1949 (34 page)

When they got to Ireland she would have to explain him.

What did the Virgin Mary tell her family and friends—I was impregnated by God? Surely not. I'm amazed that Joseph believed that story. Or did he? Did he just love her so much he was willing to accept her even if she was a bit mad?

She drifted over to the window. Like almost every window in London it was fitted with blackout curtains. A fire extinguisher was mounted in a prominent place on the wall. When they checked in, the concierge had informed them that gas masks were available at the desk.

Looking down into the street, Ursula saw sandbags and metal barricades neatly stacked at the corner. Signposts pointed the way to the nearest bomb shelter. Men past the age for active military duty were patrolling the streets, dressed in the uniform of the home guard.

Britain was prepared to support her people in a bared-teeth defense of their nation.

Mary had Joseph to support her. I wonder how much carpenters made in Galilee two thousand years ago. Did they sell the gold and frankincense and myrrh to give them a nest egg? I would have done
.

 

When they reached Dublin they were warmly greeted by the Lesters' three daughters, who made a great fuss over Barry. “Ursula saved my life in France,” Elsie told the girls. “Nothing we can ever do will be enough to repay her. I hope she and Barry will stay with us…well, forever, if they like.”

Ursula was embarrassed. “You make it sound like more than it was, Elsie. I appreciate your offer more than you know, and we'll stay with you tonight, if that's all right. But first thing tomorrow I'm going to look for a furnished room that will accept a toddler. After that I must find a job. Your husband gave me an excellent letter of reference, but unfortunately it was in my suitcase. If he'll replace it…”

“I'm sure he will. When I cable him that we've arrived safely, I'll include your request,” Elsie promised.

From the outbreak of war in 1939 a number of gardai had been temporarily transferred to Dublin and put on armed protection duty, though the basic principle of an unarmed police force was not changed.

Dublin itself was unchanged and unchanging. Everything looked the same as when Ursula left. The city had been frozen in time while the rest of the world fragmented and reformed itself in some new, desperate patterns.

Elsie Lester had contacts, and as always in Ireland, contacts were everything. Through them Ursula was directed to “private residential accommodation” in Molesworth Street; furnished flats that discreetly occupied the first and second floors above a row of professional offices.

The location was south of the Liffey and Ursula had always thought of herself as a northsider, but when she was shown the flat she had no difficulty changing allegiance. The bedroom and miniscule sitting room were freshly painted and papered. A toilet and washbasin occupied a small cubicle of their own. Ornamental ironwork outside the lower panes of the windows insured that no small child would tumble out.

There was no lino on the floors, no smell of damp.

The landlord was a plump little man with fat pink hands and a bald pink head. Ursula had been sent to him by Mrs. Seán Lester, Someone Important in his world view, so he was as ingratiating as a dog wagging its entire back end. He bustled about opening windows and pointing out amenities.

“Because we're close to government buildings we get a good class of tenant here,” he told Ursula. “Staff from foreign embassies, even. The furniture and rugs are quality, you can see that yourself. And there's a fine hotel on the corner if you fancy a meal out, Mrs…?”

“Halloran,” Ursula said.

“Mrs. Halloran. Will Mr. Halloran be joining you?”

She told him the truth. The actual truth and nothing more. “Mr. Halloran fought in Spain.”

“But the war is over and…ah. I see. My condolences, Mrs. Halloran, and may God have mercy on his soul. You and your wee lad are welcome here. I lost my father in the Great War. Now I manage his property for my mother, who is a widow like yourself. Only older, of course,” he added with a self-conscious smirk. “You and I are about the same age, I should think.”

I should think not!
Ursula grasped her thumbs to keep from saying something that would cost her the flat. As soon as a month's rent was paid and the place officially hers, she installed a new lock on the door.

There was no unpacking to do. She hastily purchased clothes for herself and Barry, and Elsie Lester loaned her a few household necessities, including a gas ring and a teakettle, but the items that should have made the flat Ursula's home were lacking. No books. No bridle.

