Ruth Hamilton

The Liverpool Trilogy: Mersey View, That Liverpool Girl & Lights of Liverpool

Pan Books

Contents

Mersey View

That Liverpool Girl

Lights of Liverpool

Author biography

By Ruth Hamilton

Copyright

Mersey View

Ruth Hamilton

PAN BOOKS

CONTENTS

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

One

At the age of forty-five, Lucy Henshaw ran away from home. The decision to go had been reached neither lightly nor suddenly, since the urge to clear off had existed for about eighteen years, but Lucy believed in duty, so she hung in there until the time was right. It was now or never, so it was now. The millennium had happened, and a new beginning seemed appropriate.

Nevertheless, a degree of trepidation accompanied the proposed exit, since she was leaving behind roots that went deep, and she found herself hoping against hope itself that she might survive without nutrients whose values were beyond the limits of ordinary calculation.

Another difficulty was the suspicion that she might be running from, rather than towards. A new beginning? No. It was merely an ending, a cutting away of rotted flesh in an effort to save what was left of her normal, original self. She now knew where she would be living by this afternoon, and there was a vague idea of how she might occupy her new persona. Beyond that loomed a vacuum, since her children were grown. ‘Sometimes, I wonder whether you are really sane, Lucy,’ she told herself. Yet it had to be done, quickly, quietly and with as little fuss as possible.

Tallows was not just the matrimonial home; it had been in her family for four generations. ‘I was born here,’ she told a photograph of her parents. ‘You already know that, Mother, because your attendance was compulsory.’ She placed the item in a carrier bag, where it joined photos of her twin sons and her daughter. At last, the children were old enough. Would they understand? Advised by her only friend to explain to them in full every detail, Lucy had refused. She didn’t want her offspring involved in war. Because Alan would throw several fits and would take no responsibility for his wife’s behaviour. He was a ruined man, and their mother had caused all the damage. She would go softly. Since she had done most things quietly thus far, she would be acting in character; no one would be surprised by her lower-than-ever profile.

So Lucy had sent them simple messages just to say that she was leaving, and that her reasons for this were not easy to explain. They had busy lives, plenty to do, friends all over the country. They would endure the blow. These thoughts chased one another across her mind as she walked for the last time through the house she loved.

Her dolls’ house was in the attic. Lizzie had played with it too, had grown out of it, and the large, fully furnished treasure had been returned to the top storey for future generations. ‘I wish I could explain, Lizzie. But I can’t be the means of destroying the love you have for Dad.’ It would all come out eventually, and Lucy was used to waiting.

She stroked the rocking horse. Its mane, made from real horsehair, had been depleted by several children who had hung on to it, and it needed repair. But she couldn’t save these important things, because she trusted no one enough to allow the removal of mementos. ‘Sorry,’ she said to Dobbin. Dolls, teddy bears, dartboards, story books, toy soldiers, cars and jigsaw puzzles were piled on shelves. It would all go. Once the receivers moved in, there would be nothing left. If the receivers moved in. According to Lucy’s lawyer, the house would remain Lucy’s property, but nothing in life was ever absolutely certain. ‘I couldn’t risk a removals van, because I need not to be noticed, so I have to abandon you to the winds of fate. I hope you’ll all be loved by someone.’

The estate was a large one, and its legal owner made her way towards the grounds for a final wander through her family’s domain. She looked again at her apple trees, the vegetable plot, her raspberry canes, and at the swings on which her offspring had played. Father’s rose beds remained. Lucy had tended them, sprayed them, deadheaded and cut them back. Carp in the fish pond had no idea that life was about to change. Would he feed them? Would the gardener feed them? How was the gardener to be paid?

She stood in a kitchen where she had cooked thousands of meals. The cleaner had been and gone, so it was tidy, at least. The library was the place that hurt most. All Father’s leather-bound books were here, and the only item she would manage to save was the family Bible. Still, the situation could not be helped. No matter what, she had to go, and she could take very little with her in an ordinary car.

However, there was a tenuous plan. The house, if he pushed for a settlement and won, would possibly go to auction and, in that situation, Lucy’s representative would attend. It was likely that Alan would sell the contents in an effort to bluff his way out of bankruptcy, but his bills were large. She hoped to save the building, and that had to be enough. It should be hers anyway, because she had signed nothing when loans against the house had been taken out. In the legal sense, she had little to fear.

He would win no settlement, surely? So why was her heartbeat suddenly erratic? Why were her palms so hot and moist? Did she fear the man she had married, the one she sometimes referred to as the big mistake? Alan had never been physically violent, though drink made him angry, and he was now married to whisky. He drifted from woman to woman, though each female in turn saw through him, got bored by his drinking and passed him on to the next victim. ‘Now or never,’ Lucy advised herself.

Where was the cat carrier? Where was the cat? Then the phone rang. She picked it up. ‘Hello?’ She sounded breathless, as if she had run a half-marathon. It was him. For better or worse had been mostly worse. For richer for poorer – he knew how to make a partner poor.

‘I’ll be home in about an hour,’ he said, cutting the connection before she had chance to reply. Smokey, like the carp, would have to be left to chance. Shaking from head to foot, Lucy reversed her car into the lane and drove off. Once her knees belonged to her again, she managed to control the vehicle. She was gone. She was travelling to Liverpool.

So, she left behind two sons, a daughter, a cat, and a drawer filled with unpaid bills. And a husband. He occupied the lowest place on the agenda, because he’d caused all the difficulties right from the start. In a sense, she should be blaming herself, because she’d married beneath her. Lucy had fastened herself to a man who, after landing her with three children, would spend twenty years forging signatures, remortgaging property and bleeding her dry of her inheritance. But now, the worm had turned, and she was in a new place.

‘Then why do I feel so bloody guilty?’ she asked an empty room. Her children were all in further education, they had survived, and she had done her best. It had been a waiting game, because she hadn’t wanted to ruin their lives, and so she had sat back while he had stolen her inheritance, first to start the business, then to further broader commercial interests; also to gamble, and to spend on other women.

‘Tit for tat,’ she muttered. ‘And he was so used to getting his own way, he never noticed what I was doing.’ These words were offered to a bin bag that contained a fraction of her revenge. How would he build an estate of twenty detached, exclusive, executive residences now? That was how he had advertised the project, and land in Bromley Cross hadn’t come cheap. But Lucy now held the wherewithal for bricks, timber, glazing, sand, cement, wages and other essentials in a shiny black plastic bag and in a bank account created by her friend and solicitor, Glenys Barlow. The bag was recyclable, of course. One had to do one’s bit for the planet these days. She allowed herself a wry smile.

It had taken months. Little by little, she had relieved her husband of all ‘his’ money while the purchase of the land had been negotiated, while plans had been drawn, rejected, redrawn, accepted. His fatal mistake had been the holiday he had taken in Crete with one of his women – a hairdresser from Rivington. During those fourteen days, Lucy had taken full advantage of her position as company secretary, and she had ruined him.

Over a period of years, she had learned to copy his signature and, after taking private lessons, she had conquered computers. Her lawyer held in a strongroom all evidence of Alan’s past misdemeanours. If he wanted to fight back from a legal point of view, he would be riding the wrong horse, since his wife, Louisa, once Buckley, now Henshaw, had merely retrieved money to which he had gained access fraudulently. Confident of his wife’s supposed stupidity, Alan Henshaw would not have believed her capable of doing so much harm. Furthermore, she had taken into account inflation, the current value of the money that had been bequeathed to her, and she had left him in a mess. Her children were not in a mess, as she had opened accounts that would see all three through university.

He had been mistaken, because his wife had never been stupid; she had been patient and anxious for her children. Even so, this was a big thing to have done. She looked at her watch. He would have been home for hours by now. She lifted from the refuse bag a copy of a letter printed out this morning at home. No, not home – she didn’t live there any more. He could well be reading it now. He would have kittens even before reaching the final paragraph.

Alan,

For a very long time, I sat back and watched while you stole from the joint account. I saw money disappearing from my own personal account, and landing in yours or in the company’s records. I also know that you forged my signature several times to remortgage the family home, which was left to me by my parents.

Evidence of your misdeeds is in a safe place, and my representatives know exactly what you have done over the years, so I would advise you to hang fire – go for bankruptcy and take the pain, just as I did.

Why did I wait so long? Because Paul, Mike and Lizzie deserved a chance, and they will have that chance. I have lost a house I love, have abandoned my children, and have left you all the unpaid bills. They are in your sock drawer. It’s very full, so your socks are in the dustbin.

You could never recompense me fully for the agonies I have endured for so long a period of time. Don’t bother trying to find me, because I shall make sure it all comes out if you attempt to harass me in the slightest way.

Louisa Buckley

Powerful stuff. And how she had shaken when typing it. Had she attempted to write by hand, the letter would not have been legible. It was done. It was all done, and there could be no going back.

Right. Here she sat, waiting for carpets and furniture. As she had bought from a local firm, they had agreed to deliver out of hours, and she might be semi-furnished by ten o’clock tonight. With the exception of holidays and stays in hospital, Lucy had never slept away from Tallows, that large and rather regal house built on the outskirts of Bolton by an eighteenth-century candlemaker. She had been born and raised there, had been loved by parents and grandparents, and by a wonderful sister who had died suddenly after being thrown by her pony.

So alone. In this hollow, musty house, there was just Lucy, suitcases in another room, a rickety chair, and a pile of money in a bag. The rest of her fortune was abroad somewhere. Glenys, her only friend, was in charge of all that. A marriage like Lucy’s had attracted few visitors, and she had confided in no one beyond Glenys Barlow. ‘I’m a millionaire,’ she advised the ornate marble fireplace. Yet she felt poor. The bulk of her fortune had been salted away, but Glenys trusted whoever had handled the money, and that was good enough for Lucy.

She stood up and walked round her seven-bedroom terraced mansion. It overlooked the Mersey, a solid house that was huge for one woman. But she wasn’t going to be idle. She needed just one bedroom and a tiny boxroom for an office. So there were five spares, an en suite bathroom for herself, and two further bathrooms for guests. Bed and breakfast, she had decided. Perhaps she would install a few more en suites, but that wasn’t important yet. Or she might live downstairs – there were enough rooms to create a bedroom and an office on the ground floor, plus a shower room that would take a corner bath at a push. A fresh start, people in and out of the house all the time – that was a wonderful prospect. Also, it was a beautiful house.

Its listing was Grade Two, and a planned fire escape for the rear had been approved. It was an adventure, she told herself repeatedly. How many women her age got to have a brand new experience, a fresh start? She must remain positive, needed to stop looking over her shoulder, because the bad times were gone. ‘You have moved towards something,’ she said quietly. Even softly spoken words bounced back in this hollow house. It would be all right. It had to be all right.

She didn’t know where the shops were, had no real idea of the community into which she had moved. Crosby was supposed to be posh, though she had already heard Liverpool accents thicker than her grandmother’s porridge. The few people she had dealt with had been straight and businesslike, so she wasn’t worried about living here.

It was just lonely. ‘You’re used to loneliness,’ she told an ancient, pockmarked mirror. ‘You’ve always been lonely.’ Yes, the real poverty in her life was isolation. To attempt a new start in an unfamiliar place in her fifth decade seemed a mad thing to be doing, but there was no alternative. The children might have talked her round. Especially Lizzie, who had occupied from birth the position once held by Diane, Lucy’s dead sister. While Lizzie loved her mother, she adored her dad. And Lucy almost worshipped the daughter she would miss beyond measure. A shining light at RADA, Elizabeth Henshaw was beautiful, gifted, and had a promising future in the media. Diane had been like that – singing, dancing, writing little plays. Lizzie would live the dead Diane’s dream of performing in theatre, and—

A huge van arrived from Waterloo Furnishings. For the better part of three hours, Lucy leapt from room to room while carpets and other floor coverings were laid. Upstairs was to be left for now, as most of it needed painting and decorating, so the decision was made – she would live downstairs.

At the end of it all, she threw herself into an armchair and opened a bottle of red wine. After a couple of glasses, she made a decision and picked up the phone. She had changed her mind, and she burdened Glenys with a terrible chore. The cat was to be kidnapped.

Glenys Barlow was very taken with Stoneyhurst. ‘It’s palatial,’ she declared after dumping Smokey on a brand new leather sofa. ‘All the mouldings and cornices are definitely original – just look at that fireplace! This is Georgian at its grandest. There’s a summerhouse – and have you noticed the light on the river? Oh, this is simply spectacular.’

But Lucy was too busy nursing her cat to reply. Until he settled, Smokey needed to regress and return to the cat litter of his youth. He was a Bolton cat, a Lancashire cat, and he might not understand the mewlings of foreign felines from Merseyside. Smokey, a pedigree blue Persian, was only too well aware of his superiority. At Tallows, he had enjoyed total freedom, since the estate had been big enough for him to come and go as he had pleased – would he get used to being downgraded to a mere terrace? ‘Poor puss,’ Lucy whispered. ‘But I’m here. We’ll get used to this, I promise.’

‘You’re not listening,’ Glenys accused her.

‘Sorry.’

‘He was pissed.’

‘Who was?’

‘Your husband. He was sitting outside near the conservatory, and there were quite a few empty cans on that wooden table. He was talking to himself. I saw his lips moving.’

‘I can build a wire roof over the back garden. Then at least I’ll be sure you’re safe, old lad. I know you’ve had more space, but this will turn out to be a good move, just wait and see. At least you’ll get your dinners. Just you and I, eh? The two musketeers.’

‘What?’ Sometimes, Glenys failed to hold Lucy’s attention.

‘He wouldn’t have fed Smokey,’ said Lucy. ‘And with Lizzie and the boys away for the summer, I thought I’d better have him here with me. I should have brought him with me yesterday, but I was in too much of a hurry to look for him. Alan had phoned to say he was on his way. Sorry, I wasn’t listening.’

Glenys shrugged. ‘No problem – I’m used to you. You owe me for the cat carrier – he wasn’t too happy about being shut in there, by the way. He was sitting on a gatepost – I think he was waiting for you – so he was easy to catch. I had a quick shufti down the side of the house and saw Alan in his cups. He was away with the fairies, in a right mess.’

‘Did he see you?’

Glenys chuckled. ‘The state he was in, he wouldn’t have noticed Big Ben on wheels, let alone a little fat woman with a cat carrier.’

Lucy nodded thoughtfully. ‘This is where it gets difficult, Glen. Can you write to the children? Get the letters posted in London or Birmingham or somewhere – anywhere but up here. Don’t sign. Or get a clerk to do it – you’re used to fooling people, it’s your job. Tell them Smokey’s with me, and they aren’t to worry. Don’t use your letterhead or the kids will mither you to death. I don’t want them going back to Tallows and searching for the cat.’

‘The kids are your weak spot, Lucy.’

‘I know. I sent notes to tell them I was going, but I didn’t give much of a hint as to why. I posted them to where they’re spending their summers, but I also left copies at Tallows. They say one thing and do another, these students. They could arrive home any time, so I had to cover all possibilities. It’s tricky.’

‘You really should keep your distance for months, if not years. Well, you shouldn’t – you know how I feel about that. They ought to have the complete truth, you know. He’ll fill their heads with nonsense, paint himself in shining armour and blame you for bankruptcy, abandonment, theft and just about anything short of murder. You’ll come out of it blacker than hell, while Alan’s going to—’

‘I know,’ Lucy repeated. ‘And when they’ve all finished with exams and what have you they can be shown copies of the truth if I so decide. Until then, it’s enough for them to have an absentee mother – the rest can wait. I don’t want them confused. Let them blame me for now.’

Glenys disagreed, though she had voiced her opinions too many times. The Henshaws’ offspring should be told everything right away. Even now, Lucy was placing herself on a shelf marked Unimportant, was allowing herself to wear the villain’s hat. But the urge to speak overcame Glenys yet again. ‘What if Lizzie leaves RADA to come home and look after her dad? What if Paul gives up pharmacy and Mike abandons his history degree? That husband of yours can’t even boil an egg. One or all of the kids might decide to stay at home to take care of their father.’

‘They won’t give up their education.’ Lucy placed the cat in a brand new basket bought this very afternoon from a place on St John’s Road. The shops she had discovered were brilliant, the people had been helpful, and life had worn a pretty dress today. This was a good place. It had welcomed incomers for centuries, and all were treated the same. She had been told how to get to Bootle Strand, to Sainsbury’s, to a Tesco on the Formby bypass. ‘Yer’ll be all right, queen,’ one old lady had said. ‘We’ve our fair share of criminals, like, same as everywhere else, but you’ll settle.’

‘So you’re going to live downstairs?’ Glenys asked.

‘I think so. I can let six rooms, but the boxroom’s like a big cupboard. That can be for linen – towels and sheets and so forth.’

‘Right. And you won’t go back to nursing?’

Lucy smiled and shook her head. ‘I’m hardly up to date with current practices, am I? If I returned to hospital nursing, they’d need to retrain me for years – not worth it. And I don’t think I could stand the noise. No. I’ll live and work here, and I’ll employ a couple of locals.’ A tanker was drifting into port. The new owner of Stoneyhurst stood at the window and watched the scene. ‘I’ll be fine here,’ she said. ‘When I stuck that pin into the map, God must have guided my hand. The river’s so peaceful.’

Glenys Barlow made no reply. The Mersey was a notoriously changeable body of water. It had swallowed whole houses in its time, but there was no point in mentioning that. She had done her best to persuade this client and friend to be more open about her intentions, to sue the bastard she had married, but Lucy was stubborn enough to stick to her guns. At least she held the guns, and all were fully loaded. With that, the lawyer was forced to be satisfied.

*

Lucy decided to make her apologies before chaos began. She penned notes to neighbours on both sides, informing them of her intentions and promising that noise would cease by five in the afternoon, and would not begin until after nine o’clock in the morning. Since they had raised no objections when advised by Glenys of Lucy’s plan to open a guest house, she hoped they wouldn’t be fazed by the promised disturbances, but she was determined to be polite. As an invader, she needed to be courteous.

After posting the notes, she returned to Stoneyhurst, pausing for a moment to admire the heavy front door. This was a well-built house, which description could scarcely be applied to the flimsy structures her husband had erected all over Lancashire. He was a cheat, a liar and a fraud, and she was by no means his only victim. Once his houses started to fall down, he’d be up to his neck in the smelly stuff. He would kill himself, though not quickly; he would drink until he fell into the grave.

So here she was: new beginning, clean sheet, to hell with him. Bed and breakfast was no easy option, though. Already, there were fire regulations, a possible inspection of the kitchen, and a list of dos and don’ts as long as her arm. She could do without upsetting the neighbours, and—

No sooner was she back in her own hallway than the doorbell rang. She turned, re-opened the door she had just shut behind her and found a tall, handsome man outside. Without saying a word, he grabbed her hand and pulled her down the steps. Was she being kidnapped? Was the cat shut safely in the kitchen? But no, Lucy was dragged into the house next door, so it wasn’t kidnap. At last, the man released his hold. ‘Can you deal with the top half?’ he asked breathlessly. ‘It was a pretty bad fall. I’ll get her legs. There’s nothing broken.’

A woman lay on the parquet floor. Nearby, a walking stick had fallen next to a coat stand, while slippers had clearly parted company somewhat abruptly with feet and with each other, as one was near the cane, while the second had landed against a door in the opposite wall. The woman was sweating profusely, and her spectacles, their lenses misted over, were perched at a rakish angle on her face. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Moira.’

‘Louisa, but usually Lucy. I take it you’ve fallen downstairs? How many stairs?’

Moira nodded. ‘Four or five. He can’t manage me any more. Not by himself, anyway. He’s getting older and I’m getting fatter. It’s the bloody steroids.’

The he in question sighed heavily. ‘She won’t do as she’s told, I’m sad to say. She just wants to make me look a failure, don’t you? Why don’t you shout when you need help?’

Moira giggled like a child. The sound didn’t match the body on the floor, as this was a woman well into middle age, yet she acted like a young girl. Lucy thought she knew the reason. It was, she suspected, an attempt at bravery, a stab at separating the illness from the sufferer. Moira wanted to be seen as a person rather than as a bundle of cells attached to some disease, so she giggled and tried to stay young and well in her head. Sometimes, life was excessively cruel.

Between them, Lucy and the man dragged the patient to a sofa. ‘Dump her here,’ he said almost cheerfully. ‘I’ll nail her to the blessed couch – it’s the only way, I’m afraid.’ He stood back and placed a hand on the mantelpiece. ‘Lucy,’ he said, ‘thank you for the note. Feel free to make as much noise as you like, because you’ll keep this one awake during the day, then I’ll get some sleep at night.’

‘Cheeky bugger,’ said Moira. ‘It was you kept me awake when we were first married, eh? It’s the other way round these days – and no sex, Lucy. Who wants sex with a woman who’s doubly incontinent?’

The intruder felt her cheeks reddening. Scousers, she was discovering fast, were very open. They called a spade a bloody shovel, and if someone disapproved, they could dig with their bare hands. ‘I . . . er . . .’

‘Multiple sclerosis,’ said the husband. ‘I’m Richard Turner.’

‘Dr Richard Turner,’ announced his wife, who was still prone on the sofa. ‘But he can’t cure me. Can you, Rich?’

There was tension in the room, and Lucy sensed it more acutely with every passing beat of time. It was as if Moira blamed her husband for her condition, yet . . . yet there was a kind of love here. But physical love could no longer be expressed, and the woman was upset, while the man was probably frustrated.

‘Surgery and waiting room are at the other side of the hall,’ he explained. ‘I have to work from home, since Moira can’t be left to her own devices.’ He glanced at his wife. ‘You can see for yourself what happens if I close my eyes for a moment.’

‘What about your home visits?’ Lucy asked.

‘A nurse comes in sometimes to cover for me,’ he replied. ‘And we have a cleaner built like the Titanic – though I can’t imagine any self-respecting iceberg daring to confront her. She’s fierce. She’s also retiring soon, because this one has probably worn her out. Even the Titanic goes down. She was a powerful woman till she came up against my wife.’

‘Deadly,’ agreed Moira. ‘Drags me round like a piece of jetsam dumped to make room for something better. You’re not from these parts, are you?’

Lucy hesitated. ‘Lancashire,’ she said.

Moira marked the pause. Because she was confined to a wheelchair, she watched life rather more closely than most, and had become a collector of people. This woman was in trouble. She might well cause trouble too, since Richard seemed quite taken with the new neighbour. Lucy was tall, elegant and well dressed. And she tried unsuccessfully to conceal a chest that was probably magnificent. Richard was handsome, lonely and, at the moment, hormonal. After twenty-seven years of marriage, Moira knew her man well. He needed sex and was attracted to Lucy, who would be living next door. ‘Husband?’ she asked.

‘Deceased.’

The invalid noted the lie. Lucy’s eyes betrayed her, which probably meant that she was an honest woman who had been forced into a difficult position. ‘Children?’ was her next question.

‘Grown and flown.’ Lucy folded her arms. Over the years, she had been forced to become used to people staring at her upper body. She usually wore loose clothes, but this attempt at disguise could not save her from unwelcome scrutiny. Even the doctor was having trouble pretending not to look at Lucy’s 34E breasts. Well, if everyone could experience for just one day the nuisance caused by large mammaries, they’d think again. Bras needed wide straps, because narrow ones dug channels in her shoulders. She suffered backache, neck-ache and even face-ache if she tried to smile through the discomfort. Had she not feared the knife, Lucy would have got rid of her extra flesh years ago.

‘Have you registered with a GP?’ Richard asked.

‘Not yet. But I’m used to a female doctor.’

‘My partner’s a woman,’ he said. ‘Celia. She’s part time. Not a part time woman, a part time—’

‘Doctor,’ Moira chimed in.

‘Oh. Right. I’ll think about it.’ Lucy fled the scene and bolted her front door. ‘What happened there?’ she asked the cat when she reached the kitchen. The cat simply twitched his tail and began a long monologue that was probably a complaint of some kind. ‘Oh, Smokey.’ Lucy picked up the heavy animal. ‘What are we to do?’ She didn’t want a doctor so close, was worried about having a doctor at all, because they all knew each other, didn’t they? And her notes, from Bolton, would very likely say more than Lucy wanted anyone to know.

Next door, Richard Turner stood with his back to Moira and his gaze fixed on the river. He felt as guilty as sin, because he could no longer show love to the woman he had married. She had been a beautiful, tiny girl with a waist so small that his hands had spanned it. The more ill she became, the more he was forced to retreat. He could not manage to desire a person whose soiled underclothing he was sometimes forced to change. And the way she behaved was often embarrassing, as she carried on like a spoilt only child with doting parents who allowed her all her own way. Yet he did love her so much . . . Oh, what a bloody mess.

‘Richard?’

‘What?’ He didn’t turn.

‘She’s got magnificent assets.’

‘Who?’ He knew that the skin on his face had reddened.

‘Lucy.’

He lowered his head. He had loved Moira for as long as he could remember – since his teenage years. ‘Behave yourself,’ he said eventually. ‘And stop trying to find concubines for me.’ At last, he turned. ‘I love you. There’s more to life than sex.’ That was his brain speaking, but the rest of him craved . . . oh, well. Best not to think about all the other stuff. Like the warmth of a woman, the sweetness emerging from between parted lips, his hand on a breast, on a belly— ‘There’s more to life,’ he repeated.

‘There has to be,’ she replied sharply. ‘Because you can’t make love to a woman in a nappy. So how have you been managing?’

He shrugged and, as ever, was honest with her. ‘A few one-night stands with women I’ve met online. And a quick fumble with one of the temporary practice nurses – it came to nothing. But it has to be somebody for whom I only feel desire – no more than that. I can’t get involved.’

‘Why?’

He walked across the room. ‘Because you’re my wife in sickness and in health, you daft cow – it’s in the bloody contract. Because we have three children and, with luck, we’ll be grandparents in the fullness of time.’

Moira struggled to sit still. The shakes had started again, and there was no way of controlling her hands. ‘I can’t feel anything any more, Rich. Only pain, no pleasure. Even if I’m clean, it must be like making love to a side of beef. I don’t need to remind you that secondary progressive means no more remissions.’ She swallowed with difficulty. ‘You’re relatively young, and you need to sort this out, prepare for the time when I’m no longer here.’

‘Stop this. I mean it, Moira.’

She laughed. ‘Is there nothing like a pizza parlour? You know how people phone if they want food – don’t they deliver thin crust or thick crust women with or without anchovies?’

When she wasn’t being childish, she was priceless. He saw the crippled woman, heard the clever soul within. ‘With or without chips?’ he asked.

‘Without. Get a side salad. So, you want a busty woman with good legs and an undressed salad. Keep your figure, love.’

Sometimes, he needed to weep and scream. He wanted his Moira back, and he knew he would never get that. These days, she was barely capable of swallowing food, and he feared that she might choke to death. Her breathing was impaired and she couldn’t walk any distance without becoming completely exhausted or falling on the floor.

‘I’ll love you just as well if you take a mistress, Richard.’

He was definitely a breast-and-legs man. Lucy Henshaw had two of each, and all four seemed to be in excellent condition. She also wore the air of a woman who had not been touched for some time. Children grown and flown? She didn’t look old enough for—

‘Rich?’

‘What?’

‘I just want you to be absolutely sure that whatever, whoever or wherever, I’ll understand. But be careful. There’s a lot of disease out there.’

‘I know.’ He closed his eyes and pictured his beloved wife in her wedding gown, plain satin, yellow and white flowers dripping from her hands all the way to her shoes, hair loose in heavy waves down her back. He hadn’t wanted her to put it up. The severity of her clothing had served to emphasize that hourglass figure. She had been and would always be the most beautiful bride in the world. It was so damnably clumsy, this wretched disease. Steroids had affected her badly, and she had gained weight at a terrifying rate, so those particular drugs were used only in the direst of emergencies. The problem lay in the fact that emergencies were frequent these days.

Sex had been important to both of them, and fate had now removed any chance of physical closeness. It felt akin to bereavement, because a vital part of their marriage had been killed off by an enemy that could not be defeated.

‘Richard?’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t.’

‘Was I thinking aloud?’

She shook her head. ‘Only I can hear it, darling. The rest of the world is deaf.’ If she tried now, she might manage. Sometimes, her hands were almost cooperative, and she could just about find the strength to use pestle and mortar. Anyway, the coffee-grinder would make short work of it. The happy pills. A sheet of eight was all she needed, but she’d take a damned sight more – who wanted to survive with a buggered liver? They’d need to be crushed, as swallowing was hard and needed concentration. Everything did. People breathed without thinking, ate without thinking, walked and talked without worrying. Sometimes, she didn’t even have control of her speech.

She looked at him. Love was a strange thing. It meant needing to die before he did, knowing that she daren’t choose an obvious way of self-disposal, because that would break him. Yes, her suicide would kill him, too. And with him being a doctor, the powers could blame him, pin murder via overdose on him—

‘Moira?’

‘What?’

‘Stop it.

It worked both ways. She could almost hear his thoughts, but he was similarly gifted – or cursed. When it came to theory, Richard was of the opinion that every man and woman owned his or her own life. Suicide was not always wrong, and he was of the school that approved of assisted and heavily supervised exit.

But when it came to Moira, he was seriously prejudiced and out of his depth. He knew that the time had come – he would have to hide her drugs. And he suddenly thought again about the theory of dignified death. As long as it was someone other than Moira, it was a good idea. Yet all those someones had relatives who didn’t want the sufferer to kill him or herself. He’d been wrong. Again.

‘I don’t want to die in Switzerland,’ she said. ‘Or to endure a life in a wheelchair with my head clamped back so that it won’t droop, and a tube into my stomach, and oxygen on tap—’

‘I know, love.’

He didn’t know. No one could possibly understand the dread that accompanied her from day to day along the pathway to perdition. It was hard work pretending not to care, carrying on as if she’d never felt better in her life. Only another sufferer would have an idea of the thoughts that circled in her head like buzzards searching for carrion. And there was more than one way to skin a cat. It didn’t need to be pills, didn’t need to be here. But it had to be soon, while she could still drive her motorized chair. The Liverpool–Southport line had three or four level crossings nearby. No one would blame him if she arrived home squashed. It needed to look like an accident. He would accept an accident.

‘Don’t leave me, Moira.’

She grinned. ‘Remember the first time I went out in my trolley? I ran over a traffic warden, a woman’s shopping and a post office. Mind, the post office hardly had a dent in it. I wish I could say the same for the warden’s foot and that poor woman’s eggs.’

He left the room. She could hear him sniffing back tears in the hall. Then her eyes closed and she was gone. They were running into the sea in Cornwall, chasing waves, being chased by waves. Every night in that huge hotel bed, talking, loving, talking again. And all the time, something followed them. Sometimes it was a shadow, a pale thing that hung back whenever she turned. But it grew. It came closer, its colour darkened and consumed her, and she was back in Liverpool with the children and . . .

‘Moira?’

She woke. He gave her a cup of tea. Well, half a cup, because she spilt so much if the cup was full.

Richard averted his gaze, because he didn’t want her to see the fear in his eyes. She wasn’t simply falling asleep any more; she was losing consciousness, and occasionally she stopped breathing. There was no help. Men walked on the moon – there was money and research enough for that. Moira walked on planet earth scarcely at all, and any possible cure or remedial treatment for multiple sclerosis would be paid for mostly by charities. Somewhere, someone had their priorities wrong.

The rage lasted for more than three days.

Cheated and abused by his own wife, Alan Henshaw tore up the few clothes she had left, burnt the wedding album, dug up her old man’s roses, contacted his daughter, and drank himself into near-coma. His wife would come back, he told himself in rare brighter moments. Lucy had nobody apart from her children, and she would be back. The woman hadn’t the guts to go it alone – she would need to come back.

Wouldn’t she? He had made her money grow – what the hell did it matter whose account was whose? As for the rest of it – his wanderings and his mistresses – what the buggery had she expected? Since the birth of Elizabeth, his wife had been as warm as a butcher’s freezer, as responsive as a corpse. And he liked younger, firmer flesh, which was quite normal in his scheme of things. Successful men needed variety, because variety was the spice of . . . something or other.

But, on the fourth day, when all the booze had gone, and he returned to a more normal frame of mind, he had to admit that he was beaten. Her solicitor, contacted by his, had outlined the whole damned mess, and Alan had no leg to stand on. The house was hers, as were the heavy mortgages he had obtained via fraud. Except they weren’t hers, because she hadn’t signed for them. Three handwriting experts had declared Lucy Henshaw’s signature to be forged, while a neighbour who had witnessed one of the documents admitted that Lucy had not been present at the time.

It was the end of the road for Alan. If he fought, she would walk all over him. If he didn’t fight, he might as well be dead. Could the children save him? How much of the stolen money had she given to them? It wouldn’t be enough. All he owned were twenty plots of land in Bromley Cross, a set of plans, and the clothes in his wardrobe. She, of course, would get away with the crime of forging his signature if the case went to court. She was a lady who had married a rogue, and the forging of his signature had been necessary so that she could take back her own money.

At the back of his mind lingered the suspicion that the land and the plans might well belong to her, so he’d have to find out about that, too. If he tried to sell to another developer, Lucy might decide to relieve him of everything.

A letter arrived. He tore it open so viciously that he had to piece together its contents in order to read them. She was being magnanimous. He could hang on to the Bromley Cross project and find investors, or he could sell it on. How kind of her. The bills are in your sock drawer . . . and his socks had been salvaged. That had been no easy task, since he had never before used a washing machine, even when sober. The socks proved one thing, though: she was capable of playing dirty. That quiet housewife had a temper. She wasn’t perfect.

The bills are in your sock drawer. It was a large drawer. As voluntary company secretary, she had always dealt with bills. Jesus, he was probably in debt to every supplier within a twenty-mile radius. Even if he could sell on the plots and all approved plans, he’d probably still be penniless. A clever bitch she’d turned out to be, little Miss Top Heavy with her high-priced clothing, perfume, footwear and designer handbags.

He should go and see Mags before the shit hit the fan. She was his kind of girl, reed-slim, small-breasted, a teenager’s body with the brains of a businesswoman. Three shops she owned outright, and she was only thirty-odd. London-trained, Mags also had franchises in department stores all over the place, because she was good at what she did. Yes, she had borrowing power. When it came to competitions, her firm had won cups in every area of beauty, from hairdressing to make-up and nails. She was his only chance.

It was time to clean up the act. He stank of sweat and whisky. So he bathed, then showered, shaved, dressed and came downstairs to think a little further before turning for help to his current paramour. There would be a divorce, of course. Unreasonable behaviour leading to breakdown of marriage, and he could not contest it, so he’d just have to grin and—

Elizabeth ran through the hall. ‘Daddy?’ she shouted. ‘Daddy, where are you?’

Oh, God. This was all he needed. ‘Library,’ he called.

She almost fell through the doorway. ‘What’s happened?’ she cried, throwing herself into his arms. Her world had shifted on its axis. Lizzie now realized that Mother had been both anchor and safety net, and she wasn’t here any more. Whose fault was it? What had caused her to disappear so suddenly and without warning?

He placed her in a chair. ‘Your mother’s buggered off, that’s what’s happened. She’s left without so much as a by-your-leave.’

‘Where? Why?’

Alan shrugged. ‘God knows. I told you on the phone to stay where you were, because there’s nothing any of you can do. I don’t know where she is, don’t know why she did it. There’s no money – she’s taken the lot.’

Lizzie swallowed. ‘All of it?’

He nodded.

She could scarcely believe this. Mother had always been scrupulously fair and honest. Perhaps she was having some kind of breakdown. Women of a certain age seemed to suffer until they got through the menopause. ‘She’s set up an account for me. And she’s paid my fees and my rent for as long as I’m in London. The boys will be finished at uni in about ten months, so they probably got a little less. She’s always been like that, Daddy. Always fair.’

Lost for words, he simply grunted.

‘The house?’ she asked.

‘Hers, and mortgaged.’

Lizzie’s jaw dropped slightly. ‘But she would never risk Tallows, Daddy. That’s totally out of character. This house was in the Buckley family for generations—’

‘It had to be done, Lizzie. The firm was going under. There was no alternative.’

She sat perfectly still for several seconds. ‘Where is she?’ she asked again. ‘What have you done? Daddy, I demand to know where my mother is. What have you been up to? Is it another of your women?’

Heat flooded into his face. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

She tutted. ‘Daddy, everyone knows – it was the talk of our school, especially when you started messing about with the chemistry teacher. I’m not apportioning blame, but Mother wouldn’t just go off like that. It isn’t in her nature. She’d put up with just about anything – she has put up with an awful lot just to keep Tallows. I’m not daft. I know it’s partly, if not totally, your fault.’

He mumbled something about Lucy having changed.

‘We all change,’ came the reply. ‘Otherwise, I’d still be in a pram, while you’d be existing in a two-up-twodown at the wrong end of Deane Road. But my mother is not a bad woman. She wouldn’t steal and run unless she had a damned good reason. What happened?’

He offered no immediate reply.

‘Daddy, no matter what, I’ll always forgive you.’

She wouldn’t. He was damned sure she wouldn’t. ‘Lizzie.’ Her name arrived on a sigh. ‘I can’t explain. I came home early after a meeting, and she’d disappeared with most of her clothes. The cat was still here, but that disappeared the next day . . . or the day after . . .’

‘You’ve been drunk.’ This was not a question. ‘And you haven’t fed him, so—’

‘A letter came,’ he said. ‘She has the cat. There are letters for you and your brothers, too. Posted in Bristol. She wrote in my letter that she’d sent copies to wherever you were staying, as well. Aren’t the boys in Chester with Billy Maddox? Weren’t you in Somerset?’

‘Yes. I got mine. It said very little. Then we spoke on the phone and you were drunk again, so . . .’ She paused. ‘But Mother wouldn’t go as far as Bristol. She’s a northerner to the core. She wouldn’t even move across the Pennines, and well you know it.’

‘No, but she’ll have made sure they had the wrong postmark. It’ll all have been done through Glenys.’ As soon as the words were out, he wanted to bite them back. Lizzie knew Glenys – the whole family knew her. ‘Though I think your mother may have gone to a different firm,’ he added lamely.

Lizzie walked to the window. ‘Grandfather’s roses,’ she said. ‘Why have you dug them up?’

‘Temper,’ he admitted.

‘That was a wicked thing to do.’ She turned and glared at him. There was more to this than he was willing to admit. Her mother was neither a bolter nor an adventurer – she was a reasonable, quiet and fairly gentle soul who looked after everyone except herself. ‘Is Tallows to be sold?’

‘I expect so.’

She sat down again. The man who had been a wonderful daddy was clearly a poor father. Those golden days of childhood, the memories she treasured, were untrue. Because he was untrue. Something enormous had happened while she’d been away in Somerset, and she intended to get to the bottom of it. ‘No matter what, I shall always love you,’ she said softly. ‘But I fear I may stop liking you.’

‘So you’re on her side?’

‘It isn’t a case of sides, Daddy. It’s to do with trust and truth. This was Mother’s house long before she was born – it’s been in her family for a very long time. She would have sold every stick of furniture before mortgaging Tallows. It would be out of the question.’ The contents of Tallows were worth a small fortune.

He could not meet the gaze of his own daughter.

‘Well?’ Her fingertips tapped on a table. ‘Well?’ she repeated.

He looked at his watch. ‘I have an appointment,’ he announced. After planting a kiss on the top of her head, he left the room.

‘I’ll find out,’ she called after him.

The only reply was the slamming of the front door.

She stayed where she was for almost half an hour, then she picked up the phone. Some kind of decision needed to be made, and she was the only one here, so it was up to her. When the connection was made, she spoke briefly to Glenys Barlow.

‘But you can’t,’ Glenys said, when she had finished.

‘I must. Find somewhere, Glenys. I mean it.’

‘But you’ll need help, Lizzie.’

‘Then send some. Now.’ Lizzie replaced the receiver. Sometimes, she reminded herself of her father – barked commands, refusals to listen. Arrogance. She knew where his attitude came from, because he’d risen from nowhere, and many folk who climbed through life on the backs of others developed bad habits. It was as if he had to remind himself that he was a self-made man, one who had escaped the slums. But he wasn’t self-made. He had reached his zenith via Mother’s family name and money. Anger simmered. Yes, she was very much her father’s daughter.

It was her father’s daughter who filled a fleet of four large vans with antiques and other items she knew her mother would miss. It was her father’s daughter who followed those vans to a secure lock-up in Manchester. She had one key, while the owners of the unit held the other. Both keys would be needed to access the storage space. She paid two months’ rent in advance before going home to wait for her father to return.

Tallows looked grim. Furniture was sparse, and where paintings had hung, cleaner wallpaper and paintwork screamed, ‘Look – you’ve been burgled again.’ But Lizzie didn’t care. She was her father’s daughter, and she would sit on a fortune until she got the truth from whatever source. Even the attic had been emptied, because Lizzie knew how much her mother loved all that silly stuff.

The silly stuff and furniture was worth a packet – the insurance premium was high, because well over a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of items had travelled to Manchester today. Her father didn’t know the value of the things that had provided his environment for over twenty years. Who had said that? Was it Oscar Wilde? She couldn’t look it up, because all the books were gone. But she was fairly sure that it was Wilde. A cynic was one who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. Hey-ho. That was her beloved father to a T.

When Lucy entered the house, she knew that the phone had been ringing. It was as if it had left a sound-shadow in its wake, a trace of itself that clung to walls and furniture. She went into the kitchen, placed her purchases on the table, splashed her face with cold water, and picked up the cat.

He told her a very long story that was probably connected to confinement, homesickness and complaints about the neighbourhood.

‘Shut up,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve been to Liverpool. It’s brilliant. I think it’s going to be City of Culture soon. The shops are marvellous, Smokey. Good clothes as cheap as chips, lovely shoes, fabulous hairdressers. And I bought a book about its history. They’re so . . . lively. Mind, I might have done better with an interpreter, but what the hell? We live and we learn.’

The cat struggled until she released him. He was a spoilt brat, and she should have been a firmer mother to him. She watched while he stalked off, ramrod-straight tail twitching in anger, every hair bristling. Well, he had better get used to things, because she was going nowhere.

But she did go. She went into the pages of a book that told her about cellar dwellings, poverty beyond her ken, dockers queuing in all weather for work, Irish immigrants, Paddy’s Market, ragged urchins who had survived war and gone on to become remarkable people. This was where Bolton’s cotton had come in from the southern states of America, where oranges and bananas were offloaded along with pineapples, grapes and fine wines. She read about children who had drowned in vats of molasses or rotting fruit. Lucy learned in half an hour what many Liverpudlians took for granted. This was a unique and wonderful city. Its people had made it so.

The phone rang. Engrossed in a chapter concerning the development of the city’s famous waterfront, Lucy was reluctant to reply, but she did. It was Glenys.

