A Liverpool Song

by Ruth Hamilton

The red-haired intruder nodded. ‘I get my youngest lads in their worst clothes, drag them round to where Harry’s working, and show him up. He gets a sub from the boss, I take it off him, and Bob’s your uncle.’

  Emily started to chuckle quietly. She’d been on nodding terms with several householders on Crompton Way, but this woman was magical. Comparing her to neighbours across town was like weighing a hurricane against a light breeze. If this was a downmarket move, it was suiting Emily already.

  ‘Where’s your lot, then?’ Thora demanded to know.

  ‘Clearing up on Crompton Way.’

  For a split second, the new neighbour was stunned. ‘You’ve left Crompton Way for here? Whose idea was that?’

  ‘My husband’s.’

  Thora shook her head in disbelief. ‘Ever thought about killing him?’

  ‘So far? No.’

  Both women burst into the special laughter that is the property of women alone, the helpless, boneless hysteria that reduces its emptying containers to heaps on the floor. Never in all her days had Emily felt so overpowered, yet so free. From her new position in life, she looked up and saw her husband’s signature under a chair, and this caused her to shriek all over again. Her knees hurt, but it didn’t matter.

  Thora crawled across and joined her new neighbour. With tears streaming down her uncomely face, she pointed to Joe’s name. ‘I bet . . . oh God, this is painful . . . I bet . . . I bet he thinks he’s the dog’s bollocks and all, eh?’

  Emily managed a nod.

  ‘But you’ve never felt like—’

  ‘No. But if I did . . .’ Emily failed again and descended into the shape of a comma.

  ‘If you did?’

  ‘Food. Poison in food.’

  ‘Oh, no. I want to see blood,’ Thora said. ‘After what mine’s put me through, I’d torture him and finish him off with a guillotine.’

  ‘Do you have a guillotine?’

  ‘No. How much are they?’

  ‘You’d have to ask in France.’

  ‘I’m not going there. It’s full of bloody foreigners.’

  When Joe and Andrew finally reached the house, they found a dignified wife and mother on the floor with a woman whose tiny frame was just a whisker away from emaciation. Andrew couldn’t help himself. Seeing his mother out of control was brilliant. Her companion had removed her spectacles, which were, in her words, ‘covered in compensation’, and one of her eyes had floated inward as if trying to keep company with a sharp, freckled nose. Andrew burst out laughing.

  This event affected the women, who were now weeping with mirth.

  Whatever was in this room was a communicable disease, and Joe found himself grinning along with the rest. Worry about poor Betsy had clouded his mind for quite some time, so he scarcely knew how he was managing to laugh, but it felt good.

  ‘Why did you move here?’ Thora asked the condemned man. No, Emily mustn’t poison him – he made gradely furniture.

  ‘Most of my customers are nearby,’ he replied, trying to squash a new burst of laughter. ‘And Andrew’s school’s here, as well as Emily’s place of work.’

  ‘Then there’s the kitchen.’ Emily wiped her eyes. ‘Bigger than the one we had on Crompton Way. Joseph’s going to update it and make it into a guinea pig.’

  ‘Clever.’ Thora replaced her glasses. ‘Do you pull rabbits from hats as well?’ she asked Joe. ‘It’s all right, I know what she means by guinea pig.’ She struggled to her feet. ‘I’d best go and start peeling,’ she said. ‘The trouble with having a half-Irish husband is he eats about three pounds of spuds a day. And the lads are catching him up. Cheerio.’ She was gone.

  Joe looked at his wife. ‘Where did she spring from?’

  ‘Next door. Life may become rather noisy, because she has four sons and a husband who isn’t always up to scratch.’

  ‘These walls are thick,’ he informed her.

  ‘So is her husband.’

  Joe wasn’t used to humour from his wife; he was also having trouble adjusting to the idea of her working. ‘When do you start at the infirmary?’ he asked.

  ‘A week on Monday. The house should be straight by then, unless you decide to start hacking at the kitchen.’

  He wouldn’t be hacking at anything; he’d be taking poor Betsy to St Helens. Probably. ‘Right, let’s get a shift on. Andrew, boxes marked upstairs, take upstairs. Emily, you do everything for the kitchen.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m directing traffic. Have you seen my bobby’s helmet?’

  She smiled at him. For Joe, that smile was a gold medal.

