The Whitest Flower

by Brendan Graham

‘Madam, I beseech you not to speak so desperately of our Government. It will not be as you say. The British Empire is strong throughout the civilized world and beyond. It will not fail its people so close to hand here in Ireland.’

  ‘If you believe that,’ she began, her eyes flaming, ‘then you know little of the history between our two countries. Ireland is Britain’s granary, no more, and Britain cares so little about us we might as well be grain – grains of sand to be scattered from the land of our birth. It happened before – it will happen again. And this Famine, this Hand of God upon us, will be blamed, not Britain.’

  ‘But … but …’ blurted the botanist, unable to come to terms with Ellen’s trenchant views.

  ‘You had better stick with your plants, a bhuachaill,’ Ellen cut him off, ‘if that’s all you know about the Great British Empire and how it regards the Irish.’

  ‘Well, I … do admit to having seen the most unfortunate depictions of your countrymen in the Illustrated London News and Punch – I cannot say that I agree with the depiction of any human beings as primates,’ the Scot offered, hoping that this would end the conversation.

  ‘I’d best be down to my children,’ she said curtly. ‘And you’d best be back to Dublin and your Royal Botanic Gardens before the men of the valley mistake you for a landlord’s spy!’

  Stuart Duncan McCallum, apprentice botanist, hurriedly closed his book of pressed flowers, some documented in three languages, some not. He flung the book, and the pencil Ellen had used, into his satchel, and made off at a brisk pace for the comparative safety of the road to Finny.

  Ellen watched him go, glad he was gone from her place. Then she hurried down the mountain, following the insistent howl of a small baby, who would settle for nothing less than its mother’s full breasts.

  ‘Daboecia cantabrica, indeed!’ she said to herself as she passed a clump of St Daboec’s heath, angry that so small a thing, in the scale of life and death she had to contend with, could occupy some human beings.

  ‘Two Irelands! A curse on them all!’ she spat dismissively, as the cry of her hungry infant hurtled her faster down the mountainside towards the cabin below.

  When Stuart Duncan McCallum returned to Dublin some days later, Moore was well pleased with his protege. Some excellent specimens had been acquired by the young botanist while in the West.

  McCallum recounted his extraordinary episode with Ellen, and repeated what she had told him.

  ‘She is quite close in her supposition. These small, low-lying clouds carry the spores of Phytophthora infestans – invisible to the naked eye, of course. The spores are picked up from the diseased potato plants in their thousands, and transported on the wind. When the wind ceases to blow, the spores descend earthwards, as poisonous blow-darts, to imbed themselves in whatever healthy leaf, stem, or root they may find.’

  ‘It is a frightening thought,’ the young botanist replied, ‘that the summer breeze – that gentle breath of the Creator – might carry such silent and unseen evil within its tuck and fold.’

  ‘A frightening thought indeed!’ echoed the curator.

  18

  Over the next few days, under cover of darkness, the potatoes from the Hare’s Garden were spirited down from the mountaintop and into the lofts of the two cabins nestling side by side in the valley below.

  Sticking by his earlier insistence, Martin Tom Bawn and his son carried away only what the old man’s eye told him approximated to one third of the crop. The rest of the potatoes were gathered by Michael, Ellen and Patrick.

  All spirits were lifted in the O’Malley cabin as the potatoes were cleaned, inspected, and prepared for storage.

  ‘There’s neither blemish nor bruise on any one of them!’ said Michael, his dark face lit up with the flush of their good fortune. ‘It’s a miracle indeed.’

  ‘Praise be to God,’ said Ellen. ‘I think we should keep them inside. Even if the loft can’t take them all, we’ll find the room. I wouldn’t chance them in the pit – whatever it is that gets at them goes into the earth after them like a great worm or serpent.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mary joined in, ‘and we should keep these ones away from the ones we lifted from the field, in case they make them rotten.’

  ‘That’s a very sound idea, Mary. We’ll do that. We’ll separate them. What’s more, I think we should check them every night just in case. It would be a great shame to lose them now, after our great fortune in finding them.’

