Coming Home to the Four Streets

by Nadine Dorries

  Chapter Ten

  Peggy had been given short shrift at the rent office as she handed over her rent book to Mr Keeble there. It had been given back to her just as quickly, a gesture which came as something of a surprise to her.

  ‘Mrs Nolan, you have given me the book, but there is no money in it,’ said Mr Keeble.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Peggy, looking behind her to see if anyone had followed her in. ‘I wondered if we could have a bit of time, like. You see, it’s just that my husband, he has a bad back and he’s under Dr Cole at the minute.’

  The rent man raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? Knowing the size of your husband, that must be very uncomfortable for Dr Cole. Now Mrs Nolan, you know as well as I do, all arrears have to be dealt with by Mr Heartfelt. I have no authority in this area, I’m here to take the money, record and bank it, that’s all.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Peggy had stammered; she would try anything to avoid a meeting with Mr Heartfelt, who might be so in name, but was certainly nothing like it by nature. Peggy’s voice dropped. ‘Mr Keeble, is there a way it would be possible just to wait for that for just a week? You see, I’ve sent a letter to a friend for help and I know she will reply just as soon as she can. My husband, he’s waiting for an appointment at the hospital to come through, but you know what the post is like, it’s shocking, and he can’t go back to work until he’s been seen by a specialist. Dr Cole said it’s the worst case of a bad back he’s ever seen in all his years as a doctor and if he did go down to the docks, it would kill him stone dead…’

  Her words trailed away as Mr Keeble, who appeared to be a man for whom no excuse would hold the remotest element of surprise, gave her the courtesy of his ear, but not his attention as he opened a letter and began to read it. Peggy sensed she was not being listened to and rambled on to an uncomfortable stop. Mr Keeble peered at her over the top of the letter.

  ‘Finished?’ he asked. Peggy nodded, she was speechless, a rare event in itself. ‘Good, well, I am afraid I have to inform you, yet again, that I cannot deal with this here. You are into your fourth week of arrears and, as you know, Mrs Nolan, from our encounters in the past, that is not good news. I can accept payment, but not excuses. You must see Mr Heartfelt yourself. You won’t be needing directions, will you, as you’ve been there plenty of times before. I’m surprised you aren’t on his Christmas card list, you must be that well acquainted. He is there this morning and I will telephone him and tell him you are on your way.’

  He glanced back down at the letter in his hand and then, looking back up at her under his cap and over the top of his glasses, asked, ‘I don’t suppose you know why it is Mrs Doherty keeps paying the rent on the house next door to you, do you?’

  Peggy’s mouth opened and closed. She shook her head. She had no idea. She was desperately confused. ‘The policeman, he’s moving in, his wife said so.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, and we need the rent book back from the Dohertys, so if you hear anything from them, tell her to get a move on, would you?’

  Peggy shook her head; he was confusing her further and she didn’t want to see Mr Heartfelt. She was searching for something to say, words that would stop the clocks, allow her to think, to find a way out of the mess they were in. Everyone avoided a visit to Mr Heartfelt. His nature was in itself a deterrent to arrears and his own brother-in-law was the bailiff and known for his unpleasant ways. Maybe she should swallow her pride and throw herself on Jerry’s mercy.

  ‘I have to go right now, do I?’ she said.

  ‘You do indeed, Mrs Nolan. You will have received the letter, I’m sure. Mr Heartfelt is meticulous about such things; we often comment on how strange it is that all the medical mysteries of the world appear to have colonised around the Liverpool dockside streets. And we have the worst of everything any doctor has ever seen, did you know that? It’s a wonder the streets aren’t like a ghost town and that anyone can get out of bed.’ He began to laugh at his own joke, but the sight of Peggy, her forlorn expression, the tears he saw spring to her eyes, her obvious innocence and her lack of gumption lay on his heart like a hand on a fresh bruise. He leant across the counter and, taking out his cigarette packet, shuffled out two cigarettes and passed one to Peggy.

  ‘Look, Mrs Nolan, at least with Mr Heartfelt you have the chance to put your case. This is the first time you’ve been to see him without Mrs Doherty, isn’t it?’

  Peggy took the cigarette and, leaning over the counter, accepted the light from the match he struck. She drew on it hard before she blew the smoke out to the side. ‘She did; she was better than me at explaining.’

