June 1842, Clooneven
Bridget
Bridget Markham stretched out her legs, wriggled her feet and allowed the sand to slip between her toes. In front of her, white-tipped waves eased to shore. The sky was purest blue. Within minutes, however, the sea might be agitated, the morning sun shrouded by mist. She had reason to know that, for all its beauty, you couldn’t trust the Atlantic.
To wade through the water, she had tucked the hem of her long grey skirt into her underwear. Now that she had returned to the beach, the sand was warm against the backs of her legs. She tilted her head so that the sun danced across her nose.
‘Are you helping me or are you going to lie about for the rest of the day?’ Her mother’s voice cut through Bridget’s daydreams.
‘I’m having a short rest. Why don’t you come and sit down for a while?’
‘Because I’ve work to be doing, and so have you. Other folk will be here before we know it.’
A high tide had thrown up strand after strand of seaweed, and her mother was determined to collect it before anyone else had a chance. Sometimes, when they were very hungry, the family ate the seaweed. Mostly, they used it to fertilise their plot.
‘I promise I’ll be back at work in a minute,’ said Bridget.
‘Well, you make sure that you are.’
This tension, this sharpness, wasn’t their usual way. The events of the day before had come between them. Not that Bridget regretted what she’d said. She wished she’d said more.
While her tone could be harsh, kindness spilled out of Johanna Markham. How often had she allowed travelling strangers to sleep in their cottage? How frequently had she taken care of neighbours’ children? Only a week before, she’d given a beggar the family’s last sup of milk. ‘God will provide,’ she’d told Bridget’s sister, Mary Ellen, who’d grumbled and scowled and said they wouldn’t need to depend on Him if they were more careful with their rations. At nineteen, Mary Ellen was the elder sister by three years, and she was terrible for finding fault.
Bridget observed her mother pulling slimy clumps of carrageen from the water and tossing them ashore. Her face was pinched from hard work and worry, but she had the clear blue eyes of a child. She was a spare-framed woman, as tiny as her daughters were tall. Her elder son had been tall too. Still was, Bridget hoped.
‘I won’t ask again,’ shouted Johanna. ‘I know you’re sulking, but you’ll have to accept that you were wrong. Your sister’s a grown woman, and what she does with her life is no concern of yours.’
‘It is when she’s making a mistake,’ said Bridget, as she got to her feet and wiped the sand from the back of her skirt. Before resuming work, she turned and gazed back towards Clooneven.
Cluain Aoibhinn had got its name from neither the strand nor the sea but from the fields outside the town. In the townland of Boherbreen where the Markhams lived, the pasture had been replaced by a clutch of cottages, each accompanied by a smallholding. Some of the tenants had enough land to grow turnips or oats, and a fortunate few kept hens or fattened a pig. Mostly, though, they relied on potatoes. The greatest food on earth, Johanna would say, as she admired the plants in full bloom, their delicate white flowers more prized than any rose. Mary Ellen claimed the potatoes would be tastier if they had a morsel of meat to accompany them.
Similar one-roomed cabins dotted the surrounding land. Without exception, they were dark and sparsely furnished. Rain seeped through the thatched roofs and dripped down the walls. Bridget wished the homes were brighter and more comfortable, but her mother claimed that any hint of improved circumstances would lead to another rise in rent. Higher rent meant the family would have to work even harder for a landlord they’d never met.
She was a clever woman, was Johanna Markham.
Under the sun’s glare the town itself appeared to quiver. It was a prosperous place, with two boarding houses, a dispensary and several merchants. Whitewashed houses curved around the beach, like a perfect set of bottom teeth. In the summer, the streets bustled with life. People, wealthy people, came from Limerick and Dublin to take the waters. Others travelled from England. Bridget recognised the English because of the way they looked at her. Peasants: that was what they called people like her. She suspected that England was teeming with families whose lives were no easier than her own. They were unlikely to make it as far as Clooneven, though. The overseas visitors were usually surprised to learn that not only could she speak their language, she could also read and write.
‘Bridget! Do you want me to come out of the water and drag you over here? Because I will, you know.’
Bridget pushed aside her thoughts and returned to the ocean. With the frigid Atlantic around her knees, she gathered seaweed until her mother decided they’d collected as much as they could carry in their creels. They worked in silence, both conscious that if they spoke, they might fall out again.
They sat down for a short break before making the journey back to their cottage. In recent times, the ocean had brought little joy to the Markhams. Two years earlier, Bridget’s father had perished when the small boat in which he’d been travelling had been dashed against rocks during a storm. The bodies of the two other men onboard had been washed ashore, but William Markham was lost at sea. For weeks, his wife had waited for news, her hands trembling, her nerves scraped raw. Bridget remembered those fraught days and nights, how they’d searched every crevice and cave, and how neighbours had joined them in prayer. When, finally, Johanna had accepted that her husband’s body wouldn’t be recovered, there’d been no keening or wailing. If there were tears in her eyes, she blamed them on the smoke billowing from the cottage fire.
