A Strong Hand to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  She remembered feeling that way herself and she also remembered her first Christmas at Jenny’s house and what Maureen O’Leary had said to her. ‘Why?’ she asked Rosemarie. ‘Because you enjoyed yourself?’

  Rosemarie gave a brief nod and Linda said, ‘When your daddy was alive, did he like you to be miserable?’

  Rosemarie shook her head and Jamie looked at her with large solemn brown eyes. ‘Well then,’ Linda said, ‘why would he like you to be miserable now?’ And she added, ‘When my mom and brothers died, I thought I’d never laugh or be happy again, and then that first Christmas I almost forgot about them for a little while as I enjoyed myself and I did feel guilty for a bit. But someone told me that my mother was probably up in Heaven watching out for me, delighted that I was still able to enjoy things.’

  She ran her hand over Rosemarie’s hair and Jamie’s and said, ‘You’ll always miss your daddy, and there’ll be a pain whenever you think of him, but don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for getting on with your life, OK?’

  The children nodded and a tremulous smile touched their lips, and Linda bent down and kissed them both a loving goodnight.

  Later, when Norah was in bed, Jenny sat beside the fire and Linda told her how much the children had enjoyed their visit to the farm. Jenny was glad of it and hoped Geraldine would take a grip of herself in the next day or so. It had surprised her a little, the intense grief that Geraldine had displayed on Dan’s death. She knew her sister had been fond of her husband, and of course he was the children’s father too, but she knew Dan hadn’t been her choice of soul mate. Dan had been her mother’s choice. It was Eamonn Flaherty, dashing, handsome and full of charm, who’d captured her sister’s heart. Eamonn hadn’t liked the influence Norah had over Geraldine. He’d wanted to marry her and take her to America to make a new life for themselves, but at the last minute, Geraldine’s nerve had failed her and only Jenny knew how she used to sob herself to sleep every night after Eamonn had left.

  Dan Driscoll was kind, but stolid, plodding and predictable and didn’t disturb Geraldine’s senses like Eamonn. He must have known that her heart belonged to another and only a fragment of it would ever be his, and yet this was obviously enough for him. He’d always seemed content and Geraldine had settled just doors away from her mother. If Dan ever resented Norah’s interference in their lives, he’d never said so and they’d lived happily enough and he’d adored his children.

  However, Geraldine’s grief for Dan was real, for she’d come to care deeply for him. Now he was gone and Geraldine was frightened of facing life on her own. The burden appeared so great, it didn’t seem worth even making the effort. So she didn’t, even the following week when Peter reduced the tranquillizing drugs that had kept her sedated, and encouraged her to get out of bed and take up the reins of her own household again.

  Geraldine either wouldn’t, or wasn’t able, to rouse herself, nor move back to her own house, and Norah forbade Jenny to try and persuade her. ‘Things will be decided later,’ she said. ‘It’s early days yet. Leave your sister alone.’

  Jenny wasn’t going to argue with either of them. She had enough on her plate as it was.

  The snow had continued to fall, freezing to ice in the bitterly cold nights, and the school holidays had come to an end. Jenny was relieved, for then at least the children would be out of the house. Rosemarie was old enough to take herself and Jamie up to the Abbey School, especially as there were plenty of children on the estate to walk up with.

  It was one less thing to worry about, Jenny thought, and a good job too, because Geraldine didn’t seem to be improving much. Jenny had the feeling her mother was glad of it, and possibly actively encouraging her to wallow in grief as it made Geraldine more dependent on her.

  And Jenny was right. Though Norah would have wished no harm on Dan, his death meant her daughter had turned to her for support. She’d had a unique and deep relationship with her own mother and really would have been happy with just the one daughter. She admired her sons for their handsome features and loved them in her own way, but Geraldine was the one who’d always mattered to her. She only considered she had one daughter, for she never could stand Jenny and anyway, since her birth, Jenny had belonged to Dermot and his family.

