“We have sanitary napkins and menstruation belts on a discreet display with a little money box beside them so that women don’t have to purchase them publicly. Most ladies are more comfortable with that. But I’ll put them in your box while no one is looking and add them to your total,” she murmured. I thought it better not to ask what a menstruation belt was. I would figure it out.
The two most important things tackled, I followed her to the cosmetics department on the lower floor, scouring the products stacked and displayed and pointing gleefully at names I recognized—Vaseline, Ivory soap, and Pond’s Cold Cream. Beatrice began making a receipt, writing the items in a neat row and adding my selections to a pale-pink box that reminded me of something from a bakery. Beatrice added Pond’s Vanishing Cream to my purchases.
“Cold cream at night, vanishing cream in the morning,” she instructed. “It won’t make you shine, and it works well under powder. Do you need powder?”
I shrugged, and she pursed her lips, studying my skin. “Flesh, white, pink, or cream?” she asked.
“What do you think?” I hedged.
“Flesh,” she said confidently. “LaBlache is my favorite face powder. It’s a bit more expensive, but worth the extra. And maybe a soft pink rouge?” She took a small tub from behind the glass and unscrewed the metal lid. “See?”
The color was a little too pink for my taste, but she reassured me. “It will be the softest blush on your cheeks and lips, and no one will even know you are wearing it. And if they do, never admit it.”
That seemed to be the goal, to look like you weren’t wearing any “paint,” which suited me fine.
“There’s a new lash cream—we always used Vaseline and ash growing up. Well, not anymore.” She unscrewed another small container, no bigger than a lip balm, and showed me the black grease inside. It didn’t resemble any mascara I’d ever seen.
“How is it applied?” I asked.
Beatrice closed the distance between us, told me to hold still, and dabbed her pointer finger in the goo and then against her thumb. With absolute confidence, she rubbed the ends of my lashes between the pads of her blackened fingertips.
“Perfect. Your lashes are already so long and dark, you hardly need it. But they’re more noticeable now.”
She winked and tossed it into the box. She added some coconut-oil shampoo that she swore would make my hair luxurious, as well as some talcum powder to “keep me fresh” and a little glass spritzer of a perfume that didn’t make me sneeze. I added a tube of toothpaste, a toothbrush, a little box of silk “tooth floss” as well as a comb-and-brush set. When I asked where I could settle my bill, Beatrice gave me an odd look. “It’s already settled, Anne. The doctor is waiting for you at the entrance. Your purchases are there as well. I thought you were simply being frugal.”
“I would really like to pay for these things on my own, Beatrice,” I insisted.
“But . . . it’s done, Mrs. Gallagher,” she stammered. “Your bill has been added to his account. I don’t want to cause a stir.”
I didn’t want to cause a stir either, but embarrassment welled in my chest. I took a deep breath to tamp it down.
“These things have not been added to his tab.” I raised the pink box in my arms. “I will pay for my toiletries,” I insisted.
She looked as though she wanted to argue, but nodded, veering to the cash register near the entrance and the mustached clerk who waited there. She handed him the receipt for my toiletries.
“Mrs. Gallagher needs to purchase these things, Mr. Barry,” she explained, taking the box from my hands so I could pull out the thick paper money pouch Mr. Kelly had given me.
“Dr. Smith said for me to add Mrs. Gallagher’s purchases to his account,” Mr. Barry said, frowning.
“I understand. But I will be paying for these items,” I said firmly, matching his frown with one of my own.
The clerk looked from me to the door and back again. I followed his gaze to where Thomas stood watching me, his head tilted slightly, one hand holding Eoin’s and the other shoved into his trouser pocket.
Eoin’s cheek bulged with the round end of a lollipop, the stick protruding from his puckered lips.
“What is the total, please?” I said, turning my attention back to the clerk.
The man grunted in disapproval, but he entered the items into the cash register, a happy dinging signaling each new total.
“That will be ten pounds, madam,” he huffed, and I took what appeared to be two five-pound notes from my stash. I would have to examine the bills when I had more privacy to do so.
“We’ve just finished boxing your other purchases,” Mr. Barry said, taking my notes and putting them in his till. He indicated the stack of parcels behind him and beckoned to a boy who scrambled to his side and began piling boxes in his arms. “After you, Mrs. Gallagher,” Mr. Barry said, pointing to the door.
I turned and walked toward Thomas. I felt flushed and uncomfortable, the “beggar with no shame” leading a royal procession. Beatrice tottered behind me, carrying my toiletries and two hatboxes, while the boy and Mr. Barry juggled the rest of the parcels between them.
Thomas held the door and nodded to his car parked next to the sidewalk.
“Put the parcels on the back seat,” Thomas instructed, but his eyes were on four men walking swiftly down the street toward the store. They wore khaki uniforms and tall boots with black belts and glengarry hats. The hats made me think of Scottish men and bagpipes, but these men weren’t carrying bagpipes. They had guns.
