Nelly’s face advertised her disappointment ‘Oh …’ she replied weakly, ‘then they’ll also have witnessed Mr Flaherty’s sad demise …’ She broke off with a triumphant smirk as Thomasin’s face told her they had not. She would now enjoy herself for a while – strike back at Thomasin for her rudeness. She rose, shaking the creases from her skirt. ‘Well, as you apparently know all the details I shall leave. It’s obvious my presence is an intrusion.’
Thomasin threw aside the shirt and leapt up to grab Nelly’s arm. ‘Did I hear you say that Jimmy Flaherty is dead?’ It emerged in a disbelieving whisper.
Nelly took great satisfaction in her reply. ‘But, my dear Mrs Feeney, I understood you to say that you’d been fully informed of the incident.’
Patrick too had risen and, catching hold of Nelly’s other arm said, ‘Don’t be taking us all around the houses, woman! Tell us what ye know.’
Nelly freed herself and gave him the most disapproving look she could muster. ‘Mr Feeney, I will not be spoken to in such a manner.’
‘Oh, Nelly for God’s sake!’ shouted Thomasin exasperatedly. ‘I’ll get him to clean your doorstep with his tongue for the next week if yer like but please, please tell us what yer know.’
‘I’m sure you don’t have to go to those lengths, Thomasin,’ said Nelly airily. ‘All I ask is to be treated in a civil manner. You made it very clear that you don’t wish to listen to what I have to say.’
Thomasin could see that she was going to get nowhere until she had made amends for her brusqueness. She levelled her voice. ‘Nelly, I apologise for being so sharp with you. It’s simply that I was feelin’ rather upset about poor Martin. I didn’t intend to be rude.’
‘Very well, I accept your apology.’ Nelly was duly appeased and smoothed her skirts again before beginning, ‘There are very few details. As you know, Mr Flaherty suffered with consumption …’
‘He was coughin’ awful bad when we left,’ confirmed Dickie.
‘Shush!’ commanded his mother. ‘Proceed, Nelly.’ ‘Well, he was wailing and carrying on to Mr Coulson – you know, he’s the one with the gimpy leg that lives …’
‘Yes, yes, Nelly! Go on!’
‘Well, as I said there isn’t much to tell. He was talking to Mr Coulson when instead of words out came all this blood – covered in it Mrs Coulson said her husband was – she wasn’t too pleased because she had to set to and wash …’ She caught Thomasin’s glower and reverted to the subject. ‘Yes, well, the main of it was that they called a doctor but it was too late. Mr Flaherty died of heart failure before ever the doctor put his hat on. Of course that’s always the case, isn’t it? Never around when you want …’
‘Oh, dear God, poor Molly!’ Thomasin sat down heavily. ‘And there’s me thinkin’ I’ve got worries; they’re nowt compared to hers.’ She rose again almost immediately and flicking her shawl from a hook laid it round her shoulders. ‘We’ll have to go now, Pat.’ She shepherded Miss Peabody out as she spoke. ‘She must be nearly out of her mind – oh, I wish I’d gone earlier, she’ll think we don’t care.’ Her mind went back to the time when Sonny was lying near to death; when no one came to visit and she had thought it was because they did not care. Such silly thoughts went through one’s head at times like these. She snapped the cotton from Sonny’s shirt and tossed it back at him. ‘That’ll have to do until later.’
He put it on and asked, ‘Do we have to come?’ dreading that he would be asked to look upon that grotesque facsimile of his friend.
‘Yes, I’m afraid you’ll have to come and pay yer respects,’ replied his mother. She began to fill her basket with bereavement gifts for the widow, items with which Mr Penny had rewarded her on his last visit to the shop.
– He’s always spoiling me, thought Thomasin, bundling the packages into her basket – or should I say was; there would be no more little extras now. But at least there would also be no more worrying about which two people were going to complete the triad of death. Births, deaths and marriages – they always came in triplicate, and it always worried her senseless whenever a friend died, waiting to see who the others would be.
To add to the family’s misery, it had begun to rain and by the time they reached the courtyard where the Flahertys resided their clothes were sodden. Patrick cast grim eyes around him as he and his family picked their way through the piles of stinking excrement and bloody puddles that had gathered in the unpaved yard; it was like a swamp here when it rained. A pig was tethered outside Raper’s abattoir, a ring through its nose. The look in its pink-rimmed eye was one of abject misery as it huddled against a wall to escape the deluge; a look which, for Patrick, summed up the whole insalubrious environment.
