The thin wooden arm of the chair dug painfully into her backside, numbing it, but she didn’t stir or break the spell. She shuffled slightly and re-crossed her legs, worried that even her slightest fidget would stem his flow, but he carried on, jumping from Harriet to Kathleen and Jerry without pausing for breath.
‘Kathleen and Jer, they have been good to us. Better than our own family even. As God is true, no one ever had better neighbours than we do, thank God. What can we ever do to repay them? It is beyond me. I have nothing to repay a man who has burdened himself with the debt Jerry has on my behalf. He could be in prison, Maura, and, surely to God, without Kathleen these kids would have starved. I have no notion or recollection of the first few weeks. Do ye, Maura?’
Maura shook her head.
‘Has the cat got yer tongue? Are ye fecking dumb all of a sudden?’ said Tommy with a hint of surprise. It wasn’t often that he was allowed to talk for so long without being interrupted. He looked up at Maura with suspicion.
‘I’d rather he had my tongue than your langer,’ Maura replied.
Tommy put his arm round Maura’s waist and pulled her down onto his lap. The springs underneath the thin cushion groaned with their dual weight and they both rocked with laughter. They could now laugh about the dead priest and without guilt too. It felt strange and, at the same time, right. They hadn’t laughed together for months. In the midst of their merriment the thought came to Maura: we are healing.
Tommy had complained about Harriet, but with affection. No one could do anything other than agree to whatever it was she asked.
It was impossible to refuse. Her manner was always so charming, and she implored in a way that made grown men melt and women feel sorry for her.
‘Oh, I would love a cup of tea, thank you, Maura,’ Harriet now replied.
‘’Tis a cuppa round here, Harriet, and ye don’t have to thank me or stand on ceremony in my kitchen. Take the weight off your feet and sit down. The kettle is always on and we can spare a bit of tea. I’ll even put fresh leaves in the pot as we have a guest.’ Maura lifted the lid on the large tin teapot and peered inside. ‘These leaves have been used three times today already, weak as a maiden’s piss they will be by now.’
Maura set the kettle back on the range, where it simmered away all day and took only seconds to boil. Harriet, a maiden, was already blushing.
‘Mary and Joseph, would ye look who is coming down the path,’ said Maura. ‘I swear to God she hears the clatter of the kettle on the range, that one, and pops in here to save the job of making herself a cuppa. Or, more like, she heard the back gate when ye arrived and has come for a nose to see who it is.’
Maura stopped talking just as Peggy opened the back door. As soon as Peggy saw Harriet by the fire, a look of disappointment crossed her face and she cried out, ‘Oh, Jesus, no. I only came in for a cuppa tea and now I’m going to walk out with work to do. Fecking hell, how did that happen?’
‘No, no,’ Harriet said, as both her hands flew to her mouth in horror. ‘I must have a terrible reputation for bothering people. I am here for something entirely different altogether, although I will admit there is a reason.’
Peggy didn’t have time to respond, before Nana Kathleen joined them.
‘Well now, a pow wow and no one invited me?’ she said as she bustled in and placed a bulky white paper bag on Maura’s press.
‘Goodness me, it’s like Lime Street station in here, it’s so busy,’ said Harriet.
‘Aye, this kitchen was very rarely empty at one time,’ said Maura. ‘Some of the kids on the four streets used to be confused about where they lived, because their mothers spent so much time nattering round my kitchen table. My house has always been full of kids and friends and I don’t have a problem with that now. My neighbours have been good to me, so they have.’
Harriet felt mildly embarrassed. She hadn’t met or known Kitty, although she wished she had, as Maura might then have felt a closer connection to her. Harriet was always on the lookout for a lost soul to heal. She was as close as she could be to Kathleen’s granddaughter, Nellie, and she knew they were aware of the role she had played in helping Nellie recover. It was that which made it possible for her to pluck up the courage to knock on Maura’s door, seeking an answer to a question that was burning away in her mind.
‘It wasn’t a pow wow five minutes ago, Kathleen,’ said Maura, ‘but sure, ’tis about to become one. Peggy, go and knock on for Sheila and Deirdre with the mop, and tell them we have a guest. I feel guilty, them not being here.’
