An Irish Country Girl

  “It’s no laughing matter, Maureen.” Ma’s voice was very serious.

  Maureen’s smile faded.

  “Now,” Ma continued, “you’ll maybe see Connor again or the Shee, and when you do, it will be more clearly each time, but only if they want you to see them.”

  “So Connor wanted me to see him today?”

  “He did. He may sometimes be near and not want anyone to know, and why that might be I’d have no idea, but I know it to be true, so.”

  Maureen thought about that. “Only if they want to,” she said. “I understand.”

  “Good,” said Ma. “For seeing the others may be all you ever do, so don’t you fret about seeing the future. That may never happen at all.”

  Maureen swallowed. “I’ll tell you, Ma, if anything does come on me.”

  “Aye, so, and nobody else. Not a soul. Not everyone understands. If you do find out something that might help somebody, come to me and I’ll tell them in your stead, at least until you are full grown and on your own.”

  Maureen remembered Ma’s advice about how to stop people thinking she had the evil eye. From now on she’d not neglect to say, “God bless the child,” when it was needed.

  “I’m not saying you will and I’m not saying you won’t,” Ma said slowly, “but it’s best to be prepared.”

  Maureen thought of the other advice she had received that afternoon from Fidelma. This was the second time she was being told to be prepared for what the future might hold.

  “You might very well get the sight clearer than I. You’re already seeing the spirits, and most folks I’ve heard tell of who have that gift often go on to see the future.”

  Maureen shuddered as Ma continued. “I think for a while it’ll not be clear to you at all, but one day something, and I don’t know what, something enormous will happen in your life—”

  “The way it did to Saint Paul on the road to Damascus?”

  “Exactly. And from that day on, things will come to you as clear as day.”

  “And it’ll be all right? I’ve no need to worry? It won’t hurt me?”

  “Lord bless and keep you, daughter dear, not at all. Haven’t I just told you it’s for the good of others?”

  “You have.”

  Ma kissed her. “No more concerns, accept what you are given, and don’t let it trouble you. A lot of things come with growing up.”

  Maureen glanced back at her tattered teddy. Poor old thing. “I know. And I’ll not worry.” She smiled.

  “Good girl. Growing up’s a voyage. And may the strength of three be in the journey for you.”

  “Thank you, Ma,” Maureen said.

  “So you’ve understood what I’ve told you?”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  “See you do. Now . . .” Ma rose. “I’ve to be getting on. I’ve pies in the oven.”

  “Would you have one more wee minute before you go?”

  “Only a minute now.”

  “You’ve always encouraged us to stay in school, so if I go on getting good enough marks there . . .” The words tumbled out. “I want to be a teacher.”

  Ma frowned. Inhaled. Breathed out. “Teacher? Teacher, is it? There’s a thing.” She steepled her fingers under her lips, then cocked her head to one side. “Would that mean university?”

  Maureen shook her head. “All I’d need is my Leaver’s. Then I’d start as a monitor—that’s a kind of junior teacher—and after a year or two they’d promote me to teacher proper, Ma. Miss Toner explained that to me.”

  “I see.” Ma looked very thoughtful for a moment. “I’m not sure we’d have the money to send you to the University College in Cork City.”

  “Miss Toner says there’s no need.”

  “Your Miss Toner’s an unmarried lady, I believe.”

  “She is.”

  “And have you no notion of getting married? Having a family of your own? Your Da and I want lots of grandchildren.”

  “Of course I’ll get married one day and have a family. I love kiddies. But it’ll not be for a while . . . I’m young yet. I’m only fifteen.”

  “True on you.”

  “And it would have to be the right fellah. And I’ll know him when he comes along.”

  “You make sure of that now, so. Marry in haste, regret at your leisure.” Ma frowned. She slipped her right hand behind her head and stroked her neck. “A teacher? Huh.”

  Maureen knew her mother always did that when she was deep in thought. She waited, wondering what Ma might say.

  “Going on would make you happy, a chara?”

  “It would, Ma. It really would. I’ve have a career, a good wage, a really interesting life.”

  Ma bridled. “And do you not think being a farmer’s wife is interesting, Miss High and Mighty?”

  “Ma, come on. I didn’t mean that at all.”

