She didn’t ask where he’d been when he finally entered the flat. He could scarcely remember the last time she’d asked certain questions. But he volunteered a part of the truth. ‘I went to see Molly. Her books weren’t balancing.’
Still knitting rapidly, Tess advised him that his meal, minus salad, was in the oven and would be dry. ‘I didn’t say anything to Sean or Anne-Marie.’ And she wasn’t going to start worrying about Molly Braithwaite, since Molly was a fat frump with no style whatsoever. She was Don’s employer, no more than that.
‘Your knitting’s grown,’ Don commented. Life was becoming stranger, as he now felt almost shy in the presence of his wife. ‘At that rate, you’ll have it finished by the weekend.’ He took another mouthful of shepherd’s pie. Tess was a good cook, and the meal’s time in the oven had made a pleasant crust on top of the mash. ‘The money came,’ he added casually. ‘The house will be in your name, and I’ll move in with you if that’s all right.’
She remained silent.
‘Two single beds,’ he added. ‘I need a firm mattress.’
‘All right.’
And ‘all right’ was as far as she got for the moment. He waited, but no further comment was made. She was one bloody infuriating, selfish cow. So why did he feel like an unworthy teenager at the feet of a local beauty queen? She’d been hard enough to catch the first time round, and his sex life had been rationed almost as harshly as food during the war. He was mad. He was the one in need of bloody psychiatry. ‘I can’t leave you.’ There. He’d said it.
She stared hard at him. ‘I’m not insane if that’s what’s worrying you.’
Don gritted his teeth. No, but I very well may be, was his silent reply. ‘I can’t leave you,’ he repeated. ‘Because somewhere, in a well-hidden part of my stupid self, the love is still there.’
Tess raised her head. If there was ever to be a truthful moment, it had to come now. ‘That’s a debt I can’t repay properly. But I’d miss you, Don. I’ve grown used to you.’
He sighed. People got used to bunions, he supposed. And toothache. Any repeated pain became part and parcel of existence. ‘We’ll go and look at it together tomorrow,’ he promised.
She continued to stare at him. ‘You weren’t going to bother.’
‘I wasn’t going to move in.’
‘So what’s changed?’
‘I can’t leave you,’ he said yet again.
And she smiled. Molly’s smile lit up a room; Tess’s illuminated eternity. ‘You won’t like it,’ she told him.
‘Why?’
‘Skaters’ Trails.’
The man who loved two women began to laugh uncontrollably. ‘How do you manage to get your own way every time?’ he gasped.
She didn’t even continue to smile. ‘Because I’m beautiful.’ She stated the fact baldly. ‘But, you know, I may be wrong in this instance.’
Don stopped laughing. ‘No. You’re beautiful.’
‘I know that. I mean the carpet. It is a bit busy. And common. We don’t want to be the same as all the rest, do we?’
He wondered whether she was using the royal ‘we’, as she seldom spoke about them as a couple. ‘How many rooms have Skaters’ blinking Trails?’
‘Just the one.’
He decided to press her. ‘Can I change it?’
‘Of course. It’s your house.’
Recently, she had begun to forget what he had just said. ‘It will be in your name.’
‘Both names,’ was her reply. ‘Because we’ll both be leaving it to Sean and Anne-Marie. Your money, your savings, our house.’
She was now being untypically fair. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Where are the kids?’
Tess shrugged. ‘She’ll be with Karl Marx on his bike, and he’ll be up to his ears in oil doing a foreigner for a friend. I miss them. Not as they are now, but as they used to be, all shining faces and spelling tests. I felt right. Everything felt right then.’
She was talking to him. He had to answer. ‘That’s because you were doing what you swore you’d do all those years ago. When that terrible thing happened, and not even a funeral, you buried a bit of yourself, love. Living like that, being hungry and cold, made you determined to give your own a decent chance.’
She nodded thoughtfully. ‘But I had to work, Don. And you raised them, taught them to read and spell and count. I missed a lot of that.’
‘Blame Hitler.’
‘Oh, I do, I do.’
