Strawberry Fields (41 page)
‘Perhaps she’ll have a black eye in the mornin’,’ Bev said hopefully. ‘What’ll she tell the nuns, fellers?’
But they had reached the tenement block and Martin frowned at them, stifling their mirth.
‘Quiet now; Mammy will be puttin’ the food on the table and if you want to eat tonight, fellers – I’m not countin’ you, Bev, fillin’ your face wit’ toffee apples an’ your sister lost – then you won’t let Mammy catch you sniggerin’!’
Going up the stairs behind the older boys, Tad digested the conversation. Polly’s brothers loved her, he knew that all right. They were proud of her, though they liked to cod her, make her mad with them. But they thought she was spoiled, needed taking down a peg, and they hadn’t torn Tad limb from limb for clonking her on the nut with an apple. Far from it, they thought it a huge joke. Behind the broad O’Brady backs, Tad gave a little grin. Sure an’ didn’t he love Polly himself, and didn’t he like to cod her along sometimes, too? And she was spoiled – how many kids would have run at their mammy the way she had, when she was four hours late for her tea?
But Tad didn’t mind. Mrs O’Brady trusted him with Polly, and so did her brothers. And so, of course, did Polly. She followed where he led, did as he did, and let him deal with the consequences. Why, she had been frightened to go up to the O’Brady rooms without him, yet she must have known, in her heart, that her mammy would simply be glad to see her safe!
Women is definitely funny, Tad concluded as the living-room door opened and a most delicious smell wafted out. Definitely funny – but wonderful cooks!
The apples were divided – three for the Donoghues and two for the O’Bradys – and apple dumplings were made by Mrs O’Brady, lacking blackers for the time being. In fact the apples were a thing of the past when three days later, Polly, in the living room, called through to her mother working in the kitchen.
‘Mammy, what’s the money doing on the mantelpiece?’
‘Which money?’ Deirdre said, coming into the room wiping her hands on a piece of towel, for she had just finished preparing vegetables for soup. ‘I don’t remember putting any money on the mantel.’
‘It’s pennies,’ Polly said. She was running her hand along the back of the mantel shelf and she held out two large coins . . . ‘They were on top of . . .’
‘Me letter! Oh, God love him, it’s the letter I meant to send to your daddy the day you boxed the fox and come in late! Oh, alanna, that letter should have gone days ago!’ Deirdre dropped the towel and ran across the room, seizing the letter and holding it, for a second, against her breast. ‘What’ll I do, what’ll I do?’
‘I’ll post it for you now,’ Polly said. ‘’Twon’t take but a minute. I’ll get stamps from the post office . . . I’ll fetch Tad at the same time.’
‘But it’s days . . . oh well, let’s hope your daddy understands.’ Deirdre put the letter and the pennies into her daughter’s hand. ‘Off wit’ you, then. And this time, don’t be late!’
Chapter TwelvePeader read the letter slowly, over breakfast. Then he read it again. Then he put it down by his plate and stared at it. What in God’s good name was the matter with his own Deirdre? Blowing hot and cold, yes one minute, no the next. She
knew
he had started saving for somewhere nice in the neighbourhood. He’d even spoken to the boss at work, saying that grand though it was being safety man for an area like his, he wasn’t getting any younger and had thought that, if a country station wanted either a safety man or a simple linesman, he might think about changing jobs.
knew
he had started saving for somewhere nice in the neighbourhood. He’d even spoken to the boss at work, saying that grand though it was being safety man for an area like his, he wasn’t getting any younger and had thought that, if a country station wanted either a safety man or a simple linesman, he might think about changing jobs.
The boss knew Peader’s worth, and agreed that in the fullness of time such a change might be arranged. So whilst a move might not come for a while, come it would, and a quieter area would be better for Deirdre and the children. Not that they’d ever known a quiet area, but he felt instinctively that his wife would find it easier to transplant herself and her family if he could offer her the enticement of a village, a proper garden, birds and flowers and fresh vegetables instead of shops, stink, crowds.
But before he could even do so, she had thrown his offer back in his face. Polly, bless her, had put kisses on the envelope, but there were precious few kisses inside it! Just that she wanted to please him but couldn’t, wouldn’t, contemplate a move such as he had suggested.
