The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘You are.’

  ‘I’m doing my bloody best, madam. No one can do better than his best.’

  Lucy’s eyes filled with tears, but she continued to laugh. Only David would take the trouble to build a ramp that would be needed for just a few days. Only David would roll out a long wooden track to make the pushing of a wheelchair over lawn easier for both pusher and pushee. He was vague, brilliant, talented and daft. But mainly, he was almost selfless, because he saw a need and did his utmost to fill it.

  ‘Louisa? Say what you have to say. I need to get on with this.’

  ‘I told Moira I’m going to marry you.’

  His mouth twitched. He sniffed, nodded, and resumed the hammering.

  ‘David!’

  ‘What?’ He stopped banging. ‘Bloody what?’

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  He nodded again while hammering home another nail.

  She turned to go back inside, and he leapt to his feet. ‘When did you decide?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, about forty years ago.’

  ‘OK. Thanks for letting me know.’

  Inside, Lucy stood near the window and watched him. He was having fun with hammer and nails. He was laughing. After a few seconds, he pulled out a disgraceful handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He was hers.

  Moira fell asleep on the sofa. David, who had finished his ramp, led the woman he loved outside. ‘To the woods?’ he asked. ‘Remember how it was all those years ago?’

  Lucy remembered. ‘To the woods’ had been her sister’s war cry, delivered with monotonous frequency throughout the long, hot summers of childhood school holidays. Diane’s idea of hide and seek had been eccentric, since the rules had changed daily, and Lucy had never quite managed to keep up. David had experienced some difficulty, though he had always managed not to care. ‘You collected creepy-crawlies,’ she said. ‘In matchboxes and old tins.’

  ‘I did. Especially those that had committed insecticide. I was looking at ways of preserving the dead, but my chemistry set seemed to dissolve everything, which was a source of great annoyance. I love you.’

  ‘I know. You loved spiders, too.’

  ‘Useful creatures, arachnids. They dispose of flies. Why did you tell her before you told me?’

  Lucy loved these mixed-up conversations. As owner of a butterfly mind, she understood his quickness of thought only too well. Something came into his head, and he dealt with it immediately. ‘I was afraid that she might still want to bequeath Richard to me. So I hid behind you. Let’s face it, you’re tall enough.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But I intended to marry you anyway. After my divorce, naturally.’

  ‘And if I’d said no?’

  They stopped walking. Standing at the edge of Diane’s forest, she took his face in her hands and kissed him. ‘I feel close enough to read your mind. I knew you wouldn’t refuse me.’

  ‘You can manage me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We shall see about that,’ he said. ‘There are more cards up my sleeve than you’d find in three packs, plus jokers. You won’t manage me, Louisa Buckley. We shall be equal partners in the crime named marriage. However, as pointed out by the eminent Jeffrey Archer, some are more equal than others.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I am stubborn enough to train you in the arts of wifedom. I shall undo the kitchen chains when I come in from work and, after our meal, I shall fasten you upstairs. It will not be an easy life for you, slave.’

  Lucy laughed. She could not think of the past quarter-century as wasted time, as she had been endowed with three wonderful children, but how she longed to be settled with this precious man. From the pocket of her trousers, she took her mobile phone. ‘Interesting messages today,’ she said. ‘About love and stealing moments – shall I read them out? Some are rather risqué – body parts and so forth …’

  ‘Why bother? I sent them.’

  ‘I thought we needed more than stolen moments.’

  He stopped and stared hard at her. ‘My condition has deteriorated of late. There’s little hope of recovery, and no remedial treatment, because at this point I’d probably sell my soul for five minutes with you. And you know that. So why don’t you shut up for once?’ No longer nervous or hesitant, he kissed her and held her firmly.

  Lucy relaxed and allowed herself to fall into the moment. He was strong, gentle and in charge. She knew with blinding certainty that he would never hurt her physically or emotionally, that she must never hurt him. They were both vulnerable, both damaged and needful. ‘Where have you been?’ she cried when he released her. ‘Where the hell have you been, little David Vincent, with your spiders and your woodlice?’

