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

as she comforted her son in the dark and tense atmosphere, with nothing by way of light other than the peat blocks smouldering and a spluttering candle on the stone mantelpiece, her thoughts slipped from where they now lived to the place she thought of as home.

‘Now, when you are better, you will be running straight up to the bombed-out site to play the footie, won’t you? If I hear Jerry shout once more, “Harry takes a corner like Stanley Matthews”, I’ll be on the phone to Bill Shankly meself, do you hear me? I’ll be saying to him, oi, Bill you don’t even know it but your best player is here, knocking a ball about with the lads on the four streets and you haven’t even noticed him yet.’

She stroked the wet hair back from Harry’s forehead with the cloth as he burned up, muttering words that made little sense and she fought the fever bowl by bowl, cloth by cloth, as the clock ticked through the minutes and the fire fell into dust. Without being asked, Angela knew just when she was needed and helped her ma until they heard the sound of Liam’s van pull up outside.

‘Oh, thank you God!’ Maura gasped, her voice catching in her throat and she blessed herself. Tommy took the stairs two at a time and ran into the room with Liam close behind and Maeve, Liam’s wife, staggered breathlessly in after him.

‘Come on,’ said Liam who could see Harry was a very sick boy indeed, ‘Tommy, you carry him down the stairs and we will lay him on the front bench of the van, across yours and Maura’s laps. Maura, come on, down you go. Have you got everything you need? Maeve is going to stay here with Angela and look after the place. We knocked on to Pete Shevlin’s and he’s sent his cowman to do the milking for us. Angela, you go away back to bed and get some sleep before the others wake and you can have a day off school and help Maeve. Tommy, you lift Harry and take him down to the car. Do you need anything, Maura? Do you have your handbag?’

In the midst of the chaos, Maura almost smiled. ‘You are Kathleen’s son, all right, Liam,’ she said, impressed, as she tied her headscarf under her chin.

Maeve helped Maura on with her coat and threw her arms around her as Tommy lifted Harry up and into his own arms. ‘They will make him better at the hospital,’ said Maeve. ‘Sure they will that. I’d say send him down to Bridget on the farm, she has a potion for everything, but you’d never be able to get him there in the dark across the bog and up the bohreen until it’s daylight. That’s the worst of it, where Bridget lives in the sod house – even I can’t find me way and there’s so many goblins sleeping out there at night, one would surely grab at your ankles and trip ye up. Wicked, they are.’

Maura hugged Maeve back as Angela said, ‘Can I come with you, Mammy?’

Maura bent down to her. ‘No, Angela, I need you to be…’ Her voice tailed away. She had nearly said, ‘Be like our Kitty was’, but she managed to stop herself. ‘I need you to be a big girl and show Maeve how we do things and get the kids to school. Can you do that?’

Angela, nodded, knowing exactly what it was that Maura had been about to say.

Maeve took Angela’s hand. ‘Come on, there’s a good girl. Will we make the tea?’

As Tommy walked past with Harry dangling from his arms, his head lolling on his shoulder, the teddy fell onto the floor.

‘Take it,’ said Angela as she bent and picked it up and thrust it into Maura’s arms. ‘He makes me better.’

‘Go,’ said Maeve. ‘Off with you and God speed.’

Moments later, Maura and Tommy, feeling totally helpless, were sitting in the front of Liam’s van as he drove it as fast as it would carry them on the road to Galway. As they passed through Ballynevin, they saw the lights on in the Post Office and Mrs Doyle, with her face up to the window, watching them as they passed.

‘Why is Mrs Doyle up now at this godawful hour?’ asked Tommy.

Maura’s eyes never left her son’s face, but she said, ‘The cowman would have gone there to tell her what was happening and she would have telephoned the hospital to let them know we are on our way.’

Even though she couldn’t see him, Tommy raised his cap to Mrs Doyle in grateful thanks. ‘They are good people out here,’ he said in almost a whisper as he placed his hand over Maura’s and gave it a squeeze.

She looked up at her husband and their eyes met. She would not tell Tommy now, but if she had made a decision in the time it had taken him to get to Liam’s and back – and, if their son survived this, nothing anyone said would change her mind.

She felt the tears prickle the back of her eyes as her son rambled and the van bumped and rattled along the road. She wasn’t even sure if Harry would still be alive by the time they reached the hospital. In each village they passed through they were expected and someone was up and waiting in case they needed help. The jungle drums along the Atlantic coast road had heralded their coming. As they crept into one village, Liam slowed the van down, stopped at a gate, and just as he did, a door flew open and a couple Maura thought must have been at least eighty years old came running down the path. Liam wound down his window.

‘A cool cloth for the boy and a tot for you,’ the woman said, handing a damp cloth in through the window to Maura. Meanwhile, her husband unscrewed the van’s petrol cap and, began