Patricia Falvey

by The Yellow House (v5)

  “Mammy! Mammy!” she cried, her small arms thrust out toward me.

  I ran outside after them, Billy behind me, carrying the tin whistle, which he pressed into Aoife’s hands. Then he ran back inside. The noise roused the neighbors, and a group of them stood in a huddle out in the street, watching us. I didn’t care what they thought. I screamed and pulled at James’s clothes to get him to release his hold on my child.

  “No!” I pleaded. “No!”

  Fergus came over and pulled me away from James. “Let it go, Eileen,” he said, “it’s best.”

  I swung around. “How can you say that, Fergus? For God’s sake, she’s your godchild. How can you let him take her?”

  Fergus had me in his grip, my hands pinned behind my back. “Let me go,” I screeched, “for God’s sake, Fergus! Why don’t you stop him?”

  Fergus shook his head. He had the look of a defeated man, a man who had given up entirely on life. “It’s best, Eileen,” he whispered. “If you don’t let him take her, he’ll do worse. He’s lost his head entirely.”

  “Start the car,” shouted James, and one of his men jumped in and started the engine. The other waited outside, his rifle in his hand. Fergus maintained his grip on me.

  What happened then took place in slow motion. One of James’s men raised his rifle and took aim at something behind me. I turned around. Billy Craig stood there with my rifle aimed at James.

  “Give Eileen back the child!” Billy shouted. His face was red with emotion, and his hands trembled.

  “No, Billy, it’s all right,” I heard myself cry. I had already seen what was going to happen.

  “Feckin’ Prod bastard,” said the second soldier as he fired at Billy.

  I broke free of Fergus and spun in circles, screaming like a madwoman as I watched the car speed away, my wee Aoife’s face pressed to the window, and watched Billy collapse on the ground, bleeding from his chest. As I spun, the images melted into one another. Hands took hold of my shoulders, but I shook them off. I spun until I was exhausted and dropped down beside Billy.

  “Ah, Billy,” I cried. “Ah, Billy.”

  I remembered another time years before when I knelt over my dying father as Billy tried to pull me away. “Poor Billy… Poor Da.”

  Later, when the ambulance had taken Billy’s body to hospital and the neighbors had melted into the darkness, I stood alone in my kitchen. I reached up and took the photograph of the Yellow House down from the wall and removed it from its frame. It was dog-eared and scratched from the number of times I had clutched it in my hands. As I looked at it, tracing each beloved face with my finger, tears of self-pity began to fall.

  Your heart holds on to dreams long after your head tells you they’re foolish. I’d known for years that I should have outgrown my dream of reuniting us all at the Yellow House. I studied the photograph again, taking in every small detail. Then I leaned over and slipped it into the fire. Flames flared brightly, warming my hands and face, and then it fell in a shower of cinders into the ashes.

  Choices

  1922

  24

  In the days after losing Aoife, and poor Billy’s death, I was unable to sleep. I sat beside the empty fireplace not moving, not eating, not talking, even though Terrence and P.J. and Mrs. Mullen took turns sitting with me. They sat in silence as well. After they assured me that Aoife was being well cared for at Theresa’s house, what else was there for them to say? Poor Billy was gone, God rest his soul. My wee warrior was gone, too. It never even occurred to me to go and plead with Theresa to give her back. In my grief and guilt, I believed I had deserved what I got. I had dealt James the worst betrayal of all. He had been justified in taking the child; anyone would have said so. As I told myself all these things, I clawed at my soul in sorrow and despair and self-loathing. I deserved it all. I was an exile, wandering in darkness in my own country, with only my bastard child to keep me company.

  Owen was still in England. Apparently, his father had taken another bad turn. He wrote me every day, lovely letters full of passion and hope and talk of the baby. But I craved more than letters. I wanted him with me to help me face the world.

