Kezzie at War

by Theresa Breslin

  Kezzie gasped at the effrontery. She snatched up the boots.

  ‘They are not for sale,’ she said angrily and marched out of the house.

  CHAPTER 6

  The bothy

  IT WAS EARLY afternoon before Grandad returned wearily to the village.

  ‘The farmer’s got a place he’ll let us stay until we find something better,’ he told Kezzie. ‘I’ve tried everywhere else but things are bad all over. Everyone wants to help but they’re all in the same boat.’

  They put some essentials into bags and Bella promised to get their chairs and table brought to them.

  ‘The farmer said it wasn’t up to much,’ warned Grandad as they made their way on to the country road, ‘just an old bothy, but I reckoned we ought to take it. If we don’t, and the authorities see the bairn homeless …’ He nodded at Lucy.

  Kezzie realised Grandad had been thinking the same thoughts as she had. At this moment she didn’t particularly care where they went. She wanted away from the rows before the early shift came home. It was more than her heart could bear to see the men trudging up the street and know her father was not among them. She pictured him so well, the muffler wound round his neck, cap pulled down, his face black with coal dust. For the last week or so Lucy and she had sat in the house at shift changeover, and as the tramp of feet went past the window the little girl would look up, and then come silently to stand beside Kezzie.

  At the present time she was skipping along the road ahead of them picking flowers from the hedgerows and thinking this was a great adventure. Kezzie buttoned up her coat. The weather was getting colder. Well, at least they would be in shelter for the night.

  ‘I think this must be it,’ said Grandad eventually.

  They stared across the field at a ramshackle little hut with a sagging roof. Kezzie felt her spirits sinking.

  ‘Right then,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Over the gate,’ and she lifted Lucy up.

  They squelched through a rutted track to the bothy. There were holes in the roof, one wall was sloping gently, and the door, when she pushed it, gave way altogether and fell to the ground in front of them. Inside was an earthen floor with animal dung and broken pieces of machinery scattered around. The pane of glass in the one window had a long crack. Kezzie backed out of the doorway and laid her bags on the grass.

  We can’t stay here, she thought.

  She turned to her grandfather. The old man was sitting on a large stone holding his head hung down in his hands.

  It was Lucy who saved the day. She ran up to him with a bunch of wild flowers she had picked.

  ‘Come on, Grandad,’ she said, and threw her arms around his neck. ‘You can pick a place for your bed. I’ve picked mine already. It’s going to be under the window. Come on,’ and she tugged him to his feet and led him into the bothy.

  Just as they crossed the threshold she said, ‘See, Grandad, you mustn’t let them grind you down.’ Then Lucy added a curse word.

  Kezzie’s hand went over her mouth and she stepped smartly after her sister to give her a good telling off for saying such a word. Inside the bothy Grandad was leaning against the wall helpless with laughter.

  He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Did you hear that one?’

  ‘I did indeed,’ said Kezzie tartly, ‘and she knows better than to use language like that.’

  ‘Let her be,’ he said, ‘it’s the smartest thing anyone’s said all day. Look at her now. We’d best follow her example.’

  Lucy was collecting the pieces of junk and throwing them outside. It took them until dark. Grandad fetched his tool box and repaired the roof and fixed the door. Friends came down from the village with their other bits of furniture and stayed to help them. Kezzie told Bella to keep the dresser. By nightfall, a fire was going, the lamp was lit and the place was cosy. Grandad lit his pipe and looked about him.

  ‘Well, it’s not much, but it’s home,’ he said. He set the board out for a game of chess. Kezzie finished tucking Lucy up in bed.

  ‘And we’re together,’ she added.

