That Liverpool Girl (37 page)

Thus it came about that Gill Collins left her baby for the first time. More significantly, after expressing milk so that Elsie could feed her, Gill allowed Maisie to be nourished by another while she was driven to the hospital by an acquaintance of Miss Pickavance. She needed to see the idiot she had married. He was a pest; he was also her husband and Maisie’s dad.

Tom and Marie had done a good job on their son. The hospital doctor looked Peter over, declared him to be disgustingly healthy and, after handing over medicine and some dressings for the wounds, invited him to leave the premises after resting for a further hour. Throughout his brief time in Outpatients, Peter communicated with his mother and with Mel, but not with his father. Tom, acutely aware that his son was deliberately ignoring him, made his way to the gents. When he came out, the girl was waiting for him in the corridor. ‘Ah,’ he blustered. ‘So this is where you pick up your men friends.’

Mel folded her arms, lolled against a wall and simply stared at him.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

‘A bit of honesty would do, doc. Peter knows about you and my mother.’

He swallowed.

‘Beautiful, isn’t she? Of course, she married someone else.’

‘And your point is?’

Mel subdued her fears. ‘We’re young. But you’re not, and maturity doesn’t bring sense with it, or you wouldn’t have been running after my mother. So that’s you explained, eh? We’re too young? What was your excuse? Retarded? Daft? Special and with rules of your own?’ Her heart was doing a fair imitation of a jungle drum. She should not talk like this to an adult. As daughter of Eileen and a pupil of Merchant Taylors’, she had been educated in respect. But, as a product of Merchants, she had an advanced sense of language and a large vocabulary.

He tried to conceal a smile. Always, always, Eileen Watson, now Greenhalgh, would own a huge piece of his heart, and here she came again. The tilt of the head, determined chin, pert little nose, mouth good enough to eat— He cleared his throat. Like her mother, she could wrap any man round her little finger. ‘Look at it another way, Mel. Love’s an illness. Especially at the beginning when hormones collide and confusion reigns. Throughout life, we meet people we desire. Fourteen’s a bit young to be considering permanence.’ He could still taste the kisses he had stolen from Eileen . . .

She favoured him with a dazzling smile. He liked her; he wouldn’t kick her out of bed. Like her mother, Mel was acutely aware of the effect she had on men. ‘We’re old in our heads, Dr Bingley. And look at me – strong as a horse, stubborn as a mule and feisty as a polo pony on its day off. New blood. A bit of working-class backbone to inject into the equation. You don’t want to be all Blundellsands and Crosby, do you? Get a bit of spirit in your genes.’

Tom glanced at the ceiling as if seeking inspiration. ‘No one of fourteen can possibly know who he or she will marry.’

‘Then you’ve no worries, have you?’

She was quick, he had to give her that much. ‘You are old enough to bear a child.’

‘But not daft enough.’

‘Catholic?’

‘Debatable. There will be no contraception, because there will be no fornication. Is that plain enough?’

She was her mother all over again, and Peter was going to be a lucky tyke. ‘Those feelings overwhelm. The urge to connect completely may become too strong.’ No way would he be able to resist this one. But he wouldn’t get the chance, and he was happy now with just Marie. Wasn’t he?

‘We’ll manage. Now. Are you going to behave yourself, or shall I set my gran on you? She’s wonderfully fierce.’

Tom loved Marie. He had dragged her out of a pit created in childhood, had learned how to conduct himself in order to make the relationship work, and he no longer regretted the marriage. But his peripheral vision still held images of this child’s mother, and he was glad that she was going away in the New Year. Mel, however, would be hanging around. ‘You leave me no option, Amelia. Your grandmother has already given me grief, so I shall just have to do my best to accept my very young son’s fiancée. I still find the whole thing ridiculous, though.’

As they walked back to the small room in which Peter was resting, Mel slipped her arm through Tom’s. ‘Please don’t fight me,’ she begged.

‘Because I’d never win?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

After she had withdrawn her hand, Tom’s arm tingled for seconds.

