by Anne Bennett
* * *
Ben was almost speechless with surprise when Gloria told him he was going to a Christmas party.
‘They told me that first they are putting on a variety show for all of you, then you have the special party tea, and then you’ll see Father Christmas, only they call him Santa Claus.’
‘Some of the kids at school say that Father Christmas isn’t real,’ Ben said.
‘And what do you say?’
Ben shrugged. ‘I’m not sure.’
‘I’ll tell you what I am sure of,’ Gloria said.
‘What’s that?’
‘That every child who does believe will get a present.’ She added with a smile, ‘Are you sure now?’
‘You bet I am,’ Ben replied, and his grin nearly split his face in two. ‘Presents! Oh, boy!’
Gloria was to learn that the Christmas parties for the children had begun in 1941. Five months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, civilian technicians and construction engineers arrived in Derry to build the naval base, and their kindness to the children had endeared them to many of the Derry people. And that first year they took over the Rialto Cinema and entertained 7,200 children, and Santa Claus arrived in a beech wagon throwing sweets.
‘Gosh!’ Gloria exclaimed when she heard this in the canteen one day at work. ‘I wonder how they catered for so many.’
‘It doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?’ Helen said with a shudder.
‘Like my worst nightmare, that,’ one of the other women said.
‘Aye, you got to hand it to them,’ said another. ‘Must have nerves of steel. Harder job, I’d say, than facing the enemy.’
There was laughter at this, and then Gloria said, ‘Where does it all come from – all the fancy food, the sweets and the toys and everything?’
‘Your neck of the woods,’ the first woman said. ‘America, where else? It was a shock for many coming here and seeing how the people were living, and when they told them back home apparently they couldn’t do enough to help.’
‘I’m so glad they did,’ Gloria said. ‘I have never seen my son so excited about anything.’
Gloria had seldom worked as hard as she did at that party, for she had never seen so many children gathered in one place before. After the party tea, there was a conjuror to entertain the children while the ladies cleared away before the arrival of Santa Claus. When everything was done, Gloria slipped outside for a breath of air.
She wasn’t feeling too good. She had a pounding headache, probably brought on by the row she had had with Joe that morning before she and Ben had left. It hadn’t been helped, of course, by the screams and shouts of hundreds of excited children, and she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, welcoming the blasts of cold air hitting her face. ‘Penny for them.’
She knew the voice, she wasn’t even surprised, and she opened her eyes to see Morrisey smiling at her. ‘You don’t want to share my thoughts, Officer Morrisey,’ she said.
‘Well, they sure as hell aren’t making you happy,’ Morrisey said. ‘And isn’t it about time that you started calling me Philip?’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘Sure you could. It’s an easy enough name to say.’
‘It’s not that.’
‘Well, what is it?’ Morrisey asked. ‘Your name is Gloria and mine is Philip. What’s the harm in using our given names?’
‘None, I suppose.’
‘So?’
‘All right,’ Gloria said with a smile. ‘Your name is Philip.’
‘Yes, and now that we have that established, Gloria, haven’t you heard about a problem shared being a problem halved?’
‘Yes, but that won’t help in this case.’
‘How can you be the judge of that?’
Gloria wasn’t going to admit the real cause of her unhappiness and so she said instead, ‘I hate living in Buncrana. The place stifles me.’
‘I understand it,’ Phillip said. ‘I would die a death buried in a place like Buncrana for years, however pretty it is.’
‘The point is that we have the possibility of leaving here soon and Joe won’t even consider it,’ Gloria said.
‘Oh, yeah? How come, when living here is making you so unhappy?’
‘Oh, it’s all tied up with a sort of pact he made with his brother,’ Gloria said, and she went on to tell Philip about the money that Tom had raised for Joe’s fare to America and the promise Joe made that they would stay in Buncrana for a year until Tom made up his mind what he would do.
‘He should never have made that promise without asking you first,’ Phillip said.
‘Maybe not,’ Gloria replied, ‘but he did, and that is that, and he would rather chop off his right arm than break a promise he made to his brother. But if we don’t take this flat I just can’t see us ever leaving here. Anyway, I must go in now, and I’m sorry for burdening you with personal issues. It was wrong of me.’
‘Why was it?’
‘Those are not things that should be spoken of outside the family, and should never be brought to work.’
‘Why not?’ Philip asked. ‘I don’t know your husband and probably will never meet him, but what you have said maybe explains how sad you look at times.’
Philip held her trembling hands as she tried to leave, and said, ‘Don’t be afraid of me. I would never hurt you and I know that you are married and therefore spoken for, but I have to say that you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and your husband should tell you that often.’
‘Please, Philip, you’re embarrassing me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, dropping his hands.
Gloria knew that she had to leave this man, to get away while she still could. ‘Please let me go,’ she said.
‘Not until I tell you how much I love you,’ Phillip said. ‘I have only just acknowledged the depth of feeling that I have for you. It’s been eating me up inside for weeks, ever since we met, really, but more particularly since the dance.’
‘You mustn’t say these things, Philip,’ Gloria told him, stepping away from him.
‘Even if they are true?’
