Authors: Anne Bennett
One day in the autumn of 1923 Brian asked Joe if he had ever thought of taking any of the courses being advertised in the city institutes. Shock ran through Joe at Brian’s words, because he knew his employer well by now, and when he spoke like that, it wasn’t really a question at all. It was more like the iron fist inside the velvet glove.
Yet Joe answered, ‘No, sir. Things like that are not for the likes of me. I am not brainy enough.’
‘Who says?’ Brian said. ‘You have to have a brain in your head to understand the mechanics of a car, and they are always praising your knowledge at the garage.’
‘That’s different, sir, and—’
‘They do courses in typewriting and accounts, and I need a man in the office,’ Brian said.
‘Oh, sir, it is kind of you and all, but I am not fitted out for office work.’
‘Kind be damned!’ Brian cried. ‘You would suit me very well. I am impressed by your common sense and your intelligence. Will you do this for me, Joe?’
Joe shook his head helplessly. ‘I honestly don’t know if I will be able to make head nor tail out of any of it,’ he said. ‘And I would probably need a typewriter.’
‘Leave that to me,’ Brian said. ‘Your job is to take the course and get Bobby ready to take over from you in a year or so.’
Joe sighed and yet he knew the hand of opportunity was being extended to him again, and he would be a fool if he didn’t grasp it tight.
A month or so into the course Joe thought he had made a vast mistake. He found it the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. He had always been good at figures and thought
he would find accounts not that difficult. He was wrong, but he found typewriting much worse. Memorising the keyboard was hard enough and his fingers seemed too big and cumbersome for the keys.
He laboured on and didn’t bother complaining because he knew that Brian would obviously want some return on the money he had spent educating him, and he hoped that his employer’s belief in him was not misplaced.
None of the Brannigans’ staff could understand why he was doing all the book work, and neither could Patrick. Joe told none of them, not even Tom, what Brian had said about being taken on in the office if he should pass the exams, because he could not visualise himself in such a role. He didn’t know if he wanted it, certain he would feel out of his depth. Anyway, there would be no possibility of it if he were to fail his exams, as he was certain sure he was going to.
In one way, though, Joe was pleased that he had so much going on in his life because that summer he had found himself attracted to Gloria physically for the first time in his life. He had been appalled and disgusted that he should have such feelings for a young girl, and the boss’s daughter, no less, and seventeen years younger than he was. He knew he wasn’t just lusting after her beauty and her developing figure, for his love for Gloria seemed to fill every part of him. Just to be near her caused the heat to fill his body as the blood coursed more quickly through his veins and he knew that he would willingly lay down his life for Gloria and feel it an honour to do so.
He recalled the day she had left to start boarding school she had sought him out in the garage first and put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. She had been a child then, though, and he had thought of her as a child. But two years down the line she was a child no longer. He wasn’t sure that he could trust himself not to betray his feelings if she were to do anything like that again, and he knew there was no way that he would ever risk that.
This meant that his manner towards her changed. They had always had a special relationship. Gloria never forgot that Joe had possibly saved her life, and so they had always been free and easy with one another, and she never thought of calling him ‘Sullivan’, as her mother did. But suddenly Joe became very stiff and proper, as that was the only way he could deal with emotions that he had never imagined he would have.
Gloria had been confused and hurt at first. She assumed that she must have said something to offend, though Joe denied she had, nor would he admit that there was anything wrong. Then she became irritated by his remoteness and the peculiar way he was behaving, and one day she had stamped her dainty little foot on the floor and almost hissed, ‘Joe, if you say just one more time that it is not your place to comment on something I say then I will get very cross with you.’
Joe had no reply to that, and in the end Gloria had barked out, ‘Are you going to say nothing at all?’
Joe shrugged. ‘What is there to say, Miss Gloria? You and your parents are the bosses around here.’
‘Joe Sullivan, you must be the most aggravating man in the whole world,’ Gloria cried.
‘So you say, miss,’ Joe had replied, and she had flounced back to the house.
