The Hiding Place (12 page)

And he say Celesta? he checks again. Salvatore rests his elbows on the counter, covers his eyes with his handkerchief and breathes slowly through his mouth.

He say, ‘Celesta is very beautiful’ – Frankie, this man, he an old man! You don’t want him as your
son
!

Frankie grins at the thought of Pippo as his son-in-law: free lemonade for life.

He’s forty-one, Sal. Alright, forty-two maybe – a young man still!

How old are
you
, Frankie? asks Salvatore quietly.

Frankie knows the answer. The fact that he can contemplate giving Celesta to Pippo sits between them on the counter like a stone.

My father gets a hard time from Salvatore, but he knew he would: it’s his way of preparing himself for Mary.

~

Not on my life, says my mother. She’s frying eggs, so the air is thick with the stench of old fat. The Haslet sits unwrapped, the slices hacked and squashed into a mound, on its paper in
the middle of the table – we’ve already had our tea. Fran and Luca are out playing in the yard; at least they were when I last looked, but from the kitchen window I can only see Luca
now, standing with her hands on her hips, shouting at someone through the yard door. It shouldn’t be left open, we’ve got nothing left in our veg patch. My mother blames the gypsies.
Luca comes bounding in:

Ma-am, Fran’s gone . . .

Not now, says my mother, Your father’s eating his tea.

Stiff with rage, Luca turns on her heel and races back down the steps. I look along the windowsill to check on the England’s Glory: gone.

My mother puts the loaf of bread next to the Haslet, and my father, trying to please, pulls off a sliver of the meat with his knife and folds it between a thick white slice. When the eggs
arrive, he eats them with more bread, chasing them around the plate with his fork. Normally he would have given up by now and gone back to The Moonlight for supper, but he’s trying to
persuade my mother to consider the suggestion.

Mary, Pippo’s a Well-off, he says.

I don’t care if he’s rich as Croesus, he’s not getting his paws on my girl!

My father tries a different tack.

I see that Ann Jackson, he says, nodding into space, It’s a bad time for young girls.

Ann Jackson is a Scrubber! Our Celesta knows better. Ask her yourself, she says, looking at the clock on the dresser, She’ll be home from work in a minute.

My father doesn’t want to do this. He pushes back his chair and edges round my mother. As he passes her, he pats her lightly on the shoulder.

I’ve said no, Frank, she shouts as he turns the corner of the stairs, So don’t you go talking to anyone!

Upstairs, Frankie changes into his best suit. It can’t do any harm, he thinks, to hear what Pippo has to offer.

~  ~  ~

It’s a clear night. My mother waits at the back door, while I crouch behind her, shielded from the wind coming in by the width of her skirt. I can hear Rose and Luca
talking in the living room, and every so often a lull, then Luca’s shrieking laugh. It’ll be one of Rose’s impersonations: she can do all the Jacksons just by changing the
expression on her face – a squinty grin for Arthur; Alice, a pout and a sniff; or Roy, one eye shut tight and the other swivelling round in her head. She doesn’t spare our family
either: she’s caught the quick way Fran blows her fringe out of her eyes, and my father’s nostrils when he’s angry. And me, I’m easy – Rose simply shifts her hand up
her sleeve and waves her arm in the air.

I don’t know if my mother is expecting Fran or my father: neither of them are anywhere in sight, and it’s nearly nine o’clock. Celesta has gone to the Milk Bar and won’t
be back until later, so I know my mother’s not on the lookout for her.

Don’t wait up, says Celesta, fishing for change in her purse, I’m on a promise!

Oh yes, Lady, my mother says, And how will you get in then?

Celesta likes to pretend she has a key. She lifts her chin up high:

There are ways, she whispers mysteriously.

What Celesta means is she’ll stand in the alley and throw stones at the window until Rose creeps down to let her in. My father hasn’t got a clue about this Carry On,
as it’s called; but my mother knows all about it.

You’ll pay for any glass that’s cracked, she always says the following morning, while Celesta feigns interest in her porridge.

What glass? My father will say suddenly, his spoon held in mid-air. My mother changes the subject:

Any more for any more? she says, waving the crusted saucepan over the table. This makes all of us go quiet.

