War Children (4 page)

Statia's father had twisted his ankle jumping down off a ditch, and it had turned black and swelled up till he could hardly walk for the pain. Old Bridie Murnaghan, who had cures for most things, had put a poultice on it and told him to rest his foot till the swelling went down.

‘
Rest
it?' Phil Mulligan said. ‘Sure, how can I rest it? I can't afford the time!' He said the word ‘rest' with a
peculiar
bitterness, as though it were a curse.

‘You can't afford the time
not
to,' Bridie told him. ‘Just be glad you've the childer to help you out around the place. You'll be off that leg for a week as it is. If you don't let it fix itself fully then you'll be off it for a month or maybe more.'

Phil Mulligan made a bad invalid. He wasn't used to inactivity. But Bridie was right about the children at least: the three boys and their mother could manage most things between them, and a week wasn't such a very long time at this time of year. It would have been different at harvest time.

As for Statia, she helped when she could – or when she was let, which wasn't the same thing. She was thirteen, and the youngest, and a girl, and her brothers seemed to take all three things as meaning she was useless. She was set to
feeding
poultry and doing more of the cooking – and to
fetching
things for her father in the house, which was the worst job because Phil Mulligan was annoyed at being laid up and seemed to be in a permanent bad humour. He'd never been sick in his life before, and he didn't like it at all. But even he knew that he was being unfair, and made rough apologies to Statia in between times.

‘I hates feeling useless, child,' he'd say. ‘But I shouldn't be taking it out on you.'

In some ways, though, Statia liked having her father around the house. It was a novelty. And she didn't take his bad temper to heart, because she knew it sprang mostly from worry. The boys were sensible and competent, but they hadn't their father's experience. And Phil Mulligan hated to be dependent on anyone, even his own family. Dependence was weakness in his book; and weakness frightened him.

Statia did resent the fact that she wasn't let help in the harder, outdoor work. She liked fetching cows from the fields of an evening, or any of the other things her brothers wouldn't let her do.

‘Think yourself lucky, child,' her mother would advise her. ‘When I was your age I was worked like a slave. We wants something better for you.'

Statia didn't understand what she meant. What could be better than knowing how to do farm work? It was all that she wanted to do. One day she hoped to be a farmer's wife herself, with a brood of boys like her mother had. What use would she be then if she'd spent her childhood being kept from learning things properly? It was very frustrating.

‘I'm only a skivvy round this place,' she said to her mother. ‘I'm fed up making pots of tea and throwing meal to chickens.'

‘Sure, someone has to do it,' her mother pointed out. ‘And you're the smallest, Statia – what do you want to do, carry bales of hay?'

Statia didn't know what to answer. But as that week passed, what with her father's foul temper and everything else, she got more and more fed up. The house and yard began to seem like a prison. She longed for a day out
somewhere
, away from the tea and the cleaning and the
chickens
. A day? An hour would do. Anything to get away from blank walls and the constant demands of her father and her brothers.

One evening towards the end of the week Statia went to open a new sack of meal to feed the hens, and found there was no new sack there. It was the kind of little thing that got overlooked in an emergency.

‘It's my own fault,' Phil Mulligan admitted. ‘I knew I should get some but I was putting it off. Stephen can go down to Caffertys' in the morning and ask them have they
the lend of a sack till I'm back on my feet.'

But the next day there was a fresh emergency: a cow and her calf had gone straying from the boggy field near the river.

‘I told youse that ditch in the bog field needed
mending
,' their father scowled at the boys when he heard. ‘I told youse to mend that before putting any animals into the field. Now they'll end up drownded!'

And he
had
told the boys, but in their excitement at being in charge they'd forgotten. Now they all had to go and look for the strays.

‘What about the feed for the hens?' Statia's mother asked.

Statia saw a chance, and took it.

‘Why don't I go for it?' she asked.

‘Would you be all right on your own?' her mother asked.

‘Mammy!' said Statia, exasperated.

‘That ass don't like hauling the cart up Mulligan's Drop,' her mother warned. ‘You knows that.'

