Polly's Angel (12 page)

Polly straightened, feeling puzzled. That Sunny boy was following them; he could have walked along the pavement in their wake without anyone minding, he could have caught them up and overtaken them . . . What on earth was he playing at?

But presently they arrived at the hospital and Polly pushed Sunny Andersen and his odd ways resolutely out of her mind. He would soon get fed up with hanging around the hospital and go home and leave her alone. She still thought him very handsome, but she did not like being followed one bit. It was stupid, so it was, and he was an eejit to play silly games and him at least three years her senior.

Peader was delighted to see them and he was looking better, sitting up in bed and smiling a lot, even speaking now and then, and obviously looking forward to emerging from the hospital for Christmas Day, even if he did have to go back in by evening.

When the visit was over Polly truly did forget Sunny Andersen and did not so much as glance round when the family emerged on to the pavement once more. They hurried home, because darkness had fallen and the cold was really beginning to bite, and went indoors to start making the tea.

‘I'm goin' to call for Alice when me tea's ate, though,' Polly announced as she put the delft on the table and began to fish knives and forks out of the dresser drawer. ‘We might play at her house . . . unless you'd rather we played here, Mammy?'

‘I don't like you being out after dark, alanna,' Deirdre admitted. ‘What does Alice's mammy t'ink?'

‘Oh, Alice can play wit' me,' Polly said cheerfully. ‘There's ten kids, only two growed, so her mammy won't mind at all if she comes round here. I'll ask her then, Mammy.'

But when she went outside, with her warm coat and scarf on and the heels of her best shoes ringing on the icy pavement, the first thing she saw, leaning idly against the wall of the house opposite, was a tall figure topped with that exceedingly yellow hair.

Polly gaped, then hesitated. What would he say if she asked him what he thought he was doing, following her around? Would he deny it, or give her cheek? But the only way to find out was to ask him, so she marched across the road until she was only a couple of feet away from him and then spoke. ‘What are you doin' here, feller? Why's you been followin' me?'

He looked down at her from his superior height and grinned. It was a nice grin. It warmed his whole face and made his eyes, which looked unfathomably dark in the hissing gaslight, sparkle like diamonds. ‘Oh, I just thought I'd see where you lived, blondie,' he said in a light drawl. ‘Nice place!'

‘Me name isn't blondie,' Polly said coldly, but with a fast-beating heart. ‘Sure and no one's called that, except in the comic strips!'

‘Ah, an Irish colleen,' the boy said, his eyes dancing. ‘Now who'd ha' thought it! Well, queen, if you aren't called blondie, what are you called?'

‘I'm Polly O'Brady,' Polly said at once. ‘And I know who
you
are an' all. Me pal telled me in Sunday school. You're Sunny Andersen.'

He raised a hand in a sort of half-salute, acknowledging a hit. ‘Right on the nail, Polly O'Brady. And what else did your pal tell you?'

‘Nothin',' Polly said shortly. She certainly did not intend to tell this self-possessed but wicked boy that Alice thought him handsome!

‘Nothin'? She didn't mention that I were the best footie player the Scottie ever spawned? Nor that I can ride a leckie wi' the conductor tryin' to knock me off, an' stay fixed on for miles like a bleedin' limpet on a rock? Nor that I—'

‘Were the biggest boaster in the whole of Liverpool? No, she only said you were called Sunny Andersen,' Polly cut in waspishly. She would teach this boy not to play games with her!

‘Oh-oh, who's gorra tongue on her like an adder, then?' Sunny Andersen said softly. ‘Me little Irish colleen can snap like a bleedin' crocodile, I see. Well, I'm norra feller to take agin a girl wi' spirit, so let's you an' me have a chat, eh?'

‘No, I don't t'ink so,' Polly said at once. ‘You're older'n me, and – and me mammy doesn't like me talkin' to strangers. I'm off to me pal's house.'

She half-expected him to follow her, or to try to change her mind for her, but he did no such thing. She walked away and he continued to lean against the house wall, though she was fairly sure that he turned to gaze after her. She went round to Alice's house, which was not far away, and then the two of them came back along Titchfield Street, intending to play at number 8. As they came within sight of it, Polly automatically glanced across the road, to where Sunny had stood under the gaslight, but the roadway was empty. Sunny Andersen had gone.

‘Good riddance,' Polly said savagely under her breath. But deeper inside her, where only she could hear, a little voice said:
What's the matter wit' you, Polly O'Brady? You liked that feller, you know very well you did. And you didn't have to be
quite
so nasty to him, did you?

‘What'll we play, Poll?' Alice said when the two of them were in the small bedroom which was Polly's very own. She looked enviously round at the white muslin curtains, the pink and white counterpane, at the curtained-off alcove where Polly kept her clothes. ‘Ain't this just fine, though, queen? Wish I had a room all to meself like this.'

‘Well, we'll start by pullin' the curtains, 'cos you never know who's out there, watchin',' Polly said darkly, suiting action to words. But though she stared very hard, the road outside remained empty. Sunny Andersen, despite his outward appearance of brash self-confidence, had clearly taken his dismissal well. And much later that night, when Polly was getting ready for bed and Alice had long gone, she pulled the curtain aside again to have, she told herself, one last look at the stars.

They were all there, twinkling in the heavens. But the roadway below Polly's window remained disappointingly empty of a tall, yellow-haired figure lounging against the opposite wall.

