The Leaving Of Liverpool (27 page)

The entire area stank of urine and other disgusting odours, not surprising considering the unsanitary living conditions. The smell was even worse in summer. There were no bathrooms and the only running water came from a tap some distance away where there was usually a very long queue.

Anne’s boots made a crunching noise on the crisp, white grass as she made her way past the makeshift huts towards the Schultzes, the family she had befriended. Their home was a patchwork of scraps of wood and metal, old sacks and tarpaper. There was a partial wooden floor, the rest being covered with a tarpaulin and pieces of carpet. The door must have come from a shop because it was half-glazed and had the words ‘Watch the Step’ painted on the outside. She had no idea how the family managed to sleep comfortably on the assortment of chairs that were the only furniture, apart from a small table.

On Christmas morning, as Anne approached, a thin spiral of smoke emerged from the pipe that poked through the metal roof. The pipe was connected to a round iron fire that burned logs and kept the shack surprisingly warm if you managed to avoid the numerous draughts.

Mr Schultz, born in Germany, now an American citizen, was married with six young children. He had worked as a messenger for a bank that had closed down, and sometimes she wondered if it was the same one where Bobby Gifford, the man she’d found on a bench in the park, had worked. Mrs Schultz was a sad little woman with a bad chest. She found it harder to stand up to the privations of her present life than did her husband and children. Mr Schultz just laughed his way through it and the children were amazingly tough. They seemed to obtain a certain amount of enjoyment from their poverty-stricken life. It was through the eldest two, Gail and Vinny, who were twelve and ten respectively, that Anne had got to know the family. It was Hallowe’en and they were selling masks for a dime each that they’d made from black cardboard, but not doing very well. Anne had bought the lot for a dollar then gone with them to the drugstore to get medicine for their mother.

‘She coughs a lot,’ Gail explained.

Since then, Anne had often visited the family with food and clothes.

A tatty scrap of lace curtain hung over the glass in the door. Anne knocked and Mr Schultz let her in. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he roared, as if he were welcoming her into his baronial castle. ‘Come in, Miss Murray, come in.’ She must have asked him a dozen times to call her Anne.

The children flung themselves at her. She gave Gail the carrier bag and asked her to distribute the presents. ‘They’ve all got labels on.’ The basket she handed to Mrs Schultz, who could never quite hide the resentment in her eyes. ‘I don’t want charity,’ they seemed to say. ‘I want our apartment in East Village back. I want my husband to have a job and my children new clothes. I don’t want to spend Christmas in this awful place with people like you bringing us food when I’d sooner buy our own.’

Today, the woman was looking ill again. ‘Thank you,’ she said in a sullen voice when she’d looked through the food: candy, a Christmas pudding, and enough turkey and vegetables to feed eight. It would only need reheating later on top of the little round fire, the fumes from which were making Anne choke. Somehow, the place managed to be warm and cold at the same time. Draughts were sweeping up her coat, yet her face felt hot. She hoped she wasn’t getting another headache.

‘There’s a present for you, Ma,’ Gail shouted, ‘and one for Dad.’

‘It’s just scarves and gloves,’ Anne muttered. She didn’t like being Lady Bountiful: it made her feel embarrassed. Next time she had a parcel, she’d get someone else to bring it.

‘What do you say to Miss Murray?’ Mr Schultz raised his thick black eyebrows at the children. Having opened his own present, he was winding the brown knitted scarf around his neck as if to prove how appreciative he was. Mrs Schultz was shivering badly as she opened her own gift. Anne wished she’d brought something prettier; jewellery, for instance.

‘Thank you, Miss Murray,’ the children chorused. She’d bought dolls and clockwork cars for the younger children, a set of paints for Gail, who was very artistic, and, on the advice of Herbie, a knife with lots of blades for Vinny.

‘Would you care to sit down, Miss Murray, and take a cup of tea with us?’

She sat down, but refused the tea saying she’d prefer a cup of hot water. Although she longed to leave, she courteously sat in one of the chairs and waited for the kettle to boil.

 

‘Where’s your coat, miss?’ Eric enquired almost half an hour later when Anne returned to the car.

