The Four Streets Read online

  He felt Tommy’s arm slap across his back, grab him firmly and rest on his shoulder, hugging him as close as possible. The men were carrying Jerry, a human wreck, as much as they were Bernadette. Their footsteps shuffled, haltingly at first, and then fell into time as they slowly marched up the path and in through the church doors.

  At the moment the large wooden doors of St Mary’s church closed, the bell above the door of the bakery tinkled as Mr Shaw returned from the green and let in a customer who had stood outside, patiently waiting. Life on the streets had already begun to move on.

  The men who were returning to their work on the dockyard slowly replaced their caps and turned to walk back down towards the river in groups of two and three. Within minutes they began to discuss the Everton away match on Saturday.

  The children began to filter into the entry one at a time. Everyone began helping the older residents to put away their chairs before they made haste to check the babies and little ones they had been allocated for the morning so that the younger neighbours closest to Bernadette could attend the mass together.

  They had all been too solemn, preoccupied and tearful to notice the thin young woman who had arrived at the top of the street and now stood at a distance.

  She hugged the wall of the corner house, more to remain discreet than to shelter from the wind. She was dressed in a sage-green coat, fastened with a belt, and a matching green Napoleon hat with the front flap held up by three fashionable brass buttons.

  She had a thin face, pale and pinched except for her nose, which appeared unusually large for her narrow face. Wisps of shoulder-length fine dark hair escaped from her hat to blow around her face.

  Unemotionally, with small, dry, hazel eyes, she observed every second of the scene before her. She scanned the houses, all with curtains drawn both upstairs and down, and noticed, as the carriage had arrived in the street, a flurry of small faces dip under the upstairs curtains as, in one house after another, little noses pressed against the glass to view the horses.

  She gave an involuntary shudder. She had the same distaste for children as she did for vermin.

  She observed, with interest, that one of the women mourners appeared to be more distraught than the others. As she raised her hand, kept warm in her brown leather gloves, to tuck back an errant wisp of hair, she made a mental note of which house the woman had come out of.

  As the mourners dispersed and went about their business, she moved away to catch the bus back into town. She was the only person that day who entered the four streets and smiled.

  Most of the inhabitants, especially Jerry, felt as though they would never smile again.

  Chapter Four

  When the last of the mourners had left the house, Jerry’s daddy, Joe, managed to get the best part of a bottle of whiskey into Jerry with the sole intention of knocking him out. It worked.

  Once Kathleen and Joe had him undressed and tucked safely into his bed, they tiptoed down the stairs and closed the door at the bottom behind them, just as they had done when he was a young and vulnerable boy. They looked at each other and breathed a sigh of deep relief.

  ‘We haven’t put him to bed in years,’ said Kathleen, tears quietly trickling down her cheeks for the very first time.

  Joe put his arm round her shoulder for comfort, struggling to contain his own worry and grief. The way Jerry had cried over the last week had torn at his father’s heart.

  ‘He’s hardly put the baby down and he’s going mad with no sleep,’ she said, as she pulled her hankie out of her apron pocket to wipe her eyes. Kathleen was a strong woman and unused to crying.

  Joe had known the whiskey would push Jerry off the cliff. He knew how strong his son was, but he also knew no man could last a week with hardly any sleep.

  ‘A night’s sleep and all will be different in the morning, you wait and see. He will be stronger and we can all move on a bit,’ he said reassuringly.

  They had to return to the farm and their younger boys soon. Kathleen hoped Joe was right.

  At five-thirty the following morning, Kathleen placed Nellie in the pram Bernadette had chosen, covered the hood with netting, to keep out the flies, and placed her in the backyard to sleep after her morning feed. It was the only day she had been able to get her hands on the baby for more than a couple of minutes, since she had carried her out of the hospital, five days ago.

  Kathleen looked through the kitchen window, at the pram stood against the brick wall in the grey morning light, and whispered to no one other than herself, ‘Thank God for Maura.’

  Maura had offered to have Nellie when Jerry went back to work, which would have to be within the next few days. Kathleen knew, with such good friends and neighbours, Jerry and Nellie would survive.

