Meet Me at the Pier Head (50 page)

The playroom was where they began to learn how to tell the time. There was a large clock on a wall and, as they were allowed thirty minutes only, they stayed until the long hand was in a
position opposite to the original. When the half hour was up, it was a quick wash, a removal of dads’ shirts, which were adapted and worn back-to-front as aprons, then back to quiet reading
or story time in the classroom.

Tia had positioned her desk so that she might oversee both rooms, though her charges were so well behaved and keen to please her that very few needed admonishment. Theo grinned. Sometimes in the
afternoon, if reading, writing and so forth were out of the way, Tia got herself made up by little girls in the Wendy house. She often arrived home with huge circles of red on her cheeks, very
strange lips, massive eyebrows and hair that needed logarithms to work out the tangles. She was theirs, and they matured greatly after that year of carefully planned fun mixed with education.
‘I’m a bridge,’ she had been heard to opine. ‘I’m the span between parents and academia.’

There was a second chart. Each of Tia’s charges was listed under days of the week. Theo had been seated at the back of the classroom when his then new wife had explained the first copy of
the list ten years earlier. ‘Children, sit down, please.’ When all were quiet and seated, she had explained, her face deadpan except for a wink in her husband’s direction,
‘The truth is, this room is too small for us. We must take turns to laugh, because the noise is terrible sometimes. You are each in a group that has a laughing day. When it’s your turn,
you may laugh; when it isn’t your turn, don’t even giggle. This way, we may get some actual work done at last.’

Ten years later, Theo sat at the back and watched her again. He called in at all classrooms, always unexpectedly, thus keeping teachers on their toes by offering comment and suggestion regarding
principles and practice of education, also teaching methods. His wife had never needed help except when wheedling extras out of him when it came to yearly requisitions, because she was born for
this. She was also a natural wheedler, almost a blackmailer . . .

The ridiculous laughter chart guaranteed that each child would laugh every day. Her other subtle methods involved double takes, where she would look at a child, look away, then glance back very
quickly, thereby making the room a comedy show; furthermore, she would occasionally yell ‘Stop!’ apropos of nothing at all, before declaring that she felt a song or a poem coming on.
The kids adored her, as did he. She had even set up a home book system so that she and parents might communicate regarding the welfare and progress of a pupil.

She was reading to them. ‘Worzel,’ she whined, her accent stationed somewhere in a Somerset orchard. Earthy Mangold was calling Worzel, but Worzel had forgotten to don his thinking
head, and all he wanted was a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Tia brought to life everything she read, and her class hung on each word she delivered. This was Portia Bellamy, who might have become
a household name, and she had become just that, but only in a small part of Liverpool.

Theo crept out and returned to his office, reluctant to sound the end-of-day bell. Portia’s children would be left hanging and wondering where the scarecrow had left his thinking head.
‘I know I’m biased,’ he said aloud, ‘but she is darned brilliant.’ Although the Worzel Gummidge books were aimed at older children, Mrs Quinn believed in talking up as
opposed to talking down to children when it came to literature. He sat at his desk and waited for her, because he had some disturbing news to impart.

She followed her man when school had been dismissed for the day. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. ‘I can see something in your expression, so out with it. You’re up to no
good, Teddy Quinn.’

I can’t hide anything at all from her; she’s looking inside my head. Again. I must go through my thoughts later to check whether anything’s missing.
‘Ma phoned
me. She found a photograph in the body parts room.’

‘And?’

‘On the reverse, Maggie had labelled it Frank Turner, Rosie’s dad, followed by a question mark.’

Tia dropped into a chair. ‘But . . . but she always insisted that she had no idea about Rosie’s father.’

Theo nodded. ‘Exactly. Whoever or whatever the man is, Maggie wanted better for Rosie. And Portia, Ma said she can see the likeness.’

She sighed heavily and stayed silent for a few seconds. ‘Had Rosie’s father been decent and findable, Maggie would have gone out of her way to contact him.’

He drummed fingers on his desk. ‘Then why didn’t she destroy the photograph, Tia?’

‘I have absolutely no bloody idea.’ A few beats of time passed. ‘But what if . . .’ She stopped while processing her thoughts. ‘What if he knew about Rosie? What if
he murdered Tunstall?’

Theo absorbed the words his wife had just delivered. The man would have been forced to lie low if he’d killed the dragon to save the princess, but where had he been for the first five
years of Rosie’s life? ‘Where was Sadie educated?’ he asked finally.

