Rainbow's End (9 page)

‘Twins, eh?’ Bertie said. ‘An’ one of ’em’s another bleedin’ useless girl!’

He was grinning as he spoke but Mrs Bluett, making herself comfortable before the fire, frowned at him. ‘Don’t you go bein’ nasty about your sister, young Bertie,’ she said sharply. ‘Your mam could do wi’ some help since she’s give birth to twins, and from whar I know of lads, she’d be better off wi’ a score of gals.’ She turned to Ellen. ‘Take your mam up a cuppa, queen,’ she said. ‘If she’s asleep, leave her be, but I reckon she could do wi’ a wet.’

Ellen made the tea, poured it out and then stood staring at the midwife and wondering how best to phrase her question. Mrs Bluett, glancing up at her, said: ‘Well, queen? Spit it out – wha’s on your mind?’

‘It ain’t me, it’s me mam,’ Ellen admitted. ‘The last baby’s got red hair. What’s wrong wi’ red hair, Mrs Bluett?’

‘Nothin’ in this world,’ Mrs Bluett said comfortably. ‘Why, don’t your mam care for red’eads?’

‘She doesn’t think Mick likes ’em . . . Mick’s our dad now,’ Ellen said conscientiously. ‘He’s a nice feller, but the boys won’t call him Dad, so I don’t, either. He’s . . . well, he’s . . .’

‘He’s only eight years older than our Dick,’ Bertie said, settling the kettle over the fire.

‘Ah,’ Mrs Bluett said. ‘What did your mam say, chuck?’

‘She said what would Mick think when he saw the baby had red hair,’ Ellen said, after some thought. ‘She thought he’d be cross, I could tell.’

Mrs Bluett glanced at Bertie, who stared, round-eyed, back at her, and then she laughed. ‘The rest of you are dark,’ she said. ‘Mick’s got light ’air, ain’t ’e?’

‘Yaller,’ Bertie said succinctly. ‘Like one of them day-old chicks they sell in St John’s market.’

‘Yes, well there you are, then,’ Mrs Bluett said rather obscurely. She finished her stout and climbed laboriously to her feet. She went across to the box on the table and checked that the babies still slumbered, then turned back to Ellen. ‘I reckon your mam thinks Mick’ll want the baby to tek after ’im, like. But you know when you mixes paint?’

‘Blue an’ yeller meks green,’ Ellen said promptly. She loved using paints in school, though the opportunity came seldom. Her teacher believed in discipline, the three Rs, children being seen but not heard, and not much else.

‘Aye, you’ve gorrit, chuck,’ the midwife said, struggling into her heavy coat and wrapping an immense muffler round her neck. ‘And with ’air, it’s the same. Black – that’s your mam – and yaller – that’s your dad – make red, in ’air. Just tell your mam that and she’ll likely stop worritin’ about it.’ She turned to Bertie, staring open-mouthed at her as she expounded this new idea. ‘Now you’re to tek me arm goin’ acrost the cobbles,’ she said severely. ‘A woman my size could do damage if she slipped on that ice.’

‘To the cobbles?’ Bertie asked innocently, then dodged as Mrs Bluett aimed a swipe at him. ‘Come on, then, Missus, ’cos the dark’s fadin’ awready.’

Mrs Bluett turned and winked at Ellen. ‘Your brother don’t want ‘is pals to see ‘im arm in arm wid an old woman,’ she said. ‘Go up to your mam with the tea, queen, an’ then get back to bed or you’ll be good for nothin’ come mornin’.’

Ellen saw them across the court, then closed the door and returned to the kitchen. Once more she made tea, but before taking it upstairs she took another look at the babies, snug in their cardboard box. ‘Ain’t you a pretty pair?’ she whispered. ‘Your daddy will love you both, he’ll think it’s pretty, like what I think. Now you stay there quiet an’ presently I’ll come down an’ fetch you up to my room an’ we’ll all of us sleep till mornin’.’

She carried the mug of tea up to her mother’s room, but Ada was sleeping, so Ellen put the cup carefully down on the box which served as a bedside table and tiptoed out again. Going down to the kitchen, which was still warm from the fire glowing in the range, she decided that she could do with a hot drink herself and probably, when Bertie came back, he would feel the same. Tea was expensive and not something she particularly enjoyed, so she made two mugs of hot water with a spoonful of conny onny in each and was enjoying her own drink when Bertie came quietly in through the back door.

