The Mother's Of Lovely Lane

by Nadine Dorries

  ‘Aye, but shhh, let your mam sleep. Don’t say a word. She has enough to worry about without fussing over Finn and an exam he’s never going to pass. And even if he did, it would be no use to neither man nor beast down on the docks.’

  Bryan wanted to say to his da that no boy from the grammar school ever worked on the docks, but he let it pass.

  He had no need to go upstairs to wake the kids as Mary emerged at the foot of the stairs and went to barge past him on her way to the back door.

  ‘Move, Bryan, I need the lav.’

  Paddy put his finger to his lips and nodded towards Noleen.

  ‘Is she sick?’ asked Mary with a note of alarm in her voice.

  ‘No, Mary, just exhausted, as always.’

  Mary was thirteen and it was impossible for Paddy to look at her without seeing the face of her mother as she had been as a young girl. It wasn’t just that Mary had inherited her mother’s dark hair and bright blue eyes, unlike the boys, who had their father’s bright red thatch. It was in her flinty defiance, her determination that her life would be different and that she would one day be away from Lovely Lane and not just to another street on another dock. ‘I won’t be living around here. It’ll be a nice grand house for me on Princess Avenue, just you wait and see,’ Paddy had heard her say at least once a week since she was out of nappies.

  ‘Sister Theresa says Finn has an exam today,’ Mary whispered, glancing at Noleen. ‘She says he needs a good breakfast.’

  ‘Jesus, is there anyone the woman hasn’t told?’ said Paddy. ‘Will everyone in the street be knocking on us to tell me to give Finn a good breakfast?’ He looked irritated, which both Bryan and Mary knew meant that the pain was worse than usual this morning.

  ‘I’m only passing on the message, Da. Don’t bite me head off,’ said Mary.

  ‘Mary, don’t tell your ma, I don’t want her worrying. Finn won’t be passing any exam, it’s just a waste of time. I wish Sister Theresa had come to see me and tell me about it first, before every bugger else, but of course I’m the useless man with one leg. No one wants to tell me anything.’

  Bryan and Mary exchanged a look. Their da’s mood swings had been worse of late. ‘It’s like he hates himself sometimes,’ Bryan had said to Mary.

  ‘I won’t, Da, but Finn will pass, you know. Everyone in school thinks he’s clever. I won’t tell Mam and Finn won’t either, you can count on that. He can’t remember to put his underpants on before his trousers some mornings. And by the way, Bryan, you may as well know, just in case you hadn’t noticed, Lorraine Tanner fancies you.’ And with that, Mary left the house and made for the privy before the others came down.

  Unperturbed, Bryan removed the pobs from the oven as Paddy, convinced that Noleen was now in a deep sleep, fiddled with the radio dial once more.

  ‘Lorraine Tanner, eh? Your mother and I were just talking about her when you were in the scullery. Jesus, her mother, Maisie, now she was a looker before the war. Never went out the house without her stockings painted on. Made your mother laugh, she did, because she was always staining her legs with the used tea leaves. If Lorraine is anything like her mam or their Pammy – a great nurse she is, they say – you should have a think, lad.’

  ‘Behave, Da,’ Bryan whispered with a hint of irritation as he tried to set the hot dish on the surface with as little noise as possible. ‘She’s still in school, she’s just like our Mary and she drives me mad.’

  Bryan had noticed that Lorraine had been spending a great deal of time around their house, but his head was full of other things, like looking after his da, and when he did manage to step out in the evenings it was with the porter’s lads from St Angelus, usually to play pool. Only then did he stop worrying about the money and the kids and the house, when he had drunk a pint of Guinness and knocked up a good score.

  The outhouse door banged shut and Mary came back in.

  ‘Looks like our Mary has decided to wake the Ryans too,’ said Paddy.

  ‘J.T. Ryan is up in court soon, Da. Ma said she wanted to go and see Mrs Ryan herself this morning. Should we wake her and remind her?’

  ‘Not on your life. I don’t know why she gives that woman the time of day. They are nothing but a family of villains. ’Tis only your mother and Biddy Kennedy ever bother with them. For a family of thieves, the mother has nothing. Poorer than the church mouse she is. What’s the point of it? Seems to me that those who live by the book have more comfort in life than those who thieve do. Even in this house, and I’m not even working and nor will I ever be, more’s the pity.’

