A Liverpool Song

by Ruth Hamilton

  Andrew groaned quietly under his breath. Why wouldn’t she give up now before he exploded? ‘Ian never listened to anybody, as well you know, Eva. He was the same with everyone. As far as I was concerned, he needed a good talking to about manners. Mary thought he was deaf, wondered if he needed an operation on his tympanic membranes.’

  ‘We had one of them, but the wheel fell off,’ Eva responded smartly. ‘Anyway, it’s one thing him and Eliza chucking theirselves out of a plane’s back passage, but Daniel might be suicidal. It’s all wrong. Ian never listened to nobody, but he goes and tells Daniel Pope what to do. Oh, yes, he can dish it out, all right. I mean, I don’t like Pope, only he shouldn’t be spread like strawberry jam all over some field somewhere. It’s not good.’

  ‘He won’t be spread like jam of any flavour, Eva. And he isn’t jumping. He’ll be fastened to somebody else who is jumping. It’s part of his therapy, making him trust somebody other than his ma before getting him to trust himself.’

  Eva rattled a new feather duster along the mantelpiece. ‘If they said getting in a pool of sharks was therapy, would he have done that?’

  ‘Getting in a pool of sharks would not be therapy, though I’m sure the sharks would buck up no end and enjoy it.’ Andrew was approaching the hem of his patience. The woman seemed to get a bee in her bonnet at every conceivable opportunity, and he had to suffer the consequences. ‘Freefalling is supposed to be an exhilarating experience.’

  ‘So’s a Siberian wind across Scunthorpe, but I’d rather stay away from it, thanks. The world is going mad, especially this flaming family.’ With reverence, she dusted the chest Andrew had made for the ashes of his parents and his stepfather. ‘You done a good job here, Doc. All three of them back together. I loved your dad. It was a bit of a rum do, your mam and the other feller, but Joe made the best he could of it. What a wonderful character, eh? You were a great man, Joe Sanderson,’ she told the container. ‘You were loved and treasured, me old mate.’

  The head of the household folded his newspaper and collected Storm from the utility room. To this day, Andrew didn’t like anyone criticizing Mother. She’d been special. What she and Geoff had shared had been particularly special. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said to his dog, ‘before I strangle her. My hands are itching to get round her throat. She goes too far by a mile or more. Why do we put up with her?’

  Storm, taller than ever and thicker-set, followed his master through the side gate and across to the green. He was a proud, obedient dog, a special dog with a master who cared for him, so he was on his best behaviour till he reached the sand, where he met a friend, and all good intentions disappeared instantly into the ether. Storm loved women, and was particularly fond of this one. Anya was seated at the bottom of the concrete steps, a blanket folded beneath her. The animal performed his usual Stormy greeting, face-licking, paw-offering, plus a few soft, throaty woofs, his tail wagging furiously.

  Anya laughed, pushed the fool away, stood and spread her blanket. ‘Sit with me,’ she told Andrew. ‘You, dog, go and play. I love you, but you cheeky. Talk to the water.’

  Storm ran to the river. It was on the ebb, but he was determined to keep up with it.

  ‘One of these days, he’ll turn up in Belfast,’ Andrew said. He was so aware of her, too aware. Was it because, like Mary, she was small? Or was he finally managing to feel truly lonely? For some odd reason, the little Polish woman reached his soul. She was warm and friendly, yet unsure, because she was in a foreign country with different customs and a language that followed no dependable pattern.

  ‘I visit Sofia in house,’ she said. ‘Helen not happy. Sofia thinks Helen wants go back to Daniel. If she does, Sofia comes home. I not let her go near that man. My Sofia needs be safe.’

  Andrew understood, and yet . . . ‘Helen won’t allow anything to happen to Sofia, Anya. And Daniel has changed. He’s worked so hard to change, because he wants his family back.’

  ‘Sofia is my family. I know about family. My daughter, she is everything for me.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘So she stay with me. We manage.’

  He didn’t want to lose her, didn’t want Helen to lose Sofia. ‘There’s a good chance that Helen will take both of you if she goes, and I shall supervise by visiting twice a week. Please don’t desert us, Anya. Don’t leave us when we’re all just getting to know you.’

