It Was Only Ever You (35 page)

To hell with her, Iggy thought. He threw down his cigar, then picked up the phone and called Belinda the air hostess.

S
HEILA
DID
not call ahead to warn her auntie there would be an extra person for dinner.

Anya was so excited when she saw Sheila come up to the front gate with Patrick she began shouting, ‘Samuel! Samuel! Sheila has a man with her. Quick! Hurry, put on a tie.’

As she ran to the door, removing her apron as she went, she raised her eyes and hands to heaven and thanked God that there was a fine piece of brisket that had been braising in her oven since that morning. It had been intended to last them the week and now God had sent Sheila a man to eat it with them!

She opened the door, grinning from ear to ear and holding out her hands to embrace them both.

‘This is Patrick, Auntie,’ Sheila said, opening her eyes widely to tell her to calm down. Patrick held out his hand. ‘Good evening, Mrs Klein. I’m so pleased to meet you.’

He was very young and, Anya was disappointed to hear from his accent, Irish. Still. He was a man.

‘I hope you like brisket?’

‘I don’t believe I’ve ever had it before,’ he said, ‘but I’m sure it’ll be delicious if it was cooked by you.’

Such lovely manners! The Irish weren’t so bad. The boys loved their mothers, like the Jews.

Sheila was pleased to see that Patrick’s spirits had lifted. Although Auntie’s attention was excruciating, it was amusing and she would calm down once she was told who he was.

The moment the old lady greeted him, for the first time since he had come to New York, Patrick felt at home. The small, suburban house, with its chintzy net curtains, profusion of ornaments and soft, dark carpets was very different from the bare cottage he grew up in, but he recognized the warm welcome and the instant hospitality. The troubles of his day were forgotten and he was overcome by a feeling of gratitude for being taken to such a safe place. Samuel came out and instantly understood who he was from what Sheila had told him about her business.

‘So? You’re going to marry my niece?’ he said, holding his hand out.

‘Samuel!’ Anya scolded him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she apologized to Patrick. If he carried on like this, Sam would chase him away and Sheila would never get a husband.

‘Patrick is my singer,’ Sheila said, laughing. ‘The one I was telling you about?’

Anya waved her hands in the air and walked into the kitchen. Again, they were talking about things she didn’t understand. Another small humiliation. What did it matter if he sang? He was a man!

Sheila could see she was upset and followed her into the kitchen as Samuel brought Patrick into the drawing room to see his records.

Auntie was hunched, her frail arms lifting the huge pot out of the oven. ‘I’m sorry, Auntie. Patrick and I are just friends. He is having problems in his marriage so I brought him home for some brisket. That’s all.’

‘He is married?’ Anya said.

‘Yes,’ Sheila said firmly. Then, sensing her aunt’s disappointment she asked, ‘Why do you want me to get married so much? Why is it so important? Am I not enough for you as I am?’

Auntie put down her pot and snapped angrily, ‘How can you say such a thing? You are more than enough. You know you are everything to me and your uncle.’

Sheila smiled.

‘Then why with The Husband, The Husband all the time? It’s so old-fashioned!’

Anya was not stupid. She knew when she was being teased. She turned to her niece and put her hands around her face, her long, knurled fingers framing Sheila’s sallow cheeks. Those dark eyes, heavy, knitted brows. She looked so worried all the time. It was the same since she was a child. Auntie wanted, in that moment, to tell her everything. How she had seen her niece so lonely for her family from the moment she got here. That she and Samuel had tried to make up for her loss but they knew they would never be enough. That, despite what she said, and how hard she tried to hide it, Auntie knew that Sheila was sad and did not want to be alone. A husband was not so important as family, but when you have no family, and if she and Samuel died, which they would soon, Sheila would have nobody in the world. Selfishly, Auntie did not want to die leaving the child she loved completely alone in the world. But she could not say all that. So, she looked into Sheila’s eyes and said, with as much sincerity as she could, ‘Every good Jewish girl needs a husband.’

‘But I’m not a good Jewish girl, Auntie.’

Auntie gave her a playful slap on the cheek and told her to peel some potatoes.

