A Long Way from Heaven

by A Long Way from Heaven (retail) (epub)

  ‘I don’t see anything to put the flags out for,’ she answered sourly, tossing the grain at the hens. ‘Sure, ’tis not as if it’ll be the first grandchild or anything.’ Siobhan, at twenty, had been the first to marry and the first to bring forth a new generation.

  ‘Ah, sour grapes,’ goaded Bernadette persistently. ‘Ye’d be excited enough if it were you who were carrying his child.’

  ‘I can’t for the life of me see why it isn’t,’ replied Kathleen. ‘I mean, if you were a man wouldn’t ye rather have somebody built like a woman instead of a bag o’ skin an’ bones? Our Mary’s bonny enough in a skinny sorta way, I suppose, but she’s so green, isn’t she? Sure, I could’ve shown Pat a thing or two if he’d married me.’

  Bernadette laughed, an infectious, bubbling giggle and the onlookers smiled, unable to hear the joke, wondering what it might be. ‘That’s precisely why he didn’t choose you – he’s probably got to hear about the thing or two ye’ve shown half the village.’

  ‘Huh, I like that,’ spat Kathleen venomously. ‘You’re not so bloody innocent yourself. Don’t think I haven’t noticed y’almost undress Pat with your eyes every time ye see him.’ Undaunted, Bernadette’s blue eyes twinkled roguishly. ‘Now, now, your whiskers are showing. Ah, I’ve been looking sure enough – what girl wouldn’t look at a pair o’ well-filled breeches like his? Haven’t I seen yourself peeping an’ all, trying to guess if ’tis all him.’

  Kathleen was unable to resist the barb. ‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ Her face was smug. ‘I don’t have to play no guessing games when I know well enough what’s in Pat’s breeches.’ Bernadette gasped and put a hand to her mouth, staring past her sister’s mocking face in dismay. Mary, who had hoped to join in her sisters’ fun, stood momentarily nonplussed, the smile frozen on her face. She opened her mouth but no words came out. Her hands dropped involuntarily to her stomach as she stared at Kathleen who returned her gaze triumphantly – At last! At last I’ve been able to pierce that saint-like exterior, thought Kathleen. Unlike previous occasions when nasty remarks had failed to make Mary angry or believe that her sister harboured anything other than love for her, the reference to Patrick was like an arrow piercing her heart. The large eyes welled tears then, with a little sob, she spun away and ran down the hillside like a frightened rabbit.

  ‘Well! Ye’ve really gone and done it now,’ breathed Bernadette, watching the fleeing figure disappear.

  ‘Sure an’ it wasn’t my fault,’snapped Kathleen. ‘’Twas you who got me mad. Anyway, she shouldn’t’ve been listening; eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves.’

  ‘Ye don’t need to be an eavesdropper to hear a few home-truths,’ responded Bernadette darkly. ‘An’ if ye don’t go find her an’ apologise ye’ll be sure to catch a few yourself. Go tell her ye were only joking now.’

  ‘An’ what makes ye think I was?’ asked Kathleen, her crafty smile returning. ‘He’s not a saint, ye know. Somebody had to ease him while Miss Pious kept him waiting all these months.’

  Bernadette’s anger spread in a red flush over her cheeks. ‘Ye’d better be joking,’ came the warning, ‘or not just me but everyone will know ye for the harlot y’are.’

  Without further utterance she left a somewhat deflated Kathleen to ponder on her words. Did Bernadette really think that of her? Did Pat? Was that the reason he had not asked her to marry him as she had hoped he would? A sudden emptiness engulfed her. What if Mary were to tell him what she had boasted? How would she ever be able to face him again? She tried to justify her treatment of Mary: it had been her turn to wed – well, that was not strictly correct, there was Bernadette before her, but even so it should never have been Mary’s turn – not the youngest, it wasn’t fair! If only Pat knew how she felt about him, didn’t he know from the way she looked at him? Ah, but no, he was blind to everyone save the little saint.

  Oh, if only he knew how much she wanted him. If only her name were Mary and not Kathleen. If only. If only.