‘She’s what?’ Lucy yelled.

‘Hang on, love. I don’t want my eardrum split, thank you very much. I’m sorry, Lucy, but she made sense. I tried to contact you several times before, during and after the event, but—’

‘But I was in Liverpool.’ In town. She had to learn that Liverpool was town. And now Lizzie was kicking up a fuss. ‘Where’s she put it all?’

‘A place in Manchester. She filled a fleet of vans, and she did it for you, Lucy. So much for the kid who loves her daddy, eh? When I asked, she said she wanted everything kept safe in case he flogged the lot.’

Lucy swallowed.

‘She misses you, sweetheart.’

‘I miss her. Paul and Mike, too. But they outgrow us, Glen, and we must outgrow them. I suppose she did what she saw as the right thing. In fact, she did what I ought to have done and didn’t dare.’

‘Well,’ Glenys sighed, ‘I’ve done my bit. Why didn’t you answer your mobile?’

‘I forgot it again. I know, I know – I’m hopeless. But you must come and stay. I have to show you the shops and the restaurants – awesome. Oh, and I found—’

‘Lucy?’

‘What?’

‘Shut up. I’ve a client waiting.’

Smiling to herself, Lucy replaced the receiver. After a few moments, she moved back to the kitchen, picked up her book and opened the door for the cat. ‘Go on,’ she urged.

He sat there, a very dramatic tail waving angrily back and forth. Used to the larger life, he was not pleased about the massive cage that kept him safe.

Lucy had another few words to say. ‘We’re all in prison, puss. Even our own bodies are containers. You have to deal with it. So do I. Now bugger off and chase butterflies.’

He buggered off.

Lucy sat with what she knew was a silly smile on her face. Lizzie, a daddy’s girl, had grown up sensible and decisive. She saw a need, and she filled it. Elizabeth Henshaw had come down not on the side of her mother, nor in support of her father. She had simply removed valuables to a safer place until life became slightly less confusing. ‘You’re a mixture of me and your Aunt Diane,’ Lucy said softly. ‘Pragmatic, yet creative.’ Yes, Lucy had given the world a marvellous woman, and two young men who were decent, funny and industrious.

‘So I can’t have done it all wrong, can I?’ Forcing herself to be fair, she admitted inwardly that Alan had been a good dad when the kids had been small. He’d dragged them all over the place, had taken them camping, fishing and sightseeing. There was good in everyone, and that fact should never be ignored.

There was one thing about which she would remain immovable, though. According to Glenys, Lucy owed nothing, a fact that could be proved beyond a shadow of doubt. The house was hers, and she would keep it. Alan Henshaw would have to leave Tallows. That wasn’t cruelty; it was common sense. And she carried on reading about the city she intended to adopt.

Two

Margaret Livesey did not suffer fools gladly. She was known far and wide throughout the beauty profession as a hard woman, one who would threaten to sack a first-year or an improver for a badly folded towel or an untidy shelf. And she had the complete measure of her current lover, one Alan Henshaw, property developer, cheat, liar and womanizer par excellence. He was her temporary squeeze, no more than that. She enjoyed his company, but he had suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth, so he’d probably moved on to a newer model with a better chassis and automatic transmission. Which was all right by her, because she had stuff to do. He wasn’t the only one who ran a business, and it was time he learned that.

Today, one of the new girls had scalded her hand and needed treatment, while a sink had started to leak halfway through the afternoon, so Mags was not in the best of moods when Alan rolled up at her house in his BMW. ‘Huh,’ she mumbled under her breath. ‘No word for ages, and now I suppose he wants a red carpet. Tough. He can bog off, because I have had e-bleeding-nough.’

She’d been trying to reach him for several days, but his mobile had been switched off, and she never phoned his house in case the wife answered, yet here he came marching up her path as if everything in the garden might just be perfect. He was like that. Thought he was pivotal, a fulcrum around which the rest of the world must travel in a direction dictated by him. If he was all right, everything was all right. Well . . . just let him start, because she was fit for him at present. One wrong word, and she’d probably crown him with her best Kathy Van Zeeland bag. Would he improve her day? Was her mood picking up?

It wasn’t. She had to dash round all her shops and franchises this month, because she’d been offered a healthy sweetener to try out some new French products, and she never looked a gift horse in the mouth. For the sum promised, she had guaranteed that she would train her staff personally in the use of the new line, so she was packing when her lover arrived. ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ she snapped. ‘Did Paul Daniels make you disappear just like that? It’s been like trying to get through to Buckingham Palace.’ She picked up a pair of patent leather shoes, breathed on them, and rubbed them along the front of her tabard.

Alan bit his lip. This looked like a promising start, didn’t it? ‘Ill,’ he replied after a pause. ‘I’ve been ill and in bed for quite a while. It’s been a difficult time.’

‘Too difficult to switch your phone on? Too much trouble to be bothered about me?’

He nodded. ‘Rough stomach. She probably had a go at poisoning me before she buggered off.’ He sighed heavily and shook his head.

Mags paused, a pile of underwear in her hands. ‘What? Lucy? Did I miss an earthquake or something? Because it would take something pretty dynamic to shift her. I thought she was part of the fixtures and fittings round at your house.’

‘She’s gone. And don’t ask me where, because I’ve just been through all that with my daughter.’ He watched while she placed clothing in her case. ‘Going somewhere? You’ve still got the tan from Crete. You don’t need another break yet, surely?’

Mags glared at him. ‘I’m going anywhere and everywhere. Tê te à Tê te has sent me the Nouvelle Reine regime, and I’ve promised to be on site every time it’s introduced. So I’ll start with my franchises in the south and work my way back up country. I would have told you on the phone – if you’d ever bothered to answer it. But you didn’t, so there you are. I’m off soon, and I wasn’t able to give you the statutory month’s notice. Sorry, boss.’ Did he even notice the sarcasm?

‘Oh.’ He sat down. ‘When will you be home from your travels?’

A jagged nail caught in the fabric of an underslip, so she stopped to do a bit of remedial work with a crystal file. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘I need to live sort of halfway between here and the rest – Jenny can take over at this end. I thought Coventry. Because if I’m going to make a proper go of it in London, I’m living in the wrong place. There’s a gap in the market just outside Coventry, and a nice little property with a flat upstairs. So I might move. It makes a lot of sense. That’s why I was trying to phone you. I wanted to tell you, save you the bother of driving all the way out here.’

He opened his mouth, but no words emerged. The wife had done a disappearing act, his daughter was proving difficult, and now Mags was preparing to leave without a backward glance. He was ruined. In the blink of an eye, he had gone from riches all the way back to rags. And that had always been his greatest fear, because he’d made the steep climb, and it was a long way down to near-serfdom.

‘You look like a bloody goldfish,’ she remarked, painting Pearl Envy over her repaired fingernail. ‘Look, Alan – we were never going to be for ever, were we? I’m not the type to settle down, and I thought I’d already made that plain. Domesticity is not my scene.’

‘But I love you,’ he declared. ‘And I’ll be free soon. I’m not letting her get away with this – not bloody likely. I’ll divorce her, and she can lump it, because I’m not being messed about by anybody.’

She laughed. ‘Alan, you love the one you see in the mirror every morning. That’s why Lucy’s upped and offed – you’ve never thought beyond your penis. I mean, lighten up, lad. We had good sex, and that’s all it was. Come on, no need to be so down in the dumps. You’ll soon find somebody else to tickle your fancy.’

He closed his eyes for a few seconds. There was a lot wrong with women these days, and he didn’t know who to blame, what with the Pankhursts, Barbara Castle, Margaret Thatcher – the world had been going stark, raving bonkers for almost half a century. Yes, the lunatics had taken over the asylum. ‘So this is it, then? We’ve come to the end of the line?’

She shrugged. ‘I’ll be back every six weeks or so. And there’ll come a time when I won’t be able to manage on my own – this is turning into a company and, while I have good people in all my units, I’ll need help at top level – somebody else like me who’s been trained by the best. When that happens, I can sit back a bit more. But I have to work, Alan. We both do.’

Work? He was finished. She was on her way up, while he was about to hit the basement. How much lower could he go? Back to the bottom end of Deane Road? Not likely, because he’d helped demolish those slums, hadn’t he?

‘I might just be able to grab a girl schooled by Herbert of Liverpool. Imagine that. She’s having to move with her husband’s work, but I must get in fast. She’ll be good. He’s the best trainer in the north. That girl might well be the sort I can use at management level, you know.’

He didn’t know. He’d never heard of Herbert, but she was rattling on about hair extensions, individual false lashes, a treatment that could make nails four times stronger. Pity she hadn’t used it on herself, because then she’d have more time for his problems instead of messing around with varnish and files.

She studied him. Had the news of her leaving the area hit him badly? ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘You look like you’ve lost a quid and found a bent penny. Straighten your face before the wind changes.’

He swallowed hard, because he was ingesting pride as well as saliva. ‘She’s cleaned me out, Mags. Everything was in joint names, and she emptied the accounts while we were in Crete. I’ve no idea where she is, and I don’t know where to start when it comes to sorting out the—’

‘Call the police. Have her found. She can’t do that and get away with it.’

He wiped a hand across his damp forehead. ‘She can. Something in the small print, something my bloody lawyer failed to see.’

‘Then sue him!’

‘Sue a flaming lawyer? Come on, Mags. You didn’t arrive with the last shower of rain. It would be like giving a copper a black eye. Wrong target.’

Mags dropped on to the sofa. ‘What about the house? Surely you own half of that?’

He gulped again. ‘Technically, yes. But it’s been in her family for generations, and she’s mortgaged it to the hilt.’

‘Bloody hell.’ She leaned back and stared at him. ‘You’ve still got Bromley Cross.’

‘Have I? She’s paid no bills for months, so I must owe a fortune. I’m in a trap of her making, love.’

Silence reigned for several seconds. ‘If you’ve come here for help, Alan, there’s nothing I can do. I’m still at the ploughing-everything-back-in stage. By the time I’ve paid rents and wages, I’m—’

‘Yes, but if you sold up, you could be my new business partner. In fact, after I’ve gone bankrupt, the firm would have to be in your name. Then, once we’re straight, we can start again with your salons.’

She laughed. ‘Not on your nelly, mate. I’m a beautician to the bone, so I’ve no intention of burying myself in concrete and the like. Alan, I’m walking my own walk, not some man’s. It’s nothing personal, but I’ve never wanted a permanent relationship with a bloke, because I don’t see the point. I hate kids, I like to live alone, and my business is my life. I aim to retire early, live on some Mediterranean island, and catch up with all the books I’ve never read. Sorry.’

They were all at it. Created for the purpose of nurturing human life, they were carrying on as if they were men. His daughter was promising to be the same, all career and no obstacles. Men were becoming toys, and people had a tendency to grow out of their playthings. Panic gripped his chest, and a pain shot down his arm. Bloody angina. While she went to put the kettle on, he took a pill. Between them, Lucy, Elizabeth and Mags were killing him. He didn’t want to go home. Home? He had none. He didn’t want sex, either. ‘Is it all right if I sleep on your sofa tonight?’ he asked when Mags returned. ‘I can’t face the drive back.’ He couldn’t face his daughter, either; didn’t want to see anyone.

‘Don’t be daft. You can sleep with me, as usual.’

He shook his head. ‘Stomach’s still a bit gippy,’ he said. ‘Best if I stay in here.’ He couldn’t have managed sex, anyway. Sex had been one of the rewards due to a successful man. And the successful man had died.

After a sleepless night, he let himself out of the house and drove away. He crossed Mags’s name off the agenda as if she had been no more than an item on a shopping list. In Bromley Cross, he parked and studied the legend on a huge hoarding – Henshaw Developers, 20 Detached Residences. His phone number was up there. And his metaphorical number was up, too. The office in town would have to go, as would he. My ticker won’t take much more of this, he thought. He’d been ordered by the hospital to slow down, but he hadn’t known how. A lad from the slums had to keep running at all costs. Filled with self-pity, he went to find something to eat, since food had always been a great comfort.

At a small café in town, he bought a forbidden breakfast, all the way from two eggs through sausages, bacon, fried bread, and right down to black pudding. He had nothing to live for, so what did it matter? Like Lucy, he needed to disappear.

Shirley Bishop, who was about fifteen years older than Lucy and on the brink of retirement, was certainly built like a battleship, if not quite on the scale of the Titanic. At five feet and ten inches, she towered above most women, and her girth probably matched her height. Her husband, Hal, whom she adored in her way, was at least six inches shorter than she was, and he might have disappeared had he stood sideways behind a lamp post. But he was a strong little chap, and he proved himself by working as a more than adequate gardener.

But the Bishops were about to move to a little retirement home on a site near the Lake District. Shirley had looked after Moira since her illness had worsened, and Lucy made up her mind that she would find a replacement for her, since Moira was clearly unfit to be left to her own devices for any length of time. It was a project, and Lucy looked forward to tackling it. She had something to do, something on which she could focus, and that made her existence worthwhile.

Lucy was beginning to teeter on the brink of contentment. Life was noisy, and she didn’t always have vital stuff like water and electricity, but the place would come together eventually. Nipping next door became part of her routine. At first, she went to ‘borrow’ water whether she needed it or not, but it was clear that she required no excuses. Moira, on good-hand days, was teaching Lucy how to paint in watercolours, how to do crochet and tapestry, how to knit complicated patterns. There was so much life in Moira on her better mornings that she lifted the spirits of all who came into contact with her.

Bad times happened. She got double vision, the shakes, searing pain from top to toe and, on one occasion, had to be held by Shirley in an upright position while Lucy unscrewed a towel rail in the shower room, because Moira’s grip on it could not be loosened. When she finally dropped it, she began to laugh and cry at the same time. ‘See? He could have divorced me for that. I was well and truly having an affair with that bloody thing.’

Lucy held her till she was all cried out. Shirley, who was supposedly a hard case, went into the hall to blow her nose rather noisily.

Lucy followed her when Moira was safely seated. ‘Don’t worry,’ she told the large woman. ‘I’ll get somebody – I promise absolutely.’

‘I’m frightened for her,’ Shirley whispered. ‘I feel terrible about leaving, but—’

‘But you have your own life, I know. Look, I haven’t been here long, but I think the people in these parts have specially built huge hearts. Somewhere, there’s another like you who’ll care about her. And I’m here, love. As long as I’m here, she’ll be all right. Cross my heart.’

‘And hope to die?’

‘And hope to die. Dry your face – you don’t want her to see you like this, do you?’

Anyone and everyone connected to Moira was affected by her bravery. This, Lucy decided, was how Liverpool people dealt with stuff. During the second war they had been as feisty as the Cockneys, because they faced life and death head on – always say the words, don’t hide away, speak your piece. They were beyond price. Somewhere, there would be another Shirley Bishop who would take over the care of Moira.

This was a bad lunch time. While Richard was out on his rounds, Moira lay stiff as a board on a three-seater sofa, every muscle tensed, fingers twisted into positions that should have been impossible. The usual nurse was away on holiday, and Shirley Bishop was in sole charge.

So Lucy did what she had done for her father towards the end of his life. For over an hour, she massaged the poor woman with cream made in part from the New Zealand green-lipped mussel. ‘I know I’m hurting you,’ she said. ‘But bringing oxygen via blood into the area will do no harm if it does no good.’ It worked up to a point. Nothing could re-sheathe an exposed nerve, but blood flow helped the pain. At the end of the session, both women were wet through and hot, but Moira was somewhat better. Gratitude shone from her face.

‘You’re a healer,’ she said, her eyes full of tears and sweat. ‘You have warm hands. Look.’ She held up ten unknotted fingers. ‘You’ll have to work on Richard’s frozen shoulder. Physician heal thyself? He couldn’t cure a bloody ham in a smoke house.’

Lucy had to laugh. There seemed to be an eleventh commandment in these parts – thou shalt show love for thy partner by winding him/her up. And perhaps a twelfth ordered them to say the exact opposite of what they meant.

Shirley was doing it now. ‘Oi, soft lad,’ she screamed through the kitchen. Soft lad was her beloved Hal. ‘Don’t put it there, it’ll get no sun. She’s grew that from nothing, she’s grew it by hand from a seed.’ That was the thing about Scousers, they were full of love. It was an upside-down-ish love in the way it was expressed, but it was real none the less. There’d been nothing wrong with Bolton. The grammatical errors were different, but just as amusing, and, had Lucy lived with someone other than Alan, life might have been as good as this. But she had already begun to feel affection for this large village in Sefton, North Liverpool. Living as she did on the cusp between Crosby and Waterloo, she enjoyed a choice of shops and restaurants together with a beach, a good enough library and a cinema saved by the local people, who owned and ran the business. They had guts, and Lucy admired them greatly.

‘Will you do it?’ Moira asked while Lucy waited to cool down.

‘Will I do what?’

‘His shoulder.’

‘Now? I’m exhausted, Moira. It’ll take an effort to walk home.’

‘Not now. Tomorrow.’

‘It depends on what’s happening next door, and when he has patients and visits and so forth.’

There were some things Moira couldn’t say after so short an acquaintance. Had she felt able to tell Lucy that she wouldn’t fear death half as much if someone might look after him . . . but no, she couldn’t do that. He was an adult, he was a doctor, and he would have to cope. All the same, Lucy was so right for him.

A few lost days followed Alan’s encounter with Mags. He didn’t want a repeat of the third degree from his daughter, so he booked himself into a small hotel on Chorley Old Road, ate infrequently, drank whisky while awake, and never changed his clothes. When the owner of the establishment had received several complaints about the smelly drunk in Room Five, she told him to go.

So he drove, in his cups, all the way up to the home he no longer had. It was a noisy journey, and a sound akin to screaming was getting on his nerves, so he was glad when he reached his destination, because he was beginning to see flashing coloured lights. Had the Martians finally invaded? He was definitely unwell, he decided, as he pulled into the driveway. He needed his bed, headache pills, a bottle of Johnnie Walker, and a bit of peace and quiet.

The noise stopped, and trouble began. Boys in blue told him he smelled like an open drain before insisting that he blew into a tube. He blew. He blew all the way to the rooftops, shouting about his wife, his daughter and somebody named Mags. ‘They don’t give a sodding damn for anyone, these bloody women. Sick ’n’ tired,’ he slurred. ‘Bin a good dad. Short of nothing, my kids. And now? I’m buggered. Do you hear me? I haven’t a leg to stand on.’ He stumbled, thereby proving his statement to be true. ‘We have to find out how to do clo . . . clon . . . cloning, then we won’t need women at all.’

‘Blow now, into this tube. Did you not hear our siren? Did you not see the lights on our car, Mr Henshaw? You were winding along the road like a snake escaping from a bag.’

He tried and failed to focus. ‘Do I know you?’ he asked, attempting a friendly smile.

‘Not yet, sir. All you need to understand is he’s the brains and I’m the looks. And we’re both in better nick than you appear to be. You have to blow into the tube.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re tired and emotional, and because I say so.’

‘You said that without moving your lips.’

‘I said nothing, sir. It was my partner.’

‘Was it? Clever, that.’ Alan moved in closer to his captors. ‘They’re taking over, you know. They are definite . . . definitely taking over all the time and every bloody where. They get in when we’re not looking.’

‘Do they, sir?’

Alan nodded rather vigorously, lost his balance, and had to be stabilized by the officers. ‘See, they’re even in your lot. They’ve infil . . . infilter . . . they’ve got in all over the bloody shop.’

‘Little green men? Pink elephants? Mr Henshaw, you are drunk, and we’ve followed you all the way through town.’

‘Even govern-er-ment. They crept in. Like the cat in the crypt . . .’

‘If you say so, sir. Now blow.’

‘Crapping ’n’ creepering out again. All over us. We’re covered in it.’

‘Yes, we can smell it, Mr Henshaw. Now blow, or it’s a blood test down the cop shop.’

He blew. When he’d finished blowing, he collapsed and lay in a senseless heap in the gateway of Tallows.

‘Hell’s bells,’ said one of the officers after looking at the registered reading. ‘He’s got a bit of blood in his alcohol. This is beyond us, Pete. If he dies in our car or in a cell, we’ll be filling in forms from now till the middle of doomsday. I’m calling it in.’ He reached into a pocket, took out his radio and ordered an ambulance.

Pete stayed near the body. ‘Still breathing, just about. I don’t know about a bender – this one looks to have been on the big dipper. Property developer, he is. My brother bought one of his houses up Breightmet way. It’s crap.’

‘Is it? Why, what’s up with it?’

‘What’s right with it would be a shorter list. Like we’re still waiting for the windows to fall out.’

‘Really? That bad?’

‘All the electrics are up the spout – the sockets fell out of the wall after a couple of months. Still under guarantee, so this fellow sent somebody round to fix things. Then the roof leaked, and they found some felt was missing. You name it, it happened. Great big crack down the gable end – my brother’s still waiting for reinforced foundations.’

‘Aye, so is this bugger. No visible means of support, has he?’

Alan opened one eye to find a pair of people looking down at him. Oh yes, he had gone down in the world.

‘Don’t move,’ said one.

‘I can’t,’ he replied. This admission was followed by a loud breaking of wind together with involuntary urination. A slight smile of relief visited Alan’s face for a fraction of a second. Then he passed out again.

The ambulance arrived. ‘Jesus,’ gasped a paramedic. ‘I’ve come across some smells in my time, but this takes the full beef curry plus a distillery and bad eggs. Has he peed himself?’

The officers nodded.

‘Give me the reading.’ He took the breathalyser. ‘Dear God, he should be dead. Is this his house?’

‘It is. You should see the ones he builds.’

‘Try to find the relatives, will you? He’s so tachycardic, he could do with a fifth gear. Neck brace and back board,’ he ordered the rest of his crew. ‘Get some fluids up on the hook and prepare the paddles. This fellow could have an infarction any minute. What a bloody mess.’

Pete looked at his mate. ‘Just like an episode of Casualty, isn’t it?’

‘Or The Muppet Show,’ came the reply. ‘Come on, let’s find this bloke’s poor family.’

But there was no one in the house. While the ambulance screamed away down the road, the pair of constables pressed their noses against the windows and decided that someone had done a flit. They saw patches on walls where paintings had hung, scars where furniture had rested on carpets. ‘Can’t blame them, Andy,’ said Pete.

Andy shrugged. ‘Right. This is a job for the boys out of the blue – let’s see what CID can make of it. I’m going for me dinner. That old soak’s already taken up more of our time than he deserves.’

Lizzie Henshaw finally tracked down her brothers in Chester, where they were happily lazing about on the river Dee in a work-shy little boat named the Jupiter. Lizzie had always considered Jupiter to be a rather dynamic name, but this craft was lagging well behind when it came to dynamism. At the pointed end, it had a bit of space for a couple of chairs and a small table, which left just about enough room for someone to steer. Inside, there were padded benches on which the twins often lounged or slept, but the boat wasn’t built for living on. That didn’t bother them. It was summer, they were on the loose, and all they required was the company of each other and plenty of beer.

‘Ahoy,’ she yelled foolishly from the bank.

‘Lizzie!’ answered Paul. ‘Stay there and we’ll come and get you.’

There followed a flurry of activity that was testament to their lack of experience in the area of seamanship – or rivermanship. They were hopeless. It was their ineptitude that made Lizzie love them as much as she did, because they had failed magnificently at so many useless and pointless activities. Archery, fencing, rugby, riding, rock-climbing, football, tennis – all these hobbies had proved disastrous, because they simply weren’t coordinated. They were brilliant, the best brothers in the world.

Lizzie scrambled aboard. ‘Have you two been picking up your letters from your friend’s house? Have you had anything from Mother?’

Mike shook his head. ‘Nope. Bill buggered off to Paris with some big bird from Manchester, and his parents are in the States till the end of September. We’ve been living on the river.’

‘But the Jupiter isn’t built for living on. She’s just for messing about in.’

‘We’ve done that as well,’ Paul admitted. ‘The secret is not to get completely sober, then you don’t care about living on shop-bought pies and chips.’ He focused properly on his sister. ‘What’s the matter, Liz? You’re not yourself.’

She perched on one of the rather unstable chairs. ‘Mother’s gone.’

‘Gone? Where? She’s not dead, is she?’ Paul’s face was white.

‘No, no – nothing like that. She’s set up bank accounts to get you two through uni and me through RADA, then she took all the company money, all Daddy’s, all her own, and mortgaged Tallows from cellars to attics.’

A long silence followed this statement.

‘Never,’ said Mike at last. ‘You know Mums. She’s too gentle and straight to do anything like that. I mean, look how he’s treated her over the years. If there’s a bad bugger at Tallows, it’s him, not her. He’s feckless, sis. And an alcoholic.’

Lizzie, her father’s favourite, had always hated to hear anyone speak badly of him, yet she knew, deep down, that their mother had always been the backbone, the quiet, even-tempered core of her childhood. It was Mother who had mended broken toys, bathed sore knees, made everything right. He had seldom been there. Because his presence was infrequent, his returns to the fold had always been celebrated. Looking back, she knew that Alan Henshaw had made himself the hero of the piece, since he turned up with toys, played games, and filled the house with laughter. Yes. He did all that before buggering off yet again. ‘He made himself special,’ she wept. ‘And made her dull. She was just there, then he’d come home, all joy, laughter and Liquorice Allsorts.’

‘He never took us in,’ said Paul. ‘Mike and I weren’t impressed. And don’t blame yourself, Liz, because girls are always fastened like glue to their fathers. I think it’s in the rules somewhere.’ He stood at the helm of his frail little craft. ‘What shall we do? Where do we live? I know we’re adults, but this sudden insecurity is not comfortable, is it? We don’t belong anywhere.’

She shook her head before mopping up the tears. ‘Financially, we’re OK as long as we get work after finishing our courses. She waited till we were old enough. That’s my belief, anyway. And I’ve emptied the house until we manage to find out what’s happening. Our father’s too daft to realize that the contents are worth more than a quarter of a mill – possibly even up to a half. I didn’t want him selling stuff off for peanuts. He did a disappearing act, and I came here to find you two. I just didn’t know what the hell else to do.’

‘Where is she?’ Mike asked.

Liz shrugged. ‘Everything’s gone – clothes, passport, jewellery. But I believe she’s got the cat, so that makes me think she’s still in the UK. The police won’t be interested, because she’s old enough to do as she pleases. They don’t bother unless foul play’s suspected.’

‘Where’ve you put the stuff from the house?’

‘Somewhere called Secured4Life dot com. Manchester. I paid some rent while we try to work out what’s happening. She never bad-mouthed Daddy, you see. It would have been beneath her. I can’t think of her as a thief, either. So until we know the truth, I’ve stashed what could be moved. I couldn’t work out what else to do.’

‘He blames her.’ This, from Paul, was not a question. ‘I’d bet my honours thesis that it was the other way round. He’ll be the culprit.’

Liz’s phone rang. She dragged it from her pocket. ‘Yes, this is Liz Henshaw. What?’ She looked at her brothers. ‘Right. We’ll get there as soon as we can.’ She closed the phone. ‘He’s in hospital with alcohol poisoning. The magistrates will have his driving licence if he survives. A nurse found my number in his mobile.’

They stood for a while in a quiet huddle, all sharing one thought. Mother would have dealt with this. Mums always handled everything, but her mobile phone was probably at the bottom of the Croal, and she would have bought a new one. Her old number was announced by the server as unreachable. They had lost their female parent, and her partner was probably bankrupt and definitely in hospital. Life had gone crazy, and they clung together like three lost children.

‘Right,’ said Paul. He was the tougher of the twins, so he would dispose of the Jupiter. ‘Mike, you go with Liz. You’re in no fit state to tie up what’s left of the bloody boat. I’ll follow. What a mess. Alcohol poisoning? Huh.’

In Liz’s Micra, she and Mike made the journey to the Royal Bolton Hospital. There was very little conversation at the beginning of the drive, as he remained shocked, while she had said most of what she’d intended to say. Strangely, she couldn’t quite manage to worry about Daddy. Mother was the bigger concern, since her behaviour was so untypical, so drastic. ‘I’ll bet you Glenys knows where Mother is,’ she said eventually.

‘And I’ll wager she’ll keep her mouth padlocked,’ was her brother’s reply. ‘She’s a lawyer, so she has to be trusted.’

‘It could be the menopause,’ she said. ‘Mother, I mean – not Glenys.’

Mike stared at the road ahead. He’d watched his mother watching his father. For years, he’d caught a glimpse of something or other. Hatred? No, not quite. It was as if Dad didn’t deserve any strong emotion from her, as if he’d always been a waste of space and oxygen. Contempt was the nearest he could come to describing his mother’s expression. ‘I think she’d been planning it for a while,’ he told his sister. ‘She wanted us all on our feet, you see.’

‘Why would she do that, Mike?’

‘Because she’s wonderful. Your eyes were clouded by Dad, Lizzie. He was excellent with you, because he likes pretty things. But she was always there for all of us. Never judged us, never berated us unless we were in total breach of contract. Even then, she took care to tell us what was wrong with our behaviour and why.’ He sighed. ‘I feel like an orphan.’

‘Dressed like that, you look like one.’ This effort to lighten the atmosphere in the car failed completely. ‘Mike, there’s nothing we can do to mend any of it. She’ll come round. She’ll get in touch. Mother’s not the type to let people down – far too decent for that sort of thing. I know this much – she must have been very hurt, because she loves Tallows. I find it difficult to accept the idea of her borrowing against the house. She’d have sold some of the contents if she’d needed money so badly.’

Mike nodded. ‘There’s more to all of this than meets the eye. I don’t trust him, Lizzie.’

She didn’t trust Daddy, either. But she couldn’t quite manage to say that out loud, not yet, anyway. ‘Here we are,’ she said as she pulled into the car park. ‘Let’s go and look at the damage.’

The drama began at about five-thirty in the afternoon. Glenys phoned. ‘Lucy, don’t start panicking, but Paul sank the boat on the Dee. He was plucked out by a couple who were fishing, and he’s in the Countess of Chester hospital. He wasn’t too bad, because he was joking with them about weighing him in as the biggest fish ever caught in those parts. Lucy?’

Lucy’s jaw seemed to have run out of oil, because it took several seconds for her to speak. ‘You sure he’s all right?’

‘Lizzie says he is. It was she who phoned me. She’s at the hospital here in Bolton, because Alan went on a giant bender, and he’s suffered two minor heart attacks this afternoon. Mike’s gone to be with his brother. So. What do we do now?’

Lucy’s front door opened, though she scarcely heard it. ‘I’ll have to go to Chester. I can’t leave my son like that, can I?’

‘No. They’re your weak spot, as I’ve said before, and I’m glad they’re there. Paul’s in no danger, but if his accident brings you to your senses I’ll be glad. It’s about time somebody knocked a bit of grit into you. They’re your children for always, Lucy. When they’re fifty, they’ll still be your babies. Heart attacks aside, you should come clean and sue the bugger.’

The call ended, and Lucy burst into tears. She’d never been much of a weeper, but her little lad had almost drowned, and the shocking news had cut deeply into her maternal core. She hadn’t been there for him, for any of them. Glenys was right, the three of them would be her children until the end of her life. It was nothing to do with age.

‘Lucy?’

She looked up. ‘Richard.’

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ He lifted her from the chair and held her in his arms. ‘Come on, love. Tell your Uncle Richard – I only came in to thank you for straightening out her indoors. What’s happened?’ She felt wonderful, smelled delicious. She wasn’t like his other women, because she would become serious business if anything delightful were to happen.

And it all poured out, half drowned by tears. Her husband wasn’t dead, though he seemed to be working hard to get to the hereafter. Her son was in hospital after an accident on the Dee, while her daughter was with Alan.

‘Your husband?’

She nodded against his shoulder. ‘For twenty years, he— That doesn’t matter now. I have to get to the Countess of Chester hospital. I meant to keep my distance during the divorce, you see. I wanted all the dirt out of the way, but—’

‘But accidents happen. ‘I’ll drive you to Chester.’ It was plain that he intended to take charge. He planted her back in the chair and picked up her phone. He spoke to someone and asked to be put through to Dr Beddows. ‘Charlie? Yes, it’s Rich. Look for a young man name of . . .’ he covered the mouthpiece and waited until Lucy had given the name, ‘Paul Henshaw. Went down with his ship on the Dee. Yes, yes.’ He waited.

Lucy almost smiled. There was none of the captain in Paul, but there was plenty of the comedian in him, just as there was in Richard Turner.

‘Thank you,’ he said before placing the phone in its cradle. ‘Under observation, no apparent damage except to his dignity. He says the effing boat was an effing death trap, and he wants his mother. I shall make sure he gets his mother, though I hold out no hope for the craft. It’s flotsam, I’m afraid.’ Richard went to talk to his wife.

Lucy wiped her face. Twice today she had heard from Glenys. As the lawyer had expected, Tallows was one hundred per cent Lucy’s. So there would be no need to repurchase it, as all fault lay at the door of the building society and at Alan’s feet. Or his hands. His hands had done the forging. She could go home. Did she want to go home? No. She wanted to see her son, and she mustn’t think beyond that.

This second call had frightened Lucy. All three offspring were past the cuts and abrasions that were part and parcel of childhood, yet they remained vulnerable. Now, Alan. Did she care about him? If she didn’t, why was he sitting in the second row of her brain, just inches behind her waterlogged son? Why did the word ‘duty’ remain on her agenda where he was concerned? She would not worry about him, as he wasn’t worth the energy. Heart attacks, though . . .

Richard led her to his car. ‘It won’t take long,’ he assured her. ‘And we know for a fact that he’s in no immediate danger, so don’t worry.’

‘Thank you.’ The man was the embodiment of everything her parents had wished for her, but she had rebelled, and . . . If she hadn’t married Alan, she wouldn’t have had Paul, Michael and Elizabeth. But if she’d married a doctor, her parents would have been pleased, might have lived longer and been a great deal happier.

‘Lucy?’

‘Yes?’

‘Why did you escape? It was an escape, I take it?’

She sighed heavily. ‘I thought they were old enough to manage without me. As for my husband, he’s a fraud, and I was one of his victims. In truth, I was his main victim. He took my money, then mortgaged my family home.’

‘Without permission?’

‘He thought I didn’t know what was going on. I kept quiet for the twins’ and Lizzie’s sake. Alan is an angry man. I didn’t want the children to be caught in a battle. So I came here as soon as they seemed old enough. But I know now that if it all ends up in court, none of us is old enough.’

‘Why here?’

‘A pin in a map. The pin stuck in the Mersey, actually, but this was the nearest land, so here I am. And it’s all going terribly wrong. My bankrupt husband has got himself thoroughly drunk and is in hospital. He’s had two heart attacks, and the next may be his last. If he stops working, he’ll die. If he continues to work, he’ll die, but he’ll be happier.’ She sighed heavily, her breath escaping on a sob that made her shiver.

‘A mess, then.’

‘Yes.’

He parked the car outside the hospital. ‘Lucy, it’s not your mess. It seems that you’ve been the peacekeeping force for long enough. Get a clear idea of what you want from life before starting to cobble together a plan for the man who hurt you, and for children who are grown. Right. I’ll stay here while you visit, then I’m taking you home. It’s time I had a look at your blood pressure. Go on, now. Shoo!’

He watched as she walked away. She was a lovely woman, bright, sweet-tempered and considerate. And she was built like a perfect Venus, good legs, beautiful hair, excellent teeth and . . . Moira was right. It was impossible to describe Lucy without reference to her magnificent bosom. Yet while he and most other men would like to bury their heads in her magnificence, she also brought out the paternal side of him. She needed looking after. But he had never been unfaithful to his wife. Small dalliances didn’t count. As long as he didn’t get involved, he was merely relieving himself of some tensions. This one was different.

Anyway, Lucy, too, was married. He found himself hoping almost desperately that she would not return to Bolton, that she would stay and continue her friendship with Moira, who was definitely benefiting from the new contact. It didn’t matter as much for him, he repeatedly told himself. Moira enjoyed and needed Lucy’s company. And that was all there was to it.

Alan Henshaw, who was a substantial figure of a man, had shrunk considerably. Or perhaps it was all the tubes, wires and machinery that made him smaller. The equipment seemed to be the size of a small symphony orchestra, while the soloist at the centre of it all was diminished by the plethora of pipes and bells with which he was surrounded. His heart was being monitored, and his blood pressure was taken automatically at set intervals. Fluid dripped into his body from above, and trickled out into a bag fastened to the side of his bed. Many of these appliances gave out beeps, alarms and ticking sounds, while the person at the centre of all the drama never so much as blinked.

Freddie Mercury singing ‘I Want to Break Free’ popped into Liz’s head from time to time. Her dad was in there somewhere, and he needed to break free. His stomach had been pumped and, after tests and close examinations, the liver had been declared fit to be used to sole shoes. It didn’t look too promising. She didn’t want Daddy to die.

His nurse, a plain-spoken woman, arrived to make a routine check. ‘Don’t worry, love,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen worse than this walk out on its own two feet after a few days. Mind you, if he doesn’t come off the sauce, he’ll probably bleed to death. Get him to sign into a clinic. He needs weaning off before he goes into a proper nosedive. Cholesterol’s in the hills, heartbeat irregular but settling, and he has a chance if he avoids booze and stress.’

‘Then that’s no chance,’ Liz replied. ‘He has a first class honours in stress, and while he’s awake and breathing, he drinks. Looking back, I can scarcely remember an evening at home when he didn’t have a whisky tumbler in his hand. Hopeless.’

The nurse wrote something on a chart. ‘Aye. It’s a bugger, isn’t it, love? I married a boozer, but I soon got shut. He was more pickled than a jar of silverskin onions, and nasty with it. He came home one night, put the chip pan on, forgot, fell asleep and burned my house down. I was on nights, fortunately. They got him out. The insurance covered the mess, but I wasn’t insured against him, was I? So I got rid. Of him and the chip pan.’ She left the room.

Lizzie stared down at the creature on the bed. This used to be her father. This used to be the man who’d taken her and her brothers to Alton Towers, to Blackpool, Southport, the Lake District, Florida, France, Italy and Spain. Mother had just tagged along like a nanny, while he had provided all the entertainment. ‘Mother read a lot,’ she said to the figure and all his machines. ‘She stood back and let you take the credit for all of it. But Paul and Mike weren’t taken in. They knew she was head and shoulders above you. But I love you. I shall always, always love you. Silly man. You have to wake eventually. You have to face up to what’s happening, Daddy.’

Being a woman wasn’t easy. The first man in a girl’s life was eternally forgivable, but suitors and husbands weren’t. ‘If a man treated me like you treated her, I’d be in jail ten times over.’ She was starting to think deeply about her mother for the first time ever. How had she coped? How had she kept all that anger inside, all that frustration so well hidden? And why had she taken all the money, why had she mortgaged a house so precious to her? It was all so . . . extraordinary.

‘Have you been telling us lies, Daddy?’ she asked.

A light came on, and a loud, continuous note sounded. Lizzie found herself out in the corridor. The crash trolley was rolled in, and staff shouted orders like ‘Clear’, and ‘Charging to two hundred’. They were bringing him back. Well, they were trying to. The child in Lizzie sat with a bunched fist pushed against her mouth, because she would not scream. Brave little girls didn’t scream when in hospital, at the dentist’s, at the doctor’s surgery. ‘Don’t leave me, Daddy. Please don’t go.’

The plain-spoken nurse appeared. She looked hot, as if she had been in a Turkish bath. ‘He’s back, love. Go home. Get some sleep.’

‘I can’t,’ she replied. ‘I just can’t do that.’

The nurse sat down next to Lizzie. ‘Your brother didn’t stay long.’

‘No.’ Liz inhaled deeply. ‘He’s one of a pair of identical twins. The other one fell into a river – he’s in the Countess of Chester.’

‘Bloody hell! More than your fair share of trouble, then. And your mam? Where’s she?’

‘No idea, but if she’s heard about what’s happened she’s probably at the Countess of Chester with Paul and Mike. She ran away, you see. Just upped and offed with her clothes and every penny in the bank. No warning. It was like a magic trick but without the smoke.’

‘I don’t blame her. I told you what happened to me, eh? Women don’t bolt unless they’re pushed into it. You’ve got to start thinking about it from her point of view, love. Your dad will either live or die. He’s committing slow suicide. She’s probably wanting some space for thought, a break while she starts divorce proceedings.’

‘Divorce?’

‘Aye. She’s gone to start a new life, sweetie. Some women just go – they need to get away from whatever. They go when they’re in the middle of making dinner, ironing, washing or some such drudgery. Usually younger than your mam, though. Mid-forties, is she?’

Liz nodded.

‘So she’s not running from, she’s running towards. But I’ll bet you a pound to a penny she thinks she’s run away rather than towards.’

‘Towards what?’

The nurse shrugged. ‘If she’s thought on this for a while, and if she’s taken money, she’ll be after a new start. Without realizing it, she’s gone for a fresh beginning. I reckon your dad’s behaviour has been like water dripping on stone. It takes a while, but the stone starts to get affected. Your mam was being worn down bit by bit, you see.’

Alone once more, Liz went outside to try to reach Mike on his mobile. He answered. ‘Lizzie, Paul’s all right.’

‘Is Mother with him?’

‘Yes. She’s been given a mattress to lie on, and she’s taking him home tomorrow. Well, home to her new place.’

‘Where?’

‘Liverpool.’

‘Oh. And where are you?’

‘Standing right behind you.’

She turned and punched him playfully. ‘So you’ve brought my car back, at least.’

‘And how’s the real invalid, Lizzie?’

‘He died again, and they brought him back again.’ She paused and put away her phone. ‘Somewhere along the line, a huge amount of truth has gone for a walk. She’s protected us, and in doing so she’s protected him. Well, something like that.’

It was plain that Lizzie was coming round to her brothers’ way of thinking. ‘You’ve been aware all along,’ said Mike. ‘But your daddy made you into a princess, and that blinded you. I know you’re not a lot younger than us, but we’ve been privileged, because we each had the other to talk to. We worked him out a while back. He uses cheap labour and cheap materials. When the houses start to fall down, he’ll wish he had died, because there’ll be a lot of people on his tail.’

‘That’s horrible, Mike. We don’t want him to die. Do we?’

He shook his head. ‘But we want Mums to survive. He’s been drinking her life blood along with his Scotch for long enough. I know now, Lizzie. Mums and I went for a coffee, and she told me. Everything. She was her usual self, no anger, no resentment. The facts are plain. He stole every penny left by the Gramps. He acted exactly how they had expected him to act when they warned her not to marry him.’

Liz gulped.

‘He mortgaged and remortgaged the house.’

‘How?’

