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Now my father knew of Brian’s interest in birds and was concerned about him climbing trees all the time, fearing he might fall. So one day he came home with a turkey for Brian. Needless to say, Brian was overjoyed at having a pet, something that he could look after and care for. He guarded his turkey tirelessly, never leaving it out of his sight. We young ones weren’t allowed to come close to the turkey, let alone play with it. Brian defended his turkey like it was his own child. Tara would dearly love to have played with the turkey but was too afraid of Brian. We were all afraid of Brian when he lost his temper. Brian could be very vicious when he was angry.
One day Brian went out with our father and Floss to catch rabbits, leaving me, Tara and Colin to amuse ourselves.
‘Come on,’ Tara urged. ‘Let’s get the turkey. They won’t be back for ages.’
‘Brian’ll be mad if he finds out.’ I was worried.
‘He won’t find out,’ Tara insisted. ‘He’ll never know as long as we put it back when we’re finished.’
So Tara picked up the turkey and headed towards the riverbank where there was open ground to play on, while Colin and myself followed close behind.
We were all thrilled to be playing with the turkey at last.
‘I want to see it fly,’ Tara shouted. She grabbed the turkey and tossed it into the air, running after it as the turkey flapped its wings but landed, running rather than flying. We all chased after it and grabbed the turkey again, then threw it up into the air once more and then again, and again.
‘Why doesn’t it fly? Why is the turkey doing that?’ Tara panted, breathless from all the running and throwing. We couldn’t understand why the turkey wouldn’t fly. We kept tossing it in the air, repeatedly, and even tried doing it from raised ground. We kept at it for ages, trying to make it fly until suddenly the turkey dropped to the ground.
And stayed there.
‘The turkey’s dead. Oh my God, we killed the turkey! What are we going to do? Brian is gonna kill us when he finds out!’
Tara was a bundle of nerves. We all were – I trembled at the thought of Brian coming home to his dead turkey. We all stood staring down at the lifeless bird, too shocked to say anything.
Finally, Tara made a decision.
‘We have to leave it here and pretend not to know anything about it,’ she insisted. ‘We have to or he’ll kill us.’
We all agreed and returned to the wagons, leaving the turkey at the riverbank where it had dropped dead. We went about our business as normally as we could, though our hearts raced with anxiety.
Later that afternoon Brian returned and went straight to see his turkey. He looked everywhere around the campsite but he couldn’t find it.
‘Where’s my turkey?’ he asked all of us, including my mother. He was panicky and worried. We all shrugged, innocent.
‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘You’ve got to look for it.’
So we all pretended to be looking around until eventually my father and mother found it where we’d left it by the riverbank. Brian burst into tears, distraught.
‘Never mind, I’ll get you another one,’ Daddy said, patting Brian’s shoulder. We all felt terrible – we knew how much Brian loved his turkey.
‘No! I don’t want another one. It’s not the same!’ Brian screamed back.
‘I know that Tara killed my turkey. She always wanted to get at it. I’ll drown her in the river if I find out that she has done it,’ Brian sobbed as he held the limp bird.
‘Now, Brian. Tara didn’t do it,’ Daddy soothed. ‘You can bring the nestlings back to the wagon and look after them.’
Later that night my father buried Brian’s turkey – a sombre moment but also one filled with overwhelming relief that none of us got found out. We never did tell him the truth.
Chapter 3
Harsh Reality (#u609982a6-788d-5dd7-b273-1f9e8879f02c)
Looking back now, I realise those first summer months in the wagons were the best. We played and explored with abandon, never realising the hardships that would come with the change of seasons. But as every week passed and the summer turned to autumn, a crisp chill filled the air and the days grew shorter and harder. At first there was work to be done – my father, older brothers and sisters went back to the farms to harvest the crop. Crowning the beets, they called it. Claire and Bridget hated the work, complaining how cold it was in the early morning to pull the beets out of the hard frosty ground. Their knees were sore. Their backs ached from all the bending, up and down. The work was hard and the blistering wind chilled them to the bone.
Us young ones also had to work since we now had to make a lot more trips gathering wood to keep the fire going throughout the day and night for warmth. Mammy simply got on with her jobs, cooking on the stove instead of outdoors, to keep the wagon heated. Of an evening she’d make us all mashed potato followed by our favourite dessert called Goody, which was just milk, bread and sugar, but we all loved it. Occasionally we got a sausage or a side of bacon but mainly she saved the meat for Daddy, who got fed separate from us kids.
