The Fifteen Streets

by Catherine Cookson

  He cast a glance at her bent head. The hair was grey, yet coarse and strong, springing from the centre parting and refusing to be drawn flat into the knob behind; but the face beneath was deeply marked with lines. They ran in puckered furrows across her forehead and bit deep from her nose to the corners of her mouth. The mouth in repose, as it was now, looked despondent, without hope. Could you wonder at it! And there was this other thing to happen. And her so little, not much bigger than a bairn herself.

  He shifted suddenly in his chair. What could he do? He was helpless. If only he had a decent job, if only he hadn’t been pushed into the docks. Well, where else could he have gone? If a lad wanted to make money at fourteen he had to give up all idea of being apprenticed to a trade. It was the same in all the places: Palmer’s shipyard, the steel works, the chemical works. Now he’d be a dock labourer for the rest of his life; and he would never earn enough money to make any noticeable difference to her life. Did his father ever feel like this, feel this sense of frustration and helplessness? That’s why he drank as he did. And Dominic? Ugh—he made an involuntary gesture with his hand as if wiping his brother away—that swiller!

  He lifted his feet up to the side of the pan hob and sank deeper into his chair. Drink was a funny thing once it got you. He was drunk only once, and could still remember isolated parts of the feeling. It happened the first week he was on capstan work. He had been promoted from hatching at two-and-six a shift and now felt a man. After being paid off, he was walking out of the dock gates with the men when one of them, nodding towards the line of public houses filling the street opposite, said, ‘Comin’ over?’

  He felt flattered, and went with them into The Grapes. He remembered the feeling of his stomach swelling and the continual belching of wind, and his mouth becoming fixed open in a wide grin. It was this grin that was partly the reason why he did not touch the drink again, for he brought the picture of himself over into his sober consciousness, and in it he saw the face of his father when in drink, as he had seen it since he was a child, with the large full-lipped mouth stretched wide, conveying not the impression of geniality but of imbecility. And his cure was completed by knowing, on waking up in bed undressed, that his mother had done for him what she did for his father. It was some time before he could entirely rid himself of the feeling of shame and humiliation when he thought of himself being undressed by her.

  There were times when he wanted a drink badly—like today, when his throat felt clogged tight with dust—unloading grain was a dry job. He had gone across to the horse trough outside the gates and filled the iron cup four times. Some of his mates called, ‘Cheap that, John.’ ‘Aye, and no headache the morrow,’ he replied. They no longer asked him to join them.

  A crescendo of snores came from the bedroom, and he shifted his position again. There was something he wanted more than a drink, and that was a mattress. Could he put it to her now? He looked towards his mother. She’d had enough for one day, he told himself, without anything more to worry about. But when a series of spluttering coughs terminated the snores, he said, ‘There’s a pitch boat due in shortly; if I get set on her, it’ll mean extra. Could you . . . get me a mattress with it?’

  ‘A mattress!’ Mary Ellen stopped sewing and looked at him. ‘A mattress?’

  He turned his head to the fire again. ‘I want you to put Mick in the bed; I’ll sleep in the cupboard.’

  ‘Oh lad’—she joined her hands together over the patch—‘you can’t sleep on the floor. And anyway, the cupboard isn’t big enough, it barely holds Mick.’

  ‘I can leave the door open.’

  The sadness seemed to sink from her eyes into her body, shrinking it still further. She turned her gaze to the fire, and her hands lay idle . . . There was no way of getting another bed into the room, even if they could get one. And for John to lie in the cupboard! She shook her head, not knowing she did so.

  The cupboard in the bedroom ran under Mrs Flaherty’s front stairs; its total length was five feet, and he wanted to sleep in that! If the door was open, it was cold and draughty, even in the summer; if it was closed, it was naturally airless. She often worried about Mick having to lie there . . . but John! And his feet would extend over any mattress—they did through the bed rails, both his and Dominic’s. But that wasn’t the floor.

