The Ballymara Road

by Nadine Dorries

  It made his heart crunch when he saw a nun dragging a child by her hair from the washroom back to the orphanage and it was all he could manage not to say or do something.

  ‘Heavenly Father, my blood boils, so it does, I have to calm me temper. Jaysus, I want to grab the nun by her fecking habit and drag her into a cold bath and then across the yard.’

  It broke his heart to see the cruelty inflicted upon the children and every day he brought Maggie a different story.

  Frank was often quiet when he arrived back at the lodge after work, and Maggie knew it was because he had seen things that upset him. Frank wasn’t a great talker. Maggie would have to leave him be to eat his food, smoke his pipe and drink his poteen. Only then would he occasionally make a comment and, when he did, it was frequently shocking.

  ‘Ye know the little one, the lad I told ye about who was only just walking, and so thin I could see the bones of his arse through his fecking trousers? Well, today I saw them putting him in the ground, so I did. They didn’t even lay him down with a prayer or a blessing. They just rolled him off the edge, into that pit. Not a coffin in sight.’

  Frank would finish speaking with a long drink from his mug of poteen and Maggie would not comment, merely sit in silence, knowing that Frank and she were both doing exactly the same thing: thinking of their own little lad. Frank threw a stick onto the range and then blew on the peat to make it glow red. The oven was still hot from earlier in the afternoon, when Maggie had run back to the lodge from the kitchen to set his dinner over a pan of hot water, with a lid on top to keep it warm.

  Today he sat on the rocking chair by the fire with his dinner on his lap, his pot and pipe lying by his side, and he began to eat.

  The food was delicious but the sights of the day made it stick in his gullet. He scraped most of it into the grate so that she wouldn’t see. It was not to be. Maggie opened the door to the smell of burning beef.

  ‘For feck’s sake, ye eat as good as a nun and then throw it on the fire. Are ye crazy, Frank?’

  Frank noticed that she looked exhausted.

  Throwing her shawl over the back of one of the pair of chairs at the kitchen table, she made her tea, chatting away to Frank who remained sitting by the fire, still, staring into the flames.

  ‘I suppose ye let the bishops and the band of followers in through the gates, did ye? Holy Mary, what a commotion today has been, but I tell ye what, Frank, Sister Theresa came into the kitchen, looking for Daisy, she did. She made a pretence at first, but I know that is what she was after. I know that woman like the back of my hand, I can see right though her, I can. Wanting to know if the beef was tough, my fecking arse. She was checking up. If I didn’t know better, I would say someone was on to us.

  ‘Daisy has been gone nearly a week now and do you know what else, Frank? I was shocked to see that bishop tonight. He’s the same one, ye know, the one Daisy was on about, the dirty fecking bastard. That has worried me because if Daisy did what we told her, surely to God he would not be a free man by now.’

  ‘Don’t believe it, Maggie, the bishops are as powerful as the Lord God himself. No man would dare arrest a bishop. They look after one another and poor girls like Daisy, they are just left to suffer.’

  Maggie looked at Frank with disbelieving eyes. ‘I cannot believe that. Not everyone in Liverpool is a Catholic. She would have no luck here in Ireland and, God knows, she would be put in the asylum for the rest of her days if she ever claimed such a thing. But in Liverpool, surely to God, they are more civilized altogether? Surely someone there will believe her?’

  ‘What do you think about this then?’ said Frank, as he removed what appeared to be bits of charred paper from his pocket. Smoothing the larger pieces out carefully, he said, ‘Well, go on then, you are the reader, what do they say?’

  ‘What are they?’ asked Maggie, peering at the blackened, burnt papers.

  ‘I don’t know, but Sister Perpetua and Sister Clare spent three hours burning them at the back of the tatties. ’Tis something they was desperate to be rid of. They ran up and down from the orphanage and the mother and baby home with boxes flying everywhere, so they was, and Sister Perpetua, she was shouting to Sister Clare to get a move on before the rain came and, sure, I have never seen Sister Perpetua so much as speak above a whisper, never mind shout. ’Twas all very odd indeed.’

  Maggie sat down in the chair, pulling towards her the largest and most complete document.