‘No, they mustn’t be true,’ Gloria cried. ‘Philip, I can offer you nothing.’
‘I know that,’ Philip said. ‘It doesn’t help.’
‘You must see that this is wrong?’ Gloria said. She was aware of her heart thudding against her ribs and a weakness affecting all her limbs. She sighed and ran her clammy hands down the overall she still wore, and said in a voice that shook slightly, ‘I will leave you now.’
Philip reached out and drew Gloria into his arms. Then he bent his head and kissed the tears from her cheeks that she hadn’t been aware she had shed. She gasped and for a second their eyes met and they stared at one another. She saw the love light shining in Philip’s deep dark eyes and knew it was mirrored in her own. ‘Oh, Philip,’ she cried, and she could no more have prevented the kiss than she could have prevented the sun from shining.
As their lips met, it was as if an explosion happened inside Gloria. She knew her innards were on fire for Philip Morrisey and her heart felt heavy, for she knew this man was forbidden to her. So she kissed him with everything in her for she knew that that kiss would have to last her a lifetime. When they eventually broke away they were both breathless and yearning for more. Gloria realised that she had reached a turning point and she had to put the brakes on because the sin was all hers. She was the one already committed.
Neither was aware of the passage of time, that the conjuror was long finished and that Santa Claus had given Ben a football. It was the very thing that Ben had wanted for years, and he was so full of exhilaration at getting such a magnificent present he had wanted to show his mother.
But she had been nowhere to be seen in the building and so he had gone in search of her. And he had found her, in the arms of another man and kissing him.
Ben thought all kissing between men and women disgusting and sloppy, and he didn’t even like his own parents engagi
ng in it. Not that he had seen them doing much of it lately, but that didn’t give his mother the right to go around kissing other men. But he didn’t know what to do about it, and in the end he slunk back inside.
Helen looked at Ben’s unhappy face and said, ‘Did you find her?’
Ben shook his head. He certainly didn’t want anyone else to know what he had seen. However, just after Ben had gone into the main hall with the other children, Helen saw Gloria and Philip come in together.
One look at their flushed faces and Gloria’s tousled hair told its own tale and caused prickles of apprehension to run down Helen’s spine. She knew her friend was playing a dangerous game and she wondered how much Ben had seen, for something had badly disturbed him.
TWENTY
‘What’s the matter with Ben?’ Joe asked Gloria, the evening before Christmas Eve. ‘He hasn’t been himself for days.’
Gloria had been aware that there was something up and she had an idea that it was something that had happened at the party, for he had been tetchy on the way home, though she had no idea what it was.
‘How would I know?’ she said to Joe. ‘He’s said nothing to me, but it’s you he usually talks to if something is bothering him.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ Joe agreed. ‘But this time I can barely get a word out of him.’
‘I bet what Father Christmas leaves on Christmas morning will put a smile on his face,’ Gloria said.
It ought to, because into his stocking that year the silver sixpence, bar of chocolate and apple would be joined by a yo-yo, a bag of marbles, and a tin whistle, which Joe said he would teach him to play. But pride of place, on the bedroom floor would be the fort and lead soldiers that had belonged to Helen’s brothers, which Nellie thought Ben would like.
‘Well, it might,’ said Joe. ‘But then again it might not. I thought he would be over the moon to have a ball of his own, but he has barely looked at it since he brought it home.’
‘I know,’ Gloria said. ‘He can’t seem to care less about it.’
Ben could have told his mother that every time he took the ball in his hands, he would see her wrapped in that man’s arms, and so he had no desire even to pick it up. But he didn’t say this because he kept that secret tight inside him, and that was where it was going to stay.
Initially, he had intended to tell his father about it, and almost did the following evening as they’d milked the cows in the byre, but he stopped himself. He had the feeling that to put what he saw into words would make things worse, not better, so he decided to say nothing and try to forget it had ever happened.
When Gloria had told Helen of Ben’s strange behaviour over the ball, she remembered seeing the boy’s amazed, joyful face when Father Christmas gave it to him, when he had been so overwhelmed that he almost forgot to thank him. But when she met him later, he looked confused and upset. He claimed he hadn’t been able to find his mother and yet she had come in with Philip only a short time afterwards.
What would it achieve, though, if she told Gloria this now? So, what she had said to Gloria was, ‘Christmas will give him a boost, you’ll see, and he would probably like you at home as well. We are lucky to get Christmas Day and Boxing Day off.’
Gloria said nothing because she wasn’t looking forward to it one bit. All she could think was that she wouldn’t see Phillip for two whole days. Since the kiss on the day of the party, she had avoided any situation where she might be alone with the man who disturbed her senses so much. She knew she had to do that because she was so greatly attracted to him that she couldn’t trust herself.
She knew he was aware of how she felt, for she had seen it in his speculative eyes, but he never made any sort of approach to her or made things awkward for her in any way. He knew as well as she did that neither of them could risk any sort of relationship developing between them, for that would lead to heartache for both of them, and she didn’t dare think of the damage to Ben if it should leak out.