‘It’s bleedin’ cold out there,’ he said, taking the proffered mug and wrapping his hands round it. ‘And that ole woman’s heavy as a cart-horse; I had to lug her all the way up to Kepler Street, what’s more, acos when we got to her house there was this little kid from Kepler Street sayin’ as how his mam had started wi’ the baby, an’ would the old gal please come. I tried to gerraway,’ he added morosely, ‘but she had a grip like a vice on me arm, so I din’t have a lorra choice.’

‘Well, never mind, an’ our dad’ll be pleased with you for helpin’,’ Ellen said craftily. Of all the boys, Bertie was the one who liked and admired Mick the most, possibly because he couldn’t remember their real father, who had been swept overboard when Bertie was barely five years old. ‘Want to look at the littl’uns?’

‘Babies are babies, they all look alike to me,’ Bertie said, but he came over to the table and peered into the cardboard box. ‘Cor, where did that ’un get them curls from?’

‘That’s the girl; the boy is called Donal,’ Ellen said importantly. ‘Mam didn’t name the girl, though. What should you like her to be called, Bertie?’

‘Ginger,’ Bertie said promptly. ‘Or Fido, if you like.’

‘Don’t be horrible,’ Ellen said. ‘What really?’

But Bertie would not be swayed. ‘They’ll call her Ginger whatever I say,’ he pointed out. ‘So why not start out with it? She’ll like it better’n Carrots, I dessay.’

‘Anyone who calls her Ginger will have me to reckon with,’ Ellen said darkly. ‘Elizabeth’s nice, don’t you think?’

‘Lizzie. Skinny Lizzie. Ginger Lizzie,’ Bertie said thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, Lizzie ain’t too bad.’

‘Oh, you!’ Ellen said, giving up. She finished her drink, then went over to the box. ‘Come along, twins, we’re goin’ off to bed,’ she said. ‘Night, Bertie; see you tomorrer.’

‘It’s tomorrer now,’ Bertie pointed out. ‘What’ll they have for breakfast, eh? You’ll be cookin’ bangers an’ mash for ’em, I dessay.’

‘Babies have milk,’ Ellen said. ‘Their mams give it ’em.’ She knew very well that her mother would breast-feed the twins because Shirl’s mam breast-fed all the little O’Connors, but she didn’t want to get involved in a technical discussion with Bertie – you never knew just what boys really knew and what they didn’t, she thought confusedly. He might easily plead ignorance so he could trick her into saying something she shouldn’t. And besides, she realised suddenly how very tired she was; and there was school to be faced in the morning, unless her mam would let her take a day or two off to keep an eye on the new babies.

It was a nice thought, but she really was tired out, so she picked up the babies and trailed slowly up the stairs and into her own room. There, she put the box down beside her bed and climbed between the blankets, then looked down at the two little faces below her.

They looked as alike as all babies did, but not so very alike, she decided. Donal had rather a snouty little nose and full, pouting lips, but the girl twin had a nose like putty and a little rosebud mouth. And the box, for all its blankets, didn’t look all that warm. The babies were crammed close in their swaddling of sheets, but as they breathed in and out their breath showed as steam.

‘You’ll be warmer in here wi’ me, babies,’ Ellen whispered, dragging the box on to the bed and tipping the contents rather unceremoniously amongst her blankets. ‘You don’t want to be in that cold old box when you could be snuggled down wi’ your very own big sister.’

One baby made a snorting sound, the other gave a little purr, but their eyelids remained tightly closed. I like them, Ellen decided, putting her arms round both children and cuddling them close. I like them very much. They’re like beautiful dollies, except they’re smooth and warm, and I can feel their little chests moving when they breathe.

She had intended to lie awake for a little, considering what names she would have given the babies had she been able to choose, but weariness overcame her. Presently, all three children slept soundly in the narrow bed.

Chapter Three

Dublin, March 1906

Liam Nolan came out of the front door cautiously, because it had snowed in the night and self-preservation indicated a degree of care when emerging into a white and chilly world, but even so the first snowball narrowly missed his nose and the second one splattered on his chest, damping his uniform jacket.

‘Stop that!’ Liam called sharply. ‘I’m goin’ to work, you divil’s spawn, just you leave off snowballin’ me this minute or I’ll be whackin’ your bums to a pulp, so I will!’

‘But forst you’ve got to catch us!’ a mocking voice shouted, the words echoing round the narrow, canyon-like street and bouncing off the tall tenements which housed such a multitude of children. Not that Liam had any doubts about the identity of the snowball throwers; he knew who they were all right! ‘Come on, Liam, catch us if you can!’

