Once Upon a Time in England

by Helen Walsh

  ‘Terrible, that …’ Helen was leaning on the bar, nodding at the paper. Flushed as he was from the booze, Robbie could still feel his face reddening.

  ‘Yeah. Awful.’ He hadn’t a clue what she meant. She seemed to fold her arms too tightly, pushing her breasts even closer together and exposing yet more enticing, freckled cleavage to his gaze. He gulped and tried to keep his eyeline on hers, but she looked away.

  ‘I don’t know. Rapists. Here. What on earth’s the world coming to, hey?’

  ‘I know.’ He wanted to ask more – but how could he tell this girl, this pale beauty who was going to fuel his fantasies back home tonight that he couldn’t read? He didn’t have to. The ghoulish sprite that beguiles girls like Helen to gather round glass fights at Mr Smith’s and pick over the bones of every macabre folk tale had her wide-eyed already.

  ‘Imagine that, hey? If it’s not bad enough, you know … what happened. The bastard had a withered hand ’n’ all.’

  ‘A what?’

  She snapped out of it and bundled the paper open, ripping damp pages as she looked for the passage. ‘Here. See?’ Standing back as though she were no longer a part of the ritual, she poked a telescopic finger at the page in question. ‘Bald. Beer gut. Withered hand. Can you imagine how terrifed she must have been?’

  Robbie nodded sagely, as though he, too, were taking in the full gruesome horror of the rape in the park. Only once Helen had shuffled off to serve another customer did he lay the paper down again. She was only right. What, indeed, was Warrington coming to? At least his own brood were safe and sound in dull, doleful Thelwall. But still – one more for the road and he’d head back there.

  Outside, the sweep and din of traffic faded to nothing, only making it more cosy inside the snug. The silent factories gave off a sepia aura, as though they, too, were already old-time movies. Not even Crossfields operated a night shift these days. The industrial clutch lay cold and quiet, and useless. He signalled to Helen for a dram. Robbie Fitzgerald was not a man who drank to get drunk. Inebriation was always a consequence, never his intention. What he loved was the getting there, starting with the intoxicating kick of that very first sip – was it really possible to feel so stoned after just one glug? He smiled at the thought, wished it was four o’clock again. His first pint was always his best. He liked to be alone with his thoughts as the virgin liquid soaked right through him and the night reinvented itself as a blank canvas, opening the mind up to the dreams and possibilities that were smothered by his daytime routine. Over that luxurious first pint, Robbie’s dreams could take flight. He’d project himself onto an imaginary stage and reduce the room to a spellbound awe. By his second pint though, his dreams had smashed free of the fetters of plausibility, and he’d be singing to a ram-packed Talk of the North. In the audience a young, pale, firm-breasted redhead would be moved to tears. Clapping and sobbing, she’d wait for him backstage, clear green eyes full of promise. They’d roar off in his silver E-Type Jag, pulling over along the highway for wild, explosive sex. But he could never quite bring himself to invent a world without Ellie and Vincent. They were always there in the audience, too. And in these tipsy bar-room reveries, Vincent and Ellie adored his new girlfriend, and Sheila was wonderfully supportive of the whole thing.

  He downed the nip and sat back, letting it burn through him. That was better. The whiskey was doing its job, soothing him, settling him down. He was ready, now. Ready for another long, silent evening of being and nothingness. If he put a spurt on, he’d get back in time to give the kids a story. Not that Vincent would be that bothered, but Ellie still loved his labyrinthine yarns. Then he’d have his tea, and have a look what was on the telly. Sheila’d want to watch Coronation Street. Rubbish. That Brian Tilsley? Dickhead. Made him mad the way her eyes widened every time he was on, with his fluffy blond perm and his sly eyes. Twat. At least they’d have something to talk about tonight, what with this rapist going round. Then it’d be bed, alarm clock, same thing all over again. And he’d be back here.

  He put on his coat and sparked up his final rollie of the evening. Vaguely conscious of someone, a girl, idly observing him from the other side of the room, he flicked at the Warrington Guardian. He never, as a rule, eyed women up. He’d never needed to do so and besides, it struck him as … well, wrong, that’s all. If someone was there to enjoy a drink and a bit of head space, let them be. He rolled both elbows across the bar and exhaled a valedictory spume of smoke into the bar-room mirror. His fingertips tingled pleasantly from the slow-burning tobacco and that shot of Tullamore Dew was still radiating gorgeously deep down. Everything was just lovely.

