For the Love of Liverpool

by Ruth Hamilton

  Things settle, and I have a read of my Liverpool Echo. I’m looking at an article about Liverpool One, the relatively new and vibrant shopping centre in the city, when my second tormentor arrives. I lift the newspaper in an attempt to conceal myself, but she homes in. Monica. Monica Hargreaves is Powder Puff Pete’s wife and nemesis. In her wake drift four children. There’s Our Kylie, Our Britney, Our Chelsea and, on reins, Our Troy, youngest and sole male offspring. At fourteen, Kylie has decided to dye her hair orange and purple. With a bit of green, which may be accidental.

  The entourage stops. Monica confronts me. ‘Where the blood and guts is he, and what the f— what the hell has he done this time?’ She is wearing her don’t-you-dare-mess-with-me face. I wouldn’t dream of messing with her; I’d have a better chance of survival in a vat filled with rattlesnakes.

  I explain that he slipped in some spilt onion gravy and fell on his arm against a porcelain sink. ‘He’s getting X-rayed, I think.’

  ‘What the Holy Mary was he doing in the cookhouse again?’

  I shrug. ‘He was teaching them how to pipe duchesse potatoes.’

  ‘So it’s banquet Saturday, is it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s a singer, not a bleeding piper. Britney, wipe Troy’s nose.’

  Britney does as she’s told. Most people do as they’re told where Monica’s concerned. ‘He’s called himself a chef ever since he served slops in the army, daft bugger. Burnt sausages with cold beans and he thinks he’s Janie Oliver.’

  ‘Jamie Oliver,’ I say. ‘He’s a man.’

  ‘Is he?’ She lowers her tone. ‘Tell me Pete changed out of his frock and scraped all the muck off his gob, please.’

  I shake my head. Having witnessed Monica in full flood on a couple of occasions, I nurse no wish to annoy her. She’s tiny, unpredictable, quick to laughter and quicker to anger. ‘He’s got three gigs in Canal Street next week,’ she snaps. ‘I can’t see him belting out “I Will Survive” with a pot on his arm.’ She pauses. ‘I could sue you for loss of earnings.’

  I must be firm before she loses her rag and fetches a lawyer. ‘You can try, but it’s in his contract and plastered all over the kitchen door, authorized personnel only. He might be daft, Monica, but he’s not blind. And I’m not hiring an extra guard just to keep your man out of the kitchen. By the way, your little boy’s eating crisps off the floor.’

  I think about Kate and the supper we had last night at my house. It was my first attempt at lasagne, and we really enjoyed the fish, chips and mushy peas we had to buy instead. I decided in the queue that I must acquire a cookery book.

  After eating, we wandered into the zone of ancient Greece, its writers and philosophers. We talked about Plato, Aristotle and Socrates before moving on to the Shakespeare game, disagreeing about everything. Kate lights up when arguing. In the end, we agreed to differ and drank mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows on top. It was disgusting – we managed to agree on that score, and she promised to lend me some recipe books. Lasagne, here I come. She says she’ll give me marks out of ten. I can’t wait.

  Monica has found someone else to mither, but I seem to have inherited Our Kylie. She’s at that difficult age, I deduce, all wide eyes and coloured hair. ‘Kylie?’ I keep my voice low.

  She bats purple eyelashes. ‘What?’

  Deep breath, Alex. ‘You don’t need to do all that with your hair. You look great without it.’ She’s gone bright red, a shade that clashes loudly with the orange streaks on top of her head. It’s one of those moments when you wish you could snap your teeth together and bite words back. Being cruel to be kind can be horrible. It is horrible.

  The woman-child runs away, probably in search of a loo. Right. I am out of here. After giving Monica thirty quid – they may need more than one taxi – I leave her to it. But I don’t go home. No, I need to talk to someone, and the someone I need to talk to is Tim or Kate. Tim will be out doing whatever single, lovelorn medics do on a Saturday night, but Cinderella is a night owl. If she’s asleep or reading in bed, I’ll know, because the light will be dim and in one area only of the big room.

  She’s awake. The place is lit like Blackpool illuminations, light streaming through temporary and unlined cream curtains. I guess she’s probably still doing her drawings and looking at swatches, and I find myself grinning. Kate is fierce. I should drive away and go home. My feet and hands don’t agree, because I’m braking and pulling into the kerb.

