Fireflies

by Menon, David

  Then there was the family of the future standing at the order counter. Some young guy in his late teens with greasy hair and spots all over his face was holding hands with his girlfriend and complaining to the guy frying the chips that his mother had thrown him out after he told her his girlfriend was pregnant. They live in Bolton but he’d come over to Stockport to look for his Dad to see if he could put him up but he can’t find him so he thinks he must’ve gone back inside. Sitting near him was a man who was dressed like Elvis and was shaking vinegar on top of his chip butty making deep brown stains all over the white bread. Sharon’s sense of compassion kicked in and she couldn’t help but feel sorry for all of them. Such shattered and broken lives under the one roof of a chippy with a sign that read ‘toilets are on the bus station – thank you’.

  ‘Sharon?’

  Sharon looked up to see this beautiful young Indian girl looking down hopefully and yet nervously at her at the same time.

  ‘Yes? That’s me?’

  ‘Oh good. I recognized your picture from your column in the paper but I still wanted to make sure’.

  ‘You’re Anita?’ said Sharon.

  ‘Yes. Anita Patel’.

  Sharon stood up and shook hands. ‘Thank you for coming to meet me but tell me, why did you want to meet here?’

  ‘I always come in here for chips’ said Anita. ‘It’s cheap’.

  Sharon thought Anita was stunning. Her thick black hair was brushed off her face revealing large dark eyes. She was short, maybe a little over five feet tall, and was wearing a pair of tight blue jeans with a white t-shirt under a big baggy dark green v-necked sweater. Sharon thought Anita did casual much better than she herself did and her clothes ideally matched her feminine and gentle poise. And at least Anita looked like she’d ironed her clothes and there was no chipping of her bright pink nail polish that matched her bright pink lipstick. Sharon’s nail polish was chipped and she wrapped her fingertips into her hands self-consciously. She usually threw on what she’d discarded the night before, usually in a heap at the side of her bed. But then she’d never given much thought to her appearance. It wasn’t as important to her as the credit she gave herself for being bloody good at her job.

  ‘How come you can eat chips and keep that wonderful figure?’

  Anita blushed. ‘I don’t know. I’m lucky I suppose’.

  ‘Anita, I want you to understand that you’re under no pressure here’.

  ‘That’s good because … well I’m in my final few weeks of study and I’ve already booked my flight home to Mumbai. I don’t want anything to go wrong. But the thought of some extra money to take back with me is tempting and was the reason why I decided to meet you in the end. I’m not from a rich family. When I go home with my degree and get a job in one of the new high tech companies that are springing up all over Mumbai I’ll be able to earn some good money to support the family’.

  ‘That’s very good of you and I’ll bet your family are very proud’ said Sharon. ‘Have you always worked at the Mayfair hotel since you’ve been here?’

  ‘More or less’ said Anita. ‘I liked the job at first’.

  ‘Why do you say at first?’

  ‘Well I mean it was nice to work in that hotel environment’ Anita explained. ‘Then the shine started to come off when I realised just what kind of services I was supposed to offer’.

  Sharon had been given the job by her boss of investigating the alleged prostitution ring run by Manchester gangster Bernie Connolly and that included several of the city’s hotels along with some on the outskirts of the Greater Manchester area like the Mayfair. If they could crack what was going on then the Chronicle would indeed have managed a major scoop and Sharon knew it would enhance her journalistic reputation but the staff at the big city centre hotels weren’t playing so she’d approached staff at the Mayfair, beginning with Anita.

  ‘I have to be able to trust you, Sharon’ Anita went on.

  ‘You can trust me implicitly, Anita’.

  ‘I mean, I still have a few weeks to go before I go home and I don’t know what they’d do if they knew I’d talked to you’.

  ‘Your name will not be mentioned in the paper, Anita, and I shall not pass it on to anybody else. You have my word on that. I only approached you that day when you were on duty behind the reception desk because I sensed there was a story you could tell me. And because my paper had received a tip-off’.

