Free The Four Streets by Nadine Dorries Page B

Bernadette’s death, who had been hovering around on the day of the funeral with a smirk on her face, was worrying news.
    ‘Tommy, a strange woman has turned up twice this week, looking as though she has a stick up her arse, when Bernadette’s still warm in her grave. She’s giving me the creeps. You find out from Jerry who she is, now, or I’ll be givin’ out to you.’
    ‘Calm down, Queen, it’ll just be a mate of theirs,’ said Tommy, trying to return to his newspaper.
    ‘Are ye mad?’ she yelled at him. ‘You stupid man. What mate? I knew Bernadette better than anyone, I’ve known her all me blessed life, longer than Jerry even, and this woman is no mate, or I’d have known for sure. There’s something bad about her, so there is, I can feel it in me water.’
    ‘You and your feckin water,’ snapped Tommy. ‘Can ye water tell me what’s going to win at Aintree today, am I right on the two-thirty with Danny Boy, eh?’
    Tommy didn’t see what hit him smack on the side of his head. It was Maura’s knitting bag, the first thing to come to her hand, as she went to chase him out of the kitchen. Maura had a dreadful feeling. She had felt it before on the day of the funeral, when looking up the street she had seen that sly-looking woman, and she knew all was not right.
    Distracted by her thoughts, Maura went into the yard to take in her washing before the damp air set in. The other women were still in groups of twos and threes standing outside their front doors. This was like an afternoon matinee at the cinema. No one was going inside until Alice had left and they’d all had a good look at her. Now silence settled over the chattering groups, while each woman stared at Alice and took in every detail from the shoes on her feet to her smug smile and purposeful stride as her shoes clicked and her hat bobbed down the street.
    ‘So, she’s up to no good, that one,’ said Peggy.
    ‘I’ve never seen a woman smiling, coming out of a house of death before,’ said Mrs Keating.
    ‘Aye, looks like she has her eye set on being the new Bernadette if you ask me, that high and mighty one,’ said Mrs O’Prey, as she dropped her ciggie on the pavement and stubbed it out with the toe of her slipper, scorching the sole with a reek of burning rubber.
    Nothing would get past the women on the street. They might not have been endowed with academic brilliance or good looks, standing there in their housewife’s uniform of curlers, headscarves, wraparound aprons and baggy cardigans, but their emotional intelligence was as sharp as a new razor.
    ‘Aye, so it does,’ said Peggy, as Mrs O’Prey’s words sank in. Peggy was always the last to catch on. ‘My God, the brass neck of the woman. She’s as brazen as yer like and, mark my words, I bet we will see her back here soon enough, Jaysus, would yer so believe it not?’
    It was often hard to understand what Peggy was on about, even for her neighbours, but they all got the gist and never questioned her.
    They carried on watching Alice, walking with a pert step back up the street towards the bus stop, and gave each other a knowing nod and a smile. Peggy put her hands on her hips and began to wiggle, imitating Alice’s walk behind her back. They all began to laugh. Peggy always made them laugh.
    On the bus back to the hotel, Alice knew she was going to have to play a long game. A thrill of excitement shot through her stomach as she thought about what she had set out to do. The first step had been easier than she had imagined it would be, although her nerve had almost failed her as she walked down the street towards Jerry’s house, carrying the fruit cake she had paid the chef in the hotel to make. All of her brave thoughts over the last few days had deserted her. The plans she had made in her head did not seem so attractive in the cold light of day as she attempted to put them into action. It was the children on the street staring at her that finally drove her the last few