From Bray to Eternity Read online

  After taking her in my arms and kissing her, we set off up Grafton Street to the wholesalers to choose an engagement ring. Annette did not take long to decide on the ring she wanted. After looking at a few trays of diamond engagement rings, she held up a diamond solitaire set in platinum on a gold band. She’d decided that it was the one she wanted. I had about £150 in my pocket, some of it savings we had withdrawn and a small loan I had taken out to cover the day’s expenses. I had no idea how much the ring would cost and it only then dawned on me that I might just not have enough. I waited nervously as the assistant took the note of introduction from us and went into a small partitioned area off the showroom. He came back in a few moments with the ring in a small box wrapped in silver paper. As he handed the box to Annette he said to me: “that ring would normally cost £200, but with discounts and because we know Joe, it will cost you £75”. Phew, with a huge sense of relief I took the money from my pocket, gave him £80 pounds and told him to keep the change.

  We left the showrooms and went over to Robert Roberts Cafe for coffee and cakes. Annette opened the box and I put the ring on her finger. After our coffee and cakes we got the bus to Dalkey and spent the afternoon there as we had booked a table in the Shangri-La for that night. I vaguely remember us having a drink in a pub in Dalkey before going to the restaurant, but I am not absolutely sure of that, as I may be mixing it up with another occasion, also I was intoxicated by the events of the day and how beautiful Annette looked.

  As the evening set in we made our way to the Shangri - La on Bullock Harbour, got our candlelit table for two and danced until midnight. Shortly after I had put the ring on Annette’s finger she’d taken it off and put it into her bag. When we were in the Shangri-La she took it out and gave it to me to so I could put it on her finger again and formally become engaged.

  We got talking to a more mature (40s) couple in the restaurant who had noticed our romantic behaviour and guessed we were celebrating something or other. They insisted on giving us a lift back to the city at the end of the night. The couple dropped us on Stephen’s Green and we got a taxi back to Ballyfermot where Bill and Mary were waiting up for us so they could see the ring. Needless to say I did not go home that night but slept on the couch in the front room, engagement or no engagement things didn’t change on that score.

  We had no big celebration for our engagement, but the following Sunday, as a means of introducing our parents to each other and with the permission of my parents, I invited Bill and Mary down to Dominick Street for a meal and a few drinks. The day went very well and both sets of parents got on well together. During the course of the evening it was discovered that my father and Mary had lived very near each other in Queen Street when they were young, many years before. So now, each of us having got the imprimatur of our future in-laws, the engagement was sealed.

  1967 was also the year we went on holidays together for the first time, to beautiful sunny Cobh in Cork. When we announced to our families that we were going on holidays together the first reaction we got was silence. Then, a few seconds later when the news had been decoded to fit Ireland of the 1960s, they asked, “are you, and where are you going to stay?” When we said “in a B & B,” to borrow a phrase from the present, the elephant in the room was never mentioned, all they said was “oh” and a perfunctory, “well, enjoy yourselves.” And as clear and bright as a neon sigh flashing on their heads, we could see the rest of the sentence, “but for God’s sake, not too much!”

  We stayed in a B & B, at the back of the Cathedral. We had separate rooms, at the insistence of the “bean an tí” as we were not yet married. I jest you not. This was Ireland in the 1960’s – dynamic and forward looking and respectful of everybody’s point of view and where personal freedom reigned! Annette was lodged with a few girls she did not know and I was stabled with a French guy who drenched himself in cologne. He almost choked me with the amount he splashed on every morning.

  Notwithstanding the sleeping arrangements we had a great time, and the weather wasn’t too bad either. Being alone with Annette every day and night for a week was a temptation for me. I remember a sunny day on Inchidonney Beach when things got hot, and I’m not referring to the weather, but Annette held firm. Her motto was, “thus far shalt thou go but no further.”

