Bridie's Fire (6 page)

It took all of the long afternoon to climb to where the path cut through the mountains. Bridie turned and gazed back at the land laid out behind them, at the arms of the peninsula wrapped around the harbour. Brandon said nothing as they all sat resting at the summit, but she could hear him humming quietly to himself, a strange, lonely tune.

Low clouds lay like fairy mist over the landscape and Bridie felt a stab of grief that somewhere so beautiful should be so cruel. She prayed for all the people she was leaving behind, her father at Dunquin, Paddy in the cemetery behind the town, and the strange changeling sister in the waters of the harbour. Most of all, she prayed for her mother, closing her hands and forcing hope against hope from her heart into the blue sky.

It seemed the whole of Ireland was on the move. Bridie didn't look at the crumpled bodies by the wayside. She looked ahead, at the long road that wound its way around the peninsula and led to Tralee.

The adults didn't talk with Brandon and Bridie often. Even Mrs MacMahon said little to them, as if any word spoken would take away from the energy she needed to take the next step. They slept by the roadside, huddled together for warmth, and rose early in the morning to continue the journey.

At Tralee, the streets teemed with people. There were soldiers in uniform, fat merchants, fine ladies in bonnets and full skirts; so many people who looked prosperous. Bridie found it hard to understand how some could be so well-fed when Dingle was full of wraiths. Brandon clung to Bridie's arm, pressing himself against her. She tried not to show how overwhelmed she felt as people jostled them in the crowds and she struggled to keep up with the MacMahons.

When they reached the workhouse gates, they discovered a swelling crowd waiting outside. People jostled for a place and argued in whining tones. The air reverberated with the babble of English and Irish, the low wail of some child, the cry of its mother, as scores of people waited to be taken into the workhouse.

Bridie kept a firm grip on Brandon's wrist and stood behind the MacMahons as they approached the porter of the workhouse. The man looked exasperated at Mr MacMahon's questions and answered them in English. Even though she couldn't understand what he said, Bridie knew by his expression that it didn't augur well for them. She tugged at Mrs MacMahon's dress.

‘What's he saying?'

‘He's saying there's no place for us here,' she said wearily, not meeting Bridie's gaze.

Bridie felt her scar burn hot as she flushed with anger. She pushed her way forward and stood defiantly before the porter.

‘We've come from Dingle,' shouted Bridie, as if raising her voice would make it possible for him to understand her better. ‘We've walked all this way because they said in Dingle that you'd take us in. My brother and me, we left our mam because she said you'd give us shelter.'

The porter turned away as if she were invisible.

‘There'll only be room if more of them die,' whispered a thin, dark man sitting hunched by the steps. ‘In the morning, when they take away the dead, then they let some of us who's waiting in.' The man looked close to death himself. ‘I'm praying they'll find space for me inside before the day is out. 'Tis a terrible fate to die in the gutter.'

Bridie and Brandon sat down with the MacMahons and waited. As the day wore on more people arrived and milled outside the workhouse gate. A tradesman fought his way through the raggedy, starving crowd and the porter let him in, shouting at people to stand back. Bridie looked along the line. The thin, dark man they'd talked with when they first arrived had closed his eyes, and Bridie knew he wouldn't get his wish to die inside the walls of the workhouse.

Bridie had caught a glimpse of the inside of the building. It looked like a big stone prison with dark figures moving about in the rank stillness. Something about it reminded her of the death village. The terrible wails of the crowd seemed to echo inside her head. Bridie drew her knees up against her chest, shut her eyes and covered her ears with her hands, not wanting to hear their cries. Suddenly, she felt Brandon's small hand reaching for hers. She grasped it, and turned to look at her brother with gratitude, as if he'd brought her back from the brink of hell.

‘We're not waiting here,' she said. ‘We're not ready to die.' She stood up, pulled him to his feet and dragged him to the end of the street.

Mrs MacMahon glanced up and raised a hand to beckon them back, but Bridie moved away quickly, weaving through the crowd and out into a wide street.

