The Corner House (2 page)

‘I don’t know about staying, going, moving on or whatever,’ mumbled Bernard.

John dragged reluctant hands from warm pockets and propped his elbows on the railing. ‘Do the thing that seems best, Bernard.’

The fishmonger shifted his gaze to the left and looked at John Povey. With his over-long greying hair and intense hazel eyes, the chemist looked a bit like another Einstein. ‘I’ve always done what’s bloody best,’ said Bernard Walsh, his tone almost snappy. ‘And where did it get me? A lock-up on Scotland Road and a lie I’ve lived for twenty-odd year. There were times, you know. Times when I came near to telling Liz.’ He swallowed a lump of pain. ‘But I never did. Then, when she took poorly … Well, that’s all over for her now, thank God.’

‘Katherine isn’t history, though.’

‘I know that, John.’

‘She’s the future. She’s a good girl and I know she’ll take it on the chin.’

Bernard shook his head pensively. ‘There’s things I did that I never should have done, then there’s other things I should have done that I never—’

‘It’s the same for all of us. Do you think you’re the only sinner, the only chap who’s ever made mistakes? You can’t change the past, but you can make an effort for the future.’

Firstly, Bernard had to take himself back to Scotland Road, had to tell his one and only child that her mother was dead. Then there were insurance policies to wade through, people to be notified, coffins to pick and choose from. In his house, Liz’s belongings would scream at him from every corner of every room. The house had caused him pain for many a month, but now, with Liz definitely gone, her trinkets and clothes would be angrier, louder, lonelier. And time would continue to tick on, marked by the Liver clocks and by the watch on his wrist, by the hourly beep-beeps on the radio, by the ever-turning pages of the kitchen calendar.

‘Come on, Bernard,’ urged John.

‘Not yet. You go – I’ll be all right.’ He had thoughts to collect, phrases to arrange.

‘Are you sure?’ John Povey’s face was furrowed by concern.

‘I’ve never been sure of owt,’ said Bernard, lapsing deliberately into the idiom that separated him from most of his fellows in this city. ‘Except that I loved Liz and I love my daughter.’

John Povey shuddered again, trembling not only against the chill, but also because of a secret shared for more than a decade. Who could say what was right, what was wrong? Perhaps Katherine should not be told … and yet …

Bernard read his companion’s thoughts. ‘I shall have to work my way up to it, John. There’s none but me shall tell the tale, because I know you’ll say nothing.’

John nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll not push you any more, Bernard. You have my opinion, but I shan’t force the issue. You know me well enough by now. I can offer pills and potions, but a cure’s never guaranteed.’

‘Thanks.’ Bernard watched his friend as he made his way across the Pier Head and towards his car. ‘What would I have done without that man?’ he mouthed softly. For a long time, John had been Bernard’s sanity. John Povey was a gentleman of principle, a genius with medicines, an unspoilt, down-to-earth bloke.

A gaggle of youths came into view, shaggy haircuts resembling what Liz had always termed ‘tatty-’ead mops’, the sort that got squeezed out in a special section of a bucket. Although the Beatles had moved on, the noise continued, bang-banging from the
mesh speakers of portable radios, drumming its way through open windows in the summer months, escaping from coffee bars each time a door swung to or fro. And these young lads’ heads seemed to warrant mowing, not cutting.

The boys stopped as if prompted by some invisible cue, drew combs from pockets and passed them through wild, abundant locks. Guitar cases leaned against blue-jeaned legs, while the omnipresent transistor radio sat silently next to a pile of sheet music. The group would doubtless be on its way to practise in the garage or bedroom of some tolerant or absent parent. These were the hopefuls, the also-rans who tried to pursue Ringo and the rest into lives of luxury and lunacy. ‘Bloody daft,’ muttered Bernard. They should be spending their time looking for a good job. The Beatles seemed to exist on the run, escaping from mobs of screaming girls and from the constant glare of scandal-hungry reporters. Aye, they’d all have been a damned sight better off in fish.

Katherine. She’d been to that last concert at The Cavern, had probably screeched with the rest while John Lennon played and sang in that wonderful, careless, I’m-here-to-enjoy-myself way, his head held up, notes pouring past adenoidal tissue and down a strangely aristocratic nose. Katherine had been through a few phases – pancake make-up thick enough to want scraping off by an interior decorator, white-as-death cheeks, eyes surrounded by spiky, false lashes, the upper lids painted as black as hell.

