by Sandy Taylor
Miss Berry was as different to Minnie as she could possibly be. Minnie was small and round and Miss Berry was tall and angular. She was very business-like and at the beginning I was a bit afraid of her, but Josie soon put my mind at rest.
‘She’s strict, but she’s fair. She makes it her business to look out for us all and she has a good heart.’
‘Is she married?’ I said.
‘She keeps her private life very private but I think she lives alone. There has never been any mention of a man.’
I thought it was unusual that both Minnie and Miss Berry were without men in their lives.
‘I think she has her head screwed on,’ said Josie. ‘At least she isn’t saddled with a load of kids.’
I missed my family so much that sometimes I ached with the need to hold them and be held by them. At night, as Josie snored gently in her bed, I let my mind wander back to my home. Sitting on the rocks under the lighthouse and listening to the ocean rushing over the sand. In my dreams, I walked along the wood road with Kitty by my side, and I ran up Paradise Alley like I had as a child. Distance had made me feel kindlier towards Ballybun. It began to lay more gently on my mind – I didn’t get that awful feeling in my tummy when I thought about it. I still wasn’t ready to think about the Brettons, though, and I never let my thoughts go back to the garden, because my last memory was of Caroline Bretton standing by the pond, shouting at me.
Isn’t the mind a strange thing? All the wonderful memories I had of me and Eddie working side by side, planting and digging the soft soil. The passing of the seasons, sitting together on the bench as snow fell around us. All those wonderful moments had been tainted by that one moment. Caroline Bretton’s cruel face would sometimes have me waking in a cold sweat with my heart thumping out of my chest.
The digs were in Skinners Row, just a couple of streets away from the bookshop. Josie and me had a nice bedroom – there wasn’t much furniture in the room, just a wardrobe, a chest of drawers and two single beds, but it was comfortable enough. The room overlooked a busy street that was lined with shops. Dublin reminded me of London – so many people rushing about, carriages and cars passing the door. It was as different to sleepy Ballybun as it was possible to be. Paradise Alley never changed and I knew that however far I travelled from Ballybun, everything there would remain the same always, and that gave me comfort. We shared a kitchen with two sisters who lived on the floor above. They were called Ellis and Molly. You could tell that they were sisters for they had the same colouring; green eyes and the most beautiful coloured hair I had ever seen. It was a deep auburn, streaked with shades of burnt orange and chestnut, russet and burnished copper. It reminded me of an autumn day in the garden, when sunlight filtered through the trees, changing the colour of the leaves as they drifted to the ground. I would have died for hair like that. But although they looked alike, they couldn’t have been more different. Molly was loud and full of life while her younger sister Ellis was a shy little thing. They also worked at Finnigan’s, so every morning, the four of us walked the short distance to the bookshop and every evening, we walked home together.
Our landlady’s name was Mrs Murphy, and the poor soul was as deaf as a post. She lived quietly downstairs and never bothered us.
It was my first week in the flat and I was chatting to Molly and Ellis in the tiny kitchen. ‘Jesus, Nora,’ said Molly. ‘The landlady in the last place would have made the Blessed Virgin Mary herself curse. The slightest squeak out of us would have her running up the stairs like a bloody madwoman – we were frightened to move, she had our brains mashed. Josie let us know that there was a vacant room here, we couldn’t get out of the place quick enough.’
‘Where are you from?’ I said.
‘Derry,’ said Ellis.
‘You’re far from home,’ I said.
‘Not far enough,’ said Molly, making a face.
‘We come from a big family,’ said Ellis softly.
‘There are so many kids in the house that I don’t know half of them,’ said Molly. ‘Honest to God, Nora, one day this boy was walking behind me, right up to the front door of my house. I asked him why he was following me and he said that he was my brother and he lived there.’
We all started laughing. ‘Forgive my sister,’ said Ellis, grinning. ‘She has an awful habit of exaggerating, as you will soon find out.’
‘I swear on the statue of St Anthony that it’s true,’ said Molly.
‘Well, next time you lose something, Molly Walsh, and you call on him for help, don’t be surprised if he ignores you.’
‘I’ll take me chance – what’s the point of a story if you can’t embellish it a bit?’
‘There’s a big difference between embellishing and downright lying.’
‘Well, I hope I get an invite to the Vatican when they make you a Saint,’ said Molly, grinning.
I wasn’t used to this kind of banter and I loved it. Kitty would always be my best friend but this felt different. We were four young girls, far away from our families and enjoying our freedom in this big city. I felt more grown-up somehow, and Ballybun felt a million miles away.
We didn’t do anything very exciting; we were all too tired by the time we got home. Ellis had a love of books just as I did and the pair of us were happy to sit on the bed every evening and lose ourselves in the stories. Molly and Josie, on the other hand, liked looking through the magazines that were full of the latest fashions. They also talked a lot about boys.
‘Do you have a feller, Nora?’ asked Molly.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t.’
‘What? Never?’ said Molly.
I shook my head. ‘Never.’
‘Well, you’re in Dublin now, girl, so maybe it’s time to spread your wings.’
‘Leave her alone, Molly,’ said Ellis. ‘I’ve never had a boyfriend either.’