“You look like a beautiful queen, Mother!” Eoin cried, reaching for the skirt of my dress with sticky fingers. I sidestepped his attempt and grabbed his hand instead, ignoring the way his palm stuck to mine. Thomas began hustling us into the car, his eyes never leaving the approaching soldiers.
When Mr. Barry saw the men, he shoved the packages in the rear seat and urged Beatrice and the boy to go back in the store.
Thomas shut the door behind me and strode around to the front of the car. With one swift pull on the crank, the car, clearly already warm and primed, roared to life. Thomas slid behind the wheel and pulled his door shut just as the men stopped in front of the large window that featured the open pages of the Irish Times. With the backs of their rifles, they began to hit the huge window, shattering it and causing the newspaper to flutter and fall amid the broken glass. One soldier leaned down and lit the pages with a flick of a match. People on either side of the street had stopped walking, watching the vandalism.
“What are you doing?” Mr. Barry pushed through the door, his mouth gaping and his cheeks red.
“Tell Mr. Lyons he’s fomenting rebellion and violence against the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Crown. Next time he displays the paper, we’ll break all the windows,” one of the men said, his Cockney voice raised so the growing crowd across the street could hear. With a final kick at the smoldering pages, the men continued down the street, toward Hyde Bridge.
Thomas was frozen, both hands on the wheel, the car rumbling impatiently. His jaw was clenched so tight a muscle danced near his ear. People started to rush across the street to view the damage and talk among themselves, and Mr. Barry started organizing the cleanup.
“Thomas?” I whispered. Eoin’s eyes were huge, his lower lip trembling. His sucker had fallen from his mouth, and it lay forgotten beside his feet.
“Doc? Why did the Tans do that?” Eoin asked, tears threatening. Thomas patted Eoin’s leg, released the choke, and adjusted the levers by the wheel, and we eased away from the department store, leaving the destruction behind us.
“What was that about, Thomas?” I asked. He hadn’t answered Eoin, and his mouth was still tight, his eyes bleak. We’d crossed Hyde Bridge behind four constables and headed out of Sligo, back toward Dromahair. The farther away from town we moved, the more Thomas relaxed. He sighed and cast a quick glance my way before settling his gaze back on the road before us.
“Henry Lyons sends a driver to Dublin every day to get a paper. He puts it up in the store window so the people know what is happening in Dublin. The action is in Dublin. The battle for all of Ireland is being fought in Dublin. And people want to know about it. The Tans and the Auxies don’t like him posting the paper.”
“The Auxies?”
“The Auxiliaries, Anne. They’re a separate command from the regular constabulary. They’re all ex-officers of the British army and navy who have nothing to do now that the Great War is over. Their one job is to crush the IRA.”
I remembered that much from my research.
“They weren’t Tans?” Eoin asked.
“No, lad. The Auxiliaries are even worse than the Tans. You’ll always know an Auxie from his hat—and his gun belt. You saw their hats, didn’t you, Eoin?” Thomas pressed.
Eoin nodded so emphatically, his teeth chattered.
“Stay far away from the Auxies, Eoin. And the Tans. Stay the hell away from all of ’em.”
We were quiet then. Eoin was biting his lips and picking the dirt from his reclaimed sucker, clearly needing the comfort of it back in his mouth.
“We’ll wash it off when we get home, Eoin. You’ll see. It will be good again. Why don’t you show Thomas your watch and tell him the story Mr. Kelly told us?” I urged, trying to distract him, to distract us all.
Eoin unreeled the long chain from his pocket, extending the swinging timepiece in front of Thomas’s face so he was sure to see it.
“Mr. Kelly gave it to me, Doc. He said it was my dad’s. Now it’s mine. And it still ticks!”
Thomas lifted his left hand from the wheel and took the watch in his palm, surprise and sorrow twisting his lips.
“Mr. Kelly had it in a drawer. He forgot all about it until we came into the shop,” Eoin added.
Thomas’s eyes met mine, and I felt certain he already knew the story of the ring.
“I got my father’s watch, and my mother got to keep her ring, see?” Eoin patted my hand.
“Yes. I see. You’ll have to take very good care of this watch. Put it with your button somewhere safe,” Thomas said.
Eoin looked at me, a guilty expression on his sticky face. He wondered if I was going to tell Doc about his attempt to sell his treasure; I could see the dread wrinkling his nose. I helped him put the watch back into his pocket, meeting his eyes with a smile, reassuring him.
“Do you know how to tell time, Eoin?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Then I will teach you so that you can use the watch.”
“Who taught you how to tell time?” he asked.
“My grandfather,” I said softly. There must have been sadness in my face because the little boy patted my cheek with his grubby fingers, comforting me.
“Do you miss him?”
“Not anymore,” I said, and my voice quaked.