Chevrons, with its battered, black door and tarnished gold plaque looked like a shady joint. More so when the door half opened and an angry, wiry man peered out at him.
‘Is Noreen Lyons here?’ Fierce as his sister was, Matthew knew it would be easier to face her before Lara.
‘Who wants her?’ the man asked. He looked Matthew up and down as if he was concealing weaponry under his skirts, before stating the obvious. ‘You’re not a regular.’
‘I’m her brother Matthew,’ he said.
The gangster (he could not be anything else) looked at him warily.
‘You a Catholic?’
There were several replies Matthew felt like giving to this question, but the funny little man didn’t look like he was joking.
‘Yes,’ he said calmly then indicated his collar and skirt. ‘I’m training to be a priest.’
Arthur raised his eyebrow and nodded sagely, as if conferring his approval on a good career choice.
‘Follow me.’
Matthew followed him down stairs covered in a plush purple carpet until they reached a long, dark room filled with the quiet murmur of lunchtime drinking.
‘Hang on here,’ the gangster said then, seeming to think again, turned to Matthew and rather formally held out his hand, saying, ‘I’m Arthur… erm… Father.’
Matthew took it and said, ‘Just Matthew. Not a priest yet.’
Arthur seemed confused by this assertion, as did a few of the customers who, Matthew noticed, were looking over at him. The bloody soutane. Matthew didn’t want to be seen going up to the long bar. He would be less conspicuous sitting down, so took a low seat near the stage. Almost as soon as he did his ears were assaulted with loud music, ‘Louie, louie – whoa baby…’, the lights came on with a loud snap then, directly in front of his face, from behind a tinsel curtain, a girl emerged wearing a minuscule gold bikini. As she snaked around the stage, frantically shaking her hips, the bikini was revealed to be nothing more than a handful of lightly strung beads, which flicked away from her body revealing absolutely everything. Matthew did not know where to look. Nudity did not bother him. If you were shocked by the human form, you had no business studying renaissance art. What did bother him was being seen dressed as a priest at a strip show. It was already a source of great amusement to the men behind him.
‘Go on, padre!’ he heard somebody shout behind him. ‘Show ’er what you’ve got under that frock!’
He turned around to give the men a good-humoured smile, shaking his hand to indicate he wasn’t here for the stripper, but as he did he felt himself being jerked back by the shoulder.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Noreen.
‘I could ask you the same question.’
‘Don’t be such a sanctimonious goshawk. I’m working. Something you’ve never done a day of in your life.’
‘At least I’m not hanging out with lowlifes in some dirty den of iniquity.’
‘Try telling that to the lads.’ She gave her customers a cheery wave. ‘They’re getting a great kick out of you.’
‘That’s not my fault.’ Even though he was the good one, the moral one, the priest for goodness sake, somehow Noreen was taking the moral high ground.
‘Coming in here dressed up like that. They think you’re part of the show! I’m trying this new girl out – seeing if we can bring a bit of class into the lunchtime strip – and you’re making a mockery out of it!’ Then she prodded him, hard, in the top of his arm and said, ‘Come on. Up with you!’ When Matthew stood up the whole room cheered, and Noreen gave a little bow and a flourish of her hand before handing him over to Arthur, who had been standing on guard ever since she’d admonished him for letting her stupid brother cross the threshold at all.
‘Take him out back while I calm this lot down.’
Arthur escorted him to an empty store room where he sat on a barrel and waited for his sister to come and tear strips off him.
She did not disappoint.
‘Mam and Da are really worried about you,’ Matthew said.
‘They’re in their hole. Da just wants me to go home and run the business for him so he can swan off and play golf, or whatever. Failing that, he wants to get you back in touch with Lara so that you’ll give up this stupid priest business then go home and, presumably, also try to make yourself useful.’
‘But Mammy…’
Even as he said it, Matthew could hear how whiney and pathetic it sounded. A nancy boy. That’s what his father called him.