  The other big event of 1967 was Annette’s 21st birthday. Back then a 21st was not the huge occasion for celebrating that it is today and we made no big plans for it. We were still saving for a house, in the hope and expectation we would be getting married the following year. Nevertheless the occasion had to be marked. After the engagement and the holiday I had very little money left apart from what we’d saved, so I faced a dilemma in what I could get Annette for her birthday. I knew Annette would like to go out somewhere on the weekend of her birthday so I booked a table in the Shangri-La for Saturday, 12th August, as her birthday fell on a Sunday.

  With that done I set about seeing what I could afford to buy her for a present. I quickly discovered the answer was very little. I loved Annette very much and wanted to give her something special for her 21st but my funds dictated otherwise.

  By Friday of that week I still did not have a present for Annette. Panic was setting in, with the money I had at my disposal I could not buy her the type of present she deserved. That night as I was sitting in my bedroom at home playing my Frank Sinatra records a thought occurred to me, I could sell my collection of records and that would get me enough money to buy Annette a very good present. But could I? I had been a fan of Sinatra’s for years and had a large collection of LPs, was I willing to sell them all, or most of them to buy a present for a girl? It did not take me long to make up my mind. I listened to my favourites, “Look to your heart” “Songs for swinging lovers” “Only the lonely” and one or two more for the last time, dusted them off, bundled them up and got ready to sell them the next day.

  First thing Saturday morning, without telling anyone, I put the records into a large bag. There were about 30 altogether, mostly Sinatra. I headed down to the record shop, I think it was Dolphin Discs in Capel Street, where I had bought many of the records I was now trying to sell. I forget exactly how much I got for them, certainly not nearly as much as I had paid when I bought them new, but I had enough to buy Annette a pretty decent present and to have a good night out as well.

  I went straight from the record shop to a jeweller’s on O’Connell Street beside the old Metropole cinema, Murphy’s I think was the name of the shop. Earlier in the week I had seen what I thought was a very nice Celtic design gold and pearl necklace there that I was sure Annette would like. With all my worldly possessions in my hand I went in and asked the assistant for “the Celtic necklace that was in the window” I handed over my £17, 10 shillings, and the assistant gift wrapped the necklace and handed it to me, winking as he did so. I went out of the shop a happy shopper.

  That night we went to the Shangri-La and I gave Annette her present. She was delighted with it, and the following year when we got married she wore it at our wedding and at many subsequent events over the course of our life together. In fact that necklace proved so popular with Annette, her sisters and her friends that many of them got a loan of it over the years. It was worn at many a wedding. The necklace became something of a family heirloom over the years, our daughter Gina now has the necklace that was bought all those years ago with the proceeds of the sale of my Frank Sinatra record collection.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They say true love never runs smooth and I was to discover that fact for myself. Some time after Annette’s birthday she broke off the engagement and gave me back the ring, in the middle of Dame Street.

  I admit now I deserved it. I was never as outgoing or as sociable as Annette and I was happy just to be in her company. By this time I was seeing very little of my friends Jimmy and Dennis and that was fine by me. But Annette wanted more and she felt she was losing contact with her friends. She wanted us to mix with people more and to not always be on our own. I resisted
this as I did not feel comfortable in the company of people I did not know or at least did not know well.

  On the night Annette gave me back the ring it was a few days after we had been out with one of her friends and her boyfriend. Annette had said nothing on the night but she now began to lay into me about my behaviour as she saw it when we were last out together. She said I’d acted bored and rude to her friend and her boyfriend, I tried to explain to her that I had nothing in common with the boyfriend and therefore very little to say to him. But Annette had her dander up and she didn’t think this was a good enough explanation. Word followed word and possibly some things were said that should have been left unsaid. The end result was that Annette took off the engagement ring and handed it to me saying something like maybe we were not suited to each other, our differences were too great so we should break it off now.

  I was shocked. While I knew we had our differences, I was prepared to overlook them because I believed we loved each other enough to overcome and surmount any differences between us. I stood in the street with the ring in my hand, as Annette turned on her heel and headed home. I did not say anything at home about the broken engagement and kept the ring in my pocket. I did not try to contact Annette either as I had done the last time we’d split up. Instead I let things rest for a few days.

