‘More empty promises,’ he grunted. ‘I’ll go and make coffee for the workers.’
The girls repositioned the sofa and moved the television table an inch or two. ‘There we are.’ Linda clapped her hands. ‘Done, but not dusted. You can do that later. He’s looking well.’
‘I can hear you,’ Cal shouted. ‘My hearing wasn’t affected by the accident.’
‘Nor was his brain,’ Polly said loudly. ‘He’s still as daft as ever.’
Linda, suddenly exhausted, threw herself on the sofa. ‘I’ve brought the exercise instructions. They’re in the fruit bowl. The first time, I’ll partner you and perhaps Hattie will watch.’
‘What am I? The bloody cabaret?’ called the voice from the kitchen.
Polly marched to the connecting door. ‘Listen, they wouldn’t want you at the Rotunda on a wet Friday even if no other acts turned up. Your muscles have shrivelled up like Mother Bailey’s gob, and she’s older than God.’
‘She has a lot of worry, Pol.’
‘So she should, running a secret brothel everybody knows about. But your legs need building up, so you won’t be a star turn or even a Punch and Judy show. We need to strengthen muscle, hopefully without damaging nerves. But I’m telling you now, you are getting on my bloody nerves, so I’m going next door to look at Hattie’s cabbages, then you can do your worst with bubble and squeak.’
Alone for the first time ever, Cal and Linda sat at a small table, she on a conventional chair, he in his usual means of transport with the brake on. The bigger table, Mam’s best, had been given to Ida Pilkington, whose brother’s Alsatian bitch had chewed part of a leg off her Utility dining table. Balanced for months on Wuthering Heights and a child’s illustrated dictionary, it was now consigned to Dusty Den’s scrap and rag yard, and the Kennedy table took pride of place, a ten-year-old aspidistra acting as its centrepiece when no one was eating.
They both missed Polly. She was the buffer, the surface from which their light-hearted remarks were bounced. Embarrassment held them back when no one was with them.
‘You’ve a lovely sister,’ Linda said. ‘I really like your Polly.’
‘She keeps me going, and she’s a damned good worker.’
There followed a short, awkward silence. ‘I think you’ll walk, but you may need a caliper on that left leg.’
He agreed. ‘More feeling in the right one,’ he confessed, ‘though I have had some pain in the left. Wait and see, eh?’
The conversation was stilted, and there was very little eye contact.
‘You seem to have good neighbours,’ she said. ‘Helpful types.’
‘We’re blessed,’ he answered. ‘Ida Pilkington is newspapers, tobacco and sweets; Hattie Benson’s fruit, veg and all kinds of bits. Jimmy Nuttall does fish, tripe and cooked meats, Ernie Bradshaw’s a baker. Jack Fletcher, he’s a costermonger, and we’ve loads more, every one of them a diamond.’
‘I live in Waterloo,’ Linda said.
‘Posh?’
‘Not really. Mam needed a bungalow, because she lost her legs when Bootle was bombed.’
He put down his cup. ‘I’m sorry, love. Was that what made you become a nurse?’
Linda pondered for a moment. ‘I think I always fancied nursing. But I suppose with Mam being the way she is, I felt drawn to people with mobility problems. I’m sure you’ve noticed folk asking whoever’s pushing you whether you need something. Mam’s funny. She always tells people she’s there and she’s not daft, and orders them to talk to the organ grinder. She says any monkey can push a chair.’
‘I like the sound of her.’
‘Yes. She rather likes the sound of you. She’s talking about forming a union, the National Union of Disabled.’
Another silence ticked by. ‘You’ve talked about me?’
Linda nodded.
‘To your mother?’
‘Yes. She’d like to meet you. Your neck’s gone red.’ Polly was right – he did blush all the way down to his shoulders.
‘So has your face.’
They burst out laughing simultaneously. Like teenagers, they giggled and held hands in the centre of the table that separated them. It was the beginning of something, but neither understood what the something was. At last, they were trying to look at each other, and fingers tightened their grip slightly. Was this going to be love? Whatever it was, it remained young and needed nurturing gently so that it would get the chance to discover its own identity. Meanwhile, each enjoyed the stumbling company of the other, and life was worth living.
