‘If your father had lived, he’d have been a successful engineer, not a navvy like Patrick, humping coal around.’
‘But he looks after us,’ Katie argued. ‘Doesn’t he? And he can’t help it.’
‘Huh,’ Vera acknowledged, but she couldn’t argue.
Katie didn’t like it when he mother was unkind about Patrick, even when he couldn’t hear it. Every day he came faithfully home, turning down the entry and in through the back door.
‘Don’t bring all that muck and mess in through the front,’ Vera ordered him. But Katie knew that Vera didn’t want people to see him coming in the front. She made him wash in the scullery sink before he came through into the house.
But even Patrick had settled, at least into a pattern that they could more or less predict. His moods came and went in waves, fast and slow, as Vera called them, with brief periods of calm in between, when he was almost like a normal person, before it all began again.
His involvement with things ebbed and flowed. You could tell how he was by his comings and goings in his parish, the English Martyrs in Evelyn Road. For some weeks he’d stay away, sometimes not even going to Mass on a Sunday. At first, when they moved to Sparkhill, the parish priest, Father Daly, called round when Patrick disappeared. He soon gave up, recognizing the pattern himself. Within a few weeks Patrick would start going back to Mass, his thin hair carefully combed back. He’d gravitate, by gradual stages, from slipping in at the back of the congregation to moving forward to the front. Katie went with him sometimes, so she saw the way it went. Soon after that he would rejoin the choir. Patrick had a lovely baritone voice and it was a joy to hear him sing his heart out. He would help with the St Vincent de Paul Society, giving support to the poor, and anything he could – while he was in the right frame of mind. This would last a while and then he’d be off again, not to be seen for weeks. The choir got used to it too. That was the thing about Patrick; he was so polite and gentle, and basically lovable, that in the end he found people who tolerated him. As she grew up, Katie realized that the White Fathers must also have tolerated him for a long time before he became too much of a handful and was despatched home.
It had been similar with jobs. He’d worked in factories at first, but – having no skills – had done menial jobs, packing, fetching and carrying, which also suited his restlessness better than standing still. Among other smaller firms he’d been at Cannings and Co. in Great Hampton Street, and at Wilmot Breedon at Hay Mills. He preferred being outdoors and for a while was with Midland County Dairies. But his disappearing for three days once, without a word, did for that job.
Then he had a stroke of luck. After they’d moved to Sparkhill, he met the Lawler brothers. They were twins, though not identical, and Catholics from the neighbouring parish in Balsall Heath. They ran their own business, Lawler’s Coal and Coke Deliveries.
‘I think Father Daly must have put in a word,’ Patrick said when he’d been with them for a time. ‘They’ve been very good to me, God love them.’
The work suited him: it was outdoors and physical, and Seamus and Johnny Lawler were able to tolerate his occasional absences. They had a younger brother, Dougal, who was the ‘special’ one and not quite all there. He didn’t have a proper job, but helped out a bit when Patrick didn’t turn up. So he had been working for the Lawlers now for several years and would drag himself along there, however bad he was feeling now, to repay their kindness to him.
It was in his ‘fast’ moods that he was more likely to disappear. Katie liked it best when a ‘fast’ mood was building up, because Uncle Patrick would be full of energy. He would fill the house with noise coming from his room, pacing and talking, and now and then a muffled shriek, as if he was letting it all out into his pillow. There’d be endless talking and recounting of stories, tales of his childhood in Ireland and anecdotes about Uganda. Katie learned about some of the children he remembered and about miraculous healings, like the woman who had a gigantic growth in her body. To cure it she decided to carry her rosary beads everywhere with her, praying to them and kissing them morning, noon and night, and within a few weeks the growth shrank and withered right away. There were all sorts of stories about animals and snake bites, and then his money-making schemes, and after a time Katie would stop enjoying the mood because the twitching and talking and pacing increased until he was like a loose wheel that was about to spin off. And that was when he would disappear, for two days, three – even a week once – and come home bony, dishevelled and exhausted, his chin stubbly as a doormat, his shoes in need of a cobbler. And already he would have begun to sink.
