“Declan has big plans to turn our two rooms into a shebeen,” Ginie offered quietly while the noise continued outside.
“I beg your pardon?” Ann Marie moved her chair closer to the other two women. She didn’t want to miss any of this and it was hard to hear over the noise outside.
“A shebeen, Ann Marie,” Ivy snapped. “An illegal pub.”
“He has the other lads brewing up poitín day and night,” Ginie went on. “He’s goin’ to offer other things as well.” She looked towards the two children and shrugged.
“In the name of God!” Ivy pushed her two hands through her hair and pulled. She spun and removed the kettle, which had almost boiled dry, from the range. She set it in the grate. The tea could wait for once. She wanted to hear this. She pulled the orange crate close to the table and the three women huddled, heads bent close together.
“That’s Declan out there, isn’t it?” Ivy said.
“Yessss,” Ginie almost hissed. “Him and his two neckless wonders – they’d be the ones kicking doors. Declan loves using an old tin pot and spoon to make as loud a noise as he can. Yeh ought to hear that bloody racket inside, it fair rattles yer brain.” She fell silent, her head almost disappearing into her thin shoulders.
“And? Come on, Ginie, there’s more going on out there in The Lane than you’re telling.” Ivy slapped the table top.
Ann Marie wanted a cigarette, quite badly.
“Declan has been talking ever since he came back about his big plans to make money. He told the men in the pub and all his old cronies that he’d be in business, starting tonight.” Ginie had been at her wits’ end trying to think how she could stop him. “I told Mrs Wiggins what was going on. I’m not going to let him do to me brothers and sisters what he did to me.” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave a sharp nod of her head. She wasn’t sorry for what she’d done.
“What’s happening now?” Ivy and Ann Marie asked together.
“I don’t know.” Ginie glared at the other two women when they gave her looks of disbelief. “I really don’t know. The childer are hidden around The Lane, two each, an older and younger one together in each house. I know that much. Mrs Wiggins told me to keep me nose out of it. I was ordered to hide meself and Seán. She said she’d take care of the rest.”
“I’ll make a big pot of tea and we can drink it in the front room,” said Ivy.
“Ivy,” Ann Marie held out her hand, “give me my cigarettes.”
“Here.” Ivy took Ann Marie’s items from her pocket and passed them over. “You two go into the front room and see if you can figure out what’s going on outside from there. I doubt it but you never know.”
The two children stared with big eyes as the three women almost jumped into action.
“Leave the door open,” Ivy called over her shoulder. She took five jam jars from her supply at the back of one of the bottom cupboards in her dresser. They could all drink their tea from jam jars. She wasn’t about to risk her tea set.
“It’s impossible to see anything from your window, Ivy,” Ann Marie shouted while assembling her cigarette and holder. The window in Ivy’s front room overlooked the concrete cage directly outside Ivy’s basement door. The courtyard was on ground level. “We could open the window and perhaps hear what’s going on.”
“To heck with that!” Ivy had refilled the kettle from the reservoir and returned it to the range top. “Ginie, come watch this kettle for me.” She waited until Ginie stepped back into the room before grabbing her shawl from the end of the bed.
“Right. Everyone keep quiet now. I’m going to have a peek outside.” She pulled her black shawl around her head and shoulders. She hurried through her rooms.
“What are you planning, Ivy?” Ann Marie was standing by the closed window, puffing out clouds of smoke.
“We’ll learn nothing from down here.” Ivy pulled open the inside door. “I’m just going to see if I can see anything. She opened her outside door and crept silently up several steps. There were a lot of people rushing about but without exposing herself Ivy couldn’t make out what was going on. She sighed and turned back towards her rooms.
“Your kettle’s boiling!” Ginie shouted from the back room as soon as Ivy entered.
“Coming!” She was going to have to make the tea in the big black kettle – her metal teapot wasn’t big enough for all these people. She’d sold the big family teapot down the market years ago.
