1931 Dublin
Caitlin couldn’t wait for Christmas, as she kept saying every time there was an opportunity, and now she and Cracky were wandering along the pavement under the hissing gas-lamps, planning how they would spend the holiday. Cracky intended to spend it with her, he had just said so, but Caitlin didn’t think he ought to be allowed to cherish false hopes. ‘It’ll be all right until me daddy comes home, and me brother Colm, Cracky. Only once they’re back in Dublin you won’t be seeing much of me, Cracky,’ she said half apologetically. ‘They’ll mebbe want to do dull things now and then see; and if so, I’ll sneak out an’ come round to your place, an’ we’ll go off together.’
‘I don’t see why I can’t come round to Cloddagh Court an’ be wit’ you, Cait,’ Cracky said. ‘It ain’t as though me mammy ‘ud mind. She’d be tickled to get shot o’ me for an hour or two, so she would.’
‘Ye-es, but I don’t know whether Daddy an’ Colm would want you hangin’ around,’ Caitlin said with unconscious cruelty. ‘It’s their own home an’ their own family they’ll be after wantin’, after so long away.’
‘They won’t mind me,’ Cracky insisted. They were running along Grafton Street, jumping the paving cracks, and his voice came out in short jerks. ‘They’ll want to do old people’s t’ings. They’ll be glad to see the back of ye from time to time I guess.’
‘They will not so!’ Caitlin said immediately, stopping short to glare at Cracky. Unfortunately since he didn’t realise she was going to stop he continued to bound along and so missed one of her most furious and aggressive glares. ‘Cracky! I said they would not want to see the back o’ me, not after so long across the sea, in that old England.’
Cracky stopped and wandered back to her. In the lights from a nearby shop window Caitlin could see he was scowling. ‘Well, if that’s how you feel, I’d better not be runnin’ round after ye now. I’ll see you when they’ve gone back, if I’ve a moment to spare,’ he said gloomily. ‘I was comin’ back to your place to help you wit’ your messages an’ that, but if I’m not wanted once your brother gets back ...’
‘Oh well, mebbe I’m wrong,’ Caitlin said. It was another week and more to the Christmas holidays and Cracky was a great feller for giving a hand and keeping her company. ‘Mebbe youse can be wit’ us, come Christmas.’
Cracky grinned and fell into step beside her. ‘I’ll make meself useful,’ he promised. ‘Besides, your mammy likes me well enough now. Why, didn’t she give me Colm’s old trousers, an’ mend ’em an’ make ‘em smaller to fit? I bet if you axed your mammy she’d say, “Bring Cracky along, for he’s a great little feller, so he is,’” he added complacently. ‘Your mammy likes me to keep you out of mischief whiles she’s workin’, Caitlin O’Neill.’
It had not always been so, but it was true now and Caitlin acknowledged it. Cracky never came round to their place with a dirty face or with mud caked on his bare feet. Indeed, he had even let Caitlin’s mammy cut his hair and give him some old clothes, and because she didn’t mind mending she was always willing to do the odd repair job for Cracky. In return, he kept an eye on Caitlin and if he didn’t always manage to get her out of scrapes, at least he stayed with her, no matter how tempted to fly away and disown his little friend.
For as Cracky had improved, Caitlin had grown more ingenious and naughtier. Not that she meant to be wicked; she started off each new day with a vow that today she would be as good as gold. Only things happened and opportunities occurred . . . but as her mammy said, she didn’t always have to take the opportunies; she could sometimes think first – and not act.
But I’m a reformed person, she reminded herself as she skipped along the pavement. It’s weeks – well, days – since I was last in trouble, because if you want Santa to visit you have to be good near Christmas, and in the New Year I’ll make a real resolve for to be entirely changed and always Mammy’s little helper. She could just imagine herself dressed in a clean pink dress with a snowy pinafore over it and shiny black-button shoes on her feet, gently soothing the sick and making soup for the old street beggars, and was rehearsing what Daddy would say when Mammy told him how wonderfully helpful and grown-up she had become, when she saw, ahead of them, Cracky’s sister, Roisin. Roisin was a real, grown-up lady now, working in the jam factory on Parnell Street, and she had money, too. So Caitlin nudged Cracky and the two of them broke into a sharp trot. Roisin was generous to her smaller brothers and sisters, and she was lively and loved to tell them stories of her friends – and enemies – at work, so it was worth a run to catch her.
