The Walshes were to discover that finding a place to live was not easy, and four weeks after Rosie began at Kynock’s, by the end of June, they were still at the convent.
Rosie was finding the work tedious and unpleasant, the conditions bad and some of the women coarse, both in language and behaviour, but she liked the money. She was able to put some of it away in the Post Office as Rita advised and she knew she’d need every penny when they did eventually get a place of their own.
She got on well with Rita, whom she travelled to and from the convent with each day, and Betty too. It was Betty who told her of the old woman called Gertie who lived down her yard. ‘Poor old sod,’ Betty said. ‘Won’t be with us long, I’m thinking. She has no family, so the neighbours see to her in the day, like, but it’s the night-time. She could do with someone with her, but with an old codger like that you got to be careful, ain’t you. I mean, anyone that moves in has got to be honest and respectable, so I thought of you. It will be a start, like, and then, when Gertie does pop her clogs, the house will be yours. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, or so folks say.’
Sharing a house was not the start Rosie had in mind, but it would be better than living at the convent till the end of her days. But there was her job and the problem of getting Bernadette to the nursery.
‘We could do it, I suppose,’ Rosie mused. ‘After all, Rita manages to get Georgie to the nursery every day?’
‘I’ll say she does. Has to get up early, though, and then she takes a tram from Victoria Road. It nearly passes the factory in Witton Road, which is probably maddening, but she says she knows Georgie is well-looked-after at the nursery and he’s happy, and of course it’s free to all women doing war work.’
‘I don’t mind getting up early,’ Rosie said. ‘I’m well used to it.’
‘Why don’t you and your man go along and see the place first?’ Betty said. ‘It’s six the back of forty-two Upper Thomas Street.’
‘That’s a funny address,’ Rosie remarked.
‘Well, you are down the yard, you see, number six, but that house is at the back of forty-two, which is on the street itself. Helps you find the places, see?’
She went into the convent, Bernadette in her arms, bursting with the news. But she thought Danny had to hear first, and when she couldn’t see him she asked where he was.
‘In his room, I should think,’ one of the nuns told her. ‘It’s where he spends most of his time.’
Rosie didn’t like the sound of that and so she left Bernadette with the nuns and went up the stairs.
Danny lay full stretch on the bed on his back, the picture of misery, and Rosie felt her heart sink. ‘What is it, Danny?’ she said, curbing her impatience and hoping he didn’t hear it in the tone of her voice.
But Danny wasn’t listening to tones. He looked up at her and said, ‘You mind de Valera was released just a few days ago?’
Rosie did remember. His picture was in the paper. All the remaining rebels had been released, Michael Collins amongst them, and the paper maintained it was because of pressure from America, but whatever it was they had made much of de Valera’s release because he’d been in Dartmoor Prison.
‘Aye,’ she said. ‘What of it?’
Danny sat up suddenly. ‘I’ll tell you what of it,’ he said. ‘He’s gone straight to East Clare and stood for Sinn Fein, young Redmond’s seat, him who was killed in France, and he’s won a resounding victory. D’you see what it means, Rosie? Sinn Fein is the political wing of the IRA and it may be years, if ever, before we can go back to Ireland.’
That gave Rosie a jolt too, but she knew to sympathise with Danny was not the way to deal with this. ‘Well if that’s the case, and our life is here for the time being, isn’t it good I’ve got some news about a house?’ and she told him the tale.
Danny showed little enthusiasm and Rosie had the urge to shake him hard, but she controlled herself and said instead, ‘We could go up for a look after tea if you like, the nights are light till almost ten o’clock at the moment.’
‘If you want, we’ll go.’
‘Oh, Danny, snap out of this,’ Rosie cried, exasperated. ‘All right, you haven’t a job yet, but for heaven’s sake, you’re not the only one, and while I’m working it’s not a disaster. Surely to God you want us to get our own place?’
‘Aye, and look at the job you have to do to afford it,’ Danny said. ‘I don’t want you there. It’s dangerous and it will poison you in the end.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Danny,’ Rosie said. ‘All right, the dust gets into my nose and throat and sometimes makes my eyes itch, but I’m not the only one. The women who’ve been there longer say it happened to them at first. I’ll get used to it.’
‘I still say…’
‘Then you’ll have to say it later,’ Rosie said leaping to her feet. ‘The dinner will be ready and getting spoiled. And with that she went out of the room, leaving the door open, and Danny had no option but to follow her.
