‘So am I. I’ve decided to be home for Christmas.’
‘Good.’
The conversation continued in slightly stilted fits and starts until they reached Lawton Road. This was a big step over a small distance, and they both knew it. But Roy climbed out of his seat, walked round the van, and opened the door for Rosh. ‘Come on, Twinkletoes. Scene of the crime and all that. Let’s get it over with.’
Inside, he took her coat and hung it with his on the hall stand. Without a word, he walked into the kitchen and stood open-mouthed at the view. A new, bigger table covered the place where Rosh had lain, while a large refrigerator eliminated the spot where Cuttle’s life had ended. The flooring was new, as were sink, cooker, cupboards and shelves.
Rosh was behind him. ‘I thought change would be a good thing. Mr Collingford from the dye works is going to use the upstairs level at the shop for his dry-cleaning. For now, it’ll be a collection and delivery place, but he might bring machines in, and we’ll get more rent. I bought this new kitchen with the retainer he paid. Nice man, decent family. They visited me in the Women’s, you know. Brought enough flowers to open a florist shop.’
‘This is lovely,’ Roy said. ‘And when you sell this and I sell my place, we can buy somewhere with a garden for the children and the cats.’
‘All in good time. I think we need to think—’
He kissed her to stop her thinking about thinking. His right hand travelled over the nape of her neck and up into that abundance of hair. It was a hard kiss, hungry, determined; it was the embrace of a decided man. When it ended, he spoke to her. ‘The future can wait. By its very nature, it must wait. After all that’s happened, I need to get back into my stride – my limp – at my own pace. The same applies to you, but without the limp. We’ll marry when we’re ready, and I’ll have the pleasure of helping Phil’s children on their way through life. If you’ll have me. Am I enough?’
‘Oh, yes. You’re enough.’
He was ravenous in more ways than one. ‘As long as it’s not beef strong enough.’
‘Nothing so posh, I’m afraid. It’s a stew type of thing where you just throw things in and hope for a good result. But there’s cobbler on top. Like dumplings, but lighter and nicer. Shall we take our chances?’
He nodded.
Although she had set the dining-room table, they sat in the kitchen, in the very room in which he had ended Clive Cuttle’s reign of terror, commenting on the meal with its scone cobbler topping. He had finally overcome the trauma, had dismissed the nightmares and the visions.
They went across the road for coffee, Rosh carrying a pint of milk, since none had been delivered to Roy’s house for months. Eager to keep him to herself on this first occasion, she was determined to save him from her children’s joy. If Alice saw him, she would enter one of her states of rapture, yap, yap, yap, isn’t everything wonderful, and when are you getting married? But he saw them from the window, watched as they entered the hall and switched on the lights. ‘They’ve grown,’ he commented.
‘Yes, they do that. It’s a habit they develop during babyhood, and they seem unable to break it until they reach twenty or so. The bridesmaids’ clothes will have to be re-invented because …’ Because he’d been away for months, yet she could hardly say that. But Mother, being Mother, had found material in a sale and had motored on with her sewing despite the fact that no date had been fixed.
He turned. ‘But you do love me? You aren’t marrying me out of gratitude or pity?’
‘Yes and no. Yes, I love you squillions, and no, there’s no pity. Some gratitude, no pity. All right? Will I do?’
‘I’ve loved you, Roisin Allen, since you were fourteen. Perhaps even earlier. I remember being impressed because you were only a girl, but you could pick up worms and caterpillars. And you had silky hair. That such a pretty thing would lift up a beetle and count its legs was brilliant.’
‘I’m a treasure,’ she said. ‘There’s no better word for me, is there? Shall we get you back to the asylum?’
But they didn’t get the chance. Alice arrived first. ‘We saw the lamps switched on in your house.’ She stretched out her arms and claimed him. ‘I missed you. I never had a shave.’
Philly and Kieran were on their sister’s heels. They greeted him in a quieter way, but their beaming smiles said so much more.
Anna pushed her way in. ‘I came out of the bathroom, down the stairs, and there they were – gone. Completely disappeared. Can’t even answer the call of nature, can I? I trust you’re well, Roy?’
Alice wouldn’t let go.
