The Cobbler's Kids (23 page)

Sometimes she felt she wanted to throw in the sponge and do as they asked: take Benny out of grammar school and send him to work. They constantly argued about this, saying that if he wanted to better himself he should do it by going to night school.

Then, as she saw him poring over his books late into the evening, lost in a world that she couldn’t begin to understand, learning subjects that were completely beyond her comprehension, she knew she couldn’t do that.

She’d been bursting with pride when he’d passed his eleven-plus and she was still amazed by his ability and how he applied so much energy to learning.

Di Deverill took a special delight in needling Vera. Her caustic remarks about Benny and the fact that a boy who was as tall as his dad should still be going off to school every day, were her favourite ways of doing so.

‘Benny should leave school as soon as he’s fourteen and get a job. All this education stuff is a waste of time, in my opinion,’ she commented time and time again.

‘Then it’s a good thing we don’t have to take any notice of your opinion, isn’t it,’ Vera would tell her.

‘If you have a decent brain then you can always find a way of making a living,’ Di would argue, puffing out clouds of blue smoke.

Vera usually held her tongue when Di said this. She longed to ask her why she didn’t go out and get a job, instead of sitting there smoking like a chimney and scrounging off everyone else. Or ask if the reason she didn’t work was because she didn’t have a brain.

Whatever she said, Vera knew it would only start up a row between herself and her dad. Michael seemed to be on Di’s side no matter how much she criticised either of them, or what barbed remarks she made about their home or anything else.

She knew Di wanted to see Benny working in the shop alongside his father; that way, the shop could do more repairs and make more money. This would mean that Mike Quinn would have more time to take her out and about as well as more money to spend on her.

There had been a time when Vera had hoped that her father would tire of Di Deverill, or she of him. However, Di had become such a permanent fixture in their home over the past years that she’d given up even thinking about it.

Di and her father had established a routine that they both seemed to enjoy. They couldn’t get to the pub quick enough each evening. The minute they’d finished their meal they were off upstairs to get ready to go out. Her father would put on one of his expensive, well-tailored suits. Di would change into one of her flashy dresses and apply lashings of lipstick and powder to her face.

The fact that they were leaving her to clear the table and wash up, even though she’d been the one who’d had to cook the meal, never seemed to bother them at all, Vera thought bitterly. All Di’s promises to help were nothing more than hot air.

It was always chucking-out time before the pair of them arrived back home and, more often than not, they were completely drunk. Vera often wondered how her dad managed to work, he was so hung-over every morning.

Di always stayed in bed until mid-morning, but her father had to be up and get the shop open by eight o’clock so that people on their way to work could call in with their repairs.

Vera was concerned in case he had an accident of some kind when working with a hangover. It would be so easy for him to hammer his own fingers instead of the sole he was repairing, or swallow some of the tacks he held between his lips when he was working.

The regular bouts of drinking also made both her dad and Di more bad-tempered than ever. Because Vera was the one most likely to be around in the morning, and again in the evenings, she was the one who took the brunt of their carping, and she resented the constant disgruntled bullying she had to put up with all the time.

Benny spent his time either out doing deliveries or upstairs in his room doing homework. He had long ago given up trying to do any studying in the living room. Vera had bought a cheap little wooden desk and put it in his bedroom so that he could work up there in peace.

Sundays were the worst day of all, Vera reflected. The shop was closed, Di and her father usually had even worse hangovers than usual from their Saturday-night super binge. They either stayed in bed or sat in the living room nursing their heads and drinking copious cups of strong black coffee, which they expected her to make for them.

They found the noise and disturbance as Vera tried to catch up with the cleaning excruciating. As a result, the rows between the three of them became more and more intense.

Because she was tired, and frustrated by the direction her own life was taking, Vera no longer tried to keep the peace or even control her temper when the rows started.

Whenever her father began complaining about the noise or disruption she let fly.

