She had prayed that Kathleen’s letter would tell her the Epsom salts and the gin had worked, and that Kitty had started, once she reached Ireland. God knows, she had given her enough. Girls that age were sensitive. It was easy to lose a baby at such a young age, surely? These were the desperate thoughts Maura had harboured all day, every day, whilst she waited for a letter from Kathleen.
Maura’s back door opened suddenly and in scuttled Peggy.
There was no privacy on the four streets. No one ever closed their doors and no one ever knocked, either.
‘Oh, queen, what’s up?’ said Peggy, flopping down into the chair opposite Maura.
It was known as the ‘not so comfy’ chair, because some of the springs under the cushion were broken, and others had been unhooked and stretched to fill in the gaps. It was the chair Maura often sat in, being lighter than Tommy.
There was a strong possibility that Peggy would sink between the springs and struggle to rise again. She could be in for the day.
Peggy reached over, which, given the size of her belly, was an impressive act in itself, to take one of Maura’s hands in her own, while eyeing up the pot of tea and the brack, cooling on the wooden draining board.
‘Come on, queen, tell me, so. What on God’s earth is wrong with ye?’
Peggy had only popped in for a cuppa. She had just enough coal left for two nights, until Paddy was paid on Friday and was, as needs must, economical with the range.
Maura had given up trying to tell her how to manage.
Peggy felt it was her right that she and Paddy each smoked twenty a day and had one or two extra drinks in the club on a Saturday night. Maura had told her so often that she needed to save for a rainy day and how to cope on the family budget.
Peggy was the last person Maura wanted to see, but she would never make her unwelcome. Neighbours on the streets were all as close as family. You couldn’t choose your family and when you were an Irish immigrant, your friends and neighbours either. You got on with it and mostly loved them anyway.
Maura wondered if the chair cushion would smell when Peggy left.
She knew it would.
As Peggy leant over towards Maura, an unpleasant odour wafted across from the top of her apron. Maura was used to this. It didn’t make her baulk. Back home, baths were looked on as a treat but Maura was very aware that in Liverpool her countrymen were called the dirty Irish.
If anything, her irritation with Peggy was not because of her smell, or her dirty habits, or her lack of housekeeping. It was the fact that every time the welfare officer, the school nurse or the Prudential man knocked on Peggy’s door, she reinforced this prejudice and that annoyed the hell out of Maura. Now she could see that the dull, dark hair wound round Peggy’s curlers was covered in the telling white flecks of lice eggs.
As soon as she had heard the latch lift on the back gate, Maura had shoved both letters deep into her apron pocket and out of sight.
‘Oh, nothing really, Peggy,’ she replied now with more chirpiness than she felt. ‘I had a letter from Kitty on her holiday with Kathleen and, you know, I just miss her.’
Peggy sympathized. ‘Who can ye trust to run a message now? Boys are useless, and she was grand with the washing and cleaning and looking after the babies. I would miss her too.’
Maura almost laughed out loud at Peggy’s ability to talk the talk, as if she ever cleaned. Maura’s missing Kitty had nothing to do with what she did in the house or how she helped with the kids.
It was the fact that she couldn’t reach out and wrap her arms round her. She missed Kitty’s gentle little voice and for so long she had missed her laughter.
‘I thought she might be so taken with the farm, she would look down on us lot and not want to return home.’
‘Of course she wants to come home,’ said Peggy. ‘You and Tommy are her mammy and daddy, so ye are, that’s where every girl wants to be. The farm might be fabulous, but there’s no place like ye own bed, no matter how many kids and bugs ye share it with.’
Maura shuddered. There were no bugs in any of her beds.
She put the kettle on to freshen up the mash of tea.
She was regretting letting Peggy think that Kitty was looking forward to coming home. How would she explain it if she had to stay?
God, she thought, why is everything so difficult and secretive?
As soon as Peggy left, Maura decided to share her news with the only person she could. She put on her coat and ran down the entry.
