The Town Hall was such an imposing building that Danny felt nervous even standing in front of it. It had carved stone pillars at the front and a canopy of stone above those pillars supporting the first and subsequent floors. Solid wooden double doors were at the top of four white steps that looked as if they were made of marble, and Danny had to force himself to go up those steps and open the door. His feet sank into the deep red carpet strip, which masked the sound of his boots as he approached the desk at the end.
He looked at the young woman behind the counter and wished he didn’t have to discuss his business with her, but he had no idea where to go. ‘Poor Relief!’ she repeated after him, her nose tilted as if he’d suddenly developed a noxious smell. ‘Through the door to your right, third door on the left.’
‘Thank you, miss.’
She didn’t answer and Danny didn’t wonder at it. He felt totally humiliated, but he followed the girl’s instructions and the third door on the left opened onto a grim waiting room with three occupants already there. One was a man who looked as depressed as Danny, but was far shabbier, and the other two were dishevelled women. Both had babies and one had a toddler besides. Her baby was crying, a thin, plaintive cry that struck at Danny’s soul for it was a cry of hunger, evident by its sunken-in cheeks and chapped lips.
Danny hoped that Bernadette would never have to suffer hunger or cold and thought for the first time that it was probably a blessing in one way that the baby hadn’t survived. What use was his pride now, he asked himself? He would stand on his head or walk across hot coals to secure money to provide food and shelter for his family.
‘Name?’
He hadn’t heard the woman approach the desk, but he heard the snap in her voice all right. The other people had obviously already been dealt with, for they didn’t move but just looked at him with deadened eyes.
‘I haven’t got all day.’
‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ Danny said, getting to his feet and approaching the frosty-looking woman. She had her hair scraped back in a bun, wire-rimmed spectacles perched on a long narrow nose above a drooping discontented-looking mouth and high-neck black blouse fastened beneath an indeterminate chin with a cameo brooch.
All this Danny took in, in one glance, but what held him fast were the eyes, brown-grey and as cold as steel and now those thin lips opened just enough to rap out again. ‘I asked your name?’
‘Danny Walsh,’ Danny said and she entered it on the form before her. He was fine with the address, but when her pen hovered over another box and she said, ‘Occupation?’ he just stared at her. He hadn’t any occupation. That was the problem surely? ‘Unemployed?’ the woman asked and Danny nodded. ‘What was your previous employment?’
‘I was a farmer.’
‘A farm hand?’
‘No, a farmer. I mean, my family owned the farm. It was in Ireland.’
Immediately, the receptionist’s manner changed. ‘Please take a seat, Mr Walsh.’ she said, glaring at him icily.
Danny sat down, wondering at the receptionist’s manner. Was it to be the same story here, as soon as he mentioned Ireland? He couldn’t risk that. He needed these people. It was his last port of call and he didn’t know what he’d do if they refused to help him.
He didn’t know how long he sat there. The shabbily dressed man and the two women had been called through and he hadn’t seen them again. More bedraggled people had joined Danny in the room, shuffling through the door almost apologetically. The city’s poor, he thought, reeking of neglect and all needy, and Danny felt more depressed than ever.
Eventually it was his turn, and by then hunger had begun to gnaw at him, but that hardly mattered, and the sooner this was over the better. He got to his feet and followed the man who’d called him through.
He bade him sit on the other side of the table and asked him questions about Rosie and Bernadette, which he filled in on the form before him, and then Danny said, ‘We’ve been here since April, staying with the Sisters of Mercy in Handsworth because one of the Sisters was a friend of my wife’s.’ He considered the lie a necessary one.
‘And why did you come to Britain? To a country at war?’
‘Well, Ireland isn’t exactly a safe place at the moment either,’ Danny said.
‘Did you register when you arrived?’
‘Register?’
‘I take it you did not,’ the man barked. ‘This country has been at war for three years, and not helped greatly by Ireland, I must say – quite the opposite in fact. We cannot have Irish citizens just waltzing into the country unchecked. Some are reputed to be a friend of the Hun.’
