Shattered Dreams

by Vivienne Dockerty

  The Kelly family consisted of mother, father and Kathleen their daughter. They were a lovely, happy trio, who brightened up the days of the two grieving women while they were there. Kathleen borrowed Irene’s old tap dance shoes and Mr Kelly played the fiddle, and evenings were spent watching the young girl perform Irish jigs or listening to old Irish melodies.

  Eddie, meantime, had begun to take over some of the responsibility of running his father’s firm, though he found it rather difficult because J.C. still had his fingers in many pies. There was a lot of bitterness between them still, especially when Eddie attended the lavish wedding of Caitlin and Larry, then had to watch as the couple moved into the bungalow that should have been his.

  One morning Eddie was eating his breakfast in the kitchen, when J.C. staggered down the stairs.

  “You’ll have to lay the men off on Friday,” he said, pinching a piece of his son’s toast, as Eddie sat munching on his breakfast. “I’ve a bit of a problem with the bank at the moment, I’ve spent all night worrying, but I can’t see any other way.”

  “What kind of problem, Dad? Cash flow problems? I thought those rents that you got from town covered the workforce’s pay.”

  “It’s none of your business really, son. Just do as I say and tell the men we’ll get in touch when we start the building again.”

  “I think it is my business if I have to go and tell them. I know there’s a bit of a slump on in the trade, but I was under the impression you could weather it with all the rents you’re getting in.”

  “I’ve had a lot of expenses what with Caitlin’s wedding and our Sheena’s walking out with Harry Bennett now, so she’ll be looking for a big wedding before long.”

  “And a bungalow no doubt, but don’t expect me to build it for them.”

  “Cheeky sod. Think of all the experience yer got in building that one. Anyway I’ve got to see the bank manager again today, so let’s hope he’s got some better news.”

  To cheer Irene, Eddie decided to take her to the Argyle Theatre. He couldn’t afford the best seats, because his dad was back to paying him three half crowns again, so they made do with the nine penny seats in the gallery.

  The first act was Max Wall, a young comedian who had the audience rolling in the aisles, then Tubby Turner whose act was wrestling with a deck chair, and a singer named Donald Peers, who was billed as the Laughing Cavalier. His songs were very catchy, especially the one that became his signature tune, ‘By a babbling brook.’

  Eddie took Irene to the Blackpool Supper Bar on Conway Street and treated her to a plate of fish and chips.

  They waited by the Wallasey bus stop later and Eddie moaned about how nothing had changed in the Dockerty household since he decided to go back again.

  “There’s Caitlin and Larry lording it up in that bungalow, Dad’s still an old cuss, Mother’s spending money like it’s going out of fashion and here I am, still only seeing you once a week like I did before.”

  “I know, Eddie, I thought things would have changed for the better when you went back there. I wish we could get married, then we could live together with mother instead of having all these different lodgers all the time.”

  “I’ve been thinking that maybe we could get away one weekend, Irene. Just the two of us in a nice little hotel.”

  “Oh I don’t know about that, Eddie, it sounds a bit naughty. Anyway neither of us could afford to find the money for a hotel bill.”

  They said goodbye as the Wallasey bus drew up, both reflecting sadly on the situation they were in.

  J.C. sat in his bedroom with his head in his hands. It was worse than he had thought. The bank was drawing all his loans in and the houses from which he got his rents were all to be sold. He was told to file for bankruptcy, losing the quarry, the house and all the land that his father, Eddie Dockerty, had acquired the generation before. He glanced at the pills that his doctor had given him. Should he take the lot now with a bottle of whisky and be done with it, or face his family and rescue what he could? It had to be the latter, he was a Catholic wasn’t he and didn’t want to roast for eternity in a fiery Hell.

  J.C. chose a Sunday afternoon to tell his family. He could guarantee that they would all be there because Ellen had the day off and Gladys cooked a roast dinner with the help of Sheena and Rosaleen. They all usually sat around in the sitting room later, the girls to relate a bit of gossip and the lads to discuss football and who was going to win the Cup.