‘Bad news, Mr O’Brady?’ Mrs Burt said sympathetically. ‘It’s a long way from home you feel at such times.’
‘Yes,’ Peader said. ‘Well, not good news. But it’s all right, I’ll get me mind round to it in time.’
And then it was time to go to work, to take his carryout and his bottle of cold tea and go and join his gang.
He thought of little else though, all through that long day. And when, in mid-afternoon, the fog began to swirl in from the Mersey, creeping up to hide first the horizon, then the water, then the docks, the rails, everything, he scarcely took it in at first.
‘Paddy, you’re doing the charges on the Southport line,’ his boss said at three in the afternoon. Unless it clears, that is. Be back here by seven. I want them set in time for the 8.03.’
‘Right,’ Peader said. He was used to being addressed as Paddy by the ignorant non-Irish. ‘I’ll be back.’
He trudged to the bicycle shed, loosed the padlock and rode off. Somehow the ride seemed twice as long as usual due to the heaviness in his heart. Not coming! There had been no kindly ‘maybe’, or indulgent ‘perhaps’. Just ‘not coming’, and he had to come to terms with it. And the fog was, if anything, thicker. He got off his bike in the end after he’d hit the kerb twice and nearly come a cropper, and pushed it, sticking close to the pavement, keeping right in the gutter . . . and even so he found himself on Tetlow Street and had to cut down Heather Street to reach his lodgings.
Mrs Burt made him a good tea but was cross when he said he had to go out again. ‘Sure an’ they work you like a black,’ she grumbled, making him up a fresh carryout despite his protestations. ‘I know how it will be, Mr O’Brady, you’ll find yourself trudging that line until all hours. Fog isn’t only the seamen’s curse, it’s the railwaymen’s, too.’
Peader laughed. ‘You should hear the passengers,’ he said. ‘The trams stop runnin’, and the buses. Taxi drivers are so busy peerin’ out t’rough the windscreens or out o’ the side winders that they miss your street . . . Fog’s the curse of the English nation so it is.’
‘Don’t you get fogs in Dublin?’ Mrs Burt asked curiously, handing him his hat. ‘If that’s true, I’ll be movin’ over there meself.’
Peader tried to laugh again, but the remark hurt as much as a punch in the gut. Movin’ there herself, indeed! Oh God, if only Deirdre’s letter had said that she’d come to him! Once, she would have, he knew it. But over the years of managing alone she had somehow grown hard, less loving. With independence, it seemed, had come indifference. His happiness, which had once been their happiness, had been paramount. Not any more.
‘Are you takin’ the bike, Mr O’Brady?’
‘More trouble than it’s worth,’ Peader decided. ‘I’ll walk See you later, Mrs Burt.’
He set off through the fog. He would stick to the kerb, count the turnings, and not get lost. He ought to know the way blindfold after all these years.
He arrived in good time, picked up his detonators already packed into the old haversack, and set off. As soon as he was clear of the yard itself the fog smelled different; of coal-dust of course, of damp and mildew, but also of loneliness. You’re all alone out here, Peader me boy, the fog declared, clinging as diamonding dewdrops to his donkey jacket, his serge trousers, even his big heavy boots. And you’ll stay that way because they don’t have the gangs out in this, too dangerous, and the next train’s not due till eight and it’ll be late. Bound to be.
There was no way of telling where you were, of course, you simply had to count your paces. The trouble was, Peader was so full of unhappiness that he could not concentrate. Twice he had to go back, all the way back, to the road bridge, which was a point that not even the fog could hide, and retrace his steps.
But he decided on the third attempt that he was probably more or less in the right spot. He would count the rails, put his detonators in position, and walk back. Then he’d have his cold tea and his bread and Maggie Ryan – not that Mrs Burt would have heard of him having only Maggie on his bread; there was cold mutton in some of the sarnies and good red cheese in others – and set off again to reset the line if the fog hadn’t lifted in time for the ten fifty-eight.
He fumbled the detonators out of his haversack because his hands were cold and his mind elsewhere . . . why, why, WHY? . . . and then began to walk back towards where he knew the station to be. He hadn’t gone ten yards, though, when he saw a shape ahead of him in the fog. Another safety man? Had someone ordered two of them to protect the same length of line? It did happen.
