They bought their beers and eased their way out, then stood in a tight defensive group. They weren’t on Dog Island now. This was Poplar, practically foreign ground.
Gerry looked at the crowd, cheerful, laughing, out for a good night’s spree. He saw people ready to spend, wanting to spend, people who’d laboured and sweated all week and wanted a good time. There was money to be made here, money eager and waiting to come into his hands.
Harry was gazing at the women.
‘I dunno what Ma O’Donaghue would say to some of these,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t let her Theresa out dressed like that.’
Will followed his glance. A girl quite close to them was smiling up into the face of a big navvy. Her canary-yellow dress strained across her full breasts, its ruffles quivering with the quick rise and fall of her breathing. Her face was nothing much to look at, sharp and flushed in the steamy fug with beads of sweat standing out on her forehead, but her elaborate hairstyle and low-cut dress held the promise of things to come. They drew the eye like a magnet.
‘You can bet she’s not Irish. They don’t let their girls flaunt themselves like that,’ Will said, taking on the role of older and more experienced man. His eyes ranged over the heads, searching for familiar faces. He did not expect to spot Siobhan, since she was small enough to be hidden in the crowd, but the O’Donaghues might be sighted.
‘Can’t see them anywhere,’ he said.
‘They ought to be here by now. I saw them set off before us,’ Harry said.
‘Maybe they called for some others on the way.’
Already someone was singing over by the unseen piano, a boozy voice belting out a bawdy song. A few others joined in until it disintegrated raggedly into raucous laughter. It was too early yet. They were not ready.
Will felt hemmed in, pinned down. Frustration began to build inside him. She must be here somewhere. All these loud voices masking hers, all these broad shoulders hiding her. If he knew where she was he could make towards her, but just pushing around the pub searching would be asking for trouble. He glared about him, hating the red faces, the sweating backs. They were fencing him off from her.
‘. . . Will?’
‘Eh?’ He realized Harry was talking to him.
‘Your dad getting work all right now?’
‘Oh.’ It was difficult to turn his attention to family matters. ‘Yeah, well, it’s summer, ain’t it? More around now. But it ain’t easy, ain’t easy for no one, getting work as a casual, and he ain’t a young man no more.’
‘Got his pride too, your dad. Wouldn’t take anything.’
‘Oh no, not Dad. He’s a sugar man, not a dock rat Only works the sugar boats. And that Alf Grant’s put the word out. There’s plenty of foremen won’t take him on now ’cos they heard he’s a troublemaker.’
‘Must be hard for your family.’
‘But you know my mum. She don’t complain. And everyone mucks in, earning this and that.’
‘So Ellen’s still going to the Central in September, is she?’
‘Far as I know. Bloody stupid idea, if you ask me.’
Gerry interrupted them. ‘You sure this is the place?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Harp of Erin. That’s what Pat O’Donaghue said.’
He had been full of it, Pat O’Donaghue, boasting to anyone who’d listen how his little cousin had the sweetest voice on God’s earth, how they’d gone out of a Saturday night and she’d taken them all by storm, made strong men cry and had them all cheering and bawling for more, raising the roof, stamping on the floor.
‘Why don’t she sing down at the Rum Puncheon, then?’ Will had asked.
‘It’s not a singing pub, is it?’ Pat pointed out. ‘And you lot wouldn’t appreciate it, anyway. It’s not your common music hall stuff she does, it’s the real thing. Proper songs. Irish songs.’
‘Don’t mean to say we wouldn’t like to hear ’em,’ Will said.
What he meant was
he
wanted to hear her. He didn’t care what she
was singing. She could sing in Chinese if she wanted. He just wanted to be there.
‘She’s something special, is our Siobhan,’ Pat said.
Will knew it. He’d known it from the moment he saw her. But getting close to her was another thing. She was surrounded by the O’Donaghues. He hung about each morning just to see her go off to work with her cousin Theresa, who had got her a job at Morton’s. The clothes that had marked her out as fresh off the boat had gone within the fortnight. She was dressed like all the others now, but still you could pick her out at a hundred yards. Like Pat said, she was special. The set of her head, the way she walked, that air of pride. They all wanted to get to meet her, all the men. But at first when she went out of an evening, it was up to some club at the Catholic church with the other Irish girls. Once summer came and the light evenings it was better. She would put on her best clothes and parade with a gaggle of friends, like all the other girls, glancing at the boys who gathered on the corners to whistle at them.
