Daughters of Penny Lane

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘And if they do kill people?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘We shoot them. There’s nothing else to be done. Come on, Marie.’

  Tommy stayed on the safe side of the bars. The animals were not as large as Hercules and Jason had been, but they were a great deal more furious. Yet he still saw God when he looked upon their mind-numbing beauty. Huge padlocks would keep these creatures contained until Chester found a special out-of-the-way place for them at the zoo. But they would not become exhibits – oh, no. The pair would go to India and learn to hunt. Like God, they were deciders between life and death; like God, they were mighty and beautiful. Tommy decided to steer clear. If blood might be spilt, it wouldn’t be Irish.

  Later that day, he found the poem in his collection. Blake asked questions about hammers, anvils, furnaces and forges, yet he echoed Tommy’s feelings. Something as beautiful and deadly as a tiger was proof that a designer existed. On Sunday, Tommy would go to Mass.

  For the first time in her adult life, Vera Corcoran was living with a gentleman. Yuri was kind. Although he had spent many years imprisoned in Siberia, he was no criminal. An excellent gardener and a meticulous cleaner of windows, he was already appreciated by his clients in the Penny Lane area.

  At home, he mucked in with the rest of the family, clearing out grates, making fires, fetching in coal, cooking occasionally, washing dishes, polishing shoes, laughing and joking with the boys. He also helped Vera with her English, guiding her away from her usual malapropisms and teaching her the words she ought to be using.

  She bought a little hard-backed notebook and wrote down what she was learning, breaking up long words into syllables and practising them when she had time. A foreigner was helping her with her own language; that was amusing, but she accepted the strange situation, because Yuri was clever.

  Vera had begun to take an interest in herself, accepting at last that she was as good as anybody else in these parts. Underneath her wig, little curls had started to grow, but she decided that she wouldn’t show her new hair until it reached a decent length. Sporting her wig and a decent frock, she made several trips to the dentist and was provided with dentures that fitted instead of clattering about and whistling whenever she said a word that contained an s or two.

  Of course, her efforts were noticed and discussed, especially by females in the area. ‘It’s ever since that funny little Russian bloke moved in’ and ‘Is she setting her cap at a Communist?’ found a niche in many a conversation in shops or over cups of tea in kitchens. It was only fair; the general consensus among women was that Vera had gossiped about everyone and everything, and it was now her turn to be scrutinized.

  She knew. She knew they were jangling on about her, calling her a tart – had they forgotten already that she’d been in a coma, that she’d almost died after being attacked by a drunken lunatic? Some people had very short memories. And anyway, Yuri was her lodger, a good man and a very helpful friend. Every home needed a Yuri, and she was keeping hers; if the gossips were jealous, they should find their own Russians.

  So it was a happy Vera who picked up an official-looking envelope on the day of the Athertons’ belated wedding reception. ‘Bills, bills, bills,’ she grumbled to herself as she placed the offending item on the dresser. How long had she been waiting for a sideboard to replace this item of her mother’s? The dresser filled one wall and was deep enough to cover almost a third of the floor space. A nice little Utility sideboard would have been appreciated, but Jimmy had always poured half his wages down his— She paused mid-thought. The back of the envelope displayed a solicitor’s name and address. ‘Bugger,’ she snapped, ‘is he still tormenting me from beyond the grave? What the hell did he get up to during the last weeks of his life?’

  But when she slit the flap and pulled out the single sheet, her heart went mad, beating like a drum performing in the Orange parade. She flew to the front door and flung it open, only to find Yuri standing there, bucket in one hand, letter in the other. ‘Postman handed it to me,’ he cried. ‘Olga is giving me her shop.’

  ‘And me five thousand pounds. I can buy the house, Yuri. No more rent. A sideboard, new beds, a nice suite for the front room.’

  They went into Vera’s parlour.

  ‘Vera?’

  ‘What?’ She still couldn’t believe what was written in black and white.

  ‘She gives me flat above her shop, too.’ He watched Vera’s expression as it changed. She would rather he remained here, he thought. ‘Not yet, because the money must come from America.’ He decided that his landlady didn’t look happy. ‘You will work with me in the shop?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘Course I will.’

