No Small Shame

by Christine Bell

  They followed her into her nightly dreams wearing Thady’s face and that she could not bear.

  She turned at the crunch of a chain being dragged across the deck and voices coming nearer. Two sailors tipped their caps as they passed but when she turned back around, the pair of them broke out laughing. Mary dropped her heated gaze to the ocean swirling below and poked the flyaway tufts of hair up under her bonnet. Was that how Liam was gonna react too when he saw her?

  If not for her hair, she could wish him there beside her, to calm her fears and excite her about their prospects in Australia like he had back in the village. Tell her it was all gonna work out like they planned. Except she’d not had a single letter from the brat since he got on the ship, no doubt too busy with his good job and new place in the world.

  Joe had written Julia, much to Maw’s excitement, that his brother George had one of the new Government cottages. Ever since, Maw talked as if the O’Donnells would be moving into a cottage the same, even if no such offer had been made to Da yet – him only there a matter of months. But there was no telling Maw.

  They’d read the page of the letter so many times, Mary knew each word by heart.

  … couldn’t have timed our arrival better. The Manager at the Powlett River Fields took us straight on. Wages are good. Over thirteen shillings a shift.

  You won’t find this town on any map. Wonthaggi is brand new and different as night from the Pailis. Every house and building has the electric lights and water plumbed inside.

  Tell Nellie, Seamus and I are staying with George and Rosslyn. They have one of the new cottages. We’ll be cramping them for room, but they say they can always squeeze up more for family.

  Joe’s letters never mentioned Liam at all. Was he all right?

  Mary’s heart twisted as she watched beyond the waves to a small tramp steamer heading northward and going home. Had Liam stood gazing out on this same sea? Did he miss her at all?

  ‘Mary, come quick. It’s Maw.’

  The distress in Jane’s shout from along the promenade sent Mary running.

  Her boots clattered on the ’tween deck stairs in time with the younger girl’s, Jane voicing her worry every step that her mother’s pains were coming too fast. Mary comforted the distraught lass, it quite usual for a baby number five to arrive ahead of time. Mrs Merrilees had lost only her firstborn, a boy named for his father. But then, Mrs Merrilees wasn’t so young anymore.

  Beyond the cabin door, the woman’s scream was not to be held back.

  Mary could’ve screamed herself but for Maw’s hand gripping her arm fierce. Her head shaking in warning.

  ‘Sweet Jesus, help her,’ Mary whispered, fearing the way Mrs Merrilees’ nightgown scrunched and twisted – a furious beast was fighting to burst out through the poor woman’s belly.

  Between pains Mrs Merrilees moaned, they were like none she’d felt with any of her others. She gasped when the crush came again, jamming against her ribs and squeezing the breath from her lungs.

  Mary stood back helplessly while Maw held the woman’s hand tight and wiped her brow, soothing her with soft spoken words. Worry lines stretched taut across Maw’s lips, now being sucked between her teeth.

  ‘Breathe steady. It won’t be much longer.’ Maw’s voice seemed to break through the pain and Mrs Merrilees gripped her hand frantically.

  ‘Make it stop, Nellie. It’s killing me.’

  ‘Hush now. Course, it ain’t killing you. You’ve done this before and survived just fine.’

  ‘No,’ sobbed Mrs Merrilees. ‘It’s different this time.’

  In between spasms, the poor woman lay panting, but her eyes widened as each fresh pain rose. The last ended in a scream that left her sobbing. ‘God, help me. Something tore inside of me, Nellie, I swear.’

  ‘Steady now. It’s coming. Now push – quiet-like,’ soothed Maw. She turned to Mary and gripped her arm between bloodied fingers. ‘Fetch the doctor. Hurry, girl.’

  Mary stalled, frozen at the panic swirling in her mother’s eyes. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Maw was never one for panic. Please, please, Lord, don’t take this one. She couldn’t bear to think of Joe Merrilees not getting to hold his wee babe at the end of their journey too.

  She flung open the cabin door and ran past the younger children huddled in a companionway and found the doctor, not far away, bent over a wee girl’s cot in the quarantine space. Mary stopped while he laid his fingers on the child’s forehead and closed the staring eyes while the girl’s mother sat shaking soundlessly beside him, not crying or anything.

