The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Liz sighed heavily. He didn’t know how close he was to emotional collapse. People in such a state were often unaware of their true situation. ‘If you go anywhere near that poor woman’s house, I shall make it my personal duty to separate you from medicine. I know she’s never been your patient, and she would have managed you and your idiocy had she not been pregnant. But if her health worsens because of you, I shall report you. So.’ She picked up a pen. ‘A letter witnessed by my lawyer will be delivered to you, and you will sign the delivery sheet. My copy will be kept safe. Go near her after this written warning from your doctor and hers, go near her while an injunction forbids it, and you’ll be in next Christmas’s mincemeat.’

  ‘There’s no need for all that,’ he blustered.

  ‘Oh, but there is. She went to pieces earlier in this very room. “He won’t leave me alone” and “I’ll never get away from him” were her words. There is need. Where she is concerned, you are a predator. You are not the Tom Bingley I know. You’re on the verge of emotional collapse and you may lose control of your behaviour.’

  ‘But I’m not on the verge of anything, Liz.’ Eileen was frightened not of him, but of herself. There was hope.

  Liz tapped the table with her pen. Cupid was careless with his arrows. Never in a month of Sundays would she have expected Tom to fall for someone like Eileen Greenhalgh. She was extraordinarily pretty, but she was not Tom Bingley’s type. There again, that was often how it happened. An intelligent and relatively sane man would come across someone who was nothing like his wife, and the arrow went into his chest and stayed there. The same applied to women.

  ‘Eileen was drawn to me. It didn’t happen in one direction only.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Do you? Look, I don’t want to shock you, but she wasn’t putty in my hands – she was magma, red hot lava. And I did the right thing, stayed where I was, got help for my frigid wife, carried on working, rescued people and so on. Let no one say I didn’t fight for the status quo.’

  The helpless doctor could hear the change in her patient’s tone. Certification was not a possibility, because he wasn’t mad, and other medics wouldn’t support such a drastic step. Liz and Tom had worked in tandem for years, each helping the other when the workload became too great. Because she knew him, she was acutely aware of the changes in him. Other people might not see what she saw. He was utterly sane, miserably so. But the emotional seesaw he rode might tip at any time, and another patient of hers could suffer when he finally snapped. ‘Go away,’ she ordered. ‘And I wasn’t kidding about the law. You will receive a copy soon.’

  The look he awarded her might have turned a lesser woman to water, but Liz maintained her solid state. It was going to be just a matter of time; he had better wait until after those babies had been delivered safely, God willing. But what if the births weakened Eileen? What if he started hanging about on the bombed playing field behind Eileen’s house? What if … ? There was no point in what iffing. The bloody man had gone anyway.

  A few weeks later, Elsie Openshaw arrived in Crosby. She was driven across by Mr Marchant, friend of Miss Pickavance, art tutor to Philip Watson. Elsie had seldom travelled in a car, so she was round-eyed when she reached St Michael’s Road. ‘But … I mean … there’s all kinds of … I saw … what the blood and sand have they done to Liverpool?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ Nellie replied with all the nonchalance she could muster. ‘They’ll not kill this city, Elsie. The folk down there are tougher than shoe leather.’

  ‘And they all talk funny. They’re neither for’ards nor back’ards.’ Elsie went through to visit the patient. Nellie looked at Keith, Keith looked at Nellie. ‘Can laughing cause a miscarriage?’ he asked.

  ‘I doubt it. She’s far enough gone, lad. The twins’d be in with a good chance if they got born now.’

  Two eavesdroppers stood in the hall. They knew that Elsie was hilarious, and that she was completely unaware of the fact.

  Her strident tones, complete with broad, flat vowels, made its way out of Eileen’s retreat. ‘Your wife’s trapped,’ Nellie mouthed. Keith nodded his agreement.

  Elsie was in full flood. ‘You do. Just you think on. You do know who I mean. He was there the day you came with Miss Pickavance. His wife’s got a caliper – one leg shorter than t’other. He’s a long, lanky thing with a hernia, called Malcolm. His daughter lives in the Edge near us, lost all her teeth in an accident, got a spiral staircase fitted just to be different. I wouldn’t care – she doesn’t even own the bloody house. Spiral staircase, indeed. She’d have been a sight better cleaning up her doorstep – it’s not seen donkey stone in years, hasn’t that.’

