Golden Sisters

by Alrene Hughes

  ‘I hope they like me.’

  Pat showed Sheila how to pout her lips and with the lightest of touches applied the soft coral lipstick. ‘They will love you.’ Pat stood back and nodded. ‘That looks great,’ and she went to fetch Peggy’s kingfisher cocktail dress, the one Devlin had bought her, from the hanger.

  ‘I’m worried about that change of key in the second verse. I’ve been going over the song in my mind and every time I get to that bit I can’t remember it – it just goes!’

  ‘Hands up, bend forward,’ Pat slipped the dress over Sheila’s slim figure. ‘Don’t dwell on it and don’t even think of it when you’re on the stage, just sing and before you know, you’ll be singing it.’

  ‘But I’ve lost it – I don’t know how to do it.’ Sheila gripped Pat’s arm. ‘How does it go? How does it go? I can’t get it!’

  Pat took Sheila’s hand. ‘Calm down and listen to me. You’ve rehearsed and rehearsed and the song is lying there ready – it’s waiting for when you need it. Now sit quietly a while and concentrate on your breathing, that’s how you’ll prepare.’

  In the hall beyond the dressing room where Sheila sat, the audience was beginning to arrive. Martha chose a seat not too near the front, over to the right-hand side, where she hoped to go unnoticed. Sheila had asked her not to come – ‘You’ll make me nervous, Mammy’ – and Martha knew she was right, because she would be feeling the same way. Yet here she was at the British Legion, twisting the programme in her hand, having noted that ‘Sheila Goulding – young singing star’ was the fourth act on the bill. She turned towards the end of the row to the sound of a commanding voice asking to come past and watched in amazement as Kathleen made her way along to the empty seat next to her.

  ‘I thought it was you,’ Kathleen’s voice was school-teacher loud. ‘I saw the concert advertised in the Belfast Telegraph – thought the girls might be singing.’

  ‘No, just Sheila.’

  ‘Sheila?’

  ‘Well, Irene’s gone to Enniskillen with Sandy, he’s been posted there and,’ Martha couldn’t keep the annoyance out of her voice, ‘if you remember, I told you Pat’s stopped singing.’

  ‘Pat’s still not singing? Oh dear.’

  The music began, the curtains opened and the Templemore Tappers filled the stage with colour as they began their tap-dancing routine. They were followed by the compère who told a joke about an old woman from the Shankill who lost her way in the blackout that Martha didn’t find funny, but that had the audience in stitches. Then he introduced a magician, who seemed to have so much bunting concealed about his person that he looked a stone lighter by the end of his act. Lizzie, the accordion player, was next with ‘a lively selection of reels and jigs’, but Martha heard none of them, she was so nervous for Sheila. Her hands felt clammy as she gripped the handbag on her lap and she wished she’d had the forethought to remove her handkerchief from it before the show began.

  ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, a real treat, the Barnstormers’ newest star – Miss Sheila Goulding!’

  Martha didn’t hear the applause; she was too busy staring at the young woman who strode confidently across the stage to the microphone, smiling broadly. The music began and Martha closed her eyes. She had heard Sheila rehearse the song, ‘Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man’, a hundred times at home and knew every note, every nuance of meaning, every gesture. She had thought then that Sheila sang the song well, although the song itself wasn’t to her taste, but hearing it now as a member of the audience in a packed hall, she felt as if she was hearing it for the first time and sensed its power to move. Into the second verse, past that difficult change of key, Martha opened her eyes and marvelled at her youngest daughter transformed into a beautiful young woman.

  The second song, ‘I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm’, was much more up tempo and the audience clapped along while Sheila moved effortlessly to the beat. She took her bow to loud applause and left the stage to sounds of cheering. Martha paid scarce attention to the rest of the acts in the first half and when the interval was announced she and Kathleen made their way to the tables at the back of the hall where tea and biscuits were being served.

  ‘I have to say, Martha, I would never have recognised Sheila.’

  Martha might well have said the same thing.

  ‘The last time I saw her would have been at Robert’s funeral – what’s that, just over two years ago? Seeing her on stage, I thought she had a look of him around the eyes. Although I must say, I can’t imagine what my brother would have made of his youngest girl singing like that in a show.’

