Young Thomas McGrother sat on the floor near the fire, sulking. He was in no form to play outside with his siblings and their friends. Mary noticed how pensive he had become and left Maggie to settle the latest arrival to the family.
“What ails you, son? You’ve been sourly all week, you should be out in the fresh spring air with your sisters,” said Mary.
“Why do you keep having girls, don’t you and Daddy like boys anymore?” Thomas immediately regretted speaking out, afraid of what the answer might be.
Mary tried not to laugh. Her son was clearly not impressed by the arrival of his little sister, Brigid, and she felt relief at the reason he gave for his sullenness. The fact that she and her husband had been through bouts of depression, made her worry that they might have passed something on to their children. Mary knew of families where that had been the case.
“Ahh, son. Is that all that’s wrong with you? We have to accept what God gives us, it’s he who decides whether we have a boy or a girl. The fact that he sent us another girl must mean that he thinks you’re a great fella altogether, helping your father look after a house full of women.”
Thomas’s face brightened a little, “I would have liked a brother, Mammy. Could you ask God to send us one next time?”
Mary assured him that she would pray hard for his wish to be fulfilled.
“Go on now, off with you. There’s talk of a bad storm coming and we could be shut up in the house tomorrow, so make the most of a dry day.”
Maggie smiled at the conversation she had just overheard. The baby was asleep and it wouldn’t be long before the men returned from work.
James was known for building a good wall, he had learned a lot from helping Mary’s father, a stonemason, when they lived in Monaghan. Whenever he was asked to repair some old walls, even though the pay was only for one man’s work, James would ask his uncle to help him with the job.
Ever since Annie had passed away, Pat had seemed lost and James would often find him looking into the distance. He seemed to be searching for something but when questioned, Pat would blink and shake his head and the faraway look in his eyes would be gone. It was as they were returning home, having spent the day working at one of the big estate houses, that James decided to broach the subject of his uncle’s absentmindedness.
“Have you been listening to a word I’ve said, or are you off daydreaming again?” asked James.
“Watch your tongue and show a bit of respect. Daydreaming’s for women. Did you ever think that I might just want a bit of peace and quiet now and again? It’s easier for me to turn a deaf ear than to try and get you to close that gob of yours.”
It wasn’t the words his uncle spoke that stopped James in his tracks, but the tone of his voice. As he stood watching Pat stride ahead of him, he began to think he had imagined the harshness and irritation that had come out of the normally kind and soft spoken man. A chilling breeze came from nowhere and whipped around the young fisherman. James ran to catch up with his uncle, who had continued walking at a fast pace, not once looking back at him.
“The wind is starting to bite, Pat, would you not put your jacket on?”
“You’re getting soft in your old age, son. You need to spend more time out on that boat of yours and toughen up a bit,” replied Pat in a much friendlier voice.
The older man adjusted his rolled up jacket, wedged securely under his armpit. James pulled his own tightly around him to keep out the cold draught that was forcing its way under his loosely fitting clothes. Noting the extra space inside his jacket, James realized he had lost a fair bit of weight over the winter. He was a man of slim build and couldn’t afford to drop too many pounds without appearing gaunt. In a line up for work, only the strongest and healthiest looking men were chosen and James had spent the winter at home instead of taking up the work his brothers had found him in England. He needed to take whatever labour he could get locally. Unfortunately, this meant that he sometimes missed going out on his boat when the fishing was good. His crew would take it into the bay without him and although he got a small share of the catch, it usually wasn’t enough to sell.
Money was scarce with an extra mouth to feed and James had caught Maggie putting food from her plate onto his wife’s when she wasn’t looking. When he confronted his sister about it she told him Mary needed it more, with a baby at the breast. “Besides, it doesn’t do for a middle aged widow to carry too much weight on her. Some handsome prospect might be put off asking for my hand if I’m not careful,” Maggie had joked.
By the time Pat and James had reached the cottage the wind was blowing a gale. The women had brought the hens in early and locked them into their coop, under the large wooden dresser that Pat had made for Annie many years before. As he passed it by, he ran his fingers over one of the smooth wooden bowls that had been his wife’s pride and joy. A flash of anger surged through Pat at the thought of Annie being forced to sell two of them, but in an instant the feeling was gone and the increased pitch of the wind outside caught his attention.
“There’ll be no fishing for a while, James, that storm is settling in, mark my words.”
“I think you’re right Uncle Pat, it was good that we got that last bit of work.”
As the family sat around the table, talking to each other above the howling gale, they had no way of knowing just how prophetic Pat’s words had been.