Collected Stories (32 page)

“Is she?” he asked. “What way is she awful?”

“She takes porter, father,” I said, knowing well from the way Mother talked of it that this was a mortal sin, and hoping it would make the priest take a more favorable view of my case.

“Oh, my!” he said, and I could see he was impressed.

“And snuff, father,” said I.

“That's a bad case, sure enough, Jackie,” he said.

“And she goes round in her bare feet, father,” I went on in a rush of self-pity, “and she knows I don't like her, and she gives pennies to Nora and none to me, and my da sides with her and flakes me, and one night I was so heart-scalded I made up my mind I'd have to kill her.”

“And what would you do with the body?” he asked with great interest.

“I was thinking I could chop that up and carry it away in a barrow I have,” I said.

“Begor, Jackie,” he said, “do you know you're a terrible child?”

“I know, father,” I said, for I was just thinking the same thing myself. “I tried to kill Nora too with a bread-knife under the table, only I missed her.”

“Is that the little girl that was beating you just now?” he asked.

“'Tis, father.”

“Someone will go for her with a bread-knife one day, and he won't miss her,” he said rather cryptically. “You must have great courage. Between ourselves, there's a lot of people I'd like to do the same to but I'd never have the nerve. Hanging is an awful death.”

“Is it, father?” I asked with the deepest interest—I was always very keen on hanging. “Did you ever see a fellow hanged?”

“Dozens of them,” he said solemnly. “And they all died roaring.”

“Jay!” I said.

“Oh, a horrible death!” he said with great satisfaction. “Lots of the fellows I saw killed their grandmothers too, but they all said 'twas never worth it.”

He had me there for a full ten minutes talking, and then walked out the chapel yard with me. I was genuinely sorry to part with him, because he was the most entertaining character I'd ever met in the religious line. Outside, after the shadow of the church, the sunlight was like the roaring of waves on a beach; it dazzled me; and when the frozen silence melted and I heard the screech of trams on the road my heart soared. I knew now I wouldn't die in the night and come back, leaving marks on my mother's furniture. It would be a great worry to her, and the poor soul had enough.

Nora was sitting on the railing, waiting for me, and she put on a very sour puss when she saw the priest with me. She was mad jealous because a priest had never come out of the church with her.

“Well,” she asked coldly, after he left me, “what did he give you?”

“Three Hail Marys,” I said.

“Three Hail Marys,” she repeated incredulously. “You mustn't have told him anything.”

“I told him everything,” I said confidently.

“About Gran and all?”

“About Gran and all.”

(All she wanted was to be able to go home and say I'd made a bad confession.)

“Did you tell him you went for me with the bread-knife?” she asked with a frown.

“I did to be sure.”

“And he only gave you three Hail Marys?”

“That's all.”

She slowly got down from the railing with a baffled air. Clearly, this was beyond her. As we mounted the steps back to the main road she looked at me suspiciously.

“What are you sucking?” she asked.

“Bullseyes.”

“Was it the priest gave them to you?”

“'Twas.”

“Lord God,” she wailed bitterly, “some people have all the luck! 'Tis no advantage to anybody trying to be good. I might just as well be a sinner like you.”

The Man of the House

A
s A
KID
I was as good as gold so long as I could concentrate. Concentration, that was always my weakness, in school and everywhere else. Once I was diverted from whatever I was doing, I was lost.

It was like that when the mother got ill. I remember it well; how I waked that morning and heard the strange cough in the kitchen below. From that very moment I knew something was wrong. I dressed and went down. She was sitting in a little wickerwork chair before the fire, holding her side. She had made an attempt to light the fire but it had gone against her.

“What's wrong, Mum?” I asked.

“The sticks were wet and the fire started me coughing,” she said, trying to smile, though I could see she was doubled up with pain.

“I'll light the fire and you go back to bed,” I said.

“Ah, how can I, child?” she said. “Sure, I have to go to work.”

“You couldn't work like that,” I said. “Go on up to bed and I'll bring up your breakfast.”

