She bowed her head, covered her face with her shawl and walked quickly across the cobbles towards the tunnel that was the only entry and exit point to this hidden enclave. The square sported the official name of Verschoyle Place but the inhabitants, for no apparent reason, never called it anything but The Lane.
Ivy wrinkled her finely formed nose at the stench that seemed to reach out of the tunnel and choke her. The wide tunnel was cut into a high wall that formed the fourth section of the square. The wall protected the rear entrances of the prosperous Mount Street houses from their impoverished neighbours.
One wall of the tunnel stretched along the side of the last house on Mount Street. The wall on the opposite side formed the side wall of the public house that occupied the rest of Mount Street and backed onto the livery. The drunks who fell out of the pub daily used the tunnel as a public toilet. The women of The Lane battled constantly with the odour of stale urine, but no matter how many times they scrubbed the tunnel out, it still stank.
Ivy stood for a moment with the rank-smelling tunnel at her back. She ignored the shouted comments of the drunks standing outside the public house as she gazed around at a world that had suddenly become alien to her. She knew this area like the back of her hand. How could she suddenly feel so lost?
The Georgian mansions that marched along both sides of Mount Street blazed and sparkled in the sharp icy-cold air. Snow-white steps leading up to impressive doors with polished brass fittings lined both sides of the street. One row of Mount Street mansions elegantly hid most of the poverty-stricken world mere steps from their rear gardens. Mount Street was a different world entirely from the world Ivy and her friends inhabited.
Which way should she go? If she had a ha’penny for the charabanc she could walk through Merrion Square towards Grafton Street and public transport, but it would be Shank’s mare all the way for her. The biting cold of the stones under her feet ate through the paper covering the holes in the soles of her shoes.
Ivy turned towards the Grand Canal. She’d follow the canal, walking along the pathways worn bald by the constant passage of the horses that pulled the barges travelling from Dublin to Kildare daily. Following the canal would take at least twenty minutes off the hour-long walk. The bare earth should be warmer and softer than the stone pavements.
Ivy felt invisible, a lost soul no-one could see, moving along the river path without friend or family to comfort or console her. Her da was gone. The big noisy laughing rogue that broke her heart once a day and twice on Sunday was dead. What was she going to do without him?
Ivy had been looking after her da since her ninth birthday. Ever since her ma had taken the mail-boat to England leaving her da alone with four kids under nine to raise. Ivy covered her mouth with her hand, pushing back the laugh that seemed disrespectful under the circumstances. Her da raise the kids? That was a joke. Ivy had become the mother and chief earner of the family from that day to this. It was Ivy who walked the streets pushing a pram, begging clothes and unwanted items from the wealthy houses that encaged her world. It was Ivy who sat up all night cutting and stitching at the discarded clothing, turning rags into money-making serviceable items she’d sold back to the servants of the houses she frequented.
She stepped off the path to let a horse-drawn barge pass her by. She waved to the people on board, wondering what life would be like living on one of those floating homes. Was it any better than the life she led? She shrugged and turned to walk on.
A sudden thought almost brought her to her knees. The rent book – had her da changed the title-holder like he’d promised? Sweet Lord, was she about to lose her home as well as everything else? She thought back frantically to her twenty-first birthday – hadn’t her da boasted to his cronies about being a modern man and changing the rent book to her name now she was a woman grown? Whose name was on the rent book? If it was still in her da’s name she’d be evicted. Her ma had shouted often enough, “You can eat in the street but you can’t sleep in the street!” Dear God, was she about to become homeless? She could end up in the poorhouse.
Ivy tried to think back – late last year, when she turned twenty-one, had the name on the rent book been changed? She’d check as soon as she returned home. It would be the first thing she did. Ivy shook herself like a wet dog. She couldn’t think about that, not now that she was at the back end of Kevin’s Hospital. Garda Collins said the morgue was in the basement. She’d visit her da and pray for a miracle, some kind of a sign.
