A Mother's Spirit

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Well, I hope you told them straight that it is out of the question.’

  ‘No,’ Gloria said quietly, ‘I didn’t, and don’t shout at me.’

  ‘Good God, woman, you damned well need shouting at,’ Joe exploded. ‘You can put that hare-brained notion right out of your head.’

  ‘I think not,’ Gloria said. ‘I don’t need your permission.’

  ‘This is monstrous, Gloria,’ Joe thundered. ‘Jesus, I am a mild-mannered man, God knows, but you are enough to try the patience of a saint. You will take no job in any camp, American or otherwise. You will not shame me like this.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Gloria retorted. ‘What about you shaming me? How d’you think I will feel if, because of this stupid scheme you and your brother have cooked up, you end up dead or in gaol?’

  ‘Is that what this is all about?’ Joe cried. ‘Tit for tat?’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ Gloria almost hissed. ‘But how many times have you made up your mind about something without discussing it with me and not given a cent for how I might feel about it?’

  ‘This isn’t about me,’ Joe snapped, feeling they had gone off the subject. ‘It’s about you and this totally unsuitable job.’

  ‘I don’t happen to think it is all that unsuitable.’

  ‘I can’t believe that I am hearing this,’ Joe said. ‘You are not taking it and that’s that. You must obey me in this.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Gloria said sarcastically. ‘Why is that, exactly?’

  ‘Gloria, I am your husband.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Gloria snapped back. ‘That doesn’t make you my bloody keeper.’

  Joe regarded his wife and saw just how furious she was. Her eyes were flashing fire and so although he was angry and outraged himself, he knew their yelling at each other would achieve nothing. So he said in a conciliatory manner, ‘You must see, Gloria, that this will not do at all. Anyway, aren’t there girls the length and breadth of Derry to work in the place?’

  ‘There are no girls queuing up to work at the camp,’ Gloria said. ‘The woman I spoke to in the canteen the time we were taken to look around it said a lot of parents wouldn’t let their daughters work there, and prefer them to go into the shirt factories. And the commander at the camp prefers older, more settled women rather than flighty girls with all those young men. I wouldn’t be the only married woman there, and Helen is mad keen but wants me to go with her.’

  ‘Helen is single.’

  ‘Yes, she is,’ Gloria agreed. ‘She’s a respectable widow and not seeking a husband amongst young Yankee sailor boys.’

  ‘Why the hell did they think of you and Helen anyway?’

  ‘The time we went to see around the camp we were taken into the canteen. The manageress asked us if we were looking for a job. She said we were just the type of woman they would go for at the camp, especially me because I am American. Now they have two girls leaving and the manageress remembered us. The two petty officers came to tell us that because they know where Helen lives. They just told us about the vacancies and asked us if we are interested. I imagine it will be up to the manageress, or the camp commander, or both, whether we would be offered a job or not.’

  ‘But you would like to work there, wouldn’t you?’ Joe said. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’

  Gloria nodded. ‘Yes, Joe. And I will tell you one of the reasons why. If we ever move from here, we will have to start again and we can’t do that without money. I can just about manage on what you give me each week. There is nothing to save at all.’

  Joe knew that.

  ‘I mean, Ben is always needing new clothes and shoes,’ Gloria went on. ‘The boy is growing and I will not send him to school like some sort of ragamuffin.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting that you do,’ Joe said stiffly.

  ‘Well, where is the money to come from, Joe? Answer me that?’ Gloria demanded. ‘Shall I pluck it out of thin air or what?’

  ‘All right then,’ Joe said. ‘But why the camp? Why don’t you do what the other girls are doing and go into one of the shirt factories?’

  ‘I don’t know if they have any vacancies,’ Gloria said. ‘And anyway, I want to be surrounded by American people again and hear the sounds of home, because I still miss it, even after all these years.’

  Joe listened to the wistfulness in Gloria’s voice, yet he shook his head as he said, ‘You know, if I agree to this, many of the townspeople will be scandalised. For Helen it will be bad enough, but for you, a wife and mother, to take up work in a camp full of young, unattached men, would be completely untenable to them, whatever argument we put up to justify it.’

