Lime Street Blues

by Maureen Lee

  ‘Benny!’ Jeannie was the first to notice her. ‘It’s lovely to see you. Were you here for the whole performance? What did you think?’

  Benny was completely taken aback. How could Jeannie bring herself to sound so normal? Didn’t she realise what they’d done? Realise how she’d feel, finding they’d regrouped without telling her?

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were back together?’ she asked hoarsely.

  ‘But, Benny, I did!’ Jeannie cried. ‘I put a letter through your door the day we heard we were to go for an audition.’

  ‘Audition?’

  ‘It was in London with M&M,’ Marcia, who’d never liked her, said boastfully. ‘We made a record. It reached seventy-seven in the charts, but the next one will do better. It’s out in October.’

  ‘I never got any letter.’

  ‘I definitely put it through your door, Benny. It said to come to the barn that night straight after work. Oh, and I tried to ring your office, but they wouldn’t put me through.’

  ‘You could have come round our house again.’

  ‘There wasn’t time, girl.’ Kevin McDowd had joined in the conversation. Benny noticed he was wearing a dead posh suit. The Flower Girls were identically dressed in black pleated skirts and white blouses. ‘We only had a few days to get ready. When you didn’t turn up, I had no choice but to get someone else. Zoe’s a professional dancer. She’s done a great job in your place.’

  The black girl, Zoe, gave her a friendly smile, but Benny hated the usurper on the spot. She wanted to suggest, no, demand, that Zoe be given the push and she be taken back, but knew instinctively this would be a waste of time. The group, with Zoe, had moved on without her.

  ‘We all assumed you didn’t come because of your job, Benny,’ Jeannie said kindly. ‘It would have meant taking all sorts of days off.’

  ‘I didn’t come because I didn’t get a letter telling me to,’ Benny insisted stubbornly. She loathed her job. If it had meant belonging to the Flower Girls again, going for an audition, she would have given it up like a shot. Her dark thoughts were interrupted by another, even darker. Perhaps they’d deliberately got rid of her. Jeannie was lying about the letter – she must be, otherwise she would have got it. Kevin was lying when he said they’d waited for her to turn up.

  ‘I can’t think what happened to that letter. Look, why don’t you come back tonight, we’re on with the Merseysiders?’ Jeannie again, Jeannie the hypocrite, pretending to be ever so kind. ‘We can go for a coffee afterwards and talk.’

  Talk about what? How successful they were? The exciting things they’d done – the record they’d made in London, the gigs they’d played. The things she should have done with them. ‘I’m busy tonight.’

  Marcia was becoming impatient. ‘I’m starving. Who’s coming for a meal?’

  ‘Me.’ Rita spoke for the first time. Until now, she’d regarded Benny inscrutably through her fringe of brown hair.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a bite to eat.’ Zoe shoved her arms into a lovely red mohair coat.

  ‘I’ll put the stuff in the van,’ Kevin said. ‘Where’ll we go?’

  ‘The Chanticler?’ Marcia suggested.

  ‘The Chanticler it is. I’ll see youse girls in a jiffy.’

  ‘They’ll want to lock up soon, Benny,’ Jeannie said gently.

  She was in the way, being dismissed. There would never be a worse moment in her life than this. Benny picked up the sheets and trudged silently up the stairs. At the top, she turned. Jeannie was watching her sympathetically.

  ‘I’ll never forgive you for this, Jeannie Flowers,’ she hissed. ‘Never! Not for as long as I live.’

  ‘But Benny,’ Jeannie cried. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Liar!’ Benny left, vowing never to enter the Cavern again.

  Instead of returning to work, she went straight home, terrifying her mother with her white-as-death face and icy hands.

  Mrs Lucas lit the fire and tried to rub some warmth back into her daughter’s long, cold fingers. ‘Do they know at work that you’re sick, luv?’ Benedicta shook her head. ‘Then don’t you think you’d better go back?’ she whispered fearfully.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Mam!’ Benedicta screamed. ‘I’m allowed to be sick. It’s only a job, not prison. They don’t come round beating us with whips.’

  ‘All right, luv. I was worried you’d get into trouble, that’s all.’

