Rosh burst into tears.
Anna wriggled herself into the space next to her daughter on the sofa. ‘See? You’ve the both of us here now, me and Roy like bookends propping you up. So why are you keening? Are you not happy for me?’
Rosh nodded. Of course she was happy. All she wanted was for Mam to be content and safe. But the happiness was mixed with a selfish sadness, a childish emotion that bubbled up and spilled out down her face. This was her mam, and her mam was meant to stay. Why did she want to go getting married at this stage in her life?
Once again, Anna read her daughter’s mind. ‘Marriage isn’t there just for young folk, you know. We’re put on this earth by the good Lord to look after each other. Eric needs me, and I need him, somebody of my own generation. He’s a good man. There’s not a bad ounce in him. Though he has come out of his shell, and he tries to tame me.’ She sniffed. ‘He won’t win.’
Rosh raised her head. ‘The children will miss you. Alice doesn’t like too much change—’
‘Neither do you, madam. I’m doing nothing wrong, am I? Sweetheart, I need no permissions. The last time I looked, you were my daughter, and God knows I love the bones of you, but I’m not dead, Roisin. So we know where we stand. Until the day I die, I’ll be here for you. All of you. I’m worried, but.’
Rosh dabbed at her damp cheeks. ‘Why?’
‘Kieran. Have you seen his reading matter just now? Naked people and private parts. Last time I saw him, he had his nose in some woman’s perjacker.’
‘Per-what-er?’ Roy’s eyebrows had travelled north and were almost hidden by his hair.
Rosh sniffed. ‘Her word for female parts. Goodness knows where she found it.’ She turned to face her mother. ‘They’re only drawings, Mam. It’s not as if they’re photographs of real folk. He’s studying.’
Anna stood up. ‘Studying, is it? And what if a priest happens to call? Or a pair of nuns? Can you imagine that, now? We’d be needing smelling salts. There’s Alice at an impressionable age, Philly trying to concentrate on her piano, and he leaves the darned book open at a page showing a man’s wotsit in a state of doo-dah.’
Roy fled the scene as quickly as botched surgery would allow. In the kitchen, he wept into a tea towel; he couldn’t let the laughter out of his mouth, so it took a route via tear ducts down his cheeks. Yes, he was getting a wonderful, vibrant wife, but the rest of the bunch might be termed interesting, at least. Wasn’t eccentric nearer the mark? Life would never be dull.
‘You should make him study upstairs,’ Anna was saying now.
‘And make a big fuss of it? I’m glad he’s such an open book.’
Roy swallowed another chuckle. Open books were the basis of Anna’s argument. There wasn’t going to be a minute of normality, was there? He’d moved from the dry, dusty atmosphere of the law into a kitchen where he did what he loved best – cooking. He’d be leaving the peace and deadly silence of this house to move into relative chaos across the road; he would share a life and a bed with the woman he adored, while Anna’s house was going to be very near. Eric would be henpecked, of course.
‘Come out of that kitchen immediately, if not sooner,’ Anna ordered.
He thought about that. It was his house, his bloody kitchen, yet she still ordered him about. He was being henpecked, never mind poor old Eric. Like a naughty schoolboy, he returned to the front room. ‘You rang, ma’am?’
‘Don’t you get cocky with me, Roy Baxter. I knew you when you were snotty-nosed and covered in mud. You make sure you look after my girls and my boy. And if he carries on looking at those books, put your foot down. The good foot, not the other. Tell him to study that kind of thing in private.’
Roy nodded soberly. ‘Privates in private, then.’
Anna looked at her daughter. ‘Do you ever feel like hitting Roy?’
Rosh nodded. ‘But only in private, and never in the pri—’
‘That’ll do.’ Anna marched out of the house, slamming the door in her wake.
The two remaining adults howled like children. It was the sort of laughter that gives rise to pain and tears. ‘Where did you find her?’ Roy managed. ‘Under a witch’s broomstick?’
Anna shrugged and dried her eyes yet again. ‘She’s elemental. She’s like earth, wind, fire and water. My mother just is. She’s probably the result of a mating between a Titan and a Valkyrie. And I’ll bet you any money the Titan suffered more during the encounter.’
