Read The Liverpool Trilogy Online
Authors: Ruth Hamilton
‘Very near to truth. I gave her the Liverpool waterfront, and she gave me this.’ From a brown paper bag she lifted a piece of framed embroidery. It was beautifully done with a border
of flowers. Stitched onto the cloth were nine words.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.
‘That’s beautiful,’ Maureen said. ‘Did she do it?’
Paddy shook her head. ‘It’s antique. Ronnie paid a sum for it. The money goes to the local children’s home. See what I mean? He looks after the poor and afflicted, then he
turns and . . .’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Violet’s a fierce feminist, yet she’s blind where her boys are concerned. I like her. It’s a while since I met a more
likeable woman. I invited her to Liverpool, and you’d have thought I’d offered her the crown jewels. She won’t come, because she won’t leave her boys, but she was pleased
all the same.’
Tom was careful in the presence of his youngest son. ‘The three men in the car?’ he asked casually.
‘No idea, Tom. I didn’t ask. It was a happy conversation for the most part, and I wasn’t about to spoil it.’
‘Were you afraid at all?’
Paddy smiled at her son-in-law. ‘Not as frightened as he is.’
Tom thought for a moment. ‘What’s Ronnie Kray afraid of?’
‘Of himself. Of the demon behind the eyes. And I sensed that he can’t function properly without his brother. After all, they are two halves of one whole. Identical twins are from the
one cluster of cells. He looked lost.’ She slapped her knees with both hands. ‘Let’s forget all this and eat. Tomorrow we rest, and Sunday we’re home.’
Seamus heard little. He was going to see the sights of London, and nothing else mattered.
‘Don’t tell anybody we went to the Krays’ house.’ This litany had been drummed so deeply into Seamus’s brain that he actually took notice of it.
But he wrote four pages of foolscap and took them in to school. He handed them to Vera with a letter from Mam that pleaded urgent and unexpected family business in London as the reason for
Seamus’s Friday off. Having donated his masterpiece to the form teacher, Seamus put his head down on the desk and fell asleep.
Sister Veronica set the rest of the class some work before sitting down to read what Seamus Walsh had written. At the top sat the legend,
It is gone midnight and I am writing this by
torchlight. I have to write it now before I forget bits.
It was difficult to keep a straight face while reading this boy’s work. He had a way with words, and a dry humour that seemed very
mature for a lad of his age, but she was determined to persevere.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE
It’s all right. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, and some of the railings are fancy, but it’s just a very big house. It wasn’t what
you’d call clean, either, cos some of the stones were darker than others. She was in, because there was a flag up, and Dad says a flag up means she’s in residence. If you rang the
doorbell, which you can’t, it might take her ages to get to the front door. Not that she’d answer it, anyway. Dad says a lackey would do it. Not sure what a lackey is, but
I’ll find out in the dictionary. I bet they need maps to find their way round that palace. She’s got corgis. Corgis are snappy little dogs, Dad says. But Queen Elizabeth rules them
with a rod of iron. Is the rod of iron that thing she keeps with the ball that has a cross on top? I hope she doesn’t hit them with the rod of iron, cos that would be cruel.
The men in daft hats are there, and Dad told me to leave well alone, but I tried to make one laugh. He didn’t laugh, and I thought he was a statue, so I asked was he a statue, and
his mouth twitched. So they are actually alive. Boring, though. I’d hate to have to stand there doing nothing. What if they got an itchy nose or something? Would it be off with their
heads?
Anyway, I saw the queen’s house, and I suppose it’s OK, but I wouldn’t like to light all the fires every day.
ST PAUL’S
St Paul’s has a big dome. It’s not Catholic, so we didn’t go in. During the war, Mr Churchill said St Paul’s was so important that it had to be
saved at all costs. So it was saved at all costs, as Mr Churchill was boss of the war. Oh, it has a lot of steps up to the front door, so that’s the other reason why we didn’t go
in, because the car was waiting. So that’s all it was, just steps and a dome with a bit of a point on top.
I think it was a round building. A circle. I don’t know what all the fuss was about. They’d have been better saving people at all costs than saving that thing at all costs. It
might not have been round. I might be mixing it up with something called the Albert Hall. That had a lot of steps, too, so it wasn’t worth the bother.
