by Maureen Lee
Cormac smiled. ‘I already knew that, sis. You couldn’t help but notice the way her eyes went all starry when she announced she was “popping round” to Opal Street for some reason. They were even starrier when she came back.’
‘Jaysus, Cormac Lacey! Nothing escaped your gimlet eyes.’
Fion went to make the sandwiches. Cormac leant against the back of the van, suddenly conscious of the music in the distance. He’d forgotten where he was. The lane was busy. Children were being brought home from the concert and latecomers were on their way towards it. Two girls, conventionally dressed, rode by on bicycles – he’d like to bet the young people of the area weren’t as opposed to the festival as their elders.
The sky above was as clear as sapphire with a twinkling of stars and a perfectly round moon, but at the edges, just above the horizon, black clouds were banked, looking as impenetrable as mountains. This effect of nature, both impressive and oppressive, made Cormac feel very small, insignificant, in the great scheme of things. Looked at one way, the bombshell that had been dropped on the night of his twenty-first seemed trivial, not worth bothering about.
He wouldn’t have minded a spliff, but his stuff was under his pillow in the coach and he didn’t feel like going back, not yet. Anyroad, Fion might not approve of spliffs. He was grateful to his sister for bringing him down to earth, showing him there was a future.
As soon as he could, without letting down his friends, he would extricate himself and Pol from the life they were leading – from the life they were wasting – and . . .
Cormac paused in his reverie. Two young men were walking past, bare to the waist, supporting a girl between them. In their free hands the men wielded bottles of the local cider, a lethal concoction. The girl stumbled. The men roughly hoisted her upright. One squeezed her bottom through the thin cotton frock that looked ominously familiar.
Pol! She rarely drank. Half a bottle of that lethal brew and she’d be senseless. It was possible she was being taken back to the coach for her own safety, but somehow Cormac doubted it. He leapt to his feet. He had to rescue Pol.
It meant that when Fion emerged from the van with tea and sandwiches, her brother had gone.
It might have continued for ever and a day: the spliffs, the drink, missing gigs, driving nowhere, doing nothing, had it not been that Pol discovered she was pregnant.
‘I can get the bread together for an abortion,’ Frank said when they sat round the table for a conference. Everyone had been on tenterhooks waiting for Pol to start her period, but she’d missed two and was definitely pregnant. They wore a motley assortment of coats and jackets because it was November, and no one had any idea how to keep the coach warm, apart from using an oil heater, which brought on Wally’s asthma. Being on the road had its disadvantages in winter. ‘Abortion’s legal in this country, isn’t it?’
No one knew.
‘I don’t want an abortion whether it’s legal or not,’ Pol said defiantly. ‘I want my baby.’ She laid her hands on her stomach, as if she could already feel its shape inside.
‘Don’t be foolish,’ Tanya snapped. ‘This is no life for a baby.’ A baby would clutter up their already cluttered lives. Tanya was very conventional. Cormac sometimes wondered if she was only there to annoy her family and had the firm intention of returning home when she felt she’d annoyed them long enough.
‘I’ll go away,’ Pol said. ‘I’ll find a place to live, a bedsit, probably in London. The state will support me. I mean, us.’
‘Who’s the father?’ Wally asked.
‘I don’t know, do I? It’s either you, you, or you.’ Pol nodded one by one at the three men.
‘I’m afraid I can’t offer monetary support, Pol.’
‘No one’s asked you to, Wally.’
‘I’ll buy the pram and the diapers and stuff, honey.’
‘Thank you, Frank.’
‘Come back to Liverpool and live with me, Pol,’ Cormac said, wincing as he massaged the wrist that had been broken months ago when he’d rescued Pol from the two louts who turned out not to be taking her back to the coach, but to their own ex-Post Office van. The plaster had only been removed last week.
Everyone looked at him in surprise, including Pol. ‘Hey, man. Isn’t that a bit heavy?’ Wally murmured.
‘Live with you, Cormac?’ Pol’s grey eyes smiled into his. ‘Why, I’d like that very much.’
