Name Upon Name

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  ‘Maybe he got Christmas leave?’ Florence couldn’t bear to give up on a romantic story. ‘Or maybe she ran off and married someone else.’

  ‘Maybe she married Peg Leg!’ All the girls collapsed at the idea, and then, as if they’d conjured him up, Peg Leg himself, moulting books and paper, shuffled into the room.

  ‘Ladies! Gentlemen! To your places at once.’

  The boys folded themselves into their desks more noisily than they needed to, and even the girls, who thought themselves above such behaviour, didn’t stop their giggling and whispering as quickly as they would have done for any other teacher.

  Peg Leg – Mr Perry to his face – had lost a leg at Neuve Chapelle, and been invalided home. Dr Allen had given him the job because so many of the regular masters had joined up, and Perry was an old Collegian, with a brilliant degree from Queen’s University, but he was even more unpopular than old Mullan, dragged out of retirement to teach Latin, or Miss Thomas, who policed the girls for Unladylike Behaviour.

  Perry had been a lieutenant, same as Sandy, but while Helen could easily imagine Sandy leading men into battle, she couldn’t think of Perry as anything other than shrill and ineffectual. ‘Shell-shocked’ was Florence’s diagnosis, and ‘mutilated, poor man’. She tried to make Perry a romantic figure, but he was so irritable, and given to doling out punishment lessons – ‘just for breathing’, as Fred Morgan complained – that she wasn’t very successful. Even so, Florence made a point of ostentatious raptness in Perry’s classes, while chaos reigned around her. Helen didn’t see Perry as remotely romantic: his blotchy face would blush redder and redder as the boys banged their desk lids, or pretended not to hear his orders, or, at a signal from Fred Morgan, dropped their books all at once.

  Today Perry tripped a little, stepping on to the teacher’s dais, and dropped a sheaf of essays. Florence, beaming with virtue, leapt forward to gather them up.

  George Rae, who was usually top of the class, raised his hand. ‘Sir, we were expecting Miss Linden now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Perry said, in the reedy voice Helen couldn’t imagine giving orders. ‘I’m afraid Miss Linden will not be with us for some days. Her brother has been killed. Naturally Miss Linden is comforting her parents.’

  For the first time in one of Perry’s classes, the lower fourth was silent and remained so for the whole lesson.

  * * *

  Helen and Mabel pushed open the storeroom door at the start of break. The room, always hot from the boiler room next door, was extra stuffy after being shut up for the holidays, and Mabel at once broke into a fit of coughing.

  ‘It’s the dust,’ she gasped, when Miss Cassidy, who was in charge of the old boys’ parcels, looked concerned. ‘I’ll be fine in a minute.’

  But when Miss Cassidy heard that Mabel had just recovered from flu, she sent her outside for fresh air. Which was typical of her; she was easily the kindest of the teachers. Helen was tempted to go too – something about the old boys’ parcels always made her feel sad – but it was her turn to help, and that was that. It was Florence’s turn too, but Florence had cried so much about Miss Linden’s brother – not that she’d known until today that Miss Linden had a brother – that she’d been sent to Matron to lie down.

  After the holiday, the central table was piled high with khaki socks and mufflers, tins of sweets and cigarettes and a few cakes. The shelves were stacked with brown paper and string. It was amazing, Helen thought, that all these parcels, made up in odd spare moments, should actually make it out to the Front. She checked the list pinned to the wall – four sheets of foolscap paper; name upon name of former Belfast Collegians – some long left school, others, like Sandy, only recently. When one was killed, Miss Cassidy always put a neat black cross against his name. She never crossed the name out.

  Helen bent over her work, sorting the woollens into piles. They were all shades of khaki – the wool shops in Belfast must be doing a roaring trade in dull khaki wool. Perhaps a soldier at the Front would welcome red or yellow socks for a change. Socks, muffler, gloves, gloves, socks – oh dear, what scratchy wool; no soldier would want to march with those on his feet. Sandy had had his parcel in September, just before he was wounded. She wondered where he would be by the time it was his turn again. He was leaving tomorrow. Socks, muffler –

  ‘You’re very quiet today, Helen,’ Miss Cassidy said. ‘Good holiday?’

  Helen nodded. ‘I got all Jane Austen’s novels for Christmas,’ she said.

  ‘Wonderful. Have you read them yet?’