‘Roisin!’ Caitlin panted, grabbing her by the arm. ‘Where’s you goin’, eh? You aren’t headin’ for home, that’s for sure.’
Roisin stopped and smiled down at them. ‘I’m goin’ Christmas shoppin’ for a little somethin’ for baby Timmy,’ she said. ‘I t’ought I’d mebbe get a little wooden horse. He’d love a wooden horse, would me laddo.’
‘Can we come?’ Caitlin asked eagerly, all thoughts of going home and having tea temporarily forgotten. ‘We’ll help you choose the best, won’t we, Cracky?’
‘We-ell ...’ Roisin began dubiously. ‘I’d love to take youse both, but your mammy will worry if you’re late, an’ it’s dusk already. Better not, alanna.’
‘Oo-ooh,’ Caitlin moaned. The difficulties of being good. But if she went with Roisin and took her time, Mammy would have made the tea and laid the table, and she might get just a little cross ... or even very cross indeed, since Caitlin’s only job after school was the table-laying and a bit of a hand given towards their tea. ‘Oh, well, if Mammy’s cross I could say I forgot the time ... an’ I do love the big shops, so I do!’
‘Yes, but if your mammy gets cross she’ll mebbe tell your daddy an’ Colm that you’re a bad spalpeen, an’ they won’t take you on outings,’ Cracky put in craftily. He was thinking of his sharing their tea, Caitlin thought, and gave him a light kick on the ankle. It looked like a mistake, but Caitlin was cunning at ’accident on purpose’ kicks, as Cracky well knew.
He swung his own leg and got her right on the kneecap, and she couldn’t even holler, since she’d started it, so instead she said defiantly: ‘Me daddy may tell me off, but Colm won’t. Colm will know I’m good at heart; he was always sayin’ just that when I did somethin’ Mammy thought I shouldn’t.’
‘Oh, but Colm isn’t comin’ home this year,’ Roisin said confidently. ‘Still, alanna, he’ll be back next summer I’ve no doubt. No, you’d better not come shoppin’ wit’ me, I don’t want you to be in trouble at home.’ And before Caitlin could put her right, Roisin had smiled, waved and disappeared in the direction of the big shops on Grafton Street.
Caitlin stood for a moment, whilst a tide of fury washed all over her. Just what did Roisin mean by that? Did she think she knew more about the O’Neills than Caitlin did, by any chance? How dared she say that Colm wasn’t coming home for Christmas, when Caitlin was looking forward to seeing Colm even more than Daddy!
But Cracky, unaware, caught hold of her arm and pulled. ‘Come on, your mammy may want us to run a message,’ he said urgently. ‘An’ it’s hungry I am for me tea! Don’t worry about old Roisin, we can go wit’ her another day . . . she might give us a penny to spend at the week’s end, when she’s paid.’
Caitlin shook him off. She was so angry she didn’t care what Cracky thought, or what he said to Roisin when he got home, either. ‘Your b-bloody old sister’s a wicked l-liar, so she is,’ she stuttered. ‘Of course Colm’s comin’ home wit’ me daddy. Fellers always come home wit’ their re-relatives. Oh, I’d like to t’ump your Roisin on the nose for sayin’ untrut’s about me brother.’
‘Aw, don’t go on,’ Cracky said, giving her shoulder another tug. ‘Your mammy telled you she didn’t know for sure about Colm yet. I ‘spec’ another letter’s come. Your mammy gets a lot of letters, don’t she?’
‘But how could horrible Roisin know before me?’ Caitlin demanded, standing with legs apart and hands on hips, determinedly refusing to let Cracky move her so much as an inch along the pavement. ‘She’s a bad girl, to tell lies to a young wan like meself! I’m ... I’m a holy innocent, you know.’
Cracky gave a rude shout of laughter. ‘Holy innocents wear haloes an’ they don’t have no bodies, just little wings where their necks oughter be,’ he said mockingly. ‘You’re a holy terror, that’s what you are.’
