Two Walls and a Roof (8 page)

From my bedroom I roared back down, “Yer not gettin
g my jar, it’s for my train set.
I’m not giving it up to ye
…. G
o away, leave me alone”
.
I was wild with rage, but be
ginning to have my first doubts
that the train set would be mine by Christmas.

“Please come down John, just for a minute so we can talk”
. I
t’s the Nan
again, this time she’s pleading
and using the
‘
please
’
word again.

In dread, I go down the stairs and there they are, sitting in their huddled way beside the old black range. Both my mother and the Nan are looking genuinely distraught. As I crossed the floor, mother looked down at her hands where she looked so very poor to me, wearing the scarf around her head that I hated. Nannie had this awful pleading face on her
. T
his was far from the face of the proud woman she let on to be, and I hated what I saw before me in her as well.

“John, tis very cold. I
t
’
s even snowing outside now and your mother here has no
coal for the fire. T
he la
ds are all cold across the road
and things are very bad
,
” says the Nan
. A
cross the road was her way of referring to ‘two walls and a roof’. I try to lie and angrily tell them, “It’
s spent, all gone, tis all gone
I tell ye
.
I have no money
,
only my old jam jar”.  Nannie ignores my lie and mother still
has her head down in her hands
not able to look up at me
,
and she seemed to be sobbing.  Nannie presses me, “Look John, tis only till I get the pension on Friday, and then I’ll pay
you back, I promise you I will. T
hen you can still get your train set”. Now she was actually lying to me….making me a promise I knew she could not, or would not keep. But my angry protesting was no use, and I did not believe her when she said she would pay me back either.  I knew damn well that she had not even paid Peggy for her last pound yet, and there was only one pension left before the Christmas, so how could I get the train set before then. Still more pleading went on from the Nan, and in
the end I could take it no longer
and I just gave in
. B
y then my poor mother was openly sobbing softly and looked even more miserable than before.

I honestly believe that something broke inside of me at that very moment, on that awful day, and I went back upstairs and got my jar half full of money. I began crying bitterly as I hand
ed it over to her. Then this so-
called tough woman, my Nan, was also openly crying as she gently took the jar from me, and by then it was all over. She opened my jar with the bread knife and then
,
trying to ease my pain, she gave me back a shilling saying
,
“Start again John won
’
t you, you’re a great boy”. I ran upstairs
,
throwing my jar and the shilling inside it onto the bed. I cried for a very long time until I literally ran out of tears and finally gave up feeling sorry for myself.  I knew then that no matter what work I did, I would not have my train set by Christmas,
or probably
ever have it, and resigned myself to its loss.

Next day I went across to Peggy. I put on a real brave face on it all, but deep inside m
e I felt so ashamed and so poor
as I told her these words
,
“I want to say that I won
’
t be buying the train set
. I have changed my mind on it. S
ell it if you like”
.
I secretly hoped for a miracle where she might say
‘
I
’
ll keep it for you till later.
’  She stared at me in disbelief, “What are you saying John?”
I then tell her vehemently that I’m not buying it and to sell it to some rich boy. She went in to get it, as if to convince me to change my mind, but I can’t stay there to see it, and began to leave
while
trying not to cry. As I left for Nannie
’
s, I just had to glance back and saw her placing
my train set back in the window. B
y the next day it was gone, and so were my dreams.

Many years later, when I was married and going out for a day with my family, I saw a genetic echo happen before my eyes. My son Adrian and I went into a shop to buy an ice-cream.  There in a box in a glass cabinet was an almost identical train set to my dream one. Within seconds Adrian had spotted it and he began to pester me for it, and he was never one to pester me at all.  I saw before my very eyes myself in my young son, and his dreams seemed like a mirror of mine many years before. There was no way that I could shatter his dream, and even though I could ill afford it that day,
I bought the train set for him
and we cancelled our day out. We crossed the road to a picnic area an
d set up our train set together and played
for hours.

Many years later, on my fiftieth birthday, my sisters and brothers bought me my own train set at last
,
making up for the lost one. They presented it to me at a surprise birthday party in Mallow.  However, Kyrle the bastard, as a joke and unknown to me, had hidden some of the tracks on the night. I was so excited with my gift that I left the party early so as to have a play by myself at home. But when I got home
,
half of the lines were missing and I could not make the track form a ring. I was raging, figuring out that he had tricked me, but the next day he gave them to me and we all sat on the floor and laughed and had a good play after all the years.

