Two Walls and a Roof (7 page)

My next experience with fire happened during a very bad wint
er. I had been forced into the ‘altar b
oy business
’
by Nannie. I think the local Ca
non had gone around to the schools picking ‘suitable’ boys for his altar service, and neither I nor Kyrle were initially chosen, probably because we came from the poorer class, or we didn’t look good enough for the Church. Obviously he had his own reasons and method of choosing his boys, but Nannie took it as
a personal insult on us Cahill
s and she marched up to his door and made such a stink that he changed his mind.  We were soon reluctantly seconded into his flock
,
against my will at least.  There we were forced to learn how to answer Mass in Latin, and as I was already well into my anti
-
religious phase since about eight years of age, this was not going down well with me at all. It was a damn nightmare in fact, and even at tha
t time, it did strike me as odd
that this priest would have s
ome of the boys sit on his knee
as he examined their Adeum qui le tificat gibberish, but I never saw him do any more to them. The more I saw of this Church the falser it felt to me, even at that early age
,
and I believed everyone was being conned by that particular religious organi
s
ation, which was an astute ob
servation, as time has since bo
rn
e
out. I was by then beginning to read all about
the real world
in my Knowledge
’
s
,
and the more I read the more I asked questions about life, and no one could give me any real answers to my
probing questions, even our all-
knowing
father. Everything about our so-
called Catholic religion seemed to be ‘a mystery’ which you dare not question.  Oftentimes I would persist in questioning these mysteries only to be told, you have to believe them, and this irked me a lot because I felt no one knew the answers themselves. I felt that Huck Finn
,
my hero then, never learned Latin or went to Mass
,
and why should I have to do it, especially if none of it made
any sense to me. I suppose too
that getting the odd clatter across the face or the head from that old
priest when I missed some verse
was both a punishment for
the missing
and a revenge for the Nan
’
s attack on him, and it did not endear me to a Church that preached love and dished out violence. Left with no choice, I tried my best to learn the strange language of Latin and I eventually served his Mass for a number of years, but I always hated doing it. I was not alone in this Mass hatre
d either. One of the other boys
used t
o be so sick of this Mass going
that he began slugging down some of the altar wine each morning before the priest arrived. He said it was gre
at stuff
and
that I should give it a go.
I was too chicken to try it, thank God, and years later I heard that he became an alcoholic and died a very young man from the drink. I can still see him today in his white altar outfit, holding the bottle up to his head and guzzling away
,
offe
ring it to me now and again, “A
hhh give it a go John, you’ll love it boy, tis great stuff
. S
ure he’ll never miss it
,
the ould bollix”.

As time passed
,
my hatred for
both the early morning risings
and the Mass serving grew worse. I took it as a sign from God when one morning about seven am the Nan came tearing up the stairs shouting
,
“Get up
! G
et up
will ye
,
the house is on fire
. G
et down out of here
quick, tis on fire I say, hurry!
U
p
,
up
!
” I was in the last year of sharing a room with Uncle Michael
,
and after Nannie shouted those words into our room she took off back down the stairs again, screaming
,
“Fire
,
fire, get up will ye
,
get up I say
!
” We ignored her completely, but I did try to sniff the air for smoke
,
with no success
. W
ithin minutes she’s back up again shouting as loud as ever. ”Get up
,
the house is on fire, tis on fire I’m telling ye”
.

Her screaming had absolutely no effect on either Michael or me, as she usually did a similar screaming bit on a Sunday morning, though usually from the bottom of the stairs, and she never shouted the words fire before, so this was a new development for her I thought. I tried to go back to sleep, but I had become a bit unnerved by her screaming, as she did seem to be in a genuine panic.

In those days I was sharing a bed with Michael, and after a few more air sniffs I did think I could smell smoke, but I wasn’t sure. Michael, who was tired out from his writing late into the night, and probably t
hinking it was a Sunday morning with her
up to her usual tricks, just covered up his head and said, “Ignore her Chicken, there’s no way there’s a fire in this house
. S
ure we hardly have coal, how could we have a fire
?
”

But very soon
she was back up again, and this time she’s trying to tear me out of the bed. By then it’s obvious
,
even to me, that the room was rapidly filling with smoke, and I knew by her panicked look and the smoke around us that this was no trick.  I’m out of bed in a flash shouting at Michael to get up, which he ignored, and I grab my pants
,
running for the stairs.  So is the Nan, but before she starts down, she gives one more roar back in at Michael
,
“Awright so, go on then, burn if you want, but I’m not burning to save your lazy arse, and neither is my John
,
” and she pushed me down the stairs before her.  In the middle floor and one floor closer to safety
,
I’m hopping around trying to get my pants fully on
.
I have one leg in and I’m clutching the other when I see this re
ally terrified look on her face. S
he was even scaring me then, and I ran for the lower stairs to freedom, while still trying to keep my pants pulled up. The smoke is acrid and choking us as I almost run down the lower stairs followed so closely by the Nan that she pushes me in terror and I fell down the last few steps into the kitchen, still clutching my pants. Initially I got a terrible shock, because looking up from the floor I could see that our ceiling was really on fire, and I
’
ll never forget it.

