A Liverpool Song

by Ruth Hamilton

  Back in the car, Andrew surveyed his companion. ‘You’re almost too well behaved,’ he advised the pup. ‘I’m just waiting for the outbreak of war.’

  So that was what ‘normal’ people did; they put one wife in the ground and married another. He could not imagine himself wanting or needing anyone after Mary. Mary Collins, the object of many men’s desire, had chosen him. Although she hadn’t been his first partner in sex, she had certainly been his last. So tiny, so trusting, so affectionate and powerful. She had cajoled, begged and almost blackmailed people into parting with money for cancer research, had organized everything from jumble sales to formal balls, had raised many, many thousands in pursuit of her goal.

  ‘And it took her, Storm.’ It had been deep, widespread, difficult to diagnose in its virtually symptom-free early months. They’d trawled Denmark, Switzerland and the United States in pursuit of a cure, but nothing had worked. ‘She died in my arms, overloaded with morphine. Anyway,’ he dashed a tear from his cheek, ‘you have toys. You will chew the toys in lieu of furniture.’

  A weighty paw suddenly landed on his right shoulder and stayed there.

  ‘Good God, how much do you know, Storm?’

  ‘Arf.’

  ‘Only half? Right, I’ll tell you the full story later. But first, we have a dragon to face. You must remember, Eva is fair. She talks tough, but she does have a good heart. One thing’s certain – neither of us will ever go hungry.’

  The pup retreated to his rightful place. He was beginning to realize that there was a price to pay, and that the price was being nice. Nice was not jumping about too much inside cars and houses, but outside was OK. Somewhere at the back of Storm’s mind, a horrible memory lingered. A man, a stick, bits of ripped-up stuff everywhere. The beating. Outside in the cold, no food, drinking from puddles, running, running. Lights in the sky, loud noise, waves crashing, door opening. And the man. This man. Deep inside, there was love in Storm’s new person. Strength, too. He was a pack leader, a decider, one who would make life good. And Storm was here for a reason, though he’d no idea what it might be.

  Eva Dawson was standing at the laundry-room window, a mobile phone clamped to her ear. ‘I promise you, Joyce, I’m not joking. Sam Grey’s here with a mini tractor thingy dragging a trailer with stone on it. It’s going on top of poor Mary so the dog can’t start digging there.’

  After a pause, she picked up the thread. ‘And the doc’s building a house for the dog. What? No, not a kennel. It’s more the size of a kiddy’s play house. Raised off the ground to keep it from getting damp. All for a stray dog. Oh, I’d better go. Talk to you later, and see you at bingo.’

  Andrew entered. ‘I’ve decided on proper foundations. I’ll insulate, then run a pipe through and instal a radiator. Can’t have him getting cold, can we?’

  Eva’s mouth snapped shut. Sometimes, it was better to say nothing. If her employer seemed to be going a different kind of mad, that might be classed as progress. He talked to the animal now. Perhaps the daft-looking bugger would help the doc stop having one-sided conversations with the deceased.

  She joined him in the kitchen. ‘Do you want something to eat?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ll look after myself, thanks. Even my own cooking has to be an improvement on hospital food.’

  ‘But I’m here.’

  ‘I know you’re here. I can see you here and hear you here. But I don’t want to take advantage of you.’

  ‘Ooh, there’s a novelty. Months I’ve been asking could our Natalie come a few times a month to do some of the heavier work. She needs a few bob, being a student.’

  So, it looked as if Eva had produced something that hadn’t put its name down for prison. ‘Studying what?’

  ‘Medicine,’ she snapped.

  ‘In Liverpool?’

  ‘In Liverpool. She needs work because of student loans.’

  ‘Right. Use her and give me the bill.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I will. Now. Scrambled or poached egg on toast, bacon butty, ploughman’s, salad, baked potato?’

  ‘Bacon butty,’ he replied. ‘With ketchup.’

  The thing Eva loved most about Doc was that he’d managed to hang on to his working-class Lancashire roots with no excuses, no pride, no inverted snobbery. He was what he was, and nothing would ever change him. What was more, she knew he’d do what he could for her Natalie. Natalie deserved the best.

