Promised Land (12 page)

Their daughters were another matter and most of the country women were prepared to lavish a small fortune on these girls.

‘Isn’t she beautiful in that pale pink nightdress, miss!’ they’d murmur proudly, as their daughters emerged transformed looking sophisticated and sensual in satins and silk. She fetched them glasses of water from the sink upstairs and made sure they had a chair to sit on when their feet were swollen from walking in new tight shoes. Miss Byrne, her department head, pursed her lips with disdain at such unfashionable women cluttering up the lingerie section but dared not
complain
as Ita Ganley regularly appeared and oozing with charm led them off to try on the latest fashion in a coat or knitted suit on the floor below. Julia Cullen was the one who took the bother to show Ella the ropes and train her in. They worked well together, helping each other out with troublesome customers, Julia endlessly patient with even the worst ones. They also covered for each other when they managed to slip away from Miss Byrne’s eagle eye to the ladies’ cloakroom for a few minutes’ break and the chance to sit down and take the weight off their feet.

As the junior in the shop Ella earned the least in salary and looked wistfully at Kitty’s pay slip and the commission she earned on sales of high-priced French and English dresses and suits, while Ella only managed a paltry amount on nylons and knickers.

‘It’s not fair,’ she’d moan on wages day.

‘You’re only a junior, Ella. To be honest what did you expect?’

Gradually she had got to know most of the sales staff as well as the girls in the office and the delivery department. Lennon’s were good to their staff who in turn were loyal to them. Mr Harry regularly came down on the floor and patrolled around seeing what stock was moving and what goods could not be shifted from the rails. He and Ita Ganley would walk along pulling items out and studying them,
discussing
whether they should reorder or not.

‘Them two are very close,’ whispered Julia.

‘Close?’

‘Aye, she’s got a small house on the South Circular road, and the word is that he bought it for her and that he’s a very regular visitor.’

‘I don’t believe you!’

She couldn’t imagine the tall immaculately coiffed manageress bothering with Harry Lennon, who was small and balding and not the slightest bit good-looking.

‘But he’s married.’

‘That’d make no difference,’ said Julia emphatically. ‘Not a tuppenny bit.’

The summer itself was grey and miserable, with the sun always hidden behind the clouds. More often than not it rained. Ella got used to bringing an umbrella with her every time she stepped out the wet and damp were playing havoc with her new hairstyle, which would become a mass of waves if she wasn’t careful. All the rain and gales and bad weather were causing widespread crop damage throughout the country, with whole fields flattened, and she wondered how Liam was coping, hoping that their wheat and potatoes had been saved. Cattle prices had slumped too.

‘Will you give over Ella and stop worrying about the bloody farm?’ joked Kitty. ‘Honest to
God
, you’re as bad as Daddy and the rest of them back home in Kilgarvan!’

At the weekends Kitty and she and the rest of the girls went dancing. Racing home from work they washed and changed and massaged each other’s feet and painted each other’s nails and joined the throngs filling Dublin’s dance halls.

The Minister for Agriculture had made a plea for girls like themselves to stay on the land and marry a farmer, promising them romance and adventure and a higher standard of living. Didn’t Mr Dillon, the Minister, know that half the population of Dublin was farmers’ sons and daughters, with not a bit of land to their name, forced to come to Dublin or emigrate to Britain, in order to keep themselves? Romance and adventure, they’d find that on their own.

‘Rock Around the Clock’ by Bill Haley belted out as they rocked and danced till the early hours of the morning, wrapped in the arms of men whom they might never see again, sweat pouring off them as they jived and twirled and sang along with the words. Having a good time was what it was all about and Ella tried to convince herself that this was the place she was meant to be and to banish all thoughts of the farm in Kilgarvan from her mind.

Kitty was madly in love with her engineer, while she was still broken-hearted, missing Sean. She thought of him constantly. Sometimes, when
dancing
with a stranger, the way he held her or took her hand reminded her of him and for a few minutes she could cod herself she was back in his arms. Sean hadn’t bothered to get in touch with her or send her a note or letter despite her having sent him a postcard of St Stephen’s Green with her address on the back. Likely he’d forgotten about her already and was courting some other local girl.