  ‘Started,’ Helen said. She had also had some school stories, and she’d devoured those, but she knew Miss Cassidy wouldn’t be impressed by The Girls of the Hamlet Club. She was Helen’s favourite teacher – she often asked about Sandy, and she always gave Helen good parts to read when they did Shakespeare – but she was quite serious.

  ‘If you’re going to go to college,’ Miss Cassidy said, ‘it’s never too early to start reading properly.’

  ‘College?’

  ‘Why not? It’s 1916. Lots of girls go to college now. You know that. And you’re one of our brightest girls.’

  ‘I can’t be!’ Helen burst out. Her voice sounded loud and high in the tiny room; she clutched a soft muffler to her front. ‘I mean, I know I get good marks but how can I be bright when I don’t understand anything?’

  Very much to her own surprise, she found herself telling Miss Cassidy some of the thoughts that had been buzzing round her head since yesterday. She couldn’t discuss them with Papa; he was too certain about everything. And Mabel would only say it was daft to worry about things like politics and beliefs. But Miss Cassidy listened as closely as if Helen had been explaining her thoughts about Lady Macbeth or the poetry of Keats.

  ‘And I don’t know what I think, or who’s right,’ Helen said. ‘I suppose I’ve always just agreed with Papa. Or’ – because it somehow mattered to be very truthful – ‘I suppose I haven’t really bothered thinking about it much at all. I don’t know if I feel British, or Irish – I think I’m both, but I don’t suppose that’s even allowed.’

  ‘Well …’ Miss Cassidy considered this, her eyes thoughtful behind her spectacles. ‘At least you get to think things out for yourself, don’t you?’ She said it as if that was simple; as if it was a good thing.

  ‘But everyone seems to have a side. I don’t have a side. I’m just …’ She chewed her bottom lip and started back on her sorting. Socks, gloves, socks –

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Scared,’ she admitted.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Miss Cassidy said.

  ‘It’s not, though, is it? Not in wartime. Sandy’s not scared. At least – maybe he is, but he’s still doing his duty.’

  Miss Cassidy smiled. ‘I think Sandy feels very clear about what his duty is. That’s bound to make it easier. And from what I remember’ – she had taught Sandy for three years – ‘he’s more of a doer than a thinker. You’re obviously a thinker.’

  Helen had never considered herself a thinker. A worrier, maybe, but a thinker? She added a packet of Gallahers cigarettes to the socks and sweets in her first parcel.

  ‘This war won’t last for ever,’ Miss Cassidy said. ‘But it will change the world – and for the better, I hope. Especially for women. You need to be ready to take your place.’

  Again she made it sound very simple. And really quite exciting. Which it might be for someone who knew what her place was.

  6.

  As soon as Helen stepped into the hall, she knew that Mama was home. Mama’s scent – lilac and rose and something delicate and elusive that was just Mama – was all around, and Mama’s blue coat hung on the coat rack. Helen tossed her satchel on to the ground, where Papa was bound to fall over it when he came home, and ran into the parlour, the unfamiliar heavy plait bouncing on her back.

  ‘Mama?’

  Mama was at the window, running her finger along the sill. ‘I think Mrs Magee has been taking advantage,’ she said, showi
ng Helen the thin layer of grey dust on her white finger. ‘But it’s so hard to get anyone to help in the house these days. Helen – that tunic! It barely reaches your knees!’

  ‘I’ve grown,’ Helen said, as if she hadn’t seen Mama for months, instead of less than twenty-four hours ago. ‘Mama – why are you home?’

  ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

  ‘Of course!’ She rubbed her face against her mother’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure you shouldn’t be messing around with dust.’

  Mama laughed. ‘Maybe not.’

  She sank down into one of the armchairs beside the fireplace. The grate was empty, because Helen and Papa always sat in the back room, which was a little shabby but much cosier.

  ‘I’ll set a fire for you,’ Helen said. ‘Mrs Magee would’ve done it if she’d known –’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Helen sat in the other chair, but she couldn’t sit still, leaping up to show Mama her new hairstyle, and then to look at the new green brooch Mama wore on her cream high-necked blouse, a Christmas present from Aunt Bridie. It was a little shamrock in chips of Connemara marble, much prettier than the sapphire brooch Aunt Violet had kicked up such a fuss about.

  Papa was as surprised as Helen to see Mama. ‘You didn’t even send a wire,’ he said, shaking his grey head. Papa was much older than Mama.

