My mother was looking hopefully at Mick. ‘Do you know anyone that has the cure?’
‘I know a man,’ said Mick, ‘by the name of Jim Bromagem who lives way down beyond Mountlucas. He has a cure that was handed down to him by his grandmother. I saw him at last Mass on Sunday. You might see him cyclin’ past the house here.’
My father was in a hurry about getting the cure, and said to my mother that he’d cycle down to Bromagem’s house the next evening.
‘You’re a great man, Mick,’ my mother told him. ‘You have an answer for everythin’. Here’s another scone.’
Mick was pulling at the lobe of his right ear. It was a sign that he felt appreciated. The tea and scones, he said, were made by a woman who had ‘a special way of mixin’ bakin’ soda with flour and buttermilk’. He looked at me and my sisters. ‘You’ve got a great mother – don’t ever forget it!’
After the tea was drunk we drifted into more chat about everything and anything until my father remembered to ask Mick a question that he kept forgetting about.
‘What is that?’ said Mick.
My father asked him if he remembered to ask Tom Brewer about going out with the wren next Saint Stephen’s Day.
‘I did ask him, Christy,’ Mick replied, ‘and he said he would. In fact, he was delighted to be invited. Now I’ve a couple of questions for you, Christy,’ Mick added. ‘Were you able to talk to any of the two Briens?’
‘I did,’ said my father, ‘I talked to one of them, and he was to talk to his brother Tommy. I think they’ll be all for it.’
‘What should we do about a car?’ Mick asked.
‘I haven’t thought about it yet,’ said my father.
My mother was pouring more tea. ‘What about Gilbert McCormack?’ she asked.
‘By God,’ said Mick, ‘the very man. He’s reliable, and doesn’t drink.’
My father was in agreement. ‘Well, that’s what we’ll do,’ he said. ‘I’ll have another chat with Paddy Brien and I’ll drop up to Tom Brewer and remind him.’
‘It should be a great bit of sport,’ Mick said.
My father changed the conversation by asking Mick about his thatching, or if he’d seen it.
‘I did,’ replied Mick. ‘Where did you learn the trade, Christy?’
My father was curious as to what Mick would say when he told him. ‘I never did it before and anythin’ I know about it I got from Mick Dunne.’
‘Well, the mother of the livin’ Jaysus,’ Mick exclaimed. ‘It’s not possible or else you have some sort of an angel guidin’ your hands, because it’s a perfect example of tradesmanship and I say that because I know you still have a lot of thatchin’ left to do.’
‘Oh,’ said my father, ‘Oh, it’s a big undertakin’, but I have Paddy here to help me.’
Mick saw me in the corner. ‘It’ll be hard on your hands,’ he said. ‘Not much music will be played.’ I didn’t mind. I was tired and preferred listening to everyone talking.
I went to bed a little early while Mick and my father and mother were still chatting. Lying awake, I could hear the three of them talking about me and the music. Hearing some of the conversation, I realised that Mick was saying how great I was with the accordion. I felt a twinge of excitement and I tried holding my breath so I could hear more. My father and mother were also saying good things about me, and I soon fell asleep.
18
The Power of the Cure
Jim Bromagem called at our house on the second Sunday after my father visited him at his home. Jim was a gentle sort of man, with a grey moustache that was tainted with tobacco juice. He wore a brown hat, brown suit, brown topcoat and brown shoes. My mother offered him tea but he refused it, saying he didn’t have a lot of time.
‘Missus,’ he said, ‘let me see the affected area.’
My mother showed him the spot on her right leg. ‘Yes, yes, you have it, it’s the ringworm, no doubt about it. Well, let’s see,’ he added as he reached into his inside pocket he pulled out a small purple box. Opening it, he removed a small gold ring that was tied to a brown scapular. He took off his hat and put it on a chair. Reaching down to the spot on my mother’s leg, he made a circle around it three times. Then he made the sign of the cross over it three times and with his head bowed he whispered some words that were his private prayers. In less than a minute he was finished. He said to my mother, ‘I’ll have to do this three times and I’ll be back next Sunday.’