  ‘Alone and in grief,’ he answered. ‘But now I’ve come home.’

  ‘So have I.’ She pulled herself together and dried her eyes. ‘Right, come on. I have to go to the house for more blankets – I don’t want Moira to be cold in the night. We need to be quick, as I’d like her not to wake alone in a place she doesn’t know well.’

  ‘And I don’t want to sleep alone,’ he grumbled.

  She looked him up and down. He had come a long way in recent weeks. ‘When we get round to exchanging contracts – me, you and caveat emptor – you won’t sleep at all. You’ll be very much awake, sunshine. Unless I decide to spike your cocoa.’ She stalked off ahead of him.

  David chuckled. He seemed to be engaged to an extremely lively woman, but she wasn’t going to win every battle. Four decades, he had known her. The in-between years didn’t count, because he and Louisa had never completely lost each other. He closed his eyes and remembered a very tall girl holding the hand of an undersized boy. She had stood between him and bigger lads, had known even then where and how hard to kick the bullies to make them collapse.

  He followed her to Tallows. The same female who had dealt with the rough and ready had been stayed by motherhood. Only her offspring had stood between her and Alan. Had she been childless, the killer blow would have been delivered much earlier, and with compound interest. And now she had tracked him down. David grinned. God help the man, because he’d probably finish up filleted, roasted, and served up with an apple in his gob.

  She was calling to him. He picked up speed and joined her at the door to the laundry room, which was open. ‘Has anyone been here? From the charity?’ she asked.

  ‘Just me,’ he answered. ‘And I brought my own tools to make the ramp. I haven’t been inside for days – not since I showed the last lot of committee round.’ He examined the lock. ‘It’s not a breakin.’ Perhaps her husband was inside. ‘Stay here,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll go in.’

  But she followed him. In the kitchen, the central table was scattered with the remnants of a meal, and Lucy recognized a scarf flung over the back of a chair. ‘Elizabeth’s here,’ she said happily. ‘She could fill the Albert Hall with her clutter. I’ll go and find her – she may not be decent.’

  ‘She was hardly that the last time I saw her, Louisa. Theatre in the Park? She wore very little, but she wore it well. You could take some tips from her – she’s you all over again.’

  ‘David? Do you want me to walk round half naked?’

  ‘Sometimes. And with an audience of only one.’

  She tutted, wagged a finger and left him to his own devices.

  Ten minutes later, she returned to the kitchen.

  ‘Louisa?’ He could see immediately that all was far from well. He got up from his chair, and led her to it. ‘Water?’ he asked when she was seated. ‘Or something stronger?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’ She cleared her throat and breathed deeply. ‘Get Moira. Bring her here. Please. I can’t say anything until she’s here.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Please, David. Trust me. Just do as I ask.’

  He left the house.

  Lucy sat alone in a kitchen where she had toiled for years to feed her family. But she didn’t see the dressers, the freezer, her much-loved Aga, failed to notice the lovely Belfast
sink she’d had installed last year. Because a picture was printed on the front of her mind, a vision of beauty so perfect that it would have been difficult to describe in mere words. No, it had been a sculpture rather than a painting, something dimensional and recognizable – not one of those great, ugly lumps of stone with two heads and a hole in its belly.

  She lowered her eyelids and, in her mind, opened the door to Lizzie’s bedroom again. They were nude and intertwined, limbs threaded loosely through limbs, heads together on a white pillow, her hair spread across fairly good Egyptian cotton, his paler curls masking half her face. Fast asleep, they seemed to breathe in unison, and didn’t stir when the door opened. Lizzie. How often she had explained about her virginity, how loudly she had proclaimed her status! And now she had given herself away to Moira’s son.

  But that wasn’t all. Lizzie’s hand, weighed down by one of his arms, rested loosely on the tanned skin of his back. Curled like some exotic flower, it gave out splinters of light, prisms bouncing from a raindrop on a petal. Almost as naked as the day of her birth, Elizabeth Turner wore just two items. In white gold or platinum, a solitaire diamond nestled against a plain circle of similar metal. They were married. Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie …

  Lucy closed the door and opened her eyes. Simon was a decent man. But Lizzie’s chosen path promised to be fractured and unsettled … ‘Now I know how my parents felt,’ she told the empty room. But no, that wasn’t the case, because Simon Turner was not Alan Henshaw. It had been so quick, though. They had known each other for just a few weeks – love at first sight? Would Moira be upset, would Richard rant and rage?

