Friends and Lovers

by June Francis

  Nick stared at her. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Damn!’ she said, and scrubbed at tear-filled eyes. ‘I don’t know what I’m getting all worked up about.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re upset because George has gone?’ suggested Nick, taking a handkerchief from a pocket.

  ‘No! Yes!’ Viv shook her head and a small laugh escaped her. ‘I’m more upset about my mother turning up.’

  Nick took hold of her chin. ‘Keep still. You’ve messed up your mascara. You look like a panda that’s been rained on.’

  She stood motionless while he wiped her eyes, very aware of the strength in the fingers holding her chin.

  ‘I take it she’s come because of your grandfather’s death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A natural thing to do, wouldn’t you say? Especially if she’s just been widowed. She’s probably lonely. I take it there were no children of that marriage?’ Viv shook her head.

  Nick kissed the tip of her nose and smiled. ‘My gran always said that death is a time when you look at life and wonder what it’s all about. You think of what’s gone before, and look at yourself, and ask: What now? Where do I go next?’ He started to walk again and she had to quicken her natural pace to keep up with him.

  ‘You think my mother has regrets about leaving me?’ The thought made her feel churned up again but she did not let her emotions run away with her this time.

  ‘Surely she must have?’

  ‘She never showed it.’ Viv’s voice hardened. ‘She was selfish, Nick. You remember her but you only saw the image she promoted to outsiders. Inside the family she was different. She could be charming, I’ll give you that. And she’s still glam. But if you’re asking me to believe she’s changed and become all loving and caring … well, I don’t believe it, and I’m off to America as soon as I can!’

  ‘I see. No second chance for your mother.’

  Viv stared at him with an uncertain expression. ‘I take it you gave your mother a second chance? But she was always there for you, Nick. You can’t possibly understand the way a mother mixes up a girl’s emotions.’

  He stopped and seized her upper arms with an unexpected, violent movement. ‘Why is it your sex thinks they’re the only ones who have trouble with their emotions? I tell you, Viv, there isn’t anything you can tell me about mothers who turn your feelings inside out! Who drive you up the wall – who cause you so much shame that your insides feel so knotted up that you have to do something or you’ll go crazy!’ He smiled grimly. ‘I busted a hundred prefab windows once because I felt so bad about what my mother was but it didn’t do me any good. I still felt angry and wanted to hurt her. I did some stupid, crazy things.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ stammered Viv. ‘It was a stupid thing for me to say.’

  His voice quietened. ‘I was sixteen when I finally lashed out at her and told her exactly what I thought of her. She broke her heart crying and kept saying she was sorry and that she wished a bomb had fallen on her in the war. It made my blood run cold because we’d both seen what a bomb could to do a body. Then she told me about my father. How she had been sixteen when he got her pregnant. He wanted her to have a back street abortion but she refused. So he married her but never forgave her for trapping him, as he called it.’ Nick paused and his grip on her arms slackened. ‘But you’re right about one thing, Viv, she was always there for us – except for the time when Dad took us away from her. Eventually he rejoined the army and allowed us to live with Gran. Mam had met someone else by then and had a couple more kids. Even so she came to see us. Then the bloke went off and Gran got ill so Mam and the kids moved in with us and she looked after Gran till she died. Then we were back together and it was like that until Mavis married and emigrated to America and I did National Service.’ His hands dropped away.

  Viv rubbed her arms, thinking that she would have bruises there in the morning and trying not to show how affected she had been by his story. She cleared her throat. ‘So you gave your mother a second chance and you feel OK about what she did now?’

  ‘I’ll never feel OK about that. And there’ve been other men while I’ve been away though they never lasted long. Now I’m back, Mam looks to me for financial help and to act as the man in the house to my half-brother and half-sister.’ He added lightly, ‘I happen to care about them.’

