I’m sitting on the barstool in Granny’s kitchen, jammed in between the sink with the always dripping tap and the old-fashioned, cream-and-black-squeaky-doored-stove. It’s one of them sort of stoves, “the range” Granny does call it, that just to boil the kettle, you have to set a roaring fire within in the firebox. If I’m in the kitchen by meself, I squeak open the firebox door, and stare in at the red-yellow flames swooshing up the chimney. It’s so hot even your eyeballs tingle, and for a few seconds it’s like you’re with God staring down at the Protestants burning in hell.
Auntie’d stop you dead in the middle of talking if call what I’m sitting on “a barstool.” She’ll stay “it’s a lab stool, we don’t have anything to with bars or pubs or lounges, or any of that sort of terrible carry on.”
I never even knew labs had stools. I’ve never been in a lab, don’t really know what a lab is. I mean I’m only nine, that kinda stuff is for big fellas.
I do go into one bar though. The Highway Man’s, over on the main street, well, it’s the only street, in Granny’s village, Dowra. But of course, I don’t go there to be sitting up on a bar stool, and lorrying back pints of Guinness.
I go to The Highway Man’s to buy milk.
After the village shop closes, people go there to get these weird triangular cartons of milk. I’m not joking.
They’re actually triangles.
And I mean, why is it called the Highway Man’s? There’s no Highway here, like there is in Kojak and McCloud. And the men there are not going rob anyone, that’s for sure: They just sit on bar stools making sad, wet sighs after every slug of their pint.
But sure everything up here in Leitrim is a small biteen weird.
Today Granny’s “range” is roasting hot, making me sweat. I mean, except for in the middle of the night, when you wouldn’t dare move around this big old house, the range is always hot. Sure, it has to be, you can’t do nothing without it being hot.
First thing in the morning Auntie is heaping turf and coal into the range’s firebox on top of a few twigs and a twisted-up yesterday’s Irish Press. Auntie strikes a match – Granny wouldn’t go near a match – with that lovely scraping-explosion sound; sets the Press on fire, and ten minutes later there’s a roaring fire to boil the kettle for a cup of tea.
Today Auntie’s boiling a lot more than the kettle. It’s Easter Sunday morning and there’s pots of all sizes and shapes on the range’s black top. Some of the big wans are starting to ding-rattle-ding, and the smaller ones are already steaming bloody-murder.
Now, you’d never get away with saying “bloody-murder” in this house. Auntie, or even Granny, would give you a good wigging if you said them kinda words.
“That’s the sort of language only a tinker’d use,” she’d say, and her nearly ripping your lug off the side of your head.
This morning, the telly is on over in the corner, and that’s a weird thing too. Usually in the mornings, we’d be run outside to play, even in the rain.
“Get on out there, a drop of rain never kilt anyone,” Auntie’d say, her lips going dead flat, so you knew if you argued things’d just get worser. Then at the last minute, the panic would come into her eyes. “But them cars bulleting down the Drumshambo road at thirty mile an hour, they’ll kill you. So stay inside that wall! If I hear our gate squeaking, I’ll kill ye meself.”
This morning the telly is on for a special reason, ‘cause in a few minutes the Pope will be blessing everyone, but not the Protestants, and definitely not Paisley. Da says the Pope’d give Paisley an awful goin’ over, if he got near him.
“Sure, the Pope’s a highly educated man, not like that bigoted buffoon, going off buying himself a degree in America.”
I didn’t know what the half of them words meant, but I was disappointed, ‘cause if Da was talking about schools, then it wasn’t a real beating the Pope’d be giving to Paisley. Anyway, they’re both so old, it wouldn’t be much of a fight.
It snows on Granny’s telly all the time, but that’s fine, ‘cause she’s so old, it’s probably kinda snowing inside her head anyway.
She’s rocking in the rocking chair, glassy-blue rosary beads thumbing along, loud-whisper-praying the way she does down in Ballinagleragh church for a half hour before – and after! – mass. We sit there, ready to explode with boredom, but all fake quiet-still, too scared to complain. If you complain about anything at all to do with church, you’ll go straight to hell.
This morning Granny’s praying like Heaven’s closing in a few minutes, and she’s too far back in the queue to get in. Her stubbly-grey-moustache moves under the prayer-whispers.
