by Maureen Lee
‘Lachlan always comes straight home if it’s a local gig.’
‘I know, luv. He’s never looked at a girl since the kids came along. Mind you, these days I don’t either, not since me and Stella got hitched again. Tell you what, why don’t you ask your brother what he can find out? I know Gerald’s only a music journalist, but he’s bound to have contacts in the press.’
Some of what Fly had just said, inadvertently Jeannie felt sure, she tucked away in a little corner of her mind to think about another time. He asked to speak to Lachlan and she told him he’d gone to London to see Donald Weston and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.
‘I wonder why? He didn’t say anything to me about going.’
Gerald was only too pleased to do a bit of proper investigative journalism for a change. He called Jeannie back next morning. Ace had gone to school, Chloe to playgroup. Lachlan was still in London and she was in the house alone. ‘Does the name Pearson mean anything to you, sis?’ he asked. ‘I got it off this guy I know on the Mirror.’
‘No,’ Jeannie conceded.
‘The guy didn’t have an address. Anyway, sis, if you knew where the girl lived, you’d be crazy to go anywhere near her. You could end up making things much worse. How’s Lachlan coping, by the way?’
‘It’s hard to say. He’s drawn into himself and hardly speaks.’ When home, he spent most of his time in the basement, writing songs – or pretending to. There was a nightmarish atmosphere in the house. The children had noticed and were unnaturally quiet. Jeannie couldn’t concentrate on a book or watch television. She spent hours on the phone to her mother, Lachlan’s mother, Stella, Elaine, because she found it helped to talk. Lachlan’s friends rang, but he would only speak to Fly or the Cobb, and then not about the subject that haunted him.
When Gerald rang off, she looked through the Liverpool telephone directory and found half a column of Pearsons covering the length and breadth of the city and its environs. She began to go through them with her finger, but stopped when she reached ‘Pearson, B.’. What point was there? In one of these houses a young girl lived who had turned Lachlan’s life, all their lives, upside down. Jeannie didn’t have second sight. She removed her finger and was about to snap the book shut, when an address leapt out from exactly the spot where her finger had been. She caught her breath; Pearson, B., Mrs, 29 Grenville Street, Bootle. The house where Benedicta Lucas used to live – still lived. Of that, Jeannie suddenly felt quite sure.
‘I’ll never forgive you for this, Jeannie Flowers,’ Benny had said the last time they’d met. ‘Never! Not for as long as I live.’
It was too much of a coincidence. In some way or other, Benny Lucas was behind Lachlan’s nightmare. She would go and see her straight away, sort it out.
She felt it was important to look her best, to appear calm and in control when she confronted Benny. After a quick shower, she put on one of the dresses she’d bought for Paris, which was turquoise, sleeveless, very plain. For the first time, she noticed how dull it was outside, so added a dark green velvet jacket. She brushed back her hair and tied it in a knot on the nape of her neck, then rang her mother and asked if she’d pick Chloe up from playgroup. ‘There’s something important I’ve got to do. I’ll be back by half past three in time for Ace.’ Then she got her car out of the garage and drove to Bootle.
Grenville Street had hardly changed. The houses, squashed so closely together, were a bit smarter, the curtains fancier, the front doors and windows painted brighter colours. There were far more cars, Jeannie discovered, when she tried to park her own.
The last time she’d been here, the Flower Girls had been about to launch themselves on to the world. It had been August, the day had been very hot, she recalled, and she had brought a letter asking Benny to meet them that night in Colonel Corbett’s barn. This time, more than twenty years later, it was September and not only dull, but cold as well, heralding the end of the fine summer and the start of autumn.
The door of number twenty-nine was an attractive navy blue and the brass letter box and matching knocker gleamed. Jeannie was about to use the knocker when she noticed a bell. She pressed it and it tinkled gently inside. Seconds later, Benny Lucas opened the door. Younger than Jeannie by six months, she now looked ten, fifteen years older. Her thin, fly away hair was grey, her face almost the same colour, except for the clouds of tiny red veins on her cheeks, hundreds of them. She wore jeans, an over-sized T-shirt, and plastic flip-flops on her long, narrow feet.
