The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The moustache looks daft with your lip curled. Oh, I knew I had something to tell you. I’m fully articled now, with an improved salary, so I’ll be looking for a place in town, somewhere nearer to my work. Just a room, of course. I may come home at weekends.’ Because this was his home. He’d made sure of that, hadn’t he?

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Unless you’re going deaf, you heard me. While Mum was here, you belittled her and beat her up. Now you throw all your nastiness in my direction. I’m not violent by nature, and I may be disadvantaged because of my leg, but I’m thirty years younger than you. Watch your mouth, or I might just split it open and lose you even more of those rotting teeth.’ Roy blinked. Had he really said all that, or had his imagination gone into a higher gear?

  Joseph, who had always refused to be reduced to Joe, had a ready answer; he usually had a ready answer. ‘You’ll not manage on your own,’ he said, the tone not quite steady.

  ‘I think the boot’s on another foot, Joseph.’

  ‘Joseph? Who are you to be calling me Joseph? I’m your father, for God’s—’

  ‘No. You’re no father to me. Mum told me. She married you and pretended I was yours. She wanted to comfort me from her deathbed, so she told me the truth.’ Roy was making it up as he went along and yes, he knew he was being vengeful. ‘You are no one’s father. How many times have you said there’s no lead in my pencil, eh? Well, listen to me for once. Your pencil’s never been sharp; neither has your brain.’

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Exactly. I’d rather be a bastard, as it happens.’ It was happening. After all these quiet years, Roy was shaving off his pound of flesh. Today, he had made the longest speech ever. And he still couldn’t walk away, because his father was looking unwell. Or could he bugger off and let the mad beggar take his chances?

  The older man’s face was grey. He seemed to be experiencing difficulty with his breathing and, after a few seconds of increasing discomfort, he sank to the floor.

  Roy stared blankly at him; was he dying? Was there justice in the world after all? But Roy’s nature forbade him to stand and watch anyone struggle for breath. He pushed himself to move, returning as quickly as possible to the house outside which he had so recently left a basket.

  Rosh answered the door. ‘Ah, Roy,’ she breathed wearily. What the hell did he want now?

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But will you ask Mrs Riley to sit with my dad? He’s collapsed, and I need to go up to the phone box.’ Without another word, he walked through the gate and turned towards College Road.

  Rosh gathered her thoughts. Alice was sitting at the kitchen table with Mother. Alice had to grow used to living with her grandmother. So, after advising Anna of the situation, Rosh crossed the road herself and entered the Baxter house through its open front door. He was unconscious near the fireplace. He had a thready pulse and colourless skin, and his breathing was shallow. The place wasn’t untidy, but neither was it clean. There was something about a house without a woman; it acquired a film, as if the very air it contained was opaque.

  A collection of law books sat on a shelf. Beneath them on a small table, a photograph of Roy’s dead mother kept company with a radio. The fireplace was Victorian, the sideboard and gateleg table Utility, the hearthrug maroon. It was a dingy, lifeless room; there was no love in it, nor one pretty item. Two battered armchairs in worn leather flanked the rug. The walls were mottled brown and cream with patches of damp here and there. She didn’t want to look at him.

  When she did look, she saw no improvement in the health of the creature on the floor. Rosh knew what he was, what he had been to his wife. He’d been her jailor, her abuser, her enemy. Roy had struggled to get home from work at lunch time, because Joseph seldom fed his cancer-stricken wife, and none of the neighbours dared go near in case he was in. In the end, Roy had put her in hospital, as he could not keep his promise to let her die at home.

  ‘You killed her as sure as if you’d taken an axe to her. Is it your turn now? My Phil died just weeks back. Roy came to the funeral, but you couldn’t be bothered, thank God. Because my Phil hated you, and that wasn’t in his nature. He was a good man. Your son’s a good man, but you—’

  ‘Hello again, Rosh.’

  She hadn’t heard Roy re-entering his house. ‘Sorry,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Not your fault. I turned on him for the first time ever. Just words. I didn’t hit him, but I wanted to. I just told him what I thought of him.’

