The Fifteen Streets

by Catherine Cookson

  His mother was always saying thinking got you nowhere; you must have faith and rely on that. Faith! He looked at her now, pounding a great piece of dough, the second batch of bread she had baked today. What had faith done for her? She could hardly get her arms into the bowl for the roundness of her stomach. He took his eyes from her. Where would they put the bairn when it came? He’d have to try and rig up something out of boxes—the clothes basket that had served them all as a cradle was done long since. He pulled his legs up hastily as Dominic made to pass him on his way to the bedroom.

  Mary Ellen called after Dominic, ‘Don’t lie on that bed with those boots on, mind!’ but the only answer she received was the banging of the door.

  John settled himself back against the wall: he always felt easier when Dominic was out of the room. He had finished one boot and was preparing the thread by rubbing it with tallow for patching the other when he heard his mother give a startled mutter. She was looking out through the kitchen window, and she exclaimed, ‘I don’t want them in here!’

  As she rubbed the dough off her hands, there came a knock on the kitchen door. Katie was about to open it, but Mary Ellen said, ‘Hold on. I’ll see to it.’ When she opened the door, there stood the old man and the girl.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs O’Brien.’ It was the old man who spoke, and his voice was as kindly as his smile; but Mary Ellen would not allow it to make any impression on her. She didn’t reply, but stared at them fixedly, the door held firmly in her hand, while he went on, ‘I thought we would just come round and get acquainted. And also ask you to thank your son for helping my boy last night.’

  Mary Ellen’s eyes darted to the girl. She was wearing a waterproof coat with a hood attached, and from under it she smiled at Mary Ellen, like a child who was asking to be liked. They were barmy, Mary Ellen thought. Their Mick had nearly done for the lad, and here they were, coming to thank John! They weren’t all there, either of them—they couldn’t be. She wanted no truck with them. She was aware that the old man was becoming drenched, but that was his look-out; they weren’t crossing the doorstep.

  She was saying abruptly, ‘That’s all right. It was our Mick’s fault, anyway,’ when she felt her hand taken from the door, and John stood there, saying, ‘Won’t you come in?’ It wasn’t often she got angry with John, but now it took her all her time not to turn on him.

  The old man said, ‘Thank you. Thank you. Are you by any chance the Mr O’Brien I owe so much to?’

  Pushing two chairs forward John said, ‘Take a seat.’ He did not look at the girl, but went on, ‘It’s us should be doing the thanking. Not many people would be taking it like this.’ Then he turned to Shane: ‘This is my father.’

  Shane reluctantly took the proffered hand and muttered something, and his head, which had been still, began to jerk.

  The old man, seeming not to notice the lack of cordiality, said, ‘My name’s Peter Bracken. And this is my granddaughter, Christine.’

  Shane nodded, and after a short silence that was broken only by the scraping of chairs, he turned to Mary Ellen, now vigorously pounding the dough, and said, ‘I’m off to see if there’s anything in.’ He pulled his steaming coat off the rod that ran under the mantelshelf, and with a final nod towards Mr Bracken, he went out.

  Mary Ellen watched his huge figure slumping down the yard. Off to see if there’s anything in at this time of the day! It was just to get out of the way; he hated to talk to strangers at any time. There was a faint wreath of steam still hovering about the shoulders of his coat as he disappeared into the back lane. It brought a tightness to her breast, and she murmured to herself, ‘Shane, Shane,’ as she was wont to do years ago when her pity was mixed with love. And the feeling made her more resentful towards the pair sitting behind her. Now he’d be wet to the skin, and his twitching would go on all night.

  She knew she was being very bad mannered standing with her back to them, but she couldn’t help it; yet she found herself listening to the girl talking to Katie. They were talking about the book, Katie’s voice sounding broad in comparison with the girl’s, which was quiet and even and without dialect. And then she found herself listening to John. He was talking more than she had heard him do so before. He was talking to the old fellow about the docks and the kind of boats that came in and what they brought . . . iron ore from Bilbao, black fine ore from Benisaf, the heavy ore from Sweden that made the steel, esparto grass for paper, prop boats from Russia, with the cargo stacked from one end of the boat to the other to make the tonnage. As if the old fellow would want to know all that! She had never heard him talk so much about the docks before. He went on to speak of the unloading as if he had been down the holds all his life, instead of just two years. What had come over him? Perhaps he was doing it because she was offhand with them. Well, he knew she wanted no truck with them; and they were a thick-skinned pair to sit there knowing, as they must know, that they weren’t wanted.

