Anyone Who Had a Heart (2 page)

‘No,’ she said shaking her head. ‘They were not.’

‘Are you sure about that? Did you ask them? You know how it is in this day and age, Mrs Brooks,’ he said to Rosa. ‘People are reluctant to give any outer sign of their faith for fear of attracting mockery. ’Tis sad it is, but unless you ask you may never know. So think about it, Marcie,’ he said, turning his egg-yolk eyes back to Rosa Brooks’ granddaughter. ‘I’m usually right about these matters.’

In a way it was hard not to laugh and tell the smug priest to his face that on this occasion he was very, very wrong. Johnnie’s father – or adopted father as it had turned out – was a vicar; a Church of England, Protestant vicar!

‘Will you take another piece of cake, Father Justin?’

The priest, whose girth had got steadily wider over the years, had barely wolfed down the second piece and now pounced on a third.

‘Lovely cake, Mrs Brooks.’

He took her smile at face value, thinking it merely a response to his flattery rather than an intention to terminate his awkward enquiries.

Two more cups of tea were needed to wash down the cake before the good father rolled forwards in an effort to get up off his broad backside and prepare to leave.

‘Oh, Mrs Brooks. You most definitely took me into the paths of temptation,’ he said while patting his bulging midriff. ‘And a very pleasant experience it was too. That fruitcake was the best I have ever tasted.’

Rosa Brooks threw her granddaughter a look behind the priest’s broad back. ‘The fourteenth of September it is then,’ she said to him as she showed him to the door.

‘Indeed,’ he said while placing his broad-brimmed hat on his head. ‘I look forward to it.’

Marcie stood behind her grandmother and watched him leave. He hung on the open gate a while bending down to fix his bicycle clips around his ankles. By the time he’d finished that and was reaching around the hedge for his bicycle, his face was flushed.

Rosa Brooks raised her hand to bid him goodbye. Surely he was going now.

The priest stepped out onto the cracked pavement outside the cottage gate. He stood with his back to them looking this way and that, as though something was wrong, as though something had caused him alarm.

Rosa ventured halfway along the garden path looking puzzled. ‘Is something wrong, Father?’

The expression on his face was one of absolute disbelief. ‘Some snot-nosed little toerag has stolen my bike!’

Rosa Brooks made the sign of the cross over her chest. Behind her Marcie stuffed her fist into her mouth to stop herself from laughing out loud. The priest’s consternation detracted from his devilish eyes and also stopped her worrying about him finding out the truth about her unmarried state. It was a well known fact that for a Catholic, Father O’Flanagan was more than a bit touched with the fire and brimstone eulogy more common with Baptists and Methodists. He did not approve of original sin – ‘… because he hasn’t tried it himself,’ according to her father.

‘Call the police, Mrs Brooks! Call the police if you will!’ exclaimed the red-faced priest waving his arms around like an out-of-control windmill.

‘I have no phone,’ Rosa pronounced. She pointed in the direction of the red telephone box at the end of the road. ‘There is a public telephone.’

‘Pennies! I need pennies!’ Hitching up his robe, Father Justin O’Flanagan proceeded to rummage in his trouser pockets.

Marcie found herself wondering why he wore a robe when he wore trousers underneath. It must be awful on a hot day she concluded.

Out of common courtesy, her grandmother proceeded to escort the fuming priest along the pavement to the telephone box at the end of the terrace. Feeling it safe to poke her nose out, Marcie ventured to the halfway mark where her grandmother had
stood
. She paused briefly, and once sure that they’d reach the telephone she proceeded further.

Standing by the gate she looked up and down the road just as the priest had done. There was no sign of a bicycle. It could be anywhere if the kids hereabouts had anything to do with it.

Fancying she heard Joanna crying, she went back into the house and went immediately to the kitchen. No doubt Joanna wanted a bottle.

The bright sunlight momentarily blinded her so the interior of the cottage seemed even darker than usual.

First she ladled three spoonfuls of Cow and Gate powdered baby milk into a Pyrex jug. Filling the kettle from the tap beneath the kitchen window, she chanced to look out to a sunlit back garden. Sometimes she could imagine the tree that used to be there and the woman on whose lap she’d sat while she stroked her hair.

