Peggy's Secret Instalment three

"Sorry for your troubles Peggy. Sure he’s in Heaven now. Away from all that pain - the gasping for breath."

"Thanks Donie, you were always a good friend to us. I told him....Coffin-nails...they’d kill him. I did....."

She goes silent, slouching back into the wheelchair, alone now in life and alone with her thoughts, her reflections.

Jonnie, brother, I can't help thinking I'm near finished myself. Jonnie, you're gone now and I'm alone. I did me best for you all the years. I hate this wheelchair and all the neighbours staring at me. I wonder when they got this for the day was it for me or for them? So that they could push me where ever they wanted to put me. The arthritis was only an excuse.

To say I’m crippled! I'm not: I could have walked. I would have if the hadn’t bullied me: as usual. I wonder will they try and put me away now?

I can look after myself. Let them try…

It’s going to rain heavier now. It always rains at funerals. I’m on me own now. Alone in the house for the first time ever: the time flew.

It seems only yesterday that I started looking after Bossman when Mammy died. Daddy was easy to look after. But Jonnie! You were a different matter; an alcoholic and a briar always looking for a fight. Oh! Your drinking pals didn’t know all there was to know about you: Bucko. A Street Angle and a House Devil.

I used look forward to the evening when Bossman was fed. Then I could cycle the three miles to Molly’s to give her the news. He had a good day. He is working on a pony’s trap. What? The other fellow? I don’t know where he is or when he might come home. I left his dinner in the oven. He will probably go to bed and not have it at all. But if it wasn’t there for him. Well, you know…

Then I’d have the cup of tea: made for me. I’d smoke me Afton and hear the news from Molly - her day and her house and her family.

Then Daddy died: prostate cancer. And I buried him and continued looking after Jonnie. I kept me head down and never complained. He tried but could never throw me out. Bossman saw to that: left the place to both of us. I suppose, it’s mine now.

At times I was miserable with all the problems of married life without any of the advantages. What Bossman did was right, but at times I hated the ‘till death do us part partnership.

At least I wasn't like one of those unfortunate women who married farmer's sons, elderly bachelors and only fit for the grave and then when she moved in with him to the farmhouse, she found out it was a trap with all of the house, old mother, old father, brothers, and the lad looking for someone to skivvy for them.

Two women in one house and mammy thinking the poor unfortunate wife was not looking after her child like he was used to. Some of those women were widowed and then the miserable family threw her out into the streets. At least I had my share of the house.

Jonnie often acted the Thick Eegit, and lost his job over the drink. But the Union and Molly’s man fought and in the end they gave him early redundancy and he got The Lump: and a bit of sense.