Dublin's Girl

by Eimear Lawlor

  She stood and brushed off the moss from her now damp dress before returning home, trying not to think of the things she had seen.

  2

  The following morning, after their usual chores, Veronica and Susan sat by the lakeshore, with the sunshine on their backs. The dry spell continued, the grass in the fields had turned brown, and the mud on the farm cracked. Summer heat drained their energy, and the girls welcomed the reprieve from kitchen chores to sit by Lough Ramor. A swan glided on to the lake.

  ‘Susan, do you wish you could do something more exciting?’ Veronica asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Work with Father in the shop, or with Mrs Smith in the office. Anything is better than scrubbing and cooking all day. Imagine, Susan, having a proper job.’ Veronica’s mind drifted to a life she could only dream of.

  ‘Why? What’s got into you?’ Susan said as she swatted away a buzzing bee.

  ‘Nothing is wrong, but, I mean, are you happy?’

  ‘Veronica, sometimes I don’t know what goes on inside your head.’

  Veronica sat up and leaned over and grabbed Susan’s hands, causing her to drop the daisy chain she was making. ‘Would you not like to go to Dublin? You love fashion and clothes – it’d be exciting. Virginia is just so boring.’

  ‘Why on earth would I want to go to Dublin? Did you not see in the paper all the burned buildings and danger? Did you see the pictures of men walking through the streets with rifles slung over their shoulders?’

  Veronica swept back a few curls that had escaped from her pinned hair. ‘Oh, Susan, I’m sure it’s not always like that.’

  When Veronica went to the shop with her father, she would sit on the wooden barrel behind the counter talking to customers. But more than anything, she wanted to work in the office above the shop. Mrs Smith, a widow, helped her father in the office, and she arrived to work on her black bicycle, wearing black clothes. Veronica and Susan would giggle that they didn’t know where the bicycle began, or Mrs Smith ended.

  ‘And tell me, Veronica, what you would do in Dublin?’

  ‘Mrs Smith told me about the secretarial school she went to; that’s how she got the job with Daddy. She learnt to type, and to do shorthand.’

  ‘School. Sure, you got expelled from school.’

  ‘I didn’t get expelled. There was an outbreak of measles. That’s why I left. Lots of girls got sent home.’

  ‘Veronica, I heard Mammy crying when Daddy said you had to leave school. He told Mammy you brought a dog into the dormitory.’

  ‘Well, it was snowing outside, and I felt sorry for him, his little paws frozen.’

  She knew Susan was only interested if her scones or bread were cooked, or if more sugar would make her jam better. But sometimes Veronica wanted to talk about more.

  ‘Susan, did you ever hear of a man called John Redmond?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Apparently, he has told people they should fight for the British. He said the war is our war.’

  ‘What do you mean, Veronica? What’s the war got to do with us?’ Susan frowned and shook her head.

  ‘Last week when I was with Mrs Smith in the office, Mr Tynan came in to pay a bill. You know the man with one short leg? Anyway, he and Mrs Smith started to talk.’ Veronica leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘They forgot I was there. He told her he had been to one of John Redmond’s rallies somewhere in the west, Co. Mayo. Anyway, Mr Redmond has urged men to fight for the British in the war. He said if they fight for Britain that they will pass the Bill for Home Rule, and that means we will have our government here in Dublin.’

  ‘Why, but what difference would that make?’

  Veronica sighed. ‘All our money won’t go to England. We could keep the money for ourselves.’ Veronica had often heard her father complain about having to pay taxes to England.

  Susan huffed and tutted. Most people took this as a sign she was irritated, but Veronica knew she did this when people talked about something she didn’t understand. She thought nobody noticed when she suddenly got an itch, or a headache when her brother and father discussed politics.

  Susan sat up. ‘Since when did you become interested in politics?’

  ‘I’ve always been interested. Especially since the executions last year.’ She wasn’t, but Veronica wanted to irritate Susan knowing this was something that wouldn’t interest her at all.

  The sun was now hot, and the swans moved on the lake with five grey signets following them closely.

