The light was dim, and the shadows covered the men’s faces.
‘Give it to me.’
Veronica took the parcel out of her jacket. He grabbed her hand, squeezing it hard and twisting it to pull her towards him. He looked at her in the eyes.
‘I’m Pa, I’ve never met ya before, take your cap off so we can see ye.’
She kept her eyes down, not moving, but wished she could get up and run. He pushed her hand back, saying, ‘Leave quickly. Go back to Thomas St along the quays this time.’
Veronica turned to leave, but he took hold of her arm and pulled her back, and laughed, smelling of beer and cigarette smoke. ‘Where are you going? I’ve something for you to give to Tom.’
Before she could answer the door opened, and four DMP policemen entered. All chat stopped. The fiddle and accordion stopped too.
Pa O’Driscoll pulled Veronica down beside him and pushed a tankard of stout in front of her.
Three soldiers, one of whom was not much older than Eddie, slowly moved around the pub, stopping to stare at the men. They stopped to talk to a grey-haired man who stood at the bar counter. Veronica kept her eyes low, lifted the tankard and took her first taste of stout. It tasted vile and wanted to spit it out, but out of fear of being caught, she swallowed, trying not to grimace. Glancing up slightly, she saw the soldiers walk to the door and leave.
Pa O’Driscoll pushed Veronica. ‘Quick go, now. I’ll get it to him, tell your uncle to collect it here on his deliveries on Monday. Go,’ he said, throwing her out of the pew.
Outside the pub, she grabbed a bicycle, hoping it was her uncle’s. For a second time, she cycled at speed with the wind in her face. The damp fog stuck to her hair, and it dripped into her eyes but she ignored it. She just wanted to get home and peddled hard. Her hair came loose and fanned in the wind like drowning arms crying for help. Her legs burned, her throat raw with each breath, but she didn’t stop until she got to Thomas St.
Tom stepped out of the shadows. ‘Did you give it to Pa?’
‘Yes, but soldiers came in, and I had to leave before… Pa told me to leave, and he had something for you, but he didn’t give it to me, and—’
‘Slow down, Veronica, take a deep breath. You’re safe, nothing happened. Did it?’
‘I know, I’m all right now, I just got a fright.’
A cat shrieked in the darkness, and Veronica jumped.
‘Veronica, go on to bed now. Ye’ve had enough excitement for one night.’
As she lay in bed, watching the moon shadow on the wall grow smaller as she succumbed to sleep, her last thought was she had had enough excitement to last her a lifetime. She’d come to Dublin to learn to be a secretary, and that’s what she would do.
12
A snowy December replaced damp November. In the few months since her arrival so much had happened that she didn’t notice Christmas creep up on her. The week before Christmas she began to look forward to going home to Cavan. A twinge of guilt snuck over her. Christmas would be hard for Betty and Tom without Padraig, but she had to go home to her family. On the morning of her departure, after checking everything was in her case for her break, she left a present for Betty under the Christmas tree. She imagined Betty’s face when she opened it. One of joy she hoped. One evening on her way home from work she got the idea to make the present while getting lost in glittering Christmas decorations in Switzer’s window. She had bought a silver and a red ribbon, and red felt in a haberdashery shop on Earl St. She had tied the silver ribbon into a bow and flattened it, and cut the red felt into the shape of a cone, doubling it and sewing the bowed ribbon to it. She looped the red ribbon, tying it to the cone and dangled it, the silver ribbon glittering in tendrils of moonlight as it spun. She hoped Betty would hang the angel decoration on the tree and think of Padraig.
The front door slammed shut, and Tom came into the living room. ‘Veronica, your father is coming to the capital today to collect goods. So, you can return home on the train with him. Wrap up well; it’s a cold one.’
Relief flooded through her that she wasn’t travelling alone. Stories hadn’t escaped her of soldiers harassing passengers on the train while they searched for rebels. Bridget had told her soldiers on a train had found a boy hiding in the luggage compartment. When the boy tried to escape, a soldier had shot him in the back, the bullets narrowly missing the other passengers on the train.