  ‘It’s a letter signed by a priest,’ she said. ‘Her family can no longer manage to contain the girl’s nature for flirtation. No man is safe from her advances. She must seek penance and be punished for forcing her neighbour to commit a shameful sin. She is pregnant. Her father never wants to see her face again and they have committed her to your care.

  ‘Here ye go, some of the letters have gone, but there’s enough to make it out.’

  ‘Jesus, who would that be?’ asked Frank.

  ‘It says here,’ Maggie replied, ‘her name was Julie, Julie Dempsey.’

  Frank rubbed his bearded chin thoughtfully. ‘Aye, Julie, that one died in childbirth, as did the child. She is one of the few to have a wooden cross with her name on. She was one of the first. The nun who asked me for a mallet to put the cross in told me. Not one of them has a cross now.’

  As Maggie studied the remaining burnt pieces of document, the dog began barking; someone was ringing at the gate. They both moved to the window to see a Gardai car, waiting to be admitted.

  ‘Well, what do you know?’ said Frank, when he was back indoors. ‘They asked, was the bishop here and I told him we have two tonight, and which one did he want? He has told me to leave the gate open as he won’t be staying long.’

  A smile leapt across Maggie’s face. ‘Do you think it could be to do with Daisy?’

  ‘I have no idea, but ye may be right.’

  Minutes later, as they stood at the door with their pipes, Frank waiting to lock the gate, the Gardai car drove past with a very white-faced bishop sitting in the back.

  ‘Right,’ said Maggie. ‘We have two things to do. I want a drink with me pipe and I want to read through all those bits of paper and then keep them somewhere safe. They could be our insurance for the future, Frank. Things are happening but I tell ye what: those nuns, they need to run a little faster to keep up.’

  20

  HARRIET TAPPED POLITELY on Maura’s back door. She had yet to become comfortable with the habit of walking uninvited into the houses on the four streets.

  She spotted Maura’s face at her back kitchen window, in the midst of a steam cloud, and waved as Maura beckoned her inside.

  Harriet put her head round the back door, still feeling the need to ask. ‘Hello, do you mind me popping in?’

  ‘Not at all. Ye don’t have to stand on ceremony with us, Harriet,’ said Maura, who stood at the sink, drying her hands on her apron.

  Harriet noticed an enamel bucket on the floor next to Maura. The smell of hot Napisan and ammonia filled the kitchen, stinging her nostrils and making her eyes water.

  ‘Come on away in. I’ve just finished now, that was the last nappy. Come on, come on. Have ye time just to sit down and have some tea? God alone knows, I’ve washed out ten dirty nappies this morning and I need a cuppa. Or are ye here to give me a message or a list of instructions maybe?’

  Harriet grimaced. She was aware that she moved at a pace slightly faster than that of the four streets.

  It seemed to everyone as though Harriet never sat still and that she spent her every day organizing something or someone.

  Tommy had formed a very firm opinion about Harriet.

  ‘Miss Bossy Knickers, that Harriet one. I had to walk round the back of the Anchor last night, when I spotted her turning the corner at the top of Nelson Street. I daren’t bump into her without she asks me to do something or help her with a committee. I’m not a committee man, Maura, tell her, will ye? It’s not safe any more to walk down me own street, so it’s not. She has Jer
ry on a mission to clean the untended graves in St Mary’s. That was a wicked play on his conscience.’ Then he whispered with a guilty glance at the back door, ‘The last place we want to be is in the fecking graveyard, for feck’s sake.’

  Maura soothed his worried brow with a kiss and, sitting on the arm of his chair in front of the fire, she let him talk without interruption. That was a novelty in itself in their passionate and noisy marriage. She let Tommy speak for as long as it took. I can’t remember when we were last like this, Maura thought. We used to do this all the time.

  The thin wooden arm of the chair dug painfully into her backside, numbing it, but she didn’t stir or break the spell. She shuffled slightly and re-crossed her legs, worried that even her slightest fidget would stem his flow, but he carried on, jumping from Harriet to Kathleen and Jerry without pausing for breath.

