Another Man’s Child

‘Have you no more brothers and sisters?’

‘Yes,’ Celia said. ‘Dermot is over three years younger than me, so he is nearly fifteen and left school now and then there is Ellie who is nine and Sammy who is the youngest at seven.’

‘Not much company for you then?’

Celia shook her head. ‘I’d say not,’ and then she added wryly, ‘Mind you, I might be too busy to get lonely for I will have to do Norah’s jobs as well as my own.’

‘You can’t work all the time,’ Andy said. ‘Do you never go to the dances and socials in the town?’

Celia shook her head.

‘Why on earth not?’

‘I don’t know why not,’ Celia admitted. ‘It’s just never come up, that’s all.’

‘Well maybe you should ask about it?’ Andy said. ‘No wonder your sister can’t wait to go to America if she is on the farm all the days of her life. There’s a dance this Saturday evening.’

‘And are you going to it?’

‘I am surely,’ Andy said. ‘Mr Fitzgerald told me about it himself. He advised me to go and meet some of the townsfolk and it couldn’t be more respectable, for its run by the church and I’m sure the priest will be in attendance.’

Celia knew Father Casey would have a hand in anything the Catholic Church was involved in – particularly if it was something to do with young people, who he seemed to think were true limbs of Satan, judging by his sermons. And yet, despite the priest’s presence there, she had a sudden yen to go, for at nearly eighteen she was well old enough and she wondered why Norah had said nothing about it. Tom attended the dances but she never went out in the evening and neither did Norah, not even to a neighbour’s house for a rambling night, which was often an impromptu meeting, spread by word of mouth. There would be a lot of singing or the men would catch hold of the instruments they had brought and play the lilting music they had all grown up with and the women would roll up the rag rugs and step dance on the stone-flagged floor. She had never been to one, but before Maggie died the Mulligans had had rambling nights of their own and she remembered going to sleep with the tantalising music running round in her head. She didn’t say any of this to Andy for she had spied her father making his way towards them across the field and saw him quicken his pace when he saw his daughter in such earnest conversation with the hireling boy.

So Dan gave Andy a curt nod of the head as a greeting and said, ‘Bring him through into the field.’ And as Andy led the bull through the gate Dan said to Celia, ‘You go straight back to the house. This is no place for you anyway.’ And Celia turned and without even looking at Andy she returned to the farmhouse, deep in thought.

TWO (#ua3d88705-3cbb-5370-877f-26d91e3d1aaa)

‘Why do we never go to the socials or the dances in the town?’ Celia said as she and Norah washed up together in the scullery.

Norah shrugged. ‘What’s brought this on?’

‘Just wondered, that’s all,’ Celia said. ‘Heard a couple of girls talking about it in the town Saturday.’

‘Did you?’ Norah said in surprise. ‘I never heard anyone say anything and I’d have said we were together all the time.’ Her eyes narrowed suddenly and she said, ‘It wasn’t that hireling boy put you up to asking?’

‘He has got a name, that hireling boy,’ Celia said, irritated with Norah’s attitude. ‘He’s called Andy McCadden and he didn’t put me up to anything. He asked if I was going to the dance and I said, no, that we never go.’

‘What was it to him?’

‘God, Norah, he meant nothing I shouldn’t think,’ Celia said. ‘Just making conversation.’

‘Well you were doing your fair share of that,’ Norah said. ‘I watched you through the window, chatting together ten to the dozen. Very cosy it looked.’

‘What was I supposed to do, ignore him?’ Celia asked. ‘I was taking him to find Daddy and he was leading a bull by the nose. Not exactly some sort of romantic tryst. Anyway, why don’t we ever go to the dances and the odd social?’

‘Well Mammy would have thought you too young until just about now anyway.’

‘All right,’ Celia conceded. ‘But what about you? You’re nearly twenty-one.’

