GEMMA JACKSON
Also published by Poolbeg
Through Streets Broad and Narrow
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Published 2015
by Poolbeg Press Ltd
123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle
Dublin 13, Ireland
E-mail: [email protected]
www.poolbeg.com
© Gemma Jackson 2014
Copyright for typesetting, layout, design, ebook
© Poolbeg Press Ltd
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-78199-954-7
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
www.poolbeg.com
About the Author
Gemma Jackson was born in inner-city Dublin. The fifth of seven children, she vividly remembers being taken to see the ships sail in and out of Dublin. Her mother would paint word pictures of exciting worlds filled with marvels beyond their island. Is it any wonder all seven siblings turned into Irish nomads?
Educated by the nuns at Mount Sackville Convent in Castleknock, she remembers a childhood of hunger, cold and desperation. Yet through it all, making life worth living, were wonderful people, stories, music and gales of laughter. The hardship of early childhood put steel in her spine.
She left home at seventeen, desperate to see what was out there . . . beyond the sea. She wanted to see the strange worlds her mother had spoken of, taste the weird food and learn everything she could of the wider world. She wanted to know, to learn. She discovered the ‘school of hard knocks’ is tough but free and so educational. She has learned a lot and is still learning.
Gemma has worked her way around the world. As long as the job was legal – she’d do it. She has been an air hostess, advisor and writer for a TV evangelist, hand model and movie extra. The world has kicked her in the teeth and kissed her but, through it all, her early days of smiling and singing through every day no matter what life brings has stood her in good stead.
Ha’penny Chance is Gemma’s second novel, continuing Through Streets Broad and Narrow’s fictional amalgamation of stories about The Lane and its people that she grew up listening to.
Acknowledgements
It’s amazing how many of my family and friends felt insulted that I didn’t mention them in the acknowledgement page of my debut novel. If I listed everyone individually I’d need to put an addendum to the book! So, hopefully it suffices to say . . . Family and Friends. Does that cover it?
I have two brothers and four sisters and a delightful supply of nieces and nephews. Special mention goes to my parents’ first-born, Renee (the one we were all compared to!), my mother’s shining star who manages to travel the world while looking impossibly glamorous as she battles the cancer eating at her. Also to my brother Seán, who according to family legend has been feeding the family since his first day of work on a backstreet Dublin farm at the age of two! I wasn’t alive at the time but my mother extolled his virtues and I’ve been one of the hungry he fed. And my brother Patrick, the baby, who greets me with a beaming smile and a rib-tickling hug whenever he returns home to find my tent erected in his fabulous garden.
I have to mention my daughter Astrid. She has threatened to cut off my supply of tea if I leave her out. That woman knows my addictions.
I’d like to give a nod to the people who work in radio. I was fortunate to meet smiling charming people working in radio as I promoted my book Through Streets Broad and Narrow, so thank you to those unsung heroes and heroines. But I want to thank also the people who accompany me as I work away at my computer. The radio plays constantly and sometimes when I’m searching for an idea or a word the music playing in the background supplies just the hint I need. Thank you.
Finally, the ladies of Poolbeg, as I think of them. I hope I haven’t been too much of a pain in the patootie to them. I’m in training to be a Diva! Paula Campbell and Gaye Shortland, the two ladies who have made my stories shine!
.
For all the nurturing, wise, wonderful, strong, courageous women who populate my world. I’ve been truly blessed
to know you.
Chapter 1
“Wait up, Ivy Murphy, will yeh?”
Ivy looked over her shoulder and grinned at the little urchin calling her name. The boy didn’t even come up to her hip but his brow was furrowed like an old man’s. His little body was enshrouded in a badly frayed, cut-down, adult sports jacket which was held in place by a length of fraying hemp rope wrapped several times around his waist. His two hands were clenched around the neck of a burlap sack thrown over his shoulder. His bare, blue-tinged feet slapped the muck accumulated on Dublin’s Grand Canal walkway. Under his perpetual layer of filth it was difficult to make out the boy’s features.
“I’ve been calling yeh for ages, woman. Are yeh deaf?” Seán McDonald panted, his little legs moving like pistons as he hurried to catch up with Ivy.
“Have you been working at your farm this fine October morning, Mr McDonald?”
Ivy was wrapped against the weather in an old army coat that covered her from neck to ankle – it had been green at one time but after years of hard wear it was now a bilious colour that defied description. Her head and shoulders were covered by her black knit shawl. She was reluctant to stop her heavy pram rolling forward. She was tired, cold, wet and hungry. The wind coming off the water of the Grand Canal sliced and bit into any exposed flesh – but at least it had stopped raining. Sighing, she halted, waiting for the young lad to catch up with her.
