Rainbow's End (12 page)

It was only her responsibility for the twins, in fact, which worried her as she made her way home to tell her mammy what had occurred and to fetch over anything she wanted to take to her new home. She hadn’t liked to tell Mrs Nolan that her possessions were one tatty black skirt and a shawl even more riddled with holes than the one she wore at present. Mrs Nolan had asked if she would prefer to bring along some of her own bedding, but Maggie had just muttered that she would manage, thanks. She did not think that her new employer would think it amusing if she turned up carrying an armful of flea-ridden straw.

It wasn’t far from the Nolan building to the rundown tenement where her own family lived, but it might have been in another world. The Nolans lived just off Thomas Street, but the McVeighs were further off it still, down a noisome little dead end known as Dally Court. Because the tenements were so tall, very little daylight came into the court, so it was always dusk, even at noon, and the houses leaned perilously, as though the garrets were trying to get close enough to whisper secrets. Here there were no cheerful little huckster shops with their goods in big sacks and the shopkeeper dipping into them with a little tin shovel, because there would have been no point. No one came down Dally Court because it led nowhere and the people who did live there had so little money that they could not have bought the goods displayed. Instead, there were hens and a couple of geese scratching, and a lean, bristle-backed pig rooting. Dirty, whey-faced children clad in rags had scratched a piggy bed in the snow and now they were kicking a flattened tin from square to square, shouting to one another as they did so. ‘Tip the piggy,’ they shouted. ‘Tip the piggy, Alis . . . ah, hasn’t it touched the line now – you’re out, you’re out!’

One of the children spotted Maggie and came running over to clutch her hand. She was Maggie’s youngest sister, Carrie. ‘Maggie – where’s you been? You goin’ to play piggy wit’ us?’

‘Not today, alanna,’ Maggie said gently. ‘I’m goin’ to work today.’

‘To work? But youse in school, Maggie,’ the little girl pointed out. ‘You like school, you said.’

‘So I do, but I’ll be earnin’ money . . . in a sort of way.’

‘Money!’ The child’s small, pointed face grew thoughtful. ‘Wish I could earn some money, Maggie. Will you buy bread? Cakes?’

‘If I can,’ Maggie said steadily. ‘Aileen will be workin’ soon, too. She’ll buy food.’

‘An’ won’t you be in school no more?’ the little girl persisted. ‘When I’m big I t’ought you’d be in school wit’ me.’

‘So I shall,’ Maggie said. ‘Leave me go, Carrie, our mam wants me.’

The child stepped back obediently and before Maggie was even in the house the game had restarted, with Carrie taking her turn to tip the piggy.

I wish I really was going to earn some money, though, Maggie thought to herself. It would be wonderful to have a penny or two to spend now and then. She envied her older brothers who had left home and gone to England to earn real money and still did their best to help out at home, but she, too, was doing her best. Just by leaving home she was helping.

Maggie crossed the hallway and set off up the stairs, which weren’t easy to climb because the angle at which the tenement leaned meant that the stairs had come adrift on one side and had a drunken tilt. What was more, you could look right down to the ground floor through the holes in the treads . . . and right up to the roof, if you tipped your head well back, through the treads above you. Still, she thought, trudging onwards, even if she wasn’t being paid at least she would be fed, which would mean she might be able to lay her hands on some spare food – or smuggle the odd slice of bread, or cake, or whatever Mrs Nolan gave her, into her clothing. Then she could bring it back for the kids.

The thought heartened her, because no matter how beautiful their home, how lavish their table, the Nolans were virtually strangers to her. The rooms in No.14 Dally Court might be crammed with people and empty of possessions, but Maggie, Aileen and their mother saw to it that the place was kept clean. Lugging all the water up three long flights of stairs was backbreaking work, but although the fleas never completely left them, and bugs appeared as soon as the winter cold eased, at least the floors, what bedding there was and all their threadbare clothing were always fiercely clean. Mounting the third flight, torn between a feeling of satisfaction that she was about to help her mother in the best way possible and an almost equally strong feeling of loss, Maggie tried to tell herself that Dally Court wasn’t much of a place, that she would be much better off with the Nolans. But she could not deny that the two small rooms on the third floor had been home to her for almost eleven years and that counted for a good deal. Change is never nice, Maggie thought confusedly; but a change so . . . so total . . . well, she should not expect it to be easy.

