by Maureen Lee
Gran stuck her head around the door. ‘Haven’t you gone yet, love? You’re going to be late.’
‘I’m waiting for Clint,’ Daisy said in an agonised voice.
‘I’ll tell him to get a move on.’
Seconds later, Clint appeared, so heartbreakingly handsome that Daisy caught her breath. ‘We’d better hurry,’ he said, as if it had been her holding him up.
‘It’s too late to hurry,’ she said mildly when she would have preferred to scream. ‘We’ll never get there in time. The film starts at quarter past seven.’
‘That’s the programme, Daise. We’ll miss the trailers and the adverts, that’s all. The picture’s not till half past.’
They arrived just in time, but it seemed as if everyone else in Liverpool had wanted to see Godfather II, and the Odeon was almost full. They had to sit in separate seats and Daisy didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as she’d expected.
When they came out, they went to McDonald’s for a chocolate milk shake. Daisy felt much better. When she and Clint were alone together, they got on perfectly. She’d liked him since the day they’d started school, drawn towards the little boy who looked as shy and awkward as herself. She was thrilled when they’d become friends, though Ellie had always been a thorn in her side, wanting to monopolise him, take him away, determined never to leave them by themselves.
Clint preferred to do quiet things with Daisy; mainly draw and paint, but seemed unable to resist when Ellie dragged him off to play leapfrog or climb trees. Now they were all seventeen and Ellie found different reasons for prying them apart, like fixing her stupid radio, which Daisy suspected hadn’t been broken in the first place.
At some time over the last twelve years, she had fallen in love with Clint Shaw, but had no idea how he felt about her. He liked her, that was obvious, otherwise she wouldn’t have become his regular girlfriend, but whether he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, Daisy didn’t know. She was always on tenterhooks, praying every night that he would suggest they get married or at least engaged but, so far, the prayer hadn’t been answered. It worried her that one of these days the penny would drop and Clint would realise how attractive he was and she’d be jilted for a girl equally attractive. Like Ellie.
They began to discuss the picture which Clint considered even better than Godfather I. Daisy pretended to have enjoyed it because it seemed sour to say how she really felt.
‘I thought Robert De Niro was brilliant,’ Clint enthused. He was a film buff and his ambition was to become a Hollywood director, though he never mentioned taking her with him.
‘Me too, but I preferred the first film.’
‘Why?’ Clint wanted to know. He was always interested in her opinion.
‘It was more suspenseful. I remember being on the edge of me seat the whole way through.’
‘You might be right.’ Clint nodded in agreement, but claimed he still thought the second Godfather superior to the first.
They had another milk shake, strawberry this time, then Clint took her home. At the gate, he kissed her chastely on the lips and squeezed her waist, which was the most he’d ever done, much to Daisy’s disappointment. She sometimes had the horrible feeling in her agonised brain that he looked upon her as a sister and was never likely to do anything else.
Gran was the only one still up. She was on the settee watching an old film on the telly and patted the seat beside her.
‘It’s nearly finished,’ she said. ‘I saw this with Beth before the war.’
‘What’s it called?’ Daisy asked so she could tell Clint.
‘Of Human Bondage, with Bette Davis and Leslie Howard. Me and Beth cried our eyes out.’
There was a photo of Beth on the mantelpiece. She was in Washington holding a placard for the Third World Women’s Alliance. Gran said she’d been such a meek and mild person and was amazed she’d become a political agitator, always on demonstrations and marches.
The picture finished, Gran sniffed a bit and turned the set off. ‘Did you get to the Odeon on time?’
‘Sort of. We had to sit in separate seats.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Gran squeezed her hand. ‘Ellie doesn’t mean anything, you know. She just likes to draw attention to herself, make her presence felt.’
‘If I did that, no one would take any notice. Everyone notices Ellie.
‘I don’t think so. Clint is such a nice, obliging young man who hasn’t learnt to say no. One of these days he’ll get his priorities right, don’t worry.’ She yawned. ‘I think I’ll turn in. Would you like some cocoa?’