‘Here and Ivy Lane, Maggie told me.’ Tia pursed her lips and concentrated. ‘You think she may have known him at school?’

‘I can look in the annals, or I can get Mrs Moyles to do it.’ Mrs Moyles was a school secretary who shared her time between Myrtle Street and Ivy Lane schools. ‘Meanwhile, we
say nothing. Rosie’s had enough to cope with, and she’s never known her father. She’s settling well in our attic, working hard for her exams next year.’

‘And if he simply turns up at our door?’

‘We cope.’

‘And poor Rosie?’

‘Look, nothing’s changed, Portia. That photograph has existed for years. Let it ride for now, baby.’

She shrugged. ‘We need to have a meeting with Ma. And yes, get Mrs Moyles to look for a Frank Turner – say he has an old friend trying to contact him, and the friend thinks that
Frank may have been in school with Sadie Stone. We can calculate the years she would have been at Ivy Lane or here.’

Theo grinned and aimed for a less weighty subject. ‘Just one question, my dear.’

‘Oh?’

‘Does Worzel find his thinking head?’

She stood up. ‘Yes, and you’d better find yours,’ she snapped before leaving the room.

In spite of the potential seriousness of the situation, Theo chuckled. Tia was the same girl he’d met just over a decade ago. There had been no discernible improvement whatsoever, and he
was delighted.

That same evening, they invited Isadora for a meal. David was at football practice, Michael had a music lesson, while Rosie was visiting a school friend.

Theo glanced at the clock. ‘We don’t have long. Let’s see this chap, Ma.’

The Quinns studied the monochrome picture. ‘Rosie has her mother’s hair,’ Tia said. ‘But yes, there is a resemblance.’

Her husband agreed. ‘So why didn’t Maggie tell us, then?’

Isadora thought about that. ‘She did become slightly confused towards the end, Theo. It’s possible that she may have had several hiding places for this. Perhaps she moved it from
time to time and couldn’t remember where she’d left it. The question remains; what must we do?’

‘Eat and think,’ Theo suggested.

They ate and thought.

‘Rosie still takes most meals with you, doesn’t she?’ Izzy asked.

‘Oh yes,’ Theo reassured her. ‘She has her own little apartment because she can listen to her music and do her school work without being interrupted by low-flying objects. Our
sons are lively.’

‘I know,’ Izzy replied tartly. ‘Joan, Jack and I looked after them for six weeks. I came close to putting them up for adoption.’

Tia chewed and swallowed. ‘Could he lay claim to her?’

‘She’s not left luggage,’ Theo said. ‘She’s our daughter. Because of her age, adoption should be a breeze as long as she wants us as official adoptive parents.
There’s nothing about a father on her birth certificate. I’ll ask her.’

‘Turner will still be out there somewhere.’ Tia waved a hand towards the window. ‘And another point, Teddy – she has the right to know him.’

Isadora squared her shoulders. ‘Very well, let’s find him. Get your search done at school, Theo. But remember that Sadie was twenty when she had Rosie, so Frank Turner might well be
someone she met after leaving school.’ She pondered for a few moments. ‘The elderly in the Lady Streets may prove helpful. And I’ll search my flat again, because there could be
more information hidden by poor Maggie.’ She looked up at the ceiling. ‘Oh, Maggie, why didn’t you tell us?’

They all knew the answer to that one. A line used frequently by Maggie was ‘If it’s not broke, don’t mend it’. She had wanted the best for her granddaughter and, in
Maggie’s book, the Quinns were the best. ‘I’d bet a dollar to a dime that Maggie found him. If the man wasn’t good enough in Maggie’s opinion . . .’ Theo’s
voice was suddenly strangled.

‘Don’t cry, sweetheart.’ Tia grabbed his hand.

‘We can’t lose her,’ he managed. ‘And I’m not crying. Well, not really.’

‘OK, so stop not-really-ing. You’ve dripped on your shirt.’

‘That’s water, Portia.’

‘Of course it is. You’re a drip.’

He wiped his face with a table napkin.

Michael entered with his guitar and a grim expression. ‘I need longer fingers,’ he grumbled before making his way towards the hall. ‘I’ll put this away,’ he
announced. ‘I’m not going to guitar classes any more; I want to learn the trumpet.’

‘God help us,’ Theo muttered. ‘We’ll need to be soundproofed.’

Tia went to fetch her younger son’s meal. ‘Wash your hands,’ she yelled.