Ivy stared at the large signs with pointing arrows in despair. How she longed to be able to read the words! She could follow the arrows with her head held high then. A sigh that seemed to start at her feet shook her slender frame. It wasn’t to be. She was ignorant, stupid. The pretty squiggles meant nothing to her.
Ivy ignored the tuts of disgust she received from the people she asked directions from. She was used to that. She just wanted to see her da. Make sure it was really him. Maybe the police had made a mistake. Her big laughing da couldn’t be dead. Not her da, the larger-than-life Éamonn Murphy.
It took a lot of time and effort but finally Ivy was outside the cold grey doors that led to the morgue. She was shaking, unaware of the tears that soaked into the part of the woollen shawl she’d wrapped around her face. Her hands were blue, frozen, but she forced herself to apply pressure and push the heavy doors apart.
Chapter 2
Ann Marie Gannon watched the wide double doors of the morgue open slowly. She wondered who else was on duty this New Year’s Day. Ann Marie had drawn the short straw yet again. Everyone knew she lived with her uncle and was a soft touch. Every holiday or feast day, here she sat filing reports and shivering in the badly heated small office attached to the morgue, her only company the dead.
“Can I help you?” Ann Marie came out of her office and into the frozen stillness of the morgue. She walked slowly over to the visitor. She didn’t judge the strangely dressed figure standing frozen with her back to the double doors of the entryway. Death didn’t distinguish between social classes. She saw all sorts down here.
“Me da,” Ivy croaked, pushing the shawl away from her face, being careful to leave her head decently covered. “They said me da was down here.”
“What’s your da’s name?” Ann Marie asked gently. There were corpses in here with more colour in their faces than this poor woman.
“He’s me da.” Ivy stared at the woman, seeing only the white coat. She couldn’t be a doctor – everyone knew that was impossible.
“What’s his name?” Ann Marie repeated.
“Éamonn Murphy,” Ivy forced out through chattering teeth. “They told me me da would be in here.”
“Ah yes . . .” Ann Marie turned her head towards the sheet-shrouded tables that lined the cavernous space, then turned back in time to see the woman sink gracefully to the floor.
Ann Marie wasn’t surprised. This happened a great deal in here but normally there were more people around to lend a hand. She didn’t try to catch the woman. She was taller than Ann Marie. It was difficult to judge her size in the bulky clothes she wore but at a quick glance she outweighed Ann Marie by several stone.
“My goodness!” Ann Marie put her hands under Ivy’s arms and began to pull her along the floor out of the path of the slowly opening door.
“Another one overcome by your stunning beauty, Ann Marie?” Austin Quigley, one of the hospital porters, stuck his face through the opening gap.
“Give me a hand here Austin, please.” Ann Marie ignored his lame remark. The man was a joker but now was not the time. “She must have bird bones because in spite of her size she’s light as a feather.”
“It’s all bulky clothes I imagine,” Austin grunted as he picked Ivy’s unconscious form up from the floor. He stood holding the inert body, waiting for his instructions. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognise the signs of slow starvation in her face. The Good Lord knows it’s a common enough sight where I live.”
“How in the name of goodnes
s would I be able to see anything under all those rags? Bring her into my office please, Austin.” Ann Marie hurried back in the direction of her private kingdom. She held the office door open for Austin to pass through with his burden. “Listen, Austin – could you sneak a bowl of soup and a couple of buttered rolls from the doctors’ kitchen?”
“Her table manners will probably upset your stomach.” Austin wasn’t joking. Ann Marie had a heart of gold but her weak stomach was a standing joke. Bad table manners had been known to cause her stomach to revolt.
“Austin, you would try the patience of a saint! Would you please put her down here?” She indicated the visitor’s chair in front of her desk. “If you could bring this poor woman a bowl of soup I’d appreciate it.” Ann Marie knew the porters helped themselves to the food in the doctors’ kitchen. She didn’t see why this poor creature couldn’t have a little something. No-one would miss it.
