A Liverpool Song

by Ruth Hamilton

  Andrew peeped round the door. His disreputable son-in-law was playing with his older daughter while cuddling the baby. It was clear that Daniel was avoiding close encounters with Helen; perhaps this was part of his treatment. A small glimmer of hope warmed Andrew’s heart. Never mind me, Dad. Concentrate on Daniel, Helen and these little girls. If there’s a power beyond, try to help my daughter and her family. What was he doing? He was supposed to have travelled beyond agnosticism towards atheism. And he didn’t like Daniel Pope. Daniel Pope was not good enough for Helen. Yet . . . Yet there was a funeral to be got through.

  Sam Grey, the stonemason who had made Mary’s dog-proof cover in the garden, stood outside the front of the house. He wore black clothes, including a frock coat and stovepipe hat. In his right, black-gloved hand, he carried a staff much taller than he was. His brother Archie sat at the wheel of the hearse, while several black cars followed.

  The coffin looked too small for Dad. Joseph Sanderson’s only son stood briefly by the hearse and studied its contents. The casket was covered in white lilies; this was a perfect copy of Mother’s final transport. Goodbye, Dad. Thanks for everything you were, everything I wish I could be.

  Andrew and his three offspring occupied the main car. When Sam began his slow, stately march, the sombre cavalcade crept along behind him until the hearse reached the coastguard station at the end of the road. After a short full stop during which Sam joined his brother in the hearse, the procession set off in the direction of Thornton Crematorium.

  All were unprepared for what they found at their destination. His employees were there. People from Sanderson’s in Reading, Birmingham, Devizes, Liverpool, Bolton, Leeds and Durham lined the final couple of hundred yards. Among them were customers who had become friends, some in wheelchairs, since Joe had catered for special needs.

  Andrew clung to Kate and Helen. He mustn’t cry, couldn’t cry.

  Six of Joe’s managers lifted their boss and carried him inside. When family mourners were seated, the rest flooded in until there was standing room only. The music played was Acker Bilk’s ‘Stranger on the Shore’. Andrew found himself thinking that if there was a shore, Dad wouldn’t be a stranger, because Mother and Betsy would be there to greet him.

  A vicar paid lip service. He was there only to appease believers, since Joe and Andrew had always nursed reservations about the hereafter. Wasn’t one life enough without enduring eternity?

  Then it was Andrew’s turn. He looked at a sea of faces and decided to concentrate on his children. Someone was sobbing quietly, but he didn’t need to wonder who, because any sound coming from Eva was immediately recognizable. She was hurting. She and Dad had been great friends.

  ‘I come to pay tribute to a person of great talent, greater humour, and the greatest heart. I am fortunate, since this unique and splendid man was my father. Joseph Sanderson began his work in a large shed at the bottom of a back garden. Some of his tools were borrowed, and I remember him buying up a set of cottage doors to reshape into furniture. He taught me the little I know about carpentry, and I always blamed him for my foray into orthopaedics. The tools and the rules are similar.

  ‘He and my mother led an unusual life in a time when prejudice was rampant, because they had the sense and the ability to follow their own path without reference to mainstream atlases. Although they became almost brother and sister, their affection and respect for each other never wavered.

  ‘By the time we came to Liverpool, Dad had founded the first Sanderson’s Intelligent Kitchens factory on the Dock Road. He built good, solid kitchens, and continued at the same time with bespoke furniture for any room in any house. Chelsea, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Burnley, Blackpool and Liverpool – all these places and many more boast samples of Joseph’s pieces or kitchens, often both. I thank his workforce and his customers for taking the trouble to come here today. Your positions are safe, and the company is now yours. He thought of everything and everyone, and his trust in all of you was absolute.

  ‘Joseph loved young people. One of the men who carried him just now is Michael Caldwell, taken on as apprentice in the mid-fifties, now managing director of the Birmingham branch. As a teacher, my dad was painstaking and kind, always managing to bring out the best in every new recruit.

  ‘In his personal life, too, he was loving and giving. He and my stepfather remained the best of friends until Geoff ’s untimely and cruel demise, after which Joseph and Emily continued close until my mother, too, lost her life.

