A Liverpool Song

by Ruth Hamilton

  Downstairs, Kate took the bottle from Helen. ‘Go away,’ she whispered. ‘Stay out of her eyeline and leave me to it. Now. Booty, booty, bootiful girl, Cassandra. This is your Aunt Katherine speaking. In the event of difficulty, an oxygen mask will drop down, so wear it. Exits are here, there and everywhere. Your lifebelt is under your seat, and we are currently cruising at a height of thirty thousand feet. What I’m not saying is that in the event of difficulty, this metal object will go into the ground like a sharply honed javelin at the Olympics, but never mind. You won’t feel a thing.’

  Helen, open-mouthed, stared at her sister and the baby. Cassandra Jane Pope was sucking from a bottle while her aunt talked nonsense. How did Kate manage so well? Everyone took notice of her. Babies, pensioners and all in between cooperated with her. It might have been easy to succumb to jealousy, but Helen loved the terrible, wonderful, crazy woman who was her sister. ‘I love you, Katherine Mary,’ she said.

  ‘And I love you, Helen Andrea. This is one helluva smart kid. She’s talking to me with her eyes. Boys are such dull, slow creatures during these early weeks. Philip was rather like a chunk of red meat, colourful, but lifeless. Rosie was born a comedienne. She never stopped smiling and making us laugh.’

  ‘Like her mother, then.’

  ‘Thank you. We do our best, don’t we, Cassie? Don’t we? Come on, it’s half time.’ She removed the bottle, sat the baby upright on a knee, left hand providing a second, firmer spine, right hand spread across the infant’s jaw. Two belches and a gurgle later, Cassie was rewarded with the rest of her bottle.

  ‘How do you happen to know what to do every time?’

  ‘Study. I read. I watch, and I did a course in psychology after my degree. But I seem to know people the minute I meet them. It’s not all a bed of roses, Helen. Sometimes even my heart breaks. I’ll meet a decent man in his fifties, well educated and experienced, and I try to stay upbeat for his sake, because we are a recruitment shop. But I know that some smart kid with a meaningless degree will get the job. Kids come cheaper. Media studies, bloody sports science – they’ll be giving honours in breathing soon. I mean, look what you have to offer – three languages, plus a bit of English, swearing included. I did politics, philosophy and economics – all relevant to my area of work.’

  ‘Yes, it’s sad.’

  ‘Sad? The place is going to the dogs. Teachers get through on a wing, a prayer and more vodka than Russia makes. I’m lucky. Philip’s teacher can spell my son’s name. Will wonders ever cease?’

  The phone rang. Helen picked up the nearest handset. In her opulent sandstone mansion, there were at least ten to choose from. ‘Hello? Helen Pope here.’ She smiled. ‘Ah, Daniel Pope. I think you may be my husband.’ The smile began to fade. ‘What? Will you say that again? Tomorrow? Right. Right. Who was that? Who the hell was that? Goodbye.’

  Kate studied her baby sister. Helen’s face was an unusual shade of grey, and her breathing was wrong. ‘Helen? Helen, what’s the matter?’ There had been no sloppy kiss delivered into the mouthpiece, no declaration of undying love, no mention of the children. Suddenly, Kate was glad she had come, because Helen was going to need her.

  Helen pulled herself together and fled upstairs.

  Kate followed at a slower pace with Cassie asleep in her arms. When the baby was back in her crib, Kate entered the master suite. She found her sister dry-eyed and staring at herself in the mirror. ‘I’m beautiful, Kate,’ she whispered. ‘Even I can say that, because it’s a fact, not a piece of self-praise.’

  ‘You are, my love. You’re Mummy all over again, but taller and even more of a stunner.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘No idea, Helen. Was he . . . was he with somebody?’

  Helen nodded. ‘A woman arrived when he was talking to me. She shouted “Hello, darling”, and Daniel covered the mouthpiece, but I still heard him hissing at her. “Fuck off, you stupid bitch.” My heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe. It was a waking nightmare. I felt as if I might drop dead at any second.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘Bring me the large scissors from my sewing and tapestry kit.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it.’

