Towards a Dark Horizon (2 page)

Hattie brushed her coat with her immaculate leather-gloved hands, almost as if brushing away her close contact with the old woman.

We made our way along the wet street which was poorly lit with gas lamps, the grimy glass barely letting any glow escape.

Dad whispered to me that the woman beside Hattie had chatted non-stop for most of the journey but, because he was seated in front of her, Hattie’s expression was hidden from his view – much to his annoyance. ‘She really needs taking down a peg or two,’ he said.

It was a family joke, this snobbishness, no doubt made worse by her jobs with ‘the gentry’, as Bella succinctly put it, first of all with her late employer in Glamis Road and latterly with Maddie’s parents, the Pringle family, who lived in a big house in Perth Road. Her job there was to look after Joy who had been born on the same day as Lily.

Atholl Street – or Tipperary as it was better known – was quiet. Even the nearby pub was almost empty but it was a Tuesday and there was little money in Tipperary on weekdays. In fact, there was precious little money on any day.

The streetlights with their grubby cracked glass windows and broken gas mantles tried to cast their light over the pavements, leaving the crumbling tenements in a dark, shadowy and sinister-looking mass.

‘Where are we going, Danny?’ asked Hattie in a querulous voice. ‘Are we meeting at Ma’s house or one of the daughters’ houses?’

‘Patty said to meet up in Kit’s place. It’s over there.’

‘I know where it is, thank you very much,’ said Hattie sotto voce.

When we reached the outside staircase, it was in total darkness.

‘Oh, great,’ she growled.

Danny ran ahead. ‘I’ll go up and get Kit to open the door and you’ll be able to see where you’re going.’ He raced up the stair like a young deer.

Hattie was in no mood for such tactics. Her voice was bitter with sarcasm. ‘No doubt, when Kit opens her door, we’ll all be overwhelmed by the light. Better shade your eyes, Ann.’

We remained silent. When she was in one of her moods, we knew there was nothing we could say that hadn’t been said a hundred times before.

As it was, Kit’s house was too far along the lobby to be of any great help in shedding light on the worn stairs but Danny soon reappeared. He had a tiny torch and he shone it in front of his mother’s ascending feet and up she went like some queen climbing an unknown flight of steps.

I had a sudden mental image of Queen Mary. Was she also climbing stairs in her huge palace? Of course, unlike the grotty old torch which was Hattie’s lot, her passage would be brightly lit by many grand lamps.

Kit’s tiny kitchen was full of people – far more than had been in the Overgate. When Hattie entered, the chatter died away.

A cheery fire burned in the grate. This was in sharp contrast to my previous visits and I wondered at what cost Kit had managed to put on this display of warmth.

An empty chair was placed right beside this blaze, next to the bulky frame of Ma Ryan. It was obviously intended for Hattie.

Ma Ryan was inscrutable, like some fleshy, wrinkled Buddha. If she had been crying over the sudden demise of her husband, then it wasn’t evident.

On the opposite side of the small room, Kit stood with her two sisters, Lizzie and Belle. They were all pale faced with red-rimmed eyes. Kit was thin and weary looking. Her dress was faded and worn, no doubt from too many washes, and it hung from her thin shoulders. Even her auburn hair seemed more subdued now and thin grey wisps were visible.

Her sisters were twins and neither had her colouring or her looks. Their square gaunt-looking faces were topped by short grey hair and, although they were only a couple of years older than Kit, they looked older and more matronly. I had seen photographs of them as young women and they hadn’t aged as well as Kit but, like hers, their dresses had seen better days. And just like Kit’s husband, their men had also been out of work for many years. Obviously all these years of having to make do on little money and not enough to eat some days had left its toll on them all.

Still, Kit had put on the best spread she could afford – from the warm glow of the fire on this chilly January night to the plate of meat paste sandwiches and the small tin of biscuits on the well scrubbed wooden table.

A large teapot sat on the gas cooker and Kathleen, Kit’s daughter, was doing the rounds and filling up all the cups. Kathleen had the same radiant red hair as Danny. Her fine boned face had a creamy pallor that contrasted well with the brilliant hair. She was dressed in an ancient-looking jumper and a cheap black skirt but at fifteen she was as slender as a willow and had a flawless radiance that hinted at future beauty. Tonight, however, her eyes were also red rimmed and I knew she was very close to her late departed grandad.