‘If I don’t get to work on time you won’t have no soda bread,’ Liam called, sidling down the steps and on to the pavement. If he scooted for it he could be round the corner and up Thomas Street before they whopped him with another snowball. If he hadn’t been going to work, of course, he’d have chased the little divils and let them have some of their own medicine, but as it was, diplomacy would have to be tried because the thought of getting soaked as well as freezing wasn’t one he fancied, and the Post Office inspectors didn’t think much of messenger boys who wasted their time with snowballs and came in soaked into the bargain.

So Liam cleared his throat and adopted what he hoped was a friendly, reasonable tone. ‘I
was
goin’ to bring back somethin’ nice just for the pair of ye, but if I’m late, an’ soaked wit’ snow . . .’

He paused. At the mere mention of something nice one of the twins’ heads had appeared round the corner of the house opposite. He couldn’t tell which one, because they were so alike – and didn’t they make use of it, now? – but you couldn’t mistake that shock of hair. They were the naughtiest children in their block . . . the naughtiest in the street. For all he knew, the naughtiest in all Dublin and wasn’t it unfortunate, now, that he’d landed them for younger brothers?

‘Liam . . . we didn’t t’ink . . . are yez soaked, now?’

That was Seamus, always the more thoughtful of the two. Liam, who had played with the idea of dodging round the corner and then vengefully making the biggest snowball in the whole world and hurling it with all his force at his erring brothers’ smouldering heads, decided not to bother. For one thing they had probably got a great pile of ammunition ready to hurl, and for another . . . well, though they were divils there was no real harm in the twins.

‘No, I’m only wet on me chest,’ he called back, therefore. ‘I’m off now, fellers, so no more messin’. Right?’

‘Not till you come home again,’ a voice answered. ‘Then you’d better be wearin’ your posh cape or you’ll get a drubbin’, Liam Nolan!’

‘Garvan, I know your voice,’ Liam said warningly. His cape was at the GPO, waiting for him; if I’d known it was going to snow I’d have wore it home, he thought longingly, now. But failing protective clothing, he resorted once more to threats. ‘You aren’t the only one who can make snowballs, you . . .’ He ducked as another missile came whizzing across at head height, then ran, hearing Garvan’s cackle of laughter ringing out behind him.

As Liam hurried along the roadway, scuffing the snow with his regulation boots, he thought about how much he liked his job and how lucky he was. When everyone was needing work and looking for work he had heard on the grapevine that the Post Office were wanting messenger boys. There were a grosh of school-leavers just like him, many of whom had sat the examination for Post Office messenger, but of the three hundred applicants only ten had been taken on, he and his friend Paddy amongst them. He could still remember rushing home, grinning from ear to ear, and telling his mammy how they’d put him on a big old bicycle because he’d sworn to heaven that he could ride one, and watched him climbing aboard in the great, bare Post Office yard.

‘Oh, be Jaysus,’ his mother had said, clutching her heart. ‘But you’ve never rid a bicycle, Liam! Did ye fall much? Are you hurt bad?’

‘I hopped round the yard on me one foot, scootin’ wit’ the other, and then I got me leg over it and hoisted me bum into the saddle,’ Liam said. ‘And then I rode that bicycle round and round that big ould yard. I kept aboard it out of
terror
, Mammy, in case I should be made out a liar. And devil a bit did I fall, though me heart was hammerin’ loud enough to deafen me. So the fellers that could ride the bicycle sat down to the examination, and ten of us passed and got the messenger jobs, an’ me an’ ould Paddy are workin’ men, so we are.’

‘And who knows where a job like that may lead? Who can tell how high you’ll climb in a job like that?’ his mammy had said dreamily, when he’d told her he would be paid half a crown a week and would get a uniform too. ‘Why, you could be a postmaster, Liam me darlin’. Oh, we’re goin’ up in the world, so we are, wit’ you a reg’lar wage earner, an’ your brother out of school as often as he’s in to earn us a bit from the papers, an’ me wit’ the dressmakin’ . . . oh aye, we don’t do so bad.’

‘I’ll be in line for postman if I don’t blot me copybook, an’ in a year or two the twins could be earnin’ a few coppers an’ all,’ Liam said hopefully. The twins needed a job, in his opinion, to keep them out of mischief, or at least to concentrate their minds a bit. ‘Kids start at seven or eight on the newspaper sellin’, you know.’

‘Not Seamus and Garvan,’ his mother had said firmly, however, abruptly coming out of her dream. ‘They’re me babies, so they are. Let them have some childhood, Liam.’

Liam had said, uncomfortably, that he didn’t mean . . . and his mammy had tousled his hair and said wasn’t he as good a boy as ever walked now, without a mean bone in him? And she had reminded him that he hadn’t worked on the papers himself until his twelfth birthday was passed, which was fair enough.