A Daughter’s Secret

In Buncrana such things just didn’t go on, but everyone knew that prostitutes were the very dregs of society.

McAllister laughed. ‘Time for you to grow up, little girl,’ he sneered. ‘When our father died, Gwen was fifteen and there were six mouths to feed. With my mother gone to pieces altogether, Gwen went on the streets to prevent us all starving to death. She eventually married one of the punters. Our mother had died by then too, and as I was the youngest she took me in to live with her and her husband. Then when she was widowed, she went back out on the streets again to provide for her son. That’s how it is.’

Aggie mouth dropped open. She had never been so shaken in the whole of her life. Surely that wasn’t really how things were, not in normal, respectable society.

‘What price is virtue, Agnes?’ McAllister went on. ‘Especially if the alternative is starving to death?’ He gave a wry laugh and added, ‘Not that Philomena knows any of this. She would react very much as you did, shocked to the core of her Roman Catholic soul. She doesn’t know much about my earlier life at all. She met Gwen just the once, at our wedding, and they never really hit it off. I used to visit Gwen on my own after that.’

‘I am not surprised they didn’t hit it off,’ Aggie said, her lip curling in distaste. ‘Your wife is an honest and decent woman. You talk about women choosing to go with men for money as if it is just a job like any other.’

‘So it is.’

‘How can you say that? Aren’t there normal jobs for people?’

‘Jobs are often few and far between,’ McAllister said. ‘And if you should get one, it will usually be backbreaking work for long hours, and all you pick up at the end of the week is a pittance of a wage. Gwen didn’t want that sort of life and I don’t blame her.’

Aggie was silent. She wondered what sort of place she was going to at all where things totally alien to her seemed almost commonplace. What sort of woman was this Gwen, whom she would be forced to rely on? The apprehension in her increased. However, it was too late now for doubts and second thoughts. The die was cast.

McAllister delivered Aggie to Derry Station, but could not take time to stay with her because he had to get the horse back to Buncrana before the place was astir. Aggie understood his concern, even shared it, and yet it was hard to see him disappear into the darkness. The waiting room was open so there was shelter from the wind at least, but inside the dark was so intense Aggie thought a person could almost touch it. She was so cold her teeth chattered and she couldn’t remember being as scared in the whole of her life.

For a time she sat on the wooden bench running around the walls, aching with cold and fear, but eventually, worn down by weariness, she lay down on the bench, drew her legs under her, and with her shawl wrapped about her she closed her eyes.

She woke stiff and colder than ever, and noticed straight away that the darkness was not so deep. She pulled herself to her feet and began to walk briskly around the small room, slapping herself with her arms to get the blood flowing as she watched light steal into the day. Already she would have been missed at home, but her parents would know no more than that, because Tom would never betray her.

She wondered what they would think, for she’d spoken the truth when she’d told McAllister that she hadn’t a penny piece to bless herself with. She wondered how long it would be until her mother noticed the missing clothes and would guess that she had run away. Mammy would be perplexed for she would know that Aggie had nowhere to run to.

Would McAllister betray her? She doubted that. There was one other person, though, that would, at the very least, be aware that McAllister hadn’t slept in his bed that night and that was Philomena. When the news that she had run away from home became common knowledge, would she put two and two together? Would she challenge him or, heaven forbid, tell her parents of her suspicions?

Would they call out the Garda and could they make her return home if they found her? She imagined they probably could, and that thought made her feel colder than ever. She wouldn’t feel totally safe until a stretch of water separated her from her parents.

It seemed an age until other people began arriving at the station and the ticket office opened. Aggie was then able to spend some of McAllister’s money and make her way to the platform where the train lay waiting. There were few travelling that February morning, but those on the train were curious about such a young girl travelling alone.

Aggie knew they would be and she had her story ready. She told them she was to take up service in one of the big houses near Birmingham in England. As she told the lies she thought that in the end that might be the truth because when this was all over – provided she survived, of course – she had to have a job and place to live. Being in service seemed as good as any other employment.

