When the Lights Come on Again (36 page)

She looked at him hungrily. He was so handsome, so funny, so nice ... and he was all hers. He’d made that plain. She shuffled along the settee towards him. That got her the long, slow smile, the one that lit a tiny candle gleam in his brown eyes.

‘A bit more,’ he murmured.

She moved closer. He lifted one long finger and gently touched her mouth, his voice a throaty whisper. ‘Does the patient want to be cured?’

‘Yes,’ said Liz, looking into his face, ‘oh, yes!’

‘Well,’ said Mario, ‘we have to take things very, very slowly, so that you get used to them very, very slowly. Shall we start with me putting my hand here?’ He laid the lightest of hands on her neck, his fingers warm against her skin.

‘How about that?’ he asked. ‘Is that all right?’

‘It’s fine.’ She sounded like Minnie Mouse.

‘Liar. Beautiful wee liar.’

‘I’m not beautiful. You must need your eyes tested, Mr Rossi.’

‘My eyes are perfect, Nurse MacMillan - and so are you.’ He leaned towards her, murmuring softly in his dark brown voice. ‘Don’t close your mouth.’

That devastating instruction set Liz’s insides all of a flutter, but his kiss was not invasive, a gentle nuzzling of his slightly parted lips against her own.

‘I love you,’ he whispered.

She gave the words back to him. ‘I love you.’ She felt his mouth curve into a smile.

‘Say that again.’

‘I love you. What is it in Italian?’

‘
Ti amo
. Repeat after me, class.’

‘
Ti amo
,’ she said. ‘Kiss me again.’

This time it was deeper and more passionate. Liz could feel herself beginning to respond, kissing him back.

‘Am I cured, Doctor?’ she murmured.

‘Almost, but I feel we need to keep practising, continue the treatment, I mean.’ His lips were very close to her mouth. ‘Now, don’t you worry about a thing,’ he murmured. ‘Leave it all to your Uncle Mario.’

‘Mr Eric Mitchell?’

‘Who wants him?’

He turned, and felt a fist go into his face. Stunned by the speed of the attack, he was also unprepared for the fact that there was more than one assailant. In a few seconds they had him pinned up against the wall of the lane. Christ, there were four of them! And a huge bloody big dog.

No sooner had he registered that fact than one of the men who wasn’t holding him against the wall drew his hand back and punched him in the stomach. Once. Twice. Winded, he slumped forward, stopped from falling to the ground only because he was being held up. His arms felt as though they were being ripped out of their sockets.

‘That’s enough,’ came a voice he vaguely recognized. Then a mouth was against his ear. ‘I hope it hurts,’ the voice said pleasantly. ‘And you might like to know there’s plenty more where that came from.’ The speaker paused for effect. ‘Especially for people who use positions of authority to molest young ladies who’re not interested in them. Tell anyone about this and I’ll make sure Alasdair Murray knows how you pestered her. Do we understand each other? Now, we’ll bid you goodnight.’

He was dropped like a sack of rubbish, left to sprawl on the rough and icy ground. As they sauntered off, he heard a couple of them start to sing.

‘Oh, we’re all off to, Dublin in the green, in the green...
’

Paddies. Micks. Fenians. And he remembered where he knew the other voice from. It was that Eyetie who had collected her from the office one night last autumn, just before the war broke out. With a shaking hand, Eric Mitchell wiped the blood from his mouth and scrambled to his feet.

‘Dear me, Mr Mitchell, what have you done to your face? You seem to be walking rather gingerly too. Have you hurt yourself?’

‘I slipped and fell on the ice,’ he said, ‘on my way home last night.’

Only half listening to the conversation, Liz lifted her head from her typewriter. Miss Gilchrist was clucking over Eric Mitchell, asking him if he’d been to the doctor, if she could get anything to make him more comfortable. He had an ugly purple bruise on his jaw, but the rest of his face was unmarked. It looked more like the after-effects of a punch, rather than a fall.

Liz froze.
Once I’d worked out what my fists were for
. Surely not. She gave herself a little shake. No. Mario would never do a thing like that. That had been when he was a wee daft laddie. He was a grown man now. She smiled.

Watching her, Eric Mitchell saw that smile, put two and two together and made five. So she hadn’t been bluffing when she’d threatened him with a beating. No doubt she was spreading her legs for the wop. That would be how she’d have got him and his Paddy friends to do this to him.

He would get even with the fucking little bitch for this. This was going to be repaid with interest. However long it took.

Twenty-seven

‘No! I don’t believe it.’

‘It’s true,’ said Helen, her eyes sparkling. ‘As I live and breathe.’

She was telling Liz about an incident at the first-aid post in Clydebank, set up in one of the local Church of Scotland halls - ‘and me a good Catholic girl, too’ - where she was a volunteer. Most of the incidents they were dealing with were casualties of the blackout: skinned noses and sore knees from walking into walls and other obstacles no longer visible during the dark winter nights. Tam Simpson had fallen foul of the lethal combination.

Determined, according to Helen, that the minor matter of being at war with Germany wasn’t going to change his way of life, he had been wending his way homeward one Saturday night when the baffle wall in front of his own close - designed to stop flying debris from an explosion penetrating into the building - had decided to teach him a lesson.

‘He’d had his usual wee refreshment, I take it?’

‘He was refreshed out of his mind,’ Helen said cheerfully, ‘but you haven’t heard the best bit yet.’