  ‘I suppose you are always kept busy, Mrs O’Brien?’

  She started, and was forced to half turn her body and look at the old man, and to answer him civilly: ‘Yes, most of the time I’m at it.’

  ‘You must find it very hard looking after such a big family. And I mean big,’ he laughed.

  ‘Well, you’ve got to take what God sends.’ Immediately she felt she had said the wrong thing, giving him an opening to start his ranting, but to her surprise he didn’t take it.

  He stood up, saying, ‘Well, we mustn’t delay you—I just felt I would like to make your acquaintance, Mrs O’Brien.’

  Mary Ellen turned from the dish, again forced to respond, this time with a smile. It was funny, but they seemed all right. Was this spook business just an idle rumour? People were in the habit of making a lot out of nowt.

  She returned the girl’s smile too, but when she saw John, silent now, looking at the lass, the smile froze on her face. She didn’t want any of that kind of truck, not for John she didn’t . . . Dominic could do what he liked.

  There was another knock on the front door, and this time she had to tell Katie, who was hanging on to the girl’s hand, to go and open it.

  Christine spoke directly to Mary Ellen for the first time. ‘Will you let Katie come in to tea, Mrs O’Brien? It’s rather a special occasion, it’s Grandfather’s birthday.’

  She cast a smile, full of light, on the old man, and he said, ‘Sh!’

  She answered, ‘No, I won’t. Do you know how old he is?’ She was speaking to John now, looking up into his face.

  John’s eyes twinkled, and he answered seriously, ‘Twenty-six.’

  They all laughed, except Mary Ellen.

  ‘You’re just sixty years out!’ said the girl.

  ‘You’re not eighty-six!’ Amazement brought the words out of Mary Ellen.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I am, Mrs O’Brien.’

  Mary Ellen stared at the straight, lean body of Peter Bracken, at his unlined face and deep-set eyes, shining like black coals. The only sign of real age was the white hair, and he was eighty-six. Fear of him overcame her again. You didn’t reach eighty-six and be like that, not naturally you didn’t. Shane was fifty-seven, and he was old. She had known men live to eighty, but they ended their days in bed, or on sticks. No, her instinct had been right at first . . . there was something funny about them, something beyond her understanding; and she wanted no truck with them.

  She was brought from her fear by the sound of footsteps accompanying Katie’s through the front room. Who on earth could Katie have let in now!

  The small, black-clad figure standing in the open doorway soon informed her. She gasped at the sight of Father O’Malley. His presence always meant a rating for something or other. Today it would be Katie off school and Mick being kept from Mass last Sunday. Oh, she’d had enough for one day! And there were these two still standing there, not smiling now but staring at the priest as if they were struck.

  ‘Good afternoon, Father. Will you take a seat? It’s dreadful weather; you must
be wet.’ Mary Ellen was doing her duty. At the same time, she noticed the half-inch thick soles on the priest’s stout boots, and chided herself for thinking: It’ll take some water to get through them.

  John spoke next: ‘Good afternoon, Father.’

  ‘Good afternoon,’ said Father O’Malley, in his thin, tight voice; but he looked neither at Mary Ellen nor at John, for his eyes were fixed on those of Peter Bracken.

  Noting this, John said, ‘Mr Bracken’s a new neighbour of ours, Father.’

  The priest did not answer, and Peter Bracken said, quietly, ‘Father O’Malley and I already know one another.’

  ‘What is this man doing in your house?’

  Mary Ellen knew the priest was addressing her, although he did not look at her. She shivered and said hesitantly, ‘Well Father . . .’

  ‘Order him to leave at once! And forbid him the door in future.’