He gave a perfunctory tap at the door of the Flaherty dwelling and, without waiting for an answer, opened it to step inside, almost knocking over the person who stood directly behind it. ‘’Tis sorry I am, Brendan,’ he apologised as the young man made room for the Feeneys to enter. ‘We just came to pay our respects to themselves.’ He squeezed in between Brendan and Norah, shouldering his way through the prodigious Flaherty tribe – James, Michael, Thomas, Stephen, Malachy, Mary, Julia, Ellen and a horde of younger ones whose names he could not for the life of him remember though he was Godfather to at least half a dozen of them. All had congregated around the two open coffins in the unwelcoming room, leaving scant space for movement.
The candles which stood sentry around the paupers’ coffins guttered deliriously in the moist draught that blew in from the tiny open window. They added little cheer to the mawkish gathering but rather boosted the eeriness. The room blossomed with the mingled odours of wet wool, decaying foundations and death. Thomasin blanched on finding both coffins open; she would not have insisted on her children’s presence had she known that Martin was to be viewed also. It was one thing to look upon an unmarked body – quite another to confront the disfigured wreck of a child. Thankfully they were not yet close enough to be able to see into the coffins. She would try to keep it that way.
Patrick folded his cap into his pocket as the widow Flaherty glanced up at him. Molly’s once fine bone-structure had been eroded to a gaunt mask with the pressures of incessant childbearing and poverty. Her skin, due to years of neglect, was wrinkled and seamed with dirt and could have been chiselled from bog oak. Around her scrawny shoulders and covering her flattened, sagging breasts was a sloppily-made and stained bodice. The drab, tattered skirt was draped with a piece of equally soiled sacking, secured in a knot over one bony hip. Her black slitty eyes were red with weeping, also from the quantity of whiskey she had consumed.
‘’Tis awful sorry we were to hear about your loss, Molly.’
Patrick took the basket from his wife’s arm and proffered it to his old friend. ‘It must’ve been a terrible blow to have the two o’ them taken at once.’
‘’Twas, Pat – ah, God love ye for your kind thoughts.’ The scent of liquor was strong on Molly’s breath. She gestured for one of her daughters to take Patrick’s gift. ‘’Tis needing them we’ll be an’ no mistake with two wages gone.’ Of Molly’s children, four were married and only three of the ones still at home had been wage-earners. ‘I’ve had to scratch about for the pennies to put on their poor darlin’ eyes. An’ shall I tell ye a strange thing? Ye know how my Jimmy used to have his wages drunk by the time he got home? Well, Saturday dinner he comes in sober as a grave an’ puts his full wages on that table. “Molly,” says he, “I’ve seen the error of me ways. I was going into the King Willie when who should I meet coming out^7^ ’Twas meself, an’ no word of a lie. All togged up like a royal retainer, I was an’ all. Fair shook me up. An’ never another drop’ll pass me lips for ’twas goin’ mad I thought I was.” ’ She tugged out a grubby rag and began to wail. Those nearest to her pressed supportive hands to her shoulders. ‘’Twas a sure sign, was it not, Pat^7^ An’ to think I laid into poor Marty for skippin’ off work on Saturday – I could cut off these cruel binds that beat me wean.’
; Patrick’s sons and daughter were crushed behind their parents, dreading the moment when they would be asked to pay their respects to the dead. Dickie’s eyes flitted around the assembly. Normally he avoided visiting Bones’ hovel; there could be no avoidance today, but he wished they would get on with it and let him out into the fresh air. Always in search of humour, even in the most unlikely places, his lips twitched at the corners and he bent to whisper to his brother, ‘Fancy some fried mushrooms.?’
Sonny followed his brother’s gaze along the running walls to where an ugly fungus grew in abundance. He felt a deep disgust at Dickie. How could he joke at a time like this?
