‘I’ve never made a bed in my life and I’m not starting now,’ Tom growled. He felt as if he were adrift in a flimsy boat on an angry sea, without bearings. The world had lost all meaning. Nothing was normal any more. He was on a different plane to other people. Their voices sounded very far away. Rose had gone and nothing would ever be the same again. Somehow, he had managed to blank out the fact he’d nearly killed her. It had merely been a dream, and life had been a dream ever since. The only reality was that she had betrayed him with another man.
‘Then I’m sorry, Dad, but you’ll just have to sleep in an unmade bed.’
He couldn’t comprehend his daughter’s refusal to look after him and her brothers as good daughters did when their mothers were no longer around. Out of sheer cussedness, he got rid of all the things Rose had bought. The television was sold, the washing machine, the fridge. He arranged for the telephone to be removed.
‘So, it’s back to the Dark Ages,’ Max sneered.
‘People used to manage without them things. We’ll manage without them now.’
Except they weren’t managing. Jeannie refused to do the washing by hand and it was sent to the laundry. They kept running out of food because no one had time to go to the shops. Sometimes, Gerald was provided with a list of things to buy on his way home from school. Without a fridge, the milk went sour and the butter turned rancid. From the other end of Disraeli Terrace, the McDowds kept Jeannie and Max informed of the gigs and other events that concerned them in the music world.
Tom wouldn’t lift a finger to help, not even to remove the sheets from his bed to be washed, or carry the used dishes as far as the sink. If Jeannie wasn’t around, it fell to Max or Gerald to cobble together an unsatisfactory meal for themselves and their father. For the first time, Spencer ate out of tins now that Rose was no longer around to prepare him choice little meals, occasionally having to do with a ham or sardine sandwich if the cat food ran out.
Gerald was desperately unhappy. His brother and sister could escape from the house, sometimes, in the case of Jeannie, for days if the Flower Girls were playing away from Liverpool. Gerald was hungry and never seemed able to find a clean shirt. He hated school, which he’d always liked, and there was rarely a clear space in the entire house where he could do his homework. To cap it all, he sorely missed the television, particularly the football.
In December, two months after their mother had gone, Jeannie returned from a gig in Newcastle to find the kitchen looking as if it had experienced its own little earthquake. Dirty dishes were piled everywhere, including the dresser, there were tea towels on the floor, a bin
overflowing with empty tins. A parcel of clean laundry had been ripped open, a few things roughly removed, leaving the rest in a crumpled heap.
‘Oh,
Gawd
!’ she groaned.
There was a knock on the door. It was Rita McDowd. ‘You dropped your purse in the van. Jaysus!’ she gasped, when she saw the mess. It reminded her of the kitchen of her own house many years ago. These days it was spotless and had every conceivable modern device. Dad was talking about buying their own place as soon as they’d made enough money. How things change, Rita marvelled. Life was like a seesaw. One minute you were up, the next down.
‘This will have to stop,’ Jeannie announced sternly. ‘I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be – a member of a relatively successful pop group, or a charwoman. We’ll have to get a cleaner, though I bet Dad won’t agree.’
Tom pretended to be appalled at the idea. He flatly refused to have a stranger in his house, although it wouldn’t have been the first time.
‘In that case, Dad, I’m leaving,’ Jeannie told him curtly. ‘I’m not prepared to live in a pig sty and I don’t have time to keep this place clean.’ Because she was the only female member of the family, she was expected to do everything. She was run off her feet and had no leisure time. It didn’t matter that she was earning twice as much as Max and her father put together.
‘You do whatever you like,’ Tom said.
‘Don’t worry, I will.’ It was possible she still loved her father, but she’d lost all patience with him. At times, she felt pity for him, but then remembered the bruises on her mother’s neck. It irritated her the way he refused to muck in, do his share. Max and Gerald did at least try, though weren’t much use.
Rose had no idea what was happening in the house she’d left behind. The children met her in town at least once a week and, on Jeannie’s instructions, she was told everything was fine. ‘You’re not to worry her,’ Jeannie said. ‘She’ll only feel guilty if she knows the truth. Let’s not spoil her happiness.’
