Evil Relations (11 page)

Bob erupts, shouting at his wife and to the rest of the world: ‘Fuck off!’ I flinch as he hurls his glass across the room. It doesn’t break, but rolls noisily across the floorboards into a corner. ‘Just
fuck off
!’

Nellie goes out, still carrying the covered plates, and I sit silently, tapping my fingertips on the chair arm, bracing myself for more trouble.

It’s not long in coming.

The front door flies open with a resounding bang and Myra strides into the room, cursing Bob to the heavens. She stands quivering with fury before him as he struggles up from the chair.

‘Come on, you bastard!’ she screams. ‘Get up, fucking stand up, you fucking useless piece of shit!’

But Bob can’t. He’s too drunk, and unsteady on his feet at the best of times. His fists are clenched, though, waiting for the fight, but he’s no longer any match for Myra; she hammers into him, punching fast and full in the face. Bob is too slow to protect himself from the onslaught. Blood spurts from his nose and mouth, scattering down his shirt.

‘Fucking bastard, fucking
big man
!’ she screams. ‘Come on, fucking come
on
!’

With both hands, she grabs Bob by the hair, lifting him clean out of the chair. He makes a clumsy attempt to grab her throat, but Myra is quick and strong; she throws him to the floor like a rag, smashing the coffee table.

Then she snatches up his walking stick from the side of his chair.

I turn my face away, having learned a long time ago that no one thanks you for intervening in a Hindley brawl. Head averted, I listen unwillingly as Myra brings the walking stick down on her father’s spine, again and again, whack after sickening whack.

Then Nellie arrives home. She doesn’t interfere either, but stands by the door with her arms folded, watching.

When it’s over, Bob makes no effort to lift himself up. His damaged mouth moves against the floorboards: ‘Fuck off, all of you, just fuck off.’

Myra throws the walking stick down and crosses the room, enveloping her mother in a bear hug. ‘Mam, you tell me if this piece of shit even
looks
at you the wrong way again.’

Maureen stares big-eyed at the scene from the kitchen, her arms tightly folded. Myra then dispenses a hug to her, adding firmly, ‘Mobee, we have to look after our mam, she doesn’t have to put up with this. How can we look out for each other if you don’t come to me?’

Maureen clings to her sister.

I lean forward, elbows on knees, and turn sideways to peer at Bob heaving himself back into his chair. His long face is blotchy with blood and rage.

Myra disentangles herself from Maureen’s hold to point a rigid finger at him: ‘And you, not one word. If there’s a next time, you end up in hospital or the fucking cemetery.’

He glares at her and spits, ‘Fuck off.’

She’s across the room in an instant. The flat of her hand lands on his face in a stinging wallop. ‘I
said
, not one word. That was
two
. Now keep your fucking mouth
shut
.’

I get up and go outside.

Maureen, Myra and Nellie aren’t far behind me, but I leave them at the door and walk to the end of Eaton Street. I can hear Myra telling Nellie and Maureen not to be scared, that she isn’t going out tonight and will be at Granny Maybury’s if they need her. I loiter on the corner, nudging a small stone out of a crack in the pavement. Myra kisses her mother and sister, then Maureen links arms with her mum and the two of them go indoors. Nellie disappears, Myra marches back to Granny Maybury, and Maureen emerges from number 20 to shuffle in her tight skirt up the street to me.

Situation sorted.

* * *

In 1963, David’s world altered irrevocably when Annie died from cancer. Following treatment for her illness, Annie spent six months convalescing at the hotel owned by the Duchess and Bert. David was on his way to visit her one afternoon when an old man sitting on a wall hailed him at the bus stop.

‘You know your mum’s dead?’ the man called.

David froze. Then he began running, and arrived at the hotel to find the whole family already gathered, talking quietly about Annie’s passing. The Duchess took his arm and led him into the bedroom where Annie lay, the colour blanched from her skin. He looked down at her for a moment then walked out, roaming a nearby park in stunned silence. He told himself she had no right to die on him: ‘She should have fought for me. And it shouldn’t have been up to some bloke on the street to tell me she’s gone.’

