by Maureen Lee
A few minutes later Fion had reached Marsh Lane, already having doubts and wishing she’d left the note in a more conspicuous place. She kept looking back, praying Mam would appear and persuade her to come home. If only she had a friend in whom she could confide, who would give her some encouragement, say she was doing the right thing. Or even talk her out of it, which would be even better. But there was no one.
Except Horace Flynn! He was the only person who didn’t make her feel stupid, who was always pleased to see her. It was very much out of her way, but she’d call on him and say tara.
Horace Flynn didn’t welcome the knock on his door at such an unholy hour. It was barely seven. If he hadn’t thought it might be the postman with a registered letter containing someone’s unpaid rent – it happened occasionally – he would have ignored the knock and stayed in bed.
Wrapping his roly-poly body in a plaid dressing gown, he went downstairs and found Fionnuala Lacey outside. Had it been anyone else in the world, he would have given them the sharp edge of his tongue, slammed the door in their face, but he’d always had a soft spot for Fionnuala, though even she wasn’t exactly welcome at such an early hour.
‘I’m running away from home,’ the girl said breathlessly. ‘I’ve come to say tara.’
The landlord was a lonely man, entirely friendless until he’d struck up a sort of relationship with this unsophisticated and rather naïve young woman. He felt hugely flattered that she’d come out of her way to say goodbye and stood aside to let her in. ‘I’m very sorry to hear it,’ he said, which was true. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘I’d love one. There wasn’t time at home. I had to leave before anyone got up, see.’
‘Is there any particular reason why you’re running away from home?’
Fion followed him down the hall into the nicely furnished living room. She couldn’t very well tell him about Mam and Neil. ‘I’m twenty-four,’ she said. ‘I thought it was about time. I’m going to have lots of adventures.’
‘I hope you do,’ said Horace Flynn, who’d left Ireland forty years before in search of adventure and ended up a landlord whom no one liked. He noticed Fion’s two inadequate bags. ‘Would you like a suitcase?’
‘If you’ve got one to spare. Call it borrowing. I’ll bring it back one day.’
‘Keep it. I doubt if I’ll ever need it.’ Horace put the kettle on and went upstairs. He returned with a leather case with straps, which someone had once given him in lieu of rent.
Fion looked pleased. ‘That’s big enough to take me coat. I’ll change me shoes, if you don’t mind, put me sandals on.’
‘Go ahead.’ The kettle boiled. Horace made the tea and returned with two dainty cups and saucers on a tray. ‘Do you take sugar?’
‘I did till a few weeks ago. I don’t now.’
‘I thought there was a big dance tonight? You were buying a frock this afternoon, getting your hair done. You seemed to be looking forward to it, if I remember right.’
‘I was, but I’m not now.’ Fion shrugged nonchalantly. She was kneeling on the floor, folding her clothes inside the case, trying not to let him see her underwear in case it inspired him to pinch her bottom.
Horace sighed. ‘I’ll miss you.’
‘I’ll miss you too.’
It was worth being dragged so early out of bed for that. ‘Have you got enough money?’ Horace was astonished to hear the words come from his lips.
‘Yes, thanks. I’ve got twelve pounds. It’s me birthday money. I mean, it’s what I’ve been saving up to buy presents.’
‘That won’t go far – where are you going, London?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose London seems the obvious place.’ People didn’t run away to Birmingham or Manchester or Leeds.
‘Just a minute.’ Horace went into the parlour and opened the strong box which he kept hidden inside an antique commode. He removed twenty pounds, returned to the other room and handed the money to Fion.
She blushed scarlet. ‘I can’t take all that! It wouldn’t be right.’
‘It wouldn’t be wrong either. If you like, look upon it as a loan. Once you’re on your feet, you can pay me back. You don’t want to come running home with your tail between your legs because you’re out of money, do you?’
‘No.’