‘I swear to you, sir, I am not,’ said Danny.
‘Well, you would hardly admit to it,’ the man said. ‘And I think I know why you didn’t register: it was to make sure you weren’t sent to the front.’
Such a thing had never crossed Danny’s mind and he said, ‘No, really, that wasn’t it at all. There is no conscription in Ireland.’
‘Ah yes, but there is here,’ the man said. ‘And the fact that you are on British soil means you are eligible for conscription.’
The roof of Danny’s mouth had suddenly gone very dry. What was the man saying? ‘What d’you mean, sir?’
‘I mean that you can and will be conscripted for the army.’
This wasn’t what Danny had in mind at all. ‘I can’t, he said. ‘I have a sick wife and small daughter to take care of.’
‘Many of the men in our front lines have families, and if their wives go sick they cannot go running home. There are hospitals if your wife is sick enough and orphanages for your daughter.’
Danny’s mind recoiled from that, but the man was implacable. ‘There is no choice in the matter,’ he barked out. ‘You can’t expect to arrive in this country and have money handed out to you when you’ve put nothing in and are balking at the idea of fighting to keep England safe.’
Danny tried again. ‘I knew nothing about registration,’ he said, ‘and it wasn’t a thing the nuns would know. Anyway, I was unable to find employment – my wife worked at the Kynoch works making explosives until she became ill. She developed a cough, which turned to bronchitis and she has just miscarried our baby.’
‘Distressing though that must have been,’ the man said coldly, ‘it could be considered expedient, for it would be one more mouth to feed.’
Danny didn’t answer at first. He was too angry at the man’s callousness, but he knew to show anger would be madness. In the end he was able to control himself enough to say, ‘Are you saying if I enlist, my family can be helped, and if I don’t we can all starve as far as you’re concerned?’
‘You don’t seem to understand the position you are in,’ the man said, a cold smile playing around his mouth. ‘If you fail to register, you can be imprisoned, and if I were to call the authorities now, that’s what would happen.’
Danny, remembering his time in Kilmainham Jail, gave an involuntary shiver. ‘However,’ the man went on, ‘I feel you will be of more benefit to England by joining the army. Have you any problem with this?’
Danny had any number of problems. He remembered months before saying spiritedly that he’d never fight for England and that he wouldn’t even work in a war-related industry. However, the reality was he would have worked anywhere that would have given him a wage
Now, if they wanted to continue to eat, he had to agree to join the army. ‘I have no problem,’ he said. ‘But this is going to take time, surely? We have no money, the last has gone on doctor’s bills. The rent is due and there’s little food in the house.’
The man shrugged. ‘You do not qualify for unemployment or poor relief, since you are not of this parish, but there are funds available called Distress Funds, and the Distress Board will find out if you are eligible as soon as I receive confirmation that you have enlisted.’
‘We really need money now, however little it is.’
‘Then you are one of many, Mr Walsh,’ the man said. ‘I’ve told you of the decision.’
‘But when will this Distress Board meet?’
‘Well not before Christmas now,’ the man said, ‘and certainly not before the 28th of December. By then you should be in the army. I suggest you take yourself off to Thorpe Street Barracks now and enlist. If I don’t hear from you or them by tomorrow, when we close the doors for the holidays, I will not hesitate to inform the authorities about you.’
‘There is no way I can have some money now?’ Danny asked desperately, and the man shook his head.
‘No way at all,’ he said.
Later, Danny stood nervously outside Thorpe Street Barracks. He estimated it to be about lunchtime, or just after, and hoped all this would not take long for he had the children to pick up before six.
As he stood before the Recruitment Board he realised if he admitted to already being months in the country it might go against him and so he told them he’d just arrived in England with his wife and child, Ireland having become a violent and turbulent country, and wanted to enlist in the army. Shay and Sam wouldn’t recognise him, he told himself, but patriotism was all right on a full belly.
