‘Yes,’ replied Daisy, ‘because I don’t want to.’
‘You’re frightened?’
‘What would I be frightened about?’
‘You’re frightened to leave this ghetto.’
Sammy pushed Willie, none too gently now, saying as he did so, ‘Enough of that.’ Then it was Katie who spoke: looking fully at Daisy, she said, ‘I asked you to come to my birthday party because you’re one of the team. All the others have accepted, so there must be a reason for your refusal, and all Willie is saying, is he would like to know what it is. And so would I. But Sammy there, he’ll put on his Indian guru’s monastery act and say, “You have your reason and your reason is yours alone, and therefore no-one should attempt to…”’
‘If you don’t shut up! I’ll attempt to lay you out, Miss Bailey, and in the street.’
Katie laughed at this, as did Sammy, but Willie’s face was as straight as Daisy’s, and he continued to look at her now, saying, ‘You go to discos. You go out with Jimmy. And we don’t care how often you dye your hair, or that you wear trainers, or…’
‘Of all the thickheads on this planet, Willie, you beat them all.’ Sammy appeared angry now. And to this Willie answered, ‘Thank you! Thank you very much. And you, I suppose, consider yourself a bloody oracle.’
The result of this exclamation was to make Daisy laugh out loud, and for Katie to join her. And as Katie looked at the two sheepish faces now, saying, ‘Oh, I wish Dad had been here,’ Daisy stopped laughing, and turning to Katie, she said, ‘Would he have laughed an’ all?’
‘Oh yes. Yes. Just to hear the way Willie said bloody.’
‘Would your mother have laughed?’
‘Well, she would have been amused. But she likely would have said, “Willie!” She used to do years ago whenever he would come out with some nicety that the oracle was in the habit of expressing.’
They all turned to Daisy now, as she said, ‘Yes, I thought your mother would look at things differently from your dad. And that’s one of my reasons for refusing. I know oil doesn’t mix with water, except in places like over there.’ She thumbed back towards the large building they had just left. ‘And even there it can look streaky at times. And if I had accepted your invitation,’ she looked at Katie again, ‘what would have happened? You would have expected me to invite you back to our place, wouldn’t you?’
‘No! No!’ This came from both Willie and Katie. Then Katie added, ‘Not necessarily, although I don’t see why you shouldn’t invite us to meet your people.’
They were all staring at Daisy again: her head was back and her eyes were cast heavenwards, a pose she maintained for some seconds before, lowering her gaze onto Sammy, she said, ‘They don’t know what they’re talking about, do they? They’re really more foreign than foreigners.’
‘Why don’t you try them?’
‘What!’ Daisy stared at Sammy, and he repeated, ‘Yes, why don’t you try them? It’s Saturday afternoon. You said yourself your place is as packed as a football stadium on a Saturday afternoon when there’s no money kicking around.’
‘D’you know where we live?’ Daisy’s question was quiet. And Sammy’s reply was equally quiet as he said, ‘Yes, you live in Forty-five, Brompton Grove West. It’s a three-bedroomed house with sitting room, big kitchen-cum-living room, scullery and bathroom, and a strip of garden at the back. Me granny used to live in a similar one, not a kick in the backside from Brompton Grove West. I know that part well because I had to stay with her. And I liked living there as much as I liked her, and that wasn’t much, I can tell you. When we moved to the High Flats, that wasn’t a move upwards, but it seemed like heaven to me because me granny wasn’t there.’
He looked towards Katie now, and with a grin on his face, he added, ‘I used to say a Hail Mary every night for her and pick some disease she could die of, and it was never a painless one.’
They were all laughing now, and Katie was thinking he sounded just like his father; and it wasn’t often he did these days.
When the laughter quietened, Sammy took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the tears from the bottom of his nose. Then, still rubbing the handkerchief round his face, he looked at Daisy, saying, ‘What about it? Why don’t you accept the challenge?’
Daisy sucked so hard on her bottom lip that she left it clean of its red coating. Then she muttered, ‘OK, but I’d better warn me mother.’
