Danny Boy (26 page)

‘She doesn’t understand like you do, that’s why,’ Danny said. ‘She accepts what she’s told and doesn’t have any inkling of what those men, and possibly their families too, go through. Anyway, my darling girl,’ he went on, ‘neither of you will be upset by tomorrow’s planned outing, for if the weather remains fine I’d like to take you to Aston Park.’

‘That will be nice for Bernadette,’ Rosie said. ‘And for me too. I miss the feel of grass beneath my feet sometimes.’

It was no distance either and the day was dry, though cold and grey, but it didn’t seem to bother Bernadette as she danced between her parents. However, she barely noticed the gravel path between the lawns either side, or the high wall with the bare trees stretching their gnarled tentacles in the air at the entrance to the park, because her attention was taken by the hurdy-gurdy man they met as they crossed Albert Road.

The man’s bright brown eyes shone out of a wizened, creased face. He wore a coat like an army greatcoat that reached the top of his cobbled boots, and a greasy cap was pulled down on his head, and he didn’t interest Bernadette in the slightest. What enchanted her was the monkey he had with him, which was tethered to the organ by a long chain. Rosie, sharing her daughter’s amusement at the monkey’s capers, was at least pleased to see he was dressed, for she’d seen others shivering, their teeth chattering with cold. This monkey looked fairly happy, his darting movements were almost like dancing to the music and threatened to dislodge the red fez he had at a jaunty angle on his head.

Bernadette clapped her hands and her little feet danced to the tunes the organ produced through the perforated paper rolls, and when the music eventually drew to a close the monkey lifted the fez from his head and waved it before Bernadette with a flourish. Even Rosie and Danny had to laugh.

There was little money to give to the hurdy-gurdy man in the Walsh household at that time, but even so, Rosie extracted two farthings from her purse and let Bernadette drop them in the proffered fez. ‘Thank you, Mam,’ the hurdy-gurdy man said.

‘I’m sorry it wasn’t more. You entertained my girl so well,’ Rosie said.

‘Ah no,’ the organ-grinder said. ‘She’s good for business,’ and Rosie noticed for the first time the women drawn out from their warm firesides to their doorsteps by the sound, smiling at the child’s pleasure, and their own children edging closer.

Bernadette had not wanted to leave, but Danny, watching the sky, said it was coming to rain and knew the outing to the park would have to be a short one anyway. Bernadette went with them willingly enough, but her head was turned back to watch the man and the monkey and they heard the strains of other tunes as they went between the ornate iron gates and into the park itself.

The beautiful flowerbeds were almost bare due to the time of year and only snowdrops and crocuses had pushed their way up through the frozen earth. The trees were leafless and sad-looking. ‘What’s that?’ Bernadette said, pointing.

‘A bandstand,’ Danny told her. ‘Do you want to see?’ Rosie watched them approach it and remembered the bandstand in St Stephen’s Green, that beautiful park the rebels had tried their best to ruin.

However, even she was intrigued by the stocks they came upon as they walked towards the lake, with the majestic spire of Aston Church in the distance. She’d heard about stocks but had never seen them. This one had six holes, enough for three people’s hands, with a wooden bench for the unfortunate ones imprisoned there to kneel or sit on. Rosie stood at the iron fence in front and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be awful to be put in that thing?’

‘Aye and pelted with soft tomatoes and rotten eggs,’ Danny agreed. ‘Of course, though, Rosie, we don’t know what the people did to deserve that sort of punishment.’

‘No,’ Rosie said, but she shivered and hoped Bernadette, didn’t ask too many searching questions about the stocks. Bernadette, though, was happily swinging on the railings and was, for once, paying no heed to her parents’ chatter.

Danny swung Bernadette up on his shoulders as they came to the lake, gun-metal grey in the dull daylight and lapping gently at the edges. ‘Do they have boats out on here in the summer?’ Danny asked, but Rosie shook her head. She didn’t know.

‘If they do I’ll take you out,’ Danny told Bernadette. ‘I rowed across Blessington Lake many times as a lad. Would you like to go out on a boat, Bernadette?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bernadette said uncertainly, not knowing what a boat was.

