Laceys of Liverpool (28 page)

Elsa was the girl who served the breakfasts in St Jude’s – and cleaned the rooms and made the beds, Fion discovered after she’d been there a few days.

‘I need to find somewhere to live,’ she had confessed to Elsa a few days ago when the money from Horace Flynn was reduced to half. ‘Do you know of anywhere?’

They had already started to chat while the breakfast tables were being cleared. She had told Elsa that she’d left home, not run away, which sounded a bit silly at her age.

The hotel was almost full, mainly with commercial travellers – one had given Fion a folding clothes brush and a window leather.

‘I’ll ask around, darlin’,’ Elsa promised. ‘Do you want lodgings or a place where you look after yourself?’

‘Which is cheapest?’

‘Lodgings. You get breakfast and an evening meal for an all-in price.’

‘Lodgings, then. I prefer the other, but I’ll wait till I’m settled in a job.’

‘What sort of job?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Fion made a face. ‘Any sort of job as long as it’s not hairdressing.’

‘Elsa, dear!’ Mrs Flowers called from the kitchen. She was always very nice to Elsa. At first, Fion had been surprised, until she realised Elsa was an exceptionally hard worker and very reliable.

‘See you tomorrow,’ the girl said.

Fion drained the teapot, put the two remaining triangles of toast in her bag to eat later and set off for another day of sightseeing. She wouldn’t spend a single penny she didn’t have to, so the remaining money would last as long as possible. It meant no more pictures, which was a pity, as she’d be stuck for something to do at night. Yesterday, she’d seen
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
and fallen in love with Howard Keel, the day before . . .
And God Created Woman
with Brigitte Bardot.

The weather was still fine and the busy London streets were flooded with sunshine. Fion mingled with tourists and shoppers, with office and shop workers, and felt extraordinarily happy. At one o’clock she went to Piccadilly Circus, bought coffee in a cardboard cup and sat on the steps of Eros, eating the toast and feeling on top of the world.

In the Golden Lamb Ruby Littlemore enquired, ‘How’s the digs, darlin’?’ Ruby was mildly drunk on Guinness. She had jet-black, tightly permed hair, purple-painted lips and too much mascara. She was young to be Elsa’s grandma, fifty-seven, but then Colin, Elsa’s dad, was only thirty-eight and looked young enough to be her brother.

‘Not so bad,’ said Fion. ‘The room’s a bit small and nowhere’s very clean, and I got tripe and onions for me tea, which I can’t stand. Mrs Napier looked a bit put out
when I asked her not to give it me again, as if she doesn’t know how to cook anything else.’

‘She’ll think of something,’ Ruby said. ‘Blimey, you don’t need more than one set of brains to come up with sausage and mash. Are you hungry, darlin’?’ she asked in a concerned voice. ‘Come back to ours later and I’ll knock you up a plate of something.’

‘Thanks, but I bought a meat and potato pie on the way.’ It had been absolutely delicious.

‘Come round tomorrer for your dinner, anyway. Sat’days, I usually make a stew with all the leftovers. Elsa doesn’t work Sat’days. I don’t know if she told you.’

‘Yes, she’s taking me to Camden Market to buy some dead cheap clothes. I didn’t bring enough with me. We’re going dancing at the Hammersmith Palais tomorrer night. I’m cutting her hair before. And I’d like to come to dinner, ta.’ A midday meal wasn’t included in the thirty-five shillings a week Mrs Napier charged.

‘Elsa ses you’re starting work Monday.’ Colin Little-more, sitting on Fion’s other side, couldn’t possibly be described as handsome. He was desperately thin, with brown, haunted eyes, hollow cheeks and a soft, curvy mouth. Nevertheless, Fion thought him enormously attractive, far more so than Neil Greene, who hadn’t an ounce of character in his face. She thought it odd that she hadn’t noticed that before. During the war, Colin had been taken prisoner by the Japanese and put to work building a railway. He had managed to stay alive, but returned home an invalid, unable to work, his health in ruins. There was something wrong with his lungs, he couldn’t breathe properly and could only eat the tiniest of meals. He was sitting with an untouched glass of orange juice in front of him. His wife, Elsa’s mother, had been killed during the war when the factory in which she worked was bombed.