  There was a silence which stretched. He had given Viv plenty to think about but it would have to wait. They had reached a narrow street made up of tall, blackened buildings. Mathew Street was just one such street of fruit warehouses existing not far from Liverpool’s own Covent Garden where vegetable, fruit and flower traders set up in Queen Square behind St John’s Market. The Cavern was a jazz club there which could only be reached by descending a flight of damp stairs into cellars which were dank, smoky, smelly and crowded. They had arrived a little late.

  Nick produced a membership card for the man sitting at a table by the door and somehow he and Viv managed to squeeze their way in. The sound of a clarinet welcomed them, filling the cellars with noise. The place would have sent a claustrophobic mad.

  Viv knew little about jazz and blues but was prepared to listen to the music and think about what it was trying to say. ‘Stranger on the Shore’ always sent a quiver through her because the sound of the clarinet was so hauntingly evocative of the vastness of the sea and how small it made a person feel. Even so skiffle and folk music had been more to her taste before rock’n’roll had started to beat its way into the feet of the youth of Merseyside. She thought of music and the part it played in Liverpudlians’ lives. Maybe it was because their city was a port situated within easy reach of America and the islands of the Caribbean, Ireland and Wales. So many people getting off boats or crossing borders went no further, and they brought with them the songs and rhythms of their own land. The Irish pennywhistle and fiddle could be heard in clubs, pubs and houses as could the sound of calypso, a Welsh tenor, folk songs, and sea shanties sung by sailors for generations. Most of them spoke to the heart and the spirit but did not satisfy the teenager’s need to let off steam.

  But live music was something else and it seemed to Viv that it was still echoing inside her head when she and Nick left the club. People vanished in different directions, some in search of alcohol at the nearby pub called The Vine because only soft drinks were served in the Cavern.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ asked Nick, gazing down at her as she shivered slightly in the cold air.

  ‘Starving,’ she said. ‘I had no thought for food with Mam turning up.’

  ‘Do you fancy a visit to Chinatown?’

  ‘It sounds OK to me.’ She slipped an arm through his as they began to walk and added in a warm voice. ‘I’ve never gone for jazz that much but I enjoyed the music when I really listened to it, and it made me think that perhaps I should give Mam a second chance. Aunt Flo’s in favour of a family Christmas in California. It wouldn’t be so bad sharing a house with Mam if there wasn’t just the two of us on our own – and I can ask Aunt Flo about my father.’

  ‘What do you mean, ask your aunt about your father?’ Nick’s voice was unexpectedly sharp and she felt the muscle in his arm tense beneath her fingers.

  ‘Ask her does she know who he is. Mam won’t tell me. She got all uppity when I asked her,’ explained Viv. ‘She as good as said she didn’t know who he was, but she was lying because she told me he was dead years ago … but then she could have been lying about that then, I suppose.’ She glanced up at him. ‘Can you understand now, Nick, how difficult I find living with her? I never know where I am. She says and does things to suit herself, never mind whether it’s right or wrong. And she wants me as a blinking skivvy. She treated Aunt Flo and me like slaves in the old days.’

  ‘Maybe she’s changed? You ought to listen to her, Viv. Give her a chance. Only by doing that will you get rid of that chip on your shoulder.’

  ‘I haven’t got a chip,’ she said unconvincingly.

  His smiling eyes met hers. ‘Do the impossible,
love. Our Mavis never could forgive Mam. They don’t even write. I get the letters. It was me who knew first that she’s having a baby. That news should have been for her mother.’

  Viv murmured, ‘You’re too good, Nick.’

  He scowled. ‘Like hell I am!’

  ‘I can’t forgive my mother like you did.’

  ‘Would you forgive your father?’

  The words took her by surprise. ‘Forgive him what?’

  ‘Forgive him for doing the same thing as you accuse your mother of … deserting you. You see your father as some kind of hero because he was probably killed in battle, but what if he’s still alive? As for your mother, you see her as a scarlet woman just because she couldn’t cope with you on her own.’

  She flushed. ‘I don’t see them as anything of the sort!’

  ‘Don’t you? Have you ever thought that she might have thrown herself into having a good time to forget? That she couldn’t bear you near her after he had gone because you reminded her of him too much?’