‘Jeannie!’ She would always have been surprised at her old friend turning up out of the blue after such a long time, but the surprise was nothing compared to the look of terror in the pale eyes. Her entire body seemed to shrink and her face flushed an ugly red, leaving Jeannie without a shred of doubt of the woman’s guilt.
‘Benny!’ she said brightly. ‘May I come in?’
‘What do you want?’ Benny stuttered.
‘I think we need to talk, don’t you?’
‘No!’ Benny violently shook her head.
Jeannie had no intention of taking no for an answer. She stepped into the hall, unintentionally pushing Benny against the wall. Perhaps conscious that a neighbour might be watching, Benny slammed the door behind them and, from somewhere within the house, a baby began to cry.
‘I’ll see to her, luv. Don’t worry, yer mam’ll get her.’ A small, stooped woman in a candlewick dressing gown hurried out of the living room at the back and clambered up the stairs like a monkey. Jeannie recognised the strange figure as Mrs Lucas.
‘Is that your baby crying, Benny?’ she enquired lightly. Benny uttered a long, hoarse sigh. Her shoulders drooped. ‘She’s me granddaughter.’
‘What’s she called?’
‘Saffron.’
‘That’s a pretty name! How old is she, about six months?’
‘Six and a half.’
‘Would you mind if we sat down?’ They were still standing in the narrow hallway. Upstairs, Mrs Lucas could be heard making cooing noises. The baby stopped crying.
‘In here.’ Benny led the way into the small parlour that Jeannie remembered had been a dark, gloomy room, never used, but was now nicely decorated and furnished with a moquette three-piece suite and a modern teak sideboard on which stood half a dozen photographs, one of a wedding. She picked it up. It showed Benny in an elegant white lace dress standing next to a tall, well-built man. Both were smiling joyfully at the camera.
‘Your husband’s very handsome,’ Jeannie said.
‘Ex-husband.’
‘I’m sorry. What happened?’ Jeannie made a face. She replaced the photograph and sat on a moquette armchair. ‘Sorry again. I asked automatically. It’s just that we used to be such good friends and tell each other everything.’
Benny scowled. ‘No, you and Elaine used to tell each other everything. Me, I was only thrown the scraps.’
‘We were just kids. Elaine and I couldn’t help feeling close to each other. We still are, though not quite so much.’
‘Oh, what the hell does it matter after all this time?’ She shrugged wearily. ‘As to me husband, he had a brainstorm or something and just walked out when Paula, that’s me daughter, was two. He’s never been seen again. Even the police couldn’t find him. John was a policeman himself, a sergeant. We had a lovely police house in Kirkby, but I had to leave once he’d gone. That’s when I came back to live with me mam.’
‘You’ve made the place look very pretty,’ Jeannie said encouragingly. Secretly, she wanted to tear the woman’s throat out for what she’d done to Lachlan. ‘Where is Paula?’
‘At school.’
‘And your mother looks after her baby?’
Benny stuck out her jaw pugnaciously. ‘Who said Paula had a baby?’
‘You did. You said Saffron was your granddaughter, and you’ve only mentioned having one child. Have you got more?’
‘No.’
‘Your mother must have her work cut out, looking after a baby at her age.’
‘Except she doesn’t. I do. I had to leave work – I’d gone back to the Inland Revenue. Me mam’s lost her mind a bit. She’s not up to it.’
There was a slithering, shuffling noise as Mrs Lucas came down the stairs. She entered the room; tiny, hunched, and almost completely bald.
‘Hello, luv.’ She smiled at Jeannie. Several of her teeth were missing. ‘I know you, you’re our Benny’s mate from school. Where’s the other one, the doctor’s girl?’
‘She remembers the past, not the present,’ Benny muttered.
‘You mean Elaine? She’s a doctor herself now.’
But Mrs Lucas didn’t appear to understand. She announced she was going to make a cup of tea and left.
Jeannie watched her go, then turned and looked hard at the woman who used to be her friend. She went for the kill. ‘So, Benny, you’re claiming that my husband made your daughter pregnant at a gig in Manchester fifteen months ago?’
