A Mother's Spirit (28 page)

All Friday evening, Gloria worried about Joe and what might have happened to him. She knew that he would seek Finch out at the earliest opportunity, because that was the type of man he was.

She had the idea, though, that this Finch character would not play by any sort of rules. These sort of people thrived on brutality and she feared he would soon make mincemeat of both Joe and Tom.

Then again, someone could have overheard the men talking, or maybe caught sight of the fight developing and informed the police. She looked at the clock. Maybe even now they were in police custody. She expected any minute to hear the heavy tread of the Garda boots in the cobbled yard, and the thump of a fist on the cottage door.

Exhaustion drove her to bed in the end, where she tossed and turned, listening out for any unexpected sound in the night. But nothing untoward had happened by the time the sun nudged its way over the horizon, and Gloria heaved herself out of bed, for Jack McEvoy would be making his way to them shortly to start on the milking, with Ben helping him as it was the weekend. She felt like a piece of chewed string and reminded herself that she had an interview in Derry that day, though she didn’t feel a bit like it.

She had to feign enthusiasm in front of Jack, though, but she was glad when he had the job finished and was on his way home.

‘When will Dad be home?’ Ben asked later as he ate his breakfast.

‘I have answered that question twice already,’ Gloria said.

‘And the answer will be the same no matter how many times you ask it. Your father is travelling on the night sailing on Sunday, and you will be in school by the time he arrives home on Monday morning.’

‘I could have the day off?’

‘No, you could not. Anyway, all your father will be fit for is sleeping, because it is unlikely that he will have had much rest on the boat or train. You’ll see him in a better frame of mind when you come home from school.’

Gloria hoped what she told her son was true, because she didn’t know what she would do if Joe didn’t arrive. She kept herself busy to stop her mind thinking of all the things that could have befallen her husband and it was past midmorning when she sat down with a cup of tea and glanced out of the window with a sigh. If only it was Monday morning already.

And then, she felt as if all the blood in her body had frozen, because riding down the lane was the telegraph boy. Ben hadn’t noticed him, and Gloria had to force herself to cross the room and open the door.

Then Ben was aware of something unusual happening and he slid off his chair and joined his mother as she took the telegram from the boy with hands that shook, and tore it open. ‘JOB DONE. ALL IS WELL.’

Gloria felt relief flow all through her. ‘Any answer?’ asked the boy and Gloria shook her head dumbly and shut the door with a sigh.

‘What’s it mean?’ Ben said, scrutinising the telegram, which Gloria had left on the table.

‘Daddy had a job to do for Uncle Tom and he was just telling us that it was finished,’ Gloria said.

‘Oh, is that the “unfinished business” then?’ Ben asked, remembering the conversation he had had with his father before he left.

‘Unfinished business?’ Gloria repeated.

‘Yeah. Dad said that Uncle Tom couldn’t come home
when he said he was going to because he had some unfinished business. So if the job is done now, maybe Uncle Tom will come back as well?’

‘I don’t know about that, Ben, but your father will be here.’

‘You already said that he would,’ Ben pointed out, ‘before you got that message.’

‘Yes, well now I am certain of it.’

‘You mean you—’

‘Ben, I want to go to Buncrana, and today not tomorrow, so go and get ready and stop plaguing me with questions,’ Gloria said.

Ben sighed, but did as he was told because when his mother spoke like that she meant business. There were still lots of things he didn’t understand. In his experience, though, grown-ups were good at changing the subject just as he was trying to get to the bottom of things.

‘Helen’s in the kitchen,’ Nellie said, opening the flap so that Gloria could go through to the back where the living accommodation was. ‘Leave Ben in here with me. He can count the money for me and stamp anything that needs stamping.’ Gloria could see that Ben was more than agreeable to that and so she left him and went through to see her friend.

‘Those two petty officers are coming to take us down in a car,’ Helen told her. ‘They phoned Mammy this morning to tell her.’

‘So we will at least arrive in style?’

‘I’ll say,’ Helen said. ‘I’m a bit nervous, are you?’

‘Yes,’ Gloria said. ‘But by going to see this woman, we are not committing ourselves, are we? We might not like the thought of it in the end.’

‘Yes, or she might not like the look of us, at viewing us a second time,’ Helen said.

‘Mmm,’ Gloria said. ‘Then I’d say the woman was hard to please.’ And the two laughed together.