  Joe drove poor Betsy to St Helens and handed her over to Elsie. Very little was said. Elsie knew nothing about the pregnancy, and Marty Liptrott was also left in the dark. After dropping off the mother-to-be at the Eagle and Child, Joe began the drive home. He was hovering on the brink of danger, and he was painfully aware of that fact.

  Betsy had told her sister that Marty had gone violent. Joe, having been the recipient of one beating, knew that on this occasion Betsy was telling no lies. So. When would the second beating take place? Joseph Sanderson Ltd couldn’t keep a low profile, as his products were advertised all over the town. And his name might well become mud if his dalliance with Marty’s wife should be thrust into the public domain. Oh, God. Oh God, oh God, oh God. Dread filled his chest, and he began to sweat.

  He parked the car, took out a handkerchief and mopped his suddenly fevered brow. Options. Were there any? Would Liptrott assume that Joe was at the back of Betsy’s disappearance? How on earth could the great lump of a man be persuaded otherwise, especially since otherwise would be an outright fib? Would he search for and find Elsie, would he find out about the pregnancy, how would he react if he did? Joe’s chest felt tight. He wasn’t himself at all.

  Suddenly, he was home. For as long as he lived – which was to be some considerable time – he would never remember the journey from St Helens to Bolton. As soon as he entered the hallway, he hit the floor. Twenty-five minutes later, Joseph Sanderson was in hospital with double lower-lobe pneumonia.

  Thora arrived at the infirmary to escort Andrew home. ‘Don’t worry, lass,’ she advised Emily. ‘I’ll stay with your boy. Me mam’ll come and mind my lads.’

  ‘I’d rather be here,’ Andrew said.

  Emily touched her beloved son’s hand. ‘Go and look after Toodles. I know she seems to be settling, but she needs you. Your father’s a strong man. He’ll come out of this, Andrew. I promise.’

  So Andrew spent the evening with the ridiculously funny Thora Caldwell and her next-to-youngest son, Michael. Michael was not as rough or as loud as his brothers. In fact, his quietness was much appreciated by Andrew, who wasn’t in the mood for Mrs Caldwell’s wittering. His father had pneumonia in both lungs, and Michael’s mother was beginning to annoy her young host.

  Michael, who was strangely sensitive for a member of the Caldwell family, noticed the unease in Andrew’s eyes. ‘You’d best go home, Mam,’ he said. ‘Dad’s got some Irish in, half a bottle, I think. And you know Gran can’t manage him once he kicks off.’

  Thora jumped to her feet and left, muttering under her breath about mad customers giving booze to Irish idiots.

  Like a couple of old men relaxing, the two boys leaned back in armchairs and closed their eyes.

  Michael spoke. ‘Sorry about the way she carries on. Me mam, I mean. She’s not had it easy, so . . . anyway, I’ll sleep here tonight if you want.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The quiet was beautiful. Mrs Caldwell had chattered seamlessly about the price of cod, the perils of being married to half an Irishman – that seemed to be her best subject – pneumonia becoming treatable these days, and a woman across the way who never washed her windows or her doorstep.

  Then bigger trouble arrived. Someone battered the front door as if trying to free it from its hinges. Andrew leapt up. If it turned out to be bad news about Dad, he had to be the one to receive
it. He opened the door.

  ‘Where is he?’ a huge man wanted to know. ‘Left a forwarding address stuck on the window on Crompton Way. Always an eye for business, eh?’

  Andrew retreated slightly. ‘I’m sorry. Who are you?’

  ‘A man looking for Sanderson, that’s who. Anyway, I want to talk to the organ grinder, not the bloody monkey.’ He pushed Andrew to one side and entered the house. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded, this time throwing the words at Michael Caldwell.

  Michael said nothing.

  ‘Where is that bastard?’

  Thora entered the equation, bursting through the front door and placing her arm round Andrew’s shoulders. ‘Who the blood and sand are you, trying to knock my neighbours’ door down?’

  ‘Who am I?’ Marty roared. ‘Who am I?’

  ‘Well, if you don’t know, we can’t tell you. Happen if you wore a dog collar with a disc, you could get your details carved on it.’

  The invader blinked. ‘Don’t come the clever talk with me, missus.’