“If I get caught stealing I’m blaming you, Ann Marie Gannon!” Austin put the woman in the chair and turned to leave. He walked swiftly back out through the office door, pulling the door closed quickly to keep the heat inside where it was needed. The poor sods in the main part of the morgue didn’t need heating. Austin pulled the morgue’s main doors open and hurried away to see what he could finagle from the well-stocked doctor’s kitchen.
“Oh me aching head, what happened?” Ivy held a shaking hand to her head. Her stomach felt sick. “Where am I?”
“Just sit still a moment, dear.” Ann Marie walked over to sit behind her desk. “You fainted.”
“I’ve never fainted in me life!” Ivy snapped, struggling to find an inner balance. “Oh, I remember . . .” she sighed. “I prayed it was a dream.”
Ivy made a concentrated effort to force her eyes to focus on the woman sitting behind the desk. The pretty face, with its peaches-and-cream complexion, was framed by hair the colour of toffee and pale-blue eyes beamed goodwill from behind wire-framed glasses. To Ivy’s befuddled eyes the woman looked as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Working in a place of death, how could she look so at peace?
“I’m sorry,” Ivy said. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“No need to apologise to me,” Ann Marie said and smiled. Before she could add anything else the phone on her desk rang. To her complete amazement the young woman almost jumped out of her skin. Ann Marie grabbed the phone, wanting to stop its strident demand before the woman fainted again.
Ivy watched, her eyes hurting they were open so wide. This must be one of them telephone things she’d been hearing about. Wasn’t that a wonder? Without a pause the woman put something against her ear and spoke aloud into the black thing she was holding up to her face. As Ivy watched in stunned admiration, the woman took a paper out of a nearby huge grey drawer and read from it into the phone, unaware of the genuine awe and envy of her audience. The woman was obviously well educated, Ivy thought and sighed. What would that be like?
Ann Marie completed her phone call and returned the file to its drawer. “I’m sorry about that,” she said, smiling at Ivy. “I don’t know your name.” She waited, the smile still curving her pale lips.
“Ivy,” Ivy croaked, unable to believe this superior being was actually speaking to her, asking her name. “Me name is Ivy Murphy.”
Ann Marie’s little office had a long glass window to allow her to see into the morgue at all times. Now she spotted Austin pushing open the main mortuary doors with his back, while carrying a tray in his hands. “Well, Ivy Murphy, here’s Austin with the soup I asked him to bring for you.”
Ivy wanted to refuse but the smell coming from the bowl on the tray had her mouth watering. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She definitely couldn’t remember the last time she’d been served and never by a man.
Without a word being spoken Austin placed the tray on the desk, then with a quick nod of his head towards the two women he left the office.
Ivy waited until the man had left the office before allowing herself to examine the tray. It held a bowl of soup, a plate with two buttered rolls and, holiest of holiest as far as Ivy was concerned, a pot of tea steaming gently, surrounded by two cups and saucers, a milk jug and a sugar bowl. A feast fit for a king.
“Would it bother you to answer some questions while you eat?” Ann Marie had expected Ivy to attack the food in front of her but Ivy surprised her by eating slowly and elegantly. She was fascinated by this young woman who appeared, to her eyes, like a creature from a fable. The total and complete shock Ivy had experienced when the phone rang could not be feigned. Obviously she had never seen a phone before. In this day and age how was that possible?
“What do you need to know?” Ivy wanted to close her eyes and groan at the first taste of the food in her mouth. The rolls had actual butter on them. She vaguely remembered her mother buying butter but it had been years since she’d tasted it. She, like everyone else she knew, used the drippin’ from any meat she was lucky enough to fry. She bought drippin’ from the butcher when she had the pennies, drippin’ from the meat the butcher roasted – that was the stuff of legend.
“I don’t mean to appear indelicate,” Ann Marie shrugged, “but why are you here alone? Surely your mother or some other member of your family could have accompanied you?”
