The September Girls (2 page)

Suddenly, Colm stopped and waited for her to catch up. ‘I’ve lost me way, Bren, but I think we’re nearly there. I’ll have to ask someone if they know where Stanhope Street is.’

A few doors ahead, a man had come out of a jeweller’s shop and was in the course of locking the door. Colm approached and spoke to him. A minute later, he returned.

‘Is it far?’ Brenna asked hopefully.

‘I dunno. He told me to get back to Ireland and take me filthy family with me.’ Colm grinned, but his eyes were hurt. ‘Ah, I’ll ask this chap on the bike.’ He flagged the man down and the bike wobbled precariously as it came to a halt.

‘Brakes don’t work,’ the man announced cheerfully. ‘Stanhope Street?’ he said in response to Colm’s query. ‘Cut through Parliament Terrace right behind you, and you’ll come to Upper Parliament Street. Turn left, and you’ll see Windsor Street on your right. Stanhope Street is the second turning on the left-hand side.’

‘Ta, mate. C’mon, Bren.’ He and Tyrone went down the passage the man had indicated and disappeared.

The short wait had done Brenna no good at all. Sheer willpower had been keeping her going and she found it nigh-on impossible to get started again. She gritted her teeth and forced her legs to move, but the pain in her gut was sharper now, piercing.

‘Mammy,’ Fergus whimpered pitifully. ‘I can’t walk no more.’

‘You’ll have to, son. Hold on to me hand.’ She turned the corner, bent like an old woman, staggering slightly, her breath hoarse in her throat. Colm was standing some distance ahead, the sack on the ground and Tyrone perched on his shoulders. They were in front of a row of magnificent houses set on a slight curve, wide steps leading up to the immense front doors guarded by two white columns.

‘Come and see this, girl,’ he shouted. ‘It’s quite a sight.’ He hadn’t the faintest notion how badly she felt. Somehow, somehow, she managed to catch up.

‘There’s a party, Ma,’ Tyrone giggled. ‘A party. See!’

Through blurred eyes, she saw an opulently furnished room with a sparkling chandelier suspended from the fancy ceiling, mirrors and pictures all over the place, and twenty or thirty people, as richly dressed as the room itself, standing around with drinks in their hands, laughing and talking animatedly.

Her tired gaze fell on to the room below: a basement, reached from the road by steep, concrete steps behind black iron railings, in which three women were loading trays with refreshments. Two of the women, dressed in black with frilly white caps and aprons, departed with a tray each.

‘I’m hungry, Mammy,’ Fergus whispered. He must have noticed the food.

Brenna didn’t answer. Never before had she questioned her position in life. She was poor, had always been poor, and almost every person she knew was poor. There were a few well-off folk in Lahmera, the village in which she’d been born and bred: the farmer that Colm had worked for, the doctor, the bank manager, the solicitor and Francesca O’Reilly, who lived in a big house on its own at the edge of the village. Miss O’Reilly had been an actress in her younger days and Brenna had cleaned for her from the age of twelve until the day before she married Colm, but not even her house was half as grand as this one.

She looked again at the big room where the party was being held. Two women about her age were standing by the window laughing gaily over something. Their frocks, what she could see of them, were made of lace and trimmed with beads. One had a black plume in her hair, a silver necklace around her white, slender neck with earrings to match that shimmered and shone and danced madly when she moved her head.

It didn’t seem fair. It
wasn’t
fair that she should be standing outside in the wet, a new baby lying in her belly, her children starving, their clothes soaked, while these women, so handsomely dressed, fed off the fat of the land. A wave of bitter envy swept over her, so strong that she gasped, clutched the railings and stared at the women, wondering why it was that fate had treated them so differently. Then one, the one with the glittering earrings, noticed her staring and closed the curtains, a look of disgust on her lovely face.

‘C’mon, Brenna.’ Colm picked up the sack and began to stride away. Tyrone trotted after him.

‘I can’t.’ The railings were supporting her. If she let go, she would collapse. The pain in her stomach had become unbearable and, with a feeling of horror, she realized the baby was on its way. ‘Colm,’ she called weakly.

He turned, saw her agonized face and came hurrying back. ‘What’s the matter, Bren?’ His own face collapsed. ‘Jaysus, Mary and Joseph! It’s not the snapper, is it?’ Brenna nodded. ‘What the hell do we do now?’ he asked wildly.