‘Oh, no. No.’ Sammy shook his head. ‘No warnings. They take us as we are, and vice versa.’
‘But what if me da’s had a drop?’ She was addressing Sammy. ‘One thing sure, he won’t have had a skinful, because things are tight. But when he goes in for a pint, some of his mates who are still in jobs stand him a round or two. He comes in in his talking mood, and then it can be anything.’ She now nodded from Willie to Katie, and exclaimed, ‘Anything from blasphemy to black eyes, and of course the Browns next door. And what he says about them at times would make a blue comedian blush. So, there you have it.’
‘Well’—Willie was grinning now—‘let’s take it. What d’you say, Katie?’
‘I…I would like to meet your people very much, Daisy. I mean that. I’ll be honest with you, I wouldn’t have said that when we first met, but after all this time, I can now.’ The two girls stared at each other. Then Daisy, shrugging her now blonde hair back from her shoulders, said, ‘What’s keeping us? Let’s get it over with.’ …
Forty-five, Brompton Grove West, had a green painted door. It had a letter box at the bottom and its knocker at the top. There was no bell. If there had been, Daisy wouldn’t have used it, or the knocker to give those inside warning of the visitors. And it seemed, at this moment, as the chorus of raised voices came to them, that some warning was indeed needed. But Daisy, as if she were alone entering her home, pushed open the door, walked straight into the crowded room, turned and held the door open and said, ‘Well, come on then!’ And so she ushered the three strangers into the family circle. Which of them showed the more surprise was hard to say.
A man in his shirtsleeves was sitting at the far end of a table, and a smallish woman with a thick mass of auburn hair stood gripping the near end, her body bent towards him, as if she were in the midst of expressing herself with emphasis. At each side of the table sat a young man, the two of them apparently engrossed in a game of cards. That the game was serious was evident to the onlookers, because on the table was a small glass dish holding a number of coins, the largest being a ten-pence piece.
On a long and worn Chesterfield couch set against the far wall and running at right angles to the fireplace, were sprawled two youths who had been reading magazines but were now sitting bolt upright, staring at the visitors.
The door closed with a slam behind Willie, making him jump slightly. Then Daisy pushed past him saying, ‘These are my friends from the Centre. They wanted to come and say…say hello.’
‘Oh!’ The exclamation had come from the man; and he repeated, ‘Oh! Well, it would have been nice, Miss Gallagher, if you had given us notice, wouldn’t it? And I could have, at least, put on a clean shirt or a jacket. And my offspring there’—he thumbed down the table—‘could have hidden their gambling. And those two layabouts on the couch could have wiped their snotty noses and got to their feet. As for me wife there’—he pointed—‘as the song says, if she had known you were coming she’d have baked a cake. Wouldn’t you, Annie?’
‘Come off it, Da,’ said Daisy. ‘You’ve got your dry tongue on the day. Anyway—’ She turned now to those she had called her friends and was about to say something when Katie forestalled her. Having taken in the whole situation, and having asked herself what Miss Armitage, the headmistress and lady of ladies would have done in a similar situation, she took a step past Daisy and, looking towards the man still seated in the chair, she said, ‘It’s unforgivable of us, Mr Gallagher, and I apologise. We should have given Mrs Gallagher’—she now turned to the round-faced, staring woman—‘we should have given you, at lea
st we should have asked you if it would be convenient for us to visit you. One doesn’t think, you know. So, we’ll go now.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. You’ve just come, so come in and take a seat, if you can find one.’ It was as if the little woman had just come to life.
She now turned towards the couch, saying, ‘You two, get off your backsides there, and go into the front room and bring out a couple of chairs. And me man here is right, for if I had known you were coming I would have baked you a cake. And you would have had it in the front room with the fire on. But it’s dead out it is in there, so it’ll be warmer here. So, come across here, you two young men, and plant yourselves on the couch. And you, Frank’—she addressed one of the card players—‘move your ar…yourself out of the only decent chair in the kitchen and let the young lady sit down.’
