by Alison Walsh
Without Bridie, I really don’t know how I’d manage. She gave me this huge pram, appearing at the door one day with it, an ugly grey thing that bounced and sprang on huge silver wheels. That pram has been my lifesaver, my key to the outside world, to the canal bank and then to Monasterard, across the wheatfield and up the little road, past a lovely Protestant church with a tiny, neat little graveyard, the gravestones like teeth, planted in the ground, then onto a long, straight street – accurately called ‘Main Street’ and, by rights, the only proper street in the village. It’s only about a hundred yards long, but it has six pubs in it – I counted them – as well as a funny little draper’s painted maroon with the word ‘Moran’s’ picked out in white. The pram takes me on then to Maggie O’Dwyer’s grocery, with its single basket of fruit in the window and the flies stuck to the fly paper that makes my stomach heave. Inside, it’s a little dark cavern, with shelves up to the ceiling, packed with what look like very ancient boxes of Lux soap flakes and Brillo pads and big tubs of Bisto gravy mix, for some reason. Maybe everyone in Monasterard is hooked on Bisto. The thought always makes me laugh and distracts me from the sight of Betty’s husband, Pat, in his string vest, hovering behind the counter, an unsettling leer on his face.
‘Well, if it isn’t herself. How’s the good life, eh?’ and then he laughs, until his smoker’s cough gets the better of him and he has to hack into his handkerchief. He’s revolting and it’s all I can do not to vomit all over him as I ask for a few slices of ham, carefully counting out the money into his greasy hand, then running out of the shop to Mary-Pat in her pram, as fast as I can. And then we’re off again, pushing gently up Main Street, past Joyce’s pub and general goods store, wondering if I dare ask Jim Joyce for credit again, figuring that it’s been a while since I went in last to ask if he had any offcuts of wood. John-Joe has an idea that he wants to make a crib for the new baby.
I managed to get some nice bits of birch from Jim a couple of months ago. I didn’t like having to ask, but he’d been so nice about it, wrinkling his freckled face under his sandy hair and pushing the pencil he’d used to measure the wood behind his ear. ‘Sure you can give me a few of those potatoes when you’re next in. I love a home-grown spud, so I do.’ I change my mind, deciding I’d better dig a bag of potatoes before I cross the threshold. It’s funny, the way things work here in the country. In town, you just go into shops and pay for stuff, and if you haven’t got any money, God help you. They put that sign behind the cash register: ‘Please do not ask for credit, as a refusal often offends.’ Here, people are too kind to turn you away and too clever to offer charity; instead they pretend that a girl like me has something valuable to offer them. John-Joe says it’s because they’re like every other Irish person, afraid to speak their mind, to call a spade a spade. ‘They all dance around things,’ he says, ‘pretending that they’re not the way they really are.’ But I like that about people here. Their kindness.
Today I’m going to see a farmer who has hens to sell. Bridie told me about him, Sean O’Reilly. I imagine him to be another old man, as I place Mary-Pat back into the pram, in spite of her protests, and push on, until I see the big red corrugated iron shed of his farm, from which seems to be coming an alarming sound of squawking and clucking. At the neatly painted white gate, I call, ‘Hello?’ and after a few moments there’s a shout from the shed and a man appears and strides across the yard. He’s huge, like a barn himself, with bright blue eyes, red cheeks and a thatch of black hair standing upright on top of his head. He’s wearing a pair of battered corduroy trousers and a blue shirt which is open to his chest and through which I catch a glimpse of black chest hair. For some strange reason, I find myself blushing.
‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you above the din,’ he says, reaching out a large red hand and shaking mine so vigorously I think it will fall off. He eyes the pram then, and my bump, and I think I must look such a fright.
He scratches his head before saying, ‘Come in and have a cup of tea before we look at them, will you?’ He’s being kind of course and I accept gratefully, glad to rest my swollen ankles in a comfy armchair by the huge, shiny range in his kitchen, which is also spotless. I sit Mary-Pat on my knee, where she babbles and plays with her feet before bursting into a peal of laughter when a black-and-white collie slinks into the room and comes up to her, giving her an experimental lick on her toes.
‘Get out of it,’ Sean orders, and the dog darts away, tail between its legs. ‘It doesn’t do to get too close to animals,’ he says, as he takes the hissing kettle off the range. ‘They need to be themselves, without having to please humans.’
‘That’s very philosophical.’ I smile, accepting the steaming cup of tea he offers me and taking a grateful sip.
