Liverpool Annie

by Maureen Lee

  She would never know what she'd missed by not

  falling in love. 'I've made me bed, and I'll have to lie on it.' She had the children, and it wasn't an uncomfortable bed to spend the rest of your life on.

  Clive Hoskins was still asleep when they left for Mass at Westminster Cathedral - Marie admitted she rarely went nowadays. Afterwards, they lunched in Lyons Corner House then window-shopped, arm in arm, in the nearly deserted West End. The weather had changed dramatically and it was dull and overcast. A sharp breeze whipped the air.

  'Have you enjoyed yourself?' Marie asked as they tore themselves away from Liberty's window.

  'I've had a lovely time. What I like most is just being with you. Sometimes, I worry you've forgotten me.'

  Marie laughed. 'Sis! You're Hke an arm or a leg. I don't think about them all the time, but I'd be devastated if I didn't have them.'

  'It's funny,' Annie said thoughtfully, 'I've got a family, yet I miss you more than you do me. You've got no-one except Clive.'

  'Ah, but I've got an obsession - acting. Everything pales into insignificance beside that.'

  'That time you were pregnant, you wanted a baby to love.'

  'That was then, sis, this is now.'

  They walked in silence for a while. 'I want to tell you something I've never told another soul, not even Clive.' Marie released her arm and began to walk ahead so her face was hidden behind the velvet hat. 'I was offered a big part in a play once. It was to go on in the West End, but the leading man died and it came to nothing. I was ten weeks pregnant at the time. I had an abortion - the law's changed, it's legal now.'

  'Oh, Marie!' Annie breathed.

  Marie didn't turn around. It was as if she were

  talking to herself. 'When I first realised, y'know, I thought of giving up acting, perhaps coming back to Liverpool. Till then, I was getting nowhere fast. Then came the play and I was presented with two choices. The baby didn't stand a chance.'

  A bus trundled along Regent Street and Annie wondered if she should have bought Daniel a bus instead of a soldier. He loved buses. 'What about the father?' she asked.

  Marie shrugged her shoulders carelessly. 'Roger? Oh, he never knew.'

  'Was he an actor?'

  'He is an actor. He was in The Avengers the other week, playing a good guy for a change.' She paused outside a shop which sold Indian ware. 'I quite like that carved box with mosaic round the edge.'

  'Did you feel upset afterwards, like you did the other time?' Marie's face was reflected in the window. She looked quite calm, yet . . .

  'It didn't affect me a bit.' Marie's voice was brittle. 'I had to have that part, you see. Even when it turned out to have been a waste of time, I didn't care. It had made me realise what my priorities were. Kids weren't on the agenda, acting was.'

  'Marie!' Annie touched her sister gently on the shoulder.

  'Ah, but I haven't forgotten the other, my little boy.' Marie spun round. Her eyes were unnaturally bright and Annie was shocked by the naked misery there. 'He'd be fourteen, a year older than I was then. If I try hard, I can see him. I've watched him grow up over the years. He's as tall as me and, for some reason, he's got straight fair hair and blue eyes.' Her face twisted bitterly. 'Oh, Annie, sometimes I don't half hate our mam and dad.'

  A man and woman passed, tourists, with cameras

  slung around their necks. They stared curiously at Marie's impassioned face.

  'Come on, luv.' Annie linked her arm. 'Let's have a cup of tea.' She felt she understood her sister better. Acting wasn't an obsession, but an escape from the past.

  That night was Annie's last in London. Marie seemed to have recovered from her outburst and they went to a party in someone's attic. Annie might have enjoyed herself had she been able to stop thinking about her husband and her sister. There was little she could do about Marie, but she would look upon Lauri differently when she got home. Now she knew where she stood, perhaps they could get off to a fresh start.

  It was dreadful, the thought of leaving Marie. Just as Annie was fastening her suitcase next morning, the phone rang.

  'It's for you, Marie,' someone called, presumably Tiffany.

  Annie wasn't sure whether to cringe or smile when she heard Marie's voice downstairs. It was loud, pretentious, false. 'Fantastic, darling,' she gushed, 'I'll be there in an hour.'

  'Sorry, sis, I won't be able to come to Euston with you,' she said breathlessly when she returned, her face radiant. 'That was my agent. I went for an audition last week and they want to see me again.'

