Rainbow's End (13 page)

‘You’re a liar, Seamus Nolan, and I can’t abide a liar,’ she said breathlessly as she smote. ‘And she never said a word, that young wan, never a word, so don’t get the idea into your head that she telled on you, for she did no such thing. Snowballs, was it?’

And then, to his brother’s astonishment, Garvan, who believed in looking after number one, spoke up. ‘Seamus din’t t’row so much as one snowball,’ he admitted. ‘It were me, Mammy. I
pelted
her, so I did. So don’t you be after hittin’ poor Seamus.’

His mother stopped hitting Seamus, which was a relief, then gave Garvan a great, swingeing blow around the ear.

He swayed, then gulped back tears and picked up his slate once more. ‘So that gal Maggie’s comin’ to live here,’ he said, squeakily, tracing a letter q on to his slate. ‘Well, we probably won’t see her often, ’cos we’ll be in school.’

‘You will indeed, for Maggie’s first job of a morning will be to take you there and hand you over to your teacher,’ his mother said, striking both boys dumb for a moment. ‘And now, if you’ve finished copying your alphabet, I’ll put the tay in the pot and as soon as Liam’s foot sounds on the stair, we’ll eat.’

Much later that evening, when they were in their bed, Garvan kicked Seamus in the back, then dived under the covers, knowing that Seamus would do likewise. In the stuffy warmth of the bed, he said: ‘That Maggie gorl, Shay; she won’t be livin’ here long, I’m tellin’ you. We’ll make her miserable, so we will, an she’ll up sticks an’ go back to that fleapit she comes from.’

‘I dunno,’ Seamus mumbled. ‘She’s a strong gorl, Garv. Mebbe she’ll make us miserable, if we behave bad. Perhaps, at first, we’d do better to be careful.’

Garvan snorted. ‘Careful! No, that won’t work. We’ll put salt in her milk an’ stingin’ nettles in her bed an’ we’ll dirty the floor after she’s cleaned it an’ . . .’

‘I’m not,’ Seamus said. He suddenly felt quite sure that Maggie McVeigh was not a girl to trifle with. She might live in a slum with heaps of brothers and sisters and they might have no money and they might wear rags . . . but she could wallop!

‘Please yourself,’ Garvan said with fine indifference. He was thinking, Seamus knew, that whoever did the deeds, they would both take the rap for them.

So Seamus took a deep breath and decided to scotch that one. ‘I’ll not be blamed, Garv, for plaguin’ the girl, I tell you straight. I can’t stop you doin’ it, but I can tell Mammy and Liam it weren’t me.’

‘You wouldn’t!’ Garvan said. He sounded scandalised, as though not getting the belting intended for your twin was a wrong thing. ‘You’re me brother – you’re me
twin
!’

‘And you’re
my
brother, and
my
twin,’ Seamus countered. ‘You shouldn’t want to see me beat for your doin’s.’

There was silence for a moment; this was clearly a novel idea to Garvan and he was spending time chewing it over. Finally, he spoke. ‘Oh. Well, we’ll wait a week or two if that’s what you’d rather. G’night, Shay.’

‘G’night, Garv,’ Seamus said and they emerged simultaneously from under the blankets like two seals surfacing. ‘Phew, it were hot down there.’

Garvan mumbled a reply and presently both boys slept.

By the time Liam and Kenny, his twelve-year-old brother, came up to bed the twins had been asleep for an hour or two. They had squiggled right across their truckle bed and were lying half out of the blankets despite the cold, so Liam covered them up, then he and Kenny shed their outer clothing and climbed into their own bed. Just before bedtime, Liam had run a message for Mammy, down to the huckster shop three doors along. They had been closed, but Mrs McAllister had opened up at his knock and sold him some milk. Mammy had decided that she should drink milk before settling for the night, because of the new baby, and because he’d run down to the shop through the snow, Liam’s feet were like blocks of ice. That’s why I can’t sleep, Liam thought, tossing restlessly. It’s not because of that girl Mammy’s bringing here, it’s because I’ve got awful cold feet.

Their mother had told them all about the girl who was coming to live with them, and Kenny, who sometimes played with a couple of Maggie’s brothers, said he thought she would be all right; useful, in fact. Liam could tell that Kenny’s main preoccupation was to make sure he personally wasn’t saddled with housework or put in charge of the twins, particularly the last. Provided someone else did the housework and looked after the twins he had no particular objection to sharing his home.

