The Liverpool Trilogy (84 page)

‘She loves him, Keith.’

‘Yes, she does. Wait till he empties his little tummy and bladder all over her bedroom rug. When he does, you’ll have your dog back.’

Eileen snuggled into her man and closed her eyes. He was definitely the most comfortable seat in the place that had become their living area. Miss Morrison was fast asleep in the next room. She
would wake as if in response to an alarm clock when cocoa time arrived. For meals and tablets she was always alert, but for the remainder of the day she talked and slept. As time went on, she
talked less frequently and slept more. Dr Ryan said it was natural in a woman of such an age, but Eileen still managed to worry about the old lady.

As predicted by Keith, Mel stalked in with a curly-coated puppy held at arm’s length. ‘He’s sprung a leak,’ she complained. ‘He drips all the time.’

‘They do,’ Keith answered. ‘So would you if you drank a lot and had a bladder the size of a walnut. He needs to go out every few minutes to get an idea of what’s expected
of him. To do that, he must live down here. I’ll put paper near the door for during the night and, when he’s older, he’ll have a dog flap in my kitchen at Willows.’ There,
it was said. Without crashing through any barriers, Keith had made his point. Spoodle was Eileen’s, and he would continue to be Eileen’s.

Mel gathered up mop, bucket and disinfectant. Muttering darkly about the marking of territory, she made for the door. ‘He doesn’t do stairs,’ she said.

‘Centre of gravity’s different from ours,’ Keith told her. ‘They master that skill within weeks, so keep your bedroom door shut. Once he starts, he’ll eat anything
and everything.’

The girl walked out.

Eileen expressed the opinion that Miss Morrison would miss Spoodle. He had chewed the sleeve of her best bed jacket, but she was delighted with him. ‘I think he makes her feel happy
because he’s an idiot.’ The couple stared into the fire, dozed and waited for the tinkling of Miss Morrison’s bell. The dog, wedged between them, enjoyed the slumber of the truly
innocent. Chewed paper and coal-marked carpets meant nothing to him. He was a perfect dog in a perfect world.

The perfect world was interrupted by a knocking at the back door. Keith went to answer while Eileen lifted her little doggy-baby into her arms. He was gorgeous, and he knew he was gorgeous. He
buried his nose in her breast and snored lightly.

‘Eileen?’

It was Tom. ‘Hello. Where’s Keith?’

‘Making tea.’ He bent to stroke the pup, allowed his fingers to stray slightly off course, and noted her sharp intake of breath. Acting as if nothing of note had happened, Tom took a
seat nearer to the fire. ‘Just a short walk, and I’m freezing.’

‘Yes.’ She hated her body, despised it because of its reaction. It occurred to her in that moment that women, like men, were capable of wanting more than one partner. The fable about
monogamy could never be real. A woman was expected to marry and live happily ever after, her devotion to her husband special and exclusive. She would never betray Keith, but she now knew that she
had to be stronger than ever, because Dr Thomas Bingley enlivened her, filled her with desire and wanted her. Being wanted was stimulating. But it was his sin, not hers.

‘How’s Mel?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘Well, she hasn’t broken any windows, but she was as angry as I’ve ever seen her. She loves your daughter like a sister.’

‘Love can be quite a nuisance, Eileen.’

‘I’ve never found it so.’

‘Really?’

She shook her head.

‘Lucky you.’ He laughed at the puppy. Spoodle was trying to climb up to his owner’s shoulder, and he kept sliding down. ‘He seems to be practising for the piste.’
His eyes travelled up to meet hers. ‘Though they’re hardly nursery slopes, are they? Not for a tiny dog like that one.’

And she was blushing, damn it all. ‘Stop it.’

‘You want me,’ he mouthed soundlessly.

‘I wanted a big house of my own, but I won’t get one.’

Keith entered with a tea tray and jam tarts. ‘Plum jam, sorry,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t get anything more exotic.’

But Tom was still staring at Eileen. ‘You don’t know, do you? She hasn’t told you.’

She continued to blush. He must not say anything untoward in front of Keith, or Keith would flatten him. Accepting a cup of tea from her husband, she managed to drag her eyes away from Tom. Tea,
puppies and jam tarts were ingredients that didn’t make a good recipe, so Keith removed the pup from the mix. He had made a secure run in the garden. It was designed to be Spoodle’s
bathroom, and he needed to shiver in it for a few moments.

Alone again with his beautiful prey, Tom continued. ‘When she dies, this house is yours.’