It's funny about women, the way they'll take orders from anything in trousers, even if 'tis only ten.

“If you could make a cup of tea for yourself, I'd be all right in an hour or so,” she said, and shuffled feebly upstairs. I went with her, supporting her arm, and when she reached the bed she collapsed. I knew then she must be feeling bad. I got more sticks—she was so economical that she never used enough—and I soon had the fire roaring and the kettle on. I made her toast as well; I was always a great believer in buttered toast.

I thought she looked at the cup of tea rather doubtfully.

“Is that all right?” I asked.

“You wouldn't have a sup of boiling water left?” she asked.

“'Tis too strong,” I agreed, with a trace of disappointment I tried to keep out of my voice. “I'll pour half it away. I can never remember about tea.”

“I hope you won't be late for school,” she said anxiously.

“I'm not going to school,” I said. “I'll get you your tea now and do the messages afterwards.”

She didn't say a word about my not going to school. It was just as I said; orders were all she wanted. I washed up the breakfast things, then I washed myself and went up to her with the shopping basket, a piece of paper, and a lead pencil.

“I'll do the messages if you'll write them down,” I said. “I suppose I'll go to Mrs. Slattery first?”

“Tell her I'll be in tomorrow without fail.”

“Write down Mrs. Slattery,” I said firmly. “Would I get the doctor?”

“Indeed, you'll do nothing of the kind,” Mother said anxiously. “He'd only want to send me to hospital. They're all alike. You could ask the chemist to give you a good strong cough bottle.”

“Write it down,” I said, remembering my own weakness. “If I haven't it written down I might forget it. And put ‘strong' in big letters. What will I get for the dinner? Eggs?”

That was really only a bit of swank, because eggs were the one thing I could cook, but the mother told me to get sausages as well in case she was able to get up.

It was a lovely sunny morning. I called first on Mrs. Slattery, whom my mother worked for, to tell her she wouldn't be in. Mrs. Slattery was a woman I didn't like much. She had a big broad face that needed big broad features, but all she had was narrow eyes and a thin pointed nose that seemed to be all lost in the breadth of her face.

“She said she'll try to get in tomorrow, but I don't know will I let her get up,” I said.

“I wouldn't if she wasn't well, Gus,” she said, and she gave me a penny.

I went away feeling very elevated. I had always known a fellow could have his troubles, but if he faced them manfully, he could get advantages out of them as well. There was the school, for instance. I stood opposite it for a full ten minutes, staring. The schoolhouse and the sloping yard were like a picture, except for the chorus of poor sufferers through the open windows, and a glimpse of Danny Delaney's bald pate as he did sentry-go before the front door with his cane wriggling like a tail behind his back. It was nice too to be chatting to the fellows in the shops and telling them about the mother's cough. I made it out a bit worse to make a good story of it, but I had a secret hope that when I got home she'd be up so that we could have sausages for dinner. I hated boiled eggs, and anyway I was already beginning to feel the strain of my responsibilities.

But when I got home it was to find Minnie Ryan with her. Minnie was a middle-aged woman, gossipy and pious, but very knowledgeable.

“How are you feeling now, Mum?” I asked.

“I'm miles better,” she said with a smile.

“She won't be able to get up today, though,” Minnie said firmly.

“I'll pour you out your cough bottle so, and make you a cup of tea,” I said, concealing my disappointment.

“Wisha, I'll do that for you, child,” said Minnie, getting up.

“Ah, you needn't mind, Miss Ryan,” I said without fuss. “I can manage all right.”

“Isn't he great?” I heard her say in a low wondering voice as I went downstairs.

“Minnie,” whispered my mother, “he's the best anyone ever reared.”

“Why, then, there aren't many like him,” Minnie said gloomily. “The most of the children that's going now are more like savages than Christians.”

