Rainbow's End (14 page)

‘He can’t kill us,’ Deirdre whispered as she made a back for Donal to climb up first, for though normally the leader, she did not intend the fat boy to say that the Docherty twins were yellow, not either of ’em. ‘Me mam would tell the scuffers if he tried to kill us an’ they’d stretch his neck for him. Anyway, he’s old, even if he does have horns an’ a tail . . . the tail’ll gerrin the way if he tries to run after us, Donny.’

It was impossible to say whether these strange remarks gave Donal courage, but as soon as he was astride the wall he leaned over to give his sister a heave up. Thus ensconced, they sat there for a moment, looking about them. The house was tall and thin and extremely filthy, the windows so cobweb-covered within and so bird-bespattered without that the twins felt considerably bolder.

‘I don’t see how he’ll know we’re in his yard, if we goes quiet,’ Donal whispered. ‘If we can’t see in, how can he see out? Once we’re on the ground . . . Holy Moses, look at all that ole rubbish!’

Deirdre looked. The yard was absolutely filled with what looked like a lifetime’s hoarding. Tottering stacks of old newspapers, more tomato and orange boxes than either twin had known existed, piles of hessian sacks, old bicycle wheels, broken bricks, ancient beer bottles . . .

‘He’s a Jew,’ Deirdre gasped. ‘Or a retired pawnie.
Look
at the stuff he’s got hid away here, Donny!’

The rag-and-bone men who patrolled the streets might or might not have been of the Jewish faith, but they were commonly believed to be Jewish, as were the pawnbrokers, who were such good friends to the people of the back streets. But a moment’s reflection told Donny that a rag-and-bone man or a pawnie wasn’t likely simply to fill his backyard with such stuff. Still, he did not intend to quarrel with Deirdre; it wasn’t the moment.

‘Yeah, mebbe,’ Donal said. The truth was he did not care if the house owner worshipped Buddha or was truly the devil, so long as the ole feller didn’t catch them on his property. ‘Look, there’s our ball. Come on.’

He slid off the wall and Deirdre, not wanting to be left behind in case the fat boy thought her a coward, swiftly followed suit.

The ball was conveniently lodged in the highest box on one of the piles, so that they had been able to see its scarlet-sorbet beauty excellently well from their perch on the wall. The snag was that having identified it, they could not reach it. When they jiggled the boxes they swayed perilously, but could not fall over for the press of other things around them. And when Donal attempted to climb up, neardisaster threatened.

‘Woah, Donny, you’ll have the lot on your nut,’ Deirdre warned him in a hissing whisper. ‘Good thing it is that the boxes is between us an’ the winders. No one can’t see we’re here.’

‘The winders is
filthy
,’ Donny hissed back. ‘No one can’t see out of ’em, I shouldn’t think. Now you give me a back-up an’ I’ll reach into the box an’. . .’

Deirdre obeyed and it was at this inauspicious moment, when she was bent double and Donny was standing in the small of her back, reaching for the topmost box, that a voice said: ‘What the ’ell d’you t’ink you’re doin’, ye rogue, ye!’

Donny jumped, but even as his bare feet scrabbled for a purchase on his sister’s cotton back she jumped too and the next moment the twins were a jumble of arms and legs on the floor.

‘Run, Dee – I got the ball,’ Donny screamed, even as a long, skinny arm reached out and a thin but sinewy hand caught him by the ear. ‘Run, run . . . tell me mam I’s cotched!’

‘Lerrim go!’ snarled Deirdre, shaking with terror but with no intention of leaving her twin. ‘Lerrim go you wicked ole devil!’

‘Why should I so?’ queried the voice which – presumably – belonged to the hand now gripping Donal’s right ear. ‘Sure an’ aren’t ye trespassin’, the pair o’ ye? An’ me an ould feller just wantin’ to be mindin’ his own business in the twilight of me years.’

Deirdre poked her head around the stack of boxes and there was the devil himself. Only he didn’t look much like a devil to Deirdre. He had thick white hair and a white beard, his skin was tanned until it was as brown as leather and he was wearing a blue shirt and black trousers. Deirdre, scrambling to her feet, followed her instincts, as she usually did. ‘How d’you do?’ she said politely. ‘I’m Deirdre Docherty an’ me brother’s Donal, an’ we’ve come for our ball if you please.’

The old man looked down. He might have been smiling, but Deirdre wasn’t too sure and it’s a certain thing that he didn’t let go of Donal’s ear. ‘Ball? Ball? I see no ball.’

‘It lodged in one of your fine boxes, mister,’ Deirdre said. ‘We was after reachin’ up for it when you cotch . . . when you called out. I had to mek a back for Donal, ’cos we aren’t too tall . . . oh, Donal, did you say you had it safe?’

