The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘My mother’s grinning like an ape,’ commented Simon.

  ‘She’s expecting.’ Lucy sat next to Moira. ‘She’s expecting a grandchild.’

  Lizzie made an explosive sound. ‘Give us a few minutes, Moira.’

  Lucy, too, was strangely happy. The young couple looked right together, sounded right, probably were right. There was a kindness in Simon that shone from his eyes – he must have inherited that quality from his mother.

  The other reason for Lucy’s contentment sat at the opposite side of the room, confectioner’s custard spilled on his shirt, a silver horseshoe dangling from a ribbon round his neck, while a party hat folded from a page of the Financial Times sat at a rakish angle on his head. He was counting his famous rubber bands. Lucy smiled. He had not grown up. Please God, he never would.

  *

  Richard was having trouble coming to terms with isolation on the family front. He was in contact with patients and medics on a daily basis, did his house calls, and spoke to reps from pharmaceutical companies, but he remained a needful man. A house without Moira in it was a ship abandoned. His girls were never in, his son had disappeared, and a terrible picture of the future was developing before his eyes.

  It didn’t look good. He missed Lucy. The thought of her sleeping next door, with or without David Vincent, was torture. The knowledge that she wasn’t within reach was worse. He loved two women. One had been in his life since the 1970s, the other for a couple of months. Moira was the one who kept his feet within touching distance of the ground, while Lucy had now become a torment who haunted his dreams both day and night. His wife was dying, and the gorgeous female who had bought Stoneyhurst would never be his.

  He stepped out of the shower and pulled on a robe. Sometimes he was ashamed of himself; on other occasions, he told himself he was normal, marginally oversexed and very lonely. Moira had always been happy to listen and advise, but her health was deteriorating, and he didn’t want to hurt her any more. Lexi was threatening to do just that, to break the heart of a wife who remained loved at a level that could not be understood by someone Richard thought of as a mere tart. So Tom Rice was trying to keep tabs on her, but he was temporarily out of action due to an ankle injury. Richard trusted Rice and only Rice, so he had to wait for the man’s health to improve.

  He dried his hair. Moira had accepted his dalliances with women of sense and social acceptability, but she would never forgive him for Lexi. Had she met the working girl in other circumstances, Moira would have been polite, even supportive, but street women were for other men, those who didn’t give a damn for their own health or for their families’ peace of mind. ‘I bet Moira knows anyway,’ he told the towel. ‘I can’t go on like this. Something in me is going to give.’ Never before had he felt so angry and inadequate. Lexi had to be frightened off. She couldn’t destroy his career, but she might well hasten the death of a woman who deserved a more tranquil life, however short that span might turn out to be.

  ‘I want to kill the bloody woman,’ he said as he shaved. ‘I’d love to break her scrawny neck. Hurry up, Tom Rice. I need to be told what she’s up to.’ One thing was certain. He wanted to stop the Lexi business before Moira came home. He had only days.

  The smell hit him as he descended the stairs to the ground floor. On the doormat, The Times, Moira’s Daily Mail and assorted items of post failed to cover completely the stuff from which the stench emerged. It was dog excrement. Loosely wrapped in the pages of some gaudy magazine, it had spilled across an area of several square feet, and Richard felt his gorge rising. A doctor was used to unpleasant odours – they were part of life, and certainly an element in death – but this was different. It was deliberate, foul and sickening. Had Moira been here, she might have fallen in it. And the stairlift people were coming today, as were patients.

  Should anyone trouble to ask in times to come when he had actually snapped, he would surely nominate this moment. A woman of absolutely no significance had done this to upset him, and to damage Moira. Temper rose, underlining his need to vomit. He ran to the downstairs bathroom and relieved himself of bile, since his stomach contained no food. The bitterness of gall was a clear reminder of his hatred for Lexi. All sense of proportion was deserting him as he cleaned up the dog mess in order to open up for morning surgery. It had seemed so small a thing, that brief dalliance with a shop girl. But she was evil. Like many cancers, she needed to be excised for the greater good.

