NEDRA FELT THE TIGHTNESS in her middle sprout through her heart and old bones to her skull where the fright drove her mad. This was after seeing Mac come for Carol that Saturday, at a quarter to seven by the kitchen clock, whose hands had slowed the day to still after Linda’s turn, so that she had heard the doorbell and found herself in-time again, the hands having jumped in one tick and moved, with the Devil, to a quarter to seven, where her kitchen was now the colour of crackling, in which for a clock-second and another she could smell and taste sulphur. Door-knocks followed the doorbell. The front door chained and shut by her own hand, not the clock’s or the Devil’s. She left her kitchen to open it – letting Mac in and the Devil out.
‘Who’s all that for?’ Mac said, following her back through, seeing raw meat diced in bowls on the counter as she resumed chopping haystacks of veg: leeks and spuds.
Nedra stopped and raised her knife. ‘D’you know summat – am not even sure now.’
Mac waited standing – all glum brawn like an old circus bear. ‘. . . Well then save us a plate, if you can.’
She said: ‘You’ve come for her then, have you? Our Carol.’
‘You won’t miss her.’
‘Won’t I?’
‘It’s just for tonight,’ he said, faking cheer. ‘I’ll bring her back to you.’
‘And if she don’t want bringing back? What if she’s had enough of her lot and wants yours? What’ll you do then?’ Nedra sighed. ‘You old fool.’
Then they heard Carol’s step, above them.
‘Mind how you go with her, Mac, won’t you?’
‘Right,’ Carol said, ready in the doorway – fragrant and tuttied and scant-frocked. ‘I’ll be back late.’
‘You off to town with him?’ Nedra said.
‘I am.’
‘You going like that?’
‘I am.’ Carol was soap-scrubbed, gift-ribboned: looking cleaner and younger than she had in years. Tarted-up all modern, almost the spit of their Jan. Posed pigeon-toed and taller in her bridal heels, like new.
‘. . .Aye, well. I shan’t worry,’ Nedra said to her knife. ‘Ta-ra, love. Be good.’
Mac said ta-ra for Carol – for Carol to leave half-dressed and painted, with bright wet lipstick of a colour never mind shade so queer and new that Nedra didn’t know its name. But then Carol shouted ta-ra herself from the hall and Nedra found herself knifeless and looming from the other end, a step out of the kitchen, stricken with hope. A hope that this would be it; that Carol would elope, like her other daughter, Eunice, and then all the hurt would be Nedra’s alone to churn. But the thought resurfaced of Jan conceived in Carol’s sin. But whether Jan was Sefton’s too and not just born of his forgiveness, who could know? And what could not be known had no business being said. As Carol left with Mac it was as if the decades could be picked off like a final scab. All so that her daughterinlaw at forty-three might spend a night on the town and catch her death. He came for Carol in an oxblood tie, smart shoes; his hollow cheeks razored, his eyes blue – not clear, not young. He’d washed his car since the afternoon. Once they left she had hobbled to the frontroom window to see. Standing in the presence of none. Jan and Kelly out. Gene and Joey out, already forgetting their mam’s trouble. Nedra was left impossibly alone for the first time in the house at weekend of an evening in the quiet. Without hectic distraction with only that baby above her and the tightness in her spreading. Without Linda behind the shared wall for comfort. With nobody to brew up for. No kiddies to chase in or out. None mithering to be mothered. Nowt to feed, wash or mend. Nedra felt no Dodds men’s eyes but the Devil’s. No saints’ hands but the clock’s.
Then she heard a cry –
but when she went upstairs numb with dread she found the black baby asleep, only it was too late; the cry was jailed inside her skull –
along with the tightness.
O Mary, Queen of Mercy, I have committed grievous sin in thought in word and deed
And with this she began to take on new shape and backed from the room and warped and wobbled at the top of the stairs, her landing a brown tunnel with only daylight from the frontdoor glass shining up and the door itself unseen but its light striking the carpet and cutting the stairs.
