The Liverpool Trilogy (124 page)

‘Why?’ Tess asked him often. ‘When she’s so . . . silly?’

And he would smile his slow, beautiful smile, displaying perfect teeth. ‘I’m here for the long haul,’ he said. ‘Anne-Marie may even turn out to be as pretty as her
mother, and her mother’s the bonus. I like being seen round and about with a beautiful older woman in a clapped-out Morris van.’

‘There’s nothing at all wrong with my van, I’ll have you know.’

‘That’s not what your Sean says. He thinks if it were a horse you’d have to put it out of its misery, or the RSPCA would haunt you.’

‘All mechanics talk like that, Mark. Plumbers are the same, just drama queens with toolboxes. They do that sucking in of breath through their teeth, then tell you to get new taps, not just
washers. Our Sean does the same with gearboxes and what have you. Sharp intake of air, head shaking because the job isn’t going to be cheap. You don’t fool me, any of you. No man can
ever fool a woman, and even other women have a hard time fooling me.’

Tess’s other work involved clothing. Again, she picked up from assorted agencies, mostly shops, and took the clothes to Johnson’s Dye Works, a huge employer in the Bootle area. She
would deliver the dirty, pick up the dry-cleaned, then return items to the same shops from which she had collected earlier. Always aware of the dangers of chemicals, she drove windblown and
rain-damped, because carbon tetrachloride was a killer. But she loved driving, enjoyed being out and about with just herself or Mark for company.

Life was good and safe. The fear of a return to childhood poverty had lessened in its intensity. She had a beautiful home, two attractive and hardworking children, a car of sorts and, on
Saturday mornings, the company of an interesting and very handsome young man. All was well. No. All was almost well. There was a niggle in her head, and it was making its relentless way to the
forefront of her consciousness.

She pulled into the driveway. She had dropped Mark in town, where he had muttered darkly about an expected invasion by Mods wearing army greatcoats and riding girlie scooters. It was Saturday
lunch time, and the children were out. They would be home shortly, since both the garage and the hair salon worked just a half-day on Saturdays. Don’s car wasn’t there. He worked some
weekends for just a few hours, but he had spent more time at home of late. They were closer. She liked being closer, being valued, even loved. He was delighted with her, and she enjoyed his
delight.

‘I gave him a hard time,’ she told her nutkin tree. She had no idea of the tree’s real genre, but she called it nutkin because of the squirrels. A slight smile decorated her
features. ‘What the hell were you doing with a frying pan, a rose bowl and two tins of peas?’ she remembered Don asking.

‘Merely temporary measures,’ she had replied loftily. He had thought she was crazy. She was a long way from that.

The tins of peas had been replaced by bricks, then by a bit of carpentry performed by Don. The tins of peas, then the bricks, now the proper fixings kept steady a plank along which the squirrels
scampered to their little house, another item built by Tess’s husband to her design. They travelled along rope, frail branches and tree bark, tails positioned for balance, one eye on the
birds, the other on fellow squirrels. They were cunning and fun, and they had become Tess’s hobby.

The frying pan had held the creatures’ water containing a tiny pinch of salt to hold off the ravages of frost, while the rose bowl was filled with nut-and-fat lollipops pushed through the
metal grille into a mass of Plasticine. Tess’s hope that the squirrels would stay in the nutkin tree had been a vain one. They ate anything and everything, while the birds, intended
beneficiaries of the lollipops made by Tess, had to be grateful for scraps left by the rodent invaders. She didn’t feed any of them during these months of summer. They were wild, they were
foragers, and they could get foraging for a change. If they wanted room service fifty-two weeks a year, they were in the wrong hotel.

‘Nobody ever said it would be fair,’ she mumbled as she stepped out of the van.

‘Talking to yourself, Mrs Compton?’

She turned and found herself gazing into the amused eyes of the Lennon boy. He was another good-looking lad. If he’d get rid of the Presley quiff, he’d look nearly normal.

‘Well, I’m sure of an audience that way,’ she replied.

‘True,’ he said. ‘I see you’ve got some squizzles. They come down from Strawberry Fields. See you.’ He walked off, hands in the pockets of a fashionably scarred
leather jacket, jaw moving as he chewed his statutory gum. Squizzles. She would remember that word for the rest of her life.

