by Maureen Lee
‘My skin won’t let me move, man,’ Frank complained bitterly when Pol and Cormac climbed into the coach. He was poised stiffly on a bench, elbows on the table, wearing only a pair of shorts with a pattern of butterflies. The skin on his upper half was less livid, but still looked painful. His red hair looked crisp, as if it had been fried. ‘My chest hurts when I breathe.’
‘Shall I douse you in calamine?’
‘Please, Pol.’
Cormac reached under the pillow for his stuff and began to roll a joint. The first puff brought on a sensation of enormous lethargy. He lay down and within seconds was asleep.
It was dusk when he awoke, slightly cooler. He could hear music thumping away in the distance. The spliff had burnt a perfect round hole in the nylon sleeping bag, but there was still half left. He was searching for the matches when he noticed Frank and Pol squeezed together on the bunk opposite, both asleep. Pol was naked, her small, perfect body glistening with perspiration, and Frank’s shorts were around his knees. His red skin was splattered with pink calamine.
Cormac groaned. He’d come back with Pol to keep an eye on her, yet she and Frank had made love directly in front of his closed eyes. They badly needed another girl, someone for Frank. Wally could have Tanya, Cormac would have Pol.
Another girl! He made his unsteady way outside and began to walk in the direction of the music to look for another girl. Dusk was falling. There were lights on in some of the vehicles and he could hear the clink of dishes. The smell of food made him feel nauseous, though he’d had nothing to eat all day and possibly yesterday, for all he knew. A police car came zooming down the lane, blue light flashing. Cormac pushed a small child and an exceptionally hairy dog to safety. The child cried and the dog growled ungratefully.
Cormac had no idea why he should cry as he walked towards the music. He wasn’t even conscious of crying until one of the great, bulbous tears pouring down his face landed on his bare foot and he thought it was raining. He looked up into the clear, dusky blue sky and realised he was crying and the rain was a tear. He was thinking about Pol and Alice and Grandad and his sisters, about Amber Street, about Bootle, Lacey’s hairdressers, the schools he’d gone to, the friends he’d made. He thought about university and the fact that he hadn’t gone back to finish his degree, about Alice’s face when he told her. He thought about Cora Lacey.
‘Here, look where you’re going, luv.’
He’d collided with a woman coming from the opposite direction, leading two children by the hand.
‘I’m sorry.’ Cormac wept. ‘So sorry.’
‘It’s not the end of the world, luv,’ the woman said kindly.
Still crying, Cormac walked on, when a voice said incredulously, ‘Is that you, Cormac?’
He turned. The woman with the children had stopped and was looking at him, her face as incredulous as her voice. She was tall, well built, but shapely and her long, wild hair was tied in a knot on top of her head. She wore a black T-shirt with a white CND sign on the front and narrow black pants. She was, unfortunately, too old for Frank, about thirty, and there was no room for the children in the coach.
‘I’m Cormac, yes,’ he conceded in a whisper.
‘It’s Fion, luv. Fionnuala, your sister.’
‘Fion!’ Cormac had never, in all his life, been so pleased to see anyone. He stopped crying, grabbed his sister and showered her face with kisses. She hugged him tightly in return and rubbed his back, as if he were a baby. One of the children, the boy, tried to pull her away.
‘It’s all right, Colin. This is Cormac, your uncle. Oh, Cormac, you look bloody awful. Are you sick or something? C’mon, luv, we’re only along here.’
The children ran ahead, stopping outside a smart white caravanette. Fion, holding Cormac firmly by the arm as if worried he’d run away, opened the door and pushed him through. Inside, the vehicle was cheerful and scrupulously tidy. Red gingham frills framed the tiny windows and there was a matching cloth on the table, as well as a small bowl of roses. The miniature stainless steel sink sparkled and a red carpet graced the floor. There wasn’t a dish or an item of dirty washing in sight.
The grip of his sister’s hand on Cormac’s arm made him feel as if he had suddenly been plugged back into the normal world and the scene of domestic neatness reminded him of a time when he had known nothing else, when it had been a simple matter to get washed, wear clean clothes, brush his teeth, sit down to proper meals.