Liam, on the other hand, was not at all keen. I’ve got a job so’s I can give Mammy a hand wit’ the others, his thoughts ran. Not so’s she can bring someone else into our family! Why does she want to work, anyhow’? Wasn’t he the man of the house now his father was dead. She said when she married again that she wouldn’t need to work, an’ that pleased her, so it did. But now she says there’s another baby on the way. Well, that was possible. Dear God, Liam thought, turning over restlessly and cracking his knee against Kenny’s shin, suppose Mammy has twins? Hadn’t she had one set, only six years ago? Suppose this baby were to be twins?

Thank God for Maggie McVeigh I’d be saying then, Liam thought sourly. Perhaps Mammy had a point; perhaps a girl would be useful, you never knew. He put his feet down the bed but that was too cold, so he drew them up again and placed them carefully against Kenny’s warm ones. Kenny snorted but did not snatch his feet away and presently Liam’s toes began to thaw out.

Soon, he slept.

Chapter Four

Liverpool, Summer 1909

‘Dee! Deirdre Docherty, just you come here this minute or I’ll tell our mam you’ve been a wicked gal again!’

Poor Ellen’s shout went unregarded. Deirdre and Donal heard her as it happened, but they had better things to do than to go running after elder sisters! Indeed, the work – for they both thought of it as work rather than play – totally occupied their waking moments just now and had done for three whole days, a record in itself.

When Ellen’s voice came to their ears the pair of them were stealing earth. They had acquired – well, stolen – a large hessian sack from the general shop on Netherfield Road owned by the Harvey family – Joe and Essie Harvey were their bosom friends – and had carried it to the triangular-shaped garden at the top of Everton Brow, where they had laboriously filled it with soil.

It had taken days to fill, even after they had stolen – ‘Borrowed,’ Donal insisted, but ‘Stolen,’ his twin said proudly – the metal scoop which Mrs Harvey used to get rice, lentils or dried fruit from the huge sacks which leaned in front of the counter into rustling blue paper bags for the customers.

The length of time was partly because Deirdre would not permit Donal to ask anyone for help. This was a secret, their own secret; if they let other people into the plot, well, it wouldn’t be a secret any longer, would it? And five-year-olds, no matter how determined, cannot dig earth at any great speed when they are doing it secretly.

Fortunately, however, there were some sizeable bushes in the triangular garden. The twins crouched beneath them, often very hot, and patiently scooped earth into their sack. And quarrelled. ‘Little birds in their nest should agree,’ Ellen chirruped sometimes – and got baleful glares from the quarrelling ones. Their sister, who was rather nice in many ways, did not seem to realise that quarrelling was a part of life and not to be easily cast aside. Besides, if Donal hadn’t rebelled now and then, Deirdre would have grown bored with always getting her own way and might have looked for another companion. And no matter how fiercely they quarrelled – sometimes the quarrel became a fight, with redheaded Deirdre pulling hanks out of dark-headed Donal’s hair whilst he, not to be outdone, seized her curls and tugged till her eyes watered – they always agreed to differ in the end, because they knew full well that there was no one on earth quite as good as your own twin when it came to playing, or running messages, or getting into hot water.

So the twins had spent all their spare time, for two whole afternoons, filling their precious sack, and by mid-afternoon that day the sack had at last been filled to capacity and the first snag had presented itself. Neither one of them, nor both combined, could move it more than an inch or two.

‘It’s too bleedin’ heavy,’ Deirdre groaned, heaving until sweat ran down the sides of her small, freckled face. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it ’ud be too heavy? You’re a feller, you should know about heaviness.’

Donal regarded his sister open-mouthed. ‘Wha-aa-at? Who was it said she’d do it alone if I weren’t careful? It were know-all Dee, that’s who.’

‘Well, you try to lift it alone if you think you can,’ Deirdre said, deliberately misunderstanding him. ‘Go on, show us!’

‘We can’t either of us do it,’ Donal said, giving the sack a contemptuous kick. ‘We’ll have to empty some out, it’s the only thing we can do.’

He could see that Deirdre would have dearly loved to quarrel with him over this – all that hard work for nothing – but she just heaved a martyred sigh and pushed the scoop reluctantly into the sack. After removing three scoopfuls, she glared at Donal and seized one ear of the sack. ‘Right. Come on, pull!’

It didn’t shift an inch. Grimly, the two children fell on their knees and systematically emptied the sack until only about a third of their precious soil remained. Then, arguing horribly, coming to blows twice, they began the long and tedious job of towing it home.

