Women of Courage (30 page)

In the end she put on a long pale cream skirt, with a white blouse buttoned up to her neck, and a waist-length navy blue jacket over the top. She wore a small round hat with two silk roses in it. The effect was smart, attractive without being unnecessarily feminine. There’s no point trying to look like a working-class woman because I’m not that, she thought. I look like a pleasant, self-contained middle-class lady who won’t stand any nonsense and knows her own mind.

Oh but I don’t, she thought.
I don’t know what I want at all. I want James to help me but he’s right, I don’t want to live in a slum.

As she went downstairs Jonathan’s butler, Reeves, looked at her with respect and approval.

`Would you call me a cab, Reeves,’ she said. ‘I’ll wait in the morning room.’

`Yes, of course, madam.’

That’s the trouble, she thought. I belong in houses like this.

The only thing that doesn’t belong is the way I behave. And my baby, which belongs to Rankin . . .

She did not find him until the evening. All day she had searched from one dock to another — she had not realised London had so many. St Katherine’s Dock, Rotherhithe, Princess Elizabeth Dock, Albert Dock, Grosvenor Wharf, Battersea, Wapping, the Isle of Dogs; in each one she visited, someone had heard of Rankin, or a man that sounded like her description of him, but he was not here today. He was always in another dock, further along the river, upstream or down; and when she got to that place he was not there either, but someone
thought
he had been seen in yet another dock, a further weary distance away.

She travelled by cab at first, then tram, then hired a waterman to row her on the river. The hem of her cream skirt became splashed with mud, the seat stained with tar from the boat. In the morning she felt hot as the sun blazed down out of a clear sky. In the afternoon a spring storm blew up and she huddled in doorways as sleet lashed the streets. When the storm had passed she shivered as an east wind blew cold across the muddy Thames water, and swirled grit into her eyes.

The docks themselves were busy, loud, dirty places, full of huge ships and cranes and coal and iron and timber and crates and carts and lorries and big, dirty men in heavy boots and dusty work shirts with tattoos on their massive forearms. They stared at her in surprise. Several whistled or laughed or turned their backs but most, thank God, were decent and polite to her. They could see she was a lady, too old to tempt the young lads, too plainly dressed and straightforward to have come here to lord it over them as a shipowner’s wife might do. They directed her to the union office or their gaffer, the foreman, and here mostly a man would take his flat cap off his head, scratch thoughtfully with thick dirty fingers at the greasy hair behind his ear, and say ‘Rankin, eh? Yes, lady, that rings a bell now. Wot’s ‘e look like? Tall, dark, ‘andsome, Irish, wiv a green silk scarf round ‘is throat? Yeah, I seen ‘im, but not in this dock. Try Rotherhithe.’ Or Queen Elizabeth’s, Angel Wharf, St Katharine’s . . .

She found him at last at five o’clock that evening. He was in a little street outside St Katharine’s Dock, standing on a soapbox, talking to a crowd of about fifty men. Others streamed past on their way home from work. A few were curious, standing for a moment to listen before carrying on. One or two shouted catcalls. Most marched stolidly past, weighed down with weariness, casting a curious eye in her direction before hurrying on to home or pub.

Deborah stood at the back of the crowd, quietly watching. There were maybe three or four other women in the whole crowd, all in drab black or brown dresses, their faces heavy with weariness and work. Each seemed to know some man in the crowd and one, with a baby on her arm and two youngsters tugging at her skirts, was obviously trying to persuade her man to leave the meeting and come home. He ignored her at first, then pushed her away and when she would not go, smacked her back-handed around the face. She walked out of reach, weeping, but stood defiantly in the doorway of a nearby pub, waiting until the meeting should be over.

Rankin’s eloquence, Deborah saw, was as compelling as ever. He had already been speaking for some time when she arrived, and the crowd was quiet, fascinated, entranced. He was talking of the struggle they had had in Dublin, the poverty of families there and how it had been reflected in his own childhood. Of the way that, if they all combined, they would have the strength to make things better for the next generation of children . . .

Then he saw Deborah.

