Rainbow's End (11 page)

‘Mrs McVeigh, I’ve a problem and I was wonderin’ if you might be able to help me out?’ Mrs Nolan had started. ‘I was askin’ a friend whether she knew anyone who might be able to help me out around the house, like, an’ she mentioned you. The t’ing is, I need a bit of a hand now, wit’ another littl’un on the way, me man gone and me wit’ only sons. You’ll have heard me husband died a month back, so I’m workin’ at the dressmaking too, as you know. But me work doesn’t pay well enough so I can’t afford a wage, though I promise ye that any girl who comes to me shall have her keep, the same food as we eat ourselves, and a day off now and again. I don’t mind that she’ll still be in school, indeed I don’t, since it’s before and after her lessons that she’s most needed. So if you’ve a daughter you wouldn’t miss . . .’

It wasn’t an unusual suggestion. Maggie had friends who lived with cousins or aunts because their own parents simply had no room for them. But she had somehow never thought it would happen in her family, and hadn’t they managed, so far? But if she expected her mammy to turn down such an offer then she was doomed to disappointment.

‘You can ’ave Maggie,’ Mrs McVeigh had said eagerly. Too eagerly. Poor Maggie had felt very real dismay. What had she done that her mother should cast her aside, give her to a stranger so willingly? It hadn’t been her fault that Lonny had died, she’d done all she possibly could . . . she’d missed weeks of school over him, given up her chance of a good attendance medal, hung about up at the market to carry the heavy baskets home and earn a ha’penny or so. What else could she have done?

‘Which one’s Maggie?’ Mrs Nolan had asked. ‘Is she strong? Healthy? I need a strong, healthy girl, Mrs McVeigh.’

‘She’s me finest daughter, a good, bright girl, an’ she’ll be eleven come the summer,’ Mrs McVeigh said at once. She didn’t say
she’s standin’ not four feet from ye
, which she could well have done, but Maggie realised that her mother would want her to look her best for a prospective employer, and a chilled, half-naked child with cropped hair and an armful of wet sheets was not likely to make a good impression. ‘She brought our Lonny up as though he were her own, but he died, God love ‘im, not a week since. She’d be that glad of another littl’un . . . I’ll not be havin’ no more, not now Mr McVeigh’s been took so bad.’

‘Well . . .’ Mrs Nolan said undecidedly. ‘Well . . . send her round, would you, Mrs McVeigh? I’ll see if she’ll suit.’

What about her suitin’ me
? Maggie had thought angrily as the two women parted.
What if I teks one look at ’er an’ decide I’d be better off at ’ome
? But she knew it wouldn’t make any difference. If her mammy had decided to let her go then she had little choice but to obey. Well, no choice, in fact. Their dingy rooms were overflowing with children. She and her sisters slept in a flea-ridden pile of straw in the kitchen-living-room, the boys slept on two large pallets in the only other room, sharing it with their parents. And Mr McVeigh was coughing blood; Maggie had seen it on the rags which he held to his mouth when a spasm overcame him. Once he had been a great, six-foot-tall docker, strong as an ox, fierce, intemperate. But then the illness had come upon him and now he was meek, no longer able to work, waiting. Maggie never put it into words, of course, but she knew what he was waiting for. Death. Easement from the painful, racking cough, the sickness, the hunger when there wasn’t enough food to go round and he wouldn’t take his share because he knew he’d bring it up later, so it would do him no good.

When they got home with the mangled wash, Maggie had asked her mother whether it might not be better to send Aileen, who was thirteen and due to start work soon anyway, or even one of the younger girls, who were not much use about the house as yet.

Mrs McVeigh, not a demonstrative woman, had suddenly dumped her share of the sheets on the rickety table and put her arms round her daughter. ‘Oh, alanna, I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice thick with unshed tears. ‘But the trut’ is, I’m desperate for how to keep goin’. One less mightn’t seem much, but it’ll ease the burden a bit. And Aisling Nolan’s a good woman. We were in school together, many long years since. She’ll treat you fair. Aileen could be earnin’ for us soon, so I don’t want to lose her, an’ the others are too young an’ giddy. Look at it this way; you’ll have a bed all to yourself, you’ll not be asked to miss so much as a day’s schoolin’, an’ you’ll be give dacent food every day of the week, so you will.’

Put like that, it sounded heavenly to Maggie. Since her father’s illness, food had often been in short supply, though her mother and the two older brothers still at home had done their best.

