Rainbow's End (20 page)

Ada was masterminding the removal, of course, but then she intended to get over to the new house just as quickly as she could – and she would travel a good deal quicker than the lads, who were taking it in turns to push the two well-laden handcarts – so that she could make sure the furniture went where she wanted it rather than where they found it easiest to dump.

‘Check through, Ellen,’ her mother called to her as the last object was loaded on to the handcart. ‘Mek sure everythin’s out, then give the floors a brush round. Mrs Emmett won’t want to start cleanin’ our muck when she comes in.’

‘Awright, Mam,’ Ellen called. ‘I’ll have to borrow a broom, though.’

‘Damn!’ Ada said. ‘I forgot – our broom went wi’ the first load. Never mind, chuck, nip over to Mrs Edwards, she’ll give you a borrow of one.’

‘Right,’ Ellen said. Her mother had loaded Sammy and Toby into a big, broken-down perambulator with some bits and pieces which were too precious to go in the handcarts and was preparing to follow her older sons. ‘Where’s the twins, Mam? Did they go wi’ the fellers?’

Ada looked round. ‘Ain’t they wi’ you? Dear God, them kids! They’ll be off playin’ somewhere . . . give ’em a yell, there’s a good girl. I’m not hangin’ round waitin’ for them to turn up, though. If they’ve not caught me up by the time I reach Prince Eddie they’ll have to come wi’you, queen. Oh, an’ don’t forget to bring me washing line!’

Because the houses in the court were back to backs, the Dochertys had a line which they looped across the court and attached to the house opposite. Mrs Edwards, who lived there, did the same, which was convenient because if the Docherty washing was out and it started to rain it was quick enough for Mrs Edwards to take it in when she rescued her own – and vice versa, of course. But you didn’t up sticks and leave a perfectly good line hanging across the court, so Ellen had been deputed to bring the line and the prop with her when she finally left the premises.

‘I bet them little blighters have gone off somewhere, playin’,’ Ellen muttered to herself, going across to the Edwards place. She knocked briefly on the door and Mrs Edwards answered it. She was a large, weary-looking woman in a print dress, with two children clinging to her skirt, but she lent the broom willingly and followed Ellen into the court, chatting as she did so.

‘Well, we shall miss you, our Ellie, that’s for sure – you’re a good girl; your mam’s lucky to ’ave you to look after the littl’uns. Mind, they say the Emmetts are decent enough – they’ve been livin’ in a bigger ’ouse but now the kids is grown they could do wi’ less rent, so . . . where’s them twins, then? I din’t see ’em goin’ off wi’ your mam, nor wi’ the lads.’

‘I don’t know,’ Ellen said wearily. ‘Mam said to shout ’em . . . I will, but you know what they’re like. They’ll turn up at the new house, come supper time.’

‘What’s it like?’ Mrs Edwards asked. ‘I never been up that end much. There’s all I want on Netherfield Road, I always say.’

‘Dunno,’ Ellen admitted. ‘I ain’t been up there either yet. But I’m goin’ as soon as I’ve brushed through an’ taken the line down. No point hangin’ about for them perishin’ kids.’

‘If I sees ’em, I’ll tell ’em to go up to Mere Lane,’ Mrs Edwards offered. ‘They know the way, acourse?’

‘They’ll find it,’ Ellen said rather grimly. What a moment for the twins to choose to go missing, but how typical of them! ‘They’ve tongues in their heads, as I know all too well.’ She went through the open doorway into the empty house. ‘Ta-ra for now, Mrs Edwards. I’ll pop over before I go.’

‘Aye, do. I’ve a little somethin’ for your mam – I meant to give it ’er meself but one minute she were ’ere an’ the next she were gone . . . I did think as ’ow she’d pop in, say goodbye,’ she finished rather aggrievedly.

‘She’s goin’ to come back tomorrer,’ Ellen said, hoping that her mother would agree to do just that. ‘It’s been such a rush, Mrs Edwards, but Mam wouldn’t go without a word.’

‘In that case, I’ll ‘and it over meself,’ Mrs Edwards observed. ‘Well, I mustn’t keep you, you’ve work to do.’

She and her children turned and made for their own home and Ellen began to sweep. She had a shrewd suspicion that the twins had gone off to the ‘friend’ they had mentioned, in tones of increasing woe, over the past week, but since they had refused to tell anyone where their new friend lived she couldn’t go round and demand that they come home at once.

Little blighters – and how clever they were at escaping from chores which didn’t interest them! Ellen knew her mother had intended to put them in charge of Sammy and the baby once they reached the new house, and she herself had planned to get them to dust round after she’d swept – fat chance of that now. She would have to wield both broom and duster herself.

