I Remember You

by Martin Edwards

  The club occupied the cellar of a redundant mariners’ hostel on the waterfront. The place looked as though it had been punished by the Luftwaffe in the Blitz and not repaired since. On the door was a giant whom Finbar introduced as Mad Max and whose handshake almost fractured Harry’s arm.

  ‘Had a lady asking after me tonight?’

  ‘No lady would ever ask after you, Finbar,’ grunted the giant.

  ‘Max’s brother owns this dive,’ Finbar said, waving Harry down a narrow wooden staircase. ‘They have to use him as a bouncer because he wouldn’t fit anywhere inside.’

  Harry could believe it. The Danger earned its name, if only because it transgressed every health and safety rule in the statute book. At the bottom of the stairs he and his client plunged into a mass of bodies wedged together between wooden uprights which propped up the low ceiling with an unnerving lack of conviction. Shadowy outlines of damp marks could be seen through the distemper someone had splashed haphazardly on the walls. There seemed to be more smoke than in Williamson Lane at the height of the blaze and the tuneless thud that was supposedly music made Harry’s ears feel as though they were about to burst.

  Whilst Finbar disappeared in search of drinks, Harry fought through the crush. A jostling girl spilt vodka and lime over his arm and legs and swore with a fluency that would have made a docker gape. In the disco, teenagers in tawdry clothes writhed as if afflicted by disease, their lips moving to form the words of meaningless lyrics, their bleary eyes staring unfocused. In one corner, a leather-clad lad had his hand up the skirt of a high-heeled brunette with a schoolgirl’s figure and a harridan’s smile. In another, a fat boy was being sick on matting strewn over the concrete floor.

  Finbar returned and thrust a pint pot into his hand. Harry downed the beer in record time and gestured towards the exit. He had to shout to make himself heard.

  ‘Did you find her?’

  Finbar shook his head. ‘Not my lucky night!’ he bellowed in reply. He finished his drink and followed Harry back up the stairs. At the top, Mad Max was cuddling a coquettish blonde; Harry doubted whether her rib-cage would survive the experience.

  Outside again, he gulped in a lungful of air. For all that it was tainted by factory dust and car exhaust fumes, in comparison to the atmosphere in the Danger it had the tang of a Highland breeze.

  ‘Thank God for that! At last I’ve realised I’m past it.’

  Finbar laughed. ‘It’s all in the mind. And compared to one or two places I know in Dublin, the Danger is as sober as a confessional.’

  ‘You’re welcome to them. Why did I let that taxi go?’

  ‘You’re not so far from home. Since I’ve been stood up, let’s stroll by the riverside and I’ll pick up a cab when you say goodbye at Empire Dock.’

  For a while neither of them spoke as they followed the roadside path parallel to the Mersey. The temperature had dropped to freezing point, but at least the cold sharpened Harry’s thoughts. He decided to seek again the answer to the question that bothered him.

  ‘Are you sure you have no idea who may have started the fire?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell your policeman friend exactly that?’

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘Don’t say you’re pointing the finger too! When I told him about the insurance, I could see him sizing up my wrists for handcuffs.’

  ‘He was only doing his job.’

  ‘Face it,’ said Finbar with sorrowful good humour, ‘so far as Gilfillan is concerned, I’m uniquely qualified for a life of crime. I’m not only an Irishman, but a tattooist as well. With the busies, old prejudices die hard. They don’t understand the body is a canvas and...’

  ‘And you’re a picture of innocence. Okay, okay, spare me the propaganda.’

  ‘All right, mate, don’t get the needle!’

  Harry grinned. In full flow, Finbar was a formidable advocate of the tattooist’s art; the Bar’s loss was the saloon bar’s gain. Harry had heard not once but a dozen times that illustrated skin is like a personal diary, as fitting for a businessman as for a fairground freak.

