My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress Read online

  The air quivered with his stertorous breaths, the floorboards creaked under his substantial tread as he waded into the room. We watched and waited in the dreadful silence until he finally came to a halt at the front of the class.

  Miss by this stage had begun to unravel, one hand fluttering to the back of her hair, the other smoothing down her skirt. She was swallowing hard, the brooch at her throat rising and falling with the rhythm of her anxiety. Father Monacle struck fear and holy terror into our wee hearts as he stood there, scanning our submissive little faces with his great searchlight eyes, probing for the slightest stain of sin. When at last he spoke it felt like a volcano erupting – a long, low rumbling that caused even our desks to tremble.

  ‘Are they all good children, Miss McKeague?’

  ‘Oh yes, Father!’

  ‘What about young Lagan and McCloy down there? Learning, are they?’

  ‘Yes, Father. Brendan and Michael are making good progress, Father.’

  ‘Is that so, miss? Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?’

  And with that he was off on a tour of the room, plucking out surnames and punching us with questions. Miss kept one pace behind him, her pained face and mouth working like a goldfish’s, urging us on as we stammered and babbled our answers.

  Everyone passed of course – that was part of the charade. Father Monacle would appear to soften as he prepared to leave. It seemed as if all the fear and panic he’d spread among us was gathered back into his great, black coat as he bestowed a beaming smile upon us and vented a hearty ‘Well done, children!’ Our little faces melted in the warmth of such praise and Miss gave a huge sigh of relief.

  When he’d gone, Miss had an announcement to make.

  ‘Because you’ve been such good children, I have a special reward for all of you.’ And she ducked into her storeroom.

  We waited in joyous anticipation, whispering among ourselves, each trying to outguess the other as to what this wonderful prize could be. Some thought money, others were convinced it would be sweets, and the general consensus favoured the latter.

  Miss re-emerged moments later, clutching our trophies: a brand-new, plain brown pencil for each of us. It was a right miserable gift when you come to think of it. We’d set our hearts on a chocolate, or even an Imperial Mint from the frequently replenished little round tin on her desk, but it was not to be. We did get out to play, though, while Miss helped herself to a cup of very sweet tea and a Marie biscuit, no doubt to get her blood sugar levels back to normal, poor thing.

  I fell into the school routine. Lunchtime was always a welcome incursion into the monotony of one’s day, not least because a half-hour of freedom followed.

  The playground was heaven for most of us. I learned to recognise those souls for whom it was purgatory, a thirty-minute respite from the headmaster, whose ire they’d called down upon themselves that day. They stood apart from us, cowed and with faces red from crying.

  So far I had only experienced Master Bradley from the safety of Miss’s room. Often we’d hear him shouting, then the sounds of the horrid slaps followed by the shrill screams of the victim. Miss would cross herself then and ask us to say a silent prayer. In the playground I saw the damage that had been done, and it was ugly.

  My classmates and I lived in fear of crossing the tragic boundary between P4 and P5, between paradise and hell. All too soon I would know the ghastly truth, but for now we skipped, hopped and jumped with caution. Our hair slides and bows came undone, and our eyes and noses grew runny with exertion. We were permitted these lapses in decorum; all too soon we’d be returning to the discipline of the classroom. All too soon we’d hear Miss blow her whistle, followed by the hollow clapping of the Master’s hands. Fun was over.

  Looking back, I see that those first four years of childhood were easy. I none the less had no great urge to go to school. I hated having to leave my mother every morning to trudge with my brothers that four-mile journey, and was greatly curious as to what she did when the three of us were gone. I desperately wanted to return, believing that my absence left a void in her day. I know better now: she probably heaved a great sigh of relief at our retreating backs, turned to tend the baby and get on with her many tasks. Our departure meant remission of a sort for her.

  On considering those early years, I see my mother forever occupied and busy and my father as an elusive figure who stood apart: stern, scornful and mostly silent. There was little gaiety at home. During the day we played outside until the gathering darkness forced us indoors.