  But now, just as Norah had needed her mother, so Geraldine needed Norah. It had gone full circle. Now Jenny could do as she pleased, Norah thought. In fact, she wanted her out of the house as soon as possible. She wished to have Geraldine totally to herself; even the children irked and annoyed her. Funny that she didn’t take to them when they were Geraldine’s after all but then she’d never liked children very much. She was glad when the holidays had come to an end and glad too that that sly venomous bitch Linda seemed to have a soft spot for them, and took them out at weekends.

  Linda knew she wouldn’t be quite so pleased if she knew where she took them sometimes. Dan had been dead two weeks when, on the way back from fetching the rations from the shops on the Tyburn Road, Linda decided to take them to Maureen O’Leary’s. ‘It’s a secret,’ she told them the first day.

  ‘Why?’ Rosemarie wanted to know.

  ‘Because your mom doesn’t like this person much,’ Linda said. ‘They wouldn’t like you going to see her, but I think you should because she’s your great-gran.’

  ‘Great-gran,’ Rosemarie said. She was beginning to understand relationships while Jamie still looked confused. ‘D’you mean with Grandmother Gillespie being Mommy’s mother, this person is our grandad’s mom?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Jamie made a face and Rosemarie didn’t blame him. Neither of them were too keen on grandmothers and they had no desire to meet another one. Grandmother Gillespie was always on to them for one thing and another. Rosemarie, in particular, thought she was monstrously unfair. It wasn’t as if she and Jamie hadn’t loved their father, and she was terribly sorry he wouldn’t ever be back again. She’d cried for hours over it, and Jamie cried so much he’d made himself sick into the chamber pot underneath the bed. She needed her mother badly, they both did, but Geraldine lay sick in bed and their grandmother seemed to have the final say in everything. It was as if they’d lost both parents, not just the one, yet she wasn’t old enough to put these feelings into words. But all in all, she’d had a bellyful of grandmothers and she knew her little brother felt the same. A great-gran was sure to be worse. ‘Why didn’t our mammy like her?’ she asked Linda as they turned in the gate.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s a long story,’ Linda said, not wishing to relate the whole family history to the child.

  ‘Maybe we won’t like her.’

  ‘I think you will,’ Linda said. ‘One thing I do know, you shouldn’t listen to what other people say, you should always make your own mind up. Another thing is you’d be damned hard to please if either of you took a dislike to Maureen O’Leary.’

  Within a few minutes of being in her company and that of the younger lady, Peggy, Rosemarie knew Linda was right. No one could dislike the old woman who hugged them both to her with a genuine warmth although she had tears in her eyes as she did so. She even coaxed Jamie out of his shell; he’d been far too quiet since the news of his father’s death. They liked Peggy too and their great-gran’s son Gerry who seemed to fill any room he was in. Jamie was particularly interested in the chubby toddler Dermot and happy to lie on the floor to build blocks for him to demolish endlessly.

  It was as they sat up to a big feed in the kitchen that, out of the children’s hearing, Maureen expressed her misgivings to Linda. ‘It’s not that I’m not glad to see them,’ she said, ‘don’t think that. But things might be worse for them, if it got back to you-know-who.’

  ‘It can’t really get worse, Gran,’ Linda said. ‘She’s leaping on them for something all the time, the old one that is, their mother lies like a statue. She reminds me of my mom when she got the letter from the corporal about my stepfather and collapsed.’ She smiled a little sadly and said, ‘That was the first tim
e I set eyes on Dr Sanders, when he called to see her. But even he can’t seem to talk sense into Geraldine, and he has tried.’

  ‘Ah well, to lose your man is a heavy burden to carry around,’ Maureen said. ‘If he was a good man, some never really get over it, I’ll miss my Michael until the day I die.’

  ‘But you got on with your life,’ Linda protested. ‘Like I had to.’

  ‘She will too,’ Maureen said. ‘But it will take time.’

  ‘But meanwhile the children are suffering,’ Linda said. ‘It’s a good job they’ve got the farm to go to.’ Linda didn’t say anything else. She’d been telling herself since the first snow-laden day that Max Schulz meant nothing to her, but every time she thought of him since, her heart had seemed to skip a beat. She could say none of this to Maureen O’Leary who’d expressed her views on the whole German nation so bitterly and not that long ago either.

