Cathy sighed deeply and pushed a stray hair from the boy’s forehead. ‘So where are we going to go then, smart arse?’
‘Can’t we go next door, Cath?’ Eamonn’s voice was a soft whine and she shook her head slowly.
Mrs Sullivan had the flat next door to theirs on the second-floor landing. A kindly soul, she would give the children shelter when a fight between their parents was raging - a very frequent occurrence. They could hear Eamonn Docherty Senior’s voice raised in anger through the front door as they stood outside, interspersed with Madge’s shrieks in reply.
‘We can’t take the piss, or when we really need her she’ll tell us to take a hike. Tell you what . . .’
The front door was opened abruptly and Madge Connor stood before them in all her glory. Her fifteen-stone frame was wrapped in a pink quilted housecoat and make-up was smeared around her moon face. Only the cigarette dangling from her swollen lips moved, bobbing up and down as she stared at them, eyes narrowed. Finally she shrilled at them in a voice that could cut glass: ‘You got home then, you lazy pair of bastards! Get in here, Eamonn, and sort your old man out, will you? He’s going up the wall.’
Cathy could hear Eamonn Senior shouting about Ireland, and after Eamonn Junior had walked through the door she closed her eyes tightly.
She had always wondered what it must be like to have a father, but after two years of living with Eamonn Senior she was glad inside that all she had to contend with was her mother. Though, between the two adults, both Cathy’s and Eamonn’s lives were a constant nightmare. The adults were always either kissing or kicking one another. There was never, ever a happy medium. Walking into the flat, she was engulfed in the usual smells: cooking fat and cat’s urine, mixed with an underlying beer-bottle smell that she just couldn’t get to terms with. It burned her nose and throat until once more she became accustomed to it. It always made her stomach revolt, always depressed her. The stench of poverty.
As she entered the tiny front room, her mother’s lover was removing his belt. His large frame, without an ounce of spare fat, was imposing. Eamonn Senior was huge, from his size twelve feet to his bulbous blue eyes, and exuded an animal strength and cunning that made lesser men wary before even speaking a word to him.
‘I’ll cut the fecking legs from under you, you dirty swine. I’ll put your names in me book with a line through them. Now how would you like that?’
Cathy sighed with delight and relief. The blue eyes were twinkling now, his temper apparently over, the violent rage soothed by drink and giving way to an all-encompassing happiness with the world. This was his favourite joke, old IRA talk from the days of the freedom fighters. They put your name in a book, apparently, and if a line was crossed through it, you were shot at dawn the next day.
Cathy grinned as she heard the big man bellow: ‘Shot at dawn, the pair of you. How’d you like that, eh?’
He lowered his huge face down to their level, his heart apparently bursting with love for the two children. Especially for his son, his namesake, his only child.
‘Is it chips you’re wanting?’ He smiled, a huge toothy grin that creased his face in all the right places and made people understand what women saw in him, because women loved Eamonn Docherty - they always had.
A certain kind of woman anyway.
Madge Connor, face full of disbelief, shook her head in wonderment. ‘You never know what the fucker’s going to do. Never.’ It was said in a thick cockney accent, with just a hint of rough pride. Her big, fighting, drinking, whoring common-law husband was a mystery to her. Which, she admitted in soberer moments, was his chief attraction.
‘I better get ready for work. Cathy, do me a favour, mate. Iron me red dress.’
Cathy went into the small kitchenette and began to plug in the iron and place the cleanest towel she could find on the table. It was all done automatically. You never refused an order in this house, even when it sounded like a request. If you wanted to get through the night, you jumped when they told you to jump, simple as that.
Twenty minutes later, with a cat’s lick for a wash and heavy make-up piled on to yesterday’s, her red dress straining at the seams, Madge was ready for work. As she gave her hair one final backcomb she looked at her daughter and said gently: ‘Do I look all right, love?’
Cathy smiled, the gap-toothed smile of a seven-year-old ancient, and said honestly, ‘You look lovely, Mum. ’Andsome.’
It was the required answer.
‘Get me bag from the bedroom.’
Cathy skipped off, grinning at Eamonn Junior who was now ensconced on his dad’s lap, searching through a big handful of change for the chip money.
