A Sister’s Promise. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ Tom in the cowshed with a thick ear.

      She was always more than ready for her breakfast after milking, which was a boiled egg or porridge, and she ate her fill. She was aware almost from the first day that once she rose from that table it would be a long time before she had the opportunity to rest her legs again. Her grandmother saw to that.

      Once she had put the water on to boil for the washing-up, Tom would fill up the buckets again. A large pan of water would be needed to scald the drinks for the two calves in the byre and to boil up the potatoes and turnips to feed the indolent, smelly pig and her litter of squealing piglets. Then Molly would feed the dogs and the hens, and collect and wipe the eggs.

      After the Angelus bell had rung at twelve o’clock, they would stop for dinner. Sometimes this would just consist of potatoes and shallots, though Tom told her there was fish most Saturdays after they had been to the market, and other days in the week if there was ever the occasion to go into the town again and the fishing fleet was in.

      ‘I bag the odd rabbit as well,’ he said. ‘And of course when a pig is killed we might enjoy a bit of pork, and if there is an old hen not laying at all well, then she might just find herself with her neck wrung.’

      ‘Ugh!’

      Tom laughed. ‘I suppose you got all your meat from the butchers all nicely packed and packaged,’ he said. ‘Well, this is where it all starts, and I’ll tell you, we are glad enough to see a bit of meat or fish when we have had potatoes and just potatoes for time and enough.’

      After dinner that first day, Biddy took Molly on one side to teach her how to make soda bread and bread with oaten meal. ‘This needs to be done three times a week,’ she said. ‘On Saturdays, of course, you will also make scones, barnbrack and potato cakes for Sunday, and in addition to this on Thursday, you will do the churning and Monday is, of course, wash day and that will take some time. And remember whatever other duties you have, you will go with Tom to do the milking twice a day.’

      Molly knew the workload would be a heavy one, but after only a day or so she found that she valued those peaceful times with her uncle in the cowshed. Biddy never went near it and so it was sort of a special place, where she could get away from her grandmother’s whining, complaining voice and the clouts that she seemed to find necessary to administer for the most minor things. But Molly was no fool, and she never, ever showed how much she enjoyed, even sometimes looked forward to, the milking. She knew that it was her grandmother’s intention to make her life as miserable as possible.

      On Thursday afternoon, Biddy prepared the churn, while Molly washed up the dinner dishes and then showed her what to do.

      ‘Up and down for twenty minutes,’ she said, handing her the paddle. ‘And without stopping.’

      Molly tried valiantly, but after a few minutes her arms felt like lead weights and she laid down the paddle with a sigh.

      Biddy cuffed her on the side of the head, sending her senses reeling. ‘Twenty minutes, I said.’

      ‘I can’t.’

      ‘You can if you want to eat tonight.’

      Molly knew that was no idle threat, but even then she could only manage a few minutes at a time, and every time she stopped, Biddy would clout her. But she hardly cared, for the pain in her arms and her back was worse than anything Biddy could do. When eventually Biddy called a halt and began to scoop the butter out and shape it, Molly’s arms continued to shake.

      They still ached when she joined Tom in the cowshed later, and when Tom saw the stiff way that she was working, he asked her if she was all right. He was angry when he learned that she had done the churning all on her own. She was so slight, for one thing, and she hadn’t been brought up to it, but he knew that there was no point in him saying anything about it.

      ‘There was so much butter too,’ Molly said. ‘What do you do with it all?’

      ‘What nearly everyone does,’ Tom said. ‘We have a stall in the Market Hall in Buncrana on Saturdays and we sell the surplus there.’

      ‘Oh,’ Molly said, delighted at the prospect of leaving the farm. ‘Do you go every Saturday?’

      ‘Aye,’ Tom said. ‘But I doubt that you would be let go.’

      ‘Why not?’

      Tom shook his head. ‘I have given up trying to understand my mother, but she said you are to be left here.’

      There was a flash of disappointment, but Molly knew there was no point worrying about a situation she couldn’t change. At least this way she was going to be free of her grandmother for a few hours.

      ‘What I was going to suggest,’ Tom said, breaking in on her thoughts, ‘was that if you wanted to write to your grandfather and all, I could post the letters for you in Buncrana.’

      ‘Oh, Uncle Tom that would be great,’ Molly cried. ‘Granddad packed everything that he thought I might need – paper, envelopes, he even managed to get hold of some Irish stamps – but I couldn’t imagine how I would post any letters and so I haven’t used anything yet.’

      ‘Well, that is one problem solved,’ Tom said. ‘You just get the letters written and I will do the rest. Now, sit you up on that milking stool and rub your arms to get the feeling back and leave the rest of the milking to me tonight.’

      Molly was grateful to her uncle and sat back with a sigh of relief. For once, she didn’t mind that Biddy roared at her as soon as she was in the door, to get on the porridge for supper and not take all night over it, because her head was full of the letters that she intended writing that night.

      Feeling sure that Biddy would object and make disparaging remarks, Molly left the writing of the letters until she was in her room. Normally, she was so tired when she went to bed that she fell into a deep sleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, but that night excitement drove sleep from her and she sat in her bed and wrote feverishly by the light of a candle.

      Knowing that neither Hilda or her grandfather could do anything to change the situation she was in, she didn’t tell them that she didn’t attend school any more, and very little about her grandmother at all. She did tell them of Tom and how welcoming he had been, how kind and patient he was teaching her things about farming life, and how she enjoyed helping him out on the farm. She knew that they would be pleased by that and she urged them to write back soon for she was desperate for news of them all.

       SIX

      Molly couldn’t believe the relief she felt when she watched Biddy drive off with Tom that first Saturday – and that was despite the long list of jobs awaiting her. She had hoped that they would stay away the whole day. However, Tom had said that their business would probably be completed by dinner-time, and when she caught a glimpse of the cart turning in the head of the lane, about half-past twelve, she felt her heart sink.

      Molly knew that it was too much to expect her grandmother to be pleased with anything she did and this was just as well, because that way she wasn’t either surprised or disappointed with Biddy’s reaction. In fact, she was far more interested in the fresh fish that Tom had brought home. He gutted it and had it in the pan above the fire in no time at all, and it tasted so delicious when they sat down to eat it.

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