by John Boyne
“I carry bags of hops around the place half the day,” he told her as he lay in the bath one evening soothing his muscles while my mother sat on the bed in the next room, her back turned to him but the door half open so they could talk. It was a peculiar room, she thought. Nothing on the walls except a St. Brigid’s cross and a photograph of Pope Pius XII. Next to that was the photograph that had been taken on the day they arrived in Dublin. The boy had done a poor job of it, for although Seán was smiling and Smoot looked half human, her body was split down the middle by the frame, her head turned to her right in annoyance at the way Smoot had pushed her. A single dresser stood against one wall, in which the clothes of both lads were mixed up together as if it didn’t matter who owned what. And the bed itself was hardly big enough for one, let alone the pair of them sleeping top-to-tail. It was no wonder, she told herself, that she heard the most peculiar sounds emerging from there during the nights. The poor boys must have had a terrible time trying to sleep.
“My shoulders are bruised,” continued Seán, “my back is sore and I’m suffering terrible headaches from the smell of the brewery. I may look out for something else soon because I don’t know how long I can stand it there.”
“Jack seems to enjoy it all the same,” said my mother.
“He’s made of stronger stuff than me so.”
“What else would you do?”
Seán took a long time to reply and she listened as he splashed around in the tub. I wonder was there any part of her that wanted to turn around at that moment and let her eyes rest on the body of the young lad in his bath, whether she might have ever considered walking over without an ounce of shame and offering to share it with him? He’d been kind to her and was a handsome devil, or so she told me. It would have been difficult for her not to develop something along the lines of an attachment.
“I don’t know,” he said eventually.
“There’s something in your voice that tells me that you do know.”
“There’s one idea I have,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed. “But I don’t know if I’d be fit for it.”
“Tell me so.”
“You won’t laugh?”
“I might,” she said. “I could do with a good laugh as it happens.”
“Well, there’s the newspapers,” he said after a brief pause. “The Irish Times, of course, and the Irish Press. I have a notion that I could write things for them.”
“What kind of things?”
“Bits of news, you know. I did a bit of writing back home in Ballincollig. Stories and what have you. A few poems. No good, most of them, but still and all. I think I could get better if I was given a chance.”
“Do you mean a journalist?” she asked.
“I suppose so, yes. Am I daft?”
“What’s daft about it? Sure someone has to do it, don’t they?”
“Jack doesn’t think it’s a good idea.”
“And what does that matter? He’s not your wife, is he? You can make your own decisions.”
“I don’t know if they’d even take me on. But Jack doesn’t want to stay on at Guinness’s forever either. He has an idea for his own pub.”
“That’s just what Dublin needs. Another pub.”
“Not here. In Amsterdam.”
“What?” asked my mother, raising her voice in surprise. “Sure why would he want to go there?”
“I suppose it’s the Dutch side of him,” said Seán. “He’s never been but he’s heard great things about the place.”
“What kind of things?”
“That it’s different from Ireland.”
“Well, that can hardly come as a great revelation. There’s canals and the like there, isn’t there?”
“Different in other ways than that.”
He said nothing more and my mother began to worry that he’d fallen asleep and slipped beneath the surface of the water.
“I have a bit of news myself,” she told him, hoping that he’d answer quickly or she’d have no choice but to turn around.
“Go on so.”
“I have an interview for a job tomorrow morning.”
“You do not!”
“I do,” she said as he splashed away again, using the small bit of soap that she’d picked up from a market stall a few days earlier and presented to Smoot, partly as a gift for allowing her to stay and partly as encouragement for him to have a wash.
“Good girl yourself,” said Seán. “Where is it anyway?”
“The Dáil.”
“The what?”
“The Dáil. On Kildare Street. You know, the parliament building.”
“I know what the Dáil is,” replied Seán, laughing. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. What class of a job is it at all? Are you to be a TD? Are we to have our first female Taoiseach?”
“I’d be serving in the tearoom. I’m to meet a Mrs. Hennessy at eleven o’clock and she’s going to give me the once-over.”
