by Jana Petken
“I must say, I’m not at all happy that he didn’t reply to my letter.” She pensively chewed her bottom lip. She had given Kevin the letter to post to Frongoch at the end of June. It was now the middle of August, and not a word had come back yet. It was worrying and infuriating.
“Danny has written at least nine letters. I do hope John is all right.”
Looking annoyed, Kevin said, “I’m sure he’s just fine. Come on – there’s a tearoom over there. If we’re lucky, we might get a hot cup of tea.”
Jenny sat at a window that overlooked a patch of green surrounded by busy roads on all sides. A mixture of noisy motor cars and buses drove past the tearoom, but every now and then, horses, still being used to pull merchants’ carts, clip-clopped along, giving a somewhat disjointed representation of London’s modern streets.
“I’m surprised there are not more accidents,” she said, musing aloud.
“I’m equally surprised that there’s still enough fuel to run those private motor cars. Much of that resource has been redirected to the military,” Kevin said.
“They use horses to pull the loaded wagons at the depot. I couldn’t possibly count how many pass by in a single day.”
“Tell me, do you like your job? You’ve not said much about it.”
“That’s because I don’t have much to say. Every day is much the same. There are only so many ways to fold a piece of wool and put it on a shelf,” she said cuttingly. “Working beside Deptford dry docks is interesting, though. It’s bustling with folk. It’s busier than Piccadilly Circus. You should visit the area and see for yourself.” Noting Kevin’s serious frown, she asked. “Is something wrong with you?”
“We get on, don’t we? We are fond of each other?” he asked.
“Now what sort of question is that? Of course I’m fond of you. You’ve been very kind to me. I enjoy our picnics and our long walks. I’m always happy to see you.”
“That’s grand.”
He leaned in closer. His eyes bore into hers. Jenny was hypnotised by his eyes. She could feel his warm breath on her lips and a sudden surge of heat on her face. Convinced that he was going to kiss her, she panicked.
“May I have some cake?” she asked in a shrill voice.
Kevin’s sat back in the chair looking bewildered, and an uncomfortable silence ensued.
Jenny felt disorientated. A palpable tension developed between them. She had not encountered this feeling of excitement before, with any man. What was he doing? She didn’t understand his behaviour.
The waiter came, and he ordered cake for both of them.
“Would you miss me if they sent me away?” he asked after the waiter left.
“Sent you away to where?” A horrible premonition of being left alone overcame her. She couldn’t contemplate losing his company. He kept her sane!
“Spit it out. Sent you where?” she asked again, just as abruptly as the first time.
“France.”
“You? You’re going?”
He nodded. “I am. I leave at the end of the week.”
“Are you sure?” Of course he was. He wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true. “That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard. What about all the wounded soldiers at your hospital? Why don’t they send doctors who don’t have employment? How will the hospital cope without you?”
“I don’t think there’s a doctor in the British Isles that is not gainfully employed or coming out of retirement. I’ll be replaced by an older man.”
“But why are they so desperate to send you? The push forward is going well, according to the newspapers. And Mary, a woman at the depot, told me today that her husband has just come back from the Somme. He was hit by an artillery bombardment and had broken bones sticking out of his skin. When she saw him at the hospital, he told her that our army was taking back important German strongholds. Do you think we might be winning the war? If we are, there might be no point in sending you.”
“That’s a nice sentiment, but it’s much too early to claim victories. It’s true that we’re advancing,” Kevin said pensively, “but there are heavy casualties, with every foot of ground taken on the field. Optimism is always commendable, Jenny, but the battle in that area is far from over. ”
She was still thinking about her friend’s husband as well as what it might be like for Kevin, treating wounded men. “They took his leg off,” she said. “I shudder to think about what that must have felt like.”
“It doesn’t matter what it felt like. Amputation probably saved his life. If they hadn’t taken the limb, he might well have died of infection.”
“Don’t say that – poor man. And poor Mary. She will have to look after him for the rest of his life.”
“You would do the same for your husband, would you not?”
Jenny blushed guiltily. The thought of nursing John was not an appealing one. Startled, she looked down to see Kevin’s fingers encircling her own. More shocked than indignant, she whipped her hand away. “What in God’s name are you doing?” she asked.
She gazed at him, looking for answers. Kevin, instead of looking embarrassed, held her gaze, seemingly undaunted by her cold stare.
“You must know how dear you are to me,” he said.
“I’m an engaged woman …”
Kevin’s face reddened. “I’m well aware of that, but tell me, do you want to marry John because he’s wealthy – or is it that you just want to spite your mother?”
Her day was ruined. Kevin, sitting there looking smug as though he thought himself clever enough to know what she was thinking, had uncovered feelings within her, ones that she had yet to come to terms with. She looked at his hands encircling his cup and turning it around and around on the saucer. She shivered, thinking about his fingers caressing hers and how much she had liked the sensation.
“You’re maddening. I thought you were on my side, and here you are stabbing my fiancé in the back!” she said angrily.
