The Liverpool Trilogy (18 page)

‘Howie? That’s never Howie Styles.’

She turned slowly and looked at Alan. ‘The same. Biggest builder in Manchester, and now look at him. You knew about him?’

‘I did. I’m Alan Henshaw. Had to give up work because of my health. The wife and kids are gone – I made sure they had all the money. Because after tomorrow, I’ll be dead or an invalid.’

‘Henshaw the developer from Bolton?’

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘So – where’s your missus?’

He shrugged. ‘Buggered off somewhere or other, pastures new, I reckon. The kids are all at university, so I’ve done my bit.’

Trish Styles stood up and took Alan’s hand. ‘Good luck, lad. I’m going home now, but I’ll ask after you tomorrow.’

He sat for a while with his neighbour after Mrs Styles had left. This man in the bed wasn’t much older than Alan, but he looked about the same age as Adam. His wife was a nice little body, ordinary, decent and probably very rich. She would soon be a rich widow, but she’d be able to pick and choose. Trish Styles wouldn’t want anything to do with a knackered builder from Bolton, would she?

Anyway, he’d probably be dead, so what was the point of speculation? In this cheerful frame of mind, he left Mr Styles and went to try again to fall asleep. Or should he stay awake for his last few hours on earth? What did it matter? This was a holding bay for the undertaker’s parlour anyway. This dump was already dead.

Carol Makin in her fighting gear was a sight to behold – easily as impressive as the average galleon in full sail. She slammed the door of her van and kicked a rear wheel with one of her Doc Martens, and had Lucy been able to lip-read she might have been privy to some good, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon curses. Wearing leggings stretched to within an inch of their lives and a tabard that was clearly home-made, Carol looked like a modern-day Valkyrie, armed to the teeth with buckets, mops and a box of implements that would not have seemed out of place in a torture chamber, or on a field of battle. She stepped into the living room. ‘You off out?’ was her greeting to Lucy, who explained that she was bound for Manchester.

‘Bloody hell, that’s a shame. Wouldn’t go there if you paid me. Still, I suppose someone has to do it.’ She sniffed and gave David the once-over. ‘Who’s this one, then?’

‘A long-standing friend,’ Lucy replied.

‘Then he’d best sit down, eh? You can get very-close veins from being stood up all the while. Me mam was a martyr to them. Worked at the biscuit factory all her life, God love her, ended up with legs like blue ropes twisted all over the place. At the end, she couldn’t look a custard cream in the eye.’ She stared hard at David. ‘Have you got very-close veins?’

‘Close enough,’ he said.

Disdain coloured her expression. ‘I do know the right words. I just like to keep folk on their toes, that’s all. Unless they’ve got varicose doodahs, in which case they should be sat with one or both legs in an elevated position supported by whatever. Now, I don’t need no help from nobody, Lucy, but have you anything particular wants doing?’

‘Just find your feet.’ Lucy tried not to grin, because the enormous woman had probably not seen her feet in a decade at least. ‘And leave the boys in bed – in my experience, they’re less trouble when asleep.’

‘And how long have we had a dog? I seen the cat yesterday, but—’

‘My dog,’ said David. ‘And he’s coming to Manchester.’

‘Bloody cruel,’ Carol said under her breath as she walked away. ‘RSPCA wants telling.’

‘What’s wrong with Manchester?’ David whispered when Carol had left the scene.

‘Nothing.’ Lucy grinned. ‘This, in case you hadn’t noticed, is Liverpool. There’s been a war on for the better part of fifty years, but Manchester’s nearly twice the size of Liverpool, so Scousers depend on their wits. I’m on their side, actually. They need a bigger airport and a huge conference centre, then they could pinch some of the Manks’ business. But I’m not proud, so Lizzie and I will shop at the Trafford Centre while you take Samson home. Ah – here’s Lizzie now.’

The girl entered the room. She looked rather wan, but at least she wasn’t weeping. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mums,’ she said.

Lucy’s face lit up. ‘That’s the first time you’ve ever called me Mums.’

‘Is it? When I talk about you with the twins, you’re Mums sometimes. But Mother suited the old you. You were too dignified and patient for any baby names. Seeing you with your top shelf hanging out of that little black number last night, I thought – yes, the boys are right. She’s a Mums, and she’s sexy. Mind, having a sexy mother can be a bit unnerving.’

David agreed, though he said nothing.