  J.C. cleared his throat nervously, looking over at Gladys who was resting her legs on an upholstered stool.

  “I’ve got something to tell you all.”

  His family looked at him expectantly. Maybe Sheena had announced the date of her wedding, another good do like the last one they hoped.

  “I’m afraid I’ve got to file for bankruptcy.”

  He could feel the heat of his body pouring into his brain as he said it and through the mist that seemed to envelop him causing his eyes to fill with tears, he saw the shocked faces on all of his children. There was a silence for a moment, then Gladys came over with a handkerchief. She stood in front of him while he wiped his face and so his children couldn’t see him disgrace himself.

  “It’s a joke, isn’t it, Dad?” said Sam, the youngest, who went through life with his head in the clouds and never worried where his parents got their money from.

  “No it isn’t, son,” answered J.C. morosely. “The slump’s affecting all sorts of people and I had a lot of loans that the bank’s called in.”

  “Does that mean that I have to get a job now, Dad?” asked Rosaleen, who had just left the Ladies College in Chester and had a small allowance given to her.

  “Yes, Rosie, I’m sorry, but you’re very good at flower arrangements, maybe a florist will take you on.”

  “And I suppose that goes for the rest of us,” Eddie put in bitterly. “Us lads will have to scrat around for a living like the rest of the men in the building trade, fighting for anything that we can turn our hand to.”

  “We could ask Uncle Michael if he’d set us on at Sheldon,” said Terry. “Seeing that it was our Great Aunt Maggie that started the company, we’re entitled being family.”

  “Don’t even think about it. You’re not going cap in hand to that two-timing sod, begging your pardon, Glad.”

  “He may have a point, though, Johnny. Sheldon Properties will weather the storm like they always have and now Michael’s sons are at the helm, surely they would take some of their kin on.”

  “Gladys! Michael will probably buy everything I owned from the bank at a knock down price. No, they go to work for him over my dead body.”

  “So when is this all going to happen?” asked Sheena. “I won’t be getting my big white wedding then, Dad?”

  “No, sorry Princess and your poor mother is going to lose this house, cancel her accounts at all the department stores and probably have to resign from the Rotary Club. Isn’t that right Glad?”

  His wife nodded at him glumly.

  “So where are you going to be living then?” asked Eddie, thinking that he may as well move back to Wallasey, at least he would get a welcome at Irene’s home.

  “On the corner. I put a semi in your mother’s name on the advice of Mr Martin last year. That’s where we’ll be living. It has three bedrooms, so you lads can sleep in one, the two girls in another and me and your mother in the double room.”

  “But those houses only have a box room for the third room,” wailed Rosaleen. “Sheena and I can’t possibly share a bed.”

  “Then you’ll have to find a husband like Sheena has. Sheena, you’ll have to push your beau to get wed.”

  He left his family then and limped back to the bedroom where he lay on his bed in turmoil. The kids would hate him now, though they would soon get over it. It was Glad, his wife, he felt sorry for. She’d gone from rags to riches and would be going back to rags again.

  Eddie found his mother in the kitchen later where she was tidying away some of the dinner pl
ates that had been left to drain on the rack.

  “You didn’t seem surprised, Mum,” he said, thinking sadly that out of all of them she was the one who was going to suffer, having to give up this house and the lifestyle she had grown to love.

  “I wondered, Eddie, when your father put that house in my name. He never does anything unless there’s a reason behind it. That’s why you never got your bungalow, because he wanted to play the big man and give it as a wedding gift to Caitlin. I had nothing when I married your father. As you know I was working as a nurse in a cottage hospital near Llangollen and never dreamt that one day I would live in a big house like this one. It’s your dad’s dreams that have been shattered, losing all that he’s built up since his father passed away, and you children who will have a share of nothing. At least the girls will make good marriages, but you lads are going to have to make your own way.”

  “Oh I can get a job easily enough, don’t you worry about me. I was working for a scrap dealer when I lived away before and the bloke would give me my old job back if I asked him to.”

