by Maureen Lee
It was possibly the first time in Cora’s life that she had blushed. ‘You just needed a bit of building up, like,’ she mumbled. ‘You’d let yourself go.’
‘I’ve been letting meself go for years.’
‘There’s no need for it any more,’ Cora assured him eagerly. ‘You can stay with us for always. There’s plenty of room.’ It would be one in the eye for Alice when she discovered her husband was living in Garibaldi Road. Cora had promised not to breathe a word, but it was bound to get out some time.
‘We’ll just have to see,’ John said, lighting a ciggie.
A few days later John announced he felt like a walk. Cora accompanied him round the block, proudly linking his arm. By now, August had turned into September and the air felt cooler. The flowers in the gardens smelt as sweetly as wine. She sniffed appreciatively. Normally, she never noticed such things.
‘I enjoyed that,’ he said when they got back to the house. ‘I might go again tomorrow, further afield.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘That would be nice.’ His face was filling out, his suit already fitted better. He looked dead handsome, she thought. He had yet to smile, but John Lacey was a dignified, serious man, not much given to laughing and smiling. She wished there were a way of getting shot of Billy, so there’d be just the two of them left in the house.
She bought John a shirt because he only had the one and Billy’s swam on him. It had a striped body and a white collar. ‘The man in Burton’s said it’s the latest fashion.’
‘Cora! You’ve made me feel dead embarrassed.’ She could tell, though, that he was pleased. It was probably a long time since a woman had made a fuss of him, got him a prezzie.
‘This is very smart. I’ll wear it tonight.’
‘Let me iron the creases out first.’
Billy said John looked like a stockbroker or a solicitor in the shirt and addressed him as ‘Sir’, while they ate their tea. When the meal was over John announced he was going out. There was someone he wanted to see.
Cora’s blood turned to ice. She knew for certain he was going to see Alice and her heart seethed with jealousy. Something told her he intended asking Alice if she would have him back.
‘Will you be long?’ she asked when he was ready to leave, hair combed, freshly shaved, wearing the shirt she’d bought.
‘I’ve no idea, Cora.’
Alice was sitting with her feet on a stool. She’d had a busy day, but then all her days were busy. It was something of an anticlimax to enter the unnaturally quiet house. The emptiness always reminded her of her two missing children. Where was Fion? she wondered fretfully. Why didn’t she come home, if only to visit? And she worried constantly about Cormac. At least she saw him from time to time, but something had happened to him that she didn’t understand. He appeared withdrawn, almost sullen, yet he was a lad who’d always looked upon the world with such obvious delight.
She hadn’t been home long when, much to her relief, the back door opened and Bernadette yelled, ‘It’s me.’
‘Put the kettle on while you’re out there,’ Alice yelled back. ‘How’s me dad and the kids?’ she asked when her friend plonked herself in an armchair with a deep sigh.
‘Everyone’s fine. How’s yourself?’
‘A bit bored, if the truth be known. I quite fancy some excitement.’
‘How about the pics? Danny’s given me the night off. We could go into town. Henry Fonda’s on at the Odeon. I could eat Henry Fonda.’
‘Oh, we all know the things you’d like to do to Henry Fonda, but when I said excitement I meant something a bit more personal, not watching Henry Fonda having all the excitement.’
‘Well, I’m afraid, Ally, that it’s the pics or nothing.’
‘I suppose the pics are better than nothing,’ Alice grumbled. The kettle whistled in the kitchen. ‘You can make that tea while I get changed. I won’t be a mo.’
Alice had changed into a green linen costume with a fitted jacket and pleated skirt and was brushing her hair when the knock sounded on the door.
‘I’ll get it,’ Bernadette shouted.
There was a long silence. Alice was about to ask ‘Who is it?’ when Bernadette came into the bedroom. Her face was white.
‘It’s John,’ she said.
‘John who?’
‘John Lacey, daft girl. Your husband. I’ll be getting along home.’
