The Mother's Of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Why don’t you get the tea, eh? How old are you now? You should be doing more to help your mother and with looking after this house. Our Bryan does more than you and he’s a lad. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

  The blood drained from Mary’s face as she stared at her da with her mouth open. As Paddy’s only daughter and the obvious favourite of the pack, her laziness was a direct result of Paddy’s indulgence; Noleen had never been in any doubt about that. ‘Da!’ she gasped.

  ‘Don’t you “Da” me. Why don’t you try peeling a pan of ’tatoes for a change, instead of waiting for your mam to get in and do it. Who do you think you are, royalty? The bloody Princess Margaret?’

  Mary rocked on her heels and had barely had the chance to catch her breath when the back door opened and Biddy stormed in.

  ‘Mary, here.’ Biddy opened her purse and handed Mary a half crown before the door had a chance to close on her back. ‘Get down to the chip van for the tea. I could hear you two all the way down the entry. You’ll be the talk of the docks soon, carrying on like that. Your mother’s at my house helping me with Lorcan.’

  ‘Thanks, Auntie Biddy.’ Mary’s face broke into a grin as she pulled on her coat.

  ‘Go on, away. I’ll put the plates on the range to warm. I haven’t long, I’ve things to do at home.’

  Mary was too excited about fetching the chips, a rare treat, to let the thought that was nagging at her take form. Why was her mother helping with Lorcan when they needed their tea?

  When she had gone, Biddy almost threw the plates from the press on to the range. Then, sitting herself down on the settle in front of Paddy, she took a deep breath and looked straight at him.

  ‘Woman of this house as well, are you now, Biddy?’ he asked, his voice loaded with sarcasm, his head not moving nor his eyes leaving the Liverpool Echo he had flicked open on to his knee. He knew exactly why Biddy was there.

  ‘Oh, I wish I was, Paddy, because there would be none of your nonsense with your high-and-mighty ways. Just who the hell do you think you are, turning down a job and forcing Noleen to work herself to the bones? Eh? Such a big man, you would put the fact that a friend tried to help you before the education of your son or the welfare of your wife? And Bryan, poor Bryan. Lorraine Tanner’s mad for him, but he will never notice it because all the lad can think about is you. You and your bloody leg and what he can do to make your life easier. You are one selfish bastard, Paddy.’

  Paddy inhaled sharply. He had known Biddy for more years than he could count and he didn’t think he had heard her swear since the day her husband had run off.

  ‘You, you would drive the Pope, the Lord himself and all the angels in heaven above to swear, you would. You do know what you are doing, don’t you? With all the worry heaped on Noleen’s shoulders and all the work she has to do, you will put her into an early grave. Aye, that’s right. You’ll be sat here staring into the fire expecting your kids to run around after you, but do you know what, Paddy, they won’t, because when they know that you turned down a job so that their mother could work herself to an early death, they will be off and you will be left alone. All alone to stare into your bloody fire. You make me sick, you and your pity. Think you are the only man who came back from the war with a hard-luck story, do you?’

  Paddy leant forward and made to speak. His face had flushed bright red and his eyes shone with anger, but Biddy didn’t let him talk.

  ‘Don’t be trying to give me your pathetic excuses, because there aren’t any. I’m ashamed I ever called you a friend, because no friend of mine would be selfish enough to treat his wife the way you have treated yours. I don’t want to know you any more, Paddy. I don’t want to help you or worry about you and I’m going to tell your wife she’s a fool if she does. Your kids, they need to know what their father is really like, so I’ll be telling Bryan meself. And as for little Finn, when he’s down on the docks, risking life and limb, wearing his bones out before their time to make ends meet, God willing,’ Biddy’s hand flew to her chest and made the sign of the cross as she blessed herself, ‘I’ll make sure I tell him myself, “You have your da to thank for that, Finn.”’

  Biddy had been so angry, neither she nor Paddy had heard the back door open. They both turned to see Bryan filling the doorway.

