The Fifteen Streets Read online

  John answered tolerantly, ‘Yes, you have, Nancy,’ knowing that the time she had scrubbed and cleaned in the Fitzsimmons outdoor beershop was nearer to four years than four weeks—time had no place in Nancy’s mind. Her body gave the impression of uncontrolled strength; her long arms hung out from the short sleeves of her coat, a brown, faded thing, and her boots looked too small for her big feet.

  John said kindly, ‘You look very nice the day, Nancy.’

  She smiled at him, stretching her face; then, preening herself and dusting down the front of her coat with her red hands, she said, ‘This is a new coat. Me ma bought it. And these boots too. And I’ve got a silk dress, with a sash. And I’m going to get a hat with a feather in.’

  Shane’s chair scraped back and he went to the front room. Mary Ellen looked after him for a moment—he never could stand the senseless prattle of Nancy. She went into the scullery to wash the dishes, glad that John was in to cope with Nancy should she start laughing . . . Oh, Nancy’s laughter! Mary Ellen shuddered. She thought she was afraid of nothing on earth as she was of Nancy Kelly’s laughter—it put the fear of God in her. But John could manage her—he always had; he made her think she was like other lasses. She could sense John’s pity for Nancy; it was like her own, but without the strain of fear that ran through hers.

  She heard Dominic coming up the backyard, whistling. He was pleased with himself for outwitting John, she supposed. She hoped to God he did nothing more to aggravate John’s feelings; the sick premonition of last night was still partly with her. She was more afraid of John’s rages than of either Shane’s or Dominic’s, for his were stronger, being made more fierce through sober justification.

  Dominic came in and surprised her by closing the scullery door and so shutting them off from the kitchen. He stood near her as she bent over the dish, and said softly, ‘Any chance of you lending me the money to get me clothes out?’

  She looked up at him, her hands still in the water. ‘I’ve only got the rent. You put your suit in, you’ll have to get it out.’

  ‘I’ll give it to you back next week.’

  ‘I haven’t got it; I only have a few coppers left for the gas over the week-end.’

  Dominic’s suit had been in pawn for more than a month, and he had made no effort to get it out, even on his full shifts. Without it he was tied to the house and spent his Sundays in bed, for by some unwritten law no-one went out of doors on a Sunday dressed in their working clothes. Even if a man possessed a shilling to ‘get a set in’, he never showed his face inside a public house unless he was ‘tidy’.

  Strangely enough, Mary Ellen realised it wasn’t tomorrow Dominic was thinking of, but tonight, and that new lass next door; although how he’d had the nerve to ask such as her out, she didn’t know . . . But then she did. Dominic had the nerve for anything if he wanted it badly enough. She said cuttingly, ‘Why don’t you ask one of your cronies for it?’

  He cast her a sidelong glance, in which she saw the sharp, questioning look—he wondered how much she knew. She knew more than he thought she did, to her sorrow. There was a certain woman of the docks, Lady Pansy, so-called because of her style in her heyday when she entertained nothing less than a chief engineer. But times had changed, and with them Lady Pansy’s figure and face. Although she couldn’t claim big money now she still liked her men young and strong, and Mary Ellen knew that all the money from Dominic’s full shifts was not spent on drink—the thought made her sick—and the woman was as old as she was, if not older!

  If Mary Ellen’s refusal dampened Dominic’s spirits, he hid it successfully, for in the kitchen he was extra hearty, forestalling Nancy’s greeting by giving an imitation of herself.

  ‘Hal-lo, Nan-cy!’

  ‘Hallo, Dominic.’ Nancy wriggled on her chair.

  Dominic went and stood over her: ‘What’s this I’m hearing about you, Nancy? They tell me you’re courtin’.’

  ‘Eeh! who told you that?’ The girl wriggled in agitation. ‘Eeh! I’m not . . . am I, John?’

  John said nothing, but left the table and took a seat by the fire. He knew where Dominic’s teasing would lead.

  ‘Well, that’s what I heard,’ Dominic went on; ‘I thought you were goin’ to wait for me. Nice one, you are.’ He pulled his belt tighter in feigned annoyance.

