Rose of Tralee (20 page)

‘A romance!’ Nell breathed. She held out her light coat so that Colm could help her into it. ‘Oh, I do love a nice romance. An’ Mary Pickford! She’s the most beautiful of ‘em all. What did you say, Mother?’

Colm had distinctly heard the older woman mutter something as soon as the words ‘a romance’ had passed his lips but now she said, ‘Nothing, my dear.
Off you go then and don’t be late. Don’t bring my daughter home late, Mr O’Neill.’

‘We’ll catch a tram, Mrs MacThomas,’ Colm said eagerly. ‘There’s always a tram when the flicks comes out. Don’t worry, I’ll tek good care of her.’

‘See you later, Mother,’ Nell said as they went out of the back door. ‘Don’t worry if we’re a bit late, though. You know how crowded the last tram gets. And it’s a nice night; walkin’ wouldn’t be so terrible.’

Colm was about to say, loyally, that he would not dream of letting her walk when she dug him in the ribs with a sharp elbow and hustled him out of the house and across the tiny back garden to the small wooden gate. As they started along the back lane, heading for the main road, she said sharply, ‘I’ve no doubt we’ll be back in good time, Colm, but I’m not a child any longer and me mammy must learn that I’ll please meself as to the time I get in. Come along now, we don’t want to miss the beginnin’. Where’s the chocolates?’

‘Here,’ Colm said, producing the box from his raincoat pocket. ‘They’re all soft centres; you said you liked them the best.’

‘I do,’ Nell said. ‘An’ we’ll have ices in the interval.’

‘’Course,’ Colm said loftily, reflecting that he would have to borrow from his mammy for the rest of the week. Still, it was worth it to get Nell in the dark beside him . . . and in the back row! And, he hoped, in a good mood when primed with chocolates and ice-creams. But time would tell, time would tell.

Proprietorially, he took her elbow to steer her across the road and to his delight she leaned a little against him. ‘We’re goin to have a lovely evenin’,’ she announced. ‘When shall we open the chocolates, Colm?’

‘As soon as you please. Right now, if you like,’ Colm said recklessly. He only hoped she wouldn’t eat them all up by the time they arrived at the picture house. ‘Will we get a tram at this stop?’

‘All right. And we’ll open the chocolates when we get on the tram,’ Nell said. She hugged his arm. ‘Oh, I do love the flickers, Colm! We’re goin’ to have a great time!’

And Colm, watching her gobbling chocolates on the tram, thought rather apprehensively that if he could continue to afford it he would try to see that his pretty Nell had lots of chocolates and lots of trips to the picture house. He was almost sure, now, that she must have serious intentions towards him. After all, a girl who was wooed with chocolates and seats at a posh cinema would surely respond by . . . by . . .

Colm dreamed of kisses and cuddles, and of a future which contained Nell as his acknowledged girl, and decided he could do without carry-outs for a few weeks. He wondered about doing another job in his spare time to earn more cash – but what spare time? Switzer’s employed him from eight in the morning until eight at night, though he did get Sundays off.

‘Colm? Do have one ... they’re delicious.’

Colm, eyeing the shrinking chocolates, said tactfully that chocolate always made him thirsty, so it did, and refrained from indulging.

‘It makes me thirsty, too,’ Nell said. She helped herself to another. ‘But if we have ices in the interval . . .’

Colm decided not to bother with an ice for himself. Not if they wanted to catch a tram home, that was. But what did it matter? Once Nell was his girl, they would have to sort out the chocolate and ice-cream
situation, but in Colm’s experience girls realised that a feller had to live and didn’t demand too much of him once they were acknowledged to be going steady. It was just in the early stages of a courtship, whilst you were ‘makin’ an impression’, that you needed to lash out all your cash on special treats.

‘Last one,’ Nell said, taking it out of its little paper cup and tucking it into one rosy cheek. ‘Never mind, I dare say there’ll be some more for sale in the foyer.’

‘I expect so,’ Colm said rather gloomily. ‘But we don’t want to miss the beginnin’, do we?’

Much later that night, foot-slogging it across Dublin from Goldengate to his own home, Colm felt so happy that he could have burst into song – did, in fact, whistle piercingly until it occurred to him that not everyone wanted to hear a whistler just before midnight, when they were snugged down in bed.

He had been richly rewarded for his generosity. Nell had kissed, cuddled, snuggled – in fact, her enthusiasm had been so great that Colm had feared an usherette with a waving torch might well get the wrong idea and turn them out – until he was hot as fire and filled with an urge to fight her battles, slay dragons on her account and generally to be her champion.