Afterwards, though, Gloria thought that Joan Reilly’s approach to the interview to work on a military base was casual in the extreme, for it was more like an informal chat than the gruelling interview she had expected. Joan took a particular interest in Gloria and then asked about their experience with canteen work. They had none, and Gloria was sure that that would count against them, but Joan just said, ‘Well, it’s fairly basic stuff that I’m sure you will pick up quick enough. In fact, I think that you will fit in very well. Could you begin work Monday week?’

Neither woman could believe it was so easy, and as the men drove them back to Buncrana, Gloria’s stomach gave a lurch at the thought that she had yet to tell Joe what she had done.

It was almost ten o’clock on Monday morning before Gloria saw Joe trudging slowly down the hillside towards the road, and she felt her heart almost burst with relief.

Joe was on the road by the time she reached the head of the lane to meet him, and as they drew close she saw that his eyes were swollen, his lips puffy and his face bruised and battered. ‘Oh, Joe,’ she cried, ‘I have been so worried about you.’

Joe put his arms around his wife and tried not to wince as she squeezed his shoulder. But she saw the look of pain flash over his face and pulled back.

‘What is it?’

‘Nothing much,’ said Joe, putting his other arm around Gloria as they began to walk towards the lane. ‘My face is the worst, but that bugger Finch picked up a piece of wood and took a couple of swings at me and so I have a gash on my shoulder and a lump the size of a duck egg on my head. But they don’t worry me,’ he said, seeing the look of concern on Gloria’s face. ‘The man is now dead and gone.’

Gloria looked at him appalled. ‘You killed him?’ she said.

‘No,’ Joe said. ‘But someone else did.’ And he told her what had happened.

‘And you saw nothing?’

‘No, though we heard someone running away, but you know what the blackout’s like. I shan’t lose any sleep over it either. On the plus side, our Aggie is lovely, and that Paul Simmons is a fine bloke and fair besotted by her, and you only have to see Molly with Mark to how much in love they are.’

‘I can’t wait to meet them all.’

‘Not long now.’

They had reached the cottage before Joe told Gloria about Tom’s proposal.

‘And you have agreed to this already?’ she said.

‘Well, yes,’ Joe said. ‘I know I should have discussed it with you—’

‘Yes, Joe, you should have done.’

‘It was sort of forced on me,’ Joe said defensively.

Gloria shook her head. ‘Tom would never force anyone to do anything, and he would quite understand that you had to come home and discuss such a proposal with me before saying yes.’

‘Oh, come on, Gloria,’ Joe said. ‘It isn’t as if we have made any plans to leave or anything.’

‘Not likely to, without money behind us,’ Gloria retorted. ‘But that is not the issue here, Joe. You just don’t seem to get it, do you? It’s about showing respect for me, for my feelings.’

Joe, though, was only too aware of what he owed Tom and he said to Gloria, ‘D’you know, when Tom gave me the money to go to America, he did it without any conditions. I know in many ways it put him in a fix to do without my help on the farm, but he never said a word about that. He wished me Godspeed. His heart must have been heavy, for the workload would have increased and the only companionship he got was from an evil-tempered, malicious old woman.’

‘I know all this.’

‘You know nothing,’ Joe said firmly. ‘You put up with my mother for months, whereas Tom put up with her all his bloody life until, thank God, she died and released him. Yet never in all the letters Tom sent me was there any hint of resentment and all he felt was happiness for me as my fortunes increased. He worried himself sick when we were going through it in New York, and there was no hint of smugness about his concern. Then he was happy to welcome us when we needed to come here.’

‘I know that Tom is a lovely person and I don’t know any man that is kinder.’

‘Well, then, don’t you think that this lovely, kind man deserves a stab at happiness?’ Joe asked. ‘He is free for the first time in his life and he has asked me to do one thing for him, and that is biding here for one year so that he can decide whether he wants to farm again or not. It might not be an easy decision for him to make, for the farm has been in our family for years and Tom was brought up knowing that he would eventually inherit it. You can’t just throw all that in the air. He needs to take his time, think it through.’

‘All right,’ Gloria said. ‘I hear what you say and I have news for you too,’ she added as nonchalantly as she could. ‘I have taken that job in the canteen at the Springtown Camp. I’ll need something if I am stuck here for at the very least another year and it will be a chance to save.’

