how could she let her brother go with only recriminations ringing in his ears? ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t hate you, but I’m sad – I’ll miss you.’
‘Oh God,’ Terry said, feeling ashamed for his sister’s sake. ‘I’ll send for you, Bridie, when I’ve …’
‘You know I can’t leave here,’ Bridie said quietly, and she put her arms around Terry and kissed him on the cheek and left him, sobbing.
Terry left in August 1928 and, in the early weeks, Bridie often felt she couldn’t go on. She saw the farm for the first time as Terry had seen it: one relentless round of work with never an hour, never mind a day, off to do with as she pleased.
At first, she sought her bed straight after the evening meal, so tired even her bones ached. However, bit by bit, her body became accustomed to the hard physical work and she had a wage to be picked up at the end of every week to look forward to, though her parents had balked at that initially.
‘But why do you want a wage, Bridie?’ Sarah had asked.
‘Everyone has a wage, Mammy, if they do a job.’
‘Yes, of course, if you work outside the home,’ Sarah had conceded. ‘Here you get your meals and clothes bought for you when you need them.’
‘Ah, but d’you see, Mammy, that’s it,’ Bridie had said. ‘You say I have clothes when I need them, but really you mean your choice of clothes when you think I need them. As for meals, wouldn’t anyone working here be fed?’
‘Well, yes,’ Sarah had had to agree. ‘But …’
‘There isn’t any but in this, Mammy,’ Bridie had said, hardening her heart against her parents’ confused faces. ‘There has been no cost to you in working clothes, for I’m wearing Terry’s.’
She was, too, although they had been refashioned. By taking in the crotch and chopping inches off the legs of the breeches and cutting down the work shirts, repositioning the buttons and chopping the sleeves to fit, she had her made them fit her just right.
‘I’d like the same as Rosalyn earns in the shirt factory,’ Bridie had said. ‘Less what she pays in keep. I think that’s fair.’
‘Fair or not,’ Jimmy had said, ‘none of our other children have demanded a wage for working their own place.’
‘It’s not my place, it’s yours,’ Bridie had reminded him. ‘And I know Terry asked for a wage because he told me. Maybe if he’d been given one he’d have stayed longer.’
‘Are you threatening me, Bridie? I’ll not stand that,’ Jimmy had blustered. ‘Big as you are …’
‘Daddy, I’m threatening no one,’ Bridie had said gently. ‘I’m just stating facts. I’ll work as hard as I’m able, but I need money of my own.’
Jimmy had knocked his pipe against the hearth, filled it with infinite slowness and drew on it. He had no wish to alienate his darling daughter ‘Well,’ he had said at last, ‘I think what Bridie has suggested is only fair.’
Sarah had looked at him, open-mouthed, while Bridie had reached up and kissed her father’s stubbly chin. ‘Thank you, Daddy,’ she had said. ‘I appreciate you listening to me.’
She had missed the look that passed between her parents, the one that said they’d raised a treasure, a daughter in a million, for that treasure, worn-out by hard work, had taken her weary bones to bed.
Francis wondered if Bridie had any idea of how fetching she looked as she worked the fields in her brother’s cut-down clothes. She was like a wean dressing up, except no wean had a figure like the one she was developing. Her eyes were like pools of dark brown treacle and could flash fire, but mainly sparkled with laughter, and however her hair was tied back, curls would always escape. Sometimes just to look at her could stop the blood pulsing in his body. He knew he could do nothing about it but look, for the girl was his niece and yet but a child. But God, if things were different …
Francis was on his way to the McCarthy house for a rambling session with these thoughts churning in his head. In the late autumn and winter, with the harvest safely gathered in, rambling nights were popular in the country houses.
Word got around that a rambling was to be held at such a house and neighbours and friends would come from all over. The men often had an instrument with them and always a drink of some kind. It was usually poteen, which was brewed in stills in the hills of Donegal, as everyone knew but no one spoke of.
The women would bring slices of soda bread, or barn brack or similar, and sometimes a bottle of homemade wine, and in an instant a party would begin with the rag rugs rolled up for the dancing.
One of Bridie’s earliest memories was of lying in her bed, her toes curling with excitement at the tantalising music and the rhythmic tap of the women’s feet as they danced on the stone slabs of the cottage floor below. There’d be a break halfway through when they’d eat and drink deeply and talk. The murmur of voices would rise and fall, sometimes heated and raised in argument, sometimes quieter and gentler. But the music would always begin again and she’d go to sleep with the tunes running through her head.
Now, though, Bridie was allowed to stay up for the rambling. She had turned out of her work clothes and after a wash from the basin in her room, she had changed into her second-best dress and was ready with Sarah to greet the first arrivals.
Francis was one of the last guests to arrive and there was a whistle of approval as he drew a large bottle of poteen from beneath his coat. ‘I hope you didn’t get that from Tommy Flaherty?’ one of the men said. ‘I heard the Garda are after him.’
‘Christ, haven’t they been after him for years?’ another put in. ‘Haven’t caught him yet?’
‘He’s too wily a fox for them,’ said the first man.
‘Anyway,’ Francis said. ‘They’re only cross because he won’t supply them. They like a drop the same as the rest of us.’
‘The priests do at any rate, I know that,’ said Jimmy. ‘I passed on a bottle to Father O’Dwyer once and he was delighted with me so.’
‘Aye,’ Francis said. ‘Did you hear the one about the young curate from England who came to help out a country priest in Ireland? He’d had a man in confession admitting to making poteen. As he’d never heard of such a thing before and wasn’t sure of the penance to give him, he went to the older priest and said, “There’s a man here making poteen. What shall I give him?”
‘“Well, be careful now,” said the older priest. “These men would fleece the likes of you. I never give more than three and six a bottle.”’
There were gales of laughter at this. ‘It’s right enough too,’ one said when the laughter had died down. ‘Stingy buggers, priests.’
‘Come on,’ Jimmy cried. ‘The night’s running away with us and we’ve not played a tune yet.’
Bridie helped the women pile food onto plates on the big table, but surreptitiously watched the dancers. Mary had taught her some dances before she went away, but she’d not performed any since she’d left and was surprised how much she remembered. One of the women, seeing her watching, seized her hand and pulled her