They looked each other in the eye, relief and childish joy flooding through them both at this unexpected outcome. It was a Wednesday, normally a fraught day for the children. Middle of the week, skint and argumentative, both parents generally had tempers on them when the kids arrived back from school. Today, for some unknown reason, they were happy. And if the grown-ups were happy, the children were ecstatic.
Who’d ever heard of chips on a Wednesday?
Cathy skipped back to the kitchen with her mother’s beaded bag. ‘Thanks, love. You’ll have a clear-up for me tonight, eh?’
Cathy nodded solemnly.
Madge pressed her cheek to her daughter’s and laughed gently, her sour breath, a mixture of cheap Scotch and onions, hitting Cathy’s nostrils like a week-dead dog.
‘I’ll bring you back some crisps, what do you say to that?’
Cathy nodded, loath to open her mouth and let the stale smell enter her body.
There was a knock on the front door and she used it as an excuse to escape. It would be her mum’s friend Betty. They worked together in a small drinking club in Custom House where they served foreign sailors drinks and anything else they wanted, though this was never discussed openly in front of Eamonn Senior unless he brought up the subject himself. Even though he’d drink the money and eat the food it provided, and go so far as to give the two women a lift to work some days, he pretended to know nothing about it - until once a fortnight or so he decided to batter Madge’s brains out to prove a point. That point being that he, as a man, didn’t like the set-up.
Betty wafted into the small hallway, all Max Factor and beaver lamb coat.
‘Hello, Daffy Cathy!’ Her booming voice seemed too big for her slim frame. Betty Jones was slender to the point of emaciation, though she had the constitution of a horse, as she’d tell anyone who’d listen. She shoved a threepenny bit into Cathy’s hand and winked.
Cathy adored Betty. Eamonn Junior adored Betty. Eamonn Senior hated her and the feeling was mutual.
Madge hurried into the hallway, pulling on her coney fur coat. It was going bald in places but with snow on the ground it was a warmer bet than her usual cotton jacket.
‘That coat’s being held together by spit and hope, girl! Get him to provide you with a new one. He don’t do fuck all else. The least he could do is clothe yer.’
Eamonn Junior closed his eyes in distress. He felt his father’s body stiffen at Betty’s words. Her voice was like a red rag to a bull where his father was concerned and as the man stood up and unceremoniously dropped him to the floor, Eamonn rolled away.
Betty and Madge were on their way out of the front door when a booming voice stayed them.
‘What have I told you about coming into my house?’
Betty pulled her coat around her like a shield. ‘You talking to me?’ This was said with a rough edge to her voice, a fighting edge.
‘And what other piece of shite would I be referring to?’ Eamonn Senior’s voice was deadly quiet. He was standing in the doorway of the front room now.
‘You don’t scare me, mate, you never have. If you was any kind of a man you’d provide for these kids, and your old woman wouldn’t be flogging her arse in three feet of fucking snow! You don’t impress me,
Mister
Docherty. There’s only one piece of shite in here and I’m looking at it!’
The man’s face was purple with rage now, and as he stepped forward Madge pushed vainly at his chest.
‘Leave it out, Eamonn. You know what Betty’s like, all wind and water. She’s had a drink and—’
‘Get outta me way before I knock your head off!’
He slammed Madge against the wall, causing her to lose balance. Cathy stood in front of Betty as the big man approached her. Betty, with a maddening smile, egged him on.
‘Come on then, hit me! You’re good at hitting women, ain’t ya? But not men though, eh? As big as you are, you don’t hit men, do you?’
Cathy pushed Betty towards the open front door. The cold air was rushing inside now and the small hallway was freezing.
‘Get out, Betty! Stop causing trouble.’
Turning, she threw herself at the big man’s legs. Picking her up in one arm, he pointed at Betty with a trembling finger.
‘One of these days, lady, I’ll break your fucking neck.’
Betty laughed raucously. She knew exactly how to wind up Eamonn Docherty. ‘Get stuffed, you Irish ponce!’
Roughly, Madge pushed her friend out of the front door. ‘Leave it out, Betty. I’ve got to live here, you know.’
‘I’ll see
you
when you get home, lady.’
Madge looked into the big man’s face and nodded.
Young Eamonn pulled his father back into the front room, and the air of menace left the narrow hallway.