  'That's all right, luv.'

  Marie scarcely heard. She stared at herself in the mirror. 'I'd better get changed and do something with my hair.'

  'I'll be off or I'll miss me train.' Annie felt in the way. Perhaps this was the real Marie, and the chummy, companionable sister was false.

  'Right.' Marie said abstractedly. 'Oh, I'll come

  downstairs and see you off. Can you remember the way to the tube?'

  'Yes, just round the corner.'

  'Sorry about this, but it's an opportunity I can't miss.'

  'I'm glad your agent called before we'd left,' Annie said politely. 'I hope you get the part.'

  'So do I. Oh, so do I.'

  They embraced briefly on the step. Annie hadn't taken a step when the door closed. She was about to turn the corner of the cheerless street, feeling indescribably sad, when she heard her name called. 'Annie! Annie!' There was a hint of desperation in the sound.

  She turned. Marie was standing outside the house blowing kisses with both hands. She looked as if she were crying. 'Goodbye, sis. Goodbye.'

  Annie backed around the corner blowing kisses in return.

  Heather Close looked peaceful in the late September sunshine, and the yellow door of number seven shone welcomingly at the end. Annie sighed with relief. She'd enjoyed the short holiday, but it was good to be home,

  Daniel had spied her from the window. He came running out, followed by Auntie Dot. 'We were just about to collect Sara. Oh, you've had your hair cut! It looks nice. I always said you'd suit it short, didn't I?'

  Annie couldn't recall a single time, but readily agreed. 'I've had me ears pierced, too,' she said proudly. She scooped her son up in her arms. 'Did you miss Mummy, sweetheart?'

  'A bit,' Daniel conceded, twisting her nose.

  'I've just put the kettle on, least I think I have. You can never tell with them electric ones.' Dot looked slightly moidered. 'There's time for a quick cuppa and you can catch up on the news.'

  'What news?' She quickly learned that in the space of

  four days Sara had lost a tooth, Lauri had cut his finger sharpening the lawnmower and had to get it stitched at the hospital, and Sylvia had left Eric and was living with Bruno at the Grand.

  Sara's face lit up when she saw her mother waiting at the school gate. 'I missed you. Mummy,' she said gravely. 'Please don't go away again.'

  'Next time you can come with me,' Annie promised. It meant visits to Soho clubs would be out, but that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

  When Lauri came home, she made a big fuss of him. The first finger of his left hand was heavily bandaged.

  'You should have taken a few days off,' she cried.

  'We can't afford it, Annie.'

  She thought he didn't seem at all well. His cheeks looked heavy and grey and he moved slowly, as if it was an effort. 'I think you should have an early night,' she insisted. 'Perhaps you're run down.' She felt guilty. It was he who should have had a holiday, not her. 'I'll get you a tonic from the chemist tomorrow.'

  'I might turn in a bit sooner than usual.' He went upstairs at half nine and Annie took him up a cup of cocoa. He was sitting up in bed reading the book she'd bought and appeared slightly better.

  'Your hair looks nice,' he said. 'And you suit the earrings.'

  Annie sat on the bed. 'You always said you preferred it long.'

  'I did, but as you reminded me, it's your hair.'

  She felt guilty aga
in, but only a little, for going against his wishes. 'So it is,' she said.

  Their eyes met, and Annie saw fear in his. He'd always been able to read her mind. Perhaps he sensed their roles had changed.

  She telephoned her sister to say she'd arrived safely home. Whoever answered. Tiffany, or possibly Shelley/

  Brenda was back, promised to pass the message on. If they did, Annie never heard, Marie didn't turn up for Sara's First Holy Communion in October.

  Nor did she come when Auntie Dot threw the best party ever to celebrate her sixtieth birthday. As she was surrounded by her husband, her lads and their wives, ber grandchildren. Dot said emotionally, 'I'm the luckiest woman in the world.'

  'And I'm the luckiest man,' said Uncle Bert. Love for his flamboyant wife glowed as fresh in his eyes as the day they were married.

  No-one allowed the fact that the Conservatives had won the recent General Election to ruin the great day, even though the new Prime Minister, Edward Heath, declared it was his intention to denationalise everything that moved and do something about the Trade Unions.

