Strawberry Fields by Katie Flynn

Author:Katie Flynn [Flynn, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Sagas
ISBN: 9780434001538
Google: QraHyBMTwfMC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 1807899
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1995-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

June 1932

‘Are you excited? I’m the most excited I ever was,’ Polly said, stroking her mammy’s dark curls. It was a fine June evening and having put young Ivan, protesting vigorously, to bed, the two females of the family were wedged into the windowseat of their living room, chatting quietly and occasionally turning to stare down at the other members of the family, indulging in a game of hurley in the street below.

‘I believe you’ve mentioned that you’re excited over the “do”, if you can call a celebration of Mass at the Eucharistic Congress a “do”, a grush o’ times already today,’ Mammy said drily. ‘You’ve even worked Ivan up, and he a babe of three! He shouted at me when I put him into his bed that it weren’t fair; he was too young for to join in the game of hurley and nor he couldn’t go to the Mass tomorrow, and wasn’t Phoenix Park his favourite place, now?’

‘I’d have been down there too, so I would, playin’ hurley wit’ the fellers, only I’m to stay pure for the Mass tomorrow,’ Polly observed, turning to look out of the window and bringing a snort of amusement from her mammy’s lips. ‘What’s so funny, Mammy? You can’t stay pure and play hurley with the boys, can you?’

‘I don’t think your purity would be affected by a game of hurley,’ Mammy said. ‘But never mind, I won’t have you out there now, tirin’ yourself out and your big day tomorrow. Come on now, tell me the rest.’

‘Well, Sister says if we’ve not got white veils sure and wouldn’t a piece of butter muslin do the trick fine? And we’re to assemble by the Wellington monument at an ungodly hour . . . only she didn’t say that, Tad said that . . . and we’ll all be marched to our places and all the children in the whole of Ireland will be there, you betcha!’

‘Don’t talk American slang,’ Mammy said disapprovingly. ‘Or I’ll stop you going to the tuppenny rush so I will. There’s a lot of rubbish shown to kids these days, I know it.’

‘You don’t, because you never come to the fillums,’ Polly said, rubbing her head against her mother’s neck like a small, affectionate cat. ‘I’m quite tired; am I all ready for tomorrow, Mammy? For the biggest day so far in me whole life?’

‘You’ve got your veil, and your white dress, white shoes, white ribbon,’ Mammy said, counting the items off on her fingers. ‘Did the sister say to take your dinner or a drink? If all the children in Ireland are crammed into Phoenix Park won’t you need a bite and a sup?’

‘Sister said not to drink too much or we’d want to go, and sure no one would think of such a thing wit’ all the holy fathers around,’ Polly observed. ‘But we can take a little bottle if we like.’

‘To go into?’ Mammy said, then laughed apologetically; her daughter’s outraged glance told her she had overstepped the mark.

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