Anna tutted. ‘Looks like the poor man’s become attached to something or other. Alice, put him down.’
The little girl frowned. ‘I haven’t picked him up. He’s too heavy for me. You know he’s too heavy.’
‘And she’s giving me the dirty looks again, Roisin.’
‘She’s a realist, Mother.’
‘Is she now? Well I wish she’d take a realistic look at the benefits of broccoli. She used to eat it, didn’t she? Now she has to have her dinner without trees, and—’ Anna turned. ‘What the blood and bone is all this?’
Rosh understood immediately. Some neighbour or other had been promised payment if he or she contacted the press. ‘Let’s get it over with,’ she suggested to her fiancé. ‘There’ll be plenty of flashes, because it’s dark, but better now, when you’re going to escape back to Whiston for a while. Come along, nine-day wonder.’
They faced and dealt with a barrage of questions, were photographed as a group, and as a couple, then had to accept more questions. When would they marry, had she healed completely, how had he been treated during his breakdown, were the children happy about their soon-to-be stepfather, what did Anna think about the hero and about her daughter’s second marriage?
When Roy was asked for details about the killing of Clive Cuttle, Rosh stepped forward. ‘Wonderful,’ she declared. ‘You finally display your true colours, and you’re about as sensitive as a box of cabbages. There’s no more to be said, but any further harassment you will pay for. We are determined to protect each other’s wellbeing, and you have already been warned about speaking to or in the presence of my children. I am tempted to say something very rude, two words about sex and travel, but my children are with me just now.’
Anna spoke up. Anna would always speak up. ‘Away with you now, you no-good pack of rats. See the doors open all down this road? Just a click of my fingers, and every one of your cameras will suffer accidental but fatal damage. So bog off.’
The rats dispersed.
Rosh watched as ten or more cars left the road. She imagined the headlines – Hero Returns to the Bosom of his New Family, Killer of a Killer Allowed Home from Mental Ward. She’d allowed the children to be photographed because it was inevitable, and she needed to control the vermin. But no more. They’d had their pound of flesh, and if they were still hungry they could feed off the bones of some other innocent souls.
‘Our wedding will be soon and in secret,’ Roy whispered into her ear. ‘Two witnesses, the kids and your mother.’ Inside, he picked one letter out of a pile created by Anna, who had been in charge of mail to the empty house. He kissed all members of his future family, led them out, and climbed into Rosh’s car. Unable to tell the children that he would be their new stepdad even sooner than they thought, he simply waved at them as the vehicle pulled away. Anna, too, needed to be kept in the dark, since she had a leaky mouth when it came to gossip. But he loved her. No one who knew Anna Riley could fail to love her. ‘Rosh?’
‘Yes, love?’
‘Remember when you were in the Women’s?’
‘I doubt I’ll ever forget it, babe.’
‘Well, there was a Tess there, Tess Compton. ‘Your mother talked to me about her. She was in for a hysterectomy.’
‘The one who looked a bit like me? Her husband was a grand chap, or so Mam said. With a limp.’
‘I see. Only your mother told me when she visited
me in Whiston that he got his at Dunkirk.’
‘Right. And?’
He swallowed. ‘I think there are three of you.’
‘Three? Three of me? How the heck did that come about?’ She parked the car and stared at him. ‘What are you talking about? I am a one-off.’
‘This letter’s from Tom.’
Rosh let out a long sigh that was almost a whistle. ‘Tess Compton’s Tom?’
‘No. Tess has a Gordon shortened to Don.’
‘With a limp?’
‘Yes, with a limp. Tom hasn’t got a limp.’
‘Well, thank goodness for some better news at last.’
Roy’s mouth twitched. ‘He’s got a Maureen instead.’
‘Oh, I am pleased.’
Roy could contain himself no longer. He burst out laughing and doubled over with the pain of it. When had he last had a good old belly laugh? With tremendous difficulty, he composed himself. ‘There are three women who look like sisters. Well, really, there are more. Only we don’t know where a lot of them are. And they might not all look like you. But another older two from the previous generation—’
‘Oh, give up, Roy. You lost me with the abbreviated Gordon and his abbreviated leg. Have you been taking your tablets?’
‘I don’t have them any more.’
‘Well, get some for me. I think I’m going to need them.’
