A Mother's Spirit

by Anne Bennett

  ‘I thought Hitler might prove a problem,’ Joe said. ‘I really hope it doesn’t develop into anything more serious. My young brother lost his life in the Great War – and that was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Surely no one in their right mind would want to repeat that.’

  Red shrugged. ‘Probably not. For now, though, it is good news for us and I am willing to give it a go. My parents are only waiting for me to send word and they will buy my ticket because I couldn’t afford it.’

  ‘Neither could we, normally,’ Joe said. ‘But my mother-in-law had kept back some nice pieces of jewellery that we could sell.’

  ‘Are you for it then?’ Red asked.

  ‘Well, I am willing to give it a go, if just for my son’s sake,’ Joe said. ‘But Gloria … well, she won’t want to leave here. She said as much to you.’

  ‘I know she did,’ Red said. ‘But remember there was no alternative then. Couldn’t you talk her round?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘I don’t know. She is as stubborn as a mule about some things. And then her mother is not long dead. They were very close and she still gets upset at times. But she just might see the sense of us moving if it is to give Ben a better chance. I will sound her out and see.’

  A week went by and Joe couldn’t seem to find the right words to say to Gloria. By then, Red had written to his parents and they were in the process of wiring him the money to buy his ticket, and Joe knew he would have to say something to Gloria.

  That night, Joe only waited till the meal had been eaten and Ben had gone to bed before drawing his wife down on the settee before the fire.

  ‘What is it, Joe?’ Gloria asked. ‘There has been something on your mind all evening.’

  Joe told her all that Red had said to him, leaving out any talk of conflict between England and Germany, but when he suggested leaving America, she pulled away and looked at him with horrified eyes.

  ‘Leave here?’ she said. ‘Surely that’s madness?’

  ‘Not as I see it,’ Joe said. ‘It’s madness altogether if we stay.’

  ‘America is my home.’

  ‘I know that, and in the normal way of things I never would have thought of leaving,’ Joe went on gently. ‘Even after the crash, I honestly thought that we could ride out the storm. But it has gone on and on, and shows no sign of easing. England then had a recession to match America’s, but apparently it has pulled itself out of it. It’s Ben that I am really concerned about if we stay here much longer.’

  ‘D’you think I’m not concerned?’ Gloria asked. ‘I worry about him all the time.’

  ‘I know that you do,’ Joe said, pulling her close to him again. ‘We both of us love our child dearly and want the best for him, so don’t just reject this out of hand. Because I wasn’t set on for two days this week we have finished all the food in the house, and then all we had was bread, and not much of that. What nourishment is that to a growing boy? He will live on fresh air tomorrow, the same as the rest of us, and God knows what we will do when the coal runs out.’

  Gloria knew Joe was right. Her stomach still yawned emptily because she had eaten sparingly so that Ben and Joe might eat their fill. In fact, she had done that so often, her clothes hung off her gaunt frame and she took care to ensure that Joe never saw her naked. But she didn’t want to leave her place of birth and so she said, ‘I’ll get some money together. My mother had some lovely pieces of jewellery and I—’

  ‘And what will you do when they are gone?’

  ‘Joe, there is unrest in Europe,’ Gloria said. ‘You have said so yourself.’

  ‘There is unrest in America too,’ Joe maintained. ‘Because people are hungry and destitute and have lost all hope, and we will be counted among them unless we have the courage to get out while we can.’

  ‘Can’t we just wait for a while and see if things change?’ Gloria pleaded.

  Joe shook his head. ‘Gloria, we must go while we have enough of Norah’s jewellery left to pay our passage. Remember you are doing this for Ben, giving him the chance of a future.’

  How could Gloria deny that to the child she loved more than life itself? She sagged against Joe and so he knew he had won even before she said glumly, ‘All right then. We will play this your way.’

