Jeannie McCafferty knew she was unlucky. It was clear from before she was born it would be the case. Her mother Mary had had a difficult pregnancy and was strangely sick not just in the early months of the pregnancy but for the whole long nine months. Mary’s wrists became as thin as a fragile child’s. Her husband George watched, worried and restless as the birth approached. When Mary died shortly after the birth George felt that he had stood by as his sweet wife wasted away and those shrinking fragile wrists were a marker of her gradually being taken from this world.
For George, a poor farmer with no wife and a newborn the world felt empty and pointless. However, his sister Taise moved into the home and helped with the baby and Jeannie was a happy healthy baby who gradually brought laughter to their little house. She grew and though unlucky was as lovely as her mother so George was amazed how his heart healed with time and he knew his progress when he felt gratitude as he walked the fields around his small house with Jeannie’s small hand in his.
Jeannie remembered as a toddler being afraid of the scary tree in the garden and crying each time she saw it. There was something about its twisted tortured green moss-covered branches that reminded her of a crowd of people wailing and holding their thin arms aloft in distress. When the wind blew the crowd became frantic and frenzied and Jeannie could not even look at the tree. She called it the tree of sorrow and sadness. George was amused at her sensitivity. He knew the neighbours called Jeannie unlucky and noticed how they often sighed in sympathy when they saw the young girl in the fields playing. George had no time for such nonsense his fields were few and earning a living was a full-time job. They had a cow, chickens and grew tomatoes as well as vegetables in a small greenhouse outback. But life was always close to the edge and George worked hard in his fields to squeeze out every penny they needed. His hands were huge like shovels and Jeannie never felt as safe as when he clamped her small hand in his massive paw and walked with her chatting at his side.
George’s sister Taise was a quiet kindly woman of few words yet she kept the range going all the year round and like a magician constantly conjured up sweet-smelling soda bread on its top and wonderful wheaten bread and cakes from its oven. The three of them formed a team that worked well. George and Taise were people of few words but kind hearts and they and the range warmed Jeannie’s days. She loved the smell of fresh bread baking and felt sorry for those whose homes were not perfumed with its fragrance. Jeannie talked nonstop and yet her tone was light and gentle so that George felt its absence from the house when she was outside. He loved the evenings when the three of them sat around the blazing range’s open door and he listened to her talk about everything. Telling him what she saw, what she felt and hoped for. He knew her fear of the scary tree, how she loved the kittens in the outhouse and how tender her heart was. Occasionally when he had enough energy, at the end of the day, he would take down his fiddle and play old tunes and Jeannie clapped her hands in excitement and sang along. Her voice was gentle and yet she could hold a tune from a young age and had the ability to bring so much emotion to the old words they knew so well.
If George could create a picture of their life together he would pick those evenings when he walked with Jeannie from the barn with his daughter beside him into the warm kitchen to find the table laid with food and his sister waiting to serve the hot meal. The contrast between the cold cowshed and the cosy range and his family around him always raised his spirits and made him so grateful for what he had. Then the potato blight hit and the whole country felt real hunger. George was lucky to have his little greenhouse and his small vegetable plot with chickens. Their potato crop rotted in the field and their diet changed. All three lost weight but nothing compared to others. George shared his tomatoes with his three nearest neighbours and hoped that it made a difference. The rest they could not share as there was barely enough for the three of them. When Jeannie held his hand George could not stop himself examining her wrists. They were thin and she had lost that childish plumpness in her face. It seemed to George that as her features thinned she grew more and more like Mary and a terrible fear filled him. He and his sister did with less to try and boost her portion at mealtimes but Jeannie continued to lose weight no matter what they did. There was not more energy for singing, no more abundant baking, each thing was rationed to make it last.
They all felt that terrible days were upon them and all they could do was hang on as best they could. The suffering around them grew and famine was evident. Their neighbour Mrs Tiley died an active sixty-year-old and her cows cried their pain from the barn. George milked them, took them to her fields regularly and watered them enough to keep them alive. He explained that he couldn’t let them starve but her son, who eventually arrived from Dublin at the homestead weeks after the funeral, had been resentful as if George had stolen their family milk. He tried to explain that without milking the cows would have died, but George could tell his actions were resented.
Rumours spread about the farmer who stole milk from his neighbour in times of famine and in those days of hardship and anger the words gradually grew more toxic in the telling and spreading. George told himself it didn’t matter what people thought but it hurt more than he could say. Taise and Jeannie were furious that people could be so cruel, especially those neighbours who had known George for years. For Jeannie it felt as if the tree of sorrow had now manifested itself as an angry swarm of people around them. She felt the condemnation and the gossip and it sapped their spirits. Up to this point, however difficult things had been they had managed but this accusation broke George’s back. Already living on reduced food rations his health failed suddenly and dramatically. Pneumonia set in and strong George found himself bedridden with lungs full of liquid drowning him. Taise was frantic to help him and wrote to their brother Tom who lived in Scotland explaining the situation.
It took Tom a week to arrive but when he did he helped. Shocked at how ill George was Tom paid for a doctor to come from the nearby city. Immediately treatment was started as the doctor explained there was now a new antibiotic available in injection form. Taise and Jeannie prayed and hoped that George would pull through. Tom was a thin, short man efficient and quick in actions and words. Two brothers could not be more different: the slow quiet laid back large George and this small agile clever sibling. George began to rally and as Jeannie sat by his bedside a miracle seemed to have been granted. George was able to sit up and eat some soup at last. But his face was ashen and he had lost so much weight even his features looked different. Both Jeannie and Taise fretted and worried.
Neighbours commented that no good comes to those who do bad and George’s illness was felt to be a divine judgement of sorts. “Stealing milk from your dead neighbour!” There was a coldness and Jeannie overheard one toxic gossip say that the family had never had a good day since her birth, “Badness brings badness” she crowed. Tom found Jeannie crying beside the kittens in the old outhouse. He led her back into the house and explained “I think it better to focus on George than his reputation. You know what his character really is while his reputation is merely what others think he is”. For Jeannie this was deep beyond words and evident truth. It eased her heart and she looked afresh at this brother of George. She had been so angry at this cruel neighbour but Tom waisted no words on blame but answered falsehood with insight. She wrote his words down in her diary and would re-read their words many times. She might have been born unlucky in the eyes of others but she knew a different reality and she felt armed against all the blows both past and future that others might throw. Within a month George had recovered and was able to work once more. The famine ended and Tom returned to Scotland while George, Tasie and Jeannie luxuriated in having their range producing heat and all sorts of goodies from its oven. Jeannie knew they had all recovered when George took down his fiddle a month later and played while she sang. They smiled at each other and were grateful to have back again all that they thought they had lost.