  So it was settled that all of them would help out with the inspection of the potatoes on a nightly basis. After the Rosary.

  When St Swithin had delivered the promised forty days of rainfall, the weather improved considerably. Michael and Martin Tom Bawn went to the mountain to take a second cutting of turf. This time the weather held and the cut turf dried into hard black-brown sods that would be slow burning throughout the cold winter.

  During the days, Ellen continued the Lessons – now the English Lessons – with the children. They were making good progress, and she prevented herself from thinking that her efforts might be in vain, that they might never get the chance to use this narrow language.

  Each day she rationed out the portion of potatoes for the family. Before the blight, they would have eaten three meals a day; now they had to make do with one. At noon-time she would put three dozen potatoes in the large black pot and place it over the fire. A dozen for Michael; two dozen to be divided between the children and herself: seven for Patrick, five each for Katie and Mary. As to her own share, she had thought to take the same as the twins, but, worried that this might affect her milk for Annie, she had increased her share to seven. The same as the boy.

  ‘It’s better we feel the small pangs of a little hunger now than the big pangs of a great hunger later,’ she told them, and they accepted the rationing without protest.

  A month later, as conditions around them grew worse, she had reduced the number of potatoes in the pot to ‘a score and a half, plus one for luck’ – thirty-one in all, each person’s ration being reduced by one.

  She brushed it off by saying to them: ‘Sure, you’ll never miss the one if you don’t count!’

  Over a year had gone by since Moore had first discovered signs of the blight at Glasnevin. In that time Phytophthora infestans had resisted all efforts to halt its spread. Indeed, it was now attacking other members of the Solanaceae family. During a visit to the Vice Regal Lodge in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, Moore had found tomato plants suffering from the disease. Meanwhile in England, Gardeners’ Chronicle reported that eggplants – cousin to the potato family – had also been attacked by the fungal blight. Even the poisonous Bittersweet could not resist Phytophthora. Soon its vivid purple-and-yellow flower and its bright red berries were no more – turned into the hallmark black mess of decay. Its botanical name: Solanum dulcamara – another member of the Solanaceae family.

  Would the blight, when exhausted of attacking the Solanaceae, then adapt and attack other food crops? Would it return again next year – and the year after that?

  With no cure in sight, the country was in a grievous state; particularly in the West and South, where the populations of peasantry were greatest. Of late he had heard worrying reports of diseases related to the deprivation of the rural poor attacking the middle classes in the city. And there had been riots as starving paupers from the surrounding districts had invaded the streets of Dublin. Bakers, going about their daily rounds, had been waylaid, and whole cartloads of bread stolen from them.

  The curator broke off his musing to call instructions to the team of workmen labouring on his latest experiment. They had just finished erecting a series of wooden poles, twice the height of a man, at intervals of thirty to forty feet around the perimeter of the potato patch. Down the side of each wooden pole ran a length of copper wire which disappeared beneath the earth’s surface. This wire also protruded above the top of each pole, and Moore now directed the men to connect these extensions with a large band of copper wire running the complete circu
mference to form a vast copper tent.

  ‘Goodness me, what manner of contraption is this?’

  Moore had been so engrossed in the task before him he had not been aware of Canon Prufrock’s approach.

  ‘Good morning, Canon. What you see before you are giant lightning rods which, when connected, will form conductors of electricity.

  ‘There is a school of thought that believes the blight is caused by excessive electrical discharge from the heavens. These conductors will scientifically test this theory by diverting electricity away from the ground where the tubers grow.’ Moore found it impossible to feign any conviction in the experiment. It was the will of his employers, the Royal Dublin Society that the theory be tested, and he had no choice but to obey even though it seemed to him a complete waste of time and effort. He did not expect the theory to find favour with the Canon either, but he was taken aback by the vehemence of the clergyman’s response.

  ‘Blasphemy!’ he thundered. ‘These “conductors”, as you call them, are conductors of sin, monuments to man’s pride. This will bring no cure – if anything it will redouble the pestilence! There is nothing in this endeavour that is worthy of pursuit! We should be looking to the Creator for salvation from our predicament, it is blasphemy to do otherwise!’

