The Four Streets Read online

  Maura had only a cardboard box in which to put her baby girl, her seventh child, Niamh. For the first, Kitty, there had been a Moses basket, which had fallen apart after both sets of twins and had never been replaced. Maura had thought the twins were to be her last. She had assumed that every baby after the twins was to be her last and then came Angela. However, her Tommy’s virility showed no sign of waning and they had coped up to now. Maura’s baby might have been in a box, but she was warm, clean, dry and well fed.

  Even indoors Maura was still battling the elements, as the wind blew the thick white smoke back down the chimney, refusing to allow the fire to draw and forcing the smoke to billow back into the living room, making Maura cough and splutter. She was shivering, cold and drenched to the skin, having just run the hundred yards or so from the church to the house, far enough for the rain to have found its way through her coat. She thought about the expression she had just glimpsed on Peggy’s face at the window. She had raised her hand in greeting. But for both women there had not been a hint of a smile.

  A less devout person than Maura would have skipped mass in this foul weather and, indeed, there were only half the usual numbers for the early-morning mass. Shame on them, Maura thought, as she took communion. Today was not a day to skip mass. By the time it was over, Maura would have entered and left the church four times, regardless of the weather.

  ‘There’s already more water running down these gutters than they can cope with, without you adding any more,’ said Tommy, as he passed behind her on his way to the outhouse, carrying the Daily Post.

  Maura sat back on her heels and covered her face with her hands. ‘I just can’t stop meself,’ she whispered back to him through the gaps in her fingers, catching a sob at the end of her breath.

  Tommy knew that if he put his arms round her, she would disintegrate. Better to keep her mind busy on the important daily routine. The things that mattered.

  ‘Two rashers, two eggs and fried bread in ten, thanks, Queen, once you get that fire going, mind,’ he threw over his shoulder as he bustled past her to the back door.

  Tommy was the only person in the house to eat meat and eggs for breakfast. For the rest of the family it was bread in watered-down warm milk. Tommy had to unload a cargo ship each day. Without decent food of some kind he would slack and be laid off. As he was about to make his way into the yard, he was hit by a wall of water as though it had been waiting for him to open the door at just that second. Maybe Maura’s trip to mass hadn’t been in vain after all. Retribution.

  ‘Fecking holy fecking Mother of God!’ she heard in decreasing decibels as his blaspheming words were snatched away from him by the wind and rain and flung into the air. The back door slammed shut with such force that the sleeping baby startled and jumped in her box. Her eyes opened wide and her little arms were rigid as they shot upwards with tiny fists clenched. Her lips puckered up and for a second Maura thought she was about to wake and cry.

  ‘Please, God, no,’ she whispered, ‘not today, I need another hour to get everything done.’

  She stroked the back of the baby’s hand, making gentle shush, shush sounds to try to prevent her from waking fully. It worked; as she leant across and looked into the box, the baby’s eyes slowly closed, her arms softened and dropped gently back down to her side, her face relaxing into a dreamy smile as sleep and innocence won the battle with the slamming door.

  Today, as Tommy used the outhouse for his morning ablutions, he was more preoccupied with the state of Maura’s mind than on the running order of the horses.

  His reverie was suddenly broken by an urgent call from his oldest child.

  ‘Da, will yer hurry now, I’m desperate!’ shouted Kitty, her voice cutting through the wind and rain from the back door. On a finer day, she would have been knocking on the outhouse door itself, giving him no peace.

  Kitty was his eldest; she was five going on fifteen and, now that she was in the infant school, had refused to use the pot that was kept under the children’s bed. Kitty might have been only five but, as the eldest of seven, she could change a nappy and soothe a crying baby as well as her mammy. With her auburn hair and her mother’s eyes, she was one of the prettiest and sweetest little girls on the four streets and definitely took after her father in temperament.

  The sleeping arrangements were cramped, with the girls in one bed and two sets of twin boys sleeping behind a curtain in another. The new baby would join the girls’ bed soon enough and be trusted into Kitty’s care.

