The Mammy

by Brendan O'Carroll

  ‘What were you goin’ to say?’

  ‘Nothin‘.’

  ‘Yeh were, Marion, now what was it?’

  Marion prepared to speak and Agnes waited. ‘Do you miss it?’ Marion asked finally.

  ‘What ? Miss what?’

  ‘Ah yeh know ... “It”!’

  ‘The quare thing?’

  ‘Yeh, the quare thing!’

  Agnes thought for a moment, and took a sip of bovril.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Are yeh serious, not even a little bit?’

  ‘Nope, not even a teeny bit ... What’s t’bleedin’ miss? The smell of chips and Guinness being breathed all over yeh ... his chin like bleedin’ sandpaper scrapin’ off a yer shoulder and neck ... and then the wait and the worry ... am I gone again?‘

  ‘But makin’ love, Aggie?’

  ‘Love, me arse! Makin’ babies, makin’ more worries, makin’ shitty nappies ... makin’ him happy!’

  ‘And you, makin’ you happy too. You can’t say you never enjoyed it?’

  ‘Marion, will you get a grip! Enjoy what?’

  ‘You know ... the organism!’

  There was a moment’s silence in deference to the magical, modem-day word. Agnes sipped her bovril, and Marion glanced around sheepishly as if she had just spoken a national secret!

  ‘I never done one,’ said Agnes defiantly. ‘I don’t think they exist.’

  ‘They do, I swear, Aggie. I done two!’

  ‘What! When?’

  ‘One two weeks after your Redser’s funeral, on a Friday ... and one last August!’

  ‘Are you sure they were organisms?’

  ‘Positive!’

  Aggie sipped her bovril again, and Marion just sat glowing with the memory of her last statement.

  ‘What were they like?’

  ‘Massive, brilliant!’

  ‘Ah be pacific, ascribe it!’

  Marion pulled the crate she was using as a seat closer to Agnes. Agnes reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a pack of Players Navy Cut, and they both lit up. Marion took a drag, removed a piece of tobacco from her tongue with a spit, and slowly exhaled. Agnes waited expectantly.

  ‘Well, first I didn’t know what was goin’ on! He was really drunk so it was takin’ him longer than usual. He was bouncin’ away, up and down, up and down ...’

  ‘I know how that bit goes, get to the point,’ Agnes interrupted impatiently.

  ‘Oh right! Well, I was thinkin’ to meself, if this fella doesn’t evacuate soon, he’ll fall asleep! Next thing, I had this feelin’ ... a wave came over me ... like gettin’ ten early marks at the bingo and you know somethin’ good is comin’! A shiver ran through me body, me hips started jerkin’ all on their own. I closed me eyes and it was like an explosion. I could see colours burstin’ in me mind ... like someone set off fireworks! Without me tellin’ it to, me mouth let out a yelp. He stopped and said: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt yeh.” I could hardly speak. “Keep goin‘,” I kinda whispered, but he just rolled over and said: “Ah, you’re all right, I wasn’t in the humour anyway.” He was asleep in minutes. I just lay there, and I don’t know why, but after a while I started to cry ... I wasn’t sad or nothin’, I just cried ... gas, isn’t it? That was it! What do yeh think?‘

  Agnes sat open-mouthed. Marion took another drag and again glanced around to be sure nobody was within earshot. Agnes was deep in thought.

  ‘Was that the first one or the second one?’ she asked finally.

  ‘Both ... They were nearly the same, except on the second one I didn’t cry!’

  ‘Did yeh tell him about them?’

  ‘No way, are yeh kiddin’? He’d say I had worms or somethin‘. Anyway, tell him and it would be all over the docks in no time!’

  ‘Yeh, you’re right. How long did they last?’

  ‘Just a couple of seconds ... over in a flash!’

  ‘Jaysus, I could have had one, Marion, and not noticed it if they’re that quick.’

  ‘Nah, Aggie, believe you me, if you had one you’d notice it, for sure! Here, I’m off!’

  Marion took the two mugs and went back to her stall. Within seconds her familiar cry could be heard all down Moore Street: ‘Ten pee a pound a’da hard tomatoes.‘ Agnes sat and pondered Marion’s story and the. enthusiasm with which she had told it. Just before standing up to add her sales cry to the Moore Street melody, Agnes’s thoughts were: Well, fuck you, Redser Browne, leavin’ me with seven orphans and not an organism to show for it.

