But the taverns and that alleyway make it a noisy old hole. And the sun never shines on that side of the street. Suits Joe’s Fish, I suppose. Number 43 is painted pale blue, an unusual colour on a street of beiges and browns. But I like that blue and its windowsills painted white. Though it is a bit grimy now. Still, it is a refreshing sight in the grey old street, tucked in beside the alleyway and the fishmonger’s and the butcher’s.
I watched her, walking up the street slowly that Friday, her head bobbing a bit as she looked back and forth, searching for a house. She had to retrace her steps when she saw that she was at Number 45, the house next door which was taller and had more elaborate windows. They were always fancy, the Sullivans at Number 45.
Back she went to Number 43. Rat-tat-tat on the door. I noticed the hat, perched on the side of her head, a small dainty affair. Aye, she was prim and proper, her, the way she held herself all straight.
It struck me that there was something familiar about her, as though I’d seen her before. The angle of her face – or maybe her chin, the way she held it, defiant almost.
I watched as Mrs. McHugh opened the door, a look of thunder across her face, making me chuckle. She could be so vexed, Mrs. McHugh, although considering the circumstances I could see why she didn’t want to be disturbed.
And in the woman went and that was that. I watched her arrive and I watched her go in.
The new nanny.
At Number 43, Laurence Street.
“I can’t put my finger on it, Betty. There’s just something not right. Something I feel, here.” Mrs. McHugh is pushing the centre of her chest, between her bosoms.
“Arrah, sure there’s so much going on, how would you be right?” says I, taking a suck of my pipe. I’ve smoked a pipe all my life, since my twenties. Others went for the snuff, but I loved the pipe, the smell of it, the shape of it, tapping the tobacco into it and feeling the heat of it as I lit it up. Nothing more comforting than the smell of a pipe and the feel of it between your teeth, resting on your lip.
“There’s something about her, something I don’t like.”
“Maybe you’re jealous?” says I.
Mrs. McHugh scowls.
I feel the smoke from the pipe curl round my face and float over my head. The ceiling above is stained yellowy brown, a tobacco cloud all of my own making.
“Jealous? Why would I be jealous? Of her?”
“Well, she’s arrived in on top of you and taken over. And haven’t you been in charge all these years? Hard to take so it is.”
“I’m not jealous,” says Mrs. McHugh, sniffing. “And she hasn’t taken over. It’s more than that. I’m concerned. It’s a big responsibility looking after that baby, it’s all he has left. How do we know where she’s come from? Who she is? Sure, she could be anyone.”
“You told me she had references?” says I.
“Aye, but no one we know of to speak for her, to vouch for her. All the way from Dublin? How did she even see the advertisement? It’s just not sitting right with me, I tell you, in my gut.”
Mrs. McHugh drops by every Wednesday, when she takes her half-day from Number 43. It has become a habit now. At first it started as a kindly gesture after I took to the bed, not able to get out of it at all, and she was forever checking that I was all right, to see if I needed anything. My Jimmy and her Mick had been great old pals.
But lately there’s been an awful lot of talk about this nanny. Our weekly chat is now mostly filled with stories about the woman, about things she’s said or done or a quare look she’s given Mrs. McHugh. I’m growing a bit tired of it, truth be told.
“Sure hasn’t she taken the burden of the child from your shoulders? It was too hard for you to manage and the age you’re at.”
“I was managing very well, thank you!” snaps Mrs. McHugh. “And why does everyone go on as if I’m an aul’ one?”
“Because you are,” I say, holding on to the pipe with my teeth and giving her a big gummy smile.
There must have been at least twenty-five years between me and Mrs. McHugh. I could have been her mother.
“How much older are you than me anyway, Betty?” says Mrs. McHugh, eyeing me up suspiciously.
“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” says I, chuckling. “Besides, wisdom comes with age, so I must be nearly full up.”
“Well, from one wise old woman to another, what would you tell me to do, Betty, with this nanny?”
“I’d tell you to leave well enough alone,” says I. “Things will work themselves out, you’ll see.” I wave my pipe at her. “Everybody gets what’s coming to them. One way or another.”
I haven’t left this bed in over a year. It’s almost become part of me. Sometimes I don’t know what’s mattress and what’s my legs, what’s a pillow or my arms, over my head, down by my side, wrapped under me. Sleeping, dozing, awake.
It’s just me and this bed and the world beneath my window. The girl tends to me well enough, but she annoys me, presenting me with cooking that would be so much nicer if she just added a bit more salt, or a bit more butter. Things you learn over the years – things she might never learn, by the set of her.
She takes the top blanket and washes it for me. And she washes me too, a bed bath, keeping me clean with a cloth and soapy water and changing my nightdress or my blouse. On good days I wear my blouse. On the days when I just can’t be bothered, I stay in that nightdress all day. I wonder what Jimmy would think if he saw me now?
When I was young, I never would have said that I’d end up like this, a crippled old woman in the bed. I was lithe, you see. Long legs. I could run as fast as any boy in my class and catch him too.