  Mr Keeble nodded understandingly. ‘Oh, I know that, you weren’t the only one. You see, she had a way, did Mrs Doherty, and whatever she promised Mr Heartfelt, people delivered, so he trusted her. Is there anyone else you can take with you? I’m not allowed, or I would offer…’

  Peggy shook her head. He understood; no one liked others to know they were behind with the rent, it was an excruciating shame.

  ‘Look, you go down there with a plan, tell him how you can manage it, but do yourself a favour, don’t go telling him your husband has a bad back, he’s heard that one plenty of times.’

  Peggy smiled gratefully. ‘I’ll try,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the cigarette, Mr Keeble.’

  Peggy felt strangely dizzy, she still hadn’t eaten.

  ‘I’ll phone him now, Mrs Nolan,’ he said as turned to leave the office.

  A trainee cashier, who had overheard the conversation, said loud enough for Peggy to hear, ‘I’m sure he’ll put the kettle on and plate up a fancy for her!’ He laughed loudly at his own joke.

  ‘Now, now,’ said Mr Keeble sharply, ‘I can tell you that the last thing Mrs Nolan wants to be doing right now is heading off to see Mr Heartfelt.’

  Peggy had heard them and her face flushed. Mr Keeble looked apologetic and she heard him whisper something sharp in tone to the apprentice who wrinkled his nose. That made it obvious to Peggy what he thought of her. He was all of fifteen and yet, because he was well fed, in a job and wearing clean, ironed clothes, he thought he could speak to Peggy as he would to a dog. She walked out of the rent office to make her way down the dockers’ steps to the administration building, dumb, deflated and debased.

  *

  Callum had never wanted to see the tall wooden gates of Walton Jail ever again, or hear the jangle of the keys, the turning of the four locks followed by the sliding of the four bolts. He’d felt sick to the pit of his stomach as the small door opened and Jimmy stepped out into the bright sunlight. Callum was filled with shame at the memories of the time he had spent there. Since he’d got out, Jerry Deane had been like a father to him, had showed him that hard work paid and it was his fervent wish to ensure that Jimmy turned over a new leaf, that he had walked out of those same doors for the very last time too.

  Seeing his brother, Jimmy’s face lit up and he ran across the road to greet him.

  ‘Hey, did Mam send a butty? I haven’t had any breakfast yet.’ He slapped his brother across the back of his shoulders and sides and Callum couldn’t help himself; he grinned as he thumped his brother back.

  ‘She did, but you’ve just flattened it.’

  Both boys laughed out loud as Callum removed the bacon sandwich from his jacket pocket. Jimmy ripped off the paper and bit deep into his breakfast. ‘Oh that’s good, I’ve missed Mam’s cooking.’ The squeak of the bus brakes could be heard in the distance. ‘Where have you been, Callum? I was in there a whole year and you never got brought in once. I told the guards, when our Callum gets here, you can put us in the same cell.’

  Callum pushed his hands deep into his pockets. ‘I’ve kept out and that’s the way it’s staying. I’m never going back in that place again.’

  Jimmy stopped chewing and gave his brother a quizzical look. ‘You must have been practising the running, or you’ve got smarter at not getting caught!’

  Callum looked at his brother with interest, his identical twin, hi
s complete other half, his mirror image. Inseparable, they’d been; five minutes had divided them at birth and yet it felt to Callum as though a million miles separated them at that moment.

  ‘I’ve been too busy to be caught at anything, Jimmy. I’m earning an honest living down on the docks. Jerry Deane took me on, and if you talk to him, tell him you want to go straight, he’ll give you a chance like he did me. You don’t want to be back inside that hellhole again, you said so yourself.’

  Jimmy looked at his brother as though he were speaking a foreign language. ‘I don’t,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’ve only been on the docks, that’s all you’ve been doing? You’ve gone straight? I thought Mam was just holding out on me, keeping secrets.’

  Annie had never missed a prison visit to see her son, but Callum had refused every invitation, though she pressed him.

  ‘Callum, do you not want to be seeing your brother, just for five minutes?’ she would say. ‘’Tis shocking and shameful if you don’t, and I’d gladly give up one of my visits so that he could see his brother for a change. There’s no news I have that he is interested in, but you, you have it all.’

  Callum was resolute. ‘I’ll see him when he’s out, Mam, and not before. I will never walk through those doors again.’