  ‘Eeh, Dominic! I haven’t got a lad, I haven’t. I don’t let them come near me. If they touch me, I yells I do.’ Her face gathered itself into a troubled pucker.

  John thrust the poker between the bars and raked savagely—he knew that Dominic’s tactics were more to madden him than to tease Nancy.

  Dominic laughed, and went on, with mock seriousness, ‘Let’s get this settled. When are me and you goin’ out for a walk, eh?’

  Mary Ellen came hurriedly into the kitchen: ‘I think you’d better be going home now, Nancy, your ma will be wondering where you are.’

  As Nancy stood up, Dominic said softly, ‘I’ll get another lass, mind.’

  And Mary Ellen cried, ‘That’s enough of that! Get away home now, Nancy.’ She turned to the girl and led her, trembling, to the door; but before they reached it, it opened, and Hannah Kelly herself stood there.

  ‘Oh, this is where you are’—she looked unsmilingly at her daughter—‘I guessed as much. Go on, get yourself over home.’

  Nancy slid by her mother, and Hannah came in and closed the door. Her manner was conspiratorial. ‘Well, what d’yer think, eh? D’ye know who ye’ve got next door, Mary Ellen?’

  Mary Ellen shook her head.

  ‘My God! Ye’d never believe. They call this the Irish quarter, but what with the Jews and the ranters . . . and now this! Well, my God, I ask ye!’

  ‘What are they?’ asked Mary Ellen bluntly.

  ‘Spooks!’ Hannah’s head came forward, impressing the word.

  ‘What!’

  ‘Spooks. He’s called The Spook in Jarrow and Howden and round there. Remember a bit back when the Irish navvies burnt a hut down and the pollis had to get the man away? Well, that was him. He was givin’ a service or somethin’.’

  Mary Ellen turned and looked from one to the other of her sons, who were now both listening to Hannah Kelly with interest.

  ‘Dorrie Clark knew who he was the minute she set eyes on him, and she was tellin’ Bella Bradley that when she was delivering once in Jarrow, he came in and wanted to lay his hands on the woman. That’s what she said . . . lay his hands on her! Did ye ever hear owt like it? To ease her labour, he said, because she’d been in it four days.’

  Mary Ellen looked distinctly shocked. ‘Did she let him?’

  ‘Did she hell! Ye know old Dorrie. She said she kicked his arse out of the door. And she would an’ all, full of gin or not. But my God, there’ll be the divil’s figarties around these doors before long! Mark my words; ye’ll see.’

  Mary Ellen was evidently disturbed. She looked from one to other; then she addressed John, ‘What d’you make of it?’

  John turned away, and went to the bedroom, saying, ‘I don’t know; they looked all right to me.’

  Hannah laughed and called after John, ‘Mind yerself, John lad, that she don’t lay hands on you. They say the lass is as bad as the old man.’ Then turning to Dominic, she said, ‘And you there, ye’ve soon got yer leg in.’

  Ignoring her jibe, Dominic asked: ‘D’you know what the old man works at?’

  ‘Now that’s another funny thing’—Hannah pointed her finger at him—‘he’s the Mr Bracken that has the boot shop in Jarrow.’

  The three of them looked from one to the other, and the same question was running through their minds: ‘Why did a man who owned a boot shop come to live in the fifteen streets?’

  In the bedroom, John pulled the wooden box from beneath the bed and took out his suit. It was too creased to wear, so he knew it hadn’t been in the pawn; had it been in his mother would have pressed it ready for him. Taking a dirty raincoat from the back of the door, he stood pondering a moment whether he shoul
d change his black neckerchief for a white muffler, but decided against doing so. He would keep it for tonight, when he would be going to the Shields to have a look round the market and perhaps go to the second-house somewhere. Now, he was just going for a walk.

  He did not bother to change his working boots, but went into the kitchen and finding his mother alone, asked, ‘Will you put an iron over my suit?’

  ‘Yes, lad,’ she replied. ‘Are you off for a walk?’

  He nodded. ‘Where’s Katie?’

  ‘Here she is, coming up the yard,’ said Mary Ellen.

  ‘Want to come?’ he asked her.

