The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

‘They were keen to get her, as well.’ Roy rubbed the elbowed rib. ‘A baby,’ he sighed. ‘I’m going to be a dad. I thought I’d never be a dad.’

  ‘Wear your best suit today,’ she ordered. ‘And a tie. You can take it off if others do. Just the tie, I mean. And,’ she wagged a finger, ‘no stupid, Cheshire cat grin …’

  He kissed her. It was by far the best way to stop her nagging. Oh, but he was one lucky man. Another long-abandoned dream was going to come true.

  Don stood at the top of the stairs. ‘Anne-Marie?’

  ‘What, Dad?’

  ‘Help. I need help. Come and deal with her, because I’ve given up.’ Tess had tried on so many outfits that the bed and all other surfaces in the room were draped as if ready for decent burial. Naturally, she had gone back to the number she’d first thought of, a beautiful blue suit that matched her eyes perfectly, but there was no telling which way she’d jump next.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Don,’ Tess shouted. ‘I need your input.’

  His input? His bloody input? Twenty-five guineas he’d spent on the blue suit, not to mention shoes, gloves and bag. She’d been after a hat as well till he’d put his foot down hard. They were going down towards the Dock Road, not to Royal Ascot or Buckingham Palace. The way she was carrying on, the reunion would be over before they got there.

  ‘What shall I do?’ Anne-Marie asked.

  ‘Panic,’ he replied. ‘That’s what I’m doing.’

  ‘I refuse to panic,’ was Anne-Marie’s haughty response.

  Tess appeared. She shut the bedroom door and looked her husband up and down. ‘What’s all the noise for?’ she asked innocently. ‘I hope everybody’s ready. We don’t want to be late, do we?’ Without another word, she led her family downstairs. Pulling on her gloves, she wondered again what all the to-do had been about. After all, it was just a fuss about nothing.

  Nevertheless, when they reached Scouse Alley and Don helped her out of the car, she hung on to his hand. From the other side of an open door, rock music poured. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered.

  ‘I won’t.’

  Anne-Marie was already halfway across the parking area. ‘It’s the Quarry Men!’ She dragged Mark inside.

  ‘Remember your breathing, Tess,’ Don whispered. He was glad Sean hadn’t come. Sean was under a 1939 MG with no intention of shifting till he’d got the beggar moving. Sean was more sensitive than he appeared, and he hated to see his mother in a state. ‘Don’t hold your breath, or you’ll end up hyperventilating and in a panic. They’re just people. You even know one of the guys in the band. When they stop playing, you must go and talk to him.’

  ‘I can’t go in.’

  ‘You can go in. I’ll bloody carry you in if I have to.’

  ‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’

  It was chaos. The only bit of organization was the work of Injun Joe, who was standing at a table marked Photographs etc., and there was a lot of et cetera. People were adding snaps, wedding pictures, portraits of men in uniform, scraps of paper marked with addresses and phone numbers, and other bits of memorabilia. From the extension pounded the music of John Lennon and his pals, and all the young had been drawn round the corner like iron filings responding to the positive side of a magnet.

  Don could feel his wife trembling on his arm. Then, apparently out of nowhere, two more Tesses strode towards them. One was older than his own Tess, while the other was several years younger. The latter was Cuttle’s victim, the poor soul who’d been in hospital with Tess. And they simply drew her away from him. One minute she’d been a shaking wreck; the next, she was engaged in animated conversation with two women who had introduced themselves to him very briefly. One was Roisin Baxter, while the other was Maureen Walsh. Don picked up a sausage roll and wandered towards the music.

  Lennon was singing, and he wasn’t bad. Perhaps he’d do all right without serving an apprenticeship for a trade. Mark and Anne-Marie danced energetically, as did the offspring of other Rileys. The Quarry Men finished their set and began packing up their gear. Anne-Marie sidled up to her dad. ‘You thought he should go and be a plumber? John Lennon a plumber? Just you wait and see, Daddy-oh.’ She returned to her boyfriend, who was being scrutinized by several other teenage girls.

  Don shook his head. Daddy-oh? Not again – he was sick of that title.

  Then it kicked off, and the young were not responsible. A row broke out near the centre of the longer arm of Scouse Alley. ‘She didn’t,’ a man yelled. ‘She went over to Derry and married a Protestant.’

