by Anne Bennett
‘I can’t ask her to tie herself down to an old man,’ Alan cried. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lily, I’m nearly double her age.’
‘Didn’t stop you bedding her, your age,’ Lily snapped. ‘Didn’t think of it then.’
‘I know,’ Levingstone admitted. ‘To my shame I used to try most of them out; thought of it as a sort of perk of the job.’
‘Till Aggie?’
‘Yeah, till Aggie. She’s really got under my skin. I have never had another girl in my bed since the day I took Aggie in, nor have I wanted to.’
‘I think you love her, Alan.’
‘Christ, Lily, what’s love anyway?’ Levingstone said. ‘I haven’t had any experience of love. All I can say is that I feel more for her than I have ever felt for anyone in the whole of my life.’
‘And what does she feel for you?’
‘What could she feel but gratitude? She is so very beautiful. Born into another life, she could have married anyone. They would have been queuing up.’
‘I know that,’ Lily said sharply. ‘Probably so does she,’ cos she ain’t daft. But she weren’t born into a different life, was she? This is the only one she has, and if you marry her you will be her saviour, because if that girl goes on to the streets she will be destroyed.’
‘I know, and that’s eating me up inside,’ Levingstone admitted. ‘Even at the club, the loathing for what she has to do is in every line of her body. She hides it well and only someone like me, who knows almost every beat of her heart, can see her shame and deep sadness. She seems to lose a small part of herself every time, and afterwards she drinks far too much and has too much opium as well – to help her forget, she says.’
‘It’s the only way she can cope, I suppose,’ Lily said. ‘She might not have such a great need for it if you were to marry her, though. Put it to her. She’ll know what the alternative is. She isn’t a bloody imbecile.’
‘Rogers won’t like it,’ Levingstone said.
‘Bugger Rogers!’ Lily cried. ‘Anyroad, I would say you had taken that man at his word nearly all the years of your adult life and didn’t think a thing of it. But this is different and you’ve said as much. I mean, it isn’t as if you were getting married every other day of the week, is it?’
‘No, but—’
Lily put her hand on his arm and, looking him straight in the eyes, she said, ‘Alan, you have a right to a life of your own, and so does Aggie. It isn’t a lot to ask.’
‘You’re right,’ Levingstone said decisively. ‘I will square it with Rogers first and then talk to Aggie.’
That evening, Aggie was in the bedroom dressing before going down to the club when Levingstone came into the room. When she turned and smiled at him, he felt his heart turn over. He wanted Aggie by his side legitimately and always, because he loved her dearly. Now there was not the slightest doubt in his mind.
He put his arms around her, kissed her gently and then, taking her hand, led her into the sitting room and pulled her down onto the sofa beside him.
‘I need to talk to you, Aggie.’
Aggie was filled with apprehension. She had been watching the calendar herself, and knew that approaching thirty was the thing that most of the girls looked on with dread. She was as sought after as ever, though, and she still danced as well as she ever did. Surely that counted for something?
But Alan was looking at her in such an odd way. She was totally stunned when he suddenly kissed her fingers lingeringly before asking, ‘What do you really think about me, Aggie?’
‘You, Alan?’ Aggie cried. ‘Why, I am surprised that you have to ask. I love you dearly. But you must already know that.’
‘No, I don’t. I mean, I wasn’t sure,’ Levingstone said.
Aggie saw how nervous he was. She had never seen him in any way vulnerable before and she felt for him, so she leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips.
Levingstone grasped her and held her tight. ‘Do you truly love me?’ he demanded. ‘With all your heart and soul?’
When Aggie had said she loved Levingstone she had meant it, but despite the fact that she slept with him, she thought of him as her protector, almost a father figure. However, she knew instinctively that that wasn’t what he wanted to hear and she also knew that her future would be decided by the way she answered him. So she said, ‘Yes, Alan, I love you with all my heart and soul. I cannot imagine life without you.’
‘I love you too,’ Alan said. ‘But I am twice your age.’
‘You will never be old to me, Alan,’ Aggie assured him. ‘I said once that you were timeless and I stand by that.’
‘I am asking you to marry me, my dear.’
