A Mother’s Spirit

‘Well, this is the living room, I suppose?’ Joe said.

‘Yeah, and the only room with windows,’ Patrick said. ‘Though the view is not one to write home about, so I am not really bothered about that anyway. Next door to it is the kitchen.’ And as Patrick led the way to it Joe caught sight of a few cupboards and a sort of stove with a couple of gas rings. ‘Fairly new innovation, the gas,’ Patrick said. ‘These tenements were thrown up with no form of lighting, heating, no running water, nothing, but now we have gas lights, gas rings to cook on, and a toilet just down the corridor. ‘And this,’ he said, opening the door off the kitchen, ‘is where I sleep. You see there would have been plenty of room for you too.’

There would have been, Joe saw, for Patrick had a sizeable double bed, but Joe thought of his own little room and bed for him and him alone – his little oasis of calm where he could hide away in his off-duty moments – and he knew he would never change places with Patrick. He didn’t say this, however, because he had no wish to alienate his friend.

‘At least you are almost right in the city,’ he said, ‘and I bet there is fine entertainment to be had in New York on Thanksgiving Day?’

‘Entertainment?’ Patrick cried. ‘Man, there is everything here. Catch up your coat and we’ll hit the town and you’ll see for yourself.’

Joe never forgot his first foray into New York at night and he wrote in all down in a letter to Tom the following day.

Dear Tom,

Last night I was out with Patrick Lacey, who wanted to show me what New York is like at night and we went in on an underground train that they call a subway. We went into what looked like a large metal box on the street to find hundreds of steps leading down. And you went down so far I began to think that we were descending to the bowels of the earth.

Suddenly, we came out at a platform, not unlike those at Derry with the ticket office at the end and it was hard to believe that above us were roads and houses and shops and people carrying on as normal. However, everyone else seemed to be taking it in their stride and the platform was fair teeming with people. I didn’t want to make a holy show of Patrick and so I said nothing and got in the train behind him as if I had been doing it every day of my life and it seemed no time at all till we were at Times Square.

Full darkness had fallen then and oh Tom there are not enough words to tell you about the lights. Patrick said he was fair mesmerised at first and so was I. The colours were so bright, so vibrant. It was amazing. There weren’t just one or two, you understand. Whole sides of buildings were lit up in every colour you could think of and some were fixed to flash on and off.

Eventually Patrick dragged me away to a place called a speakeasy, because though there is supposed to be no alcohol allowed in America at the moment, at the speakeasies they serve it in teapots and give you a cup to drink from, with a saucer as well, so any taking a casual look in would think we were all taking tea.

They play something called jazz. It’s really catchy, foot-tapping music, and played with such energy on big brass instruments. The dance floor was full.

The way some of the women dance the Charleston and the Shimmy and the like, though, would be frowned upon in the whole of Ireland. And many of the young women have their hair cut short, and their dresses go straight down and have a little bit of skirt at the bottom with hems just below the knee. And some smoke and nearly all wear cosmetics. Imagine a few of those walking the streets of Buncrana?

It was a truly amazing night and at the end of it, I took a streetcar that brought me most of the way home. This truly is a wonderful country, Tom, and I cannot thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to come here.

But when Joe had sealed that letter and sent it, he wondered if Tom would feel any resentment when he read it, knowing that he would never experience any of these things himself. All Tom’s life he had sublimated any desires of his own and bent to the will of a crabbed old woman who never had a civil word for him. Joe knew at the end of it, with their mother gone, eventually Tom would inherit the farm, but he thought it a high price to pay.

As the months slipped one into another, Joe considered himself a very fortunate man. He had a job he enjoyed, especially when the car arrived. It was a magnificent, dark green Cadillac, and Joe thought that the idea that he would sit behind the wheel and drive it was both terrifying and thrilling. But he had readily taken to driving, and so the carriage and matching pair that pulled it had been sold, and so had Bramble, and Joe was by then so mesmerised by the car that he hardly missed them.

He was truly content. He had a generous employer that he respected, good wholesome food, a warm bed and a room of his own. Added to all this, he enjoyed the camaraderie of the staff and had a good friend in Patrick Lacey. What more could a man want?

And all this had come about because he’d rescued the daughter of the house from danger. He would have hated anything to have happened to Gloria because she was a lovely young thing. Not that he saw much of her because after his first Christmas in the house she had started at her convent boarding school in Madison.

She had told him that as well as academic subjects, she would learn the sort of attributes she needed to take her place in society. ‘Isn’t it odd, Joe?’ she went on. ‘Mother says I have to learn how to be a lady. I thought you just grew into one, but apparently not.’

Joe had laughed at her gently and said, ‘And I’m sure that you will make a fine lady at the end of it.’

While Gloria had settled down happily at the school almost immediately, she was missed by everyone at home. Her parents were like two lost souls. Brian eventually started going to his old club two or three evenings a week, and Mary reported that even on the nights he was home, he and the mistress hardly said one word to each other while she was in the room serving dinner.

They both lived for the holidays when the house would come alive and ring with the sound of chattering, giggling girls running up and down the stairs. They danced to the pulsating jazz that Gloria played on her phonograph, or played tennis on the court Brian had had made in the paddock at the back of the house.

