by Maureen Lee
‘Well, if you don’t cut me hair, it doesn’t look like anyone else will.’ Bernadette seized a gown and tied it around her neck. ‘I just want an inch off. Anyroad, Al, you’ve got the knack. You couldn’t do it better if you were properly trained. I only came ’cos it’s Christmas and I was expecting mince pies and a glass of sherry. To be sadly disappointed,’ she added in a loud voice in Myrtle’s direction, ‘in regard to the sherry.’
Alice giggled. ‘Sit down, luv. An inch you said?’
‘One inch. A fraction shorter, a fraction longer, and I’ll complain to the management.’
‘You’ll be lucky.’ Alice attacked Bernadette’s smooth fair hair, draped over one eye like Veronica Lake, with the scissors. ‘Are you looking forward to tonight?’
Bernadette grinned. ‘Ever so much. I’ve always liked Roy McBride. He works in Accounts. I was thrilled to pieces when he asked me out – and to a dinner dance on Christmas Eve!’
‘I hope you have a lovely time.’ Alice placed her hands on her friend’s shoulders and they stared at each other in the mirror. ‘Don’t be too disappointed if he turns out like some of the others, will you, luv?’
‘Like most of the others, you mean. All I want is company, all they want is . . . well, I can’t think of a polite word for it. Men seem to think a young widow is game for anything.’ Her usually cheerful face grew sober. ‘Oh, Al, I don’t half wish Bob hadn’t been killed. I feel guilty going out with other men. I get so lonely, but not lonely enough to jump into bed with every man I meet. If only we’d had kids. At least they’d make me feel wanted.’
‘I know, luv,’ Alice said gently.
‘We kept putting them off, kids, until we got a house. We didn’t want to start a family while we were still in rooms. Then the war started, Bob was killed, and it’s been horrible ever since. And I’m still living in the same rooms.’
Alice squeezed her shoulders. ‘Don’t forget, you’re welcome round ours tomorrer if you feel like a jangle. Don’t be put off ’cos it’s Christmas Day.’
‘I’m going to me mam’s, Al, but thanks all the same.’ Bernadette reached up and touched Alice’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, luv, for being such a moan. You’ve got enough problems of your own these days, what with John the way he is. It’s just that you’re the only person I’ve got to talk to.’
‘Don’t you dare apologise, Bernadette Moynihan. You’re the only person I’ve told about John. Today was your turn for a moan. Next time it’ll be mine.’
The final customer of the day arrived; Mrs O’Leary, with her ten-year-old daughter, Daisy, who was in Maeve’s class at school and whose long, auburn ringlets were in need of a good trim. By now, Myrtle was fast asleep and snoring.
‘Would you like me to do it?’ an embarrassed Alice offered. ‘I won’t be long with Bernie.’
‘Well, I haven’t got much choice, have I?’ Mrs O’Leary laughed. ‘At least you’ll probably cut it level both sides. Myrtle’s usually well out. I sometimes wonder why we come. I suppose it’s because it’s so convenient, right at the end of the street, but I think I’ll give that place in Marsh Lane a try. Each time we come Myrtle’s worse than the time before. And it’s not just the drink. She’s every bit as useless if she’s sober. If it weren’t for you, Alice, this place would have closed down years ago.’
‘Hear, hear,’ cried Bernadette. ‘It’s Al who keeps it going.’
Alice blushed, but she had a feeling of dread. If Myrtle’s closed, what would she do? She’d started four years ago, just giving a hand: sweeping up, wiping down, putting women under the dryers, taking them out again, washing hair, fetching towels, putting on gowns. Lately, with Myrtle going seriously downhill in more ways than one, she’d been taking on more and more responsibility. It was impossible to work in a hairdresser’s for so long without learning how it was done. Alice was quite capable of giving a shampoo and set, a Marcel or Eugene wave, a perm – the new method was so much simpler than having to plug in every curler separately, a procedure that took all of four hours – and she seemed to have a knack with scissors. It was just a question of holding them right.
