The Four Streets Saga

by Nadine Dorries

  Alice had dreamt of living in America for many, many years.

  ‘Oh, I will make up my mind if we ever get to that point,’ Brigid’s voice pierced her thoughts, ‘it’s what Sean says he wants and so I have to want it too, I suppose, but I will miss everyone and it’s so far from home. Anyway, like all men, he’s full of big ideas, but when it comes to it, if I turn on the tears he will maybe change his mind.’

  Brigid grinned and winked at Alice, who returned a weak and thoughtful smile.

  The following night, whilst Jerry was eating his supper and Alice, wearing Kathleen’s apron, scrubbed the pans at the sink, she found her mind full of Sean and how lucky Brigid was.

  How could Brigid complain about having a man who wanted to be something other than a docker?

  Someone who wanted better than to remain in a house listed for slum clearance?

  Alice wondered, did Sean feel like an outsider within the community, as she did?

  ‘I’m an outsider because I’m an English Protestant and I was a sick one in the head at that, not that anyone ever mentions it, mind. Sean may feel the same because he wants better than the rest are prepared to put up with and that makes him different.’

  ‘What’s that, queen?’ said Jerry, looking up from his plate whilst glancing at the Echo, which was propped up on the table against the milk bottle.

  ‘Oh, nothing, just thinking out loud,’ said Alice as she turned the cold tap on full to rinse the pan and drown her stray thoughts.

  That night, Joseph slept in the room Nellie shared with Kathleen.

  When it was time for bed, whilst Jerry switched off the television and the lights, Alice popped in to settle Joseph, who had been slightly restless in the new room.

  As she stood at the window, rocking backwards and forwards with Joseph on her shoulder, Alice spotted Sean walking down the street, returning from one of his boxing nights. She felt a thrill in her belly and, without any warning, a flame lit somewhere in her heart.

  He must feel exactly as I do, thought Alice.

  As he walked under her window, Alice slipped backwards into the shadow of her old self.

  She hadn’t done it for so long. She had been fixed. She was fine. She was totally in control. She was free. Now that Kathleen had left, she felt the feelings of the past return. She was her own woman again.

  As Sean passed she noticed how broad his shoulders were and how tall and proud he was when he walked, not like Jerry, who almost slouched along with his head bent.

  She would tell Brigid they would love to go out tomorrow night. She wanted to be in the company of a man who thought just as she did, and who made her pulse race because of it.

  Joseph fell asleep and Alice laid him down gently in the cot. She walked back to the window to gaze out on the street for another glimpse of Sean’s receding back and then, suddenly, she stopped herself and stepped away.

  Oh God, Alice, no, you idiot, she thought to herself. What are you doing?

  She felt vulnerable, as though she were tumbling. She realized Kathleen was her prop and that, without her, it was going to be difficult.

  She needed to make more of an effort. But it was so hard as it was. Every day the bottle of tablets on the press were a reminder that the familiar pattern of obsessive behaviour lurked, waiting for her to slip.

  As Alice walked into their room, she could sense Jerry was still awake.

  For the first time ever, Alice wanted to have sex, a feeling she had never experienced before. She slipped into the bed and encircled Jerry in her arms. She felt his body stiffen. She was naked. She could hear his brain working, wondering what was happening and why. She had never before come to their bed without her nightdress.

  Jerry rolled over onto his side and looked at her. His eyes were asking her a million questions she couldn’t answer. How could she tell Jerry that what had excited her was catching sight of Sean walking down the street? Knowing that just down the road lived a man who shared her secret thoughts and who was talking to his wife about the life Alice wanted? That she had never been crazy and that just a few houses away someone else wanted the grander life she had yearned for too?

  There must have been a mix-up, thought Alice. I wasn’t meant to be here, I was meant to be down the road, with Sean.

  The edges of reality were once again becoming blurred. The fact that Sean worked as a docker and a boxer, that he spent every day and evening working hard to realize the dreams he had for himself and his family, was lost on Alice. Once again, she imagined herself dressed just like one of the ladies who stayed at the Grand, the hotel where she had been the housekeeper. She saw herself surrounded by the leather luggage that had belonged to others, waiting to board the passenger steamer to New York.