How could he tell her? How? And must she be told?

The chocolate workers had been sent home on that searing August day, the day of the last Cavern concert, because coffee creams and hazel fudge had
melted around them in sticky, shapeless pools. In spite of the heat, Liverpool’s young folk had squeezed themselves into that awful cellar, many fainting for lack of oxygen, some losing consciousness in the presence of their gods.

She had quietened, had attended a Catholic teacher training college in Liverpool, returning each evening to the bosom of her family. They lived in a nice big semi on the Northern Road in Crosby, had four bedrooms, a piano, a man who came round once a week to do the gardening, a lady who tidied up and cleaned the silver. They had a car, an automatic washing machine, a television set and a freezer. Carpets were top-grade Axminster; all rooms were centrally heated. And Liz was dead.

Majorca, Alicante, Venice, Rome – Bernard had taken his two girls on holiday in recent years. In Rome, Liz had discovered her lump, that tiny, hard pebble beneath sun-touched flesh. ‘It’ll be summat and nowt,’ she had declared over a plate of pasta. It had turned out to be summat and everything, the very ‘summat’ that had finished her happy, selfless life.

A tear escaped and trickled down Bernard Walsh’s ruddy cheek. With a numb hand, he dashed it away and steeled himself against its brothers. If he was going to cry, he would do it later, loudly and in private.

‘You all right, mister?’

Bernard blinked. It was one of the mop-headed hopefuls, just an ordinary lad with longish hair and a few baby freckles lingering on his nose. ‘Aye, I’ll be better in a minute.’

‘Can I … Do you want anything?’

He wanted Liz. He wanted his life back, wanted to be the same age as this copy-cat Beatle, wanted the
moorlands, the camaraderie of Bolton market, a pie and a pint in the Wheatsheaf for his dinner. ‘My wife died today,’ he said. ‘Thanks for being so kind.’

The boy frowned. ‘You shouldn’t be on your own. When my old gran died, we all stuck together. Have you got somebody?’

Bernard nodded.

‘Do you want a lift? I can take you on the scooter – the lads’ll look after my stuff. We were only on our way to practise, anyway.’

‘My car’s across the road, thanks.’

The boy continued to look puzzled. ‘I’ve got you now,’ he announced after a second or two. ‘Mr Walsh – wet fish on Scotland Road.’

‘That’s me.’

The youngster grinned. ‘Fridays, we always have fish.’

‘Is that Jimmy Morris?’ Bernard peered beneath the thatch and into eyes as blue as a June midnight. ‘Well, I’d never have recognized you.’

Jimmy laughed, then remembered the sadness. ‘Look, I’m sorry about Mrs Walsh. I met her the odd time—’

‘Aye, it would be odd and all,’ said Bernard. ‘She hated the smell of raw fish. I had to go in the back way when I got home, then straight up for a bath. Even then, she’d tell me I stank like fifteen stone of cod.’ He shook his head. ‘No, she didn’t often help in the shop. I had to be at death’s door before she’d give me a hand.’

Jimmy reached out and touched the fishmonger’s shoulder. ‘If you ever want me, we still live over the barber’s.’ He wandered off to rejoin his companions.

There was hope for the future, Bernard Walsh decided. Jimmy Morris and his crew might look like a
lot of big girls’ blouses, but the heart was still there. Terry Morris was a barber. He and his wife had raised two boys in the rooms above what he called his ‘saloon’. Terry was a good Catholic and a strong believer in cut-throat razors and hot towels. Terry Morris should pin their Jimmy to a chair and give him a short back and sides before the lad crashed his scooter due to impeded vision.

Bernard walked towards his car, waving at the disappearing would-be pop band. He sat for a while, fingers tapping the Rover’s steering wheel, mind racing about as he worked his way through the list of things to be done. At the back of his consciousness, the truth kept its counsel, remained hidden behind names and addresses of those who must be invited to the funeral.

Liz hadn’t wanted to come to Liverpool. She had pleaded to stay in Bolton, but Bernard, anxious to be away from the scene of other people’s crimes, had dragged his wife and young daughter down the East Lancashire Road. And they had settled, had thrived on the Scousers’ love of fresh and salt fish, had become comfortable members of the
nouveau riche
middle class.

And then, after a short lull of relative peace, the woman had arrived and Bernard had suggested another move, perhaps to Bury or Blackburn. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Liz had screamed. ‘Why must we be forever shifting about? We’ve survived the bloody war, we’re doing all right, so where’s the flaming sense in taking off again?’ Liz had made friends in Crosby, good friends, the sort she would not have left easily.

