A Woman Undefeated (13 page)

“Oh, not that again, Maggie. Do I have to do penance for the rest of me life, because I didn’t want to leave you in that desperate place all alone? You wouldn’t have lived above a week, without money, food and a man to look after ye. Come on now, get over it and we’ll have a good marriage, you’ll see.”

But she walked across to the lean to, took up the lamp and handed it to him and, with hands on her hips, she answered sweetly.“Well, Jack, if you can light this lamp from the candle in yer lantern, and gather up some tinder to make me a good fire, then I will cook the fish for you. But before yer do, let me make it plain. You were never doing me a favour, I could have made it on me own.”

Later, after eating their meal of steamed fish and rosy apples, which Jack had picked from the trees in the garden, Maggie told him of their strange and fearsome neighbour. She told a good tale and had Jack laughing, as she mimicked Ruthie, prowling behind the sofa with a nasty look on her face. It lifted the tension that had grown between them and Jack was glad. It was time for bed and his wife was more relaxed. Maggie’s eyes had begun to droop with
the warmth of the hastily built fire and was looking forward to snuggling down, to catch up on her sleep.

She got up from the sofa and, taking up the oil lamp, made her way to the privy, asking him to make up the bed with a blanket, while she had a wash in the pail.

It was chilly in the bedroom when she joined him eventually. The fire had been dull and sluggish, and had only given enough heat for cooking and warming up the living room. Jack lay under the rough sacking that they had to pretend was a blanket, seemingly deep in thought or half asleep, as she settled by his side.

What did she know about love in a marriage, he was ruminating? Did she know what was expected now they were wed? Perhaps he should have asked his mother, but Alice had been rather bitter towards her daughter-in-law. Maggie wasn’t a painted women that he had met with in the taverns, or the whores who waited for a quickie after closing time. She was the girl he had known since childhood, the girl who was going to share his life for ever more.

“Maggie,” he whispered, making her wonder as he did so, why he was whispering, since there was no one to hear him, the nearest cottage being a hundred yards away.

“Maggie, you know when people are married they have babies? Like yer mother had Bernie, Molly and you?”

“Hmm,” she replied drowsily, having turned over to face the doorway, on the edge of a dream, hoping she could get into it without interruption from Jack, who had had all evening to talk if he had wanted to.

“Well, I thought we could make ourselves a baby tonight.”

Pictures and images came quickly, as she thought about the making of a little baby. She remembered how alarmed she had been, when Molly had been born. To hear her Mother yelling and screaming, destroying the notion of a delivery by stork. She had linked the night time noises from her parents’ marital bed, to the guaranteed certainty of a baby on the way.

Images flitted around her mind, their sow being caught by the
next door trotter and the bull at Filbeys’ farm mounting a poor little cow. It all seemed disgusting, shameful, degrading, like the monthly bleeding that had appeared the year before.

“I’m tired, Jack,” she said, trying to make her voice sound regretful.

“Whatever yer want me do, I’m sure I’ll be too tired to do it.”

She moved away, as again the vision of the little cow came uppermost. There was no way Jack was doing that to her.

“Maggie, turn around and look at me,” Jack persisted.“I’m not goin’ to hurt yer. Yer know I wouldn’t hurt yer for the world. But the priest said words over us that means we should be makin’ babies, so I think that we should stick to our vows.”

She turned around reluctantly to face him with her face screwed up and her eyes kept closed, hastily pulling up the blanket over her shoulder blades. She shuddered as Jack lifted her skirt above her knees and started feeling around for her private parts. Her eyes flew open and she glared at him in the darkness. He was intruding on what had always been solely hers. She muttered between her gritted teeth that if he should hurt her, she would smack him one, whilst wondering if the priest had known of this palaver, when he had joined them together in matrimony.

He couldn’t have done, she thought fleetingly, because Father Daley wasn’t married, so how would he have known what Jack would do?

Her legs were pushed apart in a gentle caressing way and Jack prepared to mount her, all the time professing his fervent love. His hardened thing, that Maggie knew that Bernie had also, as she had often changed his rags when he was a baby, forced its way inside her. There was so much pain that she wanted to scream. Jack thrusted and grunted and kneaded her breasts as if they were dough, while she flinched from his onslaught until he was done.

She took her ravaged body to the lean-to, later, where the cool water in the tin pail reflected brightly in the moonlight and her body trembled as she searched around for a rag. A feeling of disgust then came upon her, as she looked upon the smears of blood and
something else quite nasty, that were running down her legs. She winced as she scrubbed at her parts with the rough calico from her petticoat. Then saw that her feet had turned a startling blue.

Jack lay waiting, his legs stretched out to touch the warmth where her body had been. He felt shame that he had taken her in such a reckless way. She wasn’t a woman who could be used for pleasure, then discarded. She was Maggie and he should have treated her more tenderly.

Maggie awoke next morning to find that Jack had left her. She was glad of the fact, because she felt that she could never look him in the eyes again. To do what they had done, in the bed that she was lying on, had been a revelation. She still could not believe, nor did she want to believe, that this was part of being wed. She wondered why her mother had never warned her? Surely she had known that her daughter would marry one day? Deep down though she knew the answer, Mother would have been too embarrassed to explain. It had been Widow Dockerty that Maggie had turned to when that bleeding had started. She had been given a stock of old linen and gently told it was Nature’s way. There’d been no other details, no warning of what would happen when she married. No inkling of what would happen in the marital bed. Though, to be fair, it should have been her mother’s place to tell her and she’d been too young for the knowledge at that time.

She snuggled down into the warmth her body had created, glad that she had not been required at the farm that day. She planned to light the fire, heat some water, wash again her tender parts, put on the dress that she’d been given by Peggy and then go out to look around.

