The Reading Room

by Ruth Hamilton

  Philly awarded him a withering glance. ‘They can please themselves,’ she said rather sharply. ‘I don’t know what’s happened, Dave. The whole thing ran away with me. I never wanted all this.’

  ‘Yes, you did. Right at the start you carried on about feeding folk. I told you we didn’t need all this business.’ He grasped both her hands. ‘They just want to see you happy, Phil. If they only get a pie and a pint, they’ll be happy.’

  She burst into tears.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘that’s it. Enough is enough, Mrs Nearly-Barker. Hairdresser, then home. Leave all this to me.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Go.’ He pointed to the door. ‘Get out before one of us bursts a blood vessel. Think of the baby.’ He kissed her forehead and gave her a gentle push in the direction of the exit.

  When she had gone, he looked at his watch. Surely they would be here soon? It was all very eleventh hour, but he would give his lovely bride the party she deserved even if it killed him. He walked outside and began his vigil. When Lily’s estate car finally hove into view, it was four o’clock. Lily was a miracle worker; Lily would sort it out.

  She didn’t even get the chance to visit poor Eve, because Dave was on her like a ton of bricks the minute she stepped out of the car. ‘Lily,’ he pleaded. ‘She’s my princess and my saviour. I want her to have the best. The wedding’s at three, and I’ll keep her away from the hall. Women all over the place have the food, and they’ll bring it across tonight and in the morning, because it needs time to thaw. All that cloth you have, all those lights and silk flowers and . . . oh, I don’t know. Make it fit for a princess.’

  ‘Is it all right if I breathe first? Babs, go and see Eve – take Cassie with you – you can phone Pete from Eve’s house. Tell Eve that Dave’s on my case, it’s his fault, and I’ll see her as soon as possible.’ Lily paused and leaned against the car for a moment. ‘Listen, you,’ she said to Dave. ‘Dig up every man you can find – get them out of their graves if needs be. I’ve an attic full of wedding bling and tat, but I’m doing no carrying.’ She looked closely at Dave. ‘Are the arrangements a mess?’

  He nodded wordlessly.

  ‘Leave it to me. I do the impossible every day of the week, but this miracle is going to take all night.’

  ‘She’s worth it,’ he said.

  ‘Of course she is. Right. Find me six men, then buzz off for a pint. I don’t want you there, and Philly is banned.’

  ‘Thanks, Lily.’

  She smiled. She was home.

  Mike wrapped his arms round Lily and lifted her up in the air as soon as she entered her house. ‘Thank God,’ he repeated several times.

  After a long kiss, she cried, ‘No time, no time. Unhand me, varlet, and get up those stairs immediately.’

  He grinned. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

  But she wasn’t asking, she was commanding. ‘Attic. Boxes marked wedding. Fetch. Don’t ask me to fill in the missing words—’ The door shot inward, and Dave marched in with Valda’s husband Tom, Chas, Derek, Tim Mellor and a couple of men whose names Lily didn’t know. She sent them off upstairs in pursuit of Mike before going to change into overalls and an old shirt. Weddings usually looked beautiful, but those who planned and furnished such occasions were invariably reduced to wreckage.

  When Dave had been sent to the pub, Lily sat for several minutes in the centre of the school hall, which she considered to be a disaster zone. Mike, complete with silly grin, kept his eyes on her. If he thought said silly grin would get him out of helping, he could think again, since this was a matter of dire urgency. In less than twenty-four hours, the mess had to become beautiful for Philly, who deserved only the best. So the best had to be made of an appalling job. ‘Should I be getting jetlag after travelling from Blackpool?’ she asked of no one in particular.

  The school hall was not the perfect venue for a reception. It had huge windows, plasterboard walls and harsh lighting. But Lily refused to be daunted. Yard after yard of cream muslin was pinned by helpers to walls and windows while Lily worked on a gigantic chandelier made from wire, crystals and large fairy lights. Silk roses were pinned here and there to break the muslin monotony, and every wall was lit by tiny fairy lights just strong enough to show through the sheer drapery.

  ‘It’s like fairyland,’ Mike declared when the room was almost finished.

