by Joan Lingard
Sadie frowned. ‘Why don’t you look at me?’
He lifted his head. ‘Well, it’s about getting married,’ he spoke hesitantly.
‘But we are married,’ said Sadie. ‘We got married at Gretna Green. We’ve got a certificate to prove it.’
‘Aye, I know that. But the church doesn’t. As far as it’s concerned we’re not.’
‘I don’t care what it thinks,’ cried Sadie.
‘But I do,’ said Kevin.
‘Do you mean –?’ She was speechless.
‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘Sadie, I want you to marry me in a Catholic church.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sadie exploded. Kevin had expected her to. He sat with his back against the wall working with the radio and allowed her to deliver her tirade. She had never set foot in a Catholic church in her life and she never would, it made her feel funny just to think about it. Her da had always told her the Church of Rome was evil and you had to be constantly on your guard against it or it would suck you in and you’d never get free of it. ‘My da’d have a blue fit,’ she said. ‘He’s an Orangeman. Have you forgotten that?’
‘How could I forget a thing like that? But he doesn’t come into it. And you’ve never paid heed to a thing he’s said to you so why should you now? He’s miles away.’
‘Maybe he’d more sense than I thought.’
‘For dear sake, what are you afraid of? Nobody’ll bite you or even try to convert you.’
‘Will they not?’ she said darkly. ‘Those priests try to get their hands on everybody.’
‘Away ye go! You’re as ignorant as the day I met you. I thought you’d got rid of all your old prejudices.’
‘Prejudices!’ She was spluttering. ‘What about yourself? You’re prejudiced against the Orange Order.’
‘What Catholic wouldn’t be? It’s anti-Catholic. But you’re no Orangewoman, Sadie.’ He grinned. ‘If you were you wouldn’t be here with me now.’
‘How do you know what I am?’ she demanded.
‘Do you know yourself?’
‘Course I do!’
‘Well then?’
‘I’m a Protestant, aren’t I?’
‘That doesn’t mean you’re for the Orange Order. Oh, I know you used to swing your wee baton for the Orange parades and all that, but you saw the light and gave it up years back.’ He grinned. ‘When you met me.’
‘So you’re the brave boy that knows what’s right and wrong! I suppose you’re right pleased with yourself, thinking you made a convert. Well, I’m not sure, Kevin McCoy, that I might not be going back to thinking the Orangemen are right after all. The Order was founded to protect us from you lot! You attacked us first.’ The thought of it fired her. She remembered sitting on her father’s knee as a child, and him telling her stories of Catholics firing houses of Protestants, plundering and murdering, refusing to live at peace. She faced Kevin with anger, as if he were personally responsible.
‘That’s all history. Couple of hundred years back, for dear sake!’ Kevin put down the screwdriver and held out his hands to her. ‘Listen, Sadie, I’m not asking you to become Catholic. I’m only asking you to marry me in church because it’d make me happier. Then I’d feel truly married to you for ever and ever.’
‘But I feel married to you for ever and ever without going through all that.’ She stood up. ‘Kevin, I couldn’t stand the smell of incense and all those statues … I’m sorry, I just couldn’t. It gives me the shivers.’
‘But you’ve never been in a Catholic church so you don’t know how the incense smells or what the statues are like or anything! All you know is what you’ve been told by a lot of bigoted eejits!’
‘So my parents are bigoted eejits now, are they?’
‘You’ve said so yourself many a time.’
‘I can say what I like about them but you can’t.’ Her eyes were full of fire, sparkling in the light. His were dark, like deep unfriendly pools. ‘It’s a horrible religion. It tries to own people body and soul. It gives me the dry boke!’
‘What did you marry me for then?’ he demanded. ‘Am I not one of them?’
‘My head must have been cut!’
‘If that’s the way you see it then there’s no point in talking further.’ He seized his jacket and was gone out of the house slamming the door.
