‘Your grandfather taught my grandfather to dance.’
‘Poor times,’ says Jimmy
behind the steering wheel
where he has remained since driving us here
at twenty miles an hour,
worried by the new road that cuts
through Carthy’s burreen,
unused to roundabouts.
Flying out and flying home,
an empty seat beside me.
Flying home and flying back,
he’s let me have the window.
III Not even trying
Some speak well of them
as they would of the dead.
‘Presentation Convent’ wrought in iron
spans the gates in a half moon,
and a plaque commemorates the order,
moved on in favour of new development -
a cinema, a leisure centre -
the rooms behind the boarded windows
haunted by just four women at its closure.
Were they the good ones,
the balance on the scales?
Their children learnt the petitionary prayer:
Please God, not me. The child in the next chair,
afraid to raise his hand, afraid to not raise his hand,
beaten for getting it wrong, beaten for not even trying.
IV Windowless
There was light enough that night.
I can only guess
if my great aunt’s hair was red,
her dress blue or brown
as she stood at the foot of the town
in the heat of the patriot’s flames,
not knowing that children to come
would tell her tale to a newfound cousin
with vowels like the Kingstons
who had crowned an Irish town
with an English castle.
Built in the image of Windsor,
‘Just one window less’,
I am told more than once,
wondering how the light came in,
mistaking it for ‘windowless’.
V Two women
We searched the stones
for names that matched our own.
Two women, just met, in the graveyard
of the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
‘They’d money to build in spite of the famine.’
you said, nodding towards the date engraved
on the tower: 1847.
I told you of my recent find,
a certificate of baptism.
‘My father was a “boy child”,
raised by his mother’s sister.’
A similar fate
had befallen your grandmother.
The unwed mothers fled:
one to England, one to America.
We entered the church together,
new-found companions,
English-Irish, Irish-American,
descendants of the country that dispersed
its fallen women to one of three destinations:
England, America, the sisters of Magdalene,
and I pictured a girl at the altar,
offering her child
to be cleansed of Original Sin,
handing him to her sister.
Leaving.
VI Completely
My blood is vintage Irish
but my accent is a giveaway:
Chatham, South East London, Surrey,
with sounds of Counties Cork and Clare.
At grammar, university,
I learnt an English history -
the coming of the railroad,
the growth of industry -
came lately to the famine road,
yet I’m steeped in Latin Credo,
a dose of mea culpa, Agnus Dei,
and choruses of rebel songs
performed at home,
withheld from English company.
In my twenties I received an
English name, swallowed it whole
like the body of Christ.
In my forties, spat it out -
learnt to sign as myself again.
I’m Irish with an English voice,
English with an Irish heart,
floating forever between
Holyhead and Dun Laoghaire,
an Irish girl, an English woman,
not half and half: completely.
* * *
Our Father
Our Father, who is in Heaven, you gave us
our crisps and a bottle of R White’s
on a Friday night. We knelt by the bed,
hands pressed: forgive us our trespasses,
before we could know what trespasses meant.
Harder to pray when you slipped
from the pew to the call of the glass,
the first drawn pint after evening Mass.
I would go up to receive and return
from the rail to an empty seat.
Did the Lord forgive as you filtered
your trespasses? Forgive, as I refused
to utter your prayer? Sleep in peace,
Our Father, all trespasses forgiven.
Story
I know this story:
it’s one of nuns and Christian brothers;
of drawing water from a well; of winters
without shoes; of delivering your sister
when the midwife couldn’t come; of finding
a man in the barn, hanging; of sailing
on the open deck of the night boat
to Holyhead with one suitcase, bearing
two of everything; of working in a hospital; of sending
money home; of cinemas and dancehalls and clinging
to your own; of meeting my father
at a dance above the Gas Showrooms;
of the pale blue wedding dress (four months gone);
of leaving the reception while he stayed on,
drinking; of living with his mother
who complained about a mark on the wall
made by the touch of the baby’s fingers;
of moving to a hostel whilst waiting to be housed
(no men allowed); of travelling to Ireland
with my brother; of the farmer
who would’ve taken you on, mother and son;
of the older man in England, who courted
you to a show, Chu Chin Chow on ice,
who walked his dog past our house
every day until he died, the house the council gave
you once you had five, where my father
led you a hell of a life with the drink
and the babies and the miscarriage;
of the doctor who treated you like
you’d brought it on yourself; of hiding
from the rent man; of us all turned out nice,
hair brushed, clean socks, so the neighbours
wouldn’t know; of how did it for us,
stayed with a man
who was only home
when the pubs closed,
or the horses ran
the wrong way.
