for export to England. Thomas Waterman, an Englishman, owned most of the land around here, and the villagers rented their cottages and small, private patches for growing potatoes from him, as well as working for him.
At the thought of Waterman, Kitty stopped stroking Grace’s hair and sat still, staring at nothing. There was another avenue, if she could bring herself to ask for charity. Thomas Waterman did not have a reputation for kindness. On the contrary, he was like his father before him – aloof and arrogant, seemingly immune to the poverty and suffering of those who worked for him. As with so many other English landowners in Ireland, he was often absent, and if he was on his Irish estates he’d keep to his big house and close his eyes to the effects of the famine. But he might make an exception for Kitty, if she asked him in the right way. They had history, a shared past. But could she do it? She silently shook her head. No. Not Thomas Waterman. She despised him with every breath of her body. She hadn’t run to him last winter when the famine carried off her three youngest. Neither had she when her boy Pat had succumbed of a fever, made worse she was sure by the hunger, the previous autumn. And she wouldn’t go to him now.
She would try Martin O’Shaughnessy. In her experience, the poor were more generous than the rich.
With a burst of resolve, she stood up from the bed, took her shawl down from its hook and knotted it around her shoulders. ‘Gracie, I’ll be going out for a little while, now. Have yourself another little sleep,’ she said softly, and Grace murmured something in reply.
She pushed open the wooden door of the cottage and went out, remembering the long-gone days when the lean-to pigpen beside the cottage had always housed a pig nursing her piglets, and with a goat tied up beside it providing them with milk each day. When the potato crops first failed in the autumn of 1845, she’d had to sell the goat. She’d had to sell the pig the year before, after her husband Patrick had died in the terrible mining accident. In Thomas Waterman’s copper mine, she thought, pressing her lips together hard.
It was a fine day. Cold, but with no rain or drizzle. If you had the time to stand and stare, there was a grand view from the village across the heather moorlands towards the coast. On a good day you could see a ribbon of silver that was the sea. Kitty had been there once, when she was courting Patrick and old Mother Heaney had looked after Michael, then aged just three, for the day. She had gazed in awe at the vastness of the ocean. ‘Somewhere over there’s America,’ Patrick had said. ‘We’ll go, when I’ve made enough money working in the mines. You, me and Michael. We’ll make our fortune there.’
She’d kissed him deeply then, loving his optimism for the future, loving that he was taking on her child that was not his own and not judging her for it, loving his strong arms and broad shoulders which she’d thought would protect her and her children for ever.
But that was not how things had turned out. She cast aside the memory. There were more important things to think about today – such as how she was going to feed her remaining children.
Martin O’Shaughnessy’s house was at the top end of the village, past a dozen empty cottages, some of which were already falling into ruin. She remembered when the village had been vibrant, buzzing with life, children running up and down in front of the cottages, goats and pigs tied up outside most homes, women hanging washing out to dry, men repairing thatch or hauling sacks of healthy potatoes inside to store in their roof-spaces. Strange to think that was only a couple of years ago, before the blight came, before the repeated failures of the potato crop.
She passed the Brennans’ cottage. When Seamus Brennan had died Mary Brennan and her five young children had gone into the workhouse, there being no one left in the family able to work. Kitty had been luckier, having Michael old enough to earn while she looked after the children. But it was a hard life for a young lad to have to provide for his mother and siblings. Sibling, she corrected herself. Only Gracie left now, of all of them. Her beautiful babies, all gone, buried in a single plot in the Ballymor churchyard. Beyond the Brennans’ cottage was the Delaneys’ old place. Two dead, one gone to Dublin in search of employment, and one seeking his fortune in America. And so it continued up the row of cottages. Everyone gone; either died or emigrated or in the workhouse. No one left. Finally, she reached the end cottage. Smoke curled from its chimney, and a scrawny tethered goat scrambled to its feet as she approached. She smiled and scratched its head. It was a little reminder of how things used to be.
She rapped on Martin’s door. ‘Mr O’Shaughnessy? It’s me, Kitty McCarthy. Are you at home?’
The door opened, and Martin, a grizzled-looking man with the beginnings of a hunchback, came out. ‘Welcome, neighbour. Is it your little girl?’
Kitty was momentarily taken aback, then realised he was assuming someone had died. To be sure, that had been the usual reason for knocking on doors these last two years. ‘No, no. She’s sickly, but still with us, God be praised,’ she replied.
‘Well, that’s something. Such a bonny little thing, she is, with her copper hair and her sunny smile,’ Martin said. He looked at her expectantly.
Kitty suddenly felt uneasy, now that she was here on Martin’s doorstep. How could she ask him for charity? It wasn’t in her nature – she was too proud. But if she didn’t, they’d go hungry tonight, and tomorrow, and the next day. An image of Grace’s big, trusting eyes came to her. She couldn’t fail her little girl, her only remaining daughter. ‘Mr O’Shaughnessy, it pains me so to ask, but I have no choice. Could you see your way to sparing a few potatoes for us? We’re completely running out. It’s not for myself I’m asking, you understand. It’s for the children. For Gracie.’
She stopped talking and stood quietly, watching him, waiting for him to reply. She had a sudden intuition that their fortunes depended on his response. If he turned her away that would be the beginning of the end for all of them. They’d be joining Patrick and the children in the life beyond. ‘Mr O’Shaughnessy, as soon as Michael is paid I can repay you, buy you some corn perhaps.’
But he was shaking his head. ‘No, no. I won’t be taking young Michael’s wages. Wait here.’ He went inside his cottage and reappeared a moment later hauling a bulging sack. ‘Here. Take these. I have enough.’
Kitty couldn’t believe it. He was giving her a whole sack of potatoes! Enough to last, if she was careful, a month or more. She peeked in the top. They didn’t look to be blighted, either. ‘I can’t take so many, Mr O’Shaughnessy. You’ll need them. It’s a long while till the next harvest.’ She tried to push the sack back to him, but he refused.
‘You’ll take it, Kitty McCarthy. Your need is the greater – you and those bairns of yours. I haven’t forgotten your kindness when my Niamh was dying.’ He coughed, a harsh, rasping rattle that came from deep in his chest. ‘I still have enough to last the winter, though I think the good Lord will be wanting my company before next harvest. When I’m gone, you can take all that’s left. For your little colleen.’
‘Ah, thank you, thank you, Mr O’Shaughnessy. God will spare you for your kind heart. If there is anything I can do for you, you must ask me.’
He shook his head. ‘There’s nothing. Maybe I’ll need a spot of nursing at the end, but until then, I’m grand. Away with you, now, back to your little girl who needs you.’
He made a shooing action with his hands, and closed the door.
Kitty offered up a silent prayer of thanks for good neighbours, and resolved to check on him every day. If he was as sick as he thought he was then certainly she would nurse him and make his last days as comfortable as possible. It was the least she could do for him. She hauled the sack back to her own cottage, and stored most of the potatoes, unblighted, fat and white, in the
