Danny Boy (42 page)

‘Even so.’

‘No,’ Dermot said. ‘It’s coming down in bucketfuls. He’d be drenched and he’s already been disturbed half the night,’ Danny said. ‘He’ll likely sleep till I come back from taking Bernadette to school.’

Rosie bit her lip in consternation. ‘Look, Rosie,’ Dermot said. ‘He’s one small baby. Surely to God you can see he can’t go out in this? Even as far as Ida’s.’

Of course she saw. She nodded her head. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll take Bernadette today.’

‘No you won’t,’ Dermot said. ‘Danny said you weren’t to go either. He said you get a lot of coughs and colds.’

Rosie was about to protest when Bernadette burst in. ‘She does,’ she said, remembering how frightened she’d been when her mammy was ill. ‘She coughs and coughs and has to stay in bed ages and I can’t even see her and have to stay with Auntie Ida or Auntie Rita.’

Rosie stared at her daughter and realised for the first time how much the child hated her being unwell. She couldn’t risk going out into that bleak morning after her child had spoken like that.

‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ Dermot said with a smile.

‘I’m afraid so,’ Rosie said. ‘But be as quick as you can.’

‘I will,’ Dermot said. ‘I’d hardly dawdle in this.’

However, barely had the door closed on Dermot and Bernadette when the baby began to stir. Rosie watched almost fearfully as the movements in the crib became more marked and the mewling noises turned to a plaintive cry. She sat almost rooted to the spot as the cries turned to wails. Surely, she thought, Dermot must be back soon, or…she’d go for Ida. That’s what she’d do.

But she found she couldn’t go and admit, even to her friend, that she was afraid to pick up one small baby, her own small baby. She approached the crib and looked down, wondering why she couldn’t love this child as she did Bernadette.

Anthony’s arms were threshing from side to side and his face scarlet as his cries reached crescendo level. Gently, Rosie lifted him into her arms and held him against her shoulder, and he could have been anyone’s child, a friend’s, a stranger’s, she felt so little for him. She patted his back rhythmically and automatically rocked from side to side. ‘Ssh, ssh, ssh,’ she said over and over, and eventually the baby’s cries eased and became hiccupping little sobs. Rosie lifted the baby down and looked at him. She wasn’t even sure what colour eyes he had and now she saw the newborn blue had turned to brown, and then his mouth worked suddenly and fearing he would continue to cry she rocked him while she sang a lullaby.

Anthony stopped struggling and listened, a pucker appearing between his eyes, which he screwed up in an attempt to focus. Then his eyes suddenly opened wide and he gazed at Rosie, and then a smile – a real and beautiful smile – lit up his whole face.

Rosie was struck with such unexpected and inexplicable love for the child and with such force she felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach by a mule and her legs trembled so, she’d felt for a chair with her free hand and sat down on it, gazing at her child as if she couldn’t get enough of him.

Ida, calling in to see how she was, saw her sitting cuddling Anthony as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
‘Thank God!’ she said, but silently and afterwards she said to Rita, who she waylaid on the way home from work. ‘I made up a bottle for the babby and she gave it to him as nice as you like. Oh my God, it brought tears to my eyes, it did really.’

Rita was as delighted as Ida. ‘I think our Rosie’s out of the woods now all right,’ she said. ‘If Danny could only get a job their lives would be perfect.’

‘Ah wouldn’t it,’ Ida said, ‘but that’s as far away as ever. Danny is just one of thousands of men in the same boat.’

When Dermot returned home wringing wet and saw Rosie with the baby in her arms, he stood dead still in the doorway. Rosie turned to see him there and said calmly. ‘Come in Dermot, come up to the fire and get those wet things off before you catch a chill.’

Dermot went as if in a trance and took off his wet coat and cap and hung them on the rail above the range. He was unable to keep his eyes off a sight he was beginning to think he’d never see. Ida had not long gone and Anthony was finishing the bottle she’d made for him. But, even after it, winded and changed, Rosie held him, reluctant to lay him down. When Dermot suggested he put him in the crib ‘He’s had weeks, months there,’ she said. ‘Denied of his birthright, my love.’

‘Why!’ Dermot said. ‘I mean, what’s changed?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rosie said. ‘It hit me like a ton of bricks and I don’t have any explanation.’

She remembered telling Danny she couldn’t love a child begotten through drunkenness and lust, but it wasn’t that really. She knew the child was just the innocent victim of something that had happened that previous Christmas Eve. But she wasn’t sharing any of that with her young brother. She didn’t want to blame him either or have him think she was blaming him, for none of it was his fault either, so she spoke cautiously, ‘Things were different for us after you were born, Dermot.’

‘Geraldine has often said something similar,’ Dermot said.
‘Of course I saw a lot myself as I grew. You accept things as they are when you’re just a wean.’

‘Aye,’ Rosie said. ‘Well I didn’t want the same thing to happen to Bernadette.’

‘That’s not likely though is it?’ Dermot said. ‘You and Danny are different parents to ours.’

‘I know. At least I see it now,’ Rosie said. ‘But if you add that fear to the one that I’d never be able to give birth to a healthy child and my reaction because of it, it probably explains why I felt as I did about Anthony initially.’

‘And now?’

‘Now. Oh God, I love him to pieces,’ Rosie said. ‘I can’t imagine ever thinking otherwise, but I shall make it up to him.’

‘I know one person who will be pleased,’ Dermot said. ‘And that will be Danny.’

‘Aye,’ Rosie said, and added with a sigh, ‘God, he’ll need something to cheer him.’

‘You think he’s not a chance of this job at Quinton then?’

‘Not a snowball’s chance in Hell,’ Rosie said. ‘And he’ll be more dispirited than ever.’

