Chestnut Street (31 page)

Either they said that she would come back from that fancy man, which wasn’t really likely, or else they said that he was well rid of her, which wasn’t at all true. Some of them said he would find another woman, a better woman than Helena, which of course wasn’t possible. And there were those who said that it was getting more and more difficult to raise a son in today’s world and maybe he was better off not having to rear Eddie, since the boy could have become a handful.

Bucket thanked them all gratefully and said he thought it was
all for the best and wouldn’t Eddie be coming back regularly to see him.

It wasn’t so regular in the beginning because Eddie had to settle in where he was—that was only fair, anyone could see that, Bucket said in defense of Helena.

And later, when Eddie went to school, he had so much homework and so many other things in his life it made sense that the lad would come only now and then.

He always came near his birthday and near Bucket’s birthday and near Easter and near Halloween and near Christmas and other times. So that was well over half a dozen times a year.

The neighbors saw Eddie kicking a stone disconsolately around Bucket’s garden when he did visit, a restless child who remembered none of them and who didn’t seem at all grateful for the treats that Bucket provided.

“Ah, you can’t expect a youngster to have fancy manners and be thanking for this and for that like a parrot,” Bucket would say.

If people believed that the boy’s new father was going to be a role model to the child they wondered how it was showing itself. Helena would drop the child off and wave goodbye before poor Bucket could get out to the car to talk to her.

Bucket used to go to Miss Mack in the library—before she went blind—for suitable books and games that he could share with Eddie on his visits, but he admitted that the boy didn’t have huge powers of concentration.

“I’m afraid he inherited that from me—I was never much for the books,” Bucket said sadly.

Miss Mack wanted to cry when he spoke like that, and it annoyed her so much that Helena could never warn Bucket about when the visits, few as they were, would take place. That meant
that Bucket would have to keep taking out the books or games from the library week after week, just in case.

Kevin Walsh, the taxi driver in 2 Chestnut Street, had driven young Eddie and his new lifestyle, not that the boy ever recognized him. The stepfather had a load of money and took taxis a lot.

“To my mind Bucket’s well off without the boy, turning into a right young pup he is, giving cheek right and left of him,” Kevin said to anyone who would listen. Bucket was not one of those who would listen.

“The lad had a poor start with a broken home and all,” Bucket would say forgivingly. “Isn’t it only natural that he’d feel a bit lost?”

And when Miss Ranger from Number 10 happened on the information that young Eddie Maguire had been suspended from school for troublemaking, she didn’t tell Bucket. She knew in advance what she would hear: “Ah, that’s all a misunderstanding. Some of those teachers are very contrary; they have a down on poor Eddie.” Better to say nothing.

On one of his window-cleaning jobs, Bucket found a kitten mewing on a roof. Carefully he rescued it and carried it proudly in his jacket to the front door. The man sighed wearily.

“Hell, I thought I’d got them all—this little devil must have escaped.”

The man felt that he had done a good morning’s work in drowning the seven kittens that had presented themselves, before the children came home from school and made a scene. The kittens’ mother, a wily cat who must have read her owner’s mind, had hidden them somewhere until they were about five weeks old and then paraded them back into the house triumphantly.

“You’re going to drown this?” Bucket asked in disbelief. He could hear the little heart beating under the bundle of gray fur in his hand.

“Give it to me—it’ll be over in seconds,” the man said.

Bucket shook his head. “I’ll take it home, mind it myself,” he mumbled.

“Ah, don’t talk nonsense, man—they’re like vermin when there’s dozens of them at that age.”

“There wouldn’t be dozens of them—there would only be one, and I’ll look after it.”

“No, you won’t. Little bastard will come crawling back to us—they always do.”

“Not from me. I live miles away over in Chestnut Street.”

The man looked at Bucket in wonder. “You cycle all that way just to clean windows?”

“Sure, aren’t I the lucky man to have my health and strength.” Bucket beamed at him with pleasure at the good hand that he had been dealt.

“Yes, well. What are we going to do with the animal?”

Bucket took out the small kitten and examined it.

“Could you put her in a room somewhere out of the way and give her a saucer of milk, a bit of bread in it, maybe, and I’ll come for her when I’ve finished the houses in this street, about four o’clock, and take her off your hands.”