‘Where are we going?' asked Brandon, frowning. ‘Mrs MacMahon says they might have room for us tomorrow if we'll be patient. She says Mam would want us to wait and that she promised she'd come after us.'

‘If she promised you that, boyo, then she promised a lie. Mam won't be coming after us and that place is a death-house, not a workhouse. This wasn't what our mam meant for us.'

Brandon flinched. Bridie felt a wave of grief and guilt break against her as the weight of her words made him hunch over in pain. How could he have not understood what leaving Mam had meant? He said nothing more, and his silence hurt her more than any accusation. Suddenly, it struck her how much more like Paddy he looked, each day, closer to becoming an angel. He folded his thin arms around himself and his face fell into the shadow of a swathe of red hair. She wanted to take him in her arms and comfort him, to hold him close and whisper lovingly, but the idea of it made her feel as if she'd unravel around him. She reached out and grabbed his wrist, dragging him onwards through the crowded streets. Bridie wasn't sure where she was going, but she knew she had to get as far away from that death-house as she could, and movement fuelled her will to live.

Suddenly, they found themselves down by the docks, where the masts of great ships stood black against the blue morning sky. People lined the quays. Soldiers stood guard, their bayoneted guns ready to fight off the crowds as great sacks of meal and grain were loaded on board ships bound for England. Everywhere she looked, there were soldiers standing guard over the food supplies.

Further along the quay, a boat was casting off. As it moved away from the dock, the passengers lined up along the deck reached out their hands and called to those they were leaving behind. There was a tumult of weeping, grieving families, crying out for their departing relatives. An old woman fell to her knees beside Bridie and Brandon, keening as if death was all around them, crying out for her children who were sailing to America, knowing that would be the last she'd see of them.

Brandon stood staring up at the masts.

‘Are we going to get on a ship, to take us to America?' he asked, and for the first time his voice had a spur of hope in it. ‘We could go to Aunt Mairead. We could find Uncle Liam. I want to go there, Bridie. I want to go to America.'

Bridie wanted to box his ears, even if he did look like an angel. ‘Those ships, you know what they call them? They call them coffin ships. You want to go and be buried in America?' she said scornfully. She grabbed him by his scrawny wrist and dragged him away from the quay.

‘Where are we going?' asked Brandon.

‘We're going to find shelter,' she said, taking the road out of Tralee.

8

Black dogs and broken houses

Ragged people were pouring into the town. Bridie and Brandon passed hundreds of people, like ghosts, drifting along the roadways. Some just sat by the wayside and stared vacantly into the pale sky. Others were wild-eyed, moving their gaunt limbs with fierce intent.

Bridie felt better just being away from the town, with the open sky above her head and green fields and drystone walls stretching out before them. In the late afternoon they came to a roadside inn, a lone building at a crossroads where the road forked in three directions.

‘Let's try our luck,' said Bridie. ‘We'll beg a crust from the innkeeper.'

They crept around the back of the building and looked in through the kitchen door. A big cauldron of mutton broth was cooking in a pot over the fire. Bridie stood patiently in the doorway, but as soon as she realised there was no one about, she put a finger to her lips and whispered to Brandon, ‘You've got your spoon, boyo?' He nodded and pulled the spoon out from under his clothes.

‘Then we needs both be quick.' The two children tiptoed into the kitchen and dipped their spoons into the hot broth. There was no time to blow on the spoonful to cool the soup. Neither of them cared if their mouths were scalded. Bridie looked around frantically, searching for something else to take away with her, but then the kitchen door swung open and a big woman stood glaring at them.

‘Please, ma'am,' begged Bridie. ‘It was just a taste we were after.'

The woman sighed and pushed the two of them towards the door. ‘Not safe in my own kitchen, from thieves and beggars.' She looked down as she was about to slam the door and suddenly she softened. She darted back inside and came out, thrusting a small loaf of bread into Bridie's hands.

‘Be gone with you,' she said.

Bridie thanked her and slipped the loaf into the front of her ragged dress as they walked away. The crust felt warm against her skin. Carefully, she broke a little piece for herself and Brandon.

‘We're going to make this last and last,' she told him.