  * * *

  There was no question of her going back to school. Kezzie knew this quite well. The subject was never discussed. Who would she have talked to about it? Her grandad deferred to her when decisions had to be made. She was now the leader of her little family. He was up at dawn every day, tramping for miles, looking for any type of work. The farmer still gave him bits and pieces to do, but he had always earned small sums, just enough for some tobacco and a bottle of beer. He came home with this little amount and put all of it in their money tin on the table. Occasionally there would be a ten-shilling note or a few pounds in it. It was some time before Kezzie realised what he was doing. Small objects disappeared, then their best linen sheets and one day, his good suit. She discovered he was walking to Glasgow and back to the pawnbrokers. One night he came in and sat down. He didn’t look at her as he spoke.

  ‘They’re taking on for the tattie-howkin’,’ he said, eating his dinner and gazing stolidly at his plate.

  Every autumn many children were excused school to help lift the potato crop. John Munro had never let his daughters go, he didn’t want them to miss any days’ study. Next morning Kezzie rose early and went to the farm.

  The farmer scratched his head. ‘Let me see,’ he said, handing her a basket, ‘where’s the best place for ye?’ He pondered a moment and repeated what she had said. ‘You’re fourteen years and this is yer first time liftin’ tatties?’ He shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘I learn awful quick,’ said Kezzie anxiously.

  ‘Oh, aye, aye, aye. I ken fine who you are. John Munro’s yer grandad. It’s just that a lot o’ the squads are made up lang syne … tell ye what, try yer hand wi’ the Irish. A bundle o’ them came off the boat fae Donegal last night, and they seemed short-handed to me.’

  The Irish were singing in the field. And as Kezzie approached, her basket in her hand, she was aware of curious glances in her direction. The tractor was at the opposite end with a posse of gulls in attendance and Kezzie stood by the hedge not sure what to do, reluctant to interrupt. Their song rose to the sky in the clear autumn air, a lilting tune in Gaelic, which kept them in the rhythm of their work and a smile on their faces. And they worked hard. Kezzie saw this as she watched them move down the shaws, digging, lifting, swinging and emptying the heavy baskets.

  ‘You’re looking for someone?’

  A woman had stopped beside her and addressed her in a soft accent.

  ‘I’ve to work here,’ said Kezzie. ‘The farmer said …’

  ‘Sure that’s grand. Just you slide yourself in alongside Michael there,’ the woman instructed her. ‘And don’t you be annoyin’ that girl, now, Michael Donohoe,’ the woman added as she noticed the wink the young man had given Kezzie as she took her place beside him.

  She was utterly hopeless. Like a thoroughbred untrained for labour trying to pull a milk cart. The more she strained and tried to keep up, the worse she became. Clumsy, fumbling and inept, the other workers stepped politely out of her way and soon left her far behind. By lunchtime she was exhausted, and worse, she hadn’t thought to bring any sandwiches. She had also dressed in completely the wrong clothes for such work. She sat down in the shade of a tree and thought what she might do. She would have to stay. Her pride told her that. That, and the empty money tin on the kitchen table.

  ‘Is this space taken?’ a voice asked. Kezzie looked up and the young Irishman, whom she had been placed alongside, was standing above her.

  Kezzie shrugged and looked away. He was laughing at her. She was sure of it. His dark blue eyes in his brown face were full of devilment. She had often wondered why Aunt Bella stayed with her husband, or indeed had married him in the first place. Now and then, usually after ‘a wee refreshment’ Aunt Bella would tell Kezzie her life story. How, when walking out with various young men, her man had seen off all other competition. And it was due to his dark eyes, Aunt Bella would declare, full of mischief and
life. Kezzie was sure that the eyes of Michael Donohoe showed that he was full of mischief.

  ‘I wonder if you would do me a favour here?’ he asked. He hesitated. ‘You see, I’ve far too much food with me to eat today, and if I throw it away … well, beside being a waste, it encourages the birds, and then the tractor man will be in a dreadful rage with me.’

  Kezzie turned and stared at him. He was all wide-eyed innocence. Did he suspect? she wondered. She would die of embarrassment if she thought that he had guessed that she had been so stupid as not to bring food with her.

  ‘You don’t mind? Do you?’ he enquired. And before she could answer he had put some sandwiches and an apple on the grass beside her. He saluted her and went away.

