Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (9 page)

‘I found this along the street,’ he said when I joined him by the bins. ‘It was lying on its side in front of an empty house. Somebody must have thrown it away.’

‘It’s a bit big,’ I said. ‘And me mam will go mad if you bring anything else into the house. She’s only just got rid of that fish tank you found.’

‘Ah, well, that’s because the goldfish died on account of the rusty frame, and she doesn’t like to see anything dead. But look at this. Isn’t it a smasher?’

Sitting on top of the kennel which Candy never used was a very old-fashioned television. About four foot high in a dark wooden frame, it had a knob at either side and a green tinted screen.

‘What are you going to do with this?’ I laughed. ‘It can’t be any good.’

‘Grab hold of that end,’ he said. ‘Let’s take it down to the stores.’

The stores, my father’s den in the cellar, is where he keeps his junk – a fascinating collection of useless discarded objects. While he fiddled about with the television trying to
make it work, I took the opportunity to have a look around.

Some things I remembered from different times in my childhood, while others, probably picked up on his wanderings about the streets, were new to me. In a corner was a lawn mower which I’d
never seen before. Next to it was ‘the roller’ which my father invented when I was at school. I helped him fill the empty oil barrel with concrete and watched while, somehow, he
attached to it the handle bars from a broken down old bike. Meant to flatten the soil after the garden had been turned over, it was never a success because it was too heavy to push about.

At the far end were shelves lined with paint tins, boxes and jars containing screws, nuts, bolts and a variety of used nails. Lots of bits of clocks, waiting to be put together, were scattered
over a table in the middle of the room. A tea chest marked ‘Shoes’ and another marked ‘Toys’ were stacked against the wall. Another with ‘Records’ clearly
written on the top contained only a handful of dusty books.

Hanging from a gas pipe in the ceiling was a lampshade called ‘Niagara’ which an uncle brought home from sea. At one time it revolved around a bulb, illuminating an endless running
stream.

‘I don’t know why you hoard all this crap. It should all be thrown away.’

‘Just pass me that torch,’ he said. ‘It’s on the shelf above your head.’

In his cap, lying beside him on the floor, was an odd assortment of tools. He’d taken the cover off the back of the played-out television, and with a screwdriver was poking about
inside.

‘What are you trying to do? You’ll never get it to work.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ he said, and gave me a word of advice: ‘If you can get a light on at the back then you know you’re in with a chance. All you
need is a spark.’

Just then I heard the telephone ringing, so I dashed to the staircase which leads up to the hall. Candy, who followed behind, got stuck around my feet. Not understanding the reason for my
impatience, she scrambled behind a table then ran back down to my dad.

‘Hello!’ I shouted through the squeaks and crackles of a transatlantic delay. ‘Is that Joy?’

‘Oh my God. Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ I answered through the echo.

‘You sound in distress.’

‘I’m out of breath,’ I told her. ‘I’ve been down in the stores.’

‘Oh that’s awful,’ she said. ‘But listen, I have bad news for you. I can’t come. I can’t come to London.’

Throughout the explaining and regretting I stood gazing out of the window wondering what on earth I was to do. The only person who I thought might have any real practical influence over
Gloria’s immediate fate, her sister Joy, was now telling me that she couldn’t come to England. My mother would find it hard to understand that Joy, who was a Canadian citizen, was
worried about leaving America in case she was never allowed to return. Joy’s worries were quite genuine but I knew my mother would think it a lame excuse, part of an absurd plot designed to
prevent her from going to Australia, an event she’d planned and dreamed about for sixteen years. How could she comprehend? Why should she? I was caught between two strong and powerful women:
one on the point of going to the other side of the world, the other on the verge of leaving it.

‘I’m trying to contact my father, Peter,’ Paulette’s voice suddenly broke in. ‘I need to get some money from him and then I’m flying to England. My brother
might come with me. I just want to be with Mom as soon as possible. Tell her I love her and I miss her. I just have to get the air ticket from my father. He’s in New York right now. I have to
find out his hotel.’

While Paulette gave me messages to pass on to her mother, my attention was drawn to the view outside on the street. Joe, Jessie and my mother were standing talking at the gate. When I saw them
marching up the path I hurriedly brought the conversation to a close, and prepared myself to break the latest news.