  She hoped he didn’t notice her sharp intake of breath. Sometimes, she got the idea that he rather liked her; on other occasions, he seemed not to care. He was still missing his wife, and Anya sympathized with that. Although Jan had been dead for fewer years, she knew that what had happened to Andrew could easily have happened to her. She was in a foreign country, was learning a terrible language, so she might well have hung on to her husband’s memory as some kind of comfort. The difference was that she was a woman, and women were stronger. Oh, yes. She was a woman, and she wanted to take care of this lovely man. Why would he look at her? The wife, Mary, had been beautiful like Helen.

  ‘We shall see,’ she replied. ‘But the man Daniel I do not like.’

  Andrew watched his dog trying to turn the tide. Storm didn’t appreciate the Mersey when it was coming, but hated it more when it was going. Fortunately, the dog stayed in shallow water and, thus far, had met no sinking sand. ‘Daniel has been through rigorous treatments,’ he said quietly. ‘An overprotective and domineering mother made him what he was. When they managed to reach back into his youth, the life he lived was so inhibiting, so bad for him.’

  ‘I am not bad and overprotecting,’ she replied.

  ‘She’s your child, Anya, yet she is not. Sofia is a young woman now, and needs to make her own way in the world. To keep them, we must let go.’

  ‘So it is wrong I say don’t go back to Neston, to him and that great big house?’

  ‘It’s what we Brits call a grey area. The decision should be hers. Helen is helping with Sofia’s education, firstly with the translators’ course, then later the qualification for teaching English as a foreign language. Sofia has much to lose.’

  ‘If he touch her, I kill him, and this I promise.’

  ‘If he touches her, there’ll be a queue of people wanting to kill him. And you’ll all be standing behind me.’ He paused. ‘He’s jumping out of an aeroplane somewhere in Staffordshire today.’

  Anya’s head whipped sideways. ‘Why?’

  ‘Part of his treatment. As a child, he had to do everything in secret, or his mother would start a row. Cheating on Helen was an extension of that. Now, he’s literally taking his life and putting it into the hands of a free-faller. So far, Daniel has been a naughty boy. He’s now becoming a man. Anya, there is a parachute.’

  ‘Powodzenia.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Good luck he will need.’

  ‘We all need that. We wake every day and jump into life hoping our parachute will open. And there’s no map, Anya. We arrive as babies in the world with no instructions and no manufacturer’s guarantee. Each day’s a blank page, and we make our own roads with no idea of what we’ll meet. Nobody’s a perfect cartographer.’

  ‘Is meaning?’

  ‘Map-maker. When we wake, we’re never truly sure of how the day will be. And much of the time, our activities are in the hands of other people who—’

  ‘Who have no map.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘We make map when we can.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She loved the way he talked and listened, because he never seemed to mind stopping to explain. This silly language had virtually no rules. Hole and whole, sew, so and sow, not and knot, through and threw, no and know, new and knew, all the same, all different. ‘Thank you for explain, Andrew. Many peoples angry when I not understand, but my Polish language easier. English not easy for learn, not for me.’

  ‘English is difficult because we stole words from all over the world. Come on, let’s go home and get something warm to drink. I just hope Eva’s stopped complain
ing, because she’s hovering on the brink of my hit list.’

  ‘Hit list is?’

  He drew a finger across his throat.

  ‘Ah, yes. I am understand. Eva is noisy lady, good in heart.’

  A soggy Storm joined them as they made their way up the steps, across the green and round to the back of the house. Andrew explained that the dog was not allowed near Eva’s parquet.

  ‘Floor is Eva’s, baby Cassie is Eva’s, you are Eva’s.’ She laughed.

  ‘We let her think these things, but we know the truth. Eva collects articles and people. She’s bossy and controlling but, as you say, kind underneath all that. It’s her way, it’s how she was raised.’ Why was he defending the dragon?