  Moore, stoically, remained silent. He could not bring himself to defend an experiment he regarded as a farcical waste of his time – time that could be better spent pursuing other avenues for a remedy.

  ‘My private views, Reverend,’ Moore found himself saying, ‘are not for public consumption until proven – or not, as the case may be – by scientific experiment.’

  The canon ‘hmmphed’, glared at Moore, and turned on his heel to leave. ‘Beware of the wrath of God on this evil work – no good will come of it,’ he warned, then strode off muttering to himself as he went.

  On 1 November, the Feast of All Saints, Ellen reduced their daily rations to two dozen potatoes, plus one for luck. Michael’s portion had shrunk to nine potatoes, the twins got three and a half each, while Patrick had four and a half. Ellen, too, got four and a half potatoes, out of which portion she mashed a bit for Annie.

  Once or twice Michael caught an injured hare, and Roberteen brought her one of a brace of birds he had trapped using a basket. But it was getting harder. All the men, women and children of the village scavenged for food.

  Any wildlife that remained seemed to have taken to high ground.

  Ellen herself had combed the few bushes and trees there were, but the valley between mountainside and lakeside was barren, providing few berries or nuts that were edible.

  The Mask had fish – she had seen them herself – but Pakenham owned the fishing rights, and the poaching laws were more strictly enforced than ever. Already Johnny Jack Johnny had been caught by Pakenham’s bailiff, and now languished in Westport Gaol, fortunate not to have been hanged. Michael, against her wishes, had chanced it a few times, but as he himself said: ‘’Tis no use. Even the fish are fearful, the people are so famished with hunger.’

  Now Ellen looked around at her family as they thanked the Lord for the diminishing helpings on their plates. They were healthy still, thank God, but they had all lost weight. Michael’s eyes had sunk into their hollows, hardened with bitterness at ‘the Dublin and London set – ignoring the cries of the poor, whose sweat on the land allows the likes o’ them to live their high lives.’ Patrick was getting taller, more like a man every day in spite of the deprivation. Mary’s cheekbones were now more pronounced than ever, the freckled bloom gone from her face. Katie, beside her, was as animated as ever – even one less than adequate meal a day couldn’t knock that out of her. But her arms were painfully thin.

  As for Annie, now six months old, she was thriving. She fed well at her mother’s breast, blissfully unaware of the privations that all around her suffered. Mercifully, Ellen’s milk supply remained good, though she had long since lost the fulsomeness of figure brought on by Annie’s birth.

  As an antidote to eating insufficient food, they had taken to sleeping later in the mornings and going to bed earlier at night to conserve their energy.

  The previous night had been an exception. They had gathered at the bonfire near the Crucán as in Halloweens gone by, and Ellen had scanned the shores of the Mask, looking for the bonfires of the other lakeside clachans. But where there had once been a ring of fire, this Halloween the circle was scarred by dark gaps, filled only by the spirits of those who had left, or died.

  Michael had taken down his fiddle and rosined his bow, but there wasn’t any real lustre in his playing and few were of a heart for dancing. Instead, people sang laments and recounted stories of famines past, comparing them to this Aimsir an Drochshaoil – the Time of the Bad Times – as the current famine was called. Ellen had sung Ochón an Gorta Mór – the Lament the Great Hunger – unaccompanied, in the old style.

  Ochón, ochón,

  Ochón Aimsir an Drochshaoil,

  Ochón, ochón,

  Ochón an Gorta Mór.

  The people are broken, devastated,

  Scattered to the wind.

  And our children littered On the side of the road.

  There is no harvest to divide,

  No potatoes to save.

  Only the long wild grass Waiting to be over us.

  Alas, alas,

  Lament the time of the Famine,

  Alas, alas,

  Lament the Great Hunger.

  Her song with its harsh beauty silenced the listeners, each one recognizing in it the fate of a loved one, a child, a sister, a husband, a mother. Each of them recognizing their own probable fate.

