Rose of Tralee (32 page)

‘She don’t half slap it on,’ Ella said as Mona, with a flick of her blonde hair, disappeared into the crowd. ‘My mam would say there’s a bit o’ make-up an’ there’s paintin’, an’ your cousin paints. Not but what she’s very pretty,’ she added quickly. ‘In fact, she’s downright lovely – I doubt we’ll gerra look in wi’ the fellers tonight.’

‘She dresses lovely, too,’ Rose said rather wistfully. She had been delighted with her blue merino dress with its neat waist and the cream lace which edged the V of the neckline. She had bought a piece of matching blue ribbon to tie up her curls in a knot on
top of her head, and had felt modern and grown-up . . . until she saw Mona in the coffee-coloured lace with its deep décolletage, the way it clung to her body until it frothed out into fullness just above her cousin’s silk-clad knees.

‘Yeah. That lace thing must have cost a packet,’ Ella agreed. She looked down at her flimsy, flame-coloured dress with its myriad little pleats and uneven hemline. ‘I was real proud of this ’un, until I saw your cousin’s. Now . . . well, it looks a bit – a bit bright, like. An’ you can see it wasn’t bought at Lewis’s, or Blackler’s.’

‘Nor were mine, chuck,’ Rose said ruefully. She looked over her friend, from the top of Ella’s soft, toffee-brown hair down across the peaky, elfin face to the slender body in its bright dress. ‘But I tell you what, you’ve gorra sort of fresh, young look. Mona looks more – oh, more
used
, like.’

They were still chuckling over it when Mona came back and sat down, thumping her small evening bag down on the table between them. ‘I just seen the fellers,’ she said. ‘Tommy an’ Colm, I mean.’

‘Oh, good. I thought I saw one of the fellers from work, too,’ Rose said. She giggled. ‘I can’t imagine dancing wi’ Reggie, can you, Ella?’

The band had taken their places once more and the conductor announced they were to play a waltz and could he have all the young ladies and gentlemen on the floor, please? Ella leaned forward. ‘Reggie’s awright, but . . . oh, Lor’!’

‘What? Don’t say Reggie’s goin’ to join us, I think ...’

Someone loomed over the table. Someone very tall and very, very thin. Someone familiar. ‘Hello, Miss Ryder, Miss Thompson. Are you enjoying yourselves?
And now are you going to introduce me to your friend?’

It was Mr Garnett, and he was staring meaningfully at Mona.

Much later that night, curled up in her bed with the sound of Mona’s snuffling little snores sounding in her ears, Rose, hugging herself, went over her very first official dance. She had enjoyed it so much and at first it had seemed positively doomed. Mr Garnett was her
boss
; how could she possibly feel at ease with his eyes on her all evening? And if he felt it was only polite to join them . . . well, it was just too awful to contemplate.

But it hadn’t happened like that. To be sure, Mr Garnett had danced first with Mona and later, rather punctiliously, with herself and Ella, but he had not spent the intervening time at their table. He had gone back to the group he was with and, so far as Rose was aware, had not so much as glanced at them since.

It hadn’t been too bad dancing with him, either, although because of the difference in their heights – and the length of his legs – Rose had found herself whisked around the floor, lapping the other dancers several times, and had ended up breathless. She had half expected him to talk about work, or Gulliver, too, but instead he chatted inconsequentially about the dance, the dullness of the refreshments and the fact that he hoped the rain would hold off for the journey home.

And as soon as he had done his three duty dances – that was how Rosie saw it, thankfully – Colm and Tommy had appeared, looking very smart in dark suits, white shirts and sombre ties, and bringing with them a short, square young man called Max who had
immediately endeared himself to the girls by proving to be an excellent dancer and an amusing companion. It transpired that he was also a tram-worker, though only a mechanic, and had not been invited along by Tommy, as the girls had at first supposed. The three men had met up in the foyer and when Colm had admitted that the two of them were meeting three young ladies . . .

‘Well, after that there were no gettin’ rid of him,’ Tommy had admitted, grinning. ‘Specially when he saw what stunners you was.’

The girls had snorted at that, but nevertheless it was a good start to the evening, and the fun had been fast and furious, with Max and Ella, Tommy and Rose, and Colm and Mona taking to the floor for the next dance.

