Once Upon a Time in England

by Helen Walsh

  ‘Go on then, off you go.’ Vincent smiled at his little sister. A second later he saw her burst out through the porch door. She went into a huddle with the boys, disappeared down the side of the house and emerged a moment later, pedalling madly on her tiny kid’s bicycle, chin jutting forward, elbows flaring as she zipped in and out of the bigger bikes.

  Vincent watched them go. Ellie’s legs were already too long for the bike, and she rode with her knees almost knocking the handlebars as she pushed to the front of the group. Vincent smiled to himself, yet the sight of them heading off like the Famous Five on some big adventure planted a little pip of envy deep within. He hopped down from the window sill and picked up his pen again.

  Sheila and Robbie were downstairs in the kitchen.

  ‘What’d you like for your tea, Robert?’

  That sealed it. She’d called him by his full name – her last throw of the dice, half a warning shot across the bows, half a plea for moderation. But he was having none of it. ‘Why d’you ask? There’s not much chance of me getting it.’

  He wanted a fight. She knew he wanted a fight, and she wasn’t giving it to him. Not over Vincent. She looked at Robbie’s face, twisted with self-pity and disgust. Again, she tried to soothe the situation. ‘Ask. Who knows …’

  Robbie stood and, slowly, very deliberately, padded across to Sheila. There was sadness in his eyes. He fixed his gaze on her – his hurt, baffled, angry gaze – and took hold of her wrists.

  ‘Ouch! Robbie – there’s no need to squeeze so tight!’

  She was by no means a silent victim in these showdowns – when pressed she could give as good as she got, but Sheila knew the limits of Robbie’s temper. She was quick to work out what was eating him, quick to distinguish between the real killer rows and those that could be easily mitigated. Robbie, on the other hand, was impossible. Once he’d lost control, there was nothing he wouldn’t say, no incident he wouldn’t dredge up from the past, no matter how long forgotten. He’d been spoiling for this. Almost from the moment he and Ellie came back from the car showroom two weeks ago, he’d been walking around under his own black nimbus, and today it was ready to burst. Eyes bubbling with self-righteous ire, she knew there was no going back.

  ‘What d’you think, She? What do you think? That’s what I’m asking you. Do you think it’s right that there’s lads Vincent’s age knocking for his little sister instead of him? Out on bikes, out climbing trees, out playing football!’

  ‘Vincent doesn’t like football.’

  She might as well have produced photographs of Vincent in a ballerina’s tutu, for the effect her words had upon her husband. Enraged, he crashed his fist onto the kitchen table. ‘Jesus! I don’t know what you think you’re doing to him, She, but it’s certainly not mothering. You’re turning him into a right Mary Ellen, and I’ll tell you another thing for nothing. He’s going to get battered! Believe you me, Sheila – this might be suburbia but it’s still fucking Warrington.’

  ‘Robert!’

  ‘No! I know this place. It’s going to be hard enough for the lad going on to high school next year the … the … the way he is, right?’ He was exhausted by his own anger, breathing deep to regulate his message. ‘Right?’

  She nodded, heartbroken.

  He took her wrist again – just one this time, and gentler. ‘But Sheila, darlin’, if he doesn’t get his nose out them books and start acting like a lad, he’s gonna get the shit kicked out of him—’

  A creak on the landing floorboards, and the crash of Vincent’s bedroom door slamming prevented either of them from saying more. Sheila grazed Robbie’s face with her big, moist eyes, shook her head and went to console her son.

  Six

  The school holidays had finally come to an end. Robbie sat there, the sounds of the kids getting ready for school upstairs throttling his guts with dread. He closed his eyes and willed himself to the point in the next hour or so when, duty done, Ellie safely seen into school to start her new life, he could get on with his own stagnating one. But there was a treat in store – one little oasis he’d stumbled upon, a buffer for Robbie between now and then. He’d clock in, swerve the canteen ritual, the syrupy tea, the leery chat and let himself up onto the roof of the Metso plant to lap up the lands of his youth. The weather was still glorious, and every day of the last week’s heatwave he’d taken himself up there first thing and sat back over a blissful smoke before the horn sounded, tracing the pathways of his life. On a day like this, you could see it all; see Orford, see the houses he grew up in, see the town centre where he’d gotten into that senseless brawl that had delivered him to Warrington General, to Sheila. He could see the Irish Club and, if he stood on his tiptoes, he could mark out the route he’d taken back that fateful night – the night of Dickie Vaughan. But in this balmy Indian summer, he couldn’t stay too down about much for too long. It was just life. It was the same for everyone. Every ginnel, every towpath, every little shortcut behind every estate was taking someone somewhere, or taking them back again. He’d found himself thinking about it more and more.