‘I gave it to Mrs Schultz; she was desperately cold.’

Eric tutted. ‘Now
you’re
desperately cold.’ He got out the car, took a rug out of the trunk and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘Do you still want to go to church?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘I’ll stop at the apartment and ask Christina for another coat,’ Eric said. ‘Or would you sooner collect it yourself?’

‘You do it for me, please.’ If Lizzie were up, Anne would have a job getting out again. Lizzie, who never went near a church, couldn’t understand the importance of going regularly to Mass. ‘How can it possibly be a sin to miss it?’ she would argue.

Eric drew up outside the apartment and returned a few minutes later with a red and white check coat. ‘Christina put a hat in one of the pockets,’ he said.

Anne put on the coat and pulled a little white beret out of a pocket. ‘Thank you, Eric,’ she said. ‘You and Christina are very thoughtful.’

‘Someone’s got to look after you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Going round, scattering money all over New York, giving your clothes away. Lord knows what you’re likely to do next.’

The city was coming to life. More people were walking through the park, the traffic had increased a little, but it would be nothing like a normal day. It was a complete contrast to yesterday, Christmas Eve, when the stores had been so busy there was hardly room to move and the streets had become clogged with traffic. Carols had competed with the impatient honking of horns to make the most noise. Today in Fifth Avenue, a few people window-shopped, but most were making their way towards St Patrick’s Cathedral for Mass.

Eric drew up outside the massive building with its Gothic spires and white marble façade. She told him there was no need to collect her, that she’d walk home.

He simply snorted. ‘It’s too cold to walk. Christina said you ain’t had so much as a cup of coffee yet. I’ll wait for you down Fifty-first Street.’

She thanked him. Walking home would have been a penance for vague sins she may, or may not, have committed. On entering the church, she dipped her fingers in the holy water and made the Sign of the Cross. She knelt at the back, feeling tiny and humbled by the vastness of the church, which smelled of incense and the Blood of Christ. Waves of pain were sweeping through her head, advancing and receding like an ocean tide, and it felt as if a hole was being bored in her skull next to her right eye.

She joined the queue for Communion, returning to her seat with the Host resting on her tongue, her throat too thick to swallow it. She worried she might choke.

Half an hour later, she was home, though she couldn’t remember having got there. Christina made some strong, sweet coffee, and Lizzie gave her an eye mask and rubbed lavender oil on her forehead to help with the pain. ‘Have you had your drops today?’ she enquired, and Anne assured her that she had. The shades drawn and the door closed, Anne lay on the bed, hoping the headache would have gone by it was time for the party.

In the kitchen, Christina was getting the dinner ready. Lizzie was setting the table, taking extra care with a floral display and silver cutlery because Ollie had invited some business friends and their wives. Ollie, who never went to bed until well into the small hours, was still asleep, and a bored Herbie, who’d been expecting Anne’s company that morning, was playing pool in his father’s den.

As so often happened when she was alone in the dark, when the only sounds were muffled and far away, Anne’s brain commenced a turbulent, dizzying journey, soaring like a bird over mountains and valleys, across oceans, and through forests. Sometimes, she would find herself in a familiar, though nameless, place, like a crowded church where there was a coffin covered with white flowers. She was the only one there who wasn’t crying because she knew the person in the coffin had gone straight to heaven and they would meet again one day. In another, much smaller place, a girl pushed a piece of paper in her hand and said, ‘
Hold on to this, darlin’
.’ Then she was on a boat and a little boy was clinging to her skirt, sobbing his heart out, but she had no idea how to comfort him. ‘
Where are you from, Miss Anne Muray?
’ asked a voice, but that was real: it was Lev and they were in a taxi. Her memory only stretched back that far. The other things might have happened or they might not. Anne tried not to think about them too deeply in case she remembered something she’d sooner not.

Her hand was taken and tucked inside a bigger, warmer one. She wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined. ‘Is someone there?’ she whispered.

‘It’s Lev, darling, come to wish you Merry Christmas.’

