A Liverpool Song

by Ruth Hamilton

  And it ended there. There was a jagged line, and the pen remained next to his open hand. He had intended suicide by drowning, but a final stroke had taken him. The scream that tore its way past her throat was not a real scream; it was more the primeval howl of some antecedent of humankind, a creature recently ascended from the earth’s slime. He could not be gone. The world should cease its turning, birds shouldn’t sing, she should stop breathing.

  ‘Phone.’ She left him and entered the hall. ‘Andrew?’

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘Come. Come now. He’s dead.’

  His fire still burned. It was half past seven, and he was dead, but his books remained curled in embers. At least half his collection had gone. He had been tidying up for the first and last time, had made an effort to render her life easier, and that effort had taken his life. I didn’t mind the mess any more, Geoff. You could have carpeted the place with your litter.

  People came and went. The police had to attend, as the death was unusual. That very private note was taken away, as was its author. A policewoman tried to remain with Emily, but she took the advice of Andrew and went away. Mary sat and waited with her mother-in-law, but the weeping did not begin. All that existed was this terrible, dry silence. Emily spoke from time to time, but she didn’t grieve.

  Andrew managed to track down his father, who said he would come home immediately. ‘Stay with us tonight,’ Mary suggested.

  Emily refused politely. ‘Joseph will look after me. Andrew’s father and I have always taken good care of each other. Mary, make me some sweet tea, there’s a good girl. I don’t like sugar, but I’m light-headed.’

  A post-mortem was ordered, and the whole family decided that this was the right thing. Geoff had been a great believer in research, and if anything could be gained from the examination of his brain, he would have agreed readily.

  While her son and daughter tidied the bungalow, Emily sat with her sweet tea. She was a frightened, angry woman in Queen’s Park, but he came for her. She caught shingles, and he fussed like an old woman, comforting her, babying her. When she sprained an ankle, he brought crutches and a borrowed wheelchair; when she cried, he wept with her.

  Gone. In one or two breaths, the life-force quit his body, leaving him to chill and stiffen in his work chair. A dead man still owned a dozen pairs of brand new socks and enough pens to furnish a large office. His fire had gone out just after his body had left the bungalow. Memories now, just memories. And Toodles was searching for him.

  Andrew came in. ‘Everything he didn’t burn is up in the loft in cardboard boxes. His clothes and so forth I’ll leave alone for now.’

  ‘The Salvation Army,’ Emily said. ‘When I’m ready.’ Would she ever be ready? ‘And his best suit goes with him.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to work?’

  ‘No, Mother. We’ve phoned in. Don’t worry about us.’

  She stared intently at him. ‘You were never a worry. You’ve always been the best son we could have hoped for. And Mary’s so right for you.’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re happy.’

  ‘Yes, we’re very happy.’ But would Mother ever be happy again? She and Geoff had been so close. ‘Anything you want, just ask, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  Joe, Andrew and Mary carried Emily through a non-denominational cremation that was attended by so many people that dozens had to stay outside. The mother of the child who had died came to pay her respects, but Emily seemed to see or hear nothing. Geoff ’s parents were there, but she looked through them while her son explained and apologized.

  For days, she sat with the urn, clutching his ashes to her chest. She didn’t eat. She didn’t wash herself or change her clothes. Mary came in and forced her mother-in-law to take a bath. Something would have to be done, and Andrew called in help. Each time, Emily cooperated until the helpers left her alone, at which point she reverted to type.

  A friend of Mary’s was employed to force-feed Emily if necessary. This little woman, Eva Dawson, had more strength than her body advertised. She kept Emily clean, read the paper to her, gave her food and fluids, then went home to her own family. At weekends, Andrew, Mary or Joe took over.

  But one Sunday morning, bolts were on front and back doors. When his mother didn’t answer the bell or the knocking, Andrew ran home and phoned for real help. Mary sat on the stairs while he made the call. The police would find Emily dead, of that Mary felt quite sure.

  Real help arrived to a locked door and closed curtains. Real help broke in and discovered another body with another note, this time for Joe. All she asked was for her ashes to be mixed with Geoff ’s. She had written the method of her suicide on the same sheet; she had saved and swallowed all the tranquillizers. Toodles was in Andrew’s chaos room.

