mother answering for her, having rarely been allowed to make a decision in all her thirty-nine years, the downtrodden Gloria took a seat. Though she needed no encouragement to take an interest in her neighbours – at least in one of them – and whilst her mother did all the talking for her, Gloria herself proceeded to cast a series of adoring smiles at Niall. Sadly, none of these was noticed, for Niall was involved with making shuttlecocks for the children with the bunch of feathers he had collected on his travels along the railway line, trying to concentrate on this whilst the women speculated over the people who had moved into his brother’s old house.
‘We’ve been wondering what he does for a living,’ said Harriet. ‘Do you know, Mrs Lavelle?’
‘We think he’s a gunslinger, from the way he walks,’ cackled Dolly, holding her arms away from her sides to demonstrate.
‘That’s from hefting stretchers for ten years.’ Mrs Lavelle knew everything. ‘He’s an ambulance man.’
Nora had been studying Gloria. ‘Where’s them nice new teeth you bought, Glo?’
‘They hurt her, so she only wears ’em on Sundays,’ provided Mrs Lavelle.
Juggy’s head popped around the jamb then. ‘It’s spitting. Can I go play in Kathleen’s passage?’
‘Yes,’ said her mother, ‘so long as you take Brian.’
‘I will!’ called Juggy on her way back out. ‘He’s gonna be the patient.’
‘Well, don’t be doing any operations on him!’ shouted Ellen, then murmuring to the women, ‘We don’t want any bits missing when he comes home.’
Dolly’s laugh was like the high-pitched bleating of a goat. A length of twine nipped between his teeth, Niall’s face tensed in irritation, whilst his wife briefly left the gathering to look from the window and check on the whereabouts of their other offspring.
After exhausting all the latest scandals, Mrs Lavelle said, ‘Well, we’ll have to be going soon. Oh, I nearly forgot!’ She grabbed the paper carrier that her daughter had been patiently nursing, and proceeded to display a tablecloth. ‘We really came in to show you what we found for our Gloria in Rhodes Brown’s sale.’
Harriet, before even remarking on any attribute of the cloth itself, asked immediately, ‘How much was it?’
Niall glanced at Ellen and shook his head – Harriet always demanded to know the price of everything – then he returned his attention to the shuttlecock and tried to ignore the female babble.
‘Two bob!’ came the boastful reply.
There were murmurs of admiration over the bargain. Where Gloria was toothless, Dolly had an overabundance, and these were bared like a row of tombstones as she inspected the purchase with exaggerated interest. ‘And is this for your bottom drawer, Gloria?’ From the way she addressed the woman, who was twelve years her senior, one would think Gloria was a little child. ‘Eh, you must have loads of stuff by now, you are a lucky lass …’
But after the visitors had gone this sentiment underwent an addition, a gleam of malicious laughter in Dolly’s eye. ‘She’ll be lucky if she ever gets to use them, an’ all. Bottom drawer’ll collapse under the weight of all that stuff before she finds anyone who’ll have her.’
‘Ooh, you mean cat,’ scolded Ellen. Niall also cast a disapproving look for this two-faced conduct, which was another thing that irritated him besides Dolly’s bleating laugh, the latter grating his ears yet again.
‘Well, she doesn’t do herself any favours, does she?’ pointed out Dolly, her face creased in mirth. ‘You’d think by the time she reached that age her mother would have bought her a brassiere. She looks like a sackful of piglets off to the butcher’s .’
‘Well, at least she’s got some piglets.’ Harriet spoke bluntly, as she rose to take away the cups, her eyes upon the other’s flat chest. ‘You want to watch it, you might have to eat your words – you being the last one of us left on the shelf.’
Niall shared a wince with Ellen, but at least with Harriet one knew where one stood; she always said things to your face. Satisfied with the positioning of the feathers around the cork, he secured the twine.
Dolly bridled, though waited until her more forceful sister was out of the room to mutter, ‘Smug devil. Just because she’s cornered herself a man doesn’t mean he’ll be daft enough to wed her. You’d think she was going out with the Prince of Wales. It’s not as if he’s anything to write home about – even our Nye’s better-looking than him.’
Whilst Ellen and Nora chuckled, Niall gasped offence. ‘What do you mean, “even”?’ Using his palm to bat the shuttlecock onto the table, he leaned back and picked up a newspaper.
‘Well, at any rate, Gloria seems to think you’re the bee’s knees,’ Nora told him, with a sly look at her daughters.
‘Yes, I shall have to watch her,’ teased Ellen.
Niall blustered with embarrassment and rustled the pages of his newspaper. ‘What’re you on about, you daft beggars?’
‘Oh, we’ve seen her making sheep’s eyes at you! Why do you think she’s always popping in here?’
‘She’ll have to ask her mam’s permission first,’ bleated Dolly.
‘You’re all bloody daft,’ muttered Niall grumpily. Then, as three drenched children swept in to ask if he would partake in a game of cards, he threw aside the newspaper with a cry of surrender. ‘I can see I’m not going to be allowed to read!’
‘Eh, don’t go tearing it,’ warned Ellen with a wink at her mother. ‘You might miss seeing a report about your wolf.’
Whilst this was a jest, the children took it seriously, each of them jumping in with their own query, ten-year-old Dominic being first. ‘Have you seen it kill owt, Dad?’
‘Not yet.’ Niall lit a cigarette, its smoke overpowering the reek of wet hair and clothing.
‘John Mahoney’s dog killed Reg Wilson’s rabbit this morning, and there was all this blood, and purple guts hanging ou—’
‘Yes, thank you!’ Niall called a halt to spare the younger ones’ sensitivities, then addressed the boy’s mother. ‘You’ll have to stop feeding him meat. He’s getting to be a right bloodthirsty devil.’
Dom’s smile burst forth.
‘Are you scared of it, Dad?’ tendered five-year-old Batty, his cheeks pink with cold.
‘Father’s not scared of anything, are you?’ Honor informed her brother in a quietly disapproving voice that said, how could he even ask.
Yes, thought Niall, sometimes I am scared, scared that this is all there is to life, to undergo the same routine day after day, being tormented by female drivel year after year until I die; to be nothing more than the wage earner. But to his offspring he said, ‘Me, scared? Nah? If he shows them big teeth at me I’ll flatten him with me shovel and bring him home to make a fur coat for your mam.’
Re-entering to the children’s giggles, Harriet