Even when they came out of the picture house she had been loving. They had walked slowly to the tram stop, his arm round her waist, her head on his shoulder, and talked of the film, of the following day, of other people at Switzer’s.

‘Will you come dancin’ wit me, Saturday evenin’?’ Colm asked at last as they got down off the crowded tram and walked with delicious slowness towards her home. ‘There’s all sorts of places we could go – I
know you didn’t much enjoy the beach the other day, but . . .’

‘I want to be with
you
, not your family,’ Nell crooned. ‘Let’s go round the back an’ have a cuddle, shall we? We can stop out in the lane, where the privy’ll hide us from the house.’

Colm was all for it, but wondered aloud what would happen if her mother or father happened to pop out into the yard for the usual purpose and saw them hiding round the back of the privy.

Nell, however, had informed him that he was worrying unnecessarily. ‘They’ll be gone to bed,’ she assured him. ‘I’d ask you in, so I would, but the mammy ‘ud come down if she heard your step. She’s so
suspicious
, Colm – as if I’d misbehave, an’ me her own daughter!’

She had not exactly misbehaved in the quiet little back alley behind the privy, but she had done a lot of clutching and kissing and a certain amount of moaning. Colm, striding out through the cool darkness, told himself stoutly that he had enjoyed every minute, of course he had, but he’d been mortal afraid that someone would hear, that a voice would shout at him, that Nell would be wrenched from his arms by an indignant parent.

It had not happened, though, and at last Nell had torn herself away from him and gone indoors, promising to see him at work tomorrow to arrange their next outing.

And now he was planning it, for wasn’t it plain as the nose on your face that he’d made a great hit with her? No girl would do all that cooing and cuddling and canoodling, particularly a nice girl like Nell, unless she intended going steady with a feller.

So when at last he got into his bed, and wound his
alarm clock and pulled the covers over his head, it was with the pleasant sensation of having done pretty well, by and large. Soon Nell would be his acknowledged young lady and his father would see that it was quite impossible to part the young lovers, and he and Nell would save their money and soon it would be a white wedding, a little house ...

Colm went happily to sleep.

Next day, of course, he was up betimes. Polishing his shoes, singing softly, making porridge for himself and Caitlin, because his parents would be up later and would probably have a proper cooked breakfast.

Caitlin needn’t have got up because she was on school holidays, but she had. She came into the kitchen looking frowsty and unbrushed, and began hacking away at the loaf. ‘I’m makin’ your carry-out, amn’t I?’ She asked in an injured tone when he wondered what the dickens she thought she was doing to that loaf. ‘Mammy’s havin’ a lie-in, so she is, so I thought I’d come an’ do if for you, Colly.’

‘Well, thanks, Cait,’ Colm said, touched by his sister’s thoughtfulness. ‘But a couple o’ slices wit’ some cheese between ‘em will suit me just fine. Don’t cut no more.’

‘An’ Mammy said you was to have an apple,’ Caitlin said, mercifully leaving the torn and lopsided loaf alone and turning her attention to the pantry. ‘An’ some o’ the gur cake, too.’

‘Grand. Thanks, colleen,’ Colm said again. ‘Put it in me box then an’ I’ll be off. Got a deal to do today.’

Caitlin sniffed. ‘You mean you’re goin’ to go chasin’ after that stupid girl,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you see in that Nell MacThomas, she’s stuck up, an’ stupid, an ’. . .’

‘We’re goin’ steady, Cait,’ Colm said warningly. ‘She’s me young lady, so don’t you go bein’ rude about her. Anyway, you’ll love her when you get to know her as well as I do.’

Caitlin sniffed again. ‘Shan’t,’ she declared roundly. ‘I like jolly girls who run on the sand and play in the sea, not them who squeak when a wave comes up the beach and keep askin’ to “tek a wee look at the shops”, the way your Miss MacThomas did.’

‘Can’t discuss it now, Cait,’ Colm said diplomatically, grabbing his carry-out. ‘See you tonight ... oh, and have a nice day now.’

But leaving his small sister ladling herself out more porridge, he forgot her as soon as she was out of his sight. All he could think about was Nell – his Nell!

He arrived at Switzer’s just as the cleaning women were leaving, and made his way first to the basement with the other delivery boys and then, as soon as he could, up to the main shop floors. It was too early for customers to be wanting his services yet, but he would do odd jobs, run errands and so on until the time came for the first deliveries. Accordingly, he made his way up to Hats, Gloves and Accessories, where Nell worked, and was soon busy carrying boxes from the store, so that the staff could replace items which had been sold the previous day.

