‘Don’t start getting clever with me, lad,’ she said.
‘Oh. So I’m clever now, am I? You never said that when you were helping me with my geography homework.’
‘That’s enough.’ Tom’s tone was ominously quiet. ‘Don’t ever talk to your mam like that. She’s not here for you to wipe your feet on or to sharpen the edge of your temper. Oh, and she’s my wife, by the way. I expect people to treat her with respect.’
Seamus hung his head. It was now or never. He knew full well that telling his parents immediately would take more courage than he had. Keeping quiet and going through with the plan was the easier option, so was he a coward after all? What he intended to do was naughty, because he’d told lies and stolen money. But it was also good, since nobody else seemed to have the courage to face Finbar and Michael. Why, though? What had happened for a wedge of such a size to be driven through so close a family? Everyone quarrelled, of course, but Gran always said that it was the Irish in them, the paddy-whack, as she sometimes called it.
‘What’s he thinking about now?’ Maureen asked.
‘No idea,’ was her husband’s reply.
Seamus shook his head slowly. He was in the room, yet they talked about him as if he’d left. He would go now, though he needed to say something first. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s just this camping business. More to it than I thought.’ That wasn’t a lie, because he would be camping in his little one-man tent a few miles up the East Lancs. The only camping he’d ever done had taken place here, in the garden, and he’d come inside for his meals. With his head still bowed, the youngest member of the Walsh family left the room. Tomorrow morning, he would become a man.
Maureen sighed. ‘Well, me dad’s not getting any younger, Tom. I’d best get up the road and help him. I’ve had enough of me mother for one day. Two stones of spuds she sent back this morning. Not good enough. She was in a right mood, face like a Dock Road crash between two lorries and a train. Blamed me because I put the order in.’ She looked at her husband, who seemed preoccupied. ‘Oi.’
‘What?’
‘Are you turning weird on me? Because if you think I’m going to drag me legs and the rest of me round Liverpool looking for you, you can think a-bloody-gain.’
‘No, nothing like that. I’m going up Waterloo tonight to visit Roy.’ He paused. ‘Come with me. Your mam’ll keep an eye on me-laddo.’
Maureen blinked a few times. ‘Is Roy expecting me?’
‘He’s asked to meet you. He’s lonely, love. Never been married, a bad leg, madly in love with a widow across the road who’s called R-O-I-S-I-N, pronounced Rosheen, answers to Rosh. And he was good to me that day – remember? Got me to Confession, propped me up all the way to Greenhalgh’s office where I got the best job going.’
‘I’ve nothing to wear,’ she said.
‘Nothing to wear? Nothing to wear? Seven hangers, I’ve got in that wardrobe. You’ve more clothes than your dad sells in a year on Paddy’s Market.’ He paused for thought. ‘Your navy suit, polka dot blouse with the bow at the neck, and new navy shoes from Freeman, Hardy and Willis.’
He always noticed her clothes, complimented her on her hair, told her when he liked her perfume or a new lipstick. It was one of his many good traits, and Maureen knew she was a fortunate woman. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll do an hour for me dad, then I’ll come home and get ready. Roy’ll forget all about the widow once he’s seen me in the fighting gear.’
‘You’re not available,’ Tom said, smacking her playfully on her behind. ‘And when our Seamus is away, we can have another honeymoon.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says me. Now, bugger off.’
She buggered off.
Tom settled down with a newspaper over his face. Within minutes, he was asleep, and his son was on the prowl.
Leaving out the chair on which his father rested, Seamus searched the rest of the upholstered furniture for trapped coins. He found a florin, two half-crowns and some copper. That was the better part of eight shillings, and he wasn’t stealing, because he was allowed to keep what he found under cushions. Usually, he was lucky if he acquired a few pennies, so this was a good haul. Was it also an omen, a sign that he was doing the right thing?
He sat and listened to his dad’s gentle snoring. Everything about Tom Walsh was gentle. Even when angry, he held himself back, refusing to let rip at the person who’d annoyed him. And that, as Mam repeated frequently, was why Dad had got on at the Co-op. He could work out dividends at amazing speed, was good to his staff and excellent with customers. ‘Your dad’s a man,’ she said regularly. ‘And there aren’t a lot about these days.’
