For My Brother’s Sins Read online

  For My Brother’s Sins

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part Two

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Part Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Part Five

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  For My Brother’s Sins

  Sheelagh Kelly

  For ‘Our Kid’, Robert Day – with no aspersion in the title

  Part One

  1867

  Chapter One

  It could have been a street of great beauty, for the buildings which formed its route spanned many centuries – medieval, Tudor, Georgian. Here had once stood the palace of one of the noble families of England. This street had witnessed the passage of kings – but no more. The once-handsome edifices had been allowed to slip into an undignified senility. The façades of the Tudor and medieval residences were crazed and ravaged, their timbers seemed to groan with an arthritic despair. Even worse, there were those whose ancient craftsmanship had been obliterated beneath an incompetent layer of mode improvisation – rough coats of plaster daubed over their elegant framework. To add to their ugliness two dirty lines marked the place where the street loafers leaned: one produced from their shoulders, the other, at the foot of the wall, caused by their boredom-induced boot-tapping. And the only heraldic banner which now graced Walmgate Bar was a line of washing, draped incongruously over the fortification that had once boasted the grisly remains of traitors. Nor were things any better at the tail-end of Walmgate, for the water beneath the unimpressive bridge that arched the Foss was choked with a carpet of green slime and foul-smelling refuse, dead cats and effluence.

  Yet all this was not to say that the street was uninteresting or lacking in style; indeed, it was a street of much charm, having a very definite style of its own. Apart from the period buildings and odd assortment of shops that squatted between them – a saddler’s shop which boasted harness of the finest quality, an umbrella maker, butcher, fishmonger, shoemaker, chicory-grinder and pawnbroker – the most common type of building could be easily identified by the names on the colourful signs that creaked over their entrances: The Fighting Cocks, The Hope and Anchor, The Shakespeare Tap, The Spotted Dog, The Spread Eagle … inns, taverns and ale-houses appeared at every step of the way. Even a blind man could not mistake his location, for each breath one took was tainted by the overpowering scent of processed hops, belching out from the ever-open doors of these abundant watering holes and from the breweries that supplied them.

  There were less cheerful places, too, dotted out of sight along this street; dingy courtyards where the most impoverished of York’s inhabitants – the Irish immigrants – resided. Filthy, disease-ridden yards containing flea-infested hovels, where babies played amongst the piles of excrement that spilled from the two privies which had to serve a hundred, maybe two hundred people.

  Patrick Feeney knew all about these courts. After the Great Hunger had driven him from his beloved Ireland in 1847, it was here that his first child had been born. And here that he had lost his young wife, Mary, when the cholera epidemic had wiped out dozens of his ilk.

  But all that was in the past. Now he was housed in comparative style in one of the many terraced dwellings that snaked off Walmgate like veins from a main artery, and instead of being under the landlord’s rule was well on the way to owning his own property.

  Patrick yawned and raised his arms above his head, gripping the iron rails of the bedstead and stretching his long, lean body between sleep-warmed sheets. His determined, tanned jaw rested against the white linen, his eyes blinking away the mist of sleep. The invading flecks of old-age had rapidly increased with each birthday and now, at forty-seven, the once coal-black hair was an iron-grey – his eyebrows too, but beneath them those pale-blue lights which had always been his most attractive feature could still summon up a youthful twinkle.

  His brain began to function – what day was it? His befuddled thinking told him Sunday and he grinned with satisfaction, snuggling down close to the sleeping figure beside him, slipping a calloused, though gentle, palm over his wife’s naked stomach.

  Thomasin Feeney groaned as the searching hand forced her into wakefulness. Her auburn hair lay coiled in thick braids around her neck and shoulders with the burnished vibrancy that delights a child’s eye when he peels away the spiky protective layer of a horse chestnut … rather like her character, too. As if unwilling to expose to the outside world the true kernel of her nature she had superimposed upon it a rough and ready, often prickly, outercasing. Her eyes, when they fluttered open, were grey, dark-lashed and clouded with sleep.

  ‘It’s not Sunday,’ she mumbled as the fingers ventured further, her sensitive skin detecting every blemish on his hand.

  He checked, disorientated, then grimaced. There were no churchbells. The abnormal quietness which had lulled him into believing it was a day of rest was because he had woken an hour earlier than normal. It was Friday. That’s what summer does to ye, thought Patrick resentfully as he rolled onto his back, though his hand still lingered on her belly. The. sun rose early in summer, thereby waking the sparrows and starlings which roosted under the eaves, and sparking off a discordant dawn chorus. Today a song-thrush had perched upon the chimneypot, his melodic tune piercing the usual monotonous twittering to which Patrick was accustomed and probing his sleep-clogged mind.

  ‘The sound of summer,’ he sighed, shifting the position of his long legs which he could never totally straighten in this cramped bed. ‘Would that I had a little gun – I’d shoot the bloody thing.’

  ‘Now just because yer’ve been cheated of yer slice o’Sunday comfort don’t go taking it out on t’poor little bird.’ Thomasin snuggled up to him, laying her palm upon his chest, and felt the heat burn deep into her hand. Their bodies became gummed together in the sultry morning.

