‘Da, come back!’ It was Angela and her voice cut through his rage. ‘Don’t, Da, please, please don’t.’
She was crying now, but was it Angela, or was it Kitty? He was momentarily confused and in being so, the red mist parted. He heard the sound of running water which jolted him to his senses and he was aware as it splashed onto his boot that it came from Cleary.
‘Go on, piss yourself, you pathetic bully,’ he hissed as he flicked the knife shut and put it in his pocket. No, he would not spend time in jail for the likes of Cleary. Removing his hand from his trouser pocket, he raised his fists and, just as a look of total shock crossed Cleary’s face, he hit him straight between the eyes. The only sound after the impact of knuckles on skin was that of Cleary hitting the ground and lying in his own puddle, followed by the sound of children whooping and cheering.
Angela reached her father’s side and took his hand. ‘Da,’ she said, ‘what have you done? Mam will kill you, so she will.’
Tommy turned and walked away from the sight of Cleary, groaning and crying like a baby on the floor. ‘Oh no she won’t, queen,’ he said to Angela. ‘Your mam will be delighted.’
‘She won’t, Da, she’ll definitely kill you, she will.’
Tommy let out a laugh; for once, his Angela was very wrong.
‘I’ve news, Angela; you are never going back to that school again. Tonight, Liam is taking us to Galway and we will get the train to Dublin and the ferry to Liverpool. We are going home, kids, so go on, get into the back of Liam’s van.’
At that very moment he felt an overwhelming urge to get to his Maura, to take her there and then; he longed for the night to fall when Maura would know just how much of a man he had been and she could show him how grateful she was for protecting their family. There would be no refusals, no excuses, and besides, wasn’t it time for another child anyway? He felt life surge through his veins. They could never replace Kitty, they could never try, but it was time for new life, that was what mattered. They were going home to Liverpool and Tommy would make sure that there would be a new Doherty arriving not long after.
Chapter Fifteen
Malcolm was waiting at the door for Biddy to arrive, holding a telegram in his hand. Mary had left and, in celebration of the news, Malcolm had opened the bottle of rum he took a tipple from last thing at night and had it on the table with two glasses waiting.
‘What the hell is up with you?’ asked Biddy as soon as she saw him standing there. ‘Where’s Mary?’
Malcolm took her coat and handed her the telegram. ‘Here, read this.’
Biddy took the sepia-coloured envelope which, of course, Malcolm had opened without a single tear with his silver knife and she walked towards the kitchen as she read. ‘The Morry has list. Needed repairs. Wink. Home soon. Jerry be Ready. Tell Mam. What in the name of God does any of that mean?’ she asked Malcolm as she looked up.
He began to pour the rum. ‘In truth, Biddy, I have no idea, but I sense it is good news for the four streets, the store cupboards and pantries of the houses and, if I’m not mistaken, there will be rum, knowing Conor. The Morry is sailing in!’ He raised his glass.
‘What is a list?’ asked Biddy as she reached out to take her glass.
‘It’s when a ship has taken on water, or has a badly stored hold, or it has taken on too much cargo.’ Malcolm winked.
‘What’s up with you, winking at me like that?’ asked Biddy. ‘Have you something in your eye?’
Malcolm looked exasperated. ‘No, Biddy, that’s what Captain Conor says in his telegram – he’s sending Jerry a wink. My bet is that this is going to be a good haul and just in time for the carnival too.’
Biddy smiled as she took a sip of her rum. ‘Right, well, I’ll drink this and then I’ll go and find Ena and tell her, put her out of her misery – and you never know, she might walk home sober tonight.’
‘Oh, I doubt it,’ said Malcolm, ‘but at least she’ll be happy.’
*
Cindy cursed at the hot water that hit the back of her hand just as she tipped the Aunt Sally cleaning fluid into the bucket of steaming water. ‘Damnation,’ she said as she rubbed at the skin and before she continued, fanned out her long and elegant fingers and checked her nails for chips. It was the end of the day and she was ready for an evening spent sitting in front of the fire in the Anchor with Reg.
