Coming Home to the Four Streets

by Nadine Dorries

  Babs, listening, grinned and took a packet of arrows from the shelf next to the till and held them out to Reg who took them willingly. ‘Right, I know my place, I’ll take these drinks over and then we’ll go and find the dart board.’ Reg winked at Babs and scooped up the three drinks into his hands.

  ‘I’ll be over in a moment,’ said Eric. He wanted to make sure Reg told Maggie in advance and she was comfortable with the idea.

  *

  ‘Here you are ladies,’ Reg said as he approached the table. ‘Cindy, we’re needed for a game of arrows.’

  ‘Thank you, Reg,’ Maggie said. She had known that Reg wouldn’t sit with them but felt suddenly alarmed that Cindy was about to leave her also.

  ‘Oh, don’t thank me, it was bought for you by an admirer, Maggie,’ said Reg.

  ‘An admirer, already? Who?’ said Cindy, amazed, and craned her neck towards the bar, but it was Maggie who spotted him first, raising his glass to her. Eric!

  ‘Oh, God, it’s the milky, I thought you meant a real fella then, I thought your luck had changed, Maggie.’ Cindy laughed before picking up her own drink and taking a sip, then continued, ‘Imagine his Gladys letting him out. I told him he needed to get out to the pub – he’s another one letting his life slip past him. He’s a really good man, is Eric, but I swear to God, that wife of his will see him into the ground, she makes his life that miserable.’ Cindy leant forward and whispered, ‘Everyone knows he lives a dog’s life with Gladys and I think the poor man is on the edge.’

  Maggie raised her drink to her lips and recalled her conversation with Eric that morning. ‘Are you watching that show, Coronation Street, on the television tonight?’ Eric had asked as he walked back to the cart.

  She had hesitated before she replied, her first instinct not to speak out loud her betrayal of martyrdom and admit she was going out to the Anchor with Cindy and Reg. ‘No, not tonight, I don’t think so,’ she had faltered.

  ‘Why not?’ he’d asked. ‘Got other plans?’

  She had taken a breath, pushed the cat back indoors, smoothed down her sleeve, avoided his eyes and then decided to be truthful; she had no idea how she had been so bold, ‘Well, actually, I’m going to the pub with Cindy and Reg.’

  Eric had looked so surprised she thought he was about to faint. ‘Which one? The Anchor?’

  She nodded, her mouth dry. He didn’t speak either and, instead, picking up the reins had said, ‘Walk on, Daisy,’ leaving her feeling incredibly foolish. But now here he was in the pub and he had known she would be there too. He was smiling at her, he had bought her a drink – and there was no doubt about it, admiration was shining from his eyes. She felt her heart pounding as he walked towards their table.

  ‘Eric, what a sight for sore eyes you are,’ said Cindy. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come.’

  ‘Well, a suggestion is as good as any order from you, Cindy,’ said Eric.

  ‘Right, Cindy,’ Eric laughed, ‘they need our help. They want a woman on the arrows.’

  Cindy inclined her head towards Maggie. ‘Reg, I can’t, I’ve got Maggie with me.’ Cindy would never leave Maggie on her own.

  ‘I’ll sit here with Maggie and look after her, if you would like to play, Cindy,’ Eric said.

  Cindy looked to Maggie for approval. ‘Do you mind?’ she asked.

  Maggie shook her head. ‘Of course not,’ she replied as she took another sip of her drink.

  Eric smiled down at her. He was wearing a cable knit sweater and unlike the other men in the bar who wore caps, his head was bare. His shoulders were broad and Maggie realised that his hat had hidden his good looks; with his dark hair and beard, he was a very handsome man. Maggie gulped on her port and lemon and had to stop herself when she realised she had swallowed almost half a glass. As Cindy walked away to join the arrows team, only Babs saw the wink that passed between Reg and Eric and the pat Reg gave Eric on the shoulder.

  Eric placed his pint on the upturned barrel. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said as he sat and straddled the seat. The noise of the chatter swirled around them and Maggie felt as though they were sitting in a bubble, because all she could hear was Eric… She managed a smile.

  ‘No, not at all, not just this once,’ she teased as she raised her glass. ‘Thank you for the drink.’ He raised his own pint glass and clinked it against the side of her own. ‘You are a married man, after all,’ she said.