  She folded her arms against a very flat chest. ‘Listen, ear’ole,’ she said. ‘We’ve enough on round here without you trying to break through the front door. You can bugger off back to the stone you live under, or you can start making sense.’

  This was a woman who was afraid of nothing and nobody, and Marty wasn’t used to coming up against the unafraid. ‘Where is Joe Sanderson?’ he asked, the words spaced out as if being offered to somebody with developmental problems.

  ‘In the bloody hospital with bloody double bloody pneumonia,’ Thora snapped. ‘He came in from work today, and fell spark out on the hall floor. He’s in a tent, that’s what they call it. Having oxygen pushed into him cos he can’t breathe proper. And that’ll be why you can search this house from cellar to attic and find no sign of him except in photos.’

  Marty swallowed audibly.

  ‘If you go to the hospital and ask at the front desk, they’ll confirm that my dad was admitted today,’ Andrew said. ‘I think I know who you are. Touch Dad again, and you’ll be locked up. Now, leave my house. You weren’t invited in, so you’re guilty of trespass. That’s marginally better than grievous bodily harm, but it’s still an offence.’

  Marty shuffled out.

  Thora threw back her head and hooted with laughter when the front door slammed. ‘Leave my house. Marginally better – that school’s done a lot for you, Andrew. Though your mam talks a bit posh, doesn’t she?’

  Andrew sank into the chair opposite Michael’s. Tears threatened, and tears shouldn’t belong in the repertoire of a boy who was almost thirteen.

  Michael saved his new friend. Well, he hoped that Andrew would be his friend. ‘Was Dad drunk?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d say so, yes. His feet were smoking.’

  Grief forgotten, Andrew blinked several times.

  ‘Oh, not again,’ Michael sighed. ‘Did you light the fire, Mam?’

  ‘No, your gran did. Said she were cold, a bit shivery. So Harry sits down with his whiskey, feet up on the fireguard, falls asleep. Your gran thought it was the sweat in his socks steaming off. Well, that’s what she said, anyway. She wouldn’t care if he went up in flames as long as she got the rest of us out. Some days, I feel like giving up.’ She shook rust-coloured curls. ‘I’ll make you some toast and tea.’ She went into the kitchen.

  Michael and Andrew grinned at each other. ‘We seem to have strange families,’ said the latter.

  ‘Then we’re in the right place,’ Michael answered. ‘They’re all a bit doolally round these parts. Your dad’s bought this house, then?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you rich?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mike. When the Crompton Way house sells, we’ll be a bit better off. Nobody mentions anything. But I think he’s using this house for a time-and-motion kitchen. If the kitchens take off, he’ll move us a bit further up the road, but that’s just my opinion. He wants to live in Liverpool when I leave school.’

  There was a slight pause. ‘Andrew?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I like wood. I’d like to be a carpenter when I leave school.’

  ‘I’ll ask him.’

  ‘Ta.’

  They ate their toast while Thora chattered. After a while, Andrew began to realize that the words were fading into the background. Mrs Caldwell was just another layer of paint or wallpaper, part of his surroundings. He even drifted towards sleep . . .

  Joe opened his eyes at last, and Emily was sitting there smiling at him. For a moment, he smiled back, before drifting once more towards the sleep that would mend him. She’d been there; she’d stayed with him in the hospital, and that was all that mattered.

  Emily Sanderson sighed her relief, picked up her bag and walked to the door of the ward. They’d told her the penicillin seemed to be helping, and that his breathing had improved, but only slightly.

  Slightly was better than nothing. And she had a son who needed her.

  Martin Liptrott swept half a dozen glasses off the bar in the lounge of the Starkie public house. The landlord, who was not in the best of moods, told the drunken man that his wife was sacked, since she hadn’t turned up for work that day. ‘And I want a quid for that glassware,’ he added. ‘Coming in here and smashing my place up – do you fancy a night in the cells? It can be arranged.’

  Marty blinked in an attempt to clear his vision. Betsy’s boss was tilting to one side, as were several customers, some shelves and a door. And all voices seemed so far away – was he going deaf on top of everything else? ‘I shall pay thee,’ he cried. ‘I shall pay thee what she’s worth, which is nowt. She’s bloody left me. I comes home from me job, and there she is – gone. Wardrobe’s empty, no money in the place, no dinner – nowt at all.’