“We’re going to have to go outside and wait to see what’s going on,” Ivy said as soon as she’d made the tea. She moved the heavy kettle to the back of the range. She’d guessed at the amount of tea leaves needed to make a good cup of tea. She’d give it a few minutes to brew. “You two need to put on your outside clothes.”
“Ahh,” Ann Marie’s voice carried from the front room, “we’re going to pop our heads over the parapet.”
“Now’s not the time to be confusing us with your fancy words, Ann Marie,” Ivy snapped, “but if I’ve understood yeh that’s about the gist of it.” She turned her attention to the children. “Right, kids, it’s time to clean up me floor.” She wet a rag and offered it to the fascinated children. “Get all that chalk washed off me floor then hop up on the bed. That floor’s too cold to sit on for long.” She picked her long coat up from the bed and put it on while watching the two children crawl around. Emmy was picking up her chalk and packing it away, Seán was scrubbing the wet rag over the chalk decorations on the floor.
She grabbed one of her wooden chairs and carried it over to place beside the bed. She put the plate which still held a few biscuits on the chair then prepared two milky jam jars of tea. She pulled an old deck of cards belonging to her da from the back of one of her dresser drawers and added that to the items on the chair.
“Right!” Ivy slapped her two hands together and looked around. “You two, up on the bed. Yeh can have yer tea and biscuits then play a game of Snap with them cards. If you get cold climb under the bed covers.”
While the children jumped to obey Ivy prepared three jam jars of hot tea. “We’ll be just outside if yez want anything but I want yez to play nicely here while we’re busy. Understand?”
“Yes, Auntie Ivy.” Emmy nodded her head frantically. There was always something exciting going on in this new life of hers.
“Yes, Ivy.” Seán wasn’t bothered about anything happening. He was fed, warm and dressed like all the other boys. He was happy as a sandboy – he’d heard Mrs Wiggins say that and he liked how it sounded.
“Right.” Ivy had to make two trips to carry the tea into the front room. “I’m the tallest so I’ll stand on the lowest rung of me outside steps. We’ll have to be careful not to be seen – I think if we pop our heads up over ground level out there we should be able to see what’s going on.” She opened the two doors leading outside and, grabbing her hockey stick in one hand and with her tea in the other, began to lead the other two out into the night.
“Ivy, is this wise?” Ann Marie desperately wanted to know what was happening in the courtyard but they’d been ordered to stay behind locked doors.
“I want to know what’s going on,” Ginie sipped at the hot tea. She knew the men of The Lane wouldn’t let her brother lay a hand on her, not now at any rate.
“Come on.” Ivy wasn’t waiting. “Be quiet as you can.”
The three women crept almost silently out of Ivy’s home. They walked carefully up the outside iron steps, each woman choosing a rung that would allow her to see over the rim of the ground level and onto the courtyard. Ivy had to bite into the cloth of her coat to block the gasp that almost escaped her when she saw Brother Theo and Garda Collins standing large as life around one of the four bins that had been lit around the cobbled courtyard. She didn’t think she’d ever seen so many people gathered in the courtyard when there wasn’t a party going on.
There were crowds of women of all ages wrapped up tightly in their shawls, their white faces barely visible as they grouped around the fire-bins. They were holding th
eir hands out to the flames but there was no sound of the usual talking that should be taking place when a group of these women got together. The silence was almost eerie; no men were visible and no children ran around the place.
Ann Marie turned, a silent question on her face as she looked at Ivy. Ivy simply shrugged and gave a jerk of her head towards the scene in front of them. She hadn’t a notion of what was going on out there. They’d just have to wait and see. They stood sipping at their jam jars of hot tea and waited.
They didn’t have long to wait. The noise of men making their way down the tunnel and into The Lane could be heard. The women standing in the courtyard straightened but nothing was said until the men emerged from the tunnel.
