“Where there is darkness, light . . .” Theo had been ordered to break off all contact with Ivy. He could not believe that the Lord he trusted in so fervently would disapprove of his relationship with Ivy. He had plans for her continued education. He had loaned her books from his private library. He enjoyed listening to her unique views and opinions when she returned one of his books. Surely he should be allowed correspond with Ivy? She was a lost soul needing his guidance.
“Where there is sadness, joy . . .” Theo prayed he was wrong about Father Leary, who was, after all a man of God. Surely the time the man had spent away from his parish had given him the time to pray and reflect on his actions? Theo felt someone needed to – warn – inform Ivy of the return of the man she feared.
Chapter 3
“Did Shay get away alright?” Maisie Reynolds, the skinny dishwater-blonde dynamo who rented the two rooms over Ivy’s basement flat, shouted as soon as Jem’s car pulled to a stop in the central courtyard.
The day was cold but the rain was holding off and the bright sharp sunlight allowed the women of The Lane to stand out on the cobbled courtyard and gossip to their hearts’ content. The group of women were well wrapped up in the tenement uniform of long black skirt, and long dark shawls wrapped tightly around their heads and shoulders. They looked like crows cawing about the goings-on of their neighbours.
“He did that, Mrs. Reynolds!” Ivy shouted from the open passenger window of the automobile. “I’ll see you later!”
She gave Jem a quick smile before jumping from the car. They had dropped Ann Marie off at her house.
“We saw Shay off in fine style!” Ivy shouted as she almost ran to her own basement home. “Ann Marie took a lot of photographs. We’ll show them to yeh when she has them developed.”
“Ivy Murphy, hold yer horses!”
The shouted order froze Ivy’s hand on the gate at the head of the steel steps leading down to her rooms. She turned her head and watched Patty Grant, a neighbour of long standing, march in her direction. Patty’s chin was pushed forward, her thin-lipped mouth pursed, brown eyes fixed firmly on Ivy’s face.
“I want a word with you.” Patty pushed open the gate and stood glaring – obviously waiting for Ivy to lead the way down the steps. “Private like.”
Ivy wanted to groan but she couldn’t turn a neighbour away. She took the key to her front door from her skirt pocket and meekly walked through the gate. Without a word, the two women descended to the cement area before Ivy’s front door. She unlocked and pushed open the door leading into the tiny hallway off the front of her two rooms.
“What can I do for you, Mrs Grant?” Ivy turned to face her neighbour as soon as both women had stepped into her cold front room.
“I’m goin’ to say to yer face what everyone is saying behind yer back.” Patty Grant pushed the sleeves of her hand-knit black jumper up to her elbows while staring around at the room she stood in. She gave a displeased sniff, presumably at the state of the room.
“What’s that then?” Ivy wondered what she’d done this time to bring the gossip down on her head. She fought the need to apologise for not cleaning out the fireplace and dusting the room before she’d left home.
“It’s a bloody disgrace – a young single woman having all this space to herself!” Patty waved her hands around the room. “You don’t need two rooms, Ivy Murphy. Me and my Boney, and he the best of husbands, have only the one room. What with me five childer that makes seven of us all told – falling over each other we are.”
“My family have lived in these two rooms for over twenty years, Missus.” Ivy could practically see Patty Grant measuring up the room for her own needs.
“That’s true.” Patty nodded her head so hard her shawl fell onto her shoulders, revealing an untidy head of dark hair streaked with grey. “But you have to face the facts, Ivy. Your family have all gone now. None of them have any notion of coming back here – they always did think too much of themselves.” The woman sniffed mightily. “You won’t be trying to tell me your Shay, with his fancy ways, would ever think of this place as his home. Everyone knows he’s making an eejit of himself – all that talk of making it big in A-mer-ee-kay – it won’t be long till he’s left stranded in that foreign country – with his tail between his legs.” Patty wrapped her shawl around her generous figure and gave a nod to underscore her opinion.
