Then on to the nightclub, where it was clearing up tab ends and broken glass, wiping last night’s beer from the bar and often as not someone's vomit from the floor. The carpet was past saving. Years of spills creating the dark, tacky residue that made your soles stick as you walked on it. Made her skin crawl, that carpet. Third job was a private house in Prestwich where she did a different floor each weekday and always the kitchen and bathroom. A consultant lived there, working at the hospital. She’d never met him, only his wife, who acted like minor royalty. She was often out, going off to coffee mornings and exhibitions and trips to Stratford or up to London, which was where they were from originally. How could you go up to London, Megan thought? The place was 300 miles south. It wasn’t so much a direction thing, she’d said to Brendan, she reckoned it was more like a snob thing: London was better than everywhere else so London was up and everywhere else was down.
Once she’d done the big house she had to get two buses back home, squeeze in her own housework and fetch the kids. Sometimes Brendan went for them and she had half an hour with her feet up. Then it was three hours of bedlam while they were fed and did their homework and little Chris was got ready for bed. At seven she set out again to the comprehensive school. If she really pushed it she could do her section in an hour and a half but most nights she hadn’t the energy to tear about. By the time she got back the kids would be asleep, Francine and her Dad watching telly. She’d join them for a cup of tea and a final fag before turning in, the alarm set for four-thirty.
Nina
‘Nina, Nina, there’s no one meaner! Nina, Nina, there’s no one meaner!’
The four girls surrounded her, their faces curled in snarls as they chanted their latest taunts, careful to have their backs to the staff supervising the playground. She could feel herself getting hot and the red bubbles growing inside. Wanting to smash their faces and pull the hair from their heads.
‘Shut up, pigs!’ she retorted.
‘Takes one to know one!’ Sophie Broom, the leader of the gang threw back.
‘I know you are, I said you are, but what am I?’ Veronica said. Veronica was the coward. Nina knew last time she had lashed out Veronica had run calling for teacher, leaving her three friends to cope with Nina’s furious reaction, kicking feet and slashing arms. Veronica never came near Nina when she was on her own.
‘If I had freckles like you, I’d get my name down for a skin-graft.’ Rosie glanced at Sophie for her approval. ‘There’s millions of them.’
‘Yeah. Looks like you’re going rusty.’ Sophie said.
Nina hated them. She felt her chest tighten, her hands go damp with sweat. She set her mouth, turned to walk away. One of them shoved her in the back between the shoulder blades. She couldn’t stop herself then. She lunged and caught a fistful of shiny blonde hair, pulled it hard down, forcing Sophie’s head towards the tarmac.
Someone grabbed her from behind. Other hands joined in.
‘Get off!’ The ringing tones of a teacher split the girls apart. Nina brushed the hair from her face, pulled her sweater round where it had twisted. She took some comfort from Sophie’s flushed face and the way her hair was all messed up.
Mrs Day, the head, went bonkers. She would have to write to Nina’s parents. If Nina couldn't control her temper then there would be no place for her in the school. It was unladylike and unacceptable. Mrs Day didn’t bother trying to establish what had led up to the brawl and Nina didn't bother trying to tell her. Sophie was a clever pupil. Her father gave the school a lot of money. She didn’t pick on anyone else, only Nina, so they all thought Nina was the troublemaker.
When she went back to her class she saw people’s eyes flicking at her to see if she’d been crying. Well, she hadn't, so bully for them. She saw Veronica nudge Rosie.
‘Sit down, Nina,’ Mrs Sinclair said. ‘And get out your Egyptian topic.’
Brilliant. She’d nearly finished her cover. She’d copied a mummy from a library book and she’d used bits of real gold paper from Dad’s cigarette packets to do the stripes on the sarcophagus with. She’d filled in-between with a lovely blue ink from the Fred Aldous shop in town. She’d done a border of proper hieroglyphics down the sides, and across the top and bottom she was doing a row of pyramids with a Sphinx in each corner. All she needed to do now was to colour in the pyramids and it would be finished.