Then she heard the front door being tested and opened:
‘Missus Dodds. . .? Nedra? Is they anybody in?’
While Nedra fussed, Father Culler said: ‘Be a sin to waste the last drop on me hand.’
Over the sink she upped the finished brandy bottle onto cotton wool and sat with him at the table to unwrap her soaked teatowel and dab his torn hand.
‘Bastard dog wants putting down. Must have rabies.’ He chuckled this but his teeth were whistling as she turned his palm.
Her fingers, shaking. ‘You’ll need to get this seen to, Father.’
‘You’ve had plenty practice over the years on flesh and garment, let’s not forget.’
‘Jim used to say I could’ve been a cutman at Belle Vue. I made me own recipes to stop swell and bleeding. Never had a neat stitch, mind. Plus, this is your writing hand.’
While his voice was warm, he was shaking with her. He curled her fingers with his other hand and patted them. ‘Say it turns out not so well; I’ll see that you’re forgiven.’
‘Don’t, Father. You’ll make me laugh.’
His still-thick hair went in silver waves, eccentric on a hot day, longer on top in a reverse tonsure and damp above his temples now with brandy-heat and suffering. ‘Can remember Missus Stone telling us what a grand job you did hemming Susie-Ann’s First Communion dress. How is that girl? She behaving herself?’
‘We’ve not had Susie-Ann round today.’
He looked at her cold stove. ‘And where’s your Carol?’
‘Out like the rest.’
He looked at her while the dog bite bled.
Nedra kept his elbow on the table like they were about to arm wrestle – his black sleeve rolled high. ‘Father, why would he go for you? Just can’t understand it. Snowy’s never gone for anybody. Not from being a pup.’
Red water trickled down his forearm. ‘That little lad set him on me.’
Nedra paused cleaning the bite. Then kept on.
‘The mad dog only let go to chase its little master once he ran away.’ Father Culler’s ageing face became unkind.
‘We’ll get this sorted out, Father. I’m sorry. Gene’ll bring him home before dark.’
He craned to read the clock for her.
‘Father, I. . .’
‘You wish to say a quick prayer for Linda? We knew that woman wasn’t well.’
‘She wasn’t, no.’
‘With her Joe inside – we can’t be having two young tearaways, can we? And what with Gene Harvey thieving again, I’m told.’
‘Gene? No.’
‘While Linda gets herself right, Rose Hill might be best thing for her two – after this. No wonder Joey goes funny when you take him to church. Lad fears for his soul and he should.’ And then Father flinched and sucked his teeth and said: ‘Mind, Nedra. Mind.’
Nedra pressed more carefully. ‘Little Joey’s afraid, Father.’
‘It’s a blessing to find fear in today’s young.’
‘It’s fear of you, Father. Isn’t it? I mean, for Joey.’
He looked at her, without curiosity, as the clock ticked away his blood. He chuckled. ‘That’ll be the day.’
But Nedra knew.
Missus Dodds?
Yes, love?
How long is jail?
Depends how bad you’ve been, Joey.
Missus Dodds?
Yes, love?
How long is Hell?
Forever and ever, Joey.
Longer than jail?
Much longer. Much.
But Nedra knew. She would flood Hell with tears and sail them all up to Heaven. Their souls would dance on endless Manchester clouds.
Father Culler saw her cringing with him, but for her it was the thing that was and wasn’t pain since she’d done nowt to Joey that could make his white staffie bite her.
‘You’ve been suffering yourself,’ he said.
‘I’m getting on, Father.’
The wounds open and clean.
‘Pain of conscience afflicts the damned,’ he said to his savaged hand or to hers. ‘Pain of body afflicts those unwise enough to enter old age.’
Nedra smiled as she rose suddenly and left him to fetch her sewing kit from upstairs; but when she came back in he saw her wearing her chocolate suede hat and her ginger anorak over her housedress and necklaces.
‘I’m off to find our Joey,’ she said, her knees holding, her heart free – with her sins fitting her square shape just right. ‘You’ll have to go elsewhere, Father, for your stitches and supper.’