And Time Stood Still, page 2
Smell is one of the most evocative of the senses. It creeps like smoke back along the membranes of memory until it reaches its source. There it ignites a flame that melts down a time barrier; the past and present come together and we go back to the root of memory. At six I was unable to cope with the pain of parting from Connie, so nature stepped in to protect me.
Sometimes we can learn from nature as we observe how it deals with trauma. The bees in their hives are wise in their own way. When, as sometimes happens, a mouse breaks into the hive the bees simply cover him over with wax and render him powerless. He is a problem for another day. With time he may disintegrate and fade, or at a later date the wax may wear away and he will be still there, but by then easier to handle – he can be eased out as the bees clean the hive.
Now, as an adult, the wax coating over my childhood trauma melted away. I was in a good place to ease out the grief ghost that had slept for years, sealed off in my memory. Sometimes it is good to respect the wisdom of ages:
There is a time for everything
A season for everything under the sun.
The glow of Connie’s memory has always been a little beacon of light and goodness in my life. His gentleness and playfulness was an oasis calling from my past. It caused me to be drawn to beautiful things and absorb the wonder in the ordinary.
A Memory
The waste ground was choked with weeds
That grew above her head,
But in the middle of this bloomed
A flower of golden red.
The little child came every day
To gaze upon the scene.
The flower was the loveliest sight
That she had ever seen.
This flower took root and blossomed.
It grew inside her head
And led her on to lovely things
Long after it was dead.
Chapter 2
The Comforter
Bill never criticised us. To him we were perfect. He loved us unquestioningly and we responded by loving him back. He had no children of his own so my brother Connie and I became his children and because he was not involved in the nuts and bolts of our actual rearing he was the perpetual Santa Claus in our lives. When my father had to enforce a certain amount of law and order into our scene we told my mother that she should have married Bill instead as he would have been a much kinder father, to which our father would caustically retort, ‘You would all have died of the hunger.’ But as children we only saw all that was wonderful in Bill.
We viewed him as the father figure who never stood in judgement and who deemed us always to have only the most superior motives. He surrounded us with approval and support. The old sean fhochail ‘Mol an óige and tiochfaid siad’ (Praise the young and they’re yours) definitely applied to us. We blossomed in Bill’s non-judgemental approval. He had gone to school with my father, who regarded him as a cross between a genius and a romantic fool not fit to survive the harsh realities of North Cork farming in the hungry 40s and 50s. My father’s assessment was probably right, but to us Bill was a magic window into the fantasy world of the imagination. He loved reading and telling stories. The child in Bill had never grown up, so even though he was an adult he was never burdened with the cares of that world.
My father constantly tried to bribe and threaten him into eking out a better living on his hill farm so that he and his two sisters could live in more comfort, but Bill’s heart was not in it and when every other farmer in the neighbourhood was busy saving their hay, Bill would be occupied reading a book or researching a new breed of ciaróg, or insect. This would drive my father crazy, but Bill would just ignore him and calmly go his own way, much to the annoyance of his disapproving sisters. Bill was never meant to be a struggling farmer; farming life would have suited him if he had had another source of income, but unfortunately that was not the case. However, because one of his sisters was thrifty and a good housekeeper, they managed. But he was the bane of her life and Bill lived to the sound of her scolding disapproval – though because it was constant, like background music, he never really heard it. Connie and I certainly ignored it and regarded her as a thorn in the side of Bill’s happiness and our own.
Bill and his sisters lived at the top of the hill behind our house and the place was my escape from my own bossy sisters and the never-ending line-up of dreaded ‘jobs’. When the pressure became too much I sneaked out through the grove behind our house and along a ferny field, and then hopped over the stream at the foot of the hill and climbed up the steep path beside the wooded fort, then ran along the Fort Field and over the ditch into the field in front of Bill’s house. Here, Shep had to be confronted, and though we met daily, he never extended a warm welcome. He was a snarling mongrel who held his ground and kept me on top of the ditch until Bill called him off. But once he was called to heel it was all plain sailing after that. No matter what farming business he had on hand, Bill took time to sit and chat; there was no hurry at the top of the hill. His donkey was in perfect harmony with Bill’s pace of life, and I loved to be there too when the cows came in for milking, picking their way carefully over Bill’s uneven stone yard and then placidly chewing the cud as their heads protruded out through the thatched roof of their house – over the years the cows had gently butted holes into the thatch and formed their own windows so that as they were milked they gazed happily out over the adjoining fields. The thatch had weathered to a mellow grey and all the timber gates had softened too to the same hue; even the donkey was the same soft grey.