She was standing on a doorstep to see over the heads of the big men in front of her. His eyes, constantly roving through the crowd in front of him to compel their attention, suddenly caught hers. He faltered in mid-sentence, stopped, repeated himself, and continued to stare at her over the heads of the crowd as though he had completely forgotten what he was saying or where he was.

One or two men looked back over their shoulders, puzzled. They saw a strange middle-class lady, in a stained cream skirt, blue jacket and flowered hat, standing silently on a doorstep, watching. They nodded knowingly, muttered among themselves, and nudged their friends. More men turned to look.

With an effort, Rankin dragged his eyes from hers and refocused his mind on his speech. But the fire had gone from it. He stumbled to a lame, mechanical conclusion. Men had started to leave before he finished speaking. As they walked away up the road, their boots sparking on the cobbles, they glanced her appraisingly. Several laughed or whistled. Two tall young lads began to sing:
‘When Irish eyes are smiling . . .’

‘Deborah! Dear Lord, is it really you?’

He was there, in front of her. The same lean, dark gypsy face that she had loved. The sparkling green eyes searched hers and he flicked a long black lock of hair away from his forehead. He was looking slightly up at her because she was above him on the doorstep. She longed to lean forwards and fling her arms around his neck. But she dared not, because of the eyes that were watching them.

‘Still the same James,’ she said softly. She reached out and fumbled with the green silk scarf, setting it more neatly in place inside the worn cloth jacket. It was an oddly domestic, wifely gesture.

‘Why have you come?’ Was there pain in his voice, she wondered, or was he just embarrassed, because she had spoilt his meeting?

‘I couldn’t stay away. You’re a hard man to find, though.’

‘Am I? I thought all of London knew where I was by now. I must try harder.’

‘I’m sorry I spoilt your speech.’

‘What does that matter?’ He glanced over his shoulder, where the remaining dockers were leaving in dribs and drabs, watching them curiously. ‘Half of them have heard it already and, if they haven’t, they’ll hear it again. It doesn’t change so much.’

‘Still the same old agitator, then?’

‘Surely. You know me.’

He looked at her quietly and she thought, for a moment, he’s going to reach up and kiss me now. But instead he stepped back and offered his arm as a gentleman might.

‘Well, now you’re here, will you take a walk with me at least? I don’t know about you, but my belly’s cleaving to my backbone. Can I find you a bite to eat?’

‘You can indeed.’

She stepped down off the doorstep and took his arm. How courteous he can be when he wants to, she thought. When I am on his arm like this I feel honoured . . .

What will he say when I tell him?

That will have to wait, she decided. Just for the moment she felt so proud, like a young girl again, walking along this grubby London street on the arm of her handsome Irish lover. I wish I had been born poor, she thought, then I could have had a man like this of my own, without having to give up anything.

But that’s nonsense. Poverty’s not a blessing, it’s a curse. Look at those men pouring into that pub to drink away their wages. Think of the blow that man gave his wife in the meeting a minute ago. Remember all the miserable abandoned girls I saw in my work for the Irish Women’s Guild. My problems with Charles are nothing to theirs.

To me they’re overwhelming.

‘Where do you live, James?’

‘Me? In a terrace in Battersea, just now.’

‘Take me there.’

‘What? No, darlin’, that’s not a place for you. There’s four of us fellers in it. Dirty plates and washing everywhere, no carpets or wallpaper and rats sifting through the rubbish in the back garden.’

‘But I want to see it.’

‘What?
No,
I tell you. Holy Mary, are you trying to make me ashamed?’

She felt the tension in his arm, and she wondered if he would pull away from her. She did not cling on, but he relaxed and they continued up the street, arm in arm like man and wife or lovers.

Almost.

His other hand was fumbling in his jacket pocket. She heard the clink of coins. He said: ‘There’s a fish restaurant in a little street behind the Tower. It’s cheap but it’s better than anything round here. I’ll take you there, shall I?’

‘All right. Don’t worry about the money, James. I can pay.’

‘I said
I’d
take
you
, madam. Act like a lady, now.’

‘I am. An independent one, James. Have you forgotten that?’

‘I’ve forgotten nothing.’