‘You have taken the job there already?’

‘Yes. I start next Monday at half-past nine.’

‘I thought we were to discuss this when I got home?’

‘You weren’t here,’ Gloria said. ‘Helen and I had to see the canteen manageress on Saturday. She offered us jobs and we accepted. We had to make the decision there and then. You could say it was sprung on the two of us, the same as happened with you and Tom.’

‘There is no comparison.’

‘I think there is, Joe,’ Gloria said. ‘And anyway, that is
neither here nor there. What’s done is done, and just as I have to live with the decision you made, you have to live with the decision I made. And as far as I am concerned, that is the way it is.’

Gloria had been working three weeks at the camp when Joe decided enough was enough. He felt he had almost been tricked into allowing her to go in the first place, Gloria had used his agreement against him to get her own way.

The men of the town thought him crazy when he told them where Gloria was proposing to work and said quite categorically that none of their wives would have been allowed to take such a job. Nor could he imagine any woman that had been born and bred in Buncrana, and lived there ever since, wanting to do such a thing. Joe had always thought he wouldn’t care about the opinion of the townsfolk, but he found he did, because he hated being made to look like a fool.

It wasn’t to be borne, he decided. However, Joe knew that Gloria wasn’t like the wives of the men in Buncrana who would just stop doing a thing because their husbands said they must, and he was unsure how to tackle her. He had gone over what he intended to say as he milked the cows that evening and it had sounded all right. But later, when he sat facing Gloria, after they had eaten and Ben was in bed he knew that he had begun badly with a belligerent, almost hectoring tone, yet he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

‘Since you began at that job I have to scratch around at dinner-time to make a bite to eat for myself. I have never had to do a thing like that before,’ he said to her.

‘I leave it as ready as I can,’ Gloria protested. ‘I usually leave broth or something like that. All you have to do is put it on the fire and get a few slices of bread. I also pack Ben’s lunch box.’

‘Well, soup and bread are hardly enough nourishment for a working man, are they?’ Joe said. ‘I am used to having my main meal in the middle of the day and now it’s in the evening, and late too by the time you get in and then have to cook it.’

Gloria shrugged. ‘Well, there is nothing I can do about that and as you are in a complaining mood I will tell you something else to get your teeth into. The canteen works a rota system and next week it’s my turn to work the weekend.’

‘Work the weekend?’ Joe repeated almost in disbelief. ‘Good God, Gloria. Whoever heard of a wife and mother doing that?’

‘It’s part of the job,’ Gloria said. ‘Would you have us tell the men they are to have nothing to eat all weekend?’

‘But if you work on Sundays, when will you go to Mass?’

‘The early one,’ Gloria said, ‘while you’re doing the milking.’

‘So who is going to make breakfast for me and Ben when we come in from the later Mass?’ Joe demanded.

‘God Almighty!’ Gloria cried in exasperation. ‘I knew there was something up with you because you have been going round with a face that would sour cream for days. You’re not some bloody helpless imbecile, Joe, though you are acting like one at the moment. It will only be every seventh week that this happens. Can’t you and Ben look after yourselves for once?’

‘We shouldn’t have to,’ Joe complained. ‘That’s the point. Nothing is the same since you started this job.’

‘No, I’ll say it isn’t,’ Gloria agreed happily. ‘Now I am saving money in the post office each week.’

‘You don’t even bake any more,’ Joe complained. ‘Everything is shop bought.’

‘Nellie McEvoy has been buying shop bread and cakes for years, she told me herself,’ Gloria said. ‘So why is it all right for her and not for me?’

Joe couldn’t really answer that and instead he said, ‘You don’t even do your own washing these days. It’s taken out for some stranger to do.’

Gloria shook her head almost incredulously. ‘I can’t believe I am hearing this. At the camp there is a launderette, a place where there are banks of machines and dryers for the clothes, and women engaged to do the laundry for you. I take my bags of dirty washing there in the morning and pick them up at the end of the day, washed, dried and folded so that sometimes it doesn’t need ironing at all, and all I have to do is put it away. All the women there do the same thing. Now tell me, Joe, why should I stop doing that and do it here instead? Every drop of water would have to be hauled from the well – buckets and buckets of it to fill the huge boiler – and then I would need to spend hours pounding the clothes in the poss tub before putting the whole lot through the mangle and hanging it out on the line in the orchard. And then I would have to empty the boiler and clean up. It will take nearly the whole of one day just to wash the clothes, and a large portion of the next to iron them all. Surely to God as long as the clothes are clean does it matter what method is used to achieve that? Anyway,’ she said, with a shrug, ‘there are only so many hours in a day, Joe, and I have no time for that sort of palaver.’