  Two

  By 1952, Joseph Sanderson’s Bespoke Furniture workshop was no longer a large shed in the back garden; he had taken a double unit under the Folds Road arches in Bolton. Three qualified carpenters and one apprentice formed his workforce, while his son Andrew always insisted on helping during long summer holidays. The lad’s affinity with wood had been born in him, but so had his gift for the piano. ‘Watch your hands, because your mother will kill me,’ Joe often begged. ‘You’ll play no music with a couple of fingers missing.’

  Joe was proud of his lad. How many men in this town had a son who got booked to play the piano in the Victoria Hall, who could make the most of the grain in wood, who was a front runner in most subjects at school?

  1952 became the Year of the Bookcase, the summer during which young Andrew’s talent became fully visible. After accepting minimal help from his father, he edged all the shelves with rosewood, then took a piece of the same to make a slight overhang for the top of the unit. With no help and no pattern to copy, he carved a Tudor rose in the centre, and vine leaves trailing outward on both sides. No one was allowed to view his work of art until it was absolutely perfect. In a corner away from everyone, he finally felt satisfied with the magnum opus, and went to fetch Dad.

  Joe removed the protective sheeting, and his jaw dropped. ‘Oh, my God. What size chisel did you use? Are your hands all right? There’s some fine detail in yon. Are you sure you didn’t hurt yourself? Your mother’s going to take my guts for garters if you’ve nicked the skin.’

  ‘Yes, Dad. I’m fine. No missing fingers, no blood, no bruises. I think you’ll be safe.’

  The older man swallowed hard. ‘Eeh, son. There’s folk up Chorley New Road would pay quids for that. It’s grand. But you know what, our Andrew?’

  The boy shook his head.

  ‘It’s not for sale. Even if we ended up with baileys at the door, we’d hide this. By God, I seldom saw finer work in me whole life.’

  ‘Why would we get bailiffs, Dad? Aren’t we doing well?’

  ‘We’re all right, son. Aye, we’ll make a grand carpenter out of thee. It’s an art that’s dying because of machinery, but people will always want bespoke pieces. So what’s the point of Bolton School and all that Latin and English literature? There’s money in them hands of yours, and there’s always a job for you at Sanderson’s.’

  While Andrew loved carpentry, it wasn’t his goal. He wasn’t absolutely sure of his goal, but carpentry was more like a hobby, something to help pass a few hours on a wet weekend or several days during over-long school holidays. He was a great reader, and not just of novels. Knowledge was there to be collected, and the school curriculum wasn’t broad enough for him. The world excited him, but he wasn’t sure which area would eventually be the one in which he would work.

  ‘This’ll all be yours one day, my son. With you having no brothers and sisters, the business will pass to you. By the time you get it, it will be worth a good few bob, because this is just a start. I have plans, son. Big plans.’

  Andrew couldn’t say he didn’t want it, because that would hurt his father. And then there was his mother. Emily Sanderson was an excellent pianist, though she didn’t practise often enough. She’d inherited a piano from a great-aunt, and this had been installed in the front parlour in their Crompton Way house. She played it occasionally, and Andrew had been drawn to it in the same way as he’d been attracted to wood. Nevertheless, although he loved to play, he was no more consumed by music than he was by carpentry. It was important, but it wasn’t enough.

  ‘She’ll not let you give
up the piano, though.’

  Andrew grinned. Both his parents owned the knack of crawling inside his head to share thoughts. He was lucky to have such a close family.

  Joe continued. ‘And she’ll not like you doing carpentry in case it interferes with your piano-playing.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How did you do it, though? How did you know what them dots on them lines meant? And how did you know which was left-hand music and which was right?’

  ‘No idea, Dad. It’s a bit like asking how did I know which chisel to use. It’s all just part of what I am.’

  Joe accepted that as an adequate explanation. With a dad up to his neck in sawdust, and a mother who used to be soaked in music, this one perfect child had been born attracted to both disciplines. When he played the piano, he became a concert pianist; when he carved, sawed and joined wood, he became a master carpenter. With Andrew, there were no half-measures; whatever he chose to do, he did it well. But he was also academically sound. ‘What will you do when you leave school?’ Joe asked now. ‘Soldier sailor, cabinet maker?’

