Evil Relations (12 page)

Open the parlour door and
leave
it open? Get some air into a room that’s never been sullied by fag ash and smoke, booze drunk and booze spilled?
No fucking way
, I think, but instead I nod, ‘Not a problem, Auntie Ida.’

I walk over to the door, open it and leave it ajar. I go into the hall and move towards the front door. It crosses my mind to turn back and shut the parlour door, fastening the latch to lock the lot of them in, but I place one foot determinedly in front of the other until I’m out into the street.

Somewhere deep within me I know that this will be the last time I ever see my family en masse, but the thought doesn’t slow me. It’s time to draw the curtain on my memories of that house and this street; I go on walking until home is out of sight and I’m on the traffic-congested thoroughfare of Stockport Road, its bland, busy pavements giving me the anonymity I crave.

I think I’ve said goodbye to Aked Street. But in a few short months I’ll return twice to seek refuge in the parlour again: first to pass an endless night grieving for my baby daughter and the second to find sanctuary following the savage murder of a boy my own age, from these same streets.

I wait for the bus, feeling as though I’ve finally left my childhood behind. On the top deck of the 109, I light a cigarette, rub my cheek again, and think of Maureen. She isn’t expecting me today, but I can’t wait to be with her. When I jump down from the bus, I have to fight the urge to run through the red warren of terraces, crowded corner shops, pubs and empty churches. The houses are so small you can almost hear what’s happening behind each front door.

I reach Eaton Street and knock loudly, excited and breathless, happy to be back in the shit hole where I now belong.

Nellie appears, unable to hide her surprise at seeing me.

I’m painfully aware of the daft grin plastered across my face as I ask, ‘Hello, Mrs Hindley, is Maureen home?’

Nellie knows it’s Mum’s funeral today and can tell from my expression that I’m not myself. ‘Is everything all right, David?’ she questions, then corrects herself: ‘Are
you
all right?’

I shuffle impatiently. ‘I’m fine, thanks, everything’s fine. I just need to see Maureen.’

Nellie frowns. ‘Well, she’s gone out somewhere. A couple of the girls called for her about an hour ago and they’ve gone for a walk.’

‘Right, thanks, Mrs Hindley. I’ll catch up with her. Bye.’

I know she’s watching me, arms folded Hindley-style, as I stroll down the street and turn the corner. Out of sight on Taylor Street I break into a desperate run.

It’s too early for the chip-shop meet, so I run along the main roads to Sivori’s. I know that’s where Maureen will be – she’s got to be, I tell myself. Stopping short of the cafe, I stand before a shop window to get my breath back, straightening the bootlace tie and taking the metal comb from the back pocket of my jeans to marshal my hair into an immaculate quiff. I give myself the once-over and like what I see, then pause deliberately before pushing open the door.

The pulsating rhythms of rock ’n’ roll and the reek of strong espresso hit me as I walk in, posing as usual, cool and moody:
the Image is Back
. Maureen sits with her gang of girls, eyes panda-black, cigarette dangling limply from her fingers in a way only she can make sexy. Before her is a small white cup with a lipstick smear, and below the table she taps her court shoes to Del Shannon’s latest hit.

Then she sees me and her smile lights up the cafe better than any jukebox neons.

She waves and I slouch over to sit among the girls. Leaning across, I kiss her softly on the cheek – something I’ve never done before. She reacts with obvious shock and her eyes spill concern. I listen with total lack of interest to the bubbly chatter of her friends while Buddy Holly raves on from the spinning black vinyl. I realise that Maureen has fallen silent and is watching me, her face serious and still. Something new is happening between us; I can feel it and know that she does, too.

I get up, needing to occupy myself, and feed coins into the jukebox, pressing the buttons before walking to an empty table and sitting with my back against the wall. I stare at Maureen and she returns my gaze, paying no attention to her giggling girlfriends. She’s listening to every line of the record I’ve chosen and after a minute excuses herself from the gang and walks towards me. The girls look across the tables knowingly, as she slides in next to me on the bench.