‘What are you going to have? Sausages and bacon or just bacon with your egg?’

I spied through the crack of the open door to try and judge the mood in the kitchen.

Thoughtfully, Joe looked up from his newspaper, while Jessie poured the tea.

‘I’m not sure if I fancy an egg,’ he said.

‘Oh, I’ve cracked it now.’ My mother stood over the frying pan holding on to a broken shell. ‘Someone will have to have the egg.’

‘I’ll have it,’ I said, realizing this was the moment to join them, and sat opposite my brother at the table.

‘Well, I haven’t seen you eat since Monday.’ My mother threw a glance in my direction. ‘I’m glad. I’ll fry you a few sausages as well.’

I smiled to show my enthusiasm but I wasn’t in the least bit hungry.

‘They’re good those sausages from Tesco’s,’ Jessie said as she unpacked the rest of the groceries. ‘I always keep a few packets in the freezer.’

‘That’s what I’m after.’ My mother wiped the hair from the side of her face. ‘One of those fridge-freezers. But look at me. I’m seventy years of age and I
haven’t even got an electric kettle!’

‘You didn’t take long at the launderette,’ I said, trying to keep the conversation chatty.

‘We left it in for a service,’ Jessie explained. ‘It’s only thirty pence. I wanted to be here for Joe, and your mother’s got a pain in her back.’

‘A pain in the back’ I knew to be a serious subject so I diverted the attention to the dog.

‘Candy. Come on, Candy,’ I called.

‘Oh eh,’ Joe said and protected his bacon butty. ‘Do we have to have the dog around the table?’

Candy hung her head and wedged herself under my chair. Joe went back to his food, Jessie put the shopping into the larder and my mother stood over the stove. Except for the sausages sizzling
away in the pan, the room was silent. On the surface, the tension had relaxed but, for me, the pressure was mounting. I had to explain to my mother that Joy wasn’t able to come. To upset her
any further was more than I could bear.

‘Has that dog been fed?’ she inquired as she put the sausages and egg before me.

Candy, wearing a look that undoubtedly said ‘No’, dragged herself up from the floor and wagged over to her bowl.

‘Everything’s left to me,’ my mother sighed as she knelt to get the dog food from its place beneath the sink. ‘This should be a job for your father.’ As she opened
the cupboard the door fell off its hinge. ‘Oh I’m sick of it. I am. I’m bloody sick of it.’ She pulled away the broken door and threw it on the floor. ‘Another man
wouldn’t let me suffer like this. He doesn’t give a shite. I don’t know what possessed me to marry him.’

‘It’s a bit late to wonder about that,’ Joe tried to make her laugh. ‘You’ve been married for fifty years. That’s why you’re going to
Australia.’

‘Now that’s where you’re wrong.’ She turned on Joe and emphasized each word with the point of her finger. The movement of her hands and shoulders suggested all her
feeling. There was a definite change of mood. ‘I won’t be going anywhere. I’m going to call the whole thing off.’

‘Now that’s not right. It’s not right on them, they’ve made arrangements for you to be there. You can’t tell them the week before you’re supposed to go that
you won’t be coming. Anyway, I don’t believe you,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe that you don’t want to go.’

‘Look, Joe. I know. You’re right. You don’t have to tell me nothing. I just want you all to listen to me for a change. I’m the mother of this house. It’s about time
that I got to be a bit more integrated with what’s happening here.’ She paused to collect her thoughts, then took her place at the head of the table. She spoke in sombre tones. ‘I
wouldn’t go away and leave a dying woman in one of my bedrooms. My conscience wouldn’t allow me to do a thing like that. Gloria is critically ill and I don’t understand why nobody
seems to want to do a thing about it. She’s just left upstairs to fade and I think that’s a disgrace.’

‘I agree with you, Mother. You’re absolutely right. Gloria’s about to die. She’s refused to go to a hospital, she doesn’t even want the doctor, but she is, so
we’ve been told, going into a coma. So when that happens we’ll just have to . . .’

‘Oh stop it, Joe. Stop it. All of you just stop it.’ Jessie sat down tearful at the table. ‘I don’t like to hear you all talking about Gloria like that.’

