Coming Home to the Four Streets

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Gladys, they don’t have a lot in that house. Don’t you be going and making a show of her, that won’t get you anywhere.’

  Gladys was impervious to his pleas, as he knew she would be. ‘I didn’t come down with the last shower like you, Eric, so I’ll be doing the Nelson Street round this Friday.’

  Eric’s heart sank. He felt on the edge of despair. ‘Gladys, you can’t get blood out of a stone. If she doesn’t have it, she doesn’t have it. Please leave it to me, Gladys. I’ll get it. Everyone always does with Peggy, eventually. She’s never had the bailiffs round, so she has that much to her credit.’

  Gladys snorted in derision. ‘That was only thanks to Maura Doherty. Now she’s left, and mind, who could blame her – living next to that lot, it was only a matter of time. The Nolans probably drove the Dohertys away. They are the most notorious family around here, apart from Annie O’Prey and her thieves for sons, and you, soft lad, give out the free milk like it’s a charity we run here.’

  ‘The Dohertys left because they had a windfall, as you often observe, ’twas nothing to do with the Nolans,’ he said and, under his breath, ‘I’d be off meself if we had one. I would and that’s a fact.’ An image of himself and Daisy Bell, walking along a shore, leapt into his mind; the sun was shining and there was someone walking along beside him, he just couldn’t tell who.

  ‘Leave it to you to collect it? What will you do? Take a crate with you and give her another half a dozen for free? “Here you go, Peggy, take the bleedin’ lot, why don’t you, Peggy. Have it all, go on, take the horse too, Peggy, because I’m a flamin’ big eejit I am”.’

  As Gladys mimicked his voice, Eric glanced away. Suddenly the familiar barbs from Gladys didn’t hurt or embarrass and that surprised him, because they had been doing just that for the past twenty-five years.

  ‘Well, not bloody likely! I’ll be dealing with that Peggy – and if she doesn’t pay, I’ll be getting the bailiffs onto her myself. No one takes me for a mug!’ She turned on her heel and marched back towards the house.

  Eric sighed. Oh, no, no one ever does that, Gladys, he thought. They take you for many things, but never a mug. He tried one last time. ‘Please, please, leave Peggy to me. If she doesn’t pay, I’ll speak to Kathleen Deane; she keeps an eye out for Peggy since Maura left.’

  Gladys loved the conversations when Eric pleaded with her best of all. It made him look weak and pathetic and wasn’t her life bad enough, having to live on the Dock Road? Could the straw she drew have been any shorter? Could her sister have done any better if she had tried? The moments when Eric begged were one of the few pleasures she had in life. She stopped and looked back over her shoulder.

  ‘You are a waste of good air, do you know that? You are the most pathetic specimen of a man I have ever known in my life, and that’s saying something because the streets around here are full of them.’ She stared at him, waiting for a response, but there was none. Disappointed, she turned away.

  ‘Your trotters and mash are on the table,’ she called back as Eric carried the water into the stable, asking himself the usual question: was it normal to have been married for as long as they had and, for the last twenty of them, to have been spent loveless and in separate rooms? He had no idea.

  Eric was a shy man, he never spoke of such things as sex, but he knew other men had it and he didn’t, which had come as a surprise, given that Gladys had been so very keen to lure him up the aisle with promises of a wild and reckless love life once he had been allowed to do battle with the tops of her suspenders. It was Gladys who had unbuttoned her blouse and encouraged him to explore, not him, and the night of his downfall had been filled with such passion, too. They had been dating for only three months when he had been called up and when he had walked her home after telling her his news, they had stepped into the pool of darkness alongside the bins.

  The news of his imminent departure had turned Gladys into a much more accommodating girlfriend. She had always been very insistent on setting boundaries before the day his call-up papers had arrived. ‘Not until we are married, Eric,’ she would whisper into his ear as his hands cupped her buttocks and Eric, always a gentleman, had obeyed her every command. This night, however, Gladys was on fire as she pressed herself into him and things advanced too quickly for Eric to ask himself the question, what is going on?