‘Ah, well, we have to respect each other as species.’ He smiles back, taking a seat in the opposite chair before getting out of it again and coming towards me, arms outstretched. For a second, I think he’s going to embrace me, and I shrink back in the chair, but instead he says, ‘Here, let me take this little miss while you have your cup of tea.’ I’m about to object, but before I can, he’s lifted her high into the air, swinging her up almost to the rafters, while she gives another gurgle of laughter.
‘You’re very good with her.’
‘That’s because I’m the eldest of nine. I had plenty of practice.’ And then he sits down, bouncing Mary-Pat gently on his knee. And for a second it flashes into my head. What if I were married to him and not to John-Joe? What if this lovely kitchen, with its dresser packed with delf and the shining flagstones, was mine, and this handsome man was sitting opposite me every night? Almost as soon as I have the thought, I push it out of my head. It must be the pregnancy, I think to myself: it’s making me think all kinds of thoughts. I love John-Joe: I love his laughter and his singing and the way he lights up the room; I love the way that he thinks every day should be lived to the full, should be an adventure. And there was bound to be a Mrs Sean O’Reilly anyway, a grand country girl with big hips and a way with livestock. The thought makes me giggle and he looks at me for a second before asking, ‘So how’s John Dermot’s place shaping up? Bridie tells me you’ve worked wonders with it. Mind you, it needed it.’ He grins sheepishly. ‘John Dermot was a singular man, that’s for sure.’
‘Well, the garden’s coming on,’ I say. ‘I’ve planted quite a lot for the summer and I haven’t had too many disasters, bar a patch of leeks that ended up tasting like soap! But the house …’ I give a little shiver.
‘I’d say there’s not a lot you could do with it all right.’ He nods. And Mary-Pat nods too, then, her little head bobbing up and down as she imitates him. His face lights up. ‘My word, who’s a clever girl?’ he says, and he gives her a little tickle under the arm, and she responds with a squeal. ‘Sure, maybe Mammy would leave you behind, would she?’ he coos gently. ‘Would she?’
‘She would not.’ I laugh. ‘Sure, I couldn’t leave her for five minutes, never mind with a stranger – oh, sorry,’ I say, covering my mouth. ‘I didn’t mean …’
He smiles briefly, the lines at the corners of his eyes crinkling. ‘I know you didn’t,’ he says, bouncing Mary-Pat gently on his knee. ‘It’s a mother’s instinct, isn’t it? Not to want to let her child out of her sight. It’s nature’s way to bond us to them, so we can’t wander away from the nest and leave them motherless.’
‘I suppose it is,’ I say weakly. I feel a little uncomfortable at this Biblical turn of events. It seems to me that Sean O’Reilly has a very definite way of looking at the world, where things are either right or wrong, not a mixture of both. I wonder what he makes of me, the hippy in John Dermot’s place, with my daft ideas?
‘I suppose I’d better be getting back. My husband will be wondering where I am by now.’
‘Oh, of course.’ He looks embarrassed for a moment, before getting up, Mary-Pat tucked under his arm. ‘Will you listen to me, ráiméis-ing on, old bore that I am.’
‘You’re not.’ I giggle.
&n
bsp; ‘What? Old or a bore?’ He grins, as I try to get up from the chair and find myself pinned there by my bump. ‘Here, let me help,’ and he pulls me gently to a standing position, his arm solid under mine. ‘You have a lot on your plate,’ he says gently.
‘I do, but my husband does his share,’ I say stoutly. ‘He’s great with the baby and he helps me in the garden …’ I feel the need to defend him, because I know that there’s ‘chat’, as Bridie puts it, about the amount of time John-Joe spends in Prendergast’s.
‘Well, then you’re a lucky woman,’ he replies. And then, as if the subject is closed, ‘Let’s lead the way to the hens, little lady, shall we?’ And off he marches to the squawking barn, opening the large wooden door, whereupon a tiny little black hen darts out underneath his legs. Deftly, he leans down, Mary-Pat still in his arms, and plucks the hen up with one hand. ‘Making a bid for freedom, eh, Bessie?’ and the little hen turns her head to the side, as if she’s listening. Then Mary-Pat reaches out a little hand and pats her gently on the head. ‘Oh, she’s been chosen, so,’ he says. ‘And now, let’s see what other little ladies we can find inside, shall we?’ and he goes into the barn, talking softly to Mary-Pat as she gurgles and coos. And I have that sudden thought again, that picture of myself here, in another place, in another life. I have to shake my head to dislodge it from my brain.
