A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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going to have to move to a cheaper place because the money in the biscuit tin was almost all gone and they could no longer afford the rent of the apartment. When Joe had taken Gloria to see this place she had been appalled. She couldn’t believe that he could possibly think she could live here. Now the apartment she had once thought of as small and squalid seemed like a palace in comparison.
Joe knew how she felt and he felt a failure because he could provide nothing better. In fact they were lucky to have anything at all, for many in the same circumstance as Joe lived on the streets. A man he worked with at the docks, named Red McCullough because of his shock of red hair, had told him of the vacancy, in one of the tenements in Ludlow Street, nearby where he lodged in Orchard Street.
As Orchard Street was where Patrick Lacey lived, before Joe went to look at the place Red had mentioned, he looked him up. He was, however, long gone, the neighbours said, and none seemed to know or care where.
Later, when he saw the rooms at the tenement in Ludlow Street, he realised that, with no indoor toilets, they were far worse than those in Orchard Street. The whole area was more run down and shabby, yet Joe knew he had to take tenancy on those rooms, though he guessed what Gloria’s reaction would be.
She didn’t disappoint him. Like her mother before her, she tried to pretend the move wasn’t going to happen. It was Joe who packed their few meagre possessions and he bore Gloria’s glares of resentment and barbed remarks, for he knew she was dying inside at the thought of moving to the place she had seen for the first time the previous day. He knew even the day they were leaving, as he was stowing their things away in the truck that he had hired with the last of their savings, she was hoping that Joe would relent, or something else would happen to prevent them leaving the apartment.
Nothing had happened, however, and as she surveyed the room that first day she looked at Joe, her eyes full of reproach and said, ‘What are you thinking of, bringing me to a place like this? Mother and I cannot stay here, Joe. You must find somewhere else. In the whole of the city there must be somewhere better to stay that we can afford. It’s just a question of looking, I’m sure.’
Joe had had enough. ‘Look, Gloria,’ he said, ‘there is nowhere. I know that this is not what you or your mother are used to, but I am doing my level best to stop us all dying of starvation or exposure. Just at the moment this is the best that I can do, for it is either this or the streets. Sorry if it isn’t good enough.’
Gloria heard the hurt in Joe’s voice and so did Norah. She was hiding her utter shock well, for even as Joe told her about the place she hadn’t been really prepared, but she heard his words and knew he spoke the truth. She knew that Gloria had taken almost as much as she could, and it was up to her to try to rally her daughter, and so she said, ‘Come, come, Gloria. The place won’t look so bad when it has had a thorough clean. And any day now Joe may get a regular job and we won’t be here that long.’
Gloria knew what her mother was about and she felt mean. Joe was trying so hard for them all. She felt a momentary flash of anger for the father she had once adored who had got them into this mess and then couldn’t stay around even to attempt to put some of it right.
‘It’s me that should be saying sorry, Joe,’ she said. ‘I know you are trying always to do the best for us. It’s just this place … It’s such a shock. Maybe, though, Mother is right and we won’t have to stay here for too long altogether.’
‘Perhaps,’ Joe answered. He didn’t believe that for a minute, though. He knew just how bad the unemployment was and he couldn’t see any let-up in the grip it had on the city.
Month after month passed and the recession worsened. In the winter of 1931 severe blizzards began to paralyse the whole city and early in 1932, a gold pendant of Gloria’s and a set of pearl earrings had to be sacrificed to prevent the family from starving or freezing to death.
By 1933 food became less freely available and more expensive, because a severe drought had followed the blizzards of the previous year, turning the farming areas into huge dust bowls. Farmers began leaving the land in desperation and seeking other forms of employment in the towns and cities, adding to the problems already there and causing a food shortage.
The country had elected Theodore Roosevelt President in 1932. He was a popular man and people said he would be good for the country, but even a president has no control over the weather, and Joe began to wonder seriously how much longer they could survive.
Eventually, the churches began to work with the poor and starving people. St John the Baptist, the church that Joe, Norah and Gloria attended every Sunday, was no exception and they operated soup kitchens. Each person was entitled to one bowl of thick, nourishing soup and one thick slice of coarse bread every day, which was dispensed from the streets to the homeless and destitute, and from the church hall to those in the tenements. For many that meal was a life saver.
Gloria also thought it was good for her and her mother to get out of their small rooms, where they lived on top of one another. As the summer passed and autumn brought the cold and the damp, it was good to gather in the warm church hall, thereby saving money on coal. They met some of the people who shared their tenement and the neighbouring ones. Norah and Gloria had never associated with such people, and though many cursed and swore worse than any rough man, Gloria enjoyed listening to the ribaldry and banter between them.
It gave them something to talk to Joe about in the evenings too, for though he had met many of the men as they roiled around the streets together looking for work he had had little to do with the women. ‘They are destitute, Joe, some even poorer than we are but many refuse to let life wear them down. You can’t help respecting an attitude like that.’
‘I agree,’ Joe said. ‘Sometimes life seems one wearying and never-ending struggle.’
‘And yet you wouldn’t think some of these people had a care in the world,’ Norah said. ‘Today for example a few of the Irish women lifted up their skirts and danced a jig for us.’
Gloria smiled at the memory and added. ‘Yes, and a boy, little more than a child, was there playing the tune for them on a battered old violin.’
Unbidden there flashed into Joe’s head the picture of himself and Tom playing the music for Aggie to dance to. He remembered her plaits bouncing on her back and her eyes alight with delight, for she adored Irish dancing and yet, in the end, dancing had been her downfall.
Gloria saw the shadow flit over Joe’s face and she stopped talking and said, ‘What is it, Joe?’
Joe shrugged. ‘Just memories. Nothing important.’
‘Important enough to put a frown on your face.’
Joe sighed. ‘Well, I suppose I might as well tell you,’ he said. ‘I was remembering a time when my brother and I would play the Irish music at home. He played fiddle or violin as you call it, and I would play the tin whistle and our sister Aggie would dance.’
‘I never heard you mention anyone called Aggie,’ Gloria said. ‘I thought you only had the one sister Nuala who worked for the Protestant people near your home in Buncrana. And then in the Troubles she went with them to their second home in England and never came back. You never said why not.’
‘I’ll tell you about Nuala another day,’ Joe said. ‘It was my elder sister, Aggie, that used to do the dancing and,’ he added grimly, ‘she disappeared off the face of the earth at fifteen years old.’
Gloria’s eyes grew wide with surprise. ‘Why did she do that?’
‘Because she was raped by the dancing teacher,’ Joe said simply. ‘When Aggie discovered she was expecting the man’s baby she knew she would have to leave her home, because for an unmarried girl to have a baby is just about the worst thing in the world to those over in Ireland.’
Gloria was incensed. ‘That is monstrous. What of your parents?’
‘They knew nothing,’ Joe said. ‘And they were never told. Tom is the only one who knew all about it and he told me just before I came here. The man McAllister said he would