But . . . ‘So many mouths,’ Declan had said, giving his mother all the money he earned as a bottle washer at the bottling plant, though Mrs McVeigh always handed him back a sixpence for his dinners. ‘And Daddy needin’ all sorts we can’t give him.’

‘All right,’ Maggie had conceded at last, having thought it through. ‘Mammy . . . it’s not ’cos Lonny died, is it? I did me best, honest to God . . .’

Her mother had hugged her again and this time the tears had simply gushed from her eyes. ‘Oh, God love ye, as if I’d blame me little gorl who did everyt’ing she could to save him! Alanna, if you’re set against goin’ . . .’

So of course then Maggie had cried and assured her mammy that she was not against going, that she quite saw she would be better off and that she would come home often, whenever she could.

‘Be a good gorl for Mrs Nolan, now,’ her mother bade her, dabbing at her tears with the hem of her apron. ‘And if they’re unkind to you . . .’

So now, outside the Nolans’ rooms, Maggie stiffened her back, drew herself up and knocked.

A voice from within called ‘Come along in wit’ ye’ and the door was opened. Mrs Nolan stood framed in the doorway. She was about the same age as Maggie’s mammy, Maggie knew, for they had been in school together, but she didn’t look it. She looked a great deal younger, with skin like milk, smooth, pale-gold hair and a pair of large, chilly blue eyes which looked Maggie critically up and down. But she must have accepted what she saw, for she suddenly smiled faintly and gestured Maggie inside.

‘You’ll be Maggie McVeigh, your mammy said she’d send you. Come along in wit’ you.’ She led Maggie through into a living-kitchen, but how different from the McVeigh accommodation! There was a blackened range with its doors open so you could see the fire burning brightly within, a round table made of wood so highly polished that it looked like dark water, upright chairs of the same wood with seats upholstered in what seemed to be needlework, a piece of carpet on the floor, all reds and blues, wonderfully rich, and red velvet curtains at the windows. And there were pictures on every wall, paintings in gilt frames, depicting everything you could imagine or desire. A farmyard, a cottage with a thatched roof and a garden full of wonderful flowers, two children with long ringlets playing rather soulfully with a brown-and-white puppy and a great many beautiful religious pictures. Our Lord gazed down at a group of children, He fished from a corracle with the disciples around Him, He scattered the moneylenders in the temple. Looking around her, saucer-eyed, Maggie saw two comfortable armchairs with bright cushions on each, one either side of the range, little tables, each bearing a burden of prettily painted delft, an object which she guessed must be a sewing machine and . . . a piano!

‘I dare say you aren’t used to a room like this,’ Mrs Nolan said as Maggie stared. ‘Well, I’m proud of me room, so I am, and I want it kept nice. It’ll be your job, Maggie, to polish the table and chairs, brush the upholstery, clean the winders, wash me delft in warm soapy water, dust me piano . . .’

‘Oh, I will, Mrs Nolan,’ Maggie breathed. The room was like a little palace, even the wash-stand with the jug and ewer on it and the buckets beneath were clean and shining and looked as though they were never used. ‘Sure an’ isn’t it the loveliest room in the world, now? And is it yourself plays the piano?’

‘No, I don’t play, but me late husband, Cathal, used to tickle the ivories as he called it,’ Mrs Nolan said proudly. It was easy to see the piano was Mrs Nolan’s pride and joy – and why not, indeed, Maggie thought. She had seen pianos in the smart shop windows on O’Connell Street but never in a private home. ‘Mr Nolan gave me the piano for a weddin’ gift when we married, so he did,’ her new employer told her. ‘And even if it isn’t the loveliest room in the world, it’s a nice room and I’m mortal fond of it. You’re not a breaker, are you, Maggie? I couldn’t share me home wit’ a breaker.’

‘I don’t think so, Mrs Nolan,’ Maggie said. ‘But it’s not certain I am, because in our house there’s not a great deal I could break. Mammy doesn’t have much delft.’

‘No. Well, you like me room, so I hope you’ll have respect for dacent t’ings. Best come through, see the rest.’

Maggie, tiptoeing behind the older woman, saw with awe that the Nolans had all the rooms on this particular landing. The biggest was the living-kitchen, obviously, but there were three other rooms on the same floor. Three bedrooms, and them with only the four sons and themselves to use them! The Nolan boys slept in the first, their mother in the second and the third – a tiny slip of a room which measured about six feet by four – was intended, Mrs Nolan said, for Maggie herself.

