Danny Boy (41 page)

Unaware of the events in Ireland, that same evening Dermot turned to Danny and said, ‘You have no need to stay in the house while I’m here. You can start looking for work again if you’ve a mind.’

‘Do you mean it?’ Danny said. ‘I heard today after Mass that they were setting on at Dunlop’s. I thought to try there early tomorrow.’

‘Go for it,’ Dermot said.

‘You’ll have to see to the child,’ Rosie said.

‘That’s all right,’ Dermot said. ‘I know, and in case you think I’m going to be a financial drain on you, I’m not. I have money.’

‘We’ll not take your money, Dermot,’ Rosie said.

‘Well then, forget your chance of a job, Danny. If Rosie is too high-principled to accept help from a brother I will take the first train back home tomorrow.’

‘It doesn’t feel right,’ Rosie said.

‘No, no, it doesn’t,’ Dermot said. ‘My God, Rosie, who d’you think you’re fooling? You barely eat enough to keep a bird alive, and I know why, even if you won’t admit it. I have no need of this money, but you have. Let me share it with you?’

‘Rosie, for God’s sake,’ Danny pleaded.

‘All right,’ Rosie snapped. ‘God in heaven, must you harass me like this?’

‘Aye, we must,’ Dermot said. ‘Because you’re so stubborn. All right, Danny, you go out as soon as you like and I’ll be here to give Rosie a hand,’ and boy and man shook hands on the deal.

Danny didn’t get a job at Dunlop’s, nor at the Austin works he tried on Tuesday. When the rumour went out that there were jobs going at Ansell’s on Thursday, Danny joined the line of men that snaked out of the gates and way along the Lichfield Road, past the clock and Aston Cross and on into the distance, a line of desperation and despair. Each day, Dermot took on the care of the baby, feeding him and changing him while Rosie saw to Bernadette.

He wondered if he was doing any good and how long he could stay. He wished he could take them all back to Ireland where they belonged, but he knew it was far too risky. Danny would be pulled back into it all if he returned, or shot or kneecapped if he refused. Phelan had explained it to him. Danny thought Sam and Shay were mad to be so involved still. Sarah didn’t know the half of it, and he knew she was heading for a life of heartache with Sam. But he could do little about that, and little about making Rosie and his own new life in England better, either, it seemed.

By the time Dermot’s letters reached his mother’s house on Tuesday morning, Minnie’s anger against Dennis Maloney and her daughters had barely lessened. It was incomprehensible to her that Chrissie and Geraldine should just up and leave that way. She felt they’d shown her up, shamed her, and she doubted she’d ever forgive them for it.

The news of Dermot’s disappearance, and the rumour he’d made for England and his sister’s place, was almost common
knowledge and Minnie knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. She knew the school would soon get involved. The boy would get her into trouble if he didn’t return shortly.

But the letter she received from her son said nothing of returning. He wrote that after he overheard Connie reading the letter she had received from Danny, he felt worried about Rosie and had a yen to see her. He stressed it was his own idea and he’d told not a soul about it, and that he was sorry that he’d felt bound to creep away like that. He knew his parents would have been worried, but he was determined to stay on a wee while to lend a hand and said he thought he was needed.

Minnie was furious. She sent a vitriolic letter back, demanding Dermot’s immediate return. He had no right to leave his home and go flying to England just as the notion took him, and she expected him back speedily and before she had the law on her back for him not going to school.

Connie wrote to Dermot in a different vein entirely. She was glad that the boy had gone over there to see the set-up for himself and could quite understand his concern, for her own anxiety over Rosie and Danny had almost spoiled the wedding for her. She included two ten-shilling notes in the letter.

I know things can’t be easy for them, but neither Rosie nor Danny will accept financial help from me and I’ve offered often. Don’t tell them this money is from me, just use it sensibly to make their lives a little easier.

You’re a good boy, Dermot, to care so well for your sister. I don’t know if Chrissie is very fine at the moment for Elizabeth said she hasn’t been at the factory since the wedding, something about catching a chill. Maybe your mother will tell you more.

Dermot was grateful for the money for he’d noticed the coal was very low and resolved to pop along that morning and
order a few bags, but the reference to his sister’s health had bothered him, for his mother had said nothing. He resolved to write and ask them what was wrong.

