Danny boy, p.32
Danny Boy, page 32
‘Don’t send Bernadette to the nursery,’ Danny pleaded the day after her birthday. ‘God, I see little enough of her. The doctors have encouraged me to walk now and I could take her with me. Come on, Rosie, I’ll be back in that infernal bloodbath soon enough.’
Put like that, Rosie could hardly refuse, and with her at home each day there was no reason to send Bernadette anywhere.
‘I think I’ll keep her at home now all the time,’ Rosie said. ‘She’ll have Georgie to play with. They get on really well.’
‘Aye, don’t I know it, and I have no problems taking Georgie with me too when I go out with Bernadette, and she won’t mind.’
That was undeniable. Georgie was Bernadette’s best friend and she thought it sad that he had no daddy, for she thought her own wonderful. She always felt safe with him. He was strong and brave and yet gentle and kind. He was always ready for a game and would read to her for hours or better still tell her his own stories that he said he’d learned from his parents. She didn’t mind sharing her daddy with Georgie.
Danny treasured all those days. His home seemed like an oasis of calmness and peace in a world gone mad.
In the fields of war he’d seen man’s inhumanity to man displayed in horrific and barbarous ways. It was a place where to survive at all, you hadn’t to allow yourself to be touched by anything, or to care about anyone, for feelings were better kept securely under lock and key.
So when you heard the screams and saw the men with limbs blown off or half a head, or those bullet-riddled and still jerking, and those dead and dying, floundering in their own blood and guts, you could view it all dispassionately. It was war and they were casualties of it, not human at all, just a statistic.
Over the top and on and on into the hail of bullets and whining shells was the only thing that mattered. Mates you’d shared a smoke with minutes before would shudder and jerk before you, crumpling to the floor, and you could barely spare them a glance.
Just before he came back to England, Danny, his rifle poised, bayonet fixed, was attacked by a German in a dugout past No Man’s Land. He’d practised attacking with a bayonet into bales of straw but he never thought he could use it on a human being. However, he found he could.
He saw the man’s eyes widen for a split second and his mouth opened in a scream as the blade impaled him. He sank to the slurried ground and when Danny pulled his blade out it had blood and mangled body organs attached to it, and Danny vomited onto the mud.
He’d killed men before, both in the insurrection in Ireland and in the war, but he’d shot them with a rifle and though he’d seen that his bullets had reached their target, and seen them fall, somehow he was removed from it. It was nothing like impaling someone who stood next to you and he found he was shaking with shock at the abhorrence of what he’d been forced to do.
‘Good man, Walsh,’ said his commanding officer, coming upon him at that moment. ‘Wipe your bayonet, lad.’
Danny bent to run his blade over the mud and when he heard the shell he instinctively curled up. The officer’s body was split into pieces and distributed over the dead German and Danny’s vomit, and the blast of it threw Danny into a pit. That had ensured him a Blighty, which is what a pass home through injury was called by the British.
Bernadette and Rosie were not part of that life. They were so clean and pure, innocent of what he had to do. Thank God! But any time he spent with them was so important to him.
When he’d been forced to enlist he told himself it was those two he was fighting for, and all through his training he’d thought often of his beautiful wife that he loved so much he ached, and Bernadette, whom he adored.
The thoughts and memories of his family he took with him to the battlefield, and he would hold them in his head and his heart like a talisman against evil. Amongst all the carnage and terrible suffering, the vile things it had forced him to do, it had given him some purpose.
Danny had been home ten days when he was deemed fit to rejoin his unit. Rosie had known he would be, for she’d seen his leg become stronger each day with dread.
The day he left she looked deep into his eyes and traced his cheeks and chin with fingers that trembled, and then she lifted up his hands and kissed his palms.
‘Ah, Rosie,’ Danny said, and pressed her close so she’d not see the tears glistening in his eyes, but she felt the emotion pounding through his body and told herself she mustn’t cry. She mustn’t make it harder for this man she loved, or Bernadette, biting her lip with anxiety. ‘And me, Daddy,’ she said in a tentative voice.