  ‘Look, Veronica, aren’t they so beautiful?’ Susan’s attention went elsewhere. ‘You know they stay together for life after their swan children are gone?’ Susan sat forward and looked dreamily at the swans.

  ‘Signets, Susan, they’re called signets.’

  ‘Oh, whatever you call them, it’s just so romantic.’

  Sometimes their two-year age gap felt like decades. Veronica didn’t tell Susan the rest of the conversation she had heard between Mr Tynan and Mrs Smith about how men were joining the Volunteers, the illegal group of rebels against the British, and how a lot of local lads were signing up.

  The same afternoon Mr Tynan had come into the office, she had been sitting at the window overlooking the yard and saw a group of men talking, their hands moving feverishly in tandem with their mouths. The men were gathered by the lumber piles, passing packages to one another under their coats. With bent heads and caps low that concealed their faces, distance muffled their words. At the yard entrance, she saw a man take off his cap and frantically wave it when any RIC approached. The men would then scatter, loading grain onto their carts and returning to their idle chat when the RIC man walked into the yard.

  ‘Veronica, sometimes you talk nonsense. C’mon. It’s time we went home to help Mrs Slaney make tea. Look if you want to go to secretarial school, ask Daddy.’ Susan stood up, the conversation finished. She picked out the dried grass that got caught in the fabric of her tweed skirt.

  Veronica had asked her father a few weeks earlier. When she had approached this with him in his study, he hadn’t even raised his head. He’d just said, ‘No’. And to highlight the conversation was not for further discussion he then said, ‘Close the door after you, Veronica.’

  The girls neared their home, and Veronica caught sight of Eddie.

  ‘You go on, Susan. I’ve to ask Eddie something,’ Veronica said. She followed him as he made his way to the shed. Veronica’s mother was washing the dinner pots at the kitchen sink, so focussed on scrubbing the pot she didn’t notice either of them go into the shed.

  At the back of the shed, Eddie sat on a bale, and he kicked the floor, raising the dust on the floor with his work boot.

  ‘Eddie,’ said Veronica. ‘I don’t get it, why do you want to get involved with the rebels? You will run the shop with Daddy someday, is that not enough?’

  ‘No, it’s not. We are going to get our freedom from the British, and I will help.’

  She tried another angle. ‘What about the money? Where did you get that?’

  His face reddened, he stood up, and grabbed her wrist. ‘Don’t you dare say anything about the money to anyone.’

  She pulled her hand away and shook it. It hurt. This wasn’t her brother, her twin, her closest confidant. The person she had shared a womb for nine months. He had changed.

  Their father’s loud voice filled the shed from outside in the yard. Veronica couldn’t understand what he was shouting. She left Eddie to see her father shout at Paudie, who was pushing a wheelbarrow full of potato skins across the yard to the pigsty. Her father’s face was red like the Aga when it overheated. He grabbed Paudie and pulled him across the yard by the scruff of his shirt collar as Paudie cried, ‘I didn’t do it.’

  Veronica ran to her father and pulled his arm just as he was about to strike.

  ‘Daddy, what are you doing to Paudie?’

  He shook Veronica off like an insect. ‘He took thirty shillings. The thief!’

  ‘Daddy, why woul
d he do that?’

  ‘Veronica, let me handle this,’ he bellowed. He grabbed Paudie by the scruff of his collar again and dragged him across the yard, Paudie’s protestations of innocence now a snivelling whimper. She watched as he threw Paudie out the gate.

  ‘Get out, ye thief, and never come back!’

  Susan, now in the yard, gestured to Veronica. ‘Quick, come upstairs. I’ve to tell you something.’

  ‘Not now, Susan.’

  ‘Did you hear? Paudie stole money from Daddy’s study.’

  Her heart stopped. Paudie was simple, but not a thief, and she had seen Eddie with money… but would he do something like that?

  Veronica spotted Eddie now trying to shrink into the shadows of the falling ivy on the walls of the shed, but Susan saw him.

  ‘Eddie, did you hear Paudie stole money?’

