When she pushed open the door and stepped into the ward, the usual gabble of voices grew louder, and then stopped. Nellie could feel everyone’s eyes on her. She walked down the ward until she came to Mary’s bed.
It was empty, the pillow gone, the quilt pulled straight.
Nellie was surprised, but glad. If Mary was out of bed, she must be feeling much better. She looked around to see if Mary was sitting with the other women and children, but she was nowhere in sight. Where could she have gone to?
While Nellie was looking in puzzlement at the empty bed, she smelled a powerful reek of tobacco and felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned her head to see old Lizzie Buckley standing next to her, her little black pipe clutched in one hand. Lizzie was the queen of the ward. She was full of gossip, and always knew what was going on.
‘Lizzie, can you tell me where Mary Connell is?’ Nellie asked. ‘I was sure she’d get well, though I never thought it would happen so quickly.’
‘She’s gone, love,’ said Lizzie Buckley.
‘Well, I can see that,’ Nellie said, ‘and it’s a great relief to me, for it must mean she’s quite recovered. But it’s a shame, too, because I did want to surprise her! Where might she be?’
Lizzie frowned. ‘Sit yourself down,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and find the doctor. I’ll be back directly.’
A little alarmed now, Nellie sat on Mary’s bed. The other patients hung back, all except poor mad Rosie, who crawled up on her hands and knees, wagging her tousled head at Nellie and panting like a dog.
Soon Lizzie returned. ‘Go to the doctor’s room,’ she said. ‘He’ll explain everything. Down the corridor, first door on the left.’ She touched Nellie’s arm. ‘I’m sorry, love. God bless.’
Nellie felt cold in the pit of her stomach. What can they have done with my Mary? she wondered. And why did Lizzie say she was sorry? None of this makes the least bit of sense. Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, please make everything be all right!
She made her way to the doctor’s room and knocked on the open door.
‘Ah,’ said the doctor. ‘Miss O’Neill.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Nellie. ‘I’m looking for my friend Mary Connell. Could you be telling me where she is, please?’
The doctor clasped his hands as if he were about to pray. He leaned across his desk. ‘Ah,’ he said again. ‘I’m afraid I have some – ah – bad news for you.’
Bad news? Nellie froze. ‘Is my Mary worse? Have you moved her?’
The doctor unclasped his hands. ‘Miss O’Neill, I regret to say that Miss Connell died last week. The crisis came quite suddenly.’
Nellie’s heart stopped beating. Then it started again. The doctor must have made a mistake. He’d forgotten who Mary was. He must have more patients than he could count. How could he possibly remember them all?
‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ she said, ‘but my Mary can’t have died. The last time I saw her, she was getting better. You said she’d have to be here for some months. I remember you saying that. It’s been some months now, so she must be quite well again.’
‘There is no cure for consumption. I wish there were.’ The doctor leafed through a large leather-bound book on his desk and ran his finger down a page. ‘Mary Connell was admitted to this Infirmary on the twenty-first of June. It’s now’ – he consulted a calendar – ‘the thirteenth of September. During the last month her condition grew steadily worse.’ He looked up at Nellie. ‘She was buried in the paupers’ section of the West Terrace cemetery.’
Nellie shook her head. ‘But you were giving her better food,’ she said. ‘You were giving her medicine. I gave you money for it.’
‘So you did, but with various other expenses it didn’t last long.’
‘And Mary had her own money still.’
‘I saw none of it. I suspect that she was spending it on quack cures provided for her by – ah – one of the other patients.’
Nellie knew at once who he was talking about. ‘Sir, she’d never have bought anything from Lizzie Buckley. Lizzie gave my Mary the skitters – I know that for a fact.’
‘That may be so, but Lizzie is a good saleswoman. Miss Connell would not have been the only patient to buy the rubbish she has to offer.’ The doctor closed the book. ‘Sugar lozenges laced with nicotine and arsenic are Lizzie’s speciality. Believe me, if you know you are dying, you’ll try anything that might give you a hope of life.’
‘But, sir, Mary never thought she was dying! When I left her, she told me she was feeling better. Much better, that’s what she said.’
‘Miss O’Neill, I suspect that whatever Miss Connell told you was to make you feel better. She was very ill indeed. Now, if you’ll wait a minute …’ He stood up and left the room.
