The Four Streets Read online

  Jerry kept hold of Bernadette, and her hat, keeping her hair away from her face for almost the entire crossing. The seasickness claimed her as she vomited over the rail all the way to Liverpool during the notoriously choppy journey across the Irish Sea.

  As deathly as the seasickness made her feel, Bernadette had noticed Jerry’s black wavy hair and, for an Irishman, his unusually broad shoulders. He wore a typically oversized cap, which, although pulled down low over his forehead against the wind, blew off to the other side of the deck so that Jerry, thrown from side to side by the rocking of the boat, had to run like a madman to rescue it. Despite how ill she felt, she laughed. It was impossible not to laugh at this cheeky Irishman.

  They didn’t leave each other’s side for the entire crossing. If they had, Bernadette might have fallen over. By the time they docked at Liverpool, she felt she had known him all her life. To be fair, she had: not necessarily Jerry, but many young men from home just like him. However, it was the fact that there was something very chippy and confident about Jerry that made him different and extremely attractive, despite her self-imposed intention to meet a rich American traveller who would sweep her off her feet and carry her off, away across the Atlantic, to the country where so many of her Irish ancestors had emigrated to live.

  ‘Never worry, Mammy,’ she had said to her mother, who was upset at the thought that soon all her children would have left her to work abroad. ‘I’ll send ye me pay and when I’m in America, oh sure, won’t ye be the grandest woman in all of Killhooney Bay, I’ll be able to send ye so much.’

  Bernadette was confident that she would be massively successful in the land of milk and honey, and her generosity was such that she was determined everyone she knew would benefit too.

  She already had a job waiting for her as a chambermaid in Liverpool’s Grand hotel, with staff accommodation provided in the maids’ dorm under the roof, boiling in summer and freezing in winter. Bernadette did not care. This lowly position did not deter her from her grand ambitions. She would have work. That was something many in rural Ireland did not. It hadn’t stopped raining in Mayo for weeks before she left, and although she loved her home, she was looking for adventure and a way to earn a living, not to grow a set of gills.

  But she hadn’t reckoned on meeting Jerry and she also hadn’t expected to fall in love within minutes of her feet leaving the Irish shore. It wasn’t the most romantic or conventional beginning to what became the deepest and truest love affair, but it forged an immediate deep bond.

  Jerry told Bernadette he was off to stay with a widowed aunt who lived on the four streets. Although he didn’t have a job already lined up, he knew there was plenty of work in Liverpool for strong Irish navvies. Work on the docks, the roads or building the new houses was not too difficult to come by and a slice of a pay packet earned in England could transform the life of a family back home.

  As soon as they docked and Bernadette set foot on dry land, she started to feel better. On board the ship, she had felt as close to death as it was possible to be, having vomited what felt like the entire lining of her stomach. Never had she experienced anything as unbearable. She knew if it hadn’t been for Jerry’s company and the fact that he had looked after her, it would have been a million times worse.

  Jerry turned to look at her and laughed. In the five minutes since they had docked, the colour had risen in her cheeks. Her eyes had begun to take on a sparkle and her smile was less forced. Jerry didn’t want to part from her. He needed to know the Bernadette who wasn’t distracted whilst vomiting over the deck.

  ‘Let’s go in here,’ said Jerry, pointing to a rough-and-ready portside café. ‘Ye need to get a lining on your stomach before ye set off to your hotel, and I sure need to eat before I set off to look for work. Let’s grab a bite together, eh? It’ll set us both up for what lies ahead for the rest of the day.’

  Bernadette willingly agreed. She had no idea when she would get the chance to eat again, and she also wanted to spend some time with this handsome young man when she wasn’t embarrassing herself and could act in a more dignified and ladylike manner.

  The café smelt of damp wool, stale bodies, fried steam and blue cigarette smoke. They walked across its floorboards to a newly vacated table with a red gingham tablecloth, next to the open fire. The waitress came and removed the overflowing ashtray, replacing it with a clean one as she took their order. Jerry offered Bernadette a cigarette, a Capstan Full Strength, which made her choke, and both of them laughed a great deal as they began to talk.

