The September Girls Read Free

the ones at the side where no one can see.’ There was a light in the porch, whereas the side steps leading to the basement were in darkness.
    ‘There’s a wee roof over the door where you can shelter from the rain.’
    Brenna managed to struggle down the steps and seat herself at the bottom, her legs spread wide because it was impossible to hold them any other way. The lads squeezed each side of her: Fergus snuffling and telling her how miserable he felt, Tyrone stroking her neck and murmuring words of comfort.
    And now, God help her, didn’t she feel the urge to push? She desperately wished she was back in Lahmera where she’d have had a bed to lie on, where the women, her neighbours, would come pouring in to help deliver the baby, just as she’d helped deliver theirs. When it was over and the baby was lying in the wooden box that had served as a crib for Fergus and Tyrone, someone would make a cup of tea. The lads would have already been taken out of the way to another house and Colm would have taken himself to the pub.
    She did her utmost to suppress a scream when she felt a pain between her legs, threatening to tear them apart. Her body arched, she uttered a low moan and Tyrone leapt to his feet and hammered on the basement door.
    It was opened within seconds by an irritable-looking woman who snapped, ‘Here’s a farthing, buy yourself some chips. Now, bugger off, you little scally. I’ve a million things to do tonight.’ She was about to slam the door, when Tyrone hurled himself against it.
    ‘Me mammy’s sick, missus.’ He burst into tears - Tyrone could bring forth tears in profusion when it suited his purpose.
    The woman poked her head out of the door and saw Brenna rocking back and forth on the bottom step, her skirt above her knees and about to give birth. ‘Lord Almighty!’ she shrieked. ‘There’s babies crawling out of the woodwork in this house tonight. You’d better come in. Mr Allardyce will kill me if he finds out, although I’d sooner be dead than leave a poor, pregnant woman outside in the teeming rain.’
    Brenna was hauled to her feet by a pair of strong arms and virtually dragged inside a warm kitchen full of steam from a kettle and various pans that rattled on the stove.
    ‘You can’t stay here,’ the woman muttered, and Brenna was dragged again through another door into a cosy sitting room where a fire burnt in a small grate and brasses gleamed on the hearth. A yellow bird in a round cage chirruped a welcome and a ginger cat curled on the couch raised its head and regarded them sleepily. The two boys followed, Tyrone dragging the sack that was bigger than himself.
    Brenna was laid gently on the floor and the lads were commanded to hide behind the couch. ‘This isn’t something for such young eyes to see,’ the woman said sternly.
    Tyrone said he’d better wait outside for his daddy, who’d gone in search of a peeler.
    ‘There’s a young lad with a wise head on his shoulders,’ the woman said when Tyrone left. ‘How old is he, pet?’ She knelt on the floor and began to remove Brenna’s shabby underclothes. ‘Everything’s sopping,’ she remarked.
    ‘Four.’ Four-going-on-for-forty is what Colm usually said about his younger son, whom he preferred to Fergus, now sobbing quietly behind the couch.
    ‘I thought he was one of the lads who sometimes come begging money for food. I’d give ’em more than a farthing, except they’d only come more often, poor little mites. What’s your name, pet? I’m Nancy Gates.’
    ‘Brenna Caffrey. That’s Fergus crying and Tyrone who’s gone to wait for his da.’ She felt much better in the warmth, her heart was beating normally and the urge to push had gone - perhaps it was panic and fear that had brought it on. Nancy Gates seemed very capable. A big, raw-boned woman in her forties with a deep voice, massive arms and an impatient manner, her eyes were kind in her pockmarked face.
    ‘And what were you doing, Brenna Caffrey,