by Anne Bennett
Joe sighed. ‘So I suppose Nuala will be another one whose name we are not allowed to mention?’
Tom nodded. ‘Aye, Mammy said that this evening before I left the house.’
‘Like Aggie, who people say ran away with the gypsies,’ Joe said. ‘Rum do, that, altogether. I mean, running away with bloody gypsies.’
Tom looked at his brother and said quietly, ‘Aggie ran away with no gypsies. What happened to Aggie was unbelievably tragic.’
‘And what do you know about it?’
‘Everything before she left here, and after that nothing at all, but I know where she was making for and it wasn’t the gypsy encampment. This isn’t up for general release, Joe. I don’t know why I am telling you all this now, except that with Nuala estranged from the family I think you need to know what happened to Aggie. After all, there are only the two of us left.’
‘I won’t tell a soul, Tom,’ Joe said. ‘You have my word.’
And so Joe listened to the fantastic tale of the dreadful things that had happened to his sister when she had been just fifteen years old.
‘And you have no idea what happened to her since?’
‘No,’ Tom said. ‘How could I know? I was even more worried about her when Philomena – you may not remember her, but she was McAllister’s wife – when she tried to contact his sister in Birmingham after he died, and the letter was returned. They said she was not known at that address. I am pretty certain that that was where McAllister was sending Aggie, but if the woman wasn’t there, what happened to Aggie? What did she do? What could she do?’
‘God, yes, because she knew no one else,’ Joe said. ‘Jesus, it’s dreadful though, isn’t it?’
‘Terrible,’ Tom said. ‘I have often thought it myself. For years I have worried about her.’
Joe sighed, then burst out angrily, ‘God, it is a good job that McAllister is dead, for if he wasn’t then I would strangle him with my bare hands.’
The truth about what really happened to McAllister trembled on Tom’s lips but he decided to keep silent. Joe was already coping with the estrangement of their younger sister from the family for marrying a Protestant and reeling from the revelations about Aggie. Tom didn’t think he also needed to hear that his brother was a murderer.
That was his burden to carry to the grave.
The harvest was a good one that year. It was all gathered in before the weather broke and the autumn chill beginning to steal into the days when Joe spoke to his brother as they milked the cows one evening, which was virtually the only chance they had to say anything even remotely private.
‘Tom, I know this puts you in a bit of a fix, but I want to leave here and try my hand in America.’
Tom gaped at him. ‘America? But why?’
Joe shrugged. ‘Many reasons. I mean, with first Finn, then Daddy gone, and Nuala disappeared from our lives, the place is not the same at all.’
‘I know.’
‘Then there’s Mammy and the way she goes on,’ Joe said. ‘Tom, you are a bloody saint to put up with her, especially when she talks like you are a piece of scum. I could never cope with her the same as you do.’
‘That’s because I am a coward, as you have pointed out before,’ Tom said. ‘If I let her go her own way and say what she likes and not oppose her, my life is easier.’
‘You might need to oppose her one day,’ Joe said, ‘stand up for yourself.’
‘If I opposed Mammy at every turn where would it leave me?’ Tom said. ‘In the long run, my life would be worse. I am a boring man, Joe, and I realised that a long time ago. I am, essentially, a man of peace.’
‘You’ll never have peace with Mammy.’
‘I’ll have my kind of peace. If I do what Mammy wants, when she wants, then she leaves me alone.’
Joe shook his head. ‘I couldn’t stand it.’
‘I know,’ Tom said. ‘You argue with her at every turn and yet she has more feeling for you than she has me. I see it in her eyes.’
Joe felt immensely sorry for his brother. He knew he spoke the truth and to leave him to cope with everything was dealing him a hammer blow, but he couldn’t stay. He felt in that small place in that small country the life was being squeezed out of him, and he would lie in bed some nights, unable to sleep because of the restlessness inside him.
