Laceys of Liverpool (7 page)

Mrs Glaister, Myrtle’s friend, appeared. ‘You forgot your handbag, luv,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve put a clean hankie inside and a quarter of mint imperials, your favourite.’

‘Ta.’ Myrtle smiled tremulously at everyone. ‘Can I have a cup of tea?’

‘No, you can’t, Mother. The taxi’s waiting. Say goodbye to your friends.’ Olive roughly dragged the old woman to her feet. She glanced sneeringly around the room. ‘It won’t exactly break my heart not to see
this
place again.’

The door closed and Myrtle Rimmer left Opal Street for ever. Mrs Glaister burst into tears. ‘It won’t exactly break my heart not to see
her
again either. Expecting to find Myrtle had saved thousands of pounds, she was, when all she’d saved was hundreds. Mind you, she’s taken every penny.’

‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea to make that cup of tea, Alice,’ Florrie Piper said. ‘Forget about me and me hair for the minute, though I wouldn’t mind a cuppa meself.’

Alice hurried into the dingy back kitchen to put the kettle on, remembering that Olive Cousins had emptied the till last night, but hadn’t thought to pay her. She’d worked four days for nothing. But never mind, from now on she would be paying herself. The sadness she felt for Myrtle was mixed with jubilation. She didn’t care what underhand things Cora might have got up to with the cheque, nor did it matter that Horace Flynn owned the building.
She
, Alice Lacey, was now the proprietor of a hairdressing salon. Apart from her wedding day and the
times she’d had the children, this was the proudest day of her life.

‘That’s a nasty bruise you’ve got on your cheek, luv,’ Florrie Piper remarked when Alice came back.

Alice touched the bruise as if she had forgotten it was there. ‘I walked into a door,’ she explained.

‘You should be more careful.’ Had it been anyone else, Florrie would have taken for granted that the bruise had been administered by her feller, but everyone knew that John Lacey would never lay a finger on his wife.

He hadn’t meant to hit her. He never meant to hurt her, either by word or deed. But she was out such a long time and by the time she got back he was genuinely worried and as mad as hell.

One by one the girls came in. He didn’t see much of them nowadays. They seemed to spend a lot of time in other people’s houses. As soon as they realised their mother wasn’t there they went straight to bed. He could hear them chattering away upstairs, laughing and giggling, and he felt excluded, knowing they were avoiding him, knowing
he
was the reason why they were out so much and never brought friends home as they used to. It was the same reason why Alice put Cormac to bed so early – so the lad wouldn’t witness the way his dad spoke to his mam.

John went to the bottom of the stairs and listened to his daughters fight over who would sleep in the middle, knowing Maeve would be the loser, always wanting to please. What was needed was an extra bed. It could be squeezed in somehow. A chap at work had told him you could get bunk beds and John wondered if he could make a set, or a pair, or whatever they were called. He liked working with wood, so much more natural than metal. There’d be fights over who’d sleep on top, which
was reached by means of a small ladder, but he’d organise a rota. He’d talk it over with Alice.

No, he wouldn’t! With a sound that was almost a sob, John Lacey sat on the bottom of the stairs and buried his monstrous face in his hands. He had forgotten, but he and Alice didn’t talk any more, and it was his fault, not hers. John felt as if he’d lost control of his brain. His brain made him say things, do things, that the real John found despicable and wouldn’t let him do the things he knew were right.

The clock on the sideboard chimed eight, which meant Alice had been away an hour. But she’d said she was only going round Garnet Street to see her dad! John’s lip curled and hot anger welled up in his chest. He’d like to bet she was up against a wall in a back entry with some feller. In fact, he’d go round Garnet Street and check, prove beyond doubt that he’d been right in his suspicions.

‘I’m just going out a minute,’ he shouted upstairs.

Only Maeve deigned to answer. ‘All right, Dad,’ she called.

John grabbed his coat and hurried out into the gaslit streets. It took just a few minutes to reach Garnet Street and even less to establish that there was no one in Danny Mitchell’s house. To make sure, he went round the back and let himself in, but the house was as dark as it was empty.