Nellie was numb. This could not be happening. There must be some mistake. Mary couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t!
The doctor returned, carrying a bundle wrapped in what Nellie recognised as Mary’s shawl. ‘I understand that Miss Connell had no family in this country apart from yourself,’ he said, ‘so her possessions, such as they are, now belong to you. You’ll have to sign a piece of paper to say you’ve taken them. If you can’t sign your name, a cross will do.’
He put the bundle on Nellie’s lap and slid a printed form across the desk, together with a pen and a bottle of ink. He pointed to where Nellie should sign.
Nellie didn’t trust herself to write her name, for her hands were shaking too much. She dipped the pen in the ink and drew a wobbly cross.
‘Have you any questions, Miss O’Neill?’
Nellie shook her head. ‘No, sir,’ she whispered.
‘Well, I don’t believe there’s anything else.’ He hesitated. ‘I can assure you that I cared for your friend as best I could. There was simply nothing further I could do for her.’
‘Of course, sir. Thank you, sir.’ And Nellie left the doctor’s room and walked blindly out into the street.
NELLIE had no idea where she was going. She just wanted to walk and walk and walk. The blisters on her feet burned like fire, but she scarcely noticed. Every part of her screamed that Mary wasn’t dead, it was all a lie. All she could do was push the dreadful lie away, push and push it away until she felt nothing at all.
As the sun began to set, she found herself in Rundle Street, standing outside the burnt-out ruin of Thompson’s Boarding House. She hadn’t planned to come here, but it was the only place she knew to return to.
The front door was boarded up, but the lower slats of wood had been prised away. Nellie put her hand on the door: it had no handle, and creaked open at her touch. Bending over, she squeezed her way into the building.
Inside, there was a strong smell of smoke and soot. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Nellie could see the familiar hallway, but not as she’d known it. Some of the flowery wallpaper had been ripped off, and elsewhere torn pieces dangled from the wall. The brass doorknobs she had once polished every week had been stripped from the doors. The staircase was completely blocked off. Nellie knew that most of the first floor had burnt away, so there was nowhere for the stairs to go.
She looked around. Here the big mirror had once hung, there the painting of a ship at sea. Over by the front door a hat-stand had stood. Nellie could remember clearly all the hats of the Thompson family: Mrs Thompson’s wideawake, Hetty’s bonnet with cherry-coloured ribbons, Will’s navy serge cap, Tom’s battered old straw.
She peered into the front room. It was empty except for a couple of mattresses on the floor. Nellie put her two bundles, hers and Mary’s, on the floor beside them.
At the end of the hallway was the kitchen, once the warm heart of the house. The door to it was open, sagging on one hinge.
A table and three chairs stood in the middle of the room, and there were some cooking pots on the stove. Nellie was sure Mrs Thompson had taken all her pots and pans when the family left for the Burra. Where had these come from?
Moving closer, she found that the stove was warm. She opened th
e grate: it was full of ash, and a few small coals twinkled in the light rush of air. She closed the grate again, wondering.
I’m so tired, she thought. I don’t care who lives here, so long as they leave me alone. Returning to the front room, she lay down on one of the mattresses. Moments later she was asleep.
‘Get out, you spalpeen! To hell with you, sleeping in my bed!’
Nellie became aware of candlelight. Then she was more sharply aware of a thump in her back, the sort of painful thump that came from a booted foot.
Instantly awake, she sat up. ‘Who’s that calling me a spalpeen?’ she asked angrily.
There was another kick, a harder one this time. ‘Never mind who it is. Get out this minute!’
‘Go away, or you’ll be sorry!’ said another voice, a higher voice. ‘We’ll get the police on to you, so we will!’
Nellie scrambled to her feet. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ she said, peering at the intruders in the flickering light. ‘Is it you, Peggy Duffy? And Sarah Ryan?’
‘How would you be knowing our names?’ demanded Peggy Duffy. Then she stared at Nellie. ‘You’re never Nellie O’Neill from Killarney!’ She put the candlestick on the floor and gave Nellie a hug. ‘Sarah!’ she cried. ‘It’s Nellie O’Neill!’