‘Why Birmingham?’ one woman asked, while another commented that she was young to travel so far alone.

There again Aggie had her answer. Her brother worked in Birmingham, she said, and would be meeting her off the train at the other end and taking her to her place of work. The women were only slightly mollified, but Aggie knew how delighted she would be if the tale she had delivered had been the truth.

She was glad of the women’s concern for her, though, when they reached the mail boat straining against the ropes that secured it to the dock side for she was scared as well as a little excited to be boarding it. But the excitement fled when the boat was on the move, tossed from side to side by the turbulent waves, making Aggie feel so sick she vomited over and over till her stomach ached and her throat felt raw.

‘You’ll likely get used to it,’ one of the women told her.

‘Aye,’ said another. ‘Sure, wasn’t I just the same when I went over first? Now I take it in my stride as you will, cutie dear.’

Aggie gazed at her through bleary eyes. She could not remember feeling this ill since she had had the measles, and she had the feeling she could never get used to the crossing. Anyway, she told herself, she wouldn’t have to get used to it; the chances were that she would never see the shores of Ireland again. Maybe some day she might regret that, but at that moment all she could feel was relief.

‘Come on away inside,’ the first woman urged. ‘The wind would cut you in two and it’s cold enough to even freeze a penguin’s chuff, as my old man would say.’

It was cold, and the sight of the huge, relentless waves crashing in cascades of foam against the sides of the rolling boat did little to stop the churning of Aggie’s stomach, so she gave a brief nod and followed the woman as she led the way into one of the saloons. The smell of cigarette smoke and Guinness was mixed with slight body odour and vomit from those who hadn’t made it outside. Aggie only managed a minute or so of breathing it in before she was making for the deck again.

And that was where she stayed until the boat docked in Liverpool. Even when the sleety rain began she stayed put, so by the time she was ready to disembark, she was wet to the skin. The women tutted over the state of her and said she would catch a chill if she wasn’t careful. Aggie hid her wry smile. Dear God, if that was all she had to worry about.

She continued to feel sick even when she had left the boat far behind and was in the train travelling down to Birmingham. She hadn’t thought to bring anything to eat, but didn’t feel like anything either, and when her companions offered to share their food with her she shook her head.

‘Thank you, but my stomach isn’t right yet.’

‘Might feel better with something in it.’

‘I don’t think so yet,’ Aggie said. ‘Maybe when we get to that place called Crewe. You say that we have to change trains there?’

‘Aye,’ one of the women told her. ‘It’s a regular stopping place. Nearly everyone has to change at Crewe and it has got a café on the station. And you’re right, you may well feel like something there.’

The only thing that Aggie really felt like, though, when she sat in the slightly smoky café at Crewe Station was a cup of hot sweet tea. She gulped at that gratefully as she gazed out on to the platform through grimy windows that were slightly misted over because of the teeming rain outside, and waited for the train to take her on the last leg of her journey.

She knew in her heart of hearts that the nausea and weakness she felt was more a sickness of the soul. With this behind her she would soon be fine and healthy once more. Then all she would have to cope with was the fact that she was alone in the world, and she’d not be the only one. They had foundlings enough at their own workhouse who had never known the love of a family and growing up among brothers and sisters. She imagined in a large city like Birmingham there would be plenty more and so she told herself firmly to stop feeling sorry for herself.

When she arrived at New Street Station, however, the sheer size and noise of the place unnerved her totally. The train pulled to a stop with a squeal of brakes and hiss of steam, and people spilled from the carriages onto the platform.

Everyone seemed to know where they were going, Aggie thought, sniffing at the damp and sooty air, surrounded by more people than she had ever seen in the whole of her life. The place was full of sound. Apart from the clatter of the trains and the ear-splitting screech of the hooter, there was the tramp of feet and the noise of raucous voices raised in laughter or greeting.

