A Girl Called Rosie (3 page)

‘Ma says, is our Rosie going to lie aroun’ all afternoon an’ leave us to do all the work?’

Her father’s voice was soft but firm.

‘Rosie hurt herself, Dolly. She’s not feeling well. Do you not remember when you fell and cut both your knees? You sat by the fire for a long time. Is Emily not home yet?’

‘Aye, she came a while ago, but Ma sent her a message to Loneys.’

‘Well, tell your mother that if Emily is delayed at Loneys and she needs help, I’ll come over myself as soon as I’ve finished fitting this blade.’

Rosie smiled in spite of herself. Now ten years old, Dolly had grown so like her mother she’d picked up her mannerisms and her sharp way of speaking. Her father’s offer would have brought a sour look to her face for she knew it was not the answer her mother wanted.

When he made an offer to help in the house, she could never be quite sure whether or not he did it
deliberately, for he knew as well as she did the last thing her mother ever wanted was to have him in her kitchen.

She eased herself up in the bed and leant back against the headboard. The throbbing didn’t start up immediately, but suddenly she felt so weary all she wanted to do was go to sleep. She smiled wryly and admitted to herself how much she was dreading stepping in to the kitchen and facing the comments which would inevitably come her way. At this moment, she had not the remotest idea how she could bring herself to go, but she knew it would have to be done.

As she bent over gingerly to lace up her shoes, she heard a different voice below, a hasty word to her father and a flurry of skirts on the wooden stair.

‘Ach, Rosie dear, what happened at all? You look ghastly.’

Her sister Emily dropped down on the edge of the bed beside her so awkwardly that the springs protested and she nearly knocked Rosie sideways.

‘Thanks very much,’ Rosie replied, managing a smile.

Over a year older, tall and skinny, with the same pointed features as her mother, Emily resembled her in no other way. She put her arm round Rosie and hugged her, then pushed her sister’s hair back and scrutinised the bruise and the cut outlined with
iodine. She screwed up her face in concentration.

‘Ma said you fell against the door,’ she said, her voice heavy with disbelief. ‘Well, if you did, you hit it the queer dunt. That wou’d be more like somethin’ I’d do. It’s not like you at all.’

To her great surprise, Rosie found tears had begun to trickle down her face. She didn’t know why she was crying, but the more she tried to stop the faster the tears flowed.

‘Ach, dear a dear. Is it very sore?’ Emily asked, her face screwed up with anxiety.

Rosie shook her head and poked about in her pockets for a handkerchief.

‘Here y’ar, here’s mine,’ said Emily quickly, pulling out a crumpled square and putting it in her hand. ‘Now, c’mon on. Tell me what happened for I don’t believe a word of what I’ve bin told.’

It was only then Rosie realised it was Emily herself had brought the tears, the big sister who had always stood up for her, who’d listened to her even when she knew she hadn’t much idea what she was talking about. Emily and Sammy, her older brother, were her best friends. They had been her playmates, her companions on the walk to Richhill School, the two people she could rely on day by day. While she had them she felt safe, even when her mother was in one of her rages, but now Sammy was working in Armagh and only came home when he had a
half day on Saturdays or a Sunday off. Emily was putting away every penny not demanded by their mother. As soon as she had enough money saved she would buy her ticket to America.

Rosie cried in Emily’s arms until the tears finally stopped. Then she told her what had happened.

‘Ach dear, what are we goin’ to do?’ Emily said with a great sigh. ‘It’s not fair that you get the worst of it. She’s never as bad with me. But then she knows I’m goin’ as soon as I can,’ she added, wiping Rosie’s damp face with the sleeve of her second-best blouse. ‘Did you see anything in the paper last night?’

Rosie nodded.

‘Six jobs for “smart boys”,’ she said briskly. ‘Two in Armagh, two in Richhill, one in Portadown and one in Loughgall.’

‘No smart girls?’

Rosie laughed.

It was the earnest look on Emily’s face that cheered her. It was so characteristic of her. Emily’s greatest gift was figures. From the day she’d been asked to count wooden beads she’d changed her mind about not liking school. Numbers made her happy. She recited the multiplication table for pleasure. Counted the money in her mother’s purse. Measured and recorded the milk given by each of the four cows. Laid out the nails and screws from the workshop in multiples. Words were a different
matter. Emily often had no idea what to say.

When Rosie laughed, Emily beamed with relief. She couldn’t bear to see her sister all upset and worried. There were so few jobs around and that made it all the harder. Billy had had to work on the farm until he was old enough to join the police and she’d been at home for over a year before one of the clerks at Fruitfield left to get married. There were so many in for that job she probably wouldn’t have had much chance if her father hadn’t worked there for years and all the bosses knew him.