‘I’ll make it.’ Gran worked herself to the bone every day looking after them and deserved being waited on when the opportunity arose.
To Daisy’s surprise, Ellie was in the kitchen with one of the students, the Irish one called Liam. He’d probably been searching for something to eat. He was extremely good-looking and had red hair, sort of gold, much nicer than Daisy’s carroty colour. Gran was threatening to take only women students next year in view of the amount of flirting that went on.
‘They must think they’ve landed on a bed of roses, finding themselves in the same house as three pretty teenage girls.’ Gran had said this in Daisy’s presence and she was only being nice, because Daisy wasn’t remotely pretty and as solid as a piece of rock. The students were forever asking Ellie and Moira to functions at the university; discos and concerts. Daisy wouldn’t have gone, she had Clint, but it would be nice to be asked.
Liam smiled at her nicely when she went in. Ellie ignored her. While Daisy poured water in the kettle, Liam asked what A levels she was taking.
‘None,’ she replied. ‘I go to work.’
‘She had to leave school at sixteen because she didn’t get a single O level,’ Ellie informed him.
‘I got one in Art,’ Daisy argued, going red.
‘Huh, Art!’ Ellie said, as if Art was totally useless.
‘Not everyone can be a genius,’ Liam said reasonably.
Daisy’s brain was in proportion to her looks, below average. She’d tried hard to study, but the words made no sense and danced all over the page. The headmistress had said it wasn’t worth her while staying for A levels like the twins – it had once been suggested she go to a special school, but Gran had insisted she stay where she was. Uncle Matt had given her a job, but Daisy suspected he was only doing Gran a favour. She was as useless in an office as she’d been at school. Clint had also stayed to take three A levels and she felt very much out of things when everyone discussed the subjects they were taking. Clint and Ellie were in the same class for English.
Oh, God! Daisy clenched her teeth. Life was torture!
‘Are you making cocoa?’ Ellie enquired.
‘Yes.’
‘Make us a cup while you’re at it. Would you like some, Liam?’
‘I wouldn’t say no.’ He had a lovely, lilting Irish accent and at least had the grace to thank her when she sulkily shoved the mug in front of him. Ellie took hers without a word.
‘Why were you so nasty with her?’ Liam asked when Daisy had gone.
‘Was I nasty?’ Ellie looked at him in surprise. It was the way she’d always spoken to Daisy.
‘You weren’t exactly nice.’
‘I suppose she gets on me nerves,’ Ellie replied after a few moments’ thought. ‘I find her a drag, always have. She’s so slow and witless. I think she must have sludge for brains.’ She’d never understand in a million years what Clint Shaw saw in her.
‘I wouldn’t want to get on your wrong side.’ He pretended to shudder.
‘There’s not much chance of that.’ Ellie let her tongue roll provocatively over her pink lips. She allowed her knee to touch his under the table. The whole house would have been shocked to the core had they known she and Liam Conway made love regularly.
Another thing no one knew was that when Liam finished his degree in two months’ time, Ellie was returning to Dublin with him. There was no suggestion of them getting married. Both agre
ed this was the last thing they wanted. Ellie intended to have all sorts of adventures and this was only the first. Liam didn’t want to be hampered by a wife and family while he travelled around the world – he could speak French and Spanish fluently and had a smattering of German and Italian.
Liam wasn’t the first man Ellie had slept with, though he was the oldest and the best-looking. There’d been two before, one a student, and the other a boy at school. She wasn’t over keen on the sex part, though it was OK. What she enjoyed was the enormous feeling of excitement, knowing the risk she was taking, making love with a man when her grandmother was in the next room and the rest of the family were downstairs. There’d be hell to pay if she was discovered, but that made it even more daring.
Liam leant over the table and kissed her. ‘Will I see you later?’
Ellie giggled. ‘You might.’ Or he might not. The longer she avoided it, the more he would want her when next she condescended to visit his room. That was exciting too.
‘Is our Daisy coming down with something, Mam?’ Heather enquired over breakfast next morning.
