No Country: A Novel (16 page)

I voiced my fear. “But if we wait, things are going to get worse.
As bad as surely the ships are, they will become worse. What if the free transports stop?”

With a grimace, Mr. O’Flaherty said, “Ah, with the luck of the Irish, a gust of fevered wind could easily carry all three of us away.”

Mr. O’Flaherty had been eating little, pleading lack of appetite, and I had lost all of mine from sheer worry. Maeve ate little enough. Some mornings I could scarcely get out of bed, but would drag myself to the wharfside in Sligo, for it had become the source of all the news I managed to glean.

•  •  •

W
HEN THE FIRST
of these famine ships, the
Eliza Liddell
, reached St. John, with its starved shipload, a storm of protest broke out from the Canadians. The few Dublin papers that reached us reported that when the
Richard Watson
arrived, carrying Palmerston tenants, including one woman completely in a state of nature, the Common Council of the City of St. John accused Palmerston by name for deporting his tenants completely unprovided for in the New Brunswick winter.

It was common knowledge that an untold number had perished on the high seas, thrown overboard into the swallowing Atlantic. The ships kept no account of them: The senders did not, nor the land they never reached, though there were exact ledgers for all the convict ships that left for Australia, transporting the hapless ones England called criminals, to Botany Bay. But we were free Irish, free to leave and die. If ever in the future any relatives were to make queries, there would be few answers to be found.

Upstream on the Garavogue, our prosperous merchant Peter
O’Connor’s ships, which brought in Canadian lumber all the way to his great sawmills, were being used. Many other ships were coming to Sligo port. I read, plastered on harbour walls, Notice to Passengers, full of descriptions of the comforts on board. But around the ports, amid eddies of muddy water and ship detritus, floated other stories—of supplies running out on ships overloaded with all manner of cargo, water scarce or so tainted that none who drank it could remain hale. We heard of criminals who preyed upon the old and the children, the sickness that crouched waiting in the ship’s holds.

Yet such was the beauty of our Sligo coast, such the majesty of Ben Bulben and the gorse-laden slopes, that I clung to our cottage, holding off the decision to leave. Aye, I was no Padraig. I was that afraid of the unknown, if my heart’s truth be told. I dared not speak to myself of the time I would lose my country, tree by tree, rock beyond rock, hill after green hill. I sat, gluttoned upon grief, emaciating.

Where was the great Dan O’Connell now, him with his great talking of liberty and justice and rights, when all that we be asking are not even whole potatoes, but gruel and horse oats perhaps, or the glutinous paste of American maize?

On Maeve’s fourth birthday this November of 1847, although we had little stock of victuals left, I made her a small cake with the very last of our flour. I painted a small tin box in merry colours. Maeve’s smile lit our cottage that evening.

•  •  •

T
HREE DAYS LATER,
I forced myself to prepare Maeve. “Do you . . .” I began, but could find no more words. I looked haplessly at Mr. O’Flaherty, who smiled bleakly at me.

“Maeve dear,” he said, reaching out to hold her palm, “will you go sailing with us?”

“Do we have to?” she asked, looking at him.

“I did not want to,” said my teacher, “but now I have changed my mind.”

“Nobody comes here to play anymore,” said Maeve. “Will there be other children on the ship?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I am sure.”

“Where will we go?” she asked both of us. Before I could say anything, Mr. O’Flaherty said, “We’ll go to America, Maeve.” Well, that was easily done, I thought, when Maeve asked, “Why do people go to America?”

“I think different people go for different reasons,” I ventured, not sure what I meant.

“Are we looking for something?” she asked. “When shall we come back?”

I stared at the floor.

“We don’t know, Maeve. Sometimes we do not know what we are looking for, until we find it,” said Mr. O’Flaherty, making it sound like a children’s riddle.

Maeve did not smile. “Is that what happened to my father? When will he know if he’s found it?”

We sat silently. Then Maeve’s face broke into a smile. “Do you think my da is there, waiting for us?”

“America,” said Mr. O’Flaherty so softly that he must have been speaking to himself.

“Shall we stop moving about after that?” Maeve persisted.

We nodded. “Yes, Maeve. If that is what you want,” Mr. O’Flaherty added.

