Nora Webster: A Novel

by Colm Toibin

  Nora was sorry that she had not asked Mick Sinnott where the meeting in Wexford was going to be held. She could have driven there herself. She realised that the other two would like to say more about the Gibneys but felt restrained because Nora shared an office with Elizabeth and seemed to be on good terms with the rest of the family. It occurred to her that it was a mistake coming down here like this. Yet it had felt so right in the moment she decided to do it. She liked that Mick Sinnott had wanted to include her; it would have been impossible to say no. But now she wondered if it was not wrong, and if it might not appear wrong to most people. If she needed to join a union, she could have done so at a later stage. It should have been easy to agree that since she was new and only part-time she should wait. She felt as they neared Wexford that their joining a trade union would do them no good at all; it would give them courage, or make them feel bellicose but it would probably cause nothing but trouble in the end. She wished she could go home now, but she could hardly ask Walk-like-a-duck or anyone else to drive her back to Enniscorthy before the meeting began.

  The hall on the quay was half full when they arrived. As soon as she came in, she felt that people were watching her. Working in the room with Elizabeth had isolated her, and she did not even know the names of some of the people who worked in the office. The decision to come here would have taken Maurice two weeks to consider. He would have discussed it with her and then with Jim. Nothing, from the buying of the house to the date each year when they went to Cush, was ever decided quickly or easily. And it was not just Maurice. Most people, she believed, needed time to think before they made decisions. Probably everyone in this hall had weeks to think about whether they wanted to join the union or not. She had made the decision in one second, and now she saw it as an act of pure foolishness. For a moment she wondered how she was going to explain it to Maurice, and thought how puzzled he would be by what she had done. And then as she remembered in a flash that she had no one to whom she would have to explain herself, she felt relief.

  After a while, Nora moved closer to the front, sitting with other women who worked in the office so that no one would think she was there as a spy. With a Wexford town accent, a man was explaining that they were living in a time of newfangled ideas, with management training and the arrival in offices and companies of so-called efficiency experts, people who knew next to nothing about business and nothing at all about labour relations. For the bosses, he said, the old ways were changing, but for the trade union movement the same priorities remained, as anyone who was a member of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union would know. But the union did not just live on its history, he went on, it depended for its reputation on the work it did day in, day out for its members both in times of industrial peace and in times of crisis.

  “There comes a moment in every crisis where only one thing carries the day,” he said. “There comes a moment in the battle with employers when brute force and ignorance carry the day.”

  Nora looked at him and listened. She imagined how interested Maurice would have been in this gathering and in the speech. But then she thought of Elizabeth Gibney, the person she spent most time with now. She imagined what a good imitation Elizabeth would do of this man and how funny she would find the phrase “brute force and ignorance.”

  Everyone around her was listening intently; there was applause when the man had finished and agreement that they would form a line and one by one sign their names and become members of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union.

  The following morning everything was quiet in the office. It was clear from Elizabeth that she knew nothing about what had happened the night before in Wexford. She was in good humour all morning and discussed plans to go with Roger to a rugby weekend in Paris in the autumn.

  “It will keep him out of harm’s way if I’m there. He gets terrible hangovers, the poor mite. And if we go two days before the match I can do plenty of shopping in all the fab places.”

  The next morning Elizabeth arrived late and was wearing dark glasses.

  “I suppose you heard the news,” she said. “No one slept in our house last night. Old William is fit to be tied. He started by blaming Fianna Fáil until Little William told him that the union was affiliated to the Labour Party, at which point he started to blame Thomas for bringing down newfangled ideas from Dublin. Thomas, of course, remained calm, which is always a mistake with Old William. That’s why he loves Francie-Pants so much, because she creates hysterics. Thomas told him that he would halve the office staff in the next few years and he slowly started to name all the methods he would use until Old William said that he had heard enough. He threatened to sell the firm and move to Dublin and live in Dartry. He said that the buildings alone and all the assets would make a tidy sum. He has a cousin in Dartry and he thinks it’s a haven of peace and quiet. And that might have been it, until Little William, my darling brother, said that we would have to get advice about how to deal with the Bolsheviks. That made me laugh so much that my mother said that she was going to close the kitchen if there was any more trouble. And that made Old William worse. He explained how he could make twice the money if he sold the firm, especially the milling part, and invested the proceeds, and that the only reason he didn’t was loyalty to all the people who worked in the firm and loyalty to the town. He said that he literally felt stabbed in the back and then he named the ringleaders. Seemingly, there’s a very nasty piece of work called Mick Sinnott who’s a lorry driver from the Ross Road. He’s a lout. Old William was pale at this stage and said that he didn’t care if Mother closed the kitchen. And then Thomas said that he would personally sack this Mick Sinnott in the morning and make an example of him and make phone calls to ensure that no one else would take him on. ‘I’ll grind him into the ground,’ he said. At that point, Little William said that it was not the end of the world, plenty of companies dealt with trade unions. But all Old William could say was that they were curs, every one of them. He said that he would not deal with any union and that was the end of that. Thomas then wanted to get the keys to Mick Sinnott’s lorry and move it before he came to work in the morning, but Little William told him not to be a fool. Later in the night, my mother used a word that we didn’t know she knew. She used it to describe all the people of the town.”

