Liverpool Love Song

by Anne Baker

  One afternoon, Rex was emptying the pond in the lower part of the garden. This had been a rather boggy area, but with a little drainage in the surrounding land he’d achieved a natural pond. Helen had wanted water lilies in it, and though he had a few flowers floating on the water now, the water had grown muddy again.

  Today he’d brought some frogspawn, as the tadpoles would eat the algae that was discolouring the water. Emptying and cleaning out the pond was the sort of job Chloe loved. He’d told her he was going to do it. She’d come rushing home from school to shed her shoes and socks on the bank, and still wearing the rest of her school uniform, waded in to join him. He saw immediately that she was upset.

  ‘I hate school,’ she told him angrily. ‘I loathe all the girls there and they don’t like me.’

  ‘Has something happened?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘They hid my gym bag from me and I got into trouble for that, and then I came bottom of the form in a biology test.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear you have problems at school.’

  Chloe sniffed and started pulling out pond weeds. ‘I’d rather leave school and help you all day,’ she told him. She was sliding about in the mud.

  ‘That’s nice to know, Chloe, but you’ll have a problem with your mum too if you wallow in all this mud. Shouldn’t you go and change?’

  She burst into tears at that, so he led her up the bank and sat down on the grass beside her. ‘It’s not just that, is it?’

  ‘It’s everything,’ she wept. ‘I’m a wicked person, that’s why everybody hates me.’

  ‘I don’t hate you, and I don’t think you’re at all wicked. What makes you say that?’

  She lifted her hand from her face and he saw her eyes were great pools of misery. ‘You don’t know how bad I am.’

  ‘Go on then, tell me.’

  ‘I killed my father.’

  ‘What? That’s not what your mother says.’

  ‘She’s told you about it?’

  ‘Yes. Chloe, she blames herself for your father’s death.’

  ‘She blames me, it was my fault. I was big-headed and thought I could climb too.’ She started to tell him how she’d slipped away from her mother when she wasn’t watching, had gone after her father and caused the accident.

  ‘An accident is an accident. It doesn’t mean anyone has to take the blame.’

  ‘If I’d stayed with Mum, it wouldn’t have happened.’

  ‘Yes, you made a mistake, but your father wanted to take you with him, and your mum stopped him doing that. She was afraid for you because they were going to do a harder climb. Had she let you go with the climbers, your father would have made sure you were safe, and it would never have happened.’

  Chloe sat beside him sniffing but saying nothing.

  ‘And what about your dad? He fastened you into his safety harness and that saved your life. Your mum says that if only he’d stayed in his harness and just hung on to you, nobody would have fallen. You all made mistakes. But your dad wouldn’t want you and your mum to be unhappy, would he?’

  ‘We can’t help it. We want him back. It’s no good saying we must forget what happened; we can’t.’

  ‘You’ll never forget it, Chloe, it’s changed your life. What you must try to do is to put it behind you and move on.’

  ‘I don’t know whether we can.’

  ‘I want you to try. Promise me you will?’

  He’d treated her as the lost girl she was and he thought she’d responded.

  For Chloe, the feeling of personal guilt would not go away, though she’d tried to do what Rex had suggested. She couldn’t get away from the fact that if only she’d stayed with Mum that day, Dad would still be with them. She’d never climbed since, never been near Capel Curig and never wanted to.

  She’d grown up feeling lost and mixed up and as though she’d never recovered from her father’s death. She knew she disappointed her mother because she’d never shone in the classroom after that.

  Mum had wanted her to go to college, but at fifteen she was still all at odds with herself and had no idea which direction she wanted her life to take. All she could think of was leaving school at the first possible moment.

  Mum had insisted she go to secretarial college, where she’d learned shorthand typing and bookkeeping; after that, she’d drifted into a job in the local office of the Inland Revenue Department. There, she’d finally settled down and made friends, and thanks to Rex and the garden she was now content with her lot. All she wanted was for things to stay this way.

