just around the next corner.
The drinks arrived. She said, “Thanks, Harry,” and then, more sombrely, “Don’t feel you need to talk about Liz if it hurts too much.”
“Matter of fact, Dame, I didn’t simply come here for the pleasure of ogling at your boobs. Lovely as they are. I wanted to have a word with you about Liz. You were as close to her as any of us.”
“I feel as though a part of me was killed that night.” She uttered the phrase simply, without any false dramatics. She had grown up with Liz, lived in the next street to her, gone to school with her, shared early boyfriends with her. After a moment a harder note entered her voice as she said, “Where’s that shit Coghlan? There’s a story going round that he’s done a runner.”
After Harry had told her of his most recent conversation with Skinner, he said, “Why don’t we go somewhere quiet to talk?”
“Suits me.” An impish grin spread over her face. “I know a place where we won’t be bothered.”
“Lead me there.”
“You’ll have to put up with a few more topless ladies though.”
He studied her own conspicuous curves and in the same bantering tone said, “I’m intrigued. Let’s go.”
As they left Franco’s, Dame entwined her arm in his. “The Olivier it ain’t,” she said, “but at least it pays the rent.”
They chatted about inconsequential things as she led him through the labyrinth of city streets. Eighteen months or more had passed since their last meeting and she filled in the gaps with a panache that had him laughing every dozen yards. She told him of her ill-starred spell as a stand-up comic in Manchester cabaret and of how her last live-in lover, supposedly a company director with a fortune tied up in the futures trade, had done a flit with five hundred pounds from her building society account. The cash had supposedly been borrowed to tide him over a week-end until, he’d said, a hiccup with his bank due to a computer break-down had been sorted out. As ever she took her disappointments philosophically; hers was a life of easy-come, easy-go.
When they reached the city end of Dale Street, he asked “Where are you taking me?”
She squeezed his hand. “Losing your bottle? Trust me. I’ll make you believe I’m a highbrow yet.”
“Dame,” he said. “I’d willingly believe anything of you.”
Giggling, she said, “And you’d be right.”
“So what’s our destination?”
“You’re looking at it.” She stretched out a long arm and pointed up the incline that lay before them towards the stately buildings of William Brown Street, the Iron Duke’s monument and the Corinthian bulk of St. George’s Hall. “The art gallery,” she explained, as though to a slow-witted infant. “Remember what I said about the bare ladies? They’re two a penny in there.”
Following her past the two statues which guarded the approach to the Walker Gallery; Harry was unable to resist a grin, “Do you come here often?”
“All the time,” she said with a wave of the arm. She treated a young man at the bookstall to a seductive pout; he had been admiring her figure and now responded with a blush. “Take that disbelieving look off your face, Harry Devlin. I went to art college once, remember?”
He had forgotten that and assumed a contrite expression. She nodded vigorously and said, “I may only be a humble mud wrestler, but this place fascinates me. It has a magic I never found in any other gallery. Don’t ask why, I could never explain.”
Harry’s last visit here pre-dated his marriage. He let Dame guide him, showing off her knowledge and occasionally revealing a love for a particular painting that had a passion as real as the eroticism of the show at Franco’s had been fake. As he listened to her expound upon the merits of Augustus John, he reflected that, like Liz, Dame had never lost her capacity to surprise.
They stopped in front of And When Did You Last See Your Father? Harry stared at the little boy and said to Dame, “Corny, I know, but after undergoing a grilling from the police on Friday and yesterday, I realise how the kid must have felt.”
“They gave you a tough time?”
“Only doing their job. Have they seen you yet?”
She shook her head. “I’m not easily tracked down.”
“Had you seen much of Liz lately?”
“We met now and then, not as often as I’d have liked. Different from the old days, eh?”
“How was she?”
A wan smile. “Always the same. Something good, someone good, was invariably around the corner. Like me, except I don’t really believe all the rubbish I talk.”
Harry pressed her for details. Dame didn’t try to disguise the depth of Liz’s infatuation with Coghlan; but eventually it had become clear even to her that the man would never change his ways. “Women are strange. You must have noticed, love. Men tread on us, drain us of every last penny and ounce of self-respect and still we beg for more. No sooner did Liz suss Mick out than she was spending nights on the town, hunting for someone new. That’s how she got involved with this other guy.”
“Did she talk much about him?”
“Hints and innuendoes mostly. You know how Liz liked to weave a web of mystery around her life. Being special, that’s what appealed to her. Reality was second best. So I wasn’t surprised when she told me he was rich and handsome and blessed with a neurotic bitch of a wife who didn’t understand him. Tony, his name was. For all I know, he was a fat forty year old called Percival who was on the dole with half a dozen kids but could shoot a smooth line of chat.”
“She was pregnant, Dame.”
Her face suddenly grim, she nodded. “She told me about ten days ago, the last time I saw her alive. Thrilled to bits, she was, and so was I for her. Careless to get lumbered, but it may have been deliberate. I wouldn’t be surprised. Help her bloke make up his mind to ditch the old lady… it’s the oldest trick in the book.”
“Coghlan wasn’t the father?”
“Liz said not. I got the feeling that he had his hands full with other women and that was beginning to suit her fine. No, the new boyfriend was the culprit, or so she led me to believe. But you know what Liz was like. A lovely lady, but she couldn’t always tell the difference between her dreams and real life.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it,” said Harry wryly.
“Don’t you speak ill of her,” she said fiercely. “Liz had her faults, we all knew that, but she was still my best friend. We had so many laughs together over the years. Even when she poked fun at someone, like that stuffy brother-in-law of hers, she never meant to be cruel. And she never once let me down.”
“Think yourself lucky.” Harry spoke lightly enough, but Dame still turned on him, flushed and angry.
“It’s the truth.” She lowered her voice, spoke with urgency. “Look, I’ve never told anyone this before. When I was fourteen, I was careless too. Understand? Things were difficult at home. My boyfriend was a soldier, I never saw him again. I had to have an abortion. Liz covered for me with my mum and dad, no one even guessed what had happened. And more than that — she never told anyone else. Not even you, am I right?”
Harry nodded, abashed.
“She kept my secret when it mattered,” said Dame softly. I’ll never forget that. Never.”
They were in the Impressionists Room now. Harry halted in front of a painting of two men, bending over a woman’s prostrate body. A sordid killing in a back street. The Murder by Paul Cezanne. The darkness of the artist’s vision mesmerised him and he did not move until Dame led him gently by the hand towards the sweep of stairs.
“Tea,” she said firmly.
When they were installed at a table, he rested his elbows on the formica and asked bluntly, “Did Liz tell you why she slit her wrists?”
Dame spilled some of her tea into the saucer. “What do you mean?”
Harry explained. There was no doubting the genuineness of her shocked reaction and he placed his hand over hers by way of comfort. “If she was so glad to be having the baby, I can only assume that she cut herself in a moment of desperation when she thought Coghlan wanted her dead. Or maybe this happened a while ago. I simply don’t know. And yet…”
“And yet that doesn’t sound like Liz? I agree, but how else can you account for it?”
