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  Christmas morning, 1964

  Waterloo Street, Liverpool

  The cold woke Fionnuala long before the alarm.

  During the night, her da’s old army coat had gradually fallen from the bed on to the floor, allowing the cold to slip deep inside her thin bones. The snow had begun to fall the night before Christmas Eve and had barely stopped since. It filled the bedroom with an eerie whiteness, stillness and quiet. Deathly quiet.

  Lifting her arm out from under the blanket, she reached down and, with one tug, heaved up the heavy old army coat, which weighed almost as much as she did, and tucked it in as she curled up into a ball to make herself warm once again.

  Moments later, Fionnuala’s da, Fred, popped his head around her bedroom door. His braces hung loosely over his vest, the top buttons of his baggy trousers were yet to be fastened and he wore his cap low on his brow. As with most dockers, his cap was the last item of clothing to be removed at night and the first back on in the morning.

  ‘Are you awake, queen?’

  ‘Aye, I am, Da,’ Fionnuala whispered back, careful not to rouse her sisters, sleeping in the double bed next to her own.

  ‘I’ll light the fire and make it nice and warm downstairs, before you come down. Just give me ten, now.’

  Fred pointed his finger into the air, as if to nail his words to the ceiling, then he turned and trotted on tiptoe down the stairs, but not before Fionnuala had rewarded him with a sleepy smile.

  ‘Thanks, Da, you’re the best,’ she whispered, as she scratched her neck. The woollen coat itched, but she was determined not to let it move again, as she snuggled down and savoured the prospect of another ten minutes’ sleep.

  Shall I tell him now? Dare I tell him now? It was the first thought that had entered her consciousness the second she woke.

  Fionnuala concentrated on her father’s footsteps descending the wooden stairs and silently counted until, with meticulous care, he avoided the steps known to creak and groan under his considerable frame. She thought how lucky she was that she had a da like Fred. The docks were closed on Christmas Day, a rare day of rest. He usually worked a full six days, sometimes seven when money was tight. But so proud was he of his daughter, Fionnuala, the nurse, that he would do anything to support her. To forfeit his one morning in bed and to be the first up in a freezing cold house to light the fire, was a duty of joy. Nothing was too much for Fred when it came to his daughters, especially Fionnuala.

  Now she looked over at the double bed with its tidy row of sleeping sibling redheads and smiled. She was the only one of eight daughters to have inherited her mother’s dark auburn hair and almost black eyes. Her da had brought home a bed for her to have as her very own when she began her nurse training, and now this single bed was wedged in between the wall and the double, where her sisters slept. It left a gap so small that she had to scramble to the end of the bed, in order to place her feet on the floor.

  Fionnuala would never let her da know, but now that the snow had arrived, she would have been much warmer sleeping in the big bed, with her sisters for hot water bottles. She would have had no need of the old coat on top of her blankets.

  As she closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep, down in the yard she heard the familiar sound of a shovel, scuffing against the yard cobbles, and the tumble of coal on metal as the coke hit the sides of the bucket. In just a couple of hours, the bedroom would fill with screams and squeals of delight, but by then she would be striding in through the hospital entrance, to begin her long twelve-hour shift.

  It felt as though she had been asleep for much more than ten minutes, when she heard her da sneak back into the room. With one hand he clutched seven soft pink, blue and lilac-striped flannelette pillowcases over his shoulder, and in the other he balanced a cup of tea, which slopped generously into the saucer upon which it precariously sat.

  ‘Here’s your tea, love, sup the slops out of the saucer first.’ Her da looked sheepish as he handed the tea to Fionnuala and then placed the pillow-cases gently onto the floor at the end of the double bed, winking at her as he did so.

  ‘Merciful God,’ Fionnuala whispered. ‘Does this mean that there is no Father Christmas? Was it you all along, Da?’

  Fred put a finger to his lips as he grinned. ‘Shh, we don’t want to wake our Mary, she will have the street up, she will, if she wakes before the others.’

  Fionnuala pushed herself up off the bed with one hand and balanced the cup and saucer in the other. ‘What’s that yellow thing sticking out of the corner of Mary’s pillowcase?’ she whispered back.

