Page 15 of The Sirens

14

MARY

Mary did not know how long they’d been at sea. She seemed to have lost her grip on time, like it was a stitch she had dropped.

‘It has been a week,’ Eliza whispered to her. ‘I have counted the meals, scant as they are.’

She tapped seven times on Mary’s palm, soft as a butterfly’s wing.

When they first heard the juddering approach of men’s footsteps, the whistling and the laughter, some of the women thought they were already there, that they had reached the great southern land with all its threat and its promise. Such foolish hope made Mary want to weep. She did not know why they were being taken up on deck, but she sensed their journey was far from over.

They climbed through the ship’s decks, a chain of women sobbing and talking and laughing. The oil lamps lit their faces a greasy yellow: Bridie with her flame red hair, thick and matted now; Aoife with her skin worn as threadbare cloth; Sarah and Annie with their matching dark eyes and wan faces. Eliza squeezed Mary’s hand tight, so that her fear lessened, even as they rose higher and higher through the warren of the ship.

On deck, the light seared everything white, like the time in winter when it had snowed and ice folded itself around their little cottage, stealing away the colour and the warmth.

Mary felt a pang then, remembering how Da had kept the fire burning high, had blown on their fingers to warm them. He’d allowed each sister one sip of poitín , the liquid travelling like fire into their bellies. Now, Mary blinked, and Da and the snow-bright cottage fell away.

She gritted her teeth, swallowing her tears. It was no use wishing things were different, that she was back at the cottage, safe and sound. She had to be brave, for Eliza. That was what Da would want. But despite her resolve, the fear returned. She had thought the ship so large when they first set eyes on it at the dock. It had seemed monstrous, like a challenge to God. Now, she saw that it was dwarfed by the sky that stretched overhead and the grey sea that spread out around them. The mast looked needle-thin, the sails fragile. Mary could even see great black holes in them, like the time Eliza had stood too close to the hearth and scorched her dress. It was hard to imagine that it might see them safely to the other side of the world.

As the women were shepherded into place, they passed rows of men lined up on the deck. Some of the sailors looked younger even than she and Eliza; others had weary faces, hardened by all they’d seen.

For all the bodies crowded onto the deck, the only sound was the roar of the wind through the sails, the slap and suck of the waves on the hull and the screeching of seabirds above.

Eliza gripped Mary’s hand tight. Suddenly, the rows of men parted and the captain stepped forward, along with the clergyman in his dark robes. Mary was struck by the contrast between the captain and his officers and the sailors. The former were slick as berries in their rich uniforms, while the others looked to have been plucked from the streets with their ragged trousers and dirty mouths. Some of them couldn’t have been older than twelve: one wiped snot from his nose with his sleeve, like a little child.

But now others were making their way through the crowd, carrying something wrapped in the faded canvas of an old sail. The men heaved the object onto the deck before the captain, and Mary’s breath caught in her throat as the sail curled away, revealing the pale gleam of a foot.

Mary tried to listen to the clergyman’s words as he led the ship in prayer, but they were foreign, flat-sounding. God’s word stripped of its magic, its beauty. How it would shame Da, to know that Protestant prayers fell on his daughters’ ears.

He had striven so hard, all the while they’d lived in Armagh, to see to it that they kept the proper faith. Other families in their village had converted over the years, Mary knew, so that they might escape the brunt of the English laws. Laws that also meant they could not own land or vote, that they could not even own a horse. Every month, Da had been forced to hand over the rent and the tithe to Byrne – Byrne with the long, tapered fingers and the black glint in his eyes – knowing that it would go to the upkeep of St Mark’s, the Protestant church with its walls of shining stone. Meanwhile, their own church was little more than ruins, reeking of animals and damp leaves, their worship there furtive.

But still, Da had stood firm. He taught his girls the rosary, taught them to love the Virgin and the saints. Even though, Mary knew, a part of him also clung to the old ways, the ancient beliefs in fairies and selkies. She did not dare ask if he believed in merrow.