  She startled him as she placed his hand firmly on the most private part of her body, a place he had never thought he would ever be allowed to roam free. He froze in astonishment, the act robbing him of his breath, and her next words were, to Eric’s total amazement, ‘Marry me, Eric, if you want to go any further.’

  Eric was stunned and recoiled, but she grabbed his arms and pulled him back into her, lifting her woollen skirt which had slipped back down to her knees, and replaced his hand. ‘Marry me,’ she’d said, pressing his hand harder into her, his fingers as frozen in movement as a dead man’s.

  ‘When I come back, Gladys,’ he had said, his voice sounding thick, not at all like his own, his senses dulling, then all he was aware of was the warm mound beneath his hand. It was as if nothing else in the world existed right at that moment.

  She grabbed his free hand and pressed it to her thin breast. ‘Go on, Eric…’

  Suddenly Eric was alarmed; the speed and direction at which events were moving were faster than his reasoning could keep up. ‘No, Gladys, we can’t, it isn’t right.’

  What he meant was that Gladys wasn’t right. Eric was young, he was about to do his duty to fight for king and country. The fog in his mind became thicker as he tried to work out how and why he was here. The truth was that Gladys had singled him out, not the other way round. She was the only girl he had been brave enough to approach at the dance and that was because every time he looked over to the chair she was sitting on, she was already looking his way, and smiling. He’d thought that, as she was alone, she would be grateful for the offer of a dance, but that was all. He was a nervous kid and he looked it. If he survived the war and came back alive, he was determined that he would set his sights on Maggie, the popular girl who worked in the grocer’s on the Dock Road and lived on Nelson Street. She wouldn’t look twice at him now, but maybe if he returned a hero, he might stand a chance.

  Gladys could sense his resistance, had known it was there for the past three months. Their evenings had followed an established pattern. They attended the weekly dance in the church hall, then he walked Gladys home and pecked her on the cheek and said thank you. Her behaviour on that fateful evening was a wild deviation away from the norm. Unbeknown to him, she had received strict advice from her mother.

  ‘Get him to marry you,’ her mam had said. ‘That way, if he doesn’t come back, you will at least get a payout and maybe a pension until someone else takes you, but it will be a struggle, Gladys. You don’t have our Pauline’s looks.’

  Her mam’s words were ringing in her ears as she felt Eric resisting. Without another word, she raised her thigh, pressed her heel into the wall, placed her hand over his own and pushed hard against him. He gulped hard.

  ‘Marry me, Eric, before you leave and then I’ll be waiting when you come home on leave. I can make you the happiest man on earth before you go and then you know there will be something to return for.’

  She’d kissed his lips, hard, pushed her tongue into his mouth and pressed it against his own and Eric, confused, felt the picture of Maggie slip from his mind, to be replaced by a pounding, relentless urgency in his loins. The inside of her thigh was warm and soft, surprisingly so in comparison to the rough, calloused skin on her hands. He didn’t answer her question, he just said her name, ‘Gladys’, with a hint of reproach, as she placed his hands within easy reach of the unknown. He could feel the heat of her, scorching his fingertips, coaxing them into life.

  ‘Marry me,’ she’d whispered in his ear, ‘marry me,’ and, as she pushed herself harder against him, as his fingers slipped inside her, he knew he was beaten. He was seventeen, had never even fully
kissed a girl. She had hurled him rather than pushed him over the edge. He plummeted down into a world beyond reason and he suddenly wanted more. It was too late for Eric whose passions had got the better of him. It was time for Gladys to be the startled one as he had grasped her hand and pressed it into him. He moved up and down against her, pushing his own hand deeper and deeper with the same rhythm as his loins against her hand, and now he was the one who didn’t want to stop and, as the blissful relief came, he shouted out, far louder than he had meant to, ‘Marry me, Gladys!’ Aware only of the blood pounding in his ears and his shortness of breath, he said again, ‘Marry me,’ only slightly quieter this time.

