Page 136 of The Missing Sister

When he left the kitchen, Mammy appeared from upstairs. She looked even paler than before the doctor had arrived, and sat down heavily in the chair by the range.

Katie glanced around helplessly at them all.

‘Don’t look at me, Katie,’ said Nora. ‘I’m away up at the Big House most of the time, skivvying in the kitchen.’

‘You could leave your job and help me,’ put in Katie.

‘What? And lose the few shillings they pay me?’ Nora shook her head. ‘I’ll be working for free here doing the same thing.’

‘Your wages don’t help us, do they? They just pay for your fancy clothes and your trips up to Cork City to buy them, while I do everything here,’ Katie spat back.

‘Girls, please!’ Mammy said as Nora and Katie eyed each other furiously. ‘Sure, we can work something out.’

‘At least Bill will be coming to school with me,’ put in Merry. ‘And I’ll make the breakfast before I leave.’

‘But there’s minding Pat, an’ all the washing and the cooking and the cleaning and the pigs! Who’ll do the pigs?’ Katie’s eyes were full of tears.

‘We won’t be taking every word the doctor said seriously,’ said Mammy. ‘I can rest when Merry and Bill get back from school.’

‘Mammy, we must do as the doctor has told us, mustn’t we, Katie?’ Merry implored her.

‘Yes,’ Katie replied reluctantly. ‘But, Nora, you have to be helping when you’re here.’

‘Are you saying I don’t help now? ’Tis a lie, Katie O’Reilly, and—’

‘I—’

‘Stop!’ Merry butted in before another argument could start between them. ‘’Tis only a few weeks until the babe is born, and I’ve the Christmas holidays from school too. I’ll help all I can, I swear.’

‘I’m not having you doing housework instead of homework, Merry,’ said Mammy firmly. ‘I’ll ask Ellen to come in every day to help us.’

‘Oh Mammy, she’ll be bringing her own babe up here and then ’twill be a madhouse,’ Nora complained.

‘Will all of you stop it!’ Mammy said, and Merry saw tears in her mother’s eyes. ‘Now, can one of you be laying out the plates for our tea?’

Later, up in their bedroom, Merry and Katie discussed the situation.

‘’Tis all very well Mammy saying she’ll find a way, but for a start, she can’t be working on a Monday for Father O’Brien,’ said Merry. ‘’Tis a big old house and Mrs Cavanagh gets so cross if she doesn’t leave it sparkling.Andspreads gossip around the place about how bad at cleaning Mammy is.’

‘Oh, don’t you be minding her; everyone knows she’s an evil old witch. One day her cold heart will turn her to stone and she’ll be in hell for all eternity.’

‘Maybe I could do the cleaning at Father O’Brien’s house,’ Merry thought out loud. ‘Just one day of missing school wouldn’t be too much of a bother. Our John left at my age to help Daddy run the farm.’

‘But farming’s what he’s born to do, Merry. Everyone knows you’re cleverer than anyone else around these parts. And how much you love your learning. Father O’Brien wouldn’t be hearing of it.’

Merry sighed, then turned out the light on the little wooden night stand that Daddy had made for them one Christmas.

‘Merry?’ came a voice out of the darkness.

‘Yes?’

‘Do you... do you think Daddy is a drunk?’

‘Why are you asking?’

‘Only ’cos I heard Seamus O’Hanlon laughing about Daddy being too fond of the bottle. You know ’tis often John that’s up and into the shed to start the milking. And he’s driving the cart with the churns to the creamery most mornings, because Daddy’s still asleep downstairs.’

Merry lay there thinking how Katie always said out loud what she only dared to think. Of course she’d noticed, but what could she do?