  ‘About time, too.’

  Roy gazed at the man on the rug. ‘I said I wasn’t his son, that I was a bastard. Told him my mum said that to me on her deathbed. That did it, I think. He took a funny turn and collapsed. This damned article hurt my mother over and over again. There was … there was rape, too. I know the law wouldn’t have accepted it, because she was his wife, but …’ He raised his shoulders for a moment. ‘But I heard it, lived with it, was too terrified to do or say anything. I thought he might kill me, her, or both of us.’

  ‘I saw her bruises, Roy. Many people saw them.’

  An ambulance arrived. Joseph Baxter was given oxygen and placed on a stretcher. ‘You can come with him,’ one of the men said.

  ‘No, thanks. I want nothing to do with him.’

  The older of the pair frowned. ‘But … er … aren’t you his son?’

  Roy shook his head. ‘He brought me up, beat me up, beat my mother. Shove him in a bin somewhere, because he’s one evil bugger. Just get bloody rid.’

  When the vehicle left the street with its bells clanging, Roy allowed a sigh of relief to escape. ‘Sorry you had to witness all that. But while I can, while I’m angry enough, I want to show you something else, another symptom of his evil. It’s important that someone sees what he used to do. I know you’re in mourning, but you’re just about the only person I trust enough to … It’s embarrassing and shaming, yet I have to do it.’

  She followed him upstairs to his father’s room. The stair carpet was threadbare and filthy, though an open door framed a sparkling bathroom. Roy probably cleaned that, she guessed. Everything needed a lick of paint. The banister felt greasy under her palm.

  Roy stopped on the landing. ‘His room’s a disgrace, but I can assure you that mine isn’t. Take my word for it.’

  He led her into the squalid front bedroom. It stank of long-stored dirty washing, of mould, damp and dust. From the wardrobe, he dragged a small chest and threw open its lid. ‘There you go, Rosh. That’s what he is and was.’

  It was filled with implements and weapons. She saw handcuffs, leather whips and belts, rope, a wooden article shaped like … ‘Good God.’ She slapped a hand to her mouth. ‘That thing there – is the stain blood?’

  ‘It is. My mother’s blood. She died of cancer of the cervix. It was discovered too late, and it spread. But yes, he used that thing on her. Made it himself, I think, and he used too little sandpaper. She must have been full of splinters.’

  Rosh took several deep breaths. ‘Why did you stay after she died?’

  Roy smiled sadly. ‘To watch him. To make sure he hurt no more women. I suppose it’s a kind of penance, my way of apologizing to my poor mother. Then all of a sudden, I’d had enough today. It just boiled over. In fact, I wish I’d said more. I suppose the hospital will want me to take a case in – pyjamas, dressing gown, soap and so forth. When they unpack it, they’ll find a selection of the things he used to torture Mum. I’ll put a little note in – These are the toys he used on his poor wife. Perhaps that will make them let him die.’ He closed the lid of the chest. ‘I need him to be dead.’

  ‘Roy—’

  ‘No, I’ve had enough, Rosh. I’m angry with me, because I should have stuck a knife in him ages ago. She used to cry in my arms, and I did nothing, nothing, nothing.’

  ‘You’d have hanged or got a life term.’

  ‘She was my mother!’

  ‘Yes, she was. And if you’d committed murder, she would have bl
amed herself just as you blame yourself now. She could have left here when you were little, taken you with her.’

  ‘He would have found us. You’ll never understand his power, Rosh. You didn’t live here. The man’s not right.’ He tapped his forehead with a finger.

  They returned to the front living room. After a few minutes of silence, Rosh went to make tea. Like the rest of the house, the Baxter kitchen was in reasonable condition, though rather less than clean. Light was diminished by a cloudy window, and the room’s contents were in a far from sensible order. She dug round and found the necessary items, discovered that her hands were shaking after the shock she’d received upstairs. ‘Roy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He is your father, isn’t he?’

  A few seconds elapsed before the answer arrived from the next room. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

  She stilled her trembling fingers and brewed the tea. Love thy neighbour as thyself? Joseph Baxter wanted roasting alive on a spit with a rod of steel right through his body. Poor Roy. She carried the tray into the living room. ‘Isn’t your real name Roylston?’ she asked.

