Coming Home to the Four Streets by Nadine Dorries (books that read to you .txt) 📗

doesn’t trust me on Nelson Street now Maura has gone and isn’t there to tip up the cash for others and she wants to come on the four streets collecting round on Fridays now.’

Eric saw the smile of relief slide from Peggy’s face. She no more wanted to deal with Gladys than Eric did. ‘You’re a good man, Eric. God alone knows how a man like you ended up with a wife like that. Don’t you be worrying, I’ll find the money, somehow, no one has to pay for us.’ She blessed herself; they both knew she had just lied and, as expected, the guilt kicked in. ‘I’ll call into mass, miracles do happen.’

Peggy ducked back under the window and, as it slammed down, the sound of the church bells faded.

Paddy laughed. ‘Just think, if Maura and Tommy were still next door, you could knock on with the mop and get her to bring you round a quarter of tea from the chest they used to keep in the wash house and we could have a nice cuppa now.’

Peggy lifted down her dressing gown from a nail in the door and shuffled it over her shoulders. Paddy’s words made her feel sad. She missed Maura every day. It wasn’t just that she no longer had anyone to borrow the staples of life from, the tea, sugar, bread, or to provide her brood with a meal when it got really bad and they needed feeding, it was the company she missed and the routines. Maura had made Peggy attend mass on at least one day in the week and always on a Sunday. Maura made Peggy feel good about herself and so she had copied Maura. On the days Maura had washed her nets, Peggy did. When Maura lit the copper boiler, Peggy followed suit. But all too easily, without her guiding light, Peggy had become overwhelmed by the daily drudgery and battle and had very quickly become someone who forgot things and who couldn’t quite manage.

Peggy had loved Maura for the true friend she was. And she was very sure she didn’t love her husband, Paddy. On a day like today, when he was about to refuse to move from the bed and take himself down to the docks for an honest day’s work, she imagined him impaled on the end of her bread knife. She’d had many such thoughts just lately, simmering below her veneer of incompetence, and they perturbed her. She was well aware that if she let the thought take hold, when the kids were crying and hungry, it could all too easily become a reality. She was brought to her senses as a tug passed out onto the river, blowing its horn, heading to the bar to bring down a ship to be unloaded.

‘Come on you, get out of that bed,’ she said and pulled the blanket away from Paddy, onto the floor. ‘Hear the tugs? There must be a ship out on the bar waiting to come in.’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ said Paddy. ‘I can’t go down those steps today with my back like this. It’s killing me.’

‘You might end up dead if you don’t, for sure,’ she said, ‘and don’t think I’m joking. As God is my judge, you will either walk down those steps to the pen, or if I have to, I’ll bleedin’ kick you down and you’ll be rollin’ down them and turning up for work on your fecking fat arse. How do you think I’m going to put food on the table? How am I going to pay Eric? How do I pay the rent and the coalman? We’re weeks behind. Get out of that flamin’ bed!’

Peggy slipped a foot into one of her frayed tartan slippers, which smelt almost as ripe as Paddy. The slippers, still damp from the night before, were the closest thing she owned to a pair of shoes, having pawned the ones Maura gave her before she left for Ireland. Picking up the remaining slipper, she bent over the bed and began to slap big Paddy on any part of his white, flabby flesh she could reach.

‘You flamin’ madwoman!’ he shouted as, quicker than Peggy ever could be, he slipped his legs over the edge of the bed and grabbed his trousers from the bedpost. ‘You’re a feckin’ mad witch, you are!’

‘I might be mad and I may even be a witch, but I’d rather be both of those than a selfish, lazy fecking bastard who doesn’t give a damn if his kids starve, because that’s what you are, a fat, lazy, useless bastard!’

Her eyes were blazing and there was something in them Paddy didn’t like the look of. He had seen it often of late. A fire, a thought, a fleeting glimpse of hatred, a hidden meaning that perturbed him. There had already been a murder on the four streets. The scandalous, shocking murder of a priest – and right at this moment his wife appeared more than capable of doubling that murder count. It crossed his mind, was it Peggy? But no, Peggy never lost her temper, that prerogative was his, often after a skinful he could ill afford down at the Anchor. He could never remember the night before; it was only the bruises on Peggy or the children which bore witness to his attacks or the upturned chamber pot, the broken chair in the kitchen. And his lapses had become more frequent since the Dohertys had left.

‘All right, you crazy feckin’ cow, keep your knickers on. I’m getting dressed, aren’t I, eh?’ He held up his trousers to her and, wincing, placed his other hand in the small of his back. ‘Honest to God, queen, it’s killing me.’

Peggy made a noise that resembled a deep growl more animal than human, but they both stopped dead as they heard a small voice behind them.

‘I’ll make yer tea, will I, Da? I’ll wet the old tea leaves from yesterday if there’s none, shall