Polly's Angel (20 page)

Tad thought it highly unlikely that anyone would encourage a Land Girl to take a dog along to her place of work but wisely did not voice such thoughts in his next letter. He had learned, the hard way, that a quarrel which takes place in correspondence takes a long time to sort out and can leave lasting scars. Instead, he told Polly that she should come back to Ireland. ‘
Your daddy's been poorly for a long while and would be better here
,' he wrote. ‘
And you're Irish, Polleen. Why should you stay over there and talk about fightin their war? We don't have this here blackout, nor we haven't closed cinemas. Come back, an bring your family.
'

But this had apparently been defeatist talk. Polly wrote back indignantly to say that only a coward would run away when the country she lived in was in trouble, and whatever she might be she was no coward, as she hoped Tad would acknowledge. Even Angela, to Tad's dismay, talked wistfully of uniforms, and she had a good job now working as a secretarial assistant in the Pensions Office. She constantly reminded Tad that one day she would be a secretary, earning even better money, so he considered that she should not be thinking of uniforms, and a war which was not her country's own. Advancement, for Angela, meant staying just where she was, whereas for himself . . .

‘I dunno about this blackout, an' rationin',' Tad's mammy said when he read her bits out of Polly's letters. ‘But I don't see how we'll be after managin' to stay out of the war once it gets goin', for sure an' if enemy ships blockade British ports to starve 'em out, how will the food get to us? I'm after tellin' you, son, that t'ings won't be no easier here than over there, once the Germans get theirselves organised.'

But Tad did not believe it. The Irish and the Germans were
friends,
weren't they? Ireland and Britain had been at loggerheads for ever, so why should anyone expect Ireland to make things difficult for themselves just to please the ould enemy? Only . . . well, Polly was there, and several other O'Bradys, and he had a good few pals who had gone over to join up and fight against the Jerries. In the last war they had called them Huns, Tad had thought inconsequentially, but now they were usually referred to as Jerries. Like the pot under the bed was called a jerry, though Tad had no idea why this should be so. But he supposed that to each generation their own enemy, and what had sounded right in 1914 was not quite right in 1939.

He might have stayed in Dublin, enjoying his work at Barnes's Garage, taking Angela to the cinema or the theatre, going dancing on a Saturday, but for Phil, who also worked in the garage.

‘Me big brother Albert's joined the English Air Force, an' it's desperate keen they are to get more fellers what know a t'ing or two about engines an' the like,' he told Tad eagerly one freezing afternoon when the two of them were down in the inspection pit, trying to change a shattered exhaust system for a new one. ‘And the engines in aircrafts is just like cars. Some of them are even made by the same firms. They need mechanics – fellers they can train to work on the aircraft engines an' make sure they run sweet. Fellers like us, Tad.'

Tad stood up and banged his head against the old exhaust which was covered in rust and mud yet refused to budge. It was one hell of an impact, and a good part of the exhaust shifted, covering Tad's hair in rust. Tad cursed and gave the exhaust another heave, causing it to wobble hopefully, then repeated the remark. ‘Aircraft engines? But we don't know anything about 'em, Phil.'

‘No, but nor do most fellers; that's why the Air Force is willin' to teach you, if you join up and put down for to work as a mechanic,' Phil said eagerly. ‘I tell you what, Tad, it'll help us in our trade when the war's over, if we know a t'ing or two about aeroengines. I t'ought if you'd be willin' to go, I'd go too.'

‘To England?' Tad said doubtfully. He could not personally remember the Tans when they had rampaged through Ireland, but he could remember the stories about them all too clearly. They had killed this one and hung that one, fired buildings, raped women . . . But that had been a long while ago, and to wear a smart uniform and yet still work with engines was an ambition which burned in most of the mechanics who toiled in garages. And I've nothin' against the English now, Tad had reminded himself magnanimously as he and Phil heaved at the recalcitrant exhaust system. Some of them are grand, Polly says so and she should know. She's lived amongst 'em now for years and she's a girl what knows a bad 'un when she sees him. Oh aye, you can't pull the wool over our Polly's eyes!

