by Boyce, Niamh
It was late, pitch black.
‘Dampen that fire, I’m sweltered,’ Boom-Bellied Johnny roared.
Aunt Gracie leant in the doorway, arms crossed high and a steely eye on who went where, and who did what. Mai was knocking back the rum and giving the Charleston a go. She declared her knees weren’t up to the job any more, and all the old men laughed and laughed. She gripped the beads around her neck and spun them instead. Sarah could almost see how Mai might’ve been when she was young, her cheeks pink, her skin glowing and her eyes full of devilment.
Finally, James walked over to where Sarah was sitting and asked her to dance. His mouth was fixed in a smile that was more determined than kind. Maybe it was her imagination. Everyone seemed a little strange to Sarah tonight. Perhaps it was because she was leaving them all. James and Sarah danced into the centre of the floor – his hands were sweating and she was afraid of slipping from his grip, of hitting the wall of old ones. She wanted to talk to him, to see what he thought of her leaving, and how often he planned to visit her or if he planned to visit at all. Gracie tugged at her sleeve. James let go of her hand.
‘Go on outside, catch up with my Mary. She left a while ago to walk Midge home. Keep her company on her way back.’
Sarah turned. James wasn’t there any more – he was chatting to some lads by the door, and they were elbowing each other over some joke. You’d think he was dying to get away from her. Sarah fetched a cardigan from her bedroom; it was lovely and quiet in there. She shut the window. Why did Gracie have to ruin everything?
As soon as Sarah stepped outside, she was pulled by the waist to the side of the house, carried to the far ditch and thrown over it. She only had time to see the moon. It must be a giant, a mad cruel ogre, she thought. But it wasn’t.
Was it a hard life, Aggie, living on the river? Did you not long for the comforts that other women had? Did you not get lonely? Weren’t you ever scared?
I was a hardy annual; I’d survived anything the sweet Lord wanted to throw at me. Why so hardy? I’ll tell you why – now, listen to my advice – drink a drop every day; it’ll keep the memories away. A drop a day, I used to tell the lads at the bar. That’s right, at the bar. They were not stuffing me into that cubby-hole; I took my drink with the men.
‘Is that right, Ag?’ they’d say.
‘Oh, yes, a drop a day,’ I’d say.
The cheeky yokes always answered back.
‘What doctor gave you that advice, Ag?’
‘Doctor Me!’ I laughed. ‘Doctor, me hole. Doctor me good.’
I laughed till I cried, pounded my fist on the counter and roared above the scrawb of the fiddle.
‘You without sin throw the first one! That’s what Our Lord said to thee,’ I told them.
‘Ah, Aggie, you’ve got it all wrong again,’ said Ned.
‘Give us a miracle, Aggie, give us a miracle!’ called Jim.
‘The holiest hoor in old God’s kingdom!’ added a fella still in short pants.
‘Let it be, lads, let it lie,’ said Seamus.
There was always Seamus to be relied on. Not a penny on him, but a staff you could spend all night climbing, bless his slick little smile. That lad in short pants was too raw to be out. A cheeky pup with a big mouth. Talking Geography. Estuaries. Claimed my river was on its way to the city.
‘It’s our river. Full stop.’ That’s what I told him. But no, he knew it all.
‘It comes from the mountains and it goes to the sea.’
I squeezed the back of his skinny neck. ‘That bloody river goes nowhere, it’s always been there, always will be there, it belongs to the town, and it as soon goes to the sea as a terraced house lifts its skirts and walks its grey walls off down to Wicklow.’
‘Would you ever shut up,’ said Jim; ‘wish I’d never let you in.’
‘This is my world, boys, and no one – I said no one – is ever going to shut old Aggie up.’
It was dark when I left the laughter behind and headed home. Wobbling away on my heels, clip-clopping like a mare over the flags of the bridge. I stopped like I always did, and leant on the smooth stone ledge, to have a squint through the railings at the moon shimmying over my black river. I loved that river. Couldn’t imagine it ever being anywhere but here, no matter what anyone said. A cold hand gripped my arm.
‘Would you like me to throw you in, Mollie? Do you think it’s cold?’ I felt bristles on my forehead but couldn’t see his face; he had lodged himself tight agin me.
‘Not as cold as your hand, Christy.’
‘I’m not fucking Christy.’ He slapped my mouth.
‘Well, I’m not fucking Mollie.’ I spat out the blood.
His knee came up. Bone as hard as a hammer. It knocked the breath from me, collapsed me. He leant over.
‘Fuck you.’ He sounded winded.
I heard him step, drag, step and drag away across the bridge. A soldier, I’d bet, with a crippled leg. Taking it all out on an old whore. That was my lot – not much lonelier than anyone else and well past being scared of any living thing.
13
Carmel changed towards me so slowly that I couldn’t put my finger on when it had started. She just got cooler and cooler, till she wasn’t really talking, just giving me stiff nods. Then she spoke to me, as I wiped the counter that Thursday.
‘I’m sorry to say, Emily, that we won’t be needing you any more.’