  Mary felt the devil for interrupting but Mrs Merrilees’ need of him was more urgent than that of the tiny girl, or even her mother.

  The pair ran back along the corridor. The doctor entered first to a lusty cry. He opened his bag and doctored the baby’s cord. Immediately he finished, Maw swaddled a bluish mass of arms and legs in a blanket pulled from the bed and thrust the wee thing into Mary’s arms.

  ‘Take him. And keep the others out. I’ll come for him as soon as I can.’

  Mary could not tear her eyes away from the red soaked sheets and dark stain spreading up the nightgown tucked under Mrs Merrilees’ arms. So much blood, its coppery smell filling her nose. To her shock, a small, geyser-like gush spouted between Mrs Merrilees’ legs. The doctor moved in to stem the flow with a pillow and his hands.

  ‘Go, girl. Take him. Now.’ Maw gave her a quick shove, before turning back to the bed.

  Mary held the baby tight to her breast, too tight and he began to squawk in earnest. Beyond the cries, she would never recall later how she managed to lead Kate and Hannah and the Merrilees’ twins up to the promenade. She had no memory of how long they sat hunched in a corner, out of the wind blowing up and sweeping across the steel deck, while the rain sheeted down. Three times it crossed alongside the ship, the bands of water passing so close she could hear them hiss before they flattened down the white caps on the waves, yet not a drop crossed the bow.

  Until at last, Maw came and took the baby bellowing in Mary’s arms and handed him to a stranger waiting behind her.

  ‘Why?’ Mary asked, near dropping with fear at the blanched face of her mother.

  Maw lowered her voice so as the children couldn’t hear. ‘His wife bore a babe some days ago. She has enough milk for two.’

  ‘Why can’t Mrs Merrilees feed him?’

  Maw put her finger to her lips and made a sign of the cross. ‘Come along, children. It’s sleep we all need. Sleep brings forgetting.’

  ‘What’s sleep got to do with it?’ Mary argued, stepping through the cabin doorway she’d left so abruptly earlier.

  Maw ignored the incandescent light. Instead the children undressed in the shadows from the corridor lighting. Maw ushered the young ones into their beds while Mary made out the empty berth opposite, stripped of its mattress and sheeting. Later she cried, her nightgown sleeve bunched inside her mouth. Unable to believe that angel, Mrs Merrilees, was gone.

  All through the darkened hours, she listened to Maw, opposite, keening softly on every breath, yet never releasing a single sob.

  Mary didn’t know which upset her more.

  THE MARK

  WONTHAGGI, AUSTRALIA – LATE FEBRUARY 1914

  Where were the fabulous fields and plump livestock waiting for lads and farmers promised by the emigration agent in Motherwell offering assisted passages to sunny Australia? All Mary could see extending beyond the train windows was blade after blade of grass bleached colourless as sand in a desert. The poor animals in the endless paddocks were without a leaf of shade or drip of water. She couldn’t guess how any of them survived.

  It couldn’t be hotter outside than in the compartment of the carriage. When the gentleman who’d insisted on sitting next to her, all the way from the Flinders Street Station, departed at Nyora, buttoning his collar back onto his shirt to hide the grimy stripe on his neck, the twins and Kate and Hannah all giggled and scrunched their faces, squishing their nostrils rudely bet
ween their fingers.

  Maw said not a word, just nursed the wean lying listless and heat-drowsy in her arms, staring through the slats of the wooden carriage shutters without seeing, without hearing. Only the vague sheen of moisture on her brow hinted she was even feeling the heat. Something of a relief to Mary – Maw hadn’t shown much of anything since the night of Mrs Merrilees’ passing. The never-ending fortnight since had lagged without comfort of sleep – denied by the shattering screams of the newborn.

  Mary slumped back against the hard leather of the seat and moved to lean against the corridor window, leaving a cooling gap between herself and Maw. A pain squeezed in her chest for the loss of Mrs Merrilees and the empty seat between them. So much so, that through the blur of water in her eyes she could imagine Julia Merrilees sitting beside her. Slim hands holding her new babe. Her beautiful, wheat-coloured hair twisted into a neat bun under her bonnet.