  ‘Just a friend,’ I say aloud as I park on the street. ‘She’s my friend.’ Who am I kidding?

  Alex could ‘feel’ her eye staring at him through the peephole in the front door. The dogs weren’t growling; they would probably have recognized his scent even if he’d arrived in a lead-lined container. He should have texted her, at least, because this was rather late for a passing caller to visit.

  She opened the door. ‘Hello, stranger. So long since last we met.’

  ‘Twenty-four whole hours,’ he managed. No wig this time, just wilful curls in a wonderful, dark mahogany shade. He wanted to reopen the Shakespeare fight with a quote from Romeo and Juliet, but he didn’t dare. ‘From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be—’

  Kate cut him off in the doorway. ‘“Death, be not proud” by John Donne. Gotcha. See? How brilliant am I?’

  ‘This isn’t fair,’ he told her. ‘I’m the English literature student.’

  ‘Who never finished the course.’

  ‘But you’re a chemistry graduate.’

  She winked at him. ‘There’s plenty of chemistry in poetry. Come in.’

  He did so and the dogs made the sudden, compulsory fuss of him.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  He wasn’t sure how to start. ‘I needed to talk to someone.’

  ‘And I’m someone?’

  ‘Of course you are. Aside from Tim Dyson, you’re the only person who knows anything about my past.’

  ‘Ditto,’ she whispered. He was grateful that she hadn’t objected to his turning up unannounced like this.

  ‘I’ve been at Champs aux Fraises,’ he began. ‘It’s popular on banquet night, which happens on the third Saturday of each month. Food and entertainment, meaning that the acts on stage need to be good so that people will care enough to stop talking and clattering cutlery. That’s why I booked Powder Puff Pete. He was his usual self, up to the eyebrow pencil in mischief.’

  She grinned. ‘So he’s one of your gay cabaret acts?’

  ‘Gay? Pete Hargreaves? He’s got four kids and a little wife whose tongue’s sharp enough to slice carrots without a knife. Pete dresses to sing, and he takes the job seriously, so he’s in demand – sometimes goes to London. Even had surgery to give himself a waist. He works hard and earns well. He ended up in A and E, and I was his unfortunate driver and companion. Somebody at Champs must have phoned Monica, and she joined me at the hospital while Pete was being treated. She gave me the rounds of the kitchen – that’s Liverpoolese for being told off. She’s a little tigress, and I was in deep trouble.’

  ‘Oh no. You’ve been thoroughly Monica-ed.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ She’s laughing at me again, and I love it.

  ‘Poor you,’ she said. ‘We think life’s hard, then a Monica makes it worse.’

  He turned serious. ‘I like to be there on banquet nights. Of course, the place is packed to bursting with heteros, because Champs is the best club in the north.’ I’m bragging; almost preening, as if I’m cock of the henhouse. Pull yourself together, Price. ‘So I was available to drive Pete to the hospital after his fateful encounter with spilt onion gravy.’ Well, it is the best club in the north.

  Kate interrupted his thoughts. ‘Do they fall in love with you, the gay men? Do they send you billets-doux and flowers?’

  ‘It has been known. And I’m one of the few males who can say he’s been stalked for weeks by a lesbian. She was probably having a month off to see if my grass was greener. The men have given up on me.’

  ‘Wh
at a shame, Alex. So cruelly abandoned through no fault of your own.’

  ‘Indeed. My heart is broken.’

  ‘So what happened tonight? Turf wars? A demo against gays?’

  He told her everything, from duchesse potatoes through the drunks, the singing, Monica and the offspring, all the way to Kylie with the inappropriate hair.

  Kate, never adept at concealing her emotions, finished up on the floor with two Alsatians and cheeks wet from tears born of laughter. ‘Troy?’ she managed, almost spluttering with glee.

  ‘Yes, Troy. I gave him a wooden horse for his second birthday, but I suspect that the reference remains unnoticed to this day by his parents. He loves his rocking horse—’

  ‘The siege of Troy,’ she shouted. ‘Stop it, Alex. Did you give Kylie a boomerang? Because that’s what the word kylie means.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or Chelsea a season ticket for the Blues?’

