Laceys of Liverpool (46 page)

Cora didn’t speak on the way home. Alice got out of the car when she stopped in Garibaldi Road – Cora had given her name to the police, and she felt obliged to see her safely home and find out why she had been driven to steal.

Inside the house, Cora seemed to sag. ‘I’m going to the lavvy,’ she numbled.

Alice realised she was far more affected by the events of the morning than she pretended. She went into the scrubbed kitchen to make tea and was shocked to find the cupboards bare: no tea, no sugar and not a drop of milk on the premises. Was Cora so skint she couldn’t afford even basic food? Later, she’d buy the woman some groceries. It was years since she’d given a thought to Cora – someone had mentioned seeing her outside the church at Lulu’s wedding, but that was all.

Cora came in, looking more composed. ‘You can go now,’ she said belligerently. ‘There was no need to have come in the first place.’

Alice had no intention of going. ‘Why are you so short of money that you need to go thieving? I always thought you had private means – and Billy’s working.’

‘The “private means”, as you call them, dried up a while ago. And Billy’s never given me more than a few bob a week in years.’

‘Why not ask for more?’

The yellow face twisted in a scowl. ‘He’s hardly ever here to ask. These days, Billy spends most of his time in Browning Street with Maurice and his family. ’Stead of the ale, most of his wages go on propping up that useless business of Maurice’s.’

‘Then what on earth are you living on?’ Alice asked, alarmed. Now that she had removed her ancient coat, Cora, always thin, looked no more than skin and bone.

‘Nothing, if you must know.’

‘But a person can’t live on nothing, Cora,’ Alice cried.

Cora turned on her angrily. ‘Look, I’d appreciate it if you got out me house and minded your own business. How I manage is nowt to do with you.’

‘Then why did you give the police my name?’

‘Yours was the only name I could think of. I didn’t want Billy or Maurice knowing, did I?’ Cora swayed and would have fallen had not Alice leapt forward and caught her.

‘Have you had anything to eat this morning? Come on, let’s go into the other room and sit you down.’

Alice settled her sister-in-law in an armchair and fetched a glass of water. ‘What you need is a cup of hot, sweet tea, but all you’ve got is the water. How long has this being going on, luv?’

The near-collapse seemed to have broken Cora’s spirit. ‘Since earlier this year, when I turned sixty,’ she said in a hoarse, frightened voice. ‘Apart from the few bob I get off Billy, which pays the rent, I haven’t had a penny piece. The ’leccy bill’s not paid, nor the gas. I can’t remember when I last ate.’ She looked at Alice, her strange eyes terrified. ‘When they stopped me outside that shop I nearly died, imagining me name in the papers, everyone knowing.’

‘There, there,’ Alice soothed, but there was something not quite right about what Cora had just said. ‘I thought women were entitled to a pension at sixty?’

‘Oh, Alice.’ Cora had begun to shake with fear. ‘I’ve done something terrible, worse than a bit of shoplifting. The thing is, I’m scared to claim me pension. I’ve got the book, they sent it months ago, but I daren’t take it to the post office.’

‘Why on earth not, Cora?’

Cora was wringing her hands agitatedly; spittle drooled from the corner of her mouth. ‘When we first moved here,’ she said in the same hoarse voice, ‘I found a Jacob’s biscuit tin full of papers in the fireplace cupboard. Two spinsters used to live here, sisters, about fifty. They went to America during the war. I’ve no idea what happened afterwards, whether they came back or
not. The tin was full of private things, birth certificates, like, insurance policies, some shares. I kept them, they weren’t taking up much room, in case they wrote one day and asked for them back.

‘Years later,’ Cora went on, ‘I got a letter from the government to say one of the sisters, the oldest, was due for her old age pension. They sent a form for her to sign.’ She paused.

‘Oh, Cora, you didn’t sign it!’ Alice gasped.

‘I needed money. I was desperate for money. By then, there was nothing but Billy’s wages coming in. I signed the woman’s name and filled in something to say I was her niece and she’d given me authority to collect the money from the post office. Two years later a form came for the other sister, so I signed that too. And I cashed the insurance policies and sold the shares.’

‘You could go to prison for a long time for that, Cora,’ Alice said primly. ‘It’s called fraud.’ She was shocked to the bone. Shoplifting was one thing, but this was far more serious.

