The Four Streets (21 page)

Grabbing her breath back, with a squeal that she tried hard to suppress, she flew lightfooted towards the bedroom door, scared to creak a floorboard or bang a door, thereby waking Alice. The thought of Alice spread icy tendrils up from her calves into the pit of her stomach. She mustn’t wake Alice.

It was very important for Nellie to catch Jerry in the mornings. If Alice chose to stay in bed, she would forget about Nellie, who would then have to stay in her room, without food and with a rumbling, empty belly, until Alice fetched her, which sometimes could be very late in the day. This distressed Nellie as she needed the outhouse and often had to sneak out in fear of being heard or caught by Alice. Home was a menacing place when Jerry wasn’t there.

From the first day Alice had moved in, almost every minute that Jerry was out of the house was a minute Nellie spent in her room, alone. In the early months, she would be left in her bed all day. Alice would leave her with bread and a drink to feed herself with, and walk out. Sometimes Nellie would cry for hours, until her tears became a whimper. After a while, she learnt that crying was pointless. Crying achieved nothing. It made no difference whatsoever, other than to make her sick, and so she stopped and became quiet. At the end of each day, Alice would bring her down an hour before Jerry arrived home. She would change the soaked nappy and put her straight back into her nightdress, before bringing her downstairs, plonking her onto a kitchen chair with a crust of bread in her hand, just in time for her da to walk in through the door.

When Nellie started talking, Alice laid down the boundaries of behaviour she expected from her stepdaughter. One morning Alice squatted down on the kitchen floor, her face level with Nellie’s, and said, ‘I just want you to know, little madam, that when your father is out, you don’t speak until you are spoken to. Don’t ever speak to me first, unless I ask you to. Do you get that?’

Alice spat the words out with such venom that Nellie was speechless. The fire in the range was burning high behind Alice’s back, the flames licking and dancing, an orange and yellow burst of light in the otherwise gloomy room. Nellie’s imagination ran away with her. She knew she was in danger. The thought went through her mind that if she said the wrong thing Alice might throw her in the fire. She thought she would be all burnt up, like the potato peelings, and her da wouldn’t know where she was or be able to find her.

Alice terrified her. She did exactly as she was told and spoke only when her da was in the room, but each and every time she did, she cast a sideways glance at Alice, just to make sure it was OK, and Alice was always, without fail, staring at Nellie with a blank face. Only her eyes carried any expression and they were saying a great deal to Nellie.

Sometimes, Jerry would leave for the docks and work through for a straight twenty-four hours. This was hard for Nellie, although it did mean that even though he was in bed, recovering the following day, her da was at home. His being in the house made an enormous difference, for Nellie lived two lives. The one her da and Auntie Maura knew about, and the one she had to keep secret.

Nellie never really surprised Jerry when she opened the kitchen door in the mornings. He always expected her, although he never woke her, preferring to wait until the fire was lit and the kitchen had warmed. For more months of the year than not, Jerry could see his own breath indoors. It appeared to him as though Nellie had some form of sixth sense, because every morning, just as the fire was lit and the crystallized icy flakes slowly began to melt away from the inside of the window-pane, Nellie would walk in through the door, eyes still full of night-time dreams, clutching her old teddy. Jerry had no idea what a punctual alarm clock his morning routine was. It made all the comforting morning sounds Nellie loved to hear. It never altered and provided her with a familiar morning song to wake up to.

One morning she had come down and he wasn’t there, despite the fact that she had heard all the usual wake-up sounds. She hadn’t known what to do. Disappointment washed over her, as tears began to flow and she began to sob. A morning without breakfast and a cuddle from her da was indeed miserable, as she might not eat again until the evening. Suddenly, the back door flew open and her da came in with the coal scuttle in his hand. As soon as he saw her, he placed it on the floor and ran over to her, lifting her up into his arms and hugging her.

‘Shush now, princess, what is up with ye?’ he soothed. She never replied and he never knew, but now, in the mornings if he went outside for coal, no matter how cold it was, he left the back door open so that she would know where he had gone.

