The Mersey Girls (19 page)

Maeve was so shocked that she couldn’t speak. She just stared at Caleb Zowkoughski whilst all the blood drained out of her face, leaving her feeling sick and lightheaded.

‘Didn’t you know? I feared you didn’t, but I felt I had to write . . . I have acquired a copy of the death certificate, if you would like to see it . . .’

Maeve took hold of the certificate by one corner, and managed to take in what was written without once actually looking straight at it. Little Evie had bled to death as a result of multiple wounds caused by being struck repeatedly by a knife.

‘I saw the police,’ Caleb murmured, when she had recovered from the dreadful shock and the storm of weeping which had shaken her after reading the certificate. ‘She wasn’t in this apartment, she’d gone to – to someone’s place in Brooklyn Heights. The police think it was a case of – of friends falling out. She had been very ill, it seems, but had felt well enough, on that particular afternoon, to – to visit her friend. I don’t know the circumstances, of course, but the police surgeon said your sister would not have lived long, in any case. She was a sick woman, Miss Murphy. Perhaps that was why she decided to try to talk to the man who killed her, instead of steering well clear of him.’

‘I don’t understand,’ poor Maeve said, thoroughly bewildered. ‘My sister was on the stage, she was doing very well, she’d said nothing to us of an illness. When she first came over here she spoke of a man called Guiseppe Fuego who was going to make her rich and famous, and I thought, reading between the lines, that he was in love with her and planned to marry her. Did it have anything to do with Mr Fuego, this business?’

Caleb, who had been understanding and kind but perfectly at ease, began to show signs of considerable perturbation at the mention of Mr Fuego’s name.

‘Yes . . . no . . . I’m not sure,’ he stammered. ‘You’d do best not to mention Mr Fuego, Miss Murphy, neither to the cops – the police, that is – nor to any of Evie’s acquaintance. How old did you say the child was?’

‘Only fourteen. You aren’t going to tell me . . .’

Caleb moved closer to her. He took both her hands and spoke urgently, his voice low.

‘Miss Murphy, this is a dangerous city and your sister mixed with dangerous people, very dangerous people. I don’t think for one moment that she would have involved her child with those people but the best thing you can do is go away from here. Leave New York, go back to Ireland, and wait. If your niece needs you she’ll get in touch. If she doesn’t, if she’s living with good people and happy with them, then the best thing she can do is to mourn her mother quietly, and then forget the whole business. Believe me, this is a dangerous city.’

‘But my niece . . . I must find her,’ stammered Maeve. ‘She’s got to be here somewhere – her name’s Linnet Murphy, surely I can trace her from that?’

Caleb looked doubtful. ‘Without an address, ma’am? With no idea where she might be? Well, you can try, I guess, and I’ll do my best to help you. But I can’t guarantee that we’ll get so much as a sniff of her.’

Maeve smiled at him, immensely cheered to hear him say ‘we’ and not ‘you’.

‘Thank you, and God bless you,’ she said fervently. ‘I’d be most grateful for any help, so I would. Can we start looking tomorrow?’

It was that same autumn that Granny Mogg began to show her age. She took longer to climb the long stone stairs to her upper room and scarcely ever ascended the ladder which led out onto the roof. She had always had a healthy appetite but now it gradually shrank as food interested her less and became less important. And she hardly ever looked into her seeing bowl, nor did she cross-question Lucy about her comings and goings. She simply accepted Lucy’s absence and rejoiced in her presence and when she was left alone she slept a lot. It was not Lucy who noticed first that something was wrong because she was with Granny, on and off, most of the time, but Finn spotted it the moment he strolled into the upper room at the castle.

‘She just smiled at me, so she did, and not a moan about her aching bones nor a question as to where I’d been hidin’ meself this time,’ he said helplessly. ‘So meek and quiet she was that I knew all wasn’t well. It’s as if she’s lost her zest of late, and I’m sure she’s shrunk, too, got physically smaller since I was here last.’

‘We’ve had enough rain to shrink a six foot giant down to a two foot pigmy,’ Lucy said gloomily. ‘She’s had a nasty cough, mind, but I gave her honey an’ lemon which seemed to help. Only then she got her feet wet going down to pull in our fishing lines, and the cough came back and a headcold with it. She’s over both now, but with every cough and sneeze she seems to get a bit weaker, a bit less quick to get over the next one.’

‘I wonder should she see a doctor?’ Finn said uneasily. ‘I’ve got the money; sure and haven’t I had the good season this time? Aye, there’s a penny or two to be spent over the hard months.’

‘I don’t think a doctor would say much except that she was getting old, wearing out,’ Lucy said. ‘Caitlin’s grandaddy’s the same age as Granny Mogg and he’s wearing out, the doctor says so. But there are things we might do which could help a bit; if it wasn’t for the stairs I’d say she should give the old turf hut the go-by and stick to the upper room. It’s healthier, I think.’