I know this story;
it’s yours, not mine. I’ve stopped listening.
July 1969
One small school is gathered for assembly
in the sun-freckled shade of the chestnut tree.
Sister Bernadette, haloed by th
e sun
like a statue of the Virgin, says Class One,
just like the men who have walked on the moon,
will take their own small steps soon.
They will not return to skewer conkers
from St Joseph’s tree, but, come September,
step up to St Andrew’s or the grammar.
Except Michael Sullivan who will never
grow into his too-big blazer, unworn
in an unopened wardrobe. Picture his step
from behind the ice-cream van, like the boy
in the road safety poster: frozen, poised.
Survival
Her scales tear layer from layer, and she
slithers into clothing to conceal the sheen of skin:
shimmering purples, pearl and green.
‘Looking for business?’ the human asks.
‘My God, you’re cold,
as cold as the sea. My God, My God,’ he gasps,
but God can’t save him now.
He has dropped his coins in the mermaid’s purse:
the King’s shilling in reverse.
Those that were his feet, now fins. His legs conjoin.
She leaves him at the harbour wall,
a convert to the mermaid’s cause: survival.
Dentists - a sequence
I Dental treats
Five siblings,
each opened wide
while the others waited
nicely. We were famed
for good behaviour.
The receptionist
remarked on it
every six months.
Mother glowed.
Checked-up, we’d scamper,
pennies in our pockets,
to the sweet shop next door,
a reward for Mother’s pride.
II Mr O’Riordan was Australian
He had a cartoon in his reception -
of him and his partner standing at windows,
a patient apiece reclined in chairs, string
knotted to teeth, a brick in one dentist’s hand.
In Mr O’Riordan’s, a boomerang.
Handsome as a doctor on television,
he set this woman’s heart a-racing.
IV Toffee
Everlasting toffee strips;
Bluebird slabs cracked with a hammer;
I was a frequent flier in the dentist’s chair,
and a chocolate eclair did for one tooth,
the lump I couldn’t swallow not its creamy centre
but the broken shard of a molar.
The dentist said he’d see toffee banned.
That, and free treatment for immigrants.
V Extractions
There was another - tugging on a rotten
molar took two hours with a sobbing break.
Next time I begged for general anaesthesia.
She asked me to write a poem
to frame for the waiting room.
Inspiration never came.
* * *
Hairdressers, or affairs of the hair
The one before was an alcoholic.
The bastard left me colourless the week
before the wedding, didn’t show up. Well,
I fell into the hands of another.
It could have been disastrous: either
as one-off encounter or regular affair. We’re
heading for our second anniversary,
Bob and I, me and Sam. Happy? Very.
Raising poems
There is a quickening early in the day.
This is a delicate time with singing
and dancing, or an inability to rise,
and what has arrived can as soon be lost.
It’s ages before you can leave them alone.
You must feed them, even when exhausted.
Partners grow to know that distracted moan,
the paraphernalia beside the bed,
the way you slip from their arms at dawn.
They learn to be second best.
Some of them you cannot live with.
You hide them in drawers
to be discovered, perhaps,
after your death.
Imagine the gasps,
‘How could she?’
Those that survive you must let go.
You regard them from a distance: notice,
too late, that they’re not dressed right.
They are no longer yours.
There is nothing you can do.
Where the High Street meets Star Hill
We meet for coffee at half ten in Norma’s Cafe, where they have tables outside and Karen can smoke. We catch up on some of our news, then hit the charity shops: Mind, British Red Cross, Oxfam, Barnardos, and by that time it’s twelve, and Ye Arrow is open for lunch. We have vegetable wraps and chips at £4.95. This is the first time Karen eats that day, as she doesn’t do breakfast, but she will have filled up on tea and cigarettes during the morning.
I’ve suggested eating somewhere different, something different. We went to the Eagle once - my treat, as I was flush - and had two meals for £8, fish and chips. She said she liked it, at the time, but the next time we met she said she didn’t really, and we went back to Ye Arrow. So if I get tired of the same pub, the same meal, I order different food.