  There was something in Kathleen’s tone that made Martha bristle. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘How old is she, fifteen? She looked twenty. It’s all very well the older girls singing, but at Sheila’s age who knows what it could lead to? I tell you, Martha, I think you were right to be concerned about the fact she hasn’t got a proper job. I hope she doesn’t think she can make a living singing like this.’

  ‘Kathleen, I–’

  ‘No, Martha, it’s as well you came to see me about finding her a position and how fortunate it is that I have heard of a job that would suit her. Indeed, I hoped to run into you tonight – save me the trouble of writing to you. A junior clerk is required to assist the secretary at Belfast Royal Academy, a fine institution. I am acquainted with one of the senior masters through my work with the Board of Education, and he mentioned the vacancy. Naturally, I recommended Sheila, told him she was my niece. The interview is next Friday at four o’clock. Please tell her to report to the school office. Now if you don’t mind, Martha, I think I’ll slip away. I’ve had a look at the rest of the programme and there’s a bit too much vaudeville there for my taste.’

  Martha, eyes blazing and fists clenched, watched her go. How dare Kathleen imply that Robert would disapprove of Sheila singing and insinuate that, as her mother, she should have put a stop to it. How little Kathleen, a spinster, knew about bringing up children: the constant give and take, allowing them small victories, like Sheila singing in a show to raise money for the war effort, but being prepared to dig your heels in if it went beyond that. The bell rang for the start of the second half and Martha returned to her seat. It was true, the show was a bit too vaudeville, but the audience loved it and Martha could quite easily see why. Kathleen was altogether too quick to look down on decent people.

  Sheila’s face lit up when she saw her mother waiting in the entrance hall at the end of the show. ‘Mammy, Mammy! You came to meet us!’ She flung her arms round Martha. ‘It was wonderful, so it was. I was so nervous, but when I got on the stage, I … Oh, it was the best thing ever.’

  ‘You sang beautifully and I was so proud of you.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Martha smiled. ‘Because I was there.’

  ‘You came! I didn’t see you. Where were you sitting?’

  ‘Oh, I had a good seat, so I did. I heard and saw everything and it was all wonderful.’

  Martha left it until the next day before telling Sheila about the interview – one thing at a time was Martha’s way. Let Sheila enjoy the excitement of performing, before she thrust the reality of a job interview on her. They were at the sink washing the breakfast dishes when Martha told her Kathleen had been at the concert.

  ‘She’s says she’s found a job that would really suit you.’

  ‘Why would she find me a job? She doesn’t know me that well so how does she know it would suit me? What kind of a job is it anyway?’

  ‘Questions, questions,’ Martha rubbed away at the porridge pan with the dish mop. ‘Sure isn’t she your aunt? She heard about a job as a junior clerk from somebody she knows and she spoke for you, that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘What does a junior clerk do?’

  ‘Ach, filing, running errands, adding up – that kind of thing.’

  ‘But I won’t know what to do.’

  ‘Don’t worry, they’ll teach you. You’ll be in an office and they�
�ll pay you a regular wage.’

  ‘And where is this office?’

  ‘Just down the road at the Belfast Royal Academy.’

  ‘Ach no, Mammy! I’ve just left one school and you want me to work in another one.’

  ‘Sheila, stop putting obstacles in the way. This is a great opportunity for you. Be positive and, once you’ve passed your interview, we’ll buy you some smart office clothes. Pat’ll help with that.’

  ‘An interview! You didn’t say I’d have to have an interview. I won’t know what to say.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Pat’ll help with that too.’

  Sheila moped about in her bedroom all morning and Martha left her be. Around lunchtime she came into the garden where Martha was hanging out the washing.

  ‘If I get this job, does that mean I can’t sing anymore?’

  Martha couldn’t hide her exasperation. ‘I’ll tell you this for nothing, Sheila, no daughter of mine will ever make her living singing in a dance band, so you can get rid of that notion right away.’

  ‘But if I get it can I still sing with the Barnstormers like I did the other night?’

  Martha gave Sheila the impression that she was considering the question carefully. ‘You’re very young to be doing that on a regular basis and I’d worry about who you might be mixing with.’

  ‘Aaah, Mammy, please. I’ll do my best to get the job, but can I not sing as well?’