‘Tom, you are the best in the world,’ Joe said. ‘And the finest brother a man can have, but all this will be yours one day. If you should take a wife—’
Tom shook his head. ‘I will never marry, Joe.’
‘Have you put that idea out of your head because of Mammy?’
‘Not entirely.’
Joe looked at his brother sceptically and said, ‘I’m not sure I believe you, but no matter. I will probably take a wife one day. If I stay here, what future could I offer anyone and maybe provide for offspring?’
‘I’d never have you leave here empty-handed,’ Tom said.
‘Tom, I know you mean well and you would like to treat me decently, but you are master in name only. Mammy controls the purse as she controls every other damned thing on the farm.’
‘Aye,’ said Tom, ‘but she doesn’t know it all.’
‘God, she’s slipping,’ Joe said with a grin. ‘Go on, what doesn’t she know?’
‘She doesn’t know about the top field with the sheep in that Andy Murray has been after this long while. You know he holds the field adjoining it already?’ Joe nodded and Tom went on, ‘Andy was at Daddy about that field before he died, but Daddy always refused him, but I was thinking of letting it go. I would have to anyway when you leave, for I would have my work cut out with the cows and the ploughing and the planting and all. So what do you say that I let him have the field and then you will have your money for America?’
Joe felt the worry slide from between his shoulder blades. It was all right to have grand notions about starting in that brave new world the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but it would be hard to do it without a penny piece in one’s pocket. He had thought he would have to take employment in the town somewhere for a few months through the winter and save his wages, but here was Tom, offering him the solution on a plate. Joe slapped his brother on the shoulder. ‘Christ Almighty, Tom, but you are a brother in a million,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion.
Tom smiled. ‘I take it you approve of that notion,’ he said sardonically. ‘I will set the wheels in motion immediately. Now, not a word to Mammy till the deed is done and the money is in the bank.’
‘I am not an idiot altogether,’ Joe said.
‘No?’ Tom asked sarcastically, and Joe laughed and punched him on the arm.
While negotiations for the field and livestock were going on, Joe helped Tom get the farm ready for the winter. They made numerous trips to the bog, cut the peat, cleaned out the well and coated it with lime, and replaced any thatch that looked as if it needed replacing. Tom, though grateful for his brother’s help, was morosely aware that it was the last time they would do such things together. He knew he would miss his brother a great deal and he dreaded telling his mother.
Biddy’s rage when Joe broke the news to her reached mammoth heights. She shrieked and screamed, while abuse spewed from her mouth. Tom had the urge to rush to the barn and put his hands over his ears as he had sometimes done as a boy. He marvelled that Joe should face her so unafraid. Biddy forbade Joe to go to America or any other such place, and he even managed a wry smile as he said, ‘You can’t forbid me anything. I am a grown man and you have no jurisdiction over me.’
‘You are my son.’
‘Aye, just that,’ Joe said. ‘Not joined at the hip.’
‘Your place is here.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, where is the money to come from?’ Biddy demanded. ‘For I’ll tell you here and now, you will never get a penny piece from me.’
‘Isn’t that Tom’s decision to make?’ Joe asked. ‘Isn’t he the master here now that Daddy has gone?’
And he would, Joe thought. That was the bugger of it. He didn’t even bother protesting at what Biddy had said, probably because he was well used to it. ‘The time I ask you for money will be the time that you can have a say in how I spend it,’ Joe said. ‘And let me tell you that day will be a long time coming, though I could take a goodly portion from the profit of this farm for the years I have grafted unwaged.’
‘You could not.’
‘Yes I could,’ Joe said, ‘and any court in the land would uphold that claim. There was a piece in the paper only recently about that selfsame issue, but I want nothing from you. I have money of my own.’
‘But where did you get it?’
‘That, Mammy dear, is my business.’
His remark enraged Biddy so much that she lifted the poker. Joe spun around in front of her, so angry that his nostrils were dilating and his eyes wild. He spoke through gritted teeth: ‘If you so much as touch me with that it will be the last thing you ever do, so now I am telling you.’