  Mary Ellen twisted the corner of her apron and turned towards Mr Bracken and the girl. But before she could get the words out, John broke in sharply, ‘Hold your hand a minute! Me da’s not in, and next to him I’m head of this house, such as it is, and I’m telling no-one to get out, Father.’

  The priest swung round on him, his eyes almost lost behind their narrowed lids and the double lenses of his glasses: ‘So you are head of the house, are you? And you will take the responsibility on your soul for associating with this man?’

  ‘I know nothing against the man.’ John’s face was as set as the priest’s.

  ‘You don’t?’ Father O’Malley raised his eyebrows. ‘Then you’re about the only one in these parts who doesn’t. I will enlighten you. This man is an enemy of the Catholic Church . . .’

  ‘That is not true! I’m an enemy of no church . . .’

  Father O’Malley cut short Peter Bracken’s protest, and went on: ‘Why, I ask you, is a man of his standing living in a quarter like this? Because he makes it his business to live among Catholics so he can turn them against the Church.’

  ‘I live wherever there is fear and poverty, and try to erase it.’ The old man’s face was no longer placid; it was alight with a force and energy that gave the impression he was towering above them all.

  ‘Do you know what this man had dared to say? Only that he has a power equal to that of Christ!’ Father O’Malley’s eyes bored into Mary Ellen’s and then into John’s. ‘In fact, he says he is a Christ!’

  John, his eyes wide and questioning now, looked to Mr Bracken for denial. But none came.

  ‘You know you are twisting my words!’ cried the old man. ‘What I maintain is we all have the power to be Christs. If we are made in God’s image and likeness, then it stands to reason we are part of Him; our spirit is pure God material. The only difference between my spirit and God’s is the size of it—the quality is exactly the same. That is what I preach. And the more I become aware of my spirit, the more I get in touch with it, the more Godlike things I can do . . . And I have done Godlike things—’ Mr Bracken pointed at the priest: ‘You know I have! And it is this very proof that upsets your slavish doctrine.’

  ‘Silence!’ Father O’Malley’s voice was like deep and terrible thunder.

  Mary Ellen clutched at the neck of her blouse, and Katie hid her face in the folds of her mother’s skirt; the bedroom door opened and Dominic came into the kitchen, but no-one took any notice of him.

  The priest’s voice dropped low in his throat. He addressed himself to John. ‘Are you asking for any more proof than that?’

  Before John could answer, the girl spoke, ‘My grandfather will give him proof—he will show him his own power, and free him from you and your like. It is not God’s will, as you preach, that he or anyone else should live in poverty and ignorance all his days. If they were made aware of their own power they would throw all this off.’ She flung her arms wide and took a step towards the priest. ‘You would stop them from thinking—for once they think, they question. And they mustn’t question, must they? They must accept! It wouldn’t do for them to realise there’s no purgatory or heaven or hell but what they make themselves!’

  Before John’s eyes there rose the picture of Miss Llewellyn leaning back against the wind, saying, ‘Take the heaven you are sure of.’ Then his mind was brought back to this slip of a girl facing up to a man like Father O’Malley; not only facing up to him, but attacking him. What she was saying was quite mad, but she had courage.

  The thought saddened him; it might be the courage of fanaticism, and she looked too sweet and girlish to be imbued with fanaticism.

  The old man drew her back to his side, saying, ‘Be serene, Christine. Remember, anger poisons.’

  Father O’Malley’s voice cast a deadly chill over the room as he said, ‘The day is not far hence when you will rot in hell for your blasphemy!’

  ‘The day is not far hence,’ took up Peter Bracken, ‘when your sect, if it does not throw off its dogmatism and learn toleration, will be fighting for its life; for there are seeds in the wombs of women, at this moment, that in thirty, forty or fifty years’ time will shake the foundations of your preaching. The minds of people are moving. They are searching for the truth—they are reading. And what are they reading first?—the very books that are forbidden by your Church, for the first question the groping mind asks is: Why have these books been forbidden?’

  Father O’Malley looked as if he was about to choke—black anger swamped his face. After a silence, tensed to breaking point, he addressed Mary Ellen, ‘I leave you and your conscience to judge. And remember, I am warning you . . . disaster and damnation follow this man. If you wish to save your immortal soul and those of your family, throw him out as you would a snake!’ His eyes burned into Mary Ellen’s for a second, and then he was gone. And the banging of the front door shook the house.

