Another Kind of Life Read online

  Grandpa Delaney was waiting for them at Amiens Street Station. He looked severe, standing there on the concourse, dressed from head to toe in black. He stood out from the crowd. Nobody was standing anywhere near him – it was as though people sensed something forbidding about him, and gave him a wide berth. He looked like someone important, looked as though he might even own the station. His hands rested, one on top of the other, on the ornate handle of his walking stick. His back, as usual, was ramrod straight. Hannah had a brief memory of the only day he had seemed to unbend. Christmas. Sitting in Papa’s armchair by the fire, warmed by good brandy. He had taken her on his knee and told her about his own Christmases, when he was just a lad. He had shown her a shooting stick that had once belonged to his father. His eyes bright with merriment, he had revealed its secret to her: the little compartment, concealed just beneath the handle, big enough for one generous measure of brandy. He had twinkled at her then, tapping the side of his nose and nodding conspiratorially. Their secret. It was the only time Hannah had ever seen him really smile. His face now wore its all-too-familiar expression – a mixture of impatience and disapproval, and Hannah could feel something inside her sinking.

  They walked towards him. Hannah thought they must appear to be a rather sad and bedraggled little group by now. Mama went over and kissed Grandfather’s cheek. She heard her say: ‘You got my letters then.’

  Hannah did not hear his reply. She was too busy trying to recover from her astonishment at Grandfather’s behaviour. He put both arms around his daughter’s shoulders and enfolded her in a mighty hug. Sophia clung to him. All Hannah could hear was her mother’s voice, choking with sobs, saying over and over again: ‘Oh, Father, what are we to do? What are we to do?’

  He held her for a long time. Eleanor and May stood beside Hannah, looking bewildered. Eleanor’s thumb was resting at her lower lip again, a thin thread of saliva drooling from her open mouth. Hannah wiped her face with a handkerchief, glancing over at her mother, trying to smile reassuringly at her sisters.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered to them. ‘Mama’s upset because Papa couldn’t come with us. Don’t worry.’

  Sophia composed herself quickly. She turned to her daughters. Hannah thought her smile was watery.

  ‘Come along, girls, say hello to Grandfather.’

  He hugged each of them in turn. Hannah felt his moustaches tickle her face, liked the strong smell of tobacco from his skin. May and Eleanor were timid with him at first – they were a little confused by this affectionate behaviour on his part. All they could remember was that he slept in his chair when they went to visit, and growled from time to time that children should be seen and not heard.

  Sophia linked her father’s arm and they made their way together out to the waiting carriage. Hannah followed, with May and Eleanor in tow.

  It seemed to her that her first lifetime had passed away from her since early that morning. She no longer felt like the schoolgirl whose embroidery class had been interrupted by a visit from Sister Canice. That could have happened to someone else, for all the resonance it had for her now. It was like shedding a skin that had become too small for her. She felt that she had expanded since morning, that life had become deeper, wider, far fuller of shades of grey than she could ever have imagined.

  She had never thought about the precariousness of things before. Now her life seemed like a fine thread woven along with others into the tapestry called family. It seemed that when one of those other threads snapped, the whole picture unravelled and life emerged from the wreckage, in all its messiness and confusion.

  Hannah had the feeling that things would never be simple again.

  Mary and Cecilia: Spring 1893

  MARY WASN’T SURE what had woken her. Some unaccustomed sound had startled her into wakefulness, and now she was alert, watchful. The whole house was silent, but something was wrong. She could feel it. The street had been strangely quiet this evening; there had been none of the usual Friday night drinking, no rowdy return from the pubs on Peter’s Hill. The men had gone home early, quietly, stayed close to their own firesides. The emptiness of the streets had had an eerie quality to it: no groups of youths hanging around the corners, dragging on a shared cigarette, shouting across to groups of disdainful girls. No children fighting over whose turn it was to hold the skipping rope, or play ball; not even the North Street dogs had barked.

  There it was again: shouting, running feet, the sound of glass breaking. Cecilia stirred in the bed.

