The Tavern on Maple Street

by Sharon Owens

  ‘Oh, now! That was quick,’ said Trudy. ‘How did the cops get here so quickly? We never got round to calling them.’

  ‘There just happened to be a police car passing by.’

  ‘Typical. There's never any around when you need them. Is Gerry badly hurt?’ Bridget wanted to know.

  ‘No, Jack only punched him once but it looks worse than it is because he had two black eyes already. He can't even open one of them.’

  ‘A souvenir from New York, obviously,’ said Trudy quietly. ‘That man is dangerous.’

  ‘Do the police believe it was Jack who caused all the injuries?’ asked Bridget.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘They're going to charge him with GBH. And on top of all that, he was hit on the forehead with a mug full of hot tea. Who threw a mug out of the window, for God's sake?’

  ‘I'm sorry,’ said Bridget. ‘I was trying to hit Gerry. I'll go with you and tell them about the broken window. Gerry started it.’

  ‘I'll go too,’ said Trudy. ‘To keep you both company.’

  ‘No, pet. You stay here and see if you can get a joiner to come and board up the window,’ said Lily, yawning. ‘A twenty-four-hour glazier would cost the earth.’

  ‘Please don't leave me here,’ whimpered Trudy. ‘I'm afraid of the dark and we're down at the end of an alleyway.’

  ‘Suffering Jesus,’ said Bridget. ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Trudy. ‘I don't like to be alone at night.’

  ‘Is that the last phobia you have or are there any more I should know about?’ asked Lily gently, putting her arms round the shivering body of Trudy Valentine.

  ‘No. That's it,’ wept Trudy. ‘Honestly. Lemons and buttons, mainly. And dirty hands and the darkness. That's why I lodged with the professors, you see. I didn't want to be alone in digs at weekends when the other students went home. I didn't really mind the sub-zero temperatures they liked to live in, as long as they were there to keep me company.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Lily, ‘I'll go and be with Jack, and the two of you stay here and tidy up this mess as best you can. Okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said the girls, sobered by the situation they were all in. Trudy's short display of temper had vanished. Bridget was totally weary, and dying to go to sleep but her lovely bed was covered in broken glass.

  ‘That impossible man. Thank God I didn't stay with him,’ muttered Bridget and she went to look for some newspapers to wrap the glass shards in. Trudy began lifting clothes out of the way and shaking splinters off the blanket.

  Lily threw on some jeans and a warm coat, and called a taxi to take her to the police station. As she waited for the horn to sound at the end of the street, she packed an outfit for her husband to wear home from the cells. It was bad enough being arrested in the first place, but being arrested wearing a dressing gown soaked in tea, and wearing one blue trainer and one brown boot was bound to be absolutely excruciating for him. She knew the policemen on duty would be killing themselves laughing at her beloved husband. Bridget O'Malley had a lot to answer for.

  When Lily came home along with a very subdued Jack ten hours later, she told the girls that he had been let off with a caution. Jack headed straight into the shower and then went for a lie-down. Lily made tea in the kitchen and told the girls all the details. Gerry had passed out in the station and had been taken to hospital for observation. For a while they feared that Jack's punch might have put Gerry in a coma, and poor Jack was inconsolable with worry. But luckily the doctor in the emergency room had spotted that Gerry was well over the safe limit of alcohol intake and had pumped his stomach for him. Gerry had been put on a drip and, after a good sleep, the rogue psychiatrist was fine. When Gerry eventually woke up he was so glad to be alive he had returned to the station to drop the assault charge. He told the duty sergeant that he was sincerely sorry for all the trouble he had caused and that he would not be bothering Bridget O'Malley or the Beaumonts any more.

  When he had slept off the worst of the trauma Jack emerged from the bedroom in a sober mood. He had a thin blue bruise on his forehead from where Bridget had hit him with her mug of scalding tea. But that was the least of his worries. He had a caution now. A police record. And he had been the butt of many jokes in the police station. Lily tried to convince him that the whole thing was Gerry Madden's fault, and that Bridget's ex-boyfriend was so irritating he would drive anybody to the brink. But Jack was disappointed with himself for losing control that night. He said he didn't want the incident mentioned ever again.

