The Linen Queen

by Patricia Falvey

  “Hello, stranger,” I called as I touched him on the shoulder.

  He swung around, startled, as if I had woken him up out of a trance.

  “Oh, hello, Sheila,” he said.

  Every now and then Gavin seemed to go away into himself, as he did now. I shrugged and went back to the dance floor. At nine o’clock the band struck up with “In the Mood” and Tommy pulled me out on the dance floor. I was a good dancer, light on my feet, and I twirled my skirt around me as I moved. I always attracted plenty of attention. As the night went on I had no end of lads dying to dance with me. I hardly sat down. Once in a while I glanced over at Gavin. He had not moved from his stool. Well, it was his loss. I was here to have fun.

  I was in the middle of a dance with a good-looking chap from Camlough when all of a sudden all the lights in the hall went out. Everybody screamed, more in excitement than fear. What was happening now? We pressed together in the dark, our bodies sweaty and breaths ripe from drinking. People struck matches to give them a bit of light. All of a sudden I did not want to be in this crush. I began to push myself towards the door. As I did so, Gavin caught up with me and took my arm.

  “Come on,” he said.

  At first I shook him off. “I can find me own way out, thank you very much,” I said.

  I realized I was angry with him for having ignored me all night. He paid me no mind and firmly escorted me out of the hall. When we reached the street, the sound of air-raid sirens was deafening. Blackout blinds were pulled down in all the windows. Even the carnival was black and silent. I shivered and moved closer to Gavin. The rest of the dancers spilled out onto the street, their earlier merriment silenced. Tommy Markey found me. He staggered over, unsteady on his feet.

  “Come on, Sheila, let’s find the car.”

  “Aye.”

  I turned to go with him but Gavin held on tight to my arm.

  “That’s not a good idea,” he said, looking straight at Tommy. “It’s not safe driving a car with no lights on these black roads. You’d be better off coming across the water with me to Omeath. It’ll be safer.”

  I began to protest, but the look on his face silenced me.

  I turned to Tommy. “It’s all right, Tommy. I’ll go with Gavin. Safe home.”

  Tommy hesitated. “But you came with me…”

  I was afraid Tommy would start something with Gavin. Tommy got very jealous when he had taken drink. I walked over and put my hand on his arm.

  “I had a lovely time, Tommy, but my ma’s waiting for me in Omeath,” I lied. “She gets awful afraid of the sirens. Go on home now, there’s a good lad.”

  I leaned over and kissed him and gave him a gentle shove towards his car.

  “If you’re sure then,” Tommy muttered. “Safe home.”

  “And you,” I called.

  The whine of airplanes sounded overhead. They were flying up the lough again towards Belfast. Or maybe this time they were aiming for Newry. I imagined Ma standing outside the door looking up into the sky. Would she be alarmed? Or would she be happy that maybe she was right and they were coming to bomb the mill? I put the image out of my head.

  “Let’s go,” said Gavin as he led the way down to the pier, where a few boats were docked.

  We climbed into a small motorboat and Gavin started up the engine. We could hardly hear the growl of the motor over the sirens, which still wailed like banshees. It was after eleven o’clock at night but it was still not quite dark. I looked back at the Sea Road. All lights were out as if the place were in mourning. I shuddered. In front of me, across the lough, lay the village of Omeath, which was in the Free State. Lights flickered here and there in the windows of small cottages scattered along the shore and up in the hills beyond. It looked peaceful and comforting, although I knew there were some who would see the lights as defiance. Gavin was looking in that direction as well.

  “Thank God the southern people don’t have to put up with that blackout shite,” he muttered.

  “No, I suppose they prefer helping the Germans see where they’re going.”

  “You sound like a Unionist. I thought you didn’t give a tinker’s curse what people thought about the war.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I just said it to annoy you.”

  He smiled in the dusky light. The little boat plowed her way across the lough, her motor humming. Gavin had his hand on the tiller and he looked easy and relaxed, unlike the cut of him earlier in the evening. Gavin belongs on the sea, I thought.

