Helen Forrester - Yes, Mama

But Bridie was beyond help. She died before midnight in the arms of her old aunt, her half-nourished body unable to withstand the ravages of the terrible disease.

In the first light of morning, as they listened to the unearthly sound of keening coming from the Tysons’ cellar, her Catholic neighbours formed an uneasy knot on the far side of the court; occasionally, one or the other of them would cross themselves.

They whispered questions to each other, and, finally, a woman ran across to the iron railing guarding the cellar steps. She leaned over. Great-aunt Kitty was sitting exhausted on the bottom step, and she asked her, ‘What’s to do?’

The old woman looked up and replied, without hesitation, ‘Typhus, I reckon. It’s our Bridie, dead from typhus.’

The woman flung her hands across her chest, as if to protect herself, her face a picture of horror. ‘Jaysus, save us!’ she screamed.

At her shriek, panic went from face to face. People not yet up leapt from their palliasses to the windows and flung them up, as the woman turned and spread the news. Nobody came near the cellar, tending instead to bunch themselves in the far corners of the foetid yard and draw comfort from excited talk with each other.

James wept unrestrainedly, not only because he had lost his wife, but also because she would have to be given a pauper’s funeral, the last great humiliation.

‘’Aven’t even got a sheet to wind her in,’ he sobbed bitterly. ‘Will they ’ave to strip ’er?’

‘Aye, for their own safety, they’ll have to take everything of ours off ’er and burn it,’ Great-aunt Kitty told him. ‘They’ll bring a shroud, though.’

Though his neighbours did not come near him, it seemed to James that that day, the rest of the population of the city tramped through his miserable dwelling.

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