The Four Streets Saga

by Nadine Dorries

  She waved to Brigid and Mrs McGuire, and pointed to the seats next to her. Brigid had the youngest baby tucked in her arms, wrapped in a crocheted blanket of many colours. Behind them was Peggy, ushering her brood into the seats. Big Paddy didn’t attend school plays or parents’ evenings. He had no interest in his offspring’s activities and had viewed the nativity play as a good opportunity to escape down to the pub for a sneaky hour or two.

  ‘Thanks for keeping the seats, Kathleen,’ whispered Brigid, pulling a face at Mrs Sykes’s hat, directly in front of her.

  Peggy squeezed along and sat next to Kathleen, just as Kitty’s teacher, Miss Devlin, appeared. Leaning forward, she whispered down the row, ‘No more smoking now, please, ladies.’ Lifting her hand up to her mouth as though to channel her words in a straight line: ‘Mrs Sykes doesn’t like it.’

  Peggy turned to the others. ‘Merciful God, she has to be fuckin’ jokin’, doesn’t she? It’s at least an hour until the break, once it starts. If yer allowed to smoke at the filums, why can’t we smoke here? That’s desperate.’

  Mrs Sykes’s hat wobbled in indignation. She had obviously overheard Peggy.

  Maura put her finger to her lips and made the sound of a silent sh.

  Peggy was having none of it.

  ‘Mrs McGuire,’ Peggy said, ‘would ye mind swapping seats with me so that I can get out quick, like, in the break. I’m not even allowed to smoke in me own children’s school now, so I’m not. Did ye ever hear of anything that took such a liberty?’

  Anticipation fizzed through the air as Sister Evangelista appeared at the front of the school hall.

  As she scanned the assembly before her with steely eyes, the children nudged each other sharply in the ribs. Like a gentle wave washing over the gathering, the chatter began to subside, starting at the front with those closest to her, until only Little Paddy’s voice could still be heard.

  ‘Me da will be here in a minute, he will, Declan, he’s just gone to get his ciggies, he has so. Mammy, isn’t me daddy on his way?’

  The realization that the entire audience was listening to him dawned only as Sister Evangelista spoke. ‘See me after the play, Paddy, and not another word now, boy.’

  And then, as if by magic, her face broke into the brightest smile.

  ‘Parents, ladies and gentlemen, special guests.’

  ‘I suppose if I’m a parent, that means I’m no lady then,’ said Peggy under her breath.

  Maura and Kathleen looked at each other and smiled.

  Kathleen reached across and gave Maura’s hand a squeeze.

  Kathleen hoped that Christmas would mark a turning point for Tommy and Maura.

  Maura looked at Kathleen as she squeezed her hand, the best friend in all the world. Maura smiled back.

  Sister Evangelista continued, ‘Welcome to the St Mary’s nativity play acted out by your children, in honour of the birth of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Before we begin, I have a little announcement to make. Many of you will know Daisy from the Priory.’

  Everyone turned to look at Daisy who was at the hatch, quietly helping Miss Devlin to fold Christmas napkins for the interval.

  ‘Well, tomorrow morning Daisy will be leaving Liverpool and returning to Dublin, to live with her family.’

  For a second the hall fell quiet, apart from the odd sharp intake of breath, and then without warning or planning the audience erupted into applause.

  Sister Evangelista beamed as she joined in, as Daisy flushed bright red and grinned from ear to ear. Miss Devlin gently placed her arm round her as the applause continued.

  It had been a shock indeed when the bishop had called to see Sister Evangelista in a very agitated state.

  ‘I have a letter from Daisy’s family,’ he announced indignantly. ‘They are stopping the money and want her back.’

  ‘Well, praise be,’ Sister Evangelista had said, ‘isn’t that wonderful news? I thought her parents wanted her cared for all of her life?’

  ‘They did,’ said the bishop, who was sweating profusely.

  It crossed Sister Evangelista’s mind that he was heading for a heart attack.

  ‘The parents have died and the elder brother, a state solicitor, found out about the arrangement when sorting through the estate. He wants Daisy back. Here, read the letter.’