Aggie gasped. Never, ever in a million years had she expected that. Levingstone had told her many times that he would never marry one of the girls, that his bosses wouldn’t allow it. Anyway, he had said he had never felt like making the brief flings he had had with most of the girls into something more permanent.
‘My God, Alan, you have taken me totally by surprise,’ Aggie admitted. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight, feeling suddenly so light-hearted and happy. Marriage to Alan would mean the end of prostitution for her. Oh God, what a blessed relief that would be.
But she had to be sure. She would hate to have this redemption, this stab at happiness dangled in front of her, and then see it snatched away again, so her answer was slightly tentative. ‘The answer is yes, of course, a million times yes, but will you be let marry me?’
Levingstone, for a moment, recalled the blistering row he had had with Rogers after he had spoken with Lily. ‘Rogers wasn’t happy about it, but he came round when he saw how determined I was.’
Aggie sighed. ‘You have made me the happiest woman in the world. Really, you have. I can’t find the words to tell you just how much your proposal means to me.’
Levingstone held the slight girl in his arms, their lips met, and he knew with certainty that he would love Aggie till the breath left his body. She was still insecure, however, and asked, ‘What about Rogers?’
‘Don’t fret,’ Levingstone said. ‘It really is all right. All I was asked to do was to keep it quiet for now.’
Aggie pulled away from him. ‘Ah God, and I wanted to shout it from the rooftops,’ she said, disappointed. ‘Why have we got to keep it quiet, as if it is something to be ashamed of, instead of something that we should be celebrating?’
‘Because Rogers demands it,’ Levingstone said. He put his arms around Aggie again and drew her close because he knew what he had to say wouldn’t please her, but it was the compromise that he had had to make for Rogers to agree at all. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said gently, ‘you know how popular you are with the punters, and Rogers knows too of course, and not just because I have mentioned it. Your reputation goes before you, my dear, and so naturally he doesn’t want to lose you just yet.’
‘What are you saying, Alan?’
‘I am saying that we can get engaged now, but secretly.’
‘Secretly?’ Aggie repeated. ‘What is the point of that?’
‘Only for a time.’
‘How much time?’
‘A year.’
‘A year? Oh, Alan, come on,’ Aggie cried, scarcely able to believe it. ‘Waiting a whole year before we can tell anyone is just a joke.’
‘Believe me, Agnes, it is no joke,’ Levingstone said. ‘And I have no alternative but to agree if I want to stay on as manager of the club. And to be quite candid, darling, I know nothing else.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Listen, pet,’ Levingstone said, giving Aggie’s shoulder a squeeze, ‘whenever we announce our engagement the news might not be popular because from that moment onwards you will be off limits to all the punters.’
‘You have no idea how good that sounds.’
‘I know how you feel about that – how you have always felt about it,’ Levingstone said. He remembered trying to explain that to his furious boss when Rogers had said to him, ‘I
f you are determined to be wed, though for the life of me I can’t understand why, then why marry one of the strumpets that work for you? You are a well-set-up man and could have someone respectable.’
Levingstone smiled inwardly and imagined the reaction a respectable girl and her family would have at the realisation that her future home would be above the club, not to mention the line of work he was in. But, no matter, he didn’t want a respectable girl, or any girl at all but Aggie. ‘Agnes isn’t like the others,’ he’d told Rogers.
‘Oh? So she doesn’t sleep with men, then?’ Rogers asked sarcastically.
‘Yes, of course,’ Levingstone said. ‘But—’
‘Then she is a whore, a harlot like all the rest.’
‘No, she’s different. She was forced into it,’ Levingstone went on. ‘She was raped and—’
‘Surely you haven’t fallen for that old line?’ Rogers said contemptuously. ‘I bet she asked for everything she got. Still, if you are so adamant that you must marry her, then you say nothing about it until Christmas 1915, if you want to keep your job. You can get engaged then, and marry the following year. I tell you now, if she had been much younger I wouldn’t even have considered this. But, as you say, she will be thirty next summer and so her usefulness at the club is coming to an end anyway.’
‘She’ll not be happy about waiting so long.’
‘Do you think I give a damn about what these women are happy or unhappy about?’