  Chapter 6

  THE BROWNE CHILDREN WERE AS DIVERSE as it was possible to be. Although they had been loved almost equally by Agnes and ignored equally by Redser, they each developed an individual personality.

  Mark, the eldest at fourteen years of age, was the apple of his mother’s eye. Like a lot of Dublin first-born children, he spent his early years living with his granny. A big, strong lad, Mark was not afraid of hard work. He loved to fetch and carry, and would do anything that he thought would please his mother. Mark was never to have his mother to himself as he grew up, with babies arriving in the house year after year after year. This he considered normal, and from the time he was six years of age, Mark was changing nappies and cleaning up after his younger brothers and sister. With the younger ones constantly pestering him, Mark never really appreciated babies. That was until after the gap between 1957-1964, when Agnes, for the first time in Mark’s life, was not pregnant. He enjoyed this time and marvelled at how beautiful his mother was without the bump she always seemed to have. Then, of course, in September 1964 along came Trevor, an unexpected interruption in Mark’s life, whom Mark hated before he was born, but once home Mark doted upon. For the first time, Mark really felt like a big brother. Now with the death of Redser, Mark would have to fill the vacancy of ‘Man of the House’. In many ways Mark was ready for it.

  The Jarro had no such thing as a playground. There were no specific areas for children to go and entertain themselves, with the result that children made their own areas and their own entertainment. There was no park in The Jarro, so football was played on the streets. Two piles of coats would be put down for goals and the goal-keeper’s area estimated by the players. Each player, of course, had his own idea of distance, so whether the ‘keeper was inside or outside his area gave rise to the most animated of arguments, and even punch-ups. With England winning the World Cup the previous year and World Cup Willie instilling a fever in young Dublin boys, football occupied most of the boys’ time. Matches would be played in every lane, back street or main road, at all times of the day. Mark loved soccer and now at fourteen he was Captain of the City Celtic Under Fifteens football team. He was ’football mad‘. When he wasn’t working at one of his part-time jobs, Mark trained for or played football. Up to now that was his whole life.

  Dermot, on the other hand, preferred boxing. The local curate, Father Quinn, had set up The Jarro Boxing Club, or the ‘Back Street Bashers’ as they called themselves, and Dermot was one of its first members. Dermot was not a tall lad, but for his size he was strong and had a heart like a lion. He was one of Father Quinn’s star boxers. Inside the ring or outside, Dermot was renowned as a great scrapper. Even boys some years senior to Dermot would be wary of taking on this little tiger.

  Frankie preferred neither boxing nor soccer, but just liked hanging around with the local gurriers, the ‘ne’er do wells‘. Frankie was one of those kids who had the knack of getting everybody into trouble but never getting into trouble himself. He would lead from behind, always coming out of tricky situations with his hands spotlessly clean, while those around him paid the price. It was clear from an early age that Frankie Browne would end up either a millionaire or in prison.

  In The Jarro, the girls played skipping or chasing, and their agility at both was surprising. During daylight hours, chasing was for girls only, but in the evenings it was played by both girls and boys and became ‘kiss-chasing’. The rules of kiss-chasing were simple: the boys would chase the
girls and when a girl was caught she must kiss the boy that caught her. Girls who were champion runners during the day ran a little less fast at night, depending, of course, on who was doing the chasing. Mind you, there were some girls who could walk around at a snail’s pace and never be caught!

  Mark and Dermot were good chasers - both were handsome young boys and had no trouble catching any girl they chose to chase. Frankie never played. He pref fered to spend his evenings playing poker with the other gamblers under the street lamp. He was a good poker player and rarely lost, which naturally made him unpopular. Rory liked kiss-chasing but found himself confused - he never knew whether to chase with the boys or run with the girls. Often, he simply gave up and went home to play with his dress dolls.