  Veronica tried to guess whether the look on Eddie’s face was one of pretend shock or self-righteousness? Veronica glared Eddie in the eye. He was the mirror image of her. They had the same shade of green eyes, brown hair and olive skin, that always went a shade darker in the summer months. ‘Eddie, do you know anything about the money?’ she added.

  ‘No, he probably took it. You know he is an imbecile.’ He snorted and kicked the ground with his boot, rising dust. ‘I’m off.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’ll leave you girls to discuss the mind of a thief.’

  ‘Can you believe that, Veronica? It’s just awful. Veronica, are you listening?’

  Paudie wouldn’t find a job anywhere else. He had no family. She watched the back of Eddie’s head as he walked away. Stealing and letting someone else take the blame was not the Eddie she’d once known. Veronica didn’t know what he was up to, and she told herself she didn’t care. Her immediate concern was to get away from Virginia. She knew what her future would be if she stayed at home. Married to a man she hardly knew, her own dreams forgotten.

  *

  In her second year in boarding school, she heard her mother and father discussing Eddie’s future.

  ‘Law, maybe he could do law.’

  ‘No, he will work in the shop with me,’ her father had replied.

  ‘You’re right, Richard, and the girls will be married soon. Mrs Mulvaney’s daughter has a lovely home, and her mother said he is a good man from Ballyhaunis. She is expecting her first child.’ Veronica had wondered, where the hell was Ballyhaunis?

  Veronica’s uncle had studied law in Dublin. It was rare for a Catholic to go to university, but her mother’s parents wanted their son educated, and he had gone to King’s Inn in Dublin. She had gone to see him once, and she remembered the large imposing white stone entrance, but the street up to it had barefoot children running around, and washing lines hung from house to house.

  She had held her breath and tightened her fists; she was no Elizabeth Bennet.

  Now, as she watched Eddie leave her, she thought about her future. Maybe this could be used to her advantage.

  3

  One Sunday after dinner, the family retired to the sitting room as this was the only day of rest in the busy haymaking season. Veronica’s father dozed in his armchair, his glasses resting precariously on the tip of his nose, and with each snore, they inched further down. It was only a matter of time before they fell onto the book on his lap.

  Her mother sat in the seat in the bay window, checking her embroidery as the sunlight from the south-facing window filled the room. Veronica scanned the newspaper but kept one eye on Eddie as he shifted in his chair.

  He abruptly got up. ‘Mammy, I’m going fishing.’

  ‘Em. That’s nice, Eddie,’ Bernadette said without lifting her head, concentrating on her embroidery. She lifted it to the light of the window and smiled, happy with her needlework. ‘Are you going, Veronica, as well?’

  ‘Yes.’ Veronica jumped up, her book falling on the floor. ‘Eddie, com’ on.’

  Eddie clenched his teeth and glared at her. Veronica grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the room.

  Outside he whispered, ‘You’re not coming.’

  ‘I don’t want to know whatever stupid things you are up to. I want you to do something for me.’

  He tugged his arm free and took his cap from the hallstand. ‘What now? I’m busy.’

  ‘Eddie, please, ask Daddy to let me go to Dublin to secretarial school?’

  He stopped as he opened the front door, his cap in his hand.

  ‘Veronica, just ask him yourself.’

  ‘I did. He said no.’

  ‘Well then, that’s your answer.’

  ‘I’ll tell Father that I saw you with the money.’ He was halfway out the front door but stopped.

  He turned and glared at Veronica, his lips tight and white. ‘Don’t you bloody dare.’

  ‘How could you let Paudie take the blame?’

  The dog barked when Hughie the new farmhand passed the front door. ‘Whist, would ya, you fool of a dog.’ He banged an empty bucket on the gate, a warning to the dog to leave the chickens alone.

  She waited until Hughie was gone, ‘Eddie, I WILL tell Daddy, I know it was you. You can’t tell me it’s a coincidence that I saw you with the same sum of money that Paudie apparently stole.’ She didn’t know how much money Eddie had.

  ‘But… maybe I won’t say anything if you say to Daddy you think it’s a good idea for me to go to secretarial school. Women do lots of things now. I see it in the newspapers.’ It was a lie. All she saw in the newspapers were advertisements for soaps and clothes. ‘Mrs Smith went up to Dublin to learn how to type, and she went to secretarial school.’

