“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Harry said. “It’s only a flying visit. She’s leaving Coghlan for some other fool.”
But the easy jocularity had been wiped from Jim’s features, as though by a damp cloth. “Watch your step, Harry. The woman’s nothing but trouble.”
“No sweat. She’ll be off in a day or two.”
Jim shrugged and set off towards the reception area. “The sooner the better, if you ask me,” he said over his shoulder.
I didn’t, Harry was tempted to retort. But the big man always spoke his mind and there was no point in arguing for the sake of it. Their partnership too was a marriage of sorts. They had worked together for the past eight years, having met as solicitors on the staff of Maher and Malcolm, a large practice which acted for Liverpool’s upper crust. Over a pint one evening they had talked themselves out of their comfortable rut into becoming masters of their own destiny, no longer wage slaves hired to pile up profits for senior partners who spent half their time yachting or out on the golf course. The following day they had written their resignations and the firm of Crusoe and Devlin had kept its bank manager nervous ever since. In that time, both of them had learned the need for give and take.
Harry wandered over to his room, a claustrophobic box which might have been purpose-designed to deter clients from overstaying their welcome. From the walls, paint peeled almost before his very eyes, although the worst blemishes were hidden by a cartoon of a solicitor milking the cow of litigation and framed certificates which helped him to remember that he was a respectable professional man. Bulging buff files were strewn across his desk and cabinets, on the carpet and the window sills. He tore yesterday’s date from the calendar that had been a building society’s routine Christmas gift. Each day’s sheet bore an unctuous motto; he crumpled up The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring and threw it into the wastepaper bin. Today’s offering was The mystery of women is largely the product of men’s imagination. Shaking his head, he picked up the telephone.
“So you’re back,” snapped the switchboard girl. “Just as well, there’s a client waiting.” Her attitude had been foul since Monday, when he had interrupted her in the midst of a lengthy call to a boyfriend she had met in Marbella last summer. When Harry asked if there were any messages for him, she rattled through half a dozen before adding, “And a woman called.”
“Yes?”
“She wouldn’t give her name. Said she was your lodger and she was sorry she’d missed you. She didn’t think she’d be able to make lunch with you since she was just going out.” Harry could sense the girl curling her lip; her tone was that of one who suspects sexual impropriety and considers it the sole prerogative of those as young as herself.
So the message he had sent via Ronald would not have got through to Liz. He tried to bite back his disappointment. “That would have been my wife,” he said, more briskly than usual. “If she calls again, Suzanne, put her straight through.”
With an effort, Harry pushed Liz away from the centre of his thoughts and leaned back in his seat, trying to compose his face into the unshockable expression with which he aimed to greet his clients’ tales of bad luck, infidelity and crime. Giving advice was easy, not like believing all that he was told.
One gross indecency and a case of car theft later he made his way to reception, where a young couple were arguing about the new house Jim was buying for them. Swings and roundabouts, Harry reflected: we may lose the property deal and get the divorce. He tapped the window which separated the switchboard girl from the clientele. Suzanne was immersed in a Mills and Boon about an amorous sheikh. With a reluctant pout, she slid aside the glass partition.
“Any more calls for me?”
She leafed through a wad of pink telephone notes. “The Magistrates’ Court - please call before noon. Your accountant’s chasing after your tax return. A new gross indecency, Lucy’s booked him in for three o’clock.” Smirking, she added, “Nothing from your lodger.”
“Just my wife’s idea of a joke,” he said, feeling defensive and resenting it. Suzanne sniffed and returned to fictional romance.
From his own room, he dialled the flat number. No reply. After waiting three full minutes he banged the receiver down on its cradle. Perhaps she had gone to Coghlan’s house to pick up her things and would ring back shortly. The frustration of having missed speaking to her gnawed at him like an ulcer. Ploughing through the files, with their commonplace tales of greed and confusion, seemed as tedious as reading out-of-date tide tables. He lit cigarette after cigarette, only to find that smoking did not have its usual calming effect, and he kept stubbing the ends into his ashtray before he had finished. Now and then the phone would trill; each time he snatched at it only to be connected to clients fretting about their alimony or industrial injury claims. He uttered the necessary words of reassurance and ended the conversations as soon as he could.