  New York. Just the thought of it sent a thrill down Alice’s spine.

  Every guest at the Grand who had been travelling on to New York had spoken beautifully and had dressed impeccably. They could barely contain their nervousness or excitement. Why should they? They were leaving for a great adventure. America.

  And now, in the bed she shared with Jerry in the two-up, two-down on Nelson Street and with her thoughts full only of Sean, Alice gave herself up willingly. Jerry looked deeply into her eyes as he gently stroked her arms and breasts and then he kissed her, with longing and passion. For the very first time in seven years of marriage, Alice moved with him, but in body alone. In her mind, it was Sean caressing and entering her. And as she quivered and shook in his arms, Jerry felt that at last, for the very first time since the day they had married, they had truly made love.

  10

  MAURA AND TOMMY had a tough night settling the children. All were perturbed by Kitty’s absence. Malachi had been playing up and Angela hadn’t stopped complaining; Harry cried more than usual because it was hard for him to catch his breath. Each one of the children had a problem which at any other time, Kitty would have shared with her mother.

  Malachi and Angela could give out enough for a dozen kids and Kitty knew how to deal with them. Both Maura’s arms and belly had been full of a baby since a year after she had married.

  Maura left the boys to Tommy and when she had finally calmed the girls, she lay on her bed to calm the baby on her breast.

  After half an hour and with the baby still grizzling, Tommy put his head round the door. ‘Just popping down to the Anchor for a quick one, Maura,’ and with a wink, he was gone.

  Tommy was crafty, knowing Maura wouldn’t say a word in case she disturbed the baby. He was safe to sneak out when she was feeding.

  Maura would never have objected anyway. Tommy hardly ever went to the pub. He was a family man who preferred to spend his nights in with her and the kids. She knew what he was doing.

  This was the first occasion, since the day she had been born, that Kitty had been out of their sight. Oh, sure, she had spent lots of nights with Bernadette and Jerry when she was little and they had been waiting for Nellie to come along, but she was only across the road and within arm’s reach. Not like now. Not like this. Not taking her first holiday with someone else’s family.

  Poor Tommy, he deserved a drink. Maura knew the visit from the police and the removal of Kitty to Ireland had worried him sick.

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, please keep him strong,’ she whispered into the top of her baby’s downy head.

  The Anchor was quieter than it would have been on a weekday night before the scandal of the priest being found dead without his langer, but the usual regulars were in and Tommy knew them all. As he walked up to the bar, men he worked with all day shouted their greetings. Most were standing round the fire, their backs to the flames, warming their rear ends.

  For many of them there were no fires at home and the ranges were cold. Bill, the landlord, benefited from the money spent on Guinness, which would have provided a bag of coke in many a house.

  The men were half-cut and had obviously been there since the end of their shift. Tommy had walked past children sitting on the steps outside
, looking pale and perished. They were under instructions from their mammy to bring their da home before he had spent all the money.

  Children, no more than five years of age, sent to do a man’s job. Tommy knew one of the lads, who was a friend of Harry’s.

  ‘What are ye doing sat here, Brian?’ he asked the lad, who was shivering so much he could barely speak through chattering teeth.

  ‘Uncle Tommy, could ye send me da out to come home, please? Me ma says I can’t go back home unless I have him with me.’

  ‘Have ye eaten any tea tonight, Brian?’ said Tommy, bending down so that he was at eye level with the lad.

  Brian looked down and shook his head.

  Tommy felt an anger he was now becoming familiar with burn into his gut. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a coin.

  ‘Here’s a sixpence, lad. Go to the pie hut and get a hot meat and potato pie and then go home after ye have eaten it. Don’t tell anyone I gave ye a sixpence. Tell Ma I am bringing ye da home with me soon. Now away, lad, quickly.’