‘Hello,’ Peader said loudly. ‘Who’s dat?’
There was a pause, then the figure, which had been turned away from him, turned towards him.
‘Hello? It’s awright, I’m not doin’ no ’arm, I’m just a-goin’.’
A girl’s voice. Quite a young girl. Peader continued to walk towards her. He said in as kindly a voice as he could manage, ‘You’re trespassin’, chuck . . . are ye lost? This is a dangerous place to be on such a night.’
‘It is a bad fog,’ she agreed. She coughed, a small, tearing cough. ‘It ’urts me chest . . . which way is home?’
He was close enough to see her properly now. She was small, and very pale, she looked to be nine or ten but her eyes were old, anxious. Twelve, maybe? Or perhaps thirteen?
‘Come along, mavoureen, let’s both of us get . . .’
He was walking towards her across the rails when he felt, against the sole of his boot, the rail vibrate. Just a gentle tickle of vibration at first but getting stronger and more definite by the minute.
‘Train!’ Peader shouted. ‘Get off the rails, alanna . . . to your right now!’
She hesitated, staring blankly at the fog bank behind him, her eyes big and black in her small face.
‘Which way’s right? I can’t hear no train . . . I’m searchin’ for me baby sister, you see . . .’
Peader broke into a run. He ran along the track, shouting at her, and she took fright and turned from him, running along the track too, but not swerving off to right or left, simply continuing to run between the vibrating rails.
‘Gorl, you’ll be kilt! Off dese rails . . . don’t matter which way!’ Peader’s voice came out as a bull’s roar and the girl hesitated for just long enough. Peader’s stride lengthened. He reached her, seized her small, skinny body by her little, sharp-boned shoulders, and threw her to one side, not heeding her startled cry which rose to a scream, a shriek, higher and higher . . .
Or was it the engine’s scream? Or Peader’s? For Peader was still not clear of the rails as the 7.03 from Southport, running late because of the fog, smote him, throwing him out of its path to crash like a rag doll on to the sleepers several feet away.
She ran through the night, through the fog, scarcely noticing as it parted to let her by and closed in behind her. She must get help, she must, she must! That nice man had been trying to help her, he’d thrown her clear but hadn’t managed to jump clear himself. And it was just what had happened to Jess, she could remember the talk, the sighs, the short-lived intentions.
Her mam had been upset, of course, but all she’d wanted really was to show everyone they weren’t as black as they’d been painted. She bent everyone’s ear about her lost baby, her dead daughter, but folk round their way were judged on their actions, not on what they said. And Mam was too fond of letting the kids go their own way whilst she and her husband tore each other apart.
Grace had never known any security, not once Jess had died. And she’d been envious of the baby right from the start, because Grace had been Jess’s little sister, the one Jess looked out for, until the new baby had come along.
Even now, when Grace lay down somewhere to sleep, she could lull herself off by reliving the first three or four years of her life, when Jess had loved her best. Her sister’s wiry, half-starved body had given all its warmth and comfort to the little sister sharing her blanket, her scrap of bread, her cup of weak tea.
Then Moll had come along and for a while things continued as before, Jess looking out for Grace, Mam for Moll. But then Moll became a nuisance to their mam and got passed on to Jess – and Grace was out in the cold.
She had wished Jess no harm, but the same could not be said for the baby. She had longed for the baby to be dispossessed so that she could creep back into that thin blanket, lie down in Jess’s arms, have at least a crumb of that concern for herself. And then Jess had been killed and the baby had vanished and she had known what true loss was. But she had loved Jess with all her heart, so she had known that somewhere, Jess would be worrying over her baby sister. And it occurred to Grace, for the first time, that if she could find Mollie then she could hug, nurture, cuddle the baby. She had lost Jess, but she might still salvage some love for herself.
So she had searched and searched. She had crept round to big, smart houses and begged from back doors and asked about babies . . . and got sent off with a flea in her ear more likely than not. She had fed her hunger on promises of Mollie’s rosy-cheeked warmth, on the love the little sister would feel for the big one, once she was restored to the bosom of her family.
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