Two Walls and a Roof

by John Michael Cahill

  Many years later, when I was married and going out for a day with my family, I saw a genetic echo happen before my eyes. My son Adrian and I went into a shop to buy an ice-cream. There in a box in a glass cabinet was an almost identical train set to my dream one. Within seconds Adrian had spotted it and he began to pester me for it, and he was never one to pester me at all. I saw before my very eyes myself in my young son, and his dreams seemed like a mirror of mine many years before. There was no way that I could shatter his dream, and even though I could ill afford it that day, I bought the train set for him and we cancelled our day out. We crossed the road to a picnic area and set up our train set together and played for hours.

  Many years later, on my fiftieth birthday, my sisters and brothers bought me my own train set at last, making up for the lost one. They presented it to me at a surprise birthday party in Mallow. However, Kyrle the bastard, as a joke and unknown to me, had hidden some of the tracks on the night. I was so excited with my gift that I left the party early so as to have a play by myself at home. But when I got home, half of the lines were missing and I could not make the track form a ring. I was raging, figuring out that he had tricked me, but the next day he gave them to me and we all sat on the floor and laughed and had a good play after all the years.

  The really strange thing about this whole story is that my mother has no memory of it at all. I believe that it was either too hard for her to take and she has erased it from her mind, or that it was just one of the many other incidents of poverty lost among more dramatic ones in her life. In any case, it did me no harm other than make me very frugal, fear Christmas times, and hate jam jars with a passion.

  Our mother, none like her.

  What can anyone ever say about their mother. Our mother was, and still is, probably the most unselfish person I ever knew in all of my life, and before the readers will say that I’m biased, let me remind them that I was not reared by my mother, so I can make a fair assessment. For most of her life she was poor. She rarely if ever bought something truly for herself and it took almost 60 years before she got to fly on a plane, or even got to visit another country. The farthest she had ever travelled was to the Isle of Man to visit her daughters Lill and Eunice, who live very happily there now. Even with free transport in the latter years, she never had enough money to go on a holiday on her own. And what’s more, I never heard her once say she would like to just get away from it all.

  She bore six children in very hard times and welcomed each with equal affection, yet I’m sure shock set in too when the news broke that she was once more with child. She has always had a fantastic sense of humour and a real unusual laugh. It’s a characteristic of hers I feel. I have early memories of my mother, who I always called ‘Blend’ as a child. This must have hurt her, with her firstborn not even calling her mother, or ma, or whatever, like normal families would do, but that’s the price we paid for my Nannie’s abduction.

  When mother was pregnant she would always suffer from her teeth. She had good teeth, but it was something I remember her saying - that she would be in agony with toothache and have no money for a few tablets or the doctor. The father would seem to be impervious to his wife’s pain and this was the other extreme in our family, as he was probably the most selfish of individuals - drink money superseded all else. They were at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to caring for their children’s needs, yet he made up for a lot of it by being kind and gentle to us always.

  Mother became an epileptic as she got older, and I am one hundred percent certain that it was not a hereditary complaint. I had always felt it was due to sheer uncontrollable stress, and I noticed a pattern. She would get an attack at times of great stress and Nannie would unkindly say, “Ahh sure she’s only putting that on for sympathy”. This was very hurtful for me to hear, but to my shame I sometimes believed it, though I watched for the pattern. It took years for me to realize that the pattern was nature’s defences in action.

  I never knew how she carried on. Every day was potentially a terrible day. It has to be soul-destroying for any mother to see her own children go hungry, or have but little food to give them: to know that there was no prospect of tomorrow being a better day, though she always told us it would be. For most of her early life, she lived on ‘tick’ or her ‘book’ as we knew it. This was the usual way then to get credit from a shop for a week’s groceries. One had a little book and the shopkeeper wrote into it your purchase and the amount. By the weekend you were expected to pay your total and then start again next week. The shopkeeper also had his record, and the system worked great as long as you paid on time. This tick book was very common in the Ireland of those days. Quite often though, the book would remain unpaid for a week, then another, then you played catch up if the grocer was nice. Much more likely though, you didn’t pay at all because you had no income. Eventually the patience of the shopkeeper ran out and your food supply totally dried up in that shop. The usual answer then was to move on to another shop and begin another tick book. To a great extent I was sheltered from this book thing, as Nannie always paid on time and usually she used her pension to buy groceries on a Friday because she had the regular, though small, income from a widow’s pension.

  When all books were run dry for mother, particularly when father just could not find a job anywhere, she relied on our paternal grandmother, known as Gracie, for reluctant handouts.

  Gracie had a small sweet shop at the top of the town and was a good businesswoman. She always seemed rich to me, but she had a very mean streak in her as regards her grandchildren. Whenever mother sent Kyrle or Lill up to her for a loaf of bread, they invariably came down with mouldy bread - so mouldy that she actually fed her chickens better bread. I know this because Kyrle and I used to have to feed her chickens and try to steal their eggs. I often saw mother cut out the mould and butter or jam the rest of it, and it’s no wonder we never needed antibiotics.

