The Liverpool Trilogy (8 page)

Liz gulped.

‘He mortgaged and remortgaged the house.’

‘How?’

‘Forgery. He forged Mums’s signature and probably some of the witnesses’ too. If he lives, he has a lot to face. He has a ton of unpaid bills. The land he bought at Bromley Cross may just cover his debts, mortgages included. That was why she let him keep that project. Even then, at the end of her marriage, she looked after him.’ He hugged his sister. ‘There is no woman in the world like her. With the exception of you. We are fortunate. God gave us our mother’s temperament.’

Lizzie sat on a bench, and her brother joined her. Both remained deep in thought for several seconds. Then Lizzie spoke. ‘I wonder what she’ll do with Tallows? It’s a lovely place, and it shouldn’t be left to rot.’

He shrugged. ‘I was talking to a bloke in the car park at the Countess of Chester. He was going to take her . . . home, but she asked me to tell him she was staying the night with Paul. Richard Turner, lives next door to her, has a disabled wife. Mums gave her a massage, and it helped. He’s a doctor. He told me Mums is starting a bed and breakfast business. Seems she’s no intention of going home to Tallows.’

Lizzie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps she’ll do the same with Tallows – turn it into a hotel of some kind.’

‘Who knows, sis? The only thing that’s plain to me is that she won’t live with Dad again. All those years she just waited and said nothing – Jeez.’

‘Then she took her money back.’

‘She did. And she took into account inflation, the wages he never paid her for handling paperwork, the damage he did to her standing in the community. She says he built new slums with her dad’s money. There’s no lack of brain in her. She just bides her time.’

‘She knows he’s ill?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she doesn’t care?’

He thought about that. ‘She does – that’s the daft part. She phoned the Bolton hospital at least twice from the Countess of Chester. But she did say he’s his own worst enemy. Very plain, she was. She said a man who drinks like that, who eats like that, and has sex all over the place can’t expect to see old age.’

‘Phew. That is plain for Mother.’

He stood up and opened a door. ‘Come on, kid. Let’s see if the lion’s started to roar again.’

Mike and Liz returned after a further couple of nights to a very bare-looking Tallows. Liz, who had tried hard not to think about the emptying of the family home, burst into tears when she saw the results of her hasty action. ‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ she moaned. ‘Just look at it – two chairs and a sofa. It looks like an empty barn. Poor, abandoned old house. It’s as if no one loves or wants it.

‘I hope you left the beds and bedding,’ he said drily, a twinkle in his eye. ‘After sleeping on a mattress on the floor for two nights, we need proper beds. And, now that Dad’s managed to live for forty-eight hours without the need for jump-leads, perhaps we can have a bash at getting back to normal. Come on, sis – no need for tears.’

Normal? Liz could scarcely remember what the word meant. Her father was a cheat, a fraud and a liar. He was very ill, could die at any moment and, if he did live, would be able to do next to nothing. Mother had bogged off because he’d stolen all her inheritance and mortgaged a valuable house. How could anything ever be normal again? About one thing only she was certain. Whatever happened, she would carry on at RADA. She wanted Royal Shakespeare, and nothing less would do. She dried her eyes and grinned. Who was she trying to kid? Anything would do as long as there was an audience. Even a TV advertisement for pile cream would—

‘Beds, Lizzie? You know – the things people sleep on? Do we have some? Or have you mothballed them, too?’

‘Oh, sorry. The bedrooms are exactly as they were, apart from some of Mother’s French stuff and a couple of armoires and things from the guest rooms. But it looks all wrong upstairs as well. It’s strange. It’s not home any more, is it? You think you’re grown up, then stuff like this happens, and you realize you’re still a kid that needs its comfort blanket. What sad and sorry creatures we are.’

‘It will be all wrong without Mums,’ he said. ‘OK, so my car’s in Chester, as is Paul’s, because Mums took him back to her other place – he says it’s great, by the way. Anyway, you’re the only one who’s mobile. Tomorrow, we bring our mother home. We can’t leave this place empty. It needs her – let’s face it, Mums is Tallows.’