  He thrust the letter into Sister Evangelista’s hands. As she read it, her heart filled with warmth and happiness.

  Her prayers were being answered: prayers for God’s love and light to shine into their darkness, to banish to the shadows the evil that had lived amongst them for so long. Poor Daisy, she thought, she had been living in the midst of it all and none of them had known.

  ‘But this is a wonderful outcome, Bishop,’ she said, handing the letter back to him. ‘He is a good Catholic, ashamed that his parents felt they couldn’t raise Daisy, and they want to make amends. Surely this is wonderful news.’

  The bishop grunted. ‘He wanted to collect her from the convent but I have told them we will put her on the boat tomorrow, Christmas Eve. That way they can have their precious Daisy back for Christmas Day. I wonder if they have asked themselves where she would be if it hadn’t been for us caring for her all this time?’

  ‘Where would we have been without all that money, Bishop?’

  Sister Evangelista asked the last question quietly. She knew how much they were paid. The family had obviously been very wealthy. She had often wondered to herself whether or not Daisy’s family knew that their daughter was working as a housekeeper for so many years. She suspected not.

  ‘Well, we shall send Daisy off with our blessing, Father. Only you and I know what that poor girl was living with in the Priory.’

  In the midst of the clapping, the children began to cheer for Daisy.

  And tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  She couldn’t believe what was happening to her.

  She had made Miss Devlin read over and over again the letter her brother had written to her.

  They had both laughed and cried together the first half-dozen or so times they had read it. Now she didn’t need anyone to read it to her, because she could hear Miss Devlin’s voice and the words. They were fixed in her mind. She wandered round in a daze as she went over and over them.

  ‘I am your older brother, and my wife and I want you to be back in your home and in the heart of your family, where you were meant to be, with your two sisters, your nieces and nephews, and me.’

  Daisy had barely been able to sleep since reading those words. She had a home and a family who loved and wanted her. She would never again see the bishop and never again have to endure him. She was going home to be safe.

  Her only sadness was that she couldn’t tell Molly, and so Daisy told her in her prayers instead.

  Now, Sister Evangelista walked towards Daisy, with a present wrapped up in Christmas paper. All the children began chanting, ‘Open it, Daisy, open it, Daisy.’

  In front of two hundred children and their parents, and with the help of Miss Devlin, Daisy unwrapped the present and took out of a box a delicate hat. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. As everyone clapped again, Miss Devlin, who was trying hard not to cry, reached up and placed it onto Daisy’s head.

  ‘Spare hatpin, anyone?’ Miss Devlin shouted over to the parents who were all sitting hatless, in curlers.

  Every pair of eyes turned on Mrs Sykes who, for the first time that night, smiled as she took a pin from her own hat and passed it along the row.

  ‘We hope one day you will come back and visit us, Daisy,’ said Sister Evangelista. ‘We would all love to hear your news, once you have settled in Dublin, and you know that we will always be your family.’

  Brigid leant over to Maura. ‘Would Jesus have allowed reserved signs on chairs in a church, Maura? Would he?’ she whispered, nodding towards the great and good in the row in front. ‘And would he not have said big hats were barred altogether?’

  Maura nodded and grinned. S
ister Evangelista’s voice faded away into a blur as Maura took in the scene around her.

  For a second, her gaze alighted on her own children’s shining faces. Sitting on their hands, wriggling in their seats, they fixed their eyes upon the stage, waiting, with pent-up anticipation, for the play to begin.

  The lights dimmed further and their eyes, reflecting the bright spotlights shining on the empty makeshift stable in front of the stage, sparkled with excitement like stars sprinkled in a dark night sky.

  Maura’s gaze found Angela, sitting with her younger sisters, her arms folded. She was the only one not smiling, or covertly whispering and fidgeting. But even her normally grumpy expression had softened. Maura remembered what Kitty had been like at her youngest sister’s age, barely able to keep still. Maura’s love for her children was, as always, brimming under the surface. She took immense pleasure from watching them, when they didn’t know she was looking, something she did all the time.