When playtime arrived, the nun ushered the class out to the yard. She put a finger to her lips. ‘Let him sleep,’ she whispered. ‘He’s been on a long journey.’ She
referred not to London, but to the advances Seamus had made over the past eighteen months. The boy had matured, and he owned a special eye for detail. Also, his spelling had taken something of a
turn for the better.
She sat at her desk once more.
THE EMBANKMENT
It’s just a river, but it’s wide with bridges everywhere. Tower Bridge is smart, but the others are ordinary. All kinds of boats on the water, lots of people
talking and shouting. They talk funny, but I knew what they were saying, cos I’ve seen films with London people in them. There are beautiful buildings with really posh doorways and poles
– Dad says they’re called columns. It was lively down there, but not as busy as our Liverpool docks.
Course, we’re not posh, so we don’t have an embankment. We have Liverpool, Birkenhead, Wallasey, the Pier Head, but no embankment. Trust them to need a fancy name for
it.
Sister Veronica grinned. He was perceptive, and very decided for a mere child. And he’d been up half the night straining his eyes to write this in poor light.
And there he sat now, dead to the world, tousled head resting on an open maths book. His family should be proud, because a cheeky little urchin was fast becoming a personable young man. Still
cheeky, though.
PALACE OF WESTMINSTER AND OTHER PLACES
Now they’re talking. This is really, really nice to look at, much prettier than the queen’s house. There’s Big Ben for a start. Dad said the name Big
Ben is just one huge bell inside the workings, but everybody calls the whole clock Big Ben. There’s bits of gold up at the top. I wonder how many people died building it? A lot have died
falling off Liverpool Proddy Cathedral, and it’s still not quite finished.
Dad said this was the people’s palace and I asked him what he meant. The House of Commons is in there, full of idiots, he told me. The daftest thing about it is that people like my
dad voted for the idiots, so voters must be stupid too. Mr Macmillan is the boss in the Commons. But I never saw such a wonderful place, right next to the river, all towers and fancy windows.
It’s ours. It’s the people’s palace. The queen isn’t allowed in the House of Commons because she isn’t one of us.
I wanted to go in, but there were no tours and our car was waiting again. Then we went to Downing Street and my dad took a photo of me with a cop on the steps of Number Ten. It’s
not a mansion, it’s just a house stuck to other houses, but I bet it’s posh inside.
We had something to eat in a café on Piccadilly Circus. Hundreds of people rushed about outside, all busy and not looking at each other. The chips in London are not as good as the
chips in Liverpool and the vinegar tasted funny. Dad said it was probably watered down, cos London folk will do anything for a quick quid. I think he doesn’t like London much.
I will go back one day, but just to visit. There’s a lot of trouble with gangs and fighting and people getting hurt and I don’t want that kind of thing. But there’s a
street called Fleet Street where newspapers are made, and I might go there, I don’t know yet. Then there’s another place called Threadneedle Street and the Bank of England is there.
Stupid name for a street.
And one of the places we went to had yellow houses. I never saw yellow houses before. They looked strange.
Regent Street and Oxford Street have loads of shops, some of them very big, and they’re not yellow. But while I watched all these people running about, I thought they looked lonely
and they’d be better off up here where we talk to each other. Thousands of them dashing round, nobody stopping for a chat or anything. Dad said you could probably drop down dead in the
West End and nobody would notice for a week.
Oh, I nearly forgot. Westminster Abbey’s very nice. Me and Dad stood outside and heard angels singing. Only they weren’t angels, they were boys. Our driver told us that. The
singing made me tingle all down my back and I don’t know why. Dad had to use a hanky to dry his eyes, and said it was the cold air stinging them. But it wasn’t. It was the choir.
The song made you want to cry. I don’t understand how that happens.
It’s nice to be able to say that I’ve been. But coming back home was great. Too many people in London for my liking. They travel under the ground, too, all packed like
animals, squashed together beneath the pavements. It’s no way to live. That’s what Dad says, anyway.