After a while he boarded the bus back to Gorton: ‘I was 15 and broken within. I felt like nothing was left for me but the streets where I lived, and Maureen. She’d always been there. I went to her house and we disappeared into the darkness of a back entry on Eaton Street. Then I let everything out, ripping my shirt to shreds, punching both fists into a door until my knuckles bled. The pain left me empty and crying like a baby. Maureen kissed and comforted me, giving me that special feminine sympathy that makes all hurt little boys feel better.’

‘I was growing up quick,’ he reflects. ‘I’d worked out long ago what the real family relationships were and had more or less got used to it. Mum was ill for a long time, so it didn’t come as a shock as such – it was how I found out that got to me. That – and not being allowed to go to Mum’s funeral. The family felt that was best for some reason. And, boy, did that hurt – physically and mentally, it really bloody hurt. They were firm I wasn’t to go and never explained why. I needed to say goodbye to Mum properly, but that was denied to me and I never got over it . . .’

* * *

On the day of Mum’s funeral, Maureen is the only one I can share my tears with – she allows the thunder to roar out of me again and keeps the secret of my grief between the two of us. I still don’t know if it’s love or just the moment that brings us fully together and sets the time bomb ticking.

I go back to Aked Street for a while after Mum’s death, but it’s not the happy house I remember. Standing on the doorstep, cold but calm, I watch the empty street for the family’s return, cursing the aunt or uncle who decided I should look after Grandad. My duties go no further than cleaning his stinking room and removing the overflowing phlegm boxes. At night, I telephone Maureen – red Ardwick telephone box to red Gorton telephone box – and she listens patiently to me. I don’t need anyone but her.

There’s no sign of the black cars, so I leave the front door open and wander through the house. In the scullery, I stand beside the small mountain of booze that usually only appears at Christmas: several crates of beer and numerous bottles of whisky, brandy, port and Harveys Bristol Cream. On impulse I peer into the old hiding place behind the unused stove. Reaching in, I pull out exactly what I expected to find: three dust-covered pint bottles of Mum’s precious Guinness. I give a small laugh, remembering all the times I sprinted to the off-licence back in my cowboy days.

Replacing the bottles, I return again to the front step, but the street is still empty. I lean against the door. Mum is dead and I can accept it in my own way, with the memory of kissing her cold, pale skin so recent in my mind. But I shouldn’t be here alone in Aked Street while she’s lowered into the earth. I want to be at the graveside, saying goodbye as it should be done; she raised me to do the right thing. I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine myself standing with the rest of the family as she goes down to rest beside her brown-eyed soldier boy. Just to be there, to let fall a handful of earth among the flowers, to do what is right before walking away for the last time – that’s what
should
be happening. Not this pain that will stay with me for ever, the one that rips through me like the knife I always used to carry.

A low rumble reaches me from the end of the street. The cars turn in slowly and I flick my half-smoked cigarette into the gutter. A moment ago everywhere was deserted, but as the two black Princess limousines (courtesy of ‘Stiles the Undertaker’) pull up slowly outside the house, people appear all along the street until there isn’t a doorstep without a housewife or married couple silently paying their respects.

It isn’t a big family gathering, just the ‘immediates’ and me. I watch them emerging from the cars, middle-aged men and women in their sombre best, looking almost regal for once. I stick out like a sore thumb in my drainpipe jeans, winkle-pickers, white shirt and bootlace tie. Dad and Grandad appear, followed by the Duchess and Uncle Bert, and finally all the posh aunties who haven’t set foot in Mum’s house for years: Ida, Barbara, Dorothy and Debora. I watch as two sisters help their seemingly distraught father indoors; Grandad knows how to play to an audience, even when it’s only the locals. I step aside and mutter a polite hello to the women who, despite my adoption, have always remained aunties to me, never siblings.

The Duchess comes in last and I know she’s hung back purposely to have a word with me.

‘Have you remembered to light a fire in the parlour, David?’

I nod my head.

She touches my arm. ‘Good lad.’ She gives me a searching look. ‘Are you all right?’

I open my mouth for a glib reply, then admit, ‘No, not really.’

She pats my arm gently, ‘I know . . . I understand.’ And I believe her.

