Rory & Ita (12 page)

‘She also had two sisters. One was Minnie. She lived in England, in Birmingham, I think. She had been married and had a family but the marriage had broken up. Then there was Baby – they all had funny names. The story about Baby was, there’d been a family row, after the father’s will was read, and Baby went off and hid and that was the last they heard of Baby. She just disappeared. That was years and years before I came into contact with them.’

She doesn’t know how her father met Pearl in Dublin, but ‘the strange thing I do know is that he’d met her years before he met my own mother. He met her in New Ross. Her father was an RIC man at the time, based in Rosbercon, outside New Ross. My father had been banished to New Ross. I think she might only have been a schoolgirl; I’m not sure, but I do know he
met her. And then they lost touch; he moved back to Enniscorthy and then up to Dublin. How and when he met her again, I have no idea.

‘Her mother’s people came from Avoca.
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They were farmers. And her father had a very nice place in Aughrim,
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after he’d retired from the RIC, a pub and grocery.
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It was a beautiful place and I believe that, in their day, they were quite wealthy but they’d lost it all; her father drank himself out of it. And her mother moved back to Avoca, to live in her home place.

‘I heard my stepmother described as a fine girl by a man in Wexford, when I was a teenager. She was tall, rather heavy, and very heavy legs. She had a preference for ankle-strapped shoes.
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She was able to drive. And she was a marvellous pianist.
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She had been educated but, for some reason or another, it didn’t rub off on her. She was an amazing woman – but I don’t want to speak too ill of the dead; it doesn’t seem fair.

‘I thought that this was going to be great, that it would be great to have a mother. Joe resented it bitterly, because
he was such a pet. Máire more or less accepted it, without much enthusiasm. But I thought it would be great. And, I suppose, looking back, there were good times and bad times.’

The wedding took place in Avoca but the children weren’t at it. ‘We went to school. My father gave us each money, to buy a present. I think it was ten shillings, which was a fair bit of money. I remember buying a condiment set on the way home from school, in a jeweller’s shop called Lawrence, on Henry Street. Salt and pepper and mustard; they had silver tops and a kind of flowery base. Joe bought a glass jug and six glass tumblers. I can still see them; they were yellow and blue striped. I can’t remember what Máire bought, but we each had a bit of change, which was great, because he let us keep it. And that was our celebration, keeping the change.

‘The wedding was, I gather, very private. Pearl’s brother Frank was the best man.
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I don’t know who the bridesmaid was. I think they came home on the same day and, if they didn’t, it was very soon after. Lillie, the maid, left soon after that. And Miss Dunne left, although she was still living on the same road. And I was told that my father still paid her; he didn’t just cut her out.

‘And life changed completely. From being waited on hand and foot, from being rather cosseted, I was left to do everything by myself. From the age of ten, I had to wash my own clothes. Bed things were sent to the
laundry but personal things I had to wash myself. I’ve no idea how I managed, but I did. There was a big mangle outside the back door that you could run the clothes through but they had to be hung on the line to dry, and I have absolutely no recollection of how I did it, but I did – it had to be done. And the cooking deteriorated rapidly. She used to do a good steak, in the pan; that used to be grand, but she’d do a pile of potatoes and mash them and reheat them, and you’d be sick of them by the end of the week. She wasn’t a good cook but, there again, we didn’t die of starvation. We got our meals. And my father seemed content. That was the main thing, really.

‘She was alright, as a rule. But there was nothing warm about her. And we always felt that she’d have preferred if we hadn’t been there. She never touched us; she never hit us. I suppose, mentally, she could be cruel, and I don’t think she really meant to be; it was just the make of the woman. She was very mean. When we were finished our tea in the evening, we weren’t allowed to eat any more. I remember taking bread and butter and putting sugar on it, and putting it up my sleeve and going upstairs to eat it. You can imagine the state of my cardigan by the time I got up the stairs. But I never felt hard done by. We’d talk about what she did and what she didn’t do, what she should have done. But I was always resilient and happy by nature. I kind of accepted it; I could have been worse off. I also had a great way of keeping my mouth shut. Máire gave the odd answer back but it did her no good. And Joe was very unhappy and hated the situation. He went very much into himself. He was a very jolly, cheery fellow but he became kind of sullen around the house; it completely changed his character.
He shook it off later in life but, to put it mildly, he hated her guts.