Hattie had hit the sherry. This didn’t happen often, and it was seldom a pretty event. Her specs were crooked, her hair was a mess, while her pinafore was definitely inside out and covered in debris from stock in the shop. ‘Come in. Sorry I’ve not cleaned up proper, but I’m a bit out of sorts, like.’
‘Hattie,’ Polly cried. ‘What’s happened?’ To drink a significant amount, Hattie had to be upset.
‘See,’ Hattie said, though the word arrived as ‘She’, ‘them teachers has said what they seen . . . what they saw. So everybody’s against him. He’s had it, Pol. E’cept for God being on little Billy’s side, Brennan could have ended up hunged.’ She hiccuped loudly. ‘Sorry ’bout that. I had tongue for me tea an’ it repeats. Yes, it repeats.’
‘You’re repeating now, Hattie. Don’t drink any more, love.’
‘I re . . . member you when you were a little kid. So you can’t tell me what to do, Polly. I’m forty . . . can’t remember . . . but I am, denny . . . deffy . . . dennifitely . . .’
‘Forty-three.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Must be past bedtime, then.’
‘Yes.’
‘And I wasn’t joking with him, no way. Put butter on his tie, I did. He never come back, did he? I told him to bugger off, and off he buggered-ed. He did. Cos I shown him I meant business. Oh, yes. Went off like a whipped dog, tail between his legs.’
‘Who did?’
Hattie tapped the side of her nose, though she almost missed her target. ‘That . . . at’s for me to know and you to . . . I said there’d be a gang waiting if he did bother coming back. Got a job down the Liver. In . . . surance. Bad man, Polly. Bad man.’ She emptied the glass in one huge gulp. ‘I think I feel a bit sick.’
Polly was at a loss. ‘Did your husband come back?’
Hattie screeched with drunken laughter. ‘Did he fu— Funny you should ask, but no, not him. If he come . . . came here, I’d stick a knife in his doodahs. Useless. He drinks, you know. Terrible trouble with ale an’ whisky.’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t stand them what drink.’
‘You probably can’t stand at all, Hattie. How much have you had?’
‘Is . . . it’s only sherry.’
‘Deadly stuff – that’s fortified wine. Sherry’s strengthened with brandy.’
Hattie blinked stupidly. ‘I don’t like brandy.’ Another few hiccups crashed upward from her diaphragm. ‘I hate brandy.’
‘You’re drinking it.’
‘Sherry.’
‘Has brandy in it, Hat. Let me make some tea.’ Polly walked to the cooker. By the time she returned, Hattie was snoring. Oh, the poor woman would wake with one hell of a hangover.
The visitor placed a clean glass and a jug of water on the table next to her inebriated neighbour. If Hattie woke with a thirst, that would have to do. After picking up the sherry bottle and pouring its meagre dregs into the sink, Polly went home. She had intended to leave Linda and Cal for longer, but sitting with a sleeping drunk wasn’t her idea of fun.
When she entered the living room, her brother was asleep in his newly positioned bed. Linda had gone. Never mind, she told herself. The evening had been different, at least. No hairdressing, just the shifting of furniture.
But who the heck was Hattie talking about? She’d got her knife into somebody, that was certain. And whoever it was had better keep his distance, because Hattle plus s
herry formed a lethal combination.
By the time Billy was released from hospital, the schools had closed for the long summer holidays. Friends visited and signed the plaster on his arm, but he didn’t seem interested. When questioned by his peers about the attack, he offered no answers. Small boys, always eager for excitement and colourful tales, gave up after a few days, and Billy was left alone. He didn’t seem to notice the lack of visitors, didn’t appear to care.
The nights remained terrible. For Mavis, it was like having her newborn baby back, since Billy slept now only during the hours of daylight. His bed was brought downstairs, and Mavis rested on the sofa between screaming fits. For once in her life, she was glad that her older children had left home.
Fred, a bus driver, needed to be alert for work, so he remained in the marital bed with cotton wool in his ears while Mavis shouldered the bigger burden. She, too, had to take naps during the day, so meals were thrown together and housework suffered. The poor lad had to get through this.
