by Maureen Lee
Jeannie flung her arms around her mother’s neck. ‘The house won’t be the same without you, Mum.’
‘Please don’t say things like that, Jeannie. I’m already on the verge of tears.’
‘’Bye, Mum.’ Max hurried out of the kitchen and Rose noticed he was badly in need of bigger pyjamas.
Gerald grabbed his satchel and left without a word.
Rose sighed, went into the hall, and picked up the phone. She sat on the bottom stair, nursing it for a while, wondering if Alex had really meant the things he’d said. Was it only to make the affair more exciting that he’d asked her to live with him, knowing she would refuse, ready to call it off if she didn’t? He might be horrified to learn she was about to leave Tom. She visualised him offering a dozen excuses for why they couldn’t be together – Iris wasn’t well and he couldn’t possibly tell her, not just now; the business needed all his attention; he couldn’t afford somewhere for them to live; could they wait until after Christmas?
His secretary answered the phone. ‘He’s busy right now. Could you call back later? Oh, he’s just come into my office. Who shall I tell him is calling?’
‘Mrs Flowers.’
‘Hold on a moment, Mrs Flowers. He’s gone into his own office.’
‘Darling!’ said Alex a few seconds later.
He was coming in an hour to fetch her. Rose raced around the house, throwing things into an ancient suitcase. She packed towels, then returned them to the airing cupboard in case the children needed them. Did the same with the toothpaste, even though there was another tube. In the end, she took only her clothes, her make-up bag, and the few items of jewellery she possessed. As she climbed stairs she had climbed a dozen times a day for more than twenty years, she thought to herself, I will never do this again. She would never again comb her hair in front of the parlour mirror, never wash these particular dishes in this particular sink.
When everything was ready and the suitcase packed, she looked for Spencer to give him a final hug, but the cat had gone for his morning stroll over the fields and couldn’t be found. She sat at the table to write to Tom. After last night, she couldn’t bring herself to put ‘Dear Tom’ and just started with ‘Tom’.
She sat for ages staring at this one word, unable to think of another. What did you say to a man who’d almost strangled you a matter of hours before? In the end, she merely wrote, ‘Goodbye, Rose.’ She tucked the paper behind the clock on the sideboard. It wouldn’t matter if the children read it. It told them nothing.
Outside, a horn sounded. Rose picked up the suitcase and opened the door. Alex was there! She caught her breath, knowing she would remember this moment when she was a very old woman, the moment when she walked away from one life and into another. She entirely forgot about her children when Alex got out of the car and came up the path towards her. He wasn’t quite as handsome as she’d always thought, not quite so tall, not all that young. But he was the man she loved. His face was soft with love and anticipation. He stopped suddenly, put his hands in his pockets, took a deep breath and rocked back on his heels, as if he couldn’t believe that this was really happening.
The woman from the new bungalow opposite was just leaving. She waved and shouted, ‘Good morning, Mrs Flowers.’
‘Good morning,’ Rose called, ‘and goodbye,’ she added softly so the woman couldn’t hear.
‘What shall we do?’ Fly asked. ‘Kill him?’
‘Only if we can do it slowly and very painfully,’ said Max.
‘Leave him to me.’ Lachlan looked stern and forbidding.
‘Are you going to kill him for us?’
‘Shut up, Fly.’
They’d just finished their Friday night gig at the Taj Mahal and were preparing to buttonhole Billy Kidd in his office and demand he hand over the money he owed. They’d asked around and discovered he’d been paid at least ten pounds and sometimes as much as twenty for the gigs they’d played all over Liverpool during the last few years. Yet he’d only given them a quid each! They’d worked it out, added it up, and reckoned they’d been done out of just over a thousand pounds. They’d demand a thousand then tell Billy to get lost.
Lachlan felt he’d let his troops down. He should have noticed before but, like the rest of them, money had always been the last thing on his mind. He thought of the things they could do with a whole thousand; buy their own van, instead of having to borrow the one from the garage where Sean worked which was usually full of dirty engines and spare parts; get better guitars, more powerful amplifiers. The list was endless.