Maura sat herself down in the chair by the fire in Jerry’s house and picked Joseph up.
Alice made them both a cuppa, then sat down with a cup and saucer of her own in her hand. Maura silently leaned forward and handed over the envelope.
Alice put her cup and saucer on the floor, tucked it just under the chair, so as not to knock it with her foot, and took the letter out. Whilst she read, Maura sang to Joseph and played a hand-clapping game. Joseph giggled and bounced up and down on Maura’s knee.
For a few seconds, Alice stopped reading, looked up and smiled. She knew she could never be as natural with children as Maura was and it made her sad.
She did feel sadness. It was a new experience, but she felt it.
When she had finished reading, she folded the paper and, without a word, put it back into the envelope, handed it straight back to Maura, then reached out to take Joseph.
Alice stood Joseph up on her lap to pull up his knitted leggings. His clothes had become dishevelled during his clapping game with Maura. And then, sitting him back down on her knee and pulling down his pullover over the top of his leggings she finally spoke.
‘Phew, I never expected that. I half thought they would have sorted her out in a different way over there. Thought they might have had a few remedies we don’t have here.’
Maura’s face burnt and the all-too-familiar tears pricked her eyes.
‘Well, she is being sorted out in a way, just not the way you thought, Alice. I am going to have to tell Tommy tonight and then I will need to leave for Ireland, although God knows how I am going to manage that, with no Kitty to watch the kids. Tommy cannot miss a day’s work or someone else may take his place on the gang.’
‘I will help out,’ said Alice, ‘don’t worry about that. Between all of us, we will manage.’
Alice’s kindness took Maura by surprise. This time the tears won and Maura cried. Again.
Alice looked hard at Maura, but could not feel pity. It never happened.
It was close. Very close. Pity teased her from the borders of her emotional awareness. Running in and running out again.
Elusive.
Alice decided to take advantage of Maura’s weakness.
‘Maura, you do know that lots of women have abortions now, don’t you? It could even be legal soon, so the talk on the news says.’
Maura looked up from wiping her eyes, but before she could respond, Alice ploughed on.
‘Before Kitty left, I made enquiries. It would cost fifty pounds, that’s all, and then it would all be over and done with in just a few hours.’
Maura jumped to her feet and screamed, ‘Holy Mary and Joseph, I hope to God you didn’t tell anyone it was for my Kitty? Did ye, Alice? Did ye? Tell me, for God’s sake.’
‘God, no, of course I didn’t, Maura. Calm down. I said it was for me.’
Maura had knocked the teacup and saucer onto the floor with a clatter. She squatted down to clear up the mess and Alice once again ploughed on.
‘I asked the abortion midwife, Mrs Savage, what she did and it all sounded simple and easy to me, and not a coat-hanger in sight. Maura, there never has been, not for a hundred years. The house is in Bootle, it’s clean. There were two women who left her house together as I arrived and they both looked happy enough. Mrs Savage explained everything to me carefully and it is so easy.’
Maura was wiping up the spilt tea off the floor.
‘Maura!’ Alice shouted. ‘Will you leave the bloody cup and just sit down a
nd listen to me, please.’
Maura was agitated. She couldn’t understand how Alice could speak of a mortal sin and the taking of a life so calmly.
Her hands flitted like birds in front of her as she waved away Alice’s words.
‘I have never had or heard such a conversation, Alice. There are no Mrs Savages in Ireland and there is nothing your Mrs Savage can do that I couldn’t do for my own daughter.’
‘Yes, there is, Maura.’ Alice was almost shouting. ‘There bloody is something that can be done but your eyes are so shut with your stupid, pious, left-footing, Catholic ways, you won’t even listen. You are being ridiculous, Maura, and obstinate. We have all got into a mess over this. The least you could do is show an interest in what I have taken the trouble to find out. I’m not the one who is pregnant. I didn’t drag Joseph all the way to Bootle on the bus for myself, you know. You owe it to us all to hear me out.’
