‘I’m sorry, lass. For all of it I’m heart sorry. It don’t mean nowt now but I’d give me two legs an’ two arms if it would turn back the clock.’ He waited for her to say something and when she continued to stare at him, he said gruffly, ‘You go then and, like I said, I’ll sort it.’
Abby nodded. If it wasn’t for the fact that another two lives were going to be ruined by this man she would have found it in her heart at that moment to speak kindly to him. He seemed so lost, pathetic. But Clara was going to receive a blow she might never fully recover from and all because of his weakness. His weakness and her mother’s wickedness. ‘Goodbye,’ she said again, and turned and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-nine
W
hen Ivor re-entered the kitchen he stood for a moment looking about him with the air of a man who was confused, but in fact this was not the case. For the first time since his wife’s death his brain was working clearly and without the befuddlement of self-pity and grief, but the thoughts filling it were of such magnitude he wasn’t conscious of his surroundings.
He stood where he was for a good ten minutes. Then with a long-drawn-out ‘Ahhh’ of a sigh he sat down. There were some hours to go and he couldn’t rush this. The timing had to be perfect. But that was all right, he had it all sorted in his head now.
He hadn’t mentioned to Abby that Jed and Clara had told him they were going out for the day and that Jed was going to drive her home rather than Clara catching the train with her sister. Clara was going to leave a message at the hotel for Abby, and it would make no difference to Abby that Jed would be back here late tonight. She would assume he’d tell Jed then. But he had no intention of telling Jed anything.
He reached for the cup of tea he’d just made for himself when he’d heard the knock at the door and drank it down although it was stone cold. He’d known she’d come. He replaced the cup on its saucer and relaxed back in the chair. Aye, he’d known she’d be in a two and eight about her sister. Abby loved her, that was the thing, which was how sisters were supposed to feel about each other. He glanced towards the wall which divided number twelve and number fourteen, and as though he could see Nora in front of him his eyes narrowed with loathing. He wouldn’t let that fiend destroy any more lives. He loved his lad, and if Jed wanted Clara he would have her. With that one taken out of the way, Abby wouldn’t say anything, he was sure of it. She loved Clara, she’d want her to be happy.
He cooked himself egg, bacon and tomatoes for his Sunday dinner, ignoring the piece of topside he’d bought for himself and Jed the day before. Egg, bacon and tomatoes was his favourite meal and today he wanted to enjoy it. It would be the last food he would ever taste so it might as well be something to set his taste buds going. In the old days Audrey used to cook it for him after steeping the tomatoes in sugar and that had been right handsome. He didn’t let his mind dwell on his wife; the loss of her was still so crucifyingly painful it would sap his energy. Instead he turned the wireless on, listening to
Two-Way Family Favourites
, a programme where families at home kept in touch with servicemen and women abroad by way of record requests. Later in the afternoon there was
Life of Bliss
with George Cole, and he made a fresh pot of tea and opened a packet of chocolate digestives for this.
When the programme had finished he rose from where he’d been sitting with his feet up on another chair and walked through to the front room. Opening what Audrey had grandly called ‘the cocktail cabinet’ when she’d had the room done up, he extracted a bottle of good whisky. This had been a present from Len and his family at Christmas but he hadn’t touched it. With this in his hand he mounted the stairs to his bedroom where his sleeping tablets sat on the cabinet by the bed.
Downstairs again, he placed the whisky and bottle of tablets on the kitchen table before fetching a bowl and Audrey’s rolling pin from the cupboard. The bottle of tablets was full, as luck would have it; he’d only fetched a new prescription Friday morning. He emptied all the tablets into the bowl and then proceeded to grind them to a fine powder with the rolling pin. It didn’t take long but he continued for some minutes just to make sure no tiny lumps remained. When he was satisfied with the texture, he fetched the big poppy-patterned water jug from the dresser and emptied the whisky and powdered tablets into it. It took some time to make sure no remnants of the fine powder floated but eventually it was done.
He tipped most of the liquid back into the bottle, leaving just enough to fill one of the two small glasses he fetched from the dresser. He washed the bowl, rolling pin and jug and put them away, and then found some writing paper and a pencil. The note was brief and to the point.
We’ve both had enough in our own ways and decided this was a comfortable way out once we’d made our peace with each other. Don’t grieve because this is what we wanted. Be happy, bairns, and live life to the full.
He did not sign it.
Ivor sat staring at the writing for a while before rising from the table and walking through to the front room. He propped the note beside the clock where it would be seen immediately by anyone entering the room. It was done. He expelled his breath through his nose. Now all he had to do was persuade Nora to come and have a drink with him once Wilbert and Lucy had left for six o’clock Mass.
He stood behind the net curtains in the front room as the minutes ticked by, and when Lucy and Wilbert’s front door opened and they stepped out onto the pavement, he heaved a sigh of relief. Lucy never missed Mass on a Sunday evening but he’d been worried this one Sunday might be an exception, and it was essential they weren’t around. He knew they had fought tooth and nail to keep Nora off the drink as much as they could the last few years; they wouldn’t have appreciated him calling round with a bottle of the hard stuff.
He waited another two minutes and then walked through the house to the backyard with the bottle of whisky in his hand. When he knocked on Wilbert’s back door he thought for a minute Nora wasn’t going to move her backside and come to see who it was, but eventually he heard her shambling footsteps and then the door was opened. ‘Hello, Nora.’ Her mouth fell open for a moment, showing the brown teeth in the receding gums. He hadn’t stared her in the face since the day of Audrey’s funeral and then he had thought she looked like an old, old woman. Now, with her hair unkempt and wearing a stained cardigan, she didn’t look as though she’d changed for a week, she looked worse.
