by Joan Lingard
She told him about the girls at work, how she had envied them going out all dressed up to have a night out. ‘But I don’t envy them really, Kevin. I’d rather come home to you.’
‘Good.’ He released her. ‘I tell you what. If you give me the food I’ll cook it for you tonight. I can’t promise not to burn it, mind, but I’ll do my best.’
Her smile faded. ‘Well … to tell the truth, love, I left it at the shop.’
‘You left it! For heaven’s sake, Sadie, you’re an absolute twit!’
‘You’ve no call to say that to me. Anyone can forget a thing once in a while.’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘Oh, don’t let’s start up arguing again. We’re devils for it. I’ll go down to the Indian shop and get us some fish fingers. You could set the table and make some toast for us.’
‘OK. I’ll burn my fingers for your sake!’
She ran along the street feeling happy again. It had been stupid of her to think that Rita and her friends were better off than she was. Kevin was the best boy in the whole world and she was lucky to be with him.
The Indian shop was busy. It was self-service and open till late at night. People often stopped on their way home from work to buy their groceries. Sadie pushed her way round with the wire basket buying two or three things, unable to afford very much with the prospect of the dress to pay for. In front of the deep freeze she came upon Lara.
‘Hello,’ said Sadie.
‘Hello.’ Lara smiled. She had a beautiful smile, wide and serene.
‘I left the sausages at work,’ said Sadie, taking a packet of fish fingers from the fridge.
Lara laughed. ‘Your husband would not like that.’
‘He didn’t.’ Sadie made a face. ‘But he’s recovered.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘I was wondering if you’d like to come in and have a cup of coffee sometime. Wednesday afternoon. It’s my half-day. You could bring the baby.’
Lara hesitated too before she spoke. ‘That would be nice. Thank you. I will try.’
‘Good.’
Sadie ran all the way home again and arrived with her cheeks flushed pink. A smell of scorching met her.
‘It’s no easy business making toast on a bar like this,’ said Kevin.
‘Never mind,’ she cried gaily. ‘I like burnt toast.’
As she put down the fish fingers she noticed the letter on the table. ‘From Brede?’
Kevin nodded. ‘My mother’s ill. She’s to have an operation.’
‘Oh Kevin! I’m sorry.’
‘I wish I was nearer,’ he sighed.
Sadie put the fish fingers on to fry, her elation gone. She knew how fond Kevin was of his mother. She had brought up nine children without complaining. Sadie felt ashamed of her outburst earlier.
‘I’d better tell you the other bad news,’ he said. ‘I’ll be out of a job on Friday, though the woman at the bureau thinks there’s a good chance of another. Digging roads again!’ He spoke bitterly. She looked at him with surprise: it was unlike him to speak with bitterness.
‘Me ma always said bad luck always comes in threes,’ said Sadie. ‘We’ve had our three now: getting burgled, your mother, and now your job.’
‘That’s a load of rubbish, old wives’ tales. I’ve no time for them.’
‘OK. Keep your hair on.’
They did not talk much over their meal. Afterwards Sadie washed the dishes and Kevin dried them and then they sat down again in front of the fire, the only place in the room where it was warm. The same old thing every evening, thought Sadie, immediately banning the thought from her mind like an evil suggestion. They could hear the television blaring in the room next door. If the sound had been a little higher they could have heard the actual words. As it was it was just enough to annoy them.
‘Wish we’d a telly,’ said Sadie.
‘Wish we’d a lot of things.’
‘We can’t sit here like this every night. I’ll do my nut.’
‘Want to go for a walk?’
‘Not really.’
They sat, half-mesmerized by the noise of the television. It sounded like a Western film, judging from the music and the thud of horses’ hooves. Kevin, tired after the hard day’s work out of doors and the long walk home, lay back with his eyes half-closed, thinking he should write to his father. He hated writing letters. His lids sank down, flickered up for a brief moment before resting on his eyes again. Sadie muttered, shook her head. She would have to take up knitting, there was nothing else for it. She hated knitting, always had from the time her mother had tried to teach her when she was six years old. ‘You’re all thumbs, Sadie! For dear sake, will you pay attention?’ She missed her mother and she had never thought she would. Her mother had a tongue as tart as a lemon and she was narrow and bigoted in what she believed and yet …
Sadie kicked Kevin in the shin. His eyes jerked open in panic. ‘Wake up,’ she said. ‘It’s like living with an ould man sitting here every night watching you sleeping.’