Seán and his multitude of relatives lived at one end of the tenement block that housed Ivy’s basement home. The first time young Seán heard Old Man Solomon’s gramophone playing “Old McDonald Had a Farm”, he had adopted the name as his own. The lad had been working since he was two years old on one of the many back-yard farms that littered Dublin city. He’d earned the name McDonald; at six years old Seán was a veteran farm worker.
“Can I put me sack on your pram, Ivy?” Seán tried to rearrange the string-tied burlap sack over his shoulder. The sack was long and weighed down by its contents. The weight belted Seán across his thin bare ankles every time he moved.
“What’s in it?” Ivy asked, buying time. She could see the weight was too much for the lad but she didn’t want anything that might leak unpleasant matter into her pram.
Ivy had spent her morning visiting the back doors of the houses on Merrion Square and Mount Street. It had been a good morning for her. She’d returned to her two basement rooms twice already to unload the items she’d scavenged from the homes of the wealthy.
“I’ve pigs’ cheeks and four crubeens.” Seán worked on the Widow Purcell’s little back-yard farm. The woman did the best she could to see the young boy was fed. “The widder woman doesn’t care for ’em.”
“Your family will be well fed tonight.” Ivy pulled a load of newspaper from
the bottom of her pram. They hadn’t far to go. The paper would soak up any spills.
“I’m not taking them home.” Seán sounded completely disgusted. “There’s never a fire going in our place, Ivy, not unless I bring something in that burns. I wouldn’t give them to that lot to cook anyway. They’d ruin the things.”
“Going to sell them?” There was always a demand for any kind of foodstuff going cheap.
“You’ve met yer one that took over Granny Grunt’s place?” Seán said, referring to an old neighbour who had passed away recently.
“Yeah, I sold her that stove of Granny’s.” Ivy had inherited the contents of old Granny’s one-room basement home next door, and Granny had been the proud owner of the only freestanding cast-iron stove in the tenements known locally as The Lane.
“Oh, yeah, I remember her saying something about that.” He didn’t mention yer woman ranting on about Ivy robbing the thing: that was between the pair of them. “That stove’s mighty – yeh must have got a fair few bob for that thing.” Seán’s eyes gleamed at the thought of all that money. “I wish we’d been able to buy it off yeh. Yeh wouldn’t know yerself with somethin’ like that in yer rooms.” He shivered in delight at the thought of the heat.
“What has yer one to do with the price of eggs?” Ivy had met her new neighbour only briefly. She didn’t seem a friendly sort. Someone had mentioned to the woman that Ivy had removed the stove, with its stand and chimney, from Granny Grunt’s back-basement room. The woman had knocked on Ivy’s door to demand the return of what she’d believed was an integral part of the room she’d rented.
“Do yeh know she’s been to America?” Seán’s voice held tones of complete amazement. The poverty-ridden tenement block, hidden away from its more upmarket neighbours, didn’t normally attract world travellers.
“Where did you hear that?”
“She told me so herself.” Seán puffed out his chest importantly. “Yer one buys all the sticks off me I can find or cadge – I think she likes me.”
“That’s nice.”
“She was on the Titanic.” Seán almost bounced in place with this impressive announcement. The sinking of the mighty ship was still considered important news even after more than ten years.
“Go ’way!” Ivy stopped walking to stare down at the frantically nodding young boy.
To the people of Dublin, a people very aware of the living to be made from the sea and river-going trade, talk of the Titanic disaster still sent shivers down the spine. There was many an Irish life lost when that great ship went down. Ivy’s own father had lost a sister in the disaster.
“Honest to God.” Seán opened his pale-blue eyes wide. “I swear.” He held one dirty hand to his chest.
Ivy tried not to notice the threadbare state of the oversized adult jacket Seán wore. The cut-down man’s jacket fell to his calves. She didn’t want to think about what he might or might not be wearing underneath.
“The woman told me all about it herself,” he said. “I got the whole story – from her very own lips.”
“That’s a turn-up for the books. Do yeh think yer one would be willing to tell her tale at a story night?”
Story nights were a source of entertainment to the inhabitants of the Dublin tenements. Tall tales and true were told to fascinated listeners gathered in the long, wide hallway of one of the tenement houses and everyone was welcome.
“I wouldn’t know,” Seán shrugged.
“That’s a story everyone in the place would love to hear.”
“I’ll tell her about story night when I see her, Ivy. I’ll be going to her place later because she promised to teach me a new way to cook pigs’ cheeks and feet.” Seán nodded towards his sack sitting high on Ivy’s big black pram.
“Be sure to let me know what she has to say. I wouldn’t want to miss that story.” Ivy didn’t find anything strange about teaching a six-year-old to cook the food he’d managed to gather for himself. There was no childhood in the tenements. Survival took every hand to the pumps.