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’ she asked, struggling out of sleep.

  Mary was kneeling at the window, pulling the corner of the curtain back a little.

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s somethin’ bad – I heard glass breakin’ a minute ago.’

  She peered out into the dimly lit street. At first she could see nothing out of the ordinary. No doors opened, no lights blazed from the waiting eyes of the houses that lined each side. It was all much too quiet. Suddenly, there was a roar from the top of Peter’s Hill, from where it adjoined the Shankill Road. Cecilia scrambled over to her sister’s side, putting one arm around her shoulder, as much for her own comfort as Mary’s. She started to tremble.

  ‘Oh my Jesus – look at yon crowd!’

  Mary felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Gooseflesh roughened her arms; her throat went dry. She thought she had never seen so many men massed together before. The roar of their voices increased as they marched as one body down the narrow street, their boots sinister on cobblestones, their arms swinging. They had a swagger made of rage and drink.

  ‘Yis ’uns will get bate! No fuckin’ Home Rule here!’

  ‘And no Pope, neither!’

  Their bodies seemed to swell, to fill the whole street from side to side, crowding and crushing from pavement to pavement, their shadows looming upwards from gutter to street lamp. It was impossible to distinguish the men from the distorted shadows they threw, from the sticks and clubs they waved in the air, hurling them upwards from time to time and catching them again to the incessant drumbeat of stamping feet.

  Their voices were ugly and discordant. Old insults were hurled at the same time as sticks and stones laid waste to almost every window on the opposite side of the street. Mary pulled Cecilia’s head down below the level of the window sill.

  ‘Keep low, for God’s sake!’

  Just as she spoke, there was the crash of glass as the McNiffs’ front window shattered into tiny pieces and fell, in graceful, starry slow motion, to the ground below. The mob cheered and whooped, now kicking doorways and launching lumps of paving-stones through the doors and windows on both sides of the street.

  The noise became intolerable.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Cecilia was clutching at her sister’s arm, her eyes wide with terror.

  ‘Sssh!’ Mary warned her, keeping her eye on the street, trying to comfort Cecilia as best she could, patting her hand distractedly at the same time.

  ‘Long live the Queen!’

  Mary could see the shadowed faces of the mob uplifted into the greenish pools of gaslight. They were all shouting, all of them, each vying with the other for the worst insult, the most savage bite of triumph.

  ‘We’ll win, so we will! A British parliament for a British people!’

  Their caps were pushed back from their foreheads: no need for subterfuge here. They don’t care, Mary realized; they don’t care who sees them, who recognizes them. They can do their worst and there’s no one to stop them.

  ‘We’ll teach yis, fenian bastards! Ye’ll not win!’

  The shouts grew louder, the men working up their own anger, faces chiselled by drink and hatred. And yet the crowd never missed the beat of its own march. It made steady, menacing progress, like some sort of terrifying heartbeat, until the entire street was filled.

  ‘Taigs out – we’ll have no fuckin’ Pope here!’

  Still the houses sat tight. Not one broke ranks: no door, no window showed any sign of life.

/>   Suddenly, as abruptly as it had begun, the noise of the mob ceased. As though at some secret signal, the marching stopped. The men stood still and silent, their sticks now by their sides, smacking from time to time off an impatient trouser-leg. All that could be heard was the shuffling of feet, the chink of nails on stone.

  ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but we’re for it,’ whispered Mary.

  The silence was immense.

  Suddenly, Cecilia nudged her sister.

  ‘Look yonder,’ she said, nodding her head to the right.

  Some of the street lights had been broken in the fray, but those close to Peter’s Hill were still lit. In the misty, greeny-yellowish light cast by a cluster of three or four lamps at the corner, Mary could make out a large group of RIC men.

  ‘Them bastards is just standin’ there!’ Cecilia hissed, crouching down again.

  ‘Aye – not a baton drawn between them.’

  Cecilia craned her neck again, moving the hem of the curtain very gently. She began to count silently.

  ‘There’s at least forty of them – what are they doin’?’

