Coming Home to the Four Streets

by Nadine Dorries

  *

  Kathleen could move fast for a woman of her age and with her eyes to the floor, her arm linked through Nellie’s, they left Nelson Street and headed towards St Cuthbert’s Hall on the Dock Road where the bingo was held.

  ‘Nana, look!’ Nellie pulled on Kathleen’s arm. ‘Isn’t that Peggy down there?’

  Kathleen looked over the wall to where Nellie was pointing. Her eyesight wasn’t good and she squinted to see where Nellie was pointing. ‘That’s the dock down there, Nellie, don’t be ridiculous. Peggy will be at the bingo hoping to turn one and six into a quid.’

  Nellie shook her head; she was sure it was Peggy. The woman’s hair was not in curlers and she was talking to another woman, a woman Nellie had seen down there before. When she’d asked Jerry who she was, he had replied, ‘A woman of the night, Nellie, and not someone you should ever speak to.’

  Peggy and the woman were huddled together, talking at the back of the administration building, and Nellie kept looking backwards as she was swept along by Nana Kathleen. She had a funny feeling something was wrong and that woman down on the dockside – she was sure it was definitely Auntie Peggy.

  Chapter Twenty

  Maura and Tommy had never before made love in a bed that wasn’t their own and she had found the experience both frightening and exciting all at the same time.

  ‘I’m not sure if we can,’ she had whispered, terrified of making a noise and trying to work her dates back in her mind. ‘When am I due?’

  Tommy, a man who always depended on his wife to ensure they did not make love on the days she was likely to be caught, for fear of another pregnancy, had thrown caution to the wind. ‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ he had said as he pulled her towards him.

  ‘Tommy, have you lost your senses? And you’ve left the light on; what are you thinking of?’

  Maura had also only ever made love to her husband in the dark and the urgency of his need was confusing her. It felt as though she was in bed with another man.

  ‘Maura, how did you feel when we were leaving Liverpool to move back to Ireland and start our great big adventure? When I made the biggest mistake of my life and bought us the Talk of the no feckin’ Town? Were you happy? Was I happy?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m not sure, there was so much to do, with the kids and everything…’

  ‘Maura, if we had been doing the right thing, nothing would have mattered, so how did you feel? Think, remember!’

  Maura had no idea what had just possessed her husband, a man of few words, to own up to a mistake. Usually he had to be worn down into submission first.

  ‘Scared, I suppose,’ she blurted out.

  ‘Aye, me too. What do you feel like now? Tonight, here in this bed and breakfast?’

  Maura’s face broke into a tentative smile. ‘Excited.’

  Tommy threw his head back and laughed out loud. ‘Yes, so do I. That’s because we are going home. We should never have left. It was the money, it went to our heads.’

  Maura pulled a face. ‘Well, it won’t now because there’s hardly any left.’

  And Tommy had almost told her his secret, the news it had half killed him to keep from her for days.

  ‘Tell her now,’ Liam had said to him as they shook hands.

  ‘No,’ Tommy was defiant, ‘I’ll tell her on the deck, as soon as I can see Liverpool,’ and since that conversation, the secret had burnt in his mouth desperate to escape and each time he almost told her and didn’t, he felt a sense of atonement for his mistakes of the past.

  The only time Kitty was ever spoken of was late at night, in the dark, in bed but not tonight.

  ‘Maura,’ Tommy said, ‘it’s time to look to the future, for all of us – and I can’t think of a better way to do that than with a new babby, can you?’ He had pushed Maura’s dark hair away from her face. ‘Don’t you be looking like that,’ he said, noting the sadness that crossed her eyes. ‘No one can ever replace our Kitty, but a new birth, that would be exciting for the others and especially for Angela. It might make her smile and you, you’re not too old yet, missus.’

  Maura had grinned. ‘You have a nerve, you. If we weren’t sleeping under someone else’s roof, you wouldn’t get away with that.’

