Coming Home to the Four Streets

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘You win,’ he said, ‘and don’t worry about paying – you have an angel on the street who has covered it for you, because I can’t just leave free milk, Peggy. Our Gladys, she doesn’t trust me on Nelson Street now Maura has gone and isn’t there to tip up the cash for others and she wants to come on the four streets collecting round on Fridays now.’

  Eric saw the smile of relief slide from Peggy’s face. She no more wanted to deal with Gladys than Eric did. ‘You’re a good man, Eric. God alone knows how a man like you ended up with a wife like that. Don’t you be worrying, I’ll find the money, somehow, no one has to pay for us.’ She blessed herself; they both knew she had just lied and, as expected, the guilt kicked in. ‘I’ll call into mass, miracles do happen.’

  Peggy ducked back under the window and, as it slammed down, the sound of the church bells faded.

  Paddy laughed. ‘Just think, if Maura and Tommy were still next door, you could knock on with the mop and get her to bring you round a quarter of tea from the chest they used to keep in the wash house and we could have a nice cuppa now.’

  Peggy lifted down her dressing gown from a nail in the door and shuffled it over her shoulders. Paddy’s words made her feel sad. She missed Maura every day. It wasn’t just that she no longer had anyone to borrow the staples of life from, the tea, sugar, bread, or to provide her brood with a meal when it got really bad and they needed feeding, it was the company she missed and the routines. Maura had made Peggy attend mass on at least one day in the week and always on a Sunday. Maura made Peggy feel good about herself and so she had copied Maura. On the days Maura had washed her nets, Peggy did. When Maura lit the copper boiler, Peggy followed suit. But all too easily, without her guiding light, Peggy had become overwhelmed by the daily drudgery and battle and had very quickly become someone who forgot things and who couldn’t quite manage.

  Peggy had loved Maura for the true friend she was. And she was very sure she didn’t love her husband, Paddy. On a day like today, when he was about to refuse to move from the bed and take himself down to the docks for an honest day’s work, she imagined him impaled on the end of her bread knife. She’d had many such thoughts just lately, simmering below her veneer of incompetence, and they perturbed her. She was well aware that if she let the thought take hold, when the kids were crying and hungry, it could all too easily become a reality. She was brought to her senses as a tug passed out onto the river, blowing its horn, heading to the bar to bring down a ship to be unloaded.

  ‘Come on you, get out of that bed,’ she said and pulled the blanket away from Paddy, onto the floor. ‘Hear the tugs? There must be a ship out on the bar waiting to come in.’

  ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ said Paddy. ‘I can’t go down those steps today with my back like this. It’s killing me.’

  ‘You might end up dead if you don’t, for sure,’ she said, ‘and don’t think I’m joking. As God is my judge, you will either walk down those steps to the pen, or if I have to, I’ll bleedin’ kick you down and you’ll be rollin’ down them and turning up for work on your fecking fat arse. How do you think I’m going to put food on the table? How am I going to pay Eric? How do I pay the rent and the coalman? We’re weeks behind. Get out of that flamin’ bed!’

  Peggy slipped a foot into one of her frayed tartan slippers, which smelt almost as ripe as Paddy. The slippers, still damp from the night before, were the closest thing she owned to a pair of shoes, having pawned the ones Maura gave her before she left for Ireland. Picking up the remaining slipper, she bent over the bed and began to slap big Paddy on any part of his white, flabby flesh she could reach.

  ‘You flamin’ madwoman!’ he shouted as, quicker than Peggy ever could be, he slipped his legs over the edge of the bed and grabbed his trousers from the bedpost. ‘You’re a feckin’ mad witch, you are!’

  ‘I might be mad and I may even be a witch, but I’d rather be both of those than a selfish, lazy fecking bastard who doesn’t give a damn if his kids starve, because that’s what you are, a fat, lazy, useless bastard!’

