by Anne Doughty
Speaking strongly to herself, she got up and fetched the battered cash box from the cupboard below the dresser, sat down again gratefully and opened it. She sighed: there was just enough for the three men, but nothing left for running the house.
She took a deep breath, well used to the erratic nature of their income, where one week the price of a pair of gates would more than pay the wages, and the next, with a reliable customer unable to pay till the end of the month, or till after the harvest, she would have to dip into the reserve.
The first reserve was an old brown handbag that had belonged to John’s grandmother. There, behind the bank book, the rent book, their birth certificates, and their marriage certificate, were a few tattered and grimy notes. There was almost enough but not quite.
She opened the bank book and glanced through the entries: the long series of small entries which preceded the buying of the trap, big deposits after a good harvest when farmers brought hard-pressed machinery to be repaired or renewed, and regular withdrawals in winter with little work in the forge and extra fuel needed in the house.
A bank book, she reflected, was a different kind of diary.
It too charted important events, reflecting good times and bad. When she came to the withdrawal of the money for John’s wedding suit, the one in which he’d been buried, she felt quite overcome, a kind of sick nausea grasping her chest.
‘Are ye all right, missus dear?’
She looked up, feeling dizzy, the figure in front of her slightly blurred.
‘I giv’ the door a knock, but whin I diden hear ye at your work I thought ah better luk in. Yer powerful pale. Ken I get ye anythin’?’
‘Thanks, Sam. Would you make us a pot of tea? I think I’m just tired. I haven’t slept much.’
‘Ach sure it’sa desperit hard time for ye,’ he said strongly. ‘Aye an’ fer all of us. Whit’ll we do at all wi’out him?’
‘We can only do our best, Sam,’ she said sadly, as he hung the kettle on its chain and poked up the fire. ‘And I’ll need you to keep me straight. There’s things I might not know about the forge and no John to put me right. The accounts I’m well used to, but some of the big bills for supplies I’d need to have warning of.’
‘D’ye mean yer goin ta run it yersel?’
‘What else can I do?’
‘Sure, maybe we thought ye’d go ta live with some ither of yer family or teach we’ens like ye told us ye did once,’ he said, looking at her in amazement, a hint of relief already creeping into his voice.
‘Sam, I have no family, except my brother, and he has his work cut out for him trying to run a factory. It’s a hard time for him with orders letting him down. He’s never married but he looks after the old couple who took him in when we lost our parents. He has nothing to spare.’
She paused, the effort of speaking almost too much for her, the nausea flowing over her again, this time with cramping pains in her stomach.
The kettle was rattling its lid and as Sam moved around making the tea she laid her head on the bare table. She wondered if she was going to cry. She felt so peculiar. She couldn’t describe it. Even if the good-hearted Sam had asked her how she was feeling, she wouldn’t have known how to answer him.
He put a jug of milk on the table, fetched mugs from the dresser and poured tea for them both, then, suddenly remembering, he dug his hand into his trouser pocket and brought out a crumpled note.
‘Here y’ar. I near fergot,’ he said apologetically. ‘A couple o’ men who owed us money come upta my house lass night to pay up. Shure everyone knows a wake is desperit hard on food and drink, even if ye don’t buy whiskey, that’s forby the big bills,’ he said, knowing very well John’s brother had gone for the undertaker from Armagh.
She smiled slightly as she smoothed out the battered note.
‘Well, we’re all right for this week, Sam,’ she said quietly. ‘If you’d reach behind you into the left-hand drawer of the dresser you’ll find the wee envelopes I use. I’ll make them up for you and the boys.’
She drank thirstily from her mug, felt a little better and watched him pull out the drawer where she kept the account books, the ancient cash box, paper, pens, a bottle of ink and a box of nibs.
‘They these?’ he asked, smiling, as he handed them to her.
She nodded, feeling strange again as she opened the cash box and began to put together tattered notes and coins.
‘Ye don’t luk well, missus,’ said Sam, who was now studying her closely. ‘Wou’d ye maybe need to see the doctor?’
