The Four Streets Saga

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘You should be careful smoking those Pall Mall,’ said Howard. ‘That’s the only link to Molly’s murder. Just because one was found at the murder scene doesn’t make it glamorous to smoke them, you know. What happened to your Woodies? Not good enough now, eh?

  Although Simon had the same rank as Howard, his manner was bumptious. He always assumed authority over his colleague, yet both were on the same pay scale. Howard had commented on it to Alison only the previous week following the wedding rehearsal when Simon, much to their surprise, had presented them both with a solid silver rose bowl.

  ‘Even accounting for the fact that he has no wedding to pay for and obviously no intention to start a family and buy a home, he seems to spend his money lavishly,’ said Howard.

  ‘I’m not complaining at his foolishness.’ Alison had smiled. ‘’Tis a beauty of a rose bowl all right.’

  Howard knew better than to pry or ask Simon for an explanation. No other officer in the force was as close to Simon as he was. Howard never asked personal questions, which Simon obviously appreciated. To Howard’s knowledge, Simon had no girlfriend and had never had one, in all the time they had been in the force together. He lived alone in his Aigburth house and visited his mum every other weekend. At lunchtime he enjoyed a roast beef sandwich and a slice of the home-made fruitcake which he brought back from his visits home. That was about as much as Howard knew, or was ever likely to know.

  Howard, who was less secretive and more down to earth altogether, was more of a sausage-roll-and-a-custard-slice-from-Sayers man. Simon was a member of a rather posh golf club on the Wirrall where, at the weekend, he sometimes teamed up with the chief super and his friends. One of the officers from over the water had told Howard that a politician often played a round with them. Simon never spoke of it and Howard dared not ask.

  Howard knew the closest he would get to the golf club would be if he were ever asked to caddy and the chances of that were very slim indeed. Now he smoked his cigarette down to the tip in less than a minute.

  ‘Let’s have another,’ he said to Simon, ‘and then we will move back inside.’

  As Simon offered his cigarette case to Howard, they both peered over the church wall to watch the bridesmaids arrive.

  Nellie Deane alighted from the car first, followed by the younger Doherty girls and then the page-boys, Little Paddy and Harry. They had been prepared and made ready for the day at Alison’s house by her sister. Everything had to be perfect and Alison had taken no chances.

  ‘Strange that not long ago we had both those girls’ fathers in the cells, questioning them over the priest’s murder, and now their kids are Alison’s bridesmaids,’ said Howard.

  Simon did not reply. He squinted into the sunlight as the girls fussed about their lilac chiffon dresses and white satin shoes. He could hear the voice of the now oldest Doherty girl wafting up to them on the warm breeze.

  ‘Will you get off my shoes, Niamh. You have put a stain on the white satin. Oh God, would you look at that, now.’ Angela bent down and rubbed at the shoe like crazy.

  ‘Stop it,’ hissed Nellie. ‘You are making your white gloves dirty.’

  Neither girl had ever been so dressed up in her life. It was making them nervous to the point of nausea.

  Alison Devlin had chosen Nellie Deane and the Dohertys for a reason. Not only were they her favourite pupils at the school, but both families had suffered more than most in their lifetimes. Alison had the softest heart.

  That could be the only explanation why Little Paddy had been chosen as page-boy.

  ‘Alison, we would have to disinfect the lad before we could put him in a page-boy outfit,’ Howard had remonstrated.

  ‘Aye, we will that and won’t that give us just a huge sense of satisfaction now,’ Alison replied.

  Howard was starting to realize that he had as much influence over what happened at his own wedding as he had over the weather. He would have to accept that this was also the beginning of the rest of his life.

  ‘God, I feel so ashamed,’ said Little Paddy, as he tried to pull the ruff down from his throat.

  ‘Don’t complain, Paddy,’ said Harry. ‘Ye have a new pair of shoes for wearing a fancy outfit for the day. Ye won’t have to borrow anyone else’s for ages now.’

  Harry patted his friend on the back. Little Paddy smiled. Sometimes he felt as if Harry was more like what a da should be than his best friend.