Once the beet had finished and the horse fairs were all done for the year, Daddy was at home a lot more, and, with the short days, we noticed that lately he was quick to anger. He couldn’t bear to be around all us kids making a noise all the time, so often he’d throw us out of the wagon.
We’d stay at the other wagon while we listened to his raving and screaming at my mother. You couldn’t help but listen. Sometimes we could hear my mother trying to calm him down, her soft voice almost drowned by his shouts. There were days she could soothe him, but other times she couldn’t and he’d take the horse and cart to the village pub where he’d drink himself silly. But no matter how much he drank, Polly the piebald always managed to take my father back home. We’d see them coming down the road, Polly clip-clopping away, my father flat out on the cart, one leg dangling free, fast asleep, with the ever-faithful Floss still at his side.
We preferred it that way – I would rather have my father coming home asleep than when he was still awake drunk to his eyeballs. Then he terrified us so much that we all ran out of the wagon and hid in the ditches before he could make his way up.
We had seen him giving our older brothers a good hiding and we knew he could fire up a fearsome temper. Those times we’d crouch in the ditch, hearing my mother screaming and pleading for my father to stop until, eventually, everything went quiet and Mammy would give us the go-ahead to come back and we’d creep back to the wagon. He would be fast asleep by then. She, black and blue.
At first Daddy’s temper came in short bursts, but as the long winter dragged on they became worse and worse.
‘Are you trying to poison me, woman?’ he growled at my mother one day, throwing a plate of bacon and mash out of the back of the wagon. Floss, who was never far from Daddy’s side, eagerly set upon the discarded food as we all looked on longingly at the fast-disappearing meat.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Mammy replied calmly.
‘There’s poison in that food you’re giving me, you wicked woman!’ he railed, furious.
‘Don’t be so stupid!’ Mammy shot back. ‘You’re pure paranoid!’
But Daddy was serious. Silence filled the air between them.
We knew there was only a few seconds before he’d be up on his feet and across at her like a Rottweiler. The tension was terrible.
So we all sprang up and scrambled to get out of the wagon before we had to see any more. We leapt into the ditch just as we heard the pans and plates go flying across the wagon, clanging and rattling around.
That night we slept out in the ditch with just a few blankets and a plastic covering to shelter us from the cold winter. We snuggled close to each other to keep warm, Aidan and Liam cuddling into Brian and Colin while Tara wrapped herself around Claire and I hugged Bridget tightly. Later, I felt my mother’s protective arm extend over me as she lay down next to us. The next morning Mammy limped around the wagon, covered in bruises, black-eyed from Daddy’s lashings. I knew something bad was going to happen. I could feel it.
A few days later, I happened to be up high on a tree branch close to the campsite while the others chatted around the campfire. I saw the occasional smiles and giggles as I looked down at my siblings. I let my eyes wander while I started to day-dream. Then, just as sudden, I snapped out of it when I heard my father’s ranting. I was just about to come down to make a getaway when I saw my father swing his foot and catch my mother right in her stomach. I was so shocked that I lost my grip and fell awkwardly, leaving me winded and unable to move. I could only watch, helpless, as events unfolded. The awful screams that came from my mother were pure haunting as the foot made contact and her body crumpled in pain.
Claire and Bridget went running over to her, as she knelt on the ground now gripping her belly.
‘She’s bleeding!’ Claire shouted to Daddy.
He stood there, dumb with shock, unable to comprehend what was going on.
‘Can’t you do something?’ Claire pleaded. Then he turned away muttering to himself before calling out to Liam: ‘Take the cart to the village. Get an ambulance.’
Meanwhile, my mother was doubled over in agony and Bridget held her shoulders as she screamed out over and over again. I crouched in a nearby bush, breathing hard and rubbing my knees where I’d fallen, too frightened to come out in the open. They stayed that way for what seemed like an age as Daddy paced the campsite, talking to himself, Floss flat out on the ground a few feet away, his ears and tail down. Daddy shouted out to my poor, stricken mother: ‘Just hang in there! Liam’s gone to get help. You just stay calm. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
At last the ambulance came and took my mother away to the hospital – the two men helped her up and put her into the back of the vehicle. And as they eased her slowly away from where she’d fallen, she left a pool of blood on the ground.
It was the first time my mother had left us and we missed and pined for her to be back home. But we couldn’t rely on Daddy to keep things going – he was lost to us now, always drunk and roaming the place, shouting and talking to himself all the time. The Legion of Mary, a charity for helping out families like ours, came to visit one day and saw the state he was in.
‘You’ll have to come with us now,’ they told my father, who looked like a broken man. I think he would have gone with anyone at that time.
