Daniel opened the door of Thornton Hall, surprised beyond measure to find his father-in-law standing on the top step. ‘Erm . . .’ He couldn’t put his tongue across a single sensible word. Andrew had this effect sometimes. He was a highly respected surgeon, an OBE, and a decent man. And Daniel had tried to fool him.
Andrew pushed dithering Daniel aside and walked into the house. ‘You’ll be rattling round here like a pea on a drum, I expect,’ he said by way of greeting. ‘Rather like I was until Helen and the children arrived with Sofia.’ He looked the householder up and down. ‘I know what happened earlier, Daniel. And you must have realized that I set it up. She doesn’t want to see you.’
‘I gathered that.’
‘To be fair, I must tell you that she didn’t know anything about my arrangement. Richard and company were hiding in the summerhouse, so Helen had no idea. But never try to kid a kidder, because you’ll fail. I’ve been devious in my time.’ He thought about his grandparents and the dance he had led them. Yes, his planning skills had improved greatly with age.
Daniel shrugged and found his tongue. ‘You were right not to trust me, I suppose. You see, I need to talk to her. All this with solicitors – it becomes Chinese whispers after a while. Once the words hit paper, they take on a life of their own and make everything so much worse. She loves me. And, despite all rumours to the contrary, I love her. Come through and sit down, please.’
Andrew followed his son-in-law.
They settled in the opulent drawing room. ‘So you want to talk her round?’ Andrew asked. ‘Then you can lead her back to square one, with her on Merseyside and you fornicating your way across the world?’
‘Something like that, but without the women. Someone else can do the travelling.’
‘Wrong answer, Daniel. She needs to trust you without having to become your jailer. Even if you did stay in the country, there’s little to prevent you doing the same thing here, and her suspicions can’t be eradicated just because you stop using aeroplanes.’ He paused. ‘I understand the need to sow oats – I did it myself in my late teens and early twenties. But once I’d met Mary, that was all in the past. If you loved Helen, you wouldn’t need other women.’
‘We aren’t all the same, Andrew.’
‘In some respects we are all different, I suppose. But you adore your mother, and I worshipped mine – we have that in common. When we were young, we respected the women in our families, so when did your attitude change?’
Daniel nodded thoughtfully. ‘Tell me, did your mum try to keep you locked up? Did she attempt to control your every move?’
‘Never. But, you see, she was an unusual woman. In a time when changing partners was a disgrace, she led a somewhat bohemian existence. I’ve always regarded her as a quiet trailblazer. She lived with the man she loved, and cared for the man she’d married.’
‘Well, mine did try to stop me having a life outside her reach, so I learned escape techniques, how to lie, how to be evasive. My development seems to have been arrested at that point. I still have the need to get away with things. There was stuff I couldn’t even mention at home. Like when I needed a support for sports at school – I made my own. The thing is, I was so repressed that I couldn’t walk into a sports shop and buy what I wanted. Nor could I ask my parents. If people kissed on the TV, it was “Turn that rubbish off”, so I was raised knowing that sex was taboo and was something I had to find secretly.’
‘And you’re being treated as a sex addict?’
‘No. It’s deeper and more complicated than that, but the counsellor didn’t see it. I didn’t tell her much. She was another judgemental type, and I couldn’t talk to her. I do love your daughter, but the teenager in me never grew up and still needs his conquests. Not now. As a single man, I have no one to hide from, no challenges. I am now totally celibate.’
Andrew stood up and began to pace up and down, hands joined behind his back. The man was being unexpectedly honest. ‘Helen and Kate often say you’re your mother’s monster. I suppose there’s more than a whisper of truth in that.’
Daniel shrugged. ‘I’m also an adult. Whatever my mother is or was, I should be able to control my stupid urges. I brought this all on myself, Andrew. If my mother has ruined my life, am I a man?’
‘Oh yes, yes, of course you are.’ He stopped pacing. ‘My stepfather almost became a psychologist, then he got the irresistible urge to treat children, hence his segue into paediatrics. But he could have analysed you, I’m sure.’ He stopped pacing. ‘Would you like me to find someone who might help you?’
