My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress Page 4

  My classmates and my siblings all endured the same degree of unwarranted and inexcusable pain. When we weren’t receiving it from Master Bradley we were witnessing the violence done to others. That unholy trinity of receiving, witnessing and the consequent suffering was always to the fore.

  The only defence my fear-stricken mind could offer was the comfort and protection of the prayers Miss had taught me. Each morning on our four-mile hike to school, whether in hail, rain or sun, I prayed that I wouldn’t upset the Master; prayed that he wouldn’t ask me a question; prayed that I wouldn’t give a wrong answer; prayed that I wouldn’t have to ask to go to the toilet, prayed that I could hold all my fear and water in until breaktime or playtime or hometime, because the Master did not like to be disturbed.

  My head throbbed from running this bitter narrative. I had headaches on the way to school and again on the way back, what with the thought of homework I couldn’t do, the thought that mother would shout and father would be in bad form (she frequently did, and he frequently was) and – perhaps the most hurtful thought of all – the certainty that there was no one to help or console me. My brothers and sisters could not assist me. They were feeling the scourge of the injustice as keenly as I was.

  Deliverance from the tyrannical Master would arrive on occasion when Miss Heron, a replacement teacher, was slotted in if Bradley was ever off sick. Mother used to say he was ‘bad with the nerves’ – which was not surprising.

  The Misses Heron and McKeague were similar in appearance: they were spinsters and both favoured the dove-grey and slate-blue suits that matched their hair. There, sadly, the similarities ended. Miss McKeague was all leanness, dedication and piety; Miss Heron was large, indolent and for the most part indifferent.

  She was a courageous dresser, had a penchant for the knitted two-piece, a necessity for the fuller figure in those pre-Lycra days; it was the only fabric that could adequately stretch its way round her generous bosom and hips. She accessorised the suits with strings of pearls, a capacious banana-coloured handbag, and a pair of sandals in the same shade.

  On learning that Miss Heron had been ‘teaching’ us my mother would comment that the lady in question was ‘terrible good with her hands’, no doubt alluding to her skill with the knitting needles.

  Yet it was clear to me, even back then, that Miss Heron had a rather limited grasp of teaching methodology. She would sit at the Master’s table, reading either Ireland’s Own or The People’s Friend while we got on with our work. She never engaged in active teaching, and that was her loss as well as ours. Her only reason for leaving the desk was to forage surreptitiously in the store cupboard where she’d stow a supply of chocolate biscuits. These demands for sustenance were prompted by boredom rather than hunger. Her handbag, too, contained a hoard of Merimaids which she popped covertly when she thought no one was looking. We always knew of course; the crackling wrappers betrayed her.

  Her approach to instruction was a simple, all encompassing one: getting us to do as much work as possible without expending any energy herself. She’d write the following in a generous hand on the board, and ask us not to disturb her until we were finished.

  Copy pages 33–40 from Bible [RE]

  Draw map of Ireland and label [geography]

  Draw a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary and colour in [art]

  Write a story about your picture of the BVM [English]

  She didn’t seem to be too keen on maths, and that was fine by me because I was a right dunce when it came to sums.

  Miss Heron also had quite an imaginative interpretation of extracurricular activities. One such involved a pair of Bakelite binoculars and a box of sepiatinted slides. We were summoned to a table at the front in family groups; those with several brothers and sisters in the room went first. My two brothers and I were usually second.

  The slides we viewed consisted mainly of ladies in big hats, soldiers and airmen with beaver moustaches, and Lancaster bombers taking off and landing. Miss Heron never actually explained what we were looking at, and we didn’t ask, so pleased were we to be out of our seats, and relieved that we weren’t likely to get the heads and hands ‘bate off us’.

  But we were always sad when she departed, because her going could only mean the demon’s return. We didn’t learn much from her but felt completely safe in her presence as she sat there like a big, dumpy frog, chewing her sweets and scanning the mags. We could take liberties then, passing each other cinnamon lozenges and clove rock – the latter being the M&M’s of the sixties – and swapping copies of Judy or The Beano, knowing that she barely had the inclination to rise, let alone the energy to give us a clout.