Noreen softened. Their mother was a good woman. But not strong.
‘Mammy is fine,’ she said. ‘It’s better she doesn’t know where I’m working. I’ll write to Da tonight and tell him I’m working in an Irish bar. You tell him you saw me and that I’m fine. Tell him I’m busy making a small fortune for a landlord from Longford. That will get his goat and put him so high up on his horse he won’t bother us again for a while.’
‘What about Lara?’
‘What about her?’
‘I should see her…’
‘Why?’
‘To say sorry.’
‘For what? Breaking her heart? Deciding you’d prefer to be a stupid priest than be with her? She’s over you, Matt, or, at least, she’s getting over you.’
Noreen thought about Lara sneaking out of Coleman’s office. Noreen had expected, or rather hoped, Lara would tell her about their encounter afterwards. Fill her in on the gory details of her new romance, but she didn’t. Whatever Lara’s reason – guilt, embarrassment – Noreen was hurt by her silence. It seemed her old friend was becoming as secretive as their strange flatmate, Annie. Was it a good idea for Lara to see Matthew while she was starting a fledgling romance with Coleman? Probably not. But then, that wasn’t Lara’s call because, if she wasn’t going to tell Noreen what was going on with her, then there was no need for Noreen to fill her in on her brother’s sudden appearance.
‘Leave her alone, Matthew. You turning up on her suddenly would just upset the applecart.’
‘I need to make amends.’
‘Not always about what you need, brother dear. You’re a priest now – you’re supposed to think about what other people need. Lara’s moved on.’ Shuffling him towards the door she added, ‘Speaking of which, you need to move along yourself now. This shift won’t manage itself and I don’t want those boys upsetting the new stripper – erm, dancer.’
As Noreen walked Matthew to the door she felt a pang of pity for her poor brother. In his seminarian dress he looked out of kilter – not just with the seedy environs of Chevrons, but with himself. While Noreen had the confident bluff of Frank in her bones Matthew had always been less certain of himself and his place in the world. He would make a terrible priest, and the last thing the world needed was more terrible priests. She hoped he wouldn’t make it that far. That he might give this priest business up before it gave up on him. As she gently encouraged him out onto the Kings Road, although he didn’t say anything, she could sense he was vulnerable and lost and Noreen felt as if she was throwing him to a nest of vipers. At the door, she pulled him back and kissed him, assuring him that she would write to their parents and promised to contact him at the seminary to meet up again before too long. Unseen, from the bottom of the stairs, Arthur witnessed their tender moment, and a lump caught in his throat.
Back in the bustle of the Kings Road, Matthew did not have to be back in the seminary until evening prayer. He had expected that Noreen and Lara would keep him busy for the whole afternoon. Certainly, at the very least, cook him his dinner. Hungry, Matthew wandered into a small, working man’s cafe across the road from the club, feeling a little hard done by that his sister hadn’t dropped everything to feed him.
Lost in resentment he sat by the window and picked up the plastic covered menu. He had barely begun to read it when he sensed the waitress standing over his shoulder. Another woman come to annoy him.
‘I’m not ready yet,’ he snapped.
‘In a minute, so.’
Something in the soft, smooth timbre of her voice, the barest hint of an Irish accent, caused him to turn around. When he saw her, a feeling came over him like nothing he had ever experienced before. Looking at the girl’s face Matthew felt as if he was looking into every painting he had ever admired, all at once. She was every white-skinned, crimson-haired maiden he had ever fallen in love with. In an instant he relived those stunned moments when he first stood in the National Gallery gazing at the sublime originals of his painter heroes, Rubens, Raphael, astonished by their ability to capture the mysterious beauty of women onto canvas. This feeling, he realised at the time, was the closest he’d ever been to falling in love. Now, this feeling was back but it was happening with a real woman. Although, in some sense, her beauty was so otherworldly Matthew felt as if he might be gazing at an illusion, the feeling he had ran deeper than for her beauty alone. Although she was a complete stranger to him, Matthew felt he knew her. He instinctively understood things about her that he knew were true. Even though he had no evidence whatsoever to suggest it, he could see in her eyes that she was vulnerable. She had been hurt. Without her saying a word, he could see in her beautiful eyes that she was carrying something that did not belong to her. It was a lifetime in a moment; this was the world standing still.
