Laceys of Liverpool (3 page)

John groaned and turned away from the mirror. He’d never used to think like that, so coarsely, lewdly. Making love to Alice used to be the sweetest thing on earth, but
now he couldn’t bring himself to touch her, imagining her shrinking inside, hating it.

The back door opened and his wife came in. Until last May, until a few days before the war ended, until his accident, he would have lifted her up, kissed her rosy face, stared into her misty blue eyes, told her how much he’d missed her, how much he loved her. They might have taken the opportunity, the kids being out, of going upstairs for a blissful half-hour in bed. Instead, John scowled and said gruffly, ‘I tried Myrtle’s door on the way home, but it were locked. That was more than half an hour ago. Where have you been, eh? With your fancy man?’

She looked at him reproachfully. ‘I haven’t got a fancy man, John.’

Oh, she was so lovely! She was thirty-one, though she didn’t look it: tall, gawky like a schoolgirl, a bit too thin. He used to tell her she had too many elbows, she was always knocking things over. Her face was long and oval, the skin flawless, the eyes very large and very blue. They were innocent eyes, guileless. Deep within his soul, he knew she would never be unfaithful, but the new John, the John Lacey who now inhabited his body, found it just as hard to believe that such an attractive woman, a woman born to be loved, hadn’t found someone else since her husband had become so repulsive.

‘So, what have you been doing with yourself for the last half-hour?’ he sneered.

‘Tidying up. I remember hearing someone try the door when me and Bernadette were upstairs with Myrtle. She drank all the sherry and ended up incapable.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll make some tea.’

He grabbed her shoulder when she turned to leave. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘There’s nothing I can do about that.’ She was about
to shrug his hand away. Instead, she bent her head and laid her face against it and he could feel the rich-brown hair fluttering on his fingers. The gesture touched his heart. ‘I don’t need a fancy man, luv,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve got you. Why don’t we go upstairs for five minutes? I can get dressed in a jiffy if the latch goes.’ Alice missed making love more than she could say. She didn’t care about his face. For his sake, she would prefer it hadn’t happened. But it
had
happened and she loved him just as much, if not more. Sadly, it was impossible to convince John of this. Anyroad, his face wasn’t nearly as bad as he made out. The right side was a bit puckered, that was all. The burn had slightly affected his eye, the corner of his mouth, but he looked nothing like the monster he claimed. She reached up and stroked the puckered skin. ‘I love you.’

If only he could believe her! He wanted to, so much. But he knew, he was certain, she was forcing herself to touch him. She was a good, kind woman and felt sorry for him. She was probably feeling sick inside. The tender, loving look on her face was all put on. He seized her wrist and pushed her hand away. ‘I don’t want your sympathy,’ he said gruffly.

He truly hadn’t meant to be quite so rough. He noticed her wince and rub her wrist when she went into the kitchen. Water ran, the gas was lit and John Lacey realised he had just hurt the person he loved most in the world. He looked at himself in the mirror. Sometimes he wondered if it would be better for all concerned if he did himself in.

Alice had borne three daughters within two and a half years of her marriage to John Lacey. Fionnuala was only two months old when she had fallen pregnant with Orla and Maeve had arrived when Orla was still on the breast.

Her husband realised something had to be done. Alice was barely twenty-one. At the rate they were going, they’d have a couple of dozen kids by the time she reached forty. Although strictly forbidden by the Catholic church, for the next five years, with Alice’s approval, he took precautions. Then the war started and they decided to try for a son. Nine months later, Cormac was born. Four children was enough for anyone and John started to take precautions again. It was easier now, with French letters available over the counter at the chemist.

They were an exceptionally happy family. The girls were the image of their mam with the same brown hair and blue eyes. Cormac was a lovely lad, a bit pale, a bit small, rather quiet compared with his sisters. He had his mam’s blue eyes, if a shade or two lighter. Apart from that, no one was quite sure whom he took after, with his straight blond hair and neatly proportioned features.

John didn’t mind when his wife went to work in the hairdresser’s in Opal Street. He earned enough to feed his family, keep them comfortable, but the girls were mad on clothes and it didn’t seem fair that the eldest was the only one who had new things. Anyroad, Orla was a little madam and would have screamed blue murder at the idea of always having to wear her sister’s hand-me-downs. Alice worked to dress her girls and she was happy at Myrtle’s. And if Alice was happy, so was John.

