by Anne Bennett
‘Aye. That’s a good idea,’ Martin said. ‘Pity I’ll not get to meet this man you’re marrying. Fair sprung that fact on everyone. If you could put the wedding forward a month, it would be before we sail and me and Siobhan could come over.’
‘It’s all settled for mid-September,’ Hannah said, and she was glad it was. She didn’t want eagle-eyed and outspoken Martin over there increasing her apprehension about marriage, for she knew Martin would not find much to admire in Arthur Bradley.
But Martin did not know the whole story and never would. Martin could never know how Hannah longed not only for marriage, respectability and a baby, but also for a man of her own, who would love and cherish her above all others, like her father had never done. Mike had, and oh how she’d missed him and had shed bitter tears when she found out he was dead.
Josie, Hannah was to find out, was not a good sailor. Her face had taken on a greenish tinge even before the shores of Ireland had totally disappeared from view.
Josie had never felt so miserable in all of her life, nor had she ever felt so sick, had never been so sick either.
By the time she’d been half an hour on the boat, her whole stomach ached with vomiting. She leant against Hannah, who was sitting beside her on the bench on the open deck, braving the sharp winds that whipped the seas to rolling white-fringed breakers and carried the drizzling rain with it. Cold and damp though it was, it was better than inside which smelt of Guinness, cigarettes and vomit. Hannah felt a stab of sympathy for the child who must be feeling so lost and afraid and so sick, for her face was still wan and pale, her long brown hair straggly and glistening from the unrelenting mizzle which had thoroughly dampened both of them. But Josie took comfort in Hannah’s arms around her, like she had when Hannah had held her head as she was sick over the side of the boat, pulling her hair back and wiping her face later with a damp cloth she had with her.
Ever since that day in the barn, Josie had felt differently about Hannah, but for all that, those last traumatic days of her mother’s life were fraught ones and Josie was frightened of the future. But she now trusted Hannah and often sought her out. Hannah was frightened of the future, too, for Arthur’s attitude to her bringing Josie home hadn’t softened. He totally ignored all the reasons she’d listed for having to return with Josie in the second letter she’d written to him. Posthaste, his reply came back. Hannah was to leave the child in the care of the social services who would now be responsible for her welfare.
Hannah had been simultaneously horrified and angry and she’d hurled the offending letter into the fire, lest Josie catch sight of it. She thought the child had enough to put up with. She’d been wrenched from her home, with her parents dead and her sisters and brothers spread about the globe. She had only Hannah and she’d have to make Arthur see that. She wouldn’t allow Josie to feel the rejection she’d always felt herself.
Josie would never forget her first view of Birmingham as they emerged from New Street Station. She’d recovered quickly once she’d left the rolling boat and had quite enjoyed the train, though she’d been very hungry and glad of the reviving tea and sandwiches Hannah had bought at the platform buffet at a place called Crewe, where they’d had to change trains.
She seen little of Dublin as they passed it on the way to the Port of Dún Laoghaire, but the noise and bustle seemed all around her as she surveyed Birmingham, her new home. Hannah had been right that day in the barn, Josie thought, for she had never seen so many lorries, or cars or people – hundreds of people thronging the shops, or alighting from large rumbling buses or swaying trams that rattled alarmingly along the rails set into the road.
Not that she had time to stand and stare, for she had trouble keeping up with Hannah’s easy strides, especially hampered as she was by a case and a bundle. And all the time Hannah talked, pointing out this shop and that, and telling her she’d take her to something called the Bull Ring soon.
At last, they stood at the bus stop opposite the police station in a road aptly named ‘Steelhouse Lane’ outside a large building which Hannah told her was a general hospital. ‘Used to be the workhouse, I’m told,’ she said. ‘Gloria Emmerson said the older people still don’t like going in when they’re sick or anything.’
Josie studied the grim building and honestly didn’t blame them, but before she was able to reply, the bus screeched to a halt beside them. Josie was glad Hannah had chosen a bus. It was unnerving enough and nothing like the cosy single-deckers she was used to where you knew everyone on board, but the trams frightened her to death.
