Rose of Tralee (13 page)

‘The sledge is more for everyone – the Murphys an’ all, alanna,’ her father had said when he gave it to her. ‘This is for you yourself.’

‘This’ was a parcel done up in brown paper and string, which had come all the way across the Irish sea, and it was far more wonderful than Caitlin had dreamed. She opened it and there was a tiny doll, no bigger than her brother’s hand. It was a baby doll, with a sweet baby’s face, eyes that opened and shut although it was so tiny, and jointed limbs. It had no hair – babies didn’t have much hair anyway – and it wore nothing but a scrap of towelling around its fat middle. ‘Oh Daddy, Daddy!’ Caitlin breathed, awed. ‘It’s the baby Tom Thumb, so it is. Oh, I love it and
love it – I love it as much as Long Meg!’

‘Well, it’ll pop into your pocket, which Long Meg won’t,’ her father said tactfully. ‘But I didn’t buy it, alanna. Mrs Caldicott, me landlady in Liverpool, give it me. She said since I was the only feller livin’ at her house wit’ a daughter I could take it an’ welcome. I’m glad you like it . . . would you write her a little letter, tellin’ her so?’

‘Oh
yes
, I’ll write,’ Caitlin said. ‘Come along, Tommy Tiddler, you must meet me friend Long Meg.’

Mammy had made Long Meg out of old cotton stockings and bits of material which her ladies had thrown out, and embroidered a beautiful face on her and made her two lovely frocks, one pink and one blue. Long Meg had plaits of yellow wool and little soft shoes with cardboard soles and real leather uppers made, Caitlin knew, from the tongues of old shoes found by Colm on the rubbish tips. Caitlin would always love her best, but the baby doll was quite different. So tiny! So perfect! Tommy Tiddler would never ride in the pram or sleep in the shoe-box bed Mammy had made, but he would be with Caitlin always.

So those two presents made Christmas just perfect, and Colm was pleased with the leather flying-helmet, which Daddy had bought to keep his son’s ears warm whilst on his bicycle, and the gauntlet gloves to match. Not many delivery boys had such fine clothes – or such weather-proof ones – and Colm had the share in the sledge, too.

He and Daddy had been very pleased with one another on Christmas Day, what with the enormous turkey and all the good things Daddy had brought. Mammy’s present had been a beautiful woollen
jacket and Daddy was given socks and gloves, which Mammy had knitted, and some pipe tobacco.

Caitlin loved it when they were nice to each other, and when she sensed that they were in good accord she relaxed and enjoyed herself twice as much as usual. And all through the time that Daddy was home there was a fine feel in the house, a good understanding between father and son. Often, when Daddy was home, he and Mammy quarrelled over Colm and what Daddy called his ‘gorlish, milksop ways’, but this time the comfortable feeling that all was well only lapsed once to Caitlin’s knowledge, and that was when they had walked to Phoenix Park and Daddy was watching Colm playing a game of Kick the Can with some friends.

‘He’s fifteen now, an’ he’s a fine specimen of a feller, so he is,’ he said softly to Mammy, only Caitlin heard anyway. ‘Next year there’s no reason he shouldn’t come wit’ me, Eileen, an’ earn hisself some dacint money, doin’ a man’s job.’

Mammy’s face changed; grew cooler, somehow. But she said in her soft voice: ‘He’s doin’ a man’s job now, Sean. Deliverin’ isn’t aisy, not wit’ that gurt old bicycle, an’ he covers some ground, does our Colm. Don’t put him down, there’s a good feller.’

‘He’s earnin’ seven an’ six a week; ten bob if he’s extry busy an’ delivers late,’ Daddy had said. ‘That’s not good money, alanna. Workin’ till the sweat runs at a navvyin’ job in England he’d bring home a lot more than that.’

‘He’d be over the water wit’ yourself, an’ Cait an’ me ’ud be left to manage as best we could,’ Mammy said, her voice sad. ‘He’d be livin’ in lodgings wit’ no one to care about him, see he was bein’ brung up right. When he’s a wife of his own he can choose to go
away if he likes, but whilst he’s just a young feller I’d rather keep him by me.’

Daddy had shrugged and turned away. ‘If he sent more money home I’d be able to come back more often,’ he pointed out. ‘And what are you sayin’, woman? That I’d not see the boy right?’

‘Oh, you would, I know you would . . . but I can’t let him go yet, Sean. Not yet. In a year or two . . .’

