Dublin's Girl

by Eimear Lawlor

  At their lunchtime break, the girls went to the yard. A few of the girls stood sporadically around the wall looking downward as if searching for something on the ground, and some searched for a potential friend. The three girls that had passed Veronica in the street chatted in the middle of the yard, occasionally eying up some of the girls and turning back to each other giggling. Their disparaging eyes fell on Veronica, looking her up and down slowly. She pulled her cardigan around her and looked at the ground, moving her foot as if pushing a piece of dirt. She wished she had listened to her mother and taken more care with her dress. The girls’ shoes shone, and their clothes were neat, and not crumpled like her skirt. Their cardigans matched their skirts, and one of the girls had a small black handbag.

  She looked up to the blue sky in between the buildings, where swallows swooped. Soon they would leave for warmer climates. She felt very alone.

  ‘Do you come from Dublin?’

  Veronica turned around. It was Bridget, the girl that had spoken to her earlier.

  Smiling and chewing her bread, she said, ‘I live in Drumcondra, at home with my parents. I get the tram every day. My ma said I should learn a skill, she’s very independent. Are you from Dublin?’

  ‘No, I’m from Virginia.’

  ‘Eh, where’s that?’ she laughed. ‘And you speak strange.’ She lowered her sandwich and her voice. ‘I’d say you’re better than those girls over there.’ She nodded to the girls huddled together in the middle of the yard. ‘They think they are something special. Where’s that then?’ she asked again.

  ‘It’s in Cavan, in the country,’ Veronica replied.

  Bridget chewed on her bread again and shrugged. ‘Don’t know where that is. Do your ma and da work?’

  ‘We’ve got a farm, and in the village, we’ve a shop and a public house. When it’s busy, especially during the haymaking, the kitchen work is endless. My brother Eddie helps Daddy, and me and my sister help Mammy and Mrs Slaney, our housekeeper, in the kitchen and around the house.’

  ‘Wow, that’s a lot. My ma’s sister is a nurse in St Vincent’s.’ When Bridget spoke, her face never lost its grin, and sometimes she nodded her head in agreement with herself.

  ‘A nurse? Really? That must be so exciting?’

  ‘Ma’s sister told me that there are loads of soldiers in the hospital over from France. Some of them are English, not just the Irish lads but English, you’ know! It sounds a bit gruesome at times, but the doctors are so handsome.’

  Bridget continued, chewing noisily as she spoke. ‘Loads of women work now. My ma helps in the Red Cross, and our neighbour knits hats for men on the war front. Well, they used to, I don’t think as many signs up anymore. Da says he is glad he doesn’t have a son.’

  ‘At home in Cavan a few spinsters work,’ said Veronica, thinking of Mrs Smith and Mrs Slaney.

  Veronica found out they were the same age, but Bridget looked younger with her bright bushy red hair, blue eyes, and freckles, which amalgamated as if she was always blushing.

  A bell rang. ‘Girls, back to your room!’ Mr Begley stood at the door, the chatter stopped, and one by one, the girls filed back to the classroom.

  The afternoon passed quickly, and after class, Veronica strolled with Bridget to O’Connell Bridge, where they parted. On her own now, she quickened her steps as unrest was in the air, and people rushed with their heads low to get back indoors before the curfew. In bed, her head was full of clanking black keys and Bridget.

  *

  Every evening Betty welcomed Veronica home with the smell of stew. Tom, Betty, and Veronica would mostly eat in silence, apart from the odd question from Tom as to how she was getting on. After dinner, Tom sat smoking and reading the previous day’s Independent that he got in one of the pubs on his deliveries, or he would take his cap, throwing it on as he walked out the door.

  ‘I’m off now. I’ve got a meeting.’ He kissed Betty on the head and squeezed her arm. ‘Don’t wait up for me, Veronica will keep you company.’

  Betty didn’t have much to say to Veronica. She sat in her armchair, staring into the flames of the fire. She always had rosary beads in one hand and stroked the cat with the other. Her mouth moved silently as her hand slid from one bead to the next, finding comfort in Hail Marys or Our Fathers. Veronica found it hard to understand how someone could die inside, yet live at the same time. Her home in Virginia had been a busy household of farm labourers, and her mother would be inevitably scolding her for being too slow at her chores or giving orders to her father, which he usually ignored. The silence was deafening, and she would sit at the table to write in her diary, or pen letters to Susan about her new friend Bridget, or the busy streets of Dublin.