  ‘I know,’ Gloria said, ‘but they have never taken to me anyway, so it’s no odds. Helen really is my only friend, and if she goes to work at the camp and I don’t, where will that leave me?’

  Joe was silent as Gloria’s words sank in. None of those in Buncrana had seen the courageous side to Gloria that he had, and all that she had put up with. This was the first time that she had ever asked for anything for herself, and something too that would help the family.

  ‘Joe, what are you thinking?’

  ‘Of our lives together,’ Joe said. ‘It has been a bit of a roller coaster of a ride so far, I think. I never really expected you to conform to Buncrana’s standards. It would have been like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. But then, I had never envisaged that we would ever come back here to live.’

  Gloria shrugged impatiently, ‘So, what are you saying, Joe?’

  ‘Well, I understand all you say about the job, but with me going off in the morning it isn’t something we need to decide here and now, surely. I need to give some thought to it. When this business is over this weekend, we will talk again.’

  ‘There’s no time for that,’ Gloria cried. ‘The vacancies will likely be gone unless I act fast.’

  ‘I can’t help that.’

  Anger pulsed through Gloria’s veins again. ‘No, and you don’t care either,’ she yelled. ‘That’s what you hope: that they are gone and so is my chance.’

  Joe didn’t speak. He felt that he had conceded a great deal by even agreeing to think about a potential job for Gloria in a military camp, never mind prepared to talk it over with her on his return. He knew it was far more than many of his friends in Buncrana would do and Gloria still wasn’t satisfied.

  He was suddenly furiously angry with her and he strode across the room and snatched his jacket from the hook behind the door.

  ‘And where are you going now?’ Gloria demanded.

  ‘Out,’ Joe said. ‘To walk the bad humour off myself before I say something I will probably regret later.’

  Joe left the next day, straight after he had done the milking, and Ben got up early to see his father off.

  ‘Can I come with you as far as the station?’

  ‘You’ll be late for school.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ said Ben. ‘It’s hours yet.’

  ‘See what your mother says.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’ Ben said.

  Joe looked at Gloria framed in the doorway of the cottage. He had the urge to take her in his arms and forget the quarrel, but he knew Gloria might reject his embrace and he couldn’t have borne that.

  ‘The lad wants to come as far as the station,’ he said. ‘That all right?’

  Gloria didn’t answer him. She had expected Ben to ask that, and she looked directly at him and said, ‘You come straight back, mind.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Here, put your coat on,’ Gloria said, taking it from the back of the door and handing it to him. ‘It’s early enough to be chilly.’

  As Ben shrugged himself into it, Joe glanced over his head to Gloria and said, ‘Goodbye, then.’

  Gloria met his gaze levelly. ‘Goodbye, Joe.’

  Joe sighed and as he picked up his case, he saw Ben’s eyes full of reproach, staring at him, and knew that he should have risked Gloria’s reaction and bid farewell to her properly.
Oh, well, too late now, he thought as he turned on his heel and strode up the lane with his son beside him.

  ‘You will come back, won’t you, Dad?’ Ben asked his father earnestly.

  ‘Course I’ll come back, Ben,’ Joe assured him. ‘Why wouldn’t I come back?’

  Ben gave a shrug. ‘I don’t know why. But maybe it’s what grown-ups say, like Uncle Tom did. He never came back, did he?’

  ‘Well, he had some unfinished business to attend to,’ Joe said. ‘I told you at the time.’

  ‘So what if you have some unfinished business as well?’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘How d’know?’ Ben persisted. ‘I mean, Uncle Tom didn’t know before he went,’ cos you said he was due back when he sent that telegram.’

  ‘With Tom something came up at the last minute,’ Joe said, and added with a smile, ‘And, no, before you ask, the same thing won’t happen to me.’

  ‘And you’ll want to come back?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t I want to come back?’

  ‘Because you’re not friendly with Mom,’ Ben said flatly. ‘I heard you shouting at each other last night.’