  Jerry slept for fourteen hours and, for the first time in a week, woke with dry cheeks. Alarmed, he fell down the stairs and into the kitchen, frantically looking around him.

  ‘Where’s the babby, where’s Nellie?’ he almost yelled at Kathleen, who calmly nodded towards the window and the pram outside.

  ‘She’s been fed and changed twice and is doing what all babbies should do, sleeping in the fresh air,’ she said gently. ‘Now, sit down, lad. We’ve buried Bernadette, it’s time for you to eat a proper breakfast and for us to talk about the future.’

  For the next few days, Jerry learnt from Kathleen most of what he needed to know about running a house, and what he didn’t know once she went back home, he was assured Maura would fill in.

  Over the following weeks, absorbing himself in the challenge of being a single father, running a house and keeping down a manual job brought him back onto the path of sanity and exhausted him to such an extent that he was able to keep all thoughts of Bernadette at bay. He pushed her deep down into a room in his heart and locked the door, whilst he focused on rearing their daughter in the way they had both planned. Bernadette’s memory constantly banged at the door to be set free, but it remained firmly locked. He knew this was the only way he could survive. But there were days when she burst out and took him by surprise. When she overwhelmed him and flooded his mind with her image he found it painful to get out of bed. To shave, to eat, to walk, to work, to pick up Nellie. These were the days when the pain in his chest made him bend over double. With all the will in the world and all his strength, on those days, he couldn’t stop her.

  Exactly a week after the funeral, when Kathleen and Joe were at mass, there came a knock on Jerry’s door. Haggard and exhausted, dressed only in his vest and trousers, he almost left it unanswered. He had been worried about possibly getting a visit from the council, telling him he couldn’t bring up a child on his own and that they would be coming to take Nellie away. That fear kept him awake and was the basis of all the discussions with his parents. He was terrified that his visitor was from the council and he might be about to lose his baby. His tiny Bernadette.

  He opened the door, holding Nellie protectively in his arms, and stared at the woman standing on his doorstep. She was smartly dressed and holding a parcel wrapped in a muslin cloth.

  He looked across the road and saw that every net curtain was twitching. Some of the women were standing on their steps, arms folded, watching the house. A visitor knocking on any front door was an event in a street that was a stranger to surprises.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said the visitor confidently. ‘My name is Alice. I used to work with your late wife, Bernadette, and I have come on behalf of the hotel to pay my respects.’

  When it dawned on Jerry that his visitor had been someone who knew Bernadette, he was so relieved that he immediately invited her in for a cup of tea. Today was one of those days when he wanted to talk about Bernadette to anyone who would listen. This woman looked as if she wanted to talk about her too.

  ‘Forgive the mess,’ said Jerry. ‘I have me own mammy and daddy here and I’m sleeping down here for the while whilst they have me bed.’

  Jerry didn’t follow through with the information that he was relieved by this
arrangement. Getting into his own bed was something he hadn’t done willingly since the day Bernadette had died, preferring to sleep on the sofa when Kathleen let him. This way he never truly gave in to sleep, using the excuse that he could keep the baby warm in the kitchen. Having to sleep alone in his bed, without his angel to pull into his arms, was more than he could face right now. Physically walking up the stairs and getting into bed was normality. He wasn’t ready to cross that line and accept that life without her was now the new normal.

  ‘Did ye know Bernadette well?’ he asked.

  He was completely ignorant as to who Alice might be and was racking his brains to try and remember whether she was one of the girls from the hotel who had come to their wedding. But they had all been Irish lasses and this lady was definitely English. She had an air of stuck-up-ness about her which no one from Ireland ever had.

  Nellie stirred and, suddenly, it was as if Alice wasn’t even there, while he turned his full attention to the babe in his arms.

  ‘Shush, now, Nellie, don’t fret ye little self, shush,’ he whispered tenderly, as he rocked her up and down.

  Alice looked at them both with a curiously expressionless face, clearly untouched by the scene in front of her and regarding it with, at best, mild curiosity.

