The September Girls (6 page)

 

A clock somewhere was striking two when the door of the convent opened and the Caffrey boys came out accompanied by Sister Kentigern, an elderly nun who worked in a draughty office just inside. ‘I shall expect them to be back at the usual time,’ she said curtly.

With three regular meals a day, the lads had put on weight. They had never looked so well - or so desperately unhappy. Fergus made straight for his mammy’s arms and Tyrone for his dad’s.

‘Mind your little sister, me darlin’ boy,’ Brenna said when it seemed Fergus was intent on hugging them both to death.

Fergus started to cry. ‘I wish I was Cara,’ he sobbed. ‘I wish me and Tyrone could live with you all the time like her, even if it is in hell. I wish we were back in Ireland. I hate Liverpool, Mammy, and I hate Uncle Paddy for not coming to meet us.’ The lads didn’t know their uncle was dead.

‘He couldn’t help it, Fergus. He’d have come if he could.’ She wondered if that were true. Would Paddy have turned up, despite having lost all their money in a game of cards?

‘There’s a treat for you today,’ Colm was saying. ‘We’re going to tea with Nancy Gates.’

Tyrone’s dull eyes, usually so bright, lit up at the news. Fergus said he wasn’t hungry, yet looked pleased. ‘Will it be in the room with the yellow bird and the ginger cat?’ he asked.

‘Indeed it will,’ Brenna told him.

The bird began to sing when they went into the warm sitting room, and the cat rubbed itself against everyone’s legs. The bird was a canary called Eric, Nancy said, and the cat’s name was Laurence. ‘They’re named after me two little brothers who died when they were only babies, poor little mites.’

‘Our Cara won’t die, will she?’ Fergus asked worriedly.

‘A big healthy girl like her? Not likely,’ Nancy assured him. ‘Now, I’ve only made ham sarnies with jelly and custard for afters as I expect you’ve not long had your dinner. It’s more a snack than a proper meal. Come on now, tuck in, your mammy and daddy too.’

Fergus discovered an appetite, after all, and the sandwiches had gone when Brenna became aware the lads were being uncommonly quiet. ‘Have you lost your tongues?’ she asked.

Tyrone looked sideways at Nancy. ‘She might cane us if we talk while we’re eating,’ he said in a small voice.

Nancy screamed that she’d do no such thing. ‘Is that what they do in St Hilda’s?’

‘Yes. Our Fergus gets the cane nearly every morning for wetting the bed. Then he has to wash the sheet and hang it on the line.’ Fergus hung his head and refused to meet his mother’s eyes.

‘He never used to wet the bed,’ Brenna exclaimed hotly.

Colm said they shouldn’t spoil the two hours by talking about the convent and asked Nancy about the union she belonged to. Nancy explained the members were known as suffragettes. ‘They got together in nineteen hundred and three to advance women’s rights, particularly the right to vote in elections. Some were sent to prison for their pains, where they were force-fed.’ Her big, plain face shone with indignation. ‘Two years ago, women over thirty were given the vote, but we shall keep on fighting until it’s twenty-one, same as men. Woman form half the population of the country, yet they’re treated like second-class citizens - no, not citizens,
subjects
. It’s about time we got rid of the royal family and became a republic like America.’ She suddenly grinned. ‘I suppose it’s time I came down off me high horse and made us all another cup of tea.’

It almost broke Brenna’s heart to take Fergus and Tyrone back to St Hilda’s after what seemed all too short a time. ‘It won’t be long before we’re all back together,’ she assured them confidently, although wished she had more faith in her own words. At least Nancy had invited them back to tea next Sunday. It would give them something to look forward to: her and Colm an’ all.

 

December came and there was ice in the air. The paraffin stove was turned full on and Brenna felt as if the fumes were choking her to death. Cara developed a wracking cough and her breathing was hoarse when she slept.

Christmas was only ten days away and the lads were dreading the idea of spending it in St Hilda’s where they were already learning new hymns and special prayers to say at Mass. Nancy was going away for Christmas and Boxing Day. Apparently, she had an elderly father in Rochdale and wanted to keep him company.

