The clock on the mantelpiece chimed and startled her, just as the back door opened. She couldn’t remember the last time she had wound the clock. At her side, the range was freshly blackened and polished. She ran her finger along its top. ‘Fancy,’ she said.
Lorcan strode into the kitchen.
‘Lorcan,’ she croaked. ‘Lorcan, would you look at the cut of you in yer fancy overalls and boots. Will you be buying me a jug of Guinness from the pub, lad? Have ye any wage yet?’
There was no reply. Mrs Ryan had completely forgotten that Lorcan had told her he would be playing pool at the Silvestrian. He had been beside himself with excitement that Jake himself had invited him. He’d told her all about it the previous evening.
‘Mam, I told you. I’m away to play pool with Jake and the other lads from the hospital. I’ve been helping Mrs Delaney with her Finn. He fell and cut himself really bad, thought I might have to go back to work with him to the casualty, but he’ll live. Mrs Delaney and Mrs Tanner fixed him up.’
He’d already told her a dozen times that he was going out, but she was only ever half paying attention. She was more interested in the cats who crawled out from under her chair.
‘How did we end up with four cats in the house, Lorcan? For the life of me, I only remember us having one, I’m sure. Was it you? Did you bring them in?’
‘I don’t know Mam. They aren’t ours.’
Only yesterday he’d had to clean up their stink outside. The smell of cat pee had stung his nostrils when he’d arrived home from work. So he’d gone out and thrown two buckets of scalding water over the back-yard cobbles. Now that he was working at the hospital, he knew from the other lads that Dessie could call round to the house at any time. What they hadn’t told him was that it was the homes where Dessie felt the lad was not being properly looked after that got called at most frequently. Lorcan knew he would be ashamed if Dessie had smelt the yard. He was a working lad now and Dessie believed in him, trusted him. This had imbued in Lorcan a new-found determination to clean the place up, now that his brothers were all gone. With the Lysol he had brought home from the hospital, and a lot of hot water, he would expunge the memory of his troublemaking brothers from his life.
‘You should stop letting the cats into the house to settle in front of the fire. They are full of fleas.’ He bent down, picked up two of them from in front of the hearth by the scruff of their necks, opened the back-yard gate and put them out into the entry. He knew asking his mother not to let the cats in was futile. They were kittens, only weeks old, and had already worked out that if they hung around the Ryans’ back door they wouldn’t get hit with a mop head if they tried to run in when it was opened.
Lorcan looked down at the wriggling bundles of orange fur in the entry and the sight tugged at his heart. ‘Oh, here,’ he said. Picking them back up, he returned them to the kitchen, fetched a bowl of watered-down steri milk and placed it near the hearth. He would have to make washing down the yard a regular thing. He would do it with his wash water when he got home, and he would try and get his mother to do the same. There had been a time, once, when his mam had been just like Mrs Delaney and Mrs Tanner, but when was that?
Mrs Ryan’s face lit up. ‘Did you clean the floor, Lorcan? Was it you?’ She looked astonished.
‘I did, Mam. I did a bit more when you were sleeping in the chair last night.’ He had been cleaning every night, but this was the first time his mother had noticed.
‘Well now, isn’t that grand. What a good boy you are, Lorcan.’ She leant forward in her chair, gazed down around her feet, clasped her hands in her lap in delight and studied the tiles as though the most beautiful tropical fish were swimming by. ‘I used to do that, you know, Lorcan. Mop the floor.’ Her voice became wistful. ‘I don’t think that floor has been washed since the day the telegram came. You know, the one about Daddy falling.’
Lorcan wanted to reply that he had guessed that was the case. It had taken him two hours and a large knife he had borrowed from Paddy Delaney to remove the thick layer of black grime.
‘It looks so nice, I might give it a wash over meself soon. Keep it nice, like.’
Lorcan could hardly believe what his mother was saying. ‘Would you, Mam?’
‘Aye, Lorcan, I will. Help me get up out of this chair, will you. I don’t recognize me own house. Isn’t that just the thing now.’