‘They’re out so you can sling your hook.’
She’d recovered quickly but that was Nora. ‘Aye, I thought they might be. That’s why I popped round with this.’ He held up the bottle which he’d been holding behind his back. ‘Fancy a glass or two?’
‘
You’re
asking
me
?’ The hard eyes narrowed. ‘What’s your game?’
He had expected this and decided she wouldn’t accept he’d had a massive change of heart. His voice flat, he said, ‘I don’t want to drink alone and you’re better than no company at all. Jed’s out like he is most of the time now, ungrateful so an’ so. You bring ’em up and sacrifice your own life and what do you get? Sweet nowt, that’s what.’
‘Feelin’ sorry for yourself, are you? ’Bout time you got a shot of your own medicine.’
He couldn’t appear too eager or she’d smell a rat. ‘Oh well, if that’s how you feel I’ll drink alone.’ He had seen the way her eyes had fastened greedily on the bottle in his hand.
He made to turn and had actually stepped away from the door when she said, ‘No need to be like that,’ and as he watched, her tongue came out and licked her bottom lip. ‘Wilbert and her don’t keep any drink in the house. Mean as muck, the pair of ’em.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s been all that’s kept me going the last months.’ He wondered if she would believe the lie. She might be feeble in her body but her brain was as sharp as it had ever been, from what he could make out. The drink hadn’t made any difference there.
It was clear she did believe it. He saw her glance back into the house and now her voice held a touch of conspiracy as she said, her gaze on the bottle, ‘They always come straight back after church so if you’re coming in you’d better get a move on.’
He stepped into the kitchen. Then he forced a slightly uneasy note into his voice. ‘You say they don’t keep no drink in the house? Look, I don’t want to get on the wrong side of Wilbert. How about you come round to mine and we’ll have a drink there? They can’t object to that. A man’s allowed to have a drop in his own house. When they come back you can nip out and say you just had the one with me.’
Nora looked at him. A leopard doesn’t change its spots, she thought, and asked herself the reason for this sudden visit. She had no illusions that any spark of feeling for her remained in Ivor unless it was dislike, and for him she felt resentment and deep bitterness. He had used her and then treated her worse than any dockside dolly, she told herself, and never so much as a word of remorse, but the bottle was full and a right good make. Quality stuff. And she hadn’t had a drop in weeks. Likely it was what he’d said, he didn’t want to drink alone, the big galoot. Weak as dishwater, he was, always had been. And to think she’d let him walk all over her. Still, she wouldn’t cut off her nose to spite her face. Decision made, she said, ‘I’ll come round for half an hour, no longer. Then I can be here for when they get back and no one’s the wiser.’
‘Whatever.’ Ivor kept his voice offhand as though he didn’t care much one way or the other. He turned and made his way back to his own house, and Nora followed.
In the kitchen he watched as she looked about her before plonking herself down at the kitchen table and glancing at the two glasses. ‘Sure of yourself, weren’t you?’ she said, and then, ‘How many have you had before you came round to me?’
‘A few.’ Ivor picked up the glass with the whisky in it and swallowed it, before refilling both to the brim and passing one to her. ‘Funny after all that’s happened that we should be sitting here like this,’ he said quietly, switching on the wireless.
Nora gulped at the whisky as though it was water, and when she put the glass down again it was empty. She smacked her lips. ‘Funny aftertaste, isn’t there?’ she said. ‘How long have you had it opened?’
‘Nowt wrong with it as far as I can tell.’ He picked the bottle up as though to examine the label. ‘Good stuff, this is, and that’s probably the trouble. You’re likely used to rubbish. Still, if you don’t want a refill . . .’
‘I didn’t say that.’ She pushed her glass towards him. She took another deep drink when he had filled the glass and then relaxed back in her chair with a sigh. ‘By, I needed that. Treat me like a bairn, them two next door, and her, she wouldn’t give you the drips off her nose.’
‘Lucy? I thought she seemed a nice enough lass.’
‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you? You’re a man. Oh, she knows how to turn on the charm all right but I live with her. She’s turned Wilbert against me and it was her who made the house dry. I know, I know. “It’s bad for you, Mam”.’ The mimicry was savage. ‘“Think of your liver”. Me liver. Who the hell cares about their liver when they get to our age, eh? You answer me that.’ Again the glass was emptied and when Ivor silently refilled it Nora did not object.
‘Never misses Mass of a Sunday,’ Nora went on, as though Lucy’s attendance at the church was a crime, ‘an’ Father Finlay thinks the sun shines out of her backside. Fooled him good and proper, she has. He’s not the man I thought he was.’
Ivor let her talk and as he listened to the list of complaints and grudges he caught a glimpse of Lucy’s life over the last years. Poor little lass, he thought. She won’t mourn this one’s passing, that’s for sure. There were them who had a good word for no one and then there was Nora in a class apart. He must have been stark staring mad all those years ago but then he hadn’t been thinking with his head in those days. All his reasoning had come from a lower part of his anatomy altogether. If he agreed with Nora on one thing it was that all men were fools.
When her speech became slurred the venom slowed down, and when Ivor got up and switched off the wireless, she lifted her head to stare at him out of bleary eyes. ‘Hey, I was listening to that.’ She tried to rise, presumably to turn the wireless on again, but fell back in her chair with a thud. ‘I always listen to the Palm Court Orchestra from the Grand on a Sunday.’
Should he tell her she was dead? She was still breathing but that was the last music she would ever hear in this world and he doubted there’d be much melody where she was going. But as he stared at the woman who had cursed his life he found the need to have the final word had left him. He was taking her life and his own, he was going to have enough to answer to God for. He would let her die peaceably.