The Ballroom on Magnolia Street (22 page)

Kevin bought Kate an engagement ring the size of a grapefruit, and gave her his chequebook, so she could start remodelling his 1930s’ semi on the Lisburn Road.

Miss Bingham spent hours looking up the rule books for some way she could fire an unwed mother. But, unbelievably, all that sort of thing seemed to be done away with. Not only would she
not
be fired, but she would be entitled to paid leave when the child was born. Nobody on the senior staff wanted to gossip about the scandal at lunchtimes. They only wanted to talk about their foreign holidays; and whether or not they should downsize their mortgages to put the children through university, or encourage their offspring to find part-time jobs instead. Miss Bingham didn’t have a family of her own to talk about, so those conversations didn’t interest her at all. Nobody in the office batted an eyelid when Shirley nipped out to the toilets every morning for a quick heave. Unplanned pregnancies were bread-and-butter to them. The more, the merrier. And most of the staff were open-minded mothers themselves. They knew that the joy they felt when they held their precious baby in their arms was far more important than whether or not they were married. It was marvellous to have a loving husband at the side of the bed during the delivery, of course. Holding their hand and sharing the experience of the birth. But all mothers were alone, really, in their joy and in their labour pain, and in their worries for their children.

They held a secret collection, and bought Shirley a lovely buggy from Mothercare, and wheeled it into the office with a big bow tied on the handle. Everybody clapped and cheered, and Shirley stood up and took a bow. It was sickening to watch.

Declan’s friends teased him to death about the wedding. They said he was well and truly whipped and trapped and tied down, and what a fool he was to be trailed up the aisle so young. They said they would never be dumb enough to be caught like that. But he amazed them all by saying that he really did love Shirley, and that he couldn’t wait to be a married man with his own home and child. And no, they could
not
come round all the time for beer and videos and parties. The baby would need peace and quiet. And Shirley’s privacy must be respected, too. He would see them in the pub once a month, or so. If Shirley didn’t mind. He also turned down the offer of a stag night in a private room in a club. Drink by the lorryload. Strippers, even. But, no. That would be very hurtful for Shirley, he told them, when she was feeling so tired. Only a waster of the lowest order would abandon a pregnant woman for a night of seedy entertainment like that. The boys were stunned by Declan’s pompous attitude, but he only laughed at them and said they were unbelievably old-fashioned and that was why they were all still single geeks, and living at home with their parents.

The gifts poured in. A double wedding was a rare and special thing. Hand-painted tea sets and gilt mirrors and steel saucepans were delivered to the house on a regular basis. Crystal glasses and bone-china ornaments, and clocks covered with painted shamrocks, and rugs with long, heavy fringes. Shirley was thrilled with each new gift. Kate thought some of the designs were a little vulgar. Mrs Winters warned Kate that if she tried to swap any of the items for something more stylish, she would bring bad luck on the whole enterprise. Some people wanted to buy gifts for the baby, but worried about offending Shirley, so they gave cash inside a greeting card instead.

Kate was jealous of her little sister. She had planned to steal the show with her designer gown, but how did that compare with a new life coming into the world? New babies were still a big event, nowadays, no matter what they said about having a career. Running a garage was nothing, when people were buying you strollers and clapping for you at work. Even the dinner ladies in the canteen wanted in on the celebrations. They made a big chocolate cake with yellow icing on it saying
CONGRATS
, and bought Shirley a cuddly toy rabbit. Kate was devastated to see that Shirley was actually very well liked in the community. Even her parents were being reasonable, for the first time in living memory. Mrs Winters wouldn’t let Shirley do any housework.

Kate told Kevin that she felt a little left out of things.

‘Don’t worry,’ he told her. ‘When we’re married, we’ll pop those babies out like peas. We’ll have two children to every one of theirs.’

Then Kate had nightmares about pushing a shopping trolley full of screaming children around the supermarket, all of them rubbing chocolate biscuits into their hair. Kevin was frantic to begin the baby-making process and Kate wondered how she would endure it. She seemed to lose her passion when the thrill of the chase was over. It was very strange, because that was the sort of thing that usually happened to men. According to the glossy magazines, anyway. She was fed up with those ‘How to Keep Your Man Interested’ articles. She needed something to keep Kevin’s mind
off
sex.

