by Rose Doyle
Further ideas for the menu failed her. She stopped, holding her hands up in an attitude of surrender.
“What would you like for Christmas dinner, Joe?”
He found himself adding smoked salmon and Christmas crackers to the list. Before he left for work, he found too that he’d committed himself to spending Christmas with his landlady and her daughter.
Chapter 4
It was exactly a week later when the two men arrived at the house in Copper Avenue.
Joe was in bed reading when the doorbell rang. A day spent trying to keep the ancient heating system in the library alive had tired him out. The bell rang a second time before he heard the living-room door open and Julia cross the hall to answer it. It was a little after nine o’clock, a late enough hour for anyone to come visiting.
Joe’s heart gave a quick, uncomfortable skip in his chest. There was always the chance that it might be someone looking for him, the vengeful arriving to get him. Some people, he knew, could never let the past just be.
He told himself he was a fool. But he turned off the light and got off the bed anyway. He opened his door, a little, just as Julia opened the hall door.
“Thought we’d make a seasonal call,” a man’s voice said. “See how you were keeping, Julia.” His tone was deadpan. It was hard to tell if he was being friendly or ironic.
“You’re looking well at any rate,” a second man said and gave a small laugh. He sounded older than his companion. “But then you always did. Lovely Julia.” He paused. When Julia said nothing, he snapped, “It’s cold out here.” The laughter was gone now. “Aren’t you going to ask us inside?”
“I wasn’t planning to, no.” Julia’s voice was hard, but with an edge of what Joe recognised as fear in it too. “I’d prefer if you would just leave.”
“Now, now, Julia.” The second man spoke again, in a mocking voice. “No need to be like that. It’s Christmas time, after all.”
A small shuffling was followed by the sound of the door closing.
“It’s a sad case when we have to invite ourselves inside the home of an old friend,” the first man said. “I thought you’d make us more welcome than this, Julia.”
“What is it you want?” Julia said. Her voice had risen.
The first man spoke again. “The place is looking very well. Very well indeed. Tell me, how’s that beautiful daughter of yours? Is she doing well too?”
Joe risked opening the door another half-inch. He could see the top of Julia’s head and, facing her, what he took to be the younger man. He was about Joe’s age, tall and dark and with a tautness about him that told Joe he was fit and strong. He was probably used to handling himself in unwelcome situations – or creating them. He wore an ear-ring in one ear.
The other man, standing a little apart and looking around the hall, was about forty-five or fifty. He was fat with lank hair in need of a wash. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of a heavy, navy wool coat.
“Come into the living-room,” Julia said stiffly. They followed her. Once inside the room, the fat man closed the door. Joe was left with nothing to tell him what was going on but the muffled sound of their voices.
They stayed about forty minutes. Joe, at first, listened with his ear to the opening in the door. When this proved useless, he opened it wider and slipped silently into the shadows of the landing. He felt reasonably safe. He could always pretend he was crossing from the bathroom if anyone appeared. The men did most of the talking. Julia’s voice interrupted now and again. But for the most part she was silent.
When one of the men raised his voice, Joe picked up a few words and phrases. “Long enough” was followed by “out of here” and, in a rush before the other man silenced him, “he’s changed, but not that much. You’d better watch what you do, Julia.”
They spoke in lower voices after that. Joe thought at one point that a fist banged a table. But he couldn’t be sure. The end came with the sound of a chair being moved back and the voices coming closer to the door. Joe made it back to his room just before the men came out into the hall.
They left quickly, before he had a chance to have another look at them through the chink in his door. He swore as he shut it, hoping he’d timed it to close before Julia turned from the front door. She hadn’t said good-night to the men. Their visit disturbed him more than a little. There had been too much that was familiar about them. A roughness. A bullying and threatening air. They were either policemen or criminals.
He couldn’t be sure, but Joe thought Julia stopped outside his door on her way to bed that night. He gave a small cough, but she didn’t knock or call his name as he’d half hoped she might. A moment later, he heard her bedroom door open, then close as she went inside.
That night, for the first time since moving in, he didn’t sleep.
Chapter 5
“I hope my gentlemen callers didn’t disturb you last night,” Julia said at breakfast.
She was smiling as always, her head to one side and an eyebrow raised in query. As always in the morning too, she was all in white, even to the fluffy mules on her feet. Smiling back at her, unable to resist, Joe for the first time saw a shadow in her eyes.
“Not at all,” he lied. She looked at him for a moment before reaching for the jug.
“I’m glad of that,” she said. “Because I would have preferred it myself if they’d stayed away.” She poured milk over the cornflakes in her bowl. “They weren’t welcome. I hope they never come again.”
Stirring the milk into the cornflakes, she wasn’t smiling any longer. Her bottom lip trembled and she swallowed, hard. With an obvious effort of will, she looked up again at Joe, trying to smile.
“Forgive me,” she said. “I shouldn’t involve you in my troubles. Please forget I said anything. And please be assured, too, that there’s no reason for you to worry. That pair will never bother you. It’s not their style to take on someone their own size.”