“Well, that’s a bit of good news anyway. Do you think you’ll—”
A key in the lock, it stuck for a moment, was taken out and reinserted, and when my mother heard Smoot walking into the other room she moved over a little on the bed so that he wouldn’t notice her sitting there, her eyes resting on the crack in the wall that looked like the journey of the River Shannon through the Midlands.
“There you are,” he said, using a tender sort of voice that she had never heard him employ before. “Now, there’s a fine sight to return home to.”
“Jack,” snapped Seán immediately, his tone different too, quick to silence him. “Catherine’s inside.”
My mother turned around on the bed and glanced toward the front room at the same moment that Smoot looked across, and her glance, she told me afterward, was torn between the fine bare chest on Seán, muscled and hairless as he lay in the dirty water, and the face on Smoot, which was growing more annoyed by the second. Confused, uncertain what mistake she had made exactly, she turned back around, glad to hide her blushing face.
“Hello, Jack,” she cried cheerfully.
“Kitty.”
“Back from the slog?”
He said nothing and there was a long silence from the living room and my mother longed to turn around to see what was going on. The two boys weren’t talking aloud but even in the silence she could tell there was some class of a conversation going on between them, even if it was only through the way that they looked at each other. Finally, Seán spoke.
“Catherine was just telling me that she has a job interview in the morning. In the tearoom of the Dáil, if you can believe it.”
“I’d believe anything she tells me,” said Smoot. “Is this right, Kitty? Will you be joining the ranks of the working women at last? Christ alive, there’ll be a united Ireland next.”
“If I give a good account of myself,” said Catherine, ignoring his sarcasm. “If I impress the manageress, then hopefully the job will be mine.”
“Catherine,” said Seán, raising his voice. “I’m getting out now, so don’t turn around.”
“Sure I’ll close the door altogether and leave you to dry yourself. Do you need fresh clothes?”
“I’ll get them,” said Smoot, walking into the bedroom and taking Seán’s trousers from the back of a chair and a fresh shirt, underwear and socks from the dresser drawer, which he held in his hands for half a minute while staring down at Catherine, daring her to look up at him, which, eventually, she did.
“Will they not have a problem, do you think?” he asked. “The lads in the Dáil?”
“With what?” she asked, noticing how he held Seán’s clothes protectively in his arms, the boy’s smalls to the fore as if he wanted to intimidate her with them.
“With that,” he said, pointing toward my mother’s stomach.
“I bought a ring,” she replied, holding out her left hand and showing it to him.
“It’s well for those with money. And what about when the child is born?”
“I have a
Great Plan for that,” she said.
“So you keep saying. Will you ever tell us what it is or do we have to guess?”
My mother said nothing and Smoot walked away.
“I hope you get it,” he muttered as he passed her, quiet enough so only the two of them could hear. “I hope you get the bloody job and then you can get the fuck out of here and leave us both in peace.”
An Interview at Dáil Éireann
When my mother arrived at the Dáil the following morning, the wedding ring was clearly visible on the fourth finger of her left hand. She gave her name to the Garda standing on duty at the front door, a sturdy-looking individual whose expression suggested there were a hundred places he would rather be than there, and he consulted a clipboard of the day’s visitors before shaking his head and declaring that she wasn’t on the list.
“I am,” said my mother, leaning forward and pointing at a name next to 11:00—for Mrs. C. Hennessy.
“That says Gogan,” said the Garda. “Catherine Gogan.”
“Well, that’s just a mistake,” said my mother. “My name is Goggin, not Gogan.”
“If you don’t have an appointment, I can’t let you in.”
“Garda,” said my mother, smiling sweetly at him. “I assure you that I am the Catherine Gogan whom Mrs. Hennessy is expecting. Someone has merely written my name down incorrectly, that’s all.”
“And how am I to know that?”
“Well, what if I wait here and if no Catherine Gogan shows up, then can you let me in instead of her? She’ll have missed her chance and I might be in luck for the job instead.”
