Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 20

 by Victor Sullivan  © 2015       A girl from Adrigole

1901, October.

May Harman, an intelligent, pretty, twenty-year old girl from Adrigole,  watched a cripple drag himself towards her, along the muddy main street of Castletown Bere. She had heard of his existence and knew that he had been badly injured when a child but it was the first time she had actually seen him moving along on some sort of trolley. She experienced a shudder of anxiety, mixed with revulsion as he drew closer and she stepped quickly into a shop door-way to avoid meeting the muck-spattered freak on wheels. The shop-keeper was about to ask what she wanted from his shelves when he noticed Johnnie passing outside and he understood immediately. Most women avoided getting close to Johnnie. Some men avoided him too.

"Ah! That's only Johnnie Wheels. He's fairly harmless. But don't ever cross him. Clever divil he is; he understands complicated gadgets like sewing machines and fixes them for all the dressmakers and tailors."

"But he's filthy!"

"So would you be, missy, if you had to drag yourself around through all the cow and horse-dung down there on the ground, as he does."

"He makes my skin crawl. Ugggg!"

"Say a prayer for him, missy. His must be a very hard life. He can't walk and 'tis said he can neither sit or stand. Dreadful way to have to live, dreadful altogether isn't it? 'Twas a mad sheep that attacked him and crippled him when he was only a young boy."

May continued on her way to the dressmaker, hoping that she would not encounter Johnny Wheels again. Her visit to the dressmaker was for what she hoped would be the final fitting. Although May was quite a competent seamstress and had considered making the dress herself, it was for a very special occasion and best left to the professional dressmaker. It was for her first formal visit to the home of the man that her father had arranged to become her husband. The match had been agreed and, being a farmer's daughter, the prospect of becoming a farmer's wife appealed to her. As May entered the dressmaker's shop her eye fell on the sewing machine near the window and the very notion of it being repaired or even touched by the crippled creature that she had encountered on the street seemed crazy. Surely not! How could anything so filthy and horrible have anything to do with a machine that could produce such neat stitches on those beautiful, fine fabrics or spotless white linen. But her own new dress would have been made with that machine! 

May put on the unfinished dress. As the dressmaker worked her way around her creation, making minor alterations with pins here and there, May asked bluntly, 

"Is it true that the cripple, Johnnie Wheels, repairs sewing machines like the one you've got here?"

"Oh Johnnie! He's great with the sewing machines. I'd be lost only for him. Only last week he was in here giving my machine the once-over as he called it.  Fluff builds up in all sorts of places in the machine and that can cause problems. I'd be scared to open it up myself and poke about in its innards. I was working on your own dress when he called in last week."

May looked down at her dress and shivered slightly. She half-expected to detect streaks of cow-dung on the fabric but failed to see any.

"Was my dress on the machine while he was here working on it?"

"Ah no! Johnnie always makes me clear away all my work before he gets going on the machine. Then he opens it up and picks out all the fluff before he oils it. He gets fierce fussy about cleaning it and polishing it afterwards. I have to keep scrap strips of all the different materials I use for him so that he can test the stitching on them all. He's fussy and funny at the same time. He tells some great yarns while he's working."

Regardless of how fussy and funny Johnnie might be in the opinion of the dress-maker, May was relieved to learn that the freak on wheels hadn't been pawing her new dress with his cow-dung-coated fingers. May left the dressmaker's shop having been assured that the dress would be ready for its final try-on in two days. She went in search of her father and found him, sitting in the pony trap, reading one of the two local newspapers, The Southern Star.

"Well?"

"Two days more." May replied as she untied the pony's reins and passed it to her father before climbing in beside him. On the road back to Adrigole they talked about matters in the Southern Star. May never mentioned the crippled man she had seen with the wheels under him, who could fix sewing machines.  If she had, she might have been better prepared for what followed. 

May's father, aware of his obligation to find suitable husbands for his daughters, had made discreet enquiries and a situation developing to the west of Castletown Bere had caught his attention. A fairly decent farm with a substantial area of commercial peat-bog attached would provide security for his daughter, May. The current half-blind owner was elderly and his wife was becoming quite feeble. The couple's son who worked the farm was in his forties and could probably do with a good, young woman in the house. Letters were written and a visit was arranged.

1901, November. 

