by Anna Carey
Nora glanced down at the bag at our feet.
‘Maybe we should hold on to the strap,’ she said. ‘In case someone tries to steal it.’
I didn’t think that was very likely but I haven’t really spent any time just hanging around the streets before, so for all I know there are bag-stealers everywhere who wouldn’t be put off by the fact that a bag was clearly full of magazines. Just to be on the safe side, I bent down and took hold of the bag’s sturdy leather strap, and I was just standing up again when a voice said, ‘Aren’t you Phyllis Carberry’s sister?’
It was Mabel, she of the pretend-fiancé. And she was looking at the bag of The Irish Citizens with a slightly concerned look on her face.
‘Um, yes,’ I said. ‘Phyllis left them with us.’ I wasn’t sure whether I should mention Phyllis going off to the lav to Mabel. ‘She’ll be back in a minute.
‘We didn’t steal them or anything, in case you were worried,’ said Nora. I kicked her to shut her up, though actually I had wondered if Mabel had been trying to work out how we’d got hold of them. I suppose it must have looked a bit odd, two fourteen-year-old non-League members lurking about the streets with a bag full of I.W.F. L. magazines.
‘Of course I wasn’t worried,’ said Mabel. ‘But she was meant to be selling them with Kathleen.’
I noticed that she was carrying a similar bag herself. ‘Have you been out selling them too?’ I asked.
Mabel nodded.
‘At the end of Westmoreland Street, near Trinity,’ she said. ‘Quite a few people bought them.’
‘Did you get any bother?’ said Nora. ‘From people who don’t, you know, support the cause?’
But Mabel hadn’t.
‘I got a few funny looks, but that was all,’ she said. ‘Oh, and one man who said we were setting back the cause of Home Rule, but his friend told him not to talk like that to a young lady.’
Really, I think Mabel and Phyllis are awfully brave. If I was selling magazines I’d spend the entire time worrying about strange men saying rude things to me. Even the funny looks didn’t sound very nice.
‘We do support the cause, you know,’ I told Mabel, just to make sure she knew that Phyllis hadn’t left her bag of Citizens with any old sister. ‘We just wish we could do more for it.’
‘I’m sure there are lots of things you can do,’ said Mabel.
‘Like what?’ asked Nora.
But Mabel wasn’t exactly sure.
‘Maybe you could make rosettes or something?’ she suggested.
I thought of Nora’s hatred of knitting and all things craft-related.
‘I don’t think that’s our, um, natural sphere,’ I said.
‘Well, I must say it’s good to see girls your age interested in the movement,’ said Mabel. ‘And I’m sure you’ll be able to think of something active to do. It will be the making of you both!’
Just then, Phyllis returned.
‘Sorry, Mabel,’ she said. ‘I left my post for a bit. These two weren’t causing any trouble, were they?’
‘Of course not,’ said Mabel. I beamed at her. She was much nicer than some of Phyllis’s friends. Kathleen always seems to find me and Nora rather irritating. ‘Where’s Kathleen?’
‘She had to help her mother buy a hat in Switzers’,’ said Phyllis. ‘I only hope her mother didn’t see me from the tram on their way home. It goes right past here.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Mabel. ‘Kathleen knows your patch and I’m sure she could keep her mother distracted while the tram goes by. Besides, they’d have been on the other side of the road. When are you finished for the day?’
Phyllis sighed. ‘I might as well finish now,’ she said. ‘I sold quite a few at first but it’s sort of tailed off. And besides, I’m boiling hot AND starving.’
‘Tell you what,’ said Mabel. ‘Why don’t we go to the Farm Produce? It’s only around the corner.’ She looked at me and Nora. ‘We could invite these young recruits.’
I didn’t dare beg Phyllis to let us go in case it annoyed her and she told us to go home, but I couldn’t help staring at her pleadingly. Nora was gazing at her in much the same way. She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Oh, why not. It’ll be an adventure for them. And I suppose they deserve a treat after helping me out in the Park’
Nora and I thanked her as enthusiastically as possible and then we followed them down Sackville Street. I wondered what the Farm Produce might be. There certainly wasn’t any farm around Sackville Street, unless they meant one of those awful little city dairies that keep cows in a tiny shed behind a house. But the Farm Produce wasn’t an actual farm. It was a shop about a hundred yards down Henry Street called the Irish Farm Produce Company, with a restaurant in it where Phyllis and Mabel were greeted with warmth and recognition by some of the staff.