  Annie received a little scribbled note to say her sister had a part in Dr Who, but no-one would recognise her because she played an alien and the make-up was really weird. Although reconciled to the fact that their paths had parted for ever, Annie couldn't help but wonder if there was anything that would fetch her sister back to Liverpool!

  'Thirty!' Sylvia said gloomily. 'Thirty! It wouldn't feel so bad if my divorce hadn't come through the same day.'

  Parliament must have had Sylvia and Eric Church in mind when they changed the law to allow divorce by mutual consent after two years' separation. The Decree Absolute had arrived that morning. Eric's family were horrified, but had to concede it was the only way out. If they stayed together, either Eric would kill Sylvia, or

  she would kill him, and divorce was more socially acceptable than murder.

  'How does it feel?' Annie enquired.

  'Being thirty or divorced?'

  'I know how thirty feels, don't I?' It had been her own birthday the month before, and it hadn't exactly seemed a landmark, but things were different for her. 'I mean divorced.'

  'Odd,' Sylvia said reflectively. 'Peculiar. Very sad.'

  'If you'd had children it might have been all right.'

  'I doubt it. We would have found something else to fight about, at least Eric would. He's a sadist. He likes hurting people. I feel sorry for that woman he's going to marry.' Eric was already sort of engaged to the daughter of a friend of the family.

  'I think you've been dead brave,' Annie declared.

  'Thanks,' Sylvia said briefly. 'I'm glad you were around.' She'd vowed never to fall in love again. She'd had enough of men to last a lifetime. 'Perhaps the worst thing is that the Beatles have broken up,' she said tragically. 'It's the end of a great era. There'll never be another decade like the sixties.' The Fab Four had gone their separate ways. When he wasn't studying mysticism with Paul McCartney and George Harrison in the Himalayas, John Lennon was in America with his new wife, Yoko Ono, making records of his own.

  They were in Sylvia's bedroom in the Grand, still the same as when Annie had first come on that bitterly cold night when Ruby Livesey had pushed Sylvia into a holly bush. The two women were lost in youthful memories, until Sylvia said brightly. 'I won't be staying in Liverpool now that I'm a free woman again. I cramp Bruno's style. He's dying to screw that new barmaid.'

  'Where will you go?' asked Annie.

  'I might give London a try. There's more openings when it comes to work, and far more to do socially.'

  z86

  Annie had suspected this would happen. There seemed Uttle to keep a single woman of thirty in Liverpool. 'I'll miss you,' she sighed.

  'It goes without saying I'll miss you too.' Sylvia rolled off the bed. 'Tell me seriously, Annie, do I look thirty?'

  'You don't look a day over twenty-nine.' Annie stared at her friend's beautiful face. Sylvia looked no different from when she started at Grenville Lucas sixteen years ago.

  'You're a great help.' Sylvia patted her cheeks worriedly. 'Say if I go like Cecy! She's beginning to resemble a wrinkled, dried-up prune.'

  'You haven't changed, some people never do. Others grow old before your very eyes.'

  'I hope I'm the first sort,' Sylvia said frantically. 'I hope I take after Bruno. He still rakes in the women at fifty-six.'

  Annie supposed charming, flirtatious Bruno must have changed a bit since they first met, but she still nursed a secret yearning for him, with his dark laughing face. She thought about Lauri; he was one of the second sort. Of course, he wasn't changing before her eyes, that was ridiculous, but he was nothing like the man with the warm twinkling smile she'd met at Auntie Dot's. It wasn't just that he'd grown so bulky or his hair had thinned - after all. Uncle Bert no longer had the sandy halo she remembered - but Lauri's whole attitude had altered. He was always depressed, rarely smiling. He'd never been the same since he cut his finger on the lawnmower two years ago when she was in London. It was stupid to think someone's personality could alter because of a cut finger, but the finger had never regained its feeling. It remained numb, unbending. Then the numbness spread to the next finger, and the next, until Lauri could hardly move his left hand. Although

  he'd been to see a specialist and had a variety of different treatments, the hand remained the same, completely dead, yet the specialist could find nothing wrong.

  There was a knock on the door and Bruno came in. He grinned at Annie. 'How much do I pay you to keep my daughter company?'

