The House By Princes Park

by Maureen Lee

  Liam brought the pills home a few days later. They were in a little brown bottle.

  ‘Are you sure they’re the right ones?’ There wasn’t a name on the bottle when Ellie examined it.

  ‘I should hope so. They cost five quid.’

  ‘These are white, the others are blue.’ She popped one in her mouth all the same.

  ‘They’re a different brand, that’s all,’ Liam said easily, more concerned with opening the letter with a Liverpool postmark that had arrived for him that morning, almost certainly the result of his degree. He gave a joyful shout. ‘I got a First and was top of my year. I think this calls for a drink – champagne, the very best. Put your glad rags on, me darling girl. Tonight we’re celebrating. Tomorrow, I’ll buy the newspaper and start writing after jobs.’

  As usual, there were plenty of people they knew in the pub. They got in with a crowd celebrating a wedding anniversary, and pretty soon they were all celebrating together.

  Someone started to sing an Irish folk song accompanied by the plaintive strains of a fiddle. It was all terribly bohemian. Nothing like this ever happens in Liverpool, Ellie thought, entirely forgetting she’d never been inside a Liverpool pub, so wouldn’t know.

  Chapter 15

  Daisy shone the torch discreetly along the back row of the Forum. It was filled with couples snogging madly, not even faintly interested in what was happening on the screen, despite The Conversation with Gene Hackman being such an excellent film. Clint had already seen it three times for free. In his expert opinion, it was one of the best ever made.

  Every seat was occupied. Daisy transferred the torch beam to the right aisle. ‘There’s two empty seats in the middle,’ she said to the young couple who’d only just arrived and asked to be seated at the back. The Conversation had started fifteen minutes ago, but watching a film was clearly the last thing on their minds.

  She switched the torch off and went outside where her fellow usherette, Paula, was having a smoke.

  ‘That pair were probably the last,’ Paula said. She was a lovely, cheerful woman, with dyed blonde hair and purple lips. ‘I think I’ll take the weight off me feet and sit down.’

  Daisy sat on the padded seat beside her. ‘They went in the back row. I don’t understand why people come to the pictures just to neck. It’s nothing but a waste of money.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ve got nowhere else warm to go, luv. I don’t think me and Chas saw a picture properly the whole two years we were courting.’ She tittered. ‘There was one on telly the other night, My Sister Eileen with Janet Leigh. I know me and Chas went to see it, but all we could remember was the name.’ She gave Daisy a painful nudge with her elbow. ‘Don’t tell me you and your Clint always sit with your eyes glued to the screen when you’re at the pics?’

  ‘We do, actually,’ Daisy said primly. ‘He’s a film fanatic. He watches every single minute, even if it’s not very good.’

  ‘Then you’ve obviously got somewhere else to neck.’

  ‘Not really,’ Daisy was about to say, but limited herself instead to a telling laugh. She and Clint had never necked or snogged or whatever you called it, but she wasn’t prepared to reveal that to Paula.

  ‘Anyroad, Daisy, luv,’ Paula said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you. That painting you gave me, I wasn’t sure about it at first, but Chas, he really liked it. Anyroad, he hung it over the mantelpiece. “I never thought we’d ever have our own, original masterpiece,” he said. Meself, I thought that was going a bit far.’

  ‘You’ve told me all this before,’ Daisy reminded her.

  ‘I know, luv. I’m leading up to something else, aren’t I? Our Brigid’s boyfriend’s sister goes to art college. Her name’s Mary, and when she came the other night she was dead impressed with your picture. She wants to meet you, and I wondered, luv, would you like to come to tea on Sunday?’

  ‘I’d love to. Can I bring Clint? We don’t have much time together since I came to work here.’

  ‘I took it for granted you’d bring him, Daise. What it must be like to be in love, eh?’ She nudged Daisy again. ‘Mind you, me and Chas still have our moments.’

  As she journeyed home on the bus, Daisy thanked her lucky stars she’d exchanged her office job for that of an usherette. Not only could she do it as well as anyone else, but she’d made loads of friends. As far as work was concerned, nowadays she was dead happy.

