Rainbow's End (10 page)

So now Liam hurried off to the GPO on O’Connell Street, still proud as a peacock over his job though he’d been in it a year, and decided that he would try and get a bag of fancy bread from Kennedy’s on his way home from work, when they were selling off the end-of-day stuff, for weren’t there bound to be telegrams to deliver in this unseasonal weather, and didn’t the telegrams sometimes bring a nice little bit of a tip from the recipient to the messenger boy? And though his younger brothers might be terrible naughty, there was no real harm in ’em, and he had promised something nice if they stopped harassing him.

Presently he came down on to Merchant’s Quay and fell in with Paddy, also hurrying to work. And when they arrived at the Post Office they fetched their capes, pulled on the woolly gloves their mammies had knitted for them – for gloves were no part of the uniform, unfortunately – and went into the office for the first telegrams.

‘When I grow up, Garv, I’m goin’ to be a messenger boy. How about youse?’

The twins squatted behind the half-door of the broken-down tenement on the end of their row, with the snowballs piled up behind them, waiting for their next victim. Though the most impatient of kids in the normal way, they were like cats when it came to stalking prey; they could wait patiently for hours if, at the end of the wait, they could catch a mouse. Or, in this case, fire snowballs at some unsuspecting victim.

‘Well, I won’t be a newsboy,’ Garvan said decidedly, having given the question some thought. ‘The bike’s nice, I’d like the bike, so I would. But I’d want to go where I wanted to go, not where I was sent.’

‘Uhuh,’ Seamus agreed. ‘But when you’re workin’, Garv, you can’t always choose to do what you want, you know.’

‘If I can’t choose I shan’t work, then,’ Garvan said placidly. He reached into a pocket and withdrew two small, wrinkled apples. ‘Want one?’

‘Where d’you get ’em? Nicked, are they?’ Seamus asked, but without much hope of being answered. Garvan had difficulty with the concept of ownership and sometimes he was pursued down the street by folk who wanted to teach him the difference between ‘mine’ and ‘yours’. Seamus considered nicking to be fair game in some circumstances and not in others, but he wasn’t as strong a character as Garvan so he usually went along with what his twin wanted.

‘Ould Nellie,’ Garvan replied, handing over an apple. ‘They rolled off her cart as she was pushin’ it into her front room. ‘I was holdin’ the door for her.’

‘Mebbe they were for her tea,’ Seamus said sadly, regarding the apple with watering mouth. ‘Mebbe I’ll take it back, Garv.’

‘She
give
’em me for holdin’ the door,’ Garvan said patiently, through a mouthful of apple. ‘I didn’t have to nick ’em.’

Half the apple immediately disappeared into Seamus’s mouth and for a moment the only sound was a contented crunching. Then the twins exchanged glances; another crunching came to their pricked ears . . . footsteps!

With one accord both boys reached for the pile of snowballs behind them and inched forward until they could see who was approaching through the crack in the half-door as it swung on broken hinges.

‘It’s a girl,’ Garvan whispered. ‘Give it to her, Shay!’

‘How big?’ Seamus whispered back. ‘If she’s little, we’d best wait. Her mammy will kill us hard if we soak a littl’un.’

‘Big enough,’ Garvan hissed. ‘Ready . . . steady . . . fire!’

Seamus saw the hem of a tattered skirt and skinny, pallid calves ending in skinnier, grey-blue feet. The feet were bare, so clearly it was a child and a poorly clad one at that in this bitter weather. Seamus, with a shirt, three ragged jerseys and a very worn man’s overcoat, cut down more or less to fit, shivered for the child outside. Why, he and Garvan even had boots, now that there were so many earners in their family! He didn’t recognise the girl’s grey hem; there were so many kids in the tenements that there was small chance of recognising one from a glimpse through the crack in the door, but whoever she was she did look pathetic . . . he decided to save his snowball for bigger game.

Garvan, however, had no such scruples. Everything he did, he did with all his force and now snowball after snowball left his hand at deadly speed and smashed into its target . . . who dropped whatever it was she had been carrying and proceeded to wail and also, alas, to curse.

‘Oh, oh,
oh
! Stop that, ye wicked wee buggers or I’ll come in there and tear the hairs from your bleedin’ heads, so I will! Oh haven’t ye soaked me to the skin, an’ me wearin’ me only dacent skirt an’ it all covered wit’ snow . . .’

The diatribe stopped abruptly. ‘Got her full in the gob,’ Garvan said gleefully. ‘That’ll teach her to call names!’

