‘Have they said sorry?’ he asked, begging to be reassured.
‘No, they haven’t – yet,’ said Eileen.
‘What’s going to happen now?’
‘Nothing too bad,’ she said, and kissed him.
Back in the living room, Aisling and Eamonn were still mutinous.
‘Peggy called us for tea, but we’re not going,’ said Aisling.
‘As you wish. You can certainly have my permission to sit here for as long as you like. In fact you can sit here for a long time. Because neither of you two will get to have a lemonade this Thursday evening after your behaviour.’
The faces were round-eyed with disbelief and disappointment. Always on a Thursday, with his order-book full and his cash-box bursting, Sean O’Connor took his wife and children down to Maher’s. It was a quiet place. There would be no farmers with manure on their boots sealing bargains in there. Maher’s was the drapery as well as having a pub and Eileen liked looking at the new jackets or boxes of cardigans with Mrs Maher. Young Sean and Maureen liked sitting up on high stools reading the notices behind the bar and looking like grown-ups; Aisling and Eamonn loved the way the fizzy red lemonade went up their noses, and how Mr Maher would give them a biscuit with icing on it, and their father would say they were spoiled. The Mahers had a cat which had just had kittens. Last Thursday the kittens’ eyes hadn’t been open, so this week, for the first time, they would be allowed to play with them.
And now it was all cancelled.
‘Please, Mammy, please, I’ll be good, I’ll be very good …’
‘I thought you hated me?’
‘I don’t really hate you,’ said Eamonn hopefully.
‘I mean, nobody could hate their mother?’ added Aisling.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Eileen. ‘That’s why I was so surprised you both forgot that, the way you forgot about coming to the shop. …’ She gave in. It was the only time in the week when Sean relaxed properly, that hour in Maher’s with the children nicely scrubbed and neat playing peacefully with cats or rabbits or caged birds. She picked up the letter and went into the kitchen.
‘I’ve the tea wet, Mam,’ said Peggy nervously.
‘Pour me the large mug, please. Keep those children in the living room and see to the baby.’ In a moment, she had her tea and, letter in her pocket, was striding back to the shop. It was an hour before she had time to open the letter.
In Maher’s that night, Eileen passed it to Sean to read.
‘My eyes are so tired I can hardly see it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, that writing’s like a spider half-drunk getting out of an inkpot.’
‘That’s italic script, you ignoramus, that’s the way the nuns in St Mark’s taught us to write. Violet remembers it, I don’t, that’s all.’
‘That Violet has little else to remember,’ said Sean. ‘Life of ease over there, she has.’
‘Not since the war started,’ Eileen pointed out.
‘No,’ Sean agreed into his pint. ‘No. Is her man out in the trenches? I suppose he’d be an officer, being in the bank and all. That’s the way the British Empire does things. If men have good accents they get good jobs and they get to be officers.’
‘No, George isn’t in the army at all, he had something wrong. I don’t know what, anyway he was medically unfit.’
‘Too cushy a life in the bank, I suppose he didn’t want to leave,’ said Sean.
‘Sean, it’s the child, it’s Violet’s child, Elizabeth. They’re all being sent out of London for fear of the bombs … you know, we read it in the papers. Violet wants to know will we have her here?’
‘This isn’t the country … they’re not evacuating them to Ireland, this is our country. They can’t make us join their bloody war by sending us all their children and old people … haven’t they done bloody enough already …?’
‘Sean, will you listen to me!’ Eileen snapped. ‘Violet would like to know whether we would take Elizabeth for a few months. The little school she’s in is closing down because all the children are being evacuated. George has relations, and so has Violet, but they … they asked if she could come here. What do you think?’
‘I think it’s a bloody liberty, a bloody cheek and typical of the British Empire. Unless you can be of some use to them they’ve no time for you, they don’t want to know you, not a letter, barely a Christmas card. Then when they get themselves into this stupid war they’re fawning all over you. That’s what I think.’