‘Blimey, Cormac, you don’t half pong,’ Fion said bluntly. ‘Have a wash, there’s a good lad, while I make some tea. I’ll find you a clean T-shirt in a minute. This is Colin and Bonnie, by the way. He’s nearly five, she’s nearly four. Say hello to your Uncle Cormac, kids, then get into your pyjamas. It’s nearly time for bed.’
Bonnie pushed herself boldly forward. ‘Hello, Uncle Cormac.’ The boy hung back and sucked his finger.
‘Hello, kids,’ Cormac said, doing his best to sound like a proper grown-up uncle. ‘Where’s their dad?’ he said to Fion.
‘Dead. He died two years ago. His name was Colin too.’
‘Oh, hell! I’m sorry.’
‘So am I,’ Fion said matter-of-factly. ‘I loved him more than words can say, but he’d been in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and was dying when I met him. When we got married we never thought he’d last six whole years, but he did and they were the best years of me life.’ She gestured towards him with soap and a towel. ‘Take your shirt off, luv, and chuck it away before you stink the place out. Are you hungry?’
‘I wouldn’t mind some bread and butter.’
‘I think we can manage that.’
Cormac had never had a favourite sister, but had always felt more drawn to Fionnuala than he had to loud, aggressive Orla and quietly confident Maeve. There had been something very vulnerable about tactless, hopeless Fion, forever putting her foot in it, saying the wrong thing. To find his wretched self plucked off a country lane in Norfolk by the sister he hadn’t seen in years and put down in this neat, cool place, where there was fresh water, healthily smelling soap, roses on the table and a kettle boiling for tea, was little short of a miracle.
‘What are you doing here?’ Fion asked while he was getting washed. The children watched with interest as they changed into their pyjamas.
‘I belong to a group, the Nobodys. We’re on tomorrow’s programme, but Frank’s too ill to play.’
‘Never heard of you.’
‘Nobody ever has, hence the name.’
‘Mummy, he hasn’t cleaned behind his ears.’
Fion grinned. ‘Bonnie says to clean behind your ears, Cormac.’
‘Sorry, Bonnie.’
‘And under your arms.’
‘Yes, Bonnie.’ Cormac was beginning to feel vaguely happy.
In quick succession Fion opened a tin of beans, shoved toast under a grill, poured water on the pot. Within minutes the children were sitting down to beans on toast, and Cormac was drinking a mug of scalding tea and wearing a T-shirt with Amnesty 61 on the back. There seemed to be plenty of provisions. A loaf appeared, a plastic butter dish, a tin of cocoa, a bottle of milk, a packet of biscuits – custard creams. Cormac couldn’t remember having seen such a rich assortment of food in years.
‘Is the van yours?’ he asked.
‘No, it’s hired. We’re on holiday, on our way to Scotland. Some of my friends were coming here, so I thought I’d make a detour and let the children see what a rock concert’s all about. Bonnie thought it great, but Colin hated it, didn’t you, luv?’ Colin had yet to open his mouth and merely nodded. Fion ruffled his hair and for some reason the gesture made Cormac want to cry again.
‘Me and Colin,’ Fion continued, ‘big Colin, that is, though he wasn’t all that big as it happens, went touring every year. It’s the cheapest way of seeing the country. We didn’t come last year, so it’s our first holiday since he died.’
‘Did you ever get near Liverpool on one of your tours, sis?’ Cormac said mildly. ‘Alice gets
dead upset whenever your name’s mentioned. She misses you. We all do.’
Fion glanced at the children who had eaten the beans on toast, drunk their cocoa and were now munching biscuits, listening avidly to the conversation between their mother and their newly discovered uncle. ‘Come on, you two, bed.’ She clapped her hands. ‘I’ll leave the light on and you can take the biscuits with you as a treat, seeing as how we’re on holiday, like. Mind a minute, Cormac, there’s a good lad.’
She folded down the leaves of the table, which was surrounded on three sides by thickly cushioned benches covered with red moquette, with storage spaces underneath. Several items of bedding were removed and laid on two of the benches. The children obediently lay down and Colin immediately began to suck his thumb. Then Fion produced two folding stools out of thin air and took them outside, round to the back of the van, out of the way of any traffic that might go speeding past. It was almost dark by now and the air was slightly cooler.