Afterwards John was never quite sure what happened to his head. There was a glorious feeling of triumph, a quickening of his heart and a shiver ran through his bones at the realisation that he’d been right all along. Now he had a genuine reason to hate her.

He returned home, sat in the chair under the window, tapping his fingers on the wooden arm, waiting for Alice, his slut of a wife, to come home.

It was half past nine when she arrived and by then he was beginning to worry that she’d left him, though common sense told him she would never leave the children – certainly not with him.

He had rarely seen her look so lovely. Any man would be suspicious if his wife came in all starry-eyed and pink-cheeked, as if she’d just won a few hundred quid on the pools. It was the way she used to look when they made love. Something must have happened to make her eyes shine like that. Whatever it was, it was nothing to do with her husband.

‘I’m sorry, luv,’ she said in a rush, ‘but after I’d been to me dad’s I decided to drop in on Bernadette because she’s been feeling dead low since Christmas. We had a drop of sherry each and I seemed to lose track of the time.’

‘You’ve been gone two and a half hours,’ John said icily.

‘I know, luv. As I said, I’m sorry.’

‘You’ve been with a feller, I can tell by your face.’ Why, oh why, did he so much want this to be true? It was as if he wanted to wallow in his misery, make it worse.

She sighed. ‘Oh, don’t be silly, John. Go round and ask Bernadette if you don’t believe me.’

‘Do you think I’m daft enough not to know you’ve fixed a story up between you?’

‘Think what you like,’ she said tiredly and went into the kitchen where she put the kettle on. ‘Did the girls have drinks when they came in? I can still hear them talking upstairs. Perhaps they’d like a cup of cocoa.’

Had he been the sensible man that he used to be this would be the time to mention the bunk beds. Instead, the man he had become followed his wife into the kitchen and grabbed her arm. ‘I want to know where
you’ve been. I want to know why you’ve got that look on your face. How much did you make? How much have you got in your purse?’ He released her arm. She had hung her handbag on the knob of the kitchen door. It was one of those shoulder things that had become popular during the war. He undid the zip and turned it upside down. A gold enamelled compact smashed on to the tiled floor, followed by her purse, a little comb, two neatly ironed hankies, the stub of a pencil, a couple of tram tickets and a scrap of paper.

‘John! Me dad bought me that compact for me twenty-first. Oh, look, the mirror’s broke.’ She was close to tears, kneeling down, picking up the broken bits of glass. ‘That’s seven years bad luck.’

‘I’ll get it fixed.’ Jaysus! He looked like a monster – and he acted like one. Kneeling beside her, he began to put the things back in the bag. Their shoulders touched and he longed to take her in his arms, dry her tears. Dammit, he
would
. It was now or never. Things couldn’t possibly go on like this. He would just have to take the risk of seeing the disgust on her face. He said humbly, ‘I don’t know what gets into me some . . . what’s this?’

‘It’s a cheque,’ Alice said in an odd voice. She snatched it away before he could see who it was from and all John’s suspicions returned with a vengeance he could scarcely contain.

‘So, you get paid by cheque, eh? It must be some posh geezer you do it with? Let’s see.’

‘No!’ She stubbornly put the cheque behind her back. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘Oh, so me wife can sleep around all over the place and it’s nothing to do with me!’ He laughed coarsely. ‘Let me see that fuckin’ cheque.’

Alice shuddered. He’d never sworn in the house before, not so much as a ‘bloody’. She suddenly felt sick
and knew it was no use keeping the cheque from him. He was stronger than she was and could easily take it off her. ‘It’s from Cora Lacey,’ she said. ‘She’s loaned me twenty-five pounds for Myrtle’s salon. As from tomorrer it’ll be mine.’

A year ago John would have been delighted. A year ago he would have borrowed the money for her. A mate of his had borrowed from a bank to set up his own small engineering company. But now, a year later, John felt only blinding rage, accompanied by tremendous fear. He didn’t want her independent, having her own business, no longer reliant on him for money. Lately he’d even resented the few bob she earned at Myrtle’s. He wanted her at home. If he could, he’d have stopped her going to the shops. He raised his hand and struck her across the face, so hard that she stumbled and almost fell. She screamed, then stopped the scream abruptly, her hand over her mouth, worried the children would hear. The cheque dropped to the floor and he grabbed it.