Ivy opened her mouth to object. “Missus –”
“You listen to me, Ivy Murphy.” Patty Grant had come to have her say and this little guttersnipe wasn’t going to stop her. “You can’t expect to live in all this space by yourself. Anyway, you’re walking out with Jem Ryan. It won’t be long before you’ll be churched and moving out of here. I want these two rooms for me family. Me three boys are in work. We can pay the rent.”
“Your lads are old enough to be walking out with young women and moving out themselves. Maybe you should be thinking of that.” Ivy didn’t say ‘mind your own business’ but it was understood.
“Indeed they won’t,” Patty snapped. “My boys will be paying back their da and me for all their years of raisin’ before they can even think of stepping out with some painted trollop.”
“Missus,” Ivy had known people would have their eye on her two rooms but she’d never expected Patty Grant to be one of the people demanding she move, “I have no intention of giving up me rooms – not at the moment anyway. Have you tried talking to the rent man?” The rent men who visited the tenements and surrounding areas collecting the landlord’s money would know of vacant rooms.
“I’ll not be moving from The Lane, Ivy Murphy, are yeh mad?” Patty Grant was mentally dividing the room she stood in to make separate sleeping areas for her three sons and two daughters. They wouldn’t know they were born with all this space. “My Boney and the lads have only to step out and walk to their work. The girls will soon be out of school. Father Leary has promised them work in the local factory. They’ll not be paying good money they could be handing up to me to take the char-a-bang to work. The very idea.” Patty liked to say her big words slowly, to show she wasn’t ignorant like some people.
“Mrs Grant . . .” Ivy had had enough. They could talk all day but she wasn’t going to move to please Patty Grant or anyone else. “I’m sorry for your difficulties but I’m not moving. I suggest you take a walk down to the rent office and ask them if anyone is leaving The Lane. You might ask after the two rooms the Johnsons rented – that place is still empty.”
“You’ve got your cheek, Ivy Murphy.” Patty Grant pushed her finger into Ivy’s chest. “That place is diseased. I’ll not move me family into that place. I want these two rooms. You have the only basement that has a front and back door that can be locked by key. Yer auld man was a cute whore in that respect. He demanded this place, the way I heard it.” She pushed her finger into Ivy again with some force behind it. “I want these rooms.”
“It’s a pity about yeh, Missus.” Ivy brushed the woman’s hand away from her. “I live here and I have no intention of giving up me rooms to suit you. If anything changes I’ll make sure you’ll be the first to know.” She walked back to the hallway and opened her front door. She stood holding it open. “I’ll ask you to leave as I’ve things I need to be getting on with.”
“You think on what I’ve said, Ivy Murphy.” Patty Grant pulled her shawl over her head and walked towards the door with her chest proudly out. “I may be the first to ask about these two rooms but I’ll not be the last. You make sure you tell me first of any changes.”
“I’ll do that,” Ivy said as the woman walked past her. She pushed the door closed with a deep sigh and stood listening to the other woman’s steps on the steel steps outside. When she heard the gate at the top close she pushed away from the door.
Chapter 4
“Well, that was a kick in the teeth.” Ivy hurried through the front room that she’d set up as her work space and into the back room. She made a quick mental note to herself to tidy the place. The dust was
looking up at her. “Do I not have enough to be worrying about?” She removed her coat and draped it over the end of her bed. She tossed her fashionable cloche hat on top of the coat with one hand while running the other through her short black hair. Her tweed suit jacket joined the clothing on the bed. “What with one thing and another I’ve let everything fall by the wayside, Da.” Ivy was in the habit of talking aloud to her late father when she was alone. “I’ve that much to do to catch up with meself, I’ll be meeting meself comin’ and goin’.” With an experienced flick of her wrist she quickly covered herself in the sleeveless wraparound navy-blue apron she took from the nail on the back of the door separating the two rooms. The apron, tied by cloth strings at the waist, covered her from neck to ankle. “I have to get in touch with Brother Theo and tell him I’m ready to continue me studies.”
