‘All right?’ he said, and gave them a broad smile. ‘I’m David Vaughan. Or Dave the Rave, as people call me.’
Mary smiled cautiously and looked away. Something about him made her heart flutter. It wasn’t really the way he looked, which wasn’t exactly what she had imagined. He was dressed in tight corduroy trousers with the waist button missing, a windcheater and a shirt that was up-to-the-minute mod fashion but a bit grubby. His hair was messy and cut awkwardly around his face, which wasn’t handsome, but rather chiselled out of some rough stone and then maybe sand-blasted to leave smooth, round cheeks. His eyes seemed sad but were soft and kind at the same time and his nose – well, Maureen had got that part right. It was flat and crooked, as if it had been punched a fair few times and then some. Mary stole another look at him and summoned up the courage to speak.
‘I’m Mary. Mary Nolan.’
He wouldn’t stop looking at her for some time, and it was as if something was happening around her. Maureen chattered away happily enough as the three of them left the bridge and went to get a cup of tea, but Mary was thinking only about David. They went into a café and David entertained them both with stories of parties that he had been to, music he liked, his ideas and ambitions. He seemed to know everything and he was 18; he was so old. When Maureen went home for her tea, Mary stayed. She was too scared to look at him for too long, instead focusing on his hands, which were big and grubby with long fingernails that were full of paint. They seemed to tell a thousand stories. He told her that he was an artist. That he wanted to get out of Manchester and study at art school. He didn’t seem like any other man in the world. He had ambition. He explained to her that his mother had abandoned him when he was a baby and that his grandmother had brought him up.
‘Mum did come back once when I was about four or five,’ said David, sipping his tea, now dark with a skin that had formed in the time he’d spent chatting. ‘All I can remember is that she came back to get some clothes, she said, and I followed her up the stairs, then she came out of the room and instead of picking me up, she pushed me down the stairs and I fell. I couldn’t understand why she wanted to hurt me.’
‘At least you had your grandma to look after you,’ said Mary, trying to find a way through the pain she felt on his behalf.
‘My nan was as mad as a hatter,’ said Dave, staring deeply into his tea. ‘Instead of giving me dinner, she’d cut pictures of food out of magazines and put them on my plate.’
Mary bit her lip, trying to contain an overwhelming urge to touch him, to take away his pain. He didn’t know who his dad was, he said, and tried to not look particularly bothered about it either. But this vulnerability had made her even more attracted to him. Everything he did, whether it was stirring his tea or lighting a cigarette, was strong and certain, but his eyes told another story. David walked her to the bus stop, all the while never taking his eyes off her face.
‘I want to draw you,’ he said finally, as the bus came along.
‘Me?’ she said, staring at the pavement. ‘Why do you want to draw me?
‘Because you’re beautiful,’ he said, grabbing her face in his smoky, grubby fingers and staring even harder. As he did so her face caught the light of the streetlamp and showed off her huge, round, blue eyes – oval-shaped, elfin eyes which shone like a beacon. Eyes that might melt a thousand hearts. He let his gaze roll over her face, which to him was as pretty and delicate as any doll that could ever be crafted. He felt as if he’d seen all the girls that Manchester had to offer but Mary was something else. There was something about her petite beauty, the slim figure and doe eyes that had instantly driven him crazy. She wouldn’t have looked out of place among the models he’d seen in fancy London fashion magazines.
‘Go on then,’ she said, breaking free of his hand and mounting the bus. ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow if you like.’ As she watched him through the window, she felt butterflies and knew that she was in love.
The next day they met, and he was true to his word and had turned up with his charcoals to set about drawing her. She was impressed with his skill and tried to keep still and avoid the temptation to fiddle with her hair.
‘I’m gonna get out of here soon. I’m gonna go and live in Cornwall with other artists, then I’m gonna apply to art school in London and I want you to come away with me,’ he said in his thick north Manchester accent, and then he kissed her. They kissed for a long time with closed eyes and through the dream she brought his rugged face into view. His dusty-blond hair felt like straw but to her it was manly and impossible to resist.
Soon enough her parents started to get concerned that she was often out late and skipping her homework. One day, in the small front room of their neat, two-up two-down house, they confronted her.
‘So who is he? This new lad of yours.’ Tom stood by the window and looked out at the row of red-brick houses opposite, his blue eyes sparkling. Mary had got his eyes, and the prettiness of her mother, Betty, who sat next to her on the sofa. What she hadn’t inherited was their contentment with what they had.
‘He’s called David… Why, Dad?’
‘Because he’s standing over the road smoking,’ said Tom with a worried look at his daughter. ‘Why don’t you go and ask him to come in?’
Mary did as he said and soon David was drinking tea on their sofa, while her mum and dad stared at him.
‘So what’s your trade, lad?’ said her father after a few minutes of awkward silence.
‘I’m an artist.’
Mary winced inwardly as she knew that wasn’t the answer her father was after. She saw him bristle.
‘An artist? You need a proper job, lad.’
‘Why should I? Just so the bloody government can take it all in tax? Fuck that.’
David stood up, drained his tea and strode out of the door, leaving Mary shell-shocked and her mother twiddling her rosary and saying her Hail Marys. Her father went to the window and watched David retreat with an air of satisfaction.
‘You are not to see him again, Mary, you hear me?’ he said sternly. Tom had brought up his daughters to be spirited, taking them out on bicycles into the Pennines, but not so spirited that they disobeyed him. Mary grabbed her coat and marched towards the door. ‘Why not? Just ’cos he doesn’t have a job? That’s no reason to stop seeing someone,’ she shot back, angrily slammed the door and ran to catch up with David. Suddenly everything looked too small to Mary: her parents wanted her to be a good Catholic and go to church rather than live her life.
She continued to see David despite their disapproval, until one day Tom got the ammunition he needed to end his daughter’s relationship once and for all.
He brought it up the next day at dinnertime. She got in late and plonked herself down at the table, immediately noticing that her mother and father were not eating but staring straight at her. Tom cleared his throat.
‘This lad of yours. I told you to stop seeing him.’
‘You can’t make me stop seeing him just because you don’t like him,’ said Mary, defiantly popping a chip into her mouth which nearly fell out again as her father brought his fist down hard on the table.
‘You are to stop seeing him, because the lad is married. He’s only got a bloody wife, and she’s only got two kids by him as well.’
Mary stayed silent, looking fastidiously at the meat on her plate. She noticed that her mother, dressed neatly in a sweater and skirt, wasn’t eating either.
‘But he loves me,’ Mary said as she tried to absorb the news.
But Tom wasn’t going to back down. ‘You’re