Kate, the cook, would moan that she didn’t know whether she was coming or going, but Joe knew by her twinkling eyes that really she loved to see the house full. She made sure the cookie jar was never empty, and there was always homemade lemonade on offer.

Joe was also pressed into service to fetch and carry girls around the city. He knew he was a favourite with them all because he never told tales on them. Gloria’s friends also thought it the most romantic thing in the world for a man to rescue a girl in the way he had Gloria, and Gloria claimed he was her own knight in shining armour.

One day in the autumn of 1923 Brian asked Joe if he had ever thought of taking any of the courses being advertised in the city institutes. Shock ran through Joe at Brian’s words, because he knew his employer well by now, and when he spoke like that, it wasn’t really a question at all. It was more like the iron fist inside the velvet glove.

Yet Joe answered, ‘No, sir. Things like that are not for the likes of me. I am not brainy enough.’

‘Who says?’ Brian said. ‘You have to have a brain in your head to understand the mechanics of a car, and they are always praising your knowledge at the garage.’

‘That’s different, sir, and—’

‘They do courses in typewriting and accounts, and I need a man in the office,’ Brian said.

‘Oh, sir, it is kind of you and all, but I am not fitted out for office work.’

‘Kind be damned!’ Brian cried. ‘You would suit me very well. I am impressed by your common sense and your intelligence. Will you do this for me, Joe?’

Joe shook his head helplessly. ‘I honestly don’t know if I will be able to make head nor tail out of any of it,’ he said. ‘And I would probably need a typewriter.’

‘Leave that to me,’ Brian said. ‘Your job is to take the course and get Bobby ready to take over from you in a year or so.’

Joe sighed and yet he knew the hand of opportunity was being extended to him again, and he would be a fool if he didn’t grasp it tight.

A month or so into the course Joe thought he had made a vast mistake. He found it the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. He had always been good at figures and thought he would find accounts not that difficult. He was wrong, but he found typewriting much worse. Memorising the keyboard was hard enough and his fingers seemed too big and cumbersome for the keys.

He laboured on and didn’t bother complaining because he knew that Brian would obviously want some return on the money he had spent educating him, and he hoped that his employer’s belief in him was not misplaced.

None of the Brannigans’ staff could understand why he was doing all the book work, and neither could Patrick. Joe told none of them, not even Tom, what Brian had said about being taken on in the office if he should pass the exams, because he could not visualise himself in such a role. He didn’t know if he wanted it, certain he would feel out of his depth. Anyway, there would be no possibility of it if he were to fail his exams, as he was certain sure he was going to.

In one way, though, Joe was pleased that he had so much going on in his life because that summer he had found himself attracted to Gloria physically for the first time in his life. He had been appalled and disgusted that he should have such feelings for a young girl, and the boss’s daughter, no less, and seventeen years younger than he was. He knew he wasn’t just lusting after her beauty and her developing figure, for his love for Gloria seemed to fill every part of him. Just to be near her caused the heat to fill his body as the blood coursed more quickly through his veins and he knew that he would willingly lay down his life for Gloria and feel it an honour to do so.

He recalled the day she had left to start boarding school she had sought him out in the garage first and put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. She had been a child then, though, and he had thought of her as a child. But two years down the line she was a child no longer. He wasn’t sure that he could trust himself not to betray his feelings if she were to do anything like that again, and he knew there was no way that he would ever risk that.

This meant that his manner towards her changed. They had always had a special relationship. Gloria never forgot that Joe had possibly saved her life, and so they had always been free and easy with one another, and she never thought of calling him ‘Sullivan’, as her mother did. But suddenly Joe became very stiff and proper, as that was the only way he could deal with emotions that he had never imagined he would have.

Gloria had been confused and hurt at first. She assumed that she must have said something to offend, though Joe denied she had, nor would he admit that there was anything wrong. Then she became irritated by his remoteness and the peculiar way he was behaving, and one day she had stamped her dainty little foot on the floor and almost hissed, ‘Joe, if you say just one more time that it is not your place to comment on something I say then I will get very cross with you.’

Joe had no reply to that, and in the end Gloria had barked out, ‘Are you going to say nothing at all?’

Joe shrugged. ‘What is there to say, Miss Gloria? You and your parents are the bosses around here.’

‘Joe Sullivan, you must be the most aggravating man in the whole world,’ Gloria cried.

‘So you say, miss,’ Joe had replied, and she had flounced back to the house.

He was sad that he had made her so angry, and from that point her attitude to him had been cooler, and although that made life easier for him, he missed the camaraderie that they’d once enjoyed.

But he didn’t allow himself to dwell on any sort of relationship with Gloria. He knew the only way to get rid of any madness of the mind – and this was a form of madness – was to work harder until he got over it, as he knew he would in the end.

However, Joe’s hard work paid off because in the summer of 1924, he took exams in accountancy and typewriting and in the autumn of that year found out that he had passed both with high grades. He was delighted, but unaware that his results meant that his life was going to change completely. Brian clapped Joe on the shoulder, said that he had always had faith in him and that he would be an invaluable help to him in the office.

That was enough of a sea change for Joe to cope with, but then Brian dropped another bombshell.

‘Of course, now that you are going to be working for me in the office a servant’s room in the basement will no longer be suitable accommodation for you,’ he announced.