Seamus had stolen the camping money from Mam and from this wonderful dad who had won special medals for bravery during the war. Dad was a crack shot, a hero, a man who always did the right thing. He’d been ill for a while, a bit strange in his head, but he was back to normal now. Guilt burned through Seamus like summer lightning striking his core. If he got found out, would Dad become ill again?
Harry Burdon Jr didn’t have problems like these. No one worried about where he was or what he was doing. Even when he went missing overnight, his behaviour wasn’t criticized. But it was a book, just a book. Harry Burdon wasn’t real. His mother wasn’t real. She didn’t have to peel pounds and pounds of spuds every day, didn’t stand over hot pans, didn’t feed sweaty dock workers bowl after bowl of scouse. Harry Burdon’s dad didn’t have to tally dividends, add up huge sums of money, take it to the bank, order food for the whole of Bootle on a weekly basis, make sure fresh veg got delivered every other day, because … because those people in the book weren’t real. There was no policeman father, no lawyer mother. All there was … It was a bloke called Richard something or other. He had a typewriter and a desk, and he sat there churning out Harry Burdon books, drinking whiskey and beer, probably, and smoking cigarettes.
Seamus walked across the room and peeled the newspaper off his dad’s face. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Well, I am now.’ Tom yawned and moved into a more upright position. ‘All right, lad. Out with it. We’re not daft, you know, me and your mam.’
It tumbled from the boy’s mouth in a rather less than sensible order. ‘I just wanted to find them, Dad. So I was never going camping. Well, I was, but on me own. Then … well, I looked at you and Mam, and I started thinking. I stole the school camp money and told lies. I read your private letters. But they’re me brothers, Dad.’
Tom felt a bit choked, but he dared not weep, not in Seamus’s company. He organized his thoughts as quickly as possible, marshalling facts into rank and file, picking up a couple of white-ish lies en route. Some of the truth needed to come out, since Seamus was a long way from stupid. ‘There’s a very good reason why things are as they are, son. Because of accidents that happened in London, Finbar and Michael have to lie low. They got in with – worked with – some bad people. For safety’s sake, they stay away from us, and we stay away from them. It probably won’t be for ever, but that’s how it is at the moment. Thanks for telling me. If you’d found them, you might have done more harm than good.’
Seamus blinked rapidly. ‘You think they’re in Rainford.’
‘I believe so, yes.’ Tom smiled at his youngest child. ‘You’re eight now, lad. Old enough to know right from wrong, also decent enough to come clean. I’ll tell your mother, so make yourself scarce and put the money you took on the mantelpiece. You just leave her to me.’
Seamus went away and sat on his bed. He had three clothes lines to return, and he had been stupid. This expedition was to have been the greatest adventure in his life so far. And his parents wanted something called a honeymoon, so he had better get on the right side of Gran.
Stanley Square wasn’t the same any more. People kept moving out, leaving behind the single-storey buildings that had housed them since the war. Empty prefabs looked sad and blind, with no movement, no light shining through windows in the evenings. ‘We’ll be out of here soon,�
�� he mumbled. ‘I’m going to meet Gran,’ he called as he walked through the hall.
‘Right,’ Tom replied. ‘But keep away from your mother. I’ll not vouch for her behaviour if you tell her what you told me. I can deal with her. Coming to me first was the best way.’
‘Good luck, Dad.’ Seamus closed the door and began the walk to Scouse Alley. He tried not to think, but failed to suppress the workings of his brain. Gran had to be on his side. Gran was always on his side. He could stay in Gran’s house till Mam calmed down, which could be some time between midsummer and next Christmas. She was a good mam, and Seamus loved her to bits, but once she got on her high horse she was, as Dad put it, a bugger to shift.
By the time her grandson arrived, Paddy was locking up. She glanced sideways at him while retrieving the key, then did a quick double-take and gave him all her attention. ‘And who are you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve a grandson in a mould similar to yours, though he doesn’t wear his face in his boots.’
