Laceys of Liverpool (38 page)

Eight o’clock. Most of the adults were slightly tipsy. Colin and Bonnie were upstairs, tired after the long journey from London, fast asleep in their mother’s old room. The other children were in the parlour playing something that seemed to require a great deal of noise.

The weather had changed. The long Indian summer had ended late that afternoon when the sun abruptly disappeared and the sky became a solid mass of black, leaden clouds. Thunder rumbled in the distance, lightning flashed. Every now and then there would be a splattering of rain against the windows. A downpour was expected any minute.

In Amber Street the lights were on and the weather
did nothing to dampen spirits. The three men were contemplating going to the pub for a pint.

‘But we’ve got beer here,’ Alice pointed out.

‘It tastes different in a pub,’ Danny claimed.

‘What happens if it rains?’ Orla wanted to know. ‘I’m not pressing your best suit if it gets soaked, Micky Lavin.’

Maeve looked reproachfully at Martin. ‘Fancy deserting me for a pint of beer!’ the look said. Martin affected to ignore it.

‘Well, will we or won’t we?’ Danny demanded.

Micky slapped him on the shoulder. ‘I say we will.’

‘Me, too.’ Martin was still avoiding Maeve’s accusing stare.

Lulu appeared in the doorway, her blue eyes round and slightly scared. ‘There’s a police car stopped outside,’ she said. ‘The man’s just got out.’

There was a knock on the door.

Alice still felt shattered next day. ‘It’s all my fault,’ she said hoarsely. ‘If only I’d taken him back!’

‘Don’t be daft, Mam. If I’d come home and found him here I’d have been out the house again like a shot.’

‘Don’t say things like that, Fion.’

‘Well, don’t you go saying stupid things like it’s all your fault. It’s nobody’s fault but his own. The police said the fire was started by a cigarette. He could have done the same thing here and it wouldn’t have been just him who’d gone up in smoke, but you as well.’

Alice sighed. ‘You sound awfully hard, luv.’

‘I’m just being sensible, Mam,’ Fion said more gently. ‘Why don’t you go in to work, try and forget him.’

‘As if I could forget your dad! He was everything to me once.’ Alice looked imploringly at her daughter. ‘You’ll come to the funeral, won’t you, luv? I wish we could get in touch with Cormac, tell him.’

‘I’ll come for your sake, Mam, not his. Orla and Maeve are coming for the same reason, and Grandad and Bernadette. As for Cormac, he’s lucky to be out of it. I only wish I’d left coming back another week and I’d’ve been out of it too.’

Billy Lacey was the only person to cry at his brother’s funeral. His sobs sounded harsh and bitter across the deathly wastes of Ford Cemetery. It was a strange morning, neither warm nor cold, not quite sunny, not quite dull.

Billy’s wife made no attempt to comfort him. The other mourners would have been surprised if she had. Cora’s face was as strange as the morning. She gave no sign to show that she cared her brother-in-law had gone.

It was left to Maurice who, at twenty-five, could have been the double of the young John Lacey, to step forward and put his arm around the broad, heaving shoulders.

‘Never mind, Dad,’ Maurice mumbled awkwardly, and father and son embraced, as they had never done before.

Alice wouldn’t let herself cry, because the tears would have been for herself, not John. They would have been hypocritical tears. She was sorry John had died such a horrible death, but her prime emotion was guilt that she might have stopped it.

John’s daughters were there purely for their mother’s sake. Alice was a stickler for appearances. It mattered to Mam what people, particularly the neighbours, thought. However, so far, none of the neighbours had guessed that the John Lacey, whose death in a fire in Seaforth was reported in the local paper, was the John Lacey who had once lived in Amber Street.

Good riddance to bad rubbish, Danny Mitchell
thought as the coffin was lowered into the grave. Our Alice should be glad to see the back of him.

Bernadette Mitchell thought more or less the same.

Only one piece of paper remained that had belonged to John Lacey. All the rest had been destroyed in the fire, every scrap; the unpaid bills, the files, the audited accounts going back for years, every single letter John had ever received and the carbon copies of those he had sent, the photos of Clare and their children.