‘I know,’ Norah said and added with a slight sigh, ‘I went with Maggie a few times; maybe you were too young to remember it. When she took sick and then died I had no desire to go anywhere for some time and then we were in mourning for a year and so I sort of got out of the way of it and anyway I didn’t really want to go on my own.’

‘Tom goes.’

‘He’s a man and not much in the way of company,’ Norah said. ‘Anyway he’d hardly want me hanging on to his coat tails. After all he went there hunting for a wife.’

‘Golly!’ Celia exclaimed. ‘Did he really?’

‘Course he did,’ Norah said assuredly. ‘No frail-looking beauty for him, for he was on the lookout for some burly farmer’s daughter, with wide hips who can bear him a host of sons and still have the energy to roll up her sleeves and help him on the farm.’

Celia laughed softly. ‘Well he hasn’t, has he?’ she said. ‘Though no one said a word about it, everyone knows he’s courting Sinead McClusky and she is pretty and not the least bit burly.’

‘Maybe not but you couldn’t describe her as delicate either and she is a farmer’s daughter.’

‘What about love?’

‘You’re such a child yet,’ Norah said disparagingly. ‘What does Mammy say? “Love flies out of the window when the bills come in the door.” Tom will do his duty, as you probably will too in time.’

‘Me?’ Celia’s voice came out in a shriek of surprise.

‘Ssh,’ Norah cautioned. ‘Look, Celia, it’s best you know for this is how it is. If I stayed here and threw Joseph over, apart from the fact my name would be mud, Daddy might feel it in my best interests to get me hooked up with someone else and of his choosing. This might well happen to you and it isn’t always in our best interests either, but it’s done to increase the land he has or something of that nature. And it will be no good claiming you don’t love the man they’re chaining you to for life, because that won’t matter at all.’

‘What about Mammy?’ Celia cried, her voice rising high in indignation. ‘Surely she wouldn’t agree to my marrying a man I didn’t love?’

Norah shrugged. ‘Possibly the same thing happened to her and it’s more than likely she sees no harm in it.’

‘Well I see plenty of harm in it,’ Celia said. ‘You said something like this before, but this has decided me. I shall not marry unless for love and no one can make me marry someone I don’t want.’

‘Daddy might make your life difficult.’

Celia shrugged. ‘I can cope with that if I have to.’

‘Well to find someone to take your fancy,’ Norah said, ‘you need to go out and have a look at what is on offer, for I doubt hosts of boys and young men will be beating a path to our door. And so I think we should put it to Mammy and Daddy that we start going out more and the dance this Saturday is as good a way to start as any. You just make sure you don’t lose your heart to a hireling man.’

Celia expected some opposition to her and Norah going to the dance that Saturday evening when Norah broached it at the dinner table the following day, but there wasn’t much. Peggy in fact was all for it.

‘Isn’t Celia a mite young for that sort of carry-on?’ Dan muttered.

Celia suppressed a sigh as her mother said, ‘She is young, I grant you, but Tom will be there and he can take them down and bring them back and be on hand to disperse any undesirable man who might be making a nuisance of himself.’

‘And I will be there to see no harm befalls Celia,’ Norah said. ‘It isn’t as if I’m new to the dances – I used to go along with Maggie.’

Peggy sighed. ‘Ah yes, you did indeed, child,’ she said, a mite sadly. She had no desire to prevent them from going dancing, particularly Norah, for if she wasn’t going to marry Joseph maybe she should see if another Donegal man might catch her heart and then she might put the whole idea of America out of her head.

And so with permission given, the girls excitedly got ready for the dance on Saturday. They had no dance dresses as such but they had prettier dresses they kept for Mass. They were almost matching for each had a black bodice and full sleeves. Celia’s velvet skirt was dark red, Norah’s was midnight blue. Celia had loved her dress when Mammy had given it to her newly made by the talented dress maker and now she spun around in front of the mirror in an agony of excitement at going to her first dance.

‘Aren’t they pretty dresses?’ Celia cried.

‘They are pretty enough I grant you,’ Norah said. ‘It’s just that they are so long.’