Her shoulder touches mine. I kiss her on the cheek again, while her friends turn tactfully away. She asks how my day has gone and I tell her it went all right for
them
, but I feel nothing now. The sadness has gone; I’m right where I want to be, close to the only person I want to be with, and we sit together talking about nothing in particular, drinking espresso until we’re wired, filling up the ashtray. We take it in turns to own the jukebox, letting Elvis speak for us. I feel Maureen’s leg against mine and her hand squeezing my hand, slipping her fingers through mine to lock us together. The girls glance over their shoulders, giggling again, but I don’t care and neither does Maureen. This is different from teenage passion in the back entries, where zips go down and skirts go up; we’re only holding hands, yet it feels more intimate and erotic than any knee-trembler we’ve ever shared.

Later when it’s dark the music stops, the coffee machines die with a splutter and the cafe empties. I leave Sivori’s with my arm around Maureen’s shoulder and her arm around my waist, gripping my studded belt.

We walk the full length of Taylor Street entwined together, rounding the corner into Eaton Street and ignoring the temptation of those shadowy back entries. Standing outside the Hindley house, with such lonely people existing miserably within, I kiss Maureen goodnight, softly, lingeringly. We don’t make a ‘date’ for tomorrow; we’ll be together every day from now on.

I return to the dim, silent house on Wiles Street, feeling more content than ever before about crossing the threshold. I wash in the usual biting cold water and go upstairs. Passing Dad’s empty bedroom, I open his door and turn on the light to give him something to aim for when he returns home smashed out of his mind. I’m glad to get to my own room, and drop with deliberate heaviness into bed, making the mattress springs groan. Crossing my ankles, I draw deeply on a cigarette and stare up at the ceiling, thinking back over the day.

This morning I lost someone for ever, but by the end of the afternoon I had someone else to love and I’m confident that she loves me, too. I shut my eyes calmly, picturing Maureen and ignoring the mountain of unhappy baggage that surrounds her in the form of her family.

June 1963
, I say out loud, letting the words drift on the dark, smoky air. I’m 15 and the summer is already hotter than any I can remember. It feels like a storm is building on these streets, pressing down on the huddled houses and approaching slowly from somewhere beyond the railway line. People, I think, people will be the problem. Not my dad – I can handle him, his moping and drinking – but someone from the Hindley side. Not Bob; he doesn’t give a fuck about anything. Nellie’s a handful at times, but if Maureen stands her ground we can wear her mother down.

Myra, then.

Myra is the threat, the ominous funnel of black air in an otherwise unclouded sky. I’ve seen how she conducts herself on the street and how she batters her dad; Myra will screw this thing up for us, one way or another. Everyone is aware that me and Maureen are a couple – Bob and Nellie tolerate me around their home, but once it’s clear that there’s more to us than just a bit of teenage misbehaving there are bound to be comments from the adults. That doesn’t bother me. What makes my stomach tighten with anxiety is the deeper shadow that falls across Maureen: her sister.

For no reason I can name, Myra’s new boyfriend comes into my head. I’ve only seen him two or three times, but it’s enough to sense that we won’t get on: he’s a smartly dressed, nerdy, snooty-looking Scot who’s arrived on our streets from nowhere. In my ignorance, I imagine Myra priming him for a mortgage and a couple of kids. I haven’t got a clue what’s inside that storm gathering over the city of Manchester this summer of ’63.

And so I lie there, on the lumpy tick-mattress, unsettled about Myra’s influence over Maureen. Tiredness overwhelms me and at last I shrug: so what, let the storm come. Against the odds, today has been a good day, so screw you, Myra Hindley.
Que Sera, Sera
. . . whatever will be, will be.

I finish my fag, flick out the light and fall asleep with a smile on my face.

After Annie’s death, there was speculation among the family about where David should live. His grandfather wasn’t involved in the discussions. David recalls: ‘I hated the man. He couldn’t have cared less about Mum: when the chap from the Cooperative came to sort out the life insurance, Grandad put on a gala performance, weeping and wailing, pretending to turn his head away. “Oh, it’s blood money,” he cried, then snapped his neck round to make sure a wad of notes was in the offing. “Just leave it there . . . I won’t touch a penny of it, it’s blood money – just leave it there, on the table, that’s right, in a neat pile . . .”’ David grits his teeth in disgust. ‘As soon as the insurance man left,
whoosh
, out shot Grandad’s hand and the money disappeared into his pocket.’

