The Four Streets Saga

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Is this what we drank in our tea last night? It smells disgusting,’ she whispered to Nellie. ‘It smells like the cow.’

  ‘I know, but you will get used to it and you won’t know any different soon, I promise,’ Nellie replied.

  Kitty wasn’t convinced and was dreading having to drink the milk at breakfast.

  Uncle Liam was heaping bacon rashers from the griddle onto a plate as they walked back into the kitchen.

  ‘Now, girls,’ he shouted, ‘we have a big day today, we have the harvest to come in. Kitty, I’ve assigned that job to ye and Nellie. We need the peat cut whilst it is dry and so we have left that one to ye.’

  He looked at the girls. Yes, just as he thought, Kitty’s expression was bewildered and serious. The harvest wouldn’t be ready for a good few days and he was, as usual, fooling around.

  He carried on. ‘The two of youse can start work as soon as ye have eaten and we will just away down to the pub for the day now. Ye give us a shout when ye are all done. Is that all right there, Nellie? If ye puts yer back into it, ye should be finished by six tonight.’

  Nellie playfully punched Liam in the arm.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Liam, rubbing his arm. ‘I thought that was why ye had come, to give Uncle Liam a rest. Mammy, I’m shocked. Ye have brought these wastrels here under false pretences.’

  He took a sideways glance at Kitty, who was now laughing along with the rest. Getting that child to laugh is hard work, he thought.

  ‘They have a busy day ahead, Liam, sure enough, without help from you,’ said Kathleen. ‘We are going to introduce Kitty to Bangornevin.’

  ‘Ballymara will take only two minutes,’ said Liam, ‘so ye may as well or the girls will be driven crazy with the boredom by tonight and begging me to let them stack the hay, so they will.’

  Pots of tea now appeared with piles of bacon and sausages cooked with sliced potatoes and heaps of bread. Kitty had never seen or tasted butter like it. It was a thick, creamy yellow and salty.

  She thought about everyone at home, who at that very moment would be tucking into pobs. White, stale leftover bread from yesterday, soaked in milk with a sprinkling of sugar and warmed in the range. Or boxty, which was made with potatoes and flour, rolled round and flat, the size of a dinner plate. If there was butter to be had, Maura would scrape it on and then back off again and cut the boxty into quarters.

  How could she ever eat that again and not think of this morning and this wonderful breakfast?

  ‘Can you imagine what Angela would be like, if she could see me eating this breakfast?’ she said to Nellie. ‘If she knew what I was eating right now, Holy Mother, she would give out something wicked altogether. I can’t understand why so many people leave here to go to America and England.’

  ‘Well, Kitty,’ said Kathleen, ‘it’s about work and money and being able to live. There is no work around for people and so they have to leave. Most farms can’t support an entire family.’

  ‘Aye, Mammy, but the wages in England, now, they are fantastic for working on the roads and the construction trade is roaring,’ said Liam. ‘That’s why everyone is leaving. We have men here every month coming into Murphy’s pub, looking for new men to sign up and take on.’

  Liam’s brother, Finn, who lived with his wife in Bangornevin, had joined them for breakfast. Now he looked irritated. ‘Only the fools stay in Liverpool and work for the English. America is the country to be.’

  Finn was as serious as Liam was funny.

  The atmosphere round the table became tense and Kathleen leapt in.

  ‘Hush yer mouth, Finn. Jerry has made a good life for himself and Nellie. You should be grateful there are jobs there for people to go to, because this farm would struggle to feed all of ye. What would ye be doing if Jerry and Bernadette had decided to return and work the farm, as was their right, him being the eldest, an’ all? Jer went to England because he could and you were younger, to give ye a chance because he knew he could get work. Ye may not be in England, Finn, but ye are reaping the rewards because yer brother is.’

  Finn looked sheepish. Nellie was surprised. This was the second time she had heard Bernadette’s name mentioned openly. She was learning things she never knew before.

  Maeve was already on her feet, choosing the moment to end the tension.

  ‘Right, all of ye. I have a home to run, so will ye all away to whatever trouble ye want to make today and leave me to it.’