  ‘I’ll be out in a minute, Queen,’ shouted Tommy loudly.

  He would do anything for their Kitty, his first-born and the apple of his eye. He would even abandon his normal morning routine of studying the horses’ form whilst sat in the outhouse with a pencil behind his ear, ready to mark out a promising filly. As he prepared to vacate his throne for Kitty, Tommy wondered, yet again, what they were going to do to prevent Maura getting pregnant again. It wouldn’t be long before all the children were refusing to use the pot and demanding the outhouse, his morning sanctuary. Seven little ones in their two up, two down, was as much as the place could take.

  Tommy had a great deal to concern him today. He was also worried about the tears that had poured continuously down Maura’s face during the six days since Bernadette had died. It was too much. She had cried for too long. One of the neighbours had told him that she felt Maura was making herself sick. What could he do to stop her?

  Last night, when they were in bed, Tommy had clutched at straws. He was lying on his back and Maura on her side, her arm propped up with her hand behind her head.

  ‘If ye keep on crying like this, the upset will get through to the babby and make her ill,’ he told her.

  He was no master of the art of child rearing, despite the fact that they had so many of their own, but he had heard enough women in the four streets say exactly the same thing to Maura over the last few days to know it was a comment that carried some collective weight. And anyway, imparting such wisdom made him feel authoritative and useful, rather than just criticizing Maura for crying all the time, and, other than Tommy, God alone knew how much she had cried.

  His stress management technique was rewarded as Maura responded, ‘I know. I feel so sick and I can’t eat for crying. I know ye are right.’

  Her breast had fallen free from her nightdress, which was still open from the baby’s last feed, and lay bare against Tommy’s chest. That was enough. His hand moved from stroking her arm to stroking her breast for just a minute, which was all it took.

  As she quietly sobbed into his chest he pulled his arm from underneath and rolled her over onto her back. He kissed her lips gently as he lifted up her nightdress and parted her legs with his knee.

  Somewhere in his Guinness-addled brain, Tommy thought sex would help Maura. It was life affirming, it was comforting, it was a relief in the midst of despair. For Tommy, that was. For Maura, it just made her feel more isolated and bereft.

  As soon as he had finished and heaved his last sigh, Maura left the bed for the bathroom. As she stood to go, with her back to him, Tommy slapped her backside playfully.

  ‘That’s a good girl, now isn’t that more like it, eh? Bet you fecking loved that. Now if you’re still feeling bad tomorrow I’ll give you another.’

  She heard him chuckling to himself in the thirty seconds he took to fall asleep. She looked back over her shoulder. He had no idea. She watched him beginning to snore as he fell into the first folds of sleep, pleased with himself, a self-satisfied grin on his face.

  She would always be with Tommy, she knew that. She loved him. He wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t bad either. He was a man with simple needs, who had no idea how to emotionally support his wife, but tried his best, even though sometimes he got it horribly wrong. She knew she would never have emotional support, unless she asked for it to be expressed physically. Tommy thought that making love to Maura was the best and only way to show his love and, in doing so, in the years they had been married h
ad knocked her up five times and impregnated her with two sets of twin boys. A double feather in his manly cap.

  Before she went to the bathroom, she wondered how he would react if she were to die tomorrow. Would he be a shadow of himself in the way Jerry was?

  When Maura returned to the bed she moved against Tommy to be wrapped in his arms, the only place she felt any comfort or relief. The only place where her tears stopped flowing, even if only for a few minutes. He would hold her tight across her back and she would inhale the smell of him deeply as each breath brought with it a wave of calm and sweet relief to her anguished heart. Maura knew she wouldn’t sleep tonight. How is anyone going to sleep, she wondered, as she thought of Jerry and his mammy and daddy in the house with baby Nellie. She felt their heartache as raw as her own and began to cry again.

  Tommy knew Maura had hardly slept at all since they heard that Bernadette was dead. Later that same night, somewhere between sex and dawn, he had been woken by her sobbing as he had been every night since Bernadette’s death.

