‘Poultry, my child?’ That was the priest, his voice faint with disbelief. ‘In your mammy’s good parlour?’ his voice rose, gained a little strength. ‘Oh, God save you, that one’s drinkin’ out of the holy water stoup so it is!’
‘That’s not the holy . . . oh, well, someone’s stood it on the floor by mistake,’ Polly muttered, red to her ears. ‘Honest to God, father, they have a nice tin bowl for their water . . . the bloody dog must of kicked it under a chair.’
‘Wha-aat?’ roared Father Feeney, his voice coming back alarmingly suddenly. ‘What did ye say, child?’
Polly, who never swore and had simply repeated what Martin had called Delilah when he had caught the dog thoughtfully chewing the stiff white collar to his best shirt, reddened still further, or at least she supposed she had because she felt as though she were on fire so she did.
‘Oh! Sorry, Father . . . the naughty dog, I meant. The naughty dog must of kicked it under the chair.’
‘Kicked what?’ Father Feeney said. ‘What the divil are you talkin’ about, child? What I’m sayin’ is you’ve turned your mammy’s lovely home into a madhouse! Dogs, cats, hens and dirt. It won’t do, Polly, indeed it won’t.’
‘I know it won’t, Father,’ Polly said – and did the best thing she could have done. She bolted across the room and landed fair and square in Father Feeney’s waistcoat, or where his waistcoat would have been had he been a man and not a priest. ‘Oh, Father, it’s so awful here wit’out me mammy!’
Polly, a regular attender at Sunday school, a buyer of candles and the owner of one of the sweetest, purest voices ever to be raised in John’s Lane Church, knew herself to be one of Father Feeney’s favourites, otherwise she would never have dared. Priests, the boys frequently complained, could hit harder than teachers or policemen, so they could. But Father Feeney, after the initial staggering back, put his arms round Polly’s narrow shoulders and gave her a comforting squeeze.
‘Sure and it’s none of it your fault, alanna,’ he said roundly. ‘’Tis the lads, wit’out a doubt. But ’tis a woman’s hand that’s lackin’ here. I’ll send someone round.’
A fortnight earlier Polly’s heart might have sunk at the thought of adult interference, but not any more. All she wanted was another woman to come and take the responsibility off her shoulders. She gave a consenting mutter and hugged Father Feeney harder, causing him to sit down rather abruptly on the arm of the sofa. But he patted her soothingly, told Ivan to get off his bum and put the holy water stoup back where it belonged, out of that evil hen’s reach, and then stood back, putting Polly gently away from him.
‘Don’t worry, girleen, we’ll soon have this place straight,’ he told her. ‘I’ll send someone up at once. Is your mammy sending you money?’
‘Brogan sends as much as he can,’ Polly said, starting to try to shush the hens back into the kitchen. In a way it was a pity the priest had called; she and Tad had talked about acquiring a pig, but though pigs looked very sweet when they were small, she could imagine that one of the big ones could do a deal of damage in Mammy’s nice parlour and besides, it might not like the cats and Delilah. ‘Will I give the person you send money then, Father? Only we don’t have much to spare . . . I’m not at school any more, which is a saving . . .’
‘Not at school, alanna?’ Father Feeney’s voice had gone high again. Ah, God, I’ve give meself away, Polly thought. Priests an’ teachers always stick together, don’t they so? He’ll tell me what’s wrong wit’ the National School so he will; he’ll say what’s to pay there?
‘What’s wrong wit’ the National School?’ the priest said, echoing Polly’s thoughts. ‘There’s no money to pay there.’
‘It’s the time; I can’t spare the time when I’ve all the housework an’ the cookin’ an’ the messages to do,’ Polly said plaintively, trying to ignore the glance which the priest sent around the room. Ivan, sitting on the floor scrubbing potatoes in a bowl of filthy water, said loudly: ‘I do the messages, Poll – you make me.’
Polly waited until the priest had turned to stare at a peculiarly arrogant hen as it strutted in from the kitchen and then she aimed a kick at Ivan which landed rather neatly on his small bottom. Ivan yelled, then scrambled to his feet to kick back just as the priest said in an outraged voice: ‘It’s a cockerel!’
‘What, that hen?’ Polly said. ‘What’s a cockerel, Father?’
‘It’s a male hen, alanna. It – it’s the daddy to the little yellow chicks. What in God’s good name are ye doin’ wit’ a cockerel up here?’