‘Don’t go, Bernie!’ Alice cried, but Bernadette mutely shook her head and ran downstairs. Alice stared at her own white face in the mirror for several seconds before going downstairs herself, holding tightly to the rail to support her trembling legs.
John was standing in the living room. He looked fit enough, she thought, though showed every one of his fifty-six years. He’d also lost a bit too much weight. She would have had to look at him twice if she’d met him in the street before recognising him as the man who was still her husband.
He inclined his head. ‘Hello, luv.’
‘Hello, John.’ She would have preferred it if he hadn’t called her ‘luv’. It didn’t seem right after they hadn’t seen each other for so long a time. ‘Sit down,’ she said politely. ‘How are you?’
‘Ta, luv.’ He sat in his old place under the window. ‘I’ve felt better, but I’ve felt worse, too. I’ve been living the last few weeks at our Billy’s.’
‘I didn’t know.’ Her voice was very cool – and perfectly steady, she noted with relief. She didn’t want him to know how badly she was shaking inside. She prayed she looked as calm as he appeared to be.
‘You’ve hardly changed a bit,’ he said.
Alice squirmed uncomfortably when she saw the obvious admiration in his eyes. She didn’t reply.
‘How are the kids?’ he asked.
‘Fine. Fion’s in London. I’m not quite sure where Cormac is right now. He travels a lot, like. Maeve’s married and Orla has four kids, two boys and two girls.’ She remembered it was the day Lulu was born that she’d discovered he’d got himself another woman and a brand-new family.
‘I suppose our Cormac’s in a dead good job. I take it he went to university?’
The ‘our’ Cormac was another mistake. ‘He decided not to in the end,’ Alice said coldly. If his father had been around he might have been able to talk his son into completing the last two terms. ‘He went into the music business instead. He’s in a group that plays all over the country.’
He didn’t ask what the group was called, what Fion was doing in London, where did Orla and Maeve live. Alice sensed he’d come for a purpose and it wasn’t to know how his family were.
‘Would you like some tea? Bernadette made some just before you came.’
‘Please, luv.’
She went into the kitchen, poured the tea and wished he’d stop calling her ‘luv’. It was getting on her nerves.
‘You’ve got the place looking nice, luv,’ he said when she came back. ‘All this furniture’s new, isn’t it? I remember you going on about how much you wanted a fitted carpet.’ His eyes swept approvingly around the room. ‘Hairdressing must pay well.’
‘I’ve got three salons now.’ She resented being reminded of the days when she’d been dependent on him. ‘I’m able to buy me own carpets.’
John gnawed his bottom lip. He glanced at her covertly. The coolness of her tone must have got through to him. ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here?’
‘It had crossed me mind.’
‘Well, luv, I won’t beat about the bush. I’ll be totally honest with you. Do you mind if I smoke?’
Wordlessly, Alice fetched an ashtray, though the request surprised her. In the past he’d always claimed smoking was a complete waste of money: ‘You may as well set light to a ten-bob note every week or so.’ She noticed he’d lost some of his composure. His hands were unsteady as he lit the cigarette.
‘The truth is, luv,’ he said in a rush, ‘I’ve been going further and further downhill over the last few years until a few week
s ago when I hit rock bottom. I don’t want to stay at our Billy’s for ever.’ He paused. ‘I was wondering if you’d mind if I came back home?’
Alice folded her arms over her chest, pressing them against herself so hard that it hurt. At least he’d been honest, as he’d promised. He didn’t want to come back because he loved her or he’d missed her, or he wanted to be near his children. He wanted to return because he’d reached rock bottom and had nowhere else to go.
‘It’s bloody miserable on your own, luv,’ he said forlornly.
‘I already know that, John. I’ve been on me own for thirteen years.’
‘Well, it’ll be nice to have a man around the house for a change,’ he said with an attempt at jocularity.
She looked at him directly. ‘Not if the man is you. Am I so pathetic that you think any man will do for me? Including one who walked out on me for a younger woman and wouldn’t be here if that woman hadn’t walked out on him!’