Only when we’ve selected our little menagerie, and he’s pushing them gently into the crate I’ve brought, balancing on the wheels of the pram, does he say, ‘Well, I suppose the cottage will be getting a bit small for you, once the baby comes along.’
‘I suppose it will,’ I agree, fighting a sense of weariness at the thought of four of us crammed into that tiny place.
‘Why don’t we take a look at my brother’s place?’
I shake my head for a second. ‘Why?’
He’s taken aback. ‘Well, because … it’s habitable anyway and it’s got a nice patch of land, and I’ve been looking for a tenant for a while, truth to tell.’ He runs a hand through his black thatch, which now stands upright on his head. He looks a bit lost and I feel sad that I’ve offended him in this way, when he’s clearly doing me a favour. I’m sure he probably doesn’t need a tenant for his brother’s house.
‘I’d love to see it, Sean. Thanks,’ I say and he beams and says, ‘We’ll lead the way again, little lady, shall we?’ He hasn’t relinquished Mary-Pat and she’s growing sleepy in his arms, her tiny thumb in her mouth, eyelids drooping. ‘Here, let me take her,’ I say and put her gently in the pram. She hardly protests before turning onto her side, the way she always does when she’s going to sleep. Sean looks disappointed and sticks his head under the hood of the pram. ‘Night, night, sleep tight,’ he says and when he stands up again he blushes, as if it’s not right for a man to fuss over a baby like that. But I think it’s very endearing. He’ll make a good father, I’m sure.
We chat about growing vegetables and what works best in the soil here, and about the finer points of hens, about which I confess I know nothing. ‘You just have to handle them gently,’ he says, ‘and talk to them a bit, they like that.’
‘I’ll remember that.’ I smile, as we walk up towards a rusting gate, over which a thick green arch of privet grows. The house is a plain two-storey farmhouse painted pale yellow, and it’s regular in build, like the kind of shapes I used to draw as a child: a neat rectangle with a row of smaller rectangles inside for the windows and a larger one for the door, which is a faded, peeling red. It looks a little tired, as if someone hasn’t loved it for a long time, and the garden is a neat lawn of green, devoid of any embellishment. ‘I just keep it tidy for him. It needs a lick of paint, mind you, and the guttering needs to be fixed.’
‘It’s perfect,’ I say. And I want to run all the way home to tell John-Joe, to look at his face when I tell him that I’ve found it now. My home. Our home.
7
Pius was in the cabbage-and-wax-smelling hallway of the parish house. He must be one of the few in Monasterard who’d never been in it. The thought made him smile for a second. He wondered what Mammy and Daddy would have made of it.
He and Rosie were ushered into Father Naul’s office by Bridie O’Reilly, now bent almost double over a walking stick, a thick cardigan buttoned tightly over a blue floral dress, even though the heat in the house was sweltering. They must have the heating on, even in summer. Bridie must be in her nineties, Pius thought, following her through the door into a surprisingly modern room with a cream carpet and a new leather sofa and very little in the way of religious iconography. She’d always made a big deal about being the priest’s housekeeper, bustling around the main street, a self-important look on her face, announcing to all and sundry that she was ‘doing messages for Father Fathom’. Pius wondered what she made of Father Naul.
As if answering his question, she muttered, ‘Ye’ll have tea,’ shooting the priest a disapproving look. Clearly, she wasn’t his number-one fan.
‘Indeed we will, Bridie, and thanks,’ Father Naul replied, jollying her along. The old bat.
She turned to go out the door, but then stopped and, as if she’d remembered something, turned back again and shot Pius a look. ‘Whose are you?’
‘Whose what?’
‘Who’s kin?’
Jesus, you have a way of asking, Pius thought as he cleared his throat. ‘John-Joe O’Connor, and my mother was—’
‘I knew your mother,’ Bridie interrupted, beaming. ‘A fine woman she was. We were great friends, so we were.’ She shook her head, and muttered, ‘That fellow …’
There was a long silence. That fellow indeed, Pi thought.
‘And you’re the baby, I suppose,’ she said, darting a look at Rosie. It was funny, Pius thought, for a second the old lady looked as if she were afraid.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Rosie began, before Father Naul interrupted. ‘That tea would be just lovely, Bridie, and biscuits if Father Fathom hasn’t eaten them all.’