Twelve
‘He won’t know where we are.’ Maureen’s Tom was carrying the umpteenth cardboard box into their new house. He’d passed a few remarks about always having wanted to be a dray horse, a pack mule or a slave, but nobody took any heed. Roy had been on his mind for weeks. ‘I’ll have to go and see him. I wrote when he was in Whiston Hospital and got no reply, so then I sent a letter to his home address, but we’ve moved now and there’s nobody left in any of the prefabs to—’ He stopped and surveyed the state of his son, who seemed to be legs only for the time being. ‘Seamus, put that dolly tub down before you do yourself or somebody else a mischief.’
Seamus, who had elected himself chief of an elite Martian force invading Earth, dumped his spaceship. He hadn’t banged into anything, had he? And Mam had a new Hoover twin-tub with rubber wringers, so she didn’t need the dolly and posser any more. Everything always had to be so serious. Even Reen, his married sister, was in a bad mood because of moving house. They’d waited ages for these three-in-a-row homes, and they still weren’t satisfied. Taken all round, remaining a child seemed a jolly good idea, because children were the only people capable of making the best of a situation. Imagination was what the adults lacked.
Maureen, in her oldest clothes and with a headscarf transformed into a turban, faced her husband. ‘Do you have plans to stay alive today? You and our Reen and her Jimmy have to help my mam as well. It’s three households moving all at the same time. This is a very important day for all of us. So concentrate and stop moaning. You can think about Roy tomorrow. There’s loads of stuff to carry, and some of it’s heavy.’
‘I know all about heavy lifting,’ he answered. ‘It’s called moving a mountain. It was bad enough shifting your mother’s furniture every time she wanted a change in the prefab, like about once a week.’
‘Me dad’s too old for messing about with wardrobes. We don’t want him ending up with a hernia. He’s aged a lot just lately.’
Paddy had that effect on people, Tom thought, though he kept the opinion to himself. Folk deteriorated quickly in Paddy’s company. With Maureen in a mood, Paddy in a paddy and Seamus now head-first in a tea chest, this was hardly the time for clever quips. But Roy Baxter was in all the papers, as were Roisin Allen and her children. Roy was a hero. Even before the killing of Clive Cuttle, Roy had been Tom’s hero.
‘Seamus, get out of that box before I nail a lid on it,’ Maureen snapped.
‘He saved my life as well as hers,’ Tom said, shifting a chair to one side of the fireplace. ‘And you’ve seen her photograph in the papers. You know she has to be a Riley. She’s the spitting image of—’
‘Who has to be a Riley?’ Seamus emerged from his coffin.
‘Shut up,’ chorused his parents.
‘Can I have a—‘
‘No, you can’t.’ Again, the response arrived in perfect unison. They hadn’t even waited to see what he wanted, had they? He might have needed a plaster for a cut, an aspirin for a headache, an ambulance to save his life. But he didn’t matter, because he wasn’t a chair or a box of bedlinen. He stood in the front doorway. It was an all right street, he supposed. No air raid shelter for secrets, but there again, there was no war, was there? Or was there? There wasn’t much peace, that was certain.
Moving house seemed to put everybody in a bad mood. Seamus alone was making the most of the experience. Reen kept moaning because she hadn’t enough furniture for a two-and-a-half-bedroom house with bathroom plus downstairs lav, Jimmy was fed up because Reen was moaning, Seamus’s parents were at loggerheads about photos in the papers, while Gran kept screaming at Granddad because his legs couldn’t keep up with her tongue. Nothing could keep up with Gran’s tongue. Even a huge jet engine would have its work cut out to catch up with her.
The lad went out to explore his new setting. As he passed his older sister’s house, her voice echoed. ‘I want a dining suite. That’s a dining room, so it stands to sense we should have a …’ Seamus ran away before she added anything else to her list. Some folk were never satisfied. Building was still ongoing at the other end of the street, and it all looked very interesting. There was a cement mixer. If he wore his best smile, they might let him have a bit of a go with that.