  Very shortly a large brown earthenware pot of tea was placed on the table with a plate of thickly sliced white bread and butter, followed by two plates piled up with chips and two fried eggs on top. Bernadette hadn’t realized how hungry she was until they both devoured the food.

  Finally, Jerry plucked up the courage and, cheekily, reached out and took one of Bernadette’s hands in his own. She didn’t pull away.

  ‘Does ye not know any modesty at all?’ she chided playfully, hitting the top of his hand with her free one as though to knock it away, something she had no intention of doing.

  Bernadette might have been play-objecting to Jerry’s romantic advances but really she was giggly and delighted. They talked about their homes and family, the places they both knew and the people they had in common.

  ‘Do ye know the O’Shaughnessys from Mayo?’ asked Jerry.

  ‘Ah, sure I do, from Bellingar, I know the mammy and daddy and their daughter Theresa,’ replied Bernadette. This was Ireland. In the rest of the world they say you are only ever six people away from someone you know, but in Ireland it has to be two.

  Jerry was nervous, turning his teaspoon over and over between his fingers, making a constant tinkling sound as it tapped the cup. On a normal day, he found it hard to remain serious for more than a few minutes and here he was, for the last hour, pouring out his life plan to a woman who had thrown up over his feet. He had never before had a conversation in which he talked out loud about the things that made him hungry for the future. Jerry was stupidly happy. They both were. Emotions were gripping them both so fast they had no idea what was happening but neither resisted.

  By the time Jerry delivered Bernadette to the tram stop for the hotel, he had decided she was very definitely the woman he was going to marry. There was no doubt. She was the one. It was just a matter of time until she realized it too.

  As they said their goodbyes, neither could believe what had happened. A few hours ago they had boarded a boat to take them to Liverpool and a new life, and here they were, both without a shred of doubt that, just those few hours later, they were in love; their new life had arrived. It had jumped up and whacked them both in the face with no notice whatsoever. Things were about to change, forever.

  Jerry promised to call at the staff entrance of the hotel and find her at the weekend. They walked away from each other, waved, then both looked back and laughed. Jerry ran back.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ laughed Bernadette. ‘I don’t even know ye.’

  Parting was physically painful. Both were secretly worried they might never see the other again, that the magic bubble might burst. As Bernadette turned to walk away for the second time, Jerry reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, and that was when Jerry, in broad daylight, with people walking past and with the Mersey River watching and a thousand seagulls soaring, kissed his Bernadette for the first time.

  It was a kiss that was so daring, Bernadette often recounted it to her friends.

  ‘Sure, he was so bold I had no idea what was coming and when he kissed me, I lost me breath and almost fainted, so I did.’

  It was very different from what Jerry told his friends. ‘She was so keen, she couldn’t keep her hands off me and begged me for another, in front of everyone and in broad daylight too. I thought we was going to be arrested right there.’

  If Bernadette heard him, it would be followed by squeals and play fighting. No one ever knew which version was true and no one car
ed. Their storytelling infused everyone with warmth and laughter.

  When they finally parted, Jerry went straight to his aunt’s house, deposited his bag and, after a quick greeting, took himself straight down the steps at the end of the street to the docks. Dock work was casual. He would walk the entire length of the waterfront and visit every dock if he needed to in order to be taken on. He now had a new imperative, a spring in his step. A reason to find work and good, well-paid work.

  As he ran down the steps whistling, he couldn’t get Bernadette out of his mind. For what felt like every moment until the weekend, he relived each second of their conversation. In bed, in the minutes before sleep, he relived their kiss as his stomach churned at the excitement and expectation of another. Might there be more? Could this be possible? Could life really be that good? Could Jerry, a farmer’s son from Mayo, really be this lucky?

