by Maureen Lee
‘I think I’ll pop round and see me friend, Ena. Her husband only died last July, so it’s her first Christmas on her own. You don’t mind, do you, luv?’ Meg seemed as anxious to escape as Cora was to see her go. ‘I’d call round our John’s, but that Danny Mitchell will be there. I can’t stand that man, forever making eyes at me.’
You’ll be lucky, Cora thought cynically. Danny Mitchell liked his women glamorous – he wouldn’t be seen dead with a plump, grey-haired sixty-year-old like Meg Lacey. For women interested in such things, she supposed Danny Mitchell was dead attractive.
Only one man interested Cora and it wasn’t Danny Mitchell. It wasn’t her husband either. Not long after Maurice was born she’d begun putting Billy off: pretending to be asleep, claiming a headache, not going to bed until he was snoring fit to bust. She’d always had trouble sleeping, was usually awake at the crack of dawn, and up by the time Billy stirred himself and got ideas. She could only assume he paid for it if he needed it, or had a girlfriend. Either way, she didn’t care as long as he left her alone.
His brother, John, though, was a different kettle of fish. She’d always considered him the best of the Lacey brothers and would have much preferred him to Billy, but since the accident, she’d felt even more drawn to the man with the destroyed face. She visualised touching the puckered red skin, being kissed by the twisted mouth, when she’d always thought kissing disgusting and the thing that was done in bed beyond the pale. But now, when she imagined doing it with John Lacey, there was a fluttery feeling in her belly that she’d never had before.
She didn’t see much of him these days, only the times he came to visit Billy. He would nod at her curtly and not say a word. Cora was no longer welcome in Amber Street, hadn’t been for years, not even at Christmas.
It’s not fair, she thought. Alice was desperate for that twenty-five pounds. If it weren’t for me, she’d never have got that bloody hairdresser’s. Why should I take the blame just because she was too thick to understand a perfectly straightforward business agreement?
Cora was never usually in need of company. She enjoyed being alone, plotting and planning, thinking of things she’d like for the house. But it was Christmas Day, Billy was out, Meg had gone, Maurice was in his bedroom, where he’d been sent to avoid his grandma’s mauling hands, and the house seemed much too quiet. It didn’t seem right that it should be so itchily silent, not on Christmas Day. Horace Flynn was coming to tea, and she remembered what would inevitably happen afterwards once Maurice was in bed and gave an involuntary shudder, though she didn’t usually let it bother her.
In Amber Street they’d probably be playing cards by now, or them parlour games she’d always considered stupid. But she wouldn’t have minded being there right now, part of the noise and bustle.
There was something she could do to become part of it. She could go round Amber Street with the paper Alice had signed and tear it up, throw it on the fire, redeem herself in everyone’s eyes, even Fionnuala’s, whose loathing for her aunt was palpable.
Cora felt an odd, unexpected pang at the thought of Alice’s warm smile welcoming her back into the fold. She fetched the agreement from the elegant bureau in the parlour. The words ‘in perpetuity’ seemed to stand out from the rest. She had told Alice a lie, misled her. But Alice was too trusting by a mile. Anyone with half a brain would have double-checked before putting their signature to a legal document.
Why should I tear it up? she asked herself. Why should I give up a regular income just because the house is a bit quiet? It’ll be all right tomorrer. Sod the Laceys, I don’t give a damn whether they like me or not. A little voice insisted she did, but Cora ignored it.
She went to the bottom of the stairs and called Maurice. ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ she asked when he appeared, such a handsome, strong lad, at the top of the stairs.
‘OK,’ he said dully. Slowly he plodded down towards his mother.
‘How are you getting on with the Meccano set you got for Christmas?’
‘I’m still wondering what to make, like.’ Maurice couldn’t understand the instructions. He had no idea what bolt went where. What he would have liked was to take the kit round to his cousin, Cormac, and ask him. Cormac would no doubt knock up a crane or a lorry in no time. But it was more than Maurice’s life was worth to ask if he could go to Amber Street on Christmas Day.
‘When we get back, we’ll do sums together till teatime,’ Cora said.
