Say Goodbye to the Boys (5 page)

We walked on in silence. ‘Maybe he came for Mash – to take him home,' I said. ‘Maybe he's heard Mash goes to Lilian's.'

‘And that was one way of getting him home? Possible.' He paused by a street lamp and clutched his stomach. ‘Oh, dear God, my liver.' Outside the house he said, ‘You can come in for drink if you like?' Then he added very quickly, ‘and in answer to your query I haven't been anywhere near Lilian's, so he couldn't have seen me leaving, could he?'

Only a long, wailing siren from one of the waiting ships broke the silence that followed. The night seemed suddenly colder. Questions flitted like bats around us, but we left them unspoken. Emlyn went in. I walked home, all that booze catching up with me now, muttering to myself about sons and fathers. Old MT's blundering, inept intervention. Had they had a man to man talk about Lilian? Oh God! Did MT intend to get plastered with us every night from now on? But it was bad with Mash and MT knew it... I wondered if my old man would have done the same for me, tried to save me. I had my doubts. And I couldn't see Idwal Morton doing it for Emlyn, either.

Sons and fathers. And why were they all such experts on the day before yesterday? ‘When I was a boy', they all declared. I couldn't bloody well remember when I was a boy. Well – bits and pieces, of course, when prompted. But not in the way they did.

‘What's wrong with you, Roberts?' I said to the lamp post, and the bulb went out. Power had still to be saved for the Country! Belts had to be tightened. Grin and bear it. I leaned against the post. Maybe you had to return yourself to the past, train your memory all over again?

The night gathered around me. The night before Lilian Ridetski's day.

V

 

 

 

 

On that day, a Saturday, it rained. I spent the morning at home, the afternoon in the Market Hall watching over the shop, while Laura did some sick–visiting. Mash and Emlyn didn't put in an appearance. It was a dull, crawling afternoon, only the occasional customer educating himself in the shop. You could hear Isaac Moss Cobblers whistling some tune as he thumped away at the boots on the far side of the Hall. Trade was slack all round. Mollie Ann Fruits brought me an apple, polishing it on her apron. That German, she said, was a terrible ladies man – did I know? Nell Lewis Crockery had told her, but then Nell and her sister were sex mad. She didn't fancy that German, but some of them couldn't keep their hands off him. Closing her eyes, she said, ‘Depravity without wit, is like a toilet without you know what. You enjoy that apple now.'

Laura returned and I escaped to the snooker hall down Maldwyn Street for a while, but I had to promise to be back to lock up because she was going to have her hair done at Lyn Davies' house. At six I moved the stock from the window into the shop and fitted the shutters. I turned the key in the lock and dropped the bunch into my pocket. One of them opened the heavy padlock on the sliding wrought iron gates that were pulled across the entrance to the Hall each night. The last of the shopkeepers to leave – usually Isaac Moss – would see to the gates and make George Garston's property secure. I decided to keep the keys in my pocket. There was a big dance on at the Royal but Ceri wasn't keen on going and the alternative on a wet night in Maelgwyn had to be the other cinema, the Palace. A dry place might well be useful, later.

We had to run from the cinema and were the first couple to reach the porch of the Market Hall. ‘Can't stay late,' Ceri whispered. ‘My father still thinks I'm twelve.' Other couples were leaping the puddles in our direction. I slipped a key in the padlock and we went into the darkness of the hall, giggling. I remembered to snap the lock incase we became a congregation.

We sat on one of the stalls across from the bookshop, and Ceri proved ready, willing and able – up to a point. When she felt my hand too far up her leg she sat up and said, ‘Slow down, Philip Roberts. What a place for that kind of thing.'

‘Well come inside the shop, then.' I said eagerly.

‘Smells like old socks in there. I bet there's rats.'

She was saying it when we heard the noise.

‘What did I tell you?' she added.

We were sitting up, listening. Not rats. A sound as if there were wheels turning, a whirring sound I couldn't put a name to. In the pipes, perhaps. It seemed to come from the far wall of the hall, near where Isaac Moss had his workshop. Suddenly the noise stopped and we were left breathing lightly in a long silence.

Ceri slipped her arm through mine. ‘Leave me now and I'll kill you,' and there was a hollow, bumping sound from above, as if something had been knocked over on the top floor of the hall. ‘What was that? This isn't good for my nerves.'

