Rory & Ita

  ‘He had a desk; it was one of these old-style, glass-fronted bookcases, with a desk underneath it. The front of the desk lifted out, and you could write on it. It had lots of little cubby-holes and, underneath, there were three drawers. After his death, I opened the desk and found this small black leather folder. Really, it was paper made to look like leather. And there were letters in it. They were from a John J. Beekman, in Hempstead, New York. And I remembered: there were little poetry books in the house when I was a child, with the name John J. Beekman on the covers. I read two of the letters, and I realised that the wife of this John was my mother’s sister, and that her name was Mary. But I’d only barely started when my stepmother came in and told me that I’d no right to be reading them, because everything now belonged to Joe, and to put them away. Which I did. There was no use arguing. I just put them back and left them there. I knew they were there and I never forgot them.

  ‘Pearl was in a very disturbed state after my father died. She’d go in and sit in the front room and just stare out the window for hours. She wasn’t eating properly, and she got very, very ill. She spent some time in Linden Convalescent Home; she was there a few weeks. She really was very upset, and I was very sorry for her at that stage. We went to see her regularly. She’d gone fairly deaf and, as a result, she shouted everything. She’d point people out, put her hand beside her mouth, as if to muffle her voice, and remark on other ladies in the day-room: “Look at her! She’s very nice but she drinks!” or “See her? She’s nice but she’s a Protestant!” We used to be mortified but, when we came out, we roared laughing. But she got alright after that, and she went back home again. And thanks be to God for television; she sat at it practically all day, and every night. She never turned it off. I’d swear if the Pope had come in, he’d have had to watch her favourite cowboy films. She had an elderly friend who lived near her, on Templeogue Road. This lady would cross the road nearly every night, to watch television with Pearl. She didn’t have one of her own; she couldn’t very well have had one, because she was drawing the blind pension. They spoke very formally to each other; she always addressed Pearl as “Mrs Bolger”. They’d talk right through the film: “Is this a goodie, Mrs Bolger?” “No, they’re all baddies.” “Look at him, Mrs Bolger; he has awful eyes.” “He’s the goodie.” And there was another one: “Who are they, Mrs Bolger? Are they the goodies or the baddies?” “No, they’re the cattle.” She had another neighbour, a widow, who dropped into her regularly. And this one time, she dropped in to show Pearl this new pair of shoes she’d just bought. When she went home, her lodger offered to make her a cup of tea. And when the lodger came back with the tea, Pearl’s neighbour was dead in the armchair. The neighbours discussed how to break the news to Pearl, so as not to upset her too much. The next time I visited, Pearl told me about the neighbour’s death, and she said: “They were worried about how to break the news to me. But why would it upset me? It wasn’t me who died. She’d only bought new shoes. There’s waste.”’

  ‘Jimmy Peoples, my sister Máire’s husband, always said he was going to have a heart attack. He used to have his heart tested. His father had died suddenly; I think he was fifty-six. And Jimmy was the same age. He was actually going to Mass – it was during Lent – and he just dropped dead. And the next thing, a Garda arrived at the door to tell Máire that he was dead. That was an awful shock for her. She phoned here, and I phoned Rory, in the office,* and he went over to her.

  ‘She hadn’t worked since she was married and, at that time, civil servants’ widows had no pension. She was fortunate in that she had been a civil servant, and she was allowed back in. She got a lump sum when Jimmy died, but she went back to work and, mentally, it was great for her. Their son, Jimmy Junior, was to be married a month afterwards, and Máire insisted that it go ahead. But going back into the Civil Service was her great saving.’