The paper that remained had been lodged in a bank. It was a deed, confirming that John had owned the freehold of the piece of land fronting the corner of Benton Street and Crozier Terrace. Alice, as the lawfully wedded wife of the deceased, was now the legal owner, so the bank informed her in a letter.

‘I don’t want it,’ she said with a shudder when she showed the letter to her dad.

‘Then get the place cleaned up. It’s bound to be in a mess. And sell it,’ Danny advised.

What would she do with the money? There was money piling up in the bank from the three salons, but none of her children was prepared to take a penny. Maeve and Martin had refused help with their mortgage, and Micky Lavin had been indignant when she’d offered to buy him and Orla a house. Cormac had lived happily on his grant at university and she had a feeling Fion wouldn’t let her pay for Horace Flynn’s old place to be done up – it was dead shabby and the plumbing made some very peculiar noises.

Why was she bothering to make all this money when there was nothing to spend it on? She was fed up with her customers wondering aloud why she was still in Amber Street, why she hadn’t bought herself a nicer house in a nicer place.

‘Because I’m perfectly happy where I am,’ she would reply. She felt very dull and unimaginative.

Fion was looking for someone to care for the children so she could go to work. Alice could sell the salons and become a full-time grandma.

‘No, I need more than that,’ she told herself. ‘I may well be dull and unimaginative, but I need to
be
someone, not just a mother or a grandmother, not just a wife. I need to be special in me own way.’

Since John’s death, Billy Lacey had taken to calling on his sister-in-law on his way home from work. Alice was the closest link to the brother he had lost, found, and finally lost again.

He couldn’t understand why John had left the house in Garibaldi Road, he said repeatedly. ‘He was in bed when I came home the night before, but gone next morning, without a word of explanation. I thought he was happy there. He
seemed
happy. Cora liked having him. He could have stayed for ever as far as we were concerned.’

Alice didn’t mention it was the night before that she’d turned John away. She already blamed herself enough and she didn’t want the burden of Billy’s blame as well.

‘Have you ever been to that timber yard place?’ Billy asked.

‘Just the once.’

‘I should have gone meself. It’s not far. I shouldn’t have let him sink into such a state, me own brother, like.’

‘Don’t reproach yourself, Billy. John knew where you lived. It was him who walked out, on all of us, including you. It was up to him to keep in touch, not for you to search him out.’ Alice wished she could take her own sensible advice. She showed Billy the letter from the bank.

‘Do you mind if I take a look at the place?’ His face brightened. ‘I’ll tidy it up if you like.’

He would have been hurt if she’d turned him down. She accepted his offer with a show of gratitude, though she didn’t give a damn what happened to the yard. Billy perked up considerably and decided to go round to Seaforth there and then.

‘I’ll call for our Maurice on the way. The two of us can do the job together.’

At least one good thing had come out of John’s death: Billy and his wayward son were now reunited.

The iron-barred gate was secured with a padlock and chain. The men peered through the bars at the dismal remains of John’s once thriving business. The building he had lived in had almost completely burnt away. There were no walls and only the skeleton of the roof remained, the beams silhouetted starkly against the livid evening sky – more rain looked inevitable later.

The yard itself was covered with ash and soot, mixed with other debris, including curls of black tar paper, like apple peelings, from the roof. Pools of black water reflected the angry yellow sky. The few lengths of timber stacked around the walls had been badly singed. There was a rusty van with a flat tyre.

‘We’ll have to get a key from somewhere to match the padlock,’ Billy said.

‘It’ll be a job and a half, clearing this place up,’ said Maurice.

‘You don’t mind though, do you, son? After all, it’s not as if you’ve got anything else to do.’

‘I don’t mind and no, I haven’t got anything else to do.’ Maurice’s voice was bitter. A prison record didn’t help when you were looking for a job. Maurice hadn’t
worked since he’d come out of Walton jail, though he’d never stopped trying.

‘I didn’t mean it like that, son.’

