Biddy looked up at the top of the building where the street names were positioned. “We’re back in Maple Terrace,” she said incredulously. “All these streets look the very same.”
“It’s not Maple Terrace that we’re looking for,” Tara told her. “It’s actually Maple Grove, and it’s somewhere down the bottom of the street. Apparently there’s a little road that goes in on the right-hand side and the house is just off there.”
They went back and picked up the cases. “Please God,” Biddy said aloud, “that we’ll be lucky this time. I’m not fit to be walking about for much longer.”
“Here,” Tara said, taking her case from her, “I’ll carry this for you and you carry my handbag. We won’t be long getting there.”
They walked along the street in silence, Tara breathless from carrying the two heavy cases and Biddy deep in thought. She didn’t want to worry Tara but she was still bleeding heavily, and she needed to get to a toilet where she could change her sanitary pad and underwear. The tops of her legs were also chafed and sore, where the large hospital pad had been rubbing against her skin.
At last, they reached Maple Grove and the big house that the newsagent had described to Tara. “Cream front with pillars and stained-glass window over the door,” Tara read from the paper, “and we have to ask for a Mrs Sweeney.” She dropped the cases once again and strode in the gate, up the high white-painted steps, and rung the bell.
Within seconds, a petite attractive woman in her late thirties, with bright blonde hair, a red dress and bright red lipstick came to the door.
“Yes, love?” the woman said in a strong Manchester accent. “What can I do for you?” She gave Tara a big smile.
“The newsagent at the corner gave me your address. She said you had some vacant rooms.”
“Already?” the woman said, her eyes wide with surprise. “I only put that notice in yesterday.”
“Do you still have the rooms?” Tara asked anxiously.
The woman looked over her head at Biddy who was standing at the gate. “How many rooms were you looking for, ducks?”
“Two,” Tara said, her voice slightly breathless – dreading the same response as the other places. “It’s for my friend and me . . . but if you don’t have two rooms, we would be very happy to share.”
“Come in. Come in, love,” the woman said warmly, opening the door wider, “and call your friend to come in, too. We can’t stand outside doin’ business, can we?”
Tara’s heart leapt with relief – things were going to be all right after all. “I’ll just go down and help her with the cases,” she said,
“It’s brighter than that other house we were in, thanks be to God!” Biddy whispered as they followed the woman down the white-painted hall, “and it smells a lot better, too.”
“We’ll go into the front room,” Mrs Sweeney said, opening a door off the hallway, “because we won’t get a chance to chat with that rowdy lot in the kitchen. They’re always the same on a Friday when they’ve just been paid.”
They put their cases down on the floor and then Biddy suddenly blurted out: “I’m beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am, but have you a lavatory I could use, please?”
“There’s one at the top of the stairs, love,” the landlady said, then went out into the hallway to direct her. “Your friend looks a bit peaky,” she said when she came back into the room. “Has she been feeling poorly?”
“I think,” Tara explained, “that she’s a little tired. We’ve been walking about with the cases for a while.” She hesitated for a moment. “She also has problems every month . . . you know, women’s problems.”
“Say no more!” Mrs Sweeney rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I used to have the same trouble meself when I was her age.” She leaned forward. “Tell me about yourselves now, ducks, and what’s brought you to Stockport.”
Tara took off her black felt hat. “My name’s Tara Flynn, and my friend is Biddy – Bridget Hart. We’re from County Offaly in Ireland, and we went to school together.”
“That’s lovely,” the woman said, putting her hand out for Tara to shake. “I’m Ruby Sweeney – pleased to meet you, I’m sure. A lot of the lads I get here are Irish, and I always find them a nice bunch – at least they think of their mothers when they’re away from home.” She took the top off her pen. “Now, I think we had better get down to business. I have two rooms vacant, on account of a building contract that has just finished. Some lads from Scotland who were working on a hotel out by the airport.” She sat back in her chair and studied her prospective boarder. “They were quite happy sharin’ a room – and sharin’ the cost. I don’t know how you would feel about sharin’ a room.”