Biddy was startled enough at the look in Joe’s eyes to replace the poker. She turned to Tom, the one she could always intimidate, and said, ‘Where did he get the money?’
Aware that she would have to know anyway, though his knees were knocking together, Tom said, ‘I sold the top field and the sheep in it to Andy Murray.’
‘You did what?’ The shrieking voice nearly lifted the thatch from the roof. Joe, seeing his brother quailing before this fresh onslaught, said mildly, ‘I don’t think you really need to ask that question. I think you heard what Tom said perfectly clearly.’
Biddy ignored Joe and said to Tom, ‘You sold one of our fields without a word to me?’
Tom gathered all his courage. ‘Aye, Mammy, aye, I did. You didn’t need to be consulted. It was my decision and I took it.’
‘You are too stupid to make these sorts of decisions for yourself,’ Biddy said disparagingly. ‘The man would have you fleeced. How much did he offer you for it?’
‘Luckily Andy Murray didn’t think me too stupid to deal with,’ Tom said, ‘and he offered me the same price he offered Daddy before he died.’
‘But your father didn’t sell, numbskull.’
‘Yes, but not because he thought Andy was offering too low a price. He told me that the man had been very fair, but then with three of us we could cope with the sheep. With two it is difficult, and by myself it would be impossible.’
‘So how much did you get for it?’
‘That really is our business,’ Tom said. ‘I gave Joe the money and, as he said, it was only what he was due if everyone has their own.’
‘I make that decision,’ Biddy snapped.
Tom contradicted quietly, ‘No, Mammy, I do.’
Biddy saw her sons ranged against her, Tom taking courage from his brother’s presence. She would let Joe go his own way, as he would in any case. He hadn’t the same feel for the land as Tom – Thomas John had always said so. As long as she had Tom she would be all right. He would never leave her, she knew, the man hadn’t that much gumption. And she would soon bring him back in line when he hadn’t his brother at his back.
With the veil of secrecy lifted, the word quickly flew around that small community that Joe Sullivan was leaving for America and nothing would do the townspeople but they hold a party for him to wish him well. No one suggested having it at the house and Tom was glad, knowing his mother would never have allowed such a thing anyway. In the end, Grant’s Bar offered their back room for the venue and donated a couple of barrels of beer to help the party go with a swing.
Because of Joe’s habit of going around the town talking to people when he went into Buncrana on a Saturday, he was well known and well liked, and they wanted to give him a party he would remember. Tom took them both in on the cart, for he had the impression that his brother would be in a less than sober state when the party drew to a close.
He was right, and the more Joe drank, the more nostalgic he became about these people that he might never see again. He would be back, he promised, when he had made his fortune. He would be home with his pockets filled with gold pieces. Tom was embarrassed but Joe’s friends just laughed at him and said it was the beer talking.
Later, some of these people helped load the comatose Joe into the back of the cart and the consensus seemed to be that he was a grand fellow and would be sorely missed. Tom had to unload the grand fellow at the other end, and suffer a tirade from his mother as he virtually carried him to the room Nuala once had. Then he laid him on the bed, semi-undressed him, left him to sleep it off and went out to deal with the horse and cart. When he sought his bed that night he was bone weary and aware that in a few hours’ time he would have to be up again to do the milking.
The next morning, Tom didn’t even try to wake his brother as he sneaked across the bedroom. He did the milking alone and told himself to get used to it: that was how it was going to be from then on, for Joe was leaving the following day. When he returned to the cottage, it was to see Joe outside the door tipping a pail of water over his bent head. He looked at Tom shamefaced.
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Jesus, have I got one thick head,’ Joe said. ‘It was a good night, what I remember of it. I didn’t disgrace myself or anything, sure I didn’t?’
‘Not really,’ Tom said. ‘I suppose you could have been worse. You talked a lot of blethering nonsense about coming back when you make your fortune in America with your pockets full of gold.’