‘Oh, well, that’s settled,’ Tanya said, as if they’d just decided which pub to go to. ‘Would anyone like a cup of tea?’
Chapter 12
Billy Lacey strolled along the Dock Road, a woman on his arm whose name he couldn’t remember. It was August and still very hot, despite the lateness of the hour – at that moment Cormac Lacey was sitting in a remote Norfolk lane with his sister, Fionnuala.
The Docky wasn’t nearly so busy as it had been when Billy was a lad and he’d come with his brother, John, to look at the ships. There was hardly any traffic, hardly any ships to look at. Even the smells had gone: the musky aroma of spices, coffee, perfumed teas and the strange, dusty smell that turned out to be carpets. He considered it a poor show that such a vital, throbbing part of Liverpool was being allowed to waste away and die. Only the moon, swinging freely – Billy was drunk – in the navy-blue sky and the soaring brick walls of the docks, the giant gates, remained the same.
Despite the jowlly cheeks and the monstrous beer gut that had long ago cancelled out his waist, leaving his trousers somewhat perilously supported by a narrow leather belt, at fifty-four, Billy was still a fine figure of a man, with his thick, dark hair and broad shoulders. A cheap suit adorned his burly body, the jacket hanging open because it wouldn’t meet round his swollen belly. Yet he carried himself well. Not a few female eyes were cast in his direction as he swaggered along, linking the arm of his anonymous companion. She was taking him home for a nightcap. Billy wasn’t sure which he was most looking forward to, the drink or what was to follow.
‘Have you got a missus?’ enquired the woman who was leading him towards the longed-for nightcap and her bed.
‘She’s left me,’ Billy lied. For years now, possibly since the day after the wedding, he’d wished Cora would leave. He would have left himself, except he couldn’t be bothered looking for somewhere else to live. Anyroad, he’d have to cook his own food, make his own bed, do his own washing. It was comfortable in Garibaldi Road, if nothing else. He and Cora hardly talked, but he wouldn’t mind if she never opened her mouth again for the rest of her life. It was sad about Maurice: first jail, then leaving home, but Billy had never really felt that Maurice was his son. He belonged to Cora, who spoiled the poor lad rotten when she wasn’t thrashing him with that bloody cane. He’d probably ended up dead confused. Billy knew he should have put a stop to it, but he’d never been much of a match for his wife.
He had no idea why he’d married her, Cora. He must have been pissed when they met, pissed when he proposed and pissed the day they got married – he could never actually remember saying ‘I do’, though his mam claimed he’d behaved impeccably at the wedding. Still, it had been done and it was a long time ago now. Billy had quite enjoyed his life, Cora or no Cora. He still did. Another woman mightn’t have let him do as he pleased, be so glad to see the back of him. Mind you, it would have been nice to have had a few more bob in his pocket. As it was, Cora took scarcely a penny off him, but he still had to rely on finding some poor woman like the one on his arm, desperate for company, poor cow, to keep his belly primed nightly with ale. He had no idea where Cora got the cash from to keep things going and had never bothered to enquire.
‘Are we nearly there, luv?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Billy. It’s just round the next corner.’
The pubs had not long ago called time, otherwise there was no way Billy would have been out in the open, breathing in the fresh, warm air. They were approaching the Arcadia, a pub with such a wicked reputation that even Billy had never dared enter its doors, despite intimate knowledge of mo
st of the ale houses in Bootle. A man and woman came out, arguing furiously. At least the woman was furious, the man appeared to be drunk, but not the boozy, mild sort of drunk that Billy knew. This geezer was paralytic. You could have cut off parts of his body and he wouldn’t have known. The woman gave him a shove. ‘You’re bloody useless, you are,’ she sneered. ‘I’m giving you a wide berth in future.’
The man collapsed on to his knees, wobbled, then crumpled into the gutter. His eyes, staring upwards, were glazed, unseeing. His face looked as if it had been made of stone.
‘Here, mate, let’s give you a hand,’ Billy said sympathetically. He leant down, put his hands under the man’s armpits and hoisted him to his feet. ‘Jaysus, you’re as light as a feather.’
