by Maureen Lee
She knew one day it would end. It was bound to. She couldn't go on enjoying herself in this crazy way for ever. In June, Sylvia would finish college and begin her career in advertising. She was thinking about moving to London, which meant Annie would once again be left in the flat by herself. But when June came, Sylvia decided to stay put. 'Who in their right mind would leave Liverpool when it's the epicentre of the universe? I'll have a few months off, I don't need the money.'
The city was changing in other ways: new buildings were going up, bomb sites at last being cleared, the city centre looked different. There was a new avant garde theatre. Sculptors and poets blazed a cultural trail from Liverpool to the world outside. The narrow streets of homely little houses off Scotland Road, where everyone knew their neighbours, were ruthlessly razed to the ground and the people dumped in soulless new estates like Kirkby where they didn't know a soul, and the architects and town planners, despite their degrees and vast salaries, hadn't thought to provide shops and pubs beforehand.
Liverpool was changing all right: sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
Annie would be twenty-one in October. She was lucky, her birthday fell on a Saturday. Cecy offered to provide a party at the Grand. She and Bruno were now on quite amicable terms, and she often turned up to help organise big functions.
'It's your twenty-first the month after,' Annie remarked to Sylvia. 'I'd have thought she'd have enough to do with one party.'
'I told her I don't want any fuss. I can't stand the thought of the pair of them droohng over me. I'd prefer to go to dinner with you.'
The dining room in the Grand held forty guests, fifty at a pinch. 'They can use the Snug if they want some quiet,' Cecy said excitedly when she went through the arrangements. It was pathetic, thought Annie; it wasn't even as if she were her daughter. However, the excitement was catching; she was looking forward to her party.
It was easy to find fifty guests. Annie made a list. The first person she put down was Lauri Menin. The Gallaghers made up fourteen, what with all the wives and children and Mike's current girlfriend, and there were loads of people she could ask from the English Electric and the Cavern. There was also Marie, though her sister had never been back to Liverpool, and Annie doubted if she'd come just for a party. She gave the list to Cecy, who was having proper invitations printed.
There was endless discussion on what to wear. Sylvia bought a daring white tube thing, more like a stocking than a frock, which showed off every single curve, but Annie could find nothing she liked. She ended up buying several yards of ivory taffeta, polka-dotted with black, and made herself a ballerina length, off-the-shoulder dress with a wide velvet sash which tied in a long trailing bow at the back.
When the day came, the woman from the ground floor flat came up with the cards which had just come through the letterbox. Sylvia was still in bed. 'You must be popular, Annie,' the woman said. 'There's dozens!'
There was a lovely one from Marie which had pressed flowers in the shape of a key - and a message; 'Sorry I won't be there, sis, but I've got an audition which is too good to miss. If I get the part, my name will be in lights by Christmas.'
Colin Shields hadn't forgotten it was her birthday; he couldn't forget her, he wrote, and never would. The 'never' was underlined. Nearly everyone in Switchgear had sent cards, even those who hadn't been invited to the party. There were cards from Dot and Bert, her cousins, Cecy, Bruno, and people she hadn't seen for years. One was particularly huge. To Annie's astonishment, it was signed by everyone at Stickley & Plumm. She searched for Mr Grayson and Jeremy Rupert's signatures and was annoyed to find them there. Hypocrites!
She'd opened the lot when a white envelope was slid under the door. The man with the buck teeth in the flat below wished her the happiest of birthdays.
Sylvia emerged, yawning, 'Happy birthday, Annie,' she grunted. She handed over yet another card, along with a box containing a pair of onyx and ivory pearl earrings and a necklace to match.
'They'll go perfectly with me dress,' Annie breathed.
'Which is precisely why I bought them, idiot.'
Annie indicated the cards covering the table. 'I never realised I had so many friends. Even the man downstairs sent one.'
Sylvia didn't appear the least impressed. 'That's because you're so nice,' she said in a bored voice. 'Everybody likes you. You never get on people's nerves or rub them up the wrong way. Me, now! On my birthday, I'll get half a dozen cards and certainly not one from the horrid man downstairs because I completely ignore him. That's one of the reasons I didn't want a party. I haven't got stacks of friends like you.'