  Wedding nerves had reached the Priory. This was Father Anthony’s first wedding since taking over St Mary’s church and he knew the turnout would be huge for the most popular teacher for miles around.

  ‘Harriet! Harriet!’

  Father Anthony shouted from the top of the stairs down to his sister, who was carefully decorating the two last trifles with silver sugar balls, fanning out from tinned pears which had been placed in a pattern of flower petals, laid on a bed of Fussell’s tinned cream. It was all ready to deliver to the Irish centre for the reception. This would take place straight after the nuptial mass. Harriet had stomped round the kitchen, shaking the cream in the tins to thicken it, and was now running late. The whole process had taken far longer than she had anticipated due to the unexpectedly warm weather.

  ‘Shake them above yer head,’ Annie O’Prey had told her the previous day. ‘It makes them thicken quicker.’

  Harriet couldn’t see how this could be true, but she had done it anyway.

  Harriet and Alison Devlin had become good friends since Harriet had moved into the Priory. Jointly, they had helped to heal broken families and nursed a community back onto its feet. They had become almost inseparable as a result and it seemed only natural that Harriet would play a main role in the organization of the wedding.

  Harriet was a helper and a healer, but, despite the fact that she was the priest’s sister, she wasn’t terribly holy. Something she took care to keep secret.

  The fact that her brother was conducting the nuptial mass of her new best friend made the whole thing very tidy, which was just how Harriet liked things to be.

  ‘You would think no one else had ever been married on this street,’ Annie O’Prey had grumpily complained a number of times when Harriet had asked for the sitting room to be given an extra polish and a run over with the Ewbank, ready for yet another wedding-planning tea.

  ‘Wedding planning? I’ve never heard the like. All she needs to do is make a white frock and turn up at the church. I’ve never known such a palaver.’

  In the Priory there had been talk of nothing but the wedding.

  The reception, the dress, the food and the endless fittings for the bridesmaids’ dresses and the page-boys’ outfits. Decisions over colours and flowers and what food to put on the buffet. It had been a huge and never-ending frenzy of activity.

  Harriet held onto another secret throughout. Never once did anyone see the pain that sometimes squeezed her heart or the odd tear that sprang to her eye at the sad thought that she, so truly now the spinster of the parish, would possibly always remain so.

  Most women were married by the age of twenty-one. Any older was seen as being highly unusual. Alison, who was now thirty, had thought she had been well and truly left on the shelf. But no one, not even Alison Devlin, entertained the thought that, at the grand old age of thirty-five, Harriet Lamb would ever be married herself.

  ‘Anthony, stop shouting.’ Harriet ran up the wooden stairs from the basement kitchen, closely followed by Scamp, who had quietly inserted himself into the daily running of Priory life and, subsequently, Harriet’s affections.

  One advantage of the wedding planning taking place at the Priory was the legitimate reason it gave Little Paddy and Scamp to be useful. There were always errands Harriet needed to be run. Little Paddy also got to eat up the leftovers from Annie O’Prey’s baking, despite Anthony’s constant complaints about the boy and his dog hanging around the kitchen. Anthony might have been the priest but there was no way he was the boss, not even in his own Priory. Alison and Harriet had a lot in c
ommon.

  ‘I cannot find the list of family names I have to read out in the service. Have you put it somewhere when you were tidying? Why do you have to polish my office so often?’

  ‘Because I am your housekeeper, Anthony, that is my job. I look after my holy brother. I have told Annie O’Prey to polish in here on Mondays and Fridays. A twice-weekly damp dust and a polish in a big old priory like this is not too often.’

  Harriet removed an envelope from his desk drawer on which Alison Devlin had written a long list of names to be mentioned during prayers. At the top of it was Sister Evangelista’s, while the bishop’s was nowhere to be found. Father Anthony had discovered the bishop had seriously upset Sister Evangelista before his tenure and no matter how many ways he had tried to extract the reason for this, her lips remained sealed.