The possibility of a new home with Bert and the Duchess was mooted, but in the end David remained in Wiles Street with Jack. ‘Miss Jones, the landlady, moved out,’ he recalls. ‘She went to live in Chapel-en-le-Frith with her sister Martha. Dad took over the tenancy of number 13 and we carried on as before, just the two of us. I was never at home, though. I spent all my time with the Taylor Street Boys – Ferguson “Fergie” Lester, Paul and Tony O’Gorman, and a few other lads. We were a proper gang, though not as violent and territorial as gangs are today. But we got up to mischief all right, and there was a lot of rivalry with the Openshaw Boys, whose “manor” was on the north side of Ashton Old Road. We’d sneak into their pubs and hide razor blades in the soap in the Gents, and some of the boys wore Andy Capp hats with blades in the peaks, ready for a fight.’

One of the most notorious street battles occurred when the Openshaw Boys strayed onto forbidden turf to beat up Paul Cornwell (part of the Taylor Street gang) in front of his girlfriend at the Essoldo cinema. David gives a rueful grin: ‘Paul was a mate of mine. We all met up in Siv’s and decided to call in the “heavies” – the Deaf and Dumb Boys, who lived in Brooke House flats opposite Gorton library. It turned into a massive ruckus in Ashton Old Road. But there were lots of scraps like that. The police would escort us down the street in an attempt to stop aggro breaking out but as soon as their backs were turned we’d run up to the parked cars and rock ’em like hell to turn ’em over. I had an airgun as well, and once shot my mate Chris Hamnett in the leg when we were messing about on the croft. His mum used to complain about me to Granny Maybury.’

He’s quiet for a moment, remembering. ‘I was wild, but no more so than the rest of our crowd. And there was another side to me that only Maureen saw back then.’

* * *

This thing between us will never be love. That’s a word we’ll never share. Only years later with someone very different will the true meaning of that word become real to me. But the feeling between Maureen and me is genuine enough, in its own way.

For a while after Mum’s funeral everything is quiet. But the shift in my relationship with Maureen soon becomes clear to everyone. That’s when the trouble starts.

When I call for her, it’s a battle to get past the habitual folded arms and stony eyes of Nellie Hindley, but it’s even worse when Maureen calls for me. Dad hates virtually all women and can’t stand to see me happy with Maureen. When she turns up on the doorstep, he greets her with contempt and a wicked-sounding, ‘And what the fuck do
you
want?’ I shout at him for talking to her like that and he bawls back at me; she and I leave the house to a barrage of ‘fucking little bitch’ and ‘stupid cow’. Sometimes he flips his ace out after us: ‘You came out of a cunt and you’ve taken up with one.’ Maureen has to grab my collar then with all the strength she can muster, pulling me down the street as I spit venom over my shoulder.

This is the storm that worried me, but it’s not the one that’s about to break.

We spend our time strolling together through nearby Sunnybrow Park, with its neat paths and ponds. In Sivori’s, we’re no longer part of the gang but a young couple who need to be alone. There’s no frantic action up the back entries before saying goodnight any more; instead we cling and kiss until the clock calls us in.

One late June evening, I’m sat at home in Wiles Street waiting for Maureen. Dad slumps, sullen and seething, in his chair. The empty teatime plates are still on the table, food eaten in silence. When the knock comes at the door, we look at each other in united bafflement because that’s not Maureen; it’s a sharp, loud blow against the door that isn’t meant to be ignored.

I answer it and there she is: Myra Hindley, in fierce older sister mode, arms folded and make-up pristine, dressed for a night out but with a face you could weld iron on. A blonde anvil.

I prepare myself for a row as in a cold, quiet voice she tells me, ‘Get inside, this is private.’

I stand aside and she steps into the living room. Temper has drained the colour from her face even underneath the make-up, but she’s still perfectly in control. I purposely keep at least four feet between us, not wanting to feel her claws on my skin, and knowing that if it happens I’ll land out at her and we’ll end up punching the crap out of each other like two blokes.

When she speaks, it’s in a hard, deliberate monotone: ‘Maureen’s waiting for you on the corner. I’m here to lay down some fucking ground rules and, for your own good, you’d better mind yourself and listen for once.’ Seeing me start to protest, she jabs a finger towards my face: ‘Keep your mouth fucking shut.’