by Jana Petken
“I’ll charm the life out of her, and I’ll apologise till I’m blue in the face,” John said, looking quite confident. “Sure, I’ve always been a favourite at your house.”
“That was before my dad was killed. God bless his soul.”
Susan opened the door and shrieked with delight. Bursting into tears at the sight of Danny, she crushed him to her and declared his arrival a miracle. “Oh, you’re here. You’ve come home to me,” she sobbed. “Oh, Danny, Danny! I’ve prayed for this day.”
Kissing her cheek and swinging her in his arms, Danny felt his eyes well up. Grinning, he said, “I’ve missed you, Mam. Look, John’s here too.”
Susan, still crying like a baby, calmed herself enough to look past Danny at John, standing with cap in hand and with a pitiful look of contrition on his face. She stared at him for a brief moment as though debating her next words.
“Mrs Carmody, it’s lovely to see you,” John said.
“Is it? I’m not sure I can say the same thing. What were you thinking, John Grant, leaving my daughter high and dry and wondering what had happened to you? I don’t think I want to let you in.”
Danny was exhausted, hungry, and pining for Anna. Stepping over the threshold into the hallway, he felt his temper rising. He loved his mother, but he’d never liked her superior English ways, especially when she’d looked down her nose at Dubliners. She’d always considered them beneath her. He wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to shut the door in John’s face. Pre-empting her, he wedged his foot in the door frame.
“Mam, I’ve just come from the same place he has. We slept in a flea-ridden hut together and were treated like dogs, with barely enough food given to keep us alive. If it hadn’t been for John, I wouldn’t have gotten through it all.” That was a gross exaggeration, he admitted to himself, but he continued regardless. “We have travelled the same road, he and I, committed ourselves to the same politics, and have been united in grief at the spillage of blood in Dublin. He’s my brother – a fellow Irishman and patriot – so I’ll not be having him walk the streets of London without a bed to sleep in or a penny in his pocket. I swear to God, Mam, if you throw him out, you’ll have to throw me out too.”
Looking crushed, Susan grabbed Danny by the arm. “Son, don’t say that! You’re a good boy. You made a terrible mistake in Dublin. You’re young and impressionable.” She flicked her eyes in John’s direction before continuing. “But he and his father are dangerous men. Before I left Dublin, I was shown the articles that John’s father wrote. He was practically calling for the uprising. His mother,” she added, pointing to John, “came to see me, and she admitted to my face that her husband and son have been members of the republican movement for at least four years. She wasn’t even angry with them! He’ll end up dead or in prison for life, and he’ll lead you and your sister to ruination along with him!”
“He’s proud of his involvement with the republican brotherhood, and so he should be!” Danny shouted back.
“No, he should not. He came to my home and sat at my table, pretending to be a good man for my Jenny,” Susan said angrily. “He’s a liar and immoral!”
And rich. You bloody need him, Danny wanted to say. Suddenly, he became aware of passers-by walking in both directions in the street beyond the garden gate. This was not an argument that would be won or lost on the doorstep, he thought. He’d have to convince his mam to see sense once the three of them were inside the house.
“Mam, you win,” he said reluctantly. “But let’s discuss this inside. There’s no need for Granny’s neighbours to hear our squabbles.”
“He’s not staying,” Susan insisted.
“All right, you’ve made your feelings clear, but will you at least give the poor man a cup of tea and a scone before you throw him out into the night?”
“I’m doing what’s best for your sister, Danny,” Susan reiterated with an apologetic tone. “Your father wouldn’t want him to be part of this family unless he absolutely promised never to take up arms again. Do you promise, John?”
“No, I do not, Mrs Carmody,” John said in a calm voice.
Danny asked angrily, “Would Dad want me in his family?”
“Of course he would!”
“Then he’d have had no problem accepting John. He did no more and no less than I did in that uprising, so as I said, either you let us both in or I walk away. I mean it, Mam.”
“No, Danny!”
“I will. I’ll get on the first boat to Dublin and you’ll not lay eyes on me again.”
