by Maureen Lee
‘Just a minute,’ Neil said, ‘the switch is over here.’
The room was flooded with light. Neil took a startled step backwards and his companion uttered a little cry when they saw the red-faced, red-eyed, swollen-faced Alice, who remembered she hadn’t combed her hair since morning and it had got soaking wet, as well as her clothes, which she hadn’t changed. She must look like a tramp who’d broken in, in the hope of finding a night’s shelter.
‘Alice!’ Neil’s face was full of concern. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. Our Orla had the baby and I didn’t manage to get in earlier. I thought I’d come and tidy up a few bits and bobs.’
‘In the dark?’ Neil’s companion looked considerably put out. She was smartly dressed in a grey flannel costume, yellow blouse and hat. Her hair was perfectly set in a series of stiff, artificial waves. Alice would never have allowed a customer to leave Lacey’s with such unnatural-looking hair.
‘I must have dozed off.’ Alice stood up, too quickly. She swayed, nearly fell and had to sit down again.
Neil said, ‘Jean, I think it would be best if you went home. I’ll drop in at the bank at lunchtime tomorrow.’
Jean made a little moue with her mouth. ‘But, darling . . .’
‘Tomorrow, Jean.’ Neil put his hands on her shoulders and propelled her towards the door. ‘Goodnight.’ The door closed and he turned to Alice. ‘What on earth is wrong? You look like shit.’
‘Don’t swear,’ Alice said automatically, then remembered he wasn’t one of her children. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re quite right. Teachers shouldn’t swear.’ He regarded her sternly. ‘Alice, will you please tell me what’s the matter?’
‘Put the light out.’
He switched off the light. ‘Is Orla’s baby all right? Is Orla herself?’
‘Orla’s fine, the baby’s beautiful.’
‘Girl or boy?’
‘A girl. She’s calling her Lulu.’
‘That’s a pretty name. Lulu Lavin, sounds like a flower.’ He came and sat beside her. ‘Are you going to tell me now that it’s dark?’ His voice sounded very close, only inches from her ear.
‘I can’t, Neil,’ she said brokenly. ‘You’re being very kind, but I can’t tell anyone, not even me dad or me best friend. It’s something truly awful.’
‘A trouble shared is a trouble halved, so people say.’
‘I’ve said it meself more than once, but I’m not sure now if it’s true.’
‘If it’s really so awful, Alice, you should tell someone. It doesn’t have to be me. You shouldn’t keep it all to yourself.’
Alice said wryly, ‘You sound as if you know about such things, but I can’t imagine anything awful’s ever happened to you.’
He was always cheerful and extraordinarily good-humoured, as if he found the world a wonderful place to be. She understood he was an excellent teacher –everyone at St James’s liked him, though it was considered a mystery what he was doing there when he could have been teaching at a public school, or in a different job altogether. He’d been to university and had a Classics degree, whatever that was. He came from somewhere in Surrey and wasn’t short of a few bob –one of her customers who knew about such things said his suits and shoes were handmade. His car was an MG sports.
His mam and dad were referred to as ‘moms’ and ‘pops’, and he had an elder brother called Adrian and a sister, Miranda, whose twenty-first birthday it had been in August. Instead of a party, Miranda had had a dance at which some well-known orchestra had played: Ted Heath or Ambrose or Geraldo, Alice wasn’t sure. It wasn’t that Neil showed off, but he sometimes talked about his private life.
It could have been embarrassing, having someone so dead posh living in the upstairs flat, but Neil hadn’t an ounce of side. Alice had always felt completely at ease with her tenant. And he was always gentle with Fionnuala, whose crush on him was plain for all to see.
‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he asked.
‘Why, coming into the salon, like normal,’ she said, surprised at the question.
‘Act as if nothing dreadful has happened, laugh, smile, be your usual sunny self?’
‘Well, yes, of course.’
‘We all do that, Alice,’ he said with a dry laugh. ‘We all put on a show, no matter how we feel inside. What makes you think I’m any different?’
‘I’m sorry, luv.’ Alice impulsively laid her hand on his. ‘I was being insensitive. It’s just that you act as if you don’t have a care in the world.’
