by Marie Joseph
Which was surely worse, Lisa decided. Now her fingers were moving automatically. Angus was so relaxed Lisa guessed he was probably half asleep. She changed the kneading motion to a soft stroking. Above the bowed head her own face was so impassive she might have been asleep, but her thoughts were wandering free. Delia was forty-two. Lisa pondered. If it wasn’t an early ‘change’ then it could be because her mother had been brought up in India. They did say that hot countries brought that sort of thing out in people.
‘Father?’ she said suddenly, jolting Angus awake. ‘I saw Jonathan Grey at the pictures this afternoon.’ She stared down at her father’s head for any sign of agitation. There was none. Lisa took the experiment one step further. ‘Jonathan will be at the dance tonight. Will his father be going too?’
‘I expect so.’
‘With his wife?’
‘Auntie Alice’s dancing days are over, I’m afraid, love.’
Lisa peered round the side of the chair at Angus’s face. It was immobile, but closed, giving nothing away. The poor love, she thought, he doesn’t even begin to guess what’s going on. He’s so bowed down with worries about his stocks and shares he has no idea his own wife is deceiving him so horribly.
‘I think there’s something very cruel about a man who can go to a dance leaving his wife at home on her bed of pain.’
Angus tilted his head back, looking up into the upside-down face of his daughter. For a moment he hoped, almost prayed, that Lisa might be speaking lightly, but no, she was perfectly serious. He sighed.
‘Hadn’t you better go and get ready, love? I’ll be up in a minute.’ He stared down into his empty glass. ‘And wear your hair unplaited, eh? For me? I like it loose.’
Now why had he said that? Angus rubbed the frown line between his eyes. All the spirit ebbed slowly out of him. Unplaiting her hair wasn’t going to make Lisa grow up overnight. Sometimes he wanted to grab her and shake her, yelling at her to grow up. He shook his head from side to side, fighting the desire to pour himself another drink. To Lisa, black was black and white was white, no grey truths in between. Her pragmatic brain accepted only what she heard and saw, never for one moment tolerated the sins of the weak.
Angus groaned. From where had he and Delia spawned a child like Lisa? He got up slowly from the chair. And they were weak. Giving in to temptation, he poured a third drink and carried it up the wide winding staircase. Lack of money bred weakness. Mounting debts made a man vulnerable to the whole world. Shortage of cash took away the power that made a man feel safe. Passing his wife’s bedroom, Angus turned into his own at the far end of the landing.
His evening dress suit, plus his white shirt and black tie were laid out neatly on the bed. Tossing the drink back, Angus surveyed them with distaste. His penguin trappings he had always called them. Now they mocked him, laughing at him as if they were some sort of fancy dress.
Immediately, his spirits lifted. The actor in him rose to the surface. He could almost hear drums roll and smell the grease paint as he strode out from the wings.
‘All the world’s a stage.’ Fuddled with too much drink on an empty stomach, Angus slurred the whispered words. Tomorrow the curtain would come down. Come tomorrow the world would know that Captain Angus Logan was a ruined man.
But tonight… . Wrenching off his jacket, tearing at the buttons on his shirt, Angus made his way unsteadily into the bathroom. Tonight was for forgetting, for dancing the hours away. For doing what he’d been doing for a long time now. Making believe… . The actor in him sharpening his features to a kind of nobility, Angus ran his bath, turning on the taps with a flamboyant gesture that he felt would have sent an audience wild with appreciation.
‘May I have this dance, Miss Logan?’
Alderman Tomkins, flushed with cocktails, heavy with his chain of office, bowed from the waist, extending a podgy hand. As he held her close, revolving slowly through a waltz, Lisa could feel the heat emanating from his body. If she turned her head she could see the sweat beading his forehead, and through the crêpe de Chine of her long blue dress his hand on her back guided her through steps at total variance to the dance being played by the band specially hired from Manchester.
Her dark hair, brushed out from its plaits, fell in crinkly waves, almost to her waist. She had tied a blue ribbon round it, holding it back from her rounded forehead, and but for the soft cushion of her breasts pressing pleasurably against his chest, the Mayor would have guessed her age at about twelve.
‘Your mother’s looking bonny tonight.’ The Mayor spoke into Lisa’s right ear. ‘She dances like a professional, doesn’t she?’