‘Forgery. He forged Mums’s signature and probably some of the witnesses’ too. If he lives, he has a lot to face. He has a ton of unpaid bills. The land he bought at Bromley Cross may just cover his debts, mortgages included. That was why she let him keep that project. Even then, at the end of her marriage, she looked after him.’ He hugged his sister. ‘There is no woman in the world like her. With the exception of you. We are fortunate. God gave us our mother’s temperament.’

Lizzie sat on a bench, and her brother joined her. Both remained deep in thought for several seconds. Then Lizzie spoke. ‘I wonder what she’ll do with Tallows? It’s a lovely place, and it shouldn’t be left to rot.’

He shrugged. ‘I was talking to a bloke in the car park at the Countess of Chester. He was going to take her . . . home, but she asked me to tell him she was staying the night with Paul. Richard Turner, lives next door to her, has a disabled wife. Mums gave her a massage, and it helped. He’s a doctor. He told me Mums is starting a bed and breakfast business. Seems she’s no intention of going home to Tallows.’

Lizzie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps she’ll do the same with Tallows – turn it into a hotel of some kind.’

‘Who knows, sis? The only thing that’s plain to me is that she won’t live with Dad again. All those years she just waited and said nothing – Jeez.’

‘Then she took her money back.’

‘She did. And she took into account inflation, the wages he never paid her for handling paperwork, the damage he did to her standing in the community. She says he built new slums with her dad’s money. There’s no lack of brain in her. She just bides her time.’

‘She knows he’s ill?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she doesn’t care?’

He thought about that. ‘She does – that’s the daft part. She phoned the Bolton hospital at least twice from the Countess of Chester. But she did say he’s his own worst enemy. Very plain, she was. She said a man who drinks like that, who eats like that, and has sex all over the place can’t expect to see old age.’

‘Phew. That is plain for Mother.’

He stood up and opened a door. ‘Come on, kid. Let’s see if the lion’s started to roar again.’

Three

Mike and Liz returned after a further couple of nights to a very bare-looking Tallows. Liz, who had tried hard not to think about the emptying of the family home, burst into tears when she saw the results of her hasty action. ‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ she moaned. ‘Just look at it – two chairs and a sofa. It looks like an empty barn. Poor, abandoned old house. It’s as if no one loves or wants it.

‘I hope you left the beds and bedding,’ he said drily, a twinkle in his eye. ‘After sleeping on a mattress on the floor for two nights, we need proper beds. And, now that Dad’s managed to live for forty-eight hours without the need for jump-leads, perhaps we can have a bash at getting back to normal. Come on, sis – no need for tears.’

Normal? Liz could scarcely remember what the word meant. Her father was a cheat, a fraud and a liar. He was very ill, could die at any moment and, if he did live, would be able to do next to nothing. Mother had bogged off because he’d stolen all her inheritance and mortgaged a valuable house. How could anything ever be normal again? About one thing only she was certain. Whatever happened, she would carry on at RADA. She wanted Royal Shakespeare, and nothing less would do. She dried her eyes and grinned. Who was she trying to kid? Anything would do as long as there was an audience. Even a TV advertisement for pile cream would—

‘Beds, Lizzie? You know – the things people sleep on? Do we have some? Or have you mothballed them, too?’

‘Oh, sorry. The bedrooms are exactly as they were, apart from some of Mother’s French stuff and a couple of armoires and things from the guest rooms. But it looks all wrong upstairs as well. It’s strange. It’s not home any more, is it? You think you’re grown up, then stuff like this happens, and you realize you’re still a kid that needs its comfort blanket. What sad and sorry creatures we are.’

‘It will be all wrong without Mums,’ he said. ‘OK, so my car’s in Chester, as is Paul’s, because Mums took him back to her other place – he says it’s great, by the way. Anyway, you’re the only one who’s mobile. Tomorrow, we bring our mother home. We can’t leave this place empty. It needs her – let’s face it, Mums is Tallows.’

Liz sat down. ‘Be careful, Mike,’ she said. ‘Whatever you do, try not to take her for granted, because she’s changed, and that change has taken a lot of doing. She’s achieved it quietly, slowly and secretly. Don’t for one moment imagine that you know what’s best for her. You sounded like Daddy just then. Being a man doesn’t mean you know what’s right. She’s been walked over all her life, and I feel ashamed, because I should have noticed. Since she fled, I’ve been thinking about her, about the life she’s led, her patience, the way she tolerated Daddy. She’s a bloody good woman, Mike. Give her respect. Respect means not telling her what to do. Understood?’

He placed himself in the other chair. ‘She can’t let him live here.’

‘Look, she can do exactly as she pleases. If he gets out of hospital in one piece, Mother will decide what to do – if anything. She owes him very little. It’s the other way round, isn’t it? He owes her. That quiet lady we lived with is still there. But behind the softness there’s a brain, and she planned all this. Not the heart attacks – she wouldn’t harm a flea. But the great denouement was arranged by Mother.’

Mike allowed a tight smile to visit his face for a second or two. ‘Denouement? Anyone listening might think you were a drama student.’

She jumped to her feet suddenly. ‘Oh, my God,’ she yelled. ‘I’ve an audition tomorrow, so I can’t come with you. I’ll be in Manchester – Summer Theatre in the Park, which means it will probably be a very wet affair. You see, I need it for my portfolio, real experience. Someone fell ill, and I’m trying for her part. Sorry, mate. I’ll drop you off at the railway station, but I can’t go to see Mother and Paul. The best thing might be for you to go to Chester by train, get your car, then drive to Liverpool. But I can’t come. I have to take every chance. Mums drummed that much into me.’

‘Good thing I reminded you then, airhead.’

She wagged a finger at him. ‘You start telling my mother what to do with her life, and you’ll have me to answer to. I’ll deal with you, I promise, and I won’t be kind. We may have inherited her temperament, but I think I’ve got his temper without the “ament”.’

‘Fate worse than death, being dealt with by you, little sis,’ he remarked as he left the room. ‘I promise I’ll be good,’ he called over his shoulder.

Liz stayed where she was for a while. Tallows was a house that could never have been termed cosy, because it was rather grand. Robbed of much of its furniture, it was about as welcoming as an oversized cold store in the middle of winter – what the heck was Mother going to do with it? It was becoming plain that an ideas woman had sat behind the docile wife, just waiting for the right time, the right chance. ‘Tallows can’t be left to rot,’ Liz whispered. ‘And she’ll know that. She’ll think of something, I know she will.’

She walked through four huge reception rooms, on to orangery, library, kitchen. By most people’s standards, this was a huge house. The entrance hall alone could have accommodated a sizeable family, and the Henshaw children had taken for granted that games of hide-and-seek were special in their young lives. Paul had once spent the best part of a day in a bedding chest on a landing. He’d been discovered only when he’d come up for air.

‘Wonderful house for children,’ she whispered. But was it? Whenever she thought about marriage and a family, she saw herself in a more conventional place, hopefully in London and near to a park in which children could play. She liked tall, thin, London terraced properties with the kitchen in a basement below those tortuous flights of stairs, a walled rear garden, bedrooms on two upper floors above the living rooms.

After digging in her capacious bag for an elusive bit of paper, she found tomorrow’s instructions. Prostitute, heroin addict. Murder victim. Act one only. Oh, well. If she didn’t survive to act two, there wouldn’t be a lot to do, and the script gave her just a few pages to learn. It was work, and she was determined to have it. In her game, actual employment meant more than any qualification. A curriculum vitae, along with a few photographs, carried a great deal of weight when it came to auditions.

Upstairs, she found a faded denim skirt of which her parents had never approved. Daddy called it a handkerchief, and had been heard to opine that if the skirt were any shorter, Lizzie would need to wash behind her ears. Mother labelled it a pelmet, so it was eminently suitable for the part. A once-white top that failed completely to cover her midriff was also chosen, along with shoes and boots high enough to require planning permission. She would decide about footwear in the morning.

Later, Liz lay in bed. Should she go up for the part? What if she got it and Daddy died and she needed to take time off? And shouldn’t she be with him while he was so ill? Her brothers might start persuading Mother to come home. No. She mustn’t worry about that, because Mother seemed to have found her backbone at last.

Track marks. What did they look like? Would the girl have them on her arms? Liz leapt up and retrieved a longish-sleeved purple jacket from her wardrobe. That should do it, because it just about covered her arms to below the elbow joints. God, this acting lark was a nuisance. But she wanted to do it. She had always wanted to do it. How far up and down an arm would track marks go? Perhaps she might draw some on her skin with one of those indelible pens. No matter how small the part, every detail must be considered, because this was her future. Acting was everything.

Mother’s sister had been the same, though she’d been dead for a long time now. Mother had supported Liz’s dreams, whereas Daddy had taken a very minor interest. It was time to thank the woman who had always been there for her. It was time to grow up. Daddy’s little girl no longer existed. But oh, how she hoped he would live.

The flowers arrived at lunchtime the following day. An accompanying card bore the message, Mother, thank you for all your encouragement. I got an acting job in Manchester and I send you all my love and support at this difficult time. Elizabeth.

Lucy grinned and placed the flowers in water. The past few days had been traumatic, to say the least of it, but she had her boys with her now, and her daughter, the very person from whom Lucy had not expected forgiveness, had sent these beautiful blooms. Yet the dilemma remained. ‘What am I going to do about him?’ she asked the sink while catching water in a vase. The boys were easy. Noisy work had ceased for a while, and they were sleeping on sofa beds in two of her four ground-floor reception rooms. Even Lizzie seemed to be OK . . .

Which ‘him’ was the bigger problem? Alan had heart damage. If he carried on drinking, he would not live to benefit from surgery. Withdrawal from drink might cause a killer heart attack – what a bloody mess. And the other ‘him’ was having trouble with his shoulder. She was having trouble with his shoulder, because he was gorgeous, interesting and interested. Yet a part of her believed that he was too . . . too earthy for her, too needful in the sex department. Women of forty-five didn’t start playing the field, surely? Moira was her friend, too.

Should she put this house on the market and go home? No, no, no. Tallows was her family home from way back, but it had to be . . . cleansed. The place needed to be used, but twenty-odd unhappy years meant that she could not possibly live there yet. The boys and Lizzie all preferred London, so she needed to find a purpose for the house. Left to its own devices, it would crumble its way towards death, so it needed to be used.

She looked out at the garden and caught her sons peering through holes in the fence. Oh dear. More problems loomed, because the Turner girls were home, and the twins were enthralled. It might well be easier to throw in the towel and limp back to Bolton, but she liked it here. The house contained a different history, one that was completely unconnected to hers. Richard Turner could be dealt with; the boys were young enough for dalliances, old enough to cause problems wherever they were. And, deep down inside herself, Lucy had at last found a layer of stubbornness. She was in charge. She intended to keep it that way.

Alan opened his eyes and decided that he was having a particularly nasty nightmare. Perhaps he had opened his eyes only as part of the dream – perhaps he was still asleep, because this could not possibly be real. He didn’t want to look, didn’t want to hear. Oh, God. Would this suffering never end?

It was real. Yes, she was gabbling on about power of attorney, banks, mortgages, plots and plans. She’d been plotting and planning for ages, but she referred on this occasion to the development in Bromley Cross. She wasn’t supposed to be here. He had been expecting never to clap eyes on the bloody woman again. There was no point in closing his eyes and pretending to be asleep, since she had already seen him wide awake. There was more to this one than met the eye, and he was guilty of years of gross underestimation when it came to his not-so-beloved wife.

‘Because of your illness, I thought I had better come and see you. After all, letters delivered to Tallows might lie for a while before you get them, so I told Glenys to hang fire. Right. The twenty plots and accepted plans will go some way to covering your debts,’ she told him. ‘When all your plant is sold, because much of the machinery is quite new, there’ll be another chunk paid off. The rest of the mess you made will be dealt with by me. It’s my punishment for marrying a bastard, you see.’

Bastard? She never used words of that kind. She even looked different. She looked alive, determined and quite attractive for a change.

‘Sign,’ she demanded.

He signed. There was no alternative. ‘What about me?’ he asked almost sheepishly.

She sat down in the visitor’s chair. ‘Once fit to travel in an ambulance, you are going from here to a private hospital outside Manchester. Easterly Grange, I think it’s called. They have all the wiring you’re wearing now, plus operating theatres. First, you will be dried out. If you survive that, there’ll be heart surgery. If you survive the surgery, you will move to Liverpool. My family will stand a better chance of avoiding this scandal if you’re out of the way. The boys may not return to Bolton after university, but we Buckleys have a long and illustrious history in these parts. You’ve muddied the waters, and you can’t stay in the area.’

‘It’s a long way to fall from a horse as high as yours,’ he warned. She was carrying on like some sort of princess – who the hell did she think she was talking to? But he mustn’t get angry. He’d been advised repeatedly against angry.

‘Exactly. A great deal further than your recent slide off the back of a Blackpool donkey. I shall sell the plant while the company appears to be a going concern with its leader in hospital due to a temporary health problem that requires surgery. As far as purchasers are concerned, you are going for even newer, better stuff, and your company is thriving.’

He blinked rapidly. This was one clever clogs. Had he harnessed her energies properly, she might have proved a willing workhorse. But she was also an actress, very good at playing a part and hiding her true feelings. She had bided her time, and she had bested him. That was the bit that hurt most – he’d been outclassed by a female.

‘Very wise,’ he said drily.

‘Don’t patronize me, Alan. I did my best under circumstances that were never easy for me. The children were my department. I was the dragon who made them eat their greens, sit in a dentist’s chair, do their homework. You did the easy bit – the spoiling. Fortunately, it hasn’t affected them in the least way. They, too, have survived you.’

‘Where are they?’

‘The boys are with me, while Lizzie has a part in some play in Manchester. She’ll go far.’

‘They all will.’

‘Yes.’ There was no more to be said. She gathered up her power of attorney papers and placed them in a document case. Then she remembered – there was one more item to be mentioned. ‘In Liverpool, you will perhaps live in my house. It’s in Crosby, actually, a few miles north of the city. You will live not as my husband, but as a non-paying guest. I am turning Stoneyhurst into a bed and breakfast business.’

His eyes narrowed as he studied the compliant, domesticated female who had lived with him for how many years? Was it twenty-three? He nursed a slight suspicion that she had been the source of his children’s brains, since he had never been any great shakes when it came to the realms of academia. Mike was to become a teacher of history, Paul a pharmacist, while Liz had her heart set on acting. ‘You’ve got me exactly where you want me, eh?’ he said. ‘Flat on my bloody back and powerless.’

Her answer was fired back at lightning speed. ‘I don’t want you at all, if you’re looking for an honest answer. And I am divorcing you. However, since you are the father of my children, and as your philandering, drinking and gambling days are possibly coming to an end, I am offering to house you. This isn’t out of the goodness of my heart, as you destroyed years ago any goodness I might have owned. I am doing it because it will take you out of Bolton and away from the life you have wasted so far.’

‘Quite the bitch, aren’t you?’ He thought about his socks in the bin, the pile of unpaid bills, some of which were months overdue. There was a streak of badness in her. She was far from the perfect mother she had always pretended to be.

She stood up. ‘Yes, indeed. And I advise you here and now to remember that. I find myself capable of going to just about any lengths to curb your activities and to save the reputations of my children. After all, who wants a drunken gambler for a father? Or a man who sleeps around so freely that he might become diseased?’ She nodded at him. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of months. If you’re still alive, that is. Good luck – I mean that, Alan. I hope you beat the booze and do well with the surgery.’

He watched her as she walked away. For a woman with so much on her plate, she seemed quite light on her feet, almost jaunty. He had no money, no future, not unless he went cap in hand to her for every little thing. Revenge? Oh, yes. She was an expert at it. It didn’t matter now whether he lived or died, because his life was over. She owned him.

Outside in the corridor, Lucy stood still, a hand to her chest. She felt as if she might be the one heading for a heart attack after such a performance. How cool she had been, how decided, how brave. Yet how much it had taken out of her. It was over. She had faced the demon and could begin now to calm down.

‘Louisa?’

She felt a hand on her shoulder, turned and saw a face that rang a very distant bell in the annals of memory. For a few seconds, she simply stood and stared until she realized that she must appear rude. He looked a bit like John Lennon, but John was very dead. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been to visit my husband in there.’ She waved her hand in the direction of the room she had just left. A name was seeping into her brain. ‘Goodness,’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s . . . is it? Is it little David Vincent?’

He nodded and grinned almost as broadly as he had at ten years of age. Then he started to laugh at the surprise she was displaying. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong with me? Am I a disappointment? Come on, don’t keep me on tenterhooks.’

There was nothing wrong with him, but . . . ‘But you were shorter than any of us – have you been on growth hormones? Gosh, it must be thirty-odd years – what on earth are you doing here?’ He had never won a race, because his legs hadn’t been long enough. Some of the gang had laughed at him, but Lucy, already showing symptoms of the domestic diplomat she would become, had tried to protect him. ‘Why are you here?’ she repeated. ‘Are you ill?’

‘No, I’m begging,’ he said. ‘I seem to spend half my life begging. Come on – there’s a coffee shop nearby. We can’t drink the hospital stuff. In my opinion, they use their beverages to finish off any surplus patients. It’ll be a government plan to free up beds.’

He led her out of the building and across the road. ‘Your face has changed hardly at all,’ she told him. ‘But I never expected little David to turn into so fine a figure of a man.’

He took her into the shop and guided her to a table near the window.

‘Coffee, doc?’ the girl behind the counter asked.

‘Two, please. I’ll spoil myself, cappuccino with sprinkles. Louisa?’

‘Lucy. Skinny latte for me.’

Seated at a table with her coffee in front of her, she stared at him. Little David Vincent was a very tall doctor. ‘Where did you move to?’ she asked. ‘One day, when we were about ten or eleven years old, you suddenly weren’t there any more. I ran down to see you, and you were gone.’ She remembered her sadness. ‘I missed you. Everyone did, especially Diane.’

He nodded. ‘Well, Dad moved on. He swapped Mum for a skeletal freak with the brains of a brick wall and all the charm of the sluice room on Women’s Medical. She had money and a stud farm. So Mum and I went to Westhoughton and lived with my grandparents. It was all rather sudden.’

Lucy shook her head sadly. ‘Oh, David – I’d no idea.’

He smiled, and Lucy noticed that he still had that childlike twinkle in his eye. ‘Mum had no idea, either. Till she came home early from work with a headache one day and found them in an interesting position on the bathroom floor.’

‘I’m sorry, David. I remember your mother. She was a nurse. It was your mother who convinced me to go into nursing.’

‘She was a nurse, yes. And a damned fine mother. So. You married, then?’

‘Yes. You?’

The handsome face clouded over. ‘She died. So did our son. Anne was in a car accident, then Tim – well – it was leukaemia. I offloaded my general practice when Anne died, buggered off to India for a couple of years to find myself, got lost, came home and specialized as a paediatrician. Then I specialized even further and became a children’s cancer doctor. Leukaemia, mostly.’

He’d been a kind, quiet child who’d often thought up interesting games. There’d been a tree house in his garden, and all the gang had met there. ‘It’s nice to meet someone who remembers Diane,’ Lucy said. They’d done plays and concerts – all written and directed by Diane, of course. ‘She was always very fond of you.’

‘As I was of her. Of both of you, in fact. I always thought I’d marry one of you when I grew up. A child seems to believe that everything will remain the same, that no one will ever move on.’ He sighed. ‘Yes, I read about her death in the paper, thought about writing to you, but what could I say? I was stuck for words. And now I’m stuck again, reduced to begging on behalf of my patients. What about you, Lucy?’

She gave him the full, unabridged version. It was as if thirty-five years had simply melted away, because she knew and trusted him immediately. She omitted no paragraph, no syllable, as it was such a relief to talk openly to someone who wasn’t Glenys. ‘So he’s in there now.’ She pointed to the large building across the road. ‘And I’m not the type to sit by and watch someone die. I was tempted, mind. But at least the children were grown and at university when I did a bunk. So, nothing’s changed apart from the fact that I own an extra house. If he lives, I’ll have to take care of him.’

‘Why?’

One little word, yet it certainly made her think.

‘Why, Louisa? After all he’s done?’

‘He’s still a human being, just about.’

He tutted. ‘The same Louisa, then. You were always like that, you know.’

‘Not quite the same, David. I am divorcing him. I’m by no means as sweet as I used to be. He’s lying there in a terrible state, he could have another attack at any time, but I wasn’t nice to him. But I can’t leave him to live like a vagrant on the streets.’

‘Then find him a flat and be done with him.’

She fiddled with a sugar bowl, turning it this way and that, but it looked the same from all angles, as did the problem attached to her husband. ‘I want him pinned down,’ she said. ‘I don’t want the father of Paul, Michael and Elizabeth drinking himself to death in full view of the population of Bolton. Because the house will go to them when I die, and at least one of them could come back. In my will, any or all of them can live in it. Whoever lives there pays rent to the other two or buys them out – it’s all arranged. I don’t want them to be known as the product of the local drunk.’

‘Then get him a flat in – where are you?’

‘Crosby. Well, Waterloo if we want to be picky.’

He took her hand. ‘Louisa?’

‘What?’

‘Is Tallows empty?’

She nodded. ‘The cleaner and the gardener are doing their best, and Lizzie rescued any furniture of value. Why?’

‘Could we go and look at it for old times’ sake? Remember hide-and-seek?’

She grinned. ‘I was thinking about my three just the other day, remembering them as children. I could never find them. If cabbage was on the menu, they’d go missing for a whole day. We had to use the cabbage as part of bubble and squeak in the end. By the time it was fried with mashed potatoes, any nutritional value had melted into thin air.’ She watched his face, saw sadness behind his smile. ‘You had no more children?’

‘No. I never remarried. Annie was special.’

She noticed that a cloud seemed to pass over his face as he remembered his lost loved ones. ‘Was Tim the reason why you went for childhood cancers?’

He nodded. ‘And it’s brilliant. I see kids like my son in remission, sometimes cured, even grown to adulthood. I want to open a respite centre, that’s why I’m begging. There’s a local charity, which I founded. It’s the Timothy Vincent Trust, and most of the donors are people who have a child who’s ill, or know one who has died. We’re doing OK as far as research is concerned – that part of the money goes to London where the biggest strides are made, of course. But we need a place.’ He stared into her eyes. ‘An empty house with qualified staff who’ll take the children and look after them while their families have a break.’

Lucy retrieved her hand and closed her bag with a snap. Now, she had two doctors to think about. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I have my car. Is yours at the hospital, too?’

‘Yes. I’ll walk you back to your car first, then you can wait here on the road until I catch up with you. Mine’s round the back among the staff vehicles.’

During the drive to Tallows, Lucy pondered the subject of fate. If she hadn’t visited Alan today, she might never have met a man who had known Diane, who had been a member of the Notorious Five – a name stolen by Diane, of course, from the celebrated Enid Blyton books. There had been Louisa, Diane, David and . . . and Terri Easton, a rather tomboyish girl. The fifth? Ah yes, a red-haired lad who picked his nose, dug up worms and put them down people’s clothes. Adam? Andrew? It didn’t matter.

What did matter was the chance to make Tallows useful. Perhaps it would not be what was required, but it was worth a look, surely? All the time, a lump sat in her throat. But that was nothing new, because the leaving of the house in which she had been born had never been an easy move.

David found Tallows to be perfectly suitable for his needs, though others would need to look at it, of course. ‘How much?’ he asked.

‘I’m not selling.’ With the furniture gone, it looked rather derelict, she thought.

‘To rent, I mean. How much?’

‘I have to talk to the twins and to Lizzie first. It’s their home, though I doubt they’ll want to use it. But I must speak to them.’

‘Of course you must. Oh, Lucy-Louisa. What brought you into my path today?’

She pondered for a few seconds. ‘Tim, probably. If he’s anything like his father was as a boy, he’ll be charming the wings off angels. Oh, I’m sorry,’ she breathed when she saw the tears in his eyes. She stepped forward with a handkerchief in her hand, and what followed was a total shock. He grabbed her and went to kiss her cheek, but she turned to wipe his face in the last split second, and the embrace landed squarely on her mouth. That was just an accident, but he clung to her. She felt his tears running down her face, yet he continued to kiss her. The shock was born when she realized she was kissing him back. There was an amateurish feel to the occasion, as if two teenagers were experimenting with their very first close encounter.

They separated reluctantly. She gave him her handkerchief before sitting on the edge of her bed. She could still taste him. ‘Now, that shouldn’t have happened,’ she said. ‘A definite mistake. Sorry.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ came the answer. ‘I’ve just broken a very long duck.’ He faced the window and dried his face.

‘Since Anne?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘You?’

‘About ten years. And there would have been no response from me. I hated him using me.’

At last, he faced her. ‘You were an extraordinary child, and you have become the woman you promised to be. When I was small, before the great spurts of growth began, you minded me, Louisa. This isn’t the first time you’ve dried my tears.’

She sighed. ‘David, I imagined you’d always be there. As you said earlier, we thought nothing would change.’ Her parents would have been delighted. ‘But perhaps we’re both a bit hormonal? When my children give their answer, and I know it’ll be yes, you’ll have solved a massive problem, and that’s exciting, so you’re probably pumping adrenalin. As for me, well, I’ve just found freedom of a sort after years of unhappiness. It’s great to be in the company of a man I don’t hate.’

He wasn’t answering, so she motored on. ‘There are two provisos. I’d want a suite of rooms upstairs – I already have this so-called master with its own bathroom, but I’d like a small kitchen. Just a foothold, that’s all I need. How many children will be here at any given time?’

At last, he opened his mouth. ‘Depending on the level of care required, up to eight. We could take ten at a pinch if I find enough staff. And I hope we’ll get planning permission – and yours, of course – for a temporary structure in the grounds, which would allow me to take more children in.’

‘There’s already a little park home down there near the woods. So there’ll be room for me in the big house?’

‘There will always be room for you, Louisa. And the second clause?’

‘Ah, yes. Important. No alterations to the basic structure. You can divide as many rooms as you wish, but nothing solid. When I die, my children may choose to sell or to use the house differently. All that aside, there’s a lovely play area in the orangery. It’s all safety glass, all kite-marked. Some of them will be able to play, I hope.’

He lowered his head and stared at the floor. ‘Tim played right to the end. Jigsaws, mostly – he hadn’t much strength. Kids are so much better at accepting the inevitable. I’ve seen others die during play. It’s unusual, though it happens. But the main point of focus here is the parents and their other children. Cancer rules a household, Louisa. From time to time, a family needs to be away from the sick child. Most don’t go away on holiday willingly, but they go after I’ve bent their ears for months.’

She smiled. He was probably a very good persuader.

‘Louisa?’

‘What?’

‘I know this seems odd, but would you consider . . . going out with me?’

God. She felt as if she’d been propelled backwards through time, because he sounded so dated. Dated. He wanted to date her. She was a child of the sixties, as was he. Although her parents and other adults within her sphere hadn’t joined the peace and love brigade, she was acutely aware of how manners had changed, of people’s reduced respect for themselves and for each other. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like that. You must visit me, of course. It takes about an hour to get there, that’s all. Come and look at my house.’

‘And you’ll be here sometimes?’

‘Of course. It’s my home, so I shall have to become an active member of your charity, won’t I?’

‘Yes. Yes, you will.’ His grin was wide again.

She, too, was pleased. There were two reasons that merited celebration. She had met a man she liked and thought she could trust, while a certain doctor in Crosby might just have to accept that she was there for his frozen shoulder and no more. Richard Turner was an earthy, needful animal, while David, man and boy, had always been a sensitive creature. And the kiss had been so gentle, yet fervent. He was part of her past, as was this house. She intended to keep contact with both.

Alone, David Vincent jangled Lucy’s spare keys. She trusted him enough to allow him access to her house. Something about Louisa and Diane Buckley had made them completely unforgettable. ‘I haven’t set you aside, Anne,’ he whispered to his long-dead wife. ‘Or you, Tim. But look at this. Think what can be done here.’

He lay down on Lucy’s bed. It didn’t smell of her perfume. There was just a faint odour of washing powder. How long had it been since he’d noticed another woman’s perfume? Or another woman? In his soul, he had remained constant to Anne. Perhaps if Tim had lived, he might have sought a stepmother for him. But this was Louisa Buckley, and nothing less would do. Why? He hadn’t the slightest bloody idea.

By accident, he had kissed her. She had responded. It had all been very awkward, but it had also been real. He had wept for Anne and for Tim, yet there had been another reason for that silly outburst of weeping. Yes, his duck had been broken, but it had fallen to pieces of its own accord, because that misplaced kiss had been guided by someone or something. Anne? Had she decided it was time for him to find himself? He certainly hadn’t found himself in India, that was plain.

‘Is it to be you, Louisa?’ he asked the other pillow. ‘Were you sent today to visit a man you would never have seen again had he not been ill? Do you and I share karma that involves the death of your husband, my wife and my son?’ From the sound of things, Alan Henshaw didn’t have long to live. The guru in India had promised a second marriage, though David had remained averse to the concept. There had been one woman for him, and she was dead.

He closed his eyes and began to drift towards sleep, but found himself dreaming still of Anne.

The attendant drew back the sheet. There wasn’t a mark on her face when David made the formal identification. Had she survived, it wouldn’t have been easy for her, as one of her legs had been amputated at the scene. Multiple organ failure was the cause listed on the death certificate. The second thing, the real culprit, was severe trauma caused by traffic accident.

For how long had he wanted to kill the driver of that lorry? He couldn’t remember. And how often had he been ear-witness to the concept that cancer was sometimes caused by shock? He had left Tim with his mother. ‘So selfish,’ he moaned. How on earth could a father leave his son at such a time? Did he go just to be far away from the driver of that truck?

He phoned home from Calcutta. His mother’s words were few and bold. ‘Get yourself home this minute, David. No more of your nonsense about meditation, please. Tim’s white blood cell count is wrong. He is to go into hospital for further examination and tests.’

He came home. Tim, who had lost one parent to death and another to selfishness, lived for just a further six months. The driver of the lorry committed suicide. And it hadn’t even been his fault: it had been Anne’s brakes.

David had not considered his one and only child. By going abroad, he had made Tim an orphan. Letters and presents had done nothing to save him. Had the disappearance of the two people he loved most contributed to his early death? Celibacy had probably been David’s penance.

He groaned and turned over, drawing up his knees until he was lying in the foetal position.

Fighting for Tim, taking him all over America in search of a cure. Chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hair loss, sickness, and always a smile for Dad. The very last section of jigsaw placed correctly by Tim, a bit of blue sky. That piece was with him in the urn. Both sets of ashes were buried under a fir tree whose branches were covered every year in Christmas lights. Inside the cold, messy house – nothing. No cards, no turkey, just research.

David opened his eyes. It had been a rather odd dream, a not-quite-asleep experience. He felt strangely calm, as if a decision had been reached, as if all problems were now swept away. One accident. One kiss. Louisa Buckley.

Another doctor in another place was thinking about Lucy Henshaw, though his thoughts were more specific than David Vincent’s. He needed the relief provided by close contact with a desirable woman, and Lucy seemed to grow more attractive every time he saw her. Moira understood. She remembered the avid lover, his frequent demands, and the pleasure she had shared with him. And she approved of Lucy, but Richard was getting nowhere. Lucy wasn’t cold, wasn’t aloof – she was simply unresponsive to him.

The massages were wonderful, but she, as a nurse, stuck rigidly to the brief – he had a frozen shoulder, and she treated just that. Sometimes he leaned his head against that remarkable bosom, but she always stepped back, or moved to one side. Was that because she wanted him and was playing it cool? Or was she displaying her intention not to become involved with her friend’s husband? Perhaps she simply didn’t fancy him. Whatever, he should be giving up, because he seemed to be getting nowhere. He was teetering on the brink of obsession, and it had to stop.

In the end, it was Moira who stepped metaphorically into the breach. She could no longer bear to watch his suffering, the swings from hope to despair, the pain that Lucy’s perceived rejections were giving him, so she spoke to her next door neighbour one evening over a glass of wine. Having nothing to lose, she was extremely blunt, slightly drunk, and very clumsy. ‘He’s out. Gone to visit a dying woman,’ she said. ‘And he wants you,’ she added. ‘I expect you realize by now that he wants you.’

‘Oh.’ For several seconds, Lucy could not lay her tongue across another syllable. What was she supposed to say? ‘Gee, thanks, I’m flattered’? Or ‘I had absolutely no idea’?

Moira motored on. ‘You see, we had a very active sex life, but that’s been put a stop to by this bloody MS. And I had a wonderfully romantic idea about finding him another wife – one I liked – to carry on after I’m gone. He shouldn’t be alone. I feel terrified when I think of him going through life without a partner. He likes you. I think he’s falling for you, and I’m glad.’

Lucy prided herself on having become used to the outgoing ways of the average Scouser. Although faster-spoken, they were very like Yorkshire folk when it came to calling a pail a bucket, yet she felt utterly stymied by Moira’s bluntness. ‘I’m still married,’ she managed finally.

‘Divorcing, though. Right from the start, I thought you were the one for him. I don’t want him picking up all sorts of girls – he needs kindness, continuity, a lover. He’s an extraordinary man, and a good one.’ Moira reached across and patted Lucy’s hand, withdrawing it immediately when she felt Lucy’s automatic recoil. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I thought you were fond of Richard. I’ve seen you laughing and joking with him. I was sure you liked him.’

‘I did.’ Lucy, who had sat on anger for as long as she could remember, reined in many feelings that were suddenly threatening to overpower her. Was she expected to become an unpaid prostitute? ‘But I also value myself, Moira. Your husband has sent out many signals in my direction. Had he been in possession of the slightest degree of sensitivity . . .’ She paused for a moment. ‘Even common sense would have helped. He should be aware by now that I have no intention of becoming close to him. Oh, and he had better see a qualified physio, as my ministrations are clearly not working, since he continues to come back for more treatment.’

‘You’re angry.’

‘I’m furious. I know you have an incurable disease, and I’ve been only too pleased to help, but I draw the line at sexual favours. Would you want to supervise the proceedings?’ Lucy held up a hand. ‘Sorry about that last bit, but if your husband can’t control his animal urges, I suggest you send him to Lime Street where the working girls hang out. He can check them for disease before jumping on board whichever train he chooses to travel on.’

‘Sorry, Lucy.’

‘So am I. I shall miss you.’ She left the house, allowing the front door to slam in her wake. For almost a quarter of a century, Lucy Henshaw, née Buckley, had kept her temper. No, it had been longer than that: she had always been a people-pleaser. Except when it had come to marrying Alan. That single, quiet revolution against her family had produced a disaster, and she had lost confidence in her own decision-making skills. But now her hackles were up.

Laughter drifted from one of her front sitting rooms. Moira’s children, Alice and Stephanie Turner, who managed to look like identical twins, were keeping company with Lucy’s real identical twins. This was going to become uncomfortable, because the boys appeared to have settled here, and October was many weeks away. Anything might happen. She couldn’t supervise this, didn’t want to stay in the house just to protect these young adults.

The girls were studying medicine in Edinburgh, where their father had trained. Their older brother, Simon, was already working at the Royal in Liverpool. He lived in a flat near the hospital so that he would be on call to serve the master he followed, a cardio-thoracic surgeon with a double-barrelled name and the attitude of a prima donna. The son of the family was a nice lad. Lucy wondered briefly what Simon, Alice and Stephanie might say if informed that their mother was trying to hand over their father to the woman next door. She would put a stop to the nonsense right away, and she would do it in a way that might well be deemed eccentric.

She wasn’t one for taking notice of whims, but she acted on one now. Opening the door without knocking, she asked her sons to come out into the hall. They disentangled themselves from their partners before joining Lucy. With a finger to her lips, she led them into the kitchen, taking care to ensure that the door was closed before speaking. ‘Be careful with those two,’ she whispered. ‘They come from a very strange family.’

‘So do we,’ said Paul. ‘Look, Mums, they’re nice girls, good fun – there’s nothing heavy going on. What on earth’s the matter? You look like you’ve swallowed a wasp.’

‘When’s Elizabeth coming?’

‘Sunday, possibly. Look, I asked first – what’s going on?’

They were old enough to be told, so she told them. ‘Moira asked me to have sex with their father. Her illness may have affected her brain, but he has become . . . something of an imposition. He won’t leave me alone. She says he’s stressed because she can’t . . . well . . . they don’t have a full relationship on account of her sickness. I walked out of their house a few minutes ago. I’m rather angry.’

The two boys dropped into chairs at the big white table. ‘What?’ Mike’s eyebrows almost disappeared under his fringe. ‘Mums?’

She shrugged. ‘I knew he was needful, and I knew he had me printed on his bill of fare. But I thought I could sidestep him until he found somewhere else to leave a deposit.’

The twins looked at each other. Never before had their mother spoken so bluntly. ‘But that’s crazy,’ Paul said. ‘Ridiculous.’

Lucy agreed. ‘If his daughters are in my house, he has an excuse to come for them. I won’t be treating his shoulder, so that will cut down most of his visits. However, your friendship with Steph and Alice could make life difficult for me. I hope you understand.’

‘What do we tell them?’ Mike asked.

‘No idea. I’ve found of late that the truth serves me very well. Perhaps it’s almost a relief, because I lived a lie for such a long time.’ She left them to discuss their problem. No, it wasn’t their problem – it was hers, and she had allowed a personal difficulty to impinge on her children for the first time ever.

In her ground floor bedroom, she listened to the blackbirds as they argued about something or other. Was she being spiteful? She had no idea, but someone would have to put a stop to Moira. She couldn’t go around the villages in her wheelchair interviewing prospective candidates for the post of concubine. If she wasn’t careful, she’d find herself shut in a loony bin, poor woman.

The garden looked rather dry. Outside, Lucy turned on the sprinklers and listened to the screaming from next door. Moira was being given a hard time by her daughters, but better them than some stranger she might accost with her dreadful propositions. Richard, who had clearly returned from his house call, joined in. ‘Who told you?’ he yelled. ‘This is preposterous.’

Moira added a few words to the poisonous recipe. ‘You wanted her. All I did was—’

‘All you did was make a bloody mess,’ he roared. ‘Yes, she’s attractive, but you shouldn’t have done this, you stupid, stupid woman.’

Doors slammed. The sound of girls arguing and weeping flooded through an open first floor window. With the blackbirds bickering on one side and the Turner girls on the other, Lucy gave up, turned off the sprinklers and went indoors. What had she done? What had she achieved? Richard would have trouble facing her, her friendship with Moira was possibly destroyed, and four young people were upset.

Her sons were waiting for her. ‘You did the right thing, Mums,’ Mike told her. ‘Mrs Turner can’t go about the place looking for a woman – at least you’ve put a stop to it.’

‘I feel terrible,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I can stay here.’

‘You can and you shall,’ said Paul. ‘They’re the ones at fault, not you. For long enough, you were messed about by Dad. At last you’re sticking up for yourself, and it’s not before time.’

‘I shouldn’t have involved you and their girls.’

‘How else might you have ensured that the stupidity would stop? It could have been just about anyone out there – it could all have ended in court cases and all kinds of trouble. This way, we know it’s over.’

Alone in her darkening kitchen, Lucy thought about Moira. Moira wasn’t like other people, and that was nothing to do with multiple sclerosis. She was, well, unusual. The poor woman probably thought she was doing the best she could manage for a man she clearly adored. In her imagination, Richard would go to Lucy for sex, and return home to her for meals, surgeries, and general family life. After Moira’s death, the two houses would become one, and everyone would live happily ever after.

For the second time that day, Lucy acted on a whim. She draped a cardigan over her shoulders and walked over to the next house. ‘I couldn’t have slept,’ she told Richard, when he opened the door. ‘She acted out of love for you, but I had to nip her idea in the bud, because other people might react in a different way. I understand her fear, and I appreciate your position, but she goes too far.’

‘And you told your sons.’

‘Of course. I have nowhere else to turn. For years, I kept my children behind a safety curtain. They’re now adults, and they will protect me just as I protected them.’

He sighed heavily. ‘I’m not a rapist, Lucy.’

‘No. You’re an attractive man with humour and wit – and a wife. I suggest you channel your surplus energies in her direction, because life isn’t just about your demands and expectations. Many men have to manage life without a woman. Are you so weak? How stupid can one doctor manage to be?’ She heard herself, yet scarcely believed that she was saying the words. ‘Look after her, Richard. She loves you enough to go to any lengths to keep you happy. But put a stop to this behaviour, because it could land either or both of you in serious trouble.’

She found Moira weeping in the sitting room. ‘Moira?’

‘Lucy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—’

‘Shut up for a minute, will you? The disease you have makes you vulnerable in many ways – it’s not just physical. You love him enough to give him away, and that’s a huge sacrifice, but you can’t arrange the future – none of us can. I’m not prepared to lose you. You’ve helped me so much. You’ve given me strength and – hey – I can almost paint a tree!’

Moira dried her eyes. ‘Your trees look as if they died in the Chernobyl disaster.’

‘Yeah, but they’re getting better.’

‘Are they? I can’t say I’ve noticed. Lucy?’

‘What?’

‘Be my friend.’

‘I’ll always be that, Moira. I shouldn’t have slammed out of your house earlier. What is he, after all? Just another man. In my scheme of things, they are there, and we have to cope with them. He’s no more important than the next fellow, love. You didn’t get ill on purpose, did you? And you’re acting like his mother, for God’s sake. Leave him to his own devices. You know, sweetheart, you’ve done more harm than good. I was becoming fond of him until you forced the issue. So, in future, think before you speak.’

Moira managed a slight smile. ‘You’ve always thought too much before speaking. Until now. Am I right?’

Lucy nodded. ‘Spot on.’

Outside in the hall, Richard Turner trimmed the conversation he had overheard until it contained just six words. ‘I was becoming fond of him,’ she had said. He opened the door to his surgery, walked to his desk, and stared across at the chair in which patients sat during consultations. Should any one of them turn up and describe symptoms like his own, he would possibly make an appointment with a psychiatrist. ‘You are obsessed,’ he told himself quietly. ‘And her breasts are magnificent. So, you have a magnificent obsession. And that’s a film you saw with your wife.’

Moira was not stupid. He should never have used that word, because she was having trouble with memory, with acting appropriately, with life itself. But what she failed to understand was that his interest in the woman next door had deepened. Yes, it was sexual, but he was falling in love with more than a body. Lucy was a good woman, his kind of woman. Moira wouldn’t mind if he slept with her, but she might create a fuss if he fell down into the unfathomable depths of real love.

So he did what he’d been doing for a fortnight. ‘Just going back to check on that terminal old lady,’ he called to his wife before leaving the house.

The old lady was not a patient, was neither old nor a lady, and was very much alive. She was thirty-two years old, firm of flesh and morally lax, and she was his release. This would be his second visit today, but he needed her. A brassy blonde, she had no idea of Richard’s real identity, and she was excellent in the sack. She was his sanity.

