by Helen Walsh
But Sheila only had herself to blame. She understood his reasons, and rather than challenge them, help him see things from her point of view, she’d taken the path of least resistance and become complicit in this gradual whittling down of her culture. The few remaining relics of a previous existence – the Ganesha statue, her tongue cleaners, her incense sticks – she kept hidden away from him now, and it was only when Robbie worked the late shift that she would be so bold as to throw open the windows and rustle up a small pot of sweet, spicy nasi lemak, always heedful of disposing the evidence with candles and lavender-scented Haze air freshener.
In forcing herself to confront the situation head-on Sheila realised that far from postponing Amah’s death she was actually postponing the bigger issues it cleaved open. The simple truth was that Sheila was homesick. She badly needed to go back, if not to see Rasa and the siblings she’d left behind then to pay her respects to her mother. Only then could she start to grieve for her properly. To this, she knew Robbie would never agree. She would have to present and package Amah’s death neatly to him. He would allow her to mourn for her mother, but not for her motherland. Sheila zoomed in on the lake and made a decision. If she couldn’t tell it as it was, she wouldn’t tell him at all. She continued snapping. If she was lucky, the swans might deign to glide this side of the dam.
She cut through the church’s graveyard, exhaling cold quills of vapour as she picked her way carefully between the mossy slabs that marked the dead. A couple of girls in Loretto School blazers were hunched up at the furthest end of the graveyard, next to an uprooted birch, smoking furiously – sucking and blasting, tugging and blowing, bandying the ember from one to the other. Sheila hung back and watched them for a while, wondering if she dared steal a picture for her brother – England, old and new. The smell of their tobacco drifted on the cold and she smiled, remembering how she and Rasa would go down to the banks of the river to smoke their mother’s miniature cigars. He’d let her light them while he slouched back and smoked like an American mobster, the wedge of tobacco squeezed tight between his thumb and fingers.
The young girls started when they saw her, instinctively lashing their smouldering cigarette butt and flinging themselves over the cliff ledge. Sheila gasped in horror and sped after them, halting suddenly as the land dropped away. Gingerly, she inched herself forward. She was steeling herself for the worst, for the sight of the girls’ bodies lying flat and lifeless, splayed like shadows on the dam’s cracked roof. But the girls’ yellow and green striped blazers bobbed into view directly below her, stealthily negotiating themselves down the tricky flank of cliff. Sheila, bursting with a queer mix of empathy, relief and excitement, wanted nothing more than to shout down to them, say ‘well done’ and let them know it was OK; they needn’t have run away. She wanted to tell them that she was a teenager too, not so long ago. Not so very long ago at all.
She descended by the broad wooden steps that had been cut into the cliff face, marvelling at the water rippling silver behind a flotilla of ducks. No swans today. Up on the bridge she saw the mobile food van parked up. Slowly, still at peace with herself, she took herself across, unhurried and without her typical worry – worry that he’d pull away before she got there, worry that school might be trying to get in touch, worry that Robbie was drifting further and further away from his son. She bought a styrofoam cup of tea so hot she could barely hold it, and sat down on a bench overlooking the dam, blowing at the surface of the tea until her lips could stand contact. Nevertheless the first sip blistered the roof of her mouth.
Warmed by the scalding tea and buoyed by the sunshine, she crossed the road to Sintah’s. Sintah’s had been a real find – an old-style village grocers in the centre of Lymm, recently taken over by a young Indian family. At least Mrs Sintah was young enough; her husband was a proud, rather disapproving man of forty-five or so with a small moustache and a perfectly round stomach, clad in the gold-embroidered dhoti of the Brahmin. Sheila couldn’t help smiling at him. As was often the way with the higher caste, he sat perched on a stool behind the counter, half-spectacles perched on his oddly leonine nose, back perfectly straight as he perused the Daily Mail. Out of the few times she’d gone in there for their Patak range, or fresh limes and ginger, or coconut milk, Mr Sintah let her wait at the counter, ignoring her until his wife came out, peering down his nose at John Junor’s cloying memoirs of Auchtermuchty. But Sheila couldn’t take offence – quite the opposite. It seemed fitting that this absurdly arriviste fellow should have found his spiritual home here in Lymm, the epicentre of the Cheshire set.