She thought about Reg now. Maybe she should say yes the next time he asked her to marry him. She looked around her. But who would take over the salon? She doubted if anyone would: there just wasn’t enough money in it. She heaved the metal bucket out of the sink, ready to wheel it into the front and mop the floor, when she heard the bell above the door ring. Cindy took a deep breath; the salon was closed and she was in no mood for a delay right now. She wanted to spend some time on her own hair before she and Reg went to the Anchor. The bell rang again.
‘Hang on, I’m coming, keep your knickers on!’ she called out and screwed the top back on the bottle of Aunt Sally then walked out into the shop.
*
The men down on the docks had knocked off over an hour since, but Jerry had been tipped off by the gaffer and he and a few of the men hung about on the steps.
‘A ship is out on the bar, waiting on the bore; due in over a week ago, they said. It has a bad list, been struggling, and needs to come in as soon as possible. The harbour master wants it to go straight into the dry dock, but the captain is said to be insisting on docking here to unload first. He’s asked for it to be brought down to berth for two weeks, emptied, checked, and then go up into dry dock for repairs. And the gaffer said it would be of interest to all of us.’
Seamus had punched the air. ‘Yes! It has to be Conor, doesn’t it? Who else would it be insisting on docking here.’
Jerry was squinting under his cap, peering down the river. ‘I hope it is Conor, but the gaffer didn’t know the name of the ship or the captain because that miserable bastard, Heartfelt, wouldn’t tell him which ship it was and said he would give him a copy of the manifest only once it had left the bar and was on its way down.’
Big Paddy spat his tobacco to the ground. ‘Heartfelt’s a slimy git.’
‘I’m surprised you remember his name, Paddy,’ said Seamus. ‘I’m sure to God he’s forgotten yours, we see that little of you down here these days.’
Paddy looked wounded, an expression he had perfected over a number of years. ‘Honest to God, Seamus, if you had my back, you’d know about it.’
A couple of the men at the rear guffawed at Paddy’s response and he had the good grace to blush.
‘Is it worse in the mornings then, Paddy?’ asked Jerry.
‘Oh, aye, terrible in the mornings, gets better as the day goes on. I’m a martyr to my bad back, Jer. There are some days I just can’t get out of my bed. Dr Cole says if I don’t take it easy, I’ll be an invalid before my pension is due.’
Jerry resisted the urge to laugh. Kathleen had told him what Dr Cole had said to Peggy when she was in the surgery with her. ‘That’s a God-given illness you’ve been handed out there, then, one that improves by night-time so you can still get down to the pub. Holy Lord, if I am to be afflicted with anything, please make it Paddy’s back!’ Jerry clasped his hands together and made a mock praying gesture to the sky and laughed out loud.
‘How’s your Peggy managing for the money?’ asked Callum, his voice full of concern.
This was a conversation Paddy didn’t want to have. He knew that the dripping Peggy had put on his bread that morning came from meat Jerry had paid for and the enamel bowl Peggy had scraped it out of was from Kathleen’s own kitchen. He did a good job of persuading dockers who had supped deep into their cups to buy him a drink of an evening; indeed, he could walk into the Anchor with empty pockets and then struggle to find his way home after a night of ale on the back of other men’s generosity and he never went hungry. As was the tradition of the streets, the men, the workers, were fed first and best. There was no response from Pad
dy to the question every man had been asked by their own wives, ‘How is Peggy paying the rent if Paddy isn’t working? We can’t ask her, so did Maura give them money, or what? She must have something to be managing on if he’s not going down the steps and clocking on.’
On days when he did work, Paddy had left early on a number of days, having cadged a sixpenny bit off someone under the pretence that the kids needed food and took it straight to the betting shop. The luck had been with him one afternoon and he had won ten pounds. He kept the money hidden deep in his pockets and had kept himself fed on pies and paid for his own pints from the winnings. He hadn’t thought about the rent, but Peggy must have been paying it somehow, otherwise they would have been out on their ear. Paddy suspected that Maura and Tommy had sent Peggy money and she had kept it hidden from him. Well, two could play at that game.
The men, aware of Paddy’s discomfort, fell silent, bored with waiting, not wanting to take out their tobacco tins and roll up a damp cigarette as the evening mist rolled up the steps from the Mersey or remove the half-smoked stubs from behind waxy ears in case they should be seen lighting up from down below.