‘That’s because you frighten them all away.’
‘I’m just not ready for one,’ said Ellis.
‘What worries me,’ said Molly. ‘Is if you’ll ever be ready.’
‘She might surprise us all,’ said Josie, smiling.
Molly made a face at Ellis. ‘I won’t hold my breath.’
I was growing more and more fond of Josie; I had liked her from the moment I saw her flying towards me across the railway station. She’d taken it upon herself to show me around Dublin. We leaned over the Ha’penny Bridge and watched the River Liffey flowing beneath us. Dublin was a beautiful city and I preferred it to London. I think it was because I was in Ireland and home didn’t seem so far away. I felt something change in me as I stood next to Josie, looking down at the river. I was a young girl in a big city, I had found new friends and I was doing a job I loved. I felt a kind of freedom that I had never felt before, and I liked it.
We walked up O’Connell Street and stood outside the GPO building. I’d been far too young to remember at the time, but Grandad Doyle had told me about the Easter Rising of 1916 and how the rebels had taken over the GPO building, only to be overcome by the British Army. He told me about the men who had been executed for the cause. ‘I thought that James Connolly and Michael Collins would have been spared, but they were shot along with the rest of them,’ he’d said. ‘Connolly was only forty-seven, Nora, and Collins thirty-two, but they died for a cause they believed in. They chose what they thought was the right path, even though they must have known it could lead to certain death. They were mourned, for they were heroes to many people who believed in the cause. They became martyrs, Nora, and there is nothing us Irish love more than a martyr.’
‘Do you think they were right, Grandad? Do you think they were right to rebel?’
‘I keep my thoughts to myself, Nora, and I leave politics to the politicians,’ he’d said.
As I looked up at the tall building, I felt sad for all those young men who had lost their lives and I wondered if their deaths had actually changed anything.
‘Do you think it was all worth it, Josie?’ I said.
/> ‘A word of advice, Nora – keep your opinions to yourself, for those who believe in the cause are still amongst us, especially in the pubs, where fighting talk continues and rebel songs are still being passed down from father to son.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind, Josie,’ I said. ‘And thank you for the warning.’
‘The big family wasn’t the only reason that Molly and Ellis left home, you know.’
‘Why then?’
‘Molly said it was like living in the middle of a war zone – they don’t talk about it much but I know it affected Ellis very badly and Molly wanted to get her away from the place.’
‘What happened?’
‘They were on their way to school when a fight broke out between two rival gangs. Shots were fired and they had to run for cover. Neither of them was hurt, but Ellis was never the same again. She wouldn’t leave the house – she was terrified of going outside. Molly said she seemed to go into herself and she knew that as soon as she could, she would leave Derry and take Ellis here to Dublin.’
‘But is there not trouble here, too?’
‘There’s trouble everywhere in Ireland, but you have to live, don’t you? You can’t shut yourself away for fear that something is going to happen – sure, you could just as easily get knocked down by a bus. This isn’t our war, and I won’t let it stop me going where I want to go, or doing what I want to do. It doesn’t matter to me whether you’re a Catholic or a Protestant, it’s who you are that counts. I think that Ireland would be better off if it was run by women – they’re too busy minding the home and putting food on the table to have time to be fighting each other.’
‘So, you think Dublin is safer than Derry?’
‘There are places to avoid, alright, but that’s just fights between men who are full of the hard stuff and can’t even remember what they are fighting for.’
It made me realise that living in a big city like Dublin was going to be different, and I would have to be aware of my surroundings and the people I met.
* * *
One evening, we were all in mine and Josie’s room, lying on the beds.
‘Are you up for a night out on Saturday, Nora?’ said Molly.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Come on, girl, you look as if you could do with a bit of fun after all that dusting.’
I wasn’t sure that I was ready to go out on the town. ‘Where are you going?’ I said.
‘The Irish club in O’Connell Street has a dance every Saturday night,’ said Josie. ‘And the craic is fierce. If you’re lucky, you might meet a nice boy who will sweep you off your feet and carry you away to the country.’
I laughed. ‘I’m not sure that I’m ready to be swept off my feet.’
‘Then just come along and have an orange juice,’ said Ellis gently. ‘That’s what I do.’
‘What do you think, Josie?’ I said.
‘It’s a grand place, Nora, and we could all do with getting out a bit more.’
‘I suppose we could,’ I said, smiling.
‘Don’t tell Father Patrick though,’ said Josie. ‘He’s dead against the place. He says it’s barbaric and a sin against the Holy Virgin. He read out a letter from the Archbishop the other Sunday. Apparently, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, dance halls are dens of iniquity and not to be countenanced. Then he went on about sensuous contortions of the body. Have you ever heard anything so daft in all your life? It’s a dance, not an orgy.’
‘But shouldn’t we mind what the Church is telling us?’ asked Ellis.
‘Not when they’re talking a load of shite,’ said Molly. ‘Now, what are we going to wear?’
I hadn’t thought about what I would wear. I certainly had nothing suitable for a dance. I felt disappointed, because I really wanted to go.
‘Sorry, girls,’ I said. ‘That counts me out.’