  Chapter Three

  Mary lay on her stomach listening to the gurgling of the stream, watching the moonlight play over the silvery waters. She had been here for hours; couldn’t go home. Her mind ached, her heart ached. Oh, ’twas foolish to have expected him to be as pure as herself – men were not made the same way – but did it have to be with her sister? Did anyone else know? How silly, of course they would. They would all be laughing at her; at her innocence. This morning her world had brimmed with happiness. Now that world had exploded into hurt and shame, for added to Kathleen’s cruel words had come the discovery that there was not, after all, to be a baby. What was she going to say to everyone? How could she ever face Pat again?

  A trout suddenly leapt through the moon’s watery reflection, invading her misery with a noisy splash – Why, you fool. You eejit! She sat bolt upright to gaze at the rippling shadow beneath the surface. Here you are making out that you’re the one to blame when all the time you should be thinking of what you’re going to say to him when he gets in. He’ll come swaggering into that cottage, all proud of himself for bringing home the praties, when pride is the last thing he should be feeling after the shame he’s brought on you. Go on home and give him a piece of your mind.

  ‘I will!’ she cried aloud. ‘Damn me if I don’t have your hide for boot leather, Patrick Feeney.’

  Springing from the mossy bank she began to walk purposefully towards home. He must surely be back soon and then, by God, she’d show him.

  The McCarthys had been reluctant to go to bed until Sean and Pat returned but it was growing very dark. Richard had decided that his son would not be back until morning now and had himself gone home to his bed. Those who remained began to strip off their clothes. Carmel arranged the rushes on which they would sleep. Each took their place, lying side by side in sequence of age under the communal blanket.

  ‘Did herself go home?’ asked Carmel, referring to Mary. ‘I don’t recall her saying goodbye.’

  Bernadette gave Kathleen a nip before answering. ‘Aye, Mam, she went home to wait for Pat. I think she was a bit upset, that’s why she never said anything.’

  Kathleen turned to her sister in alarm: was she going to inform! Was Kathleen to face the wrath of the priest? But – don’t worry, you bitch, said Bernadette’s face – I’ll not be the one to admit what a slut of a sister I have. She deliberately turned her back on Kathleen and closed her eyes.

  They had not been abed long before the sound of the cartwheels brought them springing to life. ‘They’re back!’ Kathleen was the first up and began to pull on her petticoat, much to Bernadette’s amusement.

  ‘Sure, I can’t think why you’re bothering,’ she mocked under her breath. ‘Has he not seen it all before?’

  Kathleen replied by sticking out her tongue, ‘Come on. Let’s go help with the praties, Mam,’ and ran out into the moonlight.

  ‘I don’t see the rush,’ said Liam doggedly. ‘There’ll be none.’ But with an elbowing from his wife pulled on his own clothes and went to assemble with the others.

  Patrick and Sean made no attempt to get down from the cart. They sat dumbly, looking from one face to the next, not knowing how to tell them.

  ‘Didn’t I tell ye?’ Liam had no need to look into the empty cart to know. He now collapsed against the cottage wall.

  The girls were gripping the sides of the cart, staring at the empty space. ‘Perhaps ye didn’t look far enough?’ said Bernadette hopefully. ‘Ye could try again tomorrow.’

  It was Patrick who answered. ‘’Tis futile, colleen. The countryside is dead from here to Sligo – and beyond for all I know. We saw sights ye’d never believe. There were people there living like animals. God knows the last time they saw a healthy crop.’ He climbed wearily from his perch. ‘I’d best be away home anyhow an’ break the news to Mary. She’ll be getting worried.’

  Kathleen and her sister exchanged guilt-ridden glances. The last thing on Mary’s mind would be praties. Pat would have somethi
ng less wholesome on his plate when he got home.

  He tried to apologise to the older ones but Carmel set up such a wailing, ‘Oh, Jesus help us, we’re all going to starve!’ that Liam bade him go.

  They allowed him to leave with no word of goodnight. As he reached the brow of the hill he looked back over his shoulder and saw them as he had left them, a mute circle of standing stones against the heavy sky.

  * * *

  They reached the cottage simultaneously. Breathless with anger Mary waited to hear what he had to say before discharging her tirade. It was not to come.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mary,’ he said softly. ‘I’ve let ye down. We searched everywhere we could think of, there’s no praties to be had. ’Tis like trying to find fairy gold.’ He dropped his chin to his chest and sighed. ‘I feel so useless. You were all relying on me an’ I failed ye.’

