Chapter One Hundred And Twenty One
The English Market
At Sybil's words, Tom nodded his remembrance, grinned broadly at her, just as, chatting intently, their uniforms clearly visible beneath their open overcoats, a couple of young nurses, from the Victoria Hospital here in Cork, passed close by them on the pavement. Ever attentive, Tom saw Sybil's eyes cloud, caught the momentary look of wistfulness on her face. He touched her arm gently and leaned in for a kiss.
"Darlin' it's not as if it's forever. The hospital authorities at the Coombe assured you that you could go back there later in the year" he ventured cautiously.
"If there's a position, Tom".
"Of course there will be".
"Maybe".
"Well then..."
"I know, I know, Tom. But all the same, honestly, with Ma on hand in Clontarf to look after Danny, there really would have been no problem whatsoever with me going back to work, now would there?" Sybil grimaced.
"And?"
"You know what?"
"No. What?"
"It's 1920. It's about time this country of ours moved into the twentieth century!"
Tom grinned.
"Darlin', I'm so very, very glad".
"What, that it's 1920?"
Tom shook his head.
"No. That you called it our country!"
Sybil smiled.
At least for the moment, with Sybil no longer earning a wage, money was very tight. This apart, so as not to attract undue attention from anyone, least of all the British authorities, through one of his many and varied contacts, Tom had learned of a cheap but respectable hotel which lay on the southern side of the city, not far from the Parnell Bridge, overlooking the south channel of the River Lee and the Albert Quay; from where, just beyond the City Hall, the following morning they would take the Kinsale branch train out as far as little wayside station of Skerries Road.
With Sybil and Danny now accompanying him south, Tom had very wisely taken the precaution of wiring ahead and engaging a room at the hotel for the night before they travelled out to Skerries House on the morrow. The proprietor of the establishment, a Mrs. O'Keefe, whose husband had been killed in the war, leaving her widowed with four small children the youngest of whom was not yet quite four, turned out to be a warm-hearted soul who made the Bransons very welcome and, in particular, made a great fuss of young Danny.
On their arrival, with her own young daughter Bridget following close behind them, Mrs. O'Keefe led the way up the narrow, wooden staircase, to the room on the first floor which she had allotted to the Bransons. Once inside and standing in the middle of the large bedroom, with its wide bay window overlooking the street below, while Tom set down their two suitcases on the floor, Mrs. O'Keefe directed herself to Sybil.
"Why don't you sit down and rest, you look all done in dear. Here, let me have him".
And, without further ado, having whisked an admittedly surprised, yet un-protesting Danny from his mother's arms, their loquacious landlady continued to make a great fuss of the happy little boy, tickling him under the chin, making him squirm and giggle.
"My, aren't you the handsome one and no mistake. You'll be breaking hearts when you're older". Here Mrs. O'Keefe glanced directly across the room at Tom. "I expect you did too!" Tom smirked while Sybil rolled her eyes heavenwards, as all unseeing the landlady glanced down again at Danny. "Why, you look just like your Da for sure!" Impulsively, she hugged the little boy to her in a fond embrace.
Unashamedly revelling in the landlady's praise of the good looks of his young son, and therefore indirectly of himself, Tom grinned broadly at Sybil who, shaking her head and raising her eyes in mock disbelief, having taken the kindly Mrs. O'Keefe at her word, had now removed both her cloche hat and coat, kicked off her shoes and was sitting contentedly by the fire.
Their landlady continued to wax lyrical about the marked facial similarities between Tom and young Danny for yet a while longer; so much so, that by the time the talkative Mrs. O'Keefe handed Danny back to his mother and finally breezed out of their room, informing them that breakfast in the morning was served at eight o'clock sharp, Sybil was left wondering if she herself had indeed played any part whatsoever in the birth of their young son.
Although it was July, it had been unseasonably cold and wet and so, with this in mind, their kindly, thoughtful landlady had also taken steps to ensure that the bedding in the large room she had assigned to the Bransons had been thoroughly aired. In one of the corners furthest away from the bay window, there stood a cot for Danny which had been brought up from downstairs, while late that same afternoon Mrs. O'Keefe had seen to it that her eldest boy, Sean closed the heavy curtains and made up a good fire in the grate; so that by the time the Bransons arrived off the Dublin train, the room set aside for them was both snug and warm.
A while later, when they had both washed and made themselves reasonably presentable, having fed, washed and changed Danny, Sybil was busily engaged in settling him down in his cot, smiling indulgently at her son, gently caressing the soft almost translucent skin of his cheek. In the several months which had now elapsed since Danny's birth neither of them had yet managed to come to terms with how between them they had managed to produce such a perfect little soul as Danny. For, as Ma had so astutely observed on seeing him for the first time several weeks ago, young Danny was a beautiful baby, generally placid and good-tempered, who had already captured the heart of everyone at Downton, both above and below stairs, a feat which he proceeded to repeat with Tom's family on this side of the Irish Sea.