  She was happier at home too since Ellie had run off to Dublin with Liam Conway. It meant she had Clint all to herself. But life still wasn’t perfect – would it ever be? Daisy wondered desperately, thinking about the conversation with Paula, the bit about the back row.

  It was two months since she and Clint had got engaged and still all he did was kiss her by the gate. Lately, she’d starting kissing him back with all her might, pressing her lips against his as hard as she could, hoping he’d put his arms around her, groan a bit, the way the boys did in the back row when they started kissing the girls.

  But the pressing had had no effect. She’d seen enough films to know that engaged couples did rather more than give each other a brief kiss whenever they had the opportunity, and it was usually the man who was keener than the woman. She’d like to bet that Ellie and Liam had gone all the way! Just the thought of it made Daisy go all funny. Perhaps that was why Clint had never properly kissed her. He was holding himself back, worried he’d lose control, and they would go all the way, which Daisy would have found quite scary, even though she loved him with all her heart and soul.

  On reflection, it was probably best that things remain as they were. She’d stop kissing him back, just in case he lost control and it would all be highly embarrassing. There was probably a happy medium which she would have very much preferred, but it seemed that wasn’t possible, men being what they were.

  Ruby prepared the tiny fifth bedroom – it had hardly been used since the war – for when Gerald Johnson came to stay the weekend. It was only a month since he had met Heather in Corfu.

  ‘I don’t want anyone thinking it’s serious,’ Heather warned. ‘We’re friends, good friends, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Greta asked suspiciously.

  ‘Quite sure, sis.’

  Gerald was an extremely pleasant young man. Lord, I’m growing old, Ruby thought with a groan. He’s forty if he’s a day, yet I look upon him as young.

  He showed them photos of his children and his late wife and Heather showed him a photo of Rob.

  As if to emphasise the relationship was purely platonic, they insisted on taking a petulant Greta with them to the pictures on Saturday night – they went to the Forum, where Daisy proudly showed them to their seats.

  The A level results arrived and Moira was thrilled to find she’d got three Bs. She’d been provisionally accepted by two universities, one in Canterbury, the other in Norwich, depending on her grades. Now it was up to her to choose.

  Greta was dismayed. ‘You’re not leaving home too!’

  ‘You know I’ve always wanted to go to university, Mam,’ Moira said with her usual calm reasonableness. ‘I’ve discussed it with you loads of times.’

  ‘Yes, but I never thought it’d happen.’

  ‘I wish the twins had been thick, like Daisy,’ Greta said tearfully to her mother. Ellie hadn’t done all that badly considering her mind had been taken up with other things; two Cs and a D.

  ‘Daisy’s not thick.’ Ruby sprang to the defence of her other granddaughter. ‘She’s just got an unusual mind.’

  ‘Whatever! She’s not thinking of leaving home, is she? Come October, I won’t have any daughters left, not like our Heather. I might go to Dublin and fetch Ellie back, even if I do have to go on me own.’

  Clint’s results were the best in the school; three straight As. Daisy was terrified he’d also decide to go to university where he’d come into contact with girls as brilliant as himself and far better-looking than she was. She was pleased and flattered when he declared he couldn’t bear to leave her.<
br />
  ‘I think I’d go mad without you, Daise.’

  Mad! It seemed an extreme word for someone only eighteen to use. He had a retiring disposition, not full of himself like most boys with only half his looks, but he’d always seemed entirely sane. He actually hugged her for quite a long time, and Daisy had the strangest thought, that he was scared to go to university. She tenderly stroked his cheek. ‘Don’t worry, Clint. I’ll always be here for you.’

  She rather hoped he’d tell her he loved her, or call her ‘darling’, both of which she longed for, but he just stiffened slightly and began to discuss the film they’d just seen.

  Mam said she was daft. Didn’t she realise Dublin was a huge place, a city? Finding Ellie would be next to impossible. Where would she look? Who would she ask? Heather agreed it was a mad idea.

  Greta sighed and gave up. No one seemed to realise how miserable she felt, losing both her daughters. For the first time in her life, she felt very alone and very small, merely the tiniest of specks in the vastness of the universe. Say if Ellie never came back! Moira would be gone and Heather could well marry that revolting Gerald Johnson. Greta couldn’t stand him and didn’t believe they were just friends. One of these days, Mam would die, then she’d have no one, not a soul in the world. She’d be truly alone, not just temporarily, like now.