  ‘Veronica don’t be so daft. I’m going now. Forget about that stupid idea.’

  She shouted at his back. ‘I will tell, I’m serious.’ But her words were lost in the wind as he turned the corner of the house.

  *

  Later that night while she lay in bed, a continuous rumble of whispered excitement filtered its way upstairs to Veronica’s ears. Susan slept soundly in the opposite bed. Veronica tiptoed out of the room and along the landing, knowing which creaking floorboards to avoid. She knelt and tried to listen. She saw the light from the drawing-room creeping beneath the door into the hall. People were arguing in Irish and English. She listened to the people talking, and there was an occasional sound of someone’s fist hitting the dining table. The door opened and all talk ceased. People filtered out of the room into the hall, shaking her father’s hand as they left. One of them was a woman she had never seen before. She was tall and wore an enormous hat. Veronica moved to the landing window to watch them outside the front of the house. As the woman spoke, the men hung on to her every word. Only when they were all gone did Veronica return to bed. She thought about the woman, about how she would have to think of another plan to get away from Virginia or try again with Eddie. She tossed and turned, sleep evading her when the only prospect of a future was one that demanded the mundane drudgery of a kitchen. Eventually, sleep came.

  4

  Veronica wiped a cobweb off her face to peer out onto the road from behind the bush, but the person whistling wasn’t Eddie. It was James Sheridan. Her pulse quickened. She hadn’t seen him since the day in the wood with the rifle, and she stepped back into the scrub for him to pass. When the whistling faded, she stuck her head out again to look at the road leading to the village. In the distance, a figure wearing a flat cap pushed a bicycle. It was Eddie.

  She moved back in between the green foliage, and when the click of the wheels grew louder, she jumped out.

  ‘God, Veronica, what are you doing?’

  ‘Eddie, have you said anything to Daddy yet?’

  ‘Veronica, I’ve other things to worry about than your silly little games.’

  ‘You have to help me.’

  ‘Stop bothering me, I’ve more important things to do. Why do you want to go to learn to type anyway?’ He pushed past her. ‘Now, just leave me alone.’

  ‘You took the money, didn’t you? I will tell Daddy I know it wa
s you who took the money. He blames Paudie, and he got sacked.’ She stared at him. This was a gamble as she wasn’t sure if he had taken the money.

  She spat her words at him. ‘I hope you get caught and sent to prison, and the rats eat you when you lie in bed at night.’

  He didn’t deny it.

  ‘Christ, Veronica, just go away.’ Shaking his head, he started to push the bike up the lane to go home, but Veronica grabbed him by the sleeve.

  He shook her arm off him, as if she was an unwanted insect, and got back on his bike.

  ‘Go away. I’m warning you. Just go away, Veronica.’

  ‘Eddie, I’m—’

  Their father’s voice boomed as he came out of the cowshed. ‘Good, Eddie, you’re home. I need to show you how to keep a ledger for the shop. You need to understand everything if you are to help me run the businesses.’

  ‘Daddy, I need to speak to you.’

  ‘Not now, Veronica, I want to talk to Eddie.’

  He motioned Eddie to follow him inside the house. As Eddie passed Veronica, he hissed, ‘I’m warning you. Don’t you dare say anything.’ His green eyes narrowed, his face red.

  Veronica ran into the house and up to her room, and flung herself on her bed, thumping her fists on her pillow as tears of anger flowed. Bloody James Sheridan. The more time Eddie spent with him, the more distant she and Eddie had become. She felt he had got Eddie into something more serious than a few guns. Soon, she fell asleep, only waking to her mother shouting for her. ‘Veronica, your father wants you in his study.’

  She knocked on the study door and entered. Books lined two of the walls. The red carpet, faded by years of sunshine, looked shabby, but her father so far had refused to listen to her mother’s pleas to change it. A head of a lion hung over the fireplace. Its eyes were wide, and its jaws open as if to eat anyone who dared to venture too near. She hated it.