  He was. They met almost every night until the day they married, even if it meant Jerry had to walk to the hotel when Bernadette had only her break time free. He would stand at the staff entrance until she could slip out, just for a snatched kiss, to reassure himself she was happy. On her day off she would run down to the docks and spend it at his auntie’s house on the street, enjoying the comfort of having a place where she could spend her time and wait for Jerry to finish work. On Sundays they would attend mass at St Mary’s church together and walk along the shore as far as Waterloo.

  They were blissfully in love and, after nearly a year of steady work, Jerry asked Bernadette to marry him. He popped the question in the café at the Pier Head where they had their first proper date. Bernadette could not have been happier. He even got down on one knee as the customers and staff cheered and clapped. They both cried a little as an elderly man from Eire came up to them on his way out of the café and pressed a brown ten-shilling note into Jerry’s palm as he left.

  ‘For the babby when it comes,’ he said, and winked as he left.

  They both thought they would burst with joy. But this did not distract them from the plans they had. Jerry and Bernadette spent a great deal of time mapping out their future. When Jerry’s aunt suddenly died, it was a shock to everyone, but luckily, shortly after Jerry had moved in with his aunt, she had put his name on the rent book, which meant that he could remain in the house without question. The houses on the streets had transferred from one generation to the next in this manner ever since the first wave of immigrants had flooded through the gates of Clarence dock during the potato famine.

  However, the pressure was too great for Jerry and Bernadette to put off the wedding until after the full twelve-month mourning period. Bernadette was helping Jerry to cook and clean and look after the house, and not being able to run up the stairs was driving them both mad with desire. But Bernadette was a good Catholic girl and she was taking no chances with sex before marriage. No shotgun wedding for her. Suddenly, being alone in each other’s company in the close proximity of a bedroom was becoming an almost unbearable temptation. Bernadette would never stay overnight and the pressure built to an almost unbearable pitch.

  ‘Just stay tonight,’ Jerry begged, one Sunday night as Bernadette was leaving. ‘Please,’ he murmured into her ear in the midst of a very passionate kiss. ‘I promise I will be good and ye will still be a virgin in the morning.’

  ‘Not at all!’ replied Bernadette forcefully. ‘Are ye crazy? Can ye imagine what they will be saying here in the streets tomorrow when they see me leaving in the morning?’

  Her resolve did indeed drive Jerry crazy. He wanted to put his fist through the wall, but he also knew she was right. They were married within three months.

  During those three months Bernadette got to know everyone on the four streets as well as she did her neighbours back home. Bernadette and Maura came from the same village, Killhooney, and had known each other since Bernadette was a baby. You didn’t need to travel far in Liverpool before you met someone from back home. The two women became special friends, which extended to Tommy and Maura’s children, especially their eldest daughter, Kitty, who spent as much time with Jerry and Bernadette as she did in her own house.

  Although Maura was older, she and Bernadette had attended the same school, knew the same families and had a shared history. Their deep yearning for home had drawn them together from the first day Bernadette had arrived in the street. Maura was daily homesick. Both their families came from the sod houses, close to the coast. Every day they talked about how there was no better view of the Atlantic than that from the cliffs overlooking Blacksod Bay. No better dancing at a ceilidh than that to be had at the inn. No better fish to be tasted than salmon poached from the Morhaun River or fish from the Carrowbay Loch. They had so much to talk about and their conversations about home acted as a salve to Maura’s always aching heart.

  Neither mentioned the poverty, the lack of shoes, the rain, the hunger or the wet ceilings. The sun always shone on Mayo when it came to the reminiscing.

  Bernadette spent hours talking about her work to Maura, who loved to hear the chambermaids’ tales about the guests staying in the hotel. Stuck in a life that would never alter, Maura found every detail fascinating, from what the ladies wore to the staff-room gossip, especially about the head housekeeper, Alice Tanner, who had worked at the hotel since she was fifteen and who was legendary for never having taken a day off or having had a visitor since Bernadette arrived.