  ‘How do you get over there?’ she asked.

  ‘Sam Phelps comes to fetch us,’ Linda said. ‘He says Sarah likes my company, especially in weather like this when she can’t get out much, and the children get on well and more importantly they can be children again. Rosemarie and Jamie are able to forget, for a little while at least, what has happened to their daddy.’

  Just at that moment, Jamie let out a squeal of laughter at some tomfoolery Gerry was doing to put the children at their ease. Immediately, he clapped his hand across his mouth, while tears squeezed out of his eyes and ran down his cheeks. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered.

  ‘You see how she has them?’ Linda hissed angrily. ‘Scared to laugh. Scared to bloody well live.’

  Dear God, Maureen thought, but to the child she said with a smile, ‘Sorry, boy? Nothing to be sorry about,’ and then added in mock severity, ‘but you’ll be sorry in a minute, if you don’t eat that last piece of soda bread. I’m just after having made it only this morning. Come on now, get it down you.’

  Jamie scrubbed the tears from his eyes with his sleeve and looked at his new great-grandmother he couldn’t remember ever having met before. She was buttering and putting jam on a slice of the nicest bread he’d ever tasted. He’d never seen anyone like the woman with a body so fat it shook when she laughed. Her face was lined and she had two chins one behind the other, but her hazel eyes were the kindest he’d ever seen and her mouth seemed to be made to smile. He gave a small sigh and tucked into the soda bread, and Rosemarie met her new great-grandmother’s eyes and flashed her a smile of gratitude.

  Later, going home, Linda said, ‘I wouldn’t mention where we’ve been today if I were you. You wouldn’t want to upset your mother and grandmother, I’m sure.’ Neither child wanted to upset their mother further, but if they’d been honest both would have had to say it was the threat of their grandmother’s angry tantrums, which they’d witnessed just a few times, but which they were terrified of, which would still their tongues. Without being told they also knew if they were to breathe a word of where they’d been, they’d never be allowed to go there again. So Rosemarie knew she spoke for both of them when she said, ‘You needn’t worry, Linda, we won’t say a word.’

  TWENTY

  ‘I think you have an admirer,’ Jenny said.

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ But though Linda dismissed Jenny’s words, she’d felt the man’s eyes boring into her all evening. It bothered and embarrassed her. She wasn’t used to such admiration. The servicemen she’d sung to had often jostled around her after the performance and vied for her attention, and some had pleaded with her to go out with them. But very few had just stared at her like this man had done, and yet he’d made no move to speak to her, even now when she was on her break.

  Not that she’d have wanted him to; he wasn’t her sort – a proper toff, that’s what – and she had no time for them.

  Why then, she wondered, had she agreed to sing at Packington Hall? Didn’t she know the place would be full of toffs? Only the rich could afford to eat in the plush and opulent restaurant set up alongside the hotel where the waiters were dressed up to look like penguins. Linda had never seen a place like it.

  Feet sank in the thick pile carpets and snow-white cloths covered the tables, there was so much cutlery beside the plates, Linda knew she wouldn’t know which to use. The wine glasses sparkled in the light from the dazzling chandeliers and they had red napkins arranged like fans inside them; fresh flowers graced every table.

  Even the chairs the waiter pulled out from the table for the diners were padded, and some had arms too – polished so hard they shone. The men all wore suits and ties and some had funny clothes on that were similar, at least to Linda’s unaccustomed eyes, to the waiters’ outfits. Jenny told her they were dinner suits. The women’s dresses fair took Linda’s breath away, for they were so beautiful, though she was shocked that some of them had no back at all. Others were cut so low at the front they showed their bosoms and some had slits so high, you could see much more than a flash of thigh. Linda remembered the drab clothes in the shops and knew most people couldn’t even afford those because they hadn’t enough coupons, and she wondered how these rich women had come by their wonderful clothes. Some shimmered in the chandelier’s lights, others sparkled and rustled as they walked. They wore strappy shoes despite the winter weather, and sheer silk stockings, and had fur stoles around their shoulders. Their necks were hung with jewellery and there were even decorations in their hair. ‘D’you think they know there’s a war on?’ Linda whispered to Jenny.