The house was echoey without the usual number of humans. Tess shoved some braised steak into the oven to heat through before starting on her vegetables. The niggle continued to niggle. There was
something wrong with Don. Peas scraped from the pod made music as they tumbled into a metal colander. Where were the carrots? He was awkward, uncommunicative, quiet during lovemaking. No need to
worry about gravy; that was in with the steak. He wouldn’t talk about how he felt. Don was giving her a taste of her own medicine, and it was not pleasant. No, he wasn’t punishing her.
There was not a single bad bone in the man, and he enjoyed the new closeness, as did she. ‘Surprised yourself, didn’t you, Tess?’ she said. ‘Life in the old girl yet,
what?’ But yes, he was quiet.

She had been a terrible wife. She should have spoken to him about her faith, her need to abstain because contraception was sinful. These carrots were tough to cut. Sinful? Older and wiser now,
she wondered whether Rome wanted millions of Catholics, thereby reducing its women to the status of brood mares. ‘I was so bloody selfish,’ she told the wall. ‘Bitter. I was a
bitter, nasty bitch, and he’s a good man.’ Early menopause had arrived like a gift from above, though she hadn’t felt too well of late. A woman’s lot had never been, would
never be a happy one. There was pain in her belly. She had better go and see the doc again next week.

Carrots, peas, braised steak and a bit of mash; yes, all that would do nicely for Saturday lunch. Weekends were high tea days. The main meal was produced at lunch time, while high tea was a
feast of home-made scones, sandwiches with the crusts removed, and Tess’s speciality, her cakes or pies. He wasn’t completely happy. He pretended to be happy, but he wasn’t.
She’d made a banana loaf for tea, and a feather-light sponge cake with real cream. Oh, she was a lucky woman, because she had a light touch with pastry and cakes. Edgy. Yes, that was the word
for Don. As if he could never get really comfortable.

She remembered the conclusion she had reached months ago: there had to have been another woman. Don adored his children, had stayed for their sake. ‘And all I did was moan about the flat,
the business, my own precious self, a house on Menlove Avenue, and Skaters’ Trails blooming carpet. Idiot.’ He couldn’t be blamed for seeking comfort elsewhere. How did she feel
about it? She hadn’t the slightest idea. Well, no, that wasn’t quite the case. She was empty, yet there was no jealousy. ‘I understand,’ she admitted aloud after a few
seconds. ‘Don was lonely. Marriage can be the loneliest place.’

While slicing carrots, she failed to concentrate, cutting quite deeply into the middle finger of her left hand. There was very little pain, just a twinge when she moved her hand. Orange circles
of carrot and red droplets of blood did not look well together. Who was the other woman? Where was she? Did he love her? As she made to stand, all strength drained suddenly from her body. She felt
it leaving her head, her chest, her abdomen and, finally, her legs. There was blood everywhere. It was all over the floor. How could so much come from a nick in a finger?

With Saturday’s lunch unfinished, she began to lose consciousness, fell off the chair and lay on a black-and-white chequered floor across which a pool of bright blood began to spread. Her
last thought was that the braising steak might burn. There would be no dinner and . . . and . . .

Fortunately, Don was the one who found her. As he dialled 999, he thanked God that his children were absent, because the scene was truly terrifying. And she couldn’t die, mustn’t
die. He loved her. And there was Molly, then all this blood; it was coming from Tess’s womb, he thought. And there was Molly and this house and Anne-Marie on her way back from work and—
‘Do something,’ he snapped. ‘Stop Mollying about.’

Cold water on towels pushed up between her legs, blood in her beautiful hair, so lovely, that hair. Face drained of colour, hands so white that touches of pale pink nail varnish managed to look
garish. She was a fair-skinned woman anyway, but this was . . . different. A finger had been cut; at the same time, the trouble in her insides had shown itself, and she was bleeding towards death.
Where the hell was the ambulance?

At last, the tinny sound of distant bells reached him and got louder. Was she breathing? Was her heart beating? As the front door crashed inward, Don found himself hoping that Tess’s new
panelling hadn’t been damaged, because she guarded that with her life. Her life. Did she have one?

Two huge men entered the room. ‘Women’s Hospital,’ said the first. ‘Follow in your car, Mr . . . er . . .’

‘Compton,’ Don managed.

‘Yes, well, we’d best be quick, Mr Compton. Leave the room, please, while we get her stretchered. And calm yourself, because blood always looks more than it is.’