  He also decided it was time he put his foot down concerning life in the tavern. He asked Lily to tell Bridget to get dressed in the mornings before wandering about the apartment, and that the cost of replacing any further broken items was to be deducted from her wages. He said that Trudy must go to the doctor to get help with her phobias or he was going to let her go. He couldn't go on living with the atmosphere of anxiety that Trudy created. He stuck a calendar on the wall of the bedroom, with a big red circle drawn around the last day of February 2005. Whatever happened on that date, he said, whether the tavern was demolished or not, it would be the end of the line for Bridget and the other girls. He wanted things to go back to the way they were. Just the two of them in the living quarters. And the blissfully quiet life they were used to.

  Lily, on the verge of collapse herself, had no choice but to agree with him.

  10. Betsy Gets What She Asked For

  It was lunchtime on Saturday, 11 December. Betsy Bradley crawled out of bed and almost broke her leg slipping on glossy magazines that were strewn around the floor of the guest bedroom. She swore several times, lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of a small armchair, rubbing her sore ankle. The overflowing ashtray and the small army of old cups and saucers on the bedside table depressed her. She didn't like sleeping here. There was no wide-screen TV or huge adjoining bathroom for a start. Only a compact white-tiled shower unit in the tiny en-suite that she kept banging her elbows on. She missed her creature comforts almost as much as she resented her husband, and it was humiliating that he had banished her like this. He hadn't asked her to move out of their bed when he was working on his first book, come to think of it.

  Liam was behaving very oddly these days. She thought Perry's recent phone calls had put him under a lot of stress. Liam had no interest in making love to her. Even when she'd taken pity on him and bought a cream lace basque and suspenders in a really expensive lingerie boutique on the Lisburn Road, and paraded around the townhouse in them the day before, he'd shown not a flicker of interest. In a rage of rejection she'd driven straight round to Richard Allen's riverside penthouse, wearing the new lingerie under her fake-fur coat, and he'd gone positively wild with passion. They were meeting again tonight and Betsy was rather looking forward to another amorous session on the sheepskin rug beside Richard's gas fire. He had a nice Christmas tree as well, all decked out in red glass icicles and imitation shiny red apples; a very stylish scheme for a bachelor. Liam wouldn't even bother getting a tree if he lived alone. But then Liam was a comedy-genius. That's what his posters said anyway. Suddenly, she became very angry with Liam. He was forcing her into having this silly affair where she was delighted by red glass icicles. Honestly, the lengths she'd had to go to, over the years, just to feel like a human being. Just to feel a man's warm skin against hers, and to hear a male voice whisper her name in the darkness. Betsy marched down to the first floor and banged on Liam's door.

  ‘I want to talk to you,’ she shouted.

  ‘I'm sleeping,’ he mumbled. ‘Up all night, writing. Wake me in eight hours.’

  ‘No, now. I'm coming in.’ She turned the handle and burst into the room.

  Liam was lying in a dishevelled heap in the middle of the four-poster bed. He was still wearing yesterday's clothes and was clearly suffering with a massive hangover. The remains of a fish supper lay scattered on the floor as well as several empty cans of beer, and there were pages of notes everywhere.

  ‘I demand to know what
is going on,’ she said.

  ‘What? What are you on about?’

  ‘Why am I sleeping upstairs? What are you planning? Well? God, it stinks of beer in here. Open a window.’

  ‘No. Go away. I'm tired.’

  ‘I will not go away. I am going to phone my brother Ted and tell him how you're behaving. This is mental cruelty. I have a right to know your plans. And this is my room too. If you're going to start this nonsense of separate lives, you can be the one to move upstairs. I need the big mirror to do my make-up.’

  ‘Betsy, go and hang around the shops, will you? Buy some shoes or something? I've been working all night.’

  ‘What have you written, then? Show me!’ She snatched up a few sheets of paper from Liam's bedside table and began to speed-read.

  ‘No!’ roared Liam. ‘That's private. It's not finished.’