‘Yes, but that’s just it,’ Joe said. ‘If you stayed at home you would have plenty of time.’

‘Huh, I might have great swathes of time,’ Gloria conceded, ‘but I would lack the enthusiasm to engage in that back-breaking and mind-numbing experience if there was any sort of alternative.’

‘Well, there wouldn’t be if you didn’t work at the camp.’

‘But I do work there and will continue to do so.’

‘Gloria, I have already said I don’t want you working there any more.’

Gloria gave a nonchalant shrug and tidied the teacups onto the tray, not looking at Joe. ‘If you don’t like it, then you must get over it. Isn’t that the attitude you displayed to me when I objected to you intending to beat a man to pulp? Objecting to the type of job a person does is not in the same league as that really.’

‘Gloria, I can’t believe that you will defy me like this.’

‘Oh, can you not?’ Gloria said, banging down the tray, now blisteringly angry. ‘Well, I have never heard you behave like this before either. And these aren’t even your words; they are words fed to you by the people, particularly the men, of Buncrana that have seeped into your brain. Tell you what, Joe, one of the prime reasons for doing this job is for the extra money. You find me another job in Derry that pays the same and with the same benefits, and I will give up the camp tomorrow without a qualm.’

Joe was silent, but Gloria saw the resentment and fury smouldering beneath his eyes. She said, ‘Joe, what is happening to us? After all we have been through, we are throwing angry words at one another about a job of work. If the people of the town are bothring you, then you must deal with it because we really do need the money I earn. Added to that, you said often to me, when I was struggling to cope with things, that we could make it if only we stick together. Does that still hold water, Joe?’

‘Of course.’

‘There isn’t an “of course” or there wouldn’t have been such an argument,’ Gloria pointed out. ‘I need to work and that involves both of us doing our bit and not moaning if you have to make your own meal or see to Ben when I’m not here. It’s not such an onerous task. When the year is up, and Tom decides one way or the other, we will have money to enable us to go wherever we want and start again.’

‘Tom said if he decides not to come back, then he will sell the farm and split the proceeds between us.’

‘Even if Tom does decide that, I should say that farms
might take some time to sell,’ Gloria said. ‘This way we are assured of money in the bank. What do you say?’

What could Joe do but agree? That night he lay in bed beside his slumbering wife and knew that he would be the butt of the jokes in Buncrana. He had claimed to the fellows in the market and the pub that he would tell Gloria she had to give the job up, and now he would have to confess that she hadn’t, and wouldn’t, and he could almost hear their laughter.

‘Are you looking forward to Molly and Mark’s wedding?’ Helen asked Gloria the first week of June.

‘You bet,’ Gloria answered. ‘And at least now I am working, Ben and I can have new clothes, and we won’t be turning up at Molly’s wedding looking like two country bumpkins.’

‘You’ll probably be the best dressed people there,’ Helen said. ‘Remember there is the points system on clothes in England.’

‘I know,’ Gloria said. ‘When that came in a couple of years ago, I found I was using up my allotment and sometimes Joe had to get things for Ben because he was growing so much. Then I had to use heaps to buy things for Joe so that he could leave the hospital, because everything he possessed was crushed in the remains of the flat. I can’t remember the last time I had anything new.’

‘Well then,’ said Helen. ‘Make the most of this occasion.’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Gloria said. ‘I intend to.’

However, Gloria could find nothing to suit her in any of the dress shops in Buncrana, and so she did as Nellie advised and bought material for the dressmaker to make up into something she really wanted. The material had a satiny feel to it, and was mainly lemon, but with a swirling mix of colours as well, and she also bought plain lemon for the jacket.

The dressmaker turned out a beautiful outfit. The dress
finished at the knee and it had a scooped neckline trimmed with lace, and it clung to her body until just below the waist, where it fanned out in gorgeous little folds. The softly tailored jacket draped over the shoulders made the whole thing complete. She had navy shoes to match the handbag and hat she was borrowing from Nellie McEvoy, and when Petty Officer Morrisey heard that she was going to a snazzy wedding in England he gave her a pair of nylon stockings as a gift. She was almost speechless with pleasure, but didn’t tell Joe where she had got them from.

