Woman of the House Read online

  “Don’t be too hard on her,” Jack said. “She’s had a mighty shock but there’s too much fire in her to stay down long; she’ll rise again.” Nora hoped that he was right, but then Jack was usually right, so maybe things would get better.

  Before they left for school they tidied up the kitchen.

  “Will I take up a cup of tea to Mom before we go?” Nora asked Peter.

  “Suit yourself, but hurry on or we’ll be late,” he told her.

  Nora quickly buttered a cut of bread and poured what was left in the teapot into a cup and, balancing a plate on top of it, ran upstairs.

  Her mother was lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, her black hair in lank strands on the pillow. The bones stuck out in her long face and she had black patches under her eyes. Nora had heard her mother described as “the best-looking woman in the parish”. It frightened her now that she was so changed. A light seemed to have gone out inside in her and she looked like a corpse. It would be terrible if she died too.

  “Mom, here’s a cup of tea for you,” she said quietly. “Peter and I are going to school.”

  “Oh,” her mother said blankly.

  “We are, Mom. Do you remember we told you last night?” Nora said.

  “I forgot,” her mother said vaguely.

  “The kitchen is tidy and Jack is out in the yard if you want anything,” Nora told her.

  “Oh, is he …?” her mother said as if she had forgotten Jack.

  It was almost as if they had changed places. Maybe Nana was right and it would be better for Mom if there were things that she had to do.

  As they put on their coats it felt odd that Mom was not there checking that they were well wrapped up and warm before leaving the house. Nora was glad to be back in the old familiar school boots. As she looked down on their leather toe caps, she stamped on the floor to warm her toes and the iron studs gave a metallic clank.

  “It’s very cold this morning,” Peter told her. “We were nearly frozen out in the stalls doing the cows. Be sure that you have plenty of clothes on, Norry, because the school will be freezing.”

  Nora thought that Peter was a bit more like his old self this morning, and it made her feel better.

  As they walked out through the yard Jack put his head out of Paddy’s stable. “Don’t worry about your mother now. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “How’s Paddy this morning?” Nora asked.

  “Almost as good as new,” Jack told her.

  Paddy had been cut and bruised in the fall and Jack had been doctoring him with his own remedies. The accident had not been Paddy’s fault, but somehow seeing him brought it all back, so she had not called to see him very often.

  They walked along quickly in order to keep warm. The high ditches at each side of the boreen were draped with faded brown ferns and tiered moist moss. It was a short, steep boreen that led up to the road and Jack’s cottage was just beside their farm gate.

  “Hello, Toby.” Nora leant over the stone wall that divided their boreen from the cottage yard and a small brown terrier put his front paws on his side of the wall and shook his tail in welcome. They were old friends, but if a stranger called when Jack was out Toby attacked with great ferocity. In the yard behind him hens and ducks wandered around scratching and picking. They could see Jack’s cat sitting on the back window of the cottage washing her face and tidying herself up for the day.

  “I love Jack’s cottage,” Nora said.

  “Oh, every time we pass Jack’s cottage you say that!” Peter protested.

  “I know,” Nora said agreeably, “but it’s grand the way it’s all huddled into the trees so that you can’t see it from the road, and when you look out the front windows you can see down over Nolans’ fields away down to the village.

  “Well, I never heard such a palaver about an old house,” Peter said. “Our house, because it’s lower down, is more sheltered.”

  “That’s what Dada says,” Nora remarked.

  “Norry, you’ll have to get used to saying ‘Dada said’, because Dad isn’t here anymore,” Peter said, biting his lip.

  “But Pete,” she protested, “sometimes I forget and I expect him to come out the stable door or to be sitting on his chair by the fire. Part of me knows that he is gone, but another part of me keeps forgetting because he was always here,” she said.

  “We better not start talking about Dad because we can’t cry today,” Peter decided.

