Brooklyn (5 page)

Rose took the day off from work and travelled with her to Dublin. They went to lunch together in the Gresham Hotel before it was time for the taxi to the boat to Liverpool, where Jack had agreed to meet her and spend the day with her before she set out on her long journey to New York. That day in Dublin Eilis was aware that going to work in America was different from just taking the boat to England; America might be further away and so utterly foreign in its systems and its manners, yet it had an almost compensating glamour attached to it. Even going to work in a shop in Brooklyn with lodgings a few streets away, all organized by a priest, had an element of romance that she and Rose were fully alert to as they ordered their lunch in the Gresham, having left her luggage in the railway station. Going to work in a shop in Birmingham or Liverpool or Coventry or even London was sheer dullness compared to this.

Rose had dressed up beautifully for the day, and Eilis had tried to look as well as she could. Rose, merely by smiling at the hotel porter, seemed to be able to make him stand in O'Connell Street to get a taxi for them, insisting that they wait in the lobby. So too as many passengers made their way towards the boat Rose seemed in command. No one who did not have a ticket was allowed beyond a certain point; Rose, however, made an exception of herself with the assistance of the ticket collector, who fetched a colleague to help the ladies with their suitcases. He told Rose she could stay on the boat until half an hour before it was due to sail, when he would locate her, accompany her back and then find someone to keep an eye on her sister for the crossing to Liverpool. Even people with first-class tickets would not get this treatment, Eilis remarked to Rose, who smiled knowingly and agreed.

"Some people are nice," she said, "and if you talk to them properly, they can be even nicer."

They both laughed.

"That'll be my motto in America," Eilis said.

In the early morning when the boat arrived in Liverpool she was helped with her luggage by a porter who was Irish. When she told him she was not sailing to America until later that day, he advised her to take her cases immediately down to a shed where a friend of his worked, close to where the transatlantic liners docked; if she gave the man at the office his name, then she would be free of them for the day. She found herself thanking him in a tone that Rose might have used, a tone warm and private but also slightly distant though not shy either, a tone used by a woman in full possession of herself. It was something she could not have done in the town or in a place where any of her family or friends might have seen her.

She saw Jack as soon as she descended from the boat. She did not know whether she should embrace him or not. They had never embraced before. When he put his hand out to shake her hand, she stopped and looked at him again. He seemed embarrassed until he smiled. She moved towards him as though to hug him.

"That's enough of that now," he said as he gently pushed her away. "People will think…"

"What?"

"It's great to see you," he said. He was blushing. "Really great to see you."

He took her suitcases from the ship's attendant, calling him "mate" as he thanked him. For a second, as he turned, Eilis tried to hug him again, but he stopped her.

"No more of that now," he said. "Rose sent me a list of instructions, and they included one that said no kissing and hugging." He laughed.

They walked together down the busy docks as ships were being loaded and unloaded. Jack had already seen that the transatlantic liner on which Eilis was to sail had docked, and, once they had left the suitcases in the shed as arranged, they went to inspect it. It stood alone, massive and much grander and whiter and cleaner than the cargo ships around it.

"This is going to take you to America," Jack said. "It's like time and patience."

"What about time and patience?"

"Time and patience would bring a snail to America. Did you never hear that?"

"Oh, don't be so stupid," she said and nudged him and smiled.

"Daddy always said that," he said.

"When I was out of the room," she replied.

"Time and patience would bring a snail to America," he repeated.

The day was fine; they walked silently from the docks into the city centre as Eilis wished that she were back in her own bedroom or even on the boat as it moved across the Atlantic. Since she did not have to embark until five o'clock at the earliest, she wondered how they were going to spend the day. As soon as they found a café, Jack asked her if she was hungry.

"A bun," she said, "maybe and a cup of tea."

"Enjoy your last cup of tea, so," he said.

"Do they not have tea in America?" she asked.

"Are you joking? They eat their young in America. And they talk with their mouths full."

She noticed that, when a waiter approached them, Jack asked for a table almost apologetically. They sat by the window.

"Rose said you were to have a good dinner later in case the food on the boat was not to your liking," her brother told her.

Once they had ordered, Eilis looked around the café.

"What are they like?" she asked.

"Who?"

"The English."

"They're fair, they're decent," Jack said. "If you do your job, then they appreciate that. It's all they care about, most of them. You get shouted at a bit on the street, but that's just Saturday night. You pay no attention to it."

"What do they shout?"

"Nothing for the ears of a nice girl going to America."

"Tell me!"

"I certainly will not."

"Bad words?"

"Yes, but you learn to pay no attention and we have our own pubs so anything that would happen would be just on the way home. The rule is never to shout back, pretend nothing is happening."

"And at work?"

"No, work is different. It's a spare-parts warehouse. Old cars and broken machinery are brought in from all over the country. We take them to pieces and sell the parts on, down to the screws and the scrap metal."

"What exactly do you do? You can tell me everything." She looked at him and smiled.

"I'm in charge of the inventory. As soon as a car is stripped, I get a list of every single part of it, and with old machines some parts can be very rare. I know where they're kept and if they're sold. I worked out a system so everything can be located easily. I have only one problem."

"What's that?"

"Most people who work in the company think they're free to liberate any spare part that their mates might need them to take home."

"What do you do about that?"

"I convinced the boss that we should let anyone working for us have anything they want within reason at half the price and that means we have things under control a bit more, but they still take stuff. Why I'm in change of the inventory is that I came recommended by a friend of the boss. I don't steal spare parts. It's not that I'm honest or anything. I just know I'd get caught so I wouldn't risk it."

