A Liverpool Song (21 page)

‘This is not doable,’ Stuart complained, leaning bike and self against a five-barred gate. ‘The only way we could manage is if we camped up here.’ He took a handkerchief
and mopped his forehead. ‘I wouldn’t care, but we don’t even look like brothers. That’s the long and the short of it, and I’m the short by a good four
inches.’

‘How many heaths have we seen so far?’ Andrew asked. He was fast becoming tired of the word
heath
.

Stuart pulled a notebook from his pocket. ‘Clover Heath, Heathlands, Orchard Heath, Forest Heath, Oak Tree Heath, Heathdale, Heathmoor – all one word, the last two, like Heathlands.
Bloody hell, Andy. How much further? They must own half of England. My legs are too short for all this cycling.’

‘My fault, sorry. I should have got a more detailed map. The next has to be theirs.’

‘You said that miles ago.’

‘I know. But my mother has a stake in all this. It was her birthright.’

Stuart disagreed. ‘They can disinherit her, you know. It’s not against the law. She can fight it, but only after they’re dead. Let’s sit down. I’ve had
enough.’

They drank tepid lemonade and licked melted chocolate from its wrappings. While there was a pause in conversation, Andrew decided to come clean with his lifelong friend. He took a deep breath.
‘Things are awkward at home, Stu. Mother’s taken up with a doctor at the infirmary. In two years, we’re all supposed to go to Liverpool.’

‘No!’

‘Yes. Not sure I should be camping up here while Dad’s at home. He won’t hurt her, but I feel I should be there, because he’s upset, she’s upset – even the
cat’s depressed.’

Stuart studied his friend of thirteen years. ‘What about you?’

‘Me? I’m the only sane one. Dad’s biggest base is in Liverpool, so he has to be there. But Mother and her doctor? I don’t want my mother following me to university. Nor
do I want to be keeping an eye on her. Dad will get me a flat, I hope, so I’ll gain my independence gradually. But Geoff – he’s the doctor – has ailing parents in Liverpool.
Dad, Mother and Geoff intend to get two houses close to each other so that I’ll have both my parents to hand. Am I sixteen, or am I twelve?’

Stuart nodded to indicate empathy. ‘Every morning when I’m leaving for school, my mother shouts, “Have you cleaned them teeth? Costing us a bloody fortune, they are, so make
sure and look after them.” It’s like a daily prayer. I get the same at bedtime. The braces come off in a few weeks.’

Near-silence enjoyed a few seconds. Then Andrew asked, ‘Can you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘Running water.’

Both listened intently. ‘I can,’ Stuart said. ‘Come on.’

They abandoned their bikes and threw themselves happily and fully clothed into a stream so cold that it deprived them of breath. ‘Beautiful,’ Andrew yelled when his lungs recovered
from shock. ‘We’ll stay cool in wet clothes.’

Wet through, they returned to their bikes and sat for a while on a small, grassy hillock. ‘Nice up here,’ Stuart said.

‘You’re right. It’s also my mother’s. Well, part of it is. They got all this land and the properties by marrying land. My mother married a person. OK, it turned out
wrong, but she refused to sell herself for acreage. So they cut her off.’

‘And you want to work for them?’

Andrew considered the question. ‘No, I don’t.’

‘Then why the fish and chips with peas are we here?’

‘I’m not sure.’ But very suddenly, he was sure. ‘Right. Stay here if you like, and I’ll come back when I’ve done what needs to be done.’

‘Which is what?’

‘Not sure yet. But I’m getting there.’

‘So I open up and I say to him, I say, “Who do you think you are knocking on my door in the middle of me washing?” And he just stands there with his mouth
gaping like the Mersey Tunnel. I felt like telling him he’d be catching flies in his gob, but I decided not to bother.’

Andrew closed his eyes. The Harbinger of Doom was behind him once more, and he did his best to ignore it while writing cheques to pay household bills. She was getting worse. Or was it just
because he saw more of her now, after retirement? Did people mellow with age? Perhaps normal people did; Eva showed no sign of improvement. Was she an alien? If she’d been an alien, she would
have been taken to a leader, wouldn’t she? Who was leader? Probably an American Republican, but who cared? Whatever, she was still here in the house of an ex-sawbones who deserved better.