‘We go here quite a bit,’ said Phyllis by way of explanation, when we’d taken a table. ‘They’re very suffrage-friendly. They’ve got an advertisement in The Irish Citizen.’
‘And they’re on the lav list,’ said Mabel.
‘What is this list?’ asked Nora.
Phyllis and Mabel smiled at each other.
‘It’s what Phyllis and Kathleen and I call our list of all the places in town that let you use their lavatory when you’re out leafleting or chalking or what have you,’ said Mabel. ‘Shops and cafés and things.’
‘There are quite a lot of them,’ said Phyllis. ‘You’d be surprised.’
‘And you’d also be surprised,’ said Mabel, ‘at how often you need to go when you’re out for the whole day. Even if you’ve barely drunk a drop.’
A waitress arrived at our table, and Phyllis ordered tea and cakes for everyone. I was pleasantly surprised when she got me and Nora a little cake each. Not just because I wanted a cake to myself (though I did), but because on the rare occasions that Mother takes me and Julia into town to buy new hats or underwear or winter coats, she always takes us to Bewley’s for tea and then buys one tiny cake for both of us and cuts it into bits for us to share. I’m sure that everyone is staring at her and marvelling at her miserly ways, but she says that this is nonsense and that everyone else is concerned with their own cakes. But I bet they’re not.
Anyway, maybe it was because Phyllis too has experienced Mother’s stingy approach to cakes over the years, but it was very generous of her to buy us some (not least because Nora and I only had enough money for our tram fare home so we wouldn’t have been able to buy even a stale bun on our own).
‘So, are you girls coming to the big meeting on the first?’ Mabel asked, when we were all drinking our tea and eating our (delicious) cake.
‘They certainly are not,’ said Phyllis.
‘You can’t stop us,’ I said indignantly. ‘We can buy tickets like any member of the public.’
‘I can refuse to take you,’ said Phyllis. ‘Which I will. And good luck coming up with an excuse for going out alone on a Saturday evening.’
I didn’t want to have a fight with Phyllis in front of Mabel, especially as they’d both been quite decent with us so far, so I said, ‘Maybe we can discuss this later,’ in a very grown-up voice that Phyllis and Mabel seemed to find very amusing.
‘Well, I’m sure Phyllis will tell you all about the meeting,’ said Mabel. ‘It should be very impressive.’
‘If we fill the hall,’ said Phyllis. ‘Kathleen and I are going to try and do some chalking tomorrow. Just to make sure people know.’
‘We’d better fill it,’ said Mabel. ‘Lots of very important people are sending messages of support. And there’ll be some excellent speeches.’
‘And maybe trouble,’ said Phyllis. ‘If those Ancient Hibernians show up.’ She looked at us sternly. ‘Which is why I’m not taking you pair.’
It was a very nice afternoon, even though Phyllis was determined not to take us to the meeting. She and Mabel talked about the League and a lot of important people involved with the movement, some of whom we’d heard when we went to the Me
eting in the Phoenix Park. And Mabel asked us both lots of questions and was very impressed by Nora’s plan to become a lady doctor (oh yes, Nora has gone back to the doctor plan after a few weeks of wanting to be a veterinarian, I can’t remember if I told you. Trying to keep up with her plans can be very confusing). I did remind her that she nearly fainted last week when Agnes O’Hara cut herself on a broken glass during break, but she kicked me under the table and told Mabel and Phyllis that she was training herself to overcome her fear of blood, which they also seemed to find quite funny. I don’t understand girls their age sometimes.
Eventually Phyllis realised that we’d finished our cakes and tea nearly an hour ago and that even a suffrage-friendly place like this one probably didn’t want people taking up tables for hours on end without buying anything else, so she and Mabel paid, and we all left. As we walked up Henry Street towards Sackville Street, I said, ‘Thanks, both of you, for taking us to tea. It was lovely.’
