Walking Back to Happiness

by Anne Bennett

  ‘She’ll be at school after September and I’ll only see her for a few weeks a year. It will not be enough to build on the shaky start we’ve had and the annoying fact is that that is how Arthur wants it.’

  Gloria said nothing for she knew Hannah was right. Instead, she changed the subject slightly. ‘I’m glad at any rate you met your friend. Did you know Tilly well?’

  ‘Very well,’ Hannah said. ‘We shared a bedroom, you see. I’d only been in Leeds a matter of months when Molly, the one who got me the job at The Hibernian, married and went to live down south and then Tilly came in her place. She was to be my witness, you know, at the registry office when I was going to marry Mike. Tilly knows everything. She’s the one person I don’t have to pretend with and the only one who came to visit me in that Godawful prison.’

  ‘I can’t believe he’s sending the child to board at all, but to think he picked the very place,’ Gloria said. ‘Monica told me they were leaving the convent, but they were all being split up into other places and she is based in Ireland now, Dublin. She didn’t tell me what their house was being used for.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have done any good if I’d known anyway,’ Hannah said. ‘I could never influence Arthur in anything, you know that. And I could hardly tell him the real reason I didn’t want Angela going there.’

  ‘Good God, no,’ Gloria agreed.

  ‘No one seeing it now would guess the horrors that once went on there,’ Hannah told her. ‘It’s even had a facelift outside. Inside, it’s totally transformed, but still … Yes, I felt quite weird when I went in there.’

  ‘But you did it.’

  ‘Of course. You must know, Gloria, I’d do anything for Angela. She is all I have.’ And Gloria knew she spoke the truth.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hannah hadn’t realised how everyone would miss Angela so much. She’d been the pivot they’d all spun round and now Pauline’s life at least seemed without purpose.

  So, when in the spring of 1957, Pauline sought Hannah out and said she wanted to give in her notice, Hannah wasn’t surprised. She’d been with the family nine and a half years and said she’d be sorry to go but added that, ‘Angela will be ten in November. She hardly needs a nanny now.’

  Angela seemed to need very few people now, for each holiday she was changing as Hannah had prophesised. At first it was hardly noticeable, but it was there. Angela was pulling away from all of them, except her father. Her friends had names like Vanessa and Belinda and Hillary and seemed to have more importance than any family member. ‘They’re bound to,’ Vic said when Hannah talked to him about it. ‘She sees more of them than she does of anyone else. They’ve become her family.’

  ‘Arthur often takes one or two of them out with Angela when he goes up at the weekend,’ Hannah told Vic.

  ‘Does he go every weekend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And never takes you?’

  ‘No, never.’

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Of course I mind, but don’t suggest I tell Arthur how I feel, he wouldn’t care.’

  ‘Hannah, why do you put up with such old-fashioned attitudes?’

  ‘Vic, listen,’ Hannah said. ‘This is how it is. Arthur is an old-fashioned man and so I didn’t dare tell him about the baby I had in Leeds. But he worked out I wasn’t a virgin. For him, that was it. I was a fallen woman, “tainted”, used. But by then I was pregnant with Angela. He swore he’d keep the baby as far away from me as possible so I’d not taint it. He’s kept his word and I played right into his hands by becoming ill after Angela’s birth and then not wanting anything to do with her for months.’

  ‘It was hardly your fault.’

  ‘Fault doesn’t come into this,’ Hannah said with a sigh. ‘This boarding school is all part of his plan; separating me from my daughter, driving a wedge between us and it’s working very well.’

  ‘This is monstrous! Would it help if I spoke to him?’

  ‘Vic, it would do no good at all. It might make things worse if Arthur thought I’d talked to other people about any problems.’

  ‘I wish I could do something.’

  ‘You do,’ Hannah said firmly. ‘You listen. You’re a friend.’

  ‘I’ll always be your friend, you know that,’ Vic said, his voice soft and gentle and the look in his eyes which sent a shiver down Hannah’s spine. ‘Don’t, Vic!’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘You know what,’ Hannah cried. ‘For God’s sake, I’m married.’

  ‘I know. That’s why I said I’d be your friend. I know I can be nothing else.’

