Chapter Twenty One
Growing Up
Not that the undoubted differences in their background and upbringing meant anything to either of the two boys, but nonetheless, having grown up in Dublin's not so fair city, and now having reached the ripe old age of twelve years, young Danny Branson considered himself to be somewhat more knowing of the ways of the world than his best friend and aristocratic cousin Robert Crawley of Downton Abbey who, aged eleven, was but a year younger than Danny.
After all, in Dublin, in 1932, few twelve-year-old boys could genuinely claim both to having met and being on first name terms with a lady of the night; but this was one distinction which young Danny could rightfully aver; although undoubtedly this would not have been the case, had it not been for his beloved Da, and a chance encounter which occurred one January evening of that same year, in an alleyway behind his father's office on Talbot Street, in the heart of what had been the Monto, Dublin's erstwhile, and once notorious red-light district.
Since the departure of the British and the establishment of the Irish Free State, the Catholic Legion of Mary in collusion with the Dublin Metropolitan Police had worked tirelessly to close down the brothels in the Monto; the viability of which had been seriously undermined by the withdrawal of the British soldiers the presence of whom, in the barracks in and around the city, had helped to keep the brothels in business in the first place. The closure of the brothels had eventually been achieved in March 1925, in the aftermath of a large-scale police raid, although of course some of the "girls" continued to ply their trade, albeit rather more discretely than hitherto had been the case. After all, they had to make a living just like anyone else.
It was following an afternoon trip out to Dalymount Park on the north side of the city to see a League of Ireland football match between the home side Bohemians and the Shamrock Rovers that on that particular Saturday evening, as darkness fell and a bitter wind whipped through the alleys, courts, and streets of Dublin, before they returned home to Blackrock, having some papers to collect to work on at home, accompanied by an excited young Danny, having got off the tram, Tom had taken a detour down to the offices of the Independent on Talbot Street. The necessary papers duly collected, it was as father and son made their way towards the tram stop beneath Nelson's Pillar on O'Connell Street, that Tom had taken yet another short cut, which, he said would lead them through to the Pillar. Not that Danny was surprised, being very well aware that his father knew the streets of Dublin like the back of his own hand.
Of course, given the time of year, let alone the hour, and the district, Tom should have known better. The light in the alley, such as it was, came from a single sputtering gas lamp; the cobbles were both uneven and icy, and losing his footing, Tom literally slid into the shawl clad woman standing in the darkened doorway of a decaying tenement.
"I'm sorry" mumbled Tom, now recovering his balance and grasping hold of a nearby broken cast iron railing to steady himself.
"Are you all right Da?" asked Danny anxiously.
"Yes; no harm done son. Let's be on our…"
"No need to be sorry darlin'" laughed the woman. "Yous could have a lot of fun with me if yous a mind to try". Raggedly dressed, she reeked of cheap whisky. Danny saw his father wince, turn his head away, the profile of Tom's features thrown for an instant into stark relief by the light from the gas lamp.
"I don't think so" said Tom as with difficulty he sought to prise the woman's pawing hands from off the lapels of his overcoat.
"Tommy?"
"Jaysus, Grace!"
"Tommy Branson! Jaysus, Mary and Joseph! Well I never. Just look at yous!" Letting go of Tom's overcoat, the woman moved forward and grasped Danny's chin tightly, turning the boy's head first one way and then the other. Danny winced. The woman released her grip.
"Well there's no mistakin' who be the father of this one for sure! He's yours Tommy lad right enough. And handsome too; just like his Da". The woman released her grip on Danny who drew back and huddled against his father.
"It's all right Danny" said Tom softly, placing a comforting arm about his son's shoulders.
"Aren't yous goin' to introduce me?"
"Forgive me. Of course" said Tom affably. "Danny this is Grace. Grace, this is my eldest; Danny".
"Eldest?"
"I've a daughter and a younger boy".
"Yous married then?"
Tom nodded.
"Can't say that I'm surprised Tommy. Your wife… she's a lucky woman".
Tom grinned.
"Yes, I suppose she is!"