A district nurse called daily. Dissatisfied with the child’s emotional health, she sent in a psychologist, who insisted on seeing Billy alone. ‘No distractions, no inhibitions,’ he whispered to the child’s mother. Mavis went to sit in the parlour. This room was used only for visitors and at Christmas, so it advertised the fact by smelling empty. It was stale, unwelcoming and damp even in warmer weather. She had better start opening the window in summer and lighting a small fire in winter months. Would Billy get well? Had a bang on the head sent him mental?
‘Billy? I’m Dr Shaw, but you may call me Dr Pest.’
Billy looked the intruder up and down. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’m a pest.’
‘So am I.’
‘All right, then. We have much in common, you and I. I’m Pest Senior, and you’re Pest Junior. I’m the good-dream doctor.’
Billy’s mouth twitched. ‘Bad dreams,’ he said. ‘I get bad ones.’
‘I deal with those,’ the doctor said. ‘Nurse Jenkins told me you were tormented. So I’ve brought a trap. Not for mice, you understand, but for nightmares.’ He lowered his tone. ‘Don’t lend it to anyone, especially grown-ups. It doesn’t always work for them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they stop believing in magic. Now, you’ll be one of only three children in Liverpool to have a trap. And if you wake up screaming, blow the bad dream up towards the feathers. Make the feathers move by blowing hard.’
‘Is it a bird?’
‘No. Did you want a bird?’
‘I want a dog, but not a big black one.’
‘I didn’t bring one of those, sorry. Now, take me through your terrible dream. Speak through the middle of the trap. It was made by native Americans. Even the adults believe in magic over there.’ He took the dream-catcher from his bag.
Billy gasped. ‘Spider’s web,’ he said. It was a huge circle with smaller circles dangling from it. Each circle, big or small, was filled with intricate, open threadwork. Tiny mirrors and feathers completed the piece.
‘No bird was killed, Billy. These feathers were shed naturally and collected by the people who made this for you. Right. Tell the dream through the biggest hole in the biggest ring.’
Billy gave his nightly torture to the open centre of the largest hoop. Feathers moved as he spoke, while tiny, weightless mirrors shivered and turned whenever the doctor’s hand moved. And it moved regularly while the boy told his nightmare. But doctors shouldn’t weep or get angry, so the man fought his feelings and tried to remain outwardly unaffected.
‘So that’s why I don’t want a big black dog,’ Billy concluded.
Dr Shaw nodded. ‘I can understand that, son. Now, you may have to do some blowing. Bad dreams sometimes need help to disappear completely through the big hole, and blown feathers quicken the process. The smaller gaps hold your good dreams in the webbing and save them up. Right, get comfortable and stare into the dream-catcher.’
Billy was an easy target. Within seconds, his eyes closed; all he could hear was the soft voice of a kind man. The black dog was not a threat; it was a rescue animal. The bad, breathless man in black was locked up and would never again be seen in these parts. School and church were good places filled by good people.
‘And when I count to three, you will wake and feel happy. You have a lovely mother. Look after her. One, two, three.’
Billy woke. ‘Did I fall asleep?’
‘Not quite. Life will get better for you, I promise. If you need me again, I’ll come back; we pests should stick together. Ask your dad to hang the dream-catcher on a string over your head. Good lad. Bye for now.’
The doctor joined Mavis in the parlour. ‘Well, you can be proud of him, Mrs Blunt – he’s a brave little soldier.’ He explained about the dream-catcher and the myth attached to it. ‘It must be hung over his head so that he can blow the feathers, but not near enough to touch him. I hypnotized him for a very short time. Now, it’s a case of crossed fingers for all of us. Please tell the nurse everything that happens, and she’ll pass it on to me. I’ll show myself out.’
The anxious mother returned to the bedside of her little afterthought, born fifteen years after the last of the older ones. He was holding the dream-catcher and blowing on the feathers. ‘Look, Mam. It was made by a Red Indian just for me. It helps to stop the bad dreams and saves the good ones.’
‘Ooh, that sounds clever. Would you like something to eat?’
‘I want a dog.’
Mavis bit her lip. ‘With chips?’
‘No. With a collar and lead and a bed and his own dish.’
‘Ooooh.’ She folded her arms. ‘We’ll have to ask your dad, love. They need walks on grass, and we haven’t got grass yet. We might have grass when we move.’