  “No, Eddie, not a rag and bone man! Surely you could use your expertise in the building trade. With your experience you could easily become a foreman.”

  “Too young I think, I’ve only just had my twentieth birthday. Anyway, Mum, you’ve enough to worry you, so let me do the worrying about my life.”

  “You’re not going to leave me again, are you Eddie? Your dad will need you and the boys to keep the home fires burning. He’s too ill to find himself a job, so we’ll need all your wages coming in.”

  Eddie sighed to himself inwardly. Irene and him would never marry the way things were going on.

  Irene couldn’t help but feel a little smug when she heard of the Dockerty’s downfall. What a come down for Gladys, Eddie’s mother, having to leave her great big house and slum it in a small semi. Though maybe some good would come out of it. At least now a lowly shop girl would be on an equal footing with them.

  Work had started on a flour mill near to the dock road where Irene lived. She told Eddie about it when he came to see her one evening to report that he hadn’t found any work. The situation in the building trade was getting worse, no new estates were being built and what little building there was had queues of men like Eddie wanting to be taken on.

  He visited the flour mill site the next morning, but the only vacancy they had was for laying drains. “Not a problem,” Eddie had told the foreman, his spirits soaring as he felt he’d got the job, but then he was asked if he was in a trade union. Eddie shook his head; his father had never employed union men because he had the fixed idea that they would disrupt the job.

  “Sorry,” said the elderly chap. “No union card, no job.”

  It posed a problem for Eddie, as he was fed up with trailing about looking for work on the Wirral and his next port of call would have to be Liverpool. His brothers had taken temporary work in a factory in Bromborough, but Eddie hated the idea of being cooped up inside.

  As he walked along the dock road dejectedly, a flash of inspiration came. He’d travel over to Neston and see if his uncle would give him a hand. Not take him on as a workman, no that would surely give his father a heart attack, but maybe the Sheldon work force belonged to a union and he could help him get a card?

  Eddie caught the train from Woodside to Neston. Luckily he had the fare, as his mother had given him a little money that morning. Selwyn Lodge, where his uncle lived, was near to St Winefred’s, the church that the Dockerty family sometimes attended. Though Eddie had never visited his uncle’s home, he certainly knew where it was.

  “Yes, Mr Haines is at home,” said the maid as she answered Eddie’s tentative knock on the front door. “Whom shall I say is calling?”

  “My name is Edward Dockerty, would you tell him it’s J.C.’s son.”

  “Certainly, Sir, just a moment.”And the maid disappeared down the hallway.

  Eddie stepped back to look in appreciation at the old house that belonged to his uncle. He knew the story of the split between his Uncle Michael and Hannah, his grandmother. Sometimes J.C. would bemoan the fact that if Michael hadn’t been so greedy, it would have been them that lived at Selwyn Lodge and they would have had all the advantages that Michael’s sons had. But maybe his uncle had more of a head for business, thought Eddie disloyally. His father was never thrifty and spent money as it came along.

  The maid came back and announced that Mr Haines would see him in the drawing room. With a sigh of relief he followed the woman, glad that his uncle hadn’t turned him away. He was shown into a large room that was beautifully furnished and sitting at a mahogany bureau near the window was Maggie’s son. A stooped man in his late eighties, white haired with a ruddy complexion and wearing what Eddie knew to be a dark red quilted smoking jacket.

  “Well,” said Eddie’s uncle. “So you’re one of J.C. Dockerty’s sons. Didn’t ever think I’d meet any of Hannah’s issue, can’t say I blame her for never speaking to me again. All long dead now, my enemies, though I’ll probably have to answer to Him upstairs when my time comes. Come over in the light and let me take a look at you. Legs have gone now. Have to use them dreadful sticks or be pushed about like a baby in a damned basket chair.”

  Eddie walked over with his hand outstretched. His uncle’s grip was firm and there was nothing but pleasure in his rheumy eyes when he said he was glad at last to meet with one of his own.

