The Mammy (3 page)

It is possible to buy almost anything in Moore Street with the collection of shops that are there, but on the stalls they concentrate mainly on fruit, flowers, vegetables and fish. Agnes and Marion sold vegetables and fruit. The two women would spend until half-past six at the wholesale fruit and vegetable market, getting their supplies. Of all the time they put in every morning in the wholesale market only a quarter of it would be spent picking fruit and vegetables, for by now the dealers knew well enough to give the two women the best of what they had — or pay the consequences. The rest of the time would be taken up in chatting, catching up on the local gossip and solving each other’s problems, for here in the early hours of a Dublin morning one could find the remedy for rickets, the secret of how to make a greyhound run faster by rubbing its legs with a bit of turpentine in a rag, or the cure for a cut that had gone septic. Then, after a hot cup of tea and a piece of toast in Rosie O‘Grady’s Market Café, the two ladies would push their prams, still empty, down to the market, empty because they wouldn’t take the fruit with them - Jacko, the box collector, would bring it down later on his horse and cart.

On arrival at Moore Street, the girls would go to the ‘Corporation sheds’. These were gerry-built sheds, put up specifically for the use of the Moore Street dealers, to store overnight any fruit or veg that would go on sale next morning. The cost of a shed was five shillings a month. Agnes and Marion shared a single shed and chipped in two-and-six each a month. Between seven o‘clock and half-past, Moore Street would be a hive of -activity, with stalls being set up all along the street. If the weather was inclement, canvas canopies would be erected to keep the dealers and the vegetables reasonably dry. Vegetables would be unbagged, fruit unboxed and apples polished, yesterday’s flowers would be clipped again to give them fresh stems and the fishmongers would be scrubbing down their marble tops awaiting the arrival of the truck from Howth. By half-past seven Moore Street was like a country garden, beginning at the fashionable Henry Street end with a burst of posies from all over the world - roses, chrysanthemums, carnations and lilies, moving down towards the Pamell end with the various fruits and vegetables - anything from an avocado pear to a strawberry, in season, and finally, tucked away right at the end of the street, the fishmongers, where everyone could see them but no-one could smell them. This was the ritual each and every day, as dependable as a Swiss watch, as colourful as an American election, as noisy as an Italian wedding and as sure as a ride in the National Ballroom!

Not today! Agnes Browne would not be there today. Her stall in Moore Street would be bare, except for the wreaths laid around the bottom, placed there by long-time friends, Winnie the Mackerel, Bridie Barnes, Doreen Dowdall, Catherine Keena, Sandra Coleman, Liam the Sweeper, Jacko the Box Collector, Mrs Robinson and her twin stuttering daughters - affectionately called Splish and Splash. Today, Agnes Browne would be burying her husband. The grave was ready in Ballybough cemetery, the three pounds and ten shillings it cost thankfully being paid by the Hotel and Caterers’ branch of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union.

The children were all dressed up, the boys in grey corduroy pants provided by the Vincent de Paul, and white shirts and grey jumpers Agnes had bought in Guiney‘s, along with new underwear and seven pairs of plastic sandals. The money for this had been sent around by the hotel staff, along with a full breadboard of sandwiches and tiny little sausages. Cathy, the only girl, wore a black skirt and top, again sent down from Ozram House by the Vincent de Paul. Agnes was surprised to find she herself had a black dress at all ... but it was drab and old-fashioned, so it was with great relief that she found that the one sent up, on loan from a neighbour, fitted her perfectly. She cut up her own dress into little black diamonds which she sewed on to the sleeves of each of the boys’ jumpers. These black diamonds of death would be removed only after the first anniversary Mass for the children’s father.

Since Redser’s death, Agnes hadn’t had a moment to herself. The previous night, the house seemed to be invaded by callers. Quietly and efficiently she entertained each caller, constantly making tea, offering a bottle of Guinness from the six cases sent down as a gift from Foley’s Bar - Mr Foley had liked Redser, and Agnes. It seemed to go on and on. The younger children were taken down to Marion’s house to be bathed, and although Agnes had intended that Mark, Francis and the twins should have a bath at home, it was two o‘clock in the morning before she knew it. The children had gone to bed, and she was exhausted. She tidied around the house, collecting the beer bottles and putting them back in their cases. She wondered if Mr Foley would like the empties back; if not she would send the boys down to the Black Lion with them and collect the three shillings per case on them herself.