‘The only boat she may remember is the mail boat we travelled on,’ Rosie reminded Danny. ‘No wonder she’s confused.’

‘She’d hardly remember that,’ Danny said dismissively. ‘But no matter, darling. Now, I’m going to show you a fine house.’

And it was fine. Aston Hall. Huge and full of splendour and Rosie could just stand and stare. A large carpet of winter flowers and evergreen shrubs decorated the circular flowerbed before the sweep of gravel drive that went up to the wide front door, and to either side of the building there were protuberances with gabled windows and domed roofs, and chimneys everywhere. ‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful?’

‘Aye, it is,’ Danny agreed. ‘But, you see, what you must remember is that all this park, the lake, and even the church I would imagine, belong to one man, one family. It’s hardly decent for one family to own so much. It isn’t only Ireland where oppression occurred. The ordinary Englishman is no freer than we are.’

Rosie knew Danny was right and she looked at the house
again and wondered how just the one family could live there and fill these rooms. What an army of servants it would command to clean and service such a place and how many little boys had been pushed up into those many wide chimneys where they would scorch their arms and legs and fill their lungs with soot.

‘Come on,’ Danny commanded, guessing her thoughts. ‘No sadness today. It’s time to take a rather special young lady to the playground.’

That night, snuggled up together in bed, Danny tried to prepare Rosie.

‘Do you know for certain you are for overseas when you report back to your unit?’ she asked, her voice high and upset.

‘No-one knows anything for sure in the army,’ Danny said. ‘But that is the rumour.’

‘But it’s so soon,’ Rosie complained. ‘You have just a few bare weeks’ training.’

‘I have had as much as the next man.’

‘Oh dear God, I can’t stand it.’

‘You must,’ Danny said, holding her hands tight. ‘You’re all Bernadette has. And I want you to promise, if anything happens to me…’

‘No,’ Rosie broke in. ‘I’ll promise you nothing, for nothing will happen to you. I’ll pray for you morning, noon and night.’

‘If it does,’ Danny insisted, then as Rosie continued to shake her head he said sharply, ‘For Christ’s sake, listen, Rosie. I want to know that you’ll be all right, I want you and Bernadette to go back home to Wicklow, to Mammy.’

‘I don’t want to think of it.’

‘You must,’ Danny said. ‘For I’ll not rest until I have that promise.’

Rosie had to promise. However distasteful she found everything, she couldn’t allow her husband to face the enemy with anything else preying on his mind. Just the thought of him
going at all filled her with panic and fear, and she wished she had the power to stop this war that seemed to serve no purpose but that of stripping countries of all their fit, young men.

The next day, after Danny had gone, Betty and Rita came in as Rosie was sobbing helplessly and were at first sympathetic and then irritated. ‘Stop being such a bloody stupid cow,’ Betty said at last. ‘No good blarting. So your man’s gone. He ain’t the first, and he won’t be the last. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You got a babby to see to. Think of her, can’t you? She’s upset too. Where would Ida’s have been if she’d let go like this?’

‘I can’t help it.’

‘You can and you bloody well will.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Rosie said. ‘I love Danny so much and…I can’t go on without him.’

‘Do you think I don’t love my husband,’ Rita said angrily. ‘He’s never even seen Georgie and the child’s going on for three. Twice he was due leave and it was cancelled. How d’you think I feel sometimes?’

The terrifying pain didn’t abate in Rosie. It still pounded through her veins and thumped in her heart, but she saw her fear reflected in Rita’s eyes. She’d never even seen Rita look particularly upset and realised she’d been repressing her emotion before friends, neighbours and Georgie, and she realised that life for everyone else would go on and she had to go on too, however hard it was.

Rosie lived for the letters she wrote to Danny and waited anxiously for his replies, though he could tell her little. She scoured the papers now to find out what was happening in this raging, never-ending war and while she’d always been saddened by the sight of the telegraph boy, now it would set her limbs shaking and she’d break out in a sweat.

Everything mattered more to her now, the black-bonneted widows and those wearing black armbands and the maimed and lame, who begged on the streets or clustered about the Bull Ring. She thanked God daily for the good friends she had made who helped sustain her.