‘Rosh?’ He pulled her close. ‘Let’s give them a surprise party in the café.’
‘Why?’
‘Celebrate their wedding.’
She frowned. ‘Are you sure they said you were all right in your head when you left Whiston?’
‘Listen, you,’ he answered. ‘I have a certificate to say I’m sane. Have you?’
‘No. But I can tell you this much: my mother doesn’t like surprises. You already know that.’
‘Pretend Mr Collingford wants to see her at the shop. Then she’ll get all dressed up like a Christmas tree. We’ll let Eric in on the secret. Though if he owns a suit, I’ve never seen it.’
‘Course he has a suit. Must have. Can you see my mother marrying somebody in a flat cap and overalls covered in paint and sawdust? But listen to me properly, Roy. We’ll just have champagne, lemonade for the kids, and a wedding cake. If she’d wanted a shindig, she would have had one, believe me.’
They went upstairs. Conversation seemed easier when they lay down together. Anna would not come back; the closing of curtains informed her that shenanigans were ongoing.
But on this occasion, there were no immediate shenanigans. Like a long-married couple they lay, spoons in a drawer, his mouth in her hair near the left ear. ‘Irish stew,’ he said. ‘With beetroot and red cabbage. Apple crumble and custard. A few finger things like vols-au-vent, some crudités, a bowl of punch. Dips and—’
‘Shut up. I’m sick unto death of menus. My whole life is menus, both work and home. I know you do the cooking in the café, but we all bake at night, and I decide what’s what and who’s which and why.’
‘She’s your mother. We should do something.’
‘Eric would spill beetroot-coloured vinegar down his shirt.’ She wriggled backwards, could not have been closer without sharing his skin.
Roy smiled as sleep claimed her. Sometimes, his happiness became almost too big to be contained, and this was one such occasion. He couldn’t laugh, couldn’t cry or speak, because his precious girl was asleep in his arms. So he thought about her, remembered her.
The bullies. She and Phil had dealt with them. Phil left bruises; she gathered handfuls of hair, torn clothing, books. Blood under her nails, screams, threats and curses pouring from her throat, no pause for breath, no thought for self. Goal shooter in the first netball team, top scorer at archery, top scorer in the secret, hormone-fuelled dreams of every boy in Upper School. His Amazon, quieter now, yet more powerful than ever.
‘Touch him again and your head will be so far up your arse, you’ll be dining on your own shit.’ That line from Phil, of course. Even in a fight, even bloody and breathless, Rosh had managed to retain a degree of dignity. Roy had loved her then, and he loved her now so much that it hurt, as if it wouldn’t fit in the space he had inside.
Best man day. Their wedding, his purgatory. Long white dress, she wore. Simple, almost unadorned, just a whisper of lace at the throat. Phil, strong and handsome, no stupid leg, no ill-tempered father mocking him, dragging him down. Roy would look after her now; daily, he reminded Phil of that, hoped that his huge spirit approved of the new liaison.
She turned in his arms. ‘Love me,’ she commanded.
‘It will be my pleasure, ma’am.’
‘And mine. You’d best make sure of that.’
Roy leaned over his captive audience. ‘Would you like to see the wine list? Or a selection of my crudités?’
‘No, just the pudding trolley, thanks.’ Then she kissed him very fiercely.
‘See?’ h
e said when he managed to escape. ‘I knew you were hungry.’
Tess Compton sat in front of her dressing-table mirror. ‘I’ve got lines,’ she complained. ‘I’m getting old. Crows’ feet? I look as if I’ve been attacked by a full-grown eagle.’
Don managed to contain a bubble of laughter. With hands clasped behind his head, he sat propped up by pillows while watching his almost brand new beloved as she patted cream into the offending areas. ‘I hope you’re not going all greasy during the day as well. When I grabbed you last night, you nearly shot out of my arms all the way up to the ceiling.’
She turned. ‘Don’t exaggerate. Anyway, this is day cream. It’s very thin, and it gets completely absorbed.’