Not that there was anything unusual about that. The only form of work which the twins willingly undertook was the running of messages, which they would sometimes actually volunteer to do. And Ellen knew they ran messages because it got them out of the house and enabled them to get little extras – a ha’penny between them went a long way in the sweet shop and if you were buying fruit the greengrocer might give you a fade; there was always bunce of some sort in running messages. And I was so pleased when me mam had a girl, Ellen remembered ruefully. Fat lot of good she’s been so far! Still, Deirdre was young yet. Young kids in other families might pull their weight, but it was different with twins. It was hard to ask Deirdre to knuckle down when no one ever expected Donal to do his share of housework, so Deirdre might just as well have been a boy for all the use she was.

Ellen banged the broom crossly around the back kitchen and steered the resultant pile of dust and bits and pieces towards the doorway. Never mind! She was going to live in a big new house and start a job of her own very soon now. She would be earning money, getting away from the kids . . . why, she might begin to do the things other kids talked about – visit a picture house, go to a theatre, even. Visions of herself with the girls who had been at school with her, but who had left her behind in the entertainment stakes, whirled pleasurably round in her head.

It wasn’t until she had finished brushing and was dusting skirting boards that it occurred to Ellen that, living right across on Mere Lane, she would be an awful long way away from her school pals.

But it won’t matter, because I’ll make new pals once I’m working, she told herself, going to the door to shake her duster. It’s going to be a different life over on Mere Lane!

‘But we’re goin’ miles away! We shan’t be able to work in our bit o’ garden, nor shan’t we be able to see you,’ Deirdre wailed. ‘We’re gonna run away from home, ain’t we, Donny?’

The twins were sitting on wooden stools in Bill McBride’s kitchen, with a buttered cob in their left hands and a tin mug of cocoa in their right. Deirdre looked at Donal and knew the misery on his face was reflected in her own. What a blow! No sooner did they have somewhere completely private to play, a special friend of their own whom no one else knew about, than their heartless, selfish family decreed a move. Not to a larger house, which would have been welcomed by them as much as any, but to a different district! People, in their experience, simply did not undertake moves such as that. It would mean a different school, different schoolmates, different shops . . . Deirdre remembered the happy times they had had with Joe and Essie, the ha’pence they had earned by carrying baskets of groceries home for elderly people, and her tears, which had dried whilst she considered how cruel her family were, broke out afresh.

‘We will run away, won’t we, Donny?’ she reiterated urgently. She might be the one who said what they were to do mostly – well, she was – but she knew very well that she would never make a move of which her twin really disapproved. So now she looked at him appealingly, trying to gauge his reaction to this suggestion.

‘No point in you runnin’ away, alanna,’ Bill said, picking up his own cob and taking a bite out of it. ‘I shan’t be here for much longer, God willin’. I’ve got nowhere wit’ me search, I’ll be movin’ on as soon as I’m able.’

‘But you’ve got no money, Bill,’ Donal said. ‘You telled us you got no money that first day when we come over your wall.’

‘As soon as I’m able, I’ll move on,’ Bill repeated. ‘It may not be for a while yet, but I’ll not be here for ever. Besides, you can’t run away from your mam – an’ what about this Ellen that you t’ink so much of? What ’ud she say if you runned off?’

Silence greeted this remark whilst the twins thought about it. Finally Deirdre spoke. ‘Well, all right then, we won’t run away,’ she said grudgingly. ‘But we’ll sag off school, so’s we can come an’ see you, won’t we, Donny?’

‘’Spec’ so,’ her twin said, his eyes brightening. Plainly, what he thought of as a legitimate excuse to play truant was a far more attractive proposition than running away from three square meals a day and a doting Ellen. ‘Oh aye, we’ll come back awright when school’s in. But now’s the holidays. We can come back when we wants.’

‘It’s a long way . . .’ began Deirdre, to be promptly contradicated.

‘No it ain’t. We’s gettin’ bigger all the time, Dee, we can walk it if we gets Ellen to mek us sarnies. Or we could skip a leckie.’

‘That’s dangerous, lad!’ and ‘We’s too diddy yet, you know we is,’ came simultaneously from Bill and Deirdre. The practice of skipping leckies was popular amongst kids who wanted to go somewhere but had no money for a proper ride, but recently a boy hanging on to the back of a tram had suffered an appalling accident when the tramdriver had had to jam on his brakes to avoid running over a stray dog. The boy’s hold was broken by the abrupt stop, he fell off and the cab following had gone straight over him.