‘And you, certainly, Princess,’ Danny said, scooping her up with one arm, and they stayed like that for a moment. Danny and Rosie, full of their own thoughts, and Bernadette, content for a moment to have her mother and father to herself, and she cuddled tight against them both. After a while, though, Bernadette pulled away a little so that she could see her father’s eyes and asked, ‘Are you going away like Mammy said?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘When will you be back?’
‘I honestly don’t know, Bernadette.’
‘Will it be soon?’
Danny shook his head helplessly. ‘I can’t tell you that, pet, for I don’t know myself. The army doesn’t tell you.’
‘Georgie’s daddy was in the army,’ Bernadette said and Danny saw the pucker on his daughter’s forehead and he answered gently,
‘That’s right.’
‘Georgie’s daddy…Georgie’s daddy. That won’t happen to you, will it?’
Danny felt Rosie give a start and saw the stricken look on Bernadette’s face. But he knew he could give no bold assurances that he would be fine. Instead, he said, ‘I hope not, Bernadette, for my place is here looking after you and Mammy.’
‘That’s all right then,’ Bernadette said satisfied, and Danny let her down to the floor where she returned to her doll, Belinda.
Rosie, seeing her daughter’s attention taken elsewhere, said quietly to Danny, ‘There may be more than myself and Bernadette to see to by the time you come home.’
‘You mean…’
‘It’s early days, but I’m a week late,’ Rosie said. ‘I wouldn’t have said until I was sure, but I wanted you to know.’
‘Oh God, Rosie,’ Danny said, hugging her tighter. ‘You are happy about it?’
‘Of course I am, if I’m right,’ Rosie said.
‘It’s not too soon?’
‘Not at all. And I’m fine and healthy, and if I am expecting I don’t care how difficult it will be, I’ll want this baby; your baby.’
‘I wish I was here to take care of you.’
‘I’ll be taken care of, don’t you worry. It may help Rita, give her something else to think about, or it may make things harder for her. I don’t know, but either way I can do nothing about it and I want a son for you, Danny.’
‘Now, you know I said…’
‘Aye, and I saw your face when the last child died.’
‘I would have felt the same if the child had been a girl.’
‘No,’ Rosie said, ‘there was more than grief, there was disappointment. Promise me, though, that if I am carrying a child and it turns out to be a boy, you’ll still love Bernadette as you do now.’
‘How could I not? I adore her, you know that.’
But Rosie had seen it time and again and not in her own home alone that a man could seem quite satisfied with a wee daughter until a son should be born, and then the daughter would often be considered of no account. She didn’t want that treatment being handed out to Bernadette. She gave a sigh, for she knew she had to be satisfied with what God sent, and anyway, she trusted her good, kind husband.
‘Mammy will be delighted at the news, all of them will,’ Danny said.
Rosie knew they would be. They’d all sent lovely messages of sympathy and condolence last time, when the child was stillborn. And yet, she cautioned Danny, ‘Don’t let’s say anything yet. It would only disappoint them if I’m wrong.’
‘All right,’ Danny said. ‘I see that that’s sensible and I’ll say nothing until you give me word.’
‘I only told you this early because…well, with your going away and everything…’
‘You thought it might encourage me to take greater care?’
Was that the real reason that I told him? Rosie thought. Maybe subconsciously she had, but could anyone take any more care in a war of such magnitude?
‘Don’t worry,’ Danny told her. ‘Bullets bounce off me. I’ll come back hale and hearty and in one piece.’
‘Don’t, Danny,’ Rosie said with a shudder. ‘It’s like tempting fate.’
‘Fate be damned,’ Danny said. ‘That’s what I intend, but if I don’t go now and sharpish I’ll be up on a charge before I get to the Front.’
Rosie’s smile was watery, but it was a smile, for she’d promised herself no tears. ‘Take care of yourself if you can at all,’ she said.