Aston wasn’t far from Birmingham city centre: there were plenty of factories around and a fair selection of shops clustered around Aston Cross where the big green clock stood. It had four faces to it and stood in a little island of its own and people used to say that each clock face showed a different time. Back-to-back houses, and the entries leading off the street to further houses down the courtyards, abounded in Aston, streets of them, squashed against their neighbours on grey pavements before grey roads. Rosie found it depressing that first evening. The sun didn’t seem to penetrate these grim places and yet Rosie knew she had to be grateful to even be considered for any sort of dwelling, the housing shortage being so acute.
Betty was looking out for her, as she’d said she would be, and as soon as Rosie and Danny emerged from the dark entry she left her house and came to meet them. Rosie was so appalled, looking around the yard, she nearly failed to introduce Betty to Danny. Fortunately she remembered her manners and Betty shook hands with the man, glad he had a firm grip.
Betty saw he was good-looking, well-muscled without being fat, and fine and healthy looking. She knew idleness would not sit easily on his shoulders. Rosie had told Betty as she had Rita that Danny couldn’t find work, and, like Rita, Betty presumed he’d been deemed unfit for the army. Not that he looked unfit, but, well, it all went to show, she thought, and though she could do nothing about getting the man a job, maybe she could find them a place to live.
Directly in front of Rosie was a lamppost and beside it a tap that she presumed was for the whole yard’s use, and Betty told her later that that was the case. ‘That there is the brew house,’ she said, jerking her finger in the direction of a building to the side of her. It was squat and looked as if it seen better days for some of the small windows had been smashed and the door stood half-open, the hinges at the top rusted away.
‘There’s the miskins for the ashes and that,’ Betty went on, ‘and the dustbins beside them and the lavvies are at the bottom of the yard. And this,’ she said, turning Rosie around, ‘is the house.’
Eight houses opened onto the court and all were three storeys high and built of blue-grey bricks, with windows so small Rosie guessed little light would get in there. She noticed that before each door pavement slabs were laid, but the rest of the yard was covered in grey ash.
Betty pushed the washing aside that was spread out on the lines criss-crossing the yard and held up on tall props. ‘We all used to wash on Mondays, before this damned war,’ Betty said. ‘Now, with a lot of women working, we wash when we can.’
‘Where does Rita live?’ Rosie asked as they walked across the yard.
‘Just two doors down,’ Betty told her. ‘Said she’d be over as soon as she gets the young one to sleep. And Ida Roberts lives next door. She’s a good sort is Ida, do anything for anyone.’ She lowered her voice and went on, ‘Lost her man Herbie at the Somme. God knows how she manages, for she has three nippers and young Jack, the eldest, is only ten. She said she’d find it hard to get a job of any sort and look after the kids proper like. I’m inclined to agree with her, cos it’s not as if she is burdened down with relatives offering to help like, even though her husband’s people don’t live so far away. Still, nowt so queer as folk, as my old mother used to say.’
Then they were over the dirty greasy step and in through the door, and Rosie was almost knocked back by the smell. It was the smell of poverty and neglect, mixed with damp and the stink of stale food. But over it was the stench emanating from Gertie, who lay staring at them with wide open eyes, her white hair straggled about her as she lay in an iron-framed bed jammed up against the window. ‘It’s all right, Gert,’ Betty told the old woman gently. ‘These are friends of mine.’
Rosie forced herself to move closer to Gertie, taking in the reek from her unwashed body and the unmistakable smell of urine. Whatever care the neighbours gave Gertie, they hadn’t the time to keep her clean as well. Yet the alternative was the workhouse and that very word struck terror into the hearts of old and young alike, and from the tales Rosie had heard of such places she wasn’t surprised. ‘Hello, Gertie,’ she said. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you.’
Gertie didn’t speak, but nodded and smiled, displaying a mouthful of rotting teeth just as Rita bounced in the door. ‘What d’you think?’ she said.
‘Give them a chance,’ Betty said. ‘They’re only just over the doorstep.’
And then to Rosie and Danny she said, ‘There’s a table and chairs in her bedroom, not much cop by all accounts, but they had to move summat out to get the bed in. She was getting too doddery to make the stairs. Weren’t you, Gertie?’
Gertie didn’t answer, but smiled and seemed to relax a little as Rosie’s eyes slid over the room to the greasy black range. Two armchairs and a cupboard set into the wall was all there was in the room.
