The Likes of Us (61 page)

‘Well, you just be careful driving.'

‘I will.' He turned at the door. ‘By the way, there's been a slight change in my plans.' Her eyes held his. He was the first to look away. ‘I have to entertain a customer. I shan't be in for dinner.'

 

From his office Jordan drove into the city centre and found a place to park. He went into a pub and drank two large whiskies then walked across the street to a cinema. He sat in an almost empty auditorium until he became slowly aware that what he was looking at on the screen was what he had seen when he first came in. Then he went out into streets upon which night had fallen and drove home.

The house was in darkness. He went about the ground floor, switching on lights, before going upstairs to her room. The wardrobe and drawers were empty of her belongings. The suitcase she had brought them in was gone too.

 

Nearly two weeks passed before Jordan brought himself to drive across the city to Birtmore Street. Time after time he had conjured up the image of her as she had come down the stairs towards him, drawing the wrap around her nakedness. Again and again he had analysed and reinterpreted the expression on her face as she had seen him. Slowly, over the days and nights, the idea grew in him that her look had been that of one who realises she has committed perhaps the greatest folly of her life. Only when this notion became fixed in him did his misery relax its paralysing grip. Only then did some lingering vestige of hope tell him that, in spite of everything, all might not yet be lost.

When he had struck a match by the dark glass of the door and rung what he took to be her bell, he tried once more to rehearse what he might say, and once more gave up the attempt. He did not know what he would say until he saw her reaction. Perhaps he would need to say very little. He wanted her back. She would know that when she saw him.

He rang again, making a slow count to five as his finger held the push. More than likely she was at the pub, working. He had thought of looking in there first, but balked at the prospect of meeting her again for the first time in public. But better that than not seeing her at all. There was no need for a fuss. His appearing would tell her and if there was in her anything at all of what he had imagined – no, known – she would make it in her way to have a private word.

The voice challenged him as he reached the gate. ‘Were you ringing my bell?' A girl stood in the now lighted doorway, a plump girl, as round as a bouncing ball. She took a couple of steps back into the hall as Jordan approached her. A deep lateral crease in her pale green T-shirt marked the division between belly and breasts. ‘What d'you want?'

‘I was hoping to see Mrs Nugent.'

‘You were ringing my bell.'

‘Sorry. I thought it was hers. Is she in, d'you know?'

‘Who did you say?'

‘Mrs Nugent.'

The girl's right hand had a firm hold on the edge of the door, as though she were ready to slam it on him.

‘I don't know anybody of that name.'

Do I look like a woman-killer? Jordan thought. And yet, what did a woman-killer look like? He kept a reassuring distance as he said, ‘She lives in the first floor back.'

‘She doesn't, you know,' the girl said. ‘That's where I live, as of yesterday. And I'd be out as of tomorrow, if I'd anywhere better to go. It's a right bloody dump.'

‘She can only just have moved,' Jordan said helplessly. ‘Are you sure you've not seen her?'

‘What name was it again?'

‘Nugent. Audrey Nugent. She was sometimes with a man called Harry. In his middle thirties, well built, dark curly hair.'

‘There's nobody like that here now, mister.'

‘Then I'm sorry to have troubled you.'

‘If you say so.' As the door began to close, she added, ‘Better luck next time.'

Jordan forced himself to enter the Royal Oak. It was busier than before and he had to wait to catch the landlord's eye.

‘You might remember me asking for Mrs Nugent some time back.'

‘Oh, yes?'

‘Does she still work here?'

‘Hasn't for some while now. I heard she'd gone to housekeep for a feller, somewhere the other side of town.'

‘You've no idea where I might find her now?'

‘Did you find her before?'

‘Yes.'

‘You shouldn't have lost her again, then. Scotch, wasn't it?'

‘No, thanks,' Jordan said. ‘So you've no idea where she is?'

‘None at all, mate.' The man was already moving away.

Jordan called at the Beehive and drank a couple of pints. He had done that two or three times while she was with him. She had sent him. ‘Walk on to the Beehive and have a pint while I watch the telly. Do you good.' He had stood at the bar, savouring the cool beer and recalling in his mind's eye the first time he had seen her and the extraordinary warmth and charm of her smile; his own smile, bestowed like a blessing on all who came near him, wrapped round the knowledge of just where she was, what she was doing, who she was waiting for.