  Her letter to Eddie was different. Burned buildings. Sackville St in ruins, menacing English soldiers, unrest in the air, shoeless dirty children playing in the streets. But as she sat at the table in her bedroom rereading the letter in the flickering candlelight, its shadow falling on the page like flames of the fires that burnt Dublin, she crumpled it up. These were not the images she wanted to share with Eddie. Closing her eyes, she could see her mother waving the letter in her hand, reinforcing her fears of life in Dublin, demanding her father bring Veronica home.

  7

  Veronica washed and dried the dishes after Sunday dinner to the soothing rhythmic breathing of Tom and Betty in a deep sleep resting in their armchairs by the fire, glowing red from the turf her father often sent down from Cavan along with food parcels from the shop. After she swept the floor, she tiptoed to her bedroom to read for the afternoon so as not to wake Betty and Tom. Betty’s lined face softened as she slept. A crocheted blanket slipped from her knees, and Veronica carefully picked it up to cover Betty who stirred but went back to sleep. Tom sat up, arching his back in a stretch. Veronica motioned she was going to her bedroom to read.

  Veronica tried to get lost in her book in Massachusetts with Jo March and her family, but she threw it to her side, sighing and wondering what Susan and Eddie were doing. A knock at her bedroom door was followed by Tom. ‘Veronica, you have a package from your father for me.’

  Veronica had forgotten about it. She groaned, hoping it wasn’t food as it would be spoiled and probably smelly.

  Tom limped into the room, closing the door softly.

  ‘Betty is asleep. Best she does not know I’m here.’ He sat on the chair, careful not to lean back and crease her dress hanging on it. Rubbing his leg, he said, ‘The package, it’s for a man, a Captain Smith at the docks, and I can’t go. My leg.’ He paused. ‘I slipped during the week, and with arthritis and cold weather, it’s mighty sore. I’ll ask one of the lads at the brewery to bring it to him, during the week.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Leave it under your bed so I can get it without Betty knowing. She worries about me that I might get arrested leaving the meetings.’

  This was the first time he made any reference to the meetings. Veronica thought he must be involved in the fight for freedom and wanted to ask if it was in the Gaelic League like her father.

  A delicate snore came from the living room. The cat wailed, and a tin pan crashed to the floor.

  ‘God damn cat, he’ll have woken Betty,’ Tom cursed, leaving the room. Veronica lay back on her bed with the sounds of families in the other rooms in the house, trying them. Babies cried, doors banged, and laughing children ran up and down the stairs. Betty and Tom kept to themselves. Veronica didn’t know if it had always been like that. It seemed Betty’s grief was all the company they needed.

  *

  The following morning Veronica entered the kitchen to see Betty struggling to lift the bubbling pot of porridge from the fire onto the hearth. Veronica moved to help her, but Betty jumped hearing a knock at the front door. The pot dropped onto the floor. The cat ran to it, licking the porridge cautiously. Tom’s forehead furrowed as he got up from the table. Betty’s pale complexion went even paler, and her eyes were full of panic. Veronica guessed the last time someone h
ad knocked unexpectedly was to give a telegram from the war office.

  Veronica strained her ears to hear what the muffled voices said. After a few minutes, doors banged shut and Tom stuck his head into the room, his cap already on his head. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, love, but I’ve to go now. Some of the lads have been arrested.’

  He put on his brown work coat. ‘Veronica, make your way to Leinster St by yourself.’

  Bridget was not at the school again and Veronica’s day passed slowly. She tried to fill her head with black lettered keys. The squiggles of shorthand were finally making sense, and she could now write a sentence or two. At lunchtime, the girls gathered in their groups forged from day one. Alone she ate in the corner of the yard watching the pretty girls with matching cardigans and skirts huddle together, laughing loudly and then whispering with their hands over their mouths as they glanced in Veronica’s direction. She missed Bridget. On her walk home, she thought maybe she would write a letter to Susan in shorthand. She could imagine her face! But she dismissed that thought as she wasn’t well practised yet. Maybe she would try knitting. Betty had wool and needles. She shuddered, remembering Sr Jacinta’s disparaging remarks about her attempt of knitting mittens in the third year of school.

