Then, soon afterwards had come Ellen to stem his grief. Susceptible to her comforting arms, deeply grateful for someone to organise his domestic affairs – for there was no way this clumsy labourer could do justice to the house he had inherited – he had married her within weeks of their getting together, their first child conceived on honeymoon. Yet, maintaining filial responsibility, he had not abandoned Sean, nor even tried to buy him out, but had welcomed him into the fold of newly wedded bliss, until, a few years later, Sean married one of Ellen’s sisters. But even then, Niall’s supportive role was not over, for, with great financial hardship to himself, he had taken out a mortgage in order to release Sean’s half of the inheritance so that his younger brother could buy a house of his own. And, when Ellen’s father had died, who was it took care of his widow and two unmarried daughters, and invited them to come and live under his roof, even though it was overcrowded already? Certainly not Sean.
With a snort of annoyance, Niall became aware that his little rider had slipped on his shoulders, and with one deft movement jerked her back into position. ‘Sit straight, darlin’.’
‘Sorry, Dad.’ Juggy sat bolt upright, her hot little hands pressed to his skull.
The glazed brick frontage of the Lord Nelson signified that Walmgate was almost at an end. Thereafter came only a few shops, and two more public houses. Then, beyond the jagged, moss-coated roofs of derelict warehouse and broken Dutch gable that nibbled the skyline like rotten teeth, the Minster rose into view, its gargoyles and pinnacles defaced by the same centuries-old grime, yet still towering spectacularly over all. Niall, barely aware of this colossus or any other antiquity, was deep in thought about his relationship with his brother, when a sudden cry made him jump in alarm that he had been found out.
But Sean was only calling to a woman on the other side of the street: ‘Charlie’s dead!’
Immediately interpreting the phrase to mean that her petticoat could be seen, the recipient of Sean’s impudence automatically glanced down at her calf-length skirt, and made deft adjustment of its waistband, and the show of underwear was gone. Then, with an embarrassed laugh for her grinning informant, she minced off with a click of high heels. Niall scowled. What sort of respect was that to show a dead wife? Similar in looks, maybe, but the antithesis of his elder brother, Sean had always been a flirt; even when he had been married it had not stopped him. No, it hasn’t taken you long to get over her, has it? Niall noted grimly.
Had this been Sean’s only transgression that evening, it would have been bad enough, but he had just walked straight past another billiard saloon. As the tramlines and their overhead wires veered left, Niall carried straight on, his face even grimmer as he hurried across the road to avoid being run over by a car, his little passenger clasping tightly to his head. The street became narrower now, flanked by bulbous stone balusters, between which flashed glimpses of an oily river. The muscles in Niall’s thighs tensed effortlessly as they met the incline of Foss Bridge, and thereby began another series of pubs. ‘King’s Arms Hotel, Parties Catered For’, shouted the huge advertisement painted on an end gable; whilst some fifty paces ahead, Sean was passing beneath a sign for Magnet Ales. And in between were narrow jetty-fronted shops and grand emporia, an exotic-looking picture house, a barber and a confectioner, fresh fish and ironmonger, wagon repair, garage and cycle dealer …
Finally reaching the Army and Navy Stores, which marked the end of the thoroughfare, his quarry rounded a corner. Niall rushed to catch up, and his mood darkened into fury. Nora had been right. Waiting beneath the gold-painted carving of a ram, which dangled from a bracket and was an emblem of the Golden Fleece public house, stood a pretty young woman, obviously well acquainted with Sean. At his arrival her face lit up, and she touched his arm with such familiarity that there could be no mistake.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ Niall heard his brother say as he himself made a swift diversion to avoid catching up with them, almost dislodging Juggy in the process, and pretended to be looking in a shop window.
‘You’re not, I’m early,’ the woman replied. Then, to Niall’s horror, she added curiously, ‘Is that little girl waving at you?’
As Sean wheeled to face him with a guilty look on his face, a childish voice hissed, ‘They’ve seen us, Dad! But don’t worry, I’ll fix it.’ And she called cheerfully from her father’s shoulders, ‘It’s all right, Uncle Sean, we’re not following you! Me dad’s just come to buy summat from this shop!’
