The Mammy Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Dedication

  Chapter 1 - 29 MARCH 1967 - DUBLIN

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Praise for Brendan O‘Carroll and his bestselling novel The Mammy

  “Irreverently comical ... Reads like Frank McCourt’s

  Angela’s Ashes on Prozac ... Jaunty, charming ...

  It’s refreshing to enter O‘Carroll’s fun-loving

  working-class Dublin world.”

  — Entertainment Weekly

  “Hilarious and irreverent. A must-read.”

  — Gabriel Byrne

  “An almost surefire winner ... one of those books

  that demand to be read in one sitting.”

  — The Irish Voice

  The youngest of eleven children, BRENDAN O‘CARROLL was born in North Dublin in 1955. An acclaimed playright and stand-up comedian, he is the creator of the popular Irish radio show, Mrs Browne’s Boys. The Mammy, the first novel in his bestselling Mrs. Browne trilogy, was the basis for the feature film Agnes Browne, directed by and starring Anjelica Huston. The Chisellers and The Granny are the second and final books in the trilogy. All three novels are available in Plume editions.

  PLUME

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, NewYork, New York 10014, U.SA

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario,

  Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10,

  New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  Published by Plume, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Originally published in Ireland by The O‘Brien Press.

  First American Printing, May

  Copyright © Brendan O‘Carroll, 1994

  All rights reserved

  REGLSTERED TRADEMARK — MAMA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBUCATION DATA

  O‘Carroll, Brendan.

  The mammy / Brendan O’Carroll.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15338-3

  I. Title.

  PR6065.C36M36 1999

  823’.914 — dc21 98-50381

  CIP

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permis sion of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

  the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any

  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales. is entirely

  coincidental.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YOM NEW YORK 10014.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Introduction

  The biggest influences on my life have been female. It just happened that way.

  My mother Maureen retired from politics when I was just five years old She was a socialist - the only TD at that time, to my knowledge, living in a Corporation house. From her retirement onwards, I had the undivided attention and love of a genius. She told me I could be anything I wanted to be, and I believed her and grew up with an unshattering confidence in myself. My father died when I was nine. She filled the gap admirably.

  I have five sisters, Maureen, Pat, Martha, Fiona and Eilis. None of these went to school beyond fourteen years of age. Today, all of them are successful, and my pride in them is infinite, for they did this against the odds.

  I was lucky to have been born in Finglas, Dublin, a place where strong women are in abundance.. What I learned from neighbours and friends has taught me well what my mother meant when she said: The worth of a person is more important than what a person is worth.‘

  In 1977 I took one of these strong Finglas women for my wife - Doreen Dowdall became Doreen O‘Carroll. To this day I am inspired by her strength of will, humbled by her kindness and often over-awed by her love for me and our three children. My partner and friend Gerry Browne also has a Finglas woman, Colette, as his wife. We never forget how lucky we are.

  In the pages of this book, my first offering, is the tale of such a woman, Agnes Browne. I hope the reading of it gives you as much pleasure as the writing of it gave me.

  I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following for their help, not just with this book but with my career in general: Geny Browne, my partner in crime and passion; Pat Egan, a grumpy but lovable fucker, and a true friend; John McColgan, who only knows genius; Gay Byrne, for the leg-up and the push start!; Geny Simpson, for getting on with it, and for the encouragement; Mary Cullen, for the proof-reading and the clobber; Tommy “Eurovision’ Swar brigg, a real star; Buggsy O‘Neill, there, even when there was nothing; Shay Fitzsimons; who’s not happy until it’s absolutely right; Gareth O’Callaghan, for taking the chance; John Sweeney, who gave me the first gig; Eamonn Gregg, a great footballer, and a great guy; Michael O‘Carroll, my brother, for belief on top of belief - I love you; Tim O’Connor, a friend I never knew I had; John Courtney, a friend I always knew I had; Gabriel Byme, who can encourage with a smile; Michael O‘Brien who gave me a contract and an advance before he even knew if I owned a biro - your belief in me was inspiring, I hope I have come some way toward justifying it! My thanks to Ide, my editor (a tough job), and all in The O’Brien Press for your hard work. Well done! And to Evelyn Conway, my long-suffering secretary - thanks!

  Finally, my thanks to Maureen O‘Carroll, BA and ID, 1913 -1984. She was me Mammy.

  Brendan o‘Carroll

  Dublin 1994

  ‘Brendan, just be yourself and the rest will come’

  Doreen O’Carroll

  This book is dedicated to

  Gerry Browne

  a man I care about, and one who cares about me

  Chapter 1

  29 MARCH 1967 - DUBLIN

  LIKE ALL GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, the interior of the public waiting room in the Department of Social Welfare was drab and uninviting. The walls were painted in three colours: ‘Government green,’ as it was known to all in Dublin, on the bottom half, and either cream or very old white on the top half, with a one-inch strip of red dividing the two. The only seating consisted of two pew-like wooden benches - these were covered in gouged-out initials and dates. Lighting was provided by one large opaque bowl-like fixture hanging from a six-foot cable in the centre of the high ceiling. The outside of the bowl was dusty, the inside yellowed and speckled with fly shit. In the bottom of the bowl lay a collection of dead flies.