But Daddy had turned away and was holding out his hand to his small daughter. ‘Come on then, Caitlin, let’s go an’ tek a look at the fish pond, shall us? It’ll be dark soon an’ your mammy will want to be home, gettin’ the tea.’

But apart from that one incident, Caitlin thought, turning into Marrowbone Lane with her hand held fast in Mammy’s and little Tommy Tiddler warm in her pocket, they had had a grand Christmas altogether. They had gone to wave Daddy off down at the quays, and for the first time, as father and son stood a little apart, talking, it had struck Caitlin how very alike they were. Sean was taller of course, and sturdier, but apart from that they both had thick black hair with a shine to it that was almost blue, and they had the same sort of face, with prominent cheekbones, straight, thin eyebrows and chins with a cleft. And they’ve both got blue-grey eyes and their lashes are short and straight, not curly like Mammy’s and mine, Caitlin’s thoughts continued. Why, you’d know Sean was Colm’s daddy out of a thousand, so you would! Is that why they don’t always get on, then? Because they’re so alike that they could almost be twins? She voiced the thought aloud as they turned into Marrowbone Lane: ‘Mammy, I was lookin’ at me daddy an’ me brother Colm when they were standin’ waitin’ for the ferry, an’ they’re just the
same, aren’t they? Same hair, same eyes, same faces, same way o’ standin’. Even their voices is the same, only Daddy’s is deeper than Colm’s. Is ... is that why they sometimes argufy? Only I’d ha’ thought they’d get on better, bein’ so alike.’

Mammy laughed. ‘They are alike, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘And you’re right, alanna, that’s why they don’t always get on good. But I don’t t’ink either of ’em knows it! Never mind, eh? They were fine over Christmas, didn’t you t’ink?’

‘I did so,’ Caitlin agreed. ‘I hope they’re always like that now, Mammy.’

‘Oh well, we mustn’t hope for miracles, alanna. But you never know, as Colm gets older an’ wiser his daddy may find . . . may find t’ings easier.’

‘An’ Daddy may stop askin’ Colm to go over the water wit’ him,’ Caitlin said. ‘I don’t want Colm to go, Mammy. But I wish Daddy didn’t have to go either.’

They reached the Murphys’ tenement and Eileen stopped and kissed her daughter. Her lips were warm on Caitlin’s cold cheek. ‘So do I, alanna. One day, perhaps he won’t have to go,’ she said. ‘Mebbe he’s right an’ Colm should go as well, if that makes the day your daddy doesn’t have to go come nearer. But . . . but not yet.’

‘No, not yet,’ Caitlin echoed fervently. ‘Not until he’s as big an’ strong as me daddy. Not until I’m a woman growed.’

‘That’s it,’ Eileen said, and giggled. ‘Oh, Caitlin, you’re a blessin’, so you are! Run along in, now. I’ll call for you when I come out of work.’

January 1929 Liverpool

Rose woke long before dawn on Monday morning at once aware that something good was going to happen today, though she could not think immediately what it was. Her first thought was that she was still on holiday until Thursday, now that she was at the convent school, whereas her old playmates had been back at the grindstone for over a week.

Her second thought was that her room looked odd; no, not odd,
different
. The ceiling was dazzlingly white and there was more light coming in round the edge of the curtains, she was sure, than the hour merited. Had she overslept, perhaps? She could not remember why, but she knew it was important that she did not oversleep today.

She sat up and poked a toe out of bed, then hastily pulled it back in again. It was freezing! For a moment she sat there, hugging her knees and wondering, then she took a deep breath, pushed back the covers and took a gigantic leap out of bed, skidding on the lino so that she was at the window and wrenching the curtains back before she had thought, again, about the cold.

It was still very dark outside and the window-glass had been painted by Jack Frost in the night so she couldn’t see through it, but she didn’t have to; the dazzle of white told her that it had snowed last night.
For a moment, excitement over the sudden arrival of snow drove everything else from her mind. She squeaked joyfully, then breathed hard on the glass until she had made a round dark hole in the frost flowers and peered through it. The world was white. It was not just a scatter of snow which had fallen in the night but a great deal of it, enough to make slides, snowballs, snowmen ...