‘It was nothing like you think with Clare. I wouldn’t have had anything to do with her if it hadn’t been for me accident.’
‘Your accident!’ Alice laughed bitterly. ‘Oh, we all know about your bloody accident. I’m surprised you didn’t put a notice in the papers and announce it to the world. You’d think you were the only person who’d ever been hurt. In turn, you hurt everyone who loved you. I’ll not forget when you moved in permanently with Clare. Cormac kept ringing the yard. He wanted his dad, but you’d have nothing to do with him. You were dead cruel, John. Cruel and selfish. People don’t go that way because they’ve had an accident. It must have been there always. You just hadn’t shown it before.’
‘I’m sorry, Alice.’ His body had gone limp. He lit another cigarette from the stub of the first and seemed to have trouble making contact.
‘So you should be,’ Alice said brutally, then immediately regretted it. ‘Look,’ she said more kindly. ‘There’s nothing to stop you coming round now and then for a cup of tea. I could arrange for Maeve and Orla to be here.’
‘I doubt if they’d want to see me.’
On reflection, Alice doubted it too. ‘You could still come round. I could make you a meal.’
‘Do you really want me to?’
She couldn’t meet his eyes because she could think of few things she wanted less. Until that night she hadn’t realised he meant so little to her, that she actually disliked him. ‘Of course,’ she said.
It was John’s turn to laugh. ‘I think I get the picture. Perhaps I should have said I wanted to come back because I love you.’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference. And it wouldn’t have been true.’
‘Oh, yes, it would, Alice. I do love you. I’ve never loved anyone else the way I love you.’ His face collapsed. He was almost crying and it was horrible seeing a man like John Lacey so close to tears. He dropped the cigarette. The glowing end fell on his shirt, and she leapt to her feet and knocked it away before it burnt a hole, then picked up the ciggie off the carpet. She was still holding it when John grabbed her legs and laid his head against her stomach. ‘I do love you, Alice.’ He sobbed. ‘I can’t go on living the way I am.’
She pushed him away, wanting to cry herself. ‘But I don’t love you, John.’ She only wished she did. Then she would have been happy to take him back.
He collapsed into the chair. ‘What am I to do?’ he asked pitifully. ‘Where am I to go?’
‘Home.’
‘I haven’t got a home.’
‘Back to your Billy’s, then.’
‘I can’t stay there for ever. You know how much I’ve always loathed Cora.’
Alice had reached the point where she had begun to feel cruel and selfish. ‘I’ll find you a home, a little house somewhere,’ she said desperately. ‘I’ll give you the money for the furniture if you’re short.’
It was a genuine offer, made because she felt genuinely sorry for him, but it immediately brought her husband to his senses. His face turned to stone. ‘Do you really think I’d take money off a woman?’
‘I’m offering to help, John, that’s all.’
‘I don’t want your help, or your sympathy.’
‘What else do you expect when you start crying?’
He got to his feet. ‘I have the distinct feeling I’ve made a fool of meself. I think I’ll go now.’
‘John.’ She put her hand on his arm, but he shrugged her away. Alice had a sense of déjà vu. In the past, he’d done the same thing when she’d been trying to reach him and had been rewarded with the same churlish rejection.
‘Goodnight, Alice.’
Alice shut her eyes until the front door closed. She didn’t open them until she heard someone coming in the back way.
Seconds later her dad barged in, livid with anger. ‘Is he still here?’ he demanded.
‘No, Dad. He’s gone.’
‘What did he want?’
‘To come back.’
‘The nerve of the bugger. I hope you told him to go . . . to go . . .’ Danny paused, trying to think of a way of putting it without using an unacceptable expletive. ‘To go and jump in the lake.’
‘I just said no, Dad.’
‘He’s upset you, hasn’t he? I can tell by your face.’
‘Oh, Dad,’ Alice cried. ‘He seemed so tragic. I feel sorry for him. What’s going to happen to him now?’