She knew Miss Sinclair would put it on display, she’d held it up to show everyone last time.
Nina sat down and opened her desk. The bottle of blue ink lay on its side, the top open and a thick pool of it all over her folder. Her work was ruined. She could smell the metallic fumes of the ink. She wanted to cry, her eyes burned like coals and her nose prickled but she wouldn’t. She had left the ink at the other side, next to her pencil case. She knew she had. She looked across at her enemies. Saw the sly smile that Sophie shot Rosie and the prim curl on Veronica’s lips, the way her shoulders jerked a bit with a mocking, silent laugh.
She plunged her hands into the pool of ink, spreading it over the whole of the cover, and then crumpled the paper up. Rotten stinking pigs.
‘Miss!’ She held up her hands and heard the communal gasp.
‘Oh, Nina!’ Miss Sinclair’s voice was thick with frustration. ‘After all that work. You’d done so well. See – a moment’s clumsiness and it’s all spoilt. How many times do I have to tell you girls to put the tops back on properly. Go wash your hands.’
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘And try not to get into any more trouble on the way. I think we’ve had enough drama for one day, don't you?’
Marjorie
She was in the middle of spring cleaning. A house like this was easier to keep up with than something larger but even so you’d be amazed at how much grime accumulated from one year to the next. They couldn’t afford to be repainting and changing carpets whenever things got grubby but with plenty of elbow grease the place looked fresh and clean again.
She was methodical in her approach. A floor at a time, starting upstairs. First tidy and clear away the items that had a place to go. Put aside anything for jumble or good-as-new. Strip the beds. Remove and wash the curtains. That was a job and a half in itself. Filthy and tiring. Up the stepladder undoing all the curtain hooks, supporting the weight of the fabric on one arm. Curtains in to wash, or to the dry-cleaners. Wipe down the pelmet and the curtain rails. Clean the windows. Shift all the furniture and vacuum underneath, more swathes of grey fluff and hair and lost things. Return furniture. Dust lamps and picture rails. Vacuum again. Wipe down the paintwork with a bucket of hot water and Stardrops. Polish the mirrors. When she was damp with exertion and groaning from the effort she would stop for coffee and a cigarette.
Doing the downstairs, she put on records to jolly her along: Tony Bennett or Burt Bacharach, Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald. Downstairs was worse. The kitchen worst of all. Grease in every crevice. She had to dismantle and soak the Expel-Air, watch the water turn brown with the muck coming off it, till it was ivory-coloured again like it should be. All the crockery had to come out so she could clean the cupboards and put fresh lining paper in. The food in the larder and all the baking stuff had to be moved so she could clean the shelves. The drawers in the cabinets sorted out and tidied. The nets had to be soaked in Glo-White. The kitchen took at least a full day to do properly. Top to toe.
She had done their room and next was Nina’s but she’d have a break first.
It was a system. She had learnt from her mother. It was different back then. A girl knew looking after a home and a family was the most important skill she could learn. It was expected that daughters helped out. Not now. When was the last time Nina had ever done anything with her? The pain of them rubbing along together hurt her still. It was a familiar pain. Like a tender tooth, deep and perplexing. She had dreamt of the joys a daughter would bring: shared interests, like going shopping together; up Market Street or down Deansgate to Kendals for a new coat, arm in arm. You saw people like that. She f
elt a prickle of sadness in her nose. Daft. She could never work out whether it was her or Nina that had set the limits, or the pair of them together, but whatever it was they just weren’t close.
In her darkest moments she would admit to herself that she despaired of the girl. Nina’s bad temper and ill grace had left her disappointed and worn down. God knows she had tried to breach the gap, countless times, knowing as she did that Nina would lash out with clever words or pull back physically and wound her anew.
I’ve tried, I’ve done my best. That was her refrain. She had fed and clothed her daughter. She had bitten back the fresh remarks and sharp retorts that sprang to mind when Nina was behaving badly. Thoughts she never shared, not even with Robert.
