Polly’s hand had shot up and when Jake raised his eyebrows at her she asked bluntly: ‘What about Ernie? Oh, I don’t deny he’s honest as the day and a real hard worker, but I don’t see him as an usherette, somehow, nor a cleaner neither.’
Everyone had laughed, except for Ernie, who flushed and looked defensive. ‘I come wi’ me old pal Bruce here, but truth to tell I come along to make sure our Polly was all right.’ He looked Jake Freeway straight in the eye. ‘You don’t know about Cathy’s Place, of course.’
When he had told the story, Jake had slapped him on the shoulder and turned to grin at Dana. ‘Well I’m jiggered!’ he exclaimed. ‘Honey, you’re the answer to a cinema owner’s dream. I was going to ask you to act as usherette a couple of times a week, but with your experience in catering you’d be the ideal person to start up our cafeteria. Oh, not at once, but as soon as we see it’s needed and will bring a decent profit. Are you on?’
Dana had replied that nothing would please her more
and she would let him have references from employers past and present just as soon as she could.
By now everyone was on the best of terms with everyone else, so when Jake had clapped his hands for silence an instant hush had fallen on the assembled company. ‘Any more questions? Then I’ll say goodnight, and you will all get letters confirming your jobs as soon as we’ve sorted things out,’ he said briskly. ‘And since I only hired this room for two hours, and it’s already nearly ten o’ clock …’ Amidst much laughter the party had broken up, and the girls had invited Ernie and Bruce back to their room for cocoa and biscuits.
‘Well, I reckon we’ve landed on our feet,’ Bruce said when the cocoa had been drunk, the biscuits eaten, and the wonderful opportunity thoroughly discussed. ‘And I liked it when he said that we’d all muck in and help with any job which needed doing. I know cleaning a cinema doesn’t sound very glamorous …’
‘But who cares about that when they say we can watch films free,’ Polly said excitedly. ‘I’d rather go to the cinema than to a theatre or a dance hall or even to a fun fair, so I’m on. Ralph said they’d be showing mainly U certificates at first, because on the whole they’ll be cheaper to hire than A or H films. He doesn’t mean to try to compete with what you might call the premier league – Gaumonts and Odeons and that – but who cares? He’ll start off with black and whites, of course, mainly B pictures rather than main features, but I suppose they’ll get round to affording Technicolor once they get going.’
‘Yes, all right, but now all I need is me bed. Me head’s swimming with all this talk of picture houses and films and who’s going to do what,’ Ernie said rather crossly,
and Dana realised that he must be feeling left out. She turned and gave Polly a nudge.
‘Ernie’s quite right. We’ve spent the whole evening talking about the Freeway Cinema, but until they get their first films organised we’ll have to go on working in the market,’ she said. Both boys had risen to their feet and she went over to the door and held it open. ‘Sorry, lads, but I guess you’re as tired as we are. Goodnight!’
Bruce grinned. ‘I reckon we’ve overstayed our welcome. Put it down to excitement,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Goodnight, girls. I reckon them two Yanks are what they call hustlers in the States, and we’ll all be working together in no time.’
Chapter Seven
DESPITE THE LATENESS
of the hour the girls continued to conjecture as they got ready for bed. They had bought Polly a bed of her own as soon as they could afford it and Polly often said it was a good thing she was undersized since the bed was both narrow and short. ‘But it’s a lot better’n the bed I had at the home,’ she told Dana. ‘One of these days, when you an’ me’s rich and runnin’ our own tea room, I’ll have a big, old-fashioned feather mattress, like what you talked about t’other night.’
Dana felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand upright. Oh God, she must have been talking in her sleep again! She thought she had completely forgotten the dream, but Polly’s words brought it back and despite herself the very recollection of the incident made her smile. She and Deirdre, the girl from the village who came up to help Mrs McBride with the housework two or three times a week, had been making her parents’ bed. The old brass bedstead was sturdy, but it was easy to snag the great striped feather mattress on a spring if one was not careful. Trying to hurry, Deirdre had pulled in one direction and Dana in another, and before they knew it the two girls had found themselves in a whirling snowstorm of feathers, made worse by the fact that they had
opened the window and a spiteful wind had blown in, carrying some feathers outside and sending the remainder into a mad, whirling dance.
‘Shut the window, Dana, or sure as me name’s Capting Carruthers there’ll be more of your mammy’s feather mattress in County Cork than on this bed,’ Deirdre shouted. ‘Ah, ’tis a judgement on us for tryin’ to hurry so it is!’
