The Celtic Knot

Bad News

After school, Kathleen rushes home to see if Mam has got the material for her costume. Mam replies not yet, but she has found just the thing: a lovely soft light wool, sky blue. Kathleen protests that dancing costumes are supposed to be green, that everyone else will be wearing green, or sometimes yellow. Mam insists that is exactly why Kathleen will be different, and that it really is a lovely shade of blue. Kathleen asks why Mam didn’t just buy it then, whether she was waiting for Kathleen to see it herself. Mam admits that isn’t the only reason. There was nothing suitable in the remnant bin anywhere. She looked in a few places, but kept coming back to the lovely material in Frawley’s, and at full price it is too dear.

Kathleen’s heart drops. What was the point in building her up like that if there isn’t going to be a costume after all. Mam explains that the bolt is nearly finished. If one more person buys the makings of a dress, the remainder will be too short to sell off the bolt, and they will have to put it in the remnant bin. Kathleen must keep an eye out for it, coming the long way home from school every day to check, and race home the moment it appears so Mam can give her the money for it. Kathleen worries there won’t even be six yards left in it, but Mam jokes God is good at keeping a person in suspense. Kathleen thinks privately she should say a few prayers and novenas to make sure of it, but decides to just wait and see instead.

Every day, Kathleen does as Mam says, coming home by way of Thomas Street, but the bolt of sky blue material stays put on the shelf. Mam is right, it is lovely, so lovely that Kathleen doesn’t even mind that it isn’t green, but nobody wants to buy any of it.

One evening, Mam takes to bed early with a cold coming on, and warns Kathleen she will have to manage breakfast alone. Mam shows her how to damper the fire back gently and then ease it open again once it catches, for better control of the heat, and Kathleen promises faithfully that this time she won’t burn the porridge.

Kathleen keeps her promise, but Mam pushes the bowl away the next morning and won’t touch it, then falls into a coughing fit so bad her teeth rattle. Mam repeats that feed a cold and starve a fever is what she has always told Kathleen. When Kathleen brings her tea instead and tells her she is a great girl, Mam admits she didn’t always believe that was true.

Reminded of something, Kathleen asks what happened to Liz O’Brien. Mam explains that Liz had childbed fever, but Mam brought her through. And then she went to England to get away from the wagging tongues. Wagging tongues are people who think a poor girl who has a baby with no husband is a bad girl.

Kathleen is horrified to learn that Liz gave the baby to the nuns, until Mam explains that nuns don’t keep babies themselves, but find good homes for poor ones like that. Kathleen doesn’t ask anything more. It occurs to her that there are clearly more important things in the world than Mrs. Maguire’s chances of a haul of medals at the feis, but it is too sad to think about, people having to give their babies away like that.

The days drag on, and Mam still has not gotten any better, and the sky blue material still sits in the window at Frawley’s. The shopkeeper, a tall man with dark hair and eyes, a gold tooth, and a gold watch tucked in his top pocket, is so smart and stylish that Kathleen privately decides he ought to be an ambassador bowing to ladies rather than working behind a fabric counter. He keeps asking if she is ever going to buy the material, and eventually she tells him the whole story. He laughs, and promises that the moment the last length sells off the bolt, he will hide the remnant behind the counter so nobody else can touch it. Kathleen starts to feel as though God is making heavy weather of this particular miracle, like Job in the Bible having his patience tried, but she keeps hoping and keeps sweetness and light with Him, just in case.

One morning, Kathleen brings Mam her tea to find her much worse, eyes staring, sweat running off her face into her hair on the bolster. When Kathleen speaks to her, she doesn’t answer at all. Kathleen runs for Da, who shakes Mam until her teeth rattle, but still she stares and says nothing. Da sends Kathleen for Mrs. O’Brien and tells her to bring Eddy to Mrs. Conlon for the day. Mrs. O’Brien, an old friend of Mam’s whose own children are grown except for Jimmy, nearly fourteen, throws her coat on over her apron and runs back with Kathleen, sending her straight in to boil the kettle. Mrs. Conlon, a neighbor in the same building who once delivered all of her own children, agrees to keep Eddy occupied with her little ones for the day.

Kathleen and her sisters sit on the stairs with their schoolbags on, too frightened to leave in case something dreadful happens while they are gone. Mrs. O’Brien tells them Mam is going to be grand and that the best thing they can do is go off to school, giving Kathleen a little wink as she says it. Kathleen knows she is lying, but knows, too, that it is the right thing to say.

Even so, on the way home, Kathleen finds herself outside Frawley’s, half out of habit and half unable to stay away. The blue material is gone from its place in the window, and her heart gives a leap. Someone must have bought a length of it at last, and the shopkeeper must be holding the remnant. She tells herself there is no harm in finding out, since Mam might be much better by the time she gets home anyway. She pushes open the door, the bell ringing loudly, and the shopkeeper’s smile fades the moment he sees her face. He tells Kathleen there’s bad news, and for one terrible moment she is certain he means Mam has died. Instead, he explains that the last customer bought up nearly the whole rest of the blue material, and there is only three-quarters of a yard left, not nearly enough for a costume.

Though Mam isn’t dead, it feels every bit as dreadful. The costume, the feis, Mam’s illness, Tess O’Hara’s gloating face, and Liz O’Brien and her baby all tangle together in Kathleen’s mind until she is sure Sister Eucharia was right, that God didn’t care for the way she had prayed for a costume and that this is His way of punishing her for it. She wipes at her tears with her fists, but the shopkeeper notices anyway and tells her gently that it isn’t as serious as all that. It is, Kathleen sobs, and she runs out of the shop and dashes all the way home.