  Her eyes were blazing and there was something in them Paddy didn’t like the look of. He had seen it often of late. A fire, a thought, a fleeting glimpse of hatred, a hidden meaning that perturbed him. There had already been a murder on the four streets. The scandalous, shocking murder of a priest – and right at this moment his wife appeared more than capable of doubling that murder count. It crossed his mind, was it Peggy? But no, Peggy never lost her temper, that prerogative was his, often after a skinful he could ill afford down at the Anchor. He could never remember the night before; it was only the bruises on Peggy or the children which bore witness to his attacks or the upturned chamber pot, the broken chair in the kitchen. And his lapses had become more frequent since the Dohertys had left.

  ‘All right, you crazy feckin’ cow, keep your knickers on. I’m getting dressed, aren’t I, eh?’ He held up his trousers to her and, wincing, placed his other hand in the small of his back. ‘Honest to God, queen, it’s killing me.’

  Peggy made a noise that resembled a deep growl more animal than human, but they both stopped dead as they heard a small voice behind them.

  ‘I’ll make yer tea, will I, Da? I’ll wet the old tea leaves from yesterday if there’s none, shall I, Ma?’

  They turned, startled to see their son, little Paddy, in the doorway, his dog Scamp by his side, ears and tail down. There was no smile to match little Paddy’s words, just a worried, furrowed brow. This morning the raised voices made his heart race with anxiety and his bladder weak. Before, whenever she heard raised voices, Auntie Maura would be straight in through the back door and either usher little Paddy and the others into her kitchen, or reprimand Peggy and Paddy until they stopped shouting; little Paddy no longer felt safe, now Maura wasn’t there.

  Peggy fixed a smile on her face. ‘We’ve milk,’ she said. ‘Eric has left four steri on the step and isn’t that just great? You fetch it in quick and I’ll make everyone pobs, eh, how does that sound? We’ve got bread left over from yesterday to make it with, and a little bit of sugar.’

  Little Paddy felt relief wash over him. He would do anything for his mother, but he hated it when she asked him to go out and steal milk from Malcolm at the Seaman’s Stop on the Dock Road, while he still had his curtains closed. He felt physically sick lifting the gold top from the crate and would run as fast as his legs would carry him back to the house, with the milk precariously swinging in his hands.

  ‘Go on, off with you,’ she would say when she woke him early, extracting him from the tangled limbs of the brothers he shared his bed with. ‘The greedy git gets eight pints and he only has six rooms, so he can’t be using all of them. Hang around on the corner and when you see Eric cross over to the pub, you slip out, take one and leg it.’

  On those days, little Paddy called into the chapel at the convent on his way into Sister Theresa’s class. He felt weighed down with the guilt and compelled to confess. He liked Mr Coffey, and the lady who was sometimes there, his friend, Biddy. Once he’d carried her bag from the bus to the Seaman’s Stop and ever since then she would give him a barley twist, whenever she saw him. He really liked Biddy and it near killed him to steal the milk, in case she found out it was him. His mother, he knew, acted from a desire to feed them all, but he wondered, so many times, how it was his mother and big Paddy were so different from just about every other family on the streets whose kids managed to eat a breakfast every morning.

  But now little Paddy finally grinned, for this was a good morning. Eric had delivered, little Paddy was spared and there would be breakfast before school.

  ‘Go on, get your clothes on or some other little bugger will be stealing the milk from our step – it’s like the wild west out there.’ And Peggy roared with laughter as little Paddy went back into the second bedroom to retrieve the trousers Maura Doherty had bought him before she had left for Ireland. He folded them every night carefully and hung them over the brass bedstead. Maura had bought the
m two sizes too big and, initially, he’d had to thread string through the waistband because even the belt she bought with them was too big.

  ‘Don’t you be worrying, little Paddy,’ Maura had said. ‘They will fit you a dream by next year. Just don’t go getting holes in the knees because I won’t be here to sew them. Your mother’s not the best with the needle. If you’re desperate, take them to Maisie Tanner’s and say Maura said you were to go there, do you hear me?’

  Little Paddy had nodded, his eyes wide. Maura had left him with so many instructions he was afraid that he was going to forget something. On the day he stood in Maura’s kitchen, as she pinned up the hem of the trousers so that he would get more wear out of them, Tommy had sat in armchair by the fire, reading the Echo.

  ‘Peggy will pawn those before the boat docks in Dublin,’ Tommy said.

