Dancing in the Dark

by Maureen Lee

  Trudy began to attack her salad. “I’m glad I talked to you, Sis. I never looked at it like that before.” She paused, a forkful of prawns halfway to her mouth. “I wonder if Dad was hit when he was little?”

  “That’s something we’ll never know.”

  I thought about it later on the way to the Old Roan. The only feelings I’d ever had for my father were fear as a child, and loathing as I grew older. But could there have been a reason for his behaviour? For the first time in my life, I wondered if a badly damaged human being could be lurking inside the monster I’d always known.

  The Naughtons found the garden of the property in Old Roan much too big, and I drove back to work irritated by the waste of time.

  When I went in, George announced “Diana’s father’s dead. She called earlier. He passed away peacefully in his sleep during the night.”

  “How did she sound?”

  “As hard as nails,” George said indignantly. “You’d think she was calling to say her car wouldn’t start.”

  “She’s putting it on. I reckon she’s devastated.”

  “You’re an exceedingly charitable person, Ms Millicent Cameron. Anyway, the funeral’s Friday afternoon.”

  He drooped. “I suppose I’d better put in an appearance, represent the firm, as it were.”

  “Do you mind if I come with you?”

  “Mind? Of course not. I’ve rarely had a more welcome offer.”

  Later, I called my mother with the news—she was always ghoulishly interested in hearing about a death.

  “How old was he?”

  “A good eighty,” I replied. “Diana’s parents were middle-aged when she was born.” I decided to change the subject. “I met our Trudy for lunch.”

  “That’s nice, luv,” Mum said. “I like it when you two get together.”

  “Perhaps the three of us could have lunch one day, you and me and Trude. You’d love the restaurant, Mum.”

  “Oh, I dunno, luv,” she said, flustered. “I’d never get back in time to do your dad’s tea.”

  I assured her she’d have bags of time and my father needn’t know anything.

  “I’ll think about it,” she promised.

  “You’ll have to do more than think, Mum,” I said. “I’m going to badger you rotten till you say yes.”

  There was a pause. “You sound happy, Millicent. Has something nice happened? Has James proposed?”

  “James is history, Mum. Perhaps I’m happy because I’ve just had lunch with my sister.”

  “Whatever it is, luv, I’m glad. You were getting very hard. Not long ago, you wouldn’t have dreamed of asking your mam out to lunch. Now, what’s all this about James being history?”

  Apart from George and me, there were only five other mourners at the funeral: Diana, stiff and unemotional, two women neighbours, and two old men who’d been friends of Diana’s father.

  It was a bone-chilling November day and a wind flecked with ice blew through the cemetery, whisking in and out of the gravestones, stripping the last few leaves off the trees.

  “I didn’t think people got buried any more,” George muttered, through chattering teeth. “I thought they popped ‘em in an oven. At least it’d be warmer for the mourners.’

  I watched the coffin being lowered into the grave, then the vicar said a few respectful words, and Diana came over and thanked us for coming. I took her hand as we walked towards the cars, George trailing behind.

  “I’m sorry about your father. At least he didn’t suffer much pain.”

  “No, and as everyone keeps saying, he had a good innings.” Diana removed her hand. “You get over these things. From now on, I’ll be able to live my life as I please.”

  “If you need someone to talk to,” I said gently, “then don’t hesitate to ring. If I’m not there, I’ll be at number one William Square. There’s no phone, so you’ll just have to turn up.”

  “Thank you, Millie, but I’m fine. I can’t understand people who go to pieces when somebody dies.”

  Church bells pealed, nearby and far away, high-pitched and rippling, deep-toned and sonorous. I opened my eyes: a cold sun shimmered through the white curtains, and Tom O’Mara “was leaning over me. His brown hair was loose, framing his long face. If it hadn’t been for the earrings and the tattoo, he would have resembled one of the saints in the pictures I’d taken down.

  “I was just wondering,” he said, “what is it between us two?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I mean, the truth is, you’re an uppity bitch, full of airs and graces, and your accent gets on me wick.”