  ‘I’m sixty now, yet I still feel like an orphan adrift on a sea whose currents I don’t trust, because Dad was my rudder and my anchor. He was magic.

  ‘But time and tide wait for no man, and I must now take up the position of head of the Sanderson clan, the grandfather, the elder. Would that I owned half the wisdom and strength of my father. With respect, gratitude and much love, I bid him farewell on his last journey. We all miss you, Joseph.’

  As the coffin moved away, Debussy’s ‘Clair de Lune’ was played. Blue velvet drapes closed, and Andrew stood, a clenched fist covering his mouth. Mother’s music. Emily of New Moon, her music, Moonlight. Oh, Mother. Oh, Dad. Ian stepped forward and led him away. ‘Come on with me. It’s over now. We’ll look after you.’

  Andrew had not expected to be hit so hard. Wasn’t he used to death? The grandparents, Geoff, Mother, Mary, now Dad? Did anyone ever become inured to the knowledge that he or she would never see a loved one again? It was the finality of it, the stomach-churning void left behind when a much-loved family member shuffled off the coil.

  His hand was shaken so many times that he felt it might drop off. Eva caught up with him. She had clearly continued weeping. ‘You’ve not to worry about your dad’s workers,’ she told him. ‘They’ve fetched food or ordered it to be delivered. He’d be happy to see them, Doc.’

  ‘Yes, he would. Now, get in your car and let’s go home. I hate these places.’

  Once back at the house, he found Stuart buried beneath the weight of fans, but there was no sign of Daniel. Eventually, he came upon Helen with Kate and Richard. ‘Where’s Daniel?’ he asked. ‘I’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘Gone,’ Kate replied. ‘Disappeared. He must know what’s good for him.’

  Andrew studied his older daughter. ‘There’s some of my mother in you, madam. She was a wonderful woman, but had I not been foolish enough to intervene, she would have turned her back on her parents – my maternal grandparents – for the rest of their lives. Stop being so judgemental. Daniel Pope has buggered up his life, but don’t crow about it. He is going through treatment designed to wipe his own mother out of his mind, so have some bloody charity, woman.’

  When Andrew walked away, Kate shut her gaping mouth. ‘Hell’s bells,’ she declared after a couple of seconds. ‘What’s got into him?’

  Helen stared down into her glass. ‘He’s lost his dad. It’s a day for truth, perhaps.’ She raised her head. ‘You do crow, Kate. Everyone from the postman to the mayor knows you have a wonderful marriage, and you use that like salt in my wounds. You were so happy when I left Daniel, so loud about my destructive behaviour—’

  ‘He was cheating on you, Helen.’

  ‘Yes, and you rejoiced—’

  ‘Because we already knew or suspected.’

  Richard chipped in. ‘Stop this, both of you. Kate, I’ve told you already, keep your nose out of it. Helen has her own way to make. Excuse me.’ He left the two sisters together.

  ‘Oh, Helen. If that’s how I’ve carried on, forgive me. You and I have been the Forever Sisters since long before we had men in our lives. Remember? When we pinched a razor and cut our fingers and mixed the blood?’

  Helen smiled. ‘And Daddy threw a maddy, so he was Maddy Daddy? I remember. But the most awful thing just now is that I’ve come full circle and I want Daniel back. And I daren’t have him back because of what you and others might say. I tried. I went to lunch a few times with Paul – that solicitor – but he wasn’t Daniel. Nobody is Da
niel.’

  Kate understood that up to a point. Without Richard, she’d be lost. ‘You know what, Helen?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, you’ll think I’m daft.’

  ‘I already know you’re daft. What? What?’

  ‘I think Granddad’s here. I can feel him drifting about.’

  ‘See a doctor, Kate.’

  Kate nodded. ‘OK. Speaking of doctors, our brother seems to have cheered up a bit lately. Did you know he goes sky-diving? Eliza, too?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Dad told me. They’re off to Somerset soon on an archaeological dig, then they’re taking up potholing.’

  Helen giggled nervously. ‘Whatever floats their boat, I suppose.’