‘Tad said they’d make little chicks if we waited a while,’ Polly said in a satisfied tone. You could trust Tad, she thought, he was almost always right. ‘Oh, so that’s the daddy, is it?’ She examined the cockerel closely, but apart from the scarlet ribbon-thing on his head and the dangly red bobbles on each side of his beak he looked just like the other hens to her. ‘So that’s why he doesn’t lay eggs, is it?’ she added. ‘He’s the daddy, so the others are the mammies, and they’re the ones that lay the eggs. Do I have it right, Father?’
‘You do,’ Father Feeney said in a strangled sort of voice. He put a hand into his collar and pulled it away from his neck as though it were too tight for him. ‘Glory be to God, it’s an education, this place.’ He turned and opened the door on to the landing, then turned back. ‘Polly, you’ll be in school tomorrow, either at the Convent or the National School; is that clear?’
Polly had always known it was too good to last and besides, what with Brogan’s money, Martin’s earnings and the hens, they weren’t too badly off financially. Summer was almost upon them and she and Tad had various plans for the summer. They included cockling at Booterstown, taking the pram out into the country and digging spuds (after dark, Tad had said evilly), working at fruit picking and rabbiting.
‘Rabbit is grand so it is,’ Tad had said. ‘You’ll love rabbit.’
Polly had agreed that she would, and it was not until she realised that they were talking at cross-purposes – she of hutches, he of pots – that she vetoed that suggestion. And Tad had agreed, presumably because the thought of Polly lovingly rearing rabbits to eat the hens’ corn was more than he could bear.
‘You’re nutty about animals so you are,’ he grumbled, but made no further attempt to persuade her and suggested, instead, that they might dig worms for the hens. But Polly, thinking this was unsporting to say the least, said worms gave her the creeps so they did, so that one had been shelved, too.
‘Polly!’ the priest said warningly, now. ‘Did ye hear what I said now? School on Monday; understand?’
‘Yes, Father,’ Polly said obediently. There were, after all, only another few weeks to the end of term. ‘I’ll be glad to go back so I will.’
After the priest had gone, however, she and Ivan began to try to tidy up.
‘I don’t like hen’s shit,’ Ivan whined, trying feebly to get it off the linoleum. ‘It’s sticky and stinky.’
‘Shut up and scrub,’ Polly ordered. Then, relenting: ‘If you get it off, Ivan me little love, sure an’ I’ll give you an egg to your tea – two eggs.’
‘An’ bread an’ Maggie Ryan?’ Ivan said, scrubbing away. ‘An’ chewed apple?’
‘It’s
stewed
apple,’ Polly said reprovingly. ‘Do try and talk proper, me boy. Yes, you shall have two eggs, bread an’ margarine, and stewed apple. Only you’ve got to get the lino clean first.’
She then set to herself, wondering rather apprehensively who the father would send, but presently there was a knock on the door and a gentle, very young voice said, ‘Can I come in, now? The father sent me.’
‘Come in an’ welcome,’ Polly said. ‘Oh, Miren, ’tis glad I am to see you! I was wonderin’ who Father Feeney would send . . . don’t be cross, but it’s got a bit messy so it has.’
‘Whoever knew me cross?’ Miren said. ‘Good Lord, hens! I
t’ought
I heard some funny sounds here, as I went past.’
Miren lived on the floor above and was a poor unfortunate, but everyone liked her and pitied her, too. She had come to Dublin as a housemaid and had become pregnant as had many another before her. Sacked and forbidden to go home, she had given birth to her baby and handed it over for adoption, and then she had done the only thing she knew, for no one wanted her, now, as a housemaid.
‘Damaged goods they call the girls they’ve ruined, the so-called gentry do,’ Mammy had said once, referring to the poor girls who shared a couple of rooms on the floor above their own. ‘And many of those poor innocents have been murdered in their beds by men who take their pleasure and then won’t pay for it.’
‘Innocents?’ the neighbour to whom the remark had been addressed said in a bemused tone. ‘Sure an’ that’s not the right word I’m thinkin’, Deirdre.’
‘It is so,’ Deirdre had asserted. ‘Innocent they were when they came to this town despite what life has done to them and innocent they’ll die, for they’ve no malice or evil in their souls.’
But now Miren was looking round the room and tutting gently so Polly put both arms round the older girl’s waist and hugged her hard.