  ‘She did not!’ shouted another. ‘Finished up in Dublin, married English, but he was Catholic, and they farmed in Suffolk when they came over. I should know, she was my sister. They had a Suffolk Punch stud, and—’

  Another man chimed in. ‘Your sister? She was anybody’s for a drop of gin.’ He was the recipient of the first blow.

  ‘There’s your Suffolk Punch,’ cried the pugilist.

  Maureen’s older sons dragged the men apart. Finbar and Michael were big men, both trained boxers, and they soon put a stop to the fracas.

  Paddy grabbed the microphone. ‘I’m ashamed of yous,’ she announced. ‘Brawling in front of children. I am Paddy O’Neil, and you are inside my property. It will take me two minutes, no more, to turn this place dry. Then we’ll see do you fight without grape or grain in you. Maureen – easy on the Guinness.’

  People shuffled uncomfortably. They had come to meet their kin, and a few of their kin were scarcely civilized.

  Paddy continued. ‘Those who know people who arrived here drunk, get them out. Now.’ She waited while the sober offloaded the inebriates. There were several scuffles in the doorway, so Finbar and Michael stood guard. Paddy waded on. ‘I am Irish myself, as you can no doubt tell. My mother married a Riley. We have, here in Liverpool, some grand Irish folk. But we also have those soaked in alcohol and nostalgia, always keening for home, their true address somewhere at the bottom of the Irish Sea, because they know and love home, depend on England and curse England. Well, let me tell you now that my family was a poor one, and most of us are glad we crossed the water. This is home. Liverpool is home.’

  Don felt his jaw drop. Tess was borrowing the microphone! ‘I was a Riley,’ she said clearly. ‘Slept in a caravan with seven others, plus my mother and father. We sometimes ate in the ganga’s white house. I am Theresa Marianne. My oldest sister was Concepta Maria Conchita – can’t remember the rest of it. If my brothers and sisters are here, hello to you.’ She handed back the mike.

  Don lowered his head and blinked away some wetness. So frightened, so slow to move when getting dressed, so shaky out there in the car park. Unpredictable? Even a word as big as that was not sufficient to cover the glorious, beautiful woman he had married. Her two clones clapped when Tess was picked up and carried away by a brother she might never have recognized had he not sharpened knives on his wheel just outside the Smithdown Road launderette. Jack the Knife took her to meet the rest of her family.

  But for the most part, the three ‘sisters’ spent time in each other’s company. Some invisible yet irresistible hand steered the three husbands into a corner. Tom and Roy had already met, though neither mentioned the original occasion. It would go to the grave with them, since both were honourable men.

  Roisin’s Roy was the first to speak up. ‘I never know which way she’ll jump,’ he said happily. ‘Every day’s a new chapter, and it doesn’t necessarily join up with any previous text.’

  Don nodded. ‘Tess tried on so many dresses this morning, you’d have thought she had shares in Lewis’s. She collects squirrels. Not like stamps, she doesn’t have them in the house, but she feeds them and talks to them. There’s one called Alex who knocks on the bloody kitchen door. If I open it, he scarpers, but he begs from her. She can’t resist them. Or birds. It’s like a flaming wildlife sanctuary.’

  Tom chuckled. ‘Small fry, your two,’ he said. ‘Mine’s the best girl in the world, but she has a gob on her like the Me
rsey Tunnel. And she breaks things. Temper? Give me a leaky boat on a stormy sea any day. Safer.’ He nodded. ‘But I wouldn’t swap her for all the gold in Fort Knox.’

  A proud Roy pointed out his stepchildren. Alice held an old lady captive and captivated in a corner. ‘That’ll be our teacher, I reckon. Kieran’s probably for medicine, possibly for law. But Philly, the beautiful blonde, has won a place at the Royal Academy. She’s a great pianist.’ But he didn’t mention the unborn, because that would be Rosh’s job when the time came.

  ‘I’ve just my daughter here,’ Don said. ‘She’s over there with her boyfriend. My lad’s mending a car. What about you, Tom?’