‘It is myself,’ said Nellie, returning the hug. ‘And might I ask what you two are doing here?’
‘We’ve lived here for the past few weeks,’ said Peggy. ‘We’d nowhere else to go. Nobody wants to employ us Irish girls at all – it’s like there’s a curse on us. And then, when we were looking for somewhere to sleep, we found this place. It’s not much, but it’s a sight better than the gutter. Plenty of the girls are living on the streets. It’s a sad thing, seeing what they’ve come to.’
‘Some of them must be wishing now they’d stayed in the workhouse,’ Nellie said. ‘They’d be fed there, at least.’
‘Oh, it’s easy enough to get food if you’re not picky,’ said Peggy. ‘Sarah and I get most of our food from hotel kitchens. You’d be surprised what they throw away – whole loaves of bread sometimes, only a few days old. And as for money …’ Her eyes gleamed in the candlelight. ‘Well, you could say we find it. Here and there.’
‘You mean you steal from people, Peg? Is that it?’ But Nellie knew it was true: hadn’t she heard one of the girls at the Immigration Depot, months ago, say that Peggy Duffy had been thieving?
‘It’s not really stealing,’ Sarah said. ‘When we were shipped out here, we were told we’d get jobs. We didn’t ask to come, and it’s not our fault nobody wants us. So we’re only taking what we’re owed, aren’t we?’
Nellie sighed. ‘I’d not blame you for feeling that way,’ she said. ‘I have no job myself, and no idea what I’m to do next.’
‘You could join us,’ said Peggy. ‘You and your friend Mary Connell. Where is Mary, now? I thought you two were always together.’
‘We were together,’ Nellie said. She stopped. ‘And then I went away from her. And when I came back, which was only today, I found out that my Mary … I found out that my Mary was dead.’ There, she’d said the words. And it was only words, after all, wasn’t it? Saying them didn’t make them true.
Peggy put an arm around her. ‘Oh, Nell, that’s a terrible thing. Was it a sickness, or did she have an accident? On the farm next to where I was working, little Bridie Sullivan was gored to death by a bull, would you believe it?’
‘It was sickness, Peg. She was sick in the lungs. I thought she was getting better, but she wasn’t.’
‘I’m sorry, Nell. You’ll be missing her.’
‘Yes.’
All the girls were silent. Then Peggy said, ‘Did you get Mary’s things? They could be worth a few pennies.’
‘I did get them, Peg, but I’ll never sell them. I couldn’t do that, not even if I was starving.’
‘You’ll need money, though. Why don’t you stay here with us? We can work together.’
Why not? Nellie thought, heavily. There’s nothing else for me. ‘I can stay for a while, and thank you,’ she said.
‘Right, so,’ Peggy said with satisfaction. ‘Let’s go and eat. Are you hungry, Nell?’
They all went down to the kitchen, and Peggy took half a loaf of bread from a wooden box on the floor. She gave a hunk of it to Nellie. ‘It’s from the cook at the Newmarket Hotel – he looks out for us. And here’s a bit of cheese, best cheddar.’
The last food Nellie had eaten was the marmalade sandwich Mrs Cameron had given her. It seemed a lifetime ago. To her surprise she realised that she was famished. She tore at the bread with her teeth and swallowed it, together with the mouldy cheese, in big chunks.
All she could think about was filling the ache in her stomach – or was it an ache in her heart? For the moment, that was enough.
‘I’LL show you how to pick a pocket, now,’ said Peggy. It was late the next morning: the girls had talked far into the night, sharing their memories of the Killarney workhouse and the voyage out on the Elgin. ‘It takes planning, and it’s best if you work in pairs.’
Nellie nodded.
‘First of all, you have to choose your mark. Men outside hotels are the best choice, and even better if they’ve had a few drinks. You want someone who’s on his own – maybe from out of town. One of you looks him in the eye and says something like, “Sir, could you tell me where I might be finding Saint Patrick’s Church?” That’ll put him off the scent, because he’ll think that if you’re off to church, you must be a good girl. Once you’ve got him talking, your partner slips a hand in his pocket. I’m the best at that, because I’ve the lightest fingers. Sarah’s too nervy to do a good job – she flaps around like an old hen.’