‘Lev!’ She tore the mask off her eyes and saw him smiling down at her. His thick, wavy hair was almost entirely grey and his brown eyes sparkled with affection. She wondered if he loved her as much as she did him. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you today,’ she cried, throwing her arms around his neck. ‘Is that the only reason you’re here, to wish me Merry Christmas?’

‘Well, no,’ he conceded. ‘I’ve something important to tell Ollie, but he’s still in bed, so I came to see you instead. Lizzie said you had a headache, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to just hold your hand. I’ve put your present under the tree: it’s a white kimono.’

‘I’ve always wanted a white kimono. Your present’s under the tree, too. It’s the latest William Faulkner novel.’

‘I look forward to reading it.’ He kissed the tip of her nose.

‘I was just thinking about the night I got into your taxi,’ she said. ‘Did I ask you to take me somewhere?’

‘No, darling. You just sat there without opening your mouth, refusing to answer my questions. I had no idea what to do with you, so I took you home to Tamara. I suppose I should have tried to find out who you belonged to, but you seemed quite happy to stay with us so I didn’t bother.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t.’

She appeared quite satisfied with his answer. There were times when Levon couldn’t get over the enormity of what he’d done, actually kidnapping her off the streets. Should his crime ever be discovered - and it
was
a crime, a serious one - then he would be put in prison and the key would be thrown away - Tamara, too. She’d been an accessory to the crime. Then there was the fact that they’d stolen Anne’s baby.

What he should have done was take Anne to Bleecker Street the following morning, taken her every day, if necessary, until there was someone in, and handed her over to the person who’d been expecting her all along.

But he and Tamara had been too excited at the notion they’d found a daughter to replace their dead one. It was as if fate had intervened on their behalf; Anne was meant for them and they for her. No one outside their little circle had mattered.

He wondered if her question meant that, after five years, she was suddenly interested in knowing where she came from, where she belonged, but she didn’t pursue the matter.

‘Can you stay for tonight’s party?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry, darling, but Tamara’s expecting me back for Christmas dinner. She was annoyed enough I missed breakfast, but I have this news for Ollie.’

In fact, Tamara had been as mad as hell. She seemed to expect him to be there every minute of every day when he wasn’t at work. The news for Ollie was important, but it could have waited a few more days. He’d felt the need to visit Manhattan - no, dammit, he’d wanted to see Anne. He really
had
come just to wish her a Merry Christmas.

She sat up. ‘My headache’s better,’ she said. ‘It’s seeing you that did it.’

‘Good.’ Pleased, he folded her small, cold hands inside his and saw a small amount of colour had come to her white cheeks. ‘I’ll see if Ollie’s up yet, then I suppose I’d better get back to Brooklyn.’ He sighed. He would far sooner have spent the day with the Blinkers. ‘I’ll come and see you before I go.’

 

Ollie was sitting behind the desk in his den wearing a gold brocade dressing gown over navy-blue silk pyjamas. He was smoking a long, fat cigar. His grey hair, normally so neat, stood out like a halo around his head. He’d put on weight with the years and the dressing gown didn’t quite meet around his waist. Considering how wealthy he was, Levon wondered why he hadn’t bought a new one.

‘Hey, there, Lev.’ He waved the cigar, creating a circle of white smoke. In contrast to the rest of the house with its pale furnishings and light walls, the dark wood panelling of the den belonged to a different era. Cosy, with old, well-worn furniture and a mixture of smells - cigars, liquor, the musky cologne Ollie used - it always made Levon yearn for a den of his own. Unlike Ollie, he wouldn’t have wanted a dartboard, a pinball machine, or a pool table, just a nice comfortable chair and a desk on which to spread out his books and not feel in the way. ‘What can I do for you, old chap?’ Ollie enquired.

Levon looked at Herbie, who was noisily playing pool at the other end of the room, and slightly shook his head.

Ollie took the hint and requested his son make himself scarce: ‘Me and Lev have got something confidential to talk about.’

Herbie rolled his eyes good-naturedly and did as he was told. He was a nice young man; Levon liked him enormously.

‘How’s that boy of yours?’ Ollie asked when his own boy had gone. He shoved the box of cigars in Levon’s directions, but he declined. He liked the smell of cigars, but if he smoked one he’d be sick for a week.