I leave the rest of the family to settle themselves down. In the backyard I smoke a couple of cigarettes and tell myself, ‘This is Mum’s day. This is
my
mum’s day.’ When I return to the kitchen, our neighbours Mrs Barnes and Mrs Yates are busily arranging sandwiches, cakes and a fresh pot of tea on the table. Both ladies ask sympathetically how I’m bearing up and I tell them fine, thanks. I like Mrs Barnes a lot; she has a son just a few years older than me – a 100 per cent, straight-up, dyed-in-the-wool Ted. Not a thug, just a good old boy who knows how to dress to impress and loves his mum and the music. Decent people.

My nerves are starting to splinter, so I head upstairs for a leak before facing the gathering. Coming out of the bathroom, my feet move on instinct towards Mum’s room. I turn the white doorknob, but the door seems to open of its own accord anyway.

A deep silence fills the room like a presence. Throughout the house all the curtains have been drawn to mark our mourning, but in here I can still make out the furniture, pictures and ornaments as if sunlight floods the room. Everything is just as Mum left it, perfectly in place. Her double bed is neatly made with the ironed creases visible on the turned-down sheet. It feels as if she hasn’t rested her head on the pillows here for years, as if she’s passed this room eternally by to climb the second flight of stairs to where her beloved dead son waits. I stand before her dressing table and gaze at my reflection unseeingly. I feel very young and very small. My hands hover over the surface of the dressing table. It’s crowded with fancy containers of every shape and size, all positioned very precisely; the essential female accoutrements that are forever a mystery to men.

I lift a small but surprisingly heavy box. A very noble swan has been hand-painted on the ice-blue porcelain lid. Inside is a fine, pale brown powder. When I hold it to my nose, the gentle smell stirs forgotten memories, and I rub a fingernail of dust over my cheekbones, near my nose. I rub so hard that my skin burns as the powder sinks into my complexion, leaving only its scent. I breathe in deeply and sense that Mum is near, very near.

The rising murmur of conversation from the floor below disturbs me. I put the box back among its companions and go swiftly downstairs. Outside the parlour, I pause: that door has never been left open as long as I can remember. Today it’s slightly ajar and I glimpse relations through a haze of cigarette smoke. The latch that I used to lift while standing tiptoe on a chair is well within my reach now; I push the door and close it behind me again.

All the chairs are taken, so I lean against a wall, fumbling for my cigarettes, and stand quietly alone, thinking, ‘This isn’t right, it’s all
wrong
, everyone shut up and stop ruining my memories. This is
my
world, mine and Mum’s, our special room, this is where I come from, so shut the fuck
up
.’

I force the tension to pass, holding the smoke in my mouth and putting a finger against my cheekbone to bring the fragrance of Mum’s powder out. Across the room, above the fireplace, hangs another of the many sepia photographs dotted about the house. I gaze at Mum and Grandad standing youthfully within the glass oval, sharing a loving look and surrounded by small, uncomfortable children in smart outfits. One little boy returns my stare more piercingly than the others. Frank is the only one missing from this gathering in the parlour. Or is he here? Unseen by any of us, but leaning against the wall in his khaki uniform, brown eyes watchful and knowing.

I
shouldn’t be here, I tell myself, lowering my eyes from his. I don’t want to be here. I notice Mum’s lovely gramophone being used as a drinks trolley, half-empty bottles of port and Harveys Bristol Cream forming sticky rings on its gleaming mahogany top.

The Duchess catches my eye from the opposite corner, where she sits with an empty glass. I mimic taking a drink myself while pointing at her, and she nods with a smile. So I leave the parlour, shutting the door quietly, and walk to the scullery, where several empty bottles have appeared on the table.

‘Fuck it,’ I tell myself, reaching behind the stove to grab a bottle of Guinness. I flick off the dust and the cobwebs, open the top, and take a half-pint glass from the table before returning to the parlour, where my aunties are clustered on the settee. I have to pass them at close quarters to reach the Duchess and decide on the spur of the moment to let the devil in me loose. Faking clumsiness, I stumble, grab the stockinged knee of the lady closest to me, giving it a bit of a squeeze and causing the women to fuss like hens.

Ignoring them, I hand the Duchess her Guinness and say loudly, ‘Mum left you a drink.’

The Duchess beams at me, then replies equally loudly, ‘Tell her thank you from me.’

Auntie Ida’s voice freezes the smile on my face: ‘David, love, be an angel and open that door for a bit of air. I can hardly get my breath in here.’