The Fifteen Streets

by Catherine Cookson

  He picked up another letter . . . ‘Beloved, I understand. I will wait patiently. Each night I go to the lane, and I know that if you are not there there is always the following night, or the one after, or yet the one after that . . .’ He ground his fist into the palm of his hand, and getting up, began to pace the floor in his stockinged feet . . . How much could a man endure! Of all the millions of women in the world, this one, who stood out above them, had to offer him a love such as this, a love men dreamed of, and died with it still but a dream. And it was his, it was being offered to him, John O’Brien, of 10 Fadden Street, of the fifteen streets. Yet he must renounce it, and do so now, this day. He must tell her in words that the mad dream was over. He must do it quickly and cleanly; the cut must be made without sentiment; there must be no tender goodbyes, and no holding out hopes for the future. He knew what the future held for him . . . he was a gaffer, and he’d remain a gaffer; and there was not even the remotest chance of her even becoming a gaffer’s wife.

  * * *

  John caught sight of Mary before she saw him. She wasn’t in the lane but on the main road, walking slowly with her back towards him, and the setting sun cast an aura of white light about her as she moved. He paused and drew in to the side of the road. The sight of her back had taken all the strength and determination out of him—what hope had he then to stand firm when he faced her. It was easy to be brave in a room talking to oneself. There you asked the questions and fired the answers; there were no eyes to bore into your heart and no touch to set the blood racing. In the bedroom he had been brave enough to don his old style of dress; with a grim defiance he had knotted the muffler ends around his braces, put on his old trousers and heavy boots, and lastly his mackintosh and cap. This, he told himself, was getting back to what he really was, and it would make things easier for her; she would have less regret at what she imagined she was losing. But now he wasn’t so sure. His decent clothes would at least have left him free of thinking of himself. Fingering his muffler he could only think of her reaction when she saw him like this—well, wasn’t that what he wanted? He continued to watch her for some minutes, and his heart defying his head, cried out, ‘Mary—oh! Mary!’

  As if the voice of his longing had become audible, she turned, and John, knowing that the time had come, stepped into the centre of the path and walked slowly towards her.

  Mary remained still, gazing over the distance towards him. She did not see his clothes, only his face. Even from a distance it sent out its lostness to her, and she murmured aloud, ‘My dear! my dear!’ and with a little cry she picked up her skirts and ran to him. John halted before she reached him, and the resistance needed to stop the automatic gesture of holding out his arms became a pain.

  ‘Oh John!—my dear!’ Her hands were on his chest.

  He swallowed as if ridding himself of a piece of granite, and said, ‘Hallo, Mary.’

  ‘Hallo, my dear,’ she smiled at him gently; ‘how are you?’

  ‘All right.’ He could not take his eyes from her face. She was pale, but she was more beautiful than he had ever seen her, and the tenderness in her eyes caused him to groan inwardly.

  ‘How is your mother?’ she asked softly.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And is your father better?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her eyes fell from his to her hand. Her fingers were softly stroking his muffler. ‘I’ve missed you, dear.’

  It was unbearable. No flesh and blood could stand it. He moved brusquely away from her and began to walk; and in a second she was by his side with her hand in his arm. ‘What is it, John?’

  He did not reply, and she went on, ‘Shall we go up the lane?’

  He turned into the lane without speaking, his arm hanging straight and stiff under her touch. The action was boorish, but he knew that if he allowed himself one tender move he would be finished. They stopped by the field gate, where they had been wont to lean and watch the moon and make love. Beyond, the after-glow was tinting the field of young wheat with sweeping strokes of pastel colour. John did not lean against the gate but stood staring into the field.

  ‘Talk about it, my dear. Katie would want it so. It will make you feel better.’ Mary had withdrawn her hand from his arm, and now she stood by the side of him, waiting.

  ‘No talking would make any difference to that,’ he replied tersely; ‘but there’s something else I’ve got to talk about.’

