“So, you intend to make a living dressing dolls in future?” Ann Marie asked.
“That will be the first of me business ventures. I have a supply of rubber dolls I need to shift as well. We have been working on dressing them alongside the baby dolls – I’m hoping to have a great many of them ready for sale to the passing trade outside the Gaiety Theatre during the pantomime season.”
“The first of the dolls are being dressed as Cinderella. Sadie knows someone who might be willing to lend me his street trader’s licence over the winter – for a fee of course,” Ivy told the group.
“So it would appear that with a fair wind and a bit of good fortune we are all about to become successful businessmen.” Jem grinned with delight.
“We’re certainly on our way,” Ivy smiled. “But nothing is certain in business. The money I made from the dolls I sold this morning is earmarked for business expenses. I’ve used up all the items I’d stored over the years in my tea chests and then some. I have to keep my company and my business partners going. The Cinderella doll is the biggest gamble and eventually, we pray, the biggest earner.”
“I’ll start lighting candles.” Sadie was rocking her son and grinning like a bandit. Her family was flourishing. Who’d have thought it?
“I’m going to take a few days to gather me thoughts,” Ivy told everyone. “I thought I’d go blind with all the work I had to do on the lace for the baby dolls. I want to step back and enjoy me bit of success.” Ivy grinned. “I fancy a few more days at Sandymount Strand. Emmy is on her school holidays so that means I’ll have a bit more free time.”
“That sounds like a good idea, Ivy.” Ann Marie was the first to say.
The others soon joined in. They all knew Ivy worked all the hours God sent.
“Right!” Ivy stood up abruptly. “I’m going to change my clothes. I want to have some fun. Conn, you up for giving me another lesson on the bike?”
Conn had been teaching her, running behind Ivy, holding the heavy bike steady while she tried to find her balance. The local kids loved to run alongside and scream advice. It was fun for everyone.
“Ann Marie, I advise you not to look! It’s hell on the nerves,” said Jem.
“I’d love a lesson myself.” Ann Marie grinned.
“Me too!” Dora and Clare shouted together.
Jem and Conn looked at each other and shrugged.
“The world’s going to hell in a hand-basket,” Jem groaned, standing up. “Someone clean up these dishes while I go find volunteers to teach you mad women to ride bikes.
The screaming children, shouting men and laughing women attracted the attention of everyone in The Lane. Women came out of their homes and sat on the steps watching the show. It was better than the fillums any day.
John Lawless, his baby son in his arms, almost fell out of his wheelchair he was laughing so much.
“Maisie, are your lads home yet?” Ivy stopped her bike to shout up to her neighbour sitting giggling on her steps.
“Phil is inside washing himself, why?” Maisie shouted back.
“I wondered if he’d go to the pub and pick up beer and lemonade? The women can have shandies and the kids lemonade. The men can drink the beer or if they’re good I’ll get in a few Guinnesses.” Ivy had to stop until the dancing screaming children calmed down. “We could have a little street party. My treat.”
“Your ship come in, Ivy Murphy?” Maisie asked.
“I don’t know if me ship came in, Maisie! I was out!” Ivy grinned. “I’ll pay for the beer and lemonade.”
“I’ll pay for fish and chips!” Ann Marie cried, getting into the spirit of the thing.
“I have bread and butter!” Nelly Kelly shouted out her window.
“I’ll make the tea if someone else supplies the milk and sugar!” Patty Grant shouted from her steps.
“I’ll supply the milk and sugar!” Lily Connelly shouted from her steps. Things in the Connelly home had improved greatly since Alf found out how much his kids could earn from their life on the stage. “My Alf will bring out the first table. Someone else start bringing out more. Yeez all know to bring out cups and mugs. Come on, let’s be havin yeez!”
By the time the lamplighter passed, The Lane was bouncing. The children were running wild. Adults were singing and dancing and everyone was having the best of times.
“Ann Marie, what’s your party piece?” Jem Ryan was grinning down at her.