  ‘Oh, Elsie,’ moaned Eileen. ‘I’m so glad you came. You cheer me up.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know how, I’m sure. You’re easy suited if you can laugh at Malcolm Bridge and his hernia. Ooh, I nearly forgot. Are we doing lemon, white or pale lilac?’

  ‘Eh?’ This single syllable from Eileen arrived crippled, as if it needed fitting with a surgical support.

  ‘Your wool. Matinee jackets and bootees.’

  ‘Any of those colours will do.’

  Elsie lowered her tone, though she remained audible. ‘You’ve done very well after losing your pericoolium.’ She had been at the medical books again. ‘That’s the proper word for it. At least it weren’t play centre previous.’

  ‘Placenta praevia,’ Nellie mouthed on the other side of the door. ‘She’s worse than me, because most of mine are deliberate.’ They went away for a quick giggle, then returned to sentry duty.

  ‘No,’ Elsie was saying, ‘no, that’s her cousin. Mind, there’s a tale to her and all. Monica, she’s called. Very thin, lazy eye, gets a squint if she takes her specs off. Lived tally with a bloke from Blackburn with a thumb missing and one of them hanglebar moustaches. He came home early one day and found her in bed with the boss from the Co-op down Halliwell way and a lamplighter. They were playing tries and turns. But no, that’s Monica.’

  ‘I thought she’d stopped gossiping,’ Nellie whispered.

  ‘Anything outside the three-mile limit is fair game,’ Keith replied quietly.

  ‘And doesn’t Elsie know anybody normal and in one piece?’

  Keith shrugged and pinned an ear to the door.

  ‘It were their Vera. Beautiful hair, she had, all waves and curls right down her back.’

  ‘What about her head?’ the invisible Eileen managed.

  Keith and Nellie did another soft-shoe shuffle towards the front door. ‘I can’t take much more,’ Nellie said. They returned.

  ‘So she leans across the table, all casual, like, sticks a knife in his chest and carries on eating her toast while he bleeds to death. It were her best tablecloth and all, so she whips it off and sticks it in cold water. It’s a bugger to shift, is blood. Then she has a second cuppa, combs her hair, puts her hat and coat on and goes to the police. “I’ve killed him,” she says.’

  ‘God,’ breathed the patient. ‘Did she hang?’

  ‘Did she hell as like. When the police doctor stripped her off, Vera were one big bruise. She had twenty-seven broken ribs, cos some were broke twice or three times. Poor girl came a flea’s whisker away from having a punctuated lung. Then there were the burn damage from ropes and fag ends – he used her as an ashtray. Happen he were practising his boy scout knots and all. He were very big in the scouts at one time.’

  Keith and Nellie fled to the kitchen. Now they had a war, a pregnancy, a teenage girl and an Elsie to deal with. Oh, and a bigger puppy. Eventually, they ran out of laughter. ‘I suppose it’s only fair.’ Keith set the kettle to boil. ‘They’re overrun with Scousers at Willows, so why shouldn’t Liverpool be blessed with an Elsie?’

  Nellie thought about that before answering. ‘She’ll not be used to it. Bangs, thuds, explosions and sirens – all part of our lives now. Nearest she’s come was when they exploded a stray bomb over Affetside way. It was all controlled
by the UXB squad. That German lad still writes to Hilda, you know. She reckons he’ll never go home.’

  Elsie stood in the doorway. It might have been fairer to say that the doorway framed her, because she filled it. ‘That daughter of yours has a very strange sense of humour, Nellie. She laughs in all the wrong places. But I’ll give her this, she’s saved them babies, God love her. And that dog won’t leave her side, will he? Eeh, it’s a smashing house, is this. I bet it’ll look lovely when it’s done up and painted proper after the war.’ She went on and on, even when the others had stopped listening. ‘It’s nice round here,’ was the last line in her monologue.

  Nellie smiled to herself. This was the Elsie she had missed; this was the friend whose eccentricities would see everyone through the war. Elsie wasn’t everybody’s cup of Horniman’s, but she was interesting, and free entertainment was one of the few unrationed items available these days. ‘How long are you staying, Elsie?’

