Not the Same Sky (5 page)

‘Last year.’

‘Mine too.’

‘I heard that that girl,’ Anne pointed, ‘has a mother alive.’

Honora looked at the girl and wondered if you could tell by looking at someone that they had a mother alive.

‘Who told you?’

‘That girl there, you know, the Julia one.’

Honora Raftery told Anne Sherry that her sister had seen her off, and one brother too. She said it was sad but for the best. She said her sister Florrie had told her not to cry but that she herself had cried. She said her brother had told the two of them it would be all right.

There was more to Honora’s leaving than that, but already she was choosing what to say. She would have chosen what to remember if she could. There had been four girls and three boys in her family. They had been poor yes, but so were their neighbours. And they had had enough to eat. Her mother made their clothes, favouring red as a colour if she could get it. She could sew beautifully. She also knew about the Brehon Laws, which made her a bit of a novelty. Honora’s father had a sense of humour, and boasted about his wife knowing about the Brehon Laws, ‘Even though a man could be done by them,’ he’d laugh. Honora’s mother knew all sorts about the Brehon Laws, the importance of bees, for example.

The children helped with work but still played, not yet knowing the seriousness of matters. Though they did not play too loudly, sensing somehow that an ostentatious display of wellbeing might be misconstrued. Neither of their parents had ever said, ‘Shush, that’s too much noise,’ or ‘Play away from the house would you.’ Her mother had never said, ‘Can you keep that down, I’m not well.’ In fact, their house had a type of merriment about it once everyone had scratched and yawned themselves into daylight. Merriment is given, a gift from nowhere, in the same way disease is bestowed upon a house.

An outsider could not say why in their house, at their table, a light seemed to be handed around with the plate. And neighbours came to visit. Advice might be sought without being blatantly stated. A neighbour might bring the conversation around to a problem that someone, not them, was having with the landlord. And maybe one of Honora’s parents would say something that could be done, or that, ‘Nothing can be done about that.’ Honora’s father laughed with his talking.

When they were four years of age they were taught the alphabet. Honora’s grandfather had said it was a good plan to be able to read and write, even for girls, and maybe more so because so often they had to go away. So Honora’s mother could read and she taught her children. They were told that every letter has a sign and it’s up to us to put the signs together to make a word. There are seventeen signs—that’s what’s called an alphabet. In English there are more, twenty-six, but that will be for later. They would go to school where they would have to learn English, so she would do some of that when they had mastered the notion of reading.

Honora had shared one side of the bedroom with her sisters, her brothers were at the other side. She had found a way to turn her neck so she could see the kitchen window through the crack in the door if she woke before everyone else. There was only one window—her father told her that you had to pay if you wanted more. But you can get plenty of light outside, no one can charge for that, he would say. If Honora was woken by the birds, she would check the window to see if it was bright and blue outside. And if it was then it might be breezy or it might be calm with noises carrying across the fields. It might even be a little hot, warm enough to feel the sunrays through your dress, a sudden heat like standing before the fire, but clearer and brighter. If there were no birds and it was a dark winter morning, she would know and would move closer to her sister before she had a chance to get cold. Her oldest sister Florrie had enough heat for all of them. It even seemed to go through the one beside her, straight through to the next one. ‘Florrie’s a godsend,’ her father said—maybe that’s what he meant. If Honora could see rain streaming down the window she might watch it for a while, slip sliding down around the hump in the middle. But sometimes she wouldn’t watch it. The sky was crying, her father would say, before being silent for a moment, and wondering how he could talk himself away from what he had just said. If there was frost on the window, Honora would try not to waken her sisters because, although it was beautiful, it was cold too. Maybe even Florrie would not be able to warm them if they all sat up to look, letting the heat escape out from under the quilt where it would just disappear into the air. And then it would take all of them and Florrie ages to make it again. Also there was no need because frost always stayed until she got up, the best thing about frost was that you could touch it. Frost was so beautiful—twinkling cracks drawing wild pictures and then perhaps a plain patch in the middle. You could look at frost forever and never tire of it. If there was snow in the window, Honora would have to wake her sisters.

The quilt had been made by Honora’s mother and sisters, every stitch put in by them. They had preferred some patches to others. It had been made in preparation for all of them to be lying under, as they were now. Already there was talk of Florrie’s quilt and who might help. Honora would like doing that. For all the heat that Florrie gave.

Honora remembered the evening the O’Brien men had come. They brought in with them a cold that came from far outside. The children were sent to bed, the boys at the same time. Instead of making their customary noise they had all stayed quiet, even the boys, because although children do not wholly know the seriousness of particular events, they can sense danger. The mumbles from the kitchen sometimes cleared out and a voice could be heard speaking.

‘We’re going to America. The Shannons are going to Australia. We’re going to America. The landlord said that he’ll give us the fare, we’ll give him all the corn and whatever else is there before next week. And the week after we’re going.’

‘All of you?’

There was a long silence from the kitchen.

‘Where’s Australia?’ Honora asked.

‘Shssh.’

‘You can’t all go.’

‘It’s a famine. Can’t you see that?’

‘What’s a famine?’ Honora asked.

‘Shssh.’

There were more mumbles.

‘No, but Florrie what’s a famine?’

A boy’s voice answered. Honora couldn’t tell in the dark which of her brothers it was. ‘It’s hunger, I think.’

‘We’ll be over before you go,’ they heard from the kitchen.

‘Yes, people are coming.’

