Danny Boy

Chrissie had watched Rosie finish the last rosebud on the neck of the cambric gown, and snip off the thread and said, ‘Aye, it’s a fine nightdress right enough. And now, with all the work you’ve done on it, don’t you let Danny tear it from your back. Tell him to go slow.’

‘Chrissie!’

Chrissie paled instantly. She’d not heard her mother come into the room and now she watched her approach with dread. The first slap snapped her neck back, but the second on the other cheek with the back of the hand, scored a line down Chrissie’s cheek from Minnie’s rings. ‘We’ll have no more of that sort of dirty talk. You can just be thankful your father is out.’

Chrissie’s face with the scarlet handprint on one cheek and the other oozing blood from the deep graze had wiped the smiles from Rosie and Geraldine’s faces. Rosie wondered if she should say something – intervene, but in the past when she had tried that, it had only made things worse.

She wouldn’t risk it and waited till her mother left the room again before reaching for Chrissie’s hand. ‘I don’t care,’ Chrissie said defiantly as tears she wouldn’t let fall, glistened in her eyes. ‘I hate her! She’s a cow.’

‘Hush, oh hush,’ Rosie said putting her arms around her distraught sister. ‘Never say things like that, Chrissie. Think them if you must, but never say them. Mammy would kill you if she heard. But I’ll tell you what,’ she added, hoping to turn the subject from their mother, ‘Danny can remove the nightdress in any way he chooses and if he’s too slow, I’ll help him, so I will.’

Chrissie’s smile was tremulous, but it was at least a smile and both Rosie and Geraldine were glad to see it. Rosie gave her sister another hug and returned to her seat before her mother should come in

Connie had offered Rosie the loan of her wedding dress, to save the young couple money and when Rosie had seen it, shimmering satin with an overdress of lace and a large train, she felt her eyes fill with tears at her generosity. A neighbour woman ran up dresses of white satin for Rosie and Danny’s sisters on her treadle sewing machine and they were decorated by Sarah and Elizabeth with beads and little pink and blue rosebuds.

Then, Minnie announced she was going to Dublin to buy clothes for Seamus and Dermot. ‘The trousers on the suit your father wears for Mass have worn thin. They’re always shining on the knees and don’t hold the crease for five minutes and the jacket is downright shabby.’

Rosie knew she was right, but she worried at the expense of it, what with them already paying out for the reception although it was being held at Danny’s house as it was bigger ‘Oh Mammy, Daddy will be fine in what he has,’ she protested. ‘Don’t be spending money like this.’

‘Och, sure aren’t you the first to be married?’ Minnie said and a rare smile touched her lips for a moment. ‘We’ll do the job properly or not at all.’

‘But Dermot, Mammy. He’s just a wee boy. What does he need?’

‘I want him in a sailor suit,’ Minnie said. ‘In the paper it said they were the talk of the place in England. Won’t he look a little dote in one. Of course you’d get nothing like that in this town, but I’m sure to find something in the fine shops in Dublin.’

Rosie knew then why her mother was making the trip. It wasn’t for her father’s suit at all. The material could have been bought at the drapers’ in the town and run up by a seamstress the way it was always done, but, Dermot had to be dressed as a wee sailor on her wedding day. She said nothing, she had no wish to argue with her mother now and anyway there was little point. Her mother was blind and deaf to reason where the child was concerned.

Dermot didn’t care whether he had a sailor suit or not. He didn’t even want to go and see his Rosie marry a man who would be taking her away and he said so forcibly and shed so many and such bitter tears that Rosie felt immensely sorry for him. So little had been denied Dermot in his young life that he thought he just had to say that he didn’t want Rosie to go and she wouldn’t. It was a shock for him to realise that Rosie was going ahead with her plans, regardless of what he thought. ‘Don’t you love me any more? he asked plaintively.

‘Dermot, Of course I love you. I’ll always love you.’

‘Not as much as you love Danny Walsh.’

‘I love you differently,’ Rosie corrected. ‘It’s all part of growing up, getting married and leaving home. Nearly everyone does in the end and I’ll not be far away. You can come and visit as often as you are let.’

Dermot scrubbed at his wet cheeks with the sleeve of his jersey. ‘It won’t be the same.’

Rosie, moved by the sadness in Dermot’s face bent down and put her arms about him. ‘I know it won’t and I can’t do anything to make that better, but I want you to remember something always.’

‘What?’

‘That you are very, very special to me. My own wee brother and wherever I am you will always hold part of my heart.’

Dermot was only slightly mollified by Rosie’s words, but he did at least begin to see that whatever he did or said, would change nothing and the days rolled by one into another.

The day before the wedding, Rosie felt herself looking around her home, seeing her room, her sisters, her parents and little distressed Dermot in a new light, knowing soon she was leaving them behind her. She loved Danny and oh without a doubt she longed to be with him, longed to be his wife, longed for fulfilment and to be loved with intensity, but it was a big step nonetheless, whereas for Danny, little was changing. He’d have a wife certainly, but he would still be living at his own house and with his family still around him. It wouldn’t be the same wrench for him at all.

It wasn’t that Rosie disliked Danny’s parents or siblings and they’d gone out of their way to make her welcome in their home. It was just that she was nervous of leaving. Her home had never been a bed of roses and since Dermot’s birth, it had been liberally strewn with thorns, but it had been familiar and she knew she would miss her sisters greatly.