‘So he tells me he’s from Jehovah, so I say he’d best get back there sharpish, cos we’ve enough idiots of our own without bloody foreigners invading. That’s when he
gets a bit more confused, like. Anyway, two others land up next to him, and he says one’s his wife and the other’s his daughter, and they’re witnesses. I asks, like, are they for
the prosecution or the defence, and he frowns. No sense of humour at all, face like a smacked arse.’

Andrew put down his pen and turned to look at her.
Mary, I know you loved her, but she’s driving me daft.
‘Get to the point, Eva. By the time I pay this gas bill,
we’ll be into the next quarter.’

‘Ooh,’ Eva breathed. ‘Who rattled the bars of your cage? And there I was, thinking you’d passed away at your desk. Where was I?’

‘Standing at the front door surrounded by laundry.’

‘Eh?’

‘You said you were in the middle of your washing.’

‘And you do that deliberate, don’t you? Twisting words. You know what I mean. Sometimes you’re a bit too clever, Doc.’

He nodded and folded his arms. ‘Get on with it before I
do
lose the will to live and take an overdose of something or other.’

‘Oh. Right. So then, our Natalie comes to the door. You know what a nice, quiet girl our Natalie is. So she excuses herself, all polite, like, and talks to these people from Jehovah.
“We are all blood donors in this house,” she tells them. “And I am training to be a doctor. Transfusions will always be vital in the saving of lives. If your daughter ever needs
blood, I do hope you’ll think again.” And she drags me in and shuts the door right in their faces. I mean, they were ugly to start with, but my brass doorknocker wouldn’t do any
favours to a nose that got too near. Yes, she’s got class, has my Natalie.’

Andrew tutted. ‘People in this country are free to adopt any faith they choose. We are also allowed to disagree with them, but I always think it best to thank them and tell them I’m
not interested.’

Eva narrowed her eyes. ‘Remember our Lucy? We adopted her years ago? Your Mary found people who recommended us.’

‘Yes, I remember. Very sad.’

‘Thirty-six, she would have been now. You know she bled to death when our Natalie was born on the floor in our back kitchen. We kept Natalie. She’s got strong opinions when it comes
to blood, and I understand why. Nat’s a donor. So she gets a bit mad with people who try to persuade other people not to give their blood.’

‘Ah. Now I certainly stand corrected.’

‘Thank you. She’s never nasty, Doc, cos it’s not in her nature. She just gets her point across. That’s why I think she’ll make a really good doctor, cos she always
sticks to her guns till somebody puts her right. She’s a good learner, our Nat, always ready to listen.’ Eva turned to walk away, changed her mind and doubled back. ‘Is your Helen
going to that meditation thing about staying married to Diamonds are Forever?’

‘Mediation, Eva. Not meditation.’

‘Whatever, she wants her head looking at. Well, is she going? Cos I’m telling you now, he could charm a blind bird out of a tree, that one. He’ll promise her the earth, and
he’ll give her nothing but headaches and more children than she wants.’

‘I tend to agree with you there, Eva.’

‘So what are you going to do about it, eh? Sit there cogitating over your gas bill and the
Times
crossword?’

‘I’m doing nothing about anything. I stopped trying to interfere with other people’s business years ago, because it got me in more trouble than enough. The messenger can be
shot, you know. It gets positively Shakespearean if you start picking up handkerchiefs.’

‘You what?’

‘Sorry, Eva. Just a reference to the Moor of Venice.’

She glared at him. ‘They’ve got no moors in Venice. It’s all water. Moors is foothills near mountains; I remember that from school.’

Andrew turned away and paid the gas company. Where Eva was concerned, Othello was of no interest whatsoever.

‘Doc?’

Oh, God. ‘What?’

‘Shall I do some coffee?’

‘Yes, please. Black, strong, and served with a large slice of silence.’

‘OK, boss.’

The price of electricity had gone up once more. And Helen was out again. Was there another man . . . ?

After three sessions of mediation, Helen felt almost sure that she could never go back to Daniel. Perhaps the time she’d enjoyed away from him was a factor; another
distinct possibility was that she saw him out of context. In their area of the Wirral, he’d been completely at home, and not just in the house. Everyone knew him. He got the best seats in
restaurants, was a member of Rotary, while invitations to house parties had always arrived thick and fast, especially at Christmas and New Year. He was in a pickle. Refusal of such invitations had
to involve lying, since his wife was popular, and rumours of her departure would be circling by now like buzzards over carrion.

