Strawberry Fields (9 page)
‘Where’s all your knickers, queen? And I can only find odd stockings.’
Nanny had been absolutely delighted to find her charge on her doorstep, beaming and rosy, with the news that she was to stay with Mrs Prescott until the girl Jane returned to her duties. She had hugged Sara, and kissed her many times, thanked Robson for his care of her and carried her off to the neat front parlour, where she put a match to the fire and then brought in some ginger biscuits and a cup of hot milk.
Explanations had taken up the next twenty minutes, and Nanny had said she was sorry to hear about Jane’s mother and would visit her at the Stanley, which was only just up the road. Then they had talked of all they could do over the next few days, and then they had examined Nanny’s bowl of bulbs, which Sara had given her for Christmas and which they had examined only a couple of days before. There were four snub green noses showing above the soil; Sara was anxious about the fifth, for she had planted the bowl herself, with the assistance of Rogers, her father’s gardener, and did not like to think that one of the bulbs might have been bad.
But now, unpacking in the chilly little front bedroom, for Nanny would not have dreamed of lighting a fire upstairs unless someone was sick, Nanny was showing some dismay over Sara’s choice of clothing.
Sara looked at the garments spread out over the single bed. ‘What’s wrong, Nanny? I put in some knickers, didn’t I? And some stockings. Only I wanted to bring my tartan kilt and my nice green cardigan . . . and then there were boots, and extra socks, and my pom-pom slippers – oh dear, and if I go back Mother will probably change her mind and make me stay.’
‘Well, we won’t risk that, but you need more than one spare pair of knickers, love,’ Nanny said. ‘And I can’t find a single pair of stockings, they’re all odd.’
‘How can they be odd? They’re all black, and woolly, aren’t they all alike?’ Sara asked. ‘I can’t see any difference. Besides, it doesn’t matter, does it? Stockings are stockings.’
‘And pairs are pairs. But I suppose we can manage with the stockings. And I’ll take you on the tram to Paddy’s market and we’ll buy some knickers.’ Mrs Prescott smiled grimly. ‘That’ll teach your mother to send you to me without the proper clothes!’
‘Why? What’s wrong with Paddy’s market?’ Sara asked, ferreting through the clothes in her bag. ‘I’ve got my coral beads in here somewhere . . . oh yes, they’re in my black strap shoes, I knew I’d put them somewhere safe.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with it, but your mother don’t like it because Paddy’s market sells secondhand clothing. Do you mind secondhand clothing, queen?’
‘No, not at all,’ Sara said unhesitatingly. ‘So long as it’s fairly clean, of course.’
Mrs Prescott laughed. ‘Only fairly clean? You’re a one and a half, young Sara! Come on then, I’ve done up here, we’ll get ourselves a bite to eat and then we’ll walk down the road, do some shopping. What do you fancy for your tea tonight?’
They were in Samples, choosing a cake, when a woman standing at the counter, a woman who Sara half-recognised as living in Snowdrop Street, spotted them. She was talking to the baker and jabbing a finger at a big yellow bowl covered with a washed-out piece of linen but as soon as she saw Sara’s companion she turned to greet her.
‘Afternoon, Annie. What’re you givin’ for the wake, tomorrer? I’m tekin’ fruit buns – that’s the mix, there. Mr S is goin’ to cook it up for me. Our Ruth’s gorra nice piece o’ boilin’ bacon an’ Mrs Lamb’s givin’ a couple o’ dozen eggs. You can’t expect the Carbs to mek a contribution, with ’im bein’ out o’ work an’ ’er ’avin’ the young ’uns to see to.’
‘Afternoon, Hannah. I’m doing sandwiches,’ Mrs Prescott said. ‘I saw your Ruth, so I’m doin’ fish paste and cheese. It’s a terrible thing . . . the poor feller who was drivin’ the engine must be half out of his mind!’
‘You’re right there,’ the other woman agreed. ‘Eh, I’ve allus worried about the rails bein’ so near, but who’d ha’ thought it could come to this?’
Sara pricked up her ears. What had happened? Had there been a train crash? She loved to look across at the big engines getting up steam, and at the lines and lines of goods trucks, but she knew there were accidents; trains collided, or left the rails, or crashed too hard into the buffers.
‘Tragic,’ Mrs Prescott said. ‘Though that poor kid had a mis’rable life if you ask me. Stan hit the kids more’n he praised ’em . . . and there was never enough to eat. Nesta isn’t so bad, though she’s no patience with kids, but her old fella . . . well, you know how it is.’
