Free The Four Streets by Nadine Dorries

offered to have Nellie when Jerry went back to work, which would have to be within the next few days. Kathleen knew, with such good friends and neighbours, Jerry and Nellie would survive.
    Jerry slept for fourteen hours and, for the first time in a week, woke with dry cheeks. Alarmed, he fell down the stairs and into the kitchen, frantically looking around him.
    ‘Where’s the babby, where’s Nellie?’ he almost yelled at Kathleen, who calmly nodded towards the window and the pram outside.
    ‘She’s been fed and changed twice and is doing what all babbies should do, sleeping in the fresh air,’ she said gently. ‘Now, sit down, lad. We’ve buried Bernadette, it’s time for you to eat a proper breakfast and for us to talk about the future.’
    For the next few days, Jerry learnt from Kathleen most of what he needed to know about running a house, and what he didn’t know once she went back home, he was assured Maura would fill in.
    Over the following weeks, absorbing himself in the challenge of being a single father, running a house and keeping down a manual job brought him back onto the path of sanity and exhausted him to such an extent that he was able to keep all thoughts of Bernadette at bay. He pushed her deep down into a room in his heart and locked the door, whilst he focused on rearing their daughter in the way they had both planned. Bernadette’s memory constantly banged at the door to be set free, but it remained firmly locked. He knew this was the only way he could survive. But there were days when she burst out and took him by surprise. When she overwhelmed him and flooded his mind with her image he found it painful to get out of bed. To shave, to eat, to walk, to work, to pick up Nellie. These were the days when the pain in his chest made him bend over double. With all the will in the world and all his strength, on those days, he couldn’t stop her.
    Exactly a week after the funeral, when Kathleen and Joe were at mass, there came a knock on Jerry’s door. Haggard and exhausted, dressed only in his vest and trousers, he almost left it unanswered. He had been worried about possibly getting a visit from the council, telling him he couldn’t bring up a child on his own and that they would be coming to take Nellie away. That fear kept him awake and was the basis of all the discussions with his parents. He was terrified that his visitor was from the council and he might be about to lose his baby. His tiny Bernadette.
    He opened the door, holding Nellie protectively in his arms, and stared at the woman standing on his doorstep. She was smartly dressed and holding a parcel wrapped in a muslin cloth.
    He looked across the road and saw that every net curtain was twitching. Some of the women were standing on their steps, arms folded, watching the house. A visitor knocking on any front door was an event in a street that was a stranger to surprises.
    ‘Good afternoon,’ said the visitor confidently. ‘My name is Alice. I used to work with your late wife, Bernadette, and I have come on behalf of the hotel to pay my respects.’
    When it dawned on Jerry that his visitor had been someone who knew Bernadette, he was so relieved that he immediately invited her in for a cup of tea. Today was one of those days when he wanted to talk about Bernadette to anyone who would listen. This woman looked as if she wanted to talk about her too.
    ‘Forgive the mess,’ said Jerry. ‘I have me own mammy and daddy here and I’m sleeping down here for the while whilst they have me bed.’
    Jerry didn’t follow through with the information that he was relieved by this arrangement. Getting into his own bed was something he hadn’t done willingly since the day Bernadette had died, preferring to sleep on the sofa when Kathleen let him. This way he never truly gave in to sleep, using the excuse that he could keep the baby warm in the kitchen. Having to sleep alone in his bed, without his angel to pull into his arms, was more than he