  At last, David returned. He entered the house backwards, lifting Moira’s wheelchair carefully over the step. As they came through from the laundry, Lucy smiled hesitantly at her next door neighbour. She would probably deal with the news; her husband was a different fish kettle altogether.

  ‘Have you got a ghost?’ Moira asked cheerfully while David wheeled her in. ‘I’ve always wanted to be in a haunted house. Are you haunted?’

  ‘No. But there’s been a development.’

  Moira looked round. ‘Lovely kitchen. When did you have it un-fitted?’

  ‘Last year.’ Lucy glanced at David. ‘I apologize for throwing you out earlier, but I must tell Moira first. No – stay. She had to be here, but you’ll hear about it soon enough, so it might as well be now.’

  ‘What?’ Moira stared hard at Lucy. ‘He said you were as white as a sheet. You frightened the poor man.’

  Lucy squatted in front of the wheelchair and took Moira’s hands in hers. ‘Right. Simon and Lucy are upstairs in bed. Together.’

  Moira remained quiet for several seconds. ‘Randy little sod,’ she declared eventually. ‘Sorry.’

  Lucy inhaled deeply. ‘She’s wearing a wedding ring. And a rather decent little diamond. They must have booked the registry or wherever practically as soon as they met. I suppose they realized we’d all say it was too early, too quick, so they kept us in the dark.’

  Because of her condition, it was quite normal for Moira to tremble and shake in the face of shock. But not one muscle moved involuntarily. With a hand to her mouth, she looked into Lucy’s eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have called him a randy little sod,’ she said quietly. ‘He told me. Not about marriage, but he spoke endlessly on the subject of your daughter. Eliza, he calls her, as he believes she’d be perfect in Pygmalion. I warned him. “You’ll be courting a minstrel,” I said, “and heaven only knows what’s in front of her – even Hollywood, God forbid.” He adores her, Lucy.’

  Lucy bowed her head. ‘I’m not angry,’ she said. ‘It’s always been difficult to lose my rag with Lizzie, even though she turns my house into a Steptoe and Son yard. But I’m hurt. She’s always been so open with me.’

  David pulled Lucy into a standing position, folding her in his arms where she rested for a while. ‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘Sometimes, young love is so overpowering that it eats away at reason. Their decision to present you with a fait accompli is understandable, because they’re both of age and they might just as well take all the flak in one sitting. We’re going back to the summerhouse. I won’t take no for an answer, because this is the right thing to do. When they notice us, they’ll come to the shed. We must bugger off and leave them their dignity. They’re adults.’

  Yes, he was definitely in charge. In lighter, brighter moments, she might steal his thunder, but there was no point in arguing now. David was vague, adorable, intelligent and daft. At times like this, the intelligence won.

  Blackpool was OK if you were five years old with a bucket and spade and a burning affection for donkeys. Alan had been dragged to the sanctuary, to a tea dance, and to five sessions of bingo. Trish had to do the driving, because his licence, wherever it was, probably wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, so he was trapped. He’d been honest with her about the drink driving, and now she had him where she wanted him twenty-four hours a day. It had to be like this, because if he showed his face the mortgage company would have him sliding into court faster than sugar pouring off a shiny shovel. He was a man in hiding.

  ‘It’s just as well you’re with me,’ she told him sweetly and with monotonous regularity. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t drink.’

  It was like being behind bars again. Six million was a hell of a lot of money, but he wasn’t seeing a penny of it. The Blackpool house was nice enough, and Trish looked after him. She looked after him rather too well, and the only time he grabbed for himself was spent in the bathroom. If he went for a walk, she accompanied him; if he wandered into the garden, she was at the window waving and smiling and being so bloody pleasant that he wished … wished what? That he was living with Lucy?