  ‘Nothin’,’ replied Mary, grimly. ‘And I’ll wager that’s what they’ve been doin’ all night – nothin’.’

  The noisy shuffling of feet had begun again outside. Mary felt a strange sense of relief. Anything was better than the terrifying silence of the last few moments. A great roar came from the back of the crowd of bodies.

  ‘Come on out, ye fenian bastards, and take what’s comin’ to ye! Take it like the men ye’re not!’

  Still the houses sat tight and silent. A moment’s uncertainty hovered about the men’s heads. Mary kept her head below the level of the window sill and prayed. Suddenly, they were off on the march again, as abruptly as they’d arrived. This time, they surged back in the direction from which they’d come, back towards the groups of policemen standing on both sides of Peter’s Hill.

  Mary and Cecilia watched as, with what seemed like breathtaking defiance, the men swung their sticks and clubs again, crashing into those windows they had missed in the excitement of their earlier rhythmic march down the cobbled street.

  Their taunts continued; Mary and Cecilia could catch the same old insults, repeated over and over, accompanied by the crashing of paving-stones on doors and windows. The breaking of street lights went on and on, pools of darkness spilling out over the rough pavement as though released from the exploding stones. Still no baton was drawn. The two women waited, holding their breath, until the mob reached the policemen.

  The men stopped there, congregating all along Peter’s Hill. Each group kept its distance; neither moved towards the invisible boundary which kept them separate, each carefully apart from the other. The silence was palpable. Cecilia and Mary sat where they were, watching, terrified, waiting for the inevitable. It never came. They remained watchful, gritty-eyed, until five o’clock when the men finally dispersed, straggling off into the dirty dawn light.

  May: Spring 1893

  AFTER JOSEPH LEFT, May clung to her mother on the platform, too terrified to let her go. She held on tight to her coat, whimpering, convinced that the noise and black rages of the streets would erupt all around her again if she let go of the familiar. She had just escaped the path of the terrifying energy that had wanted to snatch and suck at Hannah, at her, and drag them screaming into its very centre. She had had a powerful vision of their carriage being swallowed and spat out again with its passengers already devoured, missing for ever. She wanted to feel familiar arms around her now, inhale the safe, comforting fragrance of lavender.

  ‘You’re safe, my love, you’re safe now.’

  Sophia rocked her daughter back and forwards, back and forwards as best she could, standing in the middle of the rapidly crowding platform. But the memory of the lurching carriage ride from school to train station filled May’s senses: her head still reeled with the hoarseness of angry voices, her mind’s eye kept replaying vivid flashes of running bodies, arms flailing in fury, stone crashing against stone. She had been able to see herself and Hannah as though from above, as they’d huddled together, low on the carriage floor. Now that it was over, she felt the invisible fist tighten its grip again inside her chest. It squeezed and squeezed so that her breath came wheezing, gasping, and her head grew light and dizzy.

  ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you now, you’re safe. Breathe slowly, like Dr Collins showed you.’

  Even Mama’s whispered words, over and over, did little to still the rising sea of panic. May tried to slow down, to breathe deeply through her nose, but it wasn’t working. It was always like this: once the crisis had passed, the waves of suffocation began, washing over and over her until some hand, usually Mama’s, soothed her hot head and made the tide recede. But there was no comfort to be had here, not now. The hairs on May’s arms and neck still seemed to stand to attention, prickling with the electricity of impending disaster.

  ‘It’s all right, loves, it’s over, it’s all over.’

  May felt her mother’s right arm reach out and draw Hannah closer to her. Hannah put her arm around May, too, and the three of them stood there, trembling. May wiped her eyes over and over.

  ‘I thought those men were going to hurt us, Mama.’

  Sophia hugged both girls to her.

  ‘Hush, love, don’t upset yourself any more. You’re here now, you’re safe. We – I had no idea that there was rioting. Let’s just thank God you’re both unharmed.’