Dana, obeying the older girl’s instruction, slammed the window shut and sank on to the bedstead, combing her hair with her fingers and coming up with a good haul of feathers. ‘Gosh!’ she exclaimed. ‘More haste less speed, Mammy would say …’ She eyed her companion curiously. ‘But your name isn’t Captain Carruthers, Deirdre; it isn’t even Carruthers. You’re a McCarthy.’
‘Oh aye, but it were Capting Carruthers what I first heard say that,’ Deirdre said, as though it settled the matter. ‘Come on, alanna, let’s start collectin’ the feathers in a pillowcase, then when I’ve mended the tear we’ve made we can put ’em back – into the mattress I mean.’
‘Right. But Deirdre, when you say you’re Captain Carruthers and you aren’t …’
Deirdre shrugged. ‘’Twill all be the same in a t’ousand years,’ she said unarguably. She began carefully picking up the feathers one at a time.
Dana slid off the bed and was beginning to do likewise when another thought struck her. ‘Deirdre, if you sew up the tear in the mattress before you tip back the pillowcase full of feathers, how will you get them in?’
Deirdre was a plump, rosy-cheeked country girl; Dana had known her all her life and loved her dearly, but was often puzzled by the way the older girl’s mind worked.
Now, she waited with some amusement for Deirdre’s reply.
Deirdre frowned, then a dimple appeared in her cheek and she gave Dana an admiring look. ‘Haven’t you a head on your shoulders, Dana McBride,’ she said, her tone awestruck. ‘Sure and I had it the wrong way round.’ She ticked off the actions she should take on her fingers. ‘First, we pick up the feathers and put ’em in the pillowcase. Next, we tip the feathers back into the mattress ticking, and, last of all, I get needle and t’read from your mammy’s sewing box and mend the tear.’ She beamed at Dana. ‘Will we start right away? Only ’tis t’irsty I am and me stomach says it’s time for mid-mornings, so if we go down to the kitchen we’ll likely find tea and brack waitin’ for us and I wouldn’t like Cook to think we didn’t ‘preciate her food.’
Dana looked at the sea of feathers. Now that the window was shut they were drifting floorwards, but every time she or Deirdre moved the feathers moved too. She grinned at her companion. ‘I reckon you’ve got the right idea this time. Whilst we’re out of the room having our mid-mornings the feathers will settle and if we come in very, very carefully we’ll likely get most of them back where they belong without too much trouble.’
Deirdre agreed eagerly and the two girls left the large and pleasant bedroom, closing the door carefully behind them. They ran down the wide, elegant staircase and went into the kitchen, entering just as Donovan McBride and Johnny Devlin came in through the back door. Mr McBride looked accusingly at his daughter. ‘Have you been plucking a goose in our bedroom?’ he asked aggrievedly. ‘As Johnny and myself crossed the wild
garden we thought it had begun to snow, but it was only—’
‘Feathers,’ Dana and Deirdre said in chorus, Dana adding: ‘We had a bit of an accident with your feather bed; sorry, Daddy. We’ll put it right as soon as we’ve had a cup of tea and a bite.’ She reached up and took a feather out of her father’s thick thatch of greying red hair. ‘We snagged the mattress on one of those brass springs, but it won’t take long to put things right.’
Mr Devlin grinned at her. ‘And what about the ones that are now decorating the garden?’ he said. ‘Are you going to collect the feathers off every bush and flower? If you don’t, your mammy and daddy will likely find themselves sleeping on bedsprings tonight.’
‘Oh, ha ha, very funny,’ Dana said sarcastically. ‘Have some brack, Mr Devlin; it’s good so it is. And where’s Con?’
‘He’s long-reining the new colt,’ Con’s father said briefly. ‘But he’ll be in for his tay and brack, never fear.’
‘Dana? Did you hear what I said? I’ll have a feather mattress one of these days, like the one you and your pal split … Dana?’
Brought abruptly back to the present, Dana glanced across the darkened room to where Polly lay in her small bed. ‘Have I been talking in my sleep again?’ she asked. ‘I suppose I must have been. Goodness, Deirdre and myself ended up feather-picking for hours and hours. Do I often talk in my sleep, Polly? I don’t believe I ever did such a thing whilst Caitlin and I lived together.’
Polly, who had snuggled down, sat up again as though she needed to be upright in order to think things through. ‘Is that so? Well, I reckon it’ll be that bump on the head
which landed you in hospital. Odd, ain’t it? But they say concussion can make you forget, so I suppose it can make you remember as well.’
