Episode 10: The Three Silences
After feeling more settled because of the café visit, Neil was thinking of ways he could help the family move on from the death of Thomas’s sister Maggie. Thomas clearly couldn’t speak of her except when he was upset and the rest of the family seemed to have forgotten her, but it was simply their way of grieving.
Neil was no stranger to death himself. He had two sisters who were fondly remembered, his own sister Maggie and another sister called Maria, both of whom had died when he was nine years old. He remembered going to the cemetery to visit their grave in Kilbirnie without telling anyone. They were buried together.
One day his mother had heard from a neighbour that he had been there.
“Neil, we aren’t Catholic. We don’t go to cemeteries. You know that, so just stay away. There’s no good can come of you hanging around there, and Mrs Kilpatrick told me you were there today.”
“But Mother, I don’t want my sisters to be forgotten. Could we not at least put a stone there to remember them?”
“It’s not our way… now, no more of that talk. Get ready for dinner before your father gets home. I don’t want to be telling him about you unless I have to, so stay away from the cemetery and no more talk about it!”
Neil remembered the Scottish way: no flowers, no stones unless you were either rich or Catholic. The cemetery felt more like a field. Even he had forgotten exactly where his sisters Maggie and Maria were buried because there was not even a flower vase to mark the place. Whenever he wanted to visit, he had to ask someone where they lay.
Just at that moment Thomas returned.
“Thomas, eh… Esther says she has to go to the cemetery to pay respects to a dead relative. Do you know where that would be?”
This was Neil’s idea of discretion, using his newfound friend Esther as a way of getting inside Thomas’s head.
“What does she want to go there for? She isn’t Catholic, is she? I don’t want to hear any talk about visiting graves up there,” he chirped defensively. “It’s just a meadow. There’s nothing to see. It’s up past the German house on the left side of the mountain.”
“Yeah, but you know in Scottish families women can’t go to the graveside at a funeral, so I think she just wants to go and see the grave,” Neil quickly added.
By talking about a third person, Neil found a way to speak about the dead without stirring up emotion. But clearly, here religion was just as taboo as it had been back in Scotland. He thought for a moment about asking whether Thomas’s sister Maggie was buried there, or even sharing the story of his own sisters Maggie and Maria, but he hesitated, paused and decided against it. Perhaps Esther would be more open to going to find the grave.
“Keating and his men are all Catholic. They even gave the money to build that chapel in town. A terrible thing, that, with statues of the Virgin Mary everywhere for them to pray to. I heard they even have to pay to go and confess their sins to a man. What kind of religion is that?” Thomas said vexedly.
Neil remembered just how bad things had been in Kilbirnie because of the influx of the Irish. He knew this was a discussion he was never going to win and decided not to pursue it. At that moment he realised he was different from Thomas, less conditioned, more open, yet they were from the same family and almost the same age.
His brother Peter had married a Catholic woman, Miss McLean, and had been disowned by the family. Yet Neil had continued to visit them in secret whenever he was back home, without the rest of the family knowing. It was a secret he wasn’t ready to share. Religion isn’t about division anyway, he thought to himself, remembering the arguments, the Orange Walks and the hysteria surrounding religious labels. He decided to keep his mouth shut. Peter was almost twenty years older than Neil. It was like a different generation, yet one that had not changed very much.
Neil knew he had to get out of this conversation quickly before Thomas started spouting more hatred.
“What happened to Keating’s men? Any news?”
“The constable spoke to them and they denied hanging an animal against our door. Of course, there were no witnesses. I got asked about the missing deer from their farm as well. I told him I knew nothing, so I suppose it’s over.”
Neil lowered his head. He could see the situation in a much bigger way than Thomas could. Now there were three silences that hung over the household: religion, Thomas’s sister Maggie, and the story of what had really triggered Keating’s men to attack.
Was Thomas telling the truth?