Every night Bill came to our house bringing a bucket of spring water from the fairy well at the foot of the fort on his land and when we calculated our water supply, Bill’s bucket was always included. He was as constant as the northern star. The only night that he did not come was Saturday night as he knew that was bath night when we five sisters were scrubbed clean in a tin bath in front of the kitchen fire. Every other night he came, and then stayed and with endless patience taught us our lessons. Spelling was not my strong point and I recall one particular night when he spent hours trying to drum the spelling of ‘immediately’ into my meandering mind. He told us stories and taught us Irish dancing, which was some achievement as he was a big man, wearing heavy wooden clogs with iron tips, so the intricacies of the fairy reel did not flow easily. During the war years such footwear replaced hob-nailed boots in rural Ireland, but even with such restraints, Bill succeeded, with patience and determination, in teaching us the complications of Irish dancing. Sometimes the tip of his clog would come loose and it added an extra tempo to the rhythm!
At Christmas he played cards with us, and if anyone cheated he got very annoyed. When we were sent off to bed and could not settle down but started a bit of a racket overhead, he would come to the bottom of the stairs and warn us that our father’s patience was wearing thin and that it was time to calm things down a little.
Like a kind of Santa Claus, Bill was large and ample, with a benevolent, beaming face shining with goodwill and kindness under a large bald head. He was always on our side.
When Connie died my mother was devastated and my father retreated into a frozen silence, but Bill remained a secure, unchanged rock in the middle of my sea of anguish. Bill provided normality then – and at that time we really needed something to remain the same in our shattered world. To me Bill was indestructible.
All his life Bill had suffered from bad asthma, which he treated by burning some strange substance in a tin box and inhaling it up his nostrils. I was fascinated by this procedure and would lean in over the box and try to sniff it up my nose, much to the annoyance of Bill’s sisters. But even though Bill had asthma he was never really sick and always kept going at his own leisurely pace. Along his pathway up by the fort were little seats that he had cut into the hillside and made comfortable with flat stones. Here he rested regularly on his trek up the steep hill. That steep hill must have been a tough challenge for an asthmatic.
When he missed a few nights in bringing his bucket of water I wondered, but was not unduly disturbed. But the following Sunday, as my sister Ellen and I walked home from Mass, we made a detour and called to see him. Instead of being up in his usual loft bedroom which was accessed by a ladder, he was now in a big bed in what was called ‘the upper room’. He did not talk and his heavy breathing filled the space. An icy finger of dread crept into my stomach. I came down the hilly field feeling a cold, hard knot forming at the base of my stomach. I went out into the grove and sat beside the tree where Bill had sat with me and cried on the night Connie had been taken away. I had not understood anything about death then. At that time I was six, now I was twelve and had learnt a little more. Later that day, Bill died. I did not want to go back up to that room where Bill’s laboured breathing had filled the air.
The following evening when I knew that the hearse would be leaving his home I went up to a spot at the top of our farm that overlooked Bill’s house. As the hearse drove across the field, the knot in my stomach grew into a big, cold lump. It was hard and painful. I was beginning to learn about the deep pain of grief.
The day after Bill’s funeral one of his sisters came to my mother and asked if one of us would go and stay with them as they were so lonely without Bill. It was Easter and we had holidays from school. Maybe because I was the one who had always climbed the hill to their home I now returned there with a small bundle of clothes under my arm. But now everything was different. Without Bill, the light had gone out of this special place. One of the sisters, Ellie, was fastidious and fussy and supervised my every move. She was very bothered by her arthritis and spent most of the day sitting in a timber súgán armchair by the fire, from where she supervised all activities. Her hair was swept back severely into a tight knot at the back of her head and everything about her was exacting and correct. She was thin and severe – maybe years of pain had led to her strict attitude. Her small kitchen had become her little empire. The other sister was the exact opposite in that she was bedraggled and untidy, with long, unruly black hair, and she stomped around in a large pair of unlaced boots. The two sisters slept in a high, iron bed in the lower room and I climbed in between them. They wore long woollen nightdresses and smelt of Sloane’s lineament, which they rubbed on themselves to relieve their aches and pains.
Every morning I was called and given exact instructions by Ellie on how to light the fire, starting with emptying the ash hole and then twisting up small bits of paper to create firelighters that were surrounded with little bits of soft turf called ciaráns and small pieces of wood we called ‘cipíns’ that I had collected the previous day from under the trees in the haggard. Then I was instructed on exactly how many cups of water to put into the heavy kettle before hanging it on the iron hook of the crane over the fire. Ellie was like a time-and-motion expert, and I wondered if she too had the hard, cold lump in her stomach that I had.
When the hated jobs were done I walked around the little haggard, ran my hand along the smooth shafts of Bill’s donkey cart and sat on the cow stool under the sagging roof of the cow shed. At the gable end of the house were the logs that Bill had brought from the wood and neatly stacked. Down along the little garden beside the house the daffodils were peeping above the ground. But without Bill the whole place was desolate.
When school reopened I was glad to go home to where nobody worried about how many cups of water you put into the kettle. But it took a long time to get used to the idea that Bill would never again come in our door carrying his bucket of water. My hillside haven was gone forever.
