The Street and other stories Read Online Free PDF

dying about him, so they were. Like, I don’t know what they saw in him. It was said if you spat in the street you were bound to hit one of his children. But he denied making Lily pregnant.”
    “And did he?”
    “Of course he did. Lily thought the sun rose and shone on him. She would have done anything to get him. Like I said before, she was a wee bit foolish that way. Sure he wasn’t fit to clean her arse. He was the road to no-town. He actually came round to see me, so he did; he was never short on cheek. He knew Lily and I were very close. He swore to me it wasn’t his child, that he hadn’t been seeing Lily for over four months. I told him that I had seen the two of them together on Halloween night, which is the night she conceived, and he got all flustered. He said it couldn’t a been him ’cos he was too big to go into her. Ha! The cheek of him!”
    “Big Dick!”
    “Aye. Or so he thought. I didn’t even know what he was talking about. Then he told me that he had an operation and he couldn’t have any children. I threw him out.”
    “You did right.”
    “That’s not the end of it. His mother went to see the priest and the priest sent for Lily. She went down on her own; she wouldn’t take anyone with her. I wanted to go but she wouldn’t let me. I met her when she came back and she was crying. She said the priest did everything but call her a hoor. He said it couldn’t be Sammy’s child, that Sammy came from a good family. Then he came out with all the oul’ shite about Sammy not being able to have children on account of the operation. Like, everybody knew it was Sammy. He had even been boasting about doing it before it turned out Lily was pregnant.”
    “You couldn’t trust a man as far as you could throw him. That’s a true say…”
    “Anyway, Lily had the child. A wee boy. A lovely child. You’d think big Sammy spat him out of his mouth, you would. He never ever acknowledged the child, not then, not now. He never acknowledged Lily either for that matter. That child fathered himself.”
    “God bless him. The street reared the poor wee soul.”
    “Sammy’s father, by the way, he always knew that Lily’s son was his grandchild. He wouldn’t have passed him. Sammy himself got married a couple of years later. Within eleven months his wife had a baby and another one a year after.”
    “So much for his so-called operation.”
    “Any excuse will do. Fifteen years later Sammy’s mother apologised to Lily. A bit late, but there you are. Lily just said, ‘That’s all right, Missus Mallon,’ as nice as ninepence.”
    “She did right.”
    “Anyway, Aggie, that’s the story of poor Lily. Now she’s a granny just like the two of us. And you know something: isn’t it sad after all this time that her past is still following her around, and her that never did harm to anyone?”
    “And never a word about Sammy Mallon.”
    “Or the married man from Leeson Street.”
    “It’s a man’s world, Maisie.”
    “Indeed it is, Aggie. That’s as good a reason as any why wewomen have to be a wee bit soft with one another sometimes.”
    “But not all the time, Maisie.”
    “Indeed not. But I’ll always remember what our mother said to old Missus Reid that time she came round. ‘Never talk about anyone’s children,’ says she, ‘when you’re rearing children of your own.’
    “Here, give me your cup and I’ll fill it up for you. You know a funny thing? Ever since her son was born, and that’s nearly forty years ago, Lily’s never been with another man. They used and abused her, and when they wouldn’t treat her right she just gave up on them and gave her life to her son. Now, all this time later, maybe she’s got what she always wanted—a bit of love and affection and dignity.”
    “How would she get that now, Maisie?”
    “From her grandson, Aggie, from her grandson. Everybody loves a granny, Aggie. Don’t they?”

The Rebel
    Margaret became a rebel when she was fifty-three years