Chapter Five

It was during the long summer holiday that I sensed that something was wrong. It was a Monday morning - washday. In the cellar, Mam was scrubbing clothes on the washboard and Lizzie and me were helping by putting the washing through the mangle. Lizzie was feeding the clothes between the rollers and I was turning the big iron handle. I noticed that Dad’s hankies were stained brown.

‘Mam,’ I said, ‘I think we’ll have to put these hankies into the boiler again ’cos I don’t think they’re clean. Why are they that funny colour?’

‘That’s because your dad has been doing a lot of coughing into his hankies. I can’t get them clean nohow.’

‘What’s wrong with Dad?’ I asked. ‘Why is he always coughing like he does?’

‘It’s his job, Kate. He says it’s because of the stuff he breathes in when he’s blowing the glass but I think it’s bronchitis.’

When I heard that word ‘bronchitis’, I got worried. I’d heard Mam say to Auntie Gladys that bronchitis could be dangerous if it turned into pneumonia. When I came to think about it, Dad had got thinner and he’d not been his usual bright and cheerful self. Not only that, he’d had a few days off work and that was something he never did ’cos he didn’t get paid if he was off. And Mam must’ve worried

about us all getting it ’cos she’d lapped our chests up in brown paper with wintergreen oil and nutmeg. That had solved the problem of the bust flattener all right but I’d felt daft going to school with that round me. Not only did it make a funny crackling sound but it didn’t smell nice either. The other girls were always laughing at us. Eve Ogboddy said we smelt like her old grannie just before she’d died.

‘Is bronchitis serious, Mam?’ I asked.

‘It could be if it’s not looked after. I’ve made your dad wear lots of hot mustard poultices and I’ve dosed him with Veno’s Cough Cure. Last week, he followed that tarmaking machine along Oldham road and had a good snuff up of the hot pitch, so he should be all right.’

When Dad came home that night he looked tired and older. He was about to speak but a shudder passed through him, followed by a fit of shivering.

Mam poured him a cup of steaming hot tea. He swallowed it in two massive gulps.

Mam asked, ‘How’re you feeling, Mick? Is your cough any better?’

‘Ah, Celia,’ he panted, ‘don’t worry about the cough for it’s doing very well. It’s getting stronger and stronger whilst I’m getting weaker and weaker. Now I have pains in the chest and a terrible headache. It’s that dust and lead I’m taking into my lungs every day in the glassworks. There’ll be no improvement till I get a job in the fresh air.’

‘There’s not much chance of that,’ Mam said. ‘We’ve tried the poultices and the cough cure. Now it’s time to try something else.’ ^ .

‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I’ll not have any dinner. I’ll

be off to my bed. What I need is a good sleep. I’m sure it’ll

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do me the world of good.’

‘We’re not beaten yet,’ Mam said. ‘There’s lots of other things we can try. In Ireland, folk used to swear by kerosene

rubbed on the chest. But tonight I’ll put a hot fire brick in your bed and I’ll bring you up a hot drink of cabbage tea. Tomorrow, we’ll try Friar’s Balsam. That should do the trick.’ She sounded desperate.

Next day, Dad was worse and he coughed nonstop. He was for ever spitting into the chamber pot that Mam had placed by the side of his bed.

A Gypsy called at the front door and for a few bob advised Mam to collect snails, boil them and rub them anti-clockwise on Dad’s stomach.

It didn’t work. Dad spluttered and retched as if he was bringing the whole of his insides up.

‘I’ll have to get up and go to work, Celia,’ he gasped between bouts of hawking and spitting red mucus. ‘The men will be depending on me.’

He heaved aside the bedcovers, struggled out of bed and began hurriedly to dress.

‘What do you think you’re doing, Mick - you a sick man?’

‘I must go to work.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Mam said, feeling his forehead. ‘Let the glassworks do without you for a few days. Shaun can do the blowing for you. You have a fever. So now we’ll try Fenning’s Fever Mixture. That should bring your temperature down.’

It didn’t and it was time for stronger measures.

‘I’m going to get Dr O’Brien,’ Mam said. ‘He can start earning the shillings we’ve been paying into his Sickness Club all these years.’

Mam once called the doctor before when Dad had the flu. She told us to keep out the road and she shooed us into our bedroom. But she’d forgotten that the walls in our house were that thin you could hear all that was going on in the next room, especially if you put your ear to the wall.

As we awaited the arrival of the doctor, Mam went into hysterics about the state of the place.

