Bernard released her hand and reached for the door handle.
‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Please, Daddy, wait.’
He turned to face her, his eyebrows raised. ‘Cold feet?’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Oh, no.’
‘What then?’
She brushed aside the veil and, reaching up, kissed him.
‘Just that,’ she said, then let him help her from the motorcar and escort her, proudly, up the steps to the church.
* * *
She lied only to save face, of course.
‘My God!’ Babs said. ‘You mean he just grabbed the kids an’ skipped? I’d kill Jackie if he did somethin’ like that to me.’
‘Dominic did not just skip. We discussed it,’ Polly said, ‘and I agreed it would be safer for the children to be abroad than trapped here under a rain of German bombs.’
‘Did Dominic have to clear out?’
‘No, but it seemed the sensible thing to do, to go with the children.’
‘Go where?’ said Babs.
‘New York,’ said Polly, without hesitation.
‘I thought his old man lived in Philadelphia.’
‘He isn’t staying with his father, or his brother. I doubt if they’d make him welcome even at this difficult time.’
‘An’ here I was thinkin’ all Eye-ties were one big happy family,’ Babs said. ‘Will you be goin’ to join them?’
Polly shook her head. ‘Someone has to stay and look after our interests.’
‘What’s Dom gonna do for money?’ Babs said.
‘He has funds,’ said Polly. ‘He sold most of our assets.’
‘Planned it all in advance, eh? Wish my Jackie could be more like him sometimes,’ Babs said. ‘What happened to Patricia?’
‘Patricia has been paid off,’ said Polly.
It was easy to lie, to elaborate and embellish, hide that which she did not wish to reveal, even to herself. Had she learned the trick from Dominic or had it been lurking in her genes all along? She’d always thought of herself as her mother’s daughter: now she was not so sure. Mammy had been ruthless when she’d had to be but there was a softness in her mother that Polly did not possess. She recalled her lost loves, young men she had known before Dominic swept her off her feet, remembered them without sentiment, wondered where they were now and what they had made of themselves, if they were happy, happier than she was.
‘Who paid Patricia off?’ Babs said. ‘You?’
‘Dominic.’
Easy, all too easy to write your own version of events, for the past was strangely malleable when you got right down to it. Lies told to her sister were not malicious or damaging, were merely intended to deceive. She had to save something from the debacle, something apart from the responsibilities that Dominic had thrust upon her, something that was uniquely her own.
‘Well,’ Babs said, ‘I suppose Tony will help out?’
Polly pressed her lips together. ‘Tony? No, no, no. He’s gone too.’
‘Aw, really! Babs’s eyebrows arched. ‘Gone with Dom, has he? Didn’t want to be left behind?’
‘I don’t know where Tony is,’ Polly said, trusting that her tone would imply that she didn’t much care. ‘I don’t need his, or anyone’s, help.’
‘Not even mine?’ said Babs.
Polly gave no answer.
Babs had sense enough not to persist. She laughed. ‘Bloody hell, won’t be a guy left if this goes on. Dominic, Dennis, your Tony, the old man. Billy too. Billy’s had his call-up papers. Jackie’ll be back in the pit in his overalls come Monday, and he ain’t gonna like that one bit.’
‘You mean you’ll continue to run the garage.’
‘Salon,’ Babs said. ‘Aw hell – garage. Yeah, we’ll stay open as long as we can. I’ll take over the book-keeping an’ Jackie’ll do the repairs. Spot of hard graft’ll do the bugger no harm an’ I’ll be on the premises to crack the whip. I take it,’ she paused, ‘I take it we won’t be needin’ to give you a cut any longer?’
‘No, your debt’s cancelled,’ Polly said.
‘Is that you speakin’, or Dominic?’
‘Me,’ Polly said, firmly. ‘I make all the decisions now.’
‘I see,’ Babs said. ‘You really are gonna go it alone, aren’t you?’
‘You bet I am,’ said Polly.
