Maura let out a big sigh and Tommy, never a man for public displays of affection, found his wife’s free hand and, taking hold of it, squeezed it hard.
For the rest of the journey, Maura prayed over Harry; she had nothing else in her armoury. His temperature was the highest she had ever known in a child and his skin was wet and clammy. He had stopped rambling, was as limp as a rag, and no matter how often she whispered his name, there was no response. And, as she always did in times of need, she appealed to the Holy Mother for help. In the last miles of the journey, the only sound in the cab was that of Harry’s laboured breathing and Maura’s chanting.
‘Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death and in the hour of our need. Please don’t take my Harry,’ she gasped and as she did so, Tommy once more slipped his hand into her own that grasped the rosary beads.
‘We’re nearly there, queen,’ he whispered and she could just hear him over the noise of the rattling van.
‘We had better be, Tommy.’ She turned and looked into her husband’s eyes and fear of gripped them both. It was unspeakable, beyond terrifying, and they were unequipped to take it. Having lost Kitty, there were no resources to call on: they knew that pain, that grief, and they could not face or survive it again.
Within a few minutes they were driving up to the door of the hospital. Liam pulled open the passenger door of the van and lifted Harry into his arms.
‘He’s worse,’ Liam said to Tommy, as he half-ran, half-walked with him, protecting the precious bundle in his arms. In their haste, not one of them noticed the wooden cross as it slipped from Harry’s fingers and bounced down the hospital steps.
Chapter Eight
The promise of sunshine held as May teased out the blossom on the trees in the churchyard and the priory garden. This particular Saturday morning, the sky had shone the clearest blue and the mildness of the air held the promise of a full day of play for every child who ran out of the house and headed up to the bombed-out wasteland. A football match, to end only when darkness fell, would begin as soon as every boy in the four streets, keen to be picked to play by Malachi Malone, the owner of the only ball, was up at the wasteland. Every boy except for little Paddy who had again made excuses to fall behind his siblings and almost had to leave Max under the bed in his box due to Peggy’s watchful eye and the fact that his father was lying in his bed, refusing to rise.
Little Paddy had managed to take some crumbs from the bottom of the empty biscuit tin, a few sultanas, too precious to throw out and too few to serve any purpose, from the press and stole Max away with only seconds to spare before Peggy caught him. Peggy was at the kitchen table, the thick stub of a pencil in one hand. A scrap of paper lay on the table before her and a letter that she hurriedly shoved back into an official-looking brown envelope. She looked up as her son came into the room.
‘Paddy, what the hell is wrong with you? Get yourself out of the door, right now. They’ve all gone out to play and you’re supposed to be looking after them. Get up there before Malachi starts another fight with your brothers. Go on, get out.’
Little Paddy had slipped Max into his coat pocket and, as he wriggled in there, little Paddy, his heart beating wildly, placed his hands over the outside to conceal Max from Peggy’s view. ‘Mam, I’m only here because I want to help you. Da says he’s not getting up today, that his back is bad. He said would you take him a cuppa tea up and I have to go and get him an ounce of Old Holborn from Simpsons in the parade.’
Peggy narrowed her eyes. ‘Did he now? With what, may I ask? Does he think I have a magic pot in the outhouse or a fecking tree in the yard that grows ten-shilling notes for leaves?’ Peggy’s voice was rising, but she lacked her usual energy and suddenly the heat left her face. She passed the back of her hand across her brow and said, ‘Paddy, you need to get out. My nerves can’t stand anyone around today. Go on, get out. Forget your da and the tobacco, unless I’ve not heard and Simpsons are giving it away for free now.’
Peggy pushed the chair back and stood up straight with her hand in the middle of her lower back. Little Paddy saw her wince with pain as he stepped closer to deliver the rest of the message from his father.
‘Da also said to say his back is really bad, and he said the smokes help him, Ma…’
Peggy looked straight at her son and her eyes, for a brief moment, seemed far away.
‘Is that what he said? Well, he should try having my back for a day. Funny how his only lasts until opening time at the Anchor, isn’t it? Your father makes an amazing recovery then, every afternoon. Must be a miracle that. Don’t you worry about your da, or his baccy, leave him to me, Paddy.’