'Don't talk silly,' Annie began, but Sylvia interrupted. 'Don't argue. I'm arrogant and conceited and, on the whole, I don't like people, unlike you who likes everybody.'
She disappeared to get dressed, leaving Annie, for
some reason she couldn't quite define, offended. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be the sort of person who never rubbed people up the wrong way or got on their nerves. It made her feel like . . . like an anonymous jelly, something that couldn't possibly be taken offence at.
Hurt, she went into the bedroom where Sylvia was rubbing body lotion on her thighs, announced she was offended and explained the reason why.
'An anonymous jelly!' Sylvia hooted. 'Seriously, Annie, you've got a sharp tongue on you. You can be sarcastic and funny, but no-one would believe me if I told them what the real Annie Harrison was like.'
'You mean I'm playing a part all the time?'
'No, you're too anxious for people to like you. It probably stems from looking after your parents; you were walking on eggshells, trying to please everybody.'
To Annie's irritation, the phone went before the rather interesting discussion could be taken further. It was Dot, who'd just had a telephone installed, ringing to wish her niece a happy birthday. After that, the phone didn't stop all day.
Bruno said his lungs would never be the same after blowing up fifty balloons of all shapes and sizes - the long sausage ones were the worst. They were pinned in bunches to the walls of the oak-panelled Regency room. The tables had been removed and the chairs pushed back.
It was a wonderful party. To Annie's delight, Cecy had booked a group, Vince & The Volcanoes, who weren't quite as good as The Beatles, but nearly, though Dot said caustically she'd never really appreciated how well her Mike could play until she heard Vince erupting.
Annie felt loved and very precious as she was showered with gifts and kisses. She was always the first to be asked on the floor - everybody wanted to dance with the birthday girl.
Except Lauri Menin.
Where was he, Annie wondered, when they stopped for refreshments and there was still no sign. She hadn't heard from him in weeks, and she was looking forward to dancing with him more than anyone, though Bruno came a close second. Cecy had lost track of who'd replied to the invitations; some people had telephoned, others had written, and she had no idea if Lauri Menin was coming.
Everyone had gone down to the kitchen to collect the food that Cecy had been all week preparing. Annie went up to Sylvia's room to give her freckles a coat of pancake. Impulsively, she searched through the records until she found Three Coins in a Fountain, and put it on the gramophone. She sat in front of the dressing table and Ustened to Frank Sinatra's haunting, mellow voice whilst she powdered her nose. It was nearly six years since the record was bought - she still had the little orchid pendant, but it was too tarnished to wear.
How different things were now from then! Mam and Dad were dead, Marie was in London, too busy to come to her party. She recalled the Christmas Eve when she'd served the Bloody Marxists in the Snug, and Bruno and Cecy seemed so much in love. Now she was twenty-one, a proper grown-up, able to vote in the next election, with . . .
Annie stopped powdering her nose and stared at her reflection.
With what?
With a decent job, a shabby flat, but that was all. There was nothing exciting ahead of her, no dazzling
career in advertising or on the stage like Sylvia and
Marie. She had never met a single man she'd like to marry, except for . . .
Annie saw a pretty, red-headed young woman in a polka-dotted dress put a startled hand to her startled face.
Except for . . .
There was a knock on the door. 'Come in,' she shouted.
Lauri Menin entered the room. 'Dot told me you were here. I'm sorry I'm late. We had a rush job and didn't finish till seven.'
She'd never seen him in a formal suit before. Even when he took her to dinner, he wore a sports jacket. The suit was dark grey, with a blue shirt underneath and a light grey tie. His wavy hair was flattened with Brylcreem, his eyebrows were neatly combed. He looked so solid and reassuring. She knew she would be safe with Lauri, that she would trust him with her life.
She stared at him wide-eyed and unspeaking. It seemed a miracle that he should appear just when she'd been thinking about him so intensely.
'I've brought you a present.' He handed her a small box clumsily wrapped in brown paper.
Her voice returned. 'What is it?'
'Open it and see.'
The box contained a Yale key. She'd received dozens of keys that day. This was the first real one. She held it up and looked at it curiously. 'What's it for?'
'Number seven Heather Close.'
'I don't understand.' She understood completely and wanted to cry.
