Chestnut Street (30 page)

But the real reason Nan stayed out of their way was that she didn’t want to appear pushy. They would be working beside her for weeks. She didn’t want them to think she was nosy. She decided she would wait until they had been there for a few days before she introduced herself. She might even keep a diary of their progress. The new owners might like it as a record of how the house had been done up for them.

Nan moved away from the front window and back to her kitchen. She ironed all Bobby’s shirts. She wondered if Kay knew that Bobby brought his laundry bag over to his mother every week. But they seemed to be very happy together, so what was she worrying about?

She cleaned the silver that Jo had dropped in that morning, taking a toothbrush to get at the hard-to-reach places, like handles and legs of little jugs. She wondered why Jo worked so hard trying to impress people. But then of course it had worked, hadn’t it? Jerry, who had a very wandering eye, was still with her.

Nan made a big casserole and put some of it in foil containers for the freezer. Pat worked so hard in the security firm. She worried so much, she rarely had time to shop, so she cooked very little. It was good to be able to hand her a ready-made dinner sometimes. Nan wished that Pat would take time off, dress up, go out and meet people, find a fellow.

But then what did Nan know about finding fellows or keeping
them? Hers had disappeared without a word in the middle of the night twenty years ago.

Nan kept quiet on a lot of subjects. So quiet that people didn’t expect her to have views anymore.

There was a loud knock on the door, and there stood the builder.

“Mr. Doyle,” Nan said with a smile. “You’re welcome to Chestnut Street.”

He was pleased that she knew his name and seemed so friendly, and hoped that he wasn’t disturbing her. But he had a problem. The instructions had been to throw out everything that he found in Number 12, and yet a lot of it must be of sentimental value. He wondered if perhaps, as a neighbor, she might know any relative or friends of the people who had once lived there. It seemed a pity to throw such things away.

“I’m Nan Ryan. Come on in,” she said. They sat in the kitchen while she told him about the Whites. They were a very, very quiet couple who had hardly spoken to anyone. Mr. White had a job somewhere that involved his leaving the house at six in the morning. He came back at about three with a shopping bag. His wife never left the house. They put no washing out to dry. They never invited anyone in the door. They would nod and just go about their business.

“And didn’t everyone around here think they were odd?”

Derek Doyle was a kindly man, Nan thought. He cared about these people, their strange life and their private papers still in the house. It was nice to meet someone who didn’t give out or complain.

Old Mr. O’Brien from Number 28 would have fussed and said the Whites were selfish to have left so many problems behind them.

Her daughter Jo would have shrugged and said the Whites were nothing people. Bobby would have said that his girlfriend, Kay, would call Mrs. White “a professional victim.”

Pat would have said that the Whites lived like so many people, in fear of their lives from intruders.

“I didn’t think they were odd. I thought they seemed content with each other,” said Nan Ryan. She thought she saw Derek Doyle look at her with admiration.

But she was being stupid. She was a woman of nearly sixty. He was a young man in his forties …

Nan told herself not to be silly.

Derek Doyle dropped in every day after that. He waited until the other men had gone home before he knocked softly on the door.

At first he used the excuse of bringing her old papers from the Whites’ house. Then he just came as if he were an old friend. They called each other Nan and Derek, and indeed he was fast becoming a friend.

They didn’t talk much about their families and she didn’t know if he had a wife and children. Nan told him little about her son and daughters. And nothing about the husband who had left her.

He might have seen Jo, Bobby or Pat when they came in on their visits. And then again, he might not.

For a big man he was very gentle. He carried with him plastic bags belonging to Mr. and Mrs. White as if they were treasures. Together he and Nan went through the papers. There were lists and recipes and handy hints. There were travel brochures and medical leaflets and instruction booklets on how to work old-fashioned, out-of-date objects.

They turned them over, hoping to find some understanding of a life that had ended so strangely two years ago.

“There’s no mention at all of their will,” Derek said.

“No, and nothing about what he did all day at work,” replied Nan.

“If only they had kept a diary. You’d think a woman on her own might have done that,” he said.

Nan flushed a little. She had decided to keep a diary of the building work but so far it had all been about Derek Doyle and his pleasant visits. How he had brought a rich fruitcake in a tin, and cut a slice from it for them both when he came in to tea each evening.

How she had taken the bus to the fish shop and got fresh salmon to make a sandwich for him.

How it all gave a sort of purpose to each day.

“Maybe she was afraid it might be found.”

“So she could have hidden it well,” he said with a smile.

The builders found the diary a few days later. It was behind a loose brick in the kitchen. Derek carried it in like a trophy.

“What does it say?” Nan was almost trembling.

He put down five exercise books full of small, cramped writing.

“Do you think I’d open it without you?” he asked.

She cleared a space on the table. The scones could wait. Now they might discover something about the strange, secret life of the Whites, who had lived on the other side of a brick wall for twenty-five years.

They read together about the long days a woman had stayed hidden in Chestnut Street, fearful to go out, lest she be discovered. Night and day she worried that the cruel husband she had left would find her and harm her again, as he had done so often during their marriage.

