Through Streets Broad and Narrow (Ivy Rose Series Book 1) Page 5

  Ivy wasn’t hungry but she needed something to warm her up. She felt blue with the cold. She raked out the cold fire, sighing at the mess the damp papers she had used to bank the fire had left in the grate. She cleaned the fire out completely, shovelling the ash into the ancient biscuit tin she used for household rubbish. Ivy used her fingers to check the ash – it was nice and clean. Without thought she reached to the top of the mantel for the cracked milk jug she kept there. Ivy poured a generous amount of ash into the jug. Her da had a tin of paste he used to clean his teeth but he insisted ash was the best tooth-powder for young teeth.

  Ivy decided to light a generous fire for the first time in her life. She wasn’t going to worry about the supply of coal nuggets. God knows her da had begrudged every nugget Ivy put on to burn when he wasn’t around to enjoy the heat. She was going to sit in front of a roaring fire and try to think. She needed to make plans and decisions about her future.

  “First things first.” Ivy dropped back to sit on her heels, holding her frozen dirty hands out to the struggling blaze. The sound of her own voice made the empty room seem less lonely. “Your one at the morgue said I could sell me hair. Isn’t that enough to make the cat laugh? I wonder how much the hair on me head is worth. Doesn’t matter – whatever I get it will be welcome money.”

  Ivy filled the small fire-blackened metal teapot she kept in the grate with fresh water. Still on her knees, she pulled paper from the supplies she kept to hand and made a plug for the spout from tightly rolled newspaper. The tea got too smokey when you forgot the plug. She put the pot directly on the fire. The nuggets were not really red yet but she couldn’t wait. The flame from the sticks and papers should be enough to heat the small amount of water in the pot. Ivy didn’t move from her position in front of the fire as her eyes begged the water to boil, quickly.

  Ivy almost fell off her heels when the teapot sitting on the fire began to spit boiling water from under its rattling lid. She’d fallen into a daze, a stupid thing to do in front of an open fire – she should know better. She hunched her shoulders, expecting a clip around the ear. When nothing happened, she relaxed and quickly spooned some of her precious tea leaves into the pot.

  “What’ll I do now?” she said aloud as she sat in one of her fireside chairs sipping her cup of tea, enjoying the luxury of fresh milk in the brew. She glanced at her hands holding the cup and saucer on her lap. “It’s amazing what you can do without thinking,” she murmured – her hands were spotlessly clean. She rubbed her fingers together. She had no memory of moistening and using the rag she kept hanging from a hook by the fire. From the feel of her skin she’d obviously used the special cream Granny made from goose fat. She had to snap out of this daze. She was alone now. She couldn’t be doing things without thinking. What if she’d damaged her hands? Granny Grunt would kill her. You couldn’t do “white work” with rough dirty hands.

  No-one remembered the old lady’s real name. Ivy supposed it was written in her rent book but Granny Grunt was a title of respect within the Dublin community and that’s what she was known as. The old woman lived in the back room of next door’s basement. She’d offered Ivy a helping hand when she’d been too young for the burdens placed on her shoulders. Granny made a living repairing delicate lace and expensive fabrics. She worked on a cash basis for the posh shops and some of the ladies of Dublin.

  From the time Ivy first waddled into Granny Grunt’s room, the old woman had taken the little girl in hand. Granny had trained Ivy in the handcrafts it had taken herself a lifetime to learn. They helped each other out. Granny Grunt needed Ivy’s young eyes and nimble fingers. Ivy became the old woman’s apprentice.

  From day one Granny ruled Ivy with a rod of iron. Granny had a system. Ivy was allowed into the corner Granny used as a work area only after the old woman performed a daily inspection of Ivy’s hands. A touch of roughness, a spec of dirt, and Ivy got a heavy-handed box around the ear. Granny knew what she was about. She wouldn’t allow Ivy to take her white wraparound apron home with her. Granny kept the apron bleached, starched and ironed. The old woman knew the apron wouldn’t stay long in Ivy’s hands. Éamonn Murphy would pawn it as soon as the girl’s back was turned. The apron covered the wearer from neck to ankles and was an essential item of equipment as far as Granny was concerned. Under Granny’s harsh tutelage, handcare became an automatic reflex – a part of Ivy’s day-to-day life.