Tara’s mind worked quickly, taking in the financial and personal implications. “Is there a big difference in price?”
“It’s one pound and fifteen shillings each a week if you’re sharing,” Ruby stated, “and two pounds five shillings each if you want separate rooms. They are both fairly big rooms with double beds in each.”
“I think we might be best to start off sharing, and when we find work we can perhaps think of separate rooms.”
“You haven’t got jobs then?” the landlady said, her voice high with alarm. “D’you mean to say you’ve come all the way over from Ireland without jobs?”
“It’s not a problem,” Tara reassured her quickly. “We can pay a month’s rent in advance.” When the landlady still looked doubtful, Tara reached into her handbag, and drew two five-pound notes and several one-pound notes out of the back compartment of the new leather purse she had bought in Dublin. She had learned already – in the week she spent in Dublin – that money talked. “In fact,” she said, placing the notes on the table, “I’d be happy to pay two months’ rent in advance, although I’m sure there will be no problem about us finding work.”
“What sort of work would that be?” Ruby said smiling, looking at the money.
“I’m looking for some sort of clerical or bookkeeping position.” Tara noticed that the landlady looked impressed. “And Biddy has experience in a variety of domestic work. She was a priest’s housekeeper and she kept a bakehouse in order.” Tara was glad that Biddy wasn’t around to hear herself being elevated from a maid in the priest’s house to housekeeper, for she was more inclined to play her positions down.
“I thought you both looked like teachers when you turned up at the door,” Ruby confessed, “and with you being so well-spoken and everything.” She put a finger under her chin, a thoughtful look on her face. “I don’t know anybody in the clerical line who could help you out finding work – you might have to go to an employment agency for that. But I’m sure I could put a word in somewhere for Bridget.”
“That’s very good of you to offer.” Tara turned now as a pale-faced Biddy came in the door. “I’m just explaining that we both hope to find work as quickly as possible – isn’t that right, Bridget?”
Whether it was the thought of work in her weakened condition or whether it would have happened in any case – Biddy swayed for a few seconds in front of Tara and the landlady, and then promptly fainted at their feet.
Chapter Nineteen
Tara huddled in an armchair by the big bedroom window until one in the morning, staring out into the brightly lit street. She found the street lighting strange after a lifetime of dark country nights. Twice she had got into the double bed beside Biddy, closed her eyes and tried to sleep. But her mind refused to stop going over the terrible things that had happened – and imagining even worse things that might lie ahead in this strange place. All the relief she had felt at finding a place to stay had now evaporated, and was replaced with an awful, cold fear in the pit of her stomach. A cold fear which reminded her that she was hundreds of miles and a dark sea away from her home and family in Ballygrace. The home she could never return to after the dreadful thing that William Fitzgerald had done to her. The thing she could never bring herself to tell anyone – not even Biddy.
When Biddy had come round
from her faint last night, Ruby Sweeney had bustled about making her a cup of hot, sweet tea. After the tea, the landlady had shown them the double room on the second floor which was to be their new home for the next couple of months at least. There were three bedrooms and a large bathroom, which Ruby said would be used by all the occupants of the rooms on that floor.
The girls’ bedroom was of a reasonable size and clean, with a double bed decked with a faded pink candlewick bedspread, and a fringed rug on top of a brown linoleum floor. There was a large double wardrobe which had seen better days, a matching dressingtable with a circular mirror and three deep drawers, and a small cabinet at either side of the bed. The walls were adorned with large cabbage-rose wallpaper, and the bright pink of the roses had been picked out to paint the skirting-boards and door.
“It’s lovely,” Biddy gasped, sitting down on the bed to feel the soft bedspread. Compared to Lizzie Lawless’s run-down cottage and the sparse cell she had occupied in the convent, it was unadulterated luxury.
“It’ll do grand, thank you, Mrs Sweeney,” Tara added, as she pushed pictures out of her mind of green satin quilts and bolsters, and the fine furniture she had come to love in Ballygrace House.
