Lime Street Blues

by Maureen Lee

  ‘You too, Fly.’ Sean genuinely meant it. He felt different tonight, looser and more at ease, among people he knew – he glanced at Ace – and his son. Somewhere upstairs was his daughter. He noticed half a dozen guitar cases leaning against the wall. The hard case with the scratches had belonged to him, and he wondered if it still held the electric guitar he’d bought for the Merseysiders’ first gig at the Taj Mahal. It had cost twenty-five pounds, which had seemed a fortune in those days. The others watched as he opened the case and found the black instrument nestling inside. Smiling, he lifted it out, plugged it into an amplifier, and played the first few bars of ‘Wake Up Little Susie’. He smiled again when Max joined in. Fly picked up the drum sticks, and the studio began to rock in a way it hadn’t done in a long time.

  ‘That takes me back,’ Sean said when they’d finished. Lachlan had been right. He’d lost his soul. It was a while since he’d felt such a tingle in his veins when he played the guitar. ‘Another?’

  ‘Half a mo.’ Max put a guitar in a wide-eyed Ace’s arms, and Sean wished he’d thought to do it himself. ‘Do your best, kiddo. Tomorrow, you can tell your mates at school that you played a jam session with the famous Sean McDowd and Fly Fleming.’

  ‘They’ll never believe him,’ said Fly.

  Max laughed. ‘Maybe not, but he’ll know it’s true.’ His hand was poised over the strings of his guitar. ‘ “The Great Pretender”? I’m stuck in the past. I only know the old tunes.’

  ‘ “The Great Pretender” it is.’ Sean played the first few bars and the others took their cue. He saw that Ace was frowning seriously as he tried to keep up.

  ‘Hey, we could do with a few beers down here.’ Fly laid down the sticks when the number ended.

  ‘Shall I fetch some?’ Ace offered. ‘Nana’s got beer in tins.’

  ‘The wish is father to the thought,’ Max remarked, when a little girl entered the studio with half a dozen tins on a tray. ‘Hello, Chloe. Have you been reading minds?’

  ‘Nana sent these, Uncle Max, but she wouldn’t let me bring glasses in case I dropped them,’ the child said importantly. ‘You’ll have to drink out of the tin. I’d like to drink out of a tin, but the lemonade’s in bottles. Does it taste different?’ she enquired curiously when the men snapped open the beers.

  ‘Nicer,’ Sean assured her.

  ‘Can I have a sip?’

  He gave her the tin and she pulled a face. ‘It’s horrible!’

  ‘I’d stick to lemonade if I were you.’ Their fingers touched when she returned the beer and Sean realised with painful sadness it was the closest he would ever get to his little girl. She had his chin – small, determined, neatly round – and the same black hair, but the similarity to himself wasn’t as marked as it was with Ace. He wondered if anyone had noticed – apart from Jeannie – but thought it unlikely. It wouldn’t enter people’s heads, not even Lachlan’s, that he wasn’t the father of these children. He wondered what had prevented him from telling Lachlan this when he’d punched him in New York, and realised he’d been protecting Jeannie.

  ‘I have to go.’ He got to his feet, unable to stand being in the house another minute. He didn’t belong.

  ‘Ah, do you really have to, Sean?’ Fly looked disappointed. ‘I thought we were having a great time.’

  ‘We were. It’s been great, but I’ve an appointment in London in the morning. The roads were bad when I arrived and it’s a long drive.’ It was a lie. He was meeting no one.

  There was a shout from upstairs. ‘Are the children down there?’ It was Jeannie.

  ‘I’m here, Mummy.’ Chloe scampered across to the door. ‘Ace is here too.’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be a waitress? And isn’t Ace in charge of the music?’

  Sean followed the little girl up the stairs. The skirt of her frilly frock bounced against her thin, brown legs. Jeannie was waiting at the top. There was a look, almost of fear, on her lovely face, when Sean followed her daughter – their daughter – through the door.

  ‘I’m off now, Jeannie.’

  ‘But you’ve hardly been here five minutes!’

  He lied again. ‘I’ve an appointment in London tomorrow.’