‘Violet is not the British Empire, she’s my friend from school. She was never a letter-writer, even this one is jerky and full of … I don’t know, brackets and inverted commas. She’s not used to writing to people, not twenty or thirty letters a day, like I am. That’s not the point. The point is will you have the child in the house?’
‘That’s not the point, the point is she’s got a bloody neck to ask.’
‘Shall I say no, then? Will I write tonight and say I’m sorry, no. Reason? Because Sean says the British Empire has a bloody neck. Will that do?’
‘Don’t be all bitter. …’
‘I’m not being all bitter. I’ve had just as exhausting a day as you have. All right. Of course I think Violet has a bloody neck. Of course I’m insulted when I think she hasn’t much time for me, if she doesn’t bother to write unless she wants something. That goes without saying. The point is, do we have the child or not? She’s Aisling’s age, she didn’t declare war on Germany, or invade Ireland, or attack De Valera or whatever. … She’s only ten, she’s probably lying there at night wondering will a bomb fall on her and blow her to bits. Now, do we have her or don’t we?’
Sean looked surprised. Eileen didn’t usually make speeches. And it was even more unusual for her to admit to a hurt or an insult from her precious friend of schooldays.
‘Will she be too much trouble for you?’ he asked.
‘No, she might even be a friend for Aisling. And what can one child eat more than we all eat already?’
Sean called for another pint, a port for Eileen and more lemonades. He looked at Eileen, smart now in her white blouse with the brooch at the neck, her brown-red hair pulled up at the sides with combs. She was a handsome woman, he thought, and a strong partner in everything he did. Few people, seeing her in her navy office coat, working out the credit and the cash for a growing business, would know what she was like underneath. A passionate wife – he had always been amazed that she should respond to him as eagerly as he turned to her – and a loving mother too. He looked at her warmly. She had such a heart it could include more children than she had herself.
‘Send for her, it’s the least we can do to try and keep a child away from all the madness that’s going on,’ he announced. And Eileen patted him on the arm in a rare display of public affection.
The letter from Eileen arrived so quickly that Violet believed it was a refusal. In her experience, people who were about to make excuses and justify their actions always wrote quickly and at length. With a heavy sigh she picked it up from the mat.
‘Well I expect we’ll have to smoke out your father’s relations after all,’ she sighed as she brought it back to the breakfast table.
‘Does this mean she says no …?’ began Elizabeth. ‘Maybe she says yes inside. …’
‘Don’t speak with your mouth full. Pick up your serviette and try to behave properly, Elizabeth, please,’ said Violet mechanically as she slit the envelope with a paper knife. George had already gone to work and there were just the two of them. Violet thought that if you let standards fall you were on the way to destruction, so the toast was served with the crusts cut off in a small china toast rack, and all three of them had their napkin rings into which the folded napkin must be replaced after every meal.
Elizabeth nearly burst waiting for Violet to read the news. It couldn’t have been more irritating. She would read bits aloud and then mutter.
‘My dear Violet … delighted to hear from you … emm … umm … very concerned about you and George and El
izabeth … emm … umm … many people here think that we should be in the war too … do anything we can … children very pleased and excited. …’
Elizabeth knew she had to wait. She screwed her table napkin very tightly into a little ball. She didn’t know what she wanted to hear: it would be a relief not to have to go across the sea to another country, a place that Father seemed to think was just as dangerous as London and a place that Mother dismissed as somewhere you couldn’t go except in dire circumstances. She didn’t want to go and stay in an awful dump with dozens of children, and in a town full of animal droppings and drunkards which was how Mother had remembered Kilgarret. Elizabeth didn’t want to be in a dirty place somewhere that Mother disapproved of. But still, Mother had said this was the best place for her to go. Perhaps it had got better. It had been years since Mother had visited it, long before she had married Father. She had said she would never go back again – she couldn’t understand how Eileen had been able to stand it.
But it was this place with all its dangers and dirt, or else it was more trouble and anxiety and looking for Father’s cousins.
After a long time, and two pages, Violet spoke.
‘They’re going to take you.’
