The Four Streets Read online

  A natural good neighbour, she always helped her friends. Whether it was to take a crying baby into her house to give a mother in the street some time off, or buying a few sweets for the children on the green. She attended mass every day and never gossiped – her heart was pure.

  ‘Bernadette, ye are too good for this world, so ye is, sure ye must be an angel come to spy on us,’ said Maura, who said she sinned so often she needed to go to mass twice a day. ‘Feck knows, if ye are, I’ll never get through them pearly gates now, no matter how many times I go to confession. I don’t confess everything, ye know!’ Maura would exclaim in mock indignation every time Bernadette refused to join in the gossip or say anything unkind about another woman in the streets.

  Bernadette was godmother to the Doherty twins, which made her broody for her own, but with an iron will she maintained her plan to have everything in her house perfect and some money saved before a baby arrived. And besides, she and Jerry loved their Saturday nights out, and their short trips back to Ireland to visit their families and to take home presents. The young married couple with no babies and a bit of money were accorded a similar status as the film stars of the day. They knew that once babies arrived, all that would stop.

  Jerry was so content that he could find nothing to complain about, no matter how hard he tried. Whereas many men feared going home on a Friday night after they had drunk half of their pay packet, Jerry ran home to his wife. He took a great deal of ribbing from the other dockers, but they all wanted to be him. Why wouldn’t they? He never stopped grinning. He and Bernadette were the only couple on the streets never to be heard having a row.

  The fact that they didn’t have a baby straight away was the subject of daily gossip amongst the women.

  ‘He must be jumping off at Edge Hill,’ was a theory thrown over garden walls by women with a dozen children each.

  Edge Hill was a train station just a few minutes outside Lime Street station in Liverpool city centre, and ‘jumping off at Edge Hill’ was the colloquialism used for the withdrawal method of contraception favoured by the Pope. Not that the Pope ever had to use it, despite being such an expert. It was highly unreliable; even more so when practised by dockers who selfishly, after a few rum toddies, forgot to jump off and went all the way to Lime Street.

  Jerry never forgot. Life to him and Bernadette was about careful planning and being responsible. They were going to get on in life and nothing, but nothing, was going to be left to chance.

  When Bernadette finally became pregnant, there was no one on the four streets who was not caught up in the joy of the news. Babies were not an uncommon occurrence on the streets, but the arrival of Bernadette and Jerry’s first baby had everyone excited.

  ‘That child will be surely blessed when it comes,’ said Maura. ‘Was there ever a child more wanted or which could bring more joy?’ No one could answer that question. It was as though Bernadette was the only woman ever to have been pregnant.

  Bernadette had broken the news to Jerry whilst they were in Ireland visiting her family. They were standing on the cliff at Killhooney, overlooking the inky depths of Blacksod Bay. Jerry had almost fainted and had to sit down.

  ‘Oh my God, Bernadette, are we to be a mammy and a daddy?’ He took off his cap and rubbed his hair before putting it back on. Bernadette tucked her calf-length skirt in behind her knees as she sank to the ground to sit next to him.

  ‘We are that,’ she replied, looking shocked, and then they both began to laugh and cry at the same time. They kissed and hugged each other as the sea roared with laughter all around them. That night, the villagers attended the ceilidh in the pub arranged with an hour’s notice and, pregnant or not, Bernadette danced into the small hours.

  When the time came for the baby to be born, news had spread fast that Bernadette was in labour and that she and Jerry were at the hospital. Already the women were falling over themselves to help. They let themselves into the house by the back door, cleaned it from top to bottom despite the fact that it was unnecessary, stocked up the fire ready for a match to be thrown on and left a stew on the side of the range. Bernadette was one of their own, a young woman from the bogs in search of a better life. Disappointment would certainly be just round the corner but, until it came, she had friends and the four streets to count on. Whilst the women were being good neighbours and dusting down her new cot, Nellie Deane made her entrance into the world.