So Rosie was very surprised to see a happy, smiling Danny at the door some hours later; just as he was to see his wife lifting Anthony from the crib, a made-up bottle already in her hand. Dermot had gone down for Bernadette and so there was just the two of them and the baby, and Rosie said, hardly daring to hope, ‘You…you got the job?’

‘At Quinton, no,’ Danny said. ‘Men must have been queuing there from black night; the queues were three deep and spreading right down the road. The foreman came out at eight and told anyone from halfway down there was no point in us waiting and so I set off home again. I didn’t come back straight away because I felt too disappointed to face you. I went down the cut instead. I helped a boatie leg it through the tunnel as he was pulling a load of coal behind him and he gave me a shilling and I earned another shilling and a double brandy for
helping a narrowboat through the locks. Don’t look like that, Rosie, it was only the one double brandy and that was only because we were so soaked. It was keeping the life in us.’

Rosie felt Danny’s jacket and knew he told the truth; though the rain had stopped now, his jacket was soaking. ‘Take that off and come up to the fire. I’ll put the kettle on. A drink may warm you.’

‘It will,’ Danny said. ‘But let me finish the tale first. When I came out of the pub, Ted was on the canal and he hailed me. He said I’d saved him a journey for he was coming here tonight. Syd has done a runner it seems. Young Syd and Ted had a set-to more than a week ago and the boy took off.

‘Ted took no notice, thinking each day he’d be back. Then this morning he had a letter from the lad saying he’d joined the merchant navy as a cadet and signed on for seven years. Ted and his wife can’t manage the narrowboat on their own and they’ve offered me a job, and won’t I like it better than any factory?’

Rosie was hardly able to believe it. After all this time, Danny in work! ‘Permanent?’

‘Aye, permanent. Ah Jesus, Rosie, how good it feels.’ He grabbed Rosie and held her tight and she was heedless of the sodden jacket, though she held Anthony away from it. ‘I’m delighted for you,’ she said. ‘And now go and get out of those wet things before you get your death and I’ll feed this young man. In the oven I have liver and onions cooking that Dermot went shopping for this morning, a fine meal for a celebration.’

‘But…how…’ Danny couldn’t put into words what he wanted to say. ‘You and Anthony?’

‘Well, whatever it was that ailed me with regard to the child, I’m over it,’ Rosie said. ‘I think I know why I was unable to take to Anthony at his birth, but I don’t know why all that was pushed to one side because he smiled at me. But it has been. You need have no worries, Danny, I love my son as well as my daughter.’

‘And your husband?’

‘I’ve never stopped loving my husband.’

‘Ah Rosie,’ Danny promised. ‘You need have no worries either. I’ll make you proud of me.’

‘I’ve always been proud of you.’

‘God, how can you say that? There have been times I haven’t been able to live with myself.’

‘Danny, that’s in the past. Let’s put that behind us and look to the future. And whatever that holds we’ll face it together. Now go and take off those wet things before they stick to you.’

When Bernadette and Dermot came in a little later, both their cheeks were red as they’d run most of the way home. Dermot had said nothing to Bernadette about Rosie’s changed attitude to the baby, and so she watched her mother feeding Anthony for a bit and said, ‘Do you like Anthony now, Mammy?’

Rosie was flummoxed by the question. ‘I’ve always liked Anthony, Bernadette.’

‘No, you haven’t,’ Bernadette said emphatically. ‘I’m glad you do now. He does get on your nerves when he cries all the time, though.’

‘He doesn’t cry all the time.’

‘Well, a lot, then.’

Rosie thought it time to change the subject. ‘Bernadette, I don’t want to discuss Anthony’s crying just now, Daddy has got good news. He has a job on a narrowboat. He’ll be at work again.’

This was news to Dermot too and he went across the room and took Danny’s hand and shook it.

‘I’m so happy for you,’ he said. ‘I haven’t words to tell you how much.’

It made life easier for Dermot too, for he knew soon he’d have to return home and he’d have hated to go with things unresolved. Now he could leave with an easier conscience, and later, with Bernadette in bed and Anthony asleep in the crib, he told Rosie and Danny he must think about going home.

Rosie was surprised. She’d never asked Dermot what his long-term plans were, but she’d assumed he would bide with them for some time. Now, she saw that could never be. ‘You’ll return to the farm?’

‘Aye,’ Dermot said. ‘Daddy will never manage it on his own and after all it will be mine one day. For the time being, anyway. I have another year at school and there may be trouble if I stay away any longer. There are to be changes, though. For example, I will see the girls and not lie about it either, skulking about the village as if it’s something to be ashamed of.

‘I’ll see Connie too. She’ll be anxious for news of you. She’s not the same woman since you left. Phelan does his best, but she misses all of you. She’d love to hear of Bernadette and wee Anthony, for she’ll never come here, the very thought of the journey terrifies her, and she knows you cannot come home for years. Write to her, Rosie?’

‘Aye, I will,’ Rosie said. ‘Now everything’s all right, I will.’

Later in the bedroom, Rosie said, ‘I’ll write to your mother first thing tomorrow. There will be only good news to give her for a change.’

Danny took Rosie in his arms. His eyes saddened suddenly. ‘I once told you I’d never let anyone hurt a hair on your head,’ he said. ‘And then, when we came to Birmingham, I promised I’d make it up to you, leaving Ireland and all. I often think all I brought you was a vale of tears and sadness.’

‘In everyone’s life there is sunshine and shadow,’ Rosie said. ‘No-one knows what the future holds. But at least we have a future. What future have those young men, from whichever side, whose bodies are littered over battlefields in a war they often didn’t have choice of fighting in? Ordinary people often don’t have a choice, but at least we have each other and we faced our shadows together. Let’s go out into the sunshine hand in hand.’ And she reached for Danny’s hand and grasped it tight.