‘Since when has he worn women’s corsets?’ muttered Sean, glaring knowingly at Niall.
For a few angry seconds the brothers faced each other, sharing the same defiant pose. Then, as ever, it was Sean who turned away first, steering his bemused lady friend from the scene and leaving an equally disgruntled Niall to return home.
‘And where did they go?’ demanded his outraged wife and in-laws, when he had reported all this to them several minutes later.
‘How do I know?’ Divested of Juggy, who had gone to get ready for bed, even though it was still light, Niall flexed his cramped shoulder muscles. ‘I stopped following them.’
‘Clot!’ accused the cold-eyed Nora, to supportive murmurs from her daughters, who were gathered round him.
Already simmering, Niall fixed her with a warning glare. ‘I wasn’t going to have an embarrassing confrontation in the street!’
Ellen recognised that her mother had tested his good nature too far, and said hurriedly as he carved a passage through the women, ‘Well, it’s sufficient to know that Sean was with that woman, Mam. It doesn’t really matter where they went, does it?’
‘No, indeed, the snake-eyed traitor!’ Nora backed off from Niall, though it did not stop her venting her disgust on his brother.
Harriet too spoke her piece, obviously expecting Niall to listen. With strained patience he beheld her objectionable face, which was shaped like a cardboard shoe box, its expression and features similarly hard. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’ she demanded.
‘Don’t fret! The minute he gets home I’ll be waiting for him. I’m not having this family brought into disrepute.’ With a look of grim determination, Niall finally got to rest his aching body in an armchair, the brown artificial leather creaking as he slumped upon it. Purchased in a moment of rebellion against having his home cluttered with Nora’s belongings, aside from the fireplace it was one of the few tokens of modernity about the house. Faced with that looming monstrous presence that was the sideboard, Niall bent to remove his boots, then thought better of it. Nora would no doubt start wittering at him, and besides, he’d only have to put them on again when he went to confront Sean. Contenting himself with loosening their laces, he threw an abstracted smile of gratitude at Ellen, who had replenished his glass with Guinness, and whilst she herself supervised the children’s bedtime prayers, he opened the evening newspaper.
But, as before, he found himself reading the same line several times due to the angry commentary of his mother-in-law as she waited by the front window for the perpetrator’s return. Normally he could ignore her, but tonight his own annoyance with Sean made this impossible, and eventually he left the room to seek refuge in the outside lavatory. How could someone of five foot two make her presence so felt? For if there was one anomaly about Nora Beasty it was that she looked much larger in photographs than in real life. Niall recalled his first sighting of her, when his relationship with Ellen had grown serious and she had produced a family snapshot as a preview to what Niall could expect upon making their acquaintance. If he had felt intimidated then by those steel-grey eyes, the iron jaw and hawkish nose, he had felt even more so at meeting Nora in the flesh, for her personality filled the room – much like her sideboard. Yet he had been astounded at how short she was. Short and stout and determined. Wide those hips might be, yet there was barely a hint of femininity about Nora, rather an armour-platedness; and despite the scallops of lace at collar and cuffs, the delicate chain of the locket she wore, and the slender gold band of her wr
istwatch, there was a mannish strength to her arm. Niall had been quite alarmed, for was it not said that a woman grew into her mother?