“Eddie Campbell,” Marcella Wiggin’s voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silent courtyard, “is that yerself? Shouldn’t you be going home to yer wife and childer?” The man she’d addressed aloud almost tripped over his own feet. “Shay Heffernan, what are you doing down this way? Does your mother know yer out?”
It seemed Marcella’s voice broke the silence and more women started shouting out men’s names. The women added notes of warning and advice for each man they named. The happy crowd of males that had been strolling along with purpose suddenly got a hitch in their stride. Those named by the women dropped their heads and tried to disappear into the crowd, many of them turning around and leaving. Some brave souls continued on into the main body of the courtyard. They’d been promised cheap booze and floozies. They weren’t going home until they’d got what they were promised.
Brother Theo held his hands out to the flame of the fire and watched fascinated as the women of The Lane took control of their world. He was composing the article he would write about this fascinating development. The women were turning these men away without bloodshed but he doubted many of the men would be brave enough to try and come into this area again for illicit purposes.
Garda Barney Collins wished he could make note of the names of some of these men but he was keeping a mental tally. His purpose here this evening, according to Mrs Wiggins, was as a deterrent. That woman would have made a great general; the armed forces lost out by not recruiting women like Marcella Wiggins. She’d organised her troops to within an inch of their lives. The women of The Lane had jumped to obey her every order.
In the back yard of the tenements Declan Johnson was so angry he was almost frothing at the mouth. He and his men had made enough noise to wake the dead but not one person had appeared to complain, still less to hand over his sisters and brothers to him. He’d drag the little bastards out of whatever place they’d found to hide – he refused to believe his useless shower of brothers and sisters had disappeared into thin air. He’d a use for every one of them this evening. It was the opening night of his big money-making business. He’d been rubbing his hands all day. He could practically taste the money he would make from the idiots who would pay for cheap drink and cheaper women. He’d get the fools comfortable and, when they were good and drunk, empty their pockets. He had it all in hand, his grand plan. He’d be able to charge extra for his sisters and some of his brothers if there were any who wanted that sort of thing. He didn’t care what men wanted as long as they paid good money. It was a good plan. He knew it would be a money-making venture: the flesh on sale wasn’t shopworn, yet. But the bloody lot of them were missing. When he got his hands on them he’d soon teach them who was boss around here.
Abandoning their search at the back of the tenements, now he and his men made their way around to the front of the block and the open courtyard.
Jem Ryan stood, with a group of men, inside the barely open doors of his livery. The men were ready for action but they’d been ordered to stay away while the women tried to move the group of visiting men along peacefully. He could almost feel the tension pouring off the men around him as they watched their women face a crowd of men looking for cheap pleasure. He kept his body still but his eyes moved constantly, seeking to find trouble before it could get out of hand. He saw three heads bobbing up and down like seals in the ocean, across at Ivy’s place. He should have known that woman would never obey an order to stay out of trouble. He prayed she’d keep her head well down. This situation could turn ugly very fast.
Declan Johnson emerged from behind the end gable wall of the tenement block and onto the courtyard. He froze in place when he saw the party fires lit. What the hell was going on? He didn’t care – he was going to invite the men he was expecting into his place. He still had the two women he’d trained up in the business and there was plenty of rotgut. This was his night. He was going to show everyone that he was a force to be reckoned with. No shower of old biddies was going to stop him. He was going to be rich. He began to step out of the shadows when he caught sight of a bloody priest warming his hands by the fire. He stared into the night, squinting to get a better look. What the fuck was a Franciscan Friar doing in The Lane? He’d never get the men past a bloody monk. Jesus, was that a member of the Garda standing with that priest? He wanted to throw his head back and roar his frustration to the sky.
Barney Collins caught sight of Declan Johnson out of the corner of his eye. He turned and waited to see what that bowsie would do. He’d like to have a reason to collar that article but his hands were tied because the man hadn’t done anything illegal he could prove, yet.