  As Tommy walked into the pub, he cast his eyes around and saw Brian’s da sitting by the fire, playing dominoes for money and nursing his Guinness.

  With one hand thrust deep into his pocket and the other holding his own pint, John McCarthy hailed Tommy as he walked past him towards Brian’s da.

  ‘What d’ye think then, Tommy?’ said John, looking around him furtively and dropping his voice. ‘Go on, yer Maura, she and the priest was as thick as thieves. Who did for him, Tommy?’

  ‘Sure, ’twas Molly Barrett’s cat,’ said Tommy with a forced laugh as he turned towards the bar and put his money on the long, highly polished wooden counter. He was about to order a pint and join John after he had put Brian’s da out on the street.

  Tommy had felt like a night of talking about the horses and football to take his mind off worrying about the police and missing his little queen, Kitty.

  When he had left her with Kathleen at the wooden hut on the Pier Head, it was all he could do to keep his tears at bay, to be the big man and tell her to have a fabulous time.

  He had given her an extra-long hug and she had clung to him, with her hands clenched behind his back. He had kissed her forehead and pressed half a crown into her palm.

  ‘Be a good girl, queen, and bring me back the smell of the wet grass, with a rainbow’s end sat on it for me as a present, now, would ye?’

  As he made his way back up to the four streets, he turned as he reached the last street lamp and, through the window of the lit hut, he watched his little girl press her face against the glass and wave to him and despite the rain beating down, he could see the deep sadness etched on her face.

  Tears blurred his eyes as he raised his hand and returned her wave. He wanted to run back to the hut and tell Kathleen it was all a mistake. That the only place any child could be truly safe was at home, with her ma and da. He had let his Kitty down, they had not kept her safe and now he had to pay the price.

  As Tommy looked at Kitty he realized that this was the saddest moment of his whole life and he would always remember her face just as she looked tonight. During the day, he tucked under his cap the very thought of Kitty crossing the water on the boats he watched all day. His feelings swamped him, threatening to drag him down, so he kept them at arm’s length and he focused his mind on the trivia of dock life.

  Knowing she would not be there when he arrived home didn’t make it any easier.

  The house was quieter. It was darker. A light extinguished.

  Her absence left a gaping hole, which the noisiness of all the others put together failed to fill.

  He had to abandon his own thoughts and escape to the pub.

  The men round the fire had heard Tommy’s comment about the cat and sniggered.

  John McCarthy whispered to Tommy, ‘Aye, Tommy, keep yer fly buttons done up tight. If ye have to go into Molly Barrett’s, put a shovel head down yer trousers and over yer langer, the fecking cat’s a lunatic, so it is. It should be hunted down and shot.’

  Feelings still ran too high for the men to laugh openly about the death of the priest. After all, some of the men still weren’t allowed out in case they should meet the same fate. Tommy realized he couldn’t stay in the pub. There was no light relief here.

  The landlord began to pull Tommy a pint of Guinness.

  ‘Hold it there, Bill,’ said Tommy. ‘Four bottles to take out, please.’

  Whilst the barman descended into the cellar to fetch the bottles, Tommy walked over to Brian’s da.

  ‘Aye, Tommy, howaya?’ said McGinty, looking up from his dominoes. ‘Do ye fancy a game, Tommy?’

  ‘No, McGinty, I don’t and I will tell ye this right now, neither do ye. Get your arse back round home and see to ye wife and kids, else pay me back the ten shillings you borrowed from me to pay the rent.’

  McGinty looked at Tommy with his mouth wide open and then began to laugh. ‘Don’t be an eejit, Tommy, I’m in the middle of a feckin’ game.’

  Tommy moved over to the table, put his face close to McGinty’s and held his hand out.

  ‘The ten shillings, right now.’

  McGinty slowly rose to his feet, swearing under his breath.

  “I have no feckin’ ten shillings as well yer know, yer bastard.”

  Tommy walked back to the bar as the barman came up with the Guinness.

  ‘Well, that’s unusual, Tommy, I thought ’twas only the ladies who drank the bottles on your street.’