So naturally, when they heard Ellen hollerin’ from the corner of Prince Eddie and Netherfield Road, they took no notice. How could they? Ellen would instantly have made them take the sack back to Brow Side and empty it out. She would probably have made them scatter the soft mound of earth which they had taken out of their sack and for which they intended to go back the next day. And – here Deirdre looked down at herself for the first time – Ellen would undoubtedly have had harsh words to say about the condition of them, plastered with soil as they were.

‘Deirdre! D’you hear me, you bad girl? Come home at once or it’ll be the worse for you both.’

Deirdre gave a tiny squeak and tugged the sack sideways so that Donal, perforce, followed. She could actually see Ellen now and if Ellen looked to her right she would see the twins! Small hope of being mistaken for anyone else with hair the colour of a hot coal, Deirdre thought bitterly. She should have rubbed soil into her head as a disguise, but unfortunately it hadn’t occurred to her. Or perhaps fortunately; it might take some getting out and Ellen could be turrble cruel with a scrub-brush and a bit of soap in her hand. Nevertheless Deirdre had acted so quickly that she and Donal and the sack were diving down the entry towards the dairy before Ellen had had a chance to look in their direction.

‘Phew, that were close,’ Deirdre said, wiping a filthy hand across her filthy brow. ‘Did you see our Ellen, Don? She were just goin’ to look our way, you know – I saved us trouble then, Donny!’

‘Mm,’ Donal said. ‘Ay up, here comes the ole feller; what’ll we say?’

An elderly man was approaching them, leading a pony across the yard. It was the one which hauled the milk cart in the mornings and Deirdre, who could think on her feet faster than anyone else Donal knew, beamed confidently up at the man. ‘’Ello, mister,’ she said. ‘Gorrany hoss-muck to spare?’

She cast a glance at the sack and Donal, despite himself, was filled with admiration. It would have been natural enough for a child to collect horse-manure from the street and try to sell it up one of the better roads, where the houses had gardens and would buy manure to spread on their vegetable plots. No one could tell you off for that, apart from your mam of course, who could scalp you for any reason, specially for ruinin’ your kecks an’ tekin’ the soles out o’ your boots.

‘We-ell, looks as though you’ve got plenty to be goin’ on wit’,’ the man said, smiling at them. ‘’Ow far’ve you brung that little lot?’

‘Oh, miles,’ Deirdre said airily. ‘But we’re nearly home now.’

‘Come back tomorrer,’ the man advised them. ‘I’ll put some by for ye.’

Donal and Deirdre thanked their saviour profusely – for whilst they were talking to him they had both seen Ellen stalking angrily past the entry – and wearily picked up their sack, or rather got hold of it by the open end, and began to tow it back towards the roadway.

Once on the street again, Deirdre bade her twin ‘Gerra move on!’ and hustled him down Roden Street, along Garden Lane and into Prince Edwin Lane. ‘There, you see, Donny, if you doesn’t ask you doesn’t get,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Now we’ve gorra get this lot over that bleedin’ wall. Come
on
, Donny!’

She broke into a run and Donny, who had begun to say that he was coming on as fast as he could, shut his mouth and saved his breath for panting as they tore up Prince Edwin Lane and began to scramble up the wall of Number 17a.

About three weeks ago, Donal and Deirdre had had cause to go into the backyard of 17a to recapture a ball which one of them – it was, of course, Deirdre – had shied over the crumbling and blackened brick wall. If there had been other kids of their own age around they probably wouldn’t have gone, because everyone in the court knew that the old man who lived there had horns and a tail and ate kids for tea, as well as refusing completely to throw back any balls which happened to have landed in his miserable yard, but there were no small kids playing out that afternoon. It was bigger boys, and one of them, a fat youth with a squint and two front teeth missing, had said that the twins were scared to get their ball back.

‘Us fellers goes over all the time,’ he boasted. ‘Whaddyer fink ’e’ll do to ya, eh? ’E’s the devil awright, but we ain’t skeered o’ the devil! He’s skeered of us, the mis’ruble ole bugger, knows we’ll purra stone through ‘is bleedin’ winders if we wants. So I’ll go over for ya, willin’ – an’ I’ll keep the bleedin’ ball, wha’s more.’

The ball had been new and an especially fine one. The twins’ dad had bought it for them last time his ship came into dock for a refit. Donal and Deirdre had exchanged petrified glances and had simultaneously made up their minds. They didn’t believe for one moment that the big boy had ever scaled the wall and come face to face with the devil. Some might, but not he. However, if they didn’t go, they’d lose the ball for sure, and if they did, they could get their ball back and win fame! So, chins up and hearts fluttering painfully, they approached the high, blackened wall behind which the devil was said to lurk.