Elizabeth’s face went its bright red and white colour. Violet was irritated; she hated it when Elizabeth flushed in this vivid way over nothing at all.
‘When am I to go?’
‘Whenever we like. It will take time, of course. We have to pack, and I have to write to Eileen about school books … what you need. She’s full of welcomes but little practical advice about what to take with you and what you’ll need. Oh, and there’s this note for you. …’
Elizabeth took the single sheet of paper. It was the first letter she had ever got from anyone. She read it slowly to savour it.
Dear Elizabeth,
We are all so glad that your Mummy is lending you to us for a little while, and we hope you’ll be happy here. Kilgarret is very different from London but everyone is looking forward to meeting you and making you feel at home. You will share a room with Aisling, who is exactly the same age as you, there is only one week in the difference so we hope you’ll be great friends. Sister Mary at the school says you’ll probably know far more than all the class put together. Bring any toys or dolls or books you want, we’ve plenty of room here, and we’re counting the days till you come.
Auntie Eileen
At the bottom of the page in a section where someone had ruled lines to keep the writing straight, there was another note.
Dear Elizabeth,
I have left all the shelves on the left side of the room for you and half the press and half the dressing table. Be sure to come for Eamonn’s birthday, there will be a party. The Mahers’s kittens are sweet they have their eyes open. Mammy is going to get one for you and me to share.
Love, Aisling.
‘A kitten to share,’ said Elizabeth, her eyes shining.
‘And nothing about school fees, uniforms, anything,’ said Violet.
Donal’s cough was worse, but Doctor Lynch said there was no need to worry. Keep him warm, no draughts but plenty of fresh air all the same. How on earth did people manage that, Eileen wondered. He was finding the excitement about the girl from England almost too much for him.
‘When will she be here?’ he would ask a dozen times a day.
‘She’s going to be my friend, not yours,’ Aisling said.
‘Mam said she’d be everyone’s friend,’ he replied, his face clouding.
‘Yes, but mainly mine. After all, she wrote to me,’ said Aisling. This was undeniable. There had been a letter which Aisling had read out several times. It was very formal. It was the first proper letter Elizabeth had ever written. It had words like ‘grateful’ and ‘appreciate’ in it.
‘They must have a better educational system altogether over there,’ commented Eileen, reading it.
‘Why wouldn’t they? With all the wealth they made off the backs of other people,’ said Sean. It was Saturday lunchtime. He had come in for his bacon and cabbage lunch. The shop closed on Saturdays at half past one, and the afternoon was spent making up orders in the back yard, but at least it was his own time and he didn’t have to be in and out every time the door clanged open and the bell over the doorframe rang.
‘Now, I hope you won’t be going on with that kind of thing when the child arrives,’ said Eileen. ‘Isn’t it hard enough for her going to another country without having you running her down?’
‘And it isn’t even true either, Da,’ said Young Sean.
‘It is bloody true,’ said his father. ‘But your mother is right. When the child comes we’ll all hold our tongues and put our real thoughts out of our minds for a bit. It’s only fair on the little one.’
‘I don’t have to put my real thoughts anywhere out of sight,’ said Young Sean, ‘I don’t have any of this constant bellyaching about the British to make me feel good.’
Sean laid down his knife and fork and pointed across the table. Eileen interrupted quickly.
‘Will you listen to me, please. I was just about to say that when she comes it might be the opportunity for this family to improve its table manners. Like a lot of puppies you are, slopping food on the table cloth and speaking with your mouths full.’
‘Puppies don’t speak with their mouths full,’ said Eamonn. Donal laughed and, hearing the laughter, Niamh cooed and gurgled in the pram beside the table.
‘I’m sure she’ll think we’re very rude,’ said Aisling. Eileen was surprised to have support from this source.
‘We all talk at the same time and no one listens to anyone else,’ continued Aisling disapprovingly. Something in the way she said it, something schoolmistressish about her tone, made everyone laugh. She didn’t know why they were laughing and looked annoyed.
‘What’s so funny?’ she said, ‘what’s funny?’