She’d certainly not ever felt like this before. She knew the colour had drained from her face and the stomach cramps had begun again more vigorously. As she sat trying to put together the familiar amounts and take in what Sam had just said, she felt a dampness between her legs as if her monthly bleeding had started suddenly when she was unprepared.
‘I think, Sam, I might have a word with Mary-Anne. I’ll go down in a wee while when I’ve finished my tea.’
‘Ye’ll do no such thing,’ he said, with a vigour that surprised her. ‘You’ll sit where ye are and I’ll away down and get her an’ bring her up t’you.’
He paused only long enough to throw back his tea, pocket the three envelopes and bid her firmly to stay where she was. She heard his boots on the cobbles and the whine of the gate hinges which needed oiling and then, gratefully, she laid her head down on the table, her one thought that she now had a week to work out what to do before she ran out of both money and food.
CHAPTER FOUR
Mary-Anne arrived in a flurry, her skirt flying, clutching a bulging shopping bag. Sam was out of breath as he hurried to keep up with her. She took one glance at Sarah, who had raised her head when she heard the gate whine, and insisted on her lying down right away. She watched carefully as Sarah moved slowly and awkwardly from one steep wooden tread to the next, Sam Keenan close behind her, blocking the narrow stairway in case she should miss her step.
By the time Sarah got up into the bedroom, she was exhausted; a cold sweat was breaking on her face and her legs threatened to give way under her. She dropped down on John’s side of the bed, the one nearest to the door and heard, rather than saw, Sam and Mary-Anne come in behind her.
Before she’d even had time to collect herself enough to thank Sam for his help, Mary-Anne had hustled him out of the room.
‘Away home, good man,’ she said quickly. ‘Come back down, or send wee Scottie, or one of the childer in ’bout an hour,’ she went on. She dropped her voice to a whisper, ‘In case I need sen’ for the doctor.’
Sarah heard the words quite clearly but found she hadn’t the energy to protest. She simply lay back as she was told, aware of Mary-Anne pulling off her boots and undoing the buttons on the side of her skirt.
‘Now, lift up yer backside up if ye can, like a good wumman,’ she said softly, as Sam’s boots echoed on the stairs and they heard him pull the front door closed behind him. ‘Are yer monthly cloths in the chest?’ she went on.
Sarah wiped her forehead after the effort of raising her lower half so that Mary-Anne could remove her skirt and her damp knickers. She did say, ‘Yes,’ but the sound that came out was only a whisper.
It was all her friend needed. She bent down, pulled out the lowest drawer first and immediately found what she wanted. She’d never met a woman yet who didn’t keep well-washed, but stained cloths, somewhere handy in the bedroom.
She spread a couple of the largest squares underneath Sarah’s lower half, then draped the skirt across her body.
‘Now, just you close your eyes an’ have a rest, an’ I’ll lie on the bed beside you. Shure it’s not offen I get an excuse to lie down,’ she said cheerfully, as she took off her own boots and lay down gently on top of the bedclothes, without creating so much as a squeak from the bedsprings.
Sarah wanted to thank her, but couldn’t find the energy to speak.
To her surprise, she found tears running freely down her cheeks. Why tears, why now? s
he wondered. Were they for John? And why now, when they’d stayed away through all the long hours since he’d been brought home? Suddenly, quite unexpectedly, she thought of Helen, her dear childhood friend, the only person other than John with whom she had ever shared a bed.
Helen was inches smaller than she was herself. She was blonde with curly hair, while she herself was dark, her hair long and straight. Helen seemed always to bubble with life and energy while Sarah was quieter, more thoughtful, sometimes almost solemn. ‘Chalk and cheese,’ her grandmother had called them, laughing, when she saw them coming back from a walk together, their arms round each other’s waists.
The much-loved, only surviving child of another Quaker family, Helen was one of the handful of children her grandmother taught. They had always sat beside each other, run errands together, shared whatever books or paper they received as gifts. They had been inseparable all through their childhood, their birthdays only three weeks apart. Then Helen had fallen in love at only seventeen, a man some six years older than herself, but the son of close neighbours whom she had also known from childhood.