  ‘Don’t ever mention the bishop if you want the cream to stay fresh,’ Harriet had told him a few days after their arrival. ‘But don’t ask me why. I will find out in good time, but it is a tricky one all right. I have never known a bishop to be so disliked. All I know is that after Father James Cameron’s death, the bishop was no help whatsoever. In fact, from what I can gather, he was nowhere to be seen. He ignored Sister Evangelista’s phone calls, he was unreasonable with her when she did get through to him, he made poor decisions and he was bad-tempered altogether.’

  ‘Blimey!’ said Father Anthony. ‘Well, here’s hoping I’m never on the wrong side of Sister Evangelista.’

  ‘You?’ said Harriet. ‘Anthony, you have everyone you ever meet eating out of your hand. You are goodness itself, so how could that ever happen?’

  ‘Now,’ said Harriet, ‘we had better hurry or we will be late and that will not do for the priest. Let me just place a damp tea towel over the last trifles. It seems to me as if half of Liverpool is attending this wedding and that trifle is their favourite dish.’

  They both stopped short in the hallway, hearing the sound of organ music as if carried on the rays of sunshine that fell in shimmering pillars, through the open Priory door.

  ‘Look at them all,’ said Harriet, smiling up at her brother. ‘I have never seen so many people stand outside a church to watch the bride arrive.’

  ‘Aye, well, it’s no different from home. We may be in Liverpool, but everyone here is Irish and the ways have just travelled across the sea.’

  Father Anthony waited while Harriet pulled on her lemon gloves. She picked up a lemon-and-white hat from the hall table and said, with a flourish and a spin, ‘There, holy brother, will I do?’

  ‘You are a vision of primroses, sister. Mammy and Daddy would have been very proud.’

  ‘Come along then, Father Anthony,’ she said briskly, gently pushing her brother in the small of his back as they stepped outdoors.

  They walked down the path together but could barely make their way through the throng of people assembled outside the Priory walls, lining all the way down to the church gates.

  The crowd parted to allow the priest and Harriet through. The words, ‘Morning, Father,’ rang out from everyone they passed.

  For everyone in return, Father Anthony had a smile and a greeting. ‘Morning to you, ’tis a wonderful day,’ he called to the happy well-wishers.

  No one saw Alison Devlin’s car, as it passed the top of Nelson Street and then swung away again.

  ‘Go round once more,’ Alison urged the driver with an uncharacteristic impatience. ‘I don’t think they are ready for me. I can see Father Anthony and Harriet walking to the church. I want to make a big entrance. Turn round quickly.’

  ‘Why not, queen,’ laughed her father, as he sat in the back of the car and lit up a cigarette. ‘You only get married once. Let’s make the most of it.’

  ‘Da, watch my veil with the match,’ shouted Alison as a profusion of gauze, trimmed with appliquéd white cherry blossom, almost went up in flames.

  Alison was aware that not one resident in the four streets had ever before seen a bride arrive at the church in a car. It was a first. The distance from most people’s houses to the church was so short that every bride walked and, besides, cars were a luxury that just could not be afforded. Miss Devlin taught at the school, but she lived in Maghull and her true home was Cork. Her life was so deeply rooted in the four streets and St Mary’s church, convent and school that there was never a question she would marry anywhere else.

  Alison turned and looked out of the back window as the car moved away. She saw her friend Harriet and Father Anthony, winding their way through the crowd towards the church entrance. Just behind them, Tommy and Maura Doherty, the parents of her bridesmaids, were strolling up to the church with Kathleen and Jerry, Nellie’s nana and da. They walked with heads bent, linking arms as if holding each other up. Even though it was her wedding day, Alison’s heart turned over in sadness.

  Harriet noticed that everyone who could do so had squeezed into the church itself, respectfully leaving four pews empty for the nuns. She grinned at the sight of the sisters pouring out of the convent and making their way towards the church, bustling and giggling like nervous, happy schoolgirls.

  She thought to herself how different the nuns in Liverpool were. At her own convent school in Dublin, she had never seen a nun bustle or giggle.

  The bells were ringing out in happiness, the sun was shining. Harriet looked about her, amazed at the love and support the community openly displayed for their favourite teacher, Miss Devlin.