  Joe was about to brush him off when he saw Ben’s big eyes staring at him and knew that if their arguing had entered into his life, then he deserved at least a semblance of the truth. ‘Your mother and I have disagreed over something, that’s all,’ he said. ‘You and your friends must have disagreements sometimes.’

  ‘Yeah, we do,’ Ben said. ‘But we make it up again, and you and Mom haven’t yet.’

  ‘We will, Ben. Honestly we will.’

  ‘Mom says that you should never let the sun go down and still be angry with someone,’ Ben said.

  ‘That’s sound advice, Ben,’ Joe said. ‘Pity your mother and I didn’t follow it.’

  Gloria watched till Joe and Ben were out of sight and then she turned and went into the cottage, her heart full of regret. She didn’t approve of what Joe intended doing, but at the very least he risked being injured. What if something happened to him and she had let him go without so much as a kind word? That stupid quarrel, she thought, could have been handled differently.

  She had the urge now to take to her heels and run after Joe and say she was sorry, bid him a proper farewell and urge him to take care.

  But she remembered his speculative eyes on her as she had stood in the doorway. Surely if he had any feeling for her he would have made some move towards her. Obviously something was wrong in the very fabric of their marriage. She sank into a chair before the fire, put her head in her hands and wept.

  As the train drew nearer to Birmingham, Joe told himself to put all thoughts of Gloria and the job in the camp to one side, because he was on a mission. The whole purpose of this weekend was not just to see Molly, but to help Tom track Finch down and deal with him, and as soon as possible. He had no room in his mind for anything but hatred for the man.

  Tom was waiting for him at New Street Station, as Joe knew he would be, and he was delighted to see his brother was a more contented and happier man than he had ever seen. They had the carriage to themselves on the train that was taking them on the last leg of their journey, to Boldmere Road in Sutton Coldfield, and Joe was glad of it because he wanted to impress upon Tom that Finch was his problem and that he would deal with him.

  First, though, Tom pointed out some of the bomb damage as the train travelled out of the city centre. ‘I was shocked to the core when I first came. I wasn’t surprised at the numbers of dead and injured, though of course it was a terrible tragedy, but I was surprised, looking at the destruction, that so many were left alive,’ he said.

  ‘It is a terrible way to live,’ Joe told him. ‘Cowering night after night in a shelter as Gloria and Ben did, hearing the droning planes above you and the whine and whistle of the bombs and the crashes of the explosions. It was small wonder that Ben was a nervous wreck when he first went to Ireland, but the very worst thing of all was the loss of so many good friends. Even Ben lost friends he was at school with.’

  ‘That must have been dreadful.’

  ‘It was,’ Joe said. ‘And often I had to deal with the aftermath of the raids, trying to rescue as many as I could. Gloria doesn’t know the half of it. I couldn’t ever bring myself to tell her. It would upset her so much. It’s an horrendous way to wage war on innocent men, women and children. But another innocent victim is Aggie, and Finch is going to pay for what he did. So don’t forget, this is my fight.’

  ‘Joe, I don’t think you know what you are taking on.’

  ‘I do,’ Joe insisted. ‘You keep watch. I don’t want the two of us to end up in gaol.’

  ‘I told you what happened to that man Aggie was engaged to marry.’

  ‘Yes, but as you also said, Finch knows nothing about us,’ Joe reminded him. ‘We have the element of surprise.’

  ‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’

  ‘As sure as I have ever been about anything.’

  ‘Come on then,’ Tom said, as the train slowed. ‘This is Wylde Green. Boldmere Road is only a step from here.’

  ‘No sign of much bomb damage here, at any rate,’ Joe said as they walked through tree-lined roads.

  ‘No, Sutton Coldfield got away light in comparison to some places,’ Tom said. ‘No industry, you see, though they have camps of soldiers Jerry mustn’t have known about. And here we are,’ he went on, opening the little gate that led to a very small garden, the large house set back only slightly from the road.