She stood well away from the big black range while using the poker to force the ashes to fall from the barely glowing embers into the grate. She used the range’s special handle to remove the lid from over the fire.
“I don’t want to be stupid all me life.” She shook pieces of kindling and small nuggets of coal from the old biscuit box she kept by the range into the opening, directly onto the burning embers. “I have to be thinking about what I’m going to do for me business too.”
She quickly had the fire stoked with extra nuggets of coal and the stub of a candle, stacked carefully for maximum effect. She left the iron plate off the top of the fire and put the freshly filled big black kettle directly over the coals, hoping it wouldn’t take too long to boil.
“With the grace of God I’ll have a bit of time now to catch me breath.” Ivy removed her apron again and every stitch of clothing before pulling on an old vest of her da’s. “I’ve that much to do. I’ll have to write everything down so I don’t forget anything.” She pulled on a pair of lads’ tweed trousers and tucked the vest into them. She’d discovered wearing lads’ trousers under her long skirts kept the wind from freezing her private parts. She picked her coat from the bed and hung it carefully on a long nail forced into the bare whitewashed wall. The hat went on a matching nail.
The spout of the black kettle began to spit steam. She crossed to the range and made a pot of tea in her battered metal teapot, putting it on the range top to brew.
“Shay and me lit a few candles for yeh, Da, on the anniversary of yer death.” Ivy grinned, thinking, not for the first time, that her da was better company dead than he ever had been alive. “I hope that pleased yeh. We talked a lot about the secrets you and our mother kept to yerselves.” She resisted banging her precious dishes about. It didn’t make sense to ruin the little she had by reacting to something she couldn’t change. “You could have told me you had family living around the place.” Her da had never expected to die so young, she knew, but would it have hurt him to tell her a few home truths?
“It’s 1926 now, Da, can yeh credit it?” she continued aloud. “Are yeh up there on a cloud somewhere, looking down at your childer? Yeh’d be that proud of our Shay, Da. He’s made something of himself. Did yeh see the way the ones went after him with their tongues practically hanging out of their heads? It was a bloomin’ wonder to me who’d slapped his arse and wiped his nose. Scandalous, I can tell yeh.”
She took one of her new yellow flower-decorated teacups and saucers from the tall old cupboard – part of the set Jem had given her for Christmas. The man knew what pleased her. She sniffed the can of milk she’d left standing in a bucket of cold water. It was still fresh. With a glow of pride she took the time to fill the matching yellow flowered milk jug. She carried her dishes over to the kitchen table parked against the wall just inside the back door.
“I’d better put me skirt and jumper on in case anyone knocks,” she muttered. She’d be the talk of the place if she was seen in her da’s vest and a lad’s trousers. All the people who were saying Ivy Murphy was losing the run of herself would be proved right. She pulled a black woollen skirt up her long legs. She’d bought a thick knitted underskirt at the market and this too she pulled up her legs and settled under her skirt. A thick long-sleeved vest went under a hand-knit woollen jumper in moss green, completing the outfit. She pulled on her long knit stockings and boy’s work-boots. Without thought she covered her clothes with the long wraparound apron.
“I’ll have to be sure and check the papers, Da.” Ivy poured a cup of tea and pulled one of her two wooden chairs from the table. She’d have this pot of tea sitting at the table like a human. “I suppose our Shay will be all over the papers this evening and tomorrow. I’ll cut out his pictures and add them to the book I’m keeping for him.” She sipped her tea slowly.
“I don’t know how many times Mrs Wiggins and some of the neighbours went to see our lot up on stage at the Gaiety. They were all thrilled to see our Shay in the panto, Da.”