She lifted a small helping of cereal on the spoon and sat looking at it without bringing it to her mouth. Joe, staring at her, was horrified to see a tear fall, then another. She sat silently as her eyes reddened and the tears rolled in a slow river down her face.
He sat, unmoving, utterly unable to decide what he should do. No point offering her a napkin, as she had one of her own. If he reached to touch her hand, clenched and small on the tablecloth, he might frighten her. Leaving his chair to go and put an arm about her might be worse. It might bring on hysterics or outrage. You never knew with women. That was his experience, anyway.
There was a clatter as she dropped the spoon of cereal and buried her face in her hands.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice muffled between her fingers. “So very, very sorry. I didn’t want to involve you in any of the ugly things that have happened in my life. I thought it was all over, all the horror of the past gone and finished with forever. I thought we were safe at last, Angie and I.”
She dropped her hands and looked at him, briefly, with eyes that were both angry and fearful. But still lovely.
“I had opened the door before I realised who they were” she said.
She was staring straight ahead now, sitting rigidly with her hands tightly clasped in front of her. “It was like a nightmare come to life, seeing those faces. I’d hoped never to see them again.” She turned to look at Joe. “There was nothing for it but to let them come inside. I know them. They would have broken down the door if I hadn’t.”
“What sort of animals are they?” Joe found his voice at last. He found anger too. It liberated him, gave him the courage at last to reach out and touch her hands, so tightly knotted together. She didn’t move them from under his.
“Who are they? Why are you so afraid of them?” he demanded.
“You don’t need to know who they are, Joe,” Julia said, her eyes on his. She shook her head with a slow sadness he couldn’t bear. “A man like you shouldn’t ever have to know men like them.”
“You don’t know what kin
d of man I am,” Joe pointed out. “You only think you know me.”
“You’re a good man,” Julia said. “I know that much, at least.” She shook her head, sighing. “You’re not the kind of man who would ever have dealings with men like the two who came here last night. I’m certain of that too.”
She gave a small, brave smile. He felt a knot tighten in his heart. Just let those two boyos return. Just let them come back and frighten her again. If they did, and if they so much as touched a hair on her head or said a crooked word, they would have him to reckon with. And he was not a man to be lightly reckoned with. Others had found that to their cost. One man in particular.
“Don’t answer the door if they come calling again,” he said. “Come to my room and tell me. I’ll answer the door. I’ll deal with them.”
“Oh, Joe.” She moved her hand from under his and touched his face, very lightly. Then she blew her nose in the napkin. “You can’t imagine what you would be letting yourself in for,” she said. “They’re dangerous people. They don’t know what decency is, or how to behave around good and courteous people like you.” She stood up. “I’ll make the tea. You’ll be late for your job if I don’t. I don’t want that on my conscience as well as everything else.”
“The job will wait,” Joe said, gruffly.
He watched the way she straightened her shoulders as she plugged in the kettle. He knew now that her smiling cheerfulness was a mask. It was a way of hiding her fear and dealing with some dark secret in her life. You just never knew with people. You could never tell what was really going on in their minds. Her thinking he was a good person was an example. It was a long time since anyone had made the mistake of thinking of him as a good person. He wanted to be a good person again, for her.
“I’ll look after you,” he said.
The words were out before he could stop them, filling the quiet of the kitchen and making her turn her head quickly.
“No, Joe,” she said. “I can’t have you getting involved.” But her eyes were full of hope.
“There’s no good you saying ‘no Joe’ to me.” He smiled. He hadn’t felt so confident, so sure that he was doing the right thing, for a long time. “I’ll be looking after myself too,” he joked. “I can’t have my landlady frightened out of her home. I’d have to leave then myself. And I’ve grown too fond of my little room for that.”
He would have added that he’d grown fond of his landlady too, if he’d had the courage. But his bravery was of a different sort.
“They don’t know about you living here.” She kept her back to him while she carefully scalded the teapot and put in three tea-bags. Exactly as she did every morning. “They wouldn’t have been so daring if they’d known there was a man in the house. It was easy to come here when they thought I was on my own.”
“They didn’t look all that fit and able to me,” Joe said. “The shorter one could do with losing a couple of stone in weight.” He smiled again, trying to reassure her.
“So you saw them, then?” Julia put the lid on the teapot and turned to look at him. “I thought so.”
He said nothing as she poured the tea, first her own, because she liked it weak, then his. She put some milk in her cup and passed him the jug. Then she sat down and said, “Why did you hide in the shadows on the landing, Joe?” She looked at him over the rim of her cup as she sipped from her tea. Her voice was flat. Disappointed, he thought.
“I didn’t want to be seen,” he said, simply. She nodded and gave a small shrug. He decided the look on her face was one of resignation.
“I can understand that,” she said. “But why did you lie to me? Why did you pretend to me that you hadn’t seen them?”
