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end of it.’
    While Gloria had settled down happily at the school almost immediately, she was missed by everyone at home. Her parents were like two lost souls. Brian eventually started going to his old club two or three evenings a week, and Mary reported that even on the nights he was home, he and the mistress hardly said one word to each other while she was in the room serving dinner.
    They both lived for the holidays when the house would come alive and ring with the sound of chattering, giggling girls running up and down the stairs. They danced to the pulsating jazz that Gloria played on her phonograph, or played tennis on the court Brian had had made in the paddock at the back of the house.
    Kate, the cook, would moan that she didn’t know whether she was coming or going, but Joe knew by her twinkling eyes that really she loved to see the house full. She made sure the cookie jar was never empty, and there was always homemade lemonade on offer.
    Joe was also pressed into service to fetch and carry girls around the city. He knew he was a favourite with them all because he never told tales on them. Gloria’s friends alsothought it the most romantic thing in the world for a man to rescue a girl in the way he had Gloria, and Gloria claimed he was her own knight in shining armour.
       
    One day in the autumn of 1923 Brian asked Joe if he had ever thought of taking any of the courses being advertised in the city institutes. Shock ran through Joe at Brian’s words, because he knew his employer well by now, and when he spoke like that, it wasn’t really a question at all. It was more like the iron fist inside the velvet glove.
    Yet Joe answered, ‘No, sir. Things like that are not for the likes of me. I am not brainy enough.’
    ‘Who says?’ Brian said. ‘You have to have a brain in your head to understand the mechanics of a car, and they are always praising your knowledge at the garage.’
    ‘That’s different, sir, and—’
    ‘They do courses in typewriting and accounts, and I need a man in the office,’ Brian said.
    ‘Oh, sir, it is kind of you and all, but I am not fitted out for office work.’
    ‘Kind be damned!’ Brian cried. ‘You would suit me very well. I am impressed by your common sense and your intelligence. Will you do this for me, Joe?’
    Joe shook his head helplessly. ‘I honestly don’t know if I will be able to make head nor tail out of any of it,’ he said. ‘And I would probably need a typewriter.’
    ‘Leave that to me,’ Brian said. ‘Your job is to take the course and get Bobby ready to take over from you in a year or so.’
    Joe sighed and yet he knew the hand of opportunity was being extended to him again, and he would be a fool if he didn’t grasp it tight.
       
    A month or so into the course Joe thought he had made a vast mistake. He found it the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. He had always been good at figures and thoughthe would find accounts not that difficult. He was wrong, but he found typewriting much worse. Memorising the keyboard was hard enough and his fingers seemed too big and cumbersome for the keys.
    He laboured on and didn’t bother complaining because he knew that Brian would obviously want some return on the money he had spent educating him, and he hoped that his employer’s belief in him was not misplaced.
    None of the Brannigans’ staff could understand why he was doing all the book work, and neither could Patrick. Joe told none of them, not even Tom, what Brian had said about being taken on in the office if he should pass the exams, because he could not visualise himself in such a role. He didn’t know if he wanted it, certain he would feel out of his depth. Anyway, there would be no possibility of it if he were to fail his exams, as he was certain sure he was going to.
    In one way, though, Joe was pleased that he had so much going on in his life because that summer he had found himself attracted to Gloria physically for the first time