‘Find a peeler,’ she gasped. A policeman would tell them what to do, where to go for help. ‘Hurry, darlin’, hurry,’ she urged when he stood there, unmoving, his mouth open wide enough to catch a fish. He raced off in the direction of Upper Parliament Street, leaving the sack behind.

‘Come and sit on the steps, Mammy.’ Tyrone put his arms around her waist.

‘Not there, lad.’ It was the house where the party was being held. ‘Next door, and not on the front steps either, the ones at the side where no one can see.’ There was a light in the porch, whereas the side steps leading to the basement were in darkness.

‘There’s a wee roof over the door where you can shelter from the rain.’

Brenna managed to struggle down the steps and seat herself at the bottom, her legs spread wide because it was impossible to hold them any other way. The lads squeezed each side of her: Fergus snuffling and telling her how miserable he felt, Tyrone stroking her neck and murmuring words of comfort.

And now, God help her, didn’t she feel the urge to push? She desperately wished she was back in Lahmera where she’d have had a bed to lie on, where the women, her neighbours, would come pouring in to help deliver the baby, just as she’d helped deliver theirs. When it was over and the baby was lying in the wooden box that had served as a crib for Fergus and Tyrone, someone would make a cup of tea. The lads would have already been taken out of the way to another house and Colm would have taken himself to the pub.

She did her utmost to suppress a scream when she felt a pain between her legs, threatening to tear them apart. Her body arched, she uttered a low moan and Tyrone leapt to his feet and hammered on the basement door.

It was opened within seconds by an irritable-looking woman who snapped, ‘Here’s a farthing, buy yourself some chips. Now, bugger off, you little scally. I’ve a million things to do tonight.’ She was about to slam the door, when Tyrone hurled himself against it.

‘Me mammy’s sick, missus.’ He burst into tears - Tyrone could bring forth tears in profusion when it suited his purpose.

The woman poked her head out of the door and saw Brenna rocking back and forth on the bottom step, her skirt above her knees and about to give birth. ‘Lord Almighty!’ she shrieked. ‘There’s babies crawling out of the woodwork in this house tonight. You’d better come in. Mr Allardyce will kill me if he finds out, although I’d sooner be dead than leave a poor, pregnant woman outside in the teeming rain.’

Brenna was hauled to her feet by a pair of strong arms and virtually dragged inside a warm kitchen full of steam from a kettle and various pans that rattled on the stove.

‘You can’t stay here,’ the woman muttered, and Brenna was dragged again through another door into a cosy sitting room where a fire burnt in a small grate and brasses gleamed on the hearth. A yellow bird in a round cage chirruped a welcome and a ginger cat curled on the couch raised its head and regarded them sleepily. The two boys followed, Tyrone dragging the sack that was bigger than himself.

Brenna was laid gently on the floor and the lads were commanded to hide behind the couch. ‘This isn’t something for such young eyes to see,’ the woman said sternly.

Tyrone said he’d better wait outside for his daddy, who’d gone in search of a peeler.

‘There’s a young lad with a wise head on his shoulders,’ the woman said when Tyrone left. ‘How old is he, pet?’ She knelt on the floor and began to remove Brenna’s shabby underclothes. ‘Everything’s sopping,’ she remarked.

‘Four.’ Four-going-on-for-forty is what Colm usually said about his younger son, whom he preferred to Fergus, now sobbing quietly behind the couch.

‘I thought he was one of the lads who sometimes come begging money for food. I’d give ’em more than a farthing, except they’d only come more often, poor little mites. What’s your name, pet? I’m Nancy Gates.’

‘Brenna Caffrey. That’s Fergus crying and Tyrone who’s gone to wait for his da.’ She felt much better in the warmth, her heart was beating normally and the urge to push had gone - perhaps it was panic and fear that had brought it on. Nancy Gates seemed very capable. A big, raw-boned woman in her forties with a deep voice, massive arms and an impatient manner, her eyes were kind in her pockmarked face.

‘And what were you doing, Brenna Caffrey, wandering along Parliament Terrace at such a late hour on such a wretched night when you were about to drop a baby?’ She gave Brenna a look, as if to say she’d been remarkably irresponsible.