‘Yes, Mam.’ Maurice sighed. He dreaded to think what would happen if he didn’t pass the scholarship with Cormac. He reached the hall, glanced through the door of the living room, saw the cane hanging on the wall and decided if he didn’t pass he’d run away. ‘Can we go down the Docky?’ he asked hopefully.
Cora was about to refuse – she would have preferred Merton Road with its big, posh houses. But it was Christmas Day and Maurice looked a bit downcast. ‘All right,’ she said charitably. ‘We’ll go down the Docky.’
At half past seven Danny Mitchell went to meet his latest woman, Verna Logan, in the King’s Arms, with a rather bewildered glance at Bernadette on his way out. Orla disappeared into the parlour with Micky Lavin and stern instructions from her mother to ‘leave the door open, if you don’t mind’.
Maeve and her friends went up to the bedroom to discuss their future nursing careers and Cormac’s head was buried in the encyclopaedia he’d got for Christmas. Every now and then he would lift his head and announce some astounding fact. Toboggan was another name for a sledge; that the proper name for salt was sodium chloride; and Guy Fawkes really had existed.
‘Everyone knows that,’ Fionnuala said tartly in response to the last.
‘I didn’t,’ said her mother.
Bernie shook her head. ‘Nor me.’
Fionnuala wondered why everything that came out of her mouth sounded wrong, either the words or the way she said them. She could have said, ‘Everyone knows that’ and laughed, and it would have sounded quite different. Instead, it appeared as if she was belittling Cormac, something she hadn’t intended. She couldn’t communicate like normal people, she thought tragically. It was the reason no one liked her, why people preferred Maeve or Orla – particularly Orla, who was everyone’s favourite, including Dad and Grandad, with the gift of saying the cheekiest, most outrageous things and everyone adored her. On the occasions Orla came into the salon the customers’ eyes would brighten and they’d be dead flattered if she so much as remembered their names. Yet Fionnuala, who was as nice as pie, had the horrible feeling she got on their nerves.
‘This is nice,’ Alice remarked pouring out a fifth, or it might have been sixth, glass of sherry. ‘D’you want filling up, Bernie?’
‘No, ta. I’ll never find me way home at the rate I’m going.’
‘I’ll make some tea and sarnies in a minute.’
Bernie didn’t answer. Instead, she stared into the fire. ‘They’re only pretending not to like each other,’ Cormac had said earlier. ‘They like each other really.’
Was it possible, was it truly possible, that she was still attracted to Danny Mitchell after he’d revealed himself as such an out-and-out misogynist? Was it possible that Cormac was right and Danny was attracted to her?
Well, he had another think coming if he thought she’d have anything to do with a man who’d give a woman a pinny for Christmas because he considered her place was in the kitchen. Oh, Lord! She’d had too much to drink, because all of a sudden she was imagining herself in Danny’s kitchen, wearing the bloody pinny, making his bloody tea. Jaysus! She was wearing nothing BUT the pinny, and Danny was stroking her bottom and telling her she was beautiful. Bernadette moaned with delight.
‘Are you all right, luv?’ a concerned Alice enquired. ‘I hope you’re not going to be sick.’
‘I’m fine,’ Bernie replied in a choked voice.
In the parlour, Micky Lavin was trying to force his hand up Orla’s jumper.
‘No,’ Orla said firmly. He could touch h
er breasts outside the jumper, but not in.
‘Oh, come on,’ Micky said coaxingly. He was nineteen, dead gorgeous, with jet-black curly hair, wickedly dirty eyes and a sexy mouth. Had the door not been open, Orla might easily have succumbed.
Micky transferred his hand to her knee and it began to creep up her skirt.
‘Stop it.’ She slapped the hand away. ‘Why can’t you just kiss me like a normal man?’
‘Normal!’ Micky laughed. He had lovely teeth, large and very white. ‘You don’t know the meaning of normal.’
‘I’m not sure I want to if it means all this silly fumbling about.’
‘Silly!’ He laughed again.
‘If you’re just going to echo every word I say, then you can go home,’ Orla snapped, knowing he wouldn’t.
‘All right, then. I’ll just kiss you.’
At the touch of his lips, Orla’s head began to swim and she couldn’t bring herself to stop him when his hand returned to her breasts, inside her jumper, because it was so incredibly nice.