After that they had all taken turns and danced with each other, and though, when dancing with Colm, poor Rose knew that he had spent the entire time trying to keep an eye on Mona and Tommy, she had still managed to enjoy herself immensely. She was a good, neat dancer and actually performed the tango, with Tommy, as though born to the elegant, swooping movements, though she thought, privately, that Mona would probably have done it better. Since neither Max nor Colm felt sufficiently self-confident to undertake an attempt, however, the other four stood on the edge of the floor and applauded whenever Tommy and Rose swooped past, making Rose feel positively like a film star, she told her partner.

But the best time of all had been the walk home. They emerged onto the pavement outside the Daulby to find the sky clear and star-spangled overhead, the weather just sufficiently frosty to make them thankful
for their warm coats, hats and sensible shoes. And when Ella and Max had left them, the four of them joined arms and strode out briskly, Rose trying to match her steps to the longer ones of her companions, for even Mona was three or four inches taller than she, and this seemed very amusing and, when they occasionally broke into a run, downright funny.

They had entered the kitchen as quietly as they could, of course, but Rose’s mother had sat up for them. Rose thought this was awfully kind, especially as her mam had made a big jug of hot cocoa and provided a platter of her own shortbread biscuits and some ginger cake, but she did notice that the young men looked a little glum.

She had mentioned this to Mona as they undressed for bed, and Mona gurgled and said that of course the fellers had been disappointed. ‘’Cos I reckon they’d meant to have a nice ... a nice kiss an’ cuddle in the warm kitchen, instead of on the back doorstep, like they usually do,’ she had explained. ‘Fellers don’t tek you dancin’ just for the pleasure of treadin’ on your toes, you know. They buy you some drinks an’ refreshments, an’ you’re supposed to pay ’em back in kisses.’

‘Really?’ Rose had said, considerably fascinated. ‘D’you mean they’d have kissed both of us, or would it have been one each?’

Mona, dabbing half-heartedly at her make-up with a damp flannel, stared at her though the mirror on the washstand. ‘Gawd, you don’t know nothin’, you,’ she had said with affectionate disgust. ‘One each, acourse!’

‘Oh! Then . . . then which?’

‘Which d’you think?’ Mona had asked aggravatingly and then refused to discuss the matter further.
Only Rose knew, of course, that Colm would have grabbed Mona and she herself would have been grabbed by Tommy. It stood to reason – Colm had been staring goggle-eyed at Mona all evening, including the times he had danced with Rose. She had felt happy and comfortable in his arms, until she had realised why he had answered her at random and kept turning his head and twiddling her around. Indeed, Rose’s toes had gone uncrushed chiefly due to her own nimbleness, but Colm, she thought bitterly, would scarcely have noticed had he trodden on her head, so anxious was he not to miss a movement of Mona’s.

It had spoiled her dances with him; of course it had. No girl likes to know that the man who holds her in his arms is not only thinking of someone else but manoeuvring her so that he can look at that person as well. Still, Tommy was handsome, charming, good fun . . . and a tram man, to boot. What was more, he was driving now, not just conducting. And he’d been wearing his uniform overcoat and the familiar smell of the serge was enough to turn Rose’s knees to water. She had always thought trams romantic, even when it was just her dad who worked them. Now, she thought, she might have a husband of her own who drove a tram ... a giddying thought.

So she curled up in her bed and decided that, should they go dancing together again, she would tell Tommy that she did not want to dance with Colm. It was a shame, because she had liked him very much, once, but a girl had to be practical. The very thought of wanting a boy who didn’t want her was repugnant to Rose. All that silly talk of unrequited love could easily be avoided if one kept one’s head. Colm was, so to speak, ‘taken’. Therefore it behoved her to look
around for someone else and to treat him simply as someone who lived under the same roof as herself and who would be appreciated only as a friend.

Having made her decision, Rose put the thought of dancing and young men firmly out of her mind and thought, instead, about waves curling down on a sandy shore, trees stirring in a spring breeze, sheep jumping over fences.

After a while, it worked and Rose slept – and dreamed confusingly of Colm and Tommy attempting to drive a herd of sheep into the waves whilst she, in the guise of a sheep-dog, barked at their heels and tried to make them see the error of their ways.

Colm had enjoyed the dance, the walk home through the darkened streets . . . even the cocoa and biscuits. He washed, undressed and got into bed with the delicious memory of Mona in his arms, prepared to stay awake all night, if necessary, so that he could relive those magical moments.

But oddly enough, when he returned in his imagination to the ballroom, it was not Mona who snuggled softly in his arms but Rose. He knew it was her, he could smell the delicate scent she used, feel the slender firmness of her waist and looking down, see the rich, dark-brown curls of her hair and the whiteness of her parting. He could even see the curve of her cheek, the smooth, creamy skin, the lashes, so black and thick, which swooped over the blue of her eyes.

