Rosie liked his mother. Shane’s eyes slid over Annie’s broad back and his upper lip curled. He had often watched the pair of them having a crack in this very kitchen, but he was damned if he could understand the attraction. His mother was as coarse as any of the old fishwives down at the docks, she hadn’t a thread of refinement in the whole of her bloated body. By, he wouldn’t shed any tears the day he walked out of this filthy hole. But in the meantime, he might need her influence with Rosie, and it paid to keep her sweet.
His thoughts prompted him to walk across the kitchen to where his mother was standing stirring a big pot of thick rabbit stew hanging like a witch’s cauldron over the open fire from a massive hook which swung out from the grate and, forcing a jocular note into his voice, to say, ‘All right, arsey Annie, all right. Keep your pinny on, woman,’ as he slapped the well-padded backside.
‘Eee, you’re askin’ for it, lad, you are.’ But Annie was smiling as she turned to face her youngest son. ‘An’ someone gave it to you an’ all, didn’t they, lad,’ she added slyly, as she nodded at the black eye he had been sporting for days. She hadn’t believed his explanation that he had walked into a door.
Shane grinned back at her, his broad face open and innocent. He could handle his mam. All it ever took was a bit of effort and she was all over him. The thought wasn’t warming or even comfortable. It had ceased to be that a long time ago when he had started asking himself why she treated him differently to the others. Oh, she wasn’t aware of it maybe, and she would certainly deny it if it was put to her, but there was something - something he couldn’t put his finger on. It wasn’t favouritism, not in the normal sense anyway. He had seen that in other families where one of the parents, or both of them, made meat of one child and fish of all the others. No, this wasn’t that. It was almost as if - his mind struggled for a definition - as if she was
grateful
when he did or said things she would expect as par for the course from the others.
Oh, what was he griping about? He turned as he heard the others outside and made his way to the kitchen table as the back door opened. It gave him an edge, didn’t it, and that wasn’t to be sneezed at. He was just more canny than the rest, that’s what it was, he could sense things the other blockheads were too thick to notice. Like with Davey Connor, he’d known exactly how to make him squirm with that story about Rosie. Connor had been putty in his hands. And Rosie steering clear of him with this excuse about the wedding, he’d sort that. He’d go round and see her himself. With Connor out of the picture the road was clear. A feeling of power broadened his chest. Aye, there was no one standing between him and Rosie now.
Chapter Six
‘An’ who is it that’s askin’?’
Shane McLinnie at a hefty six foot was a good fifteen inches taller than Zachariah, but as he stood in the street looking down at the smaller man, who had one hand firmly on the half-open front door, it was Shane who dropped his eyes from the piercing blue gaze as he answered, ‘Me mam’s a friend of her mam’s. I’ve . . . a message for her.’
He was lying. Zachariah regarded the other man steadily and kept his voice even and pleasant when he said, ‘Aye, that’s as maybe, lad, but you understand with them bein’ women on their own I don’t allow no visitors upstairs. Don’t look too good to the neighbours an’ they’re nosier than most hereabouts.’ Zachariah had never cared about the opinion of his neighbours and he wasn’t about to start now, but he did care about Rosie, and there was something about this big strapping fellow in front of him he didn’t like. ‘Why don’t you give me the message an’ we’ll go from there, eh?’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘No? Personal like, is it?’
Zachariah saw his words register in the pale blue eyes and knew the other man was itching to knock him into next weekend - it was there in the flare of red under his cheekbones and the tightening of his wide mouth - but he also knew that with Rosie upstairs this big lad would hold his hand. He was after her, even the way he had said her name betrayed it, and she might have something to say on the matter if her landlord was duffed up. The thought amused him.
‘Aye, you could say that.’ It was Shane’s eyes that slid away again and he shifted from one foot to another before he said, ‘Well if I can’t go up you’d better call her to come down, hadn’t you?’
