In future they’d just have to abstain, like priests. The trouble was, she loved Micky to death, though she wouldn’t have dreamt of telling him. It was torture to lie in the same bed and not touch each other. And the children were too beautiful for words. Even so, it still wasn’t fair.
Nothing seemed fair to Fionnuala either. Everyone was having a great time, but she’d been stuck with Horace Flynn the whole night because there wasn’t another person in the house willing to speak to him. Of course, it was her own fault for asking him, but he’d seemed grateful and flattered – Fion suspected she was the only one in Bootle who treated him like a human being. She was definitely the only woman who allowed him to pinch her bum, something he did every time he came to the hairdresser’s, which was often. Fion would grit her teeth and pretend to smile. ‘Ooh, Mr Smith, don’t be naughty!’ she would say and move out of the way.
Mam didn’t realise the sacrifices she was making to keep Horace Flynn on their side – he never went round to Garibaldi Road these days. The lease would be renewed again in a year’s time and Fion hoped they might get it for nothing if she continued to let him pinch her bum. She just prayed he’d never stroke it.
It was galling to think that it was
her
records being played in the front room. ‘Love me tender, love me do,’ Elvis Presley crooned. Yet not one of those lads had
thought to ask her to dance. Didn’t they realise she was a fully qualified hairdresser who would be managing her own salon after Christmas?
Oh, if only she didn’t feel so
old
! Old and fat, wretched and lonely. Her youth was passing her by, had already passed. She was twenty-three, but had never been kissed by a boy, yet one of her sisters was pregnant for the fourth time and the other had just got engaged. It was even more galling to think they were both younger than she was.
It was a relief when Mr Flynn decided to go home because it was getting too hot. He courteously shook her hand and rolled out of the house on his fat little legs. Seconds later, Neil Greene came and sat beside her, and Fion suddenly didn’t know what to do with her hands. He was so handsome, yet not the least bit conceited and very kind. Talking to Neil always made her feel warm inside. She often wondered if he was in love with her, but too embarrassed to say. She fluttered her eyelashes at him encouragingly, but all he talked about was mundane things like the weather and what a great party it was, and he’d like to bet she was really looking forward to being in charge of the new Lacey’s in Marsh Lane.
Alice, who happened to be passing, thought with a pang how pathetic Fion looked. The poor girl would feel betrayed if she ever discovered what was going on between her and Neil.
She’d never dreamt she was the sort of woman who’d have an affair, but Neil had caught her at a particularly vulnerable time and it had turned out to be quite wonderful. She had forgotten what it felt like to be loved, to feel feminine and wanted. And it was dead exciting, pretending to work late at the salon and going up to see Neil instead. Or remembering during the evening that there was something she’d forgotten to do.
‘I’ll just nip round to Lacey’s,’ she would say, giving a mythical reason, and Neil would be waiting for her, sometimes already in bed, because Alice wasn’t prepared to stay long. He wasn’t a masterful lover like John. Neil was always concerned that she was enjoying herself as much as he was.
So, what harm was she doing, apart from committing a sin? She wasn’t sure if it was a mortal or a venial sin and there was no way she was going to ask a priest. Anyroad, it was only temporary, though it had already gone on longer than she’d expected. Somewhere in the world, she felt convinced, there was the perfect girl for Neil, someone bright and attractive who would give him children, the sort of girl he’d gone out with before but had been too scared to get serious with in case she turned out to be like Babs.
She
was nothing like Babs,
he
was completely different from John and she suspected that was where the attraction between them lay. But one of these days Neil would meet the perfect girl and have no use for Alice any more.
Alice wasn’t sure how she would feel when that day came. Devastated, she suspected. She would miss him for as long as she lived. Perhaps that’s why she was always so brusque with him, always in a hurry to get back home, because she didn’t want him to feel guilty when the time came for him to let her go.
John Lacey had forgotten that today his daughter, Maeve, was twenty-one. He didn’t know she had got engaged, or that Orla was expecting her fourth child, that Fion was now a qualified hairdresser and that Cormac had achieved six top-grade O levels before going into the sixth form at St Mary’s in September. He wouldn’t have known his mother, Meg, had died, had he not read it in the paper. He had decided not to attend the funeral.
