Gemma Hill Writeyou Writeme

Leaving Micky

Mary felt guilty about not telling Micky that she was leaving him. But she had to get away. Get away from the house.  Get away from the drudgery of looking after and picking up after his sons and daughters.  She wished it was an option to go back home to her home place in Donegal. But she knew that wasn’t an option. Her mother would say she’d made her bed she should lie in it.

She knew her priest Father Sam would think it wrong too.

The day was drawing on to evening but walking helped her to think and the decision she was trying to reach needed a lot of thinking. Once made and acted on it would change her life forever.  She’d be homeless.

Calling the old dog Yapper to her, she pulled on a scarf over her hair and tightening the belt on her coat she made for the road that led to Clady Bridge.

There weren’t many cars on the back road but she crossed over to walk on the right-hand side so that in the gathering dusk a car coming quick around a bend would see her in its headlights. A cow in a nearby field lamented mournfully making her jump. “Its face is as sorrowful as my own,” she muttered as she hurried on her thoughts in turmoil.

She stopped at the breast of a hill as familiar to her as the lines on her own face and looked back the way she had come. The road looked dark and dismal with only the occasional light of a house shining through a hedge here and there to break the gloom. Like my life since I foolishly married Micky and his brood, she thought.

She stood and looked at the road ahead. Bordered by high overgrown hedges it dipped into a shadowy hollow and then rose in a steep bray at the other side. The rise of the bray gave her hope.

Turning, she made her way back the way she had come, tired now.  Her steps slowed as she neared the house in the village of Urney.  As she lifted the latch on the door she hoped against hope that Micky had thought to tell his daughters to clear away the dinner things.  If they’d only help out she’d have no need to leave. But Micky never saw their fault. And they seemed to think working as flax workers in Sion Mills was work enough.  She was in the house all day. It was her job to keep the place, clean-up after them and attend them hand and foot.

Mary sighed. She knew all about hard work. She’d got plenty of it and little pay to show for it since she had been twelve; hired out to farmers and their families.  She’d thought it would be easier to marry a widow man with his family half reared. It had been foolish thinking.

The dinner things hadn’t been cleared from the table. Somebody had let the half feral cat with one blue eye and one green eye in and it was helping itself to the leftovers solidifying on the plates and dishes still sitting on the kitchen table. Pulling off her headscarf she made a swipe at it. Any guilt she felt at leaving her husband, leaving his daughters, almost women now, melted like the snow that had covered the ditches behind the house a short time ago.

She’d wait until she got the right moment and then she’d, leave get a room off somebody in Strabane.

Over the next few weeks she started to put her final plans in place. She already had made some tentative plans. Over time she had been saving small bit of money –a few shillings here and there. She’d opened up a bank account that Micky knew nothing about.

When she went out walking she began to wear extra clothes, and take her personal belongings and hide them in deep hole left in a ditch when the high wind had blown down a rotting tree.  She lived in constant fear every day that somebody would find them or a dog or some other animal would dig them up.

Now that her mind was made up she felt better. She’d think twice before she’d take on another man with a readymade family.

A pile of clothes she had spent the day ironing and hung on the backs of chairs for the girls to put away had slid off and were lying in an untidy heap on the floor. She didn’t bother to pick them up or move the dog off them when he scratched them into a pile and made his bed in them.

The sun was rising the following Friday when she quietly let herself out of the sleeping house. She’d have a while to wait on the wee train that took the school children and workers into Strabane. But she wanted to get away before her courage failed her.

She looked back from the end of the lane with a mixture of sadness and a sense of freedom. What would Micky think when the fire in the range wasn’t lit and he rose to a cold kitchen. Or when there was no porridge on the table for him and his daughters? Would he guess she had left him? Surely he was bound to have noticed how weary and unhappy she was with things as they were between them lately?

She was tempted to leave him a note.  She’d no complaints with him as a husband. But in the end she simply lifted her coat and headed down the road to collect her hidden belongings.

