Rose of Tralee (19 page)

There was a long silence, then her mother’s voice came, low and choked with tears: ‘Nor do I, queen. Nor do I.’

1930 Dublin

It was a gloriously warm day in June and Colm, Caitlin and their parents were sitting down to a good tea. Sean had come home for a whole week and Eileen and Caitlin were incandescent with joy, Colm less so, because Sean had made it plain from the moment he stepped into the house that he thought it was time his son came over the water with him, to earn ‘dacint money’, as he put it.

Colm had been with Switzer’s for six months, his mother having heard that the job was coming up, so that he had applied in good time and got it, he knew, partly because his mother herself was such a reliable worker. He was a delivery boy and helped out in various departments when he was not actually delivering, and so far had found the work enjoyable and better paid than his previous job, for a small butcher could not afford the wages that a very large department store could.

So Colm had no desire meekly to go off to England with his father and had prepared a series of arguments which, he had hoped, would convince Sean that Dublin was the best place for his son. Fortunately, Colm thought, helping himself from the round dish of pink shrimps in the middle of the table and beginning to head and tail them, his mother was of the same opinion and right now he was not having
to say a word, because she was saying them all for him.

‘Sean, me love, it’s grand, it is, havin’ the boy here to keep an eye on Caitlin when I’m busy, to give a hand in the house. And there’s his money comin’ in regular . . . oh, I know you send yours regular too, acushla, but sometimes the post’s not all that good and we have a bit of wait, so we do. And then there’s no sayin’ where he might end up now he’s workin’ at Switzer’s. They’re a good company and he’s already caught attention – several of the floor walkers started as delivery boys, just t’ink of our boy a floor walker! And there’s little Nell, a smart girl if ever there was one and very fond of our Colm . . . very fond. She’ll put in a good word for him, you can be sure of that, when there’s a job goin’ that he might do. So you see our boy’s got a future at Switzer’s, whereas if he came over the water wit’ you, who can tell whether he’d ever rise higher’n navvyin’?’

This would have been dangerous talk six months before, but not now. Now, Sean was driving a great thing called an earth-mover – well, that was what he called it – digging out the beginning of the Mersey Tunnel and earning, as he pointed out, very good money indeed.

So, having listened to his wife, Sean scooped more shrimps onto his plate and took a thick slice of bread and butter. Sighing, he glanced across the table at Colm. ‘Well, if you’re content to do that sort o’ work, son, I suppose there’s nothin’ I can say. But to be stuck indoors . . .’

‘I’m not, not yet,’ Colm said quickly. He was a delivery boy most of the time and hoped that once he was old enough Switzer’s would promote him to driving, or at least being driver’s mate, on the big
wagon which carried furniture and other large items. He had no desire to be a floor walker, despite his mother’s fond hopes, and thought that he would be as desperate as his father would be over such a stuffy, confining career. The floor walkers wore dark suits and stiff white collars and gloves, and strolled gently round their departments chiding the assistants or giving the customers lordly advice. Their hair – when they had any – was Brylcreemed flat to their bony skulls and their fingernails were short and white. As a race, all the delivery boys hated them . . . but it would not do to say so to Mammy. She revered floor walkers and could see no higher calling for a son of hers. ‘I’m out most o’ time Daddy, not stuck in the shop at all at all. But I don’t think I’d be right for floor walkin’ Mammy. Me daddy’s right, I’m not an indoor feller, I like to be out an’ about. Indeed I’d like to drive the big furniture wagon, so I would.’

‘You never know,’ his mammy said immediately. ‘If you stick wit’ Switzer’s you just never know. It ‘ud be a grand job drivin’ the wagon, an’ the money would be good, too. More bread an’ butter, Sean?’

‘Yes, please,’ his father said, having cleared his plate of both shrimps and bread and butter whilst his wife and son talked. ‘These shrimps are prime, so they are. Did you an’ Caitlin catch them all yourselves?’

‘I got most of ‘em,’ Caitlin said importantly. ‘Colm was too busy wit’ that stupid Nell MacThomas. He was showin’ her how to skim stones – as if she cared!’

Colm turned a reproachful glance on his small sister. She was a cheeky young wan if you liked – she should have been grateful to be took to the seaside by himself and Nell, when they would so much have preferred to be alone. But he did not intend to take
such a remark from Caitlin without fighting back, not he! ‘Sure an’ your opinion’s carved in stone is it, then?’ he said scornfully. ‘The sort of opinion that folks t’ink worth listenin’ to? An’ you a gorl as goes around wit’ Cracky Fry, an’ t’inks he’s the cat’s pyjamas? I could say a t’ing or two about Cracky if I’d a mind, but I wouldn’t demean meself.’