Auntie is slamming the pots around on the stove. There’s some magic, that only Auntie knows, in the way all the pots have to be on a certain part of the range, for a certain amount of time.
Granny doesn’t know nothing about the range. She couldn’t even hardly make tea the day Auntie went to work. But we figured it out, though everyone only got a half a cup of tea that day. So, all we had for lunch was a half a cup of tea and as many biscuits as you could eat.
“That’s enough for us anyway,” Granny mumbled, her disgusting pink and white false-teeth sitting on a saucer on the table in front of me. “Think of the starving children in Bee-afra.”
I don’t know where Bee-afra is, but it’s hard times there. They’re having their famine now. We had ours way back, even before Granny’s time, but we haven’t forgotten it. And anyway, with them pink watery teeth of Granny’s on the table in front of me, it was hard to be hungry.
The onliest time Granny doesn’t sit in the rocker, is where her cousin John-Thomas comes down from the mountains. They’re not really mountains, like Croagh Patrick and Nephin – where no one can live. You can get up to his mountain by driving up the branches-whacking-the-side-of-the-car road, behind the church. John-Thomas is old like Granny, only his hands are just red-glassy-skinned knots of bone, not grey-papery-loose-skinned like hers; that’s cause he was a farmer and she was a teacher. He was always pulling sheep out of ditches and saving hay and turf, and she was just in the tiny school slapping children for bad handwriting.
When he shows up around nine o’clock of a Saturday night, they usually have to “deposit” him in the rocker and feed him Granny’s lunch of tea and biscuits. They say that’s ‘cause he’s as “drunk-as-forty-cats” – whatever that means: I never knew cats drank pints.
But he does be awful drunk, and funny; standing in the doorway, his eyes all watery, one red-shiny hand leaning hard onto his cane. Sometimes he raises one foot, but then it can’t hardly find the lino, so, hanging on by the cane, he leaves it hovering in the air, and we’re all staring like it’s a game of chance, wondering how and where and when it’ll come down.
Then Auntie’ll dart over, grab him hard under one arm, like the way the RUC’ll grab a Catholic at a riot, only she doesn’t fling him into the back of a Landrover to get beaten up later, she “deposits” him into the rocking chair.
I like John-Thomas. He’s not scared of everything the way we are. He looks and smells like the mountains, his face all weather-reddened, his hair white and scraggly. We see him at mass every Sunday morning, leaning on the cane. He looks older then; the skin on his face dangling a bit; eyes dry and deep in the redness of face; a small line of smoke coming out his jacket pocket where he just stuck the pipe. And he talks funny-interesting, like it’s from long ago, or even some other world. And the things he says when he’s drunk are make-your-snot-rattle funny.
Sitting back, still a bit wobbly, in the rocker, his eyes, all watery, looking sideways at us children, he fumbles with a match – scrape…scrape…explosion – the flame disappears into the pipe stuffed with lovely smelling brown tobacco. The black plastic, mouth-end of the pipe gets jammed sideways into his lips, and jammed between his hidden back teeth. He doesn’t have hardly any front teeth, only the one scraggly one on the top; but he must have some at the back, for eating all them biscuits Auntie feeds him. He takes a puff of the pipe, blue-gray smoke drifting back out his mouth.
“Is them Kathleen’s wee wans?” he’ll ask, but never wait for an answer. “Are ye good in school? Be good at school, like your mother, an’, an’ … an’, Father John, … an’ all of them.”
He throws his head back and blows out a big cloud of blue smoke, staring at me with them eyes, so watery they could slide out of his head any minute.
“And what about this buck?” he aims the bite-marked end of the pipe at me. “Does he get many slaps in school?”
“Now John, leave the children be, sure they’re on their holidays.”
Granny calls him John, she’s the onliest one, ‘cause she’s known him for so long. She told us, pursing her thin lips between each historical thing, that she’s known him through two World Wars, the War of Independence, the Civil War, Vatican two – whatever that was, something to do with the Pope, I suppose – and a fella going abroad to the moon in a little rocket.
