It was as easy as that.
Declan and I were left standing at the gate, with me feeling inordinately deflated by this turn of events. I’d expected to take my mother to William Square, help her settle in, show her where everything was, gradually hand the place over. But now I felt excluded, unnecessary. All of a sudden it hurt badly, imagining other people going through Flo’s things, sitting in Flo’s place, watching her lamp swirl round, playing her favourite record.
Scotty came out and licked my shoe. I picked him up and buried my face in his rough, curly coat to hide the tears that trickled down my cheeks. I’d never felt so much at home anywhere as I’d done at Flo’s. From the very first time I’d gone there, the flat had seemed mine. I knew I was being stupid, but it was almost as if I’d entered my aunt’s body, become Flo, experienced the various highs and lows of her life. I’d discovered something about myself during the short time I’d spent there, though I wasn’t sure what it was. I only knew I felt differently about things, as if Flo had somehow got through to me that I would survive. Never once, in all the nights I’d slept there, had I dreamed the old dream, heard the slithering footsteps on the stairs, wished I were invisible.
I sighed. I could follow the Cortina, still help Mum settle in, but I knew I was being daft, feeling so possessive about a basement flat that had belonged to a woman I’d never even spoken to.
“What’s the matter, Sis?” Declan said softly.
“I feel a bit sad, that’s all.”
Declan misunderstood. “Mam will be all right, you’ll see.”
“I know she will, Dec” I put Scotty down and gave his beard a final rub, wondering if I would ever see the little dog again. “Will he be all right?”
“Scotty’s the only member of the family Dad’s never laid a finger on.” Declan grinned.
“And what about you? You can always sleep on the sofa in my place until you find somewhere of your own.” I’d welcome his company at the moment. The thought of returning, alone, to Blundellsands and the flat I’d been so proud of was infinitely depressing.
“Thanks, Millie, but I think I’ll stay with me dad.”
I stared at him, open-mouthed. “But I thought you couldn’t wait to get away?”
“Yes, but he needs me, least he needs someone, and I suppose I’ll do.”
“Oh, Dec!” I touched his thin face. My heart felt troubled at the idea of my gentle brother staying in Kirkby with Norman Cameron.
“He can’t be all bad,” Declan said, with such kind reasonableness, considering all that had happened, that I felt even worse. “I know he loves us. Something must have happened to make him the way he is.”
I thought of the little boy locked in a cupboard.
“Perhaps something did.” I watched Scotty sniffing the rose bushes in the front garden. One day, I might come back. Perhaps we could talk. Perhaps.
A taxi drew up outside the house next door and hooted its horn. The Bradleys came out, dressed in their ballroom-dancing gear.
“Has your mam gone?” Mrs Bradley shouted.
“A few minutes ago,” I replied.
“About time, too. I’m going to see her next week.” Mr Bradley helped to scoop the layers of net skirt into the taxi. As it drove away, I said, “I suppose I’d better go, it’s cold out here.” I kissed Declan’s cheek. “Take care, Dec. I won’t stop worrying about you, I know I won’t.”
“There’s no need to worry, Mill. Nowadays, me and Dad understand each other in our own peculiar way. He accepts me for ‘what I am.’
I paused in the act of unlocking the car. “And what’s that, Dec?”
Beneath the glare of the street lights, Declan flushed. “I reckon you already know, Sis.” He closed the gate. “Do you mind?”
“Christ Almighty, Dec!” I exploded. “Of course I don’t mind. It would only make me love you more, except I love you to death already.”
“Ta, Sis.” He picked Scotty up and waved a shaggy paw. “See you, Mill.”
I started up the car and watched through the mirror as my brother, still hugging Scotty, went back into the house. A door had opened for my mother, at the same time as one had closed for Declan.
Every morning, I woke up with the feeling that I’d lost something infinitely precious. I had no idea what it was that I’d lost, only that it had left a chasm in my life that would never be refilled. There was an ache in my heart, and the sense of loss remained with me for hours.
