The Four Streets Saga

by Nadine Dorries

‘Come away in and meet Maeve,’ said Nellie, who was now fully awake and brimming with barely containable excitement. It was eleven o’clock and they were still up and dressed with no school tomorrow. She was bouncing up and down on the spot as she took Kitty’s hand.

  ‘You will love Maeve,’ she said. ‘She and Uncle Liam are so funny together, she gives out to him so badly and he just laughs at her, which makes her so mad. Come on now, away inside.’

  Kitty was reluctant to leave the utterly peaceful quiet and the freshness of the night outdoors. If it hadn’t been for the midges crashing into the van lights and swarming around her in clouds, she might have stood there for ever.

  ‘Welcome to Ballymara,’ said Maeve from the hallway, smiling as she bustled everyone indoors.

  Nellie had explained, before they left, that Ballymara consisted of a road that ran from Bangornevin with two farms at the end.

  ‘Bangornevin is a larger village altogether,’ said Nellie.

  Kitty was in for a shock. Larger meant it had just two hundred residents. She was expecting something the size of Liverpool. She had never been to a village in her life.

  Kitty’s first impression of Maeve was that she was stunningly beautiful. Her long auburn hair fell over her shoulders in big curls and her huge brown eyes poured out kindness like a tap. She had the bright rosy cheeks of a farmer’s wife, and her figure was generous and comely. Kitty longed to fall into her arms and be hugged, but instead she held out her hand in the way Liam had in Dublin, just a few hours before.

  Maeve, smiling, shook Kitty’s hand. Kitty was taken aback by the coarseness and dryness of her skin. She had brought her new washbag of toiletries and was overcome by an impulsive urge to give her precious new hand cream to Maeve as a present.

  ‘Come here,’ said Maeve impulsively and threw her arms round Kitty. ‘We don’t do your English handshaking in Ballymara, miss.’ And she led her towards the warm orange glow of the kitchen. Kitty grinned and looked over her shoulder towards Nellie, who winked and grinned back.

  Kitty felt a weight slipping from her shoulders as she walked along beside Maeve. It was as though by leaving the four streets she had also left her problems behind her. She had been exhausted for so long by keeping a dark and draining secret and now she had been told she was pregnant. A baby. A bomb. An explosion of fact in the midst of what had once been her ordinary schoolgirl life.

  She was totally unprepared for the next shock, when Maeve walked her straight into it.

  Maeve’s arm was still round her shoulders as they passed from the hallway into the kitchen. Kitty had only ever seen inside kitchens on the four streets and what greeted her made her mouth gape open in surprise.

  The kitchen was huge. On the left a fireplace took up half of the height and half the length of the wall. In front of it stood a square wooden table, crowded with more food than Kitty had ever seen in her life.

  In the middle was a hot and freshly roasted whole leg of pork, on a bed of crackling. Next to the pork lay a wooden board with a large sliced loaf of warm white bread and a freshly churned pat of deep yellow butter. In a larger bowl, big enough to bath a baby in, was a steaming mountain of mashed potatoes, mixed with dark green cabbage with butter melting over the top like an ice cap. Whole roasted buttery carrots sat on a plate next to the potatoes. There were pots of home-made apple sauce and chutney, their lids under green gingham mob caps.

  Then, as if that weren’t enough, there was a Victoria sponge cake bigger than any Kitty had ever seen before and a bowl of thick cream.

  ‘I made the filling today, with the fruit we bottled from last year,’ Maeve told her.

  Maeve moved to the fire, filled an enormous brown teapot with boiling water and lifted it onto the table.

  Kitty couldn’t even speak. Never in all her life, even on their new black-and-white television, had she ever seen a table so laden with food or smelling as good as this one did. For the first time in months, she was ravenous.

