Sullivan by Walter Macken

Author:Walter Macken [Macken, Walter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

Chapter Seventeen

He held her away from him to look at her. He was holding her body close to his own, feeling the warmth of her under his fingers, savouring the scent of her; herself and light lavender, cleanliness, order, decency; he couldn’t get enough of looking at her. She lit up the big, grimy, smoke-blackened station. He couldn’t hear the shunting engines, the whistling, the calling of porters.

‘Oh, it is good to see you, Bernie!’ he said. ‘It is good to see you!’

No change much in him. Smartly dressed. A brown suit and a white shirt. His jaw was grooved but it made him look handsome, responsible.

‘I thought you would never come,’ he said.

‘I nearly got out and pushed the train,’ she said. ‘Oh, Sullivan.’

‘Remember me, miss?’ said Pi at her elbow.

‘Oh, Pi!’ she said, stretching an arm and wrapping it around his neck. Pi hadn’t grown. He was of a height with her. She noticed the scar under his jawbone. It wasn’t ugly. It pulled up one side of his mouth so that he had an appearance of constantly smiling. She knew how he got that scar. She pressed her own soft cheek to his face.

‘Pi,’ she said then, laughing, ‘It seems so strange to see you the fine gentleman.’ Pi was well dressed.

Pi looked down at himself.

‘This is probably the first suit I ever had that fitted me,’ he said.

They laughed. Sullivan took her case. He kept his arm about her, pulling her close to him, and they walked down the long ramp to the street.

‘How did you manage it?’ Sullivan was asking her. ‘ I never thought you would manage it. I never thought that you would agree. What did he say? Did you tell him?’

‘No,’ said Bernie. ‘ I couldn’t tell him, Sullivan. Please forgive me, but I couldn’t tell him. Not now. But I will later, I promise, when he gets a bit better.’

‘It might be as well that he doesn’t know. He would feel so sorry for you. He might even shoot me to know. What will you do? Hang your wedding ring around your neck on a cord?’

‘On a golden cord,’ she said.

‘And what did my mother say? Did she abuse you, tell me?’

‘She is pleased, I think,’ said Bernie. ‘At least she started to treat me like a daughter-in-law. She is in the house now for a few days. She will look after him.’

Sullivan had a picture of his mother in the house in the orchard. A house something like what she had been used to so long ago. She would like that. A little bit of class. Out of Duke Street Old Morgan would be a gentleman to her. Somebody to be looked after, like her own father.

‘I’ll bet she will like that,’ said Sullivan.

‘Yes,’ said Bernie. ‘But the old man didn’t like it. Why are you bringing that woman in here? Keep her away from me. I don’t care if she is Tim Sullivan’s wife. Tim is dead. He doesn’t have to put up with her fussing about him.

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