Rita saw it through Rosie’s eyes. ‘It ain’t so bad,’ she said. ‘You’ll be able to spruce it up fine, Rosie. A nice rug before the fire will cover up the scuffed lino and some cushions on the chairs will make it look a bit more cheerful, and a good clean of course. It would benefit from that.’
Rosie knew she spoke the truth, and despite all its drawbacks she knew they would take it. It wasn’t what she wanted, none of it was what she wanted, but that was the way her life had seemed to go lately.
‘The whole place needs a thorough clean,’ Rosie told the nuns that evening, ‘and Betty and Rita said they’ll give me a hand on Saturday. I need to buy a few things too. There is a double bed in the bedroom above, but I’ll need a new mattress for it and new sheets and blankets and stuff, and some crockery too, for Gertie has little and I’d not like to cook much in her pans. I’ll go to the Bull Ring after work tonight.’
‘You’ll have plenty of time,’ Reverend Mother told her. ‘They’re open till about ten in the summer.’
Rosie knew the Bull Ring was where bargains were to be had and she knew she’d have to close her eyes to the suffering around her and concentrate on buying things for her new home.
‘You won’t mind sharing the house with the old lady?’ one of the nuns asked.
‘Not at all,’ Rosie said. ‘She is a frail old thing and mostly bedridden now. She is wandering a bit in her mind, you know, but God knows but that might come to us all when we get to her age. I’ll mind her fine once I’m home from work and the neighbours have been marvellous with her, so they have, and Betty says they’ll still see to her in the day while I’m away.’
‘And you, Danny, what do you think?’ Sister Ambrose asked.
‘Me?’ Danny said. ‘Me? I don’t think. This will be Rosie’s house and her hard-earned money paying for it.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Danny,’ Rosie yelled, furious at his attitude. ‘Would you say it was just your house if your money was paying for it? When people are married, they share things like money. It’s the way it is.’
‘No,’ Danny cried. ‘It isn’t the way of it. The man should earn the money and the woman bide at home, minding the house and the children and her man. Admit it, Rosie, even if just to yourself, you married a useless bugger.’ Danny slammed out of the room, banging the door loudly behind him, so hard it juddered in the hinges.
Rosie was ashamed and angry at the way Danny had behaved and she saw the nuns had lowered their heads and knew they were embarrassed too. For a while no one spoke and then Rosie said, ‘Well, I don’t really care how Danny feels about this house. It’s no palace and I don’t pretend it is, but in time it will be ours, not mine, ours, and if he can’t see that he must be blind.’
‘He feels guilty that he can’t provide for you,’ one of the nuns said.
‘I know that, but it doesn’t really help,’ Rosie said. ‘I can’t help the fact that I have a job of work to do and he hasn’t and we’d be in a right pickle if I wasn’t earning. I could do with support when I get home, not doom and gloom and bad humour.’
The nuns said nothing and Rosie knew she’d embarrassed them further and really it wasn’t fair to load her problems onto their shoulders, for they couldn’t help. She excused herself and left the room, and then stood outside it unsure of where to go. She hadn’t any desire to sleep, but there was nowhere else and so she mounted the stairs resignedly.
Danny was sat on the bed, still fully clothed and he had his head in his hands. He looked up as the door opened and said, ‘I’m sorry, Rosie. I don’t know what came over me.’
Rosie had wanted to scream and shout at him, but she found she couldn’t, the man was upset enough. She shrugged. ‘It’s all right.’
‘No,’ Danny said, getting up and walking towards her. ‘It isn’t all right at all. I shouldn’t take my resentment out on you. I’ll try to be better, and again I say, I’m sorry.’
‘Danny, I love you,’ Rosie said, sitting down on the bed and taking his hand. ‘Everything I do is for you and Bernadette. Surely you know that?’
‘Aye, I do,’ Danny said. ‘Deep inside I know, but sometimes, oh God, Rosie, the need for a job, it sort of overpowers you.’
‘Eventually you will get a job,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘You’re not the only one to be unemployed in this city and you know it as well as I do. Let me work while I am able to and when you do get a job, I’ll be more than willing to stay at home and rear Bernadette and any brothers and sisters she might have.’
‘Ah, Rosie, why do you put up with me?’