  ‘Aye, and me and the missus too,’ said Tommy, counting out his coins on the counter.

  As Tommy turned right towards Nelson Street, he looked left and, through the mist, saw McGinty, staggering down the street towards home with Brian running from the pie shop to catch him up.

  Maura couldn’t have looked more surprised when Tommy walked in through the back with the four bottles. Her eyes filled with a ridiculous pleasure at seeing him home again. She shared his sadness. They both ached. She had been sorry that he had gone out to the pub, but at the same time she understood why. She was tidying away discarded shoes and children’s cardigans and jackets that had been scattered all around the kitchen, placing each on its own peg on the door to the stairs, when Tommy walked in.

  ‘Sit ye down, queen,’ said Tommy kindly, as he put the poker in the fire to heat and took the bottles to the opener that hung from a piece of string next to the sink.

  Maura flopped into one fireside chair and Tommy into the other. As she kicked off her slippers, Tommy plunged the poker first into her Guinness and then back into the red embers for his own.

  As they lifted the bottles to drink, they grinned at each other for the first time in weeks. Maura left her chair and sat down on the rug in between Tommy’s legs, with one arm on his knee. She looked up at him as they chatted and drank their Guinness in front of the leaping flames for an hour before bed.

  Not about the evil that had swamped their lives and divided them, but about the things that held them together.

  Their families in Ireland and America.

  Tommy’s work. What to do about Malachi? Who in the family did Angela take after and had someone snuck into the house and swapped babies when they were sleeping? They talked about the things Kitty would see and do in Ireland, and the kindness of Jerry and Kathleen and the entire Deane family to help in this way. For the first time they talked about everything and anything other than that awful night. That night, Maura realized, was beginning to drive them apart.

  Night-time chatter had always been a part of Maura and Tommy’s routine. Tommy always sat in the fireside chair, or at the table with his paper, while Maura nattered away to him as she cleared the dishes and tidied up. The ritual had stopped abruptly the night Father James was caught in Kitty’s bedroom and it hadn’t resumed since, until tonight.

  ‘Bed,’ said Tommy, draining the last of his second bottle.

  ‘You go up,’ said Maura. ‘I want to sort the washing for the morning.’

  ‘I blo
ody won’t,’ replied Tommy with a huge grin. ‘Get ye’self up those stairs, missus, ye are in for a treat tonight. It’s been over a week and that’s not natural for any man, especially not this one.’

  Afterwards, as Tommy slept a sleep of deep contentment, Maura slipped out of bed. The washing still needed to be sorted for the morning. She sat on the edge of the mattress and looked back at the man she loved, who had fathered their beautiful and loving children. He was the best husband. He didn’t deserve to be in this position of guilt. Before she left his side, Maura prayed to God to forgive them for defending their child and asked him to bring them peace.

  Maura prayed a great deal.

  After all, it was not as if she could take confession.

  11

  HOWARD AND SIMON had not been able to gain entry to the Priory until the morning after the bishop had arrived.

  At first, Howard had been furious at the nuns’ refusal to allow them in immediately following the murder. He and Simon had tried to be as gentle as possible, explaining the reason why it was very important that they have free access. As gentle as it was possible for two hard-nosed Liverpool detectives to be.

  They had visited the Priory the morning after, but there was nothing to be seen, other than a gaggle of nuns in a state of high distress.

  Miss Devlin, the teacher for whom Howard had a soft spot, was in the process of comforting the housekeeper. She told them no one had been near the Priory and that for all of the previous day the priest had been away, along with everyone else, at the church and the wedding breakfast.

  The Priory had felt cold and flat, unyielding of what it knew.

  The wailing and crying of the nuns, uninviting.

  ‘There’s nothing to see here,’ Howard had said, finding the tears of a nun particularly disturbing. ‘Let’s concentrate on the school.’

  And, sure enough, they had got lucky, or so they thought, when Little Paddy had blurted out what he thought he had seen from the window that night.