  Resigning herself to an evening of reading Little Women, Veronica lit the candle on her bedside locker. The electric lights were too weak. If this were going to be her life for a few months, she would have to get used to it.

  There was a gentle knock on her bedroom door. It was her uncle. ‘It’s only me.’

  He sat beside her on the bed. ‘Veronica, I hate to ask you this, but maybe you can help! The lads arrested this morning were the O’Mahony boys who work with me. They help with a lot of errands, and it’s crucial that Captain Smith gets that package soon. I thought it could wait, but he leaves again on Thursday, and we need to get to him before that. I hate to ask this of you, but it’s essential.’ He paused, then whispered, ‘Would you go?’

  ‘But I don’t know where to go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Uncle, I don’t think I can.’ She was getting butterflies just thinking about it.

  He stood slowly, his face blanching with pain.

  Oh, Christ. ‘Yes, of course, I’ll help.’ She was glad she said it as the pain in his face changed to relief.

  ‘Sunday, you will deliver it on Sunday. Captain Smith was delayed and won’t dock now till Friday.’

  Bridget didn’t return to school for the rest of the week, but Veronica didn’t mind. Her thoughts were on the delivery of the parcel.

  *

  After Sunday dinner, Tom motioned Veronica to follow him upstairs and into her bedroom.

  ‘Go, before it gets dark. The October fog can make the evenings even more dangerous.’ He rubbed his leg, his face in pain. ‘And if anyone stops you, say you are going to see a sick aunt. You should get the tram; it’s easy to get lost, so get it from Nelson’s Pillar in Sackville St to Ringsend. Walk down Brunswick St and take the second right to Grand Canal Quay.’

  Veronica removed the package from its hiding place in the wardrobe.

  He took it and turned it over. ‘Get your coat and scarf and meet me outside,’ he said. ‘Hide the package inside your coat. Don’t look so worried. You’ll be grand. It’s just a few papers.’

  She stuffed the parcel into the large inside pocket of her winter coat. She shook her head at the nonsense of hiding a few papers.

  ‘Be careful of the crowds,’ Tom said. ‘It’ll be lively out there. De Valera has just been elected the president of Sinn Féin. He’s giving people hope. Veronica, be careful. It can be dangerous. Don’t look worried, keep your head down and avoid looking at the soldiers or Dublin Metropolitan Police.’

  She had read in the newspaper about a man called Éamon De Valera, the growing support for Sinn Féin and how most people now wanted a united Ireland. Veronica nodded, her hand on the package in her coat. Her stomach dropped, maybe Eddie was right. But the gun would only lead to trouble.

  *

  As Veronica left the house the autumn evening was drawing in, so she quickened her step, fearing it would soon be dark. She wanted to return home before the promised autumn fog immersed the city. Along the docks, twilight softened the outline of the ships tied to the quays for the night. To her right were rows of dark empty warehouses which seemed to increase in size with every step she took as if they would rise and engulf her.

  She shivered and pulled her scarf tight around her neck. A group of four or five men loomed out of the fog. Keeping her head down, she quickened her pace, but couldn’t stop giving them a surreptitious glance. Their faces were as dirty as their clothes.

  The tenements near her uncle’s house had once frightened her, but now she knew where to avoid the danger. Here, it was different. There were no screaming children, no smells of life except the familiar stench of the river Liffey.

  In the distance, a lonely foghorn echoed. The fog had drifted across the city, the gas lights shimmering to a dull glow. Willing her legs to walk faster, her eyes watchful of unwanted visitors who might lurk in the shadows, she asked herself, What am I doing? What would Susan think? Would Eddie be proud, or mad? The constant chatter in her head gave her comfort, a sort of courage.

  When she crossed O’Connell Bridge onto Sackville St, Veronica took the tram to Ringsend. Ringsend was the last stop. She replayed her uncle’s instructions. ‘Look for the pile of coal at the end of the pier, and take the second right onto Hanover Quay. You’ll see a small red shed. Captain Smith will be expecting you.’