Donal was sitting beside her. ‘They’re laughing because it’s true,’ he said. Aisling felt better and laughed a little herself.
They would have to be at the station early to look for someone reliable to look after Elizabeth on the journey. It had been thought that Violet might go with her as far as Holyhead, but it seemed a waste because she would have had to turn around and come back again, and the trains took hours and hours with all the delays and the shortage of fuel, and then of course there was the whole matter of the fare – it seemed senseless to throw money away in these hard times. …
George had wondered whether they should pay the O’Connors for Elizabeth’s board; but Violet had said no. Evacuees in England didn’t pay the host families, it was all part of the war effort. George had pointed out that Ireland wasn’t part of the war effort; Violet had sniffed and said they should be, they jolly well should be, and anyway, the principle was the same. She had given Elizabeth five pounds and told her to spend it intelligently.
At Euston, Violet looked around for respectable middle-aged women to whom Elizabeth might be entrusted. She wanted someone travelling alone. A woman chatting might forget to look after her charge. She had several failures. One was only going to Crewe. One was waiting for her gentleman friend, one was coughing so much that Elizabeth would surely catch some disease from her. Finally, Violet settled on a woman who walked with a stick. She offered Elizabeth’s services as a runner of errands and a helper with luggage on the trip. The woman was pleased with the arrangement and promised to deliver Elizabeth into the hands of a young man called Sean O’Connor at Dunlaoghaire when the boat docked. The woman settled herself into a corner and said she would leave Elizabeth to say goodbye to her parents alone.
Mother gave her a kiss on the cheek and said to try to be a good girl and not to cause Mrs O’Connor too much trouble. Father said goodbye very formally. Elizabeth looked up at him.
‘Goodbye, Father,’ she said gravely. He bent to hug her; he hugged her for a long time. She felt her arms clasping round his neck, but looked at Mother and detected those early signs of impatience.
She released him.
‘You’ll write lots of letters, write and tell us everything,’ he said.
‘Yes, but you’re not to go asking Eileen for letter-paper and stamps, those things cost money.’
‘I have money! I have five pounds!’ cried Elizabeth.
‘Hush! Don’t let everyone in the station hear you! That’s the way to get robbed,’ said Violet warningly.
Elizabeth’s face went red and white again, her heart started beating and she heard the train doors slamming.
‘It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine,’ she said.
‘Good girl,’ said Mother.
‘Don’t cry, now, you’re a big girl,’ said Father.
Two big tears ran down Elizabeth’s face.
‘She had no intention of crying until you mentioned it,’ said Violet. ‘Now look what you’ve started.’
The train moved out, and among all the other people waving on the platform stood Mother and Father. Stiffly. Elizabeth shook her head to clear away the tears and as the blur went she saw them standing as if each of them was holding their elbows close in to their sides for fear of touching the other.
II
DONAL WANTED TO know had all Elizabeth’s brothers and sisters died. Were they killed dead?
‘Don’t be silly,’ Peggy had said. ‘Of course they didn’t die.’
‘Then where are they? Why aren’t they coming?’ Donal was feeling left out because Aisling had appropriated the coming guest so firmly. It was a question of ‘my friend Elizabeth won’t like that’ and ‘when my friend Elizabeth arrives’. Donal hoped that there might be a secret cache of brothers and sisters he could adopt himself.
‘There was only one of her,’ said Peggy.
‘There’s never only one of people,’ complained Donal. ‘There’s families. What happened to them?’
Eileen couldn’t manage to elicit similar enthusiasm from the rest of them. Only Aisling and Donal were excited. Young Sean never noticed who was in the house anyway; Maureen said that it was going to be painful having someone else as silly as Aisling around. Eamonn said he was not going to wash himself for some awful girl he had never met, and anyway he did wash … enough. Niamh, cutting a tooth, was red-faced and angry and cried in long, sharp bouts. Eileen herself had a few moments’ worry about Violet’s little girl. The letter had been very stilted, the girl was used to a much more gracious way of living. If Violet’s short, sharp and unhelpful glimpses into her life were accurate. …