  Bryan ignored the note of self-pity, which was becoming a predictable feature of conversations with his father these days. ‘They say he will go down this time, Da. He’s been up before the magistrate too often to get off.’

  ‘Good riddance. They all need to go down for a long time. The only decent one is the youngest, Lorcan, and he’ll probably turn out just like the rest.’ Paddy was warming to his theme. ‘Their father was a good man, a brave man, and he looked after that woman. She was always a bit simple. Came from out on the bogs, past Sligo way. The women think she was an inbred, there was enough of them out there. He was already here, she came over when she was still a kid and he looked after her. God knows what would have happened to her if he hadn’t. He took a bullet for his boys when he died, but, Jesus, there was not one man wouldn’t have wanted him alongside them going into battle, I can tell you. He was the bravest. God alone knows what has happened to those lads. Their father will be turning in his French grave.’

  Bryan listened carefully. His da told him a different story about his war experiences every single day. He began to spoon the pobs into bowls.

  ‘J.T., he wanted to work at the hospital, Da, but Dessie wouldn’t take him on. Said he hadn’t the time to be counting the sheets in and out on the laundry deliveries. Said he couldn’t trust him. Lorcan is the last, but I don’t think he’s the worst.’

  ‘Oh, not yet he isn’t, but he will be, Bryan. He’ll have learnt all the tricks of the robbing trade from his big brothers, despite Sister Theresa going soft in the head over him and keep wanting to give him a chance. Your mammy, she has a soft spot for Lorcan too. They will be sorry, so they will, but there’s no telling women like your mother and Sister Theresa. They will have to learn the hard way.’

  ‘Everyone says Mrs Ryan has powers, Da. She can make bad things happen to people if she wants.’

  Paddy snorted. ‘The only powers that woman has lives on a shelf in the press. It gets mixed with a bit of water to make it last longer and she has a glass on a Saturday night. Powers indeed. I’ve never heard the like. Now, there are women around here who have been blessed with powers all right, but not that simple old soak.’ He turned back to the fire. ‘Mind you, if I think of it, maybe she does now – the power to hoodwink your mother and Biddy Kennedy and Sister Theresa and that’s a fact.’

  As Bryan began to dish up the breakfast and call Finn, Jack and Cahill downstairs, Paddy leant his head against the back of the chair and allowed his gaze to sink into the flames of the fire. This was a rare moment of contentment. Noleen was safe and sleeping. The house was running in military order. Behind him came the sounds of the scullery in use, the chink of spoons being placed in bowls and the gentle simmer of the copper boiler as it warmed. All was as well as it could be with the Delaney family. If only I could get out of this flaming chair, he thought to himself as the familiar anger rose like bile in his throat. He pictured the washing, sitting in a pile outside their bedroom door, waiting to be placed in the copper and fed through the mangle. ‘I may as well be dead, the fat lot of use I am,’ he muttered.

  ‘Shut up, Da.’ Bryan’s voice was stern.

  When his father began to slip into the depths of melancholy, Bryan’s patience began to wear thin. He knew it upset his mother and he would risk a row with his father any day to prevent her from fretting. His da’s moods could flip in an instant and Bryan could spot the signs a mile off. It usually happe
ned late at night, when Dessie or one of the others had called in with a jug from the pub for him. Unused these days to a drink, the effect on Bryan’s da was often as though he had drunk double the amount and his monologue of despair would begin.

  It was during these moments, and only then, that Bryan felt his own anger and despair bubbling up. Because for him too there was no way out. He could never leave his mother alone to deal with his da, stuck in the chair for ever more, unable or unwilling to move. That would be his job, always, to protect his ma. The likes of Lorraine Tanner could move on and look elsewhere. He had his ma to care for and his siblings to help raise and there was no time in his life for anyone or anything else. While his father was trapped in that chair, Bryan was the breadwinner in the Delaney house and that was how it had to be.

  ‘That’s loads of pobs for me, Bryan, you loony!’ Finn half yelled as he raced over to his place at the table.

  Paddy couldn’t help but smile as he turned and looked at his second son, who was rubbing his hands together.

  ‘Look, Da, our Bryan’s gone mad.’ Finn began to laugh and Paddy put his fingers to his lips.

