The Heather Blazing (6 page)

“Have you touched the sashes?” his father shouted. “Have you been playing with them?”

He knew that there was no need to answer. He wished that this crisis would come to an end.

“Go into Mrs. Cooney next door and ask her if she has any sashes,” his father shouted from the top of the stairs, but Eamon stayed where he was for a while, listening as his father pulled out another drawer in the small room. He opened the front door and closed it behind him to make it seem that he had gone, but instead he sat on the steps. There was no one on the street. The sun was high over Vinegar Hill. Suddenly his father came to the window.

“It's all right,” he said. “It's all right. You needn't go. I found them.”

His father put the sash around his shoulder and Eamon held the two ends together while his father put the pin into the clasp. They could go now, his father said as he folded his
own sash and put it in his pocket. Later, he said, when he got down town, he would put it on.

Eamon left his father at the bottom of John Street and walked down to the school. He was early, and sat in the shelter until most of his classmates arrived. Already hot in their suits in the afternoon sun, they were put into a line as soon as the Brother blew his whistle. They marched down the Mill Park Road to the bottom of Friary Hill, but were stopped there and told to wait. Friary Hill and Slaney Place were festooned with bunting. At the bottom of Friary Hill there was a huge arch. The Brother in charge had moved back along the line, so it was easier now for the boys to play without anyone noticing. A fellow from the Shannon gave Eamon a kick and put his fists up, daring him to fight, but Eamon stood his ground and ignored him, knowing that the Brother would come back at any moment. Soon, the lines of four had broken up into groups of boys laughing and fighting, but one of the men in sashes came up and told them to conduct themselves or he would have to report them. After a while, the man gave them leave to march towards Slaney Place.

The Brother ran up to the front of the march. He walked backwards as he shouted instructions at the marchers.

“Sing out loud now, so that everyone can hear you. Sing out loud, lads, so that everyone will know that your faith is strong. Louder now. Louder, come on, lads.”

They were stopped again at the bridge while the girls from the Presentation School went by.

“Sweet Heart of Jesus We Implore

O Make Us Love Thee More and More.”

The Brother conducted them as they sang. A few girls smiled as they silently passed. If there was one sound out of any boy, the Brother said, he would get six slaps with the
leather here and now in front of everyone. Eamon noticed that his new shoes were starting to stick to the hot tar of Slaney Place. The Brother said that everyone was to stand up straight.

They marched across the bridge and then into Templeshannon where they were halted again. The windows of the shops had statues of the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary on display. Eamon looked at the pale blue cloth and the mild eyes of the Virgin in one of the shop windows as they waited at the bottom of the Shannon. His legs were tired standing; it would be much easier if they could just walk without being stopped all the time, he thought. As they moved slowly up the Shannon they passed more stewards in suits and red sashes, men whom Eamon recognized from the St. Vincent de Paul, or the Museum, or the Athenaeum. The stewards stood back, sternly watching the procession, their hands behind their backs. They were the ones who controlled the stopping and starting. He watched out for his father and his Uncle Tom but he could not see them. On the steepest part of the hill they were stopped again as the Women's Confraternity passed by on the other side.

“Star of the Sea, Pray for the Wanderer,

Pray for me.”

The women wore mantillas and carried Rosary beads. He watched them as they passed. They were followed by the gold canopy under which Father Rossiter carried the monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament. An altar boy carried the incense but there was no smell. The smoke was blowing in the other direction. They bowed their heads as the Blessed Sacrament passed.

His father was standing on the bridge with his hands behind his back. He looked very serious, and Eamon knew that he must not wave to him or say anything. Along by the Post Office he saw his Uncle Tom who put his hand out and
stopped the procession, and held it for a few minutes before letting it go again.