Four

Days and weeks passed. Lucy Henshaw found herself to be in an interesting condition. Didn’t that mean pregnant, she reflected as she made her bed. In which case, she would rename her condition fascinating. Yes, that was quite a good word. She couldn’t get pregnant, anyway. It wasn’t just because of her age; it was a choice she had made after the birth of Elizabeth. She feared the knife, but she’d feared pregnancy more, and had opted for tubal ligation. Yes, fascinating was definitely a better term, since her days of being in an interesting condition were long gone.

Two men were in love with her. Well, it probably wasn’t real love on the part of either of them just yet, but she had apparently been reborn in the forty-sixth year of her life. She’d had a renaissance, had gone from frumpy to desirable simply by changing her address. It certainly added a slight frisson to her existence, because David was on the phone every day, while Richard was pretending to have lost interest.

A man who lost interest was interesting. She was using the word a great deal this morning, and was in danger of wearing it out, but it was apt. Richard Turner always left the house in a hurry when surgery was finished, as he needed to visit people who were confined to their homes. Until lately, he had looked for her, always giving a smile and a wave if he caught sight of her. Now he had lost interest – that word again.

He stared at the ground while he walked to his car, and though his face might not care whether or not Lucy was visible, the back of his neck betrayed him daily. It was an unusual colour, slightly north of pink, a short distance south of bright red, but it was definitely not normal. He was afraid of her. She didn’t want him to be afraid. All she wanted was the respect due to her, which she’d certainly never got from the man she had married.

He scuttered round the car, bent rather too low when opening the door, and drove off at a speed that spoke volumes about his need to escape. ‘Behaving like a criminal in the getaway car,’ she told her image in the mirror. ‘And you have changed, madam. You, Miss Proper, are advertising yourself very boldly.’

Oh, yes, she had changed, all right. Gone were the loose blouses and huge don’t-look-at-me cardigans. She had invested in some top-of-the-range bras and a few pairs of Bridget Jones-style undergarments that had enjoyed, during their manufacturing days, a passing relationship with something called Spandex. They weren’t belly-crunchers, so they were probably second cousins several times removed from corsetry, but they emphasized her shape. It was time to become proud of her hourglass figure. The world was full of stick insects, and Lucy had decided to stand out from the crowd. And she certainly stood out, especially at mezzanine level. Hating her own body was a thing of the past; she would embrace herself, embrace life and live it to the full.

Like a silly teenager, she was enjoying herself, preening from time to time, looking at designer clothes and bags. She’d always had a good wardrobe, but she was now investing in a capsule collection to which she added something or other almost every week. It was hardly a capsule now; it was more a complete pharmacy with a full complement of treatments, lotions and potions. Her skin was smoother and less wrinkled, as she was working with expensive creams to achieve a better appearance. If she wasn’t satisfied, she knew where to go for Botox, though she did hold reservations when it came to something that sounded suspiciously akin to botulism.

She named the cause of all these symptoms the butterfly syndrome. Some people were grey, dull caterpillars for a very long time, but after a period of metamorphosis they emerged as Painted Ladies, beautiful creatures with splendid colours on their wings. ‘You have hidden your light not under a bushel, but under a cardigan. From this day forth, cardigans are for cold days.’

Yet the main changes in Lucy were hidden ones. She was relaxed, positive and almost unafraid. The mouse she once was could never have been so forthright about the Richard and Moira situation. That tiny rodent would have run away, but the new Lucy caused Richard to do the running. ‘In control of myself at last.’ But she didn’t want to control others, didn’t wish to become like her soon-to-be-ex-husband. The quiet life would suit her very well. In just days, she looked better than she had in years – felt better, too. At last, she was winning. Soon, business people would sleep and eat breakfast in her house.

Work in Stoneyhurst was travelling along at speed. It was becoming increasingly plain that she still needed to provide for her children, so her bed and breakfast accommodation had been whittled away until she could take only a handful of guests. It didn’t matter any more. For the first time ever, she was enjoying a sensation named freedom. It was wonderful. But she must get cleaners. This place was far too big to be tackled by one woman, and Lucy liked company – the sort of company that went home after work. And she needed to think about Moira next door, as her long-term carer was about to disappear into Wordsworth country.

After watching Richard drive off, Lucy made the daily phone call. It was her duty to ask how her husband was faring, since she was paying all his bills. He was settling. That meant he was sedated so that he wouldn’t rant and rage for a bottle of whisky. Heart surgery would be happening soon, probably tomorrow. He had lost enough weight, and his chances of survival were improved. What the hell was she going to do about him? He was a human being, and she couldn’t simply eradicate him from her life.

Today, her wonderful daughter, who had been working for over a month in Manchester, was coming for lunch. She had missed an earlier planned visit, because she had been busy, but she was on her way. The subject of Tallows would be discussed, because David needed an answer. He was expected this evening. The child in Lucy hoped that Richard Turner would notice the handsome visitor. ‘Behave yourself, Louisa,’ she said sharply. She remembered reading somewhere that newly divorced women often went wild, sometimes performing a complete U-turn in the area of character and personality. But Lucy wasn’t divorced just yet. She felt divorced, but that didn’t mean a thing, because she needed the paperwork, the final decree, that passport to absolute liberty, before she was legally free.

The chrysalis had opened, and the butterfly had begun to dry out her wings. But she wasn’t a Painted Lady. Neither was she a Cabbage White. The first implied a lot of make-up, and the second was the colourless character she used to be. Now she found herself able to visit Moira without running away when Richard returned. She talked to him, laughed with them both, and was becoming quite a hard case. The Hard Case butterfly? That sounded as if it had emerged from something wooden, like a coffin. Lively Lucy? No. This new butterfly would be the Coloured Courageous. But she had better keep that to herself, or people might believe she had lost the plot altogether . . .

He was in prison, and it was a jail of his wife’s making. She had condemned him to this, and he didn’t deserve any of it, because he’d always been a damned hard worker. It wasn’t fair. He’d been a successful property developer, for God’s sake. He didn’t belong here. This place was for losers, failures, drug addicts and . . . and alcoholics. It was bloody boring, and he wanted to get out.

There were books, TVs, radios, DVD and video players, bars at the windows of his room, and enough staff to preclude the possibility of escape. They kept telling him he was over the worst. What they really meant was that they were over the worst, because he was sedated to the gills, and no longer had the energy to fight his way out of here. There had been a few scenes. The most memorable involved a straitjacket and a needle in his backside, so he’d been forced to calm down. They had some bloody big bouncers here, men who would not have looked out of place in the doorway of one of those seedy clubs in central Manchester.

Time didn’t mean anything. He was given breakfast – fibre-intensive cushion-stuffing with skimmed milk, of course. Lunch was almost always fish with vegetables, while the evening meal was chicken or turkey with salad or more vegetables. He had no idea what day it was, and he was ceasing to care. They were killing him an inch at a time, and he seemed to have been here for ever. He remembered the other hospital, chest pains, machines, and people running about every time his heart monitor went off. There was another memory, but it was vague. Two policemen, a car, flashing lights, and some sort of siren, but it was all mixed up with impressions of Lizzie, Mags, power of attorney and bloody Lucy.

His pyjamas were loose. He could see his feet when he stood up, and that was all very good news for nurses and doctors, but he was being starved to death with malice aforethought. He wouldn’t need the operation, because he’d be long gone by the time his name came up on the list. How many days or weeks had he been in here? No bloody idea. He’d probably be leaving in a wooden overcoat, but who gave a fig? Sleep was his only escape, but even that wasn’t perfect. He had dreams. Most were nightmares, and the few good ones reminded him of what life might have been had he got away with his supposed misdeeds.

No visitors, either. That was, perhaps, a good thing, since even his daughter seemed to have turned against him. He hadn’t seen Lucy since the day on which she’d grabbed power of attorney, while his sons had always stood by their beloved Mums. She’d been so passive and non-confrontational, and her change into a higher gear was something he would never have expected. The most annoying thing was that he had failed to guard himself, because he’d always known that she was a clever bitch underneath all that calm. ‘Bloody women,’ he cursed yet again.

Mr Evans-Jones walked in. So damned full of themselves, flaming surgeons. ‘Go to hell,’ Alan muttered under his breath.

‘Mr Henshaw?’

‘I think so. It was the last time I looked in the mirror, though even I had a job to recognize me. I look like a bloody scarecrow. If you think of it another way, I’m escaping this dump a pound at a time, and you’re doing nothing about it. Don’t bother with a coffin – a plastic bag will do.’

The surgeon sat down. ‘I shall operate on your heart tomorrow, probably in the morning. You’ll be glad to have it over with.’

The item nominated missed a beat or two. ‘Right. So that means no breakfast. I can’t tell you how much I’ll miss the crap you serve in here. It’s a bit like trying to eat your way through a mattress or three. And the milk’s like white water.’

‘The anaesthetist is satisfied with your progress, though it is my duty to tell you that there are always risks. However, those short walks and the gentle exercises have done some good. You will need time to recover, of course, but we expect a good result.’

Did these bods ever listen to anybody? Were they all deaf and ignorant? Alan fixed his eyes on the enemy. ‘Does it never occur to you soft arses that some of us die in our own way? I’d sooner go as pissed as a newt and up to my eyes in fish and chips on the back of a drayman’s cart.’

The doctor answered after a short pause. ‘Then there’s your answer. Go home. I can’t force you to accept this operation.’

‘What?’

‘Withhold your consent for the procedure. Then go home and die. The choice is yours. You would be completely within your rights.’

‘I can’t go home, because I have no bloody home. And if I don’t do as she says, my last weeks on earth will be spent under the arches at Turner Brew. No money, you see. She has it all.’

The surgeon decided that Mrs Henshaw was a sensible woman, though he kept the thought to himself. ‘I shall need to know some time today. This may be a private facility, but I have a list to complete, and I shall have to—’

‘Give it here.’ Alan held out a hand. He opened a drawer and took out a monogrammed Cross fountain pen, signing the consent form with a flourish. ‘Cremate me when you fail to save me,’ he said. ‘No service, just throw my ashes to the winds. Because I don’t give a shit.’

Surgeons were not supposed to have opinions. They dealt in flesh and bone; they could not be expected to communicate with the inert, even when the inert was technically mobile. But sometimes, just sometimes . . . ‘Mr Henshaw, your wife is paying almost three thousand pounds a month for your residence here. A further nine thousand will just about cover the operation, the anaesthetist, theatre time and medications. She is a generous woman.’

‘Oh, bugger off and sharpen your cleaver. I’m past caring.’

‘And you must never, ever drink again,’ was the doctor’s parting remark a moment before he closed the door. Yes. Sometimes, just sometimes, there was a patient who didn’t actually deserve the chance to be saved.

Alan stood at his window. He’d been through one hell of a time, and it wasn’t over. There would be pain, and there would be danger. But yes, it was time to take stock. He had survived a terrible withdrawal. No delirium tremens, no creatures crawling up walls, but physical torture so acute that he had railed and ranted against his wife, his family, God, Davenport Plumbers’ Merchants who always overcharged, Mags for forsaking him, and the man in the next room, who cried most nights.

It was time to be sensible. Tomorrow, he would get the chance for a fresh start. If he survived the surgery, if he kept off the drink, he would go to live with Lucy in Liverpool. Once there, if he behaved himself, he might persuade her to start him up in business again. Nothing strenuous, of course, but something to keep him occupied. A shop, perhaps. No. There was no future for small retail businesses. But he would do something, and he would do it without the support of malt whisky. He had no choice. All his options had been removed, and tomorrow he might die.

Lucy loved to cook for her children. Preparing food for Alan had been no fun, because he would eat just about anything from tripe to caviar without noticing a difference. She could have served shop-bought meat pies at every meal, and he wouldn’t have noticed as long as there were chips. He slurped his drinks, ate with his mouth open and, just as her mother had foretold, behaved like a pig at a trough.

Today, Lucy was preparing a feast for her prodigal daughter. She chuckled. There was nothing of the prodigal about Elizabeth, but her temporary return to the fold after an absence of weeks was certainly worth celebrating. It was a cooler day, so roast beef with Yorkshires was on the menu. Lucy’s Yorkshires were reputedly so light that they needed weighing down with gravy to stop them floating up to the ceiling. Yes, it was lovely to be appreciated.

She sat down at the kitchen table for a few minutes. Not once had Alan complimented her on her culinary ability. If he survived, she would have to bring him here. She couldn’t allow him a room at Tallows, not if it was going to be used for sick children. Apart from anything else, he wasn’t safe when in drink. And she wanted him away from the place of her children’s birth, away from all previous contacts. The man should disappear, yet she could not find it in herself to wish him dead.

Lucy closed her eyes for a few moments and pictured a long-ago scene. Ma and Pa stood over her. They didn’t raise their voices, because that would have been ill-mannered to the point of indecency. They gave her all the reasons why she should not marry Alan Henshaw. He had not been educated. He was of poor stock, from a family who weren’t well nourished, and she should be seeking to make a better match from within their circle. Any children would be affected by their father’s paucity of learning. The man was a money-grabber, and she would suffer. He would ruin her, and she should heed their words.

Her eyes opened. How right they had been. Yet they had allowed her to marry, had given her a good wedding and a house in which she could live with her inappropriate husband. After their deaths, Lucy had inherited Tallows and a great deal of money. ‘How on earth did I manage to believe that I loved him?’ she asked the cruet set. ‘Because he took my virginity? Anyone might think I’d been born in the wrong century. Why did I do it? Was I afraid of being left on the pantry shelf?’

No answer came from salt, pepper and French mustard, but at that moment Liz burst into the room. She flung her arms round her mother. ‘You look wonderful! Sorry I’ve taken so long to get here, but we’ve been working some Sundays as well. And I am having the best time, playing a fourteen-year-old prostitute on heroin. What have you done to yourself? Isn’t this house just great? And the river, too. Do you like it here? What’s the news?’ She released Lucy and started to examine the kitchen, the garden, the road.

Lucy watched the whirlwind she had birthed twenty years ago. Elizabeth was magnificent. Like her mother, she would never be a coat hanger, because she was shaped like a real woman. This precious girl was possessed of a very infectious joy, a need to know, a thirst for life. She was so similar to the girl who would have been her aunt . . . Diane. Oh, Diane. ‘Have you visited your father yet, Lizzie?’

‘No. They didn’t allow visitors for the first few weeks, and I really have been tied up with the theatre thing. Sorry.’

‘It’s all right. You have to live your life, sweetheart.’

‘Where are my brothers?’

‘They’re with the girls next door.’

Liz stopped mid-stride. ‘Paul told me about that thing with the man. Are you OK? No wonder people are falling in love with you – you look about thirty. You’re an absolute stunner, Mother.’

Lucy grinned. ‘He isn’t people. He’s just a sex-starved GP with a sick wife, and because she’s unable to give him the closeness he needs she was interviewing me for the post. I hope we’ve engineered a stop to that. But the twins and her daughters have managed to put it all behind them. They’re nice girls, both studying to be doctors. Their brother’s a doctor already.’

‘Very grand.’ Liz flopped into an armchair.

‘Your dad has his heart op tomorrow, dear. He’s signed the consent form – Mr Evans-Jones phoned earlier to tell me. Once he’s in surgical recovery you’ll be able to see him.’

Liz sat upright suddenly. She didn’t like thinking about Daddy. Theatre in the Park had occupied her to the point where she’d managed not to consider him too frequently, but here, with her family in an unfamiliar setting, she realized how drastically life had changed. ‘Not sure I’ll want to,’ she said.

‘You love your father, Lizzie. Love doesn’t stop because he’s done something wrong. He’s still Daddy. A child’s love for a parent lasts for ever. And vice versa.’

‘And a wife’s love for a husband?’

‘Is not the same. It’s not unconditional – the divorce statistics confirm that. Now. Go next door and introduce yourself while I set the table.’

Liz stayed where she was. The world was changing, but it surely hadn’t descended to the point where wives sought partners for their own husbands?

‘You’ll understand when you see Moira, Lizzie.’

‘Do you read minds, Mother?’

‘Of course I do. All mothers do – it comes with the job. Just wait till you have three children very close in age, miles apart in needs. I had a daughter who played at killing people with a poker. She used my dustbin lid as a shield, and she wouldn’t wear dresses except for school. My sons were always studying something or other. They were hopeless at sports, brilliant at school. So, as a mother, you read minds and provide accordingly.’

‘Right. So you want me to go and meet a woman who wanted you to deliver for her husband.’

Lucy smiled. ‘Look, sweet child. Moira can hardly breathe some days. Her food is almost pureed, and she can’t walk more than a few steps. Yet all she thinks about is the man she loves. She wanted a lot more from me – she was planning to leave him to me in her will. A second husband for me, a second wife for him.’

‘So it wasn’t as disgusting as it sounded?’

‘No. I just had to make sure it stopped. Moira was playing a dangerous game, so we built a big firewall. I mean it, Lizzie – you will love her. She’s an endangered species – a true eccentric rather than a manufactured one. You’ll meet many would-be oddities in your game, but this lady’s for real. Go on – shoo.’

When Liz had left, Lucy began to contend with another of her specialities – a real sauce anglaise. No yellow powder from a packet for her – she was a true chef, though she tended to concentrate on English food. Perhaps she would go to night school, do a bit of Italian and French stuff? It was a thought.

She worked for about ten minutes, then Paul and Mike came in. ‘Mums, you’ll never guess,’ said the latter.

‘No, I won’t. Not without a clue, anyway. Go away while I thicken this sauce.’

But they weren’t going anywhere. ‘It happened. Just like that.’ Paul clicked his fingers. ‘I didn’t believe in it. Did you?’ he asked his brother.

‘No. Never. Not until today, anyway.’

Lucy wiped her forehead. ‘What?’

‘Oh, so you’re interested now, eh?’ Paul sat in a carver. ‘Head over heels,’ he said. ‘Hook, line, sinker, keep net and every fly in the box. Their eyes met across a crowded room—’

‘Birds sang,’ added Mike.

‘—and she blushed,’ Paul concluded, triumph in his tone.

Lucy gave up. ‘If this custard’s lumpy, I shall blame you pair. Start again. Paul, you’re too mischievous. Mike? Come on, out with it.’

‘It was like Brief Encounter,’ the quieter twin said. ‘Beautiful. But without the ashtrays and the teacups. Oh, and the trains.’

‘Or Gone With the Wind.’

Lucy glared at Paul. ‘I know you’re a few minutes older than Mike, but shut up.’ She turned to her other son. ‘You can forget the weepy films, just tell me what happened.’

‘Our little Lizzie walked in next door, introduced herself to Moira, and after a few minutes—’

‘About five minutes,’ Paul interjected.

She waved her wooden spoon at him. ‘One more word from you, me lad, and you’ll be wearing this through your nose.’

‘Well, Simon walked in. He was doing all right till he fell over a chair. Staring at your daughter, Mrs Henshaw. And she was staring at him. It was electric, wasn’t it, Paul?’

But Paul was standing like a first-year infant school child, a finger to his lips.

‘They’re in next door’s garden now. Come on, Mums,’ Mike begged. ‘We know where the spy holes are.’ He dragged his mother into the garden. Somewhere, she had a carton of Sainsbury’s ready-made custard, just for emergencies. This was probably an emergency.

The three of them stood in a row, eyes pinned to knotholes in the fence. Lucy couldn’t help smiling. Her daughter and Simon Turner were seated on a padded swing with a canopy. There was space between them, but it was decreasing as she watched. A centimetre at a time, they edged closer to each other.

What the hell was she doing? She pulled her twins away from the fence. ‘Inside – now,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ shouted Paul.

She pushed him towards the house while Mike followed. When the door was closed, she rounded on them. ‘Why did I allow that?’ she asked. ‘That’s not who I am any more. I don’t do as I’m told.’

Mike agreed, and he said so. ‘But what did you think, Mums?’

‘Interesting,’ she replied. ‘But I shan’t buy a wedding hat just yet.’

Apart from a few rather explosive laughs from the boys, lunch proceeded in an orderly fashion until the first course was over. When Liz stood up to start clearing plates, Lucy asked her to sit down again. ‘About Tallows,’ she said. ‘I’ll come to the point right away. Someone wants to borrow it for a while. In fact, I offered, albeit provisionally, to lend it until I die, at which time the property will revert to the three of you, so I need your agreement.’

She told them about Diane and the Notorious Five, about the boy who had lived at the end of the lane, about his disappearance. ‘I went to see your dad in Bolton hospital,’ she explained. ‘And David was there. Yes, yet another doctor – I seem unable to escape them. It all appeared to fit, because I don’t want to leave Tallows empty, and I know my sister would have approved.’

They listened intently while she outlined the adult life of the friend she had mislaid over thirty years ago. ‘So it’s for the families,’ she concluded. ‘They need a break from time to time, a rest and a change of scenery.’

Liz dabbed her eyes with a corner of her napkin. ‘Then we do it,’ she announced. ‘Boys?’

They both nodded.

‘Thank you,’ said Lucy. ‘Now, you must change your permanent address to here – driving licences, college registration, banks and so forth. Your stuff will have to be taken out of Tallows, though I hope you’ll allow me to leave all toys for the children. My contribution will be that I shall charge no rent. Bills and running costs will be paid by the Timothy Vincent Trust.’

‘I took Dobbin and the dolls’ house to the safe place.’ Liz smiled through her tears. ‘We can get them back. I just thought they were valuable, Mother. But they should be enjoyed. Children are worth more than possessions.’

‘And you three are pearls. Some of the furniture can come here, because it will fit in very well,’ Lucy said. ‘The rest I shall auction in London – get the better prices. And David will be here this evening.’

Paul spoke in a stage whisper. ‘Is she blushing?’

‘I am not blushing.’

Liz laughed. ‘The lady doth protest too much, methinks.’

The twins rounded on their sister. ‘Oh, yes? What about you and the fellow next door? You were practically sharing the same shirt on that swing. He fell for you, all right. Over a chair and his mother’s walking frame.’

Mike chipped in. ‘Reminded us of Brief Encounter. It could have been brief – he might have suffered concussion.’

‘Leave her alone,’ Lucy ordered.

‘Mums, you’re as bad. You went all glassy-eyed whenever you said David’s name. And you’re not even divorced yet.’ Paul folded his arms. ‘This is going to become very illuminating, Mike. It seems we have a wayward sister and a delinquent mother.’

‘On top of all of which, you also have Sainsbury’s custard. You can thank your brothers for that, Elizabeth.’ Lucy left the table. She stood in the kitchen for a while, just listening as they quarrelled good-heartedly. ‘I am a fortunate woman,’ she told herself. ‘Except, that is, for the ready-made custard.’

The afternoon was supposed to be quiet, but it didn’t work out that way. For a start, there was Liz’s phone. It rang every few minutes and, in the end, Liz left the scene and sat in the garden. Simon Turner had returned to work at the Royal, and Lucy worried about patients, since one of their doctors seemed to be permanently engaged, as was Liz’s phone. She watched while her daughter giggled and blushed like a teenager. ‘Love at first sight? I doubt it,’ she said to an empty room. But she had never before seen her daughter in such a flap. She was like a thirteen-year-old with a crush on the head boy.

The twins had gone out to see something or other in Matthew Street, and both Turner girls had accompanied them. It wasn’t time to prepare for the arrival of David, so Lucy settled down with a book. But this was destined to be a rather less than peaceful Sabbath, as she found when she answered the front door bell. She didn’t get the chance to say anything, because one of the women who stood there filled the silence and the doorway immediately. She was roughly the same size as Shirley Bishop, but she was noisier.

‘I know it said Wednesday. But we can’t do Wednesday this week because of her and the wisdom teeth.’ Next to her, the short, thin owner of said wisdom teeth looked very miserable. ‘So that’s why we’ve come today, cos we wanted to be first. I said to Dee – didn’t I, Dee? – that we couldn’t miss the chance.’

It had been explained to Lucy that although she was doing quite well when it came to the interpretation of the local lingo, she would eventually meet people who spoke Dinglish. They hailed from a part of Liverpool labelled ‘the Dingle’, and had developed a language all their own. She guessed that the big woman wasn’t quite speaking Dinglish, because most of what she said was understandable.

‘Didn’t I say that, Dee?’

Dee nodded sombrely. ‘She did. She did say that, yes.’

The big woman carried on. ‘Mind, Sunday’s my lucky day, isn’t it, Dee?’

‘It is, yeah.’

Lucy wondered whether she might have fallen asleep during chapter five of her Thomas Hardy. Or had she slipped into some parallel universe where oddly shaped people with bad wisdom teeth knocked on doors on Sunday afternoons? ‘I’m sorry,’ she managed while the big woman drew breath. ‘Have you come to the right house?’

‘We would have come on Wednesday like it said on the thing in the shop window, only Dee—’

‘Yes, I got that bit. Please come in.’

When all three were seated, Lucy realized what was happening. ‘The advertisement for cleaners!’ she exclaimed.

The big woman looked at the lady of the house and shook her head as if in near-despair. ‘Who did you think we were, queen? Jehovah’s Witnesses? We’re domestic and commercial operatives, me and her. Professionals, like. Dee’s me daughter, and I’m Carol. We live together with her kids in my house down Stanley Road, but we can be here for breakfasts and then we can clean or whatever. Give us a try, love.’

Lucy cast her eyes over them. The big one looked as if she’d get out of breath if she made a bed, while the thinner woman was frail enough to be blown over in a light breeze. Perhaps if she rolled them together like a ball of Plasticine and cut them in half, they’d make two normal people? ‘So you’re experienced?’ she asked.

‘Very,’ said big Carol. ‘We’ve got references, and we’ll work a couple of days for no money, give you chance see what we’re like, like.’

‘Who looks after your children, Dee?’

‘Our Beryl,’ replied Carol, who seemed to be the spokesperson. ‘She can’t talk proper,’ she explained. ‘Our Dee, I mean. It’s her wisdom teeth.’

Lucy was trying hard not to laugh. ‘What about your husbands?’

Carol chewed her lip for a moment. ‘Dee’s was a window cleaner what fell off his ladder and died.’

‘Oh, I am so sorry.’

‘It’s all right – he was useless. Wasn’t he, love?’

Dee inclined her head.

‘Mine went to the chip shop on Thursday and never came back.’

Lucy blinked a few times. ‘But that’s three days. Have you told the police?’

‘Thursday 1998,’ came the reply. It was accompanied by a broad smile.

This was too much for Lucy. She fled into her bathroom, opened the cabinet and, once she had calmed down, brought a small bottle into the sitting room. ‘Tooth tincture,’ she said as she passed it to Dee. ‘I don’t know how much use it will be for impacted wisdom teeth, but you can give it a try.’

‘Ta, queen.’

Liz came in. ‘Hello,’ she said.

Big Carol’s mouth made a circle before she spoke. ‘Ar, ay,’ she said. ‘You’re dead fit, you are, girl.’ The ‘girl’ arrived as ‘gairl’.

Fortunately, Liz seemed to know that ‘dead fit’ meant pretty. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’m going out, Mother. I shan’t be too long, just popping into Liverpool to have a look round.’

‘To the Royal, I take it?’

Liz blushed. ‘He’s on a split shift.’

‘My husband done them splits,’ Carol announced. ‘Till he realized he’d had his chips.’

Lucy grinned. Chips. Thursday. 1998.

‘Only with him, it wasn’t work,’ Carol continued. ‘Against his religion, work. It was women. There was me, his wedded wife, like. Then there was a fork-lift truck driver from Speke, a girl from Formby what did people’s hair in their own houses, and Barbie Bow-legs from next door.’

She turned to Lucy. ‘Barbie knew I was going to kill her, like, so she buggered off to buy chips as well. Never seen her since. She’s one you could recognize a mile off, because her legs have different postcodes. If she played football, she’d be useless in goal.’

Lucy howled with laughter. She curled in a ball on the seat of her large armchair, arms hugging her body against the pain. She would have to see other candidates on the stated day, but these two were a female Laurel and Hardy – the entertainment value was beyond price. She looked up and saw her daughter in hysterics, tears pouring down her face.

A twinkle in Carol’s eye spoke volumes on the subject of triumph. She waited for Lucy and Liz to calm down. ‘So. Will you give us a trial after this one’s had them teeth dug out? She’s thirty, by the way. I’m forty-nine plus VAT. I can do a day on me own, if you like. But we’re a team, usually. I can lift anything, and she’s like one of them Hoover attachments what can get into small spaces.’

Liz stood behind her mother’s chair. ‘Have either of you thought about going on the stage?’ she asked.

‘Only the landing stage when there’s a couple of Norwegian ships in. You can make a fortune out of them sailors. I’m kidding, love.’ She spoke again to Lucy. ‘We’ve been cutting down the jobs,’ she said. ‘The motor’s on its last wheels, so we’re trying to get a couple of clients nearer home. We’ve a suite of offices to clean in the evening and, if we get you, that’ll be nearly enough. Won’t it, Dee?’

‘Yes, enough,’ Dee replied.

Liz fled. Sitting in her Micra, she repaired her makeup and thanked God that Mother had come to Liverpool. Well, the fringe of Liverpool. No one should go through life without making contact with Scousers. They changed things, made stuff happen. And stuff was certainly happening, because she had seen a guy once, and was chasing him already. Liz was not a man-chaser. She had her fair share of friends in London, but there had never been anyone special. After swallowing her fear, she switched on her satnav. She didn’t know Liverpool, but she would soon learn . . .

Inside the house, life was slightly calmer. Big Carol had been born in the Dingle, but she’d bettered herself by moving up to Bootle. ‘They talk a bit more posher down Stanley Road,’ she said. ‘And the shops down Bootle is all right. Then there’s the Strand – Marks and Spencers, supermarkets, shoe shops – all sorts.’

It was decided that the trial would take place the next day, but without Dee. ‘She’s going to look like an ’amster with its gob full,’ Carol said. ‘So I reckon the Monday after for her. She’s in too much pain now, and she’ll be rotten once they’ve dug the buggers out. Oh, and another thing. Never put your address in a shop window. All kinds read them notices, and they’ll know you’re well off if you’re advertising for staff.’ She grinned. ‘So I took it out of the window for you.’

There would be no more applicants, then. This was a very clever woman, and Lucy was developing a fondness for her already. As for poor weedy Dee – only time would tell. ‘Dab that stuff on your gums, Dee,’ she advised. ‘It tastes awful, but it may give you a bit of relief.’

At last, a real smile was delivered by the thin woman. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

‘Henshaw. Lucy Henshaw.’

‘What do we call you?’

‘Erm . . . boss? No, Lucy will do. Or Mrs Henshaw if you’re more comfortable with that.’

The pair gazed at one another. ‘What do you think, Dee?’

Dee shrugged. ‘I can’t think, can I? They’re going to put a pewmatic drill in me gob and dig for bloody coal, Mam.’

Carol addressed Lucy. ‘We’ll use your first name, if that’s OK.’

‘Certainly.’

There then followed a questioning session about household equipment and brands of cleaning products. Carol and Dee would bring their own materials, which was why they were a quid an hour dearer than other so-called cleaners. ‘We do inside and out, but not gardening or outdoor window cleaning. That’s ever since her Harry fell off his perch. But we’ll keep your paths nice. We do washing, ironing, cupboards, fridges, freezers, cookers and some plumbing.’ Carol smiled happily. ‘I done a course at night school. Dee’s good at darning and mending, but we usually do that at home. I do electrics, but not gas. I’m not Corgi registered yet.’

They left Lucy with the impression that she had been interviewed. She seemed to have passed the test, anyway. As their van drew away from the front of the house, she read the legend on its side. CAROLANDEE SERVICES UNLIMITED. So they were registered, and they paid their taxes. They were also cutting down on work, so she would get the best out of them. And they might do for Moira as well, once Shirley Bishop had shuffled off to the Lake District. It shouldn’t take much to get Carolandee to give up the evening cleaning of offices. They wanted workplaces that were close together, and Moira was just next door.

She picked up her book. This hadn’t been a quiet day, but it had turned out to be successful thus far.

The Royal was huge, and it had a reception hall so vast that it felt like a railway station or an airport. In a circular booth, a small woman sat as if waiting to weigh baggage or check tickets. She looked miserable, and Liz was not surprised. Apart from anything else, this outsized barn of a room looked as if it needed a good cleaning. It was quiet today, though few would have liked the woman’s job during the week. Liz imagined that poor female battling with lines of complaining patients, all certain of the urgency of their cases, all eager to get the business over and done with.

Liz wasn’t quite sure why, but she knew she had to be here. Having spent no more than half an hour – not counting phone calls – in the company of Simon Turner, she was insanely keen to see him again. Had anyone asked her for reasons, she would probably have imitated a drugged goldfish, all open mouth, no sense and very few bubbles.

Simon Turner stood for a few seconds and watched Liz’s confusion, which mirrored his. What the blood and sand was going on? He’d been perfectly all right until just before lunch, when this would-be actress had wandered into his life. She was a stunner, but it wasn’t just that. It was probably chemical. Occasionally, he met a woman he fancied and then it was usually a case of simple science: get the sex over with, and move on.

Yet he knew already that this one was special. She was different. Life oozed out of every pore of her very comely body, and he was attracted to her immediately. It was best not to trust the term ‘immediately’, yet he had to see her before she returned to Manchester this evening. His mentor, Mr Garner-Hope, was not on duty today, and the only items of surgery that might occur would be emergencies. Simon’s pager was turned on, he had seen his list of patients in recovery, and he was going to grab some time.

He crept up behind her. ‘Boo.’

She turned. ‘Ah, there you are.’ She still hadn’t managed to work out why she’d come, and she said so. ‘My brothers have been kicking the stuffing out of me,’ she told him. ‘They think you and I have come from some black-and-white film that promised much, but delivered zilch. What’s going on, Simon?’

‘No idea. We young doctors are not as experienced in affairs of the heart as some people try to make out.’

‘So should we?’

‘Should we what?’

‘Make out. I think it’s American for sex.’

He looked round the huge hall. ‘Endocrinology’s quiet on a Sunday. We could put two chairs together and work out the mechanics of the exercise. And Dermatology doesn’t do weekends – should be peaceful. But there’s always a chance that some lost soul might wander through. Haematology can be colourful, of course. And I have digs across the road, though other people will be in there now. My bedroom should be free, though—’

She dug him in the ribs. ‘This is all wrong, isn’t it? I’m not what you might term easy. My experience of sex would fit on the back of a postage stamp.’

‘First class?’

‘Of course.’ She pondered for a moment. ‘No, second. I’ve had some rather less than satisfactory experiences. You?’

He grinned. ‘Mixed bag. Women tend to target doctors and lawyers.’ He held her hand. ‘Maybe it’s because I’m nearly twenty-six. My clock could be telling me it’s time to slow down, settle down and move down south.’

‘Stop it, Simon. Don’t even think of following me to London. For a start, you don’t know me. I live for acting, and I exist in a total shambles. On a good day, I can find two matching shoes and jeans clean enough to wear just one more time. There are never any knickers – I’ve been known to go out knickerless and buy some on the way to college.’

His heart was all over the place. As a student of cardio-thoracic medicine, he might have misdiagnosed a patient with a heartbeat as dodgy as his. But was it love? And how might he find out what it was when there were two hundred miles separating him from her?

‘I can transfer for a year,’ he said. ‘In fact, my boss would be delighted, because I might learn something new. London’s the place to be when it comes to innovation. And I’d like to know you better.’

‘In the biblical sense?’

He raised his shoulders. ‘That as well, I suppose. Because I sure as hell want you. How long are you in Manchester?’

‘The same as I am here – about five feet seven inches.’

‘Obtuse. That’s probably why I . . . like you.’

‘All right. Another three weeks in the park, then back to Mother for a while. Do you get proper days off?’

‘Yes, of course. And I have holidays due. Why?’

‘Secret,’ she answered. ‘The thing is, I like to have the upper hand.’

‘Sounds interesting, Elizabeth.’ He led her outside and round a corner, because the hospital was on a busy road, and the traffic was heavy even on a Sunday. So their first kiss happened against a hospital wall while they stood among cigarette ends and crisp packets deposited by patients and visitors.

‘Wow,’ he said when they released each other.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘About a three, I’d say.’

‘What?’

‘My personal Richter scale, Simon. The earth moved a bit.’

He ran a hand through his hair. ‘That would be an articulated lorry on its way to the docks.’

‘So romantic.’ She sighed theatrically. ‘Trust a bloody doctor to find some sensible explanation.’

‘Tell me about the secret,’ he begged.

‘No.’ She raised her chin defiantly. ‘The secret is for me to know, and for you to wonder and worry about.’

‘Upper hand?’

‘Upper hand.’

He placed a finger under the tilted chin. ‘I’m buzzing,’ he announced.

‘Good for you.’

He explained that his pager was about to ring. ‘Could be life and death,’ he said.

‘Then go. I’ll keep in touch – that’s a threat.’ She watched as he ran back to his job. There was a lump in her throat, and a terrible feeling of loss. This might get worse by tomorrow, because Daddy was going into theatre, and he might die. She didn’t want to go back to Manchester, didn’t want to return to RADA after the holidays. But she would. Few people got the opportunity, and she wasn’t going to flush her chance down the loo just because of a bloke.

She would talk to Mother. Because, after all those years spent as cook, bottle-washer, nurse, nanny and part of the furniture, Lucy Henshaw had emerged as a fully fledged human with opinions, ideas and a healthy balancing of determination and humour.

When Lucy reached the place she now termed home, Mother was nowhere to be seen, but the sound of running water could be heard from the bathroom. Ah yes – that chap was coming this evening, the doctor who wanted to use Tallows for respite. Mother had been rather coy when avoiding discussion on the subject of . . . David? Was that his name? Perhaps Mother was in the same boat as her daughter?

Lucy was in her bedroom for almost an hour. When she finally entered the sitting room, Liz gasped. ‘Mother! Is that cleavage? How the hell did you manage to pour yourself into that item of clothing?’

‘A teaspoonful at a time,’ came the response. ‘It’s difficult to buy dresses for someone my shape. So I had to pick a bigger size and get everything below the bust taken in. I think the girl went a centimetre too far.’

Liz shook her head. ‘You look amazing. But you don’t look like my mother. My mother was a bit magnolia and brown. You’re wearing high heels and a little black dress. You’ve never owned an LBD before, have you?’

‘Only for funerals, and that was from Rent-a-Tent. Now. Come on, let’s have it. I know you need to talk. I can tell, because you’ve crossed your legs and your arms. Call yourself an actress?’

Liz grinned, then allowed it all to spill out. She’d been all right this morning. She’d been all right until a certain person – namely her mother – had forced her to go next door to introduce herself. ‘This Greek god – except he was blond – walked in, saw me, and fell over a pile of stuff – nearly squashed his poor mother. And it worked both ways, though I managed to remain upright. It was as if I already knew him.’

‘From the future.’

‘Yes! I knew you’d understand.’

Lucy pursed her lips. ‘I’m not sure about that kind of stuff, Lizzie. I’ve heard about it, read about it, but—’

‘I drove all the way to the hospital just for a kiss, Mother. How stupid is that?’

‘In my opinion, it isn’t stupid at all. You’ll work him out of your system, or you won’t. Just keep yourself safe, and don’t get pregnant.’

Liz sat back. The mother she had known for twenty years would not have spoken so openly about such a subject. ‘He held you back.’

‘What?’

‘Daddy held you back.’

Lucy disagreed. ‘Marriage did that. My attitude did it. I felt that I had to remain docile until my children were old enough to absorb the shock. He was my choice. I went against my parents’ will and got my own way. It was my mistake. The person you see now was always there. And I have to admit, I wanted my money back. It was my money, the Gramps’ money. But I watched and listened and waited until the time was right. Unfortunately, it has almost killed him.’

‘Were there always other women?’

‘Yes.’

‘And drink?’

‘The intake increased as the years passed. He’s his own worst enemy. Your father has little self-control, so I had to invent patience of my own. And I’m worried about tomorrow. If he dies, I’ll feel guilty, and if he lives, I shan’t know what to do with him.’

Both women sat in silent thought for several minutes. Lucy, who didn’t want to worry about Alan, was worrying about Alan. Liz wondered whether she might be going out of her mind, because no one could fall in love in a matter of hours. Even so, that was an easy concept compared to the concern she felt for her father. This might be his last day on earth. She jumped to her feet. ‘I’m going to see him. If they don’t let me in, I’ll make a fuss.’

‘You’ll get in, Lizzie. I’ll phone and tell them you’re coming.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Tell him I wish him well, and that he will be housed when he gets out. That might make him try a little harder to live.’

‘Thanks, Mother. You’re one hell of a lady.’

‘A woman, Lizzie. I’m a woman, not a lady.’

Five

The boys weren’t expected back until after midnight, as they had declared their intention to visit a club or two. At least they hadn’t gone silly, weren’t running around telling everyone how in love they were with Steph and Alice. That, Lucy thought, would have made life completely unbearable. Her daughter was besotted with Simon Turner, and that was quite enough, thanks very much.

Paul and Mike had gone out to search for John Lennon, who had been dead for some time, but whose picture, made up of his song titles, was reputed to be available from one of the Matthew Street artists. So the twins were safe, happy and out on a manhunt. There was no need to worry about Mike or Paul and, as Lucy reminded herself, Meatloaf had declared that two out of three ain’t bad.

But Lizzie, poor, lovely Lizzie, had travelled alone to visit a father who would undergo major invasive surgery tomorrow morning. On top of that, the poor girl’s heart had been borrowed or stolen by the son of Richard and Moira, and the result of that happenstance could become painful. If Alan died, Lizzie might turn to Simon, might even remain in the north instead of carrying on with her course in London. She had always loved her father. Would she lean on Simon if Daddy died? Was Lizzie one of those female souls who needed the scaffolding provided by a man? Had she not yet learned that scaffolding sometimes corroded and crumbled?

Lucy could not bear the thought of her daughter suffering. She’d been such a bouncy, tomboyish child, full of life and mischief, overflowing with tales of dragons, princesses, wicked stepmothers and handsome knights who had overthrown all evil in their way. Lizzie had always been the knight, poker in one hand, dustbin lid in the other, ever the actor, so bright, imaginative and cheerful. With her eyes closed, Lucy saw her daughter leaping about, a curtain for a cloak, torn tinfoil failing to look like armour, a war cry emerging as she cut through invisible foliage to face a monster. She’d saved everything in her path. She’d definitely saved her mother’s sanity. Those Lizzie moments were printed for ever on the front of Lucy’s mind, where they sat alongside memories of Diane, the predecessor of Lizzie.

But the mother of Lizzie now found herself weeping. She wept for a husband she had ceased to love within months of marriage, blaming herself yet again for going ahead with the union against the wise counsel of her parents. She cried for Lizzie, who was the only person in the world willing to visit him. Moira was a further cause for sadness, because that good woman had merely sought to tidy up before the end of her life. ‘I shouldn’t have come here,’ Lucy moaned. But she heard her own lie, and had to right this small wrong. ‘It’s a good place, a very good place. I can make it right.’ No, she wouldn’t even need to do that, because these ancient Viking villages, now modern and bustling, welcomed all comers. She was at home here. Anyone from anywhere could settle in this area.