  ‘University,’ was the quick answer. ‘Might be a doctor. Not quite sure yet, because I’m interested in a few things.’

  ‘A doctor? What about carpentry and music, though? Won’t it be a waste of talent?’

  Andrew shrugged. ‘I shan’t give them up. There’s space to do more than one thing in a whole lifetime.’

  ‘Your mother would be proud of a doctor. I’ll be proud whatever you do.’

  The praise went on for weeks, though Andrew was subjected to close scrutiny of his fingers when his mother discovered what he’d been up to. ‘You’ve a good eye and a steady hand,’ she told him. ‘That’s what surgeons need, you know. But surgeons have to take great and special care of their hands. And when your patients need soothing, you can play them a bit of music.’

  He would never be fully sure when the idea was born, but he always felt that his mother had given him that extra clue. Such a magical family, they had always been. Childhood was idyllic until . . . until it stopped being idyllic.

  Security dissipated when he found out that his father, great artisan and great dad, was not perfect. Having discovered his father’s weakness, Andrew nursed it to himself for some time, as it might have killed his mother. Protecting Mother was to become his prime objective. Caring about Dad, however . . .

  He found out by accident, though it would probably have come to light sooner or later. Andrew couldn’t help wondering whether he might have felt better had he remained in ignorance, because the new knowledge weighed heavily on young shoulders.

  Joe always tidied himself up on a Saturday night and, after a bath, a shave and a change of clothing, went out to the pub for a game of darts or dominoes. The Starkie was on Tonge Moor Road, so he usually cut through past St Augustine’s and up Thicketford Road. Andrew had a friend whose family owned a corner shop there, and he was just stepping out of the domestic doorway up the street at the side when he saw Dad walking in the wrong direction.

  For some seconds, he hesitated. Where was Dad going? Did he want to know, did he need to know? A strange feeling overcame him, leaving him almost breathless. In the Sanderson household, everything went like perfectly calibrated clockwork. Monday to Friday and some Saturday mornings, Dad drove to the workshop. On Saturday nights, he went to the pub. The rhythm of life was interrupted just once a year, when the family went to the seaside for two weeks, usually taking with them Stuart Abbot, Andrew’s best friend from the very shop and house outside which Andrew currently stood.

  Mother was a home bird. She made excellent meals, washed and ironed for everyone, kept the house sparkling clean, kept herself in the same condition, always a smile, always a pretty dress with an apron tied round her waist until she sat for the evening meal. Andrew was generally well behaved, so what was going wrong? Perhaps there was a customer nearby, though people in this area seldom bought bespoke. What should he do? It was probably nothing; Dad could be calling for a member of the darts team.

  His feet made the decision. As he rounded the corner into a cul-de-sac, he saw his father disappearing into a corporation-built semi-detached. Ducking down behind a privet hedge, Andrew found a gap and stared open-mouthed through the none-too-clean front window. Greasy, ill-hung curtains gaped sufficiently to allow the boy to see into the front room. Through a film of dirt on glass, he saw Dad kissing a woman. Andrew’s knees failed, and he sank to the pavement. Dad never kissed Mother. They were polite to each other, and they talked and laughed together sometimes, but they weren’t close like Stuart’s parents.

  Did Mother know about this betrayal? Had someone else noticed and told her, and was she the subject of gossip all over the neighbourhood? Straying husbands and women who failed to hang on to their men were served up in liberal portions alongside tea, sugar and butter at the local Co-op. Gossip was just another staple food in these parts. Oh, poor Mother. What was he supposed to do about this?

  He crawled away, hoping that no one in the other houses saw him. His heart fluttered stupidly like a caged wild bird, and he felt decidedly nauseous and weak. For the first time since infancy, he feared for his family. If Dad left, what would happen to Mother? And to Andrew? At Bolton School, he mixed with the rich and the gifted, and he was one of the latter group, but would Dad continue to buy uniform and other necessities if he went to live elsewhere?