  EIGHT

  Ben had never been so excited as the day when his father told him he was going on a ship to a place called England, so far away that it would take days and days to get there. Gloria wasn’t one bit excited. The loss of her mother was still like a gaping hole in her heart, and had it not been for Ben she would have stayed in America and waited for things to get better.

  They would eventually, she was sure, just as Red told her they had in England, because after Joe had talked to her she had questioned Red closely the next time he had come to the house. Joe had anticipated this – he knew his Gloria – and he warned Red to say nothing of the possibility that there might be a war.

  ‘You didn’t have to warn me of that, Joe,’ Red said later. ‘I’m not some sort of halfwit, and I didn’t want to upset Gloria further. She is breaking her heart already at the thought of leaving this place. It’s written all over her face and, to be honest, I feel sorry for her. I will do all in my power to make it easy for all of you when you land in England.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Red,’ Joe said sincerely. ‘I owe you one.’

  ‘Make it a pint when you finally get to good old Blighty,’ Red said with a grin.

  ‘You’re on,’ Joe laughed. ‘Oh, won’t it be a wonderful feeling to have money in my pocket for the odd pint or two?’

  ‘It will be,’ Red said. ‘But that isn’t a good enough reason to leave. I know why you are going, and that is to give your lad a chance. I would do the same if I had a son, and that is also why Gloria has made the heartbreaking decision she has.’

  Joe knew that only too well and he was very gentle with Gloria as they packed up all their possessions and made plans to leave. Red left three weeks before the Sullivans sailed. He said he would secure them a place to stay and look into the job situation before they arrived. Joe was grateful, for with a family to think of he didn’t want to move from the frying pan into the fire. And so he waited to book their passage until he had heard from Red that he had found them temporary lodgings in a place called Stepney and had secured Joe an interview at the docks office.

  While Ben and Gloria said their goodbyes to the people in the tenements, Ben’s mind was more focused on the trip to England than leaving the friends he had played with and would probably never see again. Gloria was bitterly upset at bidding farewell to the women who had become friends, especially Bella Turner. Most of the neighbours had been kindness itself when she had been pregnant, and had rallied around and supported her when her mother died. Gloria knew that she would miss them all dearly, but she had to do as Joe advised and look forward.

  Ben had never been so thrilled in his whole life as the day he walked up the gangplank of the ship. He saw the churning water in the distance, which his dad said was called the Atlantic Ocean. ‘We have to sail over that to get to England,’ he told Ben. ‘It will take some time, like I told you before.’

  Ben didn’t care how long it took, for the ship was such an exciting place to explore. Gloria felt desperately homesick almost as soon as the ship pulled away from the harbour.

  It didn’t help that she felt decidedly queasy and very glad that Joe took almost full charge of Ben.

  Ben would go off exploring with his father and could barely wait to relate all the exciting things he had seen to his mother, and his high, piercing voice would often make Gloria’s head ache. She was very glad to be feeling halfway human by the morning of the fourth day and after that, the next four days, until the ship docked at Southampton, were far more pleasant. She even ventured on deck a time or two, though the sharp late March wind sending the clouds scudding across the sky, or the sleety rain, didn’t encourage a person to linger.

  Joe was pleased to see eventually the shores of Eng
land in the distance and felt a tingle of anticipation. England promised to give him employment. He didn’t care where, just as long as it paid enough to enable him to bring up his family decently, and he felt as if another, different phase of his life was beginning.

  As arranged, Red McCullough met them at Euston Station. Gloria was as glad as Joe to see his familiar face grinning at them, though she wasn’t a bit impressed by the view of London from the windows of the taxi that they took from the station. Red was pointing things out with a hint of pride, but Gloria considered London grey and terribly drab, and many of the people appeared the same. She tried to hide her distaste, but Joe knew her too well.

  Red’s parents, Dolly and Jim, at whose home they stopped first, were warm and welcoming, but they spoke so fast and with such strong accents that Gloria couldn’t understand everything they said. She couldn’t fault their hospitality, however, and the meal they sat down to was delicious.