  Hannah put her head in her hands. She had to shut out the sight of Vic’s face and his eyes before she weakened and asked him to hold her close. Heaven alone knew where that would lead.

  That night, for the first time, she admitted her feelings for Vic in a letter to Tilly. Each week she wrote to Tilly and because she hadn’t to face her, she was able to write of things she couldn’t have said, not to her, or anybody else either. When Tilly read the letter, she smiled to herself. Her reply was swift and to the point:

  For God’s sake, Hannah, you have one life. Grab a chance of happiness while you can.

  But Hannah knew happiness would be eroded away by guilt if by having Vic, she lost Angela, and she knew Arthur would make sure she lost her. And she could never be married again, not truly married anyway. Divorce was not recognised in the Catholic Church. There were insurmountable obstacles, things that Tilly wouldn’t understand, and she knew however she felt and however Vic felt, there was no future for them together.

  After Pauline left, Josie was loath to leave Hannah alone in the evenings, for Arthur was seldom in, but Hannah insisted, saying Josie had a life of her own. She never went out with Mary Byrne now. Months before, she’d come to their door distraught and pregnant and Josie had accompanied her back home, where Mary broke the news to her mother.

  Mary was married to the baby’s father, Seamus McAllister, speedily. Josie confided to Hannah that she wouldn’t have had him as a gift for he was lazy and work-shy and liked his beer too much. But Hannah knew that Mary’s mother would think any man better than none to clothe her daughter with respectability and take the shame away from her parents.

  Six months later, Mary gave birth to a baby son and Hannah and Josie went round to see the child. They admired the healthy eight pound baby and neither batted an eyelid when Mary’s mother said the child was delicate with him being so premature.

  Not everyone was so circumspect. ‘Big bonny baby and she says it’s premature,’ one woman was heard to say in the waiting room one day. ‘I ask you. Thinks we was born yesterday.’

  Hannah took no part in the conversation or derision of Mary’s mother and just hoped it would work out for the girl who was still living at home with Seamus.

  Josie used to go along and see her because she felt sorry for her, but they had less in common than ever. ‘Mary’s days for gadding about are over, I fear,’ Hannah told Gloria, ‘while Josie is taken with the skiffle sound and goes to a skiffle club in town with Cynthia. Her brother goes too sometimes and his friend Phil who Josie likes so much.’

  ‘Skiffle,’ Gloria said. ‘What’s that when it’s at home?’

  ‘Oh, it’s the new thing,’ Hannah said. ‘They use washboards to make music.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Hannah assured Gloria. ‘It was all to do with this Lonnie Donegan, who sang a song called “Rock Island Line”, and this year followed it with “Cumberland Gap”. Now it’s Tommy Steel with “Singing the Blues” and someone else too called Buddy Holly who does a type of music called “rock and roll”.’

  ‘How come you know the names of them all?’

  ‘Names! I know all the words,’ Hannah said. ‘It would be hard for me not to know them, serenaded as I am morning, noon and night whenever Josie’s at home.’

  Gloria chuckled. ‘And what about the man with the funny hips that everyone
in America was so worried about?’

  ‘Elvis Presley. He’s still around,’ Hannah said. ‘Elizabeth was so concerned she came round to talk to me about him. Apparently, he comes from Memphis, Tennessee and his songs seem innocuous enough, until he begins to shake and wiggle his hips. Elizabeth was very alarmed about it, but it seems the girls enjoy it well enough. The man appears to drive them mad no less.’

  ‘Are you worried at all?’ Gloria asked. ‘I read a bit about him in the paper.’

  ‘I read it too,’ Hannah said. ‘But Josie is a sensible girl. She just likes the music.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s where it starts,’ Gloria said. ‘In the Evening Mail it said this Elvis had been on television in the States, but they only televised him from the waist up because of his suggestive hips.’

  ‘I don’t know that that is such a good idea,’ Hannah said. ‘Denying people things only makes them more attractive.’

  ‘That’s a novel approach,’ said Gloria. ‘You could be right.’

  ‘It’s just this rock and roll they are all mad about,’ Hannah said. ‘And I honestly don’t see any harm in it.’