It was years since Cormac had rung the yard, asking to see his dad. John had refused, though it had hurt. Cormac had been the favourite of his children, but he felt the need to shed his first family, leave them behind, concentrate on the new.
‘Would you like more tea?’ Clare said stiffly.
‘I wouldn’t mind.’ He pushed the empty cup across the table. The atmosphere was thick with bitterness and suspicion.
‘Is this how you treated Alice?’ Clare curled her pretty pink mouth. ‘Did you accuse her of going with other men, call her a prostitute, ask how much she’d earned?’
John ignored the question. ‘I’d still like to know why the hell you were so late getting home,’ he growled.
‘I’ve already told you half a dozen times. It was such a lovely evening. Instead of catching the train from Exchange Station, I walked along the Docky as far as Seaforth and caught the train to Crosby from there. I watched the sunset. Is that a crime?’
‘Did you call in the Arcadia, look up some of your old customers?’ he sneered.
‘No, I did not. I merely enjoyed a pleasant shopping trip to town. I bought a few early Christmas presents. I had a nice time. It’s a pity you had to spoil it.’ Her voice was as clear and tinkling as a bell.
It was happening all over again, the same thing that had happened with Alice. It was too late now, but he desperately wished he hadn’t persuaded Clare to have surgery. He had read about it in a magazine. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, showing her the article. At first she had been reluctant. ‘I have you, I have the children, I’m quite happy as I am,’ she had written on her pad. How many pads had she completed in her short life? he had wondered.
‘Yes, but you hardly ever go out,’ he said. ‘Have it
done for the children’s sake, if not for mine. They’ve never heard you speak, not properly. It doesn’t affect them now, but it will when they grow older. Let at least one of us be perfect.’ He remembered smiling.
Clare had reached out and touched his scarred face. ‘What about you?’
‘Nothing can be done about me, I’m afraid. The surgeon actually insisted it didn’t look too bad.’
She shook her head. ‘Surgeon right.’ Then she wrote, ‘Hardly noticeable, becoming weathered, like a tree or a house.’
The treatment had taken two years, it was more difficult for an adult. She was in and out of different hospitals as bit by bit her mouth and face were repaired with dental surgery, plastic surgery, reconstructive surgery to her palate. At first her voice had been hesitant, whispery, gradually becoming louder, clearer, more confident. She was left with a slight, attractive lisp.
Throughout the two years, during the times she was away, John had been totally supportive. He had arranged for a woman to look after Lisa and David who had yet to start school when the treatment started. He left the yard early to collect Robbie from school, make the tea. They’d been living in Crosby for years, in a large, semidetached house not far from the shore – he could afford it; B.E.D.S. was doing extremely well.
She hadn’t complained, not once, when she returned from various hospitals with her face swollen or badly bruised or in obvious pain or unable to make the slightest sound, though sometimes she looked frightened.
The time came when there was no more bruising, no more pain, no more operations. She began to say the words she’d always known, but could never say before. He’d always understood she was clever, but hadn’t realised how clever until she began to talk – about
politics, literature, religion, of things he didn’t know about himself. She seemed to have opinions on anything and everything, as if she’d been storing them in her head, unable to express them before.
John suddenly realised she was an attractive, clever woman, with steady grey eyes, a small straight nose and a perfect, absolutely perfect, mouth. Even her hair looked different – fuller, shinier, more flattering around her face.
He must have been mad! If
he
thought her so attractive, so would other men. How stupid to have allowed, actually encouraged, her to become an object of admiration! Would he be able to trust her now that people didn’t avert their eyes or regard her with an unhealthy fascination? How long would it be before she realised how lovely she was?
His brain was being split in two again, as it had been after that damned fire. He knew in his heart that Clare would never be unfaithful, just as he had known the same about Alice, but there was a different message in his head. He’d already started coming home from the yard at unexpected times to check on her. If she was out shopping, he’d wait until she came back, examining her face to make sure it didn’t contain an expression that shouldn’t be there. Once she’d been upstairs when he let himself in and he’d later searched the bedrooms, looking under beds and in wardrobes in case there was a man hidden there.