  He bolted the farm gate behind them and they walked back the road away from the cottage, both silently preparing themselves for the day ahead. When they came to Sarah Jones’s gate they saw the small neat woman with grey cropped hair out in the acre feeding the hens. She put down her bucket and, wiping her hands on her apron, she came towards them smiling.

  “I’d rather she’d let us pass and not be delaying us,” Peter muttered under his breath.

  “Shush,” Nora whispered.

  “Good to see you on the road again,” Sarah smiled, putting her hand into her pocket and drawing out two sticks of barley sugar. Peter’s face broke into a smile of appreciation and Nora, standing on tiptoe, kissed her gratefully.

  As they walked away from her gate Nora grinned at Peter. “Now are you sorry that she stopped us?”

  “She’s not a bad old sort,” he admitted.

  “Jack told me that she laid Dada out.”

  “Nora, we’re not going to talk about Dad this morning.”

  Then they rounded the first bend of the road and saw two figures trudging just ahead of them.

  “The Nolans,” Nora said with relief. It would be good to have Rosie beside her facing back into school.

  “Yoo-hoo,” Peter shouted after them as they ran to catch up. The two Nolans waited with smiles of welcome on their faces. Rosie was solid and serene with heavy blonde hair down to her waist, while her brother Jeremy was gangling with a short unruly thatch over a cheery, freckled face. Rosie was Nora’s best friend and the only one to whom she had confided about the horror of the white worm. In the play yard her ample presence had often shielded Nora from further threats. If only she was sitting beside Rosie in school, life would be so much easier.

  “We missed the two of you,” Rosie said simply, and Nora smiled in gratitude because she wanted to feel that her school world was waiting for her. But even that world was darkened by the threat of the white worm. She did not like Miss Buckley either, but then nobody liked Miss Buckley. She knew that she had said something to Miss Buckley the night of the accident, but she could not remember exactly what it was because those days were all mixed up in her mind like bits of a broken jug that would not fit together.

  The two boys forged ahead and Nora cracked her stick of barley sugar in half and gave it to Rosie, who looked at her with concern.

  “Your face is as white as whitewash,” she said, but added comfortingly, “You’ll get better. My mother says that when things are bad they can only get better.”

  “Hope so,” Nora said a bit forlornly.

  “They will,” Rosie told her reassuringly, sucking her stick of barley sugar. That was one of the nice things about Rosie, she could always see the good side of things, and she was full of all kinds of exciting news.

  “Wait until I tell you about the big fight Jeremy had with Rory Conway while you were missing,” she began.

  Rosie chatted on non-stop and Nora was happy just to listen. The last couple of weeks had been a time of subdued whispering, so now just to listen to Rosie’s happy voice was a welcome change.

  When they arrived at the long low school the door of the front porch was closed and there was nobody in sight.

  “We must be late,” Nora said in alarm.

  “Don’t worry,” Rosie assured her, “the foxy greyhound can’t say anything to you on your first day back.”

  Rosie had christened the red-haired Miss Buckley “the foxy greyhound” because, as Rosie explained, she was long, lean and mean and always barking.

  Rosie put her shoulder t
o the heavy old porch door and pushed it in before her, and the familiar smell of sour milk bottles and damp coats came out to meet them. They hung up their coats and Rosie lifted the latch of the door into the schoolroom. Every eye in the room swung towards them. Rosie sailed serenely up to her place at the end of the front seat and Nora slunk on to the edge of the back seat beside the white worm. Miss Buckley after a glance over her shoulder in their direction continued to write on the blackboard.

  “So you came back at last,” Kitty Conway greeted her. Nora thought that she looked like a cat waiting to pounce on a mouse.

  “Silence,” Miss Buckley demanded without turning around, and there was instant silence. “Take out your sum copies and take down these sums off the board.”

  Nora found it very difficult to concentrate and had to rub out the wrong numbers several times while Kitty Conway watched her with a smirk on her face.

  “You stupid lump,” Kitty whispered, but because Miss Buckley was so cross there was no chance of further exchanges, and for that Nora was grateful.