The young man rose slowly to his feet, all the while staring at Katie. Then he pushed the chair towards her as if he were saying take it. And Katie said, ‘Thank you. But…but there was really no need’—she looked about her—‘I could have sat on the couch.’
She sat down on the chair and found herself within an arm’s length across the table from the master of the house. And she smiled at him and said, ‘If we had brought an unexpected avalanche into our house, my dad would have reacted much the same way as you did, Mr Gallagher.’
‘And what is your dad’s name, and what is yours?’
‘I’m Katie, and my dad is named Bailey.’ And she now pointed towards the couch, saying, ‘That’s my brother, Willie, and that’s our friend, Sammy, Sammy Love.’
‘Sammy Love? Love? There’s not many people called Love. And you don’t see much of that these days either. Would you be Davey Love’s lad?’
‘Yes, Mr Gallagher, one and the same.’
‘Well! Well! I knew Davey Love. He would go to Mass only when he was dragged there, but fight for the Pope up to his last breath, like all the mad Irish.’
‘Len!’
‘Oh, I know, I know.’
‘No, you don’t know. And when you don’t know keep your mouth shut. Don’t you remember? His was the big funeral not so long ago when Father Hankin spoke so well of him from the pulpit in the Mass later on on the Sunday.’
‘Oh, aye, aye.’ He was nodding at his wife now. ‘But what I maintain is, death doesn’t make saints out of sinners. As far as I can remember, Davey Love was a bruiser.’
Willie’s elbow in Sammy’s side did not check the retort he was about to make, but Katie’s voice did, for she was saying, ‘Oh, you couldn’t have known our Mr Love, Mr Gallagher. Because he was…well, to use a pun, a lovely man. Of course, he could use his fists, and from what I understand, the first time he used them was on the man who ran off with his wife. Now I’m sure, Mr Gallagher, if anyone had attempted to do that to you, oh, I could see you would have stood on your hind legs.’
She was smiling at him, and after a short silence, she went on, ‘I know he was given a prison sentence for this, but, as my dad said, it was a miscarriage of justice; he should have had a medal.’
When there was no response to what she had said, she glanced towards the occupants of the couch before, turning back and looking at Mr Gallagher, she added, ‘You see, Sammy there was very small when his mother left him, and he missed her. It was after this that he came to visit our family, and his father came too. Oh, yes. Yes.’ She nodded now at the face staring at her as if she had been contradicted. ‘Right from the beginning Mr Love became a friend of our family. Oh, and I know he hit that workman; but wouldn’t you have, Mr Gallagher, if someone had called you a big, loud, Irish galoot, or some such?’
At this there was a stir in the room and smothered laughter from here and there.
‘Now, wouldn’t you?’ Katie pressed the man.
Len, who now seemed bemused, drew in a deep breath, pushed his shoulders back and then replied, ‘It remains to be seen. Drunk, yes, I would. Sober, I would have hoped I would have the sense to fight him with me tongue, knowing of me record and that if I used me fists I might be sent along the line again. He might have been a lovely man, in your opinion, but he hadn’t much sense.’
‘Oh, yes he had, and wisdom.’
Her voice had changed, for she had practically snapped the words at him. And again she had the attention of the room, especially that of Daisy whose mouth was open as she looked at this swanky piece leaning towards her father and saying, ‘I’m telling you, Mr Gallagher, he was…he was the wisest man I know, or any of our family will ever know. And we all miss him.’ Then, suddenly sitting back in her chair she looked about her at the silent group and, closing her eyes, she drooped her head slightly, saying, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, I’m very sorry.’
‘What you sorry about, girl?’
Her head came up and she again looked at the man opposite her. ‘I should say, you’ve got nothing to be sorry about,’ he was saying. ‘Meself, I’ve only met you minutes ago and you’ve had the bloody nerve to put me in me place, while at the same time praising a fella that I felt was no better than meself, or not as good as. Well, you’ve spoken your mind and that’s something. And you’ve kept your own opinion of the man, and that’s something. Speak as you find. I would say, always speak as you find.’ And now looking towards the couch, he said, ‘Your escorts haven’t much to say for themselves, have they?’