  He stumbled out of the bed, hurting his knee on the locker, and tried to get the pages back but Betsy was too quick for him. She bolted back to her own room and locked the door. Then she read the new chapters thoroughly. She was not impressed by what she discovered. Slinger Magee had fallen in love with some dark-haired beauty in a Victorian blouse and he was giving up his immature and sexist ways for ever. And doing everything he could think of to get this uptight woman to fall in love with him.

  ‘Come out, you she-devil, and give me back my work. I'm giving you two minutes and then I'm going to break down the door,’ Liam yelled, and then groaned as his hangover reasserted itself. He didn't intend for anyone to read those pages, ever. They were simply his private fantasy. He was writing Boom, Boom exactly the way Perry wanted. Even though he had to be extremely drunk to do it.

  ‘Don't be pathetic. It's solid pine, you fool.’

  ‘I'm counting two minutes on my watch.’

  ‘Why has Slinger changed, all of a sudden?’ Silence. ‘Why, Liam?’ There was no reply. ‘His character is based on you, isn't it? Have you fallen in love with someone else?’

  Still no sound came from the hall.

  ‘You have. Haven't you? Is it the landlady from that bar you go to, on Maple Street? Tell me, Liam. Because I'll find out eventually. Betsy had seen a picture of Lily and Jack in the Newsletter, and she thought Lily looked rather nice. A bit frumpish, and a horrible old-fashioned blouse. But still, nice. ‘Because if it is her, you've no chance. The husband is a stud. He's gorgeous-looking. I'd jump on him myself if he'd let me.’

  There was no answer.

  ‘If you don't say to me, right now, “I love you, Betsy Trotter, and I always will,” I'm leaving you. I mean it.’ Betsy bit her lip. Surely, her husband would say the words even if he didn't mean them. He always had before. Their marriage had been built on denial since 1998 when Betsy had caught Liam in the empty first-class section of a 747, making love to a stewardess on a flight home from Ibiza.

  Betsy waited for five whole minutes but there was only a dread-filled hush in the house. She read the chapters again and then decided to confront her husband for a second time, but when she opened her door the top landing was deserted.

  Liam was in the master bathroom having a shower. A puff of scalding-hot steam drifted out from underneath the connecting door. Betsy went to his personal computer in the study to see if she could print out some more of the story but he had removed the disc. She felt sick when she thought of all the times she had prostrated herself across her husband's designer, and very cold, glass desk. She was on fire with the shame of it. He had no respect for her any more. Had he ever? He was bored with her. Betsy was afraid of losing him, then. And she was afraid of losing her fame-and-fortune-by-association too.

  All the remaining papers on their bedroom floor were gone. She looked in his bedside cabinet but it was empty. His notebooks and all his reference books were also missing. The door of the bathroom was firmly locked. She twisted and pulled at the heavy glass doorknob but it was useless. She sat down on the four-poster to wait. After a while, the shower was switched off but then she heard him squirting shaving foam and rattling around in the cabinet's top drawer for a clean razor. Sighing, she found a carrier bag and collected up the empty beer cans and salty chip wrappers. She opened the window wide and tidied the bed.

  When Liam finally emerged from the bathroom half an hour later he was clean-smelling and neatly shaved and wearing fresh clothes. His briefcase was bulging with all the missing writing materials, now neatly stacked and straining against the zipper. He tried to walk past her but she held on to his arm, pleading with him. Her last scrap of dignity discarded.

  ‘Liam, I want you to be honest with me. It's time we sat down together and got things sorted out. Please, just be honest. I can handle it. Are you having an affair? I know we've both had our flings in the past but if this is serious I have a right to know.’ She waved the loose pages in his face. ‘This woman in your story, she has the same sort of blouse that Lily Beaumont wore in the Newsletter article.’

  ‘I can't talk about this now, Betsy. I have to think about my book.’

  ‘Just say the word. One word is all I need, Liam. Is it over? Yes or no?’

  He stopped pulling away from her and took a deep breath.

  ‘Betsy, I'm sorry about this but I think it is time we were honest about our relationship. It's over. And it's been over for a long time. This open-marriage thing was just our way of denying the truth. We're not good together.’

  ‘You what? I don't believe this. It was your idea that we see other people. You said it was a grown-up way to live.’