But before he was able to, the very next day a letter came from Chrissie. As Dermot read it he burned in shame for putting his sisters through such an ordeal and he was glad they’d had a strong champion in the form of Dennis Maloney to stand against their parents. He was glad too that his sisters were away from the place and safe, and he read that part of the letter out to Rosie.

‘God, Dermot, our mother is a vicious woman,’ Rosie burst out. ‘I mean, I’ve felt the power of her hand many a time, and aye, she used the strap on me, on all of us time and enough, but she must have nearly half-killed the girls for Chrissie to be unable to go to work.’

‘I know,’ Dermot said miserably. ‘I’ve been made more aware of her unfairness and all since I’ve been growing up. I did try speaking out a few times, but it made things worse, not better.’

‘It would,’ Rosie said, nodding her head. ‘I can see that, for Mammy would see it as you taking their part against her and she’d blame them for it.’

‘I feel so guilty about it all.’

‘It’s too late for that, Dermot. What’s done is done,’ Rosie said. ‘What else does Chrissie say?’

Geraldine and I are so happy here. There is no-one to berate us or raise a hand to us. Dennis’s sister Pauline is kindness itself and it was her that said I couldn’t go to work this week because of my face, and she went along herself and told them I had a chill.

I feel much better now and will return on Monday and ask if there is an opening for Geraldine. If there isn’t now, there soon will be, for when I marry Dennis I’ll be working in the grocery store and she can take my
place. Now my face is nearly back to normal we are seeing the priest this Sunday about calling the banns.

The townsfolk are very curious about my living here, though I’ve taken care they’ve not seen myself or Geraldine till we were fit to be seen, though it was hard to keep our presence a secret. Dennis just told any who asked that with our impending marriage it was easier for me living in the town and Geraldine is keeping me company. I don’t know what they are thinking, nor do I care much, and anyway, your disappearance caused far more of a stir.

Tell Rosie it’s impossible for her to come home, but there’s no reason at all why Geraldine and I couldn’t come over for a few days and see them. Dennis wouldn’t mind, he knows how much we’ve missed them, so maybe in a few months we’d manage that. It’s something to look forward to. In the meantime, tell her to write. We all miss her letters.

When Dermot read that out to Rosie she felt her heart lighten. She’d been outraged when Dermot told her what had happened to her sisters, but the last two paragraphs cheered her. ‘I’m glad Chrissie and Geraldine are out of such an atmosphere,’ she said. ‘But oh how I’d love to see them. This Dennis Maloney must be an understanding sort of man.’

‘He’s all right,’ Dermot said.

‘Thank God for him, then,’ Rosie said. ‘And thank God the girls had somewhere safe to go to.’

On Sunday evening, Rosie began to acknowledge how much more positive everything is when a person is warm and well fed. On Saturday they had had bacon and cabbage and potatoes in their jackets, and on Sunday a good beef stew with food Dermot bought and which he insisted Rosie ate too. And there was plenty of coal to drive the chill from the house.
Not knowing of the money her mother-in-law had sent, she wondered how much Dermot had left. She wanted to ask him, but not yet. She’d live in fool’s paradise a little longer and believe she would always have a full belly and a warm house.

She was happy and contented for a wee while at least, with Bernadette in bed and Anthony slumbering in the cradle. Dermot was sitting opposite her helping her unravel wool from a heap of knitted garments she’d bought at the rag market the previous day as they chatted amicably together.

Suddenly the door burst open and Danny, who’d been out for a stroll, burst out, ‘There’s talk of a new factory opening up at Quinton, one of the fellows said, and they’re setting on tomorrow.’

Rosie chose her words with care. ‘Danny, Quinton is miles away.’

Dermot said nothing, but he wondered what it was that kept the hope alive in Danny; the motivation that kept him job-hunting fruitlessly day after day, dashing after this or that and never even getting a sniff. But then, did he have to even wonder? The motivation surely was his wife and children, and the need Danny had to feed and clothe them decently and keep a roof above their heads.