At least that used to be the case. Now, it was the first war-free Christmas in six years. It should have been the best the Laceys had ever known, but it turned out to be the worst.

Orla had made a show of herself at the Sunday School party, Fionnuala claimed. She’d sung ‘Strawberry Fair’ and ‘Greensleeves’. ‘Though no one asked her. I felt dead embarrassed, if you must know.’

‘Miss Geraghty asked who’d like to do a turn,’ Orla said haughtily. ‘I put me hand up, that’s all.’

‘Perhaps our Fionnuala didn’t hear what Miss Geraghty had said,’ suggested Maeve, the peacemaker.

On Christmas Day, after dinner, when everyone was in the parlour, Orla offered to sing again.

‘That’d be nice, luv,’ Alice said quickly, hoping a few songs might lighten the atmosphere. It had been a miserable meal and though she didn’t like to admit it, not even to herself, it was all John’s fault. He glowered at everyone from the head of the table, snapped at the children, was rude to his wife. Even Billy, his brother, normally the life and soul of the party, had been subdued. By the time the pudding stage was reached the conversation had dried up completely.

As soon as the food was eaten, Billy escaped to the pub. John wasn’t a drinker, but he used to like the occasional pint, particularly at Christmas. This year, he’d churlishly refused. He rarely left the house, except for work, when he wore a trilby with the brim tipped to show as little as possible of his face. At Mass he sat at the back.

Cora was watching everything with a supercilious smile, as if she was enjoying seeing the Lacey family fall to pieces. Alice had never got on with her sister-in-law. Cora was so cold and reserved. She had made it obvious from the start that she didn’t want to become friends. She had, possibly, softened a little since Maurice was born, but Maurice himself seemed the sole beneficiary of this slight improvement. Yet she was strict with the boy, too much so. Alice had seen the cane hanging on the wall in her sister-in-law’s smart house off Merton Road, but had also witnessed the soft look in Cora’s strange brown eyes, almost khaki, when they lighted on her handsome son.

Maurice was a Lacey to his bones. His gran doted on
him. Meg Lacey carried a photo in her handbag of John and Billy when they were little, and either one could have been Maurice they were so alike.

Meg had Maurice on her knee, stroking his chubby legs – she made it obvious she had no time for Cormac. ‘Who’s my favourite little boy in the whole world,’ she cooed.

Cora didn’t look too pleased. Her small, tight face was screwed in a scowl. Alice wondered what she would look like with her hair combed loose, instead of scraped back in a knot with such severity that it stretched the skin on her forehead. Except for the odd brown of her eyes, there wasn’t a spot of colour in her face. Cora scorned make-up and nice clothes. Today, she wore the plain brown frock with a belt that had been her best since Alice could remember.

Orla sang ‘Greensleeves’ in a fine, strong voice. If there’d been the money, Alice would have sent her to singing lessons – Mrs O’Leary’s Daisy went to tap-dancing classes – but then Fionnuala would have demanded lessons in something or other and it wouldn’t have been fair to leave out Maeve, although her placid youngest daughter wouldn’t have complained.

‘Any requests?’ Orla enquired pertly when she’d finished her repertoire.

‘Yes, shurrup,’ Fionnuala snapped. It was said so viciously that Alice was dismayed. The girls had always got on well with each other. Perhaps, because the house was so full of love, they hadn’t found it necessary to compete. Lately, though, Fion, who Alice had to concede could be dead irritating at times, had become resentful of Orla, making unnecessarily spiteful remarks, like the one just now. It didn’t help when Orla, eleven, started her periods and the older Fion showed no sign. Alice wondered if it was the change in atmosphere that
had done it. The house may well have been full of love once, but it certainly wasn’t now.

Oh, God! This was a
horrible
Christmas. Normally, she never let Cora bother her, nor the fact that John’s mother made such a fuss of Maurice and entirely ignored her other grandson. Alice was fond of Maurice, but it would have been easy to get upset. Instead, she and John usually laughed about it. Other Christmases, John organised word games. He sometimes sang, usually carols, in a rather fine baritone voice. He made sure everyone had a glass of sherry and told them amusing things that had happened at work. In the past, John had even been known to make Cora laugh. Now, Alice wasn’t sure what she wanted to do most, burst into tears, or scream, as two of her daughters squabbled, Maeve looked bored, Cora scowled, her mother-in-law cooed and John’s face was like thunder. Only Cormac was his usual sunny self, playing quietly on the floor with a truck he’d got for Christmas. If only her dad were there! He’d see the funny side of things and they could wink at each other and make faces.

