Polly's Angel (13 page)

‘What time did Jamie settle, Brog?' Sara asked. ‘It must have been half past ten, I suppose. Oh well, perhaps he'll wake later in the morning,' she added hopefully. She drained the last of her tea, stood up and took the empty mug over to the sink. Rinsing it in cold water she dried it on a tea-towel and hung it back on its hook. ‘Sorry, but I'm really very tired. See you in the morning, Gracie. What shift are you on tomorrow, Brog?'

‘It's me day off,' Brogan said lazily, still sipping his tea. ‘So mebbe I'll take Jamie out for the day . . . well, I'll bring him back for dinner,' he added hastily, ‘Seeing as I'm no sort of a hand wit' the nappy-changing, let alone feeding him that pap you girls hand out. Now when he's on to the steak an' chips, I'm your man so I am.'

Sara, in the doorway, laughed back at him. ‘I'm going to teach you to change a nappy if it's the last thing I do,' she declared. ‘And it's no good you going green and saying you can't stand the sight of – of what he's just done. These days, with both Grace and myself so busy, you've simply got to have a working knowledge of minding a baby.'

‘Oh, I can do it,' Brogan said, finishing his own tea and taking Grace's now empty cup over to the sink. ‘But I can't say I like it and the little devil wiggles so I'm scared out of me life that he'll end up on the floor, or wit' a safety pin through his – his—'

Grace, laughing, said she quite understood and dried up the mugs when Brogan had rinsed them. ‘Then if you're on a day off tomorrow I'll not wake you,' she said cheerfully. ‘As for taking Jamie out, in this sort of weather a rush to the shops is about all he gets – and probably all he needs, what's more, so don't you worry about him. He's no trouble, you know, but a pleasure to be with,' she finished.

‘Not when he's teethin' he's not,' Brogan said darkly. ‘A bad-tempered spalpeen, that's what he is when he feels the teeth of him comin'. But don't throw me offer back in me face, Jess, or you'll find yourself saddled with him until you go off to work again.'

‘I don't mind . . .' Grace was beginning, when she stopped, a frown descending. ‘What did you call me, Brog?'

‘Je . . . I mean Grace, I suppose,' Brogan said. He went quite pink Grace saw. ‘Now off to bed wit' you, Grace Carbery, or Sara will tell me off for keepin' you chattin'.'

‘You called me Jess,' Grace said slowly, ignoring his words. ‘And it's not the first time, Brog. Why Jess, though?'

‘Oh . . . well, you've a likeness to your sister I suppose,' Brogan said in a mumble. ‘Sorry . . . I can't think what made me . . .'

‘But it was Sara who knew Jess, and baby Mollie, not you,' Grace said, staring at him. ‘I never heard tell you'd met Jess, Brog.'

‘You haven't? Well, of course I knew her, alanna,' Brogan said, the pink dying out of his face. He began to get cups, plates and cutlery from the dresser. ‘I'll just lay the table for breakfast so I will, since we'll all be takin' it together for once.'

‘How did you know Jess?' Grace demanded. She took the cutlery from him and began to arrange it around the table. ‘I know Sara met her just – just before she died and – and the baby disappeared, but no one ever said you'd met my sister.'

‘I – I guess I saw her hangin' round the railway from time to time,' Brogan said slowly. ‘She – she usually had the baby with her – your sister Mollie I mean. She were a good girl were Jess, but I'm sorry I miscalled you, alanna. I think it's because you're gettin' more like her, now you've some flesh on your bones, but it – it doesn't mean anything, you know. Except that I'm liable to forgetfulness. Now off to bed wit' you, or I'll be gettin' a drubbin' from Sara for keepin' you talkin', I keep tellin' you.'

‘It isn't the first time you've done it, though,' Grace said thoughtfully, turning towards the kitchen door. ‘It isn't the first time you've called me Jess, I mean. Still, it's nice to think I'm even a bit like her; she was one of the best people I ever knew, though I was really almost a baby myself when she died.'

‘Aye, four or five, you must have been I suppose,' Brogan said. He was beginning to look hunted, Grace thought, amused. But she was very tired, and what did it matter, after all, that Brogan had called her by her dead sister's name? On previous occasions when Brogan had called her Jess, Sara had always been present and had cut in so quickly that Grace had not liked to comment. But the answer was simple after all – Brogan, as well as Sara, had known her beloved elder sister. So she smiled up at him and opened the kitchen door.