Peggy’s eyes softened as she looked down at her son. Not blessed with a daughter to help share the load, she often felt resentful towards those neighbours who did. The thought of Deirdre Malone, from Tipperary of all places, blessed with a firstborn like Mary, filled her with a burning sense of injustice. What was the Holy Mother thinking, leaving her like this, broke and with the worst case of fibroids the doctor at St Angelus had ever come across in a woman her age? With only boys she couldn’t even get out to work because there would be no one to look after the little ones while she was gone.
‘You gave Maura three daughters,’ she often said to the statue of Mary in church and then moved swiftly into the confessional, having coveted what another woman had, a woman who acted like a saint towards her at that. And then Maura’s Kitty died, breaking all of their hearts and Angela, the second born stepped into her place. It was as if God knew Maura would require a daughter in reserve and had then provided for the Dohertys a second time, with the hugest windfall they never knew was coming from their surprise relatives in America.
‘If that isn’t proof that wearing your shoe leather out running up in and out of St Cuthbert’s in the name of religious observance delivers you the good life and a full purse, I don’t know what is,’ she had grumbled to big Paddy on more than one occasion before Kitty had died. But the Dohertys had paid a terrible price and now little Paddy stood before her with his pleading eyes, anxious expression and the winsome smile that made her heart melt and flip from despair to gratitude. She had her little Paddy and for that she was grateful, most of the time.
‘Go on, Paddy, get out before one of your brothers walks in here screaming with a black eye. Haven’t I enough on my plate to be dealing with, without another argument with Deirdre Malone to add to the list?’ She picked up a decidedly dirty dishcloth and began wiping down the kitchen table, wincing with each outward stretch as little Paddy stood, frozen in a no man’s land between his mother’s despair and his father’s ire. And he had more to say…
‘Do we have enough money for the rent, Ma?’
Peggy, about to sit back down, stilled; his words hung in the air. He had been worrying about the rent for days. He knew exactly what she was doing when she sat at the table with the stubby pencil and he always checked on a Friday night when he arrived home from school. The rent book was kept in the press, in the little drawer under the bread crock, and little Paddy would slip it out, look for the ink tick in the box next to the date and if it was there, breathe a sigh of relief and slip it back into place again. But for three Fridays now there had been no tick. His ma usually left to pay the rent every Friday morning, straight after pay night on Thursday. She also took her curlers out to pay the rent, for Peggy, despite her ways, loved her hair. It had once been the feature that made her stand out amongst her peers. And although not as thick or as lustrous as it once was, it still made a statement when she removed her curlers. Peggy might stand in the rent queue in a coat with no buttons and her worn-out slippers, but her hair took on all comers from the dockside streets. However, little Paddy had noted that Peggy and her curlers had not been parted for the past three weeks and his heart had tightened in fear.
Peggy’s eyes narro
wed as she took in a deep and weary breath. She wanted to ask him why was he asking about the rent. What business was the rent of his anyway, being just a child, but she thought better of it. Her son was frequently bottom of the class at school, but at home there was very little that passed him by. Peggy’s hand slipped over the pocket of her apron and felt the crackle of the envelope within. Little Paddy and Peggy, both hiding a secret deep in their pockets, held each other’s gaze.
‘Is Da going to go to work this next week, Mam? Will the rent be paid?’
Peggy shook her head, visibly irritated. ‘Stop asking me questions, Paddy, I don’t know, do I? It’s not as if I have Tommy Doherty for a husband, is it? Your father was out at work every day because Tommy, who never missed a day’s work, shamed him into it, and I can’t keep going over the road to ask for Jerry’s help. Jesus, I couldn’t stand the shame.’ Peggy’s words stuck in her throat and Paddy could hear she was trying not to become agitated as he heard the rosary beads click in her apron pocket. ‘Even Alice, a Protestant, doesn’t have my life. Oh, there’s something wrong there! She never sets foot in a church, not even her own. Full of sin she must be, and yet she has a husband like Jer and me – me, I have that fat lazy good for nothing upstairs!’