But Sintah’s was boarded up. As Sheila got closer, she spied shards of glass on the pavement. Behind the temporary hoardings shoring up their shattered plate windows, the shop was in darkness. On the main, whitewashed wall were two daubed words: PAKIS OUT. Underneath, there was a crudely drawn swastika and another symbol, like a B and an M in a circle. In spite of the bile rising within and the bang bang of her pulse, Sheila continued across the road. A small, handwritten note was tacked to the security hoarding: ‘Due to vandalise the store will remained close today. Open as usual in morning. Thank you to all customer for understand. Yours, Mr Sintah.’
‘Disgusting, it is.’
Sheila jumped back, and turned to face the voice. It was an old man, carrying rather than walking a small Pekinese.
‘This is the third time now in a month. Every time they open up again.’
Sheila caught her breath and spoke. ‘Do they know who’s doing it?’
‘Oh, they know all right. It’s that Hitler lot from up Partington. Young bucks think they’re clever with all the zeig heil and wogs out.’ Seemingly oblivious to her colour, her feelings, to anything but the anger that convulsed inside, the man tightened his face and shook his head. ‘I fought alongside Gurkhas to keep this country great. And now this. Thank God I haven’t got long.’
Sheila nodded, unsure what to say. She found herself staring at Mr Sintah’s sad, strangely dignified note. She turned to the old man again. ‘But they’re not giving in to them. They’ll open up again tomorrow.’
The pensioner gave her a sad and knowing look. He shook his head once more and shuffled off, carrying his panting, lazy dog. Sheila headed back to the bus stop, looking all around for the dark force that was suddenly encroaching her world.
Thirteen
Saturday night. Robbie sat backstage. This was it, then. In five minutes he’d be on. Out there, an expectant mob had gathered in Runcorn’s Irish Club, a mixture of ecstatic former acolytes who remembered Robbie Fitz from the old days – and still couldn’t quite believe he was really going to be appearing here – and their sons, wives, second wives, boyfriends, nieces and nephews, all on board for the promise of a great night out.
Word had spread quickly. From finally forcing himself to make the call and convincing Irene it was really him, Fitz, live and raring to go, to the sudden proliferation of posters around the Widnes–Runcorn area and his surreal run-through last night with only a backing track for company, Robbie had thrown himself right in at the deep end. Little by little he’d found first his range, then his soul. By his fifth free Guinness and his umpteenth whiskey chaser, it was evident to Robbie that folk thought he’d hit the big time. It was funny at first – old men pumping his hand and congratulating him, telling him in all sincerity how much they loved him – but the truth, as the whiskey revealed to him, was that he’d let them down even more than he’d betrayed himself by taking his talent home and locking it away. Whatever the situation had required of him back then, he should never have given up singing. It was him. It was his life. And, more than that, it meant something to all these everyday people. Robbie Fitzgerald was their boy up there. They loved him, and they loved that he was back among them at long last.
That he would deliver for them, Robbie had no doubt at all. His sole concern was Jodie: that she’d remember; that she’d find the place; and that, plunged into the thick of a Saturday night in the hardest part of Runc
orn’s old town, she’d manage to remain in one piece – at least until she’d heard him sing.
A flake of him was troubled by the possibility of Sheila turning up. She’d seemed genuinely delighted by the prospect of him picking up his mic again, although Robbie fancied it was born more out of the extra money he’d be raking in rather than any concern that his talent was going to waste. Since moving to Thelwall Sheila had seldom broached the subject of his music, she’d never questioned the ease with which he’d let it all fade to dust. He only ever sang to Ellie these days and even that he did in private, when it was just the two of them, out on their walks. His guitar sat forlorn in the attic along with the unpacked crates of records that had once upon a time formed the focal point of their evening’s entertainment. As Sheila’s confidence had grown and she was happy to be left alone of a night, Robbie had secretly hoped she would nudge him back to the stage. Now, he couldn’t shrug off the feeling that she’d given up on his dreams long before he’d given up on himself. Robbie pushed away the splinter of anxiety worming its way into his thoughts. There was no need to worry. Sheila would not be making an appearance tonight.