‘I can’t talk to women.’
‘Fair enough. Leave it with me, but please stay away from Helen in the meantime. Richard has many friends in the law game, and Kate will do just about anything for her sister. Oh, and stay away from your mother, too. The cotton wool she wrapped you in was toxic. I’ll go now. I have to pick up Helen and the girls.’
At that moment, his phone vibrated and gave out the text sound. He opened the message. COME AND GET ME NOW, PLEASE. HELEN. ‘She’s had enough. Look, I’ll phone you.’ He dashed into the hall.
‘What’s the matter?’ Daniel asked. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘Yes. Eat some protein and vegetable matter. You look like Dracula waiting for nightfall. And don’t give up hope.’ He jumped into his car and drove off.
Within minutes, he was at Barbara’s house, where he found Helen, Sarah and Cassie in the driveway, the latter swaddled in a shawl in her mother’s arms. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ he asked.
‘Don’t ask, Daddy. Just get us home.’
In the car, Andrew waited for his daughter to speak. He noticed that her knuckles were white, as was her face. Like the man he had left minutes earlier, she looked as if she needed a few square meals. ‘I thought she was my friend,’ she whispered. ‘All she wanted was gossip about me and Daniel. It took her a few hours to get round to it, but I felt I was in the dock.’
‘Oh dear. Why didn’t you send for me earlier?’
‘I had to get to the bathroom with my phone. In the end, I asked her would she like me to affirm, as I wouldn’t swear on a Bible before giving evidence. Then there was all the stuff about her not knowing what I meant by that, and about the whole of Neston being concerned for me and the children. Oh, how I wish Kate had been there. She’s my backbone.’
‘You have your own backbone, sweetie. You’re a remarkable woman, a linguist, a beauty, a great mother. Close your eyes and have a rest. Sofia will be back, and when she’s fed and washed the children you, she and I will have the goulash I prepared yesterday. Everything will be fine, I promise.’
He couldn’t tell her yet that he’d spoken to Daniel. All he could do was drive through life in the dark like everyone else. He was picking up handkerchiefs again, but they didn’t have moors in Venice. Oh, Eva. Unforgettable, unforgivable, yet so lovable . . .
The official offer from the Royal School of Music arrived, and Andrew discussed it with his parents. Dad still came home at the weekends, so life continued in a vein with which all were familiar. ‘You’re not going, then?’ Joe asked. ‘What I mean is, you did so well at the audition, might you regret turning this down? You do have the edge, son, because you compose for the piano as well as playing like a concert pianist.’
Andrew shook his head sadly. ‘If I could do both medicine and music, I would. But the offer’s in from Liverpool, too, depending on my exam results, of course. And medicine’s what I want for a career. Mother, I’ll never give up music; Dad, I’ll always do bits of carpentry, but I want to be a doctor. I think I’ve always wanted that, can’t remember not wanting it.’
Dad awarded his son an encouraging wink before going off to check on the Folds Road factory, leaving Andrew with the opportunity to talk to his mother.
He didn’t know where to start. Unused to being tongue-tied, he ran upstairs to check on his notes. There was no way of dressing up what he had to say, yet he dreaded the hurt he might cause. After many fa
lse starts while making his notes, he had reached the conclusion that he must just say it. Like a diabetic injecting insulin, he needed to be quick, because quick was kinder. Poor Mother. She deserved a better son, one who wouldn’t run about looking for the family she’d rejected.
When he came downstairs, Thora had planted herself yet again in a dining-room chair. She was talking about everybody in the street, especially ‘her at number thirty-one’ who was letting the side down by failing to clean windows. ‘They say the last time she bothered, King George had just died, so that’s 1952. February, I think.’
Mother simply nodded; she didn’t like gossip, but her neighbour was always full of it.