  “You know I was watching you tonight,” Gavin began, and I stiffened. I knew what was coming—another lecture on my behavior. All sense of peace left me. “Sheila, why do you let the drunken louts paw you the way they do?”

  I turned and faced him, ready for battle.

  “First of all it’s none of your bloody business,” I said. “And second of all, I’ll dance with whoever I want to—and I have plenty of choice. Any one of them is better than a wet blanket that sits at the bar with a face on him would frighten the devil himself.”

  “That’s not the point.” Gavin’s voice had grown cold. “It’s your reputation I’m talking about. You seem to have gone wild ever since the war came. There’s them that thinks you lie down with any Tom, Dick, or Harry.” He paused. “There’s them that says you’re just like your ma was.”

  “And who’s them?”

  “Respectable people.”

  “Nosy oul’ bastards,” I cried. “Jealous oul’ women or ugly young ones who couldn’t get a man to look at them. Or oul’ men who would like a go at me themselves.”

  Gavin and I had had this argument before. He said it was because he cared about me and didn’t want to see me come to any harm. I said that was all shite and he was just an interfering bastard.

  “You’re not my da,” I shouted at him, as I had done many times before. “You’ve no call to be telling me what to do. I’ll live my life as I please.”

  We were quiet then, each of us lost in our own thoughts. Part of me was still livid for having my fun cut short by the bloody sirens, but part of me was glad to be away from the crush of the crowd and the sweaty hands of fellows I didn’t even know. It was always the same. Sometimes I enjoyed the game of teasing them—leading them on—and then slapping them down when they went too far. And other times—well, other times I was disgusted with all of it. I felt clean out here on the water, pure and innocent in a way I could never feel in a pub or at a dance or even at home.

  While I knew Gavin was right in what he said about how people talked about me, I was never going to admit it to him. And the truth was as time went on I really didn’t care what they thought. I had begun to enjoy the reputation I had. It made me feel important. It would have been far worse if nobody had noticed me at all. But every time Gavin brought it up, a spike of pain bore through me. I tried to ignore it. Why would I care what he thought of me? And so I always changed the subject as fast as I could, or walked off without answering.

  I could hardly walk away now. I was trapped in the bloody boat with him. When we reached Omeath, Gavin turned off the motor and tied the boat up at the pier. We climbed out. I stumbled in my high-heeled shoes and Gavin caught my arm. I shook him off. He went over to a shed beside the pier and took out a bicycle, which he must have left there earlier.

  “Let’s walk to my house,” he said, “and we’ll pick up my spare bike. Then I’ll ride over to Queensbrook with you.”

  I didn’t answer, just walked on ahead of him as he wheeled his bicycle up the road from the pier. His house was not far from the shore. It was a small cottage that he had found some years before.

  When we reached his house he laid his bicycle down on the ground.

  “I’ll just go and get the spare one,” he said. And then, “Would you want to come in for a cup of tea?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “I’ll just wait here.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I folded my arms in front of myself and looked away from him. I stood there tapping one
foot on the ground while he went around the back of the house to fetch the other bicycle.

  I could have told him I would see myself home, but I wasn’t that stupid. In fact, I was a bit afraid. The roads up here in Omeath were very dark, and although I ridiculed him when he talked about ghosts and fairies and other spirits, still I hated being out on dark country roads by myself. So I let Gavin ride alongside me until we came down out of Omeath and reached Queensbrook. At the bottom of my street, I stopped and turned to him.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll be seeing you. Safe home.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. I couldn’t read what was in his voice, but I wasn’t concerned. No matter how much we fought, Gavin and I never fell out for long. I would see him again on the Flagstaff, and we would talk as if nothing had happened.

  I pedaled up the rest of the hill. My feet were tortured in my fancy shoes. I couldn’t wait to get home and get them off me. But then I thought about Ma sitting by the fire waiting for me and I slowed down. On one hand she would be gleeful that the bombers had come again and proved her warnings right. On the other hand, she’d be clinging to me in fright. Not for the first time I hoped the bombs would drop on us soon and put us all out of our misery.

