The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

‘Oh. Hello, love,’ he said.

  That was an improvement, she decided. Three words. It wasn’t much, but she had to be thankful for small mercies. ‘Never mind “Hello, love”. I should be at Scouse Alley helping me mother. That place’ll be like a bloody pigsty by now, and I should be pulling me weight. But no. I have to traipse all over town looking for you. I’ve had more words out of our Seamus these past weeks. Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Confession,’ he replied. ‘And to see Greenhalgh.’

  ‘Who has confessions on a Saturday?’

  ‘A few churches do. But I knocked at the presbytery and spoke face to face, didn’t go in the box.’ He shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I can’t even remember the name of the church. Might be St Columba’s. It got bombed and rebuilt.’

  ‘Right.’ She waited.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve got absolution. Special circumstances. We both finished up crying, me and the priest. He said I’m a good family man with a conscience and told me to think about David and Goliath.’

  ‘Right.’ Maureen’s heart slowed to nearly normal.

  ‘You keep saying right.’

  ‘Do I? And you’ve been saying bugger all for weeks. It’s been me, just me talking. The only punctuation I got was from our Seamus, and he doesn’t always make full sense. Imagine what he’s gone through. Me as well. It’s been no bowl of cherries.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I should hope so.’ She paused. ‘Him with the game leg. What were you saying to him? And who is he?’

  Tom moved his head and stared out at the Mersey once more. ‘Roy. Found me nearly crying in my beer. Good bloke. He just sat there for a while in the pub before asking what he could do to help. So I told him to take me to a church that was nowhere near Bootle. He waited for me at the presbytery, then we came back here after a cup of coffee in Maggie Moore’s caff. I told him I felt better, and he was glad.’

  ‘Good. Are we going home now?’

  ‘In a bit. Roy opened up and talked to me about his dad dying. He’d told his dad to die, and he did die. The dad was a bad man, but Roy felt as if he’d made it happen. The police thought Roy had pushed him down the stairs or broken his neck after an accidental fall, but that was all rubbish. There’s this young widow he loves, and he hurts when he sees her, hurts when he doesn’t see her.’ Tom turned and looked at his long-suffering wife. ‘And that was when I felt lucky, because I got my girl.’

  Maureen blushed. At her age, she was in no fit state for blushing; it didn’t suit her one bit. For a start, it made her look drunk. The singing was not the only result of her infrequent over-indulgence in the Guinness, since she also had a tendency to become flushed and somewhat luminous in the facial department. Tom had been known to declare in the past that they never needed a torch, because they just followed his wife’s nose when she’d been on a bender. ‘I got my girl,’ he repeated. ‘And if this was wartime, you’d need a blackout blind for that face. You’ve lit up like a Christmas tree.’

  For answer, she clouted him with her handbag. He was well and safe, and that was all she needed to know. ‘Don’t go thinking anybody’s missed you while you went for your walk on the dark side. And don’t go thinking anybody’s going to make a fuss of you, because you need a job for a kick-off.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘You what? Do you think money grows on trees?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘I told you I went to see Greenhalgh. Roy came there with me, too. Sound as a pound, that lad. Anyway, they’re giving me the new Bootle Co-op when they’ve finished modernizing and fitting it. He said I was due for promotion anyway. I’m going to be the manager. It suits, because I have to build myself up first, and I don’t start work for a couple of months. Course, he knew I’d been ill, but he thinks it was a chest infection that refused to shift. I have had that bad cough, so it wasn’t much of a lie.’

  ‘And all you needed was confession?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m not out of the woods yet, sweetheart. But yes, confession works. Forgiveness from a man of God is good liquor. One day at a time, eh? And we got Christmas cards from the boys.’

  ‘So did Mam and Dad. Theirs came a couple of days later.’ She looked at him quizzically. ‘You noticed, then? You heard and saw?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Again, she swiped his arm with the bag. ‘Why didn’t you answer me?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want you to see a grown man cry. I couldn’t talk about anything. Just give me a chance, Maureen. I feel as if somebody’s waved a magic wand, but the miracle might not last.’

