Danny Boy (19 page)

There were many now, both in the Catholic church and out of it, wearing the black bonnets denoting widowhood. Small wonder they had little patience with a fit and healthy man like Danny, living off the nuns and seemingly too scared to fight. Even had she told them the truth she doubted they’d feel differently, and she could hardly blame them. Not, of course, that she could tell anyone why Danny and Rosie were there. It would be far too dangerous.

Rosie particularly liked shopping on Saturdays, for then the children would often be out with their mothers. As the weather warmed up a little she saw little girls in smart lacy pinafores over their dresses that reached almost to the top of their little button boots. Their long hair would often be loose and held off their face with a bonnet or straw hat. The boys always had caps on their heads and stiff white collars at their necks, their knickerbockers fastened just below their knees and grey socks leading to good strong boots on their feet.

These, however, were the more well-to-do children and some of them came with a nursemaid. Often other girls in service would be queuing at the shops too, many in black dresses with white aprons over them and white mob caps on their heads. They’d usually have a smart basket over their arm as they gave in their orders at the butchers for what Cook wanted and picked over the vegetables at the greengrocer’s and only bought the best.

There were, of course, other poorer mothers whose children were not half so well dressed, and Rosie often felt a pang when she saw their pinched faces and stick-thin arms
and legs, and especially if their mother wore a widows’ bonnet.

When they received Connie’s reply to Rosie’s letter, they knew whatever their circumstances now, and however difficult things were, they were right to leave Ireland when they did.

Dear Rosie,

I’m so glad you arrived safe and well, and though I miss you dreadfully you did the right thing in disappearing. The IRA came for Danny. They came in the night brandishing rifles and I was feared of my life. I told them Danny had taken you all to New York, America where I had an uncle. I don’t know if they believed me. They said it was a quick decision and I said it had been planned some time, Danny was just waiting for an opening, a job offer. He wasn’t interested in farming. You’d have been proud of the tale I spun.

Anyway, they finally left and before they went, one of them said to me, ‘Wherever your traitorous, lily-livered son is, tell him to stay there if he knows what’s good for him.’ You needn’t worry for a minute that I would tell a soul where you are. Your parents have asked and your sisters and Dermot have hardly stopped begging for your address or some clue where you’ve gone, but I never said a word, nor won’t I either for it wouldn’t be safe…

‘We can’t go home until this madness is over,’ Danny said.

‘That’s like saying when the war’s over,’ Rosie said. ‘And that’s limped along for three years and shows no sign of stopping.’

‘America will be in soon, you’ll see, then there’ll be a turning point.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Well, no country can stand its ships being sunk and its people drowned when they haven’t even begun hostilities,’ Danny said.

Rosie hoped Danny was right and that America’s intervention would bring a speedy end to the war, that had and still was claiming so many young lives. She was beginning to dread the sight of the telegraph boy, knowing soon another family would be in mourning for a husband, brother, son, favoured uncle, for every soldier belonged to someone.

But another worry was pressing on Rosie, and that was the lack of money if they had to stay in Birmingham for any length of time. They could pay for their keep for just one more week when she asked to speak to the Reverend Mother.

‘What is it, my dear?’ Mother Magdalene asked gently, knowing there had been something on Rosie’s mind for a day or two.

‘It’s money, Mother Magdalene.’ The words burst from Rosie’s lips. ‘We haven’t savings enough to keep us longer than next week.’

The Reverend Mother bit her lip. She longed to tell Rosie she could stay and was welcome for as long as she liked, but she had many demands on her purse and anyway she knew a little of Rosie now and knew she wouldn’t accept what she considered charity. ‘What do you intend to do, Rosie?’ she asked.

‘One of us must work, Mother Magdalene,’ she said. ‘Danny is unable to gain employment, so I think it’s down to me.’

‘He won’t like that.’

‘He’ll like going hungry even less,’ Rosie replied sharply. ‘And I’ll not do that to our child. I’ve seen enough of them half-starved around here to last me a lifetime.’ The favour I must ask of you concerns Bernadette,’ Rosie said. ‘Could she have a place in your nursery?’

‘Well, it is essentially for mothers working for the war
effort,’ Mother Magdalene said. ‘What line of work would you be looking for?’