The Garda sighed. “Ah here,” he said. “I get enough of this at home.”
“Enough of what?”
“I come to work to get away from this type of thing,” he said.
“Away from what type of thing?”
“Go along in and don’t be annoying me,” he said, practically pushing her through the doors. “The waiting room is on the left there. Don’t even think of going anywhere else or I’ll be after you faster than green grass through a goose.”
“Charming,” said my mother, slipping past him and walking toward the room he’d indicated. Stepping inside and sitting down, she looked around at the grandeur of the place and found that her heart was beating hard within her chest.
A few minutes later, the door opened and a woman of about fifty entered, slender as a willow tree with dark-black hair that she wore cropped close to her head.
“Miss Goggin?” she said, stepping forward. “I’m Charlotte Hennessy.”
“It’s Mrs. Goggin, actually,” said my mother quickly, standing up, and in a moment the expression on the older lady’s face changed from friendly to disconcerted.
“Oh,” she said, noticing my mother’s belly. “Oh dear.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said my mother. “Thank you for taking the time. I hope the position is still available?”
Mrs. Hennessy’s mouth opened and shut several times like a fish twisting back and forth on the deck of a boat until the life drained out of it. “Mrs. Goggin,” she said, her smile reasserting itself as she indicated that they should both sit down. “It is still available, yes, but I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Oh?” said my mother.
“I was looking for a girl for the tearoom, do you see? Not a married woman with a child on the way. We can’t have married women here in Dáil Éireann. A married woman must be at home with her husband. Does your husband not work, no?”
“My husband did work,” said my mother, looking her full in the face and allowing her lower lip to tremble a little, a performance that she’d been practicing in the bathroom mirror all morning.
“And he’s lost his position? I’m sorry, but there’s still nothing that I can do for you. All our girls are single girls. Young girls like you, naturally, but unmarried. That’s how the gentlemen members prefer things.”
“He didn’t lose his position, Mrs. Hennessy,” said my mother, removing her handkerchief from her pocket and dabbing at her eyes. “He lost his life.”
“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry,” said Mrs. Hennessy, a hand to her throat now in shock. “The poor man. What happened to him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“The war happened to him, Mrs. Hennessy.”
“The war?”
“The war. He went over to fight just as his father had fought before him and his grandfather before that. The Germans got him. Less than a month ago now. A grenade ripped him to shreds. All I have left of him is his wristwatch and his false teeth. The lower set.”
This was the story that she had concocted and even in her own mind she knew it was a risky one, for there were those, many of whom worked in that very House, who thought poorly of Irishmen who went to fight for the British. But there was a heroic sound to the tale and, for whatever reason, she had decided this was the way to go.
“You poor unfortunate creature,” said Mrs. Hennessy, and when she reached out to squeeze my mother’s hand, she knew that she was halfway home. “And you in the family way. That is a tragedy.”
“If I had time to think of tragedies, it would be,” said my mother. “But I can’t afford to, that’s the truth of it. I’ve this little one to think of,” she added, placing a hand across her belly protectively.
“You’ll not believe this,” said Mrs. Hennessy, “but the same thing happened to my Auntie Jocelyn during the First War. She’d been married to my Uncle Albert for only a year and didn’t he only sign up with the Brits and get himself killed at Passchendaele? The day she heard the news was the same day she found out that she was to have a child.”
“Do you mind if I ask, Mrs. Hennessy,” asked my mother, leaning forward, “how did your Auntie Jocelyn cope? Was she all right in the end?”
“Oh not a bother on her,” declared Mrs. Hennessy. “You never met a woman like her for positivity. She just got on with things, didn’t she? But then that’s what people did in those days. Great women, every one of them.”
“Magnificent women, Mrs. Hennessy. I could probably learn a thing or two from your Auntie Jocelyn.”
The older woman beamed in pleasure but then her smile faded a little again. “Still and all,” she said. “I don’t know if this could work. Do you mind if I ask how long you have to go?”
“Three months,” said my mother.
“Three months. The job is full time. I’d expect you’d have to leave after the baby is born.”
