She said to Chrissie. ‘Have you thought of taking a job?’
Chrissie shook her head. ‘Mammy would never stand it. Anyway, what could I do?’
‘As well as the rest, I suppose,’ Rosie retorted and then went on, ‘Elizabeth and Sarah are working as seamstresses.’
‘Well that’s out,’ Chrissie said. ‘D’you remember my efforts at sewing?’
‘I wouldn’t mind a job either,’ Geraldine said. ‘But just because Sarah and Elizabeth Walsh have work, it doesn’t mean there’d be anything for us.’
‘Aye, but that’s just it,’ Rosie said. ‘Danny’s sisters have been working there a while now and they were mainly doing the fine work, the embroidery, or sewing beads or some such on to clothes and doing buttonholes, the fiddly things, but at the moment they’re run off their feet.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Because of the war,’ Rosie replied. ‘The few machines they have in the workroom have been added to and they’re making uniforms by the score. They need people both to operate the machines and to sew on the buttons and any other sort of decoration.’
‘Well, I’m glad to see some are gaining from this war,’ Geraldine said. ‘There are plenty from this village in the thick of it.’
‘Aye,’ Rosie agreed, ‘couldn’t wait to join up, many of them, like it was all some big adventure.’
‘Well, it was supposed be over by Christmas,’ Chrissie reminded her.
‘Danny never believed that,’ Rosie said. ‘But somehow, living here, it’s hard to believe that awful things are happening not all that far away. I mean it will really only hit home if we hear of people we know dying, or being dreadfully injured. At the moment it barely touches us.’
And it didn’t of course, but those men who had answered the call and were still answering it would all need uniforms and someone would have to make them, Chrissie thought. It wouldn’t hurt surely to make a few enquiries.
When the Walshes came home in a flurry of noise and bustle a little later, everyone was in a grand humour for all the eggs and butter had been sold and Chrissie took the opportunity to speak with Danny’s sisters about their jobs. They weren’t so keen on doing the uniforms, they told her: the material was coarser than they were used to and there was less chance of finding a remnant to make up something for themselves, but the money was good and the work would continue at least as long as the war went on.
Rosie’s sisters returned home after sharing a meal at the Walshes’, with Chrissie determined to speak to her parents about getting a job of her own. She wanted the company of other girls and money in her pocket. With keep tipped up to her mother each week to sweeten her temper, just maybe it would work.
Minnie needed that sweetener, for at first she forbade Chrissie to even think of such a thing. She fanned her temper to full-blown fury and slapped Chrissie when she continued to plead her case. ‘Be quiet, girl!’
‘Do you want to make me a laughing stock?’ Seamus asked. ‘Have people saying I can’t afford to keep you and that I had to send you out to work?’
‘Matt Walsh doesn’t think that way,’ Chrissie pointed out, holding a handkerchief to her bleeding nose. ‘He has two daughters at the factory.’
‘Don’t you dare answer your father back,’ Minnie said, bouncing up before her. ‘By God, I’ll take the strap to you.’
Chrissie quailied inside, but outwardly showed no fear. ‘There’s no need, Mammy,’ she said soothingly. ‘I’ll pay keep into the house.’
Minnie thought about it. Money would be useful, she decided. And there was still Geraldine at home – she’d have to do. ‘All right,’ she said grudgingly. ‘We’ll try it for six months. And,’ she said, pointing her long bony finger at Geraldine, ‘don’t you get any ideas, miss, for the whole of the work will fall on you now.’
Geraldine didn’t risk saying anything, and even her sigh she suppressed, but she shot her sister a baleful look and knew for her the future was now set.
Rosie recovered from her fall with no after-effects at all, and after that she sailed through her pregnancy. There was no need for Danny to caution his mother about not letting Rosie do anything too strenuous, or carry anything heavy, for Connie was just as anxious as he was for a healthy grandchild. Sometimes she would let Rosie do so little she felt like screaming in frustration. She never lost patience with Connie, though, for she knew the fall she’d endured at the beginning had unnerved her.
As soon as Rosie had risen from her bed and the weather had allowed it, she’d resumed her weekly trip home. Her parents seemed unconcerned with her pregnancy, but Dermot, once he knew, was enraptured with the news and watched Rosie’s growing stomach with great interest. She never saw Chrissie on these trips for, although as the nights lengthened she was able to stay until the schools closed so she could see Dermot, Chrissie had secured a job in the clothing factory with Sarah and Elizabeth. She began to come to the farmhouse on Saturdays to see Rosie and sometimes the two girls would go into the village together. There was usually someone from the farm going in, but if not the girls would begin to walk, though they were often picked up by a neighbour on the road.
‘I don’t tell Mammy what I earn,’ Chrissie told her as they walked along one day. ‘She’d have nearly every penny off me but you’d not believe the wages, Rosie, two pounds a week, sometimes two pounds and ten shillings. Of course, the hours are long to earn that type of money, but none of us mind that. I tell Mammy I get a pound a week and she lets me keep two shillings of it. I share what I have left with Geraldine and she saves it in a handkerchief in her drawer. D’you think me awful?’
Rosie considered this. ‘Honour thy father and mother,’ the Bible and the Catholic Church taught all children, and lying to one’s parents was showing them no honour at all. Yet, Rosie had known for some time that the future for her and her sisters was totally in their own hands. Neither of her parents would lift a finger to help any of them. Dermot would inherit all and the girls would have to look out for themselves. So she said truthfully to Chrissie, ‘I don’t think you awful and I don’t blame you either. But take care, for if Mammy sees you buying too much for yourself she’ll tumble you’re getting higher wages than you say. Geraldine will have to be even more careful.’
‘Oh, she knows I give Geraldine something out of what she allows me to keep,’ Chrissie assured her. ‘I’ve asked if she can go with me to town a time or two to see if she wants to spend it, but Mammy won’t let her, she says she has duties at home.’
‘Well how do you do it?’
‘I told Mammy if I’m working all week and paying my way, I need free time,’ Chrissie said, and didn’t add that the first time she voiced this the resultant slap had knocked her from her feet, and the second time she had been thrashed with the strap. But she refused to give up and kept asking until her mother eventually gave in.
‘You’re a stronger character than Geraldine, though,’ Rosie said. ‘I always realised that.’
‘Aye,’ Chrissie agreed, and added almost fiercely, ‘But I’ll tell you one thing, Rosie, going to work in the factory was the best thing I ever did and I’d not give it up for a pension. Those sisters of Danny’s are nice girls. I knew them from school of course, but they were much older and weren’t friends then. But Elizabeth and Sarah have been really helpful.