Far From Home (2 page)

So to Susie's great surprise, Philomena said, ‘Susie's
right, Kate. You were always a fine one for the dancing. You'll have to go to Birmingham and see for yourself. Would you like that?'

Kate wasn't sure she'd heard right. She stared at her mother, and even Susie was silent and seemed to be almost holding her breath. ‘Do … do you really mean it, Mammy?' Kate said at last.

Philomena's heart felt as if it was breaking, because she knew that once gone, Kate would in all likelihood never come back to live at home again, but then thinking of the alternative said, ‘Yes, of course I mean it.'

Kate had to get things straight. ‘For a holiday, Mammy?' she asked. ‘I'd love that. Oh indeed I would.'

‘Well, just a wee holiday if you like,' Philomena said, and Kate heard the resignation in her mother's voice and the sigh she tried to suppress as she went on: ‘Though if Susie here could get you set on some place, you could stay a year or two and see how you like city life.'

Both Kate and Susie looked at Philomena in amazement, and then Kate's eyes met her mother's and suddenly she knew why her mother was anxious that she should leave her home and family and travel to Birmingham. And she wasn't sure that she wanted to go, not for a year or two. Although she did hanker after more freedom, she knew that she would miss her family hugely. And she might never see Tim again, or at least for a good few years. On the other hand, she had to admit that it was torment seeing him so often and not even being able to speak of how she felt. At least she would be spared that.

‘So,' Philomena said, ‘what do you think?'

Susie was astounded at Philomena's apparent and sudden change of heart, but she decided she was going to do all she could to encourage such a venture because she thought Kate was wasted in Donegal. ‘I could soon get you fixed up with a job and a flat and such,' she said reassuringly. ‘Oh, it would be such fun if we were together.'

Kate smiled at her friend's enthusiasm, but she knew she was right. With Susie's company, a job of work and all the distractions that Birmingham could offer, she would surely be able to get the feelings she had for her cousin into some sort of perspective. And so she had nodded her head and had ended up following Susie Mason to Birmingham three years earlier in the autumn of 1935. She had confided everything to Susie once she had arrived in Birmingham; though Susie was sympathetic, she thought that Kate would soon get over her cousin. However, Kate had been incredibly homesick and was determined to stay true to Tim. ‘If I can't have Tim then I'll have nobody,' she declared. ‘I won't settle for second best.' She knew her attitude irritated Susie, but there was nothing she could do about that.

However, Kate knew that her young sister, Sally, had no idea of the real reason their mother had been so keen for her to leave home, and that was how Kate wanted it to stay, and so when Sally said, ‘So why was it so different for you?', she put those memories to the back of her mind.

‘I've told you why that was, and as for Mammy not giving you money, she doesn't think you need anything since she clothes you and feeds you. I never had any either, but if it bothers you that much, it would have
been more sensible and more mature to tell them how you felt rather than rushing over here.'

And then a thought struck her and she said, ‘But hang on a minute, if you had no money given to you, how did you pay your fare?'

‘I took Mammy's egg money.'

‘Sally!' Kate cried. Philomena had full care of the hens on the farm and she sold the excess eggs. That was her personal money and she guarded it jealously. Though they all knew the cupboard she kept it in, no one would dream of touching it – till now.

‘That was stealing, Sally.'

‘Well, I wouldn't have had to steal if I had been given a wage.'

Kate shook her head angrily. ‘No, you can't get away with it like that, Sally. I bet you never even discussed getting any sort of wage for yourself, did you?'

‘She wouldn't have agreed,' Sally said mulishly. ‘You know what she's like.'

‘You didn't even try,' Kate said. ‘So, you can't be sure what Mammy would have done and Daddy might have supported you.'

‘He always sides with Mammy.'

‘No, he doesn't,' Kate said. ‘He did when we were small because he thought bringing up children was women's work, as it is, but he was better with me when I had grown a bit, so I'm sure he would be the same with you. He's very fair. Surely you should have tried to get them to see your point of view before you stole from your own parents?'