More surprising than anything else was her need for Alan to live. Yes, Tallows had been hers, the money had been hers, and he had stolen and committed fraud. But she didn’t want him to die under a surgeon’s knife. She had always feared the intervention of doctors, and she now found herself concerned for a man with whom she had shared almost a quarter of a century – more than half her life. Someone should have taken better care; someone ought to have stopped him in his tracks.

She began to pace about. Yes, he ate like a pig, and yes, she had often wished he would bath more frequently, but he was a human being. He was the father of her children. And he hadn’t been merely the boss of the company – he was just as likely as any labourer to come home stinking of cement. The man had never been afraid of work. He didn’t deserve death, yet he needed to develop a backbone, since any life he might win after surgery would have to be alcohol-free. ‘He must be strong, has to become determined. God knows what he’ll need afterwards, but he must have the chance of some kind of future.’

She dried her eyes and picked up the phone. After talking to a woman at the clinic, she wrote down a number. One of the rewards Alan had earned for drying out was a private phone in his room, but she had never asked whether she might speak to him, had managed not to care. Why care now? And why was she phoning him? Guilt? She hadn’t been a bad wife. She hadn’t been a wife at all in recent years, since he had sought solace elsewhere.

Lizzie answered. ‘Mr Henshaw’s room. Liz Henshaw speaking.’

‘Hello, sweetheart. Do you think your father will talk to me?’

There was a short pause before Lizzie spoke again. ‘I’m sure he will. Just a moment.’

Seconds ticked by. The first thing she heard was his shallow, quick breathing. ‘Calm down, Alan,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to say this. For tomorrow, I wish you all the very best – and I mean that. When you get out of there, we’ll talk. I won’t break my promise. You know I don’t do broken promises.’

A worse sound came across the miles between them. ‘Please don’t cry,’ she begged. ‘I’ll find you something to live for. I will, Alan.’

‘Piss off,’ he managed. ‘Leave me alone. You’ve done enough damage.’

The phone clattered and banged, then Lizzie spoke. ‘He’s scared, Mother.’

‘I know. And I haven’t helped, have I?’

‘You may have. I’ll talk to him. Bye now.’

Lucy sat back. With Lizzie, it had always been ‘Mother’, never Mum or Mums, never Ma. Mother. ‘Have I killed him now?’ she asked the cat. ‘Have I pushed him towards that final heart attack? I shouldn’t have phoned. Everything I do these days seems to cause a mess. Perhaps I should keep my mouth shut.’

Smokey swept the rug with his large, bushy tail. He retained his carefully created air of superiority, and was beginning to come to terms with the fact that his mistress – well, his servant – had placed a wire lid on the back garden. The louder and more prolonged complaints were less frequent these days, though he seemed to be living with his thermostat on simmer. He missed his space, the carp, the freedom and the old kitchen. And he certainly made his feelings plain whenever addressed by Lucy.

‘Shut up,’ she said now. ‘Sorry I asked.’

The doorbell sounded. She checked in the over-mantel mirror, dabbed at wet cheeks and went to answer the door.

A large bouquet of flowers was thrust into the hall. ‘Thank you,’ she managed as she took the offering. ‘They’re lovely.’

David followed the roses through the door. She’d postponed his visit for weeks, because the house had been under repair, and her children had only today managed to be all in the same place at the same time. She had asked them about Tallows, he hoped. ‘You’ve been crying.’ The tone was accusatory. ‘Louisa, what’s the matter? Look at me.’

‘Don’t you start,’ Lucy replied. ‘It’s bad enough when the cat tells me off. I’ve had a strange day. Lizzie’s fallen in love. It took all of half an hour, about a dozen phone calls and a visit to the Royal in Liverpool. I expected her to have more sense.’

‘She went to hospital for treatment?’

Lucy had to think about that one. ‘She needed osculation and possibly minimal manipulation.’

He laughed. ‘You do realize you’re talking to a doctor?’

‘Yes. Surrounded by the buggers, I am. I have four next door, now you in here. All right. She went for a kiss and a cuddle. Head over heels, she is. And now she’s visiting Alan, who gets a several-way bypass tomorrow. There’s so much wrong, the surgeon’s been using Spaghetti Junction as a map.’ She sat down. ‘He could die. There’s something in me that needs him not to die. It’s probably for Lizzie’s sake.’

‘Please don’t be upset. You look wonderful, by the way.’

‘And you look tall. Take a seat. I can’t stop thinking about him. You see, if I’d treated him differently, it might not have come to this.’

‘I suppose you could have sent him to charm school, but—’

‘No, David. I should have stood up to him.’

‘And I should have been there for Tim when Anne died. So many things to regret, Lucy.’ He smiled at her. ‘Did you dress up for me?’

‘I did indeed. It’s an occasion. There’s champagne on ice, and I’ve done some nibbles. Tallows is yours for the foreseeable future. No rent, but you pay the bills. I shall become a fundraiser.’

He punched the air with a closed fist. ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

‘No need to go overboard. And you’re allowed only one glass of shampers, because you insist on driving back.’

Still laughing, he shook his head. ‘Look at you. Do you remember how boyish you were, how you fell out of every tree, fell into all the puddles and streams, fell out with anyone who treated me badly? Try to think about something less depressing than Alan’s condition. He got into that state all by himself. Where’s the naughty Louisa we all knew and loved?’

Yes, she had been a tomboy. Diane had been more ladylike and delicate, though she’d held her own in many an argument. ‘I suppose I was a bit rugged,’ she admitted. ‘So. When do you invade my beautiful house? Because there are still bits and pieces belonging to me and the children – shall we say a month? Six weeks? A couple of months?’

‘A lot longer,’ was his reply. ‘We’ll be scrutinized every inch of the way. These are very sick children, and we can’t move them around willy-nilly like a few dozen sacks of spuds.’ He paused. ‘I’m so grateful to you, Louisa. You always had a generous nature, but this goes beyond the bounds of reasonable expectation.’

She noticed that he couldn’t quite look her in the eyes. ‘Don’t be embarrassed,’ she said. ‘About the accidental kiss, I mean.’

David leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. ‘For me, it was a happy accident.’

He was waiting for an answer. Why did everything happen at once? Life could be monotonous to the point of tedium, then all the buses arrived at the same time. Alan was due in theatre in a few hours, Lizzie was embroiled with the boy next door, Moira lived with difficulty and in hope, Richard wanted God alone knew what, while this man . . . this man was lovely. ‘It started as an accident,’ she said carefully. ‘But it was pleasant. We’re both free agents, David, though I can’t get a divorce until Alan’s through surgery.’ She swallowed. ‘If he doesn’t come through, I shan’t need one. If he lives, I won’t abandon him completely, you know.’

He nodded. ‘It would be against your nature.’

She jumped up. ‘I’ve had a thought. This is supposed to be a bed and breakfast place, though three rooms have been commandeered by the kids. However, there are three more. I know you said you wanted to go home, but, unless you have an early start, let’s drink all the champagne and to hell with it, because you can sleep here. I insist.’

He had no early start, so they began the business of enjoying themselves.

‘Daddy, you have to listen to me. For once in your life, pay attention to someone who isn’t talking sand, cement and timber. You’ve known your wife for a very long time. She will not let you down. She’s not the type to let anyone down, and you know it. Mother’s the kind of person who always does what she—’

‘I’m not living in her house. I can’t stand the bloody woman. I never could be doing with saints. She makes me feel as if I should be crawling on my belly like a snake or a slug. Too much of the lady for my liking.’

Liz thought about the attractive woman she had left in that beautiful house on the banks of the Mersey. Contained in a little black dress, Lucy had appeared to be ready for a very long night on the tiles. But Liz couldn’t describe the changes, dared not tell him that Mother had blossomed once away from him. ‘She’s always been fair and loyal, Daddy. Let’s just get through tomorrow, and we can talk again when you’re better.’

‘If I live. If that bloody Welshman doesn’t treat me like a leg of lamb.’

She heard the sharply honed edge of fear in his tone. A man on the verge of heart surgery should not be placed under any further stress. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Come to London and stay with me for a few months when all this is over. I don’t share, and there’s just one bedroom, but I’ve a sofa bed in the living room. I’m near a couple of parks, and not far from museums and art galleries. Have a break. A change. Just till you get your strength back.’

Alan almost smiled. ‘That would be good for your social life, eh? When they realize you’ve an invalid in the house, your mates will desert you in the blink of an eye. Who wants to hang about with the bag of bones I’m turning into?’ He held up an arm. ‘Look at that. My granny’s knitting needles had more meat on them. I’m dying a bit at a time. No. I’d be in the way, Lizzie. And I don’t like London enough to stay for any length of time. It’s a weekend place, not a permanent address.’

‘We go out all the time. My place isn’t big enough for a crowd, so we hang about in various union bars.’

‘And your love life?’ he asked.

‘My love life isn’t in London.’

He attempted another smile. ‘Tell me about him.’

So she indulged her father, weaving a fantasy about a relationship that had endured the passage of time and the distance between her and the chosen one. ‘Funnily enough, he’s going to be a cardio-thoracic surgeon. In a few years, he’ll be doing operations like yours.’

‘Nothing funny about my operation, Lizzie.’

‘Strangely enough, then.’

He agreed with strangely. He was being cut open by a man who came from a country where slaughter was a daily occurrence. ‘Bloody sheep farmers,’ he cursed. ‘They’re all male voice choirs and talking Welsh when there are English folk within earshot. You should see the way he looks at me. He could well let me die on purpose.’

Liz wasn’t going to upset him by arguing. Normally, she would have floored him for judging a whole nation in such a negative way, but he was ill, so the Welsh would have to wait – they were more than capable of surviving the rantings of one sick old man, anyway. The main thing was to keep Daddy settled and hopeful.

She’d never before thought of him as old. But years of beer, whisky, pies and chips had walked all over a face which, since the weight loss, had started to collapse inwards along lines that were suddenly very deep. He was beginning to look like the surface of some faraway planet, peaks, valleys, and deeper crevices where tidal rivers might have flowed in the long-distant past. She wished she’d brought her camera, because this might be the last time— No. A camera would have been wrong – almost macabre if the worst happened.

‘You go now, love,’ he said. ‘You’ve got that park thing again tomorrow, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. Tomorrow afternoon, I’m a fourteen-year-old prostitute with a heroin problem.’

‘Typecast, then?’

‘Definitely.’ She kissed him before leaving the room rather quickly, eyes so full of tears that she almost collided with a man in the corridor. ‘Sorry,’ she said, a tissue to her face. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

He moved away, stopped mid-stride and turned to face her. ‘Are you his daughter? Mr Henshaw, I mean. Look, whoever you are, come into my office until you’ve composed yourself. You should sit down for a while.’

Liz mopped her face again. ‘Yes, he’s my father.’

‘I’m his surgeon. The sheep-lover, he calls me, but I’m really Evans-Jones.’ He drew her into a small room on the other side of the corridor. ‘I just popped in to find some notes. So glad I bumped into you. His family should be aware of what’s going on here. Don’t get too upset, my dear. I do the impossible several times a week, miracles slightly less frequently. But I do have a rather good track record, so try to stay calm.’

She sat down. ‘Sorry,’ she repeated. ‘About the sheep, I mean.’

He started to dig through a pile of paperwork. ‘I’ve been called a lot worse, I can assure you. And a lot of your father’s behaviour is bravado – he’s terrified of me, of tomorrow, and of life after tomorrow. The bigger personalities are often the first to crack when they see the surgeon’s tools. Women, of course, are much braver. Your father’s been a very sick man, my dear. Even now, he’s scarcely in the best of health.’

‘And he’s a bit yellow. Is he going to make it, Mr Evans-Jones?’

‘I assure you, Miss Henshaw, that we will do our absolute best to drag him screaming through this. But his liver is struggling, and that affects other areas of his body. One thing is certain – if he does come through, he can never drink again. His life will have to change completely, though the main factor is, of course, the alcohol. He knows that. But whether he’s prepared to be sensible is another matter altogether.’

Liz thought about that. She couldn’t imagine her father going a full day without a drink. He’d done it in this place, but there had been no choice. Would he carry on behaving himself when there were no bars on windows, no locks on doors? ‘Tall order,’ she said eventually. ‘He’d have to be watched twenty-four hours a day. Even visits to the bathroom would need to be supervised. It’s beyond the reach of mere humanity – none of us can provide what he requires. He isn’t great when it comes to willpower. My mother is the exact opposite – very restrained and controlled. But Daddy’s always been a drinker, and he’s got worse in the last few years.’

‘Yes, I know. And I understand – my family’s had its fair share of alcohol-dependent members. Your dad’s condition isn’t great. But it’s a darned sight better than when he was admitted.’ He paused for a couple of seconds. ‘Your mother has never visited. I’m assured that she phones every day to ask after him, but she hasn’t been here.’ He found the item he had sought. ‘Bingo,’ he said quietly.

‘She’s left him. They don’t get on. Looking back, I suppose they seldom did get on.’

‘Ah. But she’s paying for all this?’

‘And offering to get him on his feet afterwards.’

He touched her arm briefly. ‘Phone at about one o’clock tomorrow. Try not to worry – I make no promise, but we’ve saved people in conditions worse than his. Often, it’s the ones who look worst that survive, while someone with a cleaner bill of health doesn’t make it. Just be aware – I’ll be fighting for your father’s life, as will the very good team I lead.’

‘Thank you.’ They left the room, and Liz watched as the man walked away. At one o’clock tomorrow, she would be painting her face with fives and nines, would be walking with the pseudo-confident gait of a teenage whore touting for business. She believed in getting into her characters, but she wondered how professional she really was. Because a true pro would make sure the show went on, come war, weather or a dead father. But she had to make that phone call, had to find out whether her father had survived a complicated procedure that would test the strength of younger, cleaner-living people.

She sat in her car for a long time. Mother’s friend would be at Stoneyhurst by now. The two of them were to have champagne and fancy nibbles to celebrate the fact that Tallows was about to be handed over to a charity. Yet Liz knew that her mother was worried about Daddy. ‘God, I feel so alone,’ she whispered. ‘I never felt so bloody lonely in my life.’

She’d seen her father, and she’d spoken to Mother, and Mother was not available at present. There were friends, of course, but she couldn’t speak about the current situation to people who were miles away, many abroad, some working. Simon? He was on call. Her brothers were out on the town with the girls next door, and Liz felt terribly isolated. She was supposed to return to her digs in Manchester, a large house lent to community players who were currently performing in the parks. But some actors never stopped acting, and she didn’t want fake sympathy from anyone.

Acting was definitely in her. Blood and bone, she was a performer, but she didn’t actually like many of her fellows. The ‘mwah’ crowd, as she termed the fussier members of her profession, were difficult to know. It was almost as if they had no true self, no core. Perhaps they had deliberately wiped the hard drive so that they could ‘be’ whatever was asked of them. Most of her favourite companions were studying at various colleges attached to London University, and they covered a range of subjects from sciences to politics and right through all the arts. They were the true people, but they were all part of her other life, the one that was totally unconnected with the north, with her family and all its problems.

But yes, the show had to go on. She looked at the building that contained her male parent, turned the ignition key and drove out of the car park. Sometimes, a person had to bear aloneness. Sometimes, one had to become an adult. But oh, how she wanted her mother.

Champagne loosened tongues and clothing. David removed his jacket, took off the tie, undid his cuffs and rolled his sleeves to the elbows. Lucy kicked away her shoes and threw a pearl choker on the mantelpiece. She would not be beaten at Scrabble by a visitor whose young life she had saved so many times that he should be grateful. And he was cheating. She was absolutely sure that he was pulling the wool. Well, almost absolutely sure, that was. She saw a gleam in his eyes that bragged about superiority of mind and the ability to fool his companion.

This was serious business. Locked in mortal combat, they sat on either side of the kitchen table, each glaring at the other.

‘Challenge if you wish,’ he said. ‘But those are true medical words, I can assure you. This one’s a fungus closely related to thrush—’

‘Starling?’ she suggested. ‘Crow, blackbird?’

‘You’ll be sorry you mocked me, Lucy. And this other word’s a surgical instrument I found very useful for unblocking my kitchen sink.’

She cursed under her breath. ‘Medical bits and pieces should be banned. I mean, you’re shoving Xs and Zs all over the place – how the hell am I to know whether you’re cheating? It’s years since I was involved in medicine – you’ve invented loads of illnesses since I was a slip of a nurse. But those words do not look real.’

‘They’re real.’

‘They’re not.’

He shrugged. ‘Challenge, then. You are within your rights to call me out, but your forfeit will be expensive when I am proved correct.’

She stared hard at her adversary. He was not the sort of man with whom she would wish to play poker. ‘I think you’re a lying toad,’ she pronounced. ‘What sort of word is that? Look at the length of it. Another couple of letters and it would be in the fireplace.’

He rooted in a pocket and retrieved a tape measure. ‘Five and a bit inches. That’s not long. I mean, these tiles are quite large. In a medical dictionary, it would be just about an inch. And we all know size isn’t everything.’

‘What the hell are you doing with a tape measure in your pocket? What else do you have? You’re ruining a perfectly decent pair of trousers.’

‘Yes, Mother.’ He produced a couple of fluffy Mint Imperials, a sock, some string, a small packet of Kleenex and several tangled rubber bands.

‘No improvement in that department, then,’ Lucy said.

He explained that the rubber bands and string were for holding together patient notes when they got bulky, the sock was a stray, but a clean one, and the Kleenex were self-explanatory. He had no idea about the sweets, but he judged them to be a decent vintage and quite edible once held under a running cold tap for a few minutes. ‘What are pockets for? To keep things in, Lucy. Don’t go all matriarchal – my mother failed to train me. And they’re my bloody pockets.’

‘No caterpillars?’

‘Not on this occasion. I’ll go outside and find some if you like.’

‘What about the tape measure?’

‘Ah.’ He stood up and stretched his arms. ‘Sometimes, they lose a lot of weight. I measure ankles and wrists when they’re asleep. So brave, those kids. But I like to upset them as little as possible.’

Scrabble and arguments forgotten, Lucy walked into the living room and sat in an armchair. He followed, and she watched while he shoved all the detritus back inside his trouser pockets, marvelled at how the grown man had hung on to some of his childhood characteristics. He’d always been a hoarder. And now, he collected children. Sick children. Was this a penance he had imposed on himself for abandoning his own son? ‘David?’

‘What?’

‘Do you ever get lonely?’

He shrugged. ‘Yes, of course I do. So I keep busy, try to be useful, try to make a difference to children whose lives would be a damned sight shorter without people like me. I do what needs to be done. Then I go home tired enough to sleep.’

‘And there’s been no other woman since Anne died?’

After a short pause, he delivered an answer to the one woman for whom he had rediscovered feelings. ‘No. I can’t. I don’t mean it would be a physical impossibility – I know I still function, but that sort of closeness is something I’d never manage to take lightly. She died. Tim’s death drew a thick, black line under hers. Lucy, I couldn’t go through that again. To love someone as much as I loved her, to lose another . . . No.’

‘So you believe that anyone who gets close to you is destined to die prematurely? Do you carry some dreadful contagion?’

He laughed, though there was no joy in the sound. ‘Daft, isn’t it? At least I’m not afraid of my feminine side. Most men want sex and don’t see beyond it, but I’m one of the few who need to be in love and who fall in love through sex. So I avoid it.’

This, Lucy decided, was role reversal at its strangest. In her heart, she was a free woman. Any contact she might have with any other man would be morally OK, as long as he was single. She found David delightful, desirable and funny, but she could make no move on him, since he was also terrified. And she wasn’t truly ready, either.

‘The kiss was lovely,’ he said. ‘Clumsy, silly, but wonderful. Afterwards, when you had left Tallows, a very fierce hope burnt inside me for all of three or four minutes.’

‘Yes, David.’

‘Yes what?’

‘I was burnt, too. By the kiss. Look at me. Stop avoiding eye contact. Stop being afraid of me. There is a compromise, and it’s staring both of us in the face.’

‘Is it?’

She remembered now how he had driven her crackers as a child. He always weighed his options thoroughly, though the elements he included in the recipe were not necessarily the right ones. A deep thinker even then, he would wander along the B roads in his mind, while faster routes, the motorways, were often ignored. ‘How many times a month do you come to the children’s hospital and to hospices in the Liverpool area? Take a room here. As long as you let me win at Scrabble, I’ll give you a special rate.’

His jaw dropped for a few seconds.

‘Close your mouth, David. There’s a bus coming.’

‘Live with you?’

‘I mean alongside, not with as in sharing a bed. Just to give us the chance to get to know one another.’ He was doing it again. He’d gone for a walk down all the unpaved alleys in his brain, was failing completely to take a quicker, more sensible route. Why did he insist on making everything so complicated? ‘What are you thinking about now?’ she asked.

‘Samson.’

‘Why? Are you planning to go for a haircut?’

‘Eh?’

‘I give up.’ She went to make a pot of tea. David Vincent was a typical mad professor. He had gone biblical, so she had simply gone. But he had followed her. She could feel him standing behind her, could hear him breathing.

‘What?’ she asked, apropos of nothing.

‘There’s Smokey,’ he said.

‘And Delilah,’ she replied quickly.

‘What?’

‘Samson and Delilah. Didn’t she cut his hair and make the temple fall down or something? I tend to get her confused with the other one – dance of the seven veils.’ Lucy could be obtuse if she made an effort, so she was making that effort.

‘Salome,’ he said. ‘Wanted the head of John the Baptist on a plate.’

She shrugged. ‘I’d settle for a curry, but there’s no accounting for taste.’

‘Louisa?’

‘Yes?’

‘Samson’s my dog. He’s a black Labrador. My neighbour usually looks after him while I’m working, though I sometimes take him with me. He’s very good with . . . with death. When I’m losing a patient, it’s a case of bugger the germs and let Samson in. If the child wakes, the family and my dog get the last smile. And for some reason I’ve never completely worked out, he comforts the bereaved.’

This man was leading an almost incredibly sad life. Lucy turned away from his pain and poured hot water into the teapot. He was far too sensitive a soul for the career he had chosen, yet she understood him perfectly. The children didn’t all die. Many juvenile leukaemias were stoppable, so he saw good stuff as well as bad. But the bad certainly stayed with him. She wanted to shake him, and she wanted to comfort him. But no, that would be too maternal, and she didn’t need another child.

When the tea had been carried through to the living room, Lucy reclaimed her chair and waited for him to be seated. ‘So you’re planning to go through life without taking any kind of risk, David?’

‘I stumble,’ he replied. ‘I muddle along trying not to think, except about my work. Set in my ways, I suppose. And I tend to keep my distance.’ He lowered his tone. ‘But I’m still just a man, Lucy. If I were to stay here for any length of time, I’d get fond of you. I’m already fond. And none of us has to dig very deep to find the animal in us. Two glasses of my champagne are in your rubber plant container for safe keeping. Sorry. I have to drive home. I daren’t stay. And Samson’s in the car. His hobby’s people-watching.’

Lucy sighed. Whatever had the rubber plant done to deserve that? She stood and walked to the front window. ‘It’s time you let that dog out of the car. Glad you left the window down for him. Bring him in.’

‘But—’

‘Bring him in, David.’

He looked at the cat, who was curled peacefully in his basket. ‘Smokey won’t—’

‘Bring him in.’ She separated the three syllables as if talking to a small boy. ‘For once, do something unusual. Let’s take a walk on the wild side.’

She sat and waited until the beautiful black dog led his master back into the house. The canine’s leathery nose lifted and sniffed the air. He could smell cat.

‘Stay where you are, David,’ Lucy said. ‘Watch and learn. Samson’s a Labrador, a breed that’s non-aggressive for the most part. And Smokey had a problem, you see. His mother died, and we needed to feed him with a dropper. No sleep for nights on end. To keep him warm when he grew a bit larger, we shoved him in with the dog.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘My cat thinks he’s a dog, so he chases other cats. Our old Butch has been dead for years, but Smokey hasn’t forgotten that dogs are not his enemy. Don’t tell him the truth, please. Never, ever tell my cat that he isn’t a dog.’

When Samson had curled beside the cat’s basket, David returned to the sofa. ‘I can’t hide behind the dog, then.’

‘No. A few months ago, I would have been the one in hiding. I was terrified of life until I actually moved out and did something about myself. Change is sometimes required.’

Looking at her was painful. She was so beautiful, so kind and lively and amusing. A part of him wanted to give up everything – the job, the house, the monotonous existence that was safe and predictable. But he didn’t know how to let go, how to stop trying, researching, fighting for remissions and cures. ‘So when Tallows is ready, you will stay there sometimes?’

‘Yes. As long as you teach me enough of the medical side, I can even help – read to them, play with them. I don’t want to nurse, but I’d like to know some of the rules in case there’s a crisis.’

Whatever he did, Lucy was going to be in his life. She was giving him a house, for goodness’ sake, was allowing the charity to use a valuable property that would make a difference in so many lives. Anne would have done the same. But she wasn’t another Anne – she was Louisa, and he wanted her, and wanted not to want her.

He was too intense. Sometimes, he suspected that he hovered on the brink of obsessive-compulsive, because he worked too hard, played too seldom and was very tidy in his professional life. At home, however, he lived in a tip. Should a microbiologist stumble into David’s private life, he would doubtless discover enough cultures to form a small sub-continent. It would have to be cleaned. It would have to be cleaned in case Lucy visited him.

‘Where’s my room?’ he asked.

‘First half-landing, door on the right. The door on the left is your bathroom. It isn’t en suite, but it’s the biggest one up there. I’ll feed these animals.’

He watched while an orderly queue of two formed in the doorway. The cat was at the front, because this was his house; the dog, displaying all the gentle humour for which his breed was famous, wagged his tail hopefully. The dishes were placed together on the floor. Smokey went to his own, while Samson waited until Lucy had finished topping up his dinner with wholemeal pasta. Then he stood next to Smokey and ate.

‘They could use you at the United Nations,’ David told his hostess.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘They’d be much better off with Labradors. We are the only animal that kills for recreation. Apart from minks – they’re almost as unpleasant as humans. And I’m not that keen on crocodiles, though I’m sure they’d represent some of these neo-Nazis that keep springing up from time to time – Saddam Hussein and Robert Mugabe types?’

He smiled at her, leaned against the door frame and watched age-old enemies eating together. Laws were made to be broken. Why could he not alter his own stupid and meaningless manifesto? Lucy would make someone an ideal companion, a beautiful wife and, he suspected, a willing and interesting lover. What was the matter with him? If he didn’t get a move on, someone would snap her up. Heat rushed to his face. He’d been thinking of her as some sort of bargain in the basement of a department store.

The front door crashed inward. ‘Happy birthday, Mums,’ chorused two voices. Paul and Mike drew to an abrupt halt when they saw David. ‘Sorry,’ said Paul. ‘We forgot about you. You’re the man who’s going to make use of the old homestead. Yes? I’m Paul, he’s Mike, and this is John Lennon.’ He held up a brown paper package. ‘We got him in Liverpool.’ He stared at David. ‘You look a bit like Lennon.’

Lucy entered from the kitchen, a dog and a cat hot on her heels. ‘This is Samson,’ she told her boys. ‘He works with David – Dr Vincent – helping to care for sick children. I thought you were going clubbing? And my birthday was weeks ago.’

Mike explained that they came home early because someone might have pinched John Lennon had they stayed out late. ‘We had a bit of trouble finding him, and we weren’t letting him go,’ Mike explained.

She opened the package, her eyes riveted to the picture. ‘All his songs,’ she said quietly, as if she were speaking in church. ‘His face – even his spectacles – made from words.’

Paul spoke to David. ‘According to Mums’s friend Glenys, she’s been in mourning ever since he died, which was before any of us were born. Wore out two copies of “Imagine” when we were small, she did. Then we were forced to listen to Shaved Fish for months on end.’

‘Shut up,’ Lucy ordered. ‘John was special. And thank you for this lovely, wonderful present. It’s going in the kitchen, because I always felt he’d be happiest in a kitchen. At home, you see.’ She kissed the glass that sheltered the print. ‘You’ll be OK with me, kid. You should never have gone to New York – I would have looked after you.’

The three men listened while she continued to talk to a dead man. Mike squatted down and stroked the dog. ‘You’re a grand fellow,’ he said. ‘She’ll get no sense out of John Lennon, will she?’

David sat and watched a happy family. The twins looked like their mother, though they were by no means feminine. They seemed to have inherited her nature, too. ‘My dog and your cat just had supper together.’

‘Smokey likes dogs,’ Mike said. ‘I wish we could keep this one. He has a lovely coat.’

‘Fish three times a week,’ David advised. ‘If you ever get a black Lab, remember the fish.’

‘As long as it’s not shaved,’ said Paul. ‘We all had our fill of that. Anyway, Mums,’ he called into the kitchen, ‘we’re off next door for supper. See you later.’ They left.

David stood again in the kitchen doorway. She was hanging her picture next to a huge Welsh dresser, but she couldn’t quite reach the nail. He came up behind her, took the item and, with his arms enclosing her, placed John Lennon where he belonged. ‘There. Is he straight enough for you?’

‘He was always straight,’ she answered. ‘When he said the Beatles were more famous than Jesus, he was voicing his truth. Not many people spoke about Jesus, while everyone knew the four of them.’

David continued to hold her.

‘Remember King Lear? What a fool he was? It was his jester, the court entertainer, the fool, who had all the sense. John Lennon was like that. He acted the idiot and spoke the truth. That’s why I like him. Oh, and his music was a bit good, too.’ She turned and faced the man in whose gentle hold she stood. ‘Isn’t this a bit dangerous, David?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then slow down. We have the rest of our lives to inject a little steel into your vertebrae.’ She laughed softly. ‘You’ll be safe enough tonight, because my sons will be here. But you should be forewarned – I think you’re gorgeous, little David Vincent.’ She ducked under his arm and sauntered away. It was going to take time, but Dr David Vincent was a marked man.

He lay in a bed in her house, Samson on a blanket in a cardboard box on the floor by his side. The room was spectacular, black and white with an occasional splash of red. She had style, and was clearly unafraid when it came to decoration. Metallic wallpaper stretched the breadth of the room behind his bed. Compared to his bedroom at home, this was pure, hotel luxury.

He thought about the woman downstairs. Like any other man who desired a particular woman, he wanted to breathe her in, taste her, touch her – all the ordinary things that happened daily to guarantee the future of various species. But he indulged himself, allowed himself to be different. ‘Too bloody precious to be normal, David,’ he whispered. ‘Too bloody precious to step on unknown soil. You’re a coward.’

It was a warm night, so David had settled on top of the covers, just a couple of throws over his body. She was downstairs, and sleep seemed to be a million miles beyond his reach. ‘I’m not right in the head,’ he told the dog. He’d undergone bereavement counselling, psychotherapy, acupressure and hypnosis. Nothing worked. That wasn’t true, because work worked, but it was a distraction, something that engrossed him to the point where he didn’t have time to think about his pathetic self. She made him think. By God, she presented a challenge.

Lucy had been talking about a new cleaner who was starting tomorrow. She was half of a pair, and the other half was attached to rotten wisdom teeth that needed surgical removal. ‘When did I stop cleaning?’ he asked.

Samson delivered a quiet, polite woof before going back to sleep.

Mrs Moss had been the cleaner – Anne’s cleaner. He’d let her go when he’d buggered off to India, and the house had scarcely been touched since then. He was a disgrace to his colleagues. Although people in the medical profession had a reputation for living in dirt, he didn’t know anyone who existed as carelessly as he did. It had to stop. No. It had to start. Life must begin again, because he was on the verge of thinking that he might just—

The front door slammed. It wasn’t the twins, because they’d been back for an hour or more and were asleep in an area referred to as ‘the gods’, because it was built into the roof at the rear of the house. David sat up and listened. He heard movement, then two female voices. One was raised until the words stopped and the crying began. He pulled on a towelling robe he’d discovered in the bathroom. It made him hot, but that couldn’t be helped. ‘Stay,’ he said to Samson. ‘I won’t be long.’

He crept downstairs and listened guiltily at the door, which was too thick to allow sound to pass clearly through its panels. After a few moments, he knocked and entered. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I heard a noise and thought I’d better . . . Is this Lizzie?’

Lucy nodded and motioned him to sit in an armchair. ‘What’s the matter?’ he mouthed.

Liz dragged herself out of her mother’s arms. ‘Sorry,’ she sobbed.

‘Don’t apologize on my account,’ he said. ‘I was having difficulty sleeping among all this splendour. Brilliant wallpaper,’ he told Lucy. ‘Bold and brave. It works. Now, why is this beautiful girl crying?’

Liz, slightly calmer, focused on the stranger. ‘Dr Vincent? Glad to meet you, though I’d have preferred to be in a better state. I think I’ve run away. I’m supposed to be in Manchester.’

‘I know I’ve run away,’ Lucy said.

‘I used a car to get here.’ David smiled at the weeping girl. ‘I gave up running when I stopped playing cricket.’

‘He was rubbish at cricket, anyway.’ Lucy stood up and walked into the kitchen. She knew that David would make her daughter feel better; she remembered the kindness he had displayed in childhood.

Behind her, David addressed her daughter gently. ‘Is this about your dad, Lizzie? Because if it is, that’s perfectly reasonable. You say you’ve run away?’

She nodded, too upset for speech.

‘Sometimes, life’s too hard to face.’

She blurted it all out to this stranger. The words were crippled by emotion, but she managed to make herself understood. She had to be a trouper, had to go on stage tomorrow no matter what. Except that it was already tomorrow, and she was going to be exhausted. If she phoned the hospital at one and learned that her father was dead, she would be unable to perform, and that would be unprofessional. Even if he didn’t die, he’d be on the edge, fastened down in some high dependency unit – so was she really an actor? The show had to go on, no matter what.

David listened intently to every word. ‘Your mother has a cleaner starting tomorrow, I believe. To be honest, I find the prospect of this particular woman terrifying, but Louisa will need to be on hand. I’ll go with you to Manchester. I’ll be there in whatever you call the wings when you’re out in the open. You don’t know me, but I knew your mother thirty-five years ago.’

Lucy entered with mugs of hot chocolate on a tray. ‘Carol Makin can manage without me, David. In fact, if I stayed, she’d be organizing me as if I were an untidy wardrobe. We’ll both come, Lizzie. I’ll make the phone call, and we’ll talk about it after the play.’

Liz shook her head. ‘No. I have to know right away. Stuff happens all the time to people in the theatre, but they carry on. Because a real performer can march ahead, and—’

‘And you’re still a student.’

‘The will to continue no matter what – that sort of thing isn’t learned, Mother. It’s either in you or it isn’t. It’s all part of being an actor. An actor wouldn’t need his mother tonight, because he’d be completely wrapped up in tomorrow. I’m too engrossed in my selfishness. It’s not even the idea of his death that’s frightening me – it’s my own pathetic reaction to it. I shouldn’t be so worried about me, should I?’

‘And a doctor whose wife has just died shouldn’t be coming over all hare krishna on top of a mountain in India while his son develops leukaemia,’ David said.

This statement put a stop to Liz’s tears. ‘No,’ she whispered.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘We all have failings. The secret is to learn from them. Hare krishna might have helped me reach a purer state of inner consciousness, but it did nothing for my boy. Might he have been saved? I’ll never know. So. Did you drive here after a panic attack?’

Liz mopped her eyes with a tissue. ‘I visited my dad. I’ve no illusions about him, but he’s still my father, part of my family. Even when Mother divorces him, he’ll be a huge portion of my history. I don’t want to lose him. He’s shrunk in the past few weeks. He looked ancient. He’s not fifty yet, but he looks about eighty.’

It took both of them the better part of an hour to calm Liz to the point where she fell asleep on a sofa. Lucy pulled a car rug over her child, then left the room with David. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And I mean that. I’m glad you were there. She needed me for the love, you for the sense. Will you drive tomorrow? I’m a bit jittery, too.’

‘Of course I’ll drive. I’ll need to make a couple of calls to get my patients diverted to other doctors, but it’s all doable.’

She put her arms round his shoulders. ‘You’re a good man, David Vincent. I’m not ready for you yet, but I promise you that when I am I’ll show no mercy. You’re lovely, you are. I managed you when you were a child, and I can manage you now.’

‘I would question that,’ he said before attempting a change of subject. ‘Doesn’t she look like Diane? Lizzie, I mean.’

‘Yes. I think my sister came back to me in my youngest child. She’s talented, lively and afraid. Whereas you are talented and afraid without the lively bit.’

‘And you’re going to be my lively bit?’

She smiled. ‘I’ll poke a stick through the bars of your cage and see what happens.’

‘And if I bite?’

‘You’d better.’ She abandoned him and returned to the main job. She was still a mother, and David would keep.

*

Sleep eluded Alan. They’d given him something, but it wasn’t going to work. Perhaps the dose was low, as he was to be anaesthetized in the morning. It was two o’clock. In a few hours, he would be a piece of meat on a slab with that bloody Welsh butcher standing over him. Meat. ‘Will I ever taste steak again, will I ever have another cup of tea?’

Starvation was now total, something to do with the operation. Easterly Grange had always skimped on food, supposedly for his own good, but this was ridiculous. He had no appetite, and he reckoned that was because they had shrunk his stomach to the size of a walnut. He wasn’t afraid, he told himself repeatedly. But he was lying, and he knew he was lying. Death was not a pleasant prospect, but neither was life if he could never have another drink, a smoke, or a decent plate of northern fare.

The chap next door was moaning again. Night after night he did this, but the staff had been unable to move him. Alan’s room was no longer locked, because he was supposedly through withdrawal, and this was one of his small rewards. He walked into the corridor and listened, an ear against the door behind which the wailing man was parked. Very quietly, he turned the knob and let himself into the room.

A woman sat next to the bed. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘He’s being shifted upstairs tomorrow, because the rest of you need some peace. You can come in. He won’t know you’re here. Sometimes, he doesn’t know I’m here.’

Alan closed the door. ‘What’s up with him?’ he asked.

‘Brain tumour,’ the woman whispered. ‘They did what they could, but there’s damage and that’s why we’ve had all the crying. He went a bit childlike, and now . . . What about you?’

‘Heart op, nine o’clock. I can’t sleep. Nothing to do with your husband – I think I’ve got used to him, and I have a thing that plays music through headphones. It’s not him. I’m nervous.’

‘You must be. I’m Trish, by the way.’

‘Alan.’

They sat and stared at the frail, sick man in the bed. He looked a lot older than his wife, Alan thought. Just a shell, he was curled and twisted as if left out in the weather for months on end, no shelter, no care. ‘How long’s he been like this, Trish?’

‘Months. It started with headaches and a bit of double vision, some dizziness – could have been anything, but it wasn’t anything, it was something, something big. They had a go – took away about eighty per cent of it, but they damaged some of the good cells as well. We managed. Till it kicked off again for its second bloody half. Too late for chemo. So we just sit and wait. I sit and wait, that is. Howie lies there moaning while I try to keep the business going.’

‘Howie? That’s never Howie Styles.’

She turned slowly and looked at Alan. ‘The same. Biggest builder in Manchester, and now look at him. You knew about him?’

‘I did. I’m Alan Henshaw. Had to give up work because of my health. The wife and kids are gone – I made sure they had all the money. Because after tomorrow, I’ll be dead or an invalid.’

‘Henshaw the developer from Bolton?’

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘So – where’s your missus?’

He shrugged. ‘Buggered off somewhere or other, pastures new, I reckon. The kids are all at university, so I’ve done my bit.’

Trish Styles stood up and took Alan’s hand. ‘Good luck, lad. I’m going home now, but I’ll ask after you tomorrow.’

He sat for a while with his neighbour after Mrs Styles had left. This man in the bed wasn’t much older than Alan, but he looked about the same age as Adam. His wife was a nice little body, ordinary, decent and probably very rich. She would soon be a rich widow, but she’d be able to pick and choose. Trish Styles wouldn’t want anything to do with a knackered builder from Bolton, would she?

Anyway, he’d probably be dead, so what was the point of speculation? In this cheerful frame of mind, he left Mr Styles and went to try again to fall asleep. Or should he stay awake for his last few hours on earth? What did it matter? This was a holding bay for the undertaker’s parlour anyway. This dump was already dead.

Six

Carol Makin in her fighting gear was a sight to behold – easily as impressive as the average galleon in full sail. She slammed the door of her van and kicked a rear wheel with one of her Doc Martens, and had Lucy been able to lip-read she might have been privy to some good, old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon curses. Wearing leggings stretched to within an inch of their lives and a tabard that was clearly home-made, Carol looked like a modern-day Valkyrie, armed to the teeth with buckets, mops and a box of implements that would not have seemed out of place in a torture chamber, or on a field of battle. She stepped into the living room. ‘You off out?’ was her greeting to Lucy, who explained that she was bound for Manchester.

‘Bloody hell, that’s a shame. Wouldn’t go there if you paid me. Still, I suppose someone has to do it.’ She sniffed and gave David the once-over. ‘Who’s this one, then?’

‘A long-standing friend,’ Lucy replied.

‘Then he’d best sit down, eh? You can get very-close veins from being stood up all the while. Me mam was a martyr to them. Worked at the biscuit factory all her life, God love her, ended up with legs like blue ropes twisted all over the place. At the end, she couldn’t look a custard cream in the eye.’ She stared hard at David. ‘Have you got very-close veins?’

‘Close enough,’ he said.

Disdain coloured her expression. ‘I do know the right words. I just like to keep folk on their toes, that’s all. Unless they’ve got varicose doodahs, in which case they should be sat with one or both legs in an elevated position supported by whatever. Now, I don’t need no help from nobody, Lucy, but have you anything particular wants doing?’

‘Just find your feet.’ Lucy tried not to grin, because the enormous woman had probably not seen her feet in a decade at least. ‘And leave the boys in bed – in my experience, they’re less trouble when asleep.’

‘And how long have we had a dog? I seen the cat yesterday, but—’

‘My dog,’ said David. ‘And he’s coming to Manchester.’

‘Bloody cruel,’ Carol said under her breath as she walked away. ‘RSPCA wants telling.’

‘What’s wrong with Manchester?’ David whispered when Carol had left the scene.

‘Nothing.’ Lucy grinned. ‘This, in case you hadn’t noticed, is Liverpool. There’s been a war on for the better part of fifty years, but Manchester’s nearly twice the size of Liverpool, so Scousers depend on their wits. I’m on their side, actually. They need a bigger airport and a huge conference centre, then they could pinch some of the Manks’ business. But I’m not proud, so Lizzie and I will shop at the Trafford Centre while you take Samson home. Ah – here’s Lizzie now.’

