Goodnight Lady (85 page)

‘Oh shut up Bri, I feel sick as a dog!’

‘Well why didn’t you stay in the clinic then?’ You’ve been home a week and you haven’t stopped moaning!’

‘You know why. I wouldn’t leave that Marcus for longer than five minutes. You know what he’s like.’

Briony didn’t laugh, as usual, but said seriously, ‘Is he still batting away from home then?’

‘Not that I know of, but I won’t give the bugger a chance. They’re all the same, men - a flash of teeth, a pair of tits and they’re undone.’

Briony’s voice was cold. ‘Not all men are like that.’

Bernadette laughed softly. ‘Ain’t they? Then why have you built a fortune on your houses? Most men play the field; it’s just some are cleverer than others. As for my Marcus, even Pan’s People on the telly have him riveted to his seat! I tell you what, if dick was brains he’d been another Magnus Pike!’

‘Tommy wouldn’t do it to me.’

Bernadette took the flannel off her forehead and raised herself gently on her shoulders. ‘Who said anything about Tommy?’

Briony shrugged. ‘No one, I’m just saying he wouldn’t do it to me, that’s all.’

‘Well,’ Bernie said grudgingly, ‘he seems all right. I mean you think about it, Bri, he’s no children, nothing, has he? He gave up a lot for you if you could only see it. That man’s a diamond and you’ve never really appreciated that fact.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go through all you do, no man’s worth that pain.’

Bernie grinned painfully. ‘In another week, I’ll look the dog’s gonads, as Boysie used to say. Then it’ll all have been worth it.’

‘Boysie also used to say that one day you’d come out of the clinic with a beard and your belly button on your forehead!’

Bernadette sighed heavily. ‘I thought you was going to cheer me up! Instead you’re sitting there taking the piss!’

Marcus walked into the room and saved Briony from answering. ‘Cissy’s just rang, your Mum’s up and looking for you, Bri.’

Briony stood up and, saying goodbye to a subdued Bernadette, she walked down the stairs with Marcus. ‘Can I ask you something personal, Marcus?’

‘Course you can.’

‘Do you still play around?’

Marcus laughed and the laugh turned into a heavy smoker’s cough. ‘Chance would be a fine thing! I ask you, Briony, at my age?’

Briony smiled and left the house. She was taking her mother to church and she quickened her step. She was looking forward to Mass this afternoon.

 

‘Are you sure you’re not coming, Tommy? Only your name’s on the visiting order as well. This is the second visit you’ve missed this month.’

‘Honestly, Bri, I feel rough, the ferry crossing will knacker me. You go with Delia and give Danny my best.’

‘All right then. I’m picking Delia up on me way. See you later if you’re in!’

With that she marched from the house and got into her car, wheelspinning it out of the drive. Tommy shook his head and Cissy tutted. ‘You’re heading for a fall trying to get one over on her, Tommy Lane.’

‘Be fair, Cissy, it’ll be the first time ever if I do! Did it ever occur to you that I might want a bit more out of life than what I’ve got? That I might want a woman who belongs with me, who has my name?’

‘Well, it’s not bothered you up to now has it? Christ, you and Briony have been an item for the last five decades, that’s longer than most marriages!’

‘Yeah well maybe it’s not enough!’

‘She’ll go spare.’

‘Well, we’ll see about that won’t we.’

 

Delia was quiet, watching the other people on the ferry. The children laughing and joking around. The women in their catalogue coats and home perms calling them to order.

‘Have you seen anything of Faithey?’

Delia nodded. ‘Yeah, I popped round yesterday. Me Dad’s been looking after her while me Mum had her op. Honestly, Auntie Briony, my Mum’s embarrassing. She looks better than I do!’

Briony looked her niece over from head to foot and said scathingly, ‘Cissy looks better than you do. You could at least have made an effort. You’re getting enormous again!’

Delia looked out of the ferry window, took a deep breath and said, ‘That’s because I’m pregnant again.’

‘You’re what!’

‘Four months. I’ve got to tell me Mum.’

‘Who’s the father this time?’

‘Ray Stockyard. He wants to marry me.’

‘Oh he does, does he? And what does this Ray do? Another drug pusher is he?’