“I don’t have one,” Ann Marie admitted to hoots of derision.
“We’ve entertained you, Missus!” some wag shouted. “It’s your turn. Up you get!”
Ann Marie was pulled to her feet. She stared mortified in Ivy’s direction.
“You can just say a poem or recount a funny incident.” Ivy grinned. “We’re not fussy.”
Ann Marie grinned and, with suitable actions and nudge-nudge jokes, gave the crowd her rendition of the Victorian saucy ditty “The Piano Lesson”. The crowd roared their appreciation and clapped along every time Ann Marie sang of the twiddly bits he used to play. Ann Marie was having the time of her life.
“Alf Connelly, are you going to give us a song?” someone shouted when Ann Marie sat down to thunderous applause. “Get Alf up! We haven’t heard from him yet. Those kids of his got their voices from him. Come on, Alf, up yeh get!”
Alf Connelly stood with his eyes closed, took a deep breath and opened his mouth. He delivered an operatic aria with such skill that Ann Marie Gannon almost fell off her hay-bale seat.
Ann Marie was horrified at her own snobbery. She’d no idea these people even knew what opera was, let alone how to sing it. She’d deliberately tried to find a simple song she thought they’d appreciate.
“Me da just makes noises for the foreign words,” Conn informed everyone, not a bit impressed by his father’s skill. He’d heard it all of his life.
“He’s wonderful!” Ann Marie whispered.
“Don’t tell him that, Missus.” Conn sent Ann Marie a horrified look. “We’ll never get him to shut up. Oh no, now me ma is getting in on the act.”
Alf and Lily Connelly stood and sang their hearts out. A tenor to make the gods jealous and a soprano to make the angels weep. The Lane went quiet and listened.
They were greeted by thunderous applause and demands for more. Ann Marie knew she’d remember this night for the rest of her life. She’d heard opera performed at La Scala in Italy and this couple compared favourably to those masters of their art.
The party wound down naturally. The women went home with their children sleeping in their arms. The men carried in the tables and in time everything went quiet.
“Things are looking up for us, Jem.” Ivy leaned against Jem’s strong chest.
Emmy had fallen asleep earlier and Jem had carried her up to bed and returned to help with the clear up. The Lane was quiet around them. They could have been the only two people in the world.
“You’re well on your way to becoming a successful businessman and I’m dipping me toes in!” Ivy laughed.
“So, yeh’re not thinking of giving up your rounds to be a dollmaker?” Jem asked.
“Jem, I’ll never give up me round. The round and the money I make from wandering is me bread and butter. I’d never risk that but it’s thanks to me round that I can gamble with dressing dolls or whatever strikes me fancy.”
“I think I’ll go ask Dora to keep an ear open for Emmy. I don’t expect her to wake up, she’s had a busy day, but I prefer to be sure. There are plenty of people around here to take care of things.” Jem looked around. “I’ll go see what Ann Marie is doing. She’ll need someone to walk her home.” Jem disappeared into the livery.
Ivy stood staring around at her world. So much had changed in the months since her da died. A whole new world was opening up to her. She never knew she was a gambler but the chance for a better life for herself and her friends made her blood fizz.
Ivy looked across at the house her basement sat beneath. Now that she knew who owned it an
d had a chance of fighting for her rights she could take whatever Father Leary cared to throw at her. It wouldn’t be anything new. Ivy Rose Murphy was going places. She wasn’t sure where yet but she intended to enjoy the journey.
“Ann Marie wants to stay a while longer.” Jem’s voice appeared before he did. “Dora has agreed to keep watch on Emmy.” He walked slowly over to where Ivy stood in the shadows and cocked his arm. “Miss Ivy, could I interest you in an evening stroll?”
“Mr Ryan,” Ivy shoved her arm through the crook of his elbow, “I would be delighted.”
If you enjoyed Through Streets Broad and Narrow you will want to read its fascinating sequel,
Here’s a sneak preview.
Ha’penny Chance?