She only lived in the next street. It was easy to pop home when business was slack to make the girls their tea, keep an eye on them during the holidays. She usually brought Cormac with her. An angel of a child, he’d been quite happy to lie in his pram in the kitchen, play on the pavement outside when he got older, or sit in the corner, drawing, on the days it rained. But it wasn’t just the convenience, or the extra money, useful though it was. Nowadays the hairdresser’s provided an escape from the tragedy her life had become since last May. For most people the end of the worst war the world had ever known was a joyful occasion, a reason to celebrate. For the Laceys it had been a nightmare.
Myrtle’s was an entirely different world: a bright, cosy, highly dramatic little world behind thick lace curtains and steamed-up windows, quite separate from the one outside. There was always something to laugh about, always a choice piece of gossip doing the rounds. The women had sorted out the war between them – it would probably have ended sooner had Winston Churchill been privy to the sound advice of Myrtle Rimmer’s customers.
Most women were willing, even anxious, to open up their hearts to their hairdresser. There were some very respectable men in Bootle who’d have a fit if they knew the things Alice had been told about them. She never repeated anything, not even to Bernie.
Bernadette waited until Alice had cut Daisy O’Leary’s ringlets so they were level both sides and Mrs O’Leary pronounced herself satisfied. She wished them Merry Christmas and departed.
Alice locked the door, turned the ‘Open’ sign to ‘Closed’ and between them the two women half carried, half dragged the proprietor to her flat upstairs and laid her on the bed.
‘Jaysus,’ Bernadette gasped. ‘It don’t half pong in here. She’s not fit to live on her own, Al, let alone run a hairdresser’s.’
The bed was unmade, the curtains still drawn. Alice covered her employer with several dirty blankets and regarded her worriedly. ‘I’ll pop round tomorrer after dinner, like. See if she’s all right. She said something about going to a friend’s for tea.’
‘Has she got any relatives?’ Bernadette asked.
‘There’s a daughter somewhere. Southampton, I think. Myrtle’s husband died ages ago.’ She heard someone try the salon door, but ignored it. There was a notice announcing they closed at four.
They returned downstairs. After Bernadette had gone, Alice brushed the floor again, gave it a cursory going over with a wet mop, wiped surfaces, polished mirrors, straightened chairs, arranged the three dryers at the same angle and tied the dirty towels in a bundle ready to go to the laundry when the salon reopened after Christmas. She glanced around to see if there was anything she’d missed. Well, the lace curtain could do with mending, not to mention a good wash, the walls were badly in need of a lick of paint, and the oilcloth should be replaced before a customer caught her heel in one of the numerous frayed holes and went flying. Otherwise, everywhere looked OK. She could go home.
Instead, Alice switched off the light and sat under a dryer. Go home for what? she asked herself. The girls weren’t due till five. Her dad had taken Cormac to the grotto in Stanley Road. John was finishing work at three. He’d be home by now. Alice shuddered. She didn’t want to be alone with her husband.
John Lacey regarded what was left of his face in the chrome mirror over the mantelpiece. It had been a handsome face once. He wasn’t a conceited man, but he’d always known that he and his brother Billy weren’t at the back of the queue when the Lord handed out good looks. Both were tall, going on six feet. John’s dark-brown hair was curly, Billy’s straight. They had the same rich-brown eyes, the same straight nose, the same wide brow. His mam, never one to consider anyone’s feelings, used to say John was the handsomer of the two. He had a firmer mouth, there was something determined about his chin. Billy’s chin was weak.
Mam didn’t say that now, not since
her elder son had turned into a monster. John stroked the melted skin on his right cheek, touched the corner of the unnaturally angled slit of an eye. If only he hadn’t gone to the aid of the seaman trapped in the hold when the boiler had exploded on that merchant ship. The hold had become a furnace, the man was screaming, his overalls on fire. He emerged from the flames, a blazing phantom, hair burning, screaming for help.
The irony was he hadn’t managed to save the chap. He had died within minutes, writhing in agony on the deck, everyone too terrified to touch him. Everyone except that dickhead, John Lacey, who’d dragged him out, burnt his own hands, burnt his face. The hands had mended, but not the face.
A further irony was that the war was virtually over and the accident had had nothing to do with the conflict. The firefighters were on duty at Gladstone Dock, as they had been every night over the past five years, when the boiler had gone up. They’d come through the war unscathed, all his family, his brother’s family, his mam, his father-in-law. Amber Street itself hadn’t been touched, not even a broken window, while numerous other streets in Bootle had been reduced to rubble. Then, in the very last week, John had lost half his face.
