‘Are ye hungry?’
‘Starved. I’ve only had an apple today.’ Erin looked up at her. ‘Me daddy has no money ’til he sells the horse.’
‘Ye poor creature ye! Come and have a bite of lunch with me and me son. Rory, say hallo to the little girl.’
I nodded to Erin. I was stunned; in London I’d always been instructed never to go with strangers and here was my mother kidnapping a child. I nudged her.
‘What if the police stop us?’ I said.
‘What? Why would they do that?’
‘They might think we’re trying to take her away. Her father might be looking for her.’
‘Sure didn’t ye hear her say her daddy’s not coming back ’til six. This isn’t England, thank God, a poor child can trust people here. Poor motherless creature.’ She patted Erin’s hair. Erin smiled and I knew that my mother was putty in her hands. ‘Haven’t ye gorgeous hair,’ my mother told her, ‘real true red, not that ould carrotty colour some eejits get out of bottles.’
We set off to have lunch. Erin slipped her arm through my mother’s and I trailed after them, looking at the girl’s torn dress hem, bare legs and grimy sandals. I couldn’t understand this turn of events; my mother had always said to be wary of tinker children, they could be rough.
Erin ate her plate of fish and chips and asked for more. She devoured two large helpings of trifle and three glasses of milk. My mother watched her eating with relish.
‘Ye’ve a great appetite, I love to see a good appetite in a child. This fella here only picks at his food.’
Erin smiled at me. ‘Ye talk funny,’ she said to me, ‘not like yeer mammy at all.’
‘That’s because he was born in London, pet. He’s a little cockney sparrow. Where were ye born?’
‘In Tralee. That’s where me mammy died.’
‘Did ye never know her?’
‘No. She went to heaven when I was two weeks old.’
‘Ah, ye poor peteen.’ My mother’s eyes were glistening. ‘And yeer daddy’s raised ye?’
‘One of me aunties helps sometimes but I don’t like her, she’s horrible.’
‘How so?’
‘She never gives me enough to eat. Me belly rumbles at night.’
My mother gazed at Erin. ‘Oh, I know what that’s like, dotey, I know only too well. Have a bit of ice-cream now, do.’
While Erin went to the toilet, my mother settled the bill and shook her head.
‘That poor little girl,’ she said to me, ‘alone in the world with no mother.’
‘She’s got a father, she’s not alone,’ I said, churlishly.
‘Ah, that’s not the same thing at all. Ye wouldn’t understand. A girl needs a mother’s love. Ye can tell she’s missing it, she had the look of a lost child. What kind of father is he anyway, letting an infant that age roam the streets with no food? What if it poured with rain? Them travellers treat their children rough, they have to fend for themselves.’ She smiled. ‘Did ye hear her, having a bath in that hotel! Isn’t she a gutsy little article! Ah, wouldn’t I love to tuck her under me arm and carry her home with me!’
I was alarmed; she had an inspired look. I knew that she was capable of sudden, impulsive actions. I pictured Erin back at my grandmother’s, running up and down the glen with her pigtails flying, and then in Tottenham, flicking those green eyes at my father. He’d known my mother to come home with some unexpected acquisitions, but never an eight-year-old child.
Erin spent the rest of the day with us, as if we had been on her agenda all along. We went to a department store and bought her a pink and blue dress, matching cardigan and socks, shiny black shoes and white underwear. She allowed my mother to choose the clothes, nodding eagerly at whatever was suggested, then went off with her to the Ladies to put them on. She emerged holding my mother’s hand, her hair brushed out and held back with a blue ribbon they’d got at the ‘buttons and bows’ counter. My mother turned her around in front of a mirror.
‘Now,’ she said to me, ‘what d’ye think?’
‘Very nice.’ No second-hand shops for Erin, I was thinking dourly.
She nudged Erin. ‘Will ye listen to him! “Very nice”. What would ye do with boys! D’ye know that rhyme, pet; “What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and all things nice! What are little boys made of? Rats and snails and puppy dogs’ tails!” Have ye never heard it?’