  ‘Oh yes, John. Yes!’ In her excitement, Katie hopped from one foot to the other.

  ‘Not with hands and face like that,’ he said. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘Playing shops . . . I won’t be a tick; wait for me.’

  Mary Ellen was already pouring the water into the dish; and after a few minutes Katie, her face shining and a round straw hat lying straight on the top of her head, was walking down the yard with John.

  He took her hand, and they went along the cobbled back lane to the main road.

  ‘Where shall we go?’ he asked her.

  ‘Oh, the country, John. Up the country!’

  ‘Simonside?’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes, Simonside!’

  The day was cold and clear, with the wind blowing straight in from the sea. The sky was high above the housetops and above the towering cranes, which reared up inside the stone wall edging the road opposite the fifteen streets.

  John looked up at the white tufted clouds moving swiftly across the sky, and said, ‘Look up there. They look like a fleet of white brakes off for a day’s outing, don’t they? I bet they’re off to the country, too—Morpeth or some place.’

  Katie chuckled. This was one of the many reasons why she loved going for walks with John—he made up stories about everything. She glanced up at him, her eyes twinkling: ‘I bet when they come back they’ll be singing, like the people do on the brake trips:

  “Aa’m back to canny auld Jarrer,

  A hip, a hip hooray.”’

  She giggled, and John tilted her hat over her eyes, saying ‘Saucy piece!’

  They walked by the side of the wall for some way, until they came to the chemical works and the tram sheds. Then, further on, as they passed a narrow cut, bordered on one side by the end of the chemical works and on the other by the railings which fence in part of the Jarrow slacks, John asked her, ‘Do you want to go down the slipway?’

  Katie shook her head quickly and shuddered.

  ‘What are you frightened of?’

  ‘It’s that black mud—it’s deep, and if you fell in you’d never get out.’

  ‘But the tide’s up now, and there might be a little boat moored there . . . All right, all right,’ he laughed when Katie shuddered again; ‘but you never used to be afraid of the slipway.’

  She didn’t say that Mick had dragged her down there and pretended he was going to push her in. He had held her over the stone coping, and she had gazed, petrified, at the silvery black, slimy mud sloping away from just below her face to the narrow stream of water at the bottom, running slowly beneath its shot-coloured oily surface. She didn’t dare tell her mother in case John got to know, for then he would have gone for Mick.

  They came to the Jarrow slacks at the point where they were open to the road. The water was lapping just below the bank, a few feet from the edge of the pavement. The large, square stretch of water was covered with timbers, roped together in batches, right up to the gut.

  There was a permanent way, starting below the pavement and reaching to the gut, running through the middle of them. It consisted of logs, a foot wide, lashed end to end and to each side of posts driven in at intervals over the stretch. In parts, the logs were black and rotten and looked as safe for foothold as a loose rock on the edge of a precipice. But children were playing on them with happy unconcern, jumping from them to the roped timbers. Some children were far away over the timbers, laying flat along the edges, trying to rake in pieces of wood that were floating by. And the sight of them brought back the past vividly to John. How many times had he perilously stood on the end timbers, near the edge of the gut, and waited for the tide to come in, bringing with it its drift wood. Often, for weeks on end, this wood was their only source of warmth, but often again, they had to do without the warmth whilst he hawked the sack of wood around, trying to sell it for twopence. He seldom succeeded; coke was the best sell. If he followed the coke carts from Jarrow right into Shields he could pick up as much as two bucketfuls each trip. Pieces would roll off the cart as it jogged along, especially when it crossed the tram lines. He’d get twopence for the coke, and if he could follow the cart three times, that meant sixpence. But he rarely completed the third journey, for his legs became so tired. He remembered the melancholy feeling that would settle on him as he followed the carts. It seemed to be worse when the sun was shining . . . That was an odd thing he hadn’t entirely grown out of—he didn’t like the sunshine. For years this feeling vaguely puzzled him. Then one day the reason was made known to him. The sunshine, he discovered, showed up his surroundings. It brought a queer kind of pain to him. On a dull day, the docks, the coal dust, the houses, the rattling trams, and the people all seemed to merge into one background; but when the sun shone, there they all were, standing out in relief, dirty, stark, tired; and in some odd way it hurt him . . . The feeling was coming on him now, and he tried to ignore it, for it always made him start thinking; and when he thought, he got mad at things. As his mother said, thinking got you nowhere.