My flat, my home, seemed unfamiliar, like that of a stranger. I stared, mystified, at various objects: the shell-shaped soap dish in the bathroom, a gaudy teatowel, the yellow filing basket on the desk, and had no idea where they’d come from. Were they mine? I couldn’t remember buying them. Nor could I remember where particular things were kept. It was as if I’d been away for years, having to open cupboards and drawers to search for the bread knife or a duster. There was food in the fridge that was weeks old: wilted lettuce, soggy apples, a carton of potato salad that I was scared to take the lid off. The cheese was covered in mould.
The only place where I felt comfortable and at ease was the balcony. Most nights I sat outside wearing my warmest coat, watching the branches of the bare trees as they waved, like the long nails of a witch, against the dark sky.
I listened to the creatures of the night rustling in and out of the bushes below. There were hedgehogs, two, never seen during the day. The light from the living room was cast sharply across the untidy grass and straggly plants—no one tended the garden in winter—and under the light I read the book that Tom O’Mara had given me about the Thetis. I read about the bungling and ineptitude of those at the top, the heroism and desperation of the ordinary seamen as they tried to rescue the men who were trapped, so near and yet so far.
How would it have been, I wondered, if Tommy O’Mara hadn’t died? How differently would things have turned out for Flo?
I felt very old, like someone who knew that the best years of their life were over and was patiently sitting out the rest. Having a birthday didn’t help. I turned thirty, and became obsessed with wondering how the next ten years would turn out. What would I be doing when I was forty? Would I be married, have children? Where would I be living? Where would I be working? Would Mum still be living in William Square with Alison?
Which was stupid. I told myself how stupid I was being a hundred times a day, and made sure no one guessed how dispirited I felt. When I went with James to the theatre one night, I sat in the bar in the interval while he went to fetch the drinks. He came back, saying, “Are you all right, darling? I looked across and your face was terribly sad.”
“I’m fine,” I said confidently.
“Are you sure? Is it over between you and that Tom chap? I’ve kept longing to ask. Is that why you’re sad?”
I said I wasn’t sad, James, though it is over between me and Tom.”
He looked relieved. “I’m glad there’s no one else.”
“I never said that!” His face collapsed in hurt. I knew I was being horrid, but the last thing I wanted was to offer him encouragement. The strangest thing had happened with James, and I didn’t know how to deal with it.
He’d promised not to pressurise me and he hadn’t, but in the few times I’d seen him since we’d broken up, then come together again, he wanted to know every little thing about me, every detail. It was as if now that he could no longer have my body he was determined to possess my mind. Perhaps some people were willing to divulge their every thought, their every wish, but I wasn’t one of them.
It was hard to escape from such overpowering, almost suffocating love, his tremendous need, which some women might have envied. It was also hard to reject, as if I was giving away something uniquely precious by refusing him. Such love might never come my way again. He appeared to worship the ground I walked on.
Where had I heard those words said before only recently? The bell rang once to indicate that the interval was nearly over and I finished off my drink. Back in the theatre I remembered. They were the words Gran had used to describe how Norman Cameron had felt about my mother . . .
The curtain rose, but as far as I was concerned the actors’ efforts were wasted. I had no idea what had happened in the first act. Perhaps you could love someone too much, so much that you resented all the things they did without you, resented them even being happy if
.
It wasn’t strictly true to hint that there was someone else, but tomorrow night I was meeting Peter Maxwell.
He was going to show me where the tall, wild forests had once been in Toxteth, which King John had turned into a royal park and where he had hunted deer and wild boar.
“It’s incredible!” I breathed, the following evening, as we strolled through the icy drizzle along Upper Parliament Street and into Smithdown Road. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine I was stepping through a thick forest and the drizzle was the dew dripping from the trees at dawn.
“The area’s mentioned in the Domesday Book,” he said proudly.
I forgot how cold the night was as he explained, with mounting enthusiasm, that Lodge Lane was called after one of the King’s hunting lodges, that the ancient manor of Smethedon was where the name Smithdown came from. The descriptions, the words he used seemed incongruous, as we passed the narrow built-up streets and endless shops. Traffic fizzed by in the wet; cars, buses, lorries, headlights fixed on the noxious fumes spewing out from the vehicles in front, and reflected in the watery surface. We seemed to be walking through a toxic yellow fog, as Peter talked about Dingle Dell, Knot’s Hole, sandstone-cliff creeks, glens, farms, a game reserve. He even quoted a poem—“The Nymph of the Dingle”.