Weeping openly, Susan looked out at the people watching from the street. “How humiliating,” she murmured. Then she stared at John, now visibly shaken by the argument taking place. “Get in here,” she finally said to him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kevin stood unseen behind a hedge, two doors down from Minnie’s house. He was disappointed; he’d recognise the sound of those cocky voices anywhere. Danny was home, and he’d brought John Grant with him. Damn it, he thought. His plan to surprise Jenny was up the creek without a paddle.
If he could kick himself in the arse for hesitating, he would. He had been given ample occasions in the past two months to sway Jenny’s feelings, to tell her how he felt. He’d opened his mouth many times, to say the words “I love you”, but he’d squandered every opportunity because he was still too afraid of being rejected. He was a pathetic character.
Having only one night left before he faced the hellish war, he wondered if it might not be better to return to Central London, buy himself a good dinner, drink a couple of whiskeys, and try to forget what he had just lost. Going to Minnie’s house now was a daft idea. He’d be met by Danny and, in all probability, another nasty confrontation. Jenny was obviously not home from work yet, and when she did get back, she’d be met by John. It was too late to announce anything other than his departure to the war.
A small crowd had gathered at the gate, driven to Minnie’s house by angry shouts from her doorstep and the Irish accents. The uprising in Dublin, which was still being openly talked about across the capital, was a stain that soiled British nationalism, and feelings were still running high against the Irish.
A man walking away from the gate shouted, “Traitors!”
Another shouted, “Go on – get yourselves back to Ireland!”
Thinking about the effect this uproar must be having on Minnie, Kevin reversed his decision and strode deliberately towards the house. He was in the king’s uniform. The people there would respect him and disperse if he asked them to.
In the narrow hallway, Minnie greeted Danny and John. Unlike Susan, she welcomed John warmly.
“So the prodigal son and future son-in-law return,” she said, kissing both men. And as soon as the two men had sat down in the parlour, Minnie organised her daughter. “We’ll have a nice cup of tea first, dear, and then you and I will go into the kitchen to make dinner for these tired travellers.”
“I’m not happy about John being here, Mother,” Susan still insisted.
“Well, this is my house, so it’s my happiness that counts, not yours.” Minnie stopped talking and glanced out the window. “Oh, look, it’s Kevin,” she said.
Danny sat up straight with a face that looked as though it had just been smacked.
“Now listen, you. I’ll have no fighting in here,” Minnie warned him. “You’ve already caused a terrible uproar out in the street. You’ll be on your best behaviour.”
With a forced smile, Danny said, “You needn’t be worrying your head about your neighbours, Minnie. They’ve known me since I was a boy, and my dad was good to every one of them. I remember him lending out money in this street as if he were the Bank of England. They’ll all be as right as rain in no time.”
“That might be so – or they might just throw a brick through my bay window. Will you promise me that you’ll be nice to Kevin?”
Kevin stood in the doorway, his army officer’s cap in hand and a placid expression on his face. Unwilling to be
drawn into another heated debate, he stretched out his hand in a gesture of peace. “Danny, it’s good to see you.”
Surprisingly, Danny shook it.
Minnie said, “Isn’t this a lovely reunion? The sight of you all has brightened my day, no end.”
Kevin’s stomach tightened, but he managed to smile. “Nice to see you too, John. You must be pleased to be out.”
“That’s a stupid question if ever I heard one. Of course I am, and I’ll be happier still when I get myself back to Dublin,” John said, staring coldly at Kevin’s uniform. “What are you doing in London? The last time I saw you was at Kilmainham Gaol, when your lot detained me. You’re serving here now?”
“I was. I’m being deployed tomorrow – the Somme. I came to say goodbye to the ladies of the house.”
“You’re leaving so soon?” Susan asked, looking upset at the news.
Kevin, refusing to be put off by John and Danny’s smug exchanges, nodded. “I’m going to Southampton tomorrow.”
“Will you see Patrick?” Minnie asked hopefully.