On turning off the tap she once again chanced to look out along the straight path that cut through a lawn on one side and a vegetable patch on the other. The bushes at the end of the garden had yellowish leaves. The sunlight gilded them with flame like brightness, yet it was not this that caught her eye. A dark figure moved just beyond the fence, pushed open the rickety old gate. He was pushing a bike in front of him.

‘Garth!’

Plonking the kettle down on the draining board, she darted out the back door and up the path not sure whether to be angry or amused.

‘Garth! What are you doing with that bike?’

Physically Garth had the body of a young man in his twenties. Due to an accident at birth he had the mind of an eight-year-old.

At first he looked surprised to see her, before a sunburst of merriment swept from his mouth to his eyes and all over his face.

‘Some boys were going to take it,’ he explained. ‘I wouldn’t let them. I knew it was yours because it was outside your gate.’

She took the bike from him. ‘Oh, Garth.’

‘Did I do right, Marcie? I didn’t let them take it. Did I do right?’

Garth was easily confused and likely to get upset if she told him he’d done wrong.

She smiled into the vacant blue eyes. His hair was awry and his face looked like a war zone. It was sprinkled with scraps of blood-stained tissue paper. He’d obviously been trying to shave himself and, as usual, had not made a good job of it.

‘You did right, Garth, but it isn’t mine. Tell you what, how about you go in and put the kettle on. I’ll be in shortly to give Joanna her feed. I won’t be long.’

She could imagine Joanna was getting irksome that she hadn’t yet come with her bottle, but she had to
put
this right before the police came. Garth would be terrified if they started asking him questions.

Rather than be slowed down with the bike, she ran along the back lane and was just in time to stop Father O’Flanagan from dialling.

‘It’s alright,’ she gasped on hauling open the heavy door. ‘We’ve found your bike. Garth put it round the back because some young scallywags were about to make off with it.’

She was breathless and in the rush to stop the pennies from dropping into the box, her neatly brushed hair was wild and the top button of her dress had sprung loose exposing an inch or so of cleavage.

She told herself that Father O’Flanagan wasn’t looking at her with surprise, only misgiving, that the sudden change from demure to wanton had merely shocked him, but she felt distinctly uncomfortable under his gaze.

‘Have you noticed Father Justin’s eyes?’ she asked her grandmother, later that evening.

Rosa Brooks was hemming a tablecloth with a bright green silk cross stitch. Without raising her head, she looked at her granddaughter with hooded eyes and waited for her to continue.

‘I think they’re devilish eyes. I caught him looking down my cleavage.’

Her grandmother’s gaze stayed steady. ‘Is that so?’

‘When I took his bike to him.’ She went on to explain the rest of it. ‘Maybe I just took him by surprise.’

Her grandmother’s eyes went back to what she was doing. Her lips were pursed and she was stabbing the needle in and out of the material with more force than before.

At the back of her mind Rosa Brooks was remembering another priest, another place and another time.

In future she would ensure she was always present whenever Father O’Flanagan called. He was supposed to be celibate, but she knew that what was supposed to be and what actually was were often two very different things.

IT WASN’T IN
Alan Taylor’s make-up to be a churchgoer. He prided himself on being the big businessman with second-hand car dealerships in Sheerness and also down in Deal. In this respect he considered himself something of a benefactor to the community – especially the Brooks family over the years

‘I gave Tony Brooks a job. You’d think he’d be more grateful,’ he oft repeated to his daughter Rita or anyone else who would listen. ‘And I treated Marcie Brooks as if she was my own daughter!’

He was always careful to stop there. From the time she first blossomed into puberty, Alan Taylor had developed an unhealthy obsession with Marcie Brooks. The fact was she was beginning to look as gorgeous as her mother. He had been obsessed with Mary Brooks too. Unknown to Tony, her old man, he’d pursued her and got rebuffed every time. I mean, who did she think she was anyway? Just a tart, if local gossip could be believed! A tart no different to any of the others around the London nightclub scene.

A churchgoer he definitely was not, but these were
special
circumstances. Anyway, he wasn’t actually entering the church, he was merely observing.

