Night Flight by Brendan Loonam

My Grandmother was called “Moddy” by her children and also by friends and neighbors in their rural Irish Midlands community. The name seems to have been derivative of “Daddy” and fulfilled any familial requirements, while at the same time it was abstract enough for use by outsiders. This had the effect of helping all her acquaintances, apart from her grandchildren, who called her Granny, refer to her as if she were family, an endearing quality. My Grandfather was called “Daddy” by his children, my mother and aunts and uncles, but his grandchildren always referred to him as “Grandfather,” a rather aloof-sounding title, even though he was a most charming and gentle man. Between their house and ours, there was close to ten miles of bad road, and whenever we visited them we always had a feeling of great accomplishment upon our safe arrival at our destination. In recollecting the seemingly innumerable times we did visit that house, I can’t remember ever having done so in a rainfall, although such is a statistical improbability.
Grandfather kept an extra walking-stick, a lightweight blackthorn, outside the front door, and, as soon as we arrived for a visit, I would take it in hand, as my brothers had before me, and, with his pipe in one hand and his own stick in the other, he’d say to me, “We’ll walk the land.” I can still vividly recall the sensory wonderland of those walks: the rain barrel at the gable end of the small house, which had an aura, an aroma, that bespoke centuries of saving such water, with its dark green depths and its mossy edges; there was the “clamp” of turf, the house-shaped collection of bricks of peat, the only source of fuel for heating and cooking, which was another connection to the lost and forgotten past. Out in the “big” field were the haycocks, with the smell of the wet hay emanating from their centers, the outside layers dutifully drying in the sun before their winter storage in the shed.
There was the fetid busyness of the henhouse, with the cock strutting back and forth outside, guarding his harem. There was the rich, clear smell of the well from which the water for the tea and cooking and washing was drawn. There were the ripening hazelnuts in the bushes around the perimeter of the “land”, so easy to pop from their shells, and such a meaty snack in the afternoons; there were the currants, the tart green ones and the sweet red ones; there were the “goozers,” the sharp-tasting, hairy gooseberries, and the blackberries, which, in the autumn, were said to have been violated by the Pookah, that dark and mysterious creature who was said to have poisoned the berries by, dare I say it? Peeing on the bushes with the arrival of October, and, thus, they were left, rotting on the branch. All of these would be touched, tasted, inhaled, filed away during these walks, and grandfather would watch, puffing on his pipe. Then he would wink and smile, to let me know he was proud of the way I had conducted myself, and say, “sound man.”
We would return to a house abuzz with preparations for the Sunday dinner. The blackthorn would be replaced at the front door, and grandfather would turn me over to the ministrations of the women in the house, who revolved around granny, seated at the table, cutting the bread baked that morning. Whatever foods made up those meals are generally lost to me now, all except for a glorious Trifle, made by aunt Mary, with jell-o, sponge cake, gooseberries, sherry, bird’s custard and fresh whipped cream. I can still taste its wonderful richness.
The chat, throughout, on those days, as I recall it now, was light and positive, which is interesting, since the only thing all the adults had in abundance was hard work; but there was a joy in each other’s company that was tangible, and it enveloped us all.
By the time the lamp in front of the kitchen window was being lit, the big pot of tea would be brewing on the hob of the fireplace, and the breads and butter and jams would be paraded out, until, sated, the company would direct its eyes and commentary to the glowing fire, a place where dreams were lived, and hope rekindled, and cigarettes and pipes would be lit and savored, and no royalty could have claimed such comfort.
The ride home in one of the two cars that could be hired for that purpose in the town would be dark, warm and crowded. My brothers would sing songs full of remorse and loneliness and pity that were beyond their years: “Oh, father, father, dig my grave. oh, dig it deep and narrow. Sweet William died for me today, and I will die tomorrow.”