‘Tea and biscuits,’ she repeated, as if he’d asked for champagne and caviar, and then she was gone, the door banging behind her.
‘You’ll have to excuse Bridie. She has her ways,’ Father Naul explained. ‘Anyhow, I hear you’re a great man for the fishing, Pius. I like to fish for trout myself, although of course it isn’t the place for it. So I’ve been trying to perfect my roach-catching techniques to compensate.’ He smiled, and the lines which were etched into his skin suddenly smoothed out, his steel-grey hair waving around his tanned face. He really did look like Sam Shepard. Pius could see why all the ladies at the wedding had been flirting with him.
‘You need to know the canal better for roach,’ Pius found himself saying. ‘All the best spots are the ones only the locals know about.’
‘Well, maybe you could show me a few of them some time.’ Father Naul beamed.
Pius nodded and said of course he would, wondering what Daddy would have made of it, going out on a little jaunt with the parish priest. ‘Religion is the opium of the masses’ had been one of his favourite sayings, and every time he’d said it, it had been in the same self-congratulatory way, as if he’d been the very first person to think of it, not Karl Marx or whoever it was. Daddy, the little shit.
Father Naul was perching now on the edge of his desk, sleeves rolled up to reveal hairy, muscular forearms. He clearly wasn’t a man for sitting behind a desk. Of course not, Pius thought. Sam Shepard didn’t either. He was always on the back of a horse, and Pius could see Father Naul on one too, a battered cowboy hat on his head. He looked out of place in this sterile lunchbox of an office.
‘So, Rosie, I’ve dug out the parish records that you asked for – 1981, I think, is that right?’ and he leaned over and picked up a large red volume from his desk, opening it and scanning the contents, a frown of concentration on his face. ‘Now, I just need to find the entry … ah, here it is,’ and he turned the book around to show them both, his index finger on the second column down, which had been filled in with an i
mmaculate hand.
‘See? Rose Michelle, daughter of Michelle Spencer and John-Joe O’Connor. And there’s Pius, the godfather.’
Rosie looked at him with a puzzled expression on her face and then back at the register and finally back at him again.
Pius managed a smile. ‘Believe it or not. Not sure how well I executed my pastoral duties at eight years of age. Or later, for that matter.’ Especially as he could hardly be a spiritual guardian, what with him not being a Catholic. He never had understood why Rosie was the only one of them to be baptised – it was hardly as if Mammy and Daddy had found religion, now, was it?
‘Oh, Pi.’ She reached over and squeezed his hand, giving him a watery smile. She looked down at her shoes then and there was a little sniff.
Oh, Lord. ‘C’mon, it’s OK, Doodlebug. It’ll be OK,’ Pius said, and he looked meaningfully at Father Naul. ‘It’s all been a bit emotional …’
Father Naul nodded but said nothing further and Pius admired him for it, that, in spite of having officiated at a wedding which was now the talk of Monasterard, he was able to keep his mouth shut when needed. That he didn’t feel the need to witter on about it being the Lord’s will and all that nonsense, when the Lord had shag all to do with it.
She seemed to rally then, lifting her head and asking Father Naul, ‘Who’s the godmother?’
‘Well, let’s have a look … someone called Jasmine … I think,’ he said. ‘Hang on, I need my reading glasses.’ And he rummaged around in his shirt pocket, producing a pair of battered-looking spectacles, which he perched on the end of his nose, looking down through them at the book. ‘No … Frances. Frances O’Brien. Mean anything?’
Rosie shook her head. ‘Never heard of her. Pi, you must remember,’ and she looked at him hopefully.
God, Pius thought. Frances O’Brien. He hadn’t thought about her in years. Who’d have thought that the woman who was now the life and soul of the parish council would have been an old hippy once – she’d been friends with Mammy and Daddy at that stage. He’d had a bit of a crush on her, if he remembered right. He used to like her because she smoked weed and didn’t wear a bra. He’d spend hours watching her breasts move under whatever tiny top she was wearing, mesmerised by them, by the way they were soft and the nipples hard at the same time. It had kept him amused for that whole summer. But she smelled, too. He hadn’t been so keen on that. And when she’d moved in with them that time – he’d been even less keen because he’d had to give her his bedroom and sleep on the sofa for two months. He’d had to box up his collection of stag beetles too, because she’d found them ‘creepy’. He’d been delighted when he’d woken up one morning to find that she’d vanished.