The Heather Blazing (9 page)

“Tom will want to know the news when he comes in.”

The chimney smoked in the dark back room. “Who's my pet?” she asked him, and they all looked at him. He did not reply.

“Who loves you the best?” she asked him, and went as though to tickle him. Her grey hair was tied back in a bun.

“You do,” he said.

They always quizzed him about school: how many slaps he got, how he was at spelling, how he was getting on at his Irish. Irish was important if you wanted to get a good Leaving Cert and a good job, his grandmother said.

“Your Uncle Stephen and your Daddy were great at Irish. Your Daddy got a university scholarship.”

In November when it became dark at half past four his Uncle Stephen came home from the Sanatorium on the Wexford Road and lay in bed in the front room downstairs. Eamon was allowed to sit with him as long as he did not go too close.

“Do you like reading?” Stephen asked him.

“Some books,” he said and he played with a toy car around the table and the floor, while Stephen sat up in bed reading. There was a fire burning in the grate.

“When you're older you'll love books,” Stephen said. “There are great books.” He was wearing a pullover over his pyjama-top.

As the light faded Stephen lay back with his head on the pillow and his eyes closed. Eamon thought that he was asleep until he began to cough. At first it was a weak wheeze which came in waves with his breath, and then it seemed that he could no longer breathe, and then Eamon could hear him struggling for breath as the real coughing began. It sounded as though he was going to be sick. Eamon waited by the window watching him. “Get newspaper quick,” his grandmother said to him as she came rushing in. “It's in the bottom of the press in the kitchen.”

He ran out of the room and down to the kitchen where he found an old newspaper and brought it back to the front room. His grandmother was holding Stephen in her arms and saying “you'll be all right” to him over and over. He thought that his Uncle Stephen was crying. He went back out into the hall and stood there listening to them. After a while he went down and sat in the kitchen. When his grandmother appeared he saw that the newspaper she had in her hand was bright with blood.

On Christmas morning he awoke early, before the first thin strip of grey dawn appeared over Vinegar Hill, and went downstairs and turned on the light in the back room. The room was still warm from the fire. He found his present from Santa Claus on the table and set about unwrapping it. It was what he had wanted: a fort in separate pieces and some soldiers. There were also several bars of chocolate.

He went back upstairs, his teeth chattering with the cold, and dressed himself. By the time his father appeared he had assembled the fort on the dining-room table. He showed his father how he had pieced it together.

It was a clear day with edges of frost on the pathway down towards the Back Road. They walked to nine o'clock Mass,
meeting those coming home from eight o'clock Mass and greeting them with “Happy Christmas” and “Many Happy Returns.” At the bottom of Pearse Road a woman asked him what he got from Santa and he told her that he got a fort and soldiers.

They walked up the aisle of the cathedral to Our Lady's side altar, but there was no room there and they had to kneel on the ground until a woman moved over and made space for them, but there still wasn't room for Eamon on the seat and he had to sit on the foot-rest.

The preparations for the consecration began to the constant sound of coughing and shuffling, soon replaced by a reverend silence once the bells rang. He watched his father out of the corner of his eye as he opened the missal at the place where the black-edged Mass card for his mother was kept. He watched his father's lips move as he prayed, the missal still open, and his mother's smiling face, familiar he had looked at it so many times, centered in the card and below it the date of her death—16 August 1934—and the age twenty-eight. He turned away as his father closed the missal, having finished whatever prayer it was he had been saying.

They went home after Mass and had breakfast. Then his father gathered all the presents they were to take to his grandmother's house: books for his grandfather and Uncle Stephen, a scarf for his Aunt Margaret and a cardigan for his grandmother. He found some wrapping paper and sellotape and set about writing cards for each of them.

“These are all from you now,” his father said, “and you're to hand them to everybody.”

