The Fifteen Streets Page 8

  The next voice that came to her was Father Bailey’s. It was nice to have Father Bailey near; he brought a feeling of comfort. And as he made the sign of the cross and touched her lips, she felt a great happiness. She saw him standing at the foot of the platform and smiling, not at her, but at Mr Bracken, who, she felt, was standing just behind her head. Father Bailey was saying, ‘God’s ways are many and mysterious. He has made these ways and only He can judge them.’ She heaved a great sigh and fell into a kind of sleep, thinking, ‘Yes, we are all one.’ It was the answer Christine Bracken had given to Father Bailey.

  The gas in the kitchen was turned low. It flickered up and down and spurted out of a little hole in the bottom of the mantle. In the dim light John knelt before the fire, taking out the ashes. He raked them slowly and quietly, and was glad of their warmth on his hands, for in spite of a good fire, he felt cold. It was the chill before the dawn, he thought. Was it only twelve hours since all this started? It seemed many lifetimes to him. And what it must be like for Christine, sitting in that one position by the bed, he could not imagine. He thought of her now as Christine—the night had joined them in a relationship that seemed to him to be stronger than any blood tie; he had wrapped a blanket about her and taken off her shoes, and put on her slippers. He had been next door for them, and had to find them himself, for the old man was sitting facing the wall and appeared to be asleep. He had taken her cup after cup of tea, and when, stiff with cramp, she could not hold the cup, he held it for her. Once she leant against him and he supported her with his arm. And an hour ago, he had tried to withdraw her hand gently from his mother’s, but the result was the same as when others had attempted to do this—Mary Ellen’s fingers became like a vice around those of Christine. His mother had been on the point of death, he knew, her life reduced to a mere flicker, yet whenever her hand was touched it held all the strength of vital life in its grip on Christine’s. The doctor had said it was touch and go: ‘I’ve done all I can,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back first thing in the morning.’ And looking hard at John, he asked, ‘Do you believe in spiritual healing?’

  John answered simply, ‘I’m a Catholic.’

  ‘So am I,’ said the doctor. ‘And I’m dead against it professionally and otherwise . . . yet . . .’ He had stopped abruptly, buttoned his coat, and said, ‘Good night. We’ll know more in the morning.’

  Father Bailey had left the house without saying anything, his face set and thoughtful.

  Shane’s reactions when he saw the girl sitting there were surprising to John. He had come back into the kitchen and stood looking down into the fire, his body strangely still. ‘I don’t care who keeps her alive—it can be the divil himself,’ he said, ‘as long as she doesn’t leave me.’

  He had turned and looked quietly at his son, and John realised that beyond the drinking and the fighting there still remained in his father a deep feeling for his mother. It surprised him and at the same time brought him closer to this man, whom at times he almost despised. A little while ago he had managed to persuade him to lie down—Dominic was already in bed, having retired there shortly after twelve. He had stood with the others round his mother when they thought she was breathing her last, but when she continued to breathe he said there was no point in the lot of them staying up, and anyway he’d have to be out early to see if he could get a start.

  John knew that he, too, would have to be at the docks by six o’clock. There was a prop boat due in, and he might get set on—not that he liked prop boats, for there was no piece work—you received four shillings a day, and no overtime; but that would certainly be better than nothing, for with his mother bad, money would be needed now more than ever before.

  Although he’d had no rest he did not feel tired; the training of working forty-eight hours at a stretch as a young lad when on tipping had hardened him. He thought nothing of working all day and all night to discharge an ore boat, and the men liked him in the gang. He could set the pace, and the pace meant everything when the quicker the discharge was done the sooner the men were paid. He looked at the clock . . . half-past four. There were many things that should be done before he left the house; so he proceeded to tidy the kitchen, shaking the mats and sweeping the floor—his mother would want them to be dependent on neighbours as little as possible, kind as they might be.

  He was setting the table for breakfast when Hannah Kelly came from the front room.

  ‘I’ll go over home a minute, lad,’ she whispered, ‘and get our Joe up. Then I’ll be back.’