  ‘Kathleen and Jer, they have been good to us. Better than our own family even. As God is true, no one ever had better neighbours than we do, thank God. What can we ever do to repay them? It is beyond me. I have nothing to repay a man who has burdened himself with the debt Jerry has on my behalf. He could be in prison, Maura, and, surely to God, without Kathleen these kids would have starved. I have no notion or recollection of the first few weeks. Do ye, Maura?’

  Maura shook her head.

  ‘Has the cat got yer tongue? Are ye fecking dumb all of a sudden?’ said Tommy with a hint of surprise. It wasn’t often that he was allowed to talk for so long without being interrupted. He looked up at Maura with suspicion.

  ‘I’d rather he had my tongue than your langer,’ Maura replied.

  Tommy put his arm round Maura’s waist and pulled her down onto his lap. The springs underneath the thin cushion groaned with their dual weight and they both rocked with laughter. They could now laugh about the dead priest and without guilt too. It felt strange and, at the same time, right. They hadn’t laughed together for months. In the midst of their merriment the thought came to Maura: we are healing.

  Tommy had complained about Harriet, but with affection. No one could do anything other than agree to whatever it was she asked.

  It was impossible to refuse. Her manner was always so charming, and she implored in a way that made grown men melt and women feel sorry for her.

  ‘Oh, I would love a cup of tea, thank you, Maura,’ Harriet now replied.

  ‘’Tis a cuppa round here, Harriet, and ye don’t have to thank me or stand on ceremony in my kitchen. Take the weight off your feet and sit down. The kettle is always on and we can spare a bit of tea. I’ll even put fresh leaves in the pot as we have a guest.’ Maura lifted the lid on the large tin teapot and peered inside. ‘These leaves have been used three times today already, weak as a maiden’s piss they will be by now.’

  Maura set the kettle back on the range, where it simmered away all day and took only seconds to boil. Harriet, a maiden, was already blushing.

  ‘Mary and Joseph, would ye look who is coming down the path,’ said Maura. ‘I swear to God she hears the clatter of the kettle on the range, that one, and pops in here to save the job of making herself a cuppa. Or, more like, she heard the back gate when ye arrived and has come for a nose to see who it is.’

  Maura stopped talking just as Peggy opened the back door. As soon as Peggy saw Harriet by the fire, a look of disappointment crossed her face and she cried out, ‘Oh, Jesus, no. I only came in for a cuppa tea and now I’m going to walk out with work to do. Fecking hell, how did that happen?’

  ‘No, no,’ Harriet said, as both her hands flew to her mouth in horror. ‘I must have a terrible reputation for bothering people. I am here for something entirely different altogether, although I will admit there is a reason.’

  Peggy didn’t have time to respond, before Nana Kathleen joined them.

  ‘Well now, a pow wow and no one invited me?’ she said as she bustled in and placed a bulky white paper bag on Maura’s press.

  ‘Goodness me, it’s like Lime Street station in here, it’s so busy,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Aye, this kitchen was very rarely empty at one time,’ said Maura. ‘Some of the kids on the four streets used to be confused about where they lived, because their mothers spent so much time nattering round my kitchen table. My house has always been full of kids and friends and I don’t have a problem with that now. My neighbours have been good to me, so they have.’

  Harriet felt mildly embarrassed. She hadn’t met or known Kitty, although she wished she had, as Maura might then have felt a closer connection to her. Harriet was always on the lookout for a lost soul to heal. She was as close as she could be to Kathleen’s granddaughter, Nellie, and she knew they were aware of the role she had played in helping Nellie recover. It was that which made it possible for her to pluck up the courage to knock on Maura’s door, seeking an answer to a question that was burning away in her mind.

  ‘It wasn’t a pow wow five minutes ago, Kathleen,’ said Maura, ‘but sure, ’tis about to become one. Peggy, go and knock on for Sheila and Deirdre with the mop, and tell them we have a guest. I feel guilty, them not being here.’

  Peggy looked grumpy, but she stood up from the kitchen chair where she had made herself comfortable, preparing to waddle back into her own kitchen to bang the mop on her wall and send out the call.

  ‘How do ye reckon I let them know there’s a guest? D’ye think I bang on the wall in fecking Morse code now?’ Unused to such raw language, Harriet blushed again.