Just to see Philip in the canteen or around the camp was enough to set her pulses racing, and she felt quite bereft at the thought of not catching sight of him at all for two days. She found herself wishing the holiday was over and she was back at work. Immediately she felt guilty. What sort of mother was she who didn’t want to be with her child on Christmas Day? She really had to get a grip on herself.
First, though, they had Christmas Eve to get through.
It started badly with a row with Joe before she left that morning. ‘The sailors have to eat on Christmas Eve as well, you know,’ she snapped. ‘You just think yourself lucky that I have the next two days off, because the canteen is still open and I am not the only married one there.’
‘It’s not right,’ Joe said stiffly. ‘In the New Year we will have to rethink this whole business of your job at that camp.’
Gloria gave a hard brittle laugh. ‘Think all you like,’ she said, ‘but I will not give up my job and, anyway, I couldn’t really afford to and you know it. My wages are what buys much of the food to put on the table and so you stick to the high moral ground and we will all go hungry.’
Joe was silent because he knew that Gloria spoke the absolute truth. The harvest had been a poor one that year because the weather had been wet. Added to that, the milk yield was well down, and the death of the farrowing sow and all her piglets had been a blow. There was still the vet’s bill to pay. Without a sizeable proportion of Gloria’s wages the winter would be a very lean one.
Joe felt the helplessness he’d felt in New York when he couldn’t afford to provide adequately for his family and this frustration caused him to rap out, ‘Go on then to your precious job. It’s all you seem to care about anyway.’
‘And can you wonder at that?’ Gloria had said quietly as she lifted her coat from behind the door. ‘Remember, as the trains are running only a skeleton service today, Helen and I are getting a lift home, so I might be a little later than usual.’
‘Does Joe mind you working Christmas Eve?’ Helen said as they settled themselves in the train.
Gloria sighed. ‘Joe minds about everything almost as a matter of course. But I have already decided that I will not let Joe’s attitude spoil things for me.’
‘Good for you,’ Helen said. ‘We only have the one life so we might as well try and enjoy it while we can.’
When they finished for the day, there was a little buffet arranged for the workers with food that many hadn’t seen in years, particularly those from Derry, who had their foodstuffs rationed. They tucked into proper sausage rolls, huge pork pies and slices of ham and pork. Even proper bread and butter was a treat when the usual bread was the grey National Loaf, and butter just a distant memory. And all this was followed by mince pies, chocolate log and Christmas cake.
There was punch to drink, and though the other women claimed it was delicious, Gloria and Helen viewed it rather dubiously. Colin and Philip waved their caution aside.
‘There is alcohol in it,’ Colin said, ‘but not that much. A couple of glasses will do no harm at all.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Philip said. ‘We have no desire to drive the pair of you home singing.’
‘Are you taking us back then?’ Helen asked.
‘Yes,’ Colin said. ‘Does that worry you?’
‘No. Should it?’
‘Let’s wait and see, shall we?’
Philip’s eyes met Gloria’s suddenly, and his smile caused her knees to quake.
The previous time they had travelled in the car with the two men, the petty officers had sat at the front and the woman at the back, but that day Colin, who was driving, called Helen to sit up beside him, and Gloria and Philip got in the back together. Gloria’s whole body was trembling and she wasn’t surprised when Philip ’s arm slid around her. She didn’t repulse it, though in her heart of hearts she knew she should have done.
She had allowed him to hold her once before, and ended up kissing him, and though it was too wonderful to truly regret, she knew she shouldn’t have done
it. Whatever she felt for him, she must go no further because soon she would be past the point of no return.
So, if she felt like that, why didn’t she slip out of his arms now? She didn’t understand herself at all, because she did the exact opposite and let her body sag against Philip’s with a sigh. Philip heard the sigh and smiled to himself, and he cuddled Gloria closer, a thing he had fantasised about doing for so long.
They talked of generalities until they reached the streets of Buncrana, and then to Gloria’s surprise Colin stopped the car at the bottom of the hill and got out.
‘Got to be the driver now, sweetheart,’ Philip said as he disentangled himself. ‘Come up and sit beside me.’
‘But why are you driving?’
Philip smiled. ‘Colin has other things to do,’ he said, adding to Colin, ‘Pick you up later, buddy. Same place.’
Colin, with his arm tight around Helen, gave a wave, and Philip drove up the hill and along the road towards the farm. As they neared it, Gloria felt misery envelop her and she knew that she didn’t want to go home.
When she sighed this time, Philip knew that it wasn’t a sigh of contentment and he said, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ Gloria said. ‘Well, at least nothing special. I am just fed up with everything.’
‘I think,’ said Philip, ‘that it is more than that. I believe you are deeply unhappy.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘It’s in every line of your body,’ Philip said. ‘And sometimes in your face and manner. You were made for joy and laughter, Gloria. Your smile would light up the room and your eyes are the most beautiful that I have ever seen. I would like to see them dancing with delight. You deserve to be happy.’
‘Does anyone really deserve that?’ Gloria said. ‘I married Joe of my own free will when I was nineteen and I promised to love, honour and obey him for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death parts us. Nowhere does it mention that I should be happy in that marriage, though I was for many years, and now Joe is an unhappy as me.’