  Seeing his mam sleeping, Finn was instantly mortified. ‘I need the bog first,’ he whispered to Bryan as he ran on tiptoe out of the door to the outhouse.

  No matter how low Paddy felt, if Bryan didn’t manage to snap him out of it, one of his other sons would always unwittingly drag him back from the depths of his own self-loathing and make him laugh.

  He smiled and drank his tea. What a morning and the light wasn’t even fully up yet and everyone with their fanciful thinking, that Finn could pass an exam and Lorraine Tanner had ideas about their Bryan. He switched the radio off. He would let the news go. Better that Noleen rest. Nothing was as important as that. Noleen let out a long sigh as she sank further into sleep. Paddy wouldn’t tell her about the exam when she woke. It would only be another thing for her to worry about. She’d told him that she’d been the last into Mass this morning because she’d been chatting to Biddy Kennedy. She must have missed Sister Theresa. Thank God for that or she would have known and been worrying herself sick about something that was never likely to happen.

  ‘Tell you what, Bryan, throw a rasher on for Finn – for all of them, or Mary will give out. Then when he fails the exam we can tell your mother we set him up right and good.’

  ‘You’ll have to explain the missing rashers to Ma,’ Bryan said. He took the bacon out from under the wet cloth on the cold shelf in the press and threw the rashers into the hot griddle pan on the range. The air filled with the spit and sizzle of meat and still Noleen slept.

  Paddy sat back in his chair, took the top off his bottle of tablets, put one of his painkillers in the palm of his hand and, tipping his head back, gulped the last of his tea and threw it down the back of his throat. What did it all matter? It was just a few bloody rashers. No Delaney had ever even sat an exam, never mind passed one and that wasn’t likely to change anytime soon. It would take more than a rasher and a big man’s breakfast to bring that about.

  *

  Over in Arthur Street, Maisie Tanner had experienced a more noisy than usual morning. Lorraine was becoming more difficult by the day and her raging battles with her younger brother, little Stanley, were getting louder and more physical, involving the throwing of inanimate objects, usually shoes, rulers, or as was the case this morning, an ornament.

  ‘Eh, eh, what are you up to?’ Maisie grabbed the miniature statue of Our Lady from Lorraine just as she was about to throw it at little Stanley’s head. It had been a gift to Maisie from Sister Theresa. ‘That’s mine, that is, thank you very much. How dare you!’

  ‘Will you tell him, Mam? I know he has nicked my hairband. I know he swapped it for a bag of ollies and if he didn’t, where did he get the money from for those ollies and where has my hairband gone?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, do I, love. I’ll get you another on the market when we go. Stanley, where did you get those ollies from? You didn’t take Lorraine’s hairband as a swap, did you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Who would want her stupid hairband? The ollies belong to Finn Delaney. He gave them to me. He said he can’t play with them today because of the exam.’

  ‘What exam’s that, love?’ asked Maisie.

  Lorraine, as always, was quick to answer. ‘It’s the eleven-plus. If you pass it, you get to go to Waterloo Grammar. I’d love to have passed that,’ she said.

  Little Stanley looked incredulous. ‘No you wouldn’t, because the grammar school is full of boys and they would hate you,’ he shouted.

  ‘No they would not, they would be lucky I was there. Anyway, Stanley, stop it.’

  Maisie was close to exasperated. ‘You stop it, Lorraine, both of you. It’s too flaming far away, that school. Make sure you don’t pass any exam, do you hear, Stanley. St Chad’s was good enough for your da and me, it’s good enough for you lot too. After all, our Pammy only went to St Chad’s and look how well she’s doing.’

  ‘I won’t, Mam, I promise. Finn might, though. He’s clever,’ said Stanley.

  ‘Finn Delaney? Clever?’ Maisie’s voice rose two octaves as she spoke Finn’s name. ‘You have to be joking. He doesn’t even know what his own name is half of the time. I’ve never known a kid like him before. Not an ounce of common sense. Even his own mam gets fed up with him, and she has enough on her plate. Forgets to eat sometimes, he does, she told me. Got no idea what’s what. His head’s always in a book. No, he’s got no chance. No one around here has.’

  ‘Mam, I’m going to call at the Delaneys’ for Mary.’ Lorraine was slipping her coat on.