  He used almost a full bottle of Domestos, and the area near the door stank of it, but it was an acceptable stench. The bloody woman had even deprived him of his crossword, and he could only hope that nothing of significance had arrived in the mail, most of which was now on fire in the back garden. He scrubbed his hands until the skin glowed before rubbing in an anti-bacterial gel. There would be patients soon, and life had to go on. Up to a point, that was.

  Shirley arrived. She mentioned the smell, and he told her he had spilled a sample taken from a patient. ‘Can’t be too careful,’ he said as he walked into his area of work. A secretary entered the scene, the phone began to ring, and Richard stepped into his role. Doctors Shipman and Crippen visited his mind, but he sent them on their way when notes and coffee were delivered to his desk.

  He dealt with pregnancy, an irritable bowel, two cases of chronic depression, asthma, and a plethora of coughs and colds. But in his mind he was punishing Lexi, and many patients were surprised because for once he issued sick notes as if they were confetti.

  Last of all, he gave an audience to a female who was not on his books.

  Carol Makin sat, and the chair groaned in protest. ‘I seen it,’ she announced.

  ‘You seen – I mean you saw what?’

  ‘That Litherland Lexi putting something through your door.’

  The silence that followed was deafening and long. ‘Oh,’ he managed at last.

  ‘Listen, doc. You know how people tell you stuff what you can’t tell nobody?’

  He processed the sentence before nodding.

  ‘Me and our Dee has to be like that, because we’ve looked after some famous people, and professionals like yourself. Now, all I know is this – where there’s Litherland Lexi, there’s trouble. If you need me and my daughter to give you a hand, say the word.’

  ‘Right.’

  Carol leaned forward, and the chair complained again. ‘Even her own family doesn’t want nothing to do with her.’ Carol didn’t like Richard much, but he helped the sick, and Lexi helped nobody but herself. ‘So think on,’ she added. ‘We’re next door, and we’ll be looking after your house and Moira when Shirley leaves.’ She stood up.

  He imagined that the chair breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you,’ he said carefully. ‘But there’s nothing for you to worry about. She’s mentally ill and beginning to imagine things. They have it on the medical grapevine that she may well be suicidal due to repeated infections of a sexual nature. Even royalty’s had its mad members as a result of syphilis. Now, I haven’t told you any of that. Miss Phillips joined my list, and I sent her to someone better qualified to deal with her particular ailment. She took the rejection badly, because in her head she’s had a close relationship with me. I shall telephone her doctor as soon as you go. Do not approach her. And I am trusting you, Carol.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’m supposed to say nothing about people’s illnesses and confidences.’

  ‘I understand.’ At the door, she turned. ‘What did she put through your door, doc?’

  ‘Dog dirt.’

  ‘Filthy bitch.’

  He sighed. ‘Remember, Carol. Sick people don’t always know what they’re doing. And I don’t want my wife to know what’s happened while she’s been away. Her heath is precarious enough without any further pressure.’

  Outside, Carol stood for a while on the pavement. She looked left, right, to the front and to the rear, but Lexi was nowhere to be seen. Richard Turner was a sly bugger, but Carol would believe him before she’d believe anythin
g out of the mouth of Lexi Phillips. Something had gone on between him and Lexi, and his tongue hung out whenever he saw Lucy, so he wasn’t to be trusted completely, but he was only a bloke, and they understood nothing beyond sex and car maintenance. Yes, this one was a doctor, but he still kept his brains behind his fly and under the bonnet of his precious motor.

  She re-entered Lucy’s house. Dee was having five minutes with Heat magazine and a cup of coffee. ‘What’s up?’ she asked her mother.

  Carol delivered her tale. ‘There’s something wrong,’ she concluded. ‘That private dickhead was following Lexi – him with the limp what I told you about. Maybe the doc’s telling the truth and she’s away with the mixer, but he’s one of them men you can never be sure of.’

