‘I thought our first stop should be my workshop,’ Patrick Kennedy said, as he and Blackie walked up Town Street the following morning. ‘It’s not too far.’
‘I’ll enjoy seeing it, Uncle Pat, and I can’t wait to start working there with ye.’ His nephew was busy taking in his surroundings in daylight, his head turning to look around him as they walked.
Patrick nodded, gave him a wide smile, and said, ‘Likewise, Blackie, and you’re fast, have a bright mind, and you’ll pick things up quickly – so I think, anyway.’ There was a pause. Patrick pursed his lips and said, ‘I hope that you had enough to eat for breakfast.’ Eileen had commented on how thin the boy was.
Blackie nodded vehemently, and added, ‘I had a good breakfast. Thanks, Uncle Pat.’
‘Your aunt makes the bread, and it’s always good,’ Patrick told him. ‘She helps out a little at the baker’s shop in Town Street, making sponge cakes, pies and tarts. She has quite a talent for cooking and enjoys it. And she likes getting out a bit, going to the bakery.’
‘I realized she’s a good cook, sure and I did. The tea last night was the best meal I’d had in ages, except for the rabbit pies, o’course. They were a treat.’
‘And when did you have them?’ Patrick asked curiously, giving him a quick glance.
‘A’fore I left Ireland. Ye see, Uncle Pat, Mrs O’Malley had two rabbits. Joe O’Donnell caught ’em and brought them to her. Even skinned ’em for her, that he did. And she made two pies.’
Blackie couldn’t help laughing. ‘If ever ye have an odd rabbit or two, Uncle, I’ll make a pie for ye. Mrs O’Malley taught me how.’
‘And you can knead the dough, can you?’ A brow lifted questioningly.
Blackie laughed again. ‘I believe I might need a bit of help, only too true.’
Patrick said, ‘Aunt Eileen will teach you. It’s not a big job. I look forward to a pie made by your hands. I’m sure it will be excellent.’ There was a hint of amusement in his voice.
Continuing to walk up Town Street, Patrick explained, ‘As I told you some time ago, I have two apprentices – Benny and Alf – for the repairs and building work, and one fully fledged carpenter, Tom. I am going to bring Alf on more in a few weeks, because he has become very skilled. I myself will train you, Blackie, and I will enjoy doing it.’
‘I can’t wait, and thank ye for … taking me into the business.’
‘I promised your mother and, anyway, your aunt and I want you with us, Blackie lad. You’re company, and well, family. Same blood. We’ve got to stick together, move up in the world together.’
‘We do, we will,’ Blackie asserted. He started to say something else, then stopped. After clearing his throat, he asked, ‘How old were ye when you came to Leeds, Uncle Pat?’
‘I was six and your mother was ten, four years older than me. We’d only been here three years when our parents decided to return to Ireland. So they went, but they let me stay behind with my father’s brother, Tim Kennedy. He didn’t have any children, and he and his wife Kath loved me. They begged for me to remain with them.’
‘And ye stayed, I know that. And glad about it, sure I am. Ye have been successful, and I bet Tim Kennedy was proud of ye, the way ye built up his company.’
‘He was indeed! He trained me religiously, night and day, months on end, year in and year out. He never stopped instructing me. And that’s how it’s going to be with you, Blackie, and I hope you will also achieve your dream … of being a builder.’
Blackie looked at him in surprise. ‘So ye remembered … that I want to build houses.’
‘Sure an’ I did, my boyo,’ Patrick responded, allowing his Irish accent to surface. ‘And here we are, at Tower Lane, and just ahead of us is my shop. It’s part of this warehouse. Let’s go inside, and you’ll see for yourself.’
It was one large room, with a small office at the far end, and was filled with natural daylight. This came from the many windows on the two long side walls. Underneath some of the windows were workbenches, with tools on top.
Two young men occupied the room, and they turned around and stared at him for a moment. Blackie offered them his widest smile.
Patrick said, ‘Morning, Benny, Alf. This is my nephew, Shane O’Neill, come to work with us here. And by the way, everyone calls him Blackie … Black Irish, as you can well see from his hair and his eyes.’
The two young men grinned, came forward and shook hands with Blackie, and remembered, a split-second later, to greet their boss.
‘Blackie will start on Monday,’ Patrick explained. ‘I just brought him in this morning to meet you and see the shop. Where’s Tom? Over at Thompson’s, I suppose.’
‘Aye, he is, Mr Kennedy. He said ter tell yer he’ll finish the final work on them doors by ternight,’ Benny answered.
Patrick nodded and looked at Blackie. ‘As you can see, the lads work at the benches for sanding and polishing the different woods.’ As he spoke he beckoned to Blackie, and went on, ‘I keep the planks down here. You can see they’re different sizes and heights. We make a lot of tables and bookshelves at the moment, oh, and headboards for beds and matching chests.’
‘It sounds as if the business is thriving,’ Blackie said, realizing there were various pieces of unfinished furniture in the warehouse. ‘I think I might have come just at the right time.’
His uncle merely smiled and walked him down to the end of the room. Opening a door, Patrick said, ‘I work in here, keep the books, do the paperwork when I’m not at my carpentry.’