Seamus was starting to remonstrate when the half-door was pushed back and a virago came vengefully down upon them. She was carrying a very old string bag full of knobbly objects – they were wrapped in newspaper so he could not see what they were – and wearing a limp grey skirt and a very large, rather holey shawl, wrapped tightly round her head and shoulders, completely hiding her hair and most of her frame. But the twins were soon less interested in her appearance than her actions, for she seized them by the hair and brought their heads together with so much force that Seamus, at least, promptly saw stars.

‘I
knew
it would be you, you wicked little animals, and hasn’t the devil marked you for his own, so he has, which everyone in the Liberties knows? Oh, if I was your mammy I’d see to you, so I would!’

‘Thank the good Lord you ain’t our mammy,’ Garvan growled, trying to kick out at her skinny bare legs with his large boots, only she was too agile for him and continued to whack his head against his brother’s whilst nimbly keeping out of reach. ‘Let go of us, you wicked bitch!’

‘I shall not, for you’ve soaked me for sport, you little worms, wit’ never a t’ought for how I was to get dry,’ said the girl, if she was a girl, for her strength seemed, to the astonished Seamus, to be the strength of a woman grown. She gave their heads one last, resounding bang, then pushed them disdainfully away from her so forcefully that they landed on their backs amongst their carefully manufactured ammunition. ‘I hope that will teach you not to snowball ladies,’ she finished, dusting her hands with the air of one who has just completed a satisfactory job.

‘Ladies?’ Garvan howled, untangling himself from his twin and sitting up. ‘If you t’ink you’re a lady you’re very much mistook! You’re just a kid, that’s all!’

For the first time, Seamus was able to take a good look at their attacker and saw that Garvan spoke the truth; she was just a kid. She was older than they, of course, perhaps as old as ten or eleven, but very definitely still a child. In fact, she looked weak, Seamus thought wonderingly as the girl turned on her bare heel and strode towards the half-door. Who would have thought that a weak little young wan like that could pack a punch which could send stout fellers like himself and his twin reeling! But Garvan, never one to let good sense stop his mouth, was still muttering and the girl, who was half-way out of the door, turned back.

‘Now, you two,’ she said severely. ‘I’m goin’ to see your mammy presently. I’ll not go snitchin’ on you, but no more lyin’ in wait for girls, see? Or your mammy shall have the whole story out of me, so she shall.’

‘You don’t know our mammy,’ Garvan sneered. His hand had sneaked out and found an undamaged snowball and he was pressing it and squeezing it into a ball of ice with his hot, indignant hand. ‘Our mammy’s a real lady, so she is – not like you!’ The girl took a step towards him and Garvan stepped back, just to be on the safe side, Seamus assumed.

‘I do so know your mammy, I’m on me way to visit her now, this minute,’ the girl said calmly, but she did not come any nearer. Seamus was relieved; he had often noticed that no matter how good he might be, when his twin was bad any punishment was apt to be shared between them. ‘Put that iceball down, Garvan Nolan, or you’ll very soon find out what a good wallopin’ means.’

And with that parting shot she withdrew completely and they could see her padding across the snowy cobbles and heading . . . oh
God
, Seamus thought miserably . . . heading for the tenement which housed the Nolan family.

Garvan shied his iceball through the doorway but, Seamus saw happily, it was not even vaguely aimed at the angry young girl.

‘Missed!’ Garvan said and looked slyly at Seamus under his white lashes. ‘I say t’anks be to God, Shay, that we don’t have any ould sisters in our house!’

‘T’anks be to God,’ Seamus echoed, making the sign of the cross. ‘She’s a furious young wan, eh, Garv?’

‘We whopped her wit’ our snowballs, that’s why,’ Garvan said, but he sounded worried, nevertheless. ‘Why’s she goin’ to our house, Shay?’

‘Dunno,’ Seamus admitted. ‘Shall us go back now, Garv, an’ find out? Mammy’ll tell us, when the gorl’s gone.’

‘Who did she put me in mind of?’ Garvan said dreamily, ignoring his brother’s remark as though he had not spoken. He placed his iceball carefully on top of the mangled snowballs, then wandered over to peer round the half-door. ‘I know! She’s one of them lousy McVeigh gorls, all cropped heads an’ no knickers.’

‘Is she?’ Seamus said doubtfully. All girls looked alike to him, particularly when they were wearing a shawl. ‘There’s hundreds of ’em though, Garv . . . gorls, I mean . . . so how d’you know which is which?’

‘The McVeighs are all no better’n they should be,’ Garvan said virtuously. ‘They’re all dirty and they breed hoppers; mammy wouldn’t want us gettin’ near a McVeigh, I’m tellin’ ye, Shay. So she won’t be goin’ to our house to see our mammy, not that young wan!’