Horace had the feeling that she didn’t want to run away, that she wouldn’t have minded being talked out of it. He felt tempted to dissuade her, because he would have preferred her to stay, but was prevented by a feeling of unselfishness that surprised him. He glanced at her fresh, innocent, unhappy face. It would do her good. She’d make proper friends, learn to be independent, find herself.
‘Good luck,’ he said.
Fion gulped down the remainder of her tea and got to her feet. ‘I’d better get going.’
‘You’ll find plenty of cheap bed and breakfast hotels around Euston Station. They usually have the prices in the window. It would be best to stay there until you find somewhere permanent to live. Don’t speak to any strange men,’ he added warningly, suddenly concerned that the station would be teeming with men waiting for young girls like her to prey on, offering somewhere ‘safe’ to live.
‘I won’t. Thank you, Mr Flynn.’
He picked up the suitcase and took it to the door. ‘Good luck again.’
‘I’ll send you a card as soon as I’m settled.’
‘I’d appreciate that. I shall worry about you.’
‘I know about you and Neil. Tara for ever, Fion.’
Alice’s heart thumped painfully when she read the note that had been left on the mantelpiece. It was the first thing she’d noticed when she came downstairs.
How did Fion know? It could only be that she’d come to the salon last night and heard Neil and her upstairs. She remembered thinking she’d heard a noise.
‘I’m sure the salon door just closed,’ she’d said.
‘As long as it didn’t open,’ Neil had replied lazily. ‘Come here! It’s been a good five minutes since I’ve kissed you.’
She’d let him kiss her, forgotten about the noise. Until now. Poor, poor Fion! She’d be heartbroken. Alice, overwhelmed with guilt, was desperately trying to think of the best way of dealing with the situation when it dawned on her that Fion had written ‘Tara for ever’.
She went to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Fion!’ she called, hardly able to breathe as she waited for an answer.
It was Maeve who shouted back. ‘She’s not here. She woke me up at the crack of dawn creeping about. That wardrobe door creaks like mad, Mam. It needs oiling.’
‘Oh, my God!’
‘What’s up, Mam?’ Cormac had woken.
‘It’s our Fion. I think she’s run away.’
But she wouldn’t run away for long, Alice told herself, not Fion. Fion was too clinging. She needed her family far more than the others. She wouldn’t know how to manage on her own. Alice would like to bet she’d be back before the day was out – it might even be within a few hours, because she hadn’t the nerve to go too far. Why, she might even be wandering around North Park at this very moment, already thinking about coming home.
When she did, she would have to be told what had happened between Neil and her mother as tactfully and as gently as humanly possible and then hope they would be able to keep the secret between the three of them.
Alice tried not to worry too much as the hours passed and still Fion didn’t come home.
The hotel was called St Jude’s, merely a large terraced house amid a long row of identical properties. It was spotless, but cleanliness was its only good point, unless you counted the strong smell of disinfectant that pervaded every nook and corner. Fion had never seen such a miserable room as the one in which she had just unpacked her case, transferring the clothes on to wire hangers in the wardrobe. A bottle-green candlewick quilt with bare patches covered the double bed and the heavy curtains were the same gloomy colour. The walls were possibly gloomier, a pale, muddy bro
wn. There wasn’t a single picture or ornament, just a dressing table and tallboy, that didn’t match each other or the wardrobe. The floor covering was cheap and shiny, and boasted a faded rug beside the bed. She hadn’t exactly been expecting luxury for 12/6d a night, but this was soulless, infintely depressing and suprisingly cold, considering it was such a lovely warm day outside.
‘I’ll go home tomorrer,’ she said to herself. ‘I’ve made me point, staying away a whole night.’ She would give Mr Flynn his twenty pounds and his suitcase back.