The really strange thing about this whole story is that my mother has no memory of it at all. I believe that it was
either too hard for her to take
and she has erased it from her mind, or that it was just one of the many other incidents of poverty lost among more dramatic ones in her life.
In any case, it did me no harm
other than make me very frugal, fear Christmas times, and hate jam jars with a passion.

What can anyone ever say about their mother
. O
ur mother was
,
and still is
,
probably the most unselfish person I ever knew in all of my life, and before the readers will say that I’m biased, let me remind them that I was not reared by my mother, so I can make a fair assessment. For most of her life she was poor. She rarely if ever bought something truly for herself and it took almost 60 years before she got to f
ly on a plane, or even got to
visit another country. The farthest she had ever travelled was to the Isle of Man
to visit her daughters Lill
and Eunice, who live very happily there now. Even with free transport in the latter years
,
she never had enough mone
y to go on a holiday on her own. A
nd what’s more
,
I never heard her once say she would like to just get away from it all.

She bore six children in very hard times and welcomed each with equal affection
, yet I’m sure shock set in too
when the news broke that she was once more with child. She has always had a fantastic sense of humour and a real unusual laugh. It’s a characteristic of hers I feel.  I have
early memories of my mother, who
I always called ‘Blend’ as a child
. T
his must have hurt her, with her firstborn not even calling her mother, or ma, or whatever, like normal families would do, but that’s the price we paid for my Nannie
’
s abduction.

When mother was pregnant she would always suffer from her teeth
. S
he had good teeth
,
but it was
something I remember her saying -
that s
he would be in agony with tooth
ache and have no money for a few tablets or the doctor. The father would seem to be impervious to his wife’s pain and this was the other extreme in
our family, as he was probably
the most selfish of individuals -
drink money superseded all else. They were at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to caring for their children’s needs, yet he made up for a lot of it by being kind and gentle to us always.

Mother became an epileptic as she got older, and I am one hundred percent certain that it
was not a hereditary complaint.
I had always felt it was due to sheer uncontrollable stress, and I noticed a pattern. She would get an attack at times of great stress and Nannie would unkindly say
,
“Ahh sure she’s only putting that on for sympathy”. This was very hurtful for me to hear, but to my shame I sometimes believed it, though I watched for the pattern. It took years for me to realize that the pattern was nature’s defences in action.

I never knew how she carried on
. E
very day was potentially a t
errible day. It has to be soul-
destroying for any m
other to
see her own children go hungry, or ha
ve but little food to give them:
to know that there was no prospect of tomorrow being a better day, though she always told us it would be. For most of her early life, she lived on ‘tick’ or her ‘book’ as we knew it. This was the usual way then to get credit from a shop for a week’s groceries. One had a little book and the shopkeeper wrote into it your purchase and the amount. By the weekend you were expected to pay your total and then start again next week. The shopkeeper also had his record
,
and the system worked great as long as you paid on time
. T
his tick book was very common in the Ireland of those days. Quite often though, the book would remain unpaid
for a week, then another, then
you played catch up if the grocer was nice.  Much more likely though, you didn’t pay at all because you had no income. Eventually the patience of the shopkeeper ran out and your food supply totally dried up in that shop. The usual answer then was to move on to another shop and begin another tick book. To a great extent I was sheltered from this book thing, as Nannie always paid on time and usually she used her pensi
on to buy groceries on a Friday
because she had the regular
,
though small
,
income from a widow’s pension.

When all books were run dry for mother, particularly when father just could not find a job anywhe
re, she relied on our paternal g
randmother
,
known as Gracie
,
for reluctant handouts.

Gracie had a small sweet shop at the top of the town and was a good businesswoman. She always seemed rich to me, but sh
e had a very mean streak in her
as regards her grandchildren. Whenever
m
other sent Kyrle or Lill up to her for a loaf of bread, they invaria
bly came down with mouldy bread -
so mouldy th
at she actually fed her chicken
s better bread. I know this because Kyrle and I used to have to feed her chickens and try to steal their eggs. I often saw mother cut out the mould and butter or jam the rest of it, and it’s no wonder we never needed antibiotics.

Finally things got so bad that my father just had to go to England
,
like many before him. The day he left was a miserable
,
cold
,
cloudy day. H
e had a small brown suitcase which
was old and raggedy
,
and as he waited for the bus to Cork
,
mixed emotions came over me. In one way I felt that now
,
at last
,
we might get money, but at the same time I felt very sad inside because he looked so lonely and miserable himself.

When the bus arrived
,
I never saw him kiss my mother goodbye
. M
aybe he did, but it was not obvious to me. On the day he left, he was to take the same Innisfallon immigrant ship that we had seen some months earlier, when mother was told all three of us were going blind.
 