The way to Caffertys' led across the little hump-backed bridge on the Rasheen river, down in the deep river valley. On Caffertys' side the road sloped gradually up from the bridge, but on this side the land dropped suddenly down a steep hill that was known locally as Mulligan's Drop. Years ago some of Statia's ancestors – even Phil wasn't sure who, or how far back it had been – had owned the land on either side of that road: ‘And 'twas a good day's work when he got
out of it, whoever he was,' Phil would say, ‘for 'tis useless land not worth working.'

The ass was always grand on the road to Caffertys', but sometimes gave trouble on the way back after crossing the bridge, when suddenly Mulligan's Drop became – from an ass's point of view – Mulligan's Rise.

‘And why wouldn't he give trouble?' Phil Mulligan would ask sometimes. ‘How would you like hauling a full cart up that hill?'

Statia had seen the way the ass, pulling the cart back along that road, would sometimes cast its broken-hearted eyes up the awful hill with a kind of shock when it reached the Rasheen bridge and – as often as not – just stand stock still in protest. When this actually happened, her father was far less understanding of its plight. Statia had often seen him break his stick uselessly on the ass's back in an effort to get it to go on.

‘You'll go up there,' he'd shout at the ass, ‘if I have to kick you up it! You'll go up if I have to carry you itself!'

Statia herself thought that beating only made the ass more stubborn. She'd noticed that the beast reacted better to her own soft voice and kindnesses than to her father's blows and curses. And even Phil Mulligan, reluctantly, sometimes had to admit that this was the case.

‘Statia will be all right,' he said now. ‘I seen her get the ass up the Drop sometimes after I'd gave up trying.'

It wasn't like him to be so supportive, and Statia guessed
he was moved by a kind of guilt for the hard time he'd been giving her. He was tempted to go with her himself, he said; he could sit in the back of the cart and still rest his ankle, and the fresh air would do him good. But Statia didn't fancy company – least of all her father's. The few hours on her own were what she wanted. And if her father came then he'd only be rushing her.

‘But what if the ass won't go up the Drop for me today, Da?' she asked. ‘We'd all be stuck there then.'

Her father grunted. You could see that the idea of
getting
out had appealed to him too. He wasn't used to staying still for such a long time.

‘She's right, Phil,' Statia's mother said. ‘And what if we need you here?'

‘Sure, how would you need me, woman? Haven't you three big lads here? Not the cleverest lads, maybe, but they're strong.'

‘No,' his wife said. ‘They're not the cleverest – they takes after their father. Sure, isn't that why we needs you here to … to
direct
them.'

Statia was surprised to see her mother giving her a wink on the sly. She hid a smile. Maybe her mother too thought her father had been hard on her this week. Maybe she too thought Statia could do with a few hours off.

Phil Mulligan was satisfied to be thought needed. He settled himself on the settle bed where he'd been all week.

‘It's true for you,' he said to his wife. ‘The place needs an organising brain.'

Statia could feel the muscles twitching in her cheeks. The hidden smile was trying to turn into a grin. She coughed. She wanted to get out while the going was good.

‘I'll go and put the blinkers on the ass,' she said.

As Statia left the farm her mother walked a few steps of the road with her and loaded her with warnings.

‘Watch out for strangers,' she said. ‘If you see any men with guns then cast your eyes away from them. Don't even let on you notice them. And if you see any soldiers in lorries then be very careful. If they're Tans, get off the cart and put it between you and them, and keep your head down until they're well gone.'

There were ugly stories about drunken Tans shooting rifles at anyone they passed in their lorries. A few people had been shot and even killed. You didn't hear things like that so much about the proper police or the army, but then they tended to be sober. The problem with the Tans, people said, was that they seemed to have no discipline. The best thing to do with them was to stay out of their way
altogether
, but sometimes that was easier said than done.

‘I won't look for you before teatime,' Statia's mother said.

‘As well not to,' Statia told her. ‘You know the way Mrs Cafferty loves a gossip. She'll want to know all.'

