My Mother's Children: An Irish family secret and the scars it left behind. Annette Sills (free e books to read online txt) 📖

fight in the road. They were scooping snow from the roofs of the waiting taxis, launching at each other and ducking and weaving between the cars. I watched, the sight triggering the memory of another snow fight many years ago.

I was seven and we were in Mayo for Granny’s funeral. Tess always found going to Ireland stressful but that journey had been particularly traumatic. The rough crossing, the treacherous drive from Dublin in ice and snow with a teething toddler in the back seat had sent her over the edge. She spent a lot of the time cooped up in the back bedroom of Julia’s house in Westport. I was told to tell the mourners at Granny’s house that she was laid up with a bad dose of flu.

Granny was my first dead body. She was laid out in the mysterious front room that had always been out of bounds to us kids. The cellophane had finally been removed from the sofa, the good china unlocked from the dresser and the Sacred Heart and JFK pictures dusted down. When I entered the room holding Dad’s hand, my Cleveland cousins were playing tag around the coffin and “Black Velvet Band”, one of Granny’s favourite songs, was playing on the tape recorder on the sideboard.

Dad had forgotten to warn me about the open coffin and I was traumatised. Granny’s face was yellow and sunken, her mouth a toothless hole. I was horrified as Dad bent over and kissed her cheek. Thinking I’d have to do the same, I let go of Dad’s hand, turned and fled through the house and out the back door. The snow hadn’t let up in days. It was inches deep in the field at the back of the house. The landscape was a carpet of white, dotted with the shadowy outline of grazing cattle, the sky navy blue. The next thing I knew my cousins had followed me and were charging past me to get outside. They started making snowballs, laughing and throwing them at one another and at me too. I hesitated, glancing over at the doorway where Dad was standing.

“Go on,” he said, smiling. “Granny wouldn’t mind.”

We fought and played until our fingers and toes froze and our clothes were dripping wet. Then we returned inside, rosy-cheeked and exhilarated.

It was still snowing when we set off for Dublin to get the midnight ferry after the funeral a few days later. Our knackered Vauxhall Viva was making spluttering sounds and as we pulled into a petrol station in Athlone and Dad joked that we might not make it to the port. Mikey’s teeth were playing up again and he was wailing in the back seat next to me.

“Keep the child quiet for one minute, would you?” Dad snapped at Tess as he fiddled with the tuner of the car radio and bent over trying to listen. The newsreader was talking about the fire in the Stardust nightclub in Dublin on Valentine’s Day. Everyone had been following the story on RTÉ news in Julia’s house every night. Forty young people had died. Julia told me the whole of Ireland was praying for them and their young souls.

Dad filled up the tank and went to pay. It was dusk and people were leaving the small church beside the petrol station after Saturday evening Mass. Some of the churchgoers were gathering on the petrol forecourt. I wasn’t paying much attention to them. I was thinking about the young people burning to death in the fire. Did they jump out of windows? Did they turn into balls of fire? I’d been having nightmares about it.

Mikey had fallen asleep by the time Dad got back. Then Tess started to fidget and become agitated and smack her forehead. She whispered something to Dad.

“You’re imagining things,” he replied with a frown.

“It was her. The She Devil. I know it was.”

“It was not. We’re miles from Tuam. It was just someone who looked like her.”

The snow was falling heavily and the windscreen wipers were going like the clappers. Dad was trying to concentrate on the dimly lit road as Tess started to rock back and forth.

He turned to her.

“Did you take your tablets this morning?”

“It was her!” she wailed, covering her face with her hands. “I’d recognise her anywhere. Dear God. She haunts me day and night. Will she ever leave me alone?”

The car suddenly skidded and Dad grappled with the wheel then yelled at the top of his voice. “Would you shut up, you raving lunatic, or you’ll get us all killed!”

Tess went completely quiet and still. It was the only time I ever heard him say anything like that to her. Despite his attempts to apologise and make it up to her, she never spoke to him again for the entire journey home.

I stayed in the wine bar watching the snow for a while longer. When I’d finished my drink, I put on my coat and scarf and exited through a side door into the street. The view was like something from a Victorian film set. Narrow and cobbled, the street was a row of small neat terraces with snow-covered roofs and front doors adorned with brass. It was dimly lit apart from a couple of old-fashioned streetlamps and the inviting orange glow from a bistro at the far end.

There was no way I was walking back to the hotel so I opened out my map to look for the quickest bus or Tube route. Unable to see clearly, I stepped back into the light of the pub. After finding my route I put the map back in my pocket and was about to step out into the street again when I spotted him hurrying past. He was walking shoulder to shoulder with a younger man on the pavement opposite. They were deep in conversation. The younger man was tall and broad with salt-and-pepper wavy hair. Both wore long dark overcoats and scarves.

Without hesitating I stepped out onto the cobbles