An altar covered in red cloth had been put up in front of the fire brigade building. The Market Square was full by the time the marchers from the Christian Brothers arrived and it was hard to find a place to kneel. Soldiers stood to attention at the front of the altar as the final part of the procession moved into the Square. Red and yellow bunting was tied at the monument and led to the first-floor windows of houses in the square. People watched out from all the houses, with the exception of a few houses which had no one living in the floors above the shop. As Father Rossiter ascended the platform one man in officer's uniform shouted orders out in Irish and the soldiers stood to attention; he shouted out more orders and they lifted their rifles.

Benediction began. The crowd sang “O Salutaris Hostia” and bowed their heads when Father Rossiter raised the monstrance and the people in the Square struck their breasts three times.

It would not be long now, he knew as he walked home with his sash carefully folded in his pocket, before they went to Cush. It was June. The summer had already started, and his father's holidays from the secondary school would begin soon. His father would want to go to Dublin then, and so he would be taken out of primary school a week or two before the official time for holidays and sent to Cush.

*  *  *

One Friday a few weeks later he came home from school and everything was packed for him.

“Are you ready?” his father asked.

“Why didn't you tell me before?”

“It would make you unsettled.”

“It wouldn't make me unsettled.”

“You'd better be on your best behaviour in Cush. Bill Miller's going to drive you down with all the stuff.”

“And when'll you be down?”

“I'll be down soon enough.”

“Did you pack books for me?”

“Ah, hurry up now. He'll be coming soon.”

They drove out past Donoghue's by the side of Vinegar Hill. The van was old and there was a hole in the floor, which Mr. Miller told him to be careful of, and then laughed hoarsely. The clouds were moving fast in the sky as they neared The Ballagh and soon it began to rain. There were no wipers on the van, so they had to drive very slowly.

“Say a prayer, young fellow, now that there's nothing coming,” Bill Miller said.

They drove through Blackwater and then down towards the sea. The day had cleared again but there were brown puddles in the potholes. Mrs. Cullen was waiting for them when they came down the lane and parked beyond the marl-hole.

“Your daddy wrote and said you were coming,” she said. Her hair was tied in a bun. She kept her hand over her eyes to shade them from the sun. He carried all the boxes from the van and put them into the side room where he and his father slept. He sat at the kitchen table then and had a cup of tea with Mrs. Cullen and Bill Miller.

Mrs. Cullen believed that he should be outdoors all day. Even if he wanted to read she would make him go down to the strand or sit out in the garden. If it rained she would watch the weather to see if it was clearing up so she could send him out again.

“All the boys your age round here are out picking potatoes,” she said.

He went early one morning with Phil Cullen to pick potatoes. His job was to load them into the sacks. Once his back began to ache he could not wait for the morning to be over. When he thought it was lunchtime he found that it was only ten o'clock; it was the first fine day since he had come and he regretted having volunteered for this work. Eventually,
Phil found him sitting down resting against a full sack of potatoes.

“He's not too bad when it comes to eating them,” Phil said to one of the other workers.

“If you follow the cliff you'll find your way back home soon enough,” Phil said. “You can tell her that we finished early.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Go on,” Phil said.

As he walked back towards the Cullens' house, he realized that he missed living in his own house, having his own key and knowing that he could walk into any room he liked without disturbing someone. Suddenly, he wanted to go home. He lay down on the warm grass, looked up at the sky and decided to wait there for a while on his own before going back to the Cullens' house.

*  *  *

Mrs. Keating came to the house one night to visit.

“Do you remember his Uncle Stephen,” Mrs. Cullen said to her. “He had brains all right. Sure, so had his father.”

“That's right,” Mrs. Keating said. “All the Redmonds had brains.”

“Isn't he the image of his mother around the eyes?” Mrs. Cullen said.

“He is, but he's a real Redmond,” Mrs. Keating said. “And how are they all in Enniscorthy?”

“They're very well, thank you,” he said.

“We're waiting for you now,” Mr. Cullen said. “Talk never played a hand of cards. Are you going to play? Isn't that what Mrs. Keating came over for?”

“There'll be no fighting or arguing,” Mrs. Cullen said. “You wouldn't believe the way they fight over cards.”