‘I just feel like a change,’ Bernard heard himself replying. The truth was unspeakable, so he could furnish Liz with no reason for his desire to leave
Liverpool, the city which had become the new love of Liz Walsh’s life.

‘Well, I don’t. I’m changing no more than my underwear, you great lummox. I like it here. The shops in town are great and our Katherine’s made a lot of new friends.’

They had stayed and had been lucky. The woman had moved to Waterloo, a mere couple of miles from the Walshes’ house. ‘God must have been on your side,’ Bernard told his dead wife. ‘Because you never knew.’

She knew now, though. Somewhere above these mucky clouds, a woman with a new halo was looking down on him. He should, perhaps, call in at St Anthony’s, should get down on his knees and pray in the church before visiting his daughter’s classroom. ‘I did it all for you, Liz,’ he said. And for Katherine. Yes, it had been for Katherine’s sake, too.

He drove slowly through the city, as if trying to postpone Katherine’s inevitable tears. Liz’s death had been expected – even hoped for in the darker hours, but every child was shocked by the final disappearance of a parent.

Outside St Anthony’s, Bernard turned off his engine and sat perfectly still. In ten or so minutes, the children would dash out of classrooms and Katherine would be free to talk and to listen and to weep.

The broader, merciless exodus from these largely Catholic streets had begun, leaving the area sad and much quieter. Families were relocating to pastures new, nasty little houses built on unloved land. The green that surrounded Kirkby was scrubby, pale and heartless, as if it had given up hope long ago.

‘I might as well retire,’ he whispered. ‘There’ll be
nothing much left here for me in a year or two.’ Katherine would get wed. She had been through so many suitors that Bernard had sometimes considered making a rota just to have things fair and square, equal time and attention for all comers. But now, there was Martin, who had bought an engagement ring, who would be Katherine’s husband in a few months.

He entered the church, knelt and prayed for Liz’s repose. He prayed also for the woman he had feared, that other poor creature whose soul had departed some years ago. She had left her mark. Theresa Nolan’s mark had smudged its path right across Lancashire from the inland foothills to the coast. Her fury had destroyed families, had made grown men cry, had affected innocent children. Yet she, the truly injured party, had simply looked for justice.

‘What’s it all been about?’ he asked his Maker. ‘Did I do it wrong from the very start?’

Bernard Walsh closed his eyes. A knock at the door; a woman standing in the street, a newspaper parcel in her hands. Upstairs, Liz sleeping. Someone else’s sin. Fish scales beneath his fingernails, gas lamps doused against possible invasion, silent skies, no bombs yet. Liz too ill for air-raid shelters; instant decision, instant lie.

His eyelids raised themselves. Were there good lies, then? Were there degrees of untruth, some types more acceptable than others? He blessed himself, heard the school bell ringing in celebration of another finished morning.

Genuflecting, he turned his back to the altar and walked slowly down the aisle. Soon, he would face his living conscience.

By 1940, Bernard and Daniel Walsh were the last surviving remnants of a dynasty that stretched back through more than a century. Their father and grandfather had sold fish on Bolton Market for at least a hundred years, while the Derby Street shop had been in the hands of a Walsh since 1897.

Danny, older than Bernard by seven years, was a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor, unlovely of face, lean, sound in wind and limb. Although he remained blissfully unaware of the fact, Danny Walsh had a sweetness of nature that charmed many women into hovering on the brink of infatuation. But Danny knew exactly what he wanted from life. With a hoe, a rake and a bed of weeds, he was armed and in his natural element.

This older Walsh brother had chosen to live outside the town, in a place where the moors and fields could be viewed and appreciated. His back garden was bordered by a low privet hedge, but it seemed to continue onward and upward for ever, stretching through pasture and arable land, climbing softly, gently, eastward towards the Pennines. The weaver’s cottage in Bromley Cross was small, yet its setting was pure magic to a man whose boyhood had been spent among factory chimneys and dark terraced streets.

With his pipe, his baccy pouch and his predictable life-pattern, Danny existed quite happily like a man twice his age. He went to the same public house each evening from nine o’clock until ten, then rose at the crack of dawn, travelling to meet the incoming fish trains or to run the Derby Street shop. Catholic to the core, he attended mass every Sunday and on most saints’ days unless such items on the calendar of Rome interfered with the progress of business.