Katie flounced out of the room closing the door noisily behind her.
Downstairs, Nora was waiting outside by the street door, just as Katie had expected. Danny was standing by his grandmother’s side, fidgety and chewing on his bottom lip.
‘Look, Mum,’ he said, ‘if Dad don’t have to go to Mass, then I don’t reckon I should have to neither.’
Nora shoved her grandson hard in the side. ‘You just be quiet, Daniel Mehan,’ she hissed, ‘talking to yer mother like that. I can’t believe it.’ She wagged her finger up into his face. ‘A boy your age kicking up such a great big fuss. Whatever next?’
Katie looped her handbag over her arm and stuck her hands on her hips. ‘And how do you know yer father ain’t coming to Mass with us?’
‘I should think the whole flaming street knows,’ said Danny, immediately realising he’d been too cheeky for his own good, but in for a penny; he stuck his hands deep into his pockets. ‘You could hear you two shouting right through the wall next door in Nanna’s.’
Before Katie had the chance to tell her son to button his lip, she was distracted by the sound of the upstairs window of number twelve being shoved open with a determined slam.
Tousle-haired and grim-faced, Pat stuck his head out. ‘I heard that, Danny. Now you listen to me, boy. You just watch yer mouth and do as yer mother says. Yer gonna go to Mass and that’s the end of it.’
While Katie, Danny and Nora stared up at Pat, Molly came running down the stairs of number twelve, skipped over the step and out into the street beside them.
With a furtive glance up at her angry-looking dad, Molly smiled and said, ‘I’m just popping into Nanna’s to round up the young ’uns.’ She dodged round her brother and disappeared in through the open door of number ten. After the trouble the night before, Molly had resolved to be the perfect daughter. She knew that if she wanted to meet Simon that afternoon – and she really was looking forward to seeing him – she had to make every effort to get back into her mother’s good books, or she would be banned from going out all together, let alone be given permission to go off to meet a boy she barely knew.
Pat, however, didn’t seem very impressed with his daughter’s perfect behaviour. ‘In and out, back and forward,’ he complained. ‘This family gets more like a flaming circus act every day.’ Ducking back inside, he closed the bedroom window behind him with another sharp slam.
Nora turned her attention back to her eldest grandson, glaring belligerently at him for daring to defy his mother. ‘See what yer’ve done now, Danny?’ she fumed. ‘Sure I thought it was only Sean, with his body growing faster than his brains, who’d speak to his mother like that. I reckoned a nearly grown-up lad like you would know better.’
While Danny, full of embarrassed rage, snorted and shuffled around on the pavement, Molly stood in the passage of number ten, hollering up her nanna’s stairway. ‘Two minutes, I’m warning yer, you three. Then Mum’s coming in after yer.’
Sean appeared out of the bedroom he shared with Danny. He stood there on the tiny landing at the head of the stairs, facing Michael and Timmy’s room, fiddling with his shirt cuffs, pulling them down so that they showed, just right, under his jacket.
Molly frowned. ‘I ain’t never seen that shirt before, Sean. New, is it?’
Sean shrugged and came lolloping down the stairs towards her, his gangly, adolescent limbs seeming to have minds of their own. ‘Might be,’ he said dismissively.
‘So where d’yer get it then?’
Sean pushed his sister out of the way. ‘Get yer nose out, Moll, can’t yer?’
‘Mum’ll bleed’n kill yer if yer’ve been thieving,’ Molly hissed under her breath, careful not to let anyone else hear her.
‘What’s going on in here?’ Nora was suddenly in the doorway behind Molly.
‘Nothing, Nanna,’ Molly assured her.
‘There’d better not be,’ said Nora. ‘I don’t want no trouble starting in this house.’
‘Honest, Nanna, it’s nothing. I’m just trying to shift the two little ’uns. Come on, you two,’ she shouted up the stairs. ‘And don’t start, or I’ll save Mum a job and come up and skin the pair of yer meself.’
Timmy immediately appeared on the landing and came running down the stairs. His ginger curls were plastered to his head with water and his knees were red and glowing from where Nora had taken the flannel to them while he was trying to eat his breakfast. ‘I’m ready, Moll,’ he said, ‘but our Michael’s got the bellyache. Real bad, he is.’
