Authors: Anne Bennett
Gloria saw the shadow flit over Joe’s face and she stopped talking and said, ‘What is it, Joe?’
Joe shrugged. ‘Just memories. Nothing important.’
‘Important enough to put a frown on your face.’
Joe sighed. ‘Well, I suppose I might as well tell you,’ he said. ‘I was remembering a time when my brother and I would play the Irish music at home. He played fiddle or violin as you call it, and I would play the tin whistle and our sister Aggie would dance.’
‘I never heard you mention anyone called Aggie,’ Gloria said. ‘I thought you only had the one sister Nuala who worked for the Protestant people near your home in
Buncrana. And then in the Troubles she went with them to their second home in England and never came back. You never said why not.’
‘I’ll tell you about Nuala another day,’ Joe said. ‘It was my elder sister, Aggie, that used to do the dancing and,’ he added grimly, ‘she disappeared off the face of the earth at fifteen years old.’
Gloria’s eyes grew wide with surprise. ‘Why did she do that?’
‘Because she was raped by the dancing teacher,’ Joe said simply. ‘When Aggie discovered she was expecting the man’s baby she knew she would have to leave her home, because for an unmarried girl to have a baby is just about the worst thing in the world to those over in Ireland.’
Gloria was incensed. ‘That is monstrous. What of your parents?’
‘They knew nothing,’ Joe said. ‘And they were never told. Tom is the only one who knew all about it and he told me just before I came here. The man McAllister said he would deal with things and Tom said he was sure that he was sending Aggie to his sister in a place called Birmingham in England. Aggie agreed to go to save the family’s shame. From the night Tom saw her being driven off in the man’s cart in the early hours of the morning, he hasn’t a clue what happened to her.’
‘What a perfectly dreadful story,’ Gloria said. ‘That poor, poor girl, driven to such lengths. I know such things go on and the man is seldom held responsible for anything, but I have never met anyone affected in such a way.’
‘And it gets worse,’ Joe said. ‘The dancing teacher died shortly afterwards and when the man’s wife contacted his sister to come to the funeral, the letter was returned saying she didn’t live there any more, so Aggie truly did disappear into thin air. That thought haunted Tom for years. He wonders if he could have handled things differently, but he was only thirteen himself.’
Norah noted Joe’s doleful face and she said gently,
‘However dreadful it is, Joe, you must put it out of your mind because all the fretting and worrying in the world cannot change what is past and gone.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Joe said. ‘And I really have got quite enough to worry about now without looking for other things I can have no control over.’
Gloria knew that was only too true for despite the daily soup ration, life was still a struggle, but she was glad that Joe had told her about his sister Aggie. It was good to share burdens. And so she would get him to tell her about his other sister, Nuala, too. There was another mystery there, she was sure.
October was drawing to a close when Gloria suddenly leaped out of bed one morning and just made the chamber pot in time, for the nausea had risen inside her as soon as she’d opened her eyes.
Joe looked across at her with his eyebrows raised. ‘What was that all about?’ he said. ‘It couldn’t have been something you ate. You eat so little.’
Gloria shrugged. ‘Could have been anything,’ she said. ‘I am fine now, anyway.’
In fact she felt far from fine, but Joe couldn’t afford to lose time from the job at the docks that he had had for three days now, and she waited till the door had closed behind him before she allowed herself the luxury of a groan.
Gloria was sick the next day and the day after that, and Joe was beside himself with worry. He was still at the docks and well liked because he worked hard and never refused to do anything. He would work till the job was done whatever time it was, so sometimes the hours were long. He knew that if he didn’t go in one day someone else would take his place, and yet he was so worried about Gloria he wanted to stay at home and have the doctor brought out.
Norah wouldn’t hear of it. ‘D’you think I can’t look after my own daughter?’
‘You’ll call the doctor out to have a look at her?’ Joe asked, as he hovered at the door, worry lines creasing his forehead.
‘I will if I think it necessary,’ Norah said. ‘Now, for God’s sake, will you go to work before someone else is given your job?’
The door had barely closed behind Joe when Norah looked at her daughter and said, ‘You couldn’t be pregnant, could you? I know you haven’t had your monthlies for ages.’
‘They have stopped before when I haven’t had much to eat for a while.’
‘But you have a big bowl of soup every day at least,’ Norah said. ‘And there is a sort of bloom to your face that wasn’t there before.’
‘Oh, Mother, do you really think I could be having a baby?’ Gloria cried, hardly able to believe it.
Norah laughed. ‘I don’t need to ask how you would feel about it.’
‘I’d be ecstatic if it were true,’ Gloria said, ‘and that’s even taking into account the situation we are in. It is what I have longed for most, the one thing I thought I would never achieve.’