  It would last, she decided when they climbed on the bus. She would make sure it bloody well lasted. The vehicle was packed with people and Christmas shopping, so she and Tom had to stand. They hung on to leather straps provided for that purpose. His right hand sought her left and clung to her until they reached their stop.

  When they alighted, he got the third blow from her handbag. ‘What’s that about?’ he asked.

  ‘Holding me hand on the bus. People must have thought we’re having an affair, because husbands and wives don’t hold hands.’

  He grinned for the first time in weeks. ‘Did any of them on the bus know you?’

  ‘Some might have.’

  ‘And if they knew you, they’d know me, and they’d know we’re married. If they didn’t know us, who cares?’

  ‘I care. It’s not natural. Married people don’t even talk to one another on a night out.’

  ‘Sad,’ he said before dragging her into his arms. Although the daylight was meagre and few people were out and about, she battered him yet again with her bag. He was a good kisser, but she was still going to kill him later. He probably thought he was on a promise, and he could think again. He was a great kisser, though …

  It started with the rose bowl. A squat item in mottled pink glass, it was topped by a circle of wire with holes to help arrangements of short-stemmed blooms to remain stable. For several days following the move to Menlove Avenue, the article popped up all over the place. It travelled from landing windowsill to kitchen, to front living room, to dining room, to the main bedroom, to Anne-Marie’s domain.

  Don told himself it was nothing to worry about. Tess had always been fussy. She could go through half a dozen books of wallpaper samples without finding anything good enough for her. But when it came to the carpet …

  He stood in the doorway, his jaw dropping, forehead creased in a frown, hands employed to steady himself by pushing against the jamb. A dart of pure terror pierced his chest. ‘Tess?’ he managed eventually. On her hands and knees, she looked over a shoulder and smiled at him. ‘I thought if I started in the bay and worked backwards, I wouldn’t end up painted into a corner.’

  ‘What are you doing, love?’

  ‘Painting them out. You don’t like them; I don’t like them any more. So they’re going. No skaters’ trails, just all grey.’

  Don swallowed hard. St Faith’s Infants’ School was still in a state of recovery from deep trauma. Tess, in charge of costumes and props, had accidentally locked everything in the wrong storage cupboard. Alongside the manger, kings’ crowns and angels’ wings, three terrified children had been entombed. They had suffered nightmares ever since getting out of jail. Tess wasn’t right.

  Meals were strange. They were also served at some very odd times. Don’s mother’s rose bowl was currently on display in the centre of the front lawn alongside a frying pan and two tins of marrowfat peas. She wasn’t just unhappy; she was absolutely crackers. ‘Tess?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You don’t paint carpets. You take them up and buy new ones.’

  ‘Waste of money,’ was her reply.

  There were times in life when a person didn’t know what to do. This was one of those times. ‘The paint will come off the carpet, Tess. It might never dry properly, because it’s meant for wood, not wool. You can’t carry on like this.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like what?’ he repeated. ‘Like loc
king kids in cupboards, cutting up your best curtains for King Herod’s cloak, painting carpets, putting tinned veg on the lawn—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve two tins of marrowfats, a frying pan and my mam’s rose bowl out there.’

  ‘Stop fussing over nothing,’ she insisted. ‘Anyway, I must get on.’

  He watched her getting on. There was no point in trying to count, but there had to be more than a few thousand trails on a carpet of this size. Although the background was grey, the trails were multicoloured, and she was painting over each one with a fine brush dipped in the contents of a tin marked Charcoal.

  Three weeks, they had lived here. Sean, who had been on the brink of leaving their previous home for a place of his own, seemed to be settling. Anne-Marie, with a new bedroom fit for a princess, was deliriously enchanted. When she wasn’t dressing up, washing her hair or painting her face, she was walking casually up and down the avenue outside John Lennon’s house. So determined was her blasé demeanour that she stuck out like a Blackpool tram on Southport beach. But Don’s daughter’s madness was temporary and hormonal; Tess’s was in a class of its own.