  Last night, vaguely drunk, he’d started talking himself out of Ellie’s first day at St Mary’s. Once again, he fell back on the rationale he’d used to duck out of Vincent’s big day – that he’d be the only parent there in overalls, the only labourer among them. Not that he was bothered about that – fuck them, to be honest – it was more about responsible parenting. All it would take was for one of those poker-faced Belindas in their Barbour jackets to make some quip over dinner about Robbie Fitzgerald’s work suit and Ellie and Vincent’s lives would be made hell. He was preoccupied with this – his children, their colour, the lives they’d lead. A lot of the time he’d brush it off, revel in Ellie’s button-nosed cuteness. But a lot of the time, too, he’d sit back and curse himself for his vanity, for his irresponsibility in bringing them about in the first place, and bringing them here.

  Tipsy on his two pints after work, he’d raised his concerns again with She. Was he placing Ellie in the firing line, turning up at school in his factory overalls? With Vincent, it was tough – he was browner, he wore glasses, he hated rough games; Vincent couldn’t really help himself. But Ellie could more than look after herself. She was a fighter. She was a winner. Wouldn’t he be doing her down by turning up outside that school with all its pretensions to being the area’s ‘prep school without fees’, and opening her up to ridicule?

  But this time Sheila was having none of it. She’d been way too lenient last time, even buying into his paranoia herself – when the other mothers had asked what line of work her husband was in, she’d said, ‘Chemicals.’

  So it had been assumed, for a while, that Robbie was some kind of a research lab technician. But they’d lived in Hayes Close for three years now, and Robbie’s background was no longer a secret. Until the Lada came along the neighbours saw that he went to work on his bike in overalls, butty box strapped to the back, yet still the invites to fondues and fancy-dress parties dropped through the door. He’d shortened her name and banished all trace of Asian exoticism to help her assimilate. Yet, if anyone risked ostracising the Fitzgeralds it was her husband. So when he’d started into his martyred spiel last night, she simply coshed him with a look. There were no extenuating circumstances, no reason whatsoever why he should not chaperone his little girl to her very first day at Big School. He’d be walking his daughter up that school path with all the other parents, and that was the end of that.

  As they approached the school gates, Ellie broke free from her dad’s hand and seamlessly insinuated herself into the surge of small people gravitating towards the school gates. Instinctively, Vincent went to follow, but found himself tugged back.

  ‘Keep an eye on her, Vincent lad, will you?’ Robbie gave his shoulder a decisive little squeeze.

  Vincent nodded, thrilled then dejected by the shock of his dad’s touch – excited by the magic of the connection and the promise of bonding it brought, but crushed by its rareness and t
he reality of his father’s remoteness towards him. But as he watched his sister’s tiny frame blazing a trail through her new buddies, he found himself smiling. Who could blame his father for loving Ellie so much? Not Vincent.

  He wrestled his way through the mêlée and caught up with her. He had a strong sense that things would be different for Ellie, that she wouldn’t have to go through the same rituals, the baptism of fire that he’d endured. Ellie reminded him of one of those characters in the cartoons she watched, swaggering blithely down the street while bombs exploded all around her. He wondered if it was luck or fate, or if she simply possessed what Jane Austen called ‘savoir-faire’ and his dad called nous. Instinctively, she always knew the right thing to say or do, as though there were some inner amulet steering her helm. Like when the townies came over from across the locks and demanded a stake in her trick-or-treat spoils, she knew exactly what to say, and what savage accent to employ in order to send the young thugs on their way. And then there was the absolute precision with which she could read their father. She seemed able to sense out each and every shifting inflection of his moods. Effortlessly, she knew when would be a good time to ask him for new trainers or football boots. Innately, she seemed to understand his silences, his voids, though she hadn’t yet cultivated the vocabulary to explain them to her brother. He on the other hand possessed none of this nous. He was forever misreading his father. The townies from the nearby estates terrified Vincent, and some of them were two years younger than he was. One time, galvanised by his sister’s battle stories, he told them to piss off when they hustled him for money outside the library. He drew himself up, looked them flush in the eye and snarled his lip, just like Ellie. But as with every big decision he’d ever made it had been a duff one. He came away with a bust lip.