  ‘Oh, God!’ It was a horrifying thought, unbearable. She’d sooner be dead.

  She’d just have to get married again. But who to? Someone who’d look after her because, Greta thought fretfully, she wasn’t able to manage by herself. She remembered there was a man who’d played a significant part in her life, who never forgot her birthday, bought presents at Christmas, made a fuss of her whenever he came to the house.

  Matthew Doyle had always been a father figure in a way, yet he was only twelve years older than she was. She was as fond of him as he was of her. He was having financial problems at the moment, but she felt sure they would be overcome.

  Greta decided Matthew would make a very satisfactory husband. Somehow, she’d have to put the idea in his head that she would make a satisfactory wife.

  The wedding ring was the thinnest in the jeweller’s shop and the cheapest. It was secondhand, almost certainly off the finger of a dead woman, and it fitted Ellie perfectly.

  ‘Remember, Felix is the only person who knows we’re not married,’ Liam said on the way to Craigmoss in the Hillman Imp. It was a horrible day, quite different to the first time she’d gone, when the flowers had been out and the air smelt fresh. Today, the sky looked like grey soup, the trees were bare, everywhere felt damp. ‘Everyone else thinks you’re Mrs Liam Conway, I’ve got a job abroad, and you’ll join me when you’re ready. This being Ireland, an unmarried woman in the family way could have a pretty hard time. It’s all right to have affairs, but it’s not done to get pregnant.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for bloody Ireland, I wouldn’t be pregnant,’ Ellie reminded him in a hard voice. ‘What were they, aspirin?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’ Liam’s voice was equally hard. ‘I was told they were contraceptive pills. I paid a good price.’

  ‘I’m paying an even higher price.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ellie, but I’m trying to do the right thing, aren’t I?’ he said reasonably, as if he thought she’d listen to reason when she felt completely at the end of her tether. ‘If you’d gone back to England in the first place and got rid of the damn thing, there’d have been no need for these shenanigans.’

  Ellie placed her hands over her swelling tummy. ‘I couldn’t have got rid of it,’ she whispered. ‘It would have been murder. He or she would have come back to haunt me.’

  Liam laughed. ‘You’re a rum girl, Ellie; screwing like a rabbit one minute, back in the Dark Ages the next.’

  He zoomed around a bend. They were getting nearer to Craigmoss, to Fern Hall, to Felix. Ellie shivered, remembering the way he’d looked at her with his pale green eyes. If only she hadn’t been too scared to have an abortion, or felt too proud to go back to Liverpool. But she had planned to return when she’d had all sorts of adventures to boast about, not expecting an illegitimate baby.

  ‘I’m surprised,’ Liam said, ‘That you didn’t press me to marry you.’

  ‘I’m not. It so happens I don’t want to get married, and certainly not to you.’

  ‘Oh, well.’ He laughed. ‘Then I won’t propose.’

  ‘Just in case you do, the answer’s “No”. One thing though, I think you might have stayed a bit longer, not landed me on Felix right before Christmas. It’ll be dead horrible.’ It was true he’d got a job abroad, as a translator with the United Nations in Geneva.

  ‘They wanted me by mid-December, Ellie.’

  She didn’t believe him. He just wanted to get rid of her so he could have a good time, go to parties and stuff. The United Nations wouldn’t need much in the way of translating done over the Christmas period.

  The car turned into the drive of Fern Hall, stopped. Ellie got out. Liam fetched her suitcase from the boot. He’d given her the money to buy some pretty maternity frocks.

  Felix came to the door, the pale ghost of his brother. He looked as damp as the weather. The outside walls of the house were wet, as if they were weeping, and she felt like weeping with them. She went inside and Felix prepared a meal; tinned soup with bread and margarine, and for afters, tinned fruit, followed by weak tea.

  Then Liam said he had to be going, and she and Felix went with him to the door.

  ‘I’ll give you a ring over Christmas,’ Liam promised.

  Ellie didn’t want him to stay – she’d gone off him completely – but even less did she want him to go. At least he had some life in him, unlike his brother. He pressed an envelope into her hand. ‘That’s my last week’s wages, fifty quid. It should keep you going for a while. Look after yourself, Ellie. Don’t forget, you’re pregnant.’