‘They don’t usually go so willingly to bed, but they’re dead tired. Colin’s quiet because the holiday reminds him of when his dad was alive. He still misses big Colin something rotten. It doesn’t bother Bonnie, she can hardly remember him. Would you like some orange juice, Cormac? It’s lovely and cold.’
‘I’d love some.’
‘Won’t be a mo.’
Cormac glanced in the direction of the field where the concert was being held. By now, it was almost dark and searchlights criss-crossed the sky. Through the intervening hedges he glimpsed a blur of coloured lights and the thumping music could be clearly heard. It was a familiar number played by a familiar group whose name he couldn’t remember.
Fion was back with two glasses and a carton of juice. ‘Here you are, luv.’
‘Ta.’
She sat on the stool, their arms touching. ‘You asked why I’ve never been home, Cormac. The thing is, I don’t rightly know. I’ve sent cards from time to time so Mam would know I was all right, like. I didn’t give me address in case someone came and tried to persuade me to go back. A year later, when I married Colin, it seemed too late, too embarrassing, to let anyone know and the longer it went on the more embarrassing it got.’
‘Alice wouldn’t have felt embarrassed.’
‘I know,’ she said abjectly. ‘I should write, break the ice, as it were, because I’ll be coming home to Liverpool soon. Ruby, Colin’s mother, died last month and Elsa – she’s his daughter from his first marriage – married a soldier and went to live in Germany.’ She sighed. ‘So there’s nothing to keep me in London any more. Me neighbours are lovely, but it’s not the same as having your own flesh and blood around. I’d like the children to have a grandma, aunts and uncles, cousins. Colin’s due to start school at Christmas and it’d be best for him to start in Liverpool, rather than have him change in a few months’ time.’
‘There’s plenty of room for the three of you in Amber Street, sis.’
‘Oh, I’ve already got a house,’ Fion said suprisingly. ‘Remember Horace Flynn? He left me his house in Stanley Road. He was the only one who knew I was leaving. I wrote and told him where I lived when I sent back this twenty quid he loaned me and he promised never to tell Mam. We wrote to each other often – he sent a present when me and Colin got married. The house has been rented out for years. It seemed like fate when I got a letter from the tenants giving a month’s notice the same week Ruby died. Anyroad . . .’ She refilled his glass with juice. ‘How is everyone? Has our Maeve had any children yet? Has Orla had more? How are Grandad and Bernadette?’ Her voice dropped, became husky. ‘And how is our mam, Cormac? I’ve missed her, you know, every bit as much as she’s missed me.’
Cormac didn’t doubt it. He knew how easy it was to love someone to distraction, yet treat them with terrible cruelty. At this very moment he was breaking Alice’s heart, but his own heart was cold and he didn’t care. ‘Maeve and Martin haven’t had children so far,’ he said. ‘They’re too wrapped up in their house in Waterloo. Orla still only has the four – they’re growing up, Lulu’s already a teenager. Grandad’s retired. He’s seventy-two, but as fit as a fiddle, and Bernadette and the kids are just fine.’
‘And Mam?’
‘How do you think, sis?’ Cormac shooed away the dog whose life he’d saved and that had repaid him with a growl. ‘You walked out seven years ago and haven’t been seen since and her only son has more or less resigned from the human race.’
‘Hmm.’ Fion gripped her knees. ‘I never visualised you becoming a hippy, Cormac. I’ve always imagined you working in a laboratory, mixing noxious liquids, or whatever it is you do in laboratories, having left university loaded with honours and distinctions. You did, didn’t you?’ she said anxiously when Cormac pulled a face.
‘I didn’t finish my degree, Fion. I didn’t go back for the last two terms. Alice did her nut. I just missed having to do National Service, I’m pleased to say, otherwise I would have had to register as a conscientious objector.’
‘Why do you keep calling her Alice, Cormac? She’s our mam.’
He’d love to tell someone, share the knowledge that had been gnawing away at his soul for three and a half years.
‘Why, Cormac?’ Fion persisted.
‘If I tell you, will you promise never to repeat it to a living soul?’
‘Cross my heart.’
