A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin (17 page)

The gin had been bitter beyond words, and, on an empty stomach, it had made her feel a little light-headed.

Helen had said, ‘We always has a glass of gin afore we starts.' She did not say why they always went out in the evenings: she did not have to because Kathleen, though lacking exact details, already knew what some grown-up women did for a living. According to hints from the nuns at school, they would burn in hell for it.

She did not, however, understand the significance of the glasses of gin, which were only the first of many, judging by their drunkenness when they returned; gin was supposed to protect them from pregnancy.

Kathleen had hardly groped with her toe for the bottom stair, when Martha ordered her to look after the five younger children while her parents were out during the evening.

‘I'll be going down the road with your dad for a glass of Guinness,' her mother told her.

‘Why can our Brian take off for his boxing and it's always me what stays with the kids?' Kathleen yelled in sudden revolt.

Martha jumped at the unexpected objection. She
turned and pushed her face into the face of the angry girl, who was nearly as tall as she was. All the wrath subdued by Patrick's stubborn denial spurted forth.

‘Brian's got to work and you know it. You stay 'cos you're a girl – and don't you forget it. What do you think girls is for?'

Kathleen was silenced, partly by her mother's ferocity and partly because of the surprising question. She did not know precisely what girls were for. In dumb acceptance of life, she always shifted through her days as best she could, propelled by circumstances over which she had no control: she had never considered what her future might be.

Girls became mams and had babies, didn't they? But, in the meantime, why couldn't they have fun like boys did? She hadn't had even a game of hopscotch since Lizzie went into service; and Lizzie didn't think service as a kitchen dogsbody to a grand lady in Upper Canning Street was much fun either.

She turned, and flounced out of the room to sit on the front step to consider the question. It was nearly dark and the cold of the step struck through her faded cotton dress to her naked bottom. As she burned inwardly with resentment, she pulled her knees up to her chin to keep herself a bit warmer
and tucked her dress tightly round her to cover her nakedness.

Her unhappiness was added to when, in the half-dark, a young man paused to grin knowingly at her. He was the son of a neighbour in the next court, just home from sea, and, judging by his unsteady stance, was already fairly drunk.

Suddenly engulfed by another fear, she started up and whipped inside. Acutely aware of her budding womanhood, she had seen that grin on other male faces, and sensed uneasily that it meant trouble; other girls had told her that men put their you-know-what inside them, and it hurt.

She believed that this might mean babies: the nuns at school had said as much in their muddled, vague warnings about the dangers of men.

What did they really know about babies? the girl wondered, as she stood shivering in the tiny hall of the house. Wrapped in their black habits, nuns were safe from such threats, weren't they? But Kathleen had once seen a baby born in the courts and dreaded going through such an ordeal herself. And what would the Sisters have said if she had turned up at school with a big round tummy?

She knew. They would have verbally torn her to ribbons and called in the priest, and what a to-do that would have caused. Even now that she was
older and working, her father would beat her if she ever became pregnant, if only to show the priest that he was a caring father. She might even be sent to a home. It would be hell on earth, never mind hell in the hereafter.

In the house in which she lived, she felt fairly safe. There were enough women around most of the time, watching with interest every move of their neighbours, ready to tell your mam – or even the priest – what they had observed. Men knew this and it acted as a brake on them; except for her father, who, when at home, made her very uneasy these days by touching her in a way which made her tingle strangely. It frightened her, and she was keeping out of his sight as much as possible.

She wondered if she dared tell her mother, and decided that Mam would not believe her and that she might be beaten for trying to cause trouble.

She continued to stand in the tiny hall and shiver for a few minutes, even when the young man had staggered on up the court to the latrines. Then she re-entered the Connolly room to face her mother again.

Martha said immediately, ‘Here, take Number Nine,' and thrust the little boy into her arms. ‘I got to cut the bread and cheese for tea.'

His bare bottom was icy on Kathleen's arms, but he gurgled with laughter at the sudden transfer, and stuck his finger in his mouth.