Bernadette had returned to nursery when Danny rejoined his unit and now Rosie took the two children, but she felt time hanging heavy on her hands. However, though she was coping with the money well enough with Ida’s help and advice, as March was drawing to a close and the bitter snap had gone out of the early morning and evening air, Rosie’s cough eventually ceased and she told Ida she was going to try and return to work in the munitions.

‘D’you think you should?’ Ida said. ‘It might have been that that made you sick in the first place.’

‘And it might not have had anything to do with it,’ Rosie
retorted. ‘I’m feeling stronger altogether and I’d like to put some money by.’

But it wasn’t to be, for there were no vacancies at Kynoch’s now. More women feeling the pinch had joined and there was no job for Rosie, and she had little desire to try anywhere else.

‘I’ll look out for you, like,’ Betty said.

‘Yeah, if there is anything you’ll be the first to know,’ Rita promised.

Rosie was disappointed and the news from the front didn’t help. She knew the Government had been worried too when more formal meat rationing had begun in February. It barely bothered the poor, who in the main could only just afford to eat enough to keep themselves alive, and generally meat didn’t figure highly on their grocery bill, but it showed the level of the Government’s concern that such measures should have to be introduced.

‘But I’m more worried about the fuel rationing,’ Betty said. ‘Bloody good job the days are a tad warmer, that’s all I can say. These bloody houses are damp and draughty enough. If you couldn’t have a good coal fire in the chill evenings, life wouldn’t be worth living.’

‘Yeah, they say theatres and restaurants are going to have to close early and all,’ Rita said.

‘Well we won’t lose sleep over that, eh?’ Betty said. ‘Like to see us having a weekly date in a theatre or dining in a restaurant all lah-di-dah.’

‘I’ve been to a theatre,’ Rita protested.

‘Yeah, up in the Gods I bet?’

‘Well, yeah.’

‘Well they don’t heat that anyroad, do they?’ Betty said. They’re worrying about the ones in the plush seats down the front. They’re afraid of them getting their tootsies cold.’

‘You’re right,’ Rosie said with a smile. ‘It will affect us little.’

And fuel rationing didn’t affect her much, as long as she could get enough coal to heat the range to cook an odd meal here and there. She’d done as Ida recommended and used the heat to cook more than one thing at a time to eke out the coal, and so she managed, like most of the other women.

She wrote often to Danny, telling him each time how much she loved him, and as promised she prayed for him each night and morning. Then, after Mass on Sundays, when the soldiers were often prayed for, she’d sometimes spend some of her precious resources on a candle and say another wee prayer.

But soon all three woman had plenty to think about, for a large battle involving British and Australian forces began at a place called Amiens just a few days later. Allied losses were massive, so the paper said, and Rosie bought one every day and each evening the women pored over them.

Rosie wrote a long letter to Danny and at the end of it she wrote:

…Please remember not to try and be a hero. Remember your family – it’s breaking our hearts that we have no news of you. I love you with all my being, Danny, and I don’t think I could go on without you.

Please, please, as soon as you are able, write and let me know that you are safe.

All my love

Rosie

But no letters came and the battle raged on and all the women could do was wait. Rosie took comfort in her religion. She’d found Father Chattaway from St Joseph’s a nice, approachable priest and she’d wished she had the money to have a Mass said for Danny, but she couldn’t afford that. However, she did pop in to say prayers often, pleading with the Almighty to keep Danny safe.

Father Chattaway found her there in mid-May, kneeling down in one of the pews, her eyes tight shut, her lips moving, her face full of misery, and he felt heart sore for the woman, for he knew full well who she was praying for. The sound of his feet on the stone aisle gave Rosie a start and her eyes jerked open. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Father Chattaway said. ‘Please go on.’

‘It’s all right, Father, I’m done anyway,’ Rosie said dejectedly. She was going to add she didn’t know whether it did any good when she realised who she was speaking to. She couldn’t take the priest giving out to her as well. She was feeling too depressed for that, so she said nothing.