Over and over she praised the kindness and goodness of the man she called Johnny, who must have been Mr. White. How he had given up everything to save her and take her away from all the violence.

How her family thought she was dead because there had been no word from her after the night she had run away with Johnny.

“Imagine all that worry and fear right next door!” Nan’s eyes were full of pity.

They ate the scones, and as they turned the pages she made them beans on toast and they had a glass of sherry.

Derek Doyle didn’t leave until nearly eleven o’clock. He telephoned nobody and no one called him on his mobile.

That didn’t sound like someone with a wife, Nan thought to herself. She knew it was silly but she was glad.

There were still two more books of the diary to read.

Several times during the day, as she heard the sound of drills and hammers, she felt tempted to go back to the table and read them. But somehow it seemed like cheating. She went out and bought lamb chops for their supper. They both felt that there might be something sad and even worrying in the final chapters.

Jo phoned.

“I might call in tonight, Mother. Jerry’s got a meeting. I have to drive him there and pick him up so I could sort of kill the time with you.”

Nan frowned. This was hardly a warm thing for a daughter to say.

“I’ll be out this evening,” she said.

“Oh, honestly, Mother, tonight of all nights.” Jo was impatient, but there was nothing she could do.

Bobby rang to say he would leave his washing in. And could she have it ready for him early tomorrow. Again Nan felt a wave of anger. She explained that it would not be possible.

“What will I do?” Bobby wailed.

“You’ll think of something,” Nan said.

Pat rang.

“No, Pat,” Nan said.

“What on earth do you mean? I haven’t
said
anything yet.” Pat was annoyed.

“No to whatever you suggest,” Nan said.

“Well, that’s charming. I was going to go round and check your smoke alarm, but I’ll save myself the journey.”

“Don’t sulk, Pat. I’m going out, that’s all.”

“Mam, you don’t
go
anywhere,” Pat protested.

Nan wondered if this was true. Was she like poor Mrs. White … who of course was not Mrs. White at all. Her name was something totally different, but kind, good Johnny White had gone out to work in a warehouse—a job he hated—just to keep her safe from harm.

The hours passed very slowly until it was time to take up the story again with Derek. Nan had changed into her best dress with the lace collar.

“You look very nice,” Derek said.

He had brought her a bunch of roses and she blushed as she arranged them in a vase. Then they read on.

When they got to the bit where dear Johnny had been feeling too sick to go to work but was refusing to see a doctor, Nan began to worry.

“I don’t like the sound of it,” she said.

“Neither do I,” replied Derek.

They read on, about how his cancer was terminal, how they knew she couldn’t live alone without him. With tears in her eyes Nan read about the plans for the trip to the lakes, and sending their financial details and will to a solicitor.

They wanted their home at 12 Chestnut Street to be sold and the proceeds given to a charity that looked after battered wives.

It had taken some time to sort it out after they had disappeared, presumed drowned in the lakes. The law moves slowly, so that was why the house had been empty for so long.

Nan and Derek sat as the light faded. They thought about the couple and their strange, sad life.

“They must have loved each other very much,” Nan said.

“I never loved liked that,” Derek said.

“Neither did I,” said Nan.

A lot of his customers called him Mr. Maguire. They would be ladies of that generation which felt that to call a tradesman “Mister” somehow enabled the whole transaction. Raised it from a discussion of water and rags and cleaning windows.

Bucket Maguire himself, however, saw no need to raise it in anyone’s eyes. It was a perfectly good, satisfying trade being a window cleaner. He had been doing it since he was sixteen, since the day that Brother Mackey had said there wasn’t a chance in hell of young Maguire holding down a job in an office.

His father had been disappointed, but then people were often disappointed, and before he knew where he was, he had his bicycle, his folding ladder and his bucket on the handlebars. Mmmmmm.

It was unlikely that anyone remembered that he had been baptized Brian Joseph Maguire. Everyone called him Bucket. Well, everyone except his son, Eddie, who called him Far. Far was meant to be short for “Father.” It had been a joke when Eddie was four, but he still used it whenever he came home, which was not very often.

What had Bucket’s wife called him? Nobody in Chestnut
Street could remember. After all it was a long time since Helena had left. And she hadn’t really been there very long. Eddie was only a baby, really.

But Helena had told all the neighbors that it was the only thing she could do under the circumstances. The circumstances were that she had met a new man who liked her a lot. The new man was in every way more substantial than Bucket Maguire, but what was more he was willing to adopt Eddie as his own. You couldn’t say fairer than that.

Eddie would get a proper school and the example of a man with a real job. Even though Helena said that nobody on God’s earth could or would say a word against Bucket, but a role model for a son he could never be.

The neighbors in Chestnut Street listened to Helena then fairly grimly. They said little but managed to imply forcibly that it was small thanks to Bucket Maguire, who had gone out hail, rain and snow to clean people’s windows and make a home for his wife and son, if he were to be abandoned because he wasn’t much of a role model.

There was very little understanding in the street for Helena before she took her son away to the suburbs; nobody came to say goodbye to wish her well. Many came after she had gone off with young Eddie. They all meant well, but Bucket thought to himself that nobody ever said the right thing.