  In every family there are children with minor afflictions, and, unfortunately for Dermot’s twin brother Simon, he had them all. On top of a stammer he had a lazy eye, with the result that when playing kiss-chasing Simon would seem to be looking one way and running the other and when he did catch a girl, by the time he got out: ‘Gi, gi, gi, gi, gimmie a kiss,’ the girl he had caught had got bored and gone off. To solve his lazy eye problem the eye doctor in the clinic had given Simon a pair of glasses with a leather patch over one eyepiece, but instead of straightening out his eye Simon now turned his head sideways, which gave the impression that he was hard of hearing, which he wasn’t. If he went to the local shop on errands for his mother, Simon would turn his head sideways to the assistant when asked what he wanted, and sta, sta, sta, stammer out his request. Simon spent his early childhood with shop assistants roaring at him and talking to him in sign language, thinking he was deaf.

  Cathy was the only girl in the family and, unlike a lot of single girls in big families, Cathy wasn’t a tomboy. She was dainty, pleasant and terribly pretty, if a little unimaginative. For imagination she depended on her best friend - another Cathy, Cathy Dowdall. It was Cathy Dowdall who came up with ideas, like the one she had of collecting door-to-door for a wreath for the late Mrs Smith. The fact that Mrs Smith was alive and well didn’t bother Cathy Dowdall. The two girls collected two pounds and ten shillings and had a rare ould time for a couple of weeks.

  These were the children of Agnes and (the late) Redser Browne. Through size alone the family was tightly knit. They would fight like cats and dogs at home, and call each other names, but outside the house they stuck together like glue. The rule in the Browne family was: ‘You hit one, you hit seven.’ Since March twenty-ninth and Redser’s demise, little had changed in the Browne house. If anything, the house was less tense, and for a short time the children enjoyed being the ‘poor little orphans’ of The Jarro. But that soon wore off and life went back to as near-normal as possible. Pity was short-lived in an area that faced tragedy from day to day.

  Chapter 7

  ‘MAMMY!’ DERMOT CALLED AS HE BURST into the flat. ‘Ma,’ he called again, now moving swiftly into the kitchenette. Agnes sat at the kitchen table with Trevor on her lap. Trevor was slurping up bread and sugar with hot milk poured over it - a mixture locally called ‘goodie’ - which was his breakfast. Dermot stood before her, a look of anguish on his face, his legs tight together and one hand firmly on his bottom. He was squirming.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, love?’ Agnes asked him.

  ‘Me gick is comin’.‘

  ‘Well, what are yeh tellin’ me for? Do I look like the gick collector? Go into the toilet and do your gick!’

  ‘Mark is in there.’

  ‘Well, tell him to come out ... Mark!’ she yelled, ‘get outta that toilet and let your brother do his gick!’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Mark!’ she yelled again. Still no reply.

  ‘He’s in there ages, Ma, he won’t come out,’ cried Dermot.

  Agnes got up. ‘Here, Rory, feed Trevor.’ She walked out to the landing where the toilet was, followed by Dermot, who at this stage was holding his bum so hard that only his thumb was visible. When she arrived at the toilet door she listened first before banging on it. ‘Mark, are you in there?’ For a moment it seemed that there would be no reply, then there was a very quiet ‘Yeh’. ‘Well come out, your brother’s in agony here ... and if he shits in those trousers, I’ll make you wear them tomorrow.’

  There was a click and the door opened a crack. It was enough for Dermot, he bolted through with his pants half-way down his legs. Even as Mark was closing the door behind him a groan of relief could be heard from Dermot. Mark, eyes down, walked past his mother and made straight for his bedroom, closing the door behind him. Agnes followed him as far as the door and when it closed against her she stood for a moment in thought.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ she asked of no one in particular.

  Simon just looked at her and shrugged. Rory was too busy getting the last of the ‘goodie’ into Trevor.

  ‘Maybe he has worms,’ Cathy offered.

  ‘Don’t be so disgustin’ you,’ Agnes said.

  ‘People do get worms in their gick, Mammy, Cathy Dowdall told me, and they do be miles long.’

  ‘Shut up that talk about worms, and you stay away from that Cathy Dowdall’ wan. She’s a bad influence. Brownes don’t get worms and that’s that!’

  All went quiet again. Agnes gently rapped on the door of the boy’s room. ‘Mark ... Mark ... Mark?’

  ‘Janey, Ma, you sound like a dog with a hair lip,’ Dermot announced as he re-entered the flat looking much relieved.