But Father Chattaway heard the woman’s hopelessness in the tone of her voice. ‘Would you like a Mass said for Danny?’ he asked.

‘Oh aye, Father,’ Rosie said. ‘But I can’t spare the money you see.’

‘There will be no cost,’ the priest said. ‘It’ll be my gift to you, to help you over this traumatic time.’

‘Oh, Father,’ Rosie said, overwhelmed, and the priest smiled. ‘I take it you approve of that.’

‘Oh, thank you, Father.’ Surely God would listen if a whole Mass was offered for Danny’s safety? Rosie thought, and she blessed the priest for his understanding. ‘Thursday,’ the priest went on. ‘The early morning Mass will be dedicated to Danny.’

Rosie’s heart was a little lighter as she left the church and she knew she would be back at seven o’clock on Thursday morning and she would ask Ida to mind Bernadette and Georgie till she came home again.

A week after the Mass, a letter dropped through Rosie’s letterbox. She recognised neither the postmark nor hand-writing and so ripped it open anxiously.

Dear Rosie,

I’ve not been able to write to you for a time because I’ve broken my right arm. But now I am in a military hospital and well on the mend and a kind nurse has offered to write to you on my behalf. I don’t want you to worry at all and hope to be transferred to a hospital near home soon.

Look after yourself. Big hug to Bernadette.

All my love,

Danny

Rosie dropped the letter on the table where she’d sat to read it and put her head in her hands. Danny, her Danny was injured. He’d broken his arm, but he would heal.

The man was alive when so many others were dead, and he was safe until he was fully recovered at least. ‘It’s from Daddy,’ she told Bernadette, who was sitting beside her, shovelling porridge at a rate of knots. ‘He’s alive!’

Bernadette had been unimpressed by the letter, but now she was pleased to see her mother smiling where for so long there had been a frown between her eyes. She was glad her daddy was alive, but she hadn’t considered him any other way. She was too young to understand death, but she did understand when her mammy said, ‘Daddy’s been injured, and he may be coming home for a wee while until he is better.’

‘When?’

‘Soon, I hope,’ Rosie said. ‘Now you sit there like a good girl and drink up your milk while I make the beds.’

And Bernadette sat and swung her legs and drank her milk and thought about her daddy and the fun things they’d done together and excitement began to build inside her at the thought of it.

She knew any minute Georgie would be coming in, for since her mammy had recovered she’d taken Georgie and her to the nursery to make life easier for Rita, she said, and
Bernadette couldn’t wait to tell him. So Georgie and Rita were barely over the threshold when Bernadette burst out, ‘Mammy’s had a letter from Daddy. He’s been injured and he’s coming home soon.’

Rosie was coming into the room as Bernadette spoke and she saw the blood drain from Rita as she held on to the door for support, and Rosie crossed the room in two strides. ‘God, Rita! What is it? Are you all right?’

She blatantly wasn’t. What stupid things we say, Rosie thought as she led Rita to a chair and pushed her into it. ‘Bernadette said…’ Rita began. ‘Bernadette said you…you had a letter from Danny?’

Rosie could see the pain reflected in Rita’s eyes. ‘Aye,’ she said. ‘It came this morning. He’s been wounded.’

‘Did he write himself?’

‘Yes, well, no, one of the nurses wrote. He’s broken his arm, you see.’

‘But you weren’t informed by the military?’

‘No.’

‘Then it can’t be serious.’

‘No, well, not life-threatening anyway,’ Rosie said.

‘You must be relieved?’ Rita said in a deadened voice and then her anguished eyes met those of Rosie and she said in a low moan, ‘Oh Rosie, what am I to do?’

Rosie felt her heart lurch. For weeks the two women had grown closer in their common worry over their husbands. They’d comforted one another, cheered each other up. But before saying anything to Rita she removed Georgie’s coat and said, ‘Go away up to the attic to play, the pair of you. I’ll not be taking you to nursery for a wee while yet.’

The children were glad to go and Rosie had seen that they’d both been unnerved by the atmosphere. As their scampering boots could be heard on the stairs, Rosie enfolded Rita in her arms. ‘Don’t give in now,’ she pleaded. ‘God, you’ve kept me on track more than once. Just because I had
a letter today doesn’t mean anything has happened to your man.’

