Authors: Nadine Dorries
‘Brigid has him and I shan’t be very long. I’ll be back before he wakes.’ And, with that, before they could answer, just as the Crosville bus came into sight, Alice shouted, just a little too loudly, ‘I have to go, I don’t want to miss the bus,’ and then she was off round the corner, onto the bus and disappeared in a flash.
‘Sick housekeeper, my eye,’ said Peggy, as she and Mrs McGuire turned round and began walking again. ‘Wearing stockings and lipstick at four o’clock? She must think we are stupid. That one’s off for a job interview, I’ll bet.’
‘Either that, or she has a fancy man,’ said Mrs McGuire, spitting on her handkerchief to wipe the cinder toffee from around her granddaughter’s mouth.
Brigid’s daughter squealed at her grandmother’s saliva being wiped across her sticky face.
‘Now shush, don’t tell Mammy I bought ye sweets,’ Mrs McGuire said to her earnestly. ‘What yer mammy doesn’t know won’t hurt her, now, will it?’
Sean had run up the steps as soon as his shift finished and arrived at their pub in plenty of time. He was already sitting, waiting for Alice, on the studded burgundy-leather seats in the corner of the snug behind a dark-oak partition.
He had bought the usual Guinness for himself and a Babycham for Alice. Sean didn’t want to touch his drink until she arrived. He lit a cigarette and, taking another out of the packet for Alice, propped it up against the ashtray, waiting.
It had begun to rain heavily and he wondered if she would still come or if the downpour of rain would make her think twice.
It would be the third time they had met and Sean knew it was now risky. However, it made no difference. The thrill he felt at the prospect of spending more time with Alice was greater than what he felt when the bell rang at the end of a bout to announce that he was the winner.
This was potentially far more dangerous.
He turned his gaze towards the half-frosted snug windows and felt grateful they were hidden. No one came in here before seven in the evening. They would be safe.
Noisy chatter from the bar had spilt over into the snug. Men were arriving in small groups, heading for the first drink of the day, followed by the women from Upper Parliament Street, looking for their first early trick of the night.
The air in the pub was a deep hazy blue from the smoke of Woodbines and Players, which mingled with the smell of yesterday’s stale alcohol, soaked into the dark wooden floor. The fire provided enough heat and the apple-wood logs helped to transform smells that were odious in the cold light of morning into the more pleasant aroma of freshly roasted hops and warm beer by dusk.
Sean lit his cigarette and as he threw the match into the fire, he saw Alice run past the half-frosted window. He took a deep breath and tried to calm the knot in his stomach.
He had thought about nothing but meeting her again since the last time. She had filled his thoughts and his mind.
At work he had been unable to look Jerry in the eye and, without realizing, had fallen into a subdued mood, which made the other men on the docks wonder what was the matter with the big man. But a man’s thoughts were his alone, so no one pried. Unlike the women.
Alice dashed into the snug, breathless and soaked. She had reasoned that if she ran fast from the bus stop to the pub, fewer raindrops would wreck the hairdo she had spent hours teasing into place.
She was wrong. Her fringe had long escaped her hairgrips and was plastered to her forehead. Drips ran down into her eyes, smudging the eyeliner and mascara she had applied with such precision.
She didn’t care. As she ran into the snug, her heart melted. Sean instantly shot to his feet and removed his cap in honour of her presence. He was the only man ever to have done that for Alice and suddenly she felt like the woman she knew she always should have been.
Not like the one who had tricked Jerry into having sex with her to make him propose.
Alice removed her coat and Sean reached out his hand.
‘Here, give it to me. I will hang it by the fire to dry. Make sure you don’t forget it before ye leave.’
Alice relaxed and began to laugh. It was amazing to her how easily laughter came when she was with Sean.
‘Sean, in this weather, only an idiot would forget a coat. Have you seen how heavy the rain is?’
Sean began to laugh with her as he poured her drink and then, both turning to face the fire, drinks in hands, they picked up the conversation where they had last left off and talked and talked.
Sean had never spoken so many words to Brigid in one day, ever.
Alice had never spoken so many words to anyone in her entire life, ever.
For the first time, Alice talked about her childhood.