He moved on, opened the next door, and said, ‘This is where Tom does his drafts of the special pieces he makes. You can learn a lot from him, Blackie. He’s a good draughtsman. The last office belongs to my Uncle Tim. He comes in a couple of times a week. He’s not got much to do since he retired, and it makes him feel good to be here with us, still part of it in a sense. I’ll take you to meet him on Sunday.’
‘I bet he’s proud of ye, Uncle Pat, the way ye’ve built his business up, ever since ye were a little lad—’
‘Not quite,’ Patrick cut in. ‘I was away for a while, remember? In the navy. I didn’t start to change a few things and encourage him to go into building until I left the military. But, you know, he was always willing and enthusiastic, whatever ideas I came up with, even when he muttered that they sounded newfangled to him.’
A short while later, Patrick and Blackie left the workshop and walked down through the nearby streets. ‘I want to show you a bit of Upper Armley,’ Patrick explained, as they headed towards another main thoroughfare called Ridge Road.
It was a wide road. On one side was the Co-operative, a large grocery shop with many branches. His uncle explained that everyone used it on a daily basis, since the prices were excellent, and bonuses were given in the form of stamps to buy extra foodstuffs.
‘I come here to do the heavy shopping for your Aunt Eileen,’ Patrick said as they entered the large, well-stocked shop. ‘I get the heavier items … like dried goods, canned food, that sort of thing.’
Blackie simply nodded, his eyes wide with surprise at the produce on display. He’d never seen so much food in his life.
After leaving the Co-op, as Patrick called it, they went down Ridge Road, going in the opposite direction from Town Street.
‘So where does this road go?’ Blackie asked, as usual full of curiosity.
‘The main road at the end, which is where we are heading, is called Stanningley Road, and it goes up to Bramley, Farsley, and ends in the City of Bradford. But the reason I’m taking you there is because you’ll see some nice houses around this area, and also Gotts Park. That’s a nice spot, and on Sunday, a big band plays in the afternoon. We go to listen, or to Armley Park, where there’s a band also.’
‘A band in a park!’ Blackie sounded astonished.
Patrick grinned. ‘Oh, there are a lot of things happening in Upper Armley, my lad. It’s a busy place. Dances at the dance hall on Saturday nights, plays at the church hall, and twice a year the Feast comes.’
‘Whatever is that, Uncle Pat?’
Patrick chuckled. ‘Too hard to explain. However, I think it’ll be coming next week, and your aunt and I will certainly take you. We’ll all have a bit of fun, the likes of which you’ve never had.’
Eileen Kennedy was humming under her breath as she stood at the kitchen counter preparing dinner, glad she was feeling better and not so tired. She enjoyed cooking as well as baking, and, most especially, when she was preparing something for her husband.
She had adored Patrick since she was twelve and he was fourteen, and she had made up her mind to marry him at that time. As for Patrick, he had liked her a lot, enjoyed her company. But he hadn’t really fallen in love with her until he was fifteen, a year before he had joined the Royal Navy. She had not attempted to dissuade him from enlisting, fully understanding he would pursue his childhood dream no matter what.
Patience, she kept telling herself in those early days of their relationship. And being loyal and supportive had paid off. Three years after becoming a sailor, he had proposed to her and she had accepted. He had fulfilled his dreams of being a naval man, and she had realized her own by becoming his wife.
A little sigh escaped as she mashed the potatoes, thinking of his disappointment in not having children, and the miscarriages she’d had. But her idea of bringing Blackie over to live with them had been accepted by Patrick, and enthusiastically so. Now the boy was here with them, and Patrick hadn’t stopped smiling since his arrival.
As she opened the oven to put the bowl of mashed potatoes inside, she couldn’t help thinking what a lovely boy he was. ‘Boy’ was hardly the word to describe Blackie O’Neill. Tall and broad like Patrick, he looked older and acted older. But then perhaps that was because he’d had a lot of responsibility in his family, looking after them in the face of extreme poverty and hunger, and nursing his sister, Bronagh, until her untimely death.
Faith, and wasn’t it a pity Bronagh had not managed to find her strength again, to go on living after catching a bout of scarlet fever. Only seventeen when she died, more’s the pity, Eileen thought, sadness filling her face. Life is hard, unsupportable sometimes, but we have to live what we are given.
And God doesn’t give us a burden we’re too weak to carry. At least that’s what my mother believes. Oh, and I suppose so do I, Eileen admitted to herself.
Eileen went into the small larder and took out the package of pork sausages wrapped in greaseproof paper. There were four, one for each of them, and the fourth she would cut in half for Patrick and Blackie.
Placing a small pat of butter in the frying pan, she opened the packet of sausages. She pricked them with a fork all over so they wouldn’t burst, and put them in to cook. Once they had begun to brown, she placed the chopped onions next to them. Sausage and mash for dinner, a favourite dish of her husband’s, which he ate with relish. She thought Blackie would enjoy it too.
A moment later, she heard the front door open and close, and as she moved forward, Patrick put his head around the kitchen door.
‘We’re back,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘And famished. And doesn’t everything smell good.’
‘Sausage and mash,’ Eileen murmured and, noticing Blackie hovering behind Pat, she nodded. ‘There you are, Blackie. I bet he’s walked you all over Upper Armley.’
Blackie grinned. ‘And back again, and I swear on the heads of the Blessed Saints that I’ve never seen a nicer place. I’m going to like living here, Aunt Eileen, sure and I am.’