  ‘Serves them right,’ said the woman star
ing at the globe.

  ‘What? Serves who right, Agnes?’ her companion asked tenderly.

  ‘Them, Marion.’ She pointed to the globe. ‘Them flies ... serves them right.’

  Marion looked up at the globe. For a couple of minutes they both stared at the light.

  ‘Jaysus, Agnes, I’m not with yeh ... serves them right for what?’ Marion was puzzled and not a little concerned about Agnes’s state of mind. Grief is a peculiar thing. Agnes pointed at the globe again.

  ‘They flew into that bowl, right? Then they couldn’t get out, so they shit themselves and died. Serves them right, doesn’t it?’

  Marion stared at the globe again, her mouth slightly open, her mind trying to work out what Agnes was on about. Agnes was now back scanning her surroundings; the wall-clock tick-tocked. Again, she looked at the only other person in the room. He was a one-legged man, half-standing, half-propped up at the hatch. She heard him making his claim for unemployment benefit. He was a ‘gotchee’, a night watchman on a building site. He had just been sacked because some kids had got on to the site and broken the windows. The girl was ‘phoning his former employer to ensure he had been sacked and had not left of his own accord. Agnes was trying to imagine what it must be like to be sacked. Being self-employed, she had never been sacked.

  ‘Fuck them.’ Marion broke the silence.

  ‘Who?’ asked Agnes.

  ‘Them flies,’ Marion pointed. ‘Fuck them, you’re right, shittin’ on everything else all their lives. Serves them right! Oh Agnes, is this fella goin’ t’be much longer? I’m bustin’ for a slash.‘ Marion had a pained expression on her face. Agnes looked over the man’s shoulder. The girl was just putting the phone down.

  ‘She’s nearly finished. Look, there’s a jacks outside in the hall, you go on, I’ll be all right. Go on!’

  Marion bolted from the waiting room. At the same time the girl returned to the hatch.

  ‘Right then, Mr O’Reilly. Here’s your signing-on card. You will sign on at hatch 44, upstairs in Gardiner Street at 9.30am on Friday, okay?‘

  The man looked at the card and then back at the girl. ‘Friday? But this is Monday. Yer man wouldn’t pay me and I’ve no money.’

  The girl became very business-like. ‘That’s between you and him, Mr O’Reilly. You’ll have to sort that out yourself. Friday, 9.30, hatch 44.’

  The man still did not leave. ‘What will I do between now and Friday?’

  The girl had had enough. ‘I don’t care what you do. You can’t stand there until Friday, that’s for sure. Now go on, off with you.’

  ‘He’s a bollix,’ the man told the girl.

  She reddened. ‘That’s enough of that, Mr O’Reilly.’

  But he hadn’t finished. ‘If I had me other leg I’d fuckin’ give it to him, I would!’

  The girl bowed her head in a resigned fashion. ‘If you had your other leg, Mr O’Reilly,‘ she snapped, ’you would have caught the children and you wouldn’t be here now, would you?‘ She closed the doors of the hatch in the hope that Mr O’Reilly would vanish. He gathered himself together, slid the card into his inside pocket, put his glasses into a clip-lid box and propped his crutch under his arm. As he made for the exit he said aloud, ‘And you’re a bollix too!’ He opened the door of the waiting room just as Marion got to it.

  ‘That one’s only a bollix,’ he said to her and, surprisingly quickly, headed off down the hallway.

  Marion looked after him for a moment and then turned to Agnes. ‘What was that about?’ she said as she took her seat beside her friend.

  Agnes shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Did yeh go?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  ‘All right then?’

  ‘I’m grand. Jaysus, the paper they use here cuts the arse off a yeh.’

  ‘That auld greaseproof stuff?’

  ‘Yeh, it’s like wipin’ your arse with a crisp bag.’

  ‘Yeh.’

  ‘Well, what are you waitin’ for?’

  ‘I was waitin’ on you to come back. Come on.’

  The two women went to the hatch. Agnes pressed the bell. They heard no sound.

  ‘Press it again,’ said Marion.

  Agnes did. Still no sound. Marion knocked on the hatch doors. Behind, they could hear the sound of movement.

  ‘Someone’s comin’,‘ whispered Agnes. Then, as if she was preparing to sing she cleared her throat with a cough. The hatch opened. It was the same girl. She didn’t look up. Instead she opened a notebook and, still with the head down, asked, ’Name and social welfare number?‘

  ‘I don’t have one,’ Agnes replied.