Instinctively, she grinned back at him. Aye, he was a little pet: not like Joey and Ellie, who were forever whining, or Tommy who always seemed to be out, even when she herself was supposed to be looking after him; or Bridie who was a little bitch.

Her grin turned to a glare as, over the baby's head, she caught her mother's eye.

Martha felt the need to reinforce her earlier remarks. ‘And don't forget to watch Ellie,' she warned. ‘She's gone in a flash these days.'

Kathleen did not reply. Except for Number Nine, she did not care if all her siblings fell through a grating and down a drain, followed closely by her mother.

She dropped her eyes, lest Martha see the vicious rage she was in, and then she turned away, still holding the baby close to her.

Patrick clumped down the stairs from seeing Mike Flynn in the attic. He accepted a thick hunk of bread with a lump of cheese on it thrust at him by his wife, and stood eating it while Martha doled out bread and jam to the children. Then he went to the latrine.

On his return, he put his head through the doorway; he felt it judicious to inquire, ‘Are you coming, Martha?' He did not want another row. He was still feeling resentful about the previous shouting match. She had screamed something about plimsolls for Tommy, blast her: maybe he'd give her something for them. But he'd make her wait: and she could bloody well pay for her own drinks tonight, seated separately with the other women, as she would be, on a bench in the hallway.

Paying for her own drinks did not really bother Martha: on her weekly trip to town she had sold every white rag she had, some at the Pier Head garage and the rest in the market. Even after buying bread, cheese and jam for the family, together with a pint of milk for Number Nine, she still had a whole shilling left.

She flung her black shawl over her shoulders, and signalled to Patrick over the heads of her quarrelling toddlers that she was coming.

She left a forlorn Kathleen who was still hungry: in her fast-growing years, the girl yearned for food, lots and lots of it. She had spent most of her time in school thinking of it – and of having pretty clothes and her hair curled, like the young women she saw on her rare visits to the city centre.

Sometimes, oblivious to Sister Elizabeth's notes on the blackboard, which she was supposed to copy into her exercise book, only a slap across her ear would bring her back to the dreary routine of the classroom.

Then she would once again pick up her nub end of pencil and laboriously form the letters for words which she barely knew; yet Sister Elizabeth was the only person who ever gave her a word of encouragement, telling her that she had brains and should use them. ‘If you can read, girl, you can learn anything.'

Learn anything? For what? To have babies? To do what you're told by your parents? The priest called the latter ‘honouring them'. And he was another one who had to be obeyed. Reading seemed a useless skill: her mother never seemed to need it.

As she stood cuddling Number Nine, Tommy pushed past her and, without a word, went out. She really envied Tommy his freedom. Mam didn't seem to care what he did. It was as if he was free to do anything, she considered enviously.

He was an amiable boy and she rarely quarrelled with him. Nice-looking, he was, fair-haired with bright blue eyes. And what's more, she considered, as she absently separated Joseph and Ellie,
whose quarrel was rapidly becoming a fight, he earned a lot of pennies, more than he ever told their mam about. She had seen him buy himself a bun at Mr O'Reilly's on more than one occasion.

When she asked him, he always said he got his money from the carters who thronged the dock roads with their drays drawn by huge Belgian horses. If an animal was not particularly well trained or the drayman expected to be absent for some time while doing a delivery – or went into a pub for a drink or a pee, a boy would, for a penny, hold the horse's bridle and keep the animal calm. He would also raise the alarm if a thief tried to steal part of the load.

She had in the past wondered, idly, if Tommy ever dared to drop his shorts for the many paedophiles who haunted the narrow alleys across the street, alleys which were playgrounds for Hide and Seek or Cowboys and Indians. Boys did sell themselves on the streets: she knew that from friends at school; but boys didn't have babies, the girls always pointed out with sheepish giggles. If boys could endure whatever it was they did to them, men would give them a silver threepenny bit or some sweeties.

She did not envy Brian: she felt that, now he
was at work, he was no longer really part of the family. He had pocket money. Also, he took his boxing seriously and that took up his free time; when he was full grown, he wanted to be a professional boxer. Lucky him. In contrast, she had to babysit, in addition to going to work. And had all her wages taken by their mother, she thought resentfully.