Cormac took a deep breath. His head felt lighter as he began to relate the story of his twenty-first birthday party, finding Aunt Cora in the kitchen, the terrible things she’d said. ‘I can’t describe how I felt afterwards. My feet no longer felt as if they were on firm ground. I felt unreal, like a ghost. Living in Amber Street was a great big lie. I couldn’t talk to Alice any more. I didn’t know what to say, and what I did say sounded stiff and unnatural.’ He shook himself, as if trying to rid himself of the memory of that dreadful period. ‘I knew it was a waste of time going back to university; my brain seemed to have frozen solid and refused to work. The only place that I could stand was the Cavern, where I was able to drown in the music, it was so loud and I didn’t have to think. It was there I met an old mate from St Mary’s who was trying to get a pop group together to rival the Beatles. I joined as general dogsbody and chief tambourine player. I’ve been on the road with different groups ever since. I’m afraid none has come even remotely close to rivalling the Beatles.’
‘No other group ever will.’ Fion rocked back and forth on the stool. She didn’t look as shocked as Cormac had expected. She said, slowly and thoughtfully, ‘If I were you, Cormac, I wouldn’t believe Cora. I reckon she’s jealous, that’s all, what with you doing so well and their Maurice being in prison – I met Neil Greene once in London and he told me. She was always trying to stir things up. Look at what she did to Mam with that agreement thing.’
‘But, Fion,’ Cormac wailed. ‘I look so much like her. No one’s ever noticed before. When you think about it, it’s obvious she’s my mother.’
Fion regarded him in the light falling through the window of the caravanette. ‘I don’t see a resemblance meself. You’re probably just imagining it.’
Cormac shivered. ‘I can’t stand the thought of her being me mother. I have nightmares about it.’ He often dreamed of how it might have happened, of Cora slithering through the sleeping hospital, arriving at the nursery, changing him over with Maurice. ‘Maurice looked a better bet,’ she’d said.
‘If I were you,’ Fion said again, ‘I wouldn’t take any notice of Cora. I’d try and pretend she never told you all that stuff.’ She linked her arm in his. ‘I’ll never think of you as anything other than me brother, Cormac, and I know Orla and Maeve feel the same. Grandad thought the sun shone out of your arse. And Mam – you’re not being very fair on Mam, luv.’
‘Could you forget if it were you it had happened to?’
‘No, but I’d want someone to talk to me the way I’m talking to you. It’s almost quarter of a century since you were born and whatever happened that night isn’t important any more. It’
s what’s happened since that matters.’ She gave him a little shake. ‘You’re Mam’s son, our brother, Colin’s and Bonnie’s uncle.’
‘But say if I’m not, Fion?’
‘You are,’ Fion said confidently. ‘I remember the day Mam brought you home from hospital. You felt like me brother then, every bit as much as you do now. We all laid claim to you, Cormac. You’re ours.’
Cormac was beginning to feel as if there was a way out of the morass in which he had been wallowing for so long. If he could just hold on to the fact that what Cora said didn’t matter after all this time, that it was how things were now that was important. ‘What about Uncle Billy,’ he said, ‘and Maurice?’
‘I doubt if Uncle Billy gave a damn who Cora brought home from the hospital. As for Maurice . . .’ She paused.
‘I owe him a debt worth more than a kingdom,’ Cormac said softly.
‘You don’t owe him a thing. If it’s all true, not that for a moment I think it is, then I suppose it’s hard luck on Maurice.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, worse than hard luck, having Cora for a mam.’
‘Particularly instead of Alice. He would have grown up a different person altogether in Amber Street. He wouldn’t have gone to prison for a start.’
‘You can’t say that for certain.’
‘Yes, I can,’ Cormac assured her.
‘What’s he doing now?’
‘Living in the flat over the hairdresser’s, where Neil used to live. Cora chucked him out.’
‘She’s mad,’ Fion said flatly. ‘She’s not likely to say anything about this to Mam, is she? That would really put the cat among the pigeons.’
‘I doubt it. I told her if she did I’d kill her. I meant it, Fion. It makes me wonder if one day I might go mad too.’
‘Don’t be silly. You’re the sanest person I’ve ever known.’
‘Once maybe, not now.’
‘I’m going to tell you a secret, then I’ll make us some tea and sandwiches.’ Fion regarded him slyly. ‘You’ll never guess, but Mam was having an affair with Neil Greene. It was the reason I left home. I heard them in bed together and it made me feel such a fool.’