  The room fell silent. Or had he really gone deaf? No, he could hear his own voice. ‘Just a note saying she’d had enough, and that’s that. No meal on the table, no bath run to get the stink of the bins off me. All her clothes gone except for some old bits, so I’m in a bad mood. It’s very upsetting coming home to an empty place and a missing wife.’

  The landlord had heard it all before over the years, and he stood his ground. ‘I’m sorry, lad, but there’s no need for you to take it out on us. Forget the broken glasses, but go home. I’m serving you no more, cos you’re drunk as a lord. Go on. We’ll see you when you’ve bucked up a bit, eh?’

  Home? He had no home. On Thicketford Road, he noticed that the lamp posts had been breeding. Their number had doubled, and he wrestled with several on his way to the house that was no longer home. She hadn’t kept it nice, but she’d fed him and washed his clothes after a fashion. Yet he couldn’t be a man for her, could he? She didn’t want babies, but she needed a proper husband, and he wasn’t a proper husband.

  ‘What went wrong?’ he asked the post to which he clung. ‘Why was I made different? And why can’t I talk proper to a doctor about it?’ He belched, then deposited the contents of his stomach on the pavement. He hadn’t eaten, so what came up was stale beer, and it was rank.

  Food. He needed food. Abbot’s shop was closed, of course, and there was very little food in the house. She shopped on a day-to-day basis after work, but she hadn’t been to work today. There’d be bread and cheese, he supposed. There might be spuds or an apple.

  Well, she hadn’t gone off with Mr Sawdust, because he was in hospital. The woman at the desk had confirmed it, so where the bloody hell had Betsy gone? She would be with a man, of course, somebody with better personal equipment and a job that didn’t make him stink of rotted fish and cabbage.

  He opened the door. The silence hit him like a brick in a sock; it was dense, painful and dark. ‘Betsy,’ he called helplessly, hopelessly. ‘Betsy, come back. Don’t leave me.’

  Nobody wanted him. He wasn’t a man, so he wasn’t worth having. He sat on uncarpeted stairs, hugged himself and rocked back and forth like a child in its mother’s arms. He had to eat, had to settle his stomach. Tomorrow, he’d be back on the
bins, and he needed his strength.

  ‘Why does everything happen to me?’ he wondered aloud.

  In the kitchen, which wasn’t much bigger than a scullery, he peeled spuds at a tiny table covered in cracked oilcloth. Behind him on a gas stove the chip pan bubbled. He cut his finger, winced with pain and wiped blood on a crusty towel. It was amazing how a cut could be the last straw.

  Hilda Bridges roused the neighbourhood at about eleven o’clock. The Liptrott house was in flames and, as she shared a wall with it, she, too, was threatened. When the brigade arrived, she explained about Betsy, telling them that she’d gone away and not to bother looking for her. ‘He’s in there, though,’ she said. ‘I heard him clattering about. Drunk again, I think.’

  They doused the flames while their boss found the seat of the fire. It was another inebriate with yet another chip pan. He was at the top of the stairs. As the smoke cleared, the firemen saw him hanging just for a split second before the rope snapped. The body tumbled down the steps and landed in the hallway.

  A fireman sought a pulse, found no sign of life. ‘He’s gone,’ he said.

  The chief checked just to be sure. ‘Sometimes I hate this bloody job,’ he said. ‘Still, no kiddies, that’s something.’ He went outside to check with Hilda Bridges. ‘No children, love?’

  ‘No.’ She said no more than that. The poor man was dead, and she allowed him his dignity. The details of the Liptrotts’ marriage could go with him to the grave as far as she was concerned. ‘Will you look at my house and make sure I’m safe, please?’

  ‘Of course we will, love.’

  Hilda put the kettle on. Tomorrow, she would write to Betsy. How did a person tell a young woman that her husband had killed himself? Hilda had been standing on the pavement, had seen him coming down the stairs, rope round his neck, eyes wide open and bulging. ‘God have mercy on him,’ she whispered. ‘And on Betsy, too.’

  Five

  Daniel Pope was several miles beyond angry. In fact, he nursed the suspicion that NASA might need to track the top of his head if it blew off. Even an hour in his private basement gym followed by a hot shower and two black coffees had failed to revive him. He was literally fuming. His whole body glowed with temper, and he wouldn’t have been surprised if smoke or steam had suddenly begun to emerge from bodily orifices.