The Bright One (3 page)

‘I was wondering, will I go to America? Will I go to live with Uncle Fergal and Auntie Cassie?'

‘And when would this be?' Kieran asked.

‘Now, if I could. Has anyone ever swum to America?'

‘Not that I have heard of. 'Tis unlikely,' Kieran answered.

‘I'm a good swimmer.'

‘You are so,' he agreed. ‘But it's a long way. What would you do for food?'

He asked the question deliberately. She was fond of her food, greedy almost. It was a wonder with all she ate why she didn't grow faster.

Breda did not need her brother's questions to remind her that she had not eaten since yesterday teatime. In the evening she had been too excited, and this morning too angry. She felt now as though she had a great dark hole in her middle. She wondered if she were to starve herself to death, would her father be sorry for ever? Would she be made a saint? Saint Breda of Kilbally?

‘Mammy has sent you some soda bread,' Kieran said.

He took the packet out of his pocket, rather squashed, and handed it to her. Swiftly, she tore off the wrapping and bit into the soft bread, thickly spread with the farm butter Deirdre's mother had given her to bring home – was it only yesterday?

She did not speak until every crumb was finished. Nor did Kieran. His sister would be more amenable on a full stomach.

‘I will so go to America,' Breda said. ‘As soon as I am old enough.'

‘But not swim there?' Kieran said, and saw the corners of her mouth turn upwards at his teasing.

She might well go there, he thought. There was no way the whole family could stay here, even though Kathleen and himself would be away. In every large family – and most were large – someone emigrated. It was the story of Ireland, not just in the time of the potato famine, about which every schoolchild knew, and wasn't there a very old woman in Kilbally whose grandmother had told her about it first hand? It was the way of life. The land couldn't support them. They crossed the water, and sent money home to help those who stayed. But he had thought it would be the twins who would go, not little Breda.

‘I will travel on a big ship,' she said.

‘Or perhaps an aeroplane, by the time you are old enough? But what will Mammy and Dada do without you?'

‘Mammy will be sad,' Breda conceded. ‘But Dada does not love me, else why did he not take me to the races?'

‘Because it is not a thing for a little girl. Besides, won't they have to stay overnight in Galway because of the horses, which will be too tired to go there and back in one day?'

Clearly, Breda thought, no-one was on her side, not even Kieran, who was kinder to her than anyone.

‘Will he bring me back a present, do you think?' she asked.

‘If he wins,' Kieran said, ‘I daresay he will.'

If he won plenty they would all get presents. If he won a little, then Mammy and the girls. If it was a bad day he'd had then he'd turn out his pocket linings to show they were empty, and it would be a hungry week to follow.

‘Mammy thought we might bring a picnic down to the strand this afternoon,' he said. ‘It will be low tide. You could look for your pebbles.'

Breda was making a collection of pebbles. They must be small, because she hadn't much space to keep them, but they must also be beautiful, unusually marked, uncommonly coloured. Only the very best would do.

‘It would not be as good as the races,' she objected.

‘It would so,' Kieran said.

‘And who would come?'

‘All of us.'

‘Even you?'

‘Yes,' he promised. ‘Perhaps Mammy too.'

That was one of the best things about their mother. It was there she differed from the rest. Busy though she was, she would sometimes leave the work to join them in whatever they were doing. In the evenings she would often sing to them in her rich voice. She knew hundreds of songs. She was not like all the other mothers, not at all.

‘Would you ever help me with my pebbles?' Breda asked cautiously. She had no intention of being easily persuaded. She had been badly done by.

‘I might,' Kieran agreed. ‘But we need to go home now. I have to see Mr O'Reilly about a job in the shop. It's important.'

Mr O'Reilly kept the grocer's. He had almost promised that he would find something for Kieran to do: sweeping up, packing and unpacking, delivering. It would not fetch much in the way of money but hopefully there would be extras – sugar, lard, flour, tea – to bring home.