Poor old Bobby was just the same. He’d left school the previous year and couldn’t find a job of any sort. He wanted to be a mechanic, but he was still having to put up with Uncle Joe on the farm for a few shillings a week. Rosie was smart, far cleverer than any of them, but that wasn’t much help if all the jobs going were for boys.

‘Rosie,’ Emily said suddenly. ‘I’ve thought of something.’

‘What, Emily? What have you thought of?’

‘Something I read in
The People’s Friend
. There was this story about this girl who goes to America and marries a rich man and the first thing she does is send a ticket to her sister,’ she said quickly. ‘I could do that. Not find the rich man. Not with my face,’ she said, laughing. ‘But I could save up again and send you a ticket. And it woudn’t take
near so long as it’s taken me this time. It’ll take me sixty-five weeks at two shillings a week here and I’ve lost over three weeks with expenses at work I hadn’t reckoned on, but wages are higher there and I could save maybe a dollar a week for thirty weeks or two dollars for fifteen weeks or even three dollars for ten …’

She broke off.

‘Isn’t that an idea?’ she asked quickly, not sure what to make of the look on Rosie’s face.

‘That’s a
great
idea, Emily,’ Rosie replied, giving her a hug. ‘That’s awfully good of you.’

Rosie hadn’t the heart to tell her sister that if she went and she herself had to stay at home, waiting to find work, then she would feel so lonely and vulnerable that even a week would seem more than she could bear.

‘Shure the Govermint is far too soft on them’ems. They oughta be put out. Why aren’t they sent down to their own Free State, as they call it? Shure what do we want with them up here, a lot o’ Fenians and troublemakers.’

Rosie’s heart sank and she felt her hands go moist as they always did when she was anxious. She didn’t even need to glance across the kitchen to where Uncle Joe sat in his usual place to the right of the stove to see the twist of his lined and wrinkled face and the bright, malicious flicker in his eyes as he stared up at Billy, the eldest and tallest of her five brothers, who stood with one arm casually stretched along the mantelpiece, a small smile on his face as he looked down at the old man.

The meal had hardly been finished when Uncle Joe got launched. The sound of his voice was often enough to make Rosie feel queasy but she’d managed perfectly well so long as he held forth about the farm, the hard work he and Bobby had
put in on the low meadow in the desperate heat with not a soul lifting a hand to help them. She’d even smiled to herself at one point as her uncle went on to complain that the new-cut grass was lying moist on the ground with not the ha’pence worth of a breeze to dry it. So much for Uncle Henry and his confidence about what a good year it would be for the hay.

How the conversation had moved from the hay to the subject of their few Roman Catholic neighbours and Joe’s uncompromising attitude towards them she had no idea.

It might simply be the way Billy was standing in front of the stove, his large frame dominating the still-seated figures of his family. It didn’t take much to irritate Uncle Joe and that might have been enough to do it.

‘Well now, I think you’re too hard on the Government,’ said Billy, whose tone had grown more assured since he’d been away from home. ‘If you wou’d read the provisions of the Special Powers Act, I think you’d take heart.

‘An’ I can tell you, in confidence, of course,’ he went on, lowering his voice significantly, ‘that there’s more to come. But we in the police are not supposed to talk about it,’ he added pompously.

Outside, the long June evening was fading to a warm, pale dusk, the smell of cut grass on the
evening air, but indoors, even with the door propped open, it was so dim Emily had just been instructed to light the lamp. In its glow, Rosie watched the faces of her brothers and sisters. Moist with sweat, they gleamed in its light. Though she was sitting at the end of the table furthest from the lamp, she could feel the heat vibrating above the hot mantle. The faces at the other end of the table began to waver in and out of focus. The smell of the rising fumes from the paraffin was beginning to make her feel sick again.

When the meal was served up, the very sight of food had almost been too much. The plate set in front of her was piled high with mashed potato well-moistened with thick, brown gravy. While her mother’s back was still turned to the stove, she moved the roast meat from underneath on to Sammy’s plate. Later, when her mother’s entire attention was devoted to Billy’s second helping she managed to pass over the vegetables she’d only been pretending to eat.

Sammy asked no questions. He always had a good appetite and it wasn’t the first time he’d helped her avoid her mother’s sharp comments when she wasn’t feeling well, but she noticed he and Emily kept looking at her whenever they could do it without their mother catching them at it. It occurred to her that she probably still looked ghastly. Even
Billy had given her the odd sideways look when he arrived home.