The beer got to him quickly. He stood with his head down in his shoulders, both hands on the bar
counter, thinking again of how she had looked as she came downstairs, with uppermost in her mind, the instant after seeing him, the realisation of all she had put at risk. ‘I would tell you,' he said softly, aloud, ‘if I knew where you were.'

He went home. He hated the place now and wondered how quickly he could sell it. But suppose he did sell it and, as he had with her, she came looking for him and did not know where he had gone? How his wife would have mocked him...

On a thought, he went straight upstairs to his wife's room where he opened the wardrobes. The fur cape was gone, as was her jewellery box from the dressing-table drawer. He couldn't think now why it had not occurred to him to look before. Downstairs again, he crossed the hall to the small sitting-room that his wife had used in the evenings, a room he had no more than glanced into for several weeks. The display cabinet housing her father's collection of snuff-boxes stood against the wall behind the door. A sliver of glass broke under his feet. It had needed only a small hole, just big enough for an arm to reach in. The heel of a woman's shoe could easily have made that.

 

When, a few weeks later, the chairman of the group that controlled his firm called Jordan to head office to tell him personally that owing to a major reorganisation in difficult times the board was compelled to ask him to take early retirement, but there was a sizeable golden handshake and his pension to see him through in comfort (and, after all, wasn't business these days full of younger men who had every intention of throwing off their responsibilities when they were little older than Jordan was now?), Jordan sat as though he was not hearing a word that was said to him.

‘How did he take it?' a fellow director asked afterwards.

‘How did he take it?'

‘Was he surprised, shocked, resentful?'

‘It's hard to describe. I can't remember his saying a single word. He was like a man who's given up altogether, a man who quite simply doesn't give a damn about anything.'

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I Shall Get You for This

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The moment came when Louise saw clearly what she must do.

Twenty of them had been to summer camp in the Lake district. She hadn't wanted to go because of Gravy, her puppy dog. She hadn't had him long and was full of loving him and her duties to him. But that, she told herself was the way of a child, who couldn't appreciate more than one pleasure at a time and had to squeeze one dry before turning to another. He'd be there when they got back... Then when they did come back she could feel her reluctance to say good-bye to the happiness the trip had given her and return home. Because Gravy wasn't all that would be waiting for her and for two glorious weeks – once she had got over the fret of not being at home to care for Gravy herself – she had been free of it all.

By the time the bus had slowed at the corner of Lantern Lane Mrs Fordingly had said her cheery good-byes and got off and it was Mr Ainsworth who twisted in his seat and called, ‘Isn't this somebody's stop? You. Louise, don't you get off here?'

‘I'm not going straight home, sir,' she heard herself saying. ‘I'll get off with Natasha,'

‘When did you decide that?' Natasha, her friend, asked as the bus picked up speed again.

‘Just now.'

‘Will you walk back?'

‘I expect so. It's not far.'

‘I can't stop out long,' Natasha said. ‘Me mam's got something fixed up for tonight.'

‘It's all right,' Louise said. ‘I'm not expecting to be asked in for me tea.'

There were cries of “So long, then. Behave yourselves. See you Monday. A-a-irgh! Don't talk about Monday!' as they alighted.

‘What's wrong, then?' Louise's friend asked.

‘Oh, same old thing.'

‘A pity they don't fall out.'

‘They do fall out, but it doesn't make him go. All it does is...' But that was enough. There was a frontier of confidence that she couldn't cross without demeaning her mother.

‘He knocks her about, doesn't he?” Natasha suddenly asked, though she wasn't asking so much as telling Louise that she knew.

‘Does everybody know?” Louise returned after a moment.

‘Me mam does anyway.' Louise's friend hesitated, then blurted in a rush of candour that scalded Louise's cheeks, ‘Tell you the truth, it's why I never ask you into the house. Me mam won't let me because she thinks your mam might feel obliged to ask me back and I've been told never to cross your doorstep. Me mam knew your mam quite well at one time, y'know, and she's still got a soft spot for her, even though your mam's livin' tally with a chap 'at brays her.'