Caitlin snorted. ‘Cracky may be a bit rough, but he’s me friend, so mind your tongue, Colm O’Neill. An’ I tell you one t’ing, he’s more fun on a beach than that Nell MacThomas!’

Seeing the scarlet in her cheeks, Colm felt ashamed of himself. Cracky Fry was a skinny, underfed urchin of about twelve, one of a huge family, who had taken to hanging around with Caitlin lately. He was always dirty and in rags, and his arms and legs were covered with flea bites, but for all Colm knew he might be a decent enough feller and anyway, it was silly to draw comparisons between his friendship with Nell and Caitlin’s with Cracky. So he reached across the table and rumpled his sister’s hair affectionately. ‘Sure an’ you’re right, a pal is a pal, an’ no one can gainsay that. Will you pass me the loaf?’

Caitlin, mollified, said she was sorry she’d been nasty about Nell. ‘For she’s pretty, I’ll grant you,’ she said magnanimously. ‘I dare say she’s awright really, Colly.’

Colm grinned at her and went on with his tea whilst his thoughts returned happily to Nell. She was a real catch and he just loved her. Though whether that was how Nell felt he did not truly know, for Nell, bless her, liked a bit of company and had shown no more favour to himself that she had to other young gentlemen who had asked her out. There had been Tim Docherty in Gents’ Outfitting and Ralph Meyers
from Hardware, and they were only the ones that he, Colm, knew about. But Nell was beautiful and sweet, and he was head over heels in love with her, so he had to prove himself the better man, did he not? Tim was a gadabout, had taken several girls from the store dancing or to the flicks, and Ralph was a dull dog, always neatly dressed and well groomed but with no conversation and no get up and go, either. It wouldn’t take Colm long to show Nell that he was worthy of her, and once he had done that he was sure pretty little Miss MacThomas would give the other fellers the go-by and concentrate on him.

‘She’s a real little lady, is Nell,’ his mother said anxiously now. ‘She’s very well thought-of, so she is. Of course they aren’t serious yet, but ...’

She left the sentence unfinished, not sure, Colm supposed, whether his having a young lady would tempt his father to let him stay in Dublin or not. Colm knew it wasn’t Nell’s charms that his mother had in mind so much as how lonely she would be in the city without her son. Having a husband who was absent for more than eleven months out of the twelve was bad enough, but having a son over the water too . . . well, it didn’t bear thinking about. And now that he was almost a man, she relied on him heavily not only to keep an eye on Caitlin but in a thousand different ways.

‘Hmm,’ Sean said. He folded a slice of buttered bread and took a big semicircular bite out of it. ‘Well, it’s up to you, of course, young feller, but when I was your age I’d have wanted a bit of adventure, so I would. I’ve a good landlady in a dacint house, we’re well fed, the place is clean....’

‘Give him another year or two, see how’s he’s progressin’ wit’ Switzer’s,’ his mother pleaded. ‘No
point in movin’ the boy when he’s happy where he is – an’ doin’ well.’

‘It was only a suggestion, alanna,’ Sean pointed out gently. ‘You mek more of it than I’d intended. Now come on, tell me what’ll we be doin’ tomorrer?’

‘Seaside – more shrimps,’ Caitlin squeaked. ‘You’ll come wit’ us, won’t you, Colm?’

‘Can’t,’ Colm said briefly. ‘Haven’t been wit’ the firm long enough to take a proper hollier. I’ll come on Sunday, though.’

That was a big concession, because Sunday was the only day he could tempt Nell into a proper day out and he knew, grinding his teeth at the thought, that either Tim or Ralph would jump in if he failed to suggest a suitable outing. Briefly, as he finished off his tea and reached for the fruit-cake, he wondered whether a family trip to the seaside might tempt Nell, then decided hastily that it would not. Nell wore the latest fashions and had her hair first shingled, then permanently waved. It was the colour of waving corn and her eyes were as blue as the skies over that waving corn, but she was not overfond of country pursuits and the day at the seaside, with Caitlin in tow, had not been an unqualified success. He had spent most of it, he remembered, in promising Miss MacThomas that they would go to the cinema that evening, and that he would purchase, for her delectation and delight, one of the specially splendid boxes of Switzer’s chocolates for them to share.

‘What are you doin’ this evenin’, Colm?’ his father enquired, more out of politeness than interest, Colm supposed. ‘I t’ought we might take a stroll in Phoenix Park an’ listen to the band. You comin’ along?’