While the potatoes were cooking, Samuel introduced Patrick to Mahler (to little effect) and Sheila persuaded Patrick to sing the first two verses of ‘It’s Now or Never’ to show her uncle how her fortune would be made (to even less effect). However, Samuel was delighted with the company. This was the first person Sheila had brought into the house since she was a child.

Patrick helped the women lay the table, but just as Samuel was saying grace, the doorbell rang.

*

Even though he was the boss, Joe Higgins had decided to do this house call and sort out the Jewish broad himself, for a number of reasons. First of all, he felt bad because Dermot had let him down at the meeting with the Balduccis. His lawyer had not given his questions the gravitas they deserved. At one point, Dermot had contradicted Joe and said that this was not a legal matter ‘in any sense I can get involved in’. He had also questioned Joe’s motivation in making forensic distinctions between ‘manslaughter’ and ‘murder’, questioning his moral stance. Joe was a good Catholic. He went to mass every Sunday and confession once, sometimes twice every month. He did not like having his morality questioned. Bottom line was that Dermot had made him look like an idiot in front of Antonio Balducci. However, he could not afford to lose Dermot, he was the best defence lawyer in town. So, he persuaded Antonio to let him handle this important family matter. ‘You don’t want to be – pardon the expression, Antonio – shitting on your own doorstep.’

It wasn’t a big job. Antonio just needed to assure his sister that the woman was scared and wouldn’t be back. He didn’t need to kill her or anything. Just scare her, and if that didn’t work, give her a slap.

The Italians agreed because they felt this was an Irish matter too. Their brother-in-law, Dan McAndrew, was half-Irish. If he knew Joe Higgins was involved he would get a nice fright, and that might help the lowlife keep his wandering dick tucked away a bit better. Then he might stop upsetting their sister who, in turn, was driving them crazy. Wasting their time when they had more important business to attend to. They had ‘spoken to’ every damn club owner and scared her out of the city, but the Bronx wasn’t far enough away for Angela. She was one vindictive bitch, their sister, but the Balduccis weren’t going to have the broad murdered for her. It was too risky. Joe Higgins saying he would deal with it was ideal.

Joe had one other motivation. Iggy Morrow. Iggy was an Irish businessman, like himself. But despite having reached out to him several times over the years, Iggy had always ignored him. Joe didn’t like that. It made him look small. Now, he had learned that some kid that had washed dishes in his golf club was working for Iggy. The kid was being groomed for stardom by, guess who? This Sheila bitch. Information had come out through the meeting with the Balduccis, which was very embarrassing for him, as they had assumed that Morrow was in his pocket. It was time for Iggy Morrow to be sent a message.

*

Joe got into the car where Aiden, his right-hand henchman, had been watching the house for the past couple of hours.

‘Only the old couple in there. Then a woman arrived about an hour ago. She had Patrick Murphy with her.’

‘Who the hell is Patrick Murphy?’

‘The singer! He sings at the Emerald every week. He’s fantastic. They’re calling him the Irish Elvis. All the old stuff, but he can rock and roll too. The ladies...’

Joe gave him a murderous look and he shut up. He forgot they weren’t allowed to go to the Emerald.

Joe didn’t bring his gun in with him. He didn’t want to be tempted.

‘You wait here,’ he said to Aiden.

‘You don’t want me to come with you?’ He sounded disappointed. He had been kind of excited about meeting Patrick Murphy.

Joe figured he might end up just talking. He was a reasonable man. But then, if the bird was feisty, and he figured she was, she might make him angry. Then he might lose his temper. A lot of men, Aiden among them, were squeamish about hitting women. Joe didn’t like to make a habit of it either, but sometimes, if they drove you to it, there was no other way to get your point across.

The street was quiet, too many neighbours for his liking, so Joe walked quickly across the road and tapped on the door impatiently. An old man answered the door.

‘Good evening,’ Joe said. ‘May I come in?’

Then he stepped in, shoving the old man to one side slightly and closing the door behind him.

‘Who are you?’ the old man said. He was bristling. Best to ignore him. Ah – here they were. Dan McAndrew’s bit and the dishwasher who thought he was somebody. Joe recognized him. He had smartened himself up for Iggy Morrow. The adrenalin was pumping through Joe now. This bit was what he enjoyed the most. Confusion. It was like introducing yourself to guests at a party they didn’t even know they were invited to.