  Master Bradley was a blight on our entire school year, and few were the people and occasions that granted us a reprieve. One very welcome diversion stands out in my memory: Varnie the Magic Man.

  Each year, with a show that lasted a good and unforgettable hour, Varnie would turn up to entertain us. Great was our joy when the Master announced that everyone was to bring in one and sixpence on the following Friday, to cover Varnie’s costs.

  The thought of the Magic Man’s arrival made us so excited that we could fleetingly forgive Master Bradley his outbursts – and that speaks volumes about Varnie. His hour gave us such happiness that he restored our faith in the adult of the species and lifted us up, however temporarily, into that enchanted realm where we believed everything was possible.

  Nothing could compare with the excitement that accompanied the Magic Man’s arrival. We’d hear the thunder of Varnie’s motorbike and our ears would prick up. The Master would then instruct us to put away our books and sit up straight. Two boys – how the rest of the class envied them! – were dispatched to help Varnie carry in the black boxes which contained the tools of his trade.

  He always dressed for the occasion in an obligatory and suitably mysterious black suit. It had obviously never seen the inside of a dry-cleaner’s in its long history, the alarming shine on knees and elbows almost complementing the satin braiding of trouser-legs and lapels. Under this he wore a shocking-pink shirt with a ruched and frilly front. When his performance grew heated he’d discard the jacket with a great flourish, to reveal the shirt in its full glory.

  He was a little fat man, in profile reminiscent of a plump blackbird. His hair was sparse; he wore it greased and stretched over a yeasty forehead. I suspect that Brylcreem always topped Varnie’s toiletry list. With his fleshy face and oily moustache and hair, he looked like a latter-day Hercule Poirot.

  In retrospect his repertoire, though truly magical to us then, was spectacularly mundane; it involved for the most part a walking stick, a top hat and a rubber chicken. There was also a great deal of scarf-waving, card-shuffling and coin-flipping.

  The finale was memorable because of its daftness. Varnie would select six boys and give each one a tubular bell and a little bar with which to strike it. The bells were of differing lengths, each having its own note, and the idea was that Varnie could invoke a tune from the boys simply by tapping each one on the shoulder at certain intervals. That, at least, was the theory – but it rarely worked in practice, whether on account of one boy’s inability to strike his instrument on cue or lack of alertness on the part of the others. After several attempts Varnie would become very frustrated indeed, his face turning as shockingly pink as his shirt, and in the end he’d simply give up. It was all one to us, of course; we didn’t care how it sounded as long as we were being entertained.

  Throughout all this frivolity the Master would sit in the corner, smoking one furious cigarette after another and reading a copy of the Irish News. He would, at last, rouse himself after the finale – when Varnie had decided he’d had enough and was taking a low bow with a sweeping flourish. We’d cheer and applaud for as long as we could, making the moment last, until the roar of the Master put paid to our enthusiasm. Then it was time for us to offer up our hot coinage from hands that had gone sweaty with excitement. That excitement and appreciation was truly from the
heart.

  On our way home from school that day we’d come across Varnie, reclining on a grass verge by the side of the road with his mighty bike parked behind him. There he’d be: counting his takings and chuckling happily to himself. We somehow knew that we were witnessing a very private moment and would softly tiptoe past.

  Varnie made me forget my fear. For that hour I got lost in the bewitching world of make-believe. For most of those days in school I was the passive absorber of dreary facts. Learning was a chore because it was presented as a burden to be shouldered rather than an adventure to be enjoyed. I could not become engrossed in Master Bradley’s classes. The fear of being beaten for no reason overshadowed any sense of healthy curiosity about the world. I loved to draw and I loved to sing, but the Master was very rarely in the mood to allow us to indulge in such diversions. Had Bradley had his way completely then even those rare visits from people like Mr O’Leary, the dancing teacher, would never have taken place.

