Ireland had done her no favours. She hoped the country in which her mother had been born would.
8
London, October 1964
Sorcha woke to the smell of boiled cabbage. Not the sweet, mouth-watering aroma that used to emanate from her mother’s kitchen when she cooked the very same vegetable in a pot with bacon, but a rancid, stomach-churning smell that heralded the start of another day in the hell-hole where she and Con resided.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
Sorcha sighed. It was raining. Through the ceiling. She sneezed, then searched under the pillow for a hanky with which to blow her nose. Her throat felt like sandpaper. Maybe a hot drink would help. She rolled over two inches and as good as fell out of the narrow single bed. Con grunted and stretched out, his body relieved to have some space. Sorcha ran quickly to the fireplace and lit the couple of sticks she’d saved from last night to generate some warmth. Then she poured on the remaining coal and covered it with slack to keep it burning longer.
It was freezing. And only the end of October. Jesus only knew what it would be like here in January.
Come on,Sorcha, come on, she chided herself as she headed for the kitchenette and turned on the one-ringed Baby Belling stove to heat the kettle. By January there was every chance that Con would be famous and they would be living in a beautiful house like the ones she had seen on the edge of Hampstead Heath.
It was a thought that was beginning to seem more unrealistic as each day passed.
Sorcha grabbed Con’s big sweater and pulled it over her nightdress. She hopped from foot to foot as she waited for the kettle to boil.
Her lover was still sleeping. He looked so peaceful, as if he’d not a care in the world. The kettle whistled. Sorcha grabbed it and poured the water into the teapot.
She had no regrets. She was with the man she loved. It didn’t matter if they lived in a mouse-infested attic room and were reduced to rationing themselves to one inadequate meal a day. Or that, after three and a half months away, she was fiercely homesick for Ballymore. Londoners were so brusque, so rude. Everything moved at such a frenetic pace here, and Sorcha longed for the sound of the gentle voices of her homeland.
And more than anything, Sorcha missed the space and openness of Ballymore. She stared disconsolately out of the attic window and saw only row upon row of smoky grey chimney pots.
She felt tears scorch the back of her eyes as she thought of the beach, at this time of year majestic in its wild, windswept beauty. And the air, so fresh you felt as if your lungs had been given a spring clean every time you breathed in.
Stop it, Sorcha, stop it. Remember, when you were there you couldn’t wait to leave.
She poured some tea into a tin mug and took it to the fire. She hated it without milk, but there was none left and no money for more.
The worst thing of all was that soon even this place would be a luxury they could not afford. They had one more month’s rent in the tin in the cupboard. Sorcha knew there’d be no mercy from their landlady. If they were more than a few days late with the cash, they were out.
And then what?
Of course, neither of them had had any idea just how hard it would be. On arriving in London they’d gone to a guesthouse, bought a newspaper and looked through the ‘Flats to Rent’ section. They’d quickly moved on to ‘Rooms to Rent’ when they’d seen the size of the weekly asking prices. They were young, Irish and unmarried (though they soon learnt to lie about their matrimonial status), and had no references to offer a prospective landlord. They’d got the room they had now only because it was unfit for human habitation and the landlady had agreed to waive the usual formalities.
Con had roamed the clubs and bars of Soho trying to persuade the owners to hear him sing, but to no avail. Sorcha had begged him to let her look for work in one of the big shops in the West End, but he would not hear of it.
In desperation, Con had started busking in Carnaby Street. Sorcha would go with him, stoically walking the four miles from their room in Swiss Cottage to save money. Some days, he’d do well enough for them to go into one of the nearby bars and have a drink. For those few evenings, life was grand. They were in the most happening city in the world, part of a new generation of youth who would not be playing by their parents’ rules.
Then, at other times, when the rain poured down as they struggled back home silently, a few sixpences in Con’s pocket, depression would set in for the rest of the night.
She looked out of the window and prayed the rain would stop soon, as busking in Carnaby Street on a wet day was pointless. No one wanted to stand listening to a dripping singer. So, on rainy days it was down into the tube station, playing until an officious ticket collector was sent to move you on, or, even worse, the police. Con had an instinctive hatred and fear of the force. The subterranean days were not happy ones.
Sorcha sipped her tea. Feeling strange, she threw off Con’s jumper. Bizarrely, sweat seemed to be pouring off her. She sighed loudly. How could they go on like this? Yes, they were still close, but the tension of living on such a knife edge was starting to affect their relationship. A nagging fear was beginning to eat away at Sorcha. What if Con grew tired of her, of this life? Maybe he didn’t want to marry her any more. Maybe—
‘Good morning, Sorcha-porcha. How did you sleep on our shared bed of nails?’ Con’s arms wrapped around her shoulders.
She’d begun to shiver again. ‘Not well. I found another bedbug in the night. It climbed up my thigh.’
‘Ah, ’tis not the Ritz, that’s for sure. But who knows what today might bring?’
‘The rain, Con.’ Her legs felt shaky as she went to the kitchenette to pour him some tea.
He smiled at her as she handed him his tin mug.
‘Are you getting tired of this life, my Sorcha? Not what my little princess is used to, is it?’