Liz sat down. ‘Be careful, Mike,’ she said. ‘Whatever you do, try not to take her for granted, because she’s changed, and that change has taken a lot of doing. She’s achieved it quietly, slowly and secretly. Don’t for one moment imagine that you know what’s best for her. You sounded like Daddy just then. Being a man doesn’t mean you know what’s right. She’s been walked over all her life, and I feel ashamed, because I should have noticed. Since she fled, I’ve been thinking about her, about the life she’s led, her patience, the way she tolerated Daddy. She’s a bloody good woman, Mike. Give her respect. Respect means not telling her what to do. Understood?’

He placed himself in the other chair. ‘She can’t let him live here.’

‘Look, she can do exactly as she pleases. If he gets out of hospital in one piece, Mother will decide what to do – if anything. She owes him very little. It’s the other way round, isn’t it? He owes her. That quiet lady we lived with is still there. But behind the softness there’s a brain, and she planned all this. Not the heart attacks – she wouldn’t harm a flea. But the great denouement was arranged by Mother.’

Mike allowed a tight smile to visit his face for a second or two. ‘Denouement? Anyone listening might think you were a drama student.’

She jumped to her feet suddenly. ‘Oh, my God,’ she yelled. ‘I’ve an audition tomorrow, so I can’t come with you. I’ll be in Manchester – Summer Theatre in the Park, which means it will probably be a very wet affair. You see, I need it for my portfolio, real experience. Someone fell ill, and I’m trying for her part. Sorry, mate. I’ll drop you off at the railway station, but I can’t go to see Mother and Paul. The best thing might be for you to go to Chester by train, get your car, then drive to Liverpool. But I can’t come. I have to take every chance. Mums drummed that much into me.’

‘Good thing I reminded you then, airhead.’

She wagged a finger at him. ‘You start telling my mother what to do with her life, and you’ll have me to answer to. I’ll deal with you, I promise, and I won’t be kind. We may have inherited her temperament, but I think I’ve got his temper without the “ament”.’

‘Fate worse than death, being dealt with by you, little sis,’ he remarked as he left the room. ‘I promise I’ll be good,’ he called over his shoulder.

Liz stayed where she was for a while. Tallows was a house that could never have been termed cosy, because it was rather grand. Robbed of much of its furniture, it was about as welcoming as an oversized cold store in the middle of winter – what the heck was Mother going to do with it? It was becoming plain that an ideas woman had sat behind the docile wife, just waiting for the right time, the right chance. ‘Tallows can’t be left to rot,’ Liz whispered. ‘And she’ll know that. She’ll think of something, I know she will.’

She walked through four huge reception rooms, on to orangery, library, kitchen. By most people’s standards, this was a huge house. The entrance hall alone could have accommodated a sizeable family, and the Henshaw children had taken for granted that games of hide-and-seek were special in their young lives. Paul had once spent the best part of a day in a bedding chest on a landing. He’d been discovered only when he’d come up for air.

‘Wonderful house for children,’ she whispered. But was it? Whenever she thought about marriage and a family, she saw herself in a more conventional place, hopefully in London and near to a park in which children could play. She liked tall, thin, London terraced properties with the kitchen in a basement below those tortuous flights of stairs, a walled rear garden, bedrooms on two upper floors above the living rooms.

After digging in her capacious bag for an elusive bit of paper, she found tomorrow’s instructions. Prostitute, heroin addict. Murder victim. Act one only. Oh, well. If she didn’t survive to act two, there wouldn’t be a lot to do, and the script gave her just a few pages to learn. It was work, and she was determined to have it. In her game, actual employment meant more than any qualification. A curriculum vitae, along with a few photographs, carried a great deal of weight when it came to auditions.

Upstairs, she found a faded denim skirt of which her parents had never approved. Daddy called it a handkerchief, and had been heard to opine that if the skirt were any shorter, Lizzie would need to wash behind her ears. Mother labelled it a pelmet, so it was eminently suitable for the part. A once-white top that failed completely to cover her midriff was also chosen, along with shoes and boots high enough to require planning permission. She would decide about footwear in the morning.

Later, Liz lay in bed. Should she go up for the part? What if she got it and Daddy died and she needed to take time off? And shouldn’t she be with him while he was so ill? Her brothers might start persuading Mother to come home. No. She mustn’t worry about that, because Mother seemed to have found her backbone at last.

Track marks. What did they look like? Would the girl have them on her arms? Liz leapt up and retrieved a longish-sleeved purple jacket from her wardrobe. That should do it, because it just about covered her arms to below the elbow joints. God, this acting lark was a nuisance. But she wanted to do it. She had always wanted to do it. How far up and down an arm would track marks go? Perhaps she might draw some on her skin with one of those indelible pens. No matter how small the part, every detail must be considered, because this was her future. Acting was everything.