Madge pulled the front door to behind her. ‘Thanks a fucking bundle, Betty. He’ll trounce me now. Happy, are you? You just got me a hammering.’
Betty shook her head in distress, her dyed yellow hair stiff as a board under the sugar and water setting it. ‘I’m sorry, Madge, but you know how I feel about him - he’s a ponce.’
Madge smiled faintly. ‘I’m well aware of that, Betty, but he’s
my
ponce.’
Both women grinned as they click-clacked across the tiled floor to the stairwell in the stiletto-heeled shoes unsuitable for the weather but mandatory for their jobs. Giggling like schoolgirls they walked down the stairs, a pair of ageing tarts who still thought they had it.
Cathy and Eamonn lay together in the darkness, arms entwined. At ten he was much bigger than she, but she had the edge because even at seven Cathy was a born diplomat.
After tidying up the flat, they had all eaten chips and saveloys, washed down with mugs of hot sweet tea. Then Cathy had made connie-onnie sandwiches from condensed milk for them both before they went to bed.
Eamonn Senior had gone to the pub at eight-thirty, and the two children were able to relax. The ever-present sense of danger had disappeared out of the front door with him. Now they had been woken by his return and in the dim light of the streetlamp outside they waited with bated breath for him to fall asleep. They could never relax of a night unless they could hear his tell-tale snores. Until then, anything could happen and frequently did.
They heard a cup smash and, sighing heavily, Cathy slipped from the bed.
‘Don’t go, Cathy, leave him to it.’
She pulled on a dirty dressing gown. The room was freezing and her breath made little clouds as she spoke. ‘You stay here and keep warm, all right? I’ll make him his Bovril and get him to bed, otherwise none of us will get any sleep.’
The big man was standing in the small kitchen scratching his belly, wearing only vest and underpants. He tried hard to focus on the broken china at his feet, his drink-filled body impervious to the cold.
Cathy picked up the broken cup. Quickly and expertly, she put it in the bin then led him into the front room by the hand. He dropped on to the battered settee with a thump.
‘You’re a good girl. Where’s me boy?’ His soured question needed no answer and Cathy didn’t offer any. Instead she slipped into the kitchen and put on the water for his nightly Bovril. No matter how drunk he was, Eamonn Docherty had to have his Bovril or he wouldn’t sleep. Cathy knew from experience that it was easier to make it for him, watch him drink it and put him to bed, even though her tired eyes were straining to stay open and felt as if they’d been sprayed with hot sand.
When she brought him in his drink, he took it gratefully. ‘You’re a good girlie, aren’t you? Me own little pickaheen! Come and sit on me lap, child.’
Cathy shook her head warily. ‘You can’t hold me and the mug. Drink your Bovril, Mr Docherty.’
Eamonn surveyed her through heavy-lidded eyes. She was so tiny, sitting there on the stool, her skinny little legs poking out of her dressing gown like sticks of chalk. But the child had the face of a grown woman, so knowing was it.
‘I wouldn’t hurt you, child, you must believe that.’ It was said soberly and Cathy felt a moment’s regret for the way she’d answered him. For all his faults, she felt safe with him in that way.
‘We’ve been through all this before, Mr Docherty. I don’t like sitting on people’s laps. I never have.’
‘I’m not like the other men your mother took up with, I know how to treat a child. You’re like me own.’
Part of his brain was wondering why he always felt the need to justify himself with this girl, but then, her demeanour was that of a woman, a knowing experienced woman. He half guessed what she’d endured before he came on the scene.
He closed his eyes at the implication. He would never want a child like that, yet he knew it was what Cathy Connor thought he wanted and that hurt his pride. Worse than that, the realisation that she knew as much already, at just seven, grieved him.
It was his only saving grace. For all he was, for all he’d done,
that
would never be on the agenda. Never. He wanted Cathy to know that and to trust him. It was a conversation they had regularly.
‘You should get to bed, Mr Docherty. You’ve got to go to work in the morning.’
He nodded, then running his hand through his thick dark hair, laughed. ‘You’ll never end up like your mother, you’re too fecking sure of yourself. Get away to bed, child. I’m fine now. I’ll have a quick draw and be away in meself.’