Bill.’
‘Makes you wonder where we’ll all be in a year’s time.’
‘Maybe it’s a good job we can’t see into the future.’
‘I suppose,’ Polly mused. ‘Funny how life turns out. You always seem to fall on your feet, though.’
‘That’s not really fair,’ Marion said. ‘A lot of my good fortune is because I married Bill and he has a good job.’
‘Yeah,’ said Polly. ‘And you kept your legs together till the ring was on your finger, though if I hadn’t been expecting, Mammy and Daddy would never have agreed to me marrying one of the Reillys.’
‘Maybe not,’ Marion said. ‘But that’s not really any excuse for … Look, Polly, when I spotted you staggering down the gravel drive carrying the bass bag you had taken with you into service that afternoon in June 1923, the blood ran like ice in my veins.’ She still carried that mental image with her. Her sister had always had more meat on her bones than she had, and her hair veered more towards blonde than brown, but apart from that they were very similar and both were pretty girls. Polly had just a dusting of pink on her cheekbones, a cluster of freckles below her eyes. That day, though, her face had been bright red and swollen with the tears she had shed and her hair falling over the face, and even her straw bonnet had been askew.
Polly nodded. ‘You knew what it was all about then, didn’t you?’
‘Course I did,’ Marion said. ‘That’s about the only reason that anyone is dismissed from service. Tell you, I was almighty glad that promotion to lady’s maid meant I had a room of my own and I could grab you before you alerted the house, and hide you away in there.’
‘You nearly shook the head from my shoulders.’
‘Can you wonder at it, Poll?’ Marion demanded. ‘I wanted you to say that you weren’t in the family way. I would have been so pleased that day to have been proved wrong.’
‘I never remember feeling so miserable,’ Polly said. ‘And you went wild when you knew who it was I’d lain with. And he didn’t take me down, not really. I mean, he didn’t make me or anything.’
‘Be quiet, Polly,’ Marion said, genuinely shocked. ‘Have you no shame? Don’t talk in that disgusting way. Did you at no time think of the consequences and that your disgrace and shame would taint the whole family?’
‘No,’ Polly said. ‘Not then I didn’t. I loved Pat, see. I wasn’t really a bad girl.’
Marion knew she wasn’t. Polly didn’t have a nasty bone in her body, but she had been very gullible then, and anxious to please when she was younger, and, Marion had to admit, hadn’t changed much. Polly had always wanted to be liked and probably still did.
There was only one answer, one way out of this terrible dilemma. ‘Well, Pat Reilly will have to be made to marry you, that’s all,’ Marion had said, but even as the words were out of her mouth she knew what Polly’s life would like, married to such a man. She doubted she’d ever have a penny piece to bless herself with and a houseful of babies before she was able to turn around.
‘I never minded marrying Pat,’ Polly said, and added a little defiantly, ‘and he didn’t have to be forced either. Despite everything, I still don’t regret that marriage. I was really glad that Lady Amelia gave you leave to go home with me and tell Mammy and Daddy,’ Polly added fervently. ‘I think Mammy might have killed me stone dead that day if you hadn’t been there.’
‘In all honesty I was little use to you,’ Marion admitted, ‘because when Mammy started laying into you and screaming vile and obscene words I never thought I would hear her say, I was too shocked to move. It was Daddy coming in from work that really saved you that day, though he too was shaken to the core at what you had done.’
‘He didn’t lay a hand on me either,’ Polly said. ‘For all Mammy wanted him to, he said there had been enough of that already and he went straight round to the Reillys. Pat always said he was tickled pink, learning that he was going to be a father.’
Pity he didn’t try harder to provide for him then. The words were on the tip of Marion’s tongue, but she bit them back as she remembered the shabby wedding hastily arranged at their parish church, Sacred Heart Catholic Church, on nearby Witton Road. The only people there were Pat’s loud and rumbustious family, who didn’t seem to see any shame in what the young people had done at all. Polly had worn an ordinary dress of tent-like proportions to try to hide her swollen stomach.
Polly was remembering that wedding too. ‘Remember Father McIntyre, with his nose stuck in the air like me and Pat smelled bad or summat?’
‘I remember,’ Marion said. ‘I suppose he was showing his disapproval. After all, he has known you all your life.’
‘He’s known Pat all his life too,’ Polly said, ‘but it didn’t give him any sort of right to behave like that. And then Mammy wouldn’t have any sort of celebration.’ She looked at Marion with a great smile on her face. ‘Pat’s family couldn’t believe it. All the way home they were complaining about it and in the end they went to the Outdoor and got some carry-out and we had our own celebration.’
Marion knew that the Reillys had been astounded because she had heard more than one complain, ‘Not even a drink? Mean buggers!’
However, Clara had thought there was nothing to celebrate. In her opinion, though marriage ? any sort of marriage ? brought partial respectability, the stupidest person in the world was able to count to nine when it mattered. Polly had behaved shame-lessly and that would reflect on her, as Polly’s mother, and no way did she feel like celebrating that fact.
Marion thought, though, that Polly had paid a heavy price for marrying Pat Reilly. That vision she had seen of Polly’s life the day she admitted her pregnancy had come true with a vengeance, for the babies came thick and fast. Polly’s first son, Chris, arrived when Marion had been married just two weeks and he was followed by Colm, Mary Ellen, Siobhan, Orla and Jack. When Jack was born something went wrong and Polly was told that she would be unlikely to conceive ever again. Marion comforted her sister, who was distressed at the news, but really she was glad that there were to be no more children as they couldn’t afford to keep the ones they had and over the years she’d had to help her sister out financially many a time.
Later that night she told Bill the news about the boys’ jobs and he too was glad that life might get a bit easier for them.
‘I’m sure Pat could have done more, and sooner than this,’ Marion said. ‘Course, if I say anything to our Polly she defends him to the hilt and claims he is trying to get work.’
‘Well, he may be,’ Bill said. ‘This is a major slump, you know. Jobs aren’t that easy to come by. Pat Reilly isn’t the only one unemployed today.’
‘He’s the only one married to my sister,’ Marion snapped. ‘Anyroad, when they haven’t food to put on the table you will see the man in the pub. You told me that yourself.’
Bill had indeed told her that, as he’d also said that Pat would often make a half-pint last all evening, but she chose not to remember that. In her eyes he was the man that had taken her young sister down and Bill doubted that she would ever really forgive Pat for it.
In bed that night, after listening to a broadcast that said if war was declared there would undoubtedly