  ‘Right, five minutes and we are off,’ said Kathleen as the girls began to clear the table. ‘We will be so busy today, we won’t have the time to bless ourselves. The first thing we have to do is pop in and say hello to all the relatives, so they can see we are here, but first we have to use the phone in the post office and to let Maura know we have arrived safe and sound. And watch that nosy parker Mrs O’Dwyer doesn’t earwig in. I will keep the nosy bat talking, whilst you girls call the Anchor and send a message home. God cannot have known what he was doing when he gave the nosiest woman on the planet control of the phone in Bangornevin. She doesn’t even have to squeeze the information out of people now or eavesdrop in the shop, she just picks up the bleedin’ phone.’

  ‘Jump in the van,’ shouted Liam from the hallway. ‘I’m off to the village for feed from Carey’s.’

  Kitty again sat by the window in the van and, as they drove down the road, realized she was keen to reach Bangornevin and to explore Ballymara properly. She knew, without hardly having set foot in either, that she was falling in love with a place that a week ago she hadn’t even known existed. Tommy had forewarned her.

  ‘I don’t know what it is, queen,’ he said, ‘but home, Ireland, it does this strange thing, it keeps hold of your heart and never lets you go. There is this feeling just here,’ and he clenched his hand into a fist shape and gently punched himself in the gut. ‘Some say it’s grief for all we have loved and left behind. Others say it is the spirit of our ancestors pulling us back and holding onto us. For sure, I have worked with men from all countries on the docks and none have the same longing in their hearts that we Irish have for our home.

  ‘But do you know what I think it is, eh, queen? I think it is the suffering. I think so many Irish hearts have suffered and died on our soil that the souls of those before have joined up into something powerful, which can keep a grip on ye. Ireland needs Irish hearts to keep her safe and to protect her and she feels it when we go. I believe she cries for the loss of those of us who desert her and is always trying to pull us back home. But I know this: I am glad of it, and I would rather have it and know where my heart truly belongs, than not have it at all and be an exile in doubt.’

  Maybe it was in the blood, thought Kitty. If it was, it was only in her blood. Neither Angela nor the twins seemed the slightest bit interested. Maybe that was what God did. Maybe he just passed the ache on to the eldest child in each family, to ensure that one day they would return home to Ireland.

  Bangornevin was built on a crossroads adjacent to the river. The spur road to Ballymara joined it once it crossed the Moorhaun and hugged the river down to the McMahons’ farm, where the road became a dead end. No one had any reason to walk down the Ballymara road unless they were visiting one of the two farms or using the field just before the turning that had been set aside as a football pitch.

  “Ah, Jesus, the lads in Bangornevin are mad about the football,” Kathleen explained as they passed.

  The Moorhaun river was rich with Atlantic salmon and at the crossroads to the village the torrent roared so loudly you could barely hear yourself speak.

  The drive into Bangornevin took all of five minutes.

  On one side of the crossroads was the grocer’s, which sold everything from sweets to sheep-dip. Jerry and Liam’s cousin owned the shop and on her last visit he had even allowed Nellie to serve the customers.

  On either side of the road stood a row of very small whitewashed houses. Directly across from the grocer’s was the church. On the opposite side of the crossroa
ds stood the village school, a tailor’s shop, the tobacconist’s, the post office, a hardware shop and a butcher’s. The back half of the butcher’s, which was divided off by a hessian curtain, was a pub. There was also a full-time pub in the village, but nothing sold there was as home-made or as strong as that sold at the back of the butcher’s.

  People made their own bread and what they didn’t make was bought at the market on market day and stored in damp straw in the cold press.

  Liam now turned left and pulled up outside the post office.

  ‘Good luck,’ he shouted as they all piled out of the van. ‘Shall I call back for ye later, Mammy?’

  ‘No thanks, Liam,’ Kathleen shouted. ‘We can walk back, or Pat will give us a lift.’

  All three stood and waved as the van disappeared down the high street, Liam beeping the car horn and raising his hand to everyone he passed.

  The post office was full of women gathered round the counter. As the bell over the door jangled and Kathleen and the girls walked in, every single person at the counter ceased talking and turned round.

  Kathleen scanned the shop.

  ‘Morning, Mrs O’Dwyer, morning, ladies,’ she boomed.