At the third landing she stopped and waited for a moment to get her breath, then opened the door which led directly into their living-room. The kids were either at work or at school, only Biddy, who suffered from bad chests and was laid up at present with a deep and barking cough, was present, sitting with a blanket round her as close to the stove as she could get, whilst Mrs McVeigh stirred a concoction in a small pan over the stove. Mr McVeigh was asleep on the broken-down sofa, well wrapped in blankets and old coats, but he still looked half frozen, his daughter saw sadly. How she wished she could bring home the butter, the fresh milk and the vegetables which the doctor said their father needed! But little hope of that as a skivvy to the Nolan family!

Maggie crossed the room and stood by the stove, watching the potion bubbling in the pan. It smelt good, peppery, clovey, with liquorice predominating. ‘I’m startin’ tomorrer, Mammy,’ Maggie said, as her mother looked up from her work. ‘Mrs Nolan said it would be all right, so long as I weren’t a breaker, and I don’t
think
I am. She – she seems nice enough.’

‘Oh, me little darlin’,’ Mrs McVeigh said and reached for a tin mug. She poured the bubbling liquid into it and wrapped it in a length of soft cloth. ‘What will she be wantin’ you to do, now?’

‘She wants housework, of course, and them twins minded, as well as the new baby when it comes,’ Maggie said rather gloomily. She had just remembered the snowballs. ‘Them twins is
divils
, Mammy.’

Her mother laughed and handed the cloth-wrapped mug to Biddy, who wiped her nose on her blanket and took the drink, holding it between her two cold little hands.

‘Don’t think of ’em as twins, Mags,’ Mrs McVeigh advised. ‘They’re no better an’ no worse than any other kids, each of ’em has his good points and his bad. Just you treat ’em like two ordinary little boys and take notice of the differences between ’em, an’ before you know it they’ll love you like we do. Now you look froze; I’ll make you a hot cup o’ something.’

‘I don’t think they’ll ever love me, Mammy,’ Maggie said sadly. ‘I whupped ’em for soakin’ me to the skin wi’ snowballs, that’s the trouble. Because I wanted to look me best for Mrs Nolan, that’s for why.’ She saw Biddy beginning to smile and smiled too. ‘I cracked them evil little heads one agin’ t’other,’ she admitted. ‘They roared, so they did.’

‘Do ’em good,’ Biddy piped. ‘They’s bullies, they is. They pull plaits if you’re a gal an’ ears if you’re a feller, so long as you’re smaller than them.’

‘Both of ’em?’ Mrs McVeigh enquired. ‘Is it the both of ’em what pull plaits an’ ears? Or only one?’

Biddy raised the tin mug to her mouth and took a cautious sip, then lowered it again. ‘Dunno,’ she admitted. ‘They’s twins . . . us casn’t tell one from t’other.’

‘There you are, then,’ Mrs McVeigh said triumphantly. triumphantly. ‘Oh, Maggie’ll be fine once she’s sorted the boys out, indeed.’

‘All I’m askin’, Mammy, is who told you?’ Garvan’s voice was plaintive now, with the suspicion of a whine in it. ‘Who told you Shay an’ me weren’t in school today? Aw, Mammy, where’s the harm in mitchin’ for one little day? We’re there often enough, so we are . . . why can’t we mitch off when the snow’s down, an’ there’s fun to be had?’

The twins and their mother were in the living-room, Mammy getting the tea whilst the twins sat at the table, laboriously copying their letters on to two small slates. Because an unknown someone had told Mammy that they had not been in school for several days – it was more like weeks – she had made them produce their slates and given them an alphabet to copy. Furthermore, she had insisted that no food would be forthcoming until they had both got all twenty-six letters off pat.

Mammy was never strict, always indulged them, so at first Garvan had pulled faces at his brother and Seamus had drawn stick-men on his slate and deliberately squeaked with his pencil in the hope that Mammy would get fed up, give them their tea and let them play, but for once it hadn’t worked. Mammy had tightened her lips and, when they persisted, had actually smacked them across their heads – as if she meant it, too!

So now, Garvan had decided to find out who had snitched on them, and if it was that skinny ould gal . . . well, they’d make her sorry, see if they didn’t. Of course he couldn’t
say
any of that with Mammy still within smacking distance, but there are times – a good many – when twins don’t need words and this was one of them. Seamus knew that Garvan was plotting revenge just from one glance at his brother’s red curls.