She stood and Lorcan looked on nervously as she picked up each item on the press, examined it as though she had never seen it before and laid it back down. She held the figurine of Our Lady in her hand for the longest time of all and studied the plasterwork face intently. ‘We bought this in Knock, you know, Daddy and me. Before you were born, Lorcan. We was full of the big ideas then, so we were.’
Lorcan thought now was as good a moment as any to make his suggestion. ‘Mam, will you come to Clare Street with me, for a bath? I’ve been going myself.’
There was a long silence and Lorcan held his breath. His mam smelt bad. How could he turn things around unless she helped him? He wanted to show her that life didn’t have to be the way she was living it. He wanted to bring a little of what he had seen at Biddy’s and Mrs Delaney’s house into his own, knowing in his heart that if he did, his mother might wake up from the melancholy that had seized her for so long.
She turned from the press and smiled. ‘Aye, I might. Daddy used to go himself every Sunday night with the other men, while I bathed you and your brothers in front of the fire.’
She watched Lorcan pick up a discarded gin bottle from the hearth and put it away into a clean bucket he was obviously using as a bin. She looked around her house and she liked what she saw. It reminded her of other days, before she’d fallen into a gloom she’d found impossible to shake off. She had felt so overwhelmed that she had slipped under the surface of her own life, drowning first in grief, then in panic, unable to break back through. Most of her neighbours had coped, but she hadn’t. She had fallen herself, in the midst of the bombs, just as her husband had. At times she had wanted to never get back up. But now she was emerging and someone was helping her and that someone was her own son.
Mrs Ryan looked into the expectant eyes of her son with his scrubbed-clean face and his combed-back hair. ‘Aye, I will, Lorcan. I will. Let’s go now, not tomorrow. Now, will we?’
*
An hour after Finn had recovered, Noleen was standing in front of the fire, peering into the mirror that hung above the mantelpiece. It was almost black with age and foxing, and a crack ran across the middle from when it had fallen off the wall when the George Street bomb hit. She removed her rollers one by one, placing them in the green lustre rose bowl she and Paddy had been given as a wedding present. The mantelpiece was the closest Noleen would ever have to a dressing table. Her lipstick, powder, hairspray, figurine of Our Lady and bowl of curlers served as ornaments. When she did her housework, they were all subjected to a quick flick with a damp duster, along with every other surface in the house.
The fainting Finn show was over, the audience had left and her family were settled into their familiar evening routine before she left for Mass and then work.
Paddy poked the fire and a shower of sparks flew up.
‘Holy Mother, Paddy, you nearly burnt me legs. Can’t you wait until I’m done? I will be two minutes.’
Noleen looked into the mirror. Mary was sitting on the floor at Paddy’s feet with her ear to the radio as she twisted the dial.
‘What are you up to, Mary?’ asked Paddy, trying to hide his irritation. He hated it when the kids played with the radio. They could only afford a new battery every now and then. He had learnt how to give the battery a bit of extra life by warming it up on the range for ten minutes, but there was a fine art to knowing when it was the right heat without it then exploding in your face.
‘I’m trying to find something that sounds like music and not old men talking,’ replied Mary, in a huff. ‘I don’t want to hear people droning on all the time. War, drone, war, drone,
drone, drone. We get enough of that from you,’ she said, looking up at Paddy, who now smiled down indulgently and ruffled the hair on the top of his daughter’s head.
Jack and Cahill were sitting at the table. Jack was reading a comic he had been given by little Stan, and Cahill was patiently waiting for him to finish so that he could read it next. Finn was lying on the settle opposite Paddy, reading a school book. His bright yellow knees were carefully arranged to be free of contact with anything other than the air, which was about all he could bear to have touching the throbbing, inflamed areas.
‘How are your knees, Finn?’ asked Noleen. Her comment was made through the mirror as, flinching and with her lips pursed, she tugged on a tangled roller. ‘Has the Disprin worked?’
Finn looked up and nodded as his eyes filled. The truth was, the pain was almost unbearable. He turned his face towards his da, who saw his tears.
‘Do you want a cuddle, lad?’ Paddy asked.