“I am not speaking out of turn. There are good reasons why you shouldn’t marry John.”
“And what might they be?”
“Well, for a start, he’s not the man you should spend your life with. If he were, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me, complaining about not getting a reply to the one and only letter you have written in the past two months. If you really loved him, you’d be writing to him every day and talking about how much your heart is breaking because you’re separated from him.”
He was stripping her of her dignity and humiliating her. Her mother had probably put him up to this. He sounded just like her.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said weakly.
“You have to, and I must have my say before I leave, for if I don’t, you might do something you’ll regret.”
“I’ll do what I please and regret it if I have to,” she muttered obstinately. “You’re being impertinent.”
“And you are lying to yourself, which is an injustice. I was at your engagement party, and that spark of passion that I mentioned earlier was not in your eyes when you danced with your betrothed. The only thing I witnessed was a woman who thought it was her duty or destiny to settle down with a well-to-do man incapable of courting her with anything more than lukewarm enthusiasm. Sure, there was no passion in him either.”
“How dare you!”
“Oh, I dare. If I were your fiancé, I would have told you that I was going out to shoot up half of Dublin, even if it meant incurring your anger and disapproval. I would have made an effort to let you know that I was being taken across the water to prison. I’d have asked you to wait for me and to forgive me for causing you grief. I would have told you that I loved you, damn it! You’re worth much more than a husband that keeps secrets from you, and if you weren’t so stubborn, you’d admit it.”
Tears sprouted in her eyes. Yes, she thought, it had been humiliating to find out second-hand that John was a rebel. His disregard for her feelings had been shameful. But was that not how all men behaved? Her own fat
her had led a double life. He’d neglected his wife for years.
“Well, you’re not my betrothed, so it’s really not your business,” she said. “And what makes you think you’re such an expert in matters of the heart? In all the years I’ve known you, I have never heard you mention a woman’s name, let alone seen you with one. You’re hardly qualified to council me.”
“That might be so, but I know what the heart wants. You wear yours on your sleeve for everyone to see. You have no tact and you’re brash at times, but you don’t have a dishonest bone in your body. You don’t love him, Jenny – do you?”
Setting her lips in an angry line, Jenny stared out of the window, discomfited and feeling as vulnerable and naked as the day she was born. Kevin was an insufferable beast. He was trying to confuse her and to make her doubt herself. To hell with him! She wasn’t going to answer him.
“I’m going home, and I don’t need you to walk with me to the bus,” she told him, irately pushing her chair back. “Goodbye, Kevin. Good luck to you in the war – and in case you were thinking about it, don’t bother writing to me while you’re away. I won’t read a single word!”
In no great rush to get home, Jenny walked through Green Park. Kevin had taken her by complete surprise on more than one occasion today. She had thought for a moment that he was about to kiss her. When he hadn’t, she’d been left wondering if he did or didn’t have intimate feelings for her. She had also been disappointed. Did she have feelings for him? That was more to the point. How was she to know the difference between friendship and love? Would she miss him when he left for France? Was she going to cry like a baby, bereft and inconsolable? She had not grieved for John, so why should she feel Kevin’s loss? He was just a companion, right?
Tears sprang without warning and filled her eyes until she had to wipe them dry numerous times.
“Look at me,” she mumbled as she walked. “I’m howling like a gimp.”
Yes, she was stupid, dense as a tree trunk, and hopelessly in love with Kevin Jackson.
Chapter Nineteen
Danny kissed Anna with a passion that he didn’t even know he possessed. He’d never been in love before, but he didn’t need written confirmation to know that he adored the woman he was holding in his arms. Fondling her breasts, he felt as though the gates of heaven had been opened to him. He had risen up to paradise and never wanted to go back down to Earth.
After a last lingering kiss, he reluctantly pulled his hands from under her blouse and sighed mournfully. “You’re an angel,” he said in a cracked voice.
Anna, buttoning up her chemise without taking her eyes from Danny’s face, stopped what she was doing to softly caress his cheek. “You’re a dear man,” she whispered back.
On wobbly legs, Danny walked to a stool and sat down.
Joining him when she had finished dressing, she balanced her backside precariously on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. Then she sobbed like a little girl.
“I’m happy for you, Danny, honest I am,” she said. “But if they’re sending you all the way to London, they might not bother bringing you back here. They’ll more than likely release you. I want you to be free, I do, but I can’t stand the thought of never seeing you again.”
“They’re just as likely to lock me back up for my cheek,” Danny said, trying to console her. “But I wouldn’t even fight that decision if it meant coming back to you.”
“No! I don’t want that for you. Anyway, all but two of that last lot they took away never came back, did they?”
That was true, Danny thought. Every prisoner in the camp was being heard at the appeals tribunal in London. Twice a day for the past week, thirty names had been called out at roll call and then put on the backs of trucks. It appeared that the British were weeding out the lower ranks and less dangerous men and letting them go free.”