Years later, I read that wise man and wonderful writer, John O’Donoghue, who tells of an old neighbour whom he had loved dearly dying suddenly when he was a child. It was his first encounter with death and with it came a realisation that all the people around him had known about it all the time. To him as a child it was an enormous discovery and he was amazed that in the midst of this extraordinary happening people carried on and life continued almost normally around it. I too wondered how the world could continue without Bill. For months I walked up his hillside path and sat on his seats and thought about him. I had no idea why I did it. It hurt, but in some way it brought Bill closer. He was part of that hill. Gradually my world reshaped itself without him.
Chapter 3
Animal Friends
We grew up cloaked in post-war austerity and most parents during my childhood struggled to keep bread on the table. There was no surplus money for toys. But what we never had we never missed, and because children are by nature resourceful we found other sources of entertainment. Often the farm animals became our ‘toys’. If baby bonhams and lambs needed special nursing, we were on standby to become Florence Nightingales. Chickens, goslings and ducklings brightened up the spring and in the summer we raced the baby calves down through the fields. But baby animals grow up quickly and move on, and so it was with the older animals that we formed the most lasting bonds.
We became very attached to the farm dogs and horses, some of whom were older than ourselves. One of our horses, Paddy, was the same age as my older sister, Ellen, and I envied her that close affinity with him. It was as if they shared a special connection because of being born in the same year. Paddy was the king of the stable; other horses came and went, but Paddy seemed to go on forever.
We sensed too that my father had huge respect and love for Paddy. At that time, horses were one of the main cogs keeping a farm in motion. My father depended on Paddy to plough, harrow and cut the hay and corn. He was well cared for because without him there would be no food and in the working process of man and horse an inter-dependency developed and a close friendship that neither of them could articulate. Farmers were not into declaring their deepest feelings, but that is not to say that they did not exist. It was rather a case of care and share. There was a deep and silent understanding between my father and Paddy.
Paddy was a large bay who was by nature volatile, but he was a great worker and when he was out in the fields doing farm work that required a pair of horses, he was the one who set the pace: when two horses work together there is usually the pace-maker and the one who follows. During fine weather the horses were always out on the land, and every morning catching the horses was one of our first jobs of the day; one of us brought in the cows while another went for the horses. The horses did not always take kindly to being rounded up but usually a long, low whistle brought Paddy ambling in your direction and for some reason the other horses followed. The most troublesome was the small, sprightly jennet, whose job it was to go to the creamery. The jennet was a vindictive creature who would kick and bite if he got half a chance, but he never succeeded with us because on a farm the first rule of survival was to expect the unexpected. Instead of being street-wise we were country-wise.
In the stable too there was a pecking order, with Paddy occupying the main section, and next to him came Jerry, and then near the door the jennet, who was nameless as he was the only one of his kind on the farm, and indeed in the parish - therefore he remained simply ‘the jennet’. Above their heads was a window through which hay could be thrown from the barn into their mangers during the winter months when they could not go out into the fields. But during the long days of summer, once their work was done, they were free to graze the fields behind the house and up along the Glen that stretched across the northern end of the farm. They must have known every inch of this territory, so it was difficult to understand how Paddy had his accident.
It was an early May morning when Ellen, who had gone to catch the horses, ran back to the house, breathless and panic stricken. Her announcement that Paddy had fallen down over a cliff up in the Glen triggered pandemonium. Everyone headed up for the Glen. Poor Paddy was lying at the bottom of a cliff, his eyes wide with terror. He whined piteously when he saw my father – it was almost as if there was a special communication between them and now he was asking his best friend for an explanation. But his friend had no answer.
That day I went to school with the horror of Paddy’s predicament scorched into my mind. I knew by my father’s face that morning that there was no easy way out of this calamity. I took in nothing that went on in school as Paddy’s terrified eyes blotted out everything. The minute I got home I ran up to the Glen where he was still lying, and I knew then that there was no solution. If it had been possible to get him up, my father would have managed it. I soon found out that the vet had been called and had pronounced that Paddy had a broken back. It was a death sentence.
Later that evening as dusk was falling I went back up to the Glen and climbed down the steep incline. I rubbed poor Paddy’s soft nose and he whimpered in distress. As I walked down the field blinded by tears, I saw my father come towards me carrying his gun. It would be the quickest and the kindest way for Paddy, but brutal for my father. I waited to hear the sound of the gun and when it did not come I realised that my father was waiting for me to reach home and be out of hearing range. But I sat on a stone in the middle of the Fort Field and waited. When the shot came, it tore through the silence of the night and echoed along the valley. Slowly my father came down the field and wordlessly I slipped my hand into his and we walked home together. Sometimes words are meaningless. Paddy was buried in the Glen and a certain sadness hung around his burial place ever after.
The following year one of our cows got sick and was nursed under a tree in the Quarry Field behind the house. When my mother approached with a bucket of warm bran the cow just mooed plaintively and lay there passively, her large, kind eyes full of questioning pain. She too was buried where she died under the tree at the top of that field, and for years afterwards when I walked into the Quarry Field I felt a haunting sadness waft around that tree too. Parting from animal friends can cause deep hurt because next to the bond between humans is the bond between man and animal.