  She looked at him and saw by the way his face was set that he meant to do it, and if she didn’t get him the mattress he’d lie in the cupboard in any case, on Mick’s bag of straw. She sighed, and her hands began to work again.

  There was no sound in the kitchen except the sound of Katie’s pencil and Dominic’s muffled snores, until Molly rushed in the back door, crying, ‘Ma! do you know what?’

  ‘Make less noise!’ Mary Ellen said.

  ‘But Ma, there’s somebody moving in next door the morrer.’

  ‘Wash yourself and get ready for bed . . . Who told you that?’ Mary Ellen asked.

  ‘Mrs Bradley told Annie Kelly’s ma, and Annie Kelly told me.’

  ‘Then if Mrs Bradley said so, it must be right.’ Mary Ellen rose, pulled the table to one side to get at the wooden couch beyond, and began to make up the girls’ beds, one at each end.

  ‘Get your things off, hinny,’ she said over her shoulder to Katie.

  The two girls undressed in the scullery, all except their boots and stockings. These they took off, sitting on crackets before the fire, chatting to each other now quite friendly. Katie sat next to John, her bare feet on the fender sticking out from under her patched, flannelette nightie.

  John’s fingers moved slowly through her hair. And when the bedroom door opened and Dominic lurched into the kitchen he didn’t lift his eyes from the paper he was reading.

  Dominic stood near the table, blinking in the gaslight. He yawned, running both his hands over his head; then pulled his belt tighter before coming to the fire. He shivered and sat down in the seat vacated by Mary Ellen, growling to Molly as he did so, ‘Move your carcass!’ He ran his tongue round his dry lips, shook his head in an endeavour to throw off the muzziness, and stretched out his hands to the fire.

  ‘Any grub?’ he asked, without turning his head.

  ‘There’s broth,’ his mother answered from her bent position over the couch.

  Katie looked past Molly to her brother’s face. It looked huge and frightening, with the dark stubble around his chin and up the sides of his cheeks, and the darker marks of the dried blood standing out around his mouth. When he hawked in his throat and spat at the bars, she drew her feet sharply beneath her nightie, nearly falling off the cracket as she did so. John’s hand, still on her head, steadied her, but he did not take his eyes from the paper.

  Dominic saw her frightened glance, and a twisted grin spread slowly over his face. He leaned back in his chair, and after a while Katie’s toes came from beneath her nightie again. Her feet were cold, for the steel fender was well below the bottom red bar of the fire. She lifted one foot up above those of Molly, to wriggle her toes in front of the lower bar. There was a hiss, a splatter, and Dominic’s yellow saliva was running over her foot.

  As she hid her face from the sight and pressed her mouth to stop herself from being sick, she felt John springing away from her. His chair was kicked back, and she flung herself to the floor by the bottom of the fender, lying along its length, pressing close to its brass bars to keep clear of the pounding feet. Molly had sprung to the couch, where she now sat huddled. And before Mary Ellen could reach them John’s fist swung out and Dominic reeled backwards and crashed into the cupboard door.

  Mary Ellen flung herself on John, crying, ‘Lad! Lad!’ She beat his chest with her fists in an endeavour to push him back: ‘John lad! John lad! For God’s sake!’

  John did not look at her, but gathered her flaying hands in one of his, and tried to push her aside. But she kept in front of him by pressing her body against his, calling beseechingly up to him, ‘Lad! Lad! John, lad!’

  His face was bereft of colour; his lips were draw
n back from his teeth, and his eyes were like black marble. Through her body she could feel the waves of anger running through his; her breast was pressed against his stomach, which shook with the elemental forces demanding release.

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, Mother of God!’ she cried. ‘No more the day, lad!’ She took no heed of her other son, standing with his fists at the ready behind her; Dominic, she knew, wouldn’t fight John unless he had to, for in John he had more than his match. No, it was John she must stop. ‘John, lad—John! I can’t stand any more this day. Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you know I can’t stand no more the day.’

  She felt a great intake of breath coming into his lungs and the rumbling thunder of the words as they were released from his throat: ‘I warned you what would happen if you did that again!’