  Finally things got so bad that my father just had to go to England, like many before him. The day he left was a miserable, cold, cloudy day. He had a small brown suitcase which was old and raggedy, and as he waited for the bus to Cork, mixed emotions came over me. In one way I felt that now, at last, we might get money, but at the same time I felt very sad inside because he looked so lonely and miserable himself.

  When the bus arrived, I never saw him kiss my mother goodbye. Maybe he did, but it was not obvious to me. On the day he left, he was to take the same Innisfallon immigrant ship that we had seen some months earlier, when mother was told all three of us were going blind. He left, and on the hope of British money, mother got more tick and we seemed better off for a time. It’s a strange and sad affair, but I saw almost a carbon copy of this very same situation in the film from Frank McCourt’s masterpiece Angela’s Ashes. No money came: then, still later, no money came. Mother lived on what Nannie could spare from her pension, and from Michael’s shoe mending and writing business.

  What we didn’t know until many years later was that our father had been sending his mother, Gracie, money from the very beginning. This money was to pay back the fare he had borrowed from her for England. He didn’t seem to worry much about his wife and children, who were both cold and hungry, and who lived just some distance down Buttevant’s main street. Or maybe he felt Gracie would help, but she did not. These acts, while forgiven, were never forgotten in my mind.

  What my father did in England is a mystery to me. He did send money rather sporadically, eventually, and I think he worked in a petrol forecourt as well as playing music in London’s clubs for a time. In spite of the frugal nature of our life then, for me this time was the first time I ever saw a light at the end of the tunnel. We were getting better off, just marginally. Kyrle began working for Big Kyrl in his cinema hall, and I suppose he got a few bob for it too, so his life was also improving.

  In spite of all our misery, my mother would laugh at least once a day at something completely stupid, in our view. We would be arguing and discussing some world e
vent at teatime or dinner time and all hell would be breaking loose, but we always waited for the mothers clanger, which would come sooner or later, and she would say, “And what about the nul-c-ar bomb?” pronounced just like that. It was in the middle of the Cold War and she was constantly saying the Russians would blow us all up. We would collapse laughing, as it was all she would ever contribute to the debate, no matter what was its subject. We never once told her of her hilarious mispronunciation either, and to this day she still says it wrong, and still does not know why we used to laugh.

  Mother was always on the hunt for an extra few bob, and over the years I heard many stories related to that task, but one in particular deserves a mention. One evening a very distinguished looking man and a woman arrived outside our door, and waited for the bus to Mallow. The evening was turning wet and the people seemed to be very early for the bus, so as usual mother invited them in for a cup of tea. They accepted and arrived into our kitchen where father greeted them cautiously. While mother was boiling the kettle and scrounging around for a few biscuits, the guests informed father that the man was an African Bishop, and his woman was a Nun as well.

  That bit of news changed everything. Mother called father aside and insisted that he go across to Coleman’s shop for some ham and cheese to make the ‘special guests’ feel welcome. In those days her tic book was being held in Coleman’s shop, and a strict budget was in operation regarding luxuries such as food, but no limits were ever placed on the amount of cigarettes to be bought, as they felt the fags were their only pleasure. Father protested the obvious budget overrun but it did no good, a Bishop was in the house and a Nun too, so he left for the food. While he was gone the guests chatted to mother and told her all about Africa and their Missions, and she was delighted to have such important guests in her little home. Time passed and father had not returned when the bus arrived, but the guests assured mother that they could easily stay on for another few hours, especially in such pleasant company. That was not what mother had planned, but it was a Bishop after all, so she would be happy to listen away to their stories of desperation and African poverty.

  Father finally came back after telling all those in Coleman’s shop about the Bishop and his Nun friend, and on the way back he dropped into Kit’s bar and cadged a pint on the strength of his famous guests. Mrs. Coleman was so impressed with these guests that father got even more tic from her, and bought far more ham than they needed. When he sauntered in mother glared at him, suspecting he was in Kit’s bar all of the time, but she could not challenge him in front of such important people, so the tea was made again for a second time. I was told that the special guests ate all round them, so much so that, father didn’t even get a bit of the extra ham, because they savaged it all down, praising the Lord and blessing all round them. However after many hours of their ‘Mission’ talk and more pots of tea, the mood became a bit strained. My memory of the story then is that mother decided to take the guests across to bless Nannie. This would at least give father a break from their constant praising of the Lord, and their veiled begging for Charity from my parents who were people, who actually needed it.

  The Bishop blessed Nannie and heard her Confession, and after this was all done, he assured her that the Gates of Heaven were already opened for her, and that all of her Sins were now forgiven. Poor Nannie was so impressed with his Blessing that she asked him what did she need to do to be sure she was saved and quick as a flash the Bishop says “Yerra give me and the Lord a tenner, sure you have nothing to worry about, your going straight to the Lord whenever he calls you, and sure that wont be for years”. Nannie was beaming and felt that ten pounds was a very small price to pay for Eternal Salvation, so she paid him in cash. They all left just in time for the last bus to Mallow.