  ‘Little bird my eye,’ complained her husband. ‘By the sound he’s making he must be the size of a turkey. An’ the varmint’s been twittering up there for an hour or more. Sure, I’d like to
go up there an’ pull off all his feathers one by one.’

  Thomasin chuckled and rubbed his chest. ‘By, it’s gonna be another scorcher today.’ She pulled away, sucking in her breath as their skin broke the sweaty vacuum. ‘Well, I suppose I’d best get up; if I turn over I’m bound to sleep in.’

  ‘Ah, don’t go, muirnin!’ He caught her wrist and pulled her against him. ‘Can’t ye feel I’m aching for ye? Just a quick one. There’s not a sound out there; we’ll not be late for work. Come on, Tommy, just five minutes won’t harm.’

  She buried her face in the muscles of his shoulder, inhaling the sharp scent of him. ‘You’re a randy old devil.’

  Her fingers excited him and he groaned. ‘Ah, I know ’tis horse-whipped I should be, but I can’t leave ye alone.’ He shuffled round to face her. Gusts of heat rose from the blankets and he threw them off impatiently. ‘God, will ye ever look at the woman,’ he breathed, propping himself on his palms and gazing down at her glowing body. ‘A veritable goddess – a Venus. A body like a young girl’s – an’ her all of five and sixty.’ He howled as she wound her fingers into his pubic curls. ‘Ah, Jesus I was only coddin’ ye!’ He collapsed on top of her as she released him with an admonishing moue. ‘Woman, ye get wickeder with age. See the tears ye’ve brung to me eyes?’

  ‘Then I’ll have to make it better, won’t I?’ she murmured sensuously.

  * * *

  A muffled complaint rose from beneath the bedclothes in the adjoining room. ‘For pity’s sake, our kid, will ye stop doing that? How’s a fella to get any sleep while you’re shaking t’bed as if yer’ve got St Vitus’ Dance!’

  Richard Feeney gave a low, shuddering sigh of release, then tugged his shirt down. ‘Sure, I’m sorry if I’ve offended his lordship, but what with all that grunting an’ groaning in there I just grew a stalk.’

  ‘Yer disgusting,’ grumbled his brother John, who was always referred to as Sonny. ‘There’s no need for it.’

  ‘Hah! I like that,’ exclaimed Dickie, then clapped a hand over his mouth as he realised he had shouted. He lowered his voice. ‘You’re as bad as the rest of us – if not worse.’

  Sonny did not answer. This was a sensitive subject for him. He knew that it was a sin to spill one’s seed on the ground – though perhaps bedclothes didn’t count? Father Kelly was very strong on self-abuse; it could do terrible things to a boy, he said. For a long time after Sonny’s first experimentation the boy had examined his palm at frequent intervals for any sign of growth, and could recall only too well the terrible apprehensive prickle every time somebody asked him a question which he couldn’t quite catch – Mother o ’ God I’ve gone deaf! Even after the gradual realisation that his physical and mental well-being was unimpaired by these nocturnal crimes his guilt remained unassuaged.

  His brother nudged him. ‘Come on, let’s have a contest to see who can get the biggest.’ He pushed the covers down to his knees.

  Sonny immediately tugged them back into place. ‘Ye’ll burn in Hell! Ye’ll deform yerselfl’

  ‘Sure, ye don’t believe all that clap, do ye?’ The accent was a curious amalgamation of Yorkshire and Irish – the product of a mixed marriage and shared by them both – but in Dickie it was the Irish which was predominant. He tucked his hands beneath his head and stared resignedly at the ceiling where a spider kept lowering itself on a slender thread, beleaguered by indecision. His tone was somewhat scathing. ‘Course, I don’t suppose you get the same urges as me – not having had a woman, like. Jaze, ’tis awful painful for a man to have to listen to those two in there when he’s not had a woman himself for ages.’

  To be precise, it was exactly twelve hours since fourteen year old Dickie had made his first conquest – if such a word could be ascribed to his inexperienced fumblings.

  ‘I still don’t believe ye about that,’ muttered Sonny, rubbing the sleep from his eye-corners. ‘Yer wouldn’t be so tight-lipped if ye’d really done it. Ye keep crowing and strutting but yer not very forthcoming with the details, are ye?’ He kept his voice low in order that his sister, who slept behind the curtained partition, might not overhear.

  Dickie grinned wickedly and curled his long Irish upper-lip. ‘Sure, I can’t be getting too basic, can I? You’re far too young.’

  ‘Dammit!’ Sonny was fully awake now, brimming with the lust for enlightenment. ‘I’m only a year and a bit younger than yourself. Come on, Dick, be a sport – I’ll thump ye!’ he added threateningly, at his brother’s soft laughter.