  Tommy had silenced her as his lips found hers and, as it had been throughout their married life, Maura was lost. Despite the fact that they had been together for all of the years they had, he could still make her insides flip over at his gentlest touch and that night, he was like a man possessed. Maura knew, as the first watery light of morning had slipped in though unfamiliar curtains, that she was with child…

  *

  ‘Mammy, are we nearly there?’ asked Angela as she lifted her head from her father’s chest and rubbed her sleepy eyes. They were in a taxi which Tommy had hailed at the Pier Head to transport them on the last leg of the journey home. The cobbles of the Dock Road rumbled beneath the tyres as the taxi jolted along past the tall red-brick warehouse buildings that towered above them.

  ‘We are, Angela, can you smell the Mersey?’ said Tommy. They had been on the road since before first light and they were all exhausted, but as the ferry had drawn closer to the shore and the lights of Liverpool sparkled before them, Maura had perked up.

  ‘Would you look at that,’ Maura had said to Tommy. ‘The Liver Birds. Tommy, we’re home!’

  Her eyes had filled with tears at the sight of the three graces and the skyline of Liverpool that lay before them. Tommy had slipped his arm around her shoulder. ‘We are, queen, and I never thought I’d say it, for I will always be an Irishman through and through, but Liverpool is where my kids belong and that is where my heart is. Fancy that! I call a country that produces wet potatoes, home.’

  Maura felt the familiar grip of guilt tighten around her heart. ‘What about the money, the inn, is it gone forever, do you think?’

  Tommy had fixed his eyes on the shore. ‘Maura, I have something to tell you. Liam bought it, not what we paid for it, but enough to make a difference to our fortunes and I ask you, what more do we need?’

  Maura had pulled away from him. ‘What? You sold it to Liam? For how much?’

  Tommy couldn’t help himself, a grin passed across his face and he picked up one of her hands and slipped it under his arm. ‘Maura, we have almost five hundred pounds! I have a hundred in my pocket and four in the bank so we are going to be just fine.’ Maura was speechless. ‘I have just one condition, mind; I have eight of it for the season ticket for the football for the lads and myself – our Harry, he deserves that.’

  ‘Five hundred pounds…’ She let the words roll around her mouth. ‘Five hundred pounds, Tommy, that’s such a relief! Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been worried sick about whether or not you’d be taken on down at the docks or if we would have enough to manage until you got work.’

  ‘Because I wanted to show you that I’m not the useless eejit you think I am, that’s all.’

  Maura squeezed her husband’s hand. As the realisation sank in that all was not lost, Maura had felt a thrill of excitement run through her while the ship blew its horn to let Liverpool know they were approaching as the jetty came into sight.

  ‘It’s a good thing, Tommy, to know where we belong. It’s good for the kids too. They know everyone on the four streets and everyone knows them; there’s no one to judge them, everyone has the same. We all know what it’s like to go without and kindness comes from that. It may have cost us to find it out, but at least now we know where we belong and isn’t that a richness in itself? And to think, we have the five hundred pounds to add to it! I feel like the luckiest woman in the world.’

  Tommy felt a lump in his throat. Any other woman would have made his life a misery for spending all they had on the Talk of the Town and only getting half of it back, but not his Maura, who always looked for the good in every situation.

  Now, as the taxi passed by the shops on one side and the warehouses on the other, Maura’s thoughts turned to more immedia
te problems.

  ‘Tommy, I hope to God Kathleen is still up to get a drink for the kids. I’m gasping meself.’

  Tommy nuzzled her neck. ‘Mind if I nip down to the Anchor, queen? Let them all know I’m back like. Just for the one.’

  Maura knew she could trust Tommy and that he would keep to his word, that it would be just for the one; nonetheless, her answer was unequivocal. She looked straight into his eyes and said, ‘No, you flamin’ can’t. You can get this lot unloaded into the house and get the fire lit – we left coal in the hole, if it’s still there – while I take the kids to Kathleen’s.’

  Tommy leant over and whispered, ‘I’m not done with you yet, Mrs Doherty. Don’t think you are off the hook tonight.’

  Maura elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Tommy, stop! Do you think I’m as big an eejit as you are?’

  ‘Ah, go on, Maura, will you? Let me have one jar, for I’m desperate to see Jer and it’s darts night, so they will all be in there. Can’t have the lads thinking I’ve snuck back like a thief in the night, can I? They’ll think I have something to hide. Let me be the big man for just one night, buy everyone a pint. Besides, I need to know what ships are coming in, what work is on. No time to waste.’

