‘He’s very like himself, isn’t he?’ Granny said.
‘He’s very handsome,’ Mama said. ‘Is he getting a look of his daddy, do you think?’
Aunt Violet seemed to appreciate Mama’s attempts to be friendly. ‘And is there any chance of your other nephew joining up?’ she asked.
Which proved, Helen thought, that Sandy mustn’t talk to his mother very much – otherwise he’d have told her about Michael.
Mama sighed and gave Helen a not-this-again look, but she smiled at Aunt Violet and said, ‘I don’t think his father can spare him from the farm.’
This was not the right thing to say.
‘I can’t spare my Sandy!’ Aunt Violet said, her voice several tones higher than usual. ‘And me a widow. But we all make sacrifices. At least, some of us do. Those of us who know our duty. I suppose loyalty doesn’t mean the same down there.’
She said ‘down there’ as if Derryward were hell – but there were people in Belfast, Helen knew, people a few streets away, who thought exactly as Uncle Sean did.
‘And of course, Sandy is very brave – well, he’s been brought up to think of his country before himself. Ulster,’ Aunt Violet added, as if there was any doubt about that.
Helen was about to say that Ulster wasn’t a country; it was one of four provinces of Ireland, but she didn’t feel brave enough for that conversation – not with Aunt Violet. Better to keep it personal.
So, stammering in her eagerness to defend Michael and, somehow, Mama, she said, ‘But – but Michael wants to join up. Lots of Catholics have. He’s determined! He and Uncle Sean have had all sorts of fights about it.’
‘Helen,’ said Mama in a warning voice. ‘I’m sure Aunt Violet doesn’t want to know all about my family.’
‘Well, she should! Michael’s just as brave as Sandy. Braver, maybe, because he’s having to go against his own family! Sandy just went with everyone’s blessing.’ Oh no, now she sounded as if she was being disloyal to Sandy. She said a silent apology to the serious, greyish version of him in the photo she was still clutching. ‘I mean –’
‘Eileen,’ Granny said, ‘these scones are delicious. You must give me the recipe.’
‘But it’s your recipe,’ Mama said, and they both managed tinkling laughs.
This might have helped the atmosphere had Aunt Violet not said, ‘There’s no comparison! Sandy has proved his courage in the battlefield. He has been mentioned in dispatches twice! He is a very fine young man.’ Her breath huffed down her nose.
‘I know,’ Helen said. ‘Sandy’s the bravest person I know. I’m just saying Michael’s a – a fine young man too.’
A hammering at the door silenced her. Rattle-rattle-bang. They all looked at each other.
Mama’s brow crinkled. ‘Could James have forgotten his latch-key?’
‘It doesn’t sound like Papa,’ Helen said.
‘And it couldn’t be a telegram,’ Granny said. ‘Not banging like that.’
‘Maybe it’s children playing knock-and-run.’
‘Oh, they never play that in our street,’ Aunt Violet said.
‘It’s not the weather for children to be out playing anything,’ Granny said.
Rattle-rattle-bang-BANG!
‘Someone should go.’
Mama stood up and crossed the room to the window. She drew back the heavy brocade curtain and peered out into the dark. Helen saw her back tense.
‘Who is it?’ she said.
Mama shook her head. ‘Nobody – I’ll deal with it.’ She went to the parlour door, saying, ‘Stay where you are. It’s nothing to worry about.’
Which was clearly a lie.
Afterwards, Helen wished she had obeyed Mama and stayed safely in the parlour.
8.
She rushed into the hall, leaving the door open behind her.
Michael stood in the porch. Michael? In Belfast? He wasn’t wearing a cap, and he swayed as if the porch tiles were the floor of a hurtling tram.
‘Helen, go back into the parlour,’ Mama ordered. ‘I’ll deal with Michael.’
‘I don’t need to be dealt with,’ Michael shouted.
He didn’t sound like himself. He was loud and slurred. His cheeks were flushed, his coat torn; a bruise purpled his left eye.