  People were now crowding and jostling on the platform. The noise and bustle of the station seemed to have increased tenfold. A red-faced little man in a GNR uniform was now pushing his way through the crowds in an absurdly cheerful manner, shouting above the excited buzzing that was suddenly everywhere. May wondered if he had any idea what they had just been through. How could anyone be cheerful if they knew what was happening out on the streets?

  ‘All aboard! Dublin train in five minutes!’

  Mama seemed to jerk suddenly into life.

  ‘Quickly, now, Hannah. We must board the train. Eleanor’s waiting for us.’

  For the first time, May wondered where Papa was. Although they often went to Dublin without him, this time felt different. This time, they were surrounded by danger, the unexpected, the unknown. He should be with them, to keep them safe. She allowed herself to be bundled on to the train, still sobbing occasionally. Hannah held fast to her hand, but she treated her gently. There was no tugging or pulling at her to keep up. Ellie was already curled up on one of the seats, already half-asleep.

  May felt the silence envelop all of them as they closed the door of their compartment. Mama stroked her head once in a distracted kind of way, and then gazed out the window. She kept patting her daughter’s hand, murmuring, ‘Good girl, good girl,’ as May’s breathing stilled, but she still kept her eyes fixed on something beyond the window. It was strange: there was nothing to look at, it seemed to May. Everything was blank and featureless once the bright platform had slid away, backwards, into the dusk.

  ‘Why were those men fighting, Mama?’

  ‘Sshhh – we’ll talk about it later. It’s nothing for you to worry about. No one can touch you now. You must rest, May, you need to breathe quietly.’

  May wanted answers; she wasn’t interested in breathing quietly. But it seemed that neither Mama nor Hannah felt inclined to speak. Underneath all the recent terror, her senses sharpened by fear, May was able to detect an undercurrent of something else in her mother’s silence. She was different, somehow, more distant. Her presence with them in the carriage was somehow unemphatic. She had withdrawn that part of herself that made her Mama. It was as though May could have been anyone’s daughter, sitting in any carriage, going anywhere on a normal, everyday journey. She felt suddenly afraid that in the midst of her terror, she had, somehow, done something to make her mother stop loving her.

  Hannah whispered to her to lie down, pointing towards Eleanor and pressing her finger to her lips. There was nothing else for it. Her br
eathing felt more normal now, the hammering of her heart against her ribcage had eased, and Hannah’s gestures were becoming insistent. She’d have to do as she was told. Reluctantly, she tucked her feet under her on the seat and lay down, nestling her head into Hannah’s lap. Exhausted, she waited for sleep.

  But sleep would not come. The wheels of the train failed to comfort her, the motion made her begin to feel sick. Rather than the familiar taketa-tack of its wheels, the usual, soothing rocking sensation, the train instead seemed to become sinister. The noises it made were an uncanny echo of the ugly shouts May had heard on the city streets, imitating their rhythm and ferocity. She felt the base of her throat start to constrict again. She was about to sit up when Hannah began to speak, quietly, to their mother. May decided to stay where she was. A strong instinct told her that this conversation would cease if she were suddenly to appear awake. She kept her eyes closed instead, and listened, straining to hear her mother’s reply above the noise of the train.

  ‘Your father has been arrested, Hannah. The police came and took him away two days ago.’

  May felt her stomach lurch and fill rapidly with butterflies. At the same time, she was conscious of a wave of relief: it was always so much easier once the darkness was named: she had been deeply disturbed by the great silent cloud of distress which, up until now, had surrounded all of them in the dimly lit carriage.

  ‘What did he do?’

  May held her breath.

  ‘He embezzled Post Office funds.’

  May was puzzled. She had no idea what her mother meant. She waited, and Hannah spoke again, voicing her thoughts, speaking for her, as she often did.

  ‘I don’t understand. What does that mean?’

  ‘It means he took money – borrowed it, without permission.’

  ‘But if he borrowed it, then he means to pay it back. Why don’t they just let him pay it back?’

  ‘Because he hasn’t got it, Hannah. And if you haven’t got it, then borrowing like that is the same as stealing. That’s the law.’