days later she found herself pulling the brass pump handles on the counter of the bar in the Bunch of Grapes, bleary-eyed Scotsmen leaning over to touch her. Josie shrugged her shoulders
and thrust their drinks at them. The owner put her up in a cosy room with no holy pictures or chipped saints, nothing but a solitary print of Blackpool illuminations adorning the wall.
On her days off, she sauntered through the bustling streets of the city, the town of Carn far behind her. She painted her face and powdered herself. The girl of Molloy’s shop and the
orphange belonged to another age and when they grabbed at her body or leered at her, it meant nothing to her, she had seen right to the heart of it with the old man.
She wanted no pretence and soon they understood. They did not smooth it over with the respectability of trust and warmth. They pressed five pound notes into her hand and loitered outside the bar
after closing time.
She worked in Liverpool for ten years after that and did not leave for Manchester until it transpired that the Bunch of Grapes was to be closed by the brewery. She was given a week’s
notice and a fortnight’s money. She found herself in a pub in Moss Side, following up an advertisement in the city’s evening paper. The black faces that stared at her from the shadows
did not bother her and the next day she found herself talking across the counter to bright-shirted men from Trinidad and Tobago who rambled at length about tobacco leaves and their children, their
eyes falling to her breasts as the alcohol robbed them slowly and steadily of their fragile restraint.
She remained there for six more years, lying on the bed above the pub, listening to the sound of singsong accents as children played on the dilapidated playground in front of the high rise
buildings. Then she was told that the pub had been purchased by a supermarket consortium. She was unemployed once more. She went on the hoof again with her adverts ringed in red marker but this
time a replacement position did not surface with ease. “We really wanted someone younger,” they said.
She searched for over a month without success and then she began to worry. She had saved very little money. She had no home of her own. She could not live forever on the bit she had put away.
One day, after a particularly fruitless day’s searching, she was amazed to find herself crying. “There’s nothing here for me now,” she said to herself but fought off the
dark feeling of helplessness that was moving in on her. As she lay in bed that night, she thought of Carn over and over again. She thought of Phil Brady, his face muscles jerking as he heaved above
her. She went to the mirror and examined herself. “I’ve got to live somehow,” she said to herself. “In Carn the old men would have nobody. The nuns and priests have seen to
that. I don’t care about them now. They’ve had their day with me. I’m no sixteen-year old child now. Let them try to tackle me now.”
The following day she went to a department store and bought herself a selection of satin underwear. She laid it on the bed then tried it on. She examined her skin again, for blemishes.
“There’s nothing else for me to do,” she said.
The following day she went down to the booking office in Deansgate and bought herself a one-way ticket to Ireland.
And now she found herself standing in the lounge bar of the Railway Hotel trying to make sense of what she saw before her. Middle-aged women argued over the most appropriate
dressing for a salad niçoise as their well-nourished children cavorted brashly. Above the entrance, flags fluttered gaily and announcements crackled from loudspeakers in the main street.
Long lines of parked cars stretched for a mile outside the town.
It seemed as if the town of Carn, the town in which she had been born and reared, a huddled clump of windswept grey buildings split in two by a muddied main street, had somehow been spirited
away and
and thrust their drinks at them. The owner put her up in a cosy room with no holy pictures or chipped saints, nothing but a solitary print of Blackpool illuminations adorning the wall.
On her days off, she sauntered through the bustling streets of the city, the town of Carn far behind her. She painted her face and powdered herself. The girl of Molloy’s shop and the
orphange belonged to another age and when they grabbed at her body or leered at her, it meant nothing to her, she had seen right to the heart of it with the old man.
She wanted no pretence and soon they understood. They did not smooth it over with the respectability of trust and warmth. They pressed five pound notes into her hand and loitered outside the bar
after closing time.
She worked in Liverpool for ten years after that and did not leave for Manchester until it transpired that the Bunch of Grapes was to be closed by the brewery. She was given a week’s
notice and a fortnight’s money. She found herself in a pub in Moss Side, following up an advertisement in the city’s evening paper. The black faces that stared at her from the shadows
did not bother her and the next day she found herself talking across the counter to bright-shirted men from Trinidad and Tobago who rambled at length about tobacco leaves and their children, their
eyes falling to her breasts as the alcohol robbed them slowly and steadily of their fragile restraint.
She remained there for six more years, lying on the bed above the pub, listening to the sound of singsong accents as children played on the dilapidated playground in front of the high rise
buildings. Then she was told that the pub had been purchased by a supermarket consortium. She was unemployed once more. She went on the hoof again with her adverts ringed in red marker but this
time a replacement position did not surface with ease. “We really wanted someone younger,” they said.
She searched for over a month without success and then she began to worry. She had saved very little money. She had no home of her own. She could not live forever on the bit she had put away.
One day, after a particularly fruitless day’s searching, she was amazed to find herself crying. “There’s nothing here for me now,” she said to herself but fought off the
dark feeling of helplessness that was moving in on her. As she lay in bed that night, she thought of Carn over and over again. She thought of Phil Brady, his face muscles jerking as he heaved above
her. She went to the mirror and examined herself. “I’ve got to live somehow,” she said to herself. “In Carn the old men would have nobody. The nuns and priests have seen to
that. I don’t care about them now. They’ve had their day with me. I’m no sixteen-year old child now. Let them try to tackle me now.”
The following day she went to a department store and bought herself a selection of satin underwear. She laid it on the bed then tried it on. She examined her skin again, for blemishes.
“There’s nothing else for me to do,” she said.
The following day she went down to the booking office in Deansgate and bought herself a one-way ticket to Ireland.
And now she found herself standing in the lounge bar of the Railway Hotel trying to make sense of what she saw before her. Middle-aged women argued over the most appropriate
dressing for a salad niçoise as their well-nourished children cavorted brashly. Above the entrance, flags fluttered gaily and announcements crackled from loudspeakers in the main street.
Long lines of parked cars stretched for a mile outside the town.
It seemed as if the town of Carn, the town in which she had been born and reared, a huddled clump of windswept grey buildings split in two by a muddied main street, had somehow been spirited
away and
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