  Blissfully inebriated now, and heavy on his feet, he was at last ready to commit the night to memory and head home. It was still early enough and hopefully Sheila would not yet have made a start on his tea. That’s what he’d do! He’d bell her from the call box outside, tell her to put her feet up – he was bringing back takeaway and a bottle of Cinzano. He slipped on his coat, felt for his keys and waited for Helen to reappear so he could bid her adieu.

  ‘This paper done with?’ The girl who’d been sat across the room from him was now next to him. He glanced into her pretty face, pale as a harvest moon. Close up, she was younger than his cursory glance over had suggested an hour before. He couldn’t look her in the eye.

  ‘Yeah-yeah, take it. Weren’t even mine …’ He hesitated, lost for words, then overcompensated, fishing out his keys, tossing them up a couple of inches and swiping them mid-air. ‘Got ’em! Right …’ Only now did he turn and face her, forcing a half-grin as he spoke. ‘So I’ll be seeing you then!’

  She met his stare and held it. ‘Couldn’t leave us a smoke, could you?’

  He sighed out loud and glanced at the swing doors, shaking his head mockingly. ‘I don’t know.’

  He feigned impatience with her, sighing again as he stitched together papers and tobacco. He shot her another glance. Who did she look like? There was something, if not deranged then shambolic about her. Her clothes were a little frayed at the edges, yet it suited her elfin look. She was wearing one of those mod parkas with the fur-trimmed hood. It swamped her.

  ‘Light?’

  He held out the flame and as she leant in to suck, he realised where he’d seen her before. It was Holly Golightly – the Audrey Hepburn of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but with one of those bloody one-eye haircuts like Vincent’s. Admittedly this was a young, edgy Hepburn who gave every appearance of living on pure adrenalin. She certainly hadn’t slept in a while. Her eyes were like two back-lit, slanted wounds, black circles surrounding them like perfect bruises. Her mouth was small, a perfect strawberry, her lips cracked. The two fingers now nursing the rollie he’d made her were dirty, their nails bitten to stumps, and she squeezed at the fag, eyes darting everywhere. She needed a bath, and yet her beauty knocked Robbie sideways.

  ‘Can I buy yorra drink?’

  Yes, thought Robbie. He yearned to say yes. ‘I was just on me way out. Ta anyway.’ Home. Why had he not said home?

  ‘I’m not stopping myself. I’ve a bus to catch. Just wanted to suss the place out before I dived in head first.’ She gestured with her eyes to a note pinned on the wall above the jukebox.

  Robbie felt flummoxed for a moment, then thinking quickly, squinted hard and said, ‘You can see that far?’

  She shot a quick glance over to Helen, then turned back to Robbie, dropping her voice right down. ‘They’re looking for a new barmaid,’ she said. ‘Lol’s OK but it’s a bit out the way and it’s not exactly jumping, is it? I mean how much d’yoh reckon I’d pull in in tips?’ Before he had a chance to answer she added, ‘I dunno. I’ll ’ave a think on it.’ She held out her tiny hand. ‘Jodie, by the way.’

  And when she smiled it got him, right between his lungs.

  Waiting in the queue at the Chinese, bothered by the squall of teenagers foraging in their pockets for coins, Robbie made his mind up, turned abruptly and headed back to the car.

  Jodie. Little H
olly Golightly. He had to see her again. He didn’t necessarily intend to bother her with conversation, with any further contact at all, really – he just wanted to see her, before he took himself off to bed. He was in luck. Driving up Liverpool Road one way, then the other, he caught sight of her inside the southbound bus shelter. Her casual posturing seemed rehearsed, as though she’d spent a lifetime performing this skewed take on beauty. Robbie pulled over on the opposite side of the road, his tummy looping backwards and forwards, a mad sickening sensation that he was teetering on the edge of something massive. It felt dangerous. He felt wonderfully, fervently alive.