Mams were much more suspicious of what girls got up to, she considered, with a sigh. Mechanically, she ordered Bridie to stop going through the food box to see what was left.

‘Mam'll kill you if anything's missing,' she threatened. ‘Just you keep your hands out of there. You've had your tea.'

‘I'll do what I like,' came the muffled reply, as the younger girl stuffed the heel of a loaf into her mouth.

Kathleen slipped Number Nine to the floor, and sprang like an angry Alsatian over Ellie and Joseph, who were locked in friendly combat.

She seized a handful of Bridie's hair and forced her head back, while she grabbed the bread protruding from her mouth.

Bridie grinned, let the bread go and bit her sister's wrist.

Kathleen cried out, let go of the hunk of bread
and clutched the girl by the throat. She pressed hard until Bridie choked. As she fought for breath, Bridie fell backwards.

Kathleen let go of her throat and, with one bare foot, kicked her hard in the stomach.

Bridie screamed.

Kathleen ignored her, while she rescued the half-chewed piece, which had fallen to the floor, and threw it back into the box.

‘If you go near that box again, I'll kick you till you have to go to hospital. Mam'll give you what for, anyway, when I tell her.'

A furious Bridie was saved from further threats, because Helen and Ann, on their way to their own room at the back, unexpectedly walked into the candlelit Connolly room. They had been to the corner store and were laden with bursting cotton shopping bags.

The children immediately ceased their noise at the sight of the friendly faces.

The women were taking a respite after a very busy week, and they paused to smile at Kathleen with easy good humour.

‘Now, there, what's to do?' Helen asked the younger children. ‘It sounds like Lime Street Station on Cup Final day, it does.'

Bridie immediately pointed an accusing finger
at Kathleen. ‘She kicked me!' she shrieked, and clutched her stomach. Keeping one eye on the two prostitutes to see the results of her dramatic presentation, she continued, as if in terrible pain.

For a moment, Kathleen wished that her big sister Lizzie was there to help her. Lizzie was big-built and a full year older than she was, with the same commanding voice that Martha had. When she had been in charge, all the children had quailed before her.

Kathleen stared helplessly at her neighbours. She did not want to explain how the racket had come about. All she wanted to do was to walk out of the door and leave the children to rot.

While the newcomers laughed at Bridie's histrionics, Ellie and Joey caught at the prostitutes' skirts, their playful altercation forgotten. Fearing that they might be blamed for the noise, they began a steady frightened whimper.

Number Nine got up off the floor, and clutched at Ann's flowered apron. He raised his eyes to her, and asked, ‘Butties?'

He often received tiny bits to eat from the women, and, since he had not eaten much dinner or tea, he, like Kathleen, was now hungry.

Unwilling to open up her shopping bags to such an avaricious collection of children, Ann answered
him, ‘I don't have no butties, but I got a toffee – I think.'

Smiling at the child, she dug into her deep skirt pocket and a wrapped toffee was produced. Number Nine laughed and toddled away with it, while Ellie and Joey stopped whining and looked expectantly up at the giver.

‘I don't have no more,' Ann told them regretfully. ‘Maybe next time?'

Her sister produced a box of matches, and then unlocked their door. A match was struck, a candle lit to illuminate their windowless room. Then the door was shut, and only a dim line of light at the bottom of it and soft murmuring voices indicated that they were home.

Joey was already trying to get Number Nine to give him a lick of his toffee. More trouble.

Kathleen snatched up Number Nine, so that he could happily dribble toffee without interference. Afraid of her venting her obvious frustration on them, Joey and Ellie fled to the hallway and climbed halfway up the stairs. There they sat close together in the dark, two little bundles of nerves.

When her audience vanished into their room, Bridie stopped shrieking. She got up from the floor, and announced sulkily that she would go to play hopscotch with Dollie and Connie in the
street outside the court. There the paving stones were more even and offered ready-made squares; she did not need chalk to mark them out.