Fion said, ‘I saw a notice outside a factory just along the road. It said “Packers Wanted”. It’s called Pentonville Medical Supplies. I just walked in and they took me on straight away. I start Monday,’ she finished proudly. She had a job and somewhere to live in London, and it was as if Liverpool and her family had never existed.

Colin wrinkled his thin nose. ‘That company pays terrible rates.’

‘Four and six an hour, but I don’t care as long as it keeps me going.’

‘You
should
care. The labourer’s worthy of his hire. I knew a bloke who worked there once. He said they refused to recognise a union.’

Fion wasn’t interested in unions. No one had ever talked about unions or politics at home, mainly about hairdressing. She was reminded of the leaflet she’d been given in Hyde Park, which was still in her bag. She took it out and showed it to Colin.

‘Quite right, too,’ he said after he’d read it. ‘Equal pay for equal work; it makes sense.’

‘That’s what the woman said who gave it me. I suppose it does when you think about it; make sense, that is. Anyroad, I got really mad with the men who were trying to shout her down. I shouted them down instead.’

Colin smiled his gentle, boyish smile. ‘Good for you, darlin’. If more people lost their tempers when they thought something was unfair, then the world would be a much better place.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘What if Pentonville Medical Supplies are paying men more for doing the same job as women?’

‘Oh, gosh! I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose I’ll get mad, like I did in Hyde Park.’

‘Let’s hope so.’ He suddenly got to his feet. ‘I’ll have to go.’ His voice was suddenly hoarse. ‘This smoke don’t
do me lungs no favours.’ The smoke was rising towards the ceiling in white, wavy layers.

‘I wouldn’t mind an early night. I’ve had a busy week and I’m dead tired. I’ll come with you – that’s if you don’t mind.’

‘It’ll be a pleasure, darlin’.’

‘I’ll just say goodnight to Elsa.’

The pianist was playing ‘We’ll Meet Again’, when Fion and Colin Littlemore left the Golden Lamb and began to stroll down Pentonville Road. He was hardly as tall as her and as slight as a shadow. The tiny terraced house where he lived with his mother and his daughter was two streets along. Fion’s digs were down a street almost opposite.

It seemed entirely natural for Fion to link her arm in his thin one. She thought how nice and uncomplaining he was, compared with her own father who’d made the whole family suffer for the injury he’d received during the war, finally doing a bunk and completely disappearing out of their lives.

They walked in companionable silence until arriving at the street where Colin lived. ‘Would you like me to come in and make you a cup of tea?’ Fion asked.

‘I’d appreciate that, darlin’.’ Colin patted her hand. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone so vulnerably innocent as Fionnuala Lacey. He remembered reading once that newly born chicks attached themselves to the first human being they clapped eyes on because they didn’t have a mother. Fion had left home and attached herself in the same way to Elsa, then to Elsa’s family, because she felt friendless and unbearably lonely. At the same time, he reckoned that if circumstances called for it, she could be quite tough.

‘I’ll send me mam a card tomorrer,’ Fion said as they turned the corner. ‘She’s probably dead worried.’

‘She’s more likely climbing the walls.’

‘I won’t give her me address, though. I’ll just say I’m all right.’

‘That’ll put her mind at rest. Actually, darlin’,’ he panted, ‘I think I’ll have to sit on the step a minute, get me breath back, before I go in the house.’

Fion sat on the step beside him. ‘Is there anything I can do? Rub your back, or something?’

‘No, but you can go in and put the kettle on. Here’s the key.’

‘Ta.’

He heard her run down the hall, anxious to help, then the rush of water in the kitchen, and thought she would make a good, caring mother – and a wonderful wife. With someone like Fion Lacey at his side, a man could conquer the world.

Colin smiled, then gave a little sigh. If only he were younger and in better health . . .

The young woman emerged from the art college into the grey drizzle of the late October day. She carried a large folder, the sides tied together with tape, underneath her arm. In her black and white striped slacks and baggy red jumper, and with her fair hair loose about her face, she looked like a teenager, but the man concealed in the doorway further down Hope Street knew that she was thirty and had three children, all old enough to be at school.

It was for this reason, to collect the children on time, that she was walking so swiftly and purposefully. He knew, because he had watched before, that she would walk all the way to Exchange Station rather than catch a bus somewhere more convenient like Skelhorne Street. A bus could get caught up in traffic and she might be late. She was a conscientious mother to her children.