A sudden bout of coughing overcame the woman. Grace hawked and spat heavily onto the greasy cobbles; Tom could not but notice that the phlegm she brought up was heavily flecked with blood,
"Grace, you shouldn't be out here. Where do you live now?"
"Where do yous think? Here, like I've always done". The woman laughed a harsh laugh.
"But the polees…"
"Oh the polees don't bother with the likes of me". A sudden gust of chill wind moaned down the alley; Grace shivered. Slipping off his overcoat, Tom placed it around the woman's shoulders, only then realising how frail she was, little more than skin and bones.
"Well, you shouldn't be out here. Not in this. Here, let's get you inside".
While his father mended the fire in the small grate, and Grace sat huddled in Tom's overcoat on the unmade bed, Danny stood by the rickety table and looked about him at the squalid room that Grace called home; the bare, uncarpeted floor, the few shabby sticks of furniture, the damp-stained walls, and the grimy window.
A short while after, with a cheerful blaze now burning in the grate, finding that other than a half empty bottle of whisky there was nothing to either eat or drink in the flat, Tom said he would nip out to the pie shop on the corner and also fetch in some other provisions.
"You don't have to do this Tommy". Danny saw Grace grasp his father by the arm.
"For sure, it's the least I can do. For auld lang syne" said Tom gently. Danny had heard his Da use the phrase before, most recently just after Christmas, when they had all been at Downton and Uncle Matthew had offered Da a whisky, apologising for the fact that it wasn't Jameson's; whereupon Da had said that it didn't matter, had clinked glasses with Uncle Matthew and then said the words he had just used now – "for auld lang syne". Although Danny had never been told what they meant, their meaning was now all too clear. A moment later and Danny saw his father glance at him.
"Will you be all right here son?" he asked solicitous for the boy's welfare.
"He'll be all right here with me Tommy" offered Grace. Still wrapped in Tom's overcoat, she reached up, patted Danny's shoulder. "Here, come sit by me and tell me all about yous".
Sometime later, after Tom had returned to the squalid tenement flat laden with a variety of provisions, among them a steaming meat pasty, along with a loaf of bread, a bottle of milk, a packet of tea and food in tins, after they had said farewell to Grace, Tom having now reclaimed his overcoat, and promising to return in a day or so's time to see how she was faring, and both of them seated on the tram homeward bound to Blackrock, in answer to Danny's question, in the broadest of terms, Tom explained the nature of her "profession" ; said that some here in the city liked to pretend that women such as Grace didn't exist, usually in order to make themselves feel better.
"So what Grace does… is just her job. Like… like you're a journalist, Ma's a nurse… and Aunt Mary's a countess?"
Tom nodded, though at the same time thinking to himself, God knows exactly what Mary would think if ever she found out that her nephew Danny equated his aunt's aristocratic position as countess of Grantham to be on a par with being a slattern from the Monto.
"And one thing more".
"What's that Da?"
"Promise me son that you'll never forget, that whether she be your Ma, your Aunt Mary, or Grace, a woman always merits your respect".
"I promise" said Danny solemnly.
Later that same night, with Bobby and, Saiorse already tucked up and fast asleep in bed, after she had been in to Danny's bedroom to say goodnight to her elder son, Sybil came downstairs to sit with Tom by the fire in their front room. Earlier, after supper was over, and the three children were in bed upstairs, he had explained to Sybil a little of what had happened, how he had first met Grace, years ago, when he had been following up a lead in the Monto.
"Darling, Danny… told me… more about what you did this evening… for Grace; what you said to him about women like her" she said softly. Sybil rested her head gently on Tom's shoulder, interlacing her fingers through his own.
"Hm" Tom swirled what remained of the whisky in his glass, sat gazing thoughtfully into the flames.
"It was very kind of you to do what you did, a splendid thing to say, and I love you for it". Sybil reached up and kissed Tom lightly on the cheek.
Tom smiled, turned his head to look at Sybil, his blue eyes dark as midnight.
"But then, knowing you as I do, I suppose I shouldn't be at all surprised by such a display of compassion on your part" she said quietly.