“She said she’d show me how they cooked pig in America,” Seán went on, addressing the most important point as far as he was concerned. His stomach came before stories. He strutted along beside Ivy, his little legs pumping to keep up with her longer stride. “Yeh can get crackle from feet and cheeks, she says.”
“What’s crackle when it’s at home?” Ivy let the subject of story night drop.
“Haven’t a clue but yer one says I’ll love it.” Seán was willing to try anything if it would plug the constant pains of hunger in his stomach.
“Yeh’ll have to show me how yeh make it.” Ivy grinned down at Seán. “Yeh’ll start a new fashion all on yer own.” She was glad they’d almost reached the tunnel leading into their tenement block. She’d been aware of Seán’s struggle to keep up with her. She’d have offered to let him ride on the pram but she knew his pride would be mortally offended at that.
“Ivy,” Seán’s smile disappeared at the sight of the entrance to The Lane, “can I ask yeh a favour?”
Ivy had been instrumental in sending Seán’s abusive grandfather to jail. Tim Johnson, a thoroughly unpleasant man, had stepped outside the law in his efforts to force Ivy into his clutches. He’d been taken away by the local Garda. In Seán’s eyes Ivy was a hero.
“What is it?” Ivy had noticed the change in the lad at her side. She understood. Seán’s home life wasn’t exactly ideal.
“Will yeh keep me takings with yeh?” Seán almost whispered, his head shrinking into his narrow shoulders. “I’ll come and get them later.” Then he added, to underline the secrecy of the matter, “Out the back yard.”
“No problem.”
“Thanks!” Seán shouted over his shoulder as he ran down the tunnel leading into the hidden square that housed the tenement block. He didn’t take any notice of the horse and carriage making its way slowly into the long tunnel. The trainee driver, holding the horse’s reins in his sweating hands, shouted curses at the young boy but Sean didn’t care. He didn’t want anyone to see him with Ivy Murphy. He’d take the beating he’d get for returning home without food for his aunts and uncles. He’d learned how to look out for number one. His mouth watered at the thought of the food he’d stashed away with Ivy. There’d be wigs on the green if he was found out but he’d risk it.
Chapter 2
“Ivy, I’ve got the kettle on.”
“Jem, yer blood should be bottled. I’d murder for a cup of tea.”
Jem Ryan, the local jarvey and Ivy’s friend, was standing in the open doors of his livery building. He was holding the reins of the returning carriage in one hand, gently rubbing the standing horse’s head with the other, while listening to the report from the driver and his trainee.
The livery, a long barnlike building, was brilliantly white with black trim. Jem and his crew of lads had freshly painted the exterior over the summer. It formed one side of The Lane and was directly across the cobbled square from the row of Georgian houses that were the tenements. A block of squat-looking two-storey houses sat at one end of the square, seeming to march across the space that separated the tenements from the livery. The fourth side of the square was formed by a high wall that blocked the rear gardens of the houses on Mount Street and the rear of the pub there. In that high wall was the tunnel that was the only entrance and exit to The Lane.
Ivy stood, half-listening to the talk between the men while examining Jem’s handsome figure. There was such a difference in the way Jem carried himself these days. He stood tall, his broad shoulders pulled back, chest out, head high. Ivy let her eyes roam down his strong masculine body. With his mahogany hair gleaming in the pale winter sunlight, green eyes smiling, clean-shaven chin held high while he listened to his returning workers, Jem Ryan looked the king of all he surveyed.
He directed his next comment to the experienced man on the box. “Put this horse away. She’s done enough for the day. I’ll want you to change horses, clean out the carriage and take it back to
the rank at Stephen’s Green.” Jem kept a number of carriages waiting at the horse-drawn standing rank around Stephen’s Green, convenient for passing traffic. When a telephone call came through the livery exchange asking for a pick-up, Jem sent one of his lads down to the rank on a bike with careful note of the details in hand. If one of Jem’s own horses wasn’t available, for a small fee the lad passed the information to the nearest jarvey.
“Fair enough, boss.” The driver clicked his tongue against his teeth and the horse started to walk slowly forward.
“Conn,” Jem said, referring to one of the lads who worked for him, “is bringing a bucket of food, enough for everyone, from the Penny Dinners. By the time you have the horse groomed and fed and the carriage cleaned out, there’ll be a bite waiting for yeh.”
The Penny Dinners, set up to serve the Dublin poor, seemed to constantly serve stew but it was a welcome addition to the diet of the hungry. The nuns nearby ran a Penny Dinner service from the rear of their convent.
“I wish you’d told me you had food coming before I let young Seán run away,” Ivy said. “The only thing he’ll get at his place is a thick ear.”
“Yeh can’t save everyone, Ivy.” Jem kept a careful eye on the carriage being driven through the open livery doors. “No matter how hard you try.”
Ha'Penny Chance (Ivy Rose Series Book 2) Page 1