  Moments passed and no bus came and still he sat and watched. From the other end of the street, men’s laughter fractured the still of the scene. In company, now, he suddenly felt foolish. He chided himself for this idiocy, this pure … Robbie-ishness. For being so easily seduced by the sorcery of the whiskey. What only moments before had hit him as a wild and tangible romance now seemed absolute insanity. What should he do? He could park up and walk back to the Irish Club and finish the job off, blot out the night altogether with another pint and another rollie, and fuck the consequences. He could smooth it out with Sheila when he got in – if she was still up. Or, no – he’d drive back, pick up the takeaway, just as he’d planned so excitedly before. He did neither. Gripped by the same queasy ripple of panic and reck-lesness that blindsided him back in the bar, he found himself locking the car door, hand trembling; stepping out into the road, pulse thumping; and walking towards her.

  It came together, all at once. The bus appeared at the end of the road, lit up, completely empty. Robbie was still ten paces away. He was drunk. He should ditch the car and get the bus. It was late, too. With that rapist bastard out there somewhere, how could he stand by and let this lovely young thing make her way home alone? If she were there, Sheila would be telling him the same thing. It was innocent. It was chivalrous. It was common sense. But Robbie knew that it was none of these factors driving him on. It was the fact that the bus was empty. She hardly acknowledged Robbie as he drew up beside her. She brought her flat palm right up to her face, squinted to see the coin denominations before picking out six two-pence pieces. The sight of her hard-bitten fingernails made him swoon – some woozy brew of love and desire and a will to look after her, to protect. He took a deep breath and tried to inject playfulness into his voice. ‘You’re never a half.’

  He wasn’t expecting the vehemence of her response. ‘Who’s fucking counting?’

  The lamplights stared him right in the eye, stared him down so that he had to make a show of searching for his own fare. She stepped out into the road to wave the bus down, making sure the driver had seen her. It was make your mind up time. He couldn’t do it. Just as with all his plans – grand designs to get back singing, get on stage, take things in hand, master his own dreams once again, he faltered in his resolve. He wasn’t too far gone – he could just walk, now, walk away without further ado.

  She got on and didn’t look back at him, and Robbie felt it hard in his guts. She smiled at the driver, paid and lurched for the staircase.

  Robbie bounded onboard. He followed her up the narrow, curving stairway, steadying himself against the sway of the bus. He was at eye level with her slender calves, cutting in and out of her clumsy parka as she mounted each step. She was wearing DM ankle boots, and the combination of leather and skin socked him right in the groin.

  The whole of the top deck was empty. She headed straight to the back seat, slid along its shiny torn upholstery and huddled up against the window, drawing her knees close to her chest. She made no gesture for him to sit, just stared out of the window. But he knew she was watching him. As the bus juddered forward, sending him reeling, briefly, he caught sight of his car. Symbolic and utterly final, the sight thrilled him. He was doing it. All sense of guilt and any lingering reservations were abandoned now, and instead he felt adrenalised and full of mad good feeling for the night and nights ahead. Jodie looked up at him, that twisted grin making him want to kiss her, hard and urgently.

  ‘You got more baccy?’

  Robbie smiled, pulled out his pouch and tapped it with one finger. She, too, smiled – warm now, and full of promise.

  ‘Yoh better sit down than, ant yoh?’

  Silently, and once again making an art form of it, Robbie built her a rollie and flashed his lighter. Jodie tugged hungrily on her fag, sucking it down as though it were a joint. She tipped her head right back and blew her smoke up at the bus’s tinny ceiling, its fuzzy green light pixelated by the brilliant cold air filtering in through the slats. He watched her quietly in her window image. When she passed the smoke to him, he unwittingly turned to meet her reflection instead. She laughed her deep hoarse laugh, throwing off her hood in the action. He didn’t mind the mockery, not a bit of it – just so long as he could be with her. He took a drag on the ciggy, its end flattened by her fingers, wet from her lips. He could almost taste her.

  She unzipped her parka. She turned to face him, pressing her back into the window, and took back her smoke. Inhaling deeply, she stretched a boot across his lap. His dick pulsed.

  ‘Where d’you get off?’ he asked.

  ‘End of the line.’ She paused and examined the butt end of the fag, before looking into his eyes. ‘You?’