  She remained silent, and he went on, swiftly now, ‘I am not going to America—that’s finished. This business has put paid to my father. He’ll never work again. And Molly and Mick are still at school. There’s no money coming in, only mine.’ He turned now and looked at her; the afterglow which was mellowing the world around had no softening effect upon his face. ‘Nothing can come of it now—it’s no good going on. You understand?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t.’

  He moved his head impatiently: ‘How can I? What will there be to live on?’

  ‘We could wait . . . you asked me to wait while you were in America.’

  ‘That was different. What could there be to wait for now?’

  ‘Molly leaves school this summer, and your brother will soon be fourteen.’

  ‘And what about my mother and father?’

  ‘There are ways and means. You could always manage to keep them.’

  ‘Out of what?’ he almost shouted. It was as if he were fighting her now, and some part of him was shocked; but he went on, ‘Where would we live, and on what?—just tell me that.’

  She made no answer. And his head dropped, and he murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘There’s no need to be sorry.’ She took a step nearer to him, but did not touch him. ‘John, look at me.’ She waited until he raised his head before going on: ‘We love each other. There won’t be anyone else for either of us—we know that—so don’t let this happen. There is a way out, there must be—there is a way out of everything.’

  Peter’s words—‘There is a way out of everything. Use your mind and it will give you the solution.’ Peter’s reasoning, added to the appeal of her voice and the entreaty of her eyes, broke the tension of his body for the moment, and he allowed his mind to clutch at a fleeting hope—could there be some way out? Could the madness be resurrected? Oh the joyful bewilderment of touching her again! Her face blurred before his eyes, and her voice became blended with the evensong of the birds.

  ‘If you’ll only listen to me, darling—I don’t mind where I live or how I live, as long as I’m with you. We could be married and I’d go on working. John—I’ll come to the fifteen streets . . .’

  The blur cleared. The mention of the fifteen streets held the power to betray dreams for what they were. No longer did he see the pleading in her eyes. He saw only her well-cut costume, the gold wrist-watch, the ring on her finger with the large amber stone in the centre, the patent leather of her narrow shoes, and the glimpse of grey stockings, which were of silk; and covering all, the perfume which emanated from her was in his nostrils, the perfume whose ingredients lay not in any bottle but in a sequence starting from a scented bath to fresh linen—and she said she would come to the fifteen streets! He laughed inwardly, harsh, bitter laughter, and said sharply, ‘Be quiet! You don’t know what you’re talking about. Have you ever been inside a house in the fifteen streets?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a pity you haven’t.’

  ‘There’s no disgrace in being poor.’

  ‘No? I used to think that at one time, but I don’t any longer—it’s a crying disgrace, but one that I can’t alter. But I can do this—I can save you from yourself. You shall never come to the fifteen streets through me.’

  ‘John, darling, listen.’

  ‘I can’t listen, I’ve got to go.’ He stepped back from her outstretched hand.

  ‘John, please . . . Oh, don’t go like this—John, I love you . . . Don’t you see, I can’t go on without you?’

  The stillness of the field set
tled on them. Outwardly they appeared lifeless things, fixed in their staring. Then, in spite of himself, he spoke her name, ‘Mary.’ And like a caress it touched her. But the caress was short-lived, for he went on, ‘This has got to be—it’s got to finish right now. It’s no use going on—no—no!’—he silenced her quietly and with upraised hand. ‘All the talking in the world won’t make it any different. You’ll forget—time will help.’

  ‘It won’t—I know that deep within my soul you’ll remain with me for ever; I won’t be able to forget you—John, oh, John—please! Please let us try to find a way out.’ She held out her arms to him, and the humility in their appeal probed a fresh depth of pain in him. But he did not touch them, and Mary made a desperate final effort: ‘Katie would have wanted it—she loved to think that we . . .’

  ‘Don’t! . . . Goodbye, Mary.’ For a second longer he allowed his gaze to linger on her. A lark in the field beyond suddenly rose, singing, from the grass and soared into the dusk of the closing evening. When he saw the mist of tears blinding her eyes, he turned from her and went down the lane.

