A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin (15 page)

‘“It's a long way to Tipperary, it's a long way to go. Goodbye, Piccadilly, farewell, Leicester Square,”' roared the voice. Then it faltered, as a rat leaped
across the path of the singer, followed immediately by a suddenly awakened stray mongrel. The dog's teeth glinted threateningly in the faint light.

The singer wobbled on his feet, watched the pursuit for a moment, cussed both animals and then proceeded across the yard. He had forgotten the next verse, so he went back to the beginning and recommenced the song.

Inside the houses, sleepy heads were raised in surprise. Since it was Friday, most of the men were, of necessity, home and fairly sober: if they had earned anything, most of them did not draw their wages until Saturday.

Saturday, now that was different. That was the night when you got as drunk as possible and then enjoyed a lively street fight, mostly one on one, where, despite bumps and bruises, nobody got kicked to death – there were definite unwritten rules about that.

But it was only Friday, and somebody out there was bevvied, for sure. Perhaps there had been a party, thought some of the listeners, of which they themselves had missed word, a happy occasion when neighbours helped a bewildered sailor to spend his pay on them as fast as possible. Whatever the cause, the singer must have struck lucky.

When the voice was recognised, awakened children
were ordered to stop whingeing, ragged coverings were rearranged and weary eyes were closed again. It was too bloody cold to stir out in the middle of the night; the story could wait till morning.

Except for Mary Margaret. Kept going by sporadic gifts of extra food and enough donated tea to float a rowing boat, if not a battleship, she lay, most nights, wide-eyed and fearful. She feared Thomas giving her another child and dreaded the implications of her death.

She did not care about herself – she would be in the arms of Lord Jesus; she worried for her children.

What would happen to Dollie, Connie and Minnie? Dollie already knew that life was not fair and was pugnacious enough to fight anyone who tried to crush her; she might survive. But Connie and little Minnie were still so small, mostly silent and very helpless – though quick enough to steal food if they got the chance.

And then there was Danny. In February, he had celebrated his sixteenth birthday at sea, but he was really still only a kid. Where would he go when he came home from sea?

She ran her fingers along the wall by her bed. It was covered with postcards from Danny and from his dad, posted to her from ports all over
the world; on the back of each of them were real nice messages to her.

Thomas could find another wife, but she might not like her stepchildren; and, during the next few years, while he was still young and most needed his mam to come home to, Danny would be alone.

Tears filled her eyes. Would Thomas manage to keep the family together? Or would the little ones be condemned to an orphanage, like Olive Mount or the Kirkdale Homes? Or a stepmother who beat them? Though he had wept over the death of Sean and had gone to his funeral, she thought feverishly, Thomas did not take much interest in his children.

There was always her mother, Theresa, of course, old and stiff as she was. She would help him; she'd have to.

When distantly in her windowless home she heard Thomas's drunken voice, she was bewildered. She heaved herself up on one elbow, and listened. He was obviously gloriously and happily drunk.

Where had he got the money from?

She had not been surprised that he had been absent all day – she had assumed that he was holed up with a friend in a cocoa room, talking, as usual, about football matches or racehorses and the bets
he had laid on them, and, occasionally, without much hope, of ships in need of crew.

In the dead dark, Dollie turned over and inquired sleepily, ‘Is that Dad?'

Mary Margaret sighed. ‘Yes. Now, you be quiet – you know his temper.'

She turned laboriously and said, ‘Light the candle by my bed, love. Ann O'Brien give me two, so as I could have a light for most of the night. And then you can help me over to the pee bucket.'

Rather than stand up and chance falling over her siblings, Dollie untangled herself from the grey army blanket in which she was wrapped and slid on her bottom unerringly across the floor towards her mother's bed. She found the matches and lit a candle stuck in a saucer. Minnie stirred at the sudden flare, but did not wake.

When the nurse had come to see their mother earlier in the year, neither Dollie nor Connie had understood clearly what the fuss was about. Mothers, when they weren't scolding you, were always coughing up or complaining of chest pains or their aching feet, and Dollie had seen a number of women faint: to her, it was normal.