  So as not to arouse any suspicions about the situation at home, I continued to go out on the nights I would normally be with Annette. I walked the streets thinking about what I would do.

  A week passed and I was feeling pretty miserable. I could not go on like this much longer. The other problem was that Annette usually came up to Dominick Street once a week and if she was missing from the scene my mother would start asking questions. I agonised about what I should do, leave well enough alone or contact Annette. But if I did what would be her reaction? While I knew I could not live without Annette, would she have discovered she could get along quite well without me in her life?

  After what seemed a life time without Annette I decided I would confront the situation head on. I went and stood outside O’Dea’s one night as Annette was knocking off work. I was standing at the old church railings opposite O’Dea’s gate when I saw Annette coming up the ramp leading to the street. She was with her friend Lily McHugh when she saw me. As I hesitated to cross the road, Annette said something to Lily. Her friend waved at me and then walked off in the other direction. I started to walk over towards Annette, and as I did I saw a smile develop on her face. I returned an embarrassed smile back. I went over to her, took her hand and gave her a kiss on the lips. Both of us tried to apologise for our behaviour but neither of us wanted to hear the other’s apology. We just wanted to forget the whole incident. Annette took back the ring and no more was said.

  After that little hiccup I was on my best behaviour and started concentrating on finding us somewhere to live after we were married. By this stage the housing co-op was looking like a non runner. It was encountering major problems securing land at a reasonable price so we started looking elsewhere for accommodation. Even though we were both working and had reasonable jobs, the price of a new house seemed way beyond our means, particularly as we knew the archaic rules that were in place in O’Dea’s. Those rules meant that Annette would have to give up her job after we got married. We would be living on one wage until such time as she could get another job. And then if a baby or two came along she would be confined to the home full-time. We continued saving as much as we could and hoped that something would turn up for us.

  Despite these handicaps we threw caution to the wind and set the date for our wedding, even though we had no idea at the time where we would be living after the honeymoon. Full of blind romantic optimism we were sure something would turn up, after all wasn’t Annette still doing the Miraculous medal novena and both our mothers were burning the feet off their favourite saints with lighted candles. Tuesday September 24th 1968 was the date we set for the wedding, Tuesday because it coincided with our choice of a honeymoon flight to sunny Spain and the church was also available on that day. I think we were the first of all our friends who got married to fly to foreign shores for their honeymoon. Never mind the fact that we could barely afford it.

  After the slight interruption before Christmas things were back on course romance wise and I was pretty much falling into line with whatever Annette wanted. Her next request was for us to do a pre marriage course. I was not too keen about it at first but I knew Annette would be very annoyed if I objected. I supposed it was a small price to ask if it helped us to have a successful marriage.

  In the spring of 1968, March I think it was, we enrolled at the Dominican Priory Dominick Street. The pre-marriage course was for one evening a week for eight weeks and it was conducted by Fr. Fergal O’Connor. And I must say I enjoyed it. It was not at all what I had expected. Fr. O’Connor was a very liberal minded priest and spoke very frankly, and with a great sense of humour, about marriage and all the things that could go wrong or go right. He said it all depended on the couple’s willingness to be tolerant and open-minded in the situations they would be confronted with over the course of their marriage. How right he was.

  The eight weeks sped by and I found myself looking forward to Monday night and the talks given by Fr. O’Connor. It was also an opportunity for us to meet and talk to other couples with the same confused expectations and hopes about their future as we had. We found that despite our different backgrounds and social class we were pretty much all the same in the dreams we had for our futures. We all wanted to live happily ever after.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was while we were attending the pre-marriage course that we got news of the chance to buy a house that was within our price range. A work colleague of Annette’s had, through a third party been introduced to an agent who was handling the sale of artisan dwellings. He and his wife had recently bought one situated off Thomas Street and he was very pleased with it. Artisan dwellings were old, and, in most cases, single-storey houses in various areas scattered around the city. They had been built originally in the 19th century for tradesmen and craft workers. It was not the most salubrious place to start our marriage but we could afford the house and it would be our own. Annette told me what her friend had said to her and it sounded hopeful. Her friend then invited us up to see his house which was in better condition than I had expected it to be. If we got a house as good I knew we’d be more than happy to start our marriage there.