  Children from the school, both past and present, and residents from the four streets sat scrubbed and clean, in their Sunday best, chattering to each other over the organ music. Rays of sunshine, passing through the stained-glass windows, were reflected by one head of red hair after another, infusing the chancel with an amber glow.

  The familiar smell, found in all churches everywhere, of old dark wood, once lovingly carved into pews and altar by hands long forgotten, mingled now with that of fresh flowers and damp moss.

  Harriet had attended so many weddings in her lifetime, too many to count and now, here she was, too old even to be a bridesmaid.

  ‘Morning, Harriet, you look lovely, you do. Love your hat.’ One of the mothers, Deirdre, edged past her to take her seat next to her neighbour.

  ‘Morning, Deirdre, thank you. You look lovely too. That’s a pretty dress.’

  ‘I know,’ Deirdre replied with no false modesty. ‘I got it in a jumble sale. Isn’t it great? And it’s got a label that says St Michael, so I did well there. Not just a lovely dress but it’s got the name of the Irish centre and a saint on it. Can’t be bad, eh? I’ve got me back covered, me. I’m going to wear it for the bingo, so I am. Reckon it’ll bring me luck, Harriet?’

  Both women laughed as Deirdre edged her way down the pew.

  As she had promised to help Alison with her veil once she arrived, Harriet hovered by the church door and peeped out to see if she could spot the bridal car. The street seemed to be lined with every available officer from the Lancashire Constabulary.

  Harriet was amused as she pondered another guilty secret. She had always liked a man in uniform.

  Maura was having one of her bad days. Some were merely bad, others were dreadful. Today was just bad. She was coping better than she thought she would as a result of having Kathleen at her side.

  ‘Maybe it’s because the girls have been picked as Miss Devlin’s bridesmaids, and Harry and Little Paddy as page-boys, that I don’t feel so bad today,’ Maura had said to Tommy early that morning.

  She had packed her excited daughters into the taxi Miss Devlin had sent to take them to Maghull for the bridal preparation rituals, which apparently included lying on the spare bed for thirty minutes with slices of cucumber on their eyes.

  Tommy joined Maura on the front step just as she raised her arm to wave goodbye to her daughters.

  The daughters left behind. Those who hadn’t died. The ones she had been allowed to keep.

  ‘Aye, they will look grand when we see them later,’ Tommy whispered into her
wire curlers as he hugged her.

  ‘They will and, sure, isn’t that something to look forward to?’ said Maura, hugging her Tommy back. Today, for the first time in a long while, Maura vaguely remembered what it was like to feel proud. She moved up the brow with her arm linked through Kathleen’s and the two men following behind.

  Maura still found it difficult to pass through a crowd. She could feel the silent sympathy that flowed towards her from the other mothers and, although she knew it was kind and well meant, she just couldn’t handle it, not even now after so much time had passed. Sorry for your troubles. Sorry for your troubles. Sorry for your troubles.

  They were the only words anyone had spoken to her for weeks and they still rang in her ears.

  Maura and Kathleen stopped for a moment on the way up the hill to exchange words with some of their friends and for Kathleen to have a last cigarette.

  ‘It lasts too long, a nuptial mass, too long to go without a ciggie and it looks rude, stepping out in the hymns for a quick one. And besides, I don’t want to get on the wrong side of Father Anthony and Harriet,’ Kathleen said, taking her ciggies out of her coat pocket.

  ‘Look at this lot,’ she said as she lit up, blinking through a haze of stinging blue smoke that brought tears to her eyes, ‘not a curler to be seen anywhere. Doesn’t everyone look nice, eh, Maura?’

  Maura looked around. She had taken out her own curlers and put a comb through her hair that morning. She had to admit the women of the four streets had scrubbed up well.

  ‘Peggy, how do ye manage to sleep with that beehive?’ Kathleen asked, putting up her hand to feel Peggy’s hair. The solid tower wobbled to one side as Kathleen pushed at it.

  ‘There’s a whole tin of lacquer on it, that’s how,’ said Peggy, bending her head to take a light from the end of Tommy’s cigarette for her own. ‘It’s like sleeping on a fecking brick some nights.’