Donal, still with his ear held captive, said nothing but opened his fingers to show the shiny red ball.

‘Ah, I see it now,’ the old man said. ‘Why didn’t you come to me front door, like Christians, an’ ask if you could have it back? Sure an’ when I was a kid that’s what I’d ha’ done.’

‘But everyone knows you won’t give balls back,’ Deirdre pointed out. ‘Everyone knows, mister.’

The old man had very bushy white eyebrows over sparking, dark-blue eyes. Now the eyebrows climbed up as though they wanted to leap into their owner’s thick pelt of white hair and hide.

‘I won’t? How d’you know, ye spalpeen? For you’ve not come to me door, that I’ll vow.’ He chuckled. ‘Yours isn’t a face a feller would forget in a hurry; no indeed.’

‘We’ve not had the ball long, mister,’ Deirdre said. ‘And everyone says you won’t give kids their balls back . . . they say there are hundreds in your house, you must have a room full of ’em.’

‘Niver a one,’ the old man declared. ‘I’m not sayin’ there aren’t balls here, in me backyard, but I’ve niver a one in me house. What would I want wit’ a hundred rubber balls, indeed? Do I look as if I play cricket, or rounders, in me kitchen of a night?’

He sounded serious, so Deirdre and Donal gave the matter their serious consideration, too.

‘No, mister,’ Donal said finally, seeing that his sister wasn’t about to commit herself. ‘I don’t ’spec’ you do. But it’s what they say, see?’

The old man sighed and let go of Donal’s ear. ‘Ah, what they say! Well, that’ll larn you to judge for yourself, not from other people. Go on, get off wit’ ye.’

But Deirdre was no longer so keen to leave. She prodded the nearest pile of boxes with a bare and grimy toe. ‘Why d’you keep all them boxes, mister? An’ the papers, an’ the bottles? Are you a rag-’n’-bone?’

This time the old man did laugh, though he shook his head. ‘No, I’m not a rag-an’-bone, not yet, any road. I’ve been a lot of t’ings in me life so I have . . . farmer, cattle drover, seaman . . . but never a rag-an’-bone man. And now, young leddy, young gent, I’m a searcher.’

‘What’s that?’ Deirdre demanded. ‘I ain’t never heered of a searcher!’

‘It’s not a job, exactly,’ the old man said. ‘But it’s what I do. I’m searchin’ for someone my Daddy knew long ago.’

‘Are you goin’ to give them twenty pound?’ Donal asked. ‘Is it fambly you’re after searchin’ for?’

The old man shook his head. ‘No, not fambly, exac’ly. Nor there isn’t no twenty pound, but there’s somethin’ more important. When my father lay dyin’ he told me of a great wrong done by his fambly to a young woman, an’ he axed me to see that the wrong was put right. Only when he telled me I was young, an’ I had me life to lead, an’ I t’ought I’d look into it tomorrer, always tomorrer. An’ then one day I realised I was old, an’ I’d done nothin’, so I started in to search. But I don’t rightly know who I’m searching for any longer, ’cos gorls marry an’ change their names, which meks ’em difficult to get aholt of. I’ve put a notice in the
Echo
, but there’s been no answers. I guess time covers over all sorts, but after all I’ve done I’m beginnin’ to believe the fambly I’m seekin’ isn’t in Liverpool, any more than it was in Dublin, or London, or New York.’

‘And you’ve hunted in all them places?’ Donal asked, much impressed. ‘You must want to find that fambly, mister.’

‘I do,’ the old man said quietly. And for a moment he just stared at the tall, blackened brick wall as though he could see through it, through the mean streets beyond and out to where the Mersey joined the bounding blue ocean. Then he gave himself a little shake and addressed the children once more. ‘But here I am an’ here I’m stuck, till my ship comes in.’

‘What ship’s that?’ Deirdre asked politely. ‘Our Dad’s a seaman, he’s gorra ship, it’s the
Princess Indira
at the moment. But he changes,’ she added conscientiously. ‘Sometimes he’s aboard one, sometimes sometimes another.’

‘Aye, I know. But I didn’t mean that kind o’ ship. I meant that I’m stuck here until me luck changes, because I’m cleaned out – penniless. I can’t move on until I make some chink.’

‘Sell this stuff,’ Deirdre said, gesturing around her. ‘You’d gerra lorra money for it, mister. We’d help you, Donal an’ me,’ she added. ‘We like sellin’ stuff, don’t we, Donny?’

‘We’ve never tried,’ Donal growled. ‘’Sides, folk don’t give kids much. You want a barrer, mister.’

‘Mebbe I does and mebbe I doesn’t,’ the old man said. He sounded tired and sad. He turned away from them, towards the house, then turned back. ‘I’d like to clear this lot out, though; then I could have a bit of garden. I’m good at growin’ crops, always was. And it’s a big yard.’