They sat upstairs, so that Josie could see more of the city she’d come to live in, while Hannah pointed out landmarks to her, like the large green clock at Aston Cross, and Salford Bridge that spanned the canal, unaware how horrified Josie was by everything.
She’d been as surprised and shocked by the back-to-back houses as Hannah had been when she’d first arrived and depressed by the grim greyness of the whole place. She looked with horror at the huge factory chimneys belching smoke into the spring air and became aware of the pungent stink that tickled her nose and lodged at the back of her throat. She thought the canal, that Hannah pointed out with such pride as she explained that Birmingham was ringed with such waterways, was horrible. She’d never seen such brown, oil-slicked, stagnant water and it made a sharp contrast to the rippling stream near her old home that had glinted in the sun as it babbled over its stony bed.
As the bus rumbled its way towards Erdington, Josie felt depression settle on top of her. She thought everywhere drab and without a blade of grass anywhere. Homesickness swept over her, so strong she felt tears prickling her eyes. She wondered how Hannah could stand living in such a place. She was frightened of arriving at her destination, frightened of Mrs Emmerson and her guesthouse where Hannah worked and wished with all her heart she was back in her home in Wicklow.
But Hannah had not exaggerated about Grange Road. It was lovely. The pavements were as wide as the road and had trees planted every few yards and that alone went some way to making Josie feel better.
Gloria Emmerson wasn’t frightening either. She was plump and motherly. Even her face was round, but it was kindly-looking with a smallish mouth and a squashed-up nose and really bright sparkly eyes. Josie smiled at Gloria as she swept them into the house and through to her personal rooms at the back. She had a casserole cooking in the oven and the smell of it revived Josie’s spirits somewhat as she realised that, despite the sandwiches and tea at Crewe, she was still very hungry.
Gloria watched them surreptitiously as they ate. Josie, she thought looked very pale, though she supposed that was from the upset of her mother dying and the tiring journey they’d had. She thought her a plain little thing with her large brown eyes standing out in her head and her brown, nondescript hair.
Not a patch on her aunt, she thought. Not that it had done her much good in the long run, she reminded herself with a sigh. She didn’t know whether she was doing her a favour or not pushing her into marriage. But then, Arthur Bradley was nothing if not respectable and after all, it was the best she could expect in the circumstances.
Arthur was waiting for Hannah in the house he’d inherited in Harrison Road, just off Erdington High Street. It was a fine terraced house with three stone steps up to the front door, while an entry ran around to the back door and strip of garden.
Initially, it had given Hannah a thrill of pleasure to realise that, after her marriage, she would be mistress of such a house. The front door opened onto a marble-tiled hall with the door to the front room with a bay window to the right-hand side, which Hannah decided would be the parlour, and carpeted stairs to the left. Behind the front room was another slightly smaller room and at the end of the hall was the door to the breakfast room, leading through to the kitchen and scullery, while a large cellar ran from front to back beneath the whole ground floor.
It had originally had three large bedrooms upstairs, but at some time Arthur’s relative had cut one of the double rooms
in two to make a much smaller bedroom and an indoor bathroom and lavatory. It was an unheard of luxury, though Arthur said in the daytime, he would prefer the lavatory outside to be used so as not to spend time traipsing up and down the stairs and thereby wearing out the stair carpet.
Still, not to have to go out in the middle of the night was a bonus, and there was running water into the bath, provided you remembered to light the geyser. They had proper bathrooms at the hotel of course, one between four rooms, and Gloria had one in her living quarters which she allowed Hannah the use of once a week. Other times, Hannah had to make do with a bowl of water in her bedroom. What luxury to be able to have a bath when she liked.
In fact, the whole house would be a joy to care for. It was even adequately furnished. It wasn’t her choice, but, in those austere post-war days with shortages and utility being the watchwords, she thought herself and Arthur fortunate to have the problem of furnishing a house solved for them. ‘In time, when things are easier, we might replace some of the furniture,’ she told Arthur on her first visit.