She had Barry, though. That made all the difference.

With the problem of shelter solved, the larger problem loomed. Ursula's savings would not last forever. The war was seriously interfering with postal services; Seán Lester's new letter of reference might take weeks to arrive. Meanwhile she must seek employment armed with only her nerve and her need.

 

The French were doing all they could to hold back the Nazi tide, but it was apparent that while the Germans were in the war to win, the French were merely hoping not to lose.

On the twenty-eighth of May newspaper headlines screamed
BELGIUM AND HOLLAND SURRENDER TO NAZIS
!

Two days later British troops were fighting a desperate rearguard action on the French coast around Dunkirk.

In London, Sir Oswald Mosley was arrested and interned.

There was no work available in Dublin; not the sort for which Ursula was equipped. Any position that required intelligence or initiative was already filled by a man. The civil service was, of course, closed to her. An unwed mother had no hope there. She applied to every position advertised in the papers where it looked as if a woman could bring her child with her. In each instance she was told, “Stay home and tend to your baby, missus.”

No one suggested how she was to support that baby.

 

Ursula banged the door knocker several times before Louise Hamilton opened to her with a mop in one hand and a dust cloth in the other. She stared at her caller as if seeing a ghost. “Is that really you?”

“The one and only. May I come in, Louise, or shall we talk out here on the stoop?”

“Come in, come in of course, and welcome, but…” Louise was plainly flustered. “But who is this?”

Straddling Ursula's hip was a child who looked to be around a year of age. Plump, rosy cheeks, eyes of storm gray, and a cap of silky red-gold hair gleaming in the morning sunlight.

Giving Louise one of his big grins, Barry reached toward her with a dimpled hand.

Louise melted as visibly as ice in the sun. She let him grasp one of her work-coarsened fingers with his own and gave him back smile for smile. “What a beautiful babby,” she said without taking her eyes from his face.

“Meet Finbar Lewis Halloran,” Ursula said. “My son.”

 

Seated beside his mother on the horsehair couch in the parlor, Barry was chattering to himself in a language all his own and playing with the tassel of a cushion.

Hector Hamilton was nowhere in sight. Five minutes before Ursula knocked on the door he had gone out to buy the morning papers, as was his habit. This always included at least an hour's conversation with acquaintances along the way.

Ursula had timed her visit very carefully.

“God between us and all harm,” Louise ejaculated—for the second time in five minutes. “I just can't believe you have a babby, Ursula.”

“I do, and there he is. Now are you going to offer me a cup of tea?”

“I will of course. But first you must tell me about your husband. I had no idea! Isn't it amazing that his name is Halloran too? Did you meet him as soon as you arrived in Geneva? Did he sweep you off your feet and marry you at once? He must have done. Is he—”

“I'm not married,” Ursula interrupted to halt the spate of questions.

“But you told me the babby's name is…”

“It is. There just isn't any Mr. Halloran.”

“You don't mean?”

“I do mean. Now what about that cup of tea?”

The color had drained from Louise's face. Tea was the last thing in her mind. “God between us and all harm! You have a…a…”

“An illegitimate baby,” Ursula said calmly. “Though how Barry can possibly be called illegitimate escapes me. In the dictionary Henry gave me, the definition of legitimate is ‘proper, regular, conforming to standard type.' Look at Barry. One head, one body, ten fingers, ten toes. Standard-type baby.”

She had long since looked up the word in the dictionary to use as part of her arsenal; responses she had rehearsed while Barry still lay safely in her womb. Responses to spike the guns of any who sought to attack him.

Ursula believed in attacking first.

“Mr. Hamilton's going to be very upset about this,” Louise warned. “If it was up to me, you'd both be welcome to live here, but…”

“We already have a place to live. It may not work out, but if it doesn't I'll find another one.”

Barry doubled a little fist and punched his mother's arm, a new exercise he was mastering. She smiled down at him and rumpled the silky hair.