Thankfully, Ellen’s jaw was not so square, her face softened by a fringe of brown curls; she had a maternal tenderness in her clear blue eyes that Nora could never have possessed, even in girlhood. For although Nora had been very good to him in many respects, there lurked behind that initial smile of welcome the hint of a nastier side, which he had quickly discovered could be evoked at the drop of some harmless comment, and woe betide anyone who crossed her. A much younger man then, he had avoided doing or saying anything that might upset his mother-in-law – not that Niall was the type to go around upsetting folk just for the sake of it, nor was he someone who shrank from a fight, it was simply that he couldn’t see the point in disrupting an otherwise ordered life by indulging in petty squabbles with the matriarch, even if she did regularly test his patience. But short of hitting her, he could not alter her wilful character – and one could not hit a woman. So for the sake of keeping everyone happy, if things got too much he would simply leave the room, and for the next thirteen years this was the way he had orchestrated his marriage. He could not say that he himself was ecstatically happy – what labouring man could boast contentment with his lot? – but so long as he had a steady job, a roof over his head, and his children were healthy and well fed, he would never complain. It could have been far worse. The rest of the daughters – not just the younger pair, Dolly and Harriet, but also the other two who had flown the nest – all were quite plain, their eyes slightly protuberant and grey like their mother’s, their hair nondescript and their figures unappealing, and he counted himself lucky to have landed the only one amongst them who was reasonable-looking. Whilst no raving beauty, Ellen had the ability to look clean and trim, even when she was up to her eyes in housework, always having a tasty meal ready for him, and she was a wonderful mother to his children. The only characteristic she shared with her sisters was those thin lips, which showed a proclivity for intolerance and spite. Niall had come to know that this was not mere fancy, the amount of times they had ganged up on folk over the years. For a second he rather pitied his brother, who looked set to experience the full strength of their wrath; but for only a second. Never by any stretch of the imagination would he himself behave in such an overhasty manner should anything befall Ellen.
Which was why, the instant his lookout gave warning that Sean had arrived home, Niall was out of the door and over the road in the time it took to tie his bootlaces.
‘Don’t try creeping in!’
About to cross the threshold, Sean jumped and spun round, then retorted in anger, ‘Why should I creep into me own house?’
‘You know bloody well why!’ accused Niall.
Sean scoffed in disgust. ‘If you think I’m going to explain myself to you – you’re t’one who should be explaining, spying on me like that!’
‘I wouldn’t have to spy if you had any sense of right and wrong!’ Niall’s dark, shaggy eyebrows were arched in disbelief. ‘For God’s sake, your wife’s hardly cold!’
‘Three months is a long time when you’re on your own!’ There was a hint of supplication in the face that was very like that of its accuser, with dark hair and vivid blue eyes, if slightly younger and not so healthy, for Sean worked in a factory. ‘You don’t know what it’s like coming in to an empty house …’
But Niall was not to be won over. ‘If that’s your only excuse then get a lodger.’
All vestige of peace-making drained from the younger brother’s face, usurped by contempt. ‘You clever sod! You know what your trouble is? You’re just jealous because you resent me having a bit of happiness when you’re so bloody miserable.’
A second of stunned silence – then, ‘Don’t talk bull!’
‘It’s bloody right! You’d love to escape from Ellen and her lot, given the chance.’
‘Right?’ sputtered Niall, angered by the insult and coming dangerously close to his opponent’s face. ‘What would you know about right?’
‘I know what’s right for me,’ parried Sean, ‘and I intend to get on with it, so you can go back and tell that to the ones who are pulling your strings!’
Now totally incensed at being portrayed as only here to do the women’s bidding, Niall returned fire, dappling his brother’s face with saliva. ‘It’s not just them as thinks you’re a traitor! For Christ’s sake, can’t you even do the decent thing and wait a year at least?’
‘A year – who’s to say what’s a reasonable time?’ This penchant for sticking to the rules had always annoyed Sean. ‘Why do you always have to do things by the letter? Why can’t you take into account that some people aren’t as regimented as yourself and might just happen to fall in love?’
‘Love – you? Pff!’ Niall laughed, but his eyes bulged with danger. ‘We both know what you’re after!’
‘I don’t give a damn what you think of me, but don’t you dare insult my friends with your mucky insinuations!’ Restricted by his collar and tie, Sean’s brow had broken out in a sweat, his face cherry red, his eyes brimming with fury. ‘Emma’s a good, decent woman and that was the first time we’ve walked out together.’
‘Well … I meant no slur on her.’ Blood still pounding through the veins in his temples, Niall’s reply was tempered by remorse, though only for the woman who might be innocent. ‘Maybe she’s unaware of your position; maybe you misled her like you’ve misled us.’
‘She knows all there is to know about me,’ retorted Sean to this double-edged apology, he too becoming less vociferous now, if no less firm. ‘And I didn’t lie to you. I said I was going out with somebody from work. You just assumed it was a bloke.’
‘It was natural to assume it when you said you were off to play billiards!’ countered Niall.