‘I do not!’ Sarah replied indignantly. ‘I’m as good at picking pockets as you are, Peggy Duffy, so there!’
‘It’s important that you stay cool,’ Peggy continued, taking no notice of Sarah. ‘You just keep on talking, very friendly, till you see your partner has got away. Then off you walk, easy as you like. Can you do that, do you think?’
Inwardly, Nellie shuddered. Surely the blessed saints would never forgive her for such a thing! Wouldn’t it be a mortal sin? She remembered Father Donnelly, the priest at Killarney, talking about mortal sins. But clearly now the blessed saints had stopped watching over her, so why should she care what they thought? She nodded again.
‘We get money from begging, too,’ Sarah said. ‘Peg can’t do it anymore, though, because she’s grown too stout.’ She looked sideways at Peggy. ‘If you’re skinny like me, people feel sorry for you. Oh, the poor starving little orphan, they think.’
Nellie munched on a crust of the week-old bread. There was hardly any food in the house. The kitchen was a mess of dirty pots and pans, the floor gritty, the ceiling water-stained. Nellie remembered how it used to look – shining clean, with everything put away in its proper place, and Sooty the cat curled up in front of the stove. It was here in this very room that Tom had started to teach her to read.
‘You do want to help us, don’t you, Nell?’ Peggy asked sharply.
‘What? Oh, yes.’ Nellie put her hand in her pocket and found the apple Mrs Cameron had given her. She’d meant it as a surprise for Mary, but it was no use to Mary now.
As she bit into the apple, she saw in her mind the Cameron family, living on their farm so far from anywhere, but happy in each other’s company. It was the sort of life she’d once imagined for herself and Mary …
How daft she was to have thought that a dream like that could ever come true! Sure, it was the present she had to think about.
She looked up: Peggy and Sarah were gazing at her expectantly.
‘What do we do with the money, so?’ she asked. ‘Do we each keep what we’ve taken?’
‘We share it between us,’ Sarah told her. ‘Usually we get enough to live on, and sometimes a bit over. We save that for treats.’
‘We go to the sweet shop on Currie Street and we buy humbugs,’ Peggy said. ‘Lots o
f humbugs. And toffees and sugared almonds and lolly balls. You’d like them, Nell. We never had such things at the workhouse, did we?’
‘No, we never did.’ Nellie finished the apple, and wiped her fingers on her skirt. She was still empty. Not hungry, exactly, but hollow. That ache just wouldn’t go away. ‘Well then, I’d best get started.’
It had been raining, but Rundle Street was busy with carriages and carts, riders and pedestrians. Walking beside Peggy, listening to her chatter, Nellie took a deep breath of fresh air. She was glad to be away from the closed-in, decayed smell of the boarding house. But still she felt as if she was just the empty shell of Nellie O’Neill. There was nothing inside her, nothing at all.
At the intersection with King William Street, Peggy stopped at a stretch of bare muddy pathway outside a chemist’s shop. ‘This here’s not a bad pitch,’ she said. She handed Nellie an old tin mug. ‘Once you’ve got some coins in it, give ’em a rattle so people will notice you. Do try to look miserable, now. I’ll be off down the street, but I’ll be back for you.’
Pulling her shawl over her bare head, Nellie looked at the people walking past. Well, she thought, here I am; and didn’t Bessie Rudge always say I’d end up on the street? She might have been a bad person, but she was right, the creature.
She found a dry patch beneath an awning, sat down and held out her begging mug. People continued to walk past, barely glancing at her. After a while a little girl in a lace bonnet stood squarely in front of her and stuck out her tongue. Nellie stuck out her tongue back. The little girl giggled and looked up at her mother. ‘Look at that rude girl, Mama,’ she said. ‘She’s so dirty, and she has great big holes in her boots, look!’
The cheek of it! Nellie thought. She put out her tongue again, and crossed her eyes for good measure. The child put her thumb in her mouth and stared at Nellie as her mother pulled her away.
Soon after that a young man threw a penny into her lap, and Nellie put it in the mug and rattled it. A smartly dressed woman, looking down her nose, gave her a small card and sniffed disapprovingly before walking on. Nellie looked at the scrap of card. Slowly she made out the words on it: JESUS SAVES.
Nellie's Greatest Wish Page 2