  Still, he felt the heavy grind of guilt wrench at him as he watched her waif-like frame struggle with the bulk of his old school bag, its broad straps winging out like Sue Ellen’s shoulder pads. If the rucksack overwhelmed his own slight frame then it engulfed his sister. But palming the bag off onto Ellie had been a necessary means of self-preservation. For four years it had offered itself up as a target, a taunt, exhorting others to jerk it downwards and pull the Paki to the floor. The bag had been a vivid symbol of Vincent’s peculiarity. It was the opposite of cool – bulky, practical, unwieldly. He’d spied it in the window of the Army & Navy store and become smitten with its pockets and zips and military allure. It had been another duff choice.

  Towards the end of last term, he’d delicately planted the idea in his mum’s head that he’d be needing a new bag for next year – a Le Coq Sportif bag, like the hard lads had. Harrassed at the time, Sheila made a tentative promise to take him down to Warrington market, but back-pedalled when she saw the military kit bag was still as good as new. And so it was onto his contingency plan. Over the course of the summer holidays, he set about soft-selling it to Ellie, duping her into believing that the entire school footie team favoured this exact model. He goaded her into coveting it that little bit more by refusing to part with it, come what may. His chicanery paid off. By the end of the holidays, Ellie was threatening to leave home if Mum didn’t make Vincent give her the ‘sojer’s bag’.

  Vincent had traipsed around the market with Sheila, knowing exactly what he wanted but, of necessity, having to go through the ritual of considering and rejecting his mother’s cheaper options. She was enjoying herself, dragging the day out, lingering at every single market stall and fingering dresses, curtain fabric, towels and wall clocks she had no intention of buying. Vincent loitered by her side, loyally offering an opinion on every gaudy bathrobe, every useless kitchen gadget, hoping no one he knew was down the next aisle. Eventually they located the right stall and he opted for a small, black Le Coq Sportif sports bag, identical to those that littered the corridors and cloakrooms of St Mary’s. He got what he wanted – and hated it from the moment he got it home. There were no grooves to slot his pens in for a start, no inner labyrinth of pockets and pouches to store his secrets. But what he hated most about this slight, impractical bag was the way it demanded to be carried. It had two stout handles, located in such a way that the bag could only be suspended from one hand, or slung awkwardly across a shoulder. Unlike his rucksack, it allowed no symmetrical distribution of its weight and, as a consequence, it upset the rhythm of his feet and the rhythm of his thoughts. Yet as he scurried after Ellie, Vincent believed he’d made the right decision. He felt a strange surge of optimism as he mingled with the other kids, dangling his bag so they’d see that he had the right badge, too. He straightened his neck out from the hunch of his shoulders and stood tall. Maybe, just maybe this year would be different.

  *

  Standing shoulder to shoulder with Sheila, Robbie watched his small girl scudding a dauntless passage through the sweep of bodies, her big bag bobbing her head in the tide. His son scuffed along behind her, his uneven gait counterpointing with her easy, agile rhythm. Robbie’s love for Vincent was intense, yet it always came with a sense of tragedy. Often, it felt like he was loving someone who could not be loved. There went his son. There, too, went Ellie, making her way down the path, eyes dancing. Robbie’s tummy sank with the deadweight of some nameless emotion. As though she knew, Ellie turned for a second and smote him with her gap-toothed grin. Robbie held up a hand and tried to wave. It was like he was waving goodbye to something other than his little girl – something huge and impossible to comprehend. The school bell pealed out across the yard and with its shrill finality, something ended, and something new began.

