The Liverpool Trilogy (125 page)

‘Will she be all right?’ Sean asked.

‘I have faith in her and in this place. This is a damn good hospital. But the real answer is I don’t know. We have to pray, I think.’ He drained his cup. That had been the best
cuppa ever. Oh, Tess. Surely God wasn’t ready for an eccentric who looked after squirrels and birds, who worried lest he caught his foot in a mousetrap, whose fear of poverty had made her
outwardly hard and acquisitive? She was so different, so decided, so Irish, so beautiful, so difficult. It could not be her time, not yet. In her late thirties, menopause had not been expected; but
it probably wasn’t menopause at all. No, it was more likely to have been these bloody fibroids. Bloody was a good adjective in this scenario.

After an afternoon as long as a week, a nurse took Don on one side. ‘She’s in recovery, Mr Compton. They’ll keep an eye on her there for a couple of hours. You won’t be
able to see her for a while, because she lost a lot of blood, and we need to wait for the anaesthetic to wear off. But she’s young, well nourished and in good health apart from this problem
with the fibroids and endometriosis – that’s a kind of internal bleeding. Her blood pressure’s a bit low, but it’s an improvement on earlier readings. You were lucky to find
her in time.’

‘Yes. Thanks.’ He returned unsteadily to his offspring and delivered an edited version.

Suddenly hungry, the pair went off to scout the neighbourhood for food.

Don sat.
You were lucky to find her in time.
Where had he been? He’d been paying his dues in Molly’s bed, had been recompensing his mistress for providing Tess with the house
she had craved. Molly had been his beloved during years of starvation, had spoken to him properly while Tess had screamed or sat silently during meals when the children were present. Molly had
given him back his masculinity. He swallowed hard. For some months, he had served two women, and the cost of his duplicity would be high.

Why should Tess pay that price? He knew now that she’d had her reasons for behaving as she had; it had not been her fault. Whatever happened, she would pay. Her life still hung in the
balance; the loss of that might be the ultimate price. If she survived, she might lose her place of safety, the house of which she was so naively proud. It was just a semi in an area that sported
many pairs of such buildings, but it was her palace, her security, her territory. He remembered fear in her eyes, nightmares during which she kicked and screamed because there were too many
siblings in her bed.

I have to talk to Molly. I must go to her as soon as possible and tell her I’ve been unfaithful with my wife as well as to my wife. When the axe falls, I’ll just have to cope.
Tess has changed, but her childhood hasn’t. She might go back to those awful black dreams if we lose the house, and we have to lose the house. Thank God I never got to Harley Street to have
my knee done, because I would have owed Molly for that as well.

‘Mr Compton?’ A gentle hand touched his shoulder. It was the same nurse who had brought sweet tea. ‘Here you are. Two sarnies, one’s egg, the other’s salmon and
cucumber, I think. It’s Sister’s. She’s the only one who can afford red salmon. Oh, and here’s a glass of lemonade.’

He broke, tears pouring down his cheeks. The nurse got help, picked up the food, and followed Don into the sister’s office. A porter placed him in a comfortable chair. ‘There ya go,
lad,’ he said in broad Scouse. ‘Let our Loosey-Loose look after you, eh? Real name’s Lucy, but she won ’er nickname. Loose? Her drawers’ve been fitted with a lift
mechanism – press her nose, and they go all the way down to the cellar.’

The nurse clouted the porter, who left the room wearing a brown overall coat, a sore shoulder and a broad grin.

‘Don’t cry,’ she urged. ‘I have a sneaking feeling that your madam will be painting the wards with a two-inch brush come Monday. She woke. And I think she picked up where
she left off. Was she cooking?’

Don sniffed back a new flood of emotion. ‘She woke?’

‘Told me to switch the oven off or her steak would burn. Then she went back to sleep. She might have been tired, but she was bossy.’

Don allowed a long, shuddering sigh to leave his body. The sigh carried with it a story, and Don found himself placing the rather confused weight of his guilt on the shoulders of a very young
woman. ‘And she’ll lose her house, so it’ll be back to her childhood when she’s asleep, that caravan, too many kids and not enough food. And yes, she’s a bossy boots
and no, I wouldn’t part with her for all the clocks in Switzerland. I’ve been a fool, haven’t I?’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Compton, but we all make mistakes, you know.’