  Eric had no response to that. He had stolen money from his own house to be here, had to run like a thief in the night to escape. He took in Maggie’s hair, her make-up. ‘You look stunning,’ he said. ‘Nothing like the Mrs Trott who gives me my tea each morning. Mind, she’s a looker too.’

  Maggie grimaced. ‘It’s Maggie,’ she said quickly, ‘you know that.’

  He smiled. ‘I was only teasing,’ he said. ‘So, here’s another question: who is it I will be seeing in the morning, Mrs Trott or the new Maggie?’

  With an audacity Maggie did not know she possessed, she returned his gaze full on and his eyes never wavered from their target.

  ‘Maggie, if you like,’ she said. Her mouth was dry, her head light, she wasn’t sure who was talking, her or almost empty glass of port and lemon. His brown eyes devoured her face, and she felt their approving appraisal bore into her very soul.

  ‘Just once is it, did you say?’

  She sipped the last of her drink before she replied; she knew exactly what she was committing to and she was ready. ‘Yes, just once. I’ll try anything, just the once,’ she replied. ‘You never know, it might be enough.’

  The frisson between them sizzled and to Maggie it felt as though the air had left the room. Her breath froze as her pulse raced.

  ‘I’ll refill these,’ he said as he picked up her glass. ‘We can have another before we leave.’

  Maggie’s breath caught in her chest and her stomach lurched. Before we leave… He had said it out loud, converted her fantasies and flirtations into an impending deed and, as he left for the bar he turned and said, ‘Once would never be enough for me, Maggie.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  It had taken only seconds for Shelagh to run to Deirdre Malone’s house, even with a baby on her hip. She left doors open and a bin scattering in her wake and gasped the words out before she was even fully in the kitchen as the door flew open with Shelagh virtually swinging on the latch. ‘Deirdre, have you heard the news?’ She had intended to savour in the delight of holding something over Deirdre, but, carried away in the moment, she blurted out, ‘Maura and Tommy are back, for good. Can you believe it?’

  ‘No they’re not,’ Deirdre said, as cool as a cucumber.

  ‘They are, I’m telling you. Seamus came back for his pipe and told me. I saw Nellie with my own eyes. The kids came for a shovel of coal and I asked them, what do you want it for and they said, Peggy was short and Maura’s back. Honest to God, she’s in Kathleen’s but I don’t think we will see her now until tomorrow, it’s so late.’

  Deirdre took her coat down from the kitchen door. ‘Oh, I think we will. I need to see this with my own eyes. Malachi!’ Deirdre shouted up the stairs. ‘Get down here in the kitchen until your da gets back and watch the kids don’t make a mess.’

  Shelagh juggled the baby onto her other hip. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked. ‘We can’t just go into Kathleen’s, she’s not knocked on with the mop yet.’

  Deirdre fastened her headscarf under her chin. ‘No, and she won’t, will she? It’s bloody Maura, always calling the shots, but no one’s slept in Maura’s house for months, there’s no beds made. We can go and start getting it ready for her and that way we will have to see her, won’t we? They can’t leave us out because that wouldn’t look very nice, would it? Mary, put that mop down, you’re coming with us.’

  Shelagh looked twice at the girl. ‘Holy Mother of God, Mary, what happened to your hair?’

  ‘Don’t ask,’ said Deirdre. ‘God alone knows what Eugene will say when he sees the state of it, and she paid
Cindy good money for that.’

  Mary was about to say that she hadn’t at all. That Cindy hadn’t taken a penny off her, but instead she kept quiet and said, ‘I can’t, Mam. I’ll have to go and fetch Biddy from the Seaman’s Stop. Malcolm has a full house tonight from one of the ships and she’s down there, helping.’

  Deirdre wasn’t listening, she was already away and out of the door. Shelagh, in her wake, popped her head back around the door and said, ‘Mary, your hair looks lovely, so it does!’ and as quick as a flash, she was gone.

  An hour later, they had almost finished preparing the house for Maura’s return and were slightly disappointed not to have been summoned, especially as Harry and little Paddy had arrived to see who was in the house and would obviously carry the news back to Maura that they were already there and using their own initiative. It had taken them less than an hour to do what would have taken a tired Maura much longer to complete alone. During the turning of the mattresses, the making of the beds and the lighting of the fires in both bedrooms, there had been a prolonged exchange.