  Tom pointed to Seamus, who was half hidden under a table. ‘There’s my youngest,’ he said, ‘up to his eyes in jelly and custard. The big fellows on the door are mine, too. And my daughter’s over near that long table studying her shoes.’ Poor Reen. There were babies and children everywhere, living reminders of her own failure to produce. Her husband was drinking himself towards coma, while she lacked the confidence to mix with strangers.

  Anna and Paddy found one another, of course. They were sisters-in-law, since Anna had been married to one of Paddy’s brothers, one who had never gone to London to involve himself with gangsters. The two got on like a house on fire, as did their husbands. The rest milled about, men clapping men on shoulders, women weeping when they discovered the long lost, people lining up for the ceilidh.

  The ceilidh was insane. Most seemed to own left feet only, and no two people knew the same dance steps, so corns and bunions were shown little respect. At the end, there was just a pile on the floor, the whole lot screaming with laughter.

  Don, still in the company of his fellow sufferers, saw the blue suit among all the carnage. If twenty-five guineas had gone to pieces, that sight made his spending sensible. She was dancing with Jack the Knife, her lookalikes, and several others to whom she was probably sister, aunt or cousin.

  This had been a good day.

  Home From Home

  The Irish Sea was frisky, to say the least. But on this occasion Tess felt no sickness, no urge to jump into the water to end it all. Paddy and Don both looked rather green, yet Tess maintained her dignity, even managing the occasional smile when she noticed the condition of her stalwart companions. They had taken her home; now, they were bringing her home.

  She closed her eyes. In the middle of nowhere, a hotel had sprung up. Its name was the Middle of Nowhere, a title expressed in English and in its Gaelic equivalent on exterior signs. The Middle of Nowhere was crammed with people, Irish, English and American. Words and drink flowed, singing broke out, an accordion played while a young woman performed a less than steady version of a jig. Midsummer in the back of beyond was certainly lively.

  The place was packed; its last two rooms had gone to Paddy and to Don and Tess. They breakfasted next morning on porridge topped with thick cream and a touch of orange liqueur. Then they walked the slow walk, travelled on a pilgrimage back in time to a white house with a front door that had been black.

  The roof had caved in, and the weather-battered door had lost most of its paint. Through a broken, filthy window, they caught sight of the ganga’s chair, which rested in its old place, though rain had done its damage over the decades. Here and there, bits of the poteen sheds hung on, while the orchard, running wild, was dense with untended foliage.

  ‘Are you all right, Tess?’ Don asked.

  She opened her eyes. He’d asked the same question when they’d reached the open-fronted barn.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she said in both times.

  There were no caravans. Stables had rotted, arable fields lay fallow, cattle from various surrounding farms wandered and grazed where they chose. But the most remarkable thing about the place was its pure beauty. The abandoned white house said something about Ireland’s regeneration, as did the hotel down the road. At last, people had begun to value the middle of nowhere, because the middle of nowhere mattered in this madly busy world.

  But above all, there was the greenness. Yellow-greens, blue-greens, moss greens, emeralds, St Augustine’s school-uniform bottle greens, shiny greens and dull ones, light fern greens. Green upon green upon green. Endless. ‘So unashamedly lovely,’ Tess said. ‘It celebrates itself. My squizzles would love the orchard.’

  And she didn’t want to leave.

  Paddy, drying her eyes after the sight of her old home, said she didn’t know about the state of things and how to get proof, but this was Riley land, and she would see what could be done to mend things, make a holiday home where the family could come and stay in turns.

  And Tess still didn’t want to leave. She found the field from which she’d dug potatoes and turnips to eat raw, stared at the spot where her caravan had stood, remembered the older ones stealing her food. But none of that mattered any more, because this was her place … well, one of her places. Calm, so calm. She even went to find the grave of the little stillborn, and it was there, marked by a cross on the trunk of a tree whose canopy shaded one who had never breathed. ‘Sleep well,’ she told her brother or sister.

  ‘Tess?’

  She opened her eyes. ‘Yes, Paddy?’

  ‘Don’s being sick over the side somewhere.’

  Tess smiled. ‘Then he’ll know how we felt coming over the first time. I wanted to die.’

  ‘You’re talking in your sleep, but.’

  ‘I’m not sleeping, I’m thinking. Look after Don.’ Tess closed her eyes again, and was immediately back in Mayo.