 On a fine Sunday afternoon in early November, May Harman accompanied her father in the pony-trap, to meet her future husband. Traditionally, they could expect an invitation to 'walk the land' and had brought their boots for that opportunity. Richard and his blind and feeble father came out into the lane to meet them while his mother waited at the door. May's first impression of the younger bearded farmer who approached her with hand extended, was that he looked older than she had expected.  'Getting on in years,' would be appropriate, she thought. Richard's mother welcomed the visitors and invited them in for tea 'after they had walked the land.' Old Thomas Gill declared that as he couldn't see much any more and would prefer not join them. In truth, he was no longer able to walk far, 'his years had at last caught up with him.'  

May, her father and bridegroom-to-be, Richard set out to view the farm.The livestock consisted of one friendly black and white sheep-dog, a couple of cats, a herd of dry cattle, twelve milking cows, some calves, two pigs, poultry, ducks, a large flock of sheep and one goose. ("there were two but a fox got the other one!"). They walked the farm boundary, part of which included a small river. They saw the large area of peat-bog where cutting rights were sold as measured strips to neighbours and even to some families from the town, who then cut and saved their own year's supply of fuel. From the high, moorland part of the land, the view of Berehaven harbour, Bere Island and beyond it to Mizen Head, was magnificient.  To the west lay the Atlantic Ocean. As they returned to the farmhouse for the promised tea, May, delighted and excited by everything she had seen, was struggling nervously to retain her composure. Richard and her father were getting along well together as they discussed cattle and sheep and the prices they made at the last fair. She, the future Mrs. Gill, would behave properly, politely, respectfully at all times. On reaching the open farmhouse door, May removed the first of her muddy boots, stooping down to replace it with a retrieved shoe. She began to tie its lace.

From the darkness inside the kitchen, at floor level, a large, scrupulously clean hand was suddenly thrust straight towards her in greeting.

"Hello, I'm Johnnie!"

Raising her eyes from her shoe-lace, May saw the hand and a leering face mere inches from her own face. Her piercing scream of sheer shock and terror echoed through the house. It was a moment in her life that she would never forget. Even in her old age, images of that utterly unexpected, face-to-face, close-up, first meeting with Johnnie occasionally disturbed her sleep.

Johnnie was every bit as shocked and distressed by the pretty visitor's reaction. He had meant well. He was just being friendly and welcoming. He apologised profusely to the girl for frightening her so severely. But damage had been done. Richard was furious and, but for the presence of the important visitors, Johnnie would have felt more than the mere chill of his brother's hatred. But nobody had bothered to send Johnnie word about what was about to happen at the Gill farm. He had not been back to his home, or even to the workshop to assemble chairs, for two weeks. The possibility of matchmaking had never crossed his mind. 

He had untackled and stabled Ribbon as usual and then entered the farmhouse on Eureka. There he had found his ageing mother preparing the table in the rarely used parlour, setting out her best china. She simply said that visitors were out walking the land and added that he had time to get rid of Eureka and make himself clean and presentable before they returned for tea, when he could introduce himself to the two visitors from Adrigole. 

Which, he did, with such disastrous effect. 

Johnnie didn't linger for the formal tea. He deemed it prudent to go on an urgent mission to Allihies, or to Bantry, or to China or Russia or to…  somewhere… anywhere!!  

*************

Two weeks later, on on  24th November, 1901,  Johnnie's father, blind Thomas Gill, died peacefully, aged 83.  Johnnie was 31. He followed the funeral procession in his donkey-cart as far as the graveyard beside the North Road, Castletown Bere, where he remained on the roadside, outside the cemetry wall, where he was closer to the grave than most people, as the family plot lies immediately inside the roadside wall. He heard the soil and stones fall onto his father's coffin. He would join his father and Ada and other family members in that same plot some day. But not yet!

  

[1] May Harman was the author's Grandmother

Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 19

by Victor Sullivan   © 2015        Goodbye Brenda
  

1896

 The residents of Castletown Bere and the surrounding district eventually lost interest in the odd friendship between the cripple, Johnnie Gill and Brenda. The pair met frequently, not only in her uncle's the bar but they would often be seen together, at wakes, funerals and local football matches. They attracted curious stares from Naval personnel and other visitors to the town as they travelled together on Johnnie's donkey-cart. Random taunts were tolerated, rebuffed, or conspicuously and irritatingly ignored. The pair seemed happy in each other's company. Sadly, it was not to last.

Brenda had waited anxiously for over a week without seeing Johnnie enter the bar. Someone told her that he was working in the Urhin area or staying with relatives near Ardgroom. She dreaded what his reaction might be when he learned about what had come from America. As each day passed, her anxiety grew. Imagined distressing scenes were played out in her head. Her own confused feelings were submerged in the melting pot of misery that had overtaken her.  The regular customers had noticed the sombre change in their usually bubbly bar-girl too. Had she and Johnnie Wheels broken up? Or worse…?