  ‘So does this mean you’re better?’ Helen asked. Mama hadn’t been better yesterday – she had been tired and she’d coughed by the fire during the birthday tea. How could she be recovered enough in one day to brave the grimy Belfast streets? Had she missed Helen and Papa too much to stay away?

  ‘I’m all right,’ Mama said, though she suppressed a cough and frowned. ‘I just wanted the peace of my own home. Michael and Sean had a terrible row last night. Poor Bridie’s heart is broken. And it brought it all back to me –’

  ‘A row? About Michael joining up? Best thing he could do,’ Papa said. ‘If I’d a son …’

  ‘Be thankful you haven’t.’ Mama sighed. ‘Sean sees it as a betrayal of his culture. And I know how he feels.’

  Helen normally shut her ears to this kind of adult conversation, which she classified as boring, with the potential to get worrying. And that cryptic remark of Mama’s – ‘I know how he feels’ – that was about Helen going to the Presbyterian church; Mama never came out and said she hated it, but they all knew she did. But remembering her birthday vow, she said, ‘Didn’t Mr Redmond say Nationalists should fight?’

  Again, that surprised look, as if a kitten had spoken, but Papa smiled and said, ‘Glad those school fees are going to good use.’

  ‘I didn’t learn it at school,’ she said. ‘Sandy and Michael –’

  ‘Please.’ Mama clenched her fists at her sides. ‘No political talk. I’ve had enough of it at Derryward. Mostly shouting.’

  She frowned at her reflection in the over-mantel mirror. ‘I don’t know how it will end,’ she said. ‘Bridie’s terrified of what they could do to each other. Son against father.’ She shuddered.

  Helen wondered what she had meant by ‘It brought it all back to me.’ She knew both families had been against her parents’ marriage.

  ‘I must speak to Mrs Magee,’ Mama said.

  Helen and Papa exchanged glances and then followed her down the tiled passage to the kitchen, where, as usual, their daily help Mrs Magee had left a cold supper. She lifted the white cloth and poked at the cold meat and bread. If I were Nora, Helen thought, I could have had a hot dinner on the table for us all.

  ‘Since when did Mrs Magee leave so early?’ Mama asked. ‘She’s supposed to stay and feed you.’

  ‘Since her son came home from hospital,’ Helen said. ‘He can’t do much for himself, and she worries about leaving him for too long.’

  ‘You see?’ Mama said to Papa. ‘Be glad you have a daughter. Whatever worry she causes you, she won’t have to go and get maimed in some war.’

  ‘Helen’s never caused us any worry,’ Papa said, pulling the end of Helen’s plait.

  The gesture reminded Helen of Sandy. He was leaving in less than twenty-four hours.

  ‘She’ll cause us enough when she starts falling in love,’ Mama said. She lowered her voice, as if she didn’t want Helen to hear. ‘Bridie doesn’t know what to do about Nora. She’s far too great with that Gerry. And he seems a bit of a hothead. Has her head filled with romantic notions about Ireland.’

  Helen winced. ‘Maybe I’ll never fall in love,’ she said. She thought of that surprising conversation in the storeroom. ‘Maybe I’ll be a blue-stocking like Miss Cassidy and go to college.’

  Being like Miss Cassidy was a much more attractive prospect than having her head ‘filled with romantic notions’, like Nora.

  ‘Miss Cassidy?’ Mama opened her eyes very wide. ‘That strident young woman we met at the Red Cross fête? I hope she’s not the kind of woman you admire? You’ll be saying you want the vote next!’

  ‘Well, maybe I do,’ Helen said. Though who would she vote for?

  Mama sighed. ‘After last night,’ she said, ‘I’d be much happier talking about something gentler. Why don’t you read to us, James? Or play the gramophone?’

  ‘We might as well eat now,’ Papa said. ‘And then – well, Helen usually has prep for school, and I have paperwork to do. I’m sorry, Eileen. If we’d known you were coming …’

  ‘I do live here.’

  ‘Of course.’ Papa touched Mama’s shining hair. ‘And we’ve missed you. We’ll have a wee celebration tomorrow.’

  ‘Sandy leaves tomorrow,’ Helen said. ‘We may not feel much like celebrating.’

  7.