  As she watched Angela and her sisters she thought to herself, no harm will come to any of ye. I have eyes in the back of me head now.

  Six little ones from the primary class now took their seats at the side of the stage and picked up their triangles and tambourines ready for the carol singing.

  As they tinkered with their instruments and Sister Evangelista peeped behind the curtain to see whether everyone was ready to begin, the spirit of Christmas swept through the hall and touched all in its way. Maura noticed Angela smile as one of her sisters took her hand and stretched up to whisper in her big sister’s ear.

  She looked at Peggy, who was checking for ciggies in her pocket, so that she could make a run for the door in the break.

  Maura, who had thought that this Christmas would be a miserable affair, unexpectedly felt a nostalgic pull from all the Christmases past, familiar and comforting.

  Nothing any of them said or did tonight was out of the ordinary or unexpected, and that was just how she wanted their lives to be forever more. Ordinary.

  Everything was as it always was and always had been. Almost.

  Tommy squeezed her knee and smiled at her. The spirit of Christmas had touched him, too.

  Suddenly, the hall burst into applause. Sheila’s eldest was pulling hard on a big rope at the side of the stage and the curtain began to lift slowly. Maura watched as her precious Harry walked into the pool of light at the front of the stage.

  The tea towel was his headdress.

  A striped dressing gown his cloak.

  A pared branch his staff.

  Maura’s eyes filled with tears of pride.

  Kitty wasn’t here. Things weren’t right, but they were better.

  They were still in the darkest tunnel, but she could see the light at the end and there was her Harry, standing in the middle.

  It was seven o’clock sharp as the curtain went up. Miss Devlin walked from the back of the hall to the front foyer and closed the large wooden doors to the school, prohibiting further entrance. Lateness was intolerable, both in children and in adults. Pity the parent working late.

  There would be no room in the hall.

  As the large bolt slid across the door, Alice emerged from the shadows of the high convent wall opposite.

  A few moments earlier, she had felt an overwhelming urge to walk towards the light that poured out of the school doors and tumbled down the steps to the playground.

  She felt an ache, deep in the pit of her stomach, that made her long to be a part of the warm laughter. The temptation to belong was almost irresistible.

  For seconds, she teetered on the brink of running into the school hall and confessing everything to Kathleen. Kathleen, the older woman who had saved her. The mother she had dreamt of having, all through her childhood nights, and whom she now truly loved. The only woman who for years had ever shown her kindness.

  Kathleen had ripped away the memories that tied and bound Alice to her past.

  Kathleen, her saviour.

  Alice wondered if she would ever be forgiven for what she was about to do, but she knew the answer was probably not, ever.

  Tall Victorian street lamps lined both sides of the road that sloped gently down towards the town.

  Alice moved to stand underneath one, imagining that some warmth might penetrate her frozen bones. She looked again to catch sight of the bus. Maybe he wouldn’t catch the bus to the school. Maybe he would alight at the stop before, so as not to be seen, and walk the rest of the way.

  Alice laughed out loud. What would it matter?

  ‘Oh, please let him win,’ she whispered to herself, noticing her frozen breath hanging in the air and wondering at how dramatically the temperature had dropped in the past hour.

  The wide cobbled road had been built to accommodate shire horses and carriages, pulling flat-bed loads from the docks to the processors. It was quiet and eerie now. Nothing had passed by for the past ten minutes.

  From the shadows cast by the wall, Alice had silently observed the sisters as they crossed the road from the convent to the school, excitedly chattering to each other as they bustled in to see the nativity play, a highlight in their calendar year.

  The biting cold now cut through to the bone as Alice pulled her coat tighter. Her eyes began to water as, full in the face of the icy northerly that lifted up from the river, she stared down the hill, willing him to come quickly.

  Flinching from the rising wind, she turned towards the classroom windows.

  Inside would be the desk and chair where one day soon Joseph would sit. She conjured up an image of his dark hair and his freckled face as he looked at a blackboard and then wrote earnestly in his notebook. Alice knew, she could tell already, Joseph would be bright. He was as inquisitive as he was funny. Joseph, the little man she had come to love.