Odd! He had spent most of the time whilst dancing with Rose in twisting her around so that he could watch Mona. Ah Mona, with her golden curls, her generous curves, her low-cut and clinging dress! He tried to visualise her mouth, her skin . . . and found
himself visualising, instead, Rose’s gentle lips, her damask cheek.

This is a nightmare, so it is, he informed himself indignantly, opening his eyes on the darkness until he was sure he wasn’t dreaming. Then he replaced the young and pliant Rose with the high desirable Mona and allowed his hopeful hand to slide from her waist down onto the clinging curves of ... of another part of her. She was smiling up at him, quiescent . . . only it didn’t work, that was the trouble. In his dreamlike state he asked Mona to dance, held her firmly, whirled her round . . . and found himself holding Rose and watching Mona as she quick-stepped with Tommy, or Max.

‘Damnit!’ Colm thought crossly, sitting up in bed with the promptitude of a jack-in-the-box. ‘I’ll dream what I bleedin’ well want, so I will!’

He lay down again, but sleep was inexorable now and would not be denied. He plunged into its depths, trying to hold a vision of Mona before him . . . but he couldn’t do it. He simply slept, deeply and dreamlessly, until morning.

1931 Dublin

Caitlin couldn’t wait for Christmas, as she kept saying every time there was an opportunity, and now she and Cracky were wandering along the pavement under the hissing gas-lamps, planning how they would spend the holiday. Cracky intended to spend it with her, he had just said so, but Caitlin didn’t think he ought to be allowed to cherish false hopes. ‘It’ll be all right until me daddy comes home, and me brother Colm, Cracky. Only once they’re back in Dublin you won’t be seeing much of
me
, Cracky,’ she said half apologetically. ‘They’ll mebbe want to do dull things now and then see; and if so, I’ll sneak out an’ come round to your place, an’ we’ll go off together.’

‘I don’t see why I can’t come round to Cloddagh Court an’ be wit’ you, Cait,’ Cracky said. ‘It ain’t as though me mammy ‘ud mind. She’d be tickled to get shot o’ me for an hour or two, so she would.’

‘Ye-es, but I don’t know whether Daddy an’ Colm would want you hangin’ around,’ Caitlin said with unconscious cruelty. ‘It’s their own home an’ their own family they’ll be after wantin’, after so long away.’

‘They won’t mind me,’ Cracky insisted. They were running along Grafton Street, jumping the paving cracks, and his voice came out in short jerks. ‘They’ll want to do
old
people’s t’ings. They’ll be glad to see
the back of ye from time to time I guess.’

‘They will not so!’ Caitlin said immediately, stopping short to glare at Cracky. Unfortunately since he didn’t realise she was going to stop he continued to bound along and so missed one of her most furious and aggressive glares. ‘Cracky! I said they would not want to see the back o’ me, not after so long across the sea, in that old England.’

Cracky stopped and wandered back to her. In the lights from a nearby shop window Caitlin could see he was scowling. ‘Well, if that’s how you feel, I’d better not be runnin’ round after ye now. I’ll see you when they’ve gone back, if I’ve a moment to spare,’ he said gloomily. ‘I was comin’ back to your place to help you wit’ your messages an’ that, but if I’m not wanted once your brother gets back ...’

‘Oh well, mebbe I’m wrong,’ Caitlin said. It was another week and more to the Christmas holidays and Cracky was a great feller for giving a hand and keeping her company. ‘Mebbe youse can be wit’ us, come Christmas.’

Cracky grinned and fell into step beside her. ‘I’ll make meself useful,’ he promised. ‘Besides, your mammy likes me well enough now. Why, didn’t she give me Colm’s old trousers, an’ mend ’em an’ make ‘em smaller to fit? I bet if you axed your mammy she’d say, “Bring Cracky along, for he’s a great little feller, so he is,’” he added complacently. ‘Your mammy likes me to keep you out of mischief whiles she’s workin’, Caitlin O’Neill.’

It had not always been so, but it was true now and Caitlin acknowledged it. Cracky never came round to their place with a dirty face or with mud caked on his bare feet. Indeed, he had even let Caitlin’s mammy cut his hair and give him some old clothes, and
because she didn’t mind mending she was always willing to do the odd repair job for Cracky. In return, he kept an eye on Caitlin and if he didn’t always manage to get her out of scrapes, at least he stayed with her, no matter how tempted to fly away and disown his little friend.