  ‘Well,’ Gloria agreed. ‘Josie’s a good girl and very sensible. You never saw her head turned with those teddy boys and now these beatnik types from America.’

  ‘She wants a record player now,’ Hannah said. ‘They’re not like the old gramophones, you know; the records are really small and bendy and Josie tells me the needle is now called a stylus if you like. Cynthia has one her brother bought her and they buy records for it at Woolworth’s. Phil has said he’ll buy Josie one for Christmas.’

  ‘Is it serious then between them?’

  ‘It could well be,’ Hannah said. ‘Of course Josie’s young yet but Phil is six years older and he has a good steady job lecturing at the university. Maybe he thinks it’s time to settle down.’

  ‘Does the age gap worry you?’

  ‘Not at all. Josie is older than her years, always has been, and Phil is lovely. Peter, Cynthia’s brother, is probably the more handsome with his jet black hair and dark eyes and he’s a nice boy. But somehow Phil is a kinder, more genuine person. I have a very soft spot for him. Mind you, I like all the young people, they’re so vibrant and alive somehow. Josie is mad about Phil, but she told me she doesn’t know how he feels about her. I know, though. You just have to see them together, Gloria, and see the way he looks at her. They’d be good together, for Phil has a terrific sense of fun that matches Josie’s. I think and hope he’s just biding his time because of Josie’s age.’

  ‘Well, they do say the course of true love never runs smooth,’ Gloria said.

  ‘I hope for Josie’s sake it runs a damned sight smoother than mine,’ Hannah remarked with a wry smile. ‘Still there’s no point worrying about it.’

  Gloria gave a sigh. ‘No good worrying about anything if you ask me. I think the world is a dreadful place just now.’

  Hannah glanced at Gloria. This attitude wasn’t at all like her. She could see her skin seemed taut across her cheekbones, which had not a vestige of colour on them. ‘Are you all right, Gloria?’

  ‘Of course I’m all right,’ Gloria snapped. ‘I’m tired that’s all. I’m getting on you know. Been here a long time. Maybe too long.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘Face it, Hannah, I am getting on,’ Gloria said. ‘And I’m weary of the things happening. There’s been unrest everywhere since the war ended. I mean look at Suez last year and our lads in there bombing and invading and that Nasser one lording it over everyone and then those Ruskies marching in on Hungary. Criminal, that was. But we didn’t rush to help them out did we? Seems we please ourselves where we stick up for people. Fact is, Hannah, since I’ve had that telly, I’ve been amazed at what I’ve seen and heard. Been upset as well as angry too, I don’t mind telling you. Somehow it seems more real when you actually see it.’

  Hannah knew what Gloria meant. She like many others had been horrified by the news from Hungary of the bloodshed and massacre of hundreds of Hungarians to bring the rebellion under control. She watched the footage smuggled out of the country and transmitted to the television with a sense of shock and horror.

  ‘And now those same Russians are shooting Sputniks into the air for no apparent reason,’ Gloria said. ‘As for us, what do we do but fill the country up with black people.’

  The remark was so unlike Gloria, who’d always been of the opinion that everyone was equal whatever their colour and creed, that Hannah was shocked and a little dismayed.

  ‘Come on, Gloria,’ Hannah said. ‘Be fair. You must have seen black Americans in the war?’

  ‘Yeah, I did, but they were soldiers,’ explained Gloria. ‘These … Well, Amy went to town one day and the conductor was black and there were another two walking around the Bull Ring and those white boys called them “niggers” and there was a fight. The police had to be called. It will lead to problems, you mark my words.’

  But Hannah, who’d seen the devastating effects of civil unrest in her own country, replied, ‘I hope not. Everyone can get along with everyone else with a bit of compromise.’

  ‘I wish you could go and see Gloria,’ Hannah said to Vic a few weeks later, after she’d paid another couple of worrying visits to her friend.

  ‘I can’t. She’s not registered with me. She sees Doctor Simmonds in Holly Lane. I can’t tread on his toes.’

  ‘You couldn’t just pop in as a friend?’

  ‘You know I couldn’t,’ Vic said. ‘Anyway, she’d soon send me away with a flea in my ear. You’re probably worrying unnecessarily. She’s a good age now and people do slow down and things become more of an effort.’