  My lips quivered as I traced the outline of the heart on his chest. “I’ve always steered clear of your sort, and the way you speak sets my teeth on edge.”

  He pulled the bedclothes down to my waist and buried his head in my breasts. “So, what is it between us two?” he asked again. His lips fastened on my left breast, and I squealed in delight when his tongue touched the nipple.

  “I haven’t a due,” I gasped truthfully. The deep-down feeling of intimacy was frightening, because I couldn’t visualise there ever being an end. The bells were still ringing as we made love, and it wasn’t until it was over that I said, “Why are you still here?” He’d usually gone before sunrise and Flo’s alarm clock showed almost half past nine.

  The wife’s taken the girls to see her mam. I thought we’d spend the day together, or at least part of it. I’ve got to be at the club by five.”

  I was thrilled at the notion of spending the day in bed with Tom O’Mara, but he had other ideas. “C’mon, let’s have summat to eat and we’ll be oft.”

  “Off where?” I sat up and blew the hair out of my eyes.

  Tom was getting dressed.

  “Southport.”

  “Why Southport?”

  “I’ll tell you later, after we’ve had some grub.” He pulled on a blue polo-neck sweater, and went over to the mirror, where he combed his hair and scooped it back into a ponytail with an elastic band. I watched, entranced.

  It was such a feminine gesture coming from such an overwhelmingly masculine man. The stomach thinks me throat’s been cut,” he said. “I’m starving.”

  “There isn’t any ‘grub’, as you call it, except for a few old packets of biscuits.”

  He groaned. “In that case, I’ll just have a cup of tea and we’ll get something to eat on the way. The pubs’ll be open by then.”

  The sun was as bright as a lemon, and little white clouds were chasing each other across the pale blue sky.

  The wind was dry and crisp and very cold. I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my tan overcoat, glad that I was wearing boots—after the funeral yesterday I’d gone home for some warm clothes.

  Tom’s car, a silver-blue Mercedes, was parked round the corner, a suede coat on the back seat. I remarked that he was taking a risk, leaving an expensive coat in full view. “Someone might steal it.”

  “It would be more than their life was worth.” His lips curled. “Everyone knows whose car this is. They wouldn’t dare touch it.”

  “You sound like a Mafia godfather!” The words were meant as an insult, but Tom’s face was impassive as he replied, “No one’s going to rip me off and get away with it, and the same goes for me friends and family. That’s why Flo was always safe in her place. People round here know what’s good for them, and that means not mucking around with anything belonging to Tom O’Mara.”

  “I see.” The ominous message that lay beyond his words was repellent, yet I didn’t hesitate to get into the car with him. I felt very aware of his closeness, the way he held the steering wheel, his long brown hand touching the gear lever.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked.

  “You. I haven’t seen you in daylight before.”

  He slid a disc into the CD player and a man with a hard, angry voice began to sing “The Wild Rover”. “I love Irish music,” he said. Then he looked at me in a way that made me cat
ch my breath. “You look great in daylight.”

  He started up the engine and steered aggressively into the traffic. “But you’re doing me head in, girl. I wish I’d never met you.”

  We stopped at a pub in Formby, the first customers of the day. Tom demolished a mixed grill, while I forced myself to eat a slice of toast. As soon as he’d finished, I poured us a second cup of coffee, and said, “Now will you tell me why we’re going to Southport?”

  “I thought you’d like to meet me gran.”

  I looked at him, startled. “Your paternal grandmother?”

  “What the hell does that mean?” he almost snarled.

  “Is it your father’s mother?”

  He banged the cup down on the saucer. “Christ! You talk like a fuckin’ encyclopaedia. It’s me dad’s mam, Nancy O’Mara, eighty-six years old, as fit as a fiddle, but completely gaga.”

  The nursing-home was a large, detached house in a quiet road full of equally large houses, all set in spacious, well-tended grounds. The decor inside was subdued and expensive, the floors thickly carpeted in beige. The fees must have been horrendous, and I assumed it was Tom who paid.