“I don’t know.” The man was doubtful.

“Ah, go on—your children won’t be back by then, they won’t see her and I’d like her,” Bucket pleaded for the tiny life.

“What about them all in your home?” the man asked.

“There’s no all at home, there’s only me,” Bucket said and only then did he release the funny little cat, gray with a white chest, thin, wary and frightened, from its great climb to escape death in the bucket of water.

“There you go, Ruby—this nice man will give you a bit of lunch until I’m back for you,” Bucket said.

“Ruby?” the man said.

“I always thought it was a lovely name. If we had had a daughter she would have been Ruby.”

“No children? Maybe you’re as well off.”

“Oh, I do have a son, a great fellow altogether. Eddie is his name.”

“So there
is
someone at home?”

“No. Eddie lives with his mam—it was better that way. After all, what could I offer him?”

The man seemed to be annoyed by Bucket’s good-natured approach to things.

“Right then, I’ll give this little fellow a bowl of something and you’ll be back for it by four.”

“Give her a box with a bit of earth in it as well, won’t you,” Bucket requested.

“Anything else? Caviar? A sun-ray lamp?”

“I just wanted her to have a sort of a bathroom and not to annoy you or your family by having to use the floor.”

“See you at four, not later,” said the bad-tempered man.

Bucket was there on the dot, carrying a tin of food for kittens and a brand-new litter tray. He placed the cat in the front basket where he normally kept his chamois, cleaning rags and squeezy jar of soapy liquid. He had a cardboard box fixed in place and tenderly he lifted Ruby in and eased her head out through a hole in the top.

“To give her a sense of the journey and some fresh air during the ride home,” Bucket explained.

“You’re a decent person,” the bad-tempered man said unexpectedly.

Ruby settled in well in Number 11; she never attempted the long journey to find her mother or to seek her long-dead brothers and sisters or return to the unwelcoming home of the bad-tempered man. Miss Mack, from Number 3, told Bucket that she once read
in a book about cats that they forgot their past life very easily and slept nearly 60 percent of the time.

“God, wouldn’t that be a great way to be!” Bucket said approvingly, looking at Ruby with new eyes. Ruby had grown plumper and glossy by the time Eddie next came to visit.

Nowadays, when he came to see his father, he brought a friend. Well, Helena said, you couldn’t expect a grown boy of twelve to just sit there looking at him. A boy of that age
needed
a pal if he weren’t to go mad altogether. His pal was called Nest Nolan. The first time he met the boy he had said, “That’s a funny name, Nest.”

“From a man named Bucket that’s a bleeding funny remark,” Nest had said.

So Bucket passed no more remarks. He didn’t think the boy was a good friend for Eddie; he was rough somehow, no manner, no warmth about him. He had tried to tell this to Helena but she shrugged. Kids make their own friends, she had said. No point in trying to make things different.

Eddie and Nest looked without pleasure at the gray-and-white cat.

“Full of fleas,” Nest said sagely.

“Jesus, Far, why did you get a thing like that?” Eddie complained.

“I thought you’d love the puss cat, Eddie. That’s Ruby. She and I are great friends altogether,” Bucket said, disappointed. “She’d nearly talk to you. I was thinking of teaching her a few tricks. She’s very fond of me, you know.”

“They go with anyone who feeds them, cats do,” Nest sneered. “They don’t have any sense of decency. Not like dogs.”

“Ah, but I can’t have a dog here, Nest,” Bucket explained. “I have to go out to my business every day. I wouldn’t be able to exercise a dog or bring a dog with me—it wouldn’t be fair.”

“And what is your business?” Nest asked, although he knew.

Everyone knew Bucket’s business—it was written there on his bicycle,
QUALITY WINDOW CLEANING
. But Nest liked to ask so that he and Eddie could have a laugh when Bucket told him.

“And do you have any quality window cleaning to do this afternoon?” Nest inquired.

“Well, not now that Eddie’s here,” Bucket explained. He would cancel the bookings he had made.

“Won’t the people be pissed off with you?” Nest continued.

“Well, they’ll be disappointed, but then I don’t see Eddie that often …”

“You could go and do the windows; we’d be here when you got back,” Nest said.

Bucket refused.