In any case, all his teaching had been for naught. Da was not here now to stop their ears. The clergyman droned on, the words settling like a pall over the gathered crowd. Mary could not keep her eyes from the bluish foot that poked out from beneath the sail. The toes were wrinkled and covered in wiry hairs which moved in the sea breeze. Some dark substance shadowed the nails – dirt, or perhaps blood.

She wondered who the sailor had been, and how he had died. How did his body look, underneath its makeshift shroud?

The captain coughed and the clergyman’s speech faded to an indistinct rumble. Mary saw how his Adam’s apple bobbed in his neck, his nervous sideways glance to the captain. She couldn’t imagine having that kind of power, so that even a man of God feared you. The captain was small, finely built, with girlish curls escaping from his peaked hat and a youthful glow to his face. But he had a way of drawing each eye, moths to a lamp, caught even as they burned.

Before they were taken down below – all of them gasping at the fresh air, as if they might carry it back to the prison deck – Mary felt a prickling pain across her scalp, a tightness in her chest.

Suddenly she longed for the dark.

After the bright day, the prison deck seemed blacker than ever before, as if they were inside a closed eye.

The women were noisy, going over what they’d seen – the endless sky, the dead body, the captain with his fair curls. Reliving the moment of freedom.

‘I saw his head when they tipped him over,’ said one woman. ‘It was all bent and bloody. Someone must have killed him. And yet they call us criminals.’

‘It was a fall that killed him, you eejit,’ said another. ‘Working the rigging, or the crow’s nest. I ought to know, my husband being a sailor all these years. Besides, you’d be foolish to kill someone on a ship, so you would. They’d walk you from the plank.’

‘I don’t like to think of it,’ Sarah muttered in their corner. Mary heard Annie’s yelp as her mother pulled her closer. ‘That there might be a murderer in their ranks. And us, exiled for stealing cloth and the like.’

Mary said nothing. She could hear the soft tide of Eliza’s breathing, and – she fancied – the bright snap of her sister’s thoughts.

She wondered what Eliza remembered of that night by the stream, what moments haunted her. Whether she recalled the wet thwack of the rock against Byrne’s skull, the soft gurgling sounds he’d made.

What would the others think, if they knew how close they’d come to taking a life?

Now, Eliza’s fingers tapped softly on Mary’s hand.

‘I smell bread,’ she said, low in Mary’s ear.

Mary sniffed the air, the stink of women’s bodies, ripe with sweat and urine. But then, there it was. The smell of flour clenched her stomach with wanting.

It wasn’t the sweet, golden scent of the farls that Da had taught them to make, the soft wet cakes of potato and flour that had sizzled on the pot over the hearth. But nor was it the dusty smell of the biscuits they were given for their ration.

‘But where is it coming from?’ Mary murmured to Eliza. ‘It is Bridie. Her jaw clicks when she chews.’

It occurred to Mary then that Bridie had been quiet since they’d been taken down below. This was odd, for normally she filled the deck with her ribald stories or the rich song of her laughter. Though they were only in the berth beneath her, Mary had not noticed. And then Mary heard it too, the small, furtive sounds of chewing.

A bright ribbon of fury passed through her.

Bridie must have stolen the food somehow, when they’d been brought up from the hold. Many times they’d been told what penalty awaited them for theft: all the women would be punished if the culprit couldn’t be found. They might be taken on deck to be whipped, or placed in leg irons. There was even a rumour of a wooden box – tight and dark as a coffin – where an offender might be placed for days on end, until the captain was satisfied she had learned her lesson.

‘Bridie,’ she hissed. ‘How did you get that? What have you done?’

There was the hasty sound of the other woman swallowing. ‘I earned it. Fair and square.’

‘How?’

Next to her, Eliza tensed. ‘Oh, Bridie,’ she said, a hint of sorrow in her voice.

‘“Oh Bridie” what? I’m the one with food in my belly. You could be too, if you were quick enough to sell your wares.’

‘I do not understand,’ Mary said. ‘What does she mean, Eliza? What wares?’

Eliza said nothing. Mary felt a shudder pass through her sister’s body.

And then she knew.