Peggy looked grumpy, but she stood up from the kitchen chair where she had made herself comfortable, preparing to waddle back into her own kitchen to bang the mop on her wall and send out the call.
‘How do ye reckon I let them know there’s a guest? D’ye think I bang on the wall in fecking Morse code now?’ Unused to such raw language, Harriet blushed again.
They sat and listened to her footsteps shuffle down the yard, until they heard the back gate latch snap. Then Kathleen and Maura both began to laugh.
‘Gosh, she was cross,’ said Harriet.
‘Not at all, no, she wasn’t. Don’t you be taking no notice of Peggy now,’ said Maura. ‘Peggy never stops grumbling. She’s all right. Right as rain she will be in five minutes when she comes back in. There are a few things ye need to know about Peggy. She hates to move her backside and she loves her tea and cake. Apart from that, there’s not a lot to her.’
‘Apart from the smell,’ Kathleen whispered and winked at Harriet.
‘That’s the reason I’m here, to be honest,’ said Harriet.
‘What, because of the way Peggy smells?’ exclaimed Nana Kathleen.
‘No, no. I wanted your advice, Maura. I’d like to get to know a bit more about the neighbours. Alison and I are good friends, but I want to know everyone else too.’
‘Well, ye have come to the right place to be sure,’ said Maura. ‘We can do that. We can provide all the advice ye need and tell ye everything you need to know about everyone around here. There’s nothing we don’t know about on these four streets, isn’t that a fact, Kathleen?’
Kathleen smiled. ‘’Tis true. Now, tell me, Harriet, ye haven’t taken the veil and yet there’s no husband in yer life. Why is that now?’
Harriet gasped. She had known people in Liverpool were direct and to the point, but she had at least expected them to be onto their second cuppa before being asked such deeply personal questions.
‘Well, I have never taken to anyone, I suppose, and no one has ever taken to me. I had to look after Mammy and Daddy until they died. I don’t know really. I was so busy and time just flew and then there I was, on my way to Liverpool with Anthony and no husband to speak of. I would love to be married and have children, but I expect it is too late now, though.’
Kathleen or Maura were saved from having to answer by the sound of the back gate opening and familiar chatter flooding the yard. The kitchen was crowded within minutes. Neighbours, old and new, sat round the yellow Formica table that had once belonged to Bernadette. The precious Formica table with which Maura refused to part, no matter how large her family grew.
Sheila had spotted Daisy, leaving the school office, and had called her over to join them.
Kathleen helped Maura pour the tea at the range.
‘I bought the kids some custard slices in Sayers, your Harry loves them. They are in that bag on the press for when they get home from school.’
‘Kathleen, ye spoil them kids but they do love it,’ said Maura, smiling.
‘Aye, well, they deserve a bit of spoiling with what they have been through,’ replied Kathleen, pouring from the sterilized-milk bottle into the cups.
Kathleen nodded her head in the direction of the table.
‘I will have ye a penny, that Harriet is here with troubles of the heart. I can hear it in her voice. Hope these is fresh tea leaves as we might have to give her a little reading.’
Maura wanted to say, ‘Harrie
t, no,’ but she knew better. Nana Kathleen was never wrong.
Life on the four streets was mundane. It was about survival and making ends meet. Harriet had lived in a large house in Dublin and had been brought up in a professional household. Her brother was a priest. She was a cut above. She wore stockings every day, never ever went outside her front door with curlers in her hair, and she carried a handbag with a fresh handkerchief in it at all times.
Harriet was a source of fascination to the women of the four streets, especially to Peggy.
‘So, is there anyone takes ye fancy now?’ she asked.
Harriet spluttered, ‘Well, that was why I came to see Maura, er, there is and I have no idea what to do. And Alison, she told me Maura and Kathleen know the answer to everything, including things that haven’t even happened yet. She was very mysterious, though, and wouldn’t say why.’
Kathleen now spoke.
‘Put three spoons of sugar in your tea, queen, drink it up as quick as yer can and then, with the last dregs, rinse them round your teacup three times, making a wish. Tip the cup up on the saucer, quick now, and then pass it to me. I will read your fortune and then we can decide what you should do.’