The man’s head hung down, like a scarecrow’s, as if he too needed a pole to keep it straight. It wasn’t until they were face to face that Billy realised that the man he was supporting was his brother, John, whom he hadn’t seen in years.
‘Don’t tell anyone I’m here,’ John said to Cora next morning.
‘Not if you don’t want me to, luv.’
Cora was in her element. This was the man she had desired all her adult life and now she had him under her roof, at her mercy, you might say.
She had never seen anyone so thin. No wonder Billy had been able to walk all the way from the Docky with his brother over his shoulder like a sack of coal. Last night they had conversed, she and Billy, for the first time in ages.
‘Look who I found!’ Billy said when she opened the door, him being unable to use his key, like. ‘It’s our John. I found him collapsed in the Docky.’
Billy looked upset. If things had been different he might have loved his wife and son, but his brother had been the only person he’d ever felt real affection for. ‘I’m taking him upstairs, to Maurice’s room,’ he said gruffly. He stared defiantly at his wife, as if expecting her to object, but Cora flew ahead to put clean, aired linen on the bed and open the window of the stuffy, unused room.
‘He hasn’t a pick on him,’ Billy said with unexpected tenderness when he laid John down. ‘Is there a spare pair of pyjamas?’
‘I’ll get some.’ When Cora came back, Billy was stripping John of his clothes. He looked as if he might object when Cora started to help, but must have decided two pairs of hands were better than one. John moaned once or twice as his clothes were removed and he was lifted into a pair of far too big pyjamas. Cora tucked the bedclothes around his waist.
‘What shall we do now, Billy?’
‘Leave him be. Let him sleep it off. He’s as drunk as David’s sow. He’ll have a head on him in the morning.’
‘He needs building up, Billy. He needs to stay in bed a week and be fed proper. He looks as if he’s been neglecting himself something awful.’
‘Do you mind if he stays?’
Cora shook her head vigorously. ‘I always liked your John. Alice hadn’t enough patience with him after the accident. I’m not surprised he left. Where’s he been living?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘I wonder if he’s still got that business of his?’
‘I don’t know, luv. I wrote to him twice at that place in Seaforth, didn’t I? But he didn’t answer. Mind you, that was years ago.’
They went to bed in their separate rooms. During the night Cora, even less able to sleep than usual, got up and went to look at their guest. The curtains had been left open to allow fresh air through the window and the room was brightly bathed in moonlight. She knelt beside the bed and gently stroked the damaged cheek, which by now was scarcely noticeable. The skin was no longer red and one side of the thin, sombre face was merely slightly more wrinkled than the other. Once he had more meat on him, it would be even less obvious.
Cora breathed a kiss on the thin lips of the man she had always wanted, then went through his pockets, the jacket first. He had three pounds, ten shillings in a wallet, along with a photograph of a fair-haired girl and a separate one of three young children, none of whom she recognised. There were some grubby business cards, including several for B.E.D.S. In another pocket she found a packet of ciggies, a lighter, a dirty hankie, a bunch of keys. His trouser pockets held nothing but change. She rubbed the material between her thumb and forefinger: good quality, but it smelt sour and was badly in need of dry-cleaning.
John was still asleep when his brother went to work next morning. Cora kept popping her head round the door, but it wasn’t until midday that she found him staring vacantly at the ceiling. His head, his arms, lying loosely on the covers, were in exactly the same position as the night before, as if he hadn’t the strength or will to move them. His eyes turned fractionally when Cora went in, but showed no surprise. He didn’t appear particularly bothered where he found himself.
‘I was wondering where I was,’ he whispered. ‘How did I get here?’
‘Your Billy found you on the Docky and carried you all the way back. Would you like a cup of tea, luv?’
‘I think I might, thank you, Cora.’
She put extra milk in the tea so it wasn’t too hot, and had to support his head with one hand and hold the cup for him with the other. It gave her a feeling of intense satisfaction to have John Lacey so dependent on her.
When he’d finished he said, ‘Don’t tell anyone I’m here.’
‘Not if you don’t want me too, luv,’ Cora assured him.