  In more ways than one, thought Mary, but her anger had died at his admission. So sure had she been that he would succeed in his quest that it had never entered her mind what she would say if he came home defeated. A moment ago she had almost hated him, but now the sight of his wounded pride rekindled her warm and forgiving nature. She took hold of one of his big, rough hands and whispered falteringly, ‘You’re not the only one to have failed, Pat, I’m afraid.’ At his look of expectancy she went on, ‘I’m sorry, I made a mistake … there’s not to be a baby.’

  He nodded wearily. ‘Ah well, perhaps ’tis for the best. The sights I’ve witnessed today I’d not inflict on a child o’ mine.’ He pulled her into the cottage where Richard snored peacefully and the pig twitched silently in his dreams. A soft chuckle. ‘Will ye look at the old fella? Sure he sounds more like the pig than the pig himself.’ Then he was serious and hugged his young wife protectively. ‘God, I don’t know what we’re going to do if we cannot find any seed.’

  ‘We’ll find a way out, you’ll see,’ answered Mary optimistically. ‘’Tis not the end o’ the world though it might seem like it at the moment. With the hens an’ Brian we can hold out till help comes.’

  ‘’Twon’t be help coming but the landlord – had ye thought o’ that?’

  ‘Well, tomorrow I’ll go see Father Brendan – we’ll both go. An’ I’ll say a special prayer to the Holy Mother. She’ll not let us starve.’

  Patrick agreed without conviction. ‘You do that, darlin’. We’re going to need all the prayers we can muster.’

  * * *

  The priest delivered grave news when they gathered for Mass with the rest of the community. On one of his infrequent visits to Westport he had obtained a newspaper and had discovered to his horror that what was happening in his home county was a mirror image of the whole country.

  ‘Is there nowhere we can buy praties, Father?’ enquired Patrick anxiously. ‘I’m prepared to visit the other side o’ the county if needs be.’

  The clergyman could hardly bear to look at him, to see that hope doused. ‘Pat… there are no potatoes. The entire crop has failed. They tell me every single potato in Ireland has been lost.’

  ‘In one week?’ Patrick’s face showed disbelief.

  A grim nod. ‘Unbelievable, I know. Apparently we’ve been extremely fortunate here till now. This is the second failure for many.’

  ‘Like the people I saw in Sligo?’ He remembered a woman, naked save for a rag tied around her loins, the filthy, scab-ridden baby at her empty breast.

  ‘Aye, an’ some not so far from home,’ replied the priest. ‘Just the other side o’ the mountain. I knew nothing … Strange, how a catastrophe like this can pass unnoticed till it affects your own.’

  ‘So what’s to be done? I mean, what have the others been living on?’ Not simply concern for those already starving; he had to learn for his own family’s sake.

  ‘Well, the Government’s been shipping in this Indian corn …’ Patrick interrupted to ask where he could get some. ‘A lot further afield than our own district, I’m afraid,’ Father Brendan divulged. ‘The Relief Commission doesn’t extend to such remote corners as this.’

  Patrick laughed bitterly. ‘Do they think we don’t eat, then? Do we pluck our nourishment from the air?’ He rammed his fists into his pockets. ‘With the famine growing is there any likelihood that they’ll extend the Commission’s boundaries?’

  Father Brendan looked doubtful. ‘I’d love, for all the world, to tell ye there was, but I fear there’s a possibility that not even those who’re receiving it now will see any more corn.’ He produced an envelope, taking out some pieces of paper. ‘A colleague of mine in England sent me these. This is what the English people are being fed with.’ They were newspaper clippings, cartoons depicting the Irishman as a slovenly pugnosed brute with a begging bowl in one hand and a rifle secreted behind his back, illustrating that this shriek of ‘Famine!’ was just a ploy to get more money for weapons.

  Patrick showed his disgust by scattering the clippings on the priest’s desk. As a child he had learnt English at the priest’s knee and though some of the longer words eluded him their implication was all too clear.

  While he tried to control his anger the Father added, ‘I suppose ’tis understandable that they get this impression, what with the trouble over the Corn Law going on. Some o’ these young Repealers are a bit wild.’ A sigh. ‘They don’t seem to realise that their violence is condemning fellow countrymen to death.’

  ‘Is there nothing positive ye can offer us, Father?’ begged Patrick.

  ‘Well … this here Relief Commission has instigated a lot of road-building; ’twould provide ye with the money to buy food I suppose.’