So the long and the short of it had been that he and Phil had taken a day off and bought themselves train tickets to Belfast, where they had gone into a recruiting office to join the Royal Air Force. Time passed, and then on the very same day they both got letters telling them to make their way to England and to appear at Cardington, where they would be kitted out and sent for further training. So they gave in their notice to Mr Barnes and packed their bags and now here they were, Phil with his family clustered round, Tad with his hand warm in Angela's, having positively forbidden the Donoghue clan to come down to the station to see him off, for they had to make their way to England via Dundalk and Belfast, where they had been accepted by the RAF.

‘It'll be hard enough sayin' goodbye to Angela,' he had told his mother and his younger brothers and sisters. ‘But sayin' goodbye to you, wit' half Dublin lookin' on – well, I couldn't do it, I'd be blubberin' like a five-year-old. So I'll say goodbye at home and save me blushes.'

They had agreed, therefore, not to come, and he was glad, yet when departure time arrived and Phil's family surrounded him, he realised that he was also a little sorry. However, he hugged Angela, kissed her, and then told her to go; no point, he said, in hanging around, it would only make it harder for both of them.

He slogged his way on to the train and into a crowded carriage beside Phil, lugging his canvas bag. It held all his worldly goods and was, Tad reflected with grim humour, uncommonly light. Once he had slung his bag on to a seat he stood up and looked out of the window to give one last wave to Angela and one last look at as much as he could see of Dublin – and saw a small group of people coming on to the platform where they stood in a bunch, staring towards the train and waving desperately. He stared again, and all in a moment he realised that it was the kids – Liam, Kevin, Dougal, Annie clutching Sammy's dirty little paw, and Biddy, Meg and Eileen. Angela had not seen them, she was still gazing up at him where he stood, waving . . . he could see tears running down her cheeks. But somehow, at that moment what really mattered was that despite his strictures the kids had come to wave him off – and the mammy! She stood a little apart from the kids and she waved and waved . . . and now and then put up a hand to her cheek. And Phil, beside him, was shouting something, and the porters were running along the train slamming doors, someone was waving a green flag, Angela was standing back, dabbing at her eyes . . . and Tad felt tears on his own cheeks and waved and waved and waved, and didn't care that he was crying – so was Phil, so was everyone within eyeshot. And presently the train gave a long, sad-sounding whistle and began to move and then the station began to recede, Dublin grew smaller and smaller, the people could no longer be distinguished, one from another . . . and the train whistled again as it picked up speed and the little houses they were passing became fewer and fewer, further and further apart. Tad and Phil were on their way to war!

They didn't talk much as the train ambled its slow way across the Irish countryside. When they reached Dundalk however they had to leave the train and queue up for customs and for the first time a nagging doubt assailed Tad that the customs officers might guess they were leaving Eire for the war.

‘What'll we do if they turn us back,' he muttered to his friend as they shuffled forwards. ‘We'd never live it down, so we wouldn't.'

‘We'd have to try again tomorrow,' Phil said philosophically. ‘Oh janey, I wish I didn't have this old suitcase. Suppose they make me open it?' However such doubts soon proved groundless. There were a great many young men crossing over, mostly armed with bags or suitcases, and though Tad and Phil both told the official that they were taking outgrown clothes to a younger cousin living in south Belfast the officer merely grinned at them, marked their cases with a chalk cross and sent them back to the train to continue their journey across the border.

‘Well, that's a relief,' Tad said as he sank once more into his corner seat. ‘Another few hours, Phil and we'll be seeing England for the first time. It was hard leavin' me fambly but I know we're doin' the right thing!'

Despite himself, Tad was impressed with Liverpool. Come to that, he told himself, as the ferry passengers began to descend at the Pier Head, he had been impressed by Belfast, which was a larger city than he had expected to find north of the border. But the waterfront, with the huge buildings lining the edge of the River Mersey and the great Liver birds with their half-open wings outlined against the noonday sky, was awe-inspiring. So this is where my Polly lives, Tad thought as he and Phil joined the others making their way down on to dry land once more. I hope I'll be able to find her in this scrimmage – but then I know the address, I can see a grosh of trams waiting alongside the dock . . . I'll find her all right!