David fell in through the door. ‘Ten-nil, ten-nil, ten-nil, ten-nil,’ he sang tunelessly.

After placing Michael’s food on the table, Tia glared at her older son. ‘Why are you wearing a field?’ she asked. ‘And is that a bird’s nest or your
hair?’

‘There was that thunderstorm while we were at school. The playing field was a bit flooded,’ was his reply.

Tia pointed to the hall. ‘Get in the bath,’ she ordered, ‘and this time, use soap, sponge and loofah.’ She followed him into the hallway. ‘Neck and ears,’ she
called, ‘and find the nail brush. I don’t want to see black under your nails.’ She turned. Her husband and her mother were sniggering at her. ‘What?’ she growled.

‘You’re beautiful when you’re angry – isn’t she, Ma?’

‘She arrived angry, Theo. She screamed for eighteen months, and her first word was NO! It arrived fully furnished in capital letters with an exclamation mark. But she was precious and
interesting and wilful. Adorable.’

‘She’s still all of those, plus stubborn as a mule.’

Tia sat. ‘Shut up,’ she ordered, ‘and stop talking as if I’m not here. Ma, pick up the photograph. Theo, you must have wiped up some blue chalk with that handkerchief
– it’s all over your face. I’m going to check on the hellion.’ She left the room.

Izzy and Theo listened while she dealt with David. ‘That’s a mud bath,’ she shouted. ‘Get out and start again. How do you expect me to get your kit clean? As for the
boots in the porch – deal with them yourself.’

Theo raised his shoulders. He could cope with hundreds of children, but Isadora’s daughter was beyond repair, thank goodness. ‘I love that woman,’ he mouthed at his
mother-in-law.

‘I know you do, Theo. And she loves you.’

‘But of course she does.’ He grinned. ‘I’m very lovable.’

Michael was shovelling food as if he hadn’t been fed for months. ‘Slow down,’ Izzy said. ‘What’s the hurry?’

‘I’ve got a book about dinosaurs. Did you know that birds are their nearest relatives?’

‘You’ll ruin your digestive system,’ Theo admonished.

The boy paused for a few seconds. ‘You’d think it would be alligators and crocodiles, but it’s birds. They must have come from pterodactyls. They could fly. I wonder if they
had feathers.’

‘Good question,’ Theo replied. ‘Some say yes, some say no. They were reptiles that glided from one place to another. Look it up in your encyclopedia.’

‘May I leave the table, Dad?’

‘Oh, go on, before you get to elephants and the like.’

Michael fled while the going was good. This was a toss-up between shepherd’s pie and tyrannosaurus rex. It was no contest.

Isadora crossed the road between Brooklands and Crompton Villa. The lights were on upstairs, because days were becoming shorter, and the tang of autumn hung in the air.
‘They’re at home. No time like the present,’ she mumbled under her breath before walking up the side of the house to ring the bell.

Jack answered. ‘Hello, Izzy. Come in; we were just choosing wallpaper for the sitting room. Joan’s making a brew, so you can have a cuppa with us.’ He followed her up the
stairs.

Over the cup that cheers, the married couple forgot wallpaper and listened while Isadora outlined the story. She begged Jack to talk to elderly people in the Lady Streets.

‘They don’t need to be elderly,’ was his response. ‘Though I admit the over-sixties remember best. But Rosie’s only fifteen.’ He pondered. ‘Sadie left
the area when Rosie was born. She came back with Rosie and Tunstall, and . . . well, we all know what went on after that. Turner,’ he said almost under his breath. ‘The only Turner I
heard of painted pictures of ships. I’ll put the word out, Izzy.’

He sat back and rooted about in his memory.
No, Jack. You do remember, you do, and it’s nothing to do with a painter. I wish these two would shut up for a few minutes while I get me
head straight. Shoplifters. Pickpockets. It was a number twenty-seven on the door, but which bloody street? They all look the same, them streets, if I remember right. There was an Alec with buck
teeth; he was better natured than the rest. Was there a Frank? There were five or six of them. No girls. Their mam was a barmaid at night and a waitress during the day. I never saw the dad. He was
supposed to have been lost at sea, but weren’t there rumours about him knocking about with an usherette from the Odeon in town? Didn’t they move to Gateacre? Was there a Frank? Think,
man, think!

Joan’s skin, always pale, turned ashen. ‘Could he take her away from us? She’s happy here; she has parents, brothers, us. Three households look out for her and keep her safe,
Izzy. Leave it alone, please.’