  ‘Here, let me make you some tea, you look worn out,’ she said, and walked over to the kettle, making herself slightly too much at home, although Jerry seemed not to notice as he laid Nellie down in her basket.

  Stiffly, almost reluctantly, Alice walked over to the basket and leant over. ‘Goodness me, she is a beautiful little thing, isn’t she, and with such a look of Bernadette about her,’ she said with a false brightness.

  ‘Aye, she has that,’ said Jerry, whose eyes didn’t leave Nellie as he straightened up. ‘I’m overrun with cake, so would ye like a slice with ye tea?’ he asked politely. He didn’t really know what to say to this very proper and posh stranger, but the Irish gift of welcoming friendliness automatically kicked in.

  ‘Oh, yes please,’ said Alice as she handed him her muslin-wrapped gift. She seemed embarrassed as he opened it to reveal a cake and for the first time he looked at her and smiled.

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, I didn’t realize, I am such an eejit, thank you so much,’ he said. ‘I will be the size of a tram by the time I have eaten all this cake but it is all very welcome, I can tell ye.’

  They sat down and Jerry sliced the cake. The conversation was slightly awkward, but she managed to keep it going while they drank their tea. Although he couldn’t have said why, Alice made Jerry feel slightly uneasy. She spoke in a clipped, accentless tone and her smart clothes made him feel inferior. He found himself gabbling.

  Fear of ruthless British dominance runs deep into Irish roots and Jerry had no idea that, from this inbuilt default position, he was already losing.

  When it came time for Alice to leave, Jerry politely showed her to the door. He hardly took in her promise to return soon to see if he was getting on all right. As he turned back to Nellie in her basket, he was already dismissing from his mind the whole strange episode and the unexpected visitor.

  From behind her nets, Maura watched Alice leave. She had been standing at the bedroom window since the moment Alice arrived and she saw Alice smile, rather smugly, as she walked away. This disturbed Maura so much that she crossed herself.

  ‘That one’s up to no good, you can be sure about that, it’s written all over her face. Holy Mary, Mother of God, I’ve a bad feeling about this, so,’ she wailed to Kitty, who had brought them both a cup of tea sent up by Tommy and was hiding behind the curtains with her. As Kitty was growing older, she was becoming her mammy’s best friend as well as her little helper. Maura gave a dramatic shudder.

  ‘Jaysus, Kitty, someone has just walked over me grave, so they have.’

  Maura went in search of Tommy to give him the news. As she passed through the kitchen door, she picked up her rosary, hanging off the big toe of the plaster cast of Jesus mounted on the wall, and thrust it into her front apron pocket where she stuffed both of her hands. A stranger on the street at any time was big news. A stranger arriving a week after Bernadette’s death, who had been hovering around on the day of the funeral with a smirk on her face, was worrying news.

  ‘Tommy, a strange woman has turned up twice this week, looking as though she has a stick up her arse, when Bernadette’s still warm in her grave. She’s giving me the creeps. You find out from Jerry who she is, now, or I’ll be givin’ out to you.’

  ‘Calm down, Queen, it’ll just be a mate of theirs,’ said Tommy, trying to return to his newspaper.

  ‘Are ye mad?’ she yelled at him. ‘You stupid man. What mate? I knew Bernadette better than anyone, I’ve known her all me blessed life, longer than Jerry even, and this woman is no mate, or I’d have known for sure. There’s something bad about her, so there is, I can feel it in me water.’

  ‘You and your feckin water,’ snapped Tommy. ‘Can ye water tell me what’s going to win at Aintree today, am I right on the two-thirty with Danny Boy, eh?’

  Tommy didn’t see what hit him smack on the side of his head. It was Maura’s knitting bag, the first thing to come to her hand, as she went to chase him out of the kitchen. Maura had a dreadful feeling. She had felt it before on the day of the funeral, when looking up the street she had seen that sly-looking woman, and she knew all was not right.

  Distracted by her thoughts, Maura went into the yard to take in her washing before the damp air set in. The other women were still in groups of twos and threes standing outside their front doors. This was like an afternoon matinee at the cinema. No one was going inside until Alice had left and they’d all had a good look at her. Now silence settled over the chattering groups, while each woman stared at Alice and took in every detail from the shoes on her feet to her smug smile and purposeful stride as her shoes clicked and her hat bobbed down the street.