  ‘It’s an LP by Bobby Vee.’

  Fred had lowered himself gently onto the end of his daughter’s bed while she drank her tea.

  ‘But, Da!’ Fionnuala was stunned at this surprise Christmas gift. ‘We don’t have a record player, she won’t be able to listen to it.’

  ‘I know, queen, but she’s mad about Bobby Vee, isn’t she? And this fella came down to the dock gates selling them for next to nothing. What could I do? I couldn’t say no, now, could I? Knowing that he’s all our Mary talks about. She can look at the picture and read the words on the songs and who knows, if I drop a word in Callum O’Prey’s ear, we might have one of those radiogram thingies soon. When I get a bit of cash together. Anyway, that fire’ll be nice and warm now. I’ll go and get yer breakfast ready. Bacon butty, queen?’

  Fred suddenly felt foolish and wanted to retreat to the kitchen. Maggie had already given him hell about buying a record for their Mary, when there was nothing for her to play it on. He was now anxious that Mary might not be as pleased with the purchase as he was.

  Fred was second generation Irish and had himself been born and raised on the streets. He had quickly picked up the accent of the dockers and spoke in that lilting, nasal mix which was Irish scouse. Now he stepped back and, reaching across the bed, planted a kiss on the top of Fionnuala’s head.

  ‘Your present will be waiting for you, when you get back tonight, along with your Christmas dinner,’ he whispered.

  Fionnuala knew what he meant. Her ma would keep her Christmas dinner on a pan of simmering water, with a lid over the top.

  ‘Best way to keep a dinner warm. Never dries out, so it doesn’t,’ Maggie would say, each time she served a dinner from on top of the pan.

  Fionnuala had never returned late at night from a shift, without there being a hot dinner on a simmering pan waiting for her, even if everyone was in bed. She swore the dinners tasted nicer for having sat those few extra hours, waiting to be eaten.

  As she stepped into the kitchen now, she saw that her da had taken her black wool cape, with its blood-red lining, down from the hook and hung it across the back of one of the kitchen chairs in front of the fire, to warm, ready for when Fionnuala stepped out into the freezing cold morning. He had screwed the hook into the wall, the first day she arrived home wearing the heavy cape. One of his last jobs of the day, before he damped down the fire each night, was to take down Fionnuala’s cape and brush away imaginary dust. Fionnuala, always in bed and long asleep by this time, had no idea.

  ‘Ah, you are such a good da to me,’ she said, rubbing her hand across the top of the cape. ‘’Tis as warm as toast already and that’s a grand fire, Da, thanks.’

  Fred blushed as he placed a warm plate, with Fionnuala’s sandwich, on the table. Two slices of yesterday’s bread, fried in the bacon fat to freshen it up, with what looked like half a pig compressed between two doorsteps.

  ‘Isn’t it funny, how it feels so special on Christmas morning,’ Fionnuala sai
d, giving Fred a peck on the cheek. ‘Merry Christmas.’

  Fred looked at his daughter, his eyes brimming with pride and affection. ‘Aye, Merry Christmas, queen. Although you are working, it should be a nice and quiet one for you today, as you sent half of the patients home yesterday.’

  As Fionnuala tucked into her breakfast and chatted to her da, she looked up at the crepe paper decorations, crafted by the girls under her mother’s careful supervision and draped across the ceiling. The light from the fire had banished the damp and the chilled grey light of just half an hour earlier.

  ‘It’s so warm in here Da, I don’t want to leave now,’ Fionnuala said, wrinkling her nose in an exaggerated manner, as she smelt the turkey she had helped to stuff the previous evening, now slowly roasting in the range oven, at the side of the fire.

  ‘Will you tell Mammy, before she starts giving out, that I’ll pop into mass in town, on the way to the hospital? There’s only one bus an hour today and I can’t miss it and be late.’

  ‘All right, love, you have a good day and we will all be waiting here for you now, when you get home. Your ma has a letter from Aunty Joanna in Australia. She has kept it to open tonight, as a special treat, and we can all sit together while she reads the news from Brisbane. You know what your ma’s like, there’ll be enough tears to mop the floor. I’ll have me hankie ready, though.’