‘But she likes her summer home, as she calls it,’ Finn said. ‘I can understand it, ’specially now she finds the stairs hurt her poor ole knees. Aw heck, I knew this would come one day, but I didn’t know it would be so soon. What’ll we do, alanna?’

Lucy felt a lovely warm glow at that ‘we’, but it didn’t solve the problem, of course. The marsh was damp, the lough was downright wet, and the rheumatics were in Granny’s bones something cruel. Getting her away from the lowlying ground, she supposed, would probably be best. She voiced the thought aloud and Finn, to her surprise, jumped at the idea.

‘You’re right, Luceen. Where’ll I take her, then?’

‘Well, she needs a proper roof over her head,’ Lucy said slowly. ‘There’s turf huts in plenty high in the mountains but when it rains she’d be wetter than she is down here, or at least as wet. I suppose you couldn’t build her something?’

‘I could,’ Finn said with a grin. ‘But be the time I finished it I’d be pushin’ me own century so I would. What would your grandaddy say to a lodger, eh, just for the winter? With Maeve still gone you must have the room and to spare.’

‘Well, we have, and Maeve doesn’t look like coming back yet awhile,’ Lucy admitted. ‘But Finn, if I could persuade me grandad, and Clodagh, because she’s still up there standin’ in for Maeve, would Granny come with me? A barn she might enjoy, but someone else’s house, where she’d have to ask before she fried herself a trout . . . I don’t know. And I don’t think Grandad would let you live with us as well. I wish he would,’ she added with the candour which Finn found so delightful, ‘but he’d say it wasn’t right to have a young man and a young girl in the house together and them not even relatives.’

‘You’re probably right and Granny wouldn’t stand for it,’ Finn said, after some thought. ‘She’s never had a proper roof over her head, not a house roof which belongs to someone else. I’d think about a caravan, only we’ve got along fine and no trouble from the Duveens for so long it seems mad to tempt fate. If your Maeve was here you could ask her what best to do; you always say she’s sensible.’

‘She is, and I wish she’d come back,’ Lucy admitted with a sigh. ‘She’s been gone so long – that wretched sister of mine’s disappeared, you know, they can’t find her anywhere, but Maeve’s stubborn. She won’t give up, and America’s a huge country.’

‘They? Who’s they?’

‘Oh, didn’t I tell you? She’s met a feller called Caleb Zowkoughski, he’s an att-attorney and I think he’s sweet on Maeve, so I do. Her letters are full of him and in the last one she said she might bring him back home when she does come, since his ancestors were from County Kerry and he’d like to see the old country.’

‘Well, that ‘ud be nice,’ Finn said. ‘Nice for Maeve, anyway.’

‘Yes. And nice for Caleb, too.’

They stared at each other with unrelieved gloom for a moment, both sunk in their own thoughts. Then Lucy spoke.

‘We ought to get Granny to get out her seeing bowl; if Maeve’s going to marry Caleb I’d like to be prepared.’

‘Gran’s gettin’ too old for seein’ things,’ Finn said. ‘Besides, we’ll know for ourselves soon enough. She wouldn’t stay away for Christmas, surely?’

‘I dunno. She really does like Caleb, Finn, I can tell from her letters. If she does marry him then I don’t suppose she’ll ever come home.’

If Linnet had expected getting a job would be easy, she was to be disappointed. Day after day she washed carefully, brushed her hair, put on her best winter coat (only just beginning to be a little small) and sallied forth. Every evening she came back to Peel Square with less of a spring in her step as the weeks became months and still she was reliant on the Sullivans.

‘It’s the weather, chuck,’ Mrs Sullivan said in mid-January, when the snow was a couple of feet deep around the sides of the square, though the constant passage of many boots kept it to slush in the middle. ‘Folk aren’t doin’ much shoppin’, there ain’t much money about . . . you’ll do better when the warmer weather comes.’

Linnet said she was sure she would and set off next morning, with great determination, to try the factories.

‘I know I said I wouldn’t work in one and get a yellow face, but I’ll do anything to help your mam out,’ Linnet told Roddy as they walked up Scotland Road together in the dark and early morning. ‘You work for that beastly butcher and I know you don’t like it, our Roddy.’

‘Oh, it could be worse,’ Roddy said. ‘I ’ates the smell o’ blood an’ the feel o’ carcasses on a cold mornin’, but it’s a job, queen. Look, it’s early, come into Cobble’s canny house wi’ me an’ I’ll buy you a wet nellie to set you up for the day.’

