'Home to Derry' by Tomá Ó Canainn

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Extracted from Home to Derry by Tomás Ó Canainn, published by Appletree Press

Chapter Three - part 1

Five of them struggled to close the suitcase on Monday morning. It was a big old-fashioned expanding one which normally lay under his mother’s bed and still carried the old labels with their Coleraine and Glasgow addresses. The four children sat on it and ever so gradually the two halves of the lock came nearer and nearer together. His mother encouraged them in their efforts, but Jenny saw the funny side of it. ‘We can’t get any heavier, Mammy, no matter what you say.’
Sean had enjoyed the packing: he had managed to slip in the playing cards when his mother wasn’t looking, as well as the small wooden boat Uncle Manny had made for him. Eamonn’s fishing rod had been refused entry: it was of his own design and manufacture and looked it. He was still determined to bring it with him.
‘Push hard,’ his mother urged. ‘All together now.’
Sean was seated nearest the stubborn lock. He jumped up and landed again with a thud. The lock clicked into place and the job was done.
Their next-door neighbour, Mr Smith, came in to see them off and carried the case down to the bus-stop on the Strand Road, as they had to travel by bus to the Waterside to get the LMS train.
When the bus arrived the conductor looked doubtfully at the enormous case. ‘Are youse emigratin’ or what?’
Nobody got out of the bus, as Barry Street was only a couple of stops from the terminus on the Buncrana Road.
‘Hurry up there,’ shouted the conductor. ‘I’ll do the furniture-removing when you’re in.’
Even though there was plenty of room on the bus they all crowded into two seats. His mother and the two weans were in one and Sean, Brid and Jenny in the other: this arrangement often inspired sympathetic conductors to be lenient about the fares.
‘One and three halves to the LMS.’ His mother tried to sound confident.
‘There’s five there,’ the conductor said. He was probably still thinking of the weight of the suitcase.
‘Surely be to God you’re not chargin’ us for them wee weans?’
He capitulated ungraciously in the face of such psychological pressure.
Most of the shoppers got out at Great James’s Street, which was at the town end of the Strand Road, and others descended at Guildhall Square. These last made their way under the Walls of Derry at Shipquay Gate and ascended the steep slope of Shipquay Street towards the Diamond. It was there the hiring fairs used to be held and the servant boys and girls from Donegal lined up to be viewed by the Derry farmers. Sean’s mother often talked about such things when they’d all be gathered in the kitchen at night. Knitting socks seemed to induce that sort of mood in her: it was as if she wanted to keep renewing the memories in her own mind. Even the thought of his mother’s storytelling made him feel warm and comforted. She was a different mother when she told her stories.
The Guildhall clock boomed out the hour and the bus moved off again after the long stop. It rattled on the rough cobblestones of narrow Foyle Street before emerging into the bright width of John Street. The seagulls dipped and rose beside the Glasgow boat as the bus crossed Craigavon Bridge. When they turned left into Duke Street the way was blocked by a herd of steamy, tired cattle coming in from the country. A man and two young fellows beat them with sticks to try and clear a way for the bus. The driver edged his way through and Sean could feel and hear the thud of the animals’ weight against the sides of the bus. They reached the station at last and only then did Sean accept the reality of his impending seaside holiday.
Steam was everywhere in the station and the smell of smoke. On the footplate of the engine a sweating, black-faced fireman shovelled endless coat into the hot blaze, while the driver checked his gauges and cleaned the various wheels and levers with a rag, well satisfied with himself. Down between the carriages another railwayman with a crowbar lifted the heaviest iron chain Sean had ever seen and dropped it over an enormous hook to hold the two carriages together. The station-master blew his whistle sharply and they panicked. The guard held open the door of an empty carriage and they gathered themselves into it, happy that they’d be alone, at least until the first stop at Ballykelly or Limavady Junction. Another whistle – the real thing this time – and the wave of a green flag as the first long and powerful exhaust of steam from the cylinders of the engine moved them off smoothly. Sean could see the guard running to jump into his own carriage, banging the door after him. The engine seemed to rest momentarily after its initial big effort and the carriages lurched together. By the time all the jerking was done and the train moving sweetly as a unit, they were out of the station and leaving Derry behind. Across the expanse of Lough Foyle he could see the whole city. It was easy to find Barry Street, as the Factory was clearly visible and Pennyburn Church as well. He had no view of the Crescent, hidden behind the Factory, but he thought he could just make out the top of Meadowbank, before the train turned around the bend of the Lough and pointed its nose to Coleraine.
They had been travelling for half an hour when the girls screamed as they were all plunged unexpectedly into the blackness of a tunnel and smoke poured in through the open window.
‘Shut the window, Sean – quick.’
He pulled at the strap but could not free it. His mother leaned across – he could feel her hand in the darkness as she jerked the strap forward to free it from its stud: together they pulled it down and heard the window clicking shut. All was suddenly quieter inside the carriage.
He tried to frighten Jenny and the weans with talk of the bogey-man, but didn’t have much success, at least with Jenny, until his fingers moving lightly on her neck convinced her that a spider had landed in the awful darkness. She gave a piercing scream just as they emerged into the light. It was only a momentary break, before the train was swallowed up again in the blackness of the second tunnel.
They were just beginning to enjoy it all when the seaside brightness of Downhill presented itself at the window. The sun explored every facet of the sparkling waves as they came rolling up the beach and ran back down like molten silver. Through the other window Sean could see the rush of the tumbling waterfall and his eyes followed its path to the sea. It streamed out from the bottom of the cliff, ran beneath the railway line and emerged at the top of the strand in a spreading series of rivulets.
The sand dunes of Portstewart seemed very near as the train turned at the mouth of the river Bann to follow its course to Coleraine. They would then have to change to a smaller train and make their way back along the other side of the river to Portstewart. Mrs Kane started to busy herself with preparations for the changeover and the children pulled on coats and gathered their small belongings. As the train entered the station she bent to look out of the window, hoping to see Hugh Stinson on the platform.
Hugh was assistant station-master and he had been their next-door neighbour when they lived in Windsor Avenue in Coleraine, until the death of her husband, Eamonn Kane. She never tired of telling the children what a wonderful man Hugh was: meeting him on the Coleraine station platform was something she looked forward to every year.
‘Hugh – Mr Stinson,’ she called out to him as the train squealed to a halt. Eamonn was thrown against her and the big hook on his fishing rod, all ready for the Portstewart fish, caught his mother instead. No amount of jiggling could free it: the more they tried the more firmly the barb embedded itself into the back of her best coat.
‘All change for Portrush and Portstewart,’ the guard shouted at them.
‘Quick now, or it’s Belfast you’ll be spending your holidays in.’

Has the guard's flippant warning scared the Derry folk? Find out here

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