  ‘You shopped every day, because there were no supermarkets. And Peter Butler’s shop was great; it was nearly an outing – you met people out shopping. I’d have a roast on Sunday, and all the trimmings. And always dessert; every day, we had dessert. Then, on Monday, I’d make a shepherd’s pie, which was a great way of stretching the meat – it was the remains of the roast. I had a mincer which had belonged to my mother. The shepherd’s pie was lovely, actually. And then there’d be stew one day, and there’d be maybe mashed potatoes and sausages another – things like that. It must have been acceptable. No one complained, and the plates were always cleaned. And Rory did the shopping, sometimes, in Moore Street; fruit and vegetables and fish. There’d be fish one day a week, on a Friday. The whole emphasis was on getting the best value. There wasn’t much variety.* I used to make burgers, our own burgers. They were nicer than the shop ones. They were softer, and I mixed in a bit of potato, and an egg and onion. And I’d make chips. And, of course, I used to bake every day. I had little glass bowls and I did fancy jelly, and banana chopped into it, and a dollop of cream on top. Or, sometimes, something soaked with custard – a sponge with a bit of jam and custard on top. All kinds of fancy little dishes. I wouldn’t have dreamed of having dinner without a dessert.

  ‘The Rosneys lived next door. First, there’d been another couple, the Arnolds, but they didn’t stay very long, and the Rosneys came, Peter and Peg. Peter was a vet. We had an insurance man called Mr Durkin, a very nice man; he came every week to collect the insurance. He came in one day, and he said, “Mrs Doyle, could you give me an idea of what the man next door does for a living?” And I said, “That’s Mr Rosney; he’s a vet.” “Good,” said he: “That explains it. He’s after coming out of the house with a little pig under his arm.” And I remember, one of their sons had come in to play in the garden, and he kept saying, “Daddy’s gone to kill a cow in Ballyboughal.” They eventually moved, to outside Malahide, because it was nearer to his work. And then the Clearys came, Breda and Seán; they came up from Limerick.

  ‘Kilbarrack changed an awful lot. The road changed from a country lane to a wide thoroughfare; it changed from a very quiet place, to traffic going up and down – it’s a main road to the airport. A lot of things came into being that couldn’t be held back. But it wasn’t the same any more. It had been like a little village – you knew everybody, and the few little shops that were there – a little community. I’m not saying it’s not still a good community, but it’s a much wider, bigger community. But it changed at a good time. For example, we had no street lighting and we had very little in the way of transport, or anything like that, and, gradually, we got these things.

  ‘I remember when the big sewage scheme was started, going down the centre of the road, the drilling of the road. Some of the windows at the front of the house were actually cracked, broken; the house used to rattle. They put down the big pipes and, of course, all the children in the neighbourhood had great fun running up and down those. They put a pumping station at the end of the road, at the sea. It was ugly, but it was only in later years that the ugliness began to annoy us. At the time, we thought it was great. We’d wait for the tide to come in – we’d look up the times in the paper – and there’d be an exodus down to the end of the road. We’d go in behind the pumping station; there was a platform and steps down to the sea. All the children would swim there, and their mothers met and had great chats and talks. So, it was a great place really.*

  ‘Flood’s farm, opposite, was eventually sold, which was sad, because they were very nice; we’d been good friends with Jack and Cathy. Houses were built on their land, and the new estate was called Alden. Later, more houses were built, Verbena Estate. And Barnwall’s farm up the road, their land opposite was sold. I remember when Bayside, further afield, towards Sutton, was being built, walking there one evening, a lovely summer evening; some of the houses were newly built, and we walked through them. It was extremely sandy, all along. And we met some man that Rory had known in the College of Art, and we stopped and Rory talked to him. I thought they’d never shut up.* I remember feeling midges biting my legs, bu
t pushing them away and paying no heed to them, and coming home that night, and my two legs were swollen, like never before nor since. And I was shivering and shaking; I was in a terrible state. That was my introduction to Bayside.

  ‘The Corporation bought land, Barnwall’s, and the next farm, Loftus’s. And the Corporation houses were all built. And one thing that brought us was a church, which was a great asset. And schools – although they were built too late for our children. It became a very lively place. Originally, you felt that you didn’t want it getting so big, but you settled into it and accepted it.

  ‘The Walshes were on the other side of us, after the Winks. I remember being pregnant when they moved in. Then they moved up to Sutton, and Mrs Eastwood came, with her two daughters, and she was a lovely woman. She had Joe’s affliction, rheumatoid arthritis. I went in to her on a Monday, and kind of helped her with the washing. And then, Tuesday was my official calling day; we made a joke about it. I can still remember her making apple tarts; her little hands were all twisted and she used her knuckles to press down the pastry – and lovely pastry it was too.