They didn't make much progress that day. They spent a long time picking blackberries from a bramble that sprawled over a fence by the roadside. The juice stained their lips so their faces seemed even paler with their dark mouths.

They came to the broken village as the evening came down around them. There was nothing left of it. Someone had torn the lintels from the doorways and the houses had collapsed in on themselves.

‘Do you think there are ghosts in this one?' asked Brandon, looking around at the ruins of the hamlet.

Bridie swung a leg over the remains of a cabin wall. There was still some peat beside the fireplace. She pushed through the pile of ashes in the hearth.

‘It's not that long since there were folk living here,' she said. She knelt down in the ruins of the house, raking through the debris. Strewn among the rubble were dozens of St Brigid crosses, fallen from the rafters. Bridie picked one up and cradled it in her hand. All those crosses, from years and years of prayer and hope. All the promise of a safekeeping come to nothing.

They found a corner of the ruins where there was just enough shelter to keep the night damp from settling on them, and curled up together among the stones. Brandon fell asleep quickly with his head on Bridie's shoulder, but Bridie lay awake a long while, gazing between the splintered rafters at the cold and distant stars. She thought of the night she'd gazed up at that same sky by her father's side, and puzzled at how quickly all the wonder could drain out of something so beautiful.

In the morning, they ran through the village and climbed down to a nearby brook. They knelt on its banks, their hands cupped, and took long drinks of the cold water. Bridie broke some more off the loaf and they sat listening to the peaceful flow of the brook.

Next morning, they reached another village, but there the lintels were still in place. They'd been walking for only two hours and already they felt weak with exhaustion. Bridie looked across at her brother and knew they couldn't keep travelling like this. They sat side by side on the edge of the road. She'd nearly given up hope of their moving anywhere that day when she noticed a small cart laden with barrels moving slowly down the main street.

‘Here's a chance for us, bucko,' she said. While the carter was waiting for the crowds to thin, Bridie gave Brandon a leg up onto the back and then scrambled up after him. She prayed no one would alert the driver. They slipped in between the barrels, which smelt strongly of oily tar, and each found themselves a little pocket of space. The wood chafed against their skin, but the slow rhythm of the cart gradually lulled them to sleep.

Bridie was struggling to wake up, struggling to free herself. In her dream, a banshee was dragging her down into a dark, murky pool, but when she woke it was the carter, pulling her out from between the barrels, shouting crossly at her in English.

He dragged a struggling Brandon out as well and held them both by their ankles. Bridie kept her arms wrapped tight across her chest to keep her loaf of bread secure but Brandon yelped and struggled so the man dropped him in a heap. Slowly, the carter lowered Bridie to the ground.

She brushed at the dirt on her ragged dress and tried to stand tall before the broad-shouldered man.

He said something else in English. When Bridie and Brandon looked at each other and shrugged sullenly, he tried again, this time in Irish.

‘So what were you hoping for other than a hiding, sneaking into my cart like that?' he asked.

‘We're going to the east,' answered Bridie. ‘To find a workhouse.'

‘But there's one in Tralee.'

‘They wouldn't have us. They're full to bursting – with dying people. It's not a workhouse, it's a death-house. They've got the fever bad there. Things might be better in the east. Dan O'Connell is in the east and my dad said he'd tried to make Ireland a better place for all of us.'

‘He did, did he?' said the carter. ‘Well, I don't know that Dan O'Connell will be able to help you. There's a workhouse I know of that maybe's got a place for two fleas like yourselves. But we can't be standing here all the day, jawing on like this. The road's a dangerous place these days and I've got to get this load to town before dark, so let's be moving along now.'

They climbed up and sat either side of the carter on the bench.

‘You're not carrying anything that thieves would want to steal, are you?' asked Bridie.

‘Desperate men will do desperate things in desperate times,' he said. ‘Why, you can't leave poor old Nellie for a moment. Only yesterday, I found some men sticking thorns in her and sucking out her blood. I should have beaten them for causing my Nellie grief, but the buggers were a whisker away from death anyway. As if drinking the old nag's blood would save them.' He shook his head disbelievingly.