For months afterwards, Bridget had imagined her father’s voice booming through the cabin. She would dream they were all back together, a complete family, and then she’d wake, limbs stiff from the cold, sadness swirling around her.
Johanna’s loss was all the crueller because of her elder son’s absence. Francie had sailed for Boston in the spring of 1837. For a time, he’d written short letters. Bridget had considered it miraculous that flimsy pieces of paper could travel all the way from America. Boston was cold in the winter, he said, even colder than Clare. The snow might fall for days on end. Work was plentiful, though, and he was doing well. Soon, he’d be able to send more money home. The letters became less frequent. And then they stopped. Now, Francie’s name was rarely mentioned. Outwardly, it was as if he’d never existed. This didn’t stop Bridget thinking about his life in America. Was he rich? Had he married? Was she an aunt? Did he know his father had disappeared? She thought, too, of how much a letter, no matter how brief, would mean to their mother.
Her father’s death meant there were just four of them at home. The man of the house, fourteen-year-old Michael, was prone to fevers and chills and not as well suited to hard labour as his mother and sisters. In similar circumstances, many families would have surrendered to their ill fortune and sought refuge in the workhouse. Bridget’s mother didn’t want to live among the poor and infirm.
Soon, their number would be reduced to three. The previous day, Mary Ellen had announced that she was to marry a man from Hackett’s Cross. In Bridget’s view, there wasn’t much to recommend Thomas McGuane. He was boorish and unfriendly, with hair like freshly cut straw, but his family were better off than the Markhams, and speaking ill of them was considered a sin.
That hadn’t prevented her from voicing an opinion. ‘Are you a fool?’ she’d said to her sister. ‘You can do a lot better. The McGuanes are awful people.’
Mary Ellen had responded by getting haughty. In the end, she’d given Bridget a slap across the cheek and told her she wasn’t welcome at the wedding.
Her face stinging, Bridget had squealed. She hadn’t, however, backed down. ‘As if I’d want to go. Honestly, he’s not the husband for you, and soon enough you’ll realise it.’
They’d continued sparring until their mother had intervened. She’d been annoyed that their row had taken place in full view of their neighbours. ‘We’ll be the talk of the place,’ she’d complained. Later, she’d given Bridget a warning. ‘You might not like Thomas, but you’d do well to remember that we’re in no position to be choosy. We might need the McGuanes one day.’
Bridget hated the thought of relying on Thomas and his family. She also hated the idea of spending the rest of her days in poverty. She pictured places where girls slept on beds with sheets and pillows, not on the cold floor. Places where there were books to read, and no one worried about the rent. Did her brother live like that now? she wondered.
These thoughts in her head, she passed a shell from one hand to the other. It was a needle whelk, not especially rare, but pretty. She’d found it as they bundled the seaweed into their baskets. Beside her, Johanna was humming lightly to herself.
‘In a few weeks, Mary Ellen will be a married woman,’ said Bridget, ‘and then it’ll be my turn.’
Her mother rubbed Bridget’s arm, her hand cold and wrinkled from the seawater. ‘There’s no need for you to be in a hurry. Big and all as you are, you’ll always be my little one.’
Even though Johanna often gave out to her – ‘Bridget Markham, you’ll be the death of me,’ she’d say, or ‘If your father was here, he’d put a stop to your silliness’ – Bridget knew she was her favourite. They laughed at the same stories and enjoyed the same songs. They had the same smooth red hair. Mary Ellen’s was springy and wiry.
‘Hopefully, I’ll find someone better than Thomas, anyway,’ she said, placing the shell in her skirt pocket. ‘Someone handsome with great ideas who’ll be able to make life better for all of us.’
‘Oh, Bridget,’ said her mother. She said this a lot. ‘You’ll have to accept your station. No good comes from wanting what you can’t have. You’ll be a lucky girl if you’re able to do as well as your sister.’
Bridget disagreed. Although she longed for an easier life, she would never marry a man she didn’t like, someone who bored her or was unkind. Unfortunately, only one local boy appealed to her, and John Joe Moloney’s family had even less than the Markhams. Sometimes the two went for a walk and spoke about what they’d like to do with their lives. Mostly, it was foolish talk. Chances were neither would leave Clooneven.
There were things she was tempted to say, but she knew they would upset her mother. Instead, she gave Johanna’s arm a squeeze and kept her thoughts to herself. The two stared out at the ocean, which shone for as far as Bridget could see. Thousands of miles of ocean and, beyond that, America.