He sat up, yawning and rubbed his eyes. ‘I believe I was clean away there.’
‘Kevin, what are we going to do?’ she demanded.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, we can’t go on like this, can we?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe we can’t do anything else?’
‘We could go back to Belfast.’
‘Go back to Belfast?’ he said slowly. ‘But, Sadie, think of all the trouble –’
‘Ach, we can take the lot on,’ she said scornfully. ‘I don’t care about a few bombs. There are parts of the town we can live where there’s no trouble and nobody’d know us, but we could go and see our families. Anyway, I hate this place. I want to go back to Belfast.’
‘Yes, I suppose so do I.’
Turning to look at one another, the decision formed gradually but surely between them.
‘Shall we go then?’ asked Kevin.
Sadie nodded. ‘Let’s.’
They no longer hunched over the fire. Kevin, in a mood of cheerfulness, set to work on a radio he had bought for a few pence, whistling as he sorted out the bits and pieces. To get away from this room and the drudge of trying to live and breathe in London! Sadie sang as she packed their suitcases. They could not go for a week but she wanted to pack now so that she could really believe they were going.
‘I shall give notice to Mrs Kyrakis tomorrow,’ she said gaily. ‘In writing. And I shall tell ould Cullen, that boot-faced female at work, that she can stuff her stupid job from Saturday on!’
They would collect their pay at the end of the week, clear up the room on Sunday and cross on the overnight ferry on Monday. Kevin would easily get a job somewhere in Ulster, he might get a job on a farm and then they could live in the country. They loved the country though they forgot that evening that they liked the city too, and that they were essentially city dwellers who were miserable if they were deprived for long of streets to walk. Tonight they were optimistic and buoyant: they were leaving London and going home.
Kevin screwed the back on to the radio. He turned the knob and music poured into the room.
‘It works!’ he cried.
‘Hurrah!’ shouted Sadie. ‘It’s a good omen. Things are changing for us. For the better!’
They went to bed that night feeling happier than they had done for days.
CHAPTER SIX
Five to seven on a grey winter’s morning. This was one when Sadie did not mind putting her bare feet on the icy linoleum and standing in front of the fire to dress, with the calves of her legs scorching and the rest of her body tingling with cold. She sang. They were going home. Home! She would go into the kitchen and there would be her mother in her rollers and overall flipping over the bacon in the pan and her father would be sitting in his chair reading the paper and then Tommy would come in from the shipyard in his overalls …
‘The kettle’s boiling,’ said Kevin.
The room was full of steam. Sadie seized the kettle, made the tea. Kevin tried the wireless: it stil
l worked.
‘Boys, am I not the clever one!’ he said with a grin. ‘We’ll be able to get the seven o’clock news.’
The first item on the news was about Ulster. Two soldiers had been shot in Belfast during the night, one was dead, the other seriously ill. A bomb had exploded in a public house: two people were injured, the rest escaped with minor cuts and bruises. And a young girl had been tarred and feathered for going out with British soldiers.
‘A normal night in Belfast from the sounds of it,’ said Kevin with the same bitterness in his voice again. Sadie glanced at him uneasily as she poured the tea. Crouching in front of the electric fire she made the toast and listened to the news reader giving fuller details of the incidents.
Sadie knew the pub. Sometimes Tommy went there for a pint. But she couldn’t believe that Tommy would have been there. She didn’t want to believe it. Anyway, she told herself, no one had been killed. And then she saw how terrible it was when you had to be grateful if someone was only injured and had escaped with his life.
‘Sadie!’ said Kevin, touching her arm. ‘Listen!’
Her mind had wandered away from the broadcast and was thinking of Tommy.