Harriet looked horrified. ‘Read my tea leaves? Isn’t that a sin?’
‘Well, if it is, Harriet, we are all going to hell together. Tell me now, how do ye think your friend Alison got her man down the aisle? Do ye think she has never sat round this table and passed me her teacup?’
Harriet’s hand shook as she spooned the sugar into her tea. If Alison had done it, she would too.
‘No one must tell Anthony, though,’ she added quickly before drinking her scalding tea as fast as she could. Then she told them all about Mr Manning. His caliper, his war wounds and his sad eyes.
‘I’m sorry to burden you all but I don’t know what to do. It is the first time I’ve been stuck. I usually know how to solve a problem and now it is just about me and I have no idea.’
Maura reached out and placed her hand over Harriet’s. ‘Don’t worry, Harriet. If there is a way, we will find it here round this table, as we have done so many times with so many problems. I’m sure Alison won’t mind me saying, but she was heartbroken when she called here to see me and Nana Kathleen. And do you know what?’
There was a sharp intake of breath as everyone leant forward and gasped, ‘What?’ at exactly the same time.
‘Alison met Howard two weeks after she walked out of this back door, having had her reading. You don’t know about Bernadette, Harriet, but she was my best friend, Nellie’s mother and Jerry’s wife. This is her table we are sitting at.’
‘We know it’s our Bernadette, and she works through Nana Kathleen. She will get ye sorted, have no worry about that,’ said Maura.
Harriet felt scared and exhilarated at the same time. It was true, Alison had urged her to visit Maura, but hadn’t said why. If she had, Harriet would probably never have come.
Nana Kathleen picked up Harriet’s cup. ‘Now then,’ she said. ‘I see him here, right in the middle of your cup.’
Harriet gasped and put her hand to her throat.
‘He’s not really in there,’ said Peggy, looking sideways at Harriet, slightly alarmed at how frightened she looked. ‘It’s just the shape Bernadette makes in the tea leaves for Nana Kathleen that makes it look like him.’
‘He works in a tall government building,’ Nana Kathleen continued. ‘He can’t work today, as his mind is distracted and he keeps thinking about a woman he met recently who has turned his head. He hasn’t eaten his lunch either. It is there on his desk in front of him, still wrapped in greaseproof paper, unopened. He feels sick and doesn’t know what to do. He is daydreaming about her, about the things they could do together if he was brave enough to ask if he could court her, but he is too afraid in case she should say no. He thinks his caliper and walking stick would turn a woman off.’
A tear ran down Harriet’s cheek. Maura jumped up to comfort her. ‘Shush, don’t cry,’ she said. ‘I know, it really gets to you, doesn’t it? Alison was just the same.’
Everyone watched as Harriet undid the clasp of her handbag and took out her white linen handkerchief edged in lace. No one had ever seen such a pretty hankie.
‘Well, ’tis as clear as the nose on yer face if ye ask me,’ said Nana Kathleen. ‘Ye organize everyone else, Harriet, and ye boss us all about with yer fêtes and committees and the Rose Queen. There’s a man out there waiting to be organized by ye, I would say, and so ye had better get cracking. Ask him to join ye for a cuppa down by the docks. There’s a nice café where Jerry proposed to Bernadette, not fancy, mind, but if Bernadette is helping us, I reckon she will make sure there’s a bit of magic around on the day.’
‘Well,’ said Peggy, leaning back on her chair and folding her arms across her ample bosom. ‘I’ll say this, Kathleen, that is good advice, an’ all. The only advice anyone ever gave me, before I met my Paddy, was to never trust a man who doesn’t like potatoes, and, surely to God, what a ridiculous piece of advice that was. There was never a man in all of Ireland who didn’t like his tatties now, was there?’
‘Aye, and yer still chose Paddy,’ said Kathleen.
The clock chimes could barely be heard over their laughter. Maura stood to refill the teacups as Deirdre asked Kathleen, ‘Will ye do mine? Will I need to put more money in the club for Christmas or will I have enough?’