  ‘How did ye know we would be arriving now and to have everything just ready?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘Well,’ Maeve replied, ‘JT, who lives above the post office in Bellgarett, was watching for ye passing through in the van and when he spotted ye, he ran down into the post office and telephoned Mrs O’Dwyer at the post office in Bangornevin. Mrs O’Dwyer went across the road to the pub that is at the back of Murphy’s butcher’s and of course she got a drink for her trouble, and wouldn’t she just love that, would Mrs O’Dwyer, any excuse, I’d say, and then Mickey from the bar at the back of the butcher’s ran down the road to John’s house, who of course, ye know, is Nellie’s daddy’s cousin, to let him know ye had been spotted, and he came down the Ballymara road on his bike to tell me ye had passed through Bellgarett twenty minutes since. ’Twas easy enough.’

  And they all laughed at the bewildered look on Kitty’s face. Even Kitty.

  Once they had all eaten and the table had been cleared, Maeve took Kitty and Nellie to their room. Kitty was feeling relaxed. She had joined in the banter round the table whilst they were eating and was even beginning to find Liam’s jokes funny.

  As Maeve opened the bedroom door, and Kitty laid eyes on the room for the first time, she gave a loud gasp. ‘Is this for us?’

  ‘No, it’s just for ye bags,’ replied Maeve playfully, ‘ye can sleep in the barn.’

  ‘Of course it’s for us,’ squealed Nellie. ‘Didn’t I tell you the bedroom was beautiful?’

  ‘Aye, you did sure enough, but you never said we had our own beds!’

  Kitty stepped into the room. When he had brought in the bags, Liam had switched on a lamp on a bedside table with a pink lampshade, which bathed the room in a warm and comforting glow.

  On either side of the table stood two single beds with lace bedspreads and Kitty’s new holdall sat on the one nearest the window. She touched it, as though checking it was real; all her precious new things contained inside.

  Kitty noticed the walls were painted a beautiful, pale, duck-egg blue. Instead of nets, curtains of thick cream lace hung at the windows and the heavy over-curtains were the same duck-egg blue as the walls, with tiny sprigs of cream flowers.

  The floor was covered with hand-made rag rugs in pink, pale blue and cream, and the doors and window frames were painted a buttery cream.

  Next to the door stood a press, with a lace runner and a huge pink jug in a bowl patterned with blue, white and cream flowers.

  Nellie had described the room to Kitty, but she hadn’t told her how it smelt. How comfortable it was. How lush were the cream lace bedspreads, which Maeve had been threading herself since she was twelve years old, or how thick the rag rugs felt under your feet. She had never explained that there was a fireplace, which burnt something that looked like blocks of earth and smelt of heather.

  Nellie had not told her that she would have her very own bed to sleep in and a beautiful polished press on which to lay out her new and lovely things.

  Maeve then took them to the much prized indoor bathroom down the corridor where Kitty and Nellie cleaned their teeth together before they dressed in their nightclothes, ready for bed.

  By the time they returned to the bedroom, Maeve had already hung up their clothes and stored their holdalls under the bed.

  Nana Kathleen bustled into the room just as Kitty was very carefully emptying the contents of her washbag and laying them out on top of the press. She had never felt so proud or grown-up in her life, nor seen anything as beautiful as her box of talc and hand cream, neatly arranged on top of the lace runner. She stood admiring them until Kathleen spoke.

  ‘Well, look at ye two, all ready for bed, eh?’

  Nellie loved how happy her nana was when they came home to Ireland.

  Kathleen turned back the bed covers, and Kitty marvelled at the creamy crispness of the thick Irish linen sheets as she slipped into the coolness, despite the fire in the room. She squealed as her feet bumped against something hot and made of stone.

  Everyone laugh
ed.

  ‘It’s the Irish version of a hot-water bottle, Kitty. To keep the bed from the river air and your feet warm for a good night’s sleep. We have the river at the back and a stream at the bottom of the mountains at the front of the house, so it’s a constant battle. Even in summer we need the bottles.’

  Nana Kathleen kissed them both goodnight.

  ‘We will be exploring and visiting tomorrow, girls, so sleep well tonight.’

  As soon as the door closed behind her, Nellie whispered, ‘Well, what do you think of Ireland, Kitty? Donchya just love it?’

  ‘I do, Nellie,’ Kitty whispered back. ‘It’s just the grandest place, I had no idea how grand. You told me what it was like, I know you did, but I had no idea it was anything like this and you had never told me how lovely Maeve is. Is this the room you slept in last time you came, Nellie?’