She managed a laugh, then we were in silence.

Fright made me noisy. ‘That's old George Garston taking an inventory,' I said loudly, my voice making ripples in the darkness.

I lifted her down from the stall and led her over to the bird man's shop and tried the handle. The door was locked. We peered in through the shutters. Just dusty old packing boxes in the corner. ‘What are we looking for?' she said.

There wasn't a sound from above. ‘Watch this,' I said, and I cupped my hands and yelled through them, ‘Hello Georgie!' My voice echoed the length of the hall, caused a rattle in the shutters; appalled me. But there was no response to it from above.

‘Home. Now,' Ceri said. ‘My nerve's just snapped.'

We ran to the gates, barged through them and the line of snogging couples on the porch. I snapped the padlock shut, disregarded the remarks flung at me, and we hurried through the streets towards Ceri's house.

At her front door she said, ‘George Garston – really? What would he be doing up there?'

‘Counting his assets.'

‘I went out with David Garston. He had this posh accent – after that school he was sent to. Our school wasn't good enough.' We talked for a while, about school. Wasn't Emlyn Morton like a little cherub, remember how he used to organise everybody – usually into trouble? And old Mash. And that woman who taught Biology and used to spit in her hankie every five minutes. Until Ceri's father opened the window above us and said, ‘Would you mind resuming the conversation at some other time? It's eleven o'clock!' I kissed her and arranged to meet on the promenade at two, and went home thinking about the Biology teacher, Miss Julius, and how I'd never seen her spit, had I? My forgotten past. I gave no thought to the noises in the Market Hall, but they came back to mind in the morning.

Laura woke me. She was fresh from chapel, her hat still on her head. ‘Outside the hall. Maldwyn Street,' she was saying. ‘It's terrible. That Mrs Ridetski who keeps the hairdressers. Found her dead this morning, first light. On the pavement. Thrown herself off the hall!'

Police Constable Hughes had found her. It looked as if she had jumped from the roof of the Market Hall. She was wearing a skirt and jumper and a raincoat. Her hair was in curlers. She had been dead for some hours. Liverpool Street knew all the details, but were more curious than sorrowing: Lilian Ridetski wasn't local for a start, and she had a reputation.

‘People used to call there,' said Annie Owen who lived next door to us. She looked straight through me.

‘If she wanted to do away with herself why didn't she go to the river?' Ned Edwards the postman who lived opposite remarked.

And Laura, speaking to no-one in particular, said, ‘Not much charity about this Sunday morning', and closed the door. ‘Philip – you knew her didn't you?' I nodded. She made a mess of pouring the boiling water into the teapot. ‘Nice woman, was she?'

Soft, fat fingers dealing out the cards. The rippling laugh. Very nice, I said, and we stared at each other until she told me to eat my toast.

I called at Emlyn's house. Down at the boat, Idwal Morton said. ‘You'll have heard the news, Philip?'

 

Idwal was wearing a navy blue suit that shone with age, even a collar and tie, as if he had been out somewhere. ‘Dead before she ever hit the ground. They can tell, you know.' His trembling hands gave him a problem as he lit a cigarette. ‘Dirty work,' he added. With the sun on him he looked the colour of putty, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead and along his upper lip, although the air was cool. ‘It's alleged somebody broke into her shop last night. Living room ransacked.' Velvet cushions piled high on the sofa. ‘It's a case of murder certainly. The CID are coming in by the busload.' He made it sound so amusing. ‘I wonder what the citizens of this mean city will make of it?'

When I told him I was going he said, ‘There will be questions asked – an exposure of intimacies. If you listen carefully you can hear the knocking of knees among the more gregarious of our men about town.'

He never looked at me as he said it. When I reached the corner he was still standing there at the foot of the steps, as if he was uncertain which direction to take.

In a tiny square off the promenade there was a statue of King Edward VII sitting on a throne. Money from the will of an eccentric spinster had placed it there, its blank and baleful eyes staring at the estuary. ‘God Save the Prince of Wales', the inscription read at the base, but it was a town joke, target for seagulls and pigeons. There was a big herring gull sitting on the statue's head that Sunday morning. Ceri Price, holding back a small, brown terrier on a lead, was looking up at it.

