Chapter Three - part 2

Hugh Stinson lifted out the big case and left it on a trolley beside them.
      ‘Just hold on for a wee minute, Bridie, till we get the Belfast train out and I’ll see you across the bridge to the Portstewart train.’
      ‘But is she not ready to go immediately? We might miss her.’
      ‘Divil the fear o’ that,’ said Hugh. ‘She won’t budge till I give the signal.’
      All this time Eamonn stood behind his mother with the fishing rod in his hand. He had let out some of the line so that he could walk discreetly behind her, a few yards distant, in the hope that his ‘catch’ would not be too obvious.
      His mother was still distressed by it: ‘I’m never going to live down this disgrace.’ She turned to Eamonn: ‘Just wait till I get you home.’
      Sean and Jenny thought that a great joke, since they weren’t going home, but Eamonn took his mother’s threat seriously.
      He let out some more line to distance himself from her.
      ‘They’ll think you caught a whale, Eamonn.’ Jenny laughed as she spoke.
      They crossed over the bridge and were enveloped in smoke and steam from the departing Belfast train. The whole station shook beneath their feet as the engine powered its way out of the station. A bell clanged and the level-crossing gates opened for their train. Hugh Stinson took his time in helping them into a carriage and warned the guard to give them special attention. Only then did he wave his flag. The whistle blew and they were on the last lap.
      Portstewart was the Catholic seaside resort and nearby Portrush the Protestant one – it was a simple as that. The Catholic one was in County Derry and the Protestant one in the adjoining county of Antrim, with only a couple of miles between them.
      Portstewart was full of priests and brothers, who all seemed to stay in the Montagu Arms Hotel, near the Star of the Sea Church, where the Kanes heard mass every morning before breakfast. One did not have to be in church at any particular time, for there were so many priests around that the whole morning was filled with mass. The Dominican Convent, formerly Montagu Castle, was surround by a high wall and dominated the scene from its lofty position on the cliff-top. A narrow path just outside the wall led round to the strand, where all the serious bathers had their dip. On rough days the breakers below would throw spray as high as the convent walls and make the cliff-walk a hazardous route to take, though timing one’s run past the worst spots, in order to avoid the deluge, was a sport that Sean enjoyed. Bathing in the freezing water at the strand was something he did not enjoy at all. Paddling in the small pool near the church was alright, but immersing one’s whole body in the dashing waves was an entirely different matter. He tried to explain to his mother that the sea near Portstewart really was arctic, coming almost directly from Iceland and the North Pole. He offered to show it to her on a map, but she was adamant that sea-water cured just about everything and was really ‘healthy’. She was not great at taking to the water herself, but would wade in to knee-depth, with skirt tucked in, and wash her face and arms. She had now completed this first stage of the ritual and was ready to begin her encouragement of the shivering children. She caught Jenny by the arm and held her in the water while she cupped her other hand and soused the poor girl’s back with the freezing Atlantic. Their sister’s screams were too much for Sean and Eamonn, who turned and ran for the safety of the sand-dunes, not heeding the threats that followed them.
      Lying in the sharp coarse grass of the dunes, they watched their other sisters’ ‘baptisms’ below them at the water’s edge. Sean consoled himself by wondering why girls seemed better able than boys to withstand cold water. He would be blue and shaking after five minutes of it, while they could stay immersed with no sign of suffering. They all said one got used to it, but he had never attained that happy state and wouldn’t particularly care if he never did.
      Eamonn and himself spent the rest of the afternoon running up the sand-dunes: it was no easy task, as the dry sand crumbled and slipped away beneath their pounding bare feet. When they’d reach the top there was the glorious choice of sliding down or running until they fell headlong into the sand’s yielding firmness. Once in a while they peeped over the top of the sand-dunes to see if the bathing ceremonies were complete; missing the dip was one thing, but they had no intention of missing tea as well. Sand and sea were great boys for putting an edge on the appetite!

They had their meals together at the small table in the bay window of Mrs McAloon’s boarding house. It projected so much into the Promenade that it was a bit like having your meals on the public street. Bridie Kane knew a lot of people, and meeting friends and having a chat was a big part of her enjoyment of the holiday.
      She insisted on good table manners from her children and was glad to have them isolated from the main table, lest they might transgress in front of the regular guests. Mrs McAloon was glad of the arrangement as well, for she had a special menu for the Kanes and it was tacitly understood that Bridie would not encourage overeating among the children on their Portstewart holiday.
      Sean tried to take the last slice of bread from the plate as he left the table, but his mother spotted him.
      ‘It’s bad manners to empty all the plates and leave nothing behind,’ she reminded him.
      He felt like asking if it was good manners to let her very own child go to bed starving, but when he remembered the sand-dunes and the dip they had avoided in the afternoon, he thought it better to say nothing. If they met some of his mother’s special friends ‘doing the Prom’ later in the evening they might be invited into the Italian restaurant for tea and cakes or perhaps ice-cream. He’d normally prefer ice-cream, but cakes could prove to be a better filler this evening. He began to feel good again.
      After breakfast next morning they sat in a row on a wooden seat in the public shelter, staring mournfully out at the rain. Sean would have liked to go back to McAloon’s, but that was impossible, because the beds had to be made and the rooms cleaned. What a bore, he thought: even in the shelter they were expected to behave themselves. Adults must have little to do when they can afford to spend so much time keeping us in check.