  ‘Till I’ve counted them babies’ fingers, toes, ear ’oles and eyes.’ She cast a glance over Keith. ‘Aye, they’ll be grand as long as they get their mother’s looks and brains. If they take after you, they’ll just have to do their best, won’t they? Can I have a butty? Or a bit of toast?’

  The next few days and weeks would merit a title – ‘Remembering How We Fed Elsie During a War’. Elsie took for granted all the little extras she managed to acquire at Willows. Here, for the first time, she was forced to live with true rationing; here, she began her weight loss programme.

  Elsie Openshaw took up walking to fill in the time between meals. It didn’t take her long to realize that her life at home had been one long meal interrupted only by sleep, shoppers, and people wanting the services of the Royal Mail. Spoodle was a good excuse. Reluctant at first to leave Eileen in what he recognized as her hour of need, he had to be dragged along on his lead, and Elsie was just about ready to give up when he finally decided to go with the flow. Humans, he had discovered, always won in the end, so fighting was useless, tiring and a waste of breath.

  Each day, they walked a little further until, after a couple of weeks of gradually lengthening journeys, they finally reached Nellie’s beloved river. Immediately, Spoodle pulled so hard that he took the lead with him, leaving Elsie to scream while the dog chased his sister along a beach made narrower by dragons’ teeth and barbed wire.

  ‘Hello, stranger.’

  She turned and studied the man. ‘Oh, it’s you. Spoodle’s buggered off, and now there’s two of him, and they’re in all the muck. See? Over there.’

  ‘Pandora’s from the same litter. She’ll come back to me, and he’ll follow. How are you? Oh, and the food at Christmas was delicious.’

  ‘How am I? Bloody starving’s how I am.’ She opened her coat. ‘See this frock? It fitted when I got here. I’m becoming emacicated.’

  Tom Bingley didn’t laugh. ‘You look better for the weight loss.’ She did. She would probably be healthier, too. ‘Are you staying with Eileen and Keith?’ he asked, a coating of nonchalance applied to the words.

  ‘I am. Well, with Nellie, really. But I’m stopping till I see them babies. She’s done well, has Eileen, keeping to her bed like that when she’s not blessed with a patient nature. She can sit up now, like, but she must have been scared when it first kicked off. Any road, Nellie’s mistress of the bedchamber, and I’m the bloody dog walker.’

  ‘So am I, Elsie. I had to take a break from work. There’s been a lot of pressure and stress. Not just my job, but the raids in town. It’s been a bitter time.’

  She wasn’t surprised, and she told him so. The noises at night, bumps and thumps and bangs were enough to send anybody pots for rags. ‘I thought I were going to be dead at first. Nellie explained things to me, but it’s still only seven or eight miles away, so I’m a bit feared, cos we never see nothing up yon where I come from. Best excitement we get is tupping, and Jay Collins falling off a ladder when his sugar’s low. Even that doesn’t happen a lot now.’

  ‘Diabetic chap?’

  ‘Aye. Here comes trouble.’ Two filthy little floor mops with legs arrived. The pups were breathless and covered in the muddy sand that gets dredged up by a tidal river. ‘What the blood and dolly mixtures are we supposed to do now?’ Elsie asked.

  ‘My house,’ Tom replied. ‘Nearer than Nellie’s. A quick rub down for the dogs, pot of tea for us, and a cake of sorts. Marie does her best, but I’ve ordered some chickens, then we can have our own eggs. And I’ve turned over the back garden for vegetables.’

  ‘Aye, well keep your hens off that lot. Inquisitive little buggers, they are, so watch your veg. And if you fancy a chicken supper, I’ll do the deed for you.’

  Tom hadn’t thought that far ahead. Eggs were one thing, murder was another. He swallowed.

  ‘You make me laugh, you townies,’ said Elsie. ‘It’s all right for the butcher to kill, but you’ll not dirty your hands, eh? And you a doctor, and all.’

  They walked back to St Andrew’s Road, a feat for which they deserved medals, since the two pups decided to take up French knitting, and their leads became intertwined in a pattern that might have been pleasing had there been no mud involved. By the time they reached Tom’s house, all four members of the posse were as black as sweeps.