She stood in the centre of the room fuming with rage. Her da had been right when he said never trust a Mick. She put on her coat and went out, determined to walk the streets till she was exhausted and Kevin would come back and wonder what had happened to her and when she didn’t return he would start to worry. He might imagine she had run away for good or had been knocked down or had jumped over a bridge in her agony. She walked fast, her rage boiling inside her like a pot with a hot fire under it. She walked so fast and was so immersed in her rage that she did not notice where she was going. Her feet moved in long fast strides eating up the pavements.
Someone whistled behind her. It did not penetrate her mind at first. When it came the second time she looked round in irritation and saw a young man in a leather jacket approaching her.
‘Hi,’ he said. She walked on, he caught her arm.
‘Leave go,’ she said, trying to shake him off. ‘Stupid devil!’
He laughed, and it was then that she noticed that she had wandered far from their district. She did not know this place at all, even though she and Kevin had walked so much. Perhaps it was the dark that changed it. The street was badly lit, full of dense shadows. The houses were poor, more run down even than the one they lived in. There were only a few houses in the street; the rest of it was covered by a large brick warehouse. And no one else was about. An eerie quiet seemed to hang between the rooftops. For a moment Sadie felt fear and then a wave of anger washed it away.
She lifted her foot and kicked him as hard as she could on the shin. He yelped, his grip slackened momentarily, and she was away. She had a few yards start on him. He came after her but she was swift on her feet and at school no one had been able to beat her when it came to running. She outstripped him easily and only stopped once she was in the main road. When she came to the first Underground station she took the first tube home. On the train she thought again of Kevin. Because of him she had been attacked. Well … almost attacked. In her head she held a conversation in which she told Kevin how she had been near done to death and how sorry he would be and beg her forgiveness. So absorbed was she that she nearly missed her stop again and had to jump off quickly. Trains had a habit of doing that to her. Her mind travelled far and wide on her journeys on the Underground.
On the way up the street she rehearsed what she would say. Perhaps it would be better to be cool and give out an air of quiet suffering with fortitude. That would make him feel worse.
The curtains of their room were drawn but chinks of light showed round the edges. She passed the West African in the hall who eyed her with interest. She smiled back at him too though not too encouragingly. She flung open the door, words forming on her lips. Kevin was not there. And there was no sign that he had been back at all.
Kevin walked to the nearest pub when he left Sadie. He was not much of a drinking man but pubs were somewhere warm to go where you could meet other people and pass the time of day with a chat or a game of darts.
Sadie was an idiot, he told himself as he paid for a half pint of beer and lifted the foaming glass to his mouth; she had a passion for exaggeration and a devil inside her that made her push things to extremes. He would let her cool off for a while and then go back and they would make it up.
He stood with his back to the bar looking round. Some men were playing darts, others were sitting over a game of dominoes. Two girls of around his own age sat together. They were watching him; he looked away. One of the girls got up and came over to the bar.
‘Two shandies,’ she said to the barman. She rested her elbow on the counter and glanced at Kevin. She tilted her chin. ‘Stranger round here, are you?’
‘I’m l
iving near by.’
‘Oh you are! Never seen you before. You’re Irish, aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thought so. You can tell. You’re a good-looking feller.’
He stared at her unblinkingly. She was what his mother would call a brazen hussey. He wanted to laugh. His mouth twitched at the corners; she mistook it for a smile and gave him one back.
‘Going to join us?’ she asked, nodding over at the other girl.
‘No, sorry. You see,’ he said, lowering his voice as if it was an important secret, ‘I’m a married man.’
He moved off down the pub. A married man indeed! He scarcely felt it. It was a hard thing to feel. Not that he wanted to be going out with any other girl. He would not do that to Sadie. He stopped by the men playing darts and watched them.
After a few minutes one of the men turned to him and said, ‘Want a game?’
‘Sure.’
Kevin proved to have a steady hand and a good aim. He scored better than anyone else. They’d need to get him in their darts team, they said.