  He walked into the kitchen. Her dilemma had started here. There were eighteen cupboards and five drawers. This over-abundance of storage space had gone to Tess’s head, and she had spent four days and a mint of money filling up every nook and cranny. There was now enough flour to furnish a bakery, the shoe-cleaning equipment kept company with tinned vegetables and fruit, while one large unit at ground level was packed with fresh, ironed linen and a baited mousetrap. She needed a doctor. She needed a lie-down in a darkened room with a cold cloth on her forehead.

  Where were the kids? Why were they always there when you didn’t want them, and out of sight the minute they were needed? Don returned to the hall and opened the front door. John Lennon was cross-legged in his oriel bay, guitar across his chest, lips moving, quiff tumbling into his eyes. There was no sign of Anne-Marie, no sign of any worshippers just now. The lone Quarry Man, oblivious to anything beyond his music, carried on with admirable dedication. If the lad would just put down the guitar and take up something sensible like plumbing, he would probably go far.

  Anne-Marie had a second string to her bow these days. She was wont to visit Allerton, where she had discovered the home of one Paul McCartney. Paul, more conventionally pretty than his friend, had the sort of face that would collapse suddenly. He looked younger than his years, whereas Lennon seemed older, but John’s bone structure would serve him better. According to Tess, that was. According to Tess before she went doolally.

  And she was very probably continuing to paint the carpet. ‘Why am I standing here thinking about a skiffle band? I’ve a wife gone mental in there.’ He picked up frying pan, tins and rose bowl. It had all started so innocently. Failing to find a permanent home for an ornament was normal. But Tess had gone berserk. Dr Byrne had come up with some daft idea about post-partum depression having turned to psychosis, but Anne-Marie was fifteen, Sean was eighteen, and Tess hadn’t seemed particularly odd after the births of her children.

  Don stood in the doorway with peas, rose bowl and frying pan. The lad in the window across the road saluted him comically, and Don returned the favour with a tin of peas. Yes, Lennon was probably all right, guitar or no guitar. He lived with an aunt who seemed very straitlaced, but at least there were no pans or peas on the front lawn.

  Tess was waiting for him in the hall. ‘Waste of time,’ she told him. ‘You were right, but I thought it was worth a go – that carpet’s nearly new. The dye didn’t take.’

  ‘Dye?’

  ‘Charcoal. But I think it’s more for clothes and stuff. Or chair covers and cushions.’

  A shard of hope pierced Don’s heart. He still loved her. He loved two women. Molly was real, down to earth, a great laugh. This selfish piece of work he continued to adore. ‘Will the meal be on time tonight?’ he asked.

  Tess shook a finger at him. ‘Listen, Desperate Don. I’ve been a bit mithered in case you haven’t noticed. A house of this class takes some living up to. I’m still theming the rooms.’

  He had no real idea about what theming was, but he didn’t bother to ask for enlightenment. One worry went up the chimney with the rest of the smoke: she had used dye, not paint, on the carpet. And, for a few seconds, he hid the other concerns behind more immediate problems. Would Molly want the house back? Could he really give up the generous physical warmth offered by her; was he about to return and worship at the beautiful feet of his beautiful, cold wife? Separate beds—

  ‘Don?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Will you teach me to drive?’

  She had locked three children in a store cupboard for two hours. Her cooking was moving in the direction of Molly’s, her timekeeping was hardly Greenwich, and he still wondered about marrowfat peas, a frying pan and a rose bowl. Put her behind a wheel? He’d need to find somebody to walk in front with a red flag. Oh, and a suit of armour. ‘Why do you want to learn?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. A job of some kind, I suppose. When I let the flat above the shop, the tenant will look after the business. Littlewoods Pools wants people to pick up coupons from corner shops on Saturday mornings. Johnson the cleaners needs collection points for dry-cleaning. That’s to stop launderettes like ours installing dry-cleaning machines. I don’t want one. I don’t want people keeling over from breathing carbon tetrachloride, not in our shop.’

  Don blinked. She’d been reading again. ‘Carbon who?’

  ‘Tetrachloride. It stinks. You can go unconscious just like that.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Even in frost and snow, you have to drive with the windows open unless you want to wake up on a slab. Newly dry-cleaned items in a confined space can be deadly.’