‘What?’ Eileen almost dropped her cup.

‘She has no one else. If you hadn’t come along, it would have gone to an animal shelter. So you have your wish. You shall go to the ball, Cinders.’

Keith came back. ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Tom says Miss Morrison has left the house to me in her will. I feel uncomfortable. She’s only known me for a couple of
years—’

‘No family,’ Tom interjected. ‘Sometimes, these old dears feel happy if they can find someone decent to inherit. She has no family, so why not you? She thinks the world of Mel,
and she knows the money would be spent wisely.’

Keith clattered his cup. ‘Is there a reason for your visit?’ He didn’t want the man sitting here discussing Eileen’s future. Doctors, he decided, were intrusive people
who fiddled about with detail. They wanted to know what they didn’t need to know. He had met Tom Bingley’s type before.

‘The girls.’ Tom placed his cup on a side table. ‘We have to get them together in a supervised situation, but not at our house. Peter has gone into mourning in a back bedroom,
so it would be better here.’

‘They don’t need supervision,’ Keith almost snapped. ‘They’re intelligent girls with a sensitive problem to discuss. Let them get on with it.’

Eileen noticed the dark anger in Tom’s eyes. He clearly didn’t like being taken to task by someone he regarded as his inferior. ‘Send or bring Gloria here,’ she
suggested. ‘I shall be here all day tomorrow, and I can supervise if war breaks out. They need their dignity, you know. They aren’t small children. What happened between . . .’
She paused for a second. ‘What happened between your son and our daughter is a delicate subject. No adult should intrude while it’s being discussed.’

Tom noted the ‘our’ and the pause. ‘Right, I shall take myself off. It might be as well if Mel rings and asks Gloria to come. They’re both bereft, but we can only hope
for the best. No, no need to stand up. I’ll see myself out.’

Keith remained on his feet. ‘I’m going for the puppy before he freezes to death.’ His tone was as cold as the weather. He didn’t like Tom Bingley. With steely
determination, he left them together for a third time. Eileen would see the man off if he tried anything. He stood outside the back door for a few minutes. In the sitting room, he had felt the
thickened atmosphere, had caught Tom Bingley almost leering at her. ‘Touch her, and I’ll kill you,’ he muttered.

‘How’s Marie?’ Eileen asked the visitor.

‘Fine. Abused as a child, but she’s coming to terms. Our relationship’s as good as it’s ever going to be.’

She noticed. She noticed the arrogance, the mandatory inclusion of himself in his reply. His wife was in working order and was serving his needs. He offered no information about Marie, who was
there to keep house, rear children and, above all, to satisfy his lust. ‘Still with the WVS?’

‘Of course. She likes to do her bit.’

‘We knit.’ Eileen shook her head. ‘Miss Morrison’s knitting is imaginative, so I pull it to bits and make socks with heels.’

‘It’s good that you allow her to feel useful.’ He smiled and left the scene.

At the back door, he came face to face with Keith. ‘Good night,’ he said. ‘That’s a nice puppy.’

‘Yes. Eileen’s always wanted a dog.’ When the door was closed behind the intruder, Keith locked it. Bingley would hear the key turning. It was childish, but he couldn’t
resist. The man was locked out, unwanted, unnecessary. And Eileen was waiting for her dog. He walked back into their living room. ‘I agree with you. The man is crazy with desire, and I
suppose I can understand that, because so am I. Do you think he’s capable of something nasty, like . . .’

‘Rape? No, never. He loves himself far too much to allow that kind of trouble to affect him. And I’ll never hurt you, so I wouldn’t go to him willingly.’ She felt guilty,
as if she had already betrayed a wonderful man. She hadn’t. Her body had gone one way, but her heart and soul remained on track.

‘If he touches you, I’ll kill him.’

‘We’re going home, darling. He won’t be there. And while I have to agree that he’s attractive, I have my man. Good Lord, haven’t I enough with you pouncing and
kissing all the time?’

‘Would you like me to stop?’

‘No. It’s the best kind of problem to have. I’m coming to love my place next to the sink, and I like the way you . . .’ She searched for the word. Dominate was wrong.
‘The way you manage me. It’s exciting.’

‘No complaints, then?’

‘You know you’re an excellent lover.’

‘Takes one to know one.’

‘Thank you.’

The mutual admiration society spent the next few minutes discussing Miss Morrison’s will. They wondered how Tom Bingley knew, because the old lady would never have used him as a witness to
the document. His attempt to pursue Eileen in this house had not gone down well, and she had even changed her doctor to underline her displeasure.