‘And you take care,’ Danny said, holding Rosie in his arms. ‘I’ll worry about you every minute that I am away.’
‘I’ll be grand,’ Rosie said. ‘And I’ll be here waiting for you.’
Danny kissed Rosie and knew in quiet moments, after an assault, or as they were waiting to go over the top, the image of his brave wife standing there with a tremulous smile just touching her lips would sustain him. And yet his stomach turned over at the thought that he could be killed in an instant. Every evening he marvelled he was still alive. Well, long may it continue, he thought, and swung his kitbag up on his shoulder.
He stopped before he went up the entry and looked back at the two women in his life, framed in the doorway. ‘Bye Daddy,’ Bernadette said with a wave of her little hand.
‘Bye pet,’ Danny said, and though he spoke to his daughter his eyes sought Rosie’s and at the look in them he felt the prickling behind his own. But he was careful to wipe his eyes with his handkerchief before he stepped into the street. It would never do for people to think him a sissy.
After Danny left, Rosie contacted the nursery. It had been playing on her mind for some time that Bernadette was taking up a nursery place under false pretences, for the nursery was set up primarily to release mothers for important war work. Now that she had no intention of working, Bernadette really had no right to a place, and Rosie had written to the Sisters at the convent explaining this and went on to thank them all sincerely for the help and support they had given them since they’d arrived in Birmingham.
She also wanted to see something of her daughter, knowing she would be at school before she knew it, and she hadn’t just the streets to play in. They were but yards from the park and Rosie intended to make full use of it.
Then there was the flu, which was still sweeping, seemingly unchecked, throughout the whole of Europe. She knew she couldn’t protect Bernadette totally from every disease that there was, but she felt the risk would be enhanced if she was to mix with so many children and their mothers. ‘What about Rita?’ Ida said when Rosie told her Bernadette wouldn’t be returning to nursery.
‘She must make up her own mind.’ Rosie said. ‘But she’s not sent Georgie since his father died, so I don’t think she’ll mind.’
Rita still grieved for Harry and maybe always would, and while her swollen eyes still often had blue smudges beneath them she’d begun at last to make an effort for Georgie’s sake, and was beginning to take control of her life again.
‘Lifesavers, kids is,’ Ida said. ‘Christ, I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had my kids when Herbie copped it. Topped myself too, most likely. But when you has kids you can’t go about weeping and wailing and thinking of yourself all the bleeding time. You see to the nippers and any crying you do, you do at night in bed.’
Rosie found she was enjoying Bernadette’s company at home, and with the schools closed for the holidays, Rosie, Rita, Ida and the children, including Ida’s three, Jack, Billy and Gillian, spent many happy days in Aston Park. Jack was a lovely boy, who took his duties as man of the house and elder brother seriously. He was used to minding his own little brother and sister and had no problem with keeping an eye on Georgie and Bernadette too, and didn’t even seem to mind pushing them on the swing or on the roundabout. Rosie always felt she could relax more when Jack was there.
By the time the schools opened again after the holidays in September, Rosie was fairly certain of her pregnancy. ‘My period was due just three days after Danny came home on the thirteenth of July, but there’s been nothing.’
There were other signs too. Rosie’s breasts were tender and when she stood before the mirror she could see her veins standing out on them. She felt exhilaration flow through her at the thought of another baby in her arms, tugging at her breasts, a part of her and Danny.
She was hesitant telling Rita, but whatever Rita might have felt inside she seemed delighted for Rosie, though there was a wistful tone in her voice as she said, ‘You must make sure of this one. You mustn’t do anything to jeopardise this child.’
Rosie had no intention of doing anything that might harm this baby, this child she longed for so much. She wrote joyful letters to Danny, the two families in Ireland and the two convents in Dublin and Handsworth. She basked in their congratulations and took heart at the prayers to be said and novenas begun, and thought few children had been as longed for as this one. With the power of the Roman Catholic Church behind it, how could anything go wrong?