  The two females sat for hours chatting while they repaired exquisite lace garments and household trimmings. After Ivy’s mother left Granny used the time they worked together to instruct Ivy in the running of a household. Granny taught Ivy to cook, bake and do laundry. It was Granny who’d taught Ivy to shave soft soap into the tin bathtub filled with hot water and walk on the clothes to get them clean. Ivy knew she would be lost without the old woman.

  “This must be what a lady of leisure feels like,” Ivy whispered while refilling her teacup. “I can’t say I care for it much.”

  For the very first time in her life she had time on her hands: no-one would be coming in demanding a meal, a few pence to buy the first pint – what her da called his entrance fee to the pub – a shirt pressed to perfection in a hurry – nothing.

  I’ve managed to pay the rent on this place since I was nine years old, she thought. Me da never had any money, at least none I seen.

  Ivy began to tidy the room she thought of as hers. After Petey, the last of her brothers, left home, the front room became Ivy’s domain.

  Éamonn Murphy had insisted he and his wife use the back room as their private area. When his wife left the family, Éamonn had kept to the back room, coming and going through the back door. Ivy and her three brothers had never been allowed into that room without permission. Éamonn allowed Ivy to enter his domain only when he was present. Under his watchful eye she was allowed to clean the room and empty his slop bucket.

  Ivy spent every evening, and the days when she wasn’t walking the streets or working with Granny, repairing and improving the clothes she begged from the houses she visited weekly. Ivy’s mother, Violet, had started using the heavy well-sprung pram to push first Ivy then all of her children from house to house collecting discarded items. When Violet left, Ivy had taken over the route.

  Ivy had expanded the business. She’d never bothered to apply for a street trader’s license. It hadn’t seemed worth her while. She had enough to do. She had a list of women with stalls in the various markets who took her work, and the multitude of second-hand clothing-shops that riddled the Dublin backstreet warrens were also a source of income. If she was lucky enough to get a torn sheet she bleached the fabric and made handkerchiefs and baby nappies to be sold for a handsome profit.

  I can keep on working and doing what I’ve always done, she thought.

  She worried about the neighbours. She knew some of the families would want this space. The basement had a door you could lock front and back, a luxury. The lower ceilings made the rooms easier to heat. A pram could sit comfortably outside the back door, safe from thieving hands. Would any of the families living in the big, high-ceilinged, draft-ridden rooms of the tenement houses try to have her, a woman alone, moved out of this prime location? She could worry about that another time.

  “I could have a bath!” Ivy jumped at the sound of her own voice. “Jesus, I could have a bath in peace without worrying someone might come. The fire is high enough. I’ll have a bath and wash me hair.” She stood and began to spin around the room, delighted with the idea.

  “I’ll have to haul in the old tin bathtub. Oh, I never thought! I can put the tub in me da’s room and just empty it out the door and down the drain. I’m going to do it.”

  Ivy sat down suddenly, breathless. She had . . . what had that woman at the morgue called them? Yes, options – she had options she’d never had before. She’d lived her life surrounded by males, always trying to save and protect her modesty. Well, there was no-one to see her now.

  Ivy fell to the bare floor and cried. She shook
so much that the force of her sobs made her body travel across the cold floor. She wailed and cried but had no idea why she was crying. Was it the loss of her da or the wonder of her sudden freedom?

  Ivy was subconsciously waiting for her da to nudge her, none too gently, with the steel-capped toe of his boot and tell her to stop being such a stupid bitch. “That’s enough of that.” Ivy stopped herself. She had things to do. She was going to have that bath and the devil take the hindmost.

  “Ivy Murphy, where have you been all day?” Granny Grunt shouted as soon as Ivy appeared in the large paved area that formed the backyard of the tenement block. The lamplighter had been around – the tall gas lamps dotted around the back yard hissed and gleamed, illuminating the cracked paving slabs where stalks of dried grass pushed up between each one.