‘I’m not going to tell her I know,’ Eileen decided. ‘So if she changes her mind, she doesn’t need to feel bad. What I never had, I’ll never miss. Yes, it
would be lovely to have a second home over here, but I’d rather she lived a lot longer. She worked hard for years in that school of hers. I read somewhere that we’ll soon have
television. She’d love that.’

Spoodle had discovered the fire. It was warm, bright and cheerful. He tried very hard to sit like a proper dog, two legs at the front, two at the back, skimpy little tail supposedly acting as a
rudder. His attempt to achieve a level of dignity failed parlously. The tired pup found he had too many feet, and that they were unnecessarily large. They also preferred to line up, a front paw, a
back one, then two more in similar order. With a tail that was as much use as a piece of thin string, he fell over sideways, rolled, scrambled to his silly feet and tried again.

Eileen was hysterical; even Keith found tears streaming down his face. This was better than a Charlie Chaplin movie. Like Charlie, Spoodle could not walk in a straight line, was unable to sit in
a normal fashion, and didn’t do stairs. Like Charlie, he was going to be eternally forgivable.

The young dog eyed them lugubriously. He scratched an ear to prove his nonchalance, then repeated his trick. Determined to demonstrate to humanity that all he did was carefully planned, he
spread himself out on the rug, all four legs stretched, nose in his front paws. Within seconds, he was snoring gently.

Eileen mopped her face. ‘The dog’s a fool,’ she said.

‘Yes. Dry me as well, please. He’s a clown, Eileen. I think he’ll fit in with us very well. Very well indeed.’

Hilda was preparing notes for a history lesson to be given in the New Year. But she couldn’t concentrate on the task. Something was wrong, but she had no real idea what,
and she felt seriously silly. Phil, Rob and Bertie were all upstairs and safe. The oldest boy was probably continuing the angry, sweeping charcoal drawing he had begun earlier. So fierce were his
strokes that he’d gone through half a box already. Charcoal snapped easily, but so did Phil’s heart. No. There could have been nothing easy about seeing broken shops, crushed homes and
haunted people. Scotland Road. Would good old Scottie ever be the same again?

She cast an eye over the plague and the Fire of London before placing the papers in a bureau. It was no use. She couldn’t focus on rats, fleas and Pudding Lane. Perhaps she’d feel
better if she joined Nellie in the kitchen.

Nellie was a bit glum. She was sitting at the huge table with a newspaper and a mug of cocoa. Elsie had branched out into firelighters, wooden kindling and news agency. A van came through once a
week, so they got a daily and a local paper, both on the same day. Some thinned out women’s magazines completed Nellie’s collection of literature, and she buried herself nightly in
lurid tales of love, reports of crimes local and national, and a weekly account of the war’s progress. Sometimes, the two women listened to the wireless in the evenings, but neither felt up
to it tonight.

Nellie looked up from her
Recipes in Wartime
pamphlet. ‘You still prowling about, love? What’s up? Another cup of cocoa, eh? Have you seen my magazines? There’s only
about twelve pages. War? Hmmph.’

Hilda Pickavance refused cocoa. ‘I feel strange.’

‘Are you ill?’

‘No, nothing like that. It’s the light outside – the sky. It’s not right.’

Nellie jumped up. ‘Then we must put it right. Come on.’

They both donned hats, coats, scarves and gloves before stepping out into this last cold evening before Christmas Eve. Tomorrow would be all cooking and baking, so they needed to be early in
their beds. ‘Did you hear a thud a few minutes ago?’ Hilda asked.

‘I don’t think so. I was raking ashes and damping down for the night in the kitchen. What sort of thud?’

‘A thud, that’s all. Like when a tree gets cut down.’

But Nellie hadn’t heard a thing. ‘It’s red,’ she announced when she looked up. ‘But not for shepherd’s delight, not this late.’

They moved round the house and found the true source of colour. ‘Bloody hell,’ Nellie groaned. ‘It’s Liverpool, isn’t it?’

‘Wrong direction, Nellie. That’s Manchester. And the fires nearer to us are in Bolton.’

They stood very still on Hilda’s high ground and watched a war that had never encroached before. They had seen few planes, had heard no bombs, no sirens. Down there, in a major city and in
a huge town, people were dying. ‘I feel sick,’ Nellie said. ‘It’s so real for the poor buggers down there.’