‘The room’s a disgrace,’ she said to Dad. ‘What’ll the doctor think when he sees it?’

The bedroom got a going-over. A fresh runner on the dressing table and her best set of silver-backed hairbrushes and hand mirror were placed where the visitor could see them. Dad had to get out of bed whilst she re-made it with immaculate sheets and a silk pillow case. He was made to put on a clean nightshirt and his clothes were picked up from the back of the chair where he always hung them and dumped on our bed until the doctor had been and gone.

Dr Eugene O’Brien was a plump middle-aged man with a full beard and a no-nonsense manner. He was a good friend of Dad’s - I think they used to go drinking and playing billiards together in the Shamrock Club. Anyroad, on this day, he examined Dad’s chest with the telescope thing he carried round his neck, all the time making funny aha noises. Finally he had the rotten job of examining the phlegm in the chamber pot. Who would be a doctor?

‘Bronchitis, is it not, Eugene?’ Dad wheezed. ‘This is what I get for that glass-blowing these last twenty years.’

‘Bronchitis it is not, Mick,’ said the doctor. ‘I think it could be a little more than that.’

‘You always were a pessimist, Eugene. Even when we played billiards. So, tell me now, what are my chances?’

There was a long pause before the doctor answered. ‘About fifty-fifty,’ he said.

I felt as if an icy hand had been placed on my heart when I heard this.

‘What the hell do you mean, Eugene? Fifty-fifty? You’re

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supposed to tell me I’ll be back at work tomorrow.’

‘Look, Mick, you’re an old friend. Do you want me to give it to you straight?’

‘I do.’

‘I’ve seen a lot of cases like yours lately, Mick, and I can tell you that what we have here is a clear case of primary consumption, sometimes called galloping consumption.’

‘Galloping consumption?’ Dad echoed. ‘What in God’s name is that? It sounds like the name of a horse in the Irish Derby.’

‘How serious is that, doctor?’ Mam asked anxiously.

‘It’s extremely serious,’ Dr O’Brien answered. ‘Though Mick there seems to think it’s a big joke.’

‘Always look on the bright side, that’s my motto,’ Dad said with a laugh. I knew Dad’s laugh and somehow this didn’t sound right. ‘You said my chances were fifty-fifty, Eugene. What must I do to get the right fifty?’

‘The only medicine I can offer for your condition is plenty of fresh air and rest. From now on, you understand, work is out of the question.’

‘There is no way I can give up work, Eugene,’ Dad said. ‘Not if I’m to go on feeding my family. How long have I got? A year? Two years?’

‘Who can say how long? A year, maybe more. Depends on how you live from now on. A year’s holiday in Switzerland or southern Italy or a Mediterranean sea cruise might slow it down a bit.’

He knew full well that such things were out of the question.

‘I’ll make sure my passport’s in order,’ Dad answered, still trying to be funny.

Ignoring Dad’s attempt at humour, the doctor said, ‘Even Blackpool where you can get some sunshine and fresh air would certainly give you a little more time. Failing that, a good dose of laudanum which you can get at Wise, the chemist’s on Butler Street. That at least will give you some relief. Take consolation in the fact that many great

people have suffered from the same complaint - John Keats, Frederic Chopin, the Bronte sisters.’

It didn’t sound much of a consolation to us kids listening in the next room.

When the doctor had left, we were in a state of shock. Surely Dad couldn’t be dying. Not my dad! I felt a pain at the pit of my stomach. But then again I couldn’t help thinking that maybe he’d lived to a good age. After all, he was forty-four.

Mam and Auntie Gladys wept and wailed nonstop when the news finally sank in. As for us young ’uns, well, we refused to believe it. Dr O’Brien wasn’t God. He could be wrong.

Dad joked about it all the time.

He took off his wedding ring and gave it to Mam. ‘At least,’ he said, ‘you won’t have the miserable job of trying to get this off after I’m gone. Maybe you can get a few shillings from Solly, the pawnbroker.’

Which set Mam and Auntie off all the louder.

Next Dad took it into his head to start arranging his own funeral as if he was fixing to take that holiday in Blackpool.

‘I want a good send-off,’ he gasped. ‘I was pallbearer at my brother Jack’s funeral and he had two priests at the Requiem. I’d like three. My insurance policy should cover it.’

‘Glory be to God.Three priests will be fearful expensive,’ Mam said through her tears. ‘Two priests will be enough but stop talking like that, Mick. You’re not dead yet.’

‘We’ve got the honour of the name of Lally to keep up,’ Dad said.