‘An’ you’re as big a liar as your . . . your damned sister!’ Caitlin shrieked. ‘You’re twice as naughty as me! And you can’t come to me home for tea, nor at Christmas, either, so sucks to you.’
Unwarily, Cracky put his hand on her arm, beginning to say penitently that he was sorry, that he’d not known . . .
But to be touched, when she was in a rare temper, was fatal. Caitlin aimed a small clenched fist at Cracky’s nose – and hit her mark. Cracky roared and, forgetting his resolve to take care of his little friend, hit back. In less than two seconds the two of them were fighting in earnest, swapping mighty blows which occasionally even connected. Through a red haze Caitlin thumped, dodged, kicked, scratched . . . and to keep her temper blazing she occasionally let forth a shriek of ‘Frys are liars! All Frys are liars!’, scarcely hearing Cracky’s breathless retort that all O’Neills were soft in the head and wasn’t that a well-known fact now?
Indeed, when the interruption came she was actually sobbing with rage, and her first inclination was to fight on and ignore the voice which was raised in a scandalised shout. But then firm hands seized her and dragged her off her opponent, and a soft voice said in her ear: ‘And what’s all this, then? I come out lookin’ for my little girleen because it’s gettin’ dark an’ I’m worried she might be in trouble, an’ I find her engaged in a street brawl an’ fair raisin’ the roof wit’ her screechings. Why, you sound worse than the banshee herself – an’ you look worse, too, Caitlin Maria O’Neill! What’s the meanin’ of it? And if it isn’t Cracky, your best pal, wit’ blood runnin’ from his poor nose an’ his poor shins kicked into pieces! You should be ashamed, young lady!’
It was her mother, of course. Naturally, when you’re being really specially bad and wicked it’s always the person you most want to impress who sees you. Caitlin gulped, knuckled her eyes – she had been crying hard, what with the knocks and her temper – and looked up into Mrs O’Neill’s stern face. ‘Mammy, tell Cracky me brother’s comin’ home for Christmas, just like you said. Oh tell me he’s wrong, an’ me dearest Colm will be home wit’ me daddy.’
Eileen O’Neill looked down at her small, dirty, tear-streaked daughter and repressed a smile. Poor kid, she was always vowing to be good and gentle, just the sort of little daughter her parents wanted, and she’d had a good long stretch of being good, too – it must be all of ten days, Eileen told herself. But the fact was, they’d spoiled her rotten, she and Colm and dear Sean, when he was home, and now she’d got a temper on her when she was crossed and a wickedly inventive mind, and it was a full-time job looking out for her. Indeed, she valued Cracky’s help and the last thing she wanted was for the two children to fall out. So she didn’t smile, but turned her daughter around to face Cracky. ‘Look what you’ve done to your friend’s nose, you wicked wretch! Well? What do you say to Cracky?’
‘He hit me too, though not nearly as hard,’ Caitlin muttered, chewing her knuckles. ‘But . . . but I did start it.’ She looked across at Cracky and although Eileen could only see the top of her head, she could tell that Caitlin was smiling. ‘It was a good punch that first one,’ she said. ‘I’m real sorry, Cracky. If you’ll come home wit’ the mammy an’ me I’ll make it better wit’ warm water an’ a key down your back. An’ I’ll give you first go at the cake,’ she added generously.
‘Oh . . . well, it’s all right,’ Cracky mumbled. ‘I didn’t know you was goin’ to go mad or I’d ha’ dodged, so I would. An’ I know I shouldn’t hit a girl, Mrs O’Neill,’ he added. ‘But she’d ha’ kilt me stone dead if I’d not fought back. She’s a terror when she’s roused . . . an’ I did laugh at her over somethin’ or other,’ he finished.
‘Right. Well, we’ll go home and clean you both up an’ I’ll start the tea in earnest,’ Eileen said. ‘But before we move a step from here, Caitlin, let us get one t’ing crystal clear. I told you that Colm wouldn’t be here for as long as Daddy, did I not?’
‘Yes, Mammy,’ Caitlin said. She gave a disgusting snort and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. Eileen closed her eyes but said nothing. Kids never carried handkerchiefs and the jumper Caitlin was wearing had been through too much to be ruined by a runny nose. ‘But I t’ought, . . . you never said . . .’