  Three huge buildings loomed ahead of them: the Liver, the Cunard and the Port of Liverpool - monuments to the city’s maritime traditions and its glorious past. The sight of the Pierhead, whether by day or night, always stirred Harry. For all its faults, he loved his home town. There was too much squalor for it to be a comfortable place, yet he relished the architectural reminders of the time when this had been the Empire’s second city. For him, Liverpool and its people remained intensely and defiantly alive.

  Finbar paused and sighed as he pointed at the floodlit Liver Building.

  ‘See? When I first arrived here on the ferry as a kid, my ma lifted me up to look at the lights. My first sight of England. I’ve never forgotten it.’

  A faraway expression misted his eyes. He gestured back in the direction from which they had come, towards Princes Dock. ‘We used to land over there. The boats were packed with the Irish, sailing here for a weekend or a lifetime.’

  As Harry’s forebears had done, a hundred and fifty years ago, in the wake of the potato famine. He was the last of the line, knowing nothing of his ancestors, not sharing their faith, which the Devlin family like so many others had lost through the passage of time. Yet still he felt an affinity with those Irish people who had crossed the sea in search of a new start. Perhaps it helped to account for his liking of Finbar.

  But Finbar was quick to destroy the romantic impression he had conjured up. ‘I can see them now. Fellers lying on the floor in the toilet, still trying to sing along with the ceilidh music playing everywhere. Sad-faced women, travelling so they could have an abortion - I remember watching them throw up over the side of the boat.’

  He stopped and stared out into the night. ‘And to think that Eileen might still be alive...’

  ‘Eileen?’

  ‘A sweet girl I used to know. Ah, Harry, if only we could unmake the past!’

  Both men became quiet, lost in their own visions of what might have been. Eventually Finbar said, ‘We don’t stop dreaming, you know, us Irish. When I made the trip for the last time, I still had the notion that one day I might return to Dublin.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘Are you serious? The ferry doesn’t even sail from Liverpool any more!’

  A lone black cab came into view and Harry flagged it down, but shook his head when Finbar suggested he jump in for the short journey to his flat in Empire Dock.

  ‘Thanks, but I’ve walked this far, I may as well keep on. Clear my head. Tell Melissa I may see her at Radio Liverpool tomorrow. And - watch yourself.’

  ‘Stop fretting. A gang of kids torched the place, depend upon it. It was nothing personal.’

  All the way home, Harry juggled the possibilities. Finbar’s wry admission to the police about the number of his enemies had probably not been much exaggerated. He was a man who might easily drive others to fury - but arson? Perhaps Finbar was right after all.

  He was glad to reach the sanctuary of his flat. The Empire Dock building was a waterfront warehouse, part of a complex transformed in recent years from dereliction into housing and leisure facilities. His neighbour was a nocturnal saxophonist, but the old walls were so thick that Harry never heard a note. Passing the jazz player’s front door, he remembered the previous occupant, a lonely woman with whom he had shared a brief relationship in the aftermath of his wife’s death. Shaking his head, he hurried on.

  Alone in his flat, he lay on the bed fully clothed, too exhausted to undress. Yet now he had the chance to rest, sleep stubbornly refused to come. He could still see the fire’s flames and smell the suffocating smoke and the cacophony from the Danger continued to pound in his ears.

  At last darkness gave way to misty morning. Yawning, he set off for the magistrates’ court and his daily struggle t
o portray wrong as right - or at least as not deserving of a custodial sentence. Five guilty pleas and a minor crimewave of offences taken into consideration made him wish that his clients displayed as much ingenuity in escaping the clutches of the law as they expected him to show in finding plausible mitigating circumstances. He returned to his firm’s office in a semi-daze, his mind a blank, his imagination sucked dry.

  Arriving at Fenwick Court, he had a vague impression that something was missing. Picking a path through the rubble left by a gang of navvies who were renovating the block on the opposite side of the courtyard, he tried to fathom what it was. The moment he pushed open the door which led into reception at New Commodities House, an electric drill started to scream and he remembered. Sometimes he suspected they waited for his return before resuming work.

  The throbbing in his head began again. It was as bad as being back in the Danger.