Erin was chuckling. ‘No, I never did. ’Tis funny! Rats and snails and puppy dogs’ tails!’
‘I’m not a little boy, I’m eleven,’ I told her.
She pulled a face and moved in closer to my mother.
‘Don’t mind him, he’s just an ould grump,’ my mother told her. ‘Now, what’ll we do?’
‘Can we go to the pictures?’ Erin asked. ‘I’ve never been to the pictures in me life!’
‘We will so. Let’s see what’s on.’
I always had to argue mercilessly to get my mother to take me to see anything other than a biblical epic. She had once had a bad experience during Robin Hood when a boy behind us blew a loud blast on a whistle every time the Sheriff of Nottingham got a trouncing. But today anything seemed possible; off we hurried and got in to Greyfriars Bobby, a film I’d already seen with a friend in London. Erin sat on the edge of her seat, mouth open, transfixed. Whenever I looked at my mother she was watching Erin’s face or pressing more sweets on her.
We had to get Denny’s return bus at five. At half-four we left Erin back where she’d found us.
‘I had a grand time,’ she said, buttoning her cardigan. ‘The best time ever.’
‘Did ye, pet? Will ye always remember me?’
‘I will.’
‘Just tell yeer daddy ye met a kind lady who was yeer mammy for an afternoon.’
‘He’ll like me dress, I know he will.’
‘Don’t forget to say a prayer for me at night.’
‘I’ll say one every night, so I will, for ever.’
Erin waved at us until we turned the corner, her cardigan riding up with her outstretched arm. My mother was quiet on the way to the bus stop and didn’t have much to say to Denny as we rattled to Bantry. When my grandmother asked if we’d had a good day, she replied that God had sent her a test and she hoped she’d acquitted herself well.
EIGHT
At the end of the first week after her return from hospital my mother deteriorated suddenly, within a couple of hours. Doctor Molloy came; it might just be days now, he said to me. When I told my father he shook his head.
‘She said she fancied a little ride out in the car last night.’
‘I don’t think that’ll be possible now.’
‘Should I call off Con and Una d’you think?’
His brother and his wife were due to visit. I was thinking that he would need them after she died; it had crossed my mind that he might even move to live near them, forty miles away in Waterford.
‘I’d let them come; they’ve probably set out by now anyway. Mum’s always been fond of Una.’
The relationship had been very much one of munificent benefactress (my mother) and grateful recipient (Una). Like a lot of people in rural Ireland in the fifties and sixties, Una thought that if you lived in England you must be rolling in money. It was a small farm that she and my uncle ran and they didn’t appear to run it very well. Letters from Con to my father spoke of constant debts and big bills for broken machinery. My father had once remarked that all Con grew successfully was grass. Una would write separately to my mother about the terrible price of food, medical bills, and clothing. They swapped details of the menopause and gynaecological problems. Una was impressed by my mother’s free access to medical care and the fact that she was taken shopping in a car. The boxes of clothes that my mother despatched were evidence that England was the land of plenty. I used to think that Una was the kind of woman my mother might have been if she’d stayed in Ireland; pious, unsophisticated, fairly content with her lot.
My father and I had worked o
ut a kind of routine. He had a mid-morning nap every day on my bed in the spare room while I spent time with my mother or, if she was asleep, prepared lunch. In the afternoon I took a walk while he read to her, working through their back copies of Ireland’s Own. We made dinner a joint effort; he dealt with the meat. I found that I was hungrier than I’d been for years. I ate huge portions and found space for packets of biscuits between meals. I felt guilty about this appetite of mine, especially when I saw my mother’s tiny portions untouched on their plates and witnessed her daily diminishment. I felt disgustingly robust and full of life; a healthy face looked back at me in the mirror. When I walked, I strode along vigorously, aware of the blood flowing strongly through my veins.
Con and Una had arrived when I got back from that afternoon’s walk. I heard Una’s loud voice as I opened the door. She was sitting on the edge of my mother’s bed, holding her rosary.
‘Ah, Rory,’ she said. ‘Me and your mammy have just been saying a few decades together. Isn’t that right, Kitty?’