  ‘There isn’t for them, I shouldn’t think,’ Jenny said. ‘Money talks.’

  And Linda knew it did, because the car park was full of cars and not just ordinary ones either, but big flashy cars. It was a strange sight for Linda. Precious few people she knew owned cars and those that did couldn’t use them if they wanted to, with the petrol rationing being so strict, unless of course they were a farmer like Sam, or a doctor like Peter.

  But still it was no good her moaning, for Packington Hall paid good money for her and Flora to sing and play to their guests. At first, Linda had been loath to accept the job, as things were still dicey at home with Geraldine still installed in the boys’ bedroom, two weeks after she’d received the fateful telegram. But Sam told her if she didn’t soon make up her mind, the manager would get someone else and then where would she be? When Jenny heard that, she insisted Linda should at least go for the audition. The result of that was that by the third week in January, Linda and Flora were engaged for Friday nights. If they proved popular, the manager said, perhaps Saturday nights would be offered at a later date. In addition to their wages, they had their taxi fares paid both ways. Linda had insisted on that, knowing no trams would go near Packington Hall and she had no wish to traverse the winter nights in her satin gown and soft slippers. This was her debut night after spending the week rehearsing with Flora and that first Friday night, the medley they put together proved very popular indeed.

  Jenny had come along on the first night, both to give Linda encouragement and to check out the place for her as Linda was not yet seventeen. She was impressed by the restaurant itself and the clientele they got, and thought Linda had done rather well for herself. She approved of the arrangements for a taxi there and back that Linda had negotiated, and realized that the girl was well able to look after herself.

  But she was unnerved by the distinguished man who was so obviously impressed by Linda. Why hadn’t he come over to speak to her in the normal way? She’d made a joke about it, but really it was no laughing matter. What if he made a nuisance of himself? She imagined Linda would give him short shrift, but how would that go down in a place like this? Linda and Flora could be out on their ear before they’d really begun.

  Linda had scarcely been aware of the man’s scrutiny in the first half, but after Jenny’s comment, she became embarrassed by it as the evening drew on. She wondered what he was after; for a man in his position was usually after something. He probably thought she was some easy piece. Well, he’d soon find out his mistake if he said anything sug
gestive or offensive to her. She’d clock him one and the job could go to blazes.

  In fact, Charles Haversham thought he’d never seen anyone quite like Linda. She was so beautiful and vulnerable-looking, and her voice had a haunting quality about it that mesmerized him. The older men at his table had barely noticed the entertainment. They’d commented briefly on the singer being a pretty little thing with a damned good voice, but then they’d returned to their general conversation and attacked their meals with gusto. Charles thought they had no soul. But he noticed others around the room who had been affected like himself; women as well as men were enthralled by the girl and when she finished the evening with ‘We’ll Meet Again’, he noticed many people dabbing at damp eyes.

  Linda saw the reaction and was glad they’d agreed to include the old wartime favourite, for everyone knew it and most liked it and it was appropriate for the last song of the night. She listened to the applause and so did the restaurant manager. The little girl was a find, all right, he decided – a regular little gold mine she might turn out to be. Still, it wouldn’t do to show her he was too pleased, he couldn’t risk her getting above herself and asking for more money, but he’d let her know that he was moderately satisfied.

  A fortnight later, Flora and Linda were working on Saturday night as well as Friday. It meant a lot of work for them both as they needed time to rehearse two evenings’ work, though the money was useful. Linda had wanted Jenny to take a good share of it, but she wouldn’t. She said Linda already gave her most of her wages and she would take no more. Linda argued with her, but to no avail. There was little to buy in the shops, for even if you had the money you seldom had the points needed and she had opened a Post Office account where she put any money she had left at the end of the week. Now all she earned at Packington Hall was deposited in there too. Things were much easier for Jenny too these days, with Linda’s wages contributing to the household expenses; together with the rises she herself had had over the years, it meant she had been able to save a little to buy things for her bottom drawer after the war when there might be more about.