Betty came in as she spoke and caught the last sentence. ‘That’s right, girl,’ she said to Rita. ‘Tell you what, bad news travels fast. If owt had happened to your man, you’d have been told by now.’

‘How can you be so sure?’ Rita demanded.

‘I ain’t sure,’ Betty said. ‘Life ain’t like that. I ain’t sure I won’t be killed on the horse road on me way to work, but one thing I is sure of is the fact that unless we get our arses up the road pronto, we’ll miss our tram and lose money.’

‘Do you want to call in sick today, Rita?’ Rosie asked.

‘What? And have some other bugger take my job,’ Rita said with a spark of spirit. ‘Not likely. Anyroad, I don’t want too much time to think and work is the solution to that.’

‘Come on, girl,’ Betty urged. ‘We really will be late if we ain’t careful.’

‘I’m coming,’ Rita said. She pressed Rosie’s hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said and added, ‘Say goodbye to Georgie for me.’

Rosie was glad to see them go. Glad to be able to hug herself with delight at the news of Danny she was just coming to terms with. She wasn’t aware of the smile plastered all over her face that cheered many on the tram as she took the children to nursery. Sister Ambrose, whom she shared the news with as she left the children at the door, was truly delighted for her. She’d known of her anxious weeks waiting for news.

She wrote to Danny’s family and her sisters that night, knowing they’d been worried too about the absence of letters, and included a special word to Dermot, who Connie said had plagued the life out of her for information since Danny had enlisted. She also sent a more stilted missive to her own parents, because she thought she ought to, though she was sure neither of them cared that much.

When Rosie got the go-ahead to visit Danny after he was transferred to the General Hospital in the city centre, she was stunned by the state of him. He was as white as the pillow he lay against, his head bandaged and a cage over his plastered leg. His arm too was plastered and when he saw Rosie’s worried face he gave a grin. ‘Cheer up, I’m nearly fully fit now and by God you should see the other fellow.’

‘Oh, Danny,’ Rosie said, half-laughing, half-crying.

‘Now,’ Danny admonished. ‘No crying over me. It will dampen my plaster, and anyway, you’re here to cheer me up.’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ Rosie said. ‘It’s the shock. You said nothing about any other injuries and yet I should have known they don’t use a valuable hospital bed up just because a person has broken their arm.’

‘It was the shrapnel that was the main problem,’ Danny told Rosie. ‘I was peppered with it. I was blasted into a shell hole you see. Cut my head, but that wasn’t that deep, it just needed a few stitches. My leg was in a bit of a mess but they’ve operated on that, and my arm was broken but the shrapnel went everywhere and they had to poke about a bit to root it out.’

‘When will you be home?’

‘Soon, I hope. I get the plaster off my arm tomorrow and then we’ll see how the leg heals, but they do say I have good healing skin.’

‘Will your leg ever be really right again?’ Rosie said. She wanted him to say no, to say he’d never be truly fit, because that way he wouldn’t have to go back to the war. He could go home and stay safe.

Danny knew what was in her mind and shook his head. ‘Sorry old girl. In another two or three weeks they say I’ll be as good as new.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’ll have a spot of convalescence at home first,’ Danny said. ‘That’s something to look forward to, surely?’

Danny’s leave
was
something to look forward to, however brief it was, and Rosie decided to concentrate on that. There was also the fact that she could now visit Danny twice a week, and while he was here being patched up he was safe.

The weather was bright and sunny each day as June drew to a close and July began, and Rosie was contented as long as she didn’t think long and hard of her old home alongside the Wicklow Hills. In the dusty courtyard the air often seemed oppressive and anything but fresh, and in the house, dust motes danced in the sun that slanted in through the windows.

Betty and Rita said the heat in Kynoch’s works was unbelievable. ‘The sweat drips off you,’ Rita said. ‘Me and Betty take our sandwiches outside at lunchtime. It’s still warm, but there’s sometimes a bit of a breeze and the air, bad as it is, is bound to be better than the munitions, where the smell would knock you back at times.’