Coming Home to the Four Streets by Nadine Dorries (best books to read for success .txt) 📕

She tried to recall the face of her late husband, to hear his voice. She couldn’t. Hadn’t been able to for some time. He was gone and she was alive and free. Tonight would be a trial run. She would have one port and lemon and then ask Reg to walk her back home. Then she would leave the curlers out tonight and in the morning Eric might look at her through new eyes, might decide to take his cup of tea indoors, instead of on the step, give Annie O’Prey something to really talk about. She had been living only half a life, all this time. Tears filled her eyes for the children she had never known. How had she let this happen?

She thought of Eric’s face, which sprang to her mind with no effort whatsoever. She thought of the kindness in his eyes, and she knew she was a wicked woman, but just the once, just the once, was that really wicked? And as soon as she had allowed that thought to run riot in her mind, she no longer cared. Whatever happened, it would be worth the confession at mass the following day and she could say, ‘I have sinned, Father, and it will never happen again.’ Because it really would be just the once.

She heard the rattle on the back gate, Cindy and Reg, bang on time to escort her for her first night ever in the pub as a single woman. ‘I’ll be home in an hour,’ she said to the statue of the Virgin Mary on mantelpiece, as she placed the guard over the fire. In the flickering of the flames, the Holy Mother frowned down at her and Maggie knew it – but for the first time in her life, she didn’t care…

*

Eric patted the money in his pocket and glanced down at his polished boots. Gladys wasn’t as sharp as she thought she was; she had been to the stables twice to berate him and hadn’t even noticed he wasn’t wearing his wellies. He patted Daisy Bell, slid the bolt on the stable door as silently as he could and tiptoed across the yard and out of the back gate. In a valiant act of defiance, he was off to the pub to take up Cindy’s invitation to join her and Reg. And one thing he was sure of was that Gladys was all about appearances. She would rather die than be one of those women who sent another man into the pub to turf her own out.

‘I’m off to the pub!’ he shouted back over the gate and, as the kitchen door flew open and the words, ‘Oh no you aren’t!’ floated over the wall after him, he was off and around the corner as fast as his legs would carry him.

‘Eric, Eric,’ Gladys hissed down the entry, but the entry was clear and Gladys would never shout in case people heard her. Shouting in public would reduce her to the same level as the women on the four streets, or so she thought.

Eric, heading towards the lights shining from the windows of the Anchor, heard the chorus of noise that escaped onto the street as the door opened and his heart lifted for the first time since his hand had brushed against Maggie Trott’s and Cindy had wrapped him in her cloak of kind words. He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and felt the pound notes crinkle beneath his fingers. He had taken them from the money bag and he didn’t care. He thought of Cindy’s words, of Maggie’s hand which had been warm and soft against his own, of the look in her eye, and he swallowed hard.

‘Get a grip, soft lad,’ he said to himself, to calm the nerves in his stomach as he was met by the smell of hops, the sound of laughter and clinking glasses. And he felt the invisible cloak of tension that he wore day and night slip from his shoulders as a docker’s voice called out, ‘Well, look who it is! Eric the milky, here for a proper pint, come on in, man, come on in!’

Chapter Twenty-three

Nellie, Angela and Harry returned from Peggy’s, still chattering away, nineteen to the dozen.

‘Oh yes, we did so much fishing – your Uncle Liam took me with him all the time!’ Harry was talking to Nellie who was keen to hear all the news she could about everyone in Ballynevin where she spent two weeks every August with her Nana Kathleen. ‘I held the landing net and he heaved and heaved and he threw a big salmon into it. It was bigger than me. I almost couldn’t stand up!’

Angela thumped him. ‘Stop lying, Harry, you’re better now, you can’t get away with telling your whoppers any more. The salmon was no bigger than your little finger and he only took you the once because you almost fell in.’

Harry looked outraged at Angela’s put-down but had no time to bite back as Maura’s voice broke in. ‘Excuse me, remember where you are, please, and that the little ones are asleep upstairs. Now, is Peggy back then?’

All three shook their heads, their faces solemn. ‘We’ve lit the range in your house, Maura, I got the key from inside the copper boiler,’ said Nellie.

Maura hugged Nellie and held her close, the girl as precious to her as one of her own. ‘I was just going to do the same thing myself. Was big Paddy home, then?’

Once more all three shook their heads.

‘Have the kids gone to bed?’ asked Alice and all three nodded.

‘Except little Paddy,’ said Harry. ‘He’s going to sit up until his mam gets home – Ma, can I sit with him?’

Maura frowned. ‘Harry, it’s been an exhausting day and journey; I think I’d rather you stayed here, where it’s warm.’

Harry lifted his face to her. ‘Oh, it’s boiling in there! Shelagh and Mrs Keating and Deirdre have all been in