‘Don’t, Gran.’ And he told her. It was much easier talking to her, which was weird, because he and she were like two slices of bread, components of a sandwich with his parents as filling. ‘So I told me dad.’
‘But not your mam?’
He shook his head. ‘Dad said he’s dealing with her, because he knows how. Till she drinks too much. You’re better with her when she has a load of Guinnesses. And I stole money and clothes lines.’
‘You’ll be in jail for ever, then?’
‘No. But when they thought I was going camping with school, Dad said a few times they could have a honeymoon, so can I stay at yours?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Gran?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’s a honeymoon?’
Paddy hid a smile. ‘Well, it’s a holiday for grown-ups, but not for children. It doesn’t mean they don’t love the bones of you, because they do, but would you like your mam and dad there while you’re playing with your friends?’
Seamus shook his head.
‘Same thing, you see. They want some time to themselves.’ Paddy was pleased. Her daughter’s marriage was a solid one, but everybody needed a break from children in order to feed a flame often starved by day-to-day drudgery.
‘Gran?’
She sighed. The Spanish Inquisition was clearly still in progress. ‘What?’
‘Well, Dad said about bad people in London. Did they kill my uncles Peter and Callum and Martin and Jack?’
‘Possibly.’ Sometimes, Paddy ached in the place against which she had held her sons. She missed her brothers, of course, but the loss of a child to whom a woman had given birth was a pain beyond measure. ‘We mustn’t talk to anyone about any of it. Your brothers, their wives and children, all must be kept safe. We, too, need to be careful.’ She shuddered. ‘Seamus, should ever a man drive slowly beside you, and open his car window to ask questions, don’t answer. I’m not joking now.’
‘All right, Gran. And I’ll put the ropes on people’s doorsteps after dark.’ He pondered. ‘But two of the prefabs on that side are empty.’
‘Then leave all the ropes at the occupied one. And don’t be worrying about Confession, because a sin you nearly committed doesn’t count.’
They turned into Stanley Square, noticing immediately that all was not well. Paddy wouldn’t have been surprised if her daughter’s voice could be heard near the Liver Building down at the waterfront.
‘Gran?’
‘Run to the market and tell your granddad to pack up and come home. Tell him I said. Go on, because your dad can’t hold her back for much longer.’
Seamus ran like the wind. With Mam in a mood as bad as this one, he needed to be on a different planet. Maureen didn’t hit kids except for a bit of a slap or a flick with a towel, but she was a screamer, and Seamus couldn’t be doing with screamers. The only thing worse than Mam’s yelling was her singing, and the lad all but flew in the direction of the market.
Paddy strode across the mound of grass that covered the centre of the square and met her furious daughter in the middle. Doors in several of the occupied prefabs opened; people abandoned wirelesses, gramophones and even the odd television set, because fights on the green were often better entertainment than anything available via electricity.
Tom used his arms to encircle his wife’s waist. ‘Stop showing yourself up,’ he stage-whispered. ‘And you won’t kill him, because you love him, and I’ll stop you laying a finger on him anyway—’
‘It’s her,’ Maureen shouted, ‘the best gran in the world. Gives him anything he asks for, dotes on him. He was going to go and find my other—’ Maureen staggered back and stood on her husband’s feet. Shocked, she put a hand to a cheek burning after a flat-handed blow from Paddy.
‘Not a word of that while you’re out here putting on a show,’ Paddy whispered. ‘Seamus is a child, but you’re not, and here you are, ready to give away your sons just because the lad was anxious about his brothers and ready to seek them out. Now shut up. Some round here would love to gossip about me. They owe me money and want to see me brought down.’
Maureen’s mouth made a perfect O. Her mother had just cracked her across the face with a strong, calloused hand. ‘You hit me,’ she spat.