  ‘We could have stopped her,’ Andrew wailed.

  A doctor in attendance yelled, ‘A pulse. Faint, but a pulse.’

  There wasn’t time to travel to a hospital. Ambulance men carried in equipment, and Emily’s stomach was forcibly emptied on the spot. She was injected, prodded, wrapped in blankets, and fluid was dripped into a vein. ‘Hang on a bit longer,’ the doctor begged. ‘Just a few minutes, then we’ll take her in.’

  A sound like the death rattle emerged from Emily’s throat, but this was a life rattle, caused by a sudden, huge intake of breath. Andrew, weeping, sank to the floor.

  Mary sat down and hugged him. How was this to be managed? If Andrew’s mother required twenty-four-hour care, would she end up in a home filled by old people?

  ‘Two intended suicides,’ he wept.

  ‘She thought she couldn’t live without him.’

  Andrew dried his eyes. ‘And he didn’t want to be a burden. My father will be heartbroken, because he never stopped loving her. Where is he?’

  ‘Dock Road doing paperwork. You’d better go and get him. I’ll stay here with your poor cat.’

  ‘I can’t drive, Mary.’

  ‘OK. I’ll ask the police to go for him. I love you. I’ll look after you.’

  She would. As long as he had his Mary, Andrew would be all right.

  Fifteen

  It was a long, hard and unevenly paved road for all of them. Andrew visited repeatedly a shrunken, silent mother in a psychiatric facility that catered for all kinds of people wrecked by overwork, by society in general, or even by their own families. He talked to Emily in spite of the lack of response, steeling himself against screams and groans that travelled up corridors to invade all wards along the route. The place was a nightmare, yet she seemed settled. Well, she was quiet, and that was some improvement, because the sounds she had produced a couple of years earlier had been unearthly.

  His lovely, once-fragrant mother did not belong here. She was ageing, and he hated that. The application of pine disinfectant and polish did little to cover the smell of dried urine and overcooked vegetable matter. Even curtains that hung round beds were limp, lifeless and depressed. Staff wandered about clanking like Scrooge’s ghosts, great key chains hanging from their belts, as they had to unlock then lock every door as they made their way through an institution that contained some dangerous people.

  Emily Sanderson was not dangerous; she was simply uncommunicative. ‘We love you,’ he told her repeatedly. ‘You’re going to be a grandma very soon.’ But she remained in a state that was not quite catatonic, because she responded physically to commands from staff. Nevertheless, she made no effort to converse or to make eye contact. When touched, she flinched sharply and drew back. Mother had closed her shop and seemed to have no plans to reopen for business. Andrew, a doctor who knew many others from various disciplines, felt useless and guilty. This was his mother, and he should have been able to discover how to snap her out of the trance.

  ‘Move her,’ Mary suggested yet again when he got home. ‘Put her somewhere better, but for God’s sake shift her out of that graveyard. It’s just not a good pl
ace, and she should be elsewhere, somewhere cleaner and brighter with gardens and so forth.’

  ‘Where do I put her? She’s used to that dump and hates change.’

  ‘Move her to Elmswood, of course. They have a unit for people with mental or emotional problems. Between the two of you, it can be afforded, because I know Joe will chip in. Elmswood will try harder to get through to her. It’s quieter and has more staff. She’ll get used to it. It might be difficult at first, but she’d stand a better chance.’

  Andrew considered the suggestion. ‘Geoff was there. He hated the damned place. Remember how he stole money and buggered off home? He spent days in the Rodney Street house begging not to be sent back to prison.’

  ‘Will she remember that, though? Does she remember anything?’

  Again, he pondered. ‘Well, it’s hard to say, love. She goes to the dining table when told, swallows her medicines, gets to the bathroom several times a day, and there’s no perceivable brain damage. Her kidneys have sorted themselves out, thank God, because they could have been ruined, as could her liver, when she took the overdose. But she’s living behind a steel door. Somewhere deep in her brain, she’s refusing to see or hear those who’re close to her. And she loves me, Mary. I know she does. No matter what happened, she was always close to me.’