  ‘I’ll have a word with Pat, see if she’ll keep an eye on you at the concerts like she did the other night.’

  Always give them a small victory.

  Sheila emerged from the Belfast Royal Academy just in time to see a trolley bus disappearing up the road, but it didn’t matter. She felt shivery and hungry and excited all at the same time and couldn’t bear to stand around waiting for the next one. The walk home was just what she needed to calm her down after the interview and she set off with the words of the headmaster’s secretary still ringing in her ears: ‘We would like to offer you the position of junior clerk.’ She couldn’t wait to tell Mammy.

  She would be just like her sisters, going to work and earning money, but that was only the half of it. She would be a singer too, in a beautiful dress alone in the spotlight. Sure hadn’t Bridie foretold it and wasn’t Mr Goldstein going to make it happen?

  Martha was ironing when Sheila arrived home and her heart sank when she saw the look on her face. ‘Well?’ she asked.

  Sheila slumped into the chair. ‘My feet are killing me. That’s the last time I’m wearing Peggy’s shoes!’ and she kicked them off.

  ‘What about the job?’

  Sheila’s smile said it all.

  The following day Martha had even more reason to be grateful to Kathleen when a letter arrived for Pat.

  ‘Who would be writing to me?’ wondered Pat.

  Although she had recognised the handwriting, copperplate with all the flourishes, Martha said nothing, but busied herself in the kitchen while Pat took the letter into the front room. Minutes later, Pat was back.

  ‘It’s from Aunt Kathleen, asking me to come to her school when I finish work tomorrow. What do you make of that?’

  Martha shrugged her shoulders.

  Pat raised an eyebrow. ‘Strange that she’s taking such an interest in her nieces lately,’ but she said no more.

  When Pat arrived home the next night, she was barely through the door when Martha, wreathed in smiles asked, ‘Well, what did Kathleen want?’

  ‘She was waiting for me with fifty children. “I’ve a challenge for you,” says she, then proceeded to tell me that the school choir has been invited to sing at the Stormont Christmas concert this year. But, lo and behold, she didn’t really have the time for all that and would I, with all my experience of being in choirs, like to train them.’

  ‘Really,’ Martha acted surprised. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told her that was the last thing I wanted to do.’

  ‘You said that to Kathleen? And what did she say?’

  ‘She reminded me, no doubt in case I’d forgotten, that it was the same concert William and I sang at last year and she thought maybe I’d like to be there again in some capacity.’

  Martha hardly dared ask, ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I told her that’s the last place I’d want to be and I’m telling you, Mammy, that I know you mean well, but you have to stop interfering in other people’s business.’

  Chapter 26

  November 1941 was a hard month to endure. Bitter winds blew in from the north, rattling the slates on the roof and blowing soot down the chimney. Every day Martha wrapped herself in layers, ration books in hand, to join the seemingly endless queues at shops with precious little to sell. At night they went to bed early with hot water jars and, without fail, Martha would wake up in the early hours to retrieve the stone-cold jars from the bottom of each bed and refill them with hot water to keep the girls warm and cosy until it was time to get up for work. She’d learned to be thankful for small mercies: the air-raid warnings were a rare occurrence and, since those terrifying nights in May, there had been no more bombings. The reason was clear from the news on the wireless. Hitler was too busy with the Russians and it was a comfort to know that cold winds in Belfast would mean Arctic conditions on the Eastern Front.

  During the summer, Jack from next door had helped her to dig over a patch of the back garden and given her seeds to plant. ‘You’re diggin’ for victory now, Martha,’ he’d joked and she had good reason to be thankful for the crop of winter cabbages, onions and turnips she could pick each day to make a bit of meat go further.

  She put the neck end of lamb in the pan with the vegetables and water and left it to simmer while she made herself a drop of tea and sat down to read the Belfast Telegraph. The girls had been chatting about a carnival that was in town and on the front page was a picture of it set up in what they were now calling Blitz Square – a cleared bomb site where Arnott’s department store used to stand. It was unusual to have a carnival come to town in the winter months but this one, according to the paper, had come over the border ‘to cheer people up’. The girls were planning to go on Saturday and there had been endless talk about dodgem cars, chair-o-planes and helter-skelters.

