The Fifteen Streets

by Catherine Cookson

  Also by Catherine Cookson

  The Silent Lady

  Kate Hannigan’s Girl

  A House Divided

  The Desert Crop

  The Rag Nymph

  My Beloved Son

  The Love Child

  The Wingless Bird

  The Black Candle

  The Bailey Chronicles

  The Harrogate Secret

  The Parson’s Daughter

  The Bannaman Legacy

  The Whip

  The Black Velvet Gown

  The Moth

  The Golden Straw

  The Obsessions

  The Upstart

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

  Rockefeller Center

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 1952 by Catherine Cookson

  Copyright restored (under section 104A of 17 U.S.C., as amended by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act, Pub. L. No. 103-465) by The Trustees of the Catherine Cookson Charitable Trusts. Originally published in 1952 in Great Britain by Macdonald & Co. (Publishers) Ltd.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cookson, Catherine.

  The fifteen streets : a novel / Catherine Cookson.

  p. cm.

  1. Social classes—Fiction. 2. England—Fiction. I. Title: 15 streets. II. Title.

  PR6053.O525 F54 2002

  823’.914—dc21 2002026929

  ISBN 0-7432-3678-5

  eISBN-13: 978-1-45165-690-9

  Contents

  1

  The Brothers

  2

  A Day of Bonny Lasses

  3

  St Patrick’s Day

  4

  The Conflict

  5

  The Comic

  6

  The Visit

  7

  Christmas Eve

  8

  New Year’s Eve

  9

  Nancy

  10

  Mary Llewellyn

  11

  Ask and Ye Shall Receive

  12

  The Aftermath

  13

  Renunciation

  14

  Whither Thou Goest

  Author’s Note

  The characters in this book are entirely fictitious and have no relation to any living person.

  Although the setting is Tyneside and several place names have been used, ‘The Fifteen Streets’ are imaginary.

  Owing to difficulty in comprehension by the uninitiated, I have not adhered to the Tyneside dialect.

  The Fifteen Streets

  1

  The Brothers

  ‘Hannah, drop that an’ come an’ see. The O’Briens are at it again . . . blue murder! Come on. Come upstairs, you can see better from our top window.’

  Wiping the soap suds from her arms, Hannah Kelly hastily lifted the lid of the wash-house boiler, scooped off the grey scum with an enamel mug, dabbed the contents of the boiler with a stick, then ran out of the wash-house and across the backyard, thinking as she did so, ‘Eeh, I haven’t got time for this . . . And our Joe warned me.’

  She caught up with her neighbour as she was opening the stair door.

  ‘Who is it this time? The old man?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who’s he at? Dominic!’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Are they drunk?’

  ‘Are they ever owt else?’

  They scurried across the kitchen to the front room, and automatically took up their stations, one at each side of the window, bodies close to the wall, heads held slightly to the side against the mesh of the Nottingham lace curtains, their arms wound tightly in their aprons.

  ‘My God, what a mess, Bella!’

  ‘He must have thrown them two pictures out since I came down for you.’

  ‘Eeh, God Almighty! It’s a shame. Just as Mary Ellen was getting things pulled together again.’

  ‘Look’—there was glee in Bella’s voice—‘there they are at the window throttling each other. Christ!’ she exclaimed as something came hurtling through the window into the street, ‘which one missed that, I wonder?’

  ‘Eeh! he’s thrown the pot through the window. Oh, Bella, that’ll bring the pollis. God Almighty, it’s awful! It’s enough to bring on the bairn . . . she’s at the worst time, on eight months.’

  ‘Best thing that could happen. Who wants a bairn at forty-five, I ask you? She should have been more cute. Anyway, she wouldn’t listen to me. I told her I could get her a bottle of white mixture from our Harry’s Emma, who scrubs the wards up at the grubber; the nurses would have given it to her. It would have skited everything out of her.’

  ‘Well, you know she wouldn’t do that, she’s a Catholic, Bella.’

  ‘Catholic, be damned! They tell ’em to have bairns, but do they bloody well keep them? I’d like to see any priest tell me I must have bairns. Do you know what I’d say?’

  Hannah chuckled. ‘I’ve a pretty good idea . . . Look, there she is, there’s Mary Ellen. She looks like death.’

  They both became silent and watched the woman below picking up the two picture frames from the road. The loose glass splintered about her feet as she shook the frames, and as she shooed some children away from the broken chamber, Hannah remarked, regretfully, ‘Pity about that. It was a boody one, too.’

  Unblinkingly they watched the woman edge her way indoors, with neither a glance upwards nor to the right or left, although as they knew, she was fully aware of the watchers. Only the children were on the street, staring silently until the door closed, when they drew nearer, and some daring spirits, braving the glass, hitched themselves up on the high window sill to get their faces level with the hole. But as they did so the blind was dropped, and Hannah exclaimed, clicking her tongue, ‘She shouldn’t have done that—dropping the blind right down before dark—it’s the sign of a death. It’ll be the bairn, likely.’

  ‘Damn good job too. Better if it was her old man though, in case he lands her with another.’