Sally was crying in earnest now but Kate had little sympathy for her. ‘And just how did you manage to
walk out anyway, especially carrying a thumping great suitcase. I mean,' she added sarcastically, ‘weren't they the slightest bit curious?'

‘They weren't there,' Sally said. ‘Daddy and Uncle Padraic had been gone from early morning to Killybegs where they heard some farm equipment and animals were being sold after the death of the farmer.'

‘And where was Mammy?'

‘Helping at a birth. And James has been at school since September.'

‘And when you got here, Sally, what did you expect to happen?' Kate asked.

‘I thought I might stay with you,' Sally said.

‘And so you could if this had been planned properly and Mammy and Daddy had agreed and I had known in advance,' Kate said. ‘Then I would have welcomed you for a week or two, because I would have some holidays due to me from work and I could have taken you out and about a bit. But I can't do that at the drop of a hat. Like I said before, I'm a working girl.'

‘But they wouldn't have let me come.'

‘Don't talk nonsense.'

‘They wouldn't,' Sally maintained. ‘I heard Mammy say so last Sunday after Mass.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘She was talking to old Biddy Morrisey after Mass and she asked how you were and Mammy said you were well as far as she knew. Then Biddy sort of nodded over to me and said that I would be the next one on the boat to England and Mammy said I would not. She said I wouldn't be let go, not even for a holiday, in case I didn't come back.' She looked up into her sister's eyes
and said, ‘And it wasn't just something to say, you know. She meant every word.

‘And then yesterday she was yelling at me about something or other the whole time. I breathed a sigh of relief when she was sent for this morning, though she gave me a list of jobs to do before she left. All I could see was a lifetime of the same – living with Mammy and Daddy for ever, or if I should get married to one of those at home, all I would have to look forward to would be a lifetime of drudgery and a child every year. That has happened to lots of girls, as you well know, and I didn't want it happening to me. I want to see and do other things. I felt quite stifled at home.'

For the first time, Kate felt immense sympathy for her sister – she could understand how frantic she must have been. ‘Stifled' described very well the way Kate had felt before she had left Donegal; it had only been the intense but forbidden love she'd had for Tim that had made life bearable.

‘And whenever you write you always seem to be having such a fine time of it,' Sally went on. ‘I just decided on the spur of the moment to come over and see for myself. It wasn't something I planned or anything, it was just that I knew I would never get such a chance again. It's seldom I have the farmhouse to myself.' Then she glanced up at Kate and said, ‘I left them a note, tried to explain …'

‘I doubt that will help much,' Kate said. ‘And I do feel sorry for you, but I can't have you here, not like this. Really, this isn't the way to get more freedom. Your best bet is to write to Mammy and Daddy and say how sorry you are and make your way home again sharpish.
Later, when the time is right, I will plead your case for you.'

‘Oh, will you, Kate?' Sally cried. ‘That will be grand. Mammy listens to you. But I can't write to her. She will be so cross with me.'

‘Yes, and with reason, I'd say,' Kate snapped. ‘Don't be so feeble. Go home and face the music.'

‘I can't,' Sally cried in anguish. ‘And anyway, I haven't any money left, or not enough for the whole fare anyway.'

‘Oh, Sally,' Kate cried in exasperation. Keeping her temper with difficulty, she took a deep breath and said, ‘I cannot have you here and that's final, so I suppose I shall have to loan you the money, but for now you write a letter to Mammy saying how sorry you are and promise that you will make it up to her. You know the kind of thing to say. And I would just like you to know that you have wrecked my evening good and proper, because I was going dancing with Susie Mason tonight, like we do every Friday, and now I will have to pop along to see her and cancel our plans. I shouldn't think she'll be best pleased either.'

‘Sorry, Kate.'

Kate sighed. Sally was an irritating and quite selfish girl, but she couldn't keep telling her off. In a few days she imagined she'd be on her way home and not her concern any more and, though her parents had always doted on her, or until James's birth anyway, she knew that her mother at any rate would roast her alive for this little adventure. So she looked at her sister's woebegone face and said, ‘On the way home, for all you don't deserve it, I will buy us both a fish and chip supper.'

‘Oh, will you, Kate?' Sally cried. ‘I would be so grateful. I haven't eaten for hours.'