“I hope so. I’ll certainly look for him. If his ship’s in, there’s a good chance I’ll see him. I’ll be happy to take any letters you have for him.”
“What’s our Patrick doing on a ship in Southampton?” Danny asked, looking dumbfounded.
Susan answered. “Your brother is in His Majesty’s Royal Navy. He’s serving on HMHS Britannic.”
Minnie added proudly, “It’s a hospital ship.”
After a conversation about Patrick, Susan made a pot of tea. She brought out a plate of homemade biscuits, a little soft and without a coating of sugar. After tea, she suggested a dinner of kidney pie and boiled potatoes. She had just about enough meat for them all, she informed the men.
Minnie told them, “It won’t be a grand affair, not having much money to buy food, but we’ll have a nice homecoming celebration nonetheless.”
Jenny had not yet arrived home from work, and she quickly became the topic of conversation. Minnie was worried about her. Susan suggested that she may have gone for a walk in the park, as she sometimes did before coming home. John, after being told that his future wife was working for a living, sat in stunned silence, whilst Danny’s laughter had been unbroken for a good five minutes.
“Our Jenny is a working woman? Christ, that’s a turn-up for the books! I’m just imagining her standing on a factory floor in one of her fancy hats and gowns, rubbing shoulders with commoners. This will take her down a peg or two – our Jenny working!”
“Why do you find that so hard to believe?” Kevin wanted to know. “She enjoys getting out and about. It’s good for her, and it’s opened her eyes to what’s going on around her. She’s even made some new friends.”
“It’s a stupid idea. She won’t last two minutes with the cheek on her,” Danny insisted.
Bristling at the way Danny was ridiculing Jenny, Kevin made sure to check his words. “I like the idea of women working. They’re earning money and doing a grand job for the war effort,” he said pleasantly.
“I can assure you that she won’t work once we’re married,” John said, peering benignly at Kevin in a pathetic display of arrogance. “No wife of mine is going to leave her household duties to earn a living. That’ll be my job. There’s too much talk of women getting rights and having independence, but the way I see it, if God had wanted them to be equal, he would have given them the brains and muscles of a man.”
Kevin stood at the window, looked out, and ignored John’s ridiculous statement.
Susan said, “Danny, take John with you to the bakery at the corner. We need bread. If they’ve got any cakes left on the counter, bring them too. I don’t have the time to bake.”
Sensing a tense atmosphere between Susan and John lifted Kevin’s spirits. When Danny, John, and Susan had left the room, he asked Minnie, “Do you think Jenny will be happy to get her man back?”
“I think Jenny could do better, but poverty doesn’t suit her, and John, whether we like it or not, is her way out of it. As you well know, we are living in very uncertain times. A woman can’t afford to squander a decent proposal when there’s no certainty of another coming along.”
“What if another proposal were to come along right out of the blue?” Kevin hadn’t planned to have such an intimate conversation with Minnie, but now that he had spoken, he wondered how she’d respond.
“You know, son, in my day, men had the courage to declare their feelings. Keep that in mind before you leave here tonight.”
“I will. Thank you, Minnie,” Kevin said.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Standing outside the depot, Jenny felt her feet shuffle one step forwards and one back. If only she could make up her mind, she thought, laughing at the two women standing in front of her. Going into a pub and drinking alcohol was an exhilarating notion, but it was also terrifying. “Only loose women frequent drinking houses,” her mam always used to say.
Once she had asked John if she could go inside The Green Shamrock, a pub in Dublin. He had laughed in her face. “Are you daft, woman? That’s a man’s world in there. What would my pals think of me?”
“I can’t do it, and there’s no point trying to persuade me further,” she said to Mabel, a lanky girl from Woolwich who could talk the birds out of the trees. “I’ve never been inside a pub in my life, and I’m not going to start now. I have my reputation to think of.”
“C’mon, Jenny. For Gawd’s sake, ’ave some fun for once in your life,” Mabel said for the second time. “What’s the worst that could ’appen to you, eh?”
