The Walking People (28 page)

I'm sorry to ramble but I'm worried, and I'm rushing because I want to post this to you on my way to work. Please just keep it light with my mother and tell her I'll have a long one in the mail to her by
the end of the week. Tell her I love her and I miss her and we'll try for the telephone call another time.

Love,
Greta

 

June 9, 1964

Mrs. Lily Cahill
Ballyroan
Conch
Co. Galway
Ireland

 

Mammy,

I hope the thickness of this envelope will make up for how long it has been since you last heard from me, but I doubt it. I have no good excuse except work and a habit of putting things off. Every night I think I should write and then I think maybe something will happen tomorrow that I'll wish I'd held the letter to tell you about. And then I didn't write for so long that I didn't know how to start up again knowing how worried you must be and knowing I have no good excuse. In the beginning a new thing happened every hour, but now every day is almost the same. We've settled into a pattern of waking up and doing. It's not so different from how it was at home when you think about it except for the wages on every other Friday and the buildings and the people. If you look out the kitchen at home and try to count the blades of grass that's the number of people I swear I pass every day, or who pass me.

Remember the rich American lady I invented when I was five or six and Johanna was at school? I've been thinking of her lately and where I could have gotten her. Some of the women I see in Bloomie's could be my rich American lady. I guess it means I was always meant to come here. I'm glad you made me come.

Remember how we used to say city people don't get up until midmorning because they didn't do real work? In New York that isn't true. The city is awake before dawn. Not everyone, but some. I wonder if it
would help you at home to be able to picture my day. I get up around half five to help Michael tie up the trash and bring it outside to the curb. I tie, he carries. It's a big job with twenty apartments including ours, and people leave their trash a mess just throwing it in the bin without the top tied off. We have to make it neat and tidy so the people passing on the sidewalk would hardly notice it at all. The trucks come to collect it twice a week. We try to make this fun by saying things about what we see in the trash, or I make up a story about someone's weekend seeing what they've eaten and bought and Michael says what I lack in muscle I make up for in imagination. When the trash is taken care of Michael goes up ahead of me to the fifth floor and sweeps the hallway and the stairs. I wait a few minutes and then go up after him with a mop and bucket and wash down the hall where he's swept. I follow him down to the first floor and it's a pretty good system if I do say so. We can still talk while we're doing this because the voices carry in the stairwell almost the same as if we were beside each other, but sometimes we get afraid of waking people up. Michael sings songs in that language tinkers have and next thing I find myself humming them even though I haven't a clue what they're about. Then he goes down to the basement to check the mousetraps and the different poisons he has to put down for the cockroaches and other things that get into buildings if you don't keep it up every day, and I get ready for work because I go the earliest. On the weekends we work on the flower boxes outside. If someone has a plumbing emergency they come banging on the door for Michael. He's seen a few flushing toilets in Ireland with all the places he's been—probably more flushing toilets than I've seen—but he doesn't know a thing about how they work. He's figuring it out and says it's perfectly logical the way the water is carried in the pipes and then shoots out in different directions the closer to the apartment it gets. You should hear how we laugh when he comes in after talking to one of the tenants like an expert and little do they know his bathroom for eighteen years was whatever patch of grass he could find. He talks about knobs and levers and they believe every word he says. He fixed Mr. Karmel's toilet on the 5th floor and next thing the water in the bowl was boiling hot. Steam coming up out of it I swear to God. He went about fixing it back but the man stopped him and said he likes a warm
seat when he gets up in the morning. Next thing the woman down the hall comes knocking that she wants a hot bowl like Mr. Karmel's.

Mammy, New York City is not as big or as frightening as it seemed at first, and no where near as scary as when I had bad dreams about it before leaving home. You can't imagine all the people and sometimes when I think I'd like to stay home and curl up in bed it helps to just open the door and step outside because it gives me a feeling like I want to get moving and see where everyone else is going. To get to work I take the train that runs underground like we've told you about in other letters. I walk to 86th Street, just two blocks north, then across Third Avenue up to Lexington which is the avenue we used to hear about sometimes at home like Broadway and Fifth Avenue. It's a longer distance between avenues than it is between blocks. I get on the subway going downtown and you should see the throngs of people who get on every morning. They just shove themselves inside like sardines and this time of year it's hot and muggy and some days the smell is worse than anything coming out of the stable at home. Most of the people look sharp with suits and lovely dresses on them and you'd never know from looking at their faces that they smell what I smell which is each other sweating like pigs. Come to think of it even the pigs don't sweat like this. I get off at 59th Street and if I'm a few minutes early I go stand in the lobby of any office building to soak up the cold air they have forced out of vents and that helps me dry off and cool down and look like I haven't ridden to work on a pack of wild ponies.

Before the store opens I go up to my department which is ladies intimates and hosiery. It's just underpants, night dresses, bras, and that kind of thing. Bathrobes. Slips. Gansies (except they don't say gansies in America). Myself and two other girls unpack any new shipments that have come in. When the shipments come in the things are so wrinkled and horrible you'd never imagine them selling period nevermind for the prices they ask for. But we steam them and get them looking lovely and hang them out with the rest. Once a week we make a rack with what's on sale but we don't decide that. Our boss decides, and I think someone else tells her. I've already told you about the wooden folding boards that make folding easy. I've never worked the register but one day I probably will. I've gotten better with American change and am
close to being able to pick the right amount out of my purse without laying it out on my palm and trying to see is it a five cents or a ten cents or a quarter. I'm in charge of the dressing room which might sound easy but can get to be a bit of a madhouse depending on the day. There are ten changing rooms in our section and sometimes those fill up so fast a line forms that goes all the way past the racks of clothes, past the register, all the way back to the escalator (the stairs that move). I have to fetch different sizes and take away the clothes they don't like. Women in New York always try the smallest size first, then work their way up. When the smallest ones don't fit they get in awful moods and sometimes take it out on me. One thing I have to work on is how to say the names of some of the brands they have. I try to imitate what I hear the other women say but the boss says I say most things the wrong way and I should practice or else be stuck folding and steaming. I don't mind folding and steaming too much but I think I should practice anyway. Also an Irish woman came in the other week looking for a gift and whispered to me that she couldn't believe the prices they were asking for some things, and I agreed it was all too dear and we laughed about it. Later the boss said I'd been overheard by another salesperson and I said I didn't see what was wrong with having a laugh with a customer and she said if I didn't see anything wrong with what I said then I might not be right for the job. It was only that the woman was about your age and even though she had a Dublin brogue it made me think what I'd do if I saw you come through the door one day.