  ‘You’re defending her again!’ Viv’s voice rose angrily. ‘Perhaps you still fancy her? There are men who like older women.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ He added softly, ‘When I first saw you I thought, I like this one. She’s got something. I still think that. Now shall we forget about your mother and mine and think of us? Tell me what you do for a living.’

  Viv stared at him, her emotions in a turmoil. ‘Just like that?’ she said.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said quietly. ‘All about yourself.’

  ‘There’s not much to tell,’ she muttered. Even so, as they began to walk up Bold Street she told him how she had taken the first job the Employment had sent her to when she left school because she had needed the money. She worked in the Racing Department of Littlewood’s, the pools firm, working out the odds. She had been reasonably content there because she liked the girls she worked with and one of them, Dot, had become her closest friend. At this time of year, though, they weren’t very busy. The flat season was over and it was all national hunt race meetings. ‘I’m not much of a gambler myself,’ she said ruefully. ‘And now that Grandfather’s dead I’ve been thinking about looking for something else. What do you do, Nick?’

  They had neared the delicately carved stone structure of the bombed St Luke’s church at the top of Bold Street and he paused to look at it. ‘I’m an architect. I finished my training before doing National Service. Look at the craftsmanship in this, Viv.’

  ‘It’s lovely.’ She tried to hide her surprise at his answer. Working-class lads didn’t often become architects. ‘I have my lunch in the grounds sometimes in summer,’ she added. Inside the shell of the building trees and grass had taken over from pews and pulpit and ivy had sent tendrils curling around empty window frames.

  ‘Lucky you,’ said Nick, smiling. ‘And talking of food, we’ll be there soon.’

  They approached an area Viv did not know. It was brightly, almost garishly, lit by a string of restaurants.

  Nick led her inside one of the smaller ones where paper lanterns hung from the ceiling and willowy oriental figures stared inscrutably from niches in the crimson and cream fabric-covered walls. Liverpool had the oldest Chinese community in Europe but Viv had never tasted Chinese food before.

  She liked it, and by the time she had finished crispy Peking duck and illicitly drunk three glasses of white wine she decided that she did not want to go home and face her mother. ‘Where else can we go?’ she asked over coffee, not wanting to believe how late it might be or how the drink had gone to her head.

  ‘Quiet or noisy?’ murmured Nick, kissing her fingertips.

  She giggled. ‘Quiet, after all that jazz.’

  ‘The local graveyard?’ He smiled and she believed that he was joking. ‘It’s the nearest anywhere of quiet distinction you can get,’ he added blandly.

  ‘Take me,’ she ordered, thinking she would have something to tell Dot when next she saw her.

  The way was steep and the wind from the River Mersey whipped under Viv’s coat, up her legs and beneath the swaying hooped underskirt, chilling the bare skin between stocking top and knickers. She was half frozen but was not going to admit it as he gazed up at the Anglican cathedral on St James Mount, looming above them in all its pseudo-Gothic glory. She should have guessed. She knew it well. Had been confirmed within its walls. ‘You’re crazy wanting to come here at this time of night,’ she said, shaking her head.

  Nick put an arm round her and said, ‘I love this building.’ His tone was reverent. ‘It was designed by a Roman Catholic, Gilbert Scott, when he was only twenty-one. The foundation stone was laid in 1904 and it’s still not finished. It was bombed during the war but the work goes on. A job for life for some of the stonemasons, Viv. If I could design anything half as exciting …’ He paused, shrugged, and she felt his change of mood. ‘You couldn’t get a job like this today. Now it’s not beauty of form or outline that’s important. Now we’ve got to give the ordinary people what they want and money’s short and we’ve got to build quick. And it’s drains! Bathrooms! Bigger kitchens with wide windows! That’s what housewives want.’

  Viv agreed but added, ‘You’re not responsible for those tower blocks going up, are you? They’re ugly and so high!’ She did not like heights.