‘I told you he’d not been wit’ the tunnelling long enough to take a proper time off,’ Eileen said remorselessly. ‘He only has the two days. An’ he’s writ home – there’s a letter for you too, alanna – to say it’s not worth the ferry fare to come all the way home one day and leave the next. So it’ll just be your daddy who comes home this time.’
‘Oh. Well, why did you tell Roisin afore meself?’ Caitlin said piteously, more tears starting. ‘I’d never have clacked Cracky only Roisin said ... she said
‘I met Roisin earlier in the day, when I’d just opened the letter,’ Eileen said. ‘I was disappointed meself, there’s no denyin’ it, but I t’ink your brother’s showin’ good sense. The summer’s more fun an’ he’ll have longer then if he stays in England now. So how about tellin’ Cracky that all Frys speak the trut’, now?’
‘Well, Roisin spoke the trut’,’ Caitlin muttered. She cast a black look at Cracky. ‘But when I said I were a holy innocent he said I were a holy terror and that weren’t true, Mammy. I’m pretty good, aren’t I?’
‘Sure an’ you do your best, but I’m bound to confess you’re no holy innocent,’ Eileen said, repressing another smile. ‘Say you’re sorry to your pal now, an’ we’ll get back to our teas.’
But astonishingly, when Caitlin, with rather an ill grace, did apologise to Cracky, and when Eileen repeated her invitation to tea, Cracky turned them down. He refused nicely, with a smile, but nevertheless he said he had better go home, his mammy would probably need him ... he might catch up with Roisin and help her to carry her parcels.
Eileen watched him go uneasily. She realised that she relied upon Cracky more than she had ever acknowledged, even to herself. When Caitlin was with him, Eileen knew that no harm would befall her daughter. Oh, she might – probably would – get into all sorts of scrapes, but she would come home intact, or almost so. Sometimes her knees might be grazed, her cheek scratched, her school jumper unravelled, but she would have been as well guarded, Eileen knew, as she would have guarded the child herself. So the thought of Cracky being suddenly unavailable was a frightening one. When Colm had been here he would be at the flat before Eileen-herself got back from work and he had kept an eye, but with Colm gone and Cracky standing on his dignity, how on earth would she manage? Asking another child to keep an eye on Caitlin would be useless, she knew that. Caitlin could be led but not driven and how many older children would understand that? Cracky wasn’t far out when he had called her daughter a holy terror.
‘Awright, Cracky Fry, go home then, why don’t you?’ Caitlin squeaked. ‘I don’t care – me daddy’s comin’ home an’ we’ll go out, go to the Mayro an’ ... an’ buy presents from all the big shops an’ we’ll go wit’out you, what’s more.’
Eileen slapped across Caitlin’s legs, hard and quick, leaving a red mark, and saw Cracky wince even as Caitlin let out a howl any tom-cat would have envied. ‘Mammy, Mammy, that hurt, so it did! I’ll tell me daddy you’re a wicked woman who smacks good girls,’ Caitlin whimpered. Then she turned on Cracky. ‘It’s all your fault, Cracky Fry! Go on, go away, like you said you would.’
‘Cracky, I’d be honoured if you’d take your tea wit’ us,’ Eileen said desperately. ‘An’ the biggest, best present under the Christmas tree shall be yours. And when we pass the bakery you shall have a sticky bun for puttin’ up wit’ Miss No-Manners here. Now then, what d’you say to that?’ She gave Caitlin a little shake. ‘What’ll you do after school wit’ no Cracky to give an eye to you? For I’d not have you alone in the flat, creatin’ havoc the way you would if there was no Cracky to keep you in check. So what d’you say to your friend now?’
‘I’m really, truly sorry,’ Caitlin gabbled. Eileen was sure her small daughter had suddenly realised what her life would be like without Cracky to mind her. ‘Do come back to tea, Cracky ... I never meant what I said.’
Cracky grinned at them both. ‘Well, I will then,’ he said magnanimously. ‘Lead on, Mrs O’Neill!’
