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

same. Same orders, same numbers of bottles out and empties back in and he was about to deliver a crate of six steri to the Anchor. There was no sign of the cellar man but Eric could tell by the bottles stacked outside the back door that the previous evening had been a lock-in.

As the float trundled across the cobbled yard, Babs threw open the door and greeted them with a wave. Her usual beehive hair style was tied up in a headscarf which resembled a turban, and the remnants of the previous night’s eye make-up was smeared under her eyes.

‘Busy night was it, Babs?’ Eric asked as he inclined his head towards the bottles.

‘The usual, Eric. You know what they’re like around here. Complain they’ve got no money and just as soon as they have a quid in their pockets, they spend it in here and either throw it up down our jacksies or piss it up the wall on the way home. Don’t ever ask me why I’m still married. If I had just spent a week in this place first, it would have been enough to put me off for life. Men!’

Eric shook his head; he often thought people must wonder why he was married, given that everyone knew and avoided his wife Gladys. ‘It’s a mystery to me, Babs. I don’t know where they get the money from. Only half of the men in the pen were taken on every morning last week, so I’ve heard.’

She looked instantly guilty. ‘Well, don’t blame me, Eric, it’s not our fault. I mean, we can’t refuse to serve them, can we? I had to push Paddy Nolan out of the door meself last night. Cadged a bob off Ena, he did, because he said there was no money for the leccy at home and Peggy and the kids were in the pitch black, then moved into the back bar and spent it on Guinness as soon as Ena started singing “Danny Boy”. It’s Peggy and the kids I feel sorry for, but what are we supposed to do, close the bleeding place down?’ Without waiting for an answer, she continued, ‘And if we did, the buggers would only go and spend it down at the Sylvestrian and put their money over the bar there. At least in my pub it’s not as far to stagger home and there’s no prossies on the street to take whatever the soft buggers have left.’ Babs took a long pull on her cigarette and flicked the ash out of the door.

Now it was Eric’s turn to feel guilty. ‘I’m sorry, Babs, I didn’t mean to suggest…’ he began.

‘Oh Eric, no love, no, I know you didn’t. It’s just harder now that Tommy Doherty isn’t around. If he thought anyone was drinking too much and the kids were going without, he’d march them back home. I’ve seen him many a time taking what was left of the pay packet from some soft sod and then their Maura would take it round to the wife the next morning. It’s not the same since him and Maura left; the four streets are going to pot without them.’

Eric shook his head in dismay and changed the subject. ‘I was thinking of painting the float for the Dock Queen Carnival. Is it starting off on your front yard as usual?’

Babs’s face lit up. ‘It is. I went to the first meeting with Sister at the convent – and honest to God, the whole time I was there I was waiting for lightning to strike, or the doors to slam shut and lock me in.’ Babs, who lived in a warm public house with a large fire, had no need of a welcome dry hour in mass, three times a day for seven months of the year and was not a regular attender, laughed. ‘Sister said, “So, ladies, who is organising the bunting?” Well, not one bugger answered. It was Maura did all that before she left, so I nudged Peggy who was sat next to me and said to her, “Peggy, can’t you do that? Didn’t you used to be the one helping Maura before she left?” and she just gawped at me.

‘I tell you, no one was home that night and I don’t know what’s wrong with that woman, apart from the fact that she’s married to Paddy and has seven kids with open mouths hanging around her ankles. Kathleen Deane was on the other side of me and she’s the one half-raising those kids since Maura took off. So Kathleen can’t do it, can she? She’s making the cakes, Maisie’s sewing all the frocks with the little material they have, Shelagh is running around like a blue-arsed fly with half a dozen kids on her hips, trying her best, bless her, and Alice and Deirdre, they’re running just about everything else trying to please Miss Devlin, who never stops with the orders, and Cindy, well, she’s too busy running her salon. And there’s another problem; there hasn’t been a tramp ship in the dock for months. No one’s got nothing.’

Eric felt breathless just listening to Babs. None of it was news to him. The widow, Maggie Trott on Nelson Street, had voiced her concerns to him about the carnival weeks ago. The dock board didn’t pay enough of a weekly wage to feed a large Catholic family and everyone on the four streets enjoyed some luxuries in life courtesy of Captain Conor, whose mother, Ena, lived on Waterloo Street. On a regular basis, Conor’s tramp ship haul was carried up the dockers’ steps in the dead of night and it was his rum, from the Caribbean, which kicked off the carnival to a good start.

‘I mean, where does Sister think the free tot of rum comes from when everyone’s covering your milk float in May flowers? Or the fabric for the frocks, for that matter. They were made of shot silk last year, that Conor brought