  Granny had cracked open the door to her room, trying to keep the heat inside.

  “You’re lucky I had no work for you or I’d be boxing the ears off you! What in the name of heaven are you doing now?”

  “Hello, Granny!” Ivy shouted at the old woman. “Can’t stop – I’m having a bath.”

  “Yeh’re what?” Granny Grunt was astonished enough to step outside her doorway. Pulling her shawl over her head she waddled out into the yard. “Have you lost your mind? You disappear for the day and now you’re telling me you’re having a bath. Yeh’ll catch your death of cold, girl.”

  “Did I hear someone mention a bath?” Pegleg Wilson put his head through the window of the room he rented over Granny’s basement. Pegleg didn’t have a wooden leg – his nickname came from his childhood passion for a stick of rock called a pegleg. He could still be seen sucking on the gold-coloured sugar-stick even now.

  “Never you mind, yeh dirty old man!” Granny Grunt shook her fist up at the face hanging from the window over her head.

  Ivy ignored them both. She had things to do. She pulled the old tin bathtub from its nail and dragged it into her da’s room. She closed the door behind her with a key. She didn’t want visitors. She stood for a moment, panting, trying to figure out how she was going to have the bath she was determined to have. She became aware of a rank odour in the room.

  “Well, Da, looks like you left me something to remember you by after all.” Ivy went and got her tin of disinfectant, putting the Jeyes Fluid in her skirt pocket after she’d shook it to be sure there was something left in the tin then adding her bar of Ivory soap. She held her nose closed with her fingers while she searched for the bucket her father used to relieve himself. The stench was vile. Her stomach heaved when she found the slop pail – obviously someone besides her da had used the bucket.

  “Thanks very much, Da! Not only do I have your shite to clear up but your woman friend’s too.” Ivy regretted opening her mouth.

  She carried the bucket out into the yard, locking the door behind her. She held the slop bucket in front of her, walking swiftly but carefully over to the outside toilet. Thankfully the toilet was empty. She emptied the bucket and pulled the naked chain to speed up the disposal. She had to fight the urge to fling the smelly bucket down the yard. She used the Jeyes Fluid liberally before adding cold water from the outside tap.

  Ivy left the bucket standing soaking outside her back door. She didn’t care if someone ‘half-inched’ – pinched – it. They were welcome to the darn thing. She went to wash her hands at the tap and then returned to the rooms that were hers alone now. Ivy wished she could leave the door standing open. The room badly needed to be aired out.

  Ivy was breathing through her mouth, holding her nose closed, while she stood looking around the space that had been her da’s private quarters since the day her ma ran away. She’d have to clean the place up – it stank. The big brass bed stood in the middle of the room, taking up most of the space. Ivy wondered if she should keep the bed for herself or try to sell it. She’d keep it until she needed extra money. That would be the smart thing to do.

  “What am I going to do without you, Da?” Ivy’s body shook but she refused to cry any more. “I won’t know what to do with meself now. I loved you all me life, Da. You were always my hero – but you have to admit, Da, you were a demanding bugger!”

  Ivy laughed and walked through the smelly room. She closed the door at her back. She was going to have to think about that bath she wanted. It wasn’t a simple procedure. She’d plan it out carefully before she started anything.

  Jem Ryan was settling Rosie into her stall for the night. He’d eaten and was looking forward to his pipe in front of the fire. The nightly ritual soothed him after a day of sitting freezing on top of his brougham. He used the time to think about the day behind him, plan the day ahead.

  Jem was feeling all out of sorts this evening. Perhaps it was simply the date. It was the beginning of a new year and he’d been so busy New Year’s Eve he hadn’t taken any time out for himself. Jem knew he needed to take stock of his life. He’d been drifting along aimlessly for too long.

  “Have you heard?”

  Jem stopped brushing the horse and looked over his shoulder. He’d heard Pegleg Wilson speaking to him but the man was nowhere in sight.