Peggy rolled her eyes up to the ceiling before she rubbed them with the back of her hands. Tommy Doherty had saved Peggy’s life on a number of occasions and was the kindest man they knew. He had saved little Paddy and the kids more than once too, because the house walls were one layer of brick and noise travelled well. The moment Tommy had heard raised voices or the sound of a chair flying across the kitchen floor, he would storm up her back path, into her kitchen and heave big Paddy off whoever was on the receiving end of his fists. On more than one occasion, that had been Peggy herself, with the boys huddled in the corner, crying. Peggy felt lost without the Dohertys for many reasons. Peggy’s eyes were red through lack of sleep and worry and her face was white, the only warmth in her cheeks a reflection from the red headscarf she wore tied around her curlers every day.
There was a time, in the days when Paddy did work regularly, when every now and then, on a week with good overtime, Peggy would call into Cindy’s to have her hair done into a beehive and on those days little Paddy was so proud of his ma because she was almost like the other mothers. She would also go to the bingo with Maura, and nothing made little Paddy happier in the whole world than seeing his mother, smiling and excited, rushing down the yard to meet Maura and knock on for Shelagh or Deirdre. Oh, he loved her so much!
Peggy’s shoulders drooped and the desolate sight of her, of the empty tin of Get Set hair spray on the mantelshelf standing next to the empty bottle of red nail varnish, a testament to better days, pained his heart, as did the worry etched on her brow and the sadness in her eyes. He knew something of how she felt, because he had lost his best friend too. He and Harry Doherty had been like brothers but he never said anything of this to Peggy; he knew she had enough on her plate. His head fell and he gazed down at the dirty, unwashed quarry tiled floor, covered in crumbs and half of the wasteland brought in on shoes. He was right, then. The rent hadn’t been paid and that concerned him because he had seen Tommy Doherty storm up the stairs to his da’s bedroom so often and heard him shout, ‘Get out of that bed, you lazy bastard! Because if you don’t, the rent won’t be paid and the dock board will have the bailiffs round and all of you out on the street with every measly thing you own!’
Tommy would never have said that to his da if it weren’t true and little Paddy had seen it happen, had walked past a family on the Dock Road, the ma crying, Eric the milkman coming to their rescue, loading their belongings onto the back of his milk float, Ena bringing the mam a glass of whiskey to steady her nerves. Maura had told him later that Sister Evangelista had sent them to a refuge on Upper Parliament Street to keep them dry until the Liverpool Corporation found them a house, but that the house would be miles away, out at Speke. Maura had bought them a bag of scones at Cousin’s on the parade and asked Harry and little Paddy to drop them round to the ma.
‘You take them, lads,’ she had said, ‘it will save her dignity that way. Better if I don’t do it. God love them, they’ll end up in Speke, now, miles from everywhere and everyone.’
Paddy had heard stories about Speke, the concrete new towns and the Giro cheques people lived on because they could no longer travel to work. He didn’t want to go there, he wanted to stay on the four streets, next to the docks and the ships, forever. Max shifted to make himself more comfortable in his pocket and Paddy froze, sure Peggy would have noticed the wriggling.
Peggy put her hand on her son’s head and ruffled his hair. ‘Paddy, you’ll be the death of me, honest to God. Don’t you be worrying about the rent, I’ll get it paid, I promise. Out you go, now, and don’t be fretting about your da, I’ll cadge him a fag from someone.’
Peggy closed the door behind him and took the letter from her apron pocket. She had worked out her sums on the back of the envelope and she first inspected her column of figures. This would be the fourth week with no rent paid and the letter made it quite clear what was about to happen to them if she didn’t pay the arrears in full. The dock board were sending the bailiffs round and they would all be out on the street the following Friday and everyone would witness her humiliation and shame. Peggy’s head felt as though it was filled with the candyfloss they ate at the carnival and she couldn’t think straight. Her skin prickled with fear, as she pushed the envelope back down into her apron pocket. She opened the press door; it was empty. There was nothing in for anyone to eat, not even a broken biscuit. She blessed herself.