“I get drunk and can’t find my way home. My mother locks me in my room. My granny has a heart attack, and some man thinks I’m there for a pickup,” Jenny replied earnestly.
“Bleedin’ ’ell, girl, we’re not livin’ in the dark ages. We’re at war, and we’re workin’ women earning a livin’. The pubs are full of the likes of us nowadays,” said Sandra, the other woman present.
“Sandra’s right. It’ll be an adventure for you,” Mabel said. “You can’t spend your whole life workin’ and sleepin’. You ’ave to do a bit of livin’ too. We could be attacked by Germans tomorrow.”
“Do you call our miserable existence living?” Jenny asked.
“Yes, I do. We love, we laugh, and we don’t let no bloody Germans stop us from ’avin’ a good time.”
“I read in a newspaper that the government doesn’t want us to consume alcohol,” Jenny insisted.
“Them … That lot don’t want us to have to ’ave any fun ’cos they’re scared stiff of ’avin’ drunken soldiers staggerin’ through this war and of us women frittering away our men’s overgenerous allowances on gin,” Mabel said. “Blimey, you’d think they’d `ave bigger things to worry about.”
Jenny was still worried. She’d read that people were getting arrested for drinking. “Well, I don’t want to do anything illegal,” she said.
Laughing, Mabel grabbed Jenny’s arm. “Gawd above, but you’re a strange one. You know, none of us girls liked you when you started at the depot. Full of bleedin’ airs and graces you were. But you’re funny … and really not that bad. You just ’aven’t lived in the real world. Anyway, Parliament didn’t say we couldn’t frequent pubs – just that we’re not allowed to accept a free drink from anyone. It’s got a fancy name. What’s it called, Sandra?”
“A ‘No Treating Order’,” Sandra answered.
“That’s it. We ’ave to cough up for our own booze, that’s all,” Mabel assured Jenny.
Jenny felt excitement stirring within her. Never for a single second did she ever imagine doing anything this daring! She’d get an earbashing from her mam when she got home. Granny would probably understand why her granddaughter had felt the need to have some fun but wouldn’t say so for fear of upsetting her own daughter’s weak sensibilities. Patrick and Danny weren’t around, so she didn’t need to face them. And Kevin, well, he’d probably join her. He understood her better than anyone did.
“It sounds like a stupid law, if you ask me,” she eventually said. “So what happens if I do get treated by someone,” she had to ask, just to be on the safe side.
“You could go to prison for six months, but I wouldn’t worry about that. The local coppers drink in our pub. They’re the first to accept a free beer when they’re not on duty.”
Inside the pub, Jenny’s eyes lit up like beacons. Were she to close them, it wouldn’t be difficult imagining that she was inside a giant vat of alcohol; such was the powerful yet not unpleasant odours seeping into her nostrils and down her throat. People were singing “Keep the Home Fires Burning”. A man played the piano. There was not a spare chair or table. Women stood alongside men at the bar and in the corners of the room, têté- à-têté, and some were scandalously kissing in public. She was both shocked at the crudity of the two sexes socializing together and invigorated by a feeling of liberation the likes of which she had never known.
“What’s your poison, Jenny?” Mabel asked her.
Confused at the term, Jenny looked at the woman standing next to her. Holding a cocktail glass, she looked slightly more elegant than the other women, struggling to look feminine with pint tumblers gripped by both hands.
“I’ll have the same as her,” she shouted above the noise and then pointed to the woman with the cocktail.
The German Zeppelin L31 airships reached London, flying above low clouds like silent behemoths, prowling the skies and seemingly impervious to attack by plane or anti-aircraft fire. Londoners were becoming more accustomed to air raids. The drudgery of their lives, made even drearier by the imposed blackouts, which prohibited the lighting of gaslights in the street and on doorways after nightfall, was a fair price to pay, they all agreed. Every preventative measure that could hinder the enemy airship crews from finding their targets was welcomed and universally encouraged.