"Compassion always makes sense" said Tom softly.
And it was because of the promise he had made to his father, as well as his meeting Grace in the back streets of Dublin earlier that same year why, aged all of twelve years, young Danny Branson took in his stride exchanging pleasantries with a French prostitute through an open window one hot afternoon in the summer of 1932 while en route to the Gare de Lyon aboard the through coaches from off the Rome Express.
In fairness, it should also now be admitted that young Robert Crawley was by no means the innocent his cousin Danny assumed him to be, nor for that matter as unworldly as his own father, Matthew Crawley, had been at the age Robert now was, as a result of which, Robert was also more than capable of taking in his stride the meeting with a French prostitute whilst travelling along the Petite Ceinture bound for the Gare de Lyon.
Robert's first encounter with the mysteries of the female form, in the shape of Jenny Smales's budding breasts, had seen to that, had in one sense therefore been rather more revealing than Danny's, and which had arisen as a result of an impromptu swimming contest, cut short by a sudden thunderstorm, held out of sight of the Big House, on the far side of the lake at Downton earlier this summer, just before the Bransons arrived over from Ireland and the two families left for Italy.
Jenny was the eldest daughter of old man Smales who owned the grocer's shop down in the village, and, in and around Downton, was, at the advanced age of thirteen years, already establishing something of a reputation for herself with the local boys of her own age for being what those dwelling in the West Riding of Yorkshire described as "forrad" in matters sexual: which was why when she and Lizzie Moisley had come across young Robert Crawley and his pals Alfie Foulstone the younger son of the estate's blacksmith and Harry Tillotson son of the under gamekeeper, skinny dipping in the lake on the Downton Abbey estate, that Jenny herself was not unduly perturbed, even if Robert and his pals were, which they soon showed by hastily struggling back into their woollen swimming trunks when Jenny and Lizzie had hove into view.
That afternoon, the summer sky had been darkening for some considerable time and, but a moment or two later, there came a sudden crack of thunder, a flash of lightning, and it began to rain heavily causing all of them to scurry into the dilapidated old boat-house seeking shelter from the downpour, and where, for the lengthy duration of the storm and, it must be said, somewhat beyond, the five children embarked upon playing the time-honoured game of truth or dare; which was how Jenny came to be standing in the loft of the old boathouse in front of eleven year old Robert Crawley the future seventh earl of Grantham, he with his maroon woollen swimming trunks pulled down around his ankles, and Jenny, her hands modestly clasping her bare shoulders so as, at least for the present moment, to hide her budding breasts, and herself now wearing nothing but her navy blue regulation school knickers.
Of course, unlike Matthew and Mary, who were singularly unaware of their eldest son's fascination with the charms of the fairer sex, and considered that the inevitable discussion of certain topics with their two growing boys was best deferred until the two boys were older, Tom and Sybil had always believed in a policy of honesty and openness with their three children in things appertaining to matters sexual.
Whenever he asked her about, it or indeed made reference to it, Sybil always told Tom that their youngest child, Bobby, had been conceived one swelteringly hot August day in the summer of 1926, when the Bransons had paid a long overdue visit to Ciaran and Aislin's farm, which lay out beyond Clontarf, on the north side of Dublin Bay. Having left Danny and Saiorse in the capable hands of their uncle and aunt, strolling hand in hand like two star-crossed village lovers, Tom and Sybil had set off through the gate on the far side of the farmyard, threading their way slowly along the narrow path which led down through the hay meadow, ablaze with wild flowers, thence across the fields, through the woods, as far as the Rainbow Pool, a place which held special memories for them both.
Tom had seen the pool for the first time when he was all of thirteen years old, and but a year or so older than Danny was now, when, Ciaran had brought Tom to this very spot in order to teach him to dive. Thereafter, in turn, Tom had brought Sybil here as long ago as the summer of 1919, shortly before they were married.