‘Oh, all right then, we’ll walk,’ Donal said defiantly. ‘But whiles you’re here, Bill, we’ll come an’ see you. How’s the sellin’ goin’?’

‘Did ye not notice how clear the yard is? I’m goin’ to plant tomatoes agin the back wall, so I am, for I’ve plenty room now. An’ I did what you said: I borrowed a handcart for a few pence an’ took all the jam jars an’ bottles back, which brought in a bob or two, an’ then I chopped all the wooden boxes into firewood an’ sold that to the feller in the shop on the corner. He’s got a notice on it now, “Chips, a penny for two bundles,” so that’s a help.’

‘Wharrabout the rags?’ Deirdre said eagerly. ‘Did you tek ’em to the tatter wi’ the barrer what stands on the corner of Great Homer? Our mam says he gives as good a price as anyone.’

‘I did,’ Bill acknowledged. ‘Now if you’re goin’ to come back an’ see me from time to time, why shouldn’t you be as much of a help to me up there as you’ve been down here, indeed? You’ll be in a different area, see, an’ the fambly I’m seekin’ might be anywhere. Any luck wit’ Feeneys?’

‘We went round axin’,’ Donal said. ‘Most of ’em come from Ireland way back, but there weren’t no one who knew the Burren. One feller I axed – his name was Bobby Feeney – said if you hailed from Clare then you’d best try America. He said as an awful lot went to America when the famine came. Those that din’t die, that was.’

‘The folk I’m askin’ for left before the famine,’ Bill said. ‘Have you ever heered o’ the Big Wind?’

‘No,’ Deirdre said. She got off her stool and went over to Bill, who was sitting in the only armchair in the room. It was old and rather dirty, but in one short week Deirdre had discovered that it was the most comfortable chair she had ever sat in, so now she squiggled on to it beside Bill and looked hopefully up at him. ‘G’wan, Bill, tell us.’

‘Well . . . it’s a long story, now. What time does this great move o’ yours tek place?’

‘Oh, they’ll be gettin’ stuff out and pilin’ it on the cart for hours yet,’ Deirdre lied cheerfully. ‘Plenty o’ time. So long as we’re home for our tea.’

‘Oh. Right,’ Bill said. ‘Want another bevvy, Donal?’

‘No, I’s all right,’ Donal said. He came over and squeezed on to the chair on Bill’s other side. ‘Go on – we do love a tale, don’t we, Dee?’

‘Course we do,’ Deirdre confirmed impatiently. ‘G’wan, Bill!’

‘Thus encouraged, Bill started his tale. ‘Well, a long time ago, seventy long years ago, before I were so much as a twinkle in me daddy’s eye, the children in Ireland were playin’ out, for snow had fallen in the night an’ it were mortal cold. That evenin’ were Little Christmas, when there’s a big meal prepared an’ families all over Ireland play games round the fire an’ enjoy theirselves . . .

Deirdre drew a deep, ecstatic breath. ‘What a ’citin’ story! What did they do, Bill – them girls an’ their sisters an’ brothers what you telled us about – when they seed they had nothin’ left, not so much as a hen or a lamb or a bonaveen?’

‘There weren’t nothin’ they could do,’ Bill told her. ‘’Cept to up an’ leave, acourse.’

‘Leave? But it were their home,’ Deidre breathed. ‘It were beautiful, weren’t it, Bill? An’ that Grainne, she didn’t want to go, did she?’

‘No, she didn’t. None of them did. But they had to, see? Because the big wind had taken everyt’ing; the animals, the feedstuffs, their home, their food . . . everything. And though he didn’t say anyt’ing to his childer until long after, Paddy Feeney had gone to his neighbours, the rich ones ye understand, and asked for a loan.’

‘And what did they say?’ Donal asked. ‘Surely they wouldn’t say “no”, after such a terrible thing as a hurricane?’

‘But they did say no,’ Bill assured them. ‘The families had been bad friends and Fergus McBride wanted to get rid of all the Feeneys, d’you see? He wanted them out o’ the way. He mebbe even coveted their farm, for though the Burren seems a poor sort of place, the grass which does grow there is rich an’ good. Sheep thrive on it – do you remember I told you that Fergus wanted Paddy’s lambs at market, until someone told him they were Feeney lambs? So if you could get the knack o’ farmin’ it properly, the land repaid you. But in any event, Fergus wouldn’t lend Paddy a penny piece, and it’s my t’ought that he stopped others lending too, for he was a powerful man in the community. So the Feeneys went away.’