Had Coghlan returned home earlier than expected? A worrying thought. Harry had never met the man who had destroyed his marriage, but knew a good deal about him. Mick Coghlan’s name cropped up as often in gossip down at the Bridewell as it did in the columns of the city’s Press. He ran a gym on the edge of Chinatown and liked to portray himself as a pillar of the community, forever raising money for charity, a local scally made good. Liz had talked of his generosity when she had broken the news to Harry that she was moving out. But whispers in the city had long had Coghlan down as the most ruthless scion of an old Liverpool family of villains, a man suckled on crime. People said his money had come from a series of armed post office raids in the mid eighties but his C.V. included nothing more damning than a couple of minor convictions for wounding. From time to time, a client or policeman would mention Coghlan in conversation, unaware of the quickening interest with which Harry listened. A hard man, they would say, and ruthless. Harry found himself shivering. If Coghlan came back to find Liz packing her bags, might he go berserk? Perhaps that wild story about his wanting her dead was no exaggeration.
He took a full audio tape to his secretary, whose desk was in a glassed-in cubicle they called the typing pool. It was Lucy’s lunch break and she was listening to pop music on Radio City. Her grey eyes filled with concern. “You look terrible,” she said.
“A late night and a lousy morning, that’s all.”
As she was shaking her head in gentle reproach, Jim looked in and said, “Lunch?”
Harry joined him outside. “Thanks, but I’m busy today.”
“You’re worrying about that woman, aren’t you? Take it from me, she’s just not worth it.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“Do me a favour. Coghlan may play at being a businessman, but he’s still a crook and Liz had her eyes open when she shacked up with him. That’s how she is, old son. Give her an outfit by Zandra Rhodes plus a fortnight on the Côte d’Azur and she won’t worry too much about where the money came from.”
Harry grunted and walked towards his room. At his retreating back, his partner fired a parting shot. “You should have divorced her long ago, can’t you see? Start afresh, it’s the only way.”
Slamming the door behind him, Harry sat down to work again. But his concentration had gone and he was reduced to shuffling the papers around on his desk. Liz had not lost her capacity to strip him of both emotion and common sense. His fear that Coghlan might have hurt her, his sense of utter powerlessness, had started to stretch his nerves.
By two o’clock he could no longer ignore the hunger pangs. He wandered out to the Ancient Mariner’s, a corner cafe near the waterfront where buxom girls who couldn’t care less about cholesterol served thick wedges of ham with eggs and mugs of steaming tea. Harry listened to the waitresses’ chatter about lovers past and present, jealous friends and trouble at home. Perhaps all our problems are the same, he thought, it’s just the packaging that differs.
While paying for the meal, something occurred to him. Liz had a part-time job; she might simply be working. Outside, the rain ha
d turned to sleet, but he folded the collar of his coat and hurried in the direction of Harrington Street. The Freak Shop was sandwiched between a wine merchant’s and a florist’s full of drooping daffodils. One window of Matt Barley’s emporium was filled with distorting mirrors, Hallowe’en masks and a rail of fancy dress costumes. A display of just-about-legal porn videos, exotic lingerie and thigh-length leather boots crammed the other. Harry didn’t know how Matt had persuaded Liz to help him out this last time. An up-market fashion shop might have offered at least the surface glitter for which she yearned - but going back to a dump like this, run by a temperamental dwarf? He shook his head, unable to fathom it.
In any event, she wasn’t here today. A handwritten card on the door said that the Freak Shop would be closed this afternoon. The truanting schoolkids who were pressing their noses to the glass, admiring the naughty nighties, could goggle to their hearts’ content. Further down the road, he paused for a moment outside Mama Reilly’s. But there was no reason to go inside and it was time to return to Fenwick Court.
Back at New Commodities House, Suzanne’s sheikh had presumably got his woman and the switchboard girl was now tackling a thousand-pager about sex in Hollywood. Without looking up, she said, “Your lodger - sorry, your wife - called again. She said she’d be out this afternoon, but she hopes to see you tonight.”
