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

pocket no one knows about?’ Little Paddy’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Don’t worry, lad, I won’t tell anyone.’

‘How did you know?’

‘It was the way he nibbled your ear and looked very comfortable indeed on your shoulder the other day – it was almost as if he lived there. Go on, away, take these with you.’ Kathleen rolled the paper up and gave little Paddy the parcel. ‘I’ll be twenty minutes because I’ll call into St Cuthbert’s on my way. Tell the kids Nana Kathleen is bringing them some sweets from Simpson’s and I want washed knees, hands and faces and everyone clean and ready for bed by the time I get there. If any one of them plays up, I’ll give their sweets to whoever was the best-behaved – and tell them I mean that.’

The back door slammed shut and Kathleen watched little Paddy run down the path. Peggy must have pawned the shoes – and there was not a woman she knew who wouldn’t sell herself before she would be forced to do that. Things were far worse than she’d thought.

Jerry ran his hand through his hair. ‘Those poor kids. Where do you think Peggy is, Mam? And the kids’ shoes…? Holy smoke!’

Kathleen had taken a jar down off the press and was counting money out of it onto the kitchen table. It was the jar full of sixpences, the price she charged for reading people’s tea leaves, and she made almost as much as Jerry did from it. Added to that, she received regular money from Liam and Maeve and the farm in Ireland, which was still Kathleen’s in name. With only Nellie and Joseph to feed, the Deanes were one of the better-off families on the four streets.

‘I’m guessing Peggy has gone down to the bingo. And something is seriously wrong – where the hell did she get the money from for chips and saveloys? I told you, didn’t I, that something wasn’t right because I saw it in the leaves.’

Jerry was back at the door. ‘Mammy, go and see Sister Evangelista – she will know what to do about Peggy, don’t you take it all on your shoulders.’

Kathleen shook her head. ‘I daren’t do that, Jerry. For all Peggy’s failings, she loves her kids and she’s terrified the welfare will take them off her. I can’t be the one responsible for that happening. If the nuns are involved, it has to be Peggy’s doing, not mine.’ She took her coat down from the back of the door and slipped the coins into her pocket. ‘You go to the Anchor and see if you can get that haul up the steps – we need something to put everyone in the mood for the carnival. Alice, can Nellie come with me?’

Nellie was instantly on her feet and at her grandmother’s side.

‘Of course she can; I’ll be here with Joseph. But Kathleen, as soon as you know where she is, let me know. I think you’re rubbing off on me – I have a funny feeling too. I’ll see you back here later. Go on, go.’

Jerry smiled at his mam and, as he did almost every day, he thought how lucky he was to have a mam like Kathleen. His household was as solid as a rock, built on his mother’s common sense and good management. There was a time in his life, with his new baby in his arms and his wife dead, that he had wanted to die himself. And then, Kathleen arrived and there was no doubt she saved him. Jerry was well aware how easily life’s events could drag you down and almost drown you. Things had even worked out with Alice, after the rockiest of starts.

‘Everyone should have a mam like you,’ he said to his mother, ‘I don’t know where Nellie and I would be if you hadn’t come to live with us.’

Kathleen fastened her headscarf under her chin. ‘One thing I have learnt in this life, Jerry, is that more often than not, when you reach rock bottom, even if no one knows you are there, someone steps out to give you a hand back up. I don’t know how or why, some say it’s the angels at work and I’m inclined to believe them myself, for I have no idea what it was that made me get on the boat and come to Liverpool, but I had a feeling, so I did, and I have that feeling again right now, only I can’t fathom what it is or what I’m supposed to be doing at all.’

Jerry hugged his mam and kissed the top of her head. ‘Mam, whatever it is, you will be wherever you are supposed to be – you always are.’

Kathleen pushed her son off. ‘Go you, and come back here and tell me good news about Captain Conor. Alice, we’ll be back in half an hour.’

*

Kathleen could move fast for a woman of her age and with her eyes to the floor, her arm linked through Nellie’s, they left Nelson Street and headed towards St Cuthbert’s Hall on the Dock Road where the bingo was held.

‘Nana, look!’ Nellie pulled on Kathleen’s arm. ‘Isn’t that Peggy down there?’

Kathleen looked over the wall to where Nellie was pointing. Her eyesight wasn’t good and she squinted to see where Nellie was pointing. ‘That’s the dock down there, Nellie, don’t be ridiculous. Peggy will be at the bingo hoping to turn one and six into a quid.’

Nellie shook her head; she was sure it was Peggy. The woman’s hair was not in curlers and she was talking to another woman, a woman Nellie had seen down there before. When she’d asked Jerry who she was, he had replied, ‘A woman of the night, Nellie, and not someone you should ever speak to.’

Peggy and the woman were huddled together, talking at the back of the administration building, and Nellie kept looking backwards as she was swept along by Nana Kathleen. She had