The Ballymara Road (35 page)

‘Where did the flour and sugar come from, Tommy?’ she asked as her husband brought a sack of each into the kitchen.

‘Don’t ask, queen,’ Tommy replied. ‘But if the captain of the
Cotopaxi
comes knocking on the door, you’ve never heard of me.’

‘Thank the Lord for the
Cotopaxi
and all who sail in her,’ said Maura. ‘What in God’s name would we have done without her all these years? I bet Harriet doesn’t know where they have come from, does she?’

‘Good God, no, are ye mad? That woman has me run ragged. I have to go now, to set out the road with marking chalk for the kids’ races tomorrow, and then I have to help Jerry carry the weight for the strongest-man machine she has borrowed from God knows where.’

‘Oh, stop complaining,’ Maura laughed. ‘The kids are beside themselves with excitement. The girls are trying on their retinue dresses upstairs and then they will be both off down to Mrs Green, who made the headdresses. I have enough to do, getting the cake stall ready without your moaning mouth. Nana Kathleen and Nellie are making coffee cake with Camp coffee and coconut golf balls, but they have run out of Camp, so Harry has run a message to buy another bottle. Deirdre is making giggle cake and fudge squares, and I am making the bannock cake.’

‘Can I have one of those?’ said Tommy, putting his arms round her. ‘Ye are doing grand, queen, but don’t let all the extra work or this Rose Queen fair get to you, d’ye hear me?’

Maura lifted her head. ‘Tommy, I am loving all this activity, so I am. It’s grand for the kids, to have something to be excited about. I just can’t help thinking that our Kitty would have been in the Rose Queen competition and might well have won it. Can ye imagine the picture she would have made in that frock? Beside herself she would have been. Oh, and how big that head of hers would have quietly swollen. She never needed to brag, our Kitty, Angela would have given out forever more and without meaning to, done it all for her. There would have been no telling her now, no, there wouldn’t. She would never have shut up and our Kitty, not a word would she have said back. But God, I’d put up with all that, if we could just have her back. She would have been the Rose Queen, Tommy. She was so beautiful.’

Tommy hugged Maura closer into him. He didn’t want her to see the tears that sprang to his eyes as he imagined Kitty in the white Rose Queen dress. He didn’t want to tell Maura that, on the day Alison Devlin got married, it was all he could do to hide the pain in his heart as he realized he would never walk his Kitty down the aisle, nor see her in her wedding gown.

He had never revealed to Maura that, when he closed his eyes, he could still see Kitty’s face. It was the last time he ever saw her. She was looking out of the window of the wooden hut on the Pier Head, on the night when he had taken her to meet Nana Kathleen and Nellie. The night she left for Ireland and exile.

Maura felt his tears soaking through her hair and she held him tight, as they both stood there, in the same place, on that well-trodden, rocky road together.

Annie O’Prey was also baking, in her own kitchen. She had inherited Molly’s handwritten cookbook and was in the middle of one of Molly’s most famous recipes. Examining Molly’s precise writing, she rested for a moment and took her rosary out of her cardigan pocket.

‘Ah, Molly, I wish I knew what happened to you and why I didn’t hear a thing that night. I have yer cat and I’m looking after him for yer. He’s a good cat. Brings me a mouse every morning. Never a langer now, he saved that for ye, Molly, and I know in my heart that was why ye was killed. It was summat to do with the priest’s murder, wasn’t it, Molly?’

Annie peered out of the window to see the flatbed coal lorry easing its way down the entry, piled high with chairs and beds. She wiped her hands on her apron and, Molly and cakes forgotten, ran out of the back gate.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked the coalman.

‘New family moving in next door, into Molly’s old house, Annie, to keep ye company.’

‘Well, what a day to be moving. ’Tis the fair tomorrow – do they know?’

‘I have no idea. Why don’t ye tell them yourself? They will be along in a minute.

‘Have ye heard the news? They have arrested the policeman for the murder of the priest and Molly. ’Twas the policeman himself that did it.’

‘God, no, I didn’t. How did ye know that?’

‘The paper boy is shouting it outside Lime Street station. They found a mallet with his fingerprints and Molly’s blood on it.’

‘Does anyone else know yet? God, does anyone else on the four streets know?’ Annie almost screamed the question.

‘I shouldn’t imagine so, not until the
Echo
is delivered here and that’s not until six o’clock.’