Gemma Hill© 2022

My Christmas Wish

I remember when Fran and I were first married and living with Rosanne, Fran’s mother, in Fountain Park I used to think how amazing it would be to have a baby born at Christmas time. Well, years later, we have Giles born in December. Richard born in December; Our granddaughter, Cara, born in December and on the 20^th of December this year 2021 – a beautiful great granddaughter, born to our granddaughter Sasha and her husband Craig – a wee sister for our great grandchildren, Maddy and Zack.

Not to mention Ross born in July and our  granddaughter Emma-Lee born in October, Joshua born in March and Ethan born in September. Birth days in spring, summer, autumn and winter.

Didn’t we do well! And aren’t  we blessed.

A most joyful Christmas to each and every one of you. May your homes and families be blessed with peace and contentment.

Gemma

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Climbing a Mountain Dream

In the middle of writing my second novel ‘The Twins Twins’ I decided to climb Muckish Mountain in Co Donegal.

Simon my nephew and his wife Cathy offered to take me. My thinking for climbing the mountain was to get a real feel for the main protagonist of the book who had come from Australia to live at the foot of the mountain. I’d viewed all the online climbers and videos Donegal Mountain Team I wasn’t a climber but I wanted to climb Muckish .I’d climbed Crough Patrick while on holiday in Co Mayo years before. I still vividly recall the hands and knee slippery crawl to the top only to find there was a thick mist and it was nearly impossible to seen the other pilgrims.

The day of the climb dawned bright and clear.

Simon collected me in Strabane. “We’re heading for Killygordon (Co Donegal (to pick up Cathy, Evelyn, the niece Ellen and Tony, the dog,” he said as I climbed up into his jeep.

My first close up of Muckish rising in the mist was breathtakingly beautiful. A few cars were parked up but Simon manoeuvred his way past and took a road that got narrower and stonier as he crawled along. I wonder was I stone mad. Should I start praying like we had done climbing Croagh Patrick?

I had no need to worry my two intrepid guides had come fully prepared.

I’m going to let the images tell the rest of the story except to say it’s not everybody who has a cooked lunch halfway up the Miner’s Trail. I’d never have made it up to the top where I fell on my ass on the stony summit or down again without the help of this great couple. And their baby Eleanor keeping us all going shouting from her baby harness on her father back, “Up, Up,” every time we stopped to draw breathe and admire the view. While Tony, the dog, as large as a small pony, weaved in and out between the huge boulders that dotted the cliff face, as if he was our Sherpa guide.

When I am an old old woman I will remember the feeling of utter exhilaration as I stood on the summit and below me spread out like a painting, the fields and rivers of Donegal and Tyrone.

At one stage as we inched our way keeping close to the cliff face and away from the edge Cathy called back to me,” You alright, Gemma? See the next book you write, make sure the main character is living in a fancy hotel in London or New York.”

It was beginning to get dark as we reached the foot of the mountain again. I was done. My legs were like lumps of jelly. It was two steps back and staggered steps sideways trying to find a way between the rough terrains.

Cathy, you are one good patient woman. Thank you Simon. You made my dream come true and gave me a priceless memory.

Gemma Hill 2021©

A Bed For The Night

image credit internet

Kathleen was home on holiday from Perth in WA. We decided to have a few days’ away – A wee stayover – girls only – Gertie, Kathleen, Helen and Yours Truly – in Donegal Town Co Donegal. Eamon Mc Colgan, our cousin, may God be good to him drove us, as he frequently did. As we drove through Barnesmore Gap he asked did we want to stop at Biddy’s for a drink and a bite to ea. There was a chorus of “Does a cat drink milk?” Biddy’s – some said it was the smallest pub in Ireland – (I think a lot of places claim that title). That day a Hen Party was in full swing. As the bride-to-be gathers all her hens around a table, the craic was mighty. It was a very good start to our few days away.

The Diamond in Donegal Town was crowded with late summer visitors. Eamon drew up behind a line of tourist buses spilling their passengers on to the narrow footpath.