  Chapter 6

  As summer gave way to autumn I went to work in the mill every day, working the overtime shifts and trying to hide some of my wages from Ma. Production was going full tilt. There was great demand for supplies for the troops—canvas sheeting, cotton for uniforms, linen for parachutes. We were paid in cash and I carefully opened up the envelopes, took out any bonus money and a few extra coins, and sealed it shut again. If she knew I was hiding some, there was nothing she could do. I was a good liar. I was entitled to what I kept, and more. I had a fair bit of money saved now, and along with the prize money I still had buried in the backyard it would be more than enough to pay my fare to England and get me settled. Whenever Ma asked about the prize money I told her that it had been delayed again because the offices in Belfast had been bombed in the blitz and all the records destroyed. She gave me a suspicious look, but said nothing.

  The Belfast bombings had slowed down, and Newry had still not been hit. By winter I had begun to think again about my decision to stay behind with Ma. What did she need protecting from now? The Jerries were clearly occupied with their doings in the rest of Europe, and while the auxiliary in Newry still went about the business of test air raids and blackouts, nothing bad happened. Everybody remained on alert—after all it would only take one bomb to blow us all to kingdom come. But I was growing bored with the whole lot of it. Some local girls had gone off to work in factories in England—Liverpool and Birmingham and the like. I didn’t fancy the thought of that too much. I had never imagined going across the water just to work in a place that was no better than the oul’ mill. I had imagined a much grander lifestyle altogether—although as I thought about it now I realized I had never really developed a plan. I had never sat down and thought about what in particular I was going to do when I got there. My whole focus was just on getting away. But now, even factory work sounded more appealing than living in the cramped house in Queensbrook with a sanctimonious aunt, a drunken uncle, and a mother who changed personalities as often as some women changed their knickers. I could sense feelings of unease and resentment grow in me. They burst out one Saturday afternoon when I came home from an extra shift at the mill and found a strange girl sitting in the kitchen.

  “Who’re you?” I said sharply. The girl had done nothing wrong, but something about me ma’s smug smile and the girl’s surly look set me on edge.

  “Who’s asking?” she said, just as sharply. Her accent was unmistakable—Belfast—and low class at that.

  Ma stood up, still smiling, and came over to hug me. She was in a good mood. “This is Grainne, love. Grainne Malloy. Isn’t she a lovely wee thing?”

  I stared at the girl. She looked to be about twelve years old. She had frizzy red hair and a face full of freckles. She was scrawny looking, as if she had not had a good meal in a dog’s age. Her eyes were green, and they stared right at me without blinking. Her gaze had no malice in it—but it had no apology and no shame either, and certainly no innocence. It gave me the creeps.

  “Grainne’s from Belfast,” Ma said. “She’s an evacuee from the war. There’s loads of them being billeted down here in the country. I told Mrs. McAteer we’d take a wee girl.” She turned and looked at Grainne. “She’s a bit older than I expected, but och well, she needs a safe place to stay as much as the rest of them.”

  “And where’s she going to sleep?”

  “In the granny room with you, darlin’. I’ll be sleeping in Donal’s room.”

  “In the shrine?” I said. “Kate’s let nobody near that room since Donal left.” I paused. “There must be money in it for her.”

  Ma smiled. “Ah well, there’s the best part of it. We get ten shillings and sixpence a week as long as she’s here.”

  I laughed. “I should have known,” I said. “Aunt Kate would hardly take in a charity case out of the goodness of her heart.”

  “Oh, no love,” said Ma. “She’d have taken her in anyway, I’m sure of it. Your aunt Kate is a very generous woman.”

  Generous my arse. Aunt Kate was an oul’ skinflint, and Ma knew it. Ma was just in one of her flying moods. Times like these she was delusional. An odd feeling came over me. I had expected anger, and indeed it was there, gathering beneath the surface. But I was surprised that another emotion beat anger to the punch. Why I should give a tinker’s curse that Ma had a new girl in the house, I didn’t know. Was I afraid this Grainne would take my place? And if she did, wouldn’t that be a good thing—wouldn’t that set me free to go my own way? And yet the feeling seeped through me, sickening me. Jealousy. I fought it off and seized on the anger instead.