‘There’s no other way we can talk, love. I think it’s tragic. I think it’s horrible and I think it’s awful, but that’s the situation. Very soon it will all be
over. Until then we’ve got to try and be practical. Peter,’ he turned to me. ‘What about her sister? When will she arrive?’

I looked down at my egg and then I broke the yolk.

‘She can’t come,’ I said. ‘Joy phoned to say she can’t come.’

It took about three or four seconds for the information to be absorbed, then my mother pulled her hands to her head and let out a terrible moan.

‘That’s it! THAT IS JUST ABOUT IT! I’m going to phone that sister right now. It won’t take me five minutes to hand out my medical bulletin. Why won’t nobody realize
that that woman upstairs is dying? I’m going to phone America!’

‘Paulette’s coming instead,’ I weakly tried to explain.

‘When?’ my mother demanded. ‘When? Tell me when.’

‘When she gets the air fare from her dad.’

‘That’s enough! Now I’ve had enough!’ The chair was pushed aside as my mother threw herself up from the table. The sugar bowl crashed to the floor and shattered into
pieces. ‘I’m going to phone for the ambulance,’ she shouted. ‘I’m taking poor Gloria to the hospital now!’

Hysteria suddenly exploded. Joe blocked my mother’s path as she lunged across the room, and Jessie got squashed between. Candy ran around in circles and barked at the top of her voice.
Pandemonium let loose. The kitchen was in uproar as Gloria appeared from the hall.

The horror of the moment suspended all reality. It was as if we were turned to stone.

Wraith-like, in a long white nightdress and with her hair hanging limp around her face, she looked bewilderedly about the room. She struggled to control her breath and speak. When she did, a
calm descended. Gloria was serene.

‘Look at me. I’m not sick. I’m not gonna die.’ She appealed to each of us in turn. ‘Why are you talking about me? I can hear you through the floor.’

‘Oh Gloria, love,’ my mother said, all the anger had melted away. ‘Let Peter help you to the warm.’

‘She’s a star! She’s a movie star! Take her out the back way. She can’t be seen drunk!’

We were deaf to our host the night we were high on champagne. Because of eager photographers waiting at the door, we were advised to leave the party without being noticed.

Proud and defiant, we held each other tight and slowly groped and picked our way up the steep flight of stairs until we reached the top. Gloria was determined to leave the party the same way as
she came.

Memory of that night in New York came hurtling into my mind as I took Gloria up to the middle room. She fought every inch of the way. She was happy with her achievement. She was pleased with
what she’d done.

‘I’ve made it down the stairs and back again,’ she held on to me in triumph. ‘I’m getting better, Peter. I must be getting better.’

I carried her into the room and sat her on the bed.

I handed her the piece of broken mirror and then the green plastic wash-bag. I opened up the window and then I closed the curtains. I switched on the table lamp and put it on the floor. I did
everything she asked. I did everything I could.

Then, when she turned to face me, the shadows reappeared; Gloria had put on her make-up. The browns and the greens were smudged; the red was on a slant. It was too late to attempt a rescue.
Nothing could have helped her. Not even a pale pink light.

‘Tell me, Peter. Tell me. Tell me how I look.’

I told her she was beautiful.

Old Jack was in his cubby hole listening to the radio; his assistant stage manager was doing all the hard work, setting up the props for the play. All the actors, except
Geoffrey, were hanging about in the Green Room. Gil, dressed in her first-act costume, her hair pinned back from her face which hadn’t yet been covered by the mask of stage make-up, was
talking on the telephone. She gave me a friendly wave. I smiled and she blew me a kiss. Eric, sitting in the corner, was chewing on a double giant hamburger from the stall across the street. While
Linda, happily wearing nothing much at all, except a towel and her sloppy silver shoes, was pinning up a notice in the centre of the board. ‘Rave Up’ it announced, ‘chez moi,
Huskisson Street. Bring yourself something to drink’.

At least everything was normal in the world of make-believe. Tonight it was a relief to be at the theatre. As soon as I was involved in my performance I felt immune to what was happening at
home. I was tired, I was drained, but strangely I didn’t feel lacking in energy while I was on stage; it was only after the play was over that I felt exhausted and low.

‘Are you going to Linda’s party?’ Gil, back in her everyday clothes, popped her head around the dressing room door.

‘No, I’m not,’ I told her.

‘Oh, don’t be so miserable. You can’t just go back home.’