‘Michael,’ Nora called, stepping into the passage, ‘come down here if yer poorly, darling, and let yer nanna have a look at yer.’
Michael came staggering out of the bedroom he shared with Timmy. ‘I ain’t kidding, yer know, Nanna. I really have got a headache and I feel all horrible all over.’
Nora nodded. ‘So it’s a headache and a bellyache yer’ve got, is it? Now that does sound bad.’
Michael flashed a look of contempt at his little brother. ‘I told yer to say it was me head, Tim. Don’t you ever listen?’
Timmy opened his mouth, ready to protest, but Molly whisked him outside to join their mother and brothers in the street, leaving their grandmother to deal with young Michael.
‘So, it’s a bit of both yer’ve got, is it?’ Nora said. She climbed halfway up the stairs to where her grandson was standing, unsteadily clutching at the banisters. She looked really concerned as she placed the flat of her hand against his forehead. ‘Yer head and yer belly.’ She nodded again and then clapped her hands triumphantly as though she had solved a great puzzle. ‘It’s the collywobbles yer’ll be having. I’m that sure, I’d lay money on it. And what do you think, Michael? Do you think that’s what it might be?’
Michael agreed eagerly, as the thought of spending a Sunday morning tucked up in the big iron bed, maybe flicking idly through some old comics, stretched before him like a blissful dream.
‘So you wait here, my little love, and I’ll just nip down to the kitchen and fetch me bottle of jollop. Then you can have a few big tablespoons before we go to Mass.’ Nora walked slowly back down the stairs and along the passage towards the back kitchen. But she stopped abruptly, turned her head and looked up at her open-mouthed grandson. ‘Oh yeah, and I’m thinking that a few glasses of liquorice water wouldn’t come amiss neither. Clear yer system right out, that will. Terrible thing if yer system’s clogged up.’
Michael came down the stairs two at a time. ‘No, Nanna, honest, I feel much better now. Look.’ He began running up and down on the spot, flinging out his arms like they were made to do at school during the dreaded PT lessons.
‘Praise be,’ said Nora, clasping her hands together and rolling her eyes heavenwards. ‘It’s a miracle, sure it is. Just you wait till Father Hopkins hears about this.’ She gripped Michael’s ear firmly between her finger and thumb. ‘Now, let’s get moving, eh, Michael, ’cos we don’t want to be late to share the good news of such a wonderful event, now do we?’
‘No, Nanna,’ gasped Michael and, freed from his grandmother’s clutches, he ran out into the street and took his mother firmly by the hand. ‘I’m ready, Mum.’
Katie cast a critical eye over her children and her mother, unaware of the little melodrama that had just been enacted in number ten.
Satisfied that they were all booted and suited in their Sunday best, as was only fitting for decent, respectable people going to church, she nodded briskly. ‘Right, you lot, let’s be off.’ And, with Michael still clasping her tightly by the hand, Katie led the family procession out of the turning, round the corner and into Grundy Street.
Danny and Sean loped along behind their mother and Michael, with Timmy bouncing around between them, chatting and asking non-stop questions. Last in line came Nora and Molly; Nora preferred it that way as it meant she could keep an eye on what was going on.
Nora patted her granddaughter’s arm that was linked though her own. ‘So, we’re not calling for Liz this morning? Not fallen
out, have you?’
‘No. Her auntie and cousins are coming over for their dinner later, so she had to go to nine o’clock with her mum.’
‘Good,’ Nora whispered to her. ‘Now, let them rush off in front. We’ll walk nice and slow, just so long as I can keep my eye on those boys, and that’ll give us a chance for a little chat. So, tell me all about this boyfriend of yours.’
‘What boyfriend? I ain’t got no boyfriend.’
Nora stopped dead in her tracks and narrowed her eyes at her granddaughter. ‘Molly Katherine Mehan, do you really think I’m as green as I’m cabbage-looking? I’ve seen how yer’ve been growing up lately, so fast I’m losing track almost. A real young lady now you are. Just look at yer, with that haircut of yours and that look in your eyes. I know there’s a feller around, my girl. Yer can’t fool yer old nanna.’