  ‘Shit!’

  He hadn’t meant to speak out loud. In so doing he startled a young woman, whom he had not at first noticed, sitting in the corner reading a tattered copy of Exchange Contracts. She glanced up at him in bewilderment.

  In the shabby waiting room, with its threadbare carpet and faded posters extolling the virtues of legal aid, she seemed as out of place as an orchid in a nettle patch. The subtle perfume; the Enny handbag; the sheepskin jacket; all hinted at an affluence rare among his firm’s clientele. Her heart-shaped face was framed by shoulder-length dark hair and she had painted her fingernails the colour of blood.

  Harry gasped, feeling a sense of shock verging on disbelief. It was not due simply to the woman’s glamorous looks, but because for an instant he thought he was seeing a ghost.

  Chapter Three

  Of course his wife Liz had not come back from the dead. This girl’s eyes were brown, not green. She lacked Liz’s high cheekbones and had a snub nose; her mouth was wider and her figure fuller. Yet the way she tossed the magazine aside and concentrated her attention upon him reminded him irresistibly of the woman he had loved with a passion as fierce as it had proved futile; a woman murdered less than two years before.

  The resemblance exceeded any superficial similarity of physical appearance. As he overcame his sense of shock on seeing the girl, instinct told him she had the same thirst for life as Liz, and as strong a faith that tomorrow would be better than today. Her body seemed taut with suppressed excitement, as if she were about to embark on a great adventure. In her presence, he felt clumsy and ill-at-ease, and not simply because she had heard him swear. He realised he looked haggard, a rumpled man with hair that defied any comb and a suit as shiny as his shoes. A man whom Liz had left for someone else.

  The beginnings of a smile stretched her lips as she contemplated him. It untied his tongue and he blurted out the first thing that came into his head.

  ‘Sorry ... are you being attended to?’

  Christ, of all the anodyne questions! Uttered, too, with a frog-in-the-throat nervousness excusable in a schoolboy, but close to absurd in a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Judicature.

  She spoke quickly, words tumbling from her in a torrent, as if she were eager to please.

  ‘Thanks for asking. I’m here to see your Mr Crusoe about a house sale. Your receptionist,’ she glanced in the direction of gum-chewing Suzanne on the switchboard, ‘told me he’s on the phone, but he’ll be free soon.’

  Her vowel sounds betrayed native Scouse origins. This was a local girl made very good.

  ‘Have we - have we asked if you’d like a coffee while you wait?’ Behind him he heard a stifled cough of indignation from Suzanne. She regarded clients as a necessary evil; offering them hospitality was someone else’s job.

  ‘It’s quite all right,’ said the girl. ‘I had a cup before I left home.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, trying to regain his composure. ‘I’m sure my partner will be here in a minute.’ He wanted to think of a reason to stay, but his powers of invention hadn’t recovered from their courtroom work-out and he found himself walking away into the corridor which led to his room.

  Marching in the opposite direction, burly and brisk as a sergeant major, came his partner Jim Crusoe.

  ‘For God’s sake, old son, you all right? You look terrible. I’ve seen more blood in a banana.’

  Harry was glad of the chance to shove the girl out of his mind. ‘I went for a drink with Finbar Rogan in the Dock Brief last night. A hangover I might have expected - not a ringside seat at Dante’s Inferno.’

  Rapidly he recounted the events of the previous evening. No hint of surprise disturbed the contours of Jim’s bearded face; Harry had often thought that he would treat the onset of Armageddon as phlegmatically as a seminar on the law of registered title.

  ‘Arson, eh? Insurance job, do you reckon?’

  ‘I gather that when Finbar renewed the lease, you recommended him to take out a much bigger policy.’

  ‘If only I filled in the pools with equal foresight! Good advice, so long as he didn’t see it as a short cut to a small fortune.’

  ‘He would never be so stupid. He’s the obvious suspect.’

  ‘If all your clients were Mensa material, you’d be redundant, old son.’

