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

if I don’t meet him, he could be back inside before he got home! Of course I am. That’s why I’m going to get as many hours in as I can between now and then – and that’s the last day I’m giving to Jimmy.’

Annie frowned and pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘Well, it’s not his fault, is it?’ she said. ‘Ever since the priest was murdered, the police have not been away from these streets. They’ve put that horror of a bobby, Frank the Skank, on the docks since the sergeant married Miss Devlin and he’s always walking up and down past our window.’

‘Mam, if Jimmy stays clean he’s nothing to fear from Frank the Skank. Jimmy was caught breaking into a betting shop in the Dingle. And don’t forget poor Mary – he broke that girl’s heart. Will he be doing the right thing there?’

Annie pushed Callum to one side as she walked past him into the kitchen. ‘Not if I have anything to do with it. He was far too good for the likes of that girl. Our Jimmy deserves better than that.’

Now it was Callum’s turn to feel angry. He carried a torch for Mary himself, but knowing she had fallen for his brother meant he couldn’t do anything about it. To him, Mary was perfect. Annie could see she had upset her son, and whilst Jimmy was her favourite, Callum was the dependable son she needed to help pay the rent and the bills.

‘Come on now, Callum, don’t be like that. I’ll fry a few rashers before you go, put something in your stomach; you can’t do a day’s work on an empty belly. You still have time to eat and be at the front of the pen.’

Callum followed his mammy into the kitchen. He had vowed that he would never again see the inside of a cell and resented having to take the day off work and three buses to meet Jimmy. His almost-impossible goal on the day he collected Jimmy would be to persuade his brother to become a reformed character and that a life of crime really didn’t pay as well as the docks.

*

Eric walked to the cart and lifted Mrs Trott’s milk from the crate. He noticed the net curtain across the road, which had been in place when he arrived, was now balanced on the top of an ornament. He placed his empty cup into one of Maggie’s outstretched hands and the bottle of milk in the other.

‘Seems as though someone was having a good look,’ he said, flicking his head backwards.

Maggie sighed. ‘Jimmy gets out of jail any day now. She won’t get the chance to change his sheets before he’s back in again.’

‘Is that so? Can you get the news on those, then,’ he asked, nodding and grinning at her wire curlers. ‘Or, do they tingle if it’s going to rain?’

Maggie grinned. ‘Oh stop, will you! I’ll be seeing you tomorrow then?’ She always did, but she had to know.

He was reluctant to leave, to surrender to the remainder of the day. ‘You will, as always. What would my morning be without you?’ Two heartbeats skipped, the air held still, the seagulls silenced… Then, ‘I’d be gasping for a cuppa,’ and life returned to normal. He tore himself away and with his own heart heavy, walked briskly towards number 42.

*

Maggie watched him go. She patted the headscarf that was supposed to conceal her wire curlers. Maybe I should start taking my curlers out and putting on a bit of lippy in the mornings, she thought. She could count on one hand the times she had applied lipstick during the last two decades. Well, it was time for a perm so she would call in to Cindy the hairdresser on the parade and ask her for a lesson in the modern way of wearing make-up. It was all blue eyelids, sweeping eyeliner and shimmering pink lips these days and she had no idea where to start, but she could try. Unbidden, she imagined Eric in her bed – and the vision was so vivid, that, as she closed her eyes, she heard the mattress creak. Felt his hands, on which her eyes had lingered only seconds before, roaming along the length of her thighs, his lips, pressing down on hers, his breathing, deep and urgent, the smell of him, sweet and cold, the weight of his body, moving closer… His fingertips parted her willing knees – and just as that delicious thought grew in her mind, Sister Evangelista marched across the bottom of Nelson Street with Deirdre Malone following in her wake.

‘Will I see you at mass, Mrs Trott?’ Sister Evangelista called as she raised her hand. Maggie gave a guilty start and called back, ‘You will indeed, Sister! I’ll be on my way in just a minute.’ She stepped back indoors and slammed the door, redemption from her wicked thoughts just around the corner, which meant that she was entirely free to indulge herself on another day soon.

Chapter Two

The west coast of Ireland

Maura deftly flicked her apron to the side as she moved swiftly between the bar and the Guinness barrel in order to retrieve a pewter mug, suspended from the wooden beam above her head. It belonged to her first customer of the afternoon, one of a small number of fishermen who frequented the inn on a daily basis and who always arrived with great ceremony. She was ready for him. He ignored the doormat she religiously beat each morning and stomped across the dark wooden floorboards she had polished on her hands and knees just an hour before, leaving puddles of muddy water behind him. He shuffled off his dripping oilskin and flung it onto the settle by the fire, never breaking his stride until he reached the bar.

Maura raised her eyes to the low ceiling, stained brown from peat smoke and clay pipes and bit her tongue. She had