  Annie knew better than to push Callum, and besides, she really did not want to relinquish even one visit to her son. ‘I suppose it’s just as well; no one can tell you two apart and they might keep you in, thinking you’re our Jimmy.’ At this point, Annie would chuckle to herself, but there were no smiles from Callum, just a shiver that ran down his spine.

  ‘You want me to work down on the docks? Where Da died?’ Jimmy said now. ‘You think I’m going down there to wait for a crane hook to knock me on the head? Are you mad? I’m not working down the bleeding docks, now or ever. It’s a death sentence.’

  The sound of the bus pulling into the bus stop turned their heads.

  ‘The bus, quick,’ said Callum.

  ‘I’ll race you,’ said Jimmy, grinning.

  Callum let him win and they leapt onto the platform and swung around the pole, just as they always had as boys. They gripped the chrome bar and watched as the tall and forbidding wall of the prison receded into the distance. Jimmy grabbed the pole with both hands and leant backwards out into the fresh air as Callum grabbed his cap and saved it before it fell into the road.

  ‘Feck, it’s bloody fantastic to be free and out of that shitehole of a place,’ Jimmy shouted up to the sky.

  The conductor approached them with his ticket machine banging on one thigh, the saddlebag for collecting the money on the other. ‘Language, please. We have ladies travelling on the lower deck.’

  ‘Dock Road, please,’ said Callum, taking a ten-shilling note out of his pocket. The conductor took it and, lifting his money bag up from the bottom, shook the change until the coins he wanted shuffled up to the top. ‘Ah, there you are, the half-crowns always slip to the bottom. You’re the big fella today, then,’ said the conductor, ‘flashing the brown one.’ He smiled and handed Callum the change, as Callum slipped the tickets into his pocket. ‘Don’t lose those,’ the conductor said. ‘The inspector gets on in two stops, and you,’ he pointed towards Jimmy, ‘swear on my bus again and you’re off.’

  As the conductor walked away, Jimmy scowled and whispered under his breath, ‘Cheeky fecking bastard.’

  Callum glared at him. ‘Jimmy, stop, he means it. You’ll have to walk the rest of the way home if he throws you off.’

  Jimmy grinned. ‘No I won’t,’ he said and, opening his hand, flicked out a one-pound note.

  Callum’s eyes opened wide. ‘Where did you get that?’ he asked.

  Jimmy laughed. ‘It was sticking out of your man’s pocket and I lifted it.’

  Callum was speechless, his heart pounding as he looked down the bus to see if had anyone noticed Jimmy holding the note. Jimmy grinned from ear to ear.

  ‘You’re home,’ Callum said as he stared out at the shops and warehouses they passed until they came towards the houses. He just wanted to alight from the bus as fast as was possible. He willed every inch of the journey to go faster so that he could dismount in one long stride. He held his hand up to Eric who was travelling in the opposite direction on his round and waved at him as he passed. He saw Ena walking out of the butcher’s and making her way towards Cindy’s, where she called in most days for a natter, and then he saw Mary, cleaning the windows in the Seaman’s Stop. She stopped and stood still, staring at them. Callum gave her a half-smile, half-raised his hand, but she didn’t acknowledge him because it wasn’t Callum she was looking at. The bell rang out.

  ‘The four streets,’ shouted the conductor and Callum was off the platform, long before the bus had stopped. As he strode out ahead, hands in pockets, leaning forwards, Jimmy caught up with him.

  ‘Callum, what’s up with you? I’ll spend the pound on fish and chips for all of us tonight. Straighten your face, will you, or Mam will want to know what’s up wit’ you; I don’t want to tell her I robbed a quid before I got home, do I?’

  Callum didn’t answer; he wanted to say that he would choke on fish and chips paid for with money that would get the conductor into trouble when he returned to the depot. His anger simmered as he walked and he felt the need to run as far away from Jimmy as possible. The sight of Mary, her crestfallen expression, her lack of a wave back added insult to injury. He spat out the question he had to ask his brother. The question that had leapt to the front of his mind the moment Jimmy walked out of the prison gates.

  ‘Have you written to Mary while you’ve been inside? Are you going to be seeing her, let her know you’re out and home?’