The sister known as Vera placed Seamus Walsh’s work in a large cardboard envelope. He could keep all his pieces in there. Soon, he would go to the grammar school, but she intended to give
him a head start. With one or two others, he would be offered advanced lessons in English Language. If he didn’t become a writer of some sort, she would eat her habit, wimple included.
Molly was married. Don chuckled to himself when he read the notice in the paper. She needed happiness, closeness and a good marriage, and he hoped she would be blissful, since
she deserved nothing but the best. With her dogs, her ukulele and her tropical fish, she was one of the most wonderfully eccentric people he’d met. Singing in pubs, performing at birthday
parties, weddings and the occasional bar mitzvah, she was perpetually on the go. Her energy had been contagious, and she’d shown him how to be truly alive at a time when Tess had appeared not
to want to know him.
He would never forget Molly, partly because his love for her had been real, mostly because of all she had done for him and his family. This lovely house, his wonderful born-again wife, the
treatment Tess was undergoing – all these things had been made possible by a generous, big-hearted woman. He owed her everything, yet he knew she would never accept repayment even if he ever
found the ability to repay.
Tess, armed with a bright yellow duster, entered the front room. He could tell that she wanted to talk, and that she was trying to hide behind the duster. What was she up to this time? The next
few minutes would tell, he supposed. Now that he’d learned how to almost manage her, life was good. Oh well, let her get on with it. Like an electric kettle, she took a little while to reach
boiling point, though she didn’t overspill as frequently as she once had.
Never mind. The job with Injun Joe was going well, Sean and his best friend were trying to establish their own garage business on the Dock Road, while Anne-Marie, now a fully qualified
hairdresser who had almost recovered from Quarry Men fever, seemed to be edging towards marriage with Mark. So taken all round, life was good. Except for . . . yes, she was going to speak.
‘I don’t want to go. I’m not ready for it. It’s all too soon and too complicated.’ Ah, so Tess was in a darker mood today. She was trying to put her foot down, and
she knew as well as he did that she was in the wrong. Yet in a way, he found her more endearing when she was acting all Contrary Mary. Without her unpredictability, her odd little ways with wild
animals, those sudden smiles that lit up a whole room, life would have been considerably duller.
‘I’m not doing it,’ she said sternly. ‘They can reunify themselves without any help from me.’
Don tutted. ‘But it’s what you’ve been working towards. Look, we can go, sit at one side, then come home. If you don’t want to get too involved—’
‘And what would be the point of that? It’s supposed to be a Riley reunion, and if I don’t want to join in I shouldn’t go. Nobody can make me go.’
He could. He could and he would. ‘You must go. Dr Banks said you ought to go. In the weeks you’ve been seeing him, you’ve come on in leaps and bounds. And that young
woman’s going to be there, the one who had a single room while you were both in the Women’s. She looks like your sister, but she isn’t. Joe found out she’s not one of your
caravan crew. Tess, knowledge is power. Take hold of it, shake it, see what falls out.’
Tess carried on dusting furiously while Don kept an eye on her. All she seemed to achieve was the stirring up of particles which settled elsewhere. Real dusting involved a slightly damp cloth
and concentration, so it was plain that she was simply working out her fears on the furniture. ‘Tess, I love you to bits.’
‘I know that.’ She flicked an angry cloth at a chiming mantel clock that had been a birthday present from Don.
‘So would I set you wrong? Would I ask you to do something that might hurt you and send you hurtling back into nightmares?’
Tess sighed and sat down. ‘No, you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, and vice versa. I’d have been much happier to spend the cash on your knee, as you well know.’ She
paused, nervous fingers plucking at her yellow duster. ‘It’s you. You’re the reason I’m better, because you’re always there in the night. That’s as important as
a mad doc droning on about my mother, my heightened sense of guilt, and the brothers and sisters. Then, of course, we have the buckets.’
Don managed not to smile. ‘Buckets? What the blood and sand have buckets to do with anything?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Mind, you’d miss having a bucket if you needed to mop a floor, Tess.’
She threw the duster at him. It missed and draped itself unbeautifully over a Wedgwood dish. ‘We all have a bucket,’ she told him sternly.