When Emily got up to light the lamp she’d bent down and whispered that maybe she should go and lie down, but although it would get her out of the kitchen, it wasn’t going to help very much with Billy and Charlie now hard at it with Uncle Joe. You could probably hear the three of them down at Richhill Station, never mind in the wee room she shared with Emily on the other side of the fireplace wall.

As the kitchen became hotter Rosie wondered if she could possibly manage to go outside. Sandwiched in between Sammy and Emily, it would be difficult to get out without attracting attention. Her mother had ignored her all afternoon, but now, from time to time when she wasn’t looking up at Billy and smiling, she cast her a sour look. The other problem was standing up. She was soon going to have to go to the privy at the far end of the yard. The thought of being outside and in the cool air was very appealing but she felt so shaky she wasn’t entirely sure she could make it.

Billy was talking now about the provision for whipping in the 1922 Act, and Charlie, who had recently joined the B Specials, the new part-time police force, was paying close attention.

‘An’ ye mean that male offenders can be whipped
in private as well as whatever punishment the courts give them?’ he asked thoughtfully.

‘That’s a fact. The police’ll not be as soft as some here might think,’ Billy replied sharply, glancing down at Uncle Joe who was filling his pipe. ‘An’ you’ll find, Charlie, that when the new act goes through next year, you can be sure the provisions will extend to
all
the forces of the law. B Specials included. It’s only a matter of time.’

The stove had been allowed to burn out after the meal was served, but the low-ceilinged room continued to grow warmer. Not a breath of air moved between the open door and the single small window set in the thickness of the back wall of the house. Dolly had been sent to bed and her father had left quietly when Joe began to hold forth about the hay, but the room was still uncomfortably crowded, bedroom chairs having been brought in to the kitchen to provide enough seating round the big table.

‘Sure maybe, Charlie, you’ll go for the police yerself when you’re the age, like Billy here,’ Martha began. ‘Hasn’t he had a great time to himself down in Enniskillen? Good pay. An’ the uniform looks powerful well on him. It wou’d suit you too.’

Rosie heard her mother’s voice echo as if it was reaching her from a long way away. She glanced towards her where she sat opposite Uncle Joe. He
was puffing crossly at his pipe and poking the stem of it with the end of a spent match.

As the blue tobacco smoke drifted towards her, she caught the familiar acrid smell, saw her mother’s face crease in a warm smile as she turned her gaze upon Charlie and felt her own eyes close as she fell sideways into Sammy’s lap.

When Rosie opened her eyes she had no idea where she was. Looking down at herself, she saw she was wearing her best skirt and blouse and she was lying comfortably on top of the bedclothes in a room she didn’t at first recognise. The ceiling above her was neither the whitewashed square with the damp mark in one corner of the room she shared with Emily, nor was it the high-pitched roof of the barn.

She couldn’t remember what day it was either. Suddenly, the light fragrance of lavender from her pillow brought it all back. It was Sunday. She was at Rathdrum, in the room she and Emily had often shared, the room Granny always kept ready in case family or friends would suddenly find the opportunity to come and visit.

She took a deep breath and sighed. This must be what Heaven was like. To lie on soft covers, with blue sky and birds singing in the trees outside, the pretty flowered curtains moving silently in the light breeze, in a room full of well-loved, familiar things,
a big, comfortable chair you could curl up in, a small bookcase with some books you still hadn’t read and a table by the window where you could sit to write or paint.

She twisted her head back and forth to view the framed watercolours hanging on the pale walls. Most of them, including her favourite, a magnolia bud just beginning to open, had been painted by her cousin Helen when she was still at school in Lisburn, but there were one or two of an old house in Kerry done by a strange lady who used to live in Dublin, someone whom everyone called Aunt Lily, though she didn’t appear to be a relative.

She sighed and made an attempt to push away the less pleasant memories that now poured back into her mind. The very word ‘relative’ conjured up a whole train of thoughts and images jostling for her attention, her mother and Uncle Joe especially.

‘Go away,’ she whispered to herself.

It was one of the things Miss Wilson often spoke about when she gathered her girls together for morning prayer. Life, she said, was full of difficulties and discouragements. Whether you were a member of the aristocracy or a servant girl, it didn’t matter. Everyone had their burdens and sadnesses. What was important was to treasure the good things, the precious moments of rest, or pleasure, or joy. Only if you concentrated on them when they came to you
would you have something to help you in the bad times.

She agreed with Miss Wilson and could see what a wise person she was, but she found it surprisingly hard to put her good advice into practise. Here she was, where she was always so welcome, so comfortable and easy on this little bed, in this room she loved. Yet she couldn’t get out of her mind the noise and the smell of the kitchen back at the farm and the look on Uncle Joe’s face. And all that talk between Billy and Charlie about whipping.