  Tommy was confused. At a loss to know how to comfort her, he had tried everything he knew. He had felt irritated and impatient with her one minute and overwhelmed by love and compassion the next. He desperately wanted normality to return as soon as possible. Life was hard enough, working on the docks every hour God sent, without the unexpected calamities that were thrown in their path every now and then. Sure, Tommy was upset too. Who wouldn’t have been? Kitty and the other kids were also distraught. There wasn’t anyone on the four streets that hadn’t cried and wailed upon hearing the news. Bernadette was a legend.

  The women all liked her, the children loved her and the men lusted after her. There wasn’t a man who hadn’t envied Jerry, the man who had it all. No kids until he wanted them, a bit of money in his pocket for the extras, a trip home to Ireland every now and then, and as much Guinness as he could drink. Aye, Jerry had had everything, the lucky bastard, until now.

  ‘Come here, Queen,’ he had whispered to Maura in the dark of the night as she woke him with her muffled sobs.

  There was the slightest hint of exasperation in his voice. He knew she was trying to do everything she could not to wake him and yet he wasn’t sleeping as well himself. She shuffled over from her side of the bed to his and laid her head on his chest as he put his arm under her back and round her shoulders. With his free hand he stroked the cold out of her other arm, which lay on top of the blankets. And there he had lain, holding onto his Maura until the sobbing had passed and she had fallen into a fitful sleep, until the baby, who was in her box on the floor down at the side of the bed, had woken them both for her feed at five.

  As he did every morning, Tommy lay on his side watching Maura feed the baby. Maura lay on hers. They were facing each other with the baby resting on the mattress between them. The room smelt of warm milk, wet nappies and lanoline. Tommy stroked the baby’s head but she didn’t break her stride to look at him as she sucked furiously at Maura’s breast. Even at three months, she knew the rough scaly hand stroking her downy dark hair was only that of her da; it was something he often did when she was lying in her box. Maura and Tommy smiled at each other and that was the last Tommy knew until Maura woke him again just before six.

  ‘The baby is in her box, she’s all fed and changed and will sleep now. Look after her, I’m off to mass.’

  It wasn’t yet six o’clock. Tommy smiled. If anyone got to heaven it would be Maura. There was no better Catholic than his wife. She set the standards in the street for the other women to follow and she was definitely Father James’s favourite.

  When Maura returned from mass, she quietly checked on the other children, who were all sleeping soundly. It was still early and what she couldn’t get done in the hour after mass and before they woke wasn’t worth doing. Whilst Tommy was in the outhouse and she waited for the fire to catch, she leant over to check on the baby in the box. The child was full and sleeping, but that didn’t stop Maura from picking her up and holding her against her whilst she rocked. Although the baby needed no comfort – not a sound did she make – Maura did and the only solace she could take right now was to hold her sleeping baby close.

  The fire suddenly caught as flames raced up the chimney. The bricks on the inside heated quickly, chasing the smoke back up the stack and out of the top to mingle grey smoke with grey mist. Maura was now shivering violently. Putting the baby back, she jumped up quickly and pulled off her coat, which smelt of wet wool and stale chip-pan fat.

  Both she and the other women had agreed the previous day to send the children off to school early and to keep the little ones indoors. Today was no day for footie games or laughter on the green, regardless of the weather.

  She looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece above the fire, next to a pair of Staffordshire pot dogs. They were the only things of value in the house, although they spent more time in the pawnbroker’s than on the mantelpiece.

  The morning routine of feeding and dressing seven children began in a hurry. Kitty took Angela, and Maura the twins. Tommy helped today as he was at home, and took over from Maura as baby Niamh had her next feed. Kitty took the twins to school and then returned to help look after the little ones until Mrs Keating, a neighbour, came in. The teachers wouldn’t bat an eyelid. They were all from back home and knew of the terrible tragedy that had struck the four streets.