And Rose was happy, no one could doubt that. It was evident in her dazzling blue eyes. Alex had bought a pretty cottage in Lydiate and they were doing it up. Rose was sewing curtains and painting walls, tasks that seemed to give her an inordinate amount of pleasure. Everyone would be invited to tea when the place was finished.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Max said with alacrity when he found out Jeannie was looking for another place to live.
‘What about me?’ Gerald said anxiously. ‘You can’t leave me behind with Dad!’
‘You’re only fourteen. You’ve got another year to go at school,’ Jeannie reminded him.
‘I can change schools, other kids do.’
Her little brother looked on the verge of tears, as he so often did nowadays. He missed Mum far more than she and Max did. She couldn’t possibly leave him in this miserable, dirty house, with only their taciturn father for company, even if it did mean him changing schools. ‘If you come with us,’ she said, ‘you’ll sometimes be left on your own, and I won’t have time to look after you, not the way Mum did. You’ll have to learn to do things for yourself.’ She turned to Max. ‘You too. I’m not having the place a tip, nor am I prepared to be the only one who makes the meals and washes up afterwards. You’re to do your share, both of you – which was supposed to happen here, I might add, though I never saw much sign of it.’
At the beginning of January, the three young Flowers
moved into the top half of a large furnished house in Toxteth. Tom wasn’t all that bothered to see them go. His wife and children had sadly disappointed him. Now there was no one to impress with his masculine disdain of housework, he engaged a woman who came in twice a week and cleaned the place from top to bottom and also did the washing and ironing. When Mrs Denning learnt he was on his own, she offered to come after she’d seen to the colonel and make him an evening meal. Sometimes, she stayed and they played cards.
Tom wouldn’t have said he was happy, but he no longer had to put up with four bewildering individuals who wouldn’t do as they were told. Life was simpler, easier, his mind at peace, with only a self-reliant cat to keep him company most of the time. It came to him one night that perhaps he’d married too late in life. He wasn’t cut out to be a husband and father. He’d been too set in his ways and should have remained a bachelor, like the colonel.
There wasn’t a parent in sight in the flat in Toxteth, not a soul to prevent them from having a party every night if they wished and staying up as late as they liked. Whenever the Merseysiders played, Lachlan and Fly would come back with Max and they’d sit talking and drinking coffee into the early hours, Jeannie too and, more often than not, Zoe and Marcia, who couldn’t bring themselves to go back to their own homes when it was only midnight. Sean and Rita McDowd rarely took part in this nocturnal socialising. Mornings, the flat would be full of bodies – on the settee, the floors, and occasionally in the bathroom. Elaine would always remain Jeannie’s best friend, but she was rarely seen in Toxteth, being too busy studying for her A levels.
Despite his unconventional surroundings, Gerald discovered an ability to sleep through the noise and thrived at his new, inner-city school.
In March, Gerry and the Pacemakers reached number one in the charts with ‘How Do You Do It?’, and the following month the Beatles did the same with ‘From Me to You’.
The rock ’n’ roll phenomenon had begun in earnest and Liverpool groups were at the forefront, dominating the charts. Hordes of eager managers and agents descended on the Cavern in search of groups to sign up. The Merseysiders were taken on by a big London agency, Frith and Ford, that had been established for more than forty years. ‘You’re our first rock ’n’ roll group,’ Eddie Ford, grandson of one of the deceased founders, cried jubilantly when they signed the contract.
Three months later, the Merseysiders reached number five in the charts with ‘A to Z’. Sean and Lachlan had written the words and music between them, but the Flower Girls had already beaten them to it with their recording of ‘Moon Under Water’, which had climbed as high as number three the month before. By then, the Beatles had played at the Cavern for the last time.
Lachlan bought Jeannie an engagement ring for her birthday in December. Colonel Corbett had always been fond of his gardener’s children and rejoiced in their success. He said he would be honoured if they allowed him to hold an engagement party in his barn.
Their families were invited, their numerous friends and
their
friends, old schoolmates, Billy Kidd who, for all his faults, had helped both groups on their way, Eddie Ford from the agency and his young wife.
Not everyone was pleased to receive an invitation to
Jeannie’s birthday-cum-engagement party. When Benedicta Lucas received hers, she spat on it and threw it on the fire in disgust. ‘Cheek!’ she muttered.
