Crystal's Song Read Free

Saturday night he would be found playing his accordion at the Corner Room dance-hall in North Junction Street. Many sailors went there in the hope of picking up a girl and when the interval arrived several of them would liberally buy pints of beer or nips of whisky for Fiery. By the time the interval was over, quite a few of the sailors would be growing a bit fou and a punch-up was likely to ensue. Then the ever-cautious Fiery would carefully remove his precious glass eye and wrap it in his handkerchief before placing it safely in his pocket.
    After being suitably entertained from her vantage point on the corner and thinking that one day she would learn to play the squeeze-box or moothie, since they both looked so easy to play, Senga made her way up to No.6 where her Granny and Granddad Kelly lived.
    She was glad it was early afternoon because Granddad, who always bad-mouthed his daughter and was forever declaring that Phyllis having been struck down with polio was a clear sign of God’s vengeance on her and Senga’s father for having entered into a mixed-faith marriage, would still be working or, more likely, propping up the bar of the Black Swan pub. But Granny Patsy Kelly was just so special – and she always made you feel that you were the most important person in the world to her. Her soft Irish lilt brought a deep sense of peace to Senga even though she knew that Granny Kelly was sorely tried by Dinah, her only child and Senga’s mother. It had been a heartache for Patsy that her first four children had died as soon as they were born and so when Dinah came bawling into the world she was absolutely elated. Maybe because of that she’d spoiled her but wasn’t that quite understandable? She didn’t give her husband, Danny, any slack, however. She might just be pint-sized at five-foot-nothing but she was a true matriarch. Senga had listened so often to the tale about how Danny thought he would do just as his work-mates did – go straight to the pub on pay night and let Patsy wait until he took his feet out of the sawdust. Danny had tried it once and was surprised when his blonde, curvaceous, attractive blue-eyed wife kicked open the pub door, skipped over to him and said, “Right, where’s the pay packet?” while she flexed her hand menacingly.
    Danny had responded by roughly pushing her hand away. “You’ll get what’s left when I decide to come – and that’s if I decide to come hame.”
    “That right? And you’ll get …” she responded as she raised her hand to hit him.
    “Look, Danny,” the barman intervened. “Tak oot your pocket money and fling the rest at her. Ye ken, if ye gie her the bloody nose she’s asking for, we’ll end up wi’ the polis in here.”
    “Look, sonny boy,” Patsy sneered, “if he tries slapping me he’ll end up sleeping on a slab while Alex Stoddard shrouds him.”
    “That right?” cackled the barman, as he enticed all the men in the pub to join him in jeering at Patsy.
    Unperturbed, Patsy now individually eyed each of the men in the bar by turn and her steely stare silenced every one of them. “That’s better,” she said, flinging back her head when the cat-calling stopped. “And don’t any of you forget that I’m the daughter o’ the prize fighter, Shaun O’Leary!”
    From that day on, Danny Kelly always went home with his weekly pay packet which he handed over to Patsy unopened . Once she had opened the packet she gave him his pocket money and then he went off to put his feet in the sawdust. Senga knew that, for all Granny Patsy’s waspish tongue and fierce demeanour when dealing with Granddad Danny, she had a soft streak when it came to dealing with her mother Dinah, willingly taking on all her responsibilities. And of course, for her grandchildren she would have readily lain down and died. Oh aye. Wasn’t she always saying, “The very reason for living – so my grand-bairns are.”
    On entering the house, Senga was immediately greeted by a big grin