‘Let’s get married,’ Micky said hoarsely when they came up for air. ‘I know you’re only seventeen, but your dad’ll let you, won’t he?’
‘That’s something you’ll never know, Micky Lavin, because I’ve no intention of asking me dad any such thing. I don’t want to get married, not yet. Ask me again in another ten years.’ It wasn’t the first time he’d proposed. He was never put off by her repeated refusal, but would ask again a few weeks later. Perhaps he was trying to wear her down, which could be easily done if he kissed her and stroked her breasts for much longer. Orla pushed him away and jumped to her feet. ‘I think I can hear me mam making tea.’
She had the horrible feeling she was in love with Micky Lavin with his wicked eyes and sexy mouth. If so, she was determined to resist it. Only the other day at work the editor, Bertie Craig, had said she had an aptitude for writing racy little news items and thinking up suitable headlines. He had complimented her on her shortand and suggested that, in the very near future, she might be sent to cover council meetings.
Orla badly wanted to be a reporter like Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. She longed to leave the narrow confines of Amber Street, of Bootle, and move to London. She would live in a smart little flat somewhere dead posh and report on big criminal trials – even murders – or be sent to interview royalty and famous film stars.
Micky Lavin, who was an apprentice something or other in a foundry in Hawthorn Road, didn’t feature anywhere in the plans Orla had for this exciting and fascinating future.
On Boxing Day, Alice put on the cornflower-blue frock she’d bought especially for Christmas. It had a satin bow at the neck and a long, straight skirt. She buckled the stiff wide belt as tight as it would go. Yesterday’s gale had lessened, but it was still cold. Even so, Alice decided to wear a navy-blue boxy jacket rather than her winter coat and high-heeled shoes instead of boots. She carefully made up her face and coiled her hair into a French pleat.
‘Where are you going all dolled up to the nines?’ Fionnuala enquired when her mother came downstairs.
‘Never you mind.’
‘Can I come with you?’
‘Sorry, luv, but this is something I’ve got to do on me own. What are you doing here, anyroad? You should have gone to the pantomime with Grandad and our Cormac.’
‘The seats were already booked, weren’t they?’ Grandad had asked weeks ago if she’d like to go to the pantomime, but Fionnuala thought it a drippy thing for a girl of eighteen to do on Boxing Day. She had imagined something far more interesting would turn up. Except it hadn’t and now she was about to be left all on her own – Maeve had gone with her friends to see Joan Fontaine in From This Day Forward, Dad was working and Orla was out somewhere with Micky Lavin. This last fact caused Fionnuala considerable heartache. She had always envied Orla – her slim figure and her confident manner – but nothing like as much as she envied her having Micky Lavin for a boyfriend. Fionnuala desperately wanted a boyfriend, any boyfriend, but to have someone as handsome and desirable as Micky Lavin panting after her seemed little short of heaven.
The rotund figure of Horace Flynn came to the door wearing a crumpled shirt without a collar and baggy trousers supported by a pair of frayed braces. He didn’t look well, his face a sickly grey and slightly moist. He regarded the visitor with shrewd, hostile eyes.
‘Hello, there,’ Alice said in her sweetest voice and with her sweetest smile. ‘I wanted to see you about something. I’m Alice Lacey, from the hairdresser’s in Opal Street,’ she went on when the landlord looked at her vacantly, which wasn’t surprising, as they’d never spoken before and she only knew him by sight. He stood to one side and nodded down the hallway, which she took as a signal to come in, though she had the feeling that if it hadn’t been so cold he would have left her to have her say at the door.
The large house in Stanley Road was more comfortably furnished than she would have expected from a man living on his own. He led her into a room at the back overlooking a white-painted yard. A fire burnt brightly in the black-leaded grate, in front of which two plush upholstered armchairs were set at an angle either side. The black wooden dresser was full of hand-painted plates, various items of brassware, an assortment of china vases and pretty figurines. A wireless was on, not very loud, and Nelson Eddy was singing ‘September Song’.
‘D’you mind if I sit down?’ As she was nodded towards a chair, Alice began to wonder if he’d lost his voice. He sat his corpulent frame in the chair opposite.