Louise's eyes were drawn to that hair. “The father…” she began. Stopped. Cleared her throat and tried again. “I mean to say, do you know who the father…”

“Of course I know who the father is. I'm surprised at you for even asking that.”

“Then who?”

“He's out of the picture.” Ursula thrust her chin forward in an expression Louise recognized of old. The older woman knew there would be no more information given on that subject.

Louise felt impelled to ask, “Was the babby, I mean, has he been…”

“Baptized? He has of course. By a genuinely Christian priest who had no qualms about baptizing an infant whose parents aren't married. That's why I went to Switzerland to have my child.”

“You went to Switzerland to have him?” Louise echoed.

Ursula smiled.
I can at least give her that much
. “Barry was conceived here in Ireland.”

The blunt words turned Louise bright red with embarrassment. As Ursula had intended, she stopped asking questions and hurried out to the kitchen to put the kettle on.

Over several cups of tea and a plate of sweet biscuits, the two women plotted the future between them before Hector Hamilton returned.

They would let him make the same assumption Ursula's new landlord had made. Widowhood was acceptable. “I won't tell an outright lie, though,” Ursula warned Louise.

“You won't have to. I'll tell him you met a man in the Irish delegation in Geneva and were married at once, and then…well, something happened to him. That's enough to satisfy Mr. Hamilton, he never questions anything very much if it isn't about him.”

“I don't like having you lie.”

Louise gave Ursula the look women have exchanged between themselves for millennia when discussing the opposite sex. “I'm married,” she said. “So it won't be the first time.”

They arranged that Louise would keep Barry during the day while Ursula looked for work. It was obvious the two would get along. The older woman was charmed by the little boy and Barry liked everyone.

“You should leave now,” Louise said regretfully, “before Hector comes home, so he won't have an opportunity to ask you too many questions. I'll tell him all he needs to know and let him settle it in his mind.”

“You don't know how grateful I am.”

It was hard for Ursula to tell Barry good-bye and leave him in the care of another woman for the day. Parting from her son was almost a physical pain.

My son. But not my possession
, Ursula reminded herself sternly.
Barry belongs to Barry. He's a separate person
.

Louise accompanied her to the door, then exclaimed, “Merciful hour, I nearly forgot in the excitement! A letter came for you yesterday. I was going to forward it on to Switzerland, but since you're here, you can take it now.”

“If you sent it to Switzerland the chances are I'd never get it anyway, under the circumstances.”

“Wait here.” Louise disappeared into the back of the house and returned carrying an envelope. Carrying it gingerly, as if it might be hot. “Please God it isn't bad news.”

The envelope bore the return address of a legal firm in Ennis.

“‘We regret to inform you of the death of Miss Lucy Halloran, spinster, of this parish, on the tenth of May,'” Ursula read. “‘An accident suffered on her farm the previous evening proved fatal.'”

“I'm afraid it is bad news,” Ursula told Louise. “Ned's sister Lucy has been killed.”

“
Godamercyoner
,” Louise responded automatically, signing the cross on her bosom.

“Wait, there's more. Listen to this. “‘Some time ago, Miss Halloran left the enclosed with us in the event of her death.'” And then there's another letter.”

Louise could hardly contain her excitement. “Read it out! I mean…unless it's too private.”

Ursula stared at the sheet of paper she held in fingers suddenly gone numb. Lucy had written, ‘To atone for a wrong I once did to Miss Ursula Halloran, I hereby leave her my farm and its income. I ask that she remember me kindly in her prayers.'

Lucy died on the tenth of May. The same day I knew it was time to come home
.

11 June 1940
MUSSOLINI DECLARES WAR ON BRITAIN AND FRANCE
Confident That Germany Will Win, II Duce Enters the Fray

14 June 1940
PARIS FALLS TO HITLER
German Troops Parade Up the Champs Elysees
Two Million Parisians Flee City, Roads Clogged with Refugees

22 June 1940
FRENCH SIGN ARMISTICE IN COACH USED FOR 1918
GERMAN SURRENDER
Hitler on Hand to Witness French Humiliation