Prized Possessions (31 page)

‘Neither did I,' Polly told him.

She shifted her legs as the coffees were brought to the table.

She reached for the cup and sipped, felt the liquid scald her tongue. She was annoyed that the conversation with Patsy seemed to be increasing her confusion. He stubbed out one cigarette and lit another. He looked drawn, his quick suave energy blunted. She recalled the weight of him upon her on the bed, his masculine energy; then his tact, his apology, his failure to
insist,
a consideration that she was now inclined to dismiss as timidity.

She took a deep breath and told him about O'Hara's visit.

‘Did he hurt anyone?' Patsy asked.

‘Only Mr Peabody.'

‘Who's he?'

‘The rent-collector.'

‘Did O'Hara carve him?'

‘Cut his hand.'

‘Police involved?' Patsy asked, frowning.

‘No, no police. Mr Peabody's a friend of my mother's.'

‘God, it's no wonder you're upset, Polly.'

‘I'm not upset. I am perfectly calm.'

‘So that's why you went to see Manone, to get O'Hara off your back?'

‘Yes.'

‘Crafty old Dominic would want somethin' in exchange.'

‘He wanted information,' Polly said. ‘I didn't tell him anything.'

‘Did he ask about me?'

‘He thinks we're sweethearts.'

‘Sweethearts?' said Patsy.

‘We aren't, of course.'

‘There you go with that “of course” again,' Patsy said. ‘It doesn't matter what Manone thinks. He can't prove a bloody thing. He's got his outfit runnin' far too smoothly to want to rock the boat without good reason. I'm sorry you got dragged into all this, Polly.'

‘Not half as sorry as I am.' She sipped at the coffee again, cooler now. ‘My mammy would say it's all my own fault for falling into bad company. What would've happened if you had got away with Manone's money?'

‘Tommy would have squared himself with the bookies. Jackie and Dennis would have blown the lot on fancy new motorcycles.'

‘And you?'

‘I'd have been outta here.'

‘Leaving everything behind?' Polly said.

‘Not everythin',' Patsy said. ‘Maybe I'd have taken you with me.'

‘Maybe I wouldn't have wanted to go.'

He shifted position. He looked wistful, Polly thought, but not contrite or regretful. He said, ‘Moot point, anyhow.'

‘Unless you pull another one.'

‘Another what?'

‘Robbery, burglary – whatever you call it.'

‘Jobs like that don't grow on trees, Polly.'

‘Is that why you went in on it?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Greed?' Polly said.

‘Yeah. Probably.'

‘How much would you need to take you to France for a while?'

‘Paris? Oh, a hundred, hundred an' fifty quid would see me right for the best part of a year. I'd find a nice little
pension
– know what that is?'

‘A boarding-house,' said Polly.

‘A nice cheap little
pension
somewhere in the Quarter.'

‘What would you do with yourself all day?'

‘In Paris,' Patsy said, ‘there's always plenty to do.'

‘Find a job?'

‘Maybe, once I'd learned the lingo properly.'

‘You really should go, Patsy,' Polly said.

‘You tryin' to get rid of me?'

‘For your own sake, you should go.'

‘If I had the money, an' if you'd come with me…'

‘What?'

‘I'd be off like a shot,' Patsy said.

‘I couldn't – I can't leave right now.'

‘Why not? What's holdin' you?'

‘My mother needs me.'

‘Apron strings?' Patsy said.

‘Not apron strings – consideration,' Polly said. ‘Responsibility.'

‘Implyin' that I don't have any? My old man can take care of himself. He's always been able to take care of himself.'

‘I wasn't talking about you, or your father,' Polly said. ‘All I'm saying, Patsy, is that you'd be safer out of this place right now. I just don't want to see you come to grief.'

‘So you think I'll come to grief, right?' Patsy said. ‘Is that why you won't come away with me?'

‘For God's sake, I'm only trying to warn you.'

‘Are you scared of me, Polly?'

The question caught her off guard. She could not give an answer without thought. The fact of the matter was that she was scared of Patsy Walsh, that what she had felt for him, however fleeting, had been frightening. She had also been afraid
for
him and some trace of that fear remained within her now, more than a trace if she was truthful with herself. She had Dominic Manone behind her but Patsy did not. Patsy's enemy was her protector. That paradox, that anomaly made her apprehensive.

