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

funeral had had a profound effect on him. It was the first time he had ever peeped through the upstairs window to watch one. The children on the streets were usually confined to the back bedroom when a funeral was taking place, while the adults dragged their chairs out into the street as the cortege passed by. On the day of Kitty’s funeral, the men had marched back up the dockers’ steps and the klaxon had rung out in respect. The women had thrown buckets of water at the horses’ hooves and the praying and chanting of the Hail Marys had risen up to the window where he knelt on floorboards, his face just above the sill. He was afraid, his mouth dry, and he wondered was that because he was the only person who saw what he had seen: Kitty, standing in the middle of the cobbles at the end of the street, looking down on her own funeral.

Did she see Maura, half-falling from her chair onto the ground? Did she hear her wailing and the gasp of everyone as Tommy collapsed and Jerry and Seamus and Eugene hauled him up onto his feet? Did she see the rain that fell from the skies and blessed the mourners? And when she smiled up at him, had she really seen him too?

He had spotted Kitty many times since, but he would never tell anyone in case they said he was mad and carted him off down to the priest, for it was well known that the priest had children taken away for being mad and they never came back. ‘Gone over the water,’ his mam had once told him when he asked about a young girl who had lived nearby. Everyone on the four streets knew she had been pregnant, but no one knew who by or what had happened to the baby.

‘Moral indecency, that’s what the priest at St Cuthbert’s said. He arranged it. God love her, she will never get out of that place, so she won’t,’ were the words he had heard as the women gathered in groups in the street to smoke and chatter. And then, suddenly, no one mentioned her name any more, for she had had sex. She must have, despite her protestations and it must never be spoken about, for fear it would become contagious. It seemed to little Paddy that everyone, except himself, had forgotten her. He often thought of her because she had been so pretty and so studious, in and out of the presbytery every day with her books and her Bible.

‘There are too many visitations of the Holy Spirit and immaculate conceptions around here for it to be true,’ he had heard one of the women say.

‘And to think, everyone thought she was going to take the veil,’ he had heard his mam say to his da. ‘She was never out of the priest’s study.’

Paddy opened the green canvas army surplus bag that he had left in the outhouse and had collected on the way out of the back gate. When Max had finished his breakfast, he would transfer him into the bag whilst he kicked a ball around with the others, if Malachi would let him. It was Malachi Malone who decided whose feet could touch the ball and only the chosen few were allowed to play and the agreement was that Malachi was allowed to score the most goals of the day. Only yesterday, Malachi had become so bad-tempered with one of the boys who scored five goals in a row that Malachi picked up the ball and marched home with it under his arm, hurling abuse over his shoulder as he went. The disappointment of thirty boys on the bombed-out wasteland, especially those still waiting to play, was palpable.

‘Aw, come on, Malachi, be a sport! If you want to go home for your tea, leave the ball and I’ll bring it back later,’ little Paddy had called as some of the younger boys began to cry and Paddy had felt for them. ‘Come on, Malachi, don’t be giving out like that now, be a good sport and let the little fellas play.’

But Malachi was crying hard, something boys over ten years of age on the four streets never, ever did, not in front of other boys anyway. ‘Feck off!’ he shouted over his shoulder as thirty boys watched their elevation from boredom march away.

The canvas bag banged against Paddy’s thigh as he walked, the buckle pricking the skin of his hand, thrust deep into his pockets to protect Max. He could tell that Max was sleeping soundly. He would leave his new best friend in his pocket until he got near to the wasteland before he transferred him to his bag. He trudged along, wondering would Malachi be in a good mood? Would a full day of play be on the cards before Malachi took his ball home? Would Malachi try to thump him or somebody else? As he turned across the top of the entry, he saw a woman shading her eyes with her hands, peering in through the window of Maura and Tommy’s old house. Little Paddy thought for a moment and then, on a whim, he sauntered down the pavement and approached the woman.

‘Hello,’ he said, ‘that’s Tommy and Maura’s house.’

The woman turned and looked down her nose at him. ‘Was,’ she replied.

Paddy furrowed his brow. ‘No, it’s definitely theirs,’ he replied and, without thinking, put his thumb in his mouth. Along with wetting the bed, it was the thing he was desperately trying to stop himself from doing. He had promised Maura he would before she left. It had been the last conversation she had with him.

‘I won’t be here, Paddy, to help your mam get the sheets dry. You know, she sometimes needs a bit of help, don’t you? You promise me you will try, there’s a good lad. Make sure you go every night, before you get into your bed,