She thought of pulling out of the wedding, but then decided to stay on board. She could just about bear the regular sexual relations on the green velvet sofa, but there was no way she wanted children. (If she had to, she could always feign fertility problems.) Kate devoted all her spare time to the house renovation. She chose a beech kitchen with state-of-the-art handles, and double-glazing with Georgian bars for Kevin’s home. She decided not to move in with Kevin just yet, however. That way, she would avoid all the dust and the noise the home improvements would cause, as well as Kevin’s rampant libido; and she could still enjoy her mother’s home cooking for three more precious months. Kate Winters wasn’t your average romantic.

19. Kidnapped

It was the first week of February and the citizens of Belfast were feeling the pinch of winter winds and post-Christmas pockets. The city walls and windows were looking very drab now that all the decorations and lights had been put away for another year. Johnny was feeling pretty flat and colourless himself, and had been ever since Marion had told him that she did love Eddy Greenwood. Truly loved him, on a deep and profound level that went beyond looks and superficial things. Johnny had harboured some vague notion that Marion was only punishing him with her long marriage to Eddy, and that when she was ready, she would come back to him. Marion was afraid when she heard Johnny talk like that. She thought he might be unstable in some way. After all, it was twelve hours before they found Johnny Hogan in the rubble and the darkness, lying in the cradle that James had made for him. Did he suffer so much trauma, in that dark cradle, that he had grown up with his thinking pattern distorted, she wondered. Was that why he liked to be in the middle of all the fun and the music and the crowds? Because he had lain in the dark all night, cold and hungry, and afraid that no one would come? She was gentle with him, holding his hand, and saying that she would always care for him as a dear friend, but that friends was all they could ever be.

Johnny worried that he might back out and not go to America on his big trip after all. What would everyone think of him then? That he was just a big baby, that’s what. With a heavy heart, he decided to leave Ireland at the end of April.

The very day Johnny booked his flight to Florida, a tourist was attacked by a crocodile there. The man survived, but needed two hundred stitches in his legs. It was the main story on the local news stations all day. Lots of Ulster people were going to Florida on their holidays; and even though they lived their lives under the constant threat of sectarian murder, and no-warning bombs going off in the town centres, they were scared stiff of stray crocodiles lurking in suburban swimming pools. Johnny thought it was a bad omen. He slipped the ticket into his wallet and half-hoped he would never use it.

The disco was packed to the doors every night with people eager to visit the famous nightspot before it closed down for good. Sunny Jim and the recently returned Standing Stone were very depressed. Working in the ballroom was the best job they had ever had. They would miss the sense of importance they felt, standing with their backs to the crowd before the doors were opened each night. DJ Toni was already scouting for another gig, but he doubted he would find one where he got half-price cocktails and all the free fish suppers he could eat. Sometimes, he read out requests with his mind on something else, and Louise Lowry and Kate Winters took full advantage of that. Louise had a song played for her friend Kate, ‘whose hobbies are knitting socks, singing hymns and collecting spoons’. Kate retaliated by having a Smiths song played for Louise: ‘Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me’. Louise then had DJ Toni inform the crowd that Kate Winters was receiving counselling for being agoraphobic, and the crowd clapped their support, and Louise had to barricade herself in the ladies’ toilets for her own protection. Johnny Hogan had to give Toni a stiff lecture about being more alert to the pranks of the young people, and Toni sulked for a while in his little booth and played too many sad love songs.

Timothy Tate was feeling more forlorn than most. He had been on his knees for two hours, praying and praying for an answer to this huge problem that faced him. Eugene Lolly had at last contacted him and would be outside the door of the gym in thirty minutes, ready to take Timothy on his first criminal outing in twenty-odd years. Timothy wondered if it was too late to put on his anorak and hurry down the road, and go to the park, or anywhere. Just hide until Eugene gave up on him, and found somebody else to be his sidekick. Without thinking, he had his coat on, and had switched off the lights in the main hall. As he fumbled with the bunch of keys, there was a footstep behind him, and Eugene was there, eyes bright and shining with excitement.