That afternoon she made him bread and milk, and fed it to him with a spoon. By the time Billy came home he was sitting up, propped against a heap of pillows, smoking a cigarette.
‘I didn’t know you smoked, mate,’ Billy remarked.
John shrugged. ‘I started years ago.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Exhausted,’ John said thinly.
‘What were you doing in the Arcadia, mate? It’s a dump.’ Billy regarded his older brother with concern. He’d missed John badly since he’d left Alice and had been hurt when his letters hadn’t been answered. He found it upsetting to see this once strong, vital man lying like a shadow in the bed. Billy had been raised with the dictum ‘Why can’t you be more like your brother’ constantly in his ear. Mam had made no bones about the fact she liked John best, that she was proud of him, whereas Billy was the family black sheep, the failure. Now it seemed their positions had been reversed and it made Billy feel uncomfortable.
‘I can’t remember going to the Arcadia,’ John confessed. ‘In fact, I can’t remember anything much about yesterday.’
‘Been on a bender, eh!’
‘One bender too many, I’m afraid.’
Billy chuckled, though there was nothing to laugh about. He put his hand over his brother’s thin one, slightly embarrassed. ‘What’s up, mate? How did you get yourself in such a state? You look like shit.’
‘I feel like shit.’ John took a long puff on the ciggie. ‘Things happened, Billy. Things I’d sooner not talk about.’
‘Whatever you say. Where are you living these days? What’s happened to that company of yours?’
‘I still do a bit of business – I’ve been living in the office for quite some time.’
‘I’d’ve come and seen you if I’d known.’
John gave a curt nod of appreciation, but Billy had the odd feeling he wouldn’t have been welcome and the even odder feeling that he wasn’t particularly welcome now, that John would much prefer to be alone.
‘You’re looking well, though, Billy,’ John said with an obvious effort. ‘There’s enough fat on you for both of us.’
Billy patted his monstrous stomach. ‘It’s the ale.’
‘You always had a weakness for the ale.’ John’s mouth curved drily. ‘I didn’t have any weaknesses, did I? I was the perfect husband, the perfect father, a good provider for me family. Then this happened’ – he pointed to his face – ‘and I turned out to be weaker than most men. Another bloke would have taken it in his stride and got on with things. I let it ruin me life instead. Nothing’s been the same since.�
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‘It was a brave thing you did that day, John.’ Billy had had little experience with conversations of this sort. There was a break in his voice when he said, ‘There’s hardly another man in the world who would have tried to save that sailor. You should have got a medal.’
‘They offered me a medal, but I turned it down, just like, in a way, I turned Alice down, as well as me children. I was determined to suffer and I wanted everyone to suffer with me.’
‘Perhaps there’s time to put things right yet. Alice is still on her own.’
John didn’t answer. Cora came in with a bowl of home-made soup and announced Billy’s tea was ready downstairs.
Cora was disappointed when John insisted on feeding himself. She sat on the bed, watching. ‘There’s jelly and custard for pudding,’ she said when he’d finished.
‘Maybe later. Thank you, Cora. You and Billy are being very kind. Where’s Maurice, by the way? Isn’t this his bed I’m in?’
He mustn’t have known Maurice had been in jail. Cora wasn’t about to tell him now. ‘He wanted his independence. He’s got his own place. It’s in Opal Street, over Lacey’s, as it happens.’
Later, Billy came back upstairs and Cora went down. For the first time in years, Billy didn’t go to the pub. John softened slightly and the brothers reminisced, reminding each other of things that had happened when they were children. Billy had the most to say, his voice was the loudest. His laughter boomed through the normally silent house, awakening it.
Cora sat with the television on, but the sound turned down, listening, planning tomorrow’s menu and the other things she’d do. She’d get John’s suit cleaned – his shirt and underclothes were already washed and ironed, his tie sponged. She’d ask if he’d like some books from the library. Unlike his brother, John Lacey had always been a reading man.
John couldn’t possibly have been looked after more tenderly and efficiently. ‘You should have been a nurse, Cora,’ he said when, after seven days of cosseting and being fed bland though nourishing meals, he felt up to coming downstairs for his tea.