  Shall I tell him now? The thought wandered through Fionnuala’s mind, as she listened to her da rabbiting on, and watched as he poured more scalding dark brown tea into her enamel mug. Shall I wait back a minute and tell him, while we are on our own? The steam was clearly visible, as it rose in front of him and for a moment, her da’s face, snake-charmer-like, danced and swayed in the blur. Her nostrils filled with the smell of freshly brewed leaves; another Christmas treat for Fionnuala, to have been served the first fresh mash of the day. It was normally reserved for her ma.

  Fred fussed around her, picking up her black shoes and spitting on the leather. For the second time that morning, he buffed them with the rag he kept especially for her work shoes. As she continued to eat, she asked herself again, shall I tell him now? Shall I?

  Fred lifted up the birdcage cover, which Fionnuala had adapted to fit over the wicker basket she used for work. It had been split down the middle, and the elastic of the two patterned halves of soft plastic now covered both sides of the basket, to keep the contents inside dry.

  He carefully put her work shoes into the pink gingham shoe-bag, which her mother had stitched by hand, complete with her initials embroidered in white cotton, and laid them in the basket. For the first time that morning, there was a silence between them, while Fred fiddled with the corners of the cover on the basket.

  Now.

  Fionnuala leaned forward, preparing to speak…

  ‘You’re all set,’ Fred announced brightly. ‘Have ye got two pairs of stockings on? You will need them, there’s no sign of a thaw.’

  As quickly as ‘just the right moment’ had entered the kitchen, it took flight and left. Fionnuala, realizing the precious opportunity had passed, now hastily stuffed the last crumbs of fried bread into her mouth.

  ‘Mary and Joseph, I forgot to put the satsumas in the pillowcases,’ said Fred, slapping his forehead with the flat of his palm.

  ‘I’ll take yer mam her cuppa and slip them in, maybe she can have her tea in peace, before the rumpus begins.’

  ‘I’ll be gone when you come back down, Da,’ said Fionnuala, flicking the breadcrumbs from her lap into the hearth.

  ‘OK, love, I’ll wait for you at the bus stop at the end of the road tonight. Try and have a good day.’

  Fionnuala felt her colour begin to rise, as the first butterflies of panic settled in her stomach.

  ‘But, Da, the buses aren’t reliable on Christmas Day. I’ve no idea whether I will make the twenty past eight, and I may even be the lucky one and get away for the seven o’clock. If we are quiet and everything’s done, Sister Joyce will let one of us leave, and if I’m lucky, it might be me.’

  ‘Well, in that case, I will be at the bus stop from a quarter to eight until you arrive home, whatever bus ye may be on. No daughter of mine is walking home in the dark, after a long day at work, when there has been a murder not yards from here, what kind of man do ye think I am?’

  ‘The best,’ Fionnuala said, making Fred blush yet again.

  They exchanged smiles as her da slipped through the door and up the stairs, struggling to carry the satsumas and her ma’s tea.

  Fionnuala looked up at the statue of Our Lady on the press, blessed herself and whispered, ‘I bottled it again, didn’t I?’

  *

  Fionnuala ran down Waterloo Street towards the bus stop and, as always, she glanced down Nelson Street towards the house of Annie O’Prey, then up at the windows, where she knew the secret that burnt in her heart lay sleeping. Within those soot-blackened, terraced walls, lay Annie’s son, Callum, home from prison these last few months. Like the good boy he now was, he would escort his mother to mass this morning and stand dutifully by her side, whilst she lit a penny candle for her late husband and for her best friend and neighbour, who had recently met the bloodiest of ends during a moment of privacy, sitting on the lavvy in her own outhouse. This was the reason Fred would not allow his daughter to walk home from the bus stop alone. If a woman could be murdered whilst sat on her lavvy, it could happen to anyone, anywhere.