Before going to her own bed, she checked on the kids. The younger ones, Cathy, Rory and Trevor, were in the single bed - Rory and Trevor at one end and Cathy’s little face peeping out the other, flanked by two feet on each side. Their faces glowed from the scrubbing Marion had given them, and they smelled of carbolic soap. One of the overcoats that served as blankets had slipped to the floor and Agnes gently picked it up and placed it across the three children. The other bed, a double, had a huge eiderdown spread across it, one of Agnes’s bargain finds at the Saturday market on George’s Hill - only seven and sixpence. It had been torn, and leaked feathers all the way home, but a few stitches and it was as good as second-hand! At the bottom end of the bed the twins slept side-by-side. She stared at them in wonderment as usual, for they always slept sucking each other’s thumbs, spending their nights as Siamese twins. They had done this from birth and Agnes did not know if she could, or even if she should, try to stop them. They were not identical. Simon was taller that Dermot, and where Dermot had his father’s mousey Browne hair, Simon was blond, with freckles in abundance. At the other end the large frame of Mark, the eldest, was sprawled across the bed. For fourteen he was big, big enough to be taken for sixteen. He looked rough and tough, a strong square chin, wiry muscular body and the beginnings of teenage pimples breaking out on his forehead - a forehead that Agnes could not see at this moment for Mark had his back to her, facing the wall. On the other hand, Francis’s face was fully visible, the face of an angel. Pale-skinned and with fiery red hair, he lay on his back, his mouth half-open and a gentle hiss coming from his lips as he slept soundly. Agnes ran her fingers through the boy’s hair and gently kissed him on the forehead. As she turned to leave, Mark’s voice stopped her.

‘Mammy.’

She turned, but he didn’t.

‘Yes, love?’ she whispered.

‘Don’t worry, Ma, I’ll be here.’

Her reply caught in her throat, and for a moment she closed her mouth and breathed deeply through her nose, then she whispered ‘I know love, I know ... goodnight.’

He did not reply and she left the room. This short exchange upset her, so instead of going to bed, she went downstairs and made tea. She had then slept fitfully in the armchair beside the dying embers.

Agnes regretted that now, as she stood in front of the mirror in her bedroom. There were bags under her eyes. People would think she had been crying! She hadn‘t, she didn’t have time for it. She stood back from the mirror.

‘Agnes Browne, look at you, a ragged auld wan!’ she said aloud to her reflection. She was being hard on herself, for although she had given birth seven times in fourteen years, at thirty-four she looked thirty-four! Medium height with full lips and a button nose, she was pretty, her outstanding features being her raven black hair and chestnut-brown complexion around almond-shaped brown eyes, a legacy of her grandfather’s visit to Spain ... he returned minus a leg but plus a wife! A beautiful wife, for which most men in The Jarro would have given both legs for the chance to use the remaining one! She had died young, at only twenty four, of TB, but not before leaving behind three daughters, the loveliest of them being Maria, who became Agnes’s mother. Agnes looked like her mother.

She heard a radio announcer say it was ten o‘clock. She hurried down the stairs and gathered the children together. As she herded them out the door she noticed Mark was missing.

‘Where’s Mark?’ she asked no one in particular.

It was Cathy who answered. ‘He’s in the toilet, he said he’s not coming to Da’s funeral.’

Agnes did not reply. She looked into Marion’s face and in an effort to make a puzzled face, Marion turned the edges of her mouth downwards, gathering all the mole hairs together.

‘Marion love, you go ahead with these,’ suggested Agnes, ‘I’ll go up and see what’s wrong with the little cur.’

She quietly climbed the stairs calling him, ‘Mark, Mark Browne ... get out here now!’ By the time she had reached the toilet door there was still no reply. She banged on the door.

‘Mark Browne, I haven’t time for this messin’. You’re going to Mass whether you like it or not. Get out of that fuckin’ toilet now!‘

The bolt clicked back and Mark emerged.

‘What do you think you’re up to?’

Mark did not look up. ‘Nothin’,‘ he mumbled.

‘Then get down them fuckin’ stairs and up to that church ... and listen, don’t you carry on today or I’m tellin’ yeh, I’ll swing for yeh! Do yeh hear me?’ she was screaming.

Mark was already halfway down the stairs when he said ‘Yeh’. They caught up with the rest of the family before they reached the church. Agnes straightened hair, pulled up pants and tucked in shirts, then the new widow and seven orphans entered the church as a pale and frightened family.