  Mr O’Leary appeared at the school when I’d reached P7, the final year. No doubt the education authorities had dispatched him to nurture latent artistic talent. I got the chance to shine, if only temporarily.

  Mr O’Leary came to teach us Irish dancing. He was nowhere near as exciting as Varnie, of course, but was a welcome distraction just the same. Every Thursday at precisely 12.15 he would arrive in a ready-made suit, carrying a vinyl-plastic tape recorder. He held himself as erect as an army major, face like a stone, hair oiled flat. He was restless. He was keen; didn’t walk but skipped. Those feet were made for dancing, heels for clicking, toes for pointing, his life one endless hornpipe.

  Without warning he’d launch into a demonstration reel or jig. It looked as though an electric shock had passed right through him. He’d go completely rigid from the waist up, stare straight ahead of him, and kick his legs high, while doing a circuit of the room.

  He’d then call on us to imitate him. We did so in pairs, and I think we managed it without much difficulty. Only when he turned on the music, however, did we lose all coordination and memory of the steps. Pandemonium broke loose. The boys blundered about with the grace of hippos: kicking, stepping on toes, and colliding with one another. We girls spent our time sidestepping an array of their size-ten plastic sandals and smelly slippers.

  This horseplay did not amuse Mr O’Leary. He’d turn off the music with an angry snap and set about winnowing the graceful from the graceless, sending the offenders back to their seats.

  And joy! He decreed that I – yes, little me – had an ear and a feel for dance. He would often use me to demonstrate how things should be done. At last I had found something I could excel in. But sadly nothing ever came of this latent talent; my mother didn’t seem to think that proficiency in Irish dancing was such an impressive asset, so the potential in my little legs was never realised. It might have meant an important confidence booster but it was not to be. Culture of any description did not figure large in Lisnamuck.

  Those rare and delightful intrusions – Miss Heron’s slide show, Varnie’s magic, Mr O’Leary’s dancing – exemplified a world I seldom glimpsed. They each afforded me flashes of experience I should have had in greater measure: joy, merriment, freedom and lightness. Are they not the very things a child needs in order to grow in spirit?

  There seemed to be so much anger in the air in my childhood. I felt the same degree of hostility both at home and at school. The only conclusion I could draw at that early age was that I was causing it. I internalised this and grew to believe that I was wicked and unworthy, and therefore helpless in the face of it; I was left not knowing how to make things right and all those angry adults happy.

  School was not all doom and gloom; there was at least one hour of the week when I was happy, 60 precious minutes when Master Bradley did not hold sway. For the last hour on a Friday afternoon we got to do needlework with Miss McKeague.

  Nothing could compare with the relief I felt at being excused from the Master’s presence with the words, ‘Would the girls now slip quietly into their sewing.’ The word ‘quietly’ was superfluous here: each of us was a model of subordination. Yet the Master always felt the need to remind us just the same.

  In Miss’s sewing class I was forever knitting a red scarf. This joyous labour seemed to stretch over four years, with a multitude of dropped stitches and tangled knots along the way.

  We would sit in a semicircle round the stove, our shins mottling in the heat, our pink faces lowered and tongue-tips appearing through lips tightened with effort. And, as the crackling fire and clacking needles carried on a noisy dispute with each other, it didn’t matter if the sun shone or the rain fell; for that hour of the fearsome school week I was happy.

  I was happy because I was in safe territory, away from the ill-tempered jolts and stabbing gaze of the Master. In Miss’s room I could drop a stitch without the risk of being beaten. Her customary reaction was to gently free the wool from my hands and repair the damage as best she could.

  With Miss I knew I could make mistakes and be forgiven, that I could ask permission to go to the toilet and not be refused. My limbs felt looser, my head lighter, and my words flowed more freely.