  ‘No, I’m not.’ He smiled grimly. ‘At the moment I’m working on specifications for a school. But lots of people live in skyscrapers in America. It seems to work there so why not here? It saves on land.’ Once again he looked up at the cathedral. ‘They didn’t worry about that in the old days so much.’ He hugged her to him. ‘Now come and look at the graveyard.’

  He led her round the building until they could see far below them a large elongated pit. There were mossy gravestones half concealed. Trees rattled twiggy fingers. Instinctively she snuggled closer to him. Both his arms went round her. ‘There’s a spring down there somewhere,’ he whispered against her cold ear. ‘It’s supposed to have magical properties.’

  ‘Perhaps it could turn you into a frog?’ she said with a quiver in her voice.

  ‘Or you into a princess.’

  ‘Now you’re being fanciful.’ Her heartbeat, which had slowed down after the climb, had quickened again.

  He kissed her ear and she thought what she wanted was respect from a man. A white frock on her wedding day that would really mean something. He licked the curve of her jaw.

  ‘You’re tickling,’ she whispered.

  ‘Well, look at me then.’

  She looked at him and he kissed her, gently at first, then deeply as if he wanted to draw her inside out. She experienced such an upsurge of sensuality that it shocked her. She opened her eyes and attempted to disengage herself but although his grip slackened he did not release her. ‘It’s a beautiful night,’ he said.

  She looked up at the sky. It was beautiful. The wind was tearing the clouds apart and pale silver light spilt from the moon, lighting up the gravestones below and glistening on hoar-frosted grass. ‘Don’t say it,’ she responded as calmly as she could. ‘It’s a night made for love.’

  His lips twitched. ‘I won’t say it.’ He pushed back the kiss curls from her forehead and pressed his lips against her eyelids. His fingers wandered down her cheek, stroked her neck. She caught hold of them before they reached her breast.

  ‘I don’t trust you, Nick Bryce,’ she said with a hint of breathlessness.

  ‘You can.’ His eyes teased her and he pulled her arm around his waist. ‘We only do what you want.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ she said.

  He sighed. ‘I knew you’d lie.’

  Viv protested but he silenced her with another kiss, and another. Despite, or because of, their effect on her, she pushed him away in the end. ‘Time to go home.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘I think it is.’ And pulling her hand through his arm, he led her down the hill. It was when she was halfway down that she remembered her mother.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  H
ilda woke as the strains of ‘This Old House’ died away. The voyage had been tiring. She yawned, switched off the wireless and stood listening to the silence. She had been born here. A grim smile played round her painted lips. A long time before those two wildcats. The cheek of George answering her back, and the way Viv had stood up to her! She remembered how, when Viv had been a child, she had tried to put down her own mother by ignoring her after she had been away for a year or so. It had made Hilda feel two inches tall but she had not let it show. It had been bad enough knowing that she had allowed her sister to fill her place in Viv’s affections. And now – what chance had she of regaining that affection? She grimaced. Kids these days had no respect …

  Kids? No! That was where she had made her mistake. Viv was a young woman and George a man. She had got the shock of her life when he had stood and faced her. She wondered how her sister would feel if she saw him now. Despite her marrying Mike the sight of him would surely bring back memories of Tom, her first husband, and how it had been in the thirties when they were all so young.

  There had been times when Hilda had been so jealous and resentful of Flo that she could cheerfully have strangled her, but nearly dying a few weeks ago had given her pause for thought and she had realised in hospital just how important family was and had become aware of the need to sort out a few things. As soon as she had got out she had headed straight for her sister’s home.

  For a moment she thought of how happy Flora and Mike were and how envious she had felt. She had done the right thing leaving them, of course she had. Resisting the urge to flirt with Mike would have been a strain on her newfound resolution to turn over a new leaf. But she had banked on Viv being pleased to see her.

  What had happened to her coffee? Where was Viv? Good Lord, she should never have said that about her father being no good. A lie would have been better. She had intended telling the truth one day. The whole truth, so help me God truth, but it was so hard! And the little devil that seemed to ride on her shoulder instead of the guardian angel that Naomi Ruth had talked of, had caused her to protect her own interests. The whole truth would have done her no good at all.