He was sad that he had made her so angry, and from that point her attitude to him had been cooler, and although that made life easier for him, he missed the camaraderie that they’d once enjoyed.
But he didn’t allow himself to dwell on any sort of relationship with Gloria. He knew the only way to get rid of any madness of the mind – and this was a form of madness – was to work harder until he got over it, as he knew he would in the end.
However, Joe’s hard work paid off because in the summer of 1924, he took exams in accountancy and typewriting and
in the autumn of that year found out that he had passed both with high grades. He was delighted, but unaware that his results meant that his life was going to change completely. Brian clapped Joe on the shoulder, said that he had always had faith in him and that he would be an invaluable help to him in the office.
That was enough of a sea change for Joe to cope with, but then Brian dropped another bombshell.
‘Of course, now that you are going to be working for me in the office a servant’s room in the basement will no longer be suitable accommodation for you,’ he announced.
Joe was astounded. ‘But why, sir? I’m very comfortable there.’
‘Joe, this is an opportunity to better yourself,’ Brian said. ‘You must trust me in this.’
‘But where will I stay, sir?’ Joe asked.
‘Why, in the house, of course,’ said Brian, as if the decision had all been signed and sealed. ‘You’ll be put in one of the guest rooms.’
Joe’s whole being recoiled from living in the house. It was the largest and most sumptuous dwelling he had ever seen, but it was someone else’s house, and he really didn’t want to leave his room in the basement.
But Brian had decided that that was how it was going to be, and Joe was to take his meals with the family in the house too. Joe remembered the only other meal he had had in the house, the evening he had arrived in New York, and the way that Norah had resented his presence then. He had no reason to think that she thought any more of him now, for all Brian’s praise. He would much rather have taken his meals in the kitchen and knew he would miss the banter and companionship.
But never in his wildest dreams had Joe thought the other servants would act the way they did when he told them what Brian had in mind for him. Kate actually called him an upstart and made a few pointed references about
people not knowing their position in life and aping their betters.
Joe didn’t even try to explain or justify himself, for surely they knew he had to do what his employer wanted, just the same as they did, but he was sorry to lose their friendship. Only Planchard, himself in a privileged position, congratulated him and said he deserved every success, and Joe was grateful for his support.
To his utmost surprise, Patrick reacted the same way as most of the Brannigans’ staff when Joe told him of Brian’s plans for him. ‘Well, you’ve done well for yourself, all right,’ he commented sourly. ‘I’m surprised you still come to see a common man like me.’
‘Come on, Patrick. It’s still me – Joe.’
‘No it isn’t,’ Patrick said. ‘The Joe I know would never have sucked up to his employers the way you must have done.’
Joe was surprised and a little hurt. He considered Patrick a really good friend; surely, he thought, you want a friend to achieve good things in life. He hoped that he would have reacted differently if the positions had been reversed.
However, Joe knew that something had been severed between him and Patrick that night and he felt heart sore about it. In fact, he felt so deeply hurt that he was determined at the first opportunity to tell Brian he wanted no fancy job in a fancy office and he would like to turn the clock back and just go back to his room in the basement and let everything go on as it had before.
In the cold light of day, though, he knew he couldn’t do that. His future was inexorably linked to Brian’s, for better or for worse.
For his second dinner in the house, Joe dressed with meticulous care. He knew that Brian’s wife would be the kind of person who had never really seen him as a person; to her he would just be one of the servants. But she would probably
remember that the last time he had dinner in this house, he had been wearing soiled and travel-weary clothes, the hand that he had extended to her had been rough and calloused, with blackened nails, and his brogue had been so thick it could have been cut with a knife.
That night he wore a dark blue suit and a snow-white shirt, the striped tie matched the handkerchief in his top pocket, cufflinks sparkled at his wrists, and the black leather shoes were so highly polished he had almost been able to see his face in them. Added to this, his hands were much softer than they had been and his nails spotless. Mustering as much confidence as he could, he extended his hand to the woman whose eyes had opened wider in approval and said, ‘Good evening, Mrs Brannigan.’