  The same hair as her eldest son, Mary gulped, risking a sideways glance at her mother. At least when she saw Liam she could be of comfort to someone. Maw would not let her come near. Not to talk or touch. Nor any one of them.

  What could be in Maw’s mind? Surely she minded. She must.

  How could it be God’s will, as the minister said at the service aboard ship, for Mrs Merrilees to leave a brand new babe so in need of her? If it were God’s decision, why not wait until the child was grown or off the breast? It made no sense. Even less to say that Mrs Merrilees’ death was God’s intention. Was he the very devil then?

  Mary crossed herself at such a blasphemous thought, glancing up to the train roof as if Satan himself might appear and strike her down dead.

  But she was not in her right mind. How could she be?

  Mrs Merrilees was not only Maw’s dearest friend, but her own lifelong ally. Now that blessed woman was gone. The one person who didn’t think she should be penned marking time until marriage and weans.

  Oh, God, and what of Liam? The image of his grief near brought her to sobs – he and his maw always so close.

  But at least Liam had her. What of Maw? How could Maw bear it?

  Mary shut her eyes on the sting behind her lids. Maw had come all this way, pinning all her hopes on Mrs Merrilees’ company, only to lose her bosom friend forever. What if Maw wanted to go back to Scotland now?

  Or … Mary gasped at a new fear. What if Joe Merrilees wanted to gather his children and go home now that his wife was sleeping in the sea halfway between here and there? What if Maw’s superstitious fears were right and Mrs Merrilees’ soul would never rest in peace, dying so far from the land of her birth?

  Sod it, girl, why are you torturing your brain with such stupid thoughts?

  She knew very well why. To block another and the time coming when she’d have to face Da and witness the pain in his eyes when he saw no son in his wife’s arms.

  How had Da stepped into the day on hearing such news again? Da was no great believer in religion, even though he was a born and baptised Catholic. An Irish Catholic, but he’d not stepped inside a church since the day wee Seamus died. Not once in five years, not even to bless his dead children. He’d told Mary often to pray and offer him up, like her mother, since he needed all the help he could get.

  ‘Do you not feel the need to pray, Seamus?’ Maw hissed, when three years later, she followed the undertaker bearing Mary’s second, unnamed brother out the door.

  ‘No. I’d not be praying, woman. I’d be giving his Lordship a piece of me mind, only I ain’t got nowt of it to spare with him taking away me sons.’

  Mary knew her mother hurried in case Da changed his mind and crossed tongues with the priest, who’d be sure to damn him to hell. Both knew Da would be there, lashing back, insisting the priest arrive first.

  Beside Mary, baby Hugh gave a weak cry, his mouth gumming in search of a nipple he’d never find.

  ‘Oh God, what if Da thinks … ’

  At the gasps and twitters around her, she opened her eyes to Maw and the children all staring back at her like she’d gone completely mad.

  ‘Who’ll think what, girl?’ said Maw, working her neck from side to side to ease out the crinkles. But she turned back to the window slats without any real interest on an answer.

  Of course Da wouldn’t think baby Hugh was his Thady, but the shock of seeing the newborn would be hard on all of them waiting at the station. No consolation would Da have from his friend, Joe Merrilees, who was getting a wean but no wife.

  Mary picked harder at the torn skin around her fingernail, tearing at the fine slivers. ‘Forgive me, Da. I’m sorry for breaking my promise.’

  ‘Mary, what are you blethering about now?’ Maw demanded. ‘Why are you muttering to Mr Nobody?’

  Mary couldn’t answer for the sobs rippling up her throat. She could only gulp them down into a hard knot of guilt in her gut. ‘I … I … made a promise to Da.’

  Maw grimaced, shaking herself, as if she couldn’t understand a word Mary was saying.

  ‘Thady, Maw. I promised Da I’d bring him and you all safe to Australia.’

  Maw sighed then, a deep, deep sigh, and stared back at her hard. ‘Sweet Mother of God, why do you take on responsibilities not yours for the taking? Even your heathen father knows you can’t hold back the will of the Almighty. Tell me you’ve not been fretting all this time. I don’t know why you don’t think beyond the simple, girl. Are you simple?’