He had barely finished speaking before Annie was away and over the road to be the first to break the biggest news to hit the street in months. The first kitchen she ran into was Tommy and Maura’s.

‘All right, you young lovers, break it up. Come here while I tell ye. Ye will never have a notion of what I’m about to say.’

The baby woke and began to scream at the sound of Annie’s voice.

Maura shouted, ‘Oh God, no, not again.’

The commotion brought the girls thundering down the stairs, as fast as they could, in their long dresses.

‘What’s going on?’ said Angela. ‘What is all the noise about?’

‘I’m sure I have no idea,’ Maura replied, picking the baby up. ‘She’s teething real bad,’ she said to Annie, by way of an apology for having snapped.

Annie grinned at the girls. She was going to relish every minute of this.

‘Would ye like some tea, Annie?’ Even Tommy was intrigued by the high colour on Annie’s cheeks and the twinkle in her eye. He wanted to stay and hear the latest news.

‘Aye, I will, thanks, but, Maura, I reckon ye need to knock on because I have big news, so I do.’

Just as Annie finished speaking, Angela ran to the corner of the kitchen, picked up the mop and said, ‘I’ll do it, I have to learn soon enough.’

Tommy smiled at Angela as he put the kettle on the range. Suddenly the back door burst open and in ran Little Paddy, with Scamp hot on his heels. Little Paddy yelled at the top of his voice, ‘Maura, Maura, the policeman is going to hang for murdering Molly and the priest, so he is.’

Behind him, Peggy puffed and panted up the path, shouting, ‘Paddy, ye fecking little bastard, get out, ’tis my news.’

‘No, it isn’t!’ yelled Little Paddy. ‘I was the one who told you. The paper boy is shouting it on the Dock Road.’

Ducking the slap from his mother, which was meant for his head, he and Scamp legged it up Maura’s stairs to find the boys.

The kitchen fell silent. Even the baby stopped grizzling. Maura wasn’t even sure whether she had spoken the words, or whether someone else had, when she said, ‘How do they know?’

‘Because,’ said Annie forcefully, peeved at Little Paddy’s interruption and determined to deliver the last shred of the news, ‘they found a mallet in the graveyard with the policeman’s fingerprints on it and Molly’s blood all over. He must have carried it from the outhouse and dropped it when he ran.’

‘Will he hang?’ said Maura, her face ashen.

‘Aye, he will, but he can only be hanged once for one murder. They can’t hang you twice, can they?’

Maura spoke quickly. ‘How do they know ’twas him who murdered the priest as well, then, Annie?’

Annie was not happy. She had been expecting stardom, at the very least, not an inquisition.

‘How would I know?’

‘I do.’ Tommy spoke. ‘They think there can’t be two murders so close together by two different people so it must be the same man who committed both.’

‘Aye, that makes sense,’ said Maura slowly, as she wondered why in God’s name Molly would have been killed.

‘I’m popping down to the shops, to buy the
Echo
.’

With that, Tommy slipped out of the front door, unnoticed by the women who began to arrive through the back gate as a result of Angela banging on the kitchen wall with the mop like a madwoman.

Running down the street, he met Jerry.

They fell into step, each not having to ask where the other was heading.

‘Have ye heard then?’ asked Jerry.

‘Aye, I have and I have only one question: what the fecking hell is going on? Why would the policeman have murdered Molly? Why didn’t we know? ’Twas us what did for the priest, so how can he be taking the rap for us?’

‘That was more than one question, Tommy. Shall we call in to the Anchor on the way to the shop? Someone will have an
Echo
in there.’

‘Grand idea, but only for a quick one. Then ye have to help me mark out the streets with this block of chalk Harriet has given me for the races tomorrow, ’cause I couldn’t stand the thought of that one breathing down my neck, now, if it wasn’t done.’

With that, both men turned up the Anchor steps and into their place of refuge, where even someone as determined as Harriet wouldn’t dare try to reach them.

AS SOON AS
it was light Harriet woke and reached for the list on her bedside table. She read down the long line of additions that she had written, either before she went to sleep or when she had twice woken during the night.

‘You couldn’t function without that list, could you?’ said Anthony, as they ate breakfast in his study.

‘Do you know, Anthony, if I lost this list, I would surely die. I could not think of anything worse, so please stop hiding it, even as a joke. It is no longer funny.’