Marcella Wiggins and her brood had been among the many that had accepted Ann Marie’s offer of free theatre tickets to see the Gaiety pantomime. The people of The Lane had a lot to boast about over the holiday period. Not only had Shay Murphy been the star of the show but Liam Connelly, his sister Vera and Seán MacDonald had been another three of their own up there on the stage. The tongues had never stopped moving.
“Mrs Wiggins told me that she thought our Shay had grown up to be a very ‘extinguished’ looking man!” Ivy laughed at the memory. It wasn’t her place to tell the older woman the word was distinguished. “It was a livin’ wonder to me to see people I knew dancing and singing on the stage. I won’t be the only one losing the run of themselves. Brian and Lily Connelly haven’t stopped talking about their two – and why should they? They get their talent from their parents after all.”
She sipped her tea and her thoughts grew sombre. Patty Grant’s demands had frightened her. How many more people thought she should give up her two rooms? She looked around the room with a heavy heart. These two rooms were the only home she’d ever known. She knew she had it better than most in The Lane but she hadn’t thought her neighbours wanted her shifted. Well, they could want. She needed these two rooms – she wouldn’t give them up before she was ready and had something better to go to.
“Jem’s been after me to set a date for our wedding, Da.” Was she mad for putting him off? “He seems to think we can live here after we’re married – all right and tight.” If Jem and Emmy moved in she’d have to start tidying away her work again. “Is it wrong of me to want more out of life than this?” She dropped her heavy head into her hands, elbows on the table. “I was born and raised in these two rooms. But I refuse to be ashamed of meself for wanting more.”
Chapter 5
While Ivy was sitting contemplating her future, Jem Ryan had driven his precious automobile over the canal. Ann Marie had just offered him the use of the carriage house at the rear of her property as a place to store the vehicle. The automobile was his big investment in the future he saw coming. He didn’t want to leave it out in the open to be touched by everyone who passed it. It seemed to take forever to polish all of the fingerprints off the black paint. He’d telephoned Ann Marie to tell her he was coming. When he approached the entrance to the grounds surrounding her house, he saw her standing by the open gates. She saw him coming and waved him down.
“The entrance to the carriage house is around the back.” She jumped into the passenger side of Jem’s automobile. “It will be easier to show you. You can get to it from this side but the entryway is a sea of mud right now. Drive around the block and I’ll guide you in.”
“Are you sure about this, Ann Marie?” Jem followed the directions from his passenger carefully. The way took him off the main street that bordered the Grand Canal and into a wide laneway.
“It’s not a problem, Jem.” Ann Marie pointed to the locked tall double doors of the carriage house that served her property. The lane had a long line of similar buildings marching along both sides. “You need somewhere safe to leave your vehicle and I have the space. Look,” she held up a heavy iron key, “thi
s is the key to these doors.” She pointed with the key. “You’ll need to swing out a bit to get the automobile lined up before you drive it inside. Park it here for a moment and I’ll show you around.” She saw him hesitate and rushed to reassure him. “We’ll be able to see it the whole time, Jem.” She jumped out of the car, key in hand, and hurried over to unlock the carriage house, pushing both doors open as she went inside.
“There’s certainly plenty of space here.” Jem stood in the open doors, staring into the cavernous space. Ann Marie’s automobile didn’t take up a quarter of it.
“I’m very grateful to the previous owner of this property.” Ann Marie waved her arms around. “A lot of these carriage houses have been sold off separately and turned into individual dwellings. There’s a cobbler’s shop, an ironmonger’s and even a tripe house along this lane.”
“It’s a handy spot for a business.” Jem walked out into the laneway and looked along the cobbled length. He’d make a note of the tripe shop. Tripe and onion was a popular dish and cheap. The lads would enjoy a change from the typical menu of stew provided by the ‘Penny Dinners’ which were cooked for the poor in a local convent.
He turned and walked back to join Ann Marie. He noticed an indoor wooden staircase and wandered over to put his foot on the first step and look up. He couldn’t see a thing.
The Ha'Penny Place (Ivy Rose Series Book 3) Page 2