It had been hot that day too and, unbeknownst to Tom, who, with Sybil's agreement, had gone off on his own to see if the rocky path which led down to the ledge off which Ciaran had taught him to dive was still accessible or not, Sybil herself had sought refuge from the heat in the coolness of the shade beneath the over arching branches of the trees. She was thus out of sight when Tom, singularly unaware of her presence, had stripped and dived naked into the pool below: which was how, when he had re-emerged from the water and had sat himself totally unself-consciously on the rocky ledge above the pool, towelling himself dry with his vest, that from her position of concealment, Sybil had been able to sketch him naked and carefree, glowing with health and vitality.
The sketch had remained hidden away until Christmas of that same year when, somewhat hesitantly, unsure as to exactly how darling Tom would respond to it, given his surprisingly unreceptive reaction on encountering pencil sketches of male nudes for the very first time, in Ireland's National Gallery in Leinster House in Dublin, Sybil had thrown caution to the four winds and had given the drawing to Tom as a Christmas present. Not that she need have worried, for Tom was delighted with the sketch, although since they were then living in Ma's house at Clontarf, it had, perforce, still to remain hidden away at the bottom of Sybil's cabin trunk, which indeed it continued to do, even after they had moved into their own home in Blackrock.
Some seven years later, in the hot summer of 1926, Tom and Sybil found themselves back at the Rainbow Pool which, despite the passage of time, they soon found had lost none of its magical allure. Now with two small children and with Tom and Sybil both working long hours they were often denied the languor of their earlier love-makings, so this was a moment to be savoured. And, savour it they both did. Thankfully, they had, long ago, lost any inhibitions either of them might once have possessed about making love in the open air. Beneath a cloudless azure sky, by the side of the pool, they helped each other shed their clothes, and thereafter made love together several times on a patch of greensward. When, years later, with the inevitable passage of time hair had greyed, thinned, bodies had thickened and were no longer as supple as once they had been, that August afternoon they had spent together making love beneath the trees, beside the Rainbow Pool, was a moment which both of them would always remember and treasure.
That a child should have been conceived during that dream like episode, and that when born the little boy should so much resemble darling Tom came as no surprise to Sybil.
In fact, it was shortly after Sybil found out she was expecting for the third time, that, several days later, feeling tired, and having come home early from the hospital, once rested and never being one to sit still for long, she had begun to sort out the contents of her old cabin trunk. In so doing, she came across her drawing of Tom once again. And it was now, on seeing it for the first time in a very long while, that Sybil decided that it was high time something was done about it, so as to give it a more fitting home rather than languishing out of sight at the bottom of her old cabin trunk.
An artist friend of theirs, Yuri Petrov, a Russian émigré, originally from Moscow, who, in the aftermath of the Revolution, during the chaos of the Russian Civil War had managed to escape from his homeland in 1920, and who had settled in Dublin, provided Sybil with the means to accomplish the delicate matter of having mounted, glazed, and framed, the nude pencil sketch of her husband.
Indebted to Tom for having helped him obtain his papers of naturalisation as a citizen of the Irish Free State, Yuri was only too happy to enter into the conspiracy of framing the sketch of Tom in secret, in time for it to be given to him on his birthday later that same year. When, the night before his birthday, Sybil had presented the framed sketch to Tom up in their bedroom, he was delighted with the finished result. Although, it should be admitted, that Tom was not so delighted when later that year, while staying at Downton, Saiorse, aged all of six years old, had let slip the existence of a drawing "done by Ma", hanging on a wall in her parents' bedroom back in Dublin, "of Da with no clothes on".
Tom had been mortified, Mary and Matthew, along with Cora, highly amused, while Robert, accompanied by Osiris, Isis's successor, had taken himself off down to the pig sties at Home Farm to try to compose himself.
Later that evening, down at the Grantham Arms in the village, over a couple of pints, a still amused Matthew had mercilessly quizzed a profusely embarrassed Tom just how it was that Sybil had come to make the sketch of him in the first place. By the time he had parried Matthew's questions with monosyllabic answers, Tom's ears had turned a deep shade of red. They would have been even redder still, had Tom been aware that, up at the house, with Robert having taken a pill and gone to bed early, seated in the Drawing Room, Cora and Mary were, at that very moment, avidly quizzing Sybil about exactly the same thing!