  ‘I’ll have to, Eric,’ she had replied, with no hint of emotion, ‘I’ve got no choice. I’m not a virgin now, you’ve ruined me for anyone else, you have…’ She’d removed his hand with rather less grace than she had placed it there and, with the briskness he was more used to, brushed her skirt down and back into place. ‘Meet me at the town hall tomorrow at half past twelve and bring your call-up papers with you. We’ll both go in our breaks and then we can be married on special licence.’ And just before she turned in through the gate she said, ‘We’ll move into the dairy with your da after; I’ll pack tonight.’ In a flash she was gone and Eric stood scratching his head and wondering what on earth had just happened.

  *

  When Eric finally returned from the front, Maggie was a widow and even more beautiful than she had been all those years ago. Gladys, never a good-looking woman, had travelled in an entirely opposite direction. Her lips had become as thin and as mean as her nature. Objecting to sex was something she became accomplished at once the first few years were over and no baby arrived. The message was given loud and clear: ‘Get your hands off, enough of that messing about,’ and he had long since given up trying.

  Nothing he ever did made Gladys happy. Some men managed it with their wives, but not he. If only that night in the entry long ago had never happened. He would have returned home a single man, the Widow Trott would have been available and, who knows, he might have stood a chance of happiness.

  ‘She landed on her feet that one,’ Gladys had once said to him referring to Maggie. ‘Married, widowed and she only goes and inherits from his mam and dad and she got the widow’s pension. Won’t ever have to work, can afford her rent without lifting a finger. No wonder she hasn’t remarried. She doesn’t need to. Didn’t get herself lumped for life like I did.’

  Those words rang in Eric’s ears day and night. Gladys would rather he had not returned from the war, would have preferred a widow’s pension. And when he and Daisy Bell were making their way home to the dairy along the Dock Road one mid-morning, he suddenly heard those words as clear as the mare’s shoes beating out her rhythm on the cobbled road, she wanted you dead, she wanted you dead, she wanted you dead.

  It was that day, those words, that made him realise for the very first time there was nothing worth fighting for…

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mary was lost for words as she stared in the mirror; she had chosen the boldest cut and an urchin stared back at her. Her eyes were wide, her cheekbones high and she was all but unrecognisable.

  ‘I love that!’ Mary finally said as she touched her hair. ‘My da will too. I’m not sure what Ma is going to say – but it doesn’t really matter as long as Jimmy notices me, that’s all I want.’

  Cindy grinned. She was more than happy with her work and it had transformed Mary. ‘Leave your mam to me, Mary. Jimmy… now that’s a bit more difficult. You do look irresistible. But Alice is right – don’t you go chasing him, don’t ever do that. And she is right on the other thing, Mary; this time next year when you’re sat in this chair having a trim and I say to you, “Remember that crush you had on Jimmy O’Prey?” Do you know what you will say to me?’ Mary shook her head, her newly revealed eyes open wide. ‘You’ll say to me, “That soft lad? I don’t think so!”’

  Mary shook her head, but she couldn’t resist laughing, not something she often did. Alice and Cindy were wrong and she would show them; she loved Jimmy O’Prey and she knew, once he saw her again, it would be just as it had been before he went down.

  Cindy was brushing up and Mary said, ‘Here’s my money.’ She held out the note and a few coins. Cindy waved her hand away.

  ‘No, I’m not going to take it, Mary. You go and spend it on some make-up in town. If Alice is going to give you some nice clothes, well, it goes to say, doesn’t it, you need a bit of tutty, too.’

  Mary stepped forward and took the brush from Cindy’s hand. ‘Then let me,’ she said. ‘Honestly, I’m used to clearing up.’

  Cindy allowed her to take the brush. ‘Go on, then, I won’t refuse a bit of help, and I’ll finish the sinks.’ As she was doing so, she looked at Mary – and an idea lit a light bulb above her head.

  *

  As Mary made her way out of the parade, she stared into every shop window she passed to admire her hair. It wasn’t just a haircut – it had made her feel six feet tall, beautiful, grown-up and it had put wings on her heels. She would knock on at the Deanes’ and thank Alice and maybe Alice would have time to show her the clothes. Her heart felt light; she had not only enjoyed the haircut, but Cindy had also spoken to her as though she were her equal – and no one spoke to Mary like that. She was always there to do something for someone else. And she had loved Cindy’s shop, a microcosm of pink and whiteness, of scents and potions, a little world all of its own in the middle of the bleakness that was the docks and rows of terrace houses.