  We got the name of the agent, a Mr. McCauley, from Annette’s friend and wasted no time in contacting him. He turned out to be a Donegal man about 60 years of age, with a thick accent and a bad limp, who lived near the North Strand. We made an appointment to see him and went down to his house one night, which was also an Artisan dwelling. It was also in very good condition, and I thought a similar one would be perfect for us. I think he thought we were innocents abroad and he’d seen us coming. He began to lay it on thick about how difficult it was to get an Artisan dwelling. They were in very big demand and people were prepared to pay almost as much for one in a good area as they would for a new house. Not many were coming on the market and when one did come you had to be prepared to outbid others for it, and so he went on.

  We sat listening to all this and my heart was sinking. When at last he stopped talking, he looked at us and said, “How much money have you got?” We looked at each other and back at him, then I said, “A friend of Annette’s said he bought one for £1000.” He said, “Well sometimes you can be lucky. I don’t think I could get one now cheaper than £1500.” “I think that would be a bit too much for us,” I remember saying. McCauley then said, “there’s one going near here in need of repair. I might be able to get it for a bit less”

  “Can we see it?” I asked.

  “Not tonight, I’d have to make arrangements with the owners. I’ll tell you what, come back next week and bring £100 and we’ll go and see what can be arranged,” McCauley said.

  With those words ringing in our ears we walked d
own to Dominick Street and told my parents we had the chance of buying a house. While all this was going on we were continuing to do the pre-marriage course and make preparations for the wedding and the honeymoon. We had never been out of the country before (Annette is reminding me that she was in England on Legion of Mary work before I met her) so we needed to get passports. We’d booked the honeymoon through a company called Global Travel who used to be in business at the bottom of Grafton Street, 10 days half-board in the Santa Rosa Hotel, Lloret de Mar on the Costa Brava. The church was also booked for a 12 0’clock Mass on Tuesday 24th September.

  The next step was to decide on a hotel. We’d looked at a few but Annette’s heart was set on a hotel we had become a bit familiar with through our visits to Dalkey, so we booked the Khyber Pass Hotel, It was just outside Dalkey village, overlooking the sea and Dalkey Island. It was a hugely romantic setting for our big day. The hotel is no longer there. It was a victim of what became Ireland’s passion for apartment block living in later years. Our wedding was going to be quite a small affair by today’s standard, 52 guests, mostly family and a few friends.

  We went back to Mr McCauley as arranged a week later. He took us literally around the corner to Clinches Court North Strand – four single-storey houses facing another line of single-storey houses, in a narrow lane off the North Strand Road. Our future home was no. 7. It was a red brick house with a narrow wooden door and a single window in the front. For a single-storey house it was quite high, with a large upward slanting roof and two chimney pots.

  It was hard to know what to make of it from the outside. Let’s just say we did not think “this we must have” Mr McCauley knocked on the door and it was opened by a man in his early thirties, in need of a shave. We could also hear the sound of babies crying. We were invited into a small hall area where we were introduced to the unshaven man whose name I now forget. Mr McCauley told him we were interested in buying his house. He may have grunted something, but I forget what. He then said that his wife was feeding the babies in the bedroom which we could tell by the noise on the right side of the hall. He led us through the bedroom which we entered directly from the small hall, trying to ignore his wife feeding the babies, and into a large middle room which contained a couch, a table and a few armchairs. There was also a fire place and the light was on although it was still daylight, the room was in the middle of the house. It had only one small window, to the extreme left hand side of the room which looked out on a very enclosed part of the backyard. The extended wall of the house next door blocked the natural light from the room.