  Who could Andrew talk to? Not Mother, not Dad, that much was certain. Stuart, another lad who had come good by passing his scholarship exams and the entrance exam for Bolton School was, in Andrew’s opinion, completely trustworthy, but was it right to tell anyone at all about private family business?

  Framing in words the fact that his dad had another woman made Dad a wicked man and Mother sub-standard in some way. A woman who did not keep her husband happy was a failure or, perhaps worse still, an object of pity. Mother was a proud woman. Surely someone else must have seen Dad going into that house? For how long had the affair gone on? And would there be a divorce?

  Stuart and Andrew had known one another since starting school during the war. Mothers had to go to work, so children were enrolled in nursery class at the age of three. Nine years they had been best friends, but Andrew could not betray his parents to anyone. It was a big parcel to carry alone, yet he knew he had to bear the whole burden.

  He arrived home. Later, when he thought about that evening, he could not recall the journey back to Crompton Way. Mother was seated by the fire in the living room. Her hair was pretty and fluffy and she was wearing her second-best dress. It was cornflower blue and it matched her eyes. ‘Hello, love,’ she said. ‘I’m trying to get to grips with War and Peace, but I think it’s beyond me.’ She put down the book. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Are you sure? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Have you been to visit Stuart?’

  ‘Yes.’ For the first time ever, he found himself tuning in to his mother’s voice. She wasn’t like Dad. She spoke differently, as if she’d been educated, whereas Andrew’s father used old Lancashire phrasing and flattened vowels. ‘Did you want to be a musician?’ he asked her. ‘Did you never think of taking it up professionally?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘Or a nurse. I rather liked the idea of being useful. But . . .’ She sighed and gazed round the room. ‘Here I am with my lovely son, so I’m quite happy, thank you.’

  He wasn’t convinced. ‘Is one child enough?’

  ‘Oh yes. I couldn’t have any more, you see. I’m sure your father would have liked a houseful of sons, each born with a saw in his hand, but it wasn’t to be. Yet we’re happy enough.’

  She had no idea, then. Or had she? She was clever enough to hide her feelings, controlled enough not to admit that her husband was with someone else. And if she did decide to open up, her confidences would not be awarded to a twelve-year-old boy, even if that boy was wise beyond his years. Oh, how he wished he’d never seen Dad earlier. A
bubble was inflating in his chest, a new sensation that filled him till he ran to the bathroom and vomited. Hating his father wasn’t easy; hiding that hatred was going to be more than difficult. And he couldn’t carry on throwing up his venom, or he would finish up . . . what was the word? Dehydrated, that was it.

  ‘What’s wrong, Andrew?’

  He turned and looked into his mother’s lovely eyes. So gentle, they were, a lighter blue and not as piercing as his and Dad’s. She was unhappy. She knew. But Andrew had to pretend that he was not in on the secret, as she must not suffer more hurt.

  ‘You’ve been sick,’ she said, ‘and you’re not one for bilious attacks, are you?’

  ‘Too many sweets pinched from Mr and Mrs Abbot’s shop.’ Lying was not too difficult after all. From this day, he must live a lie. At the workshop, he needed to continue to be happy and helpful; at home, he must assist his mother, play the piano, eat his meals, smile at the traitor who was his father. How could the man betray this beautiful, fragile woman? She was a natural gentlewoman who was living the wrong life. What an excellent teacher of music she might have made.

  Emily’s heart sank. Something was troubling her beloved Andrew, and he was her reason for living, her joy, her comfort. ‘Your father’s gone to the Starkie,’ she said, apropos of nothing at all. ‘It’s Saturday. You could set all clocks and watches by that man. I always know exactly where he is.’

  ‘Yes. He lives a very careful life, Mother.’

  In a few beats of time, their hearts collided in the space between them. He longed for reassurance, wanted to run to her and share a comforting hug, but he couldn’t. How might so much be said in silence? Never before had it occurred to Andrew that his mother had probably married beneath her. Apart from the aunt who had owned the piano, Mother had no relations. Or had she? Had this wonderful, adorable woman been cast out for marrying a man from a different level of society? Had she relinquished all her chances just to be with a husband who would let her down?