In another hospital just under forty miles away, a second young man lay. He would not be going home after an hour’s rest, because his core temperature remained below average, while diabetes added to the problem. Warm saline and a heated bed did their slow work while specialists tested his blood.

A door swung inwards. ‘Blood’s as flat as a pancake,’ the sister shouted.

Neil and Gill were sent away while flat-as-a-pancake was dealt with.

‘Do they mean dead?’ asked Gill.

Neil shook his head. ‘Nay, he’s just out of sugar, that’s all.’

‘Oh.’ She chewed her lip. ‘So what will they do?’

‘They’ll fill him with the stuff.’

‘It’s rationed.’

The farmer failed to prevent a smile. ‘They’re not going to pour a two-pound bag of Co-op’s best granulated down him, love. It’ll be like water and it won’t be much. They’ll drip it into his blood.’

Gill sat very still and stared into the future. It shouldn’t be like this. She had the child she’d always craved, a decent home if she could be bothered to clean it properly, a husband exempt from the forces but with a job, and lovely people around her. ‘Neil?’

‘What?’

‘You know how he gets on my nerves?’

He nodded.

‘How can I cope? And have I had a nervous breakdown?’

Difficult questions. He had to think hard before answering, because this woman would probably hang on every word. Of late, she had scarcely listened to anyone, but she was certainly concentrating now. ‘I don’t know about nervous breakdowns, Gill, because I’m not a doctor. But I do remember Jeanie after she had our Patty. Every time I spoke to her she bit my head off. I used to read in the shippon with my cows. Then one day she was right again. We’ve always argued, but we don’t let the sun go down on a quarrel.’ He didn’t need to tell Gill about his and Jean’s wonderful sex life. That didn’t continue in every marriage, so Gill needed to find her own way home for part of the route.

‘So I could be out of flunter because of Maisie?’

‘Oh yes. Definitely.’

So that was the answer to some of it. ‘And what about him in there?’ she asked.

Neil shook his head. ‘You have to look at it this way, Gill. Part of it could be his illness. He was diabetic for a long time before it was noticed. Again, I have to say I’m not a doctor, but I’ve heard Elsie Openshaw say that diabetics get moods. You’ve a choice. You can stay with him or leave him.’ He refused to add the fact that Jay was fighting for his life just yards away.

‘Where would I go?’

‘No idea.’

A lonely tear found its way down Gill’s cheek. ‘He makes me that mad, I could kill him.’

He had to do it. Shock sometimes worked where kindness failed. ‘You may not need to.’

Her head shot round to face him. ‘What did you say?’

‘He’s not out of the woods, sweetheart.’

Gill shot out of her chair like a bullet from a gun. She wasn’t having this. If young Phil Watson hadn’t gone to Liverpool, her daft swine would have been all right. She stopped in her tracks and walked back to Neil. ‘Why did you carry him all the way to Home Farm? Why didn’t you take him into Four Oaks and get him dry there? Happen he wouldn’t have caught his death of cold if you’d—’

‘It was locked, Gill. There’s been a bit of light-fingering going on, and after Jay had finished they locked up before going back to work. Home Farm was the nearest.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ She fled once more.

Back in Jay’s room, she surveyed the people surrounding the bed. ‘Is he all right? He’d better be, or you’ll have me to answer to if he turns his toes up.’

‘Gill?’

‘What?’

‘Shut up.’

But she was riled. ‘He’s got a little daughter, not even weaned yet. It’s not his fault he fell in the trough. If you got his diabetes right, he wouldn’t be lying in ice-cold water, would he?’

‘Gill?’

‘He’s only thirty-four. That’s no age to—’ She stopped and blinked several times. None of this lot knew her name, but someone kept saying it.

‘I am not dying before I have a cup of tea.’

‘For God’s sake,’ cried the ward sister. ‘Nurse, will you fetch this person a cup of tea?’ She spoke to the person’s wife. ‘We had to hang on with nil by mouth until we checked his kidneys, but we’ve had him on a drip. All I can say to you, love, is I hope you take him home soon, because he’s driving us round the bend.’