Later, when in the course of her third pregnancy Sybil's swelling belly became all too obvious, in answer to repeated questions about the forthcoming baby from an inquisitive seven-year old Danny and also from an equally enquiring six-year old Saiorse, deciding that whatever it cost them, honesty was, as always, the best policy, one evening, after supper, in the kitchen of the house in Blackrock, Tom and Sybil had explained to their two children how babies were conceived.
However, when it came to it, Sybil proved much more adept at imparting the facts of life to her young son and daughter than their father, who on several occasions during the frank exchange which had followed turned an embarrassed shade of pink, and which, of course, Saiorse, sitting on her father's lap, and ever perceptive, did not fail to notice.
"Are you all right Da?" she enquired guilelessly, gazing steadfastly up into her beloved father's face.
"Yes darlin'. Why shouldn't I be?"
"Well, your face is all red Da for sure".
"Is it? It must be the heat" offered Tom woodenly. In fact, the kitchen door to the garden stood open and a cooling, soft summer breeze wafted gently in from outside.
"Perhaps your father would like a nice cooling glass of lemonade" suggested Sybil, trying desperately to stifle a giggle.
Tom glared at Sybil; shook his head emphatically. He did not need a glass of lemonade. Sybil knew that to be the case; so why was she suggesting that he did?
"Would you Da?" asked Danny brightly and before Tom could answer him, young Danny had slipped off his mother's lap and trotted dutifully into the larder from whence he returned moments later, and at a snail's pace, bearing aloft a glass jug brimful of lemonade, and calling to Saiorse to fetch Da a glass. With the lemonade duly poured, Saiorse climbed back onto her father's lap while Danny settled himself contentedly back in his mother's arms. Meanwhile, Tom eyed the glass now on the table as if it contained a dose of strychnine.
"And just what am I supposed to do with that?" he asked, acutely aware that three pairs of eyes were now fixed intently upon him, watching his every move.
"Drink it? Sybil suggested helpfully.
When Tom still made no move to do so, Sybil asked him if he needed a straw.
"Do you Da?" asked Danny.
"Shall I fetch you one Da?" suggested Saiorse helpfully, once again slipping off her father's lap.
"No thank you darlin'" said Tom through gritted teeth. Saiorse nodded; sucking her thumb, her eyes never for an instant leaving her Da's face, she moved instead to stand by Sybil's chair, placing her arm around her mother's back and rested her head on her shoulder. At last accepting that he was beaten, shaking his head in disbelief, watched by all three of them, Tom reached reluctantly for the previously untouched glass of lemonade.
"Now, where were we?" asked Sybil breezily.
"You were telling us what the man does to the lady with his mickey" said Danny helpfully.
"Oh, yes, I was, wasn't I" said Sybil. "Perhaps your father can explain it better than I…" she began. At which point Tom groaned audibly, buried his head in his hands, while Sybil dissolved into peals of ringing laughter.
Later that same evening, when both the children were fast asleep upstairs in bed, and they too had retired for the night, Tom said that since Sybil was a nurse, it was hardly surprising that she was far better at explaining such things than he was; whereupon Sybil had countered with her own observation that Tom had found no such problem several years earlier, when explaining the facts of life to young Ruari, Ciaran and Aislin's eldest boy.
"Well, that was different" said Tom lamely.
"I don't see why".
"Well it was".
"Why, exactly?"
"It just was!" said Tom burying his head under the pillow.
"But why?" persisted Sybil with a giggle.
"Darlin' just go to sleep!"
Author's Note:
The closure of most of the brothels in the Monto came about in the way described.
Blackrock then, as now, is an affluent suburb on the south side of Dublin.
Tom's reaction to the drawings of male nudes on show in the National Gallery in Leinster House in Dublin, and what happened after, out at Ciaran's farm, at the Rainbow Pool, in the hot summer of 1919, are both covered in greater detail in my other story "Home Is Where The Heart Is". Tom's discussion with his nephew Ruari on the facts of life, occurs somewhat later in that same tale.