  Dee agreed. ‘He’s after sex, Mam. Poor Moira can’t do nothing no more. She’s like our Beryl, all tablets and nappies, but he still wants his oats, eh? Well, he’ll get nothing off Lucy, however hard he sniffs. She’ll be wed by Christmas, I reckon. And depending on where she lives, you could be here running the bed and breakfast. So you can chase Lexi in your spare time if you live here. I couldn’t be bothered with her, to be honest.’

  Carol got her cup and sat down. She was glad Moira had gone away, because this Lexi business was pressing. Anybody who posted dog muck through the door of a posh house had to be mad, evil, or both. If this wasn’t nipped in the bud, it could make Moira a lot worse. ‘Shall we go and see her, Dee?’

  ‘Litherland Lexi?’

  ‘No, Princess Anne, you daft bat. Of course I mean Lexi. What do you think?’

  Dee pondered for a few moments. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘This is our livelihood – you, me, my kids and our Beryl will soon depend on this house and next door. If we get involved and the shit hits the fan, you and me’ll be covered in it. Not him, though. Not Dr Fancypants and his rambunctious hormones. Stay well out of it. I mean that, Mam.’

  Carol drained her cup. Dee spoke a lot of sense. She was right: if something untoward got uncovered, it would be best to stay away from any resulting flak. ‘OK, missus. Finish your bathrooms and get home to Beryl. I have to stop here, but I’ll keep meself to meself. He knows where I am if he needs me.’

  Moira was having the time of her life. She loved the shed, and declared on several occasions that she’d be happy to spend the rest of her life in it. Further confidences forced on Lucy were less pleasant. Moira was sure that Richard was up to no good, that he had overstepped a mark, and she said that she was enjoying being away from him. ‘Simon and the girls were easy to raise. He’s bloody impossible, and I didn’t realize that until lately. So bloody selfish. He needs a good hiding.’

  At first, Lucy didn’t say much on the subject. The me-too speech would not have been suitable, since Moira already knew the extent of Alan’s sins. Lucy was aware also that there was a deep and abiding love between Moira and Richard, and that no amount of sexual straying on his part would diminish that love. ‘Well, we have to go back soon,’ she said after one of Moira’s longer tirades.

  ‘Not yet. Please, not yet. Just because I’m sometimes in a wheelchair doesn’t mean I have to stay with him. I can liquidate some of my share in the house – equity release, I think it’s called – and put myself away where I don’t have to put up with prostitutes looking for him.’

  ‘You’re not sure that she was looking for him.’

  ‘I flaming well am sure.’

  Lucy sat down. ‘There are many kinds of love, Moira. And no, I’m not going to deliver a lecture, but I want to remind you. There’s the silly, romantic kind where you stop eating, drift through a dream and wake up either still in love, or decidedly out of it. Then there’s the merely physical that has no roots. Lastly, there’s the one that abides. It’s almost spiritual, and it contains elements of the first two, while being a meeting of minds. You and Richard have that.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Absolutely. How many women care enough to look for a second wife? You know none of us lives for ever, so you tried to … well, you know what you did. If he fell for someone, he wouldn’t abandon you. In fact, it’s more positive than that, because I’m damned sure he’d do anything and everything to make your life better. He’s having a stairlift fitted, isn’t he? A small thing in a way, but just for you.’

  Moira sniffed. ‘He’s been with a prostitute.’

  ‘He made a mistake. We are all victims of our own frailty.’

  ‘Are you? Have you slept with him yet?’

  Lucy smiled. ‘I have, and we slept. David and I are lucky, because we seem to have what you and Richard have. We rag one another mercilessly, we need each other, and we’re getting him out of his doldrums before starting to jump around like a couple of kids. It’s real.’

  ‘And the wedding?’

  ‘Christmas, but I haven’t told him. Then we get the big house done up for sick kids and we have a honeymoon next summer.’

  ‘But he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t know. He’s too busy curing people and counting rubber bands.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll tell you when you’re old enough. For now, I am going to chase your son and my daughter. They can’t leave it to us, love. Richard needs telling, and they are going to do it.’

  She left Moira to her own devices and went to the big house. In the kitchen doorway, she ground to a halt. Her daughter, white-faced and clearly tense, was washing dishes. ‘Hell’s bells,’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘Housework? Are you ill?’