  Nora thought of interrupting Elizabeth to say that she too had been at the meeting in Wexford and had signed her name with the rest of them. She wondered how Elizabeth would react when she found out, thinking that maybe Elizabeth was taking a light view of the matter. But, later in the morning, when she heard her speaking on the phone to Roger, she realised how Elizabeth really felt.

  “They did it behind his back,” she said. “They went down like rats in the night, and, no, he didn’t sleep at all, he kept walking up and down the stairs and coming into my room and into Thomas’s room and Little William’s room, and wondering how it could have happened, how no one at all warned him or any of us about it. There was no loyalty, he said, and if it wasn’t for my brothers he would just close the place, having built it up to twice the size it was when he got it from his father. He kept saying it would be a great moment to sell. This morning my mother said to me that the whole thing has broken his heart. He doesn’t want to see the place ever again. He has known some of the staff for forty years and some of them have been with the company even longer. They all stabbed him in the back. My mother has a friend, a nun, an old bat called Sister Thomas, and I had to phone her and ask her to come over, that is how bad things are.”

  As she was leaving for the day at one o’clock Nora came face-to-face with Thomas Gibney, who stopped and looked at her. His expression suggested cold rage. She knew that it would not be long before Elizabeth and the rest of the Gibneys discovered that she was among those who had betrayed them.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The town had become easier. In Court Street, or John Street, or on the Back Road, no one stopped her anymore to expres
s sympathy, no one stood looking into her eyes waiting for her to reply. If she met someone now and they stopped, it was to discuss other things. Sometimes, as they were ready to part, they would ask her how she was, or how the boys were, and this would be a way of quietly acknowledging what had happened. But even still she became nervous when she saw someone coming towards her ready to remind her of her loss. It was at times intrusive and hurtful.

  Sunday mass was the worst. No matter where she sat in the cathedral, people looked at her with special sympathy, or moved to make space for her, or waited for her outside to talk. When this became too much for her, when every eye she caught seemed destined to upset her, she went back to the small chapel in St. John’s or went to eight-o’clock mass in the morning when the cathedral was only half full. She could choose her place and then leave at the end without being waylaid.

  One day she was coming out of Barry’s in Court Street, having bought a new set of batteries for the transistor radio that she liked to keep by her bed now. She was thinking about Fiona listening to Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg at weekends when she saw Jim Mooney, who had been a colleague of Maurice’s, coming towards her. He lived on his own, or with a brother out in the countryside, as he had done all the years since he came back from the seminary without being ordained. Maurice had never liked him; it had, she thought, something to do with his refusal to join the teachers’ union, but she was not sure. Unlike most of those who worked with Maurice, Jim Mooney had not written to her when he died.

  “Well, I was just thinking about you,” he said.

  “How are you?” she asked. She tried to sound formal.

  “I was nearly going to call up to you.”

  She said nothing. She did not want him to call.

  “I asked them in the staff-room what to do, but none of us was sure.”

  She wondered if Maurice had disliked his tone, which was both sharp and insinuating, as much as she did now.

  “He’s a right little brat, that Donal,” he said. “He sits at the back of the class with a face on him. One day, when I checked, he didn’t even have the textbook open. He was reading some other book. Another day, he gave me a very impertinent back-answer. I don’t know what we’re going to do about him.”

  Nora was about to say something but then thought better of it.

  “In some families,” he went on, “the boys get all the brains. But in yours the girls got the brains as well as the young fellow Conor, who I hear is very clever. And I hear that the girls are diligent as well. Diligence is a great help.”

  The way he said the word “diligence,” like a word in a sermon he was giving, almost made her smile. She wondered what it was that had caused him to leave Maynooth before his ordination.

  “I thought if I met you, I’d say it to you. I’m not the only one with complaints about Donal,” he said.

  She tried to think of something to say that would silence him. All she could do, however, was look at him; she was angry at how meek she must seem to him.

  “So what subjects does he do with you?”

  “He does science and Latin.”

  She nodded.

  “But it hardly matters what class he’s in. He has a bad way about him. Something lacking in the manners department as well as in the brains department.”

  “Well, thank you very much for letting me know,” she said, pronouncing each word carefully. She began to ease past him.

  “Good day to you, now,” he said.

  No one had ever complained about Donal before. Even when she worried about his stammer and thought that he might be having problems at school, there were no negative notes written at the bottom of his Christmas report card. He had never come at the top of the class, and there were a few years when his marks had been low, but the results he got in the Primary Certificate exam and the County Council Scholarship had been good. He spent most evenings alone in the front room with his school books. She supposed that he was studying, but she often wondered if he was looking at his photography books. She did not know what she should do now, was unsure if she should mention to Donal that she had met Jim Mooney, or if she should say nothing.

