The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘That’s why it has to be you. I can love you. We could be normal, have children, holidays, a good life. I know I can do that with you, and only you.’

  Mel wanted to tell him that she wanted much, much more, that a life conducted behind closed doors was not for her. ‘I know a little bit about homosexuality,’ she told him quietly. ‘Miss Pickavance’s uncle was the same, and he kept on the move all the time, always aware that he could be arrested at any point. I can’t be your lace curtain, wouldn’t want to be.’

  He stared at the ground. ‘What’s going to happen to me? It’s so … lonely. You’re the only one I could tell.’

  Mel feared for him. She’d come across the poem written in France by Oscar Wilde after his release from Reading Gaol. Hard labour, hour after hour on a treadmill, just because he was different. ‘The only thing you can do, Peter, is to remain a bachelor, because no woman will be right. We’re not just wives and daughters and mothers; we’re people. When I went through that silly phase I thought I’d pay any price, because you’re so beautiful. Then I got angry when you tried to throw me out of the house – remember? I wiped the floor with your lovely mother. Women aren’t here just for men. That’s all finished. Why did you grab me just now? I’m not what you want.’

  He didn’t weep, but his voice was unsteady as he tried to explain his feelings not only to her, but also to himself. He didn’t want to be like this, hadn’t asked to be born an outcast. Concentration was becoming difficult, and he was afraid of falling behind at school. ‘The law exists to strangle people into submission,’ he declared. ‘I’m not sure I want to be a part of that.’

  She’d been reading about the subject, of course. ‘Greeks did it. Tribes who’ve scarcely been touched by civilization do it. Lions, porpoises – all kinds of animals behave in a homosexual manner even when opportunities with the opposite sex exist. You have to fight from within. You get to the top of your profession, Peter, then find a way of attacking the law. You walk on the Wilde side – the Oscar Wilde side – but not on a treadmill.’

  ‘I’m scared, Mel.’

  She understood that. ‘I’ll be there,’ she promised. ‘I will never desert you. We’re friends.’

  He muttered something about being better off dead, so she clouted him again with her heavy, book-filled bag. ‘Selfish, selfish, selfish,’ she said with every blow. ‘Think about your family. Start talking suicide, and I start talking to your father. You bloody well stay alive. There are other people like you, women as well as men. We have to find them when we’re older. We have to start a secret society, only it can’t be secret, because we’ll need to advertise. A movement. Yes, there has to be a movement. OWLS. Oscar Wilde Liberation Society.’

  ‘He can’t be liberated, because he’s dead.’

  ‘Just a bit, yes. True genius never dies. Don’t simply give up. It’s cowardly, and it would kill your parents. And if they found out that I knew why you’d done it, they’d kill me too. Gloria would have my guts for garters, so don’t dare let me down, Peter.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  They walked home, separating when they reached the junction of their two roads. She prepared to carry on in the same direction while he turned off into St Andrew’s Road. For some unfathomable reason, this parting of their ways had significance. Mel stood for a few seconds and watched his progress. She was no longer his guardian, no longer his shelter. Any slight hope that had lingered in him was now removed. And she was the remover.

  Eighteen

  ‘Gran!’ Mel closed the back door, threw down her satchel and wrapped both arms round her much-loved maternal grandmother. ‘Are Mam and Dad off to Willows? Where’s Mrs Openshaw? Oh, it’s lovely to see you.’ The greeting was followed by a big kiss on Nellie’s cheek. ‘I thought you’d never get here. Are the three musketeers all right? And Miss Pickavance? What about Mr Collins and the diabetes?’

  ‘Later. Let’s take a pew first, love.’ Nellie Kennedy disentangled herself and led her granddaughter to the kitchen table. They sat down, and Nellie gave Mel the full story about Eileen. She had learned over many years that only the truth, the whole truth and nothing approaching decoration would satisfy Mel. ‘So that’s why I’m here, love. Your dad picked me up just before two o’clock, so I’ve not been here long myself. He got one of the neighbours to sit with her while he was out, because he’s treating her like some rare plant. Anyway, it’s this here plug thing, like I said. All she can do is lie there like cheese on toast, only paler and not best pleased. When I got here this afternoon, she was moaning and cursing fit to bust, and she’d been in bed just over three hours. Three hours, Mel. She’s what my mam would have called mortallious troublesome.’