He seemed to notice Helen for the first time and held out his arms to her.
‘Helen!’ he cried, as if he hadn’t seen her for years. ‘My wee cousin!’ He buried his face in her shoulder.
Helen froze, her own arms stiff at her sides. Michael smelt like the doorway of McCann’s public house which Aunt Violet always hurried her past, tutting, on the way to church on Sundays.
‘I’m on my way to join up!’ he shouted. ‘I’m going to be a soldier. I’m going to fight for Ireland.’
And then she heard Aunt Violet’s voice behind her.
‘Eileen? What on earth …?’
Michael looked up at her. He was pale and wild, his hair messed up, rain running down his face.
‘Who the hell are you?’ he said.
But before Aunt Violet could answer – Helen thought she could actually hear her gasp – his face turned the colour of old cheese and he belched. Aunt Violet drew back, flapping her hands. Michael clasped his hand to his mouth, and tried to rush back outside, but it was too late – he vomited all over the tiled porch floor. And then slumped quietly down the wall, legs akimbo, boots sliding through the mess, looking nothing at all like a fine young man.
9.
If Papa hadn’t come home just then, strong enough to deal with a semi-conscious drunk, it would have been much worse. But even so, Helen thought, sitting on her window-seat looking out at the rain shimmering in the street-lights, it’s bad enough. Getting rid of Aunt Violet and Granny; dragging Michael into the house; cleaning up – and all the time Helen had hovered in doorways, scared of this unrecognisable person who was Michael and yet not Michael, but not quite able to take herself off to bed, which is what Mama kept telling her to do.
‘You’re neither use nor ornament, Helen,’ she said.
Helen was officially in bed, but too restless for sleep. Wrapped in her camel-hair dressing gown which was getting too small, she hugged her knees. The house was silent round her. For ages there had been footsteps back and forth across the landing to the guest room, and muttering from Mama and Papa’s room. She hadn’t been able to make out many words – ‘drunk’ was one and ‘poor Bridie’ and ‘some kind of fight’ and ‘a miracle he made it here’ – but mainly just mutter-mutter, their voices rising and falling, mostly sounding worried.
She felt very alone, but also very conscious of Michael next door, even though there had been silence from that room for ages now. From the hallway the clock whirred and then chimed – nine, ten, eleven. Sandy’s boat would still be on the Irish Sea. She hoped Aunt Violet wouldn’t tell him. He had liked Michael, and now he would think …
She would have to get a frame for Sandy’s photo.
Helen yawned. She would be tired tomorrow in school – and of course she couldn’t tell Mabel why. Not even Florence Bell could have romanticised that disgusting scene in the porch. Michael had no right to be that shouting, drunken, embarrassing person – she wanted always to think of him carrying orphan lambs down from the lambing pens, offering her a birthday kitten, meeting her on the station platform, leaning against the trap, grinning.
I hate him, she thought.
She needed to go to the lavatory. Sighing, she pulled her dressing-gown belt tight, and, feeling her way in the dark, because she didn’t want to risk putting on a light and perhaps worrying Mama and Papa if they weren’t already asleep, she crept along the landing. On the way back, she couldn’t help pausing outside the guest-room door. It was slightly ajar, but she could hear – nothing. Not even breathing. Was Michael all right? Could people die from being drunk? She shifted her weight, and the floorboard creaked.
‘Hello?’ A hoarse whisper, but definitely Michael. Alive.
‘It�
��s only me, Helen,’ she whispered through the crack.
‘Can you come in? Please?’
‘I suppose so.’
She was still cross, but sort of proud too, to be wanted. She tiptoed in. The guest room was tiny, and very dark. She banged her hip on a chair and stifled an ouch.
‘Put on the light, silly,’ Michael whispered.
He was hardly in a position to call her silly, but she switched on the electric light, a little afraid of what it would reveal. Michael blinked at the sudden glare – at Derryward they had oil lamps. He was in bed, wearing an old pyjama jacket of Papa’s, his blackened eye half-closed inside a vivid purple bruise.