‘So am I sorry, Lucy. When we moved into the house, the first thing she did was spend a mint and stash food everywhere. Kitchen cupboards got crammed, and she put tinned food in the bottom
of every wardrobe. She can’t bear to see birds or squirrels without something to eat, so we’re overrun. One cheeky little squirrel takes food from her hands, and we’ve a robin who
comes through the open window to watch while Tess washes up. He likes a bit of arrowroot biscuit.’ He paused. ‘You won’t tell anybody, will you? I’m going to see Molly
myself. It has to come from me.’

She squeezed his hand. ‘I think you know the answer to that one, Mr Compton.’

‘Don. It’s Gordon, but I don’t like it.’ A slight smile touched his lips. ‘When I’m in real trouble with the wife, she screams out my full name. Gets my
attention every time.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Sounds like my kind of woman, Don. Now, listen. Write your phone number on that bit of paper. Give it to me, then go home and sort out her bloody braising steak or whatever
it is. The minute there’s any change in her condition, I’ll phone you. You have got a phone?’

He nodded, wrote down the number, thanked her, left the sandwiches, but drained the lemonade glass.

The kids were outside eating chips from paper. ‘They wouldn’t let us in with chips,’ Sean complained. ‘How is she?’

‘Asking about her steak when she woke. But she’s still in the recovery room. We’ve to go home. Lucy, her nurse, will phone us as soon as there’s any change. Come on. No
point hanging round here all day when there’s nothing we can do.’

‘What can we do at home?’ Anne-Marie asked.

Don touched his daughter’s arm. ‘We can free up three chairs in that waiting room for a start. What would Tess do if I became ill? She’d look after you, and visit me once I was
on a ward. You and your brother have been at the top of our list since you were born. She would take you home and wait for the phone to ring.’ He thanked God for making Tess mither till she
got her phone. She wasn’t keeping up with the Joneses; she was setting the pace, determined to overtake the Joneses, the Smiths and any others who thought they were ahead.

They got in the car. She’d be wanting a better vehicle once she left hospital. Oh yes, she would demand a prize after her ordeal. She was a delicious woman, a good housekeeper, keeper of
the Book of Knowledge, which she had written herself, good at her part-time jobs. But she remained slightly greedy and selfish due to deprivation at a very young age. Yet she was so damned
desirable. Fibroids and endo-something-or-other. Not cancer, not like his poor old mother, and thank God for that.

‘Will she be all right, Dad?’

‘Yes, Anne-Marie. A woman who wakes from anaesthesia and demands that someone saves her steak is not at death’s door. St Peter wouldn’t know what to do with her. She’d be
polishing harps, haloes and golden staircases, setting mousetraps and feeding squirrels. I mean, we’ve had her for years, and can we manage her?’

‘No,’ chorused the passengers.

At home, Don positioned himself on the third stair so that he would be near the telephone shelf. Anne-Marie busied herself with her version of high tea. She used tray cloths, but drew the line
at doilies. Doilies were for if the queen visited or for high days and holidays. The doorbell sounded, and she fled through the hall to answer it, closing the inner door behind her.

Don stared at the phone, willing it to ring. Not with bad news, of course. If it rang within the next half-hour, Tess would be all right. Why was he playing stupid, childish games? If it
didn’t ring in the next half-hour, would his wife be dead? ‘Come on, Lucy. Talk to me. Don’t leave me dangling like a fly in a web.’

Anne-Marie returned. She leaned against the inner door, the one that was guilty of attacking Tess’s panelling. It needed a rubber stopper. ‘He wanted to know how Mam was, said he saw
the ambulance.’

‘Who did?’

‘John Lennon.’ She squeezed in next to her dad. ‘You know what?’

‘What what? Or should it be which what?’

‘It’s not the right day for stupid jokes. He’s just an ordinary lad. Mark’s better-looking than him.’

‘What did you think he was? The one person in the world who doesn’t need toilet paper?’

‘Dad, don’t be vulgar. He’s going places.’

‘Yes, the dole for a start.’

Anne-Marie awarded her father a look fit to strip paint. ‘You old people don’t understand, do you? He’s got it.’

‘Got what? Measles, scarlet fever, a bad cold?’ Why wouldn’t the bloody phone ring? His daughter was wagging her finger at him now. She became more like her mother with every
day that passed.

‘He’s gifted. So’s Paul. We aren’t all stuck with Judy Garland over the flipping rainbow. I am going to make tea.’ She jumped to her feet and stalked off.