He knelt beside her. 'Annie, it's been murder, but I vowed I'd wait till you were twenty-one before I asked you to marry me. I hope I'm not making a fool of myself, but I love you, Annie. I want you to be my wife more than I've ever wanted anything.'
'Lauri!' She twisted round and fell into his arms. 'I love you, too. I've loved you ever since you found me sitting on the stairs at Stickley & Plumm.' She hadn't realised until just before he'd entered the room.
His brown eyes had lost their twinkle. Instead, they glistened darkly and she felt as if she was staring into his very soul. 'Then I'm not making a fool of myself, it's "yes"!'
'Oh, yes, Lauri. Oh yes, it's "yes"!'
Annie had a blazing row with Auntie Dot when she turned up at the flat next morning. Sylvia took one look at Dot's face and quickly made herself scarce. 'I'm off to Mass,' she declared, though they'd already been to the nine o'clock one.
It would have been too much to announce she was going to marry Lauri in front of everyone last night. She would have only burst into tears and made a show of herself. She merely whispered the news to Dot and Bert as they were leaving. Dot looked stunned and muttered something incomprehensible; Bert kissed her warmly, slapped Lauri on the shoulder, and shook his hand several times.
Dot had obviously been brooding overnight. 'The thing is, luv,' she began cautiously, 'he's twice your age.'
'Not for ever,' Annie said calmly. 'After a while, he'll just be twenty years older.' She'd have thought Dot would be thrilled at the idea of her settling down with a responsible man who had his own house.
'It's not as if he's like Bruno, full of life and with an eye for the girls. Lauri's already dead set in his ways.'
'Perhaps I should marry Bruno, then,' Annie said sarcastically. 'He'd be having affairs behind me back within a couple of months.'
'But you've hardly had any proper boyfriends, luv,'
Dot persisted. 'You haven't "played the field", as we used to say.'
'That's because I didn't want to, Auntie Dot, I don't care if Lauri's dead set in his ways. I love him. He makes me feel all safe and comfortable.'
Which was the worst thing she could have said. Dot immediately lost her famous temper. 'Safe and comfortable!' she screeched. 'That's no way to begin a marriage. Unsafe and wncomfortable more like. Marriage is an adventure. It's not till your kids have grown up and you're growing old together that it's time to feel safe and comfortable.'
'I'd have thought you'd want me to be happy,' Annie said stiffly.
'Not with a man old enough to be your bleedin' father,' yelled Dot. 'That's it!' A look of dawning awareness came over her gaunt face, and she struck the arm of the sofa with her fist. 'That's it, isn't it? Our Ken was never much of a dad, was he? You're looking for a father figure, and Lauri Menin fits the bill perfectly.'
'You've read too many newspaper articles. Auntie Dot.' Annie did her best to keep her own temper. 'You'd think you were Dr Freud.'
Dot turned her anger on the absent Lauri, 'He had no right to ask an impressionable young girl to marry him. I'll bloody well tear him off a strip next time I see him.'
'If you do, I'll never speak to you again!'
'Oh, luv!' Dot's face twisted in anguish. 'I want you to be happy.'
'I am happy, happy with Lauri. And he waited over two years before asking me to marry him. Why do you think he let me pick everything for his house? It was because he always hoped one day I'd live there, that the things would be mine, yet all the while he just sat back and let me enjoy meself. Oh, Auntie Dot,' Annie sat
beside her aunt and took her hand, 'I'm no longer an impressionable young girl. I'm a woman and I want to settle down with Lauri. Please be happy for me. You're the only person in the world whose opinion I care about.'
Dot looked mollified. 'I suppose you're old enough to know your own mind,' she sighed. 'But what about religion, luv? Lauri's an atheist,'
'Yes, but he's happy for our children to be brought up Catholic' Annie blushed when she thought about what happened before you had children.
'What's Sylvia got to say about it?'
'She thinks I'm nuts. According to her, Lauri's smug and boring.'
'The nerve of the girl! He's a lovely chap. I've always Hked him.'
Annie gaped at the sudden swing in Dot's position. Dot saw the look and grinned. 'I'm just an ould meddler, aren't I.'*' She gave Annie a warm hug and said tearfully, 'I hope you'll be very happy with Lauri. You have my blessing, girl.'