  Maura was losing patience with him. ‘Something to hide? You have,’ she said, and there was no mercy in her tone. ‘Tell them about the monster, Cleary, how our Harry nearly died, and then there’ll be no question why we’ve come back home. Or, if you like, tell them that it rained for six months and we’ve all grown a set of gills.’ Her voice caught and she turned and looked out of the window, not wanting Angela to see the tears that had sprung into her eyes.

  Tommy slipped his hand across her back and kissed her on the cheek. ‘You’re tired,’ he said. ‘Go on, Maura, just one pint and I’ll give you a treat when I get back home.’

  Maura squirmed away from him. ‘Tommy, the kids! Do you have no shame? And have you not heard, big-man-buying-everyone-a-drink, a fool and his money are easily parted?’ Tommy grinned and kissed her on the neck again. This time she elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

  ‘Don’t you dare try and get your own way! No, Tommy, you are not going to the pub. You’ve lived in one for the past six months, it won’t hurt you to have a night off. Help me drop the kids at Kathleen’s and Angela and Niamh can sleep in the bed with Nellie, the boys on the floor.’

  They were both steeled for the fact that there would be no beds aired in their own house and that they would struggle to get warm for a couple of nights until the bricks of the house had warmed. It was months since the fire was lit and the house would be damp through.

  Harry was the next to wake up and in an instant had his mother’s attention. ‘How are you feeling, little fella?’ she asked him.

  ‘Are we here?’ He asked the same question they had all asked repeatedly since they had left the Talk of the Town.

  Tommy ruffled his hair. ‘We are, lad, look out of the window.’

  Harry leant forward and rubbed the window with his jacket for a clearer view. ‘Da! There’s the docks and there’s two ships in. Oh, I’ve never seen that one before, it has two funnels. I’m going to be a sailor, Mam, when I grow up,’ he said to Maura.

  ‘Oh no you are not, Harry, you are never going to be out of your mam’s sight for that long, I can tell you.’

  Tommy gently nudged Harry away from the window. ‘I’ve no idea what that ship is,’ he said, ‘but Maura, Captain Conor’s is next to it and you know what that means?’

  ‘There’s the Anchor, Da,’ said Angela, and as they coasted alongside the pub, someone walked out of the door, throwing a light out onto the yard in front.

  Tommy rubbed his hands together; he hadn’t felt happier since before Kitty had died. ‘Aye, aye!’ He leant closer to the window. ‘Maggie Trott’s walking into the Anchor with Cindy and Reg – things have changed around here, Maura, since we left.’

  Maura sat bolt upright and pushed Angela out of the way. ‘Mind, let me see,’ she said as she peered through the window. ‘It is, and she’s wearing heels and where did she get that coat from? I have never seen Maggie in the pub ever!’

  ‘Well, maybe she was just waiting for us to leave before she let her hair down. Turn right here, pal,’ Tommy called to the taxi driver.

  Maura’s eyes never left Maggie Trott. ‘She’s been mourning her husband that long. I never thought I’d see her in the pub in a month of Sundays, maybe she has a new fella?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, Maura, but I’d find out and come back and let you know if you let me go for a pint…’ The taxi driver caught Maura’s eye in the rear-view mirror; they all knew Maura would not be able to resist that line. ‘I’ll catch up on with what’s what, all the gossip like, and I’ll be back in no time to tell you it all. Go on, Maura, you know you’d be in there yourself to find out if it wasn’t for the kids.’

  Maura rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, go on, you! Just get the cases in, drop me and the kids at Kathleen’s, and off you go.’

  ‘I’ll drop you back on my way down, pal,’ the taxi driver said.

  Tommy exclaimed, ‘Would you mind? That would be just grand and save me the walk.’

  And at that moment, Maura knew. ‘Hang on a minute! The pair of you planned this, didn’t you? Did he ask you to do that when he called you over at the Pier Head? Tommy Doherty, you think I came down with the last shower, don’t you?’

  She leant forward with her hand on the driver’s seat as they pulled up outside 42 Nelson Street and he protested, none-too-convincingly, ‘What, me? No, I know nothing! But welcome back home to Liverpool, everyone!’