  Agnes made a swipe at him, ‘I’ll hair lip you in a minute. What did you say to your brother?’

  ‘Me? I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘You must have said something,’ Agnes insisted.

  ‘I said, eh ... “Come on, Mark, me gick is comin’”, that’s all.‘

  ‘Then why is he depressed?’

  ‘It’s not me, it’s his willy,’ announced Dermot. The other children giggled.

  ‘Who? Who’s this Willie fella? Has Mark been fighting?’

  With this the whole group erupted into laughter, and even Trevor joined in. Rory’s face turned crimson and Simon had tears in his eyes.

  Agnes was furious. ‘Stop that!’ she screamed. The laughter died suddenly but the children were bursting to let it loose. However, seeing their mother so angry, they all held it admirably.

  Agnes scanned their faces. When she felt she had everybody’s undivided attention, she went on with her train of thought. ‘Now one of youse is going to tell me where I’ll find this Willie.’

  Cheeks were puffing, tongues were being bitten and tears were streaming down Simon’s face, who, even though not making a sound, was shaking with held laughter. The children thought they were going to hang on until Agnes announced: ‘When I find him, I’ll choke him.’

  The burst of laughter could be heard on every floor and in every flat of that building in James Larkin Court. Dermot ran out of the building howling. Rory went into hysterics, so much so that Trevor began to cry with fright. Cathy followed Dermot out the door and Simon buried his face in a cushion on the settee.

  Agnes swept Trevor into one arm. With the other, she picked up the spoon that Rory had been using to feed the baby and ‘boinked’ Rory on the head. Simon, who had nearly stopped laughing, roared again. Agnes went to the cupboard and pulled out the baby’s coat. After silencing his cries with the insertion of a soother, she put the coat on the child and turned to the other two.

  ‘Now, youse can take him for a walk. Rory, get the go-car down the steps and you, Simon, take him.’ She handed the child to Simon. She then went to her handbag and fished out her purse. She gave some money to Rory. ‘Bring me back some Tide and a pound of broken biscuits. Now, go on, off with yeh!’

  The two boys scurried out the door, and as they made their way down to the ground floor, Rory said something to Simon and the laughter started again.

  Agnes slammed the door. ‘Little bastards, havin’ a funny half-hour at my expense,’ she said aloud. The flat was now as quiet as a butcher’s shop on a Fri
day. Agnes went to the radiogram and put on an LP, Cliff Richard of course. She went to the bedroom door again and was about to knock, but decided to leave it; Mark would come out in his own good time. Instead, she began to tidy up and dust the little flat, sailing across the room on the musical waves provided by Cliffs voice. She opened the cupboard to return the duster just as Cliff began a soft, slow song. With the cupboard door open, she stood for a moment and imagined what it must be like to be married to Cliff - those twinkling bright eyes, that smile all of the time, his coal-black hair falling across his tanned face as she ruffled his quiff. Without realising it, she was running her hand through the dark grey strands of her upturned floor mop. When she noticed this, she giggled to herself and said to the mop, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Cliff,’ and with a swift brush of her hand cleared the ‘quiff’ out of the mop’s ’eyes‘. She took the mop from the cupboard and began slowly to ’lurch’ around the room. She closed her eyes. Suddenly, she was in the ballroom of the Savoy Hotel in London. Cliff had just collected yet another award, the one for being the most handsome, talented and loving singer in the universe. He had thanked the audience and stepped from the stage. He walked through the thronging crowd and stopped by the table where Agnes was sitting. Without speaking he placed the award on the table and extended his hand to Agnes. Coyly she stood, and as the flash bulbs popped and the lights swirled, Cliff began to sing softly into her ear. The crowd parted and, alone on the dance floor, Agnes and Cliff were the couple of the century, as they floated around the dance floor.

  Had a stranger walked into the flat at that moment they would have seen an attractive, dark-haired, smiling woman moving in slow circles, hugging a damp shaggy mop. They could not be faulted for wondering if it might be a good idea to call the home for the demented. This is what Mark saw as he stood by the bedroom door. The music came to a halt and Agnes opened her eyes and noticed Mark. She was both startled and embarrassed at the same time. ‘My God, you gave me a scare,’ she muttered and quickly went to the cupboard, replaced the mop and closed the doors. Mark did not move.