The Ballymara Road Read online

‘Well, if ye did, that doesn’t bode well,’ said Maggie.

  Her husband wasn’t fanciful by nature. She sat back on her heels.

  ‘There was a time when we woke on our farm on Christmas morning to the sound of a baby singing,’ she said as she looked wistfully into the fire. There were many things Maggie had yet to recover from and, Frank knew, the death of their child would always be one of them. Their only son, lost to diphtheria, had been born on a damp night, on a straw-filled mattress at the farm in front of a roaring fire. They had been two, alone. He had arrived in a hurry and then in the wonder of a moment, they became three, complete.

  She dealt with life by keeping busy, but he was aware that memories pained her every day.

  For a moment, they sat in companionable silence. Frank knew that, like himself, Maggie had returned in her mind to the last Christmas morning they had spent with the only child they had been blessed with.

  Frank put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. His clumsy gesture, well meant, was intended to ease her pain. She patted the top of his hand with her own.

  ‘I have to leave for the house. God knows how many busybodies they have coming for lunch today. Councillors, doctors, priests, the bishop, his bishop friend from Dublin. There’s been so much fuss, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pope himself pops in for a cuppa.’

  As Maggie entered the convent kitchens, she flicked on the light and almost immediately jumped with shock at the sight of the young woman sitting at the end of the long wooden table.

  ‘Well, hello,’ said Maggie. ‘I near jumped out of my fecking skin then. Who might you be?’

  The girl, her face streaked with tears, looked tired.

  ‘My name’s Joan,’ she said softly. ‘Reverend Mother says I have to work down here with Maggie. Is that you?’

  ‘It is me, and there is no other, so ye are in the right place,’ said Maggie. ‘Have ye had any tea?’

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Did ye get any sleep?’

  The girl shook her head again.

  ‘Have ye been sat there since ye arrived, in the dark?’

  The girl nodded. ‘The Reverend Mother took my clothes and then gave me these.’ She looked down at the regulation serge-blue calico worn by all the girls and orphans.

  ‘Well, that’s the first thing we have to do: get a cuppa tea and some breakfast inside ye. And when we have done that, ye can start telling me how ye ended up here at four o’clock on Christmas morning. I also know yer name’s not Joan, ’tis Daisy.’

  Daisy looked afraid. She had been told her new name was Joan and to forget that she had ever been called Daisy. She knew how strong the wrath of the nuns in Ireland could be if you disobeyed an order.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Maggie. ‘I know the name of everyone here is altered from the moment they arrive. I’ve yet to work out why in God’s name that happens. ’Tis a mystery to me. Are ye pregnant?’

  Daisy looked stunned. ‘No, I’m not.’

  ‘Well, ye aren’t on a fecking retreat. Are ye an orphan then?’

  ‘I had thought I was. When I was a child I lived in an orphanage in Dublin, with Sister Theresa, because they thought I was simple, but then I went to Liverpool to work as a housekeeper. A few weeks ago, my brother and his family made contact. He wanted me back with himself and his wife and children. They was so upset. He knew nothing about me or that I had been given away to the nuns when I was a baby. Miss Devlin, the teacher at the school in Liverpool, told me that my mam and da had even paid for me every year to be looked after – that was how I came to be in service.

  ‘I was supposed to be with my brother now, at Christmas. We were all so excited in Liverpool; Miss Devlin bought me a hat and they gave it to me at the school nativity play. My brother was due to meet me at the ferry, but then it was such a surprise to see the policeman on the ferry. I don’t think anyone can have known he was there or they would have said and he brought me here. Now they have told me I have to stay and work in the kitchens. I thought my brother would be here, waiting for me. That was what the policeman told me.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, steady on. Ye lost me back at the orphanage in Dublin,’ Maggie said as she tipped up a bucket of coal into the oven burner. ‘Tell ye what, Daisy, we have a Christmas dinner to cook for every sod and his wife today, so why don’t ye help me do that for now? But there is going to be lots of time for us to talk so don’t cry any more tears. Me and my Frank, we get upset when we see people cry, now. Ye saw my Frank when ye arrived and he is worried about ye. Don’t tell the Reverend Mother we have spoken, but me and Frank, we will help ye to get things sorted.’