  ‘I’m glad you’re so easy to please,’ said Lily. ‘Now, open the curtains on the stage and put a small table up there – I’ve brought some Irish linen cloths. Tim – you cover these terrible buffet tables and the smaller one for the stage. They can cut their cake up there. I’ll do napkins and decorate the stage tomorrow.’ She waited until her orders had been obeyed.

  ‘Right – sit,’ she said.

  The men were fed up. ‘We need a drink,’ Chas complained. ‘I’ve a sick wife at home, and—’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ snapped the woman in charge. ‘Favours.’

  ‘I’m doing no more favours for anyone,’ said Chas.

  Lily threw a pile of net circles on a table. ‘Fifty should be enough, as they’re just for women. So do a few each.’ She demonstrated with a handful of sugared almonds, one of the net circles and a piece of satin ribbon. ‘Chas,’ she said, ‘you are excused. Go to your shop and take beer to my house. You and the rest of these reprobates can get your reward there. I’ll pay you later.’

  ‘No need,’ said Chas gratefully. He was glad to escape the making of favours, and he needed to check the shop anyway, as it was still unattended and closed.

  The vet looked at Lily. ‘I can sew up a cat and I can probably neuter an elephant at a push, but when it comes to sugared almonds—’

  ‘And I’m OK with baptisms and weddings—’

  Lily glared at the man she adored. ‘Get on with it. Anybody with less than ten out of ten stays in after school and does extra arithmetic.’

  She smiled as she watched large fingers trying to do the work usually apportioned to women. After a few minutes, she sat with them and helped, because they were remarkably slow learners. Just after eleven o’clock, Lily declared herself satisfied with their labours. ‘Take this lot of favour-makers to my house,’ she told Chas, who had reappeared sometime before. ‘I’ll go and see if Eve’s still up.’

  While the men made their way to the ex-presbytery, Lily walked past the church and into Rose Cottage. Cassie was asleep on a sofa, while her mother dozed in a chair. ‘Don’t get up,’ whispered Lily to Eve. ‘I am absolutely exhausted. How are you?’

  Eve smiled. ‘Good to see you, girl. He’s not getting rid of the business, so that’s a start. And I’ve decided not to have epilepsy, because it brings him out in a rash, and we can’t have that.’

  Lily sank into an armchair. ‘I am so, so sorry. It was meant for me. I believe Clive’s being charged with something or other, and they’ve got the men who did the crime for him. I shouldn’t have run away. What sort of friend runs when she’s needed most?’

  ‘A frightened one with a child to save. Stop it, Lily. What happened saved me from paralysis or some such thing – they didn’t know what that cyst thing might have done to me. I could have ended up talking broken biscuits and walking like a ruptured duck. Look on the bright side.’

  Lily exhaled slowly. ‘I am so tired. But we’ve got the hall almost ready, and all the men are at my house chilling out with beer. I suppose I’d better go and supervise before they wreck the place.’ She stood up and planted a kiss on Eve’s forehead. ‘Send Babs home when she wakes,’ she whispered. ‘See you at the wedding.’

  Lily walked slowly past the church that had owned Mike for many years. He was about to turn his back on many parishioners in the cluster of villages, and she would be seen as one of his reasons. It always came back to this, she told herself silently; it always reached the point where she worried about herself and what folk would think of her. It wasn’t about her at all. Mike was the one who was going to suffer most.

  Her house was as s
ilent as the graveyard next door. Standing at the French windows, she saw a few glimmers of light in the orchard, and deduced that her favour-makers and curtain-hangers were enjoying their reward al fresco and were using her storm lamps as illumination.

  ‘Lily?’

  She shivered when his hands crept round her waist.

  ‘Thanks for telling Paul to let me know you were all right.’

  She turned to receive his kiss before clinging to him as if she might never let go. ‘I was so afraid,’ she said. ‘Terrified, in fact. There was Cassie, there was Babs, there was me. I had to make sure we were safe.’

  ‘It was reaction,’ he said. ‘Is Cassie his?’

  Lily nodded mutely. After a short silence, she continued. ‘Babs came to our house because she was angry and afraid of being a lone parent. He had seduced her and she was a couple of months into the pregnancy.’ She paused. ‘That was when everything started to go completely haywire.’