  Tommy had brought chocolate back from the newsagent’s, something they had only ever had at Christmas before.

  ‘Don’t let them have any until ye see us turn the corner at the end of the street, now, Kitty, do ye hear me?’ Maura said as soon as Kitty came back in through the door. ‘What did Miss Devlin say to ye? Was she all right now about ye coming back home?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Kitty, ‘she was grand, Mammy, and she asked me to tell ye she would be putting in a prayer card in St Mary’s for Bernadette.’

  Kitty was smart and older than her years. Her childhood was doomed to be short as she shouldered the responsibilities of an elder sister. She didn’t need to be asked or told anything twice.

  The church bell began to ring out the death knell. A Liverpool funeral wasn’t worth having without the solemn, dramatic accompaniment of the slow, steady call to a requiem mass. They told everyone on the four streets it was time to leave. Put on your coat. Check your lipstick. Put on your hat. Leave the house.

  Maura looked out of the window to see if anyone else had begun to drag their hard-backed kitchen chairs outside into the street. The rain had petered out into a drizzle. How did anyone cope in this life without prayers to be answered, she thought. She put on her funeral black coat and mantilla, shouting to Tommy to come and help her put their own chairs out onto the pavement.

  As she stepped outside she looked towards the top of the street and noticed that the dogs had ceased to bark, the tugs had stopped blowing and every curtain in the street was drawn in respect. Most houses had been in darkness with their curtains drawn for the last six days and no curtains would be opened until after the interment.

  The cranes, visible on even the murkiest day, stood motionless like dormant lighthouses in relief against the flat landscape of the harbour. Even the dockers who didn’t live on the four streets, and who hadn’t known Bernadette, knew Jerry. They wanted to pay their respects and show solidarity in his worst hour. The Mersey Dock Company, the stevedore bosses and even the gaffers knew this wasn’t a time to pull rank or to lay down the law. The faces of the men were too grim, too set to challenge. The docks were as silent as the four streets.

  A hush had fallen over the cobbles and the only noise was that of wooden chair legs being scraped across the pavement as they were dragged outside to be lined up in a row along the pavement edge. Along with softly falling tears and the occasional sob, this was the only sound to be heard. No one spoke, but everyone crossed themselves each time they looked towards Jerry’s house.

  There were no words to be said. The feeling of loss was so acute, the shock so profound, that normal c
hatter had ceased.

  People were used to grief. Everyone knew at least one person who had suffered as a result of the war even if they hadn’t lost someone of their own. Infant mortality rates were high and maternal death from childbirth the biggest single killer of young women, particularly those from impoverished backgrounds like their own. Death was no stranger to the families on the four streets but, still, they hadn’t expected it to snuff out the very brightest light that burnt in their midst. They were grappling in the dark. She was too vibrant, too noisy, too vital to be lost.

  It was nine-thirty as everyone took their seat and lined the pavement in a guard of honour. At just that moment, the clouds parted and a ray of sunshine broke though. The older neighbours, who weren’t going to the church or the graveyard, came out, the women with their headscarves fastened over hair curlers and heavy dark woollen coats flapping open on top of faded nightdresses or, for the men, stained pyjamas. They wore outdoor shoes with bare legs and no stockings, or work boots unlaced with no socks. The laces flapped around bare ankles and soaked up the rain from the pavement. No one batted an eyelid at the coats worn over nightwear. Everyone had wanted to say a last goodbye to the young, exuberant girl with the flaming red hair and the infectious laugh.

  The women took their places on the chairs lined up in the street as their men stood behind, holding onto the backs. Some were shaking, some were tearful, and all were in shock. Today was a day they all wanted to be over as soon as possible. Even Maura. Despite her inner torment, her unstoppable tears and the acute pain in her diaphragm, the survivor in her knew that once a line could be drawn under today, she could take a fairy footstep towards normality. Life had to move on. She had her own children and family to hold on to, and if there was one thing she had learnt from death, it was to love and appreciate those around you because you never knew what tomorrow would bring.