She went out with some of them. Will watched them with sick jealousy clutching at his guts, lads of Gerry’s age, or older men. None of them lasted for long, and she was safe enough. Ma O’Donaghue saw to that. She had to be in by ten o’clock. One minute past and Pat and Declan would be out looking for her, and whoever was with her would live to regret it. She was safe, but safe from him as well. With the entire O’Donaghue clan looking on, he could do nothing more than pass the odd friendly word with her, like any other neighbour.
There was a stir amongst the crowd. Will looked towards the door, and there they were: Brian O’Donaghue, Pat and Declan, and some cousins of theirs, all talking in loud voices, swaggering, making an entrance. Will craned his head. She must be with them. They wouldn’t be acting like that otherwise, drawing attention to themselves. Then he saw her dark head, a straw hat crowned with daisies perched on top.
‘They’re here,’ Harry said.
‘I know.’
‘Looks grand, doesn’t she?’
‘Yeah.’
All four of them followed her with their eyes as, encircled by her bodyguard of male relatives, she made her way across the room. A stool was found for her at the bar. A drink appeared instantly, as if by magic. She perched daintily with a glass in her hand, parrying remarks from the men around her.
‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of that,’ Charlie said.
‘You and the rest of us,’ Gerry told him.
‘Nothing to stop you asking her out,’ Harry said.
‘Nothing to stop her saying no,’ added Gerry.
Charlie stood firm. ‘Who says she’d say no? Why would she say no to me? I could show her a good time.’
‘You! You don’t know how to treat a girl.’
‘And you do?’
Will listened to them wrangling and felt old and tied down with unwanted responsibilities. His drink tasted sour in his mouth.
He kept looking at Siobhan, waiting for her to look his way. The O’Donaghues were all round her but they were letting others into the charmed circle. He started to edge his way forward.
She was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, easy, confident. Nobody would believe she was just sixteen years old and in the country no more than a few months. And yet there was nothing of the brassiness of the satin-clad girls about her. She was giving nothing away. You had to earn what you wanted from Siobhan.
He was about six feet away now. He could hear her laugh as she listened to something one of the men was saying. Some crass fool blundered in and tried to buy her a drink. She froze him off with a couple of words loaded with contempt. Will felt almost sorry for the poor sod. If she were ever to talk to him like that, he would shrivel up inside.
Then she saw him. Those blue eyes met his and for a moment she stared coolly at him, taking him in, summing him up. Helpless, Will smiled. That knowing expression flicked over her face, then, miraculously, she smiled back. Will could have shouted and yelled his triumph. There was something there. She knew it. She acknowledged it.
But then the smile changed. She turned to Brian and nodded towards Will.
‘Just look who’s turned up.’
The O’Donaghues drew him in. With difficulty he ignored Siobhan, and spoke to Pat.
‘After all you said, mate, I had to come and see what all the fuss was about. Way you put it, I couldn’t keep away. Others are here, too. Harry, the Billinghams – oi! Over here. Come on.’ He raised a hand with difficulty, trying to get his friends’ attention. They saw him, registered surprise and came over.
The group swelled. Will talked to the men – work, football, the price of beer. He hardly looked at Siobhan, perched on her stool, easily
fending off the Billinghams’ attempts at impressing her. But he was aware of her all the time, a presence at his side, a force that tugged at every sinew and nerve ending.
Over in the corner a heavy chord was struck and held. Those nearby fell silent but a groundswell of conversation carried on at the other end of the room. Siobhan looked over but made no attempt to move. A thin man with a ravaged face and wild ginger whiskers was standing to attention by the piano. His friends cheered him on from a safe distance.
‘Come along now, Con.’
‘Give us your best, will ye?’
He leaned over and said something to the pianist, who played an introduction. The men roared. They knew it. This was the stuff.
Will listened with only half an ear. The songs were unknown to him: marching songs, full of challenge and triumph. The audience was belting out the choruses. Slowly the spirit of them filtered through to him. He found his foot tapping to the rhythm, the brave words bubbling up. He joined in, hesitantly at first, then louder.