‘Well, I’m not going to make a habit of it,’ said Phyllis, drily. ‘And you’d better not make a habit of sneaking after me. This is the second time.’
‘Oh Phyllis, I only sneaked once, and that was ages ago,’ I protested.
‘That’s as may be,’ said Phyllis. ‘But next time, I won’t buy you tea.’
Which was fair enough. We bid Mabel a friendly farewell on Sackville Street – she had to get her tram home to Clontarf – and then we jumped on a tram ourselves. I wanted to go upstairs but Phyllis said the wind on the top deck always does terrible things to her hats (this is unsurprising, given all the ridiculous trimmings Kathleen puts on them) so we sat in the boring downstairs bit.
Actually Phyllis was in quite a good mood, and when we’d got off the tram and reached the turn for Nora’s road she said, ‘My pleasure,’ when Nora thanked her for the tea and cake. But she probably shouldn’t have worried about the top deck damaging her hat because, thanks to the hot weather and the dust and the general mugginess, the trimmings were all started to droop anyway by the time we reached home. We were both quite hot and red and dusty when Phyllis let us in the front door with her latch key (she is the only one of us who has her own key). We trooped into the drawing room, where we could hear Mother playing the piano, and Phyllis was just saying, ‘Look who I found on my way home,’ when I realised that we had a visitor.
Frank was standing by the piano, where he’d obviously been turning the pages of Mother’s music, while Harry was lolling (as usual) in the most comfortable arm chair. And suddenly I was very conscious of just how red and hot and dusty I was, and how my stockings had gone baggy around the shins so my legs looked like an elephant’s knees, and how the muggy weather had made my hair fluff up even more than usual, and not in a good way like the pretty actresses you sometimes see on postcards. The fact that Harry sniggered horribly when he saw us and said, ‘Look at the state of you! Have you been running?’ certainly didn’t help. Nor did Mother saying, ‘Mollie! What have you been up to? Go and wash your face’, as if I were five years old. And I knew that if I started to argue with her I would end up looking even more childish, so I had to go upstairs and wash my face and hands. Luckily, the cold water made me less red, but I still looked rather shiny and even after I’d pulled a comb through my hair it still looked absolutely dreadful. But there was nothing I could do about that in this humid weather. I decided to change my stockings, so at least I didn’t look quite so baggy and scruffy. But it all took so long that by the time I got back to the drawing room, looking at least slightly presentable, Frank was putting on his jacket.
‘The music was lovely, Mrs. Carberry,’ he was saying politely. ‘And thank you for tea.’
‘You’re always welcome, Frank,’ said Mother, fondly. ‘Thank you for turning my music for me.’ She was probably wishing her own horrible son were half as polite and friendly as Frank always is. I bet she asked Harry to turn the music first and he refused.
‘Come on, Nugent,’ said Harry. ‘I’ll see you out.’
He strolled out to the hall, with Frank following him. But as Frank passed me by, he paused.
‘Sorry I have to go just as you arrive,’ he said. And he smiled in a very nice way before he went out to Harry. But it didn’t stop me feeling hot and embarrassed. Then Mother started asking me about tea in Nora’s house and I had to make something up so I didn’t have time to think about Frank and my red face after that.
Anyway, that was a few days ago and ever since, Nora and I have been thinking about what we can really do to help the movement, but we’re not quite sure yet. After all, we can’t go out and sell magazines like Phyllis and Mabel or wear posters or speak at meetings because we’re too young, but surely there must be something. Actually, I have been thinking a lot about the whole business of tying oneself to some railings. I know a rope is no use but was wondering how exactly the women in England did it. Did they use the sort of chains that people put over gates? And what bit of themselves did they put chains around? So I asked Phyllis.
‘Some women get leather belts with chains attached,’ she said. ‘They get them made specially.’
Well, there’s no way we can do that. Unfortunately. But there must be something we can do on our own. We just have to think of something.