She stared at the curtains while Daniel and the counsellor droned on. The curtains were horrible, yellow with pinkish-brown flowers dripping down their lengths. That these malignant drapes
should hang at a beautiful Georgian window offended Helen’s sense of order and good taste.

Order. She looked at the desk. Mr Purcell’s work area spoke volumes about obsessive compulsive
dis
order. A green blotter sat dead centre. To its right, four sharpened pencils lay
together in a row, identical quadruplets placed in perfect sequence, all points facing the door, all exactly the same length. To the left of the blotter squatted the phone and a very overweight
green Buddha. The carpet was pinkish-brown. Mr Purcell’s chair was brown. Clients’ seats were brown. The walls were covered in framed diplomas. The frames were brown. And Helen was
browned off.

Oh. They were both staring at her expectantly.

‘You see?’ Daniel cried. ‘She doesn’t care enough to listen.’

She looked at him hard and long. ‘You like it here, don’t you, Daniel?’

‘It’s OK.’

‘Of course it is.’ In Liverpool, Daniel was on foreign soil. For him, this was a good thing, as he didn’t want to wash dirty linen on his own side of the Mersey. For Helen,
too, this was a good thing, because she saw him here more clearly for what he was, a moaning mother’s boy. He was, indeed, his mother’s creation, his mother’s monster. According
to Beatrice Pope, her ‘boy’ was perfect. She had raised him to believe he was a messiah of the jewellery business, a prodigy who, at the age of five, could pick out the finest diamond,
the rarest emerald, the best Ceylon sapphire.

At this third session, Helen decided to speak her mind thoroughly. ‘I shan’t be coming again,’ she advised the counsellor. ‘There’s no point. Yes, I have a young
baby, and no, I am not suffering from depression.’ She fixed her gaze on Daniel. ‘Nor do I have any of the sexually transmitted disorders you might have distributed so freely. I simply
prefer not to be married to you. Go back to Mummy and her four-course breakfasts. But watch your cholesterol. I told you often enough that her doting could have damaged you irreparably. Only here,
in this setting, have I realized how deep her damage really did go.’

Daniel blinked. ‘You never liked my mother.’

‘True. Though she improved greatly with age, which you haven’t. She taught you to believe that you were God, and you never learned any better. Really, you would have made an
excellent Victorian, because you think women are here simply to do your bidding. Whores know their place, but I don’t accept what you perceive as my position. You’ll be hearing from my
solicitor.’

The counsellor stood up. ‘Please, all I ask—’

‘All you ask is sixty quid an hour,’ Helen said, no malice in her tone. ‘So sit down and be quiet while I use up the time that’s left.’ She returned her attention
to Daniel. ‘Tell Mummy that nasty Helen refuses to hang round until a son puts in an appearance. If you need a son, look elsewhere – you’re good at that. I want half the value of
the house, together with something from the business – I put my hours in listening to dirty old men with eyes halfway down my cleavage.’

This was Kate-speak. Helen’s sister had primed the bomb, lit the fuse and stood back while his life went up in flames. ‘I love you,’ he said desperately.

‘You love you, Daniel. Buy a small pocket mirror and look at your beloved whenever you feel the urge.’

‘You’re getting nothing from the business.’ His eyes narrowed.

She nodded. ‘Yes, that sounds like your kind of love. However, certain items from a certain safe in a cellar . . .’ She shrugged, neglecting to finish the sentence. Quietly, she sang
about the taxman having taken all someone’s money on a fine day. ‘And a hundred pounds a week for each child. No negotiations, or I’ll finish that bloody song and finish you as
well.‘

‘Shut up, you daft cow.’ He jumped up and left the room.

Helen stayed where she was. ‘So, away he runs, Mummy’s boy. She’ll comfort him later with egg and chips followed by vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce. Yes,
she’ll regress him to the age of nine by providing the menu he loved then. As for me, I require escorting to my car. He has a very low threshold of self-control. His mother’s fault, you
see.’

As they walked through the building and out to Helen’s car, the counsellor apologized profusely for failing to improve matters.

‘Don’t worry,’ Helen said. ‘Not your fault. It’s my problem, because I refused to see what everyone else noticed years ago. What concerns me most is the thought of
him getting into a permanent strop and ignoring our daughters. He sulks, unfortunately. Sarah shows signs of missing her daddy, though Cassie’s still a baby. He’s quite capable of just
walking away.’