  There was a rattle of the back door and Betty called out, ‘Are ye in, Martha?’

  ‘I am, come on in.’

  Betty had a jar of damson jam in one hand and a piece of knitting in the other. ‘There you are – there’s been a great crop of damsons off that wee tree of ours, so I thought you’d like some jam.’

  ‘That’s very good of you, Betty’ – Martha nodded at the knitting – ‘and is that for me as well?’

  ‘Ach, you know I’m useless at these patterns. I can cast on and do the rib and crack on with the stocking stitch, but you see when it gets to the decreasing for the sleeves? Well, it has me beat.’

  ‘Let’s have a wee look.’ Martha took the knitting. ‘There’s tea in the pot if you want it.’

  While Martha unpicked the mistakes in the knitting and started the decreasing, Betty chatted. ‘You’ve been reading about the carnival coming, I see.’ She pointed to the paper on the table. ‘We could do with a bit of fun for a change. I was just saying to Jack we should get wrapped up and take a trip down the town – see what’s going on. I haven’t been down there for months.’

  ‘You would go to a carnival?’

  ‘Aye, why not? You could come with us.’

  ‘Away on with you! The girls are going, but I’m …’ She was about to say, I’m too old for the likes of that, when she looked up from the knitting and saw the excitement on Betty’s face. ‘Oh, why not,’ she said, ‘sure, we never go over the door except to queue for rations.’

  When Martha announced that night that she would be going to the carnival the girls howled with laughter. ‘I couldn’t say no to Betty,’ she tried to explain. ‘After all, she brought me damson jam,’ and they laughed all the more.

  Though the blackout was st
ill in force, no one in authority had the heart to demand that the strings of coloured lights strung around Blitz Square should be taken down. Added to that, several people who thronged around the stalls and rides carried their own torches. The wind had dropped, but there was sleet in the air and the caravans selling hot drinks and the man roasting chestnuts over a glowing brazier did a roaring trade.

  They wandered around looking at all there was to offer in the way of entertainment and diversions, reluctant at first to become involved. Betty suggested the hall of mirrors; she’d been in one years before on a day trip to Portrush. Martha weighed up the price and the likelihood of embarrassment and decided to risk it. She and Betty went inside, leaving Jack to join a group watching a man move three playing cards around at great speed and encouraging his audience to ‘find the lady’. The girls had already gone off in search of something more exciting and found the ghost train.

  ‘I’m not going on that,’ said Pat. ‘You never know who’s in such places. I’ve heard that some of these fellows try to take advantage in the dark.’

  ‘Ach, Pat, that’s nonsense,’ said Peggy. ‘It’s only a bit of fun.’

  But Pat was adamant and waited outside for them, listening to the shrieks and screams and easily picked out Peggy’s, the loudest of them all. Sheila and Peggy eventually emerged, arms linked and giggling.

  ‘Oh, Pat, you missed the best laugh ever! Didn’t she, Peggy?’ But Peggy wasn’t listening, she was staring across at the rifle range.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ laughed Pat. ‘You look like you’ve seen a real ghost.’

  ‘What?’ Peggy shook her head. ‘It’s nothing.’

  Sheila linked arms with her two sisters. ‘Let’s get in the queue for the chair-o-planes, and this time, Pat Goulding, you’re not going to say no!’

  The ride was a popular one. Individual wooden chairs hung from chains that were attached to a carousel-type structure. The girls climbed the steps to a platform ten feet above the ground. As a chair came level with the platform they were helped into it and a chain fastened across for safety. When all the chairs were full, the steps were moved back and far below two strong men cranked the mechanism to set the carousel in motion. Faster and faster it spun, until the chairs tilted and swung out with centrifugal force and the girls screamed, terrified and thrilled. When the carousel stopped, they remained suspended above the ground, disorientated and shivering, until their chairs came level with the platform again and it was their turn to be released. Peggy tried to focus on something below her to stop her head from spinning – a wooden tower with a huge brass bell, a soldier swinging a heavy mallet with all his might, the clang of the bell, the man’s laughter. She held him steady in her gaze, while she waited to be released. Once out of her chair, she was off down the steps, turning to shout to her sisters, ‘I’ll be back in a minute!’, and she pushed through the crowds to the bell tower. But the soldier was gone.