‘Women can play billiards too, you know! As a matter of fact she’s a very good player, and we did go for a game.’ Normally a much less volatile character, Sean managed to bring his annoyance under control and tried reason instead. ‘Look, I don’t want to fall out with you, Nye. Can’t you just be happy that I’ve found someone again? She’s really lovely. I know you’ll like her when you meet her.’
‘I don’t want to bloody meet her!’ Niall exploded again and, one foot on the doorstep, he dealt his brother’s chest an angry shove. ‘If she knows everything about you she must think it’s all right to go out with a man so recently widowed, and that doesn’t constitute decency in my book.’
‘Then bugger you and bugger your book!’ Equally angered, Sean pushed his assaulter back into the street. ‘I’m seeing her whether you approve or not. You might be an angel, but I’m just a normal bloke. The trouble with you is you can’t put yourself in anybody else’s shoes, you’ve got no bloody imagination!’ And thus saying, he slammed the door in his detractor’s face.
Absolutely fuming, Niall dealt the barrier a vicious thump, then wheeled away. No imagination indeed – how little his brother knew him. Oh, he had imagination in bucketsful! But it was not the sort that could be disclosed. What kind of man had daydreams of his wife being killed in an accident and tried to imagine how he’d feel at the news?
He felt this way now as he strode back to his own house and saw those tight-lipped expressions at the window, knew that the moment he was through the door Ellen, her mother and sisters would be pestering to hear what Sean had had to say, and demanding that he do something about it. For, since marrying into a family that came to lose all its men, Niall had been bestowed with the mantle of leader; in name at least. There was a time when he had been flattered to act as surrogate for Nora’s dead son, Brendan, to be treated like a king in never having to lift a finger, his every requirement brought to hand. But callow vanity had soon been ousted by a truer sense of place. Now he was mature enough to see that Nora and her daughters regarded him as just another child to be manipulated, that he held no real importance for them other than to be the provider; for if ever he was to offer an opinion on
anything they would regard it with amusement or, even worse, might scoff. Only in time of crisis, when there was some onerous duty that they could not perform themselves, did they deign to treat him like a man – yet even then instructing him how to do it.
So, yes, perhaps Sean knew him better than he cared to admit. At times like this, when all he wanted was to sink into bed after a hard day’s labour, he did regret marrying Ellen – yearned to be free of those carping bloody women. But he’d never do it, for it wouldn’t be right to walk out on his kids. And so he dreamed instead that one day she would just be taken from him, and tried to imagine how he’d feel upon hearing the news, and how long it would be before he could get shot of her mother from his house. And then, of course, being the moral soul he was, Niall felt guilty and sad because there was no valid reason for wanting to be rid of Ellen, apart from her clan. There was a certain affection between them, they shared five children to whom she was a good mother, and she was a good housekeeper. He was sure he and his wife would have been fine if not for others’ influence. But he could not fight all of them. And so he was left to his imagination …
But imagining something wasn’t the same as reality, Niall told himself angrily upon reaching his door, nor was it a crime. Had he been in his brother’s shoes he knew he would never choose to act like Sean. He would do the right thing. He cared what people thought of him, cared about his good name. And by association with his brother, that name had been plunged in the mire.
2
Steeped in such troubles, Niall had almost forgotten about the wolf when he saw it again the next day, bounding across the stretch of track he and the gang had just laid, not ten feet ahead, and making him cry out in alarm so that his companions dived onto the embankment thinking he was alerting them to danger. As before, it caused quite a stir amongst the labourers, many of whom dropped what they were doing to scramble up the grassy embankment. One of picked up a stone and hurled it with such accuracy that it drew forth a yelp. Objecting to this, Niall preferred to stand and watch the wolf escape across a pasture, scattering cattle as it ran, and leaving tufts of moulting hair in its wake from a coat that seemed almost red in the sunlight. One would have expected the noise to deter a wild animal, he thought, all that steam and clanking from the locomotives and the cranes, the grinding and hammering – not to mention the human activity. One would have assumed the wolf would take a wide berth, but no, there he was, giving his observers a devil-may-care backwards glance over his shoulder as he finally vanished into the trees.
Secrets of Our Hearts Page 2