As the sun was setting one evening, Johnnie re-appeared, behaving as though nothing was amiss. He ordered his usual with a wave, parked Eureka and waited. Personal delivery of his drink was exactly what he needed, had expected and got. He smiled up at her as best his scarred face would allow, then, as she stooped to hand him his drink, Johnnie saw the distress and the tears.

"Must talk to you. Side door." was all she said quietly and immediately retreated behind the bar, turning her back on everyone, pretending to re-arrange bottles on a shelf before vanishing into the kitchen.

Johnnie set his drink aside and pulled himself out into the street on Eureka. He went to the side-door where Brenda was waiting for him. She said nothing but held out a letter for him to read in the fading daylight. 

It was from Brenda's aunt in America announcing that a well-paid job awaited her in a Boston Hotel. Her room had been painted and furnished and everything had been prepared for her arrival. The tickets were paid for and she was to sail from Queenstown on 27th of the month.

"Is this your father's doing?"

"Who else?"

Brenda was expecting white knuckles and the slam of spiked Horses into the ground at least. Instead, after a long silence, she watched Johnnie change from being the friendly, clever, funny, sometimes cantankerous cripple, into a sad, kindly and very wise, disabled old man. He reached up and grasped her firmly by hand, pulling her down to squat beside him.

"Brenda. Your father's right, of course. I know that… and you know it too, deep down. He knows I could never run your farm after he has gone to join your mother. That farm will need a man, a real farmer sort of man. I can milk a cow in my own way, but I could never plough a field with horses. Nor could I mow oats  or shear sheep. Sheep and me don't get along very well anyway. The truth is, Brenda, if we carry on clinging to each other, it will destroy your entire life. We must increase the distance between us. It will hurt us both for a while but pain fades. I know a lot about pain, so believe me. Go to Boston, see how others live. Do some living for yourself. Then come back to your family farm some day and marry a strong, able-bodied, farmer's son, and don't be wasting yourself on this sewing-machine fixer who drags himself around on a plank with wheels."

It sounded like a well rehearsed speech. Which it was. Johnnie had rehearsed different versions of it over and over again. He had planned to use it many times but at the last moment he could never find either the courage or honesty to express the painful words and logic. Brenda's aunt had provided the necessary key to unlock the unmentionable. 

Johnnie released the girl's hand, spun Eureka around rapidly and returned to the bar, finished his drink quickly and left before Brenda had conquered her emotions sufficiently to reappear before the observant, speculating customers. 

On the evening of the 27th, Johnnie Gill dragged himself onto his donkey cart and headed for the high moorland at the top of Rea, to the spot where, at the age of ten, he had ridden a sheep at speed, crashing into that grey boulder that had crippled him for life. He stopped beside the boulder. It was the first time he had returned to the scene of the sheep accident.  Berehaven Harbour with its usual collection of British Naval vessels warranted little more than a glance. Out to the west, lay the broad horizon of the Atlantic ocean, to the south he could see as far as Mizen Head quite clearly. His careful timing calculation was proved correct. There, visible in the blue haze was a west-bound steamship. Johnnie stared at it, knowing that on board, grasping the starboard taff-rail in both hands, Brenda would be staring towards the flat-topped profile of Knockoura hill behind him, at a spot just a little bit below its crest. They had agreed to say farewell that way at their final meeting. Eventually, distance, haze and the sunset obliterated the last traces of Brenda's ship from view. Johnnie dismounted from the cart and with a hammer and a small cold-chisel, he chipped a simple 'BRE' on the same boulder that had ruined his life. It must have grown too dark for Johnnie to see what he was doing as the  remainder of his girl-friend's name was never completed. 

(The boulder was shattered with gelignite during a land improvement scheme in the 1940s).  

Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 18

by Victor Sullivan   © 2015   Brenda, Love, Hate and Wills

1894

Johnnie Gill returned twice to the bar 'just to have his face looked over' but on each occasion Brenda's father was present. Then, on his third visit Brenda was serving alone behind the bar counter and her father was absent. Johnnie ordered his usual pint with his usual gesture on entering, positioned Eureka in its usual place and waited for the usual sideways nod from Brenda to one of the usual customers to pass his drink down to him. He waited, longer than usual. Nobody handed his glass down. Then the flap of the bar counter was raised and he watched his drink approaching… in the hand of… Brenda! She squatted down beside him and handed him the glass. Taking his head between her hands she pretended to examine her handiwork on his face but they both knew that there was insufficient light to see anything. Johnnie's free hand touched hers for a moment and she returned to her work-station behind the bar counter. Impossible? A dream? He had vowed to keep his one-pint rule after Ribbon had so embarrassingly taken him to her former home while slept on the cart. 