‘That’s just it,’ Rosie said. ‘I don’t mind what I do as long as it pays enough for us to live decently. I wondered if you knew anything of wages?’

‘I know a little,’ Reverend Mother said. ‘But Sister Ambrose would know more as she’s in charge of the nursery.’

‘War-related work pays the most,’ Sister Ambrose said later when Rosie asked her what she could expect to earn. ‘Dunlop’s pays well. The factory is almost all moved up the Tyburn Road now, right out in the countryside, but they keep a factory in Rocky Lane, Aston.’

She didn’t tell Rosie the smell of carbon and rubber constantly emanating from the two women working at the factory who had children at the nursery would nearly choke you when they came to pick them up. Nor did she tell her of the carbon dust engrained in their hands and faces and even their hair; that it was little better in the mornings they’d told her they would go each Sunday to the baths in Victoria Road to have a good soak: it was the only time they could get really clean.

‘Then there’s the ammunitions works at Kynoch’s in Witton that pays well,’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘There’s quite a few go there and there’s a tram. I could ask someone to speak for you.’

Rosie thought about the women she’d seen about with yellow faces, who were called the Canary Girls as one of the shopkeepers told her. The discolouring was caused by the sulphur in munitions work. ‘Is there nothing else?’

‘Aye,’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘There’s shop work and work at HP and Ansells and numerous other factories, not to mention work in the Jewellery Quarter, but they won’t pay nearly as much.’

‘Right,’ Rosie said, her decision made. ‘As I don’t fancy Dunlop’s, Kynoch’s it will have to be. That’s where Rita Shaw works, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Sister Ambrose said, ‘she does, and a decent and respectable woman she is. Her husband Harry is overseas and she has little Georgie to provide for. We’ve looked after the child for well over a year now, and she has a house in Aston, which isn’t so far away. How well do you know her?’

‘Not that well,’ Rosie said. ‘We’ve just exchanged a few words now and then. But I’m sure she’d put a word in if I asked her.’

‘No doubt of it.’

‘Well I shan’t say anything just yet,’ Rosie said. ‘I must talk Danny round first.’

‘Rosie.’ Sister Ambrose said. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but most of the married women have men overseas. Have you thought what you’d do if you found you were expecting?’

Rosie shook her head. Whether it was depression through not having a job, or the proximity of the nuns, Danny had not once touched her intimately, never mind going further than that, since they arrived in Birmingham and this was another reason why she was anxious for them to get their own place.

‘I wouldn’t find myself expecting at the moment,’ she told Sister Ambrose. ‘There is no question of it just now.’

Their eyes held for a moment and Sister Ambrose understood how it was. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You best talk to your man.’

The man in question shouted and roared. He forbade Rosie to go to such a place. He said she was deliberately shaming him.

Rosie let Danny’s anger and scorn wash over her. She refused to be upset, whatever he said, for she knew that her taking a job could be the straw that broke the camel’s back for Danny. His rage was against the unfairness of life.

For two days he was out from dawn to dusk, tramping the streets, asking every factory he passed if they had work. The
answer was always the same. His despondency turned to despair and the second day he faced Rosie across their room. ‘How much money have we left?’

‘Five shillings,’ Rosie said. ‘And I must give that to the nuns this week for our keep. After that, there isn’t a penny.’

Danny sighed and Rosie felt sorry for him. He gazed down at Bernadette asleep in her cot, her thumb in her mouth, and said dejectedly, ‘I’m a failure to you, Rosie. The promises that I’d make it all up to you, I have broken.’

‘You’re no failure in my eyes, Danny.’

‘I know what I know,’ Danny said bitterly. ‘But, for Bernadette’s sake, I can sit on my pride no longer. Do whatever the hell you like.’

The next morning Rosie collared Rita. She’d liked her from the first, sensing in the no-nonsense Rita a person like herself. Rita’s face was yellow and there was a coppery tinge to the long brown hair she wore coiled up but her dark brown eyes were full of life and determination, despite the fact they were often red-rimmed. Rita knew little of Danny and Rosie didn’t mention him now. She just said she needed a job and did she think there would be a vacancy at the place she worked.

‘I’ll ask for you,’ Rita said. ‘But I’d say you have a good chance of being set on, they’re always wanting people. I’ll ask them today and when I come to fetch Georgie tonight, I’ll give you the answer. All right?’