‘But there were lots of things that happened. She was a bit fond of the drink and that, really, was the cause of a lot of the trouble. She managed to cover it up for quite a while. We used to get the groceries delivered from Findlater’s, in Rathmines, and there was always a bottle of whiskey in the order. Maybe a friend of my father’s would call at the weekend and they’d have a drink. And the rest of it would disappear. But she kept it well-hidden. Saturday was the usual day, when we were older; when we came home from school she’d be intoxicated. She’d go up to bed, and get up perfect. I don’t think she ever had a hangover.

‘I got a fountain pen one year, for Christmas. I had it a few months, and it went; I thought I’d lost it. It was very nice, speckled black and white – I can still remember it. The following year, when my father asked what I wanted, I said I’d like a pen. He said, “I gave you a pen last year and you lost it.” He was a bit cranky but he got me the pen, the same type, but green and white this time. But that pen also disappeared. And, years and years later – I was well-married – and there was a robbery in the house in Terenure and Máire phoned to tell us, and we drove over. When we arrived we went upstairs and the place was in chaos. There must have been about fifty handbags lying on the bed. She must have had a thing about handbags. Even the Guards came in and said, “Jesus, missus, you had enough handbags.” Anyway, there were loads of things lying on the bed – including my two little fountain pens. We often felt she liked to see Daddy annoyed at us.

‘There was another Christmas, and he came in and,
as he often did at Christmas, he put four or five little things down on the table and said, “You decide what you want there.” And one of them was a pen – again; I always loved fountain pens. And I said, “I’d like the pen.” And Mum said she wanted it. So that was it; she got the pen. But the following Christmas my friend Noeleen was given a present, and it turned out to be the pen. I said nothing to Noeleen and I didn’t say anything to Mum, but I thought it was awful; it was terrible.

‘She used to go down to Avoca for a few weeks every year, to stay with her mother, and that used to be like a holiday for us. She adored her mother. She was heartbroken when she died. Her mother used to come up every year for a few days, after the harvest was saved. I would say she’d been a handsome woman in her youth; she was rather blocky in build.
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They’d go off shopping together. I remember fur coats being bought; her mother had a thing about fur coats. Clery’s was the place for the fur coats. That can’t have been every year, but I remember a few fur coats.

‘I can remember going in and out of town with Pearl on a few occasions, and she was alright. And a few trips to Bray.
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I remember her pointing out this big hotel on the sea front where she had worked in some capacity, I don’t know what. But she was always eager to come out and look at it again. Maybe she had happy memories of it – I don’t know.

‘There were times when it was OK but, on the whole, it was pretty dull and dreary. And loveless. It was just, when I saw the mothers in other houses and the affection they had for their children, I never got any of that. And I always felt a bit in the way. She had her good moments, but they were scarce. I’m glad to say that, at this stage, I never do anything, only laugh about it. It wasn’t funny at the time but, looking back, I think it stood to me; when you have things hard early in life it makes you appreciate all the things you have later. My sister and myself often discuss it, and both of us feel the same. We just got on with it. You didn’t rebel; you just accepted it. That was your life, and that was it. But it was an awful shock when it happened. But I suppose, there were a few good times, and we were kept pretty comfortable. There were people who were hungry and cold but we were OK. And the neighbours around us were very nice and I had lots of friends.

‘And my father was a very good man. He was completely undemonstrative, but he was a very good, straight man. He was always looked on as a pillar of the community. I remember my aunt saying that she had never
met such integrity. He was a very methodical man.
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And the job was so important to him. He didn’t take his holidays sometimes until it would be pushing into the winter. He had this silly idea that they couldn’t get on without him, things might go wrong; he’d wait until all the others had had their holidays. He worked in the Department of External Affairs, on Stephen’s Green. He had the key to the wine cellar, and they couldn’t have given it to a better man. There was no chance in a million years that he would rob a bottle or touch a bottle. I remember invitations coming to him for this function and that function, but he never went. They’d be stuck on the mantelpiece and he’d say, “I’m not getting into a monkey suit for anybody.” But he loved going to the Abbey.
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Every first night, he was there. And the very odd trip to the pictures. He loved Laurel and Hardy. And the one who really impressed him was Clark Gable. He thought
San Francisco
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was wonderful.