  At last I went to bed and sank into a long, deep sleep. The child came to me in a dream. She had red hair and Owen’s eyes. She reached out her hand to me and smiled. “It will be all right,” she whispered. “I will take you home.” When I awoke, my pillow was drenched with tears. I felt for the child in my belly. Thank God, she was still there. And in that moment, I knew I wanted this child more than I had ever wanted anything in this world. This child had come to save my life.

  And so I found the strength to get out of bed, get dressed, and walk to the mill. I knew the reception that waited for me, but I did not fear it. I had found a new courage. It was no longer the warrior courage of Eileen O’Neill, preserving her da’s legacy, fighting the injustice that had killed him. Nor was this a courage that was conferred upon me by the urgings of others or fired from rage against the acts of others. No, this courage had come from a place deep down inside me: It was mine alone, more powerful than any force I had ever felt.

  It was like walking through a gauntlet. The mill workers stood on each side of the aisle, arms folded, watching me as I made my way toward my spinning frame. I carried myself as stiff as I could, my head high, looking straight ahead. Shields waited for me, Mary Galway behind him, her thin lips pursed in prim disapproval.

  “I never thought you’d have the nerve to show your face,” Shields said. His tone was gruff, but I thought I heard a hint of admiration in it. I ignored him and began setting up my tools.

  “It will not go easy for you,” he said. “Even the doffers are refusing to service your frame. I had to threaten them with the sack.”

  I nodded. “They’ll have no choice, then.”

  “No. But you’d better watch yourself.”

  He walked away, and I began to thread the bobbin. I felt their eyes piercing my back. I heard their tongues clucking against the roofs of their mouths.

  “Will you look at the cut of her marching down the aisle as nice as you like?”

  “And do you see the belly on her?”

  “Adulterer!”

  “Aye, and the mother mad as a hare, and the brother a turncoat.”

  “She’s no shame at all.”

  “Aye. She was always the brazen one.”

  I kept my back to the women for the rest of that first morning, but when the lunch horn blew, I was forced to stop and turn around. I caught Theresa’s eye. She stared back at me. I could get no hint of her mood; there was neither anger nor sympathy in her face. She turned and walked away before I could even ask her about Aoife. I noticed Theresa’s bad foot for the first time in ages. She seemed to be dragging it more than usual. An ache shot through my heart at the thought of my daughter. Would it always be like this, I wondered, like the ache that lingers long after a limb has been amputated?

  I made it through the first day. When the final horn blew, I put on my boots and coat and walked out the gate. I was tired as a ditch digger. I wondered how long I would be able to keep it up. But I was not about to give in. I had to keep going for the child’s sake. I would not let the bitches drive me out. I would not give them the satisfaction.

  THE TWELFTH OF July came—the beginning of the marching season, when the Orangemen celebrated the victory of the Protestant king William, Prince of Orange, over the Catholic king James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. It was always a great night at the Ceili House. Each year, as the evening grew late, we would play our loudest to drown out the Orangemen’s big lambeg drums that began to sound at midnight on that day. The lambeg drums are so big they often dwarf the drummers. Weighing up to forty pounds and carried by a neck harness, they are said to be the loudest acoustic instruments in the world. I can well believe it because the echo of the drums from the town of Scarva could be heard far and wide for the next twenty-four hours.

  The Ulster Minstrels would be down at the Ceili House, setti
ng up for the evening. I had given up playing months ago, and I heard they had found another fiddle player to replace me. I was so distracted that it hardly bothered me at all. But today—today was special. Ever since I had begun playing with the band, I had always played my fiddle on this night. And it was always brilliant. When I was performing, I went into another world. I soared with the music, hovering somewhere up there with the angels. Even after I came to Queensbrook, music had been my escape from the hardships that plagued me. I realized now that these last few months, without the music, had been like a long drought. I hadn’t taken up the fiddle since last Christmas Day, and even then it was in order to let out my tears. Now I missed the joy of it.

  It was already dark when I put my fiddle in its case and boarded the tram for Newry and the Ceili House. I did not know why I had all of a sudden taken the notion to go, but something inside was driving me. Maybe it was the child, I thought. She had a mind of her own, this one, just like her sister. I could imagine the cut of me: a great ugly lump puffing away with the effort of climbing on the tram with a fiddle case under her arm. But I ignored the stares of the other riders.