Two older men – builders from Wexford – were called upon by the landlady to lift the girls’ cases upstairs. The men were obviously planning a night out, for one of the men had shaving foam round his ears, and the other was in the middle of polishing his ‘low shoes’, usually only worn by Irish men when they were going out at the weekend.
“I feel terrible disturbing them,” Tara said. “We could have managed to lift them up ourselves.”
“Why have a dog and bark yourself?” Ruby had said, as the two men brought the cases in. “I have them paintin’ and decoratin’ for me in the summer and I get them to do any odd jobs about the place. They love doin’ it – it makes them feel at home.” She introduced the girls to the two men and then left them chatting for a few moments, discussing the different parts of Ireland where they and the other lads living in the house came from.
A short while later – after donning a frilly flowery apron over her red dress – Ruby had brought both girls into the kitchen and sat them down at the big pine table for the traditional Friday night tea of cod and chips. “Is it any wonder you’re poorly, love?” she said to Biddy, heaping a pile of mushy peas on her overflowing plate. “Traipsing round the streets in the rain and not having a bite inside you for hours – and then havin’ your monthlies on top of all that! I’d like to see how any man would manage with all that we women have to put up with.” She set the pot with the peas back on the gas cooker and then lifted a plate of bread and butter from the work-top and placed it on the table between the two girls. “My advice to you young girls is to have a quiet night in tonight and a long lie in the mornin’. Monday is time enough to be looking for work.”
Obviously, the offer of two months’ rent in advance had quashed any fears Ruby might have of her two lodgers being unable to pay their way. She turned to Biddy now, wagging a warning finger. “If you run into any of the younger lads in here later on, don’t let any of them try to talk you into goin’ out tonight. They’re nice enough lads, but, naturally enough, they’re after anythin’ in a skirt. Have a quiet night in, and then you should take a walk into Stockport tomorrow afternoon and have a look at the shops.” She touched Tara’s shoulder in a conspiratorial manner. “I must admit I spend more than I should on clothes and the hairdresser’s myself – it costs me a bloody fortune havin’ me roots done every few weeks and a shampoo and set every Friday for the weekend.” She fluffed up the back of her peroxide-blonde hair in a preening, model-type gesture. “I only had it done this morning. I’m afraid my attitude is – if you work hard for your money, then you’re entitled to spend it on yourself. And anyway, the men who lodge in this house always appreciate a woman who looks after herself – not like my husband, Bert Sweeney.” She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “He was a right miserable old sod – wouldn’t let me spend a penny on meself! He would have had me goin’ around lookin’ like a bleedin’ rag-woman if he’d had his way.”
There was a shocked silence and then Biddy started to choke on a pea which had gone down the wrong way.
“Are you all right, love?” Ruby asked, pouring her a glass of water from the jug on the table, and when Biddy confirmed with a nod that she was, the landlady continued: “As it happened, Bert Sweeney was killed crossing a road in Manchester – a bus it was. He was drunk of course, entirely his own fault. Anyway, if he hadn’t been killed then I would have had to divorce him, so it saved me the trouble. I got this house from the insurance money – so at least I didn’t suffer five years of marriage to him for nothing.” She waved her hands about, taking in the expanse of the kitchen. “Take it from me, girls, the satisfaction of owning your own house beats the satisfaction a man can give you – any day of the week.”
There was an embarrassed pause, then, feeling she should say something, Tara ventured: “How long is it since he died?”
“Seven years ago last December, love,” she said. “It was the best Christmas present that I ever had.”
“D’you think,” Biddy asked, wide-eyed and fascinated, “that you’ll ever get married again?”
Ruby threw her head back and roared with laughter. “Not bloody likely! Once bitten, twice shy. I’d sooner live over the brush with a man, any day, than get married. At least you can walk away from them without worryin’ about divorce. Anyway, I’ve worked too hard to get this house in shape to share it with a man. Not that I don’t like them, mind – they have their uses.” Then, noticing the shocked look on the girls’ faces, the bubbly blonde woman suddenly became serious. “Oh hell, I forgot about you being Irish! I’ll bet you two are Catholics, are you?”