  ‘It was my mother’s maiden name, but we shortened it to Roy. He sometimes uses the full Roylston, because he thinks it annoys me. But what angers me more is his breathing. I’d rather it stopped.’

  Rosh scarcely knew what to say. She had just suffered a massive loss, and here sat a man who prayed for the permanent removal of his father. It was difficult for her to understand, because she had adored her dad and had never stopped missing him. It was sad that Roy hadn’t really had parents. His mother had been beaten into the ground by his father, and the result was this hatred. ‘Don’t let it consume you,’ she said.

  ‘Too late, Rosh. The love I had for my mother was massive, but this is bigger. I feel like I’ve exploded.’

  She had to get back to her mother and the children, but she didn’t want to leave him. With the way Alice was, Rosh was reluctant to introduce another new face, so inviting him to the evening meal was not a possibility. Yet he scarcely seemed fit to be abandoned. ‘I’ll get home now,’ she said, ‘but I’ll come back later just to make sure you’re all right.’

  ‘You’re very kind. No need for you to put yourself out, though, because I’m sure I’ll be better shortly.’

  She stood for a few moments and watched him. In her opinion, he was becoming calm – too calm. It was as if he had removed himself in the direction of an alternative universe, because this one had been unkind to him. The fury of recent minutes had left him; it seemed that everything had left him, because he scarcely moved, while his cup of tea had been ignored apart from the odd sip. ‘Roy?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You won’t do anything daft, will you?’

  He blinked. ‘Such as?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Roy managed a slight smile. ‘Make a list and submit it to management. I’m management. And I’ll tick off the daft things one by one. No, I’m not going to kill myself. Neither am I going to let him back in here. Ever since he signed papers that put me in charge of paying the rent, this is my house. It’s mine because I don’t pay rent any longer; I pay a mortgage.’

  Rosh swallowed. ‘Where will he go?’

  ‘It’s a pity they closed the workhouses,’ was his reply. ‘Let the state look after him. I can’t do it any longer, Rosh. Apart from school and work, I’ve been in the company of this mad man all my life. Most of Waterloo knows what he is. And half of Crosby. Go home to your kiddies and your mother, Rosh. Alice might start thinking you’ve disappeared for ever like— Sorry.’

  ‘It’s not a problem. Phil’s dead, and I have to face facts.’

  ‘He was a good lad. One of the best.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll … er … I’ll see you soon.’ She left him to his thoughts.

  Outside, a posse of women bearing gifts had gathered. Rosh was assaulted by a barrage of questions, some of which she answered. No, Roy hadn’t gone in the ambulance. Yes, he was in, though he seemed to want to be left to himself. No, she hadn’t seen him eating anything. Yes, she was sure he’d appreciate dishes of food left in the porch. When asked about ‘that evil old bastard’, Rosh offered no reply save her opinion that he had suffered a heart attack.

  Mother was waiting, of course. She jumped up as soon as her daughter entered the best room. This was an area for adults only, as there was a middle room that served for Sunday dining, piano, children and homework. ‘How is he?’ Anna demanded.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Either or both – I don’t mind.’

  Rosh sank into an easy chair. ‘Well, Roy was angry, then quiet. He refused to accompany his dad in the ambulance, ranted a bit, got mad with himself for not saving his mother some grief. He showed me stuff I could never describe to you in a million years, instruments of torture that had been used by the old man on his wife. And Roy swears that Joseph Baxter will never set foot in that house again. I think it was some sort of heart attack, by the way.’

  Anna tutted and shook her head slowly. ‘Glory be. All this terrible stuff going on under your nose, and you never get a whiff of it.’

  Rosh was used to her mother’s odd statements. She was also used to the grim determination with which Anna Riley hung on to her Irish accent. ‘There was never a smell, Mother. Mrs Baxter was a clean woman. We saw some bruises on her, though, if you think back. And now the house does want a damned good clean. Roy tries his best, but there was more than a whiff in the old man’s room.’