The recruiting officers took in what Danny told them and saw before them a healthy young man, ready and willing to fight. ‘D’you have any preference as to which regiment you’d wish to serve in?’
‘No.’ Why would he? One was the same as another to him.
‘Well, here we recruit for the Royal Warwickshires, but we could make enquiries about the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.’
Danny didn’t want that. Dublin was too close to Blessington for comfort. What if any of the men recognised him and carried tales home. ‘The Warwickshires will suit me fine, sir.’
‘Good man,’ the recruiting officer said, rubbing his hands together as if with glee. ‘Now, as the time is pressing, Christmas only around the corner as it were, what if you have the medical now and your uniform sorted out. Then you’ll be ready to join your new unit after Christmas, some of whom are already at the training camp in Sutton Park.’
Danny hadn’t expected to be dealt with so speedily. But he was soon before a doctor to be prodded and poked and examined, his chest and back sounded and in the end pronounced A1 fit and well able to go overseas after training. Shortly after this he was measured for the uniform that they said would be waiting for him when he joined his unit on the 27th December.
‘What is the pay, sir,’ Danny said, thinking of Rosie and Bernadette.
‘You’ve heard of the King’s shilling?’ the recruiting officer said, and at Danny’s nod, said, ‘Well, think yourself lucky for until 1915 you would have had just one of them a day, seven shillings a week, but after 1915 it was increased to two shillings a day.’ He looked at the form before him and said, ‘Oh you have a wife and child, so sixpence will be taken off you for your wife and a penny for your child.’
Danny, appalled at the meagre amount, cried, ‘But my wife, what will she live on?’
‘She will have a separation allowance,’ the recruiting officer said. ‘It amounts to a shilling and a penny a day, sixpence from you, plus the allowance of twopence for the child from the government and a penny from you. Altogether this brings your wife’s weekly income to be in the region of, let’s see, eight shillings and four pence.’
It was too little. It was a pittance. The rent was half a crown a week. But what could he do? ‘Can I give her something from my pay,’ Danny asked.
‘You can certainly make an allotment for your family,’ the recruiting officer said. ‘Many men do that.’
Danny breathed a sigh of relief. He would allot at least seven shillings to Rosie, more if he could, but as yet he didn’t know what expenses he might have. ‘What does she do to get this money?’
‘She needs to take your marriage lines and the child’s birth certificate to the Town Hall,’ the man said. ‘She must go herself, no-one can go in her stead, and she must also take any children she is claiming for. Stress upon her there must be no delay. She must present herself there as soon as they open their offices after Christmas.’
And this is the news Danny had to go home and hit Rosie with. He knew she would be terribly upset. He’d gone out to beg for funds and had come back with no money and the news he was a soldier in a war that had killed thousands and thousands of men so far. He hadn’t even anything to sweeten the bitter pill. Dear God, he thought, life is a bugger right enough.
Rosie wasn’t upset, she was distraught. She heard words spilling from Danny’s mouth, words like registration and prison and Poor Relief and Distress Boards, as if it was a foreign language. She felt far from well, her chest was burning and incredibly tight and her ribs and stomach and back ached from her coughing, and now this news was making her suddenly terribly short of breath.
Danny, aware of the rapid change in her countenance and her lack of breath, was worried. ‘Sit down, Rosie, for God’s sake, and try and calm yourself.’
‘How can I calm myself?’ Rosie demanded. ‘We have two paltry shillings to bless ourselves with and little food, and only a few nuggets of coal and rent to pay.’
‘I know that, Rosie,’ Danny said wearily. ‘And let me tell you I begged and pleaded with the man. As for hunger, not a bit has passed my lips since I had a slice of bread spread with dripping for my breakfast.’
‘I know,’ Rosie said. ‘And I’m sorry, but Danny, what are we to do?’ Danny looked at her and she began to tremble at the look in his eyes, for she knew in that moment what Danny had done. She didn’t even need to hear the words but they came anyway.
‘I’ve enlisted.’
‘Dear God. No! Say it isn’t true. Oh Danny, Danny.’