  Daisy smiled for the first time since saying goodbye to Miss Devlin in Liverpool before she boarded the ferry.

  They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps as the nuns who helped prepare breakfast ran down the worn stone steps towards the warmth of the kitchen.

  ‘Shh, now. I will call ye Joan, in the kitchen, but to me an’ my Frank, ye will be Daisy.’

  That night, sitting on the settle in front of the fire, each with a mug of poteen, holding hands, even after all their years together, Maggie and Frank discussed Daisy.

  ‘There’s something not right there, Frank. The bishop from Dublin came down to have a word with her and she burst into tears right then and there in the kitchen, in front of everyone.’

  ‘What are ye thinking of doing, Maggie?’ He knew Maggie had a way of getting to the bottom of every situation.

  Frank leant forward to poke the fire, sending a fresh shower of sparks up the chimney and out onto the hearth. Maggie instinctively drew her feet in closer.

  ‘I don’t know yet, but she shouldn’t be here and if it is my job to find out where she should be, then so be it. Maybe we were sent here for a reason. Maybe God put us through what he did, when they took our farm away, because he could make use of us here to help others.’

  ‘Well, we have nowhere else to live. If we cross the nuns, no other convent or church anywhere would help us, so for God’s sake be careful.’

  ‘Aye, I will, but that poor lass is sleeping on a mattress in a store in the kitchen. For some reason, Sister Theresa doesn’t want her mixing with either the other girls or the nuns. It doesn’t smell right, Frank. I will bring her down here tomorrow night. She can sleep in front of our fire and, that way, I can find out more.’

  Frank stood and filled Maggie’s mug. He loved her best when she was plotting. When her interest was keen. The sparks from the fire reflected in her eyes as he lifted her to her feet with a smile. Then he led her to the bed, to finish that which, given half a chance, he would have begun, at five o’clock that morning.

  2

  ‘DO YOU WANT to know a secret?’ Little Paddy whispered to his best friend Harry four days later, as they sat on the small squat lump of red sandstone known as the hopping stone, positioned on the edge of the green.

  Snow had fallen heavily in Liverpool, on and off since before Christmas. Crystal-white pillows nestled on the lids of metal bins and windowsills while the cobbles lay buried under a glistening, dimpled blanket. Soot-stained bricks and chimneys that spewed acrid smoke had, for a short time only, taken on an aura of purity and cleanliness.

  The boys were shivering on the cold, late December evening. Harry drew his thin coat tightly around him in a feeble attempt to shield himself from the brutal wind blowing up from the River Mersey.

  Little Paddy didn’t own a coat. He shivered the hardest and the loudest. Harry had loaned him the overly long scarf, which Nana Kathleen in number forty-two had lovingly knitted him for Christmas, although now Harry wished he could have taken the scarf back from Little Paddy and wrapped it around his own exposed neck.

  It was the school Christmas holidays and, although it was much warmer indoors, neither boy wanted to be inside a cramped two-up, two-down that was jam-packed full of siblings, babies and steaming nappies, drying on a washing pulley suspended from the kitchen ceiling.

  Harry, the more sensible a
nd sensitive of the two, shuffled on the cold stone, trying to secure a more comfortable position. Its carved surface was undulating, as though to actively discourage anyone from loitering around for long.

  Harry ignored Paddy’s question and began to speak, more in an effort to distract his mind from the biting cold than from having anything interesting to say.

  ‘You know that if you’re running from the bizzies and you jumped onto this stone, the police couldn’t arrest ye until ye fell off? Did ye know that?’

  Harry was right. The stone was no man’s land, a stubby oasis of temporary refuge on the four streets where petty pilfering was essential, in order to survive.

  ‘Yeah, me da told me. The O’Prey boys were always jumping on and off it before they went down. It never saved them,’ said Little Paddy, feeling very clever indeed to have been able to impart this information to Harry, who was the cleverest boy in the class. Little Paddy jumped up and stood on top of the stone.

  ‘But I suppose it’s hard to balance, when yer hands are full of a tray of barm cakes you’ve just robbed out of the back of the bread van.’ Little Paddy hopped from foot to foot, as though testing how difficult it would be to balance on the stone.