  ‘It seems to me, Shelagh, that if you’ve got a bit of money, you don’t want to go and spend it on an empty house, do you? It’s obvious they always intended to come back, isn’t it?’

  Shelagh was confused. ‘I suppose so, because look at this place. Kathleen has been coming in once a week since they left and giving it the once-over. In fact, she had the nets out last week and there’s nothing for us to do other than make the beds and light the fires. So Kathleen must have known, mustn’t she? Or she probably read it in the tea leaves – that’s the thing about Kathleen, she knows what’s coming before the rest of us do. Nothing’s a surprise to her. She can see into the future, ’tis a great gift she has.’

  ‘Ma,’ the back door opened and one of Shelagh’s children ran in shouting up the stairs, ‘you’ve got to go to Kathleen’s now! She’s banging on with the mop and it’s three knocks.’

  Shelagh picked her baby up from the floor and straightened her back with some effort. ‘We’re doing the beds. Tell her no one needed to tell us what to do, it’s all done and dusted and when is Maura coming down?’

  ‘Ma, she knows you’re here, Nellie told her, Kathleen says you’ve got to come, right now!’

  Deirdre tutted. ‘There you go, Shelagh, we’ve been summoned. Finally, we get to see Queen Maura – and you see, that’s the other thing about Maura, we get her house ready for her, but we have to go and have a formal introduction at Kathleen’s house. She thinks she’s flamin’ royalty, that one.’

  *

  It took only minutes for Kathleen’s house to fill and to calm everyone down due to the surprise at Maura’s return.

  ‘Oh, it was no surprise to us, was it, Shelagh?’ said Deirdre. ‘The minute Shelagh told me, I said, right, come on then, Shelagh, she will have tired kids on her hands to deal with and I knew those beds would need making.’

  Deirdre had never been Maura’s favourite neighbour, but she was grateful that Deirdre had done exactly what Maura would have done had the boot been on the other foot. ‘Thank you, Deirdre, that’s good of you. It’s nice to know nothing and no one has changed.’

  Deirdre folded her arms and preened. ‘We’ve turned the beds down and lit the fires in both of the bedrooms. It’s a good job you came back in May; it’s not too bad at all in there, just a bit damp maybe, but the fires are fierce so the house will soon be as warm as toast. The range is lit so you’ll have hot water too and I’ve left the kettle warming on the corner.’

  Annie O’Prey came in through the back door and clapped her hands together. ‘Well, would you look at what the cat’s dragged in!’ she exclaimed.

  Maura felt tears spring to her eyes and took a deep breath; she was home, amongst the women of the four streets, and she could not have felt more relieved. The women gathered around her, asking a hundred questions, and one thing was certain: everyone was delighted to see her.

  Kathleen clapped her hands. ‘Come on, everyone, there is something more important we have to attend to – Peggy is missing.’

  Deirdre laughed out loud. ‘She can’t be missing, she was walking down the street this afternoon with Shelagh’s pram.’

  Shelagh frowned. ‘Well, actually, little Paddy came to ours hours ago to see had Peggy brought the pram back and she had, but she just pushed it into the wash house; normally she would have come in and cadged a cuppa at the very least. Little Paddy was very worried, but I told him she’s down the bingo.’

  Kathleen shook her head. ‘Our Nellie and I went and checked and I thought maybe she might have gone into town and then I thought how ridiculous that was. She’s only got her slippers. She wouldn’t go on the bus in her slippers.’

  ‘Come on, everyone, you know the drill,’ said Alice as she began to pour the tea. ‘Put plenty of sugar in your cup so that the leaves stick to the side.’

  ‘I’ll put a drop of whiskey in too,’ said Kathleen.

  ‘Sorry we’re late,’ said Biddy who had arrived last with Mary in her wake. ‘If you can’t find Peggy, where is big Paddy?’

  ‘Probably in the Anchor. I’m hoping that if we all read the leaves, we will be able to find a clue in the cups.’

