She had no choice but to let the tide of life carry her along. What had been acceptable as a temporary measure was a good deal less so after a month in Endicott Street, however, and Sylvie felt it was time to give herself a shake before she slipped into total apathy. She had not been entirely idle, of course. She had bought clothes and shoes, napkins for the baby, a tin bath from the market. She had also uncovered a little fireplace in the apartment that had been boarded over. It was comforting to have a fire in the room, less comfortable to have to haul coals from the bunker in the hall, tote water from the tap in the yard or sneak downstairs to the lavatory with a chamberpot splashing in your hands. Fran Hagarty’s tenement was unusually clean and quiet, though, for there were no families in any of the upstairs rooms and only on Friday and Saturday nights was there a bit of a racket on the stairs. Unlike her mother, Maeve recovered quickly from the shock of her father’s death and within a week or two knew all about their neighbours.