Heather Close
The lawn looked thick and smooth, shimmering like emerald velvet in the summer sunshine, although close up the grass was thin. The turfs took time to reach the earth beneath and flourish. Lauri cut the lawn at least once a week with the electric mower. He said the more it was cut, the quicker the grass would grow.
There was scarcely a breath of breeze, just enough to make the branches of the willow tree give off a whispery rustle. The leaves changed colour; light-dark, dark-light, when they moved.
From her deckchair on the patio, Annie could hear Gary Cunningham next door bawling his head off. He either had a dirty nappy, was hungry, or just plain fed up. Gary was three months old and a difficult baby. Valerie, his mother, found it hard to cope.
The Cunninghams had moved into number eight at the same time as Lauri had moved into number seven. Gary, their first child, had been born in April, Valerie Cunningham, an intense, wiry woman with dark fiery eyes behind heavy horn-rimmed glasses and short crisp hair, was in her mid-twenties. Her husband, Kevin, who worked in a bank, was just the opposite, with a round soft face, pale lips and pale eyes. His rimless spectacles seemed so much a part of him that Annie couldn't imagine him without them.
They fought a lot, the Cunninghams. It was rare that an evening passed when the Menins weren't forced to
listen to a row. They yelled at each other, sometimes for hours, whilst Gary cried in the background.
On the other side, Mr and Mrs Travers were talking in subdued voices as they worked in their showpiece garden, full of glorious flowers, rustic seats and arches. The Travers were an unfriendly couple, who'd lived all their lives in India. Perhaps they thought they'd come down in the world, coming to live in Heather Close, with a building worker on one side and a comprehensive schoolteacher on the other.
Annie had been thrilled to find Chris Andrews, the teacher she'd liked so much, living by the Travers'. Chris was just as pleased to discover his favourite pupil, or so he said, had become a near neighbour. He had married Lottie, the Alice-in-Wonderland fiancee who had come to the pantomime. They had no childre
n, and no matter how hard she tried, Annie found it difficult to take to Lottie. Despite her wide-apart blue eyes and butter-wouldn't-melt-in-the-mouth expression, there was something sly about her.
Gary gave an unearthly scream and Valerie screamed back, 'Give us a minute, you little bugger.' Annie might go round soon and give a hand; change his nappy or make a bottle. It would be good practice.
Her own baby rolled gently in her stomach. He or she never kicked, just made little gentle movements. Annie imagined a tiny figure shifting position, stretching and yawning inside her womb.
She loved being pregnant, loved the feel of her swelling body under her hands. She hadn't had a moment of sickness. According to the clinic, everything was going perfectly, as if she'd been born to be a mother.
The baby was due in September. Two weeks ago, she'd left the English Electric, and been presented with a Moses basket, which made her feel guilty: it was only
six months since the wedding, when she'd been bought a set of saucepans.
Annie stretched comfortably. It was lovely being at home with nothing to do except make baby clothes and read and watch Wimbledon on television. She'd already had stacks of visitors. Bruno had bought Sylvia a car for her twenty-first and she'd got a job in something called 'public relations', which meant she was sent out on assignments and always managed a detour to Waterloo. Cecy was so thrilled you'd think Annie was bearing her first grandchild, and of course Dot came bearing stern advice nearly every day.
The patio, a suntrap, was becoming too hot. Annie struggled out of the deckchair and went through the French windows into the cool house.
There were pictures in the lounge, reproductions of Impressionist paintings; Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Van Gogh.
'Why didn't you buy them before.''' Annie asked Lauri. He'd had bare walls for more than two years.
'I wasn't sure if you'd like them. I wanted your approval.'
'They're beautiful!' Sunsets, rippling trees, Parisian streets, water lilies.
Brilliant sunshine flooded through the open windows and made the pictures look as if they were alight. The pink walls glowed softly, the dark red suite looked brighter than usual. Annie sighed with pleasure. It looked equally lovely when it was dark, the curtains drawn and the cream-shaded lamps on each side of the fireplace switched on. She would sit with Lauri on the settee, discussing names for the baby, what pattern wallpaper to put in the room which would be a nursery, or watching Steptoe & Son on television. Occasionally, Annie would compare their blissful situation with the Cunninghams', and Lauri would say something like,