Chapter 1
“Wait up, Ivy Murphy, will yeh?”
Ivy looked over her shoulder and grinned at the little urchin calling her name. The boy didn’t even come up to her knees but his brow was furrowed like an old man’s. His little body was enshrouded in a badly frayed, cut-down, adult sports jacket which was held in place by a length of fraying hemp rope wrapped several times around his waist. His two hands were clenched around a burlap sack thrown over his shoulder. His bare, blue-tinged feet slapped the muck accumulated on Dublin’s Grand Canal walkway. Under his perpetual layer of filth it was difficult to make out the boy’s features.
“I’ve been calling yeh for ages, woman. Are yeh deaf?” Seán McDonald panted, his little legs moving like pistons as he hurried to catch up with Ivy.
“Have you been working on your farm this fine October morning, Mr McDonald?”
Ivy was wrapped against the weather in an old army coat that covered her from neck to ankle – it had been green at one time but after years of hard wear it was now a bilious colour that defied description. Her head and shoulders were covered by her black knit shawl. She was reluctant to stop her heavy pram rolling forward. She was tired, cold, wet and hungry. The wind coming off the water of the Grand Canal sliced and bit into any exposed flesh but at least it had stopped raining. Sighing, she stopped, waiting for the young lad to catch up with her.
Seán and his multitude of relatives lived at one end of the tenement block that housed Ivy’s basement home. The first time young Seán heard Old Man Solomon’s gramophone playing “Old McDonald Had a Farm”, he had adopted the name as his own. The lad had been working on one of the many back-yard farms that littered Dublin city since he was two years old. He’d earned the name McDonald; at six years old Seán was a veteran farm worker.
“Can I put me sack on your pram, Ivy?” Seán tried to rearrange the string-tied burlap sack he held over one shoulder. The sack was long and weighted down by its contents. The weight belted Seán across his thin bare ankles every time he moved.
“What’s in it?” Ivy asked, buying time. She could see the weight was too much for the lad but she didn’t want anything that might leak unpleasant matter into her pram.
Ivy had spent her morning visiting the back doors of the houses on Merrion Square and Mount Street. It had been a good morning for her. She’d returned to her two basement rooms twice already to unload the items she’d scavenged from the homes of the wealthy.
“I’ve pigs’ cheeks and four crubeens.” Seán worked on the Widow Purcell’s little back-yard farm. The woman did the best she could to see the young boy was fed. “The widder woman doesn’t care for ’em.”
“Your family will be well fed tonight.” Ivy pulled a load of newspaper from the bottom of her pram. They hadn’t far to go. The paper would soak up any spills.
“I’m not taking them home.” Seán sounded completely disgusted. “There’s never a fire going in our place, Ivy, not unless I bring something in that burns. I wouldn’t give them to that lot to cook anyway. They’d ruin the things.”
“Going to sell them?” There was always a demand for any kind of foodstuff going cheap.
“Have yeh met yer one that took over Granny Grunt’s place?” Seán said, referring to an old neighbour who had passed away recently.
“Yeah, I sold her that stove of Granny’s.” Ivy had inherited the contents of old Granny’s one-room home and Granny had been the proud owner of the only freestanding cast-iron stove in the tenements known locally as The Lane.
“Yeh must have got a fair few bob for that thing.” Seán’s eyes gleamed at the thought of all that money. “I wish we’d been able to buy it off yeh. Yeh wouldn’t know yourself with something like that in your rooms.” He shivered in delight at the thought of all that heat.
“What has yer one to do with the price of eggs?” Ivy had met her new neighbour only briefly. She didn’t seem a friendly sort. Someone had mentioned to the woman that Ivy had removed the stove, its stand and chimney from Granny Grunt’s back-basement room. The woman had knocked on Ivy’s door to demand the return of what she’d believed was an integral part of the room she’d rented.
“Do yeh know she’s been to America?” Seán’s voice held tones of complete amazement. The poverty-ridden tenement block, hidden away from its more upmarket neighbours, didn’t normally attract world travellers.