  ‘Couldn’t you cancel it? It’s a terrible night outside.’ She looked worried, despite it being obvious she’d sooner he was gone. ‘Stay the night. There’s loads of people staying,’ she added quickly. ‘You might have to sleep on the floor, but it’s better than driving in such awful weather.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’d sooner not.’ He had to get away. ‘I’ll just say tara to Mam and our Rita. ’Bye, Chloe.’ He ruffled the black hair.

  ‘’Bye, Sean.’ She looked at him cheekily.

  His mother looked desperately sad to see him go. Her new husband had been too busy to come. She must be missing Kevin, who wouldn’t have turned down a party for anything on earth. Sean wished with all his heart that his dad was there, making his usual outrageous show of himself.

  ‘Tara, sis.’ He kissed his sister’s smooth, unwrinkled cheek. She too would soon be forty, but could have passed for half that age. As far as he knew, Rita had never been in love. She had never borne a child. Apart from the death of their father, she had never known tragedy. Life had passed by, leaving her untouched. How strange they were, Sean thought, the children of Sadie and Kevin McDowd.

  Jeannie showed him to the door. ‘I do wish you’d stay,’ she said, her face creased with concern when she saw the snow which was falling heavily now and already inches thick on the ground. In the short time he’d been in Noah’s Ark, the world had been transformed into a white, ghostly grotto.

  ‘Sorry, Jeannie. No can do.’ They were standing very close and he noticed there were fine lines under her eyes and on her forehead. He had the strongest feeling he would never see her, or his children, again. Never before had he experienced a feeling of such aching loneliness. He was a man who had everything, yet he owned nothing of real value.

  ‘Goodbye, Sean.’ Unexpectedly, she cupped his face in her hands. ‘Thank you.’ She kissed him softly on the lips. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  He ran to his car, a hired Mercedes, hardly visible in the snow. When he got inside, he could see nothing. He turned on the engine, the radiator, and the windscreen wipers, front and back. The snow disappeared, the car slid forward, and through the rear-view mirror he could see Jeannie framed in the brightly lit doorway. Perhaps he should have told her he’d met Lachlan in New York. At least she would have known he was still alive. He could still feel the touch of her soft fingers on his face, and his lips tingled from her kiss. She waved and was still waving when he manoeuvred the car around a curve. When he looked again Jeannie, and the house, were gone.

  Neither Jeannie or Sean had seen the other car, the black Ferrari, hidden behind the trees in front of Noah’s Ark. Lachlan had just witnessed his wife embrace Sean McDowd. It hadn’t been a passionate embrace, more like a farewell to an old friend.

  While the door was open, the still night air had been invaded by the sound of the Survivors and Lachlan heard his own voice singing one of his own songs. Lights were on in every room. He suspected a party but, if so, why weren’t there more cars? Now that the Mercedes had gone, there was only Elaine’s rusty old Fiesta.

  He was brooding over this when the front door opened again and Max Flowers came out. Wrapped up warmly, he began to hurry down the drive, his footsteps crisply sharp on the frozen gravel. A few minutes later, Max returned, this time in a Cortina, which he parked as close as possible to the front door. He went inside, and Lachlan’s mother came out. He groaned. She was walking with a stick, being helped by Max on one side, and Elaine on the other. With great difficulty, she got into the back seat of the car. Max slammed the door. Elaine was about to get in the front, she must be leaving her own car behind, when Max grabbed her waist and nuzzled his face in her neck.

  Elaine shrieked. ‘Stoppit! You’re freezing.’ She punched him playfully.

  At least someone’s hap
py, Lachlan thought as the Cortina drove away.

  It was much later that an incongruous figure emerged; a man in a black overcoat and a monstrous Russian-style fur hat, who began to walk stiffly down the drive. It took Lachlan a while to recognise Philip Elroy-Smythe, Marcia’s husband. It was hard to believe this man had once played the drums in a rock ’n’ roll band. These days, he was something important in the city.

  Philip returned in a Rolls Royce. Marcia came out of the house wearing an ankle-length fur coat. She began to chastise Philip for something, her penetrating voice carrying as sharp as knives through the trees, laden with snow. ‘Why didn’t you think to offer my mother a lift? Our car’s so much more comfortable than Max’s.’