  In no time at all the women gathered round Kathleen and began asking questions.

  ‘How much wages are they paying in Liverpool to work on the roads now, Kathleen? Is it true a man can earn a hundred pounds a month?’

  ‘Are ye staying home for good now?’

  ‘How is that crazy wife? Is she a patch on Bernadette?’

  The questions came thick and fast, but Kathleen answered none of them.

  Kitty was amazed that every person recognized Kathleen and Nellie, and that they even knew who she was too.

  As the women kept Kathleen busy with what seemed like a hundred questions a minute, a very shabby-looking lady, dressed from head to toe in ragged black, much poorer than anyone Kitty had ever seen in her life, approached her.

  ‘Ah, now, ye must be Kitty, come to keep Nellie company on her holiday, are ye?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Kitty smiled.

  She noticed that the woman’s shoes and clothes were in a terrible condition. What teeth she had were broken and nearly black.

  ‘I know ye mammy’s mammy, she’s a Fahey from Killhooney, is she not, and her sister and all. I know her too.’

  Kitty had heard her mother speak of Killhooney Bay but had never visited and had no idea that her nana’s name had been Fahey.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ replied Kitty, smiling at the lady and feeling very sorry for her. She glanced nervously at Kathleen, not wanting to say the wrong thing or anything more than she should.

  Kathleen was revving up to challenge Mrs O’Dwyer.

  ‘We have come to use the phone, Mrs O’Dwyer,’ said Kathleen with an authority in her voice Nellie had never heard before.

  The truth was that not many people could walk into the post office and command any degree of respect. The doctor and his wife, who lived in the big house built especially for him and his family on the outskirts of the village, could speak in the same tone as Kathleen, when resisting the nosiness of Mrs O’Dwyer, but precious few managed it.

  ‘Of course, Kathleen,’ trilled Mrs O’Dwyer. ‘Will it be the pub now in Liverpool ye’ll be wanting?’ She picked up the phone and began to dial.

  ‘Aye, but not for me. Kitty here just needs to leave a message for her mammy, who will be waiting at ten o’clock for the call.’

  Mrs O’Dwyer scared Kitty. She was staring and grinning in a fixed manner that was most disconcerting, all the more so because she had very few teeth. As Kitty moved towards the phone, she smiled slightly nervously back.

  Mrs O’Dwyer beckoned Kitty behind the counter and handed her the phone. To Kitty’s shock, Maura was on the other end.

  ‘Mam,’ she shouted, a little too loudly. She was excited beyond words to hear Maura’s voice. She had already missed her mother more than she could say.

  Kitty heard Kathleen talking very loudly in the post office and smiled to herself. Kathleen was distracting Mrs O’Dwyer.

  Kitty turned to the wall to seek some privacy, as she heard Maura’s voice travel down the line.

  ‘Kitty, how are ye? Have ye been sick? Have ye eaten anything? Did ye sleep? Is Maeve being nice to ye? Have you put clean knickers on and given the dirty ones to Kathleen?’

  Kitty laughed. ‘Mammy, stop. I’m fine, everything is grand and Maeve is just the best woman ever, she’s so nice.’

  ‘Oh, heavenly mother, thank God. Your da and I, we hardly slept for worrying about ye.’

  ‘Mammy, how is everyone at home? Is Malachi behaving and has the baby even noticed I’m gone?’

  ‘Well, I would definitely say so now, we have all noticed, Kitty, none more than Da, we all miss ye. The place isn’t the same, but the bedroom is tidy and that’s a fact. If I hadn’t stopped her last night, Angela would have put all your clothes in the twins’ room and claimed the bedroom for herself. Yer da gave out something wicked when he caught her tiptoeing along the landing with all of your belongings piled up in her arms. I don’t think she’ll be trying that again now. She cried louder than the baby and said, “Da, it’s only while she’s on holiday,” but your da didn’t care, he was having none of it.’

  Suddenly Kitty heard a beep beep beep in her ear.

  ‘Mammy,’ she shouted.

  She heard, ‘Bye, Kitty,’ and then Maura was gone and Kitty, stunned, was left with a dead line.