  He thanked her, and asked, ‘Do you think there’s any change?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . perhaps there’s a little—she seems to be breathing easier. Funny about that lass, isn’t it?’ She looked questioningly at John. ‘Mary Ellen hanging on to her like that after saying she wanted no truck with them.’

  John made no reply.

  And after a moment she whispered again, ‘She’s had me scared stiff, sitting so still. ’Tisn’t natural. What d’ye make of it? And what are ye going to do if it goes on any longer?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

  Hannah shook her head: ‘It’s rum. Makes ye put yer thinking cap on, don’t it?’

  He nodded slowly, and she said, ‘Aye well, there’s queer things happen in the world. We’ll know this time the morrer, likely.’

  After Hannah had gone, he stood staring before him. What would happen to them all if his mother should die? She was the axis around which they revolved. Molly would soon be leaving school, but she would be less than useless to run this turbulent house. He looked down on her, lying in the corner of the couch. Her mouth was open, and even in sleep she looked what she was, feckless. Now if Katie were older . . . What! The thought shocked him. Katie work and slave after the lot of them! No. Let her have a better start than that, even though it be only in service. But his mother wouldn’t die. Somehow they wouldn’t let her die.

  He classed Mr Bracken and Christine as ‘they’ when he thought of them in their strange and eerie capacity of healers; but as Mr Bracken and Christine, he thought of them as kindly folk, and in Christine’s case, as bonnie and taking.

  When he went quietly from the kitchen into the front room to replenish the fire, he saw them as he had seen them last—his mother, lying straight and still and curiously flat, with one arm outstretched to that of Christine, who was sitting close to the head of the bed; only this time there was a difference—inches separated Mary Ellen’s hand from Christine’s.

  Christine smiled faintly. The smile seemed forced on to the chiselled whiteness of her face, her eyes looked vacant, like the hollowed sockets in a sculptured head.

  John bent over her, whispering anxiously, ‘Are you all right?’

  She tried to broaden her smile, but the effort seemed too much, and she fell against him. He glanced at his mother. She was breathing evenly now, and a faint tinge of colour had crept into the greyness of her face.

  Christine whispered, ‘She’s asleep . . . it’s over.’ She sighed, and her body pressed with gentle heaviness against him.

  ‘Come into the kitchen,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t yet. I’ve . . . I’ve got cramp. I’m stiff. In a little while.’

  She sounded sleepy, and for a moment he thought she had fallen asleep.

  Hannah Kelly came into the room again, and exclaimed softly, ‘She’s let go then.’ She peered at Mary Ellen. ‘She’s better. Ye’d better get away to bed, lass,’ she said kindly to Christine.

  Christine, in an effort to rise, almost lost her balance, and John put his arm about her and supported her to the kitchen, followed by Hannah’s quizzical glance and raised eyebrows. ‘Aye, well,’ she soliloquised, ‘ye never can tell where blisters light. But my God, won’t Mary Ellen go mad!’

  John sat Christine on a chair by the fire, and stood helplessly watching her as she slowly started to cry. It was a gentle crying; the tears welled up from their source, spilling over the dark, thick fringe of lashes on to her cheeks, the
n down on to her clasped hands.

  ‘You’re all in,’ John said. ‘Come on, I’ll take you in home.’

  Like a child, she placed her hand in his, and he drew her to her feet.

  ‘The cramp . . . it’s still there’—she tottered as she stood—‘my legs don’t seem to belong to me.’

  In the flickering light of the gas, she looked up at him and smiled through the tears. ‘It’s been a strange night, John.’

  He nodded silently. He wanted to thank her for what, in the back of his mind, he felt that she and her father had done, but to say ‘Thank you for saving my mother’s life’ would be to accept the strange and terrible power that was assuredly theirs, and some part of him was afraid. It seemed ridiculous that this slip of a lass could be anything but what she looked . . . a fetching, boyish-looking girl.

  Christine sighed and said, ‘Everything would have been perfect if the baby had lived. Will your mother be very upset?’

  He couldn’t answer for his mother . . . nor for himself, for he felt she would be shocked at his thankfulness that it was dead.