  ‘I already know, Biddy,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Dessie told us in the break today that Da would be starting as the new night watchman. I knew one was coming, I just didn’t know it was supposed to be Da. I went along with it when Dessie said it, but I knew it couldn’t be true or Da would have told me.’ He looked directly over at his father and his eyes were filled with a mixture of hurt and loathing.

  Biddy knew it was a look more powerful and more meaningful than any words she had used. She stood to leave.

  Paddy said nothing and turned his face towards the fire.

  *

  All her anger spent, Biddy left the Delaney house without another word. She was shaking so much, her legs trembled as she walked. Noleen’s frying pan had hung dangerously low and close and she knew that if she’d had to sit in Paddy’s company for much longer, she might well have taken it down from the hook and hit him with it.

  She squeezed Bryan’s arm as she left and gave him a look full of understanding. It was down to Paddy now. The next half hour would be crucial, while her words stung and Bryan’s shamed. She might have lost a friend for ever, but Noleen might have gained her husband back and that was all that mattered to Biddy.

  As she crossed the entry back to her own house, she saw Dessie and Emily coming back from the bus stop, as bold as brass. Biddy was almost out of breath by the time she caught them up. ‘Stop, would ye!’ she shouted.

  They both turned round and Biddy could see that they were weighed down with arms full of tins, brown paper bags and wallpaper.

  ‘Hello, Biddy, what’s up?’ Dessie asked.

  ‘Biddy, you shouldn’t run like that,’ said Emily, ‘it’s not good for you.’

  Biddy placed her hands on her knees and caught her breath. ‘It’s not running that’s bad for me. Having to put a rocket up the backside of a grown man who doesn’t know any better is what’s bad for me.’

  ‘Are you talking about Paddy?’ Dessie asked as he placed two heavy paint tins on the ground.

  ‘I am. You told the lads about his job offer today, why did you do that?’

  Dessie looked down the road towards the Delaneys’ house. ‘I had given up trying to persuade the stubborn bugger. I thought that maybe if I made it known that he’d been given the job, he would find it harder to be so obstinate, especially with their Bryan and the kids knowing. I was forcing his hand, Biddy.’

  ‘Aye, well, you were right. Lorcan told me and I’ve said my piece. I’ve left him to Bryan now. So help me God, Dessie, it will be the last word I will ever speak to him if he doesn’t take the job and that’s a fact.’

  ‘Well, we’ve all tried our best. It’s up to him now.’ Dessie bent back down to pick up the paint.

  ‘What do you think?’ Emily turned back a corner of a roll of wallpaper to reveal a cream paper with pink roses and green leaves.

  ‘Now isn’t that just gorgeous,’ said Biddy. ‘Will there be an announcement of any kind soon? I’m not sure I’m happy working for a woman who is so brazenly living a life of sin.’

  ‘Has your name changed to Hattie Lloyd by any chance?’ asked Emily as she raised her eyebrows and laughed.

  From the derelict bombsite at the end of the road, the cry of ‘Goal!’ went up from a chorus of kids just as the street lights ignited. Mary, who was now escorted by Lorraine Tanner, came into view and the three adults watched as Cahill and Jack ran over. ‘Have you got chips?’ Jack yelled to his sister, forgetting about the football game now that he’d spotted the vinegar-soaked newspaper and smelt the chips.

  ‘No surprise Lorraine Tanner is with them,’ said Dessie. ‘Makes right puppy eyes at their Bryan, though the lad hasn’t got a clue.’

  ‘I
t’s not that, Dessie. Poor Bryan doesn’t have a minute to notice or think about anything other than helping his mam, bringing in a wage, looking after Paddy and helping with the kids. He’ll be drawing a pension before it dawns on him that he’s let his life pass him by, and all he will have is an empty heart and a cold bed to show for it.’

  Lorraine and Mary looked over and waved. Biddy raised her hand and waved back and as she did so let out a deep sigh.

  Dessie had taken his leave. ‘I’ll take the paint and come back for the paper and paste. Wait there,’ he’d said to Emily.