  But if the dark night of Halloween was the harbinger of grief and darkness to come, then the approach of Christmas – season of light and glad tidings – seemed to mock them even more, sealing the black year with even grimmer forebodings.

  On 8 December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Michael set out on the long walk to Tourmakeady Lodge. It was a strange day for Pakenham to be summoning him to discuss renewal of their tenancy. The landlord had done this to them last year, too. And Pakenham well knew it was a special holy day for his Catholic tenants. Michael sensed some badness in it.

  This time he was alone. Ellen had stayed behind to look after Annie.

  ‘You’re the lesser of no man, Michael O’Malley!’ she had whispered as she embraced him at the cabin door. ‘Hold your tongue and hold your dignity.’

  ‘Pakenham won’t rattle me,’ he reassured her. ‘Anyway, he’s at no advantage, for who else would take our land? No one around here!’

  She bid him bóthar slán – a safe road. She always worried when he was away from her. Afraid that the death the Banshee had lamented the previous All Souls would come to pass, and she wouldn’t be there to comfort him in his last moments. It made matters worse that he was so strained of late, ready to snap at any moment. His hatred of ‘the landlord class that cripples this country’ was further fuelled by their deteriorating situation as the store of lumpers in the loft dwindled away to nothing.

  As soon as he was gone, she summoned the children to kneel and pray with her. The Mother of God would keep him safe, even if she couldn’t.

  * * *

  Later in the day, as Ellen stood outside and looked across the lake towards Derrypark and the road which would carry Michael home, a shiver passed over her. A shiver that had nothing to do with the mid-winter chill coming off the Mask. Instinctively she crossed herself, and then ran back into the cabin.

  Once inside, she went to the hearth and rubbed her arms and shoulders to get rid of the cold feeling.

  The shiver – the one a person got when someone walked over your grave – did not repeat itself.

  19

  Michael, his eyes ablaze, his fist clenching the paper, stopped for a moment as he left Tourmakeady Lodge.

  How could he go back to her? How could he show her the piece of paper he held in his hand?

  He looked at the crumpled N
otice of Distraint which informed them that whatever goods they had would be seized in lieu of the outstanding rent. Goods! Sure, they had nothing, nothing except the roof over their heads, and whatever was on their backs.

  He thought of the potatoes in the loft. He’d have to save the last few lumpers they had left – he couldn’t let Pakenham take the last bite out of their mouths. Not that what they had left would see them much past Christmas, anyway. But over his dead body would Pakenham seize them.

  ‘God’s curse on him, the black devil!’ he said, ramming his fist into the Notice. And Beecham, too, all the time sloping around behind Pakenham. The agent would be a lucky man not to end up in the Mask with a big lump of rock tied to his ankles. And he, Michael O’Malley, would be the first one to tie it.

  Pakenham had toyed with him, making a pretence of trying to help them.

  ‘Now, O’Malley, let’s see what we can do here!’ the landlord had started. ‘I am aware, as any man must be, of the distress upon the nation caused by this … this … blight. And being mindful of the season, and all that …’

  Michael knew better than to trust him. Pakenham wouldn’t have forgotten the last time he and Ellen had been there, or the incident following the break-up of the céilí below the Crucán. Wouldn’t have forgotten a bit of it.

  ‘I suppose, O’Malley, this time you have no surprises up your sleeve, so to speak …’ the landlord went on, his words laced with sarcasm.

  Beecham, observing the ragged state of Michael’s clothes, smirked at this.

  ‘No more secret hoards of potatoes, eh?’ He paused for a moment, raising a questioning finger at Michael. ‘And what of that fiddle – been playing it for that pretty red-haired wife of yours lately?’

  Beecham smirked again.

  ‘A boy or a girl, was it, O’Malley? Well, last year … when she was here with you …’ the landlord went on, feigning coyness.

  ‘A girl,’ Michael answered him quietly.

  ‘A girl. Well, well, Beecham, isn’t this news to be welcomed? Congratulate the fellow!’