Hattie sat beside Ma who turned towards her daughter-in-law and took her hand. Hattie, tongue-tied for once, managed to stammer out a few phrases of sympathy. Ma’s face was like a blank page, her emotions firmly under control.

I looked over to where Danny stood with Dad. Danny was visibly upset and Kit had a thin arm around his shoulders. He was very fond of the Ryan family, more so because his father had died when he was a baby. He had never known him but the family had made up for that. He was their ‘laddie’ as Ma kept calling him.

Although my subconscious had registered it, it wasn’t until that moment that I realised there were no children in the room and, more importantly, apart from Dad and Danny, there were no men.

Then, as if in answer to my unspoken thoughts, the door to the tiny back bedroom opened and Kit’s husband George emerged. George was a tall man of six feet one inch – a trait that wasn’t shared by the majority of Irishmen in the neighbourhood who were nearly all of medium height. They were all thin hungry men who had been out of work so long that they had forgotten what a wage packet looked like. For years, their lives had revolved around the dole office, the parish relief committee or, if they were lucky, a couple of pints of beer on a Saturday night.

George was a lovely man. He was so easy-going that his nickname was ‘the Gentle Giant’. Still, that didn’t stop him getting into a fight with any bully who tried to push weaker people aside. Many a time he had stepped into the middle of some brawl if he thought someone was getting a rough deal and many a punch he’d got for his troubles. He now stood in the doorway with a glass of stout in his huge fist. He seemed confused by all the women until his eye landed on Dad and Danny.

He marched over. ‘We’re in the bedroom with the coffin,’ he said in a whisper that echoed around the room.

Hattie went white but sensibly remained silent.

He whispered again. ‘Come on through and say a last cheerio to your grandad, Danny.’

Danny seemed uncertain but he didn’t look at his mother. Then, making up his mind, he said, ‘I can’t stay long, George.’

His uncle beamed. ‘That’s fine, lad – just a quick cheerio.’

Danny had taken one step towards the room when into the kitchen strode Martin Murphy, a neighbour. Small and beefy and very belligerent, his glass was empty which seemed to annoy him greatly and, when he spoke, he sounded like a disgruntled Jack Russell terrier – snappy and loud. ‘Och, it’s yourself, Danny. Now, you’ll be joining us for yer grandaddy’s wake. We sit up all night and pay our respects to the dead so to speak.’

I looked at Hattie. She had half risen from the chair and, for a brief moment, I thought she was going to haul Danny from the room and the clutches of Martin Murphy. Her attitude didn’t surprise me but, to my astonishment, I noticed the effect Martin’s words had on Kit and Ma. Kit stepped forward and almost collided with Kathleen and the teapot. Meanwhile Ma’s face dropped its blank look and she looked concerned.

‘Kit, don’t let Danny stay for the wake,’ she turned to Hattie. ‘Take him home, lass, as it’s not a thing for a young laddie.’

She glared at Martin but her words fell on deaf ears. He puffed out his beefy chest and glared back at her. ‘Don’t be daft, Ma. What harm can it do? Surely if seventeen-year-auld Sammy Malloy is there then so should Danny pay his respects.’ He turned to Dad. ‘You come in as well, Johnny.’

Now it was my turn to be worried. Both Dad and Danny had their jobs to go to in the morning and the last thing I wanted was for them both to be up all night drinking.

Life had been hard enough for us after Mum’s death. Dad had taken this so badly that he drowned his sorrow in drink. He had taken his unhappiness to the pub. Fortunately, Maddie’s parents had found him a job in her uncle’s warehouse and he had stopped drinking – apart from an occasional pint of beer on a Saturday night.

By now, George realised the big mistake he had made and he tried to usher Martin back into the bedroom. Martin let out a roar of annoyance that brought other neighbours, the Malloys, senior and junior, into the kitchen. They had obviously drunk too much beer and they were both on the verge of aggression. Mick Malloy, the father, thrust his unshaven face within an inch of Kit’s furious expression. ‘Will you stop your whinging, woman, and let the laddie mourn his Grandaddy?’

Then, before Kit or Hattie could stop them, they swept the two men into the bedroom. A sheepish-looking and worried George followed them while young Sammy gave Kathleen a long leering gaze.

Before the door closed, I had a sneak view of the bedroom’s dark interior. The black shape of the coffin, highlighted by glowing candles, was surrounded by the shadowy shapes of the mourners. Cigarette smoke wafted out of this hell-like scene, along with the pungent smell of beer, and then the door was firmly closed in the faces of the outraged women.