Well, that's a good t'ing, so it is, Polly told herself as she began to fold her clothes neatly over her chair. Still, it'll give me something to tell Grace when I write next. For Grace was growing up and enlivened her letters with talk of clothes, young men, and the fact that her bosoms, as she called them, refused to grow as quickly as did those of her friend and fellow child-minder, Kate. Grace's letters also mentioned such problems as underarm hair, which did not seem to flourish on her as it did on her more mature companions, and Polly thought that Grace would be the very person to advise on how she should behave should Sunny Andersen continue to haunt her. But it was only because she was new around here, she reminded herself as she climbed into bed and pulled the sheet up round her ears. It was always the same, anyone new in a neighbourhood always came in for extra attention.

So Polly closed her eyes, and began to think about her dear Grace, to wonder about little Jamie her nephew, and to wish fervently that Grace was not quite so far away.

Polly's big brother Brogan had written just as soon as he had got the news of Peader's illness, and had said that Grace had wanted to come home, but had realised, after they had discussed the matter, that her arrival would not make things any easier for the O'Bradys.

You couldn't say fairer than that, Polly thought sleepily now. Grace had been an orphan, living in the Salvation Army children's home of Strawberry Field when she and Polly had first got to know each other, and Grace had been very happy to spend all her spare time with the O'Bradys at the crossing cottage. Grace had never complained, she had been happy at Strawberry Field, but she knew she could not stay on there for ever and Polly knew better than most how her pal had longed for a real home of her own, and loving parents. And then Brogan had written, and Grace had gone . . . And from her letters, no one could be happier than she, with a good home, the baby to look after, and Sara and Brogan giving an eye to her and seeing that all was well. What was more, she enjoyed her job and liked meeting people, especially, she told Polly, since they were all intrigued by her accent and this made her feel special. She was beginning to find her feet and to have a circle of friends. The homesickness was not so bad, and she was beginning to appreciate New York and to enjoy her life there.

Coming back to Liverpool to no job and no prospects was not really a good idea. Brogan was right, as usual. So Polly, who had so longed for Grace's companionship, had virtuously not included in her prayers one for Grace's return. Fair was fair; you could not pray for something which would upset your dearest friend, no matter how happy it might make you, personally.

But that doesn't stop me wishing a tiny bit, she thought wistfully, as her eyelids grew heavy.

Chapter Four

At eleven o'clock that evening, climbing wearily up the four flights of stairs, Grace thought that there was not a vast lot of difference, really, between the poor here in New York and the poor back home. The weather had brought extra customers to the soup kitchen; a long line of wet, hopeless men and women took the bowls of nourishing soup and the hunks of bread which accompanied them in hands which shook with cold.

I thought America was a land of opportunity where anyone could rise to be the highest in the land if they had the intelligence, Grace thought. But it was all fairy tales really – there were men in this queue who once had well-paid jobs, motor cars, two or three homes. And there were professors, teachers, engineers, architects . . .

She knew better, however, than to let her depression show; it had been impressed upon her by other Salvationists, that one of the things they could do for the poor down-and-outs they fed was to smile and be cheerful, tell them that better times were bound to come, joke with them if they joked.

So she had worked cheerfully, done her best to cheer everyone up, and had taken heart when Sara had pointed out, in her quiet way, that the faces of those who had been fed and had spent twenty minutes or so in the warmth of the hall were a good deal brighter than those still waiting to come in.

Sara had left before Grace this evening, however. Sometimes they walked home together, but because Sara's job meant an early start, she never stayed later than ten o'clock and this evening the queue had still been waiting at that hour. So Grace had trudged through the emptying streets alone, and had entered their building conscious of enormous tiredness and, strangely enough, a great urge for a cup of tea. She had drunk a cup an hour or so earlier, but it had been weak and though it had quenched her thirst at the time, she was thirsty again now. So it was with considerable pleasure that she heard Sara's voice call: ‘Kettle's on!' as she put her key into the front door and opened it. Hanging her damp bonnet, coat and scarf on the small hallstand and kicking off her boots, Grace called back: ‘Grand, I'm just about dying of thirst,' and hurried into the kitchen.

Brogan was sitting beside the stove, his heavy boots off, his stockinged feet stretched out before him. He grinned at Grace as she entered. ‘My, you've been busy, alanna! I meant to come out and meet you so I did but I fell asleep – bad cess to me – and only woke just this minute when Sara bawled out to you. There's sorry I am that you had to walk through the streets alone, a girl of your age. Was there no one coming your way, dearest?'

Grace shook her head slightly guiltily. ‘No, not when I left. But it was all right, there was scarcely a soul about, and the down-and-outs, poor dears, know our uniform. I don't think they'd hurt us, honest to God I don't.'

‘That's why they tell us to wear our bonnets when we're going to and fro late at night,' Sara said. She poured three large mugs of tea and handed Grace one, then went and sat in the chair opposite Brogan's, leaving the other chair for Grace. ‘Well, it won't be long before I'm in bed, I'm telling you. Jamie decided he didn't want to go to bed, and then when I got him into his cot, he didn't want to go sleep. I wouldn't be surprised if he was cutting another tooth, poor little fellow.'

‘What time did he settle?' Grace asked, sipping the hot brew. How good it was to feel warm again, right down to her toes . . . and how she pitied those trying to sleep on the streets tonight! She had done enough of that as a child to remember the way you tried to combat the cold, and the helplessness of it. The thick wads of newspaper underneath you, whatever warm rags you could get over the top of you, and the positioning, carefully thought out, of your makeshift bed so that your back was to the draughts and you had – hopefully – some sort of shelter from rain and snow descending. But then there were the scuffers – they were cops here, she corrected herself hastily – who would move you on if they got half a chance, though there were kindly ones, she knew, who would look the other way. The cops here, she reminded herself, were no better or worse than those in Liverpool. She knew from talking to the destitute there were those who would try to get them into one of the night shelters which had been set up for the vast army of unemployed who had descended on New York in the hope of finding work.