The club itself was a glorified wooden chalet. It looked as though it had arrived ready made on the back of a lorry and dumped on the first scrap of wasteland. In the shadow of the bridge and serenaded by the rattle and hum of trains and traffic, this part of Runcorn was riven with folklore – classic northern badlands and a law unto itself. Surrounded by new estates populated mainly by Scousers and Mancs, Robbie could relate to the type of old-school hardcases who still lived in the terraced red-bricks of Old Runcorn. The Irish Club here was less of a beacon to the Celtic diaspora, more of catch-all community centre. On any given morning it might host a Fight the Flab class or serve as polling station or a temporary signing-on centre. But every day without fail, from four o’clock onwards it was back to being the Irish Club – purveyor of cheap ale and good times. Tonight, for the first time in a long while, Robbie Fitzgerald was Mr Good Times – and it was all for Jodie, who’d come to see him, he hoped.
Jodie was there all right. She’d tucked herself away in the furthest corner from the bar, but with the best view of the poky little stage. She set her mouth in a half-scowl to deter any suitors, and dug her back in against the drinks ledge, an elbow splayed out and behind on either side so she was leaning uncomfortably on the corners of the six-inch-wide ledge. It was a look she’d practised and honed to perfection and it came from endlessly having to fend off the advances of drunks. But she needn’t have worried; there was more than enough spare to go around the local roughnecks, an alarming abundance of cleavage and leg. Jodie’s gamine beauty was unlikely to tempt them into making a move anyway. To the uninitiated she looked more like a junky, all cheekbones and lips and hollow, haunted eyes. One of the brassy women at the nearest table threaded her foot through the strap of her handbag and slid it closer to, where she could keep an eye on it.
The men in here scared Jodie – and she didn’t scare easily. They were no older than twenty-five, some of them, and they were already bald, their complexion slain by drink and bad diets and the poisons and gases that coursed unchecked in the chemical skies of the Lower Mersey estuary. There were some of the hardest faces she’d ever seen, with that certain disconnect in the eyes that presaged unpredictability, volatility, extreme unflinching violence. She’d grown up with it, and she knew the syndrome too well – the flickering eyelids, the nervous energy, the lack of concentration. What chance did Robbie have, performing in front of hillbillies like this?
Here he came now – so white, so calm in the spotlight. She’d only met up with him twice since the night they’d taken the bus but already she had a strong sense that he was her man. That was her fella up there. Her heart was in her mouth as, without eye contact, without intro, he adjusted the mic. She saw him gulp. Only she would have noticed that. He swallowed, once, raked the crowd and, seeing her, allowed himself the briefest half-smile. Then he nodded to the band, closed his eyes – and blew her away.
She had never, ever heard anything like this before. Not live, not this close up. He sang ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ and it tore her to shreds. Innately, she’d known he’d be something staggering – immense, yet fragile, too. But nothing could have prepared her for this. He broke her heart and she couldn’t wait to get him off there and in her arms, thrusting and panting between her thighs.
By the time he finished his third and final encore and made her feel a hundred feet tall by hopping off the stage, coming straight over to her and giving her a chaste kiss, and before she got too big for her boots when he slipped her a fiver and nodded to the bar with a sloppy grin, Jodie had fallen hopelessly, helplessly in love.