Surely what they’d said couldn’t be right. She’d thought whipping was something that belonged to the last century. She’d read about it in
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
and in many of Dickens’ novels. That was so long ago, yet here were Billy and Charlie talking enthusiastically about whipping suspects, men who had not been charged with any crime, men who might not have done anything wrong in the first place.

She rolled on to her side and began to run her finger round the shapes of flowered cotton that made up the quilt. She concentrated on the tiny individual flowers in each of the small pieces. Granny had promised to teach them how to quilt the next time they came.

Quilts were like stories or photograph albums, she said, you could put your whole life history into
one if you really wanted to, provided you could find pieces that reminded you of the people and the places important to you. You couldn’t expect just to have them all in your bag or box. Some of them you’d have to go looking for, like the way one had to recall memories.

Perhaps she hadn’t got enough pretty, bright pieces in her box to make a very nice story, but that might change. Someday, if she worked very hard, she might have a room like this. After all, Granny had been poor and had lost her home in Donegal when she was only eight. Her whole family had been thrown out of their cottage by a landlord who wanted rid of them so he could put sheep on the land in their place. Then Granny had worked for years as a ladies’ maid until she met Granda. Away down in Kerry where
her
mother had taken her when she found a job as a housekeeper after her husband had died.

She could remember the lilting tune her father sometimes sang when there was no one about, but the rest of the words had gone.

Her father had been there when she’d opened her eyes in the wash house. He’d been holding up
a lamp from the workshop so that Emily could see to bathe her face while Sammy supported her in his arms.

‘What happened, Sammy?’ he asked anxiously.

‘I think it was the heat, Da. She just passed out, but she fell into m’ lap, so she diden hurt herself.’

‘Thank God for that.’

Sammy’s shirt smelt of glueing compound, the kind he used to mend punctures in the bicycle shop where he worked. She recognised the smell immediately. She could hear them talking, Sammy and Emily and her father, but the lamp dazzled on the whitewashed walls and she couldn’t keep her eyes open. The cold water was nice on her hot face, but the voices kept coming and going and were sometimes a long way off.

‘She’d be cooler if she slept in the loft.’

‘Should we send for the doctor?’

‘Couldn’t Charlie and Billy sleep over in the house and you and Sammy and I can keep an eye on her.’

‘Would the doctor come now or will we have to wait till the morning?’

She found out later that it was Sammy who suggested driving her over to Granny the next day. He’d arrived home in his boss’s motor so that he and her father could weld together a metal fitment Harry Mitchell had designed and drawn for them.
When they attached it to the back of his motor he would be able to pull a trailer and transport his precious motorbike to race at Clady and on the new Dundrod Circuit in County Antrim. He’d been planning it for years.

Early on Sunday morning, while her father checked over the job they’d done the previous evening, Sammy walked the two miles to the nearest Post Office, spoke to the postmaster’s wife, who was feeding her hens, and explained why he needed to use the telephone. He’d arrived back smiling. Yes, so long as he was back early on Sunday evening when Harry Mitchell needed the car himself, he was welcome to drive his sister over to Banbridge. Harry hoped the wee lassie would feel better soon.

Rosie smiled to herself. She didn’t see very much of Sammy these days, but, like Emily, he was always glad to see her when he came home. At least
he
wasn’t planning to go to America. What Sammy most wanted was to own a motorbike and race it, like Harry Mitchell, but he wanted to go beyond the circuits in Northern Ireland and take part in the Isle of Man T. T.

‘What’s T. T. Sammy?’ she’d asked, the first time he told her about it.

‘Tourist Trophy. It means anyone can enter, so they get some of the big names.’

‘And would you like to be a big name?’

‘Well, it’s not so much that,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You see, if you race with the big people you learn a lot. You learn about racing technique, and about the bikes themselves. Racing is a kind of test. You find out weaknesses in the bike you wouldn’t have known about.’

‘And about yourself?’

‘Aye, I suppose you do. I never thought of that,’ he said laughing. ‘That’s you all over, Rosie. You’re always looking to see a bit more, aren’t you?’

She couldn’t see anything very much at the moment. She certainly couldn’t see where she could go or how she could go about finding a job. Except when she visited Granny and Granda, she’d never been away from home. While she and Emily had been with them, Granda had taken them into Banbridge to help Granny shop and to Newcastle and Kilkeel for outings, but beyond that the only places she’d ever visited were Armagh and Portadown.