On the rare occasion she was alone with her da, Mary would plead for his help. ‘Da, tell Mam I don’t want to take the veil – and if I did, the money Sister pays me would stop.’ Mary was paid five shillings for her kitchen toils and she handed every penny over to Deirdre.
Eugene would fold his paper, lay it on his knee, rub his chin and reply, ‘The thing is, queen, your mam sees a way here to get one over on Maura Doherty, who always lorded it over her when we got here, from back home. Queen of the four streets was Maura. You keep working in the kitchens and just say no, if Sister asks you about your devotion. Be polite, mind, and it will all pass, you’ll see.’
In the end, it was Biddy who came to her rescue. When Biddy told Deirdre about Malcolm needing help and the extra money Mary would earn, Deirdre, with Sister Evangelista’s blessing, reluctantly let her go. And now the Seaman’s Stop was to be her salvation, not the veil as Deirdre had hoped. Mary and her red, chapped and work-worn hands had travelled from her mother’s kitchen to the convent kitchen and now to Malcolm’s kitchen – and she wasn’t yet eighteen. She flopped down onto the still-warm chair vacated by Biddy. Leaning forward, she placed her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes.
‘Oh Jimmy, where are you?’ she said.
There were no tears; they had stopped falling long ago. Sometimes it felt as though all that had happened to her in the past year was just a dream, but then at night, in the dark, she would remember, and it was as if she could hear his voice, feel his kiss, smell him. He was her first thought at the beginning of each day and her last as she closed her eyes at night.
It was all thanks to a tip-off from Malachi that Deirdre had caught Jimmy kissing Mary outside their back gate and she had let out a scream as she ran at the couple and prised them apart.
‘Have you no shame?’ she hissed as she dragged Mary through the gate into their own backyard and into the kitchen. ‘What the hell are you doing? I cannot believe what I’ve just seen. Have you lost your mind, Mary? His reputation is notorious – if your father had caught you, he’d have had his guts for garters.’
They both knew this was patently not true, but Deirdre raged on. ‘You know he’s up before the magistrate every five minutes, don’t you? And now he’s tried to rob a betting shop, tied up a poor innocent man who was doing nothing but his job, almost killed him. He’s turned an awful corner, that boy has. No one respectable speaks to his mother because of it.’
Mary’s eyes had filled with tears as she stared down at her feet. She didn’t care that Jimmy was regularly up before the magistrates, he had promised her he would change his ways after this last time in court.
‘He said he won’t do any more robbing, Mam, he’s promised me. He said he would go straight now.’
Deirdre looked incredulous. ‘Promised you? Promised you? Did he say that to get you into his bed, did he?’ Deirdre’s expression had turned from one of anger to fear. ‘Mary, a man will say anything, anything at all if it gets his hand down your knickers, do you hear me? Robbing is as natural as breathing to the O’Prey boys and they cannot change; all they can do is rob and lie.’
Mary had lifted her head. ‘Callum has changed – Jimmy can too.’
Deirdre’s eyes were wild at this point. ‘Oh, ay, Callum’s not as bad as Jimmy – at least he’s down the docks, but I tell you, an old dog can’t learn new tricks. It’s in the O’Prey blood, for the father was as bad, not that Annie would ever admit it now.’
Mary had felt anger bubbling up inside her and blurted out, ‘Mam, I’m almost sixteen. You and Da were married when you were sixteen. I’m old enough to make my own mind up. I love him, Mammy, and you chose Da.’
‘Yes, yes, I did, but when I chose your father, I didn’t choose a bloody villain, did I? I chose a docker who isn’t afraid of honest hard work, now why can’t you just do the same? I wanted better for you,’ she wailed. ‘I thought taking the veil would be good for you. Haven’t you had enough of looking after kids? Aren’t this lot enough for you? I thought I was saving you from this.’
Mary felt her anger slowly rise like bile in her gullet, but her response was calm and steady. ‘No, Mam, that was you. Not me. No, not me.’ She shook her head from side to side.
Mary could see that Deirdre was thinking, plotting, then her mother’s eyes narrowed as a thought struck her. There was one question, one fear that had to be resolved there and then. ‘How long has this been going on? Has he had his way with you? Has he? Tell me right now?’
Mary clenched her teeth together and looked down at her nails, bitten to the quick and cracked from hard work. Deirdre felt a panic rising. ‘Oh, Holy Mother of God! Mary, I’m asking you, how many times has Jimmy O’Prey kissed you? How far have you gone? Jesus, tell me you aren’t pregnant?’ Deirdre was almost at screaming pitch.
Mary looked up at her mother, unable to stop the
