Murphy's Law (4 page)

I opened the bundle and found that there was a sheet in it, but no blanket. My shawl would have to do then. I was just trying to stow away our belongings on the little shelf at the end of our bunk when I became aware of a rhythmic thudding sound that echoed from the very walls. It was the ship's engines, now working up enough steam for us to sail.

"When can we go up and wave good-bye?" Seamus asked.

"I'm sorry, but they won't let us," I said, stroking back his hair the way I always did to my youngest brother. "It seems that we have to stay down here, because we haven't paid enough for one of the fancy cabins."

"But she'll be looking for us. I said I'd wave." He had been so brave until now--the man of the family, staggering across the dock with his big bundle. Now his lip quivered.

"She'd never have picked us out among all those people," I said. "She'll think she sees us waving with everyone else up there."

We had no idea when we left the dock but a gentle motion finally gave us the hint that we were at sea.

Four

Anyone who thinks that Atlantic crossings are glamorous should have traveled with us on that ship.

It wasn't terrible--it was clean enough and they fed us, a big pile of bread and butter, tea and coffee, plus a hot meal once a day. When

I say hot meal, it was actually a big pot of stew, dumped at one end of a table with the cry, "Come and get it while it's hot." Some people said it was better than they got at home. I don't know what their homes were like but it certainly wasn't as good as the meals I used to make for my da and the boys. But it was edible. I'll say that for it.

The worst thing for me was the darkness and lack of air. I was always in the open air. It was a two-mile walk from our cottage to the village and I did that most days. On fine days I was only inside when I had to be. My mother always said I was too wild for a girl, and I suppose I was--always clambering over rocks or even swimming in the ocean when nobody was looking.

We steerage passengers were allowed up on deck for an hour a day. The rest of the time we were locked away down in the hold, with the constant throb of the engine and the stale smell of unwashed bodies and worse. We were all herded together in a big open area with pipes running across the ceiling, lit by a couple of electric lightbulbs. There were benches around the walls and two long tables in the middle where we had our meals. The tables had sides to them, like trays--to stop the crockery from sliding off in bad weather, I supposed. There was nothing to do but to sit and hope that the time passed quickly and pray that the sea didn't get too rough. The children quickly found other little ones to play with. Seamus was off right away with the other boys. They'd huddle in the farthest corner, playing marbles, or disappear down the passages, trying to find ways out of our prison--only to be caught and sent back by the stewards. I didn't try to stop him. The children needed something to keep them occupied and it was good to see the boy playing.

Bridie, on the other hand, clung to my skirts and refused any suggestion that she join the other girls. She hid behind me when other children made friendly overtures and sat playing quietly with a sorry apology for a rag doll and a few scraps of fabric, which were her treasures.

We adults sat around with nothing to do, waiting for the next meal to break the monotony. The men smoked or played cards. Some of the women knitted and gossiped. I kept myself to myself. I didn't want to risk making any kind of slip

of the tongue. So I soon got the reputation of being standoffish and snooty, but I didn't care. Just let me get as far as New York and I would be free.

By the end of the first day that gentle swell had grown to a real Atlantic roll that sent plates and cups sliding down the tables. People started to feel sick. Then I realized what the other smell had been--it was stale vomit. Myself, I believe that more people were made sick by the smell and lack of fresh air than by the rolling. I tried to tell the steward that, when he came to swab up the floor for the tenth time.

"If you'd only let some good fresh air into this place, or let us take a quick stroll on deck," I said.

"If I let you up on deck, you'd have the ll'uns blown away in no time at all," he said, not unkindly.

It didn't affect me, but little Bridie took one look at the green faces around her and decided she didn't feel well, either. I was happy enough to tuck her in the bunk and stay with her. It gave me a good excuse to be away from the smell and the noise and the stale air of that room. If only I'd had a book to read and enough light to read by, the time would have sped by. But as it was, each day seemed like an eternity. That deep, dull thud, thud of the engine went through my whole body and pounded in my head until I wanted to scream.