‘Don’t worry, Mick,’ Mam said, humouring him. ‘If you die, you’ll have the best, I promise you.’

There was no stopping Dad once he got an idea in his

head. He even arranged for Mr Stiles, the undertaker, to come round and measure him up for his coffin. ‘Be sure it’s long enough and wide enough,’ he said. ‘And I’d like silk cushions. May as well be comfortable on the ride up to the cemetery.’

‘Talking of cemeteries, Mr Lally,’ Mr Stiles said, ‘have you decided where you’d like to be buried? You can choose between Moston and Southern Cemeteries.’

‘If I had my dearest wish. I’d be buried back in Ireland but I suppose I’ll have to settle for a place here in Manchester. I’ll leave it up to you. Why not surprise me?’

Whenever there were people around, Dad had to have his little joke. But once or twice in quieter moments when he didn’t know I was watching, I caught him looking sad as if he knew deep down that it might not be long before he’d be saying his final goodbyes to us.

‘Don’t forget the mourning women,’ he said cheerfully one day, putting on his act. ‘Try to get Mrs O’Dea and Mrs McNally from St Michael’s - they’re the best keeners in the district. I’d like the fanciest funeral and the noisiest wake the parish has ever seen. We’ve got plenty of time to arrange it. The doctor said I’ve got a year, maybe more.’

As it turned out, he didn’t have a year.

It was November and I’d had the usual day at school. As soon as word got round about my dad having TB, the other girls refused to play with any of us Lallys.The same went for Lizzie Brennan as she lived in the same house. We were treated like lepers. Shirty gave Eve Ogboddy permission to move her place from our three-seater desk to one at the back and she even moved her own high desk nearer the window. That was another thing - Gerty kept the windows open all day even though it was freezing cold. I said a silent prayer to the Holy Ghost for Houlihan and Eve Ogboddy to get pneumonia. But I don’t think he was listening.

On the day I’m talking about, there was thick fog, a real pea-souper and you couldn’t even see your hand in front of you. It was so bad, Gerty kept the windows closed and the school let us out at half past two. The four of us groped our way home through the smog.

Men with oil lamps walked slowly in front of the horse and carts. Once or twice horses stumbled onto the pavements and we had to stand right back to the walls to avoid being trampled. It took us over an hour to find Butler Court and when we reached home, the front door was opened by Auntie Gladys.

‘Your dad’s gone,’ she said.

‘Gone? Gone where?’

‘To a better place.’

They’ve moved him to Blackpool, was my first thought.

‘He’s passed away,’ Auntie said. ‘Your mam’s inside but she’s best left alone. Best not to upset her.’When I heard this, I swallowed hard and a lump came to my throat.

Mam was sitting at the table sobbing quietly, her head in her hands. We didn’t care what Auntie Gladys had said. We went to her and, weeping, we clung together for dear life.

‘There’ll be no piano now,’ Mam said through her tears. ‘No more trips to the fairground. No more nothing.’

We had to bring in Annie Swann from next door to help lay the body out. She arrived wearing her old battered hat as usual but we soon saw that she was an expert. First she bound up his jaw, closed his eyelids, and put pennies on his eyes. She washed down his body, and the three women, Mam, Auntie Gladys and Annie, dressed him in his best

suit, along with his watch and chain, to wait for the

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undertakers to fetch the coffin which had been ready in the shop for weeks.

‘I’ve bought him new underclothes - a vest and long

johns,’ Mam said. She had a thing about underclothes. ‘Always make sure you have clean undies,’ she was fond of saying.

‘Why?’ I asked her one day.

‘In case you’re run over and have to go to hospital.’

That was all very well but new underclothes when you were dead! I could imagine my dad at the pearly gates and St Peter saying, ‘You’ve led a blameless life, Michael, and you’ve done your time in purgatory but we can’t let you in ’cos your long johns are a disgrace.’

‘I thought of buying him a new suit as well,’ Mam said. ‘He’s lost a lot of weight and that suit is hanging on him but I don’t think anyone will notice.’

They put a soft downy pillow under his head. Last, they polished his best black shoes but it was a struggle to get them on him.

‘He never liked those shoes,’ I told them. ‘He preferred the brown ones. He said the black ones were too tight.’

‘Doesn’t matter now,’ Mam said. ‘He won’t be walking to the cemetery.’

Blinds were fixed to the windows and the curtains of the house were drawn, a wreath was hung at the door, the furniture was shrouded in white sheets and the mirrors were covered so no one could be spending time looking at themselves and primping up their hair.