To hell with vows! He ordered a second pint… just to see if Brenda would repeat the personal delivery service… and… SHE DID!

  It was the beginning of an unusual relationship that was destined to end in tears as they both knew it would.  In the early weeks, Brenda's long chats with Johnnie in the bar were thought to be a mere symptom of the girl's kind nature towards the unfortunate cripple and her interest in the progress of his facial scar. As their warm friendship became more obvious, not only to the bar customers but to the entire town, whispers became more audible: 

'What would her poor mother have said had she had lived to see her precious daughter falling for with that crankie cripple?'

'You'd expect her father to put a stop to it! How could he allow his only daughter to carry on like that while working in her uncle's pub. He'd surely want his only child to do better than Johnnie Wheels!'

'I wonder…  could they… ya know…  God forgive me!… breed?'

The strange friendship of the couple attracted considerable attention and it required strong determination to ignore the innuendo and often cruel, offensive remarks. Brenda, well accustomed to bar-room teasing and scurrilous taunts, would notice Johnnie's knuckles turn white as his grip tightened on his spiked Horses and she would tactfully defuse the situation. Brenda knew there was a limit to his endurance. She had witnessed Johnnie Gill's explosive temper and the consequences of his leg-breaking fury. In miners' jargon, Johnnie was like a blasting charge with a very short fuse. Antagonise him if you dare! 

Before long the pair were to be seen sharing Ribbon's cart. Together they attended the wake of a popular bar customer who had dropped dead in the street for no apparent reason. Richard also attended the same wake and grew angrier and angrier as his opinion was repeatedly sought regarding the antics of the bar-maid and the cripple.

Richard confronted Johnnie on the matter when he stopped Eureka by placing his boot on one wheel as they met on the lane beside the Gill's spring well. 

"Why do you keep disgracing our family by carrying on with that girl from the bar in town?"

"Why do you keep disgracing our family by drinking far too much in that same bar?"

Richard's boot came off the wheel and swung back, but the kick did not make contact with Johnnie's face as intended. Instead, the shin met the prong of one of Johnnie's Horses and it pierced deep into Richard's leg as Johnnie quickly raised his arms to protect himself. Richard bellowed in pain while his intended target backed quickly away to a safer distance. 

"Ask for my permission before you try to kick me in the face again, unless you want the same lesson I gave that sailor!" Johnnie taunted his limping eldest brother. It was mutual open hatred from that moment.

Their father, Thomas Gill, having stretched denial as far as could be expected of anyone, had to admit that his eyesight was deteriorating quite rapidly. He could no longer read a newspaper. He announced that he was 'about to put his affairs in order so as to leave everything neat and tidy when he passed on.' A trip to the solicitor was arranged and he went alone, carrying with him a few documents, one of which was a sealed letter written by his second son, Tommy, who had emigrated to America some years earlier. 

According to an earlier will, (drafted not long after Johnnie's cripling accident with the sheep), on the death of his father, the eldest male heir, Richard, would inherit the farm, the house and the income from half of the peat-bog that formed a large part of the Gill's property. Tommy, the second son, was to receive the income from his half-share in the peat-bog. Financial arrangements were made for the widow and for each daughter. It was a condition that the entire family would have the obligation to jointly care for their crippled brother, Johnnie. That document was drafted before Johnnie surprised everyone with his survival, mobility and independence. 

The solicitor read the earlier draft will aloud to Thomas Gill and then opened Tommy's sealed letter addressed to 'Thomas Gill's Legal Advisor when making his will.'

"This changes things." was his first comment.

"What does?"

"According to this letter, written in the presence of, and witnessed by, a Lawyer, your second son, Tommy, who now resides in America, relinquishes all his rights to his inheritance, assigning it instead to the person he refers to as: 'My disadvantaged brother, Johnnie, whose injuries will be for ever on my concience as it was I who encouraged him to ride that sheep. May God forgive me! Signed Thomas Gill.   Born in Ardgroom, Ireland on 9th October, 1857.'

There was a long, head-nodding silence before the letter-writer's elderly father answered.

"Do as he wishes. Make it legal. The money from that half of the bog will keep Johnnie into his old age. The night before Tommy left for America he said to me that it would be a relief not to see Johnnie dragging himself around on his trolley, day after day. Poor Tommy. I never suspected he was to blame for the sheep accident. We all believed it was Johnnie's own childish mistake. Tommy couldn't stand the guilt any longer."