  ‘Shush, you!’ Maura had hissed at him. ‘There, Tommy, doesn’t he look just grand? Paddy, you’ll have all the girls in the school after you, so you will.’

  Little Paddy had blushed at the mere thought, but it didn’t matter, nothing in the world could diminish the pride he felt at owning a pair of trousers with no holes and which had been bought from new, along with the shoes Maura had also bought for him.

  Tommy had put the paper on his lap. ‘You look proper grown-up, Paddy,’ he had said. ‘Best not to play footie in them, though, they won’t last five minutes if you do.’

  ‘I won’t, never, I promise, Tommy,’ he said and Maura had felt her heart swell for the little boy she had delivered herself in the front bedroom next door.

  But it wasn’t just little Paddy – she had bought clothes for the entire Nolan family.

  ‘What’s the use of us having money if we can’t rig everyone out?’ she had protested when Peggy made a half-hearted objection. As it happened, Tommy had been only half right. Peggy had indeed pawned the shoes and clothes Maura had bought for Peggy, but she hadn’t touched anything of the children’s, and when big Paddy suggested it, she had felt her blood boil.

  ‘I’ll pawn the blankets on the bed, the statue of the Holy Mother, even my mother’s clock! I’d pawn you, you useless lump of shite, before I take the shoes off their feet. It’s a shame I couldn’t bear, Paddy, and I warn you: if I have to pawn the kids’ shoes, don’t you even bother coming back home.’

  Now, before he put on his clothes, little Paddy flung himself flat on the bedroom floor, shimmied on his belly under the bed and opened the lid of the cardboard box he kept hidden there. Two small black eyes stared up at him. ‘Max,’ he whispered to the black rat, who obligingly pushed the rest of the lid off and, looked intently at little Paddy, as though waiting for his next words. Scamp shuffled flat on his belly and lay next to him. The dog and the rat were the axis of little Paddy’s life now that his best friend in all the world, Harry Doherty, had gone.

  ‘Stay here,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back soon with some pobs and then you can come to school with me in me bag.’

  Max, as if understanding every word, obediently hopped back down into his box and little Paddy replaced the lid. ‘Back soon,’ he whispered as he and Scamp wriggled back out from under the bed and headed down to bring in the milk.

  *

  Half an hour later the street came alive as the dockers’ klaxon rang out, calling the men down to the docks and the calls went up from one back gate to the next. The marching men stopped at Peggy’s. ‘Oi, big man, are you coming out or what?’ shouted Jerry who lived across the road in number 42.

  Peggy grabbed the spoon from Paddy’s hand as he was about to scrape the last of the milk-soaked, sugar-coated stale bread from the side of the dish and, opening the back door, threw his coat at him and pushed him out.

  ‘He’s coming now, Jer, just hang on there,’ she shouted and then hissed under her breath, ‘There’s nothing for your break,’ as she shoved an empty knapsack into his hands. ‘Pretend there is and carry it anyway. You only worked three days last week and I’ll have to go over the road to Kathleen and scrounge something to get these kids fed tonight. And understand this, you fat lazy slob, even if your back is breaking in two, you will be working every day from now on. There’s no Tommy to carry you, no Maura to feed our kids when they are starving or invite us round for a roast. The rent hasn’t been paid for weeks and it’s time for you to pull your bleedin’ weight.’

  Paddy’s reply was drowned out by the noise of the men at the back gate. ‘Paddy, you got to dress yourself in time, what next, eh?’ said Jerry, patting him on the back. ‘Have you had breakfast?’

  ‘He has,’ shouted Peggy from the doorway. ‘His belly is as full as a tinker’s bra.’

  The men roared with laughter.

  ‘Don’t worry, Peggy, I’ll have him home before dark,’ Jerry called back.

  ‘Don’t you dare, Jerry Deane. If there’s an extra shift, you make sure he is taken on for it. He can work all night as well, for all I care, because he’s a lot of catching up to do.’

