The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

  Drainpipe-trousered lads became round-shouldered as if trying to disappear altogether. Even their chains lost sheen and hung limply from hands that didn’t know what to do with themselves.

  Don stood behind his wife. ‘Rockers,’ he whispered.

  ‘More like crackers, you mean.’

  ‘Their leathers must have cost more than a month’s wages,’ Don continued. ‘As for the bikes – they’ll be on the never-never.’

  The Rockers were laughing at the out-of-touch Teds, while pillion passengers, mostly female, dismounted and poked fun at the Smithdown Road girls. Rockers’ chicks wore jeans and boots, denim or leather jackets, gloves and roll-necked jumpers. Even on a summer evening, riding was a chilly business.

  ‘So this is what comes next,’ Tess muttered.

  ‘Half of it,’ Don told her. ‘The rest are Mods. They ride scooters and wear army greatcoats, and they want peace. That means ban the bomb, Aldermaston and making love instead of war.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of that,’ Tess pronounced.

  Don kept his counsel. She wouldn’t like the idea of the retort he bit back, would she? When she’d wanted a baby, she’d found a way of making love to a man who could take no weight on one of his knees. She’d been gentle, tender and loving, but it had been just a means to an end. Two children, one of each, and she was finished with all that. Occasionally, very rarely, he managed a pleasant moment when she turned her back on him in bed, but the love had gone out of her. She was allowing him a favour for old times’ sake, no more than that. He was a beggar at the queen’s table, and the humiliation was killing him. There had to be an end to this unsavoury situation, and he must speak up soon; in fact, he should do it now.

  ‘We have to get away from here,’ she said.

  Don continued to hold his tongue, because once he started, it would all tumble like Niagara.

  ‘I know it’s not far, but it’s far enough. I can’t see this bike lot roaring up and down a nice residential road with trees and grass verges, can you? Bay windows, too. I’ve always wanted bay windows.’ She looked him full in the face. ‘Don?’

  He turned and limped back through the door, his hand shaking on the stick that aided his walking. His children were important to him, and he’d planned to drift on until they were on their own roads, no walking stick required to assist them along the way. Why couldn’t she stop meddling? She was meant to have been satisfied with her launderette and her flat, but nothing would stay her determination to keep up with the Joneses she hadn’t even met.

  She came in. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  His kids were outside but nearby. They were wearing the wrong clothes, articles that had been crossed off the lists of many teenagers twelve months back. He half expected Anne-Marie to fly into the shop at any moment; she had jeans and blouses upstairs. ‘Leave me alone, Tess,’ he said.

  She folded her arms and stood in front of machine number seven. He looked almost as sad as he’d been after Dunkirk, defeated, heartbroken and completely wrecked. Uneasily, she shifted her weight from foot to foot. At the start of the war, she’d already been pregnant with Sean, but she had needed him for Anne-Marie … Yet he’d never complained, and he still managed sometimes to make it happen … He didn’t understand her, had never understood what went on inside her head, the memories, the fears, the need not to get pregnant again …

  Don looked his wife full in the face. When had she last kissed him? When had she placed a hand on his thigh, an arm across his shoulders, her head on his chest? Why did he have to make love without seeing her face? Love? There was virtually nothing left in him, either, apart from this fierce, protective affection for the children. Yet the cold, hard woman with whom he had lived for twenty-odd years was still the best-looking in Liverpool. Her face, with its almost heart-shaped beauty spot on the right cheekbone, was perfect. He wanted her, but he was no animal.

  He took a deep breath. ‘I’m here for the kids,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll go when they go. I don’t want to buy a house with you, live with you, eat with you. If we had another room here, I’d be sleeping in it.’ There. He had said most of it. Yet he derived little relief from opening his mouth and speaking his truth. He felt terrible, as if he had trodden on a small creature with no means of defending itself. Because she couldn’t help being what she was. Why she was what she was – that was another matter altogether, and not quite a mystery.

  Tess closed her mouth so quickly and inaccurately that she bit her tongue.