My mother was very thankful. ‘Mr Bromagem, what do we owe you for this?’
‘Missus,’ he said, ‘I don’t take any money. The cure was given to me on condition that I wouldn’t charge anythin’. If I did, I’d lose the power of the cure.’
My mother was undaunted. ‘But surely you don’t expect me to give you nothin’.’
Jim saw her concern. ‘Missus, I don’t usually take small gifts, but some people buy me a half pound of tea or a bit of tobacco. I never take both.’
‘All right,’ said my mother, ‘and thanks very much . . . Are you sure you wouldn’t have a cup of tea?’
‘I think I’ll change my mind,’ Jim replied, ‘and have a quick cup.’
My mother was delighted to be able to give the man something for his trouble. Jim was a chatty kind of man who spoke of his wife and paid us compliments, saying we were very well-behaved children. My mother pretended to protest, saying, ‘You’d want to see them when you’re not here!’
In moments, Jim had drunk his tea and was gone. ‘I’ll see you in a week,’ were his words as he walked to the gate.
‘Now there goes a great gentleman,’ my mother said. ‘It’s no wonder he has the cure. I hope he can get rid of this rotten thing on my leg, I’m fed up with it.’
Towards the end of the week we noticed that the penny-sized blotch on my mother’s leg was slightly smaller. And the following Sunday Jim came and did another ‘rub’, as he called it.
It was the same routine as the first time. He was sure the ringworm had gotten smaller but said he’d need to ‘rub it’ one more time. He said he’d be back again in two weeks to finish off the cure, then wished us all the best of luck and was gone. My sisters and I were getting a great charge out of watching our mother’s leg. All of us, including our parents, were busy with different chores and somehow forgot to look at the size of the spot. Then on the Saturday morning after breakfast my mother yelled to my father, ‘Look! Look! It’s almost gone!’
My father was stunned. ‘Holy Christ,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen anythin’ like it.’ And my mother blessed herself.
The next morning Jim was back again. After he looked at her leg he took out the little gold ring for the third time and said, ‘This’ll be the final rub.’ Once again he made three circles around the spot and then the sign of the cross three times and finished with his silent prayer.
My mother gave Jim a gift of a pound of tea and thanked him again. I thought he looked a little embarrassed – like a man who wasn’t comfortable with being fussed over.
As he was about to leave, my mother said she had a sort of embarrassing question to ask him.
‘Go ahead,’ said Jim. ‘It’s what makes us human.’
‘Do you know of anyone that has a cure for worms?’ my mother asked. ‘Because I think the children here might be carryin’ some. I’m not totally sure, but I heard that some of the school children have been infected, so I’m worried about whether or not it’s catchin’.’
‘Indeed it is,’ said Jim. ‘And it so happens I do know of an old man that lives near Croghan, and he has a definite cure for it. His name is Thomas Pender, and anyone in the vicinity will tell you where he lives. His daughter and her husband and children live with him and some say his daughter will inherit the cure.’
My mother was greatly impressed with Jim’s answer. ‘Well, she said, ‘I know I’ve said this many times, but I wa
nt to thank you again and again and again.’
‘Don’t mention it, missus,’ he said. ‘It was my pleasure.’ And then he was on his way, cycling towards Mountlucas.
My mother made an appointment with Gilbert McCormack to pick us up at our gate on Sunday afternoon. McCormack was a very reliable man and as punctual as the sun on a summer’s morning. His car pulled up slowly outside the gate and all six of us climbed in. Gilbert knew the road that would take us to Thomas Pender’s house. It was a four-mile journey to where we turned left into a laneway that brought us through a marshy area of bogland and small pastures. A few lone trees dotted a landscape of heather, bogholes and broken black soil that lay in flattened ridges used to grow potatoes and turnips. Furze bushes grew in abundance along the lane, and small blackthorn bushes still carried their berries. That they had escaped the attention of the bird population was seen as a sign of a mild winter to come.