  It was on this evening in early October 2000 that Katherine Rutherford found herself on a dizzying learning curve. The sweet, biddable, loving girl named Helen was not a bottomless pit of goodness. With no expression on her face, no tears, no words, Helen cut many thousands of pounds’ worth of Savile Row’s finest products to pieces. Murdered silk shirts, abbreviated trousers and armless jackets were piled in a huge heap on the walk-in wardrobe floor. His underclothing was shredded, as were his socks. On top of the heap, she placed a wedding photograph, then a second picture of herself. In this black and white photograph, Helen smiled at the camera. All she wore was that smile, diamond earrings and necklace, and a pair of sky-high heels.

  ‘Come,’ she said.

  Kate, now reduced to playing the part of an unquestioningly obedient servant, followed Helen into what she termed the dungeon. The first cellar room contained Daniel’s photographic equipment. Cameras were smashed, and more nude studies of the photographer’s wife suffered the same fate as his wardrobe. Helen cut up negatives, tore at silver umbrellas and destroyed lights. In the second, smaller room, she opened a safe and emptied it of precious gems, completed jewellery items and heaps of cash, all of which were thrown casually into a bin bag. ‘This is stuff the taxman needs to know about,’ she said, almost to herself. She then moved to the wine cellar, where some priceless vintages were stored.

  She couldn’t be bothered with a corkscrew, so she threw the more expensive wines at the walls. ‘Stand back, Kate. Glass flies, and you don’t want any red ruining your clothes.’ By the time she was finished, the place looked like a murder scene. ‘Right, that’s that done. No need to bother with the whites and rosés – he doesn’t like them. Now, we pack.’

  ‘What? But where—’ Kate realized that argument and suggestion would be fruitless.

  ‘He’ll be on a plane very shortly,’ Helen said. ‘He will understand that I haven’t taken kindly to his ongoings, so he won’t wait until tomorrow.’ She turned and looked at her sister. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Well, I—’

  ‘DID YOU KNOW?’

  Kate nodded.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because . . . well, I didn’t want to hurt you. And the messenger sometimes gets shot. Where are we going?’

  ‘To Daddy’s. It’s bigger than your house, and I quite like Blundellsands.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with Woolton,’ Kate said. ‘And I’ll look after you. Helen, you’ve a new baby and—’

  ‘Oh, shut up. Look after me? If you’d kept me in the picture . . . Did he touch you or any of our friends?’

  Kate could only nod. For the first time ever, Helen had taken the lead. ‘He’s a randy bastard. Sorry, babe.’

  Helen looked her sister up and down as if assessing a stranger. ‘You betrayed me by your silence. Now, I don’t care how drunk you are. Fill your car with my stuff; the suitcases are in my dressing room. When you run out of cases, use plastic bags. Take the cases and bags to Rosewood, empty them out, then come back with the cases for the rest of it. I’ll pack for the children and take them in my car. I am disgustingly sober.’

  ‘As am I now.’

  ‘Good. You might just survive, and you may even keep your licence. Don’t forget, you’ll need change for the tunnel. Sorry to have inconvenienced you by moving across the river to Neston.’

  By ten o’clock, both cars were filled to bursting, though the good news was that Kate wouldn’t have to return. The few bits and pieces of Helen’s that were not on board were maternity wear or aged beyond revival.

  They began the drive across the Wirral, a place Helen had come to love. She would miss the open fields, the farms, and Ness Gardens, a wondrous place that was the
property of Liverpool University. Students came there to study botany, and Helen had often tagged along. She was leaving behind a whole way of life, but she would stick to her guns. Daniel was finished, and she intended to take him to the cleaners. His clothes, on the other hand, would need no cleaning. Oh yes, the man would have to learn to look on the bright side.

  Kate unlocked her father’s front door. She was accosted immediately by something that seemed to move at the speed of light.

  Andrew appeared. He was rubbing his eyes, and it was plain that he’d been dozing in his armchair. ‘Kate?’

  She dumped the first lot of luggage in the hall. The dog returned, jumped up and almost knocked her off her feet. ‘Helen won’t like you,’ she advised him. ‘Jump up at that baby, and you’ll be toast.’

  Andrew remained confused. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Helen’s coming home,’ was all the reply Kate offered before going for more cases and bin liners.

