sixteen

I expected a scathing letter from my mother when she got the news of the Brighton trip and word that I wouldn’t be home until the Spring. Instead she sent me a pound and told me to note everything about my father’s relations, my grandfather in particular. To remember every word he said and let him know how much she thought of him. And remind him that my brother had been called after him. But not a word about him hating the name. And only using it for official purposes.

My grandfather’s name was Theodore. He had brothers called Nelson and Bowman, so I suppose my brother fared better than their sons if family Christian names prevailed. But Theodore was a great embarrasment in a country where every other boy was a Michael, Brendan, Bernard or Patrick. My mother chose the name in the hope that her father-in-law would remember his namesake in his will. This excuse or explanation was no consolation to my brother and I don’t think he ever forgave my mother for so naming him.

* * *

One evening Katy, Breda, me and Sylvia were talking. They were doing most of it. My mind was miles away. Imagining how I’d be received by my father’s people. The fuss my grandfather would make of me. I was staying with my aunt in Brighton. She had, according to my father, the same beautiful hair as her mother. She’d talk to me about her mother. About my father. Remember incidents from their childhood. The holidays they had spent in Horsham. She’d make him seem alive again.

Katy’s voice broke in on my meanderings. ‘Did you hear what I was saying?’ she asked.

‘Bits,’ I replied. ‘Tell me again.’

‘I was just saying how this time next year we’ll all be gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘Home. Edinburgh, Ireland, Southampton. Wherever we decide to settle. Demobbed. Out of the forces.’

Not me. She had mentioned Dublin. But Katy couldn’t have meant me. Only yesterday it seemed I had joined up. This doubt must have showed on my face. For next Katy asked, ‘What year did you join up in?’

‘1945.’

‘Next year’s ‘47. You’ll have served your time. You didn’t think it’d last for ever. You didn’t want it to did you?’

Oh, but I did. Forever and ever. My paradise. My haven where no one got seriously ill. No one died. No one talked of death. Where everyone was young. My land of Tír na nÓg.

Where I watched the seasons change. Spring resurrect the trees. Deck them in green buds. Cover the branches in leaves. Hang pussy willows from them. Set horse chestnuts ablaze with pink and white candles. Litter the woods with bluebells and primroses. Hear the cuckoo. Wild flowers in abundance. Lacy-headed cow parsley. Flowering weeds, I was learning identify, to name. And such names. Dusky Cranesbill, Shepherd’s Purse, Lady’s Slipper, Nipplewort.

Later on Rowan berries. Prickly podded sweet chestnut nested in their fleshy white wombs. Scarlet, white-spotted toad stools. Like pictures in a story book. And the golden, yellow, russet leaves in my place of the trees. And the sky. The endless sky. On clear nights filled with stars and the face of the man in the moon. And when it snowed it stayed, white as it had fallen. Lay on the branches of trees. Covered the cricket field, the ground each side of the slope down to the cookhouse. No, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to go home. Back to a factory treading a machine. I wanted to stay. Stay where grown up girls played games. Bathe six times a day if they wanted to. Had six pairs of knickers, unglamorous though they might be. Where white sheets and towels were laundered once a week.

I was devastated. How had time flown so quickly? Why hadn’t I been aware that it was? Because I had been so happy. Every moment filled with pleasure. Pleasure I was constantly aware of. Surrounded by attractive, adoring men. Aware that I had blossomed. Being in love. Being loved in return.

No mother, prying, preaching, probing. I couldn’t go back. Not to a factory. To compulsory Mass. Chapels where you paid your entrance. A penny for the body where the poor sat. Almost all in shabby clothes. Some in dirty ones. Watch the lice weave in and out of their hair. Farting men who’d drunk too much the previous night, the smell of their foul wind wafting round mixed with burning grease of candles, incense and the breath, sour breath from stomachs fasting from the night before so they could receive Communion. While in the threepenny and sixpenny places sat powdered women swathed in sealskin and musquash. Men in pressed suits, clean shirts, collars and ties and their children in camel’s hair coats, brown velour hats and polished shoes.

And the priest’s voice droning on and on to his captive audience.

No, I didn’t want any of that. Nor the dance halls. Stand waiting for the men who had been viewing you like cattle in a market. Their numbers swelling when the public houses closed. Nudging each other. And when their courage was up crossing the divide in your direction you hoped. Though often it was the girl next to you they asked up. I wanted none of it. I’d sign on for another two years.

‘You’re mad,’ said Katy when I announced my decision. ‘Everything’ll change. Me and Breda gone. All the gorgeous men as well. The camp’ll fill up with National Service blokes. Kids just out of school and twerps of Officer Cadets that you can’t date anyway. Only ones left will be the regulars. And they’re either ancient or married. The girls coming in now are different. You can see that already. Young kids, seventeen and eighteen.’

‘But what’ll I do if I don’t sign on?’

‘Go to Glasgow. Steve’s there. You’ll get work as a telephonist.’

‘Where would I live?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake! Lots of places. Lodgings. A bedsit. You won’t be the only one living alone. There’ll be thousands out there.’

I had never had to find a job. I was landed into the one I had. I’d never lived on my own. I’d be afraid. Always I’d shared with other people. You felt safe. Irritated by coughs, by snores. But secure in the presence of others.

Sylvia said, ‘Katy you’re forgetting the full-time PT course. She’ll have to sign on otherwise that’s off.’

‘Why would it be off?’ I asked more startled by the prospect of not achieving my ambition than returning to Ireland.

‘Not worth the cost,’ Sylvia explained, ‘If in six months you’ll be gone.’

The next day I signed on for a further two years.