  ‘Still thirteen weeks to go, Gran? That’s a long time for anyone to be stuck in bed.’

  ‘Your dad’s been talking about strapping her down at night. He says she’s a wriggler in her sleep. Anyway, it’s a double bed, so he’s going in with her to try to keep her still. He’ll have to sleep during the day while I watch her. We’ll need eyes in the backs of our heads, because she’s always been a fidget.’

  Mel folded her arms and stared hard at the head of her family. ‘No we won’t. She’ll carry on complaining about this that these and those, but she won’t lose her baby.’ Mel’s mother had her share of faults, but she believed implicitly in the rights of the unborn.

  Nellie had forgotten to mention the other bit of the tale. ‘It’s babies, not baby. She’s having a couple of them. Whether it’s a matching pair or two separates, we don’t know. She never had a minute’s trouble carrying or birthing the four of you, so this must be on account of its being twins.’ She didn’t mention Dr Tom Bingley and his part in today’s drama, though Keith had furnished her with the facts during the journey from Willows.

  Mel groaned. ‘It could be two more boys, Gran. Doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Yes, but we want them alive whatever they are. Keith’s a lovely, special man, Mel. She loves the bones of him. If I’d picked him for her myself, I couldn’t be better pleased. They’re his children, Mel. In his forties and expecting twins, he’ll be setting a lot of store by this pregnancy.’

  Mel pondered for a few seconds. Gran was right, because Mam was happier than she’d been in years. It was as if she suddenly had all she wanted. Keith was a wonderful man, and these twins were his first hope of true fatherhood. ‘Is Miss Morrison’s davenport still in there with Mam?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Right. I’ll do my homework at the davenport, and that’ll give you both a break. If she puts an eyelid wrong, I’ll clout her with the big frying pan.’

  ‘And that’ll show her how much you love her, eh?’

  They were both laughing when the doorbell sounded. Nellie admitted a short man with a Victorian moustache, a large doctor’s bag and wire-rimmed spectacles. He introduced himself as Mr Barr, specialist attached to Mrs Greenhalgh. ‘We’re all attached to her,’ was Nellie’s reply. ‘You’ll find her very lovable, but without much patience when it comes to lying there and doing nothing. She’s behind that second door along.’

  He disappeared for the better part of half an hour. While he, Eileen and Keith were closeted in Miss Morrison’s reassembled downstairs bedroom, Mel and Nellie started the task of turning five ounces of minced meat into a cottage pie for four plus dog. This involved many potatoes, a bit of leftover cabbage and a pinch of imagination. ‘It’ll have a bubble and squeak roof, this cottage,’ Mel said.

  ‘Shut up and keep peeling. There’s folk in London, Liverpool and all over the place who’ll never eat cottage pie again, because they’re dead.’ Nellie paused. ‘That feller’s a long time in there, isn’t he?’

  Mel said nothing; she’d been ordered to shut up and peel.

  They heard the front door opening and closing before Keith joined them. Both fixed their eyes on him, and he was smiling, a very waggy-tailed Spoodle in his arms.

  ‘Well?’ Mel breathed.

  Keith placed th
e dog on the floor and crossed his fingers as he joined them at the table. ‘According to that chap, who seems to know his job, she’s not in too bad a state. He’s seen it all before. It’s not uncommon for women to lose that oper-whatever plug thing days or even weeks before the kick-off, but with this being twins Eileen will have to stay in bed. The flat on her back business is a precaution for now, though she should be able to sit up for a few hours soon. We’ve got all his phone numbers, and he will deliver the babies himself. Because they’re … what did he say? Disparate, I think. One’s big and one’s small, so he insists on a section in about ten weeks.’

  ‘Did he mean desperate?’

  ‘No, Nellie. He meant their sizes don’t match. He says they’re not identical as far as he can tell, and he’s usually right. He didn’t want to poke around too much, but he thinks the neck of her womb’s tight enough for now.’

  ‘But she mustn’t walk?’

  ‘That’s right. She’s still calling herself bedpan Bertha.’