‘What do you say?’ said the man who had first invited him to play.
‘OK with me,’ said Kevin.
He sat down with the man whose name was Bob Green.
‘Call me Bob,’ he said. ‘Everyone does. Never mind my grey hair. Now, come on and tell me a thing or two about yourself.’
Kevin did, and Bob listened with interest. ‘So you’re wanting a new job,’ he said. ‘I must know somebody who could help you. I know most people round here. I’ve lived in this part of London all my life. What kind of thing are you after?’
‘Don’t really know. I’d like to do something with my hands. I like working with radios. Things like that.’
‘With radios … I know someone with a radio and television shop. Tell you what, I’ll have a word with him. OK?’
‘That’d be great,’ said Kevin.
‘Can’t promise anything of course but I’ll do my best.’
They arranged to meet the following evening. Kevin walked home whistling.
‘Hey, Sadie,’ he called as he opened the door. ‘I met a man in the pub who might be able to get me a job.’
Sadie, who was sitting hunched over the fire, looked up and scowled at him.
‘What’s up with you?’ he asked. ‘You’ve got a face as long as a fiddle on you.’
‘No wonder!’ she cried. ‘Seems you’ve forgot. I got lost and was attacked by a horrible man –’
‘Did he hurt you?’
‘No. But it was no thanks to you that he didn’t.’
‘You’re good at taking care of yourself.’ He sat down and took off his boots.
‘Kevin McCoy, you don’t seem a bit bothered that your wife was attacked. There was I fighting for my life and you were getting drunk.’
‘I had one half pint and played a game of darts. I won too. They’re going to put me on the team.’
‘Bully for you! You look right pleased with yourself.’
‘But I’ve got a lead for a job, Sadie! Aren’t you pleased?’
‘Of course,’ she said gruffly. All the boiling rage had long since subsided and left her with a simmering resentment. She had sat too long waiting for him to come back and could not even remember half of the things she had intended to say. Besides, she was too relieved to see him. He might be an eejit and a lot of other things besides but he was still her Kevin and when he came to her and put his arms round her she pressed her face against his and hugged him tight and happiness flooded back into her, pushing out all the bad feelings. When they were getting ready for bed she said, ‘About that getting married business …’
‘Oh yes?’ He got into bed.
‘I’ll have to think it over carefully. I’ll let you know in a few days.’
‘Fine,’ he said, and when she turned round she saw that he was asleep.
‘Honest!’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Men!’
She lay in bed watching the reflection of the street light on the ceiling. Sometimes a car passed in the street and its headlights fanned across their room cutting easily through the flimsy curtains. Someone was having a party across the street: she could hear the music and laughter. Overhead feet moved incessantly. Somewhere else in the house a record player was going. Feet passed the window. There seemed to be noise and movement in the street for most of the night. She did not mind for she liked the feel of people round her, liked the idea of them eating and sleeping and dancing and talking, all so different, but all alive and struggling to make the best of things. She thought of Lara and her baby and that made her feel warm. It was nice to have a friend.
Beside her Kevin breathed deeply and steadily. She wished he didn’t want her to have a church ceremony. He was right: she was a bit afraid of going into a Catholic church. Of course she didn’t really expect priests to get hold of her but something inside her rose up at the idea of walking into a Catholic church and standing in front of the altar and letting a priest marry her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Bob Green brought his friend Mr Davis to the pub the following evening. Kevin had been watching the door for an hour before they arrived.
‘Well, lad,’ said Mr Davis, settling himself down on the bench beside Kevin after they had been introduced. ‘I hear you’re after a job. Bob’s told you I have a radio and television business?’
‘Yes, yes, he has.’
‘What experience have you?’
‘None. But I’ve done a lot of messing around with radios on my own.’
‘Hum,’ said Mr Davis and lifted his frothing glass to his lips.