  ‘A tip off?’ asked Anita, suddenly panicked. ‘It didn’t mention me, did it?’

  ‘No, no, I can assure you it didn’t, Anita. Now please you’ve got to trust me, love. I would never drop you in it’.

  Anita began breathing more evenly and then said ‘Okay’.

  ‘So tell me the basics first’

  ‘Around half a dozen of the members of staff work as prostitutes in the hotel’.

  ‘In addition to their normal duties?’

  ‘Yes’ said Anita. ‘There are five girls and one boy who’s from the Czech Republic and he’s gorgeous. No wonder he makes so much extra cash. And he’ll do men as well as women’.

  ‘It pays to be versatile’ said Sharon. ‘And where do you come in?’

  ‘I have to suggest to guests who I think may be up for it that the hotel offers other kinds of services’ Anita explained. Then she shivered as if something was crawling all over her. ‘A couple of times the guest has reported me to the manager but of course they’re not going to do anything because I’m following orders’.

  ‘And how much do you get for your troubles?’

  ‘Nothing’.

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Not a penny piece. The ones who do it have to charge the guest one hundred pounds and the staff member has to give eighty of it up’.

  ‘So they only make twenty quid each time?’

  ‘Yes’ said Anita. ‘It’s the night manager’s job to make sure they don’t run off with the full hundred’.

  Sharon sat back in her plastic chair. ‘Why do they do it?’

  ‘Sharon, we are all foreign, a long way from home, we’re all here to make money and learn better English but most importantly, none of us want to come up against a local gangster’.

  ‘The local gangster being?’

  ‘Bernie Connelly’ Anita revealed. ‘I don’t know how much he makes and how much goes to Mr and Mrs Curzon but they somehow share the eighty pounds’.

  ‘And how much are we talking about in total say, per week?’

  ‘About fifteen hundred, two thousand pounds a week’.

  ‘Have they asked you? I’m surprised if they haven’t because you’re beautiful’

  ‘Yes but I refused’ said Anita. ‘They gave me a hard time for a while but then they got some other girls and left me alone after that’.

  ‘Anita, was this going on the night when the body of James Clifton was found at the hotel?’

  ‘Yes’ Anita confirmed. She held her hand to her mouth. She felt sick when she thought of James Clifton. ‘Two of the girls and the boy were both on jobs in the hotel that night’.

  ‘But James Clifton wasn’t involved?’

  ‘No’ said Anita. ‘He wasn’t staying at the hotel and I’d never heard of him before’.

  ‘I’ll need the names of those three who were working that night, Anita’.

  ‘Yes, but look, you’ve got to make sure they don’t know it’s me who told you’.

  ‘Anita, they won’t find out. I promised you before and I meant it. Now, do you know anything about what happened to James Clifton last weekend?’

  Anita’s eyes welled up with tears. ‘Oh Sharon, I’ve done a terrible thing but if the police find out I know they won’t let me go home’.

  FIREFLIES THIRTEEN

  Paula Jones had never got used to sleeping alone. She’d had enough practice with her sales executive husband Phillip spending at least one night a week away from home for the last few years but she’d never really liked it. She wished she could get used to it. She wished she could be lik
e all the other wives who drop their husbands off at Manchester airport who give them a kiss and a wave before driving off and relishing a night in front of the TV with the remote control and a box of chocolates. But the fact is she’d never been able to celebrate even in a small way any separation from her ‘boys’. Her husband Rhodri and her son Piers were the centre of her world and always had been. Now Piers was about to fly the nest but the girl he was marrying couldn’t have been better if Paula had chosen her herself. Clarissa came from a very good family in old money Cheshire and one day they would inherit a farm and an estate worth several million. And yet they were such lovely people. Sometimes Clarissa’s mother even did her own cooking. She said it helped her to understand the lives of the people who work for her. Paula thought that was a fantastic meeting of the two very different realities and a terrific gesture of support for those less fortunate.

