I get a secret smile from her, which I treasure. “Thank you, Miss Ryan. I expect Mrs. Winsome simply had a bit of sour milk in her breakfast. I take none of it personally.”
She’s a wonder, Mrs. Evans is.
I don’t learn the real reason until later, when Stan tells me straight. That pink woman, Mrs. Winsome, well, now, isn’t she staying in the hotel with a man who’s not her husband at all. Mrs. Evans caught them, and I reckon she’d have held her tongue about that, only the man cleared out without paying. Somebody had to foot the bill.
chapterSIX
JULY
’Tis a month since the gala night when Damien and I met, and we’ve grown thick as thieves. We talk a lot about our futures, and ’tis plain he wants what I want. His family came up no better than mine, slaving for pennies, knowing that to get a step further you must do more than work hard. You’ve got to find the person who can open the right doors. If you find them, then it is up to you to ensure they want you and only you for the next thing and the next.
Damien is an orphan, though he’s eighteen, which to me says he’s too old to carry that kind of distinction. He’s been on his own for a few years now. His father never made it back from the war, and his three brothers died in the Flu ten years ago. All that was left was Damien, his cheeky smile, and a rented cot at his cousins’ place. He’s worked every day of his life, never took no handouts. Started off as a delivery boy, loading up crates and such, and he shined a lot of shoes, and, well, now he’s living proof that hard work and a good deal of charm can get you places.
I remember how dreadful that time was, when the Flu was here. All those poor soldiers, God bless ’em, limping back home and bringing the sickness with them, and then the government closing all the churches and schools and everything else. Truly, ’twas was a miracle my own family survived, but it all came down to Granny’s wisdom. She closed all the windows and doors and wouldn’t hear of us wanting out to play, then she tied a bag of menthol around our necks to kill the germs. I can still smell it. My brothers and I, we was bored with each other after an hour, but we was made to stay inside for a whole week. In the end, Granny was right, and not one of us fell ill. But Damien hadn’t the same luck at all. He lost everyone. Damien’s a survivor. He’s good at finding what he wants, then getting it.
Right now, what he wants is me, but I am trying to stand my ground. I do not need to fall in love. What I need is to do my job, eat, sleep, and do it all again. I have always had one goal in life, and that is to improve my situation. I do not want to live forever in The Ward. I want, someday, to be helped out of a motorcar and maybe even be issued one of the Dominion’s fancy guest keys. To touch a string of pearls at my neck. To sit in a café and sip on an expensive cup of coffee. I have no time for a man in my life.
Trouble is, Damien grows more convincing by the day. He’s a lovely man, he is. And he’s handsome as the divil himself. The truth of it is that I’m sweet on him, whether I want or not.
Most mornings he and I walk to work together, and most evenings he takes me back to The Ward. If he can’t, he leaves me a note under a loose piece of carpet in the staff corridor. I like to pretend that Da put down that carpet and he left that secret hiding place just for me and Damien.
I finally spoke with Mrs. Evans about Bianca. The girl was on and on about it, and, being her friend and all, I couldn’t keep quiet forever. As Granny says, a kind word never broke anyone’s mouth. I only wish I trusted Bianca to be serious. She wants to talk about everything and everyone, and she wants to know secrets and the reasons for them. I have told her over and over that I will not recommend her for a job at the Dominion if she can’t learn to hold her tongue. She took my meaning lightly, drawing herfingers across her closed lips and pretending to toss away an invisible key, but that was not enough for me.
“This isn’t a common sort of job, Bianca. You can’t just natter like a shopgirl. At the Dominion, you keep your head down and your mouth shut, see? Do whatever Mrs. Evans tells you to do until you drop. Then you sleep, then you do it all again.”
“And somewhere in there you hook yourself a man,” she teases, fluttering her lashes. “Damien isn’t the type for me, but Mama always says, ‘L’amore è cieco.’?”
I wait.
“Love is blind.”
“Don’t be talking nonsense,” I chide, though if my cheeks get any redder, they’ll hang me out like a flag. “Damien is a friend is all. Besides, I can’t say as I think much of your man. Nico’s a gobshite, isn’t he? Bit of a hound.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s too loud, and he’s got no manners. That’s your problem as well, Bianca. If you can’t keep your mouth shut, I’ll not go to Mrs. Evans about you.”
She thinks I’m making a song and dance over it. That’s her problem, not mine.
The next day she’s back, hat in hand. “I’ll do whatever it takes to work at the Dominion. Please, Rosie.”
On the way to work, I talk to Damien about her. He’s a good lad, letting me get it off my chest like that.
“Ah now, seems to me,” he says after I’m done, “that’s up to Mrs. Evans. You tell her the truth, and she can hire or fire. That’s her job.”
We walk a bit, quiet and thinking, our arms softly brushing as we go. “But will I not look bad if Bianca behaves poorly?”
“You couldn’t look bad if you tried, Rosie.”
“Psshh.” But my cheeks are burning.
“?’Tis the truth. You’re fierce lovely.”
“Damien!”
“Mrs. Evans sees that in you as well.”
I laugh. “Is that right?”