  Jerry had been absolutely convinced that Bernadette had been carrying a boy, and the fact that it turned out to be a girl threw him, but only for the few seconds it took him to fall madly in love with his new baby daughter.

  For hours, he had nervously paced up and down, waiting. There were no mobile phones then and although there was a public payphone in the hospital entrance, no one they knew could afford a telephone. All communication was by word of mouth or letter. Everyone knew it would be over a week before their relatives in Ireland received the news announcing that Nellie had arrived.

  Jerry was beside himself with excitement. Their new baby’s birth was the manifestation of his and Bernadette’s life plan. He had the perfect wife in Bernadette, and at last he would have the perfect baby. For months he had told everyone he was going to have a boy. That was all forgotten now.

  ‘Jeez, I knew from the day she told me she was pregnant it would be a baby girl,’ said Jerry in a very matter-of-fact way to the midwife. ‘I have always wanted a beautiful daughter.’

  ‘Oh my,’ laughed Bernadette, ‘have ye indeed, is that why ye have been saying for seven months ye can’t wait to get him to the football, was that our little girl ye was talking about then?’

  Moments after she had given birth, they were both laughing together. He and his Bernadette, with her long red hair and bright blue Irish eyes, had spoken in detail about this day ever since they had first known she was pregnant. Not a drink had passed Jerry’s lips from that time, as they had saved every penny to buy a cot and turn the second bedroom into a nursery fit for their child. They had managed to completely refurnish and decorate their home. Each time a room was finished, almost forty couples traipsed through the rooms to ooh and aah. Bernadette was meticulous. She fought the dock dust and smog hand to hand; the windows shone, the nets gleamed and pride reflected from her white windowsills.

  Once Bernadette had been cleaned up, Jerry was allowed into the labour ward. He had paced the corridors the entire length of the hospital during the birth, desperate for it to be over so that he could be allowed back at Bernadette’s side. No father was allowed in a delivery room in the nineteen- fifties. The baby business was women’s work. He held his precious bundle in his huge muscular arms, more used to lifting cargo than babies, and could barely see her little face through his tears. Being careful to protect their tiny, fragile scrap, he turned towards his wife and their eyes met.

  ‘She looks like ye,’ whispered Jerry. His voice was thick with emotion as the tears trickled down his cheeks. ‘She is the most beautiful baby in the whole world.’

  Before Bernadette could protest, she gave in and didn’t argue. Was there ever a man who could love his new daughter more? Let him think what he wants, she thought.

  ‘Ye will have your lad next,’ she said with a smile and such confidence, he believed her without question.

  She smiled up at him tenderly, her love for this man who was different from all others pouring out despite her exhaustion. He leant over and kissed her dry lips, thinking that he had never seen his wife as lovely as she looked right now, after twenty-four hours of hard labour and no sleep. His tears wet her face and as she laid a hand on the side of his cheek, she kissed them away and tasted the salt on her lips. Between kisses, they were quietly sobbing and laughing at the same time, flooded with the love their new baby had brought to them as her gift. Jerry hitched the newborn up so that she was wedged between them both and they each gave a nervous laugh as they leant down and kissed her too. The three of them, wrapped in one warm embrace, filled with the smell of the newborn
. They were both high on the miracle of life.

  ‘I feel so scared,’ confided Bernadette to Jerry, looking up at him. ‘We have this little life to look after, she needs us for everything, Jer, we can’t fail her.’ Bernadette spoke with a degree of urgency, referring to the conversation they had had many times into the small hours of the night.

  ‘Shh, I know, my love, and we won’t,’ said Jerry. ‘She will be a princess, she will have everything she needs. I will never be out of work or let her down.’

  Bernadette smiled up at him again. She felt safe and secure. She had no idea how happy one could possibly be, but she couldn’t help worrying about money.