He stared at the grotesque reflection in the mirror. ‘Fool!’ he spat through crooked lips.
Where were his children – his three girls, his little son? More important, where was his wife? He remembered the girls had gone to a party. His father-in-law had Cormac. But there was no explanation for why Alice wasn’t home.
‘She don’t fancy you no more,’ he told his reflection. ‘She’s with another fella. He’s giving her one right now, sticking it up her in the place that used to be yours.’
John groaned and turned away from the mirror. He’d never used to think like that, so coarsely, lewdly. Making love to Alice used to be the sweetest thing on earth, but now he couldn’t bring himself to touch her, imagining her shrinking inside, hating it.
The back door opened and his wife came in. Until last May, until a few days before the war ended, until his accident, he would have lifted her up, kissed her rosy face, stared into her misty blue eyes, told her how much he’d missed her, how much he loved her. They might have taken the opportunity, the kids being out, of going upstairs for a blissful half-hour in bed. Instead, John scowled and said gruffly, ‘I tried Myrtle’s door on the way home, but it were locked. That was more than half an hour ago. Where have you been, eh? With your fancy man?’
She looked at him reproachfully. ‘I haven’t got a fancy man, John.’
Oh, she was so lovely! She was thirty-one, though she didn’t look it: tall, gawky like a schoolgirl, a bit too thin. He used to tell her she had too many elbows, she was always knocking things over. Her face was long and oval, the skin flawless, the eyes very large and very blue. They were innocent eyes, guileless. Deep within his soul, he knew she would never be unfaithful, but the new John, the John Lacey who now inhabited his body, found it just as hard to believe that such an attractive woman, a woman born to be loved, hadn’t found someone else since her husband had become so repulsive.
‘So, what have you been doing with yourself for the last half-hour?’ he sneered.
‘Tidying up. I remember hearing someone try the door when me and Bernadette were upstairs with Myrtle. She drank all the sherry and ended up incapable.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
He grabbed her shoulder when she turned to leave. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘There’s nothing I can do about that.’ She was about to shrug his hand away. Instead, she bent her head and laid her face against it and he could feel the rich-brown hair fluttering on his fingers. The gesture touched his heart. ‘I don’t need a fancy man, luv,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve got you. Why don’t we go upstairs for five minutes? I can get dressed in a jiffy if the latch goes.’ Alice missed making love more than she could say. She didn’t care about his face. For his sake, she would prefer it hadn’t happened. But it had happened and she loved him just as much, if not more. Sadly, it was impossible to convince John of this. Anyroad, his face wasn’t nearly as bad as he made out. The right side was a bit puckered, that was all. The burn had slightly affected his eye, the corner of his mouth, but he looked nothing like the monster he claimed. She reached up and stroked the puckered skin. ‘I love you.’
If only he could believe her! He wanted to, so much. But he knew, he was certain, she was forcing herself to touch him. She was a good, kind woman and felt sorry for him. She was probably feeling sick inside. The tender, loving look on her face was all put on. He seized her wrist and pushed her hand away. ‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ he said gruffly.
He truly hadn’t meant to be quite so rough. He noticed her wince and rub her wrist when she went into the kitchen. Water ran, the gas was lit and John Lacey realised he had just hurt the person he loved most in the world. He looked at himself in the mirror. Sometimes he wondered if it would be better for all concerned if he did himself in.
Alice had borne three daughters within two and a half years of her marriage to John Lacey. Fionnuala was only two months old when she had fallen pregnant with Orla and Maeve had arrived when Orla was still on the breast.
Her husband realised something had to be done. Alice was barely twenty-one. At the rate they were going, they’d have a couple of dozen kids by the time she reached forty. Although strictly forbidden by the Catholic church, for the next five years, with Alice’s approval, he took precautions. Then the war started and they decided to try for a son. Nine months later, Cormac was born. Four children was enough for anyone and John started to take precautions again. It was easier now, with French letters available over the counter at the chemist.
They were an exceptionally happy family. The girls were the image of their mam with the same brown hair and blue eyes. Cormac was a lovely lad, a bit pale, a bit small, rather quiet compared with his sisters. He had his mam’s blue eyes, if a shade or two lighter. Apart from that, no one was quite sure whom he took after, with his straight blond hair and neatly proportioned features.
