‘Ah, bliss,’ she said as she bent over the flame in the range and lit the ciggie. She sank into the chair and inhaled deeply. All she had to do now was find her way through the day.

She kicked off her slippers and rubbed at her bunions as she thought through her options. She would ask Kathleen for help first. If that didn’t work, she would have to go and see Sister Evangelista and hope to God she didn’t send her to the priory. She could do without a lecture from the priest today, seeing as she hadn’t been to mass for over two weeks. But she was the only woman in the street who had no footwear except slippers for the outdoors, a mark of shame that even Peggy felt as she knelt for communion. It was the lack of a proper pair of shoes that kept her from mass, but how could she tell either Sister or the priest that? She drew hard on the last shred of the Woodbine and savoured the hit of the tobacco entering her lungs. All she was missing was tea, her very best friend, food in the cupboard, fuel in the coal-hole, a means to pay the rent and the coalman, a pair of shoes, regular milk from Eric, sixpences for the leccy and the reassurance that big Paddy would be in work every day, for life to be a whole lot better than it was right now.

‘Is that too bleedin’ much to ask for, is it?’ she asked the statue of the Virgin Mary, perched next to the clock and then, flooded with guilt, blessed herself and uttered a quick succession of Hail Marys. ‘Ah, Maura, you were so much better with the words than me,’ she said.

Maura would do the talking with Sister Evangelista when Peggy was desperate for a winter jumper for one of the children, or a jumble sale coat. And then she had a thought which was so warming she rose and pushed the chair under the kitchen table. She would call into Kathleen’s and ask her to help her write another letter to Maura though she hadn’t answered her last one, yet. And maybe Maura might just send her a postal order in time for the carnival, because without the means to get her shoes back from the pawnshop, the shame would keep her from attending that too. The effort of standing had made her back twinge again and her eyes filled with tears.

‘Don’t cry,’ she said to herself, ‘you’ll manage, don’t cry.’

Chapter Five