‘I know, Dad. I was a fool to break into that newsagent’s. I only did it to impress some girl – I can’t even remember her name. I know I shouldn’t make excuses. I was an adult. I should’ve known better, but her brothers talked me into it.’ Maurice laughed drily. ‘They made it sound so easy.’

They began to walk back towards Bootle. ‘You know,’ Maurice said after a while, ‘we could do something with that yard.’

‘Such as?’

‘I’m not sure. Remember that place I used to work, the builders’ merchants? Something like that.’

‘We’d need money to get started, son.’ Billy jangled the coins in his pocket. They were all he had until he got paid on Friday.

‘You can borrow money from the bank to start a business. Not that they’d lend it me,’ Maurice said hastily. ‘Not with my record. But they might lend it you. After all, we’ve already got the premises.’

‘Who said we’ve got the premises. Alice wants the place sold.’

‘She won’t sell if we tell her our plans,’ Maurice said with utter conviction. ‘Not Auntie Alice. Anyroad, once we get going we’ll pay rent. We might even buy the site off her one day.’

‘What plans?’ Billy asked, bewildered.

‘The plans you and me have to start our own business. Dad.’ For the second time in a week Maurice placed his arm round his father’s shoulders. ‘I wonder if that van goes?’

Cormac came into the salon wearing an Afghan coat that
looked as if it had been gnawed by a hungry animal, red cotton trousers and open-toed sandals, despite it being November and very cold. His long fair hair was tied back with a ribbon. He looked a sight.

Alice was torn between the joy of seeing him again and worry that her customers would recognise who he was. She rushed her once-perfect son into the kitchen. ‘Fion said to expect you one day soon.’ She longed to kiss and hug him, but Cormac seemed to have gone off that sort of thing. ‘Are you hungry, luv? Shall we go home and I’ll make you something to eat?’

‘I’ve just eaten at Fion’s, thanks.’

‘You went to see Fion first?’ Alice felt hurt.

‘I wanted to put my stuff there.’ For some reason he refused to meet her eyes. ‘I’ll be living at Fion’s, on the top floor. I hope you don’t mind.’

‘Of course not.’ Alice minded very much, but didn’t show it. ‘Your room’s always there if you change your mind.’

‘The thing is’ – he shuffled his near-naked feet – ‘I’ve brought a girl. We’ll be living together.’

Alice swallowed and reminded herself that young people did this sort of thing nowadays. ‘I hope she’s nice. What’s her name?’

‘Pol. She’s very nice. She’s also pregnant.’

To Alice’s surprise she burst out laughing and at the same time thanked God he hadn’t expected to live in Amber Street with his pregnant girlfriend. ‘What else are you going to tell me, that she’s got two heads?’

Cormac smiled for the first time. ‘No, just one head, Mam. Fion said to come round tonight so you can meet her.’

It might have been a mistake, but he’d called her Mam, something else he avoided these days, along with the hugs and kisses.

Horace Flynn would have turned in his grave if he could have seen the state of his house, which hadn’t seen a lick of paint in years. The few pieces of expensive furniture still remaining were covered in cigarette burns and the scars of too hot cups. Cats – Fion already had two strays –had scratched curves in the legs of the mahogany table, the six chairs that went with it and the lovely sideboard that used to house Horace’s pretty ornaments.

Fion’s own furniture was cheap stuff, similarly marked with years of wear and tear. Alice suspected it had been bought second-hand.

She had insisted on paying for the curtains to be cleaned – they were too thick and heavily lined to wash – because they made the rooms smell musty. ‘Regard it as a prezzie,’ she said to Fion. ‘People usually buy each other house-warming presents.’

The long velvet parlour curtains had emerged from the cleaners in tatters. ‘They were rotten,’ the woman assistant announced when Alice went to collect them. ‘I’m afraid we can’t pay compensation.’

Alice had bought replacements, but Fion didn’t notice that the curtains that went up in the parlour were different from the ones that came down. Fion seemed oblivious to her surroundings. The shabby furniture didn’t bother her. Neither did the clanky, grumbling plumbing, the ancient bathroom, the tatty carpet on the stairs, the grimy ceilings, the wallpaper peeling in the corners . . .