  As if she could!

  Ellie’s absence wasn’t allowed to spoil the festive spirit in Mrs Hart’s house. The living room was drenched with paper chains and tinsel and the tree was so big it would only fit in the hall. Heather spent an entire evening decorating it. Gerald Johnson was coming with his children – Lloren, ten, and Rufus, two years older – and she wanted it to look extra special. The students had gone home so accommodation wasn’t a problem. Clint was invited to Christmas dinner along with his parents, the revolting Pixie Shaw and her husband, Brian.

  ‘Flippin’ hell, Ruby,’ Pixie exclaimed when she came in, her eyes everywhere, ‘This place hasn’t changed a jot since I was last here. You’ve still got the same wallpaper and how you can stand working in that old-fashioned kitchen, I’ll never know.’

  ‘I like it,’ Clint put in, unusually for him. ‘It’s got character.’

  ‘So do I,’ remarked Gerald. ‘It’s got charm as well.’ He smiled at Heather, who blushed slightly and smiled back.

  ‘I wouldn’t want it any different.’ Greta had never forgiven Pixie for severing their friendship many years before.

  Even the normally unruffled Moira, home from university in Norwich, looked indignant. ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Oh, well, there’s no accounting for taste,’ said Pixie, entirely unabashed.

  ‘The place is looking a bit shabby, Ruby.’ Matthew glanced around the living room, as if he’d never looked it properly before.

  ‘I sometimes touch the paintwork up or emulsion over the wallpaper.’ Ruby didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. Like her, the house was showing its age and could do with patching up a bit. ‘Who’d like a drink before dinner?’

  ‘I’d quite like a cocktail.’

  ‘I’m afraid I haven’t any cocktails, Pixie. There’s red or white wine, sherry, or beer. Take your pick.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame. Brian bought us a cocktail shaker for Crimbo, didn’t you, luv? If I’d known, I’d have brought it with me. I’ll have a sherry. Sweet, if you’ve got it.’

  ‘I’ve only got medium.’

  ‘I’d
love a beer,’ said Brian.

  Greta jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll get the drinks, Mam, while you get on with the dinner.’

  ‘Would you like a hand, Ruby?’

  ‘No thanks, Pixie. I can manage on my own.’ Pixie was bound to notice she was still using the same saucepans and she might feel tempted to hit her with one.

  Mid-afternoon, Pixie and Brian Shaw went home to their cocktail shaker. Not long afterwards the Whites and the Donovans arrived for tea. Ellie White tried not to look upset when she was introduced to Gerald Johnson and his children. Having lost her only son, perhaps she sensed she was about to lose his wife. Heather might claim she and Gerald were merely friends, but it was obvious to everyone else it was rather more than that.

  ‘I suppose they’ll move to Northampton when they get married,’ she said privately to Ruby.

  ‘There’s been no mention of them getting married yet.’

  ‘I wonder if Daisy will go with them? She’s our Rob’s daughter. Pretty soon, she’ll be all I’ll have left of him.’

  ‘Daisy would never leave Clint. Did you know he’s got a job with the Liverpool Playhouse? Only as a stagehand, helping to paint scenery, that sort of thing. He thinks it’s all grist to the mill for when he goes to Hollywood to direct films – movies, he calls them.’

  ‘Daisy told me.’ Ellie smiled wanly. ‘I wonder what Rob would have thought of Clint? It’s hard to imagine him as a forty-year-old father making judgements on his little girl’s boyfriend. In my mind, he’s still only twenty-three.’ She sighed, her eyes full of pain. ‘Poor Rob, he never had the chance to grow old, did he? Nor Larry.’

  Ruby was reminded of Ellie’s words when they arrived at the Whites’ house for tea the following day, minus Heather, who had gone with Gerald and the children to the pantomime at the Empire.

  ‘I should have stopped her,’ she thought uncomfortably. ‘Not today, it was too late, the children were looking forward to it, but weeks ago, when she first came up with the idea of buying tickets. She should be here. Oh, Lord! I’m the most insensitive person who ever lived.