  Tom dealt with the spoodles while Elsie cleaned herself up and made tea. But the best laid plans often fell apart in the presence of Pandora and her brother. Within minutes, the whole house was marked. They didn’t like the bath. They didn’t like Lux Flakes, green soap, or human shampoo. They ran muddy, slightly muddy, damp and wet through across beds, rugs, chairs and sofas. They skidded into the kitchen, banged into Elsie’s lisle-stockinged legs, turned, ran on the spot because their feet found no purchase on the slick floor, and were finally returned to the bathroom by an angry Boltonian female. ‘Didn’t you close the door, you daft bugger?’

  ‘I didn’t think,’ he answered weakly.

  ‘Out,’ she commanded. ‘Make the tea. And may God have mercy on your soul when the missus gets back.’ But he wasn’t going anywhere. Nothing on earth could persuade him to abandon Elsie to the machinations of two canine lunatics. He sent her away.

  The missus, when she returned, thought the situation was hilarious. She staggered through the house with mops and cloths, pausing at the bathroom door to listen to her beleaguered husband. His voice rose above loud splashes and unhappy yelps. ‘There has to be a tranquillizer for dogs,’ he shouted. ‘Put the bloody sponge down. No, we do not eat loofahs or pumice stones.’

  Marie slid her body into the room, taking care not to open the door to its full width. Tackling one pup each, they managed the task, but only just. Wet through and laughing, they sat side by side on a flooded floor, clothes sodden, towels dripping, two very wet spoodles shaking water from their curls and up the walls. ‘Bit of a mess,’ she managed, tears dampening further the soggy atmosphere.

  Tom pressed a hand against his aching stomach. ‘Can you imagine a Great Dane or an Irish wolfhound?’ he howled.

  She hit him with a wet washcloth. ‘Shut up.’

  The door opened and Elsie stood in the gap, arms folded, head shaking sadly. A pair of soggy dogs shot past her and down the stairs. ‘Hello, Mrs Bingley. I’ve found some big towels. You two had better sort yourselves out while I look for them two buggers and dry them off. Then I’ll light a fire.’ She wandered off, muttering quietly about daft Scousers, stupid dogs and the bloody muck in the bloody Mersey.

  ‘That was fun,’ Tom said seriously. ‘Fun is what we lack.’ He stood up, locked the door and made love to his wife in a dirty, waterlogged space alongside the bath. There was a near-stranger downstairs, and their surroundings were rather less than perfect, but it was glorious. Except for one thing. When he reached the point of no return, for one exquisite moment, he thought of Eileen.

  *

  Dear all,

  I have been remiss. So many letters from Mel, but I find myself quite caught up in life – who said it was quiet
, peaceful and/or boring in the country? The new greenhouses have been erected on Willows land, while the planting at Home Farm was achieved in record-breaking time, since Neil Dyson now has an assistant, one Robin Watson – be proud of him, Eileen.

  While his greenhouses are primarily for tomatoes, Robin intends to grow exotic flowers after the war. He is tender with blooms, and he says that brides should have more than just roses in their bouquets and sprays. So, like his older brother, he seems to have an artistic eye, though he says he’ll get a female to front the wedding business. At that point, several others jumped on the bandwagon to offer hairdressing, wedding cakes and bridal attire, so perhaps we shall rename the hamlet Weddings Ltd.

  But a great deal of my time has been invested in Philip, who blossoms like one of the rare orchids his brother might grow. Mr Marchant and I arranged a show for him, and we sold everything! Yes, even in wartime, he is valued. People who invest in him now will reap the benefit in later life, because Philip’s talent is unique.

  Which leaves just Bertie, your baby for the moment, Eileen. That boy can calm a horse from a distance, can break one for riding in under a week, and now has paid work in two stables where staff have gone to war. He rides daily, and is becoming accomplished.

  I asked him once about his long-term future. He declared his intention to serve the King at any of the palaces. The King’s horses deserve the best, and he is the self-proclaimed greatest horseman ever born, so there you have it.

  The most touching thing happened. When Philip sold his paintings, he gave some of the money to Bertie for riding boots, jodhpurs, coat and hard hat. Bertie, very solemn-faced, took the money and bought the things he needed. As he chose secondhand except for boots, he was able to give back change. ‘For paint and stuff,’ he said. Philip took the change and used it well. They are all good friends, and I believe their move to the country was for the best.