‘But I don’t
want
to remember!’ Dana had blurted the words out unthinkingly and clapped a hand to her mouth, wishing she could take them back. Hastily, she broke into speech. ‘But you haven’t answered my question. Do I often talk in my sleep?’
‘I dunno; I sleep pretty sound meself. There’s nights when you could quote the Holy Bible or Nuttall’s dictionary for hours at a time, and I’d never hear a word. Never hear nothin’ but me own snores, to tell you the truth. It’s just occasionally, when something happens to keep me awake, that I hear you rabbiting on.’ She laughed. ‘Sometimes it’s real interesting, a bit like listenin’ to a play on the wireless. I feel I’m getting to know your parents and your pal Deirdre, and that feller Con what’s your best mate …’
‘Oh, but Polly, it’s only dreams,’ Dana protested. ‘It’s all nonsense really. Just you forget all about it, because I don’t want to be reminded about my life in Ireland. Come to that, you never talk about your life in the children’s home and I’ve never asked you what it was like.’
‘I’ll tell you some time, when you’ve a week to spare,’ Polly said gruffly. ‘And now let’s go to sleep or we’ll be fit for nothin’ in the morning.’
Ernie was now a regular visitor at the house in Temperance Court. His medical had been deferred since the armed forces were having a rush of would-be recruits following the Japanese attacks on British and American shipping
on the Yangtze river in December, but this did not worry him; indeed, he thought it was in his favour since he had applied before the incident. Meanwhile, he had managed to get another job cleaning cars, vans and even the great horse-drawn drays.
Christmas had passed pleasantly for the two girls because Ernie and Bruce agreed to spend the day with them on condition that they provided a good deal of the food. They exchanged small gifts, cooked and ate a traditional chicken dinner, and played silly games which had them all in fits of laughter.
When the day of Ernie’s medical arrived, Polly saw him off on the overhead railway to Seaforth, where it was to be held, but could not meet him on his return since he had no idea which train he would be on. He visited them later that evening, however, and told them that nerves had made him wheeze, though he had done his best to fool the Medical Officer who had sounded his chest. ‘He moved that stethoscope thing all round and then on to me back, which he didn’t do with everyone,’ he said. ‘So what I did was, I breathed real shallow ’cos I knew if I took a big, deep breath, like he kept tellin’ me, I’d start a-coughin’ and that would never do.’ He grinned at his audience, which included Bruce. ‘I don’t mean to tell you any of the other things what went on, but I don’t mind admittin’ I couldn’t understand a reason for the half of it. It were done – the medical, I mean – in a huge old hall. They lined us up and the medics went up and down the lines, each one doing somethin’ different. When it was over, the last man patted me on the shoulder and said he thought I’d done all right and not to worry if the results was a time coming through
because the paperwork had to be done and it took longer’n one would believe possible.’
‘Oh well, that just means we’ll have you with us for a bit longer,’ Polly said cheerfully. ‘We’re goin’ to miss you somethin’ awful, young Ernie. But there’ll be your leaves to look forward to.’
The end of January arrived and one evening after he had finished work Ernie turned up at the room in Temperance Court. He must have been back to the hostel first for he was clean and spruce, but the look on his face when Dana answered the door caused her to pull him inside and push him into a chair. ‘What’s up, Ernie?’ she asked. ‘You look dreadful! Don’t say you’ve had bad news?’
Ernie nodded dumbly, and when Dana opened her mouth to ask more questions he fished a letter out of his pocket and held it out. ‘Them buggers have turned me down,’ he said huskily. ‘I’m gutted. Oh, Dana, what’ll Polly say? It were me asthma. No use applying for the Navy or the air force ’cos they’ll want to know whether I’ve been turned down by any of the other services.’ He looked up at Dana and gave her a watery smile. ‘Reckon I’ll be collectin’ white feathers any day now.’
Dana shook her head reprovingly, then went over and lit the Primus stove. ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea,’ she said soothingly, ‘and as for white feathers, don’t be so bloody ridiculous! You can scarcely help it if they’ve rejected you on medical grounds, and it’s to be hoped that women will have more sense this time round than to accuse their fellow countrymen of cowardice simply because they’re not in uniform. As for what Polly will say, I think she’ll be relieved. Oh, I know she started off thinking that it
was all very romantic and liking the thought of her boyfriend in uniform, but lately she’s begun to worry. She told me the other night that she had nightmares about trenches and mud and bombing raids, and you being killed or captured, so of course she’ll be sympathetic because you’re disappointed but underneath she’ll be as pleased as anything. Have you told anyone else yet?’