Her neck was red in patches, like she had been stung. My mouth went dry. I knew it was my great friendship with the herbalist, but she wasn’t going to say that, not outright. Now if they’d said ‘Don’t see him’, I couldn’t have obliged them but I could’ve pretended to, and then we’d all have been happy. Isn’t that the way things usually went around here? And she was all about the herbalist herself, swanking in when she heard his voice, sweet as apple drops, wanting a quiet word. Mad for him. They all were.
‘I haven’t done wrong, Mrs Holohan.’
‘I’ve been told otherwise.’ She handed me my mending bag.
‘By who?’ I clutched it to my chest.
‘Never you mind.’
The door was held open and I had to go through it. I went down the alley for a cry. How easy it happened. A snap of the fingers and I was gone, for consorting with a man she would’ve given her right arm to consort with.
The market was a poor affair when I arrived in the square. The hawkers were packing their traps, rolling up their sheets of shoes and clothes. The whole place smelt of chicken shite and straw. The herbalist wiped rain off a brown bottle with a small cloth in a really slow way, as if it gave him great pleasure.
‘Soporific, Emily,’ he said; ‘today it’s been soporific.’
That’s how he liked to talk, the swankier the better. That he made any sense was the least of his interests.
‘It’s all in the first impression,’ he’d say, and smooth his lapels with his ringed fingers.
He was the only person who’d liked the first impression he’d got of me. I tried to recall if I’d been in any way spectacular that afternoon but I hadn’t, I was just my plain self standing behind the counter, eyes agog.
The herbalist showed an interest in me. It was hard to credit it, but it was the truth. I didn’t think then I lost my job over you. I didn’t see it like that at all.
‘No work today?’
‘Not ever no more. Have you a cure for that?’
‘Come, I’ll put a smile on your face, milady.’
I helped him carry his cases back to the shed. He had fixed a bolt on it; he set great store on the value of his potions.
I was starving when I got home. I let myse
lf in the back door; there was no one around. The breakfast things were still on the table. My father’s egg cup, Charlie’s half-drunk tea, a slice of toast with one bite taken out of it, Mam’s frilled-edge porridge bowl, and the pot of honey beside it. Father was probably out, and most likely Mam was lying down. I cut some soda bread, piled it with gooseberry jam and poured a glass of milk. The letterbox clattered, probably the second post. I went into the hall to fetch it.
Mam lay on her stomach, her face to the side, her arms under her like a sleeping child. Her eyes were open and she didn’t look at all surprised to be there like that.
I took Charlie’s bike, cycled to town and found my father in his local. I couldn’t get his attention. The lad beside him nudged him and my father turned around, his expression loose from drink.
‘Mam’s dead.’ He looked at me like he couldn’t hear. ‘Mam’s dead – she collapsed in the hall.’
He didn’t answer; just put his old head on the bar. The man beside him patted his back. Word spread: this poor man’s just lost his wife, give him a whiskey. There seemed no movement on anyone; no one seemed to think it was their place to offer any assistance. I stood there for a moment, wondering what to do next.
I left the River Inn and cycled on to Father Higgins’s house. His stuck-up housekeeper, Mrs Ball, offered me a brandy. She put the drink on the table in front of me.
‘Knock it back, you’re shivering – it will warm you up.’
That’s when I realized I shouldn’t have left Mam alone like that. What had got into me? She should be wrapped up snug. I jumped up and left without waiting for the priest; he could follow, he knew where we lived.
They eventually found Charlie, walking some young one down the river. Rita Brennan. By the time he came in, Doctor Birmingham had arrived and was in the front hall with Mam. I was sitting in Father’s fireside chair; there were people everywhere, talking and making themselves tea. She’d had cancer, they were all saying, cancer had been killing my mother. But how did they know, how did they know anything? Charlie walked over and put his arms around me.
‘Charlie,’ I said. ‘Mam –’
‘I know, they told me. I’m going to the undertaker’s, I won’t be long. Will you be all right here?’
‘Don’t you want to see her?’ I pointed towards the shut hall door.
‘No, not yet. Not like that. Rita will give you a hand.’
Rita stepped forward and hugged me as Charlie left. She had been in my class but we weren’t friends, weren’t anything. She was just a nice girl who had never seemed to notice me. And here she was holding my hand.
‘I’ll help you now, Emily.’
‘Help me what?’
‘Feed the people, of course.’
Someone had already cleared the table of the breakfast dishes. Rita was a great help, rallied other women to bring food, handed out the sandwiches, cigarettes and booze. There was a great ruckus as Mick Murphy and John Dunne carried the bed down the stairs and manoeuvred it into the parlour. Mick came into the kitchen and nodded at two women, who stood up. I got up too, but Rita put her hand on my arm. ‘They’ll lay her out,’ she said. ‘They know what to do.’
I wanted everyone to go away then. They were jostling against each other, eating and drinking and talking. Had they all forgotten why they were here? I wanted to scream. Rita gave me a sherry with a wink that should have annoyed me, but it didn’t.
I opened the door of the parlour, and I went in to see Mam. The praying had started. The mourners crowded in behind me till I was at Mam’s feet.
And still no sign of my father, not a word.