* * *
There was no mystery as to where Dominic had taken them. He had left a letter with Carfin Hughes which the lawyer delivered into Polly’s hand less than twelve hours after Dominic’s departure.
By then she had been to Tony’s apartment in Riverside and had found it locked. She’d gone at once to the tenement where Tony’s parents lived and had learned from them that Tony had left the country. His graceless old father approved; he didn’t want to see Tony interned or, worse, forced to fight on a side that was doomed to defeat. Polly left the Lombards strengthened by resentment, and returned home to keep her appointment with Carfin Hughes.
Dominic’s letter contained no mention of Tony, Penny Weston or for that matter of Patricia. Polly allowed Hughes to console her, to tell her it was all for the best and that it surely wouldn’t be long before war started and, God willing, war ended and Dominic and her children would be able to return to Glasgow. He watched Polly read the letter, trying to gauge by her reactions just how much support she would require in the difficult months ahead and just how far he might push her. She seemed calm enough, well in control of herself. She even had the temerity to indicate that she’d agreed to Dominic taking the children abroad and said that she would far rather have them with their father in the United States of America than evacuated to some remote corner of Scotland.
Soon after Hughes left, Polly drank a single gin-and-tonic and, steeling herself, went downstairs to interrogate Mrs O’Shea about her part in the deception.
Mrs O’Shea would have none of it: her friend Patricia was only concerned with the children and had no designs on Mr Manone, Cook declared indignantly. Polly could tell by the woman’s manner that Leah and she, Patricia too for that matter, had all been well aware what had been going on upstairs when Mr Lombard had dropped in for tea.
That night, her first alone, Polly cried herself to sleep.
She missed Dominic more than she missed the children, missed Tony most of all. She was haunted by a sense of failure, of finality, like a great weight pressing upon her. She wept, and whimpered apologies to the empty wardrobe and vacant chairs then, just as dawn light stained the curtains, curled up on top of the eiderdown and fell into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
Leah did not turn up for work next morning; Polly never saw the girl again.
Mrs O’Shea also handed in her notice, one week, as stipulated by the terms of her employment. Polly accepted without hesitation. The Irish woman’s departure would remove the last of her guilt, the last lingering shreds of conscience. Carfin Hughes would find her another housekeeper, some efficient widow or retired domestic who would take over management of the household, a task rendered all the easier by the absence of children.
Polly was not in total control of herself, however, not yet. She was tempted to drink herself into oblivion and for that reason hurried out of the house and went walking, all alone. She walked twice around the park and then out into the streets, striding on though her calves hurt and her shoes chafed and she felt as if her heart would break at the loss of all the good things Dominic had given her; why, she wondered, had it not been enough?
As she limped back through the rain to the empty house, though, she began to construct the lies that would protect her, lies that would in time become truth, to alter the reality of her situation so that she was no longer an abandoned wife or an adulteress but a woman ennobled by her own virtues, martyr to circumstance and the selfishness of men.
By the time she felt strong enough to admit to her mother and sisters that Dominic had left her, a postcard arrived from Southampton. It depicted an ocean-going liner with a cheering crowd
on the rail and a flutter of bouquets and bunting. Three laborious lines of print in blunt pencil expressed her son’s excitement at the voyage that lay ahead. He signed himself ‘Yours Sincerly, Stuart,’ a piece of copybook formality that made Polly smile.
Her children might no longer be with her but she hadn’t lost them entirely and she was tempted to believe that they would come back one day stronger and more mature – more interesting too – for their experiences.
In the course of that warm, unpredictable summer Polly received many postcards and letters from her children, prosaic little essays composed no doubt at Dominic’s insistence. Only one communication came from her husband. In a brief transatlantic telephone call he informed her that he had rented a family house on Staten Island, a big clapboard house with spectacular views over the Hudson. He had brought his aunt Teresa over from Rome to housekeep and the children were settling down remarkably well and would go to the local school at the start of the fall term.
Polly asked after Patricia.
Dominic told her that Patricia was well, and in love with America.