We’re all off to Dublin in the green, in the green
. . .
‘Going off to fight for Mother Ireland, are you?’ Gerry was grinning.
‘What?’
‘D’you know what that is you’re singing? That’s a rebel song, that is. IRA. They come over here and make a bob or two but they don’t want us over there. Mind you’ – he leant forward and produced something from his pocket – ‘I’ve made a bob or two out of them this evening. Want one for your Maisie? Only thruppence. I’ve got two left. You can have ’em both for fourpence, seeing as you’re a mate.’
Will looked. Gerry was holding out a couple of ladies’ handkerchiefs, dainty white with a little green shamrock embroidered in one corner.
‘Gone like a house afire with this lot, these have.’
‘Don’t tell me – they’re real Irish linen.’ Will knew Gerry’s bargains of old.
Gerry grinned. You didn’t do your neighbours.
‘Take one,’ he said. ‘Give it to Maisie. She could do with some cheering up.’
With a jolt of guilt. Will put it in his pocket. He did not want to be reminded of boring old Maisie. But at least he did not have much to fear from Gerry in the way of competition, since he was far too busy turning a penny. Charlie was more interested in drinking and staring and making remarks than actually making a play for Siobhan. But Harry – he might well try it. He looked at Harry, trying to size him up
as a rival, and was reassured. After all, Harry was only a bit older than Siobhan herself. She would think of him as a boy, whereas Will was a young man.
The people were calling for Siobhan.
‘Where’s herself? Where’s the little songbird?’
He could look at her now with safety. Everyone was looking at her. She was swept across to the piano and a chair found for her to stand on. Head and shoulders above the crowd, she stood with not a trace of self-consciousness, a small commanding figure in a modest green dress, her black curls caught up under the pretty straw hat. She was not smiling. Her sweet face was composed, waiting. A hush fell over the rowdy bar, spreading from Siobhan across the packed bodies to the doors and the drinkers outside. And now they were waiting for her. She held them, confident. Then she nodded to the pianist.
She started with the familiar ones. ‘Danny Boy’, ‘Rose of Tralee’. Will knew them. He listened in silence, ignored Harry’s murmured comments, and joined in the thunderous applause. Then came a couple of songs he had not heard before, tales of unrequited love that curled round his heart and became part of the ache there. She was singing of how it was, she was singing to him. She knew. She understood. Will was standing alone in the packed bar. This time the applause broke over him like a wave, leaving him vaguely disorientated. She was speaking, and yet he did not seem to be understanding what she said. She seemed to be announcing the next song, for there was an indrawn breath of expectation all around him.
The words meant nothing, as she was singing in Irish, but still the song wove its magic. The lilting voice, clear and sweet as a peat-brown stream, played up and down the spine, brushed the hairs of the neck, insinuated into the secret depths. It told of a country wild and beautiful, of a nation subjugated for generations but still upright and proud in heart and soul.
The room was caught in total silence, rapt. Tears ran unashamedly down hardened faces.
The song ended. For one moment, two, the silence held. Then the clapping began and rose to a roar. Feet stamped, mugs banged on tables, voices cried for more.
Siobhan stood smiling amongst it all, a fragile flower drinking the adulation. She shook her head, stepped down and began to walk slowly from the room, surrounded by her menfolk, impeded by her admirers. Will followed, drawn irresistibly. He had to try to possess some of what he had glimpsed. It was more now than simply wanting
the girl; he wanted the force behind the song, the power, the emotion, the promise.
He followed the O’Donaghues blindly as they walked through the streets of Poplar. He had no idea where they were going, no thought for the others. It was only when they turned into another pub that he realized they had left the O’Donaghue relatives and the rest of the Trinidad Street group behind at the Harp of Erin.
‘Is she going to sing again?’ he asked Brian.
‘No – no, we come here for a snatch of peace and quiet. Can’t hear y’self think in the Harp.’
Will had just enough presence of mind to offer to buy a round of drinks. He put Siobhan’s port and lemon into her hand. She accepted it with a speculative look.
‘What d’you think of our little songbird, then?’ Pat asked.