Maura collapsed back down into the chair. Alice had pricked her conscience. She thought again, as she did once every few minutes, that this was all her fault for having believed in the priest. Alice had just said, ‘You owe it to us all.’
No one else had said it. No one had pointed a finger at her, but often she could hear Tommy think it, and today Alice had uttered the truth, yet to be acknowledged. The truth everyone knew.
That dirty, stupid truth. It was all Maura’s fault.
She didn’t look at Alice. She turned her head and stared deep into the coals burning in the fire. She could smell the cake Alice had made, slowly rising in the oven.
Joseph was trying to stand up on his own feet, pushing against Alice, stretching his arms out to Maura. She noticed him out of the tail of her eye and smiled a thin, tired smile, taking him from Alice. Joseph snuggled into her chest as he sucked his thumb and peeped out at his mother from Maura’s arms.
Maura was again lost in thought.
For a fleeting second, she went back to better days.
She imagined a wet afternoon in front of the same fire, in the same room, but with Bernadette sitting opposite her, not Alice. She saw again the glass of long-stemmed, deep-yellow buttercups mixed with fireweed that Bernadette had placed on the windowsill to brighten up the kitchen.
Bernadette, the only woman on the four streets who thought weeds were worth picking. And she had been right.
She used to laugh and say that she picked the weeds because they reminded her of the heather and the peat flowers from home. The wild rhododendrons, the blue-eyed grass and the lady’s tresses.
Maura missed the flowers too. She missed her daughter. She missed Bernadette.
‘I used to sit in front of this fire with Bernadette,’ said Maura quietly. ‘We used to laugh and chatter and listen to the heartbeat of Kitty who was growing in my belly at the time, with an upturned glass that we had Tommy file the base off.’
Maura had broken the taboo. She had mentioned Bernadette. Without even realizing, she had taken her revenge.
Maura had reached a depth of despair she had never plumbed before. She almost cried again, this time for the hours she had spent in this very chair, laughing with the friend she had loved as a sister.
But the comparison with Bernadette had not wounded Alice. It had taken her by surprise for just a second, but nothing more.
She could see Maura’s desolation and took advantage of her tears.
‘Mrs Savage is a properly trained midwife and knows what she is doing, Maura. She would place some dried seaweed sticks into the neck of Kitty’s womb. It does hurt a bit, but Mrs Savage will sell us some opium to help with the pain. The seaweed sticks absorb the fluid from around the womb and then the sticks swell and they push open the neck of the womb. Kitty would have a miscarriage and, honestly, it’s just like her having a late monthly and no different from what you have been doing with the hot baths, the Epsom salts and the gin. But it has to be done as early as possible, as you well know. Bring her home from Ireland, Maura, and let’s take her. It’ll cost us fifty pounds, not a hundred and fifty.’
Maura looked at Alice with steely eyes. She didn’t like the fact that Alice had spoken aloud about the gin. Alice had exposed Maura’s hypocrisy in all its nakedness.
Maura stood up, placed the pieces of broken china on the draining board and with her back to Alice spoke very calmly. Her words were measured, devoid of emotion and bordering on coldness.
‘I know what I have tried to do, Alice, but I was wrong and wicked to have even attempted it. I will not take her to any backstreet abortionist. Kathleen is right. Your mother-in-law is a holier woman than all of us put together. I will travel to Ireland and see Kitty into this home. It is the right thing to do.’
She turned round and glanced at Alice with torment on her face.
‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to offend you,’ said Alice. ‘I was just thinking of what’s best for Kitty.’
Maura looked Alice squarely in the eye. Reflecting on the times she had spent with Bernadette in this same kitchen had made her feel stronger.
‘And ye think I don’t, Alice? Ye think I don’t know what’s best for the child I failed to protect from that wicked man?’
Alice stood at the back door and stared as Maura walked down the yard path towards the gate.
She lifted the latch, then turned and, with a furrowed brow, asked, ‘What kind of midwife is it that kills babies?’
