Christmas Wish (24 page)

The night outside was warm; the public bar of the Kings Arms hot and humid, a thick soup of tobacco, beer slops and stale sweat.

‘Lounge bar, Eddie,’ Bradley ordered. ‘We have ladies with us and standards to keep up.’

His hand firmly cupping Magda’s elbow, he steered her through a door and deposited her at a small round table.

‘Port and lemon for you I think, Magdalena. In fact, I insist,’ he murmured, his moist breath falling into her ear as his hand ran down her back.

‘Why do you always call me Magdalena?’

Smiling, he shook his head and shucked his hat back further on his reddish-blonde hair.

‘It’s your name, isn’t it?’

She nodded.

‘But nobody calls me by my full name – except you.’

His smile widened. ‘I’m not just a nobody. I’m different.’

The lounge bar had wooden floors, small round tables on iron legs and bentwood chairs. Supposedly better equipped than the public bar, the people in here were tidily dressed – no grimy work clothes smeared with coal dust from the gas works or blood from Smithfield or Billingsgate.

The barman, far older than the young thug who’d just entered, touched his forelock and addressed Bradley as Mister Fitts, his voice oozing humility.

Once released from Eddie’s grasp, Susan clamped herself to Magda’s side.

‘What are we going to do?’ she whispered.

‘We’re going to walk out of here,’ Magda whispered back. ‘They think we’ve fallen in with their plans, but we haven’t.’ She looked at Susan. ‘Have we?’

Susan shook her head. ‘They’re scary.’

Seemingly convinced that they were now compliant, Bradley and Eddie were up at the bar. Other people up at the bar stepped aside to make space for them.

Compared to the other men, these two were dressed like lords, both wearing smart suits.

Never mind dancing; it was obvious that at the end of the evening there would be a price to pay.

She asked a woman sipping sherry the whereabouts of the lavatory.

The woman pointed to a door in the far corner at the end of the bar. ‘Down there ducks.’

Bradley saw where they were going and told them not to be long.

‘Got your drinks.’ He held up the two dark drinks and jerked his chin in the direction of a table.

‘That’s very generous of you. We’ll be right back,’ Magda threw him a reassuring smile.

‘There might be a door along here,’ Magda murmured to Susan. ‘If there is, I’m going to open it and dash out – even if we end up behind the bins at the back of Battersea Dogs’ Home.’

The corridor was narrow and dark and had no door to the outside.

‘No wonder he didn’t mind us coming out here,’ Magda said with a sigh. ‘Oh well.’

She slapped open the door of the ladies’ lavatory, wrinkling her nose as the smell of urine and drains came out to greet them. ‘Keep your fingers crossed, Susan.’

Besides being a bit smelly, the toilets were cold and dark. There were three cubicles on one side and three sinks on the other. A chipped mirror hung above one of them and a towel for those who actually did wash their hands was draped over a couple of empty beer crates.

‘No door,’ remarked Susan, peering from behind Magda.

‘There doesn’t need to be,’ Magda murmured back, her eyes falling on a small sash window at the far end.

Her heels clattered over the concrete floor to the window. It took both hands to heave it open. She looked out.

The window overlooked the yard at the rear of the pub, a small area squeezed between the backyards of crowded housing.

Barrels and empty beer crates were piled each side of a pair of double wooden gates. She reasoned that even if they were locked, it would only be a matter of sliding back a bolt.

‘Right,’ she said hitching up her skirt. ‘The one thing Bradley Fitts forgot about girls like us is that we’re not too ladylike to climb out of windows.’

‘I can climb as well as my brothers,’ chirped Susan who seemed to have returned to her old self.

Once the towel was placed elsewhere, the wooden beer
crates, stained with stale beer and old soap, were placed one on top of the other.

‘I’ll go first, shall I?’

‘If you like. I’m right behind you,’ said Susan.

‘Take off your shoes. Heels are no good for climbing either up or down.’

Magda went first, swinging her legs out first even though her skirt rode up to her backside, then dropping to the ground.

‘Do it like I did,’ she hissed at Susan.

‘No. I’m good at this,’ Susan hissed back.

She sat sideways on the window ledge, one leg over before the other.

‘You’ll get stuck that way.’

