Story 8 0f 8 Bringing Thomas Home
image credit to internetClutching Mary Catherine to her Mary’s eyes fixated on every step, every jolt, as the crude wooden crate holding Thomas’s broken body was brought from the bowels of the ship and unloaded along with the rest of the cargo on Derry Docks.
“No women or weans allowed here while we.re unloading,” a man said.
“That’s my husband’s coffin and I’m not moving from this spot until Willie Crossen puts it in the back of the cart,” Mary said fiercely.
The man took a closer look at her. Underneath the shabby black coat and heavy crocheted shawl he realised was a young woman.
“Sorry ah didn’t know there was corpse – a body – your husband,” he stammered out. Taking a butt of a cigarette from behind his ear he sat down, careful to stay away from the wooden crate containing the body.
“Do ye want to earn the fare or not,” a crew member bawled at him.
John Joe drew the last dregs of the nicotine deep into his lungs. Getting to his feet he sprinted after the man and started herding the cattle onto the lower deck. With only the clothes he stood up in and a handful of loose pennies in his pocket he couldn’t afford to miss the
chance of a free passage to Glasgow. What he was going to do or where he was going to live when he got there is another matter, he thought. Work done he got ready to join the passengers waiting to board.
He was surprise to see the woman the child was still standing where he’d left them. On impulse he weaved his way around the crowded docks. The woman stood still as a statue surrounded by the unloaded cargo and miles of thick oily coiled rope the wooden crate at her feet. “No sign of him comin’ yet,” he said pleasantly.”
Mary shook her head without taking her eyes of the box.
He looked down at the child. He guessed her to be about three, the age of his wee sister. “There’s a place across the street where you can get a bite to eat.”
Mary ignored him.
“You’re wee girl is blue with cowl. Go on. Get a bowl of hot soup. Be back before seven when she sails. I ‘ll stay here keep an eye to the box, your husband,” he added hastily. “What happened to him anyway?”
“What do you care? What business is it of yours?”
John Joe clamped his mouth shut wishing he’d went on about his own bloody business.
The Guildhall Clock struck the quarter hour. If I don’t get in the line I’ll be sharing the sailing down below with the cows, he mused. But something about the woman’s stiff body and distressed demeanour kept him from walking away
After a while the trashing of the waters against the harbour wall came to him. The ship was getting’ ready to sail. He stole a glance at the woman. He wanted to ask her if the work was plentiful for Irish navvies in Glasgow. But it might be a bit of an awkward question seeing he didn’t know how her husband met his death. Some of the Irish had a habit of drinking and fighting….
“Thomas, my husband worked as a stone mason’ labourer. He was fixing up an old Church in Cranston Hill when a wall fell on him and broke his neck,” she said quietly as if she’d read his mind.
John Joe felt his mouth fall into a gape; sweet mother of god. She was young to be a widow with a wean and another on the way by the look of it, he thought. He followed her gaze as she looked down on the circle of naked skin on her wedding finger.” I pawned my wedding ring and sold his only good suit to buy a cardboard coffin and passage on the Derry Boat so as I could bring him home. I wasn’t going to let him be buried in a paupers’ grave in St Kentigern’s graveyard,” she said her voice cracking.
She looked down on the head of her small daughter. Mary Catherine hadn’t uttered a word from the night she had tried to climb over the corpse in the curtained off bed in the kitchen of the tenement. “Sleep beside you Daddy,” she said before backing away from the cold feel of him.
The man’s voice broke her reverie. “Would you know of any cheap lodgings in Glasgow,” he was asking.
For the first time she looked directly at him. She shook her head. “Where do you come from,” she asked trying to be civil to him for his kindness.
“A wee townland call Ballinabreen in the parish of Clonleigh. John Joe Mc Dermott,” he said sticking out his hand. His hands were cold. “Cold hands, warm heart,” her Granda used to say. “My friend at Cloughfin School lived there. Thomas went to Cloughfin School too but he lived in Argery.” she said dropping her eyes again to the wooden crate.
A frisson of something he’d heard tugged at the corners of John Joe’s mind. “Were you there in Master Gallagher time?” he asked.
Mary nodded.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Callaghan,” he asked.
Mary drew back in alarm. It was nearing four years since Cassie had made a show of them. Surely the wagging tongues around the hearth fires would have found somebody else to talk about by now, she thought, the colour beginning to rise in her face.