In the afternoon my mother wanted me to go out and play, but I wouldn't go far. I remembered my own weakness. I knew if once I went a certain distance I should drift towards the Glen, with the barrack drill-field perched on a cliff above it; the rifle range below, and below that again the mill-pond and mill-stream running through a wooded gorge—the Rockies, Himalayas, or Highlands according to your mood. Concentration; that was what I had to practice. One slip and I should be among those children that Minnie Ryan disapproved of, who were more like savages than Christians.

Evening came; the street-lamps were lit and the paper-boy went crying up the road. I bought a paper, lit the lamp in the kitchen and the candle in the bedroom, and read out the police-court news to my mother. I knew it was the piece she liked best, all about people being picked up drunk out of the channels. I wasn't very quick about it because I was only at words of one syllable, but she didn't seem to mind.

Later Minnie Ryan came again, and as she left I went to the door with her. She looked grave.

“If she isn't better in the morning I think I'd get a doctor to her, Gus,” she said.

“Why?” I asked in alarm. “Would you say she's worse?”

“Ah, no,” she said, giving her old shawl a tug, “only I'd be frightened of the old pneumonia.”

“But wouldn't he send her to hospital, Miss Ryan?”

“Ah, he might and he mightn't. Anyway, he could give her a good bottle. But even if he did, God between us and all harm, wouldn't it be better than neglecting it? … If you had a drop of whiskey, you could give it to her hot with a squeeze of lemon.”

“I'll get it,” I said at once.

Mother didn't want the whiskey; she said it cost too much; but I knew it would cost less than hospital and all the rest of it, so I wouldn't be put off.

I had never been in a public-house before and the crowd inside frightened me.

“Hullo, my old flower,” said one tall man, grinning at me diabolically. “It must be ten years since I saw you last. One minute now—wasn't it in South Africa?”

My pal, Bob Connell, boasted to me once how he asked a drunk man for a half-crown and the man gave it to him. I was always trying to work up courage to do the same, but even then I hadn't the nerve.

“It was not,” I said. “I want a half glass of whiskey for my mother.”

“Oh, the thundering ruffian!” said the man, clapping his hands. “Pretending 'tis for his mother, and he the most notorious boozer in Capetown.”

“I am not,” I said on the verge of tears. “And 'tis for my mother. She's sick.”

“Leave the child alone, Johnny,” the barmaid said. “Don't you hear him say his mother is sick?”

Mother fell asleep after drinking the hot whiskey, but I couldn't rest. I was wondering how the man in the public-house could have thought I was in South Africa, and blaming myself a lot for not asking him for the half-crown. A half-crown would come in very handy if the mother was really sick. When I did fall asleep I was wakened again by her coughing, and when I went in, she was rambling in her speech. It frightened me more than anything that she didn't recognize me.

When next morning, in spite of the whiskey, she was no better, the disappointment was really terrible. After I had given her her breakfast I went to see Minnie Ryan.

“I'd get the doctor at once,” she said. “I'll go and stop with her while you're out.”

To get a doctor I had first to go to the house of an undertaker who was a Poor Law guardian to get a ticket to show we couldn't pay, and afterwards to the dispensary. Then I had to rush back, get the house ready, and prepare a basin of water, soap, and a towel for the doctor to wash his hands.

He didn't come till after dinner. He was a fat, slow-moving, loud-voiced man with a gray mustache and, like all the drunks of the medical profession, supposed to be “the cleverest man in Cork if only he'd mind himself.” From the way he looked he hadn't been minding himself much that morning.

“How are you going to get this now?” he growled, sitting on the edge of the bed with his prescription pad on his knee. “The only place open is the North Dispensary.”

“I'll go, doctor,” I said at once.

“'Tis a long way,” he said doubtfully. “Would you know where it is?”

“I'll find it,” I said confidently.

“Isn't he a great help to you?” he said to the mother.

“The best in the world, doctor,” she sighed with a long look at me. “A daughter couldn't be better to me.”

“That's right,” he told me. “Look after your mother while you can. She'll be the best for you in the long run.… We don't mind them when we have them,” he added to Mother, “and then we spend the rest of our lives regretting them.”