‘It wasn’t always so. Seven years ago I wanted to kill myself.’ He put his other hand on top of hers. ‘If I tell you about it, will you tell me in turn why you are looking so utterly wretched? I got the fright of my life when I turned on the light. I thought the hairdresser’s must be haunted.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Alice said abjectly. ‘And I made you get rid of poor Jean.’
‘Poor Jean will already have got over it.’ He pulled her to her feet. ‘If we’re going to exchange confidences, let’s go upstairs where it’s comfortable and we can do it over a cup of coffee or, better still, a glass of brandy. A drink will probably do you good.’
‘Give us a minute first to comb me hair.’
There were still a few pieces of furniture in the flat that had belonged to Myrtle – a sideboard, a glass-fronted china cabinet, the bedroom suite, though Alice had bought a new mattress. The two armchairs, the small table with matching chairs and the kitchen dresser were good quality second-hand.
She’d been upstairs a couple of times since Neil moved in. He had added things of his own – some exotically patterned mats that had come all the way from Persia, lots of bright pictures, a pair of table lamps that cast a rosy glow over the rather gloomy room. The china cabinet was full of books and there was a statue of an elephant on top, which Neil said was made of jade. There were more jade statues on the mantelpiece.
‘It’s lovely and cosy up here,’ she said when he switched on the lamps.
‘That was my intention. Would you like coffee or brandy? I suggest the latter.’
‘That would be nice, though not too much, else it’ll go to me head.’
He grinned. ‘That mightn’t be such a bad thing. Now, sit down, I’ll get the drinks, then I’ll tell you the story of my life.’
Instead of an armchair, Neil sat on the floor with his back against it, his long legs stretched out across the mat. He turned on the electric fire, not the element, just the red bulb behind the imitation coals. The room looked cosier still.
‘You know I was in the Army, don’t you?’ he began.
Alice nodded. ‘You joined in nineteen forty-two when you were eighteen.’ She also knew he didn’t have to join. He’d been accepted by Cambridge University and could have stayed to finish the course, by which time the war would have been over.
‘What you don’t know, Alice, is that I got married when I was twenty.’
‘Married!’ she gasped, startled. He appeared to be one of the most unmarried men she’d ever known.
Neil wagged his finger. ‘Don’t interrupt. I’d like to get this over with as quickly as possible. I married my childhood sweetheart, Barbara. Babs everyone called her. She was, still is, no doubt, quite gloriously pretty. Our parents had known each other for years before we were born. Even now,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I’m not sure if we ever loved each other, or it was a case of doing what was expected of us. It seemed like love, it felt like it and we were happy to go along with our parents’ expectations – superbly happy, I might add.’
He stared into the fire, as if he’d forgotten Alice was there. ‘We married the year before the war ended. I was stationed in Kent at the time. I got special leave – we even snatched a weekend’s honeymoon at Claridge’s. That’s a hotel in London,’ he added in case Alice had never heard of it, which she hadn’t. ‘Babs worked for a government department, something to do with rationing. She had a little mews cottage in Knightsbridge. From then on, it’s where
I spent my leave, though she claimed to feel lonely when I wasn’t there.’ His lips twisted. ‘Now that she was a married woman, she didn’t lead the wild social life she’d done before. So I used to tell my fellow officers when they were going to London, “Drop in on my Babs. She’ll make you feel at home for a few hours.” And they did. Would you like more brandy, Alice?’
‘Not yet. Perhaps later.’
‘I think I’ll replenish my glass.’
He got to his feet, a tall, extremely good-looking and suddenly rather tragic young man, Alice thought, even though she didn’t yet know the end of the story.
‘Nine months after the wedding,’ he continued when he had returned to his place on the floor, ‘we were posted to France. The Brits had taken it back by then. Soon we were in Germany, on our way to Berlin. We were in Berlin on the wonderful day the war was declared over. That night we had a party in the mess. Everyone drank too much, me included. Things got wild. Then a chap I hardly knew, I’d never spoken to before, mentioned this “little tart”, as he called her, who he’d slept with in London. He intended calling on her the minute he got back. Her name was Barbara Greene and she’d been recommended to him as a “good lay” – that’s an American term, so I understand. The chap said he felt sorry for her poor sod of a husband. Then another chap butted in who also knew Barbara Greene – she’d taught him a few tricks he didn’t know, he said.’ Neil laughed bitterly. ‘Before long, it seemed as if the entire bloody regiment was claiming to have slept with Babs.’