‘Hmph, yes, my dear,’ Arthur had said. ‘But you know money might not be so plentiful. I shouldn’t want to go into debt for anything. This hire-purchase scheme is not one I should like to get involved in.’
Hannah, who’d never owed a penny in her life, agreed with Arthur’s sentiments. Gloria, when she told her, said it just showed what a sensible man he was, and wasn’t it just as well they hadn’t to buy even the basics before they could start married life, though she advised Hannah to buy if not a new bed, then certainly a new mattress.
But that day, Hannah had more on her mind than a new mattress. She hoped Arthur would come to see that she had no alternative but to bring Josie home with her, without getting cross about it.
He wasn’t the sort to rant and rave, but he could go very cold if he was displeased. And she knew this news would greatly displease him. He’d made his views adamantly clear in his last letter and would have presumed that Hannah would have carried them out.
That was why Hannah had asked him not to come to the guesthouse that evening after he finished work, but go to the house instead where she would meet him as soon as she could get away.
When she’d been a few minutes in the house, having told Arthur straight away about Josie, she knew she’d been right to come alone. He made no shout or cry of protest, but instead had gone very still, his mouth a tight line of disapproval, his nose pinched, his eyes coal black and sparking with anger, while a tic beat at the side of his temple.
Arthur Bradley had looked forward to seeing Hannah again after a few days away. He didn’t love her – he’d never loved anyone but his mother, but he admired her.
Before he’d had the house, his mother having died some years before, he’d stayed often at Gloria Emmerson’s guesthouse for he was more often in the Midlands area than anywhere else. For a start, the factory and head office he worked from was in Aston, just outside Birmingham. And then, Birmingham itself and the surrounding area being the home of light engineering, had many factories making the goods his firm needed to make the wireless sets they put together.
Arthur disliked the travelling and staying at indifferent guesthouses. He’d done it for years and he’d been complaining to Gloria about it yet again one day when she seized her chance. ‘My boss, Mr Banks, is a family man himself, you see,’ he’d told Gloria. ‘He likes married men in the firm. Says you can rely on them. It’s all the married men who work in the offices and seldom have to go on the road.’
‘Maybe you should think about marriage yourself then?’ Gloria had suggested.
‘I never thought to marry,’ Arthur had said. ‘Anyway, I know no one suitable.’
‘What about Hannah?’
‘Hannah!’ Arthur had noticed Hannah of course, he couldn’t have failed to. Everyone who came to the place noticed Hannah.
‘Well, if you’ve got to be married, you could look further than Hannah and fare worse,’ Gloria had said. ‘She’s a well set-up lass.’
‘I know that all right,’ Arthur had said. ‘But I know my faults, none better. I’m a dull sort of chap for someone like Hannah.’
‘She’s not in the full flush of youth,’ Gloria reminded him.
‘I know that and I’m surprised. I thought someone would have snapped her up before now.’
‘Aye, well there’s been a war on, you know. The one who might have married Hannah never came back from it.’ No harm, Gloria thought, in telling him that much. ‘Ask her,’ she urged.
She wasn’t worried about Hannah’s reaction. She’d already talked her round and she knew what her answer would be and hoped fervently that she’d done the right thing.
Arthur was overjoyed that Hannah had agreed to marry him. In the early weeks of their courtship, however, Hannah had often doubted her decision, even with the house that Gloria saw as such a prize, and it was always the thought of one day having her own baby that held her on course. Arthur Bradley wasn’t a demonstrative man, nor one, as even Gloria was heard to say, to flash his money about overmuch.
He seldom took Hannah out and whenever he did, even when they were alone, he was so respectful, he appeared aloof and cold. There had been no snuggling for them in the back row of the cinema the odd times they’d gone together. There were no stolen kisses in the entries in the darkening winter nights, or cuddling on the sofa in Arthur’s front room and taking comfort in one another. No further than that of course, but Hannah would have welcomed being held and caressed and kissed. That wasn’t Mr Bradley’s way, though, she told herself and anyway, she didn’t need such things, after all she was no lovesick teenager.