‘He’s unemployed. Look I ain’t happy about this either, but I can’t have another abortion, the doctor’s already told me that.’

Briony shook her head sadly. Give her a good honest working girl any day of the week, rather than this fat individual beside her.

‘I don’t know what’s happened to this family. Boysie’s dead, Danny’s banged up, and now on top of it all you’re pregnant. One child with your mother because you couldn’t look after her, and now this! Another poor innocent on the way. I hope you’ve knocked the drugs on the head, girl. If you harm that baby I’ll murder you.’

They were quiet for the remainder of the journey. Briony had enough on her plate with Tommy’s erratic behaviour and Suzy’s attitude towards her. It seemed trouble was determined to dog her family and she was getting too old for it.

 

Molly and Briony were sitting by the fire. Molly was drinking her habitual hot rum toddy and Briony was nursing a scotch.

‘Where’s Tommy tonight?’

‘He popped out, he said he won’t be long.’ Briony glanced at the long case clock as it chimed the hour. It was eight o’clock and he’d been gone over two hours.

‘Sure he’s never in these days! How’s Bernadette now?’

Briony shrugged. ‘Over the shock. The boyfriend’s another of the great unwashed. Marcus went garrity. Honestly, Mum, I don’t know what happened with all the kids.’

Molly laughed. ‘Every parent says that at some time. Get the telly on, I don’t want to miss Kerry.’

Briony got up and switched the television on.

Molly sighed with contentment. ‘I love Morecambe and Wise. Kerry said she’d get me their autographs!’

Briony heard Tommy’s key in the door twenty minutes later and went out to the hall. ‘You’re back then?’

Tommy laughed. ‘I am! Now how about making me a scotch and soda, I could do with one.’

‘Tommy, where have you been?’

Tommy slipped his coat off and grinned. ‘I’ve been out, Briony, with a mate. Now are you going to interrogate me or are you going to let me in to watch Kerry on Morecambe and Wise?’

Briony stood her ground. ‘I want to know where you’ve been Thomas Lane and I want to know now!’

‘I just told you, Briony, I’ve been out! You’re sounding more like a wife every day. What’s it you’ve always said? You don’t want to be married, you don’t need a piece of paper to prove to the world who you are with... Marriage is outdated... So stop sounding like a harping wife and let me in to watch Kerry. I came back especially to see her.’ He pushed her gently out of the way and went into the lounge.

‘Hello Molly, love. Have I missed her?’

‘No, Tom. She’s not been on yet.’

‘Good, want a refill Moll?’

Briony stood in the hallway and felt an urge to cry. She walked slowly upstairs and went into her bedroom. All her life Tommy had been there as and when she wanted him, now all of a sudden she wasn’t sure of him. She felt a subtle shifting in position. It occurred to her that she needed Tommy Lane a lot more than he needed her.

It was a frightening thought.

 

Kerry’s voice was loud. ‘Will you hurry up, Briony, Liselle will be here in a minute to pick us up.’

‘All right, Kerry, keep your hair on. I don’t see why you want me there anyway!’

Kerry rolled her eyes at the ceiling. ‘Let’s not start all that again, please! You know how nervous I am when I’m doing TV. We’ll be in and out in no time.’

Briony brushed her hair, looking at herself critically in the mirror.

‘You look lovely Briony.’ The two sisters smiled at one another.

‘I don’t know why you’re so worried about how I look, you’re the one going on telly!’

‘Quick, put your hat on, I can hear Lissy sounding the horn.’

Briony pushed her hat on her head and they rushed down the stairs.

Inside the car Lissy smiled. ‘You two look lovely.’ She pulled out of the drive. ‘That Delia’s a cow isn’t she? You know Bernie’s taking on this child as well?’

Briony nodded. ‘In fairness to Bernie, as silly as she can be, she looks after Faithey brilliantly. If Delia was my daughter I’d have got her done with the cat!’

Liselle laughed. ‘Delia’s all right really, she’s just a bit scatty.’

Briony sighed heavily. ‘I don’t know where we got her from. Look at Becky, she’s all right and they come from the same stable... Hold on, you’re going towards Barking!’

‘I promised Gran and Cissy I’d pick them up from Mass first.’

‘You’re cutting it a bit fine ain’t you?’