  He opened the door and led the way up the first flight of stairs then the second, saying as he did so, ‘I was lucky to get this. I was desperate to get Aggie away and I had searched all morning. I was in the estate agent’s when a young man came in to drop keys off. We got talking, as you do, and he said he had just finished renovating this house, which had been turned into three flats, and he understood the top one was empty if I was interested.’

  ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘I know I was,’ Tom said. ‘Property is at a premium, and any with money are doing what my landlord has done: buying up big houses and converting them.’

  ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ Tom said. ‘I’d do it myself if I had the wherewithal.’

  Aggie had heard them on the stairs and now she opened the door. Joe looked at the woman he hadn’t seen for over forty years. It was a very emotional moment, for he never thought he would see Aggie again in the whole of his life.

  She was still slender, and though her hair was streaked with grey strands and her face showed the march of the years, her eyes were dancing in her head, and her voice just as soft as he remembered.

  ‘Welcome, Joe. A thousand times welcome,’ she said.

  Then she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight and his eyes grew moist as he realised that, despite all that had happened to her, the essence of Aggie was still there.

  He could not understand the mind of the man who would wish to hurt and abuse such a lovely person, and fury against Finch coursed through him. He hid it well, though, for Aggie must have no idea of what he intended to do that night.

  After a meal, Tom asked Aggie if she minded him and Joe going out for a few jars. Aggie had no objection at all, but didn’t say that she had a date with Paul Simmons that evening, for their relationship was tentative and very new.

  ‘You won’t be lonely on your own?’ Tom asked anxiously.

  ‘I am not a child to be minded,’ she said with a smile. ‘Go and enjoy yourselves.’

  ‘Aggie is another like you,’ Joe said as they reached the street. ‘She hasn’t a nasty bone in her body.’

  ‘And with Finch dealt with, the last shreds of fear will fall from her,’ Tom said. ‘Let’s hope that will be tonight.’

  Tom had the name of the club that Finch used and he and Joe located it easily, as it was on one of the roads off Broad Street that led down to the canal. It wasn’t open and they didn’t expect it to be, for people went to these places when others w
ere thinking of going to bed. Not wanting to be spotted hanging about, and also to waste time, they went off to a nearby pub, not to drink too much, but just enough to fuel the rage building up in Joe.

  It was as they finished their second pint and the clock read ten o’clock that Joe said, ‘Let’s go. I’m ready.’

  He knew what Finch looked like, for Tom had shown him a picture from the Evening Mail where he had been photographed opening something or other, but in the blackout the darkness was almost complete. Joe wondered if they might not recognise him until it was too late, but a bonus was they could go right up by the door and the few now beginning to filter into the club wouldn’t know they were there.

  Finch came by taxi. They heard his nasal tones as he talked to the taxi driver. Then he got out and turned on the torch he held to see the money in his wallet, and they knew they had their man and that he was alone.

  Joe stealthily moved forward. He waited until the taxi had driven off and Finch was almost at the door of the club, and then he pounced. Finch, taken totally unawares, gave a yelp of surprise and alarm, before a hand was slapped across his mouth so hard that he felt his teeth bruising his lips. The other arm held him so tightly that he was having trouble drawing breath and was unable to struggle much, as Joe virtually carried him to the towpath where he threw him to the ground with force.

  He then pulled him to his feet and began pummelling into him. Tom melted into the darkness to watch the shadowy figures who were illuminated duskily now and then by the moon peeping out from behind the clouds. He saw Joe punching Finch from side to side, parrying his efforts to defend himself with ease.

  Joe suddenly powered a hefty punch to Finch’s abdomen. ‘That’s for Aggie,’ he ground out, and Finch groaned and staggered, but recovered his balance as the name reverberated in his head.

  After extensive searches had failed to locate Aggie, he had assumed – everyone had assumed – that she had thrown herself into the canal, and he had been annoyed that she had escaped his clutches. Now it seemed the bitch was still alive and this man trying to use him as a punchbag had something to do with her escape. With an angered cry he fell upon his assailant with renewed vigour.