  The only stimulus in our pre-television home was a green plastic record-player which the parents would take out on a Friday evening. On it my father would play the most insufferable renditions from the ‘Republican hit parade’ of the day, songs like Sean South from Garryowen. There was Kevin Barry, Johnson’s Motor Car and – perhaps the most popular of all – Up Went Nelson, which celebrated the violent demolition of Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin in March 1966. This burlesque opened with the deafening roar of a simulated explosion, a blast of sound which nearly blew the ears clean off us. We’d sit captive on the couch, listening to the thudding stridency of anthem after anthem, our impressionable minds being drip-fed Ireland’s troubled history.

  Christmas, though, made up for many ills. It was the festival that raised us into bliss, a time of light to brighten our lives as each gloomy year drew to a close.

  Because mother had all the work to do in the run-up to the big day, she quite naturally began to communicate her frustration early on.

  ‘There’ll be no Christmas this year,’ she’d say without fail. ‘I’m not buying a damned thing. No turkey, no cake, no nothing. I’m sick of the whole damned lot of ye, so I am.’

  Given what I now know about my overworked, cash-strapped mother, I can fully understand her frustration. To her, Christmas was more of a curse than a celebration. All the same my heart would lurch when I’d hear these protestations and I’d worry right up until the big day itself, in case she’d carry out her threat.

  I need not have fretted. Christmas morning arrived like a dream fulfilling my every wish. Santa Claus always delivered. Mother would have drawn nine chalk circles on the floor, each with a name attached, and Santa would know which toys to pile in which circle. The empty milk jug and a few crumbs of mince-pie left on the table proved beyond doubt that he’d rested awhile in our humble kitchen before continuing his journey.

  I was overjoyed with my doll and plastic jewellery, the jigsaw and the Bunty Annual. How many hours did I spend gazing at the cover, wondering if I could train our collie Carlo to jump through hoops just like Bunty’s dog could? The impossible radiance of that one day of the year cannot be dimmed no matter how many decades pass. Strangely enough, I realised even then that it was my mother who had made it all happen. By late morning I was so full of chocolate I could not face dinner, and instead sat at the table watching Aunt Margaret try to eat hers.

  Margaret was an attractive woman in her forties who stood in for the aunt we never had. She was a cousin of mother’s and an essential feminine presence to offset the drabness of our many uncles. She was a stiff woman with legs as thin as dowelling rods. Feet in flat, suede slip-ons, never high heels: ‘It’s me bunions, Mary’, wore dimpled gloves and a coat with a mandarin collar. Her hair was her best feature: thick and shiny, inexpertly tamed with castor oil and a brush. She had chosen not to marry, and this was looked upon as a character flaw rather than a conscious decision. My mother would say that Maggie ‘had missed her markets’ and vent a sigh of disapproval.

  On Christmas Day she’d arrive clutching gifts that never varied from one year to the next: a jam sponge in a cardboard box from Ditty’s Bakery in Maghera and a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry. There was always a vague air of helplessness about her, as though she were forever searching for something she knew she’d never find. This persistent questing was also brought to the dinner table; she couldn’t sit on a hard chair, always needed a cushion: ‘It’s me piles
, Mary.’ Every Christmas a different part of Margaret ached. We heard about bunions, corns, ulcers, wind and cramp. She ate very little, perhaps for all these reasons, and would poke and search among the contents of the plate to see if that elusive something might be trapped under a slice of turkey or among the vegetables.

  After dinner she and my parents chatted by the fire, becoming more animated with the sherry, while we played with our toys – breaking most of them. It was plain, even to us children, that Aunt Margaret had never perfected the art of conversation. My mother would make a simple enquiry and could have gone off and said a couple of rosaries before Margaret got round to answering. After what seemed like an interminable silence, she’d say something like ‘What was that, Mary?’ before reverting to her usual, detached self. Her solitary life had left her unable to communicate.