  But Nellie was already fast asleep.

  Kitty lay on her back, thinking and listening. She could hear the water running outside and the moths beating against the window-pane, trying to reach the light of the candle, which Maeve had left burning in a glass lantern on the press. She could hear the distant, muffled chatter of Kathleen and her son and daughter-in-law, sitting round the kitchen fire.

  Kitty couldn’t help thinking how wonderful it would be if her family could live in a house like this. She was still in a state of dazed amazement at how much had happened in just a few short days.

  Who would ever have believed this? she thought.

  She smiled and rolled over onto her side, wriggled into the crisp sheets and breathed in the smell of freshly laundered Irish linen. Her feet nestled around the hot brick and she fell asleep thinking… sure, aren’t I the lucky one? Green with envy they will all be. And she imagined the expressions on her friends’ faces when they heard she was taking a holiday.

  When Kitty awoke from a deep sleep a few hours later, she had no idea where she was.

  The candle on the press had burnt down and the only light in the room came from the thin shafts of moonlight slipping in through the gap in the curtains.

  Kitty’s heart began to race. She could feel it. She was used to it.

  She had been woken in the middle of the night many times before.

  She instinctively reached out her hand to feel for Angela and then it dawned on her where she was.

  She strained to pick up what it was that had woken her and then she heard it, the sound of boots crunching on shifting pebbles and the deep muttering of men’s voices.

  Kitty had no idea what time it was but she knew it had been midnight before bed. She didn’t dare to look out of the window but she could tell by the light that dawn wasn’t far off.

  The house was deadly silent. There were no longer any comforting sounds emanating from the kitchen. Everyone in the house was long ago in bed and asleep. The fire in the bedroom must have gone out because the air in the room carried the edge of a damp chill.

  She heard footsteps move along the side of the house and then away into the distance, down the Ballymara road. But one pair seemed to be approaching closer to their bedroom window. She could make out the shadow of a man with a cap on his head, slightly stooped and silhouetted against the window. She heard a door open very gently and then click shut.

  She guessed from the sounds of the boots on the pebbles that there were as many as five men walking away from the house down towards Bangornevin and maybe one in the opposite direction, to the other farmhouse at the end of the road. Yes, the footsteps had definitely split into three directions.

  Kitty thought they must be burglars. But what would they steal? Even she could work out that you would need a car to carry anything of significance down the long Ballymara road.

  Kitty lay, her heart beating loudly with fear.

  She wondered should she wake Nellie or one of the adults.

  She had no idea of the layout of the house, or where anyone else was sleeping, but she felt very strongly that she should leave her bed and find Liam.

  Her hot-water bottle was barely warm as she stretched her legs and turned to look at Nellie.

  ‘Nellie,’ she whispered, ‘Nellie, wake up.’

  But there was not a flicker of response. Nellie was exhausted.

  Right, there’s nothing for it, thought Kitty to herself. I’m out of this bed.

  She swung both of her feet out onto the rug and tripped over to Nellie’s bed. Once again, she tried to wake her, but Nellie was having none of it. Kitty had been thrilled at having her own bed to sleep in, for the first time in her life, but now she realized she didn’t like it that much after all.

  She gently pushed Nellie over and slipped into bed beside her. They had slept together in hospital, except for that one night, which Kitty had never let herself think about since, not even once.

  She whispered, ‘Nellie,’ twice more, but with no response, and before she had the chance to try again, exhaustion claimed her and she once again fell into a deep sleep.

  14

  ‘OI, WHAT ARE you doing in my bed, then,’ were Nellie’s first words when she opened her eyes the following morning.

  ‘God, you would never believe it,’ said Kitty as she rubbed her eyes and surfaced from sleep. ‘There were men outside last night and I thought I heard one of them get into the house. I was right scared.’

  Nellie burst out laughing

  ‘That wasn’t men, Kitty, that was a nightmare.’

  ‘No, sure it wasn’t, I definitely heard them on the pebbles outside and everything.’

  Nellie looked at Kitty to see if she was serious. She was. Nellie was younger than Kitty, but recently Nellie had felt as if she was the eldest and that Kitty was vulnerable, but she had no idea why.