  No, that wasn’t quite true. She was happy enough, but she knew she wanted more. The girls in the office told her of the exciting times they had with their boyfriends. Chloe had been taken to a dance by one of the young men in the office and to the pictures by another, but she’d found little excitement in their company.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A FEW DAYS LATER, Chloe came home from work to find her mother quite excited.

  ‘I’ve been to see the summerhouses at the garden centre,’ she said. ‘They’re absolutely gorgeous.’

  ‘Have you made up your mind? About which one you want?’

  ‘I’d like to go back for another look. Why don’t you come with me on Saturday? I’d like your opinion.’

  Chloe did, but as soon as she saw them, she knew her mother would want the most expensive one. ‘Can you afford it?’ she asked.

  Dad had left them reasonably well provided for, but Mum wasn’t as careful with money as she should be. Chloe felt that earning her own salary in the income tax office had made her more aware of the value of money than her mother was. She knew Mum could be very self-indulgent.

  ‘It is a lot to draw out of the bank,’ Helen said, ‘but I’ve thought of another way to pay for it. In yesterday’s newspaper there was a dealer offering cash for old clocks. I thought we could see how much he’d give me for that grandfather clock in the hall.’

  When they got back home, Chloe took a hard look at the familiar clock. ‘This name on the dial, Henry Sanderson, London, is that the maker?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Could it be the shop where it was bought? It kept good time in London but it stopped when we brought it up here and I haven’t been able to get it going again.’

  ‘Perhaps it didn’t want to come,’ Chloe said.

  ‘We’ve got too many clocks, haven’t we?’ Her mother led the way into the sitting room. ‘I wouldn’t mind selling this mantel clock as well.’

  ‘That one keeps good time,’ Chloe pointed out. ‘How much are they worth?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. They’re old, they belonged to John’s father. Enough, d’you think, to pay for that summerhouse?’

  ‘I don’t know. You ought to find out what they’re worth before you try to sell them.’

  Chloe was afraid she would not. Mum was impatient and wanted to get on with things. So during her lunch hour the next day, she went to the reference library, where she found several price guides for antiques. There were even photographs of clocks bearing the same names as those her mother had, and it seemed they were worth a considerable amount.

  When she reached home that evening, there was a strange car parked outside, and when she opened the front door, she saw a man shining a torch into the workings of the grandfather clock.

  Her mother came dancing down the hall with the energy of a woman half her age. ‘He’s come to buy the clocks,’ she said excitedly.

  ‘You should have waited, Mum.’

  The man turned and nodded to Chloe. ‘My daughter,’ Helen said to him.

  He was a tall, well-set-up young man in his early twenties, with dark curly hair worn long and dishevelled in today’s popular style, which her mother often deplored on celebrities. He straightened up and came forward to Chloe with his hand outstretched.

  ‘Adam Livingstone,’ he said, his face lighting up into a broad, friendly smile.

  Chloe met the gaze of his dark eyes as he grasped her hand. She felt she could see right into his
soul and felt a tug of attraction such as she’d never known before. It left her breathless.

  She pulled herself together. ‘So what are you prepared to offer Mum for her clock?’ she asked.

  ‘I was just looking at it.’ His smile remained as he turned back to the clock. ‘It’s George III, a fine mahogany case and an eight-day movement. Let me see . . .’

  When she heard the figure he put on it, Chloe pulled up short. It was a lot lower than the price guide had led her to believe it was worth. She saw her mother’s face fall.

  ‘Not enough,’ Chloe said shortly.

  Adam’s eyes played with hers as he added another twenty pounds to the price.

  ‘No,’ she said. Mum couldn’t afford to give him a bargain. Not if she wanted that summerhouse. ‘Still not enough.’

  ‘But it isn’t in working condition,’ her mother put in anxiously. ‘It won’t be worth all that much, will it?’

  ‘That puts it in a nutshell.’ Adam beamed from Helen to Chloe. He was radiating confidence, but Chloe was afraid he was trying to do her mother down.