Clare wasn’t as patient with him as Alice had been. She quickly lost her temper if he became suspicious. He wondered if her true personality was beginning to emerge, if the real Clare had been hidden until now.
‘What did you buy in town?’ he asked, doing his best to make his voice pleasant.
‘Jumpers for Robbie and David, a woollen frock with smocking on the shoulders for Lisa. I thought I’d keep
them for Christmas. I also bought a few small things for their stockings. Oh, and some more decorations. We hadn’t enough last year.’
‘Didn’t you buy anything for yourself?’
Her eyes sparkled. She must have forgiven him for the things he’d said before. She leapt to her feet – even her movements seemed to have altered, she was more lively, more alert – and delved among the carrier bags on the floor. ‘I bought myself a frock, almost a party frock. I’ve never had one before. I thought we could go somewhere on New Year’s Eve, a dinner dance, maybe. The woman next door’s always offering to babysit. I got it from Lewis’s. What do you think?’
She held the frock up against her. It was black velvet, with a ruched bodice, a gently flared skirt and a scooped neck. The sleeves were long and tight, ending in a point. It was an entirely modest frock, but John felt a tightness in his chest when he visualised her wearing it. She would look a knock-out, turn every man’s head.
‘Oh, and I bought some high heels,’ she said excitedly. ‘Not very high, I’m not used to wearing them. They’re black suede. See!’ She slipped out of her old flat court shoes into the new ones and held out a foot for him to admire.
John could stand it no longer. ‘Get them off!’ he snarled. ‘You’re not going outside wearing them damn things, nor that frock. And we’re not going to no dinner dance either. We’ll stay at home on New Year’s Eve like we always do.’
She looked at him with curiosity rather than anger. ‘What’s the matter with you? Did I have my face done for your eyes only? Am I supposed to stay indoors for the rest of my life just to please you?’
‘You were quite happy to stay in before.’
‘I was.’ She nodded gravely. ‘I was happy about
everything before, but one of the reasons you persuaded me to have the operations done was so I could go out more. Today was the first time I’ve gone shopping on my own and been able to ask for things without feeling a freak. Why are you so intent on spoiling everything? Would you prefer I had the treatement reversed, be made the way I was before?’
There was much truth in the last remark. It had all been his idea and now he resented the result. As ever, pride prevented him from explaining how he felt. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he muttered.
He had reached the door when Clare said softly, ‘John.’
‘What?’ He turned.
She was looking at him pityingly. ‘I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me,’ she said in the same soft voice, ‘although I realise it was done solely for selfish reasons. There was a time when you wouldn’t have given me a second glance, when you wouldn’t have set foot inside the Arcadia. But you did and we met, and the years since have been the happiest of my life.’
She gestured towards a chair, and he returned to the room and sat down. There was a feeling in his bones that what she was about to say was of tremendous importance. His legs were unsteady.
‘I’ve grown to love you,’ she continued, ‘though I suspect you’ve never loved me. Please don’t interrupt, John,’ she said imperiously when he opened his mouth to argue. ‘Let me have my say. If you truly loved me you wouldn’t act the way you do. You would want me to be happy, not resent me. John.’ She leant on the table and stared at him intently. ‘I would like us to grow old together, but I am not prepared to be bullied and made a prisoner in my own house.’
‘But . . .’ he began, but Clare seemed determined not to let him get a word in edgeways.
‘If you continue being so suspicious, cross-questioning my every move, then I shall take the children and leave, because you are making our lives unbearable. And that’s not the only reason,’ she went on. ‘I shall leave before you go somewhere like the Arcadia, find a woman you don’t feel inferior to and end up betraying me in the same way that you betrayed Alice.’
Where was he? Cora fretted. It was two o’clock in the morning and she’d never known Maurice stay out so late before. Billy’s snores rumbled through the house. The snoring had been the reason she’d given for sleeping in the spare room over the last few years. Billy hadn’t seemed to mind. Sometimes she wondered why he bothered coming home. It could only be for the warm bed and hot dinners – it certainly wasn’t for his wife.