  He stroked her hair as if comforting a child. ‘You’re exhausted.’

  ‘And you’re sober.’

  He laughed. ‘Two pints is my limit. If I have any more, I either defy the law of gravity or succumb to it completely. I had an uncle the same. He fell asleep in Liverpool and woke next morning on the Isle of Man.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. The trouble was, he was getting married that day.’

  ‘Good Lord. What happened?’

  Mike shrugged. ‘She married a Protestant, I think, decided he was the safer bet.’

  ‘And Uncle?’

  ‘The crew liked him so well that he joined them and spent the rest of his days ferrying folk from dock to dock.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Yes. Go on. You’re too tired for my anecdotes.’

  She nodded. ‘I need a bath. A couple of hours in a car followed by the school hall frenzy is just too much. I am forbidden to get tired. Doctor’s orders. Are you staying tonight?’

  ‘Yes. Go and have your bath while I get rid of the fairies at the bottom of your garden. It’s a big day tomorrow.’ He turned to leave the house. ‘By the way, I love you.’

  ‘And I love you.’

  It was as simple as that. He was just a man, albeit a rather wonderful specimen. He was an adult who was about to change the course of his life, and she would be there to comfort him when the Church showed its impatience with him. The love between Lily and Mike had come suddenly and unbidden, but that was the nature of love. It homed in and focused on the bull’s eye and to hell with all the outer rings on the target. Love was not controllable. She went to have her bath.

  They lay together that night in a bed that was far too small, and apart from a few kisses, there was no love-making. Tomorrow would be Mike’s last wedding, and they shared the unspoken knowledge that he had to be at his best in the morning. Lily turned to the wall, and he fitted himself behind her like a spoon against its twin. They slept for ten hours, and when she woke, Lily knew that she had definitely arrived home. She would hang her hat in Eagleton. As would he.

  Sudden silences, then mutterings when they think I’m out of earshot. Those who spoke to me before now ignore me completely. I should have used someone who knew her, or somebody with the sense to find out properly before wading in.

  The name Boswell has come up a few times. From the little I’ve heard, he’s been good to cons on the outside. He’s well thought of. There’s something going on, and I’ve asked for a move. Even the screws won’t look at me. They tell me I’ll be moved when the governor’s ready, and not before.

  Whisperings again this morning. Not content with seeing me dragged out of prison and into court, they want more from me. This is frightening. The worst was last night just after lights out. When the screws had checked after lockdown, the lags whispered in unison. It hissed along the landing till it reached my cell at the end. The word sounded like ‘Chazzer’, but I’m not sure.

  Escape from here’s impossible. This morning, I told a screw about the whispering. He said nobody heard a thing. Well, I heard it . . .

  Twelve

  The day started well. Some runt called Walter spat in my breakfast, so had to do without. Threw the plate in his face and got marched out by screws. If some old con tells you he got beaten up by prison staff, don’t assume he’s lying. Some of these officers are psychos. Others are so ugly, they’re probably sexually frustrated, so they hit us instead of clobbering their women. If they have women, that is.

  No breakfast? No problem. The food in here is in breach of the Trade Descriptions Act, because there’d probably be more nourishment in the crockery. Even the water tastes bad, as if the purification works is leaving in half the sewage and most of the bog roll. I’m told I’m too picky and that some prisoners even enjoy the food. Well, they must have been living out of dustbins before they got here, then. Seems some folk will eat anything.

  I’m on laundry. It’s exciting work if you like other people’s pyjamas and underpants. Got punched in the gut. Hard. Two held me behind a skip while the third waded in. ‘That’s from Chazzer,’ they said. It’s this chap Boswell. Walter the Spitter’s brother got helped out by this Chazzer, runs a stall now on some market or other. Chazzer is the good egg who gets reformed crooks stalls on markets and I am the bad bastard. There’s an ill wind blowing in my direction and it’s coming not just from the inmates. Even the decent screws don’t talk to me any more. As long as they don’t put me back on 43 . . .