  “I’ll ring the maid and ask her to bring in some refreshments. Pity you didn’t come and visit me last year and you could have met your Aunt Kate before she died.”

  “It isn’t really a social call, Uncle, though I’ve always wanted to meet you, but my father told us to keep away.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen him from time to time at St. Winefred’s, but he’s always snubbed me and I can’t say I blame him in a way. But you’re here now. Ah, thank you Mary, I was just going to ring for you. Just leave the pot of tea near Eddie, I’m sure he will pour.”

  Eddie pulled up an upholstered chair after he had poured the tea, so that he could be on the same level as his uncle, who was sitting on something like a piano stool.

  “I’ll come straight to the point, Uncle Michael. Dad has had to go bankrupt. It wasn’t his fault, but he had taken quite a few loans out and with there being a slump in the building industry the bank has called in his loans. So, my brothers and I have had to take work elsewhere. We’ve all been apprenticed to father, but now my brothers have decided to take factory work. I’ve got the chance of working on a flour mill down in Wallasey, but I need to be in a trade union for them to take me on. I wondered if you had a union work force and if there’s any chance you could get me a card?”

  Michael looked at Eddie for a moment considering the young man’s request. He owed the family something, didn’t he, and perhaps this was a way that might give his troubled soul some peace?

  “You could come and work for Sheldon, Eddie. I’m sure my sons would find a place for you and as we haven’t been troubled much by the slump, there’d be plenty of work for your brothers too.”

  “I don’t think my father would be happy with that, Sir, he would see it as being disloyal to the Dockerty name. But if you could see your way to getting me in a union I would be very much obliged.”

  The old man reached into one of the cubicles in a bureau and brought out a sheet of Sheldon Property headed writing paper. He wrote something at length upon it, then handed it to Eddie with a wry smile.

  “It’s a pity that is all you’re asking me to do for you Eddie, but this letter will see you right with the union branch in Birkenhead.”

  He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a five pound note.

  “And this will help you with expenses until you earn a wage again.”

  Eddie was over the moon now that he had got his job laying down the drains in the foundations of the flour mill. He was able to go to Irene’s house for his evening meal, then walk along later to the bus stop.

/>   One evening in February the snow began to fall with ferocity, just as Eddie was about to take his leave and say goodnight to Irene.

  “You can’t go home in this, Eddie,” she said, looking fearfully at the inch of snow that covered the ground already along the dock road.“They might stop the buses when you get to the terminus or maybe in the morning you won’t be able to get into work.”

  “I don’t think they’ll expect us in if it continues to fall like this, Irene, but I agree, I might have to walk it home if they stop the buses at Woodside.”

  “I think you’d better stay over then. You can stay in the spare bedroom, as you know we’ve no lodgers here at the moment. I’ll just ask mother for her permission, but I’m sure she’ll agree that you can stay given the circumstances.”

  Lily agreed reluctantly, but warned that there was to be no shenanigans under her roof.

  The couple laughed and agreed there wouldn’t be and around about ten they all went to bed.

  It was around two o’ clock in the morning when Eddie heard a noise coming from the landing. Stealthy footsteps trod on the wooden staircase, then silence as the sound disappeared into the night. He was dying for a pee and felt around under the bed for a chamber pot. There wasn’t one, was he to do it out of the window instead? He groaned inwardly, then putting his overcoat on over his vest and long johns, he went down the staircase, intending to go through the kitchen to the outer door and relieve himself in the garden privy.

  Irene was sitting in her blue heavy quilted dressing gown by the dying embers of the kitchen fire, as he crept past the back of the sofa that she sat on. He signalled that he was off to the privy and she whispered that she would make him a cup of tea.

  Her body was warm as he pressed his shivering one against her later. Her lips were velvety and inviting and he couldn’t help himself. Nearly five long years of denial for each other’s bodies was long enough. They helped themselves to each other, fulfilling a need that would satisfy until the day they said “I do”.