She smiled at the charming lilt to his voice and her smile was a genuine one as she shook his hand and said she was pleased to see him. However, her eyes were shrewd and Joe wondered if she couldn’t understand why her husband had paid for the man to have lessons in accounts and typewriting when there must be many already trained for such work. Sullivan, after all, was just a chauffeur.
She betrayed none of this in her manner to him, though, and when Joe showed how embarrassed he was to be served by people he had once counted as his friends he saw Norah’s sympathetic eyes on him. She understood perfectly how he was feeling, and she was also aware of how servants often reacted with someone they thought was stepping out of their class. Brian, on the other hand, was unaware of Joe’s discomfort and saw no problem at all, and Joe knew that that was just one more thing that he would have to overcome.
‘And how did you like the work in the office today, Mr Sullivan?’ Norah asked him as the meal was served and the servants left the room.
‘Oh, I liked it fine, ma’am,’ Joe replied. ‘Of course, there is still a lot for me to learn.’
‘Plenty of time, Joe,’ Brian said. ‘And at least you have made a good start. Those letters you did for me today were first class.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Joe said. ‘Tell you the truth, I never expected to have a job like this. To go to work every day in a suit was never in my line of thought at all.’
‘America truly is the land of opportunity,’ Brian said.
‘It is, sir, right enough,’ Joe agreed. ‘But it was you, not America, that gave me this chance and I will never forget it.’
‘Thank you for that, Joe,’ Brian said. ‘But in the Ireland I remember, and the Ireland some of the migrants tell me about, such things as I did for you couldn’t be done. If your father is a drunk or a layabout then it is almost assumed his offspring will be the same. Your future and expectations would be fixed in the minds of those around you. It was America, Joe, that gave me the opportunity to help you get on.’
‘You are right there, sir,’ said Joe. ‘And tonight I intend to write a letter to my brother and tell him all about the good fortune that has lighted on me, and all about my first day at work.’
‘Have you given him no hint of it before this?’
‘I have told him very little, sir. I was going to tell him what I was doing, but I found it all so hard at the beginning I didn’t think I would ever make a hand of it, and was positive I would fail my exams. There seemed no point in saying anything until the results were in, but now he needs to know. He will be delighted for me. You’d not find a better man than Tom, for it was his generosity of spirit that allowed me to come to America in the first place.’
‘How’s that?’ Norah asked.
‘He sold a field of sheep,’ Joe said. ‘He wouldn’t have been able to manage the sheep on his own once I had left, but he sold the whole lot to a neighbour who had been after them for some time. And he gave the money to me to pay for my passage over and to keep me for a few weeks in case I couldn’t get employment straight away.’
‘What a wonderful gesture,’ Norah said. ‘He surely is a brother to be proud of. And now if everyone has finished maybe, Brian, you will ring for the next course?’
Joe’s presence at meal times was a very beneficial one for Norah, because he soon became aware of her unhappiness. He sensed that she was lonely and missing Miss Gloria, and he found himself feeling sorry for her and so often tried to keep the conversation going.
A few weeks after Joe had moved into the house, Brian said one morning at the office, ‘It’s obvious that you are enjoying yourself at work because the way you talk about it over dinner you have even got Norah interested.’
‘You don’t think that I am talking too much, sir?’
‘I do not, Joe. I tell you, I have never seen Norah so animated.’ He thought for a minute and added, ‘Well, if I’m honest she was like that when Gloria was smaller. Sometimes we even had guests for dinner. Seems a long while ago now. You seem to have rejuvenated something in her.’
Brian was right. Norah was greatly attracted by Joe. She didn’t think of him in a sexual way – she wasn’t going to be that stupid, – but she thought that if she’d ever had a son, she would have liked one like Joe and she couldn’t for the life of her think why he was still unmarried.
‘I haven’t found the right woman yet,’ he told her when she asked him.