There was a handy little parking space close by where he could watch without being observed. He’d heard from a friend of a friend that the christening – baptism – call it what you will, was scheduled for eleven o’clock this morning. The event wasn’t secret, of course, but even if it had been Babs – Barbara Brooks, Tony’s second wife and Marcie’s stepmother, would still have blabbed it from here to bloody Sheerness and back again. She had a big trap that one. No wonder his old pal Tony had slapped her about a bit in the past. He might have done the same himself, if he had been married to her. Though Alan considered himself more of a lover than a fighter. Women were made to be taken to bed and loved. As far as he was concerned, they wanted it as much as men did, though sometimes they said they didn’t. But that was all it was. They often said no when what they really meant was yes.

Dressed in their best, the Brooks family plus a few friends were making their way towards the church door. He saw Marcie with the baby in her arms. She was wearing a pretty, short dress with matching jacket. That was when he wondered whether he shouldn’t get on in there and sort everything all out, point out that the kid was his. It was, wasn’t it?

He saw Tony with Babs and the kids. Babs was
done
up like a dog’s dinner, her skirt way above her dimpled knees. Chance was that if she bent down she’d be showing her knickers. Silly cow! She’d been a good-looking bird when she was younger and she made the effort to keep hold of her looks. The trouble was now she was trying too hard. There was a time to stop dressing like a seventeen-year-old and start acting your age. The rule didn’t apply to men of course as far as Alan was concerned. They were different than women. Younger women liked older men; father figures. Sugar daddies.

The awkward lad was there too. He couldn’t remember his name and wasn’t entirely sure he even had one. Not that he cared. The lad spent a lot of time round at the Brooks’ old cottage in Endeavour Terrace. His mother chose to think he didn’t exist half the time and probably wished he didn’t. Given half the chance she’d be off with the milkman or some other bloke who gave her the time of day. Now here the idiot was at Joanna’s christening, Marcie’s kid. Bloody nerve. Him going into the church as bold as you like, whereas him, the kid’s probable father …

Suddenly he burned with anger. The ungrateful bitch! Marcie’s baby would have been adopted if it hadn’t been for him. She should be thankful. She should have married him instead of telling him to get lost and insisting that her rocker sweetheart had
been
Joanna’s father. He still chose not to believe it. He always would.

Once the little group had disappeared inside the church, he got out of his car. Not wishing to be seen stalking them, he’d left the Jag at home and borrowed his daughter’s mini. It was a mustard colour and bog standard and suited the occasion. The Jag was flash and would have been instantly recognised. He hadn’t wanted that. He was hoping for a moment when Marcie was away from the rest of the family. So far it hadn’t occurred.

‘Right, old son. Get on in there and sort them all out.’

He crossed the road swiftly, legged it up the path to the church and reached for the door. On second thoughts he decided to take a look-see in one of the side windows just to make sure that nobody too handy – one of the family’s rough relatives – was attending. Tony had told him to stay away from Marcie and made it clear what he’d do to him if he didn’t. In the past Alan would have laughed the threat off. Who was Tony Brooks but a small-time thief with attitude though not necessarily the right muscle to back it? Alan was a man of means, as bent as Tony but a bit more subtle about it. OK, not all his operations were legit, but at least he kept up the façade of being legal if nothing else. Tony had crime written all over him and even trusted the people he worked
for
. Silly sod! Didn’t he know there was no honesty among crooks? That was the trouble with Tony: he was so trusting. Give him a good reason for what you were doing and he’d swallow it hook, line and sinker.

However he’d heard that Tony Brooks was now working for some heavyweight Sicilian gangsters in the East End. Alan chewed his lip nervously at the thought of it. Perhaps one of Tony’s new contacts might be among the invited guests.

Furrowed by many feet, a track had been worn through the rough grass sprouting around the church’s stout stone foundations. Careful not to muddy his slip-on Italian shoes or the hems of his Levis, he picked his way along carefully. There were puddles in places and he did a quick sidestep, nimbly avoiding a dog turd.

Once he felt he was on safe ground, he placed his hands on the sloping stone window ledges and pulled himself up, the toes of his shoes jammed into gaps where the mortar had fallen out.