The Devil Rides Out by Paul O'Grady

you know.’
    ‘When was the last time then?’ I foolishly asked.
    ‘When do you think, soft lad?’ She looked at me pityingly. ‘When our Chrissie was sent home pregnant with John in the war.’
    ‘Well, that turned out all right in the end, didn’t it? Look at our John, he’s the most well-adjusted of all of us.’
    ‘The things he comes out with,’ she said, directing her conversation towards the wardrobe. ‘Well-adjusted, like he’d know anything about that, the bloody lunatic. Now straighten that bed then come downstairs pronto, I want to investigate this carry-on further.’
    I told her everything and except for the odd flare-up of temper she took it quite well on the whole – apart, that is, from the court order demanding three pounds a week for sixteen years.
    ‘Why oh why did you have to go like a lamb to the slaughter into a court? Why couldn’t you just do a runner like everyone else?’ she wailed, throwing me completely off my guard by this unexpected change in attitude. ‘If anyone had come looking for you I’d have just said that I didn’t have a clue about your whereabouts. I wish you’d told me, you daft bugger, I’d have helped you.’
    This was so out of character for my mother, thinking of covering up for me, condemning herself to a lifetime of confession to atone for the lie she’d told to protect me. My ma, honest as the day was long, was actually prepared to lie for me, even though she considered it to be a mortal sin. I was amazed. But then she never ceased to amaze me.
‘Well, I’ve got to pay me way, haven’t I?’ I said, not trying to curry favour with her but acknowledging that I had a responsibility to help support the kid.
    ‘Yes, but did you have to go and settle it through the courts?’ She got up from the sofa and shut the window in case any of the neighbours heard us. ‘They’ll be on your back for sixteen years, that’s a long time. If you miss a payment you’ll have the worry of being put away hanging over you like the Sword of Damocles. Honestly, son, you’re so daft I’m beginning to think that you shouldn’t be allowed out on your own.’
    I was praying that she wouldn’t want to go over to Liverpool and have it out with Diane but thankfully for the moment she expressed no interest in getting involved with Diane or the baby and chose to let the matter simmer on a back burner until she felt able to deal with it.
    ‘If I were you I’d get myself down to the Labour Exchange and have a look for a decent job with a proper wage instead of that hell-hole of a wine lodge. You’ve got maintenance to find now.’
    She was right, I couldn’t exist on the wages I was earning at Yates’s and the occasional night at the Bear’s Paw, but there didn’t seem to be much going in the way of well-paid jobs on Merseyside for an unqualified barman. Maybe it was time to venture forth again and give London another try. Chris and Billy, a couple of gay guys I’d stayed with for a few nights in their Maida Vale flat, had offered to put me up on their sofa as a paying lodger if I ever returned to London to look for work. They’d thrown me out the last time I’d stayed with them for bringing a girl back from an Irish club one night. It had been a purely platonic affair – she didn’t have her cab fare back to whatever outer region of north London she lived in so I’d offered her a bed, or rather a floor for the night. Chris and Billy – a pair of dyed-in-the-wool misogynists unless of course you happened to be Rosalind Russell or Mae West – were not amused the following morning when they found a hearty Irish girl sprawled across their front-room floor and slung us both out.
We’d made up since then and I gave them a ring to see if their offer still held. Thankfully it did, and so that night I gave Molly a week’s notice. I’d have left for London immediately but I’d grown fond of Molly and Jean and didn’t want to run out on them, and besides, I had yet to