  Harry smiled as he remembered the O’Prey boys, the overindulged sons of Annie, who lived across the road. They had been a great double act. What couldn’t be sourced from the docks when it was needed, the O’Preys would acquire. From a pair of communion shoes, to a wedding dress or even a wheelchair, for a small fee the boys could be depended upon to provide anything within reason, or even without, for anyone on the four streets. They thieved to order and were paying the price at Her Majesty’s pleasure.

  ‘D’you wanna know my secret, or not?’ Little Paddy was becoming disappointed with Harry’s apparent lack of interest.

  ‘Paddy, ye always have a secret. Does gossip just fall out of the sky and land in your kitchen?’ Harry replied, exasperated but interested, despite his determination not to be.

  Harry was still in shock at having discovered Little Paddy had known all along that big Sean, who was married to Brigid, and Alice, who was married to Jerry, had been blatantly carrying on right under everyone’s noses. To add insult to injury, his mammy, Peggy, had even seen them running away together the night before Christmas Eve, when everyone else had been watching the school nativity play. Gossip about the runaway lovers raged through the four streets, and everyone buzzed to distraction, all over Christmas.

  Harry’s mammy, Maura, had been mad about Peggy’s role in this and had given out something wicked to Harry’s saintly da, Tommy.

  ‘Gossip carts itself to that woman’s door, so it does, because it knows it will get a good hearing and then a good spreading after.’

  Tommy had looked across the table at Harry and winked whilst Maura ranted. It was taking her some time to adjust to the fact that Peggy had known – long before even Maura herself or Jerry’s mother Kathleen – about the devastation that had torn apart the lives of Maura’s closest friends. This was a thing of shame. Both Maura and Kathleen would have difficulty holding their heads up amongst their neighbours for some time to come. Their credibility as the wisest, holiest women on the four streets had been shot to bits. And who would now visit Kathleen to have their tea leaves read, when she couldn’t even foretell the catastrophe that was occurring under her very nose, in her own home?

  Maura was not happy.

  ‘To think, the shame for Kathleen, with Alice married to her own son and living under the same roof, and neither she nor Jerry had a clue. Can ye imagine the lies, and the stealth? God, what a wicked woman that Alice surely was. The cut of her. Didn’t I say so all along? Was I not the one who was never happy with such a union? Didn’t I say this would happen, eh? Eh?’

  Maura banged her rolling pin on the wooden table and then waved it at Tommy. Flour flew from the end, dusting Maura and transforming her raven hair in metal curlers into an even, rolling, snowcapped range.

  Tommy didn’t dare say that, since the day both of them had been witnesses at Alice and Jerry’s wedding, Maura had never even intimated that Alice would have an affair with Sean, the husband of another of Maura’s closest friends on the street, and then have the audacity to run away to America with him. When Maura was in this mood, there was only one thing to say and do.

  ‘Aye, Maura, ye did sure enough,’ he said, nodding sagely.

  ‘Did Jer never so much as say anything to give yer a clue as to what was going on? Did he not? He must have said something, Tommy. How could yer miss summat like that? Was Sean not acting different, like? Holy Mother, Sean was one of yer mates and he has run off with yer best mate’s wife. Ye work with them both all day, every day, and yer never knew a thing. Jaysus, Tommy, ye are a useless lump sometimes.’

  Tommy, the meekest of men, forgot his own rules of engagement and took mild exception to this latest criticism.

  ‘Me? For feck’s sake, Maura, Kathleen runs an industry reading the bleeding tea leaves every Friday and she read fecking Alice’s every week. If she couldn’t see it coming, how did ye expect me to? On the docks we don’t talk about such things as women. We talk about the horses and football, so don’t blame me.’

  ‘Bleedin’ football and horses, when there is really important stuff going on under yer very nose. Ye amaze me, Tommy Doherty, ye really do, so.’

  Maura undid her apron, throwing it onto the table. Then she flounced out of the back door, crossing the road to Jerry’s house to speak to Kathleen. There, once again she would offer solace and comfort, in the midst of the shameful tragedy that had befallen both of their houses.