  ‘Then stop worrying. If anyone says anything, I’ll leave and get another job.’

  The afternoon wore on and Benedicta gradually thawed out as more coal was recklessly flung on to the fire. When her mother made yet another cup of tea, she agreed to have a cheese sarnie, having eaten nothing but breakfast all day – the trip to T. J. Hughes at lunchtime hadn’t left time for even a snack.

  ‘Mam,’ she shouted when Mrs Lucas was in the kitchen, ‘did a letter come for me, it must be a couple of months ago now? Not a letter with a stamp, I’m not sure even if it was in an envelope. Jeannie didn’t say.’

  Mrs Lucas was glad they were in separate rooms. She jumped so violently that the milk she was pouring into a cup went into the saucer. It was a while before she could bring herself to pick up the saucer and pour the milk into the cup where it should have gone. Was this why Benedicta felt so poorly? She must have met that Jeannie girl who’d told her about the letter. Had it really been so important?

  ‘Did you hear me, Mam?’

  Benedicta would never forgive her if she knew it had been flushed down the lavatory. She might not understand it had been done for her own good. ‘Yes, luv.’ She licked her lips nervously. ‘There’s never been a letter, no. I’d have kept it for you if there had. Perhaps she put it through the wrong door.’

  ‘Oh, yeah! And the neighbours wouldn’t have brought it round, like, if she had?’

  The cups rattled slightly when the tea was carried into the living room. ‘Then perhaps she didn’t bring it at all.’

  ‘That’s more likely the truth of it,’ Benedicta said bitterly. She watched her mother carefully remove the cellophane from the sheets and stroke them lovingly – she’d probably been dying to do it all afternoon. Poor Mam! She’d never know that, if things had gone differently, one of these days it might have been silk sheets she’d be stroking.

  Benny tightened her fists until the nails dug painfully into her palms, and vowed that somehow, some day, in some way, she’d get her own back on Jeannie Flowers.

  ‘How was Clara?’ Tom asked, as Rose knew he would. She had rehearsed her answer on the way home in Alex’s car.

  She sat in the armchair, her movements slow and deliberate. It was important she appear to be in control. ‘Actually, Tom,’ she said easily, ‘I know I shouldn’t have misled you all this time, but I haven’t seen Clara Baker in years, not since she left Ailsham.’

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously, though her answer had obviously surprised him. ‘So, who’ve you been seeing then?’

  ‘No one!’ Rose laughed. ‘I’ve been treating myself to the pictures and a meal on my own. You’d have only thought me mad if I’d told the truth.’

  ‘But you’re gone for hours!’

  ‘I always start with a wander round the shops. Oh, Tom,’ she cried, ‘I need to get away from Ailsham, from this house.’ She gestured around the old-fashioned room. ‘I need a bit of time to myself, just one day a week. I’ve been stuck in the village nearly all my life. I suppose I want a bit of freedom.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ he demanded.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d understand. I thought it sounded more believable to say I was with a friend, so I pretended to meet Clara, until today, when I couldn’t bring myself to lie any more. Do you understand, Tom? I don’t want to stop having just one day a week on my own.’ If he proved amenable, it would give her a breathing space before she left for good. That afternoon, she and Alex had made up their minds that that time would inevitably come, but she’d sooner wait until Gerald left school,
started work, was virtually a man, before she deserted her youngest child.

  ‘It makes sense, sort of,’ he said grudgingly.

  ‘There!’ She clapped her hands delightedly, aware it seemed terribly false. ‘I saw Gerald’s light on when I came up the path. I’ll make him some cocoa seeing as he’s still awake. Would you like a cup, Tom?’

  ‘No, ta. I’ll turn in myself now you’re home. By the way, what did the postman bring this morning?’

  ‘Eh?’ She felt herself grow cold. She’d been so pleased with her explanation for Clara’s non-existence, she’d actually forgotten about the sinister message that had arrived in the post.

  ‘I saw him turn into the house when I was leaving. I just wondered who it was from.’

  ‘It was some sort of circular. I can’t remember what it was about. I threw it away.’

  ‘I see. Goodnight, Rose.’

  ‘Goodnight.’ As she listened to her husband tramp upstairs, Rose was left to wonder uneasily if she’d made things better or worse.