However, just like his father, Danny most certainly did have his moments.
The most memorable of these to date - doubtless there would be others - had occurred at Matthew and Mary's wedding, when, during the service, the Archbishop of York had asked, in sonorous tones, if anyone knew "...any just cause and impediment why these two should not be joined together in Holy Matrimony". It was at this precise point in the proceedings that, feeling hungry, and his immediate needs seemingly not being attended to, young Danny decided to draw attention to the fact and let out an inopportune and undignified bellow, causing an outbreak of laughter among the entire congregation which rippled through the ancient parish church like wildfire, and in which even Danny's grandfather and great-grandmother joined.
And as Sybil could attest, Danny was very much like his father in other ways too, seemingly being impatient to begin the business of life earlier than most, cutting his first pair of teeth at just three months old, as an unsuspecting Matthew found to his cost just before his wedding. What happened in this particular regard occurred one Sunday shortly after luncheon, with the men of the family assembled unusually in the Morning Room on account of the ongoing repairs to the abbey in the aftermath of the fire; when not without some misgivings on the part of his uncle-to-be,Tom had deposited a gurgling, happy Danny on Matthew's lap, observing that sooner or later his future brother-in-law and best friend would have to get used to babies.
"Well, yes old chap, but I thought, er, later rather than sooner" had protested Matthew affably. Predictably, his protestations had fallen on deaf ears while from the comfort and, indeed it must be said, the safety of the sofa opposite, proud father and equally proud grandfather sat contentedly at their ease, while Matthew somewhat self-consciously, on Tom's prompting, blew on a tin kazoo handed him by the Irishman and pulled a series of what he hoped were funny faces. Clearly not funny enough, as Danny soon grew bored, both with the kazoo and with his uncle's feeble attempts at entertainment, applying himself instead to the infinitely more enjoyable and serious business of chewing on his uncle's forefinger, Matthew singularly unaware, until the inevitable happened, that his young nephew had just cut his first two teeth.
"Ouch! That damned well hurt!" exclaimed Matthew, hastily withdrawing his forefinger from Danny's mouth; whereupon, deprived, as he saw it, of his pleasure, a hitherto gurgling and happy Danny promptly burst into tears at the precise moment when, at long last, having finished looking over the selection of going away outfits Mary had ordered, Cora and the girls rejoined their men folk in the Morning Room.
"The little blighter bit my finger" explained Matthew to Mary, ruefully holding up the affected digit for her inspection,
"I think you'll live, darling" said Mary giving Matthew's forefinger the most cursory of inspections, then doing her best, and failing miserably in the process, to stifle a laugh.
"Honestly, men!" exclaimed Sybil grabbing the discarded kazoo and sweeping Danny up from off Matthew's lap, soothing his cries into silence in an instant. "I leave him happy and content with the three of you for but five minutes…"
"Actually, darlin' it was nearer an hour". Sybil shot a mutinous look at Tom who wisely chose to say nothing further on the matter of how much time had elapsed since the women of the house had disappeared off upstairs to do whatever it was they had been doing.
"For heaven's sake, Papa, surely you must know by now what happens when Tom and Matthew start playing the fool!" laughed Edith.
Tom and Matthew quirked eyebrows, exchanged amused, questioning glances.
Playing the fool? Us?
"Quite! Papa, you're the earl of Grantham! It was your responsibility to look after your grandson and to keep these two reprobates in check!" fumed Sybil.
Questioning glances were exchanged once again.
Reprobates, eh?
"My responsibility? Don't include me in this! Any of it!" exclaimed Robert huffily.
"Why ever not?" asked Cora with a laugh.
"Just whose side are you on?" demanded Robert crossly.
"I'm not on anyone's side, Robert. After all, as your dear mother so often is at pains to remind me, I'm only an ignorant American. Therefore, exercising my democratic right, I choose to assume a position of strict, if biased, neutrality.
Tom grinned.
"Cora, how can you be both biased and neutral?"
The countess of Grantham smiled and patted her son-in-law's knee reassuringly.
"Trust me, darling Tom. I can!"
"Well, don't any of you say poor Matthew! Why, I might have contracted blood poisoning" offered the man himself miserably, continuing to examine his reddened finger.
"Well I hope you haven't, because if it has to be amputated, then I'm not marrying a man with only nine fingers" said Mary with a laugh.
"Better you learn about your fiancée's caring nature now old chap… than after you're wed!" offered Tom with a low, conspiratorial chuckle.