That was the moment when he realized why she was ill. She’d lost her own childhood, and she’d missed a lot of theirs. Her one pledge before God had been broken, and his leg was to blame. ‘I’m sorry, love.’
‘Why? Did you shoot yourself in the knee?’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Then don’t be sorry. None of this is your fault.’
Later, when Sean and Anne-Marie were asleep, Don had a quiet bath. Once dry and shaved, he crept into the bedroom and slipped under the covers. ‘It’s all right,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t be taking advantage. It’s just the leg, Tess.’ Feeling her tension, he began to stroke her hair until she settled.
She sniffed.
‘Are you crying?’
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Once upon a time, the most beautiful princess in the world was born by mistake in a little wooden hut. She knew she was a princess, because she had a birthmark on her cheek, a beauty spot given only to people of true blue blood. She moved with all the pride and grace of royalty, and—’
‘And finished up in a launderette on Smithdown Road,’ she said.
Don tutted. ‘No. On Menlove Avenue with leaded lights in the windows and a horrible carpet on the floor.’
‘Shut up.’
‘But a prince with a limp tore up the carpet and bought a blue one to match her knitting and her eyes.’
Tess blinked wetness from her eyes; she would not cry.
‘And they lived almost happily together.’ He lifted her hair and buried his nose in the nape of her neck. So sweet, the scent of this woman’s flesh. ‘Except for motor bikes, oil on their son’s feet and separate beds.’
‘Go to sleep, Gordon.’
He hated his full name. ‘Call me that again, and I’ll tickle you.’
‘And I’ll have your head cut off by the royal axe man.’
‘Fair enough.’ He went to sleep.
See, the streets need cleaning. Some women get some men in a pile of trouble, and I’m here to balance the scales. I don’t know why it has to be my bloody job, but my mother was lovely. I thought she could do no wrong till she scarpered. I can’t be doing with liars. Who said ‘to thine own self be true’? Well, I’m being true to mine own self. Cleaning up, clearing out the trash, letting the sun shine through the rain …
Six
Rosh had finally achieved the impossible; she was now in a place where waking, while still painful, was no longer soul-shattering. She had learned to accept a day without Phil, then another, then the next. Some days were sad, others were bearable, while several were satisfying and almost happy. Which was just as well, because Christmas was approaching fast, and the season had always been special. Phil had made it so and, having lost a wonderful father, the three children deserved an extra-special time this year. There was money, though Rosh intended to hang on to most of it. With three children to educate and send forth into the world, she needed that nest egg. But she planned to use some to brighten their lives.
So the wind of change had started to travel through the Allen household, and Rosh intended it to freshen every room. It was more of a breeze than a gale, since the loss of a father as wonderful as Phil had left a massive hole, and speed might have seemed disrespectful. But Rosh would improve the lives of Phil’s children, would keep them occupied and as happy as possible. Kieran’s bedroom next, she decided, then Mother’s.
The girls’ bedroom was going to be difficult, because Alice didn’t often do ch
ange, but she’d seemed happy enough while watching alterations in Rosh’s bedroom. Perhaps she might be persuaded? Kieran could work on Alice, get her to choose colours and wallpaper. Fortunately, Philly was easy to please. Immersed in music, she didn’t notice the trimmings around her. The only time she complained was if lighting was too poor for her to read her sheets when learning a new piece. Her intention was to become a songwriter, as someone had to lead the world out of its ‘silly’ rock and roll era.
Rosh sat up in bed and looked round the room. It was pretty and very feminine. Everything had moved. Bed, wardrobe, dressing table and chests of drawers had found new positions in life, while her husband’s clothes and shoes had gone to the poor. Newly painted and papered, the room was completely different. This was no longer the nest in which Rosh had lain with her husband. It had all been changed as quietly as possible by Rosh, Anna and an odd-job man called Eric.
Rosh grinned broadly. Eric Holt had since become a bit of a pest, as he had taken a shine to Anna, and the situation was fast moving towards the hilarious edge of the spectrum. Kieran and Philly made many comments about Gran’s new boyfriend, his height, his slender stature, his worn-out cap. Kieran had been heard to offer the opinion that Mr Holt needed a ladder to reach the skirting boards. Gran often chased Rosh and Phil’s older progeny with a broom, a fish slice, a rolling pin, or anything else that came to hand. If they carried on with the torment, she would kill them.