  Everyone fell quiet and an air of seriousness descended upon the kitchen as they waited for the help they had always turned to during a crisis, or simply to get them through hard times. Kathleen’s reading of the tea leaves had guided each woman in managing even the most difficult problems. An unpaid bill, a sick child, an unwanted pregnancy – all were a way of life in the four streets and Kathleen’s kitchen was open for readings every Friday morning. No one knocked at any other time because they knew they would be turned away.

  ‘They would be filling my hands with the sixpences every day of the week instead of the kids’ bellies with food,’ Kathleen said to Alice when anyone knocked on the door, begging her to give them a reading because a mammy back home was ill, or a wage-earning brother was up before a magistrate in Dublin.

  ‘That was a strange turn Peggy took down at the rent office – did Dr Cole say he could do anything?’ asked Biddy as Alice filled her cup.

  Kathleen shook her head. ‘He said no bloody chance of helping with anything, other than trying to get Paddy into work and that her nerves were shot to pieces. He wanted…’ Kathleen dropped her voice, ‘to do an internal, down there.’ It rose again. ‘Wanted to check her fibroids to see if they were any worse but she refused. She was desperate to stop Frank the Skank from moving in next door, that’s what’s upset her, but Dr Cole said there was no chance of that, either.’

  Kathleen, Maura and Alice exchanged a knowing look. They would not reveal the contents of the letter, would not bring further shame down on Peggy’s head. Between them, they would rescue her. They would pay the rent and retrieve the shoes from the pawnshop.

  The air was tense as Maura spoke. ‘I’ve never known Peggy to go anywhere alone; you all know what she’s like, she’d need a bit of company to help her. Has anyone been keeping an eye on her, has she kept up with the bills?’

  Alice slipped the knitted tea cosy over the teapot. ‘We’ve been feeding the kids, Maura. Hardly a day goes by when one of us doesn’t do something. Maggie Trott only really bakes for Peggy’s kids.’

  Maura took a deep breath, her elation at returning home replaced with concern for Peggy. ‘Say a prayer, ladies, as you drink the tea,’ she said, knowing that her first task tomorrow would be confession, to ask forgiveness for having her tea leaves read.

  ‘Saint Maura’s definitely home,’ Deirdre whispered to Shelagh as she took her cup and blew and sipped the tea.

  Five minutes later Kathleen peered into the row of cups lined up before her. ‘Right, did everyone have two sugars?’ she asked as Mary drained the last drop, watching Biddy to see how it was done. It was the first time Mary had been amongst the women in a reading and she now fully absorbed the solemnity and seriousness of the occasion.

  Mary had travelled a long way from
the convent to Kathleen’s kitchen via Cindy’s in a very short time. She had fallen in love – and out of it just as fast – and here she was, a new boundary being crossed, having her teacup read.

  The assembled women leant in close to the table and nodded their heads.

  ‘Right then, let’s go. Three swills to the right and make a wish for your family,’ Kathleen said, and all the women picked up their cups and swilled them to the right. ‘Now, three to the left and make a wish for Ireland, then one for Peggy as you tip, with no hesitation whatsoever, the cup upside down into the saucer.’

  Silence accompanied the solemn cup-swilling until the clattering sound of upturned cups hitting saucers.

  ‘Maura’s right, we have to go to confession for this,’ whispered Shelagh. ‘With us doing it all together, the priest would be mad with us, for isn’t it like a séance?’

  Biddy placed her finger over her lips, telling Shelagh not to speak, but it was too late.

  ‘I need quiet, Shelagh,’ said Kathleen. ‘I can’t find the answers in the middle of chatter.’

  Shelagh’s eyes widened; the atmosphere in the room had changed, fear of the priest was replaced by a thrill of excitement and everyone almost stopped breathing as the warmth of the room was replaced by an icy chill. The candles that Alice had lit and placed on the table, ‘to keep the bad spirits away,’ flickered violently from side to side, as though someone had suddenly opened the back door, but no one had.

  Kathleen took a deep breath and it took all of her willpower and reserve as she looked at Maura and saw, as plain as day, Kitty standing at her shoulder and, on her other side, her first daughter-in-law, Nellie’s mother and Maura’s closest friend, Bernadette, her long red hair iridescent against her whiteness. They had come together and Kathleen knew instinctively that this was not a good thing that they had come to warn her, to help her. Kitty inclined her head towards Maura’s cup. She was urging her to read and Kathleen knew that the message contained within was from them.