  Anya went into the downstairs bathroom. While washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror. ‘You don’t know everything, lovely man.’ Eva had made a friend of Anya. They went to bingo together where, to use a phrase of Eva’s, Anya made ‘a right pig’s ear of keeping up’, and Eva had endowed Anya with a piece of knowledge that was onerous. ‘I wish she had not told me about this thing and those peoples.’

  She dried her hands and tidied her hair. ‘I think he likes me. I hope he likes me.’ Anya Jasinski told herself that she was being silly. Perhaps Andrew had many friends and didn’t want a lover or a wife. Perhaps Eva’s information about . . . about the other business was mistaken. No. There was something there, something unusual.

  She sighed. Did he know deep down, had he noticed? Or would it all come as a shock? Why did life have to be so difficult, so complicated?

  With an unsteady hand, she reapplied lipstick. No, he didn’t know what Eva knew. Had he realized, things would have been different. And he was definitely unaware, because Mary had made sure of that. Mary had loved him enough to guard him from a huge truth. He was easy to love.

  With the healthy and unappeasable hunger of youth, Andrew gobbled up Liverpool like a large sponge collecting water. It was alive, vivid, buzzing with street hawkers, flower-sellers, amazing shops. People talked to him. He heard other languages among sailors whose transport was in dock, got his earliest helping of the local dialect and accent, and his first glimpse of the river. Crowds milled about, groups chatted, women called to each other across busy roads. Two things hit him on Dale Street; laughter, and the guttural delivery of words ending in ‘ck’. Was that caused by the proximity of Wales, which was just a few miles down the road?

  Newspaper sellers shouted out headlines, a policeman chased a man with a suitcase that possibly contained contraband, or perhaps the chap had no licence – at any rate, his case opened and scattered contents everywhere. Andrew’s first Liverpudlian purchase comprised two yellow ducks for his bath, which he had bought from the chap who was now on the run. ‘Quack, quack,’ he said quietly before continuing his walk.

  The route to the university was easy, but he needed to see so much more. He found the famous Pier Head, the Liver Buildings, doubled back and hit the shops again. Oh, Mother was going to love this. Department stores, specialist shops, the smell of fresh-ground coffee, bacon flitches hanging from beams, a busker playing a banjo and singing, instrument and voice both sadly out of tune.

  He discovered a huge bookstore that sold the medical tomes he needed, some second-hand, traded in by student doctors who had moved onward and upward. This was a wonderful place. But he had to leave it, needed to go back and help Dad, who was setting up home on his own. Having memorized the names of streets, he began the walk towards his new homes.

  There was a plot on, and Dad was at the back of it. So huge were the two pre-Victorian houses that both had superfluous reception rooms. These were to be beautifully decorated and filled with Sanderson’s bespoke pieces, which were timeless. The step into upholstery had been taken, so anyone who expressed interest could visit as guests these fully Sanderson-furnished unofficial showrooms and order any pieces that took their fancy, including sofas and easy chairs.

  Dad was a clever man. Of late, Andrew had come to realize just how gifted and sensible his father was. Joe had accepted a situation he couldn’t change, and had shaped it to serve his purposes. Furthermore, he had started to go for a pint with Geoff, thereby accepting him into the fold. So Andrew had two fathers and two flats on two top floors. Compared to most students, he was wealthy.

  He found Mount Pleasant and made his way back to Rodney Street. Even on moving-in day, he judged the city to be the right place for him. Yes, he could be happy here.

  Ian, acting totally out of character, had visited all the members of his troubled family. Over dinner, he explained himself to Kate and Richard. ‘Neutrality does not mean ceasing to care,’ he said. ‘But in this situation, we’re depending completely on sense rather than on emotion. Yes, Eliza and I took him out, but only after consultation with his mentors. I have to say he’s doing brilliantly.’

  Kate expressed the opinion that Daniel Pope was a bloody good actor. ‘With a mother like his, he’s had to develop to RADA standard,’ she said. She kept to herself the fact that she had difficulty in imagining her brother to be even slightly emotional.

  Ian agreed. ‘Yes, he’s an actor, but all this is for Helen, too,’ he said. ‘She needs him, but needs him to be different. She still loves him, Kate. Love seems to be one of the things we can’t ever explain thoroughly.’