  There was nothing wrong with her, he decided. She was eccentric, no more than that. She wanted a posh house because she’d spent her infancy in a freezing, uncomfortable gypsy caravan. Depression arrived when she became fearful of returning to penury. ‘Tess?’

  ‘Yes? I’m going down the chippy. What would you like, Mr Steak Pudding?’

  ‘Steak pudding and peas.’

  She stared hard at him. ‘Did you mention peas before?’

  ‘Two tins,’ he answered.

  ‘Squirrels,’ she said as she pulled on a coat. ‘See? You still want steak pudding. I didn’t need to ask.’

  ‘I like a choice.’ Squirrels? Oh, God. What was she on about now? What the hell was the connection between bushy-tailed rodents and two family-sized tins of Batchelor’s marrowfats?

  ‘Did you want to ask me something, Don? Only I don’t relish the idea of being in a big queue at the chip shop.’

  ‘No.’ He’d been about to ask her whether she still had any feelings for him, but it didn’t seem right now, not with squirrels as part of the equation. The equation.

  She left the house. Don set plates to warm in the oven. Equation? What the hell was he up to? Was he trying to work out her state of mind and heart before deciding which woman to keep, which to let go? If the first one was broken, would he move on to the other one, who was older but in working order? It was a bit like measuring one car against another: best transmission, best engine, best bodywork. He was the selfish one; he was the bloke behaving like a spoilt child who had to get his own way.

  Sean and Anne-Marie arrived together. Don told them their meal would be here shortly, and they ran upstairs. Elvis Presley roared from the Dansette in Anne-Marie’s room, doors slammed, water ran. They were home.

  He set the table: knives, forks, salt and malt vinegar. Why was there a mousetrap in the clean linen cupboard? Was this enough to make him run away into the ample bosom of a woman with a ukulele, two dogs and some tropical fish? ‘I am not a good man,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not being fair.’ He owed Molly. Yet his love for Tess had burgeoned anew over recent weeks. ‘I want to have fun with my own wife,’ he mumbled. ‘I want to communicate with her.’ And he should never have taken Molly�
�s money.

  Tess came in. She was all smiles, paper bundles and dandelion and burdock. ‘What’s up with your face?’ she asked.

  ‘Why is there a mousetrap in with all the towels and tablecloths?’

  ‘Don’t answer a question with a question. You’re not an Aquarian.’

  Don scratched his head. ‘You what?’

  ‘Aquarians answer questions with questions. They’re geniuses. It said so in Woman’s Realm.’ She straightened her spine. ‘I am Aquarius. I’ll have a new carpet for my birthday in three weeks …’ Her voice died. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘I think I love my wife.’

  A corner of Tess’s mouth twitched. ‘Warm your feet before getting in my bed,’ she ordered. ‘And don’t expect full service till I feel more settled.’ She sniffed. A bitter wind had made her nose wet. ‘I’ve gone … different.’

  ‘Yes, we noticed.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ she whispered. ‘Early menopause. What would you know about that sort of thing?’

  A curtain seemed to move at the front of Don’s mind. She hadn’t wanted more children. She was Catholic. Precautions were sinful … Bloody religion. Not for the first time, he cursed the rod made by humanity for its own back. Holy Moses? He should have left the bloody tablets where they were instead of taking two between meals.

  ‘Sit,’ she said. ‘Eat,’ she ordered.

  ‘Did you mean it?’ he asked. ‘About warming my feet first?’

  ‘Shut up, the children are coming.’

  ‘Tess?’

  ‘Be quiet.’

  They rolled in, the son almost clean, the daughter shining like a new pin.

  Tess folded her arms. ‘You,’ she said to Anne-Marie, ‘can get back up the stairs and turn that din off.’

  ‘But it’s Elvis,’ the girl cried.

  Don cleared his throat. ‘John Lennon waved at me today.’

  ‘No!’ Anne-Marie dropped into a chair, ignored her mother and stared at her dad. ‘When?’

  Elvis ground to a blessed halt upstairs. ‘About half an hour ago,’ Don said. ‘Bit of a wink with it, too.’