Don went into the living room. Through the window, he watched the men pushing his wife into the ambulance. Neighbours stood about in small, chattering clutches. Blood. He couldn’t let
Anne-Marie find all that blood. But he had to get to the Women’s . . . He couldn’t be in two places at once. Even Tess had never managed to be in two places at once. Wife. Blood. Wife
or blood? The knee started to throb. Even thinking about cleaning the floor made the whole leg ache.

He cleaned. It was what she would have wanted. Like him, she preferred to shelter the children from unnecessary suffering, so Don worked at shifting blood that had flowed very recently through
the veins of his Tess. Two bath towels went straight into the outside dustbin; the remainder of the mess was shifted by a long mop and a bucket of disinfected water. Did the white tiles look a bit
pinkish? Was his wife alive or dead? Were the kids almost home?
Oh, God, don’t make me have to live without her. She might be a terrible woman in some respects, but she’s my terrible
woman.

Here they came, another pair guilty of assaulting Tess’s precious panelling by throwing the front door against it. And she rushed into his mind, a tiny girl who slept in a gypsy caravan,
an infant too small to fight her siblings for food, and he studied her chosen place of safety for a few seconds. This kitchen was her shelter, her comfort zone. Poverty was Tess’s dread, her
nemesis—

‘Dad?’

He turned off the oven. ‘Anne-Marie. Sean.’

‘Where’s the dinner?’ the latter asked.

Don looked at the ceiling and shook his head. ‘Haven’t you noticed something else missing, lad? Like your mother? That woman you see every day, fair hair, blue eyes, the person who
cooks and cleans and—’ He closed his mouth tightly. Making his son feel guilty would not improve matters. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to say all that, not to you. She’s on
her way to hospital. I stayed to clean up the . . . the mess.’

‘Why hospital?’ Anne-Marie’s voice was shrill, childlike.

‘I think they call it a haemorrhage, love.’

‘Is that bleeding?’

‘Yes. Yes, it is. I cleaned it up. She would have wanted that.’

Anne-Marie swallowed audibly. ‘Would have wanted? Is she . . . dead?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

Sean stared hard at his dad. ‘Why are we standing here?’ he asked.

Don offered no reply. He didn’t know why his legs wouldn’t move. Yes, he did. His legs wouldn’t budge because the rest of him didn’t want the answer. Was she dead? He
heard himself.
Tess, why is there a mousetrap in the clean linen cupboard?

She had laughed at him. Her throat, when she raised her head to laugh, was swan-like, slender but firm, white, kiss-able.
We have a mouse, you nutter. They come out at night. You don’t
want your foot caught in the trap, do you? So I put it away in the morning, get more cheese, bait the thing and put it out last thing at night.
Yes, there had been an explanation for all of it.
Early menopause? Or something else, something that tried to take her life on a beautiful summer Saturday? And he allowed the word through at last. Cancer. Rumour had it that the disease loved
oxygen, so after a patient had been opened up . . . Another old wives’ tale.

‘Dad?’ Anne-Marie was clearly approaching hysteria. ‘Come on, please,’ she begged. ‘She needs us with her. What’s the matter with you?’

Sean answered for his father. ‘Shock.’

None of them would remember any details of the journey to the Women’s Hospital. Don, an automaton, obeyed traffic lights and Give Way signs, but the car seemed to guide itself in the right
direction. As soon as he parked, his son and daughter jumped out and leapt in the direction of the main entrance.

He followed on feet of lead. Inside, he discovered that his wife, who had been judged an emergency, was in theatre. He signed something or other without fully realizing that he had given staff
carte blanche as far as treatment was concerned, then was led by a nurse to a chair next to his children. ‘Your dad’s in a bit of a state,’ she advised Sean. ‘Come with me,
and we’ll get him some sweet tea.’

As he sipped the hot liquid, Don began his return to the here and now. ‘How did we get to the hospital?’ he asked Anne-Marie.

‘You drove.’

‘Did I?’

The girl nodded. It looked as if both her parents were no longer in working order. ‘You need that sugar, Dad. Mam’s having her . . . I think it’s her womb removed. And blood
transfusions. They tried to explain to me, because I’m a girl, and they said a word with fibre in it.’

‘Fibroids,’ said Don, whose blood sugar level was improving fast. ‘They’re not cancer, but they’re growths.’