  Jimmy had had to run to keep up with Callum. He was slightly breathless as he answered his brother. ‘Mary? Mary who?’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Er, hello, I’m Mrs Nolan, Mr Keeble was calling down for me,’ Peggy said with a tremor in her voice to the rather prim-looking lady seated behind the tall oak counter, with a typewriter in front of her and a pile of brown envelopes on one side. Peggy recognised the envelopes; one was nesting comfortably in her cardigan pocket. ‘I’m looking for Mr Heartfelt, please.’ She had been through this process, met this woman before, but always with Maura doing the talking. Then, Peggy had felt no fear. Today was very different. She swallowed down the acid that was burning the back of her throat, thanks to adrenaline and a lack of food. She felt a shiver run through her aching bones and placed a hand on her belly, used its heat to still the now-persistent ache in her abdomen, which seemed to travel all the way around from her back in a belt of dull pain.

  The lady behind the desk appeared not to have heard her the first time, so Peggy tried again. ‘Hello,’ she said, a little louder this time, ‘I’m looking for Mr Heartfelt.’

  The woman ceased typing and peered at Peggy over her spectacles. ‘Are you now? I’d never have guessed.’

  The sarcasm was lost on Peggy, but she realised that the woman knew very well why she was there. The rent man, Mr Keeble, must have kept his word and telephoned ahead and so at least she was expected, that was something, she thought. It took every ounce of strength to stop herself from visibly shaking, her tears from falling, weak with gratitude for a kind gesture from someone who was almost a stranger and didn’t even live on the four streets.

  The woman pushed her wooden swivel chair back, stood, and then opened a large black ledger on the desk. ‘What is your name please and the purpose of your visit?’

  Peggy knew the woman knew why she was there, so why was she asking, unless it was to shame her? She dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘Mr Keeble sent me, I’ve to see Mr Heartfelt, didn’t he tell you? About the arrears.’ She almost whispered the last three words but when the door behind her opened and in walked Frank the Skank, it was clear he had heard her.

  Peggy’s heart stopped, the jugular vein in her neck throbbed. Two young women walked in behind him, so smartly dressed they must have come down from the ship
ping offices. They were very definitely not from the Dock Road. Peggy moved closer to the dark oak counter, her fingers clutching the edge for balance, and lowered her voice even further.

  ‘He wrote to me, I have the letter, here.’ She retrieved the envelope from her pocket and pushed it across the counter. ‘I’ve come to see him about the rent.’

  The woman didn’t lift her eyes from the ledger. ‘Name?’ she asked, her fingers poised over the columns in front of her, ignoring the letter Peggy held out.

  ‘Peggy Nolan,’ said Peggy. She wasn’t used to such hostility and was very sure Mr Keeble would have mentioned her by name. All the women in Peggy’s life were friendly, Kathleen, the friendliest of all now that Maura had left. Maybe she should have confided in Kathleen, asked her to come with her. She would have done a better job of explaining things. The women on the four streets supported each other, they had their moments but they were used to a crisis, knew that each day work was provided, each week a pay packet arrived, did so by the grace of God. That, at any time, illness or accident could wipe away their security in a heartbeat, and when this happened, everyone gathered round.

  They had all done it so often for Peggy but she had never had the means to give help in return. No one knocked on Peggy’s door to borrow a scrape of dripping or a cup of sugar, they knew there was no point. The street would feed her children tonight if she asked for help, she never worried about that, but she would cling to her last shred of dignity, she would not tell anyone how far in arrears she was with the rent.

  The woman, obviously irritated at having been interrupted in the middle of her work, said, ‘What is the reference number on your letter?’

  Peggy looked confused. ‘Sorry? I don’t know what you mean.’ She glanced sideways. Frank the Skank was now openly watching her and his amusement was ill disguised.

  The woman peered at Peggy for a very long second over the top of her winged spectacles. ‘Give the letter to me,’ she said and held out her hand. She picked up her handkerchief before she took it and wrapped it around her fingers. Peggy’s own hand shook as she passed the envelope across the counter and slipped it between the folds of white cotton. The woman flicked it open, gave the letter a cursory glance, then ran her finger down a column of numbers in the book. And to Peggy’s utter embarrassment and horror, announced at the top of her voice, ‘Ah yes, quite significant rent arrears, it would appear. Wait there, please, and I’ll call Mr Heartfelt down to see you.’