‘I wasn’t expecting the baby for another fortnight, was I? And as to the other thing . . .’ She told Nancy about leaving Ireland and waiting for Paddy who’d been sent the ten pounds Colm had won to find them a house. ‘We stood by the Pier Head for three hours, but the bugger didn’t turn up. We were on our way to look for him when . . .’ Brenna shrugged. Nancy knew the rest. ‘You’re a nice, generous woman,’ she said, ‘taking us into your house like this. It’s not everyone who’d’ve done it.’

‘It’s not my house, pet. I’m only the housekeeper-cum-cook, although I live here, too. This is me own little sitting room and me bedroom’s behind.’ She shoved a cushion under Brenna’s head. ‘Mr Allardyce won’t exactly be pleased if he finds out you’re here, not that he’s likely to, not tonight. His missus is upstairs doing the same thing as you are, having a baby, and making a great big meal out of it.’ A thin scream rent the air and Nancy winced. ‘There she goes again, poor lamb.
She
wouldn’t mind you being here, not that she has much say about things since she married him.’

‘Should you not go up and see to her?’

‘She don’t need me, Brenna. Doctor Langdon’s with her as well as a nurse. All I’m fit for is boiling the water and having a regular supply of rags on hand. Which reminds me, I’d better put something under you ’case the baby pops out when we’re not looking, like.’ She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a thin sheet that was in better condition than the ones Brenna had brought with her from Ireland. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a change of clothes in that bag of yours?’ she asked. ‘It won’t do you no good, or the little ’uns, hanging round in them wet things - sounds like Fergus has gone asleep. You’re likely to catch pneumonia.’

Brenna didn’t answer. She uttered a groan, bared her teeth and managed not to scream when the baby signalled its imminent arrival for the second time that night . . .

 

‘Nancy!’ Marcus Allardyce roared from the top of the stairs that led to the kitchen.

‘Yes?’ After some delay, Nancy appeared at the bottom.

‘I’d like some tea, very strong.’

‘How about Mrs Allardyce and the others?’

‘How about them?’ Marcus growled.

‘Would they like a drink too?’

‘I wouldn’t know. You’ll have to ask them.’ He had no intention of entering the room where his lily-livered wife was in the process of giving birth to their second child - a child he would probably dislike as much as the first. Anthony, five, was a sullen, uncommunicative boy and Marcus had a strong feeling there was something seriously wrong with him.

From her bedroom on the floor above, Eleanor screamed again: she sounded like a cat in pain. ‘Don’t push, not just yet, Mrs Allardyce,’ he heard the doctor say.

‘I can’t help it,’ Eleanor shrieked.

Was there any need for such a commotion? Giving birth seemed such a simple, natural act. Marcus walked along to his study at the back of the house, conscious of his feet sinking into the thick carpet. He trailed his hand over the Victorian desk with its tooled leather top, and stared with pleasure at the crystal inkstand with a silver lid and the other expensive accoutrements on the desk, including a black telephone with an ivory face. He derived much satisfaction from all these things, touching them frequently. All had once belonged to his father-in-law.

He could distinctly remember when he was a small child that his own father had possessed similar things. Peter Allardyce had inherited a thriving shipping company and a large house in Princes Park, but by the time Marcus was ten, everything had gone due to his father’s incompetence, an addiction to alcohol and an obsession with fast women. His once pampered, extremely resentful wife had been forced to move with their two children to a small house in Allerton. She never ceased to complain to anyone who would listen, ‘This isn’t what I’m used to, you know.’

There was just about enough money left in the bank to live on for a few years if they cut out luxuries. Marcus and his elder sister, Georgina, had been removed from their private schools and thrust into local establishments where the education was abysmal and they had to mix with the children of the working classes.

Their father had stuck it out at home for a year but, unable to stand his wife’s ceaseless litany of complaints, left and went to live with a woman who owned a millinery shop in Smithdown Road. On the rare occasions his wife and children saw him, he seemed exceedingly happy.

When Georgina was eighteen, she made her own escape and married a purser on the Cunard Line. Marcus and his mother were left with only each other to protest to about the grievous injustice that life had meted out to them.

Obliged to leave school at thirteen, he had gone to work for a firm of local accountants as a messenger and tea boy - at least it meant he had to dress respectably - and studied at night: bookkeeping, accounting, auditing, as well as the branches of maths he hadn’t touched at school such as algebra, geometry and calculus. The firm had the
Financial Times
delivered daily and he discovered stocks and shares and read about the vagaries of the stock market.