‘Well,’ Norah said, ‘let’s just wait and see, shall we? Wait until Joe hears.’
That night when he came home Gloria was up and dressed, and he asked immediately how she was. She smiled at him. ‘Me? Joe, I am as fit as a fiddle.’
Joe was puzzled by her answer, by her very manner, and said, ‘Is that what the doctor said?’
‘I went to no doctor,’ Gloria said, ‘because I am not ill, you see. I am just expecting our child.’
Joe’s first reaction was a feeling of unparalleled elation, and then realisation kicked in and the burden of keeping a child hale and hearty and well fed and warm in this beleaguered city seemed almost insurmountable. And so his first words were, ‘Oh my God, Gloria! How the hell are we going to cope?’
Gloria leaped to her feet and stamped her foot angrily. ‘Shame on you, Joe Sullivan, to greet the news that you are to be a father that way.’
Immediately, Joe felt ashamed. Whatever his worries, it was no way to respond, and it was news he had never expected to hear. He put his arms around Gloria and said, ‘I am heart sore for what I said earlier. You have made me one of the happiest and proudest men in the whole wide world.’
Joe never expressed any negative feelings again in front of Gloria or her mother, who both seemed on top of the world at the news. Only in his letters to Tom did he confess his true feelings. Tom had been devastated at what had happened to his brother and he understood his concern about caring for a child in the penurious way they were living. But despite that, Tom envied him that he would soon hold his own child in his arms.
Gloria had a trouble-free pregnancy. As her stomach swelled, her skin took on a glow that seemed to radiate the happiness inside her and she could hardly wait for the baby to be born so that she could hold him in her arms.
For much of the pregnancy, Joe had had fairly regular though not permanent employment, and so was able to give Gloria extra money to buy some flannelette material that she and Norah made into soft nightgowns, and towelling that they hemmed to make diapers, and he made a rocking crib from orange boxes and scrap wood that he found at the docks.
The whole tenement had taken an interest in Gloria Sullivan’s first baby, including Red McCullough, who had become such friends with Joe. It was an odd friendship for Joe was twenty years older than young Red. He had arrived in America the spring of 1929 and so he had just had a short taste of what New York had to offer before the Crash.
‘I suppose because of that, I have no great affinity for the place,’ he said to them all one night.
‘I can understand that,’ Gloria said. ‘But my home is New York and I would hate to leave it. Wouldn’t you, Mother?’
‘I wouldn’t leave it,’ Norah said emphatically. ‘I have put up with a lot of changes in my life in recent years, but that
would be one change too many for me. My husband did a bad thing in killing himself, but before that he was a good husband and provider, and a wonderful father. He is buried here and so here I will stay too.’
‘Well, London is my home,’ Red said, ‘and I would return to it tomorrow if I could, but they are in a recession as bad as this in America, which is why I left in the first place. My parents are managing because the family all lives around the docks, on one another’s doorsteps really, and it’s share and share about, but I would be just one more mouth to feed.’
‘Well, then, I see no advantage in moving anywhere,’ Norah said, ‘especially when you say that England is the same. I think most of Europe is affected in some way.’
‘You’re right, Norah,’ Joe said. ‘And, apart from the unemployment situation, Europe is a hotbed of unrest just now. So we will just sit tight and wait for that baby to be born and hope America pulls herself out of this in time.’
‘And I wish this baby would hurry up.’
‘Well, you know, I would say it takes time to grow a baby to be fine and healthy,’ Joe said, ‘and that’s what we want, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, yes, Joe,’ Gloria said fervently. ‘More than anything in the whole world.’
At last, on Friday 6 April 1934, Gloria had her first pains. Initially, they weren’t that strong and so she said nothing before Joe left for work, knowing he would worry about her if she did. Her mother, though, had been aware of her slight grimaces of pain and so when Joe had gone she asked if she should go for Bella Turner, a retired nurse who helped out at most deliveries in the tenements. Gloria shook her head.
‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Bella says first babies usually take some time.’
‘Well, she’s right there,’ Norah said. ‘I mean, I know I only had the one, but you were in no hurry, as I remember.’
‘We’ll leave it a little while then,’ Gloria said.
By the afternoon, though, the pains were stronger, and by the time Joe came home, Gloria was installed in Norah’s bed in considerable discomfort. Norah was mopping her glistening brow and Bella was also in the room. She had tied a towel to the bedhead for Gloria to pull on when the pains got bad, and it worried Joe greatly to see Gloria suffering the way she was. Bella shooed him from the room as she assured him everything was completely normal and nothing to worry about at all.