She told Sean of her panic and need to flee the hotel and how scared she had been of ending her days alone, in a bedsit as the previous housekeeper had. She skimmed over how she had tricked Jerry into marrying her but praised how Kathleen had nursed her back into sanity. She talked of the tablets, the breakdown and her isolation and feeling like an outsider in the four streets. When she had finished, Sean leant across the table and took both of her hands in his.
Neither spoke. Alice stared down at her small hands enfolded in Sean’s huge fingers. He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb, then brought it up to his lips and placed one deeply tender kiss on the palm.
Alice’s first instinct was to pull her hand away and she almost did. But Sean held on firmly.
‘Don’t,’ he whispered. ‘Enjoy this, you deserve it. You deserve this and more.’
Alice had never cried. She had never felt sad enough to cry. She lived somewhere in a half-world and had looked curiously at others who could.
She had stared at the tears that ran down Maura’s cheeks, as they so often did these days, in slight wonderment. She had seen tears brim in Jerry’s eyes, on the night Father James had been caught in Kitty’s room. It seemed, at one point, as though everyone was shedding tears of one sort or another.
Everyone except for Alice, who hid in her bedroom and listened from a distance.
Now Alice felt her face flush. It was as though a torrent of emotion had escaped from somewhere inside and now swam through her veins, prickling the surface of her skin and forcing the tears into her eyes. She quickly blinked them back.
‘God, what is happening, Sean?’ she whispered, although they were the only two people in the snug.
Sean smiled. ‘I haven’t a clue, but I know I have to see you again and soon.’
Alice wrenched her hand away and jumped out of her seat with a yelp. It was dark outside. They had been talking for three hours.
The bubble of warmth burst in a second and was replaced with dread.
‘What am I to do? Oh my God, Sean, it’s dark. Brigid will think I have deserted her and left her with the children, and Jerry will be sending out a search party.’
Sean had already reached for her coat and was helping Alice into it. He looked at the clock on the snug wall.
‘The bus will be here in five minutes, let’s run.’
‘What, together, are you sure?’
‘Aye, no one will see us. It’s dark now. Brigid thinks I have been at the boxing club.’
Alice picked up her bag and they both flew out of the pub swing doors and ran down the road, Sean holding tightly onto Alice’s hand as they did so.
It was a Friday, which was fish day, and Mrs McGuire had decided Brigid needed a break and to treat the family to a fish and chip supper. She was cross that Alice had left Brigid with Joseph to look after and had let her daughter-in-law know exactly how she felt.
‘I don’t ever see anyone giving ye a break, Brigid. Seems to me like you’re always being put upon by others.’
‘I have you here, Mrs McGuire. You give me a break,’ said Brigid, who was feeling a little sorry for herself.
Lifting Brigid’s wicker basket down from the peg and placing in it a pudding basin still warm from the range, covered by a pan lid, Mrs McGuire tied a headscarf around the curlers Peggy had put into her hair earlier in the day, before heading off to the chip shop.
It was the first time ever she had worn curlers outdoors and she felt as though she looked very conspicuous.
‘When Sean sees me in these, he’ll be asking me what radio station I can pick up,’ she laughed as she tied the scarf under her chin. ‘Ye would never see our Mary in these. She visits to a salon every week now, so she does. It is different altogether over there in America, Brigid.’
And with that, much to Brigid’s relief, she was gone.
Mrs McGuire loved the chippy. If she was honest, she loved the chippy more than she did Brigid.
There was no chippy back home, although there had been talk of one for some time.
The prospect of a chippy in the village was partly inspired by the envy of Mrs McGuire’s neighbours, whom she loved to regale with stories of the rare delicacies to be found at Mr Chan’s.
Saveloys. Oh, how she loved the way that word rolled off the tongue.
Was there ever a more exotic word?
‘In Liverpool, I often pop to the chippy for saveloys,’ she would say to her neighbours.
‘God in heaven, s-a-v-e-l-o-y-s. What would they be?’ her neighbours would demand to know.
As it was a Friday night, the chip shop was busy and Mrs McGuire felt mildly irritated as she noticed that the queue was almost to the shop door. Taking her place at the end, she stepped into the brightly lit shop full of hot steam and chatter and untied her headscarf to shake away the surface water. As she fixed it back into place with a knot under her chin, she keenly looked around her to see who else could afford to be in the queue.
