The Young Wan (18 page)

“Where are you going?” the guard asked.

“To visit my sister, Dolly Reddin!” Agnes was puzzled. She had never been stopped before.

“Wait here,” the guard said, and retreated to his little hut. Agnes looked to Marion, who shrugged. Agnes now began to worry. Was there something wrong with Dolly? Had she been hurt? By the time the guard returned, all kinds of scenarios were going through her head.

“It’s supposed to be just one visitor a week. Your mother was here on Monday. I’ll let you off with it this time, but don’t let it happen again.” He opened the gate, but Agnes didn’t move.

“My mother? She was here?” Agnes was dazed. The man looked at his clipboard.

“Constance Reddin? Is that your mother?” he asked.

“Yes. That’s her.”

“Then she was here. Now go on before I change me mind.” Agnes rushed in. As she walked to the visitors’ room she was numb. Her mother didn’t even know that Dolly was here! How could it be? The answer was waiting for her in the visitors’ room.

“Nellie Nugent? She came to see you?” Agnes was incredulous. A much-better-looking Dolly nodded her head.

“Why? What did she say?” Agnes asked.

“A lot,” Dolly answered, and recounted the visit to Agnes. Nellie had taken the half-hour with Dolly to tell her about some of her experiences in prison. She went over with Dolly some tips for keeping herself right. And, most important of all, she had given Dolly a note to give to a girl in there named Barbara Brady, an acquaintance of Nellie’s. Barbara Brady, Dolly explained, was the toughest, hardest girl in there. The note told Barbara that she should look after Dolly or answer to Nellie when she got out. Since Monday last, Dolly’s life in there had become so much easier.

“I’ve joined the library in here, and I’m enrolling for bookkeeping classes,” Dolly announced. Agnes was so relieved to see Dolly relaxed and even smiling. She left that day in better form than she had been in for weeks.

Friday night, Agnes and Marion went dancing for the first time since the night of Dolly’s arrest. Yet again Agnes was surrounded by boys wanting to jive with her, while as usual Marion was still dancing with girls.

When she returned to work the following Monday, Agnes tried to thank Nellie. When Nellie arrived from the wholesalers’, Agnes went to her immediately. “Mrs. Nugent, I can’t thank you enough for going to see Dolly.” She smiled. Nellie didn’t.

“Well, I had to do something. This stall has gone to shit, and your work is terrible, I’d be better off on me own!” She refused to be thanked.

“I’ll do better, I promise I will.”

“Yeh better, I can get another young wan anytime, so mind your job!” Nellie finished, and went to work. They never spoke of her visit to Dolly again.

“Here,” Nellie called to Agnes when she had the stall packed, “you go on and have a break.”

Agnes made her way over to Marion’s stall. As she approached the stall, she noticed that Marion was reading something. Her eyes were squinting.

“What’s that?” Agnes asked Marion.

“Tickets,” Marion answered, and put the tickets into her apron pocket. This was quite a deliberate move on Marion’s part, for she knew it would arouse Agnes’ interest.

“Tickets? Tickets for what?” Agnes asked with a tone that denoted her belief that she had a right to know, and now.

“Tickets to a dance . . . Ah, you wouldn’t be interested.” Marion feigned a lack of interest.

“What dance?” Of course Agnes was interested.

Marion stared at Agnes for a few moments, pretending defiance, but then just as easily she pretended surrender. “Okay, well, if you must know, it’s a dance on Tuesday night to raise funds for a charity.” Marion began to busy herself on the stall and walked to the far side of it. Agnes followed her around the stall.

“And?” Agnes waited.

“And what?” Marion answered.

“Are we going?” Agnes groaned.

“Well, I might. You can if you want to.”

“Where is it?”

“In St. Martin’s School Hall.” Marion threw the name out like it was nothing.

Agnes’ mug froze on the way to her mouth. Her brow furrowed, puzzled. “The fuckin’ deaf school?”

“Yep.” Marion carried on.

“Ah, Marion, you’re jokin’ me—a dance for deaf people.”

“I’m not joking you, and why shouldn’t deaf people dance?”

“To what? What are they going to dance to?”