Soon they’re just like regular grownups off in boring talk about how hard everything is, and some family that “that shut up the home place and went over to Mary in Nottingham,” (where Robin Hood was from!), and two so-far-distant-you’ll-never-know-them cousins who got put on the internment ship, the Maidenhead, by the British Army, and “wan of them’s out, but in hospital now with his nerves.”
Peoples nerves is always going in Granny and Auntie’s world. I don’t even know what that means really, but it’s not good. You can tell by how they stop after they say the “nerves are gone.” Then they kinda-sorta nod, but don’t either. But they look at the other grownup like as if the next time they go to open the front door, who’ll be there but the British Army.
I stop listening when I can’t keep track of who’s who. They’re too many Mary-this’s and John-that’s switching over and back, for a lad to be able to keep them all sorted. I’m staring at John-Thomas’ boots, dull black with the toes turning grey-white, little cuts scarred into them from the fields, when he gets all excited and raises his voice.
“Ah, that fella,” he shakes his head, his face hardening with drunk-anger, smoke gushing out his nose, one hand pressing hard on his knee. “Sure, that man’s as crooked a frog’s leg. A tailor he does call himself. Let me tell you now about the time he went in to figure Mahoney for a new suit, the publican within in Drumshanbo, don’t you know. And he got so drunk afterwards
at the fair, on poteen, from below, … below Arigna way, that didn’t he lose the little piece-een of paper that had all the, … the, … scribbling, you know, the figures on it.”
He takes a breath, which for him is tobacco smoke, and back out it comes the nose and mouth with the words.
“An’ Francy Cleary says to him, ‘you’re in a right jam now, my mister tailor.’ Mahoney don’t you see, was a big man, and sure like any man, he didn’t like to be touched, sure ‘tis unnatural. Anyway, there’d be no going back figuring Mahoney a second time. No way. Let me tell you. Oh, no, no, no.”
He shakes head fast and hard, that I think for sure his watery eyes are going to slide out this time.
“An’, … an’ … if you remember Mahoney now, he was an awful heap of a man altogether; round, a big strong man, but round, very … very round. He was nearly like a, a … a pig-donkey, if such a thing could exist in God’s kingdom.”
He kinda-sorta blesses himself with the pipe, smoke trailing out of the bowl like the smoky-smelly thing the priest swings at a funeral.
“I’ll tell you what, the same Mahoney didn’t miss many sittings in the kitchen. And the wife, she was, as the engineer on the building site in Manchester says to me, ‘of the very same structure.’ She was a famous one for massive big steaming plates of food, with the best of mutton and beef, as only a publican can buy.”
He takes another smoke-breath and staring at nothing only the air in front of his face, he goes on.
“Well, doesn’t the bould tailor turn around and tell Francy, easy as you like, ‘sure I’ll go in there to that field and throw the figurin’ tape round a small haycock. And I can tell you, as a man that figured many, I won’t be too far astray.’”
He rocks in the rocker, laughing; the pipe stuck between his biscuit teeth at the back of his mouth.
But this morning it’s Granny in the rocker, wearing out her rosary beads, waiting for “his Holiness” come and bless us.
Auntie’s at the range.
If she’s not teaching science to Catholic girls in Enniskillen, she’s always at the range. The day she had to go to work, and we ended up with only a half a cup a tea and biscuits for lunch, that I couldn’t eat anyway ‘cause Granny’s dentures were in staring at me with their pink nastiness, Granny hadn’t a clue how to run the range.
No, that’s Auntie’s thing, with the apron glued on like it’s her magic backwards cape; and pots and pans walloping around the place; water gushing into pots, then boiling, bing-bing-bing, out the lids; and then the lovely smell of rashers frying does come, and the hiss-crackling of boxty hitting the pan.
I love boxty. It’s like God invented boxty for Leitrim people, as the best way ever to eat potatoes, to make up for how He nearly let them all starve to death back in our famine.
This Easter morning Auntie is fairly working her range magic. She’s sliding pots from one place to the other, spilling water that hiss-boils on the hot black iron and disappears in steam. Then out of nowhere a frying pan gets slammed down. She’s all elbows and serious face, not cross, but it’d only be a short journey to cross, ‘cause of course she has this huge dinner to cook. The whole rest of the family, all eleven of us from Castlebar, and then Uncle down from down from Dublin, when he’s finished saying mass for the Jackeens, we’ll all be here for the Easter dinner. Some poor ould lamb from up the hills died so we could eat one its legs. Auntie has the
leg within in the oven, and her stuffing turf into the firebox every few minutes, and all the air in the kitchen is jammed with the lovely smell of cooking meat.