  They turned slowly from the window, and Hannah said, ‘By, that wouldn’t have happened if John had been in; he’d have put a stop to that . . . Funny, isn’t it, Bella, that the old man doesn’t go for John.’

  ‘Not funny a bit. He’s afraid of him, if the truth was known. Old O’Brien and Dominic are both alike, full of wind and water. That’s why they fight . . . By God! I wish I was in Mary Ellen’s place for five minutes. I’d lay those two sods out with the poker! She’s soft, that’s what she is, soft as clarts . . . Are you going to stay for a cup of tea?’ she added. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, it won’t be a minute.’

  ‘No, lass, I’m not half through, and it’s getting on for dark.’

  Bella glanced sideways at Hannah. ‘Should you come across Mary Ellen—you see her more than I do—and she tells you what it was all about, knock up.’

  ‘Aye, I will. But there’s small chance. She’s close, is Mary Ellen. You know that.’

  ‘I know she doesn’t like me. Thinks I can’t mind me own business.’

  And she’s right there, thought Hannah.

  ‘And anyway, I’m not the s
ame colour as them,’ went on Bella nodding her long horse-face. ‘Me St Patrick’s Day’s colour’s blue. Wait until next Thursday week when Dominic’s wearing his shamrock. There’ll be skull and hair flying then. The fifteen streets won’t hold him . . . My God, remember last St Patrick’s Day? That was a do, eh?’ She laughed at the memory.

  ‘Eeh, Bella, I must be off.’ Hannah unwrapped her mottled arms, and banged out the creases in her coarse apron.

  ‘Well don’t forget to knock up if you hear owt.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  Hannah went down the stairs, walking sideways in case she slipped, as the stairs were too narrow for her feet encased in an old pair of men’s boots. By the time she reached the bottom she had also reached a decision: she wouldn’t tell Bella Bradley what she heard, if she heard owt at all. Too nosey was Bella, by half. She’d rather keep in with Mary Ellen, narrow as she was. At least she minded her own business. And her Joe warned her only last night against Bella Bradley. He said he’d bash her face in if he found her upstairs again—he was nettled after hearing what she said about their Nancy not being all there. He knew Nancy wasn’t all there, but it maddened him to hear anyone say it. More so now that Nancy was growing up . . . Hannah sighed. What would become of Nancy? She didn’t know. And anyway, there was no time to think now, the washing had to be finished.

  Across the road, in number 10 Fadden Street, Mary Ellen O’Brien worked in the semi-darkness behind the drawn blind. She adjusted the block of wood under the chest of drawers—the leg had been kicked off during the last row—and screwed in the knob of the top drawer. She picked up the grey blanket and patchwork quilt from the floor and spread them again over the lumpy bare mattress on the iron bed. She pushed the wicker table back into the centre of the room, and stood leaning on its weak support, breathing heavily. Her eyes, dry with the pricking dryness of sand, looked round the walls. They were quite bare . . . Well, they would remain so. The only two pictures in the house were now gone. Never again would she try to build up. She had told herself, if they went this time it would be the last.

  She looked towards the closed door, which led into the kitchen. She knew that beyond, on either side of the fireplace, they’d be sitting, spent. Their rage and passion flown, they would be like the two halves of one body, accepting each other now that the conflict was over for a time.

  She lifted her apron and wiped the sweat from her forehead. If only they weren’t so big . . . like giants. She hadn’t dared go between them this time because of the bairn . . . She put her hand on the raised globe of her stomach and felt a movement. It brought no sense of feeling to her other than that of apprehension. Why, oh why was she to have this all over again? Hadn’t she been through enough in her time? During the twenty-six years of her married life she had given birth to eleven bairns, and only five were alive, for which she thanked God. What she would have done with thirteen in these three rooms only the Almighty knew.

  A pain through her breast made her gasp, and she covered it with her hand, lifting up its weight. Last year this time they’d been flat . . . flat for all time she’d thought, for it was ten years since Katie was born. Practically every year since she was married she’d been dropped, but from Katie there’d been nothing. The pain shot through her again, and she remembered such a pain from the past. It was before John was born. She was as strong as a horse then, as small as she was, and she enjoyed the feeling of the pain, anticipating the tugging of the young mouth on the nipples . . . if it lived. It did live, and it was John . . . John, who had never given her any trouble. Oh, if they were all like John, and, at the other end of the scale, Katie. Funny that these two should be alike and the others so different from them. Dominic was different from the day he was born, the year after John. She had always been slightly afraid of Dominic, even when he was a child. It wasn’t that he alone suffered from the O’Brien rages, for they all did, except Katie. It was rather that there was something fiendish about Dominic. It showed in everything he did, in his teasing, in his laughter, and especially in his good-looking face. Like John and Mick, he took after his da for his looks. But although they all took after their da, Dominic and Mick were better looking than John. When she looked at her eldest son she had the feeling that the features which made the other two good looking made him ugly, and in some strange way this pleased her. To her mind it separated him entirely from them. It was his nose that made the difference, she supposed, with that funny little nob on the side of the nostril. He got that when he climbed the dock wall to get some coal that bad winter. He slipped and his nose was cut on the broken glass set in the top of the wall. The cut did not join properly and gave his face a quaint look from the side. But it wasn’t only his nose; John’s eyes were different from the others. They were large and brown too, but a different brown . . . dark and kind. That was it, they were kind, like Katie’s.