Susan was adamant. ‘I told you. I’m good at this. Better than my brothers.’

She threw down her bag. Magda caught it.

A light went on in an upstairs window flooding the yard with sudden light.

‘Quick,’ urged Magda.

Susan tried to swing her other leg over but stopped halfway.

‘Ooops.’

‘What’s ooops supposed to mean?’

‘My knicker leg’s got caught on the catch.’

The sound of raised voices came from the front of the pub. Magda peered round the corner to the back door. So far, nothing. But Bradley and Eddie were bound to come searching for them shortly – or ask the landlord whether there was a window in the ladies’ toilets and, if so, what did it look out on. Once they knew, they’d be out here in the yard and that would be it.

‘Come on. Do something,’ hissed Magda.

The sound of something ripping indicated that Susan had indeed done something.

‘Well, that’s them finished with,’ she declared. ‘That’s my elastic gone.’

‘Susan!’

This time, Susan followed Magda’s advice and swung both legs over the window ledge. Unfortunately, her knickers fell to the ground first, a patch of white cotton amongst the dirt.

Susan picked them up. ‘They’re a bit ripped,’ she said, squinting at them in the semi-gloom. ‘But they are repairable. Can’t throw away a good pair of knickers now, can I?’

She shoved them into her handbag and clipped the catch shut.

Just as Magda had suspected, the double wooden gate to the yard was held shut by two bolts, one at the top and one at the bottom.

Luckily both were fairly well oiled, no doubt due to the fact that the draymen came on a regular basis to make deliveries and liked things to run smoothly. It was a well-known fact that they were rewarded for their diligence with a pint of beer at each pub. Goodness knows their condition by the time they finished their round.

They slid out through the gate, pulling it to as best they could behind them.

A bus ride or two and they were back where they’d set off, both breathless.

Susan was apologetic.

‘Sorry. That was my fault.’

Magda shrugged. ‘Well, it was certainly some celebration. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Nothing lost either.’ She grinned. ‘Only your knickers.’

Susan burst out laughing. ‘A stitch in time saves knickers!’

The joking continued. ‘Lucy Lastic is your middle name.’

‘Well, what a bloomer that was!’

‘A pair of bloomers,’ Magda corrected.

Magda couldn’t help feeling elated, and not just because they’d escaped the clutches of Bradley Fitts. Tomorrow she would pay her aunt for that big old Bible. First off she would write to her grandparents in Ireland. Then, once the basic introductions had been made, she would travel over there.

Her heart leapt at the prospect of seeing them. In her mind’s eye she could visualise the meeting; the tears, the laughter, the swapping of stories.

She told Susan of her intentions and of her concerns.

‘I think Winnie is worrying about me going, but I told her I’ll be back.’

‘Why? She’s not related, is she? And family is family.’

Susan’s comment was like a knife in her ribs, stabbing into something soft at her centre, something she’d been keeping securely locked away.

‘Look at it from her point of view. She’s old and without you she’s all alone.’

The laughter was gone. Magda hadn’t wanted it confirmed to her that once she found her family, nobody else mattered. She didn’t want it to be that way, but Susan had made a point.

‘If it were me that was old and alone, I’d want to keep you close,’ said Susan.

Magda shook her head. ‘I think she’ll be fine. I think
we’ll
be fine.’

Susan stopped walking and raised a solitary finger. ‘Listen.’

The mad jangling of bells announced the approach of a fire engine.

Magda sniffed the air.

‘I can smell burning.’

She saw a thick pall of smoke and sparks spiralling into an ink-black sky.

‘Not my house,’ cried Susan. ‘Please God, not mine.’

She ran towards the fire. Magda ran after her.

‘Not our street,’ said Susan coming to a halt. ‘It’s from Edward Street!’

Magda cursed under her breath, then burst into a run, her pulse racing, her court shoes clattering over the uneven pavements.

Even at a distance she could taste the iron dryness of scorched air as sparks and smoke seared the sky. The flames crackled, snapped and popped.

They stood together, the pair of them, their upturned faces lit by the flames.

A policeman pushed them back as the fire engine rattled into the street and men dived off, hauling hoses that had come too late; too late to save the house, Aunt Bridget, or the one thing that Magda held dear.

‘Everything burnt to a cinder,’ said one of the girls from the whore house.