Karen drinks Pernod and lemonade on ice in a tall glass. Sometimes I have fizzy water, sometimes dry white wine, occasionally a half of cider. The last of these surprised her, when we last ate out. She’d never known me to drink cider. I like a change; Karen likes things to stay the same.
In the summer, we sit outside in the smokers’ area. When it’s cold or wet we sit indoors, and Karen nips out for a cig. We admire each other’s charity shop bargains, catch up on how things are with my other half and my daughters, her other half and her sons. Sometimes I complain about this and that; Karen rarely does.
After lunch, we do the charity shops at the other end of the High St: Hospices of Hope, Sue Ryder and Cancer Research. Hospices of Hope has a bargain rail outside, £1 an item. Karen rummages through this while I look inside, then she catches me up. She likes the bric-a-brac as well as the clothes. She finds things that other people would like: for her neighbour that keeps all the cats and has Alzheimer’s; for her friend that drinks, but has spells on the wagon; Christmas and birthday presents for friends and family, which she buys all year round and keeps for the right occasion. For herself, she buys jeans and tops with a bit of sparkle on them, sequins and studs; things for her kitchen; bits of furniture for her home. Sometimes the things she buys are too heavy or bulky for her to carry, and she leaves them to be collected by her boyfriend.
I like to be in good time for my train, so we say goodbye ten minutes before it’s due, standing outside the shop that sells flowers on one side and work boots on the other, where the High Street meets Star Hill. It’s a quick peck on the cheek, a smile, and a promise to meet again in a few weeks.
We don’t meet in August. When I call at the end of the month, Karen says she’s been in hospital and doesn’t know why. Her boyfriend had found her unconscious, at home, and called an ambulance. She was ‘out of it’ on the ward, confused. Karen has mental health problems, and has spells in hospital, but this sounds different. She doesn’t want to arrange for us to meet; she is too tired to go out. I have a minor operation lined up in September, so we agree to meet when I’ve recovered, when Karen has regained some energy.
At the end of October I get an email from a member of Karen’s family. Karen is in hospital. It’s cancer, malignant tumours in her stomach and liver. I s
ee her in hospital, thin and weak but cheerful, as is her way. We joke that we have both complained about gaining weight, we missed our skinny days, but this isn’t the way to do it.
November, two weeks on from diagnosis, she is home, and my husband Bob and I arrive to take her out to Norma’s cafe. She is skeletal, yellow-tinged, wonders whether she’ll be able to make it to the car, to the cafe, but somehow we get there. Two cappucinos, mine a decaff, and she fancies a packet of Quavers, so that’s what I get her. She is exhausted after twenty minutes, so Bob goes to get the car, to bring it as close as possible. She asks to sit outside in the cold air. She has spent weeks indoors, staring out the window, too tired for TV, bored of the radio. ‘I do love you, Karen,’ I say. She giggles. She and I don’t say things like that to each other. ‘I love you too,’ she says, and gives me a peck on the cheek.
I doubt that we’ll do the charity shops again, Karen and I. If we ever do, I shan’t complain about going to Ye Arrow, about having vegetable wraps and chips again. Just one more time would be enough: Pernod and lemonade on ice in a tall glass for Karen; dry white wine for me. Outside, so Karen can have a ciggie. One more peck on the cheek when we say goodbye, where the High Street meets Star Hill.
Karen McAndrew died two weeks after our outing.
This book is dedicated to her memory.
Notes and acknowledgements
Some poems from this collection have been published in the following magazines: Conversation Poetry Quarterly; 14; The Frogmore Papers; Equinox, Teynham News and The New Writer. Some poems have been published in Night Train 5, University of Kent, 2007; On the Line, Canterbury City Press, 2010; Canterbury Poet of the Year, Canterbury Festival, 2010; and in the pamphlets Nothing But (2007) and Learning to be English (2006, 2008) by Maria C. McCarthy.
‘July 1969’ was shortlisted for the Frogmore Poetry Prize, 2006, highly commended in the Split the Lark poetry competition, 2007 and longlisted for the MsLexia poetry competition, 2007. ‘Standards’ and ‘July 1969’ were part of a submission that was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Poetry Prize, University of Kent, 2006. ‘At the Shrine of St Jude, Faversham’ was highly commended in the Save As poetry competition, 2010. Maria achieved second place for ‘Story’ in Canterbury Festival Poet of the Year, 2010.