As I went on my way, the streets became noisier, dirtier, and smellier, the buildings taller, crammed together, shutting out the sunlight, giving me the feeling of being hemmed in. Memories of my own arrival in New York and my first unpleasant days on these streets came flooding back to me. How long ago it seemed. Was it really less than a year ago that I was walking these streets, penniless, afraid, with nowhere to go? I took stock of how far I had come and felt more cheerful right away.
As I passed through the Jewish quarter, crossing Hester Street then Rivington and Delancey, the streets became clogged with humanity—pushcarts everywhere, laden with every kind of merchandise. Vendors shouted their wares in tongues I couldn’t understand. Chickens and geese hung by their necks in rows. Strange foods sizzled on makeshift stoves giving off exotic, spicy smells. I looked with interest at a pickle vendor, producing fat green pickled cucumbers from a barrel like a conjurer bringing rabbits from a hat. I wondered what they tasted like and was tempted to stop and buy one. There were so many things in the world that were still new to me. One day I should take the time to try them all. But the suspicious looks I was getting from bearded men in tall black hats, from women who passed me with baskets on their arms, dragging serious, dark-eyed children let me know clearly that I was an outsider with no business in their territory. My bright red hair and Irish complexion were definitely a disadvantage for a budding detective. Paddy could blend in anywhere. I’d find it hard to look anything but Irish.
It was the same as I moved into the Italian section to the south. Streets echoed with men in animated conversation, laundry flapped above our heads, old women in black sat on stoops in the morning sunshine, babies cried, children played, more pushcarts with different wares—jars of olives, jars of olive oil, jars with what looked like thin sticks in them which I guessed might be uncooked spaghetti—and me with the definite feeling of being the outsider.
A group of street urchins with dark, close cropped hair came running past me, the steel tips on their boots creating sparks on the cobbles. They leaped up at me and tugged at my long red hair. “Hey, where’s the fire, lady?” one of them shouted in accented English. He grabbed at my hair ribbon. I had grown up with brothers. I reacted instantly, caught him off guard and sent him sprawling backward. They didn’t bother me again.
There was no mistaking when I came to Fulton Street. The fish market announced its presence long before I was anywhere near it. The smell of fish was heavy in the air, making me bring out my handkerchief and hold it to my nose. There were fish scales floating in the gutters and men hurried past pushing carts piled high with boxes of fish. I passed the market itself and was glad to turn onto South Street where a good, strong breeze from the East River made it possible to breathe again. Out of all of New York City, why on earth had they chosen to live right here?
Of course, I had to grant them the view. Over our heads the Brooklyn Bridge soared majestically across to the far shore, suspended, it seemed, by the frailest of strands. The East River was dotted with sails, ranging from tall-masted ships from across the ocean to squat, square-sailed barges going upriver. It painted a charming, lively canvas and I would have lingered longer to admire, had not the whiff of the fish market caught up with me. I crossed South Street and passed open shop fronts where sail-makers and woodwrights plied their trades before I turned into a narrow side alley and found the building I was looking for.
It was another dreary tenement building, even worse, if anything, than my first home on Cherry Street. The dark, narrow staircase smelled of urine, boiled cabbage, and fish. I made my way upstairs, past landings cluttered with prams and old boxes, hearing crying babies, voices raised in anger, a woman singing. I started when something scurried across the floor in front of me. Too big for a mouse. It had to be a rat.
I was out of breath by the time I had reached the fifth floor and prayed that Seamus would be at home. How did he manage to climb so many stairs with his damaged lungs? I knocked on the door and prayed this time that Nuala might not be at home. I had no wish ever to see her again. My prayer was not answered. Nuala herself opened the door, her bloated shape blotting out any light that might have come from the room behind her.
“Saints preserve us,” she said. “Would you look what the cat dropped on our doorstep.”
“Lovely seeing you again too, Nuala.” I tried to get past her and into the apartment but she remained blocking the doorway.
“I didn’t think you’d be turning up again, like a bad penny. So your fancy man finally threw you out, did he? I knew it would happen in the end—didn’t I tell you so, Seamus? Wasn’t I saying that she’d come a cropper, for all her airs and graces? Well, it’s no use thinking you’re going to bunk here—packed like sardines, we are.”