And before Alice could say a word in reply, she was gone.
19 Nelson Street
Liverpool
Lancashire
Dear Kathleen,
I am grateful to ye, so I am, for writing to me so quick like, to tell me that Kitty and Nellie are having such a grand time, thanks be to God.
It was a joy to open Kitty’s own letter, Kathleen, and to be honest, when I read yours, it was a bit hard on my emotions, but not too bad now, Kathleen. I’m used to the idea of a home for Kitty and, God willing, I will stay that way so that I can be strong for her and help her through.
I feel overwhelmed altogether by what we have to do.
God alone knows why the Epsom salts and gin didn’t work, at her age too, Kathleen. I was sure it would all be over by now and that we would be back to normal.
Ye know I trust all ye say and if ye think this is the way it has to be, then so be it.
I feel bad about putting on Maeve with all of this and, sure, isn’t she an angel herself to help us out, so she is. I would like to come over and see the home for myself, but first I have to tell Tommy that Kitty is to be away for longer than he thought, although to be fair, Kathleen, I don’t think either of us are thinking straight. Tommy says the answer is to just keep moving.
I never knew Tommy to say boo to a goose before, but he’s a different man now so he is.
We have thirty-two pounds saved in the bread bin and I will need four to come to Ireland. It has taken us fifteen years to save that money, so I have no notion where we will get the hundred from.
I know ye are right about Kitty. If she returns home and has a baby after all that occurred, then it is sure that everyone will make the connection.
Also if Kitty were here, she is so sensitive that she would never recover from the way people would treat her either. The lamb has no idea.
Sometimes I wonder, Kathleen, if we should have been as cruel as some others are. If Tommy had taken his belt to the kids, or if I had slammed them up the stairs with no food in their insides, would they have been harder altogether and more able to fend for themselves?
Would they not have been as sensitive and would Kitty have spoken out to us about how that man had been doing his bad things to her and what was happening in her own bed while we were just downstairs, only feet away from her?
Kitty has no idea how hard it would be if she were here and people knew she were pregnant.
Those she calls her friends today will become her enemies tomorrow and God knows what the sisters would say or do. If there was a hint of suspicion, all my kids would be thrown out of the
school at the very least. I would fear for us all, Kathleen.
It is what we have to do and the more I have thought about it all day, the more sure I am.
As long as the sisters are from a good and kind order and look after her, that’s what is important.
Adoption is the right path and that is why I want to visit Ireland to see her, Kathleen. I know my own baby girl and all that she is, a baby still herself. This will upset her, as she has loved every baby I have given birth to as though it were her own. But, sure, I don’t need to tell you that.
I need to talk to her about this and explain what is happening.
If ye do it on your own, Kathleen, she will be looking for me and wondering why I’m not there. I want to be the one to explain to her why we have to hide her name and choose a new name with her. I think Cissy would be good. That way, if someone forgets, Cissy sounds so much like Kitty, it could be passed off with no trouble at all.
Everything here is good. We went to the club on Saturday night for the first time since everything kicked off. It was a delight to see Jerry and Alice there too.
Alice is doing fine. I have seen her tripping up and down the street with Joseph in his pram and popping in and out of Brigid’s house, and on Saturday night we all sat together at the club.
Alice didn’t dance, but she had a grand natter to Sean whilst Brigid danced with Jer.
She is a credit to ye, Kathleen. She looked fabulous and had made a big effort. She gives me hope in my own despair. Who would have thought, a year ago, that we would see Alice pushing a baby round in a pram and tripping up to the Grafton rooms with the rest of us. She had done her hair and looked lovely, so she did.
God has brought her here to show the rest of us that no matter how desperate things appear, there is always hope. I am sure of that now and ashamed of how I treated her in these past years. I loved Bernadette like my sister, but she has gone and if I have learnt anything now, it is that life is short and you never know what is going to happen next.
I will book my ticket and phone the post office to let you know when I will be arriving. I cannot wait to see my girl, so.
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