‘Let's book into a boarding house first, though, Tad,' Phil said when Tad asked him if he could amuse himself whilst he, Tad, went and visited his pal. ‘If it's all the same to you I'll come along too. I don't fancy bein' left in a foreign city all by meself.'

‘All right,' Tad agreed with assumed reluctance – assumed because he suddenly realised that it could take him quite a time to find this Titchfield Street place of the O'Bradys. They were on the Goree Piazza now, and Tad remembered Polly telling him, in one of her letters, that it had been here that the slaves had been sold long ago. ‘Look, there's a pub – the Vaults – see it? We'll try there, most pubs can put a feller up for a night or so.'

‘It'll probably be noisy, but it's only for the one night,' Tad said as the two of them went into the beer-smelling, sawdust-floored barroom. The bar was deserted but the two young men could hear voices coming from the back somewhere. Tad dropped his bag on the floor and rapped on the counter, shouting: ‘Anybody home? You've got customers!' He lowered his voice again, and addressed his friend. ‘Eh, I can't wait to find Poll again – it's been five
years,
Phil. She'll have changed a good deal, I daresay.'

‘You've changed a good deal yourself,' Phil said just as a fat, slovenly-looking woman came through from the back and grinned at them, showing a fine array of black and broken teeth. ‘Oh, mornin', missus. We're after wantin' a room, just for the night, you understand. And we'll be off early in the mornin', so we will, for we're bound for the station.'

‘One betwixt the two of ye?' the woman said. ‘I'm the landlady, by the way – Mrs Collett. Folly me, fellers – just off the Irish boat, are ye? I've relatives across the water meself.'

‘That's it; we're headed for Cardington, to join the Air Force,' Tad said. ‘I expect you can tell us the way to Lime Street Station?'

‘Oh aye,' Mrs Collett said. She crossed the bar, her downtrodden slippers scuffing two clear patches in the sawdust on the floor, and headed for a blackened open staircase in a corner of the room. ‘The Air Force, is it? Most of 'em's joinin' the Navy, I'd ha' said.'

‘We're mechanics,' Tad told her. ‘I say, missus, you don't happen to know Titchfield Street, I suppose? It's near St Sylvester's church, I know that much. Can we walk there, d'you suppose? Only I've a pal lives thereabouts – several pals. I thought I'd look 'em up whilst I'm in the city.'

The woman stopped at the head of the stairs to consider the question with a wrinkled brow. ‘Titchfield Street. Oh aye, that'll be one of them roads near the Scottie, I don't know exactly which one it is. Well, lads, you could walk but your best bet will be to catch a number 43 or 44 tram from the Pier Head and get off at Burlington Street and then ask again. There's folks which will be able to tell you all right and tight once you get that far.'

‘Thanks very much,' Tad said gratefully as she flung open a door and gestured them inside. The room was quite large with a lofty ceiling and a big sash window overlooking the Piazza, and the bed was a double one with a sagging mattress and a darned white sheet folded down on to a faded pink cotton bedspread. The washstand was old-fashioned and marble-topped and the wardrobe looked large enough to house a regiment of soldiers, but despite Mrs Collett's unkempt appearance the room was clean and the bedlinen fresh enough. ‘And this looks fine, so it does. What d'you say, Phil?'

‘How much?' Phil said immediately and the woman grinned again, then pushed a lock of lank brown hair off her forehead with a fat, pink-palmed hand. ‘Half a crown each,' she said, adding hastily: ‘There's a war on an' call for me rooms, you see. That includes breakfast, an' I'll do a dinner at seven for one an' six a head.'

‘That'll suit us,' Tad said. ‘Shall we have a dinner, Phil, or would you rather get some fish an' chips?'

‘A dinner,' Phil said at once. He slung his own bag on to the washstand and held out his hand. ‘Can we have the key, please?'

‘Oh aye, when I've 'ad me five bob,' Mrs Collett said, chuckling. ‘I waren't born yesterday, fellers.'

Tad and Phil handed over the money and closed the door behind their landlady, then grinned at each other. ‘She's all right,' Tad said. ‘But we'd better get a move on, old feller. Are you sure you want to come all the way out to Titchfield Street, though?'