  It was done!

  14

  Whither Thou Goest

  Mary Ellen was puzzled by her own emotions. The sorrow of Katie’s loss had not died or faded—it was as poignant as the hour when it happened—but she could bear it now with equanimity because of use. What puzzled her was that it seemed to have moved aside to make room for the sorrow she was feeling for John. Daily she watched him closing up—life seemed to be dying in him. He was becoming the kind of dock man he had never been, even before he had taken to wearing collars and ties. He had not yet taken to drink or lounging at the corners, but he never seemed to get out of his working clothes, and he never moved from the house once he came home from work. Nor did he sit in the kitchen, but spent hours in the bedroom—wrestling, Mary Ellen thought, with himself.

  It was a fortnight since the letters ceased, and in some strange way their cessation had brought an added emptiness to her days. With their daily arrival, there remained the hope, however faint, that things would come right for her lad. Now hope was dead, and with it the part of him that had survived Katie’s loss was dying too.

  What was there to live for now? Mary Ellen asked herself, as she banged the poss-stick up and down in the tub full of clothes. With no possibility of happiness for her lad and nothing she could do about it, her usual incentive to ‘cope’ was gone—if only an act of God would finish them all off and leave John free! But God never did things like that—nothing with any sense or reason in it . . . There she was, going again. Her bouts of defiance against God brought her hours of fear and remorse in the night, yet mixed with her fear was a tinge of admiration at her day-time audacity at facing up to Him, and strange, too, was the contradictory feeling of late that she wanted to go to church—not to Mass, so escaping Father O’Malley’s censure, but just to sit quietly in church, with no-one there, and perhaps come to terms with God. She did not actually think of it like this—she had not advanced so far in her bravery to do so—but the feeling in her urged that should she go to church and sit quiet she would feel better. The feeling was strong in her now, and she stopped possing and whispered aloud, ‘I’ll go—I’ll go now!’ She rubbed her wet arm across her forehead and shook her head, and muttered, ‘For God’s sake, what’s come over you? Have you gone completely up the pole? There’s another two hours washing in front of you yet!’ She stooped, and lifting the clothes from the tub, began running them into the mangle. There was a series of groans, squeaks and loud jolts, as garment followed garment.

  The tub empty of clothes, she dragged it into the yard and poured the water down the sink, and she made no effort to move as the dirty foam swirled about her feet. Rolling the tub back into the washhouse again, she happened to glance up, and met Shane’s eyes on her. He was standing at the kitchen window and his face bore the look of despair that covered them all. Although he had made no mention of it for weeks now, she knew that he, too, was continually crying out inside himself for Katie, and also that he was suffering because of the knowledge that through his dependence things were not right with John. She stood leaning over the empty tub for a moment, her eyes gazing down at the water-worn wood. Then, as if she had found a command written there, she hurriedly left the washhouse.

  In the kitchen, she dried her arms and combed the top of her hair. Shane watched her silently. Even when she put her coat on he did not question her. With her face turned from him, she said, ‘I won’t be long.’ Then, as if compelled to expose her madness to him, she added, ‘I’m going to the church.’

  That any woman could leave her washing at two o’clock in the afternoon to go to church must prove, she thought, to a man like Shane that she was mad; but he made no comment on her extraordinary behaviour. Not until she was going through the front room did he speak.

  ‘Mary Ellen.’

  She turned: ‘Yes?’

  He was groping in his trouser pocket. ‘Will you light me a candle?’ He handed her a penny and their eyes met over it; and perhaps for the first time in their married lives they felt joined in thought and purpose.