  ‘There’s a change, Lorraine. Is there any reason why you spend more time in the Delaneys’ kitchen these days than you do in your own?’

  Lorraine had the good grace to blush. ‘Mam, Mary is my best friend, that’s why I go there. She has to help her mam a lot with all they have going on and her mam working nights.’

  ‘Don’t give me that, Lorraine. I gave birth to you, I know you. I think your attraction down at the Delaney house has more to do with their Bryan than your mate Mary.’

  ‘Mam!’ Lorraine almost shouted. ‘Don’t say that so little Stan can hear.’

  Maisie wrung out her dishcloth and began clearing away the detritus of the Tanner breakfast table. She piled the bowls in the sink then took a packet of cigarettes out of her apron pocket. It might only be eight thirty but her hair was neat – hard from six days’ application of Get Set hairspray – and her lipstick fully applied. ‘Don’t be daft, love, I won’t. But I am right, aren’t I?’

  She leant her back against the range and, tipping her cigarette packet upside down, tapped the bottom until one fell out. She lit it on the flame from the pilot light. Blowing the smoke upwards, she said, ‘Look, love, all I would say is take care. You are only young. Bryan has a lot of responsibilities and he is keen to get on. I don’t want you to be having a broken heart.’ She blew her smoke into the air.

  Lorraine placed her school books into her wicker basket. ‘Do you like him though, Mam?’

  ‘Lorraine, I’ve changed his nappy and wiped his nose enough times, of course I like him. I like all the kids around here. We are really just one big family. It’s not that. You are still at school and he is working now, up at the hospital, and he has his da to look after. I just don’t want you to go getting hurt, that’s all. Have you told Mary?’

  Lorraine nodded.

  ‘Well, love, if I can give you any advice, it is this, never let a fella know you fancy him. Even one who pushed your pram when you were in it.’

  ‘Oh, God, he didn’t, did he, Mam?’

  ‘Of course he did. We used to put you and Mary next to each other and send Bryan off to push you up and down Vince Street so we could get the washing done. Play hard to get, it’s the only way.’ Maisie turned back to the sink to flick her ash down the plug hole and looked out of the window. ‘Oh, here we go, your hairband is walking up the path. I bet little Stan swapped
it for little Finn’s comic. Now let’s see what a good mate Mary Delaney is.’

  Lorraine looked up from her basket and out of the kitchen window, into the back yard. ‘Stanley!’ she screamed at the top of her voice, as Mary Delaney walked in through the back gate, proudly wearing Lorraine’s hairband.

  3

  Lorcan Ryan, nicknamed Rankie by his peers at school on account of how badly he sometimes smelt, had been taught that to survive you needed to know how to thieve and how not to get caught. His elder brother, J.T., had drummed this into him for what felt like his entire life. But now J.T. himself had got caught stealing a motorbike from Water Street. Unfortunately for him, the bike ran out of petrol before it reached the Pier Head. The owner, a fit young solicitor, gave chase and successfully both repossessed his bike and prosecuted J.T. for theft.

  Lorcan had taken more than his fair share of beatings from his brothers as, no matter how many jobs they took him on or how much they taught him, he always ran away. Lorcan did not want to thieve. He did not want to let Sister Theresa down.

  Today was the day of J.T.’s hearing. Lorcan had loyally accompanied his mother to the courthouse and they’d been sitting waiting on the limestone steps outside St George’s Hall for hours. ‘J.T. said he will be back out in an hour, Mam,’ Lorcan had told his mother at 9 a.m., but it was now gone twelve.

  The cold of the steps seeped through into their bones until Lorcan felt he would turn into stone himself if his brother didn’t return soon. He was dressed in nothing but a thin jacket and his mother wore the shawl he couldn’t remember ever seeing her without, indoors or out. As they sat and waited, his mother cried and then cried some more. Lorcan tried to persuade her to return home and wait for J.T. there. But it was no use, a fresh fall of tears appeared on her face each time he even suggested it. Mrs Ryan seemed impervious to the cold but Lorcan could barely speak, his teeth chattered so loud.

  Unable to bear waiting any longer and feeling as though he couldn’t think straight because he was so cold, Lorcan made his way into the vast interior of St George’s Hall. He almost yelped as the warm air hit his face. A large fire burnt in a grate the size of their front room, but it was not something Lorcan was allowed to enjoy for long.