  Mary agreed. ‘We’re all on the wrong side of her barricade. Sometimes, the people closest to a person are the least suited to giving help. Perhaps she’s shut down in the area of all who knew Geoff. Who can say? Two years, though, Drew.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Oh well, I’ll go and finish cooking.’

  Andrew went into his study and had a word with George. Was talking to a skeleton symptomatic of mental illness? Perhaps he should book a room for himself in Elmswood, save everybody else the bother in a few years’ time. But no. Mary was thirty weeks pregnant and looked as if she had stayed the course this time, thank goodness. He had plenty to live for. ‘George, what the hell must I do? I’m all out of ideas, old chum.’

  It was 1968 and the world was changing fast. The trouble was that Mother was not changing, and several extended visits home had not improved her. She’d simply stopped working. Emily Sanderson had become a grey person who, with other grey people, lived a colourless life in a place tinted only by fear, panic, anxiety and depression. ‘And that’s just the staff,’ he mumbled before turning to his companion. ‘I bet they have to drink or take pills themselves just to get through a working day.’

  He walked back and forth for several seconds. ‘George? What shall I do?’ He thought of the grandparents who had bought George for him. ‘Mother doesn’t even know they’re dead,’ he told the arrangement of bones. ‘She doesn’t know how rich she is, how much they left me, because she doesn’t bloody listen. This mess is into its third year now. Come on, George, give me an idea of some sort, damn it, be some use for a change.’

  George, while a great thinker, was a man of few words, but he’d been an excellent teacher in his time. George’s pupil, one Andrew Sanderson, was teetering on the brink of consultancy, since he had a way with bones and connective tissue. Spines were his forte, so he worked in tandem with neurologists, and he loved the job. Twenty-eight and already established, Andrew looked forward to an exciting career. But Mother . . . ‘There has to be an answer. She’s a wonderful, intelligent woman under the surface.’

  He remembered being prepared to leap to her defence when he’d discovered Betsy and Dad, closed his eyes and ‘saw’ her in her apron bustling about in the dining room on Crompton Way, in the new kitchen on Mornington Road, where Thora Caldwell had entered her life like a tornado ripping through America. He remembered her love for Geoff, the trouble at the beginning, the way things had settled and become civilized.

  Thora. ‘Thank you, George. I knew you’d think of something.’ He walked to the door, tapping the skeleton on its skull as he passed. ‘Mary, darling? Are you busy?’

  ‘What, O sweetness and light of my life?’

  ‘Cut the sarcasm, Fatso. Will the food keep till tomorrow?’

  Mary joined him in the hall. ‘Why? And tell your dad to have another go at the newel post.’ She pointed to the elegant banister. ‘He missed a bit. I got a splinter in my thumb.’

  Andrew laughed, just as he often did when his lovely wife put in an appearance. Mary was short. With only ten weeks to go till labour day, she looked like a bouncy little elf.

  Her hands were placed on her hips. ‘Listen, buster. I know how I look. Even my best friend calls me Butterball or Lard-arse. But that’s Pam for you, and that husband of hers isn’t much better. However, I would expect some appreciation from my adoring husband and father of my baby. Pregnant women are hormonal and sensitive, you know.’

  ‘You’re a terrific cuddle. It’s like having my very own teddy bear in bed. Hot water bottle, too. You radiate heat. Oh yes, a very warm personality.’

  ‘What did you mean about keeping the food till tomorrow?’

  ‘Thora,’ he said.

  Mary parked herself on a monks’ bench. ‘Thora?’

  He nodded. ‘Our next door neighbour in Mornington Road. I’m going to phone her and ask her if we can go and fetch her here. My mother might just respond to her. She’s as thin as a threepenny stamp, but she’s noisy. And she owes us. We gave her our house. She’s gone posh. Thora gone posh is a power to contend with. She puts her h-aitches where there h-are none.’

  ‘Let me just . . .’ She struggled to stand. ‘Can your dad not do something about these floors? They’re not near enough to my feet.’ She returned to the kitchen to deal with food while Andrew phoned Thora. ‘We’re on,’ he shouted. ‘Come on, Pudding, lie on the floor, and I’ll roll you out to the car.’