John didn’t mind when his wife went to work in the hairdresser’s in Opal Street. He earned enough to feed his family, keep them comfortable, but the girls were mad on clothes and it didn’t seem fair that the eldest was the only one who had new things. Anyroad, Orla was a little madam and would have screamed blue murder at the idea of always having to wear her sister’s hand-me-downs. Alice worked to dress her girls and she was happy at Myrtle’s. And if Alice was happy, so was John.
At least that used to be the case. Now, it was the first war-free Christmas in six years. It should have been the best the Laceys had ever known, but it turned out to be the worst.
Orla had made a show of herself at the Sunday School party, Fionnuala claimed. She’d sung ‘Strawberry Fair’ and ‘Greensleeves’. ‘Though no one asked her. I felt dead embarrassed, if you must know.’
‘Miss Geraghty asked who’d like to do a turn,’ Orla said haughtily. ‘I put me hand up, that’s all.’
‘Perhaps our Fionnuala didn’t hear what Miss Geraghty had said,’ suggested Maeve, the peacemaker.
On Christmas Day, after dinner, when everyone was in the parlour, Orla offered to sing again.
‘That’d be nice, luv,’ Alice said quickly, hoping a few songs might lighten the atmosphere. It had been a miserable meal and though she didn’t like to admit it, not even to herself, it was all John’s fault. He glowered at everyone from the head of the table, snapped at the children, was rude to his wife. Even Billy, his brother, normally the life and soul of the party, had been subdued. By the time the pudding stage was reached the conversation had dried up completely.
As soon as the food was eaten, Billy escaped to the pub. John wasn’t a drinker, but he used to like the occasional pint, particularly at Christmas. This year, he’d churlishly refused. He rarely left the house, except for work, when he wore a trilby with the brim tipped to show as little as possible of his face. At Mass he sat at the back.
Cora was watchin
g everything with a supercilious smile, as if she was enjoying seeing the Lacey family fall to pieces. Alice had never got on with her sister-in-law. Cora was so cold and reserved. She had made it obvious from the start that she didn’t want to become friends. She had, possibly, softened a little since Maurice was born, but Maurice himself seemed the sole beneficiary of this slight improvement. Yet she was strict with the boy, too much so. Alice had seen the cane hanging on the wall in her sister-in-law’s smart house off Merton Road, but had also witnessed the soft look in Cora’s strange brown eyes, almost khaki, when they lighted on her handsome son.
Maurice was a Lacey to his bones. His gran doted on him. Meg Lacey carried a photo in her handbag of John and Billy when they were little, and either one could have been Maurice they were so alike.
Meg had Maurice on her knee, stroking his chubby legs – she made it obvious she had no time for Cormac. ‘Who’s my favourite little boy in the whole world,’ she cooed.
Cora didn’t look too pleased. Her small, tight face was screwed in a scowl. Alice wondered what she would look like with her hair combed loose, instead of scraped back in a knot with such severity that it stretched the skin on her forehead. Except for the odd brown of her eyes, there wasn’t a spot of colour in her face. Cora scorned make-up and nice clothes. Today, she wore the plain brown frock with a belt that had been her best since Alice could remember.
Orla sang ‘Greensleeves’ in a fine, strong voice. If there’d been the money, Alice would have sent her to singing lessons – Mrs O’Leary’s Daisy went to tap-dancing classes – but then Fionnuala would have demanded lessons in something or other and it wouldn’t have been fair to leave out Maeve, although her placid youngest daughter wouldn’t have complained.
‘Any requests?’ Orla enquired pertly when she’d finished her repertoire.
‘Yes, shurrup,’ Fionnuala snapped. It was said so viciously that Alice was dismayed. The girls had always got on well with each other. Perhaps, because the house was so full of love, they hadn’t found it necessary to compete. Lately, though, Fion, who Alice had to concede could be dead irritating at times, had become resentful of Orla, making unnecessarily spiteful remarks, like the one just now. It didn’t help when Orla, eleven, started her periods and the older Fion showed no sign. Alice wondered if it was the change in atmosphere that had done it. The house may well have been full of love once, but it certainly wasn’t now.