Benny went red again. She blinked furiously, as if she’d thought Jeannie had merely come on a social visit, despite her visible collapse when she’d opened the door. ‘Why shouldn’t he have?’ she blustered. ‘Lachlan screwed a whole load of girls after the gigs were over. There’s no reason why our Paula shouldn’t have been one. Someone put her up the stick. It could well have been Lachlan.’
‘You don’t know anything about Lachlan,’ Jeannie said coldly, though Benny’s words had badly shaken her composure.
‘No, but me husband did,’ Benny countered. ‘John was into rock ’n’ roll. He used to go to the Cavern and the Taj Mahal, same as us. That’s how we got together, ’cos he remembered me from way back. He knew Fly Fleming slightly and he’d follow the Merseysiders around, go backstage when the gigs were over, and they’d be as stoned as crows. There were girls everywhere, John said, begging for a shag with any tenth-rate musician who happened to be around. They all took advantage, your husband included. There’s no reason for John to have made it up.’
‘I always knew stuff like that went on,’ Jeannie lied. She clasped her hands together tightly until the knuckles showed white, feeling as if she was losing her grip of the situation. The room felt very small and claustrophobic. She could hardly breathe. ‘Lachlan was only young and things used to get quite wild. They’re different now. We’ve got a family. He wouldn’t dream of touching another woman, and certainly not a thirteen-year-old girl.’ She decided to change tack. ‘I’m surprised at you, Benny. What sort of mother allows a young girl, hardly more than a child, to go all the way to Manchester for a gig?’
Benny didn’t answer. She stared at Jeannie, her light eyes frantic, as she tried to think of a reply.
Jeannie didn’t care how much the woman was hurt. ‘That part won’t look very good when it gets in the papers, will it? Nor will the fact that you used to be a Flower Girl, but left because you weren’t prepared to take a risk. The rest of us went on to make a fortune, but you’re still here, in the house where you were born. I bet a day doesn’t pass that you don’t regret not taking the chance.’ She pressed on remorselessly. ‘It will look as if you were using Lachlan to get at me. That it was nothing but sheer spite . . .’ Jeannie paused and uttered a little cry as comprehension dawned. ‘That’s it, isn’t it! You were getting at me through Lachlan.’
‘Do you blame me?’ Benny snarled. ‘I’d’ve risked everything to be a Flower Girl, but you, you didn’t give me the chance. You just wanted to be shot of me.’
‘I put a note through your door, but you ignored it. Then, when you found how well we were doing, you pretended you didn’t get it.’
‘You’re nothing but a bloody liar,’ Benny screamed. ‘I never got any note.’
Mrs Lucas chose that moment to bring in the tea. She must have caught remnants of the conversation. She looked severely at Jeannie. ‘You’re upsetting her again. It was you who brought that daft letter asking her to give up her nice, safe job and go singing. She’s a respectable girl, my Benny. She wouldn’t be seen dead on the stage. All she ever wanted was to work in the Civil Service. She had to pass an exam to get in,’ she finished proudly.
Benny’s face collapsed. ‘What happened to the letter, Mam?’
‘I flushed it down the lavvy. Wasn’t that right, luv?’
‘No, Mam,’ Benny whispered, ‘no, that was very wrong. It ruined me life. It ruined everything.’
Mrs Lucas laughed. ‘Don’t talk soft, Benedicta. We’re dead happy, the four of us together; you, me, Paula and – what’s the baby’s name?’
‘Saffron.’
‘Saffron. Well, you’d both better drink that tea before it gets cold.’
‘She never gets dressed,’ Benny said in a dull voice when her mother had gone. ‘She refuses to go out, so can’t get her teeth fixed or something done about her hair. I love her, but she’s driving us insane. Since Paula had Saffron, it’s even worse. She won’t leave the baby alone and I’m scared she’ll harm her.’ She stood and went over to the window, where she folded her arms and looked out onto the narrow street. ‘I’m desperate for us to have a place of our own.’ She turned and her eyes flicked over her old friend’s smart outfit. ‘You’ve never known what it’s like to be hard up, have you? You’ve had the best of everything, looks an’ all.’ She made a face. ‘Anyroad, that’s why I did it, to make a few bob. You often hear about it on the news. It was worth a try and any old singer would have done. Then I thought, why not say it was Lachlan? I’d had it from the horse’s mouth the way he used to behave, and I’d be getting back at you an’ all. I remembered the Survivors had done a gig in Manchester at just the right time, it was in the Echo. I thought he’d pay just to keep it out of the papers.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have gone to the papers first.’