Chapter 3

IF THERE CAN BE SUCH A THING, it was a great funeral. Agnes sat in the front pew during the Mass, flanked by Marion on one side and her seven orphans on the other. The children were pale from a mixture of fear, because they did not really understand what was going on, and excitement, because people kept coming to them and rubbing their hair and mumbling‘God bless you’ or ’God love you, child‘, at the same time pressing money into their hands. The younger children would stare at the shining silver coins, wide-eyed. Not that they would have them for long, for after what he regarded as a respectable period, Mark gathered the coins from the children to give later to Mammy. The younger children would hand the money over without question, and Rory after some soul-searching, but Frankie would not hand his over under any circumstances. What Frankie had, Frankie kept - for Frankie! Mark hated his younger brother. Of all the children Frankie was the most selfish. He would never share anything he brought home with any of the others, yet if Mark got sweets from Mr McCabe, the local shopkeeper and the supplier of Mark’s newspapers for his paper round, Frankie would sit there long-faced until Mammy insisted that Mark gave him some of them. Mark had often wished Frankie wasn’t his brother. Frankie was Mammy’s favourite. Mark understood that Mammies have to have favourites and he didn’t mind that he wasn’t it, but he couldn’t understand that with children as cute as Trevor and Cathy, or even Denno - cheeky but lovable - Mammy had picked the only selfish bastard in the family to be her favourite, her pet. Mammies are blind, he supposed.

It was the meningitis that had started it. Mark recalled vividly the panic in the flat that night. The ambulance at the door, Frankie vomiting vile-smelling brown stuff. He could still see Frankie, eyes closed and beads of sweat all over his face, as the two ambulance men carried him down the steps of the building to the waiting ambulance. His mother was distraught, his father pale and shaking, not knowing what to do. They were taking Frankie to the fever hospital. Well, thought Mark, that’s that. Mark had seen two of his uncles go into the fever hospital with TB, and they never came out again. The fever hospital, as every kid in The Jarro knew, was where you went to wait for God to collect you. He would never see Frankie again. As the ambulance pulled away, Mark remembered a kid coming up to him and asking, ‘Who is it?’ ‘Me brother Frankie,’ he had said. ‘What’s wrong with him?’ the boy had asked. Unable to remember or pronounce meningitis, Mark simply said, ‘He’s fucked’, and went back into the flat.

That night in his prayers Mark asked God to spare Frankie’s life. God answered his prayer. Six weeks later Frankie was home - and Mammy waited on him hand and foot from then on! Even now, years later, when Mammy would ask Mark to go down the stairs to the coal hole for a bucket of coal, if Mark dared suggest that Frankie should take his turn, he would be met with a scowl from his mother and the usual reply: ‘Remember the meningitis!’ Mark learned a valuable lesson from all of this - don’t be too hasty with your prayers!

As the priest announced that the Mass had ended a line of people formed, and one by one they shook hands with Mrs Browne and Mark, and patted the heads of the children. Almost without exception they would say to Mrs Browne: ‘Sorry for your troubles’, and to Mark: ‘You’re the man of the house now, good lad.’ Mark understood this ... well, nearly understood it. It meant, he thought, that he would be expected to take his father’s place - bring in the money, protect the family, both of which he was prepared to do, and felt able to do. He worried, though. He hoped it didn’t also mean that he had to sleep with his mother ... he wasn’t into that. No way!

The hearse pulled slowly away from the church. Behind it walked the funeral attendance, led by the Browne family. Mammy was flanked by her children, Cathy holding her left hand and Frankie linking her right arm. Mark walked behind her. He held Trevor’s hand and beside him walked Rory, holding a twin in each hand. It was about a mile to Ballybough cemetery. On the way, the hearse turned down James Larkin Court. All the curtains on all the windows in every flat were drawn. The hearse stopped outside the Browne’s front door. On the door a simple white card with a black border was pinned. It read: ‘Redser Browne RIP.’

The hearse paused for a minute, then, with a growl, moved on again. They were within sight of the cemetery when Agnes first heard the hiss. She was puzzled initially, but then a huge puff of steam from the front of the Ford Zephyr - that was the hearse - announced that something was amiss with the vehicle. It stopped abruptly and the trailing crowd came to a ragged halt. The driver and his assistant jumped from the front of the vehicle. Some of the men went up to join them. There followed a communal staring into the engine, then a discussion about how far the cemetery was. The distance was a moot point. It seemed it was just too far to carry the coffin and yet the vehicle could not be driven for fear of damaging the engine. The decision was made to push the hearse to the gates and carry the coffin from there. More men were drafted from the cortege and, with a heave, the Zephyr lurched forward.