  ‘I’m still a man,’ he reminded her as gently as possible. ‘I might walk like a ruptured duck, but I’m all there apart from that. We’ve lived a lie since our Anne-Marie was born. Everybody managed without all sorts while you worked and saved for this business – and all power to you – well done. But you never asked what I wanted. When you go to the chippy, you always fetch me a steak pudding. I might fancy cod once in a while, but you don’t ask. In your mind, I’m just a steak pudding, a body at the table, a man whose stiff knee holds you back. It’s no way to live, Tess.’ This wasn’t living; it was an existence, no more.

  She felt as if the world had shifted sideways on its axis. ‘Where will you go?’ she asked, her voice cracking.

  ‘I’ve somewhere to go. It’s a bit late for you to start worrying about my welfare, isn’t it? I got married where you told me, when you told me, let my kiddies go to RC schools. When I came back from war early and less than perfect, I realized I’d got more affection out of the ancient mariner who brought me back in his leaky boat than I’ve ever had from you.’ He was being cruel, yet he couldn’t stop the words pouring like hot magma from a tear in the earth’s crust.

  Tess stared at the floor, wished it would open up and swallow her. The expression on his face, or rather the lack of expression, made her sick, ashamed and … and alone. She was suddenly terrified. Anne-Marie would leave school in a few weeks, and she wanted to go in for hairdressing. Apprentices and improvers worked long hours. Sean was doing mechanics in a garage, and he was already talking about getting a flat with a couple of mates. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged, hating herself before the words were out. She couldn’t be left, mustn’t be left.

  He stared hard at her before answering. ‘You left me years ago, Tess. I’ve read that many books, I’m an almost-walking encyclopedia. Invasion by Danes, Romans, Saxons, I’m your man. I know most poets, the workings of the internal combustion engine, how to build a bloody dry-stone wall, how to make a patchwork quilt. Dickens, Mark Twain, even Geoffrey flaming Chaucer; I’ve digested the lot. And all the time, you’ve followed your road and dragged this bloody cripple along at the back of you.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

  Don smiled, though his eyes remained cold. ‘Oh, yes, you’re sorry. Sorry you won’t get a three-bedroom semi with gardens, horrible carpets and a fly-away coffee table. I’ve no intention of becoming an estate agent. There’s very few houses for sale, anyway, because we’re still rebuilding what Hitler bombed. No, I’m quite happy manning the phone six mornings a week at Braithwaites, ta. It may not pay much, but a builders’ merchants is right for me with my experience.’

  That was the point at which Tess suffered her first ever panic attack. It closed in without warning or mercy, removing light from the room, air from her lungs, strength from her limbs. Something hot yet chilling coursed through her veins, while her heart went into overdrive, fluttering and jumping about behind her ribs like a bat in an unfamiliar cave. She was cold to the bone. She was in a caravan on a winter’s night, the only warmth available the body heat of her siblings, at least one of which number still wet the bed almost every night.

  Don, believing she was having a tantrum of some kind, lowered his chin and drifted back in dream time. 1936. She’d had hair like ripe corn, eyes of the clearest, brightest blue, a neat little figure, and a mind as clear as a bell even then. Her family, with whom Tess had no longer lived, had been dragged into the equation by a local nun who’d learned of the
banns. Prejudiced beyond measure, the tribe had fought Tess’s determination to enter a mixed marriage, albeit within the Catholic Church. Priests, teachers and even a bishop had been dragged into the ring, but Tess had remained unmoved. She told everyone that she would live in sin, so she finally achieved permission to marry. Don should have known then. From a relatively affluent family, he had been a good catch. But his father’s premature death and his mother’s second marriage to a wastrel had put paid to Tess’s hopes before her marriage to Don was two years old. Then the war, then the knee, then the steak puddings …

  Tess loved Tess. She guarded herself against return to the conditions of a childhood that had been impoverished, uncertain and pugnacious. When it came to food and clothing, it had been child against child, and may the best urchin win. A smaller than average girl, she had suffered, so she wanted a warm nest and plenty of space and nourishment. These were her rights, and he had been the one with the duty to furnish her with such requirements. But he had failed by losing his father, his father’s money, and the use of one of his hinge joints. She never expressed concern about the pain caused by a shattered patella, by the mangling of connective tissue, by the worsening of everything when arthritis moved in.