I sat there in the dim light and made myself think about America. All my life I'd had big dreams--too big, according to my mother. Only lead to trouble in the end. It all came from educating me above my station. She'd been against it from the very beginning. She'd not even been grateful that I'd saved the family from being thrown out of our cottage. Because that was how it had all started. The landowner's agent had been around, trying to raise the rent again, bullying and threatening the way he always did. I was ten years old at the time. I'd stood there in the shadows, watching my parents bowing and cringing and pleading. Then I'd stepped out of the shadows and told that fat bully just what I thought of him.

It had almost got us thrown out, there and then. But somehow word of it got to the landowner's house-- Broxwood Court, it was called--and my choice of descriptive words had made the Hartleys

chuckle at their dinner party. The landowner's wife, Lady Hartley, was visiting from London, where she spent most of her winters. She expressed a wish to meet me and I was scrubbed up and brought up to the big house. I can remember my first sight of all that grandeur. I was too interested in taking it all in to be humble and mind my manners. Lady Hartley found me bright and refreshing, so she said. She thought it was a shame that a quick wit and a silver tongue like mine should go to waste, so next thing I knew, I was having lessons up at Broxwood with Miss Henrietta and Miss Vanessa.

I loved those lessons. There never could be enough books in the world for me. I devoured them all, geography and history and even Shakespeare and Latin. The governess said I was a joy to teach. Miss Henrietta and Miss Vanessa decided

I was a teacher's pet and there was something really wrong with a girl who liked studying. Men don't like clever women, they told me. I suppose they must have been right. They were both married by twenty and I was still an old maid at twenty-three.

Reading all those books had started to put big ideas in my head. I'd move to London or go to Trinity College in Dublin and be an educated lady and move in the highest circles. Unfortunately it had all come to an abrupt end when my ma died and I had to stay home to care for my brothers. That had pretty much snuffed out my big ideas. There was only one thing to do in Ballykillin--get married and raise a lot of babies of my own. I'd hoped maybe to take over from the schoolteacher one day, but she didn't look like she would be dying or retiring for a while.

And now suddenly I discovered that my dreams hadn't died at all. They had merely been sleeping in a far recess of my mind, ready to wake when opportunity knocked. And now it was knocking loud and clear. America--land of opportunity. I had heard the other women gossiping about it in the common room, how so and so's brother had gone there ten years before and now he had a fine house and carriage, or land of his own, or a business employing hundreds. Maybe I'd find my own way to prosperity in such a land! I lay on the bunk beside Bridle and let my fantasy roam--I'd start small, maybe working in a shop. And with the money I saved, I'd open my own shop--a bookshop maybe, and all

the educated folk would gather there and we'd sit around talking, with me at the center of it all ... if I could just get safely ashore and deliver these little ones to their father, then it would all be possible.

Then, on the third day out, I met O'Malley. I'd noticed him right away, of course, sitting with the card players at the table in the center of the room. He had the loudest laugh and I heard one of the men say, "You're a card yourself, O'Malley. I'll say that for you. A proper card."

There was something about him that made him different--the swagger, the way he showed all those big white teeth when he laughed and looked around to see if everyone had noticed how witty he was being. He was a big-boned man, almost handsome in a way, but he used too much brilliantine on his hair and he wore a bright red silk cravat around his neck. He talked too loudly. He laughed too loudly at his own jokes.

As I watched him, a young lad walked past the cardplayers' table.

"Well, look who we have here," he bellowed in that booming voice. "'Tis the pretty boy himself, off to sing soprano in the church choir. Of course, he'll be singing soprano all his life, that one. If you handed him a naked girl, he wouldn't know how to rise to the occasion!"

The boy blushed, which made the men at the table laugh even harder. I took an instant dislike to that man O'Malley, even more than the teasing should have warranted.

Not having to hear his loud voice was another reason I was glad to stay out of the common room. On the fourth day out, however, Bridie was feeling a little better and declared she'd like a piece of bread and butter and a sip of tea. I went to find them and was coming back with the cup and plate in my hands when someone stepped out in front of me, blocking my entrance to the passage.

