Creagh
AS MARY COOKED THE YELLOW MEAL IN THE POT, SHE TASTED A LITTLE of it on the wooden spoon. No matter how hard she tried to soak and grind and cook it, it had a terrible consistency. Nora and Tim both complained that it made them sick. After eating it a few days ago, they had doubled up from sharp pains in their stomachs, but she had cajoled them into eating more of it to give them some nourishment.
On the way from the dressmaker’s earlier that day, she had called to see her sister, who had given her a narrow strip of dried-out fatty bacon.
‘Use it to feed you and John and the children,’ Kathleen had urged. Mary suspected that her sister or her husband, Joe, may have stolen it, but in these desperate times the poor had no other option but to look after their own.
Mary sliced the meat thinly. She would scrape a tiny bit on top of each plate in the hope that it would give the yellow meal some taste as well as a little extra sustenance. Most of it she would give to John, for her husband was fading before her eyes. His muscles were gone, and his arms were long and thin, like those of a boy. To see him lose his strength was enough to make her cry.
Poor old Patch watched her from the door. The collie was a changed animal, for there were no more scraps from the table and she hadn’t seen him catch a rabbit in months. God knows what the wretched creature was living on, for they had nothing to give him.
The dog sidled up to her and Mary rubbed his black-and-white coat gently. His fur had begun to fall out, and she could feel his ribs. He was a good dog, who used to love to chase and roll around in the grass, but since the hunger had come all the playfulness had gone from him.
‘You poor old thing, you are suffering like us all,’ she soothed. The dog rolled over at the kindness of her words to have his scrawny belly rubbed.
‘Aww,’ she sighed, bending down to tickle him like he was a child.
She called the children and John to come and sit by the turf fire as she spooned out the yellow meal.
‘I’ll not take it,’ protested Tim.
‘You’ll eat it or you’ll feel the strap,’ interjected John. ‘None of us likes it, but there is nothing else and it will keep the hunger off us.’
‘There is a scrapeen of some nice salt bacon that your auntie gave me. It will make it taste a bit better,’ she promised them.
Tim looked dubious, his bottom lip stuck out as if he was going to cry. Lifting the bacon off her own helping, she passed the grey-looking strip towards her son’s bowl. Though she was hungry, the fatty meat turned her stomach.
As Tim reached to put it into his mouth, Patch sprang up and flung himself at the boy. He grabbed the bacon, growling and biting, as he dragged it literally from the child’s mouth.
‘No! No!’ Mary shrieked as Con, Annie and Nora all began to cry and scream.
Terrified, young Tim dropped his food as he tried to push the snarling dog from him.
John caught Patch with a kick but the dog kept going, crazed with hunger, gobbling at the meal and bacon that was spilt on Tim’s clothes and lap. He bared his teeth at John as his master tried to pull him away.
John kicked Patch again, catching the animal’s scrawny body. Despite the dog’s biting and snapping, John somehow managed to get him to the other side of the room, where Patch hunched, a deep low growling coming from him. Mary grabbed the willow switch brush and forced the collie out the door.
Tim was as white as a ghost. He was bleeding from the corner of his mouth and there was a gash on his lower lip. His right hand bore the imprint of the dog’s teeth.
‘Why did Patch do that?’ sobbed Nora. ‘He loves Tim.’
‘He’s hungry, pet,’ Mary explained sadly. ‘And when dogs are hungry, they get fierce and dangerous and forget that you love them.’
She lifted Tim on to her lap and told John to get some water. She began to wash her son’s lip, face and hands. He was shaking, terrified that the dog would come back and attack him again.
‘Dada and I won’t let him near you,’ she promised. ‘He’s not coming back in here ever again.’
John disappeared outside.
The children were quiet as they finished the meal. Con was still upset and asked her if he could go outside to see Patch.
‘You are all staying here with me till your father returns.’
‘We love Patch,’ said Nora softly. ‘It’s not his fault that he’s hungry like the rest of us.’
An hour later, John returned. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes red-rimmed. She could tell he was deeply saddened by what he had had to do, but he’d had no choice.
‘Where’s Patch?’ demanded Con. ‘What did you do to him?’
‘I put the poor creature out of his misery,’ he explained haltingly as the children stared wide-eyed at him. ‘It was the kindest thing to do.’
‘You had no right to do that!’ protested Con, upset. ‘Patch is our dog and we care for him.’
‘We all cared for him,’ John explained gently. ‘He was a fine dog, but what would you have me do? Let him attack Nora or Annie like he attacked Tim? We have little enough to eat and there is not a scrap to give the dog when we are hungry ourselves. Would you have us watch Patch starve to death?’
‘No,’ said Tim. ‘Dada is right. I wouldn’t want Patch here with us, biting and attacking me again.’
‘But I’ll miss him.’ Nora began to cry, sobbing loudly.
Mary tried to steel herself as she looked at the tear-stained faces of her children. Truth to tell, she felt like crying herself, for the dog was part of their lives.
Later, as she lay beside John while the children slept, he told her about Patch.
‘The poor dog was terrified. He knew that he had overstepped himself and that we could never trust him again. He was licking my hands the way he always does and looking at me with those big eyes of his as if to say sorry. I kept thinking of when he was a puppy.’
‘He was always a good dog,’ she agreed sadly.
‘I took him over near the trees and sat down with him. I got him with two quick blows to the head. I buried him there—’ His voice broke as he told her. ‘I was always fond of that collie.’
‘I know,’ Mary soothed, ‘but it had to be done.’
‘The children are fierce upset, but when things are better next year we’ll get them a new pup.’
‘John Sullivan, you are the kindest-hearted man I know,’ she said, kissing him and pulling him into the warm comfort of her arms.