“They’re quite capable of going back to work if they want to.”
“It’s not as simple as that and you know it.”
Her father was really launching into breakfast. He poured another cup of tea from the pot then spooned an entire boiled egg onto a dripping segment of toast, mashed it with a fork and sprinkled it with salt and pepper. “Look…” he began.
“All it takes is a phonecall. What’s the energy secretary’s name? Or the coal board? I bet you know someone.”
“For God’s sake!” Crumbs exploded across the table. “The vote’s tomorrow, there’s no point rocking the boat now. What’s brought this on anyway?”
“Maybe I have an ounce of humanity in me?”
“Spare me the violins, Evelyn.”
“I prefer the cello. It’s a far sadder instrument.”
Clive waited.
“I made a friend,” said Evie.
“Ah yes, Duncan mentioned him. The local boy?”
“His father’s on strike.”
“They’re all on bloody strike. What’s his name? He’s been helping with the posters and things, hasn’t he?”
“Lawrence.”
Clive demolished the remains of his food then carried his plate across the kitchen. “Well you’ve kept him well hidden, that’s for sure. But you can bring him for dinner if you like. He can take a doggy bag home for his parents.”
Beneath the hot tap, Clive’s empty plate tolled against the Belfast sink. Even he must have realised how callous he was being, because his voice softened. “So the family… you’ve met them? I assume that’s what’s brought this plea on.”
“I met the mother. She’s a Litten Lady, that’s what they call themselves.”
“Ah, yes. Soup kitchen. Admirable women.” Clive switched off the tap and patted his hands dry on his trousers. “And what about the father? Why hasn’t he gone back to work if things are so dire?”
“Oh, Arthur, God knows. Lawrence refuses to talk about him but he’s a bit of a character by all accounts. It was quite funny actually…”
She was reaching for the toast when Clive grabbed her by the wrist.
He didn’t even give her time to put on shoes. Evie rubbed her bare feet while her father beat the Jaguar’s horn and swore until the rusted old jalopy farted into life. They tore into Litten◦– it was lucky Evie remembered the way◦– then pulled in at the far end of the street where Lawrence’s parents lived. Clive got out and wrote down the address. He seemed in two minds about whether to knock on the door, decided against it then came back and sat in the driver’s seat.
“Describe him,” he said.
“Why?”
“Evie, tell me what Newman looks like.”
“You’re hurting me!”
“What does he look like?”
“He’s tall, short hair, beard! He has this mark!”
“Here?”
“Yes!”
Clive wouldn’t say any more. He disappeared into the study the moment they arrived back at the house. All morning Evie could hear him oozing down the phone. She tried to listen in on the conversation from outside in the hallway but when she accidentally made a noise, Clive flew out and bellowed at her to make herself scarce.
She reverted to the sanctuary of her Walkman. Bored, lying on her bed, Evie wished for Lawrence but dared not go to him. At a loss, she retreated from questions and spent the day smoking the last of the grass she’d stolen from Clemmie Dallas until she fell asleep. Later she ventured downstairs and found Duncan in the living room. The lawn out of the windows was frozen and the trees had been picked clean by the winter.
“Where’s Dad?” she asked.
“London.”
“That’s short notice.”
“He had a meeting.”
Evie scratched away the last of her nail polish, and was shocked to see a horrid smile carving its way across Duncan’s face like a red wound.
“He’s meeting with Bram,” her brother said nastily. “Your boyfriend.”
20
THE FIELD WAS full of Canada Geese, a familiar sight in the gravel pits and down the rec. There were twenty of them now, absent wardens ferreting in the white. Lawrence leant on the fence to watch them go about their business. He always found in the natural world a reflection of the things he felt.
He was heading to his gran’s along a slippery pavement embroidered with hexagons of frost. He’d be there within the hour. He blew on hands that looked frozen themselves they were so cold, gave them a rub and hurried on his way.
Tomorrow he’d be back on Water Street. He was far from struck on the idea but his grandmother couldn’t afford to keep him anymore. He was just back from lying to his mam about the whole thing, explaining that it was by choice that he was moving home, and that if he was to see it through she’d to end whatever it was she had going on with Uncle Het. Arthur might be too weak to see what was going on. Lawrence knew very well. He just did.
Of course he was careful with how he went about it. He wasn’t specific. He just said it needed doing. It. A stop put.
Seeing your mam go all quiet, go inside herself. “You know what I mean,” Lawrence said.
“Heard you, love.”
“I know what Dad’s like. It’s just…”
He stopped short of saying Arthur didn’t deserve the betrayal he was getting.
“And you’ll come home?” Shell said.
Lawrence nodded.
“Then it’s settled. And that’s the last any of us will say on it.”
She’d been having it away all right. He would never forgive her.
The geese took to the air in a skein. They passed overhead, hooting. Lawrence watched them wink out and disappear. Cottonlea Retirement Home was in view, St Michael’s weathercock poking above the adjoining cathedral of trees. What were their names? His dad would know. Ash, maybe. They loomed above an understorey of hawthorn. Lawrence stopped to twist one of the hawthorn’s stubborn branches in half and jammed its spines against the fence. He couldn’t believe what Evie had tried last night. She had trespassed all over him. She thought she knew his every step before he thought to take it.
He arrived at his gran’s, the house enveloped in the smell of his goodbye dinner. She’d done him a pot of tea, boiled some ham with potatoes and cabbage, while dessert was jelly and ice cream. Gran didn’t eat any herself, preferring to watch Lawrence enjoy his food, which he did, for the most part. He’d be dining at the soup kitchen soon enough. Chips, egg and beans on a trestle table, followed by more chips, egg and beans and the same again the next day. Christmas would be fun. Lawrence wasn’t even thinking about his approaching birthday.
After he’d finished his meal, he planned to head upstairs so he could pack and be angry in peace, but his gran lay her hand on his wrist. Her skin was spotted and coloured by poor circulation. When Lawrence thought of her, this room was where she was, reading the newspaper, slippers tapping the chair leg, or dwarfed by the stove and surrounded by a bloom of steam and the melt-cackle of spitting butter.
“I shall miss thee,” she said, “who will I have to peel us spuds and weed the garden when tha’s gone?”
“Who’s going to pay me for it as well as you do, Gran?”
Helen grinned. She had been good to him.
“There’ll always be a place for you under this roof. But it’s the right thing, you going home.”
Lawrence nodded, although he couldn’t say he agreed. The zip on his gran’s apron had been replaced by a safety pin. He watched her play with it, up and down. A centimetre, up and down.
“Oh, look at that face. Tha’s like tha father, lad. Chin up.”