More students came out of the college. One, a young man in his twenties, saw the young woman hurrying away. His face broke into a smile as he ran to catch her up. The woman smiled back, but didn’t pause in her stride. The watching man shrank into the doorway when they passed on the other side.

What were they talking about? Would the chap accompany her all the way to the station? They might even catch the train together. The man in the doorway took a deep, shuddering breath. He smelt danger.

Clare and the young man parted on the corner of Lime Street and he went to catch the train to Rock Ferry. She wondered if John was still watching. Had he followed her this far? Or was he racing back to the factory in the van preparing for tonight’s interrogation, starting with, ‘Did you talk to anyone today?’

‘Of course,’ she would say. ‘I couldn’t very well spend the entire day at art school without speaking to a soul.’

‘What about on the way home?’

As he’d seen her with Peter White, she’d have to concede that she had indeed spoken to someone on the way home. It was no good trying to laugh the questions away, because he would just persist and persist until he got an answer, even if it was an answer he didn’t want.

‘Yes, I spoke to someone on the way home. His name is Peter White, he lives in Rock Ferry and he’s twenty-one. His mam and dad are Quakers. Anything else? Would you like his chest measurements? What he has for breakfast? How often he has his hair cut?’

But she wouldn’t say all those things, because she’d done it before and John had called her ‘insolent’ and hit her. She would answer the question simply and leave it at that.

Passing St George’s Hall, two men whistled at her
approach. She felt, rather than saw, them both turn and watch her walk away, and was aware of letting her hips swing more widely. It was more than a year since she’d had the operation and her perfectly mended face still gave her a thrill of delight when she caught sight of her reflection in a shop window or an unexpected mirror.

She would always be grateful to John, but he seemed to want more than gratitude and she didn’t know what it was – to cocoon her from life, to hide her away out of sight of other human beings. It had been like a red rag to a bull when she said she wanted to go to art school because she’d longed to learn to draw – properly, not the scrawly, amateur things she’d done before.

John had done his utmost to stop her: threatened, bullied, refused to give her the money for the fees. Hit her!

‘It’s either art school or I’ll get a job,’ Clare said coldly. ‘I’m not staying in the house by myself for the rest of my life.’ She was bored out of her mind, full of unusual energy, the urge to explore, get to know people. But it was as if she’d escaped from the prison of her deformity and found herself in another, private, prison with John the warder.

‘Meet anyone today?’ John asked casually that night when she came downstairs after reading the children their story.

‘I meet all sorts of people all day long.’

‘I meant anyone special, that is.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by “special”.’ She knew she was being awkward, but ‘special’ seemed a strange word to use. Perhaps it was the only one he could think of to describe the short walk she’d taken with Peter White.

She could tell he was struggling to think of another way to pose the question and felt sick to her soul at the
idea of having to relate in detail the entirely innocuous things she’d said to Peter. She wondered what his reaction would be if he knew Peter had asked her out! Imagine telling him
that
!

‘I’m going to bed.’ She got up abruptly. ‘I feel very tired.’ It was only half past eight and she resented having to go so early, but it was the only way to escape further interrogation. She would have liked to practise her drawing.

‘I’ll be up in a minute. I’m fair worn out too.’

Don’t hurry, she wanted to say. Please don’t hurry. These days, she couldn’t stand him touching her. His eager, exploring fingers made her stomach turn. There was something so
possessive
about the way he made love. He made her feel like a thing, not a person.

This can’t go on, Clare thought as she pulled the bedclothes around her shoulders. I can’t put up with this much longer. I
won’t
put up with it. She’d cast out on her own before and would do it again, though this time she wouldn’t be on her own but would have three children. She thought of disappearing to another country, Canada or Australia, but the children had Lacey on their birth certificates and she didn’t have wedding lines to prove she was their mother. John’s authority would be required before they would be given passports and he mustn’t know they were leaving. She had the uneasy feeling he might kill her if he found out.

She would finish the art course first so it would be easier to get a job. And she would need money. Fortunately, John was generous with the housekeeping. She’d start putting a few pounds aside each week. It would take a while, but she already felt better, knowing there was a future in which John Lacey no longer figured. She would be free.
‘Our Fion? Oh, she’s living in London,’ Alice announced gaily. ‘She went weeks ago. She’s having the time of her life.’