Rosie had risen to her feet and was grasping his lapels with her hands, her voice high, almost hysterical, and her breath coming in short pants. Her mind was rejecting his words. He couldn’t do this. He mustn’t. She wouldn’t let him.
But Danny’s words cut through the rambling thoughts running wild in Rosie’s brain while his hands had detached her own agitated ones and his strong arms had encircled her as he told her in his strong but gentle voice how it was, how it had to be, how there had been no other path open to him but the one that led to prison.
When Rosie realised and knew she could do nothing to change or even delay this decision Danny had been forced into, the tears poured from her in a paroxysm of grief and Danny’s arms tightened around her, for she’d sagged against him and he was afraid of her sinking to the floor.
Eventually he lowered her tenderly back into the chair. ‘I must go back and see the man and tell him what has transpired, for if I don’t do this he will inform the authorities. I’m going to ask Ida to sit in with you while I’m gone. All right?’
Rosie nodded, though she knew nothing would ever be truly all right again, and Danny left a very anxious man.
Christmas was a fraught time. Rosie was too ill to enjoy the festivities and well aware that this might be Danny’s last Christmas. She would have liked to have made it a special time, but even if she’d had the money she wasn’t able to.
But lack of money was a pressing problem. Danny had toured all the greengrocers in the area, begging for the boxes the goods arrived in, which he broke up in the cellar to eke the coal out, but both knew if it hadn’t been for the odd shovel of coal from the neighbours they would have all perished. He was desperately worried that he was leaving Rosie with just pennies to survive. ‘You must go up straight away tomorrow to see the unemployment people with your marriage lines and Bernadette’s birth certificate to qualify for separation allowance,’ he told her the morning he was leaving. ‘You’re far from well enough to go out in this perishing weather, but they won’t let anyone else go instead, and you must take Bernadette, they told me that.’
Rosie was frantically concerned too. ‘How long will it take to come through, this separation allowance?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, pet,’ Danny said. ‘One thing I do know is that the sooner you see about it, the sooner you get it, and remember, tomorrow’s Friday, so if you don’t go then you’ll have to wait till Monday. Ask about the Distress Boards while you’re there,’ he said. ‘They were meeting again tomorrow as well. Maybe you’ll get something from that.’ Suddenly, Danny pulled Rosie close and said, ‘I’m so sorry, I haven’t even enough time to see to all this for you.’
‘It isn’t your fault.’
‘Not my fault!’ Danny echoed. ‘I feel it is. In fact I feel I’ve made a balls-up of the last few years of my life. And that might be all right, if you hadn’t had to bear the brunt of it too.’
‘Hush, Danny,’ Rosie said, kissing him. ‘Don’t go like this. I know you had no choice in what you did and you’ve suffered as much or more than I have. Anyway, isn’t that what marriage is all about, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health? Go, Danny, and try and keep yourself safe, and when it’s over and you come home I’ll be here waiting for you.’
Danny ground his teeth. ‘I can’t help worrying, Rosie,’ he said. ‘As soon as I can I will arrange to send you more money.’
‘You will not,’ Rosie said firmly. ‘You’ll be fighting in a war and the times you’re not in the trenches you’ll be entitled to spend the wee bit of money you’ll have left. I won’t be the only woman to be managing on so little, so don’t fret about me.’
‘No, Rosie, I couldn’t rest. You couldn’t feed yourself or wee Bernadette on so little. Other men do, the man told me.’
‘All right,’ Rosie said. ‘But you are not to leave yourself short and if you stay any longer you’ll be late reporting in and I don’t think the army takes kindly to being kept waiting.’
Danny knew Rosie spoke the truth and Bernadette too was looking worried, catching the tension in the air. He lifted her into his arms and said, ‘You’ll be a good girl for Mammy, sure you will.’
Bernadette nodded her head briskly and wound her podgy arms around her father’s neck and he felt his heart contract for love for her. But then he set her down and took Rosie in his arms and kissed her, hungrily, longingly. When he’d left them, after striding across the courtyard, Rosie lifted her daughter into her arms for comfort and sank into the chair in floods of tears. Bernadette patted her mother’s face, not understanding her grief, but her actions made Rosie cry more.