  Then Red took the Sullivans round to the lodging house that he had found for them to stay in until something better should come up. Mrs Bullock, who spoke in a sort of strident boom, showed them their room, which was at the top of the house, and though it was sparse it was clean, and there was a shakedown bed for Ben.

  ‘You will see,’ said Mrs Bullock, pointing to a list of rules on the wall, ‘breakfast is served from seven o’clock until eight thirty daily, and the evening meal is at six thirty sharp. There is a strict timetable for using the bathroom – please stick to it – and there is a charge for the using the geyser. And remember, all rooms have to be empty by ten thirty each day so they can be cleaned.’

  ‘She’s not very welcoming,’ Gloria said when she had gone.

  ‘What do we care?’ Joe said. ‘For the past years we have put up with far more than a disgruntled landlady. Let’s all go to bed now, for I am fair tired out. Things always look better in the morning.’

  The next morning, though, Gloria woke up feeling quite miserable and dispirited, and homesickness stabbed at her like a nagging tooth. But she knew that there was no point in saying any of this, what couldn’t be cured had to be endured and she knew that if they were to make a go of living in London she had to be more positive. She was glad, however, that Joe had nothing to do for a day or two, and before they left the lodgings that morning he tried to explain to her the money, which she found really perplexing.

  ‘I had to learn all about American money when I went over,’ Joe said.

  ‘But American money is logical,’ Gloria said. ‘There is no uniformity to English money at all.’

  ‘Look, I will explain it all to you,’ Joe said, as he laid the coins down on the small table beside the bed. ‘But the best way of understanding it properly is to use it. Honestly, you will pick it up in no time.’

  ‘Hmm, no doubt,’ Gloria said. ‘But just go through it with me now and I’ll try to remember.’

  ‘All right. There are twelve pennies to a shilling and twenty shillings to a pound.’

  ‘And what are these little things that look like American dimes?’ Gloria asked.

  ‘The larger one is half of a penny, and the smaller one is a farthing, which is a quarter of a penny,’ Joe told her. ‘And this here is a thrupenny bit, which is three pennies, and this silver one is worth six pennies. But sometimes the money is called by different names.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like a sixpence is sometimes called “a tanner” and a shilling is “a bob”, and ten bob could be a note like the pound note,’ Joe said. ‘Then there are florins, which are two shillings, and half a crown, which is two shillings and sixpence. As for a guinea—’

  ‘Stop!’ Gloria said. ‘My head is reeling already.’

  Joe laughed. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He pulled her to her feet. ‘It will get easier, I promise. Now get your coat on and let’s go and explore the place we are living in.’

  Some of the London streets, Gloria found, were knobbly, which Joe told her were called cobbled, and some were lined with barrows piled high with all manner of produce, which were sold on the streets. When they came upon a whole area like this Joe said it was a market. He told her of the Market Hall in Buncrana, the nearest town to the farm, where they would sell any surplus goods, but they didn’t shout their wares like the costers in the market in London. Gloria found that quite entertaining. She couldn’t understand all they said but that didn’t matter; it was just fascinating to listen.

  For the next two days she toured the streets with Joe and Ben, and on the third day Joe had his interview and was taken on at the docks as a stevedore like his friend Red. Joe was delighted because in New York he had just been a longshoreman, employed on a temporary basis, often daily, and it was up to the stevedores, who were in regular and better-paid employment, which of the longshoremen they took on. To ensure a temporary job a person had to pay eight cents to the stevedores, but the work was so badly paid and spasmodic that Joe couldn’t always raise the money until he had sold a trinket or two.

  Now, however, he was one step up, with a regular wage. Gloria thought that wonderful too. Regular and full-time employment were words that she never thought she would hear, and she felt the knot of worry slide from between her shoulder blades. This was the first step in the new life they had begun to carve for themselves, and she hoped that soon perhaps they could get out of the lodging house and into some place of their own.

