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

way he treated her, but not now. Admiration, respect for her dignity and something he was still unsure of, was what he felt now.

‘Saturday, then.’

Mary nodded her head, not trusting herself to speak because she felt as though if she and Callum began a conversation, it would not end, but go on forever, and she knew that this was the beginning, that it would be Callum for always and, not having the words, she hoped that her smile, the pleasure in her face, told him all he needed to know.

*

Peggy had managed to get upstairs with the baby unremarked, and now she sat on the edge of the bed and wailed in despair; she had no idea what to do. She looked into the face of the daughter she had prayed for with every pregnancy, had hoped and longed for over the years, and the baby’s perfect little face looked back up at her.

‘Look at you, I’ve nothing for you but the street, for they’ll take you off me when we get turned out.’

The tears poured down her face as she held the baby to her cheek and drew in the smell of her. How could life change so fast? This time last year the arrival of this baby would have made her the centre of attention in the street, the first girl after seven boys. Presents would have arrived through the door, home-made matinee coats, a plate of biscuits, a cake, a trail of women with their own babies would have walked in and out of the kitchen, to talk to her as she lay on the settle that would have been dragged in from Maura’s. They would have brought shovels of coal to tip in the bucket, a posy of flowers from the greengrocer’s to put in a jam jar on the windowsill; the boys would have gone to Kathleen’s and Maura’s to be fed and washed and return home to sleep.

The house would have been scrubbed from top to bottom by an army of women and Mrs Keating would have brought her a delicious lunch in every day. Twice a day, someone would have called in for her nappy bucket, replacing it with a clean one, and whoever was washing would have collected Peggy’s too. In the afternoons, she would have lain there, her precious daughter on her chest, wallowing in the bliss, the peace, the cleanliness, the daily grind and responsibility of a family assumed by others, because on the four streets the arrival of a new baby was an occasion, a celebration.

She would have rejoiced in the silence, the lack of pressure to get up and carry out one of a never-ending list of chores. She would have listened to her mother’s ticking clock, inhaled the delicious stew someone would have put on the range. Because that was what having a baby in the four streets was like. The women had nothing, but together they could create their own luxury. Her daughter would have been passed from mother to mother to be admired, or nappy changed and their own babes would have been laid on the bed with Peggy whilst they too met the new arrival.

Oh, it was not supposed to be like this! No child on the four streets ever came into the world like this, into this hopelessness, alone in the outhouse, not into this despair.

‘I can’t do this to you, I can’t face it,’ Peggy sobbed, knowing there was only one way out from this, only one escape. She felt the edges of her mind blur and, laying the naked baby on the bed, rose and walked over to the press and removed a small drawer from the top. It contained very little: the boys’ christening gown and the odd undergarment that she owned. She took out the only fresh clothes she had for herself and changed and then wondered what was the point. She took an old nappy from the drawer and ripped it apart. Bending down, she placed it into the clean knickers between her legs, sobbing for the past and the future she could no longer have. She wrapped the other half around the baby and took out a grey and rough towel and wrapped it around her.

She picked up her baby, who lay uncomplaining, eyes wide, and smiled through her tears at the small folds of fat on her knees.

‘I should call you biscuit,’ she said. ‘It’s what you’ve been fed on, but someone else can do that now.’

Laying her daughter in the drawer she moved with extreme difficulty into the boys’ room and pushed the drawer under the bed next to the cardboard box that little Paddy kept there. The boys were beginning to get restless downstairs, moving about. They would hear her, they could find her, and by the time that happened she would be gone. It hurt to walk and she felt light-headed, but with absolute clarity she knew what she had to do. They would all be better off without her. She was not good enough to be their mother, could not face the shame of the bailiffs and everyone knowing what an awful failure of a woman she was in the four streets full of perfect, uncomplaining women, whose children never went without a meal. Women who, even in hard times and short work, did not have to pawn their children’s shoes and their mother’s clock.

At first, the boys didn’t notice her walk into the kitchen. She put her arms in her coat and, removing the money that was left from what the pawnbroker had given her, laid it down on the press. And then little Paddy saw her.

‘Mam? Where are you going now? You haven’t had your chips, I kept them there.’ He pointed to the draining board. Peggy drew on every ounce of reserve she had to carry her through the next sixty seconds. She had no idea what to answer and then it came to her.

‘I’m off to Shelagh’s