Maggie stood in the low and narrow doorway and stared. A real bed, very low, with little wheels, and a real blanket . . . and a pillow, an object which only Mr McVeigh’s illness had introduced into the McVeigh household. There was even a piece of window – not a whole one because the room had been made by chopping a slice off the larger room next door – and there was a picture on the wall as well. A beautiful picture of a strange country where wonderful flowers grew, and the lichen on the flat slabs of stone and the little curled ferns which grew between them were so real that Maggie felt she should have been able to smell the fresh sweet country scent of them. She went over to the picture and looked at it closely, and saw that it hadn’t been painted at all, it was even cleverer than that. It was made of threads, it was embroidered, as altar cloths were embroidered, and close up it was even more beautiful than from a distance.

‘Sure an’ it’s a grand little room,’ Maggie said, when she saw that Mrs Nolan was waiting for her to comment. ‘I like the picture; where’s it of?’

‘That’s Clare,’ Mrs Nolan said. ‘Me gran was from there, way back. The picture was hers, though I don’t know for sure that she made it. I’ve a feelin’ it were give to her by someone.’

‘Sure an’ that
is
strange, for me own Gran was from Clare, I’ve heered me mammy sayin’ so many a time,’ Maggie said. ‘Well, whoever made that picture was clever. But she was sad, I’m thinkin’. For I t’ink there’s somethin’ sad about it, even though it’s beautiful.’

Mrs Nolan looked surprised. ‘Sad? Well, it’s a long way from Clare to here, so the person who embroidered it might have been homesick,’ she acknowledged. ‘My mammy used to say it was a beautiful place, and I know she wanted to go there one day, though she never did . . . but I’m a city person, meself. I can’t imagine livin’ anywhere but Dublin.’ She squeezed into the room and lifted up the blanket, turning it this way and that. It was rainbow-coloured, having been made of knitted squares.

‘Now I do know who made this – it were me gran, she used to sit by the fire knittin’ away, then she crocheted the squares together. It’s been mortal cold these past few days, but I dare say you’ve a coat?’

She didn’t say it with any real hope; it was plain she didn’t expect an affirmative, and indeed, Maggie did not possess such a garment. She looked from the bed to Mrs Nolan and then back again. A coat? What had that to do with cold, or blankets for that matter?

‘I spread the boys’ coats on their beds in winter,’ Mrs Nolan explained. ‘This is a good blanket, but I wouldn’t want you to be cold.’

‘I won’t be cold,’ Maggie promised fervently. ‘Sure an’ I’ll be warm as a bug in a rug under that lovely blanket. We don’t have blankets at home, much.’

‘Ye-es, but at home you’ve your sisters to keep you warm,’ Mrs Nolan said. ‘Oh well, I’ll find you up something, no doubt. Now come into the kitchen; we’ve a deal of talking to do.’

Twenty minutes later, Maggie left the Nolan household. She had been told what was expected of her and was not at all worried by the amount of work, for didn’t she work every bit as hard at home? No, what worried her was those twins, the good God confound them! She was to be responsible for them and that meant seeing that they attended school, that they were properly dressed and behaved themselves, and that they did not interfere with the new baby, when it came.

‘For Garvan and Seamus are high-spirited boys,’ Mrs Nolan said and for the first time sounded a little worried, a little less than perfectly self-confident. ‘Sure and all boys are divils, but bein’ twins, me little boys are a rare handful. I’ve only worked from home since they were born, but I’ll be workin’ properly again as soon as the new baby arrives. And aren’t I a first-rate seamstress in me own right? But workin’ from home I don’t mek the money, so when me friend axed me to go into partnership in a shop . . . well, I couldn’t rightly refuse. Which is why I’m willin’ to give you a home an’ your keep, in exchange for a bit of a hand around the place.’

‘I see,’ Maggie said. ‘What’s your hours, Mrs Nolan?’

‘Oh, the usual. Eight o’clock in the morning, Monday to Saturday, till seven in the evening, the same. Sunday off,’ Mrs Nolan said airily. ‘Whiles you’re in school the boys will be in school too, except for Liam, who’s workin’. And I’ll take the new baby to the shop with me, because I’m in the work-room, makin’ hats and alterin’ dresses, so it won’t annoy the customers.’

‘I see,’ Maggie said again. It occurred to her that she would not so much be giving ‘a bit of a hand’, as running the home, but that didn’t worry her. When her mammy was poorly after having a baby, hadn’t she and Aileen run the home between them? And the McVeighs were a large family, whereas the Nolans were a small one – she should be able to manage.