‘Did I upset anyone?’
‘Not really,’ Tom said. ‘God! Half of them were nearly in the same state as yourself and will barely remember much of the night themselves, if any thing at all. They all still think you a grand man altogether and they will be not the only ones that will miss you when you go off tomorrow.’
‘Tom…’
‘The time for talking is past,’ Tom said. ‘Let’s go in. I am that hungry I could eat a horse.’
Early the next morning, the cart clattered up the main street of Moville, which was on the other side of the Inishowen Peninsula, on the banks of Lough Foyle. The liners to America were anchored in the deep waters of the Lough and the passengers first got into tenders from the pier in Moville and were rowed out to board the ships.
Tom drew the cart to a halt at the Square, tethered the horse to one of the posts and lifted Joe’s bag out of the back of the cart. With Joe carrying the case, the two brothers started down the Main Street towards the pier with their boots ringing on the cobbles. There was the usual cluster of people at the pier, some like Joe, chancing their arm in America, and others like Tom, waiting to see them off.
Joe had butterflies in his stomach and wasn’t at all sure that he was doing the right thing. What worried him most was Tom.
‘You must try and stand up to Mammy,’ he said earnestly.
‘Haven’t we travelled this road more than enough?’
‘Aye,’ Joe said. ‘But you did all right when we told her I was leaving and she went on about the field and all.’
‘Aye, but that is not my normal way of going on.’
‘I know,’ Joe said meaningfully. ‘I have seen your normal way of going on. The woman treats you like a rubbing rag.’
‘I’m all right,’ Tom said. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
‘I can’t help it. It’s a habit that I have got into,’ Joe said as the tender drew alongside the pier and the little crowd surged forward. ‘And don’t give up on having a woman in your life. You have a lot to offer.’
Tom laughed. ‘The point is, a woman might gladden my heart and warm my bed but she’ll have to have miraculous qualities too: the ability to sweeten my mother.’
‘Oh Lord, I don’t think they make any women like that.’
‘Then I will stay as I am,’ said Tom. ‘And now will you get into that tender before it go
es without you?’
The brothers embraced and then Joe stepped forward. The tender pulled away from the shore and Joe turned to wave. Tom felt suddenly bereft and very lonely. He knew that now it would be him and his mother in that small cottage together till at least the end of his mother’s life, and he looked forward to the future with no enthusiasm whatsoever.
TWENTY-TWO
By the late summer of 1925, the euphoria that the Great War was over was long gone, Birmingham was in dire financial straits and many of the residents of that beleaguered city were only too aware of it. Aggie and Lily had been with HP Sauce for nearly seven years by then, and they knew how lucky they were to be in regular employment when so many others weren’t. Each evening, they would leave the factory on Tower Road and have to walk down past the tall, green, four-faced clock tower at Aston Cross, standing on its own little green island, to reach their lodgings.
As often as not, the island was filled with men, their grey pinched faces barely visible beneath the caps pulled well down.
‘That’s to hide the desperation in their eyes,’ one girl at work said.
Aggie could well believe it, and yet these were just some of the city’s many, many unemployed. They were all dressed in a similar way: grey caps, thin, raggy and totally inadequate clothing, and well-cobbled boots. Some wore army-issue greatcoats to show they had done their bit.
‘Bloody disgrace,’ Lily said one evening as they passed many of these despondent men. ‘Land fit for heroes, my eye. Land for unemployment and despair, more like.’
She had a point. Even the families of those who had paid the ultimate price had been betrayed, and it pained Aggie to see the barefoot starving children. A sizeable group of them clustered around the factory gates at night, begging for anything the workers might have left from their lunches. Aggie and Lily weren’t the only workers to have the odd sandwich left to give to the starving children.
‘The government should be ashamed,’ another said fiercely.
‘The government! When has the government ever been interested in the likes of us?’