The next night, the boys took it upon themselves to arrive home. Jack and Peter. Grown men now, and like strangers, awkward in how they embraced me. Stayed for one decade of the rosary and went off to drink the town dry with Charlie in tow. No matter that Charlie was a Pioneer and had never touched a drop before. They looked like cowboys, swaggering down the lane with their black handsome heads cocked high and purposeful, all decked out in suits got from God knows where.
‘We’ll do right by Mam – we’ll give her the send-off she deserves.’
I’d visions of them coming in drunk and laying whiskey glasses on her belly. She looked calm, respectable – blank of who she’d been. I’d no picture to prove she’d ever been any different except for the one in my head. Her swinging me around the garden, her hair flying out behind her. Brown-skinned, plump and full of life. ‘Hold on tight, Millie – you’re in for a ride.’
I’d forgotten she called me Millie. Till I told her to stop. I knew she loved me. Loved Charlie better, but no matter. Loved like she sowed seeds. One for the pigeon, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow.
Carmel and Dan arrived late on the second night. Gave their sympathies. ‘You’re very good to come,’ I said to them, just like I’d said to everyone. I wore the miserable dress that had caused such a ruckus. They didn’t stay long.
Birdie gave me a big hug. Her face was blotchy and she kept blowing her nose. Said maybe it was a blessing that poor Maureen’s heart gave out so sudden, that it had saved her from a terrible death. Cancer was cruel. Cruel the way it could drag out for so long. Birdie had witnessed her own mother’s demise and you know what, she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy. She knew it was a poor comfort, but Maureen had been spared, and I had been spared seeing her in such pain that I’d have ended up praying for her last breath to come. She kept stroking my hair, looking at me like her own heart would break. How does a heart give out? How could my mother’s heart stop beating and I not even know? Where was I, what was I doing when it beat for the last time? Was I strolling into Kelly’s shop, thinking I had a job? Was I crying in the alley beside it? Or was I rushing into the herbalist’s shed, thinking about nothing but him and letting my mother down? I was so glad when Mrs B bustled in. Birdie’s kindness was too much for me, made me think things I couldn’t bear to think.
Mrs B wore a veiled black hat that looked like an upturned bucket and was dragging Rose and Doctor B behind her. The doctor shook my father’s hand and nodded at the rest of us. Young Rose stepped forward, pale and blonde in her dark outfit. She didn’t say anything; just smiled a sad smile. She kissed me, and her hair smelt like candy-floss. I rubbed my cheek afterwards and sure enough there was lipstick on my knuckle.
Mrs B lingered beside the coffin. She wore her red fox-fur coat. She had let me touch the sleeve once: it was so soft, it melted under my fingers. She blessed herself, reached in and tucked a strand of hair behind Mam’s ear. Her face was heavily powdered and baggy from crying. Her husband quickly stepped forward to steer her away. Was it possible that the grand Mrs B and my poor mother had once been friends? Once upon a time, before Mother got mixed up with my father and his lot, before Mrs B had Rose and Mother had us? Doctor B had hinted at some connection that time he called up. Yet Mrs B had never set foot in our house, not in my lifetime.
I felt the herbalist’s presence the second he walked in. Who had told him? I hadn’t left the house since I’d got the priest.
‘Poor Mo was a lonely soul,’ someone muttered.
‘Her name was Maureen,’ I said softly.
I was facing the body, looking at her hands. Beads were woven through the fingers, which were so thick and pale they didn’t look like hers. Hers were brown from the garden.
There was consternation by the door behind me. Doctor Birmingham was taking his leave, and signalling as such to Mrs B, who was chatting with Mrs Daly and didn’t look like she was going anywhere soon.
‘I’ll follow you in a while, Albie,’ she whispered louder than most people shout.
He had no cho
ice, with all gawking at him. Off he went with Rose in tow. The poor girl was blushing. Someone said to me then, some old drinking friend of my father’s, ‘It’s up to you now, young Emily; it’s up to you to keep things going.’
Keep what going – Charlie and my father? A half-arsed yard? I looked at Mam’s death-bed: I was almost seventeen years of age and it felt like mine. The herbalist was moving near me, I could feel him. Then, his hand on my shoulder. The heat off him. I looked up. He handed me a holy card with a piece of fabric stuck to it. A relic of St Thérèse, the Little Flower. I smiled, despite myself; it was a piece of blue serge I’d left in his place. I didn’t say a word. I was only thinking, God forgive me, Now he’s seen where I live. I felt ashamed, like something that I’d hid could be hid no more. I was heart-sore.
I took a break from my vigil and went into the kitchen for a drink of water. Three of the women had gathered together around the table, greedy beady-eyed birdies – Mrs B, Mrs Daly and Mrs Nash having a real good root through Mam’s box of photographs. I went over and stood there. I put out my hand, but they didn’t even notice. Mam liked photos. She didn’t have a fancy album or any album, just a small cigar box that she liked to keep to herself, which was fine because no one besides me was interested in pictures, and none had been taken since I was born.
‘That’s you, Grettie! In a swimming costume!’ said Mrs Daly. ‘You certainly didn’t look like that in school!’
‘Oh, Jesus Christ, get that out of there this minute,’ squealed – yes, squealed – Mrs B.