His father put all the presents in a shopping basket and gave it to Eamon to carry. They walked down John Street and Court Street towards the Market Square. His father stopped to talk several times. Eamon held his hand and tried to tug at him to make him hurry up, but one man in a brown coat who was on his way to have his Christmas dinner, he said, with his
sister in St. John's Villas, started to tell his father a long story which Eamon could not follow. He put the basket down on the ground and waited.

In Irish Street there were a different number of steps leading up to each house. He climbed up each set of steps and then jumped off while his father stood and watched.

“You'll break your ankle on this street some day,” his father said.

There was a candle with holly in the window of his grandmother's house. His grandfather was watching from the window and came to open the door for them. He had a pint bottle of stout in his hand.

“Come in out of the cold,” he said.

Eamon put the basket in the hall.

“We met Johnny Corrigan,” his father said, “and he kept us standing in the cold.”

His grandmother was in the kitchen with his Aunt Margaret and his Auntie Molly who was married to his Uncle Patrick. Two of his cousins were in the back room in cowboy suits. They all stood round as Eamon distributed the presents. Stephen sat by the fire, huddled in against the wall with his legs crossed. He opened his parcel slowly and smiled when he saw the book. He reached behind him and handed Eamon another parcel with a book inside. Eamon had a box of sweets for his cousin.

The men were told to go into the front room once Uncle Tom and Uncle Patrick came back from Mass and the children were sent out to play so that the women could set the table and get everything ready for the dinner. Eamon brought his cousins up to Irish Street and they jumped off the steps until Aunt Molly came to look for them.

Stephen was still sitting by the fire, a glass of Guinness in his hand. Eamon's grandfather was also drinking Guinness, but the other men were drinking ale. There was a smell of cooking all over the house and the windows in the room were
covered in condensation from the heat. Aunt Margaret came in with a tray full of bowls of soup and all the men sat down. Aunt Margaret had paper hats for Eamon and his cousins and she put a bottle of orange in front of each of them. His grandmother came in and said grace and they began to eat.

“Thanks be to God,” his grandmother said, “for Christmas.”

She came back in with the turkey on a huge plate with utensils for carving. The other women brought in the vegetables, while Eamon's grandfather opened more bottles of Guinness and ale.

“Isn't it great,” his grandfather said, “that we're all here and that we've plenty to eat.”

“There was a terrible crowd at nine o'clock Mass,” Eamon's father said.

“At six o'clock Mass,” his grandmother said, “there were the same people as last year, bar poor Mr. Doran who died. Women with work to do, and a few holy men.”

By now everyone had a plate of turkey and vegetables, and there was silence for a while as they ate.

“I always think of it at Christmas what we went through after the Rising in the town,” his grandmother said to his Aunt Molly. “You'd be too young to remember it, Molly. Easter, nineteen and sixteen. It was before Stephen was born. They interned half the town in Frongoch, left us with nothing. They arrested Tom and Daddy here in this very room.”

“Was it a jail?” Eamon asked.

“And then we thought we were going to have Christmas here without them. It was a very bitter time. And then they suddenly let the whole lot of them out the day before Christmas, and we went over to meet them on the train. I'll never forget it. I always think of it at Christmas.”

“Was it a jail?” Eamon asked again.

“Eat up your dinner,” his father said.

After the trifle and the plum pudding the men went to Benediction in the Cathedral.

“Come straight home, now,” his grandmother said. “No going into pubs.”

“It's the power of religion,” Stephen said and laughed. He was sitting by the fire again.

“Were there iron bars in Frongoch?” Eamon asked when the others had left and the women were washing up in the kitchen.

“I don't know. I wasn't there.”

“But was it a jail?”

“No, it was more like an internment camp, a big dormitory.”

“Was it near here?”

“It was in Wales.”

*  *  *

It was dark when the men came back. Stephen was sitting beside the fire reading, the women were still in the kitchen and Eamon was playing cards with his cousins. When they came in, his grandfather went over to the fire, held his hands towards the flames to warm them and then rubbed them together.