  ‘Over the years, Joe deteriorated an awful lot. We were always very close and anything he ever wanted done, it was me he turned to. So, eventually – he was in his early forties, and he just couldn’t manage; he was in a wheelchair. And he decided to come home from Washington. He wrote and asked, could we find a nursing home for him, near us. My stepmother was still alive but there was no chance in the world that he’d go and live with her. Anyway, she was getting on and she wouldn’t have been capable of looking after a man in a wheelchair. So we didn’t quite know what to do. Then our doctor at the end of the road, Dr O’Leary, found this nursing home, in Howth. It was just a kind of stop-gap, to see what we’d do when he came home.

  ‘I remember him arriving, and I felt awfully sorry for him. There was some kind of a strike in America, and all his things were held up there, including his wheelchair. He was very upset about it. But, eventually, he arrived, on two sticks. He was barely able to walk. In fact, if there was silence, you could hear him creaking. His bones creaked.

  ‘We brought him up to this nursing home in Howth. They were very kind there but, while he was pretty poor physically, mentally he was very bright. He’d read forever – he was like my father in that. We went up each day to him, but it wasn’t right to see him sitting there. So we decided to ask him would he like to come and live with us. He was delighted.

  ‘There wasn’t much room, so we set up the sitting-room as a bedroom for him, until we decided what to do. We enquired about getting a bedsit built, a building in the form of a bedsit or motel room, out the back, and that was what we did; Rory designed it. It didn’t take too long to build. And he settled into that.

  ‘When he came home from America, he was allowed to bring as much furniture as he wanted to, and anything else; the Department paid for everything. The Customs people intervened, and all his stuff had to be put into our garage, and the garage sealed. And Joe had bottles of perfume here and bottles of liquor there, stuck to the legs of tables and chairs, and everything.* Our boys were little lads at the time, and they were able to nip in and out – the seals weren’t touched – and crawl between the legs of chairs and tables; the furnishings were full of the bottles. Between them, they took out quite a sizeable amount of the bottles.† But, even at that, when the Customs men arrived, they found what was left of it, and he still had quite a bill.

  ‘I think Joe was as content as he could have been, under the circumstances. He had his bad days and he had good days.‡ He did his best to hide the pain; he was having piles of tablets. Then his hands went very bad, so much so that I had to feed him. It was Dr O’Leary who got him into Cappagh.* They were marvellous. I don’t know what they did with his hands, but when he came back he was able to use his knife and fork, and even write again. But there was one episode while he was there. He smoked; he wasn’t supposed to. But he used to sneak the smokes, and he smoked in bed one night. And the bed caught fire, while he was asleep. It burnt down one side, across the bottom, and up the other side. Somebody noticed, and put it out. And he was unscathed. We went in to visit him the day after it happened, and he was sitting in his wheelchair with a grin on his face. He told us about it. “D’you know what?” he said. “They’re coming in to touch the hem of my garment.” The nuns really were very impressed with it. He had no religion; he often said he wished he had. He was afraid of nuns. But the nuns in Cappagh he really liked. I think they recognised that he had a great brain and it was too good to waste. He used to go for physiotherapy. He was supposed to hold things in his hands, like soft rubber balls, and roll them around; I suppose, to try to keep his hands supple. But he just wouldn’t do it.† So, one of the nuns – I can’t remember her name now, but she came over here a few times when Joe was at home and she rode a motor bike; she had a helmet on. She was a great little woman. Joe had the greatest admiration for her. Anyway she decided that it would be a good idea to set up a little newspaper. She really did it for him, but he accepted that it was for the good of the other patients in the wards, and it kept him busy for the months that he was there. He’d go around to various patients and get bits of news from them. I can’t remember whether it was weekly or fortnightly or monthly, just a few pages, but he really got dug into it, and enjoyed doing it.