  It was a few days later that she saw Donal approaching on the other side of the road, coming home from school. He did not notice her and appeared weighed down by something; he was deep in his own thoughts, the expression on his face drawn.

  When Fiona came at the weekend she nearly told her about the encounter with Jim Mooney, but since Fiona was going out on Saturday night and spent Saturday morning in bed listening to the radio and Saturday afternoon meeting friends downtown, Nora knew it was best not to burden her. Also, she did not want Fiona to say anything about Donal that might worry her further.

  Late on Saturday afternoon, almost as an excuse to get out of the house, Nora went to have her hair done, letting Bernie slowly add some copper dye. When she saw it in the mirror she was unsure about it, even more than she had been about the original dye. But at least, she felt, she had spent time worrying about something other than Donal.

  That evening, when one of Fiona’s friends called, Fiona was not ready. They were going to the dance in White’s Barn. Conor came in to listen to the conversation and Donal also looked in to see who it was but then darted out of the room again. When Fiona appeared in her best dress, wearing hoop earrings and make-up, Donal came into the room once more and sat on the sofa sullenly as the two girls admired each other’s clothes and talked to Nora for a minute before leaving.

  When they had gone, Nora turned to Donal.

  “I met Jim Mooney during the week,” she said.

  “He’s a b-big eejit,” Donal said.

  “He says you’re not paying enough attention in the class.”

  “I hate him. He’s a c-cretin.”

  “He’s a teacher in the school.”

  Donal began to stammer badly and then tried to stop himself but he was agitated. “If his house b-burned d-down, it’d b-be g-great news. Or if he d-drowned.”

  “It might be better if you paid attention in the class,” Nora said.

  On Thursday when Margaret came to visit, she stopped in the front room to talk to Donal. And then when Margaret joined Nora in the back room she spoke about how funny Donal was, and how clever. Nora resisted the urge to say that she did not find Donal funny and Jim Mooney did not find him clever. Margaret spoke of the hours Donal was spending in the darkroom and the techniques he was using to develop film. Nora did not tell her that he had never once shown her any of the photographs that he developed in the darkroom Margaret had created for him.

  Nora tired easily of Margaret’s simple good cheer; it made her wish she could take out a book or unfold that day’s Irish Times. It was a relief when Jim arrived on those evenings and she could go to the kitchen and make tea for them and then ensure that the boys were in bed and the light off in their bedroom.

  And when they stood up to go, she felt glad that she would finally have the room to herself. In the hallway, however, as she said good night to them, she became sharply aware that once she had closed the door on them she would be alone in the house except for the boys who were asleep, and there was nothing ahead but the night.

  Elizabeth never mentioned the union again and gave her no further information about how her father and her brothers, or indeed her mother, were dealing with the new state of affairs. Nora attended one union meeting; it was full of heated discussion over who would be on the committee or hold various positions. She did not attend any more.

  Nonetheless, she enjoyed watching Mick Sinnott, who had not been fired, moving around with increasing confidence as the main union representative. And since she had joined the union, she found that everyone who worked in Gibney’s spoke to her or smiled at her as they passed. The union made little difference to anyone in the office. Without any protest, the numbers of staff were slowly decreasing. If a girl lef
t to be married she was not replaced but her work divided among others. Thomas became increasingly strict about time-keeping. He watched from the shadows, sending notes to anyone who was late, or who was seen talking, or who made mistakes in their work.

  Elizabeth returned to her former good humour and told Nora the story of her weekend plans and her romances as before, but Thomas never spoke to Nora again. He glowered at her when he saw her. She, in turn, walked by him as though he were not there. A few times when he had occasion to come into the office she shared with Elizabeth, however, she enjoyed greeting him warmly using his first name, as though nothing had happened, but he did not respond. Elizabeth developed the habit of asking Thomas as he came into the room to declare what his business was. If she was speaking loudly to one of her friends on the phone, or telling Nora a long story, they could often see Thomas’s shadow lingering outside the frosted glass panels in the upper part of the door. Nora wondered if he was keeping a file on the two of them as well as on everyone else.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Nora saw Nancy Brophy walking towards the house, she moved away from the window. She could not think why Nancy would want to call on her. She imagined leaving Nancy to knock and wait and listen, and then knock again before walking down the steps, turning to check the windows for a sign of life. She could feel the sheer relief that would come over her entire spirit if she had the courage to make this happen.

  At the first knock, Nora went to the door and opened it and invited Nancy in.

  “Now, I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Nancy said, “and I won’t come in, but I wanted to ask you a favour.”

  “Well, if there is anything I can do,” Nora said.

  “Oh, there is,” Nancy said brightly. “But don’t look so frightened.”