Carol walked in. She had now added a pair of orange Marigolds to her delightful ensemble. ‘Well,’ she said, a rubber-gloved hand on each bulging hip. ‘Sight for sore eyes, or what? You’re a stunner, girl.’ The ‘girl’ emerged as ‘gairl’ again, but no one was counting. ‘I seen you last time, but you look bloody great today. Sort of pale and perfect. Tell you what, love. Yer mam says you’re an actress, and if you don’t get snapped up in the blink of me eye, I’ll eat me golden retriever.’

The room stopped for a beat of time. ‘You have a dog, then?’ Lucy managed eventually.

The cleaner shook her head mournfully in the face of such stupidity, returned to the kitchen and came back with a brass-coloured rod in an orange hand. ‘See? It goes down the back of radiators and retrieves stuff. You click it and it grabs hold of socks and knickers what have fell down the back, like. Some people don’t know nothing.’ She laughed. ‘It was me dad’s. He couldn’t walk proper at the end, and this was his golden retriever.’

Lucy glanced at the clock. ‘We have to go, Carol. Just one thing – don’t let the cat out through the front door and make sure any front room he’s in has all the windows closed. I know it’s a nuisance, but he’s precious, and he knows it. There’s food in the fridge if you’re here through lunch, and I’ll see you soon.’ She turned to go. ‘Oh, and if you do eat, stay with your food, or he’ll pinch it. He thinks everything here is his, and we’re allowed his leftovers.’

The three of them went out to the car. With the dog lead in her hand, Lizzie asked her mother, ‘Where do you find these wonderful people? You had a collection of oddities at Tallows over the years, didn’t you?’

‘It’s my magnetic personality,’ she replied. ‘And I love folk who’re just that little bit different.’

‘She’s a big bit different,’ David whispered.

Lucy dug him in the ribs. ‘Sizeist,’ she accused.

Lizzie said nothing. But she took it all in. David was made for Mums. And Mums was made for him.

She looked good. Richard Turner peered through a gap in the blind and watched while she got into that bloody man’s car. Her daughter followed. Lizzie must have decided to leave her car here, because she was now sitting with a large black dog in the rear seat of the visitor’s Audi. The visitor was a pocket-patter, one of those who seemed to look vague most of the time. He was also a leukaemia specialist and an old friend of Lucy’s, someone she had known for most of her childhood.

Paul and Mike had been full of news last night. Apparently this Dr Vincent was going to occupy Lucy’s pile, a grand house of whose existence Richard had not been fully aware. So. She was sexy, clever, beautiful and loaded. She was also a benefactor, since she intended to allow the doctor to use the house free of charge as a respite care centre. She had volunteered as a fundraiser, so she would be seeing a lot of Dr Vincent.

Lucy was in a dark suit today, one of those cleverly cut things that probably cost an arm and both legs. She had good legs. She had good everything, but Moira had muddied the waters so badly that Richard could scarcely look Lucy in the face these days. He’d been forced to settle for a pale imitation, one Lexi Phillips, supermarket worker, bleached blonde, owner of two large breasts and three or four brain cells. When in her bed, he closed his eyes and thought of Lucy. Lucy, Lexi, the same initial, but miles apart. There was no after-talk with Lex. Why couldn’t Moira learn to keep her trap shut?

Alexandra Phillips had no idea of Richard’s place in society. As far as she was concerned, he was a businessman, one who dealt in this and that. Liverpool had many this-and-that-ers, so she probably thought he was a crook. He didn’t care. Moira was out of bounds, as was Lucy, so he had to take what he could get, because a man had needs. An educated man had many needs.

Dr Vincent had stayed the night in Stoneyhurst. ‘It’s none of my business,’ Richard whispered. ‘But oh, God, how I wish she’d never come here, because she’s turned me upside down.’ She was ruining his life – no, he was doing that himself. But the sight of her, the sound of her – these were pleasure and pain, and he’d be better off if she moved back to Bolton, or wherever she’d come from.

It was almost time for surgery, and the car was disappearing at the end of the road. Never before had he desired a woman this strongly. No, that wasn’t true. The poor, wonderful, crazy creature he had married had been perfection, but a disease had stolen her, and he would never find her like again. Without informing himself fully, he had fallen in love with the woman next door. A song bumbled about in his head, words and music colliding before arranging themselves until the whole thing began to make sense. Phil Collins? ‘The First Cut is the Deepest’. Was it? Moira had been ill for so long that he could scarcely recall how he had felt when the diagnosis first arrived. Was it Phil Collins or Genesis?