A few weeks after their engagement, Arthur came to see Hannah in an ecstatic mood. He told her that they’d both been asked for dinner with his boss and his wife, Mr and Mrs Banks. Such a thing had never happened to him before.
The evening was a success. They all got on remarkably well, so well in fact that the Banks insisted Arthur and Hannah call them Reg and Elizabeth. Arthur could see how Hannah had charmed his boss and his wife. In fact, Hannah and Elizabeth had seemed like old friends together.
He knew some of his colleagues couldn’t imagine what Hannah saw in him. He’d seen the looks of puzzled envy on their faces when he’d taken Hannah to the annual dinner-dance, just after she’d agreed to marry him. He’d thought himself a lucky man. If he had to have someone looking across the table from him every day, then Hannah he felt could do the job better than most. Added to her looks, she was compliant, eager to please and had never opposed him in anything.
And now … now she stood bold as brass and told him not only that she’d defied him and brought her sister’s child home, but that she was to live with them and that she’d promised her sister on her deathbed that she’d look after her.
‘You had no right to promise such a thing without consulting me.’
‘Arthur, she was dying,’ Hannah said, her voice rising in distress. ‘Not long after that first day, she was having so much morphine she didn’t know where she was and could recognise no one. Should I have asked her to wait while I wrote you a wee letter?’
‘Don’t shout, Hannah.’
‘I feel like shouting,’ Hannah snapped. ‘Have you no feeling, even for the child? How do you imagine she feels, her parents both dead, her brothers and sisters scattered to the four corners of the world? She is alone, Arthur.’
‘The authorities would …’
‘I wasn’t leaving her with any authorities,’ Hannah said. ‘How could you expect me to do that after promising my sister I’d see to her?’
‘Well, I don’t want her here and it’s my house.’
‘Then she won’t come and neither will I,’ Hannah said angrily, astounded at Arthur’s uncompromising attitude.
‘Do you know what you’re saying?’
‘Yes, I do. I won’t bring her here under sufferance,’ Hannah said. ‘She’s gone through enough. You were lucky to have your mother until you grew up. I
never knew mine and without Frances and her abiding love for me, I would have been lost. I owed her so much and if you want to know I’m glad I have the opportunity to pay back some of it. If you can’t see it that way, you’re not the man I thought you were and maybe we’d better call the wedding off now before it goes any further.’
She removed her ring as she spoke and laid it on the sideboard. She’d not removed her coat and hat and without another word she turned and left, slamming the front door behind her.
On the way home, though, she wondered what she’d done. Gloria had agreed Josie could stay till the wedding, but she didn’t know if she’d want her staying there for good. And if she didn’t, Hannah would be out of a job and a place to live.
Back in the house, Arthur, too, was having second thoughts. What Hannah had said about his mother had hit home for he’d been devastated when she’d died. Then he thought of his work colleagues when he told them the marriage was off. He imagined the nudges and winks. ‘Knew it wouldn’t last. She was miles too good for him.’
And what of his boss? He’d think Arthur a failure for not hanging on to Hannah. And if they should ever find out the reason that Hannah had walked out on him, he had a horrible feeling that they’d see and understand her point of view, not his.
He was a devout man and eventually he walked along to the Abbey, his parish church, to ask the advice of one of the priests there. There were confessions every night till eight o’clock, so he knew there would be someone about.
Father Fitzgerald was pulling his coat about him as he stepped out of the church, for there was rain in the air, when he saw Arthur coming up the path. ‘Can I walk with you, Father? It’s advice I’m after.’
The priest’s heart sank. He hoped Arthur Bradley wouldn’t keep him long; the church had been chilly and he was also very hungry. But then, he told himself, Arthur wouldn’t have known that. ‘Talk away then, Arthur,’ he said.
Arthur told the priest everything and though he told him of his own misgivings, he also told him the truth about Hannah’s promise to her sister and the debt she felt she owed her and the priest listened without a word.