‘I’m glad you feel like that, queen,’ Mrs Prescott said rather drily, ‘because I had bad news this mornin’. Your mother wrote. To be blunt, she’s stopped my allowance.’
‘Allowance? I didn’t know she made you one, Gran. But why on earth has she stopped it? Not because I’m here, surely?’
‘Oh no, she doesn’t mention you. She says that Adolphus has lost a good deal of money from this coming off the Gold Standard, whatever that may mean, and can no longer afford some of his charities.’
Sara, who had been cutting herself another slice of bread, stopped short, the knife halfway through the loaf. ‘She said
what
?’
‘She said your father can no longer afford . . .’
‘I heard what you said, I just couldn’t believe . . . Gran, how dared she say such a thing! You, a charity, indeed! Oh, I’d like to make her eat her words!’
‘Aye. A cold thing, charity can be, when what’s given is given grudgingly. But after a few minutes’ thought I realised your mam didn’t mean nothing by it. She was simply saying to me what she had been saying to a good few others, I’d guess. I remember you said they’d dismissed the chauffeur . . .’
‘Yes. Without a thought for him or his wife,’ Sara said, bitterness returning at the thought of poor Robson on the street. ‘The flat went with the job of course, but they wouldn’t let them stay even though it’s empty, now.’
‘Well then, losing the little pension your father paid me won’t put us on the streets, because so long as I can pay the rent we’ve a roof over our heads, and Miss Boote’s money means we can pay that without too much effort,’ Gran said reassuringly. ‘But I won’t lie to you, queen. We’ll be in Queer Street if you don’t get work quite soon. I’m very thankful you’re here with me, though, for I doubt I could manage without some help.’
‘Oh, Gran! Do you mind telling me what Father paid you?’
‘Well, he used to pay me ten shillings, the same as my other pension, but he put it up to a guinea a week about four years ago. I was having a bit of a struggle so one day I put on me best things and got on a tram and visited your father in his offices. I said I didn’t want to upset his apple cart, but me rent had gone up and I wasn’t findin’ it easy to manage. He doubled the money he gave me immediately and I thought he was very generous, but afterwards, I wondered if he thought I was about to blackmail him! Because I’d never called at his office before, and he seemed very anxious to get me out in good order, so to speak.’
‘Oh, Gran, as if he could have thought such a thing! Then for the past four years you’ve had a total of thirty-one shillings; and you’ve been paying all your bills, your rent, your food, with that?’ Sara said wonderingly. ‘How on earth do you manage?’
‘Very nicely, queen, up to now. The rent’s eighteen and six a week, Miss Boote pays me eighteen shillings, I put a bit aside for Christmas, birthdays and so on, and that left me with well over a pound a week for food, coal, lamp oil, and all the other small household expenses. Oh, I managed very well, in fact. But losing a whole guinea . . . well, it’s going to make things hard, very hard.’
‘I don’t think you can manage,’ Sara said after some thought. ‘Thanks to Miss Boote the rent’s paid, but you have to feed her, and yourself, on rather less than ten bob a week. And what with coal, and lamp oil, and tram fares, you’ll never do it. Oh, if only I’d got that job with the Ocean Accident! The money was very good – twenty-two bob a week, and luncheon vouchers!’
‘Oh, I’ll learn to manage on less, once I get used to it,’ Gran said bracingly. ‘After all, before Miss Boote came along I managed. Only I have to feed me lodger decent, and that
is
goin’ to present a problem.’
‘I’ll get a job,’ Sara said between gritted teeth. ‘I’ll get a job if it kills me, Gran!’
‘Sshh! If you bounce about an’ keep gigglin’ we’ll never see her.’ Tad grabbed Polly’s hand and squeezed it warningly. ‘And I’m tellin’ you, if she looks in our direction, just you duck down, Poll, or run like the divil . . . ’cos if it comes to gettin’ out of here fast I’ll leave you in the ha’penny place so I will!’
It was Christmas Eve and Tad and Polly were ghost-hunting in the ruins in Gardiners Lane.
No one went there, not after dark. Not even lovers, Tad had said authoritatively, and he should know, living next door to it as he did.
‘In ten years’ time our tenement will be a ruin just like next door,’ Tad was apt to boast. ‘Sure and aren’t the walls fallin’ down already, and there’s a tree growin’ up through me bedroom, leaves an’ all in summer, an’ if you don’t believe me I can show you so I can.’
