To School Through the Fields Page 4

  During the long summer holidays the plague of lessons did not exist, so Bill joined in our many games. One of our pretend games was shop, which we played under the trees in the grove. We nailed rough planks between the trees to display our goods – empty cartons collected from the kitchen and from neighbours – which we arranged along the shelves, and we erected a makeshift counter in front. Here we traded for hours using pebbles collected from a nearby stream as currency, and though the rate of exchange posed no problem, the price of each item was open to long and complicated negotiations. It was up to the shopkeeper to sell the goods, with a convincing argument as to their value, and it was up to the customer to buy as cheaply as possible. Bill always joined the row of customers when he came after supper, and he brought new and colourful arguments to bear on the shopkeeper. Everybody wanted to be the shopkeeper as we felt that this was the leading role, but Bill turned the tide in favour of the shopper.

  During the winter holidays card playing and dancing replaced the lessons, and we were often joined by other neighbours who came visiting. Playing cards was the only occasion on which Bill could lose his temper: if anybody cheated he put his head down like an angry bull, threw his cards on the table and tore out the door. Being completely honest himself, he would not tolerate the slightest deviation from the straight and narrow path of right. The dancing, however, posed no problems. We all lined out around the kitchen while somebody wound up the old gramophone, and then we hopped off the stone floor, ranging in age from seven to seventy. The fairy reel, set dances and barn dances were executed with more gusto than skill until everybody was exhausted and collapsed into the súgán chairs that had been pushed back against the walls. My mother then put the kettle on over the open fire and when we had recovered our breath and cooled down, we all gathered around the fire for cups of cocoa.

  Bill and my father had gone to school together and were friends all their lives. There existed between them a perfect understanding, though they were very different types of people. To Bill my mother was a welcome extension to his own life and he loved all of us unquestioningly; indeed, in some ways we were a three-parent family, and Bill was a plus in our lives which we took for granted. When he died quite suddenly it came as a hard, sharp blow. He died at home and the wake took the usual form of the time with all the neighbours rallying round to give help and support, but for some reason I did not go anywhere near the house. On the day of the removal I went to the highest field in our farm, overlooking Bill’s home, and from here I watched the hearse leave the house, and tried to come to terms with the concept of a world without Bill.

  After the funeral one of the sisters came and asked my mother if one of us children would go and stay with them for a while. It was Easter holiday time, so we were all at home. There was no great rush on the invitation, but to me the idea of trying to ease their loss of Bill was strangely appealing so, putting my night-dress under my arm, I set out happily back through the field behind the house. Coming to the fairy well I lay on the large mossy stone in front of it and gazed into its dark green depths. Then I ran up the steep hill, stopping to sit on all Bill’s resting places which he had made during his lifetime.

  I do not remember how long I spent with the sisters but it was a whole new experience. Here life was lived at a defined pace. The amount of water to go into the kettle was measured, the number of slices of bread needed for the tea was calculated. Nothing was left to chance, everything was ordered and regulated. One of the sisters was in a wheelchair and from there she ran the house down to the very last detail. To me it was fascinating because it was such a complete contrast to our house.

  Not everything had changed, though. I would walk around the grey stone yard, into the white-thatched cowhouse, and rub my hand along the silken timber of the weather-beaten gates. Here was a timeless existence. Below the house was a long narrow garden shadowed by overhanging trees and filled with daffodils. I lay among the green and yellow rows and gazed up into the sky through the soft green leaves. I saw Bill smiling down between the clouds, which was no great surprise as heaven was just above them and Bill was sure to be there.

  The Long-tailed Family

  WE CHILDREN WERE very attached to the farm animals. Some of them were older than ourselves and very much part of our home life; not alone were some of our animals born and reared on the farm but so also were some of their mothers and grandmothers, and a lot of them died of old age and were buried there. Our burial ground was at the bottom of the orchard and here the jennet, when he decided that he had had enough and lay down and died, was laid to rest. All our pals, including cats and dogs, got an official burial and at times we marked the graves with little timber crosses.

  The horses held a special status on our farm. We had a red bay called Paddy and a grey mare named Jerry and the jennet who, because he was the only one of his species on the farm – or indeed in the parish – was just called the jennet. He was a strange animal, smaller than a horse, bigger than a pony, and with the face of a donkey. I once heard John Dillon say on radio that the jennet “did not have pride of ancestry or hope of succession; he was, in other words, a non starter”. It was a harsh pronouncement, giving the jennet nothing to look back at and even less to look forward to. However, it did not seem to bother our particular fellow: black and long-tailed, he brayed like a donkey and kicked like a devil and if you stood too close to him he might decide to sink his long yellow teeth into you to see if you tasted good. One of his jobs, which he did every day, was to go to the creamery; he could find his own way to town and stopped along the route at houses where my father regularly gave in gallons of milk. He was a real loner and he did not fraternise with the horses or the pony. However, he had one thing in his favour: in the morning, when my father went to the gate of the field and whistled, he came willingly, not needing to be called a second time or coaxed on his way.