  She was not amused. ‘Do you have plans to live to see this child? I might be short and inclined towards the spherical just now, but I still pack a fair punch, and I am not afraid of you.’

  He looked down at her. ‘I suppose you could reach my knees if you stood on tiptoe.’

  Mary glowered. ‘Mark my words, ear’ole. When you’re asleep, I can reach parts that don’t even have a medical name. You will feel excruciating pain, depend on it.’

  Andrew grinned. Mary stamped a small foot.

  He picked her up in his arms. This was a habit he had never tried to break, because it continued to be a message without words. He’d saved her from the Beatles’ mob, and he would protect her from all comers, no matter where or when. ‘I think I’m getting a hernia, sweetheart.’

  ‘Good.’ She gave him a sloppy kiss. ‘See, I’m small, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you’re huge, yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So your baby weighs about three stone, and that ain’t my fault. When this child invades an unsuspecting world, I’ll be like an empty balloon, all stretched and wrinkled. And you’re moaning about a flaming hernia. Where are we going?’

  ‘Bolton.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Thora. She may be going to the psychiatric unit to kick-start Mother.’

  ‘Jump leads?’

  ‘Probably.’ He deposited his precious burden in the car. ‘She’s as lean as a rake and more terrifying than the plague. Her husband died just to get away from her. One of her lads is Dad’s right hand man, and Thora’s recently retired from her job as an orderly at Bolton Royal. She hires herself out as a carer, and she’s a damned good nurse in spite of the lack of qualifications. We can get Mother home. Between her and your friend – what’s her name?’

  ‘Eva. Eva Dawson.’

  ‘Very similar type. They might just manage her.’

  Mary had her doubts, though she kept her counsel. Her Drew’s mother seemed to be drifting nearer and nearer to catatonia, but at least he was trying to find a solution. Emily needed to be moved; the place she was in, the ward to which she had been repeatedly returned after failed home visits, needed fumigating and possibly demolition. ‘Come on, lad. Let’s give it a go. Any port in a storm.’

&nbs
p; Thora was waiting for them. She had moved from next door after the death of her husband who, according to her, had been no use at all.

  ‘He fell off a roof,’ she replied when questioned about the reason for his demise. ‘In town. Brought half the guttering with him, but I refused to pay for it.’

  ‘Was this in the course of his work?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘Don’t talk so wet. He were trying to break into the Dog and Duck in the dark through a skylight, rolled off and broke his neck. He was h-inebriated at the time, so I suppose he didn’t feel much.’ She picked up a suitcase. ‘I h-offered his body to medical science, but they couldn’t take him anywhere near a place with Bunsen burners in it, being as he was ninety per cent alcohol, so I had to bury the bugger.’

  Mary managed, just about, not to burst out laughing.

  Thora continued. ‘Emily’s not getting over Dr Shaw? Ooh, when they told me mine had gone, I went for a pie and three pints. I would have thrown a party there and then, but I waited till after the funeral. Well, you have to, don’t you? We had a smashing do.’ She handed her case to Andrew and tied a scarf round rusty curls where silver threads had begun to show. ‘Three-course sit-down meal with a glass of sparkling wine thrown in. Red letter day, that were. No more sweaty socks and mucky h-underpants? Magic.’

  As they walked to the car, Thora motored on. ‘My eldest’s moving in here with wife and kids while I’m gone.’ She rattled on about weather, food prices, and her from number nine with piles. ‘A martyr, she is. I said to her, I said, “Bertha, put your name down for an operation,” but she’s scared. My, you’re looking bonny, lass. When are you due?’

  ‘Ten weeks,’ Mary managed to say in the midst of Thora’s barrage.

  Thora tutted. ‘How many have you got in there?’

  ‘Just the one.’

  ‘Hell’s bells on a Monday, it’ll be more like a launch than a birth. Have you got a bottle of champagne to smash on its bum? Is Princess Margaret coming?’

  Andrew glanced at his wife. ‘See? If anyone can bring Mother round, it’s Thora.’