“There’s only me.” Ivy couldn’t believe the richness of the soup she’d been served. She’d never tasted soup with so much meat in it before. It was delicious.
“You don’t want your parish priest or perhaps a nun from one of the local convents to come?” Ann Marie saw the figure in front of her stiffen. The reaction surprised her. She was of the Quaker faith herself but generally the people of Dublin were Catholic. “Have you no-one to share this burden?”
“Like I said, there’s only me.” Ivy savoured her soup and rolls with a blissful sigh. She was conscious of the ticking of a clock somewhere but she refused to rush. Who knew when she’d get to eat again? She wanted to lift the bowl up in her two hands and slurp, but she remembered enough of the lessons on manners her mother had drummed into her to know that was unacceptable.
“Do you have a local funeral home I could telephone for you?” Ann Marie offered. She really wanted to help.
“Lady, I don’t mean to be rude or ungrateful but you have no idea, do you?” Ivy hoped she hadn’t sounded too sharp – she didn’t want to repay this woman’s kindness with rudeness.
“Please, explain to me while I pour us both a cup of tea.” Ann Marie busied herself setting out the cups and saucers and pouring from the pot of tea.
“I don’t have a brown penny to me name.” Ivy was tired of always being the strong one. She didn’t have to protect her da any more. Her da was dead and nothing on this earth could hurt him now. And she’d never see this woman with the kind eyes after today.
“Me da, the man who fell into a horse trough and drowned, the man out there on one of your tables, he took the last bit of food in the house and shared it with his drinking pals. Not satisfied with that, he cleaned out every penny of my hard-earned money and blew it celebrating the New Year with his cronies.” Ivy bit back a sob. She was damned forever now for speaking ill of the dead.
“Oh, my goodness!” Ann Marie had no experience at all of something like this.
“If I fail to give me da the send-off his drinking cronies and all of the neighbours think he deserves I’ll be shunned,” Ivy continued. “People will cross the road to avoid me.” Her sigh came from her tired soul. She’d carried the weight of her family for so long. “I don’t know if I have a home to return to. I can’t remember if me da put my name on the rent book or not. I have no money for the rent anyway – me da took that too and the rent man isn’t exactly understanding.”
“Today is the first day of a brand-new year.” Ann Marie believed every word out of this young woman’s mouth. Those blue eyes clouded by tears could not lie. Ann Marie believed in fate. This woman, this Ivy Murphy, was the answer to her prayers. She believed Ivy had been sent by a
higher power – she was a lost soul in desperate need of her help. She would do everything in her power to aid this woman in her hour of need. “We are two women who find ourselves in a very unusual situation.” Ann Marie refilled Ivy’s teacup. “Will you allow me to assist – to help – you?”
“I know what ‘assist’ means.” Ivy was bone-weary now. How could anyone help her?
“Ivy, without taking anything away from the pain and loss you are suffering,” Ann Marie spoke softly, afraid of offending “would you agree your greatest problem at the moment is a lack of funds, of money?”
“The story of me life,” Ivy sighed.
“Then let us put our two heads together and figure something out.” Ann Marie slapped her two hands on her desk, shoved her chair away and stood up. “First let us visit your father. Then, with a fresh pot of tea, we will begin to try and find a solution to your problem.”
Ann Marie had an idea but she didn’t wish to share it with Ivy just yet. First she needed to see Ivy’s father. She wasn’t sure which body belonged to Éamonn Murphy. If it was the emaciated, wizened old man she’d seen earlier in the day her idea would not be feasible.
“You’ll come with me?” Ivy had seen dead bodies lying in the street or laid out in the tenements but she’d never seen the dead body of someone she loved.
“Of course. We’re in this together now.”
Ann Marie quickly checked Éamonn Murphy’s details and with the slab-number fresh in her head, she led the way out of her office.
Through Streets Broad and Narrow (Ivy Rose Series Book 1) Page 2
