A Liverpool Song (48 page)

Eva Dawson, still opinionated and loyal, kept her job at Rosewood, though as housekeeper she came and went more or less as she pleased. The only unbreakable rule was that she had to be there
when the children arrived home from school, and she covered school holidays, though Thora, when available, became a voluntary second lieutenant, director of games, first aid administrator and
occasional cook.

The two women also enjoyed the closest of friendships, as both had treasured Emily, both had mourned her, and they found comfort in each other. With one speaking cotton territory Lancashire and
the other galloping along in Scouse, some hilarious misunderstandings occurred, and they laughed at and with each other. For these occasions, they both thanked Emily, who had instigated their
relationship.

There was just one major change on this stretch of the Mersey’s coastal road. Thora Caldwell, taking her cue from Emily, ignored convention and moved in with Joe Sanderson. She had her eye
straightened by surgery, while her hair altered of its own accord. Although it remained coarse, the colour changed over time until it managed a reasonable shade that was close to platinum, and the
owner of the new look began to take care of her person. To see a woman rebirth herself in her sixties was wonderful. Her skin was good, and her features looked less sharp without the glasses on
which she had always depended to pull the lazy eye into its rightful position.

Joe enjoyed her company greatly, because Thora was enormous fun. As with Emily, he kept to his own bedroom while Thora stayed in hers. But they were content during shared meals or TV programmes,
happy at weekends when they repaired to Bolton so that Thora could check that her son and his family were taking care of her house. The couple visited the rest of her family, and Joe dropped in at
the factory where most of his furniture was made. Now situated on the road to St Helens, it was housed in a massive mill in which cotton had been spun, and it employed over two hundred people.
Thora was proud of him; somewhere among the stars, Emily would also be pleased.

On the way home, they invariably went to see Daisy who, having survived childhood against all odds, showed every sign of outliving most people. She had her own pretty room filled with soft toys
and brightly coloured pictures. The first teddy, now almost bald, remained her favourite, with the first toy rabbit coming a close second. Somewhere behind a silence punctuated only by grunts, she
was capable of making a choice, usually First Ted or First Bun, as Betsy had named the popular pair. Daisy, now in her twenty-eighth year, stared at cartoons for hours, walked about with her toys,
never spoke, and seemed as happy as she was capable of being. To an observer, this was no life at all; to Daisy, it was safety and routine.

For Joe, the saddest thing about his beautiful blonde baby daughter was that she’d turned into an overweight and shapeless young woman with lank brown hair and a face whose expression
betrayed her condition immediately. But he loved her. She hadn’t deserved any of this, and neither had her long-suffering mother. Daisy was the unfortunate personification of Joe’s
weakness, stupidity and guilt.

‘Come on, Joe,’ Thora would urge. ‘You’ve seen her, but I doubt that she’s seen us, God love her.’

‘Poor Betsy,’ he sometimes said. She’d turned out to be a good woman, one of the best, but she’d had no life beyond her bit of bingo. The burden weighed heavily; he could
have, should have done so much more for Betsy and Daisy.

At seventy-three, Joe Sanderson retained the energy of a man half his age. He didn’t believe in retirement. Retirement was for cowards, weaklings and lazy people who took no pride in their
work. ‘Numbers don’t mean a thing,’ he told his son as they reclined in the sun-bathed rear garden of Rosewood. ‘We should work for as long as we like. What’s the
point of saying it’s over when it’s not? It’s like throwing the towel into the ring before the fight’s properly under way, isn’t it? What do you think?’

No reply was delivered.

‘Andrew?’

‘No idea,’ Andrew replied, his voice muffled by
The Times
, which he was using to cover his face while he dozed. He was supposed to be relaxing under the apple tree, but Joe
clearly didn’t believe in relaxation, either.

‘If a man wants to work, he should work.’

‘Quite.’

‘And if he wants to stop, he should stop, stay out of the road of gradely folk, pick up his pension and go crown green bowling.’

‘Yes.’

‘Might as well talk to meself,’ Joe grumbled. ‘At least I get an audience and a bit of feedback with Thora. She’s gone shopping for a new frock, going to wear it at the
opening of your events suite. That must have cost a pretty penny, what with the bar, toilets and what have you.’

‘It did. I nearly had to sell the wife.’