When she arrived at Euston, she had contemplated catching the same train back, but something had prevented her, she wasn’t sure what. Shame, perhaps, at the idea of running away and returning home the same day. Orla would laugh her head off, Maeve would disapprove, even Cormac would be cross with her for upsetting Mam. And poor Mam was probably doing her nut. She shouldn’t have mentioned Neil in that note. After all, your mother having an affair wasn’t a justifiable reason for leaving home. Neil was only being kind, asking her to the dance. And Mam had offered to do her hair and buy her a new dress. She was even closing the salon two hours early so they’d have time to shop.
Fion looked at her watch: seven o’clock. She’d taken ages wandering around, trying to pluck up courage to enter a hotel, and had chosen this one because it was called after a saint, though she’d never heard of Jude and he mightn’t even be a Catholic saint. Then she’d taken just as long sitting on the bed and trying to pluck up more courage to go out. It was twelve hours, almost to the dot, since she’d walked out of Amber Street. She shivered, feeling very odd and out of place in this miserable, anonymous room.
It was too early to go to bed because she wouldn’t fall asleep for hours. She glanced from the bed to the door and decided she couldn’t possibly stay in, not on such a beautiful evening. She’d have a wash first, but remembered she’d forgotten to bring soap and a towel, a hairbrush, lipstick, her toothbrush.
Fortunately there was a linen towel as stiff as cardboard folded over the sink and a tiny slab of yellow soap. Fion splashed her face, and rubbed her finger on the soap and cleaned her teeth. It tasted dreadful. After changing into one of her frocks, she ran her fingers through her hair, collected her bag and left to explore London.
There was a notice behind the front door announcing, THIS DOOR WILL BE LOCKED AT 10.30 p.m. Fion was about to leave, when the door marked RECEPTION opened and the woman who’d taken her money poked out her head.
‘Have you read the notice?’ she demanded.
‘Yes, thank you.’ She was a horrible woman, all sharp corners, even on her face.
‘Well, just make sure you remember. I don’t open the door to no one after half past ten.’
‘I’ll remember,’ Fion said politely, wondering what on earth she was doing in this strange city, being spoken to by a strange woman as if she were a piece of dirt, when she could have been at home. She must be mad.
Outside, a huge, glittering sun hung low in the sky.
This was the same sun that was setting on Amber Street the day before when she’d been on her way to the salon. Things had changed so much since then.
Fion made her way back to Euston Station, then wandered along Euston Road, which was busy with traffic, though there were few pedestrians. She came to a road full of shops, all closed, naturally, though there were more people around. It was called Tottenham Court Road, she noticed as she crossed towards it, and it was very long.
At the end she reached a busy junction where a man was selling newspapers, shouting in what could have been a foreign language for all the sense it made. There was a cinema with a large queue outside, several cafés and a stall offering souvenirs of London: mugs and tea towels and replicas of London buses. People were pouring up steps from the bowels of the earth. Fion rounded a corner and found herself in Oxford Street.
She’d heard of Oxford Street. She must be in the very epicentre of London. Regent Street was probably not far away and Piccadilly Circus. Returning to the kiosk, she bought a map of London, despite it being a waste of money. After all, she was going home tomorrow. She noticed the film on at the cinema was War and Peace with Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn, which she’d planned on going to see with Mam when it came to Liverpool.
There was a self-service café at the top of Oxford Street. Fion went in for something to eat and to study the map – she must have lost pounds today, all she’d had was Horace Flynn’s tea.
After she’d devoured two ham sandwiches and drunk a pot of tea, she found Piccadilly Circus on the map and began to wander towards it, pausing frequently to stare at the beautiful clothes in the very expensive shops. Regent Street was particularly grand and even more expensive.
The sun was setting lower now, casting sharp black shadows across the street, and the pavements were crowded with pedestrians, some wearing evening dress, obviously off to nightclubs or cocktail parties or theatres, or wherever people went in London on Saturday nights. As she passed a place called the Café Royal, a big, black car drew up and two women alighted, both wearing long satin frocks and smelling richly of perfume. One woman had a white fur cloak draped round her shoulders, which Fion thought was showing off a bit, as it was far too warm a night for furs.