  ‘Don?’ she managed.

  ‘What?’

  She was hyperventilating. ‘Get somebody. Heart attack.’

  He leapt to his feet, grabbed the stick and made for the door.

  With two fingers in his mouth, he delivered a whistle shrill enough to shatter good lead crystal. The leader of the newly arrived Rockers was by his side in an instant. ‘What’s up? Can we do something?’

  ‘Get the doc, please. Black front door halfway down the block opposite this one, tell him Tess Compton’s collapsed. She’s on the floor.’

  There followed a flurry of activity involving Anne-Marie and Pea-Green, Sean and a couple of friends, the doctor, and the leader of the leather-clad invaders. ‘Panic attack,’ announced Dr Byrne eventually. ‘Get me a paper bag and clear this room.’

  The leader of the bike pack ushered everyone but Don and the doctor into the street while Tess blew into the brown bag. Gradually, colour returned to her cheeks and she managed to shift until she rested against a washing machine. Panic attack? She’d been inches from death, and her whole life had run through her head like a fox chasing chickens. ‘Pain in my chest,’ she breathed before returning the paper bag to its designated place. After a few more breaths, she spoke again. ‘Living here’s not doing my health any good,’ she announced, her tone rapidly approaching normal. ‘I think I’m allergic to all these detergents.’

  Don shook his head almost imperceptibly. Even now, she was fighting her corner. ‘I meant what I said, Tess.’ He gave his attention to the medic. ‘She wants a house on Menlove Avenue, and I’m putting my good foot down. Just because I’m a cripple, she thinks I’ll give her anything she wants. Tess is a bit old for tantrums, but she does her best when she needs to put on a performance.’ Molly performed. She sang and played the ukulele, and she didn’t moan or mither.

  Stephen Byrne placed himself next to Don on the bench. ‘What your wife just experienced is very, very real. Something’s knocked her sideways. It might be an event in her past, or a recent shock—’

  But Don had released a fury he had suffocated for years, and he could scarcely help himself. ‘House on Menlove Avenue, doc. Oh, and I have to be an estate agent with our Sean, who gets his hands dirty in his present job, the job he chose because it suits him. I said no to all of it, and you might as well know that this marriage has been over for going on fifteen years. When the kids leave, I leave. I’m not telling them that, but she might. Because, you see, our Tess here is the most selfish creature I’ve ever met. She thought I would inherit my dad’s building firm, but she got disappointed. She thought she’d married a strapping man, but she got disappointed. And to give her her due, she has worked damned hard to get where she is.’ He paused. ‘Where she is, you see. I’m just a steak pudding and mushy peas.’ He smiled tightly. ‘You can ignore that last bit.’

  Dr Byrne was lost for words.

  Tess found several. Don had never appreciated her. She couldn’t be on her own, would never manage by herself. This panic had happened because she couldn’t cope with his threats to leave her all alone after twenty years of marriage. Yes, thought Don, she was doing well considering she’d emerged just moments earlier from a panic attack.

  ‘Well, you’re all right now.’ Don stood up and made for the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ his wife demanded.

  ‘Out to see a mate. Later on, it’ll be a pie, a pint, and a few games of arrows. Even a bloke with one knee can enjoy darts.’ He couldn’t say any more, because for some reason, he felt perilously close to tears. Even now, after all he’d been through, there was something about her that made him sad, needful, angry, heartbroken.

  ‘See?’ screamed Tess. ‘He’s the selfish one, and it’s—’

  Don slammed the door, stepped onto the pavement and faced his beloved children. Self-loathing was already diluting his anger; he could not have stayed in the launderette without continuing to rant.

  ‘Is she all right?’ Anne-Marie asked anxiously. ‘What happened? Is it her heart? She said it was her heart.’