  ‘They have one of those, too. It’s moored at the marina down the road.’ Kate took a mouthful of wine. ‘Helen, do what you have to do, but not yet. Ian and Dad have had their heads together on this one, so make no mistake, Daniel is working hard to get you back.’

  A single tear crawled down the younger sister’s cheek. ‘He won’t look at me, let alone talk to me.’

  ‘Then that must be a part of what he has to do. Look, you know me and my mouth – even I can’t keep up with it. Whatever happens, Rich and I will support you. And him, too. If he can drag himself out of the pit, we’ll be there.’

  Outside, Richard caught up with the escaping Daniel near the coastguard station. All cars were parked at the erosion car park in order to leave room for the cortège. ‘Wait.’ He bent over, hands on knees as he reclaimed the oxygen he had been forced to use. ‘By heck, lad, you can’t half shift.’

  Daniel agreed. ‘I’m a teenager. I’ve been regressed.’

  ‘Are you . . . are you taking the urine?’ Richard continued to fight for breath.

  ‘Yes,’ was the answer. ‘But they’re trying to help me recapture my youth for myself rather than for my parents. Mother and Father stole it, apparently. No point in going to the police, because the case against them is cold by now. I haven’t been to work for three weeks. Oh, and I mustn’t talk to Helen.’

  ‘We gathered that. Am I allowed to tell you that she loves you?’

  ‘No.’ Daniel actually laughed.

  Richard straightened.

  ‘That’s better,’ Daniel said. ‘You looked like a question mark.’

  ‘All right, then, she hates you. Just do what you have to do, then come and get her. The thing about both these Sanderson women is that they stick to their guns and their men.’

  ‘I don’t deserve her.’

  ‘Then wait till you do. I’d better get back and tell her you’re all right.’ He turned.

  ‘Richard?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Oh, bugger off, Daniel. Make me run a half-marathon again, and I’ll sue you for personal injury.’ He looked his brother-in-law up and down. ‘Also, Kate’s enough for me. Looking after two of them is more than I can manage. And Andrew might just want his house back.’

  But at that moment, Andrew, staring through his bedroom window at the Mersey, was thinking quite the opposite. He’d got used to Helen and the little ones, used to Sofia and Anya – he was even dangerously close to tolerating Eva. If Helen returned to the Wirral, Sofia would accompany her, while Anya, who was going to take her daughter’s place during the translators’ course, would also be in Neston. He was going to be lonely.

  His bedroom door flew inward, and Stuart entered. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘If I get any more people asking me about books and plays, I’ll go bonkers. How are you doing, anyway?’

  ‘I’m so-so. It’s your own fault for getting so famous. Where’s Colin?’

  ‘Oh, he’s at war with Germany. Something about a contract and the wrong date or the wrong quantity – I’m not sure. I’ll be glad when he gets back, because the phone never stops.’

  ‘You writing?’

  ‘Trying to. It’s difficult when he’s not there clinking about with cups and tutting because I haven’t eaten. I seem to need the interruptions, but only from him. The phone calls drive me spare.’ He sat down. ‘Joe was ninety-three, Andy.’

  ‘I know. I can count. And I’m still not over Mary.’

  ‘Ten years, Andy.’

  ‘I just told you I can count. You’ve been with Colin for well over three decades, so use your imagination. You’re the bloody writer. If he died—’

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘See? And we’re all different. Look at my mother and dad. They lived the oddest life, but they lived it to the full. It’s the to-the-full bit, Stu. I’d forgotten what it was like till Helen and the babes arrived. When they go . . . It’s a big house. It’s Mary’s house.’

  ‘Move, sunshine.’

  ‘She’s in the garden.’

  ‘Yes, she’s in a coffin inside a supposedly everything-proof container. Take her with you and plant her elsewhere.’

  They sat in silence. After a friendship that had lasted well over half a century, they needed few words. Although there were forty miles between them, each knew the other was always there for him. Stuart had agonized alongside Andrew when Geoff had arrived on the scene, and Andrew had propped up his best ‘mucker’ when he’d come out to his parents as gay. Good days, bad days, all had been shared by these two since nursery class.

  ‘We’re having a surrogate wedding,’ Stuart said suddenly. ‘Will you be my best man?’

  ‘Only if you’ll let me tell the audience about Gloria Tattersall’s knickers.’