  ‘Stop it. I’m a Liverpool supporter.’

  ‘What about Britney? Singing lessons? Gym membership?’

  He, too, was done for. Both ended up shrieking with laughter. ‘Stop it. You’re killing me,’ he gasped.

  Kate stopped giggling immediately. ‘That’s almost exactly what happened to me. Not physically, but my character came close to death while my husband was still alive. He hurt me badly several times, but I never pressed charges because I existed in fear of him and his gangster friends. I loved my daughter and my work. Beyond those two, I had nothing. That bastard sucked the soul out of me.’

  Alex waited. ‘And after his death?’ he asked eventually.

  ‘Amelia and I escaped when she’d recovered and I’d put his most dangerous colleagues in jail. My daughter was in hospital for weeks.’

  He pondered for a few moments. ‘He hurt her?’

  She nodded. ‘The three who ran the show with him are locked up. I never knew the names of the other members of the gang, but they’re in London. I think they deal drugs and run errands – they’re lower down the food chain. But they’re out there, Alex, and those in jail can get messages to them.’

  He frowned. ‘Are any of the gang in Walton?’

  ‘Yes. Eric Mansell, my husband’s right-hand man. He started off in Manchester, but got moved here after a few weeks. The thing is, I’d made my plans to come to Liverpool before that happened, and I decided I would stick with them. A person can’t run forever.’

  He might have missed her. The realization hit him in the chest like a kick from a heavyweight wrestler in steel-toecapped boots. She was the one, and he wasn’t ready. Would he ever be ready? Was he good enough for her?

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  Here she came again with that private hotline ringing loudly in his ears. ‘That we might never have met,’ he answered truthfully.

  ‘So you like me?’

  A beat passed between them. ‘Of course I do. You’re confrontational, annoying, funny, controlling, ferocious, ambitious and beautiful.’ He grinned while a blush spread across her cheekbones.

  The smile she donated in return was unsteady, almost embarrassed. ‘And I like you because you’re decent, smart, handsome, hardworking, kind – and you love your dogs.’

  Alex ran a hand over his hair. ‘Right, that’s the mutual admiration society up and running. Go easy on me, Kate. When it comes to emotional involvement, I should wear L-plates. I’m a virgin.’

  She gave him another shaky smile. ‘Stay with me tonight, Alex.’ She touched his arm, and he managed not to shiver when goose bumps arrived.

  ‘I can’t,’ he replied quickly. ‘The Bees will be in bed, so I can’t ask them to look after the dogs.’

  ‘Bees?’

  ‘Yes. I keep two kinds of bees. The humans are Brenda and Brian Boswell, and the honey bees are housed in a special environment. Hives in what looks like a giant greenhouse in which ideal conditions are maintained. They don’t know they aren’t outside, because they have their own hives for the queen and drones, while the workers bring home the lavender. I make mead from their honey, add a bit of strawberry flavour and give it away in the clubs. Honey nights are well attended.’

  ‘Strawberry mead?’

  He smiled. ‘That’s the name of my house. The whole thing’s a tribute to John Lennon.’

  ‘Strawberry Fields?’

  ‘Yes. I nearly bankrupted myself to buy the land. It’s near enough to the orphanage site, and it cost a bomb. I had the rare privilege of meeting Yoko when she came over for what would have been John’s seventieth birthday. I suspect that she had something to do with my plans’ being accepted.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes. She was wife and lover, but she’s a supremely wise woman and she was all he needed. The females in his life had disappeared; Julia the mother died, while Julia the sister, adopted when young, was God alone knew where. Yoko was one of the few people who could manage Lennon simply by being at his side. Best friend and confidante – the whole package contained within one tiny female. She had the ability to deal with near-genius.’

  Kate changed the subject. ‘Can’t I be just for sex? I won’t mind.’

  ‘I would mind. And I’m sure you would. No, you’re not fit for purpose.’

  She slapped his knee. ‘Not good enough for you? Try me and see.’

  ‘Too good, Kate. There’s other stuff running along at the side of physical need here, and you know it. Like John Lennon, I lost my mother, and my sister isn’t really there. People like me get confused.’

  ‘So you’re an orphan?’