This morning, as Nellie tiptoed down the landing, Jerry opened the first tap for running water, and she heard the cistern clank and the lead pipes play a tune that was more suited to a game of musical railway sidings than a domestic water supply. She stopped dead in her tracks, terrified that the sound would wake Alice and that she would be trapped outside her door. With a sharp inward gasp, she swiftly covered her mouth with her hand so that Alice couldn’t hear her breathe. If Alice did wake, she mustn’t know Nellie was there. She willed herself to be invisible as well as silent, believing this could be achieved by squeezing her eyes tight shut.

Once the water began to flow and the clanks subsided, Nellie opened her eyes and breathed again. She tiptoed stealthily down the wooden stairs, skipping the next to last one at the bottom, which always yelled out in protest as soon as it was stepped on.

As soon as she opened the kitchen door, her eyes alighted upon Jerry and she took her thumb out of her mouth, smiled her beaming smile and ran across the cold stone floor to hug him.

‘Good morning, my beautiful colleen,’ he said, swinging her up in his arms and lifting her above his head. ‘One, two, three,’ he shouted, and then threw her six inches into the air. ‘By Jaysus,’ he puffed, ‘I won’t be doing that for much longer, I’ll be hitting the roof, so I will, and sending the tiles flying into Harrington Road, yer getting such a big girl.’

She hugged his neck, and he breathed in the scent of her hair, just the same as her mother’s. He savoured the moment, as he closed his eyes, rocking her slowly from side to side, hugging her tight. Nellie closed her eyes too. They both remained quiet, locked in their special moment until they felt her join them, as she nearly always did. They both felt the intensity of the love that flowed and wrapped itself around them, holding them tightly together and lasting for just a minute. Then it was gone as quickly as it came. But it never failed them; it was always there.

After crashing the range doors once he had put his rashers of Irish bacon and sliced tatties in the oven, Jerry started dancing around the kitchen with Nellie, as he did almost every morning, holding one of her hands out to the side as if they were waltzing. Some mornings Nellie left after him for school, but her weekends were just like the early years with Alice had been, lonely.

Jerry sang at the top of his voice, accompanying Cliff Richard on the red and grey Roberts radio, as he swirled her around the kitchen, and she began to giggle. He never seemed to be in the slightest bit scared about waking Alice.

When they finished dancing, he filled a bowl with milk and water, dropped four or five cobs of bread into it with a sprinkling of sugar and popped it into the range oven with his rashers. If Nellie didn’t have her breakfast and milk with her da in the morning, she might go all day without food, but she would never tell him that, because Alice had told her not to. She might also have a bit of bacon and tatties, if she hurried and finished her bowl first. She made sure she hurried.

Jerry took his breakfast and Nellie’s ‘pobs’ from the range and placed them on the dark wooden table. Jerry had loved the yellow table he and Bernadette had saved for and bought together. Now, he and Nellie sat on Alice’s very cumbersome oak chairs with dark brown leather seat pads. Jerry and Nellie called them chairs; Alice called them ladder-backs.

At least the bright yellow table had gone to Maura and Tommy, who had been delighted beyond words. They had too many children ever to be able to afford anything new in the way of furniture. Everything they owned was falling to bits. Maura had cried the day he and Tommy carried the table into their kitchen along with the four modern chairs, with spindle chrome legs and plastic seats and backs, covered in the same pattern as the Formica table. It was bright yellow with a design that looked as if someone had scattered a box of grey matches over the top. Maura wrote to her relatives in Mayo and told them it was time they came for a visit. She wanted them to report back to her relatives and friends in the village how prosperous Maura and Tommy were in England and how good the wages must be, if they could afford a Formica table.

Once Jerry and Nellie sat down to their breakfast together, the chatter began. Nellie’s chatter, that is. Jerry could never get a word in edgeways. She talked and rambled non-stop. Sometimes she almost made him late, a disaster for a docker. Work was on a first come, first served basis and it was getting harder to be taken on each day.

This morning, the tide was out and Jerry had an extra half-hour. It was Sunday and there was no school for Nellie. From the upstairs window he could see out across the river. He knew, from having popped into the dock office the day before, which boats were expected in and he could see the tugs and pilots weren’t moving out yet.