“Where did you hear that?”
“She told me so herself.” Seán puffed out his chest importantly. “Yer one buys all the sticks off me I can find or cadge – I think she likes me.”
“That’s nice.”
“She was on the Titanic.” Seán almost bounced in place with this impressive announcement. The sinking of the mighty ship was still considered important news even after more than ten years.
“Go way!” Ivy stopped walking to stare down at the frantically nodding young boy. To the people of Dublin, a people very aware of the living to be made from the sea and river-going trade, talk of the Titanic disaster still sent shivers down the spine. There was many an Irish life lost when that great ship went down. Ivy’s own father had lost a sister in the disaster.
“Honest to God.” Seán opened his pale-blue eyes wide. “I swear.” He held one dirty hand to his chest.
Ivy tried not to notice the threadbare state of the oversized adult jacket Seán wore. The cut-down man’s jacket fell to his calves. She didn’t want to think what he might or might not be wearing underneath.
“The woman told me all about it herself,” he said. “I got the whole story – from her very own lips.”
“That’s a turn-up for the books. Do yeh think yer one would be willing to tell her tale at a story night?”
Story nights were a source of entertainment to the inhabitants of the Dublin tenements. Tall tales and true were told to fascinated listeners gathered in the long, wide hallway of one of the tenement houses and everyone was welcome.
“I wouldn’t know,” Seán shrugged.
“That’s a story everyone in the place would love to hear.”
“I’ll tell her about story night when I see her, Ivy. I’ll be going to her place later because she promised to teach me a new way to cook pigs’ cheeks and feet.” Seán nodded towards his sack sitting high on Ivy’s big black pram.
“Be sure to let me know what she has to say. I wouldn’t want to miss that story.” Ivy didn’t find anything strange about teaching a six-year-old to cook the food he’d managed to gather for himself. There was no childhood in the tenements. Survival took every hand to the pumps.
“She said she’d show me how they cooked pig in America,” Seán went on, addressing the most important point as far as he was concerned. His stomach came before stories. He strutted along beside Ivy, his little legs pumping to keep up with her longer stride. “Yeh can get crackle from feet and cheeks, she says.”
“What’s crackle when it’s at home?” Ivy let the subject of story night drop.
“Haven’t a clue but yer one says I’ll love it.” Seán was willing to try anything if it would plug the constant pains of hunger in his stomach.
“Yeh’ll have to show me how yeh make it.” Ivy grinned down at Seán. “Yeh’ll start a new fashion all on your own.” She was glad they’d
almost reached the tunnel leading into their tenement block. She’d been aware of Seán’s struggle to keep up with her. She’d have offered to let him ride on the pram but she knew his pride would be mortally offended at that.
“Ivy,” Seán’s smile disappeared at the sight of the entrance to the tenement block known locally as The Lane, “can I ask yeh a favour?” Ivy had been instrumental in sending Seán’s abusive grandfather to jail. Tim Johnson, a thoroughly unpleasant man had stepped outside the law in his efforts to force Ivy into his clutches. He’d been taken away by the local Garda. In Seán’s eyes Ivy was a hero.
“What is it?” Ivy had noticed the change in the lad at her side. She understood. Seán’s home life wasn’t exactly ideal.
“Will yeh keep me takings with yeh?” Seán almost whispered, his head shrinking into his narrow shoulders. “I’ll come and get them later.” Then he added, to underline the secrecy of the matter, “Out the back yard.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks,” Seán shouted over his shoulder as he ran down the tunnel leading into the hidden square that housed the tenement block. He didn’t want anyone to see him with Ivy Murphy. He’d take the beating he’d get for returning home without food for his aunts and uncles. He’d learned how to look out for number one. His mouth watered at the thought of the food he’d stashed away with Ivy Murphy. There would be wigs on the green if he was found out but he’d risk it.
Through Streets Broad and Narrow (Ivy Rose Series Book 1) Page 38