  ‘And we shall live here? This is my home now. I live here just a short time, but am happy. The flat we can rent to someone who needs it.’

  ‘Good idea.’ Vera wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her cardigan.

  Yuri stared at the page in his hand. ‘We say nothing, Vera – nothing at all. Olga has made gifts to you and to me, but we don’t know if she has done the same for other friends.’ He stared hard at her. ‘Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Shall we sit?’

  Vera nodded, and they both perched on clean but battered armchairs.

  ‘We trust each other, then?’

  She agreed.

  ‘You see, I was given some beatings when in prison. I am not man any more.’

  ‘Oh? Well, I’ve never seen you in a skirt and blouse, and you’ve not asked to borrow my wig.’

  He almost laughed. ‘My man parts do not work any more. But I want to stay here, in Liverpool, in England, so will you consider marriage with me? I can care for you, and you do same for me. We can share bed, talk, and we can hold each other.’

  Vera stared hard at her lodger. Had she heard him right? ‘You are a man,’ she said eventually. ‘You’re the best man I know, good with my boys, helping in the house, working hard and not too much drinking. I’ll have to talk to Tony and Neil, because they’re young men now, but—’

  But yes if they say yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you for this, Vera. I am honoured.’

  She sniffed back a sob. ‘No, I’m the honoured one, Yuri, living with a man who doesn’t scare me. Another thing that frightened the daylights out of me was knowing that Tony would have killed Jimmy sooner or later. He would, you know. He plays the big man who doesn’t care, but he loves me. They both do.’

  ‘As do I. For your generosity, your wrong words, for making me smile. We will be man and wife except for making love.’

  She grinned. ‘I’d sooner have fish and chips anyway.’

  ‘With the mushy peas?’

  ‘I can take or leave the mushy stuff, love.’ She frowned. ‘I’ll have a Russian name.’

  He shrugged. ‘And this is a problem?’

  The frown changed into a grin. ‘No. I like confusing people.’

  He gazed round the room. ‘I will make your house pretty.’

  ‘No; our house, Yuri. This will be our house.’

  Alice was sweeping the front path when Dan returned from his visit to Olga and Peter. ‘You look exhausted,’ she scolded. ‘You should take it easy. Short walks to start with. I know it’s a miracle, but you have to get used to walking again.’ She awarded him a stern stare.

  ‘Has the postman been?’ he asked breathlessly.

  ‘Post’s on the little table in the hall. Why do you want to—’ She didn’t finish her question. He had entered the house. Grumbling under her breath, Alice pursued her now mobile husband. She found him ripping open an envelope. ‘What’s the hurry?’ she asked. ‘It’s only another bill.’

  He scanned the page.

  ‘Dan?’

  He gave her his attention at last. ‘Once the emeralds and diamonds are in the hands of the American collector, and when what they call proof of provenance is validated, we get money.’

  Alice blinked stupidly. ‘Money? What money?’
/>   ‘From Olga and Peter.’

  ‘But . . . but why?’

  ‘Come in here. I need to sit down.’

  She followed her husband into their bedroom and perched next to him on an ottoman at the foot of the bed. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

  He gave her the full story. Olga and Peter would have too much money. Had they made wills, they would have been denied the pleasure of distributing their gifts, so they were doing it now. ‘They don’t want anything going to the government when they die, you see,’ he said. ‘They’ve no children, and they won’t be having any, and so,’ he shrugged, ‘we’re rich.’

  ‘Rich? I don’t think I know how to do rich.’

  ‘We stay as we are and stash the money for the baby.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  He went on to tell her about a donation to Chester Zoo via Nigel and Marie, about Yuri and Vera, Harry, and the new business belonging to Martin and Nellie’s family. ‘Then there’s some going to orphans and domestic pets and research into illnesses. They’re givers, Olga and Peter.’

  Alice pondered. ‘So they’re leaving the shop, giving it to Yuri?’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Where will Olga and Peter live?’ She didn’t want to lose her friends.