  They sat and listened to her footsteps shuffle down the yard, until they heard the back gate latch snap. Then Kathleen and Maura both began to laugh.

  ‘Gosh, she was cross,’ said Harriet.

  ‘Not at all, no, she wasn’t. Don’t you be taking no notice of Peggy now,’ said Maura. ‘Peggy never stops grumbling. She’s all right. Right as rain she will be in five minutes when she comes back in. There are a few things ye need to know about Peggy. She hates to move her backside and she loves her tea and cake. Apart from that, there’s not a lot to her.’

  ‘Apart from the smell,’ Kathleen whispered and winked at Harriet.

  ‘That’s the reason I’m here, to be honest,’ said Harriet.

  ‘What, because of the way Peggy smells?’ exclaimed Nana Kathleen.

  ‘No, no. I wanted your advice, Maura. I’d like to get to know a bit more about the neighbours. Alison and I are good friends, but I want to know everyone else too.’

  ‘Well, ye have come to the right place to be sure,’ said Maura. ‘We can do that. We can provide all the advice ye need and tell ye everything you need to know about everyone around here. There’s nothing we don’t know about on these four streets, isn’t that a fact, Kathleen?’

  Kathleen smiled. ‘’Tis true. Now, tell me, Harriet, ye haven’t taken the veil and yet there’s no husband in yer life. Why is that now?’

  Harriet gasped. She had known people in Liverpool were direct and to the point, but she had at least expected them to be onto their second cuppa before being asked such deeply personal questions.

  ‘Well, I have never taken to anyone, I suppose, and no one has ever taken to me. I had to look after Mammy and Daddy until they died. I don’t know really. I was so busy and time just flew and then there I was, on my way to Liverpool with Anthony and no husband to speak of. I would love to be married and have children, but I expect it is too late now, though.’

  Kathleen or Maura were saved from having to answer by the sound of the back gate opening and familiar chatter flooding the yard. The kitchen was crowded within minutes. Neighbours, old and new, sat round the yellow Formica table that had once belonged to Bernadette. The precious Formica table with which Maura refused to part, no matter how large her family grew.

  Sheila had spotted Daisy, leaving the school office, and had called her over to join them.

  Kathleen helped Maura pour the tea at the range.

  ‘I bought the kids some custard slices in Sayers, your Harry loves them. They are in that bag on the press for when they get home
from school.’

  ‘Kathleen, ye spoil them kids but they do love it,’ said Maura, smiling.

  ‘Aye, well, they deserve a bit of spoiling with what they have been through,’ replied Kathleen, pouring from the sterilized-milk bottle into the cups.

  Kathleen nodded her head in the direction of the table.

  ‘I will have ye a penny, that Harriet is here with troubles of the heart. I can hear it in her voice. Hope these is fresh tea leaves as we might have to give her a little reading.’

  Maura wanted to say, ‘Harriet, no,’ but she knew better. Nana Kathleen was never wrong.

  Life on the four streets was mundane. It was about survival and making ends meet. Harriet had lived in a large house in Dublin and had been brought up in a professional household. Her brother was a priest. She was a cut above. She wore stockings every day, never ever went outside her front door with curlers in her hair, and she carried a handbag with a fresh handkerchief in it at all times.

  Harriet was a source of fascination to the women of the four streets, especially to Peggy.

  ‘So, is there anyone takes ye fancy now?’ she asked.

  Harriet spluttered, ‘Well, that was why I came to see Maura, er, there is and I have no idea what to do. And Alison, she told me Maura and Kathleen know the answer to everything, including things that haven’t even happened yet. She was very mysterious, though, and wouldn’t say why.’

  Kathleen now spoke.

  ‘Put three spoons of sugar in your tea, queen, drink it up as quick as yer can and then, with the last dregs, rinse them round your teacup three times, making a wish. Tip the cup up on the saucer, quick now, and then pass it to me. I will read your fortune and then we can decide what you should do.’

  Harriet looked horrified. ‘Read my tea leaves? Isn’t that a sin?’

  ‘Well, if it is, Harriet, we are all going to hell together. Tell me now, how do ye think your friend Alison got her man down the aisle? Do ye think she has never sat round this table and passed me her teacup?’