Sisters Three

by Jessica Stirling

  ‘We wait for some kind person to send us a supply of ink,’ Dominic said.

  ‘Like who?’ said Tony.

  But Dominic didn’t answer.

  * * *

  ‘Does Jackie know what you’re up to?’ Dennis Hallop said.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘How did you get outta the house?’

  ‘Told him I was goin’ to the pictures,’ Babs said. ‘The kiddies are in bed an’ he’s had his face fed so he didn’t kick up much of a fuss. What did you tell Gloria?’

  ‘Pub.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be too pleased.’

  ‘She’s never too pleased,’ said Dennis. ‘Are you ready for this?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Babs said. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

  It was dark at the end of the cul-de-sac and she was nervous, more nervous than she had been in years. Last time she’d been this nervous was when they’d wheeled her out of the bungalow and banged her down the steps into the ambulance, when she’d panicked and thought she was losing Angus. Losing Angus: what a hope! She couldn’t have lost Angus if she’d jumped off the Kingston Bridge without a parachute. Six weeks after her panic attack the doctors had induced labour and Angus had come hurtling out into the world yelling Brrrrrroooooommmmmm-Brrrrrroooooommmmm or some equally unintelligible infant gibberish, and she’d never had a minute’s peace since.

  She was nervous again now, though, seated behind the wheel of the Beezer that Dennis had brought out of the yard – and a view of the blank brick wall at the back of the shipyard didn’t help soothe her.

  Dennis said, ‘Do you know what that is, Babs?’

  ‘Aye, it’s a bloody wall.’

  ‘Naw, naw: this.’

  ‘Steering wheel.’

  ‘Good. An’ this?’

  ‘Gear lever.’

  ‘What about this?’

  ‘Handbrake.’

  ‘Fine. Stick your legs out.’

  ‘Dennis, I’m not sure I…’

  He put out his big, reliable hand, stuffed it between her knees and thrust them apart. ‘Three pedals down there. Feel ’em.’

  ‘Yeah – yep.’

  He was almost on top of her, squeezed into the narrow leather seat that groaned and creaked every time he shifted his weight. She did not know why but she was nervous of Dennis too. Being crowded into the narrow BSA three-wheeler with him was – well, sexy.

  She took a deep breath and said, ‘Are we gonna move, or what?’

  ‘Not ’til you switch on the engine.’

  ‘Dennis, in case you haven’t noticed we’re facin’ a brick wall.’

  ‘Aye,’ Dennis said.

  ‘Is that, you know, wise?’

  ‘A Beezer,’ Dennis said, ‘isn’t an ideal vehicle for to learn to drive in, Babs. Also, it’s not a good idea for you to be takin’ your first lesson in the dark.’

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ Babs said. ‘I want Jackie t’ be surprised.’

  ‘He’ll be surprised all right,’ said Dennis. ‘Hands on the wheel, please.’

  She did as bidden. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Elbows down, grip it light, don’t cock your thumbs, feet on the pedals, right foot on the far pedal, that’s for to make it go, accelerate, right foot brake too, middle pedal, clutch for the left foot, just the left foot. Got all that?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Left hand off the wheel, find the key, the key next the big switch. Don’t fumble, Babs, straight to it. Got it?’

  ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Will I turn it on?’

  ‘Why are you doin’ this, Babs?’ Dennis said. ‘Women don’t hafta drive.’

  ‘I just wanna be prepared.’

  He said nothing, gave no instruction for a full half-minute. He sat as stiffly as Dennis ever could, head pressed down a little by the arching roof, motionless, gazing out into the darkness, brooding on the word that remained unspoken, contemplating a war that might never take place.

  ‘The trouble wi’ Beezers,’ he said, ‘is you can never get them t’ stop.’

  ‘Is that why we’re facin’ a brick wall?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘An’ is that why you’ve got your hand on my leg.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is that the only reason?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Dennis.

  ‘Will I switch on now?’ Babs asked.

  And Dennis said, ‘Why not?’

  * * *

  The house was difficult to find. The new council estate sprawled behind tall, old-fashioned tenements, hemmed in by chemical works and the great smoking stacks of the steel works. Rough-cast and black slate, scruffy privet hedges and gardens without growth all served to reduce the development into a confusion of identical roads and avenues.

