Midnight on Lime Street (50 page)

‘Oh no. I’ve waited months for this.’ While the felled man removed the weapon from his body, Eddie made no comment. The removal of the knife would mean a complete bleed-out;
had it remained buried, there might have been a small chance of survival.

‘Pig,’ the dying drugs boss spat.

‘Goodbye,’ Eddie whispered.

As Shuttleworth breathed his last, an ambulance arrived. Eddie allowed himself a tight, grim smile. While blood bubbled in Shuttleworth’s final exchange of gases, a clock chimed. It was
midnight on Lime Street, and the world was now a better place.

Well, the big day’s finally arrived and I’m stood at our bedroom window looking out at Wordsworth House where I work part time, like. I’m a lot of things part
time, I suppose. Wife, mum, jockey, RSPCA receptionist/animal feeder/guilty party when things go wrong in this house or Don’s; he left it to the animal protection as long as Sally and Bill
can live in.

Yes, Don died, and I miss him something awful. I knew he was a dirty old man, but he used short women instead of kids, so he done the right thing. There was that time he wanted to watch us with
other men, but I soon put the stoppers on that idea – it was a couple of miles too far. God bless, he was no trouble when he died, but Sally was. Oh my God, she was in a state worse than
Blackpool beach on a hot Sunday.

She come fleeing down here in her nightie screaming her head off cos Bill had already gone to work, and she set Gordy off crying like a bloody kid, then I joined in too, just to keep them
company. I got a passing RSPCA girl to come and sit with our Ellie. Then we went back with Sal to Wordsworth, the big house called after Don’s favourite poet (he was a soft arse when it come
to poetry) and there he was, all white and still and cold, gone in his sleep, no trouble to nobody. That was when my husband started keening like one of them banshees what they talk about in
Ireland. So I thumped him. Not hard, like, but enough to make him breathe in proper.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore my Gordy – best man in the world, but he’s one of them emotional types, can’t keep nothing inside. Reminds me sometimes of Murdoch –
mad, but in a good way. It’s a bit like living with somebody what’s on cloud nine one minute and knocking on hell’s door the next. I think it’s called being Irish, so
there’s bugger all I can do about that, right?

It’s been a sad and happy few years. In 1968, Eve never even seen Christmas, cos she done herself in one night in November while all the girls was sat there with Belle and Tom and their
dog. We thought poor Kate wouldn’t be able to forgive herself, but she soldiers on looking after the girls and cooking dinners just like she always did, says Eve’s spirit’s with
her. Angela never left, so she’s in charge, too, cos she’s getting a bit old for collaring folk and kicking the shite out of them.

Belle and Tom have a little lad called Thomas, and they’re really happy even though Max passed away. Straight off, they got another baby dog the same as Max, and they called him Max till
he ate the stair carpet, so he answers to Trouble as well. Speaking of dogs, we have a load of them here now, plus cats and even parrots what people have got fed up with. I don’t know why
some folk bother with pets, cos they don’t deserve them, do they? Bloody morons.

We also have a string of bays, some red like Murdy, some brown. We take them down the beach and walk a long way to the sea some days – you know what Southport’s like, all sand and no
wet, but salt water’s good for horses’ leg bones and ankles, so we walk till we find the Irish Sea, usually just a stripe across the horizon.

When I give him his head, Murdoch runs like a gale force wind, took me breath away till I got used to it. I lie low to keep him streamlined. We leave miles between us and the rest of the stable.
Well, not real miles, but you know what I mean. He’s fast – that’s the long and short of it. Haha – he’s long and I’m the short arse.

Oh, I do miss Eve, you know. In her own way, she was like a mam to me. I knew underneath all the orders and the bad-mouthing she was a good-hearted soul. Like me, I suppose she was, all gob and
always right. The girls will be there this afternoon, but I’ll miss Eve and Don. Don wanted more than anything to watch Murdy in the National.

Here comes my Trouble, am I all right and the odds have shortened again what with me and Murdy winning a few other races. I tell him to go and look after our Ellie and to calm down, cos
it’s just another steeplechase. Well, I realize that’s not true, because it’s an overcrowded field with jumps like bleeding Everest, but I know it will be what they call a breeze
for my horse. He is mine now. Lippy Macey owns a back leg or something, but the rest of Murdy is mine. ‘Go on, Gordy,’ I say, ‘and play with Ellie.’ He goes. He knows I need
some me-all-by-myself time – not as daft as he looks. There again, nobody could look as daft as he does when he’s chasing horses – runs like a ruptured duck, and his hair favours
a burst pillow.