‘Anyway,' Kieran added, ‘we must do the chores this morning if we are to picnic this afternoon. Would you have fed the hens at all?'

‘I forgot,' Breda admitted.

‘Then won't they just be hungry? What if Mammy forgot to feed you? You had better come back with me and do it!' He spoke gently, but as one who expected to be obeyed.

Breda sighed, and gave in, and felt surprisingly better. Kieran held out his hands and pulled her to her feet. There were grass stains on her dress which she hoped would not show or she would be in more trouble.

Her hand in her brother's, she started for home. But I will not forgive Dada, she thought. Well, not at once. I will not speak to him for a week, and if he speaks to me I will not answer.

The picnic was good. There were other children on the beach; most of them Breda knew, so there were plenty of games to join in. The older boys, those who did not have holiday jobs, sat apart, Kieran with them, though it would be his last afternoon for doing so since Mr O'Reilly had given him the job and tomorrow morning he would start work in the shop.

At one point he left his group and kept his promise to help Breda look for pebbles. They were lucky, finding at least a dozen which, after being washed in one of the pools, were judged worthy to join the collection.

‘I hope you don't think you're going to keep that lot in the bedroom?' Moira complained. ‘There isn't enough room!'

‘There is so!' Breda retorted. ‘They will go in my treasure box.'

Mammy had given each one of them, the minute they were old enough to own things, a cardboard box in which to keep their possessions apart from everyone else's.

‘A stupid treasure, old stones!' Moira said scornfully.

‘Not as stupid as lipstick!' Breda said.

Moira blushed. She had had the lipstick from a girl at school, and Mammy did not know about it. Would she ever be allowed to use it, she wondered? Mammy was so old-fashioned. She said little girls did not need such things. But I am twelve, Moira thought rebelliously. I am not a little girl.

It was evening, and the sea rolling in, before they packed up and left for home. Breda had recovered her spirits. She is never down for long, Molly thought as she watched her youngest count her pebbles. I didn't want another child after Moira, but think what I would have missed!

‘Will Dada be home when we get back?' Breda asked. Not that she had forgiven him; not quite.

‘No. I told you. Not until the morning.'

‘Then where will he sleep?'

‘Who knows?' Molly said. ‘There is no money for beds. They will sleep rough, I expect. In a field, or under a hedge. It was one of the reasons he could not take you.'

‘I would sleep in a field,' Breda said. ‘I would so!'

‘Not if
I
could help it,' Molly said.

For a little while after they reached home they played in the street, Breda and Moira with a skipping rope, the twins kicking a ball. It was still daylight, though looking towards the sea there were bands of red and gold across the sky. Presently Molly called them in to prepare them for bed; Breda first, because she was the youngest.

She lay alone in the bed, savouring the space that was hers until Moira came. She could have fallen asleep at once, but there was no way she would allow herself to do that because she enjoyed watching Moira's nightly ritual: the brushing of her hair before tightly braiding it so that it would have some semblance of waviness in the morning; the massaging into her near-perfect skin of the Ponds Cold Cream for which she had saved her pocket money; the anxious search in the small square of mirror she kept in her treasure box for non-existent spots and blackheads. Breda propped herself up on one elbow, enjoying every minute of her sister's
toilette
. But tonight there was a bonus.

From her box, Moira took out the lipstick and applied it carefully to the cupid's bow of her mouth, sighing with approval at her image in the glass.

‘You look gorgeous!' Breda said with true admiration. ‘But why are you putting lipstick on to go to bed?'

‘Because I can't put it on any other time,' Moira said crossly.

‘What will Mammy say if she sees it?' Breda asked.

‘She'll make me wash it off,' Moira said. ‘But she won't see it, because when she comes in I'll hide under the clothes and pretend to be asleep. And if you tell her I'll kill you!'

‘I won't tell her,' Breda promised. ‘I won't breathe a word.'

‘Move over,' Moira said, climbing in. ‘You're taking far more than half the bed!'