She found she had arrived at Piccadilly Circus, which was drenched in golden sunshine and throbbing with life. The steps around the statue of Eros were crowded and neon lights flashed palely in the evening sunshine. Fion glimpsed a Boots chemists, still surprisingly open. She went in and bought the toiletries she’d forgotten to bring, which made a big hole in her money. Then she dodged through the traffic towards Eros, climbed a few steps, and sat down between an elderly couple with a small dog and a young man with a haversack at his feet. The dog, on a lead, came waddling towards her. She stroked it and the couple smiled. ‘He won’t bite,’ the woman said. ‘Lovely evening, isn’t it?’
‘Lovely,’ Fion agreed and found herself smiling broadly for no reason, conscious of a strange mechanism behind her eyes making them sparkle brilliantly. She gasped and excitement coursed through her body like an electric shock, accompanied by a feeling of enormous triumph. Maeve might well be a nurse and Orla have four children, but neither had ever made it to London on their own. No one she knew had sat on the steps of Eros on Saturday night, breathing in the heady atmosphere, the foreignness of it all.
The young man beside her thrust a bar of chocolate in her direction. Fion took a square and muttered her thanks. It was dark and tasted bitter. It turned out the young man, like the chocolate, came from Belgium. He spoke only a few words of English and Fion didn’t know a word of French, so communication was limited, though very pleasant. He left after a while, saying something about a youth hostel. Fion remembered she had to be back at the hotel by half-ten. Somewhat reluctantly, she started back. She’d probably walked further than she’d thought and had better give herself at least an hour. According to the map, the steps leading down to the bowels of the earth that she’d passed several times were stations on the London Underground. The system looked very complicated and this wasn’t the time to try it out for the first time.
She would disentangle the workings of the Underground tomorrow and hoped it would be a nice day to explore the further wonders of London.
Fion entirely forgot that tomorrow she had made up her mind to go home.
While Fion was on her way back to the hotel, in Liverpool in the flat above Lacey’s hairdressing salon Alice and Neil Greene were having an argument, something that didn’t happen often. They usually got on exceptionally well. Had things gone as planned, Neil and Fion would have been at the dance by now.
They were in the parlour, fully dressed, sitting separately on each side of the empty fireplace. Alice had flatly refused to go to bed. She’d come for one reason only, to tell Neil their relationship must end.
‘Just because Fion found out?’ His jaw sagged.
‘No, of course, not,’ Alice snapped. ‘Well, yes, in a way, I suppose it is. If Fion found out,
then so can other people. I’m surprised we’ve gone a whole five years without anyone finding out before.’ The trouble was, time had flashed by. It was half a decade since she’d confronted her husband in Crozier Terrace and discovered he was leading two lives, yet it felt like only yesterday. ‘She must have heard us, Fion, last night when we were upstairs. Remember I said I thought I heard the door close?’
‘Hmm.’ Neil stared at the ceiling, then said casually, ‘Why don’t we get married?’
‘Oh, don’t be stupid, Neil,’ Alice said more brutally than she intended. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve already got a wife and I’ve got a husband.’
‘Babs regularly asks me to divorce her. You could divorce your husband; you’ve got enough grounds.’
‘Oh, yes, and have me dirty linen washed all over Bootle. I’d look a right fool, wouldn’t I? Me husband sets up house with another woman, has another family. What would people think?’
Neil said gently, ‘Is that all that matters to you, Alice? Your reputation, what people think? Surely happiness, yours and mine, comes first?’
‘I wouldn’t be happy, knowing people were laughing at me behind me back,’ Alice replied. ‘And what about me kids? I’ve never told them what their dad got up to. They think he just left home, full stop. I’d sooner they never knew. They’ve already been hurt enough, particularly Cormac.’
‘In other words there’s no hope for us.’ His face looked very drawn all of a sudden. ‘I suppose it’s no use asking you to come away with me so we can live together somewhere else?’
‘No use at all, Neil. I belong here, with me family.’