It was going to be a really wretched holiday. Colm had lost all faith in getting a regular job and Brenna remembered his threat that he’d have to find some other way of making money if he hadn’t found work by Christmas. It made her feel even more despondent. One morning, she felt so low that she sobbed into her pillow as soon as Colm had left, imagining him being sent to jail and she wouldn’t see him again for years and years and there’d be even less chance of getting back her lads. It was the first time she’d allowed herself to cry and she felt ashamed.

She sat up, sniffed, wiped away the tears with the back of her hand and told herself sternly that this just wouldn’t do. The tears had left streaks in the grime on her hand. Lord Almighty, she was letting herself go on top of everything else. When did she last wash herself all over? She couldn’t remember.

There was still hot water in the kettle from the tea she’d made for Colm and she poured some into the metal bowl in which she did the washing, then took off her clothes. Using one of Cara’s clean nappies, she washed every inch of her body, shivering mightily in the process. Then she did the same to Cara, although it was pity there weren’t some nice, clean clothes to put back on their nice, clean bodies. If ever she had a penny to spare, she’d take herself to the public baths. She fed Cara, made some tea, dipping a chunk of dry bread in it, wrapped herself and the baby tightly with the shawl, and made her way to St Vincent de Paul’s where they attended Mass every Sunday.

An arctic gale penetrated her thin clothes like needles. Brenna bent her head against the buffeting wind that kept changing course, whipping up the front of her skirt one minute, and up the back the next. She arrived at the church frozen to her bones, although Cara felt warm and snug against her breast.

The services were over and the church was almost empty: a few elderly women knelt at the front. Brenna dipped her fingers into the Holy Water, made the sign of the Cross and genuflected as she entered the back row where she sat for a while recovering her breath and freeing Cara from the tightness of the shawl. The baby uttered a little cry, stretched her arms and looked around the church with interest. She chuckled and her small body stiffened at the sight of the flickering candles.

After a few minutes, Brenna had recovered enough to kneel. She prayed to the Bessed Virgin as she had never prayed before, pleading with her to cast her gentle gaze over the Caffreys, help them, bless them, lift them out of the darkness into the light. ‘We’ve never done anything wrong, Holy Mother.’ Brenna squeezed her hands together until they hurt. ‘We only came to Liverpool for a better life, but everything’s turned desperately sour. All I want is a job for Colm, a decent roof over our heads and for me wee lads to come home.’ As an afterthought, she added, ‘Thank you for sending Nancy Gates to help us. I don’t know what we’d have done without her. I know she’s a non-believer, but you’d be hard put to find a kinder, more Christian woman.’

Brenna left the church feeling calm and serene, convinced the Blessed Virgin had listened to her urgent plea. She had forgotten to point out she wanted her prayers answered before Christmas, but felt sure the Blessed Virgin had probably guessed.

 

‘By George!’ Constable Stanley Beal gasped when he read the
Liverpool Echo
that night after a hearty tea. His stomach felt comfortably full.

‘What is it, Stan?’ enquired his wife.

‘Thing here, under Public Notices.’ The constable began to read. ‘“Will Colm Caffrey, brother of Patrick Caffrey (deceased), please contact Messrs Connor, Smith and Harrison, Solicitors, of forty-seven Water Street, Liverpool, where he will learn of something to his advantage.” There’s a telephone number. What do you think o’ that, Irene?’

‘I think that this Colm Caffrey is probably a very lucky man, but what’s it got to do with us, luv?’

‘I met this Colm Caffrey - oh, it must be nearly three months ago now. Wife was on the verge of having a baby late one night in the middle of the street and he was looking for help, a bit wild-eyed like. Took him to St Hilda’s, I did, and a nun went back with him. Poor chap, only came over from Ireland that day, looking for his brother, Paddy. It fell to me to tell him that Paddy had been murdered.’

Irene shuddered. ‘I hope that poor baby wasn’t born in the street. Did you ever find out?’

‘No, luv. I meant to, but you know how I am, always too busy.’ Stanley walked twice as many miles and did twice as much work as the other men on the beat, at least so he had convinced himself and Irene.

‘Is he still in Liverpool, this Caffrey chap?’

Stanley stroked his chin. ‘I can find out. I asked him to leave his address at the station in case we wanted to get in touch with him about his brother. Seems we did a few weeks later, when the body was released for burial. Where’s the scissors, luv? I’ll cut this out and take it with me tomorrow.’