Celesta hasn’t heard about Pippo yet. Secretly, my mother wants Celesta to enjoy herself while she can: she knows what’s in store.

~

My mother doesn’t notice me at first; she’s doing her singing thing. She’ll hum quietly to herself for a while, but then startle everyone by abruptly breaking
into song. At the moment she’s making a soft droning noise with her lips, like the sound of the generator on the corner of The Square, and I don’t want to interrupt her. From around her
body I can see the back wall at the end of the yard, a sky full of stars, a skim of frost on the flags. We’re supposed to be getting ready for bed but my mother has put Rose in charge. This
is bad; Rose can’t be bothered to help me get into my nightie, but Luca will take any opportunity to lord it: she’s only just seven, but she acts as if
she’s
my mother.

Dolores, she’ll say, You’ve got that vest on back-to-front. Put it right Immediately! And by the time I’ve hooked it over my head and twisted it round, she’ll find
another excuse to nag me:

It’s inside-out, you Stupid Crip! Do it again!

Luca will catch Rose’s eye and they’ll both laugh. I may not know back from front, or in from out, but I know when there’s spite in the air. I don’t want
to sit in the living room with them, especially with the back door open and my mother standing in the draught. She looks like she might just walk out and never come back.

I Had to Run A-Way-ay, And Get Down on my Knees and Pray-ey-ay,

she sings loudly, as if to confirm my fears.

Can you read me a story, Mam? I say quietly, to attract her attention.

She turns to look at me: the night air has smoothed her face, it’s pale as she bends down.

Dol! You’ll freeze to death. Where are your slippers?

I’ve forgotten to put them on; they’re under the bed. We both look at my toes and then my mother wraps her arms around me and lifts me up on to her hip.

Big girl! she groans, Where’s that naughty Fran, eh?

She holds me tight and leans against the lintel. There’s movement in next door’s yard, then Mr Riley swearing from inside the toilet. Minutes later, he yells.

Della! Where’s the bloody
Echo
?

My mother laughs into my neck:

Old Next-Door Riley! she whispers, He’s out of paper, Dol. Shall we throw him some over?

Another yell from the outhouse, then Mrs Riley shouting back, followed by a clank of toilet chain. My mother’s not smiling now, she’s staring out into the
distance.

Where’s that bugger? she says.

I don’t know who she means.

~

Fran has forgotten time. She doesn’t think about how late it is, only how bright the fire will be now that night has come. She creeps slowly along the terraced row of Jet
Street, looking for signs of life. Even though the families have been evicted, there’s still a danger that others have moved in – gangs of gypsies searching for something to sell, or
drunks bedding down for the night. Once, Fran peered into the black window of an end house and saw a man and a woman lying in the middle of the floor. Now she presses her hand against the doors
until she finds one that swings open. She stands in the hall, listening.

It’s even darker with the door shut behind her. Fran waits for her eyes to adjust, but she still has to put out her hands and feel her way along the narrow passage. Instinctively, she
turns to the right, into a moon-flooded room. There is a table with a single cup and saucer in the middle, and an airer with a baby’s nappy drying in front of a dead fire: the family must
have left in a hurry. Paper bags and odd clothes litter the floor. Fran can’t quite see them, but she can feel the snagging and rustling around her feet. She moves into the kitchen, hearing
her own breath in the silence, and pulls open a drawer. Nothing. Another drawer – nothing. She isn’t afraid of all this space and emptiness, nor of the pulsing in her ears: she’s
searching. She finds a wooden chair in the scullery, and pushes it through the passage, kicking at the struts until they crack.

Fran gathers up the pieces of wood and makes her way into the living room at the front of the house. The street-lamps have been switched off now the road has been condemned, so there’s
very little light in here: she must work by touch. Her hands swish across the walls like someone blind; she finds a corner of wallpaper and pulls – it comes away in a loud long strip –
then traces with her fingers, finds another join, and rips again. She works quickly, baring the walls until the air is clogged with plaster-dust and the floorboards ripple with paper: enough to
build her fire.