After I recovered my nerves a bit, I noticed that while the ceiling was burning it was only doing so in one corner. It looked far worse than it was and I felt there was no more need for a total panic. The flames were slowly spreading outwards from the corner and some lighting papers and cardboards were falling onto the table below.  It was a cardboard ceiling that Nannie had painted years earlier and so it was always a good candidate for a fire. While I’m getting into my pants and taking all this in, Nannie ran back up the stairs once again. Then
,
having ‘saved’ me she decided to have one last go at saving her ‘useless’ son Michael. I took that opportunity to make sure that my case of alt
a
r clothes
,
which was on the table, was fully opened and I moved them directly under the falling lighting papers. If anything was going to burn for me, it had to be the altar clothes. From the many lighting bits of paper and card that were falling, I felt sure that the hated altar clothes would soon catch fire, and that would be the end of my Mass going days. Then with no panic at all, I got an old plastic pan that we used to wash our dishes in, and ran out into the street to the nearby water pump. I was almost stark naked except for my pants
,
which was still only on at half mast, but that didn’t deter me.  I filled up the pan shouting to everyone pa
ssing, “Help! Help! F
ire inside the house, fire, fire
,
help
,
help us
!”

No one took a blind bit of notice. I ran back inside and threw the whole pan of water straight up at the ceiling
,
hoping that none of it fell back down on my own personal little fire below in the case.  Out I ran again and filled the pan a second time, with more calling for help, with exactly the same result
. N
o one even looked inside the door
,
let alone offered to help us. Once more I lashed the water back up at the ceiling. A quick check c
onfirmed that all my altar gear was
happily
smoldering
away and the ceiling fire looked like it was going out, so no more need for water.  The fire finally did die out completely, and Nannie arrived back down followed this time by Michael in his night shirt. He was rubbing his eyes from the smoke and looked like a figure from poorest India as he stood on the stairs surveying the damage throug
h the smoke. The Nan saw my alta
r cl
othes were well on fire by then
and began to beat at the flames with her wet
dish cloth. T
hen Michael says
,
“Good man Chicken, you did a great job there I see
. L
ooks like there was a bit of a fire after all”
.
The Nan gl
ared at him with her black face
as she beat out the fire in my old case, but thankfully not fast enough to save my clothe
s
. Then she turned and really lashed into Michael, shouting and roaring like never before. She said that it was his burning the briquettes that had caused this fire. She screamed that she had specifically told him not to burn the briquettes, and that he was useless, that she had always known he was useless, and that a child had to save us and the house from the ‘Fires of Hell’.

As it so happened, this time she was actually right. Michael had been writing late into the night as usual, and because it was a particularly bad winter, Nannie had lit the fire in the middle floor
parlor
, a very rare thing indeed. During the night Michael got cold
,
and when adding fuel to the fire, a
smoldering
briquette must have slipped down through one of the many holes in the flagstone.  This briquette then set the cardboard ceiling below alight. Everyone knew that the fireplace in the middle room was dangerous, and that’s why she never lit a fire there, but that year the Nan had splurged out because of the sheer cold in the kitchen. I know for certain that before going to bed she had warned Michael not to be adding coal or briquettes to the fire in the night, but as usual he ignored her. We could easily have all burned to death that night but for the Nan
’s early rising
for my hated Mass service.

After it all settled down, I was delighted at my calmness and heroism and felt surely I deserved a day off from school for saving us all. However, the Nan would have none of it, and she said to me, “Off you go now John, and tell no one about this fire
. T
is bad enough that we both know he’s a fool,
(pointing at Michael)
without the whole town knowing it as well
. Y
ou saved us from the fires of Hell while he’s stuck inside the bed
. N
ow run along to school there’s a good boy”. No arguing did any good
. S
he was adamant I was going to school, so I did. The only consolation I had from that whole affair was that I knew my Mass going days were over.  No way could she afford to buy me more alt
a
r clothes, so there might be a God after all, though I still had my doubts.