Eugene was the first to see it and punched Jerry on the arm.
‘Would you fecking look at that! Isn’t that Conor’s ship?’ he whispered as the funnel of a steamship loomed and listed, creaked and groaned, chains clanking and ropes banging on the deck as, like an old and weary ghost, it emerged from a dense patch of mist. Captain Conor’s ship looked every day of its age.
Jerry grinned. ‘It is, Seamus, one blue funnel, three stripes, two masts and the answer to our prayers has arrived. The next thing I have to do is meet up with Captain Conor or his first mate, Blinks, and find out what they have on board. If he’s been out to the Caribbean, it’ll be full of rum and, knowing Conor, he will have brought plenty back to make the ladies happy.’
Callum placed his hand to his brow and watched as the tugs expertly guided the ship in. ‘Will he have to pay tax on the booze, Jerry?’
‘Oh, the owner of the load will be paying it, not Conor. Our job will be to get our share up the steps smartly and stored along with whatever else he has for us and then doled out without Frank the Skank or anyone else noticing. Then we have to take the rest to sell at the market and via other means,’ Jerry tapped the side of his nose, ‘to make Conor his cut.’
Big Paddy looked panicked. ‘We’ll definitely get our rum off, won’t we?’
Jerry slapped his hand down on Paddy’s shoulder. ‘We have plenty of time to get organised, Paddy, but the only way you will see any of it is if you pull your weight. If there’s a haul coming up the steps, I won’t be taking any prisoners. Seamus, who can we get?’
Seamus looked up towards the streets. ‘There won’t be a man not wanting to help when Babs and Bill find out Conor’s down there. I mean, he does know the carnival is next week and I bet he’s got everything the women need to get the float ready.’
Jerry dipped his head and watched as the tug captain on the bridge called down to the crew on his own boat and they eased the Morry into berth. There was a ship already in the second dock further up, waiting to be unloaded, which looked more promising than the lumber ships of late. It had been there for four days and yet not a single stevedore had been allowed anywhere near and the bottom of the gangway was guarded by two dockside policemen. Jerry scanned the dockside and Seamus could almost see the cogs in his mind turning.
‘Look,’ said Jerry, ‘the police aren’t interested in Conor; yet normally they would be all over the dock like a rash when the Morry sails in.’
‘Yeah, whatever is on that other ship, someone is waiting for their own cut and it isn’t us,’ said Eugene.
Jerry was deep in thought. ‘Aye, well, we need to get those policemen to take a stroll down to the Clarence Dock while Tommy and I organise getting the load up the steps and into Tommy’s outhouse.’
Callum took a ciggie stump out from behind his ear and pushed himself back into a cut-out in the wall. ‘We don’t have those look-the-other-way bizzies any more, do we, Jerry?’
Jerry shook his head. ‘We don’t. Frank the Skank grassed on them, and what intrigues me is why the Skank is now stood, guarding the gangway, whilst the Morry sails in and no one is batting an eyelid. Something is going on down there and I have no idea what it is. But I intend to find out.’
*
Cindy pushed back the long tails of the brightly coloured fly curtain.
‘Who’s there? I’m closed,’ she said as she flicked the light switch back on. ‘Oh, Mary. Heavens above, I didn’t expect to see you here.’ Cindy smiled at the girl. ‘What can I do for you, Mary? I’m closed.’
Mary wanted to run out of the shop, but the money in her pocket burnt into her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Cindy,’ she said and her voice was so low Cindy could hardly hear her. ‘I’ve been saving up and I was going to come in on Saturday, but Malcolm is busy and I can’t and, well, I just wanted to look nice.’
Cindy smiled. Alice had warned Cindy to expect Mary when she’d finally made it to have her own hair done.
‘Mary has a special fella in mind, Cindy,’ she’d said. ‘She’s only young and she needs a bit of a confidence booster. I’ve told her to start here with you; I said there was much she could learn from you and that she needs to be more like you and less like me.’