Mother was still living here, of course. Determined as a Jack Russell down a rabbit hole, Anna Riley continued perpetuum mobile, hyper-alert and full of love. On weekday evenings, she cleaned a couple of offices on Liverpool Road, and she refused to give up her indispendence. This word she had concocted from two others – independence and indispensability, and the Allen household was used to that. Kieran had even put forward the concept of an Anna Riley Dictionary, a DIY volume created for the Irish, the adventurous and the totally daft, but his grandmother was not offended. Years after immigration, she still clung fiercely to her Irish accent. She was grateful to Liverpool, as were many Irish folk, but she had been made in Mayo, and Mayo was printed all the way through her body like Blackpool in a stick of rock.
‘You’d be prouder of me now,’ Rosh told the wedding photograph. ‘I’ll probably go back to work after the New Year. They’ll have a good Christmas, love – Mother and I will make sure. But we’ll miss you so much. It just won’t be the same, Phil, but I’ll try my hardest.’
Phil had always made a drama out of carving on Christmas Day. When Kieran and Philly had been small, their dad had pretended to choose between them and the meat on the table. So a chase round the house with a fork-wielding father had been normal. ‘I only want to see if you’re cooked. Just a little prod with the fork,’ he would yell as his children fled upstairs screaming happily. He’d never done it with Alice, who had been born after a gap of seven years. Alice, when she did take something on board, treated it literally, and she might have been terrified.
The door glided inward and revealed a huge orange cat. Winston had learned how to open doors. Well, some doors. Those that opened towards him remained a mystery thus far, though he was working on the mechanics of the problem. Sometimes, he entered while still hanging from the handle, but this was always done with a complete lack of grace, as the action rendered him wide-eyed, yowling and shaky. This time, he’d remembered to let go. He looked businesslike, tail ramrod straight and stiff, eyes on Rosh, who was the reason for his intrusion. He had come bearing messages, and was doing what Anna always termed a briefcase job.
‘Hello, Winnie.’
‘Meow.’
‘What?’
‘Meee-ow.’
‘Is she?’
‘Mew.’
I am talking to a bloody cat here. Worse than that, I understand what he’s saying. This is definitely not normal. I am definitely not normal. I wonder if there’s a place for me in a nice, quiet rest home for the terminally bewildered? Are there other people like me, crazy and aware of it?
‘MEEE-OW.’
‘Is she dressed?’
‘Mew.’
Under the dedicated supervision of Winston, Rosh pulled on her dressing gown and walked past the cat onto the landing where she found Alice dressed, but gazing quizzically at her shoes. They were shiny-clean, yet Alice found them unacceptable. As the child studied her footwear, a frown creased her face.
‘Alice?’
‘Hmm, no.’
Well, that was a promising start. Rosh noticed that the left shoe was where the right should have been, and vice versa. While the little girl could complete a jigsaw in minutes, she remained stumped by ordinary, everyday difficulties like shoes, odd socks, the wrong spoon, a piece of meat in her mashed potato.
‘Change over,’ Alice said before swapping the shoes’ positions. A huge smile decorated her pretty little face.
These were the Christmas gifts Rosh relished. Already, she had detailed drawings of buildings, and sums on paper. All twenty-six letters of the alphabet sat in a pile on Alice’s little bedroom table, the same twenty-six on the wall, and Alice could match them. There was a brain, a good brain, but it was behind glass possibly frosted by Aspergers. Rosh was determined to break that glass if it took her a lifetime. ‘Hello, Alice.’
No reply, but the shoes were the right way round on the child’s feet. And that was Rosh’s newest Christmas present, delivered prematurely, but valued all the more for that very reason. Alice knew right from left; she was also displaying symptoms of knowing right from wrong, so the show was making its hesitant way towards the road at last.
