now.’
Gloria was right: nearly every outfit she owned was like that, the skirts with gathers, pleats or splits in them. She seemed oblivious to the disapproval of her parents, and the day she came home with her hair bobbed in the Eton crop Joe thoughtBrian was going to have an apoplectic fit, but Gloria was unabashed at the furore.
‘Stop roaring at me, Daddy,’ she commanded. ‘And stop glowering at me in that way. I don’t know why you are so cross or, indeed, what it has to do with you either. Since it is my hair on my head, surely I should be the one to decide how to wear it, and anyway, with long hair how could I put on my new cloche hat?’
‘That’s hardly a good enough reason for having all your hair cut off like that,’ Norah said.
‘On the contrary, Mother, it is a perfectly good reason,’ Gloria retorted. ‘Louise Brooks looks divine in hers and everyone wants to copy her. And she has her hair cropped too. Many girls do these days, Daddy. I am afraid you and Mother are very behind the times.’
That wasn’t how Brian saw it at all, but the deed was done now and he could do nothing about it, especially as all Gloria’s friends had had their hair bobbed too and were similarly unashamed about it. They seemed remarkable close, the friends Gloria had made at the convent, and when they weren’t meeting up, Gloria would be having long and involved conversations with them on the telephone.
Gloria’s friends’ parents seemed incredibly lax and lenient with their daughters, which Brian found hard to accept. Not that the girls cared a jot for how he felt. They visited often, and the rooms rang with their laughter, jazz would reverberate all over the house, and the girls would be dancing together or else trying out Gloria’s cosmetics. A couple of them actually took up smoking.
‘It’s so different from when I was growing up,’ Norah said one day as she sat down to dinner with Brian and Joe. ‘You had to wait first to be introduced to a young man, and then if he asked permission from your parents to walk out with you, then that was the young man that you would become engaged to and eventually marry. This way … well,there are so many men, but when I cautioned Gloria that she would make a name for herself, she laughed.’
It was the men that bothered Joe too. Brian always worked shorter hours when Gloria was at home – that is, if he went in to work at all – and so Joe often saw the young men, sometimes known to the Brannigans in only the vaguest way, who would come scorching up the drive in their sports cars. They would stop suddenly with a squeal of brakes and a spray of gravel, and Gloria would come running from the house and be spirited away to some venue or other, from which she might not return for a day or two.
But what really disturbed Joe were the languid young men who turned up to play tennis. He considered the girls’ attire almost indecently short, and these people were so easy with one another that a young man seemed to think nothing of throwing a casual arm around Gloria’s shoulders, or even embracing her if he felt they had played well together.
And yet as the summer passed, Joe sensed that Gloria was not truly happy, that her gaiety was forced. Eventually the frivolity and freedom would end, and when that happened, he imagined Gloria would probably have chosen one boy over all the others. That was the one she would marry, and the day she did that would be the day that he would leave the Brannigans’ household. He couldn’t have stayed and watched her married to another.
Summer gave way to autumn and then winter, and the dresses were swapped for thick skirts in bright colours, lurid jumpers and multicoloured scarves, which the girls wore with their ‘up-to-the-minute’ checked and baggy coats.
Joe watched Gloria anxiously. She seemed more dejected than ever. The frenetic pace of her social life had slowed somewhat as the colder weather settled over the city, but
Gloria was right: nearly every outfit she owned was like that, the skirts with gathers, pleats or splits in them. She seemed oblivious to the disapproval of her parents, and the day she came home with her hair bobbed in the Eton crop Joe thoughtBrian was going to have an apoplectic fit, but Gloria was unabashed at the furore.
‘Stop roaring at me, Daddy,’ she commanded. ‘And stop glowering at me in that way. I don’t know why you are so cross or, indeed, what it has to do with you either. Since it is my hair on my head, surely I should be the one to decide how to wear it, and anyway, with long hair how could I put on my new cloche hat?’
‘That’s hardly a good enough reason for having all your hair cut off like that,’ Norah said.
‘On the contrary, Mother, it is a perfectly good reason,’ Gloria retorted. ‘Louise Brooks looks divine in hers and everyone wants to copy her. And she has her hair cropped too. Many girls do these days, Daddy. I am afraid you and Mother are very behind the times.’
That wasn’t how Brian saw it at all, but the deed was done now and he could do nothing about it, especially as all Gloria’s friends had had their hair bobbed too and were similarly unashamed about it. They seemed remarkable close, the friends Gloria had made at the convent, and when they weren’t meeting up, Gloria would be having long and involved conversations with them on the telephone.
Gloria’s friends’ parents seemed incredibly lax and lenient with their daughters, which Brian found hard to accept. Not that the girls cared a jot for how he felt. They visited often, and the rooms rang with their laughter, jazz would reverberate all over the house, and the girls would be dancing together or else trying out Gloria’s cosmetics. A couple of them actually took up smoking.
‘It’s so different from when I was growing up,’ Norah said one day as she sat down to dinner with Brian and Joe. ‘You had to wait first to be introduced to a young man, and then if he asked permission from your parents to walk out with you, then that was the young man that you would become engaged to and eventually marry. This way … well,there are so many men, but when I cautioned Gloria that she would make a name for herself, she laughed.’
It was the men that bothered Joe too. Brian always worked shorter hours when Gloria was at home – that is, if he went in to work at all – and so Joe often saw the young men, sometimes known to the Brannigans in only the vaguest way, who would come scorching up the drive in their sports cars. They would stop suddenly with a squeal of brakes and a spray of gravel, and Gloria would come running from the house and be spirited away to some venue or other, from which she might not return for a day or two.
But what really disturbed Joe were the languid young men who turned up to play tennis. He considered the girls’ attire almost indecently short, and these people were so easy with one another that a young man seemed to think nothing of throwing a casual arm around Gloria’s shoulders, or even embracing her if he felt they had played well together.
And yet as the summer passed, Joe sensed that Gloria was not truly happy, that her gaiety was forced. Eventually the frivolity and freedom would end, and when that happened, he imagined Gloria would probably have chosen one boy over all the others. That was the one she would marry, and the day she did that would be the day that he would leave the Brannigans’ household. He couldn’t have stayed and watched her married to another.
Summer gave way to autumn and then winter, and the dresses were swapped for thick skirts in bright colours, lurid jumpers and multicoloured scarves, which the girls wore with their ‘up-to-the-minute’ checked and baggy coats.
Joe watched Gloria anxiously. She seemed more dejected than ever. The frenetic pace of her social life had slowed somewhat as the colder weather settled over the city, but
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