  'I clocked off mentally at half past two.' She'd been working lunchtimes at the Grand since Daniel started school last year. Lauri had been totally opposed, but it was fortunate she'd gone ahead regardless, as her small earnings had helped to subsidise the housekeeping ever since. There'd been no holiday, as originally planned.

  'I came to say Cecy's just telephoned,' Bruno said to Sylvia. 'As it's your birthday and my night off, she's invited us both to dinner. I promised to ring back. What shall I tell her?'

  Sylvia pulled a face. 'Yes, I suppose, but fancy having nothing else to do on your thirtieth birthday than go to dinner with your parents!'

  After several visits to the hospital over nearly a year, it was concluded the cause of Lauri's frozen hand was psychosomatic. Annie was with him in the specialist's office when the diagnosis was made.

  'What does that mean?' she asked.

  'It's all in the mind.' The specialist was a pleasant man, but rather distant, with a narrow white face and deep-set eyes.

  'But I can't feel it,' Lauri said a touch impatiently. 'I can't bend my fingers. How on earth can it all be in my mind?'

  'I'm afraid that is a mystery medical science has so far been unable to solve. Some people go blind or lose their power of speech for no apparent reason.'

  Lauri's brow creased. 'You mean there's no cure?'

  'The cure is within yourself. Only you can make your hand better.'

  'Bloody ridiculous!' Lauri said when they were outside. He rarely swore. When they reached the Anglia, Annie said, 'Shall I drive?'

  'Don't you trust me?' he snapped.

  'Of course I do.' He managed to change the gears by pushing the lever with his wrist, though he couldn't use the hand brake. She was sorry she'd asked. She'd offered to help because he was upset, but he couldn't stand it when she drove. 'I don't want to be seen driven by a woman, even if she is my wife,' he had said soon after she'd passed her test.

  As Annie made her way to school to collect the children, she recalled the journey back from the hospital. She kept trying to start a conversation, but Lauri merely answered with a grunt. It wasn't until they were going into the house, that he patted her arm and said, 'Sorry, love. I'm finding this business with my hand hard to take.'

  That was the night Fred Quillen came, uninvited, and asked if he could speak to Lauri privately. Annie shooed Sara and Daniel into the garden and left the men in the lounge whilst she got on with t
he ironing. Fred didn't stay long. After about fifteen minutes, she heard the front door open and went to say goodbye. Fred was letting himself out, there was no sign of Lauri.

  Puzzled, she went into the lounge. Lauri was sitting stock still on the settee. His face was pale.

  'What's the matter?' Intuition told her what the answer would be.

  'They want me out of the co-op. They claim I'm not pulling my weight,' Lauri said dully.

  'Oh, love!' Annie breathed. She felt as if her heart could easily split in two on his behalf. She sat down and

  laid her head on his shoulder. 'What are we going to do?'

  She winced at the bitterness in his voice as he replied, 'They've given me a month to pull my socks up.'

  But how could he? Lauri had always been the strongest and most conscientious of workers. She sensed how degraded he must feel. 'Why not tell Fred Quillen what to do with the co-op and find another job?'

  Lauri looked at her as if she were mad. 'I'm fifty, Annie, and I've only got the use of one hand. What other job?'

  The children came running in. Lauri reached for Sara. 'Come to Daddy, darling.' He adored his daughter. Sometimes, Annie wondered if Sara had taken her own place in Lauri's heart, to the detriment of boisterous Daniel who got on his father's nerves.

  She ruffled Daniel's dark hair. 'Help me fetch the rest of the washing in, there's a good boy.'

  Annie joined the mothers outside the school gates. Valerie Cunningham wasn't amongst them. As soon as Zachary started school, Valerie had taken a full-time job. Her children were what the newspapers referred to disparagingly as 'latchkey kids', though they spent the hours between school and their mother coming home at the Menins'.

  ■ It was a blowy November day and russet leaves danced across the playground. A bell went and suddenly the double doors flew open and children came bursting out like wild animals. Daniel was one of the first. He was a fine looking boy, Annie thought tenderly, as her son raced another boy to the gate, a look of determination on his handsome face that reminded her of Marie. The shirt that had been clean on that morning was grubby and the buttons were undone, or possibly lost.