“Aw, go on, Far,” Eddie said. “We’re not going to be sitting here looking at you for two hours.”

“I have a game,” Bucket began.

“It’s for babies,” Eddie said.

“Listen, Mr. Bucket, wouldn’t you go out and deal with your customers—we’ll stay here and keep your cat company.”

“No, no, I was looking forward to Eddie … to you both … coming. I don’t want to miss it.” He looked eagerly from one to the other. There was a silence.

Eventually, Eddie spoke. “We won’t stay here if you’re here, Far. We’ll just go hang out round the place, you know.”

“No offense, Mr. Bucket,” Nest said with a crooked smile.

“Of course, no offense,” Eddie reassured him.

Bucket cycled off despondently. There
was
no other way. And it wasn’t Eddie’s fault. He had just fallen in with a bad-mannered friend, that was all. He went and cleaned windows and bought the boys a big tub of luxury ice cream. One with lumps of butterscotch and nuts in it. They’d like that.

When he got into Chestnut Street he saw that there was a crowd around the gate of Number 11. Bucket’s heart lurched in case there had been an accident. Why else would people be gathered there? He threw his bicycle against the railing and ran to see what was going on. People had their hands over their faces in horror and amazement, watching Ruby staggering along on the road. Something had been attached to her paws, making a strange clicking sound and she was very distressed because she was crying like a baby. She hissed and spat when people tried to pick her up but she recognized Bucket when he arrived and tried to move towards him. He lifted her up and found her four little paws had been stuck into pointed shells, like limpets, ones you found on the beach. They were secured in there with candle wax, still slightly warm. It must have been hot when the little paws were forced into the shells. His stomach felt sick. It was red wax like the candle he had on the table in his sitting room, in case anything festive enough ever occurred when he might reasonably light it.

“Shush now, Ruby, we’ll get your shoes off,” he said, soothing the terrified little animal in his arms.

He pulled one of the seashells, but it didn’t come away.

“I just went for a Stanley knife,” said Kevin Walsh, the gruff taxi driver from Number 2.

“I brought her a few cat chocolates to calm her down,” said Dolly, the schoolgirl from Number 18, who had a cat of her own.

“I was going to ring the Guards,” said fussy Mr. O’Brien from Number 28, who had a pedigree cat called Rupert, “but the others said that what with everything, I should wait until you came back.”

Between them, Bucket and Kevin Walsh prized the shells from the soft paws. There were still bits of wax left between the claws, but Ruby could walk again. She did a triumphal walk past everyone to show that she was better, then she attached herself to
Bucket’s chest and wouldn’t allow him to put her down on the ground again. He told people that her poor little paws must be sore and thanked everyone for being so concerned.

“I can’t think what kind of a rotten person would have done this,” he said with tears in his eyes.

“Your son and his friend did it, Bucket,” said Kevin Walsh straight out.

“No, Kevin, they wouldn’t—Eddie loves animals.”

“They called me over to look at it, to have a laugh, they said.” Kevin was adamant.

Bucket was shocked. “No, I can’t believe it.”

“Where are they now, then? They’re hiding because it wasn’t so much of a laugh after all.” Kevin’s mouth was a hard, unforgiving line.

Bucket was looking back at his house fearfully. “There must be a mistake,” he began.

“There’s no mistake,” Kevin said.

People were beginning to move away from Number 11. The drama was over; now the embarrassing bit was starting, the bit where poor Bucket would realize what kind of a thug he had as a son. “He’s only a child,” Bucket said to the backs of the people who didn’t want to hear him defending, yet again, the boy whom he loved but they had always found troublesome.

It wasn’t Eddie’s fault. The boy was easily led and people were quick to have a down on him. Eddie and Nest were amazed at all the fuss. Hadn’t Bucket himself told them only this very day that he was going to teach the cat tricks? Well, they had tried to teach the stupid cat tap-dancing and now they were the worst in the world. They both looked wounded, upset, about to leave, never more to return. Bucket begged them to realize it had been a mistake.

“You see, I don’t think you know how careful you have to be with a dumb animal,” he said nervously.

“You’d never think it was a dumb animal with all the screeching
when we put the hot wax on its paws. You could hear it twenty miles away,” Nest said with a crooked smile.