It was more than all right and when Rita came that night and told Rosie that she was to go up the next day and see a Mr Witchell, who was boss of the place, Rosie could hardly contain her delight.

Next morning, Rosie went through what she had to say to the boss of the munitions works in the short tram journey, for she’d decided a modicum of the truth was needed. So she told him that they’d left Ireland, for it wasn’t a safe place to be at the moment, and that she’d been ill so they’d come to
the convent as one of the nuns was an aunt of hers. ‘Danny, my husband, had hoped to get work of some sort,’ she said, ‘but so far he’s been unsuccessful.’

‘So you decided to take up a job instead,’ Mr Witchell said. ‘How did he take to that?’

Rosie, remembering Danny’s rage at her suggestion, said, ‘Not very well at first, but he came round in the end.’

‘So he’s not likely to come storming up here lambasting everyone and drag you home by the hair?’ Mr Witchell asked with a twinkle in his eye, and the mental picture was so alien to anything Danny would do that Rosie smiled properly and felt her nerves flutter away. ‘No,’ she answered, ‘I don’t think so.’

‘And have you done any work like this before?’ Mr Witchell said and shook his head. ‘I’m supposed to ask that question, but, to be honest, few people have experience making guns and bullets.’

‘I haven’t either, sir,’ Rosie said. ‘But I’m willing to learn.’

‘I’m sure you are, and I’m willing to try you out,’ Mr Witchell said. ‘You can start next Monday morning at seven-thirty sharp. Wages start at two pounds and ten shillings. So how does that suit?’

‘It suits very well, sir,’ Rosie said, and she ran her right hand surreptitiously down the side of her dress before she shook hands for it was clammy with sweat. Two pounds and ten shillings was a good wage for anyone and a fortune for a woman. It would secure their future for the time being at least. As she left the office she had the urge to skip along the road like a lunatic, but somehow managed to control it.

She was up bright and early the following Monday morning and waiting for Rita at the door of the nursery. ‘Your wee daughter is gorgeous,’ Rita said as the pair scurried up Hunter’s Road. ‘She’s like an angel and her smile would melt a heart of stone.’

‘And she knows it,’ Rosie said. ‘The nuns would have her ruined altogether if I allowed it.’

Rita laughed. ‘I can well believe it. She’s the sort of child you’d love to spoil.’

Before Rosie was able to reply they’d turned from Hunter’s Road into Lozells Road and saw the tram lumbering towards the stop and had to put a spurt on in order to catch it.

Once on the tram, Rosie was anxious to talk about the job, because her stomach had being doing somersaults all night at the thought of it.

‘The supervisor on our section is Miss Morris,’ Rita told Rosie. ‘She’s a decent sort on the whole, as long as you don’t take advantage like. She can’t abide that. You have to wear these bloody awful, dark green overalls, nearly down to the floor they are, and a hat that every vestige of hair has to be tucked under. Mind, you’ll be glad of them, for the yellow dust swirls about in the air and gets everywhere.’

‘Don’t you mind about your face turning a yellow colour?’

‘I care more about paying the rent, putting food on the table so me and Georgie can eat decently and I can dress him in respectable clothes and put a bit of money in the Post Office for when my Harry comes back,’ Rita stated emphatically. ‘That’s all I care about.’

‘Aye,’ Rosie said. ‘I agree with you. That’s all most of us want.’

‘Come on,’ Rita said suddenly, ‘the next stop’s ours. I’ll take you in to Miss Morris and she’ll sort you out.’

They went in through the huge metal gates and down a side alley to a squat brick building, and once inside, Rita pointed out the clock where a queue of girls waited. ‘You’ll be given a card today,’ she said, ‘and the first thing you do is punch it in there. If you’re late they dock your pay, and if you’re persistently late they take off an hour for every minute or sack you altogether, so be careful.’

Suddenly Miss Morris was in front of them and she
shepherded Rosie along with the others to don the uniform, which was just as hideous as Rita had described.

She hadn’t been exaggerating about the dust either, for it did seem to get everywhere, and the stink of it went up Rosie’s nose and to the back of her throat as soon as she entered the factory floor, making her cough. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ Miss Morris said. ‘I was the same at first – sometimes my eyes would itch and burn, but they’re all right now.’