‘So’s your Aunt Bridget,’ said Susan. ‘Probably burning in hell.’

Despite the flames, Magda felt as though her blood had turned to ice. There was no love lost between her and Bridget Brodie; it was sad to admit it, but she really didn’t care whether her aunt was alive or dead.

What she did care about was her mother’s Bible. Tears stung her eyes. The Bible was the key to finding her family. It was gone.

Anna Marie was forking hay when Venetia raced up to her, apron flapping and her boots thudding into the muddy ground.

‘Guess what? The Caseys are coming out to fix the stone wall that fell down in the gale. Isn’t that marvellous, Annie? Isn’t that just plain marvellous?’

Anna Marie looked at her sister’s excited expression and felt that perhaps she didn’t know her sister’s mind at all.

‘He let you down. He wouldn’t go to America with you. And he told on us. I didn’t think you were ever going to forgive him.’

It was true. Her sister had declared again and again that she would have words with him when she could. However, the chance to have words with him had never quite come about. There had been no chance to meet alone; their grandparents saw to that. The only time either of them had seen Patrick Casey was from a discreet distance. Either he was with his father doing a building job in the town, or on the rare occasions that Patrick attended mass. The Caseys were known to be a bit lax in their churchgoing, keeping
their attendance to a Sunday, the day they considered was the Lord’s and his alone.

‘He’ll never leave here,’ Anna Marie stated. ‘Surely you should know that by now.’

Venetia’s eyes flashed and she adopted a coquettish pose to her body, looking at her sister sideways, hair held with one hand and piled on top of her head.

‘He won’t be able to resist. All I need is a little time alone with him and we will be leaving – together!’

‘Are you going to get him to marry you?’ Anna Marie looked shocked and incredulous.

‘Why not? He’s who I want anyway, and let’s face it he’s about the only good-looking fellah around here.’

Anna Marie looked away. She rarely disagreed with her sister, mainly because it was easier to go along with everything she said. What she was certain of was that Patrick Casey would never leave his father’s employ. If he had been willing to leave and loved her enough, wouldn’t he have boarded the ship with them at Queenstown?

Her views on her sister’s relationship with Patrick were not new. She’d had this opinion for a while, but had never dared point it out to Venetia who was as head-over-heels in love with Patrick as he was with her. Or was he? Anna Marie blushed at the memory of the way he’d looked at her in Queenstown. There’d been something in his eyes that had caught her breath.

Venetia caught sight of her dreamy look. ‘What are you going sheep eyed for?’

Anna Marie thought quickly. ‘I was thinking, what about us not mentioning Magda but saying that we’d like to go to England to find Michael?’

Venetia shook her head. ‘Michael’s been adopted. Da told us that didn’t he? You can’t go looking for kids that have been adopted.’

‘But Magda …’

‘Oh for heaven’s sake! Our sister’s a whore. Do you really think we’d be allowed to cross the water to look for her? I heard Gran and Granfer talking about it. Apparently the letter came some time ago, just after Uncle James got himself drowned. Gran asked Aunt Bridget if she’d like to come over here to live and to bring our sister with her. She turned Gran down and at the same time told her that our sister had become a whore selling her body to any man who’d have her. That’s what she said. Gran wasn’t sure it was true, but you know what Granfer’s like once he thinks bad of someone.’

Anna Marie went very quiet, her mouth shifting from side to side as she considered what to say – if anything.

Venetia cocked her head inquisitively. ‘Well. Go on, moon eyes. Tell me whatever else it is that Gran’s told you. I know you two talk together when nobody else is around. What’s she told you about our sister?’

Anna Marie chewed her lip. The fact was that she was closer to Gran than Venetia was. They were very alike and Gran was lonely and told her things.

‘Go on,’ urged Venetia, sucking a corn stalk whilst leaning against bales of straw piled six deep.

Anna Marie fiddled with her hair. ‘Gran says that it wasn’t a good choice to leave our sister with Aunt Bridget seeing as our father jilted her in favour of our mother. She reckons she might have taken out her bitterness on Magda.’

‘Is that so?’ Venetia was astounded that her sister knew so much.

Anna Marie nodded. ‘That’s what she says. I pray for her every night you know. And for Michael. It might help, don’t you think?’