‘Well, she’s gone into our hallway,’ Seamus felt bound to point out. ‘Who’ll she be visitin’ then, Garv? Do the McVeighs tell lies? Gorls don’t, usually.’

‘How d’you know? You don’t know any gorls.’

‘I do! I know Peggy and Maeve.’

‘They ain’t gorls, they’re our cousins,’ Garvan said. ‘Oh, come on, she won’t be long, then we can go and ask our mammy what she wanted.’

‘But you said she wasn’t goin’ to our house, you said she must be visitin’ someone else in the block . . .’ Seamus started to say and got his ear pulled hard for his pains. He shouted and threw himself at his brother and a fight ensued which ended abruptly, as such fights always did, with Garvan saying breathlessly: ‘Awright, awright, pax. Twins shouldn’t fight, mammy says.’

‘Awright yourself,’ Seamus said. ‘She still hasn’t come out, Garv.’

‘Aw, she must’ve. She’ll have come out whiles we scrapped,’ Garvan said optimistically. ‘Come on, let’s go back up.’

Their flat was on the fourth floor, which meant a good trail up a lot of stairs. Garvan set off but Seamus lagged behind.

‘Or shall us go to school? It’s time we left, if we’re goin’.’

‘School? Us, go to school?’ Garvan said scornfully. ‘Wit’ that wicked ould Father O’Halloran an’ his ould cane, slashin’ at everyone? ‘Sides, it ’ud be a waste of the snow.’

‘Mammy says we’ll never learn nothin’ if we don’t go to school,’ Seamus said, but he didn’t say it with much enthusiasm. The teacher who was in charge of the small boys was a fat, easygoing woman called Sister Bridget, but Father O’Halloran, who taught the bigger boys, was not above meting out punishment to small boys who misbehaved or became too much for the sister to cope with. Naturally, both Seamus and Garvan knew the feel of the O’Halloran cane too well for their comfort.

‘Well, if you want to go . . .’ Garvan said craftily. ‘We’ll get our dinners from mammy and then we’ll think on.’

But when they reached the landing from which their rooms led they could hear, through the door, the murmur of voices.

‘It’s that gal,’ Garvan said crossly. ‘She is talkin’ to our mammy. She’s a horrible young wan, I hate her. When she comes out I’m goin’ to push her down the stairs an’ I hope she breaks her wicked neck, so I do.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Seamus said good-naturedly. ‘Come on, let’s go and find if anyone else is mitchin’ off school today.’

‘What about our dinners?’ Garvan said. ‘Oh, I suppose we can come back later, pretend we’ve been in school all mornin’. Where’ll we go, Shay?’

‘Dunno. Let’s see who else is out.’

The two boys clattered down the stairs, the strange girl, and her visit to their mother, no longer important soon forgotten.

Maggie McVeigh paused on the landing outside the Nolans’ rooms and glanced down at herself. Her grey skirt was neat enough, her shawl, though holey, clean enough. Her feet were pretty dirty, but how could they be anything else? They had already this morning carried her down to Francis Street, to the dairy for milk and then to the bakery for soda bread, and washing them in the ice-cold water which was all that would be available in the McVeighs’ dirty, overcrowded rooms wasn’t exactly appealing in weather such as this.

But her mammy had said ‘be neat, be polite, sure an’ isn’t this the best opportunity to better yourself that a gorl ever had?’ and Maggie thought reluctantly that her mother was probably right. Because rumour had it that the Nolans were well-to-do and ate every day.

The McVeighs were poor. Mary McVeigh had once been heard to remark that she’d sooner be dead than give birth to any more children, but she went on bringing them into the world anyway. Maggie had an awful lot of brothers and even more sisters, and the youngest, Lonny, who had been in her charge until a week ago, had been a great favourite with everyone.

But Lonny had caught a fever and died just before his second birthday, and it had been only days after that dreadful event that Mrs Nolan had approached Mrs McVeigh. Mrs McVeigh had been lining up to use the mangle in the shed next door to the privy at the bottom of the yard, whilst Maggie, under a load of wet linen, had been waiting patiently for her turn and trying hard not to think about Lonny, about his sweetness, the way he clung to her, the charming pink of his cheeks when he had been well . . . and the awful brightness of his eyes and the waxen hue of him when he had been sick unto death. It was then that Mrs Nolan came into their yard, picking her way amongst the assorted livestock and various children, and began to talk in an undertone to Mrs McVeigh about her difficulties, whilst Maggie had been an apparently unnoticed eavesdropper.