  He shrugged and smiled. He wasn’t being enigmatic, he just didn’t want to speak. He wanted to sit back and succumb to her mannish voice, and just be with her, lap up her loveliness, her boot pressing into his dick. Feeling her so close to him, his cock swelled up. Any more, and she’d feel him. He shifted slightly as he spoke. ‘You live in Thelwall, then?’

  Now she shrugged. Without a word she took the tobacco pouch from him, swiftly skinned up another smoke, lit up and observed him with narrowed eyes. ‘I mean, we been here a while. But if we need to move, we’ll move. Do you get me?’

  Robbie didn’t have a clue what she was on about. ‘I get you, kid.’

  ‘Kid! Who says kid any more?’

  ‘Well? You are.’

  ‘I’m nearly twenty!’

  ‘Oh aye!’

  ‘I am.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve done eighteen month inside.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Styal. And you’ve gorra be eighteen to go there …’

  He didn’t care what she’d done. Didn’t care if she was reaming him. He was happy just to sit back and listen, watch every little pucker of her nose, every dimple of her cheek and her chin. He loved how her face danced as she talked, and he didn’t want her to stop. There was a connection here, an instant, visceral tug that went way beyond physical desire. It triggered the same gorgeous freefall inside that used to keep him up on his guitar all night, pasting words onto the melodies his fingers plucked.

  She stopped talking to check out of the window and his guts shrank in panic at the realisation they were nearly there. This could be over before it had even begun. She’d be stepping off the bus and out of his life. This split, tender moment, right now – it was already history. Things were moving too quickly. He wanted to claw back the night. He needed for Jodie to feel that same devastating pull that he did. He needed for her to know that he wasn’t just some chancer who’d followed her onto the bus. If only she knew him, she’d know he’d done it out of romance. He needed her to know that he was a singer, a dreamer. He wanted so badly to tell her what the Irish Club meant to him; about the night when fate had deserted him, all those years ago. And the night, only a few weeks ago, when it had transported him back there, deposited his shipwrecked soul at its doors and displayed to him the possibility of a way ahead through a vision of his past. Going back there, just walking through those doors and seeing the men, men of his own kidney stooped over their pints, had been his salvation. And now the club had delivered Jodie to him. It was meant to be, and he needed her to know that.

  She took him by surprise by jumping up at the next stop. When she’d said end of the line he thought she’d meant just that. But he was relieved
. They were a comfortable way away from Hayes Close, and she hadn’t made any big deal about farewells. She was expecting Robbie to follow her. He made an apologetic leer at the bus driver and scampered along after her.

  They walked in silence down a terraced street that gave onto the ship canal towpath. On the other side of the placid black drink, the safe routine of Thelwall bore on, lights already extinguished as happy families committed themselves to sleep. His own little family was over there, tucked up, tucked away. All over Thelwall, people were choosing to sleep rather than stay up. To lie down, instead of carrying on standing. To turn over, rather than face. All those good people were choosing silence over noise.

  As though reading his thoughts, Jodie linked him, her wrist touching his. The sensation of skin upon skin shot up his arm and jolted him in the chest, leaving him gasping. He tried to pull her closer, but she pivoted him round and pointed to the boxy silhouette of a pub. ‘That’s my local,’ she said. ‘At the moment.’

  At last circumstance had thrown Robbie a bone. Inside he smiled, and made the most of the ceremony. ‘Is it? I used to gig there,’ he added casually.

  The revelation hung in the night sky, waiting to come home to roost. And then it came. She turned right round to face him, eyes wide. ‘What? You’re a DJ?’ But she sounded more shocked than seduced. Robbie felt his throat tighten.

  ‘Singer, doll,’ he said authoritatively. ‘That’s what I do. I’m a singer.’

  ‘Do you write your own songs?’

  ‘I do. Aye.’

  She ran a cursory eye over his overalls, but she wanted to believe now. Robbie was offering her a splinter of glamour, and she was keen to see it. ‘How come you’re in workies’ gear, then?’

  At this, Robbie was so well-versed he had to force himself to breathe slowly, make it sound off the cuff. ‘A true artist doesn’t perform for money,’ he growled with all the weary gravitas he could muster. He fingered his overalls as he spoke, looking down at his boots. She nodded and nuzzled her cheek right into his arm.