  ‘You don’t have a name?’ The girl now looked up.

  ‘Of course she has a name,’ Marion now joined in. ‘It’s Agnes, after the Blessed Agnes, Agnes Browne.’

  ‘I haven’t got a social welfare number.’

  ‘Everybody has a social welfare number, Missus!’

  ‘Well, I haven’t!‘

  ‘Your husband - is he working?’

  ‘No, not any more.’

  ‘So, he’s signed on, then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  The girl was now silent. She stared at Agnes, then at Marion.

  ‘Dead?’ Both women nodded. The girl was still not giving up on the numbers game. ‘Do you have your widow’s pension book with you?’

  ‘I haven’t got one, that’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Ah, so this is a new claim?’ The girl felt better now that she had a grasp of what was happening. She lifted a form from below the counter. Both women shot glances at each other, a look of fear crossing their faces. They regarded the answering of questions on forms as an exam of some kind. Agnes wasn’t prepared for this. The girl began the interrogation.

  ‘Now, your full name?’

  ‘Agnes Loretta Browne.’

  ‘Is that Browne with an “E”?’

  ‘Yeh, and Agnes with an “E” and Loretta with an “E”.’

  The girl stared at Agnes, not sure that this woman wasn’t taking the piss out of her.

  ‘Your maiden name?’

  ‘Eh, Reddin.’

  ‘Lovely. Now, your husband’s name?’

  ‘Nicholas Browne, and before you ask, I don’t know his maiden name.’

  ‘Nicholas Browne will be fine. Occupation?’

  Agnes looked at Marion and back at the girl, then said softly, ‘Dead.’

  ‘No, when he was alive, what did he do when he was alive?’

  ‘He was a kitchen porter.’

  ‘And where did he work?’

  Again, Agnes looked into Marion’s blank face. ‘In the kitchen?’ she offered, hoping it was the right answer.

  ‘Of course in the kitchen, but which kitchen? Was it a hotel?’

  ‘It’s still a hotel, isn’t it, Marion?’ Marion nodded.

  ‘Which hotel?!!’ The girl was exasperated now and the question came out through her teeth.

  ‘The Gresham Hotel in O’Connell Street, love,‘ Agnes answered confidently. That was an easy one. The girl scribbled in the answer and moved down the form.

  ‘Now, what was the cause of death?’

  ‘A hunter,’ Agnes said.

  ‘Was he shot?’ the girl asked incredulously. ‘Was your husband shot?’

  ‘By who?’ Agnes asked this question as if the girl had found out something about her husband’s death that she didn’t know herself.

  ‘The hunter, was your husband shot by a hunter?’

  Agnes was puzzled now. She thought it out for a moment and then a look of realisation spread over her face.

  ‘No, love! A Hillman Hunter, he was knocked down by a Hillman Hunter - a car!’

  The girl stared at the two women again, then dismissed the thought that this was Candid Camera. These are just two gobshites, she told herself. ‘A motor accident... I see.’ She scribbled again. The two women could see that she was now writing on the bottom line. They were pleased
. But then she turned the form over to a new list of questions. The disappointment of the women was audible. The young girl felt it and in an effort to ease the tension of the two said, That must have been a shock.‘

  Agnes thought for a moment. ‘Yeh, it must have been, sure he couldn’t have been expecting it!’

  The girl glanced around the room, wondering could it be possible that there was a hidden camera after all. Again she dismissed it.

  ‘Right, then, let’s move on. Now, how many children do you have?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Seven? A good Catholic family!’

  ‘Ah, they’re all right. But yeh have to bate the older wans to Mass.’

  ‘I’m sure. Eh, I’ll need their names and ages.’

  ‘Right! Let me see, Mark is the eldest, he’s fourteen; then Francis, he’s thirteen; then the twins, there’s two of them, Simon and Dermot, twelve, both of them; then Rory and he’s eleven; after him there’s Cathy, she was a forceps, very difficult!’

  ‘It was, I remember it well. You’re a martyr, Agnes,’ Marion commented.

  ‘Ah sure, what can you do, Marion. She’s ten; and last of all there’s Trevor, the baby, he’s three.’

  The form had been designed to accommodate ten children so there was plenty of space left. The girl ran a line through the last three spaces and moved on to the next section. In the back of her mind she wondered what it was between 1957 and 1964 that gave Mrs Browne the ‘break’!

  ‘Now, when did your husband die?’

  ‘At half-four.’

  ‘Yes, but what day?’

  ‘This mornin’.‘

  ‘This morning! But sure, he couldn’t even have a death certificate yet!’

  ‘Ah no, not at all - sure he didn’t even go past primary!’

  ‘No, a death certificate. I need a death certificate. A certificate from the doctor stating that your husband is in fact dead. He could be alive, for all I know.’