  The smiling woman in Reception toned perfectly with her surroundings: beige suit, beige shoes, beige hair.

  When she saw Tom, the smile became a simper. The barmaid in the pub had looked at him in the same way.

  “How’s me gran been?” he enquired abruptly.

  “Just the same,” the woman gushed. “Sometimes she seems very aware of what people say to her, but in the main she lives in a world of her own. We persuade her to do her exercises every day and she’s in remarkably good shape for a woman of her age. She’s in the garden, which is no place for an old lady on a day like today but there’s no arguing with Nancy. We just wrap her up and let her go.”

  Tom led the way through to the rear of the house where a door opened on to a vast lawn. On the far side, a woman was sitting ramrod stiff on a wooden bench. She looked tiny beneath the fir trees that towered over the garden on three sides, so thick that not even the faintest glimmer of sunlight could get through.

  She watched our approach with interest, ebony eyes flashing brilliantly in her hawk-like, liver-spotted face.

  Snow-white hair, with streaks of black, was piled in a bun as big as a loaf at the nape of her stringy neck. She wore a crimson coat and fur-trimmed black boots. A black lace stole was draped around her shoulders.

  “Have you come to read the meter?” she enquired, in a hoarse, deep voice, when Tom sat down beside her. He motioned to me to sit the other side.

  “No, Gran. It’s Tom, and I’ve brought a friend to see you. It’s no good introducing you,” he whispered. “She wouldn’t take it in.”

  “There’s no need to introduce her,” Nancy said unexpectedly.

  “I know who she is.” She fixed the glittering eyes in their dry brown sockets on me. “Oh, yes! I know who she is.”

  “Who am I, then?” I felt uncomfortable, slightly afraid, under the woman’s piercing gaze.

  Nancy cackled. “That would be telling!” Her long face became fretful. “The chap hasn’t been to read the meter in ages. One of these days, they’ll cut the ‘leccy off.’

  “Stop worrying about the meter, Gran. Everything’s all right. It’s all been seen to.” Tom’s attitude to his grandmother was tolerantly offhand. He hadn’t kissed her, and seemed to be there out of a sense of duty, rather than affection.

  A woman in a grey cotton frock and a white apron was coming towards us with a tray of tea-things. Nancy grabbed it eagerly, apparently capable of pouring the tea, heaping sugar in all three cups. We were drinking it in silence when I noticed that one of her dangling jet earrings had caught in the stole. I leaned over to unhook it, but was shrugged away with a sharp, “Don’t touch me!”

  I made a face at Tom. “I don’t think she likes me.” I was hoping we wouldn’t stay long. The garden was a melancholy place, cheerless and dark, the only sound was the dew plopping from the trees on to the thick, wet grass. It was doubtful that the old woman appreciated visitors. I’d hoped to get from her a feeling of the past, of the woman who’d been married to Tommy O’Mara when he’d lost his life on the Thetis in 1939, but it was impossible to imagine Nancy being young.

  Tom said, “Gran’s never liked anyone much. The only person she ever cared about was me dad.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll go soon. I don’t mind paying the bills, but visiting bores me rigid. I only come once a month to keep the nursing staff on their toes. I don’t want them thinking they don’t have to look after her proper.”

  For the next quarter of an hour, I did ray awkward best to engage Nancy in conversation. I admired her coat, asked who did her hair, remarked on the weather, enquired about the food. It was hard to make out whether the old woman was merely being cussed when she didn’t answer, or genuinely didn’t understand.

  “You’re wasting your time,” Tom said eventually.

  “Sometimes she catches on if you talk about the things she used to know, like the war, or the shops in Smithdown Road.”

  “I can’t talk about either.” Of course there was the Thetis, but under the circumstances that mightn’t be a good idea.

  “C’mon let’s go.” Tom squeezed Nancy’s shoulder.

  “Tara, Gran. See you next month.”

  We were halfway across the lawn, when a hoarse voice called, “Hey, you.” We turned to see her beckoning.