  When he’d tracked down the woman’s address from the files it hadn’t occurred to him that she’d be living in a new scheme. He had imagined her in a clean-cut Gorbals tenement refurbished for spinsters and widows and safely removed from noisy thoroughfares and the cut-throat pubs of the Calcutta Road. He didn’t know the south side of the river well, of course. As a young constable his beat had been Anderston, which wasn’t exactly the Garden of Eden but as far as slums went wasn’t a patch on Gorbals or the over-crowded acres of Laurieston.

  The council project of semi-detached, two-storey houses confused him for it had already assumed a chafed and shoddy appearance as if the fabric of the social cloth had been stretched too tight for the tenants’ comfort. There wasn’t a pub this side of Jewel Street or a tramcar short of the Westbrae. The streets were strangely deserted even at this comparatively early hour and there was no one about from whom he could ask directions.

  At length he discovered a dented metal sign – Primrose Avenue – and walked along the pavement, counting out numbers. He turned into a gateless opening, walked up a little path and knocked on a green-painted door.

  Light glimmered faintly behind an orange curtain in the front-room window: darkness upstairs. When he saw the curtain flick, quick and furtive, he knocked on the door again.

  ‘Who is it?’ the voice had a rasp to it, thin as a fretsaw blade.

  Kenny didn’t want to alarm the woman. He had always been considerate – perhaps too considerate – of the finer feelings of the citizens with whom he came in contact.

  ‘Miss McKerlie?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wonder if I might have a word with you, please.’

  ‘What’re you sellin’?’

  ‘I’m not a salesman. I – I’m from the Civil Defence.’

  She opened the door an inch.

  At first he thought it was the smell of the house but when she eased the door back a little more he realised that the odour came from the woman herself. She did not smell musty or unclean, but she did smell of milk, the faint moist acidic undertone of curdled whey.

  ‘Is it the garden? Are you wantin’ t’ dig up the garden?’

  ‘No,’ Kenny said cautiously. ‘It’s not the garden, Miss McKerlie.’

  He took out his card and held it up to what light there was.

  He could see nothing of the interior of the house, only the implacable green door and the woman leaning around it, shorn off at the waist like a glove-puppet.

  She did not see the card, or perhaps deliberately ignored it.

  ‘I’ve told them they’re not diggin’ up my garden. They’ve been at me before, them and their like. They can dig up Jimmy Dunn’s garden but they’re not diggin’ up mine, not for all the bombs we’re goin’ to have fallin’ on us. Is it gas-masks you’re sellin’? I’ve got mine already.’ When she made to close the door Kenny put out his hand, closed it into a fist, stuck it against the jamb. The woman swayed back, grizzling: ‘Have you come for me as well? Have you come for t’ take me away too?’

  ‘Please, Miss McKerlie, look at my card. I’m a policeman. I just require to ask you one or two questions about…’

  ‘No uniform, no helmet?’

  He wondered if the few sparse detail
s he had garnered about her had somehow lacked the salient fact that she was nuts. She certainly looked nothing like her sister and had not one shred of Lizzie Peabody’s affability. She was small, shrivelled and waspish, and her hair was dyed bright red.

  Kenny planted one foot on the top step and kept his fist where it was.

  ‘Ten minutes of your time, Miss McKerlie. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘Did she send you?’

  ‘She? Who?’

  ‘Her, my sister.’

  ‘Your sister,’ Kenny fibbed. ‘I didn’t even know you had a sister.’

  She took the card at last and squinted at it briefly. She had, he guessed, already made up her mind that he was trustworthy. She gave him back the card, opened the door, popped her head out and glanced up and down the deserted avenue as if afraid that someone would see her admitting a man to her spinster’s domain and think the worst.

  Kenny stepped into the hall.

  There was a small antique table with cloth flowers in a Chinese vase upon it. A door led to the bathroom, another to the kitchenette, and stairs disappeared into darkness on his left. The aroma of pine-scented wax polish absorbed the woman’s sour odour completely. He followed her into the ground-floor living-room.