  ‘Sunday afternoons, we’d all go out to visit Joe. And there was this unfortunate man – I always felt he was a very lonely man – but he had been a patient there. And he really haunted the house; he was forever there. He obviously thought that he was doing great good. First of all, he used to direct the traffic in the car park. He drove Rory mad and, once or twice, he threatened to run over him. However, he didn’t. Then, he had this accordion, and he went up and down the wards with it. It drove Joe insane. I’d say, “Ah sure, the poor man; he’s lonely, it’s his big day.” But Joe would say, “I wish he’d fuck off. He has a captive audience here.”

  ‘The nuns were so nice to him, and they never forced religion on him. They knew; he was what he was. There was, I think, a Sister Rachel; she was a tall nun. There were two particular nuns – I should never have forgotten their names but I’m afraid I have. But they decided that he should go to Lourdes.* He was very loath to go, but he’d have done anything to please the nuns, and the nuns felt that he should go. So, off he went, to Lourdes. And he came back quite content, with all kinds of presents for us, the usual leather wallets and relics, medals and rosary beads, and delighted with life. That summer, we were down visiting Aunt Katie in Coolnaboy, and Katie was telling us about a man from Oilgate who went out every year, to help with the invalids in Lourdes. She’d asked how he’d got on, and he told her he’d met a small man, and “your own name, Bolger was his name. And we lifted him out of the wheelchair, to put him into the baths, and,” he said, “the language out of him! I never heard it before.” So, Katie said to me, “I knew it was Joe, but I never said a word.” But the thing about it is: I remember the nuns telling me that Joe’s spine was like the bones in a tin of salmon; move them in any way unusual, and they’d snap. If you even touched him – once or twice we tried to get him into the car – it was agony to him. So, I can just imagine what happened when they lifted him out of the wheelchair.’

  ‘Maeve Brennan wrote and said she was coming to Ireland. Now, I wasn’t very close to Maeve. I’d seen very little of her, because she was that bit older than me and she’d gone to America when she was quite young. We were in the Brennan house in Cherryfield Avenue, in Ranelagh, when I was very young, and there were girls there, but it didn’t register that they were cousins. I met Maeve when her father and mother came back to live here after the War. Bob was Director of Broadcasting, and they bought a house on Dodder Road. And, three or four times, Una invited me to dinner. I remember going over once, and Maeve answered the door, and I thought, “My God. Sophistication.” She looked absolutely smashing. She was wearing a twin-set – but there are twin-sets and twin-sets; this was the
finest of fine. And a beautiful pearl necklace. And her hair piled up on top. I thought she was gorgeous. She was smiling and friendly, and I liked her straight away. I met her twice there, before I was married. But, other than that, I didn’t really know her.

  ‘So, she wrote, and she came over; she was staying with her sister. Then she phoned me to know would I have room for her. I said I would. And she arrived. As always, she looked most elegant.* She had her typewriter with her, and she stayed a few months, if not longer. A lot of her time was spent reviewing books for the New Yorker. Large parcels of books used to arrive. Mostly books of Irish interest.† She used to go up to the shopping centre, which was quite new – Kilbarrack Shopping Centre. She’d walk up, buy Ireland’s Own, go into the café there, buy apple tart and tea, and read Ireland’s Own from cover to cover. I think she was terribly sentimental about Ireland and Irish things. She was able to cocoon herself at her table, with her tea and her tart. She’d come home and she’d tell me about this one she’d seen, or that one; maybe some peculiar thing had happened, or some odd-looking person. But those trips to the shopping centre were for Ireland’s Own.

  ‘Another time, herself and my daughter Pamela went off, up to the Marine Hotel in Sutton, for a drink. When they came out again, it was raining. There was no sign of a bus, and they decided to walk home. So, they were walking along the seafront, and Pamela had an umbrella and she said to Maeve to get in under the umbrella. And Maeve said, “No. I always said I loved walking in the rain, so now I’m going to test it.” So, they got home and Maeve was like a drowned rat. And Pamela said, “Well, did you like walking in the rain?” And Maeve said, “No, I didn’t. I’m drenched.”