  ‘I think I might attend Mass with Noleen tonight,’ Biddy told Emily. ‘I don’t know what it is, but I have a bad feeling about something in me water, and it’s not my pessary,’ she whispered. ‘Do you not feel it yourself? It’s as though the winds have crossed.’

  Emily shook her head. ‘Biddy, what are you on about? You should be looking forward to the weekend. I’m looking forward to mine. I’m hoping Maisie will help me run up my new curtains.’

  As Biddy walked back to her own house, she tried to shake off the feeling of foreboding that had wrapped itself around her like a probationer’s cloak. She knew it related to Lorcan. ‘Stop, will you, there’s nothing going to happen to Lorcan,’ she said to herself as she shook her head. ‘Get a grip of yourself woman.’

  She found herself wondering what her life would have been like if her Mick hadn’t run off. There were more single women living in the streets than married ones, thanks to the war, and once again the image of Noleen’s frying pan came to mind. ‘There was just nearly one less,’ she muttered, just before the Angelus bell rang out. Biddy blessed herself and gave thanks. Thanks for being a free woman, for her man having deserted her, because if he hadn’t, her life would have been different. She would have had even less patience than she had now and surely to God, her and that frying pan would have been heading straight to Walton Gaol tonight.

  Noleen was fastening her scarf under her chin as Biddy walked back into the kitchen. ‘I’m off to Mass,’ she said. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘Wait while I come with you,’ said Biddy. ‘And you won’t be going home tonight, even if it is your night off. Best you stay here, let him calm down and ponder on his own stupidity. If you go back tonight, it won’t do any good. Let him stew.’

  *

  For the first time in their married life, Noleen did not return home to Paddy. She slept in front of Biddy’s fire on the settle and only at first light did she lift the latch on the back gate as quietly as she possibly could and made her way down the entry towards home.

  Her heart was heavy and the image of Paddy on the day he’d been medically discharged came into her mind. He had been transported home from convalescence in a large house in north Yorkshire. The doctor had told her that they would have liked to have kept him for longer but that the demand for the beds was too high. Although not yet completely well, Paddy was fit enough to return home.

  He was carried into the house on a chair by two female ambulance drivers and it took Noleen every ounce of her strength not to collapse with relief. They were unable to get him upstairs that first night, so some of the local women brought round army blankets and spare pillows and they padded the settle in front of the fire and turned it into a bed. In the midst of the chaos, the bowls of dirty water, the makeshift bedpan and the enamel urinal the ambulance drivers had left her with, Noleen wondered how she was ever going to cope.

  As she tried to help him get comfortable, Paddy grabbed her hands and said, ‘I’d have been better off dead. You would have been better off.’

  Noleen felt a surge of anger and strength all at the same time. ‘How dare you say that, Paddy Delaney? I’m run ragged here and you are telling me you don’t appreciate what I’m doing? Do you realize that in the past week there have been two telegrams on these streets, about men who have died, who won’t be coming home. Don’t you dare say that ever again, do you hear me?’

  Paddy had no reply. He knew the men who had died. They were in his own regiment, and his eyes filled with tears. All day there’d been a flow of neighbours in and out the back door wanting news of the regiment, of their own men.

  Noleen dropped down on to her haunches and looked up at him. ‘Paddy, it’s hard now and it will be hard for a while, but we will get there. I just need to work out the best way we can manage. And we aren’t alone, lots of the neighbours will help. Biddy Kennedy has already brought round the best cake you have ever eaten, hasn’t she?’

  He didn’t answer but stroked her hair and seemed to feast his eyes on her face.

  ‘Paddy, you may have come home without a leg, but you came home. And me and you, we will never spend another night apart, not ever, do you hear me?’

  He cupped her face with his hands and kissed her, then pulled her into him so tight that she had to force herself not to yelp. ‘I have missed you and thought about you and the kids every single day,’ he said.

  Noleen pulled away. ‘And we have you, Paddy, and it was awful and it will never happen again, because you aren’t going anywhere. We will never be parted again, never as long as we both still live, and isn’t that wonderful?’