  “You expect me to share a bed with this tinker?” I shouted. “Is it astray in the head you are? I’ll sleep in the outhouse before I’ll do that. Who knows what she’s carrying—lice, disease, scabs? How dare you? I pay my own way here—I’m entitled to my rights.”

  “Och now, Sheila,” Ma began.

  “Och, nothing!” I was raging now. “I’ll not stand for it. You’ll have to send her back. It’s her or me.”

  The girl watched us without a word. There was a hint of a smile on her face as if she were enjoying it. She had an old head on her shoulders this one.

  I went over to Ma and took her by the arms. I shook her hard. “It’s her or me,” I said again. “Make up your mind.”

  Ma put up her hand to smooth my hair. “Ah now, Sheila, she’s just a child. And sure you’ll get used to her. You might even become friends…”

  I pushed her away and ran through the scullery to the back room. Ma was still calling after me but I ignored her. I swore aloud as I tripped over a battered oul’ suitcase that lay open on the floor in the middle of the granny room. So she’d moved in already! Bloody cheek! I reached into a drawer and pulled a small biscuit tin from underneath a pile of knickers. I had been hiding my bonus money in there. I didn’t even open it. I grabbed a big canvas bag and threw the box into it along with clothes, flinging open drawers and the wardrobe and snatching a few things off the dressing table—a brush and comb set, some perfume, and the wee carved mermaid Da had given me years ago. I zipped up the bag and came back out through to the parlor.

  “Suit yourself,” I said.

  Tears stung my eyes. Tears of anger, or hurt, I didn’t know rightly which. I blinked them back. I had no time for crying.

  Ma and the girl watched me in silence. I opened the front door, and then I hesitated on the step, waiting to hear Ma’s pleas to come back. But neither of them spoke. I pulled the door closed behind me and waited. When there was no sign of Ma coming after me I slipped around the back of the house and hurriedly dug up the prize money envelope with my hands and threw it in the bag. Then I set off down the hill to the tram.

  The tram came quickly and I got on, ignoring
the shouts of some local lads who raced down the hill and hopped on at the last second.

  “Hello, Queen Sheila. What’s the craic?”

  “What d’you have in the bag? Are you after robbing the bank?”

  “Are you up for the Ceili House later?”

  I ignored all their questions. I gave them a look would turn them to stone and eventually they shrugged and started talking about football. My heart was beating a mile a minute. I had pictured this moment in my head over and over since I was fourteen years old. I was finally running away—bound for the train to Belfast and then the boat to England. Off to seek my fortune. But in my fantasies I had been giddy with delight, laughing and singing, and everybody congratulating me and wishing me luck. Now, all I felt was sadness. I was as depressed as Ma on her worst days. I felt cold inside as if a part of me had died. I stared at my hands as they held the bag on my knees. They didn’t even seem like my own hands. Nothing felt like me. It was as if the real Sheila had disappeared somewhere and only this shell was left. I moved around on the seat, trying to snap myself out of it. But still the feeling remained. I realized I felt the same way as when I was ten years old and I sank down on the pier after Da’s boat had pulled away to sea. I felt abandoned. I shook my head. Abandoned! Even though I was the one running away from this bloody place, still I had the awful feeling that it and everyone in it had abandoned me. I didn’t understand it one bit.

  I left the tram and made my way to the train station. There was a train to Belfast leaving in two hours. All I could afford was a third-class fare.

  “Such a pretty girl should be traveling first class. Have you no man to buy your ticket for you?” the shrunken oul’ clerk said as he handed me the ticket.

  I ignored him and grabbed it from his hand. I walked away and sat down on a bench farther up the empty platform. I pulled my coat around me as the wind blew through the station. As usual, I had forgotten my gloves. I shrugged, thinking the girl, Grainne, could have them now. I looked out at the empty railway lines, which stretched away to eternity. I tried to shake off the bad feeling.