  ‘Yes. My dad died first, then my mother killed herself when I was still relatively young. As she gradually lost her senses, my paternal grandparents took over and I lived with them all the time, stopped going home at weekends.’

  Kate stared at him. ‘You blame yourself for her suicide?’

  ‘She’d lost everything, right down to the family cat. When I stopped visiting, she didn’t leave the house, didn’t have baths, didn’t clean up after herself – she was living in squalor. Grandma and Grandpa got someone to shop, cook and clean, but that didn’t save her.’

  He paused, then exhaled as if relieved. ‘Tim’s tried to get through to me for years, but you’re the one who managed it. He predicted this, you see. “Someone will come along and drag the rug from under your feet,” he often said. But it wasn’t my feet, was it? It was yours.’

  ‘Yes – the stiletto. Those shoes cost a fortune. But you’re worth it.’

  ‘Am I?’ he asked, his tone dry.

  ‘You know you are, and I don’t mean money or shoes or anything tangible. Alex, I just have this strange feeling that we were made for each other.’

  He cupped her face in his hands, and her skin felt so soft and smooth. ‘Kate, you will have to bear with me. I’m a mess.’

  ‘I told Tim I was a mess, and he says not to be judgemental about people who’ve been through bad stuff. Your bad stuff started much earlier than my terrible time, so yes, recovery might take longer for you. Is it OK if I wait to see what happens?’

  ‘Yes. And I’ll do my best to hurry up.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘For us.’ Then he kissed her. Oh yes, this definitely went way beyond the merely physical . . .

  Tim was in. ‘What do you want, Pricey? It’s gone midnight.’

  ‘Nothing. I kissed her.’ He felt like a Catholic teenager at confession.

  ‘And? Have you had a tetanus injection?’

  ‘Behave yourself. It was like arriving home. She’s wonderful, affectionate, a nuisance—’

  ‘Slow down, Alex. And don’t shout into the phone – I’m not deaf yet.’

  ‘I’d like to see you as soon as possible.’

  After a short pause, Alex’s best friend and unofficial counsellor spoke. ‘Come round to my house tomorrow afternoon,’ he suggested. ‘I’ll throw in a sandwich and a cuppa.’

  ‘Thanks. See you about three.’

  ‘I look forward to it.’ Tim ended the call. O
h, what a perfect end to a wonderful day. Not! Alex Price had fallen for an exquisite woman who’d shot her husband dead. ‘This is crazy.’ He paced about. ‘She mustn’t have told him what happened to her. I’d bet my last quid that he hasn’t told her much about his past, either. And I can’t say a bloody word,’ he muttered while pouring himself a generous measure of Scotch. He took a mouthful, shuddering as the heat of it hit his throat. What a bloody fiasco.

  ‘I shouldn’t drink so bloody fast,’ he told himself aloud before emptying the contents of the glass down his throat. This was a dilemma. As an eleven-year-old boy, Alex had watched a scene that could easily have come from a horror movie, though it had been all too real. For weeks after the event, the lad had been traumatized to the point where his speech had been affected, he’d refused food, and his grades in school had taken a serious nosedive.

  Alex’s paternal grandparents, who had been awarded custody, had sent him to a facility in the south where he was treated before returning to live with them in Bolton, visiting his mother only at weekends. These visits had been made with reluctance on the boy’s part, since Mildred Price was sitting on the hem of insanity, and in view of her deterioration the grandparents had put a stop to any overnight contact. ‘And the guilt has lived on in Alex,’ Tim muttered.

  Mr and Mrs Price continued to allow brief visits as long as he was accompanied by one or both of them, but the lad was never again to sleep in his parents’ house. When the place became filthy, Grandpa and Grandma brought in outside help and stayed away from the Blackburn Road semi, feeling there was no more they could do for their daughter-in-law.

  Tim stared at the chimney breast. Love at first sight? Oh, he knew how that felt, didn’t he? Julia. On the first day at Liverpool’s School of Medicine he had tumbled, becoming increasingly besotted with Julia Kavanagh, an American student who had returned to Vermont when her course ended. She loved him. She loved England. But her father was dying, and she needed to go home.

  ‘Bugger it,’ Tim shouted, resisting a strong urge to smash his whisky glass into the fireplace. Three or four times a year, he crossed the Atlantic to see her.