 

Marcus Allardyce also saw the notice. He looked at it for a long time, then cut it out, tucking it by a corner under the blotter on his desk. Someone else might read it and show it to the Caffreys, but he would keep it to himself. He still followed Brenna if she happened to appear while he was in the pub. He found the whole experience quite exhilarating, although couldn’t have said why. The ‘something to his advantage’ that awaited Colm might change things altogether, and Marcus preferred them to stay the way they were.

 

Someone was banging hell out of the front door and no one in the house seemed prepared to answer. After a while, Brenna went upstairs, just in case, you never know, it was about a job for Colm. She opened the door and nearly fainted when she found a peeler outside. No wonder the door hadn’t been answered: the caller had probably been seen through the various windows and everyone was lying low.

‘Mrs Caffrey?’ he enquired politely.

Colm must have decided not to wait until after Christmas before deciding to make money a ‘different’ way and, fool that he was, he’d already been found out.

‘No,’ she said unsteadily. ‘The Caffreys have gone back to Ireland. I’m Mrs . . . Gates.’

The peeler looked disappointed, as well he might, probably hoping to catch a criminal before breakfast and get a medal or something. ‘D’you have their address in Ireland?’ Brenna shook her head. ‘Ah, well, never mind. Thanks, luv.’

Brenna closed the door. When Colm came home tonight, she’d skin him alive. Perhaps he hadn’t done anything - yet. But the peeler had had a reason for calling and it can’t have been for anything good.

 

Nancy usually read the day-old paper when she stopped for a morning cuppa after she’d finished with breakfast and before she started lunch. Normally, she wouldn’t have dreamt of reading the Public Notices, but her interest was aroused when she saw that one had been cut out. What did Mr A want with it? she wondered. He was the only one apart from her who read the paper. Curious, she was about to go up and look in his study in case he’d left the cutting around when Nurse Hutton came in and said Eleanor only wanted bread and milk for lunch. ‘She’s feeling very frail this morning.’

‘I thought as much. I’ve just chucked her breakfast in the bin.’ It had seemed such a waste: a fried egg, black pudding and two slices of nice lean bacon gone to waste when some poor souls had never eaten such a breakfast in their lives. ‘I’ll go up and see her in a mo,’ she said.

‘She’s asleep right now, the baby too. Cried all night, she did: the baby, that is. It’s probably three-month colic. Maybe she’ll be better when the New Year comes.’ The nurse sat down and folded her arms, ready for a gossip, although she never had much luck with Nancy who was always very tight-lipped. ‘I’ve never come across such an odd household before. Mr Allardyce only pops in to see his missus when he comes home from work and never stays longer than a few minutes. That boy of theirs can’t be normal, sticking to his bedroom twenty-four hours a day, and Mrs Allardyce is the unhappiest woman I’ve ever come across. It just shows,’ she said piously, ‘that money can’t buy happiness.’

Nancy didn’t answer. She didn’t say that a blight had fallen over the house the minute Marcus Allardyce had set foot inside and set about courting Eleanor. She had recognized the man for what he was, even if Herbert and Eleanor hadn’t. Herbert Wallace had been a generous soul who never believed ill of anyone, and Eleanor, delicate and abnormally sensitive, crazy with grief over the loss of Geoffrey, her fiancé, was easily fooled by Marcus’s fake charm. Nancy had dropped a few gentle hints, but although she was regarded as a member of the family, she wasn’t close enough to come out and say she was convinced that Marcus Allardyce was a rogue who was using Eleanor as a way of getting his hands on the family fortune.

And she’d been right. Herbert had hardly been in his grave five minutes, when Marcus’s attitude to his wife had changed completely. He had no patience with her, spoke to her with the utmost contempt, didn’t have a jot of sympathy when she came down with one of her awful headaches - her mother had suffered from the same thing. The worse he got, the worse and more frequent the headaches became, until Eleanor was spending days lying in a darkened room.

‘I don’t know how you stand it here, Miss Gates,’ Nurse Hutton said.

‘I’m all right,’ Nancy murmured. Sometimes, she longed to leave and get a place in a more cheerful household, but couldn’t bring herself to desert Eleanor. To change the subject, she said, ‘Seeing as Mrs Allardyce only wants bread and milk, perhaps we could have sausage and mash for lunch.’ She preferred a good old-fashioned meal to the fricassées, flans and exotic casseroles she was usually required to make.