Patricia Falvey (6 page)

The light went out of Ma’s face. She stood up and smoothed out her skirt.

“We’ll be going now,” she said.

Her da sank back in his chair and grunted. “I suppose you know your own way out,” he said. As we went down the hall, we heard him mutter. “You always were an ungrateful girl.”

We drove home in silence. Darkness gathered around us long before we reached Glenlea. The strength I felt in Ma when we drove home from the bank that day had ebbed away. Now I sensed she was fragile as a blade of grass, trying desperately to hold herself straight against the wind. I was glad to see the welcoming lights of my beloved Yellow House flickering in the dark. I could not wait to hug my da.

DA ALWAYS SAID
crows were a sign of bad luck. They appeared in advance of the banshee, he said, the spirit that comes to carry the dead away. I was afraid of crows. I watched them now as they circled above our cart, swooping and squawking in the spitting rain. I moved closer to Da. All along the road that led to Newry, smoke rose from cottage chimneys and candles flickered on the windowsills. It was Halloween night, and the souls would soon be up and wandering about the land. I felt a strange kinship with them.

Lizzie had grown worse during the previous night. By morning, she lay in Ma’s arms limp as a rag doll. By noon, P.J. was sent for. Da was so distracted with grief that Ma thought we needed P.J.’s steady hand. By late afternoon, we were all bundled into P.J.’s cart. Ma sat beside P.J., with Lizzie wrapped in a blanket in her arms. Frankie and I huddled next to Da in the back of the cart, mute as nesting birds. We had all insisted on going, even though Ma shouted at us to stay home. Ma had never before shouted at us. The pain of it hurt more than if she had slapped us.

The Newry Workhouse and Fever Hospital sat high up on a hill just outside the town. I found out later that most workhouses were built high up so they could be seen from all directions by the poor creatures searching for shelter within them. An immense gray stone wall surrounded the building, like a moat around an evil castle. P.J.’s cart was bigger than ours and his horse much stouter than our Rosie, but even he strained in his reins as he climbed the last quarter mile up the hill. He slowed down almost to a crawl, as if he did not want to arrive at this awful place any sooner than we did.

P.J. steered the cart through a tall iron gate and into a courtyard in front of the main workhouse building. He jumped out and came around to help Ma and Lizzie down, the rest of us stumbling out behind them. As we stood in a row looking up at the gray limestone building with its narrow, barred windows, I imagined accusing eyes staring back at me. I moved closer to Ma. Lizzie whimpered softly. Ma swayed backward, and P.J. caught her and steadied her.

“Come on now, love,” he whispered.

A heavyset matron met us inside the door. She looked down at Lizzie and heaved a sigh that came out like a pig’s snort. She turned and called out to a tall nurse in a white, starched cap, “Another one. Take them into the waiting room.”

She walked away from us. I wanted to run after her and pound on her fat back and tell her we were the O’Neills, descendants of the great O’Neill, and we were not to be treated like that. P.J. must have sensed my anger. He put a firm hand on my shoulder and steered me down the corridor. The place smelled of vomit and disinfectant. We shuffled along the worn linoleum, our shadows casting strange shapes on the gaslit walls. The waiting room was filled with people. There was nowhere left to sit down, so we stood at the back of the room. Curious faces turned to look at us. I fought back the bile that rose in my throat at the sight of the thin, whimpering, yellow-faced children with the mark of death clearly on them. I could not imagine what was going through Ma’s mind. Her worst fears of the stories of the Fever Hospital were expressed in the sight of the ragged, desperate people staring at us with hollow eyes.

Suddenly Ma straightened herself up and marched up to the desk at the front of the room the way she had done in the bank. My spirits lifted. Surely they would recognize Ma for the important woman she was. But the pinch-faced duty nurse glared at her and pointed to the back of the room.

“You’ll wait your turn like everybody else,” she snapped.

P.J. went up and put his arm around Ma’s shoulder. He led her back to where we stood. He looked so comical, I thought, reaching up to Ma’s shoulder like a wee leprechaun. But there was no mirth in the thought. I looked into Ma’s eyes, expecting to see her crying, but what I saw was fury. Her eyes blazed as she stared at Da. Poor Da put his head down and twisted his cap in his gnarled hands. Frankie followed Ma’s gaze, her fury echoed in his own eyes. I leaned against the wall and stared down at my boots.

At last it was our turn. The tall nurse came in and looked from Lizzie to Frankie and me.

“Is it the three of them?” she said. Her voice was quiet. I sensed a bit of pity in it, and also exhaustion. Instinctively I shrank away from her.

“No,” I said, “just her,” nodding toward Lizzie.

The nurse put out her arms to take Lizzie, but Ma would not let her go.

“No,” she cried, “I will stay with her.”

The nurse sighed. “It’s not possible, missus,” she said gently. “There are so many sick children in the ward, we have it quarantined, you see. Just give her to me now, we’ll look after her.”

With P.J.’s help, the nurse wrested Lizzie from Ma’s arms. The child woke up and began wailing. It tore my heart in two to hear her.

“I’ll wait here, then,” Ma said weakly. “You’ll tell me the minute there is news?”

“It’s best if you go home and sleep, particularly in your condition,” said the nurse, looking down at Ma’s belly. Her voice was firm, but not unkind. “It will be a while before there is any news.”

“I will wait as long as it takes.”

