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

Jerry shook his head. ‘We don’t. Frank the Skank grassed on them, and what intrigues me is why the Skank is now stood, guarding the gangway, whilst the Morry sails in and no one is batting an eyelid. Something is going on down there and I have no idea what it is. But I intend to find out.’

*

Cindy pushed back the long tails of the brightly coloured fly curtain.

‘Who’s there? I’m closed,’ she said as she flicked the light switch back on. ‘Oh, Mary. Heavens above, I didn’t expect to see you here.’ Cindy smiled at the girl. ‘What can I do for you, Mary? I’m closed.’

Mary wanted to run out of the shop, but the money in her pocket burnt into her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Cindy,’ she said and her voice was so low Cindy could hardly hear her. ‘I’ve been saving up and I was going to come in on Saturday, but Malcolm is busy and I can’t and, well, I just wanted to look nice.’

Cindy smiled. Alice had warned Cindy to expect Mary when she’d finally made it to have her own hair done.

‘Mary has a special fella in mind, Cindy,’ she’d said. ‘She’s only young and she needs a bit of a confidence booster. I’ve told her to start here with you; I said there was much she could learn from you and that she needs to be more like you and less like me.’

Cindy had seated Alice under the dryer and had fetched them both a cup of tea. ‘I’m up for that, Alice. I think we should try and help her or that poor girl is going to be washing dishes and peeling spuds for the rest of her life – and, of course, there’s Deirdre to deal with. She’s always seen Mary more as free help than a daughter – and that dreadful brother of hers, Malachi, is treated like God in that house, can do no wrong. Leave Mary to me, this sounds like a bit of a project that’s just up my street. Who’s the fella?’

Alice raised her eyebrow and through a sardonic smile said, ‘Jimmy O’Prey’ and no sooner had the words left her mouth, than the tea left Cindy’s.

*

Peggy had made her way down the Dock Road, pushing the old pram, and went as far as her legs would carry her. She knew there was a pawnshop where she would be unlikely to be seen. No one on the four streets ventured that far down. It was also known as the part of the road where prostitutes plied their trade but what Peggy hadn’t been prepared for was how blatant they were.

She had taken the blankets from the beds, thanking God it was May, and the coats Maura had bought for the children. Hopefully she could buy them back before winter… The blankets were piled up high on the pram, disguising her shame, because it was acceptable on the four streets to pawn blankets in the summer, or ornaments; some even pawned Sunday-best suits and frocks, if they had them, but children’s shoes were deemed to be beyond the pale – only the lowest of the low did that and it was the level to which she had descended. She had taken the shoes from the children’s feet and left her boys at home, crying, desperate to play on the wasteland. Out there, they could forget about groaning bellies; sitting at home with no light and no money for a television, it was all they could think of.

‘It won’t be for long,’ she had said to little Paddy. ‘You need to keep yours, though, because I need you to run messages and help out.’

Little Paddy was relieved but still pleaded on behalf of his brothers. ‘Mam, is there no other way? They can’t go out and play with no shoes on.’

Peggy, her desperation growing, her patience waning, had snapped, ‘Paddy, stop it, would you! I need you to help, not hinder. What choice do I have? Your father didn’t work one full day last week. We’ll get three days’ pay on Friday but I need that for the rent and whatever I can get for the shoes to put with it.’

‘Mam, you said we’d paid the rent!’

Peggy shouted, ‘Shut up, shut up, would you? Just shut up!’ And she’d begun to cry, loud sobs racking her body. Little Paddy was terrified; he had never seen his mother so near despair and he was scared stiff. He’d thought that as his da was out of the house and down on the docks today that she would be happy.

‘Mam? Mam, shall I go and borrow some tea from Shelagh?’ He was desperate to help.

‘No, Paddy,’ she’d said, ‘just do as I ask, that’s all I need for you to do to help me. I know what I’m doing. I’ll find a way to pay the interest and get the shoes back, honest to God, just please, please don’t give me grief.’

Little Paddy didn’t believe her and she could see it in his eyes. She didn’t believe herself, but this was the only thing she could do and say right now. All that was left to her was this, or to sit on the chair and wait for the bailiffs to arrive.

A string bag, suspended from the handle of the pram, banged against her thigh as she walked along the road. In it was the only cutlery they had in the house and in her hand another knitted string bag contained her mother’s clock, wrapped up in an old copy of the Echo. She had picked the statue of the Virgin Mary up off the mantelpiece, intending to take it too and then put it back down again. The Holy Mother had looked Peggy straight in the eye and when Peggy thought she saw her frown, the guilt that shot through her sent her mind into a frenzy; her breathing had become rapid and her face hot as she blessed