  She did herself the usual breakfast of muesli and coffee before checking her phone to see if there were anymore messages. There was a new one from Rhodri who was in Helsinki where, due to the two hour time difference in their favour, the working day was already underway. He was due to fly back to Manchester that afternoon and Paula was going to be at the airport to pick him up from the Finnair flight. She’d be so pleased to have him back. She always was.

  Then she re-read the one she’d had from her darling boy Piers at two o’clock that morning. He’d been out on his stag night and he knew that she was worried so he’d texted to reassure her that he was okay. They’d gone for a Thursday because they were planning other activities for the weekend culminating in a lunch party that Paula and Rhodri were throwing for their Piers and their family and friends on Sunday. It was going to be one hell of a weekend of partying and Piers was no doubt sleeping it off somewhere with one of his friends. He’d be back later for dinner with his parents, one of the last ones the three of them would share together by themselves before he got married. Paula felt that lump in her throat when she thought of it. Piers was their only child and both she and Rhodri were going to miss him so much.

  She went out to her car and threw her briefcase on the passenger seat before reversing out of the drive and turning left down the lane to head for the main road a couple of miles away. The village where they lived was attached to the town of Wilmslow by the open field equivalent of a short umbilical cord. She liked it round here. It was full of people who didn’t care about anything except their own self interests.

  She drove past the pub which Paula would have to admit wasn’t always welcoming to outsiders. She’d sometimes taken visiting friends in there and the landlady had made great store out of deliberately serving her regulars before people who’d never been in there before. But that was one of the drawbacks of living in a village. People could be rather more inward looking than even Paula would always appreciate.

  There were half a dozen houses to the left of the lane as it climbed up the hill and out of the village. To the right were uninhibited and quite magnificent views across the Cheshire plains and even though she’d lived there now for thirteen years she still marveled at the view especially on a bright morning like this one.

  She went down to second gear as the climb grew steeper and she pushed down harder on the accelerator. She knew the route like the back of her hand and almost didn’t even have to think about it but as she neared the fork in the road where it branched off to the other side of the village whilst the other side carried on towards the main road, her eyes touched on the base of one of the overhanging trees and the sight that met her eyes made her gasp with horror. She stopped the car and got out to get a closer view. Then she screamed at the sight of the body of her son Piers, clearly dead, naked and having been sat upright against the tree trunk, covered in blood and with everything that made him a man missing.

  Round his neck was a sign that said ‘Have a Nice Day, Mum. X’

  When a third person moves into a house where previously two have had the place to themselves for a while, a little adjusting of hitherto acceptable behavior needs to take place. Two nights ago Brendan the nanny moved in with Jeff and Toby and now Jeff was aware that he couldn’t just walk from the bathroom to his bedroom naked anymore. Brendan seemed like a mature lad for his tender age of twenty-two but the last thing Jeff needed at the moment was to awaken a gay man’s curiosity about him with the sight of his naked form. It was the same consideration he’d show if a young girl had moved in. So from now on he was going to make sure he wore his bathrobe whenever he was walking around without any clothes on.

  Jeff and Toby had interviewed Brendan together and they’d all got along like a house on fire. Brendan was the oldest of five kids and he was used to looking after the young ones in his family which was one of the things that prompted him into making a career out of child care. He and Toby had bonded over the computer games console and Jeff could see it was good for a little boy to have a male nanny because Brendan would be able to do all the boy stuff that Jeff couldn’t do when he wasn’t there. He wasn’t worried any longer that Toby didn’t have enough female influence in his life. As Rebecca and also his brother Lewis had pointed out Toby had his Chinese grandma and aunts, his teacher at school Miss Jackson, and their next door neighbour Pam who Toby spent a fair amount of time with. He’d probably never stop worrying about Toby and whether or not he’d grow up right. He’d never stop worrying if he was doing right by him. It was part of the weight of being a single parent.