Mother’s sister had been the same, though she’d been dead for a long time now. Mother had supported Liz’s dreams, whereas Daddy had taken a very minor interest. It was time to thank the woman who had always been there for her. It was time to grow up. Daddy’s little girl no longer existed. But oh, how she hoped he would live.

The flowers arrived at lunchtime the following day. An accompanying card bore the message,
Mother, thank you for all your encouragement. I got an acting job in Manchester and I send you all my love and support at this difficult time. Elizabeth.

Lucy grinned and placed the flowers in water. The past few days had been traumatic, to say the least of it, but she had her boys with her now, and her daughter, the very person from whom Lucy had not expected forgiveness, had sent these beautiful blooms. Yet the dilemma remained. ‘What am I going to do about him?’ she asked the sink while catching water in a vase. The boys were easy. Noisy work had ceased for a while, and they were sleeping on sofa beds in two of her four ground-floor reception rooms. Even Lizzie seemed to be OK . . .

Which ‘him’ was the bigger problem? Alan had heart damage. If he carried on drinking, he would not live to benefit from surgery. Withdrawal from drink might cause a killer heart attack – what a bloody mess. And the other ‘him’ was having trouble with his shoulder. She was having trouble with his shoulder, because he was gorgeous, interesting and interested. Yet a part of her believed that he was too . . . too earthy for her, too needful in the sex department. Women of forty-five didn’t start playing the field, surely? Moira was her friend, too.

Should she put this house on the market and go home? No, no, no. Tallows was her family home from way back, but it had to be . . . cleansed. The place needed to be used, but twenty-odd unhappy years meant that she could not possibly live there yet. The boys and Lizzie all preferred London, so she needed to find a purpose for the house. Left to its own devices, it would crumble its way towards death, so it needed to be used.

She looked out at the garden and caught her sons peering through holes in the fence. Oh dear. More problems loomed, because the Turner girls were home, and the twins were enthralled. It might well be easier to throw in the towel and limp back to Bolton, but she liked it here. The house contained a different history, one that was completely unconnected to hers. Richard Turner could be dealt with; the boys were young enough for dalliances, old enough to cause problems wherever they were. And, deep down inside herself, Lucy had at last found a layer of stubbornness. She was in charge. She intended to keep it that way.

Alan opened his eyes and decided that he was having a particularly nasty nightmare. Perhaps he had opened his eyes only as part of the dream – perhaps he was still asleep, because this could not possibly be real. He didn’t want to look, didn’t want to hear. Oh, God. Would this suffering never end?

It was real. Yes, she was gabbling on about power of attorney, banks, mortgages, plots and plans. She’d been plotting and planning for ages, but she referred on this occasion to the development in Bromley Cross. She wasn’t supposed to be here. He had been expecting never to clap eyes on the bloody woman again. There was no point in closing his eyes and pretending to be asleep, since she had already seen him wide awake. There was more to this one than met the eye, and he was guilty of years of gross underestimation when it came to his not-so-beloved wife.

‘Because of your illness, I thought I had better come and see you. After all, letters delivered to Tallows might lie for a while before you get them, so I told Glenys to hang fire. Right. The twenty plots and accepted plans will go some way to covering your debts,’ she told him. ‘When all your plant is sold, because much of the machinery is quite new, there’ll be another chunk paid off. The rest of the mess you made will be dealt with by me. It’s my punishment for marrying a bastard, you see.’

Bastard? She never used words of that kind. She even looked different. She looked alive, determined and quite attractive for a change.

‘Sign,’ she demanded.

He signed. There was no alternative. ‘What about me?’ he asked almost sheepishly.

She sat down in the visitor’s chair. ‘Once fit to travel in an ambulance, you are going from here to a private hospital outside Manchester. Easterly Grange, I think it’s called. They have all the wiring you’re wearing now, plus operating theatres. First, you will be dried out. If you survive that, there’ll be heart surgery. If you survive the surgery, you will move to Liverpool. My family will stand a better chance of avoiding this scandal if you’re out of the way. The boys may not return to Bolton after university, but we Buckleys have a long and illustrious history in these parts. You’ve muddied the waters, and you can’t stay in the area.’