Some of the women whose families she knew from back home shouted out greetings.
‘Is Sean fighting again tonight, Mrs McGuire? He’s on a winning streak, so he is, we will all be putting money on him soon.’
The fish and chip shop was a luxury and Mrs McGuire was surprised to see so many people there. Some of these women have more money than sense, she thought to herself.
‘No, not tonight,’ she replied. ‘He’s running short of lads willing to take him on. It’s a practice night tonight, so don’t waste ye money, he will definitely beat himself.’
She wiped a circle in the steam on the window so she could peer out into the street. The sulphur-yellow street lights had transformed the dirty wet black pavements to the colour of golden marmalade.
She heard the familiar ding-ding of the bell on the bus across the street and her inbred nosiness made her squint to see if she knew anyone alighting.
She recognized Sean instantly. Of course she did. She was his mother and there were very few men in Liverpool as tall or as well built as Sean.
She watched his athletic leap from the platform of the still-moving bus and thought, typical Sean, always in a hurry. As he swung down from the pole and landed on the pavement, he reached up to help someone else down. It looked like a woman, but Mrs McGuire couldn’t really see. She leant forward, with her face almost pressed against the window, and wiped furiously at the greasy glass until it squeaked.
‘What you want, lady?’ Johnny Chan shouted. It was the third time he had asked for her order.
Flustered, Mrs McGuire reached into the basket and handed him the pudding basin with the enamel pan lid for the peas. ‘Three fried fish, three saveloys, five peas and five chips, please, Johnny.’
She stepped back over to the window to see the back of the bus disappear down the road, but there was no sign of her son.
With the parcel of fish and chips safely wrapped up in newspaper, and resting on top of her pudding basin, she hurried back towards Nelson Street.
As she neared the top of the entry, Little Paddy flew out of the newsagent’s, with his da’s ciggies in his hands, and crashed straight into Mrs McGuire, almost knocking the basket straight out of her hand.
‘Sorry, Mrs McGuire,’ Little Paddy apologized, as he ran past.
‘Gosh, Paddy, ye are in a dreadful hurry,’ she shouted. ‘Look where ye are going! Ye nearly knocked me off my feet.’
If Little Paddy looked where he was going, his da would accuse him of dawdling and give him a belt. He hated it if there were lots of people in the shop. It made his breath short with anxiety and then he couldn’t run as fast as he wanted.
Only yards away, Sean and Alice stood in the middle of the entry, each fully aware they were playing with fire. The knowledge thrilled them. All around they could hear the familiar sounds of domestic street life: dogs barking, babies crying, mothers shouting, outhouse toilets flushing.
The only illumination was from the moon and stars, plus the reflections on the pavements of light tumbling from kitchens or bedroom windows, across backyards and over the entry wall.
Occasionally a child ran across the entry, like a river rat darting from one backyard to the next, sent from a house without, to borrow from a house that had.
Light to dark. Yard to yard.
The same sounds repeated daily as they had been for generations.
Different children. Different dogs. Same cacophony of life.
Sean and Alice were startled as suddenly, out of the darkness, a young voice shouted, ‘Hiya, Sean, hiya, Alice,’ making them both jump out of their skins.
They stepped aside as Little Paddy rushed past and they stared aghast at his departing back. Alice came back to reality with a thud.
‘I have to leave now. Wait until you see me leave your house before you go in,’ she said, beginning to move away.
‘Monday,’ whispered Sean urgently, taking hold of her hand and pulling her back. ‘Say you will come again on Monday.’ He brushed the damp hair back from her face with his free hand.
‘I don’t know if I can. I can’t ask Brigid to look after Joseph again, can I?’
She looked down at her wet leather boot and kicked the cobblestones.
Scamp, Little Paddy’s skinny, shaggy-haired grey dog, ran past. He had been waiting loyally outside the newsagent’s for Little Paddy and had hung around, sniffing Mrs McGuire’s basket, until he realized no chips were flying his way.
Wherever Little Paddy went, Scamp went too.
Alice and Sean, searching for a reason to delay their parting, watched the departing dog until he was swallowed by the night.