Dad lay in state in front of the parlour window. Underneath the coffin Mam had placed a pan containing Jeyes Fluid, and on the table a bunch of potpourri. One or two nosy neighbours, some with their kids, called and asked to see the body. Mam invited them in for a look.

On the day of the wake, the coffin was carried into the living room and placed upright with the lid off so that Dad could oversee the gathering. Not that he was in a position to give his approval. The wake lasted two days and two

nights. There was food and whisky galore and from all round the district of St Michael’s there was a constant stream of visitors with wreaths and black-lined cards of condolence - the McBrides, the Walshes, the Dugans, the O’Learys. Even the Hickses from next door but one came round to join in the feasting. They brought one bottle of Irish whiskey and drank three. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that Mam, too, was drinking more than she usually did. But she’d been so close to my dad, it was understandable. There was a lot of singing of Irish ballads. Auntie Sarah sang a song called ‘Barney Take Me Home Again’. It was hard to know whether it was a request or an order but the words were:

Oh Barney dear, Vd give the world To see my home across the sea,

Where all the days were joy impearTd

The tears ran down Uncle Barney’s cheeks. Why this should have been so was anybody’s guess. Edna O’Leary warbled about Killarney where Dad came from, and Seamus Walsh gave a powerful rendering of ‘The Snowy- Breasted Pearl’.

But a kiss with welcome hland and a touch of thy fair hand Are all that I demand would’st thou not spurn For if not mine, dear girl, oh snowy breasted pearl May I never from the fair with life return.

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This last performance nearly caused a punch-up when

Seamus’s wife, Sheila, who by this time had put away two

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or three sherries, accused him of making goo-goo eyes at Ivy Hicks in her daringly low-cut dress each time he sang the word ‘breasted’.

‘If you look at that woman’s bare bosom again, Seamus Walsh,’ she said, ‘I’ll break your jaw, so I will.’

A riot was avoided only when Denis Dugan reminded everybody that we were there to pay our respects to poor Michael who, not yet cold in his coffin, was standing there watching our every move.

It’s a terrible thing to say but us kids enjoyed this excitement and the attention everyone was giving us, patting us on the head, and giving us money.

‘Ach, the poor wee childer. What will become of them now?’

We did our best to look sorrowful as that usually meant more money.

Even our milkman came round with a wreath. ‘Mr Lally was a good man and he never failed to pay his bill on time. It’s a mystery to me how he came to die as he did for he always looked so hale and hearty and he drank a lot of our wholesome, health-giving milk. As for this bronchitis thing, there’s an awful lot of it about nowadays. Mr Lally is the third one on my round to die of the coughing this week.’

The two hired mourners, Mrs O’Dea and Mrs McNally, cried nonstop and were worth every bit of the smoked hams they received for their trouble.

‘The loveliest funeral I’ve ever cried at,’ Mrs McNally said. ‘Look at Mick over there sleeping in his coffin like a babe. He makes a handsome corpse, don’t you think so, Mrs O’Dea?’

The two keeners were right. Dad did make a lovely corpse. He had an amused smile on his lips as if he was enjoying the wake with the rest of them. He didn’t look dead and I expected him to step out at any time and say, ‘That tricked you.’

I spoke to him when no one was looking. ‘Why did you

have to die, Dad?’ I asked. ‘Why, why did you have to die now?’

No answer. He simply went on smiling. For me, the penny slowly began to drop. Dad really had gone for good.

The funeral was held at St Michael’s in George Leigh Street. It was a miserable rainy day, in keeping with the way we were feeling. The church was filled and I’d never seen so many flowers apart from in a flower shop or Smithfield Market. My dad had been an important man in Ancoats - one of the best glass-blowers at the Poland Street works. The family sat in the front bench. Mam, pale, her eyes heavy with weeping and lack of sleep, sat with the rest of the family, Gran’ma, Auntie Sarah, Uncle Barney, and Auntie Gladys, along with us kids. The women wore deep black crepe and the rest of us were dressed in new clothes with black armbands, all bought on Dad’s death policy with the Co-op. When I looked around and saw the sad faces, I realised that Dad’s death had upset not only me and our family but a lot of other people as well. His death was going to change so many lives apart from our own. There was Dad’s glass-making team and I think they were nervous about what the future might bring. It was going to be worse for our own little family and that included Auntie Gladys and Lizzie. What was to become of us? I pushed these thoughts out of my mind. We’d face the music after the funeral.