Breda was asleep before the twins came to bed, and long before Kieran, who was always last. As her eyes closed she thought of the long summer holiday which stretched ahead, and of Dada, who would be home again tomorrow, perhaps with a present.

Molly, coming into the room much later to look at her children, smiled at the sight of Moira's red lips, pulled the covers over Breda, looked with satisfaction at her three sleeping sons. Here were her jewels.

She wished James was home. She hated going to bed without him.

Four days a week Molly went up to the Big House to give a hand with the cleaning. It was always known as the Big House, though by rights it was Adare House. From leaving school at fourteen she had worked there full time, but when she had met James O'Connor in the autumn of 1920, and married him by Christmas, he would have none of that.

‘Am I not able to keep a wife?' he'd demanded. ‘Is that it?'

‘'Tis just that it would help until the children come,' she had said, blushing at the thought. ‘Help us to get set up.'

‘I will not have it.' James had been adamant. ‘Ours will be a proper marriage; me supporting you, you looking after me.'

In fact, the children had come quickly. Kathleen had been born nine months to Saint Stephen's Day, and although Mrs Adare, not wishing to lose a good worker, had said that Molly might bring the baby with her, James had remained obstinate.

Well, she thought, climbing the hill to the Big House now, hadn't seventeen years and seven children changed
those
fine ideas? And wasn't the money, though only five shillings a week, the greatest blessing? She did not know how she would manage without it. The fact was that James, faced with a hungry brood, had either come to terms with his objections or, for a long time now, had kept quiet about them.

What would be the outcome today, she wondered? Would he come home with his empty pockets turned inside out, or would there be a bit of money in them? Not much, she reckoned. James's gambling was small-time; had to be because he didn't have much to wager, and she was glad about that.

For the next two hours she swept, scrubbed, dusted and polished. Polishing was the task she enjoyed most, especially the great table in the dining hall. More than once, when she had worked full time here, she had seen it ready for a feast: resplendent with fine china, sparkling with Waterford glass, groaning with food. She rubbed at it now until she could see her reflection in the surface, and that was the last of her jobs here for today.

Back in the kitchen, Mrs Hanratty, the housekeeper, said, ‘There is a bit of a parcel for you, so. The end of a joint. A few vegetables.'

Mrs Hanratty was unfailingly kind, though never talkative, never one for a gossip about what the Adares were up to.

‘How is your Mammy?' she asked Molly.

‘Sure, she is well enough for her age,' Molly said. ‘I am going to see her on my way home.'

If there was enough in the parcel she would share it with her mother. If not, she would send one of the children around with a dish of whatever she made from it.

Her mother's house, low, whitewashed, with small, square windows, was exactly like Molly's own, as were most of the houses in Kilbally. Entering from the sunny street, it was dark and Peggy Byrne, sitting in the corner, dressed in her usual black, was almost absorbed into the gloom.

‘There you are!' Molly said. ‘It's dark coming in. I hardly saw you.'

‘'Tis you,' Mrs Byrne said.

‘Who else were you expecting?' Molly asked, smiling.

The house seemed more spacious than her own, perhaps because it was so empty. There never had been much furniture, never enough chairs for them all to sit to meals, but it had been crowded with whichever of the nine children were still at home. It seemed strange, now, to see her mother entirely alone.

Michael Byrne had died a year ago. His chair, a cushion on the seat, a rug thrown over the railed back, was still never sat in by anyone else. It was as if his spirit still hovered.

‘'Tis handy you came,' Mrs Byrne said. ‘There is a letter from Josephine.'

Josephine was Molly's sister, older by fourteen years, Molly being the youngest of the family. Most of the others were scattered across the face of the earth, in the United States, in Canada, in England – and all doing well if their letters were to be believed. All, that was, except her brothers Sean and Paddy, who had died in the Great War, which had not been Ireland's war, but they had volunteered. Josephine lived in Yorkshire, in Akersfield. Molly was the only one now living in Ireland.