Matthew grinned.
"Is… is Sybil this much trouble?" asked Matthew with a sly wink.
Tom grinned.
"Well, now you come to mention it, she…"
"Tom!" reprimanded Sybil from the other side of the room. Tom flushed scarlet to the roots of his hair; Matthew grinning broadly at his friend's discomfiture
"And that's another thing, Matthew". Tom lowered his voice; glanced cautiously in Sybil's direction and breathed a sigh of relief on finding that she was busily engaged in pointing something out to Danny in the park beyond the window.
"What's that, old chap?"
"Some... some women have hearing better than that of a cat! Tell you what, why don't we take a stroll down into the village later this evening and we can continue this conversation undisturbed?" Tom chuckled softly.
"You mean…"
Tom nodded.
"Would you mind awfully if I joined the two of you?" asked Robert hesitantly and equally low-voiced.
Not believing the evidence of his own ears, Matthew looked incredulously at Tom, who almost imperceptibly nodded his head.
"Of course. We'd both be delighted".
"Thank you" said Robert warmly. He beamed, unable to contain his obvious pleasure at being permitted to accompany his present and future sons-in-law down to the Grantham Arms. And, come to think of it, thought Robert, why the hell shouldn't I join them? After all, I own the ruddy place!
That evening, as the three men strolled contentedly down to the village, certain that their progress was being avidly watched from behind the windows of the Morning Room, Tom hesitantly had ventured a question of his father-in-law.
"I didn't think that you quite approved of our occasional evening "excursions" down into the village, Robert?"
The earl of Grantham nodded his head. Then suddenly he smiled and clapped Tom and Matthew heartily on the shoulder.
"Perhaps not, Tom. But, even if that was once the case, there is such a thing as safety in numbers!"
Sybil's contemplative reverie was now disturbed by a soft knock at their hotel bedroom door. She glanced up.
"Who on earth can that be? You're not expecting anyone, are you, Tom…" she began nervously. Looking down again at Danny, she smiled.
"Mrs. O'Keefe was right. You do look so like your father" she said softly
"Here. I'll go" said Tom. Having just finished their unpacking, he padded quietly across the bare wooden boards of the floor towards the door in his stockinged feet.
"Oh to be sure" giggled Sybil.
Tom lofted an eyebrow.
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, it's probably Mrs. O'Keefe out there in the passage waiting to praise your good looks all over again" observed Sybil archly.
"Hm!" Tom laughed.
Cautiously, he opened the door, to find not the talkative Mrs. O'Keefe, but instead young Bridget who explained that her mother had sent her up to offer to watch over Danny while the young couple went out to have their supper.
When answer came there none, at least not immediately, Bridget persisted. They were going out to have supper, weren't they? When Sybil demurred, said it had been their intention that Mr. Branson should go out for some fish and chips or else simply purchase something from the pie shop they had seen around the corner while they were walking to the hotel, young Bridget had looked crestfallen.
By way of reassurance, drawing herself up to her full height, Bridget said earnestly that since her Da died, she often looked after her two little brothers while Ma attended to the business of running the hotel. At this, Tom and Sybil had exchanged silent, meaningful glances. It was unusual for Danny to wake for several hours after he had been fed and put down for the night and the idea of supper in town together, on their own, was an altogether delightful and unexpected prospect.
So, having made Bridget promise fervently that she would indeed call her mother immediately if the little boy should waken, saying they would not be out long, reassured too by their landlady who they met in the hallway downstairs and who said she would look in on Danny herself at regular intervals, craving the anonymity afforded them by the thronging streets of Ireland's second city, a short while later, arm in arm,Tom and Sybil sauntered out into town in search of somewhere to eat.
Their chosen route took them along South Mall, past the National Monument erected to commemorate failed Irish rebellions, thence along Grand Parade, across Daunt Square, and mingled in the rain with the crowds on St. Patrick's Street before seeking sanctuary from the worsening weather by wandering into the ornate English Market. Here they admired the abundance of fish, game, meat, poultry, and vegetables on sale, all laid out on a veritable kaleidoscope of colourful stalls. At one they purchased some liquorice sticks for Bridget by way of a small thank you for looking after little Danny.
"What if she doesn't like liquorice, Tom?"
Tom laughed.
"Well, as it happens, I'm quite partial to it myself!"
"Oh Tom! You're incorrigible".
Of course, most of what was on offer was very expensive and remained the purlieus of the city's wealthy inhabitants, both Catholic and Protestant. It was simply unaffordable for the majority of Cork's inhabitants who had to shop for less expensive cuts of meat and other kinds of food in St. Peter's and other working-class markets; or else in the cheaper, smaller butchers and provision shops which lined the city's streets. After independence, Tom had said, that would all change … along with the name of the English Market.