  It too was nicely furnished, not cluttered. The dining-table was covered with an embroidered cloth and a whatnot in the corner displayed a modest collection of cheap china bric-à-brac. The armchair in front of the coal fire was upright and had wooden arms but had no mate on the other side of the hearth. On the rug by the side of the chair was a sewing basket, open to show needles and bobbins of thread. There were, he noticed, no photographs or prints and nothing on the mantelshelf except a clock and a pair of empty brass candlesticks.

  ‘I’m not givin’ you tea,’ Janet McKerlie said.

  ‘I didn’t ask for tea,’ Kenny said, though after his journey out from the city by tramcar and his long walk he would have been glad of a cup. ‘You’re obviously busy, Miss McKerlie, so I’ll come right to the…’

  ‘How did you get my name?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘How do you know who I am?’

  ‘Ah – em – it came up in the course of enquiries.’

  ‘Enquiries? What enquiries?’ the woman said.

  She was as small as her sister was large, had the same sort of build as Polly, the same shape of face as Rosie. He wondered if this is what Rosie would look like when she reached her fifties. He sincerely hoped not.

  Kenny said, ‘I’ve a couple of snapshots I’d like you to look at in case you recognise either of the…’

  ‘Snapshots, is it?’ She put one skinny hand into the pocket of her sewing apron, folded the other arm cross her bosom and clasped the side of her neck. Her pose was aggressive, proud. ‘I don’t know anythin’ about snapshots.’

  ‘Please, just look at them.’

  ‘Are they murderers?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that.’

  ‘Are they Manone’s boys?’

  He hesitated: he hadn’t expected her to drop Dominic’s name without prompting. He was tempted to chase the lead and a queer feeling of anticipation stole over him at the realisation that Janet McKerlie probably knew a great deal about Carlo Manone’s activities before the Great War.

  If his hunch was correct Janet McKerlie may also have been connected with Manone’s mob, may even have cut herself off from the family because she disapproved of Polly’s marriage to Carlo’s son. He reminded himself sternly not to invent, not to pre-judge the volume or quality of information that this woman might be able to divulge – even if she was a nut.

  He said, ‘No, they are just two people that we’re interested in, that’s all.’

  She unwrapped her arm from across her chest and held out her hand.

  ‘Show me,’ she said, ‘an’ get it over with.’

  He gave her the photographs one at a time.

  She dipped into her apron pocket and produced a pair of spectacles, stuck them on her nose and studied the snapshot of the girl.

  ‘Is she a tart?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ Kenny said.

  ‘She looks like a tart to me. What’s that she’s wearin’?’ Janet McKerlie peered more closely at the photo. ‘Is that shot silk?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say. Do you recognise her, Miss McKerlie?’

  ‘No, I do not.’ She flung the photograph back at him. ‘Never seen her in my life before. Never want to, a tart like that. Huh!’

  ‘How about this chap?’ Kenny said.

  He passed her the shot of Edgar Harker.

  She held the photograph at arm’s length, brought it closer, blinked, held it almost against her nose, then let out a long, whimpering cry.

  ‘What is it, Miss McKerlie? What’s wrong?’

  She reached behind her, groping for support, staggered and might have fallen if Kenny hadn’t caught her arm. He eased her into the armchair by the fire.

  ‘Is it the snap? Do you recognise him?’ Kenny asked urgently.

  ‘It’s him,’ she said. ‘Oh, God! Oh my good God! It’s Frank.’

  ‘Frank?’

  ‘Frank Conway. My Frank. He’s come back for me at last.’

  Chapter Ten

  Tony was lying in bed reading a Peter Cheyney novel he’d purchased in Glasgow while picking up supplies. Ten or a dozen books were stacked on the narrow shelf in the smaller of the two first-floor bedrooms; reading kept his mind off Polly, particularly at this late hour of the night.

  He was fatigued but not sleepy. His shoulders ached from hefting the routing machine upstairs to the attic. It had not been an easy task, even with Dominic to help him. Giffard was useless when it came to heavy labour and the girl, though willing, wasn’t strong enough. The paper had also been unloaded and stored under a tarpaulin in the stables for there was no room for it in Giffard’s attic where every inch of space was taken up with equipment of one sort or another.

