The Crooked Branch (9 page)

She crept forward and drew her breath in. She didn’t want to startle the beast, exactly. She wanted it to know she was coming. She didn’t want it flying at her face. They were fierce animals when they were cornered.

“I wish Ray was here,” she muttered.

She drew the hayfork back then, and up to her shoulder. Her hands were trembling, but she tightened her grip and took a deep breath. She could sense a presence there, in behind the oat bushels—maybe she could hear it breathing, or smell the alien musk of its pelt. She crept forward. She wanted to catch it, and she didn’t want to catch it. She lifted the hayfork with both hands, and yelled as she stormed forward, plunging the fork down through the air.

“Faith, don’t hurt me! Merciful God!”

She twisted the fork up just in time, and its tines clattered against the wall. Her hand flew up to her heart, which was beating now like mad. She shook, from the legs up.

“Mary Reilly, I nearly had you for supper!” Ginny gasped.

Her neighbor was sitting crouched in behind the oat bushels there, her ragged red petticoat draped over her knees, and her head cradled down in her two hands. Her fair brown hair was thin in its braids, and the knuckles stood out of her hands like an old woman’s. She was close to the same age as Ginny.

“God forgive me,” the woman said. “I’m sorry, Ginny Doyle. I’m awful sorry. I never meant to startle you.”

Ginny held the hayfork in one hand, and leaned back against the wall to try and catch breath into her lungs. Her heart was still lunging around in her breast.

“But what are you doing here, Mary?” She looked at her neighbor crouched down there like a cowering animal. “I thought you were a fox. I nearly poked you full of holes.”

Mary Reilly opened her mouth to speak, but her face contorted, and she drew the apron up from her knees to hide herself behind it.

“Here, come here, Mary,” Ginny said, leaning down to her. “Come out of that corner, pet.”

Ginny tried to pull the woman up by the arm, and was startled to feel how slight and loose the flesh was there, hanging away from her bones. She struggled to her feet, and Ginny pulled the apron away from her face. Ginny drew the poor woman out toward the middle of the shed and sat her down on the milking stool. The woman’s eyes stayed stuck to the earthen floor. Outside, the snow was falling harder, the little flakes eddying along the frozen dirt. Maggie’s cairn had a white veil over it. Ginny waited for Mary to recover herself. When she finally spoke, her voice was so strained, Ginny had to step forward to listen.

“We’ve nothing left,” Mary whispered, and for the first time, she glanced up at Ginny, their clear blue eyes locking on to each other for just a moment. She was shaking her head. “I came here to thieve one of your hens.”

The woman dropped her head into her hands again, and Ginny thought she would begin to wail, but she didn’t seem to have the strength. She only shuddered instead. After a moment, she looked up again.

“What has become of me, Ginny? I would never have done it if the children weren’t so weak and so hungry, I promise you that. But I’ve tried everything. I made boxtie for the first while, out of the rotten praties, until the children got sick on them. And then I made a soup from nettles, and it brought Kathleen all out in hives. I couldn’t take it no more, seeing how they’re wasting in front of me, and now young Mick has the cough, and he getting awful bad all the time. I’m in fear of his life, and I thought a good chicken soup might cure him, might put some life back into him. So I gave in to a weakness, and I came here in the night, while everyone was sleeping, and I might’ve taken the hen and stolen away home with it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.”

Her face twisted up with such miserableness then that Ginny couldn’t even find her own voice to respond—she was that tormented by the closeness of the woman’s pain. The effort caught in Ginny’s throat.

“I had every intention of doing it,” Mary went on. “I said to myself,
God has forsaken us, and there’s nothing else for it. He can take me, but I’ll do what I can to save my children before I go.
And so I came here, because I knew you weren’t as bad off as all that, and I thought you might spare the hen. But I was here for an hour, that hen clutched into my hand, and it getting on toward dawn, and the light coming into the sky, and me thinking of Mick at home, ailing and coughing. And me knowing that the hen just there might save him. But my conscience wouldn’t allow it, and all I could think of was being close enough to my own end, and having to face Saint Peter with that theft on my hands, that I was taking food out of the mouths of your own hungry children as well, God forgive me. And then I heard your young ones coming out, and I hid into the back there, behind the bushels.”