It was a good tea. Thick slices of fatty pork fried until it was frizzled golden brown, a pile of golden potato cakes cooked in the pork fat and a plateful of bread and margarine to fill in the chinks. Then there was tea, and a hefty slice each of tea brack.
‘I’m stuffed tight,’ Caitlin said happily, if in-elegantly, as she drained her teacup. ‘Me an’ Cracky’ll wash up for you, Mammy, ’cos I was too late to lay the table or help. An’ if we do a good job, could you read us Daddy’s letter after?’
Her mother agreed to this and the two children got on with the work, so Eileen settled down in front of the fire with her knitting and began to turn over in her mind how she would manage Christmas, now that she knew for sure Colm would not be coming home. It was a shame that the boy should miss his family holiday but Sean had promised that their landlady, the Mrs Ryder whom both the O’Neills had frequently mentioned in their letters, would make Colm very welcome and see that he had a good time. ‘What’s more there’s other young folk in the house. Two very pretty girls and a young feller not much older than Colm,’ Sean had written in his neat, slanting hand. ‘So I wouldn’t be weeping for your son. Likely he’ll have a better time in the Vale than he would have at home.’
Eileen did not believe for one moment that a Christmas spent in a foreign land could possibly equal one spent by your own fireside, but Sean was just trying to cheer her up very likely. Already she had planned to send some special Irish dainties across to England for her boy – a harsh mother she would think herself if she did not do her best to make his Christmas a good one – and Sean had said Colm would be sure to go to Mass, along with the Ryders, on the day itself.
Presently, their work finished, Caitlin and Cracky clattered away from the sink and came and sat on the rag hearthrug before the blazing fire. They were the best of friends once more, all their former animosity forgotten. Caitlin said, with assurance, that since Colm would not be coming home after all there would surely be room for Cracky, even on Christmas Day, and Eileen agreed that if Mrs Fry could spare him . . .
‘It’ll be one less to feed,’ Cracky said briefly and Eileen, sighing, wished that other families were as happy – and lucky – as her own. Poor Mrs Fry had a dozen kids to feed, a husband out of work more often than he was in it, and a tiny, filthy room in which to cope with them all. Two of the older boys and one of the girls were working, but they had moved out as soon as they got jobs, no doubt anxious to keep some of their own money, and though Mrs Fry had told Eileen that Roisin, Pat and Declan were good kids and the apple of her eye, paying up as they did at the end of each week, Eileen did not blame them for moving out.
‘Mammy? Are ye goin’ to read us Daddy’s letter?’ Caitlin coaxed presently, eyeing the envelope on the mantel above her head. ‘We’ve done a good job; the crocks are all put away, an’ the washin’ bowl rinsed out an’ dried up. An’ you did say . . .’
‘Right, then,’ Eileen agreed, reaching down the letter. ‘And when it’s done I’ll play for you and you can sing a carol, then we’ll walk Cracky some o’ the way home, because a breath of air before you go to sleep is good for you. Ready?’
Once the letter had been read aloud, Eileen handed the small enclosure to her daughter. ‘And this is a line from Colm to yourself, alanna,’ she said. ‘You read it this time, to Cracky an’ meself.’
Caitlin sat up importantly and read the short note aloud.
Dear Caitlin,
Mammy will have told you I’ll not be home this Christmas, but me job’s a good one and I don’t want to lose it. However, I’m buying you a nice gift for to make up for me absence, and Daddy will pop it into his case, so you’ll not go short, alanna.
I wish I could have come just for a few days, but I’ll be back for the summer and we’ll have a grand time then, so we will. Take care of Mammy and be a good girl and who knows, I might send you an Easter gift, too!
With love from your brother
Colm.
‘Well now, a present from your brother,’ Eileen said. ‘Sure an’ aren’t you the lucky one, Caitlin O’Neill? And now let’s sing that carol – which will you choose, Cracky, for ‘tis your turn.’