The women continued to stand around the fires but they were losing heart. They’d managed to run off some of the men but the remaining ones seemed to be gathering courage from each other. They showed no signs of walking away.
Brother Theo had a brain wave. He marched out into the middle of the courtyard, fingering the long string of heavy wooden beads that hung from the waist of his brown wool habit and in a loud firm voice began to lead the women of The Lane in a decade of the rosary.
At the sound of the Hail Marys and Our Fathers being belted out from every female throat the last of the crowd of men turned tail and disappeared. It would be a very long time before they came back in here looking for a bit of innocent fun. They could get lectures and prayers at home.
Chapter 11
“We’re off,” Bull, a tiny ferret of a man, one of Declan’s hired men, grunted. They’d been promised an easy life and good money. “You know where to find us when yeh need us.” He grabbed Skinny, a muscled mountain of a man, by the jacket and turned him in the direction of the tunnel.
Declan watched them leave, his fingernails digging into the skin of his hands he was clenching his fists so hard. He couldn’t open his locked teeth enough to make a sound. This changed nothing. It was a knock-back, that was all. He was down but not out. He had a plan to make money and no one was going to stop him. He stormed back to his two-room basement. He needed to shift those two lazy bitches. He needed the money they could make yet tonight. He’d lay low for a few days, play nice while he discovered who had dared to hide his workers.
As the decade of the rosary ended, the men of The Lane pushed each other out of the way as en masse they tried to leave the livery and reach their women. It had been torture to watch them face that crowd alone.
The women were glad to see their men coming – there were quite a few felt their knees wanting to give way. They collapsed back against their men and waited.
“He’s back in his hole,” a voice offered out of the darkness. “I pity them poor cows he’s got down there.”
Two women strolled towards the fire. They’d been keeping watch over the Johnsons’ place, as ordered, although what they would have done if any of the men had decided to ignore the crowd they weren’t exactly sure.
“Is anyone going to explain to me what was going on around here tonight?” Garda Collins had a very good idea but he could do nothing if these people didn’t make an official complaint. He sighed deeply, knowing that wasn’t going to happen, but he’d had to ask. At least he was aware what to look for now. That was more than he’d known earlier when he’d been explaining his problem to Brother Theo.
“What yeh d
on’t know can’t hurt yeh, Garda Collins.” Marcella Wiggins stepped forward. “It was good of you to lend us your company but we’ll take it from here.” Although what they were going to do she didn’t know. They hadn’t solved anything here tonight and she knew it. Ah, well – ‘sufficient unto the day the evil thereof’, or something like that.
“I’ll have two of the Garda patrol the tunnel for the rest of the evening,” Barney Collins offered. “I can’t do more than that, I’m afraid. I need someone to file an official complaint before I can do more.” He waited without much hope. These people didn’t tell on each other. “I’ll get along so.” He knew when to leave well enough alone.
“I’ll walk out with you,” Brother Theo said. “I have to be getting back.”
The two men turned to leave the people of The Lane to handle their own problems as they obviously preferred.
“Are you leaving, Brother Theo?” Ivy ran up her steps and stepped out into the courtyard.
“I have to be getting back to the Friary,” Theo said with a smile. “I’ll stop in to visit you next time I’m passing, Ivy.” He turned and joined Garda Collins, and the two men walked from The Lane, very much aware of the eyes of the silent crowd upon them.
“Me knees are knocking.” Marcella Wiggins leaned against the railing that surrounded the drop down to Ivy’s basement. “I wouldn’t want to do that again anytime soon.”
“It won’t stop the bugger for long.” Ginie put her empty jam jar on the step at her feet and walked up to join the crowd. “He thinks he’s going to make his fortune and what happened tonight won’t stop him.”
Ann Marie walked slowly up the steps. She had nothing to contribute to the mutterings but she wasn’t willing to go back down and baby-sit.
Ha'Penny Chance (Ivy Rose Series Book 2) Page 9