As he spoke, he looked innocent and serious, she thought, but nervous as well as though he was on display and worried how she would view him and the life he had now. She could think of nothing which might make him more natural, more like himself. All she could think of were questions.

"Do you see Pat and Martin much?"

"You sound like a quiz master."

"Your letters are great but they never tell us anything we want to know. And Pat and Martin's letters are worse."

"There's not much to say. Martin moves around too much but he might settle in the job he has now. But we all meet on a Saturday night. The pub and then the dancehall. We get nice and clean on a Saturday night. It's a pity you're not coming to Birmingham, there'd be a stampede for you on a Saturday night."

"You make it sound horrible."

"It's great gas. You'd enjoy it. There are more men than women."

They moved around the city centre, slowly becoming more relaxed, beginning to even laugh sometimes as they talked. At times, it struck her, they spoke like responsible adults-he told her stories about work and about weekends-and then they were suddenly back as children or teenagers, jeering one another or telling jokes. It seemed odd to her that Rose or their mother could not come at any moment and tell them to be quiet, and then she realized in the same second that they were in a big city and answerable to no one and with nothing to do until five o'clock, when she would have to collect her suitcases and hand in her ticket at the gate.

"Would you ever think of going home to live?" she asked him as they continued to walk aimlessly around the city centre before having a meal at a restaurant.

"Ah, there's nothing there for me," he said. "In the first few months I couldn't find my way around at all and I was desperate to go home. I would have done anything to go home. But now I'm used to it, and I like my wage packet and my independence. I like the way the boss at work, or even the boss in the place I was before, never asked me any questions; they both just made up their minds about me because of the way I worked. They never bother me, and if you suggest something to them, a better way of doing things, they'll listen."

"And what are English girls like?" Eilis asked.

"There's one of them very nice," Jack replied. "I couldn't vouch for the rest of them." He began to blush.

"What's her name?"

"I'm telling you nothing more."

"I won't tell Mammy."

"I heard that before. I've told you enough now."

"I hope you don't make her come to some flea-pit on a Saturday night."

"She's a good dancer. She doesn't mind. And it's not a flea-pit."

"And do Pat and Martin have girlfriends as well?"

"Martin is always getting stood up."

"And is Pat's girlfriend English as well?"

"You're just fishing for information. No wonder they told me to meet you."

"Is she English too?"

"She's from Mullingar."

"If you don't tell me your girlfriend's name, I'm going to tell everybody."

"Tell them what?"

"That you make her come to a flea-pit on a Saturday night."

"I'm telling you nothing more. You're worse than Rose."

"She's probably got one of those posh English names. God, wait until Mammy finds out. Her favourite son."

"Don't say a word to her."

It was difficult to carry her suitcases down the narrow stairs of the liner and Eilis had to move sideways on the corridor as she followed the signs that led to her berth. She knew that the liner was fully booked for the journey and she would have to share the berth.

The room was tiny, with a bunk bed, no window, not even an air hole, and a door into a minuscule bathroom that also, as she had been told, served the room on the other side. A notice said that passengers should unlock the other door when the bathroom was not in use, thus facilitating access for passengers in the adjoining room.

Eilis put one of her suitcases on the rack provided, placing the other against the wall. She wondered if she should change her clothes or what she should do between now and the evening meal that would be served to third-class passengers once the boat had set sail. Rose had packed two books for her, but she saw that the light was too weak for her to read. She lay down on the bed and put her hands behind her head, glad that the first part of the journey was over and there was still a week left without anything to do before she arrived. If only the rest of it could be as easy as this!

One thing that Jack had said remained with her because it was unlike him to be so vehement about anything. His saying that at the beginning he would have done anything to go home was strange. He had said nothing about this in his letters. It struck her that he might have told no one, not even his brothers, how he felt, and she thought how lonely that might have been for him. Maybe, she thought, all three of her brothers went through the same things and helped each other, sensing the feeling of homesickness when it arose in one of the others. If it happened to her, she realized, she would be alone, so she hoped that she would be ready for whatever was going to happen to her, however she was going to feel, when she arrived in Brooklyn.

Suddenly, the door opened and a woman came in, pulling a large trunk behind her. She ignored Eilis, who stood up immediately and asked her if she needed help. The woman dragged the trunk into the tiny berth and tried to close the door behind her but there was not enough space.

"This is hell," she said in an English accent as she now attempted to stand the trunk on its side. Having succeeded, she stood in the space between the bunk beds and the wall beside Eilis. There was barely room for the two of them. Eilis saw that the upturned trunk was almost blocking the door.

"You're on the top bunk. Number one means bottom bunk and that's on my ticket," the woman said. "So move. My name is Georgina."

Eilis did not check her own ticket but instead introduced herself.

"This is the smallest room," Georgina said, "you couldn't keep a cat in here, let alone swing one."

Eilis had to stop herself from laughing, and she wished Rose were close by so she could tell her that she was on the verge of asking Georgina if she were going all the way to New York or if she planned to get off somewhere on the journey.

"I need a fag but they won't let us smoke down here," Georgina said.

Eilis began to climb up the little ladder to the top bunk.

"Never again," Georgina said. "Never again."

Eilis could not resist. "Never again such a big trunk or never again going to America?"

"Never again in third class. Never again the trunk. Never again going home to Liverpool. Just never again. Does that answer your question?"

"But you like the bottom bunk?" Eilis asked.

"Yes, I do. Now, you're Irish so come and have a cigarette with me."