Both girls nodded.
Ruby looked flustered. “And there’s me rattlin’ on about divorce and everything. Sorry, ducks. You don’t have divorce in Ireland, do you? But then,” her face broke into the irrepressible smile again, “you probably don’t have rotten men like Bert Sweeney in Ireland either.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Biddy said, anxious to hear more of Ruby’s life story. It made her feel much better about her own problems. “We’ll have to get used to different ways – we’re not living in Ireland now.”
Tara shot Biddy a disapproving glance which Biddy either didn’t see or decided to ignore.
“That’s very true, love,” Ruby agreed. “It’s easier if you do in Rome what the Romans do.” She looked up at the kitchen clock. “I’ll have to run and get changed,” she said, untying her apron strings. “I’m off to the bingo. I’m meetin’ some of me mates down the town at half-past seven. Friday night’s bingo night,” she explained, “and then a drink down the George pub after. Put your dishes in the sink and I’ll sort them out when I come back in tonight. If you want to make a cup of tea later, help yourself. There’s a packet of Rich Tea biscuits at the side of the caddy.”
“What d’you make of her?” Biddy whispered when they were alone. “She’s very glamorous altogether for an older woman, with her blonde hair and everythin’.”
Tara shrugged and looked down at the remainder of her fish and chips which for some reason now, she could not eat another bite of. “She seems nice enough . . . in her own way.”
“She’s gas!” Biddy went on. “I think it’ll be great living in this house. Did you hear what she said about the lads going to the dancing and everything? It sounds as if there’s as much goin’ on in Stockport as there is in Dublin.”
Tara lifted her head abruptly. “Why did we come to England, Biddy?”
There was an awkward silence. “You know why, Tara. Because of . . . to get away from . . .”
“We came to get away from all the gossiping people in Ireland,” Tara reminded her, “and to get a fresh start in a place where no one knew us.” She took a deep breath. “I think the last thing we need is to get involved with lads.”
Large tears lo
omed in Biddy’s eyes. “I didn’t mean any harm . . . I was only sayin’.”
Tara took a deep breath, anxious not to upset Biddy, but concerned at the same time. “We’ve a lot more important things to sort out before we can be thinking of dance halls and the like. We have work to find, and as soon as we can afford it, we must find a better place than this.”
Biddy gestured with her hands around the kitchen. “But it’s grand here, Tara. It’s nice and clean and warm and everythin’. I think it’s a lovely house.”
“That may be, but a lovely house full of working men is no place for two girls.” Tara pursed her lips together. “And there’s the religious side to take into account. Father Daly even gave a sermon on it one Sunday – about the behaviour that goes on in the dance-halls in England, about the living in sin and the drinking and everything.” A picture suddenly crept into Tara’s mind, bringing her out in a cold sweat. A picture of William Fitzgerald handing her a glass of brandy. She shuddered at the memory.
Enough had already happened back in Ireland – Tara would make sure that she and Biddy made no more terrible mistakes.
Oblivious to her friend’s fears, Biddy kept her head down, in case Tara realised that all the things she was saying about England were the very reasons Biddy had been happy to come. When Father Daly had presented her with the boat ticket to come over to Stockport – whilst at the same time warning her about all the evils in England – she had thought how exciting and glamorous it sounded.
“We must get work as quickly as possible,” Tara decided, “and then we can afford to get out of Mrs Sweeney’s and into a decent boarding-house.”
Biddy looked down at her empty plate, and then – for want of something better to do – she reached for another piece of bread and butter, and ate it without tasting a bite. She always felt at a loss with Tara when she started going on like this about ordinary people. Mrs Sweeney seemed a good sort to Biddy, far better than Lizzie Lawless and some of the other religious types that came to mind. Ruby Sweeney was the sort of person you could talk to, the sort of person who would understand how some things just happened. Well, as far as Biddy was concerned, from what she had seen of Ruby Sweeney’s house, she was quite content to stay here indefinitely. If Tara was insistent on moving out, then she would cross that bridge when she came to it.
Tara Flynn Page 30