Kevin sat back, hope fading in him. There was little chance that he would get such a job. It would be the same old story all over again. Sorry, you’re unqualified, inexperienced. Go back to your unskilled labouring and dig roads and flatten sites so that men can build on them.
‘What are you sighing about?’ demanded Mr Davis, looking over the top of his glass at Kevin. He was a red-faced man with bulging eyes. They bulged now at Kevin, rather ferociously.
‘I’m thinking I’ve little chance. Nobody’ll let you even try.’
‘Well, I’m not keen on taking on greenhorns. But I was one myself once. I might be prepared to give you a chance if you’d go to evening classes.’
‘Indeed I would,’ said Kevin. ‘Sure the chance is all I’m asking for.’
‘I like the look of you, lad. I don’t think you would let me down.’
‘I wouldn’t, Mr Davis, honest.’
‘You’d have a lot to learn, but if you’re willing that’s the main thing.’
‘I am willing, Mr Davis. Very willing.’ Kevin kept his eyes fixed on the man’s face.
‘Shall we say, start on Monday then?’
‘Monday,’ said Kevin, his throat dry. He had a job! And not a labouring one at that. Wait till he got home and told Sadie!
Mr Davis took Kevin to his shop. It was only a short walk away. In the back room radios and televisions stood around with their backs stripped off, wires hanging out. Mr Davis said that it was not such a mess as it looked, he knew what he was doing. Kevin nodded, listening carefully to everything the older man said.
‘I’ve worked with radios all my life,’ said Mr Davis. ‘Well, lad, see you Monday morning then?’
Kevin bought fish and chips and Coca-Cola on the way home. He found Sadie squatting on the floor cutting out another cushion cover.
‘What a gorgeous smell!’
‘Fish and chips.’ He swung the bag on to the table. ‘We’re going to have ourselves a wee bit of a celebration, Sadie my love.’
She leapt to her feet. ‘You got a job?’
‘’Deed I did get a job. And I think I’m going to like it fine.’ He opened the Coca-Cola and poured it into the yellow mugs. ‘Funny looking colour in there,’ he said, making a face at it, ‘but never mind.’
Sadie raised her mug. ‘Here’s to the new job.’ They drank and then she asked him what wage he was getting
. When he told her she frowned. ‘But that’s only half what you’re getting now,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘I know, but I’m only starting at this job. I have to go to night classes and get a qualification and then I’ll get more money.’
‘But how’ll we manage in the meantime?’ she wailed. ‘It’s been hard enough as it is, what with this rent and all.’
‘Labouring’s well paid, Sadie, but it’s a terrible job and I’m not wanting to do it for ever.’
She had had plans for new curtains. She had seen material in the store that day and had measured up the window when Kevin was out. His face, which had been beaming when he came in, was now sobered.
‘We’ll manage,’ she said, opening the parcel of fish and chips. The aroma rose up making the saliva run in her mouth. ‘We’ll just have to wait a bit longer for that house in Kensington.’
Kevin’s new job brought changes in their way of living. They could stay in bed for another half-hour in the morning. On those cold winter mornings it was bliss to lie under the warm blankets and listen to the feet passing on their way to work. Kevin now left at ten minutes to eight, just a few minutes before Sadie. He came home at lunchtime and was back before her in the evening.
‘You might have made the bed,’ she said one evening when she came back to find him sitting on it, unmade. He was reading a radio engineering book.
‘I never thought,’ he said, looking up from the book briefly and then back down at it again.
She made a face at the back of the book, set down her bag of groceries and took off her coat. She lit the gas ring, put on the frying pan and began to cook the meal.
‘Will it be long?’ he asked. ‘I’ll need to watch my time.’
‘Oh, you’ll be in time.’
‘What’s up with you? You sound fed up.’
‘I am a bit. All this travelling on trains and working all day …’
‘It’s gone six,’ he said, his eyes on the clock on the mantelpiece.
‘OK!’