Billy’s face was a mask of injured innocence when Lachlan told him what they knew, that he’d been stealing their money for years.
‘I didn’t steal it.’ Billy looked outraged. ‘I invested it in a special account set up in the group’s name. You see,’ he said earnestly, ‘one of these fine days, you’ll want to get married, buy a house, and it means you’ll all have a little nest egg saved.’
‘We’d sooner save our own little nest eggs, thanks all the same,’ Lachlan said coldly. ‘How much is in this account?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Beads of perspiration appeared on Billy’s brow when faced with four pairs of accusing eyes. ‘A few hundred smackeroos, I reckon.’
‘We reckon there should be more than that. Perhaps you could take the money out of the account on Monday. We’ll come on Monday night to collect it.’
‘It’s not the sort of account you can draw money out of at the drop of a hat.’
‘We don’t mind waiting a few days,’ Fly said generously.
‘Running this club, it’s an expensive business.’ The suspicion of a tear rolled down Billy’s fat cheek. ‘Right now, I’m in a bit of a hole. If I had to empty that account, it would break me. I’ve used it as collateral, see, against a loan. I’d lose the club. Then where would you play?’
Max hooted sarcastically. ‘Your logic’s a bit dodgy, Billy. Are we expected to keep the Taj Mahal going so we can play here once a week? When you signed us up, you promised us the earth. Instead, you haven’t done a single thing except pinch our money.’
‘Invest,’ Billy said weakly.
‘Oh, yeah!’ Sean didn’t believe there’d ever been an account. The money had been lost on the horses, as he’d suspected all along. He was glad the truth had come out. Billy had served his purpose and the group could move on.
‘You’re supposed to pay us, not us pay you,’ Fly growled. ‘All you’ve ever cared about is making enough out of us to keep your head above water.’ He looked at the others. ‘I still think we should kill him.’
‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Max, ignoring Billy who, by now, was weeping copiously. ‘I don’t know about you lot, but I’d sooner not have a manager than be stuck with a crook like him.’
‘You signed a contract,’ Billy blubbered.
‘Which you’ve broken,’ Lachlan snapped. ‘Max is right. We’ll have to make do without a manager, but we need someone to take phone calls, else we’ll end up missing gigs.’
Sean thought about offering his dad as manager, but Kevin was too involved with the Flower Girls to find time for another group.
‘My mum’s always in,’ Lachlan said. ‘She won’t mind taking messages. We’ll get cards printed with our phone number on.’
‘What about me?’ Billy asked pitifully. ‘Won’t you be playing at me club again?’
‘Not unless you hike up your rates considerably, Billy,’ Max told him. ‘We’ll let you have a card and you can give Lachlan’s mum a ring – she’ll let you know when we’re free.’
Jeannie wasn’t prepared to give up her career and take over her mother’s role as her father seemed to expect. ‘We’ll all have to pull together,’ she told him. ‘I’ll do the meals if I’m here, but if I’m not, then someone else will have to do it. The same goes for the washing and the cleaning. We can make our own beds.’
‘I’ve never made a bed in my life and I’m not starting now,’ Tom growled. He felt as if he
were adrift in a flimsy boat on an angry sea, without bearings. The world had lost all meaning. Nothing was normal any more. He was on a different plane to other people. Their voices sounded very far away. Rose had gone and nothing would ever be the same again. Somehow, he had managed to blank out the fact he’d nearly killed her. It had merely been a dream, and life had been a dream ever since. The only reality was that she had betrayed him with another man.
‘Then I’m sorry, Dad, but you’ll just have to sleep in an unmade bed.’
He couldn’t comprehend his daughter’s refusal to look after him and her brothers as good daughters did when their mothers were no longer around. Out of sheer cussedness, he got rid of all the things Rose had bought. The television was sold, the washing machine, the fridge. He arranged for the telephone to be removed.