  ‘That’s it then,’ declared Patrick with a glance for his fellows. ‘’Tis on the roads I’ll be for I’d sooner not sell Brian yet.’

  ‘Brian?’ The priest was somewhat perplexed, and seemed relieved when Patrick informed him that Brian was only the pig. ‘Oh … right, Pat, I’ll find out for ye where the nearest roadworks are an’ let ye know.’ He addressed the congregation. ‘I suppose there’ll be more who want the work?’ The whole male population raised their hands. ‘Right, as soon as I find out the details I’ll inform ye.’

  The priest kept his word, though he had to escort them miles to do it. There was a brief skirmish, for thousands were applying for this type of work and were prepared to use their spades as weapons to achieve the post, but after soothing words from Father Brendan all was settled and though it was a strange way of making a living, thought Patrick, he was glad of the wage it brought.

  Alas, their triumph was tainted. The wage of ten pence per day, though it kept the three Feeneys, proved to be pitifully inadequate for those with six or seven in the family. As August neared its end food was becoming so scarce that people were travelling miles in the hope of securing a meal. The ‘gombeen men’, the meal-dealers and moneylenders, had been buying grain in enormous quantities and the price had soared beyond the pockets of the poor and the relief committees. Orders for more Indian corn had been sent, but it was too late, since supplies would not reach Ireland now until 1847.

  Autumn passed into winter. The wild fruit and nettles which had meant the difference between life and death had gone. Not an edible root nor rotten cabbage leaf could be found. And if Mary had been mistaken before, then she was well and truly pregnant now. Would that the rest of the countryside were as fruitful as her belly, she sighed.

  Patrick, exhausted by his daily exertions, had only the strength to slump to the cabin floor when he got home. The coins jingled in his pocket but there was nothing on which to spend them. The chickens had long since stopped laying and had met with the same fate as the rest of the livestock in the village. The dogs were still here, but not for long if Patrick could judge the way folk eyed them. Everyone was now totally dependent on the soup kitchens that the parish priests and the Quakers had set up. Each time Patrick closed his eyes he saw lurid pictures of dying children, some unable to speak, puffy-eyed, others with no hair on their heads but a weird, downy growth on their faces, making them look
like little monkeys. Was his child to look like this, or would they all be dead before the child saw light? And how long would it be before he was among the band that pressed their faces to the poorhouse window, savouring every mouthful that their more fortunate fellows ate. Oh, how could he have inflicted a child on Mary, on top of everything else? Yet it was the only comfort they had.

  The pain suddenly gripped his vacant belly and he drew up his knees to his chest, waiting for the spasm to pass. When it did he put his arms around his sleeping wife and held her close, waiting for his own, merciful release.

  All night long the freezing gales howled and whistled through the rafters, making the people inside the cottage shiver and huddle together in their fretful dreams. The fire glowed red in the hearth as the wind roared down the chimney. Soon there would be no peat left to keep it burning, and the ground was now so hard that it was impossible to cut any more.

  In the morning when Mary woke and went to open the door she was met by a wall of whiteness. It seemed now as if even the weather was against them. The years in which they had seen snow were few and far between. Now, when their suffering was at its height, came the severest winter in living memory.

  Chapter Four

  Patrick would have thought it a miracle that they had survived the winter, had he still believed in such happenings. His visits to Mass became less frequent, finally stopping altogether. Father Brendan was greatly concerned, not simply for Patrick’s welfare but for his soul. Did the man not know that he risked eternal damnation, not only for himself but for his unborn child by turning his back on the true faith? His harassment of the Feeney household became a source of intense irration to Patrick and today’s encounter was sufficient to unleash his accumulated frustration.

  ‘If you’re going to tell me once more to put my trust in God I’ll … I’ll …’ So incensed was he, speaking through gritted teeth and holding both clenched fists to his head, that what he wanted to say refused to come. He was unable to think clearly any more. The lack of food had affected his brain as well as his body. He was dizzy and sick, sick to death of hearing that Our Lord would help them. If God was so merciful how could He allow this devastation? ‘’Tis all very well for you to talk, who don’t rely on the potato for your livelihood,’ he raged. ‘How ye’ve got the gall to churn out all this rubbish about the will o’ God while there’s children crying with the pain o’ their swollen guts. What sorta God is He, for Christ’s sake?’