  ‘Menlove Avenue, so round the corner, more or less. They’re getting a car, too. Oh, and a cottage in Wales or somewhere – they’ve not decided yet. Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because it’s so Olga-ish. Like you said, she’s a sharer. Whatever she gets, she’ll give away half of it.’

  ‘Not in this case, love. That set of jewellery is the last valuable remains of a great royal dynasty. Americans collect stuff like that. They love looking at what they’ve never had and never will have. Anything King George has breathed on would be worth quite a few dollars. Olga will have plenty left, believe me.’

  Alice smiled broadly. ‘Then they can live well, Olga and Peter. They might even visit Moscow one day, just as she’s always longed to.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know how much she’s giving us?’

  ‘No, not yet. It’s not ours; it’s for baby Callum.’

  Nellie was crying. ‘Happy tears,’ she sobbed. ‘Lovely woman, lovely woman.’

  Martin put an arm round his wife’s quaking shoulders. ‘Hey, come on now, or you’ll make it rain.’ He read the letter again. ‘Well, with Kevin and Paul turning into good carpenters, this will help them to buy nice wood and better tools.’

  ‘And we can move nearer to them.’ Nellie dried her eyes. ‘Let the flat over our shop and get a little house up Crosby or Waterloo.’

  ‘Good idea, love. Now, I’ll feed these two starving babies while you go and tell our daughters the good news. And don’t start crying – nobody’s died. Send one of the girls to tell the boys – they’re in the workshop today.’

  When Nellie had gone, Martin shook his head in mock despair. His beloved wife was very emotional of late, a situation for which she blamed something called ‘the change’. ‘It’s her hormones,’ he told the babies as he spooned mushy food into their hungry mouths. ‘Your grandmother doesn’t know whether she’s coming, going, or having a breakdown. I think I’ll send her down to your dads’ garage for a refit, an oil change and a good look at her gaskets. What do you think?’

  ‘Goo,’ Simon replied.

  ‘Exactly. Carrots with mashed spud and gravy all over your bib.’

  Once fed and orange-juiced, the babies were taken through to the back for changing. Simon settled into a cot, while Keith sucked his thumb and stretched out in the twin pram. Martin grinned at them; they were easy now, but God help everybody in another twelve months when they’d be running about like a pair of pups looking for trouble. He returned to the shop to find the nappy bag.

  Trouble? Trouble was here, standing across the road and staring at the premises formerly designated Turner’s Ice Cream Parlour and Milk Bar, now known as Myers and Holden, Furniture Restorers. He opened the outer door, but he couldn’t march across the road to tell Elsie Stewart where to go, because he couldn’t leave the babies. She gazed at him. He glared back at her.

  What followed would be forgotten by very few who were shopping along Smithdown Road on that day. Like a bolt from a crossbow, Nellie Browne sped over to the opposite pavement. In her hands she held the long pole whose purpose in life was to raise and lower blinds over the Brownes’ shop window. She brandished this weapon in the manner of a knight preparing to unseat a mounted rival.

  ‘Oh, stop it,’ Elsie screamed.

  ‘Stop it?’ was Nellie’s loud response. ‘Stop it? I’ve not bloody started yet, you miserable old cow.’

  Doors flew open, spilling shopkeepers and customers onto the pavement.

  Martin chose the lesser of two evils and left the babies. ‘She’ll kill her,’ he muttered under his breath as he swerved to avoid the coalman’s stationary horse. ‘Nellie!’ he called. ‘Put that bloody thing down.’

  She seemed to have gone deaf, because she didn’t even look at him. Nellie had her mother pinned against a plate glass window, the business end of the implement pressing into the older woman’s belly. Nellie’s mouth was moving, though no one heard her words until Martin reached her side. ‘I will,’ she was saying. ‘I will kill you.’

  Elsie blinked, though she seemed unafraid. Nellie was the quiet one, the ugly daughter, the girl who’d never given any trouble. ‘No you won’t, Nellie.’