  Hannah wasn’t totally convinced that was all it was and resolved to talk it over with Josie that night when they’d have the house to themselves. But when Josie came in it was to break news of her own that drove Hannah’s concern for Gloria out of her mind for a time. Josie’s face was shining and her eyes sparkling with happiness. Phil had asked her to marry him. Hannah was pleased, but not surprised. So, she thought, I was right, he was just biding his time.

  ‘I said yes,’ Josie went on, ‘but really I’ll need Arthur’s approval, won’t I?’

  ‘For the next few months only,’ Hannah said. ‘And Phil is a lovely young man and well able to look after you, I can’t see Arthur raising much objection. When were you thinking of marrying anyway?’

  ‘Not till I’m twenty-one,’ Josie said. ‘I’ll have money from the farm sale then, so if it’s all right with you I’ll write and tell Martin I’m getting married. I want him to give me away. Do you think he will?’

  Hannah hesitated, remembering her own wedding when not a soul belonging to her, bar Josie, was there. She’d hate the girl to be disappointed. But then Martin and Siobhan had been more than decent over the years and the American dollars came regularly. Even Josie seemed to have lost any animosity she might have felt towards them recently and Hannah knew it was important for her to have some of her family about her on her special day and resolved to write to Martin, stressing the importance of it if he should refuse.

  So she replied, ‘I’m sure Martin would be honoured. Where are you going to live?’

  ‘Phil thinks we should look for a place in Moseley Village,’ Josie said. ‘It’s close to the university where Phil works and closer to the city centre than here for mine and the houses are cheapish because lots of students live there.’

  ‘Moseley,’ Hannah repeated, sorry that Josie would be so far away, for Moseley was the other side of the city. ‘I’ll miss you.’

  Josie put her arms around Hannah. ‘And I’ll miss you,’ she said. ‘But I’m not going yet a while and there’s lots to do over the next months. And another thing, I don’t want you paying for any of it.’

  ‘I have a surprise for you,’ Hannah said. ‘Though you asked me to write explaining to Martin and Siobhan you wanted no more money from them after you began work, they continued to send it and I op
ened a post office account for you. It’s quite a bit now, forty dollars a month for five years. It will pay for your reception, your honeymoon and still leave change, I expect.’

  Josie’s mouth dropped open. She had never in a million years expected that. ‘Oh God, Hannah. Thank you. Thank you for just being you and thinking so much of others.’

  ‘There’s not that many others to think of,’ Hannah said. ‘And you are very special to me. I’ll tell you something, this wedding is going to be a real celebration.’

  And it was. Martin and Siobhan needed no persuading to come to their young sister’s wedding and both came with their respective partners, though they’d left their children behind. They stayed at Gloria’s guesthouse and when Hannah got over their American accents, she got on with them all, particularly Martin, whom she’d been close to growing up together in Wicklow.

  Martin was delighted with the turn-out his little sister had made which he attributed to Hannah’s upbringing. ‘She’d value a letter from you and Siobhan now and again,’ Hannah told him. ‘She sometimes feels as if she’s been forgotten, you know, as if she hasn’t any brothers and sisters.’

  ‘I know, she told us both off about it,’ Martin said with a grin. ‘The point is I still thought of her as the nine-year-old child I left behind. But she’s hardly that anymore and I promise things will be different now. I like Phil, the chap she’s marrying. He’s a fine man and I think he’ll be good to her.’

  ‘He’d better be,’ Hannah warned, ‘or he’ll have me to deal with.’ But she wasn’t worried really for she knew Josie and Phil truly loved each other.

  There had been a letter of congratulations from Miriam, though Hannah wondered if she still thought marriage worthy of congratulation, for she now had twelve children and Hannah, much as she’d longed for a family, always felt sorry for her. Ellen also wrote with regret that she wouldn’t be there. She had two children of her own now and said springtime was a hard time to leave a farm.

  ‘Seems like every time is a bad time to leave a farm,’ Gloria said to Hannah. ‘You had some of the same when you married in the autumn. And isn’t there a fine family of them back there to look after her children for a few days so she can see her wee sister married?’