Don't worry about what the boss said. Another time she told me I was doing a great job, which you mightn't be able to believe, so I think she only said it to scare me a bit. I do think I'm doing a good job and I think it helps being in a place where no one knows me so they don't expect me to make a mistake. I love getting that paycheck every other week.

It's an eight hour day but I usually get overtime which I love because they give you time and a half. That's what you make per hour plus half again. We're saving a fair amount of money and sending Shannon a check once in a while, but she never brings them to her bank so we have to go down there with cash one day soon. Johanna and I have one bank account and Michael has his own.

I get home around eight o'clock and eat the rest of whatever Johanna or Michael has cooked. One thing we didn't know about Michael is he's a brilliant cook. He's also very smart and I swear he could figure out anything if you just gave him thirty minutes alone with it especially things like pipes and tools and wires. After dinner if it's very hot in the apartment I usually make a cup of tea and sit out on the stoop of the building to watch the people going by. Michael likes watching the people too and usually comes out to sit with me. Whenever I've thought I could stay here forever it's been while sitting on the stoop. Whenever I think I'll be back in Ballyroan before 1965 it's been on the subway with my nice ironed blouse soaked through.

Mammy, I know you are anxious to hear about Johanna and it's not that I'm avoiding talking about her but I think it's her business to discuss. I honestly can't tell you if she loves New York or hates it. She says she doesn't want to go back home, but when we talk about staying for good she doesn't seem happy with that either. She's still minding the old lady and getting great wages. She also made friends with a lovely woman who lives upstairs from us. So she's grand! Doing fine, as they say here. We all get on in our own way, and you know Johanna. I'm sure she'll send you a long one before the month is out.

Give my love to Little Tom and tell him Bloomingdale's doesn't sell records or else I'd use my discount to buy him a few for his player.

I love you both very much,
Greta

 

June 22, 1964

Michael Ward
222 East 84th Street
Apartment 1A
New York, New York 10028
United States of America

 

Michael,

So that's big news your going to have a baby. If your woman is in a mood now it will be worse after but then it's her who has to push the
baby out and have it hanging off her not you. Before all mine were born I would have the same dream about being asked to spell out the child's name or being asked to read something from the signpost and not knowing how. It was the kind of dream I'd wake up with a panic like someone was just after stealing something from camp but I couldn't remember what. It was worst with you and Maeve because you were two coming together. I wonder did you have any strange dreams.

Grandmother died the end of May. She was a great age and had been looking forward to it for a long time so there wasn't much sadness except missing her day to day.

You are a good worker, Michael, and have a good head on your shoulders and you'll get on well in America I know. There are Travellers in the south part of America on the Atlantic side come from Irish Travellers during the famine who still know the language and keep the traditions but I'd say that's a good distance from New York.

Good luck. God Bless.

Your father,
Dermot Ward

 

July 10, 1964

Greta Ward
222 East 84th Street
Apartment 1A
New York, New York 10028

 

Greta,

A funny thing happened today that you can help figure out. Mam and I took the horse and cart into town as we needed a few things too big to carry. We left it outside the pub and who is waiting for us when we come out but Mr. Riordan the postmaster. He said Dermot Ward left an envelope for us and we thought grand he's finally decided to get in touch with Michael. But the envelope is not for Michael it's for us and inside is the town where he expects to be all of August to get in
touch with news of the baby. What baby Mam asks and the postmaster says the baby your daughter Johanna Cahill and the tinker Michael Ward are having together at the end of July. You know what Mr. Riordan thinks of the tinkers.

Greta, Mam is beside herself wondering if this is true or not. I'm the only one who wonders why weren't we told. Mam only wonders what you plan to do and says come home and we'll figure it all out in Ballyroan. She is not angry only wants you to come home. You've saved plenty now and must have the fare. You can start over next year maybe in England. I'm writing to you instead of Johanna because we haven't heard from Johanna in months and I'm afraid for whatever reason she wouldn't read a letter from home right now, especially if this is all true.

Write back right away so we can sort this out.

Tom

 

July 14, 1964

Shannon O'Clery
39—28 61 st Street
Apt. 3D
Woodside, New York 11377

 

Shannon,

I was going to write this for Michael but as I have the same question I thought I'd put it from both of us. Johanna says no one is allowed in the delivery room and that her doctor told her that in America no one is allowed to visit mothers or babies in hospital except the husband and as Michael is not her husband he is not allowed. Is this true? We saw a program on the television at your place once with people visiting someone in the hospital but Johanna pointed out it wasn't after giving birth and that the program was a comedy so they could bend the truth. Very few people know Johanna is expecting so I don't know who to ask in case they'd wonder. We wouldn't put it past her to make up a fib to keep us away. I think she'll want us when the time comes and this baby after all is Michael's child and my niece or nephew and we want
to be there. Is there really such a rule? Michael said absolutely not it just doesn't make sense.