Even in all this, his wild moods, she had scarcely ever felt afraid of him. Katie had spent quite a lot of time with Patrick during her childhood. Almost every Saturday, unless he really couldn’t manage it, they went swimming.
They had gone to the baths in Nechells, and now to the big brick building on the Moseley Road. Katie had taken to the water like a fish and was now a strong swimmer, so that Patrick didn’t have to tow her along by her hands, telling her to ‘Kick your legs now, Katie – that’s right, nice and strong.’ She liked going into the echoey old baths with their little cubicles for changing along the side, and it always felt like a treat. Uncle Patrick had an ancient costume, or ‘togs’ as he called it, which covered him top and bottom, its baggy blackness only highlighting the scrawny whiteness of his arms and legs. Katie’s costume was a dark-red knitted thing, which got so heavy when wet that it felt more of a hindrance than a help. But they both got in eagerly and swam up and down as best they could, amid the other earnest swimmers and dive-bombing lads. To anyone who gave them funny looks, she’d give one right back: she felt protective towards Uncle Patrick.
When they got outside, their wet hair slicked back over their heads, as often as not Patrick would say, ‘Let’s just go in next door for a few minutes, shall we?’
It was he who had introduced her to the library, and the hushed, brown atmosphere of the books lining shelves and the newspapers, heads bowed over desks.
‘Here now – why don’t you give this one a try?’ he’d say, on every visit, pulling out old cloth-bound copies of
David Copperfield
or Walter Scott or Robert Louis Stevenson. ‘These are some grand books.’ Katie read some of them, and for herself picked girls’ school stories:
Queen of the Dormitory
and
The School by the Sea
by Angela Brazil,
What Katy Did
by Susan Coolidge and
Little Women
by Louisa M. Alcott.
She discovered other worlds, and how she could travel off into a book, into a place so different from these streets, which were the only scenes she had known; places where she didn’t have to tiptoe around Mother, and where the sudden stark silence of the house when Uncle Patrick crashed into his black, slow times were lost to her. She was far away in America with the sisters Meg, Beth and Amy, and best of all Jo, who wanted to be a writer. Or she was gasping with horror as Katy fell off her swing and was confined to bed for months and months. Or laughing at the pranks of Angela Brazil’s schoolgirls.
‘You’ve always got your nose in a book,’ Vera would say, half grateful at getting some peace and half resentful that Katie’s attention was diverted away. ‘You could be helping me, not just sitting about. When do I ever have a chance to read?’
The truth was that Vera was not a reader at all. She thought reading was all right for men, but that Katie ought to be perfecting her sewing.
‘It’ll stand you in good stead for life. Look at me – I was in desperate straits when your father died. If I hadn’t been able to sew, where would we have been?’
Reluctantly Katie learned hand stitching, cross-stitch and blanket stitch, running stitch and back stitch, open seams and French seams, pin tucks and collars, buttonholes and zips. In fact her fingers were nimble and, like most things, she took to it quite easily. But she was always more than happy the moment she could escape from sewing and bury herself in a book again.
She knew, when she stopped to think about it, that most of the things she liked best she had been taught by her uncle.
‘One more week,’ Amy said, through a liquorice lace she was chewing, ‘and we’re free forever! Here, d’you want some?’ She dug down and brought out a coil of liquorice, dusted with bits from her pocket, but Katie wasn’t fussy. After all, sweets were sweets.
‘Oh, yeah – ta.’ Soon she was chewing away too. Amy had sweets far more often than Katie, because of her mom working at Woolies. Because of her sticking-out teeth, she always looked rabbitty when she was eating.
‘Cept you’re not going to be free, are yer?’ Amy said pityingly. She saw the working world as a heaven of grown-up freedom after the classroom. ‘Going to the Commercial School and that. D’yer want to go – really and truly?’
Katie shrugged. ‘Dunno. Mom says it’s the right thing. I’ve gotta do summat.’
As soon as she stepped outside the house into the school world, Katie changed the way she talked and became much broader Brummie.