  ‘Coming home?’ he asked the dog. ‘She has a home on the Wirral. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Storm, but Eva is not the only human female who speaks no sense. Come on. Let’s put you somewhere safe.’

  When he returned, Andrew’s younger daughter was in the hall. ‘Hello, Daddy. I’m afraid this is an invasion, but it can’t be helped. I need four bedrooms; two for the children, one for me and one for the nanny. She had the night off, so I’ll send for her tomorrow. Close your mouth, dear, there’s a bus coming.’

  Andrew clamped his teeth together. ‘What the hell’s happened?’

  ‘He’s in bed with an Amsterdam whore. Well, he was. By now, he’ll be somewhere over the Channel unless the plane has crashed. One can only hope. Though it would be a pity if other passengers suffered.’

  A two-year-old Sarah, still sleeping, was deposited in Andrew’s arms. ‘Take her upstairs, Daddy,’ Kate ordered.

  He complied. Where his daughters were concerned, resistance was futile. He remembered Kate dressing him down a few years ago, accusing him and Mary of near neglect, so he’d better start trying to atone for past sins. The feel of the child in his arms was lovely. Sarah was beautiful, dark-haired and perfect like her mother. And like her grandmother.

  He came downstairs, lifted the carrycot and carried the baby up to her room. On the landing, he stood for a while. Sarah was only two. She probably still needed a cot. Where was it? Ah yes. He’d put it in the used-to-be airing cupboard. With his new combination boiler, he didn’t need an airing cupboard to hold a tank. But he did need a cot.

  Minutes later, two daughters found their father on the landing. Pieces of wood lay round him. ‘Little Sarah might tumble out of bed, so . . .’ He waved a hand over the dismantled cot. ‘I made this, you know,’ he said. ‘When Mary was expecting you, Katherine, I built this little number from scratch. Every spindle, I carved and smoothed. Dad did some of it. He was still agile back then.’

  They helped him carry it into Sarah’s room. As quietly as possible, they built the frame, put in the base and mattress, then folded single bed covers until they fitted. Sarah was lifted from the single bed and placed in safety. ‘Thanks, Daddy,’ Kate said. ‘Very thoughtful of you. Cassie will manage in her carrycot for now.’

  He reached out for his younger daughter. ‘Come downstairs, Helen. Kate might begin unpacking while you talk to me.’

  After ten minutes, his clothing was wet with her tears. The really sad thing was that he couldn’t remember when he had last comforted either of his daughters. Ian had come to him for advice, but Ian was now a doctor, so their conversations had been . . . well . . . rather clinical. ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ he urged. ‘Are you breastfeeding?’

  Still sobbing, she nodded.

  ‘Well it’ll be curdled at this rate, Helen. It’ll probably come out pasteurized, too.’ He kissed the top of her head, wondered when he’d last done that, and what kind of a father was he, anyway? This beautiful child had inherited his height and Mary’s face, Mary’s body, so she was an elegant specimen, about five feet nine or ten inches tall, curvaceous, a stunning sight. Daniel Pope needed knee-capping, and Andrew would not be on hand to mend such damage, as he had resigned.

  ‘Kate knew, Daddy,’ she managed.

  ‘She loves you, child. Kate may seem tough, but she has a big heart, and she adored you right from the beginning of your life. Don’t blame her. She’ll have lived for some time in a terrible quandary.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll be all right here. I’ll look after you, I promise.’

  ‘Oh, Daddy.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Poor Kate, too. Kate’s beauty was in her smile, in her attitude. Four or five inches shorter than her sister, Kate projected warmth, superior intellect, generosity, and the promise of fun. Had Helen not been born, the older girl would have been judged beautiful, but she had stood for almost a whole lifetime in the shadow of utter perfection. The children had been twenty-two, twenty and eighteen when Mary had died. Had he been there for them? Had he buggery. So consumed by his own grief, so devastated, selfish, stupid, arrogant . . .

  She calmed down gradually. ‘I loved him so much, Daddy. Is it possible to love too much?’

  ‘Yes. Your mother and I were guilty of that. We never really learned to communicate properly with our own children when you were little. I remember feeling terrible when I gave you both away at your weddings. The most wonderful sight until then was your mother when we married, but you outshone even her. I am so sorry.’