  “Well, it sounded like it. Maureen O’Hanlon, think before you speak.”

  “I will, Ma. I promise.” Maureen remained as silent as her mother, willing her to say yes.

  Finally Ma said, “So you’d be happy and the O’Hanlons would have a scholar in the family?” She made a low whistling noise. “A teacher, by the hokey.”

  Maureen smiled and nodded.

  “All right. I’ll think it over.” Ma frowned again.

  Maureen jumped off the bed and hugged her mother. “Thank you, Ma. Thank you.”

  “Now slow down. I haven’t agreed yet. I will need to give this a lot of thought. It’s a big step for a girl. And your Da can be a bit old-fashioned. He’s like a lot of men. He thinks girls should make good marriages. He was happy as a clown when Sinead wed Malachy.”

  Maureen’s grin faded. “But, Ma, I’m not going to get wed straight out of school. I have to do something. Why not teach? And it’s the kind of job you could maybe go back to when your family’s grown a bit.”

  Ma pursed her lips. “Lord, Maureen, you’re at it again. You already have me half persuaded. You don’t need to keep worrying at me like a terrier at a rat. I said I’ll think about it, and I will, so. It’s your Da I need to talk it over with,” Ma said. “He’s head of this family.”

  “Would you, Ma? Would you? I really want to do it. I don’t want to get married yet. I do so want to be . . . to be educated.”

  Ma hugged Maureen. “Do you, now? Well, you could want worse. So, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. Get your Junior next year; then it’s two years away yet to your Leaver’s, but you go on getting the marks. If I still think it’s a good idea by then, I’ll see to your Da.”

  Maureen wondered, was Ma testing her? It didn’t matter. Deep inside, Maureen knew Ma would agree when the time was right. And if she needed more persuading, wouldn’t Fidelma be an ally?

  Maureen had been aware for quite some time who the real head of the O’Hanlon family was. Ma would twist Da around her finger. Maureen hugged her mother. “Thanks, Ma. Thanks for explaining about the sight.” She kissed Ma. “And thanks for saying I can go on at school and that you will think about what I want. Thank you, Ma. Thank you.”

  “Och, sure, isn’t that what Ma’s are for? Now you do your best, enjoy your life, and I’m sure good things will happen one day.”

  18

  Kinky told herself she’d been idle long enough up here in the warmth of the upstairs sitting room. The apple-potato fadges had been lovely. Just the right mix of Bramleys and potato. She wiped the crumbs from her lips with a linen napkin. Ma had been right. Good things had happened back then, but they’d not be happening here if she didn’t go and see to her cooking. As Ma often said about a lazybones, it was a bad hen that wouldn’t scratch itself.

  Kinky headed for the kitchen, her mind still half in the past.

  They had been some marvellous years. In June of 1925 she’d sat for and passed her Junior Certificate with honours. Ma was jubilant. Even Da was impressed. He’d had Ma help him pick out and buy Maureen a garnet necklace. Kinky’s hand went to her throat. She wore the red pendant to this day. It was then
Ma had told Maureen that if it was teaching she wanted, teaching she could have, and a Da who bought necklaces wouldn’t be hard to persuade. He hadn’t been.

  In September, one week after her sixteenth birthday, she had been selected as substitute for the Cork junior camogie team. Everyone said unless the unexpected happened, she’d be a full team member by next season and on the senior team soon after.

  On New Year’s Eve in 1925 she’d finally let Donovan Flynn kiss her a few times and found she enjoyed it. But when he tried to put his hand under her blouse, she’d pushed him away, called him a dirty wee gurrier, and slapped his face so hard her hand stung. Keep away from boys, Fidelma had said. By all the saints, she would.

  Another Christmas came and went. That was the Christmas Ma had taught her to make chestnut stuffing.

  It was funny how she remembered those little things, she thought, as she opened the oven. That was Ma’s stuffing cooking in the neck end of the turkey. She basted the bird, listening to the hot fat sizzle and spit. It was coming on a treat. About an hour before she’d be ready to serve the meal, she’d put the ham in the oven to bake, and twenty minutes later she’d surround the bird with half-boiled potatoes to roast in its fat. The chipolata sausages would join the potatoes fifteen minutes before she took the bird and the ham out and let them rest before serving.