The girl entered the room. She looked rather wan, but at least she wasn’t weeping. ‘Sorry to keep you waiting, Mums,’ she said.

Lucy’s face lit up. ‘That’s the first time you’ve ever called me Mums.’

‘Is it? When I talk about you with the twins, you’re Mums sometimes. But Mother suited the old you. You were too dignified and patient for any baby names. Seeing you with your top shelf hanging out of that little black number last night, I thought – yes, the boys are right. She’s a Mums, and she’s sexy. Mind, having a sexy mother can be a bit unnerving.’

David agreed, though he said nothing.

Carol walked in. She had now added a pair of orange Marigolds to her delightful ensemble. ‘Well,’ she said, a rubber-gloved hand on each bulging hip. ‘Sight for sore eyes, or what? You’re a stunner, girl.’ The ‘girl’ emerged as ‘gairl’ again, but no one was counting. ‘I seen you last time, but you look bloody great today. Sort of pale and perfect. Tell you what, love. Yer mam says you’re an actress, and if you don’t get snapped up in the blink of me eye, I’ll eat me golden retriever.’

The room stopped for a beat of time. ‘You have a dog, then?’ Lucy managed eventually.

The cleaner shook her head mournfully in the face of such stupidity, returned to the kitchen and came back with a brass-coloured rod in an orange hand. ‘See? It goes down the back of radiators and retrieves stuff. You click it and it grabs hold of socks and knickers what have fell down the back, like. Some people don’t know nothing.’ She laughed. ‘It was me dad’s. He couldn’t walk proper at the end, and this was his golden retriever.’

Lucy glanced at the clock. ‘We have to go, Carol. Just one thing – don’t let the cat out through the front door and make sure any front room he’s in has all the windows closed. I know it’s a nuisance, but he’s precious, and he knows it. There’s food in the fridge if you’re here through lunch, and I’ll see you soon.’ She turned to go. ‘Oh, and if you do eat, stay with your food, or he’ll pinch it. He thinks everything here is his, and we’re allowed his leftovers.’

The three of them went out to the car. With the dog lead in her hand, Lizzie asked her mother, ‘Where do you find these wonderful people? You had a collection of oddities at Tallows over the years, didn’t you?’

‘It’s my magnetic personality,’ she replied. ‘And I love folk who’re just that little bit different.’

‘She’s a big bit different,’ David whispered.

Lucy dug him in the ribs. ‘Sizeist,’ she accused.

Lizzie said nothing. But she took it all in. David was made for Mums. And Mums was made for him.

She looked good. Richard Turner peered through a gap in the blind and watched while she got into that bloody man’s car. Her daughter followed. Lizzie must have decided to leave her car here, because she was now sitting with a large black dog in the rear seat of the visitor’s Audi. The visitor was a pocket-patter, one of those who seemed to look vague most of the time. He was also a leukaemia specialist and an old friend of Lucy’s, someone she had known for most of her childhood.

Paul and Mike had been full of news last night. Apparently this Dr Vincent was going to occupy Lucy’s pile, a grand house of whose existence Richard had not been fully aware. So. She was sexy, clever, beautiful and loaded. She was also a benefactor, since she intended to allow the doctor to use the house free of charge as a respite care centre. She had volunteered as a fundraiser, so she would be seeing a lot of Dr Vincent.

Lucy was in a dark suit today, one of those cleverly cut things that probably cost an arm and both legs. She had good legs. She had good everything, but Moira had muddied the waters so badly that Richard could scarcely look Lucy in the face these days. He’d been forced to settle for a pale imitation, one Lexi Phillips, supermarket worker, bleached blonde, owner of two large breasts and three or four brain cells. When in her bed, he closed his eyes and thought of Lucy. Lucy, Lexi, the same initial, but miles apart. There was no after-talk with Lex. Why couldn’t Moira learn to keep her trap shut?

Alexandra Phillips had no idea of Richard’s place in society. As far as she was concerned, he was a businessman, one who dealt in this and that. Liverpool had many this-and-that-ers, so she probably thought he was a crook. He didn’t care. Moira was out of bounds, as was Lucy, so he had to take what he could get, because a man had needs. An educated man had many needs.

Dr Vincent had stayed the night in Stoneyhurst. ‘It’s none of my business,’ Richard whispered. ‘But oh, God, how I wish she’d never come here, because she’s turned me upside down.’ She was ruining his life – no, he was doing that himself. But the sight of her, the sound of her – these were pleasure and pain, and he’d be better off if she moved back to Bolton, or wherever she’d come from.

It was almost time for surgery, and the car was disappearing at the end of the road. Never before had he desired a woman this strongly. No, that wasn’t true. The poor, wonderful, crazy creature he had married had been perfection, but a disease had stolen her, and he would never find her like again. Without informing himself fully, he had fallen in love with the woman next door. A song bumbled about in his head, words and music colliding before arranging themselves until the whole thing began to make sense. Phil Collins? ‘The First Cut is the Deepest’. Was it? Moira had been ill for so long that he could scarcely recall how he had felt when the diagnosis first arrived. Was it Phil Collins or Genesis?

But this second cut felt like major surgery without pain management. He hated a man he hadn’t met, a man Lucy had known for many years. What chance did Richard have? His wife was alive. According to Lucy’s twins, David Vincent was a widower, an expert at Scrabble and a good sort. He had arrived with no attachments, no dependants apart from a large black dog. The man was an exact template of the sort of partner Lucy might want.

Richard would never manage to wish his wife dead. The character he had loved for half his life was still there, and he enjoyed her company. When she wasn’t begging Lucy to give sex to her husband, or to marry him in the fullness of time, that was. Oh, the shame of it.

Patients were arriving. They all sat together in the waiting room, and he didn’t like to leave them for too long. Which was silly, because germs transferred in seconds, and hung around long after their carriers had disappeared. Whatever, he went to do the job that many thought less worthy than work performed by surgeons and hospital medics. They were wrong. Because here was the hub of medicine; here was where a decent diagnostician performed the most awesome of all tasks. Without a good GP, there would be no chance for anybody.

They came and gave him his pre-med. He was already dressed in the hospital’s best off-the-peg frock, open all the way down the back, pretty bows at neck and waist, to hell with any danger of modesty.

The sheep-lover entered. ‘How are we today then?’

‘I’ve no idea how you are, but I don’t care if you cut my head off. Whatever was in that needle’s made me happy as a pig in muck.’

‘OK. Good. Just thought I’d pop in before I scrub. I was very careful this morning – killed only two sheep. But I’ll get their blood from under my nails before starting on you. When it comes to the sewing up, what is your preference? Blanket stitch, chain stitch, cross stitch? And would you like a particular colour of sewing thread?’

Alan found himself laughing. ‘Oh, how glad I am to have a mad Welshman as my doctor. Go on, Taff, owld lad. Get ready to do your worst. You’ve got me in stitches already, and we’ve not kicked off. Just make sure the referee’s fair. I don’t want a red card before I’ve even dribbled.’

He was placed on a trolley and wheeled out to the corridor. It was very Holby City, all ceiling lights and pinging lift doors, but without the urgency displayed on TV. Someone called his name. ‘Alan? Is that Alan from room seven? Hang on a minute, you lot.’

Too tired to raise his head, he tried to place the voice. Last night. Remember. Styles – her first name was Trish, and she was standing over him. ‘All the best, love,’ she said. ‘I’ll be here later on when you come back.’

Would he be here later on? He couldn’t manage to care. One of the porters explained to the woman that the patient had been given an injection, and wasn’t fully responsive. ‘It’ll be a longish job,’ the man said. ‘We’ll be sure to let you know when he’s back, Mrs Styles.’

‘Thanks. Look after him.’

Well, somebody cared, then. He was pushed into a lift that travelled very slowly because it was for sick people, and the porters were talking about runners in the three-thirty at Haydock. Life went on, it seemed. Whether he lived or died, nothing would change, and only his daughter and the wife of a man with a brain tumour would give a toss. Anyway, he had a chance, didn’t he? Taffy the sheep man thought there was a chance. He had quite a decent sense of humour for a Welshman, did old Taff. And if Alan could only get his hands on the drug they’d given him, he’d never need another drink.

Lucy and Lizzie went on a huge shopathon at the Trafford Centre while David made phone calls and took the dog to the neighbour in Bolton. Samson liked going next door, because there were children who rolled in mud, water and any other forbidden substance that happened to be available, and the dog shared their enthusiasm for such naughtiness.

Phone calls were made, and David returned to the scene of the crime when he had sorted out ward rounds and outpatients. He knew it was a crime when he picked up the two women, since they had between them enough packages and parcels to justify the hire of a removal van. ‘Anything left in there?’ he asked, pointing to the enormous shopping centre. ‘Because if there is, you may as well go back and pick it up, get the full set.’

Lucy awarded him a withering glance. ‘The trouble with men,’ she said, ‘is that they have no concept of the joy that comes with shopping. Take a man into a department store, and he shrivels and starts sulking and looking at price tags. No imagination.’ She handed him a small paper bag. ‘That’s for you. Don’t say we don’t care about you.’

‘Thanks. I think.’ It was a navy-blue tie with matching socks. The problem lay in the picture of Bart Simpson lowering his shorts to display a bare backside. Bart was on the tie just once, but was repeated many times on the socks.

Lizzie completed the set when she handed him the underpants. ‘Children like these things,’ she told him. ‘They won’t see the underpants, but you’ll know they’re there.’

They were right, of course. About the tie and the socks, anyway. He worked with sick kids, and all children loved cartoons.

‘They had the Tellytubbies, but I thought Bart’s bare bum was the clear winner,’ Lucy said. ‘Madam here bought four pairs of jeans, and they all look the same to me. She says jeans freaks will know what’s what. Four pairs of shoes as well, David. Anyone would think my daughter had more than her fair share of feet. She’s an octopus.’ She wished her daughter would stop looking at her watch. It was eleven-thirty, and Alan would be in theatre.

A glance passed between Lucy and David. ‘Do you know how to get to Heaton Park from here?’ he asked. ‘Or am I going to need satnav?’

‘Satnav,’ Lizzie replied. ‘I’ve never gone to the park from Trafford before.’

When the shopping had been squashed into the boot, two spent-out women and one exhausted doctor climbed into the Audi. David had not been in close company with women for a very long time. They had busy minds and hurrying bodies. They were always up to something and, in spite of tiredness, he was enjoying himself. But the problem remained. Lizzie’s dad was probably on bypass and, at any moment now, a team would be concentrating on his repaired heart and trying to shock it back to life.

The drive round the edge of the city was quiet. When asked how she was feeling, Liz answered in broad Lancashire dialect, so she was clearly busy getting inside her part. They left her alone with her demons, yet they knew she was glad to have their company.

After snacks in a small café , they repaired to Heaton Park and abandoned Lizzie to the make-up department, which was a large tent behind the arena in which the play would take place. Now it was Lucy’s turn to start checking her watch. ‘Stop it,’ David told her several times. ‘We can’t phone until Lizzie gets here, anyway.’

She arrived at ten minutes to one. Lucy’s gasp was audible. ‘Where’s my daughter?’ she cried. ‘What have you done with her, and who the heck are you?’

Lizzie shook her head, then lifted her face to the heavens. ‘I think I look great. Just pray the skirt doesn’t ride up, because I’m wearing a thong.’

David hid a smile. She looked every inch the tart, make-up thick and colourful, hair backcombed and piled all over her head with little wisps escaping here and there. ‘You look great,’ he said. ‘Here.’ He handed her his phone. ‘I’ve programmed in the Easterly Grange number – have this call on the National Health, because God knows you’ll get very little else.’

‘I’m scared, David.’

‘Do you want me to do it?’

She nodded. ‘My hands are shaking. You get the hospital, I’ll do the talking.’

But before David got through, Lizzie’s own phone rang. For a moment, she didn’t know what to do, but she decided to get rid of the caller first. ‘Hello? Sorry, I have to go and— Oh, it’s you.’ She paused. ‘Yes? And you’re pleased with him? How did you get my— Oh, I see. I don’t know how to thank you. But . . . well . . . thank you so much.’ She closed the phone.

‘Well?’ Lucy took a step towards her daughter.

‘Mr Evans-Jones found my number on Dad’s phone. He knew I was worried, so he wanted to put me out of my misery. Dad’s doing well. They have to keep an eye on him, but they’re pleased. Only close family allowed for the next few days, but he survived it, Mums.’

‘Good, I’m so glad, love.’ And Lucy was glad. He hadn’t been much of a husband, but this girl wanted her daddy to live, and he would live. He had to live. ‘Go and do your bit, Lizzie. I bet you’ll be wonderful – can’t wait to see you in action.’ She looked again at the clothes. ‘Mind, the sort of action you’re ready for shouldn’t really have an audience.’

‘Mums, you are so . . . old-fashioned.’ The young hooker walked away, hips swaying in an exaggerated fashion. David offered his arm. ‘Shall we?’

Like a pair stealing a day off work, they wandered round one of the biggest parks in Europe, buying ice creams and cups of tea, watching children running about, waiting for the summons to attend Lizzie’s play. They were easy in each other’s company, and might have been mistaken by onlookers for a married couple because they looked so right together.

The awaited summons arrived, a great bell booming across the grass. They had reserved seats in the front row, which placed them almost on top of the action, though there was none for at least ten minutes, as audience members were still arriving. All they could see was a row of four vertical boards, like plain flats on the stage of a theatre. Yet there was electricity in the air, as there always is before a performance. David whispered to his companion. ‘She’ll get through it, Lucy. There’s a lot of you in her. I dare say she’ll always finish what she starts.’

There were no curtains; there was no stage. Six men in overalls walked on with lamp posts and billboards advertising foodstuffs and designer gear. They stood and clicked their fingers in rhythms that became quite intricate and skilful. Through a sound system arrived Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’, a piece from the sixties that was reputedly almost impossible to conduct, since it had an unusual number of beats to the bar. The clicking kept several tempos, all of them perfect, all in keeping with the complicated music. Brubeck faded, and the clickers left.

They were replaced by beat-boxers, five lads whose mouths were the only instruments required to produce amazing sounds. One started a stopwatch, and the graffiti artists entered. They sprayed the flats, producing pictures that made the word STREETS across the boards. All round the lettering, pictures appeared as if by magic, so quick were the movements of these gifted craftsmen. When the stopwatch marked the end of the time allotted, the painters disappeared, and the applause was tumultuous.

A wooden floor was carried on to the stage by all the players, Lizzie included. As she was required to bend, lift and shift, Lucy’s daughter had exchanged the brief skirt for jogging bottoms, which was just as well. Once placed and judged steady, the large board was used by four black street-dancers whose abilities defied description. ‘Now, that’s testosterone,’ David whispered to Lucy.

‘Beautiful,’ she answered.

The scene was set. Drug-dealers, pimps and prostitutes arrived. A fight broke out because a dealer was on someone else’s patch. The language was plain, direct and peppered with swear words. Lucy watched while her daughter was beaten up by her pimp before walking to join other girls by the side of a park pathway that was clearly a road. Real cars kerb-crawled and occupants took their pick of the girls. Lizzie was the first to be driven away in a newish Mercedes.

A wonderful rivalry between remaining girls led to more fights involving pimps and their human property. Dancing resumed. Large packages of white powder were taken into a corner, then smaller wraps were brought out. When Lizzie returned, her reward was contained in a hypodermic. She ‘died’ about eight feet away from her real life mother.

It was back to the clicking. ‘Pure, pure, too pure,’ was the chant. ‘Dead, dead, too dead.’ A siren sounded, and the cast disappeared, leaving just one deceased child prostitute centre-stage. The ambulance, complete with sound and blue light, had been made from an old Bedford van. Lizzie was placed on a stretcher, a red blanket covering her completely. She was pushed into the vehicle, then the driver and paramedics stopped for a smoke. The girl was dead, so there was no hurry. Someone scratched a record through the speakers, and the two smokers delivered what Lucy recognized as rap. The speeches contained statistics relating to runaways, drug deaths and child prostitution. It was all rather grim.

When whistles sounded, cigarettes were ground underfoot, and the ambulance pulled away. Four policemen clog-danced on the wooden floor, each man leaving after his cut of the profits had been handed over by members of the cast, who came on singly, furtively and in motorbike helmets employed to make them anonymous.

Act one was over. ‘She made a lovely corpse,’ David said beneath applause.

‘It’s a bit gross, though.’ Lucy clapped and stared ahead. ‘Is that really life as some child sees it?’ The writer was an eighteen-year-old from Wythenshawe. He was also one of the graffiti artists. ‘Is it like that?’

‘For some, yes. Are we staying for the rest? I’d like to see it, but I’d bet a pound to a penny that Lizzie wants to get to Easterly Grange. She did well. And she has guts. Wonderful girl.’

‘Her language was . . . interesting.’

‘She didn’t write it, Louisa. She’s an actor – she does as she’s told. When a kid wants someone to move out of the way, there’s no excuse me – it’s eff off all the way.’

Lucy grinned. ‘She did make a lovely corpse. She seemed not to breathe. It was quite terrifying to see my daughter dead. Ah, here she comes.’

The corpse walked. ‘I’ll just change and get the slap off my face,’ she said. ‘Then will you take me to the hospital, please?’

‘Of course we will,’ Lucy replied.

David just smiled. No one had asked him, and he was the driver. And he was pleased about that, because it seemed to give him a position in the household, one that might even be taken for granted. He was in loco parentis. Just on the male side, of course.

It had turned out nice again. George Formby used to say that, didn’t he? Alan was in a small ward, and he had a nurse all to himself. She wasn’t great to look at, but he wasn’t going to complain, because he was alive and almost pain-free. They had some brilliant drugs in this place. A heart operation? Give him a couple of days, and he’d be fit to go six rounds with Mike Tyson.

She was talking to him. ‘You’re supposed to be family only, but I imagine she’s a bit like family, you being next to her husband all these weeks.’

What the hell was she on about?

‘Mrs Styles,’ she said. ‘Husband cries a lot, brain tumour, poor soul.’

Trish. She was talking about Trish. ‘Wheel her in,’ he ordered.

Now, this was his kind of woman. Thin as a reed, smartly dressed, quiet, knew her place. She wouldn’t be buggering off with all her family’s assets, wouldn’t leave her dying husband to the tender mercies of some BUPA hospital in the middle of nowhere. He greeted her carefully. ‘How is he?’

‘That’s a nice thing to do, Alan. Asking about my husband, I mean. You’re only just out of surgery yourself, and you’re thinking about somebody else’s problems – and he kept you awake for nights on end, bless you both.’

Even now, with the remnants of anaesthetics in his blood, Alan Henshaw knew what he was doing. Butter them up was his second commandment. Avoid big boobs was the first. Women who travelled through life behind a pair of large secondary sexual characteristics had some kind of power. Neat little women seemed grateful, could never do enough for a man. Lucy had seemed docile, but he had caught occasional glimpses of something in her face, an emotion that was possibly on kissing terms with contempt. He should have known, should have put the money back a bit at a time, could have been cleverer when it came to using her signature. Scheming bloody cow she had been—

‘Alan?’

‘Sorry, love. I keep drifting.’

She sat down. ‘You thought you were dying, didn’t you?’

‘I did.’

‘So will she give you your money back?’

He thought about this for a few seconds. ‘We parted on bad terms, Trish. There’ll be a divorce, and I’ll be on my uppers. To be honest with you, I’m homeless. My daughter tells me the house is going to a charity for the rest of Lucy’s life.’

‘Can she do that?’

He swallowed. ‘I’ve nothing against charity myself, Trish. And there’s no fight left in me. All I want is an easy life, a bit of a roof over my head and something to keep me interested.’

‘Right.’

He closed his eyes. The seed was planted. Styles in room eight was on his way out with a brain tumour, poor sod. The biggest disappointment in Trish’s life had been her inability to have children. There was no son sitting in the wings, no daughter with a husband ready and willing to take over. Trish would be lonely. Trish would need someone to oversee the business. By pretending to be asleep, he needed to answer no questions. He’d laid the foundations; she should be left to think about things for a while. When the end came, when her husband died, she might just turn to Alan.

The next patient came in and sat down.

Richard, busy writing notes relating to someone who needed blood tests, did not look up immediately. ‘I’ll be with you in a second,’ he said.

‘Hello.’

A chill ran the full length of his body, right from the top of his head all the way into his toes. It couldn’t be. It was. ‘Lexi? What the hell are you doing here? Are you ill?’

She crossed her legs, the upper one swinging in clear demonstration of anger and impatience. ‘Miss Phillips to you, Dr Turner. This job of yours – a bit of this and a bit of that – have I been your bit of the other? Like this, that and the other? Entrepreneur, my backside. You’re just a dirty old man with a crippled wife, aren’t you?’

‘But . . . what are you doing here?’ he asked again.

She smiled. ‘Been on your books for over a month, babe. There was a queue, but I’m a patient patient, and I live right on the edge of your catchment area. The nurse done my blood pressure and all that when you were out on your rounds. I hung about outside till you went.’

‘But why—’

‘Never trust a woman, sweetheart. When you fall asleep, they go through your pockets. Letters, notes, driving licence. I got your real name and address, started hanging about outside, saw your brass plaque, watched you with your little black bag.’

‘I see.’

‘Oh, do you? Have you got some kind of permission from the Pope or the boss of the National Health Service? Because as far as I know, you’re not supposed to bed your patients unless they’re down the ozzy after an operation, or in their own house with flu or something. Even then, they’re supposed to lie down by themselves. You’ve had me seven times since I joined your practice. I made a DVD. It could go anywhere, could that. On the Internet, to the cops, to all the people down the NHS. See? I’m not as thick as you thought I was. Dead interesting, the DVD is, because we got up to some fancy shenanigans that night. You’d be out of a job faster than shit sliding off a shiny shovel.’

For several moments, he knew how Moira must feel on a good day. There was no pain in him, but he didn’t trust his arms and legs to take any orders he might try to deliver. This little tart had his life in her steadier hands. Purple nail polish, yellow hair, skin that looked a great deal worse in the clarity of daylight. ‘Right,’ he managed. ‘What do you want of me?’

‘I told you – I’m a patient patient. I don’t want nothing. Yet. Well, not much, anyway.’

He stared hard at her. She had discovered his rather substantial Achilles heel and was enjoying herself thoroughly. ‘What do you want?’ he repeated.

‘All this.’ She swept both purple-tipped hands outwards. ‘A ton a week will do for now, but only for now. I’m not quite as patient as I’d like to be.’

‘And?’

‘When she dies, I fancy being a doctor’s wife. I asked your nurse, like. About what sort of man you were, about your family and all that. So she told me about the MS and said Mrs Turner’s not a bit well. Shame.’

He felt as if someone had hit him with a house brick. This cheap little tart could never fill that role.

‘We’re good in bed,’ she announced.

‘Keep your voice down – the waiting room’s just—’

‘Empty,’ she snapped. ‘And you’d better keep an eye out in future, see if you’ve any new patients, like, because if I can do this, any of your past bits on the side could have a similar idea. I want you. I want your life. If you’d looked on your computer, or in the filing cabinet, you’d have known I was on your list. But you can’t be bothered, can you?’

Richard pulled himself together. He took out his wallet and passed its contents across the desk. ‘I’ll give you the rest tonight,’ he said. ‘There’s about seventy here.’

Lexi snatched up the notes and rose to her feet. ‘Oh. And don’t be getting any ideas about insulin – I seen it on the telly where people what’s not diabetic gets murdered that way. And I am diabetic, so no overdoses, right? My friend’ll blow your cover if anything happens to me. And remember the flavoured condoms, hon. We have to make sure you get your money’s worth. I’ll buy the squirty cream and the chocolate spread, because I get a discount.’

She left, then came back. ‘I’ll bet you that’s what happened to Marilyn Monroe,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Insulin, needle shoved up her back passage where it wouldn’t show.’ She sighed. ‘I’ve always felt close to her spirit – know what I mean?’ The door closed behind her, and he heard the stiletto heels ruining the parquet as she stepped through the hall.

Richard Turner went to the window and watched Alexandra Phillips tottering down the street. The shoes, like the nail polish, were a lurid shade of purple. No way could she be considered wife material. She was clever in a streetwise sense, but she would never manage to carry herself as Moira had before the illness had started to—Moira. There were now two reasons for keeping Moira alive. He loved her, and he didn’t want to be lumbered with a pathetic imitation of womanhood whose main concerns in life seemed to be visible panty line and dark roots in her hair.

‘I’m stupid,’ he said to himself. Lexi was smarter than he had been led to believe. DVD? Internet? She could have him ruined by the end of the week. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’ Moira had been right, as usual. He should confine his adventures to the level of society that understood; he should have chosen someone like Lucy to turn to in times of great need.

But he had a recovering pneumonia on Tithebarn Road and a baby with croup on Rosedale Avenue. Life, as they said, had to go on. He needed time, needed to pretend to cooperate with Lexi Phillips. There had to be a way. There was always a way.

Carol Makin was swilling Lucy’s steps when Litherland Lexi staggered out of the doctor’s surgery. Bloody hell. Some folk were hard to leave behind – like bad smells and warfare, they spread too far for anyone’s good. What the hell was she doing up here, anyway? Ideas above her station, or what? Perhaps she’d moved again. Perhaps another set of neighbours had got fed up with her carryings-on. Anyway, didn’t she work on the checkout in a Waterloo supermarket these days? Or was she still servicing Scandinavian sailors whenever their ships docked?

The woman was reputed to have suffered from every sexually transmitted problem from crabs right through to gonorrhoea. ‘Could be something worse these days,’ Carol muttered under her breath. ‘Walking bloody disaster, that one.’ Well, she was nearly walking. She’d have made a better stab if she’d worn shoes that didn’t come with an oxygen mask and a government health warning. Who did she think she was? A blinking teenager? And if she wore that skirt a fraction shorter, the daft tart would get stopped for behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace.

It was always sad to see mutton dressed as lamb, but it was also hard to feel sorry for Lexi. In her early thirties, she looked a lot older than she was. If she’d owned even a grain of sense, the woman would have dressed herself better, because she shouldn’t be classed as mutton, not at her age. Oh well, there were steps to finish.

Dr Richard Turner came out, and he looked harassed and angry. The cleaner wasn’t surprised, because most folk who came in contact with Litherland Lexi looked a bit the worse for wear after the encounter. ‘Morning,’ she called cheerily. ‘I’ll pop in and see your missus later. Lucy says she likes visitors.’

‘Thank you,’ he answered rather curtly.

Carol watched as he drove away. She wondered anew whether his less than happy countenance might be connected in any way with Lexi. If he’d read her notes, he would have plenty to think about. There’d been talk about abortions, and a few beatings when she’d wound up her clients to the point of abuse, but some of it was hearsay. The Legend of Litherland Lexi was a tale that had been much embellished while travelling through the area, but it was based in a great deal of truth.

She emptied her bucket and walked back into the house. There had been no sound from the top storey, so she guessed that Lucy’s boys, along with most of their generation, were gifted when it came to sleeping. The girl wasn’t like that, but females tended to be faster off the mark than mere men. They had to keep moving to get the males on their toes – perhaps women were created for that purpose.

After a small lunch of tinned salmon and salad, Carol made her way to the doctor’s house. She would take her full lunch hour, but she intended to dedicate it to the poor soul next door who had MS. Carol knew all about MS, because her sister was a sufferer. Beryl ruled with a rod of iron, and she did it from a wheelchair. No one could work out how or why, but Beryl could freeze an escaping teenager from forty paces. She was brilliant with kids, and should have been a teacher or a probation officer, since she was far more effective than an ASBO.

Having made sure that Lucy’s sulky cat was safe, Carol went to visit Moira. She’d been told to walk in and shout, so she did.

‘I’m stuck,’ came the answer.

‘Where?’

‘In here,’ Moira yelled.

‘But which here, love? There’s a lot of heres and theres and everywheres in these houses.’

‘I’m on the loo in the downstairs bathroom, back of the house.’

Carol entered the bathroom. ‘Bloody hell, girl. You’re in a state worse than Russia – you’re not on the lav, you’re halfway down it.’

‘I know. It’s a talent I’ve developed over the years – I’m just refining it until I get it right.’

Carol heaved the woman up, fastened the nappy, pulled up pants and trousers, then pushed her into the wheelchair.

‘You’ve done that before,’ Moira accused her.

‘I have. Sister. Our Beryl. MS. Looks after me daughter’s kids and rules the whole flaming street like the Queen of Sheba. I’m telling you now, love, if they found a cure, she’d be bloody dangerous. She had a burglar once – just the once. Wheeled herself up behind him and inflicted grievous bodily harm with the Sacred Heart.’

‘With what?’

‘A statue of our Lord with his heart on the outside of his frock. Have you never been in a Catholic church?’

‘No.’

‘There you go, then. You’ve had some luck in your life. You get the Immaculate Conception – that’s Mary in a white frock and a blue shawl. Then there’s the Sacred Heart bleeding down his white nightshirt. Stations of the Cross with Christ struggling his way up the hill of Calvary all round the walls, and always a little fellow with a collection plate. You’ve missed nothing.’

When Moira was settled, her visitor bustled off to make cups of tea. Then she sat down and proceeded to regale Moira with the terrible tale of Litherland Lexi. ‘I nearly fell down the steps when I seen her tottering out of your husband’s surgery. She looked like the last one off the Liverpool night bus on a Sunday morning, all spindly heels, smudged make-up and a hangover bigger than Birkenhead. What’s she doing round here?’

‘No idea.’ Moira was enjoying herself. Collecting people was so much easier when they came to her. Getting out, even in the scooter she named ‘my trolley-along’, wasn’t as easy as it had been. ‘Perhaps she’s had a disagreement with her doctor and needed a new one.’

But Carol was motoring on. Information tumbled from her in huge blocks of words, some colliding with others, vernacular mixed with unexpectedly perceptive statements, all delivered with wit and humour from a brain that had never been adequately utilized. Carol was a clever woman. She spoke about the bouncer who got done for cocaine possession, and it was all Lexi’s fault. A senior policeman’s wife had created a stir about Lexi’s relationship with her husband, the inspector. ‘Mind, she looked better in them days. Almost human, you might say. That cop nearly lost his job over her.’

‘Was she a prostitute?’ Moira asked with feigned innocence.

‘Was she a prozzie? Give over, Moira. She’s the human equivalent of the Mersey tunnels – both of them. On top of that, there’s her shoplifting, handling – and not just men – drugs, fights with neighbours, or blokes she brought home, or cops, or her family – the list goes on.’

‘Quite a character, then.’

Carol nodded vigorously. ‘Just wait till your feller comes in from surgery one day all white-faced and shaky. When he reads her notes, he’ll have a fit with his leg up.’

Moira smiled. ‘A fit with his leg up’ was definitely Dinglish. ‘Well, someone’s got to look after her, Carol.’

‘She’s had all them diseases what nobody can spell. When we lived by her, we counted ten different men on one day. I was ill in bed, so I saw the buggers. It’s a wonder she didn’t go bandy-legged after spreading herself out that many times in a few hours. Thank God she’s had no kids so far. Mind, she’s only in her thirties.’

Moira was thrilled to bits. Gems like Carol Makin were few and far between. She imagined that this woman had appealed to Lucy because she, too, liked quirky characters and oddities. ‘Your daughter’s working with you, isn’t she?’

Carol delivered her daughter for the umpteenth time. ‘Thin as a bloody rake, but it was a terrible birth. They kept telling me to push, and I kept telling him to push off. Me husband, I mean. Not that he was there, like, but I decided during labour that unless he tied a knot in it, he could bog off. He was always pissed, anyway. I sold him on to a woman from Seffy Park. He thought it was his idea, but that’s the only way to handle men. Let them think they run the world, and they’re happy. Five more kids, he had with her.’ She grinned. Every time she gave an account of her husband’s disappearance the tale altered. ‘Or he could be with Barbie Bow-legs from next door. Who knows?’

Moira developed a photograph in her mind. She saw a harassed mother from Sefton Park, five children clinging to her skirts, a man trying to escape the noise and trouble that were his own creation.

‘So there she is, our Dee – Deirdre’s her proper name. I tell you now, there’s more flesh on a wire coat hanger than there is on her. And she popped out her kids like bullets from a well-oiled revolver. Mind, she didn’t empty every chamber in her six-shooter, because Harry fell off his ladder after number four. Died on the spot, like.’

Moira lost control and started laughing. Again, Carol knew exactly what to do. She separated her hostess from the teacup, mopped up the spillages and carried on as if nothing had happened.

‘Thanks,’ said Moira, feeling lucky to have got a word in.

Carol continued. ‘She’s having her wisdom teeth done, and she looks like a hamster collecting for its larder. Been a martyr to her teeth, has my Dee. The number of times I’ve told her to get them out and have a nice set of falsies, but will she listen? Will she buggery. I suppose she’s old enough to please herself, like, but they never stop being your baby, do they? Especially when there’s just the one. Anyway, our Beryl’s looking after her, so it’s all warm salt water, rinse and spit. Great believer in salt water, our Beryl. If the kids get a graze, she’s there with her Saxa and jug, no mercy. The screams are heartbreaking.’ She grinned. ‘But it makes them more careful, because they can put up with cuts, but not with our Beryl and the salt water.’

Moira wondered, not for the first time, why women like Carol didn’t have great careers. Here she was, cleaning houses for a living, yet she had brains to spare, enough life in her for ten or more people, and a sense of humour that spoke volumes about talents she had failed to hide.

When Carol had left, the room seemed bare. It wasn’t just the size of her body that had filled the space; it was also her personality, the humour, the innate generosity of a woman whose heart embraced life totally in good times and in bad. Moira had met Carol just once, yet she missed her as she might miss a lifelong friend. Being alive was certainly worthwhile. And she had every intention of meeting Our Beryl.

Lizzie looked through the glass panel in the door. Her father was once more attached to several items that were plugged into the mains, and he had fluids dripping into him from a bag on a stand. He was very thin, which was possibly a good thing, since he had been a big man for as long as Lizzie could remember. But he didn’t look like Daddy, didn’t look right.

She swallowed. If this was a man ‘doing well’, what about those who weren’t? Were they in the morgue, all lined up in a queue for the undertakers? A nurse tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Are you Mr Henshaw’s daughter?’

‘Yes. I’m Elizabeth – usually Liz, or Lizzie.’

The nurse smiled. ‘He’s been upgraded already, you know. He had a nurse to himself, now he shares one with the next fellow. Your dad might just be about to surprise us all. He’s doing brilliantly.’

Lizzie continued to stare at ‘brilliantly’. He was as white as the sheet on which he lay, as motionless as a statue in some museum. The only signs of life were in the machines that surrounded him, television screens with green lines whose shapes altered with every beat of his repaired heart. ‘He looks terrible,’ she managed finally.

‘So would you if you’d been a couple of hours on an operating table. I mean, we’re not pretending he’s not ill, and we’re not saying he’ll definitely make it. What we can tell you is that he’s as well as possible at this moment.’

Lizzie placed her heated forehead against the glass. ‘I bet you think I’m daft, but I’m scared to go in.’

‘Not daft, love. Just human. Don’t expect a lot from him, because he’s still full of rubbish from the anaesthetics. Come on, I’ll hold your hand.’

They entered and stood beside his bed.

One eye opened. ‘Oh yes?’ was the greeting. ‘Am I some kind of exhibit at the bloody fair? The thinnest man alive, the chap with more tubes than the London Underground? I could murder a chip butty.’

Lizzie found herself grinning.

‘See?’ said the nurse. ‘Now, that’s unusual. He should be drifting around like a balsa boat in a bath, but no. He’s asking for toast, tea, eggs and anything else he can think of.’

‘Not whisky?’

The nurse squeezed Lizzie’s hand. ‘Not yet, love. One day at a time, eh? He needs to go to what my old mother used to call Alcoholics Magnanimous. But that has to be his decision. He has to do it for himself, not for you or anyone else. There’s a chance, just a small one, that he won’t die of liver disease if he steers clear of booze. He’s drifted off again. Come on, let’s leave him to it.’

On a landing, Lizzie stopped and placed a hand on her companion’s arm. ‘See that car there? It’s full of UST.’

The nurse grinned. ‘What’s that? Some kind of pasteurized milk?’

‘Unresolved sexual tension,’ Lizzie replied. ‘That’s my mother.’

‘Nice-looking,’ the nurse said.

‘Yes. And with her’s the man she should have married. She’d have been happy with somebody like David, but she rebelled when her parents put their foot down about him in there.’ She jerked a thumb in the direction of the ward they had just left. ‘That teaches us two things. We should listen to our mums and dads, and when we are mums ourselves we should learn to keep our traps shut.’

Lizzie’s companion chuckled before excusing herself in order to continue with her duties. Alone, the daughter of Alan and Lucy Henshaw stood for some time staring at the couple in the car. They shared history from a time when life had been fairly safe and predictable, and now they had come together in the wake of tragedies and disappointments. Lizzie’s father was the greatest of his wife’s regrets. Greedy for power and hungry for money, he had stolen from her, had greatly underestimated her, yet had made her stronger in the long run.

David had lost a wife who, according to Mums, had been the great love of his life. Weaker than his current companion, he had run away to a guru on top of some hill in India, had sought solace in meditation and new-fangled prayer to gods who didn’t exist. Were they gods, or were they elements in nature? ‘I’ll ask some time,’ she said quietly. His son, a virtual orphan, had died of a nasty disease, and that poor kid’s father had been absent at the beginning of the illness. David had not grown stronger. He remained fidgety, unsure and almost childlike in some respects. Lizzie and her mother had discussed him at length, and it was clear that Mums was interested, yet hesitant, as he often seemed to be frozen and set in stone, rather like a fossil at the North Pole.

As an outsider, Lizzie could see what was required. Mums wanted someone to care for, because her children were beyond the age where they needed close vigilance. She needed to take him into her bed and into her heart, because she was a generous woman who was also capable of showering tremendous love on all who travelled within her sphere.

David was different, more complicated. Emotionally, he lived in the past, body and soul still welded to the ghosts of his wife and child. An overwhelming guilt forbade him to move on, so he was afraid of commitment. But Lizzie had watched, had taken in the expression on his face every time he looked at Lucy. His elemental self clearly desired this wonderful woman, but he was afraid. Mums had spoken about his deep uncertainties, but Lizzie had been too worried about Dad and everything else to take everything on board. Now, she watched David and tried to work him out for herself.

His fear stemmed, Lizzie suspected, from two sources. One was that the size of his love might suffocate Lucy, since he could give himself only completely. He was rather close to the hero in some age-old romance, the perfect man – created by a female writer, of course – who fixed on one woman only. Dad was like a splinter group in a single body, because he could give bits of himself to any woman who would have him. Dad and David were poles apart.

The other fear in Lucy’s potential suitor was the terrifying concept of loving and losing yet again. If they came together, he would, perhaps, depend on her too much, might have insufficient self-confidence to expect her to stay with him. If the unthinkable happened, if she died, he would probably never recover.

‘I should have studied psychology,’ Lizzie said.

Something had to be done. Life was becoming rather full, what with Dad ill and still naughty, Mums head-over-heels yet determined to appear unaffected, David Vincent not knowing whether he was coming or going, Theatre in the Park taking up time. And Simon. Lizzie was a rare animal, since she was a twenty-year-old virgin. She hadn’t expected to fall in love, because that wasn’t to be allowed on the agenda until she was working, famous, and able to identify a suitable man who might tolerate her potentially nomadic existence.

It had happened quickly, and was not to be trusted. Yet she did trust him. Whereas Mother – Mums – was with a man she had known before, a decent, trustworthy if rather absent-minded doctor, and Lizzie needed to find a way of getting them together. She wondered briefly whether Carol Makin might be experienced with a soldering iron, and giggled when she imagined her mother and Dr Vincent glued together for life. One thing she could do. There was a coffee machine downstairs, and she would take her time over a cup of Kenya blend. That might leave them in a car full of UST for another ten minutes.

Lizzie was wasting her time, because the couple in the car were ignoring any unresolved sexual tension to discuss what might become of Alan. Lucy thought he would return to drink at the earliest opportunity, while David believed that the man currently recovering from open heart surgery might have learned his lesson at last. ‘He’s through the worst. He was through that before they wheeled him into theatre. Withdrawal from any drug is a nightmare, and he’ll know he can’t endure that again.’

Lucy didn’t agree. ‘Drink is all he has. Even Lizzie’s seen through him, and he’ll have nowhere to turn. No job, no home, no family – unless I can find some very clever way of handling him, he’ll be dependent on alcohol within a week.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Half a lifetime of living with him. I think he sweats booze. When he comes into a room, it immediately adopts all the elegance of a distillery-cum-brewery, especially when he belches. His clothes reek of it. Until I moved into my own room, I smelt of it – from the bed covers. He’s too far gone, David. You think a few weeks in here is a cure?’

‘No. I think the surgery is the final cure. He’ll be terrified. After weeks of enforced alcohol-free living and painful withdrawal, he had the line drawn by a surgeon. It wasn’t just drawn, Lucy – it was cut into his flesh. The operation is the full stop at the end of this paragraph.’

He pointed to the building. ‘This place is Nemesis for him. I know Rhys Evans-Jones. He’s operated on kids whose hearts have needed attention after chemo. That man is one tough bastard who instructs parents like a disappointed sergeant major dressing down the ranks. I shouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of his scalpel. And I don’t mean a hand-held instrument – it’s his pep talks, his threats, his dogged determination to scare the living shit out of sinners. Mark my words, Lucy. He will have made a lasting impression on your husband.’

Lizzie opened a rear door and climbed into the car. ‘He’s fine,’ she told them. ‘Except he wants a chip butty.’

‘Good. Shall we go home, David?’

He turned on the engine.

‘How are we for UST?’ Lizzie asked.

‘Is that some kind of treated milk?’ Lucy enquired.

Lizzie groaned. ‘Home, James. And don’t spare the Audi.’

Seven

Lexi must have been waiting just inside the door like a crouching cat, because she opened it and pounced as soon as he began to push the envelope through the flap. He stepped back automatically until he saw the triumph in her face as she leapt from the hall and on to the front step. For the first time in his life, he felt near to murder. He had experienced strong dislikes before, but never hatred. So this was how easy it could be, then. A quick loss of temper, a step too far, a corpse on the floor, and years in prison. During those years, though, Moira would die, and since he could never leave her he would never succumb to the impulse to kill.

‘Here comes the man in black once more,’ Lexi proclaimed. ‘With his car parked at least three streets away, because I’m not good enough.’ Her voice rose slightly. ‘Good enough for a quick shag, like, but not for anything more perma—’ She gasped. His hand was at her throat, and it was a very strong grip that interfered with voice and breathing. He moved quickly, pushed her into the house, and kicked home the door when they were both inside the stuffy, ill-decorated hall. Another ounce of pressure, and she would drop like a stone, but he was not a taker of lives.

