A Liverpool Song (40 page)

Geoff looked from one to the other a few times. ‘Have you two been discussing me?’

‘She’s worried,’ said Joe in his wife’s defence.

‘About what?’

‘About how you’ve changed. You got given your messy room, and your messy room’s started walking all over the house. She’s up and down the stairs like a scalded cat
because she’s a worrier. I don’t know, do I? Em might be thinking anything from . . .’ He left a deliberate pause. ‘Well, from brain tumour to some kind of premature
dementia.’

Geoff laughed. ‘And you want me to go and see a man who’s a quack? He doesn’t know an eye infection from athlete’s foot. There is nothing wrong with me except tiredness.
I’ve been researching too hard.’

Emily felt foolish, but Joe didn’t. While it was true that nearest and dearest often noticed first when something was wrong, a person who came and went had value, since he began to see the
subtler differences that occurred during short absences. The man had altered, though Joe couldn’t put his finger on the problem.

Geoff laughed again, but there was a hollow quality to the sound.

The other two occupants of the room would hear that laugh for the rest of their lives. Because just over a year later, Geoff was dead.

Andrew and Mary were living their dream. When not at work, they ate and studied, but continued their honeymoon period for what Mary declared to be ‘a time of total
self-indulgence’. But their euphoria was ended abruptly by the deaths of two children. The first was not developed, as it had existed for just a few weeks in Mary’s womb and
didn’t have an identifiable gender, but the second was the fault of staff at Liverpool’s children’s hospital, and it was a four-year-old girl disabled by serious heart
problems.

Immediately, Emily and Joe visited Dr Charles. His real name was Cawley, but as his father still worked at the practice the younger man used his given name. ‘What can I do for you
two?’ he asked. ‘Aren’t you living with Dr Shaw, Mrs Sanderson?’

‘Joseph and I are still legally married,’ Emily said. ‘It’s an unusual situation. And Geoff . . .’ She could say no more, as she began to sob. ‘Forgive
me.’

‘A zero too many,’ Joe said. His own voice was shaky. He explained as best he could the arrangements in his wife’s house, Geoff ’s untidy ‘cave’, his
increasing forgetfulness, his deteriorating behaviour. ‘It started off with the mess spreading a bit, and Em just shifted it back to the chaos room. He’s always had a room like that,
it’s been part of who he is. Or was. Emily? Shall we come back later when you feel a bit better?’

She managed a degree of control. ‘Then my daughter-in-law heard him talking to himself.’

Joe shook his head. ‘No, love. She told you he was talking to somebody who wasn’t there. When I’m drawing a piece of furniture, I talk to myself all the time. A lot of people
do that – it’s instead of making notes. It was a nurse who wasn’t there. She’s the one who followed Geoff ’s instructions, and she gave a hundred measurement of
something or other instead of ten. The kiddy died. Everybody blamed the poor nurse till they saw Geoff’s notes with the extra zero. See, up till now, Doc, it’s just been like
eccentricity and absent-mindedness. But it’s changed lately. My son has had to sit with him while we came here, because we believe he soon won’t be fit to be left. And my son’s
wife’s just lost their first baby, as you already know.’

Dr Charles listened intently.

With each prompting the other, they placed the whole truth before him. Geoff was getting up in the middle of the night, making toast and tea, then setting off for work, sometimes in his pyjamas.
He was easier when out of his mind, because each time he returned to his senses the fact that he was suspended from work crashed into his head.

‘Does he talk sense to you?’ the doctor asked.

‘He says very little now,’ was Emily’s reply. ‘He examines all his food before eating, something to do with research, and I’m thinking of labelling the cupboards. I
found three cups in the oven yesterday.’

‘Can you bring him here?’

‘No,’ they chorused.

‘He hates doctors,’ Joe added.

‘Most doctors do,’ Charles said. ‘Then the mountain must move. Go home, and I’ll be with you shortly. I know this is easy to say, but try not to worry.’

For the first time in four and a half decades of life, Geoff Shaw turned nasty. ‘Bring my family,’ he yelled at Joe. ‘They live in West Derby.’

Emily spoke. ‘They moved to Northampton, darling, to be near your nephew. Remember?’

Geoff blinked. ‘Emily, don’t let the doctor do this to me. I didn’t write that extra zero.’

