Chapter Sixty Four

"The Branson Touch"

About the time Mary and Edith were so forcefully championing the cause of their brother-in-law to their father in the Drawing Room of Downton Abbey, an increasingly well known and respected young journalist with the Irish Independent was alighting from a motor south of the Liffey river in the west of Dublin.

"Wait here for me Kelly" Tom said.

"Should you even be doing this?" asked Edmund Kelly.

"Probably not" said Tom. "But someone has to!"

"Rather you than me" said Kelly drawing heavily on his cigarette, and settling himself back in the driver's seat of the motor.

"No doubt" said Tom.

Then, with that endearing, lop-sided grin of his, which Branson's colleagues at the Indy had soon come to realise seemed to work wonders for him, especially with the female of the species, Tom turned, and crossed the road, and disappeared round the corner.

Of course, there was little room for sentiment in the hard-bitten world of newspapers; it was often a case of dog eat dog. But by common consent, down at the Independent's offices on Talbot Street, if someone had asked almost anyone on the staff what they thought of Tom Branson, then, almost to a man, his colleagues would have said that he was very well liked, at least by most, and that he was considered by all to be a very lucky man.

Although Branson had told his work mates but little about his own antecedents, it was well known that at one time, before his return to Ireland, Tom Branson had been in service over in England, although in precisely what capacity remained something of a mystery. So, for him to now occupy the position which he did was proof enough of his undoubted abilities. Harrington, the editor, was constantly singing Branson's praises, and while this might well have provoked antipathy and jealousy on the part of others on the staff towards him, oddly enough, generally speaking, it did not do so.

True, there were a few grumbles and occasionally he heard himself referred to as "bloody Branson" an epithet which always seemed to make him smile. When Kelly had tackled him about that, Branson had simply laughed; said someone had called him that once before, in his last place of work, but would elaborate no further.

Even in the short space of time that Tom Branson had worked at the newspaper, it was already well known on the Indy that Harrington's praise of his newest journalist was well justified. He seemed to be able to endear himself to almost everybody; both on the staff as well as to members of the public too. His investigative skills and his written articles were highly regarded; in fact, were second to none.

Branson had the uncanny knack of being able to sniff out a story, was able to relate to all different kinds of people, irrespective of their own social standing, to set them at their ease, to coax information out of the most unlikely of sources, and in such a way that those giving him what he wanted to know barely realised, if at all, what it was they were doing.

Unbeknown to Branson, recently, on one occasion Kelly had made it his business to observe him at work, in the hope of finding out for himself exactly what it was that made him so good at his job; what it was about him which was being referred to in the news room already as "the Branson touch", when someone else managed to earn Harrington's grudging praise, found a promising new lead, or wrote an article which was especially well received.

Sitting alongside Tom Branson in the smoke filled saloon of Delany's bar off Grafton Street, as he watched him at work, Kelly came to the conclusion that what it was that made Branson so successful at his job was, in part, quite simple; Tom Branson was possessed of a genuine and real interest in people.

But there was something else too; something about his eyes. It was the first thing that people said they always noticed about him. Not their colour, although Kelly himself had heard several women on the staff at the Indy refer to just how deep a blue Branson's eyes were when gossiping about, in their view at least, his good looks; said they felt they could sit and gaze into his eyes all day, drown in their very depths. Utter tosh thought Kelly.

Yet, there was indeed undeniably something about Branson's eyes; Kelly himself could attest to that, and he was both a red blooded male and a hard bitten journalist. By turns sorrowful, alight with mischief, sparkling with amusement, when Tom Branson looked at you he appeared so guileless, so genuinely interested in both you and what it was you had to say or to tell him, that all kinds of people, both young and old, male and female, colleagues and members of the public alike found themselves instantly drawn to him; instantly trusted him implicitly. And, so far, Kelly could find no suggestion that their inherent trust in Branson was in any way misplaced; doubted that he ever would.

But, while almost no-one at the Indy begrudged Tom Branson his luck, what all his male colleagues, apart from Kenny Beglan who was well known to be not a ladies' man, did begrudge him, albeit in a different sense entirely, was his wife.

It had been on a Friday night, in late June, after work, when Edmund Kelly and several of his colleagues at the Indy had first been introduced, albeit reluctantly it must be said, by Tom Branson to his future wife. At the time, the young woman was still just his fiancée; plain Sybil Crawley, although that in itself was a misnomer because there was nothing plain about her; in fact, quite the reverse.

The group of them, including Branson, had all been sitting together in William O'Casey's bar enjoying their pints of plain, when glancing through the window, in the direction of the Ha'penny Bridge, Daniel Flanagan had let out a high pitched wolf whistle which in all probability was heard down as far as the Custom House on the quay of the same name.

"Jaysus, boyos, will yous take a look here! I could really snog that!"

And, even with them all glancing through the window, it did not go unremarked at the time, although nothing was said until later, that the cheeks of Tom Branson's face had just turned as red as the sails of a Galway hooker.