  ‘Why didn’t you think of it, darling?’

  They got in the car, still arguing. Lachlan could see their faces – Marcia’s angry, Philip’s patient – as it glided away.

  It dawned on him that all this toing and froing with cars indicated the party had been a surprise. Elaine had taken Jeannie somewhere in the Fiesta and the guests had arrived while they were away, parking their cars out of sight. He wondered who else was in there. Fly? The Cobb? If so, they’d probably stay the night. It would be crazy to travel far on a night like this. Marcia and Philip must be staying with his mother in the house in Walton Vale.

  He thought tenderly of the house where he’d first met Jeannie. She’d told him she’d fallen in love with him at first sight. ‘But my love just grew and grew,’ he’d told her, ‘until you became so much part of my life I realised I couldn’t live without you.’

  The day of their first kiss came back to him as clearly as if it were yesterday, yet it was exactly twenty-four years ago today. Her sixteenth birthday. They’d met on the stairs and he couldn’t resist her flushed face, her starry eyes. He’d known then that they would marry – and be happy ever after?

  Lachlan groaned again. He clutched the steering wheel and buried his head in his arms and the question returned for the millionth time.

  How could she do it?

  He hadn’t even thought she could tell a lie. She was the most open and honest person he’d ever known, yet she’d betrayed him in the foulest possible way. It wasn’t just that she’d slept with Sean, though that was bad enough, or that she’d deliberately sought Sean out, seduced him, which was even worse, but she’d allowed him to believe that Sean’s children were his! And she would have let him go on believing the same monstrous lie for the rest of her life, all their lives, if circumstances hadn’t led to the truth.

  Why had Sean been there tonight? He loved her. He had told Lachlan that to his face when they’d met in New York. Jeannie was still Lachlan’s wife, they’d never divorced, but for more than three years she’d been free to do whatever she wanted with her life. He wondered why she and Sean hadn’t got together. He was, after all, the perfect choice for a partner. They already had a ready-made family. He imagined Ace and Chloe calling another man ‘Daddy’, and his heart twisted. He wanted to rush into the house, pick up his children, hug them.

  My children. My children. They’re mine.

  He saw now what he should have done three years ago; torn up the test results, never mentioned them, just gone on living as they had done before. It would have nagged him for ever, wanting to know who the father was, but it would have been better than walking out, cutting himself off from the three people he loved most in the world.

  Jeannie would have forgiven him his own betrayals, the star-crazed girls he had taken in a fog of drugs. God! That was a lousy thing to do. Fifty, sixty, a hundred deceits. Jeannie’s one affair was mild by comparison.

  But the children, the children! How could he possibly forgive her that?

  Why had he come? Why was he sheltering under the trees outside his own house, slowly freezing to death? Had he just wanted to be near Jeannie on her birthday? He’d left California two days ago and flown to London where he’d unearthed the Ferrari from the garage where it had been stored, then just driven, nowhere in mind, crisscrossing the country, getting nearer and nearer to Liverpool, as if Noah’s Ark was a magnet, drawing him inexorably closer to the woman he loved, but could never forgive.

  More people were leaving the party, but Lachlan didn’t bother to look to see who they were. He envied their shrill laughter and wondered if he would ever laugh again. After they’d gone, he started up the car, backed out of the trees, and zoomed away into the snowy night.

  Chapter 17

  Jeannie woke, sensing that someone was in the room with her. She wasn’t afraid. The house was full of people and sometimes Ace crept in if he couldn’t sleep, or Chloe if she’d had a nightmare.

  Before going to bed, she’d drawn back the curtains so she could watch the snow falling while she fell asleep. It was a peaceful sight, though it was a long time before she’d dropped off. Perhaps it was because she’d drunk too much champagne that such strange, dislocated thoughts kept drifting into her mind, then drifting out again, forgotten. She couldn’t remember a single one. A cold, white light shone into the room and she could see a dark figure sitting at the foot of the bed. It was an adult, not a child.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Lachlan!’ She sat up too quickly and her head swam. Fumbling for the bedside lamp, she switched it on, and there he was, Lachlan Bailey, sitting on the bed, as if he’d never been away.