‘Where are they taking Daddy?’ I asked Bridget as he folded himself into the back seat of their car.
‘Daddy’s not well,’ Bridget said, a dark look on her face. ‘He has to go to the mental hospital.’
I nodded, pretending I knew what she meant, but really I had no idea what a mental hospital was. Later Brian explained: ‘It’s a place to fix Daddy’s head so he thinks better.’
We all agreed that this was a very good idea because Daddy wasn’t thinking too well at the moment. The only problem was that, with both our parents gone, we were left to fend for ourselves. It was Claire and Bridget who took on the responsibility of caring for us children: dressing, feeding and washing us every day.
There were days we had so little to eat they’d put us all in the cart while we travelled from one farmer to the next to beg some food. Luckily, all the farmers were kind and they’d give us eggs, milk and vegetables so we managed to get by until Mammy returned a few weeks later. We were so happy to see her and suddenly felt a lot safer.
A week after that, Daddy came back too. He was more composed and calmer than before and he’d sworn off the drink, which we all thought was for the best.
‘Daddy, what was the mental hospital like?’ Brian asked that evening.
‘Ah, it wasn’t all that nice,’ Daddy said, a little sadly, as he stroked Floss, who probably missed my father the most when he was gone. ‘They give me the electric shocks to get my head straight again.’
‘What’s that, then? Electric shocks?’ Brian was in a curious mood.
‘It’s like being struck by lightning,’ Daddy explained. ‘Like a big bolt of lightning in your head.’
We all gasped in horror – imagine being struck by lightning to make you better! It sounded horrifying. But at least we had our parents back again.
Weeks later my parents announced they had to go into town to get a bit of shopping and they’d be back later in the day. We were desperate to go with them, but no amount of begging and pleading from any of us would change their minds.
‘We have something important to do. We won’t be long,’ my mother said as she pulled on her heavy winter coat and they both started walking down the road.
So we spent the day roaming the fields and climbing trees as usual. On our way home we spotted Mammy and Daddy walking back towards the wagon just ahead of us so we all ran and surrounded them, happy to see them back. My mother was carrying a bundle of blankets in her arms.
Brian asked my mother: ‘What’s that you’re carrying in your arms? In that blanket?’
‘Ah, I got a little sister for you lot. Her name is Libby,’ my mother replied as she gently bent down to show off the baby.
‘Wow, a baby! Where did you get the baby?’ I asked excitedly. We loved babies and we all tried to clamber over my mother to catch a glimpse.
‘Well, we were walking past this farmer’s field and there were cabbages growing there. Mammy saw a leg sticking out and Mammy pulled out this little baby!’ She laughed as she grabbed my hand. We all walked back together, our attention focused on the new addition to the family – a new sister, Libby!
Brian, Tara, Colin and I were out and about the next day with nothing particular planned when Brian had an idea.
‘I want to get myself a baby like our mother did!’ he said. ‘Didn’t she say she got it from under the cabbages? There must be a cabbage field somewhere and we’ll get our own babies to look after. That’s what we’ll do. We could get a few babies each. Now what do you lot think about that? Ain’t that a grand idea!’
Brian beamed. He was always so clever and smart, always the one thinking up the new schemes and games. And this one seemed like a really good idea, one of his best!
So we crossed the fields, skipping along, our strides quickening until we got to the farm. There we saw all the cabbages with the white heads peeking out of the soil.
There were rows and rows of cabbages, hundreds, thousands of them! Where to start? We were already bursting with excitement at the prospect of having all those babies.
Brian went first. He stepped up to the cabbage nearest to him while we stood watching, full of anticipation. He bent down to grab it and started pulling it out of the ground. It wasn’t that easy. He yanked it, left and right, loosening up the soil before giving it one mighty heave and, with a sudden jerk, the cabbage came loose and he stumbled backwards. He threw it to the side then went to investigate the hole that it had left behind. We all peered in beside him, eager to see the baby – but there wasn’t one! We were shocked.
‘I don’t understand.’ Brian was baffled. ‘Mammy said she’d found it under the cabbage.’
Tara chimed in: ‘Maybe there ain’t one under that one, but there could be one under this cabbage.’ And she headed over to another cabbage to start work.
Then we all started pulling up the cabbages, all of us criss-crossing each other as we pulled out the vegetables, then cursing at our luck as we glared into empty holes. We pulled out one after another after another, but there were no babies. Not a single one.
We were all confused and bitterly disappointed.
‘I can’t find one, Brian,’ I spoke out. ‘Maybe there is no baby here or it might be somewhere else. Maybe you have to find a special one or a magic one.’
