Lily at Lissadell by Judi Curtin

Author:Judi Curtin [Judi Curtin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788491617
Publisher: The O'Brien Press
Published: 2019-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

This time it felt a little less strange to be sitting in Maeve’s room, all dressed up in the blue silk. Once again, Maeve took a while to get started. She wandered around the room, picking things up and putting them down again. She showed me a bundle of fabrics, in all colours of the rainbow.

‘My Aunt Mabel sent me a present all the way from England,’ she said. ‘There’s enough for five new dresses.’

I didn’t know what to say to this. I had barely owned five dresses in my whole life – and most of those had belonged to someone else before me. Once, one of Mam’s cousins in America sent us a few yards of navy blue fabric. Next to Maeve’s silk and satin, I fear it would have looked very rough and cheap, but at the time, I thought it was the finest fabric ever made. Mam set to work quickly. Winnie and Anne needed new dresses, and the boys needed shirts for school. By the time all of those were made, there was only enough left for a scarf for me, and a hanky for Mam.

‘What do you think?’ asked Maeve, tossing the fabrics towards the bed, where they floated down softly, like dandelion seeds in a breeze.

‘I think you’re very lucky,’ I said. ‘It must be lovely to have all that fabric just for you. It must be lovely not to have to share anything.’

‘Don’t be jealous,’ she said. ‘I have to share my mother with all of Ireland.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Mother wants to do everything and fix everything.’

‘Like what?’

‘She’s in all kinds of organisations – daughters of Ireland, Fianna Eireann – and probably more that we don’t even know about. No one in the family talks about her very much, except for Aunt Eva, and that’s not any good to me, because she’s hardly ever here either.’

‘It sounds as if your mother has a very exciting life,’ I said.

‘It’s exciting but she works hard too. She fights for votes for women, and extra food for the poor. She is an exceedingly brave person.’

‘You must be very proud of her,’ I said, thinking of my own poor mam who was brave too, but never had time for anything except feeding and caring for her children.

‘I am proud,’ said Maeve. ‘Since the Lockout started she’s been helping starving children, you know, and that’s a very good thing, but …’

‘What?’

‘I wouldn’t change Mother, or what she believes in, and I know she thinks it’s best for me to be here with Gaga, as she is so busy in Dublin.’

So that’s why Maeve had to live with her granny – her mother and father were too busy to take care of her. Poor Maeve. I could see how much she missed her mam and dad. I could also see she wasn’t used to talking about this. I wanted to put my arms around her, but I didn’t dare to move.

‘I would like to see Mother and Father more often,’ she said.

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