  As I walked down the street from the tram station toward the pub, the sound of the music drifted out and my heart jumped in my chest. They were playing a reel. I started humming, imagining the people up dancing, banging their feet in time to the music. I was filled with the old joy again just at the sound of it.

  I put my hand on the door handle to pull it open, and then I hesitated. Would the band want me back? What would be the reaction of the crowd when they saw me, bold as brass and nine months along? I would have lost my nerve entirely if the door had not opened and P.J. come out to light up his pipe.

  “Is it a ghost I see now?” he roared. His voice was ten times the size of him. “Or is that Eileen O’Neill, along with her fiddle?”

  I smiled. “Ah, it’s no ghost, P.J. It’s myself, big and ugly as ever.” Without thinking, I touched my swelled belly.

  “Ah now, there was never a handsomer woman in all of Armagh,” he said.

  I laughed. “And there was never a man with worse eyesight than yourself, P.J.”

  The repetition of our old greeting gave me comfort, and I relaxed.

  “Do you think I could come in and watch from the back?” I said.

  “No!” shouted P.J.

  I was startled. “No?”

  “No! You’ll only come in if you’re going to put that thing in your hand to use.”

  “But you have a fiddle player already.”

  “Aye, and there’s always room for one more, and particularly for Eileen O’Neill.” He approached me and took my hand. “Eileen, darlin’, d’you not know how much you’ve been missed? The crowd will be delighted to see you.”

  He turned his face up to mine. I saw the tender look beneath the light of the lamp. Then he winked at me. “I told them what drove you away was that you were mad in love with me and I had to reject you on account of having a missus already at home. I told them you were above in Queensbrook nursing a broken heart.”

  “And they believed you, I suppose.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And why wouldn’t they? Amn’t I the handsomest fellow, and haven’t I broken a hundred hearts before yours?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised.” I laughed as I took his arm and he led me inside.

  It was just as P.J. had predicted. Terrence and Fergus jumped up when they saw me and hugged me. The new fiddle player, a lad named Seamus from above in Camlough, almost got down and licked my boots. It was such an honor to meet me, he said, his face as earnest as an altar boy’s. I felt as if I had come home.

  I started playing a reel called “The Siege of Ennis.” A crowd got up in the middle of the floor and formed their lines. I was aware of the sour looks I was getting. I recognized some of the women from the mill. Well, I was already the talk of the town. At least I was doing what I loved. So bad cess to them all!

  People shuffled into the pub—men mostly, but also a few couples out for an evening pint. Old, toothless Granny Larkin perched on her usual stool, smoking her tobacco pipe, but women seldom came in alone. A few younger fellows came in and nodded toward me. I knew them from the times I had drilled with James. Most of them had given up the fight, but there was still a bond among them and, I supposed, between them and myself.

  Traditional music has a strong effect on people, particularly during troubled times on an Orange night in a small pub in the south of Ulster. When it is played loud and lively, it fills the loyal Irish heart with pride. Whatever resentful thoughts the people had when they first saw me walk on the stage disappeared under the power of the music. They clapped and yelled out my name as they called for tune after tune. When we finished it off with “The Soldier’s Song,” there wasn’t a dry eye. Last rounds were called for and drunk, and people drifted out into the night air.

  We laid down our instruments, and I got up and went outside for a breath of air. The heavy smell of the Guinness and tobacco was turning my stomach.

  “I’m sorry, Eileen.” A voice from behind made me start. I swung around. It was Fergus. “I thought it would be the worse for all of us if you stopped James from taking the child.”

  “How could it be worse?” I snapped. “He took all I had.”

  “I was afraid he might kill you,” Fergus said softly.

  He lit a cigarette and took a long draw on it. He puffed out a stream of smoke slowly and deliberately as he gazed up and down the street. I studied him. He looked sick, thinner than ever, with dark rings under his eyes.