‘Aye,' her mother said. ‘And I knows the way Statia
Mulligan loves sitting doing nothing in the field at the butt of the Drop, too, washing her feet in the river. But you've earned a rest this week, putting up with your father. I should know – I've put up with him longer nor any of youse.'

And with a grin she turned back, not looking at Statia's flushed face. Statia felt found out. But it was true that she did love the peace and quiet in the field by the Rasheen, and that she'd sit there on her own for hours daydreaming. She even had a private place there, her only private place in all the world. It was a flat little bit of the riverbank, hidden from outside by a cluster of hazelnut trees and
sciocs
that grew in the field near the bridge. Statia had found the place several years before, chasing a new pup that hadn't yet learned to come when she called. She'd seen him disappear into the bushes and, never thinking, had pushed through after him. She'd expected to hear a splash as the pup fell in the water, and was already hoping she wouldn't have to go in after him. The Rasheen wasn't deep or dangerous, but she didn't fancy getting her clothes wet because of any stupid dog. But there had been no splash, and to her surprise she'd found the pup, his tail wagging and his tongue lolling, sitting on a little flat bit of the bank between the nut trees and the water. It was a sunny little nook hedged in by the scraping branches of the low trees, invisible except from the other side of the river, hardly noticeable even from there: a couple of square feet of grass hidden from the world.

It had been a sunny day, like today, and when she'd sat beside the dog – there was just about room for her, even then – she'd found she was at exactly the right height to dangle her bare feet in the cool water. The pup had pressed against her, his tongue lolling, looking up into her face. Statia had almost imagined he looked proud.

See the fine place that I found for you, she'd imagined him saying. Aren't I a grand dog?

And she'd almost replied to his imagined question, and reassured him that he was. The little place – its peace, its privacy – had enchanted her from the start. When she was younger, and had less work to keep her busy, she'd often gone there. Nowadays – even before this week – she seldom found the time. As soon as she heard of the need for
someone
to go to Caffertys' she pictured the river as it must be today, sparkling and rippling in the hot sun, gurgling cool over the stones below the little bridge. She imagined the trout rising, leaving ripples on the spangled water. The idea of sitting there for half an hour, in her secret, private spot, with the sun shining down and her feet trailing in the water, and no-one looking for anything off her, or bossing her, had filled her with a sudden hungry yearning. She should have known her Ma would see it on her face – her Ma could read her like a book.

There was no need to be embarrassed, she told herself. Hadn't Ma said she understood? She even approved. It was a rare thing to do something nice that your Ma approved
of. Statia felt suddenly free. She took a deep breath and relaxed. The day was hers. The house, with its stormy man and big bostoons of brothers, could look after itself for the afternoon.

It was a lovely day. The birds sang in the roadside hedges. The air was alive with the buzzing of bees and flies. The ass clopped along the road at his own pace, and Statia lost herself in dreams. After a while she came to the lip of Mulligan's Drop and started down the steep hill. It was very quiet, and over the roll of the wheels and the clop of the ass's hooves you could hear the water of the Rasheen
clucking
in its stony bed. The ass dug in his heels against the slope, no longer pulling the cart but pressing back against it as he descended the straight road. Statia got down and took hold of his harness, speaking softly to him and yanking back when he seemed about to give in to the weight of the cart and pull forward.

‘Come on now,
a mhic
,' she said mildly. ‘We're nearly down. You're doing grand. Good lad!'

The ass's ears twitched at her soft tones. He shivered with the strain. At least he wouldn't try and stop here, with the weight pressing him on.

At the foot of the Drop the road levelled out before climbing very slightly for maybe ten yards towards the hump-backed stone bridge. The water in the river chuckled and gurgled, inviting her to dawdle. But Statia got back up on the cart and went on, humming to herself. She'd seen
nobody since leaving home except for one old man driving a few dozy-looking cattle. He'd saluted her briefly, raising the switch in his hand to the peak of his tattered cap. Statia had greeted him in return. She didn't recognise him, but she knew that men like this weren't what her mother meant by ‘strangers'. This was only a farmer like themselves.