Tom moved quickly in front of the fire, rubbing his hands and stamping the snow off his boots. ‘Sorry, Betty, for dragging the snow in, but it’s so damned cold outside. I needed to warm myself first.’
She gave him a disapproving look, and he apologised for cursing.
Veronica was smiling at their exchange when a knock came at the front door.
‘I’ll get that, Betty. Veronica, it’s probably your father.’
‘Richard, you’re early, come in and warm yourself. Give me your coat.’ Tom shook the coat and snow tumbled onto the tiles, but Betty didn’t give her brother the same disapproving look. The weave on her father’s coat was tightly bound, unlike the loose-knit on her uncle’s threadbare jacket. Her uncle’s Sunday coat looked inferior to her father’s day coat.
Richard dropped three packages on the table, all wrapped in brown paper. One opened and pudding, bread, and butter wrapped in waxed paper fell onto the table. The two other packages stayed closed, the brown string on them pulled tight. Veronica thought of the package she had delivered to the captain, but these were a lot bigger.
‘Betty, some bacon and eggs from the farm and a few things from the shop, not much, though. Things are in short supply. Rationing.’ He clapped his hands together in front of the fire. ‘It’s cold, all right.’
‘Oh, I do look forward to the eggs. Everything is a help, Richard, thank you. Sit, I’ll put the pot on, I’ll get you a cup of tea.’
Tom pulled the chair by the fire and put Richard’s coat on it to dry.
‘I’ll just have a quick cup. I’ve to meet someone in half an hour.’
After tea and a few words, her father put on his now dry coat. ‘Veronica, I won’t be long, and then we’ll go.’ He pulled his coat collar up high and gestured to Tom to follow him into the hall where they had a few quiet words.
For as long as she could remember, her father was always going somewhere. It was then she noticed the two parcels on the table were gone.
Betty hummed as she put the food away. The cat jumped up on Veronica’s lap, and she stroked him absentmindedly; his rhythmic purr was soothing. After a while, Veronica’s head started to fall, and she didn’t fight it. She woke in a cold room, Betty asleep in the chair on the opposite side of the fire and Tom gone. She gently pushed the cat from her lap and put coal and tinder on the fire, poking it to life. The crackling wood woke Betty.
‘Betty, you stay where you are, I’ll make tea for us. I don’t know when I’m going.’ Sighing, she poured the kettle into the teapot with one hand while spooning tea leaves in with the other. She had hoped to be home before it was dark, but it looked unlikely.
Veronica put the kettle on the fire as the cat rubbed her legs in the hope of a few scraps. Tom came back just as the kettle boiled shivering with cold as she smothered butter on a few slices of bread.
‘I’m glad to be out of that,’ he said, ‘it hasn’t snowed all afternoon, but it’s cold. Richard is here as well.’
Betty poured tea, feeling her brother’s hand. ‘Are you cold? Warm yourself first.’
‘No, I’m grand. We were inside and got a cab back.’
When they had finished eating, her father said, ‘Veronica, go off to bed. We’ll wait until morning.’
In bed, Veronica tossed and turned listening to her uncle and her father talk past midnight. Eventually, she succumbed to slumber.
With the stars and moon still high, her father knocked on her door. ‘We’ll need to leave before sunrise. The train will be packed, everyone going home for Christmas.’
At breakfast, Betty cut fresh br
ead and, putting it in a small paper bag, said, ‘Something small for your journey.’ The beginnings of tears were in her eyes, and she hugged Veronica.
‘Don’t be upset, I’ll be back after Christmas, and there’s a small present under the tree for you.’ She hugged Betty.
Her father said goodbye to his sister while Tom carried her case downstairs and hugged her, whispering, ‘You have helped Betty. Thank you.’
Tom brought them to the train station in the dray. The station was full of people returning home for Christmas, and her father was right, there were few spare seats. Veronica and her father had to sit separately unlike their previous journey to the capital. Soon the whistle sounded, and steam filled the platform as it pulled away from the station. A group of carol singers gathered on the platform to sing for the travellers on their journey back home. People stood in every available space possible, using each other’s bodies for support as the train rattled and thundered across the countryside. The journey was not interrupted by soldiers as Veronica had feared. There was no room on the train for unnecessary passengers.