  Relief swept through her; he had spoken; she could manage him if he spoke.

  He spoke again, and his words now brought a faintness over her; the child in her womb seemed to stop breathing. The words fell into her inner consciousness, to be remembered as would those spoken by a prophet have been, for, like Katie, she felt that John was near the priests and God, for what he said was mostly true. And he said now to his brother, ‘One of these days I’ll kill you.’

  There was no threat in the words, only a quiet certainty.

  2

  A Day of Bonny Lasses

  Poverty is comparative. There were those who did not live in the fifteen streets who considered the people living there to be of one stratum, the lowest stratum; but the people inside this stratum knew that there were three different levels, the upper, the middle, and the lower. All lived in ‘houses’ either upstairs or down; but in the lower end each house had only two small rooms, and upstairs or down the conditions were the same—the plaster on the walls was alive with bugs. These might only appear at night, to drop on the huddled sleepers, but that strange odour, which was peculiarly their own, wafted through the houses all the time, stamping them as buggy. No-one went to live in the lower end unless he was forced. To the middle and upper fifteen streets the bottom end was only one step removed from the workhouse, for its inhabitants were usually those whose furniture had been distrained or who had been ejected from their former houses for non-payment of rent.

  There were three nightmares in the lives of the occupants of the middle and upper fifteen streets. And these were linked together: they were the bums, the lower end, and the workhouse.

  In the middle houses there were four rooms . . . boxes, generally, but boxes that were divided, giving privacy of a sort to one or two extra beings. The upper end had only three rooms to each house, and these were either up or down. Here, water was not carried from the central tap in the back lane but from a tap at the bottom of each yard. This stamped the area as selective, automatically making it the best end.

  But even into this stratum of the fifteen streets no-one had ever been known to arrive with their furniture in a van. A flat lorry, yes, or a coal cart; at worst, a hand barrow, after dark. These were the three general modes of removal. But a van! a proper one, bearing the words ‘Raglan, Furniture Removers, Jarrow-on-Tyne’, never.

  The street was out to watch with as much interest as if it were a wedding, or a funeral, or, what was more common, a fight. The three O’Brien children had a grandstand view: they stood in a row beneath their front window sill, and behind them, in the room, were the elders, Mary Ellen, Shane, Dominic and John. The sons stood one at each side of their mother and father. They were standing together as a family for once, joined by the common interest, watching in silent wonder as each piece of furniture was carried into the house next door. They had not seen furniture like this before. There was the big, bright, round table, with the thick single leg and bunchy feet like claws; there was the suite of patterned plush, with ball fringe all round the bottom of the couch and chairs; there was the big clock, nearly six feet high; and there was the bed, a wooden one painted white, with pictures on the panels; there were two other beds, but these were of brass. Yet these were outstanding too, for they were neither chipped nor battered. That was not all. There were carpets, two of them, besides a load of rugs one man could hardly shoulder. And the road was strewn with all kinds of things that rent Mary Ellen through with envy; a feeling she thought she was past this many a year. But then, she had never seen owt like this before in the fifteen streets . . . or anywhere else: the mahogany plant stand, with its looped chains, the large china flower pots, the clothes basket full of coloured china, and the little mangle, which looked like a toy but which she knew wasn’t. Who were these folks who could own such things, yet had come to live here? It didn’t make sense somehow.

  She glanced up at John to see what effect all this was having on him, and her eyes left him quickly and travelled down his gaze to the street again. He was looking at a lass who had just come out of the house. Mary Ellen wasn’t sure if she was a child, a lass, or a woman.

  John, staring at the girl over the brown paper that covered the hole in the window, was being puzzled in much the same way; the girl on the pavement was as shapeless in form as Katie, showing no evidence of either hips or bust. Judged on her figure, she could be a child; and her face too had something of the immaturity of the child in it. Yet it was old. No, not old—he rejected the word—wise, that was it . . . and bonnie too. Yes, she was bonnie, that pale skin against the dark hair. The hair was unusual in that it hung loose about her head. Cut short, boyish fashion, it was like a dark halo. He was curious to see more of her, and, as she turned to speak to the old man with the white hair, who was directing the unloading, he unconsciously bent forward.