  ‘Not on your nelly.’

  ‘It wasn’t Nelly. It was Gloria.’

  ‘And who bloody dared me?’

  Andrew shrugged. ‘It was you who pinched them off the washing line, and you who fastened them half mast above the girls’ division. God, that poor Gloria was so fat. Everybody knew they were hers.’

  Stuart sniffed. ‘One mention, and you’re dead, Andy.’

  ‘Dead’s not a good word today. So many dead, and now my poor old dad. He never lost his marbles, you know. Bit of a problem with short-term memory, but nothing spectacular.’ His voice broke.

  And they sat together on Andrew’s four-poster, two little boys who were no longer little, two men aged sixty who had never completely grown up. When Andrew broke down, it was Stuart who comforted him, the same Stuart who had spat in a hanky to clean his friend’s grazed knee, the same Stuart who had shared wartime rationed sweets, then toys and secrets. What they enjoyed transcended and almost obliterated all else. This close bond of true friendship, tempered and shaped under dark skies and to the accompaniment of sirens, was unbreakable.

  Then the dog came in and stole the moment.

  ‘What the Carter’s Little Liver Pills . . . ?’ Stuart’s jaw dropped.

  Keith, Andrew’s veterinary friend, chased the animal out. ‘Sorry, Andy,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Stuart, he’s half French, you see. Stubborn bugger, thinks rules don’t apply to him. He’s eaten at least twelve sausage rolls. And he likes beer.’ He followed Storm, who was clearly on a drunken rampage.

  Alone again, the two men stared through the window.

  ‘Andy?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have we ever had a normal life?’

  ‘No. You were all quarters of corned beef and would you save a small Hovis for tomorrow, and I ended up with three parents. School was unreal. Now there’s Storm, mad as a frog in a box. Then there was Gloria Tattersall and her—’

  ‘Shut up. You going to be our best man? For Colin, too? But without knickers?’

  ‘You know I will. She became a model, you know. Gloria lost all that weight and went very Jean Shrimpton, married a chap from Honiton. He was in antiques.’ Andrew sighed. ‘She’ll be an antique by now. We’re all bloody antiquated.’

  ‘Speak for yourself. Colin and I keep ourselves young.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘We soak ourselves in marinade every Saturday after line-dancing. Old meat comes up tender if you marinate it.’

  ‘The m
eat might, but doesn’t it shrivel your veg?’

  And they were schoolboys again, laughing at their own crudity, digging each other in the ribs and roaring for no good reason.

  Andrew dried his eyes. ‘We must have another weekend at New Moon some time soon.’

  ‘Move back there,’ Stuart suggested. ‘We only rent it. I can soon find somewhere to live.’

  Andrew shook his head. ‘No. There’s something about Liverpool. It welcomes you with open arms no matter who or what you are. Then, after a few years, it absorbs you into its system. The friendly arms assume a vice-like grip, and you can’t leave. They’re special people, a breed apart, kind yet tough, humorous but empathetic. I love town. I could sit on a Williamson Square bench for a week without getting bored. I’d be cold, rained on and covered in pigeon shit, but I’d never get fed up.’

  ‘Takes all sorts, I suppose.’

  ‘Thank goodness. If we were all the same, what a bore.’

  People were beginning to leave. Andrew, already aware of his antisocial self-indulgence, went down to say goodbye. He paid particular attention to all who had travelled to be at Dad’s funeral, men and women who, alongside their workforce, now owned the company. He clung to Michael, son of the family next door in Mornington Road, the lad who had begged for an apprenticeship and had risen through the ranks. ‘Keep his name,’ Andrew pleaded.

  ‘Don’t worry. We will. He’ll be missed.’

  Helen, Sofia and Anya were upstairs putting weary children to bed. From the kitchen, Eva’s dulcet tones delivered a plethora of swear words while she filled the dishwasher. An inebriated Storm stretched out on the hearthrug, while Stuart rested in a fireside chair opposite Andrew’s. ‘This dog’s an alcoholic,’ he said gravely. ‘Do they have Alcoholics Unanimous for dogs?’

  ‘Wouldn’t work. He’s half French.’