  Martin wrenched the canopy tool out of his wife’s hands. He stumbled back, so tight had been his wife’s grip on the pole. By the time he had righted himself and thrown down the makeshift battering ram, she had her mother in a stranglehold. ‘Nellie, for God’s sake—’

  But he needn’t have bothered, because Collins the greengrocer dashed up the road and threw a bucket of water over both women. Ian Collins sniffed. ‘Well, that’s what I do when I see two bitches in a scrap – what’s the difference?’

  ‘You’re all witnesses,’ Elsie yelled.

  ‘And we all know what you are,’ said the greengrocer.

  The small crowd hummed its agreement, while Nellie appeared not to notice her dripping hair and clothes.

  ‘Let me go!’ Elsie’s nails drew blood on Nellie’s neck.

  Martin separated the two females and hung onto his soggy wife. When he spoke to his mother-in-law, he did not raise his voice. ‘You stay away from us and ours. If you don’t, the books go to an accountant and a lawyer.’

  The older woman’s jaw dropped.

  ‘Theft and fraud,’ he continued. ‘You took a good ten to fifteen bob a week out of that till.’

  ‘She what?’ Nellie’s face was red with anger. ‘You bloody, stinking old bag. What sort of mother and grandmother steals from her own family? How many times did you beat the living daylights out of Marie and Theresa? You never even mourned when Constance, Judith and Sheila got wiped out by a bomb. Twisted, that’s what you are.’ She pointed a finger at her mother. ‘Yes, I was the quiet one who caused no trouble, but no more, no bloody more.’

  Martin understood. Nellie now had daughters, grandsons and a share in two thriving businesses, so she was discovering a degree of confidence. A born matriarch, she would protect her dependants for as long as she could and, when necessary, this new ferocity would be allowed to boil. On a level not too far from the surface, Martin Browne admired the woman he loved; she had recreated herself, losing weight and inhibitions in a matter of weeks. Alice had played her part, of course . . . ‘Go and see to the babies, love. They’re asleep in the back, but I had to leave them to save you from yourself.’

  When Nellie had gone, Martin turned on the hateful woman who had poisoned the lives of the Browne family for years. ‘I hoped she’d find the guts to kick you out when I left, but you kept her where you’d always shoved her – at the bottom of the pile. I should have stayed, if only to stop you seeing off our daughters, and I regret doing what I did. But we’re happy now. Leave us alone, or you’ll get done for fraud.’
>
  There was no answer to that, so she snapped closed her mouth, which had hung open since Nellie’s attempt to strangle her. She turned and fought her way through the audience that circled the scene. As she walked away, boos and jeers could be heard above hand clapping.

  ‘And don’t come back,’ Ian Collins advised loudly.

  Seething and dripping wet, Elsie Stewart made her way down towards town. She couldn’t get a bus, not while her clothes were soaked, and being saturated at her age was not a good thing.

  It was him, she decided. It was Martin Browne who’d got Nellie all riled up. ‘Will I still be going to Alice’s a week on Sunday?’ she muttered under her breath. Alice was very protective of her eldest sister. And could people really keep Elsie Stewart away from Smithdown Road? Of course they could.

  Oh yes, it was him. What could she do about him? If she so much as breathed near Martin Browne, he’d have her sued for fraud. All she’d come for was to look at Myers and Holden, Furniture Restorers, because they’d advertised in the paper, with a photograph of Martin, who fronted the shop, while her grandsons-in-law were in charge of the restoring side of the business.

  ‘A pound to a penny, I bet Janet and Claire are running Browne’s,’ she mumbled. Oh yes, it was all happy families for them, for Marie and for Alice, too. While she, who had reared them, was taking a long walk in wet clothes. Yes, she’d been a firm mother – firm, but fair. The further she walked, the angrier she became while filling in the past with her own colours. She had never hit them hard, had never kept them tied to the house for too long. Perhaps she’d lost her rag once or twice, but who wouldn’t? The raising of seven daughters had been no mean feat, especially with a husband who’d started off useless and ended up dead.

  As she neared her so-called home, she slowed down a bit. Her clothes weren’t as wet as they had been, but she kept off the beaten track as best she could, because defeat at the hands of Nellie and Martin hurt. She wanted as few people as possible to see her in this state of disorder.