Laceys of Liverpool Read Free Page B

hands, burnt his face. The hands had mended, but not the face.
    A further irony was that the war was virtually over and the accident had had nothing to do with the conflict. The firefighters were on duty at Gladstone Dock, as they had been every night over the past five years, when the boiler had gone up. They’d come through the war unscathed, all his family, his brother’s family, his mam, his father-in-law. Amber Street itself hadn’t been touched, not even a broken window, while numerous other streets in Bootle had been reduced to rubble. Then, in the very last week, John had lost half his face.
    He stared at the grotesque reflection in the mirror. ‘Fool!’ he spat through crooked lips.
    Where were his children – his three girls, his little son? More important, where was his wife? He remembered the girls had gone to a party. His father-in-law had Cormac. But there was no explanation for why Alice wasn’t home.
    ‘She don’t fancy you no more,’ he told his reflection. ‘She’s with another fella. He’s giving her one right now, sticking it up her in the place that used to be yours.’
    John groaned and turned away from the mirror. He’d never used to think like that, so coarsely, lewdly. Making love to Alice used to be the sweetest thing on earth, butnow he couldn’t bring himself to touch her, imagining her shrinking inside, hating it.
    The back door opened and his wife came in. Until last May, until a few days before the war ended, until his accident, he would have lifted her up, kissed her rosy face, stared into her misty blue eyes, told her how much he’d missed her, how much he loved her. They might have taken the opportunity, the kids being out, of going upstairs for a blissful half-hour in bed. Instead, John scowled and said gruffly, ‘I tried Myrtle’s door on the way home, but it were locked. That was more than half an hour ago. Where have you been, eh? With your fancy man?’
    She looked at him reproachfully. ‘I haven’t got a fancy man, John.’
    Oh, she was so lovely! She was thirty-one, though she didn’t look it: tall, gawky like a schoolgirl, a bit too thin. He used to tell her she had too many elbows, she was always knocking things over. Her face was long and oval, the skin flawless, the eyes very large and very blue. They were innocent eyes, guileless. Deep within his soul, he knew she would never be unfaithful, but the new John, the John Lacey who now inhabited his body, found it just as hard to believe that such an attractive woman, a woman born to be loved, hadn’t found someone else since her husband had become so repulsive.
    ‘So, what have you been doing with yourself for the last half-hour?’ he sneered.
    ‘Tidying up. I remember hearing someone try the door when me and Bernadette were upstairs with Myrtle. She drank all the sherry and ended up incapable.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll make some tea.’
    He grabbed her shoulder when she turned to leave. ‘I don’t believe you.’
    ‘There’s nothing I can do about that.’ She was aboutto shrug his hand away. Instead, she bent her head and laid her face against it and he could feel the rich-brown hair fluttering on his fingers. The gesture touched his heart. ‘I don’t need a fancy man, luv,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve got you. Why don’t we go upstairs for five minutes? I can get dressed in a jiffy if the latch goes.’ Alice missed making love more than she could say. She didn’t care about his face. For his sake, she would prefer it hadn’t happened. But it
had
happened and she loved him just as much, if not more. Sadly, it was impossible to convince John of this. Anyroad, his face wasn’t nearly as bad as he made out. The right side was a bit puckered, that was all. The burn had slightly affected his eye, the corner of his mouth, but he looked nothing like the monster he claimed. She reached up and stroked the puckered skin. ‘I love you.’
    If only he could believe her! He wanted to, so much. But he knew, he