  Television changed all that, and Christmas afternoons became less of a trial for everyone concerned. Not that I had much say in my viewing matter; the adults would decide what was suitable entertainment. Five of us would squeeze onto the couch with Margaret teetering at one end, and watch the most mind-numbing selection of programmes imaginable: The Black and White Minstrel Show (our visitor’s favourite), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (mother’s favourite) and They Flew to Bruges (father’s).

  After hours of tedious television, sweet cake, idle talk and syrupy sherry Margaret would have metamorphosed from timid and uneasy to red-cheeked and tipsy, and would be ‘helped’ out to the car to be driven back to her council semi in Maghera.

  However, no matter how boring the television became there was always the distraction of a jigsaw or the prospect of yet more sweets. Christmas Day never failed to make me happy. It was the one day that guaranteed complete and utter joy.

  The 25 December 1966 was no exception. It hardly prepared me for the year to follow, though. That September I was entrusted to the not-so-tender care of Master Bradley.

  LESSONS IN HELL

  If Miss was the rewarding angel then Master Bradley was surely the avenging one. No two personalities could have been more divergent. I was passed from the ease of the one into the fearful clutches of the other. This was when the unravelling of my innocence began. In the Master’s room I learned so much about fear and terror that no space was left for anything else.

  Master Bradley was a tall, thin man, bald with a lick of crowning hair that stood up in the wind as he marched around the playground. His gaunt face, pale eyes and mean, striated mouth rarely softened into a smile, but frequently quivered into a rictus of joy when he beat us. He smoked lavishly and often; his sickly pallor and ochreous fingers bore the evidence. From the safety of my desk I’d watch him light up an endless succession of Gallaher Greens, steadying the flaming match in a cupped claw and sucking greedily – giving life to the fag while shortening his own.

  Every child who sat before him was in the line of fire – we were the collateral damage of his insidious temper and frustration. It didn’t take much to set him off. We could be beaten for the most harmless errors: scraping back our chairs accidentally, forgetting to address him as ‘sir’, not coming up quick enough to his desk when summoned. The list was as varied as his moods, and the more erratic the mood the more vicious would be the blows he’d rain down on innocent heads and hands and legs.

  I got beaten for not answering loudly enough, for bungling a line of my nine-times table; for stumbling over the eleventh stanza of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – yes the eleventh – for missing one spelling in a list of 20; for neglecting to stand up when spoken to; for dropping my books, for crying, for talking, for fidgeting. In other words: I was punished for being my cowardly, helpless, fear-driven self. In hindsight I understand the tactics of the bully. He’ll flog what he despises most in others, to stymie those same qualities in himself. But the fury is rarely quenched; the fire rages on.

  Sometimes he’d be late, and Miss – never one to neglect an opportunity for piety – would step over the threshold and lead the juniors and us in morning prayers. Oh, how I wished I could have gone back with her! And how well I remember the egg-beater churnings in my stomach as I prayed earnestly and fervently that Master Bradley would not show. Occasionally my prayers would be answered, but those days were rare indeed. No, like as not we’d hear the engine die, the car door slam and his head would appear at the farthest window, the wisp of hair waving in nasty reproach as he marched down the slope, his profile sinking lower at each successive window as if the very ground were swallowing him up. How we wished it would!

  He’d stride into the room, bringing all his rancour with him: our judge, jury and ‘executioner’.

  Well had the boding tremblers learn’d to trace

  The day’s disasters in his morning face.

  The register was taken first. He would open a tall, red bound ledger and, with a splayed hand and cocked pen, run down the list, flinging out our surnames. If you didn’t respond loudly enough he repeated your name in an amplified roar, glaring up maniacally from the page. The bullets of invective would fly.

  ‘Get out of the wrong side of the bed, McKenna?’ he asked me one cold, November morning.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Asleep, are you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘What was that?’ And he cocked a hand to his ear and strained his head to one side in mock deference.

  ‘No, sir – sorry, sir.’

  ‘I didn’t hear that.’