  As the morning wore on she felt tired and found it difficult to keep her eyes open. It was a relief to hear the Master’s bell for lunch hour. She moved quickly from the desk and was out the door before Kitty had time to say anything.

  Out in the play yard the other children looked at her curiously, almost as if they expected her to have changed in some way. She knew that they had all heard about her father. They gathered around her in a silent cluster. Nora felt threatened by their unspoken expectations. She felt Kitty Conway moving in near her to mock, to some way blame her for her father’s death so that they would all think that she was a freak. Their faces swam before her eyes, waiting and watching. Then Rosie was beside her, large, solid and assured.

  “What are ye all gaping at?” she demanded. “How would ye like if your father was dead and ye had no Dada at home?”

  Eyes opened in dismay and then sympathy washed over their faces.

  “It would be just awful,” one little girl said, biting her lip at the thought of it.

  “Well, then, play with Nora and stop acting like mugs ’cause it could be you next week,” Rosie threatened. “So come on and we’ll all play the cat and the mouse.”

  They looked at Rosie as if she was wise beyond her years and started to form a long line, and once the game got going they laughed and screamed with excitement. Nora found herself joining in and for a while forgot everything only the fun of being one of them again.

  But as they trooped back into the school after lunch she saw Kitty Conway watching her. Later that evening they would have the sewing class, when they were allowed to talk quietly. That would give the white worm a chance to attack. Nora liked sewing, but she dreaded this class, when Kitty Conway would have her cornered in the desk and at her mercy. All of a sudden Nora wished that she was at home. School would be all right if she did not have to sit next to Kitty Conway, but now it all washed back over her and she felt trapped.

  Catechism class was the first after lunch. Miss Buckley barked out questions at them and then pointed a finger at somebody for an instant answer. Everybody was on tenterhooks in case they were next and would not know the answer, and if you hesitated or stuttered she demanded that you come up to the top of the room where she wielded her little black stick with vigour.

  Suddenly there was a loud knock on the door and silence descended. They seldom had callers at the school except the inspector, who terrified them mainly because they sensed that he terrified Miss Buckley, and anyone who frightened her had to be pretty bad.

  “Tar isteach,” Miss Buckley instructed.

  When the door was whipped open and young Fr Brady walked in, there was a simultaneous outbreak of smiles all over the room. Miss Buckley’s stick disappeared from view and a false smile appeared on her face. They all rose to their feet as she had trained them.

  “Sit down, children,” he smiled, “I’m only the curate. Now what are we at?”

  “The Sixth Commandment,” Miss Buckley told him primly.

  “Oh boys,” he said, “that’s heavy stuff for a cold day. Will we have a song instead? Who would like to sing a song for me?”

  Several hands shot up but Rosie’s was first. All the Nolans had fine singing voices and Rosie was forever learning new songs out of Ireland’s Own and trying to teach them to Nora.

  “Good girl, Rosie! Off you go,” instructed Fr Brady.

  Miss Buckley’s face was a picture of suppressed rage, and Rosie, well aware of it, was enjoying it to the full. With Fr Brady in the room Miss Buckley had to take a back seat. Rosie was at the end of the front desk and she stepped out to the side of the room where everybody could see her. There was nothing that she liked better than an audience. She put her shoulders back, and her clear young voice filled the room with “Danny Boy”. Nora closed her eyes and followed every word with her. When she came to the line “and I shall hear though soft you tread above me”, Nora felt a knot in her throat, but she swallowed hard and forced it down. As Rosie finished on the last low note there was silence for a moment and then thunderous applause.

  “Rosie, you’ve a wonderful voice,” Fr Brady told her; “you should thank God for it, and all of you should thank God for everything he has given to us.”

  “Would you like to examine them in their catechism, Father?” Miss Buckley asked.

  “Yerra, I’m sure they’re full of knowledge after your good teaching,” he said, bringing a thin smile to her face. Then he walked over to where Nora sat and, going down on one knee, he smiled at her.

