It was a bright sunny morning, when me and mammy set out for Henny’s for a big days washing. We took the shortcut through the fields. As usual she paused and admired the impressive view.

On the right the misty Black Mountains, with Lough Neagh just peeping in on the left. The new motorway Minnie the local shopkeeper rode down on her bicycle causing an awful stir was somewhere between the lough and the mountains. I didn’t care about any of it. I was too busy chasing a big white butterfly. Daddy hated them when they made a hand of his cabbage. Though I jumped in the air, arms outstretched, the butterfly went on about its business, miles above my head.

The tail of our black and white cat caught my eye in the long grass. She left us across the first field before skulking home to sleep. I was enjoying the soft fur on my bare legs as she purred and rubbed against them, when mammy shouted.

I left the cat and ran, grabbing the handfuls of buttercups and daisies I’d been gathering. It would be a long day for me at Henny’s, sitting up like a lady warned to touch nothing.

Mammy never forgot the day I caught my fingers in the mangle, nor the embarrassment when I pulled the heads of the orange lilies. I thought she’d be delighted with the lovely present.

Mammies were hard to understand at times, so complicated.

When I overtook mammy, she was anything but pleased. My hair was all tossed, the bow on top flattened. No wonder she was cross, she’d spent ages in Bella Mulgrew’s picking it from the big rolls of ribbon. I was pulling on her coat to hurry her up, she’d promised me a poke, and the ice-cream shop would soon be shut.

It had turned into a wet evening as we travelled home from Dromore. It was so cosy, so comforting in the red seat on the back of Mammy’s bicycle, as she battled with the rain. I watched it trickle in rows down her pink plastic coat. I leaned forward, closed the gap, and was sheltered from the world by her huge form.

Now there was a lull after the tirade as she straightened the crumpled bow. It was beyond redemption. Would have to be freshly washed and ironed.

‘We’re missing all the good drying,’ she remarked crossly, ‘Henny’ll think we’re not coming.’
I struggled to keep up with her determined strides in the long grass, afraid to look left or right. She’ll be a different woman, coming home in the dark I thought for just a second, afraid to dwell on it in case she knew what I was thinking, she often did.

Long before we reached Henny’s we saw the big puffs of grey smoke bellowing from the sooty chimley. As we rounded the bend in the loanin, there was the grand house.

Mammy thought I was great when I first counted the eight green windows that matched the front door with the stained glass panels on either side. The pink rambling roses, Henny’s favourites, sprawled up the white washed walls in all directions.

I was startled by mammy’s anxious shouts as the angry grey geese rushed towards us necks outstretched. I hid behind her, buried my face in her flowery dress, and waited for the attack as the hissing got louder. I peeped out with one eye as the brown beaks closed in. Suddenly the boisterous Rover raced from the yard, scattered the lot of them. Henny now at the front door was killing herself laughing.

She didn’t take the geese too seriously, though with her long cotton overall, lyle stockings and brown, boys’boots she was better prepared than me and mammy, if they took a dislike to her.
‘A wee drop a tay an yil be as right as rain,’ she assured mammy, setting two pink cups and saucers on the table. We had just followed her into the steamy kitchen where every pot and kettle in the house was boiling on top of the Stanley range.

I hated the smell as she poured the brown stewed liquid into the cups, Henny always kept a teapot at the side of the range, boiled it up when it was needed. A mouthful of the leaves was worse than the smell; the thought brought on a shudder.

She took the usual wee white mug from the glass press, filled it with the creamy milk from the brown crock with the thick wooded lid. My teeth were watering as she pushed it towards me though I think the buttermilk was my favourite.

If mammy sent me to Morrow’s for a wee canful, she could be sure the half of it would be missing by the time I got home. There were some tall stories about its whereabouts.

Henny’s round plump face was framed by wisps of greying hair escaping from her untidy bun. Mammy now offered her the empty cup to have her fortune told. She silently studied the tea leaves; decided mammy was coming into money, going to cross water. The two tittered at the folly of it.

With the table read, the wooden tub with the iron hoops and big handles was placed on its scrubbed top and filled with the boiling water from the Stanley range. Mammy’s face now bright red, her glasses steamed as she lowered the grey blankets into the tub. Henny busied herself at the other end of the table with the washboard and sunlight soap, scrubbing the neck of a grubby shirt. The women chatted continuously as the work progressed.

They struggled to the backyard with the sodden blankets, passed them through the iron mangle with the wooden rollers. The white suds splashed to the ground in all directions, the old hands had their feet well out of the firing line.

Next for the tub were the white bed sheets, all had the give away seams where the flour bags were joined together, the odd letter here and there, another clue to their former use.

‘Gretta, aren’t them Early Rise flour bags the real sickners?’ lamented Henny.
‘The whole country’s complaining about them,’ agreed mammy examining the bug black shadow on one end of the sheet she was wringing out.
‘No amount of bleaching or boiling will stop that blackbird from raising its ugly head,’ sighed Henny. ‘It’s a terrible pity the flour makes the best bread.’

She then directed mammy to hang the bad end away from the road. The local women studied each other’s lines, formed opinions about characters accordingly. Each item was pegged in a certain way, as stated in some unwritten washing-line code. A ‘blue bag’ was added to the wash, to achieve ‘whiter than white’ that the women’s magazines talked about.

In our townland anyway a grey badly pegged washing was always put out by a dart.