  If Fionnuala had fallen for any other boy on the Four Streets, telling her parents would not have presented such a problem, but Callum was bad news. In and out of prison, the O’Prey boys had a reputation for being prolific local thieves and, at the same time, local heroes. But Fionnuala was well aware that with Callum, it was all bravado. He loved to help people; well, really, what he actually loved was being needed and appreciated. Fionnuala knew he basked in the praise and gratitude heaped upon him, in a way unique to those with Irish blood in their veins, and never was this more obvious than when he managed to do something for one of the families he had grown up with and known since birth.

  All it took was a request, dropped into his ear down the Anchor, and off Callum went, without a second thought. That, really, was Callum’s problem: he never considered the consequence of his actions beyond his need to feel valued and important. It was all that mattered to him. There was no doubt of the worth of the O’Prey boys to the community, but every mother on the streets was glad they were Annie’s boys, and not their own. Fionnuala’s own mother, Maggie, had even made excuses for Callum, until the day he stole a car and knocked out the girls from Nelson Street.

  ‘As God is true, if I was Annie O’Prey, I would be in an early grave, so I would, with the worry of that Callum,’ she had said.

  ‘Sure, he means no harm,’ her da had interjected.

  ‘Aye, I know that, soft lad.’

  Fionnuala’s mother had a tongue as sharp as any knife in the drawer and took no prisoners, but what she lacked in maternal affection she made up for in domestic efficiency, and Fred was more than happy to be the ‘soft lad’ in the house, when it came to his children, often winking at his daughters behind Maggie’s back. With relief, they would grin back. They took no offence at their mother’s brusqueness, but when she snapped at Fred, it was as though her words pierced their own hearts and the pain lingered, until Fred slipped them a sign that he was unwounded.

  Now, Maggie said, ‘He’s helped us out often enough, but the lad really needs to settle down. The police have them panda cars all over the place, it’s more dangerous now altogether. He’s been in jail twice already and if he’s not careful, he will end up serving years like his brother and what use can either of those lads be to their mother from behind bars? Sure, Annie’s not getting any younger now.’

  ‘Well, we have no worries there, queen,’ Fred said, as his chest puffed out with pride. ‘Our Fionnuala’s off to train to be a nurse and God willing, the others will follow. You can’t get better than that.’

  ‘Aye, isn�
�t that the truth. God forbid we should ever have a child turn out like one of the O’Prey lads. What, in the name of God, did Annie do wrong? She took those boys to mass with her every week and never missed a beat, once their da died.’

  ‘That accident was a bit of bad luck.’ Fred became morose whenever the name of a man who had died in a dock accident was mentioned. ‘Two seconds later and that rope would never have hit him.’

  Maggie had been standing at the sink and at the memory of the accident which had claimed the life of Benjamin O’Prey, took her hands out of the washing up water and blessed herself with dripping dishwater. ‘God rest his soul,’ she said, and quickly added, ‘Well, let’s hope none of our girls ever take up with one of the O’Preys. I want better than a jailbird for all of them. I’m not sure what would be worse, one of them in the family way, or marrying an O’Prey.’

  ‘Holy Mary mother of God, no! Are ye serious, woman? There is only our Fionnuala anywhere near their age and she has standards, does our Fionnuala. She would never look twice at an O’Prey boy, the cut of him, are ye mad? She’s better sense than that.’

  And for months, it had been those words which Fionnuala replayed, every night in the moments before sleep.

  She’s better sense than that.

  *

  Fionnuala and Callum had turned their childhood friendship around an entirely unexpected corner, on the night before she began her nurse training. There had been a bit of a do in the Anchor, to send Fionnuala off in style.

  The residents of the Four Streets seized any excuse for a party. Each one, man, woman and child, worked long, hard hours to keep body and soul together and they liked to play as hard as they worked. Saturday night was spent in the Irish Centre, the Grafton or the Anchor pub on the Dock Road.

  Bill, the landlord of the Anchor, had laid on plates of sandwiches and pork pies, along with the free first drink of the night. Bill and Fred had both grown up in Liverpool during the war. They had survived the Blitz on the same street and both knew many who hadn’t. From the same town in Co Clare, neither had returned home to Ireland, the country of their ancestors and yet, they were still connected across the water, to families and friends who knew both men well. There was no question of Fionnuala’s leaving party being held anywhere other than in the Anchor.