  They had had just two brief minutes.

  ‘Was it the pips?’ shouted Kathleen.

  ‘It was timed on the two minutes, Kathleen,’ said Mrs O’Dwyer officiously. Kathleen glared at her.

  ‘Never mind. I told Maura before ye left that I would make sure ye wrote her a letter every other day and so now, Mrs O’Dwyer, we need airmail letters, please, if ye wouldn’t mind.’

  Although the call had been short and sweet, Kitty felt better for having heard Maura’s voice.

  Kitty looked round for Nellie and saw that she was outside the shop, talking to a girl who had rested her bike up against the post-office window. Kitty hurried outside to join them.

  This, Kitty learnt, was Rita, who was Nellie’s cousin, after a fashion, whose father owned the local grocer’s.

  Rita seemed very excited to see them.

  ‘Do ye not have to go to school while ye are here? No? How lucky are ye? I would die not to go to school. Look what the witches did to me today.’

  Rita held out her hands. Kitty and Nellie gasped in horror to see the red weals across her palms.

  ‘That looks horrible. How did you get those?’ asked Nellie.

  ‘It was the dreaded catechisms this morning,’ explained Rita. ‘Oh God, I tried everything to stop Mammy sending me to school, but what can I do? The shop is across the road from the school. I have no chance. I knew we would be tested this morning and I knew I would get one wrong. I got the stick across my hand all right.

  ‘I’m out now because I offered to run to the shop to get the Connemara donkey her cigs. I couldn’t stand having me hands smacked with the stick again. She lifts it up so high and brings it down so hard, so she does.’

  Kitty was horrified. They had the cane at her school but only the really bad lads got it and then just across their backsides with their trousers on. Never on bare skin.

  ‘Who is it you call the Connemara donkey?’ Kitty asked.

  ‘Her name is Miss O’Shea, she’s from Connemara and she looks like a donkey,’ said Rita. ‘Will ye get on Jacko, both of ye, and meet me in the village after we finish school one day? Everyone will be beside themselves when I tell them that ye are back, Nellie, so they will. I can’t wait to tell them, now. Sure makes a nice change for me to be first in the class for once.’ Rita roared with laughter.

  Kitty already liked Rita. How could anyone have their hands caned and then laugh as much as Rita, only minutes later?

  ‘You need to be ahead on more than village gossip t
o stop Miss O’Shea thwacking your hands,’ said Nellie, looking worried.

  Rita jumped on her bike, shouting, ‘See you outside the gates soon, or come to the shop.’ She cycled back across the road to the school, holding the handlebars very carefully.

  Kitty and Nellie looked at each other. ‘Well, I won’t be complaining next time Sister Evangelista gives out to me,’ said Kitty, ‘and who is this poor Jacko we have to jump on?’

  ‘He’s the donkey,’ laughed Nellie. ‘I will make the introduction when I find him. Sometimes I have to run up the hill and look down at the farm. Usually, I can spot his ears, sticking up in the oat field. He is the naughtiest mule ever. He never does anything he is told. Sometimes he likes the walk to Bangornevin, but quite often he will just stand in the middle of the road and refuse to move. He really is the most stubborn animal.’

  Kathleen walked out of the post office with the closest thing to steam coming out of her ears.

  ‘Mary and Joseph, save me, that woman is the end. She asks so many nosy questions, I swear to God it must be against the law to have a woman so interfering running the post office.’

  ‘Ah, sure, she’s very funny,’ Kitty replied, already regarding Bangornevin as though it were a fascinating tapestry.

  But she knew this much, she was already in love.

  The rushing sound of the river was both familiar and intoxicating, as though it called to her. Deep inside, she felt as though she belonged here, and yet she had only just arrived.

  The Deane Farm

  Ballymara

  County Mayo

  Dear Mammy and Daddy,

  I am so sorry it was so quick on the phone. I had no idea those beeps were coming. We bought airmail paper in the post office so that I can write everything down so that you know what is happening.

  I hope you are doing well at home. It feels like weeks already since I saw you. So much has happened that I am bursting to write and tell you all about it.

  I am writing this sitting on my own bed, which has the most lovely lace bedspread you have ever seen, Mammy.