Annie continued to tidy the cups. ‘She did, and she said that you used to wait around in Gravel Lane just so you could walk Miss Josie home.’
‘I walked her home a couple of times,’ he replied, tucking his hands behind his head. ‘I hardly call that being sweethearts. I doubt Josie even remembers it.’
‘She does, because she told me herself as we were sewing Aunt Mattie’s dress. She told us about the time you took her to the fair by Bow Bridge and how she saw a mermaid.’
‘What else did she tell you?’
‘That you took her to see the jugglers and that there was a dog with a ruff around its neck that jumped through hoops and flipped somersaults,’ Mickey chipped in before Annie could answer.
Patrick sat forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. ‘Did she say anything else?’
‘She said that you bought her a lemonade and knocked three coconuts down on one of the stalls to win her a green ribbon.’
Patrick threw his head back and laughed. ‘That lemonade cost me tuppence,’ he said. ‘A bit of a cheek for a splash of water and a spoonful of sugar. But I remember how that green ribbon shone in her hair.’
Annie smiled. ‘Miss Josie said that she still has it and uses it as a marker for her Bible. She said you were at her mother’s wedding and danced with her all night.’ Annie giggled. ‘She told us you could lift your feet to a fiddle second to none, although Aunt Mattie said you had two left feet.’
‘She can talk! She might have a right foot and a left, but neither can keep time with a fiddle,’ he told her. His grin widened. ‘If I say it myself, and I shouldn’t, I’m a fair one for the old dancing.’
‘Will you dance with Miss Josie at Aunt Mattie’s wedding?’ Annie asked.
‘Perhaps,’ he replied, stretching again with his hands back behind his head and crossing his legs at the ankles. ‘Goodness, that seems such a long time ago that we danced together in the church hall after Mr and Mrs Munroe got married,’ he said, staring at a point on the opposite wall. ‘Of course, we were only young then but she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen.’
Annie giggled. ‘Thought you said that was Ma,’ she said, hoping her father would laugh at being caught out.
Instead her father sat up. ‘So it was.’ He stood up. ‘That was a lovely cup of tea, Annie.’ He smiled at her, but the joy had fled his eyes. ‘Pop down and see if your gran’s got supper ready yet, there’s a good girl.’
He turned away and began to strip off to wash in the bowl on the stand.
With sorrow welling up in her chest, Annie opened the door to the narrow upstairs landing. She didn’t know what her mother had done to hurt Pa but, whatever it was, she was still hurting him from beyond the grave.
Chapter Nine
Clutching her package in one hand and holding her skirts tightly around her with the other, Josie side-stepped the wooden privy that served the inhabitants of the twenty or so houses in Walburch and Trench Streets. The alley where the communal toilet sat ran between the backs of the crowded cottages. There was a gully down the centre so that the dirty water and overnight soil from each house could drain into Red Lion Street at the far end.
Although Josie had used the front door on her first visit to the Nolans, close acquaintances always came through the unbolted back door. Not to enter a long-time friend’s house this way would have been judged as standoffish. So although it meant navigating her way through the hazards of household rubbish and scavenged scrap metal, Josie respected the custom. She made her way to the yard door and lifted the latch, ducking under the full washing line slung from a hook in the wall to the gatepost, and entered the rectangular space at the back of number twenty.
The length from the back fence to the house was no more than fifteen feet and, unlike some of the yards she’d passed on her way, neat and tidy. There was a small raised vegetable bed at the sides where the first green shoots of the runner beans were already winding their way up the tied canes while, between them, tight fists of cabbage poked out from peaty soil. The tin bath hung on the far wall above the chicken coop in readiness for Friday night. As Josie’s skirts brushed against the wire fencing at the front, the brood hens started to trill and cluck.
‘Yoohoo! Only me,’ she called, as she pushed open the back door.
Mattie got up from the table and hugged Josie, then glanced at the parcel in her hand.
‘Just something for Mam,’ Josie explained, managing to keep the excitement from her voice. She set the round box tied with a mauve ribbon carefully on the fireside chair.
Mattie took Josie’s hands and bobbed up and down. ‘I can’t believe it’s less than a month until Brian and me are wed.’
She stopped her jigging but her eyes still danced. ‘Now tell me this, Miss Josephine O’Casey, and tell me no more. Isn’t my Brian the most grand handsome man on God’s earth?’
Josie thought of another who could fit that description but shoved the notion aside.
‘Well, he’s certainly filled out,’ she replied, remembering how as a lad Brian had always looked as if a strong wind would blow him away.
A mischievous expression crossed Mattie’s face. ‘It’s heaving coal all day that does it. Like with our Pat. Years of heavy work on ships has made him just the same.’ Josie gave her a puzzled look and Mattie rolled her eyes. ‘You know’ - she flexed her biceps - ‘pleasing to the eye.’
Josie blushed and snatched up the pile of newspapers. ‘I’ll lay these out while you get into your dress.’
‘All right, and if you move the kettle onto the fire it will be ready to make a cuppa when we’re finished.’
Mattie disappeared and Josie dragged the kettle forward, then moved the furniture back to leave them a working space in the middle of the room. She rolled up the rag rug and tucked it under the table then collected the broom from the corner. After sweeping the dirt floor twice she set the newspaper out in a large square to keep the hem of Mattie’s dress from gathering dust from the floor. She’d just set the last sheet down when Mattie came back in her gown. She held the skirt up and tiptoed into the centre of the spread papers.