Linnet squeezed his hand, her mouth watering at the thought of the doughy roll soaked in syrup. She had not eaten any breakfast because she felt so guilty, taking from Mrs Sullivan all the time, when that good lady had her work cut out to feed and clothe her own brood. Trust Roddy to notice, though, and he was always slipping her the odd copper to see her through the day and heaven knew he earned little enough from that old skinflint!

‘Oh, you are kind, Roddy! But I shouldn’t let you spend your money on me, you don’t get much to spare.’

‘Wet nellies don’t cost a fortune,’ Roddy said grandly. ‘I’ll mug you a cuppa tea an’ all if you’re good.’

They reached the canny house, which was really only a room which faced onto the pavement, and went inside. Immediately the noise hit them; the porters from the market shouted across to one another, a delivery boy with a box of bread rolls was trying to get someone to take them out of his wooden tray and even at this early hour there were women shoppers, eyeing the food on sale with critical interest, reading the chalk board or peering over the top of the high wooden counter to the shelf at the back which held Mrs Cobble’s collection of cakes and prepared sandwiches. There was also a line of would-be customers standing by the counter, none of them looking too happy at being kept waiting.

‘Mrs Cobble does a nice cuppa,’ Roddy said, catching hold of Linnet’s elbow. He raised his voice to a bellow, for there was no sign of Mrs Cobble behind the counter. ‘Come on, Ma Cobble, gerra move on or I’ll be late. The old feller wants me to clear the snow before I start an’ our Linnie ’ere is goin’ job-huntin’ agin.’

‘I can clear the old feller’s doorway for free,’ Linnet said, delighted to be able to pay Roddy back for once. ‘I can, honest, I’m strong, I can shovel snow.’

Roddy laughed and leaned over the counter. ‘Two wet nellies an’ two cuppas, Mrs Cobble,’ he shouted. ‘Shift yourself, Auntie!’

Mrs Cobble emerged from her tiny, steamy slit of a kitchen and grinned across at Roddy. She was a fat little woman with thinning grey hair screwed into a tiny bun on top of her head, small grey eyes which twinkled at the world beneath bushy grey brows, and a laugh as raucous as a crow, only a good deal louder.

‘Good Lor’, it’s the butcher’s boy, wantin’ service,’ she announced to the world at large, slapping the tray she held down on the counter. ‘Gorrany pennies, Roddy?’

‘Enough for two wet nellies an’ two cups o’ tea, Auntie,’ Roddy said promptly. He slapped the coins on the counter. ‘Gerron wi’ it, queen, or we’ll be in trouble, our Linnie an’ me. What’s gone wrong this mornin’, hey? Be this time you’re usually servin’ like a mad thing!’

‘Four cups o’ tea an’ eight toasts,’ Mrs Cobble said, removing tea and toast from her tray and pushing them over to the customers. ‘An’ you was a breakfuss, weren’t you?’ The man she addressed said he was indeed and Mrs Cobble piled a plate with fried food, handed it to her customer, and then turned back to Roddy. ‘Ain’t you got eyes in your ’ead, young feller?’ she said, reaching for the wet nellies and sticking them onto a couple of white pot plates. ‘Wharrabout your ear’oles, then, eh? Don’t you listen to gossip, chuck?’

‘Dunno what you’re talkin’ about,’ Roddy said. ‘Butchers’ lads know everything there is to know; well-known fact.’

A fish porter, smelling strongly of his wares, pushed past Linnet and dumped a box of fish on the counter. He leaned across it and spoke right into Mrs Cobble’s flushed face. ’Ere, I can’t wait all mornin’, gi’s me money an’ I’ll be orf. Ten pun’ o’ cod you said an’ ten pun’ o’ cod you’ve gorrin this box.’

‘Ta, love,’ Mrs Cobble said, fishing money out of the till and pushing it across the counter. ‘God ha’ mercy on me, where’s that bleedin’ baker’s boy?’

‘He’s gone, but he left the bread,’ Linnet volunteered. ‘He’s coming back for his money later, he said. And he wants his tray back, too.’

‘And two teas,’ Mrs Cobble said, pouring tea from a big black pot into two chipped cups. ‘I’m short-’anded, Roddy me lad, which is why I’m buyin’ bread in instead o’ makin’ me own. You must ha’ heard about Millie, the gal what worked ’ere?’

‘Who? No, ’aven’t ’eard nothin’,’ Roddy said, picking up the two cups. ‘What’s she done, then?’

‘Oh, nothin’ much, only ’ad a baby, that’s all,’ Mrs Cobble said heavily. ‘I didn’t even know she were in the fam’ly way, like. So me right-’and woman’s out o’ the picture for a bit, ’cos I won’t ’ave a squallin’ brat in ’ere, upsettin’ me customers.’