‘Stop worrying, we’ve all the time in the world.’

As they approached St Vincent’s church, Briony looked at Kerry and said, ‘What’s going on here today? Look at all these cars.’

They pulled up in a space right outside the church.

‘There’s Tommy!’ Briony got out and stared at the people outside the church, all dressed in their Sunday best. Mariah was there, her mother and sisters, nieces, Cissy, crying as usual. She saw women who had worked for her years before, bouncers from her clubs. Bessie Knight and the Velvetones. Even Jonathan La Billière was there, with his usual posse of press photographers. It was as if her whole life had risen up before her eyes.

Tommy walked towards her and grinned. ‘You got here then?’

Liselle opened the boot of her Daimler and took out a posy of flowers. She gave them to Briony and kissed her on the cheek.

Briony stared down at the flowers and opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out.

‘For once in your life, you’re lost for words!’ Taking her none too gently by the arm he led her towards the church.

Briony staggered along beside him, looking at the sea of faces around her, all smiling and laughing. As she walked into the lobby of the church, Benedict was waiting for her. He held out an arm.

‘I’m going to give you away, Mother.’

Tommy brought a black velvet box from his pocket, took out the choker he had bought her years before and tied it gently around her throat.

‘I hope you’re not going to say “I won’t”, Bri. This little lot was murder to arrange and cost a small fortune.’ She looked up into his face and saw the uncertainty there. She shook her head.

‘I can’t wait to become Mrs Thomas Lane. Let’s do it!’ She walked proudly down the aisle on her son’s arm, her face glowing with happiness.

At sixty-five years old she finally understood what life was all about.

 

Tommy kissed her gently on the lips. ‘I love you Bri.’

Briony snuggled into him in the warmth of the bed. ‘I love you, too, only I never realised how much.’

He cupped her breast gently and Briony slapped his hand away. ‘Do you mind Tommy Lane? I’m a respectable married woman now!’

Tommy laughed out loud. ‘I was really scared you know, Briony. I thought, if she knocks me back now, in front of everyone...’

Briony looked up into his face. ‘I thought you had someone else, I did.’

‘I know, I let you think it and all. Be fair, Bri, you’ve never let me look after you really, have you? And I wanted to. I admit that over the years I stepped in to help you, but without you knowing about it. You’re a hard woman to love, Bri, you are so self possessed, so strong! It’s like living with a bloke at times!’

Briony kissed his chest. ‘After all the trouble with the boys, my Boysie dying, Danny going away, I realised that I needed you more than anything. No matter what’s happened in the past, we have had each other. If that’s what marriage is, then I want it.’

Tommy kissed her again.

‘How did you arrange it all without me guessing?’

‘You can thank Mariah, Cissy and the whole family for that. It was hard I can tell you.’

‘Well, I’m glad you did. I think it was the nicest thing that ever happened to me.’

Tommy pulled her tightly to him and said, ‘Come here, wife!’

Briony started laughing. ‘You’ve called me a few things over the years, but I never thought to hear you call me that!’

They both laughed.

‘You realise one thing though, Thomas Lane: you got me by default!’

‘How’d you make that out?’

‘I was in shock!’

‘You’ll be in shock in a minute if you don’t stop rabbiting. Now get your nightdress off!’

‘Respectable married women sleep with their nighties on!’

Tommy laughed throatily. ‘Not in this bleeding house they don’t.’

Kerry stood waiting to be announced, feeling the euphoria induced by vodka fighting with her nervousness. She could hear the muted sounds of conversation coming from the audience. She felt Liselle take hold of her and squeezed her daughter’s hand gently.

‘All right, Mum?’

Kerry nodded, unable to form any words. It was always like this until she walked out into the lights, to the sound of the music. Then something took her over. Something came down over her mind and wiped away the nervousness, the fear, leaving a feeling of peace and a desire just to make the audience enjoy themselves, enjoy her. Tonight, though, it was more acute than it had ever been. She had travelled a long way to do this show and she was glad, in a funny sort of way, to be doing it now after all the events of the last year. It seemed right somehow. Right and fitting.

It was Briony who had told her to go, who had made her realise that they were getting too old to nurse grudges for any length of time. They were old and wise enough, surely, to chase their own ghosts?