‘So, it’s back to the Dark Ages,’ Max sneered.
‘People used to manage without them things. We’ll manage without them now.’
Except they weren’t managing. Jeannie refused to do the washing by hand and it was sent to the laundry. They kept running out of food because no one had time to go to the shops. Sometimes, Gerald was provided with a list of things to buy on his way home from school. Without a fridge, the milk went sour and the butter turned rancid. From the other end of Disraeli Terrace, the McDowds kept Jeannie and Max informed of the gigs and other events that concerned them in the music world.
Tom wouldn’t lift a finger to help, not even to remove the sheets from his bed to be washed, or carry the used dishes as far as the sink. If Jeannie wasn’t around, it fell to Max or Gerald to cobble together an unsatisfactory meal for themselves and their father. For the first time, Spencer ate out of tins now that Rose was no longer around to prepare him choice little meals, occasionally having to do with a ham or sardine sandwich if the cat food ran out.
Gerald was desperately unhappy. His brother and sister could escape from the house, sometimes, in the case of Jeannie, for days if the Flower Girls were playing away from Liverpool. Gerald was hungry and never seemed able to find a clean shirt. He hated school, which he’d always liked, and there was rarely a clear space in the entire house where he could do his homework. To cap it all, he sorely missed the television, particularly the football.
In December, two months after their mother had gone, Jeannie returned from a gig in Newcastle to find the kitchen looking as if it had experienced its own little earthquake. Dirty dishes were piled everywhere, including the dresser, there were tea towels on the floor, a bin overflowing with empty tins. A parcel of clean laundry had been ripped open, a few things roughly removed, leaving the rest in a crumpled heap.
‘Oh, Gawd!’ she groaned.
There was a knock on the door. It was Rita McDowd. ‘You dropped your purse in the van. Jaysus!’ she gasped, when she saw the mess. It reminded her of the kitchen of her own house many years ago. These days it was spotless and had every conceivable modern device. Dad was talking about buying their own place as soon as they’d made enough money. How things change, Rita marvelled. Life was like a seesaw. One minute you were up, the next down.
‘This will have to stop,’ Jeannie announced sternly. ‘I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be – a member of a relatively successful pop group, or a charwoman. We’ll have to get a cleaner, though I bet Dad won’t agree.’
Tom pretended to be appalled at the idea. He flatly refused to have a stranger in his house, although it wouldn’t have been the first time.
‘In that case, Dad, I’m leaving,’ Jeannie told him curtly. ‘I’m not prepared to live in a pig sty and I don’t have time to keep this place clean.’ Because she was the only female member of the family, she was expected to do everything. She was run off her feet and had no leisure time. It didn’t matter that she was earning twice as much as Max and her father put together.
‘You do whatever you like,’ Tom said.
‘Don’t worry, I will.’ It was possible she still loved her father, but she’d lost all patience with him. At times, she felt pity for him, but then remembered the bruises on her mother’s neck. It irritated her the way he refused to muck in, do his share. Max and Gerald did at least try, though weren’t much use.
Rose had no idea what was happening in the house she’d left behind. The children met her in town at least once a week and, on Jeannie’s instructions, she was told everything was fine. ‘You’re not to worry her,’ Jeannie said. ‘She’ll only feel guilty if she knows the truth. Let’s not spoil her happiness.’
And Rose was happy, no one could doubt that. It was evident in her dazzling blue eyes. Alex had bought a pretty cottage in Lydiate and they were doing it up. Rose was sewing curtains and painting walls, tasks that seemed to give her an inordinate amount of pleasure. Everyone would be invited to tea when the place was finished.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Max said with alacrity when he found out Jeannie was looking for another place to live.
‘What about me?’ Gerald said anxiously. ‘You can’t leave me behind with Dad!’
‘You’re only fourteen. You’ve got another year to go at school,’ Jeannie reminded him.
‘I can change schools, other kids do.’