‘It’s Kate Kelly,’ said Kevin. Sadie frowned, and he added, ‘The girl that’s been tarred and feathered.’
They listened. The girl’s name was repeated again as Kate Kelly and the area of the city in which she lived was named too. It was Kevin’s district.
‘It must be the same one,’ whispered Sadie.
A crowd of women had taken the girl, tied her to a lamp-post, and cut her hair off, and then she had been tarred and feathered. She had been associating with a member of the British army, a woman had told the reporter. Another girl, a friend of Kate’s, had tried to help her but the women had held her back. No one else had gone to her aid. The girl who had been tarred and feathered was now in hospital suffering from shock.
‘The Transport and General Workers’ Union …’
Kevin switched off the radio abruptly, and the room seemed very quiet. Kevin had worked for Kate Kelly’s father who owned a junkyard near Kevin’s house. Kate had been sweet on Kevin for a long time, he had taken her out once or twice but that was all, and when he had left Belfast he had not felt very kindly towards her for she had involved him in some trouble with the police. But he had forgiven her that and could not stomach the idea of her being shorn and tarred whilst she was tied helpless to a lamp-post.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Sadie. ‘Would she go out with a soldier? I thought she was hanging around with some IRA Provisional?’
‘Ach, Kate doesn’t think what she’s about. She’s got about as much wit as a sparrow. But she doesn’t deserve to be treated like that,’ said Kevin. ‘She’s not one who cares about politics or issues. She probably saw a soldier and fancied him and never stopped to think she’d be accused of fraternizing with the enemy! Bit of an eejit, there’s no getting away from it.’
‘It’s horrible,’ cried Sadie. ‘Horrible! Just think, it could have been Brede.’
‘No,’ said Kevin. ‘Brede’s too careful. She’s a peacemaker. But I’m thinking it could have been Brede who tried to help her. She wouldn’t stand at the back and not help a friend in trouble.’ Kevin’s face darkened. ‘If those women have harmed Brede I’ll kill them!’
‘It wouldn’t help anything,’ said Sadie quietly. Often she had said such things and then Kevin had quietened her. She put her hand on his shoulder. It was good to have someone to sort things out with: it helped you to get your balance.
‘Give us another cup of tea, Sadie love.’ Kevin held out the cup.
‘Have you time?’
‘I’m making it this morning.’ He held the cup steady whilst she poured the tea.
‘We always seem to be drinking tea,’ said Sadie. ‘Like me ma and her cronies. I never thought I’d be doing it.’
‘It helps keep us warm. Sadie, I don’t know what gets into people that they have to be as vicious as that.’
‘Poor Kate,’ said Sadie, taking Kevin’s hand.
Kate had not liked Sadie, of course, for she was a Protestant and had attracted Kevin from the first time they met, but all of that did not matter now. Sadie could feel what it would be like to be tied to a lamp-post, cords binding your arms, women jeering around you, their faces full of venom, and then the tar thick and sticky covering your scalp, trickling down into your eyes and threatening to blind you … She shivered.
‘How could we live there, Kevin?’ she said softly. ‘How could we? You and I together.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘No, you’re right, we couldn’t. Maybe we’ll be able to go back home some day when it’s all settled …’
How it would be settled they could not begin to imagine.
Kevin got up, lifted his jacket.
‘Your lunch!’ cried Sadie. ‘I’ve nothing ready.’
‘Never mind. I’ll buy a pie or something like that.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
He kissed her and went, walking quickly today for he was late, but still stopping for a brief moment at the other side of the window as he always did. Sadie took the suitcases from under the bed and unpacked them.
At lunchtime she bought two orange mugs and a remnant of orange material which would be about the right size to cover the old brown velveteen cushion in the armchair. The purchases cheered her, and when she returned to the cloakroom she opened the parcel and showed them to Rita.
‘Nice colours,’ said Rita. ‘Do you like being married?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Wouldn’t change places with you myself. Won’t catch me getting married for a few years yet. I want a good time first.’