  Lunch. Gravy like congealed blood floating a raft of fat, mutton dressed as lamb with watery mint sauce, spuds lumpy with that greenish taste they get when they’re seriously diseased and unfit for human consumption. Losing weight now. Talk, talk, talk. Jabber, jabber, mutter. It was Chazzer’s wife who got the bang on the head. Yeah, yeah, I knew that. Daren’t say anything. Daren’t say it was bone-headed Scousers who got it wrong. It wasn’t me. I was curled up with Len Deighton when the job went down. Went wrong.

  They’re building up to something and I’m the target. Bleeders know I’ve been in court, know I sent the loonies to do the job even if I did plead not guilty. Need eyes in the back of my head, but no money would buy them. So I’m stuck here waiting to be crippled while they go on about Chas/Chazzer Boswell, sainted man who helps old lags to walk the narrow when they get out of the big house. I suppose I am scared. Acting laid back is one thing, but feeling it is impossible.

  More news. Seems Chazzer’s coming in to visit Walter the Spitter. He visits him a couple of times a year, according to the whispers and mutters. Chas has done well for himself, owns a row of shops and an off-licence. Leanne got away and Chazzer’s missus copped it and she’s gone epileptic or some such tragic thing. Anyway, I’m in everybody’s bad books, so things have taken a turn for the even worse.

  Thinking of a half-attempt at suicide, make sure they find me and move me to a hospital. Or I could just act crazy and start spitting in food, I suppose. But they wouldn’t notice. See, what most people fail to understand is that the screws can be as bad as the cons.

  It’s all wrong. The system’s gone to pot and I’m going to get done over while the screws go deaf and blind. Still. As long as they leave me alive, I’ll get out of this bloody dump. Survived the day. Another day in paradise. Get my head down, try not to think about tomorrow.

  The rain was torrential. Philly jumped out of bed and ran to the window, hoping against hope that the lashing sound had happened in a dream, but the noise didn’t stop. Today was the day of her wedding, and the heavens had opened. She shivered and hugged herself – was this a bad omen? Was God punishing her for getting pregnant before being married? She prayed inwardly for it to stop, but it showed no signs of abating.

  ‘Shut up,’ she said aloud. ‘Anyone would think you’d considered becoming a nun, all this praying and penance.’ She almost smiled when she remembered the shy, silly girl who had gone as a postulant to the Poor Clares. St Clare, a favourite with many impressionable teenage girls, had given up a privileged lifestyle to live in prayer
and contemplation, and had been a contemporary of St Francis of Assisi. ‘And I thought I could exist like a Franciscan,’ murmured Philly. The sisters made altar breads for distribution throughout Britain, and their days were spent in communion with Christ. ‘Not for me,’ she concluded. She enjoyed the good things in life; loved cooking, reading, theatre and concerts. ‘I wasn’t holy enough,’ she said gratefully as she took her wedding outfit from the wardrobe. And it was still raining malevolently. ‘Please, God, help me to be good enough for Dave and for my child. Oh, and I’d be delighted if You’d stop raining on us.’ Would He listen? Should she stop begging and act normal? Rain was rain, and life went on even when dripping wet.

  There was a French saying that translated roughly into ‘rainy wedding means a happy marriage’. All well and good, but rain as heavy as this also made for straggly hair, damaged clothes and ruined shoes. Women were already arriving at the school hall with food for the reception, and Philly watched them for a few minutes before going to draw a bath. They were scuttering about with bags and umbrellas, and every one of them had probably paid for a decent hairdo. Dave wasn’t here. He had spent the night at Eve’s house, as Chas was to be his best man. He hadn’t to see his bride before church, but Philly wished he could be here. He was such a comfort, such a gentle, caring man. Skippy whimpered a little, because she missed her master. A bone quietened her while the bride gathered her thoughts and tried to look on the bright side. Better a wet wedding to Dave than a sunny one to someone who didn’t care for her . . .

  Lily had been up to something, but the bride had been ordered to stay away. There had been activity in the hall last night, and it meant that she probably didn’t need to worry about the reception, because Lily was a genius with weddings. Everyone had been so kind. Instead of wedding gifts, Dave had asked for DIY vouchers, as he intended to put a new kitchen and a new bathroom in Philly’s house. Up to now, they had received enough for everything except flooring, so they were lucky people.