  Until that time came, though, Gloria had to vacate her room each morning. From the first, Red’s mother, Dolly, had said she should come in to them each day, and for the first three days Gloria had done just that. She was always made welcome and, not having any grandchildren to spoil, Dolly had a soft spot for Ben and always had some little treat in for him. However, Gloria knew she couldn’t keep imposing on the McCulloughs.

  The first time she and Ben went out alone she did feel very lonely and lost. She knew that it would help no one to say this, and certainly not her son, who was manfully coping with a massive change in his own young life. For his sake as much as anything else, she decided they would use the time they had to be out of the lodging house to find her way around the city that they were hoping to make their home.

  She didn’t stray far in the first few days because she was afraid of getting lost. She was amazed by some of the historic buildings and churches that New York lacked. Sometimes they came upon another street market, or small ornate parks with well-tended flowerbeds almost hidden away behind wrought-iron railings.

  She also saw more horses than were ever seen in New York. These were no sleek, fine-boned animals, but large and beefy, with shaggy feet. They pulled carts piled high with barrels, or sacks of coal, or even bottles of milk, and Ben was enchanted by them.

  ‘We had a horse the same on the farm in Buncrana,’ Joe told his young son. ‘They are the sort of horses built for strength, not speed, and one day we will go to Ireland on a visit and then you will see for yourself.’

  When Gloria and Ben got hungry and footsore they would find a small café somewhere, or eat from one of the stalls in the markets selling food, and Gloria would battle with the money, glad that so many were willing to help her. Despite this, though, as the weeks passed, she found Londoners not exactly unfriendly, but busy, as if everyone passing had more and better things to do than stop to chat. That happened even at Mass on Sunday. She was finding it really hard to make friends, and was glad of Ben’s company, though she knew he too was lonely and missed the children of the tenements that used to play all together, and she envied Joe his job.

  One day, Gloria decided to take Ben further afield. With great daring they took the underground to the city centre. It was the first of many trips, because Ben particularly liked walking along the banks of the grey, torpid Thames. It was such a busy river, housing even some big boats and Gloria had wondered if the boats ever got out into the open sea and, if so, how they did it. Both of them then were surprised and delighted one day to see Tower Bridge raised right up and the traffic stopped either side
of it while the large ship, pulled by small tugs in front of it, sailed through. What a sight that was!

  They always found things of interest, like the day they stumbled upon Regent’s Park, and amongst the ornamental flowerbeds and fountains they discovered a zoo. Ben had no idea what a zoo was, but Gloria had visited one in New York when she was small and described it to him. ‘Can we go in?’ he asked, his face alive with excitement. It was expensive, but Ben had been given so little all his young life, and so Gloria nodded and caught up his hand. That night he told his father all about the marvellous day he had had, tripping over his words in his haste to tell all.

  A couple of days after this, they saw the Houses of Parliament, where Gloria told Ben all the laws of the land were made, and then found Downing Street where the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, lived. On another, they walked down The Mall to Buckingham Palace, and Ben was thrilled when smart soldiers astride beautiful bedecked horses passed them by.

  At the gates surrounding Buckingham Palace, Ben watched the guards changing places and listened earnestly as Gloria told him that that was where the King lived. He wasn’t sure what a King was, but it sounded important, especially with all those soldiers that his mother said were there to guard him. He was enthralled, though, by the soldiers that stood in the sentry boxes as still as if they were statues.

  ‘They got bright red things on top,’ he told his father that evening. ‘And they got big furry hats on their heads, and they’ve all got guns as well.’

  ‘Red told me all about them,’ Joe told his young son. ‘They have to stay as still as still and the funny hats they wear are called busbys. And they are the King’s own guard.’

  ‘We saw the big house that he lives in,’ Ben said. ‘Mummy said he was a very important man.’