  “Theresa is taking great care of her,” he said.

  “So I hear. That’s a great consolation!” My voice was bitter. “I have to go.”

  Fergus put his hand on my arm. “Wait!”

  There was something in his voice that alarmed me.

  “I need to talk to you, Eileen.” He looked around quickly to make sure no one was listening. “I’ve information that’s eating me alive. I have to tell somebody.”

  A sudden panic rose in me. Whatever Fergus had to tell me, I knew I did not want to hear. I laughed a bit too loud.

  “If you’re about to tell me you’re after murdering your mother, Fergus, I’m not sure I can keep your secret—even though Mrs. Conlon was always a bloody oul’ bitch. You’d be better off going to a priest.”

  “Jesus, Eileen. For God’s sake, this is serious.” Fergus sounded desperate.

  “Are you going to stay out there all night, Miss O’Neill, when all decent people should be home in their beds?” P.J.’s voice bellowed through the air.

  Fergus jumped like a rabbit. I looked back toward the Ceili House door.

  “Aye, P.J.,” I said, “I’m coming now.”

  Taking my cue, Fergus stamped out his cigarette and called out to P.J., “I have to be getting home myself. My oul’ biddy mother will raise ructions if she has the tea ready and I keep her waiting. Good night now!” He picked up his mandolin case. “I’ll come to the house,” he whispered, and then he was gone.

  That night, I lay awake as the beat of the drums from Scarva echoed in my ears. They beat a tattoo of trouble to come. Whatever it was Fergus had to tell me, I did not want to know. It would mean trouble. And I had trouble enough.

  25

  Later that week, I heard that Owen had returned from England. I couldn’t wait to see him. I knew he would be over to the house as soon as he could get away, so when I heard his familiar knock on the front door I flew into the parlor, opened the door, and threw my arms around him. Then I froze. It was almost midnight. He wore his uniform, and his face was blackened with dirt. His hands were bloody, and he had a wild look in his eyes. I almost thought he was James by the cut of him.

  “What in the name of God happened?” I said as I pulled him into the house. “Look at the state of you.”

  “A bit of a skirmish,” he said. “Nothing serious.”

  I didn’t believe him. I boiled water and tore up some clean rags. I knelt in
front of him and bathed his hands. He watched me. I thought I saw tears in his eyes, but I couldn’t be sure if they were just aggravated from the dirt. He seemed jumpy, too, looking over his shoulder.

  “Did you lock the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put out the lights, Eileen.” It was a command. I dimmed the gas lamps and went back to bandaging his hands by the light of the fire.

  “Something happened, didn’t it,” I said.

  He put his bandaged hands around the mug of tea I had set in front of him. “Yes.”

  I waited. He would take his own time telling me.

  “Our unit ambushed some of James’s men tonight. We had information they were planning an attack on a train at the Newry Viaduct. We were waiting for them when they arrived. We killed several of them. Others got away. Two of my men were shot and killed.”

  I sucked in my breath. “Was James there?” I had to know.

  “Yes. James was there.” Owen’s voice was flat.

  Something strange had come over him. Where was the man who had danced me around the kitchen, smiling and happy? A shiver of fear ran through me.

  “Did you kill him?”

  I sank to the floor and looked up at Owen. His face was buried in the shadows of the firelight, and I could not read it.

  “Is he dead?” I whispered again.

  Owen let out a long sigh. “He should be,” he said at last. “I had him in my sights, but I let him go.” He looked straight at me. “You see, it occurred to me in that moment that maybe you still loved the man, in spite of everything he has done to you. And if I killed him… well, you might never forgive me. Would you have?”

  I stood up. “What kind of a question is that?” I shouted.

  “A fair one, I would say.”

  “Well, it’s not fair. I love you. I will always love you. You know that.”

  “Do you still care for James?” Owen’s eyes blazed in the firelight. “Answer me, Eileen, would you have forgiven me if I had killed him?”