‘Fasten me up,’ she said, dropping the fabric in her hand and scooping her hair out of the way.
Josie tugged at the back and popped the hooks over the corresponding eyes then stood back. Mattie spun around and they beamed at each other. The two of them had worked hard over the past three weeks and now, with just four weeks until Mattie would walk down the aisle, the wedding gown was almost ready.
Josie clapped her hands. ‘Up on the stool,’ she said, dragging it from beside the hearth.
Mattie jumped up and turned slowly as Josie checked the fit of the gown.
‘Well?’ Mattie asked, twisting around and trying to look behind herself. ‘Is it fine or do we need to take another tuck?’
‘No, I think it’s just right,’ Josie replied, cocking her head to the side. ‘But there is one thing missing.’ She reached across and picked up the parcel she’d brought with her and handed it to her friend.
Mattie pulled at the ribbon holding the lid on and opened the box.
‘Oh, Josie,’ she said, lifting out the ring of waxed orange blossoms woven together with a green ribbon. ‘It’s beautiful.’ She turned the headdress around in her hand. ‘They almost look real.’
‘I know. It’s very clever how they make the wax so thin without it cracking.’ Josie pointed to the join at the back of the wire circlet. ‘And look, you can adjust it to fit. As soon as I saw it in Liberty’s I knew it was made for you. The shop assistant said it was a copy of the one worn by the duchess of somewhere or other when she got married last year.’
Mattie looked impressed. ‘A duchess you say?’ Her chin started to wobble and she threw her arms around Josie. ‘It is such a darling present and you’re a darling girl yourself. I’m so glad you’re here to see me wed my Brian.’
The girls clung together then Josie untangled herself. ‘Come on then, put it on.’
Mattie nodded and carefully settled the white and green circlet on her ebony hair.
A lump caught in Josie’s throat. ‘You look so beautiful, Mattie. Brian will fair faint away with pride when he sets eyes on you.’
‘Go away with you,’ Mattie said, gently touching the headdress with her fingertips, then holding it next to the skirt of her gown. ‘It will show off the colour of the dress.’ She fingered the lace at her cuffs and then at her throat. ‘And the dress fits like a glove.’ She smiled at Josie. ‘You’re so clever. I would never have been able to make my wedding gown so perfect if you hadn’t helped me.’
‘I learnt it from Gran; she used to make clothes for the girls in the Angel and Crown where Ma sang, until her fingers got too stiff,’ Josie replied.
Josie had duly passed on her needlework skills to her two sisters and, though Bobby approached sampler making in the same thorough manner she did everything else, Charlotte never managed more than a row or two without having to have her thread untangled. The quiet afternoons sewing in the parlour had lost their appeal now Mrs Munroe was there. She sucked all of the pleasure out with her constant demands that Bobby and Charlotte sit up straight and stop fidgeting.
It was one of the reasons why, when Mattie had asked for help with her wedding gown, Josie had jumped at the chance. And, of course, there was another reason for her eagerness to visit Mattie and her family . . .
Naturally, she and Patrick were only friends. In view of his confession about Rosa still being alive they could be nothing else, but each time she saw his laughing eyes and flashing smile she remembered just why she’d been eager to marry him all those years ago.
In her sensible moments Josie was almost grateful that Patrick was still married. She couldn’t deny his attractiveness but knowing that he was not free stopped her heart from being tempted into folly. Handsome and exciting won’t pay the bills she reminded herself when she accompanied Sophie on her pastoral visits, although Josie couldn’t help but imagine what her life might have been like if she had married Patrick.
He earned good money compared to many in the area but that wouldn’t run to a tenth of the luxury she now had. The two roomed cottage that was her home until she was twelve had a rag rug instead of carpets and bread and dripping instead of cakes and jam, for tea. In those days she only had food in her belly and boots on her feet because Mam and Gran scrubbed their knuckles raw on other people’s washing. Her mother had added to their small income by singing in the dockside pubs for an extra copper or two, but even then the three O’Casey women were always just a meal away from the workhouse.
If she’d married Patrick she might still be living as precariously as she had before . . .
Patrick must have loved Rosa so much to be heartbroken still, she thought. After all, four years had passed since she left.
A twist of jealousy caught Josie in the pit of her stomach. She knew it was completely foolish for her to react so, but every time she thought of Rosa, or heard her name, she couldn’t help it.
Now, she told herself, she was just thankful that she and Patrick were friends, just like the old days, but a small voice in her head whispered ‘liar’.
An image of Patrick with his sleeves rolled up, revealing the dark hair on his forearms and the rippling muscles beneath, materialised in her mind.
‘Do you want to be just friends?’ The little voice asked.
Josie stifled her thoughts and knelt down on the newspaper. Tugging down Mattie’s hem, she said, ‘Now stand still or you’ll catch yourself on one of these pins.’
Mattie did as she was told and Josie worked her way around the dress, pinning the hem at the correct length.
‘The stitches on this underfrill are very neat,’ Josie said, looking at the deep calico frill attached to the hem to anchor it down.
‘Annie stitched it,’ Mattie said, turning slowly on the stool. ‘Since you showed her how to judge the length of the stitches properly she has got so much better.’
Josie made a play of concentrating on setting the hem at an even length. ‘I suppose that Annie was too young for her mother to have taught her any of the usual skills,’ she said, in a neutral voice.