‘Come on back to my place,' he said.

‘What?'

‘Now. Right now. Come on back to my place.'

‘I – I can't.'

‘You won't, you mean.'

‘I can't. I can't. I have to get back home. My mammy's…'

He grinned. ‘I know what you're scared of, Polly.'

‘God, you really are a bastard, Patsy.' She got to her feet. ‘I only came here to warn you…'

‘Yeah, I thought as much.'

‘If you need money…'

He looked up at her, rueful and amused. ‘You can get it for me? Is that the deal? Is that what your friend Manone told you to tell me? He'll save face by payin' me to scarper? If I run now then I'll take the blame. Maybe all Manone wants is a scapegoat.' He paused. ‘Maybe that's what happened to your old man. Maybe he was lucky that the Germans finished him off.'

‘I'm going home now,' Polly said.

She felt near to tears. The good feelings, the safe feelings that Dominic Manone had engendered had been thoroughly dissipated, scattered to the four winds. Patsy wasn't proud or stubborn; he was stupid. She should have recognised that right from the first, before she became involved with him. Stupid: not much better than Jackie or Dennis Hallop, perhaps even doomed to wind up like wee Tommy Bonnar.

Her tears were for herself, not for stupid Patsy Walsh.

‘I'm stayin' put,' Patsy told her. ‘I ain't runnin' away. I've nothin' to run away from. Manone's not gonna do anythin' bad to me.'

‘How can you be so sure?'

‘Because you won't let him,' Patsy said.

‘I'm going,' said Polly.

‘
Arrivederci
then,' said Patsy.

*   *   *

Lizzie had seen fields and hills before but what she could not recall having seen before were fields and hills lying right on folks' front doorsteps.

Fields and hills, trees and sky; a wide expanse of pure slate-blue sky unsmudged by the brimstone breath of furnaces and foundries and the heavy cloying brown haze of a million reeking chimneys. Even on that mid-winter day the Knightswood sky formed a clear, uplifting presence over the tail of the Great Western Road and the wide, tree-lined boulevard to the north-west.

The door of Mr Peabody's terraced cottage opened directly on to a broad pavement. Its windows looked out not on a medley of traffic or towering tenements but on fields, parklands and a coppice of mature trees that, even in the gloom of a December afternoon, seemed to swim in a clear pastoral light. Lizzie could just imagine the place in summer, all green and leafy and, as she stepped from the deck of the tramcar, she inhaled a breath of cold, rich, loamy air that cut into her dusty tubes like balm. Bliss, manna, heaven, a practical and attainable paradise where she and her daughters would flourish, where nothing awful ever happened and the neighbours would all be as open and gentle as the landscape.

‘Yiss,' said the widow Peabody. ‘If you're selling pegs, I'm not buying.'

‘I'm not sellin' pegs,' said Lizzie. ‘I'm not sellin' anythin'. Is this where Bernard Peabody lives?'

The woman in the doorway was small but robust. She had red cheeks and reddish hair – dyed, for sure – and the sort of pinkish complexion that no amount of pancake make-up could ever disguise. She was not like Lizzie, however, not swaggering and threatening, not bulky. She had a nippy sort of temperament that evinced itself in nippy little movements, like a clockwork mouse that would whirr round and round in noisy circles until its spring gave out.

‘It might be,' the widow Peabody said. ‘I'm going out in a minute.'

‘Good for you,' said Lizzie. ‘Is Bernard at home?'

The woman glared, eyes pink with hostility.

‘Who is it, Mum?'

Bernard came to the door, a trim wooden door with dark brown varnish and a crescent of thick green glass set at eye-level.

He wore a dressing-gown over a collarless shirt, and flannel trousers. He had a pair of old sandshoes on his bare feet. He looked a little tousled as if he'd been napping by the fire. The bandage on his hand was ghostly pale in the gloom of the alcove that led, doorless, to the living-room.

Bernard was taller than his mother. He crouched behind her in a manner protective and comical, as if he were about to leap-frog over her straight into Lizzie's arms.

‘I came to see how you were,' Lizzie said.