He left, and on the hope of British money, mother got more tick and we seemed better off for a time. It’s a strange and sad affair, but I saw almost a carbon copy of this very same situation in the film from Frank M
c
Court
’
s masterpiece
Angela
’
s Ashes
. No money came:
then
,
still later, no money came. Mother l
ived on what Nannie could spare
from her pension, and from Michael
’
s sh
oe
mending and writing business.

What we didn’t know until many years later was that our father had been sending his mother
,
Gracie
,
money from the very beginning. This money was to pay back the fare he had borrowed from her for England. He didn’t seem to worry much about his wife and children, who were both cold and hungry, and who lived just some distance down Buttevant’s main street
. O
r maybe he felt Gracie would help, but she did not. These acts
,
while forgiven
,
were never forgotten in my mind.

What my father did in England is a mystery to me
. H
e did send money rather sporadically
,
eventually
,
and I think
he worked in a petrol forecourt
as well as playing music in London’s clubs for a time. In spite of the frugal nature of our life then, for me this time was the first time I ever saw a light at the end of the tunnel
. W
e were getting better off, just marginally
.
Kyrle began working for Big Kyrl in his cinema hall
,
and I suppose he got a few bob for it too, so his life was also improving.

In spite of all our misery
,
my mother would laugh at least once a day at something completely stupid
,
in our view. We would be arguing and discussing some world event at teatime or dinner time and all hell would be breaking loose
, b
ut we always waited for the mothers clanger, which would come sooner or later, and she would say
, “And what about the nul-c-
ar bomb
?
” pronounced just like that. It was in the middle of the Cold War and she was constantly saying the Russians would blow us all up. We would collapse laughing, as it was all she would ever contribute to the debate, no matter what was its subject. We never once
told her of her hilarious mis
pronunciation either
,
and to this day she still says it wrong, and still does not know why we used to laugh.

Mother was always on the hunt for an extra few bob, and over the
years I heard
many stories related to that task, but one in particular deserves a mention. One evening a
very
distinguished looking man
and a woman arrived outside our
door
,
and waited for the bus to Mallow. The evening was turning wet and the people seemed to be very early for the bus
, so as usual mother
invited them in for a cup of tea. They accepted and arrived into our kitchen where father greeted them cautiously. While mother was boiling the kettle and scrounging around for a
few
biscuit
s,
the guests informed father that the man was an African Bishop
,
and his
woman was a Nun as well.

That bit of news changed everything. Mother called father aside and insisted
that
he go across to
Coleman’s
shop for some ham and cheese to make the
‘
special guests
’
feel welcome. In those days her tic book was being held in
Coleman’s
shop
,
and a strict budget was in operation regarding
luxuries such as
food
,
but no limits were ever placed on the
amount of
cigarettes
to be bought,
as
they felt the fags were their only pleasure. Father pr
otested the obvious budget over
run but
it
did no good, a Bishop was in the house and a Nun
too
,
so he left for the food
. While he was gone the guests chatted to mother and told her all about Africa and their Missions
,
and she was delighted to have such important guests in her little home.
Time passed
and father had
not returned when the bus arr
ived, but
the guests assured mother that they could easily stay
on
for another few hours
,
especially
in such pleasant company.
That w
as not what mother
had planned, but it was a Bishop after all, so she would be happy to listen away to their stories of desperation and African poverty.

Father
finally
came back after telling a
ll
those in
Coleman’s
shop about the
Bishop and
his
Nun
friend, and on t
he way back he dropped into Kit’
s bar and cadged a pint on the strength of his
famous guests
.
Mrs.
Coleman was so impressed with the
se
guests that
father
got
even more tic
from her
,
and bought far
more ham
than they needed
.
When he sauntered in m
other glared at him
,
suspecting he was in
Kit’s
bar
all
of
the time, but she could not challenge him in front of such important people
,
so
t
he tea was made
again
for
a second time
. I was told that
the special guests ate all round them
, so much so that,
f
ather
didn’t even get a bit of
the extra
ham
,
because they savaged it all
down
,
praising the Lord and blessing all round them
.
However
after
many
hours of
their
‘
M
ission’ talk and more pots of tea
,
the mood
became a bit strained. My memory of the story
then
is th
at mother
decided to take the guests acr
oss to b
less Nannie
. This
would at least
give father a break from their constant praising of the Lord
, and
their
veiled begging for Charity
from my parents who
were people, who
actually needed it
.