  ‘I think we’d be better putting it in an auction,’ Chloe said. ‘Henry Sanderson, London is a well-known name, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘To those in the trade. Not wildly valuable, though.’

  ‘All the same . . .’

  It didn’t seem to faze him that her mum had got him here and now she was suggesting it might be better to sell elsewhere. He was going round their sitting room looking at their ornaments. ‘I’m in the market for other things,’ he said hopefully. ‘Furniture and china.’

  Chloe said nothing. Helen pointed out the mantel clock to him.

  ‘I agree, you might get more if you put your clocks in an auction,’ he said, and went on to give her the name of their nearest auction room and explain how to go about it. All the time his eyes followed every movement Chloe made. She was beginning to think he was flirting with her.

  ‘It’s closed now, of course,’ he said. ‘But it’ll be open tomorrow morning until twelve.’ Tomorrow was Saturday. ‘I could take you there.’ He flashed another wide smile at Chloe. ‘Both of you,’ he added hurriedly, ‘and you could arrange for them to be entered in a sale. How about that?’

  Chloe was watching her mother’s face. She was keen to sell her clocks and get that summerhouse. ‘Thank you, that’s very kind,’ she told him.

  ‘I’ll be here at ten o’clock, then.’

  Her mother was voicing her misgivings as soon as the front door closed behind him. ‘What did you have to do that for? It’ll take longer to put it in an auction, and we might get even less that way. There’ll be commission to pay and we’ll have to get a carrier to take the grandfather clock in.’

  ‘He was trying to cheat you.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. He’s a polite and charming young man.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s the impression he was trying to give.’

  ‘Chloe! He’s going out of his way to take us to this auction room. There’s nothing in it for him, is there? He’s being very kind.’

  She told her mother about the guide prices she’d seen in the library.

  ‘But what good is a clock that won’t work? I can’t get this one to go.’

  Chloe was not convinced until the next day, when Adam turned up on time and did much more than take them to the auction rooms.

  ‘I want to put this mantel clock in the sale too,’ Helen said, tucking it under her arm. He helped her fill in the paperwork to enter the clocks in a sale, then offered to ferry the grandfather clock in for her.

  He drove them home and expertly removed and dismantled the hood and the working parts of the long-case clock. He produced grey blankets and wrapped the pieces up. ‘I’m used to doing this sort of thing,’ he said, smiling at Helen now. She was clearly impressed by him.

  Chloe helped him carry the pieces out and he laid them flat in the back of his large estate car. On their return to the auction room, he helped her mother book the clock in and then reassembled it where the staff said they wanted it to stand.

  The auction room was open and the goods destined for the next sale were on show to the public. Adam took them round, pointing out the interesting pieces and chatting about them. Chloe was fascinated, and she could see her mother was too. He certainly knew a lot about antiques. But it wasn’t just that. His eyes kept trying to meet hers and were full of admiration. Her mother was right, he was charming. Chloe was enchanted.

  It was well after midday when they left. Adam paused as they were about to pass the doorway of the pub next door. ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, including them both. ‘How about a bite to eat in here?’

  ‘It’s very kind of you, but no thanks,’ her mother told him briskly. ‘Chloe and I have things we must do this afternoon.’

  By then, Chloe knew he was attracted to her, he was making that fairly obvious. It wasn’t that he was giving her all his attention, because he was being careful not to let her mother feel neglected, but she noticed that he turned to listen with extra care to everything she had to say.

  She made up her mind. ‘I have nothing to do that can’t wait,’ she said, ‘I’d love to have a bite to eat with Adam.’

  Her mother straightened up, stiffly rigid.

  Adam perked up and asked with suitable diffidence, ‘Would you mind if Chloe and I . . . ?’

  Chloe could see she’d shocked her mother. Helen was looking from her to Adam with indecision stamped on her face. She wanted to refuse to let them have lunch together, but it would seem churlish when he’d been so kind to them. Chloe thought she was afraid to refuse in case it started an argument.