When we arrived at the front door of the house we all jumped out of the car. My mother told Gilbert that she hoped he wouldn’t mind waiting in the car while we went inside. ‘It’s all right, take your time,’ was Gilbert’s reply.
Tom Pender’s daughter met us at the door and politely ushered us inside. Tom was sitting at the fire while his grandchildren played blind man’s bluff. The children were told to go to their room and stay quiet. Tom stood up and asked my mother, ‘What can I do for you?’
My mother explained her concerns about us children being affected with stomach worms.
‘Hmmm,’ said Tom. ‘We’ll soon find out.’
He took a mug from the dresser and filled it with raw porridge. He packed it tightly and with a wooden rule he levelled the porridge with the rim of the mug. Next he took a clean white handkerchief from a drawer in the table and covered the mug and its contents tightly with one hand. He held the handkerchief around the mug and said, ‘Who’s first?’
Moira volunteered. He told her to open the buttons on the front of her dress. With her skin exposed, he placed the top of the mug tightly against her tummy with the handkerchief between the mug and her stomach. He held it there for a minute while he closed his eyes and whispered words that we could not hear. In a moment he removed the mug from my sister’s stomach and took the handkerchief away from the top of the mug. We were flabbergasted at what we saw.
The porridge in the mug looked a lot like a rat had eaten it. It was incredible! Nearly half the raw porridge was gone! It had disappeared!
My mother and sisters were astounded. Where had the porridge gone? my mother asked Tom.
Tom’s reply was to the point. ‘Missus,’ he said, ‘it’s the power of the cure.’ Then he looked around and said, ‘Who’s next?’ Ann was waiting and had her clothes unbuttoned. Tom filled the mug with fresh porridge, covered it with the handkerchief and pressed it tightly against her stomach. When he removed the mug and then the handkerchief, we saw that several tablespoonfuls of the raw porridge was missing, but not as much as the first mug.
Tom told my mother that both girls were in a bad way with the worms and would have to return to him again. This was how the healing process worked. We all had some porridge missing from the refilled mugs. When he pressed a full mug against me I could feel the softness of the handkerchief and didn’t notice anything unusual. At least a third of the porridge disappeared, and I had to return for a second session with everyone else.
Tom wouldn’t take any payment, but on our last visit we gave him and his grandchildren some tea, sweets and biscuits. Returning home, we all had something to say, but had no idea how the porridge had vanished. My mother was a little superstitious, but gave up trying to understand the mystery of the cure. My father was far more practical, saying that we should believe in the cure instead of questioning it. In a matter of days we started to feel a sensation of extra energy and our appetites improved, and so we concluded that the cure was doing its job. When we went over to Tom’s house for the second visit we saw that Moira’s mug was almost full. Tom told us that she need not return, that she’d be fully recovered in a week. In fact, all of us were on the way to full recovery with a couple of mugs showing no missing porridge. I’ve never forgotten this particular experience with what some people refer to as quacks.
19
Mysterious Travellers
I always had the urge to practise the accordion, especially after a long day of work, and as time went by I developed a special feeling about Saturday night. To me it was a night of conclusion when I would wash, go to confession, play my accordion and hopefully hear some good band on Seán Ó Murchú’s Céilí House. On some Saturday nights we would hear a knock on the door, and would be surprised by someone we hadn’t seen in a long time.
It was a couple of weeks after we finished thatching the roof and the evenings were getting dark earlier when we were surprised by the sound of scraping on the outside of our door. It was like a rasp being pulled slowly over the paint on its surface, and on hearing it we all looked at each other for support or a possible explanation. My mother was the first to speak. ‘Christy, why don’t you see what it is?’
‘Oh it’s probably a cat caught between the half door and the big door,’ he replied, before getting up from his chair and opening the door. It was then he saw the little man with a hat and a white clay pipe sticking out the side of his mouth. ‘Good night to ye all,’ the little man said. ‘I’m Tom Carey and I’m doin’ a bit of work for Phil Rourke on Killoneen Hill. I was wonderin’ if I could come in and warm me shanks at the fire.’