‘Aye; none better. My Ben drank once, but ’e’s give it up now, thank the good Lord. Now tell me, Annie, ’ave they ’eard owt of the baby?’ Hannah Evans was small and round with brown, birdlike eyes and a set of very white false teeth which looked as though they had been made for someone a good deal larger. Now she looked hungrily at her companion, as though gossip was edible, Sara thought, vaguely disturbed by the idea.
‘Baby? What’s this all about, Hannah?’
‘Well, it seems young Jess took the baby out walkin’ with her, an’ when they found her, they didn’t find no baby.’ Hannah Evans paused discreetly, glancing down at Sara and then, quickly, away. ‘Only from wharr I’ve been told the train went right over ’er . . . I thought mebbe there weren’t no way to tell . . .’
‘I’ve not heard any more than you have,’ Mrs Prescott said quickly. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Hannah.’
‘Right, Annie. I’ll be off then. If you hear anything more, let me know.’
Mrs Prescott agreed and presently she and Sara left the shop with a large fruit cake in the wickerwork basket Sara carried.
‘Nanny, what happened to Jess? I met a girl called Jess outside the church, on Christmas Day. I told you.’
‘Yes, so you did, queen, but there’s a mortal lot o’ gels called Jess, and I doubt Jess Carbery would walk all the way to . . .’ Sara’s exclamation cut her off short. She looked down at the child. ‘Oh, love, don’t say it were
that
Jess?’
that
Jess?’
‘Yes, it was, Nanny! What happened to her?’ Sara asked, in anguish. It was something bad, she just knew it was, as much by the older women’s tone as by their actual words.
‘She – she was killed, love. By a train. Hit by a train. They say she died instantly, there weren’t no sufferin’.’
Sara stared down at her boots and saw them wobble as tears brimmed in her eyes. Poor, poor Jess! She’d had so very little, now she had lost even that. But what about the baby? Jess had adored that baby – how would it manage, without her?
‘And Mollie? The baby? I told you, Nanny, I gave Jess my angora gloves to keep the baby’s toes warm. Did she have Mollie with her?’
There was another pause before Mrs Prescott answered her, and then Sara could tell that she was thinking hard.
‘Yes, her mam says she had the baby with her, but folk are that ungenerous . . . they wonder, you see, if Nesta . . . well, if she got rid of the baby, somehow. There are women what want babies . . . or she might’ve handed the child over to an orphan-home, once she knew about Jess. Jess took care o’ the baby, see? But no one knows, rightly. Mollie’s disappeared.’
‘You told Mrs Evans you didn’t know what had happened to the baby,’ Sara said, fighting to keep her voice steady for her eyes were still brimming. She remembered them so well, it seemed impossible, and impossibly cruel, that Jess was dead and Mollie bereft of her only friend and protector. She remembered Jess saying
if she lives
, remembered her own shock at the words. Now it was Jess who had died and from the sound of it, Mollie had either died too or simply disappeared. She turned her face up to her nanny’s, the tears still unshed. ‘You did say you didn’t know, Nanny.’
if she lives
, remembered her own shock at the words. Now it was Jess who had died and from the sound of it, Mollie had either died too or simply disappeared. She turned her face up to her nanny’s, the tears still unshed. ‘You did say you didn’t know, Nanny.’
‘Well, Mrs Evans is a good woman but a rare one to gossip,’ Nanny explained. ‘I didn’t want to see bad made worse, queen. There’s plenty what think wherever the baby is, she’s better off than wi’ the Carbs, which makes you wonder. A sweet, pretty thing she was, Mollie Carbery, but there’s no doubtin’ it, livin’ wi’ that family she couldn’t be neither sweet nor pretty long. Not without Jess, that is,’ she added.
‘And when did it happen?’ Sara said as soon as she had command of her voice again. ‘I saw her at noon on Christmas Day I suppose, or thereabouts.’
‘It was later on that same day,’ Mrs Prescott said. ‘Jess had bought bread and some milk and when she left the baker thought she meant to go straight home, but my guess is that she realised her father would take the food off her – or her mother, for that matter – and went into the goods yard. She’d lived near the lines for long enough to know that they only run a Sunday service on Christmas Day, but there had been a landslip because of all the snow, I suppose, and a train was taking a gang of men to the spot to clear the line for traffic next day. Neither the driver nor the fireman saw Jess, and probably, what with the driving snow and the wind and the darkness, she didn’t see them, either.’ Mrs Prescott touched Sara’s cheek with a gentle hand, smoothing her bright hair back from her face. ‘She didn’t feel a thing, queen; it were too sudden, too quick.’