  Katie plunged him further into the trough by exclaiming, ‘You know, when I grow up, John, I’m going to be a teacher.’

  He squeezed her hand and said, ‘I bet you will too . . . headmistress!’

  A teacher! Would Katie’s dreams ever be fulfilled? He couldn’t see it happening. She would go into a place at fourteen like the other lasses, and the bright eagerness would die. Her dreams, like his own when a lad, would be lost in the fight for food . . . It was funny, but that was all life amounted to . . . working life out to keep it in—working for food and warmth; and when the futility of this was made evident, blotting it out with drink. What did it all mean, anyway? What was living for?

  When in this state of mind he always asked this question. The priests had one answer; but that had long ago ceased to satisfy him. Now he was asking himself another question: Had he to stay round these quarters until he died? He wasn’t happy around here, yet when he moved out of this quarter, as he was doing now, up into Simonside, the lonely feeling became intensified and he felt lost, and some part of him wanted to get back again into the fifteen streets, into the docks, anywhere but near these grand houses that stood back from the Simonside bank, with their drives and large gardens. He couldn’t understand why his sense of loneliness should be greater away from the life that was irking him.

  He was being daft, he told himself—just daft. He should get himself a lass. That’s what he needed. He was twenty-two and he’d never had a lass. He had never kissed a lass, not even in a bit of fun. Katie was the only one he kissed. He knew there were one or two in the fifteen streets who would come at his nod, but he hadn’t nodded. His flingings and tossings in bed at night had equalled Dominic’s, and many a time he promised himself to ask Jenny Carey or Lily McDonald to go out on a Saturday night; but with the light of day he forgot about them.

  Lately, Dominic hadn’t tossed so much. And once or twice John had been tempted to seek his cure; but then again, the temptation vanished with the light.

  ‘Look, John,’ said Katie; ‘there’s Father Bailey.’

  The priest was coming down the drive of one of the big houses, and he waved to them, calling, ‘Hallo, there.’

  John stopped and said, ‘Hallo, Father.’

  He wouldn’t have stopped had it been Father O’Malley; but then, Father O’Malley wouldn’t have called ‘Hallo, there.’
At best, he would have inclined his head slightly. Not even if he knew you hadn’t been to mass would he speak to you on the street; he would wait till he had you indoors, then raise the roof on you. But Father Bailey was different. Even when he was chastising you for not going to mass he was nice about it.

  ‘Are you going for a walk, the pair of you?’ The priest smiled, first up at John then down on Katie; and not waiting for an answer, went on, ‘It’s just the day for it. You know, John’—he took a step backwards—‘I believe you get taller.’

  ‘It’s the clothes, Father; they’ve shrunk.’

  ‘Well, there may be something in that, but I’ve always had the idea I came up to your shoulder. It must have been just an idea.’

  He turned to Katie. ‘And now, Katie O’Brien, what honours have you been gathering on your head this week? Do you know we have a clever girl here, John? Every week I hear something about Katie O’Brien. She’s the top of her class for this, that, and the other. It’ll be teaching the teachers she’ll be in the end.’

  ‘Oh, Father!’ Katie O’Brien lowered her head and blinked at her boots.

  The priest patted her straw hat. ‘I’m just on my way up to the fifteen streets; I’ll look in on your mother. How is she, John?’

  ‘Oh, just middling, Father.’

  ‘And your da, and Dominic?’ There was a question in the priest’s eyes.

  They held John’s, and he replied gruffly, ‘Things don’t change.’

  ‘Oh, you’re wrong there, John; every minute of the day they’re changing.’

  ‘Yes? Well I haven’t noticed it.’

  Father Bailey patted Katie’s hat again, but still addressing John said, ‘We never do. But look ahead, John . . . Shall I be seeing you at mass tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Father.’

  ‘Oh! This’ll never do. Not at all, at all! I’ll have to come and have a crack with you soon. But I must be off now. Enjoy your walk, both of you. Goodbye. Goodbye.’