Cora grabbed her arm. ‘Do you think the police will check up on me, now they’ve got me name and address, like?’

‘I doubt it. I take it you’ve stopped taking the pensions?’

‘Months ago, when I heard about me own pension. I got frightened. I thought it would look suspicious, collecting three pensions from the post office, all at the same address.’ The small hand tightened, claw-like, on Alice’s arm. ‘I’m worried I’ll be asked for death certificates, seeing as the pensions aren’t being taken any more. I’m worried someone from the government will wonder why I’m not taking me own.’ Cora released Alice’s arm and collapsed back in the chair. Her eyes had
almost disappeared into their sockets. She looked like death. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘I have absolutely no idea, Cora,’ Alice said coldly. She got to her feet. ‘I’ll be off now and buy some groceries. I’ll not see you starve. And I’ll give you a few bob to be getting on with.’ She emptied the contents of her purse on to the coffee table. ‘There’s nearly three pounds there. When I come back, let’s have the electricity and gas bills and I’ll see they’re paid. But that’s as far as I’m prepared to go. If you must know, I’m thoroughly disgusted by what you just told me. I haven’t a clue what advice to give. It might help if you moved to a smaller house that’s cheaper to run. And I suppose you could collect your pension from a different post office.’

Alice paused at the door. ‘When you feel better, I suggest you look for a job. We need a cleaner at the salons. It’s either early in the morning or late at night, whichever suits best. You can let me know if you’re interested when I come back with the food.’

The door closed. Cora swivelled her head and watched Alice go down the path. She turned to shut the gate.

Cow!

She had never hated anyone as much as she hated her sister-in-law at that moment.
I’m thoroughly disgusted by what you just told me
. Oh, was she, now! What did she know about being on your beam ends, not knowing where your next meal was coming from? Alice Lacey had always had it soft.

Still, there’d been no need for her to have been so understanding, Cora thought grudgingly. Oh, she’d gone on a bit, but another person might have ranted and raved, and washed their hands of Cora altogether when they heard the criminal things she’d done. There was money on the table and food on its way. She’d even
offered her a job. It meant that Alice cared, even if it was done with a sickly air of being holier than thou that made Cora want to puke.

We need a cleaner at the salons
.

Well, Cora had cleaned before and she’d clean again. In fact, she’d spent her whole life cleaning. She glanced round the shining, spotless room. The furniture was probably out of fashion, but it had been lovingly cared for, tenderly polished. The net curtains were the whitest in the road. Cleaning was what Cora was good at. She’d take the job because she had to live. Anyroad, soft-girl Alice would almost certainly pay more than most employers.

Cora enjoyed cleaning the three hairdressers. So there would be less chance of being seen by the neighbours she started early, at six o’clock. Each salon took just over half an hour, and she felt enormous satisfaction when she’d finished and the plastic surfaces shone, the mirrors sparkled, the sinks gleamed.

She didn’t mind working on her own. She was used to it. Most of the time she preferred her own company and early in the morning, with few people around and hardly any traffic, it was easy to pretend she was the only person in the world, a situation Cora would very much have preferred. Sometimes she even sang as she worked.

Billy didn’t know she was working. Billy knew nothing about her. He never had. Cora had been cleaning the salons for a fortnight when he came home one night at about half past seven. They hadn’t spoken to each other in a long while and she was surprised when he came into the living room and asked if she’d make him a cup of tea.

She was about to tell him to make it himself, but
remembered he didn’t ask for much, probably knowing he wouldn’t get it.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked. He looked on edge, jingling the coins in his pocket as if he needed something to do with his hands. His face was hot and red, and she noticed his mouth kept twitching. ‘Is Maurice all right?’

He didn’t answer. Cora made the tea sweet and strong, the way Alice had wanted to make it for her the day she’d been arrested for shoplifting.

‘What’s the matter, Billy?’ she asked, putting the tea beside him on the coffee table.

‘I’ve done something dead wicked, Cora.’ Tears trickled down his fleshy cheeks. At sixty-three, he was still a good-looking man, with thick, iron-grey hair and a clear complexion. His paunch had almost disappeared since he’d come off the ale. ‘I’ve set fire to the yard.’