‘Jesus wept, I’ll have to go to Kathleen.’ Kathleen would help her to feed the kids, she was sure, she would cross the road, swallow her pride and ask for help. As she closed the wooden doors, the ceiling thudded and plaster flakes fell around her.
‘Is Paddy back with my baccy yet? And where’s my tea?’ Big Paddy’s voice boomed down the stairs.
Peggy’s eyes fell on the bread knife and rage threatened to consume her. The all-too-common vision of Paddy, impaled to the tip, his arms and legs flailing, a look of surprise on his face, filled her thoughts and she let them rest there for a few seconds before banishing them.
‘There’s no tea and no baccy because they cost money!’ she shouted up the stairs.
‘Oh, go on, queen, I know Shelagh brought you a cup full of tea leaves and sugar round last night; I heard her in the kitchen. I think it might help me back a bit if you have two Anadin to go with it.’
His voice, whining and pleading, fell into a void and the sun on the kitchen window caught the blade of the knife and winked at her. ‘Go on,’ it whispered to her, ‘it’ll be no trouble, I’ll help.’
She had two Anadin left, but despite the pain in her back, she would give them to Paddy, just to stop him complaining. Her fibroids had been playing up since she had been on the change.
‘We can have it all taken away,’ Dr Cole had told her last year. ‘Your uterus, it’s just an empty sack now, Peggy, waiting to become diseased, so we may as well. Let me tell the consultant at St Angelus that you are ready. He says in his letter he made you the offer last time he saw you.’
Peggy had shaken her head, made her excuses and left the surgery in haste. ‘I’ll have a think, but I’ll be back soon and let you know,’ she had said and had avoided both Dr Cole and the hospital since that day. Two weeks in hospital and four weeks in bed recuperating when she got back home to have it all taken away? How the hell could she do that? No, she would keep going for now.
Peggy sighed. ‘All right then, I’ll put the kettle on before the coal burns out.’ The last of the Anadin was the least of her problems; the coal, now, that was a worry. On the way to the kettle, she began to remove her curlers. There was nothing for it; she would have to go to the rent office and throw herself onto the mercy of Mr Heartfelt. In the past, when a brown envelope arrived, Maura would come with her and Mr Heartfelt, who obviously h
ad a soft spot for Maura, would have been amenable and open to discussion and a compromise. Today, Peggy would have to try to sweet talk Mr Heartfelt all on her own.
She threw the curlers into the enamel dish on the windowsill and ran her fingers over her scalp. A woman of no means and financially dependent on a man who refused to get out of his bed, all she had was her hair to help her. It was that or a pimp on the corner of Upper Parliament Street. Tears filled her eyes and she let them fall, one hand on the kettle, the other on the sink to steady her.
‘Oh, Maura, what has become of me?’ she sobbed, her predicament made worse by the fact that there was no one to hear her and no one to help.
Chapter Nine
Captain Conor was looking out to sea from the bridge of the Morry just as his first mate, whose nervous facial tic had earned him the name Blinks, arrived with his tray. The sea was calm and the port behind them rolled backwards into the distance.
‘Ahoy, you had better drink this, now,’ said Blinks, ‘before we get out onto the ocean. There’s a good splash of rum in it and it’ll find your sea legs for you.’
‘I hope there’s not too much rum in here,’ said Conor, raising one eyebrow and sniffing at the mug.
‘If there is, you won’t know anything about it when we sink. You’ve pulled a fecking fast one this time and we’re all going to drown.’
Captain Conor put the mug to his lips and swigged back the contents. ‘Have I ever let you down?’ he demanded.
Blinks examined the map pinned on the wall. ‘Have you set the course yet?’
Conor shook his head. ‘Not yet, be my guest.’
The first mate screwed up his eyes as he examined the map. ‘I’ve never in all my years sailed with a list like this on any ship – and to go all the way to Liverpool with one now, against all advice, is fecking reckless. We will have to set the course in a straight line, near as damn it. You were told to dump the cargo, not move it to port side – and it’s made no fecking difference to the list that I can see. I can’t bleedin’ walk straight. No one can.’
Coming Home to the Four Streets Page 10