‘That's why you're so tearful,' Kate said. ‘A full stomach always makes a person feel more positive. I'll get going now and I'll not linger because I'm hungry myself. Write that letter and make sure you have the table laid and the kettle boiling by the time I get back.'

 

Susie was disappointed, but she could see Kate was too. ‘And she just turned up like that?' she repeated, when Kate told her what Sally had done.

‘That's right,' Kate said. ‘She was waiting for me when I got in from work and admitted she'd sneaked out when both our parents were out of the house and James at school. Claimed she left a note explaining it.'

‘Explaining what?' Susie said. ‘Why did she do it?'

‘Oh, that's the best yet,' Kate said. ‘She said she was fed up. Like I said, we all get fed up. The trouble is she  overheard Mammy telling someone after Mass that she would never let her come here, even for a little holiday. I suppose it was like the last straw for her – and then she got the opportunity with everyone out of the way, so here she is. She can be very headstrong,'

Susie nodded her head. ‘She was always spoiled though, wasn't she?' she said. ‘I saw that myself when I came to stay with my granny when my mother was in the sanatorium that time. Even as a small child she usually got all her own way.'

Kate remembered that time well. Susie Mason's mother, Mary, had been very ill when Susie was just ten and she had been sent to be looked after by her mother's granny in Ireland while the older boys, Derek
and Martin, stayed at home with their father. In Copenny National School, just outside Donegal Town, where the Munroe children all went, Susie was put to sit beside Kate, who had been strangely drawn to the girl who seemed so lost and unhappy. She had once confided to Kate that she was scared she would never see her mother again and Kate thought that the saddest thing. And so did Philomena when she heard. From that moment, Susie was always made welcome in their house.

Susie's mother did recover, however, although Susie had been living in Ireland six or seven months before her father came to fetch her home. By then a strong bond had been forged between Kate and Susie. They wrote to each other regularly, and when Susie came back on her annual holiday, they would meet up whenever Kate could be spared.

‘My mother said that you do a child no favours by giving in to them all the time,' Susie said to Kate.

‘And she's right,' Kate said. ‘But there's not much I can do about that. And now I'd better go and get those fish and chips before I fade away altogether. Can you hear my stomach growling?'

‘Course I can,' Susie said. ‘It sounds like a disgruntled teddy bear. But before you go, here's an idea: shall we show your sister round Birmingham tomorrow?'

‘Oh, I don't know …'

‘We may as well,' Susie said. ‘I mean, you can't send her home till you hear from your mother, so what are you going to do with her otherwise? If we go late afternoon, we can stay on to see some of the entertainment in the Bull Ring – if it isn't too cold or raining.'

‘All right then, yes,' Kate said. ‘It will make up for
not meeting up tonight. We'll come round about half two, then. Give me time to do the washing and clean up the flat a bit first.'

‘All right,' Susie said. ‘See you then.'

So that evening, as they ate the very welcome fish and chips, Kate said to Sally, ‘How would you like to go into town tomorrow? We can show you round and then take you down the Bull Ring. You mind I've told you about it in my letters?'

‘Yes, oh, I'd love to see Birmingham,' Sally said. ‘And you said the Bull Ring was like a gigantic street market.'

Kate smiled. ‘Yeah, like Donegal Town on a Fair Day, only bigger – but without the animals, of course,' Kate said.

‘And yet it's called the Bull Ring?'

‘I never thought of that,' Kate said with a shrug. ‘I suppose they must have sold bulls there at one time. There's all sort of entertainment on offer there when the night draws in. I've told you about it in my letters.'

‘Yeah. You said it was all lit up with gas flares so it was like fairyland,' Sally said. ‘So what sort of entertainment? You never said much about that.'

Kate made a face. ‘I wasn't sure Mammy would approve,' she said. ‘It isn't wrong or anything, but sometimes Mammy takes a notion in her head to disapprove of something and that's that then, so I was always very careful what I wrote. Anyway, you'll see for yourself tomorrow, though I'm warning you now we're not hanging about too long if it's freezing cold or raining or both. There's no pleasure in that.'