  Mary wiped her eyes on the cuffs of her sleeve and sniffed. No, she was not simple. Only, she did take the world for a serious place. Now reality tumbled clear in her mind that she ought not to have been worrying, but she’d still have to look Da in the eye and ask him to forgive her. It were only the news Maw had given him. She’d still broken her promise, not bringing Thady.

  The piercing cry of the train whistle heralded their arrival in Wonthaggi.

  While Mary gathered up their possessions strewn about the carriage, Maw wiped the faces of the children and plastered down Hannah’s cowlick with spit. At the same time, she tried to stop the brat from bolting out the carriage door, until she gave up and roared, ‘You’ll not meet your father looking like a raggle-taggle gypsy. Behave, you beggar, or your father’ll be strapping your backside instead of kissing you hello.’

  Maw’s yelling, after a fortnight’s respite, had more effect on Hannah than any pinching Mary could do.

  ‘I’ll take Hughie for you, Maw.’

  Her mother’s answering nod said she knew Mary understood the job she had ahead of her, the brief flit of pain crossing Maw’s eyes fast masked by a stoic resolve. An enviable armour to Mary’s mind but one she was in two minds to covet. She offered Maw a smile of reassurance, interrupted by a couple making their way along the corridor outside the compartment and Hannah bolting out the door after them.

  While the train chugged into the station, the lot of them walked along the outer passageway towards the exit. Children gathered around the nearest window, gazing out to find their fathers, waving at every hat and bunnet. Even the Merrilees twins, Jane and Samuel, seemed momentarily to have forgotten that their maw was not there with them.

  Mary envied the short years separating them and the gulf created by those years. Maybe if she and her sisters had been closer in age they might’ve been better friends. Her stomach skipped while she searched the platform for Liam. Part of her eager to see him, the other terrified of witnessing his agony in losing his maw. A pain tightened in her chest. Would it be enough to have back one of ‘his lovely lassies’?

  Then, there they were. Da hugging Maw and the younger children climbing into his arms.

  He glanced over their heads to Mary and smiled. The same loving smile she remembered so well and – even unspoken – knew no apology needed from her. Despite the sorrow marked in Da’s eyes, his pain still keen on the loss of Thady.

  Oh, God! With a jolt, she realised Maw’s eyes wore that exact same veil, only she’d not recognised it as such, it having been there so long.

  She glanced at Joe
Merrilees, huddled with his twins, and her knees near gave way with the grief of seeing the same mark engraved fresh in his eyes. Distraction came in the shape of a tall figure standing off to the side. The peak of his bunnet pulled down to shade his eyes, a fag in his hand and the swirl of smoke curling up his wrist.

  ‘Liam,’ she couldn’t stop herself from calling out, but the deaf dafty never even raised his head.

  ‘Give the wean here, Mary.’ Her mother cut through the snub.

  Mary handed over Hughie and Maw carried him across and laid him in his father’s arms.

  Maw patted Joe’s cheek, shaking her head.

  Joe nodded in reply, then turned on his heel without speaking and walked away with his children.

  Mary made to follow, but Liam glanced back, tipping his hat, and, with a determined shake of his head, trailed after his family.

  Sweet Jesus! Her breath caught in her throat. She’d known Liam would be bereft, losing his maw, but … she’d at least hoped to talk to him. Give him her sympathy.

  Selfish baggage. He needs time, is all. And space to grieve. You’re here now. He’ll see you soon enough.

  Besides, Da could tell her how things went with Liam. Or if anything else had changed since they’d parted. But now was not the time to ask – Maw clinging to Da, the name Thady crossing her father’s lips.

  Turning away, Mary almost choked when the train engine belched a thick, black pall of smoke. The pungent smell of burning coal cut the breath from the air, but, in the blue of the sky, beyond the station-house, the sun was still shining. Everything would be all right now that they’d arrived. At least in time. At least between her and Liam.

  THE WAY OF IT

  LATE FEBRUARY 1914

  Mary waited with Maw and her sisters on the broad, unmetalled street across from the Wonthaggi Railway Station, while Da paid a fellow with a cart to carry their cases and bags along to the house.