Thank God for Stephen. Her lovely boy. Without him . . . well, she couldn’t imagine. She’d have been a bad mother, wouldn’t she? Unable to bear them, incapable of rearing them. Lacking the maternal instinct. But Stephen was her rock, her touchstone. And when she felt miserable about relations with her daughter she would think of him and her heart would lighten.
She stirred sugar into her coffee, lit a cigarette. She examined her hands. Red and chafed from the work, her nail polish chipped. She laid her cigarette in the ashtray and reached for the Nulon bottle. She poured a pool into her hands. Rubbed it in. The music changed. Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather . . . Beautiful voice, Billie Holliday – sang like an angel and died penniless.
She picked up the cigarette, took a puff, felt the familiar melancholy ripple through her. Funny, she thought, all the torch songs that she adored, they never made her think of Robert or any old boyfriends or even film-stars. No, it was Nina. Nina who broke her heart. Nina who was her great unrequited love.
Megan
‘We’d have to get a loan.’
‘Who’d give us a loan?’
Brendan shrugged. ‘They seem to be throwing it at people.’
‘But we’ve no assets. This place is rented.’ She saw uncertainty replace the eager expression that he’d had when he had told her about his uncle’s carpet shop. She didn’t want to spoil it for him but the prospect of further debts made her feel physically sick. ‘You might be able to get one of those schemes,’ she said, ‘job creation or whatever they call it. Has Ronnie been making a profit?’
‘Oh, aye. The trick is to get in while the stock’s still there and the reputation. Any gap and we'll lose custom.’
‘And he’s sure he wants to sell up?’
‘Definite. Belle would cuff him to the bed rather than let him work again. He knows his number’s up. The doctor made it plain too. Nice and easy, no strain. They’ll put him in for a by-pass.’
‘You’re sure about this, doing this?’
He nodded. ‘It’s not just selling the shop, there’s fitting and all, they do the lot.’
‘We’d need to talk to Ronnie. And the bank, we couldn’t do it without a loan, could we?’
He shook his head. ‘But Ronnie might accept half now and half over the next year. He knows how tight things are. I’d need to find someone to do the paperwork, the accounts, all that side of things.’
‘Who did it before?’
‘Ronnie.’
‘Can’t be that hard.’
‘You know me and forms.’
‘And figures!’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘I could have a go. If Ronnie showed me the ropes.’
He smiled quickly.
‘Ring him now,’ she said. ‘See if it’s all right for us to call round for a chat.’
‘You don’t want a bit longer to think about it?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘we’re not committing ourselves to owt, just going to see him.’
Besides, she thought to herself, if they didn’t go straight away then she’d get panicky about the whole thing and come up with a million worries about it.
‘Strike while the iron’s hot,’ she said. She looked in the mirror, pulled the elasticated band from her hair and shook out her curls. It needed a trim. Looked like a haystack, one on fire.
And what was the alternative to taking on the carpet business? Another twenty years getting poorer by the week, slogging her guts out and still having to watch the furniture fall apart and the cooker pack up and Brendan get more and more morose?
He slid his arms round her waist.
‘You always were a fast worker.’
‘I never heard you complaining.’ She pushed his hands away. ‘Go on, try him now.’
She watched him dial.
‘Won’t even have to change the sign, will we? Conroy’s Carpets.’
Nina
Nina was sick of school, sick of her stupid, boring, useless parents and sick of being fifteen. She wanted to be nineteen. Able to do whatever she wanted. Get married or go round the world or have a brilliant job and loads of money but not be so old that she was just a boring old square with nothing worth living for. God, she thought, I hope I die before I’m thirty. Be dead famous, then die. Paint brilliant pictures or be a fashion designer and dress the stars.
She looked again at her revision plan, gazed back out of the window, where Dad was putting the new rotary washing line up for Mum. Event of the year. How exciting. Tears pricked her eyes at the bloody awful boredom of it all. She needed a ciggie. There were two in her secret bag in her wardrobe but she knew for a fact that Dad had a packet of ten Benson and Hedges in his coat. He only smoked five or six a day and now and then she would help herself to one if the packet was more than half full. He didn't keep count.