Expelled from the bedroom, he was too anxious about his wife to be able to rest. He paraded up and down the room, like some sort of untamed beast, suffering with her at each anguished shout as the clock ticked and the hours passed.
Joe had been home three hours when he heard the first new-born wail, and he burst into the bedroom before either of the women was able to stop him.
‘Mr Sullivan,’ Bella said crisply, ‘your wife is hardly decent enough to be seen.’
Joe barely heard her. He was gazing with awe at the tiny bundle Norah had, which she wrapped in a shawl and gave into Gloria’s waiting arms. Joe saw that Gloria looked tired and her face was damp with sweat, her tousled hair plastered to it, and yet to him she had never seemed lovelier. When she smiled at him, he was across the room in seconds.
‘You have your son, Joe,’ Gloria said.
‘A son,’ Joe repeated, as if he wasn’t quite able to believe it.
He was so small and fragile-looking, with hair so fine it was like down covering his head. His milky blue eyes tried to focus. ‘Isn’t he just magnificent?’ Gloria said. ‘This is our little Benjamin Thomas.’
Joe just nodded. He was unable to speak, for a huge lump was lodged in his throat. He traced a finger gently down the baby’s cheek and sudden overwhelming love for
him washed over Joe. He knew that he would willingly lay down his life for the two people who mattered more to him than any others on earth.
His biggest worry was earning enough money to put food on the table. This was especially so for the baby, who needed good, nourishing food to grow up healthily and able to fight the many infections that spread rapidly in those teeming tenement buildings. The burden of worry that he would be unable to do this lodged between his shoulder blades. As the weeks and months passed this concern often drove much-needed sleep from him as he lay in bed at night, and many more trinkets of Gloria’s had to be sold to provide nourishment for the child.
And then a letter came from Tom that put his own problems into perspective.
Ben had passed his first birthday and now that he could walk, he would toddle over to his father as soon as he saw him come in and Joe would lift him high in the air. And so, he had his son in his arms when Gloria handed him the letter and, still holding Ben, he sat in the chair to read it.
Gloria was in the kitchen doorway, waiting to hear what Tom had to say, when she saw the blood suddenly drain from Joe’s face. ‘What is it?’ she said, taking the child from him as she spoke.
Joe didn’t speak but the eyes he turned to her were full of pain and anguish, and bright with unshed tears.
‘Joe, for God’s sake,’ Gloria cried in alarm. She passed Ben over to her mother, disregarding his protests, and then she put an arm around Joe. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
Joe’s voice was husky as he said, ‘Do you mind the time I told you about my wee sister, Nuala, that my parents thought the sun shone out of?’
Gloria nodded. ‘I remember it well,’ she said. ‘I thought at the time that it was like a fairy story. She married a Protestant and when she wrote to your parents and told them that, your father had a heart attack and died.’
‘Yes,’ Joe said. ‘We were not allowed to speak her name after that. I was all for writing to her and telling her what happened, but Tom was afraid of Mammy.’
‘Afraid?’ Gloria said incredulously.
‘Mammy’s rages have to be seen to be believed,’ Joe said. ‘But it wasn’t just himself he was worried about. He was afraid of Mammy attacking Nuala if she did come home, so she didn’t even know her father had died. How I wish now we had taken the chance while we had it.’
‘Is it too late?’
Joe nodded. ‘Far too late,’ he said. ‘Nuala and her husband, Ted, were killed ina car accident over a week ago, leaving behind two children: Molly, a girl of thirteen, who Mammy claims looks the spit of Nuala, and a wee boy of five.’
‘Poor children …’
‘Ah, yes indeed,’ Joe cried. ‘Especially as Mammy is intending taking them home to live with her.’
‘Well, isn’t that the best solution all round?’ Gloria asked. ‘I mean, I can’t think of anything worse to happen than for the children to lose both their parents in such a tragic way, so isn’t it better that they are with their grandmother? If, Heaven forbid, anything should happen to us, I would like Mother to take care of Ben.’
‘As I would without hesitation,’ Norah said.
She put down the struggling child as she spoke and he toddled round to his father. Joe took him on to his knee before he said, ‘I can understand you thinking that – anyone would – and there is no one but Norah that I would like to have the care of Ben in such a circumstance. But you are talking about a rational person and one who would love and care for our son as we would.’
‘But your mother will know what a tragic loss the children have suffered,’ Gloria said. ‘I know you have often said your upbringing was a harsh one, but these are her grandchildren and—’
‘Gloria,’ Joe answered, ‘when I left Ireland my mother was still full of resentment and spite against Nuala, and according to Tom she has got no better as time has gone on. If this girl looks anything like Nuala then I worry that Mammy will make her pay for what her mother did.’