  Don shook his head. ‘No. She just got upset about something and lost her breath. Go in and look after her when Dr Byrne’s finished.’ He got into his car and drove away. As soon as he was alone he began to tremble, and he pulled into a side street at the earliest opportunity. Never before had he faced up to her. She was bright, but not bright enough to react to the sarcastic comments with which he sometimes peppered his longer chunks of oratory. ‘She probably doesn’t listen,’ he told the handbrake as he applied it. But he couldn’t have drifted along in her wake this time. No. He’d been forced to become a tugboat heaving and hauling HMS Tess into dock, because she would have sold him down the river this time. ‘You’re thinking in metaphors, Don,’ he said aloud. ‘And she can’t help it. Just remember that.’

  But his memories went their own way. Her laughter, clear as a mountain stream running over smoothed stones, her beautiful face, her hands, those wonderful legs. Where had she gone? What had she become, and was he to blame? ‘Stop it,’ he snapped aloud.

  Anne-Marie would have loved to move to Menlove Avenue, because a much-admired rebel named Lennon lived there. A pupil at Quarry Bank School, he had formed the Quarry Men, and they played at local fetes and fairs, usually with a bevy of girls cheering them on. But Anne-Marie had enough boyfriends. There was Pea-Green, for a start, and the lead rider of the newly arrived Rockers seemed to have taken a shine to Don’s pretty daughter. She looked like her mother but, so far, she seemed not to have inherited Tess’s selfish streak. Anne-Marie was as engrossed in fashion and music as the next teenager, but she had heart.

  ‘Do you have a heart, Don Compton?’ Did he? If he had feelings for anybody other than his children, they were all for Molly Braithwaite, widow of the deceased Matthew. And therein lay the twist in the tale, because he might move on to enjoy all the benefits of Matt Braithwaite’s legacy, while Tess, who had married for money, would continue to miss out. He cleared his throat. A part of him understood Tess, because she’d had a bugger of a childhood, and she was a frightened woman. But he couldn’t stay outwardly compliant any longer. His wife was frigid in his company, and he needed to get out of the refrigerator, longed to sit near a cosy fire with Molly and her mad dogs.

  Molly was a big woman with a smile that sometimes put the sun to shame, and a laugh that was infectious. She would never match Tess for looks, but Don had learned the hard way that beauty was indeed skin deep, and that a pretty face could hide a cruel heart. Oh, Molly. He grinned stupidly and shook his head. Brown eyes, brown hair, a few strands of grey claiming space above her ears. She dyed it. When he’d asked about the colour, she had shrugged. ‘Shit brown like the rest of me head. More gravy?’ They had looked into the sauce boat, noticed the
colour and howled in near-hysteria.

  Her house, separated from the business by a couple of acres, was like herself – big and beautiful. She made a man of him in and out of bed, gave him much to be pleased about, including interesting, often inedible meals, and affection. Yes, she adored him. And the increased speed of his heartbeat whenever he approached his place of work reminded him that he, too, was standing perilously close to the brink of love.

  He closed his eyes. Was Madam Tess planning to play up? Would she sing to the gallery, to the kids, to the doctor? The man had declared her panic attack to be real … ‘I’ll get a book from the library,’ he whispered. Well, if he could become an expert in car maintenance and dry-stonewalling, psychiatry or psychology should be a walk in the park. Panic attacks. Increased adrenalin, the doc had said. Pure fear. What if she went crazy? Could he leave her if she finished up on drugs and all kinds of therapy? What sort of man would behave in such a way?

  Well, sitting here would shell no peas, as Molly might have put it. She would be half expecting him, though she seldom demanded a move up the list. He worked alongside her every morning apart from Sunday, and most lunch times were spent in her company, as were several evenings when he was supposed to be playing darts. Sometimes, he felt as if he might be betraying his children, but they were almost grown, and he’d done his best. As a disabled father, he had brought them through their early years while Tess had struggled to save for her own business. He had done his job, and he kept reminding himself of that fact.

  Molly had no children. She and Matt had tried for years, but she’d finally settled for a couple of occasionally mad retrievers and some tropical fish. The fish made her sleepy, the dogs kept her awake, nobody criticized her and, taken all round, she thought she was better off with animals. Her one reservation was Sam, who had been expelled from dog school for eating equipment and trying to have sex with a miniature poodle, but she managed to forgive him. She managed to forgive everyone and everything, because she was in love with life.