‘I remember the first film I was at,
Babes in Toyland,
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with Laurel and Hardy, and I had my head stuck under my father’s coat from the beginning to end; I was terrified. Every now and again I’d peep out and I’d see these things moving around, and back my head would go. I remember my father laughing and Joe and Máire laughing, but I have no recollection of the film.’

She overcame her fear. ‘We used to go to the Stella in Rathmines every Sunday afternoon. Four pence in it was. I loved the cowboy films. I went with my friend Noeleen and, of course, we were beginning to move into the romantic era and the two of us would come out with tears rolling down our faces. And we thought it was great value; anything that made you cry was marvellous – if the heroine died at the end or got TB, or if they split up. Jeannette MacDonald in
Smilin’ Through,
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with Brian Aherne – he was good, handsome; he was mostly a cowboy – and she died at the end. That was smashing; we loved that. And we went to the Classic when it opened in Terenure, where the old steam tram
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had been. There was an actor in one of the films and
he was bald; I can’t remember who he was, but someone shouted, “Hey, you, head of skin!” And someone else shouted, “Do you comb your hair with a towel?” The little boys; the noise used to be dreadful. When the cowboys and Indians were fighting or the sheriff was pursuing the gangsters, the boys would tell them where to go and what to do and what not to do. It was all part of it, great fun.

‘Our road was full of boys our own age and we knocked around with them, but there was no real pairing off or anything like that. Really, teenagers didn’t exist; there was no such thing – you were thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, but never a teenager. I suppose, we kind of eyed boys and men up and down but, other than that, we used to go around in a crowd of our own age. You’d prefer one to the other, but that was as far as it got. Young people were the same as anyone else; you did what you were told.’

She continued to enjoy school. ‘I always enjoyed English. I can still remember nearly every poem I learned.
Oh, to have a little house, To own the hearth, the stool and all, The heaped-up logs against the fire, The pile of turf against the wall.
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I have dozens. And, of course, Shakespeare; I was happy with Shakespeare.

‘I remember once, we did a play,
The Admirable Crichton.
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And one of the teachers, I think it was Miss Burgess, was Crichton. She was very good. She was the only one who was allowed to wear trousers on the stage.
There was another play we did – I can’t remember the name of it – but there was a grocery shop, and I was the grocer. I was playing a man’s part but I had to wear an apron over my skirt. I had to stand behind the counter with my apron on. I had a cap, and my hair was stuck up in the cap. I wasn’t allowed to wear trousers, but the admirable Crichton was.

‘We also did “The Hound of Heaven,” by Francis Thompson.
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I fled Him down the nights and down the days, I fled Him down the arches of the years, I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind, And in the midst of tears I hid from Him, And under running laughter
. I can’t remember the rest, but it’s not too bad. Anyway, we were all kinds of things, and my role – there were rocks and chasms, and I was a rock and chasm. I had a purple robe, and all the rocks – there were three or four of us – we had to sit at one side and drape these purple robes over ourselves, to give the appearance of rocks. And we were asked, “Rocks and chasms, whom do ye seek?” I can’t remember the answer; I mean the official one – we gave a different answer every night. But I do remember, the highlight of the whole thing was that de Valera attended.

‘I hated maths. To this day, I hate maths. And I started off great guns with Latin, but it went. There was an A class and a B class, and I was in the A class. In the A class you did Latin and in the B class you did Domestic
Economy. I’d have preferred Domestic Economy, the cooking, but there was no way I was going to be demoted to the B class. So, I managed. I didn’t shine in exams, but I never failed. I was quite happy with Irish. History, I loved, and was happy enough with Geography – it was different then, just mountains, rivers, places. I was fairly good at art. I was good at design, and I could draw a still life, a few apples in a bowl.