‘But I do have a good time,’ said Sadie. ‘With Kevin.’
She hurried home after work that day, running to catch trains, pushing and shoving with the rest to make sure she would not be left behind.
The light was on: Kevin was home.
‘I’ve got a surprise for you,’ he said, holding his hands behind his back. ‘Shut your eyes.’
She shut her eyes, opened them when he told her to. He was holding two yellow mugs. She laughed.
‘Don’t you like them?’
‘Sure they’re the loveliest mugs I ever set eyes on.’ She pulled the paper off her parcel. ‘And what about these?’
‘Well,’ said Kevin, eyeing the two orange mugs she held out, ‘I would say they’re the loveliest mugs I ever set eyes on.’
‘Now we can have visitors,’ said Sadie.
‘That’s right,’ said Kevin. ‘We shall have to consider carefully who we’ll ask.’
‘The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh?’
Kevin made a face. ‘Let’s have somebody groovy!’
After tea Sadie sewed the cushion cover and Kevin wrote a letter to his father and a separate one to his mother. The radio played, the mugs shone on the shelf, and the piece of orange material glowed between Sadie’s hands.
‘I think we’ll save for a lamp,’ she said. ‘And then we won’t need to have that horrible light on over our heads. It’ll be cosier that way.’
It was the best evening that they had had for a while.
Sadie loved Wednesdays. To finish work at one o’clock seemed to her ideal. On her way home she bought some little cakes and Demerara sugar. She cleaned the room, set out the mugs and plumped up the orange cushion. She looked round. The place did not look too bad after all.
Lara came promptly at three carrying the baby and a bunch of bronze chrysanthemums. She offered the flowers shyly to Sadie.
‘They’re lovely!’ Sadie buried her face in the fresh moist flowers. ‘Thank you very much, Lara. I love flowers.’
‘That’s good,’ said Lara with a smile. The baby gurgled.
‘Please come in,’ said Sadie. ‘You are my very first visitors!’
Lara said that she was honoured. She settled herself in the armchair with her back against the orange cushio
n. Sadie made coffee and gave the baby a drink of orange juice. He crawled around the floor investigating all the things in the room, quickly getting grubby. Lara said she did not mind, a little dirt did not harm him. She sat back looking serene and composed. In the evening Sadie told Kevin that she intended to be like that some day, unruffled and serene, taking everything in her stride without ever blowing a fuse. When she was eighty she might be, Kevin said.
Sadie chattered, telling Lara about Ulster and their families and how they would like to go home but couldn’t.
‘Yes,’ said Lara. ‘It is difficult to make a mixed marriage. I myself would not do it.’
‘You wouldn’t?’
Lara shook her head. ‘There is less chance of success. I have seen many marriages of my friends to white men. They have lots of troubles and so do their children. I think it is better when like sticks to like.’
‘Oh,’ said Sadie, nonplussed.
‘That doesn’t mean I disapprove of you marrying a man of a different religion. Everyone must make up her own mind.’
‘Kevin and I have no troubles between us. It’s only other people that cause it.’
‘You will have some difficulty. When you have children.’ Lara smiled. ‘But I am sure you will manage.’
Children, thought Sadie, who had not thought about them before except in the vague sense of realizing that she would probably have some one day.
‘Kevin will want them brought up Catholic,’ she said slowly.
‘And you?’
‘I don’t fancy them going to confession and crossing themselves …’ Sadie stopped. ‘Ach well, it’s a while off yet. I’ll not worry about that.’
She told Kevin of their conversation in the evening. He was bent over the radio fiddling with some wires at the back and did not look up.
‘I suppose they’ll need to be brought up as Catholics, won’t they?’ said Sadie. ‘Your church’ll make you.’
Kevin shrugged. ‘It’s not exactly a case of making you.’
‘Oh well!’ Sadie sat down beside him on the floor and hugged her knees with her arms. ‘I suppose I’ll get used to the idea.’
‘Matter of fact there was something I was wanting to ask you.’ Kevin still kept his head bent over the radio. ‘Do you remember, I mentioned it the other day?’