  They resumed work after twenty minutes. ‘I am going to collapse,’ Kezzie said to herself. She had never realised that potato picking was such hard work. She was absolutely determined to try to keep up but very soon thought, I’m going to fall over, and when I do, I will never get up again.

  She was aware of someone humming quietly beside her. She glanced to her side, and through the rivers of sweat streaking down her hot face she spied Michael Donohoe.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ he said pleasantly.

  She grunted in reply.

  ‘Now we haven’t been formally introduced,’ he went on pleasantly, ‘but I’m sure that you will not mind me mentioning this … After all I’m a stranger in a foreign land and you Scots are noted for your hospitable ways.’ He paused.

  Kezzie stopped and eased her aching back. If he was making fun of her, she would hit him over the head with the basket, she decided.

  He placed his hand between her shoulder blades and rubbed gently.

  ‘Begging your pardon,’ he said courteously. He bent down and placed her basket at a different angle. ‘Like this,’ he said, ‘you stoop like this,’ and he showed her how. ‘Now I’ll dig this row, and you follow after.’ Then he moved on ahead of her using the graip, and she gathered in the potatoes behind him. She was aware that he was making slower time, but, as she could not move past him, she had no choice but to work at the slower pace he set.

  They worked that way for the remainder of the day. He sang with the others, sometimes quietly as the work was hard, sometimes their voices rivalling the birds’ evensong for harmony and beauty.

  He carried her basket to the farm buildings for her, and then saluted and bade her good night.

  Kezzie could scarcely walk the mile and a half home.

  CHAPTER 7

  Potato harvest

  KEZZIE WAS AT the field first the next morning and every morning after that, determined to show that she was as able as anyone else. And by some strange chance, no matter where she started off she always found herself working beside Michael Donohoe. And he always had a great story to tell her.

  ‘Did I ever tell you about the time I was working at the fair in Ballyshannon, and the fellow with the dancing bear said to me, “Michael, hold this chain for one moment while I step inside this public house to wet my throat”. And didn’t the very next minute an old man with a barrel organ appear and start to wind the handle. And right away the bear put his arms around me, and there we were the two of us doing a jig down the main street.’

  Michael stopped and wiped the back of his neck with his hankie.

  Kezzie always pretended that his stories didn’t interest her much.

  ‘Mmmm?’ she said, head down, working hard.

  ‘I never made as much money that day as I did any other. And the fellow comes out of the pub after an hour and gives me a shilling for minding his bear. But the sorrowful part of it was …’

  ‘What?’ Kezzie asked before she could stop herself.

  ‘After that the bear wouldn’t dance at all. Now at first we thought it was because it was all worn out with the dancing it had done that afternoon, because besides a jig, we had also danced a waltz and a polka. It was a very educated bear, you see. But we soon discovered it was a different reason altogether. And it wasn’t until I ran into them a few weeks later at Limerick Fair and the poor man was pulling his hair out as he told me his story of how his bear would not dance a step … when suddenly the bear caught sight of me and leapt up and gave me a great hug. And then it was clear what had happened. The bear was pining away. And do you know the reason why?’ Michael gave Kezzie a wicked look.

  ‘No,’ said Kezzie, feigning indifference.

  ‘Why that bear had fallen right in love with me.’ Michael clasped his hands across his chest dramatically. ‘Its heart was broken, don’t you know?’

  Kezzie grabbed a large potato and flung it at his head.

  ‘I never heard such nonsense in all my life,’ she said.

  ‘You think it’s nonsense that someone would fall in love with me?’ he asked her slyly, his eyes bright and shining in his face.

  ‘Perhaps not a poor dumb animal.’ Kezzie pretended to ponder the question for a moment. ‘No,’ she said finally, ‘even a poor dumb animal would have more sense than to fall for the likes of you.’

  He began to walk her a bit of the road home at night and although she enjoyed his company she didn’t want him to see the shack where they stayed. She always managed to put him off after a mile or so but he was a person who was not easily put off, and so she was not really surprised one evening just before sunset to see him coming across the field.