  Whatever she said brought a smile from the long, serious face of the man, and she smiled in return: and John knew them to be related; it was as if the same light shone from them. It illuminated their faces, and seemed to convey a ray of light even to himself, for he found his face relaxing into a smile as he watched them. He wondered who they could be. Was the man her da, or her grandda? And the little lad running to and fro was evidently one of them, for he had the same pale skin and dark hair.

  As John considered the fine furniture and their fine clothes, his smile faded. The old man was wearing a suit and a collar and tie, as though got up for a do, and the girl, a blue woollen dress with a little woollen coat of the same colour. It looked neat and trim and was as unlike anything the lasses of the fifteen streets wore as John could possibly imagine.

  The two removal men were struggling to get a chest of drawers through the front door. It was the biggest chest John had seen in his life; it was taller than himself. He could see only one of the men, who was bearing the weight of the bottom end and was stepping backwards and forwards under the other’s directions. John knew what had happened. The front door did not lead directly into the front room, but into a tiny square of passage. The other man had got his end stuck in this passage.

  The old man’s assistance was to no avail; and John watched the girl glance about her at the dark, huddled figures blocking the doorways. Then her eyes came to the window and met his. For a second they looked at each other, and he noted the surprise and curiosity in her glance, and realised in a flash that to her he must appear as if he was standing on something to look over the brown paper. Humorously he thought: I’d better show her it’s me all the way. I’ll give them a hand with those drawers . . . and damn the tongues! He turned, to find Dominic, who was nearer the front door, looking at him with eyes full of mirthless laughter. Dominic slowly hitched up his trousers, buttoned his coat, then went out into the street.

  With a feeling of frustration mixed with anger, John watched Dominic speak to the girl, and saw her look sharply from Dominic’s face to the window as if to reassure herself there were two of them. Then she smiled on Dominic, and he bent his broad back under the chest, taking the weight off the men, and in a few minutes they all moved into the house.

  John and Mary Ellen turned from the window and went to the kitchen. Nothing had escaped Mary Ellen; she had follo
wed the desire of her son and felt Dominic interpret John’s thought and use it against him. She said, ‘Come and finish your dinner, lad, it’ll be kissened up to cork.’

  Taking three plates out of the oven, she called to her husband. Shane, looking mystified and his head jerking, came to the table. ‘Must be bloody millionaires,’ he said. ‘Know who they are?’

  ‘No,’ she answered. ‘I know nowt about them.’

  The meal was eaten in silence. Once or twice Mary Ellen glanced at John, but his face was closed, telling her nothing. She got up to clear the table, and muttered impatiently when a face was pressed against the window and a voice called, ‘Can I come in, Mrs O’Brien?’

  Mary Ellen’s brows knit together, but she answered pleasantly, ‘Oh, it’s you, Nancy. Yes, come in.’

  A girl of sixteen sidled into the room. Her face was flat, almost concave, and her nose and eyes seemed to be lost in its centre, as though a force were sucking them in. The expression was serious and earnest, like that of a child struggling to be impressive. She began with quaint ceremony, ‘Hallo, Mrs O’Brien.’

  And Mary Ellen answered kindly, ‘Hallo, Nancy.’

  ‘Hallo, John.’

  John turned from the table and said, ‘Hallo, there, Nancy.’

  ‘Hallo, Mr O’Brien.’

  Shane growled something, keeping his eyes directed towards his plate. And Mary Ellen, thanking God that the rest of the family weren’t in to lengthen Nancy’s usual formal greeting, said, ‘Sit yourself down, Nancy.’

  Nancy sat down, and John said to her, ‘Still like your place, Nancy?’

  ‘Yes, John,’ she answered; ‘I’ve nearly been there a month now.’ It was a curious defect of her speech that her mouth never closed; her lips refused to meet, so her voice sounded nasal, like that of someone with a hare lip.