  ‘So, she’s up to no good, that one,’ said Peggy.

  ‘I’ve never seen a woman smiling, coming out of a house of death before,’ said Mrs Keating.

  ‘Aye, looks like she has her eye set on being the new Bernadette if you ask me, that high and mighty one,’ said Mrs O’Prey, as she dropped her ciggie on the pavement and stubbed it out with the toe of her slipper, scorching the sole with a reek of burning rubber.

  Nothing would get past the women on the street. They might not have been endowed with academic brilliance or good looks, standing there in their housewife’s uniform of curlers, headscarves, wraparound aprons and baggy cardigans, but their emotional intelligence was as sharp as a new razor.

  ‘Aye, so it does,’ said Peggy, as Mrs O’Prey’s words sank in. Peggy was always the last to catch on. ‘My God, the brass neck of the woman. She’s as brazen as yer like and, mark my words, I bet we will see her back here soon enough, Jaysus, would yer so believe it not?’

  It was often hard to understand what Peggy was on about, even for her neighbours, but they all got the gist and never questioned her.

  They carried on watching Alice, walking with a pert step back up the street towards the bus stop, and gave each other a knowing nod and a smile. Peggy put her hands on her hips and began to wiggle, imitating Alice’s walk behind her back. They all began to laugh. Peggy always made them laugh.

  On the bus back to the hotel, Alice knew she was going to have to play a long game. A thrill of excitement shot through her stomach as she thought about what she had set out to do. The first step had been easier than she had imagined it would be, although her nerve had almost failed her as she walked down the street towards Jerry’s house, carrying the fruit cake she had paid the chef in the hotel to make. All of her brave thoughts over the last few days had deserted her. The plans she had made in her head did not seem so attractive in the cold light of day as she attempted to put them into action. It was the children on the street staring at her that finally drove her the last few steps to Jerry’s door.

  She noticed that front doors on the s
treet were beginning to open and women were gathering in twos and threes, folding their arms and staring at her, as bold as brass. They intimidated her and left her in no doubt that it was her they were talking about. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her throat was so dry it had all but closed up. It had taken all her courage to knock on the door.

  ‘The nerve of me,’ she said quietly to herself, as she took her seat on the bus. She almost laughed out loud and looked around to see if anyone had overheard.

  There was no doubt in her mind what she wanted, but it wouldn’t be fitting for anyone to guess that yet. She wanted Jerry. It wasn’t that crazy. The feelings she had nurtured for him over the years were so intense, he would surely feel and share them once he got to know her.

  For years, Alice had been obsessed with Jerry. The man who had raised his cap to her. Who had looked into her eyes as he greeted her. The man who had once smiled at her in a way that made her stomach churn like it never had before or since. It was only Jerry who had entered Alice’s thoughts over the last few years. Bernadette had been barred. Jerry was important; he mattered, Bernadette did not.

  Alice had first met Bernadette when, as a new chambermaid fresh from the bogs, Bernadette had reported for her first day at the hotel. She had immediately caught Alice’s attention. Not only was she not scared stiff and whimpering, she was positively bursting with energy, had bright shining eyes and was eager to start work.

  Alice managed to remain hostile and distant with the impetuous, bubbly new arrival, who settled into hotel life very quickly.

  Bernadette spoke and interrupted Alice so often, she felt her face burning with anger. However, it was impossible to shut up this girl who, even when chastised for talking, appeared never to take offence. Nothing, not even the worst telling-off Alice had ever given to anyone, using the harshest words, seemed to penetrate her happiness.

  Alice was fascinated by Bernadette. By her hair, her accent, the way she smiled, the blueness of her eyes. She stared at the freckles on Bernadette’s arms, the shape of her teeth, and she was transfixed by every word that came out of her mouth. She felt that if she was an oddity, so was Bernadette, just in a different way. But Alice didn’t bond with Bernadette. She didn’t like her.