May Sheehan was a small
,
frail little woman who owned a grocery shop across the road from our house. She sold the newspapers, groceries and butter. The butter had to be delivered from the creamery and would not keep well
-
f
ridges being an unheard of machine in those days, so she didn’t carry a large stock of it, and relied on the odd delivery from a local who might be passing the creamery. Th
is was not an ideal arrangement
and she often ran out
,
so she needed a delivery boy.  Almost every few days
,
she needed a new supply and I was to become that delivery boy. I don’t know how I actually got the job, but when I was about twelve years old, I began working for May collecting her butter. The deal was six pence a
load
and a load was about ten pounds I suppose, maybe more. I do know that I used an old shiny biscuit tin to carry this butter from the creamery to her shop. Sh
e paid me faithfully every trip
and it was great having real money of my own to spend as I liked.  A sixpenny bit was made of silver and had a shiny dog on its face, and it felt so good in my pocket. With such an amount of money, I could
easily buy lots of slab toffee
and even a bar of chocolate if I was to go really mad. Each time she paid me
,
I
would be over the m
oon with happiness and I often bought a slab of toffee for both Kyrle and Lill as a surprise from my wealth.

The biscuit tin weighed quite a bit, but the creamery was only down at the bottom of the town,
so my journey was not too long
and I used to rest my tin on strategic window sills on the way up to her shop. It only took me about twenty minutes
,
and for that I earned a full six pence every few days
. Th
ings were surely looking up for me at last.

I do remember one day passing Peggy Corbett’s drapery shop j
ust some weeks before Christmas
and seeing
,
to my utter amazement, a beautiful train set in a box in her shop
window. I stood transfixed, sta
ring in at this amazing sight. I had dreamed of having a train set for a very long time
,
hoping for one at Christmas some day, but ne
ver telling anyone of my dreams
because this would be a really expensive toy
. A
nd I didn’t want to add more stress to my Nan
,
knowing Santa did not exist for us Cahills. But there it was. It was very unusual to see toys in Pe
g
gy
’s window
as it was a drapery shop, and she never had toys in it, but that year she seems to have decided to try a new line of business to make money.

Peggy Corbett always seemed to me to be a tall gentle woman, always soft spoken and never gruff or ugly to me, or to anyone else either. She had never married and lived up the street with her parents
. A
nd what’s more
,
she never seemed to age at all.  She sold cloth
, wool, some children’s clothes
and Communion outfits, and of course she was also the Nannie’s primary bank.  I think because of my many borrowings for Nannie, Peggy got to know me well, and I’m sure she liked me, and I liked her too.

After staring in a
t the train set for a long time
I became determined that I would have it one way or another
,
and so in I went to Peggy. I enquired about the train set, how much it would cost, and did she have many for sale
.
I had a lot of questions that day.

She said that the price of the train set was seven shillings and six pence, an almost gigantic sum then, and she only had the on
e train set. When one considers
that before
the May Sheehan job
I was only getting the odd penny now and again, it would have been totally impossible to buy that train set ever,
as seven and six was 90 pennies. B
ut
,
by then I was ‘working’ and I made up my mind that I would have that train set by Christmas. As a rough guess
,
I worked it out at about fifteen butter trips and I felt sure it could be done
,
and with time to spare. I asked Peggy if I could take the train set by paying her in small amounts and she asked me how small. “Sixpences”
,
I say
.
Peggy seemed to know my heart was set on it and said
, “I’ll tell you what John, y
ou save up your money and I will put the train set away for you till it
’
s paid for
, h
ow about that
?
” I asked her, what if some rich person sees it and buys it before I can get all the m
oney, and to her amazing credit
she said
,
“No John
,
I’ll put it away
for you in the back of the shop
till you have all the money”
.
As I'm nodding agreement I'm already playing with it in my mind. When I'm leaving her shop she reached into
the window and removed my prize;
the train set was safe
. N
ow my money collecting would begin in earnest.

I went across to the Nan’s and got a jam jar,
then
washed it all out clean and dry. Next I cut a slot in the lid to take the money, and so as to avoid temptation from the slab, I rolled loads of sticky tape around both the lid and the jar. Not even I could easily rob my j
ar now. I then got a small note
book, put a date on it, and set to thinking what I would do next. I
f memory serves me right, I
already
had
some coins from my last butter job and they were the beginnings of my jar. The amount was noted in my book and the jar was the
n hidden under the floor boards
under my bed. I knew full well that there might be others besides me who would be tempted to rob my jar, so it had to be kept safe from those hands too.

