Lesson Unspoken
1950s children were to be seen and not heard, and on occasion it was preferable not to be seen either because if you were in sight you were usually ‘in the way’ and within range of a ‘skelp’. It was difficult to stay out from under foot in a three bed-roomed house with an extended family that included five adults.
It was still dark. I knew it wasn’t time for me to be up but the orange glow from beneath the door told me somebody was on the move and I wanted a drink. So I got out of bed and sneaked along the landing quietly so as not to wake the whole house. I was still learning at that stage not to ‘wake the whole house’ because of some nightmare or pain in my tummy. I heard voices as I took to the dark stairs on my bum. I pushed on the combed varnish of the living room door. It still smelt like Christmas – Christmas, the after-burn of town gas, burnt toast and peat briquettes.
There were indications enough, even for a five year old, that my presence would be an intrusion. The clashing of dishes in the sink. Mammy was in a bad fettle. As I neared the kitchen, there was a lull in the argument. So I slunk silently to the door, leaning my cheek on the hard jamb, half hidden, shivering in my pajamas, barefoot on January-cold linoleum, and I listened -- despite the conviction that, were I discovered, Mammy would be cross. Daddy was hardly ever cross. But then Daddy was working away all week, and Daddy didn’t have the bother of us.
“I have to go to work.”
Silence indicated she’d already had her say.
“I have to.”
Cups clattered. She had her back turned to him. If he had; he’d better get on with it.
“Okay. I’m going now, alright?” He opened the back door. “Are you really not for saying goodbye?” He put down his dufflebag and went back to where she stood at the sink. “Sure, I’ll see you on Friday.” He planted a kiss on the side of her head since that was all she offered. “Okay. So… I’m away then.”
Turning briefly by the back door, he noticed me skulking by the door, crouched down, waved his fingers, smiled and was gone.
I seized the opportunity to ask for that drink.
“How long have you been standin’ there?”
Oops – cross voice!
“When it’s time to be up, I’ll tell ye! Away on back tae bed,” and she aimed a bussock at my behind for good measure. I was away before the hand connected.
When the police came to the door that night, to tell us that Daddy would not be home on Friday, or any other Friday, we each felt our own kind of forsaken. Maybe she thought his heart had failed (it was a congenital condition) because of her coldness; iced right up and broken clean in two after that morning spat. The grown-ups uttered quiet euphemisms and shed tears. The family Doctor laced the tea with whiskey -- the only warm spot in that grievous day and in many an abandoned day to come.
There are times darker than January and things colder than linoleum.
Oonah V Joslin
First Published in The View From Here magazine