Having crossed over the Liffey by way of the Ha'penny Bridge, but a matter of moments later, as bold as brass, Sybil Crawley, as she then was, having finished her shift at the Coombe had come marching straight into William O'Casey's bar just off Wellington Quay down by the Merchant's Arch in search of Branson. Even Jimmy Murphy the barman who hated the British with a passion and a fire in his belly to match his red hair was put off his stroke; suddenly found himself pouring a pint of plain into a non-existent glass, cursed soundly, flushed scarlet, and apologised profusely to the striking young woman who had walked so unexpectedly into his bar.

That Jimmy was given to colourful and frequent outbursts of profanity was well known and no-one normally took any notice. But, on this particular occasion, his lapse into hearty Dublin vernacular was all the more audible to those present because, as Sybil Crawley walked purposefully into the bar, all manner of conversation had suddenly stalled, then ceased altogether and not only because women were rarely seen in bars in Dublin.

In fact they were not usually admitted at all and those that ignored the prohibition were usually brassers touting for custom, floozies there in search of paying "clients". But the young woman who had walked so brazenly into the bar on that June evening looking for her fiancé was neither of these. Put simply, conversation had ceased in O'Casey's because Sybil Crawley was, undoubtedly, what in Dublin parlance would be called "a real qweer bit of skirt.

Thereafter, as she sat there sipping her glass of lemonade, happily chatting to them all, totally oblivious to the stir her sudden appearance in the bar had caused, that she was English, there was no disguising; refined, well spoken, "a real lady" as Seamus McCormack had so acutely observed, completely unaware, of course, just how right he had been in his sharp assessment of the breathtakingly beautiful, dark haired, young woman, demurely attired beneath her grey overcoat in her nurse's uniform, and whom Branson had introduced to them all simply as "Miss Sybil Crawley".

As things had turned out, at Branson's wedding, Kelly himself had been down at the far end of the barn when the soldiers came calling at the céilí, having just come back inside from attending to an urgent call of nature, so other than what he heard people say afterwards, he'd never actually, for himself, heard what it was that the British officer had said; something about some English earl, referred to two women present, probably in jest, as "Ladies".

Yet, oddly enough, they'd been same two women who had been introduced to Kelly simply as Mary and Edith Crawley - Sybil Branson's two elder sisters, over from England for the wedding; Kelly himself had even danced with Edith. Now he came to think about it though, Edith Crawley also had said very little to him about herself either; oddly enough, and Kelly for the life of him couldn't fathom why, seemed far more interested in him and his work as a journalist.

Come to think of it, Kelly had heard of some confrontation with the rozzers involving Branson and one of the two women at the Shelbourne Hotel in the aftermath of the bombing; God knows what that had all been about. When Kelly had asked him what exactly it was that had happened, Branson had grinned, said it had been a misunderstanding, and shrugged the matter off. Some misunderstanding thought Kelly; Tom Branson had been sporting several cuts and bruises to his face from the same "misunderstanding" on his wedding day.

Branson's wife had never said, at least as far as Kelly could recall, exactly whereabouts in England she was from; clearly not London, but possibly from somewhere in the Home Counties. He knew she worked at the Coombe, had served as a nurse during the war in some big house; again she'd never said where, not that anyone had pressed her on the matter, especially when that time in O'Casey's bar she'd let it slip she'd seen some appalling injuries during the war, nursed men who were no longer physically so, who were men in but name only. At that revelation, Kelly had seen the young woman's blue gray eyes, and which were as equally expressive as those of her fiancé, mist and fill with tears.

But that Friday evening, long after Branson and his fiancée had left to travel out to Clontarf on the Number 31 tram, before those of his colleagues from the Indy who had chanced to meet Miss Sybil Crawley, in William O'Casey's bar, and counted themselves ever after fortunate to have done so, went their separate ways, all were agreed on one thing: that good looks apart, Tom Branson must also have the charm of Valentino and the devil's own luck to be marrying such a breath takingly beautiful young woman.

In the months to come, especially on cold, frosty winter nights, they would cast envious glances in Branson's direction when, on leaving the office for the night, he made his customary farewells, as they thought of him going home to enjoy both the vivacious company and the undeniable physical charms of the attractive dark haired, young woman who was now his wife.

Young Daniel Flanagan spoke for them all when, on more than one occasion, he was heard to remark that he himself would willingly suffer a dose of the Spanish 'flu, but only if he could be nursed back to rude and vigorous health by the continuing ministrations of Mrs. Sybil Branson.

It was perhaps fortunate, both for Flanagan and for Sybil, that he never contracted the 'flu, for had he done so, it is unlikely that Tom would ever have acquiesced to such an arrangement as that envisaged in the decidedly fevered imagination of young Daniel Flanagan.

Kelly continued to sit in the motor; watched as Tom Branson vanished out of sight. Lucky beggar, he thought, but wondered seriously, if Branson's good luck was now about to run out.