  Mel dashed to her mother’s side, or almost-side, as she stayed out of the cage.

  ‘Are you all right, Mam?’

  ‘Am I buggery. I’ve got to stay flat for a few days, and that means my big baby’s pressing on my little one. It’s all wrong. The poor tiny thing’ll be squashed flat by the other hulking great heavyweight boxer. Seriously, I’m fine, Mel. What will be will be. But when I look in Keith’s eyes, a bit of the shine’s gone. He’s terrified.’

  Mel disagreed. ‘He’s fine. As long as you do as you’re told, he’ll carry on being fine.’ She wanted to tell Mam about Peter, about his fears and his confusion, but this wasn’t the best time. She’d always confided in Mam. Well, almost always. The messing about with Peter in Rachel Street had been an exception, but even that had come out in the end. ‘If Miss Morrison hadn’t died, and if we hadn’t got so badly upset about losing her, and if there hadn’t been papers to sign and the will to deal with, you’d have gone to Willows weeks ago. That doctor up there is rubbish, and you’d have lost the babies, Mam. The wind always brings some good, doesn’t it?’ Though the wind had brought no good to London in December …

  Lying in bed had clearly failed to suppress Eileen’s powers of deduction. ‘Have you been pulled through a hedge backwards, or is this the new haute couture style? You’re crumpled. What happened?’

  ‘Erm … chasing about in the park on our way home.’

  Eileen delivered a hard stare. Merchants girls did not chase about in the park on their way home, and she said so. ‘Try again, madam.’

  Mel knew she had to tell the truth. There came a point when everybody ran out of imagination, and a certain look in her mother’s eyes often marked the edge of Mel’s territory. ‘Peter,’ she said. ‘Don’t you dare sit up, Mam.’

  ‘But isn’t he supposed to be the other way?’ The tone was dropped when the last three words were spoken.

  ‘He is the other way, and you’re the only one who knows apart from me, so say nothing to anyone. But he has plans to fool some poor girl into taking up with him so that he’ll look as if he’s not. Every girl at school wants him. He’s good at sports, clever in the classroom, and he has a gorgeous face. But he’s basically honest. I was the only one he trusted enough to be given the full story. And in his way, he loves me. But I’m not spending time pretending to be his girlfriend. He talks about us getting married and having children. I told him a wife and children are not there to be a safety curtain while he runs round being whatever he needs to be.’

  ‘Quite right, too,’ Eileen said. ‘And when he goes to prison, the poor woman will be left there having to explain to her kids why their dad’s done a disappearing act. You’re well out of it.’

  Mel pondered for a moment. ‘I do care about him. I do think it’s terrible that people like Peter get sent to jail just because they aren’t attracted to the opposite sex. Who are they harming?’

  ‘Women and children. They get wed, have kids, then bugger off to prison or with another man.’

  ‘And the law sends them in those directions. It wants changing. It’s going to change – I’m with him on that one.’

  ‘So it’s like the ten-day week you were going to invent?’

  ‘No. This one’s doable. Anyway, it’s not your worry. Just concentrate on hanging on to these babies, even if they are going to be boys.’

  ‘The big one’s a girl, according to Dr Ryan. I wanted to know how she knows, and she said she doesn’t know how she knows, but she knows.’

  ‘You sound like Gran.’

  A huge sigh was followed by, ‘I know. I don’t know how I know, but—’

  ‘Stop right there, Mam.’

  ‘But it comes to all of us.’

  ‘We all end up sounding like Gran?’

  Eileen laughed while her daughter left the room. But seriousness returned quickly. Why were her babies threatened? Had Tom Bingley upset her to the point where Keith’s children might be hurt? Yet Mel was right; had Eileen moved to Willows, where the doctor was daft, this might have happened without any persecution by Tom. Had Miss Morrison’s death had an adverse effect, had yesterday’s sardines been all right, was the little baby giving up and trying to get out past the big one? Was the big one healthy? Eileen had known plenty of large people whose health had been less than perfect.

  Mel returned. ‘Gloria just phoned, Mam. Her dad’s going away because of nervous exhaustion. Apparently, it’s people who don’t seem nervous or exhausted that get nervous exhaustion. So how does his doctor know he’s got it? I mean if it doesn’t show, how do they know? How does he know?’