I worked it out that
if I deposited every single six
pence based on the previous jobs, then I would have enough for the train set by Christmas week
,
and there was always the other money I might get from Michael, or Big Kyrl
,
my other uncle.  Gracie’s egg collecting might add a few coppers too, and all in all, I was sure I would make it happen for my train set. I began to imagine just where I would set it up on Nannie’s table upstairs. I could move my toy soldiers around
,
and if anything
,
it would add to m
y playing with them. In my mind
I played with the engine and disconnected the c
arriages, I added brick bridges,
some of my little
soldier men
could fit in the goods wagon, and it could be used to transport my toy tanks as well. This was going to be great, just great. I also felt that secrecy was my best friend, so I to
ld no one of my deal with Peggy,
not even Kyrle, who I could also see playing with the train set later on.

I collected and collected, and the coins in my jar grew. Each deposit was a reason to celebr
ate and look at my jar. My note
book kept record of the odd extra coins that I got outside of my ‘regular job’, and I was quite ahead coming up to the Christmas period.  Then the weather changed. It became bitterly cold
. T
imes were particularly b
ad that year for us all as well
and
I could feel the tension rising
as both Nannie and my mother got into the
ir close talking huddled mode m
ore often than usual
. I knew from old
that this always spelled troub
le. It was as if by talking low
while huddled together in Nannie
’s kitchen,
they could somehow shield us from the bad news that was coming. I hardened myself to their situation and would not even contemplate a sing
l
e thought of helping out with my little stash. I felt sure that they didn’t even know I had one, so it was quite safe and so was my train set. Of course that was a great mistake. Parents nearly always know what their children are at, especially so
in those days. It was easy too
to see me carrying the butter tin every few days, and I was not buying sweets any
more either, so I had to be stashing the money someplace.

During another of Nannie
’
s borrowing sessions to Peggy, Peggy came right out and asked me if I was still collecting away for the train set, and I proudly pu
lled my notebook from my pocket
and showed her the amount collected so far.  I was almost there, and with time to spare too. Peggy seemed genuinely surprised and delighted for me, but probably she coul
d not reconcile me and my stash
with my Nannie
’
s borrowing note. I asked for a look at the box and she brought it out from the back. There it was in my hands. It was too beautiful for words. It had a jet black engine, a green goods wagon saying
‘
P and T
’ on the side of it,
a coal wagon with some plastic coal inside it, as well as the passenger carriages. To my surprise I noticed too that it also had an engine driver and a fireman with a small shovel inside the box
. T
hese were details I hadn’t noticed on the window. I almost asked her for it there and then, but I was still a bit short and I was way
too shy anyway.  I believe now
that had I asked Peggy that day, she would h
ave trusted me with the balance
and given me my box, but I didn’t. I took the borrowed pound over to Nannie
’
s and headed up to May Sheehan’s for my tin box and that day
’
s butter load.

Unfortunately
,
Peggy’s la
test pound didn’t go far enough
and that day it began to snow heavily as well. Mother had some trick with her little fireplace where she would wet papers and stick them into the back of the grate with cinders. This pushed the few new lumps of coal to the front of the grate and reduced the coals needed to keep the fire alive. She always tried to have a block of wood to the back too, but that was not always possible in those hard times. I don’t know to this day how she managed to keep a fire going like she used to
. I
t was sheer ingenuity on her part. Fortunately for her, our little living room was tiny and easy to heat, but of course the rest of the house was always like an icebox. Nannie on the other hand had an old black range which would burn anything
,
and she did so as well. Once it got hot, the cast iron stayed hot all day, so after she used her paraffin o
il to get it going, we were set
with kettles and pots boiling away all day long
, but
just as in mother
’
s house, you also froze in Nannie
’
s if you left the kitchen.

As the weather worsened
,
the mother
’
s supply of coal ran out, and Nannie was just barely ahead with her bit of coal. They shared what they had for as long as they could, and it seems to me that my other grandmother
,
Gracie, was not willing to help in any way, or they were too proud to ask her. In any case, it would have been up to the father to do the actual asking,
and he was not going to do that
because he spent most of his time in his bed. In those terrible days
,
while my mother and Nannie bore the full brunt of our misery, my father found i
t easier to opt out from it all
and go up the street to his mother
’
s where he got fed. I never understood this mentality, but he was my dad and of course I forgave him for it all in the end.

Since birth I seem to have been gifted with very good hearing and this has stood to me well over the years. By that Christmas I had been given my own room, the ‘haunted’ one, and this was located just above Nannie
’
s kitchen. The day came when I could cle
arly hear from my room upstairs
my poor mother begging Nannie to ask me for the money from my jar. I became enraged immediately
.
Nannie was saying
,
“I can
’
t ask him, I just can
’
t
. Y
ou ask him, I won
’
t”. I remember lying on the bed
,
dreading the next words I would hear… “John, John, can you come downstairs for a minute… please”. It was the Nan and she was saying please, and Nannie never said please to anyone
. T
his was surely going to be very bad indeed and I knew what was coming.