Page 40 of Heartbreak for the Irish Midwife

‘See? Brothers and sisters. I never had any of that.’

‘Honest to God, you’re lucky!’

‘Why all the names beginning with M?’

‘People always ask us that. Mammy and Da both have names beginning with M. Michael was named after Da – he’s Mick – and then Maolíosa was named after my granny. After that they just kept going. Mammy often says God didn’t send her any more children after Molly because there weren’t any good names left beginning with the letter M!’ She spotted Mammy at the front door, hands on hips, looking at them. ‘Uh-oh. I have to go.’

He followed her gaze. ‘Your mother?’

‘Aye. I reckon she needs me to help with the tea. See you tomorrow.’

‘See you!’

Mammy headed inside once she saw that Maisie was coming, and she couldn’t resist turning to look at Alex one last time. He was on his bike, and already disappearing around the corner towards North Belfast. They had had a nice chat, but she mustn’t read too much into it. She had clicked with him, as she had with Peggy. They were all friends, nothing more.

The more Maisie got to know Alex though, the less like Gerald he seemed, and the more she wished she might be able to open her heart to him. But their conversation about religion and family had made her look at something she knew in her heart of hearts: it didn’t matter whether she now felt ready for another boyfriend or not. It could never be Alex, even when she was sure she was ready.

Alex was Protestant. And as his inability even to pronounce her sister’s name demonstrated: he knew little about the Catholic faith, or the Catholic community. And that was bigger than any heartbreak that had come before: that was the biggest possible barrier round here.

12

Alex cycled on up the Falls, past the Carnegie Library and the Falls Road Public Baths, his thoughts awhirl and his heart pounding. Maisie is amazing! There was an odd feeling in his chest as he thought about her – how she’d tried to rescue Mrs Lennon, how she’d somehow overcome the disadvantages of coming from a millworker family to go to London and train. In his circle lots of people went to university or training colleges – many of them involving travel. He could only assume that what Maisie had done was unusual in her community. Her community. They were from entirely different backgrounds and he mustn’t forget it. And yet, when he had held her hand earlier as they’d walked through the Royal Hospital grounds, he had felt like a king.

Turning at the corner, he headed up Northumberland Street, recalling how his heart had sunk when she was hugging the handsome lad called Matty. Yes, there had been relief at discovering he was her brother, but had she not nearly mentioned a boyfriend in London earlier? An Anglican boyfriend? Oh, she hadn’t completed the word, but he had known exactly what she was about to say.

Well, of course she would have had a boyfriend. A girl as pretty and as kind and as smart as Maisie would have been snapped up by any lad clever enough to notice her for the treasure she was. So was this mysterious Anglican still her boyfriend? He thought about this, his mind darting amid multiple possibilities. Probably not. The boyfriend was presumably still in London, and Maisie was here in Belfast.

And was he the source of the sadness he had seen in her? Maybe he wasn’t right for her. Wasn’t good to her. Her words from yesterday came back to him again. She had been speaking of Peggy and Dan, but there had been something . . . something real when she had said it. Had she been treated badly by the Anglican? Or maybe the not being right had simply been because the lad wasn’t Catholic. Like me.

An image of Maisie’s mother, standing at her front door with hands on hips, came to him. A formidable woman – he could tell, even at a distance. She had been wearing an apron of the type that Mrs Sinclair their housekeeper wore, and it occurred to him that he had never in his life seen Mother in such an apron. Indeed Mrs Sinclair, as housekeeper to a well-to-do family, probably had a higher status than Mrs Canavan. Not that he cared about such things, of course. Being a doctor meant treating the milly in exactly the same way as the lawyer’s wife, and mixing with people from all walks of life.

Passing St Luke’s at Warkworth Street, he realised it was the main Anglican church serving the Shankill, and smiled at the irony. Bloody Anglicans, he thought reflexively. There wasn’t only the Catholic-Protestant thing. There was also tension between the different branches of Protestantism. According to his father, the Anglicans thought they owned Protestantism, and Father always felt they were scornful of all the other Protestant denominations, like the Presbyterians and Baptists and Methodists and Quakers. Yet Mother’s family, he knew, had been Church of Ireland – Anglican. Did Anglicans look down on Presbyterians, and did they all look down on Catholics? Maybe we are not so different then.

Crossing the Shankill he continued up Agnes Street, passing rows and rows of terraced houses – these ones likely Protestant, not Catholic. Yet the poverty was the same. The humanity was the same.

After crossing the Crumlin Road the houses were immediately of a different standard. They were larger, many of them double-fronted, and some even had tiny front gardens. Girdwood Park with its gaily painted pavilion loomed into view on his right. Here he had climbed trees and run mad with his chums as a child. Later, he had played cricket and rugby in the ‘Cricky’ – the playing fields opposite his house, and had played football at Solitude, the pitch named after an old house that had once stood there, beside the Waterworks. What games had Matty played, and where? Hurling, he thought. Gaelic football. Even in this, there was a divide. Very few Protestants played the traditional Irish sports.

Different. Too different. Lord, he was all over the place!

Finally, he turned into Cliftonville Road. Huge three-storey Victorian houses and some newer villa-style dwellings stood side by side. Bay windows were everywhere, and dormer roofs peppered with chimney pots that hinted at the number of rooms inside. There were terraces here too – but even in the terraces each house had three storeys and bays either side of the front doors. Substantial dwellings.

Finally his home came into view, and he wheeled to the right to sweep into the front garden. Even by the standards of his neighbourhood the house was big. Like everything else in the road it was built of ruddy Belfast brick, with three floors and a large bay taking up the entire right-hand side of the house. But it was one of the biggest houses on the road, and Father could not have been prouder of it. Nine bedrooms, twenty chimneys, and multiple drawing rooms, morning rooms, and salons.

Nine bedrooms, and him an only child. There was him, his parents, and Granda. Three bedrooms needed – and there were hundreds of three-bedroom houses in the area. But no, Father had to buy a mansion.

Sighing, he walked around the side of the house to put his bike away in the shed, but instead of going inside he stood for a moment, contemplating their substantial back garden. They would need to build an air raid shelter, just in case. Sudden fear arced through him and he sent an anxious glance to the sky, as if Nazi planes could somehow appear in Belfast at any moment.

Ridiculous. The shelters were precautionary only. No plane had the range to make it from Germany to Belfast without refuelling, and France and Britain were both in the way, and both now at war with Germany. He felt sorry for the people of Poland, though.

Pushing open the back door, he went straight through the scullery to the large kitchen, chatting with Mrs Sinclair while drinking a glass of cool, refreshing milk from the larder. Something delicious was in the oven, and Mrs Sinclair bade him hurry and get changed for dinner.

‘Aye.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Thanks, Mrs Sinclair.’ Da was a stickler for punctuality, and today Alex was home much later than he had been since starting his new job. He hadn’t seen his parents since storming out of the dining room last night, but knew everyone would pretend tonight that it hadn’t happened.

After popping his head round the drawing-room door to say hello, he climbed the stairs to the second floor. His room was spacious, bright and airy, with two long windows facing the south-west, with views over the Cricky. Today, he was acutely conscious that his upbringing had been luxurious, and he had wanted for nothing. Somewhere to the south of here was a row of tiny two-up-two-downs, where Maisie was currently helping her mother with the tea, despite having worked hard all day. His cycle ride had taken him a little over ten minutes, yet he was a world away.

Turning away from the window, he loosened his tie. It was time to dress for dinner.

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