Porters’ voices warning everyone to ‘Mind your backs, please’ rose above it all as they pushed laden trolleys through the milling crowds. Through this cacophony, a news vendor with a strident, though slightly nasal-sounding voice, shouted out in an attempt, Aggie supposed, to sell the newspapers spread before him, but she had to guess this because she couldn’t understand a single word that he said.

‘So where is your brother, dear?’ said one of her travelling companions. ‘We’ll stay with you till we see that you are all right.’

Aggie was filled with panic. They intended to wait with her till the brother she had invented should put in an appearance, and she looked around anxiously. There were still plenty of people around and, knowing that there was nothing else for it, she picked up her bag and said, ‘There he is, over by the steps. Thank you so much for looking after me.’ She was away before they could think to detain her, to insist they meet the fictitious brother and ascertain that Aggie was all right.

Aggie was soon hidden from their view by the crowds of people and she secreted herself behind a pillar and watched her travelling companions who were scrutinising the crowds going up the stairs closely. Then one gave a shrug and they turned their attention to their luggage scattered around them on the platform. Aggie didn’t breathe easy, however, till they had left the platform altogether. Even then, she stayed where she was a little longer and the crowds had thinned out considerably when she slid out of her hiding place and made her way towards the exit as resolutely as she could.

If the station had unnerved Aggie slightly that was nothing to the way she felt when she stepped into the street outside. Rain was falling so heavily it was like a wall of water and turned the late afternoon to dusk. Lights were lit on many of the vehicles, which gleamed onto streets glistening with water.

Aggie stared, for she had never seen so many vehicles all packed together on the roads, even some of the new petrol-driven motor cars that she had heard tell of, but never seen. There were horse-drawn vans and carts thronging the streets, and hackney cabs were ringing the station, waiting for customers. The smell was incredible: acrid, sour and sooty. It lodged in the back of Aggie’s throat and made her cough. The noise was relentless: a constant drone mixed with the chattering and shouts of the people, the sound of boots and the clopping of horses’ hoofs on the cobbled streets.

And then Aggie saw a clattering, swaying monster coming towards her. It both repelled and fascinated her. She drew nearer for a better look and saw that it ran on rails laid all along the road, while steam puffed from its funnel in front. It tore along at a furious rate, using its hooter constantly to warn people to get out of the way.

Aggie had drawn closer to the hackney cab drivers too, and one of the drivers, from the shelter of his seat, had watched her with slight amusement, noting that she seemed not to notice her soaking hair plastered to her head or her sodden clothes. Eventually he leaped from his seat and said to her, ‘You seem very interested in the trams, miss.’

‘Trams. Is that what they are?’

‘They are, miss,’ the cab driver said. ‘Run by steam and, if you believe what people say, they can travel at fifteen miles an hour.’ Here he gave a rueful smile. ‘People always seem to be in a hurry these days. Those blessed trams could easily put me out of business. I mean, Bessie is a good horse and no slouch either, but going full out on a flat stretch of road she can only manage half that speed. Maybe I will have to invest in one of those petrol engines for my next cab, but tell you the truth they scare the life out of me.’

‘And me,’ Aggie agreed. ‘And as for those trams, I don’t think I will ever have the courage to get on one. I have never seen anything like them before. There were none where I came from.’ She thought for a moment and went on, ‘When I was at school there was a girl come up to live in Buncrana from a place just outside Dublin and she said something about steam trams and the electric ones around Dublin. We weren’t at all sure that she was telling the truth, to be honest, and anyway, it was hard to visualise. They may have something similar in Derry or Belfast, I suppose, but it was too dark to see much.’

‘You have just come over on the boat then?’

‘Aye.’

‘May I say, miss, that you have chosen a fine time to come visiting?’

Aggie looked at him and in the lights from his lamps he was moved by the sadness in her eyes as she said, ‘It wasn’t by choice that I came now.’