Polly's Angel by Katie Flynn

minutes and I’ll be as good as I ever were. Annie, you’re a grand girl to make your mammy a nice cup o’ tay and serve it up so spruce, in nice delft!’
    Annie, a tiny sprat of a girl with lank brown hair and small, twinkling eyes, grinned, showing that she was just at the age when teeth are neither all gone nor all there. ‘There’s a biscuit an’ all,’ she announced with a pronounced lisp, putting the cup down beside her mother, who had collapsed into one of the two sagging armchairs drawn up by the fire. ‘Tad buyed some wit’ his earnings, didn’t you, Tad?’
    â€˜That’s right. I got ’em from Merricks, ’cos if I send messages to Poll for him, he’ll give me envelopes an’ paper, so he will. An’ today . . . you’ll never guess what he said!’
    â€˜Have a lollipop? Did he say you could have a lollipop, Tad?’ Eileen enquired. She was three and always hungry for something sweet; Tad knew she would already have had the only pink sugar biscuit in the bag but he grinned down at her anyway. She was pretty, round-faced and babyish, though Sammy, a year younger, was the baby now. ‘Oh, I does love lollipops, so I does.’
    â€˜It were better than that,’ Tad informed them. ‘Go on, have a guess.’
    Obligingly, everyone had a guess but no one was anywhere near, so of course Tad had to tell them, settling himself down on the kitchen table and swinging his legs as he drank the tea Annie poured for him and ate a broken custard cream. ‘He said there might be a job for me come Christmas – a delivery job,’ he told them proudly. ‘I’m to call round once we’re into December, an’ Mr Merrick says if they need another lad it’ll be me!’
    â€˜Sure and that’s good news enough for a whole year,’ his mammy said, clasping her cup with both hands to warm them. ‘When I’m makin’ me barm-bracks for sale I’ll buy me dried fruit and me butter and flour from Merrick’s, so I will. If they make you a delivery boy, that is,’ she finished.
    â€˜And Tad brought ever such a pretty lady round to see us earlier,’ Biddy said, lifting the lid of the pan on the edge of the fire and gazing critically at its contents. ‘She had hair like pure gold, so she did.’
    â€˜She’s goin’ to be me pal,’ Tad said contentedly, helping himself to another biscuit. ‘She’s called Angela Machin, Mammy, an’ she’s as pretty as Polly was – prettier.’
    â€˜No one could possibly be as pretty as Polly, nor as kind and sweet,’ Tad’s mammy said firmly and the girls nodded approvingly. Polly had a generous spirit and had often brought treats round for her pal’s family. ‘Still, I don’t doubt this girl’s a decint girl. Angela – that’s not an Irish name, though.’
    â€˜No-o, but she’s from Limerick,’ Tad said, as though folk from Limerick were well known for outlandish names. ‘Her fambly live in the O’Bradys’ old rooms – ain’t that a strange t’ing?’
    â€˜Aye, strange enough. And what do they do – the fambly?’
    â€˜Well, her daddy’s in the men’s department of Switzers on Grafton Street, and her brother’s in a shoe shop, sellin’ shoes. Her mammy’s a dressmaker, but I don’t think she’s dressmakin’ here yet. And that’s all the fambly,’ he ended.
    â€˜Ah. Well, wit’ two of ’em in work they’ll be well off,’ Tad’s mammy said. She heaved herself out of her chair and went towards the fire and the bubbling saucepans. ‘You’re a good girl, Biddy, to get the food a-goin’ afore I’m even through the door. Is it nearly done? Tad, go down and shout the rest o’ the kids, then we’ll eat, ’cos I want to get this ironin’ done this