Molly smiled. She was right, she never had been able to keep secrets from Nora. They began strolling along again.
‘So?’
‘Well, I’m sort of seeing Danny’s mate. Bob Jarvis, his name is. He’s a new bloke Dan’s been hanging around with. He paid for me to go in the flicks last night, and I’m gonna see him again next Saturday. Nice, he is, really nice. Sort of exciting.’
Nora patted her arm approvingly. ‘Glad to hear it. I wouldn’t want my best girl seeing someone who wasn’t nice and exciting, now would I?’
Molly dropped her chin with uncharacteristic coyness. ‘And there’s another boy, Nanna. I’m gonna see him this afternoon, I hope.’ Her shyness forgotten, Molly glared at Sean who was slouching along in front of them, kicking stones viciously across the street. ‘If Mum lets me out after us getting in so late last night. I could kill that Sean. It was all his fault, yer know, Nanna. I wouldn’t dare tell Mum on him, but me and Dan had to spend ages looking for him. He’s a right flipping nuisance, he is.’
‘Never mind Sean, there’s not much yer can do with lads of his age except wait and hope he’ll grow up and out of it. No, I’m more interested in this, or should I say these two young men of yours.’ Nora raised her eyebrows questioningly. ‘So, yer serious, are yer, about either of ’em?’
Molly didn’t even consider the question. ‘No, Nanna. It’s nothing like that. You know me, I’m not the sort to get serious.’
Nora looked relieved. ‘Well, thank the Lord for that. And I’m pleased to hear yer stringing two of ’em along at the same time.’
‘What? Stringing ’em along?’ Molly was shocked by her nanna’s brazenness; she wasn’t sure whether she was being broad-minded or just plain barmy. Her grandmother was in her fifties after all, and Molly knew that people could be a bit eccentric as they got older. ‘I’m not stringing either of ’em along. We’re just friends, that’s all. The way yer talking yer make me sound terrible.’
As they paused on the kerbside for an elderly man to wobble past them on his bike, Nora put a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t take on so much, Molly, girl. I only meant that there was no hurry for yer to go throwing yerself at the first feller what comes along.’ They hurried across the street. ‘You want to have a life before you settle down with some lucky feller, don’t yer?’
Molly shrugged non-committally. ‘S’pose so.’
‘See? I’m right. There’s no hurry, is there?’ Nora stopped again.
Molly was getting impatient with all this stopping and starting; they’d be late if they weren’t careful and then her mum would never let her go out this afternoon and Simon would be left standing there like a lemon and he’d never want to see her again. ‘Come on, Nanna,’ she urged her.
‘If you just let me have my say first. This is important. You must promise me, Molly, before yer go settling down, yer make sure yer’ve found yerself the right one. If yer like, I wouldn’t mind giving them the once-over to see what I think of ’em.’
Molly glanced anxiously along the road. Her mother and brothers were already in Canton Street and had nearly reached Saint Mary and Saint Joseph’s Church. ‘Please, Nanna. Not now.’
‘But yer will remember, Molly, won’t you?’ Nora insisted. ‘Promise. Yer must be sure. No matter how mad in the head and sick in yer stomach you are for the love of him, you will make sure he’s the right one?’
Molly put her head on one side and looked at her nanna. It wasn’t like her to be so. serious. ‘What, yer don’t want me to make a mistake like you did, Nanna?’ Molly asked softly.
Nora snorted scornfully. ‘Mistake? Sure I never made no mistake. My Stephen was a good man. A rare man. The best there was and the best there is.’
With all the stories she had heard over the years about her grandfather, Molly was confused.
‘A good man?’ she asked incredulously, her mum and Mass temporarily forgotten. ‘What, walking out on you when you was six months gone carrying Mum, and then turning up every few years out of the blue if he just happened to be passing, or was on the tap for a few bob?’
Nora fiddled around with her hat. ‘You listen to me, Molly, and you pay attention. I’ve more good memories from the times I’ve spent with your grandad, God love him, than most women ever have from a lifetime with a dozen men.’ Then with a lift of her chin, she added, ‘And haven’t I got your mother to show for it? God love her, as well.’
