With every day that passed Katie began to feel that number 167 was home – well, maybe!
Miss O’Gorman took Mam over to a big storage depot. Beds and blankets, a small fridge that made a funny sound when you opened the door, a green and grey checked couch and wobbly armchair were among the things delivered the next morning. Everything was second-hand, someone else didn’t want them, but they did the Connors family just fine. The house didn’t seem as empty as it had the first night. There was a discount shop down in the town and Mam went there to get plates and cups and bowls and a silver-coloured kettle and a teapot.
They still had no curtains. The morning sun streamed in so early every day that they were first up in the neighbourhood. It was funny watching out the window as other people came downstairs in dressing gowns and ate breakfast and got ready for their day.
Next door a woman called Mrs Dunne lived with her son and daughter. Her eldest girl was married and brought two grandchildren to see her every weekend. Mrs Dunne’s husband had died of a heart attack two years ago.
Katie noticed that at first Mrs Dunne would avoid being outside if any of them were around. She seemed embarrassed to talk to them – even to say hello!
It was Duffy constantly pushing her nose through the back fence that got Mrs Dunne talking. She liked dogs and used to drop scraps of food over the fence to Duffy – bits of meat and left-over chicken. Maybe she thought they didn’t feed her. Anyway, because of Duffy, she and Mam began to chat. She had lots of good advice to give Mam about training dogs and bringing them up. Mam would nod and listen, and try to hide her knowing smiles.
On the other side were the Foxes. They were well named, Katie decided, as they were a sly, cunning lot, always coming and going. They barely spoke and made it clear they had objected to having travellers as neighbours. A large rain-soaked piece of white cardboard still lay flung on the grass in their cluttered back garden. ‘Keep Out The Tinkers’ it said. Day by day the message was slowly being washed away.
Mrs Fox was a real gossip, always watching out the windows to see what they were at. Paddy and Brian would pull faces when they spotted her.
‘Leave the poor soul alone,’ scolded Mam. ‘I think she’s lonely, that’s why she’s so interested in other people’s lives.’
Mam was far too soft.
Paddy and Brian had taken to Ashfield as easy as pie. The road seemed crammed with young fellows their own age and as soon as they were up in the morning they ran out to join the army of pals that kicked ball and played chasing out in the road.
But Hannah was different. Katie was sick of telling her to go out, but still she would not venture beyond the front wall. Katie lost her temper with her one day.
‘Hannah, would you go out and play! Look at her, Mam.’
There she was sitting on the front wall, swinging her feet, her eyes wide, humming softly to herself. A crowd of girls about her own age, seven and eight, would set up a game deliberately near her only a house or two up, but never ask her to play. Hannah would watch them intently and Katie knew she was secretly keeping score and longing to join them. If a ball came near her she would jump down and try to grab it, and then stand with it in her hand, hoping they’d ask her to play.
‘Give us back our ball,’ was all they’d shout. Hannah would toss it back, but there was still no sign of them asking her to join in.
‘Don’t be bothered with them, Hannah,’ urged Katie. ‘Pretend you don’t care, and ignore them.’
But her little sister wouldn’t. She seemed content to sit on the wall and watch.
The kids in the estate were a funny lot. Some were fairly friendly, but others stared as if you were from outer space. Sometimes during the day the doorbell would ring and when they went to answer it there was no one there.
‘Just kids messing,’ Mam said, but it did worry Katie a bit. Sometimes it happened late at night, around midnight or even later. That was too late to be ‘just kids’.
Katie and Tom both found notes pushed through the letterbox. Luckily Mam couldn’t read the messages:
Get out filthy tinkers.
Knackers go back on the road.
You are not welcome here.
Go away or there will be trouble.
The writing and the paper was always different but the basic message was the same – go away.
Tom was angry about it and had all kinds of plans to try and catch whoever did it. Katie just hoped it would stop, and they both agreed not to let Mam know about it. She had enough on her plate to deal with.
* * *
‘Will you come door-to-door with me?’ Mam asked a few days after they moved in. They took Hannah, and Davey in the buggy, and went to an estate twenty minutes away on the bus. Mam knocked on the doors.
‘Would you have a bit of help, Missus? I’ve just moved in with the family to a new house. Any spare sheets or towels or household goods would be very welcome.’
Some banged their doors shut, and others chatted and were quite friendly. After two hours there was barely enough space for Davey to sit in the buggy, and both Hannah and Katie held an assortment of plastic bags. Mam held her head high walking back down to the main road. ‘No harm in getting what others don’t want,’ she declared. Later that night she was all excited, sorting out the odds and ends to see what they could use. She draped a huge white sheet over the living-room window and hung curtains on two of the upstairs windows. The begging had certainly been worthwhile.
‘Wait till Brigid sees the place. I’m right proud of it,’ beamed Mam.
‘When will Da see it?’ asked Hannah before Katie could stop her.
‘Soon, pet. Any day now, that’s what I’m hoping.’
A week later Katie was thrilled to see Maggie and Bridey and her aunt arrive for a visit.
‘We left the wild ones back home,’ joked Auntie Brigid.
Home – it had changed again. They were living in a different field now, practically on the side of the road.
‘Not as nice at all,’ whispered Maggie. ‘I wish we had a place like this, we’d be rightly set up then.’
Hannah was delighted to have Bridey for company and took her out to sit on the wall to show off that she had a friend too.
Mam was busy trying to get information about Da and his whereabouts.
‘You must have seen him, Brigid? Is he all right? Was he asking after us? Do you know where he is?’
‘He’s in Cork, Kathleen.’
‘You mean to tell me he’s down at the other end of the country!’
They tried to chat and laugh, and pass it off, but Katie knew that as far as Mam was concerned, all the good was gone from the visit.