‘Aye, that might be possible if she’s not seein’ to the bairns. Why don’t you give me your name, lad, an’ we’ll go from there.’
Zachariah watched the other man hold on to his temper with some effort before he rapped out, ‘Shane McLinnie.’
‘Shane McLinnie.’ Zachariah moved his head slowly from side to side. ‘I don’t recall her mentionin’ the name.’
‘No?’
‘No. Right, I won’t be a minute.’ And the next followed through on his gut feel. ‘You don’t mind waitin’ out here, do you, lad, what with the neighbours an’ all.’ He shut the door before Shane had a chance to open his mouth and then stood for a moment staring at nothing before he turned for the stairs.
Once on the landing Zachariah knocked on the sitting-room door and asked to speak to Rosie away from the flapping ears of Jessie and the children, and by the time he had finished Rosie was standing with her fist pressed against her mouth, causing him to add, ‘What is it, lass? You in trouble of some kind?’
‘No, no, it’s just that . . .’ Rosie’s voice trailed away, before she said in a rush, ‘I hate him, Zachariah, he’s - he’s a horrible man.’
‘Oh aye?’ Zachariah sucked in his lips as his mind grappled with how to phrase the next question. ‘Has he bin botherin’ you, lass?’
Rosie didn’t answer him directly but said instead, ‘He used to live next door to us, his mother visited my mam today.’
Zachariah nodded. He had seen Jessie’s visitor and thought she seemed nice enough.
‘She’s lovely, Mrs McLinnie, but Shane . . . I think he’s always liked me but when my da and the lads were alive he didn’t do anything.’
‘An’ has he tried to do somethin’ since?’
Her face was all the answer he needed and Zachariah felt a murderous rage sweep over him that was quite at odds with his small stature. ‘You leave him to me, lass. I’ll--’
‘No, no.’ As Zachariah turned Rosie caught hold of his arm, her voice urgent. ‘No, I’ll see him, Zachariah. Please, I’d rather do that. And . . . and I shall just tell him to keep away.’
‘An’ you think he’ll listen?’
No, but if she started running away now she’d be running from Shane McLinnie all her life. ‘Yes, I’m sure he will.’
‘Well just remember I’ll be in me sittin’ room, an’ you shout if you need me, all right?’
‘All right, thank you.’
Rosie went down the stairs first, knowing instinctively that Zachariah wouldn’t want her to witness him bumping down on his rear end, and it was that same instinct that told her she had to convince Shane McLinnie, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that she didn’t want anything to do with him. If she didn’t, if she wasn’t strong enough now, he would continue to pester her and lie in wait and she wouldn’t know a moment’s peace. She didn’t know how she had come by the gut knowledge but it was there, along with the fact that he was dangerous, at least where she was concerned.
Once Zachariah was in his sitting room and the door had closed, Rosie took several deep breaths, her heart thudding and her stomach sick, and then she straightened her shoulders, pulling open the door with a determined flourish. ‘Yes?’ He was there in front of her at the bottom of the steps and such was his height that his eyeline was still above hers. ‘Is anything wrong, Shane?’
‘Hallo, lass.’ His voice was soft, and now her heartbeat pumped her blood in gushing booms as she willed herself to stand still on legs that were threatening to shake. ‘How are you doin’?’
‘We’re fine, but I’m just heating some water to wash the bairns.’
He nodded, and then gestured with his head towards the dark hall behind her. ‘Aren’t you goin’ to ask me in for a minute?’
‘Mr Price doesn’t like visitors.’
‘That’s not what me mam said this evenin’.’ He smiled but it was only a movement of his mouth. ‘She said he was a nice little man.’ He stressed the ‘little’, and there was the sort of laughter in his voice that invited her to join in his mockery.
‘He
is
a nice man.’ Rosie’s face was straight and her tone was cool enough to wipe his face clean of amusement.