The following day, Betty and Rita insisted Rosie take a shilling each from them, and a penny for the tram that they insisted she take both ways. Rosie had too little to protest much. She was grateful for the money because the day was too raw and cold for her to want to walk and even the exertion of getting to the tram stop caused her to cough so badly she often had to stand on the road, turning her face from Bernadette and covering her mouth to try to protect her. She sank onto the seat of the tram thankfully, glad she had to trek no further.
She was glad too that the Town Hall wasn’t far from the terminus in the city centre, and went in and stated her business there to the receptionist who rose to greet her. Her reception was different from Danny’s, now that she had a husband who’d enlisted in the army, and she was shown into a cubicle and a woman sat the other side of it to check her credentials and fill out forms.
‘How…how long will it take before I get the money?’ Rosie asked, and added.’ ‘You see, we have none. I was working and had to leave when I had bronchitis and went on to lose my baby and am not yet able to look for any other type of employment. My husband came for help and was told something about a Distress Board.’
‘Your husband was here before?’
‘Aye. Yes, before Christmas.’
‘Then there will be a file on him,’ the woman said. ‘Wait here please.’
Just a few seconds later she came into the room reading the notes inside a folder. ‘It says here you’ve been in the country eight months,’ the woman said, tight-lipped. ‘Your husband was unemployed and he’d not registered.’
‘He knew nothing about registration,’ Rosie said hotly, angry with the unfairness of it. ‘Neither of us knew we were doing wrong. We lived with the Sisters of Mercy at St Mary’s Convent and because my husband was unable to find work I worked in Kynoch’s works at Witton. We didn’t apply for anything until I became too sick to work.’
‘Your husband had to be coerced into enlisting.’
‘He wasn’t coerced, he was forced,’ Rosie declared. ‘There was no option left open to him, but you got your way, he’s away training now and before the New Year is very old I imagine he will be in the thick of it and he may die just as easily as those who went more willingly. Bullets and shells do not discriminate.’
A voice inside Rosie was telling her to be quiet, to stop berating the woman before her, stop trying to be clever, that this woman could make trouble for her, that she must try and ingratiate herself. But she wasn’t able to do it. For the first time in her life she wanted to smack the face of the woman who was looking at her as if she was some sort of slug that had the audacity to crawl out from under a stone.
‘You have an unfortunate manner,’ the woman said haughtily.
‘It’s an unfortunate chance that’s brought me here,’ Rosie bit back. ‘I am forced to beg money from you so I don’t have to hide from the rent man again this week and can put food in front of myself and my child until the separation order comes through,’ she said. ‘Now can you tell me anything about Distress Boards?’
‘They meet today. If your case is put before them they will write to you with their decision. They will probably visit your home.’
‘That will all take time. How will I live until then?’ The woman shrugged. ‘That’s not my problem.’ Rosie got to her feet. She would not beg further. She lifted Bernadette up, her legs straddled either side of her hips, and strode from the room, willing herself not to cough, not to show any weakness before any of these people who considered themselves better than the poor because they were fortunate enough to pick up a wage at the end of the week. She had two shillings to last her till God alone knew when and that had been a gift from her good friends. She knew she had to spend it with great care and hoped the landlord was imbibed with true Christian charity and would be patient for his rent.
The following Monday was New Year’s Eve and that morning she had a letter from the Board and took it around and showed it to Ida. ‘You might get summat then if they’re coming for a look tomorrow,’ Ida said. ‘Let’s have a dekko at the house like.’
‘Why?’
‘Cos I know that’s what they’ll do. If there’s summat, anything that they consider you don’t need, they’ll say you got to sell it before they give you owt.’