‘I’m doing nothing,’ Dr Charles said. He had already sent for a second medic and an ambulance. ‘You aren’t functioning properly, Geoff. You need your engine looking
at, maybe your battery charged. No hospital, I promise you that.’ This was the truth, because Joe was paying for a private facility between Liverpool and Southport. Technically it was a fully
equipped medical centre, though it presented itself as a top-class hotel, especially in public areas. ‘We’re concerned for you and want to help you get better.’

‘You can piss off,’ was Geoff ’s answer. ‘I don’t mean you,’ he said to Joe and Emily. ‘I mean this bloody quack. Doesn’t know his
housemaid’s knee from his tennis elbow. Waste of space.’

The quack moved closer to the patient. ‘Calm down.’

‘You calm down. What the hell are you doing here?’

Charles Cawley was probably keeping Geoff out of court, though he said nothing. The possibility of this paediatrician’s being tried for negligence or even manslaughter was very real. The
press had been told as little as possible, though the little girl’s parents had not been gagged. ‘I’m trying to help you,’ he said. ‘Believe it or not, this is all for
your own good.’ The Royal College of Nursing wasn’t best pleased about one of its members being blamed, however briefly, for the death of a child. That weighty power might swing into
action any day now, because the nurse in question was suffering from nervous exhaustion.

They came for him. Three big bruisers in white coats dragged him kicking and screaming into the private ambulance. Andrew and Mary, who had sat on the stairs through the whole palaver, held on
to Emily while her lover was taken away under certification. Joe simply wept. He curled into Geoff ’s fireside chair in Emily’s drawing room and cried like a newborn. He’d just
found yet another pack of cheap ballpoint pens under the cushion. Oh, yes. There was something wrong with that poor lad.

Emily broke free from her son and watched the vehicle pulling away. She sat on the doorstep gazing into the near distance. But what she saw now was miles away from Liverpool. A bench facing a
park, her bench, the one she’d chosen to occupy while eating her home-made lunch in warm weather. And he placed himself there with her, knowing she would love him, rock solid in his belief
that this woman, ten years his senior, would be his forever. She felt the summer breeze on her neck, saw roses nodding in the infirmary garden.
Geoff, don’t leave me. Without you, I am
half of nothing.

‘Come in, Mother.’

And she was in the arms of both her son and his wife, all three of them sobbing noisily. Joe joined them, a handkerchief held to his eyes. ‘Look at us,’ he said. ‘We should be
praying, not skriking. I’ll stop here tonight, Em, in that smaller back bedroom, if that’s all right with you. I just feel a bit . . . a bit down.’ Pam and her friend had moved
out, and his house was enormous.

And they stayed together for days, advised by Dr Charles not to visit Geoff just yet. While they waited, the dregs of humanity caught up with the story and began to haunt them. Representatives
of presses local and national lived in the street, and no one said a word to them. It was like a circus with just clowns, except this lot wore two days’ growth of beard rather than red noses,
oversized shoes and gaudy make-up.

When the bigger picture emerged, the reporters had a new, more sympathetic attitude. Dr Geoff Shaw was ill, and the whole sad business had been a terrible accident. So would-be hunters oozed
concern for the poor man, yet still no one spoke to them.

Geoff was not suffering from a brain tumour; nor did he have the dreaded Alzheimer’s. Without realizing it, Geoff had experienced a series of small, cerebral accidents, commonly known as
strokes. Undaunted and unaware, he had carried on like the stalwart he had always been, seldom complaining of headaches or other symptoms, as complaining was not in his nature.

It was then that Liverpool began to show her true nature. Once the sad truth was published, Rodney Street was occupied by bearers of little gifts, cards and flowers. These same people bulldozed
reporters out of the area, attended the little girl’s funeral, and finally brought the bereaved mother to see Emily. The two women cried and clung together, then sat and did the good old
Lancashire thing involving cups, saucers and the brew that cheers.

‘What can they do for him?’ the child’s mother asked.

‘Well, they can thin his blood, but that might kill him if he has a bleed. He hasn’t had bleeds yet, you see. It’s something about oxygen starvation, and I don’t really
understand it properly, but at least you know little Alison’s death wasn’t his fault.’

‘I do know. And she wasn’t awake, so we hope she felt nothing. But you have a hard time in front of you, Mrs Shaw.’

Emily was too tired for further explorations into the future. It was going to be about blood pressure, gentle exercise and a sensible diet. ‘Thank you for coming to see me.’

‘Tell him I know it was an accident, won’t you?’

‘I will.’