‘Seems she got a shock when the windows were clean. She could see out. With her never leaving the house for years, she forgot there were other people in the street.’ Thora dipped a custard cream in her tea. ‘It’s her husband I feel sorry for. Shift work, then all the shopping on top, so it’s not fair on the poor man. She needs a kick up the Khyber, I think.’
‘It’s agoraphobia,’ Emily said.
‘Aggra-what? Aggravating, that’s what I call it.’
‘She’s frightened, Thora.’
‘What of? What’s to be afeared of round these parts?’
‘Nothing. You know that, and I know that. But when you’re talking to your mother while she’s making sandwiches in the scullery, and the scullery and your mother get sliced off by a German bomb, you’re allowed to go strange, especially when you have your own injuries to endure.’
Thora’s jaw dropped. It wasn’t a pretty sight, as she’d switched from custard creams to bourbons, so the inside of her mouth was colourful. ‘How do you know all that, Emily?’
‘Because I spoke to her husband, and he took me across to meet her. She keeps a lovely house and yes, she knows about the windows. Kitty, her name is. Her daughter’s coming to clean the windows and to put up thick lace curtains, so don’t condemn her, Thora.’
Andrew watched while Thora seemed to shrivel physically. She didn’t enjoy being proved wrong. She stood up. ‘Well, I suppose you’ve no room to talk, anyway. You do understand you could both lose your jobs, eh?’
After a pause, Emily said. ‘Yes.’
‘And your husband still in the picture?’
Emily continued to dust the mantelpiece. ‘Don’t threaten me. I’d be quite happy to have you charged with slander, and with blackmail. People who have little to do often spend time pulling others to pieces. At least I’m not poor Kitty. At least you finally found the courage to talk to my face rather than behind my back. Go home, Thora. Go home now. In spite of rumour to the contrary, I do have my limits. When my temper does finally go, you’ll need to be in another country, because I’ll see you in court unless you make a run for it.’
When Thora had slammed her way out of the house, Emily sank into a chair. ‘Oh, Andrew.’
‘Yes, it’s a mess. If you tell people the truth, you’re condemned. If you tell lies, you’re condemned, and you’re still guilty if you say nothing.’ He couldn’t recount it all now, could he? She was already upset, so if he started talking about his grandparents, her parents, that would be a full carton of salt in her wounds. ‘Why did you marry Dad?’ Well, he’d managed that, at least.
‘I thought it was love.’
‘But it wasn’t?’
‘Not the sort that lasts, no.’
‘You were running from your father.’
‘And my mother. She was as bad.’
Right. He remembered the insulin injections. Perhaps now was the time; all the pain in one day. And she’d be prepared if they turned up. ‘Mother?’
‘Yes, dear?’
He sighed. ‘I stepped out of line in a very big way.’
She gazed at him steadily. ‘In school?’
‘No, in real life.’ He sat down opposite her, then he told her about seeing Dad with Betsy, about worrying and wondering what would happen if Dad deserted his real family. ‘So I got this idea. I saw them in a farming magazine and, because I knew their name was unusual, went about the business of finding out where they were.’
‘Oh, Andrew.’ Her knuckles whitened as she tightened her grip on the yellow duster. ‘Well?’
‘I decided to go and work for them during the holidays, then decided not to. But I did meet them not very long ago. I played a terrible trick on them, sent them over the Pennines to look for a farm that was not only imaginary, but also up for sale.’
‘I see. What happened?’
He shrugged. ‘They were angry about having been sent on a wild goose chase, but I faced them. I told them who I am.’
‘Oh, Andrew,’ she repeated.
He looked into her eyes and saw the disappointment he had dreaded. ‘They found me at school. And they want to see you, too. They intend to put things right. She was snivelling into her hanky, and he just looked distressed. They’ll find you. They followed me all through town to see if I’d lead them home. Now, I’m always watching for them.’
Emily rose to her feet. ‘Leave them to me, darling.’
‘Mother?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s worse. I went too far by a long chalk. I told them you’d rushed into marriage to avoid being sold by them.’ He literally hung his head and stared at the floor. ‘They know about Geoff. I told them your second husband’s a paediatric consultant.’