  When Jeff had got home last night Brendan had done all the ironing and hung all his shirts and trousers neatly in his wardrobe. He hadn’t expected that. And now as he walked downstairs and into the kitchen where Brendan presented him with a fry up of eggs, bacon, sausage, mushrooms, and baked beans, he hadn’t expected that either. He hadn’t really talked to Brendan about the definition of his role but he’d sort of thought that it would just revolve around Toby. He hadn’t expected to be looked after himself too.

  ‘Morning Brendan’ said Jeff. ‘This looks great. How are you finding everything?’

  ‘Just fine, thanks, Jeff’ Brendan answered with a smile. ‘I made a pot of tea when I heard you upstairs because I know how you like it to have brewed for a bit before you drink it’.

  ‘Well yes’ said Jeff, a little shyly. ‘Thank you. But you know, you don’t have to go to all this trouble for breakfast, Brendan’.

  ‘You need a good breakfast inside you if you’re going to be running round catching criminals all day and I don’t mind at all’ said Brendan. ‘All part of the service’.

  ‘And thank you too for sorting my shirts and all’ said Jeff. ‘They’ve never been as tidy’.

  ‘Jeff, I’ve got to have something to do when Toby is at school’ said Brendan. ‘That’s when I do the washing, do the ironing, and generally keep things up to scratch in the house’.

  ‘Well then, thank you. That’s very kind’.

  ‘Don’t mention it’ said Brendan who had the feeling he was going to rather like working here. Toby was a grand little lad and Jeff was one of the nicest straight men he’d ever met. Handsome too but Brendan didn’t think anything more than that. He was here to do a job and anyway, Jeff may be gay friendly but that’s as far as it went.

  Jeff looked at Toby who was tucking eagerly into scrambled eggs on toast. ‘Shall we keep Brendan, Toby?’

  ‘Yeah he’s cool’ said Toby. ‘And he cooks better than you, Daddy’.

  ‘Well that’s it then, Brendan’ said Jeff. ‘The deal is well and truly done’.

  ‘I’m glad’ said Brendan who felt lucky that this was his first full-time post. Some of his friends had experienced nightmares in their first jobs. ‘This is a dream job believe me. Some of them on my course haven’t been so lucky and some haven’t been able to get anything’.

  ‘Widowers with kids to look after are more common than society thinks’ said Jeff. ‘There must be more families like ours to look after out there?’

  ‘Well there’s also of course the fact that there’s still a
stigma attached to men looking after kids in the eyes of some’.

  ‘Well this house is a stigma free zone, Brendan’ said Jeff after he’d swallowed a piece of bacon. ‘And by the way, how did you know I like my bacon this way?’

  Brendan blushed. ‘I asked your brother Lewis’.

  Jeff smiled. ‘I see. And what else has he told you about my habits? No, on second thoughts don’t answer that’.

  ‘You and him are pretty close, right?’

  ‘Yeah, we are’ said Jeff. ‘Uncle Lewis is a star in our world, isn’t he, Toby?’

  ‘Yes’ said Toby. ‘And don’t forget Uncle Seamus, Daddy’.

  ‘How could I forget Uncle Seamus? Now, if you’ve finished your scrambled eggs, big boy then go up and brush your teeth and I’ll take you to school’.

  ‘Okay Daddy’ said Toby who then ran off in the direction of the stairs in his usual whirlwind little boy way. Jeff watched him running and felt that surge of emotion that every parent feels when they somehow want to stop their child from growing up and having to deal with this increasingly horrible world. Poor Toby had already had to deal with the loss of his mother and Jeff was determined to protect him as much as he could for as long as he could from any further pain or hurt.

  ‘Toby seems like a well adjusted kid considering what he’s been through’ said Brendan.

  ‘He’s coped remarkably well, Brendan’ said Jeff. ‘But that doesn’t stop me from worrying about what’s going on under the surface and what the long term effects of losing his Mum so young might be’.

  ‘How long do you think she’ll be staying, love?’

  ‘Are you saying she’s outstayed her welcome, Gran?’ asked Andrea, anxiously. She hoped her Gran wasn’t going off her friend. ‘I mean, Tina is paying her way after all’.