My mother was looking a little brighter. ‘’Tis a great comfort to me, Una.’
‘Sure of course it is, of course. Prayer’s a great healer, so they say. There’s been times I’ve prayed and those prayers have been answered. I’m sure your prayers are getting a special hearing, Kitty, the angel you’ve been to me over the years.’
‘Oh, I only did what I could,’ my mother said.
‘You did great altogether. You’re one of those special people. I don’t know now what I’d have done without you at all. The times those boxes of clothes have arrived and I’ve fallen on my knees and thanked God for an angel of a sister-in-law! I’ve always said, Kitty darling, there’s a golden seat waiting for you in heaven.’
I looked at my mother in case she found this upsetting, but she seemed more at ease than she’d been for days.
‘And how are you yourself, Rory, are you keeping well? Still doing the therapy?’
‘That’s right. I’m fine, thanks, Una. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘That’d be lovely. Con and your daddy have just gone for a little dander up the road. We packed them off, didn’t we, Kitty, so that we could have a chat.’
I left Una telling my mother about the special novena she’d been saying for her and put the kettle on. A vague bad temper had come over me and I chided myself because I knew why; I was resenting the fact that Una could console my mother in a way that wasn’t open to me, in a way that meant so much to her. At that moment, I wished I was still a Catholic so that I could genuinely sit with her and say those litanies that brought her comfort:
Lamb of God
Pray for us
Mother of mercy
Pray for us
Ark of the covenant
Pray for us
Star of the sea
Pray for us
Prayer had always held a magical significance for her. There was no problem that couldn’t be tackled by an appropriate invocation and if she couldn’t find one already written for her purpose, she would compose one. She often contributed to the Irish Post, sending a note for their column headed ‘special intentions’ where you could share a prayer’s proven effectiveness with others, or carry out your promise to publish a saint’s help:
‘A plea to Our Lady for intercession on behalf of a loved one who has money problems; say three Hail Marys and a Glory Be on four consecutive Fridays and your prayer will be answered. Thanks also to St Blaise who responded to the following and cured tonsilitis; “touch my sinner’s throat with your blessed fingers and make me well in body and in mind for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.”’
I warmed my hands over the steaming kettle, aware of the barriers separating me from my mother and Una. They were formed by age, culture and education. By raising me in a Protestant country and giving me a schooling that prompted me to question given truths, my parents had opened up a route that led me away from the values they clung to. As a child, I had uncomfortably tried to bridge a chasm between home and public life. At home I listened to rebel ballads, stories of the famine – how Queen Victoria sent five pounds to Battersea Dogs’ Home and a shilling to the starving Irish – the deeds of Wolfe Tone, Michael Collins and Dev, all enshrined in the fervour of a religious belief that had inspired a struggling nation. My mother didn’t teach me nursery rhymes; she passed on the tunes she’d grown up with. Before I went to school I knew the words of ‘Skibbereen’, ‘Brian o’ Linn’ and ‘The Foggy Dew’. I liked to sing ‘Brian o’ Linn’ while I was dressing:
Brian o’Linn had no breeches to wear
He got an old sheepskin to make him a pair
With the fleshy side out and the woolly side in,
‘They’ll be pleasant and cool,’ says Brian o’Linn.
‘The Foggy Dew’ was a good rousing chorus for bath time; I would slap the water, beating out the rhythm:
Right proudly high over Dublin town
They hung out the flag of war,
’Twas better to die ’neath an Irish sky
than at Suvla or Sud el Bar
And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men
came hurrying through,
While Britannia’s Huns, with their blazing guns
Sailed in through the Foggy Dew.
At school I tried to take my place amongst the children of Britannia’s Huns. I quickly dropped the infant brogue I’d arrived with, learned to speak in a cockney accent, sang ‘The British Grenadiers’ in music lessons, ‘God Save Our Gracious Queen’ at assembly and studied the history of the Plantagenets, Stuarts and Tudors. My life became strictly compartmentalized as I worked out a survival strategy. I hid away all my knowledge of bold Fenian men and Father Murphy from old Kilcormack who’d put the cowardly yeomen to flight. When I wrote an essay on Oliver Cromwell I did not include the received wisdom that he had a coal-black heart and was roasting in the fires of hell for the foul crimes he’d committed in Drogheda.