  Paddy began to laugh through his tears and she through hers. It was a truly breathtaking thought, that after years apart through the worst of circumstances, Paddy was back in Noleen’s arms and they would never, ever be parted again.

  Now, as she walked up her own back yard, she thought about how much Paddy had altered since that day, and for the first time ever, she was nervous of opening her own back door. She decided that she would lay the breakfast table first and switch on the copper boiler and keep herself busy, and then, before the kids woke, she would run to Mass. That way she could keep conversation to a minimum. Besides, keeping busy was all she had.

  As she hung her coat and scarf on the back door, she felt as miserable as she ever had, her thoughts lost down the worrying path of how she would cope with the days and years ahead. A voice broke through those thoughts and, looking up, she gasped and placed her hand on her mouth. She was speechless.

  Paddy stood before her, wearing his false leg. She had forgotten how tall he was and it was a shock to her.

  ‘I sent our Bryan to fetch Dessie last night. There’s a new clinic opened at St Angelus and Joe, one of the men who works in there, does wonders with the legs, so Dessie tells me. I’m off to see him and I’m starting the job. It will be hard, but not as hard as it was when you didn’t come home and I realized what a stupid eejit I’ve been. I don’t deserve you, Noleen.’ He wobbled slightly and placed his stick on the floor for support.

  Noleen’s heart filled with love and pride and an urge to protect him. She rushed over and placed her arms around him. ‘How does it feel?’ she asked.

  ‘It hurts like I’ve been kicked in the leg by a horse, but Dessie says they have contraptions now that they put between the leg and the stump and they will make me a leather girth to strap up and around my waist so that I can move it forwards easier without it coming out sideways first and knocking the dog out. You better watch out, Noleen, I’ll be winning the street races at this rate when we next have a fête.’

  For the first time in as long as she could remember, Noleen burst into peals of spontaneous laughter.

  13

  Victoria woke with a start, aware that something was very wrong, and sat bolt upright in bed. It was a big mistake and she only just made it to the wastepaper basket before she was violently sick. Kneeling on the floor, she cupped her head in her hands. She had never felt so ill before in her life.

  Over the last few days she had thought she was improving and had even managed to eat supper last night. Roland had written to say he wasn’t very well either and had taken to his bed for two days, so she’d assumed they’d both come down with the same thing. She was not a complainer. Having nursed people through the worst of surgery and disease, nowadays she had little patience for hypochondriacs who made a big deal of the slightest twinge or headache. S
he had never heard her poor mother complain once, and yet it turned out her mother had probably never felt well, according to the doctor, on account of the rheumatic fever she’d had in childhood. She had stoically carried on regardless and had helped to look after injured war veterans. Her sudden heart attack had stunned everyone.

  ‘Never complain,’ Victoria said to the mirror as she washed her face in the sink. For a startling moment it wasn’t her reflection looking back at her but that of her mother. ‘It’s not the thing to complain, Victoria. No one likes a complainer. Big smile, best foot forward.’ How many times had her mother said that to her – when she’d fallen off her horse, off her bike, out of a tree.

  As she saw how pale her complexion was, Victoria decided it was time to consult a doctor. She would do so without fuss and without telling the others. She wiped her face dry with the towel. At least it was Sunday and she wouldn’t have to face theatre today. As she folded the towel and placed it on the painted metal rail at the side of the sink, she decided she would speak to Pammy’s Anthony. He would know exactly what to do.

  A voice rang out. ‘Only me.’

  There was the usual early-morning tap on the door and Beth slipped into the room carrying the tea tray. Victoria had heard her steps on the stairs and had hurriedly whipped her towel off the rail and thrown it over the wastepaper basket. She’d picked up her perfume and squirted it into the air, then flung up the sash window to kill the smell. As the door opened she’d turned back towards the sink to brush her teeth.

  ‘Here you go,’ said Beth as she placed a cup and saucer at the side of Victoria’s bed, being careful not to tip the tray.

  Victoria turned briefly and saw that there was a letter propped up on the tray, but she felt too ill to even ask who it was from. ‘Thank you,’ she managed through a mouthful of bristle and toothpaste.