Forget-Me-Not Child. Anne Bennett
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she woke and was surprised to see Danny beside her for she couldn’t remember that ever happening before and she slipped out of bed, but the window was too high for her to see out of. She wondered if anyone else was awake because she was very hungry. She wandered back to bed and was delighted to see Barry’s deep-brown eyes open and looking at her. ‘Hello.’
‘Ssh,’ Barry cautioned. ‘Everyone but us is asleep.’
Angela thought Barry meant just their Mammy and Daddy and then she saw the children lying on the other mattress. She couldn’t remember the Dochertys from when they lived in Donegal but she remembered Mammy telling her they had four children now. And so she lowered her voice and said, ‘I’m ever so hungry, Barry.’
Barry didn’t doubt it because Angela had had none of the delicious supper him and the others had eaten the previous evening and he was hungry enough again, so he reckoned Angela must be starving. ‘Get your clothes on,’ he whispered. ‘Not your shoes. Carry them in your hand and we’ll go downstairs.’
‘What if no one’s up?’
‘They will be soon,’ Barry said confidently. ‘It’s Sunday and everyone will be going to Mass.’
‘Is it? It doesn’t feel like a Sunday.’
‘That’s because everything’s different here,’ Barry said. ‘Hurry up and get ready.’
They crept down the stairs quietly holding their shoes, but there was no kettle boiling on the range, nor any sign of activity, and no wonder for the time on the clock said just six o’clock. On the farm the milking would have all been done by that time, but in a city it seemed six o’clock on a Sunday is the time for laying in bed. And then he remembered there might be no breakfast at all because they were likely taking communion and no one could eat or drink before that. It wouldn’t affect Angela, nor he imagined the two youngest Dochertys, Sammy and Siobhan, whom he’d met the night before. They were only five and six, but the other two, Frankie and Philomena, were older. He had no need to fast either for he hadn’t made his First Holy Communion yet. Had he stayed in Ireland he would have made it in June, but here he wasn’t sure if it would be the same. It did mean though he could eat that morning and he searched the kitchen, which wasn’t hard to do since it was so tiny and, finding bread in the bin, he cut two chunks from one of the loaves, spread it with the butter he’d found on the slab and handed one to Angela.
But Angela just looked at him with her big blue eyes widened. ‘Here, take it,’ he said.
‘It must be wrong,’ she cried. ‘We’ll get into trouble.’
‘I might get into trouble but you won’t,’ Barry assured Angela. ‘But you must eat something because you have had nothing since the bread and butter in the boat dinner time yesterday. We had stew last night but you were too sleepy and Mammy put you to bed, so you must eat something and that’s what I’ll say if anyone is cross. You won’t be blamed so take it.’
He held the bread out again and this time Angela took it and when she crammed it in her mouth instead of eating it normally Barry realized just how hungry she had been and he poured her a glass of milk from the jug he had found with the butter on the slab to go with it. ‘Now you’ve got a milk moustache,’ he said with a smile.
Angela scrubbed at her mouth with her sleeve and then said to Barry, ‘Now what shall we do?’
‘Well, it doesn’t seem as if anyone is getting up,’ Barry said, for it was as quiet as the grave upstairs when he had a listen at the door. ‘So how about going and having a look round the place we are going to be living in?’
‘Oh yes, I’d like that.’
‘Get your shoes on then and we’ll go,’ Barry said.
A little later when Barry opened the front door Angela stood on the step and stared. For all she could see were houses. Houses all down the hill as far as she could see. She stepped into the street and saw her side of the street was the same. And she couldn’t see any grass anywhere. There had been other houses in Ireland dotted here and there on the hillside, but the only thing attached to their cottage was the byre and the barn beyond that. There wasn’t another house in sight and you would have to go to the head of the lane to see any other houses at all. To see so many all stacked up tight together was very strange.
‘Where do you go to the toilet here?’ Angela asked, suddenly feeling the urge to go.
‘Down the yard,’ Barry said. ‘I’ll show you. Mr Docherty took me down the yard last night, we need a key.’
He nipped back into the house to get it before taking Angela’s hand and together they went down to the entry of the yard. As Barry had seen in the dark, now she also saw that six houses opened on the grey cobbled yard and crisscrossing washing lines were pushed high into the sooty air by tall props.
Barry said, ‘Norah told us last night some women wash for other people. Posh people, you know, because it’s a way of making money and they have washing out every day of the week except Sunday. And this is the Brewhouse where Mick says all the washing gets done,’ he added as they went past a brick building with a corrugated tin roof.
The weather-beaten wooden door was ajar and leaning drunkenly because it was missing its top hinges. Angela peeped inside and wrinkled her nose. ‘It smells of soap.’
‘Well it would be odd if it smelled of anything else,’ Barry said, ‘and these two bins we’re passing have to be shared by the Dochertys and two other families. One is for ashes, called a miskin, and the black one is for other rubbish.’
‘Don’t you think it’s an odd way of going on?’ Angela asked.
Barry nodded. ‘I do,’ he said in agreement. ‘And you haven’t seen the toilets yet, they’re right at the bottom of the yard and two other families have to share them as well. They have a key to go in and you must lock it up afterwards. The key is always kept on a hook by the door.’
Angela found it was just as Barry said and as she sat on the bare wooden seat and used the toilet she reflected that Mammy had been right, they had an awful lot of things to get used to.
Stopping only to put the key back on its hook, the two started to walk down the slope towards Bristol Street and Barry wondered what Angela was thinking. He’d had a glimpse of the area as he had walked up Grant Street with everyone else the previous evening. He didn’t think they looked very nice houses, all built of blue-grey brick, three storeys high with slate roofs and they stood on grey streets and behind them were grey yards. He didn’t think his mother had been impressed either, but she had covered the look of dismay Barry had glimpsed before anyone else had seen it.
So he wasn’t surprised at Angela’s amazement as she looked from one side to the other. ‘There’s lots of houses aren’t there Barry?’ she said as they started to go down Bristol Passage.
‘Yeah, but this is a city and lots of people live in a city and they all have to have houses.’
‘Yes, I suppose,’ Angela said.
‘D’you think you’ll like living here?’ he said as they strode along Bristol Street. Despite it being still quite early on a Sunday morning there were already some horse-drawn carts and petrol lorries on the road and a clattering tram passed them, weaving along its shiny rails. There were plenty of shops too, all shut up and padlocked. Angela said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s all strange here isn’t it? Not a bit like home.’
‘No, no it isn’t.’
‘Tell you what though,’ Barry said. ‘This is probably going to be our home now, not Mr and Mrs Docherty’s house, but this area. So I’m going to make sure I like it. Don’t do no good being miserable if you’ve got to live here anyway.’
That made sense to Angela but Barry always seemed to be able to explain things to her so she understood them better. ‘And me,’ she said.
‘Good girl,’ Barry