  Worry was in her Irish DNA. Famines had left an invisible footprint. Jerry and Bernadette had plans for their baby daughter. For months they had talked and plotted about how their children would be schooled. Regardless of what the priest said, they would have just the two, so they weren’t reduced to total poverty. They wanted their children to live a better life than their own had been and that of others on the streets. Bernadette was surely right: a son would be next. Jerry did not want his son to have aching bones every day from a lifetime of hard toil, or to be injured in one of the accidents that happened all too often on the docks, or to develop premature arthritis due to the excessive wear and tear on his joints from manual labour. He wanted his daughter to be more than a shop assistant or a cleaner. He wanted her to be a lady, a beautiful, kind lady who possessed all her mother’s gentleness, but who could grasp life’s opportunities and make something of herself.

  Leaving them to have a few private minutes alone, the midwife went to fetch them both a cup of tea and some hot buttered toast. This baby had been a tricksy delivery and at one point she thought she was going to have to call for the doctor to assist. But just at the last minute, with the help of a pair of forceps, the baby shifted position and made its entrance into the world. The midwife had been touched by the obvious love and affection Nellie’s parents had for each other; knowing that the special first hour with a first-born came only once in a lifetime, she made herself scarce as quickly as she could.

  Even though he had been up all night, Jerry would save the bus fare and walk back home. He could not remember ever having been as hungry as he was right now. After he had eaten breakfast he would change into his work clothes and be in time to clock on at the docks for the first shift. This was no time to miss a day’s pay.

  Exhausted from her long ordeal, Bernadette lay back on the hospital pillows, feeling drowsy. She turned her head to one side and smiled at her husband, the man she loved more than life itself. Jerry had moved and was sitting on a chair next to the hospital bed, cuddling their baby, still unable to stop looking at her tiny face. Bernadette’s eyes were still full of tears as she gazed upon the manifestation of all their hopes and aspirations for the future, the baby, who was falling asleep on his chest, flooding his thoughts, absorbing every ounce of his new love and devotion. Watching them together increased her happiness, if that was at all possible.

  As sleep fought to claim her, she tried to say his name and to reach out and gently stroke his hand. She looked down at her arm in confusion. Her hand was like a lead weight and, no matter how hard she tried, it wouldn’t respond. Unnoticed by Jerry, who at that very moment had eyes only for his new baby, panic slipped past him into the room and settled itself down upon Bernadette.

  She tried to open her mouth, but it wouldn’t work, and despite her best efforts, her arm would not move.

  Jerry’s name urgently beat against the sides of her brain but could get no further, as she managed to part her lips and move her tongue, which felt twice its normal size. But no sound escaped. A black haze had begun to blur the edges of her vision. She struggled to maintain her focus on the adoring father and their baby lying in the cradle of his arms, trapped in their bubble of wonderment. She lay, silently imploring, desperately willing Jerry to move his gaze away from their baby girl and to turn round. Her mind screamed: Look. Look. Look. At. Me. He didn’t hear it as he kissed the downy hair on his baby’s crown.

  Bernadette’s head became lighter and the sounds around her more acute. She could hear people outside in the corridor, giggling and talking as though they were standing right next to her bed, laughing at her.

  And then, suddenly, she sank. The screaming in her head ceased. She felt as though life itself were draining out of her very soul as a chill sped upwards from her toes and fanned across her body like an icy glaze. She could no longer move her tongue and her eyelids felt leaden; there was no energy left to fight, no will to prise them open as she wearily succumbed to the dark cloak that enveloped her which was so heavy, so oppressive, that, try as she might, she just couldn’t lift it off.

  ‘She hasn’t even murmured a sound yet, she just has these great big eyes lookin’ at me now, just like her mammy,’ said Jerry, as he turned himself and the baby towards Bernadette.

  The last thing Bernadette saw, as her eyes slowly closed, was the smile evaporate from Jerry’s face and transform into a look of horror as he suddenly looked down at the floor and saw a steady stream of blood, dripping from the corner of the bed sheet onto the floor, as though it were running from an open tap on a slow flow, creating a puddle of blood that had reached his own boots.

  Chapter Three

  It was bitterly cold in the early morning half-light as heavy rain washed over the streets on the crest of gales swept up from the Mersey River. A fresh squall every minute relentlessly pounded any unfortunate soul who had reason to be outdoors.