Seeing what joy they had together and sharing the hopes they had for their future with them, Sarah had been so happy herself. But her joy in their relationship was short-lived. Helen’s parents opposed her marriage to a man who was not a Quaker.
Helen had gone ahead and married him with Sarah as one of her witnesses at the registry office in Armagh. By then, Helen’s intentions having been made clear, she was pronounced as being ‘out of unity’ by their Monthly Meeting. With her grandmother no longer well and unable to attend Meetings on Sundays, Sarah herself stopped attending.
Sarah’s eyes closed. Helen had been so hurt, not only by the pronouncement of their local Monthly Meeting, but by the coolness and even rejection of her family and many of her friends. She’d said that Sarah was the only person who had not changed in any way towards her as a result of her marriage.
But change had come upon them all. Happy as Helen and Daniel were in their love for each other, Daniel ran into difficulties with the cotton-spinning business he’d inherited from his grandfather. Customers, many of them Quakers, who were committed to fair trading, simply withdrew their support. His business began to fail. In desperation, they decided the only thing to do was emigrate. Like thousands of Presbyterians, Catholics and Quakers before them escaping discrimination and unfair levies and taxes, they decided to go to America, where Daniel had cousins in New England who would help him to get started again.
Helen had wept when she told Sarah what they’d decided and Sarah had wept with her when she accepted it was probably the only way. Yes, they would write and indeed they still wrote long, open letters to each other, but on that memorable occasion the tears had poured down her cheeks, tickling her ears and she couldn’t find her hanky. Just like now.
The hours passed as she moved in and out of sleep. She heard Scottie’s voice and felt the gentle movement of Mary-Anne on the bed beside her as she went down to speak to him. The light of the well-lengthened April evening had turned to a golden glow when Sarah found herself suddenly jerked from an uneasy, dream-filled doze by a sharp pain that made her body twitch so violently that Mary-Anne, who now lay beside her again, woke instantly.
Sarah gasped as Mary-Anne got to her feet in seconds, came round to her side of the bed, got down on her knees and put both hands on her stomach.
‘There now. Take deep breaths,’ she said softly, in a tone Sarah had not associated with Mary-Anne until today. ‘Shure the worst is near over, the pain itself won’t harm ye – the only danger is fear and ye’ve no call for that.’
She felt the pressure of Mary-Anne’s hands and sensed a warmth flowing from them. It reminded her again of childhood and her grandmother laying hands upon her when she was in any sort of pain, or was anxious or troubled.
‘Pain is all the same in one way,’ the old woman had often said. ‘Whether it is your heart or your head, if you are troubled in body, or in spirit, then you need to ask for healing. Now, sit down here on the floor where I can rest my hands upon you. Be still and listen to what comes to you. What picture comes into your mind? A person, or a place, or an object. They have a message for you. Just listen and keep still. Let the pain be the pain, it cannot harm you in itself.’
Sarah closed her eyes again and focused on Mary-Anne’s hands and the warmth that flowed from them. To her surprise what she heard was John’s hammer on the anvil. The long, slow strokes and the dancing rhythm in between. She would never forget that dancing rhythm. That was John, that was his trademark and he had left it with her. Like Helen had left her with laughter and her grandmother with love and comfort, John had left her a gift of love and lightness, epitomised by that dancing rhythm. These gifts would, in time, bring comfort. They could not replace his sheltering arms, but they would be with her for however long she might live.
‘Ach, that’s better, yer smiling,’ said Mary-Anne, as she moved away the skirt she had spread over her, replaced it with a cloth and put her hands back on her stomach.
There was pain, but it seemed to be happening to someone else; her body trembled, twitched and was still. Mary-Anne did what she had come to do. It was over. She had lost John’s child, but she had been strengthened in love. She fell asleep with Mary-Anne holding her hand, lying on the bed beside her.
It was dark when she woke, the pain gone, her mind clear again. In the fading moonlight through the undrawn curtains she could see Mary-Anne fast asleep beside her, still fully dressed, on top of the bedclothes. She moved very carefully so as not to disturb her, her own body stiff from long hours of lying on her back. She took it very slowly, managed to stand up and walk shakily to the south-facing window. She leant against the outshot made by the chimney stack coming up from the kitchen below.