Matthew was at a loss for words but he couldn’t let her go so he said, ‘Erm, mixed grill please.’
‘Are you sure?’ she said, writing his order down. ‘It’ll be about twenty minutes – to make sure the steak is well done.’ Then she smiled.
Even though he was sitting down, Matthew felt his insides collapse. Unable to speak, he nodded in reply and she went off to the kitchen with his order. Matthew pinched himself for being so useless, then braced himself for the longest twenty minutes of his life.
26
Coleman and Lara made love for nearly two hours. No words passed between them. It was such an instant, instinctive, intense experience that afterwards Lara did not know quite what to make of it. Lying on his office sofa, the weight of his relaxed, heavy arms resting on her naked breasts, Lara became enveloped by the rhythm of their breathing, and a slow panic began to rise up in her. They weren’t even in a bed. Lara was no prude. She and Matthew had made love (although it had been a tame, cautious affair compared to this), but they had known each other for years and were getting married. This man was her boss. A London gangster. His role as Lara’s friend and business partner had been burned out of her by the passionate heat of what they had just experienced. What was he now? What was she to him? Lover? There was still enough Irish Catholic in Lara for that to sound cheap. Boyfriend? Coleman was no boy. Maybe it was nothing. Just sex. A sixties moment. Coleman was desired by every woman he met. Maybe it was just her turn. Whatever the case, this was all a horrible mistake. She was naked, on a sofa, in the middle of the day, in the aftermath of lovemaking with a handsome Englishman she should be maintaining a business-like distance from. What had she been thinking? Lara was about to make a move to go when she felt the heat of Coleman’s breath on her neck. Her eyes closed involuntarily. Despite herself, she was unable to resist even the smallest advance from him.
Then, he moved his mouth to her ear and said, in a coarse whisper, so small it was barely audible, ‘I love you.’
Lara got such a fright she thought she mustn’t have heard him right. But she had heard him perfectly.
She managed to stop herself from saying ‘Sorry?’ to buy time out of her shock, and instead did the only thing she could do in response to such a momentous statement. She pretended not to have heard him, extracted herself gently from his arms and started to get dressed.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, keeping her voice as light as she could. ‘I have to get back to the shop. They’ll be wondering where I am.’
She smiled at him, but knew it looked awkward and contrived.
‘Of course,’ he said, reaching for a cigarette. His eyelids dropped with disappointment and his jaw hardened. He was hurt. But there was nothing she could do about that except the one thing she would not do, which was tell him she loved him back.
Lara managed to sneak out of the club without anyone seeing her. Especially Noreen. The last thing she needed was her ex-boyfriend’s sister grilling her about this. Especially after she had expressed an interest in Coleman – although after this encounter it seemed even more unlikely a scenario.
❊
Annie was cleaning under her bed when the carpet sweeper hit something. Her case. She felt slightly nauseous at the memory of its existence. Then, even sicker at the realisation that the carpet sweeper had touched it. It had never happened before. The sweeper didn’t reach that far under the bed. It must have been moved. Annie got down on her knees to check and nearly threw up when she saw the angle of the case askew and the padlock facing her. Her first thought was maybe somebody else had moved it while cleaning. But nobody cleaned except her. Somebody must have been snooping. Not Lara. Noreen? But why?
For a moment, Annie wondered what she should do for the best. She took out the case and reassured herself that the lock had not been tampered with. They had no reason to suspect her of anything. Why shouldn’t she have a locked case under her bed? She was a private person.
Annie decided the best thing to do was to be open about it. Well, open about the case’s existence, if not its contents. So, when the three of them were gathered in the living room that evening she said, quite matter-of-factly, ‘Did anyone move my case under the bed?’