‘He does that,’ Gill replied. ‘There’s no cure.’

At last, she was alone with him. He looked so small in the bed, so thin. ‘Get yourself right,’ she ordered. ‘And shape up, will you? Be a clown just on Fridays down at the pub.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘Stop doing stuff when you’re tired.’

‘Yes, miss.’

It was hopeless, and she knew it. But she also knew she wanted him alive. And she would learn to love him again if it killed her . . .

‘Wake up, you dozy, wonderful woman.’ Keith stroked her face with a forefinger. She felt like a peach, smooth and soft, but downy. Her hair gave off the aroma of spring flowers, and if he wasn’t careful he’d end up on a dusty, forgotten bookshelf with the rest of the romantic poets, because he was certainly becoming daft enough.

This gorgeous woman had caused many changes in him. She had made him younger, happier, less careful, more inclined to read Keats, Wordsworth and even a bit of Shelley. The worries of the previous evening had left her tired, so he would cheer her up a bit in a minute. Well, he would try. One of her best qualities was her inclination towards natural happiness. ‘Come on, Chuckabutty. Wake up and talk to this rather pleasant young – youngish – man.’

Eileen yawned and opened one eye. ‘On a scale of one to ten, how safe am I?’ He was hovering, elbow bent, head resting on a hand. The devil was visiting those beautiful eyes again, and his left eyebrow was slightly raised. When that item relocated itself, people should lock up their daughters and root round for chastity belts. ‘Man the bloody lifeboats,’ she sighed. ‘Get women and children off this ship.’ He was working his way up to something, and it was breakfast time. ‘Well?’ she asked once more. ‘How safe am I in your company, sir?’

Keith considered the question. They were in bed. They were in bed together. He was stark naked, as usual, while she was wrapped in a hideous dressing gown that looked as if it had been cobbled together by a visually challenged person whose only available fabrics were army surplus items. ‘If I can get you out of that horse blanket, you’ll be about as safe as a rabbit with the business end of a gun up its nose. Well? Are you going to carry on lying there all enigmatic and silent? I can do enigmatic and silent, but I won’t be still. In fact, I may come over rather vigorous.’

Eileen delivered a long, damp raspberry in his direction. The house was full of people. One was her mother, two were her sons, the fourth was her daughter, while the householder would be expecting eggs, toast and milky tea in about fifteen minutes. Eileen had things to do, and last night had been horrible. Poor Peter. If he got Mel in trouble, the lad would be doubly poor, that was a certainty. ‘Does it have to be now? Only I’ve other clients in need of attention.’

He nodded gravely. ‘Has to be now. Part of my course work, as I seem to remember explaining on several occasions. I told you about the practicals, didn’t I? There’s the oral exam you can help me with— Ouch. That hurt, madam. I shall park you on the draining board again if you’re not careful. Right, I’ll settle for a kiss and a bit of mechanical engineering.’

‘Mechanical excuse me?’

‘It does no harm,’ he said seriously, ‘just to check from time to time whether all your parts are in working order. We don’t want rust eating away at your bodywork. It’s a classy chassis, is that. Also, if you keep sleeping under that bloody tarpaulin, I shan’t be able to check your oil levels or your transmission. What if your independent front suspension goes? And how are you at double-declutching? I have a full set of tools here, including dipstick and socket set, so let’s have you up on the ramp.’

‘Have I got independent suspension?’

‘So far, yes. The rest of the motor car industry’s been a bit slow, but you’re a comfortable vehicle. I’ve no complaints. Do any of your other passengers voice concerns after a ride? We could compile a questionnaire and pass it round.’

Eileen enjoyed the close company of a vulgar man. This one was cleverer than her Lazzer had been, though Lazzer’s good points were certainly worth remembering with affection and gratitude. ‘You are not nice,’ she told Keith. ‘This tarpaulin belonged to Miss Morrison’s father, and she values it. It keeps me warm when you pinch all the eiderdown in the middle of the night. If this carries on, I shall have to wear a vest in bed.’ She had never worn a vest since childhood, and she’d no intention of starting now.