So there, it was out. It must be common knowledge. Everybody knew and some would pity her.

Natasha had high apple cheekbones and a fair complexion, and she could blush as well as anybody when there was something to blush about. Now they both stood there with their faces on fire so that a woman passing by turned her head to peer at them.

‘I'm sorry. I shouldn't have told you.'

‘It's as well to know.' Louise hoicked her kit-bag into a more comfortable carrying position.

‘I'll have to go. She'll be wondering.'

‘Okay. See you Monday.'

They had separated by a few paces each when Natasha called to her:

‘Ey, Lou…'

‘Yeh?'

‘Wasn't it real, though?'

‘Yeh, real.'

Natasha lived in a semi-detached council house which her parents had bought from the Corporation. Louise lived in a twelfth-floor council flat in one of six blocks that stood three on either side of one of the oldest roads into the city: Lantern Lane, so-called because a long, long time ago, in the days of horse-drawn carriages, a spate of robberies had prompted men to set up in business as escorts to light travellers safely to their destinations.

On arriving back from last year's summer camp, she had found Gary in the flat a thin, hard-muscled man – younger than her mother – lolling, every inch at home, in jeans and T-shirt. He'd be stopping for a while, her mother said, an edge of excitement on her voice as she looked from one to the other and watched their sizing-up. Something in the building trade. In and out of jobs, which these days you couldn't blame anybody for. Louise couldn't take to him however she tried, though; but if her mother needed a man she would have to get used to him being around, to the flat feeling smaller, to her loss of ease and privacy. Yet what woman needed a man who treated her like Gary had soon begun to treat her mother?

She knew as soon as she saw her mother now that something was amiss and ran her scrutiny swiftly over her for marks of violence. But he didn't need to strike her: he could shrink her with words. Once they had had rows that Louise could hear through two doors and across the lobby. But her mother rarely retaliated now and the performance was mostly solo.

‘You had a nice time?' came in that bright false voice.

‘Yeh, real. You all right?'

‘Oh, yeh.'

‘Gary not in?'

‘No, no. He had to go out.'

‘Where's Gravy, then? Don't tell me he's taken him with him.'

‘No.'

‘Where is he, then?'

‘It's what I've got to tell you. Do you want a cup of tea or a drink of pop? I can make you a sandwich if you're hungry.'

‘Mam, what are you rabbiting on about? Just tell me where Gravy is. Have you shut him in my room? You know he still chews things…'

She went and flung open the door of her bedroom. Everything in there was neat and tidy as she had made it before going away. ‘Where is he?' There was panic now. It was bad, this. She knew it for sure.

‘He's gone, love.'

‘What d'you mean ‘gone'?

‘He's lost. He got out and we haven't seen him since. We think somebody p'raps picked him up and took him away.

‘Stole him?'

‘Yes. I mean, it's the most likely thing, isn't it – that he's safe an' comfy with somebody else?'

‘Suppose it was little kids who took him and left him where he couldn't find his way back?'

Her mother stood rigid, drawn-faced.

‘How the hell could he get out and down twelve floors?'

‘That's what we don't know, love. He just disappeared. All the rest is… well… what else can we think?'

‘When did it happen?'

‘Thursday. No, Wednesday.'

‘This week, y'mean?'

‘No, last.'

‘All that time since?' Why didn't you let me know? I could have come home and looked for him.'

‘Don't get carried away, love. It's mebbe for the best.'

‘What d'you mean ‘for the best'? How can it be for the best with Gravy among strangers, God knows where?'

‘I mean he chewed things, like you just said. He made his mess on the floor sometimes and whined when you were at school.'

‘He only made a mess when nobody took him out.'

‘That's what I mean. Who can keep a dog and exercise him properly in a twelfth-floor flat? He was growing as well. He wouldn't always have been a scrap. Remember them paws on him.'

‘You should have said all this when I brought him home.'

‘Well, I did. But it was a bit late, wasn't it?'

‘He ran away 'cos somebody kicked him.'

‘Now don't talk wild, Louise.'

‘It's not wild. I'm just upset, d'you hear? Why couldn't you look after him? Are you good for nothing nowadays except… except a punch-bag for
him
?'