  As I sat there I sometimes thought about the boys and girls who had, like me, sat at that stove – or one very much like it – trying to make sense of that little part of Ulster we inhabited. This was the school my parents and relatives had endured all those years before. Had their teachers been any different? Perhaps. I wondered if they, as children, had sat there like me, tightened in by unknowing, with all their dreams before them ‘spread out like a spring-woken tree’.

  UNHAPPY HOME

  Our house stood in the shadow of the Glenshane mountain range, three miles east of predominantly Catholic Draperstown, two miles north of Protestant Tobermore, and five or so miles from Maghera, which nurtured a risky mix of both. Such clearly delineated boundaries along lines of religion seemed just as important back then as they are now. The people of the locality liked to know where they – and their neighbours – stood.

  This South Derry region is mainly farming country, studded with freeholds that have witnessed generation-long internecine conflict. Land and religion are of equal importance to the Ulster Catholics. This obsession with the soil is rooted in the dark past, when their forebears, being dispossessed during the Plantations, had to buy back their plots from the Protestant British. The sons of farming fathers therefore live together in an uneasy alliance, waiting for the ‘holy ground’ to one day pass to them. Where there is land there is discord; nowhere was this more in evidence than in my father’s bleak ancestry.

  On a piece of land ceded to him by his family he built the bungalow that would house us all, and reluctantly farmed the land that would feed and sustain us into adulthood. I say reluctantly because from the earliest age I was aware that my father did not want me. He’d wanted none of us; we were the unfortunate by-products of the marriage bed, the burdensome extras that forced him into a life of labour, rather than one of indolence, more fitting to his natural mien.

  My parents, as seen in their wedding picture, bore little resemblance to the two people I came to know. My father was tall, rawboned and dour. His thick, black hair was combed severely back and fixed in place by a felt hat, shed only on Sundays and when eating. The eyes were blue and staring; one would need a raft of cold adjectives to describe their colour and intensity. The meagre mouth and narrow face rarely surrendered a smile.

  As a child I do not remember a single encouraging word from him, a comforting arm around me if I fell and hurt myself, a smile of approval, an unexpected gift, a birthday card, a hug. He remained morose, pessimistic and a stranger to me always.

  There were six boys in father’s family; he was the third-born. From all accounts they were the progeny of a loveless union and a harsh childhood. They grew up in the cold, post-war atmosphere of the 1920s; from the earliest age they were treated not as children but used as little slaves to do the heavy housework and farm labo
uring.

  They had proceeded from sunless children to barren bachelors: a yawning sombre procession trudging along one of life’s more aimless paths, each one reticent and uneasy until my poor mother happened along. She naively chose my father and stumbled blindly and all too willingly into wedlock.

  His brothers never forgave father for this transgression, an enmity they extended to us children as well. A suspicious eye and a grim look were all we received from our uncles; there were no pennies of reward, no smiles of approval, no words of comfort, not ever; just the accusatory, glaucous stare, especially from Uncle Robert, the Master. He was the bursar, the man who held the purse-strings.

  You would think that marriage and children would have softened my father, but that wasn’t the case. The accumulation and hoarding of the money, and getting his hands on the acreage, were as important to him as ever. But he now realised that since committing the sin of marriage he was even less favourably disposed. His wife and children were to blame for thwarting his access to the family fortune. We became a needless expense, and for this he actively resented us.

  My poor mother attempted to compensate for his deficiencies, but hers was a relentless battle. Her photogenic beauty had saddened and drooped under the weight of his injustice, but she carried on being mother and father to all of us while he watched the show from the sidelines.

  She was the physical force that woke us, washed us, clothed and fed us, before putting us on the road to school, while he slumbered selfishly on. She was the cook – pounding, churning, peeling, baking – and the one who trained us to eat properly at table. She was the cleaner: sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing our soiled nappies and clothes in basins of soapy water. She was the seamstress who knitted sweaters, darned socks, and stitched our floral frocks on her second-hand Singer sewing machine. She was the nurse who bandaged our cut knees, wiped our tears, and put us to bed with an aspirin crushed between two spoons and mixed in with jam.