“It’s fascinating, Peter,” I said, when he paused for breath. His black bushy hair and beard glistened in the damp, as if they’d been touched with frost.
“I’ve not nearly finished, but this isn’t a good night.
Perhaps we could come one Sunday. I can show you other places. Did you know that less than two centuries ago Bootle was a spa? There used to be watermills, springs, sandhills and fields of flowers?”
I confessed I’d had no idea. He asked if I’d like a drink, and when I said yes he steered me into the nearest pub.
“Will it be safe in here?” I asked nervously.
“I doubt it,” he said soberly, though I noticed his eyes were twinkling. “We’re probably taking our lives in our hands.”
The pub was old-fashioned, Victorian, with sparkling brasses and a gold-tinted mirror behind the bar. The few customers looked very ordinary and not in the least threatening.
“Well, we seemed to have survived so far,” Peter said, apparently amazed. “What would you like to drink?”
I poked him in the ribs with my elbow. “Stop making fun of me. I’d like half a cider, please.”
A few minutes later he returned with the drinks. “Sorry I was so long, but the barman offered me five thousand quid to carry out a contract-killing. See those old girls over there?” He pointed to two elderly women sitting in a corner. “One’s a Mafia godfather in disguise, the other is the chief importer of heroin in the northwest. The cops have been after her for years. She’s the one he wanted me to kill.” He took his donkey jacket off and threw it on a vacant chair. Underneath, he wore a polo-necked jersey, which had several loose threads. He regarded me solemnly.
“I refused, of course, so I doubt if we’ll get out of here alive.”
By now, I was doubled up with laughter. “I’m sorry, but I always feel a bit fearful around here.”
“It sounds priggish, but the worst thing to fear is fear itself. Taking the worst possible scenario, no one’s safe anywhere.”
“I like being with you, it’s rather soothing.” I smiled, feeling unusually contented.
He stroked his beard and looked thoughtful. “To be ‘soothing’ is not my ultimate aim when I’m with a beautiful young woman, but it’ll do.”
I welcomed the fact that he was so easy to be with, relaxing, particularly after the intensity of James, and the total preoccupation Tom O’Mara and I had had with each other. There was a hint of flirtatiousness between us, which meant nothing. He reminded me about the Christmas concert at his school next week. “You promised you’d come.”
“I hadn’t forgotten.” It would soon be Christmas and I hadn’t bought a single present. I must remind Trudy about the bottles she’d promised to paint, and remembered that one had been for Diana. After the way things had gone, I wasn’t sure whether to give it to her or not.
For the next half-hour, we chatted about nothing in particular. We’d been in the same year at school, which meant that Peter had also recently had his thirtieth birthday, and we discussed how incredibly old we felt. “It’s quite different from turning twenty. Twenty’s exciting, like the start of a big adventure. Come thirty, the excitement’s over,” he remarked, with a grin.
“Don’t say that. You make thirty sound very dull.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound dull, just less exciting. By thirty you more or less know where you are. Would you like another drink?”
“No thanks. I thought I’d pop in and see my mother. I left my car in William Square.”
“I’ve already met your mum. She seems exceptionally nice.” He reached for his jacket. “Come on. If we make a sudden rush for the exit, we might get out of here all in one piece.”
It was only natural that Mum should have the keys to Flo’s flat. Even so, I felt slightly miffed at having to knock to be let in. Fiona, who was draped outside in her usual spot, condescended to give me a curt nod.
“Hello, luv!” Mum’s face split into a delighted smile when she opened the door. “You’re out late. It’s gone ten.”
Peter Maxwell leaned over the railings. “Hi, there, Kate. ‘Night, Millie. See you next week.’
“Goodnight, Peter.”
“Have you been out with him?” Mum sounded slightly shocked as she closed the door.
“He’s very nice.”
“Oh, he’s a lovely young feller. I knew his mam in Kirkby. She’s a horrible woman, not a bit like Peter. No, I just thought you and James were back together for good, like.”
“We’re back together. I doubt very much if it’s for good.”
Mum shook her head in despair. “I can’t keep up with you, Millicent.” Then, eyes shining, she demanded, “What do you think of me new carpet?”