‘I am so sorry for the intrusion. I just didn’t want to be standing around in front of the neighbours, you know? This is kind of a delicate matter.’

‘What do you want?’ said the old man. His voice was shaking. Joe could tell right away he was as weak as a woman, and as for ‘Elvis’...

‘I am sorry, sir. My name is Joe Higgins and I have come here to have a chat with a lady called Sheila. I’m guessing that’s you, my dear.’

The woman looked across at him defiantly. Joe smiled, sharply.

She should look scared. She wasn’t a respectful woman.

‘I have come to relay a message from Angela Balducci, although you may know her as Mrs McAndrew. You really want me to say it in front of your father, dear?’

‘Go to hell!’ she said.

Joe didn’t need more of an invitation. He pushed the old man away, so he fell down, then began to lay into ‘Elvis’, who was foolishly standing in front of the woman. The kid managed to throw out one protective thump, giving Joe a nasty clip to the side of his mouth which really hurt, but it barely gave him pause as he laid Iggy Morrow’s ‘star’ to the ground and began kicking him. He was about to set his foot down on pretty boy’s face when he was assaulted with a pungent smell of meat, then whole world went black.

*

The moment Anya heard the fear and confusion in her husband’s voice on answering the door to this stranger, she knew there was trouble, and watched the drama unfold from the dining-room door. When the man began to hit Patrick she did not pause. She picked up the hot brisket from the dining-room table where she had just laid it, then took the five steps it took to get into the hall, stepped over her husband and slammed the cast-iron pot into the side of Joe Higgins’s head.

There was brisket everywhere.

For a few minutes they stood there in shock. They thought perhaps he was dead.

‘We should call the police,’ Samuel said.

‘Don’t,’ Patrick said. ‘Joe Higgins is a gangster and you don’t want to get involved.’

He looked out the window and saw Aiden, Joe’s henchman whom he knew from the golf club, sitting in the car across the road. He signalled across for him to come.

‘Jesus Mary and Joseph,’ he said, when he saw his boss unconscious and covered in hot beef. ‘He won’t be happy about this.’

‘Good,’ said Anya. ‘Tell him I am seventy-eight years old and he can come back for more any time he likes.’

Aiden smiled and apologized for the trouble before throwing his boss over his shoulder and carrying him out to the car. He thought about going back to get Patrick’s autograph but decided against it. Another time.

When he had left, Anya and Samuel fell into each other’s arms, too stunned by what had just happened to even ask questions. Sheila was sitting at the bottom of the stairs. She had collapsed there in shock as Joe landed his first blow on Patrick. She had sat there, helplessly watching the violence unfold. Sheila had imagined herself the sort of person who would have fought back. But the guttural grunts of kicks and fists being administered, the spitting vicious anger of the attack and then finally, as Auntie slammed the heavy pot down on the gangster’s head, the way he had fallen to the floor and the shocked look on his face, had affected her in an entirely unexpected way. As the first blow was struck, something inside Sheila began to unfold and she was overcome with a feeling she recognized but had buried all of her life. Terrors she had written down in her dreams, the unspoken-of horrors that had befallen her family, unseen but clearly imagined. Those fears had been folded and folded and folded away into some dark recess in her soul. In the years since she had learned of their death, whenever they threatened to emerge, Sheila would throw a blanket of cynicism and insouciance over them to keep them hidden, from herself and anyone else. Then, as she watched Joe Higgins’s face in the second when he believed death had grabbed him, the curtain had lifted. Her darkest thoughts began to unfold and flutter chaotically like black butterflies. Now, the gangster was gone and her family were safe.

But the fear was still there.

Patrick sat down beside her, put his arm around her and kissed her hair. It was as instinctive as his stepping in front of her as he saw Joe coming towards her. He had wanted to protect her. And as Patrick went down with the second punch, he had felt nothing for himself, only fear for Sheila’s safety. Then Anya felled his attacker and Patrick got to his feet, and the first thing he felt he needed to do was embrace Sheila.

Sheila gasped, and shocked by the intimate gesture, flinched. Patrick tightened his grip, then put his broad hand over the shaking fingers on her lap and said, ‘It’s all right, Sheila. You’re safe now.’

He realized, then, how much this woman had come to mean to him. How much she had helped and nurtured him. How much she meant to him.