October was a cold and blustery month and Rosie was often glad she could lie in bed in the morning and listen to the wind hurling itself around the court, rattling the ill-fitting windows and seeping under doors to chill the very legs off a body. The news from the Front was cheering for a change, because it was said the Germans were in retreat. Austria had offered a peace settlement in August but it had been rejected. ‘Going for the kill,’ Betty had remarked ‘and why not?’
‘Too right,’ another said. ‘The bloody Hun started it and I don’t see why we should stop now till we have them by the balls.’
‘Serve them right,’ said a woman who’d lost two sons. ‘I hope they gets them by the short and curlies and shakes the bleeding life out of them.’ There was a murmur of agreement, but for all that there was a more optimistic air around than there had been for four long years.
When Austria signed a revised peace plan on 3rd November, everyone knew it was the beginning of the end, and only eight days later, on a grey and dismal Monday morning, when Rosie heard the church bells pealing and the factory hooters blowing she hardly dared to hope that it meant something. She shot to the door and realised that most of the neighbours were doing the same and looking at each other in stupefaction.
Then Ida, who’d run up the entry to see if anyone knew anything, came back, her face aglow. ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘The war’s bloody well over!’ There was a whoop of joy from the women and Rosie laughed as she was caught around the waist and hugged and kissed and swung around like a wean by one person after another. ‘There’s a bloody great party going on at Aston Cross,’ Ida said. ‘Get Rita and we’ll go and see.’
‘Oh I don’t know.’
‘Come on,’ Ida urged. ‘It’s bloody history, ain’t it? War to end all wars this is, and there won’t never be a carnival like this again.’ Then, as Rosie still hesitated, she added, ‘Ain’t I got more reason to be bloody miserable than you have? Peace come too late for me and my old man, d’ain’t it?’
What answer could Rosie make to that, and maybe to let her hair down was just what Rita needed and Ida too. Not far down Upper Thomas Street the noise of the crowds could be plainly heard. ‘Keep a weather eye on them kids,’ Ida warned. ‘I heard it’s a madhouse down there.’
And it was a madhouse, and Rosie and Rita tightened their hold on their children’s hands as they plunged into the melee. Wonderful, tremendous excitement and relief had gripped the people and they laughed and shouted and hugged and sang, and over it all the bells pealed a chorus from all the churches around and the beat was given by the factory hooters and the lids of the miskins some were banging together. People thronged the streets, some still in their work overalls, and children, seemingly released early from school, weaved in and out between the rapturous crowds.
People shook hands or clapped each other’s backs, or kissed and hugged perfect strangers, and no-one seemed to take offence. Someone would start the line of a song – ‘Rule Britannia’ was popular, or ‘There’ll always be an England’. But these stirring tunes gave way to, ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’ or ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and the tumultuous noise rose higher and higher.
‘God, look,’ Rita suddenly cried, pointing. ‘They’ve stopped the trams now.’
It was true. The crowds were so great, nothing could move. Carts and the odd car were already gridlocked, but now trams couldn’t get through either. The passengers didn’t seem to care and in a mass they abandoned the tram and joined in the party, and the driver and conductor scratched their heads for a moment or two before obviously thinking their passengers had the right idea, for they then left the tram too.
They’d reached the big green clock at Aston Cross when Rosie’s hand was grasped suddenly by a neighbour. ‘You’re Irish, ain’t you?’ he demanded. ‘Can you dance?’ And before Rosie could form a reply she was pushed into a circle, ringed by onlookers, where one man with a fiddle and another with an accordion had begun an impromptu concert.
Rosie felt a stirring of excitement for she’d not danced since the Christmas before she left Ireland and what better excuse to dance than today? Danny had survived the war and he’d be coming home when thousands wouldn’t and she gave Bernadette into Rita’s care, lifted her skirts and danced a jig.
Bernadette gazed at her mother, speechless, but from the first the crowd had clapped and cheered. Then Rosie began another jig and some people linked arms with those near them and leaped around merrily until the pavement and streets were one seething mass of dancing people.