~

The Segunas live in Connaught Place, not far from us, but far enough to be a better part of town. Frankie hurries across the black hump of Devil’s Bridge, along the empty
street leading into the cul-de-sac, slowing his pace as he approaches Pippo’s home. The houses on the terrace are all alike; high Victorian buildings, each with iron railings skirting the
pavement, and steps leading up to a wide porch. Most of the houses in the Place have been converted into flats, and as Frankie passes them he can’t help looking down into the basement rooms
for signs of life; he half expects to see himself, craning his head up at the passers-by. It reminds him of when he first washed up in Tiger Bay.

Pippo’s house is easy to identify; it’s the only one with curtains all the same colour, in a shade of bright orange. Every room is lit up, and above the porch, a coach-lamp casts a
cold white glare. The wreath of ivy on the front door is grey in this light. Frankie misunderstands the meaning of the wreath; early for Christmas, he thinks. In fact, it’s the Segunas
outward show of mourning. Frankie pauses to figure out his strategy with Pippo, placing one foot on the steps before him; they gleam so white beneath his polished shoe, they might be dusted with
icing sugar. It’s only the frost, as Frankie discovers when he moves: he slips swiftly to the right, almost tumbling down into the basement. Swearing out loud, he rights himself, grasping the
handrail as the shock runs through his body.

~

There’s a point when the room gets too hot for Fran and she has to move into the corner. She slides down against the wall, watches the shadows on the ceiling in flat then
splintered layers, as if they’re searching for a way out of the heat. Putting her hands up in front of her, she studies the brightness through them: the bones inside her skin shine like an
x-ray. Soon there’ll be a moment when she can’t control the fire – when it does things she can’t predict; sparking all over, melting like syrup across the floor, collapsing
in a slump and suddenly flaring again in new gold. A shift of air can make it rage. Fran doesn’t understand about risk, but this is what she craves when she makes a blaze – gambling on
how hot, how high, on how long she can bear it. She is so like our father.

While Frankie weighs up his chances with Pippo, Fran calculates her own luck: another minute – two – before she has to run. She knows the signs by now; the taste of metal on her
tongue, a speckled warmth beneath her skin which courses through her body like an urge to pee. Sometimes she has to, crouching in the hall on her way out, or quickly in the gutter with the fire
going Whoof! and the sound of glass cracking like rifle-shot off the houses opposite. Outside, she soars, dipping through the darkened streets with the fizz of heat behind her and the rush of cool
air on her face.

On the other side of Jet Street, Roy Jackson leans out of an upstairs window; he’s keeping watch while his brother Tommy does a recce of the house. He gets a good view of the docklands to
the left, the moonlight slipping along the old tramway like vaseline, smearing itself on the saltings in the distance. Looking right, Roy counts the smoking piles of debris on the razed patch of
Emerald Place, eyes the Evanses’ shop on the corner: there’s a lean-to shed inside the yard which would make for an easy climb. There is no one on the street except for Fran, fleeing
from the house opposite like a phantom wrapped in smoke. Roy ducks his head back inside the window and watches her run.

~

Here she comes now, scrabbling over next door’s fence and landing silently on our patch of grass. My mother drops me down in the doorway.

Where the hell did
you
get to! she yells, I’ve been Out of My Wits!

Fran is grinning; her eyes are silver with the thrill of what she’s done. She tries to duck past, shielding herself with her arm, but my mother can’t help it, she
smashes her hand down flat on Fran’s head, over and over. Chasing her through the kitchen and up the stairs, she catches her by the leg.

I could kill you! I could kill you!

Her hand beats out against Fran’s shin, and then the stair-tread as Fran escapes, and then her own knees as she bends and sits and weeps.

They’ll put you away, she cries.

I sit down next to my mother on the stairs. I try to cuddle her. She’s wiping her eyes and muttering to herself,

They’ll put her away, you see if they don’t. And that’ll be another one gone.

~

Frankie raps the knocker twice, and when there’s no answer, puts his eye close to the glass. There’s a distant pool of light, then a bent figure swimming towards him
through the frosted pane, like a deep-sea diver surfacing. The first glimpse of Mrs Seguna gives Frankie a fright; in her black dress and shawl, she is the image of his grandmother. He looks down
into her face and smiles. She doesn’t smile back: she stares at him in unblinking silence.

Mrs Seguna? says Frankie, I come to see Pippo.