‘Will your Mr Manning be coming to the Rose Queen competition today?’ Anthony teased.

‘I have no idea,’ she replied.

‘I only ask,’ he said, ‘because I know Alison is in charge of judging the Rose Queen and I saw his name, on her list of judges.’

Harriet looked at him, aghast.

‘Stop,’ she said. ‘For goodness’ sake, she hasn’t done that, without telling me, has she? The judges are due here for tea and sandwiches, at one o’clock, before they begin judging, at two. Why would she do that? Not that it makes any difference. He’s a judge, like any other.’

‘Really?’ said Anthony. ‘I think your friend may be trying to play Cupid.’

Now that it was finally the morning of the Rose Queen fair, Harriet realized she had yet to sort out an outfit for herself. And if Mr Manning was to be a judge, she wanted to make an effort to look special. Alone in her room, her stomach filled with butterflies, she became giddy as she tore through her wardrobe, looking for a suitable dress, while downstairs Anthony was reaching for his bible and a reason to believe. Not just for Harriet, the doubt of true faith.

Outside, the women were already marching their young boys down the four streets, to carry kitchen tables outdoors and cover them with cloths for the afternoon street party. The dockers, who were taking a day off, were building a platform and erecting side poles, just as Harriet had asked them, for the judging of the Rose Queen.

The coalman had scrubbed his float almost clean and covered it with sacking, a skirt of hessian sackcloth hiding the wheels.

Mothers who had stood at St John’s market at closing time the previous day, to buy leftover flowers and greenery, were laying them on the ground next to the float.

Two chairs, covered with white sheets and tied with pink-and-white ribbons, were being carried out of Mrs Green’s front door, ready to be lifted onto the lorry, as thrones for the Rose Queen and her maid of honour. The attendants would sit in a circle on the floor around their feet.

Harriet pulled up the sash window in her bedroom and shouted out to Maura, who was walking past with a cardboard box full of cakes. She thought that Maura looked sadder than usual and on a morning like this, too.

‘Morning, Maura. Are the girls excited?’

Maura looked up. ‘Everyone is excited, Harriet. Ye have done a grand job. It is going to be a special day today. Look, the sun is out, too.’

Harriet laughed as she ducked back inside. Now all she had to do, on top of everything else on her list, was try to make herself look halfway decent. At the thought of Mr Manning, her stomach turned a somersault. Little did she know that, at that very moment, his was doing the same.

‘Nellie, would ye get out of that bed. Everyone else is already out on the streets, doing their jobs. Come down and let me get those curlers out.’

Nellie stared at her Nana Kathleen. How could she tell her that she felt almost too sad to leave her bed? Her heart felt heavy and her legs even more so. Today was Kitty’s birthday, but she wasn’t here for the best party the four streets had ever known. It hurt too much. She didn’t want to move an inch, unless it was to slip further under the bedclothes.

Nana Kathleen sat down on the edge of the bed.

‘I know what’s up, queen,’ she said, ‘but do you know who is outside already, setting up the cake stall and being as bright as she can for everyone else? ’Tis Maura, Kitty’s own mother, and how do ye imagine she is feeling inside?’

Nellie felt embarrassed.

‘And Angela and Niamh, well, a pair of troupers they are, already downstairs in the kitchen, with their hair done, waiting for ye to go with them, to have their headdresses clipped in. Kitty was their sister. How do ye think they feel?’

Nellie’s eyes were full of tears as she threw her arms round Nana Kathleen and buried her head in her hair, breathing in the distinctive musty smell that was her nana: of tobacco and chips, mingling with her new, sticky, Get Set hairspray.

‘I know, queen, I know. We all feel it,’ said Nana Kathleen, as she stroked Nellie’s back. ‘Today is a first. A first birthday without her and for that we should be thankful for the Rose Queen. It will help it pass more quickly.’

By mid-afternoon the noise from the docks had been drowned out by the sound of music and laughter ricocheting around the four streets.

When Malachi and Little Paddy won the three-legged race, the cheers could be heard for miles.

To no one’s surprise, Angela was crowned Rose Queen. Her twelve attendants were dressed in peach-coloured dresses, all handmade in the Priory by Harriet’s sewing circle. They behaved regally, as though used to such grandeur and with no notion of the tattered clothes they would be dressed in the following morning. Maura and Kathleen did a roaring trade on the cake and jumble stalls, and with the bric-a-brac.