He was completely absorbed. He felt he might be quite happy to watch her for the rest of the day. ‘There’s an oil slick on your pillow case,’ he stated boldly. His mind wandered into the past, where he could never have made fun of her, where she had been a sour, bitter, old-before-her-time woman, an automaton. Underneath all those confused hormones, Tess had been there all along. ‘You’re lovely,’ he told her. ‘I wouldn’t swap you for a quarter of Horniman’s. Maybe I might for half a pound of my favourite tea, but—’
‘Oh, shut up. I’ve got lines.’
‘You’ve got lines? You should try living with you. My lines have got lines. I’m like a map of the London underground railway. If you want the Bakerloo line, it runs all the way up to my hair.’ In ham actor fashion, he exhaled sadly. ‘My wife doesn’t understand me.’ God, she was beautiful. ‘You’re getting ready for Mark,’ he pretended to accuse her. ‘Flaunting yourself in front of your only daughter’s only boyfriend. It’s the same every Saturday.’
‘And you’re off to see Injun Joe, so don’t forget your headdress and peace pipe.’
He smiled to himself as she got dressed. Until relatively recently, he’d never seen her unclothed or even in underwear. There was something undeniably moving about watching an attractive woman while she donned clothing. It was a form of ritual, filled with little moves and habits she had probably developed since she was a teenager.
During the early years of wedlock, she’d been shy about her body; then the dreaded hormone imbalance had kicked in, and they had both begun to exist in nightmares. ‘Tess?’
‘What now?’
He allowed a few beats of time to pass. ‘Did you marry me for my dad’s bit of money?’
She grinned. ‘It was taken into consideration, and you know why.’
‘Oh, yes. I do now.’
‘But, in so far as I was capable of loving at that time, I loved and valued you, Don. Whatever was wrong inside me must have started to affect me when Anne-Marie was a little girl. I was never the cold, calculating bitch I seemed to be. Sometimes, I heard myself and was shocked. Then, that day in the launderette, the first panic attack. Fortunately, I had only two that floored me completely.’
‘After which, we got the literally bloody day.’
She pulled on a stocking and rolled it up a shapely leg. ‘The day that saved us. I thank God for fibroids, cysts and all the other alien growths I carried for years. I thank Him often for giving me back to me, because those invaders owned Tess Compton for a very long time.’
Don chuckled. ‘Now I own you.’
‘In your dreams, lad. This is 1960. In case you haven’t noticed, women took over in 1939 and got a bit feisty. We’ve been in charge ever since, but we allow men to believe they still have power. Just watch this space, Tarzan. Twenty years from now, we Janes will be running the country from the front instead of leading from behind.’
‘Oo-er. I’m terrified.’
‘So you should be. Because when a woman tells you to jump, there’ll be hurdles of varying heights. I’ll fetch you a cup of tea before Mark gets here.’ She blew him a kiss before leaving the room.
He shook his head and wriggled down under the covers. His Tess was strong now, as was the other one. The other one, in her single room at the top end of Tess’s ward, was also strong. Her ordeal had hit headlines both local and national but, according to the press, she’d gone on to open a shop and a café up in Waterloo. And there were more of them – Tess was well aware of that. A long-dead Irishman had saved to send them to England, and they had come across the Irish Sea a few at a time. Don’s wife, filled to the brim with terrible memories, had walked away from her siblings as soon as possible. For that, she should not be blamed.
He rolled to the other side of the bed and breathed her in. To his knowledge, she had made no attempt to reconnect with her family. They’d be different now, older, separated from each other by marriage and workplaces. The bigger, healthier ones who had deprived a small thin child of food, who had beaten her and screamed at her, no longer existed. That animal-like behaviour would have ceased by now, surely? Their life had been so wild that the survival of the fittest had been unwritten and unspoken law.
Anyway, he must shift himself. Injun Joe had become fed up with a series of temporary assistants, and today he would probably offer Don the job of office manager, which was just a posh term for someone who answered phones and lined up appointments. Joe was a great local character, a man who wanted all European invaders removed from America, because it belonged to the natives. After the clearance, buffalo would be reintroduced, and the indigenous population could go back to the way they used to be, tribe fighting tribe, hunting parties arguing about which was whose buffalo, and a jolly time could be had by all who managed to hang on to their scalps.
‘Daft,’ Don said as he dressed. ‘Still, it takes all sorts, I suppose.’