‘Let’s play a game, shall we,’ he said to Nellie. He didn’t often get time to romp about with her. There was no Alice up and making demands on his attention, so why not? Nellie was squealing and jumping up and down on the spot.

Eager to make her happy, Jerry remembered a game Nellie had played at Maura’s at the weekend and said, ‘I have an idea. Why don’t we make a den?’

Nellie could not believe her ears and was beside herself with excitement. Jerry took her into the living room and they pulled out the dark oak sideboard, which was normally flush with the wall, and put it across the corner of the room. Jerry lifted her over the top, so she was in the triangle-shaped space, and then pulled the sideboard away and squeezed in himself.

The sideboard was another of Alice’s possessions. Again, it was too large for the room but it was her pride and joy and she polished it every day.

Nellie and her da played in the den, pretending that they were in a cave and that out in the living room were lots of wild animals they had to hide from. They both had to go into the kitchen to fetch essential supplies for the den, dodging the imaginary wild animals.

‘Quick, let me in,’ squealed Nellie, who did the first run to the kitchen to fetch water. ‘The fish are chasing me.’

‘The fish?’ laughed Jerry. ‘Why is ye worried about the fish? It’s a big lion I can see chasing ye.’

Nellie squealed and both feet left the floor in shock, as she ran, spilling her water on the way. As she squeezed back in behind the sideboard, she screamed when Jerry once again pulled it across the corner, closing the little gap he had left for Nellie.

After they had been playing for a while, Jerry heard the tugs. ‘I have to go, Queen,’ he said to Nellie. ‘You stay here and play with Alice, I will go and wake her.’

Nellie froze. She couldn’t speak or move. Within seconds Jerry had moved the sideboard out, removed himself and easily pushed it back again. Jerry was a docker and his upper-body strength was immense. It was no effort for him. He took his cap from the nail on the back of the kitchen door, along with his jacket, and shouted up the stairs to Alice, ‘Come down and play with Nellie, she’s waiting for ye. Alice, do you hear me?’

He waited for a ‘yes’ to come down the stairs and then he was off, out of the back door, down the entry, across the road and down the steps to the dock. He was standing at the dock gate, shouting greetings to the other men and laughing about the football prospects for the Everton team, just as Alice put her feet out of bed and onto the bedroom floor. Alice didn’t like being woken. Alice wanted to hide in her bed under the blankets and be alone. She liked being shouted awake even less. What did Jerry mean, Nellie was waiting for her? If the child had any sense she would be back in her room, where she ought to be.

Nellie tried to move the sideboard to get out, but it was too heavy and she was trapped. She put her fingers onto the top and tried to scramble up. It was too high. Her feet had nothing to grip onto. Her toes pounded like a dog at the door scraping to come in, with no effect. She could hear Alice’s footsteps upstairs and she knew she needed to get out. She lifted her hands higher and tried hard to pull herself up. She heaved her feet off the floor, pressing her knees into the back of the sideboard and the soles of her feet flat against the wall behind, to shimmy herself up, one last time. She gave it every ounce of strength she had. The sideboard rocked towards her as she tipped it slightly up off its front legs, just for a second, and then she heard the crash and froze.

As a terrified Nellie squatted behind the sideboard alone, where, only a few minutes ago, both she and her da had been laughing heartily, she heard Alice’s footsteps slowly descend the stairs into the kitchen. Alice didn’t say a word. She never did. She walked over to the radio and switched it off. Alice hated noise. She was slightly surprised that the kitchen looked exactly as it always did, and yet she knew something was different; she knew Nellie wasn’t in her room. She could sense her, smell her, and she wanted to know what had made the loud crashing noise.

Alice put the kettle back on the range to boil, and then walked into the living room. She saw the sideboard moved from its usual place and she stared, with absolute horror, at her parents’ precious ornament, a china dancing lady, smashed to smithereens on the floor.

Alice didn’t shout. She never shouted. Hissing was more her style.

‘So, this is it, this is the day it all changes, eh?’ she spat quietly. She walked to the corner of the room and attempted to heave the sideboard back into its original place. Then she saw Nellie, huddled as far back against the wall as she could be, cowering and shaking. Nellie didn’t say a word; she knew that was forbidden.