Molly gave a noisy sniff and weaved the rag through her fingers. ‘Ah, ’tis a terrible wicked thing to happen to me poor darlin’ Marty – an’ him little more than a babe. If it’d been only himself ’twould’ve been hard enough, but to have Marty taken too is more’n a heart can bear. An’ didn’t I know the very minute he was summoned? Didn’t his young ghosteen come a visitin’ at the very moment they tell me he perished, God be good to him.’ There was another brief interlude while Molly further dampened her hanky. ‘An’ I’ll get no constipation from the fettlin’ works. ’Twas his own fault, they say – though not to me face o’ course. Sure, I never would’ve known I was a widow if Mrs McMahon hadn’t passed on the message.’
‘Bloody typical!’ snorted Thomasin, then leaned over to comfort the woman. ‘If there’s owt we can do, Molly, yer know you only have to ask.’ She shivered and rubbed her hands over her upper arms. ‘By, it’s turned right cold, hasn’t id Wouldn’t we be better wi’ t’window shut?’
‘Sure, an’ how would their souls be escapin’ if we shut id?’ asked Molly, then indicated the coffins. ‘Would ye care to pay your respects now?’
Patrick shuffled up to stand over Jimmy’s coffin. The face below looked oddly at peace despite the harrowing death he had suffered. ‘’Tis very well himself looks,’ he told the widow, then turned to his wife. ‘D’ye not think so, Tommy?’ She nodded with the barest of smiles. Would she ever become used to the mad Irish and their customs?
‘Ah, ’tis right y’are, Pat,’ agreed Molly. ‘’Tis the healthiest I’ve seen him in a long time.’ She tugged at Erin’s sleeve. ‘Come by me, girleen an’ pay your respects to your Uncle Jimmy.’ A tiny hand hooked its way into the coffin and made for the pennies on the dead eyes; a larger hand slapped it down.
Erin, her face like parchment in the candlelight, looked into the box and racked her brains for something nice to say. ‘He’s looking very smart, Aunt Molly,’ she finally provided.
‘He is, pet, he is.’ Molly thrust the reluctant Feeney boys up against the coffin. ‘’Twas real generous o’ Mrs O’Brien to lend me her Declan’s suit. Though perhaps ’tis a mite short in the arm – what d’ye think, boys?’
Dickie shook his head violently, gagging at the odour from the coffin. ‘Seems like a perfect fit to me, Aunt Molly. Right dandy.’
Sonny hastily nodded his agreement and Molly, not noticing Dickie’s expression of disgust, seemed content ‘Sure an’ we have to have him spruce for his viewin’. ’Tis a pity it’ll have to go back after the wake. Well, boys, come say goodbye to your little pal.’
This was the moment they had been dreading. Thomasin saw her younger son’s pale face beseech her and rapidly intervened. ‘Oh, heavens! I think I left kettle on t’fire,’ she exclaimed, hand over mouth. ‘Sonny, you an’ Dickie run home an’ check, will yer? Else it’ll be like a collander when we get back. Hurry now.’ She pushed them through the press of sour-smelling bodies and out into the yard before anyone could object. She was only sorry that she could not spare Erin in this manner but she could see that Molly was rather miffed already and sending three people to see to one kettle would be overdoing things.
‘Does it take the two o’ them to look after one kettle?’ asked Molly peevishly.
‘Well, I worry about ’em if they’re out on their own at night,’ explained Thomasin, knowing it sounded a lame excuse for two such strapping youths. ‘Yer never know what might happen to ’em.’
‘Sure, the size o’ your Dickie I would’ve thought him well able to take care o’ hisself.’
‘Well, it were more t’bobbies I’m scared about, Molly. They’re that edgy they’d brain anybody just for being out after dark. If anybody’d cop it yer can be sure it’d be our Dickie. I feel safer if Sonny’s there to see to him. I know he’s big but he’s nobbut a bairn really.’
‘Almost the same age as my poor Marty,’ sighed Molly, and began to weep again. ‘It is frightened to look at him y’all are? I know he’s a fearful …’
‘I told yer, I left kettle on.’ Thomasin edged up to Patrick who stood ashen-faced at the foot of Martin’s coffin. Her innards seemed to liquefy with the shock of that first sighting. The horror leapt within them all but somehow, each managed to pass the compliment that custom demanded.
Molly, satisfied with their tributes, said, ‘Will ye be takin’ tea with us Pat – or would ye prefer something stronger?’