However, the sight of all that capitalist food set Tom's Socialist mouth-watering. Then, a few minutes later, his equally Socialist stomach started rumbling too, reminding the two of them that neither of them had eaten anything since midday. As Tom's stomach continued to rumble, make all manner of noises, Sybil promptly burst out laughing, said the revolution would just have to wait, at least until after they had found somewhere to eat.
They enjoyed a surprisingly good supper … of coddle and poundies, washed down with several cups of scalding hot tea. They ate in a noisy, raucous chop-house - where they took an empty booth right at the back of the premises to remain inconspicuous - on Mutton Lane, one of the alleyways leading off St. Patrick Street and close to the English Market.
While they had sat and eaten their supper, snug and warm, judging by the rain-soaked hats and coats of those who came into the eatery after Tom and Sybil had sat down and ordered their meal, outside the weather had worsened considerably; it promised to be a very wet summer's night.
But it was not only the appealing prospect of enjoying each other physically in the privacy of their bedroom in the hotel, let alone the appalling weather, which made them both so anxious of seeking the shabby comfort of their night's lodgings. They had now been out for almost an hour and while she was certain nothing would be amiss, Sybil was understandably concerned about having left Danny.
That apart, here in Cork itself, of late, things had become increasingly violent and unpleasant. With the curfew imposed by the British authorities strictly enforced, it would not do for them to chance their luck by needlessly being out on the streets after dark a moment longer than was actually necessary.
Tensions were running high in the city and had been ever since the shooting in March of three Royal Irish Constabulary officers, two of who succumbed to their wounds, followed very shortly after by the shooting dead in his own home of the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor, Tomás Mac Curtain. The latter vicious attack had caused considerable outrage, having taken place in front of the victim's wife and young son, carried out by a group of men with blackened faces all of whom, it was later found, were serving officers with the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Not surprisingly, not long afterwards, two more police officers - Sergeant Garvey and Constable Harrington - having boarded a tram on Lower Glanmire Road - had also been shot dead, their assailants having already boarded the tramcar prior to the officers climbing aboard.
Thereafter, the sickening spiral of violence continued with mounting casualties on both sides, along with increasing instances of the hijacking of army vehicles, shootings, and the burning of government property in the city. The tax offices on South Mall and South Terrace were both cases in point and had been put to the torch early in April, along with attacks on nearby police barracks such as that on Commons Road and out at Blackrock. Most recently, the barracks at King Street, St. Luke's, and on the Lower Glanmire Road had all been set alight.
So, after their meal, arm in arm, Tom and Sybil walked briskly back to the hotel through the twisting maze of cobbled, darkened, narrow lanes lying between St. Patrick Street and the river.
A short while later, having finally negotiated their way through an exceedingly tortuous warren of lanes, Tom and Sybil reached the comparative safety afforded them by their hotel without any incident, to find their lamp lit bedroom still snug and warm, a haven of peace and tranquillity here in this bitterly divided city of Cork, and little Danny still sleeping peacefully and soundly in his borrowed cot.
Much to Sybil's amusement and to Tom's chagrin, young Bridget was delighted with her sticks of liquorice. Then, having thanked both Tom and Sybil for her unexpected present, she said goodnight to them both and disappeared off downstairs to her mother's kitchen.
Outside, with the city streets of Cork now all but deserted because of the military curfew, the incessant rain finally made the night its own; a chill, steady downpour, which drummed loudly on the slate roofs of the silent, sleeping city.
The rain ran swiftly along cast iron gutters, streamed down drainpipes, and gurgled noisily into drains. It fell among alleyways, courts, gardens, squares, and streets, glistened on lamp-lit stone-flagged pavements, on cobbled streets, on granite setts lining the quays, on the vessels riding high at anchor on the River Lee; all seemingly empty and deserted, save for the constant tramp of heavy, booted footfalls of both army and police patrols.
Author's Note:
Founded in 1874, the County and City of Cork Hospital for Women and Children was originally situated down on Union Quay, moving to its present site in 1885, its name being changed to the Victoria Hospital for Women and Children in 1901. Male patients were not admitted until 1914.
The English Market in Cork still exists and was visited by Queen Elizabeth II during her State Visit to Ireland in 2011. While it sells all manner of produce, it is best known for its fresh fish and meat. Despite Tom's tongue-in-cheek comment, it retains its original name to differentiate it from St. Peter's Market and which was known as the Irish Market.
The murder of Tomás Mac Curtain and the other shootings, along with the outbreaks of arson mentioned in this chapter, all happened exactly as described.