  *

  Kathleen felt moved to tears and covered in shame when she walked into Peggy’s house, carrying seven paper bags of Simpson’s mixed sweets in her hand. Three of the children were sobbing and little Paddy was trying to placate them. The fire was out, the range was dead, it was dark and the house smelt of hopelessness and despair.

  ‘Have you not switched the lights on, Paddy?’ said Kathleen as she took in what was before her and sprang into action. ‘Nellie, take the coal bucket and go down to the coal hole and see what you can find. If there’s none, go to Shelagh and tell her I’ll send little Paddy round with a bucketful from ours to replace it tomorrow.’ Kathleen flicked the toggle on the switch, but there was no light.

  ‘The meter ran out,’ said little Paddy.

  Kathleen opened her purse and gave him four sixpences. ‘Top the meter up, Paddy,’ she said and shouted after her granddaughter, ‘Nellie, bring me some milk and tea and sugar from our house.’ Then, as she placed the sweets on the table, she turned to the Nolan boys. ‘Has everyone washed their hands like I asked?’ The row of little boys nodded their heads, barely able to believe their eyes. ‘Right then, here’s your sweets.’ The boys stopped their crying and, wide-eyed and excited, began to take their sweets from the table.

  ‘Did you find Mam at St Cuthbert’s?’ asked little Paddy. ‘Is she coming?’

  ‘I did,’ Kathleen lied. ‘She just had a few more games to go and then she will be home, but I want this lot in bed by then.’

  Half an hour later, Kathleen had a fire almost blazing, the sixpences were in the meter, the lights were on and Peggy’s boys sat in a semi-circle in front of the fire, laughing and filling their faces with sweets, Nellie helping the youngest. Kathleen had a good poke about the kitchen. The bread crock was empty, the cold shelf was bare – there was not a scrap of food or a drop of milk to be had. Kathleen placed the milk Nellie had returned with on the cold shelf then opened each of the drawers and was amazed to see that the cutlery had gone. She opened the smallest drawer in the press where she knew that Peggy kept the rent book and the letter with the dock board address on the top caught her eye. ‘Aye aye, what’s this, then?’

  Peering over the top of her glasses, what she was reading began to sink in and it felt as though icy water trickled down her spine. Holy Mother of God, Peggy and the children and her lazy good-for-nothing husband were being
evicted. They’d be out on the street on Friday morning.

  ‘Paddy…’ Little Paddy was stuffing an Everton mint into his mouth and looked over. ‘Paddy, has your mam said anything to you about this Friday? About anything special that might be happening?’ Little Paddy looked confused and shook his head. ‘All right, love, don’t you be worrying.’

  Kathleen took a deep sigh; she would need to talk to Jerry about this, but he was in the Anchor and Kathleen had a more pressing problem: holding a family together and keeping a roof over Peggy and her children in the very short time she had left.

  ‘Paddy, I’m putting some more money here in the bread crock. In the morning, you go and buy some bread, butter, sugar and jam.’

  Little Paddy felt as though it was Christmas morning and he felt tears burn at his eyes without knowing why. Before Peggy had left, they’d had the best tea in months. Now they had sweets and the house was bright and warm, but the nagging worry was still at the back of his mind. ‘Kathleen, is Ma all right?’

  Kathleen felt her heart lurch for him. ‘Of course she is, Paddy, your mam’s just got a few things on her plate, but we’re going to get those sorted out. The shopping, can you remember that? There’s a good lad.’ She ruffled little Paddy’s hair and left the house with a heavy heart.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Alice could hear a murmuring of voices out in the yard and a shuffling of feet as Nellie and Kathleen told her all that they had found around at Peggy’s house.

  ‘What can we do now?’ asked Alice. ‘Shall I make them some griddle scones? I can’t leave because of Joseph but I have the buttermilk I got from Eric this morning.’

  Nellie, desperate to do more to help, clapped her hands. ‘Yes, I’ll help.’

  Kathleen nodded. ‘I’m going to give it another hour and then I’m going to the pub to fetch Jerry and ask him what we will do, but, sure, look, it’s gone eight; she’ll be back soon enough wherever she is. Peggy would never leave her kids for long, she’ll be back.’