightly as Declan came over and wondered whether she fancied him herself. If she did, she’d had plenty of time to make a move on him. Perhaps she had and he had turned her down. I remembered her comment on the day I’d arrived – you won’t get far with that one, she’d said.

  ‘Hi, Maria. Did you go for your walk up to the stone circle?’ he said, pulling out a stool and sitting down.

  ‘Hi, Declan. Yes, I did. It’s beautiful up there, with all the heather in bloom.’ I remembered about the mineshaft I’d stumbled upon, but decided not to mention it after all. I wanted to have a happy chat with him, not moan about the dangers I’d encountered. He might be offended if he thought I was criticising the local area.

  ‘It is, sure. There’s something about tramping through the heather over the moors that puts everything into perspective. Makes all your troubles disappear. Well, it does for me. Do you find that, too?’

  I pondered a moment. I seemed to have a lot of troubles at the moment. I was pregnant and still unsure about it all. Terrified of impending motherhood. My boyfriend had proposed and I’d run away. Now he thought the baby wasn’t his, and was not answering my calls. ‘Kind of,’ I answered, with a bit of a grimace. ‘Can’t really say my troubles disappeared but I was able to forget them for a while at least.’

  He smiled, a warm smile that softened his eyes. There should be warning notices. A girl could drown in those liquid eyes. ‘Want to talk about your troubles? I’m a good listener.’

  Suddenly, totally without warning, I felt tears well up in my eyes. Oh God, this was embarrassing. I hardly knew the man and I was about to blub in front of him. I did want to talk, I realised. About pregnancy, about Dan’s proposal, his accusation that I’d cheated, about my fears that I’d be as crap a mother as Jackie was, about the way events were moving too fast, life was railroading me along a very grown-up path that I did not feel ready for.

  ‘Maria? Is something wrong?’ He reached out a hand and laid it on my forearm. His touch was cool and comforting.

  I shook my head. ‘Ignore me. I’m just being stupid.’ But, as I said it, a tear escaped and rolled down my cheek, forcing me to brush it away with the back of my hand before it fell into my drink.

  ‘Tears are never stupid, Maria.’ His voice was gentle and reassuring.

  I was silent for a moment, considering. I realised I did not want to tell him about Dan’s accusation – that was between me and Dan. As soon as I had the chance to talk to Dan I’d be able to sort that one out myself, and make it clear to him the baby was most definitely, one hundred per cent, his. I may have been guilty of not telling him about it for far too long but I was most definitely not guilty of cheating on him. I would never do that.

  ‘I’m pregnant and I don’t know how to be a mother.’ The words came out in a rush, and as I said them I looked at Declan defiantly, as though expecting him to contradict me and tell me I’d be a great mother.

  ‘Ah.’ He looked thoughtful, as though he was weighing up his words before he answered. I was grateful for this. Most people would instantly spout platitudes about how mothering would come naturally once the baby was born, that no one knew how to do it but everyone managed all right when the time came. But I knew differently. Jackie hadn’t managed naturally.

  ‘I imagine,’ he said, ‘that motherhood must be the hardest and most terrifying job in the world. Having someone who is so completely dependent on you for everything.’ He spoke quietly, his tone kind.

  I nodded. ‘Yes. Terrifying is the word.’

  ‘Is there someone you can talk to about the way you feel? I don’t know if . . . the baby’s father, perhaps? Your own mother?’

  I snorted. ‘My mother is half the problem. She has told me many times she never wanted to have a child, and that I held her back, ruined her chances in life.’ My voice had become bitter as it often did when I mentioned Jackie.

  His eyes widened. ‘Doesn’t sound like you had an easy childhood.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t abused or anything like that, and we weren’t poor, and my dad was around until I was seventeen. He was a great parent, and tried his best to make up for Jackie.’

  ‘Jackie? Your mother?’

  ‘Yep. I wasn’t allowed to call her “Mum”.’ Those blinking tears began to spill again. Twenty-nine years old and crying because I’d never had a proper mum. I’d loved her, as a kid, and had always tried to please her, but nothing I did ever seemed good enough for her. As a teenager I’d given up trying, and moved out as soon as I could.

  Declan seemed to know instinctively not to touch my hand or look at me. The slightest sympathetic glance would have tipped me over
the edge. He took a sip of his drink, giving me a moment to wipe away those traitorous tears and get a grip of myself.

  ‘Some people just don’t have the right temperament to be a parent,’ he said, carefully.

  ‘Jackie didn’t. And what if I’m the same?’ I looked up at him, hoping he’d have words of wisdom for me, praying he could take away my doubts with a word or a look.

  ‘You’re not though, are you? You are Maria, she is Jackie. You don’t have to be like her – you can do things your own way. And because you are worrying about this, that tells me you won’t be the same. You’ve recognised your mother’s failings and that’ll stop you from making the same mistakes.’

  It wasn’t enough. He was missing the point. ‘But what if the baby’s born and I don’t love it? What if I find myself resenting it, like Jackie said she resented me? You have to give up so much to be a parent. What if I don’t want to?’ And wasn’t I already making the same mistakes, hiding my pregnancy from Dan and then running away here to Ireland? Denying the child that was growing in my womb.

  He smiled gently. ‘What if you find yourself head over heels in love with the baby from the moment you first hold him or her? What if you find the joy the baby brings into your life more than makes up for the sacrifices you have to make? What if being a mother ends up being the best thing that’s ever happened to you? No one knows how they will react to enormous life-changing events like this. I’m afraid you will just have to wait and see what happens, so. But try not to worry in the meantime, although it’s perfectly understandable.’