The whole country was in a frenzy of prayer and devotion as part of the Marian year celebrations. Perhaps prayer would turn the grey skies blue and halt the tide of emigrants leaving Ireland. Down in Kilgarvan there would be High Mass and a rosary celebration for the opening of the parish grotto.

Kitty was planning to go home for it and begged Ella to join her. ‘Everyone will be there and Mammy really wants the both of us to be part of it. You know how religious she is and how she loves the rosary.’

Ella was adamant that she didn’t want to go, no matter how much Kitty tried to persuade her.

‘Ah go on Ella, Miss Ganley is letting me take the Monday and Tuesday as my days off and she’d probably let you have the same. It’ll be a bit of a laugh going down home!’

Ella shook her head. She had no intention of returning home and seeing her brother or bumping into Sean.

‘Come on, you know what fun we’d have in Rathmullen. Mammy and the girls are dying to see you. The summer is almost gone and we’ve been stuck in the city, the break would do us both good!’

‘Kitty, tell Aunt Nance that I’m sorry, but I’m not going home, not yet.’

‘Honest to God, you’d cut off your nose to spite your face so you would. Do you honestly think that Liam would give a damn if you came down or not!’ Kitty sighed.

Ella didn’t know what her brother thought of her, but it had taken her long enough to push the daily thoughts of Fintra to the back of her mind without going down and making herself feel homesick and miserable all over again.

‘No!’ she said firmly.

She had the flat to herself all weekend as Terri and Kitty were away and Gretta was doing an eight to eight shift. She had gone to eleven o’clock Mass and strolled around town on her own. The afternoon she had spent sunbathing in the garden of the square, stuck in a novel of Kitty’s she’d found flung under the bed. It was written by an American called John Steinbeck and made her angry as she read about the migrant workers who came to California to pick crops and had no land of their own.

That evening she sat in and listened to the radio, glad to not have to do anything or meet anyone.
She
and Gretta chatted for a while. The young nurse had returned from the hospital, drained of energy, having had an awful day losing two patients.

‘It’s the families are the worst Ella, they want us to wave a magic wand and bring them back, they don’t realize it’s final and there’s nothing any of us staff can do!’

Ella fixed supper for them and discovering Kitty’s hidden stash of gin poured them two glasses of it, watering it down with fizzy orangeade.

‘I’m off to bed, Ella, as I’m on the same shift again tomorrow. Are you sure you’re all right?’

‘Go to bed, Gretta, I’m fine, honest I am. You’re the tired one!’

She enjoyed the peace and quiet of the weekend on her own, for she was going to be busy in work the next few days as the autumn range of wool dressing gowns and winceyette pyjamas began to arrive.

She was delighted to hear Kitty’s key turn in the lock. Her cousin flung a load of parcels and bags onto the table and floor the minute she stepped inside. ‘Mammy’s after giving me enough food to feed an army! You’d think there are no food shops in the whole of Dublin!’

‘Well, what’s the news and scandal from Kilgarvan? Go on Kitty, tell me.’

Kitty pulled herself up into the armchair, slipping off her shoes. ‘I told you, you should have
come
! Teresa’s getting married to that Finbarr fellow. You should see the ring he gave her, it’s only gorgeous, Ella. Mammy and Daddy are thrilled. Teresa’s so lucky, they’ll be so happy.’

‘I must write and congratulate her.’

‘She’d like that. She was disappointed you didn’t come home. Anyways we met Liam and Carmel at the Mass. The whole village and everyone for miles turned up. I’ve never seen such a crowd in Kilgarvan and the bishop was there too and every priest and nun in the county. Mammy was in her element with all the singing and praying and everyone joining in, and then when it got dark Father Hackett organized a candlelit procession to the grotto, Ella, and honest to God it was beautiful, all of us there with our candles and the statues of Mary and Bernadette all lit up. I’ve never seen the like of it.’

Ella felt a pang of regret about not going and knew her aunt would be disappointed in her.

‘Were you talking to Liam?’

‘I was in my hat!’ jeered Kitty, ‘but Carmel was asking after you. She’s put on so much weight with the baby.’

‘Baby!’

‘She’s due in a few weeks’ time. Mammy said she’s doing far too much work on the farm in her condition.’