‘She said she’d buy bread and milk with the money I gave her,’ Sara said in a small, choked voice. ‘She must have done just that. Oh, Nanny, Mother would say I should never have given her the money . . . and how I wish I hadn’t! You could say the money was stolen, only it was me who stole it, not Jess. Could God have got muddled and punished her because the money should have been in the collection?’
Mrs Prescott stopped short and caught Sara’s shoulder, turning her so that they faced one another across the snowy pavement.
‘Don’t you dare even think such a thing, queen,’ she said fiercely. ‘Remember the picture in your room? Suffer the little children to come unto Me, He said, and that’s just what He meant. Our Lord would never punish a child in such a way, why you’ll be up there with a gold crown on your ’ead and a pair o’ wings on your shoulders ’cos you give that poor little kid a bit of ’ope. No one, not even your mam, would criticise you for givin’ to the poor, at Christmas or any other time.’
‘Oh. Good,’ Sara said faintly. ‘Will they find the baby, Nanny? Will they find little Mollie?’
‘Oh, bound to,’ Mrs Prescott said comfortably, turning her face towards home once more. ‘And if they don’t it’ll be because someone took pity on ’er, and took ’er away from them Carbs. Now best foot forward, queen, or I won’t have a potato peeled by teatime!’
Brogan got off the ferry when she berthed and stood for a moment on the quay, fighting the tears that brimmed his eyes. He had wept, and others with him, as the ship drew near to the land and they knew they were almost home at last. But now they were ashore the air was thick with fog, the streetlights could barely be seen through it. Smells which he associated with his home and nowhere else assailed his nostrils; fish, seaweed, mud, and the scent of boiled potatoes coming from the tenements behind the docks where the women were cooking the evening meal.
It was cold, but nowhere near as cold as Liverpool; a mildness in the air, which he thought was reflected in the manners of the people, was as much a part of Dublin as the Liffey, flowing brown to the left of him, or the domed Custom House, or Ha’penny Bridge, which he would presently cross in order to reach the maze of little streets known as the Liberties, where the O’Bradys had lived as long as any of them could remember. And God knew why those streets should be called the Liberties, Brogan thought bitterly now, glancing down the front of his coat at the slumbering child which he held to his breast. Liberty wasn’t something which came naturally to those who struggled to survive there: he only hoped he was doing the right thing for this defenceless scrap.
In fact Brogan knew very well how the Liberties had been given their name. All Dublin children were taught in school that, long ago, the Liberties had been a straggle of mean huts and the people there had not been taxed, because they were outside the city walls and had none of the good things which the citizens of Dublin had. So they nicknamed the area ‘the liberties’ because of not paying tax and there you were, a misnomer if ever he heard one.
But now, all he could think of was his own place, his mammy cooking a meal for the family, his brothers clustering round, one boy telling about his day, another interrupting, all laughing, getting as near the fire as they could, happy to have exchanged the chilly, fogbound streets for the little oasis of comfort and warmth that was the O’Brady living parlour. Brogan, striding on, smiled to himself. He would get such a welcome! His mammy would undoubtedly weep all over him . . . oh, but when she saw the baby! He’d had seven brothers, four of whom survived, but there had never been a girl, never a sister for them. It had grieved his mammy, who had always dreamed of a girl-child, but she’d made the best of it.
‘Sure and aren’t I the lucky one, with fellas all around me?’ she teased them. ‘Oh, who wants old girls when they can have fine, strong sons?’
When he had first come ashore he had thought it milder than Liverpool but as he walked through the quiet quays the wind began to creep inside his collar, up his sleeves, and it was cold. He turned his coat-collar up and peered down at the baby once more. She was rosy-cheeked, sleeping soundly. Eh, but she’d been good! Not a peep out of her had there been, neither on the journey across the Irish Sea – Brogan had clutched her fiercely as the small ship crashed into the trough of a wave and staggered up to the crest – and everyone had thought he was fighting seasickness. Good job I wasn’t, he told himself now with grim humour. How would I have managed if I’d wanted to lean over the side? I’d have lost Moll for sure!
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