That school’s still open – Woodside, it’s called. They have a few women teachers and a nurse and some good monks. Two of the baddies are still in jail, and one got murdered in
there. My Gordy calls that karma, whatever karma means. Fatso Drug Boss copped it on Lime Street near the spot where he killed the copper – I suppose that’s another piece of karma.

I’m looking at me silks, purple and silver; they remind me a bit of my lovely wedding day. Not long after we got wed, Belle told me that the serial killer of working girls was done for
– done to a turn in a fire by all accounts, with his gob inside a chippy and his backside on fire. Belle’s friends with his wife. She’s called Laura, I’m told, and she
emigrated to Canada with her kids and a new husband what used to be a jeweller.

See? My mind’s all over the place today, because I don’t want to think about this afternoon – yeah, that’s probably the reason. Purple and silver. Don wore a purple
waistcoat when he gave me away. He gave me this new life, too, and I’m dead grateful.

I’ll be one of the first women to ride the National. It’s a terrible race, very hazardous, my Gordy says. He worries about me and I worry about the poor bloody horses. Ooh, look,
there’s our Sally waddling off to stroke Murdy and Nye. She’ll be staying here, because she’s eight months gone and anyway, she can mind our Eloise. Sally’s expecting to
deliver twins, and she says they don’t like one another, cos they fight like buggery.

We’ve got just Ellie, and she’s enough, thanks. Reading at three, she was, and now that she’s coming up five she has a little Shetland called Periwinkle, and she wants a taller
pony as well because Peri’s getting a bit small for her. Oh yes, we have a crazy life here, and she’s in charge, little madam. I think she takes after me.

Our three lads what were stuck in that stuffy scout hut are off out in the world, every one of them with a good job. It’s turned out well for all of us what had a bad start in life. Makes
you think, eh? So many damaged people mending theirselves and one another just through talking and listening and laughing and crying. It’s all you need, see. Communication.

John lost his stammer and gained a wife, a lovely widow a bit older than him with two kids. He mends cars and sells them. Phil’s nearly a doctor serving his time down Walton, and
Ian’s an accountant. I wouldn’t have given sixpence for their chances when me and Sal first met them, but it just goes to show, you never can tell – know what I mean? Look at my
mad horse down there, stood with Nye and staring up at me. I know he knows that today’s the day.

It’ll soon be time. A string of bays has just left for the sands, but Murdoch’s made no effort to go with them. His lip’s curling; he’s talking to me. Murma’s
further away with a few donkeys holding some kind of committee meeting, I’d guess. Her son never takes his eyes off me except to glance at his companion, Blind Nye.

Now he’s chopping the ground with a hoof. He’s telling me to come down. It’s time.

What a bloody life. I’ve been weighed, stared at, questioned and I got that mad I told the swines I’d had cornflakes for me breakfast and evackerated me bowel.
Well, they were getting on me bleeding nerves. Laughing at me, they were. I don’t know what they were doing with me horse, only he’s been showing the whites of his eyes. Never seen a
fuss like it, I swear. When he shows his whites, folk need to stand clear if he doesn’t know them.

He’s got to carry some weights, and all the animals are under guard in case some flea-brained scally shoves a bloody needle in their arses so they can’t run proper and something else
will win the trophy. It’s weird. People are weird. This is supposed to be sport, but there must be criminals about.

I grab hold of Gordy. ‘Where’s Nye?’ I ask.

‘In the horsebox.’

Me dander’s up now. Me dander’s up as high as any of them cruel jumps. ‘Bring him in here,’ I order.

‘I can’t. They won’t have a tatty old donkey near highbred horses.’

Well, I hit him. I must stop this sort of behaviour, else he’ll start thinking I mean it. Tell you what, though, I am pissed off with this lark; more fuss here than at a
grandmothers’ picnic down Otterspool Prom with gulls swooping down and pinching the butties. I’ve never been put through this load of crap before. But them other races weren’t
like this, were they? I’m with the cream of the cream here, dead posh folk and high-bred horses.

Anyway, one minute I’m trying not to laugh at all these dignitaries what Don and Lippy used to call digs, and I’m looking at some terrible hats and wondering who got these people
ready for coming to Aintree. Lippy waves at me – he’s here with his little doctor wife.