‘That Mick Malloy and his son are just toerags and idiots,’ said Kit to a furious-looking Hattie who was trying desperately to keep her social smile in place.

If I hadn’t been worried myself, I would have laughed at her comical expression but it was no laughing matter. ‘Dad has his work tomorrow and so has Danny.’ My voice was tight with worry. ‘If they don’t turn up, they’ll lose them, Kit.’

Ma Ryan called out from her chair, ‘Don’t you worry, lass. They’ll not be staying for long – even if I have to haul them out myself.’

On that note of promise, we swallowed our tea and finished off a meat paste sandwich. Then we said our goodbyes.

Before we left, Ma asked Hattie, ‘Will we see you at the funeral on Thursday? The service will be held here at ten o’clock and the interment at Balgay cemetery afterwards.’

I saw that Hattie was having great difficulty in keeping her voice under control. The last thing she would want was to lose her dignity in this shabby little room. Even so, her answer surprised me. I was waiting for a polite refusal but she said very quietly, ‘Yes, Ma, I’ll be there.’

A flicker of emotion leapt into Ma’s eyes. ‘Thanks for coming, Hattie. It’s been great to see you again.’

Hattie thanked Kit and her sisters for the tea and then we headed towards the dark stair again. Our passage was helped slightly by the light of the torch, which Hattie promised she’d get Danny to return. That is if he was ever allowed back after tonight, I thought.

I was tensed up and waiting for the explosion. I wasn’t disappointed. Halfway down the street, Hattie stopped suddenly and stamped her feet in anger. ‘Imagine letting a young lad go to a wake. A wake, I ask you! Sitting up all night with a dead body.’ Her voice held a hysterical note of fury. ‘I’ve never heard anything so barbaric in my entire life.’ She snorted with derision. ‘Of course, it’s just an excuse for a good-old booze-up. The women in that family haven’t a decent dress between them but their men can still find money for beer.’

Thankfully, the tramcar arrived at that moment and put a temporary stop to her tirade. Even so, she was like a coiled spring all the way home and it was a wonder her gloves weren’t torn to shreds by the way she twisted them. It was like sitting next to a smouldering volcano and an erratic one at that. I had no idea when it would erupt.

The eruption came in the kitchen at the Overgate. Granny almost fell backwards under the onslaught. Hattie’s voice had even risen a decibel or two and Granny had to tell her to be quiet. ‘For heaven’s sake, keep your voice down. I don’t want Dad or Lily to wake up.’ She nodded over to the bed in the corner of the room where Grandad lay snoring. On the Richter scale it would have registered a three.

There was no sign of my sister but I knew she would be in the tiny room that was just off the lobby – the room that resembled a cupboard and had been mine in my younger days.

Hattie was in full flow although she did lower her voice, a lowering that emphasised her words and they emerged from her mouth like machine gun bullets – sharp, fierce and hurtful.

She repeated her earlier tirade then started on the Ryan family. ‘What a bunch of bloody morons they are – letting Danny go to a morbid thing like that and him having to get up for his work tomorrow.’ She then whirled on me. ‘And what about your father? If he misses a day then he’ll get his books and his marching orders.’

I opened my mouth but Hattie hadn’t finished.

‘Bosses nowadays don’t have time for outdated and moronic customs like wakes.’

I opened my mouth again but this time Granny butted in. ‘Well, Danny isn’t a laddie any more, Hattie. He’s almost a grown man and as for Ann’s dad …’

Her silence unnerved me. ‘Please don’t let Dad go back to his drinking,’ I said in a mental prayer.

‘Well, as for Johnny,’ said Granny, ‘he’s also a grown man and able to take responsibility for his actions.’

I got the impression this wasn’t what she meant to say but her better judgement had prevailed. We all knew that, since Mum’s death in 1931 after giving birth to Lily, he had walked a tightrope kind of existence – drinking heavily and getting into the wrong sort of relationships. It was still common knowledge that Marlene Davidson, one of his ex-girlfriends was still telling everyone who would listen, ‘Yon Johnny Neill is a rotten beggar.’ She was still bemoaning the fact that he hadn’t married her – in spite of her looking after him so well when he lodged with her.

Then there was Rosie from next door. She worshipped him but even she couldn’t get him to pop the question. She visited the house every spare minute she had and she had even given up her work with the Salvation Army, which had been a big thing in her life, but to no avail.