‘Come on in, Tom,’ said my father. My mother knew the fellow as soon as he walked into the kitchen and remembered that she was a teenager when she last saw him.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘if it isn’t Tom Carey! The dead arose and appeared to many. Where in the name of God have you been all these years?’
He said he had been working for a big farmer near Edenderry. My father had never seen Tom before and was watching him closely. I sensed he was amused by Tom’s way of saying things. For example, as Tom finished a sentence he would exude a coo of a laugh that sounded like air escaping from a bicycle tube. Tom was about five feet tall and wore old wellington boots with the tops turned down. He continued to keep the short clay pipe stuck in his mouth and a constant dribble of saliva came over his bottom lip. My sisters were disgusted at how careless he was, and cringed every time he spat into the ashes by the fire. My mother was a little impatient but polite, and in a while she began filling the teapot. She asked him if he’d like a drop of tea, and he said he would. After the tea went around he was talking with extra fervour and appeared more at ease with what he was saying. As he continued he started to smirk, and his eyes were moving from side to side in search of approval. The hot tea was making his nose drip, which in turn made him sniff and cough and forced him to remove the pipe from his mouth. This gave him the liberty to use the sleeve of his coat for wiping his nose and mouth back and forth. When he raised his voice he produced a cackling sound, and when he got excited by the tone of his story he would wheeze and coo like a wood pigeon.
He spoke about seeing a man in a field where there were several sheep. The man seemed to be counting the sheep, he said, and then he swore to us that this man turned into a sheep right in front of his eyes!
‘That’s impossible! I don’t believe a word of it!’ said my mother. Her remarks went unnoticed by him, or else he pretended not to hear.
My father was pulling on a cigarette when he said, ‘Tom, you must have seen some fierce things in your day.’
‘Oh God,’ said Tom, ‘to be sure I did.’ Then he began with another story about the road from Larry Farrell’s well that went all the way past the big house in Mountlucas. This was the same road that went past our house.
‘It’s haunted,’ wheezed Tom, and this led to another little cackle of a laugh.
‘How do you know?’ asked my father.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘becaus
e I was on the same road one moonlit night. It was October a couple of years ago. All of a sudden I met a dark coach, with four black horses pullin’ it. I jumped out of the way, and as it passed me by I saw the driver with a whip. I got a terrible fright when I looked at him.’
‘What was wrong?’ my father asked.
Tom spat a big one into the ashes. ‘I’ll tell you what was wrong with him. He’d no feckin’ head.’
‘Jaysus Christ,’ said my father.
Then my mother said she had heard something about a ghost coach from the old people. It was said that the coach would be seen on a particular night of the year and was supposed to carry the body of a cruel landlord for burial. The old people believed that the driver couldn’t find the cemetery without his head and that the coach was cursed by the matriarch of an evicted family.
Tom Carey left for home at midnight. His visit left us with our own impressions of this strange little man. My mother was glad he was gone, and my eldest sisters Ann and Moira both agreed he should be sleeping with the pigs in the shed. One of them was convinced he hadn’t washed himself in a year. I was also a little relieved when he was gone, but I wasn’t sure what it was that made me distrust him. My father was adamant that Mr Carey ‘would drown eels’, meaning that he was as crafty as a ferret and wily as a fox. We didn’t see him again or hear anything about him working anywhere around our locality. Phil Rourke said later that he didn’t know him at all when my father mentioned that Tom worked on his farm.
My father continued to cycle ten miles to work each morning and would be gone from 6.30 a.m. until 6.30 p.m. One late afternoon in August my mother came rushing from the bedroom next to the road. In a hushed voice she said, ‘Paddy, quick, lock the door.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘Lock the door,’ she repeated.
When it was locked she whispered, ‘There’s a strange man at the gate and he’s whistlin’ a long, sad whistle.’ There was a window in the bedroom that gave us a clear view of our gate and when I went into the room to have a look I could hear a long, wailing whistle. My mother pulled aside a lace curtain in an attempt to get a better look at the man, who was standing outside our gate with his arm resting on its pillar.
The Road from Castlebarnagh Page 11