“Do you promise?” She was asking me directly.

“What if you want to travel more, Maeve?” I asked her. “People sometimes grow up and change their minds.”

She shook her head, “I am sure.”

“All right,” I said to her, “I promise, if that is what you wish.”

“You won’t change your mind?”

I shook my head, “I promise you, child.”

“I promise too.” She spat in her palm, and we shook hands. I did not know what promise this child was making, and to what end. But for the nonce, that seemed enough.

Ach, but Padraig? What if he returns?
whispered my tormented heart.

•  •  •

O
N THE WATER,
cormorants dipped and flew amid the rancid kelp. We stood by the quayside, waiting to board the
Rose of Erin
, probably the last ship to sail out so late this year. I would have preferred to await spring and a better passage, but knew we could not survive winter. We were shabby beyond belief. I glanced back to look at those staying behind. I spied a woman near the inn behind the harbour, gesturing to the sailors. She stood in wretched profile, her hands folded over a concave stomach, her groin protruding, a pathetic dribble of hair between her legs clear as the wind pressing into her sorry shanks. ’Twas the stark prose of what was happening to our land.

I looked at our bundles. In a pile were Mr. O’Flaherty’s books and my Bible. Maeve held her tin box with a hand-painted picture of a rose on it. Its two clasps were painted gold. I could hear the rattle of her coloured chalks with every step she took. I had brought two porcelain bottles with cork stoppers for water. They
promised us a fair ration of water every day, but I knew that if they failed, we would have something to store a little in—even if it were rainwater saved—for lack of water can make a child wilt and die, and an old man too. I was now, without being so, the son of one and father of the other.

Maeve played at the water’s edge, her fist full of wet pebbles, while I waited for her to select a few for her little box. She would be carrying a wee part of Ireland, I thought, picking her up to walk the creaking gangplank onto the ship. Mr. O’Flaherty followed us with slow steps. Mr. Rafferty brought up the rear, and we exchanged a bleak greeting.

In the hold, I made sure to find space near a porthole which was waist-high. I knew the child needed fresh air, and the light that came in would bring what small cheer could be had in the belly of this ship with its odour of mould and foetid air. There was no sign of the rose in our ship so bravely named.

I sailed away, dry-eyed and in silence, from Sligo harbour on the twenty-fourth day of November of 1847, from this beloved corner of the earth, knowing I would not see this shore and green ever again. It was soon to become the shadow land I would walk in my restless slumber.

Every day upon the earth I had marveled at the height of the sky. Now I was aware of awesome depth. What a great, grey thing the ocean was under us!

Mr. O’Flaherty liked being on deck, craning his thin neck and noting the wind, the slant of the sun, the sails. But on bad days, with waves slapping the ship about, its bucking and swaying, heading down and sidling up, the juddery movement would bring a groan to his lips though he would sit by the porthole and, never mind the odd spray, close his eyes and doze himself into submission.

To our front and behind were the Behan clan, the father, mother, their two unwed daughters, four dour sons, their wives, and their numerous children. It was as if County Sligo had emptied itself of all Behans. When the children got restive and began to bother each other, the women would slap the ones next to them, irrespective of who was to blame, “Joe, Teddy, Molly, Jock, Pat, Willy,” and with each name went a hearty smack, followed by yowls, “But I’m Jack, and I didn’t,” and so forth. Sometimes one
of the Behan men absently swatted a whining child—“Stop that, Peter”—and the child blubbered, “But Peter’s dead. I’m Davy. Molly pushed me,” followed by silence and Davy whimpering.

On the other side of the hold next to a porthole, huddled three young men. I did not know all their names. One among them, White Danny as his friends called him, had hair that hung limp as kelp but ghostly white. Under invisible brows stared his eyes, which were pale blue, his lashes thick, long, and colourless. His raw red-rimmed lids reminded me of a vicious rabbit with its sharp buck-teeth, for these he had too. He would flick a pink tongue against his lips so thin that his mouth looked a wound. I noticed that he would, whenever his fellows dozed between their endless card games, piss out the porthole. This Danny would keep staring in our direction, at Maeve.

