events.’
Brian realized he was nearly at the end of his pint. He swilled the glass around to try and catch the foam which patterned the sides.
‘Recent events?’ Sheila twisted at her earring. It was heavy and bronze, and Brian thought it looked like something you might find on a totem pole. It dragged the flesh towards her jaw, and pulled the hole in her ear into a jagged line.
‘This business with Margaret Creasy.’ Harold still held the beer mat between his fingers. ‘John has it in his head it’s something to do with number eleven. Got himself in a right state after church last weekend.’
‘Did he?’ said Sheila. ‘I wasn’t there.’
Harold looked at her. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t expect you were.’
‘Cheeky sod.’ She began twisting at the other earring. Her laugh took up the whole table.
Harold leaned forward, even though there wasn’t any space to lean into.
‘We just all need to be clear,’ he said, ‘about what happened.’
The music had finished. Brian could hear Clive’s tea towel squeak against the glass and the hum of the old men shuffling their words.
‘You might as well sit down, Clive, as stand over there.’ Eric Lamb nodded at the empty stool with his glass. ‘You’re as much a part of this as any of us.’
Clive took a step back and pulled the tea towel into his chest, and said he didn’t really think it was his place, but Brian saw Harold persuade him over with his eyes, and Clive dragged the stool across the lino and pulled himself between Harold and Sheila.
‘I deliberately didn’t ask John tonight.’ Harold sat back and folded his arms. ‘We don’t need another scene.’
‘What makes him think it’s anything to do with number eleven?’ Sheila had finished her Babycham, and was turning the stem of the glass between her fingers. It crept towards the edge of the table.
‘You know John. He’s always looking for something to worry about,’ said Harold, ‘he can’t keep his mind still.’
Brian agreed, although he would never say so. When they were kids, John used to count buses. He reckoned they were lucky.
The more buses we see the better, he said, it stops bad things happening. It would make them late for school, walking round the long way, trying to spot as many as they could. Brian would say, It’s made us late, how can that be lucky and laugh, but John would just gnaw at the skin around his fingers and say that they can’t have seen enough.
‘John doesn’t think that pervert’s done her in, does he?’ said Sheila. The glass tipped towards the floor, and Eric guided her hand back.
‘Oh no. Nothing like that, no. No.’ Harold said no too many times, they came out of his mouth like a string of bunting. He looked down at the beer mat.
‘Wouldn’t surprise me if he has,’ said Sheila, ‘I still reckon he took that babbie.’
Harold looked at her for a moment, and then lowered his eyes.
‘The baby turned up safe, though, Sheila.’ Eric took the glass from her hand. ‘That’s all that matters.’
‘Bloody pervert,’ she said. ‘I don’t care what the police said. It’s a normal avenue, full of normal people. He doesn’t belong there.’
A silence unfolded across the table. Brian could hear the Guinness slide down Eric Lamb’s throat, and the tea towel crease and pleat between Clive’s fingers. He could hear the twist of Sheila’s earring, and the tap of Harold’s beer mat on the wood, and he heard pockets of his own breath escaping his mouth. The silence became a sound all of its own. It pushed against his ears until he could stand it no longer.
‘Margaret Creasy talked to my mam a lot,’ he said. He put the pint glass to his mouth. It was almost empty.
‘About what?’ said Harold. ‘Number eleven?’
Brian shrugged behind the glass. ‘I never sat with them,’ he said. ‘They played Gin Rummy for hours in the backroom. Good company, my mam said she was. A good listener.’
‘She was always in and out of your house, Harold.’ Sheila clicked open her purse and put a pound note in front of Clive.
‘She was? I never saw her.’
‘Probably keeping Dorothy company,’ she said, ‘while you were out and about.’
Brian went to put a tower of coins on the note, but Sheila brushed him away.
‘Dorothy saw Margaret Creasy going into number eleven,’ said Harold. ‘She’s just as hysterical about it as John is. She thinks someone’s said something.’
Clive pulled the empty glasses together, catching each one with a finger. ‘What is there to say? The police said the fire was an accident.’
‘You know Dorothy,’ said Harold, ‘she’ll tell anybody anything, she doesn’t know what she’s saying half of the time.’
The glasses rattled as they left the table.
‘As long as the police don’t change their minds and start digging everything up again.’ For once, Sheila’s voice was low. She still held on to the purse, and Brian watched her click at the clasp. Her hands were rough from the heat, and the polish on her nails crept away from the edges in ragged lines.
‘For Christ’s sake, Sheila, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.’ There was no one else in the bar. Even the old men had left. Still Harold scanned a room of empty chairs behind him, then turned back and edged himself nearer the table. ‘Stop scaremongering. We agreed back then that we just made our feelings known, that’s all. The rest of it was chance.’
Brian leaned back in his chair. He could feel the edge of the cigarette machine biting into his shoulder. ‘She talked to everyone, though, didn’t she? She went round the whole avenue. You don’t know what she found out. She was smart, Mrs Creasy. Really smart.’
Sheila pushed her purse back into her handbag. ‘I hate to bloody say it, but Brian’s right. Perhaps she knew more than any of us.’
‘It was an accident,’ said Eric Lamb. He stretched the words out, like instructions.
Now his glass was gone, Brian didn’t know what to do with his hands. He pressed his thumb into the drips of beer on the table, pulling them into lines, trying to make a pattern. This was the problem when people had known you since you were a child, they could never quite let go of assuming you needed to be told what to think.
‘We just need to stay calm,’ said Harold. ‘None of this loose talk. We did nothing wrong, understood?’
Brian shrugged his shoulders, and his jacket creaked and crackled in reply. Probably wasn’t leather after all.
*
They