At the head of the middle aisle stood the coffin draped in black. The little choir sang the plainchant Requiem and Father Muldoon gave us a lovely sermon saying how Dad had been a good man, a member of the Men’s Confraternity and a regular attender at Mass and the Sacraments.

‘I am sure that Michael Lally,’ he said, ‘will end up in heaven after he has served his time in purgatory. So we must offer up our prayers and our troubles for him so that

he may be soon released and taken up into paradise. We can earn time off for him by saying special, indulgenced prayers, like “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I offer Thee my heart and my soul” which is worth twenty days. Better still, when we suffer little hardships, we can offer them to God to earn him remission.’

He came down from the altar to sprinkle holy water on the coffin and say lots of prayers in Latin. Next he frightened off any lurking evil spirits by walking round the bier, clinking the thurible against the chain and sending a lovely aroma of incense around the church.

Dad’s team of glassmakers were bearers. They were dressed in their Sunday black, the stiff, uncomfortable suits they wore only for church. Out of the glassworks they somehow looked strange and unnatural, their faces scrubbed clean of the grime which went with their job. They came forward and lifted the coffin onto their powerful shoulders and, with young Alfie leading the way, took Dad on his final grim journey. The coffin was carried slowly past and our family and the mourners followed on behind. The solemn music of the organ filled the church. It was a long, sorrowful procession to Moston Cemetery. The horses had their hooves covered in pads to deaden the noise and as we made our way up Oldham Road, men removed their hats, and other people stopped and bowed their heads, some making the sign of the cross as we passed.

‘I’ve been thinking about what that priest said,’ little Cissie whispered. ‘Will Dad have to stay in purgatory long, Kate?’

‘I don’t know,’ I answered through my tears, ‘but our teacher said maybe a thousand years.’

‘That’s a long time,’ Danny said.

‘Is it hot in purgatory, Kate?’ Cissie asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘but Miss Houlihan said that when

we die we are the Church suffering and our venial sins have to be burned off us. I think it must be as hot as hell ’cos this month we pray for the dead and sing a special hymn for them. Two of the lines are, Pray for the holy souls that burn!This hour amidst the cleansing flames .’

‘Poor Dad,’ Cissie said. ‘I wish we could get him out of that fire and up into heaven. What did the priest mean when he said we can get remission? What’s that - remission?’

‘It means we can get time off from having to burn in purgatory. We can be let off so many days or months or even years.’

‘Maybe there’s a way,’ said Lizzie, ‘to get both our dads out of there. Remember what the priest said about indulgences.’

‘The priest mentioned a certain prayer giving us twenty days’ remission,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to say it millions of times to earn a thousand years.’

‘I don’t know what you’re going on about,’ Mam sobbed. ‘All that rubbish about your Dad burning in purgatory. I’m sure he’s now in heaven with his cough cured.’

At Moston Cemetery, the small group of mourners followed the coffin to the graveside. In the Catholic section, crowded with tombstones, two grave-diggers had dug a fresh pit in the yellow clay and were respectfully standing back, holding their shovels, ready to fill in the grave when everyone had gone. We gathered round the hole and with heads bent watched as the men in our group gently lowered the coffin into the grave.The women sobbed and moaned. The men hunched their shoulders, bowed their heads and looked lost. The priest said the final prayers,

‘Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in

sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

Together we recited the prayer for the dead: ‘Eternal rest give unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. Amen.’

Mam tossed a single rose into the grave. The priest sprinkled the coffin again from the brass container carried by the altar boy. After that each of us had a go with the holy water brush and then it was over.

At that moment, I thought of Dad cold in his coffin. I wondered if he was still smiling.

It was getting dark and it looked as if the November fog was coming down again. The funeral cortege took us slowly back to Ancoats.

There was a small ceremony in the upstairs room of the Shamrock Club for the family and those who had been to the cemetery. Everyone said again what a great man Dad had been.

‘Sure, he’ll be missed something awful in the glassworks for there wasn’t another man in the whole of Manchester who could blow glass like Michael Lally,’ Shaun said.

This time the occasion and the talk were quiet and sad and everyone spoke in whispers. A couple of hours later, our little family walked back through the gloom to Butler Court and an empty house.

We opened the door, and were met by a strange eerie silence. The fire was dead in the grate and the place was cold and depressing. Mam lit the oil lamp. Only then did I realise deep, deep down that I had truly lost my dad, and I broke down and cried for all I was worth, which set the others off, including baby Eddie.

Now Dad was gone, there was one big question on our minds.

What now?