At the back of us there were other families, including one of the few Anglo-Irish families I knew in Sligo. They were two thin girls, Misses Mary and Theodora, and their mother, Mrs. Felicita Snow, who used to keep a fine shop selling lace in Sligo Town and bought the lace my poor mamma made. She nodded at me, as if acknowledging me in her dainty shop, a worn beauty, gone sad and haggard, and obviously on her last legs, but a lady for all that. Miss Mary was the one who looked after all their needs, while pale Miss Theodora, the younger sister, seemed tainted with the gaiety of the doomed.

But few looked as wan as Katie Sweeney, whose sturdy husband carried her on deck and walked with her up and down, as effortlessly as if he were carrying a baby. Even when the spray rose, and others took refuge down below, he would cover himself with a thick shawl and sit with her on his lap if she were content. He sat steady no matter how the sea rocked the ship.

The sailors, a rough lot, all blurred together for me, except the one called Will Hayward, whose bronze curls and lithe walk set him apart. I was too shy to look at him or talk, but he was among those who distributed the first rations, and more than once gave me four pieces of black bread, although we were three. The first time, when I looked up in some confusion, he smiled and moved on. I was stricken with guilt and a thrill. No one had noticed. Mr. O’Flaherty was gumming down his slice, and I hid the extra one in my shirt and shared it later with Maeve. Mr. O’Flaherty took half the day getting the best of the hard bread by soaking it in a bit of water.

We had been told casually on Sligo quayside itself that we were to bring with us as much food and provision as we could, as if in our homes we had full larders to choose from. According to Lord Palmerston’s declarations, seven pounds of weekly provision per person would be provided. Mr. Behan said that this was seven pounds more than what he was providing his family on their days of starvation. But we discovered soon enough that we were to be given just two pounds or less of mouldy biscuits and such—per week. The water was unspeakably foul. Although we hated the stormy weather, we sucked on the wet canvas or gathered rainwater to drink. I was certainly grateful for my two bottles.

The characters of the people in the hold became clearer and stark in such proximity. Mrs. Snow never ate a crumb until her daughters did. She held herself that ridiculously erect, planting herself as a frail screen between herself and White Danny. When one of the Lewis children fell asleep, seasick and nauseated, still holding his morsel, Danny prised it on the sly and devoured it. It was a small enough morsel, but if the Lord in Heaven was not like another absentee landlord—for which thought let Him
forgive me—then a fiery bed is made and waiting for Danny Soames.

What distressed me most were the unsanitary conditions, men and women indiscriminately using either of the slop-holes at the far ends, the detritus falling into the sea. We used as little paper as we could, sacrificing one of Mr. O’Flaherty’s books for the purpose. It was John Locke’s
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
, starting from the conclusion and worked our way towards Locke’s opening argument. We hoped to reach Canada before we needed to use the Dedication.

There was an unwritten sort of rule that when the ladies went, the men either did not go at that time, but if perforce they had to, would only use the larboard one. But the card players would crowd around when some of the young women had to relieve themselves, causing them much discomfiture, and themselves indecent pleasure. When Mr. Sweeney bore his wife to the back, he would spread his shawl across her, and look about fiercely, and none dared say anything in jest or look thither.

Very early one morning I heard Maeve rise and make her way to the slops. Needing to go too, I rose to follow her. Up there lurked Danny with Miss Theodora Snow. I was confounded by such unseemliness, but he did not meet my eyes and scurried away, smirking. I wondered what Maeve had seen, and resolved to keep an eye on him, for there surely was a sickness in that Danny’s mind. Once in a while he would steal a glance at me, his shoulders silently shaking in mirth at this sordid sport.

The next morning was cold but sunny, so we were all on deck, basking in the mild sun and steady wind. Perched on the broad railing of the deck, I leant against some rigging, swaying lazily with the motion of the ship. I must have dozed when suddenly came a
violent shove. What primordial instinct it was, I do not know, but my hands flew out, one of them finding the rigging ropes in a desperate grasp. Dangling, I could see the churn of water, and out of the corner of my eye, glimpsed a pale hand pull quickly away. I hauled myself back and crouched on the deck, shaking. Maeve caught me around the neck fiercely, weeping and shuddering, and I held her to me.