‘Because I love you,’ Rosie said. ‘How many times must I say it, Danny? You are my life.’ She took Danny’s face in her hands and kissed his lips softly and he put his arms around her and they fell back on the bed together and Danny knew he wanted to make love to his beautiful and loving wife. When Rosie felt Danny’s penis harden against her as he held her close, she felt a longing to match his. Danny’s fingers fumbled to loosen her garments. They dropped to the floor one by one until she was naked and then Danny took off his clothes quickly and turned out the gaslight before sliding into bed beside her.
His lips sought hers and his hands slid over her body, stroking and caressing until she felt her nipples harden into peaks of desire and she groaned in an agony of lust. When Danny eventually entered her she was more than ready, but she tried to muffle her moans of ecstasy and bit her lip to stop a cry of triumph escaping from her, lest the sounds reach the ears of the nuns or rouse the sleeping Bernadette.
At last, inside, she was warmed by the feelings of being loved and cherished. She thought any intimacy was gone forever and she rejoiced that it hadn’t, and tucked against Danny, she went to sleep.
Danny readily agreed to look after Bernadette the following Saturday for he concurred with Rosie that the house more than needed a thorough clean. In fact, he had been appalled by the place but he had said nothing. He was in no position to but he would have liked something better to rear a family in. However, he was a realist and he knew they were lucky to get a house, even one they shared with Gertie. He’d spoken to many men in the dole queues who lived with their family in one room or, if they were lucky, a couple of rooms, and he tried hard to be grateful for what they were moving in to.
Rosie was grateful that Danny had been more amenable and staggered that so many women in the court had turned out to help her clean the house.
Ida in particular was interested in who would live next door to her and Rosie took to the woman straight away. Despite her problems, startling blue eyes danced in her round open face and gentleness seemed to seep out of her. Rosie couldn’t help thinking that though the house she lived in left a lot to be desired, she could put up with that for the friends she’d be living amongst.
‘I do want to clean Gertie up too and try and do something with the bed she’s in,’ Rosie told them all. ‘But not straight away. I think she might be frightened by us all descending on her like this, so I’d like her to get used to us being here first.’
‘Good idea,’ Ida said. ‘Perhaps one of us should sit by the bed, reassure her like, and maybe hold her hand a bit.’
‘That should be you then, Ida, cos I’ve never seen such a patient soul,’ another woman said.
‘I’d do it to start with,’ Ida said. ‘But I’m not sitting there all day like Lady Muck, and watching the rest of you graft. That would hardly be fair. We’ll take turns.’
While Rosie took her turn, she talked to Gertie. She told her they were coming to live with her so she could be looked after better. ‘You’re not to worry about a thing,’ she said. ‘I’ll never let you go away from here, so don’t you be fretting about it.’
‘D’you think she understands you?’ Ida said, hearing the promise.
Rosie shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but I have to say something. I feel bad enough muscling in on her today and then moving into her house, and all without her having a say in any of it.’
‘Don’t feel bad about that, for Christ’s sake,’ Ida said. ‘What was the alternative? The workhouse for the poor sod, or having a bad fall in the night and lying in pain and alone. Believe me, you’re doing Gertie and us one big favour. It’s hard enough seeing to her in the day, especially for those at work and with families too, but at night…We couldn’t do that, so we’re all glad you’ve come.’
Ida’s words made Rosie feel better. ‘She’s asleep,’ Ida said. ‘Let her rest awhile. I tell you, Rosie, this getting old lark is a bugger, and I wish there was some way round it.’
‘Aye, and me,’ Rosie said, tucking the blankets around Gertie’s chin gently. Gertie woke again while the women were having a break and a bit of dinner, and Rosie was glad of it because she needed to change Gertie and her bed too. ‘I got a bolt of cheap towelling down the Bull Ring the other night,’ she told the women. ‘It had a fault or something. I thought it would make nappies for Gertie and then I picked up one of those rubberised sheets at the Rag Market. It should protect the bed at least.’
‘I’m afraid we didn’t always get round to washing her and that,’ Ida said.
‘You did your best,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘Now I’m here it will be easier for you all, and for Gertie too hopefully. We’ll have to lift her gently onto a chair because she’s just skin and bone.’
She was no weight, but still they used four women to lift her into the chair before the range. Her sheets were sodden and Rita had a bucket of water ready to steep them in. Betty helped Rosie strip the bed, turn the mattress, and remake it with the protective sheet.
Gertie’s nightdress too was wringing wet and Rosie lifted it off her and washed her all over with water she’d had heating on the range. Then she put on one of the nappies she’d cut from the bolt, and secured it with nappy pins before slipping a clean nightdress over her head.