  ‘No, sir.’ I tried to respond more loudly, my voice rising to a faltering whine.

  ‘No sir what?’ he roared.

  ‘No, sir … I’m not asleep … I … I … didn’t get out … of … of the side of the b-b-b-b-bed … this morning … (I heard the ripple of low laughter now from my nervous audience) … I … I … I mean the wrong side …’

  I trailed off, mumbling and stumbling over words as the room began to blur.

  ‘Stop bumbling, McKenna.’

  Then came the words I didn’t want to hear.

  ‘Come up here … Now!’

  And my fate was sealed yet again.

  I’d cry as I made that harrowing journey, the shuddering sobs making my shoulders rise and fall in jerks of great despair as I trudged to his desk. And all the while his predatory gaze followed me until that moment of dread when I offered up my trembling palms. He took tremendous care in the positioning of them, manoeuvring them to the desired height with the aid of the stick, eyeing the level, angling his feet like a prizefighter for a more dynamic blow. And all the while I wept, and all the while he ignored my tears.

  The first stinging wallops would cause my hands to drop. He’d prod them back into position, and whack again – and perhaps again, depending on how enraged he felt. There was a deathly silence in the room then because everyone felt my terror and wondered fearfully who’d be next.

  The punishment finished, Master Bradley would glare at me as I made my slow retreat to the desk. Only when I’d taken my seat would he return, calmly, to the register and continue the roll-call.

  I’d sit there resting the swollen hands on my lap, the spasms of pain riffling through me from head to toe, my cheeks searing under the tightening wash of tears. And he would not allow me my essential grief.

  ‘McKenna, if you don’t stop blubbering you’ll get the same again.’

  I’d stop immediately, and for the rest of the day shut down all the accesses to my sorrow, my head pounding with the injustice, the words I wanted to scream and shout stuck in my throat, choking me into silence. At playtime I’d become one of those lost souls I’d seen when in Miss McKeague’s care, the ones in purgatory. I’d stand alone by the school wall and no one would venture to play with me, so fearful were they of inviting the same wrath upon themselves by the sin of association.

  ‘McKenna’ was all I ever got from him; none of us was ever given the dignity of being addressed by our first name. This was another cruel ploy to further reduce our fragile self-esteem. Some of the boys – whom he loathed more than
the girls – didn’t even merit that, but were given biblical nicknames: Isaac, Job, Jacob et al. The Master seemed to find this terribly amusing.

  He was like my father: sombre, remote, disingenuous, with a cruel streak. They both liked to see others suffer. I had the same sense of dread and foreboding at home as I did in school. But at home I had mother to run to. In school I had no one.

  The Master’s hawthorn stick was symbolic of his twisted discontent. Faithfully, each September, he’d select one specially from the hedge that braided the playing field. We’d observe him as we played; he’d study the shrubbery with forensic interest, like a botanist hunting a rare species. For not any old stick would do; it had to be straight, and studded with a healthy rash of thorns, all the better for a more tactile response. Having spotted a suitable specimen, he’d cut it free with his penknife and carry it indoors under his arm. We’d stop our play and watch him go, following him with anxious eyes and accelerating heartbeats.

  During that first week of the new school year, while we covered our books and wrote our names big on the covers, the Master would devote every spare moment to honing and paring the new instrument of cruelty, sharpening the punishing points and reddening them with a marker. In my blameless head I saw it twisted and turned into that crown of blood and thorns, and realised I would have to suffer just like Him.

  For school was largely suffering, and little else. I did not learn much from my oppressor; few of us did. His perversion had succeeded in stalling the learning process. My pencils and rulers became for me instruments of torture; and my books, with their lines of spellings and verses and stories, manuals of sheer frustration. Fear and its brother Shame had taken hold of my heart to an awesome degree. All their insidious byproducts – anxiety, shyness, confusion and woe – began to coalesce in me like so many heavy stones; they were dragging me down, to keep me alone, resistant and unreachable for a long time to come.