If she did another half-hour then he’d be settled in the lounge and she could take the dog out.
The dog’s the best person in this family, she thought, then giggled at the notion. Causes of the First World War. As You Like It. Alluvial Plains. She let her eyes wander over the headings and the blocks of time she’d allocated. What was the point? She didn’t want to stay on at school a minute longer than was absolutely necessary. She wanted to get out, out of this house, away from this family, far away from this dump of a city.
She caught sight of her brother. Oh, brilliant. Now Stephen’s helping too. Perfect Stephen. Expected to do so-o-o-o well in his A levels. University material. Not like his sister. She was a cuckoo. She didn’t belong here with this lot, rotting in the suburbs. She felt permanently scratchy as though someone had supplied her with prickles instead of pores. There was this big myth that redheads had bad tempers and she did but it wasn’t just a temper like losing it every so often it was like the steam was always building up and when she shouted or flew off the handle it was only a relief for a short while and then she was feeling cross all over again.
Stephen, O perfect one, brains and good looks, he wasn’t ever mean to her no matter what she said. And she said some awful things. He never tried to get her into trouble. A blooming saint. That made it worse. Anatomy of The Earthworm. Respiration. Electromagnetism. Why couldn’t she just have done GCEs?
Now the rotary dryer was fully erected and her mother was smiling like an idiot and Nina loathed how happy they were. They ought to get the priest to come and bless the damn thing. She ripped her plan in half. Began to draw pictures on the back, eyes and teardrops, shadowy people. Like an LP cover. She drew a sea of question marks and in the middle like it was floating she drew ‘Nina’ in bubble writing.
Maybe her real mother was scratchy too. Maybe that’s where she got it from. If she found her at least she’d know whether it was in her blood. She scribbled out her name and turned the question marks into keyholes. Nina has artistic flair, a good eye, strong technique, and applies herself diligently. Best part of her report. For art. As low in the scheme of things as cookery, which she was rubbish at, and woodwork, which might have been good but most of the class were boys and they just messed about.
What could you do with art? Be an artist and starve? She liked it but she couldn’t see it going anywhere. Be cool to do album covers or posters, like for films and stuff, but how did you do that? They never had tho
se sort of vacancies in the paper. You’d probably have to go to art school, and for that you had to stay on and do A levels and there was no way she was staying on.
She was dying for a fag.
She listened and worked out that Mum and Dad were in the lounge. Stephen wherever.
She went down and poked her head round the lounge door. Dad reading, Mum watching Upstairs Downstairs.
‘I’ll take Joey out.’
They grunted.
She went to the small shelf by the front door, where Dad left his keys and loose change and cigarettes. Five left. Do-able. She took one and got her Zippo from her schoolbag. She whistled for Joey and attached his lead.
Once they’d reached the banks of the river she let him off to mooch about a bit while she sat on a bench and smoked. The river was ugly, steep-sided banks shaped in stiff angular lines. Something to do with flood control. The river a grey-brown sludge between the towering banks, the banks covered in rough grass and clods of earth. Nothing like the rivers in stories. The rivers you imagined when you said the word river. A real river would have shallow banks, clear, burbling water; you could see the pebbles and the shadows of the fish. There would be stepping stones draped in moss and willow trees overhanging the edges, maybe a stretch of waterfalls making the water silver as it tumbled down.
She took a deep drag, held it and blew out.
This river went all the way to the sea. Somewhere near Liverpool. The Mersey. ‘Ferry Cross The Mersey’. Good song, they’d re-released it. Bit sad but she liked that. Sad things were more . . . real . . . they meant more. Like Chloe, her best friend, cut-throat Chloe they nicknamed her because she was so down and talked about killing herself and how pointless everything was. Her loony way of looking at things meant she knew exactly what Nina was on about when she talked about being a cuckoo and her dumb, happy family and all that.
Trio Page 17