Anne Bennett - Pack Up Your Troubles

And Maeve had thought he’d taken a day off because he could, because he was one of the bosses – a foreman or some such – as Michael had indicated in his letters home. There had been no preparation for a man who worked only three days a week. Suddenly she felt sorry for her Aunt Agnes. Already managing on little money, she had now to feed another mouth.

She took off her coat and hat and laid both on the bed, then picked the bag up and said to Jane, ‘I have some things here to please your mother. I think she’ll be happier when she sees them.’

It had grown quiet downstairs and though Maeve knew it was probably the uneasy silence of an argument not resolved, she was still grateful for it. She took the parcel of food downstairs and presented it to Agnes, together with the five-pound note for her keep.

The change in Agnes was swift. She pocketed the money in her apron immediately and smiled at Maeve in a belated welcoming gesture. But Maeve noticed the smile didn’t reach her eyes and she knew then that Agnes would never be a friend to her.

The meal was fine and filling enough, with the bacon and eggs and soda bread and butter from home, together with chips from the chippy that Billy had been dispatched for, and everyone tucked in with a fine appetite.

Maeve made pleasant small talk for courtesy’s sake, but still couldn’t take to her aunt, and it was obvious that her uncle was almost afraid of Agnes. Maybe he had reason, but the fact remained that the man who’d warmly welcomed Maeve at the station did not exist in this house, and that realisation saddened her. She resolved to get a place of her own as soon as possible.

The children fired questions at her about Ireland, the homestead she’d left behind and their daddy’s family, and Maeve answered them as best she could. But the journey and the emotion of the whole day had tired her out, and she was glad when it was late enough to take to her bed. She lay beside Jane, and though Jane would have liked to talk more, Maeve was too exhausted and quickly fell into a deep sleep.

After a few fraught days, during which her aunt openly showed her displeasure in having Maeve there despite the five pounds, she was glad to begin work. Maeve was no stranger to hard work and she knew what the woman had told her on the train was no lie. Work was scarce, and she’d seen men, often extremely thin, and shabbily and inadequately dressed, lolling on street corners. She knew she was lucky to get a job, and probably wouldn’t have it at all if her uncle hadn’t asked for her. She had no wish for her boss to regret his decision to employ her and didn’t quibble at the hours he asked her to work, but because they were so long she asked him to let her know if he heard of some place nearby that she could rent.

Mr Dolamartis thought this over. He’d never had such an industrious little waitress, and so beautiful too; she certainly drew the men in. But the hours were often from early morning to late night, and though she never complained, he knew sometimes Maeve had trouble getting there in time in the morning and back at night to her uncle’s house.

Above the café there was a flat, basic and small, and though Mr Dolamartis had never used it as a flat but as a storeroom, he knew he could use the room off the kitchen for storage instead, and give Maeve the chance of having a place of her own.

Maeve was thrilled. She wasn’t put off by the grime and neglect, and set to with a will to clean it all. Mr Dolamartis, amused at her industry, brought her some distemper to brighten the place up. There was a battered old sofa there already, and a table and chairs were supplied by the café. The bed was set into the wall of the living room and pulled out at night, but Maeve had no bedding, no crocks or cutlery, no curtains for the windows nor lino for the floor.

But though she’d paid over a good proportion of her wages to her Aunt Agnes, she’d kept her tips and sometimes they were sizeable. These she spent on essentials, then saved up for other household goods she wanted. She was often free in the afternoon for a few hours after lunch when Mr Dolamartis would take over. Then Maeve would usually take a tram to the city centre and stroll around the shops, enthralled by the choices available and particularly attracted to the Bull Ring, where she was able to find many of the things to make her flat more like home.

She joined organisations at the Catholic Church, St Francis’s, that she attended in Aston, in a bid to make friends with some of the younger parishioners. She’d been to the pictures and dancing with some of the young single Catholic girls on one of her rare evenings off, but she seldom went to her uncle’s house, knowing that she wouldn’t really be welcome.

TWO

Maeve met Brendan Hogan as she came out of Benediction one late summer’s evening in 1930, when she’d been in Birmingham less than six months. She thought he’d been to church too, but though he hadn’t, he didn’t enlighten her. He was struck by the beauty of the young woman and wanted to impress her, but though he never missed Mass or Communion – and certainly not confession, because that’s where all his sins were absolved – he hadn’t much truck with Benediction. He thought you could get too much of religion if you weren’t careful and, anyway, Benediction cut into his drinking time. He was actually on his way to a pub at Aston Cross, which he knew many ladies of ill repute frequented, when he bumped into the luscious golden-haired beauty who introduced herself as Maeve Brannigan. If the lovely lady wanted to believe he was a good clean-living Catholic boy, he wasn’t going to deny it.

Brendan was well muscled and handsome, with jet-black hair, a clear complexion, deep brown eyes and eyebrows that met across his broad forehead. Even the nose seemed to have little shape but sort of spread across his face, and his thick lips did not detract from his handsomeness, and Maeve Brannigan could not believe that such a man could possibly be interested in her.

But he was, and he smiled at her and said he was very pleased to meet her. He asked her name and Maeve told him without any hesitation, for she knew by the man’s voice that he was as Irish as herself and a good Catholic too, going to Benediction no less. She felt as if her heart had turned a somersault and Brendan knew he wasn’t going to walk away from this girl who attracted him so much.

‘Maybe you’d do me the honour of letting me walk you home, Miss Brannigan?’ he said, admiring to himself her soft lilting voice, and added with another smile, ‘My name is Brendan Hogan.’

Maeve was stunned. She wanted Brendan to see her home, but she wondered if she was being forward by accepting his offer. Maybe that’s how things were done in the cities? If she refused because she was afraid, then she might as well have stayed in Ireland, she told herself.

‘Thank you, Mr Hogan,’ she replied. ‘You can walk with me if you wish, but I don’t live at home. I work in Dolamartis’s café and live in the flat above it.’

Her own place, Brendan thought. This gets better and better. But he behaved impeccably, wanting to see Maeve again, and when he delivered her to the door of the café, he didn’t even kiss her. Never had the walk home appeared so short, Maeve thought regretfully, and never had she chatted in such an uninhibited way to someone she’d just met.

‘Can I see you again?’ Brendan asked, and Maeve thought her heart had stopped beating altogether.

‘Please?’ Brendan said, misinterpreting Maeve’s silence. He knew his cronies at The Bell public house wouldn’t believe this was Brendan Hogan of love-them-and-leave-them fame, but his body was on fire for Maeve Brannigan.

He was sure she wasn’t used to pubs, so their first date was to the cinema to see Charlie Chaplin. Brendan was the perfect gentleman, presenting Maeve with her first box of chocolates and taking her arm for the short walk to the Globe picture house at the junction of High Street and New Street in Aston. Maeve knew that was the entrance for the better seats. On her previous visits, when she’d gone on her own on a free afternoon, or with friends from the church, she’d bought cheap tickets from the little window in New Street. When she told Brendan this, he laughed and gave her a squeeze.