‘You haven’t given us much chance.’ The retort, of course, came from Sammy. And he, taking his lead from Katie and using diplomacy, went on, ‘I know something. If me dad had been alive, he wouldn’t have had far to go for a mate, in all ways.’
The man at the table said nothing. It was as if he didn’t know exactly how to take this. But glancing at the girl opposite him, he remembered that she held big Davey Love in high esteem, and so he met the fella’s son halfway by saying, ‘Well, as the poor fella’s dead, there’ll be no proving that. But’—he nodded from one to the other—‘you lot up at that Centre, you don’t use your fists, except them in the ring, you use your feet. Topple people over onto their backs. That one there,’ he pointed at Daisy, ‘I tell her it’s indecent, and I mean it, it’s indecent, to bring a man or boy low by turning him onto his back. She’s had a shot at me, but I’m still a match for her. Oh aye.’ He squared his shoulders now. Then glancing around the room at the members of his family before again addressing Katie, he said, ‘Today, this lot don’t know they’re born. With the exception of Harry there, they’re all living on the state. And he’s starting on Monday, the first time for a year, and two years out of school. My! In my time…’
‘Oh, in your time.’ This had come from the young man with the cards who was still seated at the table, but who did not lift his head, and his father now bawled at him, ‘Aye! Mike, in my time they wouldn’t have been sitting there playing for ha’pennies on a Saturday afternoon, they would have been outside kicking a football, anybody’s football, or on our old bikes scouring the country, not sitting on their arses from Monday morning till Saturday night waiting for work to come.’
‘Len!’
He turned on his wife now and shouted, ‘Aw! Don’t Len me in that tone, Annie. I’m solid and sober, and I’ll speak me mind. If this young skit across here, who’s come into the house uninvited, can have her say, I can have mine.’ He was pointing at Katie. Then, his voice suddenly changing and his manner, too, he said, ‘I didn’t mean that, miss, young skit. You’re no young skit. It’s just a habit one gets into, but it makes me wild when I think back. You see’—he leant towards her—‘the day I was fourteen, I was pushed down the pit. Aye, on me fourteenth birthday I was pushed down the pit; and I was there until I was twenty. And I said, by God, I don’t know how much longer I’m going to live, but I’m going to see the sun set and breathe fresh air all day long, at some job or other. ’Cos I’m not going down that hole any more. And I didn’t. I went into the shipyard and from there to the steelworks. Oh, aye.’ Again he pushed his shoulders back. ‘I was a steel man. For years and years I was a steel ma
n, and proud of it. Look’—he punched his cheeks with his middle finger, saying ‘see the blood veins. You never lose them; that’s with the heat. And the blue ones on me brow are from the coal. You never lose those either. But oh, to be a steel man, it was something in those days. Fifteen years I was there; and there’s no greater sight than to see steel being born. We had a fella, you know, worked in our shop, and he used to make poetry about it. He said it was conceived like any child. And it was that. And when it was born, there it came out. Beautiful! Beautiful! Aye, it was that. But this fella used to say, it was a treacherous baby. And he was right there because it could take the skin off you. I saw it happen once.’
‘Len! No more of that; we’ve heard it before,’ and, straight away looking at Daisy, Annie said, ‘Go and put the kettle on; I’m sure your friends could do with a cup of tea.’ …
When Daisy brought in the tray holding four cups of tea and placed it on the table, the young man named Mike rose quickly and gathered up the cards and coppers from the glass dish, while Annie called to Willie and Sammy, saying, ‘Would you two men like it there, or would you like to come to the table?’
‘Give it here, Mam.’ Daisy quickly picked up two cups and took them to the couch. ‘D’you take sugar?’ she said.
‘Yes, please.’ Willie smiled at her; but Sammy said, ‘No, thanks, Daisy, no sugar for me.’ And at this Daisy leant down close to Willie’s ear and in a hoarse whisper said, ‘Now don’t you say, he’s so sweet he doesn’t need any, or I’ll skelp you.’
The Bondage of Love Page 7