‘Are you all right, Mam?’ Orla called.

‘I’m fine, luv. Just knocked meself on the kitchen cupboard, that’s all.’ She looked at her husband. ‘If you tear that up,’ she said in a grating voice, ‘I’ll only ask Cora for another. You’re not me keeper. And as from tonight, I’ll not think of you as me husband either. Go on, hit me again,’ she said tauntingly when he raised his fist a second time. ‘Hit me all night long, but you won’t stop me from having Myrtle’s.’

It was the first time she had answered back and, staring at her flushed, angry face, John Lacey realised that he’d lost her. With a groan that seemed to come from the furthest depths of his being, for the second time that night he buried his face in his hands. ‘I don’t know what’s got into me, Alice,’ he whispered.

Had Alice’s cheek not been hurting so badly she might
have felt sorry for him, but for ten months she’d been treading on eggshells, trying to get through to him, putting up with his rages, his moods and, worst of all, his insults, all because she loved him. Perhaps she still loved him, she didn’t know, but he had gone too far. Hitting her had been the last straw. He had frightened her girls away so they were hardly ever in. Only Cormac had been spared his bitter anger. She took the cheque and left the room.

Seconds later she was back. She felt extremely powerful, as if it was her, not him, who was in control. ‘I’d sooner sleep on me own from now on,’ she said curtly. ‘I’ll kip in the parlour. You can have the bed to yourself.’

On Sunday, after early Mass, Alice and the children changed into their oldest clothes. Armed with several paintbrushes, a large tin of mauve distemper, a smaller tin of white, silver polish, rags, and various cleaning fluids and powders, and leaving behind a silent, brooding John, they made their way to Myrtle’s.

Even Orla, not usually willing to lend a hand, found it very exciting. ‘The girls at school will be dead envious when I tell them we own a hairdresser’s,’ she said boastfully.

‘We don’t exactly own it, luv. I only lease the place,’ Alice told her.

‘Oh, Mam, it’s just the same.’

Bernadette Moynihan arrived just as Alice was unlocking the door. She wore old slacks and her long fair hair was tucked inside a georgette scarf. She grinned. ‘Just in time.’

Alice grinned back. ‘Thanks for helping, Bernie.’

‘I wouldn’t have missed it for worlds. What shall I do first?’

‘Can I start painting the walls, Mam?’ Fionnuala pleaded.

‘Not yet, luv. Let’s get the place cleaned first including the kitchen. There’s years of dirt out there and I daren’t look at the lavvy in the yard. I used to feel ashamed
when customers asked if they could use it. Meself, I went home and used ours whenever I felt the urge.’

Bernadette offered to clean the lavatory. ‘You can’t very well ask one of the girls and you need to stay here and keep an eye on things.’

‘Ta, Bernie. You’re a mate. There’s bleach somewhere.’ Alice handed out various tasks. ‘Fion and Orla, you wash the walls, Maeve, clean the sinks, there’s a luv. Cormac . . .’ She tried to think of something suitable for a five-year-old to do. Cormac looked at her expectantly, his small face puckered earnestly, his blue eyes very large. He was such an adorable little boy. Unable to resist, she picked him up and gave him a hug. ‘You can wipe the leather chairs for your mammy.’ The chairs weren’t leather but leatherette and she was going to make enquiries about having them re-covered.

Everyone sang happily as they worked, all the old war songs: ‘Run Rabbit Run’, ‘We’ll Meet Again’, ‘We’re Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line’ . . .

At half past eleven they stopped for lemonade and meat paste butties. By one o’clock Maeve, who tired easily, had begun to wilt and Orla complained she was fed up to the teeth with cleaning. Cormac was kneeling on a chair playing with the big old-fashioned till that Alice had always thought entirely unnecessary in a hairdresser’s. Fion was scrubbing away in the kitchen, longing to get her hands on a paintbrush. Having finished the lavatory, Bernadette was now brushing the yard. Alice had polished the dryers until they sparkled, though there was little she could do about the paint chipped off the hoods.