He did not enquire about the state of the business which did not surprise her for she was sure that he was receiving regular reports from Carfin Hughes. It was odd hearing his voice, though, so thinned and roughened by a transatlantic cable that he no longer sounded like Dominic, like her husband.
She did not have the gall to ask about Tony.
Day and daily she waited to hear from Tony, to receive a telephone call, a letter, some scrap of information to assure her that only necessity had driven him from her and that she was absolved from blame. From Tony, though, there was nothing, only silence – and that silence was her punishment.
* * *
Five days after her sister’s wedding, Polly called Hughes to a meeting in the office in Central Warehouse. So far the lawyer had been generous with his time. He was polite and courteous, a man of good breeding, though he was never less than punctilious in posting the itemised bills for his services. He had even charged her for advertisements in the Glasgow Herald, though they had failed to turn up a satisfactory housekeeper.
Polly was inclined to take up Babs’s suggestion that Miss Dawlish, the clerk from the garage, might fill the bill, for the Hallops were finding it more and more difficult to balance the books and might soon have to let the clerk go. Miss Dawlish was interested in becoming Polly’s housekeeper and had assured Babs that she was a good plain cook and had looked after her ageing father long enough to know how to manage a household. Polly had too many other things on her mind to rush to an immediate decision on a mere domestic matter, however, for she had received a telephone call from an unexpected quarter, a call that demanded not just her attention but guile and forethought too.
Carfin Hughes arrived promptly at half-past four o’clock. He looked a shade more harassed than usual for he had been presenting a court case that had dragged on to the point where his punctuality was challenged. It was also hot and smelly on Clydeside and the cab-driver had been garrulous and had shouted the odds about what he would do to Hitler if he ever got his hands on him.
Hughes spent a good five minutes in the washroom, carefully removing all traces of sweat from his brow, before he ascended to the office on the upper floor.
Victor Shadwell was already present. He was seated before the desk, facing into the glare of sunlight.
Shipyards and docks seemed awfully far off in the motionless haze that overhung the river, and the river itself had the listless viscosity of mud so low and sluggish had the water become.
‘I would like to point out, Polly, that I do not usually make house calls,’ Carfin Hughes began, not testily, ‘not even warehouse calls.’
‘She’s had an offer, Fin,’ Victor Shadwell said.
‘An offer?’ Hughes said. ‘What sort of an offer?’
‘For the warehouse,’ Polly said.
‘Lease or purchase?’
‘Purchase.’
‘From whom did this offer come, and why was it not made through me?’
‘It wasn’t made through you, Fin, because the gentleman who made the offer believes that I am a softer touch,’ said Polly.
‘Who is this “gentleman”?’
‘John Flint.’
‘Flint!’ Hughes exclaimed. ‘My God! That villain!’
‘Is he?’ Polly said. ‘Is he any more of a villain than any of us? He was investigated recently, as you no doubt recall, and in exchange for his co-operation all charges against him were dropped.’
‘I cannot say about that,’ said Hughes.
‘Did you not represent him in the hearing?’ said Polly.
‘It wasn’t a hearing,’ Hughes said.
‘Negotiation then,’ said Polly.
‘I – I was present, yes, during the interviews.’
‘Would it be straining confidentiality too far to enquire if Johnny Flint is your client? Polly said.
‘I am not his legal representative.’
‘Then why were you present at the interviews?’ Victor Shadwell said.
He wore a light linen suit and had a Panama hat upturned on his lap. He was so desiccated and wispy now that he appeared to be hardly there at all.
Carfin Hughes was not deceived. ‘I was brought in, invited.’
‘By whom? By Johnny?’ Polly asked.
She too looked slight, almost frail in the glare from the window. The glass had been masked with a lattice of brown sticky tape but the sunlight was strong enough to cast shadows on the floor and desk. In the bright light, the woman seemed to be little more than a voice, a quiet, decisive, almost inflexionless voice that unfortunately reminded him of Dominic Manone.