Late one afternoon, when I was about six years old, our postman, Paddy Mahon, appeared at our garden gate. The sight of that man, at that hour of the day, after he had completed his appointed rounds, always struck fear in the hearts of the recipients of his visit, for it could mean only one thing: a wire, a telegram, and this, in turn, could only mean the sickness or death of a family member at some distance from us. On this particular day, my mother was especially frightened, thinking it might be bad news from my father and my oldest brother, John, in America, and I am sure she was totally unprepared for what she found when she tore open the envelope in the doorway. She fell back against the door and exclaimed, “Oh, Jesus!” as she read the three words printed on the yellow paper: MOTHER VERY SICK.
She gave instructions to my sister, who was nine, as to the preparations to be made for my brothers’ dinner, cautioned me to be good and say my prayers, then got on her bicycle, with tears rolling down her cheeks, and set off to conquer the miles that usually brought us such joy. Two days later, we received another message, this time from a lorry driver who stopped at our gate. He told us that Granny was very bad, and that Tommy Jameson would be picking us up at 8:00 on sunday morning, which was the next day. We were to be ready for mass when he arrived.
After a mass filled with tears at Eglish church, all of the aunts, uncles and cousins were gathered back at Grandfather’s house, and because of space considerations, all of the youngsters were given our freedom. We played cowboys and Indians, football, hurling with makeshift sticks, called “crookys”, and rounders, which, although I didn’t know it at the time, was one of the precursors of baseball. We ran, climbed, jumped and expended ourselves in every way possible until we were called to come in to our supper. The adults who were not in the sickroom moved outside for a smoke while the “childer” ate, and we could see immediately that there was not to be even a hint of any further frivolity from us.
Our mother, indeed all the women left in the house, immediately took in hand squares of washcloth, painstakingly dried and raised to a number 10 sandpaper finish, and, after a perfunctory dab at a washbasin, proceeded to scour the dirt and whatever skin we had left from our faces. We knew enough to be silent from that point on. All of the adults, when they spoke at all, whispered, so we followed suit, for we knew, without being told, that something heartbreakingly sad was going to happen.
While we were still eating, the traffic between the bedroom and the yard outside increased, with the women taking shorter, quicker steps and the men, longer, slower strides. Gradually, Aunt Nell, the eldest, began marshaling the grandchildren, youngest first, into the bedroom to say goodbye to Granny, and in hushed tones, her throat catching on her tears, she explained the procedure to us. We were to go in, two at a time, bless ourselves, say the “Memorare,” give Granny a kiss goodbye and leave the room.
My sister and I were partnered, and I thought, no problem, until we stood together next to the bed, for I was thinking about us saying goodbye to her, rather than about her saying goodbye to us. As we said the prayer, she had her head turned to us, and, although I had said the prayer scores of times before, I had never heard the abject plea for mercy that it is, something that still affects me to this day. “Remember, o most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided...” When I bent to kiss her cheek, she put her hand to the side of my head, a feather, and smiled a smile that seemed to me, even then, heroic. Anne, crying uncontrollably, had to be comforted by my grandmother, “Whisht, acushla”, patting her cheek. Aunt Nell brought us out of the room, past the adults with their hands to their eyes. While the other youngsters took their turn, there grew the sound of feet shuffling in the doorway, aching for another peek at her, and the sniffling and the whispering. And finally, her own children gathered around her, with her husband standing at the head of the bed, while we standing outside had our hearts broken anew by the sounds of the cries and the calls upon god and his holy and blessed mother not to take her, to spare her, to be good to her. Then, the sound crashed to an almost-silence, and we caught our breath, thinking she was gone, and waiting for the next crescendo of sorrow that would surely come. But that eruption did not happen, and we searched each other’s faces for answers. Had god saved her? Now, craning around the doorjamb, I could see Uncle Paddy had sunk to his knees, with his head on his mother’s legs. Grandfather also had his head down to hers, and they were all crying, softly, now, wordlessly, to themselves.
When my mother came out of the room, my sister and brothers and I went to her and she clung to us. When she was able to compose herself to speak, she told us something so striking that I will never forget it. She said that, just before Granny died, she opened her eyes wide and a smile lit up her face. Her eyes roamed the room, and she said, “The room is filled with beautiful butterflies.” She was still smiling at the sight when she died.