Lisa’s eyes narrowed as she watched Delia and her partner gliding effortlessly through the correct dance routine. Her mother’s dress was a sheath of purple satin. Delia’s small tight bottom wiggled as she dipped and swayed, pirouetted and revolved. Her face was alight with animation and enjoyment, and Lisa found it hard to believe that it could be the same face so wrenched out of shape with tearing emotion not two hours before.
Automatically she looked for her father. He was there, where she had guessed he might be, standing by the bar, a lone figure with a glass in his hand, sipping from it morosely, and looking so lost and alone her heart ached for him.
Alderman Tomkins gave a sideways glance at Lisa’s small set face. He knew and accepted that God had left him out when a sense of rhythm was being dispensed, but this strange silent child was making no attempt to follow him.
‘Go and ask the Logan girl to dance,’ his wife had whispered. ‘Just look at her sitting alone pretending not to be a wallflower. She reminds me of how I used to feel when I was young. She must be dying a thousand deaths.’
It was exactly like taking a walk backwards, Lisa was telling herself, as the music changed tempo and the lights dimmed, throwing the central spotlight into a whirling glory.
‘I’ll follow my secret heart,’ a man with patent-leather hair crooned into the microphone, and over the Mayor’s padded shoulder Lisa stared straight into Jonathan Grey’s mocking eyes. He closed one eye in a deliberate wink at the exact moment the Mayor trod heavily on to Lisa’s foot. She blushed, tried to get back into step and failed, catching Jonathan’s wide grin as he guided his partner expertly out of range.
Lisa felt sick. She could have been sick right there. She knew she looked awful. The ribbon band was slipping down her forehead, and her dress with its long sleeves and tight bodice was all wrong. Suddenly she found difficulty in breathing. If this dance didn’t end soon she would faint, she knew she would.
The Mayor’s beer-belly was pressing obscenely against her. It was a nightmare there on the crowded floor with couples going round and round and the moving spots from the central light illuminating first one vivacious face then another. Lisa closed her eyes.
Jonathan’s partner was the same girl he had been with at the pictures that afternoon. She was very pretty and her dress of sea-green velveteen, cut on the cross, clung to her like a second skin. When the dance ended at last Lisa saw that the front dipped to a cleavage so low she could hardly believe her eyes. Even Delia’s dress was chaste by comparison.
‘That was lovely,’ the Mayor said insincerely, before mopping his brow and going mercifully away to rejoin his wife.
‘You were honoured, love,’ Angus said, swaying on his heels, gazing bleary-eyed over the rim of his glass at Lisa.
To his surprise Lisa looked as if she might be going to burst into tears.
‘You’ve had too much to drink, Father,’ she told him, her eyes flashing. ‘Why aren’t you dancing with Mother, anyway? Look at her now, going on the floor with Uncle Patrick. That’s the third time she’s danced with him. People will be saying things.’
‘Oh, don’t be such a little prig, Lisa.’ It was the drink talking and immediately Angus realized his mistake. His daughter had turned quite pale. There were tears glistening on the ends of her long eyelashes, and people were staring at them. He drained his glass in one quick swallow.
‘I’m not a prig, and you know it. If you knew how broad-minded I am you wouldn’t be saying that.’ Lisa glared at him, biting her lip and holding her head high.
Angus smiled for the benefit of a woman in a red cloque dress pointing them out to her partner. He said in the suavest of voices, ‘Of course you’re not a prig, lovey.’ His voice came out twice as loud as he’d intended. ‘But sometimes – well, sometimes you do give the impression that your sense of humour is lacking.’ Shaking off his daughter’s restraining hand on his arm, Angus turned for the bar. ‘I need a bloody drink,’ he stated loudly.
Lisa looked down at her silver shoes and frowned. She had seen her father the worse for drink before, but never like this. One more drink and heaven knew what might happen. The Dorothy bag, trimmed with pearl sequins, over her arm had a metal clasp, and in her agitation Lisa snapped it open and shut, open and shut. She could hear her father’s voice arguing with the man behind the bar.
‘Just do as you’re told and give me a bloody drink,’ he was saying, while out on the floor Lisa’s mother danced with Uncle Patrick, one hand on his shoulder, the fingers openly caressing. Her eyes were searching his face, and they were moving as though they were welded together. Lisa glowered at them, her small face set into lines of distaste.
