My Mother Wore a Yellow Dress Read Online Free Page B

us, cowed and with faces red from crying.
    So far I had only experienced Master Bradley from the safety of Miss’s room. Often we’d hear him shouting, then the sounds of the horrid slaps followed by the shrill screams of the victim. Miss would cross herself then and ask us to say a silent prayer. In the playground I saw the damage that had been done, and it was ugly.
    My classmates and I lived in fear of crossing the tragic boundary between P4 and P5, between paradise and hell. All too soon I would know the ghastly truth, but for now we skipped, hopped and jumped with caution. Our hair slides and bows came undone, and our eyes and noses grew runny with exertion. We were permitted these lapses in decorum; all too soon we’d be returning to the discipline of the classroom. All too soon we’d hear Miss blow her whistle, followed by the hollow clapping of the Master’s hands. Fun was over.
    Looking back, I see that those first four years of childhood were easy. I none the less had no great urge to go to school. I hated having to leave my mother every morning to trudge with my brothers that four-mile journey, and was greatly curious as to what she did when the three of us were gone. I desperately wanted to return, believing that my absence left a void in her day. I know better now: she probably heaved a great sigh of relief at our retreating backs, turned to tend the baby and get on with her many tasks. Our departure meant remission of a sort for her.
    On considering those early years, I see my mother forever occupied and busy and my father as an elusive figure who stood apart: stern, scornful and mostly silent.There was little gaiety at home. During the day we played outside until the gathering darkness forced us indoors.
    The only stimulus in our pre-television home was a green plastic record-player which the parents would take out on a Friday evening. On it my father would play the most insufferable renditions from the ‘Republican hit parade’ of the day, songs like Sean South from Garryowen . There was Kevin Barry, Johnson’s Motor Car and – perhaps the most popular of all – Up Went Nelson , which celebrated the violent demolition of Nelson’s Pillar in Dublin in March 1966. This burlesque opened with the deafening roar of a simulated explosion, a blast of sound which nearly blew the ears clean off us. We’d sit captive on the couch, listening to the thudding stridency of anthem after anthem, our impressionable minds being drip-fed Ireland’s troubled history.
    Christmas, though, made up for many ills. It was the festival that raised us into bliss, a time of light to brighten our lives as each gloomy year drew to a close.
    Because mother had all the work to do in the run-up to the big day, she quite naturally began to communicate her frustration early on.
    â€˜There’ll be no Christmas this year,’ she’d say without fail. ‘I’m not buying a damned thing. No turkey, no cake, no nothing. I’m sick of the whole damned lot of ye, so I am.’
    Given what I now know about my overworked, cash-strapped mother, I can fully understand her frustration. To her, Christmas was more of a curse than a celebration. All the same my heart would lurch when I’d hear these protestations and I’d worry right up until the big day itself, in case she’d carry out her threat.
    I need not have fretted. Christmas morning arrived like a dream fulfilling my every wish. Santa Claus always delivered. Mother would have drawn nine chalk circleson the floor, each with a name attached, and Santa would know which toys to pile in which circle. The empty milk jug and a few crumbs of mince-pie left on the table proved beyond doubt that he’d rested awhile in our humble kitchen before continuing his journey.
    I was overjoyed with my doll and plastic jewellery, the jigsaw and the Bunty Annual . How many hours did I spend gazing at the cover, wondering if I could