Bridie Connolly had told her that if they threw up in the mornings, you knew mothers had another baby inside them, and that, somehow, your dad had
put it there. You'd always know it was his fault, she said, because there was always a bloody row in which he was accused of it. She had heard her father say that it must belong to someone else.

At such times, Bridie had advised her, you should keep away from both of them, because they were liable to hit out, not only at each other, but at anyone else who happened to be near.

But her mam had not thrown up in the ordinary way; she had coughed a lot and then spat out some blood. So it wasn't a baby.

The priest said babies were the will of God and should be welcomed: Dollie herself had heard the priest with white hair say it. She had noticed vaguely that there seemed to be a fearsome and threatening amount of His will about, because there were babies everywhere – dozens more than those in the court – you could see them playing in the gutters in the streets, or wrapped in their mams' black shawls against their mothers' chests. Heaps and heaps of them.

While Mary Margaret, her skirts hitched up, stood unsteadily over the bucket, Thomas ceased to sing; he was absorbed in slowly pulling his bulky duffle bag up the dark stairway and then carefully through Sheila and Phoebe's room, which was not quite so dark.

At the sound of flowing water near her, Mary Margaret's mother, Theresa, awoke.

She sat up, her eyes dazzled by the flickering candle flame. ‘You all right, Maggie?' she asked anxiously.

‘Oh, aye. Dollie's giving me a hand.'

Holding onto Dollie's bony shoulder, Mary Margaret picked her way unsteadily across the littered room back to her bed.

‘Thought I heard somebody singing,' the old lady muttered, as she lay down again.

‘It's Tom coming in.' Mary Margaret sank thankfully back onto her bed: at least, she was able to get up and pee, without Martha having to hold her.

When Thomas got entangled in the old tablecloth the sisters had draped on a clothesline across their room, both Theresa and Mary Margaret heard Phoebe inquire blearily who was there.

Thomas mumbled, ‘It's only me, Miss,' and stumbled to his own door, which was shut. He dumped his duffle bag down on the floor. In the darkness, he could not find the knob, so he hammered impatiently to be let in.

‘Dollie, let him in, love. And don't open it too sudden; he might fall over. Quietly, now.'

‘Bugger him,' muttered Dollie, as she stopped rearranging her blanket over herself and, this time,
got to her feet. Savagely, she longed to swing the door open really fast, to see if he would, indeed, fall down.

‘You'll get punched if you do,' she warned herself under her breath. She opened it with exaggerated slowness, inch by inch. It was she who stumbled and hit her knee painfully on the corner of a wooden box when her father forcibly pushed the door open.

He kicked his kitbag through the doorway and then stood staring bewilderedly around the crowded room, as if he were having difficulty in recognising his own home.

Mary Margaret eased herself up on her elbow. Her angular, bony face looked thinner than ever as she peered at him through long greasy tresses.

‘Where you been?' she asked.

‘None of your business. Where's me dinner?'

Though already thoroughly well fed, he asked the question simply to annoy his wife.

Conflict appeared imminent, so Dollie slid silently under her blanket.

‘On the table,' replied Mary Margaret wearily, and yawned. ‘It'll be cold by now.'

Thomas shut the door behind him and picked his way unsteadily round Dollie and the box on which she had knocked herself. He stretched out
one hand and used the end of the table, under which the girls were sleeping, to steady himself until he reached their only chair.

In front of him, on the table, was something wrapped in a newspaper. A faint odour of food still emanated from it.

Alice Flynn had wrapped up for him a bowl of soup provided by Auntie Ellen.

‘Watch you don't spill it when you open it up,' advised Mary Margaret. ‘And mind you don't knock the paraffin stove off the table.'

His drunkenness was beginning to fade and he felt nauseated. Filled with self-pity, he began to cry.

Mary Margaret was familiar with this reaction. She asked, however, ‘What happened?' She felt weak and resentful, unable to comfort.

‘I got a ship.'

She was truly surprised. ‘What?'

‘A ship. Report tomorrow. Sail on Sunday.'

‘What about your kit?'

‘Got it out of pop this afternoon – it's here.' He pointed to the dark lump lying in a corner by the door. ‘You know I always carry the pawn tickets in me discharge book, so you don't lose them.'