Under normal circumstances, Mary, Jack and Cahill would have made much comment about Finn being a cry-baby, but as it was, they sympathized with him. Mary had brought her pillow down from upstairs to place under his head. Jack had offered him the comic first. Cahill had taken the boiled sweet that Maisie Tanner had given him out of her pocket and handed it to Finn with a grand statement. ‘I want you to have it. I thought you were only going to have one leg left, like Daddy.’ A look of horror had crossed Finn’s face as he placed the sweet in his mouth.
Paddy propelled himself across to the settle and pulled Finn up and on to his lap, ignoring the pain in his stump as he did so.
Noleen’s heart melted with pity as she saw the pained expression of her very serious son, who, under normal circumstances, wouldn’t say boo to a goose. He usually had no idea of the time and needed to be reminded to eat and sleep. Tonight he could do nothing but stare at his book and flinch when he moved. She knelt down in front of the settle and placed her own hand on his back. She and Paddy glanced into each other’s eyes and a look of tenderness passed between them. Both would gladly have taken on their son’s pain. There was not a thing within their power that they would not do for their children.
‘How many times have you been told not to run down that entry, Finn,’ she said as she rubbed his back. ‘The cobbles are covered in moss, it’s lethal. Mrs Samson broke her hip just where you fell only a few weeks ago and she’s still in St Angelus.’
‘I know, Ma, but I had something to tell you.’ Finn turned his head to face Noleen as he wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. For a second, excitement had flashed across his face. But it disappeared as quickly as it had arrived and he buried his head back into his da’s chest to hide the fresh onslaught of tears.
‘What was so urgent, Finn, that you had to run like a mad man, eh?’ asked Paddy with a coaxing softness to his voice. ‘Was it to tell me about the library opening on Waterloo Street, because, Jesus, don’t we know about that already, you tell me every day.’
Finn muttered something, which neither Paddy nor Noleen could make out through the wool of Paddy’s sweater.
‘What’s that, lad?’ Paddy leant back, cleared his jumper from Finn’s face and turned him slightly towards Noleen.
Finn sniffed loudly and Noleen took a handkerchief out of her apron pocket, spat on it and wiped his eyes and nose. ‘Come on, Finn, you’re killing me with the suspense. What was it you wanted to tell me? Are you in trouble in school? Have you been driving Sister Theresa to the end of her tether?’
Finn looked horrified at the mere suggestion that he might have misbehaved in class. He loved Sister Theresa. He worked hard and wallowed in her daily praise. His tears forgotten, he exclaimed, ‘No, Mam. Sister Theresa said I had to tell you that I passed the eleven-plus. She got a letter this morning and, Mam, you have to go up to the school because she has me a place at Waterloo Grammar where they have a room full of books and teachers who wear capes and hats and all the kids who go to that school, they become rich.’
A look of dismay crossed Noleen’s face.
‘They do, Mam, it’s the truth. Sister Theresa, she told me. And Father Brennan, he said he wants to talk to you at Mass tonight. He said he was very proud of me. Sister, she wants to give you the list of everything I need so that I can start in September. She said I’m the first from St Chad’s to get a place at Waterloo Grammar. Made up with me, she is.’ The excitement had returned to his voice and eyes. For the moment his pain was entirely forgotten.
Noleen stared at Finn and then looked up at Paddy, her eyes pleading for help. She was confused. ‘Are you sure, Finn? You haven’t sat an exam, have you?’
‘You passed it,’ Paddy said in amazement as he leant back and gazed down at Finn. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know, Da, I just did.’
‘What exam?’ asked Noleen again. ‘You knew, Paddy?’
Paddy looked embarrassed. ‘I did, but I didn’t think he would pass it, did I. How was I to know?’
‘Are you sure, Finn? You aren’t lying to me, are you? Because if you are, I will march you into Sister Theresa’s office myself tomorrow,’ said Noleen. ‘You might have sore knees at the front, but it’ll be a hot bottom at the back if you are lying to me. I won’t have it.’
Finn struggled to sit upright. ‘No, Mam. No, no.’ He sounded desperate to be believed. ‘Ask Sister Theresa if you don’t believe me. She wants to see you up at the school.’