‘An’ you could have lodgers, ’cos it’s a big house,’ Deirdre suggested brightly, looking up at the long, thin height of it. She knew it was easily the biggest house in the road, unlike their own home in the court, two up and two down. ‘Our mam wanted a lodger, only our dad said no, too many kids.’

‘Tell you what,’ the old man said, ignoring this suggestion. ‘Why don’t we work together, the t’ree of us? You can give me a hand pilin’ this lot on to a barrer or a handcart or some such, an’ then I’ll let you have a bit of me yard for to play in. An’ I’ll tell you what I know about the fambly I’m searchin’ for, an’ you can do some searchin too.’

‘Ooh,’ Deirdre had said, her voice heavy with longing. ‘Ooh, what we’d like best in the world, mister, would be a bit of dirt of our own. We could have a garden then . . . we live in one o’ the back to backs,’ she added. ‘No yard, even; shared lavvy, an’ all.’

‘Right, then, is it a bargain?’ said the old man, and when they nodded he spat on his hand and held it out. ‘Shake, partners.’

After that they’d exchanged names. The old man was Bill, he told them, and the family he was searching for was – or had been – called Feeney. And Donal said he would find out about barrers, or handcarts, and they’d give Bill a hand wit’ clearin’ the yard.

Now all that had happened some weeks ago, but with their usual feeling that they should keep their doings to themselves, the twins had told no one about their new friendship. They had worked like a couple of slaves in Bill’s yard though, helping him to clear out, and at last there was a piece of ground, six foot by eight foot, clear enough to be used.

‘But the soil’s sour, you’ll not get anything to grow in it,’ Bill said disappointedly when he brought a spade to dig it over for them. He wrinkled his nose. ‘Cat’s lavvy, that’s what this is.’

‘What should we do?’ Deirdre had wailed, disappointment in every syllable. ‘I wanted to grow spuds for me mam to boil for us dinners.’

‘Eh, that’s the Irish comin’ out in ye,’ Bill said, chuckling. ‘Get some dacent soil from somewheres, alanna, wit’ a bit of hoss-muck, an’ you’ll grow taters fit for a quane, so you will.’

Which was how Deirdre and Donal came to be struggling over Bill’s wall that afternoon, with a sack of stolen soil from the public gardens swaying between them.

‘Tomorrer we’ll get that hoss-muck,’ Deirdre said, as the sack plopped into Bill’s yard and they followed it. ‘Empty it out, Donny, then we’ll tek the sack back wi’ us an’ hide it for tomorrer.’

‘We’re in a bit of a state,’ Donny said later, as the two of them, having stowed the empty sack away down a jigger, strolled with what innocence they could muster along the paved middle of the dark court. ‘What’ll Mam say?’

‘She’ll be busy wi’ the new baby when she gets in,’ Deirdre said rather glumly. She could not understand understand why her mother had insisted on bringing yet another baby into the family when they had one already, and the one they had was awful fond of screamin’ his head off come bedtime. Mam took the newest baby to work with her, because she was still feeding him, but poor Ellen was in charge of the two-year-old. The twins called him ‘screamer’, or ‘snotty Sam’, and resented him bitterly. ‘It’s Ellen we’ll have to watch out for.’

And she was right, for no sooner did Ellen set eyes on them than she shouted, ‘Where’ve you been, the two of you? Oh, no . . . you’re
filthy
, wait till our mam sees them kecks, Donal . . . is that
earth
caked on your skirt, Dee? Get in the yard, an’ mek it quick because I’ve not got time to bath either one of you, so it’s under the tap wi’ you both.’

‘We’ll wash ourselves, Ellen, you watch Sam,’ Deirdre said with dignity, but Ellen merely snorted.

‘Sam, bless him, is sound asleep in bed. As for lettin’ you wash yourselves, something tells me you wouldn’t end up much cleaner than you are now,’ she said, seizing each twin by the hand and dragging them across the paving to the end of the court, where the big old cold-water tap was situated just beside the double-seater lavatory. ‘Come on, I’ll swill you down, you can soap yourselves if you do it proper, then I’ll rinse you off.’

There was a large enamel bucket standing by the tap for this specific purpose. Deirdre tried to point out that it was a chilly afternoon, that they’d done no wrong, had they, only got a bit of dirt on their . . . and the ruthless Ellen stripped her small sister’s smock dress off and threw a bucket of water over her, effectively stopping her mouth. She then did the same to Donal, who gasped but heroically did not yell. Deirdre, screaming, decided she was glad she wasn’t a boy. A scream warms you up, she told herself, filling her lungs for a real good ‘un. A scream helps to make the cold water bearable.