That was a long time ago. And then two of Honora’s brothers had gone to America. Then Honora’s parents had died—her mother first, her father soon afterwards. And then two sisters went to join the brothers. The last brother got work on the road that started away from the town and went to the bog, but he had food, until that money dried up too. Florrie and Honora had gone to the workhouse together. The day Matron called Honora’s name, Florrie sighed another sigh, but, now used to partings, bent her head and did not weep.

‘I will stay with Dan. But you must go. We cannot all stay here, we could get sick. You must go,’ she said.

Florrie found the required references for Honora—she had gone to Matron and said she’d like to do it as a kind of parting gift. She had not talked much on the day before the leaving, instead busying herself with anything she could find to do.

Honora looked at the crowd of girls at the quay. She knew there was a house and a mother and a father and maybe sisters and brothers behind all of them. But in the past only. Standing here, everything was past. So that meant it was gone. There’s a past, a present and a future tense, her mother had said. So this must be the present. Peculiar thing the present tense, it didn’t feel like anything. The past felt, it had sounds, smells and colours, it even had feelings—touches running up your arms and into your chest and head. Presumably the future would also have colour and sound and smell at least. Where was this Australia? She would measure it in time, that might tell her. Or it might not, because Honora was losing track of time. But this present, what did it have? There was a smell of fear in it. Perhaps if she could concentrate on the signs in it, like letters in a word, she would understand it. So she stood, oblivious now of Anne Sherry and those around her in the line.

First there were the noises. It was hard to separate them. There was a lot of shouting, although Honora couldn’t be sure if it was all in English—it could have been, but shouted in a different accent. Her teacher had explained all that when he had taught them English. He had even told them their own language had different accents depending on what part of the country it was spoken.

‘But it would still be the same language?’

There were a lot of questions at school.

‘Yes, yes of course, but one might have to listen more carefully to hear the exact sounds of the words.’

‘Do you know everything in English?’

‘Can we get back to our letters now.’

‘I mean everything you know in Irish, do you also know it in English?’

‘The letters and the sounds, let’s get back to those.’

So Honora listened, gathered the sounds from the wind, hoping to recognise something. But nothing was familiar. But it didn’t matter. Everything did not have to be familiar, she had learned that since leaving Dublin, thirty-six hours ago, or was it longer? That was of little consequence either way, because no matter how she looked at it, she was caught here between time and language. There was nothing to do but wait, and step forward as the line moved closer to yet another door, yet another taking of names. And then there were the colours—not much difference there. The men who were running around the ship shouting all wore grey and black. Her father had worn a red waistcoat. She could have looked at it the way she looked at frost. The men who were taking their names also wore grey and black. Cleaner, but still grey and black.

Honora had glimpsed a few women who came to the room beside where she and the others were lined up. They appeared to be delivering boxes. They had colours in their clothes, their hats and their collars, but nothing spectacularly different to black and grey. Yet her eyes lingered on them as they walked briskly away. They had brought with them a dash of a different settled place. A place of streets without aimless wanderers, of tables set for tea. A town ticking over day by day. Curiosity fluttered in Honora, perhaps for the first time in weeks, but she had learned that it was best to keep curiosity in check these days. All her energy was needed for the one task of standing, still cold, or edging up the line—the end of which would surely bring better things—being present to follow the next order, or staying awake when required and sleeping when told, if possible. This tending to the present required curiosity be kept in check—unbridled imagination could lead to panic.

The smells allowed her tolerable enquiry. There was food among them, raw fish, she thought. She had also smelt other food being carried by the shouting men, she was sure of it. Her nose had become sharp to these things. She wasn’t hungry yet. Those in the line had been given porridge this morning and it was still warming her inside. They had eaten silently, every girl concentrating on her own bowl. They had been told there would be a meal here while they got ready for the next boat, a better meal than the last one. Honora believed that. She had to.

More boxes were brought through, closer to them now. The large crates were dragged and pushed and wheeled noisily by. When the men were close like that she could pick out some of the words.

The line moved another bit. Anne Sherry spoke again.

‘I wonder, will it be like America? We’ve had letters from America.’

‘My uncle said it would be more like England.’

‘Will that be good or bad for us?’

No one knew.

Anne was suddenly irritated by the chatter of the other girls. She wanted to concentrate only on the next hours. She had heard one of them shout three months, she was sure of it, three months, and this had her rattled. She should be more tolerant of the wonderings. Just because they were all together in a line did not guarantee there would be a uniformity of feeling, that they would be thinking the same. They voiced their thoughts to see if they found consolation, any consolation, even if it was wrong. But surely they couldn’t be on the ship for three months. Surely that was wrong.

‘We’ll be all right,’ Honora said, as if she believed it, in that moment pretending to be older than she was, pretending she was not afraid. Becoming someone she was not.

Anne looked at her gratefully. Maybe she’d stay near her on the boat.

The feet of the girls shuffled forward a few more steps. Names were spelled and checked again. There was more confusion. An official in a black suit, his eyes glued to the papers before him, lost his temper and roared, ‘Get into a straight line. I said a straight line.’ There was a movement, almost imperceptible, the slightest rustling of dresses. He looked up, surprised at the echo of his own voice. The line was perfectly straight. Honora heard a voice making a noise, more a growl than a whisper. Honora thought it was that Julia girl, the noisy one. Honora wouldn’t like to be like that, it could be dangerous. She now knew the names of two other girls—that was enough for the moment. The man in the suit seemed confused by the acquiescence. He would take a deep breath and pray for reasonableness, allowing for a certain leniency in spelling.

‘I can spell in my own tongue.’ That was definitely Julia.