We had a large family hotel room. Four beds in a row – like Goldie Locks and the 3 Bears. Like Goldie, while the others were checking out the bathroom – shower or bath? – I tried out the beds. Bed number one was a no-no – too near the bathroom –Kathleen, Helen and Gertie would have to pass it during the night if they needed to go.

Bed 2 was in the middle between bed 1 and 3 (as it would be) – . Not a good position to be – every time I’d turn I’d be looking into either a face or an ass…you get the picture!

Bed 3 was furthest from the toilet but nearer the window.

I bounced on bed number 4. This was the one – last in the row – nearest the window. If there was a-stirring in the night or a queue for the bathroom it would not have to pass my bed.

Next stop was to check out the foyer, the dining room menu and the night’s entertainment .I was under the usual rules – No book shops. definitely no shoe shops. And top of the ‘DONTS “don’t be encouraging complete strangers to tell me their life stories.”

Well, I never was a very obedient child – many a day I felt the swish coming off the ‘sally rod’ our mother kept behind the ornamental china dog with the hole in its head on the mantelpiece as I flew like the wind out of her reach and the stinging rod on the backs of my legs.

Everything was going to plan until we emerged from the dining room and decided to relax for a while on the cushy squishy armchairs in the foyer. As we settle in, the glass door of the hotel opened and in struggled a woman weighted down with an assortment of handbags and an eclectic collection of other types of baggage. Immediately my curiosity was piqued. Had she just got off one of the many tour buses sporting Dutch, American, Irish, English and Scottish named coaches parked outside in the street

Where had she come from and where was she going to next? My antenna was well and truly up.

The staff hailed her by name as if she was a regular. So, she hadn’t come on the tourist buses.

Kathleen and Gertie were looking relaxed and discussing the pro and cons of what we had just eaten. Helen was working her way out of her deep cushioned chair with the intention of going outside for a smoke.

The woman who had just come in sank gratefully into the chair Helen had just vacated; her bag, baggage settling in a semi-circle around her feet.

Of its own accord I heard my voice ask her had she come far just as a pleasant face staff member placed a beautifully laid tea tray on the table at the woman’s elbow. By now my antenna was emitting loud bleeps of interest. Who was she? I had to know more about her. As she poured tea into the fine white bone china cup and scooped in three heaped spoons of sugar and topped it up with a generous splash of rich full throttle cream I noticed her cardigan was clean but shabby and her shoes were more for country wear than town wear.

I tried and failed to push down my rampaging imagination. Surreptitiously I chanced a quick glance of my sisters. They were still deep in conversation with each other. Flinging caution to the wind I smiled at the woman and offered to refill her teacup.

That was all it took. Without preamble she began to tell me her life story. ..

Her story is not mine to tell. Sufficient to say she entrusted her most precious child to the authorities on a temporary basis on the advice of a politician she trusted and was almost destitute because all her monies had been spent paying solicitors fighting to get her much loved child back.

I left her there sipping her tea from the delicate china cup. My sisters had long gone fed-up with waiting for me and Helen, sitting opposite me, was ready for another smoke.

We found Kathleen and Gertie in a crowded, noisy pub at the bottom of the street. The thump of traditional Irish music blasted through the open window and door and into the street making the windows vibrate.

We pushed our way inside. There was standing room only and barely enough space to raise the glass to your mouth or clap your hands to show your appreciation for the many singers and musicians.

We had a great night. At closing time we made our way back to the hotel planning what we were going to do the next day. My plan was to visit the shoe shops. The other decided we’d catch the local bus into Bundoran, the nearest seaside town.

It was late now and the foyer of the hotel was quiet. The chair where the woman had sat finishing the dregs of her tea surrounded by her many bags, was empty.

As we waited for the elevator I wondered where she was sleeping tonight. My fussing about being disturbed as the others went to the toilet seemingly of no consequence now

Gemma Hill © January 2021