  Kate closed her gaping mouth with a snap. Love? What did little brother know about love?

  Richard rescued his shocked wife. ‘But can you change somebody who’s so radically affected?’ he asked. ‘Is it possible to turn him through a full circle and expect to alter him along the way? I must say I’ve sometimes seen changes in criminals, though. Occasionally, when an old lag says he’s going straight, he means it.’

  Ian nodded. ‘No one can change anybody. What we can do is furnish him with the tools to change himself. But with my sister and two nieces involved, I decided an effort should be made get the necessary implements for Daniel. If Helen goes back to him, he’ll need to toe the line, and he must be able to draw his own line. She won’t give him another chance, I’m sure of that. The poor woman’s had enough, so something needs to be done for her.’

  When Ian had left, Richard and Kate stared at each other across the table. Minus Eliza, Kate’s brother always wore his professional hat. In fact, most of his hats were similar, but the man had turned out to be almost humanoid. ‘There’s gold in them there hills,’ Kate said finally. ‘He actually cares about Helen. He loves his family, Rich.’

  ‘Dishes, then upstairs,’ ordered the man of the house. ‘I’ve new briefs from Hadleigh’s to read.’ He cleared and vacuumed before going up.

  Kate took her time before checking on the children, then she sauntered into their en suite. Richard appeared in the doorway. As ever, he was beautifully prepared for the occasion. ‘Shall we continue our conversation?’ he mumbled through a green plastic tube.

  Kate looked at him and sank to her knees, so powerful was her laughter. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ she asked. No man could possibly look attractive in this gear. He wore flippers, armbands made for a child which just fitted his wrists, goggles and snorkel. Apart from these items, he was stark naked.

  He removed the snorkel. ‘That’s not a bath; it’s a bloody swimming pool. Mummy said I have to be safe. She warned me about people like you who would lead me astray.’

  ‘You sound like Daniel Pope.’

  ‘Shut up and get your rubber ring. I don’t want to be pumping water out of your lungs – I’ve better things to do.’

  There could never, ever be another man like this clown. She’d seen him at work, the mouthy barrister who fought like a tiger for his clients. He was serious, beautifully spoken and handsome in his wig. So elegant in court, he acted like an escapee here, in the privacy offered by their master suite.

  ‘It is rather large, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I’m talking about the bath, dear.’ He shook his head sadly and blessed himself like a Catholic.

  ‘I must have got
my measurements wrong,’ she said.

  ‘You did. You could have been taller.’

  ‘Complaining again?’

  He nodded. ‘Where’s the diving board?’

  ‘Oh, use the windowsill. And note, the taps are in the centre of the long side.’ She shook her head. ‘Use the bloody windowsill,’ she repeated.

  He thought about that. ‘The trajectory’s wrong. See, according to Einstein, there’s no relativity between a windowsill and a diving board. Then think about Darwin. We crawled out of the water billions of years ago. Nostradamus said—’

  ‘Richard, get in the bath.’

  He got in the bath, still muttering about Galileo, Archimedes and the brides in the bath murders. ‘If you pull my feet now, I drown.’

  ‘Don’t tempt me, Mr Rutherford.’

  ‘Ditto. Are you getting in or what?’

  ‘What,’ she replied, and entered the shower cubicle. While she showered, she watched the madman she had married. He was playing underwater, breathing through his snorkel and splashing furiously. In almost everyone, a small piece of the child was preserved. Richard’s mother had not tethered him, so the child in him was joyful and funny. Whereas Daniel Pope . . .

  He joined her and washed her hair, as that was his job. ‘Richard?’

  ‘Yes, my love?’

  ‘I wonder how Daniel felt about that sky-dive. Old Beatrice would be furious if she knew, and that’s the problem, isn’t it? Just the hair, sweetheart. I’ve done all my other bits.’

  He muttered a few words including ‘spoilsport’. ‘It seems she is the problem, yes. Though if he hurts Helen again, I shall let you loose on him. That, as I know to my cost, is a fate worse than death.’