Joe laughed. ‘What’s it for again, Andrew?’

The younger man gave up and pulled the newspaper off his face. ‘It’s for cancer. Mary’s working with some terminally ill women under forty, and it’s got her back up. You
know what she’s like, Dad. Once she gets her teeth into something, she’s like a bulldog with a bone. She’s beyond my control.’

‘So her back’s up and her gob’s full. At least she’ll be quiet. Once she gets on her high horse . . .’

‘We’re mixing enough metaphors to make a cake here, Father. My lovely wife is watching little kids’ mothers dying of cancer and leaving orphans behind. She wants to help all
she can. So the suite’s my contribution. It’s going to take millions for all the research that’s needed. God alone knows whether or when the monster will be defeated, but it
won’t be for lack of trying in this house.’

‘Oh, right. OK, son, my contribution will be ten grand. First prize in your raffle after your inaugural ball will be a Sanderson kitchen, real wood, none of your plastic.’

‘As well as the ten thousand?’

‘Aye.’

Andrew kissed his dad on the cheek and went in to look for Mary. He found her fighting again, this time with the decorator. So far, she had alienated two lots of plumbers, one electrician, a
builder and a whole wallpaper company. She went through workmen the way other women went through nylon tights. ‘Mary? What the hell’s wrong now? Can you not leave well alone for a
change?’

She swung round. ‘I don’t like that colour, do you? Look at it. It’s insipid.’

Andrew folded his arms and tried to glare at her, which was almost impossible because she was funny. When riled, she allowed carefully honed vowels to broaden; she became a little guttersnipe
once more. ‘Mary, you didn’t like the apple green, the primrose yellow, the Wedgwood or the lilac. About the lilac, I agree completely. So buttermilk will have to do. Any more paint and
I might as well buy shares in the company.’ He turned to the beleaguered tradesman. ‘Carry on, Charlie. Very good of you to give up a weekend for charity.’

‘I don’t like it,’ Mary repeated. ‘It looks like something heaved up by a week-old baby.’

‘Mathew Street,’ Andrew threatened quietly. ‘You are ten seconds from Mathew Street, madam.’

‘You wouldn’t dare, Drew. Not in front of . . . people.’

He folded his arms. ‘After all these years, small angry person, you above all should realize that I make no empty threats. If you don’t start behaving yourself, it’s Mathew
Street. Just be glad we don’t live in my home town, else it might very well be Vernon Street.’

Mary raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘Vernon Street was where they put animals down.’

Charlie was up a ladder, and his back was shaking with laughter. Andrew worried for the man’s safety until Mary stalked past both men into the hall. He followed her, picked her up and
‘Mathew Streeted’ her into the drawing room where he dumped her on a chair. ‘Stay,’ he ordered, a finger wagging dangerously close to her face.

‘But I have to—’

‘Stay. And no biting. You have to stay, otherwise I’ll tan your bum till it glows, and you know where that always leads.’

‘You should be so lucky.’

‘I am quite ready to pick you up again and carry you upstairs.’

Little daggers glinted in her eyes. ‘You are a bully, Drew Sanderson. I’m going to run away and live with Mam and Dad out in the wilds, and you will never see me again. I shall grow
my own tomatoes and have a go at orchids in the greenhouse.’

‘Right. Don’t forget your broomstick and the book of spells. But you’ll lose ten grand and a Sanderson kitchen. Dad’s donating the money, and the kitchen will be first
prize in one of your raffles. Where are you—’ She’d gone. She would be in the garden jumping all over a man in his eighth decade. Andrew grinned. The magic remained. He had
friends and colleagues whose marriages were stale, but he and Mary continued to shine. Successful wedlock required work, dedication, fun, communication and sex.

A hesitant bit of Mozart floated through from the breakfast room. He stood in the hall and listened carefully in order to identify the executioner. It was Helen. Helen was the most stunning and
brilliant ten-year-old for miles, and she was assassinating his beloved Wolfgang Amadeus. Her true gift lay in the area of languages, and the prep school had the sense to start early. She was
ripping her way through Katie’s French homework, and it was becoming clear that Helen’s future lay in words, not in music.