‘That’s no longer any of your concern, girl. You’re too soft, you are. If John Lacey’s tragic, then it’s his own fault. He’s already put you through enough. Come on, luv.’ He put an arm round her shoulders. ‘Come back to ours and have a cup of tea, then you can go to the pictures with Bernadette. Even better, go somewhere and have a nice meal and a jangle.’
Alice willingly allowed herself to be led away. Anything would be better than being left with her own thoughts. She just wished she didn’t have the horrible feeling that she’d let John down.
If only you could relive certain scenes in your life and do them differently! He should have been more controlled with Alice, more practical. He shouldn’t have broken down, made himself look pathetic. Perhaps he should have asked more questions about the children, then approached the subject of him coming home more casually, skirting round it, like, as if the idea had just come to him. As it was, he’d made a terrible show of himself. His flesh crawled, thinking about it.
She’d looked so lovely, too: fresh and young, elegant in that green costume. She’d changed, though, since they used to live together. She’d never have said the things then that she’d said tonight – ‘Do you think any man will do me?’ – as if he was just a piece of shit.
In Marsh Lane, John paused outside an off-licence and realised how much he needed a drink. A sup of liquor hadn’t passed his lips since the night Billy had carried him home from the Docky. He’d sworn never to get in such a state again, but now he felt like getting smashed rotten. He went into the shop and bought a bottle of whisky, the cheapest there. Outside, he stopped in the first doorway, unscrewed the top, put the bottle to his lips and swallowed deeply. The alcohol seemed warmly familiar as it poured down his throat and he immediately felt better, more in charge of himself.
He walked towards Garibaldi Road, only slightly unsteady on his feet, anger mounting. Who did Alice think she was? Had she forgotten that they were still man and wife, that he had rights? It could be she had no lawful right to turn him away. It could be that the house in Amber Street was still legally his. It was his name that used to be on the rent book. He might go and see a solicitor tomorrow.
Cora opened the door as he was struggling with the key. ‘I’ll give you a key if you like, luv.’ She nodded at the one in his hand. ‘That must be for somewhere else.’
‘Sorry.’ He frowned at the key. It was for the padlock on the gates of the yard.
‘You weren’t gone long,’ Cora said, slyly pleased. There’d obviously been no great reconciliation.
‘Where’s Billy?’ John lurched into the hall.
‘He went out
not long after you. Why don’t you come and watch telly till he comes home?’
‘I’d sooner go to bed early, if you don’t mind. I feel very tired.’
‘Anything you like, luv.’
Cora could smell the drink on him. As he went unsteadily upstairs, she saw the whisky bottle protruding from the pocket of his jacket. Alice must have turned him down.
What John didn’t realise was that the woman who was perfect for him was directly under his nose – herself. They thought the same black thoughts, they looked darkly upon life, they didn’t suffer fools gladly, they took great risks.
For the next two hours she sat in front of the empty grate, hands clasped on her lap, unmoving. Billy came in and wanted to know if John was home, and she told him he was in bed, but didn’t mention the whisky.
‘I think I’ll turn in meself,’ Billy announced, yawning.
Within minutes she could hear him snoring. And still Cora sat, shoulders tense, arms stiff, hands held together tightly, like a knot in a rope. Dare she show John, that very night, how exactly right they would be for each other? Billy wouldn’t hear. The house could fall down around Billy’s ears, but you’d still have to shake his arm to wake him.
Dare she?
She’d known he was for her the very second she’d set eyes on him. She felt certain something had passed between them. But he wasn’t the sort of man who’d steal his brother’s girl. He’d pretended to ignore her, but she could tell he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Alice, wishy-washy, gormless Alice Mitchell, was merely a substitute for the woman he really loved.
Cora went upstairs and changed into her best nightie. It was blue, that brushed-nylon stuff, and she’d got it in a sale in T. J. Hughes’s. She undid her bun and combed her greying hair loose around her shoulders. There was scent somewhere, Californian Poppy, that Alice had given her for Christmas in the days when she’d been made welcome in Amber Street. She found the tiny bottle in a drawer under her stockings and dabbed some behind her ears.