  They walked back to the hotel and rested on their beds for several hours. Well, they were supposed to rest, though Don was kept awake by his wife’s ceaseless chatter. But Tess knew that her man was happy because she’d finally faced her demons.

  After lunch, they had another little walk, but not in the direction of the white house. It was then that Tess realized that there was something going on. Paddy and Don kept looking at each other, then at their watches. ‘What are you two cooking?’ she asked.

  ‘Soda bread,’ came the terse reply from Paddy.

  A small man rode towards them on a donkey. He stopped. ‘A Riley,’ he said, pointing at Tess. ‘Sure, they threw up these pretty little fillies for generations.’ He grinned, baring a total absence of teeth apart from a lone ranger at the front. ‘Would ye have a drop of petrol on ye?’

  It was the party of three’s turn to grin.

  ‘Because I’ve tried everything else on this lazy article.’ The animal resumed walking. ‘Did I tell you to go?’ the man yelled. ‘I never even put you into first gear …’ His voice faded as the animal picked up a bit of speed.

  ‘Old Ireland alongside the new.’ Don pointed towards their hotel. ‘You know, girls, I have a sneaking hope that the old won’t die out altogether.’

  ‘Ah, it won’t,’ Paddy promised.

  They rested on their beds before dinner, and during wakeful moments Tess thought about the changes in their lives since that first gathering. Everyone met once a month at Lights. A family tree of sorts had been constructed, and she was reconciled with her siblings. The Three Musketeers, Don, Tom and Roy, enjoyed nights out together, as did their musketeeresses. There were family dinners, outings, birthday parties, weddings. She belonged. She belonged with Don and the children; she belonged with the Rileys, too.

  No more nightmares. No longer were the bottoms of wardrobes filled with tinned food. She almost missed the fear of poverty and hunger, which was silly. It appeared that even the worst parts of life were woven into a person’s background, and that was stupid. She turned to the bright side. Reen was pregnant at last. For Paddy’s sake, and for Reen, Tess was glad, though the father-to-be didn’t look up to much.

  They woke, made themselves ready for supper, then went downstairs for a drink before their meal. They were accosted by their hostess, a bustling, busy little woman with the broadest smile on earth, which this evening was just one expression of many mixed emotions. ‘You see. I said to Vinnie – didn’t
I, Vin—’ She turned, but her husband had done a disappearing act. ‘Would you ever look at that, now? There he is – gone. Don’t you find, ladies, that whenever they’re needed, they’re never in the place where they should be?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Paddy said gravely. ‘It’s the disappearing act of the lesser-spotted human male.’

  The landlady shook her head. ‘Well, yours back in Liverpool might be lesser spotted, but mine’s covered in freckles even in places the sun should never have visited. It’s the O’Malleys, you see.’

  Paddy didn’t see, and she said so.

  ‘Well, here’s the thing. There I go, rattling on, and you with no idea of any of it. The O’Malley clan booked tables in the dining room, special occasion, and Vinnie, God mind his soul, forgot to mention it, so I’ll kill him later. Don’t want blood on good Irish linen, so. You’re in the annexe. I think it’s called an orangery, though I don’t know why, for I never managed to grow as much as a hyacinth in there.’

  They followed her through to the annexe, a huge glass room with blinds at all the windows. The sun had gone on its westward journey, so the blinds were not closed, and the beauty of the countryside was all around them. A long table groaned under the weight of food, and a poster hung from the ceiling. Eat your fill, Tess. From your brothers and sisters.

  ‘There,’ smiled the landlady. ‘All paid for by your family over to Liverpool. God bless, and I hope you enjoy.’ She surveyed the table. ‘I expect you’ll never shift it all, but.’

  Tess laughed. She laughed then, in that glorious country, and she laughed now, on her way home.

  ‘Tess?’ Paddy touched her shoulder. ‘Your man’s stopped heaving for the while, but I want you to come and look. Come away with you now.’

  The ferry busied itself over the bar where sea became river. ‘Look at that now,’ Paddy commanded. ‘Sure, it’s a different beauty, but it remains a lovely, welcoming sight, does it not?’

  Tess agreed. That famous waterfront hove into view, its huge buildings made smaller by distance. They were home. The ferry chugged its way towards dock, bringing them nearer to their goal with every passing minute.