  Catching the horses, on the other hand, was a job that had to be done most mornings and sometimes they were very uncooperative. Some people are reluctant to get out of bed early to face a day’s work, and likewise horses are loath to be rounded up to face their day’s labour. My eldest sister, Frances, was the one who loved the horses most and she usually went out to catch them early in the morning; if she got close enough she would swing off Paddy’s mane and jump on his back for a gallop. One morning she had on a pair of loose wooden clogs that were a fashionable necessity during the war, but when she had Paddy galloping the clogs fell off under his belly and frightened him. He bolted. He raced up the fields like a streak of red lightning, but the effort of coming up the steep incline to the yard slowed him. He arrived in the farmyard frothing from the mouth and covered in sweat, Frances clinging to him like a leech. She had enjoyed the challenge of holding on, while I watched with my heart in my mouth.

  Of all the animals that belonged on the farm, it was Paddy’s death that caused most trauma in our house. He was older than I and was a horse with great class. In animals you get as much individual variation as in humans: there are the mean, sly, stupid, intelligent and honest ones just the same as us. Paddy was the cream of the animal world. He would neither kick nor bite and was hard-working. He was also an honest animal – if you think there is no such thing as a dishonest animal then you have never heard of a thieving cow. Some cows always have their heads up to see if there is something better in the next field and if there is, up and over they go to get it. We have that much in common with the cows. With horses, when they worked in pairs there was the one who pulled hardest and did the most work; there was also the horse who had no mean traits and was loved and respected by his owner. Such a horse was Paddy.

  At the top of our farm was a wild area known as the Glen. It was bushy and rocky and the horses seldom went there. One spring morning, however, when my father went out to bring them in from the fields Paddy was not with the others. After a long search he was found lying in a deep hollow in the Glen. My father’s heart must have stood still when he saw him: Paddy made an effort t
o rise but was not able. When the news got back to the house we were shattered and all made a bee-line for the Glen. There he lay, unable to rise, whimpering in distress because he could not follow us home. That day in school, instead of the blackboard I saw Paddy lying in that hollow. I was completely distracted for lesson after lesson and got many slaps, but it felt as if they were hitting someone else. The clock dragged slowly around to three.

  When I got home I learned that the vet had come during the day and had pronounced that Paddy had broken his back and would have to be put down. It was like a death in the family. We all knew that my father would do the needful; a shot would be quick and merciful, but it would be so terrible for my father who had worked with Paddy for years and loved him dearly.

  I went by myself to say good-bye. Going up to the Glen in the dusk on that late spring evening was a sorrowful journey. There was a soft mist falling and I felt that even the leaves were crying. I climbed down over the rocks to where Paddy lay in the grassy hollow; he whimpered when he heard me coming and turned his dark, moist eyes in my direction. Sitting beside him I stroked his silken face with its white star. He nuzzled me gently and, as I put my arms around him, my tears ran down his neck. He neighed softly and looking up I saw my father silhouetted against the darkening sky. He had his shotgun with him. It was time to go.

  Walking home through the soft wet grass I waited to hear the shot break the silence of the evening. When it did not come I knew that my father was waiting for me to get home first. I sat on a stone to wait and at last it came like an explosion in the quietness of the Glen. After a while my father came down the rocky path. There was no need to say anything when he saw me. I put my hand into his pocket and we walked home together.

  Close to the Earth

  Come to a quiet place,

  A place so quiet

  That you can hear

  The grass grow.

  Lie on the soft grass,

  Run your fingers

  Through the softness

  Of its petals,

  And listen:

  Listen to the earth.

  The warm earth,

  The life pulse

  Of us all.

  Rest your body

  Against its warmth;

  Feel its greatness,

  The pulse and throb,

  The foundation

  Of the world.

  Look up into the sky,

  The all-embracing sky,

  The canopy of heaven.

  How small

  We really are:

  Specks in the greatness

  But still a part of it all.

  We grow from the earth

  And find

  Our own place.

  Celebration of the Seasons

  EACH YEAR WE welcomed summer by erecting a May altar in honour of Our Lady. In this we were motivated less by religious fervour than by a wish to celebrate the long, warm days by bringing the outdoors into the house in bunches of wild flowers which we picked along the ditches and in the open fields. In the bedroom over the kitchen was a large old chest with deep drawers. Over this we draped a white sheet and on top of it we put a box slightly smaller than the chest top and covered this with another cloth. Then another box, slightly smaller again, with another cloth, and so on as high as we could go without causing the whole thing to topple over. On top of this pyramid we perched Our Lady. This was her altar, so she got pride of place, but she was not to have it all to herself. On the steps below her came statues of Our Lord, in case he might feel overlooked, and then Blessed Martin and St Theresa. Also included was St Philomena, but she was actually there under false pretences as the Vatican in later years changed their minds about her credentials. Then came the flowers and greenery arranged in jam pots and trailing down from step to step.

  When we were finished we regarded our creation as a masterpiece of sanctity and in front of it we knelt and prayed, feeling that at any moment we might sprout angelic wings and soar heavenwards. Such was our sense of drama that we draped ourselves in trailing bedspreads with pillow covers as haloes on our heads and danced in front of the altar.