The biggest gift had been offered by the school, where Rosh had been shown a sketch of the Victorian building, all false castellation, arched windows and scarred brick. Alice had produced this from memory one wet playtime, but it wasn’t the main prize. Although the child appeared not to listen in class, her sum book was full of ticks. ‘She’s bright enough,’ the teacher had said. ‘And we’re getting help. For two hours a week, her communication skills will be worked on. Oh, and she does better if she brings her teddy bear to school.’
‘She talks to him,’ Rosh had said. ‘And the cats. We have two, and the ginger tom seems to look after her.’
That was when she learned that Alice might need a familiar item with her for some time to come. ‘Hopefully, Mrs Allen, the articles will get smaller and less noticeable. But Aspergers children often need to cling to something or other. With luck, hard work and a good following wind, she’ll be playing with the others within a year or two. I’ve had to allow the rest to bring in a toy, because I don’t want Alice to stand out for the wrong reasons. But she is special. All your children are. Kieran will go a long way whatever he chooses to do, and Philly will continue with music, I expect.’
‘They had a clever dad.’
‘And a good mother. Never forget that.’
She had learned something else that day. Alice’s condition was thought not to be curable, though the behaviour it produced could be improved in certain cases to a point where it might be virtually unnoticeable. In certain cases. Alice wasn’t a case, she was a human child with talent, likes, dislikes, needs, and even some naughtiness. The naughtiness was the item in which Rosh invested most hope. The child reacted. In order to react, she needed to have been involved, however peripherally, in a situation near to her. And she was definitely relating to her big brother and to her older sister.
Winston was having a wash. Alice, all bright and clean in her school clothes, watched him. ‘Clean your teeth,’ she told him before going downstairs.
A mental picture of Winnie and a toothbrush made Rosh giggle. She didn’t want to think about toothpaste. Winston and a tube of extruded white dental cream might prove a lethal combination.
Breakfast had begun. Alice had her egg, her special spoon, the statutory battalion of six soldiers, and a cup of milky tea. The older two were eating Gran’s special porridge with thick cream and a soupçon of golden syrup, while Rosh
and Anna had toast.
Anna was in full flood with one of her thousands of tales about life in Mayo. ‘So Patricia – she was your granddad’s sister, and some called her Paddy – had one of her daring and unusual ideas. Sure they were only babies at the time, but they had a problem to solve. She thought if they hid their ganga’s clothes and work boots, he would stay in the house and there’d be no more explosions in the sheds. None of them had many clothes to spare, so this seemed sensible enough. Well, Holy Mother on a Friday, he hit the roof in temper. There he was in long underwear with the flap at the back, and an old shirt from before the turn of some long-ago century, and he ranted and raved like a madman.’
‘So what did they do?’ Philly asked.
Anna laughed. ‘Your granddad and his sister ran for the hills, but got tired after a few minutes. When they came back, there was Ganga in a woman’s frock and coat, old wellington boots on his feet, going about his brewing as if nothing had happened. Ah, he sounded wonderful, God rest his bones.’ She nodded for a few seconds. ‘I wonder could we find Patricia? She was with the last lot of Rileys to come over, you know. If she’s still in Liverpool, it shouldn’t be too hard. I’d like to meet her. She was my husband’s favourite sister, backbone of steel, heart of gold.’
‘Weren’t they all supposed to stay together?’ Kieran asked.
Anna shook her head sadly. ‘Some went away for work, some married and moved, and I believe a few crossed the ocean for Canada and America. Then the ganga died, so no one was in charge. Lovely big family like that, all split up without thought, without …’
Rosh put a hand on her mother’s. Only Rosh could hear the pain. ‘All right, Mam.’ At times like this, the name Mother seemed a bit formal. Rosh was Anna’s sole surviving child. Miscarriages, stillbirths and neo-natal deaths had left the poor little woman devastated. She had one healthy, strapping girl, and all the rest were … ‘Eat your egg, Alice, there’s a good girl,’ Anna said, her voice less than steady.
‘You’ve four,’ Rosh told her mother. ‘Me and these three of mine.’
The Liverpool Trilogy Page 90