  She heard voices ahead of her outside the betting shop, among them one she recognised. She looked, and her heart beat as fast as a train because Jimmy was standing with a group of young men and two girls in the doorway.

  ‘Come on, lads, I’m closing now; you’ve got your winnings so have a good night,’ said the man who ran the shop as he locked the door. The group began to walk towards her with Jimmy in front. This was her moment! Now he would see her… He was talking to the man next to him but, as he came alongside and looked straight at her, his name stuck in her throat. Jimmy’s brow furrowed; he thought for a second and then recognised her just as one of the girls ran alongside him and linked her arm through his.

  ‘Are you going to spend your winnings on me now, Jimmy?’ she asked.

  With a sheepish grimace towards Mary, Jimmy raised the peak of his cap before turning to the girl on his arm and kissing her full on the lips then saying loudly, so that Mary heard every word, ‘You’re my girl, aren’t you? Of course I am.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Peggy delivered her baby in seven minutes and, throughout the process, she called for the only women in her life who had ever cared for her or shown her any love: her mother first, her grandmother who had raised her in her early years in Ireland, then Maura and finally, in a cry of desperation, her husband.

  ‘Paddy, Paddy, come home!’ she gasped as the rising moonlight lit the dark cobbled yard. The stale air of the outhouse, disturbed and shaken by her panting and anguished gasps, felt cold on her hot skin, as violent tremors racked her body, but she felt no pain, just a burning urgency to be somewhere safe.

  ‘Mam, Mam, Nan,’ she gasped but there was no response from her long-dead relatives. No matter how much they had loved her in life, they were of no use in death. Peggy felt their presence in her heart, thought she saw Kitty as a cool hand passed across her burning brow, but there was no one there, no hand to grasp onto, no one to hold her upright, no Maura whispering, ‘Hang on, Peggy, we’re almost there.’

  Putting her hands out to support herself on the cold brick walls which were damp, even in summer, she looked upwards and saw the stars through the missing tile on the roof. As a contraction subsided, an icy coldness ran like a glaze from her head downwards and needles of pain began to penetrate the palms of her hands as she pushed harder against the wall to keep herself from sliding down onto the sodden, earthy floor. Outside, cats howled and fought for scraps in the entry as bi
n lids lifted and crashed down again. It was that time of the evening in stable homes where routine begat comfort and order.

  A dog barked in a yard in one of the houses further down Nelson Street and Peggy held her breath as footsteps scuttled down the entry towards the house.

  ‘Paddy,’ she gasped. ‘Paddy, is that you?’

  The footsteps slowed and then stopped. ‘Peggy?’ a voice called out. ‘It’s Mary, are you all right?’

  Oh, thank God, help was here! For the briefest moment Peggy’s heart soared with relief then she recognised the voice and her hopes were dashed as fast as they had risen. It was Deirdre’s daughter, Mary. Deirdre, the last person Peggy would want to see the dilemma she was in – her children without shoes, the disorganised mess in the kitchen and the mantelshelf bare, her pride and joy, her mother’s clock, gone. She would judge the lack of food on the press, the missing blankets and cutlery. And when this baby came there was no coal to heat water, no clean towels to wrap it in. Help was on the other side of the gate, but it was help neither her pride nor self-respect would allow her to take.

  With every ounce of strength and willpower she had, Peggy held her breath, resisted the urge to pant. She stood stock-still until the footsteps continued on their journey and the silence surged softly back. Peggy was trapped in a nightmare and her mind began to wander and dart about.

  ‘No, no, no! Please no,’ she sobbed as tears ran down her face – and suddenly she was no longer in the outhouse. She was up in her bedroom, with the fire lit and Maura sitting on the end of her bed with little Paddy in her arms.

  ‘Your firstborn a boy, isn’t that marvellous?’ said Maura. ‘And would you look at that head of hair! Sure, he’s nothing like his father.’