He stopped for a minute at the corner of the street, and turned her to face him. His eyes searched hers, unsmiling. She looked back at him. It might have been seconds, or half an hour, she did not know. All those nights in Mrs McCafferty’s, the long walks along the quays beside the Liffey. The passion, the beauty of him — my Gaelic prince. And the laughter.

Hesitantly, she tried a smile. He shook his head, in wonder. ‘My fine English lady, Deborah — why did you come?’

‘To see you, my lover. What else?’

‘And your husband? The Unionist soldier. You were to go back to him?’

‘I did. But I missed you. And — there were other things. It’s a long story. Come on. You said you were starving.’

‘I am that.’

They crossed the road, went down a few side streets, found the restaurant. He was right, it
was
cheap. Run, as far as she could tell, by a family of Greeks, whose chubby brown children played around a handcart on the pavement. An older boy, eleven perhaps, came to take their order. He had smooth olive skin, serious dark eyes, and a sudden gleaming smile when Rankin made him laugh.

Perhaps my child will look like that, she thought, with a pang of keen sadness. So dark and beautiful. So utterly unlike Charles.

At least the place was private. No dockers, no union men, no one he seemed to know. There were a few single men, eating quietly at plain wooden tables. Most had a book or a newspaper open in front of them. Probably he chose it for the privacy, she thought. Is that a good thing? Does it mean he wants to spend time alone with me? Or to keep me separate from the rest of his life? She wasn’t sure.

They were both hungry and ate ravenously when the food came. He began to relax. She told him of her travels round various docks during the day, and he laughed and related odd anecdotes about the places she had been.

‘I was lost more than once myself, when I first came here,’ he said. ‘But you’ve not told me how you come to be in the big city at all. I pictured you at that fine country house of yours in Ulster. What do you call it now?’

‘Glenfee.’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Oh, I went there, James, of course I did.’ But he has never been there, she thought. How remote our lives are from each other. There was bread and butter with the fish, and tea. She rolled the bread into little pellets between her fingers and ate it thoughtfully, between sips of hot, strong tea, while she wondered how to begin. Should she tell him now? She was so afraid of what he would say. He looked less tense than he had, but still not . . . entirely pleased to see her. ‘It’s partly because of my sister that I came.’

‘Why?’

She told the story of Sarah. It was true, it was safe, it was interesting. She could see him relax as he became absorbed. Amused at what Sarah had done, angry at her sentence, concerned at the way she might have been treated in prison. Thoughtful, too, about Jonathan’s response.

‘You say he disowned her in Parliament?’

‘More or less, yes. He didn’t just say he disagreed with what she had done, he said he wouldn’t even vote for female suffrage any more. Not if women did things like that.’

‘So he rejects the end because he doesn’t like the means?’

‘In a way. Even I don’t believe in smashing windows, James. You know that. But I can’t just denounce my own sister.’

‘No.’ He sipped his tea, his elbows on the table, gazing at her thoughtfully over the cup. ‘Always the lady bountiful.’

She didn’t like that. ‘I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, you know that. Working among the poor, taking their children to my home. I’m not afraid, there’s no need to sneer. I just don’t think violence makes things better, that’s all.’

‘All right, all right, I know.’ He held a hand before his face, as though to defend himself from the vehemence of her response. ‘But she must be a powerful woman, your sister, to pick up a meat cleaver and slash a painting like that.’

There was a twinkle of amusement in his eyes; whether at the thought of what Sarah had done, or herself, Deborah was not sure. She frowned. It did not seem funny to her.

‘Sarah’s not big or strong, if that’s what you mean. Just passionate and impulsive, I suppose. And rather unhappy, too, I think.’

‘That must run in the family, then. The passion, at least . . .’

And not the unhappiness?
‘What do you mean, James?’

He put his teacup down, smiled. ‘Well now, I seem to remember, in Dublin . . .’

It was that beguiling, entrancing smile she remembered so well. Impulsively, she reached across the table and seized one of his hands in hers. There would never be a better time to tell him than now.

‘James. Listen to me, my dear. I came to tell you something.’

‘Is that a fact now?’ He glanced at his hand, surprised. She was gripping it tight, imprisoning it in her own. ‘Sure you’d best spit it out then.’