Once again the lights were dimmed and the spotlight was turned on to the centre mirrored bowl. Pale oval shapes drifted like snowflakes over the dancers. The small crowd of dedicated drinkers round the bar stood lifting their elbows as if they were in a pub, as if what was going on behind them was none of their concern.
The music, the clink of glasses, the sporadic laughter, ebbed and flowed in Lisa’s ears. A man pushed past her, a drink in each hand. Bending his head he kissed her lightly on the cheek. Lisa jerked away so violently that a rivulet of whisky and dry ginger flowed down the front of her dress.
‘Whoops! Sorry, love.’ The man, a golfing friend of her father’s, stared at her in dismay. ‘God, I’m sorry! Will it stain?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Honestly.’ Clenching her hands, Lisa turned back in time to see Angus slumped on a high seat at the far end of the bar. As she stared at him in consternation, he laid his head gently down, his red-gold hair mopping up the spills on the semi-circular counter.
Lisa felt her mind swim in confusion. People were pointing, laughing. Her beloved father was showing himself up properly. She should have been ashamed of him, and yet in that moment the oddest sensation took over. It was if her heart were melting, leaving her body hollow and empty.
When she went to him, laying a hand on his arm, Angus lifted his head. From one of the glass marbles which seemed to have replaced his eyes a tear leaked. It ran slowly down his cheek to mingle with his moustache.
‘My bonny wee lass,’ Angus whispered, before laying his head down again.
‘You with him, chuck?’
The bartender, a dark man with his black hair parted in the middle, came over to speak quietly to Lisa. ‘I think he ought to go home.’ Making jerky dabs at the counter with a cloth, he whispered out of the side of his mouth, ‘It’s not what he’s had here. I reckon he’d had a skinful before he set foot in here.’
‘He’s my father.’ Lisa looked round feverishly. ‘I’ll just go and tell my mother.’ Her eyes widened as Angus gave a loud, vulgar groan. ‘She’s dancing,’ she added wildly. ‘I won’t be a minute.’
Desperately Lisa pushed her way through the couples waltzing slowly round the big ballroom. They were like figures in a nightmare, the floating spots illuminating first one, then another.
‘Someday I’ll find you,’ the crooner wailed into the microphone. ‘Moonlight behind you,’ a little man sang into his partner’s ear.
Lisa side-stepped, turned and bumped straight into Jonathan. Ignoring the girl staring at her in astonishment, she said, ‘I’m looking for my mother. She was dancing with Uncle … with your father.’
Immediately Jonathan’s eyes slewed towards the balcony, in total darkness now, with couples sitting close together on the velvet seats.
‘My father is dead drunk,’ Lisa said straight out. ‘I must get him out of here.’
Afterwards, when they were squashed in Jonathan’s car, speeding up the Preston Road on their way home, Lisa wondered how it had all happened so quickly.
‘The girl you were with?’ She glanced sideways at Jonathan’s set face. ‘What will she think?’
‘What she chooses to think.’ Jonathan jerked his head backwards. ‘I’ll see your father into your house then I’ll get back.’ His lips twisted. ‘I just hope your mother’s looking for the pair of you.’
‘Serves her right,’ his expression said, before he turned a corner on two wheels. ‘She should have seen what he was like before you came out,’ he said aloud.
‘She was upset,’ Lisa whispered, remembering the way her parents had sat side by side in the taxi, Delia hugging her white fur wrap underneath her chin, and Angus with his head on his chest as if he was snatching forty winks.
The car turned into the unmade road leading to The Laurels. Angus moaned.
‘If he’s sick in my car there’ll be hell to pay.’ Jerking to a halt in a flurry of gravel, Jonathan nodded to Lisa. ‘OK kid? Think you can give me a hand to get him inside?’
Twice Lisa trod on the long blue dress as they awkwardly negotiated, with Angus lolling between them, the three steps leading to the front door.
‘We’ll put him on the chesterfield.’ Jonathan dropped Angus on to the moquette cushions, before stopping to pull the black patent dancing shoes from the apparently boneless feet. He tweaked at Lisa’s blue ribbon, pushing it even further down over her forehead. Poor little devil, he thought. He doesn’t deserve her. With a jerk he unloosened Angus’s bow tie before unfastening the stiff collar.