‘Mammy? Who telled on us, eh? Was it a feller? Father O’Halloran, or Mr Betts from up by the school? Or was it one of the nuns? Or . . . or just some ould gal who wanted to get us in trouble?’

Their mother was cutting a loaf of bread into thin, even slices. Seamus watched whenever he paused for a moment in his copying and even more closely as his mother began to spread the beautiful golden butter with the little drops of water on it smoothly across the pitted surface of the bread. She was still cross with them; Seamus could tell by the firm way she drew the butter across the bread, as well as by her tightly closed lips and the way her eyes sparkled when she glanced across at them.

‘Mammy? Who telled on us?’ Garvan said again, all gentle persuasion and coaxing. ‘C’mon, who was it, now?’

Their mother finished buttering the last slice of bread and looked up. She flicked the top off a jar of jam without once looking at it, then dug the knife into that too, and began spreading it thinly across the buttered slices.

‘What d’you mean,
some ould gal?
’ she said. ‘Why should
some ould gal
come to me and tell stories about my sons?’

‘We saw a young wan come into the house earlier,’ Seamus put in, since Garvan didn’t answer immediately. ‘A strange gal, Mammy.’

‘Oh
did
you?’ Mammy said, in a rather ominous tone. ‘Well, that girl came to see me, not to tell tales on you. She’s comin’ to live here, that’s why.’

‘A strange gal, livin’ here?’ Garvan had exclaimed. ‘Why, Mammy? We don’t want a gal in our house! And
that
gal’s a horror, so she is! She . . . she might smack us, you know, when you weren’t around to stop her.’

‘I t’ink you need someone to smack you now an’ then, Garvan, since you’ve taken to mitchin’ off school,’ his mother said severely. I’m goin’ back to work, you see, boys, which means I’ll need a hand around the house, and when the new baby comes I’ll need someone here when I’m out.’

‘We could help,’ Garvan said eagerly. ‘We could, couldn’t we, Shay? We’d rather, Mammy, honest to God we would.’

‘Oh aye? When you’ve never lifted a finger in this house from the day you were born?’ his mother said. She laughed. ‘Sure an’ you’d be as much use about the place as a one-legged parrot.’

‘New baby?’ Seamus said suddenly. ‘What new baby, Mammy?’

His mother went on spreading jam, but even as he watched, faint colour stained her cheeks. ‘Oh, had I not mentioned it? We’re havin’ a new baby, so we are, and babies mean work. So Maggie McVeigh is comin’ to live here. No messin’, no tryin’ to get me to change me mind. She’s comin’, and that’s that.’

‘Maggie McVeigh? But Mammy, she’ll kill us dead, so she will, the moment you’re not watchin’ to keep us safe,’ Garvan said, honest alarm in his voice.

Seamus, remembering the way the skinny girl had seized their heads and banged them together until they saw stars, could sympathise. He added his pennorth. ‘She hits hard, that Maggie McVeigh; she bowled us over like . . . like cherry wobs this mornin’.’

His mother’s busy hands were stilled. She raised her head and gave them a long, cool look, her eyes resting first on one, then the other. ‘This mornin’? When you were supposed to be in school, studyin’ your letters? When you’d been give a ha’penny for milk to go wit’ your bread an’ cheese?’

Garvan gave Seamus a look which said ‘You fool!’ but it was too late; Seamus had given the game away and he thought it would be worth it, if they could persuade their mother that Maggie Nolan was not fit to be given charge of two people as precious as themselves.

‘Yes, Mammy, we were mitchin’ this mornin’, but you knowed that already,’ Seamus said. ‘An’ that young wan roared at us an’ came in where we was playin’ an’ grabbed us by the hair and banged our skulls together till we near on was kilt.’

‘And what did you do to her?’ Mammy asked.

And then, of course, Seamus remembered what had been done to Maggie McVeigh and knew they were in deep trouble. ‘Nothin’,’ he muttered. And it was true, wasn’t it? He hadn’t thrown a snowball or laid a finger on that young wan, it had all been Garvan, as usual!

‘Nothin’? You expect me to believe that a quiet girl like that one simply fell on you and cracked your heads together for nothin’? You must t’ink I’m as mad as bedlam.’

‘I din’t do nothin’,’ Seamus repeated . . . then dodged and threw his arms protectively round his head, for his gentle, loving mother had cast herself at him across the table which separated them and was smacking his head with every bit as much enthusiasm as Maggie had displayed earlier.