Molly shook her head in wonder; no one could ever say that Nora Brady wasn’t one to come up with the surprises.
Nora smiled into the middle distance. ‘And she’s got your grandfather’s lovely red hair. A real Irish beauty, so she is.’ She reached out and touched her granddaughter’s glorious auburn waves. Tipping her head critically she said, ‘Just like you, my love. Shame our Danny got your father’s dark mop.’
Molly laughed, despite her concerns about ever getting her grandmother to start moving again.
Nora ran her hands over her hips, smoothing down her lightweight summer coat. ‘Yer know, I always reckon that it was having had just the one baby that kept me so young-looking. I mean, look at the other women round here in their fifties. Battered old cows the lot of them.’
Molly’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Nanna! Someone’ll hear.’
‘Well,’ Nora said, leaning close to her granddaughter, ‘they don’t get married for real love, do they? They get hiked up with the first feller who comes along just ’cos they think that’s what they should do. Then they turn into brood mares, popping out a sprog a year till they’re collapsing with it.’
Molly felt the flush rising in her cheeks. ‘I can’t believe yer talking like this, Nanna.’
Nora winked and slipped her arm back through Molly’s. ‘Well, don’t tell yer mother, will yer? Now, are yer coming or what? The last thing yer need is to be late for Mass. Then she definitely won’t be letting yer out so’s yer can go and meet yer fancy feller.’
As usual when the service was over, the congregation, including Nora and Katie, spilled out through the big wooden doors and then milled around outside, exchanging news of all the doings of the past week.
And, Nora thought to herself, as she kept a diligent eye on her daughter, there was one member of the congregation who, if she wasn’t careful, would become the sole topic of interest for the meaner-minded gossips, stirrers and troublemakers. Whatever had got into her? There, in front of everyone, bold as brass, and despite what her husband would say if he found out, Katie was standing chattering away to Frank Barber, the widower from number eleven who had unwittingly caused all the trouble between her and Pat the night before. Nora really couldn’t figure out what her daughter thought she was up to.
As far as Katie was concerned, it was quite simple: she would not be told by Pat, or by anyone else for that matter, who she could or could not speak to. And anyway, she had reasoned when Frank had come up to her in the church porch, what harm was there talking to the man when all he was doing was expressing his gratitude for a bit of help she had given him with his poor motherless child? Wouldn’t any decent neighbour do the same?
But, if she was pressed, even Katie would have admit
ted there was something else that kept her standing there with Frank Barber: it wasn’t only what he said, thanking her for her help, she liked the way he said it. It was the first time in years – apart from when Pat was feeling amorous, and that didn’t count – that anyone had treated her like a woman. Frank talked to her in a way that Pat seemed to have forgotten about, a way that made her feel as though she was another adult, rather than just a wife and mother of a clutch of increasingly unruly kids. She was flattered by her quietly spoken neighbour’s attentions, and she heard herself offering to help him again in any way she was able.
It was easy making excuses for what had happened between herself and her husband: they had both been so busy and preoccupied, they were worried about work and money, the kids were driving them barmy – but, all that apart, there really was no excuse for her and Pat forgetting how to be nice to one another. She so wanted someone to be nice to her. And that’s what she felt, smiling up into Frank Barber’s sad, hazel-coloured eyes – that here was somebody who was being nice to her, and not just for what she was doing for him, or because she was someone’s wife, mother or daughter, or even because he wanted to make love to her, but just because he seemed to like her for who she was, herself, Katie Mehan.
She thought she could float away on his soft voice as he talked to her, that she could forget that she was someone whose fine red hair would soon be fading, and who felt as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. In fact, she was so deep in conversation with Frank Barber that, until he interrupted their conversation, Katie hadn’t even noticed the arrival by her side of Father Hopkins.
‘I’ve been hearing some stories about your boys, Mrs Mehan,’ he said in a voice that, like Nora’s, still held more than a trace of his native Irish brogue. ‘Your Sean in particular.’
Just Around the Corner Page 8