  Of course they all felt like crying, standing in the draughty station at Queen’s Quay. But they didn’t, though Helen bit the insides of her cheeks so hard that tears of pain sprang to her eyes anyway. Sandy was leaving alone this time, so in a way it was worse than the first time, when the station had been crammed with soldiers and well-wishers. Before anyone knew what it was like out there.

  ‘I’m only going as far as London,’ Sandy reminded his womenfolk, which, today, included Mama. He looked tall and unfamiliar in his uniform – a brand-new one. ‘A course for two weeks before I get anywhere near a sniff of action. So don’t start worrying yet.’ He grinned.

  The whistle shrilled – and he was gone.

  In the darkening street outside, they looked at each other.

  Mama was first to speak. ‘Come back to our house for a bit of supper,’ she said to Aunt Violet and Granny. ‘James will be home soon; he’d love to see you. And you don’t want to go back and be looking at an empty chair.’

  The tram was packed and Helen had to stand, swaying as it rattled round corners. She had gone to the station straight from school and her satchel dragged at her shoulders. Rain bladdered at the windows. She hoped Sandy wouldn’t have a rough crossing.

  When they got to Cyclamen Terrace, Helen thought Aunt Violet was looking rather too closely for dust, but she decided that was an uncharitable thought, considering Aunt Violet had just waved her only son off to war. Maybe she couldn’t help that peering, narrow-eyed look.

  They sat in the parlour – Mrs Magee had left everything ready and Helen carefully wet the tea and carried everything in. Mama had baked scones.

  ‘Quite nice,’ pronounced Aunt Violet.

  Granny admired Mama’s new brooch. Aunt Violet said it was pretty but kept her hands clasped in her lap when Granny offered it to her. As if the shamrock would somehow contaminate her with its Irishness.

  ‘Did you find your brooch, Aunt Violet?’ Helen asked.

  Aunt Violet looked puzzled, then said, ‘Och! Yes. It was the strangest thing! I’d left it in my other jacket. I was sure I’d taken it off but when I went to get ready for the Ladies’ Guild last night, there it was, still safely pinned to the lapel.’

  They all rejoiced loudly, and Helen couldn’t resist saying, ‘It must have been that wee prayer I said to Saint Anthony.’
/>   Aunt Violet looked at Mama. ‘I hope this isn’t the kind of thing you encourage, Eileen?’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘All that – well, mumbo-jumbo.’

  ‘Catholic mumbo-jumbo, do you mean?’

  Granny made an embarrassed noise in her throat and said it had turned out an awful evening and she hoped poor James would get a seat in the tram, and wasn’t it time he was in. Everyone ignored her.

  ‘It’s only a wee thing we say,’ Helen explained, wishing now that she hadn’t taken the opportunity to tease Aunt Violet. She should have known it wouldn’t end well, and there was Mama looking tight and cross, with those red spots of anger burning in her pale cheeks.

  ‘We? Helen – you’ve come to church with us since you were a baby,’ Aunt Violet said. ‘You know perfectly well it’s nonsense to pray to saints.’ She said it in the same contemptuous way Nora had said British. ‘Nobody can intercede for you with God.’

  ‘It was only a joke,’ Helen muttered. ‘I didn’t pray about your brooch. I don’t even …’ A warning glance from Mama made her trail off. She glared into her teacup.

  ‘Please don’t tell my daughter that her mother’s faith is nonsense,’ Mama said in a calm voice that made Helen shiver.

  ‘Violet,’ Granny said, ‘did you show Eileen and Helen the new photo of Sandy? We collected it today,’ she said. ‘There’s a big one for the mantelpiece, but you have some snaps too, don’t you?’

  ‘Please could I have one?’

  Helen loved the idea of having a snap of Sandy, keeping it in her purse … Or was that rather a Florence Bell thing to do? Better to frame it, perhaps, and set it on her bedside table.

  Aunt Violet inclined her head graciously. ‘If you promise to take very good care of it.’

  She handed Helen a postcard-sized photo, and there was Sandy in shades of grey, staring seriously out at her.

  He had, of course, sat for a portrait last year, when he’d joined up. But now he had been promoted to lieutenant, and had had a new uniform made – the old one had been damaged beyond repair when he was injured. Last year he had looked like a boy dressed up – the way all the boys at school looked when they paraded with the Cadet Corps on speech day; now he looked like, well, what he’d said on the train that night, ‘a dashing young officer’, with the stripe on his cuff to show he had been wounded. She must find a way, next time she went to Derryward, to let Nora know she had this precious picture.