‘I just called at your house,' she said. ‘I can't make it this afternoon. Some of dad's family from the port coming to tea.' She looked at me carefully. ‘You do remember we had a date? You look vacant this morning. I've seen a photo of you and Mash and Emlyn Morton sitting up there on King Teddy's lap in form three.' She laughed. ‘Down, Tiger!' she told the terrier.

‘That noise last night,' I said. ‘You know – when we were in the Hall...'

She held her head a little to one side. ‘Oh, good God, don't say that! You don't think it was that poor Mrs Ridetski? Is that why you look so absent?' We began walking together, the terrier tangling its lead around our legs. ‘But, it couldn't have been her, could it? Poor woman. It wasn't eleven when we left, and they're saying it happened late on. Did you know her?'

Grey eyes looking up at me.

‘Yes, I knew her.' A reporter's daughter would know they were crying murder. She knelt to pat the dog's head. I wanted to tell her that there was no way up to the top floor of the Market Hall except through the bird man's shop. She held my arm as she straightened up. I had been one of Lilian's callers. More than anything at that moment I wanted to walk on with her in the sunshine, but we parted at the corner. I had Emlyn to see and questions to ask about Mash.

Emlyn was standing on the black mud under the boat, a can in one hand, a paint brush in the other. ‘I've heard,' he said, jabbing the brush into the seam. ‘And if Idwal's heard it's murder, then it's murder – so where were you last night?'

‘Me?'

He dipped the brush into the can. ‘You were about to ask me where I was last night. More than anything – you were going to ask me where Mash was.' He gave me a swift calculating look. ‘We used to visit, didn't we? Stand by for questions. So – where were you?'

‘At the pictures.'

‘By yourself?'

I was annoyed now. ‘Not by myself, no.'

‘With Ceri Price, then?' He began to clean his hands with a paraffin rag. ‘Good. That clears you.'

‘Clears me of what?' I said. There was a heron standing stock still in the river, as if it was listening to us. ‘Where the hell were you last night, if it comes to it?'

He held up his hands as if he was holding a trumpet. ‘There was a do on. At the Royal. I've got fur on my tongue to prove it!' He poured more paraffin on his hands. ‘It was a fantastic session. Me and the band. They were dead until I joined them. I was well and truly on form. Ask around.' He had a familiar, go to hell expression on his face. Then he turned to face me and said quietly, ‘Marshall Edmunds got a skinful. I had to walk him home.' He saw the relief on my face, and annoyed me further by saying, ‘Mash wouldn't kill poor old bloody Lilian, Philip. Jesus!'

‘Oh, for God's sake,' I said. ‘But he wasn't so far from killing you, was he?'

He smiled then. ‘You have a point there. But he was with me all night. I had him on the drums.' He held both hands to his chest. ‘God, I had a pulse beat of a hundred this morning.' We sat on a clean stretch of sand under the dune. ‘You saw Idwal then? What did he have to say?'

‘Let me tell you about last night,' I said, and I told him about the noise Ceri and I had heard.

‘Yes – but what time was she found? And what was she doing out, anyway? And why the Market Hall?'

There was a shout above us on the dune. We got to our feet in time to witness MT come blundering down the dune. ‘Ah, boys, there you are,' he cried as he came hurrying towards us. ‘I've been looking for you all over. Terrible news! The whole town in a state of shock!' He brushed sand off his trousers. ‘This poor woman. We are a peace-loving community, not used to violence.' MT was out of breath. A man in a panic, I thought. ‘I suppose Marshall's on board – eh?'

‘We haven't seen him,' I said, and he couldn't hide that it was a blow. I turned to Emlyn.

‘He'll be sleeping it off,' Emlyn said. ‘We over–indulged.'

‘Had a skinful, eh?' MT was mopping his forehead. ‘You delivered him safe and sound?'

‘Well of course I did. Didn't you look in his room?'

MT nodded. ‘Must have slipped out of the house early on.' He looked back towards the town. ‘His mother – you know what mothers are – running around like an old hen.' He turned and looked hard at the dune. ‘Well – I'll stroll back, maybe see him on the way.' But he went charging up the dune and had to pause, winded, at the top. Without a word, Emlyn and I went after him.