Mammy, paused now and again to rub the beads of sweat from her forehead with the back to her hand before they trickled down her nose. Henny’s bun was swaying above her right brow, mammy wasn’t far behind with her hair damp and straggly.

For me the day was just as dull as I expected, bored with the daisy chain, I went to put the buttercup under mammy’s chin. If I could see the yellow reflection, she liked butter. She shouted at me to go and sit down before I was scalded. I skulked back to the table, head bowed in shame.

‘Rita, why don’t you take out your books?’ suggested mammy, gentler now, seeing my distress.
I had forgot about the leather schoolbag abandoned under the table, mammy’d made me bring it after I complained about the awful day I was going to have. I was soon as worried as ‘Chicken Licken’, about the sky falling. Through the kitchen window every bush and hedge was draped in the grey blankets and bedspreads, the whites on the lines were fluttering gently in the summer breeze, all pegged in accordance with the regulations.

Johnny was lucky to have got a woman of such fine character.

Mammy was now dipping the detached collars into the bowl of starch she’d just made from the wee box with the robin of the front. I thought of daddy on a Sunday morning frantically searching the kitchen window for his front stud. Blamed us all for interfering with it. The ends of the collar up round his ears added to the flustered look.

The women were now hanging the last of the clothes on the big pulley line that stretched the length of the kitchen, could be raised or lowered as needed. The discussions were about the ins and outs of turning the collar on a working shirt. The collar was attached but could be removed, turned to the other side when it got frayed thus doubling the life of the shirt.

It wasn’t every woman could do it.

When the washing was completed, a pot of boiling water was still bubbling on the range. Young William was brought from his hiding place in the byre, already guessing his fate. He scowled over at me, refused to take off unless I went out. I was aloud in when he was seated in the tin bath in front of the range. There was a big row of chairs round the bath with towels over the rungs.

I had no interest in the boy but couldn’t believe that anybody could have so many chairs and towels. I could smell the Lifebuoy soap, so the rich must use it too.

Through the window now was big orange sunset, the light starting to fade. I wanted home before dark. Henny wouldn’t hear tell of it, filled the kettle for another drop of tea, gave me a few scraps of old wall paper and the stub of a pencil, there was no use in arguing. If we didn’t go home straight after the cups were drained it soon ran into the next tea.

When the men came in from the yard that evening, the whole talk was about the new tin roof we were getting on over the thatch. Mammy was saying how daddy was tortured patching it, how he hated climbing. She had to help him up and down off the roof.

‘It’s a pity Gretta you couldn’t thatch when you were on the roof,’ laughed Johnny, picturing the scene. Still smiling after the banter about the goat devouring the washing from the clothes line and trapping the postman at the yard gate we said our farewells to Henny and her family.

Mammy and me were on our own. I grabbed her hand tighter, moved closer as we crept down the dark loanin. Where were the singing birds, the dancing butterflies, even the Black Mountain had vanished. There was a threatening silence, broken only by the odd rustling in the hedge, the anxious barking of a distant dog. Was he in danger too? Pairs of green eyes crossed our path, cats, dogs, foxes, maybe. They took our hens one night.

Did they take children too? It wasn’t the right time to ask mammy. I’d ask her some sunny day we were out walking. I hung back in horror as mammy threw her leg over the gate; it was bad enough on the road.

‘Two fields an we’ll be home,’ she pleaded. Thinking of the long tramp round the road, and Johnny’s warning to mind the ghost at the foot of Tullyard Hill. I squeezed between the bars of the gate. In the darkness I fell on my back in the gutters. It was a good job mammy couldn’t see the state of my dress. I walked behind just in case.

‘Will ye come on ar that, its spitting rain,’ shouted mammy, tugging at my arm. ‘My God, what’s that awful smell?’ she added. I knew then it must be cow clap on my dress.

I trotted along behind her, struggling to stay upright in the mucky field. Another minute or two and we’d be warming ourselves at the fire, I assured myself.

It was teeming now, mammy wanted to go even faster or we’d get our death in the summer dresses. I did my best for I didn’t like the sound of it, whatever she meant.
That’s when the rattling started.
I thought nothing if it. I couldn’t wait to get rid of the wet smelly dress, the squelchy shoes and socks.

Mammy was in a frenzy on hearing the rattle.

‘Run quick Rita, that’s the bull,’ gulped mammy, trailing me along behind her. ‘I saw him yesterday, a big ring in his nose, that’s the chain rattling.’

I’ll be the first, I thought, picturing the big animal closer as the rattling got louder, heard above our noisy gasping breaths. I wondered if mammy’s heart was like mine trying to jump out of her chest, it’s heavy thud echoing in her ears.

We raced aimlessly round the last corner of the field, afraid to pause, to check our bearings as the rattling closed in on us. My whole body was trembling, my legs like jelly.
Mammy was begging a whole litany of saints to help us; none of them seemed to be listening.
Then it all happened at once, the rain stopped, the moon peeped out from behind a cloud, lit up the gate.

I hoped it wasn’t a mirage, I’d heard about them on the radio. I said nothing to mammy for she thought I sometimes listened to programmes that filled my head with nonsense.
The gate seemed real enough as we scrambled through it, only when we were safely on the other side did we dare look back.

There was nothing.

No black bull frothing at the mouth as he charged. Not even a cow or a wee bit of a calf. Mammy put her arms round me to comfort my still chattering trembling body. That’s when she found the culprit.

The big metal buckles on the front of my schoolbag.