  ‘Coo-ee!’

  Here she came again, Trish the kind, Trish the saintly, Trish who wouldn’t leave him alone because she was his guardian. He walked into the house and sat in the dining room, a child summoned from the playground to have his lunch. The self-appointed dinner lady would stay with him and make sure he ate all his greens, all the omega-oil-soaked fish, the special margarine, the bloody garlic, the bloody parsley, skimmed milk in his coffee, an apple and an orange, two fifths of his daily five allotted portions. He was sick to death, and he needed to go somewhere.

  ‘Is that all right for you, love?’

  Love? They were sleeping in the same bed now, but nothing was happening. How many times had he shared a beer and a laugh with the lads at work? How often had they scorned the childless, those without lead in their pencils? And here he was, a flaming eunuch, no desires, no needs, just an eating machine, and he mustn’t forget to take that low dose of aspirin. ‘Very nice, Trish.’ He paused for thought. ‘Erm … I was just wondering if you’d drive me to Tallows some time soon.’

  ‘Your old house in Bolton?’

  ‘That’s right. She’s not there. I don’t think there’s anybody there, but just in case, I’d like you to stay on the top road. Don’t come near the house, because it might cause trouble.’ He hoped the locks hadn’t been changed. ‘There’s stuff I need – like my dad’s watch and an old brooch that belonged to my grandma.’ His dad had never owned a watch, but there might be a brooch somewhere. What he really needed was cash, and there could well be some of that in the floor safe Lucy didn’t know about. The fact was that he couldn’t remember how much or how little, but he had to give it a go.

  ‘All right,’ she chirruped. ‘We’ll go this after.’

  She was sweet. She was too sweet, like an overdose of powdered saccharine on his morning Weetabix. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very good to me.’

  ‘I’ve been good?’ she cried. ‘That sounds as if you think it’s over.’

  Over? Where the heck could he go with no car, next to no money, and nowhere to live? ‘It’s not over. I just need some stuff, and I can’t drive. I know I haven’t been to court, but they’ll have given me a ban because I was well out of it for days, so I must have been miles over the limit. Just i
n case there’s somebody in the house, I need you to stay out of the way for half an hour, that’s all.’

  ‘OK,’ she answered brightly. She didn’t feel bright inside, though. There was something wrong with him, and she believed it not to be physical. He was cheesed off, possibly depressed. Deep inside her chest, a bubble of terror threatened to rise to the surface. She managed to quell it, but only just. If he left her … If he left her, she might as well be dead.

  Alan plodded his way through lunch. She wasn’t stupid. She didn’t need Styles, so she was selling it. Thrown into the deal by Charles Hedouin was a nice farmhouse in the Loire valley, and she’d mithered for that until she’d got her own way, so she was clearly a long way from daft. But on a day-to-day basis, she was boring.

  ‘Eat your fish,’ she suggested.

  He ate some of his fish. He wanted to stand up, throw the plate at her and walk out of the house, but he couldn’t. How the blood and guts had Howie Styles tolerated this woman? Childless and sad, she obviously turned the man in her life into a baby, something to lavish care on, something she could control. He wasn’t used to this. At least Lucy had left him alone to get on with his life. At least she hadn’t watched him swallow every forkful of food.

  There must have been two sides to Howie. There was the genius who worked with architects and did as good a job as any of them, then there was the simple man. He’d loved all kinds of dancing, bingo and donkeys. But Alan wasn’t a Howie. And Howie had never retired, hadn’t spent every waking moment with his wife. During his illness, he probably noticed little. But Alan noticed, by God he did. Like a rat in a trap, he could find no way out. Maybe this was his penance, the price he had to pay for treating his wife so appallingly.

  ‘You’re not happy, are you?’

  He swallowed yet more fish. ‘I’m fine,’ he lied. ‘Sorry I can’t … you know what I can’t do in bed just yet, but it’s not that. I think I need a bit of a job, something to get me out and about a bit more. An income of my own, some pride, a bit of dignity. I’ve no money in my pocket, Trish. All I do is take, take, take. That’s no good for a bloke.’