As always, the projecting whitewashed flue was slightly warm from the heat rising from the fire on the hearth below, no doubt now banked down by Mary-Anne or Scottie. The fire on the hearth never went out, unless by accident on a night when a high wind blew up, roaring round the exposed house. Then, the wind could whip up even the well-damped-down embers so that in the morning there was only a pile of ash and a dusty hearth.
The fire had not gone out in the almost two years when she and John had tended it together, cooked their food on it, enjoyed its warmth and comfort evening after evening, as they sat and talked while she sewed or John read to her from the local paper.
Today must be Saturday. She counted on her fingers to be sure. Tuesday was John’s visit to Armagh, Wednesday a day of visitors and arrangements, Thursday was the service and burial in Grange churchyard. So yesterday was Friday. Sometime then she had lost her unborn child. At her feet she saw a pile of cloths. The one on top, larger than the others was clean, the stains ancient, but below she knew there were fresh bloodstains on the rest of the pile where Mary-Anne had staunched the flow and then washed her.
Loss and yet more loss, she thought calmly, aware that the moonlight was fading and already there was a hint of light in the eastern sky. Another day was dawning, and the fire had not been allowed to go out even during the biggest event in her life. She knew what her grandmother would say: Sure we cannot know what we are called upon to do, but the good Lord will help us whatever our grief or sadness. We must just trust him.
Her grandmother had suffered the loss of the young man to whom she’d been engaged. She had never married, but she had not let what had happened embitter her. She had an easy smile, a cheering word for everyone she encountered, a glow which radiated all around her. Sarah could see her wrinkled face, her stooped figure, her hobbling walk. They made no difference to her indomitable spirit. She had died in her nineties, sound of mind though confined to her chair by the fire, her body so light that Sarah had not the slightest difficulty lifting her for bed or commode.
She too had died in April, on a morning of sunshine and showers when Sarah herself had looked out at their small garden and told her that there’d been rain in
the night, that there were ‘jewels on the trees’.
Reluctant to disturb Mary-Anne who had so freely admitted that she seldom got time to rest, Sarah did not go back to bed, but as the light grew stronger Mary-Anne stirred.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked in her normal sharp voice.
‘And why would I not be with such a good nurse?’ Sarah replied briskly.
‘Aye, well,’ she began more gently, ‘shure it’s hard if ye have no family to give ye a hand when yer not right. T’was the least I could do. Shou’dn’t someone be helpin’ you and you sayin’ you were keepin’ the forge goin’ because of Sam Keenan and his we’eans and Ben and poor wee Scottie. That wee lad has no one here belongin’ to him but his oul granny. An’ she wou’d never say a kine word if there was some cuttin’ remark she cou’d make,’ she added sharply. ‘Some oul people bees awful bitter, an’ sure what good does it do? We all have our time, rich or poor, and that’s the end of it.’
She had got up, sat on the side of the bed and now came to join her at the window. To Sarah’s surprise, she held out her arms to her. ‘Ye’ll not be like that,’ she went on, ‘ye’ll be like me twin sister, me double.’
Sarah saw the tears suddenly pour down Mary-Anne’s face. She moved into the open arms and embraced her warmly.
‘What age was she?’ Sarah asked, stroking her hair.
‘Ach, only seventeen,’ she replied, finding a handkerchief in her skirt pocket. ‘It was TB. I had it too, but threw it off. Some people do,’ she added, seeing Sarah’s puzzled look. ‘But now I have you, haven’t I?’ she said, a shake in her voice.
‘Oh yes, now you have me. We’ll have to do what we can for those who need us.’
‘Aye,’ Mary-Anne said strongly. ‘An’ the pair of us need our porridge as soon as we stir up the fire.’
The day passed slowly, a real April day of sun and showers. As the time passed, both good news and anxiety streaked the hours with a turbulence that matched the weather; interludes of brightness swept away by renewed anxiety and disappointments to follow.