A cup of tea, followed by his wife, entered the room. ‘Make sure you eat before going to see soft lad. If you ask me, Joe’s as mad as a flea in a tin.’
‘Well, he’s good at his job.’
‘Job? Taking photos of cheating husbands?’
‘And wives,’ he reminded her. ‘Takes two to join a St Bernard’s waltz and change partners after a certain number of steps.’
Tess blushed. ‘I wouldn’t swap you.’
‘Not for a ton of Horniman’s?’
She hesitated. ‘Make it Typhoo, and you’re on.’
And she was gone. Since losing some of her innards, she had moved on from a moderate, ladylike pace to greased lightning. Grease. Night cream, day cream, all-over-after-a-bath cream, foot cream to ward off the horrors of hard skin, eye cream, hand cream – everything but ice cream.
Oh well. Time to get down Smithdown Road to Joe’s place. Because Joe was about to become master and servant all in the one body. Joe Dodds, Injun Joe, the man of many disguises, was going to round up the Riley clan and drive them out of hiding. With a whip, if necessary. It was time.
Seamus had heard the term ‘in two minds’, but he was in several. He adored Gran. She was his hero for most of the time, but she was naughty. He couldn’t tell her not to go to London, because she was his senior, and anyway, he’d be forced to admit to mooching and going in drawers upstairs in her house while he was supposed to be ill. He might have to confess his sins to somebody, but it wouldn’t be Gran.
Mam would erupt if he talked to her. World War Two and the Blitzkrieg in Bootle might pale into insignificance compared to the wrath of Mrs Maureen Walsh. She had been known to start, choreograph and play an active part in battles on the green in the centre of Stanley Square where they had lived in their prefab, so Mam had to be left out of all calculations.
Reen, his sister, was simply daft. All she went on about these days was wanting a baby and dining-room furniture, not necessarily in that order. She’d be no good with babies, because she kept losing things, putting them down somewhere or other, then running round her house shouting, ‘Where did I leave the whatever?’ The whatever varied in size from a key to a basket filled with washing, so Seamus didn’t fancy a baby’s chances unless it cried all the time. Which it would. Anybody with Reen for a mother would cry all the time.
This left Seamus’s grandfather, a grand chap who was slowing
down noticeably these days. He wasn’t ill; he was just hesitant. And he was worried about Gran, because his noisy, beloved wife had a terrible cough that was proving difficult to shift.
Oh, bugger. Seamus wasn’t supposed to even think that word, but this was a terrible situation, and a boy lost control when life tied itself in knots with very little warning. But the conclusion had to be reached even if he walked towards it with leaden legs. It had to be Dad. Something had happened to Dad a couple of years back, and Dad had suffered from nerves; would that happen again? Oh, this was too much responsibility for Seamus. He wasn’t even a grown-up. He couldn’t carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Could an adult bear the load?
There were priests, of course, but they knew nothing about complications. They could reel off the rules, but hadn’t the ability to understand that sometimes those commandments and laws had to be bent a bit. It was a lack of creativity again. Most of the adults Seamus knew didn’t own the sense required to work out difficult answers to complicated questions, so how was a mere child expected to manage? Teachers were the worst; unless it was long division, gifts of the Holy Ghost, or the Battle of Hastings, their knowledge wouldn’t fill the back of a stamp.
This was Saturday. The Co-op shut at half past twelve, but Dad often stayed behind to fill in order sheets and clear his desk of paperwork. Yes, this was Saturday and, on Thursday, Gran would be on the midnight coach to London. The Krays were gangsters. Seamus had found that out by asking at the local branch library. And this knowledge had pushed the lad right to the edge. He had to talk to someone, and the someone needed to be Dad.
Mam and Gran were out preparing Lights for a coming-of-age party. They had to transform Scouse Alley into a nightclub with a licence for drink, so at least they were out of the way. It was noon. Time to start walking towards the Co-op. Oh, God. Could he? Should he? Of course he should. If Gran ended up dead, killed by gangsters, it would be his fault for saying nothing. He was going to get into trouble whatever happened or didn’t happen, so he might as well be in trouble with a live gran rather than a dead one.
The Liverpool Trilogy Page 109