  She swayed, and again he put his arm about her and led her to the door. Her legs gave way beneath her, and she clung to him saying, ‘It’s only temporary. In the morning I’ll be all right, but now all my strength has gone.’

  Stooping swiftly and saying, ‘This is the best way then,’ he lifted her up into his arms. She offered no resistance, but sank against him, her head on his shoulder. One of his hands was under her breast, and he saw the curve of it as her blouse and petticoat pouched, small, not much bigger than Katie’s, and the sight of it brought no more excitement to his blood than the tiny mound of Katie’s would have done. Some part of his mind wondered at this. His other hand was below her knees, and his face, as it bent above hers, was close enough for kissing. He could have dropped his mouth on to the lips and told himself it was in gratitude. And she too perhaps would have accepted his excuse. And it would have been a start. It would also have fixed Dominic. But he did nothing, not even press her close. Perhaps it was because he was worried about his mother, but he might have been carrying Katie, for his feelings were not aroused above tenderness. Vaguely, he was irritated by this. The night had brought them together in one way, a way that was deep and would be lasting, he knew, but it wasn’t the way of a fellow getting off with a lass; it was a way that had missed his body and touched something beyond.

  As he carried her into her own kitchen, she stirred and opened her eyes, and her hand came up and touched his cheek. And she whispered, ‘You’re so nice, John . . . so good.’ And he knew that he would have started something had he kissed her, because she liked him in a way perhaps that hadn’t gone past her body.

  5

  The Comic

  Katie moved the parcel on to her other hip. It was heavy; but not as heavy as the weight inside her; the weight was leaden. To go to the pawnshop with any parcel filled her with shame; to walk up the dock bank, under the knowledgeable stares of the men idling there against the railings caused her throat to move in and out; and to meet any of her schoolmates on the journey made her want to die; but when it was John’s suit she was carrying every tragedy of the journey was intensified a thousandfold.

  When her mother asked, ‘Will you go down to “Bob’s”, hinny?’ Katie had stared at her, speechless. She wanted to say, ‘Our Molly should go, she’s bigger,’ but she knew from experience that Molly always got less on the clothes than she did, and generally too, she lost something, the ticket, or worse still, a sixpence. And because her mother looked so thin and white when she asked her she remained silent, and watched Mary Ellen go to the box under the bed and take John’s suit out.

  It seemed such a shame that it was John’s, because he had started work only that morning. They all had, after being off weeks. But there was nothing in the house now to make them a meal, and although they would get subs, her mother was relying on these to pay the three weeks’ back rent. Katie felt that once the rent was paid, her mother would look less white.

  Going through the arches into Tyne Dock she met Mrs Flaherty.

  ‘Oh, ye’re not at school the day?’ Peggy greeted her.

  ‘No, I was sick.’ Katie stared up into the half-washed face, criss-crossed with wrinkles, and her tone defied disbelief.

  ‘Oh, that’s a pity, it is. Ye shouldn’t miss your iducation. Some day, when ye’re old enough, I’ll lend ye one o’ me books; they’ll iducate ye like nothing else will. When ye’re old enough that is.’ She snuffled and caught the drop from the end of her nose on the back of her hand.

  ‘Thank you.’ For as long as she could remember Katie had been promised one of Mrs Flaherty’s books, and the promise meant nothing to her now. She said, ‘Ta-ta, Mrs Flaherty,’ and walked on, the parcel now pressed against her chest and resting on the top of her stomach.

  Although she thought impatiently that Mrs Flaherty was always on about education, she wished her mother was a bit like her. She had almost given up talking to her mother about the examination and what Miss Llewellyn said, for her mother didn’t believe Miss Llewellyn meant what she said—last time, she had stopped her talking, saying, ‘Oh, hinny, you mustn’t take so much notice of things; your teacher’s only being nice. The examination she’s on about is likely the one you have every year.’ And when Katie had sat quietly crying, Mary Ellen said to John, ‘Look, lad. I can’t go down to the school and see what she keeps on about, I only have me shawl; will you go?’