He looked round hopefully, of course, but of Nell there was no sign and he had just resigned himself to the fact that she, too, must have been sent off on an errand to another department when he noticed that the end changing cubicle still had its curtains drawn across instead of being looped back. And what was more, there was someone inside – and it could not be
a customer since at this hour the floor was given over to staff, all making last-minute preparations for the day ahead.

Colm walked over to the cubicle, then hesitated. Suppose Nell was inside, changing a laddered stocking, for instance, for a new one? He ought, perhaps, to knock, but how could one knock on a curtain? If he just took a peep ...

To think was to act. Colm lifted the curtain a tiny way from the wall and peered though the gap.

The sight that met his eyes chilled his marrow to the bone. There was Nell –
his
Nell – apparently struggling in the arms of the floor walker, Mr Molloy!

Colm had never liked Mr Molloy, who was a sneering sort of man, with thick black hair set in uniform waves across his narrow skull and a high, superior voice. But on the other hand he had never considered Mr Molloy a man at all, thinking him more like one of the wax models with which Switzer’s decorated their windows. What was more he was
old
, probably as old as forty, and ugly as well, with his long white face and fleshy red mouth beneath a horrid little moustache.

But now it was clear he was being all too masculine and not in the least like one of the unoffending wax models. Sweat glistening on his dome-like forehead and his hands, grasping Nell’s upper arms, were large, hairy and workmanlike.

Astonishment kept Colm still for perhaps two seconds, then indignation, fury and even jealousy flooded in, causing him to bound across the cubicle and grab Mr Molloy by the shoulder, swinging him violently against the free-standing mirror, which, in its turn, cannoned into the wall.

‘What the hell d’you t’ink you’re doin’?’ Colm gasped, as Mr Molloy, now very red in the face, swung round to face him, gobbling like a turkey cock. ‘That’s my young lady you’re – you’re maulin’ like a floosie, Molloy!’ He had never expected to address the floor walker in such terms, but then he had never dreamed of finding him in such a compromising position. Now, with one hand still on the older man’s shoulder, he measured up the distance between his own clenched fist and Mr Molloy’s long, spade-shaped chin. ‘Take your choice ... hands off or a biff which you’ll not forget in a hurry.’

Nell gave a stifled shriek and Mr Molloy hastily took his hands from her shoulders. ‘There’s no need for talk like that, young O’Neill,’ he said breathlessly. ‘Get out of here at once or you’ll find yourself on the street wit’out a character, I swear it. As for Miss MacThomas, if she wishes to make any sort of a complaint ...’

‘I don’t, sir, indeed I don’t,’ Nell squeaked. She scowled at Colm. ‘Mr Molloy was kindly gettin’ a smut from me eye, so he was, when you burst in, shoutin’. I think, Mr O’Neill, that you’d best apologise to Mr Molloy for what you’ve been sayin’.’

‘Apologise?’ gasped Colm. ‘Nell, alanna, I saw you strugglin’. . .’

‘You did no such thing,’ Nell snapped. Her cheeks were fiery red and her eyes flashed with what looked like real indignation. ‘Haven’t I just told you Mr Molloy was takin’ a smut from me eye, an’ me in real pain with the feel of it?’

‘And what right have you got, O’Neill, to interfere between meself and this young lady?’ Mr Molloy said, clearly gaining confidence from Nell’s attitude. ‘What’s she to you? Eh?’

‘She – she’s me young lady . . . we’re walkin’ out,’ Colm stammered. ‘Isn’t that so, Nell?’

‘No, it is not,’ Nell said firmly. ‘As if I’d take up with a delivery boy!’

‘So you’d best apologise and I’ll see if I can forget what’s happened today,’ Mr Molloy said smoothly. He flattened down his hair with both hands and turned towards Colm. ‘Because if I hear one more word from you on the subject, young feller-me-lad, it’ll be your cards, I promise you that.’

Colm must have looked positively dumbstruck for Nell suddenly giggled. ‘Oh, run along, laddy,’ she said dismissively. ‘An’ in future, don’t interfere with your betters.’

Colm turned away, then back, feeling the good, cleansing heat of true rage burning within him. He would not let the nasty little slut have the last word, not he! ‘Me betters?’ he said scornfully. ‘Well, I’ve learned one lesson this mornin’, so I have, and it’s not that either of you are me betters. You’re nothin’ but a flirt, Nell MacThomas, an’ your
friend
is just a dorty ould man, so put that in your pipe an’ smoke it.’