And then hadn’t he come upon the lines of men outside the Labour Exchange one day in the week when he was making for the shops. The sight of the long, long queue of dejected men, shambling along in greasy caps pulled down and often in ragged, threadbare clothes with boots so cobbled there was little boot left, had depressed him for days. It had been sleeting and he was almost ashamed of his good thick clothes and boots that kept him both warm and dry. He could see why Danny had described unemployment as a living death.

And now Danny said, ‘It’s a tidy step all right, Rosie, but it’s a chance of a job. I have to go, pet. You see that?’

And for what? thought Rosie. For another glimmer of
hope to be nailed into the coffin of despair that someday will engulf you, for no-one can go on day after day, week after week, and be constantly rejected without it having some effect.

But none of these thoughts did she betray in her voice and manner as she said, ‘Of course I see, Danny. What is the place?’

‘A new place called Cartwright’s, a small engineering factory. I want to be there for at least seven. That means leaving here before six.’

‘That’s all right,’ Dermot assured him. ‘I’ll be here and getting up early is no odds to me. Haven’t I been doing it for years to do the milking with Daddy?’

Both Rosie and Dermot saw the relief flood Danny’s face and the droop of his shoulders as he relaxed. With Dermot there he could go off and search for this job like any other man, and do the job too if he was able.

Dermot was concerned about this, for he knew he couldn’t stay indefinitely with Rosie and Danny. He’d tried to get Rosie to talk about her feelings for the baby but she never would, though she’d chat away about any other item under the sun. What he’d picked up on was that Rosie was so used to holding herself back from the baby that she didn’t know how to break that mould.

And something must break it, Dermot thought, before the family is destroyed.

Next morning, Dermot lay in the dark of the attic and heard the rain bouncing on the roof of the skylight like so many pebbles. He heard Danny open the door below him and he slid from his makeshift bed and, careful not to wake the sleeping Bernadette, he dressed quickly and stole down the stairs in his stocking feet, his boots in his hand.

Danny was jiggling a restless Anthony in his arms and trying to make himself something to eat at the same time.
Dermot tied his boots up quickly and held out his arms for the child. ‘Give him to me. What’s he doing up anyway?’

‘Search me,’ Danny said. ‘He’s been restless all night. I’ve been up three or four times already. I lost count after a while. And he was too restless now to leave upstairs; he’d have woken Rosie and then Bernadette in short order.’

‘I’ll give him a feed, shall I?’ Dermot said. ‘And change his nappy. That might settle him.’

‘Would you?’

‘’Course I would,’ Dermot said. ‘Isn’t that what I’m here for. You get yourself away. D’you see the weather? You have a fine day for it.’

Danny listened to the rain and the billowing wind moaning in the yard and shrugged his shoulders. ‘It can’t be helped. I’ve travelled further in worse,’ he said, but he was worried for he knew the rain would go through his paper-thin clothes in minutes and soak into his feet, for the boots lined with cardboard to extend their life would no longer keep water out.

But, he told himself, was he to be put off going for a job because of a drop of rain? ‘Don’t take Anthony out in this,’ he continued, ‘and don’t let Rosie go either. She’s not all that strong and has a tendency to coughs and colds. The last thing I want is for her to go down with something now. Ida will mind Anthony while you take Bernadette to school.’

‘Aye,’ Dermot said, testing the bottle he’d made up for the baby on the back of his hand.

‘Glad she has only to go in the morning and come back in the evening on days like these,’ Danny said. It was a system he’d talked over with the nuns after Anthony’s birth, to send Bernadette with her dinner rather than fetch her home. Though most children went home, there were some living even further away than the Walshes that took their dinner and the nuns readily agreed that Bernadette could do the same.

By the time Danny left, Dermot had changed Anthony and was halfway through feeding him. He watched the baby
sucking in blissful contentment and snuggled him close, and wondered why Rosie couldn’t do the same.

The baby went to sleep later over Dermot’s shoulder and he laid him down in the cradle by the range and tucked the blankets around him. He knew he would leave this child with no-one but Rosie that morning, for he’d decided a stand had to be made somewhere.

‘Danny doesn’t want the baby taken out in this,’ he said to Rosie later as she ladled porridge into bowls.

‘Aye,’ Rosie said. ‘Leave him at Ida’s.’

‘He’s fast asleep.’