She held back, twisting her dressing gown chord.
‘What happened your eye?’ She was an icicle, still hating him.
Michael shook his head, and winced. ‘I got lost. I remembered the name of your street but – I got the wrong tram. Ended up – God, I don’t know where, but it was rough.’
‘So – you got in a fight?’
‘Bit of a scuffle, aye. Some fellas …’
‘And you went drinking with them?’
‘No. That was afterwards. Thought I’d have one to calm my nerves.’
‘Hardly one?’
I sound, she thought, like Aunt Violet.
He grimaced. ‘I don’t even remember getting here – it’s all a bit – did I disgrace myself?’
‘You disgraced all of us.’ She told him what had happened.
Michael’s face stiffened in horror, and went even paler. The ice inside Helen started to melt. A Derryward memory twitched at her, one she didn’t often allow herself to think of. She had been about eight, and had found a lamb dead in the field, ravaged by a dog or a fox; its entrails spilled on the grass. She had sickened instantly, running back to the yard with vomit on her dress, wailing, and Nora had laughed at the state of her.
But Michael had taken her to the pump and cleaned her up, and told her that these things happened on farms. He’d led her up and down the lane on the chestnut mare, until she almost forgot the lamb.
She sat on the bed, forcing herself not to gag at the lingering smell of alcohol.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You’ll probably never have to see Aunt Violet and Granny again.’ After all, they were her family, not his.
‘But Aunt Eileen and Uncle James …’ He rubbed one hand over his face.
She patted his other hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll try to do something bad in school tomorrow – take the attention off you. I didn’t get my prep done so Peg Leg Perry will probably have conniptions.’
He gave a weak smile. ‘I’ll be gone by then,’ he said. ‘Joined up.’
‘I don’t think the army will like that black eye.’ Or, she thought, the stink of alcohol.
‘They can’t afford to be fussy these days.’
‘Even so, you don’t just sign up and march away. You’ll have time to go back and see Aunt Bridie and Uncle Sean.’
‘No.’
‘But Aunt Bridie will be so worried! Mama said her heart was broken!’
Michael looked away, his lips tightening. ‘I won’t go back. Ever.’ He sighed and touched his sore eye. ‘I didn’t get this in a street brawl. This was my da. He told me I was no son of his. If I join the British army I’m dead to him.’
And to Helen’s shock, his dark eyes filled with tears.
‘Don’t!’ She pulled her hand away from his. He must still be inebriated. Boys – young men – well, they didn’t cry. He was supposed to be going to war; he couldn’t go round acting like Florence Bell.
Michael blinked away the tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing. I really do believe every Irishman should join up and fight. But I could hardly stand up to my da – how’m I going to stand up to the Hun – the Germans?’
Helen had no answer to this, except a pathetic, ‘Of course you will.’ There was an uneasy silence, which she broke by saying, ‘It’s late, and you’re’ – she was about to say ‘drunk’, but changed it to ‘tired. And I have school tomorrow. Let’s not talk about this now.’
The funny thing was, though, she thought, settling down in her now cold sheets, kicking them to try to warm them up, that Michael was more like her than she realised – not really knowing which side he was on.
10.
A cavalcade of navy coats streamed down the school driveway to the big iron gates in School Gardens. Florence Bell walked in front of Helen, her long fair curls spilling over her shoulders, arm in arm with a smaller girl.
‘Who’s she with?’ Helen asked. Belfast Collegiate girls didn’t go in for walking arm in arm; they left that kind of soppiness to the girls’ schools.
‘Jessie McGrath. Remember her father was killed just before Christmas? She must be Florence’s new best friend.’
‘Until Miss Linden comes back,’ Helen said. ‘Then she’ll be in her element, carrying her books and sucking up.’
Mabel giggled, then looked stricken. ‘Are we horrible?’
‘We’re not laughing at people being dead. We’re making fun of Florence being so – well, so …’
They were trying to think of the exact word to describe Florence when Mabel said, ‘Helen? Who’s that soldier waving at you?’