  She sighed and rubbed her hand gently round and round her breast. Then, hearing a shout coming through the kitchen from the back-yard, she moved her head impatiently—she never thought of Molly unless the girl made herself felt by sight or sound. Molly was . . . well, she couldn’t place Molly. She was of a too apparent mixture of them all, and so had no individuality of her own. She was swayed, first one way and then the other; even her rages could be deflected by a stronger will. No, Molly would be no heartache, for she aroused no feeling.

  Mary Ellen straightened her shoulders and refastened the top button of her blouse over her straining breasts before walking towards the kitchen door. It was no use standing here thinking; thinking got you nowhere. It was close on five o’clock and John would be in at half past. She’d have to get on with the tea . . . Thank God they fought in here and not in the kitchen. They might have knocked the pan of broth off the hob, and there was nearly fourpennorth of vegetables in besides a twopenny scrag end . . . Well, if you searched hard enough there was always something to be thankful for.

  As she expected, her husband and son were sitting one each side of the fireplace, their brows puckered over half-closed eyes. Shane’s grey hair was standing up straight in tufts; there was blood on the hair near his temple, and his high cheekbones were showing blue under the tightened skin. At the first glance she saw that his rage wasn’t entirely spent, for the muscle was moving in his cheek as he clenched and unclenched his teeth, and his limbs, as always, were jerking with the nerve tick. His knees, in their reddened moleskin trousers, were wide apart, and his feet were crossed below his hands, which were gripping the seat of the wooden armchair. His body looked as if it was still ready to spring . . . No, his rage wasn’t spent yet, because he was sober. He’d had only two shifts in this week and had tipped the money up. But Dominic had a full week. For three weeks now he’d worked full weeks. Not that it made much difference to her—she was lucky if she got ten shillings out of him. She often had to meet him at the dock gates to get even that . . . or send Katie. But Dominic’s rage was spent because he was drunk and happy.

  She took Dominic by the shoulder and shook him. ‘Here! Get yourself to bed.’

  He lifted his head and smiled crookedly at her, cracking the dried blood on his mouth as he did so. He looked at her out of one merry, brown eye, the other being hidden behind a curling lock of light brown, youthful hair.

  ‘All right, old girl.’

  He rose obediently to his feet, and some detached part of her marvelled for the countless time at his docility towards her when he was in drink. Why was it she could manage him when he was drunk? She even found herself liking him in this state. She had no fear of him in drink, when he spoke civilly to her, often with a touch of affection. But it was strange that even in drink she could have any affection for him now, for she remembered the look in his eyes during these past weeks when they lit on her stomach . . . ridicule, scorn, and something else . . . a something for which she could find no word. She pushed him before her into the bedroom, her head coming just to the bottom of his shoulder blades. She always wondered, when close to them, how she g
ave birth to such great men.

  Dominic sat down with a plop on the side of his bed and began to laugh. ‘If he wasn’t my old man I’d have knocked him stiff. But I’ll break his bloody neck the next time he interferes with me. I didn’t ask to be set on the ore boat—they want the young ’uns down the holds.’

  He fell back on the bed and lifted up his legs, and Mary Ellen immediately swung them down again. She took off his boots and loosened his belt, then unbuttoned his trousers and tugged them off his legs, leaving these looking particularly ludicrous in their tight long pants. Never in all the many times she had pulled trousers off them had she yet been able to conquer the feeling of revulsion. Husband or son, it was the same.

  She heaved him up by the shirt front and dragged off his coat. Then she let him fall back on to the bed. She threw the quilt over him and put his coat on top of it, and lifting his trousers quietly from the floor, she put them across her arm and went out, through the kitchen, past her husband, who now sat hunched up over the fire, and into the front room, where she turned out the contents of the trousers pockets on to the table.

  There was a half-sovereign, two two-shilling pieces, and four pennies. The half-sovereign he would have to stump up for his board, so she put that back into the pocket again, together with a two-shilling piece. The other two-shilling piece and the coppers went into a little cloth bag that dangled from a pin fastened to the inside of her skirt. It already held tenpence. She had taken to this device of the bag when Shane came back from the Boer War, because he lifted every penny he could get his fingers on for drink.

  She went back to the bedroom and quietly placed the trousers over the bed rail, and as she returned to the kitchen the window was darkened by a distorted bulk, and a gentle tap-tap came on the door.

  Mary Ellen sighed. As inevitably as the calm which followed the storm would come this tap-tap on the door after any disturbance in the house. She often thanked God for an upstairs neighbour such as Peggy Flaherty. Many a one, placed as she was above the noise and fighting that was almost part of the weekly routine, would have done more than object, she would have brought the pollis; and after a number of such visits they would have been in court and likely turned out of the house. Peggy was a bit queer; still, as God knew, there were worse states than being queer. But today, Mary Ellen felt tired, and even Peggy’s well-meant sympathy was an irritant. She opened the door, and would have smiled, if she could, at the quaint tact of this fat, dirty woman.