Child on the Doorstep

Connie smiled because Sarah’s mother was a great one for her sayings.

‘And she is oldish, isn’t she?’ Sarah put in.

Connie nodded. ‘Sixty-five.’

‘Well, that’s a good age.’

‘I know, but that doesn’t help,’ Connie lamented. ‘She has been here all my life and very near all Mammy’s life too. The pair of us will be lost without her.’

‘You’ll have to help one another.’

‘Mmm,’ she said, knowing Sarah probably didn’t understand the closeness between her and her granny because both her grandparents had died when she was just young. It wasn’t just closeness either; she could tell her grandmother anything, more than she could share with her mother. She loved the special times they shared when her mother worked in the evening in the pub. Her granny liked nothing better than to talk about days gone by, which Connie sometimes called ‘the olden days’ to tease Mary, and Connie loved to hear about how life was years ago. It was the only way she got to know anything, for her mother seemed to have no interest in how things had been.

‘What’s past is past, Connie, and there is no point in raking it all up again,’ Angela had said.

That was all very well, but now she was thirteen Connie wanted to know how it came about that Mary had brought her mother up from when she was a toddler. That bit of information she had gleaned. She knew her mother’s mammy had died in Ireland, but didn’t know when, or anything else really.

Mary knew why Angela didn’t want to talk or even think about the past and the dreadful decision she had been forced to make. Connie didn’t know that, however, and Mary thought she had a point when she said, ‘Mammy thinks that what has passed isn’t important because she has lived it and doesn’t want to remember, but I haven’t and I want to know.’

Mary thought that only natural. The child didn’t need to know everything, but it was understandable that she wanted to know where she came from.

‘I’ll tell you, when we have some quiet time together, just you and I,’ Mary promised and she did, the following day, which was a Friday night. With Angela off to work and the dishes washed, Connie sat in front of the fire opposite her granny with her bedtime mug of cocoa and learned about the disease that killed every member of her mother’s family. Angela had survived only because she had been taken to Mary McClusky before the disease had really taken hold.

‘Your dear grandmother was distracted,’ Mary said. ‘She didn’t want to leave Angela, but the first child with TB had contracted it at the school and your namesake, Connie, knew she had little chance of protecting the other children from it because they were all at school too. But Angela had a chance if she was sent away.’

‘Did she know they were all going to die?’

‘No, of course she didn’t know, but she knew TB was a killer, still is a killer, we all knew. Angela’s family, who were called Kennedy, were not the first family wiped out with the same thing.’

‘And only my mammy survived,’ Connie mused. ‘Did you mind looking after her?’

‘Lord bless you, love, of course I didn’t,’ Mary said. ‘I would take in any child in similar circumstances, but Angela was the daughter of my dear friend and, as your grandfather, Matt, often said to me, the boot could have been on the other foot, for our children were at the same school. To tell you the truth, I was proper cut up about the death of your other grandparents and their wee weans, but looking after your mammy meant I had to take a grip on myself. I knew that by looking after Angela the best way I could I was doing what my friend would want and it was the only thing I could do to help her. It helped me cope, because I was low after Maeve’s death. She was followed by her husband who was too downhearted to fight the disease that he had seen take his wife and family one by one.’

‘What part of Ireland was this?’

‘It was Donegal,’ Mary said. ‘We came to England in 1900 when your mother was four. It wasn’t really a choice because the farm had failed, the animals died and the crops took a blight, and with one thing and another we had to leave the farm.’

‘So you came here?’

‘Not just like that we didn’t,’ Mary said. ‘We first had to sell the farm to get the money to come. Once here, we had nowhere to live, but luckily for us, our old neighbours in Ireland, the Dohertys, had come to England years before. You know Norah and Mick Doherty?’

‘Yes, they live in Grant Street.’

‘Well, they put us up till we could find this place,’ Mary said. ‘It was kind of them because it was a squash for all of us. In fact, there was so little space my four eldest had to sleep next door.’

‘Next door?’

‘Well, two doors down with a lovely man called Stan Bishop and his wife Kate who had an empty attic and the boys slept there.’

Connie wrinkled her nose and said, ‘I don’t know anyone called Bishop.’

‘No one there of that name,’ Mary said a little sadly. ‘Stan’s wife died and then he enlisted in the army and was killed like your daddy and many more besides,’ Mary finished, deciding that Connie had no need to know about the existence of Stan’s son. It would only complicate matters.

But though Connie hadn’t recognised the name, she knew about the woman who had died after her baby was born, because though she’d only been a child, she had overheard adults talking of how sad it was. There had never been any sign of a baby and so she had presumed the baby had died too.

‘You haven’t got four elder sons any more, have you, Granny?’ Connie said. ‘Mammy said two died but wouldn’t say how. She said how they died wasn’t important.’

Mary sighed. ‘I suppose she’s right in a way,’ she said. ‘Knowing all the ins and outs of it will not make any difference to the fact that they are dead and gone. They died trying to join their brothers in New York, but they travelled on the Titanic.’

Connie gave a gasp and Mary said, ‘Do you know about the Titanic?’

Connie nodded. ‘We were told about it at school. They said it was the biggest ship ever and it was her maiden voyage and she sank and many people died.’

‘Including my two sons, but there were whole families, men, women and children, even wee babies, lost.’

‘I know,’ Connie said. ‘It must have been really awful to have to deal with that.’

‘I didn’t think I would ever recover,’ Mary admitted. ‘And your granddad was never the same after. Officially he died from a tumour in his stomach, but I know he really died from heartache. It wasn’t just that the boys died, though that was hard enough to bear. It was the way they died too, for they would have suffered, they would have frozen to death. It said in the paper most steerage passengers – that’s what they call the poorest travellers down in the bowels of the ship – didn’t even reach the deck before the ship sank and, even if they had, there were not enough lifeboats for the numbers on the ship.’

‘I know,’ Connie said. ‘The teacher told us that. I thought it was stupid to build a ship with too few lifeboats for all the passengers.’

‘And so did I, Connie,’ Mary said. ‘And now that’s one mystery cleared up for you and it’s time for bed. You finished that cocoa ages ago.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Yes but nothing and don’t forget your prayers.’

‘Granny, there’s loads more I want to know.’

‘Maybe but that’s all you’re getting tonight,’ Mary said. ‘I’ll tell you some more tomorrow night.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise,’ Mary agreed and then, as Connie opened the door to the stairs, she said, ‘And Connie, while the things I have told you and may tell you yet are not exactly secrets, if your mother wants to keep the past hidden she’ll not want all and sundry talking about it.’

‘All right. I can tell Sarah though, can’t I?’

And as Mary hesitated, Connie pleaded, ‘Please, Granny, she’s my best friend and she’ll not tell another soul if I tell her not to.’

Mary remembered Angela and her best friend, Maggie, the pair of them thick as thieves and always sharing and swapping secrets. Connie and Sarah were the same and so she relented and said, ‘All right, but just Sarah, mind.’

‘I only go round with Sarah,’ Connie said. ‘I wouldn’t share things with anyone else.’

Mary knew she wouldn’t. Some children growing up had a wide circle of friends, but with Angela and now Connie they had just one best friend.

Connie told Sarah the following afternoon after first extracting a promise that she wouldn’t tell anyone else.

‘It’s like a story, isn’t it?’ she said to Connie.