Wednesday
Nora and I have taken to the streets at last! Yes, we finally took action and went chalking. As the English suffragettes say, ‘Deeds not Words’. And we really needed to do some deeds after talking about it for so long (do you ‘do’ deeds? Or commit them? I suppose that’s not very important right now). We had a very good reason to go chalking because, as I said before, there is going to be a huge meeting this Saturday and we knew from what Phyllis and Mabel said that they wanted as many members of the public as possible to come along to it. It’s not free – entrance is one shilling and sixpence – so they need to do lots of advertising because unlike the outdoor meetings they can’t rely on passersby. Which all meant that it was the perfect opportunity for me and Nora to stand up for the cause (or rather kneel down).
We made the decision at school yesterday. And actually, Stella helped us make it, when we were telling her about this meeting.
‘Are you going to go?’ she asked.
‘If we can,’ I said. ‘I’ve got just enough money.’
‘Me too,’ said Nora. ‘It’s definitely worth one and six to see all those speakers and really feel like we’re, you know, part of the movement.’
Stella didn’t look convinced but she was too polite to say anything.
‘The only problem is,’ I said, ‘that we’ll have to persuade Phyllis to take us. And you know what she’s like. Mercurial moods. Especially after we turned up on Saturday.’
‘Imagine if we could go on stage and speak at it,’ said Nora dreamily. ‘The young politicians of the future.’
‘I can’t imagine anything worse,’ said Stella, alarmed. ‘The thought of standing up there in front of all those people.’
‘Well, they’re going to have lots of important speakers,’ said Nora. ‘I do hope enough people turn up. It’ll be a terrible waste if the hall is half empty.’
‘How do they spread the word about these meetings?’ asked Stella. ‘I mean, do they have advertisements and things?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But they do other things too, like the posters. You know, women going around with poster-boards hung over their shoulders. And then other girls go out chalking the details on the pavement.’
As soon as I said those words, the idea struck me. I could see that Nora was thinking the same thing.
‘Could we?’ she said, her eyes wide.
For a split second I hesitated. I know we’d been dreaming of chaining ourselves to things and speaking on platforms, but this wasn’t just a dream. Did I really want to do something so public as kneel down in the street and chalk slogans? What would people say? Would they stop us? Then I chided myself for my own cowardice. It was time to stop imagining things and actually do them. The English suffragettes
are definitely right about ‘deeds not words’. Well, maybe not right about setting fire to postboxes (imagine if one of your letters to me got burned up) but right about lots of other things.
‘I don’t see why not,’ I said, trying to sound casual. ‘I mean, all we need is chalk.’
And that was that. As there was no time to waste, we decided to go out the next day after school.
Finding chalk wasn’t very difficult. There was some in the bureau drawers in the dining room, along with scraps of string and spare pen nibs and a forgotten half empty bottle of ink that looked as if it had turned into tar. This morning I slipped in there before breakfast and wrapped a few sticks of chalk in my handkerchief and put them in my pocket. There was no point in getting totally covered in chalk dust before we went on our mission, though I was slightly nervous that I might sit on them at the breakfast table and end up with a pocketful of chalk crumbs.
‘You haven’t forgotten I’m going to tea at Nora’s house after school today, have you?’ I said. Nora and I had decided that this would be our cover – she would tell her mother that she was coming here. It’s quite usual for one of us to invite the other to visit at short notice, so our parents shouldn’t get suspicious.
‘No,’ said Mother. And then, just as I was starting to feel a bit worried at how easy it had been recently to get our mothers to agree to let us go to tea in each other’s houses (it’s almost as though they WANT to get rid of us for a while), she said something that made my blood run cold. ‘But I do feel we’ve been imposing on Mrs. Cantwell by letting you go over there so much. Maybe I should send her a note and tell her that Nora is always more than welcome in our house too.’
My stomach lurched. The last thing Nora and I want is our parents realising that sometimes when we say we are going to the other one’s house, we are actually roaming the streets getting up to goodness knows what. We’ve always been grateful that our mothers don’t really know each other very well. And I certainly didn’t want that to change.