‘You should,’ Levingstone said. ‘They do have feelings, you know. After all, you have made plenty of money from them.’
‘And why not cash in on the girls who can’t wait to have sex with any Tom, Dick or Harry?’ Rogers said. ‘They are not real women and don’t deserve any normal understanding. You tell your woman that’s the way it is.’
So Levingstone told Aggie. Then he went on to say, ‘Aggie, you know it will break my heart too, seeing you, who are promised to me, go off with other men. Next year will be a hard one for both of us, but it will pass eventually and then in the spring of 1916 we will become man and wife.’
Aggie saw Levingstone’s concern for her furrowing his brow. She felt sorry for him because she knew he was being forced into this just as much as she was. However much she protested, there was no alternative, so she kissed his lips gently and said, ‘Roll on 1916.’
The war had little impact on most of those in Buncrana, but the Sullivan family took more of an interest in it because of Finn’s involvement. He wasn’t the only one, by any means, though, as more and more Irish boys answered the call. The Sullivan men would buy the English as well as Irish papers in Buncrana on Saturday and scrutinise them carefully.
This was a war the like of which had never been seen before. The family read with horror of the machine guns that could rip a platoon of soldiers to bits in seconds, and the new naval weapon, the submarine, that sailed below the water. It also soon became apparent, as 1914 drew to a close, that this was no short skirmish that would be over by Christmas and that soon, with his training over, Finn would be in the thick of it.
His family always looked forward to his letters. He wrote just as he spoke so it was like having him in the room for a short time, and while he was training he wrote regularly. He mentioned marching till he had blisters on top of blisters, rifle practice and attacking a straw dummy with a bayonet attached to a rifle, and he could see a purpose to those sorts of exercises. Some of it, though, seemed so pointless, like the proper hospital corners they had to have on the beds and the shoes that had to be polished so that their sergeant could see his face in them.
Tom didn’t care how boring or pointless the training was because he knew while Finn was there he was safe. And then in early December, with his training completed, he mentioned he had a spot of leave coming up. It was only three days, so he said he would not make it home. Though everyone said that it was embarkation leave, no one knew for sure. He added that if they were heading for France he hoped that the French girls lived up to expectations.
The tone of Finn’s letter amused Tom, Joe and Nuala, but it annoyed Thomas John, who said the boy wasn’t taking the war seriously enough.
‘God, Daddy, won’t he have to get a grip on himself soon enough?’ Tom said. ‘From what I hear, war is no picnic and it will affect Finn as much as any of the others.’
Biddy pursed her lips. ‘War or no war,’ she said, ‘Finn has been brought up to be a decent Catholic boy and I can’t believe he talks of women the way he does. Of course you get all types in these barracks. I just hope he doesn’t forget himself and the standards he was brought up with.’
Joe sighed. ‘Do you know what I wish? Just that Finn keeps his bloody head down. That’s all I want for him.’
‘Don’t speak in that disrespectful way to your mother,’ Thomas John admonished.
‘I’m sorry, Mammy,’ Joe said. ‘But, really, isn’t Finn’s survival the most important thing?’
‘Anyway,’ Tom put in, ‘it’s likely the way he copes. He’s probably a bit scared, or at least apprehensive.’
‘Doesn’t say so,’ Thomas John said, scrutinising the letter again. ‘According to this, he can’t wait.’
‘Wasn’t he always like that?’ Joe said. ‘Claiming he was scared of nothing, even as a wee boy?’
‘Aye,’ agreed Tom.
Nuala said suddenly, ‘Why are we bothering about the words he writes in a letter? I agree with Joe. All I care about is that Finn will come home hale and hearty when this is over.’
‘That’s all any of us cares about, cutie dear,’ Thomas John said gently. ‘We just have different ways of expressing things. Didn’t know myself how much I would miss the boy until he wasn’t here. He would irritate the life out of me at times and yet I would give my eyeteeth now for him to swing into the yard this minute, back where he belongs.’
Finn’s regiment was apparently sent to the Western Front, and he was now in France. His letters home were more spasmodic and he could tell them little. All the soldiers had been warned by their commanding officers against worrying the people back home.