Noleen’s heart had dipped like a stone. If Finn was to attend Waterloo Grammar, he would need shoes, books, a uniform, not to mention the bus fare every week – it was much too far to walk. It was impossible. It could never happen.
‘Well, Finn, that’s unexpected, that really is. You’re a clever lad, that’s for sure. But the Lord alone knows how we’re ever going to pay to get you there.’ She shot a worried look at Paddy.
Finn began to cry again.
‘There, there, don’t cry, never mind,’ said Noleen. ‘It’s not the end of the world, is it? I’m sure there’s something can be done. You can’t help it, can you.’
Every penny was spoken for. Unlike her neighbours, she had no five shillings a week to put by for the Christmas club at the butcher’s. She wished to God she did. There was often not enough to make it through until Friday. ‘It’s not the end of the world,’ she said again, almost to herself this time. But as the room fell quiet once more, it felt to her as though that was exactly what it was.
*
Emily Haycock sat at the table in Dessie’s kitchen writing out a very long list. The kitchen was exactly the same as the kitchens in every other house on Arthur Street. Exactly the same as the one in the house on George Street where she’d been born and had grown up; the house that had been bombed into the ground while her sick mother and young brothers were still inside. As she looked about Dessie’s kitchen, it occurred to her that falling in love with Dessie had been made even easier because moving into his house had been like coming home. From the bedroom window she could see the place where her old home had once stood. The wasteland remained untouched, covered in rubble, used as a football pitch by the children of Arthur and Vince streets. It echoed daily to the sound of children playing.
The old scullery, which contained the Belfast sink and a copper boiler, opened off the kitchen, close to the back door, and in houses with no children was used only on washdays. In every house it took the same number of steps to get from the back gate to the back door, across the same sets of cobbles, via the same black wrought-iron latch on the same dark-green painted door. She had moved from home to home.
The only other downstairs room in the house was the parlour, facing on to the front street. A room Dessie had not even used once since he had returned from the war. Emily had changed all that, insisting that in the evenings they close the curtains, light the fire and make a home of the room whose walls were covered in tea-coloured wallpaper adorned with fading brown peony roses. A standard lamp stood by the leather armchair, with tassels and fringes stained by nicoti
ne to the same colour as the brown peonies. Dessie’s parlour was now used more frequently in a single week than the parlours on any of the nearby streets were in a whole year.
The brown staining was down to the fact that the house hadn’t been decorated since the day Dessie had moved in with his late wife in 1935. The kitchen walls were equally as bad. They were painted in a coffee-coloured gloss to about Emily’s shoulder height, and then up to the ceiling it was cream-coloured gloss. Or at least it had once been cream. Even though she had washed the walls down, twice – the second time to remove the brown rivulets left from the first time – it had made little difference. From the centre of the ceiling hung a brown corded rope wire supporting a desultory bayonet light bulb. The lino on the floor had worn away in most areas, revealing either black lino or the quarry tiles beneath, but Emily could just make out that the design had once featured a large pattern of golden autumnal oak leaves against a dark brown background. She looked down and sighed. ‘You are disgusting,’ she whispered. ‘Autumn leaves look good on trees, not on the kitchen floor.’
She laid down her pen and sat back in the chair just as Dessie walked in wearing his trousers but no shirt. Since Emily had moved in, he’d taken to having his evening wash down in the scullery instead of the kitchen. He flopped into the threadbare bottle-green chair in front of the range and as he bent forward to lace up his boots he glanced over at her.
‘Is that another list?’ he asked. ‘Will it be joining the other dozen or so on the press? I’ve never known anyone who can make as many lists as you.’
Ignoring his question, Emily pointedly looked around the room. ‘Dessie, have you seen the state of this kitchen? When we do marry, were you actually thinking of carrying me over the threshold into this?’
Dessie looked affronted and followed her gaze around the kitchen. ‘Why, what do you mean? What’s wrong with it?’ He didn’t give her the chance to reply. ‘Oh, I know what you’re on about. It’s those brown walls. Well, let me tell you, there’s a reason I did them in gloss, it’s so you can wipe them down. You just watch, on the weekend I’ll give those walls a good scrub and they’ll be as good as new, they will.’
The Mother's Of Lovely Lane Page 17