‘If Di helped by doing her share of the housework throughout the week, or even tried to tidy up after herself, there would be no need for me to spend all day on Sunday scrubbing and polishing and cleaning,’ she pointed out forcibly.

When this happened, her dad would rise to Di’s defence. ‘We don’t want any lip from you, so keep your bloody opinions to yourself,’ he’d shout angrily.

‘Then tell Di to pull her weight. She doesn’t do much else, she doesn’t even help get the meals ready. You two turn this place into a pigsty.’

Usually the rows petered out before they could develop into anything more than an exchange of a few angry words. Vera knew they took very little notice of what she said, but she felt better for airing her grievances.

Over the years she’d accepted that their bedroom was a jumble of dirty clothes, discarded wherever they took them off. Sometimes she refused to clean their room, but in the end she usually capitulated knowing that Di wouldn’t do it, and she couldn’t bear to think of it being in such a state.

What infuriated her the most was coming home each evening and finding that the kitchen was piled up with all the dishes they’d used during the day whilst she was out at work.

It was on Benny’s fourteenth birthday that a violent dispute broke out. It was unseasonably warm for September, as if a thunderstorm was brewing, and all of them were feeling irritable.

Benny was piqued that his dad hadn’t even wished him Happy Birthday. His only present had been a Brownie Box camera from Vera.

‘Put that bloody thing away,’ his father told him. ‘You’ve done nothing but point it and click that bloody shutter all day.’

‘It’s a camera, that’s what you do with them …’

‘Don’t you come that sarky stuff with me,’ Michael Quinn shouted. His head ached and the air was oppressive, even indoors.

Benny grinned and made for the stairs, intending to go to his room and get on with his homework. He paused on the third step, and, leaning on the balustrade, lifted the camera and pretended to take a snap of his dad who had followed him out into the passageway.

Michael’s arm shot out, catching Benny across the side of the head and knocking him off his feet. Benny slipped, lost his balance and came crashing back down the stairs; he ended up sprawled awkwardly on the ground.

Full of concern for his safety, Vera rushed to help him to his feet. She was tired and resented the way her father had ignored Benny’s birthday.

Angrily, she turned on her father, her blue eyes steely. ‘What are you playing at, trying to kill him, are you?’ she accused sardonically.

‘Shut your soddin’ gob and watch your bloody tongue!’ Michael Quinn exploded. He lunged at her, but she was too quick for him. She had dodged away before he could reach her.

The fact that he had turned on her enraged Vera. Years of anger and frustration suddenly boiled up and erupted.

‘You want to be on your guard, Di,’ she warned spitefully. ‘He killed our mam, you know! He pushed her down the stairs when he was in one of his rages. You want to watch out he doesn’t do the same to you.’

‘How dare you!’ Michael slapped Vera hard across the side of her face, leaving a vivid red mark.

‘You don’t like the truth, do you,’ Vera taunted, her eyes glistening with tears. ‘If you ever strike me again I’ll make you pay for it. It might be eight years since she died, but I could still go to the police and tell them what happened that day, you know!’

‘And do you think that for one moment they would bother to listen to your trumped-up lies,’ he sneered.

‘Oh they’d listen all right. I’d make sure of that. I can remember every detail of what took place that day and I have Eddy as a witness. If we told them about the way our mam died they’d arrest you and put you inside … or hang you for what you did!’

Michael Quinn laughed cruelly. ‘I wouldn’t count on that runt Eddy backing you up, he’s frightened of his own bloody shadow.’

‘Yes, and who made him like that?’ Vera retaliated. ‘Who taunted and bullied him when he was a little kid because he was small and puny? Whose fault is it that he’s left home because he can’t stand living here any longer? You’d treat Benny the same way as you did Eddy only he’s bigger than you!’

Vera looked at her father with contempt. She could see how upset he was by her outburst. A nervous tic was pulling at the corner of his mouth as he tried to control his rage.

Vera felt so drained of energy as she waited for him to attack her that she faced him without flinching. She knew it would be her own fault for goading him, but something inside her had snapped and she’d been unable to suppress the fury that she had bottled up for so long.