Mary crossed herself, stood up from the milking stool, and began to pace, but that effort was too much a strain for her, and she nearly tumbled when she sat back down. Ginny caught her before she went backwards off the stool. The woman’s whole body was shaking.

“Ginny,” she gasped, pulling at her hair. Her face was twisted into a wretched grimace. “Young Mick. You won’t believe.”

“Here,” Ginny said, crouching down and taking the woman’s hands. “Calm yourself.”

“Ginny, I nearly smothered him. Oh!” Mary’s face was all vivid agony now, and Ginny tried to quiet her, but she was bent on confessing. “I nearly smothered him, Ginny, my firstborn son. I said it would be kinder. God will take him from me. God will take him regardless, and this way, he won’t have to suffer no longer. Why should he have to go slow, with the wicked coughing and the hunger both? Why should he suffer, when I could help him along, just to sleep now, and he’d be at peace then. He could be with his father, God rest him.”

Ginny caught herself recoiling in horror, but she forced herself to stay, to draw closer, even. She squeezed the poor woman’s fingers. She knew Mary Reilly to be a good woman, a soft woman, even, and God-fearing. Ginny knew Mary’s love for her children, the depth and veracity of it. And she thought of her own ones inside, how horrific and slow the end would be for them if the food ran out before they heard from Ray. What would she do, if the time came? Wasn’t it possible that Mary was right, that a quick end would be the compassionate thing? Surely God would forgive a mother for that sort of tender brutality? Ginny trembled in her very soul. She put her arms around Mary.

“There, you’re all right,” Ginny said. “It’s only the hunger talking.”

“I could never do it, I don’t think I could really do it,” Mary whispered. “I only thought. I thought it might be kinder.”

“Shhh, now,” Ginny said, letting go, leaning back to look Mary in the face. “You leave that to God. His will be done.”

Mary nodded weakly.

“When did you eat last?” Ginny said.

Mary shook her head. Her cheeks were so sunken, Ginny could see the shapes of her teeth in behind them.

“Come into the house, we’ll get you a bite,” Ginny said.

Mary was too weak to argue, and when she came inside the cottage, she slipped her hand into her pocket and drew the three eggs out. They wobbled on the table, and Ginny said nothing when she saw them, only scooped them into her apron, and then dropped them into the water to boil. Afterward, Mary protested only slightly when Ginny insisted she take one of the hens home with her, for Mick and the others, to keep them ticking over for a few more days.

“Maybe that will be just the thing he needs,” Ginny said. “And he’ll be back on his feet in no time.”

They were standing in the doorway, and the hens were still clucking around, in beside the hearth.

“Ginny Doyle, may all the blessings of heaven rain down on this house,” Mary said, gripping Ginny’s hand with all the strength she could muster. “I never met such a generous soul, God bless you. My children owe their lives to you this day.”

“It’s nothing you wouldn’t do for us,” Ginny said, and then she called over to Michael. “Bring the red one.”

He stood, and scooped the flapping red hen up from the floor.

“See Mrs. Reilly home safe, love, and then hurry back.”

“Ah, there’s no need of that now, to send the poor little dote out in the snow and the cold, Ginny. I’m grand,” she said, but Ginny waved her off.

“It’ll do him good, the fresh air,” she said. “But you won’t get much chat out of him. Been awful quiet since his father left.”

Michael stood beside them with the hen turned up in his hand, staring out into the snow, as if he couldn’t hear them at all.

“We’ll wait for you, love,” Ginny said, kissing his cheek. “When you’re back, we’ll head over to pay the rents.”

He pushed open the door and went out into the cold. Mary Reilly kissed Ginny on the two cheeks, the prayers and gratitude falling from her lips the whole time, and then Ginny watched her son and her neighbor walk out together into the snow. She waved after them, when Mary turned to look, and she couldn’t help noticing that Michael’s petticoat was as sad and shabby as Mary’s. Mounting the ridge, they were like two fading drops of blood against the snow.

•   •   •

Ginny was combing Maggie’s black hair when Michael returned, trailing Willie and Thomas Harkin, and Father Brennan behind him. Ginny stood up from the hearth, and handed the comb to Maire, who took over, working at Maggie’s knots. Michael’s lips were purple, and there were bright rings around his eyes from the cold.

“Get in beside the fire there, love,” Ginny said, and he scuttled over, went down on his haunches to warm himself.