Veronica sat nestled in between two young women, housemaids who were not required in their houses over Christmas. The fields were covered in snow and looked peaceful. She sat back in the seat and closed her eyes, her head filled with thoughts different than her first journey three months previously. She woke to her father’s gentle shake as the train stopped at Oldcastle.
Eddie waved to Veronica as they disembarked and took Veronica’s case. ‘We should hurry, there is little daylight left, and the clouds look full of snow.’
There was little chat on the journey. It was cold, and the fields were white from the frost, but no snow had arrived.
When Eddie pulled the horse’s reins in front of the house, the heavy clouds emptied their burden, the first snowflakes of Christmas. Veronica turned up to the sky; the tumbling flakes shimmered as they floated past the candles in the windows, the cold snowflakes melting as they landed on her face. Their house was the same as every other house in Ireland, each window of the house had a lit candle to guide Mary and Joseph to a place of refuge. When Veronica stepped across the threshold of her front door she was greeted with the warm smell of Christmas. The hallway stand was lined with cuttings of pine and red holly. But best of all was Mrs Slaney’s Christmas pudding of soaked fruit, that hung in muslin in the pantry waiting to be covered with whisky and lit on Christmas night. She was home.
‘Eddie, will you bring the case up to Veronica’s room? Veronica, I want a word with you.’
After Eddie had disappeared up the stairs, her father turned to her and said, ‘I won’t keep you long. I want to thank you for all your help.’
‘It’s-it’s fine. Really. I see women marching in Dublin, I know it’s the right thing for the country.’ She leaned in, putting her hand on his arm. ‘Daddy I promise you I’ll make you proud.’
‘You concentrate on your typing as well. And your mother worries so, especially about Eddie.’
‘Why?’
He patted her arm. ‘We’d better go inside, your mother is looking forward to seeing you safe and sound.’
She ran to the house covering her hat with her hand as heavy snowflakes floated down shimmering in the light from the candles in the windows. Her mother pushed open the front door, her arms wide open, and the smell of Christmas greeted her.
‘Quick Veronica, close the door, keep the heat in,’ said her mum and welcomed her with a tight hug.
She took off her coat, welcoming the warmth of home as it wrapped around her. The snow that fell from her coat melted as soon as it landed on the tiled hallway.
She was glad to be home as the smells of cooked ham, and soaked fruit surrounded her, inviting her in. Only now did she realise that in Betty and Tom’s home there had been no smell of Christmas, no cakes or pudding for the holiday.
Sprigs of red-berried holly sat on the inside of the windowsills surrounded by coloured pine cones. Every autumn, Susan went into the woods to collect pine cones, and after weeks of drying in the pantry, she painted them ruby red and yellow.
Susan ran down the stairs, flinging her arms around Veronica. ‘Tell me all about Dublin! Are the shops full of Christmas? Have you been to any parties?’
Susan seemed oblivious to the fact that there was a war on; even though it was in Europe, it affected people in Ireland. Veronica’s head was full of brown-papered packages and hungry children. She couldn’t tell Susan the initial days of being in awe of Dublin had soon been replaced by pity and fear for the people. She was embroiled in something she couldn’t discuss with her sister.
‘It’s fantastic, Susan. The ladies look magnificent, out for their daily walks in the city. And the shop windows are full of the latest fashion.’ She didn’t tell her about the shops and buildings that lay in ruins, or the Volunteers who marched the streets.
‘Where’s Eddie?’
Ignoring her, Susan said, ‘I bet you can’t wait to return?’
Susan was right, but it felt so good to be home. On the landing outside their bedroom, she heard footsteps.
That night Veronica lay in bed watching the large snowflakes stick to the windowpane. Pulling the duck-down eiderdown tight around her neck, she thought about all that had happened the last few months. Even if she had not been delivering parcels, her life in Dublin was so different. The ruins and soldiers patrolling the streets… Dublin was in turmoil.
