Dark Rosaleen (20 page)

Mary McMahon sat in the gloom at the bottom of Patch's pit. Her baby suckled at her hanging breast but drew no milk from the bruised and sore nipple. Her three other children clung to her thighs under the filthy blanket on the bed of straw that smelled of urine and human waste. The baby boy, born only five months before, was no bigger than the day Robin Fitzgerald drew it from her womb.

‘And how could you be?' she said out loud to him. ‘You teasing my breasts and knowing there isn't milk there for you?'

At the sound of their mother's voice, the children whimpered, drew closer and hugged her tighter. Their emaciated bodies were streaked with dried blood and pus where sores had broken.

‘There, there, my babies,' she cooed. ‘Mother will find you something. I can only feed you with what God gives and what's a mother to do when He deserts me? I've sold everything I had, my dears, even your father's shoes and Sunday jacket, and I was so hoping to keep them for when he comes back to us.'

She had killed his dog and its meat had given them nearly a month's food. He had been fond of it but she knew he would understand when he returned. He had been gone for so long but she never doubted he would come back, good husband that he was. There would come the day when she would hear him whistling and calling … ‘Mary, Mary, I've come to take you and the little ones on the big ship to America.'

There had been a time when she feared the peelers had killed him but someone brought her a message that he had been seen working on a road near to Enniskillen and that made her happy. It meant he was earning the money to buy the tickets for the big ship that would take them all away. Perhaps he would bring back some whiskey. She missed his liquor.

Her Patch had been a happy man, a good man and father. The children's stomachs were never empty and their faces were always full of fun. He had never done anyone any harm with his whiskey-making and it had given them all a good living. She remembered the times when men climbed down into the pit and sat by the still as it bubbled over the peat fire, talking of their debts and doubtful dealings, of how they had been wronged by this man or that woman – and it was mostly women. Listening to them and their moaning, you would think the world was a poor place and they the most unfortunate devils in it. But after a cup or two of Patch's brew, they would leave laughing and singing, different men altogether, full of spunk.

But then the shebeen owners in the county reckoned Patch was taking too much of their business away so they agreed that one of them would lead the excise men to Patch's secret little place and put an end to it. Big Jim O'Rourke brought them and as the excise men were chasing after Patch, it was he who broke up the still and smashed the full bottles hidden in the ferns by the stream. It was big Jim O'Rourke who had then her in front of her children even as Patch was running from bullets in the hills above.

Quietly and carefully, she pulled the sleeping infant away from her, got up from the bed, placed him into the nest of straw with the others and drew the blanket over them. Then she draped her shawl over her head and shoulders, closed the cottage door behind her and wedged a large stone against it.

The ground was white with frost, the tall ferns like stiff and delicate filigree. The night was stark and clear with stars and a full moon lit up the icicles on the aspen tree. The track up the steep slope was slippery so she crawled on her hands and knees to the top and stood there for a while, waiting for her heart to stop pounding. She looked around her, surprised at how beautiful it was and how quickly she had forgotten it. The long, smooth stretch of hills swept down so casually to the sand and the sea and the great walls of rock that changed colours with the seasons were now towering white with the scattering of snow. She could hear the rumble and swish of surf breaking and, as she had often done, she looked towards the horizon, searching for the ship that was not there.

‘I must hurry.' She spoke the words out loud to herself. ‘I must be back before Patch comes. He'll not take the babes without me. Oh! Love … Oh! Love … Come for us. Come for us quickly.'

She hurried off, her bare feet crunching the carpet of frost, half running whenever she had the breath. Her shawl fell to her shoulders and her long black hair streamed behind her like a mass of silk.

She had a plan. She had thought about it for a week and now she had decided. She knew where there was food and she knew how she would get it. Then her babies would eat and when their bellies were full they would play and chatter as they had before. She would not let them die of hunger. God had given them to her and she would not give them back. They would stay safe and well until Patch came to take them away on the big ship to America.

It took her an hour to reach the walls of Cork. She waited in the shadows on Lavitt's Quay. There were always people loitering long after the shops had closed, waiting patiently outside the butchers and bakers, hoping for a scrap to be thrown to them.

It was past eight o'clock. She had heard the bell on St Olave's church. She pulled the shawl over her head and around her face.

‘Just as long as you're careful, Mary,' she whispered. ‘Just as long as you're careful, no one will ever know.'

But another voice from an inner part of her mind whispered back, ‘And if you're caught, Mary McMahon, they'll send you to a prison ship and who'll look after your babes then?'

She nodded to her other voice. ‘Don't fret. Mary knows how to look after herself. Hasn't she been doing just that since Patch went on his way? And won't I still be doing it on the day he comes back for us?'

She watched as, one by one, the candles inside the shops were snuffed out, and the shopkeepers, content with their week's profits, pulled on their heavy greatcoats, wrapped woollen scarves around their chubby necks and pulled their hats down tight. They rattled the steel mesh that covered their shop windows, making sure that they were locked, then double-bolted their front doors and, tapping their shop signs with their walking sticks, walked along the river bank towards the comfort of their warm and welcoming homes.

Mary waited until the shadow of the last of them had gone. She looked across the street to number eighteen and the sign above the window:

J. O'ROURKE. CORN MERCHANT AND GROCER

She knew him to be a bully, a rapist, a cold and cunning man. The rapidly rising price of imported American corn had made him prosperous and his new money had given him new ambition. With it, he was buying the favours of every merchant in the town and he was now their favourite to be Cork's next mayor. She remembered the days when she was younger, when her hair was a shining raven-black, tied up with a strip of scarlet ribbon. O'Rourke would look long at her whenever his wife was not looking at him, his eyes wandering over her body, making her feel naked, and he would lick his lips as if he was feasting on her. She had been a handsome woman with a full bosom and full hips and she knew what men liked and she knew that they liked her. She could have had the pick of any of them but when she chose Patch she knew there would not be another man brave enough to take her from him. But still O'Rourke continued to eye her in his lecher's way, violating her as he sat on his sacks of flour.