‘Ah, thank ye, no, we’ll not intrude on your grief any longer.’ Patrick steered his wife and daughter towards the door, stepping over the pale-faced babies who crawled between the forest of legs. He asked when the wake would be, telling Molly that they’d all be there.
They edged their way out into the foul-smelling yard and made for home. None of them spoke for a while, speechless with what they had seen. It was left to Thomasin to break the silence. ‘Poor little skite.’ Her voice held incredulity. ‘Now I understand why our banes were so chary of comin’.’
‘My sympathies lie more with Molly,’ said her husband, lowering his head against the driving rain. ‘I wonder how she’ll cope with two wages short.’
‘Aren’t yer forgettin’ summat?’ asked his wife, then swore as she stepped into a puddle and the water soaked into her stocking.
‘I’m not forgetting,’ he replied sharply. ‘’Tis just thankful I am that we haven’t all Molly’s brood to feed.’
‘We’ll still be in a pickle though,’ insisted Thomasin. ‘It won’t be long before t’new owner turns up at shop an’ turfs us out – an’ I’m not lookin’ forward to tomorrow either.’ Tuesday was the day of Mr Penny’s funeral.
‘Cheer up, woman.’ Patrick caught her arm and tucked it through the crook of his. ‘There’s always clover growing round a cowpat. Haven’t we been down before an’ come springin’ back up many a time? Who knows what could be round the bend?’
‘It’s you who’s round the bend,’ she replied sardonically. ‘I suppose you mean I could be layin’ a fire an’ find a bag o’ sovs stuffed up chimney?’
‘Stranger things have happened, have they not?’
‘My husband, the eternal optimist,’ said Thomasin, but smiled.
Chapter Ten
During the next week Thomasin and her daughter made valiant efforts to bring the shop into order for the new owner, although they were still in the dark as to who this might be. Rather than cope with an inventory during working hours when they would have customers to distract them, they had decided to do it after closing time one evening. Workers were rushing homewards as Thomasin turned the sign to ‘Closed’ and locked the door, reopening it a few minutes later to admit her sons who had been pressganged into helping. A couple of days ago they had both found employment – Dickie at a match factory, his brother running errands for a newspaper office – so life was not quite so bleak as it had been.
‘We’ll have some tea before we start,’ Thomasin informed them at their complaints of slave-labour. ‘I’ve bought us a pie each an’ I’ve left yer dad’s tea in t’oven so he’ll not have owt to moan about – though doubtless he’ll make a chore out o’ lifting it onto table. Eh, I’m fair clemmed meself.’
The pork pies had just been unveiled and the tea poured when Sonny observed, ‘There’s a fella at the door.’
‘Well he can just shift away from the door!’ Thomasin craned her neck to i
nspect the personage. ‘We’re closed!’ she shouted and turned back to her tea, but the man was insistent, tapping on the glass with his cane until she could ignore him no longer and had to open the door. ‘We’re closed!’
‘Yes, I am quite capable of reading the sign, strange though it might seem.’ The man appeared to be very put out. ‘May I come in? I have no wish to discuss business matters on the doorstep.’
Thomasin experienced a lurch in her stomach. Oh, my goodness! This must be the new owner and here she was treating him like dirt. Fat chance she had of keeping her job now. She made belated efforts to sound affable. ‘Oh, do please come in! Would you do us the honour of joining us in some tea?’
He frowned at the three young people whose eye-whites shone from the shadows. Thomasin, seeing his questioning glance, explained that she had brought her family to assist with the stocktaking before handing it over and hoped that he did not consider it too impudent. He manufactured a cursory smile and said that it was of no consequence to him whom she brought into the store and that he was merely a messenger of sorts.
‘Then you’re not the new owner?’ said Thomasin, somewhat confused.
‘Do I look like a shopkeeper, madam?’ he asked imperiously, then added, ‘No, I am simply a representative of Ramsworthy, Duce and Saddler, solicitors at law, here to extend an invitation on behalf of Mr Ramsworthy. He would very much like to see you at your earliest convenience.’
The mention of solicitors worried Thomasin even further. ‘You mean I have to come to your office to see someone? What about?’
‘That I am not at liberty to divulge,’ answered the man, as though her very asking had caused him deep offence. ‘When shall I say you will be calling? Would tomorrow at ten am be suitable?’
For My Brother’s Sins Page 10