‘You should know, love. She’s your daughter,’ Ruby replied as she made mounds of toast in preparation for the students.
‘She seemed very quiet earlier.’ Daisy was the first to leave in the mornings. Matthew Doyle’s head office was in Crosby and she had to catch a bus and a train. ‘Perhaps she doesn’t like that job.’
‘Why not ask her tonight?’ It could be work that was getting Daisy down. On the other hand, it might be Ellie, or possibly Clint, or a combination of all three.
‘I can’t tonight. Greta and I are going to the Playhouse.’
‘Can’t you go to the Playhouse another night?’
‘But we’ve already got the tickets,’ Greta wailed.
‘Perhaps you could have a word with her, Mam,’ Heather suggested. ‘Are you ready, sis?’
‘I’ll just get me coat.’
‘Before you go, Greta, would you kindly remind the twins that it’s time they were up?’ Ruby said with heavy sarcasm that went completely unnoticed.
‘All right, Mam,’ Greta said with the air of someone who was doing her a favour.
Her daughters seemed to regard their children as entirely the responsibility of their mother. Ruby sometimes wondered if she’d given birth to twins and a red-haired child without having noticed.
She’d once written to Beth to ask her opinion as to why they should think like this, and Beth had replied that the death of the boys had knocked the girls’ lives out of kilter. ‘They returned to being daughters when they could no longer be wives,’ she wrote. ‘Having children of their own doesn’t fit in with this role. You’re the mother, so you should take care of their children, just as you took care of everything when they were little. Daisy and the twins are your concern, not theirs.’
At first, Ruby thought this a load of rubbish but after a while conceded it made, sort of, sense, and was preferable to thinking it was all her own fault for being too domineering in the past.
She waved the girls goodbye, as she did every morning. They linked arms as they walked down the path. From the back Greta, in her pink fluffy coat and high heels, looked more like a teenager than almost forty, and Heather was very much the career woman in a black suit, hair pulled severely back in a bun, giving the appropriate gravitas to someone who was now a legal clerk specialising in probate. Heather actually had her own secretary, something of which Ruby was immensely proud. Greta was still a shorthand typist and showed no wish to be anything else.
There was a noise, as if a herd of elephants were trampling down the stairs, and two of the students, Frank and Muff, arrived in search of breakfast. She wondered what their mothers would say if they could see them now; unshaven, hair uncombed, clothes filthy. It was her job to do their washing, but it hardly ever appeared and she had no intention of pressing them.
Once again, she wondered if she should ask for girls when the new term started in October. She preferred boys. They were no trouble, apart from consuming a horrendous amount of food. Lately though, she’d begun to feel uneasy.
The chief cause of her unease came into the kitchen and wished her a breezy, ‘Good morning.’
Liam Conway, a brilliant language student, twenty-one, but with the confidence of a man twice his age, and the ability to charm the birds off the trees. She didn’t like the way he looked at Ellie – or the way Ellie looked at him, come to that. Something was going on, Ruby felt convinced.
Perhaps it would be best in future if three virile young men and the same number of young women ceased to have temptation put in their way by being housed under the same roof.
‘Hi, Gran.’ Ellie parked herself at the table. Until Liam Conway had arrived, she’d always been late for breakfast. Nowadays, she was early. Ruby had felt obliged to lay down the law and insist she came fully dressed instead of in her dressing gown, putting the students off their food, though this morning Frank clearly found the white lace bra visible through her thin school blouse just as disconcerting, but Muff was too busy eating to look up.
Liam didn’t even glance in her direction and Ruby sensed it was deliberate. Ellie made a great show of tossing her head and flashing her lovely blue eyes, accidentally on purpose reaching for the milk at the same time as he did so that their hands touched. Liam looked at her then and Ruby tried to fathom the expression on his face. His eyes had narrowed, he was looking at Ellie through lowered lids and biting his bottom lip.
Desire! He was looking at her seventeen-year-old granddaughter with desire!
A little voice in Ruby’s head shouted, ‘Help’, and she decided that later she would write to Beth.