  Before the Bishop got on the bus, he again thanked mother and gave her his most personal and powerful Blessing for free. He said he was doing this because of her kindness as a Good Shepherdess. Mother was delighted and swore she felt the power of his blessing, but then she thought no more of it and went in and challenged her Henry, who thought he had escaped.

  The Bishop arrived in Mallow and over the next few days he said Masses, and heard Confessions as well, and generally did what celebrity Bishops do, he became the talk of the town. He collected money and prayed and so did his cohort, the Nun and this continued for some days I believe. In the meantime, mother was working in Kit’s bar and a farmer that she knew well came in for a drink. They began chatting and he told her that his wife was not well, and if only she could have been there when the Bishop was in town, he might have been able to make her better. Mother then got an inspirational idea for making a few bob, and told the farmer that she herself had been given a most ‘Special Blessing’ by his Holiness the Bishop, and that she was sure she still carried the power of it on her forehead. The farmer asked how that might help his wife, and my mother said that if he paid her a half crown, which was about a quarter of a pound, that she would rub a newspaper on her head and the power would go into it, and he could then rub it on his wife to make her get better. I call it her ‘theory of transference’. The farmer agreed and they went over home and she made him some tea. Then she rubbed her head with a bit of the Cork Examiner tearing off a corner of it and giving it to the farmer. He paid and left, and two days later he assured my mother of the great improvement in his wife. He said that he had told his wife all about my mother’s story, and that after hearing it she got immediately better the moment the paper touched her skin. Mother was delighted at that news. A few days later, the Bishop and his cohort were arrested in Mallow as confidence tricksters. I fell around the place laughing when I heard about this, as mother kept on trying to assure me that she could still feel the power, ‘now and again’. What an amazing instrument our mind is and Science has often shown the power of the placebo, but I would have to question how a piece of The Cork Examiner could carry anything other than news.

  She always had a ‘fag’. No matter what happened, she had a ‘fag’ at hand or a part of a one, known to her as a ‘butt’. She had this crazy habit of lighting it with a big string of paper, which she would stick in the fire in the kitchen. She would tear off the paper, roll it into a kind of string, light the fag, then throw it back into the fire. She set the chimney on fire many times (to the father’s horror) by doing this, and she also burnt his accordion by the same method. But what I remember most about her string lighters was her insane gas incident.

  She had a gas cooker in later years and as usual it was a fire hazard, but my mother herself was worse than any hazard. Numerous times we all saw her light the gas cooker with her string lighter. Her method was insane. She would first turn the gas full on in the oven, then go into the kitchen and light up her paper, then calmly open the oven door and stick in the lighting paper. There would be a bit of a small explosion, but the oven would light and all would be well. This continued for years and years, and we all gave out to her for doing it. It made no difference, she just continued as usual until the day when a knock came to the door. She had turned on the gas as usual and hearing the knock, out she went to the door and forgot about the gas being turned on full. After a considerable chat at the door, she realized that she had forgotten to light the oven. By then our back kitchen was a potential bomb. Unthinking, she lit up her string paper and opened the oven door to a massive flash and explosion. A large burst of flame shot out and she fell back on her ass. It blew off all the hair on her fringe but no other personal damage was done, but I believe the oven door blew off as did a bit of the wall. The only reason she escaped at all was because our back kitchen was more akin to a sieve than an airtight room, and most of the gas had already escaped. Even though she got a really good fright, she soon returned to her pyromania and it remained so until she rose to an electric cooker.

  I’m sure the love every mother feels for her children is almost universal, and when you have money, worldly goods and security, it’s easy to give your flock a good time. But when you hav
e nothing, when you don’t know where your next meal will come from, when there is no social welfare worth mentioning, then the true test of a mother’s love begins.

  Even though my Nannie did help my mother, it always seemed to me to be a begrudging help, never really given with love or compassion at another’s misfortune. This made it all the worse for the mother when she had to ask for a few shillings from the Nan. Today as I write this account, I only now begin to realize the stress my mother endured and never once complained. I can only imagine how she must have felt daily for years and years. Life was very cruel to such a woman, but still she never gave up on us, her children. She lived for the day when we would be able to fend for ourselves, which of course did eventually come. Looking back on her many gifts to us now, I realized that one of her greatest ones was encouragement. She was always willing to encourage us, even if she didn’t understand a bit about what we were doing. One of her best sayings for me was, “John do all that you can when you are young, because when you’re old, all you will have are your memories”. I think it’s the best advice a parent can give to a child, and even though she preached it, she never allowed herself to do much.

  My mother never hit me or beat me once in her whole life, nor do I remember her hitting any of us even though I used to drive her crazy while arguing and fighting with Kyrle. She often threw me out and would say ‘get back over to Nannie’s’, so as to keep the peace, but she had a way of getting you to do what she wanted without violence, and I loved that in her. My father was the very same.