‘I’ll do it again, but, if you don’t shut up and get yourself back inside. Watching you having a fit of the hystericals will keep that lot happy till the cows decide to come home. Away with you. Come on, away from the few neighbours we have left.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do, Mother. My son stole from me. My son. And I know you’ll stick up for him, because you—’ She was lifted up by her husband and, with limbs scraping the air in the manner of an upside-down beetle, she was heaved across the grass into her home, where she found herself dumped unceremoniously in the hallway.
Mother and husband stared down at the personification of human anger on the floor. ‘Ridiculous,’ said Tom. ‘He’s a boy. Boys do stupid things. At his age, I was pinching anything that wasn’t tied down, nailed down, glued down or rooted. He misses his brothers, love. And he entered a magic world where he could find them and bring them back.’
Maureen closed her eyes and leaned against a wall. ‘I lost two uncles and two brothers to the East End of bloody London. Now, I’ve two grandkids I can’t even visit, because all the boys in this family turn out bad. So when I see Seamus doing wrong and causing bother, I think it’ll be him next. What if he had found his brothers? What if his brothers, once dug out of hiding, decided to go back and work with Ronnie and Reggie Kray? What if Seamus joined them in ten years, eh? Just another unmarked grave in Epping Forest.’
Paddy understood her daughter full well, but there was no sense in this destructive way of thinking. ‘I’m going to put this right,’ she said. ‘I’ll be visiting London.’
Maureen and Tom stared open-mouthed at the grandmother of their children. ‘What?’
‘I shall write to the Krays. They helped get our boys back up here, gave them money, wished them good luck.’
‘I’m coming with you, then,’ Tom said.
But Paddy shook her head. ‘No. This will be two women in a room, two women with troublesome boys. Those twins will do anything for their mother, anything at all. Martin told me that, God rest his soul.’
Maureen closed her mouth with an audible snap. ‘And what will you ask for, Mam?’
‘For my family to be safe.’
Tom sighed and turned away, and the women followed him into the living room. In the age-old stance of a man lecturing his family, he stood with his back to the fire, feet planted apart, one hand pushing hair from his face. ‘You could cause deaths,’ he said softly.
‘I know that.’ Paddy paused for several seconds. ‘One night last summer, you were forced to protect your family. You became ill, then came to terms with what had happened. Whichever group is after Finbar and Michael, we know it’s not the Krays.’
‘So?’ Maureen sat and folded her arms as if protecting herself from what she
was hearing.
‘If their mother asks them, they will deal with it. I shall also suggest that my grandsons be chased away if they ever return to London.’ Paddy closed her eyes. London, like the moon, was there. It lingered beyond the bounds of imagination, was not as visible as the world’s silver companion which came and went on a monthly basis. London was on the Pathé News at the cinema. Nelson balanced on a tall column in some square or other – Trafalgar? There was Hyde Park where daft folk stood on orange boxes and ranted on about politics, religion and what have you, while the queen lived in an un-pretty palace big enough for forty-five married couples with kids, plus guests and lodgers.
The strangest thing about this Bootle family was that Tom knew where to stop with Paddy, whereas her daughter just barged on and on until the tears came. ‘You are not going to London on your own, Mam.’
Paddy shrugged. ‘I am. I’m going on my own, by myself, with nobody. And I won’t even tell you when. No way am I arriving with what they call an enterage.’
‘Entourage,’ Tom offered, wishing immediately that he could bite back the word. The expression on his mother-in-law’s face was sculpted to kill. But he wasn’t going to apologize. ‘I’ll just fetch our Seamus,’ he said rather lamely.
‘No, you won’t,’ snapped the angry Irishwoman. ‘He’s stopping with me and his granddad while you have a honeymoon.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, he hears everything. We all know there’s no privacy in these tin boxes. No matter what, there’s always some clever so-and-so can see you, hear you or smell you.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Have some time off work and calm yourself down. Honeymoon?’ She tutted. ‘It’ll be more like the Battle of the Bulge.’
When Paddy had left, Tom studied his wife. No way was he going to take her to Waterloo tonight. To say she was in a bad mood would have been similar to stating that the sun was slightly warm. ‘There’s steam coming out of your nose,’ he said.
The Liverpool Trilogy Page 96