He paused, hoping that his head would clear. It did not, so he continued weepily, ‘Signed on, and all.'

‘Holy Mother!' his wife breathed in genuine amazement. Thomas had not had a ship for over eighteen months, and, most of the time, they had scrimped along on Public Assistance food tickets, her own hand sewing, Theresa's old age pension and the tiny allotment Daniel made to her.

Her wonderment grew into apprehension, as she remembered her own helplessness.

‘Where you going? How long will you be away?'

‘Dunno. She's a tramp, the
Belinda
, with a cargo for Lagos.' He wiped his dripping nose with his hand and sniffed hugely. ‘With a bit of luck, we'll pick up something else there. Could be away for months.'

‘Strewth! Lagos is far enough. What'll I do?'

‘You've nothing to worry about,' he sneered. ‘You'll get your allotment.'

‘I've got to live eight weeks before they start to pay it,' Mary Margaret retorted. ‘Even then, how will I collect it? I can hardly walk down to the shop, never mind to the shipping office. I would never have got Danny's last one if Martha hadn't lent me a penny for the tram.'

‘Ach! Stop being such a natterbag. Ask the clerk at the counter: he'll fix it,' Thomas replied irascibly. ‘Or Theresa'll fetch it for you.'

How thankful he would be to sail out of all this, to
leave on land a nagging wife and three pestiferous brats, and not have to think of anything. Even rotten food and crowded space on board was, at least, fairly worry free – you did what you were told, laid low and held your tongue, and you were OK. Then, in foreign ports, you could find a woman and get drunk and have a fine time; with a mixed cargo, the
Belinda
might dock in several places before she hit Lagos.

He began to feel sleepy and laid his head on his arms on the table. He barely heard his wife's sarcastic remarks which now poured out of her.

‘It's great for you. You'll be fed daily, starting Sunday, but the kids won't be. I suppose old Grossi in Paradise Street gave you part of your ticket from the shipping company in cash – and you've spent it?'

The ticket represented an advance on Thomas's first month's wages. It was supposed to enable him to get his kit together for the voyage.

Thomas grinned slightly as he replied, ‘He give me twenty-five per cent, like usual.'

He fully expected his wife to explode at the thought of the money being spent before she got a share of it. But she was silent. How had he got a ship? she wondered. She eyed him suspiciously. Was he telling the truth? Had he stolen something
and sold it? Maybe there was no ship to account for his unexpected affluence?

Finally she asked him. ‘How come you got a ship so sudden, like?'

He rubbed his red face hard, massaging his eyes to keep them open. Since it showed him in an excellent light, he told her quite honestly.

‘I walked up to the registry office this morning and hung around – to see if I could find anyone who might know a ship short of crew.

‘And going up the steps, damned if I didn't run into Sam Molloy what I went to school with, Catholic, like us. I've sailed with him before, but I hadn't seen him for months.' He paused to yawn. ‘He's done well for himself. Done three trips on the
Belinda
as second mate.

‘And, you know, he had orders to find a trimmer, pronto, 'cos one of theirs has got a real bad fever – from Africa, they think – he hadn't been well, like, though he kept on working – and it finally burst out when they was coming into port.

‘He's in the Isolation Hospital and there's hell to play with the medical officer – and the ship was quarantined, until the Health Authorities was sure nobody else had it. The crew had to be vaccinated, and, just in case, I had a needle this afternoon – and I feel rotten with it.

‘Sam was one of the first crew members ashore. So I got the job. Pure luck – and the ship's still delayed till Sunday.'

He did not tell Mary Margaret that he had had to practically go down on his knees to Sam to get the job for him, a fellow Catholic. He had produced his precious discharge book with its years of columns of ‘Very Good', entered by a legion of ship's masters. It was pitifully blank for the last eighteen months. Pinned in the back of it were the pawn tickets which represented his seaman's kit.

They had gone immediately back to the boat. Sam had been persuaded to vouch for him not by any cogent argument, but by the despair of an old friend. Thomas was a decent man and a good worker, who was prepared to chance a ship which had carried a bad fever – a job which many would turn down for fear of infection. Added to that was the fact that a trimmer or fireman's job was itself mercilessly hard: at best, only the really desperate would want it.