‘It’s not easy, Mrs Sanderson, but it’s been explained to me that he had no idea that he was ill. And my Ally wasn’t in the best of health – she had a couple of
years left at best with the state of her heart. But it still hurts, and now I’m hurting for you and him. It’s a mad bloody world, isn’t it, love?’

‘Oh, yes. Thank you for coming.’

Alone once more, Emily stared into an empty grate. The lack of flame and movement underlined yet again her absolute loneliness. As for Geoff, how would he cope without his work? She’d
visited him twice, and he now seemed to be aware of the mini-strokes. Despite his relative youth, he had a degree of vascular dementia, though it might slow down. No one could make a real
prognosis, as the disease took different forms in each patient.

Soon, she would bring him home. An unlikely mixture of joy and dread filled her chest. She loved him and wanted him back, but he was changing all the time, sometimes clear and amusing, sometimes
withdrawn, brow furrowed, lips tight, no words, no laughter. Treatment remained unclear. There were drugs under development, but nothing thus far had been declared fit to use on humans. Patience
and communication were mentioned in the home pack, and Emily was good at both.

‘But must I watch him die? How do I know if he has another . . . what’s the word? Ischaemic event?’ That meant something about poor blood flow and a loss of oxygen to more
areas of the brain. How would she recognize that? ‘It should be me. I’m nearly ten years older.’ But it was him. And the knowledge was a knife in her heart.

Phenobarbital. That was what the enemy gave him, and those tablets were for epileptics or very anxious patients. The staff kept him quiet by sedating him, and they probably
thought he would carry on taking the bloody stuff so that their life might remain easy, but he wasn’t here to please them. Here? Where was here? It was far too luxurious to be a hospital, so
Emily and Joe must be in on it. Who could be trusted these days? The tablets piled up in his toiletries bag.

Geoff wanted to go home, but he wondered whether Emily would send him away again. Was there a plot afoot? Did she want to go back to Joe? So where was his home? West Derby. The family house was
in West Derby. Yes, his parents had gone to be with his brother’s son in Northampton, but the house remained theirs. He’d been having strokes. The strokes weren’t bleeders, but
they had reduced the supply of oxygen to parts of his brain. Where the hell was he?

Finding out wasn’t difficult. Brain damage? He was well enough to defeat this lot any day of the week. He donned a dressing gown, left his room, discovered that he was at Elmswood, a
facility of which he had heard, returned to his quarters and dressed himself. Many of the patients were dressed, so he mingled for a while in a sitting room, helping an old man put together a
jigsaw, playing a too-easy game of chess and making sure he was seen by staff who would, no doubt, make notes about his being up, dressed and out of his room at last. This improvement would be
written in his notes, and they would take the credit and the money for having performed the miracle. Charlatans.

Behind a Staff Only door, he stole a few pounds from wallets and handbags, then left the establishment through a rear entrance. He was on the moss, an area of lanes and fields between Southport,
Ormskirk and North Liverpool. At an isolated farmhouse, he told the occupant that his car had broken down, he was a doctor and he needed a taxi. And that was that. Less than an hour later, he was
back on Rodney Street.

When Emily answered the door, he pushed her aside and strode in. ‘Do that to me again, and I shall be angry,’ he said.

Open-mouthed, Emily stood in the hall. ‘Do what?’ she shouted to his disappearing back.

Halfway up the stairs, he stopped. ‘Lock me away in a place for rich, sick people.’

‘But I didn’t. It was the doctor’s idea, not mine. We’ve been terribly worried.’

‘Have you? So sorry. You and Joe plotting behind my back, eh? Are you two planning a reconciliation?’

She followed him. ‘Geoff? Geoff, look at me.’

At the top of the stairs, he waited for her.

‘A child died, darling,’ she said. ‘You’ve had ischaemic strokes—’

‘I know. I’m a bloody doctor, after all. And I’m sorry, but I didn’t know these things were happening. Anyway, I can’t stay here. If I stay here, you’ll be
following me round in case one piece of paper escapes from my study.’

‘Have you any idea of how lonely I’ve been?’ she asked. ‘And how I’ve wished that I could be the sick one? I love you enough to die for you, and look at me while
I’m speaking. Joe is my best friend, no more than that. Don’t leave me. Spread your mess everywhere, buy a thousand pens, keep socks in the refrigerator – we’ll manage.
We’ve always managed. There are hundreds of get well cards downstairs, and the little girl’s mother came to see me, because she’s worried about you. She asked me to tell you that
she knows it was an accident.’