  She didn’t bother with cocoa for Gerald, but poured herself a glass of sherry – the bottle had been replaced many times over the last few months. ‘Not much longer,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t have to put up with him all that much longer.’

  Tom knew he would never sleep. His tormented brain wouldn’t let him. She was having an affair, sleeping with another man. His Rose, his dear, precious, lovely Rose was letting another man touch her in the places that belonged solely to him. He could smell the other man on her whenever she came home from her meetings with ‘Clara’. Imagining them together was driving him insane. He’d thought the note, clara baker is dead, would scare her off. If it had, Tom was prepared never to mention the matter again, despite the hurt that would never go away. Instead, she’d just come up with another lie. It was obvious that she had no intention of not seeing this other man again.

  He remembered the day he’d collected her from the orphanage, the day he’d proposed. It was her purity and innocence that had drawn him to her. Now she was soiled. Yet this didn’t make him love her less, just differently, with a boiling passion he’d never felt before. He beat the pillow with his fist. She was his, and another man would never touch her again.

  His eyes were closed when she came into the room. He heard the soft slither of her clothes as she took them off, the dull click of her suspenders, the tiny rustle of stockings being removed from her slim, shapely legs, and imagined the other man listening to the same seductive sounds as he waited for her in bed. Where did they do it? he wondered feverishly. Perhaps one day he should have followed her and tortured himself even more.

  She slid carefully into bed. He could tell she was doing her best not to disturb him. He opened his eyes. She was lying on the very edge of the bed, as far away from him as possible. For a while, he lay watching the tumble of hair, the curve of her cheek profiled against the dim light that crept through the drawn curtains. His heart was pounding painfully in his chest and his body was racked with raw, primitive jealousy.

  He reached out and put his hand on his wife’s face and turned it towards him. He could feel a pulse beating in her neck beneath his thumb.

  ‘Rose,’ he whispered, ‘I love you.’

  Perhaps if she’d answered, ‘I love you too,’ as she’d done so many times in the past, he might still have forgiven her everything, but she didn’t say a word and he wanted to weep. He pressed his thumb against the pulse and she wriggled uncomfortably.

  ‘Don’t, Tom.’

  He pressed harder and she spluttered, ‘Tom, that hurts!’

  There was nothing he could do that would hurt as much as she’d hurt him. A feeling of madness came over him as he straddled her, both his hands around her neck, and squeezed. It was the only way he could keep her for himself, stop the other man from ever touching her again.

  She was gagging now, making hoarse, croaking sounds. Her neck felt as thin and delicate as a bird’s in his big, broad hands. ‘I love you, Rose,’ he said, over and over again. ‘I love you.’

  At first, he wasn’t conscious of the banging on the door, until he heard his son’s voice. ‘Mum! Mum! Are you all right?’ The handle turned and Tom collapsed back on the bed, just as Gerald came rushing in. ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’

  Rose was gasping, trying to regain her breath. ‘I just had a horrible nightmare,’ she said hoarsely.

  ‘Would you like some water, Mum?’

  ‘I’ll go down and get it myself. Go back to bed, love. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Are you sure, Mum?’ Gerald said anxiously.

  ‘Yes, love. I’m sorry I woke you.’

  She was putting on her dressing gown, pushing her feet into slippers. Seconds later, the door closed. Tom heard the bed creak in Gerald’s room, then water run in the kitchen. He lay, staring at the ceiling, and wishing he would die.

  Rose curled up in a chair and vowed that never again would she sleep in the bed upstairs with Tom. Max and Jeannie came home from the Cavern where they’d both been playing and went straight to their own beds, unaware their mother was in the parlour.

  She didn’t sleep, too terrified to close her eyes in case Tom appeared, armed this time with a knife, giving her no chance to make a noise and alert the children. If it hadn’t been for Gerald, by now she would be dead. She hadn’t thought Tom capable of such violence. ‘I love you,’ he’d kept saying while he was trying to kill her. It was a vile, unnatural way to love someone. She shuddered at the memory.

  At seven o’clock, his heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs and she heard him go into the kitchen. She curled even further into the chair, trying to make herself invisible, dreading that he might come in, say something, even apologise for last night. She wouldn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine ever speaking to him again.