  It occurred to John that Father O’Malley had ignored him because he stood up to him; it was noticeable that the priest concentrated on his mother because she was afraid. He looked towards her. She was leaning on the table with one hand; the other was held under her breast tight against her heart. And she was shivering.

  Dominic spoke for the first time: ‘Don’t take any notice of him; he thinks he’s still in Ireland.’ His words weren’t spoken to his mother, but to the girl. But she did not return his glance, or answer him, for she was staring at Mary Ellen.

  Into this tense atmosphere came Mick. He entered the kitchen, his head on one side and his hand over his ear. ‘Ma, me ear’s runnin’ and it’s ach . . .’ He stopped short at the sight of Mr Bracken and glanced quickly from him to John.

  No-one moved for a second until Peter Bracken exclaimed in an exalted voice, ‘Mrs O’Brien, I will show you! Your boy has earache, probably an abscess. I will cure it. Through the great healing power of God I will cure it.’

  He made a step towards Mick, and in a moment the kitchen became quickened into life. Mary Ellen flung herself between them, intending to grab Mick to her, but Mick, thinking of last night and taking Peter’s cure to mean much the same thing as when his mother boxed his ears, saying, ‘I’ll cure you!’ sprang away from them both. Mary Ellen made a wild grab at the air, overbalanced and twisted herself to clutch at John’s hands that were outstretched to her but missed them and fell on her side on to the mat.

  Mary Ellen knew, almost as she fell, what had happened. The blinding pain, like a red-hot steel wire, starting in her womb and forcing itself up through her body and out of her head, blotted out even itself in its transit. When next she felt it she was lying on the bed—the pain was filling all her pores and forcing out sweat. She opened her eyes and looked up into John’s face. She wanted to say to him, ‘Don’t worry, lad. Don’t worry,’ for his face was like death, but she could utter no word.

  The hot wire was boring again, identifying itself from the other pains by an intensity that no previous labour had brought to her. It left no room even for fear when she realised that that Bracken man was near her; nor did she feel any element of surprise when she heard him
saying, ‘I’ll go in and work at her head through the wall. Take her hand and don’t let go.’

  Mary Ellen felt her hand being taken between two soft palms, and she did as she was bidden when his voice came directly to her, as if through a thick fog, saying, ‘Hold on to Christine, Mrs O’Brien, and the pain will go.’

  As the pain forced her knees up and her head down into her chest, Mary Ellen gripped the girl’s hand. And when she next regained consciousness she knew she was not on the bed but above it, lying on a sort of soft platform, and the girl was still by her side, while Hannah Kelly and Nurse Snell were working on somebody lying on the bed. And then the doctor came, not the shilling doctor, but Doctor Davidson from Jarrow, and she wondered vaguely who would pay him. He reached up and took her hand and tried to unloosen it from the girl’s, but as he did so Mary Ellen felt herself dropping down into that contorted mass below her, and she clung on like grim death to the soft hand. She heard him say, ‘You’re Peter Bracken’s granddaughter, aren’t you?’ There followed a silence. Then his voice came again, ‘Well, there are stranger things in heaven and earth than this world dreams of; and I won’t despise your help, because I’m going to need it.’

  She lay for years on the platform with queer sensations passing through her body, and the next voice she heard was that of Shane, muttering, ‘Mary Ellen, lass, Mary Ellen.’

  She knew he was crying, and she wondered at it. She thought of the time when he loved her and she loved him—it was all so long ago. What had happened since? Nothing. He still loved her, but she loved Katie and John. But they didn’t love Shane—he had no-one but her. What would happen to him when she died she didn’t know—and it didn’t seem to matter.

  It was odd, but rather nice, lying here thinking untroubled thoughts. She hadn’t to get up and see about the baking or washing or meals, or, what was more important, money. She had an ache somewhere, but she couldn’t lay her finger on it. And she was conscious of smiling when the doctor reached up and, lifting her eyelid, exclaimed, ‘Odd, very odd.’