‘We’ll change her during the day,’ one of the women promised and they moved her back to the bed. ‘Try and keep her a little drier at least, the poor old sod.’
‘Do what you can,’ Rosie said. ‘I just want her to be a little more comfy.’
As Ida spooned bread soaked in gravy into Gertie’s mouth – which was all that the old woman seemed able to take – Rosie surveyed the room. Everywhere was clean at least, and the smell of neglect had left the place. The other things Rita had suggested, the bright cushions and rag rug, would have to wait until she moved in.
Rosie could hardly believe how kind the women in the court had been, although they were naturally curious about her. She told them what Rita and Betty had already been told: that she’d been ill and had come to spend a few weeks with her aunt who was a nun at the convent. She wondered what they’d make of Danny and whether they’d react the same way as their fellow parishioners at the chapel, or the employers of the factories where Danny had tried to find work. She hoped not, but gave a sigh. It didn’t do to worry overmuch about something she couldn’t do anything about.
Rosie really didn’t see how she was going to be able to get Bernadette dressed and ready so early in the morning and also try to see to Gertie, but Danny took the situation in hand after the first two fraught mornings. ‘Look, Rosie, why do you have to run yourself ragged? I might be a man, but I’m not totally useless.’
‘I know that, Danny, but…’
‘But nothing, Rosie,’ Danny said. ‘I can help Gertie after you’ve left for work. If I can feed Bernadette, I can help an old lady just as easy, and I’m sure I could take Bernadette to the nursery and fetch her home in the evenings too? I won’t stop looking for a job, mind, but while I’m unemployed I may as well make life easier for you. I mean, I bet you nearly pass the factory in the tram on the way to the nursery?’
‘Aye, near enough,’ Rosie said. ‘If we’re upstairs you can see the gates on Witton Road. But…well, there’s Rita’s Georgie as well.’
No doubt I could cope with him too,’ Danny said. ‘He’s not a bad little chap.’
‘Oh Danny, it would be marvellous so it would,’ Rosie said. ‘You wouldn’t mind?’
‘I’d mind far less than I mind you supporting the entire house. In fact it would make me feel better to be doing something and might raise my standing with the neighbours who must see me as a lazy bugger.’
Danny had a point; there were so few fit young men out of uniform that he did stand out a bit. Unbeknownst to the Walshes there was much speculation amongst the women in the courts and streets about Danny, almost as soon as they moved in, and the women had drawn their own conclusions.
‘Why d’you think he ain’t in the army then?’ one asked Ida one day. ‘I mean, you live next door to them.’
‘Don’t mean I know all their business,’ Ida retorted. ‘Maybe he has flat feet.’
‘Flat feet don’t keep you out the army!’
‘It does,’ someone else put in, ‘My uncle has them and they turned him down.’
‘Why?’
‘I dunno. They just do.’
‘All feet are bleeding flat, ain’t they?’ another said. ‘I mean, I don’t know anyone what’s got round feet.’
‘It’s summat to do with the instep,’ another offered.
‘Well that Danny Walsh don’t look like he has flat feet to me.’
‘How would you know with his bloody boots on?’ Ida said. ‘And it must be flat feet, cos there ain’t another reason that I can think of that the army would pass up such a strong, well-set-up man.’
‘Who cares why he ain’t in the bleeding army, any road,’ another said. ‘It’s nice to have a man about the place, maybe he can fix the brewhouse door before winter because the wind slices through there like a knife.’
‘Yeah and the maiding tub leaks like a sieve.’
‘Yeah, and I’m sure he’ll stop that dripping tap in the yard if we ask him, cos if that drip ain’t fixed it will freeze solid in the winter.’
Danny did all that was asked of him, glad to be able to fill his days with something useful. Eventually, the news filtered through that Danny Walsh had never been for an army medical to find out if he had flat feet, for he was Irish, and though there had been volunteers from Ireland there was no conscription. Gradually, the women’s attitude to Danny changed to resentment.
They still approved of Rosie, who kept her place clean and tidy and her child respectably dressed, despite being at work all day, and was kind to Gertie too and so relieved them of some of the burden, but what was wrong with Danny that he was in none of the Forces?
Danny was more aware of the women’s feelings than Rosie, who was too busy to really see, but he said nothing to her for she could do little to change the situation, and anyway she had to work alongside and live amongst these people.