Tom Flowers wasn’t asked. He wouldn’t have come, but Rose and Alex would be there and it was best not to risk a confrontation so soon.
In the years to come, Jeannie often looked back on her party as the best night of her life. She bought a new frock, which was white, almost ankle length, with a silver thread running through the soft, silky material, and silver sandals with high, spiky heels. She wore a white flower in her brown hair.
‘You look like a goddess,’ Lachlan said softly when he collected her from the flat in Toxteth, which she was soon to leave. He’d learnt to drive and was now the proud owner of a bright red MG sports car. ‘A beautiful, beautiful goddess.’ He kissed her gently. ‘Or a bride.
My
bride.’
‘I will be soon.’ They were getting married in the spring, secretly, with only their immediate families and close friends present. Both groups had acquired a multitude of fans. They didn’t want their wedding ruined by crowds of hysterical teenagers.
News of the party must have leaked out. When they arrived in Ailsham, there was a policeman at the bottom of the drive leading to The Limes, attempting to control about twenty screaming girls.
‘It’s Lachlan Bailey and Jeannie Flowers!’ The windows of the car were suddenly full of excited faces. Fists thumped against the glass.
‘Are they a couple? I didn’t know they were a couple.’
‘I thought they were brother and sister.’
‘No, Jeannie’s Max’s sister. Lachlan’s sister is another Flower Girl.’
‘Clear off now,’ the policeman said genially. ‘Come on, girls, clear off. Let people through.’
Inside the car, Jeannie shivered. ‘They frighten me.’
‘They
terrify
me!’ Lachlan laughed.
It turned out to be a perfect night. The eight young people, the Merseysiders and the Flower Girls, felt as if there was nothing on earth they couldn’t do. Eyes followed them everywhere, some filled with pride, some with envy.
The girls hugged and kissed and loudly expressed their love for each other, even the normally tongue-tied Rita. It was genuinely meant and deeply felt. They had shared a unique experience, each making a deep impression on the others’ lives.
Colonel Corbett made a speech. The Flowers and the McDowds had put Ailsham on the map, he said. Business at the Oak Tree had increased tenfold with people wanting to know where they lived. Virtually every young person in the village was learning to play the guitar in the hope of following in their idols’ footsteps. He finished by saying the party wouldn’t be complete without a short performance from the stars. ‘I think the proper term is a “gig”.’
They were ready for this. The girls had agreed to go first. They started with their favourite, ‘Be Bop a Lula’, then a new number Kevin had just written, never heard before in public, ‘Banana Skins’, and, to a burst of applause, their hit song, ‘Moon Under Water’.
Halfway through, the Merseysiders joined in, Sean’s languid, sleepy tones like a dusky shadow of Rita’s enchanting voice, providing a unique musical experience for the audience.
The song finished to more applause. For a few
seconds, there was silence, then Lachlan began to sing, ‘I dream of Jeannie with the light brown hair . . .’
‘Aahh!’ sighed the crowd. It was so romantic!
Lachlan strolled across to his fiancée, his bride-to-be, and knelt in front of her. His brown eyes never left her blue ones. She knew he was committing himself to her totally. They would never, never stop loving each other. Then Lachlan finished singing, kissed her, and the crowd sighed again.
Across the room, Rose Flowers laid her head on Alex’s shoulder and he gripped her waist. They thought about each other and the child growing in Rose’s womb,
their
child.
Kevin McDowd gave his wife a nudge. Sadie nudged him back, a bit harder than necessary, he thought with a grin. Strewth, she was a fine looking woman altogether, a credit to him and to Ireland. Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, wasn’t life just great? He’d made it in show business at last and had been allowed back into Sadie’s bed. He telegraphed a little message to God, thanking Him for His blessings.
The noise of the party could be heard far away in Holly Lane where a stunned Tom Flowers was beginning to wonder if he might have been wrong about his children. Perhaps there was something to be said for this rock ’n’ roll rubbish, after all. The sound of the music, the thought of so many people enjoying themselves, made his own house feel deathly quiet and unnaturally empty. For some reason, the hairs on his neck bristled and he felt himself go very cold as he realised he’d done nothing right and everything wrong. If only he could go back in time, start again, be a better husband to his wife and a different father to his children.