The two Harkin boys were standing in the doorway, still, but Father Brennan came striding into the room.

“Ginny Doyle, how’re you keeping?” Father said, taking her hand for just a moment. “How are you getting on with Raymond gone?”

She looked over at Michael’s round, vacant face, the glow of firelight lamping his features.

“Ah, we’re managing, Father.”

“God bless ye,” he said. “It’s hard times that’s in it.”

“It is,” Ginny agreed, and then she turned to the Harkin lads. “Come in outta the cold, boys, come in beside the fire.”

Willie was the larger of the two brothers, but they had both grown into fine, big lads, with rosy cheeks and strong jaws. They were handsome, just getting on to the age where they might start looking for wives. They drew themselves into the room, closer in beside the fire.

“Thank you, Mrs. Doyle,” Willie said.

“Can I get you lads anything?” she asked. She hoped they’d refuse, but she had to offer. They both looked lean, but healthy, escaping the worst of the hunger, at least for the moment. “I’ve some oatcakes just pressed, I can fire one up for you.”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Doyle, don’t trouble yourself, we’re grand,” Thomas said.

“Father?”

“No, thanks, Ginny,” Father Brennan said. “You’ve enough with your own mouths to feed.”

She tried not to show the relief in her shoulders or face. There was so little to spare.

“What brings you lads out in this weather on gale day?” she said then.

There weren’t stools enough for everyone, so they stood in a bit of a circle beside the fire, the children down below them in the warmth. Thomas looked at Willie, and the older brother nodded back at him.

“We’re trying to get talking to everyone in the parish before they pay the rents.” Thomas dropped his voice low in the room, even though there was nobody else to hear. Ginny leaned forward. “Myself and Willie, and then a good few of the other young fellas, we’ve got together, and came up with a bit of a plan, but we need everybody to agree on it.”

Ginny looked at Father Brennan, who was staring severely into the fire. His whole face was a frown, and he’d his fingers drawn up to his lips.

“Agree on what?” Ginny said.

“Not to pay the rents.”

Michael snapped his head up from the fire, and stared at the older boys. Maire kept brushing away at Maggie’s hair, pretending not to listen. Willie stepped over to the door, and opened it a crack to look out. Then he closed it again, and came back to the others, with a fresh breath of the cold on himself. Ginny folded her arms in front of her.

“How do you mean, not to pay the rents?” she said, trying to keep the tightness in her throat from creeping into her voice. She shook her head. “You know what happens to families who don’t pay their rents, lads. Raymond’s off to America, now. Would you see me evicted, turned out onto the roads in this weather, with four babbies to look after? Are you mad, altogether?”

“Just hear us out, Mrs. Doyle,” Willie said then. “I know it’s frightening. But if everyone does it, if we all stick together, we’ll be grand. Packet can hardly eject everyone, can he? He’d have no tenants at all, then.”

“There’s plenty of families would be lined up after us, to take our place,” she said. “And them all too willing to pay Packet his rents.”

“But no one can pay,” Thomas argued. “It’s not a matter of willingness, with the pratie crop gone. It’s a matter of survival.”

Willie looked around the cottage, gestured at the three bags of meal hanging from the tie beam. “You’re going to be all right, Mrs. Doyle,” he said. “You’re better off than most. You had a great harvest of oats this year, I know, and you’ve always had that kitchen garden, with the turnips and cabbage and that. It’s well you know that most people don’t have that kitchen garden—they only sow the praties for to eat. And you managed the price of a ticket for Mr. Doyle as well.”

“Most families in this parish never planted anything, only the praties,” Thomas said. “Sure that’s all they had space enough to grow, after sowing most of the land with oats for to pay the rents. And now, with the praties gone, there’s nothing standing between the people and starvation—only them oats Packet demands for rent. He’ll take the food from our mouths and sell it out to England to please his lordship, for to fatten his wife and his wallet. They will profit from our starvation!”

Ginny looked to Father Brennan again, but he was mute. Michael stared up from the fire with his father’s half-moon eyes. She bit her lip.

“If our rent leaves Ireland, Mrs. Doyle,” Thomas went on, “we will
all
starve, make no mistake. Our neighbors, our children, everyone. Sure, there’s people starving enough already. But God help us, this is only the start of it.”