  Kitty used to be full of fun, but then suddenly she wasn’t any more. Nellie was as confused as Kitty about the pregnancy and she didn’t want to talk about it. It was a bad thing for Kitty to be having a baby, Nellie knew that, she just didn’t know how bad.

  ‘Let’s get up now,’ said Nellie. ‘Maeve’s breakfasts are to die for, but before she does the breakfast, she milks the cow, come and see.’

  Both girls dived out of bed and Kitty ran straight to the window. She felt alive and full of excitement about the day ahead.

  Their bedroom was at the front of the house. A pathway led from the front door to the narrow road, on the other side of which was the stream Kitty had seen the night before, with a mountain rising straight up beyond, and Kitty saw the deep cerise rhododendron flowers she had smelt last night.

  ‘Holy Mary,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘We will walk up it,’ said Nellie, pointing at what was really just a very large hill. ‘The trouble is that it is very wet and boggy below. You have to go quite a way up before it becomes dry.’

  Kitty was lost for words. She was used to Liverpool, to concrete and bombsite rubble.

  Kitty and Nellie went to the bathroom together but two seconds later they ran screaming down the hallway.

  ‘Oh merciful God, help me,’ Kitty yelled, holding onto Nellie’s hand as they flew into the kitchen, knocking Kathleen to one side.

  Maeve was bent over the fire, loading the second batch of peat onto the sticks in the fireplace. Liam was sitting at the table, drinking his morning tea.

  ‘Oh my God, Uncle Liam, help us, a big fish has swum up the plughole into the bath,’ screamed Nellie, as she hurtled through the door and flung herself at Liam.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ gasped Maeve, ‘ye have met the salmon then.’

  The adults were helpless with laughter while Nellie and Kitty stared at each other.

  ‘I caught it, ye eejits,’ said Liam, ‘but don’t say that to anyone, or ye will have the Gardai knocking on the door and having me up before the magistrate, ye will.’

  As Kathleen’s glasses had steamed up, she took them off the bridge of her nose to wipe on her apron.

  ‘Uncle Liam is the chairman of the angling club, which is very useful now as we know the gillie rota and when it�
�s safe or not to fish. As the salmon swim up through the farm, we take a good catch for ourselves and, sure, ’tis our land they are on, so why shouldn’t we? The angling club think they own the waters God put here. They make me sick.’

  Kathleen and Joe had fought many a battle with the authorities over the fact that the best salmon river in the West of Ireland ran twenty yards from their own back door and across land their family had owned for generations. Kathleen wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron as she remembered her late husband Joe. He had worked so hard to make the farm what it was today and had poached many a huge salmon, sometimes with the help of his young sons, from a curragh, teaching them the way, just as his father had before him and his own before that.

  ‘Oh dear!’ exclaimed Kathleen. ‘Never mind me, ’tis just the tiredness and the journey home, it always gets to me.’

  Kitty asked Liam, ‘Ah, was that your footsteps I heard in the night? Were there other men with ye?’

  ‘Aye, five of us last night. John McMahon, his nephew Aengus and a few others,’ Liam replied. ‘Now, away with ye, girls, and get dressed.’

  Once both girls were dressed they ran through the kitchen and out to the cowshed at the bottom of the path, where Maeve was now sitting on a stool, milking.

  Kitty was nervous. She had never seen a real cow before, never mind stood so close to one, and she had certainly not smelt anything quite like this. She didn’t say anything, but this was the first morning she hadn’t wanted to be ill as soon as she opened her eyes.

  ‘Shall we carry the bucket, Maeve?’ asked Nellie.

  It was a sunny morning and the midges swarmed round their heads, stuck inside their hair and flew down the collars of their blouses.

  ‘God, don’t they drive you mad,’ said Kitty.

  ‘They will be gone by the time breakfast is over,’ said Maeve, ‘and ye will be used to them by tomorrow. They sleep on the bog all day but, mind, they will be back out as the sun goes down for another bite at ye.’

  The girls deposited the milk in the dairy, a concrete shed to the side of the back door where Maeve made her cream and butter. Kitty was amazed that the milk in the bucket was warm.