Polly believed him. She had seen the tree, and the fungus, and admired both, but when she went back to her neat home and sat down to her tea – pink shrimps and bread and butter with apple pancakes for afters – she had burst inexplicably into tears.
‘What’s the matter, alanna?’ Mammy had asked, concern in every line of her body as she bent over her daughter. ‘Don’t you like the nice pink shrimps? And there was me, thinkin’ they were your favourites!’
‘They are, they are,’ Polly had wailed between sobs. ‘And I don’t have a tree growin’ in me bedroom, nor a fungus the size of a nellyphant above me bed! Nor I don’t go to bed hungry five nights out of six!’
And her mammy had crooned and cuddled her – and marched out of the house and round to Gardiners Lane and when she marched back she had Tad with her. Polly had got the impression that she had Tad by the metaphorical ear, and had probably fought a battle to get him at all.
‘Here’s Tad come to have tea wit’ you, Polly me love,’ she had said cheerfully, pushing Tad into a chair. ‘He’s never tasted pink shrimps you say, so I thought it would be nice if you shared ’em.’
But that had been ages ago; last summer. Now it was Christmas Eve and Polly and Tad were out to find the banshee.
Mrs Crumplin had heard the banshee time out of mind, she had told the children a couple of days before. She had heard her a-wailin’ and a-shriekin’ in the ruined houses and she’d told the father so she had and what had he done? Nothin’, nothin’ whatsoever, because he knew full well that if he came and sprinkled the holy water and exorcised her – if you could exorcise a banshee – then six months later, sure as sure, down he’d drop, stone dead!
‘I don’t believe in the banshee,’ Polly had said stoutly, clutching Tad’s hand. ‘She’s not a ghost, not really. My brother Niall says she’s just superstitious nonsense.’
‘Oh, aye? And since when’s your brother Niall an expert?’ Tad had said hotly. Polly suspected that he was quite proud of the banshee in the ruins next door and did not want cold water poured on the story. ‘And if it wasn’t the banshee we heard as I were walkin’ you home last night, Polly O’Brady, what was it?’
‘It was a cat,’ Polly said accusingly. ‘You
know
it was a cat, Tad, you
said
it was a cat. Or a dog, you said.’
‘I didn’t want to scare you,’ Tad said rather unconvincingly. ‘I didn’t want you clutchin’ me and squawkin’ before me pals.’
So of course she had called him a big liar – and wasn’t it God’s truth? – and he’d denied it and told her that if she really didn’t believe in the banshee, then how about a hunt through the ruins on Christmas Eve?
‘It’s one of the best nights in the year for ghosts,’ he had said. ‘So if you really don’t fear such t’ings . . .’
And now here they were, on Christmas Eve, within a foot of the ruins, with a clear sky above them and a big moon shining and a frost making Polly’s toes tingle.
‘We’d best hide in where the front room was,’ Tad said, taking her hand firmly in his. He pulled her in under the wobbly wooden door arch and ducked sideways. ‘Here, crouch down, where the fireplace was, and wait . . . and don’t you dare giggle!’
‘I won’t,’ Polly assured him in a low voice. Truth to tell, she had no desire to giggle. It was spooky in here, pitch dark but for the silver wash of the moonlight coming through the empty doorway. Indeed, when she glanced up at the house wall, which ended a dozen feet in the air, she half-expected to see the banshee, outlined against the moon, sitting on the wall and combing her long, draggly grey hair. But all she saw was the moon, the jagged outline of the wall, and a thin, bare tree-branch held supplicatingly out towards the moon’s disc.
‘You’d better not giggle, I’m tellin’ ye,’ Tod said. ‘Are you scared?’
It would have been nice to have said that of course she was not scared since she knew the banshee didn’t exist, but Polly felt she was in the wrong place for a whopping lie like that. Even if the banshee didn’t exist the devil did, the father said so in church on a Sunday, and she had no desire for a creature such as that to suddenly manifest itself beside her and drag her off to hell for telling big lies.
‘I am, so,’ she admitted therefore. ‘It’s dark as the divil in here, Tad . . . will we go out again? We’ll see the banshee just as well outside.’