‘Louise!'

‘Don't Louise me. If I were a couple of years older you wouldn't have to bother with me any more. An' you won't have as soon as I can make me own way.'

Her mother broke then. She slumped heavily at one end of the table and put her face in her hands. ‘Don't go on. Haven't I enough to contend with without you badgering me an' all?'

There were tears there. Louise took her own to the privacy of her room where she stayed till morning.

Somehow she slept. On Sunday she kept a sullen distance. At dinnertime her mother and Gary went to the Nut Tree, where her mother had a nine-to-eleven cleaning job five days a week. Gary went out again on Sunday evening, only this time he would look for mates in the city-centre pubs where Louise's mother didn't care to go. She wasn't much of a drinker anyway.

On their own, Louise and her mother sat some distance apart and shared looking at the tv for a while before Louise ran a bath and began to gather her things for the first day at school after the break. Her mother had washed her clothes but there were a couple of small sewing jobs which Louise did herself in her room.

She was still awake, reading, when she heard Gary come in and recognised the slur on his words. When she woke in the morning she could have dismissed the raised voice in the night as a dream until she came upon her mother in the kitchen where there wasn't enough room for her to hide the swelling under her right eye and the discolouration of a maturing bruise.

‘Is he still in bed?' Louise asked.

‘And fast on. Don't disturb him. We'll both be out of the house before he stirs.'

‘What do you tell 'em?' Louise asked.

“What do I tell who?'

‘At the pub, when you go to work and they see you like that?'

‘They don't ask. They know better than to interfere.'

‘I don't know how you stand it, Mam. It beats me why you don't throw him out. It's your flat, in your name. He's only here for a roof over his head and somebody to take it all out on. All the badness in him.'

‘You're too young to understand,' her mother said. She poured tea. P'raps you will one day.'

‘That's where you're wrong, Mother. I never will understand, because I shall never let a man treat me like that. Never.'

 

At the bus stop Roseanne Wilkinson from the block opposite was staring at her. Roseanne was three years younger than Louise and had told someone she thought Louise was marvellous. Louise didn't know why Roseanne thought that but knew that young girls sometimes got that way about older ones and tried not to think how creepy it was being stared at day after day by someone who seemed afraid of speaking to her and blushed every time she caught her eye.

This morning Roseanne suddenly appeared at her side.

‘Louise…'

‘Hi, Roseanne.'

‘You've been away at summer camp, haven't you?'

‘Yeh. Didn't you go away yourself?'

‘No. Me mam's not been well.'

‘Oh. I hope it's nothing serious.'

‘I don't think so.'

There was an awkward pause. Louise wondered what she might say to fill in and hoped that Roseanne, who obviously had something on her mind, wasn't going to start telling her how marvellous she thought she was.

‘Louise…'

‘Yeh?'

‘I want to tell you something.'

‘Oh, yeh?'

‘Can we… will you walk over there with me? I don't want anyone else to hear.'

‘The bus'll be here any time, Roseanne. Can't it wait?'

‘It's private.'

‘Well…' To Louise's intense embarrassment she saw that Roseanne's eyes had filled with tears. Oh God, what was she going to say?

‘It's about your little dog.'

Louise immediately took her by the arm and led her aside. ‘You mean Gravy?'

‘That little black pup you had.'

‘He's gone missing. While I was away.'

Roseanne nodded. Her tears had spilled over. She couldn't hold her face straight.

‘Me mam said not to tell you. She said I'd to keep out of it because he's a nasty piece of work.'

‘Who?' Louise asked, though she felt sure she knew.

‘That feller ‘at lives with you and your mam.'

‘What about him, Roseanne?'

‘It was awful. Me mam'n me, we saw it all. We were looking out for me cousin Lawrence. He'd never been to see us an' we were looking out for him.'

‘What did you see, Roseanne?'

‘He…' Her voice rose uncontrollably into a high-pitched whine of distress. “He threw it out of the window. Your little dog. Me mam said “Good heavens above” and hoped I hadn't seen it as well. But I had, I had.'

Louise's heart was pounding up into her throat.

‘I hope you're not making all this up.'