  One day Connie and I decided that we would bury ourselves in the drawers of the old chest. Maybe we had visions of the popes buried beneath the Vatican. Connie got into the bottom drawer without mishap but as I attempted to settle into my proposed tomb the entire creation of devotion tilted forward and collapsed on top of us. The crash was thunderous, with statues, jam pots, flowers and water flying in all directions. Everybody downstairs in the kitchen came running up the stairs to investigate. We scrambled out of the drawers and under a large old timber bed in the corner of the room where nobody could get at us since the bed almost touched the floor and they were all too big to get under it. My mother was annoyed when she found that Our Lady had lost her head; our sisters were raging over the complete mess, and my father gave out because it took very little to start him off and he thought that we were a holy terror anyway. We stayed under the bed for a long time until things calmed down, but we finally ventured downstairs when Bill came as he could always be relied upon to pour oil on troubled waters. Our Lady later acquired a concrete neck which was a bit thick, so she lost some of her swan-like elegance but it was the best repair that could be achieved at the time as fixatives had not yet come on the market.

  As soon as the sun had taken the cold sting out of the weather we wanted to cast aside our heavy winter clothes and don our summer dresses but my mother put her foot down with her old adage, “Ne’er cast a clout till May is out.” In winter we wore heavy tweed skirts with hand-knitted jumpers and beneath them grey flannel petticoats. Under the petticoat came a sleeveless jacket called a bodice and then a pure wool long-sleeved vest. We wore long black woollen stockings up as far as possible and secured in place with garters and long-legged knickers with elasticated ends to just above our knees. We spent cold days out in the fields and sat in a damp, draughty, unheated school, so the need to be warmly clad was imperative. But when the weather grew warm we were glad of the freedom that bare limbs afforded.

  My mother made all our clothes and for summer wear she bought us a large roll of cotton material and ran up simple, shift-like slip-over-the-head dresses. The primary need was to cover our nudity and elegant cut was not a requirement. Climbing trees and slushing through muddy gaps was not conducive to model child appearance, so clothes were serviceable rather than flattering.

  Each of us girls had a box in which we stored our summer dresses in a big press over the winter. Come summer we brought our boxes out into the garden to lay them out to air in the warm sun. In our garden all the plants and shrubs were called after the people who gave them to my mother, and escalonia was Jer Lucy’s bush. On that day Jer Lucy wore a collection of gaily coloured dresses. As the youngest of five girls I was reared on a succession of hand-me-downs but I had a godmother in America who sent me parcels of beautiful frilly muslin and silk dresses which smelt of lavender and foreign places.

  When the sun had warmed the heart of the earth it thrust forth white garlands of little button mushrooms. They came up overnight in small clusters where late the night before there had been nothing but green. Now there they were, with their little white faces peeping up from between blades of grass. Some fields were mushroom fields and others were not, and we knew where to look, but so did all the neighbouring children. Where mushrooms were concerned it was a free-for-all, with farm boundaries of no consequence. So, if mushrooms were on your mind you rose early because as well as other early pickers there was the fact that cows and horses could trample them into the ground.

  Gathering mushrooms in the early summer morning, with the dew washing your toes and the thrill of discovery growing with each white cluster, was a lovely experience. Sometimes, stretching like gossamer across the grass, the dew-glistening cobwebs sheltered the little mushrooms, almost like a mantle protecting them from the world above the earth. Finally, gallon full, we skipped home through the sun-warmed fields to sav
our our collection. We cooked them for breakfast on red hot sods of turf beside the fire. Each white mushroom was placed on its back, in its pale pink cup a shake of salt which melted and mingled with the juices as it cooked. Picking it up, careful not to spill, first you drank it and then you ate it, a little chalice with the liquid and flavour of the open fields. Sometimes my mother boiled them in milk, but somehow that was to reduce to the ordinary this food of the earth that needed no preparation as it was bathed in the morning dew and could be eaten as picked, such was its delicacy and freshness.

  As the summer progressed the briars along the ditches burst into blossom with green berries that later matured into large, luscious blackberries which arched and draped themselves around every field, ripe for the picking. Each blackberry was inspected on picking to see that the stem base was free from small tell-tale holes, the tracks of tiny snails that feasted on the blackberries, especially when the rain brought them forth in great numbers; any blackberries with these signs were returned to mother earth. First we ate what we could contain, developing purple-smudged mouths and fingers; then we filled gallons and buckets to the brim. My mother made large two-pound pots of blackberry jam, most of which were consumed at a rapid rate, but some of which were stored to bring the taste of summer to the winter months.

  Crab apple trees grew in some of the fields but the crabs were small and bitter; however, they could be made into a sweet-tasting jelly and jam. Picking them was a thorny business as often strong briars and blackthorn branches were entwined in them. Once, having filled a bucket of crabs, I left it in the middle of the field while I drifted away to follow some other diversion. Coming back a few hours afterwards I found that my bucket and its contents had been baptised in amber liquid: of all the places in this wide open field for the cow to stand to do the needful!