  ‘I'm going to stay in a hotel for a few days and then we can put the house up for sale. From the proceeds we can each buy a place in a slightly less prestigious area. We never belonged in this street anyway.’

  ‘Liam, no!’

  ‘I'm sure Richard Allen will help you find a new property. We'll get divorced when I have time to sort out the details.’ He snatched the pages from Betsy's hand and stuffed them into his pocket.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he said sadly.

  Betsy was so shocked she could not make her mouth form any words. Liam stared at her tattooed lips and turned away in disgust. Why bother with the outline, he wondered, if you weren't going to fill it in with lipstick all the time? He went out into the hall and began to descend the stairs. Betsy willed herself into action. She leaned over the banisters, now in floods of tears.

  ‘Goodbye? Is that it? Is that all you can say to me? After we've notched up ten years of marriage? Why, Limo? I mean Liam. We've had our ups and downs but I still think it's a good marriage. Why are you leaving me? I want to know why?’ He looked at her and she was appalled at the sense of detachment she felt from him. He was not only bored with her. He had almost forgotten her already.

  ‘Why? I'm leaving you because you don't know who W. B. Yeats is. Or should I say, was? And you dress like a tramp. And your hairstyle is too young for you. Will that do for starters?’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘You call me Limo even though you know I detest it. You don't turn me on any more. You don't inspire me. You're lazy in bed, you make me do all the work.’

  ‘You dirty beast! You said you wanted to be the dominant one.’

  ‘Your shepherd's pie is stodgy and you never remember to grill the mashed potato. You leave smears all over the kitchen appliances when you clean them.’

  ‘Who the hell cares about shepherd's pie? Or bloody housework? You're crazy!’

  ‘You buy me tacky birthday cards when you know I like arty ones. You only stay with me for the reflected glory. You sleep with Richard Allen in a basque that I paid for and then you expect me to say I love you when you know that I don't love you. You're nothing but a gold-digging tart.’

  ‘You've had other lovers, you hypocrite!’

  ‘You have the nerve to ask me to buy you a house in Dublin. So you can swan around playing tennis with the Irish gentry. No Malahide millionaire would be seen dead with either one of us, you stupid cow. We're Northerners. We don't belong anywhere else but in this godle
ss no-man's-land of a dump.’

  ‘I'm bored, Liam. I have nothing to do all day. Look, I forgive you for those horrible things you said to me. Let's go away on holiday? You're strung out with pressure. That's all it is. I know you didn't mean any of it.’ As a last-ditch attempt to hang on to him, she tried to get Liam to feel sorry for her. She rubbed a tear from her eye in what she hoped was a pathetic, childlike way. ‘Please, baby?’ But Liam wasn't having it.

  ‘I meant everything I said. Why don't you get a job and buy your own damn house?’

  ‘Because it's a full-time job putting up with a tedious creep like you!’ she shouted. And then she burst into noisy tears.

  Liam shook his head, dismissing her, and hurried down to the entrance hall where he frantically collected his jacket, car keys and laptop computer.

  Betsy's fury was white hot. Liam's hypocrisy was beyond comprehension. He loved having this fancy address and the matching luxury car. He had also been unfaithful to her several times. And as for his criticism of her appearance, that was the ultimate irony. He had no hair of his own to dye so he had some poor starving Russian peasant's tresses sewn onto his dry pink scalp, and dyed that instead. And as for vanity! How vain was Liam Bradley? A proper little peacock! He wore dark glasses all the time. And expertly cut suits that hid his developing beer gut. The list was endless. He was just as shallow and worldly as she was. In fact he was ten times worse than Betsy, because he pretended to be an intellectual. Betsy was very up front about her greedy and self-serving nature. She didn't have delusions of class like he did. She was common, yes, she was, and she was very proud of it.

  ‘You bastard! You utterly pompous, vain, conceited little bastard,’ she shouted after him. But he was already opening the heavy front door. ‘I only slept with Richard Allen because you were too busy being a stuck-up author to pay me any attention. He's a good listener. And he loved the basque, for your information. We made love three times. He licked red wine off my stomach. In fact we spilled a whole bottle of wine over his sheepskin rug and ruined it.’