  ‘I’d like to, Mum. It’ll be all right, won’t it?’

  Helen smiled warily. ‘I suppose so. Then I’ll see you later, darling.’ She kissed Chloe’s cheek. ‘And thank you so much, Adam, for your help with the clocks.’

  Polite words, but her mother’s tense back as she strode down the street told Chloe she was unhappy. A thrill ran up her arm when she felt Adam take it to lead her inside. He was a jolly sort of person who laughed a lot, the very opposite to her mother. She could feel herself opening up to him. Her cheeks felt on fire as she told him about herself. In the next couple of hours, they didn’t stop talking.

  Afterwards, Chloe had no idea what she’d eaten. She was conscious only of him; everything else faded into the background. She thought she’d found the soulmate she’d pined for since she was fourteen. He was her first real boyfriend and she was bowled over.

  She saw a lot more of Adam before her mother’s clocks came up for auction. He lived in Manchester, and two or three times a week he’d drive over to Liverpool to take her out, usually for dinner in a smart restaurant or to the theatre. He seemed to enjoy the finer things in life and wanted her to enjoy them too.

  ‘It’s a long way to come so often,’ her mother told him.

  He laughed. ‘I drive miles all over the country to antique shops and auction houses and to see private clients. I like driving and it’s part of my job.’

  They were having fun. Her mother had always been strict about the time she came home at night. Ten o’clock was the limit when she went to the pictures with her girlfriends. But Adam called at the house to collect her and asked if he might make it a little later so they didn’t have to leave the theatre before the end of the show or rush their coffee in a restaurant.

  ‘She’ll be safe with me,’ he told Helen. ‘I’ll take good care of her.’

  So that gave them time alone in his car. It was what Chloe enjoyed most. Adam would pull her close and tell her again that he’d fallen in love with her within seconds of first seeing her.

  ‘All my life,’ he said, ‘I’ve been hoping to meet a girl like you.’ She found his kisses could be tender as well as passionate.

  It was Friday, and Rex had spent the afternoon gardening with Helen. During the early part of the week he’d dealt with other clients, but Chloe had been very much in his thoughts. He w
anted to tell her he loved her, but he’d have to build up to it gradually, make her see that he was serious about her.

  At this time of the year, it grew chilly as evening approached. It had become routine for Helen to ask him indoors for a cup of tea.

  They’d chatted about bringing more scent into the garden. He’d told her what plants were available now and advised where they should be planted. Helen had made up her mind about what she wanted. They’d reached what previously would have been a companionable silence, but Rex was unable to relax. The words he wanted to say to Helen had been on the edge of his tongue all afternoon, but he hadn’t yet voiced them. He was afraid it would come as a shock to her.

  As always, she seemed to welcome Rex’s company, and he usually stayed until Chloe came home from work. These days it was the only time he could be sure of seeing her. Tonight she was later than usual. His anticipation was growing; he felt very much on edge. They’d drained the teapot, and Helen had offered him a bottle of beer and poured herself a glass of wine before he heard the front door slam and Chloe came bounding into the kitchen. She brought with her a gust of cold air and seemed to light up the room.

  ‘Hi, Rex,’ she said, and pulled a face at his beer glass. ‘No tea?’

  Helen said, ‘You’re late, we drank it all. Shall I make some more?’

  ‘No thanks, Mum. Adam’s coming to pick me up and I need to get changed.’ She rushed noisily upstairs. Helen had seemed relaxed, but now suddenly Rex could see her face clenching with stress.

  He couldn’t get his breath. ‘Who is this Adam?’

  ‘He’s arranged to have my old clocks sold at auction. I told you I was thinking of selling them to raise money for the summerhouse, didn’t I?’ Helen’s frown was getting deeper, and for once, he thought she looked her age. ‘Excuse me a moment, Rex.’ He heard her footsteps running upstairs after Chloe.