‘Oh aye, but he only likes callers of the female variety, eh?’ She thought there was an innuendo in the words, but when he followed with, ‘He was tellin’ me he don’t like the neighbours to get the wrong idea,’ she decided she must have been mistaken. Nevertheless his stance had taken on an aggressiveness.
‘Shane, why have you come here?’ She hoped he’d soon go, she didn’t want him looking at her in that certain way he had that made her flesh creep.
‘I want you an’ your mam to come to Robert’s do, that’s all.’
‘My mam is coming, didn’t your mother tell you?’
‘You. I want you to come.’ His lips smiled again.
‘I can’t. I told your mother this morning.’ She wanted to shut the door on him but he would only come back some other time.
‘Aye, I know what you told me mam, but I’m sayin’
I
want you to come.’ And then, before she could do anything about it or react in any way at all he had brushed past her, quickly stepping into the hall and pushing the door shut with his foot as he jerked it out of her suddenly nerveless fingers.
Rosie remained pressed against the wall and she stared at him like a mesmerized rabbit, the force of his dark personality so real she could taste it, before she pushed her shoulders back and straightened as she said, ‘I want you to go right now. Zachariah doesn’t allow visitors at night.’
It was as if her mentioning the other man brought a new element into the proceedings, because now the thickness of his voice dropped to a lower pitch and he growled, ‘I don’t care what that pint-size gorilla does an’ don’t allow. I came here to see you.’
‘
No
.’ As he made to touch her she sprang to the side, her voice sharp. ‘You leave me alone, Shane McLinnie.’
‘I’ll never leave you alone.’ It wasn’t soft or persuasive as Rosie imagined a hopeful suitor might sound, but cold and threatening, as that other side of his persona - which was quite separate to his love for her - took over.
They stared at each other for a moment without speaking and then as Rosie fumbled for the latch on the door behind her without taking her eyes off his face, Shane lunged at her. Instinctively Rosie used Flora’s knee-jab on him and she put all her strength behind it.
She wasn’t aware of calling Zachariah’s name but she must have done, because the next moment Zachariah was out into the hall like a bullet out of a gun, a large piece of club-shaped wood in his right hand. ‘Out! Out of me house, you filthy scum.’
There was no way Shane could comply. He was doubled up, his head almost touching the floor as his hands cradled the bruised flesh between his legs. It was some moments before his head lifted and even then his back was still bent, but he answered as though Zachariah had spoken the second before. ‘I’ll go when I’m ready an’ I’ve things to sort out here first.’
‘You’ll go now.’
‘An’ you’ll make me?’ Shane asked with guttural contempt.
‘Aye, I will. Have you ever seen the damage one of these can do to a kneecap, eh? An’ I’m nearer to the object than most, as you may have noticed.’
‘Don’t make me laugh.’
‘Oh, it wouldn’t make you laugh, lad, not this. Scream maybe, writhe about a bit an’ moan most likely, but not laugh. I took a man out down near the docks once, Charlie Cullen, maybe you’ve heard of him? Nasty bit of work, old Charlie, an’ he thought I was an easy target, me bein’ a bit short, like. He had weeks in the infirmary to reflect on his mistake an’ I don’t recall him botherin’ me again,’ Zachariah said almost conversationally.
Shane stared at Zachariah, and Zachariah could almost hear the other man’s brain ticking over. It was clear the name Charlie Cullen meant something to him, and most folk who frequented the waterside had heard the story of a little fellow smashing one of Charlie’s legs to a pulp some years back. Even now Charlie walked with a stick but he was still mean enough to command considerable respect.
‘That was you?’ This was after a vibrating silence.
‘Aye, aye that was me,’ said Zachariah easily.
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘Only one way for me to prove it, lad, but I’m game if you are.’ Zachariah smiled cheerily, his small legs astride and his powerful arms held slightly away from his body. He seemed perfectly relaxed, indeed one could be forgiven for thinking he was enjoying himself, and as Rosie watched the scene unfolding in front of her she had the feeling she was involved in a modern day David and Goliath drama.