‘Oh, my goodness me,’ Harriet squealed. ‘I have a meeting in town about an organizing committee for the cathedral they are planning to build.’
And with that, her chair was scraped back, her hat scooped up from the chair where she had placed it earlier, and she was heading for the back door, but not before running back to give Maura and Kathleen a hug.
They sat and waited silently until they heard the back gate slam.
Deirdre lit up a cigarette and narrowed her eyes against the haze of blue smoke. ‘Reckon she’ll be having her leg over within six months, that one.’ Then she frowned, crossing her eyes to look down her nose. Picking a stray shred of tobacco from the tip of her extended tongue with her fingertip and thumb and flicking it into the ashtray, she added, ‘Not before he takes his caliper off first, mind.’
And with that, the laughter continued, just as it always had, year after year.
Nana Kathleen joined in. She had no intention of telling anyone she’d had a nice little chat with Mr Manning after the meeting about the nursery. As for the rest of it, she had no idea where her words had come from. She didn’t have a clue whether or not he took his sandwiches to work in greaseproof paper and normally she shied away from providing such detail.
But she felt in her heart what had really happened. There was no other explanation. Bernadette was back.
Nana Kathleen had been wondering where she had gone to. She seemed to have left them all for some time now. The catastrophic sequence of events that had hit them with the force of a tank had broken the spell.
First Alice had left, then Kitty had died and finally Brigid had moved away. All within days. It felt as though Bernadette had vanished too. No ghostly sightings, no feeling that she had joined them. Nothing.
Maura began collecting up the dirty cups for a quick rinse.
‘No doubt we shall all have another round now,’ she said as she carried them over to the sink.
And for the second time in twenty-four hours, Maura thought once again, I am healing.
Daisy had sat silent throughout the chatter but had joined in the laughter. She wondered what her life would have been if her parents had never placed her in the convent, believing her to be simple, for no other reason than following a difficult birth, she struggled as a baby. Maggie had told her it was a common practice, but Daisy still asked herself, why?
‘I won’t have any tea, thank you, Maura,’ she said when asked. ‘I have to go and meet the police at the Priory at half past.’
‘The police, why?’ asked Nana Kathleen, more than a little interested.
Maura had returned to the table, carrying the dripping cups by their handles, three in each hand. ‘Harriet didn’t mention that. Does she know?’
‘I don’t know,’ Daisy replied. ‘The police said they would telephone the Priory to let them know. I have to take them down into the cellar and give them the key to the safe.’
‘What key?’ said Nana Kathleen. ‘If ye have the key, doesn’t Father Anthony have one too?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m sure I have the only one and, besides, I don’t think he would find the safe. Only me and Molly Barrett knew where it was and Molly only knew because I showed her. It’s behind the bricks in the cellar. The police say ’tis very important they have everything that is in it.’
It was a full minute after Daisy had left the kitchen before Peggy said, ‘Fecking hell, she’s a dark horse, that one.’
Maura sipped her tea and, taking out the cigarette packet from her apron pocket, she removed the last one.
Maura held her hand out to Peggy and, without the need for words, Peggy gave Maura the lit cigarette from her lips for Maura to light her own.
‘She’s that, all right,’ Maura said as she exhaled. ‘Daisy and her Maggie.’
Astonished, everyone looked at Maura, awaiting an explanation.
Maura milked the moment. She liked this feeling, being first with the news. Walking to the hearth, she screwed up the empty cigarette packet and threw it onto the fire. Her face took on a warm glow from the sudden rush of flame.
Resting her forehead on the mantelshelf, with one hand in her front apron pocket and the other still holding her cigarette, she stared intently at the blaze. A small piece of foil from inside the packet had curled up on itself, refusing to catch alight, and now it dropped down into the ashes, where Maura would brush it away in the morning.
‘Who the hell is Maggie?’ six women asked in unison.
Maura walked back to the table and, as she sat, she smiled. ‘Well, then.’
It was going to be a long pow wow today.
21
FATHER ANTHONY WAS far from happy at having to leave the new cathedral community meeting. Archbishops and bishops were attending from all over Europe and he was excited about meeting his friend from Rome.
The Four Streets Saga Page 87