She was aware that Di was watching them both, her painted mouth open in shock as she heard the accusations and revelations.

Gritting her teeth, forcing herself not to say anything further that could make things worse, Vera waited for her father’s reaction. She felt angry, bitter and ashamed over the scene as she met his ferocious stare.

Clenching and unclenching his fists, he gave a growl that seemed to erupt from somewhere deep inside him, then turned on his heel and slammed out of the house.

It was as if time was standing still as the three of them – Benny, Vera and Di – stood staring after him in shocked silence.

Di was the first to speak. ‘What the hell was all that about?’ she demanded hoarsely, grabbing hold of Vera’s arm. ‘What did you mean about him killing your mother?’

Di Deverill’s mind was made up the moment the door slammed behind Michael Quinn. She didn’t like what she’d just heard; she planned to be out of there before he returned. Di knew he had a violent temper, she’d seen the way he could turn on his kids, but hitting out at a grown woman, especially his wife, was something else, and she had no intention of finding out the hard way whether or not it was true.

She’d thought she was onto a good thing, but like most things in her life it had all fallen apart when she least expected it.

She’d had a good run for her money, she’d been shacked up with Mike Quinn longer than she’d been with any other man since her marriage had ended when she was twenty-six.

That hadn’t been her fault. Danny Deverill had been killed in action right at the end of the war. She’d been more annoyed than upset by the news. Then she felt relieved that they’d had no kids, so to all effects she was free again.

She’d looked round for another husband, but so many of the men of her generation had been killed in battle that she found herself competing with dozens of other women all looking for a man they could call their own. In the end she’d resigned herself to staying single and having as good a time as she could.

Throughout the war she’d been working in a munitions factory, but once the war ended so did her job. Many of the men coming home again were prepared to take on any kind of work they could get, no matter how measly the pay. Woman were left on the scrap heap, unless they were prepared to skivvy, and she’d never taken to housework of any kind.

Immediately after the war ended she’d done a stint in the biscuit factory in Scotland Road, but that was shift work and got in the way of her enjoying herself. She tried shop work, but she didn’t like that, because the customers were uppity bitches who spoke to her as if she was dirt. Then she worked as a cleaner at offices near the docks, but that was too much like housework. What was more, it meant turning out very early in the morning or working late in the evening, so she soon packed that in.

The best jobs she’d had, and the ones she liked best, were in pubs. The trouble was she never lasted very long as a barmaid because she was too fond of a tipple herself, and most of the landlords objected to seeing their profits going down her throat.

It was through working as a barmaid that she’d got to know about Michael Quinn. At first she’d thought he was following her from one pub to the next each time she changed jobs. Then she realised that he was a man who liked to drink in four or five different pubs each night.

Once she’d established that fact, and realised he had the money to indulge his hobby, she’d taken a special interest in finding out all about him.

The fact that he had a home and a business of his own, and no wife to keep tabs on him, made her even more inquisitive.

She’d been discreet and taken it slowly, determined to worm her way into his confidence and not rush at things, like a bull at a gate, as she so often did. She wanted more than a few drinks or ciggies out of their relationship. She was no chicken, either, she was looking for a comfortable nest. She wanted her feet under his table so that he was not only paying for her booze, but feeding and clothing her as well.

Finding a way to make him notice her was the problem. For a man in his mid-forties he was in good fettle. He was tall, broad-shouldered and good-looking in a craggy sort of way. There was only a sprinkle of grey in his jet-black curly hair, and even though he was a steady boozer his blue eyes were bright and clear. He dressed smartly, so when she’d first spotted him she’d thought he was probably a manager of some sort. His cronies were all hard-drinking men like himself. She never saw him in the company of a woman.

By keeping her ears open she’d managed to pick up a good many nuggets of gossip about him and his family. She’d stored them away in her mind in the hope that sooner or later she’d be able to use them in some way.