Tad put an arm round her and hugged her to him. He smelt faintly of dirt, of boiled potatoes and of young boy, but his hug was comforting. Polly, cuddling gratefully close, decided it was a nice smell so it was. It made her feel brave.
‘There; is that better? Are you still afraid?’
‘It’s better, but I’m a bit afraid still,’ Polly admitted. She did not want Tad to take his arm away and leave her cold and alone again. ‘How long’ll we have to wait before . . .’
Even as she spoke they heard it. An unearthly moan, rising, rising, until it was a full and terrible caterwaul of grief and woe, uttered, Polly was sure, by no mortal mouth.
‘Oh, God have mercy on us,’ she squeaked, clutching Tad and trying to burrow into his ragged jacket. ‘I want to go home, I want me mammy!’
‘In a minute,’ Tad hissed. ‘We don’t want to walk right into her, that’s for sure. I don’t want her throwin’ her comb at me so’s I die inside six months, indeed I don’t.’
‘Where is she, then?’ Polly quavered. ‘Oh, Tad, it’s gettin’ closer so it is – let’s run home to your house!’
The wailing was indeed getting closer. Tad was beginning to answer her, to tell her that she was safe with him and they’d hang on where they were until the banshee had given up for the night and gone elsewhere, when there was the lightest of light thumps on the wall above them. Looking up, Polly very nearly screamed aloud, for she saw a pair of burning lights, an outline . . . and then she realised what it was. It was a big old cat, that was all – he must have been as scared by the banshee as Polly herself had been and was looking for human comfort.
‘Oh, Tad, the poor cat . . . pussy, pussy, come here,’ Polly coaxed, almost forgetting her own fright at the cat’s abrupt arrival. ‘Does the banshee like cats? Only if not, we’d better . . .’
The cat was outlined against the moon now, so that Polly saw the subsequent events quite clearly. The cat threw back its head and opened its mouth, and from its throat came the long, wailing note, the sobbing crescendo, the final, awful, yowl which Tad had so convincingly blamed on the banshee!
He must have known she’d guessed, though, for his embrace became imprisoning and Polly could feel him laughing right down through both the arms that held her. Furious, she bit and thumped until he let her go, then jumped to her feet.
‘Tad Donoghue, you’re a liar and a cheat! You
knew
that cat came here to make that noise, I bet you’ve watched it many a time from your bedroom, haven’t you? Oh, you just wanted to scare me . . . I hate you, you’re wicked, I – I hope you have a rotten Christmas, so I do, and a thin old New Year!’
She would have run out, left him, but he jumped to his feet and grabbed her arm, though he was still shaking with laughter.
‘Polly, Polly, Polly! Sure an’ I was only jokin’ wit’ you! I did know the cat yowled on the wall there, but we could’ve seen the old banshee, because Mrs Crumplin’s heard her many a time, she says, an’ there’s no sayin’ that she wouldn’t have come anyway, tonight bein’ Christmas Eve and all.’
Polly paused. He did have a point, she supposed. ‘But you knew about the cat, you just wanted to scare me,’ she said accusingly. ‘That was a mean trick, Tad Donoghue.’
‘It was,’ Tad said, pretending to hang his head. ‘And it’s sorry I am, alanna, but I couldn’t resist. Aw, come on, let’s wait a bit longer.’
But Polly wouldn’t. She was cold and though the terror had warmed her through very nicely, she could still hardly feel her feet.
‘No, I’m headin’ for home,’ she said firmly, turning towards the gaping doorway.
‘You’re scared,’ Tad said. ‘You know she could be in one of the other ruins so you do, but you won’t look, not little Miss Polly!’
‘I will so,’ Polly said at once. ‘But I don’t believe a word of it – remember that, Tad Donoghue!’
‘Right, right. Let’s have a look at the rest of the ruins, then, and go home after that,’ Tad said. ‘Take my hand, then if either of us sees anything, we can drag the other one away.’
‘If we see anything, we shan’t need dragging,’ Polly observed as they set off along Gardiners Lane, heading for the next ruined building. ‘We’d be off like shot from a cannon. Though ghosts don’t hurt you, do they – apart from the banshee, I mean?’
‘Dunno. There’s one down your way chucks things about,’ Tad said. ‘Polter-something. They move furniture and throw vases. And the banshee doesn’t hurt you, exactly. It’s only if she t’rows her comb at you . . .’