once, Bob and Noreen Loach were laughing in harmony as they watched from the window. He mimicked Michelle’s mindless voice: ‘“Can you tell Dicky I can’t make it tonight?”’
That broke them up laughing again. ‘Or any other night, I fancy,’ he mused. ‘Poor Dicky.’
Again they laughed together. As they did, they slowly faced one another, and gradually fell silent. He caught hold of her hand.
‘You know, it’s good to laugh at the same things, Noreen.’ He wished he had the gift of eloquence, or even flattery, but he couldn’t seem to sustain that mood.
‘Flippin’ ’eck! Just think of Dicky’s face when we wind him up over this one.’
For the first time in ages they looked at each other without animosity. ‘Like a cup of coffee?’ she offered. That hadn’t happened in a long time either.
‘Great.’
She picked up two mugs, went to the coffee machine, filled each mug with black coffee, then added milk.
‘Two lumps, luv,’ he gently reminded her.
‘I do know, Bob,’ she lectured, though still sweet.
Shaking his head, thinking back, Loach had to laugh one more time. ‘Michelle as a courier? Oh dear, oh dear! Thank God we’ve got you as back-up.’
Noreen, having set the coffees down on his desk and holding the carton of sugar cubes at the ready, stood up straight. Her reply was sharp (although he may not have detected the change in her intonation to C sharp until it was too late).
‘You’ve got me as what?’
‘Doing the courier job on the Stratford run.’ Seeing the lump of sugar in her hand, he tried to draw her attention to it. ‘Two lumps, ta, luv.’
Noreen nodded, and threw a lump into his cup, half the contents exploding on to his desk. He jumped back. Then two, three, four, five, six sugar bombs were plopped into the dwindling coffee.
The truce was over. The Hundred Years’ War had restarted, entering its second century.
The mother of the abandoned children had regained control of herself and made tea for them all on her spotless stove. Back in charge of her nerves, she was explaining to Viv – and incidentally to Miss Brownlow, who had doubtless heard the whole story – the series of misfortunes that had led to the near-disaster.
‘Sid – that’s my husband – was working in Wales. He couldn’t get a job around here, you see.’ Viv could surely understand that fact of life. ‘Anyway, he had an accident on the building site. His ankle got broke. It wasn’t all that bad, but I got a message saying it was serious.’
She paused to recall the worried state of her mind at that turning point, then continued. ‘Well, my Mum’s up in Carlisle, so Sid said his sister, Rosie – she stays with us – that Rosie could look after the kids.’
Her expression hardened after mentioning the name of her sister-in-law. ‘She’s back now. The Police picked her up at Birmingham Airport.’
Viv couldn’t help shaking her head in disgust. ‘She needs locking up, you know that. Where is she?’
‘Rosie?’ the children’s mother called out. After waiting for an answer, she called again. ‘Rosie?’
Across the room a door opened slightly and remained ajar. Soon a shadowy face peered through the gap. Presumably Rosie.
‘What d’you want?’ she asked sullenly.
The young mother spoke to her sister-in-law in a stern tenor. ‘There are people wanting to see you. So get in here.’
The door opened wider, and Rosie slouched into their presence, hugging herself, perhaps holding herself together in one piece. She looked as if she had fallen down a mine-shaft. In fact, she was the slattern Viv had expected to see when the children’s mother first opened the door.
Rosie must have taken note of Viv staring at her lumps, bumps and bruises. ‘I walked into a door,’ she scowled in non-explanation.
Unimpressed, Viv went straight after her. ‘Why’d you do it? Leave two small kids in a supermarket?’ She still couldn’t believe anyone would do something so stupidly dangerous, let along idiotic.
Rosie shrugged lackadaisically, absolving herself of any responsibility or blame. ‘I thought they’d be all right. Lots of people to look after them.’ Abruptly her vindication became vindictive. ‘How was I to know not one bugger would lift a finger? Bloody nice that is!’ The rest of the world was at fault, not her.
Viv was speechless, although her mouth was open. She kept staring as if Rosie were a zombie from outer space.
‘It’s all very well you looking at me like you was the Virgin Mary, but what would you have done?’ she asked Viv rhetorically.
‘What would I have done if what?’
‘If you’d been offered a free trip to Torremolinos with the likes of Bill Braddock …’
Confused, Viv couldn’t quite understand what Torremolinos or one Bill Braddock had to do with anything germane to their discussion. Perhaps Rosie would clarify her statement.
‘You could wait a thousand years to meet a man with a body like that!’
Oh, thought Viv, so that was the reason she deserted the children. And worse, she was serious …
The expensive drilling bit had been returned to the Byron-Newman engineering works, and the manager had agreed to talk with Special Constable Anjali Shah. They met outside the entrance.
‘I don’t know how you did it,’ he shook his head back and forth. ‘And I’m not asking why.’
‘You got your property back?’ she asked him to confirm.
‘Late this afternoon,’ the manager acknowledged.
Anjali reflected before going on, speaking slowly, impersonally, unapologetically. ‘What about charges?’
The manager gave her a searching look before conceding to her terms. ‘I won’t be pressing any.’ Yet he didn’t drop his judgmental gaze, and she realized he was trying to relate to her on some deeper level.
‘I suppose you have to look after your own. And far be it from me to damage race relations,’ he went on. Sadly, Anjali could sense the signals that he was about to deliver the same tired old sermon. ‘But listen, I’ve been to India. On holiday, Taj Mahal and all that guff. I know India.’ And how naively, casually, baldly he revealed that he knew nothing of the land at all. ‘Whether I press charges or not, it won’t make any difference. You know that. I know that.’ As if she were his co-conspirator in keeping the bloody wogs under control – and as if it were a privilege for one of her kind to be taken into his confidence.
As