  She sighed and went to meet him.

  ‘I just happened to be passing,’ he said innocently, ‘and I thought I’d pay a call.’

  ‘Come in,’ said Kezzie, ‘and meet Grandad and Lucy and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  Lucy took to him at once of course, and he told her three stories before she went to bed. About how he was a runaway son of the King of Ireland and lived in a castle with a drawbridge, and how he’d gone with gypsies and travelled all over Europe.

  ‘Stop filling that child’s head with nonsense,’ said Kezzie eventually. She went with him to the gate.

  ‘Where do you live, Michael?’ she asked him. She imagined a whitewashed thatched cottage by the shores of a quiet beach. It was obvious to her the way the Irish workers spoke that they loved their country and thought it very beautiful. It must be disturbing to have to leave home every year for weeks in order to make some money to survive the winter. She had heard them use a saying which must be common at home. ‘Donegal will never starve as long as there are potatoes in Scotland.’ There was something wrong with the world, thought Kezzie, that most people seemed to have to break their backs for bread yet, day by day, in the newspapers and on the wireless all the talk of troubles in Europe meant that vast sums of money were being spent on building warships and making guns to prepare for a war against Hitler’s Germany.

  ‘Where do I live?’ Michael repeated. ‘I’m afraid that I don’t live anywhere at the moment.’

  She knew by his voice that this was not one of his stories.

  ‘You and I are similar, Kezzie,’ he said, ‘in that we are orphans. I don’t recall a mother or father. I just woke up one day in a children’s home in Belfast. Except that no child should ever have been made to stay there and it certainly wasn’t a home. And about four or five years ago, when I was about thirteen, it was Australia’s turn for free child labour and I was one of the ones picked to go. I didn’t know anything about Australia and I decided I didn’t want to know either, so I ran away.’

  ‘What do you mean “free child labour for Australia”?’ asked Kezzie.

  ‘There’s not many people know or even care, but the British children’s homes send children to their colonies. Now, lots of people leave their own country to go abroad where they hope they will live in plenty. The Irish are famous for it. We are as the wild geese. But this is different. It is more of a compulsory emigration.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Kezzie slowly, ‘if you have no kin, and you’re destitute it might be a better life.’

  ‘But it’s not only orphans that go,’ said Michael, ‘and they separate b
rothers and sisters, and they don’t always enquire if there’s family. These places have great power. They can take children from parents if they feel they are not being cared for properly, and then they think they own them.’

  Kezzie shivered, thinking again about her own fears for Lucy on the day of their eviction.

  ‘See, now in my case I did have some kin, only they hadn’t bothered to tell me. It was just by chance that I found out an old aunt of my mother’s lived in Donegal. I stay there in the winter, though there’s not much room.’

  It was now quite dark. The stars were out and the harvest moon hung yellow and transparent in the sky.

  ‘We have a sing-song in the barn the night before we sail,’ said Michael. ‘Will you come, with Lucy and your grandfather?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ said Kezzie. She hadn’t realised the season had passed so quickly. She would have to think about work for the winter. They had saved a little but it wouldn’t see them through. Besides Lucy had grown in the summer. Her coat and boots were far too small for her now.

  She said good night to Michael. He hesitated for a second, then patted her on the head, vaulted over the gate and went off up the road whistling cheerfully.

  CHAPTER 8

  Michael’s farewell

  THEY COULD HEAR the sound of music from the big barn as they came across the fields. Fiddle and accordion carried on the clear night air. Kezzie breathed in.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she said.

  The moon was riding high in the sky and all the trees and bushes had an incandescent light upon them.

  They had brought brown baps and scones, and little pancakes which Lucy had helped make. Her grandad had some beer, and everything was wrapped in a clean cloth in their basket.

  Michael saw them and came over at once. He looked very handsome with his white shirt and black waistcoat and his dark hair smoothed down.