Gloria tried on her outfit for Joe, spinning around so that the dress flared out and then settled against her nylon-clad legs, but when she caught sight of his glum face she suppressed a sigh. The outfit looked far more expensive than it was, and Joe was annoyed that Gloria had used some of the money that she said they desperately needed on such an outfit for herself, and new clothes for Ben too.

‘Say something, Joe,’ Gloria pleaded. ‘How do I look? Will I do?’

Joe thought that Gloria was absolutely stunning, like some sort of film star. Few would believe that she was a wife and mother who lived in a small and primitive cottage in the North of Ireland. And suddenly that annoyed him.

So what he said was, ‘And how much did that little lot cost you?’

Gloria was upset because she knew she looked good and she had wanted Joe to be proud of her, and so she snapped back, ‘Not as much as if I had bought a ready-made rag in the town.’

‘Ah, yes, but none of the dresses that suit every other woman was good enough for you, were they?’ said Joe mockingly.

Gloria noted Joe’s glowering face as she said rather sadly, ‘No, no, they weren’t, and I make no excuse for that. It’s the type of person I am. The person you married.’

She turned away and made for the bedroom to change back into her everyday clothes.

Joe was sorry now that he said the harsh and scornful words; sorry he had dimmed the light in her eyes. He almost called her back and said so, but he hesitated too long, and Gloria shut the door behind her and the moment was lost.

For all that, Gloria enjoyed the wedding. She had met all the family the evening before at Molly’s house, and the next morning she took her place in the church beside Ben. She saw Mark, the nervous young groom that she had met the previous night, get to his feet with his best man as the strains of the Wedding March were heard. She turned her head to see her beautiful niece begin the walk down the aisle arm in arm with Tom, and it was the absolute pride in Tom’s eyes that brought tears springing to her own.

The couple stood before the altar, facing one another, and the love they had for each other seemed to radiate out of them. This gave Gloria a cold feeling in her heart because she realised that she didn’t feel that way for Joe any more. But, she told herself sternly, this wasn’t about her but about the young couple at the altar, and she pushed her own problems aside and prayed earnestly for their happiness.

At the reception later, she had many comments and compliments about her clothes. Ben too was as smart as paint, for Gloria had bought him a proper little grey suit and, worn with a pure white shirt and a striped tie, it looked the business. Gloria realised that Helen had been right about the difficulties of getting anything halfway decent to wear in war-torn Britain at that time. She thought Molly had been very sensible to take Mark’s mother up on the offer of borrowing her wedding dress.

Molly looked a picture in it too, for she was a very beautiful girl, Gloria thought, and couldn’t have been more welcoming. She also liked her brother, Kevin, who took Ben under his wing immediately, as he said he’d promised his Uncle Joe he would.

But it was Aggie Gloria was totally intrigued by. She was like an older version of Molly, and Gloria thought must have been a real stunner when she had been younger. She was still extremely attractive and, with the life she had led for years, Gloria considered that was truly amazing. She also found Aggie to be just as kind and gentle as Joe had said, with no bitterness in her at all.

Her eyes seemed to dance in her head, especially when she gazed across the room at Paul. That night, in bed in Molly’s house, Gloria examined her feelings about Joe. She still cared for him. She had been worried about him over the whole Finch business, for example, but she certainly didn’t feel the same way about him as she had once upon a time. It was as if the love between them had melted away. And she suddenly felt sad and lonely.

Gloria had been home four weeks when there was a letter from Aggie. Joe read it as he ate the breakfast that Gloria made for him and Ben before she left for work. ‘Aggie and Paul are getting married,’ Joe said.

‘Well, that’s no surprise,’ Gloria said. ‘When is it?’

‘The twenty-third of October.’

‘Great!’ Ben burst out. ‘Can I go? Will Kevin be there as well, like last time?’

‘Kevin will undoubtedly be there,’ Joe said. ‘But I don’t know if we’re going yet.’

‘Why not?’ Ben and Gloria said together.

‘These things have to be considered.’

‘What is there to consider?’ Gloria said. ‘Your sister is getting married and she wants you there, and really that is all there is to it.’

‘Well, there’s the farm to see to.’