‘Oh God, Ida, they must give me something,’ Rosie cried. ‘With the nursery closed until the seventh of January, Bernadette has lived on bread and scrape for two days with the prospect of more of the same tomorrow, because that is all the money would buy, for I had to have a couple of bucketfuls of coal or we’d have frozen to death. I’m on my beamends, Ida. If they give me nothing, Sweet Jesus, I might go clean mad altogether.’
And she really thought she might, for worry and constant hunger was driving her insane. She might fall upon them, clawing their self-satisfied faces or putting her hands around their scrawny necks and squeezing tight.
‘Listen to me,’ Ida said. ‘Get rid of two of them hard-back chairs. They’ll probably say you have no need of four, and pull up the rag rug and hide the cushions as well, and that clock, I’d get rid of that straight off.’
‘I’d never sell that,’ Rosie said. ‘No matter how hard up I was. Connie gave it to me the night we left. It’s my link with home.’
‘Rosie, they won’t give a tinker’s cuss about that,’ Ida said firmly. ‘You’ll have to get rid of that picture above the fireplace too, I’d say.’
‘I can’t do that,’ Rosie said, appalled. ‘That’s the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the nuns gave it to me when I left the convent. Most Catholic homes have a similar one.’
‘I’m telling it how it is, bab,’ Ida said. ‘I’ve seen them buggers in action. Christ! You’d think it was money out of their own bleeding pockets they was giving you. You can store the stuff in my place and have it back later, but honest, it’s best to be careful.’
Betty and Rita weren’t at work as Kynoch’s hadn’t started back yet after Christmas and they both agreed with Ida. Betty went further and suggested she lift the eiderdown and a couple of blankets from her bed and the rug from the bedroom floor and advised her to get rid of some of her dinner plates and cups.
‘It seems a shabby way to go on,’ Rosie said doubtfully.
‘It’s the only way,’ Betty said firmly.
Later, seeing the disparaging way the people from the Distress Board peered and poked around her house, Rosie knew Betty and Ida were right. She blessed her friends for putting her wise, for the man and woman did scrutinise her crockery and bedding as well as everything else and eventually agreed to give her five shillings.
‘Five shillings,’ she complained to Ida. ‘It’s not that I’m not grateful, but the rent’s due again this Friday. That will be three weeks owing.’
‘Pay summat off,’ Ida advised. ‘Some landlords give you six weeks, some only four, so pay summat off it you can.’
‘Out of five shillings, Ida, talk sense,’ Rosie said, and yet she trembled at the thought of being thrown out of her home. She’d end up in the workhouse and so would her child. They’d be separated, she might never see Bernadette again. She’d not stand that, she’d go mad. With Danny gone and the baby dead, Bernadette was all she had. Her knees trembled so violently she had to sit down. ‘What shall I do, Ida? What can I do?’
‘There is one place,’ Ida said thoughtfully. ‘I applied to it once when my old man joined in 1914 with thousands of others and they took weeks to work out my separation pay, but this SSAFA place gave me money like, till it was sorted. I suppose they still do that.’
‘Weeks to sort out,’ Rosie repeated horrified. ‘How many weeks?’
‘It won’t be like that for you, duck, don’t worry,’ Ida said reassuringly. ‘They ain’t joining up in droves like they was then, but on the other hand,’ she added, ‘they don’t rush themselves, the army.’
‘Where is this place? Have they an office or what?’
‘An office, a sizeable one on Colmore Row. You can’t miss it, just up from Snow Hill Station and on the same side.’
‘What was the place called again?’
‘SSAFA,’ Ida said. ‘Stands for “Soldiers’, Sailors’, and Airmen’ Families Association”. I think they might help you. They d’ain’t make me feel I had no right to live on earth either, like some do.’
Rosie gave a shudder. She knew exactly what Ida meant. If only she didn’t feel so weak, if she could lie down and let someone else deal with it. But she knew if she was to live day to day, feed herself and her child, keep the house passably warm and pay the rent, she needed help, and the only place she knew she might get it was the organisation Ida had used and benefited from.
She took her marriage lines, Bernadette’s birth certificate and Bernadette herself, as she’d done before, and the next day set off for the SSAFA office on Colmore Row.