Cindy had seated Alice under the dryer and had fetched them both a cup of tea. ‘I’m up for that, Alice. I think we should try and help her or that poor girl is going to be washing dishes and peeling spuds for the rest of her life – and, of course, there’s Deirdre to deal with. She’s always seen Mary more as free help than a daughter – and that dreadful brother of hers, Malachi, is treated like God in that house, can do no wrong. Leave Mary to me, this sounds like a bit of a project that’s just up my street. Who’s the fella?’
Alice raised her eyebrow and through a sardonic smile said, ‘Jimmy O’Prey’ and no sooner had the words left her mouth, than the tea left Cindy’s.
*
Peggy had made her way down the Dock Road, pushing the old pram, and went as far as her legs would carry her. She knew there was a pawnshop where she would be unlikely to be seen. No one on the four streets ventured that far down. It was also known as the part of the road where prostitutes plied their trade but what Peggy hadn’t been prepared for was how blatant they were.
She had taken the blankets from the beds, thanking God it was May, and the coats Maura had bought for the children. Hopefully she could buy them back before winter… The blankets were piled up high on the pram, disguising her shame, because it was acceptable on the four streets to pawn blankets in the summer, or ornaments; some even pawned Sunday-best suits and frocks, if they had them, but children’s shoes were deemed to be beyond the pale – only the lowest of the low did that and it was the level to which she had descended. She had taken the shoes from the children’s feet and left her boys at home, crying, desperate to play on the wasteland. Out there, they could forget about groaning bellies; sitting at home with no light and no money for a television, it was all they could think of.
‘It won’t be for long,’ she had said to little Paddy. ‘You need to keep yours, though, because I need you to run messages and help out.’
Little Paddy was relieved but still pleaded on behalf of his brothers. ‘Mam, is there no other way? They can’t go out and play with no shoes on.’
Peggy, her desperation growing, her patience waning, had snapped, ‘Paddy, stop it, would you! I need you to help, not hinder. What choice do I have? Your father didn’t work one full day last week. We’ll get three days’ pay on Friday but I need that for the rent and whatever I can get for the shoes to put with it.’
‘Mam, you said we’d paid the rent!’
Peggy shouted, ‘Shut up, shut up, would you? Just shut up!’ And she’d begun to cry, loud sobs racking her body. Little Paddy was terrified; he had never seen his mother so near despair and he was scared stiff. He’d thought that as hi
s da was out of the house and down on the docks today that she would be happy.
‘Mam? Mam, shall I go and borrow some tea from Shelagh?’ He was desperate to help.
‘No, Paddy,’ she’d said, ‘just do as I ask, that’s all I need for you to do to help me. I know what I’m doing. I’ll find a way to pay the interest and get the shoes back, honest to God, just please, please don’t give me grief.’
Little Paddy didn’t believe her and she could see it in his eyes. She didn’t believe herself, but this was the only thing she could do and say right now. All that was left to her was this, or to sit on the chair and wait for the bailiffs to arrive.
A string bag, suspended from the handle of the pram, banged against her thigh as she walked along the road. In it was the only cutlery they had in the house and in her hand another knitted string bag contained her mother’s clock, wrapped up in an old copy of the Echo. She had picked the statue of the Virgin Mary up off the mantelpiece, intending to take it too and then put it back down again. The Holy Mother had looked Peggy straight in the eye and when Peggy thought she saw her frown, the guilt that shot through her sent her mind into a frenzy; her breathing had become rapid and her face hot as she blessed herself.
‘What in the name of God has become of us?’ she had whispered. She put it back and, delving into her apron pocket, clasped the comforting rosary beads as they clicked through her fingers.
*
The children had been sitting on the stairs when she’d opened the kitchen door to leave and she had avoided their desperate expressions, but she could not unhear their miserable sobs. Still, Peggy wouldn’t allow them to play out, barefoot. Never in a million years would her children be the only barefooted children out on the street.
‘I’ll get you some plastic sandals as soon as I can, I promise now,’ she’d said. ‘It’s nearly summer and with some of the money I get for this lot, I’ll buy you chips. So come on, cheer up.’ She was attempting to cheer herself up as much as the children.
Coming Home to the Four Streets Page 17