William Thomas was a fine looker of a man. I’d known him since he was a boy, he and his brother Marcus brought up in that pale house at Number 43. His brother, though, he went bald early, whereas William kept that fine head of black hair and sideburns.
He’s tired-looking now though.
I can’t help but think of all the goings-on there over the years. There was old Mrs. Thomas, William’s mother. She was forever at the netted window, watching, waiting, for her husband to come home. Sometimes he did and sometimes he didn’t.
I miss nothing, you see. I’ve always watched from up here and, back in the day, when I was in the shop and the pub – well, I knew everything. People spilled their guts with the drink. He was a gambler too. I felt sorry for her, up there at the curtain, twitching, and him out spending everything they had and doing God knows what with whoever he could get a hold of.
Aye, old Mr. Thomas. I didn’t have much time for him. But the son, William, well, he was like the mother. Soft, gentle. Not a bad bone in his body. Didn’t drink much, never gambled. And he had a lovely wife, Anna Winchester, God rest her. She was lovely so she was. Real bright blonde hair, the type you usually see only in children.
I always liked to see that, a couple as good-looking as each other.
It was very sad what happened to her. Babies brought such sadness. Sure, didn’t I know that myself?
And now the Nanny. I still haven’t put my finger on who she reminds me of. It’s my eyesight, you see – it’s not like it used to be. I used to be like a hawk up here, looking down, watching. I’d love to get a proper look at her, at her face. I’m good with faces.
It’s been tough on Mrs. McHugh with everything going on since January, tough on all of them. She treated Anna Winchester like a daughter, she did. And the loss of her and then the baby to look after.
But that’s life. Love and loss. And babies.
I hope this little babby will fare all right. Mrs. McHugh treats that family like the family she never had. And maybe that’s the problem. Maybe if we all kept ourselves to ourselves, there’d be less heartache in the world, less suffering.
But there’d be less love too. Wouldn’t there?
Chapter 5
The House
It was a fine house. A solid two-storey, with a white façade, standing back from the road
all majestic. He knew as soon as he set eyes on it that he wanted it.
He stood looking at it, taking in the wide roof, moss gathered in between the tiles, white frost dusting those nearest the front slope, a chimney at each end. The guttering was broken in parts, but he could mend that easy enough. The front door needed painting as did the white window-frames – five square windows to the front telling of spaciousness within. It was most pleasing to the eye.
The ‘For Sale’ sign was roughly painted on a block of wood nailed to the pier. A whitewashed wall and hedge ran adjacent to the road, protecting the house from the few passersby that rambled past on their way into the village of Chapelizod and then on into Dublin city centre, or out the other way, deeper into a thick green countryside.
It was a fella down the pub that told him, when he said he was looking. Said he wanted somewhere a bit fancy, he’d been saving, and now with the inheritance through, well, the time was right to see what was out there.
“Jaysus, I know just the place,” the man had said. “A fine house out at the Strawberry Beds. I did some work on it this week, a widow looking to sell. Big white house, loads of rooms, big garden. If I had the money, that’d be the one for me.”
He’d always wanted something better, something bigger. Pulling themselves out of the tenements had been his ambition since before they’d even got married.
“It won’t always be like this,” he’d said to her. “One day, we’ll be living in the country in a fine big house.”
“Will we now?” she had said and smiled.
She liked that he had ambition, it was to be admired in a man. But in the end, it was her side of the family that would change their lives. That little old aunt in England, God bless her – always had a soft spot for her niece. Who could have guessed the fortune she’d built up over there as a landlady in London? And not a soul to leave it to except his missus.
The inheritance was enough to lift them straight out of the tenements. But they had to find the right house first.
The countryside, they were agreed. Somewhere with fresh air and space and no neighbours clambering up the walls beside you. They didn’t want to move too far away either – he had work in the city and the kids needed friends.
Now, as he stood here, blowing crisp white breaths into his hands, he wondered if this would be the one to do it. To take the whole lot of them out of the closed-in shuffling, coughing and spluttering all day and all night.
He took a big breath in and smelt the country air. It was dry in the January frost, a scent of pine wafting from the thick copses of trees growing not far from the house. He thought of the yard at the block where they lived, thick putrid mud to their ankles, the lavvy filled with excrement and stinking water. He thought how he couldn’t face another summer, when the stench would rise up to their windows in the heat, how it simmered and cooked and it was all you could do but hold in your stomach when you went, to not breathe in the fumes, to be quick about it and get out of there and hope that you could hold off longer until next time.
It was no place to be rearing kids. Here the country air would clear out their lungs. They could run through the fields, take off into the distance, strengthen their limbs climbing trees and chop wood to make rafts to float on the stream he could hear trickling nearby.
The drive outside the front door was mossy and grown over, stones sunken into the ground now covered with patches of frosty earth and grass. Untended hedges sprawled around the edges of the small front garden. He thought how much brighter the place would look if they sheared back some of those bushes, made the place a bit more presentable.
He’d driven the mule and cart he’d bought, a sense of excitement rising in him with every mile, out through the Phoenix Park and down along the Liffey. He could feel it.