Despite their efforts, the Jesuits hastened my exit from the faith. Their cerebral English Catholicism couldn’t hold a candle to my mother’s rich bank of superstitions. In comparison, theirs was a delicate, watered-down variety that inspired doubt in me. I had evolved into a hybrid creature and the truth was that as an adult I was at home in neither country; in England I often felt markedly Irish and in Ireland I often felt reservedly English. I was a cultural schizophrenic. Perhaps that was why Dermot had emigrated again, to adopt a nationality that he could make truly his own.
Una came into the kitchen as I spooned tea. She had always looked a little like my mother; they were about the same height and equally plump, or rather she was as plump as my mother had once been. I found it hard to meet her eye.
‘Ah Rory, ’tis a terrible time,’ she whispered. ‘And your poor father. What will he do without her? Sure they’ve been inseparable.’
‘I suppose he’ll carry on somehow.’
‘I suppose. I’ve told her I’m having a mass said tomorrow.’
‘She’ll appreciate that, Una.’
‘She’s got you here anyway. She’s missed you terrible since they moved back. You always understood her, that’s what she told me. She said you’ve a bigger heart than Dermot.’
I stared at the brown stream of tea. Did she really think that or had it been something she said for Una’s benefit, perhaps when Una was praising her relationship with one of her sons and my mother had felt the need to keep pace? It smacked of her usual mischief to me; I didn’t want to dwell on it and I didn’t want to be having this kind of conversation with Una.
‘Oh,’ I said lightly, ‘I don’t think you can compare heart sizes. Would you like cake?’
Both of my parents seemed cheered by their visit; they needed people of their own age about, I thought. When they’d gone I went in to my mother who was quickly slipping back into sleep.
‘Biddy rang earlier, she’s coming on the plane tomorrow evening. Did you hear me, Mum?’
She patted my hand and I
turned to my father who’d filled her a fresh hot-water bottle.
‘I was just trying to tell her that Biddy will be here tomorrow night.’
‘Where will she stay? There’s not space here, unless you kip down on the sofa.’
‘I’ve told her I’ll book a room at Kelly’s b. & b.’
‘Is she all right about that?’
‘No problem, I’ve discussed it with her.’
I had decided to phone Biddy rather than write. She was still at the same house in Southend. Her accent was now completely anglicized. She’d said straight away that she’d come when I told her the news, although I’d wondered if she might change her mind when she’d had time to think it over.
‘I’m glad she’s coming,’ my father said. ‘It’s best to settle up what you can. You shouldn’t take an argument to the grave.’ His shoulders shook, but he quickly composed himself. ‘She’s exhausted now,’ he said, gently touching my mother’s forehead. ‘It all gets too much for her. She was never good with a lot of company. Do you recall, she’d get crotchety if we stood too near her?’
I nodded. ‘Give me air, give me air!’ she’d say, flapping her hands to create a space.
‘Go and have a sit down,’ I said to my father. ‘I’ll stay with her for a bit, then we’ll do dinner.’
I leafed through a copy of Ireland’s Own, remembering how I used to tease her about the parochial nature of the stories; ‘Galway dog barks twice during trip to shops,’ I’d pretend to read, or ‘Cork woman loses five pence in park; Guards alerted.’ She would sniff and remark that I was as clever as Cuttabags. I could never establish the identity of Cuttabags, he or she was a mystery to this day.
I held her hand for a few minutes; it was cool and papery. There was a new smell in the room, a sour odour that I hadn’t noticed before, like curdled milk.
She woke at nine o’clock and called out. My father went in and spoke to her. I was watching the TV news but I turned the sound lower.
‘She wants a breath of fresh air,’ he said to me, appearing in the doorway. ‘I told her it’s cold out, but she’s insisting.’
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