  The front doorbell rang. Kinky closed the oven and went to answer the door. After the warmth of the upstairs lounge and the heat in the kitchen, she shivered as snowflakes swept by.

  A skinny man with a bulbous red nose stood on the doorstep. He lifted his black trilby hat. “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Kincaid. Are the doctors in?”

  “Merry Christmas, Mr. Coffin. Is it sick you are for they are both out?”

  “Sick? Not at all. Hale and hearty, so I am.” The brown paper bag the village undertaker thrust at her made a chinking noise. “That’s a wee Merry Christmas from me to the doctors. A wee thanks for telling me to take Saint-John’s-wort tea to keep me cheerful.” He grinned. “I’ll be seeing them at the marquis’ party, but I didn’t want to take the, ahem, gift there.” He tipped his trilby. “Good-bye to you now.”

  “I’ll tell them and I’ll see they get these,” she said. Kinky closed the door, put two bottles of Jameson’s whiskey on the sideboard in the dining room along with serried ranks of Christmas cards, and went back to the kitchen.

  All the pans of vegetables and potatoes were waiting on the stove top or on the shelf nearby.

  The bread sauce wouldn’t be ready to put on the stove until she’d stuck enough cloves in a whole, peeled onion, then cut it in half and put that in the pan with the rest of the ingredients she’d mixed before the children came. The sauce needn’t go on yet, but she’d get the cloves for when she was ready to start on the onion.

  She opened a cupboard and took down the bottle of cloves and, while she was at it, a jar of the crab-apple jelly she’d made that summer. Doctor O’Reilly was very fond of the crab-apple jelly, but then, she smiled, if there was anything a body could eat, himself would take a shine to it.

  He’d have liked her bilberry jelly, but bilberry shrubs didn’t grow here in north County Down. Bilberries, called fraochán or frockon in County Cork, were everywhere in the peat bogs near the O’Hanlon farm. They ripened in late July and early August.

  It was customary for unmarried girls to pluck them on Lughnasa, the festival held on the Sunday closest to August the first. It marked the end of what were known as “the hungry months” because it was when the harvest started. People could stop eating preserved foods like salted beef and pickled beetroot. There’d be no need to cook old potatoes because now it was time to harvest the new ones.

  It was the same every year, with Da saying, “There’s two things too serious to be joked about: matrimony and potatoes, so.” There was a ceremony for the first pulling of the praties, and as part of the tradition Ma had to wear a clean white apron.

  Come to that, Kinky reckoned, she’d better change her own apron. This one had been splattered while she was basting the turkey.

  Once she’d changed and had satisfied herself that the meal was coming along as it should and could be left on its own for a while, Kinky pulled out a stool and sat. She remembered Ma in her clean pinafore on Lughnasa in 1926.

  That year the first of August had fallen on a Sunday.

  All Kinky had to do was close her eyes and there she was, after lunch, tramping with Fidelma along the road toward the peat bog where the frockon grew. As the girls walked they were accompanied by the lilting of wood pigeons in the sycamores and the steady distant thumping of a threshing machine being driven by a broad leather belt round the flywheel of a steam traction engine. She could see the smoke from the engine’s funnel and a cloud of dust rising from the thresher. It was dirty, dry work feeding the sheaves of cut grain into it.

  The air was heavy, but not with the scent of flowers. This was the time of year farmers had their muck spreaders in action, fertilizing the fields for this year’s planting. Pig manure was pungent and smelt like ammonia. Maureen wrinkled her nose.

  Somewhere a dog barked and from a large patch of nettles came the harsh kerrx-kerrx of a corncrake. The sound the slender, rail-like brown bird made was like that of two cheese graters being rubbed together.

  Maureen heard a motor put-putting behind them, turned, and saw the MacVeighs’ lorry trundling along the road. It pulled alongside and stopped. Eamon leaned out of the windowless cab, his carroty hair jutting out from under the peak of his tweed duncher. “Afternoon, girls. Grand day for the time of year that it’s in, so.”

  “ ’Tis marvellous altogether, Eamon,” Fidelma said. She smiled.

  “Can I lift you two? I’m going to Clonakilty. We’re setting up the bandstand for the dance tonight.”

  “We’re only going to the frockon bog,” Maureen said.