Then the Pope comes on the telly with around a million looking up at him on the little porch he does stand on. It’s snowing like mad, but of course, he doesn’t notice, ‘cause it’s only granny’s telly, and anyways, he’s in Italy, and the Romans used only wear curtains, so it must be too hot there for real snow. He’s got the mad-big-cardboard hat on him and he’s waving, a small bit, but mostly, from what I can see through the snow, he’s leaning over looking at a book.
Granny musta tried to rock herself out of the rocker so she could kneel in front of “his Holiness.”
See the rocking chair is bit like a playpen for ould people; they like to go into it, but they can’t really get out of by themselves. John-Thomas, at least when done a few hours in the Highway Man’s, for sure can’t get out of it by himself. That’s why they “deposit him” in there, to keep him in one place.
See, when Granny tried to get out her glassy-blue rosary beads slipped off her fingers.
The beads hit the lino with a rosary beads clatter.
I know that clatter well from lads slapping rosary beads from other lads hands, when we were making our first communion the year before last.
We all turn.
Auntie spins around.
“No you’re not!” she screeches.
I wrap my legs tight around the not-a-bar-stool legs.
“Urbee … ate orbee,” the Pope moans on the telly.
I turn back to the telly to see what he’s doing: Through the snow all you can see is the mad-big-cardboard hat on his head.
But the grunting from the rocking chair makes me turn back there.
Auntie has Granny pushed back into the rocker.
Granny’s hands, whiter than the television snow, are glued to the chair’s arms, but her shoulders are pinned against the rocker’s back cushion.
“You have two broken hips,” Auntie grunts out. “For God’s sake, even Father Faul said there was no need for you kneeling anymore.”
“It’s Easter,” Granny wheezes, gritting her teeth, the veins in here neck tightening blue. “I always bow to his … .”
“There’s no more kneeling,” Auntie’s cheek and the side of her neck is bright red.
The pots are ding-ding-ding screaming, water hissing off the hot-black-iron in little puffs of steam.
“Holi … ,” this time Granny’s mouth opens, and her disgusting-pink-and-white-teeth come flying out, stopping all the words. They fly out over Auntie’s shoulder and land with a sickening crack on the lino.
“That’s not good,” I hear my own voice saying.
Auntie doesn’t know it yet. She’s still red-faced-battling Granny.
Granny mumbles something, and gives up.
The Pope is blabbing away in not-English, the hands going left and right, the big hat bobbing, the snow pelting down in front of him.
Finally, Auntie realizes Granny is done, and releases her grip, but doesn’t stand back from the front of the rocker.
Ding-ding-ding-hiss the pans steam, rattle and roll.
The Pope is going on in not-English – sure we haven’t clue what he’s saying, he could be telling us to go brush our teeth for all I know.
Then Auntie sees the pink-white mess on the ground.
“Ah, would you look at what you did now?” she says, like she’s disappointed and mad, again.
All the children’s eyes connect.
We need to get out.
We could get blamed for some of this before long.
Granny mumbles and starts to cry. But with no teeth, it’s even harder to understand her than the Pope.
“The bishop should’ve issued an ecumenical letter to direct the old and infirmed to stop kneeling. I said that to Father Faul, that’s the only thing will stop the elderly from getting hurt needlessly.”
She stoops over to pick up the teeth. There’s a dark pink line running across the top of the really disgusting part.
She picks them up, and though I feel my stomach making a run for me throat, I can’t stop staring.
“Look at this, good Go… ,” her eyes flare as she turns them in her hand. “Your brand new dentures are cracked.”
In my mouth, I taste the burning stuff from my stomach.
“Turn off that telly,” she snaps, turning to me.
Sliding off the not-a-barstool, I stumble, shocked at how stiff my legs are.
“Nnnnn…,” Granny mouths loudly, tears in her eyes, her hands held up in prayer.
Trapped between the power of Auntie’s blistering anger, just a few feet away from me, and Granny summoning the power of an unseen God, I freeze