Relax, Harry told himself, nothing’s gone wrong after all. Coghlan isn’t a teenage hoodlum: losing Liz wouldn’t be the end of his world. Follow Jim’s advice and don’t look back. Yet like a client urged to be calm in the witness box, he found it easier said than done.
He chain-smoked his way through the rest of the afternoon and rang the flat a couple of times without result. Shortly before six, Jim came into the tiny room.
“I’m off to the match.” An F.A. cup-tie at Anfield, already twice postponed due to the snow last week. “There’s a spare ticket here. Ronnie can’t make it. Want to come?”
“No, thanks, not tonight.” Ridiculously, the tone of the invitation, too deliberately casual, irked him: it resembled a treat for a matrimonial invalid.
His partner’s face was a blank. “Suit yourself. I’m in tomorrow.”
Since the break-up of his marriage, Harry had developed a habit of stopping off at the Dock Brief on his way home. In the absence of Liz there was no need to break the routine. The pub was tiny and invariably packed to overflowing. Above the counter was a sign which said in GOD WE TRUST - ALL OTHERS PAY CASH and its walls were covered with photographs of Liverpool in days gone by: the old Lyceum, Exchange Station and the overhead railway known universally as the dockers’ umbrella. The real name of the place was the Anchors Aweigh, but its popular title was ingrained into city folklore and seemed appropriate to its mix of customers: professionals and businessmen at lunchtime and in the early evening, ship-workers and assorted locals as the night wore on. As he often did these days, Harry outlasted the other men in suits, propping up the counter whilst in the background deals were struck and pint pots occasionally shattered.
As Harry drank, questions about Liz’s whereabouts swam around in his mind. Where had she been all day and would she be waiting for him at the flat when he got back in? The alcohol didn’t help him to find any answers and in the end he banged the glass down and pushed through the mêlée round the bar out into the drizzling night.
The walk to Empire Dock took ten minutes. In the lobby, he ran into Brenda Rixton, the woman who lived next door. She had been chatting with the porter, but joined Harry as the lift arrived. Although he wasn’t in the mood for casual conversation, there was no escaping it.
“Miserable evening, isn’t it? And turning so cold, too!”
“Sure is, Brenda.”
“That’s better! At last you’ve dropped that Mrs. Rixton nonsense. Neighbours ought to be on first name terms, don’t you agree?”
Within the enclosed space, her perfume was overpowering. Harry hated lift travel and the lack of a sensible place to focus his eyes. Unwillingly, he looked straight at his companion. She was tall, almost his height, with fine blonde hair and a willowy figure encased within a pink sweater and matching slacks. Although she was in her forties, Harry reckoned, she had the inquisitive smile of a young girl who is anxious to know everything. Only the fine lines etched into the skin around her blue eyes hinted at age and a loss of innocence.
With gentle irony, she said, “I gather you’ve taken a lodger.”
Liz must have been amusing herself again. He forced a non-commital smile.
“I met her this evening when I got back from work,” said Brenda, adding, “I admire your taste. She’s extremely attractive.”
They had arrived at the fourth floor. Stepping out, Harry found himself saying, “That’s no lodger, Brenda, that’s my wife.”
“Your wife? But I thought . . .”
“Yes, well, she has a strange sense of humour. We’re separated, but she may be around for a couple of days till she sorts herself out.”
“I see,” said his neighbour, although her baffled expression made it clear that she did not.
They stopped at her front door. “Mustn’t loiter,” said Harry with fake breeziness. “Plenty of paperwork to tackle, I’m afraid.”
She wagged her index finger. “All work and no play. It isn’t good for you.”
He was already unlocking his own flat. “Goodnight, Brenda.”
Tonight no Liz awaited him. Her return must have been brief. He could detect no signs that she had eaten here, but in the bedroom he almost fell over a couple of heavily strapped suitcases left behind the door into the hall. There was a carrier bag full of cosmetics and odds and ends of clothing bought from George Henry Lee’s. So she planned to use the flat as a hotel for one more night at least. But where was she now? He changed into a sweater and jeans and flicked the television on. A choice of a repeated sitcom or snooker, a chat show or a documentary on AIDS. He groaned and went to examine the contents of his fridge freezer.