  ‘What! Me? Not on your life. Now that’s a damn silly thing to ask me to do, isn’t it! What could I say to the headmistress?’

  ‘Well, will you go and see her teacher, then?’

  John had just stared blankly at his mother, then picked up his cap and walked out of the house.

  Katie thought the only one who understood was Christine. She liked Christine nearly as much as she liked Miss Llewellyn, but not quite. Life had taken on an added glow since Christine came into it; for Christine made her pinnies and dresses out of her own old ones. She gave her and Molly nice things to eat, too; and she had even given them money, real money, half a crown each. But only twice, for when they took their half-crowns into their mother the second week she made them take them back.

  Katie could not understand her mother’s attitude of not speaking to Christine and her grandfather. She allowed her and Molly to go next door, but Mr Bracken and Christine had never been into her house since that terrible day some months ago when their mother was taken bad. John and Dominic, too, went next door; and she often sat on John’s knee while he and Mr Bracken talked. They talked about funny things, one of which stuck in her mind: Mr Bracken said you could have anything you wanted if you only used your thoughts properly . . . There were so many things she wanted, but she wanted above all to be a teacher. Should she do what Mr Bracken told John, lie on her back with her arms outstretched and think of being a teacher until she felt herself floating away? Eeh no! she’d better not, for there were some people who said Mr Bracken was the devil. He wasn’t; but anyway, she’d better not do it.

  She always had a queer feeling when Dominic was next door when she would wonder if he were trying to do what he was doing that night she went in unexpectedly. He had Christine pressed in the corner and was trying to kiss her. Her blouse was open, and the ribbon of her camisole was loose. Katie knew that Christine was frightened, for she held on to her until Dominic went out. Then she told her not to mention to John what had happened; and Katie only too readily promised.

  At last she reached the dark well of the pawnshop, and listened, her eyes wide and sad, as Bob said, ‘Only three-and-six, hinny. It’s getting a bit threadbare.’ He turned to a woman and asked, ‘Will you put it in for her?’ And the woman nodded, taking the penny Katie offered her. Katie wished she were fourteen, then if she had to come to the pawn she wouldn’t have to pay somebody for putting the stuff in—a whole penny just for signing your name! It was outrageous, and she disliked the woman intensely for being so mean as to
take the penny.

  As she was leaving the shop with the money tightly grasped in her hand, Bob said, ‘I’ve got something here that might interest one of your brothers. It’ll fit nobody else round these parts. It’s a top coat, and it’s a bobby-dazzler. Ten shillings, it is. And I only wish I had what it cost when it was new. Tell one of them to have a look in.’ Katie said she would.

  She went on to the butcher’s, and from there to buy a gas mantle. In Mr Powell’s, she stood waiting while he hunted for the box which contained the turned down mantles. His search took him into the back shop, and Katie was left alone standing before an assortment of comics. They were arrayed on a sloping counter: Rainbow, Tiger Tim’s Weekly, Comic Cuts, and others. Her eyes dwelt on them longingly. It was weeks and weeks since she was able to buy a comic. She would likely get a penny off John on Saturday. But Saturday was as far away as Christmas, and there stretched before her the rest of the afternoon and the long, long evening. And she daren’t ask her mother for even a ha’penny out of the suit money. On the front of Rainbow, the Bruin boys were up to their games again: the tiger, the parrot, the elephant, and others, were playing one of their naughty pranks on Mrs Bruin. And inside the comic, Katie knew, would be the story of the little girl who was really a fairy and worked magic. Her eyes darted to the back shop. All she could see was Mr Powell’s feet on the top of a pair of steps. Her hand went up and touched the Rainbow. It hesitated for a second, then with one swift movement, the Rainbow was inside her coat, and for the first time in her life she found herself wetting her knickers. The combined horror was too much for her. She ran out of the shop, down the dock bank to the arches. She did not stop to look inside her coat; her sin had already obliterated the joy of the comic. She was a thief! She had stolen! Mr Powell would miss the comic and put the pollis on her track; her mother would be taken to court and her face would become white again, and all at school would know . . . Miss Llewellyn would know!