‘Yes!' she whispered. ‘Tonight the dirty man will fill one of those sacks for me and my babes. He knows what he did to me, tearing me and making me bloody in front of my own. Now it's time for him to pay the bill, some flour and perhaps a little something special.'

She looked out once more from her hiding place. There was no light in O'Rourke's shop and slowly, step by step, she edged along the wall until she came to a narrow cobbled alley by the side of the shop. How bright it was, how close the moon was and how white. It might almost be day.

‘Oh, dear God! What if my babes wake thinking it morning? Will they cry out for me and come wandering out on a night as cold as this? Holy Mary,' she pleaded, ‘put the moon away.'

She knew where O'Rourke kept the spare key for the side door. He had told her of it many times when he had tried to convince her to change beds. She crossed herself and reached up to the loose stones above the lintel, feeling for the key. Carefully, she slid it into the lock, turned it quietly and let herself in.

She stood still and breathed in the smells, the perfumes of food, the coffee, the spices, the tang of oranges and the heavenly scent of soap. To be clean, to feel her skin white and fresh again, her hair soft as silk, a scalp without lice, a body without sores. The moon lit the room as she tiptoed from counter to counter, from shelf to shelf, lightly touching all these things, like a child on Christmas morning circling the laden tree. Then her fingers dipped into a barrel of flour.

She worked quickly, scooping it into a sack. But how much? How heavy could she make it if she was to carry all the way back to the pit? She looked around at all the lovely foods she might have taken if only she had been stronger. She tied the head of the sack in a knot and went back to the door. As she turned to take her last breath of the scented shop, she saw a jar of molasses on the shelf above the weighing scales. Yes! She would take it to sweeten the cakes she would bake, what a treat for her babes. She reached up. The jar was inches from her fingers. She stretched on the tips of her toes but her arm failed her and the jar came crashing down and exploded on the marble counter.

She stood still, barely able to breathe.

‘Who's there?' She heard him coming down the stairs from the loft. She had thought he was at home in bed with his wife.

She waited. Should she run to the door? If she did he would chase her and catch her and beat her, bawling out for all of Cork to hear. Then he would give her to the peelers and then what of her babes?

The sack of flour was heavy but she dared not put it down. If she was quiet and still he would not see her and if he heard nothing more, he would think that he had been dreaming and sleep again.

But nowadays Jim O'Rourke seldom slept the night through. Like other merchants, he lived in fear of being burgled and having his shop set on fire by the mobs who crowded his door every day, ragged beggars banging on his window with their fists, demanding he gave them credit to buy his food when he knew there was not one among them who could ever pay him back. So he slept above his shop in a makeshift cot with a loaded shotgun on the floor beside it.

He came through the door holding it in one hand and a candle in the other.

‘Jesus! It's you, Mary McMahon. All these years and in my shop alone at last. But thank God because I thought it was the mob come for me.'

He came closer and saw the broken jar and the molasses dripping from the counter. Then he saw the sack of flour in her hands.

‘You're stealing from me. Is that it? That's my flour you have there and you've smashed my molasses. What else have you hidden up your skirt?'

‘Nothing, O'Rourke. I've only a little flour for my babes. We have the hunger and I must feed them until Patch comes home.'

He laughed and then spat and wiped his mouth with the hem of his nightshirt. ‘Patch comes home, is it?'

He was menacing, blocking her way to the door. She could smell the sweat and whiskey on him.

He snatched the sack from her. ‘I'll tell you what Mr Patch will find if ever he dares to come back. He'll find his whore in prison and in irons.'

‘Give me back the flour, O'Rourke,' she said defiantly. She came close and put her hand on his bare chest, the hair warm and wet. ‘Do what you like with me. Do what you did before and do it any way you like. I'll not tell Patch. But give me back the flour. Don't call the peelers.'

He was a large man but she was no longer afraid. He pushed her away. ‘Do what I like with you any way I like, is it? You bitch. If I rammed you now it would be with a marlin spike. You are a filthy woman inside and out and I wouldn't touch you with any part of mine. My God! How I've lusted after you all these years and now you offer me this'.

He spat phlegm into her face but she did not move. He took her arm, twisted it behind her back and pushed her towards the door. ‘Come, you dirty hag. Get your filth out of my shop or I'll raise such a commotion we'll have the peelers here before a scream leaves those scabby lips of yours.'

She clawed at the counter but there was nothing to hold on to. She grabbed at the shelves. She clutched the weighing scales but they crashed to the floor. Furious, he hit her again and again.

Above her she saw a ham and by it, on the chopping block, a cleaver. She grabbed it and, closing her eyes, swung it in a wide arc until it stopped at his skull. He gasped and fell and she fell with him, still in his tight grip. There was a gurgling in his throat and she felt the warmth of his blood on her arms. He shivered, his body heaved and then with a sigh he was still. She unlocked his fingers, kicked his legs away and sat up. She had sliced off the back of his head and in the bright moonlight she saw the glistening white of his brain.

She stood by his body a few moments longer, then, slinging the sack over her shoulder and pulling her shawl over it, she left the shop and began her journey home.