Inside, Maureen faced her beloved opponent, who was showing signs of flagging. She didn’t want the poor soul breaking down again. ‘Sweetheart, he’s a good man. What Roy Baxter did for you that day when you were so ill speaks for itself. And you know why he went to bits, because killing anybody, gangsters and serial killers included, can never create happy or even … or even acceptable memories. He followed in your footsteps, Tom. Like you, the poor beggar had no choice. He fell apart, but you’ll see him soon. For now, can we get on with this move? Even though we’re in November, I shan’t be lighting a fire till later, because this is hard, warm work.’
‘It’s certainly that, all right.’ Tom went next door to check on the elders and borrow a screwdriver while Maureen sorted out her new kitchen. He found Paddy sitting on the stairs in her hat, coat, gloves, scarf and fur-lined winter boots, the ubiquitous black shopping bag by her side. ‘You all right?’ he asked. ‘You look wrapped up ready to move into an igloo with Eskimos and a fish supper.’
She nodded. ‘Me old bones is froze stiff. Kevin’s gone for more stuff. And you can tell Maureen and Reen that we’ll have plenty of help later, because some dock workers are coming along – I’ve just now had word. But for a bit of a minute, I need to talk to you about something important.’
It was one of those hardly rare enough moments when Tom felt he should have signed the Official Secrets Act; she was about to give him information he didn’t need, didn’t want, and couldn’t pass on in some sort of attempt to share the burden. ‘Right,’ was all he managed to say. There was an almost indefinable edge to her tone, which confirmed his belief that she was about to impart knowledge he would be ordered to keep to himself. It wasn’t fair. Why him? Why not some other poor bugger for a change?
‘Tom, if I do something that you might call out of character, will you tell them I’m all right?’
‘No, I won’t do anything of the kind.’
‘But Tom, you’ve always been the one to back me up when—’
‘No. Tell your husband. I’m fed up with being your storage box. It’s not as if I got democratically elected. What am I supposed to be? Some sort of chief whip put there to keep order on the back benches? And we’re hardly a quorum, just the two of us.’
‘I can’t tell Kev.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he’d go into a purple fit with yellow spots. He wou
ld find a way of putting a stop to me, I know he would. You might all think I’m in charge, but once he puts his foot down, well …’ The last word hung in the air, and she made no attempt to add to it.
Tom, knowing full well what was on her mind, maintained his stance. ‘Then I’m with my father-in-law. If he wouldn’t want you to do whatever it is you’re going to do, then I wouldn’t want you to do it.’
She nodded, a grim smile on her lips. ‘You’re picking up on the Irish way of expressing yourself. And I know that you know what I’m talking about.’
‘I don’t.’ He did. Of course he did. Every adult in the family knew, though they never spoke about it.
‘Well, then. We’ll leave it there, shall we? See, I know you’re a grand chap. When I do what has to be done, it will be noticed. Deal with it. And don’t let me down, Tom.’
He’d forgotten what he’d come for, and had to root about in the memory department. Women were truly gifted when it came to the messing up of a fellow’s mind. You went to borrow something or other, only to return with a head filled with rubbish, and often without the article you’d gone for. ‘Screwdriver,’ he exclaimed triumphantly.
‘Same to you.’
‘Have you got one?’
‘Mantelpiece, front room, next to the clock. Why do you need it?’
Tom jerked a thumb in the direction of next door. ‘Your daughter has a screw loose.’
‘I see. I think I was already aware of that, thank you.’
‘On a cupboard door.’
Paddy chuckled. ‘Then she has more than one screw loose.’ When he turned to leave, she called after him. ‘Don’t say anything to her. Don’t tell anyone.’
He turned in the front doorway. ‘How can I tell anybody something I don’t know? Do I lead her to believe that her mother’s told me a secret and I don’t know what it is? You’ll have me as daft as the rest of you.’
Paddy shrugged. ‘Please yourself. Whatever, I’m doing it, and I’m doing it alone.’
Tom fled before she could reveal any more of her plan. Months earlier, she had announced her intentions, but she’d said nothing of late. He guessed that she’d been waiting for the move from prefab to house before embarking on her mission. That there was sense in her argument could not have been denied then; nor could it be denied now. London gangsters seldom hurt or killed women. Unless some poor soul got in the line of fire, no female would be hurt. Even among the bad boys, there existed a code of sorts.
The Liverpool Trilogy Page 105