  As Mary Ellen opened the front door a pantechnicon passed and stopped at Peter Bracken’s, and she saw Peter himself standing on his doorstep. For a space they looked at each other, and she knew that she should go to this man and say some word, for her son had been the means of killing his lass; yet through his lass she had lost Katie. With his very coming here, tragedy had entered her life. Peter’s eyes were asking her to speak, but she found it impossible. It was strange that only once had this man and she exchanged words—that day in the kitchen, the day the bairn was born. Before she turned away she tried to send him some kindly message; but whether she succeeded or not she couldn’t tell. She hurried away down the street, knowing that she had looked her last on Peter Bracken—he was leaving the fifteen streets and never again would they meet. Why had he come here in the first place? To relieve poverty and ignorance, he said. Oh, God, how happy she would have been in her poverty and ignorance had she still Katie. Yet she could feel no virile bitterness against him, which was strange. Instead, she felt they were sharing the same sorrow, and she wasn’t troubled at her manner towards him, knowing intuitively that he understood . . .

  The day was dull and the sky low. Inside the church the light was as dim as if it were evening, and the air, as usual, was different from that outside—thick and heavy with the weight of stale incense. At the top of the centre aisle, Mary Ellen, her head bowed, made a deep genuflexion. She did not look towards the altar, where always and forever reposed Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; somehow she wanted no ‘truck’ with Him; It was His mother she needed. She went down the side aisle walking softly, as if trying to escape the notice of the Holy Ones standing in their niches with flowers at their feet.

  There were no candles burning on the half-moon stand to the side of Our Lady, and she stood in shadow until Mary Ellen lit her candles, one for Shane, one for John and one for herself. Then The Virgin was illuminated, smiling down on Mary Ellen, half holding The Child out to her.

  Mary Ellen knew she should kneel and say a prayer, and ask The Virgin about Katie and tell her about John, but she felt very tired and all she wanted to do was to sit. She sat in the end of the front pew, as near as she could get to The Virgin, and gazed at her, preparatory to speaking about her lad. But as she sat on, her feet resting on the long wooden kneeler and her hands joined in her lap, she found she couldn’t think of John. It was as if he and his troubles had shrunk, her mind groping for them in vain. As the flame of the candles lengthened, the smile of The Virgin deepened, and it seemed to Mary Ellen that she moved and hitched the Infant higher up on to her arm as she herself used to do with Katie. The light of the candles grew brighter and brighter as she stared at them, and the church outside the ring of light became darker. A great peace swept over Mary Ellen. It started in her feet with a tingling warmth and coursed through her body, flooding her being with a happiness s
he could never remember experiencing before, or ever imagined possible. So great was her happiness that it left no room for fear when she saw The Virgin move and gently push someone towards her.

  When Katie stood at the end of the pew and, smiling shyly, said, ‘Oh, Ma!’ Mary Ellen felt no surprise. She leaned forward and gripped Katie’s hands. ‘Why, hinny, I thought you were—gone.’ She wouldn’t say ‘dead’. And when Katie answered her, saying, ‘It was only for a few minutes, Ma. Things went black and then it was over,’ Mary Ellen took it as a natural answer, and went on, ‘You’re not out there then, hinny?—not out in the sea?’

  Katie’s laugh tinkled through the church, and she glanced back at The Virgin, and The Virgin’s smile broadened. ‘We never went out there, did we, Christine?’

  Katie turned her head and spoke into the shadows, and Mary Ellen asked, ‘The lass, is she with you?’

  ‘Why, of course! We’re waiting together—it’s nice waiting.’

  ‘Waiting?’ repeated Mary Ellen. ‘For what, hinny?’

  ‘For the time to come when we should have died, and then we’ll go on—we went too soon, Ma.’

  ‘Yes, hinny, you did.’

  Now death had been mentioned, a sweet contentment was added to Mary Ellen’s happiness—she felt she was with death, and it was a pleasant thing, not only pleasant, but strangely exciting. Her bairn was in it, and was happy. ‘How long must you wait, hinny?’

  ‘We don’t know; but once it’s over we’ll start growing again—a different growing, getting ready to come back—won’t we, Christine?’

  Mary Ellen peered into the shadows but could see nothing, and Katie went on, ‘Before we go, I’ll come and see you again—and Ma . . .’