“Because I was afraid it was me they’d come looking for,” he said.
“Why would you think that? And why would you be afraid?”
“Because I’m not what you think I am –”
“And what do I think you are, Joe?” she interrupted gently.
He thought for a minute. She let him be, sipping her tea quietly and waiting for him to answer. He came to a decision and said, “I’m not a librarian.”
“I know that.”
“I’m a maintenance man at the library.” He heard the desperation in his voice.
“I know that too.” She looked at him. She went on looking at him, even when he dropped his eyes and fiddled with his cup. He could feel her eyes on him, direct and blue and questioning. He turned the cup round and round in its saucer. She was the only person he knew who didn’t use mugs for tea.
He came to another decision.
Chapter 6
Joe Brown looked Julia in the eye as he began his story.
“I’m lucky to have got any job in the library,” he said. “I’ve been out of work for a long time. I didn’t have much by way of references.” He paused, then went on quickly. “I was away for five years. I got a bit out of touch with things …” He stopped again. It was impossible to go on.
“Where were you?” Julia said, gently.
He couldn’t tell her. It would change everything. She would ask him to leave. He’d be back in a bunk-bed in the hostel, kept awake by the snores and drunken self-pity of the other losers. He was Joe Brown now. He wanted to remain Joe Brown.
The silence stretched. It felt as if the entire morning must have passed. Then Julia tapped her pink-enamelled nails briskly on the table. Her voice was brisk too when she said.
“Time to grow up, Joe. Time to face reality. I know who you are and what you are. I just thought it would be better for you to tell me yourself.” She sighed and pulled a rueful face. “Did you really think I would take a lodger into my house without sussing him out? Let a man I didn’t know share the house with my daughter and me without knowing all about him?”
“I suppose not …”
He’d been a fool. The same damn fool he’d always been. Worse, really, because he’d been given a chance to learn and hadn’t taken it. He pushed back his chair and stood up.
“You’ll want me to leave …”
“Sit down.” Julia was impatient, tapping her fingernails on the table and glaring up at him. Joe sat back at the table. “I took a chance when I decided to have you here,” Julia said. “I wasn’t wrong then and I’m not making a mistake now either. Knowledge is power they say, and they’re right. When I discovered your story, I decided that knowing about your past was all the protection I needed.”
“How …?”
“I went to the library. They told me about you.” She frowned. “I read your story in the newspaper files there. It seemed unfair. Five years for a pub brawl. I was struck by the unfairness of it.”
“A man died,” Joe said. “A man who’d been my friend and who was only twenty-four years old. He died because of me. Because I’d had too much to drink and lost control. It shouldn’t have happened.”
“You didn’t set out to do it,” Julia said. “That’s the main thing. That was clear from the report of the court case too. That was what decided me in the end to let you stay living here.” She gave a small smile. It had something of her old gaiety in it. “Tell me James Mulberry’s story,” she said.
He told her then how he’d gone drinking with a group of friends, young men he’d known all his life. They were all in their twenties then. It had been a night no different from many others: the same pubs, same talk of football, girls, music.
“It’s hard to say, exactly, when the mood of the night changed,” Joe said. “I remember closing-time being called in the pub. I remember us discussing which night-club we’d go on to. There were two girls with us, but I’ve no memory of how they came to join us. Sean Maguire had an arm about each of them.”
He stopped. It was years since he’d spoken the name of the man he’d killed. He’d whispered it to himself many, many times but never said it aloud. Julia sat quietly while he took several deep breaths. After a while he went on.
“The argument about where to go was going nowhere, so the barman threw us
out. There were still a few people in the street but no taxis about. None of us had a car. Anyway, we weren’t fit to drive.” He stopped again. “What happened next is a blur. We were fighting, all of us, friend against friend. I still don’t know why. Drink, I suppose. The demon drink –”
“The court report said you started it,” Julia interrupted. “You attacked Sean Maguire.”
“That’s what people tell me.” Joe put his head in his hands. “Maybe I did. But why? What led up to it?”
He took his hands away and looked at her. His eyes were steady now that he’d broken the barrier of not being able to talk about what had happened.
“I’ve no clear memory of anything after we came out of the pub. Nor of the last hour in the pub either, if I’m to be honest. They say I killed Sean Maguire. That I went after him like a madman and shoved him through the pub window. All of my friends and two other witnesses say they saw me do this. They must be right. I don’t remember.”
He took a gulp of his tea. It was cold. He added a spoon of sugar to give it some life. It still wasn’t drinkable, so he pushed it aside. He could have done with a hot cup. But he thought it would be crass to leave the table to make one. Even worse to ask Julia to do it. Certainly not the kind of thing Joe Brown would do.
“I believed your version of things in the newspaper reports of the court case,” Julia said. She was drinking her own tea, not seeming to notice how cold it was. “It seemed to me you were a young man made to take the blame for an accidental death. You’re not a murderer, Joe. I don’t believe you are, anyway.”