‘Come in, Lizzie, come away in,' said Bernard.

‘She can't come in,' Mrs Peabody stated, ‘because I'm going out.'

‘Mother…'

‘I'm not leavin' you alone in the house with a strange woman.'

‘Mother, this is Lizzie Conway. She's an old friend.'

‘I'll say she is – she's twice your age.'

‘Mother, please,' said Bernard, squirming a little.

‘Very well, Bernard, if you must have this person in the house then I won't go to my Bible group. I'll forgo my pleasure for yours.'

Mrs Peabody snatched off her hat. Her reddish hair was probably natural. It had no trace of frizz and clung like a knitted cap to her skull. Just before the bell for round one, as it were, Lizzie tried to estimate her opponent's age. Sixty-two or -three, she reckoned.

‘That's up to you, Mum,' he said. ‘But Lizzie's come a long way to call on me an' I'm dam – blessed if I'll be sending her away without refreshment.'

Mrs Peabody glanced up at her son then back at Lizzie who, without a blush, said, ‘Didn't Bernard tell you about us?'

‘Us?' Violet Peabody piped.

‘Aye,' said Lizzie sweetly, ‘old friends, we are, old, old friends.' Then, to get the bout properly started, kissed Bernard smack-dab on the lips.

*   *   *

Polly said, ‘I don't think Mammy will be coming tonight, Gran, so if there's anything we can do to make you comfortable just say the word.'

The old woman shifted her weight ponderously in the wooden armchair, skipped a glance from Polly to Babs to Rosie and, with a prescience that surprised them all, said, ‘Has she got herself a man?'

Babs said, ‘Are you nuts? I mean…'

Polly hastily intervened. ‘She's visiting a friend, a female friend.'

‘More important than comin' to see her poor mother.' Janet was making tea, a gesture that owed more to habit than hospitality. ‘Friends before family, friends before family, I suppose.'

Grandma McKerlie grunted, whether in agreement or disapproval her granddaughters hadn't the faintest idea. Polly reckoned that her gran found the presence of three young Conways gathered all together just a wee bit daunting. Perhaps, Polly thought, we bring a whiff of fresh air into her stagnant life and she glimpses what she's been missing all these years. Then she decided that such a thought was patronising, even heretical and that she should have more respect for the poor old dear and not be so ready to condemn a generation who had had things much tougher than she could possibly imagine.

Observing her grandmother and aunt, Polly tried to picture what it would be like to have most of your life behind you, all mistakes made and accounted for, all passion spent, all promises fulfilled, almost the whole story written and nothing left to do but wait for the end. Instead she found herself wondering how the couple would cope if they happened to stumble on the fortune that was hidden under the floorboards in the hall cupboard.

How would they spend it? What would they buy? A Merlin motorised invalid chair so that Gran could get out and about again? Dresses from Daly's, furs from Karter's, furniture from Bow's? Fresh meat, best cuts, every day? China tea, Kenyan coffee, canned fruits? Cream cakes from Fergusson's, chocolates from Birrell's? Would they go on holiday to gay Paree or down the water for a week in Largs? Would they give some of it away to the church or the Institute? Would they share their good fortune with the family?

Probably not, Polly told herself: she simply couldn't imagine what Janet and Gran would do with money and suspected that it would bring them only confusion and bewilderment, not happiness.

Aunt Janet emerged from the cupboard carrying a teapot and a plate of home-baked almond cakes, curious bullet-shaped objects that none of the Conways would touch with a bargepole.

‘So it isn't a man then?' Janet said. ‘I heard it was a man.'

Babs glanced at Polly who managed to remain inscrutable.

‘Don't know what she'd do with a man at her age,' Gran said.

‘Aye, at her age,' said Janet, ‘she wouldn't know what to do with a man.'

‘Mammy is younger than you,' Rosie pointed out.

Babs told her,
‘Wheesht.'

‘I heard there was trouble at your house on Friday night wi' two men fightin' on the doorstep,' Janet said. ‘I heard it had to do wi' what happened at the Central Warehouse last Wednesday.'

‘Where did you hear that?' Babs asked.

‘At the dairy,' Janet answered. ‘I hear a lot o' things at the dairy.'