“The music,” said Marion as if it were a stupid question.

“They can’t hear the fuckin’ music, Marion; don’t be stupid.”

“Well, Miss Know-It-All, for your information they can—well, in a different way they can. What they do is, the band put the speakers onto the dance floor and keep the music real loud, and the deaf people dance to the vibration,” Marion explained. Agnes was aghast now that she realized Marion was serious.

“Marion Delany, you are getting desperate for a man.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

“Not.”

“Are.”

“Not.”

“Are.”

“Agnes!!!” came the scream from Nellie Nugent across the street.

“Oh, shite.” Agnes threw her cigarette on the ground and stood on it. “I’ll see you later; this one’s like a whore on a Honda today.” Agnes scurried away. As she left, Marion called after her, “Not.”

Nellie Nugent was not happy as usual. “I said take a break, not a fuckin’ holiday,” she barked at Agnes.

“Sorry, Mrs. Nugent,” Agnes apologized.

“Now, start screaming there and sell a few of these carrots before they go black,” Nellie ordered.

Agnes was stunned. Nellie was telling her to “sell.” She stood frozen for a moment, unsure that she had heard correctly.

“What are you waiting for?” Nellie goaded her. Agnes had waited for this moment since the day she first came onto the street. But she’d thought she would get some warning, a day’s notice or something. Agnes picked up a bunch of carrots.

“How much, Mrs. Nugent?” Agnes asked softly.

“Truppence a pound,” Nellie announced.

Agnes nodded and moved to the street side of the stall. She cleared her throat and began. “Nice carrots truppence a pound,” called Agnes, but her voice was just a gentle mumble, like a hymn. “Nice carrots truppence a pound,” she sang again.

Nellie Nugent slowly looked up from her racking out of the stall, her mouth open in a stunned expression. Some other dealers began to notice, and they stopped calling out. Now the shoppers noticed that nobody was calling, and they stopped in their tracks and looked around to see what the dealers were looking at. The Henry Street end of Moore Street was now silent, except for Agnes’ little voice.

“Nice carrots, truppence a pound.” They all stared in wonder at her as she again gently sang, “Nice carrots, truppence a pound.”

For the first time, the traders listened to her little song. It was a shopper that laughed first, followed by some of the stall holders, but it eventually built into a roar of laughter. Agnes stopped and blushed. Nellie Nugent stepped off her box and walked onto the street to Agnes. Nellie stood with her face just inches from Agnes’ face. Agnes was now so embarrassed that her eyes began to fill. She wanted to throw herself into Nellie’s big bosom and bury her face again. Nellie opened her mouth, and the loudest scream Agnes ever heard came out. “NICE CARROTS, TRUPPENCE A POUND,” she yelled.

Agnes’ hair blew back from her face with the power of Nellie’s voice. Her embarrassment deepened, and a tear ran down her face. Marion, who had been laughing, now stopped, and her heart sank as she watched Agnes crumble before Nellie.

“Sing it out, girlie! You are SELLING
,
not BEGGING!” Nellie told Agnes and the rest of the street.

Agnes’ lips trembled; she turned and ran through the crowd. Marion took off her apron, threw it on the stall, and followed after Agnes. In the distance she saw Agnes slip into the door of Madigan’s Pub. When Marion entered Madigan’s, she first looked into the snug. It was empty. She made for the toilets. As soon as Marion pushed the door of the toilet open, she could hear the sobbing. Agnes had locked herself into one of the three cubicles, so Marion leaned against the door and knocked gently.

“Are you okay, Aggie?” she asked softly.

There was no reply.

“Aggie, are you all right?” Marion asked again.

“Go away,” Agnes answered after a moment.