‘Do you know, I still miss her, in a way?' Grace said. ‘When you think of all the Carberys, the whole great clan of us, and we all somehow lost touch. I don't know whether I've a brother living – or a sister for that matter – and though I'd still love to see Mollie again, if she's alive that is, I've no urge whatever to meet the boys.'

‘Better not to meet 'em, from what I've heard,' Brogan said. ‘Goodnight now, Gracie; see you in the mornin', and don't hesitate to wake me when you need a hand with the boy.'

Brogan entered the bedroom to find Sara sitting before the mirror, brushing her hair. She had undressed and put on her night-gown, and smiled at him through the mirror.

‘I'm sorry, darling,' she said. ‘But I was so tired! And then, when I had washed and cleaned my teeth I found I wasn't so tired any longer, so I checked on Jamie – he's sleeping soundly – and then decided to give my hair a really good brushing.'

She continued to attack her hair but Brogan, without preamble, took her shoulders, rested his chin on the top of her head and said flatly, ‘I called her Jess again. Grace, I mean.'

‘Oh, mercy,' Sara said, her brush suspended for a moment. ‘Did she notice?'

‘Certainly she did,' Brogan said gloomily. ‘She asked me why, too.'

‘And what did you say? Oh, Brog, you didn't spill the beans, did you? You know we all agreed not to do so until Polly was older . . . well, until they were both older.'

‘Of course I didn't, no more I didn't tell her it was me stole her little sister away after Jess died and sent her to Ireland for me mammy to bring up,' Brogan said indignantly, then spoiled the effect by adding: ‘but it was a very close run thing so it was. She asked me why I'd called her Jess and without really thinking I told her the truth – that she sometimes reminded me of Jess now she's growing up.'

‘Oh, lor',' Sara said, beginning to brush her hair again. ‘What did she say to that?'

‘She said she didn't realise I knew her sister, though she was well aware that you did, of course. So I told her the truth, more or less. I said I'd known Jess as well, I used to see her about the railway when I worked in Liverpool.'

‘And?'

‘And she accepted it. Why not? And it isn't so far from the truth as all that. She does remind me of Jess. Why, she's got a likeness to Polly as well, don't you think?'

‘I know what you mean,' Sara said after a pause for thought. ‘But it isn't an obvious likeness. Polly's hair is very fair and curly, and Grace has straight brown hair. And Polly's got big blue eyes and dimples; Grace's eyes are grey and she doesn't have Poll's roses and cream complexion, either. I don't think their likeness to each other will ever be remarked on by anyone outside the family. And the family all know better than to say anything, don't they? After all, you stole Mollie and renamed her Polly, and your parents knew, and said nothing because they wanted a baby girl so much. Your mammy is still afraid that the authorities would punish her in some way if anyone ever found out how it was.'

‘Aye, that's true,' Brogan said. He moved away from his wife and began to undress, then went over to the washstand and sluiced his hands and face in the water Sara had left. Sara, climbing into bed, giggled.

‘I thought you'd not want to bother with fresh water, you horrid thing,' she said affectionately, pulling the sheet up to her chin. ‘Now let's hurry up and get some sleep before young Master Jamie decides to start shouting the odds again.'

Tad did well as a delivery boy for Merrick's, because he was not afraid of hard work and was quite willing to continue tramping the streets of Dublin until midnight if necessary, to see that all the deliveries were done before Christmas Day. He was hopeful, of course, that Mr Merrick might see the justice of keeping him on, though his mammy thought this extremely doubtful.

‘Just use your head, son,' she said kindly the first time Tad allowed his secret hope to surface. ‘Christmas time, everyone eats, no matter how poor. Well, I know the rich has meat an' pies an' all sorts, and the rest make do wit' whatever they can afford, but one way an' another, we all eat over Christmas. And what happens in January? Why, we all pay for it. Once the 6th of January is over, it's tightenin'-belts time, which is why January an' February are called the hungry months. Folk have spent all their spare cash and after Christmas they know they won't have much of anything until the spring comes again. And there's nothin' goin' free around then, either. No blackers on the brambles, no nuts on the hazels, no apples in the orchards. See?'