Cora gasped. ‘You’ve
what?
’

He was looking at her with round, scared eyes, like a little boy, the way Maurice had done many years ago. ‘I’ve set fire to the yard. I suppose I must have got the idea from our John, though in his case it wasn’t intentional.’

‘But
why?
’

‘Because it was the only way out. He was losing money hand over fist, our Maurice. He’s no businessman, Cora. He was making scarcely enough to feed his family, while the overdraft got bigger and bigger, and I was the one paying it back.’ He swallowed nervously. ‘The writing’s been on the wall a long time. Six months ago I pumped up the insurance on the premises, so now Maurice can claim he’s lost his livelihood. As I said, it seemed the only way out.’

‘You mean you’ve been planning this for six months?’ Cora was impressed.

‘I reckon I must have.’

‘Had the fire properly taken by the time you left?’

Billy nodded. ‘The smoke was black. I could see it rising over the rooftops. The fire engines came, I heard them.’

‘What happens if they blame our Maurice?’ Cora frowned.

‘There’s something happening at Sharon’s school, a concert. I deliberately waited till a night when he’d have – what d’you call it, luv?’

‘An alibi.’

‘That’s right, an alibi.’

‘And what about you, Billy? Have you got an alibi?’

Billy looked at her pleadingly. ‘Only if you swear I’ve been home with you for the last few hours.’

‘Of course I will,’ Cora said instantly. It was the first time Billy had done something she admired. He was smarter than she’d given him credit for. She regarded the slumped figure in the chair and gave the shoulder a little squeeze. ‘Come on, Billy, cheer up. Everything’s going to be all right, I can feel it. In fact, it’s going to be better than before, with Maurice out of trouble and you without an overdraft to pay.’ She stood. ‘Shall I make you something nice for your tea, luv? Fish and chips? Or there’s bacon and eggs if you prefer it. Afterwards, we can watch telly. There’s some good programmes on tonight.’

‘Fish and chips would go down a treat, luv.’ Billy sat up and squared his shoulders. He smiled. ‘I never thought you’d take it so well. You’re a good sort, Cora.’

At the end of September Danny Mitchell died quietly in his sleep. Bernadette woke and found him by her side, his body as cold as ice, smiling peacefully. She allowed herself a little cry before telling Ian and Ruth. If only she’d been awake to kiss him goodbye, so that he would
have felt her arms around him as he slipped from this world to the next, and she could have kept him warm for a little while longer.

Then she woke up the children and rang Alice.

At the funeral there was a stiffness between the wife of the deceased and his daughter. Alice was convinced she’d been sidelined during her father’s last few months on earth, prevented from seeing him as much as she would have liked.

Bernadette had thought Alice too interfering. Danny didn’t want to be nagged to see a doctor, brought tonics, asked in a maudlin voice how he felt. They had played a game between them, she, Danny and their children. The game was that he was temporarily out of sorts but would get better very soon. It meant that even when he was on his deathbed they could laugh when otherwise they might have wept. The game had continued until the night Danny died. But Alice was a spoilsport and refused to play along with them.

‘He’s asleep,’ Bernadette would claim whenever his daughter came to see him. ‘I’d sooner he wasn’t disturbed.’

She didn’t like doing it. Alice was her best friend, but Danny was her husband. He came first.

‘We’re a rapidly expanding company,’ Orla informed the middle-aged, impeccably dressed manager of the small, exclusive Brighton department store. At first he’d been slightly irritated at being interrupted, but she’d soon brought him round. ‘We’ve recently moved to a new factory in Lancashire with the very latest equipment.’ This wasn’t strictly true. The new factory was a dilapidated building on a run-down trading estate near St Helens and the equipment was second-hand. However,
it was the case that the company was rapidly expanding. In a few weeks’ time, at Christmas, two new lines were being introduced: skin freshener and cleansing lotion. Perfume was on the cards for next summer.

‘I like the look of it,’ the manager said. ‘And I like the name too: Lacey’s of Liverpool. It has a nice ring to it.’

‘That’s what everybody says.’ Orla smiled her most dazzling smile. ‘I use it meself.’ She ran her fingers through her shining brown hair. ‘I’m a walking advertisement for our products.’

‘And an excellent advertisement, I must say.’

‘Would you like me to leave some samples?’ She smiled again.

‘I’d sooner place an order.’ The manager’s answering smile was more speculative than dazzling. ‘Are you free for dinner tonight?’