‘Seeing as it’s Christmas, I thought I’d bring you a few bits and bobs to eat, like, knowing you lived on your own.’ She put two paper bags on the table. ‘There’s a few mince pies and a piece of Christmas cake there, as well as a steak and kidney pudding, which’ll need a bit of warming up. I made them all meself.’ Her voice faltered in the face of the man’s still hostile expression. This was going to be harder than she’d thought. It was said that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach and, as Horace Flynn’s stomach was such a notable part of him, she had hoped to soften him up with food.
He spoke at last. ‘What d’you want?’ he grunted. People only came to see Horace Flynn if they wanted something. Although Alice didn’t realise it, he was quite appreciative of the food. He’d been offered many things over the years in lieu of rent – women’s bodies, expensive ornaments: most of the stuff on the dresser had come by way of hard-up tenants – but no one had ever thought to suggest a good meal.
And this woman wasn’t the plaintive, wheedling sort of creature he usually came across. She was extremely attractive, well-dressed, with her own successful business. He was well aware how much the property in Opal Street had improved since she’d taken over the lease.
‘It’s hot in here. D’you mind if I take me coat off?’
He shook his head, furtively taking in her slim waist and the way her skirt rode up when she crossed her trim ankles.
‘It’s about the lease for the hairdresser’s,’ she said. ‘To be blunt, I can’t afford it. I expected it to go up, naturally, but not from a hundred and twenty-five pounds to fourteen hundred. The salon can’t stand it. I mean, it’s no good squeezing things till the pips squeak, if there’s no pips left to squeeze.’ Alice winced. That last bit sounded dead stupid.
Horace blinked. He was a greedy man, he was cruel and heartless, but he wasn’t a fool. It wasn’t good business to demand more than the market could stand. And, unlike a house which could go overnight, if a shop was vacated it could stand empty for months, if not years. He had told Cora to increase the lease to seven hundred pounds. Who did the little tart think she was, going against his wishes, demanding double! He recognised a family feud, remembering this woman was Cora’s sister-in-law. Was Cora trying to put her out of business?
Apparently not, otherwise she’d be cutting off her nose to spite her face, because the woman said, ‘I might, only might, be able to afford it,’ she continued in her sweet, lilting voice, ‘if m
e sister-in-law didn’t take such a large share of the profits.’ She rolled her eyes and laughed girlishly. ‘Silly me! I was dead ignorant in those days. I signed this agreement I didn’t understand and now I’m beholden to Cora.’
Horace had the uncomfortable and alarming feeling that he’d been done. He needed Cora, but he wouldn’t have trusted her as far as he could throw her. She’d never mentioned she had a share in Lacey’s hairdressing salon and he wondered if he would have seen the extra money she was asking off this rather nice woman who worked hard running her own business and had thought to bring him food. With her smiling face and sparkling eyes, she had brought a breath of fresh air into an otherwise dull and lonely Boxing Day.
On the wireless, Dooley Wilson began to sing ‘As Time Goes By’. ‘I love this song,’ Alice cried. ‘Did you see the picture, Casablanca? I went to see it with me husband. It was the last . . .’ She paused. It was the last picture she and John had seen together before he’d had the accident. She remembered they’d walked home, hand in hand. ‘You must remember this,’ John had sung. It was rarely she thought about John now. She’d grown used to their loveless relationship. The fact that they were friends seemed enough, but the song had brought back tender memories and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Oh, gosh, you must think me an idiot.’ She jumped to her feet and struggled into her coat. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Flynn, to have forced meself on you, right in the middle of Christmas too. It was thoughtless and rude. I’ll go home and leave you in peace. Forget about the lease. I’ll pay it somehow, even if it means sacking one of me staff. Thanks for your time.’
She was already in the hall when he called, ‘Mrs Lacey!’ She went back. He was still sitting in the chair, his back to her. ‘A hundred pounds a year will do.’
‘What?’
‘A hundred pounds a year for seven years. I’ll bring the papers round meself in the new year.’
She gasped with delight. ‘Thank you very much, Mr Flynn. It’s much appreciated. When you come, I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.’