Here she found people in sympathy with her, people who knew what she was going through, who professed concern for her and Bernadette, and after taking all the details and particulars, the fund awarded her an interim payment of ten shillings and Rosie felt the worries slide from her back as she held the note in her hand.
It wasn’t a fortune, but it was enough to pay some of the back rent and leave something over, together with the five shillings. If only she knew how long it had to last her. Still, she was able to answer Danny’s first letter cheerfully enough. She sidestepped questions about her health because there had been little change there. The slightest thing still made her breathless, but the neighbours were all willing to help. Ida in particular would fetch her shopping in and help her with the wash in the brewhouse and eventually, slowly but surely, as January slid into February, she began to feel stronger and her cough eased a little. She’d had to appeal twice more to the SSAFA office and as her rent was up to date she’d received seven shillings and six pence, but by the third week in January her separation allowance had been sorted out and she received eight shillings and four pence a week, plus the allotment of a further seven shillings that Danny had promised her. Life suddenly looked more hopeful, especially with Ida on hand.
She was very fond of Ida and the woman was a dab hand at making a shilling do the work of two. Though being a widow meant she got more each week than those with living husbands, ten shillings a week, a widow’s pension, another five shillings for her eldest son Jack, and three shillings and sixpence for his younger brother and little sister, she still had to be careful with every penny.
Rosie wouldn’t have changed places with Ida, though, or any of the women wearing the widow’s bonnet. ‘Don’t you miss your husband,’ she asked Ida one day. ‘You seem to have got over it quickly.’
Ida thought about it for a bit and then said, ‘Yeah, I miss him, and I shed bitter tears at the time when I first heard. We all cried, me and the nippers. Jack was cut up about it bad cos he was real close to his dad. I mean, the other two loved him and he loved them and all in all he was a good man, a good provider and a great father, but between him and Jack there was a certain something. Anyroad, I couldn’t just give way, could I? I mean, I had to be here for the nippers.
‘It ain’t the same, anyroad, as if he’d been killed in the normal way. A lot of families haven’t got a dad coming home every night. Look at Rita, she ain’t seen Harry since he went off. Twice she’s been over the moon as he’s supposed to be coming home and it’s been cancelled.
‘I suppose although I know Herbie’s dead and everything, I can kid myself he’s somewhere in France. Maybe I’ll feel it a bit more when the whole shindig is eventually over and those who have survived at the end of it come home.’
‘I think you’re ever so brave,’ Rosie said admiringly.
‘No, I ain’t brave, Rosie,’ Ida said. ‘Thing is, I’m no different to anyone else. It’s summat you’ve got to get over. You got over losing the babby, d’ain’t you?’
‘I still think about it. It comes over me sometimes in a wave,’ Rosie said. ‘And when I least expect it. The letters from Ireland from the nuns at Baggot Street and from Connie and my sisters were a comfort. Even Dermot wrote and said how sorry he was.’
‘Well, you’re lucky they’re there, then,’ Ida said. ‘For at least you had support. Herbie’s family live here in Birmingham, but from the day he died, well, it’s as if we ceased to exist too. And I do still think of him, and for me it’s odd things start me off, a snatch of a song someone’s whistling in the street, or a sudden whiff of the Woodbines he smoked.
‘Just the other day,’ she confided, ‘I dropped half a crown and it went under the cushion of the chair Herbie always sat on and when I shoved my hand in to get it out, fishing about like, I found summat else along with the money, and when I pulled it out it was one of his socks. I was always telling him off for taking his socks off downstairs and just leaving them there, but, you know, the sight of that sock, well, it proper upset me.’
Rosie heard the catch in Ida’s voice and gripped her arm. ‘I understand that perfectly.’
‘But we cope,’ Ida said positively. ‘We have to. I will, and you will, and when your Danny comes back home there’ll be more babbies for you, mark my words.’
But her eyes met Rosie and Rosie knew it was if Danny came back, not when, but neither woman spoke of it.