‘Sounds as if someone’s celebrated a bit too well,’ Pat said from the other side of the room.
‘Aye,’ Tressa said, crossing to the window, and then she exclaimed, ‘God Almighty! Lizzie, it’s Steve.’
‘No!’ Lizzie crossed to the window and saw Steve, off his head with drink and leaning against Mike, who seemed to be trying to remonstrate with him.
The other two girls crowded behind them to see. ‘Ain’t that your feller?’ Betty said to Lizzie.
‘He was,’ Lizzie said. ‘I finished with him yesterday.’
‘Doesn’t seem to have taken it too well then,’ Pat remarked.
Lizzie watched him shake Mike’s hand away, totter a couple of steps and, looking straight at her framed in the window, he screamed, ‘Lizzie! Come out, you bitch. You hear me, Lizzie?’
‘Tressa,’ Lizzie said, ‘I must go down.’
‘There is no way you are going near that mad man in the state he’s in,’ Tressa said firmly.
‘Tressa, I’ll lose my job if the manager finds out.’
‘He won’t know it’s you,’ Tressa said. ‘How many staff do you think the boss can name?’
‘He’ll tumble to it eventually. He’s not stupid.’
However, the manager was tired and longing for his bed and had no patience with any drunk that the waiter said was screaming abuse in St Phillip’s churchyard. The whole incident would probably disturb his guests, who’d come to him in the morning with a list of complaints. It was not to be borne. ‘Phone the police,’ he told the head waiter. ‘It’s their business, so let them deal with it.’
Within minutes, the watching girls saw two policemen approach Mike and Steve. ‘Now, now,’ said the younger one. ‘What’s all this about?’
Steve, staggering on his feet, said, ‘She’s a bitch, a bloody bitch.’
‘I’m sure she is, sir,’ said the older man, ‘but I think it would be best to discuss it in the morning.’
‘It’s all right,’ Mike said, stepping forward. ‘I’ll see to him.’ He’d seldom seen Steve as drunk as this. He could handle his drink, could Steve, but then he’d been drinking nearly all day.
Mike had had no idea Lizzie was to finish with Steve the previous evening, and when Steve told him at The Bell that lunchtime he was shocked and felt sorry for him. Getting drunk had seemed a damned good idea. It was only when Steve started muttering about going into the town and what he’d do, both to Lizzie and the bloody hotel she worked in, that Mike had decided he’d better go with him.
‘Come on, mate,’ he said now, his arms around Steve.
‘Get off me.’
Steve’s hefty swing nearly had Mike on his back and the young policeman said, ‘Steady, sir.’
‘Steady, sir. Steady, sir,’ Steve mocked. ‘Why don’t the pair of you fuck off.’
‘We can’t do that, sir,’ the older policeman said firmly. ‘You either go home now, or you cool your heels in a cell.’
‘Look, there’s no need for this,’ Mike remonstrated. ‘I’ve told you I’ll see to him,’ and he tried again to put his arm about his friend. ‘Come on, mate, let’s go home, eh?’
Home. The word registered in Steve’s befuddled brain. He wasn’t going home. He wanted to speak with Lizzie; make her see she couldn’t just finish with him like that.
Again, Mike was sent reeling. ‘I’ll go home when I’m bloody well ready to go. After I’ve talked to Lizzie. I’ve got to see her.’
The policemen had decided enough was enough. ‘Come along, sir,’ the older one said. ‘You can’t see people at this time of night. Leave it to the morning, eh?’
‘Get your hands off me.’ Steve’s flailing fist caught the younger policeman’s helmet and it rolled into the road.
‘That’s it,’ the older man said. ‘You’re coming with us.’
‘There’s no need for this,’ Mike protested again.
The younger man retrieved his helmet and said warningly, ‘If you don’t want to accompany him, I’d get yourself home and tell those he lives with he’ll likely be out in the morning.’
And that’s all it would have been, if Steve hadn’t reacted so badly to the older policeman’s efforts trying to put his hands behind his back to put cuffs on. In the fist that slammed into the policeman’s face was the pent-up rage that had been building all day, fuelled by alcohol, and the policeman was knocked clean out.
‘Oh dear God,’ Lizzie breathed, watching the scene with tears streaming down her face. The younger policeman had handcuffed Steve and, holding him firmly, blew the whistle in his mouth.
Suddenly, a paddy wagon screamed to a halt and a policeman, with coshes raised, manhandled Steve into it with little ceremony. ‘And him?’ he then asked, indicating Mike.
‘No,’ the younger copper said, helping his stunned mate to his feet. ‘He was trying to calm the mad bugger down. Go home,’ he advised Mike again. ‘And tell his people, because he’ll be on a charge in the morning for this.’ He indicated his mate, who would have fallen without his support and stood swaying and shaking his head from side to side.
Mike knew he had no option but to do as the policeman suggested and he looked up at the window to see the faces framed there and gave one wave before making for home.
The Gillespie house was in darkness, and Mike hesitated. But they had to know. No tabs were kept on Steve, but they’d be worried if he wasn’t in his bed in the morning; and then there was work. He had no choice but to lift the knocker.
It was Rodney who came, his trousers obviously pulled hurriedly on, for the braces hung either side. His top and feet were bare, and behind him on the stairs Mike could see Flo in a dressing gown with her curlered hair tied up in a turban.
‘What is it, man?’ Rodney barked.
Mike glanced up and down the street. He could see no one but he knew many would have been disturbed by the sudden knock in the quiet street and might even now be peering out at the commotion on the Gillespie doorstep, and so he said, ‘Can I come in?’
‘Yeah, of course,’ Rodney said.
Flo, seeing who it was, followed them into the living room and demanded, ‘Where’s our Steve?’
And Mike told them both as succinctly as possible what Steve had done and what the consequences were.
Flo knew Steve would have been drunk, for he’d had a skinful at lunchtime, but she had no idea what had brought it on. And now, prison. God, such a thing had never befallen any one of them before. ‘He’ll be out in the morning, though, won’t he?’ she said.
Mike shrugged.