Lara vaguely said, ‘What case? What are you talking about?’
Noreen blurted out, ‘Pfffft. No? Why?’
‘Only I was cleaning earlier and I have a suitcase under my bed. It’s locked because it has a lot of precious, private things in it and somebody’s moved it.’
Lara looked aghast.
‘Why would anyone go under your bed?’
‘Well, they could be cleaning,’ Annie said, looking at Noreen.
Noreen laughed awkwardly. ‘That’s weird. Who keeps a locked suitcase under their bed?’ Noreen said, looking away as she refilled her glass from a can of TAB.
‘I do,’ said Annie.
Lara took the can off Noreen and took a swig from it.
‘Snooping again, Noreen?’
She nodded back at her and said to Annie, ‘Don’t leave anything private lying around with this one about, she’s nosy as all hell.’
Normally, Noreen would have taken the slagging. She knew she was nosy but this was different. If Lara had been on her own and said it, she might have taken it but in front of Annie, it felt like a betrayal. A double betrayal as she was also holding out on her over Coleman. In any case, she knew her instincts were right and that there was something fishy about Annie. Her cheeks burned with fury.
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ Annie said, not getting the joke, which made Noreen hate her even more. ‘I just wouldn’t like to think of anyone going through my private things.’
Noreen was speechless with rage but could hardly defend herself, so she stood up and said, ‘I’ve left something in the club.’ Then she went downstairs.
She found Arthur and the two of them had a whisky and a fag, and she made him tell her the story of his nickname again. His company and anecdotes reminded her that she was on this great adventure, and that Lara was her oldest friend and they would get over this misunderstanding. Annie was a different kettle of fish. She would have to bide her time, but by God she was going to find out what was in that padlocked case.
After Noreen left, Alex turned up at the door full of beans.
‘You are not going to BELIEVE who just called,’ he said, the moment he stepped into the living room.
‘Amaze us,’ said Lara.
The day after the shoot, when Alex’s pictures had appeared on Penelope Podmore’s page, Lara became inundated with requests from magazines for her clothes. Things were flying. Every model agency in town wanted Annie.
‘Vogue.’
&nb
sp; Lara raised her eyebrows. That was big. Annie was in the kitchen, distracted.
‘I said VOGUE,’ Alex shouted at her but she only smiled politely.
‘They want me to take some test pictures of Annie – try us both out. Like Bailey and Shrimp. They think we have a vibe.’
‘I can’t ask Fred for time off,’ she said, wiping down the kitchen counter. ‘We’re short staffed at the moment and the builders are keeping us really busy.’
Alex thought she was joking. He nearly swallowed his own teeth. He looked at Lara. ‘Is she serious?’
Lara nodded. Despite her modelling up a storm on the day of their shoot, Lara could feel that Annie was stalling on starting a modelling career, for some reason. Maybe it was her whole secrecy, privacy thing that drove Noreen so mad. Maybe she just had cold feet about the modelling business. Maybe that wonderful flowering they had seen was a one off or maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t interested in being a fashion model.
‘Lara!’ he pleaded. ‘Talk some sense into her.’
‘If she doesn’t want to do it, she doesn’t want to do it,’ Lara told him. ‘It’s up to Annie.’ Annie was cleaning and cleaning, wiping and polishing. Lara could see she was agitated; whatever was the matter with her there would be no use talking to her when she was like this. She was gentle, but Annie could be as stubborn as a mule.
As he was leaving, out of Annie’s earshot, Alex pleaded with Lara.
‘Please talk her around. This is my big break. And yours.’
‘I like my job,’ Annie said, when Lara came back in.
‘You know this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, Annie? Vogue don’t ask twice,’ she said. ‘You’ll never get this chance again.’
‘I already earn more money than I need,’ Annie said. ‘I’m happy at Fred’s. I don’t need anything more.’
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