The nurse shrugged. She turned and walked out of the room carrying Lizzie. It occurred to me later that none of us even got to touch Lizzie before the nurse took her away. We were all in such shock, none of us made a move toward her. We watched helplessly while she was carried out of the room, calling for Ma. We stood there for a long time after she had gone, until P.J. led us out.

“You can stay with us, Mary,” he whispered. “You’ll be closer than in Glenlea. And I’ll be in here every day for word.”

Da and Frankie and I said nothing as P.J. led Ma to the cart.

“We’ll drive to my house first and let her off, and then I’ll take youse home,” P.J. said to Da. “After that, I’ll send word as soon as we know anything.”

We drove home that night in silence. There were no lights to welcome us at the Yellow House. Not even old Cuchulainn came out to meet us.

I
n the days that followed, P.J. came often, but he brought no news.

“Ah, sure no news is good news,” he said over and over again.

I went to school, hoping to distract myself. Frankie refused to go. He left the house early in the mornings and did not come back until late. Then he ate his tea in silence and went to bed. I guessed he spent his days climbing Slieve Gullion. In the mornings before school, I cleaned out the henhouse and collected the eggs. In the evenings, I brought hay for the cattle in their stalls. Da hardly moved at all. He sat staring into the fire. I worked in order to exhaust myself, but sleep seldom came. I hadn’t even the heart to kneel up on my window seat and talk to Mother Gullion. She knew what was wrong, I thought. She should make Lizzie well without my asking.

Early one Friday morning, I stood in the kitchen stirring porridge for breakfast when I heard the crunch of cart wheels on the frozen ground outside. It was too early in the day for P.J.’s regular visit. It had to be Ma and Lizzie. I dropped the spoon and ran to the door, Frankie scrambling behind me. Da stood up and reached for his jacket and smoothed his hair.

“They’re home,” I shouted. “They’re home!”

Frankie and I pushed each other to get out the door first, Cuchulainn at our heels, the hens scattering from our path. And then we slid to a halt. P.J. helped Ma down from the cart. They both wore black armbands. There was no sign of Lizzie.

“Where is she?” blurted Frankie. “Where’s Lizzie?”

I heard Da come up behind us, but I did not look round. P.J. put his finger to his lips to silence us and helped Ma toward the door. We parted to let them pass.

“A drop of strong tea with a dose of brandy, Eileen love,” P.J. whispered over his shoulder.

I hardly recognized my ma. She had lost a stone of weight, and her face was white as linen. P.J. eased her into Da’s armchair beside the fire and poked at the turf to stir the flames. I hurriedly poured tea and brandy into a mug and brought it to her, but she made no move to take it.

“Here, Ma,” I whispered.

I set the mug down beside her and took her hands. They were freezing. I tried to rub some warmth into them.

“Let her be, now,” said P.J.

He rose and came over to sit at the kitchen table beside Da. I poured tea and brandy for them. Frankie stood with his back against the dresser, staring from P.J. to Ma and back again.

“They’re only after telling us the news last night,” P.J. said. His voice was a whisper. “Bastards. The child had been dead since Tuesday, so it seems. They had already buried her by the time they told us. Had to bury them quick, they said, on account of the quarantine.”

“But… ,” I began. Thoughts clashed in my head, but I could not get the words out. Why was she buried there? She belongs here at home with us. They can’t keep her there. It made no difference that my tongue was strangled—they all knew what I wanted to say.

“Aye, a pauper’s grave,” spat P.J. He leaned back and lit his pipe, puffing furiously on it until he was ringed in a cloud of smoke. “Buried down there without as much as a by-your-leave from her family. Sure the poor have no rights at all, none at all.” He looked at Da, whose eyes were swimming with tears. “No matter, Tom, we’ll find her and bring her home, I swear we will.”

Da only nodded.

A chill settled on the house, and I shivered. My teeth chattered and my hands shook. Cuchulainn put his head on Great-Grandda Hugh’s empty chair and whimpered. I swore I heard Lizzie’s laughter somewhere outside. I jumped and ran to the window, but all I saw was the frozen fields and leafless trees and Slieve Gullion barren and stark. A noise behind me startled me. Ma had risen from her chair and come over to the table. I swung around. She looked like a madwoman. Her hair floated around her white face like a banshee. Her eyes were red and smoldering. She pointed a bony finger in Da’s face and screamed.

It was hard to make sense of the words. I heard “pauper’s grave” and “money,” and I knew she was blaming Da for Lizzie’s death. Da stood up and tried to take her into his arms, but she shoved him away and ran up the stairs. There was silence.

“Give her time,” whispered P.J. “Give her time.”

MY BROTHER PADDY
was born on Christmas Day 1908, a few weeks after Lizzie’s death. I thought it would bring the change in Ma we had been waiting for. A baby in her arms was all she would need, or so I thought. But Ma looked down at the baby as if he were a stranger. She would not even touch him. I had to warm milk for him and feed him from a bottle. P.J. brought his wife up to see if she could help. Mrs. Mullen said that women often go a bit mad after they give birth, but they get over it in time. We just had to talk to her, Mrs. Mullen said, and let her know everything was all right. But all the talking in the world seemed to make little impression on Ma. She had gone away from us, a faraway look in her eyes as if she were seeing another world entirely. Her thin fingers ground at her rosary beads, and she muttered words I could not understand. I wanted to shove the baby at her and make her take him. I wanted to shake her and scream at her to come back to us, but it would have done no good, either. She could not even be coaxed downstairs. Da went up and sat beside her and sang to her in the evenings, but she would turn her head away from him. Privately, I cursed her for hurting him that way. Then I prayed for forgiveness.