  Anna nodded sadly. ‘Aye, we did see bruises, bless her. But tell me, how will he keep that festering owld rat out of the house? Hasn’t Mr Baxter lived there since Adam got chucked out of Eden?’

  Rosh explained that the rent book had been transferred into Roy’s name. ‘And then he bought the house, Mother. He’s got a mortgage. Oh, my God!’

  ‘What?’

  Rosh stood up and gazed across the street. ‘He’s in his dad’s room – look. And he’s throwing everything out of the window into the front garden.’

  ‘Looks like he means it, then, Rosh.’

  The younger woman dashed outside. ‘Roy?’ she called. ‘You’re ruining your geraniums.’

  He stopped for a few moments. ‘Is this on the daft list?’ he asked.

  It wasn’t. She knew it, he knew it, and each was aware that the other knew it. She shook her head. ‘What’s the plan?’ she called.

  ‘Decorating.’ Roy returned to his task.

  ‘He’s wiping him out,’ Rosh told her mother a few minutes later. ‘Painting and wallpapering over him, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Roy will not manage that,’ Anna replied. ‘The man needs to be dead.’ She paused. ‘I know we shouldn’t question God, but I sometimes wonder why the good die young, and old sinners like Joseph Baxter survive.’

  ‘I know, Mother.’

  Anna grinned. ‘And Alice can write her name.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Something’s clicked. She’s in bed with Teddo, two cats and some crayons. Does it matter if she draws on the wall?’

  Rosh shot from the room and crept upstairs. In damped-down illumination provided by a night light, she saw her beautiful baby, Winston and Lucy as good as gold at the foot of the bed and, on the wall, a perfect drawing of Frank Smith’s butcher shop. Even the rainwater goods were there, as was the drop-down awning blind that served to keep sunlight away from the window display.

  Alice was finally claiming her place among the living. And, while her mother wept tears of joy, Alice smiled in her sleep.

  See, I’m fine with most of them. They come in the shop with their kids, a quarter of dolly mixtures and a Woman’s Weekly, pay the papers, ask am I all right. It’s not all women; it’s the ones with a certain look in their eyes, as if they think they’re too good for the rest of us. It’s the beautiful ones. My mother was beautiful …

  Four

  A funeral took place at about five thirty in the morning on the day after th
e wedding. The sun was urging a weary eye over a misty horizon, and starlings were tuning up in the orchestra pit, while a lone blackbird, who seemed to have elected himself maestro, shouted orders from the roof of Jackson’s bakery. If he wanted crumbs, he was in for a long wait, because Sunday was the bakery’s single day off. Emily Jackson did her wedding and birthday cake icing on Sundays and, unless a major accident occurred, Sunday was a crumb-free zone.

  Paddy was sole witness when her adorable, precious grandson emerged at snail’s pace from the side entrance of the prefab next door. He looked left, then right, before stepping out onto the path with a huge knife and a bundle that was wrapped poorly in a crumpled mass of newspaper. A man on a mission, he frowned determinedly, and the end of his tongue expressed a high level of concentration as it poked from a corner of his mouth.

  Paddy failed to control a wide grin. Seamus closed the door with untypically meticulous care, turned, and dropped the hat. It slid out of its newspaper coffin and fell at his feet, though the despised satin suit remained where it was. She started to laugh aloud when he forgot himself and jumped on the hat with both feet. Why on God’s good earth was she laughing? She had to face up to Seamus’s older brothers in a few hours, had to save the life of poor old Ernie Avago, make sure that Lights of Liverpool was returned to a condition fit for its other incarnation, Scouse Alley, and find room in her head for worry about three dead men and three live machine guns. And here she stood doubled over with glee as she watched the shenanigans of a focused and very angry young man. And he had better not cut himself with that knife, since life promised to be hard enough without visits to hospitals and the like.

  Seamus was cutting a square sod of lawn from the tiny rear garden. He lifted it and placed it to one side before getting to work with a spade. There was no ceremony, no prayer, no dignity. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust? He wanted rid; that was all.