Suddenly, John grabbed Fion and Orla by the scruffs of their necks and flung them out of the room. ‘If you’re going to fight, then fight somewhere else,’ he snarled.

Alice got up and left without a word. The girls were in the hall, holding hands, she noted approvingly, and looking shaken.

‘I
hate
Dad,’ Orla said spiritedly.

‘Me, too,’ echoed Fionnuala.

‘We weren’t exactly fighting.’

‘It was more an argument.’

‘Your dad gets easily narked these days.’ She put her arms round both her girls, they were almost as tall as she was. ‘You need to humour him.’

Orla sniffed. ‘Can I go round Betty Mahon’s house, Mam? She got Monopoly for Christmas.’

‘If you want, luv.’

‘Can I come?’ Fionnuala said eagerly.

Orla hesitated. Why couldn’t Fion find friends of her own? Not only was she getting dead fat, but she was a terrible hanger-on. She remembered her sister had also been unfairly treated by their dad. ‘OK,’ she said.

Alice sighed with relief when the girls left; two less people to worry about. She opened the parlour door. ‘Maeve, would you like to help me make some tea, luv?’

‘I
hate
Christmas,’ Maeve declared in the kitchen. ‘It used to be nice, but now it’s awful. Will Dad ever be in a good mood again?’

‘Of course, luv. He’s still getting over the accident.’

‘But Mam, it wasn’t
our
fault he had the accident. Why is he taking it out on us?’

Alice had no idea. Maeve had inherited her mother’s easygoing nature. It wasn’t like her to complain. John was gradually alienating every member of his family. Only Cormac seemed sweetly oblivious to the change in his dad.

She made tea and Spam sandwiches, spread a plate with biscuits, took them into the parlour, told Maeve that, yes, it would be all right if she stayed in the back and read her new Enid Blyton book, then excused herself from the company, saying she had to go round to Myrtle’s and make sure she was all right.

The acrid grey fog that had enveloped Bootle earlier in the day was beginning to fall again. On the nearby River Mersey, ships’ foghorns hooted eerily. The pavements glistened with damp, reflecting the street lights in glittering yellow blurs. It was lovely to see the lights on again after five years of blackout.

Hardly anyone in Amber Street had closed their parlour curtains. Alice passed house after house where parties were going on. She had been born only a few streets away, in Garnet Street, in another cramped terrace house that opened on to the pavement, and had known most of these people all her life. They felt like family. The Fowlers were having a riotous time, doing the ‘Hokey Cokey’. Their two lads had returned unharmed after years spent in the Navy. Emmie Norris had all her family there, including the twelve grandchildren. The Martins were playing cards, a whole crowd of them in paper hats, laughing their heads off.

Everywhere Alice looked people were having the time of their lives. The strains of ‘Bless ’Em All’ came from the Murphys’, ‘We’ll Meet Again’ from the Smiths’.

Apart from Orla, no one had sung at the Laceys’. They had pulled crackers, but hadn’t bothered with the paper hats, not even the children. It just didn’t seem right for some reason. For the first time Alice felt like a stranger in the street that was as familiar to her as the back of her hand, as if she no longer belonged, as if her life was no longer on the same keel as those of her friends and neighbours.

She sighed as she went through the entry into Opal Street. Myrtle’s was in darkness, upstairs and down. She remembered being at school with the girl who had lived there when it had been an ordinary house. It was more than twenty years since Myrtle had moved in and it had become a hairdresser’s. The wall between the parlour and the living room had been knocked down and turned into one room. Mam had taken her there to have her hair cut. Myrtle had seemed old then, going on sixty. She claimed to have worked for some posh place in London doing rich people’s hair.

‘Debutantes,’ she boasted, ‘titled personages.’ No one had believed her.

Alice unlocked the door. ‘Myrtle,’ she shouted. There was no reply. She went up to the bedroom, where the bed was empty, still unmade. Myrtle must have gone to tea with her friend, which was a relief.