Hughes shifted the position of his chair and brought Polly into view again. She was prettier than ever in a summer dress, make-up perfect, hair cut short and styled to show off the shape of her face; not for the first time he felt a tug of desire, a perverse longing to strip away the lady-like trappings and reveal the tart from the Gorbals that Polly Conway Manone had been before Dominic got his hands on her.
‘I was brought in by Flint’s solicitor,’ Hughes explained. ‘Be that as it may, tell me about this offer Flint’s made for the warehouse. I mean to say, what can a fellow like Flint possibly want with a warehouse?’
‘We were hoping,’ Victor Shadwell said, ‘that you would tell us.’
‘I?’ Hughes said, ungrammatically. ‘I? What makes you suppose that I would be au fait with some bookmaker’s underhand schemes?’
‘Is it underhand, Fin?’ Polly said. ‘On the surface at least, it seems to be perfectly legitimate. Johnny hopes to purchase the Central Warehouse as a going concern on behalf of the Lincoln Stephens Small Arms company who, not unsurprisingly, are obliged to expand to cope with massive government orders.’
‘A factory?’ said Hughes.
‘No, a warehouse,’ Polly said, ‘to stock stores and supplies for their main factory at Corkerhill.’
‘Did Flint tell you all this?’ Carfin Hughes said.
‘Absolutely,’ Polly said. ‘There seems to be some urgency in the matter and a decision and an agreement on price have to be reached within the next few days. He suggested that I consult you as soon as possible.’
‘Flint told you to consult me?’
‘Oh, come on, Fin,’ Polly said. ‘Just because I’m female and new to this game doesn’t mean to say that I can’t smell a rat in all of this? Johnny Flint’s connection with a long-established firm like Lincoln Stephens is tenuous at best. Dominic has no stake in the company, at least none that Victor knows about.’
‘None,’ Victor Shadwell said. ‘And I would know, you know.’
‘But you do, Fin,’ said Polly. ‘You do have a stake in the Lincoln Stephens.’
‘I emphatically deny that to be the case.’
‘What therefore would you advise me to do, Mr Hughes?’ said Polly. ‘Submit to a first offer for the property, take what Flint offers?’
‘In six month
s the property will have no value whatsoever. It’s situated in the midst of the most productive shipbuilding yards in Britain, a fact that will not have escaped notice. There’s little or no imported stock arriving from Italy. I can tell you that Dominic was only too well aware that the warehouse would soon be no more than an empty shell.’
‘Perhaps,’ Polly said. ‘But I’m not, I’m no empty shell, Fin. And you haven’t answered my question yet.’
‘Yes, Fin,’ said Victor Shadwell, ‘please do answer her question.’
‘I would advise you to take Flint’s offer.’
‘Sell at any price?’ said Polly.
‘Yes.’
Polly wished that her sister had been here. Babs wouldn’t have been so lady-like, so polite. Babs would have given the not-so-old devil a tongue-lashing.
‘The building’s in sound condition,’ Polly said. ‘All the floors are equipped to carry non-combustible small-wares of whatever description and the location is ideal for a company that needs ready access to the docks. As for air raids – well, if the yards go up in flames then half of Glasgow goes with them.’
‘Who told you that?’ said Carfin Hughes.
‘Nobody told me,’ Polly said. ‘I looked, and saw for myself.’
‘I suppose,’ Hughes said, ‘you’re going to be stubborn and let a prime asset go to waste rather than get what you can for it before it’s too late.’
‘On the contrary,’ Polly said, ‘I’m perfectly prepared to talk terms.’
‘With John Flint?’
‘With you, Fin,’ Victor Shadwell said. ‘She means with you.’
‘I’m not empowered to…’
‘You’re a registered stock-holder in Lincoln Stephens, are you not?’ Polly said. ‘Victor was kind enough to check the records. John Flint is nothing but a front, put in by you to broker the sale, so that on your advice I’d sell the place below its actual worth. I wonder what the Law Society would have to say if told them what you’re up to?’
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