  ‘You’ve had your hair cut,’ was all she could think of to say. It was cropped close to his head, giving his face a naked look. She wondered why he was so brown and thought how ordinary he looked, nothing like the handsome, charismatic Lachlan Bailey she’d always known. He was wearing a khaki anorak and thick trousers and his eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, as if he had been weeping. His shoulders were hunched with weariness. She could tell from the bleak expression on his face that something terrible had happened.

  ‘Sean’s dead,’ he said in a tired voice. ‘I was driving along the East Lancashire Road when I came across an accident. The police were there, an ambulance. A Mercedes had skidded off the road and crashed straight into a wall.’

  ‘Sean – dead!’ She shook her head in shocked disbelief. ‘No. No, that can’t be.’

  ‘I’m afraid it is, Jeannie. I held his hand in the ambulance when he was dying. They weren’t going to let me, but I told them he was my friend. I stroked his face. I even cried.’ For the first time since she’d known him, Lachlan burst into tears. ‘Jesus Christ! It was horrible. He was smashed to pieces.’ He looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood.

  ‘Darling!’ Jeannie scrambled out of bed and sat beside him, cradling his exhausted body in her arms. ‘Oh, my darling Lachlan.’ She tried, feverishly, to get her head around the fact that what he’d said was true, that Sean was dead. ‘I’m glad you were with him, that he didn’t die alone.’ She imagined the long, lithe body, all broken and crushed, the perfect face ruined.

  Lachlan shivered and continued to weep in her arms. She ran her fingers through his strange, short hair, kissed his forehead, trying to make him better.

  ‘I thought I hated him,’ Lachlan whispered, ‘but all I felt was pity.’ He looked at Jeannie, bemused.

  ‘Did he recognise you? Did he know you were there? Oh, I hope he realised it was you holding his hand!’

  ‘Yes, he smiled.’ Lachlan smiled too at the memory. ‘He even spoke. He said, “You’re a lucky guy, Lachlan,” and then he died.’

  ‘Poor Sean.’ She remembered thinking how sad he’d looked when he left the party and her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Poor Sean.’ Lachlan’s mouth twisted drily. ‘Lucky Lachlan. Oh, Jeannie!’ He pulled her against him, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’ve missed you so much. The things we did, you and me, they seem trivial when you come face to face with death.’

  ‘I know, darling,’ Jeannie soothed. She didn’t ask why he’d been driving away from Liverpool – he must
have, if he’d come across the accident. Or how he’d known Sean had a Mercedes. If he hadn’t known, he wouldn’t have stopped. She suspected that, if it hadn’t been for Sean, Lachlan would be miles and miles away by now, driving to who knows where.

  He was still shivering and she realised his clothes were damp. She gently removed herself from his arms and fetched dry ones from the wardrobe where they’d been kept in the hope that one day he would return. ‘I’ll make coffee. Come into the kitchen when you’re ready. It’s warmer there.’

  The kitchen gave no sign of there having been a party. Her mother had tidied up. The leftover food had been put in the fridge, the tins and bottles were outside to be collected, the surfaces gleamed.

  She was plugging in the kettle when Lachlan came in wearing the jeans and thick sweater she’d given him, looking more his old self. She noticed the jeans were too big, that he’d lost weight.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘the police asked me about Sean’s next-of-kin, but I couldn’t remember Sadie’s new name, or where she lived in Ireland.’

  ‘Sadie’s here. Rita too. I’ll tell them later, let them sleep in peace a little while longer.’

  ‘We’ll tell them together.’

  Jeannie nodded, grateful. ‘Yes, I think that would be best. Mavis is here as well, Fly and Stella, Zoe and her boyfriend. The house is full.’

  ‘Fly’s here!’ His face brightened. ‘I wonder . . .’ He stopped.

  ‘Wonder what?’

  ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter.’ He shook his head irritably. ‘I was thinking about the future, but it doesn’t seem right, not yet, not when Sean no longer has one.’

  The door opened and a drowsy Chloe came in sucking her thumb. ‘Had a bad dream, Daddy.’ She climbed on to Lachlan’s knee and immediately fell asleep. He gazed at Jeannie in astonishment. ‘You’d think I’d never been away.’