  Half an hour later, he left. She heard the wheels of the bike creak down the drive and breathed a sigh of relief.

  Gerald came down and she went into the kitchen and made his breakfast, though her hands were shaking badly. She broke the yolks on both eggs and recalled how bitterly Mrs Corbett used to complain when she did this. While Gerald ate, she took up tea to Jeannie and Max.

  Max looked at the clock and groaned. ‘Oh, Mum! It’s only quarter to eight. We didn’t get home till nearly two.’

  ‘I’d like you to drink this, then come downstairs for a minute. Afterwards, you can go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day if you want, so there’s no need to get dressed. I have to tell you something. It won’t take long.’

  ‘Can’t you tell us tonight?’

  ‘No, it has to be now.’

  Jeannie proved easier to prise out of bed. ‘There’s no need to get dressed,’ Rose said.

  ‘Mum! Where on earth did you get those bruises on your neck?’ her daughter asked in a shocked voice.

  Rose turned up the collar of her dressing gown and didn’t answer. She had forgotten there would be bruises from Tom’s big hands.

  When the children were sitting expectantly at the kitchen table, Rose took a deep breath. ‘The thing is,’ she began, ‘I’ve been having an affair and your dad’s found out. We haven’t been getting on in a long time, and I’m afraid I’ve got no alternative but to leave.’

  There was a long, astounded pause, before all three spoke together.

  ‘Is that why you’ve got the bruises?’ Jeannie demanded angrily.

  ‘An affair!’ Max guffawed. ‘I don’t believe it!’

  ‘You can’t leave!’ Gerald wailed. ‘Who’ll cook the food and make our beds?’

  There was another pause.

  ‘What bruises?’ Max frowned.

  ‘They’re on her neck,’ Jeannie informed him. ‘We’ll just have to make our own beds and cook the meals between us,’ she added sensibly, before bursting into tears.

  Gerald decided to join her. ‘I don’t want us left on our own with Dad.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said fervently. ‘So very, very sorry.’ She decided
to be honest with them, but only to a degree. ‘I was going to leave, but not for a few years, until Gerald was at least sixteen, but I’m afraid your father’s made it impossible for me to stay.’

  ‘He would!’ Max hadn’t had much time for his father in a long while.

  ‘You can’t really blame him, love. After all, I was having an affair. Not many men would forgive their wives something like that.’

  ‘Not many men would beat them black and blue, either.’

  ‘Max! He didn’t beat me. The bruises were – an accident.’ She wished she’d noticed them first and covered them up. She didn’t want to leave with them hating Tom when they had to, somehow, live together from now on.

  ‘Won’t we ever see you again?’ Gerald sobbed.

  ‘Oh, love!’ She put her arm around his heaving shoulders and, for a moment, wished she’d never set eyes on Alex Connors. ‘Of course! As soon as I’ve got an address, I’ll ring and let you know. It might be only a few days and you can come and see me – or we can meet in town, have something to eat. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’

  Jeannie sniffed and dried her eyes. ‘Will you be living with, you know, the man you’ve been having the affair with?’

  Rose felt herself blush. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Max asked curiously. He was the least upset of the three. ‘Have we met him?’

  She blushed again. ‘It’s Ronnie Connors’ father, Alex.’

  Gerald appeared bemused, but the other two stared at her and she could tell they were imagining her and Alex together.

  ‘He’s very nice,’ Jeannie said eventually.

  ‘A decent guy.’ Max nodded. ‘Does Ronnie know his dad and my mum are about to set up house together?’

  ‘No! You mustn’t say anything, Max, until it’s all been sorted out.’ Alex didn’t know she’d decided to leave. He might not be around today to tell, and he mightn’t be prepared to leave his family on the spur of the moment. ‘Look,’ Rose swallowed hard, ‘you’ve all been marvellous about this. I thought you might hate me. But now I’d like Max and Jeannie to go back to bed, and Gerald, please go to school. I don’t want to walk out with you all here, watching. I’d only cry myself to death. I’ve got to write a note for your dad and pack some clothes, and I’d prefer you out of the way.’