To Nan Simpson’s eternal joy, she had been on duty when her husband - or, as she preferred to describe him, the wounded soldier - had been brought in. Blood gushing from his battered nose, he had decided there and then to take the pledge.

‘He never did!’ breathed Liz.

‘He did,’ Helen assured her. ‘There he stands - well, he was actually sitting - and he looks up at Mrs S and he says, “Nan, this has been a lesson to me. I’m never touching the demon drink again.” ’

‘And what did she say?’

‘She didn’t crack a smile,’ said Helen. ‘She just looked at him and she said, “I’ll believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.” They went off home arm in arm. It was hilarious, it really was.’

‘She was probably holding him up. Trying to avoid any more baffle walls unexpectedly jumping up and hitting him in the face.’

‘Probably,’ agreed Helen with a smile.

The two girls were as close as they’d ever been. There had been a moment when Liz had feared that Helen would want to spend all of her time with Eddie, but that hadn’t happened. Their friendship was important to both of them.

‘Imagine me doing my bit in a Proddy church,’ said Helen, turning her mouth down in mock dismay.

‘Aye, right enough,’ said Liz drily. ‘I’m sure that priest of yours must be fearing for your immortal soul.’

She’d been visiting the Gallaghers one evening when their parish priest had called round. To say she hadn’t taken to the man would have been putting it mildly. Once he found out that Liz was not of his own flock, it became clear that the feeling was entirely mutual. There was more to it than that. He made it obvious that he disapproved of Helen having such a close friend who was a Protestant.

‘They’re not all like that, Liz,’ said Helen uncomfortably. ‘We just happen to have got one who’s a bit strict.’

‘A bit strict? I got the distinct impression he was sizing me up for a nice burning at the stake.’

‘Well, you did argue with him a bit,’ Helen pointed out.

‘I stood up to him. The man’s a bully, clergyman or not.’

Helen grinned. ‘You and Eddie have a lot in common, you know. Anyway, haven’t you got some hellfire-and-brimstone ministers yourselves?’

Liz held up her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I’ll give you that one. At least your lot don’t think there’s anything wrong with enjoying yourself on a Sunday. Although it’s a good job your Father Whatsisname didn’t call round on Sunday when Eddie was there. Can you imagine?’

‘Only too well,’ said Helen drily. ‘He’d want to burn him at the stake as well. Me too, for consorting with him.’

‘No doubt he’d think an atheist like Eddie is doomed to burn in hell forever anyway.’

‘Eddie’ll go to heaven,’ said Helen definitely.

Liz looked at her in amazement. ‘How do you make that out? How can an atheist go to heaven? Won’t he have to go through Purgatory or something?’

‘He’s misguided,’ said Helen confidently. ‘Our Father in Heaven understands that, and I don’t believe He’s vengeful. Eddie’s a good person. He’s mistaken about religion, but it’s out of good motives - because he’s always questioning things.’

Liz went for the look of astonishment and an accent like Cordelia Maclntyre’s. ‘You have got it bad for my brother. You poor dear girl.’

Helen stuck her tongue out at her. Liz grinned.

‘Tell me something. Have you put this point of view to Eddie?’ She stirred the air with her index finger. ‘About him being misguided in matters of religion, I mean?’

‘Of course.’

‘And he said?’

Helen tilted her head to one side and made a self-deprecating face. ‘We argued all evening about it. I had to kiss him eventually, just to get him to shut up. It’s the only thing that does. Shut him up, I mean.’ She narrowed her eyes at Liz’s reaction to those statements. ‘Don’t snort like that, MacMillan. It’s unladylike.’

‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Miss Gallagher, but I don’t think I’ve heard you tell Eddie very often what a good person he is, have I?’

‘Well,’ said Helen with a sly smile, ‘I have to keep him on his toes, don’t I?’

The course of true love hit a serious reef one week later. Unable to stand it any longer, Brendan Gallagher exploded, demanding to know what Eddie’s intentions were towards Helen. Fatally, he put the question of any Clydebank father who saw one of his offspring falling in love with someone of a different religion. Was Eddie going to turn? That is, was he going to become a Roman Catholic?

Eddie, passionate about his beliefs, and too honest for his own good, hadn’t the sense to be diplomatic - or to know when to stop. Brendan Gallagher, normally the most peaceable of men, soon had steam coming out of his ears. Marie Gallagher and her sons - chiefly Conor, her most trusted lieutenant - had her work cut out calming her husband down.

Brendan’s anger was not surprising, especially when you took into account that Eddie had told him exactly what he thought of all organized religions - particularly the Roman Catholic Church. Not content with that, he proceeded to tell the man who thought he was looking at a prospective son-in-law that he didn’t actually believe in marriage and had in fact always been in favour of Free Love.

The lovers were banned from seeing each other. It took two weeks of the most strenuous intervention by Liz on the one side and Conor Gallagher on the other to persuade Helen’s father to relax his edict. She and Eddie were allowed to meet again, but only under the strictest of conditions, as Eddie grumblingly explained to Liz.

‘We can go dancing, but only if one of the Irish giants comes with us. We can have five minutes alone in the close together to say goodnight. Five measly minutes! We can go to the pictures, but only if you or one of the Irish giants comes with us. Preferably sitting between us,’ he added gloomily. ‘We can go for a walk in the hills, but only if Conor comes with us - and the hound of the bloody Baskervilles.’ He drew a great sigh and ran a hand through his mop of hair.