*
The following morning the kitchen, warm with the smells of Christmas, was busy. Veronica was surprised how she relished in the business of housework; the quietness in Thomas St sometimes compounded Veronica’s loneliness.
‘Veronica, would you pass me the lard?’ her mother asked.
Mrs Slaney had prepared the turkey for the family before leaving to spend Christmas with her sister in Dublin. Her brother Tommy collected her for their annual visit. Mrs Slaney’s husband had passed away when she was only married a year, and since then she and her bachelor brother spent every Christmas with their sister in Dublin.
‘I can’t see where Mrs Slaney put it. I’ll check the pantry.’
‘Oh, where is your mind, Veronica? It’s there beside the stove. I’d think you were trying to avoid me.’
She groaned at the thought of another conversation about the dangers in Dublin.
‘No, Mammy, I just like to keep busy.’ She knew her mother wouldn’t see through her lies.
‘You used to hate kitchen work. Maybe you are maturing.’
They continued preparing the Christmas dinner, her mother staying up late to put it in the cooker overnight.
The following morning the family gathered around the Christmas tree to open their presents. Susan squealed with delight at her purple scarf and matching gloves and her mother made approving sounds at her new wool coat. Veronica thought of Betty and Tom opening their presents, just the two of them. She hoped Betty liked her gift.
‘Veronica, check the turkey and Eddie, get more wood. I don’t know what’s got into the two of you. You’ve hardly spoken since you got home.’ Her mother didn’t waste long mulling over the presents. There was too much to be done to get the dinner ready.
When they reached the kitchen, Veronica pulled Eddie’s arm as he walked past. ‘Eddie, please talk to me. I was never going to tell Daddy about the money. You have to understand I’m mad at you as well, you…’
‘Ah God, Veronica, I’m not angry with you, it’s… it’s nothing. Why are you mad at me?’
‘The gun, Eddie, the money.’
‘Look, it’s just different now.’ He looked at the kitchen door, voices and laughter from the parlour trickled into the kitchen. He moved from foot to foot before nodding at her to follow him, taking her by the arm to the far side of the kitchen to the pantry. The wafting smell of turkey stopped the conversation. Their mother had entered the kitchen, and the door of the cooker was open as the turkey sizzled and spat.
‘It’s ready. Veronica, check the potatoes and
put the apple pie in the oven to warm. Eddie, go get the wood.’
Eddie winked as he passed Veronica and she whispered, ‘Please be careful. I don’t know what you’re up to – well I do, I think I do. Just be careful, Eddie.’ She was deciding whether to confide in him about the parcels, when their mother’s voice boomed, ‘Children. Dinner.’ When she called the young adults children, that meant they had to do what they were told.
13
January 1918
Christmas passed in a haze of warm family contentment with Mrs Slaney’s tasty dinners, and family card games at night. After two weeks, on the morning of Veronica’s return, she again reassured her mother she would come to no harm in Dublin.
During her train journey, she had to bite her lip to stop the tears, but her homesickness retreated as the train approached Broadstone Station, as she looked forward to seeing Betty and smiling as she thought of going back to Underwood to see Bridget’s wide grin.
Tom collected her from the station. ‘Good to see you, Veronica. Betty will be delighted too. Is everyone good at home?’
‘They’re good.’ She told him about her Christmas, as the wheels of the dray dragged through the sludge as the snow melted.
Soldiers ran past them down a side street in an English accent shouting, ‘Stop, you bloody Fienen,’ and fired shots that hit the wall of a house, as the boy they had chased ran down an alleyway.
The horse jolted and Tom pulled the reins. ‘Easy boy.’
One of the wheels hit a rock of frozen snow, and she lurched from her seat. She pulled the case tight against her legs. Tom calmed the horse with soothing words and flicked the reins.
Tom shuddered. ‘I’m glad this snow will be gone soon. It’s bitter. Betty didn’t go out at all.’
The snow kept people indoors; few children were on the streets, and no bicycles passed. They approached the river, which was black and angry from the melting snow coming down from the mountains. A surge of excitement filled her as they went down the Maltings to Thomas St.
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