Minnie didn’t help her daughter’s unease at all, when she spoke to her the night before the wedding. She chose to talk to her after her sisters and Dermot had made their way to bed and Seamus was doing one last round of the farm before turning in. ‘There are things about marriage that women don’t talk about,’ she began.

There had been no lead up to the conversation. Rosie had stared at her mother slightly appalled and a little embarrassed. It was too late for this type of discussion.

Evidently, Minnie didn’t realise this, for she went on. ‘You must let your man do as he pleases once you are married. It’s what you’ll promise to do before the priest and congregation tomorrow. You don’t have to enjoy what he does, most women don’t, but you must endure it. He may hurt you at first, this fine husband of yours, but even if he does, you must let him have his way, for this is what marriage is all about.’

It seemed an eternity that Rosie sat before the dying fire that night after her mother’s words, looking into the turf settled into the grate with a hiss and lick of orange flame, while the wind gusted around the cottage, trepidation and fear of what was before her, driving away tiredness. And then, her father came in, the door torn from his grasp by the wind, so it slammed against the wall with a crash. He brought in with him the cold of the autumn night and Rosie, unable to sit any longer and make inane conversation, after the declaration her mother had made, took herself off to bed.

TWO (#ulink_11e279a0-025d-5df0-9c6b-458f17163dac)

The next day, Rosie awakened to a silent house. The morning was a dark one but the clock said it was half past seven and she knew her father would have been up a few hours or more, milking the cows. Guiltily, she pulled herself away from the warmth of her sisters curled up together, and began to dress.

Her mother turned from the fire before which she was sitting as Rosie came in. ‘That was good timing,’ she said. ‘I was just about to call you.’ The plate she laid before Rosie almost took her breath away – there were rashers, an egg, fried tomatoes, potato cakes, white pudding and fried bread.

Rosie couldn’t remember the last time her mother had cooked her breakfast, never mind a feast like this. ‘Mammy, this is marvellous.’

‘All brides should have a good breakfast on their wedding day,’ Minnie said. ‘Sets you up for the day and Lord knows when you’ll ever have one so good again.’

‘It’s like giving a condemned man one last request, the way you put it,’ Rosie complained, but with a smile. However, when her eyes met those of her mother’s and she saw her tight-lipped, an icy thread of apprehension trailed down her spine.

It vanished at the church when she saw Danny waiting for her at the altar beside Shay Ferguson, his best man. She walked slowly down the familiar church on her father’s arm, her four bridesmaids coming behind, when really she wanted to fly into the arms of her beloved.

The church was full of neighbours and friends of the young couple and Rosie heard feet shuffling in the pews and a few coughs or sniffs as women sat dabbing at their eyes with handkerchiefs. She wanted to say, ‘Don’t cry, I’m happy, I’ve never been so happy.’

But, of course, she said nothing. She reached the altar at last and gave her bouquet to Chrissie, slipping her arm from her father’s to stand beside Danny. He turned to look at her, and she felt her heart nearly stop and gave a short gasp at how handsome he looked. As for Danny, he thought he’d never seen a girl so beautiful. He knew in Rosie he’d met his soul mate who he would love till the end of his days, and at that moment vowed never to do anything that would hurt her.

Rosie came out of the church later, blinking in the rays of the October sun, on the arm of her husband and as she smiled at the crowds milling around them cheering the young couple Rosie felt warmed by their good wishes.

The wedding breakfast was laid out in the farmhouse. Trestle tables with benches had been borrowed from the church hall to seat people. Rosie sat at the end table with Danny, their parents either side of them, and looked at the spread put on and knew Connie and her daughters must have worked for days and days to provide for so many. Though her parents had paid for the food, Rosie knew her mother had not done a hand’s turn to prepare it.

The two-tier wedding cake had been a present from the baker in the village. ‘You keep the top tier for the christening,’ he’d said, with a nudge to Rosie’s ribs and then laughed uproariously as her face flamed with embarrassment.

It was fortunate that the day was dry and warm enough for the dancing to take place outside, and this gave Connie and her daughters time and space to clear away the dirty things. Rosie’s offer to help was waved away. ‘Not on your wedding day, bonny girl,’ Connie said. ‘Away and dance with your man.’

And Rosie did dance with him. She was seldom off her feet as the accordion, fiddle and banjo played the familiar reels and jigs and polkas while the bodhran beat out the steady rhythm.

It was a wondrous, tremendous day, and when the revellers eventually made their way home – and not all of them terribly steady, either – Danny and Rosie stayed outside while the velvety darkness closed about them. Danny had his arm around Rosie and she leaned against him in absolute contentment.

‘Are you happy, Mrs Walsh?’ Danny asked her.

‘Deliriously so, Mr Walsh,’ Rosie replied with a smile.

‘Shall we go in?’

Rosie, remembering her mother’s words, couldn’t stop the slight shiver that ran through her. Danny guessed immediately what she was nervous of. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he told her. ‘Not of me. I’ll not hurt you. Trust me.’

And she did trust him, of course she did, this was Danny, her Danny, who she’d lay down her life for. ‘I do trust you, Danny,’ she said. ‘It was the night air causing me to feel chilly, that’s all. Let’s go in.’

Danny knew it was no night air but he kissed Rosie on the cheek, took her arm and led her indoors, where he found everyone had prudently taken themselves to bed.