"Mrs. Kathleen O'Connor, so I understand." It was O'Malley and the way he was leering at me made me feel that my first opinion was entirely justified.

I nodded, politely. "That's right, sir. Now if you'd just let me pass to take the food to the little one in the cabin."

Instead he moved closer to me. His breath smelled of smoke and liquor. There was supposed

to be no drinking on board, but I'd noticed him passing the flask around.

"Mrs. Kathleen O'Connor of county Derry? Of Stabane?" He was looking at me through hooded eyes, as if he was half asleep.

"That's right." I tried to push past him. He went on blocking the doorway.

"I've been speaking with your boy, Mrs. Kathleen O'Connor. He told me about you."

Surely Seamus hadn't given me away? I wasn't going to let this bloated toad frighten me. I'd just have to bluff it out.

"That's nice," I said. "I'm glad the boy has found someone to chat with. 'Tis a long, weary journey, cooped up down here."

"I'm finding one thing very interesting." O'Malley's reptilian eyes were fastened on me. "I used to know a Kathleen McCluskey in my hometown. I was friends with her brother and I heard that she'd married a Seamus O'Connor and gone to live in Stabane. Isn't that a coincidence?"

"I imagine the word is full of Kathleen O'Connors," I said. "Most parents are not too imaginative when it comes to naming their children and O'Connor isn't the most unusual name in the world."

"But in one small town?" O'Malley went on. "Stabane is a small town, wouldn't you say?"

"Small enough."

"So did you ever meet her--this other Kathleen O'Connor, married to Seamus?"

"I can't say that I did." I made an extra effort to push past him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I've no time to stand here gossiping, not with my little one in bed sick."

He let me go then. "I look forward to future chats with you, Kathleen O'Connor," he breathed into my ear as I walked past.

As soon as I was around the corner, I found that I was shaking. Just what did he know? And what did he want?

That evening I grabbed Seamus as soon as he climbed up to the bunk.

"That man O'Malley," I whispered. "He said he was talking to you. What did he want?"

"He just asked me some questions about home," Seamus said, staring at me innocently. "He

asked me if I knew a village called Plumbridge and I said that my ma's kinfolk live there. He said he used to live there, too, long ago when he was a boy--wasn't that a coincidence."

"You didn't tell him, did you?" I whispered. "You didn't say I wasn't your mother?"

"I didn't tell him anything," Seamus said defensively. "I just said I'd been to the village where he grew up. That was all."

"If he tries to talk to you again, don't answer him," I said.

"Why not?"

"There's something about him that I don't like. And you shouldn't be talking to strangers."

Seamus shrugged and lay down to sleep. I lay awake beside him, wondering if O'Malley really knew the truth and what he could do about it.

The next day, our fifth at sea, I tried to avoid him, but he had an uncanny knack of popping up out of nowhere, just as if he were the devil himself. As I came into the common room, there he was, blocking my path again.

"My but that's a trim figure you have there, Mrs. Kathleen O'Connor," he said. His eyes were all over me. "A very trim figure for the mother of two children. Your husband must be very proud that you've kept such a figure. He'll no doubt be glad to get his hands around that neat little waist again."

"I find your conversation most offensive," I said, and tried to pass around him.

He laughed, showing those big white horse teeth. "Do you now? Or don't you secretly like it? How many years has your man been away? Isn't it nice to have a man looking at you with interest again--or maybe you've found a temporary replacement to keep the bed warm ..."

I slapped his face. Hard. The sound of it echoed around the saloon and made everyone look up.

"One more insulting comment from you and next time it will be my fist," I said. I saw men grin and women nod approvingly.

"Come and sit you over here with us," one of the older women said, patting the bench beside her. "He's no gentleman, that O'Malley. That's for sure."

I was still so shocked, I went to sit beside her. "Who does he think he is, saying things like that?"

"One who likes to stir up trouble," she muttered. "I've been watching him. He's a man who likes a good fight. He'll bring trouble wherever he goes."