  Dickie’s blue eyes closed in ecstasy as he journeyed into his memory. His lashes curled long and dark upon the sun-toasted cheek, so thick and abundant like the sweep’s brush that pops from the chimneypot. ‘Ah, Sonny,’ he sighed, wriggling his bottom into the mattress. ‘Can ye imagine every Christmas, all your birthdays and holy days, Mam’s ginger parkin an’ all yer favourite things wrapped into one? Well, that’s what it’s like. ’Tis like … ah! … drowning, I suppose; drowning in pleasure, till ye don’t know which way is up. Or being held upside down so’s all the blood rushes to your head; or when ye think old Bacon Neck is going to catch up wi’ ye and slit your throat an’ yer legs all turn to jelly.’

  Sonny wasn’t interested in analogies. ‘But what’s it really like? What d’ye do?’

  ‘Ah, now that’s for you to find out, little boy,’ smiled Dickie patronisingly.

  There was a frantic creaking from their parents’ room, followed by a short period of silence, then the sound of their mother and father going downstairs. Sonny turned away abruptly from his brother and pummelled the pillow. ‘A pox on ye! Anyroad, you’re not so clever even if you have done it, ’cause Bertha Sunday goes with anyone – she’s the communal mare.’

  ‘Ah, now you’re jealous!’ laughed Dickie. ‘I’ll wager she wouldn’t let you do it to her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t touch her with a barge pole,’ scoffed the more discerning Sonny. ‘Sure, ye can get all sorts o’ nasty things from people like her, I’m told. I prefer to steer clear of her sort an’ confine my attentions to the ladies.’

  Dickie smirked, pulled the covers over Sonny’s head and broke wind. ‘Mm! Sweet as a nun’s drawers.’

  ‘You’re the filthiest pig I ever met!’ Sonny pressed his heels against Dickie’s back and ejected him from the bed to land with a thud on the well-worn rug.

  Dickie dusted himself off, laughing, and tugged on his trousers and stockings. He padded over to the window and pulled aside the curtain, allowing the sun to stream in and coat the room with a golden warmth. ‘’Tis a grand class of a day; not the sorta day to waste on workin’.’ He dropped the curtain and the sun reverted to its muted glow. After tucking in his shirt he cupped his hands into the bowl of water that stood on the washstand and sloshed it onto his handsome face.

  ‘Mind you don’t get your face wet,’ observed Sonny from the bed, then rolled over swiftly and sat for a few minutes on the edge of the mattress, waiting for the burning stars in his head to settle.

  ‘Anyways,’ said Dickie, from behind a towel, ‘I don’t know what ye expect to gain from me telling ye about my experiences – sure ye’ll never get a woman with a skinny little thing like that. They’ll think ye’ve got a loose thread hanging from the tail o’ your shirt.’

  Sonny glowered. His brother had a singular capacity for cutting remarks. ‘I’d rather have me brain in me head than in me prick,’ he answered haughtily and began to pull on his clothes.

  Dickie chuckled and raced him to the staircase but Sonny, as usual, was there before him. From their appearance one would have imagined Sonny to be the elder – though not as tall as his brother he was a good deal heavier and always emerged the victor in feats of strength or stamina. Dickie may have been blessed with the looks, but Sonny was the strong one both in body and character. The dependable one.

  Downstairs, in the back room where the fire crackled in the black-leaded range, the appetising smell of cooking teased their nostrils. There was something about this room des
pite its modest furnishing – a table and four chairs, a battered horsehair sofa, a couple of old armchairs, a stool and a rag rug – an aura of utter contentment and friendliness that made one feel at home the minute one entered.

  Their mother was in the process of doling out five portions of breakfast and smiled as they sat beside their father at the table and again a few minutes later when their half-sister, Erin, appeared. ‘We are all bright and early this morning. I think somebody must’ve slipped summat in t’water. I’ve never known you boys up before your sister.’

  Erin, neat and prim in her blue cotton dress, her black hair plaited into a crown and her complexion a blend of buttermilk and roses, scraped a stool up to the table and carved a slice of bread from the loaf. ‘’Twould be all the same if I’d wanted a lie-in,’ she complained. ‘I get no peace nor privacy from these two. God knows what they were at this morning but there was a terrible amount o’ giggling going on.’ The boys glanced at each other.

  Patrick looked up as his wife placed a helping of fried bread and egg before him. Dear Tommy, her hair had lost none of its lustre despite the tribulations they had all heaped upon her – though perhaps there was just a hint of silver at the temples, making one remember that she had been forty-one years on this earth. Tiny wrinkles and character lines had begun to appear on the small face, but could in no way detract from the vivacity that so attracted the opposite sex; rather they added to her handsomeness.

  He bowed his head and offered a prayer of thanks for the food he and his family were about to eat, then set upon his meal, spearing the yolk and painting his bread with gold. Funny, how the sight of a good meal always plunged him deep into the past, to the blackened putrid fields of his homeland, the months of famine, of dining on nettles, grass – anything. That was why he always made his prayer of gratitude for the happy, well-fed times they lived in now, marvelling at his stubborn inability to keep faith with his Catholicism during those famine years – and for a long time afterwards come to that. The maturity of his forty-seven years had brought him even closer to the God he had once denied.