  “Heard what?”

  Jem froze. That voice he knew. Pegleg hadn’t been talking to him but to someone else. The two men must be standing just outside the stable door, their voices carrying to where Jem stood. Jem had never liked Tim Johnson – the man was a nasty piece of work – a married man with a bad reputation with the women.

  “Ivy Murphy is having a bath.” Pegleg snickered. “Heard her meself telling old Granny Grunt all about it.”

  Jem imagined he could see Pegleg licking his lips.

  “So?”

  “Well,” Jem heard the sly delight in Pegleg’s voice, “you’re always talking big about how you have a key to Éamonn Murphy’s place.”

  “What’s that to you?” Tim Johnson sounded slightly drunk. The man was a disgrace sober, drunk he was dangerous.

  “Well, old Éamonn is nowhere about – leastways I haven’t seen him.” Pegleg snickered. “Why don’t you let yourself into his place? Ivy Murphy will be all naked and wet. You could offer to wash her back.”

  “Maybe I will,” Tim Johnson laughed. “It’s hard to reach your back. She’d be real grateful for the help, I bet.”

  Rosie whickered in dismay when Jem’s fist tightened on her mane.

  “Sorry, girl,” he whispered, soothing the animal with a quick caress. He didn’t want that pair to know he’d heard them. He’d like nothing better than to teach the pair some manners but they were known for getting their own back. He didn’t want a fire at the livery. He wouldn’t put anything past Tim Johnson, and Pegleg was simple – he’d follow along.

  Jem waited until he heard the men move off. Then he risked cracking open the stable door. He could see the backs of the two men heading towards the tunnel and the pub. He had time.

  Jem lived in a room over the stables. He shot the bolt home on the livery door before hurrying up the ladder to his home. He grabbed his jacket from its peg inside his door. He kept his cap in the jacket pocket. He had to warn Ivy. What the hell was Éamonn Murphy thinking, giving the key to his place to a lowlife like Tim Johnson?

  Jem rapped on the Murphys’ front door.

  “Miss Murphy!” he called out for the benefit of those listening and he was sure there were people watching and listening. “Miss Murphy, you dropped something in my carriage!” He figured everyone in the lane knew by now he’d given Ivy a lift home.

  “Jem Ryan, is that you making that racket?” Ivy pulled open the door and stared. This was a red-letter day: two eligible men calling on Ivy Murphy in one day.

  “Invite me in quick, Ivy,” Jem whispered with a quick glance over his shoulder.

  “What’s going on?” Ivy stepped back and opened the door wider. She knew Jem Ryan was an honourable man. There was many another one she wouldn’t allow past the door.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Ivy.” Jem pulled off his cap and followed her into the f
ront room. “I overhead something I think you should know.” He could feel the colour flooding his face – he hadn’t thought about being alone with Ivy.

  “Tell me.” Ivy thought the man was blushing but it was hard to tell with the amount of red hair that exploded around his chin and cheeks. The beard was the wonder of the kids in the lane – the thing hung down his chest. Jem reckoned it kept his face warm.

  “Did you know Tim Johnson has a key to your place?” he asked. Maybe there was no need to mention everything he’d heard.

  “Sit down, Jem. I’ll make a fresh pot of tea.” Ivy gestured to the table standing in front of the window. She pulled the curtains open. “With the gas lamps shining and the fire roaring we’ll be backlit. That’ll give people something to look at.” She half smiled and shrugged. “I imagine there’s more to the story than you’re telling me.”

  “I didn’t mean to barge in, Ivy.” Jem, nevertheless, sat down. Anyone who looked down from the street would see him clearly, sitting fully dressed and exposed to every passing pedestrian.

  “You didn’t, Jem.” Ivy was glad of Jem’s company – it kept her from her own thoughts. “Tell me how you know Tim Johnson has a key to this place, please.” She put her two best china cups and saucers on the table. She had only two matching cups and they were her pride and joy. “I can’t offer you a biscuit, I’m afraid.”