‘What does?’ said Molly.
‘Clothes – I haven’t got any, not good enough for a dance anyway.’
‘Well, if that’s all that’s stopping you,’ said Ellis, ‘you don’t have to give it another thought, for we have a wardrobe full of the stuff.’
‘They have,’ said Josie, grinning.
‘Come upstairs and take a look,’ said Ellis, jumping off the bed.
The four of us ran up the stairs to Molly and Ellis’s room. Molly opened the wardrobe door to reveal a row of beautiful dresses in every colour you could imagine. I stood staring at them, hardly able to take it in.
‘Have you been and robbed a store?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Molly. ‘They were left to us by our Aunty Birdy. She was a bit of a society girl back in the day. My mother said, rumour had it, she frequented the nightclubs of Paris.’
‘Paris, France?’
‘The very place,’ said Molly.
‘I’ve never known anyone who went to Paris,’ I said.
‘Well, our Aunty Birdy did,’ said Ellis. ‘And when she passed away from drinking too much cognac and smoking Egyptian cheroots, at least that’s what Grandad said killed her, she had the presence of mind to write a will, leaving all her finery to us.’
‘Our grandfather was all for burning the lot of it,’ said Molly. ‘But I told him that I’d cut off his ear while he slept if he so much as breathed on them.’
‘Grandad said that Aunty Birdy was a hussy,’ said Ellis.
‘But I decided that she was really my mother,’ said Molly, ‘and that one day she would bang on the door, reeking of French perfume and demand to have me back, then we’d spend the rest of our days sitting by the Seine, eating cheese.’
‘And where would that have left me, while you were sat eating your cheese?’ said Ellis.
‘We wouldn’t have left you behind, love, we would have taken you with us.’
‘Was Birdy her real name?’ I said.
‘No,’ said Molly. ‘Her name was Bridget.’
‘So how did she end up being called Birdy?’
‘She used to like sitting in trees. Grandfather said she was odd, but I thought that she was…’
‘Splendid?’ I said, smiling.
‘The very word,’ said Molly. ‘I thought she was splendid.’
‘Now, Nora,’ said Ellis, ‘what’s your favourite colour?’
‘I don’t have one,’ I said.
The three of them stared into the wardrobe, as if the perfect dress was going to leap out and throw itself on my body.
‘Blue,’ said Josie, looking me up and down. ‘Definitely blue.’
Two blue dresses were laid on the bed. They might have been from an earlier age but they were beautiful and they were what Grandad Doyle would call timeless. ‘Try them on, Nora,’ said Ellis. ‘We’ll look away.’
I chose the one with the high neckline – the other one was lovely but a bit on the racy side. The material felt so cool as it slipped like silk over my body. It fell to just below my knees and as I moved, it spread out in a circle and caressed my bare legs. I took a deep breath. ‘Okay, you can look now,’ I said.
The three of them stared at me for a moment, without saying a word. ‘Don’t you like it?’ I said, disappointed at their reaction.
‘It looks as if it was made for you,’ said Ellis, softly.
‘Well, all I can say is that the rest of us might as well stay home, for we’ll have no chance with the lads once they set eyes on you,’ said Molly, making a face.
‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘For you’re all gorgeous, it’s me that should be staying home.’
‘I wish we had a mirror,’ said Ellis. ‘Maybe that would convince you.’
‘We have one downstairs,’ said Josie. ‘Come on, girls.’
We ran back down the stairs and into our room, where the three of them jumped on one of the beds.
‘Well, go on,’ said Molly. ‘We’re waiting.’
I hardly recognised the young girl in the blue dress whose reflection stared back at me. It fitted like a glove, with its nipped-in waist and full skirt, t
he colour of a summer sky. I could feel tears stinging the backs of my eyes. I wanted Kitty beside me, in a beautiful dress that had belonged to a little girl who loved to sit in trees.
Twenty-Eight
Saturday night found the four of us squashed round the one mirror, teasing our hair and pinching our cheeks.
‘What’s with the pinching?’ I said.
‘Well, unless you have a bit of rouge on you, it’s the next best thing if you want to look fresh and alluring,’ said Molly.
‘Pinching does all that?’ I said, smiling.
‘Definitely.’
I had never known the pure enjoyment of getting ready for an evening out. It really did feel as if I was leaving childish things behind me. Kitty had been my best friend and we had only ever needed each other but I loved being one of the girls. I loved being silly and giggly, instead of worrying about things I had no control over. I felt young and free for the first time in a long while and I loved it.
Josie was looking in the mirror and scowling at what she saw.
‘Jesus,’ she said. ‘It looks for all the world as if someone had taken a match to my head and set in on fire.’
‘Your hair is gorgeous altogether,’ I said. ‘Mine’s a sight for sore eyes.’
‘People pay a fortune to get curls like yours, Nora.’
‘I just wish it was long and flowing,’ I said.
‘Like the Liffey?’ said Josie, grinning.
We all laughed and I was grateful to these girls for lifting me out of the dark place that I had been in for so long.
It was only a short walk from our house to the Irish club. We’d linked arms and were taking up most of the pavement. A couple of women glared at us as they stepped into the road to get past.