  “I’m glad you’re back, Nora,” he told her.

  Then he was gone, banging the door behind him, and they were all sorry to see him go.

  As soon as the door banged behind him Miss Buckley announced: “That’s the catechism class over. Get out your sewing boxes now.”

  There was a clatter of boxes along the desks as the girl nearest to the cupboard lifted them down and they were passed along, mostly tin boxes with crinoline ladies and faded roses on the covers.

  When each girl had a box in front of her Miss Buckley said, “Open your boxes now and I’ll be around to each one of you in turn.”

  It was the one time of the day that she relaxed a little, and for most of the girls it was their favourite class of the week.

  “I bet you think that you are great with everyone feeling sorry for you,” Kitty started straight away, but Nora was determined to say nothing, remembering what her father had said about taking no notice.

  “Well, I’m not one bit sorry for you,” she continued, sticking her face up close to Nora’s, “because I know that you really killed him, and do you know what’s going to happen now?” She stopped to let her words soak in. “My father says that your old mother will sell Mossgrove and ye’ll be all out in the road like the tinkers.”

  Suddenly Nora felt that she could take no more. This was beyond endurance. All the scenes of suffering at the hands of Kitty Conway floated in front of her, and all the hurt of the past weeks, and she felt a white fog of fury uncurling in her brain. She jumped up and, grasping Kitty by the shoulders, she shook her till she heard her teeth chattering and then thumped her head down on the desk where her nose collided with the edge of the tin sewing box and blood squirted all over the place. It happened so fast that some of the girls missed it, and those who saw it could hardly believe their eyes. Those far away from the action jumped up on the desks for a better view.

  “Good God, Nora Phelan, what do you think you are doing?” Miss Buckley shouted at her from across the room before racing over and dragging her out of the desk by the hair of her head. “Stand there,” she said, “until I see to this child.”

  Kitty was yelling – “like a beagle” as Rosie later described it – but when a towel was produced and the blood wiped away, the extent of the damage was a slightly swollen nose and a bad nosebleed.

  “Get out to the Master’s room, you brazen huzzy,” Miss Buckley screamed at Nora.

 
It was the biggest punishment that could be meted out, to be sent to the Master’s room to be slapped.

  Nora walked slowly up to the Master’s door. The Master was judge and jury. How was she going to explain what she had done? She stood at the door trying to think up an explanation but nothing came to mind.

  “Nora Phelan,” Miss Buckley shouted, “will you get out to the Master and explain yourself.” And because Nora still made no move she ran over and wrenched the door open and, catching Nora by the back of her jumper, threw her headlong into the room.

  It was a big room with a row of desks up both sides and the Master’s rostrum at the front of the centre aisle. As Nora made her crashing entrance at the back of the room, there was a general turning of heads in her direction and a stunned silence descended. Nora regained her balance but kept her head down. Then all of a sudden she felt perfectly calm. There was no going back now. She would not make up any explanation; she would tell it as it happened. Peter always said that the Master was strict but fair. She saw all the faces turned in her direction and she caught Peter’s look of embarrassed amazement. She swallowed deeply and looked across the room to where the Master stood on the rostrum and then walked slowly with her head held high in his direction. As soon as she faced him she sensed that he was more surprised to see her than anything else.

  “Why are you here, Nora?” he asked.

  “I hit Kitty Conway,” she said quietly.

  “Why did you do that?” he asked.

  “She said nasty things about my mother,” Nora said in an anguished voice.

  “She shouldn’t have done that,” he said, “but you should not have hit her either. Run away back to your class now and forget about it.”

  She gave him a look of sheer gratitude and walked slowly back through the room. She caught Peter’s eye and he winked encouragement at her. She felt she had won this battle, but she had no intention of letting on that she had not got slapped. That would bring further fury from Miss Buckley who was waiting for her at the top of the classroom.