Part 1
July 1846
The Big House
Maggie Kennedy opens the door,
takes one look at my mucky skirt and boots,
and smacks me flat across the face.
“How dare you come to my door like a dirty pig.”
I step back,
brush myself off.
The dogs behind her
bark and growl,
teeth bared.
But it’s raining,
and standing outside only makes me
more bedraggled.
“I was clean when I set off, Maggie. I’m sorry.”
She lifts her hand to hit me again,
but wipes her thick fingers
on her apron instead.
“My name is Mrs. Kennedy, you cheeky brat.
And I couldn’t give a heifer’s tit
what you looked like this morning.
You’re not to come to this house in that state again.
D’ya hear me?
It’s my neck on the line
if Lord Wicken sees you in a state.”
I nod.
A trickle of summer rainwater
runs
down
my
back.
“Get in here, Nell Quinn.”
She grabs my arm and
drags me into the kitchen,
which is larger than our whole cottage.
I’ve never been inside
The Big House before.
Maggie gives me a moment to take it in:
the smell of boiling ham and fresh bread,
four large pots burbling on the range,
their lids tinkling.
In the center of the room is a
long table
a bench on either side
and rows of cupboards and shelves
packed with jars of jams and pickles,
sauces, spices, flour, and sugar.
I’ve never seen so much food in my life.
My stomach growls.
I only had a small mug
of milk this morning.
Maggie puts her lips to my ear.
“If you pinch so much as a grain of wheat,
the landlord will have you whipped.
And I won’t feel one bit sorry.
D’ya understand?”
I nod again.
I understand.
Whatever is in this house
and within one thousand acres of the grounds
belongs to the landlord,
and we cheat him at our
peril.
Maggie hands me a bucket.
“Now scrub that floor you’ve muddied.
When it’s clean, I want it polished.
And tie back your hair like a Christian.”
Dog’s Dinner
I am on my hands and knees with a brush
while Maggie slices
into steaming cuts of meat.
Greasy scraps fall to the floor.
Before I can get to them,
the fat, growling dogs
have slurped them up.
No one in my home has
had meat since Christmas,
sweet mutton
six months ago,
yet here
in The Big House,
the dogs eat it every day.
Stranger
Sloshing along the muddy lane
on my way home from work,
I catch sight of a stranger walking,
his face
to the sun.
He is a tall figure.
I watch him move
beyond the distant hedgerows.
Who is he,
this person I don’t know
in a village where I know everyone
and everyone knows me?
Who is this tall stranger
with his face to the sun?
The Nation
Owen comes tumbling
along the lane
with an armful of nettles rolled in sacking,
his curls bouncing.
“Do they sleep in gold beds?
Did you have to wipe
their stinking bums for them?”
My brother is ten years old
but tries to imitate the naughty prattle
of older boys.
“I’m a scullery maid.
I won’t ever be let out of the kitchen,” I tell him.
“Did you work hard at school, Owen?”
He smiles.
“It was so boring I fell asleep.
But Master Sweeney says I’m a genius.
He doesn’t care that you left.”
“Is that right?”
Owen hands me a newspaper,
a worn copy of The Nation,
a gift from the schoolteacher.
Since I was small, Master Sweeney
has been offering me things to read,
pushing me to learn,
praising me for my memory
and understanding
even though
we both knew that at best
I’d amount to nothing more than a servant.
And so I have.
Still,
I turn the pages,
excited to read
something new—
a verse or two.
“He said to give it to Daddy afterwards.”
“I know that.”
I read the poems
and my father follows the politics
despite Master Sweeney
passing on the newspaper weeks after
it’s been published,
once he’s read it
back to front,
top to bottom.
“Why do you still bother with all that
when you don’t have to?” Owen asks.
“Because I like it,” I tell him,
and I do, delving into worlds
and words
that take me away
from Ballinkeel,
not for long
but a little while.
Owen grimaces.
“It’s very suspicious,” he says.
Spreading
When we get to the cottage,
my brother drops the nettles in the yard,
calls to Mammy, “Is the dinner made?”
Mammy’s washing rags in a bucket,
sitting on a stool beneath the oak tree.
“It’s a skivvy he wants,” she says.
The heavy rain that came hard and early this morning
stopped all at once in the afternoon,
but there is a light
summer breeze now,
bringing with it the salt of the sea.
The leaves in the oak tree dance above my mother.
“How did you get on up above?” she asks.
“Maggie Kennedy is a pure witch.”
“I can believe it,” she says.
Owen puts his hands on his hips,
scans our small parcel of land,
Daddy
in the middle of it,
his head bent,
examining the lazy beds.
“What’s the old man at?” he asks.
My father isn’t an old man at all.
He is only thirty-five. ...
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