But this second cut felt like major surgery without pain management. He hated a man he hadn’t met, a man Lucy had known for many years. What chance did Richard have? His wife was alive. According to Lucy’s twins, David Vincent was a widower, an expert at Scrabble and a good sort. He had arrived with no attachments, no dependants apart from a large black dog. The man was an exact template of the sort of partner Lucy might want.

Richard would never manage to wish his wife dead. The character he had loved for half his life was still there, and he enjoyed her company. When she wasn’t begging Lucy to give sex to her husband, or to marry him in the fullness of time, that was. Oh, the shame of it.

Patients were arriving. They all sat together in the waiting room, and he didn’t like to leave them for too long. Which was silly, because germs transferred in seconds, and hung around long after their carriers had disappeared. Whatever, he went to do the job that many thought less worthy than work performed by surgeons and hospital medics. They were wrong. Because here was the hub of medicine; here was where a decent diagnostician performed the most awesome of all tasks. Without a good GP, there would be no chance for anybody.

They came and gave him his pre-med. He was already dressed in the hospital’s best off-the-peg frock, open all the way down the back, pretty bows at neck and waist, to hell with any danger of modesty.

The sheep-lover entered. ‘How are we today then?’

‘I’ve no idea how you are, but I don’t care if you cut my head off. Whatever was in that needle’s made me happy as a pig in muck.’

‘OK. Good. Just thought I’d pop in before I scrub. I was very careful this morning – killed only two sheep. But I’ll get their blood from under my nails before starting on you. When it comes to the sewing up, what is your preference? Blanket stitch, chain stitch, cross stitch? And would you like a particular colour of sewing thread?’

Alan found himself laughing. ‘Oh, how glad I am to have a mad Welshman as my doctor. Go on, Taff, owld lad. Get ready to do your worst. You’ve got me in stitches already, and we’ve not kicked off. Just make sure the referee’s fair. I don’t want a red card before I’ve even dribbled.’

He was placed on a trolley and wheeled out to the corridor. It was very
Holby City
, all ceiling lights and pinging lift doors, but without the urgency displayed on TV. Someone called his name. ‘Alan? Is that Alan from room seven? Hang on a minute, you lot.’

Too tired to raise his head, he tried to place the voice. Last night. Remember. Styles – her first name was Trish, and she was standing over him. ‘All the best, love,’ she said. ‘I’ll be here later on when you come back.’

Would he be here later on? He couldn’t manage to care. One of the porters explained to the woman that the patient had been given an injection, and wasn’t fully responsive. ‘It’ll be a longish job,’ the man said. ‘We’ll be sure to let you know when he’s back, Mrs Styles.’

‘Thanks. Look after him.’

Well, somebody cared, then. He was pushed into a lift that travelled very slowly because it was for sick people, and the porters were talking about runners in the three-thirty at Haydock. Life went on, it seemed. Whether he lived or died, nothing would change, and only his daughter and the wife of a man with a brain tumour would give a toss. Anyway, he had a chance, didn’t he? Taffy the sheep man thought there was a chance. He had quite a decent sense of humour for a Welshman, did old Taff. And if Alan could only get his hands on the drug they’d given him, he’d never need another drink.

Lucy and Lizzie went on a huge shopathon at the Trafford Centre while David made phone calls and took the dog to the neighbour in Bolton. Samson liked going next door, because there were children who rolled in mud, water and any other forbidden substance that happened to be available, and the dog shared their enthusiasm for such naughtiness.

Phone calls were made, and David returned to the scene of the crime when he had sorted out ward rounds and outpatients. He knew it was a crime when he picked up the two women, since they had between them enough packages and parcels to justify the hire of a removal van. ‘Anything left in there?’ he asked, pointing to the enormous shopping centre. ‘Because if there is, you may as well go back and pick it up, get the full set.’

Lucy awarded him a withering glance. ‘The trouble with men,’ she said, ‘is that they have no concept of the joy that comes with shopping. Take a man into a department store, and he shrivels and starts sulking and looking at price tags. No imagination.’ She handed him a small paper bag. ‘That’s for you. Don’t say we don’t care about you.’

‘Thanks. I think.’ It was a navy-blue tie with matching socks. The problem lay in the picture of Bart Simpson lowering his shorts to display a bare backside. Bart was on the tie just once, but was repeated many times on the socks.