‘I’d better get back,’ he said. ‘Sure you’ll be all right?’ He glanced upwards. ‘Mrs Parker out for the night?’
‘Gone to see her sister.’ Lisa knelt down on the thick carpet. ‘I’ll make him some black coffee when you’ve gone.’ She raised an anxious face. ‘That’s what they have, isn’t it?’
‘Strong and black.’
Jonathan backed towards the door. His last sight of Lisa was her long dark hair falling almost to her waist as she bent over her father. When she turned and thanked him, he was gone.
‘Imagine how I felt,’ Delia said, coming into the house an hour later, the white fur wrap dangling from her hand. ‘“Your husband has been taken home dead drunk,” they said. I was dancing with the Mayor at the time, but I wasn’t spared. Oh, no!’ She twirled the wrap on to a chair with a sweeping flourish that would have done a bullfighter proud. ‘Jonathan Grey’s voice could be heard over the band. He did it on purpose! And I wasn’t amused!’
‘I couldn’t find you!’ Lisa nodded towards Angus, sitting up now, head bowed, hands hanging loosely between his knees. ‘I tried to find you, but you weren’t dancing.’ Her voice rose. ‘Where were you, Mother? Where?’
For a long moment mother and daughter glared at each other with mutual dislike. Delia was the first to look away. ‘I must have been in the cloakroom,’ she said. ‘Surely you could have looked for me there?’
‘I did! When I went to fetch my cloak I asked the lady and she said you hadn’t been in. I described you.’ Lisa’s voice was sharp. ‘Father was ill. He might have died, and you weren’t there.’
‘Oh, my God!’ Delia’s dark eyes flashed fire. ‘Ill? Did you say ill?’ Her laugh was a mockery. ‘Sodden with gin, you mean.’ Her voice rose almost to a scream. ‘Look at him! Take a good look. From what I was told, your father had almost to be scraped off the floor of the bar.’ With nervous fingers she plucked at the tight skirt of her long dress. ‘The whole town will be talking about us. From now on the Logan name will be a dirty word. No wonder I… .
‘No wonder you what, Mother?’ Lisa began to tremble. The shame of what had happened, the awful disgrace, the humiliation of seeing her father’s
head resting on the bar counter as his so-called friends laughed behind their hands, rose in her throat to choke her. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she burst out. ‘Can’t you see?’
She had thought her father was beyond speech, but he raised his head and she saw the grey pallor of his face. He looked dreadful, his eyes sunk deep into dark hollows, his red-gold hair flopping over his forehead. Even his military moustache had a forlorn droop to it.
‘Go to bed, Lisa,’ he whispered. ‘That’s a good girl.’ He moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘It’s late and we’re all tired. Away to bed with you, lass.’
Uncertainly Lisa stared from one to the other. Angus was looking down at the carpet again, shoulders hunched over, the round balding place on the crown of his head showing. Delia’s small face resembled a mask, all pinched as if her features had sharpened, especially her nose. The veil of middle age seemed to have fallen over them both, hiding the gaiety they showed to their friends.
They were growing old, Lisa realized. They played at being young, but really it was just a game. She walked towards the door. In that moment of revelation she knew that she loved them both equally. In that moment she felt older than either of them.
The shouting began as she climbed into bed, and not even the heavy weight of blankets pulled over her head prevented the sound of angry voices spiralling upstairs.
‘Right then. You asked for it!’ Delia felt her heart pound like a drum. She knew she was burning her boats with a vengeance, but nothing could stop the torrent of words now.
‘I love Patrick Grey, and he loves me. I was with him tonight, in his car, out on the arterial road in a lay-by. That’s why Lisa couldn’t find me. We were making love while you were disgracing yourself in front of the Mayor and our friends.’ The hammering of her heart was threatening to choke her. ‘What were you doing, anyway? Drowning your sorrows because you couldn’t be in Manchester with your fancy piece?’
Angus stared at his wife with a distaste more wounding than pure hatred. The purple lipstick exactly matching her nail varnish was almost chewed away so that her mouth seemed thinner than usual. Her breasts were too small to do justice to the low-necked dress, and the colour did nothing for a skin turned sallow without the touch of the sun to deepen it to the brown tan she strove for so assiduously during the summer.
