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

do it. God love them, they’ll end up in Speke, now, miles from everywhere and everyone.’

Paddy had heard stories about Speke, the concrete new towns and the Giro cheques people lived on because they could no longer travel to work. He didn’t want to go there, he wanted to stay on the four streets, next to the docks and the ships, forever. Max shifted to make himself more comfortable in his pocket and Paddy froze, sure Peggy would have noticed the wriggling.

Peggy put her hand on her son’s head and ruffled his hair. ‘Paddy, you’ll be the death of me, honest to God. Don’t you be worrying about the rent, I’ll get it paid, I promise. Out you go, now, and don’t be fretting about your da, I’ll cadge him a fag from someone.’

Peggy closed the door behind him and took the letter from her apron pocket. She had worked out her sums on the back of the envelope and she first inspected her column of figures. This would be the fourth week with no rent paid and the letter made it quite clear what was about to happen to them if she didn’t pay the arrears in full. The dock board were sending the bailiffs round and they would all be out on the street the following Friday and everyone would witness her humiliation and shame. Peggy’s head felt as though it was filled with the candyfloss they ate at the carnival and she couldn’t think straight. Her skin prickled with fear, as she pushed the envelope back down into her apron pocket. She opened the press door; it was empty. There was nothing in for anyone to eat, not even a broken biscuit. She blessed herself.

‘Jesus wept, I’ll have to go to Kathleen.’ Kathleen would help her to feed the kids, she was sure, she would cross the road, swallow her pride and ask for help. As she closed the wooden doors, the ceiling thudded and plaster flakes fell around her.

‘Is Paddy back with my baccy yet? And where’s my tea?’ Big Paddy’s voice boomed down the stairs.

Peggy’s eyes fell on the bread knife and rage threatened to consume her. The all-too-common vision of Paddy, impaled to the tip, his arms and legs flailing, a look of surprise on his face, filled her thoughts and she let them rest there for a few seconds before banishing them.

‘There’s no tea and no baccy because they cost money!’ she shouted up the stairs.

‘Oh, go on, queen, I know Shelagh brought you a cup full of tea leaves and sugar round last night; I heard her in the kitchen. I think it might help me back a bit if you have two Anadin to go with it.’

His voice, whining and pleading, fell into a void and the sun on the kitchen window caught the blade of the knife and winked at her. ‘Go on,’ it whispered to her, ‘it’ll be no trouble, I’ll help.’

She had two Anadin left, but despite the pain in her back, she would give them to Paddy, just to stop him complaining. Her fibroids had been playing up since she had been on the change.

‘We can have it all taken away,’ Dr Cole had told her last year. ‘Your uterus, it’s just an empty sack now, Peggy, waiting to become diseased, so we may as well. Let me tell the consultant at St Angelus that you are ready. He says in his letter he made you the offer last time he saw you.’

Peggy had shaken her head, made her excuses and left the surgery in haste. ‘I’ll have a think, but I’ll be back soon and let you know,’ she had said and had avoided both Dr Cole and the hospital since that day. Two weeks in hospital and four weeks in bed recuperating when she got back home to have it all taken away? How the hell could she do that? No, she would keep going for now.

Peggy sighed. ‘All right then, I’ll put the kettle on before the coal burns out.’ The last of the Anadin was the least of her problems; the coal, now, that was a worry. On the way to the kettle, she began to remove her curlers. There was nothing for it; she would have to go to the rent office and throw herself onto the mercy of Mr Heartfelt. In the past, when a brown envelope arrived, Maura would come with her and Mr Heartfelt, who obviously had a soft spot for Maura, would have been amenable and open to discussion and a compromise. Today, Peggy would have to try to sweet talk Mr Heartfelt all on her own.

She threw the curlers into the enamel dish on the windowsill and ran her fingers over her scalp. A woman of no means and financially dependent on a man who refused to get out of his bed, all she had was her hair to help her. It was that or a pimp on the corner of Upper Parliament Street. Tears filled her eyes and she let them fall, one hand on the kettle, the other on the sink to steady her.

‘Oh, Maura, what has become of me?’ she sobbed, her predicament made worse by the fact that there was no one to hear her and no one to help.

Chapter Nine

Captain Conor was looking out to sea from the bridge of the Morry just as his first mate, whose nervous facial tic had earned him the name Blinks, arrived with his tray. The sea was calm and the port behind them rolled backwards into the distance.

‘Ahoy, you had better drink this, now,’ said Blinks, ‘before we get out onto the ocean. There’s a good splash of rum in it and it’ll find your sea legs for you.’

‘I hope there’s not too much rum in here,’ said Conor, raising one eyebrow and sniffing at the mug.

‘If there is, you won’t know anything about it when we sink. You’ve pulled a fecking fast