For one ridiculous moment, Helen thought, Sandy! He must be home again, even though she had had a letter yesterday – a proper letter, just for her, saying that his course was going well but that he couldn’t wait to join his men again next week.
But the young private waving from the school gates, looking self-conscious in new khaki, nowhere near as smart as Sandy’s tailored officer’s uniform, was Michael.
Helen waved back. ‘It’s Michael,’ she said.
‘I wish I’d a handsome soldier waiting for me at the school gates,’ Mabel said.
‘Don’t be silly; he’s my cousin,’ Helen said, though she glowed at hearing Michael described as handsome.
His black eye had faded, and with it had faded Helen’s memories of the scene in the porch. He had been with them for a few days now, quiet and embarrassed at first, too restless for the narrow house. He had had chats with Papa, and gone to mass with Mama on Sunday, and she had come home with a kind of glow Helen wasn’t used to.
‘It was lovely not being on my own for once,’ she had said when Helen commented on it. And she had smiled up at Michael in a way that made him blush and fidget. Helen had said nothing. Mama worshipping alone was one of the things they didn’t mention. Years ago Helen, dazzled by the white perfection of Nora’s First Holy Communion dress, and somehow hoping she might get one too, had begged if she could go to Mama’s church – from the little she could glean, it seemed so romantic, with its candles and Latin and the possibility of a white dress. Papa, in a grim, un-Papa-like voice, had said she mustn’t ask again, and she understood dimly that there was something very forbidden about mass.
Michael had refused to go back to Derryward to say goodbye, and he wouldn’t even write.
‘Write!’ he’d said when Mama had suggested it. He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Da told me exactly what he’d do with any letter from me – straight into the fire!’
‘Och, Michael, he couldn’t mean that.’ But Helen remembered the black eye, and wasn’t so sure.
‘He meant it all right.’ And Michael hadn’t said another word for the whole evening.
But he looked happy and carefree now in the darkening winter afternoon, starting up the driveway to meet them, affecting nonchalance in the new uniform, but clearly loving the effect he was creating, mostly on the older girls.
‘I hope Miss Thomas doesn’t see him,’ Mabel warned Helen. ‘She’s probably lurking somewhere.’
But luck was on their side – perhaps Miss Thomas had had a tip-off about the sixth-form girls who were rumoured to have been powdering their noses at the back gate – and they reached Michael without being intercepted.
Michael grabbed Helen’s satchel from her and
slung it over his shoulder, where it looked incongruous against the khaki.
‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Down south for training. So Aunt Eileen says I can take you to – Caprini’s is it? – for an ice to celebrate.’ He nodded at Mabel. ‘You too, if you want.’
Mabel wrinkled her brow. ‘I’d love to, but Mother’ll worry if I don’t turn up at home.’
‘Florence can take a message,’ Helen suggested. ‘Hey, Florrie?’
Florence had been too busy foisting her secrets onto Jessie to notice Michael, but now she turned and stared slack-mouthed, walking backwards a few steps, trailing Jessie with her.
‘Will you run in and tell my mother I’ll be late back?’ Mabel asked.
‘Jessie’s coming to tea with me,’ Florence said importantly.
‘So? You’ll still have to walk past my house. Oh go on, Florrie. I’ll do the same for you.’
‘If you ever get asked out to Caprini’s by a soldier,’ Helen couldn’t resist adding.
‘So – I should tell your mother you’ve gone to Caprini’s with a Tommy?’ Florence said, her large eyes bulging.
That’s her way of telling us she’s noticed that he’s only a private, Helen thought. Most of the old Collegians were officers. Jessie stood on one leg and looked like she would love to be going anywhere, with anyone, rather than to tea with Florence.
‘You do – I suppose you know him?’ Florence asked.
Mabel looked at Michael and then at Helen, her eyes sparkling.
‘Oh no,’ Helen said. ‘We just picked him up in the street. We always try to find a stray Tommy to take us out on a Thursday.’
‘If we can’t find a sailor,’ Mabel added.
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