‘I know that now. When I read about it, I got scared. It had all got out of hand. The man at the Mirror said the same as you: “What sort of mother lets a thirteen-year-old girl go all that way to a gig on her own?” I felt dead ashamed.’
‘Aren’t you ashamed of encouraging the same girl to lie about the father of her baby?’ Jeannie said contemptuously.
‘Yes,’ Benny whispered. ‘But I was desperate, like I said.’
‘Not half as desperate as Lachlan’s been over the last few weeks. It’s knocked all the stuffing out of him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Out of interest, who is the baby’s father?’
‘Some kid at school. Paula won’t tell us his name.’
Jeannie picked up the tea, she needed it. ‘While I’m here,’ she said curtly, ‘would you kindly ring the Mirror and tell them Paula was fantasising. She was never at the gig. She’s never even laid eyes on Lachlan. It was all a big mistake.’ She put the tea down when she saw the surface was full of black dust.
Benny smiled wryly. ‘That’s Mam. She doesn’t understand tea bags. She tears them open and empties them in the pot.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll make that phone call now.’
What was it Fly had said? He’s never looked at a girl since the kids came along?
Lachlan screwed a whole load of girls after the gigs were over, Benny had just claimed.
Did it matter that it was years ago? Perhaps not as much as if it happened now, but all the same . . . The nights he’d been away, when she was in the house on her own, missing him so much, he’d been making love to other women. When she’d toured with the Flower Girls, she’d never so much as looked at another man. Marcia and Zoe had had a whale of a time, but Jeannie had always gone back to their hotel with Rita, wishing that Lachlan was there, missing him, always missing him.
Can we get over this? she asked herself.
Yes, they could, she decided – they’d have to, not just for the sake of the children, but for each other. She was positive that, despite everything, he loved her as much as she did him.
The car turned into the drive of Noah’s Ark and slewed to a halt on the gravel. She’d driven home much too fast. To her surprise, Lachlan’s black Ferrari was parked crookedly only a
few feet away from the door. He was usually very careful to put it away in the garage. She looked at her watch; just gone two. Time to have it out with him before the children came home.
She called his name when she went in, but there was no reply. He must be in the studio, but when she went to look, the studio was empty. She found him in the kitchen, sitting at the table with an empty mug in front of him, twisting it round and round so that it made a grating sound on the wood. It was something she’d seen him do before when he was upset. His eyes were red, as if he hadn’t slept all night.
‘I’ve been calling you,’ she said accusingly.
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t hear.’
‘You’ll be pleased to know,’ she said in an icy voice, ‘that all the charges have been withdrawn. Benny Lucas was behind the whole thing. I’ve just been to see her.’
‘I know what’s happened. Donald just rang. The Mirror called him.’
‘Aren’t you pleased? I thought you’d be delighted.’
He shrugged again and said nothing.
‘I’ve been hearing an awful lot of unpleasant things about you lately, Lachlan.’ ‘Unpleasant’ wasn’t the right word, but she couldn’t think of anything stronger. She sat opposite him at the table and said threateningly, ‘If you shrug again, I’ll scream.’
‘What sort of unpleasant things, babe?’ He gave the ghost of a smile.
‘That you were in the habit of making love to the girls, the groupies, the hangers on . . .’ She stopped, unable to go on, unable to find the proper words. ‘How could you?’ she cried.
‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever made love to, babe,’ he replied steadily. He didn’t seem the least upset that she’d found out. ‘I had sex with the others. We were as high as kites and they were there. It meant nothing. I couldn’t remember their faces by next morning.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better? You were unfaithful to me, Lachlan, over and over again. How many times? Hundreds?’