  Tom gave me a little push. “It’s you she wants.”

  “Are you sure? Why should she want me?” I went back reluctantly, and got a fright when a hand came out and grabbed me painfully by the arm, pulling me downwards until our faces were almost touching. I could smell the fetid breath. “I know what you’re up to, Flo Clancy,” she said, in a voice that sent shivers of ice down my spine.

  “But it won’t work. Your Martha gave him to me fair and square. He’s mine. You’ll not get him back, not ever.

  I’ve told you before, I’ll kill him first.”

  “She’s making a hole for her own back,” said Bel.

  “A rod,” corrected Charmian. “She’s making a rod for her own back, or she’s digging herself into a hole. You’ve got your sayings mixed up.”

  “Teh, teh!” Bel snorted loudly. “She knows what I mean.”

  “Would you mind not talking about me in the third person?” I said mildly. “Furthermore, it’s none of your business who I go out with. I can make a hole for my own back if I like.”

  “Rod,” said Charmian

  “Rod, hole, whatever.” I waved a dismissive hand. I supposed it was inevitable that Tom O’Mara’s regular visits to the basement flat wouldn’t go unnoticed. When he had dropped me off after we got back from Southport Bel had been watching from Charmian’s window to witness my folly.

  “Fiona said he’d been in and out, but I didn’t believe her.” Bel made no secret of her disapproval. “Young “uns nowadays,” she said disgustedly, “they hop in and out of bed with each other like rabbits. I’ve only slept with three men in me life, and I married “em all first.”

  “Yes, but times have changed, Bel,” Charmian reminded her. She gave me a wink as she refilled the glasses, though even Charmian looked worried. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Millie, but Tom O’Mara’s got a terrible reputation. It’s not just women but all sorts of other things—drugs, for one. I wouldn’t go near that club of his. It worried me to death when our Jay invited him to his twenty-first. I don’t think Flo could have known the things he was up to.”

  As the evening wore on, my irritation with the pair diminished in proportion to how much I drank. By the time we’d finished a bottle of sherry and started on another, the last, I didn’t give a damn what anybody thought. I lay on the rug in front of the fire staring up at the faces of my friends, feeling extraordinarily happy and without a care in the world. “He’s a scoundrel,” I agreed, “a villain, a good-for-nothing rogue. But he’s also dropdown-dead gorgeous.”


  “What’s happening with poor James?” Bel demanded.

  I thought hard, but couldn’t remember. Before I could say anything there was a knock at the door and I said, “Perhaps that’s him now.” I walked unsteadily to the door and for several seconds couldn’t recognise either of the small, clearly distressed women standing outside.

  “You said it was all right to come,” a familiar voice said.

  “Of course.” I blinked, and the two women merged into one: Diana, a different Diana from the one I’d always known, with uncombed hair and no makeup, her face white and shrivelled, like melting wax. I asked her in, trying not to sound too drunkenly effusive, and introduced her to Bel and Charmian, adding, because it was obvious that she was in a terrible state. “Diana’s father died last week. He was only buried the day before yesterday.”

  Bel, who was over-effusive even when she was sober, jumped to her feet and took the new arrival in her arms.

  “You poor girl! Sit down, luv—here, have my place on the settee. Oh, I bet you’re feeling dead awful. Charmian fetch the girl summat to drink. Millie, plump that cushion up and stick it behind her.”

  Diana burst into tears. “I’ve felt so alone since he died.

  The house is like a morgue,” she cried. “I wanted someone to talk to.”

  She was eaten up with guilt and anxious to share it.

  The words came pouring out in a plaintive, childish voice, nothing like her usual terse, clipped tones.

  She’d always blamed her father for the fact that she’d never married, she sobbed. “He said he was sorry. He took the blame but it wasn’t his fault at all. No one’s ever asked me to marry them. I was using poor Daddy as an excuse for being single, for having to stay in night after night, when I only stayed in because I had nowhere else to go. I’m a total failure as a human being, and it’s nobody’s fault but my own.”