  Her heart raced when a black cat ran in front of her and screeched like a banshee. Damn, she thought. She’d always scorned the men in the yard at home for cursing; now it eased her mind. The warehouses screamed silently at her to go home, to be somewhere safer. Not one of the three-storey-high windows had a shine of comforting light escaping. Her eyes moved from left to right.

  She was relieved when light fell onto the path once again, and that it came from a small red shed. She tapped at the door. A bearded man opened it, his frame blocking most of the light. He passed his eyes slowly over her. She shuddered. He stood aside.

  ‘Quick, girl, inside.

  ‘You must be Veronica,’ the bearded man said gruffly in an unfamiliar accent. He was built like a bull, with a brown, weather-beaten face that held a hard expression that only a man of his years could have.

  ‘I’m Captain Smith.’ He wore a sort of uniform. Dirty, baggy trousers tucked into heavy worn boots, and a once-white shirt, black with streaks of coal.

  ‘Tom said you’ve got a package?’ His voice was hoarse, and he grunted as he sat at a desk in the middle of the shed.

  She swallowed the knot of fear in her stomach and took the package out from her coat. He glanced at it, muttering as he nodded, then slipped it into the desk drawer. Without taking his eyes off her, he took out a smaller parcel and gave it to Veronica. As he did so, he leaned towards her, and she winced at the pungent smell of beer on his breath. When he spoke, his voice suggested a threat rather than an instruction.

  ‘Take this package. Don’t show it to anyone, or your life will be in danger. And keep it hidden.’ He handed her a small waxy brown parcel. But when she went to take it from his rough hands, his grip held firm. ‘Don’t show it to anyone.’

  She gasped. ‘What am I to do with it?’

  ‘Weren’t you told? The Cumann women would know what to do.’

  This startled Veronica. The Cumann na mBán. was the women’s branch of the Volunteers, the group of freedom fighters Eddie had joined.

  ‘I’m not one of them,’ she stammered. ‘I was only helping Tom out.’

  Captain Smith gave her a long look.

  ‘No?’ he said at last. He raised his eyebrows and snorted. ‘Well, then do your part, everyone has to. Give it to Joseph Connellan at 6 Henrietta St.’

  ‘Me?’

  Captain Smith gave her another hard stare.

  ‘Yes, you. You are up for it, aren’t y
ou?’

  Despite her panic, a voice in the back of her mind said, Yes, you are. She nodded to the captain, but he had already turned his back on her and was looking at the ledgers on his desk.

  She needed to leave; the smell of paraffin was making her nauseous. Unbuttoning her coat, she put the small brown parcel tightly in her skirt band. She was now thankful darkness had fallen and hoped it would be easier to avoid the soldiers or Dublin Metropolitan Police.

  She was still fumbling with her buttons when the captain spoke.

  ‘Take the bike outside the door. Don’t bother with the tram. It’s a long walk to Thomas St from Nelson’s Pillar. Just keep cycling straight along the quay until you know where you are.’

  She gladly took the bicycle. The night air was now thick with fog. Her hair was damp and her hands slippery, but she pedalled as if her life depended on it. In the distance before O’Connell Bridge, a man shouted, ‘Stop!’ She pedalled harder, afraid she would get lost if she didn’t get to the familiar streets. Soon she was past O’Connell Bridge, and cycling along Merchant’s Quay. She stayed at the same speed until she got to The Maltings. Only then did she breathe normally again, but her throat still burned with each breath.

  Fear, mixed with adrenaline, raced through her body. The cold air stung her nostrils, and her hands were now numb, but that didn’t stop her pedalling. When she finally reached her uncle’s house, she hopped off the bike, letting it fall against the railings before running upstairs.

  Her aunt still sat in her armchair, in a deep sleep while the cat purred on her lap. She spent her evenings staring into the flames, only moving to refresh the embers. Tom sat on the chair in front of the fire.

  ‘Everything all right, Veronica? You gave him the package then?’ he whispered, glancing over Betty.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered, ‘and he gave me another. He told me to deliver it to Henrietta St.’

  Nodding, Tom said, ‘I’m sure my leg will be better, and I’ll take it. But would you keep it in your room? Betty might see it, and you know, it’ll give her unnecessary concern.’