‘I decided I’d get here early, like. Why not, I said to myself, seeing as I’d nothing else to do.’

The weasel, thought Timothy. He knew that I would try to hide.

‘I thought you might have changed your mind,’ he said, not looking at Eugene, ‘when it took you so long to get back to me.’

‘No, not at all. It just took a while longer than I figured to study the lie of the land. Now, come on, we’ll talk on the way. I’ve got a car. It’s parked on a side street beside the ballroom, since yesterday.’

‘So, you’re really going through with it? You’re going to rob the ballroom? Then what?’

‘We go to your flat, and wait for a few days.’

‘I told you, not there. Not my home.’

‘They’ll never think of looking there. Too long ago, since you and me were a team, since you were on their books. And anyway, they’ll never know it was me – we’ll keep our faces well covered. We’ll watch a bit of telly, have a curry and a few beers. You’ll go to work, as normal. When they’ve stopped checking the ferry terminals, I’ll sail to England, and freedom. I can catch another boat to anywhere I like. South of France, anywhere.’

The two men set off walking towards the park.

‘You don’t think Johnny Hogan will have that kind of money in his back pocket, do you? It will take weeks to sell the place; any developer thinking of buying will need to secure planning permission to knock down the hall, before he coughs up. And what if Hogan hasn’t got the money on the premises? No bank will give him a big lump of cash like that. Just over the counter. No questions asked.’

‘Of course he’ll have cash there. Bags of it. Tax evasion and all that. Do you know nothing about dance halls? He’ll have it, or else.’

‘Or else, what? Has it come to this, Eugene? Terrorizing a back-street disco? Are you crazy?’

‘Now, you listen to me, Tate. I’m sick of you, and that’s the truth. If it wasn’t for you, I might be in Spain now, letting the wife take care of me in my retirement. You do what you’re told, or I’ll do what I should have done years ago. Shut you up for good!’

‘But, my flat, my job? I can’t go back to my old life when all this is over. They might see my face, find out where I live. They’ll never trust me again in the gym.’

‘Just a minute. Step in there, I want to check something,’ said Eugene, and he elbowed Timothy into the Palmhouse. There were a few people inside the main body of the gracious old building, exclaiming at the huge size of the leaves on the exotic plants. To the right, the cacti on the hot side had also attracted some visitors. Eugene and Timothy went into the cool side of the greenhouse, where hundreds of potted plants were laid out in neat rows.

‘Go on, down to the end. There’s something there I have to collect.’

Timothy hurried down the path, behind the display shelves, to a little space where empty flowerpots were stacked neatly. The floor was damp and covered with moss. He could see nothing, no bag or package.

‘There’s nothing here,’ he said.

Eugene only smiled. He reached in behind a large flowerpot and drew out a long knife with a fancy handle. The blade was thin and evil-looking. He turned it over a few times, so that it caught the light shining in through the mottled glass of the greenhouse.

‘This is what I was looking for, Timothy. Now, unless you want to go a couple of rounds with my good friend here, you spineless fool, you’ll do what I tell you.’

‘Please, Eugene.’ There were tears in Timothy’s eyes.

Then the smaller man had him by the collar, and was shouting up into his face. ‘I am not telling you this again, Tate. All you have to do is keep watch, maybe thump Hogan a couple of times. I cannot
stand
any more of this whining. I’m going outside for a cigarette, and when you have pulled yourself together, you will come out, and you will shut up, and we will complete this operation.’ He pushed him backwards then, roughly, so that he fell over the flowerpots and lay still on the damp moss.

Eugene’s retreating footsteps were soft on the mossy path. The door closed behind him, with a tiny squeak. Timothy sat up on the path, and laid his face against the cool glass, letting the condensation soothe his hot skin. The window moved out slightly, and he realized it was loose in its frame. He gasped, and before the thought had formed itself properly in his tormented mind, he had gently pressed it out of the frame, and crawled through the hole. It was a tight fit but he made it. He was free! Quickly, he reached in and slid the glass back into place. The condensation had been wiped away, but still, Eugene might not notice. Timothy crawled into the shrubbery at the side of the Palmhouse, and lay down. He could not, and would not, go through all this kind of thing again.