  Lizzie stuck out her tongue. ‘I have many talents, Mums. It’s just that I have chosen not to employ them until absolutely necessary.’ Her hands slowed. ‘I’m terrified of Simon’s dad.’

  Lucy grinned. ‘He’s just a man. Men are tall little boys. Do you want me to come with you? David has the week off, and we’re meant to be out for the day, but he’ll sit with Moira if I ask him to.’

  Lizzie shook her head emphatically. ‘No. Richard wants to get into your knickers, so his reaction would be a false one if you’re there. Simon can deal with him. We won’t come back. Is it OK if we use my bedroom at Stoneyhurst? I don’t think I’m up to sharing living space with Dr Turner.’

  Lucy stayed to wave them off. Of course they’d be welcome on Mersey View. Who could resist two such beautiful creatures? Simon had to work some notice at the Royal, after which they would travel to London so that he could take up his new post, while Lizzie would return to RADA.

  She went upstairs and found that Lizzie’s room had been left in pristine condition. An effort had been made, and that was good enough. ‘I spoiled all three of you,’ she whispered. A thought struck. What if Mike and Paul got serious about Alice and Steph? ‘My life would become hyper-medical,’ Lucy told herself. David, Richard, Simon, Steph and Alice – they could staff their own private hospital.

  The mobile rang. At first, she didn’t recognize the sound, until she remembered that David, while in his cups under the famous Financial Times hat, had loaded ‘Amarillo’ as her ring tone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Lucy?’ It was Glenys.

  ‘Yes, Glen. How are you doing?’

  ‘OK. I finally got hold of Howard Styles’s widow. She wasn’t in Cheshire – she has a second house in Blackpool. I got her on her dead husband’s mobile.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’s with her. She asked him to put the kettle on, and she used his name. I know Alan’s not an uncommon forename, but I’m guessing it has to be him. They’re going back to Alderley Edge on Thursday. I’ve arranged to meet her in a coffee shop on Friday morning. When she asked why, I told her it was personal and connected to the death of her husband. She knows I’m a lawyer, and she has all my phone numbers.’

  ‘Thanks, Glen.’

  ‘Are you up for it? It could get nasty, Lucy.’

  ‘I have to warn her. It would be subhuman not to. Let’s face it, you should really have got the police, because Alan stole money from a building society. We’re not being cruel.’

>   ‘OK.’

  Lucy turned off her phone. Sitting on a chaise, she looked through the landing window. David had arrived with what Moira termed the fasten-me-down van. Dressed in his version of casual clothes, he looked as if he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. Like many Englishmen, he managed to confuse casual with disgraceful. Yet it was in these moments that she loved him most. He was the other half of her, and she wished she’d met him again years ago, wished she’d been there to help when Anne and Tim died. It was time to buy him some decent leisure clothes – if she could get him into a shop, if she could force him to try things on.

  Today, they were taking Moira over the Pennines to visit Yorkshire. She had never seen it and, in Lucy’s opinion, no one should go through life without looking at what she called God’s temper tantrum, the wild and wonderful area that she always thought of as unfinished, as if the manufacturer had run out of steam and decided to leave it half done. Tomorrow, Mags Livesey was coming to give them both a new hairdo and a facial. That would cheer Moira no end, because she hadn’t seen a beautician in years.

  ‘Louisa?’ The cry drifted upstairs.

  She laughed quietly. David often used her full handle, the name she had been given, the one her parents insisted on until Father and Grandfather had started the Lucy-Lou game.

  ‘Coming,’ she called.

  They met halfway down the stairs.

  ‘When?’ he asked.

  ‘When what?’

  ‘Bed. Together. You and I.’

  He was coming along nicely if she could just ignore the clothes. ‘Soon,’ she promised. ‘Now, what if we decide to take Moira somewhere nice for lunch? They won’t let you in.’

  ‘Ah.’ He looked down at himself. ‘I forgot. Had some trouble with the van, did a bit of engine-tweaking, and should have changed afterwards.’ He smiled at her. ‘How soon is soon?’