  ‘Put the boxty in the oven,’ she had thrown over her shoulder as she left. ‘Do ye think ye can manage that? Have ye brain enough, eh, Tommy?’

  Maura hadn’t waited for a reply. As the back door slammed, Tommy turned to Harry, who throughout his exchange with Maura had been watching his da intently.

  Watching and learning.

  ‘Always agree with women, Harry, ’tis the only way to a quiet life.’

  And with that, relieved that Maura had left to vent her irritation elsewhere, Tommy extracted a pencil stub from behind his ear and continued to mark out his horses in the Daily Post for the two-thirty at Aintree.

  ‘Put the boxty in the oven, lad,’ he said as he shifted his cap back into place. ‘I’m fancying “Living Doll”, a nice little three-year-old filly at seven to one. What do you think, Harry?’

  Slamming the oven door shut, Harry rushed to sit next to Tommy to continue his education in how to be a man, whilst his twin brother, Declan, ran round the green, kicking a ball and pretending to be Roger Hunt.

  Scamp, Little Paddy’s scruffy, grey-haired mongrel, ran across the green towards the boys and flopped down into the snow at their feet, grinning proudly. From his jaws hung the carcass of a steaming-hot chicken, one leg hung by a sinew, dripping hot chicken juices onto Harry’s shoe.

  ‘Fecking hell, where has he nicked that from?’ said Little Paddy as both boys stared at the dog, their own mouths watering.

  In truth, Little Paddy was acting. On the four streets, no one locked their doors. The always hungry and artful Scamp had returned home, on more than one occasion, carrying a joint of hot meat. Just last week, Peggy had snatched a shoulder of lamb from his jaws, rinsed it under the tap and then thrown it in to the pot with their own meagre meal, a blind stew, which until that moment had comprised of potatoes and vegetables. Once the stolen shoulder of lamb was in the pot, all evidence of Scamp’s kill was concealed and they were safe from any neighbor who chose to burst through the back door yelling, ‘Have you seen me joint?’ Which was exactly what did happen only moments later.

  ‘That’ll do nicely and, ye lot, keep yer gobs shut,’ Peggy had said to her wide-eyed children, once the kitchen had returned to normal, as she dried her hands on her apron, which had been in desperate need of a wash for almost a month.

  The boys only occasionally saw a roast chicken on Sunday and not al
ways then, either. Quite often a Sunday roast would be without meat of any description. Instead it would consist of two types of potatoes, roast and mash, with mashed swede and carrots, topped with a great deal of fatty gravy. This was made with dripping and surplus meat fat left from previous meals that had been saved in an enamel bowl. Amazingly, here was Scamp, with half a steaming chicken in his mouth. As good a piece of meat as either had ever eaten on Christmas Day.

  Both boys were by now salivating as they wondered who on earth on the four streets could afford to cook a chicken on a Tuesday.

  ‘Maybe we should run home, before whoever it does belong to runs down the street, looking for it. I’ll get the belt from me da, without wanting another from somebody else an’ all,’ said Little Paddy as he looked up and down the street nervously. But there was no sign of anyone.

  Harry felt sorry for Little Paddy. Tommy had never so much as raised his voice to any of his children. They often heard Big Paddy next door laying into his kids and Harry knew it pained Tommy. But there were rules of survival on the four streets and one was that when it came to matters of children being disciplined, you didn’t interfere.

  One evening, Little Paddy’s cries were so loud that Harry had begged his da to save his friend.

  ‘Da can’t, Harry,’ Maura had said, pulling him to her and giving him an almighty hug, while she shielded his ears with her hands. ‘We can’t interfere. It’s the law.’

  Little Paddy, made nervous by the arrival of Scamp and the stolen chicken, was now becoming impatient with Harry. ‘Do you want to know a secret or not?’ he demanded, hands on his hips.

  Harry’s stomach was rumbling at the sight and smell of the chicken and his attention had wandered from Little Paddy’s secret. Always mild-mannered, unusually for him, he was not in the best of moods today. He didn’t really want to know. He was more interested in reading than in gossip. School didn’t begin for another week and he had read every book he had been allowed to bring home for the holidays. Without another world to disappear into, he felt adrift.