‘Yes, Brian. I’m tired. Maybe we should go and do something else,’ Tara added while Colin sat on the ground poking a stick into the mud, waiting on us to see what we’d do.
‘No! There must be a baby! Mammy said so. Go and pull out a bit more,’ Brian shouted back, angry and frustrated. By now we were all covered in mud – it was in our clothes, our faces and our hair – and so tired of digging that we gave up. The field was a mess with cabbages strewn everywhere and we walked back to the wagon dejected. We were so sure about the babies that our failure was hard to comprehend.
As we walked into the campsite Brian was still going on about finding babies: ‘I’m going back there tomorrow. I’ll find one.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Suddenly we heard our sister Bridget’s incredulous shout. ‘Look at the lot of you! You’re covered in mud!’
Claire seemed equally horrified as she caught sight of us: ‘Lads, what have you lot been up to? Oh my God, look at how filthy you are! Mammy will go mad seeing you lot like that.’
They both shook their heads as they turned us about, examining us from head to toe. Mud clung to every part of us.
‘Come, let’s get down to the river to get all that filth off you before your parents see you,’ she added.
Bridget grabbed a towel as she quickly ushered us towards the river.
As she was washing us down she asked: ‘Anyway, how did you manage to get this filthy?’
‘We were digging up cabbages in the farmer’s field,’ I answered.
‘You what? You did what?’ Bridget was stunned.
I thought that Bridget didn’t hear me properly so I told her of our day on the field looking for babies as Brian, Tara and Colin nodded along. Claire and Bridget were completely gobsmacked and after I’d finished my story they just looked at each other before bursting out laughing. They were in stitches. They couldn’t believe what we had done.
Finally, when they calmed down enough to talk, Bridget warned us not to go back to the field.
‘The farmer will be going mad after you lot destroyed his crop. There is no baby under the cabbage and there never will be. The baby came out from Mammy. Your Mammy was only playing with you lot when she said about the cabbages.’
‘But Bridget, she did say it,’ I insisted, unconvinced.
‘Look, you lot better not go round saying this but that day when your father kicked your mother he kicked the baby out of her. She was pregnant – us older ones knew but you lot didn’t have a clue. All that blood on the ground, that was from the baby. And she was too early and little and that’s why she had to stay in hospital all the time, to get stronger. Now stay away from the farmer and let that be it.’
We walked back to the wagon in silence. The river water was cold and I shivered as my mind returned to that frightening day that I saw my mother get hurt. I saw the blood stain on the ground. I recalled her haunting cries and the ambulance coming to take her away. I know now how our sister Libby came into this world. Libby was born prematurely, and by the time our parents brought her home she was already four months old.
With the new addition in the family, the wagon felt more cramped than ever. We were forever climbing over one another, and one day, when Tara and I were playing, Tara was clambering round the stove to get to me when, suddenly, she slipped. One second I saw her, and the next she was gone. She’d fallen straight into the middle of the stove’s chimney stack. Her pitiful screams as her body touched the hot chimney were awful. Mammy bolted to grab Tara, who was now in hysterics, her small body scorched and singed from the fire.
I watched on, petrified, as Mammy ripped the smouldering clothes off my sister to reveal the red raw burns on her legs and body and her skin bubbling up into sacks of liquid. Mammy worked quickly, dousing Tara with pails of cold water while my father rushed to get the horse and cart. Everything was chaotic. I was glad to see the horse and cart galloping away with both our parents and Tara, who was still crying her eyes out over the pain. At least I knew she was going to get help but I missed Tara terribly. She was much more than my sister; she was my friend and companion. Of all my siblings, we were the closest, and every day without her felt like an age.
Tara was badly burned on the inside of her thighs and her stomach and she had some smaller burns on her hands. It was a pitiful sight when she finally returned from hospital, struggling to walk because of the pain. She was so miserable that she stayed in bed most of the time. I stayed with her to keep her company and cheer her up as much as I could. She had to go to the clinic a few times to get the bandages re-dressed and it was a week before the pain started to ease and she was able to smile again.
As if things weren’t bad enough, even the weather conspired against us. It was early winter now and the sky looked constantly dirty and gloomy, never-ending clouds blocking out the sun. One day the wind was so strong and blustery we young ones found it hard to get about. Each time we tried to move from one place to another we were pushed off course by the powerful gusts. At first we laughed as it blew us off our feet but then the leaves and debris started to fly about and we got scared. Daddy was worried too and he called for everyone to come outside the wagons as he threw ropes over them to try and pin them down. But the winds were only getting stronger and the wagons started pitching and shaking from side to side.