Then all of a sudden, I’m in the saddle and in the line, and Murdy’s snorting and tapping a hoof. What happened in between hats and starting line – don’t ask, cos
I’ve got a hole in me memory. This is fear – adrenalin, I think it’s called. Some of the other horses are snorting, too. Some of them might be dead in about ten minutes. Focus,
you soft cow!

And we’re off. Oh, God, the thunder. There’s one hundred and sixty-ish hooves beating the ground, forty horses going for gold. He takes his time, does my Murdoch, saves himself for a
bit later on, like. Now I’ve gone deaf, deaf as a post. No thunder, no crowd, nothing at all, because I’m not me no more. I’m him and he’s me and there’s just one of
us what have been glued together for six years come July. I do remember that none of these jockeys knows his mount like I know mine, scrape of strawberry jam, an apple for Nye, spit on the books
and on the piano, climb the stairs, threaten to eat me wedding cake . . . Oh, now – this is it, this is how it feels when our invisible wings open.

I daren’t look. There’s a few horses down, but I don’t want to know. We’re being passed by riderless ones who carry on because that’s what they’ve been
taught, and I ignore them because this day is ours. Floating like a feather over and across Bechers and the Chair, no end to him, no beginning to me, cos we are a thingy – a centaur. Second
time. Second time round and we don’t flag, no pause, no fear now, just the flying.

We don’t get to the finish first, cos half a dozen without riders are there before us. Sound crashes in like a bomb hitting Liverpool. They’re screaming our name as we cross the
line. Only now do I look back – the second horse is coming in half a furlong at least behind us. I lean forward as he slows down. ‘You done it, baby, we won it and I don’t half
love you.’ I’m proud, cos I never needed the whip except to stroke him gently as a sign that I was pleased with him.

He’s breathing hard. I pat him and he’s wet through. There’s telly cameras all over the shop and a helicopter in the sky. Here comes the bit we’re going to hate. Still,
what can’t be cured must be endured – and we did win.

In this world, there are many horses, then there’s Murdoch. No, there’s Murdoch and me, and we are joined by a thread no one can see, a thread that was made on that first day when I
lay across his back and he walked me round the big field – the paddock. Oh, bloody hell, there’s Gordy and he’s crying again, bless him. I think I’m in shock, because
I’ve lost all sense of time. This is a long race, but I feel as if it lasted about three minutes.

Now, the shit stuff starts. We’ve a mounted cop on both sides of us. Murdy’s not pleased and I have to tell him, ‘Easy, boy.’ Oh Jaysus, as Gordy would say. The
winner’s enclosure is packed with hysterical people, and the mounted police try to push them back. Mad Murdoch, winner of the Grand National, has stiffened all his muscles, but his
breathing’s calmer. And then he does it so suddenly I nearly lose me hold on the reins. Yes, he’s up, front legs thrashing about, people scarpering like shoplifters dashing out of
Woolworth’s.

And all I can do is bloody laugh, because his legs crash down on one of them ugly hats I told you about before. Dignitaries? Look at that one running away in her sling-backs, no stockings and
enough hard skin on her heels to cover an elephant. Her hat’s buggered too, cos Murdoch saw to that.

Trophy. Photos. Me talking to a telly camera. There’s a long pole with a fluffy end nearly up me nose – it’s a microphone. My baby’s still wet with sweat. So I do me
whistle, that one with a finger at one side of me gob and me thumb at the other side. He stills. The digs and press folk go quiet as well. One of the police says I’ve cleared the wax out of
his ears. Maybe I should charge for me services – wouldn’t be the first time, would it?

Gordy arrives at our side.

I smile down at him before speaking me mind into the fluffy bit. ‘Thanks and all that,’ I say, ‘but this animal’s me best friend and he’s wetter than a ton of cod
on a Fleetwood fishing boat. I’m not being funny or nothing, but he needs a rub down and his donkey what’s waiting for him. You can have more photos when I’ve dried him off and
made sure his breathing’s right. Now, let me through.’ Nobody moves. So I carry on. ‘This animal is worth more than all the rest of us put together. He matters.’ The police
clear a way and we get past. And they’re all here, Lippy and Lillian (don’t forget the third letter l in her name), Angela, Mo, Belle, Tom, Katie and the new girls. Every one of them
steps up with blankets and rags to rub my darling horse dry.