‘I’m sorry, Miren, about the mess, but I’m only ten and . . .’
‘Don’t worry, little one,’ Miren said. ‘Help me and we’ll have it clear and bright in two shakes of a . . . oh, my God, what’s that doin’ here?’
‘He’s a man-hen,’ Polly said rather proudly. ‘He’s goin’ to help the other hens, the woman-hens, to make little yellow chicks; Father Feeney says so.’
‘Oh, does her Miren said. She was laughing. ‘Cockerels peck, or have you already found that out, alanna?’
‘He doesn’t peck me, I’m his friend. I give him corn an’ cabbage an’ turnip,’ Polly said. ‘Besides, I like him. My friend Tad gave me them.’
‘Glory be! How many have you?’
‘Seven hens and one man-hen,’ Polly said. ‘What did you say he was called?’
‘A cockerel, alanna. Eh, it’s like old times to see hens scrattin’, but it’s not the place for them, you know. Hens needs outside, they needs to peck an’ croodle an’ pick at fresh grass, worms . . .’ Polly shuddered, ‘ . . . leaves, all sorts. You could get the boys to make you a run an’ keep ’em in the courtyard.’
‘No, indeed,’ Polly said. ‘They’d be stole an’ ate. You know what folk are. Besides, they’re happy in here really they are, Miren. They peck an’ pick at the dirt between the floorboards in the kitchen, an’ they eat their corn . . . they sit by the fire of an evenin’, just like the cats, blinkin’ at the flames. And the eggs is good . . . once we beat ’em in milk an’ made a custard – it was the nicest thing!’
‘Oh well, I’m a country girl meself,’ Merin said philosophically. ‘But what’ll you do when they’re old, past layin’, child?’
‘Get more, an’ retire these,’ Polly said. She turned to the nearest hen, which was thoughtfully tugging at a loose thread on the rag rug, doubtless under the impression that it had found a worm at last. ‘You won’t be ate, I promise,’ she informed its indifferent back.
‘That’s cleared that up, then,’ Miren said. ‘And now, alanna, let’s get on wit’ our tidyin’!’
Chapter Fourteen
August–October 1934
The day the doctors officially agreed that Peader was out of danger, more, that he was going to get well, Deirdre lit an altar-full of candles and thanked God, his Holy Mother and all the saints. She stayed on her knees for an hour, thanking the whole of the heavenly host, just about, she even threw in a special little prayer of thanks to Polly’s guardian angel, for sure and hadn’t the angel done her work well? Deirdre had needed to concentrate wholly on her man, and though she had worried a little when Polly told her that Miren was now coming in daily to ‘help out’, the truth was that beside the crippling anxiety of a sick husband, every other worry paled into insignificance. But that particular worry was over, now, for the doctors, nurses and support staff were delighted with Peader’s progress.
‘He’ll not work as a safety man again, but there’s nothing to stop him doing a clerical job,’ the doctor told Deirdre a couple of weeks before she took her husband home. ‘And the railway has agreed that they’ll find him something – a country station, probably, with a small ticket office which needs manning. Or a level crossing, because you’d have a little cottage, a garden . . . now that’s a job you could help him with, my dear.’
A level crossing! From that moment on, Deirdre was all smiles. Her worries disappeared like frost in June at the mere prospect of a little cottage and a garden. She knew, now, that her strange attitude to Peader’s suggestion of a move had been partly fear of the unknown and partly the change of life. The doctor, when consulted, had told her that the change of life was something with which she would learn to cope, that he could give her some pills, but that she probably would not need them now she knew the cause of her bad temper and depression. And because she loved Peader deeply, always had and always would, and wanted to be with him, she knew that she would be able to tackle this old change of life, to take it in her stride. She would conquer the bad temper and depression, not allow either to rule her. And, armed with this resolution, she found that her attacks of unhappiness and misery had all but disappeared. Love, and nearness, had won. She would cling to Peader wherever he was, whatever he did, and they would be all right.
She had acknowledged, both to herself and to Peader, that the letter had been dreadful, a terrible mistake. She had shown him the other letter, which had arrived soon after his accident, explained how she had regretted the first one as soon as it was in the box, begged his forgiveness. And Peader had smiled his faint smile and said what was there to forgive? She was here, wasn’t she? She loved him, didn’t she? Well, then!