As he was lighting the gas on the cooker he caught sight of half a sheet of paper resting against the coffee pot. A note from Liz. Scrawled in her flowing hand, it said: Missed you again! I’ll be at the Ferry Club by eleven. Come over why don’t you?
Her easy assumption that he would come running after her angered him. During their time apart, he had found it easy to forget that the centre of Liz’s universe was herself. Screwing up the piece of paper, he fed it vengefully to the gas flame. But he didn’t bother to deceive himself. When Liz called, he had always followed. Sometimes he was afraid he always would.
Chapter Four
The Ferry Club was hidden at the heart of a maze of side streets behind Lime Street Station. Harry walked past empty burger bars and curtained Chinese restaurants, shuttered shops and barricaded redevelopment sites whose walls were covered with fly-posters advertising a political rally at the Pierhead. As the minutes ticked away towards eleven, Liverpool was quiet. Even the Ferry looked almost discreet as he approached. No neon lights, just a notice confirming that Reginald Anthony Gallimore was licensed pursuant to Act of Parliament for singing, dancing and the sale of intoxicating liquor, plus a yellow placard pinned to the door which said that Angie O’Hare, Hit Recording Artist, and Russ Jericho, Popular Comedian, were starring tonight.
At the entrance, a drunken tramp was about to pick an argument with a couple of bouncers, mean and muscular in their ill-fitting dinner suits. Their sniggers suggested they were hoping that he would provoke them into violence. A sign by the pay desk said MEMBERS AND BONA FIDE GUESTS ONLY - BY ORDER, but when Harry handed over his money he was allowed straight through with no questions asked.
The interior of the club was a raucous contrast to the desert calm of the city streets. The queue at the bar was three deep and dozens more people sat at tables grouped in a semi-circle facing the stage. Drinking, talking, a few even listening to the Popular Comedian, a flabby elephant of a man who was tossing old mother-in-law gags out of the side of his mouth in a treacle-t
hick Scouse accent.
“Y’know, I’m not saying she’s ugly,” Harry heard him mutter, “but I’ve seen better faces on clocks. And the size of her! Bleeding hell, she could eat a banana sideways. Y’know, I reckon she could sing a duet on her own.”
Now and then members of the audience got up and walked straight in front of the act to the bar, but no one seemed to care, least of all Russ Jericho. It gave him the chance to paper over the cracks in his act. When a fat girl in a mini-dress plodded by he interrupted a racist joke about a bald Pakistani to say, “Last time I saw an arse like that, it was being whipped by Lester Piggott.”
Harry’s gaze travelled around the room. Glittery pillars supported a plasterboard ceiling on which pin-point lights flickered in rotation, red, green and blue. Two overhead fans whirled in a doomed attempt to dispel the fug of cigarette smoke and cheap scent. Young girls chatted to each other, feigning not to stare at the leather-jacketed lads sinking pints in silence near the door. Within easy reach of the bar, painted women in short black skirts and fish-net tights watched out for men who might pay for the pleasure of their company.
Liz was nowhere to be seen. Harry stifled a grunt of irritation and looked at his watch. Five past eleven. Perhaps she would be along in a minute. He decided to buy a drink and as he waited for service he reflected that the Ferry hadn’t changed much since his last visit with her. They must have been married eighteen months then and he had already discovered the fascination which clubland held for her; as with so much else, he didn’t share her point of view. The place had probably not been cleaned in the meantime, but in the dim lighting you couldn’t tell.
Harry’s turn at the bar coincided with a scabrous punchline about a lunatic and a lesbian. Harry ordered a pint of Ruddles from a barmaid with dyed blonde hair that was dirty brown at the roots. Large spiky hoops hung from her ears like offensive weapons. Her blouse was cut low, her fingers were heavy with rings. As she took Harry’s money, she stared over his shoulder.
All the Lonely People Page 3