Marlene Dotterer - Shipbuilder

“Come on, then. Be a good Protestant and give us a hand.” One of them thrust a bat into her hands and pointed at the shop next door. “That shopkeeper hires Catholics. Let him know he’s wrong to do that.”

As she stared at him, screams filled the air. A nearby house had been set ablaze and the occupants were streaming outside. Most of them were men and they had weapons too. The brawl distracted Casey’s tormenters. She dropped the bat and ran.

They were after her in an instant, rocks grazing her as she ran. She ducked down a side street just as a rock clipped her shoulder. Terror put speed to her feet as another rock landed in the middle of her back. She tripped forward, past training instinctively making her turn it into a forward roll. The roll caused the rest of her training to flood her muscles and she leapt to her feet, turning with a side snap to the boy just reaching her. Her foot connected with his thigh, knocking him down. Not slowing, she went for the next guy, with a forward snap to his chest that quite possibly broke a rib as he fell, unable to breathe. The two others behind them stopped short, unwilling to get within her range.

She narrowed her eyes, and her mouth twisted in contempt. “Help your friends. I’m going home.”

No one tried to stop her.

“I don’t get it!” she yelled at Sam later that afternoon. Mrs. Fitzsimmons had fussed over her bruises when she got home, and then had given Sam a piece of her mind for letting Casey run around town dressed as a boy and without any protection. Casey and Sam were in the little parlor now, waiting for dinner. “There must be some signal between people. They have to have this planned out. But how do they know who’s Catholic and who’s not? It’s not as if the Catholic’s have purple skin or feathers growing out of their heads!”

Sam just shook his head, torn between his anxiety over her safety and a fatalistic amusement that somehow, all of this was his fault. “I don’t know. I imagine word gets to them about where the Catholics are working. And I’m sure they have a signal.” He sat on the sofa and rubbed his face. “I’m just glad you’re all right. Thank goodness for that karate training.”

She sniffed. “My leg hurts like hell. I haven’t been practicing, you know.”

“Maybe you should.” He was despondent. “I didn’t make any money today, either. I don’t know where we’ll end up, but it will probably be a more dangerous area. I asked Mrs. Fitzsimmons if she could let you stay if you could help out around the house or with cooking. Even if she just gave you a cot in the basement. But she said she can’t.”

Casey was touched. “She probably gets that all the time. A certain amount of hardheartedness is necessary, I guess. But thank you for trying.”

“I don’t know where we’ll go.”

“We’ll find something.” She turned to the stairs, intent on putting on a skirt for dinner, and hoping her words were true.

They weren’t.

Hunger forced them to a charity meal at a church, for dinner the next night. Casey tried to be upbeat as they took their bowls of soup and bread to a long table. “I grew up in Berkeley. It’s not as if I’ve never seen homeless people. We’ll find a protected spot and sleep in our cloaks.”

But Sam refused to let her sleep outside. Desperate, he asked everyone around them where he could send Casey. Then he began going to other tables to ask. She tried to stop him, telling him that she’d be okay, but finally, she forced him to sit in an empty corner and listen to her.

“Jesus, Sam! Do you know what you’re doing?” She whispered furiously, hoping she wasn’t calling attention to them. “In the first place, you’re letting everyone know that we’re alone and helpless. They’ll see you as an old, weak man and me as a small, weak girl. You’re making us marks, do you understand?”

He stared at her, then closed his eyes. “Damn. I’m sorry. You’re right, it’s stupid.” His eyes snapped open. “But you need to be somewhere safe.”

She shook her head. “Not without you.” Despondent, she turned and sat next to him on the bench. “I’m afraid to go somewhere without you. What if I can’t find you again? I’m a single girl. What if they send me someplace like those laundries or something?” She looked up at him and winced at his astonished expression.

“I’m not suggesting leaving you, Casey.” He touched her hand. “You’re single, but you’re not alone. I’ll tell them I’m your guardian, just like we told Mrs. Fitzsimmons. I just want you someplace safe and warm for the night. We can meet up in the morning at a prearranged spot.”

A volunteer approached them, her hands full of dishes, her smile friendly. “Some are sayin’ you need a place for your daughter to stay,” she said to Sam. “Sometimes, there’s still room at the poorhouse. Might be that both of you can get in.”

They stayed for a week in the poorhouse, men on one side, women on the other. True to his word, Sam met Casey every morning at the door to the dining room, where they could pick up a bowl of porridge and day-old bread. Sam went out every day to look for work, and they put Casey to work cleaning in the kitchen. They wouldn’t let her go out on her own and she didn’t dare put on her boy clothes.

Between the two of them, they scraped enough money together to rent another room, smaller and meaner than the first boardinghouse. This one did not include board and there was no place to cook anything. Sam had hopes he could build a hot plate out of scrounged parts. Until then, they would eat cold food or try to get dinner at the charities.

Worst of all, Sam had picked up a virus in the crowded shelter. He coughed a lot, and had a low fever. He just couldn’t shake it, whatever it was, and Casey lived in fear of his illness getting worse. There was no running water in the building, and the water pipes outside worked only a couple of hours a day, and not at all on Sunday. It was a struggle to stay clean and almost impossible to clean their room. Casey looked for work, with worry a constant companion.

June 1906

Spring turned into a lethargic, hot summer, minus the cooling fog bank, and with almost no rain. The usual breezes from the Irish Sea never made it into the lough, leaving Belfast dry and airless under a blanket of noxious, early twentieth century industrial chemicals. The pollution made Sam’s cough worse, and even Casey struggled to breathe as she made her rounds. People still burned coal for cooking, and the black soot turned the air a dull grey, adding to the ever-present dust and dried horse manure.

Casey wished she could wear a handkerchief over her nose and mouth. Perhaps, she thought, she could take up robbing banks for the summer so it would be part of the costume.

As the afternoon progressed, and with four pence in her pocket, Casey left the quiet marketplace to roam the city streets, hoping to find more work helping a shopkeeper. She crossed an alley to head toward the shops, just as a man digging around in a Renault pulled himself out the open door and spotted her. “Hey lad.” He motioned to her. “I could use some extra hands here. Got time to make sixpence?” She nodded, and he began pulling boxes from the car. After judging her size, he handed her two boxes and took three for himself, gesturing to the building behind them. “Right up the stairs lad, second floor.”

She followed him up, taking the time to observe him closely, since he seemed worth observing. He was dressed in the typical businessman’s suit: brown pants and jacket, white shirt, cravat, and a bowler hat. He reminded her of an old-fashioned movie star, with his dark brown hair cut short and combed sideways, and his strong, aristocratic features. His eyes were brown and kind, putting her at ease, although she’d had to look up over a foot to meet his gaze. And his hands… she had noticed his hands as he handed her the boxes. They were a little rough, as if he used them for work, but clean and manicured, nevertheless. She thought of those hands caressing her, and suppressed a sigh. This was hardly the appropriate time for such thoughts.