This was the one.
He parked the cart beside the wall and made his way to the door, knocking on it hard. He wanted to make sure he was heard. The last thing he wanted, after coming all this way, was to have to turn away and go home, not having got inside, to see what lay beyond the peeling wooden door.
After a few minutes the door opened and a woman peered out. Her eyes took him in, tracing his face to his body, back to his face again.
“I saw the sign,” he said, hearing his voice sound almost sheepish.
He was nervous now.
“Yes?” she said.
She had a stony look about her, he thought, white-faced and hard but different to the hardened women he was used to seeing all around him in the tenements. This one was a bit haughty, stand-offish, nothing too warm about her at all.
“The ‘For Sale’ sign?” he said.
“Oh yes,” she said, as if suddenly remembering it was there. “Is it for yourself – are you looking?”
“It is,” he answered. “For my family and me.”
“Right,” she said.
The door stayed where it was, her foot against it, not moving.
“I’m busy now,” she said. “But if you give me an hour or two, I can show you round then.”
His heart sank a little. He’d been hoping to get in straightaway.
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’ll come back then.”
“Fine,” she said.
He walked back to the cart, hearing the door close loudly behind him. He decided he’d drive on past the house, to follow the road around, explore what lay beyond.
He couldn’t help but breathe deeply as he went, taking in the cool air, the earthiness, the large expanse that spread out on either side of him. After a while, feeling anxious, he stopped at a gate and got off the cart. He left it beside the hedge and climbed over the gate into a large green field. He could hear rushing water and he followed the sound until he came upon a wide stream, gurgling its way over flat stones and small muddy banks. All around him were dense trees. The children wouldn’t know themselves with this space and fresh air and these waterways and fields to be explored.
He stood by the water and said a prayer.
Please God, let us have this house. Let my family and me have this luck, this bit of good fortune.
After walking along the stream for a while, he went back to his cart and rode on deeper into the countryside, following narrow roads with dips and potholes. A rundown tavern appeared at a crossroads and he pulled the cart up and and left it beside the door. A pint would ease his nerves.
The pub was quiet, with only another man with a newspaper supping. He pulled his scarf off and asked the barman what he knew of the white house, of the widow who lived there.
The barman shook his head. “Not much,” he said. “That’s the Martin house. They had twins, I think. A bit of a shock when he died, sudden like. James Martin, quiet fella.”
The man didn’t mention the ‘For Sale’ sign, in case the barman didn’t know about that. He felt, if he shared the information, someone else would swoop in and snatch the house from him.
Now that he’d seen it, laid eyes on the place, he had never wanted anything so badly. It seemed as if they already belonged, under its roof, their feet by the fire.
After sipping his pint as slowly as he could, he mounted his cart and made his way back along the country roads, the same way he’d come. As he approached the house, it rose out of its white wintry mist and his eyes fell on the large lean-to shed, attached to the gable wall. His own shed, imagine, where he could keep tools and his mule and have a woodwork bench.
She was an age opening it but, when she did pull back the door, James Martin’s widow had a bit of a smile for him, her cheeks flushed.
“Are you from around here?” she asked as he crossed the threshold into a little hall.
“I’m not,” he said, standing on black flagstones. They looked like they’d just been wiped down and washed over. “I’m from the city centre – but the missus and me, we’ve always dreamed of a house in the country.”
“Lovely,” she said, and he could feel her eyes on his worn jacket, falling to his trousers and the splashes o
f paint and plaster on them.
It occurred to him that she might think he couldn’t afford this place, that he was wasting her time. He cleared his throat and told her with confidence that he’d recently come into a ‘bit of an inheritance’.
She gave him a thin smile and led him through a low doorway which opened into a wide kitchen with a range glowing.
He felt his heart soar. Already he could picture his family sitting round the large oak table, squabbling over bread. The stove had a double oven and was three times the size of what they cooked on in the flat – the missus would go mad when she saw it.
She opened a door off the kitchen. “There’s a scullery here,” she said.
He looked into a room with several large stone sinks and windows overlooking a large back garden.
“And if you come this way, I’ll show you the sitting room.”
She led him back through the little hall where he ducked under another low doorway and followed her into a cosy room, with worn rugs on the floor. An open fire had been lit, the sticks freshly crackling, the coal just starting to take light. Smoke held in the air.
“Very comfortable,” he said, picturing his family perched on the fabric sofas. In their flat they spent most of their time lounging on the bed or arguing over the two wooden chairs they owned. There was an armchair that was always vacated for him. He imagined pulling it up to the fire flickering in the grate here.
He had to have this house.
Upstairs, the rooms were a good size. In the front bedroom his eyes were drawn to two small wooden cradles near the window, both painted white.
Twins.
“Scarlet fever,” she said. “Took both of them within a day.”
He looked at the cribs and shook his head.
“I’m very sorry.”
The barman hadn’t said the twins were lost. This is why she was selling the house. Her husband gone, the twins cruelly taken, the house too big, full of memories.
The Nanny At Number 43 Page 3
