‘It’s got worse.’
‘Mind you. She still comes out wi’ things. And you’ll be like, “Lord Jesus, where did that come from?” Then she goes back into herself.’
‘That’s the pattern.’
‘Bless her.’
They walked to the Pleasure Beach. Sheila was telling him how a popular ride called the Derby Racer had been scrapped a few years back. ‘That was something in its day,’ she said. ‘You could hear the squeals for miles.’ The lights still amazed Luke but there was nothing harsh in them any more, no reminders of tracer fire. It was just life repeating itself in a northern town and
he was glad to be part of a million bulbs.
‘Sheila,’ he said. ‘Why does she have that room?’
‘It’s like I told you,’ she said. ‘Your grandmother actually owns that bit of the house.’
‘You didn’t say that.’
‘Well, she does. She rented it at first. Just a bedsit, you know, when she first started coming to Blackpool. But then my mother and father hit rough times. Mrs Blake’s aunts died one by one up in Glasgow and eventually she got some money and one of the things she did … she bought that part of the house. It wasn’t a lot of money. But my mother was in a lather at the time and your gran has always helped with the bills coming in. Off-season we used to sit and wait for Mrs Blake’s cheque. And it would always come until it stopped about a year ago.’
‘I always suspected something. My mother knew. She wouldn’t really talk about it.’
‘We’re going back forty-odd years,’ Sheila said. ‘I was only a baby when the arrangement started.’
They sat down on a bench. He could tell Sheila wasn’t sure how much he wanted to know. More revellers went past and she sent a smile after them, girls in pink safety helmets.
‘Tell me about Harry.’
‘Oh, Christ. Where do I start?’
‘I know he’s my grandfather. I know they were never married. It’s nice of you to call her Mrs Blake.’
‘My mother always insisted on that.’
‘I know he was married to somebody else. Before coming here, I read some letters she kept. Letters from him. He was married to somebody in Manchester. Not Anne. Did he let her down?’
‘It was awful.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have brought her here.’
‘Never think it was wrong,’ she said. ‘In spite of everything she always loved it here.’
‘That’s what I hoped.’
‘That man Harry,’ she said. ‘He were bloody deluded. That’s the word, isn’t it? Deluded. My mother always said so. She got the full story about that man, and, one time, she and my dad went over to Manchester to give him a piece of their mind. They went to his office.’
‘He made things up?’
‘All those stories about the war. My dad was a lot older than my mother and he did fight in the war, so he couldn’t stand all that stuff that came out of Harry Blake’s mouth.’
‘About flying spy planes?’
‘Oh. Spy planes. He’d worked in a chemist’s shop in London processing film. That was his war. A dodgy ear is what he had. The marvellous Harry with all the medals. And then, according to my dad, he got himself into Guildford College, didn’t he? A course in photography. The first, I think. I don’t know how he got in. Night school, I suppose. Guys who had flown in the war went there because it were near the base. That’s where Harry got all his stories — from those men.’
‘And Anne knew?’
‘She always knew. But she loved him. And when you love somebody that much, well, you need to believe them, don’t you? She wanted to protect him, or something like that.’
‘And he met Anne here? It said in the letters.’
‘That’s right. He was teaching photography at the college in Manchester. The end of the 1950s this was.’
‘She came to a lecture of his.’
‘I think that’s right. Dad had all the facts.’
Luke leaned back on the bench. He told her it looked like Anne’s life had been one long bid for freedom. From her own family in Canada to the career in New York. Then from the big house in Glasgow to Blackpool. She was always trying to rescue her youth from her family, trying to rescue her talent. ‘It sounds like he was her last chance,’ he said.
‘Maybe,’ Sheila said.
She lit a cigarette and blew out the smoke, narrowing her eyes at the sea as if it helped her remember. ‘Three children he had,’ she repeated. ‘And my mother said he courted Anne, you know, here in Blackpool, taking her out and that, introducing her to people. And you can imagine what it must’ve been like for Anne to have someone just then. It was all domestic stuff in Glasgow. She couldn’t leave.’
‘But why not?’
‘The old dears were bedridden.’
‘But that wasn’t her problem.’
‘Apparently, it was. She’d promised her father. There was nobody else. Her family was all gone by then.’
‘So Harry was a godsend? He knew about photographs.’
‘Exactly. A godsend. He believed in her. My mother said she’d a lovely Canadian voice back then.’
‘You can still hear it faintly. It’s nearly seventy years since she lived in Ontario.’
‘The accent’s strong in Scotland. You’re going to lose your accent if you stay there too long.’
‘She still has traces.’
‘I can hear it.’
‘She got pregnant,’ Luke said.
‘She did, yeah. And you know what? I was telling you this morning about her haunting the cafes, taking pictures and doing work for a big magazine. My mother said she’d never seen her so happy as she was that summer. She’d got herself back. She was doing new things. It was looking great. Then she fell pregnant and he scarpered.’
‘He just left?’
‘He came back, but not much. There would be these long gaps. Me dad went looking for him. Harry was married, of course. He had the wife and the kids in Salford, as you say. I think my dad felt sorry for him, in a way. It happened to a lot of couples back then. Harry got Anne pregnant and then went back to his wife. I remember my dad saying that Harry was one of those people who live their lives through other people. All those lies about his war service and everything.’
‘But he got her back to photography,’ Luke said.
‘That’s true. He wasn’t all bad.’
‘And he loved her.’
‘He filled her head full of dreams. But I’ll tell you something: in all the years, she never spoke a word against him.’
‘She was faithful to him.’
‘Yes, she was.’
‘When you read his letters,’ Luke said. ‘You see he wanted great things for her, things he couldn’t get for himself. That’s love, isn’t it?’
‘She had the talent.’
‘He helped her become herself.’
‘If you say so. He’s your grandfather. And you’re bound to want to see the good in him, just like she did. It’s only natural.’
‘Your own father—’
‘He understood that people can get lost. To him, Harry was a smart fellow who just got lost in his own circumstances. He didn’t like what he did — or the lies he told — but he believed that Harry was a victim of everything that happened at the time, just as Anne was.’ She paused. ‘It’s not always the right people who take hold of your life. Half the women I know had men like that, but they got over them, and she didn’t.’
‘Well, she did,’ Luke said. ‘By turning him into something good.’
‘Something better. She was an artist, after all.’
Luke considered it. ‘The great Harry,’ he said. ‘She speaks about him with such reverence.’
‘Well, that’s the way she felt about him. He had a gift for making connections between people. People say he was a good teacher. He opened up something in her and if that happens, well—’