‘You can’t be sure of that!’
Joe shook his head. ‘You don’t know her like I do. I should have defied my mother and made contact with the sister I loved so much. Now I will never see her again and will never have the opportunity to get to know the children. They must think themselves so alone in the world.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Gloria said, and her heart turned over in pity for them. And yet, she thought, Joe might be building up a worse scenario than it was. Maybe his mother had been hard on him as a boy, but usually grandparents were far more lax than the parents.
In the following weeks, Tom’s letters told Joe only the bare minimum about the situation, though Tom did write that Molly so resembled her mother it was like having the young Nuala returned to them. He also told him that the boy had become so ill they had decided to leave him in the care of his paternal grandfather.
However, Joe was no fool, and he knew Tom well enough to realise it was more what he didn’t say than what he did that was worrying. Reading between the lines he could only feel for the young orphaned girl, at the mercy of his mother.
He knew Gloria, who didn’t know Tom as he did, would just take his letters at face value. Joe didn’t say anything to Gloria, either; he couldn’t expect her or Norah to understand his worries over his mother’s behaviour when they had never met her. And he had always kept a lot of his mother’s letters to himself and so Gloria was unaware of her true nature.
Joe did worry about the girl, though, but, helpless to change the situation in any way, he told himself in time she would grow up and leave the farm. She could go back to
the grandfather and brother she had been wrenched from and Tom, who had evidently become so fond of her, would get over it in time.
Larger-scale news made an impact on their lives, and Joe often spoke about it when he came home from work. ‘The immigrant boats have begun arriving again,’ he said to the two women in the autumn of 1935, ‘only now they are full of Jews.’
‘Jews?’ Norah and Gloria said together, in astonishment.
‘Aye, and mainly from Germany.’
‘Why come here?’ Norah asked. ‘Isn’t America in the greatest recession it has ever experienced?’
‘Well, that chap Hitler appears not to like them at all,’ Joe said.
‘Isn’t he the one who became the Chancellor of Germany a few years ago?’ Gloria asked.
‘That’s the chap.’
‘So what has he got against Jews?’
Joe shrugged. ‘Search me. But for whatever reason, he has got it in for them. Jewish children aren’t allowed to go to school now, so one man was saying, and they can’t hold citizenship. As some of them say, they considered themselves German and fought in the last war for a country that has now rejected them. Between you and me I think we might have trouble with that Hitler.’
‘Europe might,’ Norah said dismissively. ‘But their problems needn’t involve us.’
It was an attitude that Joe had come across before. Norah, Gloria and all native-born Americans seemed immune to what was happening elsewhere in the world. It wasn’t that they didn’t care; it was more that they honestly thought European concerns couldn’t and shouldn’t affect America in any way.
What did shake their composure and stir their national pride, though, were the Olympic Games held in Berlin in
August 1936, when the African-American athlete Jesse Owens won four gold medals. In fact, in that Games he broke eleven Olympic records and beat the favoured German athlete Luz Long in a very close long jump final. While the German athlete was the first to congratulate Owens, Hitler, regarding him as racially inferior, would neither shake his hand nor place the winner’s medals around his neck. The American people were incensed by that.
Some now started to look with new eyes towards the racially prejudiced Hitler, Chancellor of Germany and leader of the Nazi Party. Many initially might have thought the immigrant Jews’ tales of persecution far fetched, but now they were beginning to wonder if they were true after all.
But none of this essentially touched the lives of Joe and his family, while poverty did. Joe continued to trawl around the docks picking up what work he could and with the help of the sale of Gloria’s jewellery they were able to scrape by.
Ben was the light of all their lives. By the time he was three he strongly resembled his mother, with his mop of blond curls, violet-blue eyes and the long black lashes. He would have looked angelic, if it hadn’t been for the wicked glint in his eyes. When he was playing in the yard of the tenement with the other children, if there was mischief to be had, he would be in the thick of it, and that just made Gloria and Joe love him all the more.
It was that autumn that Gloria realised her mother wasn’t well. Her face, she noticed, was grey and drawn, the lines of strain more prominent than she had ever seen them. She also walked stooped over and seemed easily out of breath. She told Gloria when she asked that she felt quite all right and she should stop fussing, and she refused point-blank to see a doctor.
‘It’s money for the doctor’s bills that she is worried about,’ Gloria said one night as she lay in bed beside Joe. ‘I think
I’ll ask Bella to look in. Mother likes Bella and she just might take notice of her.’
When Joe came home the following evening, he guessed something was bothering Gloria by the shadows behind her eyes, but he knew she would say nothing until Ben was put to bed in the shakedown he had in his grandmother’s room.