  Helen raised her head. ‘Don’t worry, we got through. But you see, Daddy, had Mummy ever betrayed you, you would have hated her big-style. Daniel now has no clothes, no wine, no stash of money or jewels of dubious origin.’

  ‘That wasn’t hatred, baby. That was temper. Temper’s flame is white-hot and soon burns out. Hatred comes later. It’s a cold place.’ He paused. ‘Hey, what do you mean about the wine? I would have liked it, you wastrel.’

  At last, she smiled through the tears.

  ‘A rainbow,’ he said. ‘The sun shining on cloud. What a beauty you are.’

  ‘There was no room in the cars for the wine, Daddy.’

  ‘Ah. In that case, you could have swapped the children for wine. Daniel would have come home to a couple of screamers, and no wine to calm his nerves.’

  Helen sat up. ‘Now I know where Kate got her sense of humour. You’re wicked, aren’t you?’

  ‘Your mother certainly thought so. I teased her mercilessly right to the . . . right to the end. But she always got me back while she was younger and fit. Not straight away, because her revenge needed to be a surprise or a shock. I got into bed one night and put my whole weight on a whoopee cushion. She leapt out and sprayed the whole room with good perfume.’

  But Helen was deep in thought. ‘I’ll never trust him again, you see. If he talked me round and got me home, I’d be on pins every time he went away. Well, I can’t live like that. I’m an all-or-nothing person. So even if or when I stop being angry, his chances of getting me back are non-existent.’ She sighed heavily. ‘But I have my children. He’ll never take them away from me. And I have sufficient money to buy my own house, but that’s a secret between you, Kate and me. Ian too, when I see him.’

  ‘Richard will help you. I know he specializes in crime, but he’ll know someone who does matrimonial stuff. That’s a good man with a good wife. You deserve someone more stable and reliable than Pope.’

  ‘He’ll come here,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know.’

  She kissed her father’s forehead. ‘I must go and make peace with my sister.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  He let the dog in. ‘Sit.’

  Storm sat.

  ‘More rules, sorry. You don’t go near babies. They’re little and kept in boxes. They smell of three things in which you take enthusiastic interest – milk, urine and faeces. All right?’

  ‘Woof.’

  ‘Don’t scratch your ear when I’m talking to you. Sarah’s the bigger one, an
d isn’t usually in a box. Don’t hurt her.’

  ‘Woof.’

  Storm’s learning curve was erratic. It wasn’t so much a curve as the temperature chart at the bottom of a bed containing a very sick person. A rather zigzag affair, it was, since Storm seemed to learn in fits and starts. He remained clumsy; it was hard to believe that he had just four feet, since he stumbled frequently over something invisible, and never failed to look back at whatever it wasn’t.

  But Storm had brought life into the house. And now there were no spare bedrooms, because— The phone rang. Andrew picked it up. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Where’s my wife?’

  Andrew winked at the dog. ‘I haven’t anybody’s wife here, sorry.’ He pressed the off switch and, when it rang again, answered it for a second time. ‘Oh, it’s you, Daniel. What? Helen? No, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t recognize your voice – did you ring a few seconds ago? . . . What? Helen’s with her sister as far as I know.’ He paused and held the receiver away from his ear. The man was ranting like a lunatic. ‘All your clothes, Daniel? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound like my daughter . . .’

  ‘It sounds like your other one, though.’

  ‘Kate? No, she’s all wind and water . . . She what? Oh, hang on a minute, Daniel. Kate throwing wine away? That would be like separating her from her breath.’ Again he held the phone at a distance. ‘No, Daniel, no. Separating my older daughter from her breath would not be a good thing. Her husband has friends in high and low places.’

  Daniel moved up a gear. ‘I was having a massage. Mariella calls everyone darling.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure she does.’

  ‘I am a faithful man, sir.’

  Andrew tut-tutted into the phone. ‘I hope you crossed your fingers when you told that whopper, mate. You’ve had a go at Kate, some friends, and a girl who was serving the food. And that was just one function. I understand this much – my Katie knows people. She has this ability to see inside, got it from her mother. Kate never liked you. Said your birth certificate was a waste of ink and paper, and you should be charged for oxygen.’