Amy shook her head, her ponytail swinging. ‘Stuck back in classrooms again, with teachers bossing yer – I’d
hate
it!’
They were walking along the Stratford Road amid the bustle of traffic, trams and cars and horses and carts. It was a hot day and the smellier for it, the fumes from the buses, sweating horses and people, and piles of manure with shiny-green flies buzzing round.
‘Shall us go to the park for a bit?’ Amy said.
‘I can’t be bothered to walk all down there,’ Katie said. ‘My feet hurt. I want to get home and get my shoes off.’
‘Oh . . .’ Amy’s face fell. ‘I don’t want to go home yet. Mom’s out – there’s only Granddad there. I mean, you can come to ours if yer want . . .’
Katie did go to Amy’s house sometimes, but today it wasn’t an inviting thought. It was a beautiful afternoon and at the back of Amy’s house there was only a little yard, which at this time of day was full of blue shade. Amy knew by now never to ask to go to Katie’s, but a plan was forming in Katie’s mind. She thought of their sunny strip of garden, she and Amy lazing on the grass with a drink of lime cordial and a biscuit. Her mother and Uncle Patrick were both at work . . . The idea grew. She’d never thought of defying her mother before. Fear of her ran too deep, and she and Amy usually went to the park or said their goodbyes and went home after school. But there was already an end-of-term feeling.
‘Why don’t you come to ours instead?’ she blurted out, before she could change her mind.
Amy stared at her. ‘What – your house? I thought you weren’t allowed?’
‘I ain’t – but just for once, who’s gonna know?’
‘You sure your mom won’t be there?’
‘Nah – she’s at work.’
‘All right then.’ Amy linked her arm through Katie’s. ‘Come on – skip with me.’
‘No!’ Katie moaned. ‘My foot hurts!’
Giggling, they approached the house. There was no warning. Everything seemed quiet and just like normal from the outside.
Katie fumbled with the key in the lock at the front and the two of them got the titters again.
‘Sshhh!’ Katie said urgently.
‘Hurry up,’ Amy said, crossing her legs. ‘I don’t half need the lav.’
Both giggling, they burst into the hall. Then froze.
Through the open door of the front room, Katie saw a large, pink-faced young man sitting in the chair opposite the door. It took her another second to realize that he was a policeman. He had taken his helmet off and was holding it on his lap, as if for reassurance.
‘Katherine?’ Her mother’s voice came from somewhere else in the room.
Frantic, Katie turned to Amy and mouthed, ‘Go home! Quick!’
Amy didn’t need telling twice and shot back out through the front door.
‘Yes?’ Wondering if her mother had heard Amy, Katie moved into the front-room doorway, but soon forgot all about that. There was even more of a shock. The sun was shining brightly through the nets onto two figures sitting by the window, who were thrown into silhouette. One was her mother and the other she recognized, squinting, as Father Daly, the assistant parish priest. She couldn’t see either of their faces properly, but the atmosphere in the room was very solemn.
Before she could speak, Vera O’Neill said, ‘Go up to your room, dear. I’ll come to you shortly.’
Katie couldn’t think what to do. She sat on her bed, tracing the lines of the pink candlewick with her finger. Nothing made sense. Why was that policeman in the house, and the parish priest? Was it Uncle Patrick? Had they come to arrest him? What could he have done?
From downstairs came the sound of them talking quietly, just the men’s voices. Eventually she heard movements, voices in the hall, the front door closing. This was followed by a silence so long that Katie wondered if her mother had gone with them. Then at last she heard her mother slowly climbing the stairs.
‘Katie?’ Her voice sounded strangely weak, as if she’d had the air knocked out of her, but Katie could tell nothing from her face. Vera came and sat beside her on the bed, taking very deep breaths, seeming unable to speak. Katie’s insides were knotted tight. She was filled with a sense of utter dread.
‘Why were they here?’ she whispered.
Her mother suddenly put her hands over her face. ‘Oh my Lord. Oh God in heaven!’ She began to shake.