She could hear the cows in the field next to the cottage, making enough noise to remind the cow herd that it was milking time. There was a frost on the bedroom window and her breath swirled mistily in the chilly room. She slowly counted up to ten, then with her shawl clutched around her, went on tiptoe into the living room.

A glad sight greeted her. The fire was still burning and the old black kettle steamed lazily on top of the iron grill. The room felt
warmer and she lowered herself gingerly onto the sofa, while thinking on Jack’s small kindness to her. Maybe it was his way of saying sorry? She didn’t know, but was grateful that he’d cared.

It was a cleaner Maggie that emerged from the lean-to, later, to dwell on Jack’s kindness again. She sat in thought on the sofa, thinking that if she could just get used to his demands upon her body, then this life might be worth living after all. They had work, a cottage to live in, and if Jack was to be believed, soon a baby to hold in her arms. She took comfort in the thought of a little baby to love and care for. Though she would trade it all for Killala and seeing Molly again.

She stood in the back doorway later, looking over to the mountains across the estuary. They could be seen to the left and the right of the orchard, their view uninterrupted over hedgerows and fields. It was a wondrous sight, with the clouds clinging low on the mountain peaks, the sun shining weakly onto a far horizon, ribbons of tide filling up the fast running gullies and figures bent over at their labours, on the nearest shore.

Maggie pulled her shawl around her shoulders tightly, shivering as the autumn air hit her body which was feeling clean and warm. It didn’t seem as cold as it would have been in Ireland though. They would have been sitting around their fires by now. There were still a few vegetables and late roses growing in the garden here and rosy apples still clinging to the trees.

Looking at the apples reminded Maggie, that she’d nothing for her breakfast and no money to buy any food. She had little choice, but to visit the farm and throw herself upon the good nature of her mistress. Mrs Briggs was sure to be pleased to see her, especially as the farmer had given her the day to herself. It would look as if she couldn’t wait to start working there. She wandered into the bedroom and sat upon the mattress to fasten the buttons on her shoes.

A small silver coin glinted by her right foot as she began her manipulations. Without a button hook, the job was awkward for an untrained hand. It was seconds before she realised that it was a
coin, but she hastily picked it up when she saw what it was. A silver shilling. Perhaps one had fallen from Jack’s coat pocket or had been left unseen by the auld ones, when they were clearing out their room.

Whatever, it now belonged to Maggie. She was off to the local village to find a baker or a grocer. Mrs Briggs could wait until tomorrow for her services, because her servant was going to grab her freedom while she could.

Maggie became hesitant when she came to the gated field that would take her past the farmhouse. She dithered in case Jack might see her and ask where she was going. If she turned right and walked down the track to the shore, then Alice might see her and she didn’t want to have a slanging match with her mother-in-law either. If she turned left at the cottage, she might meet up with Ruthie, someone else she didn’t want to see. So she stood there, waiting for someone who could direct her to the village. Another neighbour maybe, a passing villager, a farm hand who could tell her the way?

In the branches of the oak tree up above her, sat two of Ruthie’s children. Ernie and Tommy sat quietly watching her, waiting to see what the Irish woman was going to do. It seemed a good idea to start a spitting game. It would show this left footer that she wasn’t welcome around here.

Maggie was surprised, as the first globule landed on her hair. She moved away quickly, thinking that it was a bit late in the year for cuckoo spit, or perhaps it was bird muck that had caught her unawares. Next came a hail of conkers which made her certain she was being got at, but not by anything two legged and feathery.

“Who’s up there?” she shouted angrily. “Show yerself. If I get me hands on ye, I’ll make yer sorry yer were born!”

She looked up into the branches, scowling as a burst of laughter came from above. Young Ernie showed his head and shoulders, obviously being shoved forward by his older brother, Tommy.
Feeling safe, Ernie began to make the most horrible faces, while Tommy mocked, “Oi, left footer come and get us if you can!”

Both boys gave out squeals of horror as Maggie put her foot onto the tree trunk, grasped the nearest branch and began to haul herself up. She hawked in her throat and spat as she reached them, the glistening droplet landing squarely on Ernie’s cheek. He stared at her, trembling and frightened for his life.

“Let’s get this straight, you young pups,” she snarled, though inside her laughter was bubbling away at the sight of their scared little faces.

“I might be a left footer, an Irish tinker, whatever yer want to call me. But you don’t spit on me, or throw things, or I’ll be the one to do the hurtin’. Now, if yer don’t mind you can point out the way to the village, seeing as we’re up here with the crow’s nests and there’s a lot of land to see.”

Tommy, raising a shaking hand, pointed her in the right direction. Hopeful to make amends, he told her the quick way.

“If yer in a hurry, Missis, go past the gate, straight along, round the pond, and through the ‘ole in the farmer’s ‘edge. It takes yer to the Burton road, and left will see yer in the village in the blink of an eye.”

He looked at Maggie with admiration.

“Do yer want a hand at getting down or can yer make yer own way, Missis?”

Maggie laughed at his suggestion and shinned down the tree as if she were a monkey. Climbing trees with Jack and Bernie had given her plenty of practice. Though once her childhood was over, she never thought she’d have to use the skill again!

The road to the village was steep and winding, so she stopped to get her breath back on the top of an old stone wall. Beyond was a church, a large imposing building, shaded by tall elder and dark-leafed yew. Her spirits lifted when she saw the statue of Our Lady, reposing reassuringly outside the open door and realised that there were other people around who were Catholics. So why did Mr
Tibbs have a down on them? This church was a testament that their faith existed, so maybe it was the Irish that he didn’t want around.