Marion took a cigarette from her pocket and scratched a match down the wall of the toilet. The sulfur ignited, and Marion put it to the end of the cigarette. She took a slow drag and let the smoke flow from her mouth, watching it spiral upward to the light from the only window in the toilets. She blew out the match and leaned back against the wall. When Marion spoke, she spoke to the smoke. “I remember my first time to call on the street. I was standing by my mother at the stall one day and she just said to me, ‘Get out there and do a bit of selling, you.’ I looked across the stall. Me ma had lots of stuff, but the stuff that caught my eye was the grapes shining in the sun and little wooden boxes of dates—they used to come in wooden boxes, you know, eight to a box. So I takes a box of dates and stands on me mother’s crate and starts screaming: ‘
Black grapes, green grapes, dried dates, a shilling for eight
.’ Jesus, it sounds easy now, but when I was screaming it was coming out ‘
Blackgreatgreengreatdrieddrateshillingfree
.’” Marion laughed alone; no sound came from the cubicle. “I swear to God there was people thought I was fuckin’ Albanian. Me mother grabbed me with her hand over me mouth like she was kidnapping me and dragged me to the back of the stall. ‘Here,’ says she, ‘don’t try and sell everything in one breath.’ ‘Why?’ says I. ‘What do you want me to do?’ ‘Pick the best thing on the stalls,’ says she, ‘and sell that, and when the customer sees what else you’ve got she’ll buy some of that as well.’ ‘Right,’ says I. Then I asked her, ‘Well, what’s the best thing on our stall, Ma?’ ‘You are,’ says she, and she winked at me. I had to think about that for a minute, but then I got it. So I got up on the box and I picked an aul one out who was just walking by. ‘Missus,’ says I, ‘come over here and let me look after you, you look like you’re lost or something.’ Your one smiled at me and came over. Two boxes of dates I sold her, and a bunch of mixed herbs. I’ll never forget it. I’ve been watching me mother selling all her life, and the first time I tried it I made a balls of it. Aggie, if you’re listening, I don’t know how you’re going to get paid enough money to go to Canada, but you won’t find it in there.” Marion tossed her cigarette end into the toilet bowl; it hissed as it hit the water. She flushed the toilet and left.

When Marion arrived back at her stall, her mother asked, “Is your friend all right?”

Marion nodded and began selling again. “Beautiful Cox’s pippins, penny each, seven for a tenner. Jesus, missus, that’s a lovely coat, he must really love you , would you not bring him home a few Coxes?” She winked at a customer.

Nellie Nugent had seen Agnes coming back long before the young girl had reached the stall, but she pretended not to until Agnes stood across the stall from her. Nellie looked into Agnes’ face; the girl had been crying.

“What?” Nellie asked Agnes impatiently.

“Still carrots?” Agnes asked.

“Still carrots, and still fuckin’ truppence,” Nellie answered and began serving an elderly woman.

Agnes bent and rummaged under the canvas cover of the stall, eventually pulling out a wooden crate. She dragged it a couple of feet from the stall.

Marion, on the far side of the street, was nudged by her mother as she was weighing out some mushrooms for a customer. “Look,” her mother said with a nod in Agnes’ direction. Marion stopped and watched.

Agnes stood up on the crate and held a handful of carrots in the air. She took a deep breath. “Beautiful golden carrots, pulled first thing this morning, only truppence a pound!” Her voice sailed across the crowded street.

“Fresh carrots, truppence a pound!” Now her voice took on a songlike lilt. “Beeoootiful Irish carrots, treeepence a pow-end,” she called, now in a melodious song. A woman tugged at Agnes’ skirt.

“I’ll take two pound of those, love, please,” the woman asked.

Nellie answered before Agnes could. “Here, love! I’ll serve you, she’s busy
selling.
Keep it going, Agnes love.” Nellie began to weigh out the carrots. Agnes continued to sing. She looked over at Marion. They shared a smile.

Marion’s customer prompted her. “Are you all right, love? I’m waiting for me mushrooms.”

“Give me a minute, missus, I’m not a fuckin’ machine,” Marion snapped as she poured the mushrooms into a bag.

“She’ll be all right,” Marion’s mother declared, assessing Agnes.

“Yeh, Mammy. She will, she’ll be all right,” Marion answered.

On that day, the Moore Street melody added another voice to its chorus.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

From that day onward, the relationship between Agnes and Nellie Nugent blossomed. Nellie began to give Agnes more and more responsibility, and Agnes took to being a “selling” dealer with great gusto and a hunger to learn more and more about the trade. And for learning about the trade she couldn’t have been working with anyone better than Nellie Nugent.