  She imagined his short legs dashing down the steps with his brown leather satchel flying in the air behind him and his face beaming as he ran to someone. Who is it? Alice thought, looking eagerly at the gate, now shrouded in darkness, where during the day the mothers stood waiting and chatting. Many arrived early to engage in the school-gate gossip. Whom will he run to? Who will it be? There was someone at the gate, she thought, moving back into the deeper darkness – but she couldn’t make out who it was, waiting to greet the excited, laughing Joseph.

  The icy wind slapped her across the face and made her eyes sting. She closed them for a second.

  In her own darkness, she saw herself in Joseph’s bedroom. He was fast asleep, his little head lay on the pillow, Nellie’s old and threadbare teddy tucked under his arm. One thumb, half in his mouth, having slipped out as he had fallen into a deep sleep. His soft, flannelette, blue-and-white striped pyjamas kept him warm. As always, he had kicked off the pale blue cot-blanket that Kathleen had knitted and the beautiful, hand-made, white lace cover his Auntie Maeve had sent across from Ireland.

  She could smell his powdery, sleep-filled room.

  Her heart felt as though it were in a vice as in her mind’s eye his angelic face softened with the laughter of a dream.

  She saw her boy, waking up on Christmas morning, every room in the house smelling of the turkey Kathleen had slowly roasted in the range overnight.

  She saw Joseph running into the bedroom to wake everyone, in his haste to open the presents under the tree.

  The previous Christmas, Jerry had made Nellie wait on the stairs as he held the door to the kitchen closed, pretending that Father Christmas had forgotten her.

  ‘Has he been?’ said Jerry, peeping through the door, opening it just a crack, pretending he could see the tree. ‘Oh, no, I don’t think he has, Nana Kathleen. I think Miss Nellie can’t have been a very good girl this year.’

  They drove her crazy as she playfully pummelled Jerry’s back with her fists, in an effort to push past.

  Alice replayed the scene in her mind. She had stood at the top of the stairs, watching, smiling, not really a part of what was happening. Observing in her usual way, from the edge.

  Will he think
of me? she asked herself. Will he remember who I am? Will he run home from school with the others and wonder where his mammy is?

  She began to shiver with the cold and then she felt it on her skin, the first snowflake of Christmas. She looked up into the wind. It was as if the angels had opened a trapdoor. The snow fell heavy and fast. In less than a minute, the pavement on which she stood was white, her shoulders were heavily dusted and, despite the swirling wind, it began to settle.

  Once more, she glanced directly down the road, into the wind and through the snow. Still no sign.

  When she had explained her plan to him, he hadn’t wanted her to wait at the school.

  ‘Don’t go out, Alice,’ he had said. ‘Just say you’re unwell and stay at home. I will come straight there.’

  But she couldn’t. She was compelled to leave. She hadn’t wanted to see them getting ready. She couldn’t bear to kiss Joseph goodbye. He would have been full of excitement at being taken to the big school for the play. Joseph was always beside himself with delight when in the company of other children.

  Alice had made an excuse about having dreadful toothache and said that she would take herself off to the dentist in town.

  ‘Oh, that’s just desperate now, ye poor thing.’ Kathleen’s face had instantly become a picture of love and concern.

  ‘I will be fine, Kathleen. It’s happened before. I may be a while, though, and I won’t feel like going to the school afterwards. I will just come home and go straight to bed.’

  ‘Best thing, queen,’ Kathleen had said as she busied about making an early tea before they left.

  Alice had hidden in the shadows and watched them all arrive. Nellie had pushed the pram up the hill and Kathleen had held onto Nellie’s arm.

  ‘Ooh, I’m blowing for tugs,’ she had heard Kathleen gasp.

  Alice had felt like a ghost. She could see and hear all but she was invisible.

  She had seen Peggy, smoking as she walked, with a gaggle of children round her, nervously squealing and jumping up and down, running ahead of Peggy, up the steps to the entrance. It seemed as if every young woman from the four streets had filed into the hall, chatting in that companionable way that had always eluded Alice.