  Soon after Dominic had left, the printer had filled a mug with coffee, cadged a packet of cigarettes from Tony and had gone upstairs to install the routing machine and check the paper quality. Penny had accompanied him. Seated on the cot, the cat in her lap, she had been content to watch Giffard at work and Tony had seized the opportunity to drive into Breslin to telephone Polly.

  Polly had not been at home, however, and just to get away from the farm for a while he had driven on into Glasgow.

  The weather was neutral, neither cold nor warm and there was no wind to whistle in the empty fireplace. The tasselled shade of the bedside lamp was tilted to throw light on the page but Tony hardly took in the words. He was thinking of Polly after all. He could not put her out of his mind. Talking sense to himself didn’t help. He was plagued by a restless yearning that he couldn’t smother and daren’t encourage. He tossed the book away, rolled on to his elbow and poured himself a dram from the half bottle of whisky he’d filched from Giffard’s supply. He propped himself up on the pillow, sighed, drank a mouthful of the stinging liquid, lit a cigarette, lay back and stared at the ceiling.

  There was no noise from the attic. Presumably Giffard had quit fiddling with his new toys and had finally gone to bed.

  Then, ‘Tony, are you still awake?’

  ‘What do you want, Penny?’

  He felt as guilty as if it were his mother tapping on the door and he was a boy again, stealthily experimenting with nicotine and alcohol – sex too – in the imperfect privacy of his bedroom.

  ‘I want to show you something,’ Penny said.

  ‘What?’ Tony said, thickly.

  She opened the door – no lock or latch on any of the doors upstairs – and slipped into the bedroom. She wore clinging coral-pink pyjamas. And a gas-mask.

  ‘Blooh!’ she said, the word all fat and blubbery. ‘Blooh!’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Penny!’

  She raised her arms and advanced upon him like a ghoul.

  ‘Blooh, blooh, blaaah!’

  The flanges of
the rubber mask palpitated and the ugly tin pig-snout thrust out towards him, the eye-piece clouded with vapour.

  ‘Glumme a kluss. Glow on, glumme a kluss.’

  She leaned over him, nuzzling the metal snout down into his face.

  He swung the whisky glass and cigarette away and tried to push her off. She was playful, frenetically mischievous, but he was in no mood to be teased. Breasts pointing up the fabric of the pyjama jacket, the curve of her stomach dipping down into her thighs, she bent one long leg like a hurdler and climbed on to the bed. He could hear the monstrous suck and slobber of her mouth taking in air as she struggled to pin him down and press the snout of the gas-mask against his lips.

  Still juggling glass and cigarette, he defended himself with his forearm. She was lithe and angular, stronger than he had supposed her to be. She forced herself upon him, then collapsed, laughing, hot and wet and breathless within the mask. He reached across her and dropped the glass on to the table, the cigarette into an ashtray. He snared her waist and lifted her up. She was suddenly no longer playful and mischievous but tense with expectation.

  He held her rigidly above him with the respirator only inches from his face. He fumbled with the buttons of the jacket. He flicked the jacket open and pinned it under her arms. She lowered herself to meet him. He opened his mouth and sucked her breast, put his hand beneath her breast, raising it so that he could take more of it into his mouth. He curled his tongue over her nipple, felt her stiffen and shudder. He slid his hand down the curve of her stomach under the waistband of her pyjamas, going on until his fingertips touched hair. She lifted her hips to give him room, arched her back. He felt gone from himself, apart. He said nothing. He had nothing to say. He pushed her on to her feet and flung back the bedclothes.

  She glared at him through the clouded eye-piece, lifted her hands to peel off the mask. He said loudly, ‘No.’ Swinging out of bed he tugged down her pyjamas, sliding them down her long legs and saw how beautiful she was, the angular hipbones rounded, the belly smooth and rounded, her thighs sleek. She stepped out of the pyjamas and stood before him wearing nothing but the rubber gas-mask. She was, at that moment, both grotesquely ugly and grotesquely beautiful.

  Once more she tried to loosen the mask but he rose, almost lunging, from the bed, and carried her before him. She staggered, staggered again. He caught her, not gently, his arms about her waist. He backed her against the door and thrust himself against her. She opened her legs and yielded to him, seemed somehow to absorb him so that he was no longer apart but had become enveloped in a strange hard fusion that had no meaning but conquest.