Eamon wondered if they were going to let him play. He had watched them the previous year: he would have difficulty, he knew, with twenty-five or forty-five, but if it was
whist or solo he knew how to play, he had worked out the rules.

“So who's going to play, then?” Mrs. Keating asked. “Is young Redmond going to play with us?”

“Some other night,” Mrs. Cullen said. “We'll have to teach him how to play.”

“I know how to play,” he said.

“He knows how to play snap,” Phil Cullen said.

“I know how to play solo,” he said.

One of the Cullen girls came over and put her arms around him.

“Who taught you how to play solo?” she asked.

“I taught myself,” he said.

“Why don't we divide into two schools of four,” Mrs. Cullen said. “I have another pack in the room inside. And you can learn then.”

“One school for solo; one for forty-five,” Mr. Cullen said. “Which do you want to learn,” he asked Eamon.

“I want to learn solo,” Eamon said.

“I thought you said you could play,” Phil said.

“Leave him alone,” Mrs. Cullen said.

There were two cards missing from the second pack and Mrs. Cullen had to go to the press to look for loose cards. She came back with two cards from a different pack, took a pencil and wrote their trump and value on them. Mrs. Keating, Mrs. Cullen, Eamon and Phil Cullen sat at one table. Mr. Cullen, Mrs. Keating's daughter and two of the Furlong girls sat at another table. They had already started a game of forty-five. It was still bright enough to see the cards and it was only later, when they had played several hands, that one of the girls turned on the oil lamp and hung it from a nail on the wall.

Solo. Eamon tried to remember. There were no partnerships, each player played alone. There were trumps and you bid in turn on the value of your hand. Misere was the most
difficult to make: it meant that you had to make no tricks at all. Mrs. Cullen said she would deal the first hand and she would keep the score. She never played cards for money, she said. No one in this house, she said to Mrs. Keating, had ever played cards for money. It had ruined a few homes, she added. Mrs. Keating nodded in assent.

Eamon did not bid on the first hand. He preferred to sit back and wait. He knew that Mrs. Keating was a good player; he had heard Mrs. Cullen say that she was the best player for miles around. She bid a solo and made it easily and then laughed to herself. The game at their table was quiet and thoughtful; the others shouted all the time, their playing was full of threats and promises, each swearing that they had the card which was going to carry the day and shouting with pain and disappointment when they were defeated.

“Quiet there now at the next table,” Mrs. Cullen said as another hand of solo was dealt.

When Eamon looked at the next hand he realized that he had a good chance of making a misere: he had the deuce of all four suits; he had the three of hearts, the three of clubs, the four of diamonds and the nine of spades to cover him on the second round. The nine of spades was dangerous but the rest were safe. He thought of the rules again: he would play to lose at each trick, throwing away whatever honour cards he could. They would try to make him win a trick but as he looked at his hand he realized that he could probably defend himself.

“I'll go solo,” Phil said.

“Six spades,” Mrs. Keating said quietly without looking up from her hand.

“Misere,” Eamon said.

“The Redmonds were always great at cards,” Mrs. Keating said. “I remember your Uncle Stephen when he was your age.”

“What's the trump?” Phil Cullen asked him.

“There's no trump in misere,” he said.

“Will you leave the child alone?” Mrs. Cullen said.

He had to lead, and he led with the two of hearts and sat back to watch the play.

“He knows how to play all right,” Mrs. Keating said.

When Mrs. Cullen played another heart he dropped his three, he was still safe. The next lead was a spade; he played his two, Phil Cullen won with the eight, and led another round of spades with the six, Mrs. Cullen played the five, Eamon had no choice but to play his nine. Mrs. Keating waited for a moment as though she could not decide what to play and then gently placed the seven on the table, finishing the contract. Eamon could feel his ears begin to redden. In winning the trick he had lost the game.

“You didn't have enough protection in spades,” Phil Cullen said. “You'd need something lower than the nine.”