“It's cold,” he said as the other men came into the room with their coats still on. “Close that door now or you'll let the heat out.”

“Were you in the pub?” Stephen asked.

“We were. There was a big crowd there. There was even one of the Guards there.”

His grandmother and his two aunts came in.

“Was there a big crowd at Benediction?” she asked.

“O Salutaris Hostia,” Stephen said.

“I can smell the drink,” she said. “That'll be the end of the family in this country, men going out to drink on a Christmas Day. This town'll be ruined by drink.”

“I hope you haven't been touching it while we were out,” his grandfather said.

“I poured it down the sink, every bottle of it, while you were out, didn't I, Margaret?”

“Ah, you didn't,” his grandfather said.

“I did so. You needn't go down. You won't find anything except empty bottles. You've had enough drink, all of you, to do you for the whole New Year.”

“We'll have a cup of tea then,” his grandfather said, “while we decide what to do.”

His grandmother went down to the kitchen and came back a few minutes later carrying a tray with bottles of ale and stout and some glasses.

“You can drink at home on a Christmas Day,” she said.

“The family that drinks together,” Stephen laughed.

“So you didn't pour them down the sink,” his grandfather said.

“I didn't have the heart,” she said. “Would you prefer tea, anyone?”

They all settled around the fire, the women with glasses of sherry, the men with beer, the three boys with glasses of lemonade. Eamon watched as his father tipped his glass to the side and poured the beer in slowly, letting it slide softly down the edge of the glass.

“Let us drink,” Stephen said, “to the conversion of all Russia.” He laughed.

“Drink to me only with thine eyes,” Aunt Margaret said.

“My father sang that song,” his grandmother said. “It was his favourite song. I'd love to hear it again.”

“I'd love to hear ‘I Dreamed I Dwelt In Marble Halls,'” Aunt Molly said.

“Fill up my glass,” his grandfather said, “and I'll do it.”

He cleared his throat as the others watched him. Eamon moved over and sat on the ground near his father. His grandfather's voice was softer and weaker than he remembered. After the first verse he stopped, and Eamon's grandmother took over, smiling at his grandfather as she did so. Her voice was much stronger, but she kept it low to match her husband's, and when she finished her verse, he started up again. For the last verse they joined together:

“I also dreamed which charmed me most

That you loved me still the same

That you loved me, loved me, still the same.”

He left the high notes to her, let her voice soar away from his, and she left space for him to join in again when the song was coming to an end. They all clapped when it was over. Eamon noticed that there were tears in his grandmother's eyes.

“Tom will sing,” his grandmother said. She stood up and went to the door.

“Be thinking of the words now,” she said as she went out.

“Does anyone know,” his grandfather asked, looking at Aunt Margaret and Aunt Molly, “where she hid the bottle of whiskey?”

“You'd better ask herself,” Aunt Margaret said.

“What are you going to sing, Tom?” Aunt Molly said.

“Maybe one of the boys will sing first,” he said.

His grandmother came in then carrying another tray with a bottle of whiskey, a jug of water and smaller glasses.

“Go easy on this now,” she said.

“You're a great woman,” his grandfather said.

Eamon noticed that Stephen was staring into the fire, not paying attention to what was going on in the room. He didn't take any whiskey and barely spoke when he was offered more beer.

“Come on, Tom, your song,” his grandmother said.

“I'll do Boolavogue,” he said.

“Oh, that's lovely, that's lovely, now,” his grandmother said.

He started gently in a quavering tenor voice, looking down at the floor, but after the first two lines he sang louder and with more feeling:

“At Boolavogue as the sun was selling

O'er the bright May meadows of Shelmalier,

A rebel hand set the heather blazing

And brought the neighbours from far and near.”

By the last verses he was singing with great feeling, the voice no longer quivered. They all watched him, listening intently to the story of the song as though they had never heard it before. Stephen closed his eyes as the song came to an end and hunched his shoulders as though in pain.