The three-storey office block in Crosby overlooked the River Mersey. Daisy sat at her desk, unable to take her eyes off the water that shimmered in the gentle April sunshine. The sky was powdery blue with clouds like scraps of lace floating across.
It would make a stunning painting; cerulean blue as a base for the sky, yellow ochre with white or chrome orange for the sand. The silvery water would present a challenge.
A few people were walking along the sands; a man with a dog, a woman pushing an empty pram, two small children running behind. The dog would run into the water, back to his owner, shake itself vigorously, then run off again. It was a collie and was obviously having a wonderful time, furiously waving its great flag of a tail.
The children kept stopping to pick up things from the sand which they would show to their mother, who put them in a shopping bag attached to the handle of the pram. Daisy imagined the bag being full of shells and stones and funny little scraps of seaweed which the children would play with when they got home.
She sighed enviously. She would give everything she owned – not that she owned much – to be one of the people on the sands, able to run into the water, collect shells.
It was hard to concentrate when paradise was only fifty or so yards away. And now a ship had appeared, a tanker. Daisy rested her head in her hands and wondered where it was going. Somewhere exotic, a foreign port, with foreign smells, where people wore strange clothes and rode on camels.
Daisy’s longing to be anywhere else in the world rather than the place where she was now, was so strong, it felt like a sickly ball in her throat.
‘Haven’t you started on that filing yet?’
‘I was just looking through it,’ Daisy lied as she shuffled the pile of papers on her desk. She had been taken on to assist Uncle Matt’s secretary whom he claimed was overworked. Theresa Frayn had treated her nicely at first, but had long ago become impatient with her slowness. She had never known anyone take so long to do filing or type a simple letter. If it hadn’t been for Uncle Matt, Daisy suspected she’d have been shown the door months ago.
She began the painful task of sorting through the filing, putting the sheets in alphabetical order, conscious of Theresa glowering at her from across the room. The incoming letters weren’t so bad. They had bold letterheads and were easy to u
nderstand, but the carbon copy replies were difficult. As she tried to make sense of the words, Daisy had a familiar feeling of disorientation, as if the world had turned upside down.
‘Morning, girls.’ Uncle Matt came into the office. He was wearing jeans and an anorak which meant he would be visiting a site during the day.
‘Good morning, Matthew,’ Theresa said girlishly, fluttering her lashes.
‘Good morning, Mr Doyle.’ Gran had stressed she mustn’t call him ‘Uncle Matt’ in the office.
‘Tea!’ He pretended to gag. ‘I desperately need a cuppa.’
Theresa got to her feet, anxious to please her handsome boss, but Uncle Matt said, ‘Let Daisy do it.’ He grinned. ‘She makes a lovely cup of tea does our Daise.’ It was one of the few things Daisy could do efficiently.
The day wore on. Uncle Matt went out, more people appeared on the sands, more ships glided across the glistening water, in and out of the port of Liverpool. Daisy copy-typed a specification and made such a hash of it that Theresa Frayn ripped it to pieces in front of her eyes. ‘I’ll do it again meself,’ she snapped.
While Daisy was struggling with the typewriter, Ellie and Moira were walking home from school arm in arm, a boy on each side and two trailing behind. The Donovan twins were the prettiest girls in the sixth form and the fact they were so alike gave an added flavour to their already plentiful charms. They were usually accompanied by a court of admirers.
‘What’cha doing tonight?’
‘Fancy going to a disco?’
‘How about the pics? I’ll buy you some chocolates.’
The boys didn’t mind which twin responded, each being as appealing as the other.
Ellie giggled and Moira stuck her nose in the air. She wouldn’t be seen dead with a boy her own age, preferring older, more sophisticated men. Apart from Uncle Matt who was fifty-one and too old, she hadn’t so far met one that she liked, but she would, one day. It didn’t matter when, she wasn’t in any hurry. It was Moira’s intention to gain three top grade A levels, go to university, and become a teacher. Once this ambition had been realised and she had worked for a few years, she might think about getting married and starting a family.