Her little brother looked on the verge of tears, as he so often did nowadays. He missed Mum far more than she and Max did. She couldn’t possibly leave him in this miserable, dirty house, with only their taciturn father for company, even if it did mean him changing schools. ‘If you come with us,’ she said, ‘you’ll sometimes be left on your own, and I won’t have time to look after you, not the way Mum did. You’ll have to learn to do things for yourself.’ She turned to Max. ‘You too. I’m not having the place a tip, nor am I prepared to be the only one who makes the meals and washes up afterwards. You’re to do your share, both of you – which was supposed to happen here, I might add, though I never saw much sign of it.’
At the beginning of January, the three young Flowers moved into the top half of a large furnished house in Toxteth. Tom wasn’t all that bothered to see them go. His wife and children had sadly disappointed him. Now there was no one to impress with his masculine disdain of housework, he engaged a woman who came in twice a week and cleaned the place from top to bottom and also did the washing and ironing. When Mrs Denning learnt he was on his own, she offered to come after she’d seen to the colonel and make him an evening meal. Sometimes, she stayed and they played cards.
Tom wouldn’t have said he was happy, but he no longer had to put up with four bewildering individuals who wouldn’t do as they were told. Life was simpler, easier, his mind at peace, with only a self-reliant cat to keep him company most of the time. It came to him one night that perhaps he’d married too late in life. He wasn’t cut out to be a husband and father. He’d been too set in his ways and should have remained a bachelor, like the colonel.
There wasn’t a parent in sight in the flat in Toxteth, not a soul to prevent them from having a party every night if they wished and staying up as late as they liked. Whenever the Merseysiders played, Lachlan and Fly would come back with Max and they’d sit talking and drinking coffee into the early hours, Jeannie too and, more often than not, Zoe and Marcia, who couldn’t bring themselves to go back to their own homes when it was only midnight. Sean and Rita McDowd rarely took part in this nocturnal socialising. Mornings, the flat would be full of bodies – on the settee, the floors, and occasionally in the bathroom. Elaine would always remain Jeannie’s best friend, but she was rarely seen in Toxteth, being too busy studying for her A levels.
Despite his unconventional surroundings, Gerald discovered an ability to sleep through the noise and thrived at his new, inner-city school.
In March, Gerry and the Pacemakers reached number one in the charts with ‘How Do You Do It?’, and the following month the Beatles did the same with ‘From Me to You’.
The rock ’n’ roll phenomenon had begun in earnest and Liverpool groups were at the forefront, dominating the charts. Hordes of eager managers and agents descended
on the Cavern in search of groups to sign up. The Merseysiders were taken on by a big London agency, Frith and Ford, that had been established for more than forty years. ‘You’re our first rock ’n’ roll group,’ Eddie Ford, grandson of one of the deceased founders, cried jubilantly when they signed the contract.
Three months later, the Merseysiders reached number five in the charts with ‘A to Z’. Sean and Lachlan had written the words and music between them, but the Flower Girls had already beaten them to it with their recording of ‘Moon Under Water’, which had climbed as high as number three the month before. By then, the Beatles had played at the Cavern for the last time.
Lachlan bought Jeannie an engagement ring for her birthday in December. Colonel Corbett had always been fond of his gardener’s children and rejoiced in their success. He said he would be honoured if they allowed him to hold an engagement party in his barn.
Their families were invited, their numerous friends and their friends, old schoolmates, Billy Kidd who, for all his faults, had helped both groups on their way, Eddie Ford from the agency and his young wife.
Not everyone was pleased to receive an invitation to Jeannie’s birthday-cum-engagement party. When Benedicta Lucas received hers, she spat on it and threw it on the fire in disgust. ‘Cheek!’ she muttered.
Tom Flowers wasn’t asked. He wouldn’t have come, but Rose and Alex would be there and it was best not to risk a confrontation so soon.
In the years to come, Jeannie often looked back on her party as the best night of her life. She bought a new frock, which was white, almost ankle length, with a silver thread running through the soft, silky material, and silver sandals with high, spiky heels. She wore a white flower in her brown hair.