‘Oh, luv!’ Alice breathed. ‘That’s terrible. What did you do?’
‘I got blind drunk. I was probably the only Englishman on earth who wanted to kill himself on such a momentous night.’
‘What did you do – after that night?’
Neil shrugged. ‘Saw out the rest of my service, got demobbed, went to see my lovely wife and told her it was over. She wasn’t particularly upset. We went our separate ways. A few years ago she asked for a divorce, but I refused. We’re both Catholics, you see. I don’t think a divorced teacher would be acceptable to a Catholic school board.’
‘So, you’re still married?’
‘Yes. As I have no intention of ever marrying again, what does it matter?’ He shrugged once more. ‘Would you like another drink now? I definitely would.’
‘I wouldn’t mind a little bit. You’re not going to get blind drunk tonight, are you?’ Alice asked anxiously.
‘No.’ He stretched his arms, put them behind his neck and grinned. Suddenly he looked his old self again. Alice felt relieved. ‘I’m over getting plastered. I’m over Babs, if the truth be known. But I shall never get over the sense of betrayal. How could she do such a thing? I still ask myself that from time to time.’
‘What made you become a teacher?’
‘I’m not sure.’ He considered the question. ‘After I finished Cambridge, I felt the urge to escape from the world I’d always known, do something entirely different. I took up teaching, much to my folks’ horror. They thought it a terribly middle-class thing to do. They regard themselves as very much upper-class, you see.’ He looked at Alice, his eyes sparkling with merriment. ‘I’ve never told you this, but my father is Sir Archibald Nelson Middleton-Greene.’
Alice burst out laughing. ‘That’s a mouthful. Am I supposed to have heard of him?’
‘No. I’m pleased you’re amused rather than impressed.’
‘Oh, I’m impressed all right.’
‘Are you feeling better?’
‘Loads better.’
‘Me too. I’ve never told anyone all that before.’ He refilled her glass for the third time. ‘Now it’s your turn to bare your soul.’
‘It doesn’t feel so bad now. I mean, it’s still awful, it just doesn’t feel as bad inside.’ She told him the story right from the beginning, about how happy she and John had been with their four lovely children, then when John had burnt his face and everything had changed. She told him the awful things he’d called her. ‘Then suddenly he changed again.’ He’d started staying out a lot. They hardly saw him.
‘Today I went round to the yard to tell him about Orla. He’d always discouraged us from going before. You’ll never believe what I found.’ She described knocking on the door and it being opened by the very pregnant young woman with fair hair and a toddler attached to her knee. ‘She smiled at me ever so nicely.’ Then the little boy came and shouted upstairs for his daddy. ‘By then, I knew it must be John, but it still knocked me for six when he appeared. And his eyes! They were dead horrible. I felt about this big.’ Alice held up her thumb and forefinger about quarter of an inch apart. ‘But do you know what gets me more than anything?’
‘What, Alice?’
‘It sounds daft, but she had a fitted carpet. John knew I’d always wanted a fitted carpet for the parlour. It made me realise how much he put this other family before his real one. It’s as if we don’t matter any more.’ She sniffed. ‘Oh, Lord, Neil. I think I’m going to cry again and I haven’t got a hankie.’
‘I’ll get you one.’ Neil leapt to his feet and returned with a clean, but unironed, white handkerchief. To her total astonishment he knelt beside her and began to dry her eyes, which she thought a trifle unnecessary. There didn’t seem any real need to kiss them either, so that she felt her lashes flutter against his lips. It was years since John had touched her and it made her feel uncomfortable, even though it was undeniably very pleasant.
‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ she mumbled.
‘I’m doing it because I want to, not because I have to.’ Neil slid his arms around her waist. ‘I’ve been lusting after you, Mrs Lacey, since the day I first set foot in the salon.’