“I went to school wi’ Cassie Callaghan. I hear she’s emigratin’’ to Sydney in Australia on the Donegal Relief Scheme. I thought about it too but Scotland will be far enough for me,” he said.
Mary strove hard to hide her startled expression. The parish priest from St Patricks in Glasgow had contacted Father Hughes in Murlog to arrange for Thomas’s burial. When he wrote back he told her that he’d buried her Granfather James six months before but Thomas wouldn’t be buried in that grave.
A great wave of sadness washed over her. Granda James dead and buried and they hadn’t even let her know and now Thomas, her childhood sweetheart her best friend from her first day at school, lying in a rough wooden crate in this filthy place; dumped amongst stinking beer kegs of and bits of farm implements.
She tried to curb the avalanche of tears that were pressing hard against her chest. Father Hughes’ letter never mentions anything about her sister Cassie emigration to Sydney. A small ray of hope opened in her mind. With Cassie gone her mother might take her and Mary Catherine in.
How much longer is that man goin’ to be wi’ that cart, John Joe thought. The passengers were down to a trickle now. He’d need to join them if he was going. “Can I do anything, give anybody a message when I get to Glasgow,” he asked stamping the cold from his feet .Embarrassed Mary tried to stop the tears that were coursing down her cheeks. Without asking, John Joe took the end of her shawl and wiped her face. “I have to go,” he said as the crew began to dismantle the gangplank. “Are ye sure I can’t do anything for you when I get …”
“You could get a job and pay the rent on 58 Clyde Street until I get back,” Mary choked out. John Joe looked at her incredulously. The ships engines throbbed and the warbled call for last passengers to board was announced
“You’re on,” John Joe called over his shoulders as the ship made ready for the twelve hours overnight journey to Glasgow.
The morning of the funeral the water barrel outside Bell’s half door was frozen solid. Inside, Thomas’s coffin rested on the settle. . The smell of the candle wax from the blessed candles and smell of the turf in the open hearth trapped in the rushes of the low roof in the kitchen gave an unreality to the final decades of the rosary the near neighbours were intoning on their knees on the hard earthen floor Mary.
Looked down the lane and remembered the day she had taken the short cut across the makeshift bridge over the River Deele. It had been the last time she’d seen her Granda James. As she stood there the figures of her brothers, John, Willie and Paddy, came around the bend of the lane. Soon the undertaker from Castlefin could come. Everybody expect her, Mary Catherine and Bell were walking to the chapel and afterwards to Ballybogan graveyard.
Bell old and frail leaned on Thomas’s cousin’s arm. Going forward she looked down into the grave as the gravediggers dumped the first shovelful of clay stiff with frost on the lid of the coffin. “God be good to him,” she whispered. Then she straightened and placed a gnarled hand on Mary extended stomach. “Will you promise me something, Mary, “she said. “If it’s a boy will you call him Thomas after his father? “
Mary’s heart splintered at the old woman’s words. “I will,” she promised.
“My oul place, is not much but it’s yours now,” she said her voice trembling with grief. She looked to where Mary Catherine stood mutely by her mother’s side. Father Hughes had rolled his eyes when he saw her being carried into the chapel in Mary’s arms “It’s no place for a young child,” he complained.” I hope she’s not going to bawl the place down so that the parishioners don’t hear the eulogy I have prepared.”
“When you get back to Glasgow you’ll not forget about me and not forget to let the wee girl forget that I’m her granny, will you,” Bell said anxiously.
“We’ll go, Mary,” Peadar Freel, Bell’s nephew said shaking Mary’s hand again.” Bell is comin’ to live wi’ us for a while in Gortinreagh.” He shifted awkwardly “You’ll always be welcome in our house, you know that don’t ye Mary.”
Her brother John left the group of mourners who were shaking his hand and came to stand beside Mary. “You’re not going to live at Bell’s house,” he said. “Granda James left instructions in his will that your room was to be kept for you. “
Taking Mary Catherine by the hand he made for the cart and handed her up to Willie Crossan.
“What about mammy? She’ll not let me in,” Mary said.
“She’ll let you in and be civil to you or she can go and live with Paddy or Willie,” John said grimly helping her up beside her daughter.
Gemma Hill 2020 copyright
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