Queuing at the bar she tried to make sense of the path that had led her here tonight. He was a married man, many years her senior, but when she’d first clapped eyes on him, she fancied him in that immediate, animalistic way. She’d have shagged him ten minutes after meeting him, if he’d pushed it. However, if he hadn’t followed up, hadn’t waited by the caravan for her the next evening, she’d have forgotten about him soon enough. Things were different now – now she’d heard him sing. Her heart was vaulting and it was all she could do to keep the grin off her face long enough to get served. She had to have him. For keeps.
Through the softly swirling canopy of smoke she watched the blousy local women eyeing him from a respectful distance, insufficiently drunk enough yet to be bold with him, their ruddy faces all giddy with arm’s-length lust. They were no threat to her, these relics. Their breasts had collapsed almost as soon as they’d blossomed. But seeing her fella indulge them now with his coy, half-bored smile, she experienced a little flutter of jealousy. Robbie’s talent was wasted on women like that, and she couldn’t wait to get back and tell him so. She didn’t believe for one moment that he touched them in that same visceral, gut-wrenching way his voice touched her. All he was was the bloke on stage. They saw this hard-looking, handsome male, with his taut body, those green eyes and masses of thick red hair, and they went to bits. They fell for the romance of the pub singer, hook, line and sinker – hard shell, sensitive soul. Robbie could have been singing Abba for all they cared. They still would have followed him outside and tried to get in his car with him. All they were bothered about was nailing this week’s turn. For her, it was so much more than that. Jodie was totally gone on him.
Jodie sat down and slid him his Guinness. She handed him his money back.
‘Thanks,’ he said, and offered her the smoke he’d prepared for her.
Her mouth broke into a thin smile as she sparked up. ‘Don’t thank me. On the house …’
They made a big thing of sipping their drinks and examining their glasses, rearranging and turning them round, awkward while the silence went unbroken. Robbie caught her sneaking a glance at him as she took a hit of her Southern Comfort. He was waiting, if not for a direct compliment, then at least for some kind of reaction from her. He’d come back after all these years – for Jodie – and he’d rocked the place. He’d knocked them out. And he wanted to hear it, from her.
Still she played with her drink, darting him quizzical little looks. Robbie tried not to notice. When they finally made eye contact, it was almost a war of nerves. Jodie caved first – but not in the way he was counting on.
‘So. How come you gave it all up?’
‘How do you mean, like?’
‘This. Why did you stop?’
He was taken aback and tried to cover himself with a slug on his pint and a reflexive dip into his tobacco pouch. ‘Don’t get your drift.’ He took another deep slurp, averting the drill of her eyes as he rolled out the tobacco. She flicked her head at the bar.
‘Yer man there. The barman – one with the sidies. He was saying you could have been massive.’
Robbie cocked a swift glance over to the bar. Jodie reached for his Rizlas, eyed him as she rolled.
‘Coulda been the next Joe Cocker, he reckons …’
She looked at him for a second, lit her fag and snorted the smoke out through nose and mouth simultaneously. ‘That’s fucking bollocks!’
He shrugged his shoulders. Jodie leant closer, trying to force him to look at her.
‘Fuck off, Robbie. I seen it in you, tonight. You’re up there. Something happens inside of you. I felt it – the whole room fucking felt it. What d’you want me to say?’
Again the shrug, and he drained off his pint.
‘Fancy another one, Robbie?’ But she wasn’t laughing. She flashed her eyes off to the side, impatient with him. She drew her knees up to her chin, scraping at her jeans with her lower teeth, deep in thought. ‘You selfish cunt.’
‘You what?’
‘You know! You know that’s no ordinary voice you’ve got – what you do to people when you get up there …’ She had tears in her eyes now. Robbie tensed his face, giving nothing away. Jodie grabbed his wrist, making him look, making him listen. ‘It’s like some people have this big mad fucking need to do something, yeah? To leave their mark before they meet their maker. But they ain’t got the talent to do it. They got fuck all. But you have, Robbie. You’ve got it all – and you don’t give a fuck. And that’s fucking selfish …’ She dropped her blazing eyes now, dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘That’s proper fucking selfish that. Think what someone else might have done with all that …’