  ‘Sure, that Alice is a mean one altogether!’ Bernadette would exclaim, at least once a week, as she flounced into Maura’s kitchen. ‘I cannot wait until Jerry and I are married and I can give in me notice. She would drive a saint to drink. I have never given out like some of the others, Maura, but God help me, I will one day soon.’

  Maura was all ears.

  ‘She knew Jerry was coming to the staff entrance for me last night and she deliberately sent me off on a wild-goose chase across the hotel to make me late for him. Out of my half-hour break I got ten minutes with him. Jeez, that Alice Tanner is a spiteful bitch. She never sets foot outside of the hotel, and no one ever comes to see her. She’s just wicked jealous, so she is, and here’s me, always protecting her from the others. So help me God, I cannot any more, the witch.’

  Maura loved these days. She would make Bernadette a cup of tea, sit at the kitchen table and listen to her talk for hours on end. The most interesting conversation Maura ever had with the other women on the four streets was how to keep your milk from drying up when you had half a dozen kids to run after, with not enough food to go round for everyone, and how many black eyes there were in English potatoes. Bernadette’s chatter was a ray of sunshine.

  Just talking to Maura would calm Bernadette down and they would move onto the more interesting gossip, such as the wedding that took place at the hotel on the Saturday. Maura could not believe the things they did with a salmon at the Grand and who knew people ate lobsters?

  Everyone on the four streets looked forward to Jerry and Bernadette’s wedding with huge excitement. There was something special about them both. They were always laughing and making everyone else laugh either with them or at them.

  There was no salmon or lobster to be had at the Irish centre, but the Guinness flowed as fast as the laughter was loud.

  The wedding reception had been in full swing for just a few hours when Jerry dragged Bernadette away to carry her over the threshold. The gentle ribbing from their family and friends carried them down the street as they ran giggling to number forty-two.

  ‘What in God’s name will they all think?’ protested Bernadette, tripping on her new heels. ‘Running away to me marriage bed and not staying until the end.’

  Jerry’s response was to scoop her up and sprint with her across his arms the rest of the way. A Lord Lochinvar stealing away his princess.

  The river was black and still. Watching and listening. Holding onto what it knew… and their shrieks and squeals of laughter echoed out across the water and were surely absorbed into eternity. They were, after all, the happiest couple to have
ever run along the river’s bank.

  The wedding reception carried on way into the early hours, long after their marriage had been consummated a number of times.

  In the early hours of the morning, spent and exhausted, Jerry and Bernadette made plans for the future yet again. They knew they were special. They knew they were different. They knew that the brightest future awaited them.

  They also knew they were lucky to have a house of their own, even one owned by the Liverpool Corporation. It was the norm for young couples to begin their married life by moving in with their parents. Bernadette and Jerry were a novelty. Jerry’s aunt had been barren, and had lavished her attention on her immaculate home, on the rugs she had been able to buy at the docks and the nice chest of drawers from Blackler’s department store. Although slightly fancy and dated for Bernadette, with far too many fringes around cushions, lampshades and curtains, it was still the best-furnished and decorated house on the street.

  Bernadette strove to be different. From the day they married, she learnt how to sew and cook, acquiring any little skill she could master to keep them one step ahead. Life had yet to wear Bernadette down, to disillusion her, to possess her womb. She embodied the arrogance of youth, combined with a hungry, impatient aspiration for a better life away from the four streets, although she and Jerry were yet to work out how it would be achieved. Even when there were only two of them, a docker’s wage merely covered the bills and provided food, with just a little left over. Most couples in the streets had at least six children, which made life much harder than it should have been.

  The neighbours nicknamed her ‘Silver Heels’, so grand were her dreams. Bernadette was aware that she had almost set herself apart from the community by talking about the future she wanted. If she hadn’t been so popular, she might easily have succeeded in this. But how could anyone dislike Bernadette and Jerry? They were so in love, so idealistic, so happy.