‘But I’m thirty-eight,’ Alice gasped.
‘I don’t care if you’re eighty-eight, you’re utterly adorable.’ He pulled her towards him and hugged her very tight.
‘Neil.’ She tried to struggle out of his arms. ‘You’ve had too much to drink.’
‘No, it’s you who hasn’t had enough. Stay still, Alice. I promise I won’t touch you anywhere that’s out of bounds.’
Alice sat stock still, knowing she should leave, but curiously reluctant to move an inch, while Neil traced her eyebrows with his finger, then her ears, her cheeks, her nose. The world had gone very quiet and, apart from the ticking of a clock somewhere, there wasn’t a sound to be heard. Neil’s firm finger traced her jaw and she could smell soap on his hand. John had always been a tender lover, but he’d never done anything like this. The finger moved to her lips and Alice felt as if her bones had melted inside her body. Then Neil bent forward and kissed her gently, ever so gently, on her forehead and she couldn’t resist another minute. She flung her arms round his neck, feeling like a wanton woman, but not caring a bit.
Chapter 7
1956
Maeve Lacey got engaged on her twenty-first birthday. Her fiancé, Martin Adams, was a colourless, fussy young man who was a radiographer at Bootle hospital. They had been courting two years, but weren’t planning to get married until Maeve was a State Registered Nurse and they had saved up a deposit for a house.
Alice was pleased that it all sounded so very sensible when compared with Orla’s shotgun wedding. She remarked as much to her friend, Bernadette, who was helping prepare the food for what would be the party to end all parties that night.
‘Me and Bob were sensible, and look where it got us?’ Bernadette said darkly. ‘Absolutely bloody nowhere.’
‘Yes, but you’re all right now.’ Alice giggled. ‘Mam!’
‘Oh, shurrup.’ Bernadette nudged her friend’s ribs. ‘Stop being so cheeky, else you might get your bottom smacked.’
Three years ago, when Alice had held a similar party on the occasion of her father’s, Danny’s, sixtieth birthday, Bernie had taken her courage in both hands and proposed.
‘Neither of us is getting any younger,’ she said to the astonished birthday boy. ‘I can’t stand you, Danny Mitchell. If the truth be know
n, you drive me wild, but at the same time I think we’d be good together. I fancy you something rotten and I know you fancy me, so don’t look so outraged.’
Danny had spluttered something incomprehensible in reply.
‘If you’re agreeable,’ Bernadette went on, ‘I think we should get wed as soon as possible while we’ve both got a bit of life left in us. And before you accept, I should tell you I’d very much like a baby. I’m thirty-nine, so if we go at it hammer and tongs, there’s still time for you to put me in the club.’
Danny had spluttered something incomprehensible again.
‘Think about it,’ Bernadette said kindly, patting his arm. ‘Take your time, but try and let me know before the party’s over, so we can announce it, like, while everyone’s here.’
Four weeks later Bernadette became Mrs Danny Mitchell and stepmother to her best friend. Within a year Alice was presented with a brother, Ian, and a sister, Ruth, the year after.
Danny was rarely seen in the pub these days, only on Sundays after Mass. He was content to stay indoors with his pretty wife and two young children, and watch the new telly at night, much to the chagrin of the numerous women who’d had their eye on him.
‘You’ve made me dad very happy,’ Alice said as she rolled sausage meat into a length of puff pastry. ‘And he thinks the sun shines out Ian’s and Ruth’s little bottoms. I never thought I’d see the day when he’d take two kids in a pushchair for a walk in North Park.’
‘Well, he didn’t have much alternative, did he?’ Bernadette sniffed. ‘I’d promised to give you a hand.’ She removed a baking tray from the oven. ‘How many jam tarts do you want? There’s a dozen here and another dozen just on finishing.’
‘Well, there’s thirty coming,’ Alice said thoughtfully, ‘but not everyone will want a tart. I reckon that’s enough.’
‘What shall I do now?’
‘Pipe some cream on those little jellies, then sprinkle them with hundreds and thousands. Oh, by the way, could you bring some teaspoons when you come tonight? I haven’t enough to go round. And some glasses too, if you’ve got any.’