‘So what?' Tad said, staring. ‘D'you mean Merrick's won't sell nothin' after Christmas?'

‘No, 'course not. But they won't need extra deliveries, will they? They'll manage wi' the lads they employ all year, so it's no use your gettin' your hopes up. Best start lookin' round for another job come the New Year.'

So when the New Year came and his mammy's prophecy came true, Tad tried very hard indeed to get another job, but he wasn't the only one. All over Dublin, boys who had earned money over the Christmas season were looking for jobs – any job. It was hard enough if you had some sort of training, but when, like Tad and his brothers, you had only sold newspapers, run messages or delivered goods, there were simply too many of you chasing every possible post.

And yet when Tad did get a job, it was largely because of his time with Merrick's, plus the most enormous stroke of luck.

Merrick's not only had delivery boys on bicycles and on foot, they also had an elderly van which did the out-of-town orders. And once or twice in early December because the deliveries in the countryside were so heavy, Tad had been sent on the van with Mr McGrath, the driver, to help him with his deliveries. Tad had enjoyed the experience immensely; it was fun to sit beside the driver, fun to watch how he actually drove the old van – Tad had not, before, realised that a motor vehicle had gears, he had thought that a brake, a steering wheel and a horn were all that had to be mastered – and because he never complained when asked to carry great heavy baskets of food up long, tree-lined drives which had most town-boys thinking uneasily of ghosts, bulls and fierce dogs, Mr McGrath decided that he preferred ‘young Donoghue' to the other delivery boys, and asked for him whenever his workload was heavy.

This, whilst pleasant for Tad, might not have had any repercussions but for the fact that three days before Christmas, when the van was so laden that Mr McGrath had crawled most of the way in second gear, it broke down on a long stretch of country road without any sort of immediate help in sight.

‘'Tis sorry I am, but you'll have to walk back to the city, young feller,' Mr McGrath said wearily, for it was raining briskly and the sky overhead was grey and lowering. ‘It'll be dark soon, and I've no fancy to be stuck out here all night by meself, let alone tryin' to deliver this lot on foot.'

‘Let's have a look in the engine before I go,' Tad had said, highly daring. He had discovered that he liked tinkering with motors when a neighbour with an old motorbike had stripped it down one afternoon the previous summer and had instructed Tad in the strange ways of the internal combustion engine. ‘You never know, Mr McGrath, it might be somethin' dead simple.'

Mr McGrath had made discouraging noises, but it was cold and wet and as he had said, darkness was coming on. He was a city man himself and really did not like the thought of waiting out here whilst Tad tramped back into Dublin to fetch help. So he walked round to the front of the van, heaved up one side of the creaking bonnet, and surveyed, with a jaundiced eye, the mass of nasty, messy-looking odds and ends which constituted the engine.

‘There's no sense in it that I can see,' he grumbled, peering in the fading light at the coils and boxes and pipes. ‘I'm thinkin' you'd best be—'

‘It's the fan belt. See . . . there,' Tad said coolly, peering into the engine and pointing at something, though Mr McGrath certainly did not know what. ‘It's broke, Mr McGrath. If we can just find somethin' to tek its place while we make our way back home . . . there's the belt on me apron, but . . .' He eyed Mr McGrath up and down, then exclaimed: ‘Your tie! Sure an' it's a fine tie, but it'll wash! Will ye give me a borrow of it, Mr M?'

Mr McGrath's first impulse was to clutch his tie and refuse to part with it, but as he glanced round he saw that it was already growing darker . . . and the van was still fully laden . . . ‘Oh, all right, but don't you ruin it, young Donoghue. Me wife give it me for me birt'day last year,' he said, reluctantly beginning to unknot the tie from around his neck.

Tad had taken the tie, run it round the pulley-wheels, knotted it, and then told his superior to start the engine. Wonderingly, Mr McGrath had climbed back into the cab and watched as Tad went and fetched the starting handle, fitted it into the appropriate slot in front of the bonnet, and began to crank vigorously. He had very little faith in the ability of a delivery boy to solve the problem, but he had clearly underestimated Tad Donoghue. The engine coughed, stuttered and began to purr like a contented cat. Tad jumped into the cab beside him as soon as he was sure that the engine was really and truly all right and Mr McGrath, with a huge sigh of relief, had put the van into gear and set off once more.