  As Ellie’s bob swished out of sight, Robbie became aware of the other parents thronging near the railings in mawkish clumps, their clipped accents making him self-conscious once more. How he despised them – the fathers rigged out in cheap suits and ties, their wives in their prissy Thatcher outfits, all sensible, matronly skirts at the age of twenty-nine and not a decent pair of calves between them. Robbie might well be the only man there in overalls, but at least his wife had a waistline to be proud of.

  He turned and caught a couple of dads off guard admiring Sheila’s slender silhouette, accentuated by her tight denims. He recognised their faces, or thought he did – they all looked the same. Found out, they cowed and looked away immediately, that overconfident glow draining from their faces in a sobering flush of self-knowledge. They didn’t want to be making eye contact, not with a man like Fitzgerald.

  Robbie, too, felt uncomfortable and little flickers of chagrin licked at his nape. He’d long been aware of the effect he had on strangers. Even when he was happy, his face couldn’t help displaying a certain ferocity. As a teenager, that look, that glowering, menacing, half-sneer had often won him scraps without a single punch being thrown. But since moving to Thelwall, that was currency he didn’t want to own, let alone use. It was another stigma, one more telltale tic that gave away his past, his background. Robbie had come to despise the savage warning signs his uneven dial sent out. There was something about the alignment between his unblinking, glassy left eye and his pulpy boxer’s nose that said: ‘Beware. Hard Man.’ And he could have been, had he not had music in his soul. The truth was that Robbie Fitzgerald was a poet ruffian, a soul man who looked hard. He could grow his hair long, part it this way or that, but there was nothing he could do about it: other men didn’t want to look him in the eye.

  The other parents – those who’d had to go right up to the gates with their children – were now streaming back down the path towards them. Robbie was keen to get away, but Sheila stood on her tiptoes and continued waving fiercely at the backs of Vincent and Ellie’s heads.

  ‘They’ve gone, She. Come on.’

  A couple of fathers from their street nodded over to him. He saw his face perfectly reflected in the nervous wells of their eyes. He forced his shoulders down into a slouch and tried to look easy, normal, like any other dad, when he saw him. Vernon Cohen. Slowly, his boss was coming down the path towards him. Rooted to the spot, he caught Robbie�
��s eye and beamed before Robbie had a chance to make his getaway.

  When Robbie started work on the Metso plant fifteen years ago, Vernon Cohen was already a legend – a boss serving his time on the shop floor. His great-grandfather built Crossfields in the 1880s, and the plant had stayed in the Cohen family ever since. Vernon was something of an enlightened despot, generally held in esteem by the shop stewards. His token sop to being management – his tie – was worn loose, top button undone. He was, in every sense, A Good Bloke. Under his aegis, the factory’s working conditions improved above and beyond TUC guidelines. Cohen lifted the bar on how many times workers could leave their line to go to the toilet, he gave all workers and their immediate families a private health care plan and, crucially for a chemical plant like theirs, installed state of the art ventilation systems. Most important of all, he acknowledged the monetary worth of overtime. Up until Cohen’s regime, overtime was time and a half, Sundays and bank holidays only. Crossfields was a 24-hour, 365-day-a-year, perpetual productivity site, but the night shift and the Saturday had always been treated as ‘regular’ pay days. Vernon Cohen changed all that, unbidden. The night shift went time and a half, Saturdays were double pay and Sundays and bank holidays paid at three times the regular rate.

  Yet Robbie couldn’t warm to the man. It was typical of him that, with all the wealth he had, he should send his girls here, when he could well afford any one of the Cheshire prep schools that were just as near to his Stockton Heath mansion. Somehow, it made a fit with his egalitarian self-image. And he made Robbie nervous, too. Too many times over the years Robbie had found himself in the urinals, or crossing the factory quadrangle, when there was Cohen, almost gurning he was smiling so hard, ready with some matey quip about Dalglish, or Elsie Tanner or the latest Bond girl in the news. There was something over-eager, something forced and almost desperate about his chuminess that made Robbie both anxious and equally eager to take his leave.