  ‘It’s as though an angel is chucking a bucket of water down the street, so strong it is,’ said Peggy to her husband Paddy, as in her half-sleep she opened the bedroom curtains.

  Peggy was a plain woman, with a face that had never experienced even a touch of the cold cream currently flying off the shelves in Woolworths in town. Peggy had no beauty routine. Peggy had no beauty. What she lacked in looks she complemented with a mental denseness that made much of what she said hard to comprehend and frequently funny. Peggy was also a stranger to housework and, unlike the other women on the streets, made no effort to dispel the English urban myth: that the Irish were a dirty breed.

  Peggy hurriedly drew the curtains again when she remembered that they had been closed all week as a mark of respect and needed to remain that way for another day. She peeped through the side of the curtain and stared at the fast-flowing rivulets of water gushing down the gutters on either side of the entry.

  Paddy turned over. He wasn’t going into work this morning. He and Peggy were a good match. Paddy wasn’t a pretty sight at any time of the day. With red hair and cheeks to match, from his high blood pressure brought on by overeating, over-drinking and over-smoking, he had aimed high with Peggy and got lucky.

  ‘The ships will wait,’ he had announced as he turned out the light the night before, which of course they wouldn’t, because their time in dock was dependent on the tide, not Paddy. This morning the men and boys who normally struggled to be taken on by the gaffer would fill the places of those from the four streets.

  Peggy lifted the net and raised her hand in a half-hearted greeting as she saw Maura run down the entry and in through her own back gate from early-morning mass. Maura’s head was bent against the wind and rain and she was holding onto her hat, but as she put her hand on the gate latch, she looked up towards Peggy, as though she knew she were watching.

  If Peggy pressed her face full against the net and onto the glass she could just see halfway up Maura’s backyard to the outhouse. An acute nosiness, born from an idle existence, forced her to strain to see if that was where Maura went next. Peggy knew Maura was returning from six o’clock mass and felt guilt stir itself somewhere in the depth of her belly. Maybe she should have made the effort for first mass today. Sure, didn’t she have enough to feel bad about, without having seen Maura playing the Mary goodwife? She made a mental note to attend mass in the evening, after the funeral. A note she would have lost by the end of the
day.

  For every other street in Liverpool, it was a day of heavy rain. But those who lived by the river had to contend with the squalls that battered the docks on a regular basis. The four streets took the brunt of every storm that had gathered pace and momentum across the Irish Sea, only to be broken up and dispersed when buffered by the houses. They stood out against the tempest like a policeman’s upturned outstretched hand, yelling ‘stop’ to the wind and rain as they whipped round the houses and then subsided into a flimsy breeze, on their way across the city.

  Peggy and Paddy were right to be surprised by the weather. It was one of the worst days anyone on the four streets had seen for many a long year. But the residents weren’t fazed. Those from the west coast of Ireland had seen as bad, if not worse.

  Just as Peggy was putting the kettle on and beginning to make the watery porridge that passed as breakfast in her house, Maura was on her knees in front of her kitchen range, sobbing again, struggling to light the fire, which had gone out overnight.

  Her children were yet to leave their dreams behind and the baby, just into its third month, slept in a small cardboard box, wrapped up in a multicoloured, hand-crocheted blanket, made from scraps left over from knitted baby cardigans and school jumpers, with odd ends of yarn salvaged from the wool stall in the market. The box was pushed securely to the back of the armchair, one of only two comfy chairs in the house. It was upholstered in a bottle-green knobbly wool, flecked with the occasional splash of dark orange. The legs were chipped, the wooden armrests worn and two of the springs, covered in brown rubber, which ran underneath the cushion, had snapped. This meant that anyone who sat on the chair sank down into the middle and, having been grabbed on all sides by the cushion and springs, found it difficult to get up again. The baby was just a scrap and the weight of the box was evenly spread across the chair, so the infant was safe enough.