  Eileen swallowed. ‘You’re sounding like my mother now. It’ll show in his work and in his general behaviour.’ He’s going away because of me. No, she couldn’t say that out loud, could she? He thinks enough of me to stop his life for a while and take himself off. Or had Dr Ryan put him up to this? Elizabeth Ryan could be fierce if she set her mind to it.

  ‘Gloria’s upset.’

  ‘She will be; he’s her father.’

  ‘It’s the war,’ Mel declared. ‘He’s been doing too much. A lot of people are doing too much.’ She carried some books to the davenport. ‘I’m in charge of you while I do homework, so behave: it’s moral philosophy.’

  ‘Is that religion?’

  ‘Debatable. Mam?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know when they sort of got back together again – Dr and Mrs Bingley, I mean.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, it stopped. They’re still in the same bed, but all the giggling’s finished.’

  ‘Nervous exhaustion.’

  Had circumstances been different, Mel might have asked the question, but she didn’t dare. Was Gloria’s dad still carrying a torch for Mel’s mother? Did nervous exhaustion translate into a broken heart? This was not the time for such research, so she stuck with moral philosophy which was, on the whole, much easier.

  Marie was not happy. Her husband’s doctor had declared him unfit for work, and he was to be admitted to a private nursing home in Southport. According to Liz Ryan, Tom had been overdoing things for some time, and he needed a long rest in order to recuperate before too much damage occurred.

  So this was the reason for his neglect of her, was it? After the treatment in Rodney Street, a honeymoon had ensued, and Marie was now the one who missed being loved. Sometimes, she caught him looking at her with longing in his eyes, though he seldom made an effort in her direction. There was another woman. But no, there couldn’t be. Had he fallen in love with someone, he wouldn’t have been so … happy wasn’t the word; he wouldn’t have been so complacent about going off to stay in Southport. According to Tom, Southport was suitable only for retirement, death and seagulls. Thus he had been known to dismiss an elegant and much loved seaside town, and he now intended to reside there for the foreseeable future.

  The suitcase was half filled and on the bed when he lost his complacency. He turned the case over and emptied its contents on the quilt
. Who the hell did Liz Ryan think she was? Eileen’s threatened miscarriage was nothing to do with him, and he was being forced to enter a low-key psychiatric facility because of it? He sat down. ‘Marie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not going. She can’t make me go, because I’m not certifiable.’

  Marie sat next to him. ‘What’s happening to you … to us? We were fine. Do you think more hypnosis would help? We were doing so well, both of us—’

  ‘No.’ He didn’t want to open up again. He didn’t want to admit to anyone that he was almost completely defeated by love. And how the hell could he love someone attached to a Liverpool accent? And to another man? ‘It wouldn’t help the exhaustion, Marie, but a few weeks off work might. I don’t need to go to Southport. There’s a beach here I can exercise on as long as I don’t fall over a dragon’s tooth and land in the barbed wire. Exercise helps with these symptoms. You’re here. My children are here. There’s a dog I can walk. And have you seen the state of Gloria? She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going.’

  Marie had seen the state of Gloria.

  ‘I refuse to leave her, so I need to get this sorted out immediately, if not sooner. Back in twenty minutes.’ Tom kissed the top of his wife’s head and walked out. Straightening his spine, he began the short walk to his doctor’s surgery. He was going to see Liz Ryan. She needed to be put straight, and he was the man to do it.

  ‘I am not and never have been Eileen Greenhalgh’s doctor. You can’t lose me my job. I shall stay away from my surgery as advised, because I admit to being very tired. I’ll rest and exercise until I feel better, then it’ll be back to work. No convalescent home for me, Liz.’ He stood tall at the other side of the desk. Liz, seated, felt small, and she knew that his intention had been to dominate the situation physically, mentally and through sheer dogged determination. He feared no one. She should have remembered that.

  She glared at her patient. They both knew she wouldn’t report him; they both knew he was a good doctor who needed respite. ‘Stay away from two things. Liverpool, and Eileen Greenhalgh. You are putting yourself at risk in Liverpool. And you are putting her at risk here. It isn’t love, Tom. It’s obsession.’