Don made a note about rubber stoppers. If he saved the panelling from further abuse, Tess would come home fit and well. Underneath the rubber stoppers, he wrote
Bookcase
. She wasn’t
an avid reader these days, but she’d be pleased if her house looked as if it contained educated folk.
New ironing board
and
Chanel 5
joined the list. He needed a bloody head
doctor. How could writing lists help Tess get home safe and well?

Anne-Marie stood in front of him once more, arms folded, foot tapping. ‘Our Sean’s brewed the tea, and that’s a miracle in itself, because he never lifts a finger in the house.
Get through there, Dad. We’re all worrying, all feeling a bit sick. Would Mam let you eat on the stairs near her new wallpaper? She’d have your guts for garters and your hair for
cushion stuffing.’

‘I’m waiting to hear.’

‘So are we, but we know that staring at a phone won’t make it ring.’

His little girl was a woman. In the absence of her mother, she stepped up to the plate and coped. Even if she married young, she would make a good job of it as long as she landed the right man.
‘You’re special,’ he said.

‘I know. I’m being moved up from apprentice to improver, because I’m a brilliant stylist. Anybody else has to do a full year, and I’ve only done eight months. See? All
this time, you’ve had a genius, and you never knew it. So get in there and eat my mother’s cake.’

And Don realized in that moment that most of the Irish families he knew laboured under matriarchy. Tiny women brought huge men to heel, and daughters followed in the footsteps of their female
predecessors, often learning much of their intricate art from two generations of warm and loving dictators. It was not a bad way to live.

They picked at their slightly lower tea. Tess’s high teas were ornate celebrations with matching porcelain cups, saucers, milk jug and lidded sugar pot. In fact, when Don thought about
Tess’s productions, he wondered why there were no fingerbowls. Anne-Marie had done a good job, but with the ordinary everyday crockery. ‘I didn’t want to break anything good.
There’ll be trouble enough, anyway. That nurse told me Mam won’t be able to use the hoover, drive or clean up for at least six weeks. She’ll go menthol eucalyptus if she
can’t do stuff. She mustn’t make beds, reach up too high, open and close windows, or carry anything heavier than a feather.’

Sean groaned. ‘God, she’ll be in a mood.’

Don nodded, a wistful smile on his face. ‘As long as she’s in one piece, I don’t care.’

Anne-Marie glanced at her brother. ‘We thought . . . we thought you were going to split up when we lived on Smithdown Road,’ she said. ‘We were scared, because she
shouldn’t be on her own. She needs us, Dad. I reckon she always will, because it’s the way she’s made.’

‘I know. Don’t worry about that, because it’s more or less sorted out.’ There was Molly. It couldn’t be put right until he’d seen Molly. ‘Your mother
had a terrible childhood, hungry, cold and miserable. She never learned to read till she got to England. Quite a few Irish kids in remote areas didn’t go to school. The fear of poverty
plagues her.’

‘I know,’ chorused the siblings.

The phone jangled raucously.

Don stood, knocking over his chair so that it lay on its back. He rushed down the hall, cursing Dunkirk for his inability to move at a faster pace. Snatching up the receiver, he breathed a
choked ‘Hello’ into it.

‘Don?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Lucy. She’s fine, on a ward and fast asleep. Don’t bother coming, because you might as well talk to the wall, and visiting’s seven till eight, so she’s
not likely to surface by then. Come at three tomorrow. We have longer visiting on a Sunday.’ She paused. ‘Don?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t cry.’

He hadn’t realized that he’d been weeping. After thanking Lucy, he hung up and turned to his children, who stood clinging on to each other. Drying his eyes, he gave them the news.
‘She made it. They said to stay away tonight, because she won’t even know we’re there, and she needs her rest.’ The three of them gathered in a huddle, each one clutching
the other two.

Sean was the first to break away. ‘Synchronized sobbing,’ he muttered. ‘I’m going for a pint. You coming, Dad?’

‘No. I’m off to see Molly. I need to tell her what’s happened, because I’ll have to have time off when Tess gets home. Anne-Marie?’

‘What?’

‘Behave yourself while your brother and I are out. No going upstairs with Mark.’ Who was he to be telling this young woman how to live? She was nudging sixteen, while he was a man in
his forties with a wife, a mistress, and a house he didn’t really own. He was the reprobate, the one playing an away game several times a month. Visits had diminished of late, because he was
living two lives. And Molly seemed . . . different. Was she ill, too? He couldn’t hurt her if she was ill, could he?