“What are the newspapers saying?” he asked.
“Not much.” Anna styled errant tendrils back into a respectable roll at the nape of her neck. “There was a lengthy report in the local pamphlet yesterday. It said that protests by Irish wives and mothers might be swaying government policy. I don’t remember the exact wording, but some MPs were openly stating that the British government couldn’t expect loyalty from Irish women when their loved ones were being locked up without charge.”
Danny recalled that a couple of guards were saying much the same thing a couple of days previously.
“It looks like the rumours about letting us go are true, then.” That was great news. He felt like standing up and doing a celebratory jig, but as much as he looked forward to getting out of the shite hole for a breath of freedom, he dreaded losing Anna.
“Aw, darlin’, I never imagined I’d find the love of my life in a place like this,” he told her. “I didn’t think I’d even get the chance to talk to you. You’re a wee miracle.”
“Oh, Danny, I love you.” Anna sobbed even harder.
Holding her tighter, Danny said, “We’ve not had a great start together, have we? And sure, I’m not a perfect man, as you know. But believe me, I’d do anything, go anywhere, be anything if I thought you’d be waiting for me. I’d walk to the ends of the earth over heaps of burning coal to give you the happiness you deserve. I’ll come back here for you after I’m released …”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she said hurriedly.
“Why not?”
“My da would never let you within ten feet of me.”
“Because I’m Irish?”
“In a way, but you mustn’t blame him. You see, my brother Tom was killed last year in France. Da thinks you should all be shot for being cowards and traitors.”
Jesus, if only he had a penny for every time he’d heard those two bloody words spoken in his ear. “So if that’s how he feels about us, why does he allow his son and daughter to serve us in the shop he rents?” he asked bluntly.
“Do you know what it’s like living in the village? My family has been struggling to make ends meet for years. He couldn’t turn the offer down. And in all fairness, he thought it was going to be a camp for German prisoners of war. We had no idea that almost two thousand Irish rebels were going to turn up. Da and Tom used to work here when this was a distillery. After it was closed down, he couldn’t find another job. He’s too old for the mines.”
“I see,” Danny said, deep in thought.
“You’ll have noticed that my da hasn’t showed his face by here,” Anna then said. “He doesn’t want to come inside the camp. He sees to the supplies but leaves Dai in charge of almost everything.”
Danny looked at the clock on the wall. He still had so much to say. His stomach felt as if a wrestler’s hands were strangling it.
“I have to get back before your Dai appears and the guards start doing their walkabouts,” he said. He’d have to run all the way back to the north camp to make roll call on time, he thought. That would be in ten minutes, and if his name was called out, he’d be put on a truck and driven away from here. At the thought of these being the last minutes he had to spend with Anna, he inadvertently let out a loud groan. Struggling quickly to get up, he almost sent Anna sprawling onto the floor.
“Darlin’, get me a pencil and piece of paper.”
Following him out of the stockroom, Anna asked, “What do you need them for?”
“So that you’ll know where I’ve gone if I don’t come back here.”
His granny’s address was the only one he could give her, he thought, scribbling it down.
“Anna, my love, if I’m released, I’ll go to this place and wait for you. Promise me you’ll join me there.”
“I can’t! Da will come after me if I try to leave,” she said, seeming shocked at the very idea.
“You’ll kill me if you don’t come. I’ll never love anyone else, and I’ll die a lonely man. Tell me, would you want that on your conscience?” he asked, kissing her hard on the mouth.
“No …”
“You’ll be safe with me. My ma
m and granny will look after you, and Jenny will be just like a sister. We can get married as soon as you come down.”
“You want me to elope?” she asked, open-mouthed.
“I do. I want to make an honest woman of you,” he said.
Instead of looking disturbed by the idea, Anna’s expression brightened. “Do you mean it?”
He nodded.
“But what if you get to London and realise that I was just a distraction, someone to brighten your days in here?”
“Never! Sure, you might have been a bit of fun in the beginning, but I’ve come to love you. That’s the truth.”
“I can’t promise …”
He had run out of time. Forcing a grin, he said, “If I’m not back at this counter in the morning, I’ll see you in London, right?”
Turning away, Anna unlocked the door and then looked left and right. “It’s all clear. Two guards are standing by the building down the road, but you should be fine if you run to the corner. Go, Danny.”
“I’ll be waiting for you, Anna,” he said, rushing out the door.
Chapter Twenty
The next morning, Danny stood in line feeling his desire for freedom being equally matched by his need to stay with Anna. The sergeant of the guard, presently inspecting the bunks and tidiness of the barrack hut, had not yet read out the names of prisoners earmarked for departure within minutes after the roll call ended. Danny rubbed his palms, silky with sweat, against his trouser legs and tried to steady his breathing. He had no reason to believe that he would be picked out, he thought, for the chances of being chosen to go were as low as winning a lottery. Fourteen hundred prisoners still had to be processed. It could be weeks before they called out his name.