Cracky chose ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ and Eileen went to the small piano which stood against the wall and played, whilst all three of them sang lustily. On Christmas morning they would all go to Mass, but on Christmas afternoon Eileen would invite some neighbours in and they would have a good old singsong, because the O’Neill piano was the only one in the neighbourhood and was much appreciated. Indeed, in the summer it was not unusual for neighbours to come to the door and ask if they might carry it downstairs to the courtyard, where a celebration of some kind – a wedding, a christening, or a birthday party – was being held. Some of the other women could pick out a tune on it but no one else played it properly, as Eileen could, and she gave Caitlin piano lessons two or three times a week, though she thought privately that her daughter would never master the art. Caitlin had a sweet singing voice, but no patience with the chore of learning to read music, let alone to practise.
Mrs Monahan, who lived in the flat above their own, told Eileen that she should give up her various jobs and play the piano for profit, but Eileen just laughed. She knew she was a very ordinary performer – and was aware, too, that she worked for a definite purpose, though no one knew how close that purpose was drawing except Eileen herself.
For both Sean and Eileen O’Neill were saving up so that, when the opportunity occurred, Sean could come back from across the water and the family could move out to Finglas, to a cottage near the River Tolka. Long ago, when she and Sean had been courting, he had taken her out to Finglas and showed her the cottage in which his father had been born. At present it was inhabited by a very old man and his ancient, almost blind wife, but the day would come when the owner would be looking round for new tenants, Sean had told the pretty young girl he was planning to marry. ‘It’s me dream to move back here one o’ these days,’ he had said wistfully. ‘See what a big garden there is wit’ the cottage? A man handy wit’ a spade could grow enough vegetables for his family an’ more, an’ he could keep a goat for its milk an’ a donkey wit’ a cart behind to drag seaweed from the shore to make the soil rich, an’ the wife could pick the fruit from the trees . . . see there, plums, apples, cherries . . . an’ make jam an’ sell it in the Dublin markets . . . Oh, Eileen, I’d dearly love to live out here.’
Ever since that day, Eileen had saved in private for the means to make this dream come true. The rent for the cottage would be higher than that for their flat, but it wasn’t the worst of it. It was losing Sean’s steady wage – and her own – which worried her and made her put away every penny she could towards that happy day.
Neighbours often wondered aloud why she continued to work so hard when her man brought in good money and now her son, too, was earning. Eileen smiled, but never told them. It was a secret, private dream, between herself and Sean, and she would tell no one, for suppose they never managed it? Suppose they lived out the rest of their lives in Dublin, in the crowded tenements? She would rather folk did not know that they had tried, and failed, to escape.
‘Can we have another carol, Mammy?’ Caitlin pleaded. ‘Just a wee short one, before we walk Cracky home.’
‘No, for it’s late, thanks to you not comin’ in for your tea on time,’ Eileen said, but her smile robbed the words of their sting. ‘Put your warm coat on, alanna, and we’ll set off . . . an’ if there’s a chestnut seller by the market we’ll buy a bag for to keep our hands warm an’ for the lovely country smell of ’em.’
‘And for the taste,’ Cracky said longingly. ‘We should ha’ gone nutting ourselves last mont’, Caity me gorl, then we could ha’ lavished a grosh o’ nuts on your mammy wit’out her payin’ out her farthin’s.’ He went and fetched Eileen’s coat from the hook on the back of the door and courteously helped her into it, then he wound his own long woollen scarf several times round his neck and tucked the end into his trousers. The scarf was his only concession to winter, though later, Eileen reminded herself, she must pick up some more boots for him at one of the markets. They liked the kids to wear boots to school and indeed, Caitlin never went barefoot. With three of them working there was no need; they could afford them. And Mrs Fry never put her nose up when Cracky came home with boots, or a warm jacket, or a scarf. Eileen did not imagine that Cracky told her where the clothing came from, he was too careful for that, because when the two girls had been at school, Cracky’s mammy had been further up the school than Eileen, who was still in the babies class. Now that she had a bit of money to spare, Eileen was happy to spend some of it on a young lad as useful as Cracky, but she was too tactful to allow the Frys to believe they were accepting charity and always ‘paid’ Cracky for various services in warm clothing or food.
And soon the three of them, with Caitlin in the middle, were making their way down the street, with a farthing bag of chestnuts apiece, blowing on the hot nuts, eating and laughing as they went, with Christmas beckoning ahead of them, a bright glow in the darkest night.