Billy thought about that. He didn’t want to move. Living on Dryden Street meant he could fall out of bed and into church or school within five minutes, because St Anthony’s was on the corner. ‘Do we have to move?’
‘Yes, love. The houses are being pulled down before they fall down.’
Then he asked the question that had fallen from the lips of thousands of adults. ‘Why can’t they build new ones here?’
She didn’t go into details about the Home Office wanting rid of Catholics because Catholics did the loot in 1919. It was only a rumour, anyway, and possibly slanderous. ‘They want roads, not houses, Billy. They want big, wide roads with nobody living on them.’
‘That’s daft,’ Billy said.
Mavis’s heart fluttered hopefully. It looked like it was time to send for Cal Kennedy, because Billy loved him. In fact, most kids responded well to Cal. Perhaps that was because he lived in a chair and was nearer to their level in height. Was her special boy on his way back?
‘I can get me dad’s bus with a dog,’ he said. ‘He can drop me off at a park, then pick me up on his way back. It’ll have to be a little dog. And I can walk to Everton Park; it’s not that far.’
‘I’ll ask your dad.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
He smiled. Whenever he was ill, he got some of his own way. ‘I’ll have toast and jam, please.’
Mavis, once she reached the kitchen, forgot that she was no longer a Catholic and blessed herself at the sink. This was the first time Billy had demanded anything. ‘Please, God, give me back my son. Holy Mother, intercede for me,’ she whispered. Toast. Doorsteps, of course. Billy was getting better.
The cafe was unusually quiet. Lunch was cottage pie (scouse, with a covering of mashed potato), meat and tater pie (scouse under pastry), scouse with red cabbage and beetroot, or a choice of new offerings of chicken pie or paella. Cal had been reading again, and he’d got hold of prawns and chicken at cost from Jimmy Nuttall. ‘They’re not saying much out there,’ he said to his sister. ‘They don’t like change, do they?’
Polly pushed damp curls off her forehead. ‘Ah well, maybe some do. Them that had your paella want more, and there is none, and them that didn
’t try it want to, but it’s all gone, because you didn’t make enough. I told them you were testing, and you’ll make more next week. You, brother, are a cook. No, you’re a chef. I’ll go down town later and get you some cookery books before my girls arrive for their hair doing. Brilliant first try, Cal.’
He beamed. He had a lovely girlfriend, a great sister, and he was a chef who was learning to walk.
Someone tapped on the open door between cafe and living room.
Polly turned and left the kitchen. It was Hattie. From the cafe, whispers arrived. ‘She’s gone in’ and ‘She’s going to tell her’.
‘Polly?’
‘What?’
‘Can I come in?’
‘For a minute, yes, but I’ve stuff to do.’
Hattie perched on the edge of a dining chair. ‘The sherry,’ she began. ‘I had to have a drink to wipe his face out. See, Ida had gone and hid him in her back bedroom, but I told her not to say nothing. Then I put butter on his tie and got rid of him. But I’m not rid in my head; I keep seeing the bugger.’
‘With butter on his tie?’ Polly asked.
‘Yes, and a few fleas in his ears. I told him to piss off and off he pissed.’
‘You said as much when I visited you. You were very drunk.’
‘But he’s real, Pol. He never came back up here, like, after that first morning when I seen him, but he’s in town working at the Liver in insurance or some such job. I’m the only one with the guts to tell you.’
Polly sat down abruptly. ‘You mean Greg, don’t you?’
Hattie nodded. She pushed a piece of paper towards Polly. On it were written the words Lois is back, too. They went to London together and came back together, but they’re not together like boyfriend and girlfriend. This is wrote down so I don’t upset Cal.
‘Do you know where he’s staying?’ Polly asked, her voice weaker than usual.
‘No idea at all, queen. Ida’s first thought was to drag him in and hide him – you know how you are when you’ve just had a shock. Then she told me, and I sorted him out, but of course, she went and told everybody. You know how she is.’ She mouthed the rest. ‘Only yesterday, I seen Lois walking past the piano shop, and I put two and two together, cos he’d already said to Ida that they travelled to London together, but not like boyfriend and girlfriend. Looks like they come back together, too.’
A Mersey Mile Page 14