The papers, though, were full of battles at places the family had never heard of – Gallipoli, the Dardanelles and Ypres – resulting in such terrible casualty figures. It was estimated that as many as 250,000 men had died by the summer of that year, and the constant worry about Finn was like a nagging tooth.
About 125,000 Irish men and boys had volunteered for war, and by the late summer of 1915 some of those injured began to arrive back home. People were shocked to see the young, fit men who had marched off return with missing limbs, or wheezing like old men as their lungs were eaten away by mustard gas. Others were blind or shell-shocked. Many more were killed, their bodies left behind in foreign fields.
‘And for what?’ Thomas John asked. ‘We were promised Home Rule by the end of last year and now here we are, halfway through 1915, and it seems as far away as ever. Put on hold, they said, because of the war. Forgotten about, more like.’
‘That is only what you expected,’ Joe pointed out.
‘Aye, I know,’ Thomas John said, ‘but it gives me no pleasure to be right and think that my youngest son is risking his life for nothing.’
‘We are only going to control twenty-six counties anyway,’ Tom put in.
‘Well, what do we control now?’ Thomas John demanded. ‘Bugger all! That’s what! Small wonder that some of the lads are joining that Citizens’ Army,’ he added. ‘I hear they have guns and ammunition and all, down in Dublin.’
‘Aye, and it’s known as the Irish Volunteer Force now, Daddy,’ Joe said. ‘And haven’t the Ulster Volunteer Force their own stash of weapons and had them this long while?’
‘Aye, and under the eye of the British Government too,’ Thomas John said. ‘It will end in civil war yet, mark my words.’
It had been one of the hardest years of Aggie’s life and she loathed the thought of another man’s hand mauling her when she felt that now she belonged totally to
Levingstone. He had taken her out and bought her a large diamond ring, which for the moment she was not allowed to wear. He promised that he would announce their engagement on Christmas Eve, and ever after that she could wear the ring.
He said she could tell Lily, knowing that she was longing to, and he took her over to her friend one day. Aggie found the world to be a strange place outside the club, which had cocooned her from the war and its effects. She saw women driving omnibuses, cars and even lorries, and she asked Lily about it.
‘That ain’t all, girl, either,’ Lily said. ‘There’s girls working in Dunlops in Rocky Lane – them that makes all the rubber – and they’re in all the munitions factories around as well.’
‘Munitions?’
‘You know, weapons, bullets and that.’
‘Oh…’
‘Well, someone’s got to do it with all the men called up,’ Lily pointed out. ‘Well paid, they say it is, as well. Plenty of jobs for women today. Need it and all, many of them, for a soldier’s pay and the separation allowance a wife is paid is little more than a pittance. Mind, there ain’t much in the shops to buy and even less when the nobs buy it in loads to stockpile in their houses. They don’t go themselves, of course, and mix with us riffraff. They have their carriages parked down a side street and they sent their coachmen in. Course, that’s if the grocer is as bad as they are. Some of them are rationing stuff now, however much money you have, which is fairer, of course. I don’t expect this affects you at all.’
Aggie shook her head. ‘I don’t know how Bessie manages it, but she is a first-rate cook and produces some lovely meals. I suppose I should feel guilty that the war hasn’t changed my life at all.’
‘Why feel guilty?’ Lily said. ‘It ain’t your fault. Anyroad, haven’t you had any young officers down in the club for you to “entertain”?’
‘A few.’
‘Well, that’s doing your bit – flying the flag, as it were.’
‘Some of them are a lot nicer than your average punter,’ Aggie said. ‘And caught unawares their eyes often look so sad, almost bleak. I had an officer in just a couple of weeks ago, a young man – early twenties, no more – and he had to tell the soldiers in his command that if they are side by side with a brother as they go over the top and one is killed, then the other must step over him and go on. The officer did as he was told and he was haunted by it. He said good, decent men, often with loving families back home, men he had had a laugh and joke with just minutes before, he had to order over the top and see them mown down or blown to pieces. Not in ones or twos, he said, though that would have been bad enough, but wave upon wave of them. And yet he had to swallow the bile that would rise in his throat and signal for another batch to be butchered, on and on till the trenches were empty and the ground was littered with bodies, or parts of bodies and the organs inside them. Body pieces, he called them.’