Richard saw and enjoyed the fear in her eyes. ‘Listen, you stupid bitch,’ he whispered. ‘If you are going to ruin my life and, far more important, the little piece of agonizing time that’s left to my irreplaceable wife, you can do that just as easily from beyond the grave. Alive or dead, it makes no difference, because you’re a burden on society, and you wouldn’t be missed. Don’t play games with me, because you’re not in my league. You’re just a dirty, stinking whore.’

He threw her on to a sofa. ‘Where’s the film? Come on – where is the blasted thing? I thought I might send it to Hollywood, see what Spielberg thinks of it. I shall insist on Richard Gere and Julia Roberts to play our parts, of course. Lost your tongue? Oh, dear – did I hurt you? So sorry. It was completely intentional, I assure you.’

Lexi was clutching her neck, while her eyes darted from side to side. She was terrified, and she didn’t frighten easily. Situations like this one had been part and parcel of her adult life, but this was an educated man, and she feared him.

‘There’ll be no bruising to spoil your delightful appearance – I know what I’m doing. Trust me – I’m a doctor. Where’s this DVD?’ He folded his arms and towered over her. ‘Where?’ She was bluffing, wasn’t she?

‘Not here,’ she managed. ‘You don’t think I’d be daft enough to keep it where you could find it, eh?’

‘Get me a copy. Moira knows I have other women, because she sanctioned the idea, since she is way beyond the point where sex is even possible for her. I’d like to show her what I’ve been up to – she takes a great interest in everything I do, even insists that I find release somewhere. She may be disappointed to know that I’ve sunk to your level, but she’ll get a good laugh out of it. God knows she has little enough to laugh at. Well?’

Lexi shook her head.

‘Then where’s the camera?’

‘I lent it off somebody.’ Her tone was weak and husky. ‘What have you done to my neck? Will my voice get back to normal?’

‘Just be grateful that I didn’t break your bloody neck. But I promise you now – the day that little film of yours makes its international, red-carpet debut, you die.’ He watched while she swallowed painfully. ‘Right. Are we being filmed now? Where did you hide the camera? I can be very persistent, Alexandra. My wife knows I have adventures, but she’ll be upset when she finds I’ve been lying down with a prostitute, so I’d rather she didn’t know this particular truth. However, I’ll show her the evidence if you insist. Well? Camera?’

‘It was upstairs. But it’s not here now. I’ve give it back to my friend, and she’s gone on her holidays. I only lent it off her.’

‘Borrowed,’ he said automatically. ‘Now, hear this. No matter what, when Moira dies, I won’t marry you. She’s one in a million, and there’s every chance I’ll stay single. But, from a practical point of view, the way you speak, the way you dress, you could never play the part of doctor’s wife. So let’s talk business, shall we? For a one-off payment, will you sell me all copies of that film?’ This was the test he’d decided to set. Her reply might tell him all he needed to know. A film? She couldn’t even use the camera on her mobile phone, so she was hardly likely to attempt a hidden camcorder job.

‘No. I won’t.’

He sat in an armchair next to a 1950s fireplace, all beige mottled tiles and lacquered brass ornaments. An ironing board, its cover stained and peeling, stood to one side of the chimney breast. This was not an organized woman.

There was no DVD. Anyone in a strong position would have asked how much he intended to offer. After all, she could have taken a few grand, given him a couple of copies and kept the master. ‘There’ll be no more payments of a hundred pounds a week,’ he advised her. ‘The filming is a lie – I’d stake my life on that. You’re a tramp, Lexi. Remember, I’ve got your notes. Now that I’ve read them I shall need to check my own health, because you’re a tart. You’ve been to prison, haven’t you?’

She shifted uncomfortably on the sofa. The trouble was, she hadn’t thought it all through properly. Having laughed at him for not noticing that she was on his list, she’d forgotten that he would have access to her full medical history, which was colourful. It was difficult to keep up with him, because he had a brain that travelled faster than the speed of sound, and she simply wasn’t clever enough. But she would get to him. Oh yes, there was more than one way to skin a cat. Why should he get away with abusing her? He lived the grand life, posh house, nice car, good clothes. And she spent several hours a day pushing bar codes over a check-out light. It wasn’t fair. But she was still afraid.

‘I’m going home now,’ he said. ‘Back to a wife I love beyond the reach of ordinary words. Love’s a little bit more than a roll in the hay. And you’d better find yourself another doctor, because I’m too far away for you, really. I know you’re in the catchment area, but I’d rather you went elsewhere. Stay away from the surgery, away from my family, and definitely out of my reach, you tramp.’

She simply stared at him. It wasn’t over. This time she’d gone off half-cocked, but she wasn’t finished, not by a long chalk. For most of her adult life, she’d been walked on by men. All she’d tried was to better herself, and this article had told her he loved her, albeit only in the throes of passion. He was another user. Fear turned to fury, because the creature represented all who had hurt her, all who had failed to pay, men who had left her diseased, or pregnant, or stranded somewhere with no fare to get home.

Richard Turner jumped to his feet. He retrieved the envelope containing thirty pounds, opened her handbag, took out her purse and counted the other seventy. ‘I don’t pay scum,’ he snapped. ‘This is my money, and I’m keeping it.’ He pushed the squashed notes into a trouser pocket. ‘Shall I give the money to a charity that looks after fallen women? Or perhaps I could spend it on my wife.’

She cleared a clogged throat and found her voice. ‘Get out of my house. Go on. You’re the scum, using women because your wife’s ill. Call yourself a doctor, and you can’t even help your own dying wife? There’s still things I can do about you, Turner. You’ve had sex with a patient, and that’s a fact you’d best not ignore.’

He laughed mirthlessly. ‘And you’ll be believed? Remember, I’ve seen your notes. I don’t even need to read between the lines – your history’s as plain as a pikestaff. Just try it. Just you try it. Because believe me, I’ll be ready for you no matter what. Blow me up to my employers if you wish, because any man would refuse to trust a trollop.’

‘And the neighbours might have seen you coming and going.’

‘Doctor on call?’ he suggested. ‘Come on, you can’t have it all your own way. I found you ill in the street, brought you home, and have been keeping a check on you out of the goodness of my heart.’

‘For an hour and a bloody half?’

‘Like I said, Lexi. Try it.’ He walked out and slammed the front door.

Outside, he found himself shivering like an autumn leaf in the wind. What if there was a DVD? She wouldn’t publish and be damned, because she was already damned, had very probably been rejected by decent society many years ago. If she couldn’t make money out of it, she wouldn’t use it. Even if it did exist. Which it didn’t. How many times had he berated patients for getting into stressful situations? Wasn’t this a case where the motto ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ might be applied? He was a fool, a damned fool, and his heart was beating too fast.

However, he almost ran to his car, sitting for some time in the driver’s seat because he didn’t trust himself on the road. It was as if he had yet again developed some neurological condition that wasn’t a million miles removed from his wife’s MS, because his limbs weren’t steady, and his breathing was uneven. Life was bloody grim, and he couldn’t quite work out how to improve it. Poor Moira. Bloody Lexi hadn’t finished, he was sure of that. Even without her imaginary DVD, she could do damage to Richard and to his family. He had to talk to his wife immediately. If Lexi did go to the authorities, Moira should be warned first.

A shadow on the pavement caught his peripheral attention, then the view from his windscreen disappeared. Yes, here she was with her famous squirty cream and chocolate spread – she wasn’t taking anything lying down, not at the moment, anyway. The road on which he was parked was near the docks and flanked by commercial premises, but people still walked through here. He turned on the engine, flicked the windscreen wiper switch and stared at her when a fan-shaped hole appeared in the mess she was creating. He leaned on the horn, engaged first gear, and leapt forward. For a split second, he didn’t care if he hit her. Anger rushed through his system, and a headache threatened.

Lexi jumped out of the way and folded in an untidy heap on the pavement. He stopped and stared into his rear-view mirror until she stood and walked away. Unused to red-hot temper, he stayed where he was for a few more seconds before driving off in the direction of home. She was alive. ‘You haven’t killed her. Yet,’ he told himself aloud. He had to deal with this, and he couldn’t do it alone. Windscreen washers failed to shift the mess, and he was driving half blind. He needed water and detergent.

On Crosby Road South, he parked and knocked on a door. Explaining that he was a visiting doctor whose parked car had been decorated by delinquent children, he elicited the sympathy of a whole family. Father, mother and two boys came out with buckets and sponges to wash the mess from the screen. They didn’t stop there; after cleaning the glass, the sons mopped and polished the whole vehicle while he sat and drank tea in their living room. There were good people in the world, and he wasn’t one of them at the moment. Being in this place was balm to his wounded soul, because it represented real humanity.

This was proper family life; this was how it had been for him, Moira, Simon, Alice and Stephanie. He left some money for the boys and a business card for the parents. ‘Anything I can do, just phone. I truly appreciate your help.’ He stood up and looked at the gardens. This was a very ordinary, neat council-built house with a through room, but the gardens front and back saved it from the norm. ‘Is that all your work?’ he asked the husband.

‘Yes.’

‘Splendid. You garden for a living?’

‘I do.’

Richard smiled. Something good had come out of something terrible today. ‘In a week or so, telephone me if you need clients. We are about to lose a very good gardener to retirement. He does most of the houses on Mersey View, and some of the parks on the marina side of our road. There should be work for you then.’

Every face in the room lit up. Richard blinked some moisture from his eyes and made a hasty exit. He was, he reassured himself, a decent man. Deep down where it mattered, he knew that he wasn’t a bastard, though many would think badly of him if they knew how he ‘cheated’ on his sick wife. He had never cheated. And now he would turn to her again, because she was his cushion, his soul mate, his best friend.

Having had Velux windows put in the roof at the back of the house, Lucy had created two new rooms for her twins, so she could let five for bed and breakfast. The sixth needed to be kept for Lizzie, who was expected soon, because the park season was over and she wanted to spend time with the beautiful Simon next door. Soon, though, all three would be back at college, and Lucy would be able to concentrate on herself and the business.

Motherhood never ended. That had always been the case, but she had allowed their final years at university to act as a punctuation mark, or even as the end of a chapter. There was no end. She would always be their mother. As for their dad, well . . . Paul and Mike had refused point-blank to visit him. Their excuse was that they didn’t want to upset a man who was recovering from surgery. They were angry; Alan was still their father, but they would always be on Lucy’s side. And although Lucy maintained her status as mother, she could not force them to do her will, since they were adults.

These were adults? God help the world! She tidied up after her boys and checked the small shower room that had been installed between the two bedrooms. Picking up underpants, shirts, jeans and socks, she wondered yet again whether she had raised her children properly. Lizzie lived like the creator of whirlwinds, while the boys were clearly used to having servants pick up after them. Not at college, though. They probably lived as untidily as most students.

The roof space at the front had been boarded and lit so that it could be used as storage for her children’s property. No Velux windows here, because the house had come with a set of rules that precluded such adventures. But she had to provide for her children, probably until they found full-time work after finishing their education, so she had to store their possessions. And she was pleased, was glad of their company. If only they could be a bit tidier, they’d be almost perfect.

Never mind, she told her inner self as she descended flights of stairs. She had started off with seven bedrooms to let, one of which had turned out to be big enough just for linens, and now she had five. And then there was David. Yes, she needed to keep one for him. So that left only four.

Why was she smiling? What was happening in the grey cells behind the eyes? No, much further back than that, and in muddy waters, because she wasn’t sure, couldn’t quite see. Yes, she could. No, she couldn’t. She stopped on a landing to straighten curtains. Yes, no, yes, no – she had a pantomime script running in her head. Downstairs, where she lived, there was a king-size bed in a very grand room. Everywhere looked rather splendid since she and Lizzie had released from prison items that had once graced Tallows. She would do it. She would. One person could never fill a king-size bed, even when said person had a tendency to lie diagonally . . .

‘Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘Bloody well behave, Lucy-Lou.’ Pa had given her that nickname aeons ago. From Lucy-Lou, Lucy had evolved, and her rather upmarket given name had been left for years to rest on its laurels.

Some little devil that had dozed for ages in her soul had come to life of late. Occasionally, she listened to it; sometimes, she told it to bugger off, but she couldn’t kill it. Like Superman, it survived all attacks, all attempts at demolition, because it was . . . it was her youth. She continued down the stairs. Did anyone ever grow up completely?

Lucy Henshaw, really Buckley, looked at herself in a mirror. At forty-five, a woman was wiser than she had been, but some splinters of those teenage years remained. The need for adventure, for closeness with another human, for a real future – all these requirements and hopes lived on behind an older face, beneath a heart whose beat was still capable of altering at the sight of a certain man. Or men.

David would not need a room for very long, because—

The phone rang. It was a fancy item that delivered several ringtones, and this was his. ‘Hello, David.’ He was doing two things at once again. She could tell when he was multi-tasking, because he became quieter and even more vague than usual. Men were like that. Women, who were used to simultaneous demands, had evolved differently. ‘Put the book down, or the pen, or whatever it is you’re fiddling with.’

‘Sorry, ma’am. How are you?’

‘About the same as I was when you last spoke to me. Three-quarters of an hour ago.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Sorry. It was fifty minutes.’

‘Ah.’

She waited. ‘How’s Samson?’ she asked after counting past ten.

‘Fine.’

Lucy sighed. She remembered the ‘Would you consider going out with me?’, the bungled kiss, the holding of her hand while Lizzie had died so brilliantly in the park. He was a beautiful soul, kind to the core, almost as messy as a small boy, serious to the point of obsession when it came to his work. David was not perfect, yet his imperfections were the very qualities that made him lovable. Lovable. ‘Why did you call?’ she asked.

‘To hear your voice.’

OK. That was a fairly good answer. Obvious, but acceptable. He missed her. ‘You miss me,’ she accused him.

‘Well, of course I do.’

It was like pulling teeth. He was as much use as a grilled kipper when it came to small talk. It was hard enough to pin him down when he was here in the flesh, but on the phone there was no chance of eye contact, no opportunity to skewer him to a chair and make him talk. ‘Hopeless,’ she said. ‘Absolutely hopeless.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes.’ This could work in her favour, too, she decided. If he wanted to hide behind the phone, she would play the same game. ‘Your room is still ready. Any time you have to work at this end of the East Lancashire Road, you and Samson can stay here.’ She paused and bit her lip before continuing. ‘But what do we do with the dog when you claim your rightful place?’

‘What?’

Doctors were not as bright as they used to be. They seemed to need a picture painting every time something different or new was suggested. Unless it was medical, she supposed. Even then, they wanted diagrams. She crossed her fingers and closed her eyes. ‘When you move into my room.’

‘He can stay with your cat who thinks he’s a dog.’

Lucy almost punched the air in triumph, though she managed to contain herself. How quickly the answer had come. It was clear that he, too, had a little devil resident in his psyche. ‘You just put more than six words together, David. Are you less afraid of me these days?’

‘I was never afraid of you.’

‘Really? Were you afraid of yourself?’

‘Of us,’ he said calmly. ‘Strong chemistry. If it doesn’t work, we’ll lose a good friendship. You see, Louisa, chemistry isn’t always stable. It can burn brightly and briefly, it can maintain its own life, turn to poison, or disappear into the ozone. It can also explode.’

Lucy found herself smiling again. ‘You’re still an all-or-nothing boy, still the little lad who tried to clear the brook on a rope that was too short and almost drowned.’

‘Ah, but I knew you’d save me.’

‘Hang on to that thought, man.’

‘And let go of the rope?’

‘Of course. But not until the twins and Lizzie are out of the way. There’s still a little of the prude in me.’ She lowered her tone until she was almost whispering. ‘We began, you and I, at Tallows. We were children there. Perhaps we need a tryst, an afternoon in my room in the old house. The place needs decontaminating, anyway.’

He laughed. ‘And what am I? A bloody anti-bacterial detergent?’

‘I’ll let you know the answer to that when I’ve wiped the floor with you.’

‘You’re too quick for me, Louisa Buckley.’

‘I always was.’

A few seconds passed. ‘Louisa?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is it real?’

‘That’s what we have to find out. You can’t bungee without jumping. Oh, but that’s a rope you can’t let go, because they harness you to it. Worthwhile things always involve risk. Anyway, I’m going now to visit Moira for cocoa. What an exciting life I lead.’

‘Is she the one whose husband is after you?’

‘Richard has no ticket to ride.’

This time, his laugh was louder. ‘Are you being vulgar?’

‘I am.’

‘Thank goodness for that. Go and drink cocoa and give my best to your wonderful neighbour. Moira, I mean.’

‘Bye, David.’

‘Bye.’

Lucy replaced the receiver and sat back, a hand to her mouth. She had no idea why she was covering the broad grin, because there was no one else in the house. The twins were at a barbecue in the next garden with the Turner girls, and Lizzie was still in Manchester. Or was she? Simon Turner had taken a few days off, and he was missing, too . . .

Lucy walked into the hall and glanced through a small pane of glass in her front door. Richard, who had driven away earlier, had returned and was tidying the interior of his car. She opened the door, went out, ignored him and walked up the ramp that covered the Turners’ steps. His face looked thunderous, and she was in no mood for storm.

Moira looked up when Lucy entered the room. ‘Hiya, babe. He’s in a mood. It’s one of those very black ones – he won’t talk to me. Sometimes it’s like living with a delinquent teenager on crack cocaine.’

‘Will he want cocoa?’

Moira shrugged. ‘Make some, take it out to him and if he doesn’t want it he can have a bath in it for all I care.’ She went on to explain that he’d come home in a strange state, and that he wouldn’t talk to her. It wasn’t her fault – she’d done nothing wrong, and he was being a pig.

Lucy wasn’t making cocoa for pigs. She provided a mug for herself, and half a mug for Moira, who didn’t want to be scalded by hot liquid. ‘Talk to him, Lucy,’ she begged.

‘Moira, I don’t do bad moods. I’m having enough trouble as it is with David’s reticence.’

‘No progress, then?’

‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly. It was something Carol said. She’s the one I’m hoping will take over from your Shirley. You’ve met her. I can tell by the grin on your physog that you’ve met her. She has a sister with MS and she’s looking for jobs in houses that are close together, because her van’s a candidate for euthanasia, so it’ll be the bus for her and Dee. I’m hoping they’ll look after both of us.’

‘Oh? And what pearls of wisdom did she deliver?’

‘She said the secret is to let men think they rule, but to do the steering for them. Something like that. So I’m steering him gently, and I think he’s beginning to warm to the idea of having a partner after so many years. But I can’t deal with Richard in a bad mood, love. He’s tossing things around in his car. Bits of paper, books, maps – even the floor mats are out on the pavement.‘

‘Yup. That’s a bad mood, right enough. You just wait till he has a really bad one. He sets fire to things, goes round the house looking for rubbish, has a bonfire, bugger the neighbours.’ She paused. ‘He’s a good man, though.’

‘I do know that. Now, put your cup down, I’ll take your top off and we’ll tackle those knots in your shoulders.’ First, she put Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the sound system. Moira often responded well to music.

She started at the base of the skull, smoothing gently over vertebrae that felt as if they were forming extra bone. As Lucy worked down the spine and across the rigid shoulders she applied more pressure, while Moira’s hands and arms jerked about in reaction. After a while, confused and exposed nerves settled to the point where limbs quietened down, and the patient was relaxed and on the brink of sleep. Lucy wouldn’t cry. She covered Moira with a throw, as she wanted not to disturb her by dressing her again. Sometimes, when she tried to help this woman, her heart seemed stretched to breaking point, but she never wept until she got home.

Later, after walking past Richard’s car in which he continued to thrash about like a stranded fish, Lucy entered her own house and indulged the need to cry. It was anger, for the most part. After cancer, diseases such as Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis were among the cruellest she had ever come across.

He phoned yet again, and he was different this time, on her case right from the start. ‘You’re crying. Why are you crying? Has he touched you? That GP from next door, has he tried anything?’

‘No. I’m all right, David.’

‘Like hell you are.’

She placed the phone on the table and dried her eyes. When she picked up the instrument, it was dead. Her mobile sent out the text signal. On my way. Love you. David.

That damned fool of a lovely, wonderful man was driving just short of forty miles to reach the woman he . . . loved. He had listened to her crying, and he was travelling miles out of his way. She should stop him. She didn’t want him to act like a father; she planned for him to be her—

‘Lucy?’

Her husband?

She turned. It was time she started locking her door, because Richard Turner was standing there. ‘What?’ People should knock. People should not come in without invitation when a householder was having a soul-clearing weep. Crying, like going to the loo, should be done in private. She was almost furious, and she didn’t quite understand why. ‘Don’t bring your bad mood in here, because I’ve enough on without your banging about and lighting bonfires. Go away. Tidy your car, or something. I thought you were keeping your distance from me, anyway.’

‘Why are you crying?’

She exploded for the first time in her adult life. ‘Why? Because she’s in the house, stuck there, day in and day out. Because I try to help her with massage, and I know it brings just temporary relief. Because all she thinks about is you, you being settled after she dies, you having some kind of partner who won’t make your life a misery. She is the most selfless person I’ve ever met, and you stay outside rattling about in your car, having a paddy. The kids have been burning burgers out there – why don’t you go and throw a can of petrol on the barbie.’ Tears streamed, and her words were broken by sobs.

‘Lucy, what on earth got you into this state?’

‘You. Your selfishness, your needs, your bloody importance. She’s so ill and so lovely. She deserves better than you, because she is magical and special and all the things you’ll never be. She asked me . . . you know what she asked me, because I heard you tearing her apart afterwards. I put a stop to you, Dr Turner.’

He was becoming angry. First Lexi, now this one, and all he had come for was an A–Z of Liverpool so that he might find his way to a chap who used to be a private detective. Lexi would be stopped. But now he was distracted. ‘By telling your children?’

‘They are all I have. Go home. You are getting on my bloody nerves.’

It was clear that she had snapped, and he did the same. It was all suddenly too much for him, and he needed contact. He grabbed her, held her close and kissed her hard on the mouth. ‘I love my wife,’ he said. ‘And you are bloody wonderful, especially when you’re angry.’ Lexi? Who the bloody hell was she? Cod roe, while there was caviar to be tasted?

Lucy blinked stupidly. It occurred to her that this had been her first ever real kiss, that she had enjoyed it, that she wished she hadn’t enjoyed it, and that the curtains were open. Perhaps the children had seen what had just happened. ‘My boys and your girls are out at the back in your garden. Let me go.’

He obeyed and mumbled an apology. She busied herself with stupid things like cushions, newspapers and seed catalogues. ‘You’d better go. Moira isn’t happy, because you’re in a filthy mood, so you’d better talk to her. And I’m expecting David.’

‘Ah.’ He shuffled about uncomfortably. ‘I’ve searched the car, but some kleptomaniac has buggered off with my A–Z, and I have to find a street I never heard of. Do you have a copy? Someone I know has moved to West Derby, and I need to find the route to his office.’ He noticed that she was blushing. The embrace had affected her, then, but perhaps she was simply embarrassed. ‘I came home to talk to Moira, and found her too ill, Lucy. I lost my rag with the illness, just as you did.’

Lucy said nothing. He had come home because he needed to talk. He needed. It was all about him, just as it had always been about Alan. Alan the developer, Alan the good-for-a-round-down-the-local-pub chap, the hail-fellow-well-met builder, the big man. And here stood his shadow, the best diagnostician in Crosby and Waterloo, a saint with a crippled wife, oh what a shame and isn’t he handsome?

Yet desire still burnt. Two men. She had possibly waited all her adult life for a train to arrive, and now she had a pair. One was the non-stop express, and it was standing here, fully fuelled, lit up and ready to move. The other was on its way. It was a slower train, but its reliability was undeniable. Richard was dangerous. All fast-moving things were hazardous, but therein lay the attraction. The devil in her soul was alive and well, so she threw her neighbour out of the house. The A–Z was nonsense, because he could have got directions to wherever by looking in the phone book and finding the name and number of the man he sought. One telephone call, and he could have the bloody route described to him. And what about the Internet? He wasn’t thinking straight. Something had happened, and he needed to talk. Whatever the reason for his wish to confide, Moira was too ill to be upset.

‘I won’t be used,’ she muttered. ‘Not any more. If anyone’s going to be a user, it’s my turn. Oh, and Moira’s, too.’

She wouldn’t phone or text David when he was driving, because he was a one-thing-at-a-time person, and he shouldn’t be distracted while on the road. It was too late to stop him now, she decided. But he could help. Yes, yes, he could. She dashed next door and pushed Richard out of the way. His wife was awake once more. ‘Moira?’

‘Yes?’

‘Any hospital appointments this week? Dentist, therapist for breathing and swallowing, chiropodist, prayer meeting, or, perhaps, another sordid afternoon with your lover in Blundellsands?’

Moira pretended to think. ‘No. I’m clear now until the next wife-swapping evening. I’m giving line-dancing, bell-ringing and aerobics a miss this week.’

‘Then come to Tallows. The house itself is scarcely furnished, but there’s a terrific orangery and a summerhouse complete with every mod con. Loads of land, woods, brooks – let’s see the good weather out together. He can have his paddies and his bonfires without bothering you.’

‘He is still in the room,’ Richard announced.

‘Did someone speak?’ Lucy turned and winked at him. ‘Hello, honey,’ she purred with exaggerated bonhomie.

He blushed to the roots of his hair and left the scene. In the surgery, he sat and swivelled in his chair. They were laughing at him, and he was trying hard not to be bothered. Two things helped. If he thought carefully, he could swear he remembered seeing pleasure in her eyes for a moment after that spontaneous embrace. And the ‘Hello, honey’ had been double-edged, half mockery, half come-on. He would bed her by Christmas. But first, Lexi must be dealt with.

*

They were pleased with him. He had survived the surgery, his weight was down, and the cholesterol reading had been halved. No more butter, no more cheese, no more beer. And Howie Styles was dead, God rest him. The funeral was out of the way, but Trish wasn’t. She visited Alan almost every day, and was turning out to be eminently suitable for him. Because her husband had been dead long before his actual demise, she didn’t grieve as much as some might have expected. And she had a friend; she had Alan.

But he needed to be clever. To get what he wanted, it would be necessary for him to absent himself completely from his past life. He didn’t want Lizzie turning up to put both feet in it. The decree nisi was through and, in a matter of weeks, the divorce would be final. While the boys had never visited, Alan’s daughter came from time to time, and she even had the address of the private convalescent home to which he should be moving. So it was now or never.

Trish was twittering on about low-fat cheese and bacon that was treated so that most of the fat was removed. He liked her twittering. Lucy had never done that. Latterly, his soon-to-be-ex-wife had delivered very few words, though she had spoken often enough on the phone to their sons and daughter. ‘Trish?’

‘Yes, love?’

‘Do you have a spare room?’

Her face lit up. ‘Only about ten or eleven. Howie built us a grand house, because the builder’s place has to be an advertisement, yes?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve been straight with you, Trish. Lucy’s got everything, because I really did think I was going to die. And who am I to take property from kids with leukaemia?’

‘What do you want to do, Alan?’ Anticipation and excitement burgeoned in her heart. She didn’t want to be alone, had never been alone. With no children and few family members to turn to, she had been dreaming of living with Alan, and he was making it so easy, bless him.

He breathed deeply. ‘I’ve been in here so long that I’m becoming institutionalized. Can I stay with you for a while? And can you sneak me out of here today? I don’t want all the questions and the lies I’d have to tell. Will you help me?’

Too emotional for words, Trish nodded her consent. It was settled. She and Alan would disappear to Alderley Edge, and they would live happily ever after. It might be all skimmed milk and sugar substitutes, but she would get recipes, special omega spreads and porridge. It would be a life. She would have a life, and so would he.

A very different David arrived just before half past ten. He was led in by a pleased dog, who made a beeline for the cat. The animals circled one another, the usual sniffing, licking and paw-tapping forming the larger part of their happy greeting.

‘Why were you crying?’ demanded the human guest. ‘Come on – you’d better tell me.’

Lucy looked at him with new eyes. His hair stuck up all over the place, lending him the air of a startled hedgehog frozen in someone’s headlights on full beam. There was something very wrong with his shirt, since one of the buttons was fastened into the hole above, thereby forming a bubbled effect which left the hem out of line. Baggy corduroys meant that even if he stood to attention, the trousers would probably remain at ease. But his shabby appearance was not what made the difference. She went for the light, humorous touch while she worked out what had changed in the man. ‘Who got you ready?’ she asked. ‘Because they didn’t even tuck your shirt in.’

He marched right up to her, and she refused to laugh. He marched, but his trousers strolled. ‘Lucy, will you stop being flippant? I’m sick to death of your clever repartee and half-answers. Stop messing me about, or I’ll get angry. And even if I don’t go green and split my clothes, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.’

In spite of his rather decrepit appearance, the man was splendid. ‘You shouldn’t have come, David. I was crying because Moira’s so ill and so brave. By the time I’d wiped my face, the phone was dead, the text arrived and—’

‘And what?’

‘Someone came to the door.’ It wasn’t his outer appearance that made him different; it was the look in his eyes, the way he held his head, the tighter mouth. This was the decided man and yes, she was falling in love with him. She hoped he’d never lose the string and the rubber bands, but at this moment a fully-grown scarecrow was wrapping her in his arms as if to shield her from all slings and arrows. He smelled terrible. ‘Have you been playing in the bins again, David?’

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Sugar soap and stuff.’

‘Ah. Cleaning?’

‘Trying to. Nothing’s been touched in over a decade. I seem to be having a fresh start. But I had to come and hold you. Your voice on the phone isn’t enough any more.’

Lucy closed her eyes. Diane was standing in the doorway of David’s tree house, and she was being mother. She wore a black hat with feathers hanging over her face, and she blew at them continually. With arms folded over a yellow apron, she upbraided her children. ‘David? Louisa? Come here at once, because supper is served.’ The two of them hid behind a bush, parting its branches just to have a view of their angry little parent.

And here they were again, holding on to each other. But this time it wasn’t a game, wasn’t funny. She touched his face. ‘You’re lovely, you are. Even with sugar soap and grease, you’re special. Thank you for caring. Thanks for coming all this way.’

‘I’d go to the ends of the earth, and you know that.’

‘Ditto,’ she said, biting back a silly remark about Demi Moore in Ghost. This time, the kiss was no accident. It was a different day, a different man, one who had made some decisions about himself. No longer clinging solely to a desperately sad past, he hung on to his future until his future was breathless.

He used a finger to tilt her chin. ‘Who’s managing whom now, baby?’

He was a big man, a powerful man; he knew it, and she needed to acknowledge the fact that he had made huge strides, and that he had made them for her. ‘You’ll have to excuse my daftness. I’ve never had real love before, you see. So if I get a bit stupid and say the wrong thing, it’s because I’m wearing L-plates. You’re the grown-up now. By gum, tha’s changed, lad.’

He smiled. ‘OK, Mrs L-plates. I’ll talk you through the theory, but the mechanical side of the operation will probably take care of itself. Do you have automatic transmission?’

‘Do you have a van with one of those lift things in the back?’

He burst out laughing. ‘You should probably see a psychiatrist, darling. Why would you need a van with a lift? Am I missing some strange sexual connotation here?’

‘No, no. I want it for Moira, of course, for her wheelchair. I’m going to bring her to Tallows for a week or so. He’s in a bad mood. I think she should leave him to stew for a while. There’s something afoot, and she could do with a break from it.’

David, who didn’t like the sound of Richard Turner, concentrated on Lucy’s request. Yes, he had access to a suitable vehicle, yes, he would borrow it, and yes, he would pick them up and drive them to Bolton. He would plug in the summerhouse fridge and buy basic foodstuffs; he would also visit the two women every day at Tallows.

‘Promise?’ she asked.

‘It’s a threat. I have to keep an eye on you and, more particularly, on Moira. Now I’m going to talk to your boys through the fence – I need to borrow clothes.’

‘Kiss me first. I want to remember the heady perfume you wore when you finally declared yourself.’

He kissed her chastely on the cheek before going out to beg clean clothing from her sons. She wasn’t going to have everything her own way – oh, no. Sometimes she needed her bottom slapping. With that delicious thought in mind, he carried out his mission, was told where to look for what the twins termed gear, walked back to the house, and was met at the back door by the second love of his life. For a moment, he paused and looked at her. No. This was the love of his second life, a life he had denied himself for too long. Then he noticed the expression on her face. She was clearly perturbed. It seemed he couldn’t leave her for five minutes. ‘Lucy?’

‘He’s gone missing, David.’

‘Who has?’ He walked to her side and placed an arm round her shoulders.

‘Alan. Lizzie just phoned me. Mr Evans-Jones told her they’d found his room empty. They think they might know where he is, but there’s something about patient confidentiality and me ceasing shortly to be next of kin. He needs tablets. He needs diet sheets and help not to drink. It seems he took with him a prescription for enough drugs for a week, but after that he’ll need a GP.’

‘He’s not your responsibility.’

Lucy sighed deeply. ‘I know. But what people tend not to realize is that a husband is a woman’s first child. I don’t love him, and I probably never did. But he’s ill, David.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Come in and let’s get all our ducks in a row,’

In spite of unease, she grinned. She hadn’t heard that expression in years, but she remembered it now. Little David Vincent’s ducks in a row were plans written in proper order on paper. This time he used no writing implements, because the list wasn’t long. ‘OK. Tomorrow morning, I go to work. You?’

‘Glenys is briefing silk in Liverpool tomorrow morning, so I’m meeting her at the Crown Court, then we’re going to lunch. She likes window-shopping, but I’ll keep it as short as I can.’

‘Fair enough. When I finish work, I’ll get the van and drive you and Moira over to Tallows.’ He picked up her hand and kissed it.

‘You forgot one of the ducks. Fridge in the summerhouse, basic foods.’ There was no lack of confidence in David; he had simply wanted love to make sense and, as it never would, he was accepting it for what it was – exciting, uncertain and good for the soul.

‘Right. Missing duck replaced and in my sights. Meanwhile, I’ll get what I can out of Evans-Jones. You talk to Lizzie again. We’ll find him. I promise you, we’ll find Alan.’ He dropped another kiss on her head before leaving the room to steal clothes and have a shower.

The twins came in. Dr Turner was lighting a bonfire, and the air was tainted by whatever he was cremating. ‘He’s gone berserk out there. Steph says he lights fires when he’s in a bad mood – shall we tell the fire station we have a potential arsonist in our midst? Oh, and your boyfriend is borrowing clothes from us. What’s going on?’ Paul asked.

‘Your father’s missing.’

‘Is that all? We thought it was something serious.’

Lucy stood up and wagged a finger at her elder son. ‘You have a too-clever mouth, Paul, and until you start tidying up after yourselves – both of you – you’re far from perfect. Whatever Alan’s done, he’s your dad. Whatever I might do, I’ll still be your mum. He gave you many good times when you were young, but he has failings like everybody else. The man’s had some nasty surgery, and he probably isn’t well. So shut up.’

He shut up, and they both retreated to the gods.

She shouldn’t have spoken to Paul like that. Although she was his mother, she was no longer in charge. Everyone else in the world seemed to make the adjustment – why couldn’t she? Because she wasn’t perfect. No one was perfect. Then she looked at the dog and the cat curled together, a mixture of black and blue-grey fur in a heap near the window. Where there was no free will, there could be no sin. God had made some good stuff, but He’d given mankind too free a rein.

Mankind entered. It sported jogging bottoms and a T-shirt bearing the legend EMERGENCY SUPPLIES above a plastic bubble containing a condom. ‘Your children have some very strange clothes, and few of them fit me. Intelligent boys, though. Humorous. They say you’re in a paddy. Are you in a paddy?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘It’s men,’ she told him. ‘My sons won’t make an effort with their father, while their father cares for no one but himself, yet he is one half of their parents. Then there’s Richard the Lionheart next door. Came home disgruntled and started throwing things around in his car. I gave Moira a massage, and she explained to me that he gets like that, and not to worry till he starts lighting fires.’

‘He’s lighting fires, Lucy. Shall I dial the emergency services?’

She shrugged lightly. ‘Well, there are toxic fumes. He’s probably burning plastics among other stuff. But he’s the only one breathing the air in the garden, so leave him to it.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I think he’s in some kind of trouble. He said he needed to talk to Moira, but that she’s too ill.’

‘So he spoke to you?’

‘Yes, but only to ask for a map.’ Sometimes, confession was self-indulgent, and David didn’t need to know she’d been kissed by a man he perceived as a threat. He certainly didn’t need to be told that she’d enjoyed the encounter.

‘Perhaps he’s emigrating?’

She laughed. ‘To West Derby? No, something’s happened. He’s like a cross between a bear with a sore head and a baby who’s thrown the dummy out of the pram. Come on, misery-guts – give me a cuddle. We’ve a hard day tomorrow.’

He sat and held her, whispering in her ear, ‘Much as I’d love to spend the night with you – and I am equipped, as you can see from the T-shirt – we had probably better postpone while your boys are here.’

‘OK,’ she whispered in reply. ‘We’ll pretend that’s your idea, even though I made the rule first.’ She smiled broadly. ‘And I’ve been doctored. Got myself done when the vet had a special offer going. Now, tell me about some of these children who need my house.’ If her parents were looking down on her now, they would be pleased about Tallows.

He was on ground he understood, and he amazed her. Not only did he know the patients, but he could recite a list of siblings, parents and their jobs, the areas where they lived, and his opinion about clusters. ‘But the truth is, we don’t know why. Pylons, nuclear plants, crop-sprays, electrical sub-stations – all investigated, all blamed. Remove those factors, and we still get occurrences.’

‘Genetics?’

‘Again, nothing proved, nothing predictable. And there are so many different types. Broadly speaking, we’ve made huge progress, but none of us will be satisfied until we’ve beaten the bugger. As with other cancers, we move forward all the time. Then we hit a wall and start again. But every time we hit a wall, we’re more knowledgeable.’

He was buried in his work, and no man, woman or beast would ever excavate him. But he didn’t need digging out; what he required was someone who would listen and distract him, who would be there at the end of days good, bad and indifferent. Living in two or three different places might help, as might new friends, a woman who gave more than a damn, her children and all who accompanied them on the start of their journey into adulthood.

‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked.

‘You, mostly. There’s a missing ex-husband skulking at the back of my head, and a daughter who, I suspect, is shacked up with Simon Turner. His mother let slip that he has a week off, and Lizzie has been less than forthcoming about her return to the fold. Says she’s coming back to see me, her brothers, and the boy next door, but I think Simon’s jumped the queue.’

‘Oh dear.’

But Lucy had decided not to do ‘oh dears’ any more. She’d made a few mistakes of late, and she was learning that she had to be there for her offspring, but only in the background. Imagining that she could simply exit from the scene while they were at university had been a faulty idea. She couldn’t walk, but they could.

However, if they encroached on her life, she would put them straight. They were on the cusp betwixt and between, and she could reclaim her own existence as long as she didn’t push them away.

Lizzie had already gone. There was something very real between her and the Turner boy, and age didn’t come into it. ‘They’re in love,’ she told David now. ‘And it will work, or it won’t. It’s nothing to do with age. Except it is, because Lizzie’s my child, yet she’s a woman. When they’re tiny, that’s the easy bit. Getting it right now is harder. But I’m trying.’

They talked well into the night. Subjects covered included Anne and Tim, Lucy’s brief career as a nurse, Alan and his women, and some of the crazier behaviour of Lucy’s three children. It was as if the intervening years were being eaten away along with all the anecdotes.

‘So you did have some fun with Alan, then?’

‘Yes. One of the best was when his cap went in the cement mixer. It was a disgraceful piece of headgear, but he loved it. So he brought it home and left it to set, then bought a water feature and stuck his concrete cap on the angel. He called it Northern Sprite and was going to enter it in competitions. Well, if folk can get away with piles of bricks, unmade beds and animals cut in half, why not?’

David yawned. It was three o’clock. ‘I’d better go to bed, Lucy.’

She stood up and held out a hand. ‘My bed. It’s all right, I’ve thought about it. We’re too shattered for adventures, but won’t it be lovely to wake up together? Come on. Just children hand in hand. My boys never surface before ten, anyway. Look at Samson and Smokey – it would be a pity to disturb them.’

‘Your cleaners?’

‘Oh, sod it, David. We live once.’

There was a bit of giggling on her part, because the condom container in the T-shirt made a noise every time he moved until he discarded the garment. Then they lay in their tree house, which structure had been transformed as if by magic into a large, grown-up bed. Time meant nothing; it was as if they had never been apart.

Eight

Alan, realizing that he was doing a fair imitation of a goldfish out of water, closed his mouth with a deliberate snap. He stepped out of Trish’s Mercedes and stood on a path as wide as many B roads. Behind them, ornate gates hummed their way back towards the closed position. Gardens at the front of the property were formal, with massive lawns, shrubberies, fountains and flower beds. There was even a maze, and the rockery was the biggest he had ever seen.

It was an amazing sight, one that left Tallows a mere understudy standing in the wings, because Styles was the brainchild of a man who had died only recently. It was real, it was new and it was now. Young trees lined the private road, and the acreage beyond the building appeared to go on for ever. Alan knew that even had he worked for a hundred years, he could never have matched Howie Styles, because the man had been an artist. ‘How many acres back there?’ he asked. ‘You could build a whole estate of semis and still have room to spare.’

‘I don’t know how much land there is. It’ll be on the deeds, I suppose,’ Trish replied. ‘Let’s just say I’ve never walked that far, and Howie mowed the grass on one of those sit-and-ride mowers. We have three, because it takes three men to do the lot. It’s like looking after something the size of Jersey, I can tell you that.’

It was an awesome house in a fairytale setting. They entered the mansion through double doors and stood in a hall that rose the full height of the building with a domed and glazed roof at its centre. Two staircases swept away, one at each side of the entrance area. It was flamboyant, yet understated because of carefully chosen colour combinations. ‘Bloody magnificent, Trish,’ he said. ‘A great credit to a great man, God rest his soul.’ Trish smiled and led him through the rest of the house. She appeared to be bored, putting Alan in mind of the curator of an art gallery who had seen it all before, and too many times to count.

Everyone in the trade knew that Howard Styles had left his mark on Manchester and surrounding towns, but this place was almost unbelievable. Trish, also, was hard to understand, since she seemed too trusting, especially when she opened a safe inside which she stashed her pearls. The double row of baubles around her throat had meant little to Alan, but she pronounced their value to be over two thousand pounds when she put them away. ‘Howie was very security conscious,’ she said. ‘Keen as mustard when it came down to that sort of thing.’