‘Whoops,’ she exclaimed. ‘Joseph and I won’t get a divorce unless he wants to remarry. Geoff and I don’t need marriage. We’re joined in a way that doesn’t require a blessing from society. Right. I’ll deal with this. I’ll drive up in my pretty little Austin and talk to them.’
Andrew swallowed. She was so brave; she might have been talking about a jaunt to the seaside. ‘Aren’t you afraid?’
‘Of course not. And thank you for telling me. That took courage. I wish you hadn’t done it, but I’ve no intention of allowing regrets to pave my life. Forget all about it.’
Of course, he never would.
‘What do you mean by different? And why do I always have to sit at the tap end?’ It was awkward. When he washed his wife’s hair, he needed to be a contortionist to get the telephone shower off the bath taps.
Kate threw a soggy sponge at her beloved. ‘I don’t know what I mean by different. If I knew what I meant by different, I’d say it. Stop interfering with me while I’m thinking. Keep your toes to yourself, or I can’t concentrate.’ He was a naughty boy. Kate continued delighted to have such a wicked husband.
‘If I had you in court, I’d break you in ten seconds, Kate Rutherford.’
‘You couldn’t have me in court. No bench is wide enough.’
Richard thought about that. ‘The judge’s bench is quite wide. We could use that. As long as the judge doesn’t need it. I suppose he could give an opinion about our performance. Or should we leave it to the jury? After all, this is the mother of democracy.’
‘Popcorn,’ she said, her head nodding vigorously. ‘Like popcorn.’
‘Popcorn? Where the hell did that come from?’
‘Maize, I think. If you pop your corn and have it plain—’
‘You sound like a chiropodist.’
‘Shut up. Plain popcorn is ordinary, right? You need something to give it flavour. My father has a plain popcorn voice. He was all maple-syrupy this time.’
Richard studied his wet wife. She was a miniature version of her younger sister, small, delicate, rather like a porcelain figurine but with spiky hair. ‘You’re making me hungry,’ he warned. ‘And not for food.’
‘Shut up,’ she repeated. ‘Oh, I’ve ordered a new bath, an enormous roll-top with claw feet and the taps in the middle of one of the long sides, so you won’t have to moan about being stabbed by hot and cold. Cast iron, rescued antique, so we may need the foundations reinforced to take the weight of bath plus water plus you plus little me. But we’ll have the best en suite in Woolton.’
‘You were telling me about your father.’
He twisted round, took the telephone shower from the taps, clicked the lever and shampooed her mop of dark hair. When she was clean and rinsed, he performed his famous Indian head massage with conditioner before rinsing again. ‘You only want me as a slave,’ he complained. ‘You purr like a cat when I massage your head.’
‘Of course you’re my slave. And don’t forget, cats have claws, too. That was lovely, thank you. You’ll get your reward shortly, serf.’
Wrapped in bathrobes, they crept downstairs for a nightcap. ‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I think Dad’s trying to mend fences.’
‘Helen will still get impaled, my love. Daniel won’t change his spots.’
‘I think Daddy rather thinks he can, with help. Something to do with a mental and emotional divorce from his ma.’
‘Oh. Drinking chocolate, darling? I need a clear head for tomorrow, so booze is a no-no.’
‘Yes, sure.’
Richard turned in the kitchen doorway. ‘It’s not one of those Oedipus things, is it?’
‘Sort of. But without the sex. Dad reckons that Daniel’s mother did a great deal of damage to her one and only child. Whether or not it’s reversible remains to be seen.’
‘Quite.’
Kate followed her man into the kitchen. ‘Shall I warn Helen?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘She has to find her own way. I know mediation failed, but perhaps something else might help.’ He looked at his little wife. ‘I’m so lucky, Kate.’ He was lucky. He had the best wife, the best kids, the greatest job.
‘You will be lucky. Once the taps are in the middle.’
A Liverpool Song Page 20