Katie was another kettle of kippers. She was a people person. School was the place in which she pursued her hobbies – maths and science. Her natural naughtiness had gained an edge; at
twelve, she was sassy, determined, secretive underneath all the chat, and bright as a button. She had a list of possible careers that included acting, politics, writing, medicine, law and teaching.
Her more immediate ambition was to become a deliverer of newspapers, since she wanted to earn her own money. A determined character, she had declared her independence at a very early age. With
Katie around, men would need to fight to gain liberation, as she was a bossy little besom.

The playing stopped abruptly. After a few minutes, Andrew returned to the drawing room and saw all three of his children walking past the front of the house. They had a wheelbarrow filled with
unidentifiable objects, and they were up to something. The something to which they were up would be Katie’s idea, and Katie’s ideas were capable of starting a war in an empty telephone
box.

He went to warn Mary. She was in the kitchen preparing a light Sunday tea. At weekends, they had a brunch at about ten o’clock, tea mid-afternoon, and a supper in the evening.
‘They’ve gone,’ he told her.

‘Who or what have gone?’

‘The children.’

‘Well, they’ve had their sandwiches and fruit, so they’ll be fine until supper unless they’ve got tapeworms.’

‘What they do have is a wheelbarrow.’

Mary stopped slicing cucumber. ‘Have they left home? Is my catering substandard? What was in the barrow?’

‘How the hell would I know? It wasn’t Dad – he’s still out at the back, so they’re not guilty of grandfathercide. Ian looked serious.’

‘When does he look anything else? You’d better go and follow them.’

‘Only if you promise to leave Charlie alone. The buttermilk stays. OK?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He found them on the erosion where many people had brought their children to play in the sunshine. Ian was doing what he did best; he stood solemn-faced holding a placard. ‘Cancer
research’ was inscribed on its surface. Katie was doing what she did best; she was showing off her little sister, the little sister who would probably be the taller of the two girls quite
soon. And they were selling their toys to families on the beach.

He swallowed his emotions and left them to it. They had no permission, no licence, and they were disturbing the peace, he supposed. But something in his throat made him gulp suddenly. How many
kids would part with treasured playthings in order to help mothers to survive? They were special; they had a special mother.

He told Mary. ‘I wouldn’t swap them for the Crown Jewels.’

‘Katie will be at the back of it,’ Mary said. ‘Helen could charm fledglings out of nests, and Ian likes to do good deeds, but Katie’s the ideas man. God, don’t they
make you want to weep when they do something like this? They’re wonderful. So different from each other, too.’

He agreed. ‘Katie’s you all over again, and Helen’s my mother. Ian’s studious, serious and determined. There’s a bit of Dad in him.’

‘They’re themselves, Drew. They don’t seem to need us, do they?’

Andrew sighed. ‘Could be our fault. Perhaps marriage is designed to cool off after a few years. Maybe those who keep a distance from each other are doing right by living for their
children. I know several marriages where the kids are the glue. We’re pretty selfish, aren’t we?’

‘Our closeness makes them secure,’ Mary insisted. ‘They don’t fall asleep worrying about us getting a divorce, don’t fail at school because there’s trouble at
home. Ian bothers me a bit. But I’ve heard him laughing when he’s reading the
Beano
. He’s just a private person with a high IQ, I hope.’

‘He’s not unhappy, Mary. He’s just Ian.’

‘Quite. I still don’t like that paint.’

‘Oh shut up and butter your bread.’

She shut up and buttered her bread.

‘You can’t keep on with that, Helen.’ Kate dropped her books onto a huge desk they shared in the spare bedroom. ‘You might be doing yourself damage.
Apart from that, you’ll be needing a psychologist if this carries on. You’re not handling life properly. I’m going to talk to Mum about it, and this time I mean it. Because
I’ve had enough, and I’m damned sure you have, too.’

‘Please don’t,’ Helen begged. ‘I’ll take it off now and put a bra on.’

Kate studied her ‘little’ sister. Helen was inches taller than Kate, and she had a figure most grown women would kill for. ‘Look at me,’ Kate moaned. ‘Two years
older and a thirty-four B on a good day. You’re like a film star.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Your hair’s beautiful, your skin’s perfect, your waist’s tiny, your legs are wolf-whistle gorgeous – it would be easy to hate you, Helen.’

‘Don’t say that. I get enough of the evil eye from girls in my class.’