  “Hop in anyway. I’ll take you as far as the road up.”

  Maureen followed Fidelma round the vehicle and climbed in after her sister. It was a tight fit, three of them on the bench. Eamon was rather tall around. He started off with a great grinding of gears. “How do you like the lorry?”

  It’s noisy, smells of pigs, and on its solid tyres it bounces like a jelly, Maureen thought. But she said, “It’s wonderful. What kind is it?” Boys, she’d discovered, liked being asked that kind of question.

  “It’s a Thorneycroft J Type, 1916, British army,” he said proudly. “My Da got it cheap when the English sodgers sold off a bunch of stuff before their army left Ireland a couple of years back.”

  “It’s wonderful, and you’re very clever to be able to drive it so nicely,” Fidelma said in her most sincere voice.

  Eamon grinned and accelerated. The lorry backfired.

  Fidelma laughed.

  Maureen held tight, looked at her sister, and smiled. In the nearly four years since Connor’s death, Fidelma, now twenty-one, had mellowed and was coming out of her shell. She’d stopped visiting Connor’s place a year ago, and about the same time she’d started going to the occasional dance. She still was not walking out with anyone, but she could laugh again, enjoy boys’ company. Here she was teasing Eamon, and by the way he was blushing, he must have thought she’d meant her praise. “Are the pair of you going to the céili tonight?” he asked.

  Maureen tingled. It would be her first grown-up dance. Ma had said she was old enough to go with Fidelma as her chaperone.

  “We are,” Fidelma said. “Malachy’s taking us in the jaunting car. We’ll maybe see you there?”

  A chaperone. Maureen didn’t think she’d need much watching over. She’d got over Donovan Flynn’s clumsy fumbling, had been to several birthday parties, and had been kissed by more than one boy, but not by anybody who made Maureen feel the way she knew Fidelma had felt about Connor.

  “Aye, so.” Eamon slowed and braked. “There’s your road. May it rise up to meet you.”

  “Thanks, Eamon.” Maureen got out and waited for Fidelma. She heard Eam
on say to her sister, “M . . . maybe you’ll give me a d . . . dance Tonight, Miss O’Hanlon? A h . . . hornpipe?”

  Poor Eamon stuttered when he was embarrassed.

  “Maybe I will,” Fidelma said, hopping down, “and maybe I won’t, but thanks for the ride.” And she laughed.

  Her laugh gladdened Maureen’s heart. That Eamon hadn’t asked her bothered her not one whit.

  “Come on, Maureen,” Fidelma said. “The sooner we get the berries picked, the better.” She strode off.

  Maureen followed. “And maybe the mile walk up to the bog’ll help work off Ma’s Lughnasa lunch,” she said. “That colcannon was lovely, all those new potatoes and cabbage, green onions and bacon. But I shouldn’t have had a second slice of gooseberry pie, even if I did make it myself.”

  “Och, aye, you’re so fat, Maureen, you’ll be breaking the scales Da uses to weigh the piglets.” Fidelma laughed. “You’re no shrimp now.”

  “Less of your slagging, Fidelma O’Hanlon,” Maureen said. “I can run the legs off you any day, you snail.” She was pleased that the teasing, which had always had an edge when they were younger, was good-natured now. They had started to grow closer ever since the day two years ago when Maureen had gone for a walk with her sister and seen Connor’s ghost.

  “True,” said Fidelma, and shook her head. “Honest to goodness, girl, you’ve nothing to worry about. You’re the best-looking seventeen-year-old in all of the province of Munster, you with that chestnut hair, those dimples, shining dark eyes—”

  “Go away on out with you, Fiddles,” said Maureen, interrupting her sister. “You can flatter Eamon all you like, but you’ll not get away with it with me. Soft words butter no parsnips, so.”

  “It’s not flattery. It’s true, Maureen. It’s all that galloping about, playing camogie, keeps you trim. You’ve a figure like Clara Bow.” Fidelma scrutinized her sister’s bust. “Maybe a bit better padded.” She chuckled.

  Maureen glanced down at herself. “I’m not so sure I am. I like Clara Bow,” she said. “She was wonderful when you took me to Dunmanway to see My Lady’s Lips. And I liked William Powell too.”