“Catherine was just telling me that she has a job interview in the morning. In the tearoom of the Dáil, if you can believe it.”
“I’d believe anything she tells me,” said Smoot. “Is this right, Kitty? Will you be joining the ranks of the working women at last? Christ alive, there’ll be a united Ireland next.”
“If I give a good account of myself,” said Catherine, ignoring his sarcasm. “If I impress the manageress, then hopefully the job will be mine.”
“Catherine,” said Seán, raising his voice. “I’m getting out now, so don’t turn around.”
“Sure I’ll close the door altogether and leave you to dry yourself. Do you need fresh clothes?”
“I’ll get them,” said Smoot, walking into the bedroom and taking Seán’s trousers from the back of a chair and a fresh shirt, underwear and socks from the dresser drawer, which he held in his hands for half a minute while staring down at Catherine, daring her to look up at him, which, eventually, she did.
“Will they not have a problem, do you think?” he asked. “The lads in the Dáil?”
“With what?” she asked, noticing how he held Seán’s clothes protectively in his arms, the boy’s smalls to the fore as if he wanted to intimidate her with them.
“With that,” he said, pointing toward my mother’s stomach.
“I bought a ring,” she replied, holding out her left hand and showing it to him.
“It’s well for those with money. And what about when the child is born?”
“I have a Great Plan for that,” she said.
“So you keep saying. Will you ever tell us what it is or do we have to guess?”
My mother said nothing and Smoot walked away.
“I hope you get it,” he muttered as he passed her, quiet enough so only the two of them could hear. “I hope you get the bloody job and then you can get the fuck out of here and leave us both in peace.”
An Interview at Dáil Éireann
When my mother arrived at the Dáil the following morning, the wedding ring was clearly visible on the fourth finger of her left hand. She gave her name to the Garda standing on duty at the front door, a sturdy-looking individual whose expression suggested there were a hundred places he would rather be than there, and he consulted a clipboard of the day’s visitors before shaking his head and declaring that she wasn’t on the list.
“I am,” said my mother, leaning forward and pointing at a name next to 11:00—for Mrs. C. Hennessy.
“That says Gogan,” said the Garda. “Catherine Gogan.”
“Well, that’s just a mistake,” said my mother. “My name is Goggin, not Gogan.”
“If you don’t have an appointment, I can’t let you in.”
“Garda,” said my mother, smiling sweetly at him. “I assure you that I am the Catherine Gogan whom Mrs. Hennessy is expecting. Someone has merely written my name down incorrectly, that’s all.”
“And how am I to know that?”
“Well, what if I wait here and if no Catherine Gogan shows up, then can you let me in instead of her? She’ll have missed her chance and I might be in luck for the job instead.”
The Garda sighed. “Ah here,” he said. “I get enough of this at home.”
“Enough of what?”
“I come to work to get away from this type of thing,” he said.
“Away from what type of thing?”
“Go along in and don’t be annoying me,” he said, practically pushing her through the doors. “The waiting room is on the left there. Don’t even think of going anywhere else or I’ll be after you faster than green grass through a goose.”
“Charming,” said my mother, slipping past him and walking toward the room he’d indicated. Stepping inside and sitting down, she looked around at the grandeur of the place and found that her heart was beating hard within her chest.
A few minutes later, the door opened and a woman of about fifty entered, slender as a willow tree with dark-black hair that she wore cropped close to her head.
“Miss Goggin?” she said, stepping forward. “I’m Charlotte Hennessy.”
“It’s Mrs. Goggin, actually,” said my mother quickly, standing up, and in a moment the expression on the older lady’s face changed from friendly to disconcerted.
“Oh,” she said, noticing my mother’s belly. “Oh dear.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said my mother. “Thank you for taking the time. I hope the position is still available?”
Mrs. Hennessy’s mouth opened and shut several times like a fish twisting back and forth on the deck of a boat until the life drained out of it. “Mrs. Goggin,” she said, her smile reasserting itself as she indicated that they should both sit down. “It is still available, yes, but I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding.”
“Oh?” said my mother.
“I was looking for a girl for the tearoom, do you see? Not a married woman with a child on the way. We can’t have married women here in Dáil Éireann. A married woman must be at home with her husband. Does your husband not work, no?”
“My husband did work,” said my mother, looking her full in the face and allowing her lower lip to tremble a little, a performance that she’d been practicing in the bathroom mirror all morning.
“And he’s lost his position? I’m sorry, but there’s still nothing that I can do for you. All our girls are single girls. Young girls like you, naturally, but unmarried. That’s how the gentlemen members prefer things.”
“He didn’t lose his position, Mrs. Hennessy,” said my mother, removing her handkerchief from her pocket and dabbing at her eyes. “He lost his life.”
“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry,” said Mrs. Hennessy, a hand to her throat now in shock. “The poor man. What happened to him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“The war happened to him, Mrs. Hennessy.”
“The war?”
“The war. He went over to fight just as his father had fought before him and his grandfather before that. The Germans got him. Less than a month ago now. A grenade ripped him to shreds. All I have left of him is his wristwatch and his false teeth. The lower set.”
This was the story that she had concocted and even in her own mind she knew it was a risky one, for there were those, many of whom worked in that very House, who thought poorly of Irishmen who went to fight for the British. But there was a heroic sound to the tale and, for whatever reason, she had decided this was the way to go.
“You poor unfortunate creature,” said Mrs. Hennessy, and when she reached out to squeeze my mother’s hand, she knew that she was halfway home. “And you in the family way. That is a tragedy.”
“If I had time to think of tragedies, it would be,” said my mother. “But I can’t afford to, that’s the truth of it. I’ve this little one to think of,” she added, placing a hand across her belly protectively.
“You’ll not believe this,” said Mrs. Hennessy, “but the same thing happened to my Auntie Jocelyn during the First War. She’d been married to my Uncle Albert for only a year and didn’t he only sign up with the Brits and get himself killed at Passchendaele? The day she heard the news was the same day she found out that she was to have a child.”