‘Can’t. I’m taking Nell to the Pillar on O’Connell Street,’ Colm said briefly. ‘I promised.’

‘He’s bought choccies,’ Caitlin said enviously. ‘A big box.’

‘I hope your young lady isn’t a gold-digger, now,’ Sean said, only half-jokingly. ‘I never could afford chocolates when me an’ your mammy went to the flicks, but you never minded, did you, Eileen? A quarter of a pound of aniseed balls between the two of us suited us fine, eh alanna?’

‘It did so,’ Eileen admitted. ‘But times change, Sean. Nowadays the girls expect more, so they do.’

‘Well, I hope the fellers don’t,’ Sean said, giving his son a knowing look. ‘Because even the biggest box of chocolates won’t buy more than a few kisses from a dacint kind of a girl.’

Colm grinned sheepishly. ‘It’s makin’ up to her for takin’ Caitlin to the beach wit’ us I am,’ he admitted. ‘Besides, Nell’s a smart city lass, she doesn’t usually get took to the seaside. So now I’m makin’ me smart move, an’ the choccies an’ the flickers ... an’ a seat in the back row.’

His mother pursed her lips in pretended disapproval, but Sean grinned, then stood up and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll do, young feller,’ he said. ‘Now go an’ put on your best, so’s you don’t disgrace the name of O’Neill, an’ your mammy an’ your sister an’ meself will clear this lot away an’ get ready for our own evening. But don’t be too late back, because we’ll expect a progress report, Mammy an’ meself.’

Colm, immensely relieved at the friendly, teasing tone his father was adopting, replied in kind and decided that he would try to have a quiet word with the daddy some time. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t have liked to go over the water with the ould feller, there was a part of him which would have enjoyed the
adventure just as much as Sean had supposed he would. But he knew his mammy and the young wan would miss him something cruel ... and he was that hopeful of getting Nell MacThomas to agree to be his girl. His daddy would surely understand that whilst there was a chance of getting Nell to take him seriously and agree to drop all the other lads he’d not go gadding off anywhere?

Accordingly, he went up to his room, changed into his one and only best suit and tie, Brylcreemed his hair with the very last little smear in the jar, pinched some of his mammy’s lavender water which he rubbed cruelly into his newly-shaven chin, and at last set off for Goldenbridge, because Nell lived, unfortunately, on the other side of the city from himself, in a neat little house with a square of garden before and another behind. Her father worked at the brewery, in the offices, and was clearly a person of some importance, though he seldom did more than grunt at Colm in a rather threatening way. Colm had tried chatting to him whilst he waited for Nell to appear, but Mr MacThomas, it seemed, did not chat lightly.

This evening, Colm was hopeful that Nell might be ready when he arrived, so he did not hurry himself and got to the MacThomas house at the hour appointed instead of thirty or forty minutes early.

Nell wasn’t ready, exactly, but he didn’t have to run the gauntlet of her father’s grunts this evening; her mother took him through into the kitchen, explaining that Mr MacThomas had a friend in the front room. She was a very pretty woman, rather like her daughter to look at, but she wasn’t easy to know, like his own mammy. She talked to him to be sure, but in a rather cool, offhand way which meant that most of his replies were mumbled and embarrassed,
so it was with real pleasure that, a mere five minutes after being ushered into the kitchen, he heard Nell’s light step on the stair. Mindful of his manners, Colm got hurriedly to his feet and stared towards the kitchen door. He was just in time.

Nell pushed it open and smiled at him as though there was no other feller she would rather have been with, which was enough to make him forget her grunting father and rather offhand mother. ‘Colm, how smart you look. Where’s you takin’ me?’

‘Where
are
you taking me, if you please,’ Mrs MacThomas said sharply, causing Colm to give her a surprised glance. So far as he could recall he had never promised to take Mrs MacThomas anywhere – what was she on about?

But Nell took the reprimand in her stride. ‘Sorry, Mother, but I was speakin’ to Colm, you know. Well, Colm? I know it’s the flicks, but which picture house? And what’s on?’

Colm always took girls to the Tivoli on Francis Street, but he knew better than to suggest such a venue to Miss MacThomas. He had indeed done so, before he realised how very superior she was, but she had made it plain that she did not intend to spend an evening in what she rudely condemned as a ‘common fleapit’. Accordingly, he said with some pride, ‘Oh, the Pillar of course! An’ they’re showin’ a romance, wit’ Mary Pickford. Will that suit you?’