Ella considered the news that soon she would be an aunt. Kitty gabbled on about Slaney who was secretly seeing some boy that lived in the town and
Marianne
who was thinking about being a nun. ‘Mammy said she’ll go to the convent over her dead body and that it’s just another of her fancy notions!’

Ella laughed. Any other mother but Aunt Nance would have been delighted to have a daughter become a postulant.

Kitty rambled on about the neighbours, the O’Gradys, who had bought a new field, and Uncle Jack’s thoughts of buying a new car.

‘What about the Flanagans?’ quizzed Ella, desperate to know about Sean.

‘He’s left Kilgarvan, Ella.’

‘Is he here in Dublin? Oh God Kitty, don’t tell me he’s come to work in Dublin?’

‘No, no! Jim told Daddy that he’d emigrated and that his mother was fierce upset about it.’

Ella caught her breath. Emigrated! Gone to England or America like all the rest of them, gone without so much as a word to her! Why, she might never see Sean Flanagan again. He’d get lost over there, disappear for years like her brother and if she ever did meet him again in her lifetime he’d likely be married. She bit her lip, not wanting to cry.

Kitty stared anxiously at her. ‘Did I say something to upset you Ella, is that it? I thought you knew about the baby already, cross my heart and hope to die.’

‘No, it’s not that, its …’

‘Sean,’ added Kitty, understanding.

Ella closed here eyes. ‘I’ll never see him again Kitty, and I don’t know if I can bear it.’

The two girls hugged and held each other as Ella gave in to her emotions and bawled her eyes out.

Chapter Thirteen

‘PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
, Ella! Come on the double date as a favour to me! I’ve nobody else to ask,’ Terri pleaded.

‘What about Gretta?’

‘She’s on bloody night duty again, and Matron won’t let her swap. There’s nobody else, honest!’

‘Oh that sounds good, Terri. You mean I’m the last resort.‘

‘Ah no, go away out of that, Ella! It’s not like that at all. I just think that you might enjoy yourself. Bill had booked the table for four at Jammet’s. It’s one of the best restaurants in the city, my clients are always going on about it and I’m just dying to see it first-hand. Go on! Be a sport and come on the double date with me. Bill is as safe as houses, I promise he’s a real gentleman, and I’m sure his friend Patrick is the same.’

Ella wasn’t sure about it at all. The men Terri dated were generally somewhat older than she was with a bit of money in the bank. What if she didn’t
fit
in or if this Patrick fellow was absolutely awful? She wasn’t used to dating anyone and had little experience of men, yet Terri was always good fun to be with, and they’d get a slap-up meal in a good restaurant, no strings attached.

‘Listen, if you really don’t fancy him and things are going badly we’ll make up some excuse to leave,’ joked Terri, ‘but not before we get to eat dessert.’

Reluctantly Ella agreed and found herself all dressed up, her hair piled up on her head, hair pins sticking into her scalp where Terry had coaxed her brown hair into a semblance of a photo she’d seen in some magazine or other. Much too much make-up and a pair of heels that she could barely stand up in completed the picture. Terri wore a one-piece figure-hugging dress in a rich lilac colour, her blond hair hanging loose, her flawless make-up accentuating her full lips and blue eyes.

The men collected them in a taxi and dropped them at the door of Jammet’s restaurant, the manager welcoming them to the plush confines of its rich plum-coloured interior.

Bill Brady was forty if he was a day and Ella raised an eyebrow at Terry’s latest choice. His dark hair with its greying sides was Brylcreemed back smoothly from his heavy-set face. His skin was tanned and his large frame dressed in a expensive handmade suit. He was originally from Cavan and still carried its strong accent; by his own admission he had made his fortune building across the water after the war.

‘London’s East End, the West End, central London, Notting Hill, Camden. You name it girls and Bill Brady’s been there and built it!’ he joked, puffing on a thick Havana cigar that made Ella cough. ‘But mark my words, Dublin’s the place to build now. The city’s getting bigger, spreading out. People are fed up of those bleeding Georgian tenements. Housing and shops and offices, that’s what they’ll be needing now and me and my lads will give it to them.’

Patrick Ryan sat across the table from Ella smoking and watching her. At least he was younger, twenty-nine to thirtyish at the most, and appeared well off. The waiter came and Bill ordered a bottle of expensive red wine. The girls pored over the menu which was mostly written in French, the waiter having to explain what many of the items were.