My mother nodded. Of course she had her Great Plan so knew that this wouldn’t be the case but here was her moment and she was determined to seize it.
“Mrs. Hennessy,” she said. “You seem like a kind woman. You remind me of my late mother, who took care of me every day of her life until she succumbed to the cancer last year—”
“Oh, my dear, your trials!”
“You have her kindness in your face, Mrs. Hennessy. Let me cast aside all dignity now and throw myself on your mercy and make a suggestion. I need a job, Mrs. Hennessy, I need one badly so I can put money away for the child when he or she arrives and I have almost nothing as it is. If you could find it in your heart to take me on for these next three months, then I will work like a cart horse for you and give you no cause to regret your decision, and when my time comes, perhaps you can advertise again and find a young girl who needs a chance then just like I need a chance right now.”
Mrs. Hennessy sat back, the tears forming in her eyes. I think of it now and wonder why my mother was applying for a job in the Dáil at all when she should have been across the Liffey giving an audition for Ernest Blythe.
“Your health,” asked Mrs. Hennessy finally. “Do you mind if I ask how your health is in general?”
“Tip-top,” said my mother. “I haven’t had a day’s illness in my life. Not even during these last six months.”
Mrs. Hennessy sighed and looked around the walls, as if all the men represented there in gilt-edged frames could give her guidan
ce. A portrait of W. T. Cosgrave hung over her shoulder and he seemed to be glaring at my mother as if to say that he could see through every one of her lies and if he could only wrench himself away from that canvas he’d chase her out of the place with a stick.
“And the war’s almost over,” said my mother after a moment, a bit of a non sequitur considering the conversation they were having. “Did you hear that Hitler’s killed himself? The future looks bright for us all.”
Mrs. Hennessy nodded. “I did hear, yes,” she said with a shrug. “And good riddance to him, if God will forgive me for saying so. We’ll all have better times ahead of us now, I hope.”
A Longer Stay
“So it’s up to the pair of you,” my mother told Seán and Smoot that night as they sat together in the Brazen Head eating a good stew that they shared out between them from a ceramic tureen. “I can go next week when I get my first week’s pay or I can stay in the flat on Chatham Street until after the baby’s born and give you a third of what I earn in the meantime to cover my rent. I’d like to stay, as it’s comfortable and you’re the only two people I know in Dublin, but you’ve been very good to me since I got here and I don’t want to outstay my welcome.”
“I don’t mind,” said Seán, smiling at her. “I’m happy as things are. But of course, it’s Jack’s place really, so it’s up to him.”
Smoot took a piece of bread from a plate in the center of the table and dragged it around the rim of his bowl, not letting a single morsel of the stew go to waste. He put it in his mouth and chewed it carefully before swallowing and then reached for his pint to wash it down.
“Sure we’ve put up with you this long, Kitty,” he said. “A few more months won’t make much difference, I suppose.”
The Tearoom
The job in the Dáil tearoom was a lot more difficult than my mother had anticipated and, perhaps appropriately considering the setting, each girl had to learn to be diplomatic in her dealings with the elected members. All day long, the TDs marched in and out in a fug of body odor and cigarette smoke, demanding a cream cake or an éclair to go with their cup of coffee and rarely displaying any familiarity with manners. Some flirted with the girls but didn’t intend their teasing to lead anywhere; others hoped that it would and could become aggressive if they were thwarted. There were stories of girls who’d been seduced and then fired when the man grew weary of her; stories of others who’d turned down an indecent proposal and been fired for that too. Once you caught the eye of a TD, it seemed that it could only lead in one direction and that was toward the dole queue. There were just four women elected to the Dáil at the time and my mother referred to them as the MayBes—Mary Reynolds from Sligo-Leitrim and Mary Ryan from Tipperary, Bridget Redmond from Waterford and Bridget Rice from Monaghan—and they were the worst of all, she said, for they didn’t want to be seen speaking to the working girls in case one of the men came over and asked them to warm their pot or help to sew a button back on to their shirt sleeve.