  ‘True, if unkind. All the same when we were told about the fire in the pub, I didn’t think it was news he’d been expecting to hear. And when we saw the blaze he was genuinely shocked.’

  ‘Maybe the husband of one of his fancy women decided it was time to retaliate.’ Jim rubbed his beard. His amusement was tinged with disapproval; the most uxorious of men, he could never understand the impulse to promiscuity. ‘Anyway, can’t stop any longer. I have a client waiting.’

  ‘So I see.’

  Something in Harry’s tone made Jim pause. ‘You know her?’

  ‘Not even her name. But for her, I’d gladly take up domestic conveyancing.’

  ‘Rogan’s corrupting you, old son. Keep your grubby paws off, she’s a respectable married woman. At least I assume she’s respectable. But she’s certainly married.

  A trickle of disappointment dripped down Harry’s spine.

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Name of Rosemary Graham-Brown. I love clients with double-barrelled names, they never kick up about the bill. And she’s married to money. They’re selling a palace, to judge by the price and the property particulars.’

  ‘Any purchase?’

  ‘No, they’re emigrating to Spain. Never mind. If she wants a divorce, I’ll put a word in for you. After all, nothing like moving house for bringing hidden tensions to the surface.’

  ‘So people say. Personally, I’ve found cheaper ways of putting relationships under strain.’

  Harry went to his room, a cramped cubicle overflowing with the papers he never quite got round to. His last remark had been truth spoken in jest. Since Liz’s murder, he had failed to find contentment with any of the other fish in the sea. The affair with his next door neighbour had soon petered out and earlier in the year a fling with a young barrister had ended in bitter recrimination and a mutual feeling of betrayal. Lately he had lacked a woman in his life and at times he found it hard to restrain a reluctant admiration for the carefree manner of Finbar’s philandering. Part of him deplored his client’s behaviour, but another part envied the luck of the Irish.

  The phone trilled. ‘Mr Rogan’s here.’

  Suzanne would have sounded bored if announcing that Elizabeth Taylor had called for matrimonial advice under the green form scheme, yet, for once, enthusiasm lightened her adenoidal tones. Finbar was incapable of speaking to a woman without trying on the charm. Although some proved immune, he had a flair for making people feel good - and for making them do his bidding. Some day he might even persuade Suzanne to make him a coffee.

  ‘We weren’t due to meet until two, outside the court door.’

  ‘He knows tha
t,’ she said, as if explaining the obvious to a child. ‘But he says he’s come to take you out to lunch.’ She left Harry in no doubt that she considered him undeserving of such an honour.

  He swept away a sheaf of unanswered correspondence to clear a space on the spare chair and returned to reception. His client was doodling a picture of a butterfly on the back of a Law Society newsletter, seemingly unscathed by the events of the previous night.

  ‘I can’t tell a fib, mate - you look the worse for wear after all our excitement together. Fancy a bite at the Ensenada, to sharpen you up for the battle this afternoon?’

  ‘After last night, a lie-down in a darkened room might do me more good. Anyway, come through for a minute.’

  Once in Harry’s room, Finbar leaned back in the chair and put his feet on the desk. ‘I must say that girl of yours always takes my eye. She could lose a stone or two, for sure, but never mind. More of her to love, eh? She’s quite an advertisement for Crusoe and Devlin. First impressions in an office count for so much.’

  ‘We chose her specially to project a rude, lazy and brainless image. The next step is a logo with a V-sign superimposed over the scales of justice. Anyway, we’re stuck with her - no one else would take the wages we pay. So what are you doing here so bright and early, Finbar?’

  ‘Ah well, I wanted to give you lunch to say thanks for all your support last night.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. How’s your place looking?’

  ‘Ripe for the bulldozer if you ask me, although the landlord’s coming round to see what can be done. And the leather store down below is doing a roaring trade in what they call a Fire Sale. I reckon they’re flogging twice as much stock as they had in the entire shop last night.’

  Harry laughed. He never ceased to marvel at the entrepreneurial genius of his fellow Liverpudlians.