She climbed back into bed, remembering that everyone except herself was back in school anyway and feeling rather deflated. Of course, snow was fun, but on your own? It wasn’t quite the same. She wondered whether her father would be able to drive his tram, then concluded that unless he was on a long run, he almost certainly would. When points froze and the rails got iced up things were difficult, but the crews usually managed to keep their trams running somehow. And thinking of that brought the main excitement of the day back into her mind with a huge crash. Of course! Today was the day that her father had offered to take her on his tram for the whole of his shift, so that she could find out once and for all what a life of driving – or conducting – trams was like.

Immediately, the snow began to seem less like a blessing than a curse. Suppose Dad said he couldn’t take her, not in such bad conditions? And then he worked until eight or nine at night quite often, which would mean missing any snow games the other kids might start when school finished. Ricky would come hammering on her door with one of his mam’s biggest bar trays, to suggest that they should go up to somewhere like Havelock Street and career down it, two to a tray. And she wouldn’t be there, so he would ask someone else and she knew what Dad and Mam
would say if she suggested going out to play after Dad’s return.

Still, she would rather have her day on the tram than any amount of games in the snow and anyway, there was nothing to say that tomorrow and the day after, for that matter, wouldn’t be snowy too. So she collected her clothes, tipped water – she had to break the ice first – into her basin, and had a quick cat’s lick and a promise wash. Then she dressed in her warm grey wool skirt with the matching jumper and set off downstairs.

There, in the cosy, lamplit kitchen, her mother was making breakfast. She smiled at her daughter as Rose took her place at the table, and put a plate with bacon, egg and fried bread down in front of her. ‘Well, now, you’re in good time,’ she said comfortably. ‘I’ s’pose even the weather won’t persuade you that there’s more to life than drivin’ blinkin’ trams? Your dad’ll be down in ten minutes.’

Rose grinned and began to tuck into her food. Of course she was no fool, she knew very well that the day on the tram was supposed to put her off them and not make her yet more enthusiastic. For as long as she could remember she had wanted to drive a tram when she grew up and, despite knowing that women were never thus employed, she simply could not think of any other job which would suit her so well. The convent school had been happy to take her in after her good examination results at St Anthony’s school, and her parents hoped that she would remain there for another two years, maybe more. They desperately wanted her to better herself and education, they said impressively, was the way to do it. But when she thought of two more years’ school, her heart misgave her. However would she stand it,
especially as everyone seemed to think it was about time she began to behave more like a girl! Boys had all the fun, she thought now, taking the cup of hot milk her mother offered with a word of thanks. Boys never got told to do housework, a good few of them wagged off school to play skippin’ leckies or to muck around down at the Pier Head and, what was more, if they wanted to drive trams, then tram drivers they could be.

But on the other hand, they didn’t get a whole day on their father’s tram, either. Mam thought she would be bored, but Rose was sure she was wrong. She was to have her own carry-out, her own bottle of tea, and if she behaved and they didn’t have an inspector aboard, she would be able to use the ticket machine and take the money whilst Georgie handed out the change.

Rose knew her mother did not fully approve of the day out, because she must have realised that far from damping Rose’s enthusiasm it might make her worse than ever, but Mam never stayed cross for long. It was just that the convent school was expensive, and she truly thought that her daughter should have some more worthwhile ambition than the hopeless one of wanting to drive a tram. But after all, Rose reasoned, they said they wanted me to stay on at school; if they’d wanted me to grow up and be sensible they should have let me leave school, like Peggy will when July comes. But if they truly want me to get still more education then they shouldn’t mind if I go on being silly and saying I want to drive a tram one day.

Because she knew it was silly that she, a girl, should persistently say she wanted to drive a tram when she knew very well that it was one job that women never
did. But that didn’t alter the facts. Mam and Dad and other adults never said ‘What will you settle for doing when you leave school?’, they said: ‘What do you want to do?’ so they must expect a truthful answer – she wanted to drive a tram, like her dad did, so why shouldn’t she say so?

Rose could have added truthfully that it was all part of wanting to be a boy, really. Mam thought it was peculiar and unfeminine to go on wanting to be a boy when you were fourteen, but that really was silly. A blind man could see that boys have the best of it, and who doesn’t want to have the best of it, if they are honest? And then Kick the Can and other such games were a great deal more fun than skipping, or bowling a hoop, though Rose had done both in her time. And when careers were discussed at the convent school they talked about their girls becoming teachers, which made Rose’s spine stiffen with outraged horror. Teachers, even if they weren’t nuns, wore thick stockings and long skirts; they had their hair smoothed into unflattering styles and didn’t get married or have kids of their own – she could think of nothing she would like less than being a teacher.