MARY OPENED HER EYES AS THE MORNING SUN CREPT INTO THE GLOOMY room. John lay asleep beside her and the children slept too. Tim’s arm was flung across his head, while Jude snored lightly. Annie was curled up like a kitten beside Nora and Sarah. They were all tired and dirty, still wearing their soiled clothes from the long voyage.
She felt strangely weary as she stared at the damp-stained walls and grimy woodwork, the mouldy rug and mattresses. She tried not to give in to the disappointment she felt that after such an arduous journey they should end up in such a place, so different from their neat, tidy cottage and green fields. She was tempted to go back to sleep but there was much work to be done if they were to get used to New York and its ways.
She got up and went outside to the empty yard. She was delighted to see a large tin wash basin and that some obliging tenant had left a bar of carbolic soap beneath it. Quickly, Mary slipped back inside and lifted dresses, shirts, britches and jackets from the bodies of her sleeping family for washing and airing. Being poor was no shame, but being dirty was. She would not have her family sneered at or insulted!
She hung the laundered clothes to dry on the rope line that was strung across the narrow yard.
‘Where is my shirt?’ demanded John when he woke up.
‘Mammy, my dress is gone!’
‘They are washed and will be dry soon,’ she assured them.
Despite the howls of protest, she washed herself and the children in the yard, scrubbing at their skin until it was pink, then combed through their wet hair to get rid of the lice and nits that had plagued everyone on board the Lady Jane. Finally satisfied that everyone looked decent and clean, she shared the remainder of the black rye bread and milk between them.
A few hours later, John set off in search of work.
‘I hope you find something,’ Mary said, kissing him lightly as she saw him on his way.
‘Even though Pat put in a good word for me, they say they already have enough men employed at his place,’ he sighed in disappointment, but he persisted in walking the district.
He enquired at the livery yards, abattoirs, and even the docks. He was glad to find work eventually at the nearby fish market, cleaning up and sweeping out the place.
‘At least it’s work, John,’ she encouraged him when he told her the news.
The pay was low but Pat insisted on giving them a small loan to tide them over.
‘You can give it all back to me when you get a better job,’ he reassured his brother.
Mary purchased a bucket and a scrubbing brush, some baking soda and vinegar, and set to cleaning their place from top to bottom. Lord knows how long it had been since anyone had lifted a finger to clean it! She aired the mattresses and beat the rug. She washed away the grime and polished the glass in the small window.
‘This place looks much better. If you keep this up, Mrs Beatty will want more rent,’ John teased when he came back from work one day.
As she combed the markets and provision stores, she thought of the hunger back home. She could not escape a profound sense of guilt at the abundance of fresh meat and fish, butter, cheese and eggs, potatoes by the sackload, and vegetables, breads, cakes and spices available to buy. She longed to be able to cook a proper meal for her family, spend time preparing and making something John and the children would want to eat that would not sicken them or barely fill their stomachs.
However, Mrs Beatty refused to let her use the kitchen. Instead, they had to make do with cooking on a small fire they lit on an iron grate placed against the stone wall. Mary made the best of it, though. With her pot and a new pan and some cheap vegetables, a little lard, some offcuts of meat and a half-sack of flour and oats she had bought, she began to make more nourishing meals that little Annie and the children would eat.
The children played in the street with the other youngsters who lived in the neighbourhood. It wasn’t long before they lost their pasty, gaunt look and began to regain their strength.
Mary found out about schooling from a neighbour. Jude, who had just turned thirteen, was considered too old but the rest of the children were enrolled at the old school building a few streets away. Tim was declared an excellent student, and Nora and Sarah, to her surprise, both took well to reading and began to learn all about the history and geography of this new country of theirs.
‘They can teach us,’ Mary said proudly.
Mary found those first days and weeks in New York a terrible trial. Although Pat was there to guide them as best he could, they remained outsiders, unused to city life. The crowded tenements, noise and pungent smells were overwhelming, for she missed home – the quiet of the fields and the fresh breeze blowing across their land.
Though their lodgings were now clean, the room remained damp and cold, and Catherine Ryan, who had been so kind to them on their arrival, was most helpful to her, warning her that soon the winter would come.
‘Mary, I tell you, there is nothing as cold as New York in the winter. We’ll soon be covered in snow and ice. ’Tis nothing like home and you’d best be prepared for it!’
‘I need to get some material to make us warmer clothes,’ she told John urgently.
She’d discovered a haberdashery that sold cheap offcut remnants of the exact material she wanted. With some money John had set aside, she bought what she needed and cut, sewed and made new warm dresses, shirts and coats for them all, to see them through the long winter days ahead.