  She slammed the back door and felt the weight fall from her shoulders. A day’s pay was in the bag, Jerry would make sure of that. Peggy placed her hand in the small of her back; the ache which had been there for so long was almost unbearable these last few days, but she never complained like Paddy did. She would ask Kathleen for some Anadin. It had been grumbling away for weeks and if Kathleen gave her more than two pills she would hide the rest in the bread bin. Her need was greater than Paddy’s, for her pain was real.

  *

  Paddy grumbled all the way down the steps to the pen which was full, but there was no pushing or shoving. The gaffer would point to those who were known to be good workers, his own friends and the sons of his friends. Everyone else stood and waited, desperate to be taken on. The klaxon rang out, persistent and demanding, teasing the men with the promise of labour, larders to be filled, nights in the Anchor to be enjoyed. Those who weren’t picked would make their way back up the dockers’ steps and walk to the social, hearts heavy with worry.

  ‘What’s due in from out on the bar?’ Stanley Tanner called out from the back to Jerry who, as usual, was first down, and always taken on.

  ‘The mist on the water is so thick out from the basin, I can’t make it out,’ Jerry called back.

  ‘We could do with the Morry – it’s getting mighty close to the carnival and the fecking cupboards are bare,’ Seamus grumbled.

  ‘We may as well go back up – there’s too many waiting down here to be taken on,’ said Paddy hopefully. Jerry flicked the stump of his ciggie to the ground, ignoring him, and spoke to Stanley. ‘Aye, Kathleen was complaining just the same. I thought Captain Conor would have been back before now, but Ena hasn’t heard a thing.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t turn up between now and the carnival, Jer? What will happen?’ asked Seamus who was always at the front with Jerry.

  ‘I don’t know, Seamus, but we’ve two weeks or so yet, so let’s pray at mass on Sunday that Conor hasn’t forgotten us and sails in next week.’ He turned back to the men from the four streets, gathered behind him. ‘Come on, fellas, let’s get ahead before they move down to the Dock Road end. Looks like there will be work for all of us today.’

  The men shuffled down to the front of the pen to be picked off, one by one by the gaffer, who winked at Jerry, acknowledging their conversations of the night before in the Anchor.

  ‘I’m retiring, Jerry,’ the gaffer had said, ‘and I’ve told Mr Heartfelt it should be you who takes my place. That’s the only way we’ll keep the men of the four streets in work – because I’m telling you, the dock board has plans to knock the streets down and hand them over to Liverpool council for houses, like the ones they are throwing up in Speke. They’re calling it slum clearance, the cheeky bastards.’

  Jerry had almost spat out the Guinness he had been drinking. ‘You’re kidding me? Aren’t you?’

  The gaffer had shaken his head. ‘The reason they’ve put Frank the Skank down here on our dock is because they’re going to make life hard for
us and we have to fight it. The docks are shedding jobs, not taking on.’

  ‘Can he object to your choice?’

  The gaffer, a man from County Mayo, shook his head. ‘Heartfelt knows what’s good for him. But he’s up to something, so we need to keep an eye on him, just in case. You know the tradition is that every gaffer gets to name his own replacement, usually his son, but I only have girls and so I’m naming you.’

  Now the gaffer pointed to Jerry, Seamus, Stanley, Callum and Paddy, as the pen gates slid open. ‘Come on, lads,’ said Jerry, ‘we’re on. The chicken is in the pot.’

  *

  The children were ready to leave the house for school and stood as a pack, dressed in the shoes and coats Maura had left as her parting gift. One huge upside of Maura’s gifts had been the kids not having to share shoes and clothes, so they had all been able to attend school at the same time, much to Miss Devlin’s delight and Peggy’s, because it meant the house was empty and quiet each day.

  Little Paddy chose not to walk to school with the others; he had to find an excuse to get back upstairs without his mother noticing. She had reluctantly learnt to accept Scamp but Max, found by Scamp soon after his best friend Harry Doherty left and seen by little Paddy as a partial replacement, would be a different matter entirely. He collected up the pobs bowls and was peering into the empty bread crock with a worried frown.

  ‘Don’t you be worrying now,’ said Peggy. ‘There’s nothin’ in there, but I’ll go over the road to Nana Kathleen and see if she can lend us something. You won’t go without your tea, I’ll make sure of that.’