Alan offered no reply. If she dumped him and he had the combination to this lock, there was probably enough in the safe to keep him for a few years. Yes, there were several possibilities here, but he’d have to clear off pretty damned sharpish if reduced to thieving. Anyway, he liked her too well, didn’t he? She was a gradely little woman, just his type – no nonsense, no frills, and with a boyish figure. Most of all, she was needful, so there was a chance that he might be appreciated at last.

Alderley Edge was probably the most expensive place in the north. In the county of Cheshire, it housed business tycoons, lottery millionaires and footballers by the score. The area in which Styles stood boasted estates whose price tags were beyond the reach of mere mortals. Trish had been happy to tell Alan the estimated value of her property, though it clearly meant little or nothing to her. She would have been content in a three-bed semi, yet she told him in matter-of-fact terms that Styles was worth more than six million, and that most of the ‘daft’ houses out there were owned by footballers and their WAGS. ‘My Howie built two or three of them, and he did his best to persuade the clients to have a bit of sense. But the rest? Wear dark glasses and a false smile. It’s like being on some Hollywood set – the houses aren’t real.’

‘Not in the same class as this, any of them I saw as we drove through,’ Alan said. ‘Talented bloke, your old man.’

Trish giggled. ‘Did you see the one like a miniature castle?’ she asked. ‘There’s another one a couple of miles away that looks like a wedding cake. Howie had a good laugh at that one, I can tell you. He used to say Cheshire is visible proof that their brains are in their feet. Mind, he was a great Manchester United supporter, hardly ever missed a home game. I couldn’t even tell him how they were doing towards the end, though. All that crying was just a symptom – he didn’t know who I was for well over three months. I lost him long before I buried him, Alan.’

There was an indoor swimming pool next to a huge bar with two full-sized snooker tables and a dance floor. The push of a button produced a second dancing area over the pool. Every bedroom had its own en suite, while the main living rooms were vast. ‘Just the two of you lived here?’

‘We lived in an advert, love. The swimming pool we never used – it was there to show what he could do. Ninety per cent of this house is what Howie called salad dressing – here just to prove that he was good at his work. A health farm type of business is interested in making another of those places where people can come to relax and detoxify. They’ve made an offer. I’m selling it and Howie’s business, because I don’t need either of them. Then I’ll move to the seaside, I think. The countryside round here’s gorgeous, but I’d sooner live by the sea. All my life, I’ve wanted to look after retired Blackpool donkeys. I love animals, me.’

A dart of pure fear pierced his chest. Pain in that area still managed to scare the daylights out of him. ‘So you don’t like this house?’ How could anyone with a full set of marbles take against a place such as this?

Trish shrugged. ‘Neither of us ever really cared for it. We threw a big party at least three times a year, and he got business that way. You see, people who live in houses as big as this are trying to prove something. Howie was showing that he could build a decent mausoleum, because you can’t live in a mansion like this. It’s for what he called rich zombies, all money but no life in them. No, we were happiest in Blackpool. Can you imagine two people rattling about in here? We had to phone each other on our mobiles – it was the quickest way of making contact, and I suppose it saved on shoe leather. This isn’t for me, you know.’

‘No, no. I can see that. It’s not my idea of comfort, either.’ But the six million quid could be a great solace, he mused. This was an uncomplicated, good-hearted woman, yet she wasn’t stupid. She had come from the slums and had married into the slums, but Howard Styles had built up a magnificent company known for its quality and efficiency. For every month added on to a stated date of completion, the customer got a huge five per cent reduction. Each substandard result within a project meant a free replacement, while the craftsmen attached to Styles had to remain alert and obedient, or they’d be gone with the wind.

Alan was a bit worried. She seemed to like him and to want to help him, and she knew he was penniless, but would she get rid of him when she returned to Blackpool? He couldn’t just ask, not yet. If he jumped in carelessly, he might muddy the waters. He must keep himself in check for these first few days or weeks, leave her to make all the decisions, since he was hardly in a position of strength.

‘Your bedroom’s the fourth on the left,’ she advised him. ‘And Howie’s dressing room’s next to it. Use his clothes – you’re about the same size now you’ve lost that weight. Shoes, too. We’ll get you back to normal in no time, just wait and see. There’s a little gym next to the pool, and we have a fitness trainer who comes twice a week.’

He couldn’t drink. Because she knew that, there would be no table wines, no visible bottles of whisky or brandy. The bar near the pool had been stripped, its optics denuded, shelves bared, spaces under the counter stacked with soft drinks and squashes. Trish was quiet, but thorough. Something else that had occurred recently to Alan was the knowledge that he was no longer fit for work. His main anxiety had been related to the thought of being idle, but idleness suddenly suited, especially if this lady might just carry him through an interesting retirement. ‘So. What do you do in Blackpool?’ he asked.

Trish beamed. ‘Bingo, tea dances, line-dancing and whist club. We were just starting to learn contract bridge when Howie got ill, so that was a non-starter. Then there’s bowling – they’ve some lovely crown greens up there. We’re members of a health club – keep fit classes and yoga. And we visited our donkey sanctuary a couple of times a week when we were there. We saved a couple of horses as well that were due to become dog meat. He was fond of horses, my Howie. In fact, he liked all animals – even rescued a llama.’

Alan hoped the horror didn’t show in his expression. There was always a price to pay, and he was in no position from which he might bargain. She held all the cards, all the money, the only chance of a future for him. Apart from anything else, he might go to prison unless someone hid him. And the last thing he needed was Lucy. Even bingo and bridge might be better than living with a hand held out for the crumbs from his ex-wife’s table. ‘And you have a house there? In Blackpool, I mean.’

She picked some photographs out of a drawer and almost ran to him. ‘It’s gorgeous, and you can see the sea from the upstairs front windows. I’ve always liked Blackpool. I used to go on day trips with Mam and Dad when I was a kid. They couldn’t afford a boarding house, so it was there and back in a day, on a charabanc. And now I look at all this and wish they’d lived longer, because me and Howie could have done so much for them. I miss him. Not the poor Howie I had at the end, but the man I married. He was such a lovely, kind, gentle man.’

He took the pictures and looked through them. The Blackpool house was detached, between the wars, and quite attractive. She was right, of course. Who wanted to live in Alderley Edge when Blackpool plus six million was an option? ‘Have you ever thought about a yacht?’ he asked casually.

Trish laughed. ‘You must be joking – I can’t even swim. But we were considering – Howie and me – getting a place in France. Somewhere near the Loire, I think he said. He liked fishing. We were doing an evening class in conversational French, but . . . Well, it wasn’t to be.’

‘Aye, it was a damned shame, him dying like that before his time. The only good thing was he didn’t know anything at the end, once he’d stopped crying.’

She grabbed his hand. ‘I’ll not forget how you asked about him when you came round. Never a thought for yourself, just for my Howie. But I have to make one thing clear, love. I can’t stand drunks. I’ll look after you as long as you stay off the booze, but if you let me down, you’ll have to go, because I’d never cope.’

He decided to ask. ‘Do I go to Blackpool?’

She laughed. ‘If you can keep up with me, pet. And if we get on. Properly, I mean.’

He understood. She was lonely, and she didn’t want him to sleep for ever behind the fourth door on the left. ‘Right.’ He gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘I’m bloody starving, Trish. Me belly thinks me throat’s cut.’

‘And you even talk like he did. He was always bloody starving. Till he went off food altogether, I mean. That was when I knew he’d lost the fight, because nothing came between him and his food – ever.’

‘So where are the servants?’

Trish’s laughter echoed round the enormous house. ‘Why do you think there’s a sofa and a telly in the kitchen? We lived in there, me and Howie. Staff come in during the week and clean the rest of the whited sepulchre. Apart from sleeping upstairs, we spent most of our time in the kitchen, and I do all my own cooking. He loved gardening, and he used to help a lot out there. I enjoy cooking, so we jogged along nicely, and the help stayed out of our way. It works.’

‘Do you want me to give you a hand with the dinner, then?’

‘Not if you want to live. Sit. Turn the telly on, and find something you like to watch. After our meal’s settled, we’ll go for a constitutional in the grounds. You can meet Damien.’

‘Who?’

‘The llama. Howie reckoned Damien has the three sixes tattooed somewhere under the matted wool. He spits. Then there are peacocks, geese – they can get nasty – ducks on a pond, and some horses. They’re used by special schools for children who’d never get to ride otherwise. People come and look after them, but they have their own entrance at the back of the estate – we never see the horse people.’

Alan switched off as she prattled on about her bloody animals. ‘I’ve found the horses a home: another house where the owner will carry on letting the kiddies ride. As for Damien, he’s going to a Yorkshire sheep farmer who already keeps llamas, because they frighten away anything that might try to damage the flock. So it’s all arranged. As long as I manage to offload the house, that is.’

She prepared vegetables, baked potatoes and chicken stuffed with olives and tomatoes. They watched the news, and were halfway through the meal when the doorbell sounded.

‘Oh, bugger,’ Trish said. ‘I forgot. It’s the health farm people with some of their staff – they want to look round. The really big bosses are French, you know. So they might just throw in a nice little farmhouse near the Loire if I play my cards right. See? If you think about things, life can dovetail very nicely.’ In this happy frame of mind, she set off across the vast hall to open the door.

Alan followed cautiously. It might be his daughter. Easterly Grange could have put two and two together and— He stopped in his tracks. It wasn’t his daughter, but it was someone who could muck up his life good and proper.

‘Come in,’ Trish said, widening the doorway. ‘So good of you to travel all the way from London. If you’d like to start upstairs, that’s fine. You don’t want me dogging your heels every inch of the way. And if you need to spend the night, we’ve adequate accommodation for all of you.’

A man explained in broken English that they had a hotel nearby before thanking her for giving them free rein.

Alan heard the man, but did not see him. His eyes remained locked into the gaze of the woman who stood by his side. No. It couldn’t be. He backed away into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Never in a million years would he have expected to see her again. And his appetite had gone.

Trish returned. ‘I’ve left them to it. If they’re willing to give me a good price, then I’m out of here.’ She paused. ‘You’re not eating.’

He explained that he was full, that the quantity and quality of food to which he had become inured had reduced his appetite, and that her cooking was superb. ‘I’ll get some air,’ he said. ‘You catch up with me when the visitors have gone.’

‘But should you be on your own?’

‘I’m used to it. And I won’t go far.’

‘Promise?’

‘I promise.’

He sat in a gazebo for a while, hands trembling, a headache threatening to become more powerful by the minute. Was there no escaping the past? He raked through the ashes of memory in an attempt to assess whether the arrival knew enough to damage his chances with Trish. Was his luck running out again?

He walked away from the house, because the visitors might want to look round the grounds. Damien spat at him, and the geese chased him. So he put himself away in a large shed and hid behind stored timber. ‘Don’t talk to her, Trish,’ he whispered. ‘Please, don’t talk to her.’

Waking in the arms of a man was wonderful; waking in the embrace of Dr David Vincent was special beyond words. Lucy imagined that many folk would laugh if they knew how chaste they had remained, but she knew differently. The magnetism was there to the point where it all but crackled in the air, yet they had managed to sleep without indulging the need to be closer. Separately, they were strong people; together, they were almost unbreakable.

‘No jokes today, missus?’ he asked. ‘Nothing about unfinished business, unstarted business and my ability to lie unmoved next to a red-hot woman? No digs at my manhood? Hairy legs? Snoring?’

She awarded him a pseudo-disdainful glance. ‘Later.’

‘So you aren’t cured? Will I still have to cope with all your sillinesses?’

‘Yup. You use the bathroom first, because you’re in Bolton today, am I right?’

‘You are.’ He stayed where he was. ‘It wasn’t easy, Louisa. And it can’t be maintained. Tallows, then?’

‘Tallows. After we’ve found my beloved ex, and preferably when Moira isn’t there. I suppose I could leave her for an hour, but—’

‘It’s not enough. I want longer than an hour, my darling. A lot longer.’

She managed not to shiver. ‘I agree. There’s more to us than the merely physical. I feel as if I’ve come home after emigrating to some strange place. The thing is, where is that strange place? He can’t have gone far, not after being in hospital for so long.’

David rolled away and picked up the phone. ‘I’ll talk to Rhys, see what I can get out of him.’

‘At half past seven?’

‘He’s like me, babe. He takes the whole thing very seriously. I have to catch him before he goes into theatre at one of the hospitals. Alan was lucky to get him, because he’s definitely the best in the north when it comes to dicky tickers. For all I know, he could already be standing on a helipad waiting for a picnic box with a heart in it.’

‘Even I know that’s not his job.’

‘All right, all right.’ He dialled. Lucy listened to the banter. It was medical, vulgar and very witty. Then the questioning began. Feeling like an eavesdropper, she left him to it and went for a quick shower. When she returned, he was sitting on the edge of her bed. ‘Well?’ she asked, towelling her hair.

‘He’s possibly with the childless widow of some millionaire from Cheshire.’

Lucy dropped the hair-drying towel. ‘Possibly? And do we know the name and address of this possible person?’

‘No. Rhys said she’s had enough shocks lately. Her other half died recently in Easterly Grange – brain tumour.’

‘Isn’t she in mourning?’

‘Rhys also says she’s a good little soul who did her grieving before he died, because she lost him an inch at a time. Then she started to visit your old man. She was seen in one of the corridors just before Alan did his disappearing act. So, taking into account your husband’s need for money and his preference for stick-thin females, well, it’s not rocket science, is it? He’s with her. And you know very well what he’s capable of. But you’d be better to leave him to it.’

‘No.’ She sat next to him. ‘She has to be warned.’

‘How?’

‘Listen, sunshine. You’re the brains of this outfit – I’m here just as decoration and landlady. We need to find out who died in that place. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t talk to her.’ She was tempted, though. It would be so easy to walk away and let the world get on without her help.

He thought for several moments. ‘Let me search for a way, please. If you barge in, she’ll think you have an axe to grind.’

‘I have! And his head’s the bloody grindstone. Look – he has a date at Bolton Magistrates’ Court in a few days, because he’s going to lose his driving licence. We could hang about there.’

‘With an axe?’

Lucy dug her companion in the ribs. ‘Don’t get clever with me, son.’

He pushed her into a prone position, climbed on top of her and tickled her until she screamed. ‘That’s a deposit,’ he said. ‘Returnable if we don’t reach completion.’

‘Caveat emptor,’ she replied, trying to cover her near-nakedness. ‘Buyer beware, because you don’t know what you’re taking on.’

‘I’ve just seen most of it.’ He stood up and announced his intention to go for a shower.

‘David?’

‘What?’

‘I love you.’ There, it was said. He was adorable, intellectually sound, amusing, handsome and imperfect. She couldn’t remember when she’d last said those three precious words to Alan. Poor Alan. Poor Alan? What about the widow who’d landed herself with him? She was the one who deserved pity, surely?

David turned in the doorway. ‘I was thinking last night. Pondering the mysteries and all that stuff. And I decided that you were the second love of my life, but that’s not the truth.’

‘Oh? What am I, then?’

He smiled, and nodded knowingly. ‘You’re my second life. You’re the love of that second life and the core of it. I remember you not just from childhood, but also from the future. I read Einstein on the fabric of time – oh, years ago. I don’t know how or whether he managed to prove it, but he saw the fourth dimension as one – past, present and future all together.’

‘So there’s no such thing as time?’

‘Apparently, we made it up to give the Swiss something to do with all those wooden cuckoos. Oh, and for calendar makers, of course.’ He left the room, then popped his head back round the door. ‘Mind you, try telling that to a child waiting for Christmas. Tim used to open those doors on the Advent calendar at the crack of dawn before counting how many days he had to wait.’ He disappeared again.

Lucy sighed contentedly. He had just let Tim go, and she had been both witness and an element in the cause. Children were never replaceable, while his love for Anne had clearly been absolute. But surely it was easier to start another adult relationship than it was to say goodbye to a child? He was making strides, was more relaxed and easy in her company. Lucy quickly threw on some jeans and a blouse in order to go and help Moira finish packing.

Carol and Dee were in the main sitting room. The large woman looked up from her task of changing a cushion cover. ‘Hiya, Lucy. We heard you screaming. Is that him of long-standing what I heard talking in yonder?’ She inclined her head towards the bedroom. ‘The clue was his bloody dog shedding hairs all over me floors.’

‘It is David, yes.’

Dee giggled. ‘Has he managed to sit down yet? Because various veins and piles go hand in hand, you know.’

Lucy was learning fast that Liverpudlians had a way of abusing words and throwing them together that was deliberately double-edged and, on occasion, confusing. She raised an eyebrow at Dee. ‘I’ve got him a rubber ring,’ she said seriously. ‘We blow it up with a bike pump.’

They both studied her for a few seconds. Was she keeping up, or was she serious? ‘She’s learning,’ Dee pronounced.

Carol shook her head. ‘Ooh, I don’t know. I mean, she’s only a Woolly. They can be a bit slow. But a rubber ring? Can you see a doctor like him sat on a rubber ring?’

Dee thought about that. She still looked as if she had mumps, though a more accurate description would be a mump, since just one side of her face remained distorted. ‘No. A doctor wouldn’t sit on a rubber ring.’

Lucy tutted. ‘I’m going away with Moira for a few days. Will you come back and feed the cat in the evenings? He’ll be sulky, though I doubt he’ll commit suicide by starvation.’

Carol announced that she would stay at Stoneyhurst until Lucy returned, and that she would, if necessary, force-feed the two reprobates in the roof. ‘And if you’ll throw in that long-stood-up feller, I’ll have the time of me life.’

Lucy punched the big woman playfully. ‘He’s spoken for.’

Dee’s face lit up. ‘Told you,’ she said. ‘You owe me a fiver and a fish supper, Mam.’

‘Shoo,’ Lucy ordered. ‘Both of you. Bugger off upstairs and clean a couple of bathrooms.’

When they had gone, Lucy watched Richard retrieving something from the car against which he had committed GBH the night before. He still had a face like thunder, so she remained thoroughly determined to get Moira to Tallows for a while. What on earth was the matter with him?

David came in and followed the line of her gaze. ‘Acting like he’s lost a quid and found a penny. It’s perhaps as well you’re getting Moira away from there tonight. He looks as if he could use the services of the bomb disposal unit. Mind you, they’d need a few sandbags – he seems to be packing a fair amount of dynamite. What the hell’s up with him, Louisa?’

‘Something specific,’ she replied thoughtfully. ‘And something he can’t tell her while she’s so ill.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘A woman, I’d say. He misses sex.’

‘So do I, but I don’t make a career of it.’

Lucy grinned. ‘I noticed.’

At last, David was on his favourite horse. ‘See? I knew you’d say something. I knew that clever mouth of yours wouldn’t stay shut for more than a few minutes.’ He was trying hard not to laugh. Years of misery, childcare and introspection had fallen away from the shoulders of this capable woman, and her humour was the factor that had kept her sane. ‘And I wouldn’t change a hair of your head. You carry on putting me in my place, honey, because you are my sense of proportion.’

‘Oh, get in that kitchen, pour coffee and eat your toast.’

He went into the kitchen, poured coffee, and ate his toast. She was a bossy-boots, but he would deal with her later and in another place. Einstein was wrong, because the future was going to be a very wonderful story. ‘The future is real,’ he said aloud.

‘What?’

‘Shut up and eat your toast.’

Glenys and Lucy walked for miles. The shops were nowhere near the Crown Court, though they found a decent lunch in a poshed-up cellar not too far away from where Glenys had handed over her brief. But they went for a post-prandial stroll and did some serious window-shopping in the centre of the city, finally turning back to face the Mersey as they sauntered in the direction of their parked cars.

On Hanover Street, Lucy ground to a halt. ‘There it is!’ she cried. ‘Supposed to be the best hairdresser for miles, and you need a mortgage to walk in. Do you think they’ll charge us for looking through the windows?’ But the windows were not seeable through. Clients who paid hundreds of pounds for hand-knotted extensions didn’t want the world and his wife staring at them.

As the pair turned to walk away, the door opened and a figure stepped out of the salon. Once again, Lucy ground to a halt.

‘You keep putting your brakes on,’ her companion complained. ‘Or are you running out of fuel?’

‘I know her.’ The woman was never out of the newspapers, since she ran a prize-winning business.

‘Really?’

‘Glen, go back to my house. Tell your satnav 32, Mersey View, Waterloo. Poetic, what? Go on. All you need is to follow your nose up the dock road. I have to do this by myself. Go on, shoo. I’ll be OK.’

While Glenys walked away towards her car, Lucy watched the woman who had emerged from the hallowed portals of Liverpool’s third cathedral, a building dedicated to the cause of female beauty. It was Herbert’s place. A fabulously flamboyant perfectionist, he ruled this corner of the city with a rod of iron that failed completely to conceal a heart of finer metal.

The woman outside Herbert’s of Liverpool was pushing items into the back of a van when Lucy joined her and asked if she might help.

‘Oh, ta.’ The woman did a quick double-take. ‘Erm . . . do I know you?’

‘You know my husband.’

A long pause was followed by, ‘Oh. Yes. Well. Look, if there’s going to be a fuss, can we sit in the van? Only I’ve just handed over to one of Mr Herbert’s staff, and she might be watching, and if she tells Mr Hedouin, my new boss, I could be ruined. Please? Your husband was ill, and he needed someone to talk to, and I’ve not seen him in ages, honestly . . .’

They climbed into the van. ‘Right, Miss Livesey,’ Lucy began. ‘There’ll be no row and no fuss, because I am getting a divorce from him, so calm yourself. And you’re right – he was seriously ill and might easily have died. He’s been in hospital for weeks.’

Mags Livesey nodded rapidly. ‘I know. He fell off the face of the earth again, and I went to his office in Bolton and they told me where he was. So I bought some flowers and grapes and clogged it halfway across Manchester, and they wouldn’t let me see him.’ Blushing bright pink, she looked Lucy in the face. ‘I never loved him, you know. But he looked so bloody awful when I last saw him – I could tell he was getting sicker, even though he pretended to be all right. You see, I told him to bog off, then I felt all guilty in case I’d made him worse.’

‘He’s disappeared yet again,’ said Lucy. ‘And none of it’s your fault, Miss Livesey.’

Mags smiled tentatively. ‘Just call me Mags. You’re making me sound like some godawful headmistress.’

‘All right, Mags.’

The self-made woman relaxed slightly. ‘Good job it’s a small world, eh? See, I got the franchise for this Nouvelle Reine stuff from Tête à Tête in Paris, and a right bloody mouthful that is for somebody who doesn’t know French.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, they were right pleased with me, because I worked damned hard, and they’ve made me an offer no bugger would refuse. To cut everything short, I’m selling my shops, handing over the franchises, and going to work at a health spa called Styles in Alderley Edge, all marble columns and swimming pools.’ She paused for effect. ‘Had a look round yesterday. And guess who was lurking in the hall? Yes, it was the man himself.’

Lucy shivered slightly. No one should have to put up with Alan. ‘Tell me, is the householder recently widowed?’

Mags bit her lip. ‘She is. That’s why she’s selling, and the price tag’s over five million.’

Lucy whistled.

‘Look,’ continued Mags. ‘You never got this from me.’ She rooted in the depths of her vast handbag. ‘Your Alan is at this address.’ She passed over a card. ‘That’s the name of the man who died. All kinds of folk will have his business card – you could have picked it up anywhere. You should see where they live, it’s all footballers and big business folk. She’s Trish, and she’s nice. Dead normal.’ Mags stopped and ran her eyes over the woman next to her. ‘It was all lies, wasn’t it?’

‘What was?’

‘You nicking his money and bogging off with it.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry. He was wanting to cadge off me, trying to get me to sell my business to shore his up. I told him where to go, and he went. But I’ve been in your house in the past and seen your photo – that’s why I recognized you. In my line of work, we never forget a face.’

They prepared to part on good terms, and Lucy was about to step out of the van when a thought occurred. ‘Any chance of a favour? I’ll pay you.’

Mags nodded. ‘Ask away.’

‘Here’s my mobile number.’ Lucy passed a card to the beautician. ‘If you’re in Bolton this coming week, give me a call. If you can spare a couple of hours, I’ve a lovely friend who’d enjoy a bit of a makeover. And so should I.’

‘Right. You’re on, mate.’

They shook hands. ‘I like you,’ Lucy said.

‘Yes, I like you and all. I’ll do what I can for you and your friend before I go back to London for all these meetings. Then if you ever want a weekend break at Styles, I’ll try to do you a special price. You’ve good bones. I could do a lot with you.’

‘Thank you.’ Lucy waved as the van drew away. Leaning against the tinted windows of a monumentally expensive beauty emporium, she sent a text to David. Didn’t want to disturb u. Have found Alan. Lucy xxx.

So. She knew where Alan was, but she didn’t know what he was up to. Did she need to know? Shouldn’t it now be every woman for herself? If she could just leave well alone, he would be out of her hair for ever. In which case, why had she bothered at all? Sometimes, she came perilously near to losing patience with herself. Yes, no, yes, no . . .

‘Hello, Lucy.’

Oh, bloody hell. She arranged her features in a fashion intended to be neutral. ‘Richard. I’m just on my way back home. You?’

‘I had to see . . . someone.’

‘This isn’t West Derby.’

‘Someone else.’

‘Ah.’ This kind of thing happened to men all the time, she supposed. They managed to love one woman, but to make love to many. Her attraction to Richard Turner was animal – well, it certainly wasn’t vegetable or mineral – yet she loved David. Richard was probably a toy, something disposable, an item to be thrown away after use. Because she was female, she wasn’t supposed to speculate in this manner. But she did, though nothing would persuade her to endanger her relationship with David. ‘I must get my car. Glenys has gone ahead – she’s my lawyer, from Bolton.’

‘I’ve been to see a lawyer,’ he said.

Lucy stared hard at him. He put her in mind of a deer that was failing to outrun a lioness. Yes, serious hunting was executed by the females of most species . . . ‘What’s the matter with you? All that banging around in the car last night, then the funeral pyre in the garden – your behaviour isn’t doing Moira any good. She told me about the moods. She predicted the fire-starting and the refusal to talk. Why make her worse?’

‘That was not my intention.’

‘Then straighten yourself out before I bring her back from Tallows.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He delivered a mock salute before walking away. As he moved, he found himself smiling in spite of everything. Lucy could order him around any day of the week – he relished the idea of being subservient to so magnificent a specimen of womanhood.

She watched him. He was attractive and overtly available. But he wasn’t for her, and she berated herself inwardly. After years devoid of all physical contact with a man, years during which she had scarcely contemplated sex, here she stood eyeing up the talent like a sixth-former on her way home from school. She marked it down as emotional regression and went to find her car.

Lexi was livid. The bloody nurse/receptionist at Richard Turner’s surgery had sent a letter to a Liverpool lawyer, copy to her. It stated that Miss Alexandra Phillips had joined the practice, had visited Dr Turner only once, and that the author believed the visit had been made with a view to entrapment.

She came at an earlier date (see enclosed records) for a medical examination, which I performed, as the doctor was out on calls. Thereafter, she had one appointment, and Dr Turner struck her from his list immediately after the consultation. I have no knowledge of their relationship, but I can assure you that any close contact between these two adults must have occurred before she joined this surgery. Our part-time doctor, Celia Cooper, will verify under separate cover that she never treated Miss Phillips.

They were all bastards. They would stick together no matter what, while she would be left like rubbish in a wheelie bin waiting for the council to dispose of her. It wasn’t fair. He’d had his roll in the hay, and now he wanted rid of her. Doctors, lawyers, police – they were all in cahoots, and her reputation would no doubt precede her if she put up a fight.

Laurel and Hardy were probably in on it, too. They worked for that well-stacked woman next door to the Turners, but they were in and out of the Turner house like rats in a sewer. Carol Makin, who was built like a tank, and her daughter, Dee Baxendale, were seasoned adversaries of Lexi’s. Dee, the opposite of her mother, did a fair imitation of a pipe cleaner, but she had a gob that could clear a drain from forty paces. Their Beryl suffered with MS, so they probably considered themselves experts in that area. Richard’s wife had the same disease.

Lexi would have to play very dirty. They would have trouble pinning anything on her, because she intended to play anonymously. Doc Turner would know who was waging the war, but he’d keep it to himself, since he was a coward. All men were cowards. Women, on the other hand, made things happen. And boy, was she about to make things happen! But she had to go home first and think about it.

As she turned towards the marina, she noticed Carol Makin on the top step of the house next door to the Turners’. Lexi lifted her chin and put her hands on her hips. ‘Was Weightwatchers shut, then, love?’

Carol raised two hefty fingers in a V-sign. She wasn’t going to start shouting her mouth off on Mersey View. But Litherland Lexi was here again, God save the Queen and may the best man win. ‘Dee?’ she stage-whispered. ‘Come here.’

Dee arrived, armed with a feather duster and one of the plastic pipes belonging to Lucy’s Kirby vacuum cleaner. ‘What?’

Carol pointed down the street. ‘Fetch,’ she ordered.

Dee shot down the road like greased lightning. Lexi, who seemed mesmerized, allowed herself to be prodded, pushed and steered like a cow on its way to market. In her high-heeled shoes, she was no match for Dee in the speed department, while shock accounted for her lack of reaction to this unusual form of persuasion.

In the hall of Lucy’s house, she was placed on a monk’s bench and ordered to stay. Dee muttered something about Mam having missed her way: she should have been a dog-trainer with all this fetching and staying. ‘I’m sorting me cupboards,’ she announced, before leaving the enemies to their own devices.

‘What are you doing round here?’ Carol began.

‘None of your business.’

‘I can make it my business if I want. I’m housekeeper here, and Dee’s my deputy. It’s our job to keep the place nice, and nothing can be nice if you’re part of the picture.’

‘I don’t have to tell you nothing,’

‘Then you can stay sat there like cheese at fourpence till Mrs Henshaw gets back with her lawyer. And the doc next door won’t be long.’

Lexi swallowed. ‘I left me bag in a taxi, and I was told the driver lived down here. I’ve been looking for him for weeks.’

Carol leaned forward. ‘Listen, you. There’s no taxi drivers along this stretch. They’re all doctors and lawyers and stuff like that – professionals. So bugger off and stay away if you know what’s good for you. Don’t go shouting on Mersey View, or they’ll be sending for the busies. We aren’t used to your sort in these parts.’

As soon as Carol stepped back, Lexi shot out of the house. She had to be at her till in half an hour, and she didn’t want to be late again. There were computers and printers in the office at the back of the shop. If she could force herself to be nice to Greasy Bleasdale, he might let her have a lend of his equipment for half an hour.

She staggered up to the main road, flagged down a black cab, and continued on her way to work. Mrs Turner was going to receive some very revealing letters. He said his wife knew he played away – did he think Lexi Phillips came down in the last shower of rain? It was time he learned never to kid a kidder. It was time he grew up. It was also time he learned a bit of sense, because he’d been let off lightly so far.

In the back of the cab, she removed the crippling shoes and tried to rub some life into her feet. Thank goodness she kept a pair of flatties in her locker at work, because she might be on shelf-stacking. She didn’t know which was worse – filling shelves or sitting on her arse for hours on end. But she did know that life wasn’t fair, and Richard Turner was having it too easy. Well, easy would be a thing of the past. She’d make damned well sure of that.

On his way back from Liverpool, Richard stopped at the house where his car had been cleaned. Shirley and Hal were leaving in just over a month, and Richard posted through the letter box an invitation for interview for the gardening jobs on Mersey View.

On his way back to the car, he saw Lexi passing in a black cab. Where had she been? What the hell was she doing in these parts? Didn’t she know there was nothing she could do? Witnesses at the practice would back him up, and as long as that was the case no medical council would turn a hair. But was his local reputation about to take a battering?

He went home immediately. Celia was taking surgery, so there was time for him to nip back and see if anything untoward had occurred. Two cars stood outside Lucy’s house – hers, and another that was presumably the property of her lawyer. The boyfriend, Dr Vincent, was to come back this afternoon to collect Lucy and Moira. He was suddenly glad that Moira was leaving. If Lexi was going to kick off, it would be easier without Moira in situ.

He entered his own house quietly. The dulcet tones of Carol Makin bounced off walls throughout the whole ground floor. ‘So I says to her, “What the bleeding hell are you doing round here, like?” And I shoved her on to Lucy’s monk’s bench, and I says, “They don’t have taxi drivers on Mersey View, because we’re all professionals.” And she went a right funny colour, because I’ve seen her round here before, and she knows I have. Are you taking both these skirts with you, love?’

‘I’ll have to, Carol. You don’t think Lucy’ll mind my accidents?’

Shirley chipped in. ‘No. She’s as sound as a pound, is Lucy. She’s managed you and your problems before. And if she can’t cope, she’s not daft. That David’ll get you some help.’

That David. Richard was sick to the wisdom teeth of that David. David Vincent had the best woman Richard had come across since meeting Moira, yet he seemed an airy-fairy sort of chap, always engrossed in thought, always here with his bloody dog and his bunches of flowers.

But Richard had other fish to fry. He walked into the sitting room. ‘Hi,’ he said with forced brightness. ‘Who’s been looking for taxis, then?’

Carol stared at him for a few seconds. She had her own theories about this fellow, but she had better keep her gob shut. Well, not shut, but on a low light. ‘Litherland Lexi. Expert in sailors, sex, shoplifting and supermarket check-outs. She’s a bother-causer.’

‘Ah. So you chased her?’

‘Dee did. With a feather duster and a bit of vacuum cleaner. My Dee might be thin, but she’s feisty.’

Richard smiled at his wife, and she returned the compliment. ‘You all right now, babe?’ she asked.

‘Yes, fine. I’ve come back for notes, then I’m off to visit the sick and the imaginative.’

‘The imaginative?’ Carol raised an eyebrow,

‘They imagine they’re too ill to work ever again,’ Moira replied for him. ‘Usually a bad back, till Richard finds them heaving furniture or climbing ladders. He copped one enjoying himself on a bouncy castle the other week. He’s supposed to walk with a stick, but he got caught out. Richard always finds them out in the end.’

‘And what do you do then?’ Carol asked. ‘Dob them in to the soshe?’

He smiled. ‘I have never in my life dobbed in anyone to the financial arm of the social services. I praise them to the hills, tell them how proud I am of them for having overcome such a terrible illness, and remind them to visit the job centre. In the end, they do. Most of them, anyway.’

This one was a right clever clogs. Carol had met his type before in posh houses she had cleaned: a gob full of marbles, always saying the right thing, then mucking about behind the wife’s back. And this wife deserved better, because she’d enough to cope with without a fancy-talking whoring fool for a husband. Lexi was looking for him. If he’d been with Lexi, he deserved a red card, bugger the yellow warning.

Carol made her excuses and left the house. She didn’t like him, didn’t like the way he looked at Lucy. Men took little notice of fat, shapeless women, but fat women noticed everything. As did Dee, who ate like a horse and managed to look like someone in the final stages of some eating disorder. No men looked at her, either. Carol and Dee were just essential items of furniture, but they missed nothing.

She found Lucy in the kitchen. Her friend, Glenys, was outside in the back garden. ‘I don’t like him,’ Carol announced. ‘He’s slimy, sly, and full of himself.’

‘Who is?’

‘That pie-can of a doctor next door. He looks at you, Lucy, as if he wants to rip your clothes off your back.’

‘He’s just sex-starved, Carol.’

‘I don’t think so. There’s been a well-known knicker-dropper hanging round. What are you laughing at? Have you never heard of a knicker-dropper?’

‘I have now.’

‘Well, if he can’t have you, he’ll take what he can get. And what he can get from Litherland Lexi is a damned sight more than he might have bargained for. She’s trouble. She’s had a row with just about everybody apart from next door’s goldfish – she could start a war in an empty room. And she’s hanging about like a bad smell on a hot day.’

Glenys came in. Carol summed her up as yet another dumpy little female who could pass through life without being noticed. A lawyer was a good thing for Glenys to be, because she could study people without fear of interruption. The invisibles were the ones who came nearest the truth, since few bothered to address them, yet it was the unaddressed who saw through all the talking, all the excuses. ‘Hiya,’ said Carol. ‘I’m the housekeeper, and I’ll be making breakfasts for guests when Lucy’s having a break. I’ll live here while she’s away.’

Glenys shook Carol’s hand. ‘Hello, Carol. I’m her lawyer, and she’s told me all about you and your daughter. A couple of gems, by all accounts.’

The big woman blushed. ‘Well, if we’re gems, we’re still uncut and definitely not polished. Rough diamonds, you might say.’

‘You’ll do for me,’ Lucy said. ‘But do try to tolerate my neighbours. You don’t have to like them, but please try not to let it show.’

Carol muttered a few words about doctors thinking they knew everything, some of them knowing nothing, and herself having bathrooms to see to.

Glenys burst out laughing when Carol had made her exit. ‘Where do you find them, honey? Can’t you collect stamps or Victoriana or something normal?’

When the hilarity had subsided, Lucy told her friend about the encounter in town. ‘So,’ she concluded. ‘He’s with some other woman who’s come into money. According to his card, Howard Styles was a developer in the Manchester area. Mags Livesey says there’s a massive house – big enough to be made into a Champneys style health spa and worth over five mill.’

‘Bugger,’ muttered Glenys. ‘So I guess we have what Houston might describe as a problem.’

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. ‘I’m copying this address,’ Glenys said finally. ‘Then at least he’ll know when the divorce is final. As for the rest of it – well, if she’s recently lost her husband, she’s vulnerable. Let me look into it. I need to know about her family, about who’s going to prop her up in the next year or so. Because if it’s Alan, she’s in trouble. What do you think?’

Lucy raised her arms and shrugged. Part of her insisted that she’d done her bit and that this new women should be left to get on with it. Yet knowing what he was, and what he was capable of . . . ‘I’m confused,’ she admitted.

‘Millions, Lucy.’

‘I know.’

‘If his health improves, he’ll steal from her.’

‘I know.’

‘What can we do?’

Lucy stood up. ‘Well, I’m going to the summerhouse with Moira, and having salad, salmon and wine when we get there. We’re travelling in a wheelchair-friendly van, and I’ll use Alan’s car while I’m in Bolton. And I’ll keep in touch with you, because I want you with me when I go to Styles.’

‘So you’ve decided?’

‘It seems so. She has to be warned, and in case she thinks I’m lying just to upset their applecart, you will bring the paperwork.’

‘You sure?’

‘Not completely. But the woman – whoever she is – deserves a chance. Look what he did, not to me, but to his own children. Paul, Mike and Elizabeth are all he has, yet he mortgaged their property, stole their legacies. If he’s capable of that, he might well clean out this Mrs Styles.’

When Glenys had left, Lucy went next door to see how Moira was faring. She found her quiet, unsmiling and twitchy. ‘Moira? Whatever’s the matter?’

Moira lowered her head. ‘I knew it would happen. That’s why I wanted to find somebody decent for him, somebody who’ll be here after I’ve gone.’ She lifted her chin and looked into Lucy’s eyes. ‘I hoped you’d be the one. That was why I did that stupid thing. Somebody’s looking for him now, you see. Carol and Dee know her, and they chased her. He’s got himself involved with the type he thinks of as safe, because he can’t love her and it’s just sex. But I know he needs love, you see, and I also know he’s well on his way to being in love with you. So I took a chance and, well, you know the rest of it.’

Lucy sat down. ‘I’m going to marry David, Moira. Don’t say anything, because I haven’t told him yet. I find Richard very annoying and very attractive, but it’s never going to happen.’ She waited for a reply, but none was forthcoming. ‘Are we going to Tallows?’

‘Yes. Oh, yes. Lucy, I’ve tried to help him and he won’t listen, won’t even speak to me about the creature that’s hurting him. The cleaning of the car, the fire, the silence – it’s all down to the whore Dee and Carol shifted. I can’t do anything until he talks. Let him have some space. We’re going.’

So they went.

Nine

Moira looked forward happily to her journey inland towards the foothills of the Pennines, because David had promised to travel via the prettiest route. A lift took her up from the pavement into the van, where her wheelchair was bolted to the floor after safety belts fastened her to the seat. When the luggage had been similarly pinned down, Lucy and David climbed into the front seats. The drive took just under an hour and, during that time, the passenger in the rear had the opportunity to appreciate the advent of beautiful scenery, and also to view at close quarters the relationship between David and Lucy.

They laughed a lot, though she was louder than he was. At every opportunity, at junctions, traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, he turned to look at Lucy. Feeling something of a gooseberry, Moira watched while pretending not to. She was in the company of a magic she remembered, though she experienced no jealousy or resentment. These two deserved some happiness, and she hoped that they would live long and enjoy it. There were many valuable people in the world, and she was in the presence of two of the best.

Perhaps it was because they shared history, however ancient, that they seemed perfect together. They were completely in tune, head over heels in love, and delightful to study. She was for him, he was for her, and that was an end to it. In some place beyond vision, in heaven or within the deepest roots of nature, a decision had been taken. The couple were bound together, their co-existence inevitable from the hour of birth.

They stopped at the bottom of a hill. ‘You’re in Lancashire now, Moira,’ David told her. ‘No dark, satanic mills any more, no slave-drivers to hang a lad for stealing a fent of cotton.’

‘Fent?’ Moira asked.

‘It was usually the end of a weaver’s bolt, and it often had flaws in it.’ He pointed to the hills. ‘There was snow in summer up there, yards and yards of calico left out to bleach in the sun, because they had no chemicals. If you took a bit of that summer snow, you hanged. The cotton came from America to Liverpool, then was brought here by drays or barges. We were all Lancastrians then.’

‘Liverpool’s always been Lancashire to me,’ was Moira’s answer. ‘And so has Bolton, come to that. All this Merseyside and Greater Manchester rubbish – we’re Lankies, every last one of us. Except for the accents, of course.’

‘Boundaries,’ David said. ‘Created and moved in the interest of politicians. It did them little good.’

Moira sat back and thought about her husband. Richard, an exciting man who had moods, was definitely not the type for Lucy. In fact, when she looked over her shoulder into her own past life, Moira realized that the give and take in her marriage had been, for the most part, a one-way street, since she had done most of the giving. And the forgiving. She continued to adore a man whose selfishness was becoming legend. Lucy, newly released from domestic servitude, would have flattened Richard, while he would never have appreciated this woman’s wit and humour. He had been with a whore. Moira had no proof, yet she knew it . . .

She looked out at the bowl that contained Bolton, gazed at pleated moors rising and dipping in gentle folds towards Yorkshire. It was a fabulous place. They drove through villages filled with weavers’ cottages, stone-built and with proud little aprons of garden laid out towards the pavements. There were ancient churches, old pubs with exterior beams and string courses that had stood the test of centuries.

Lucy turned. ‘Here we are, love. On your left, the big house. It’s been in my family for generations.’

‘Impressive,’ Moira said. It wasn’t a house – this was a mansion, and Lucy, God bless her, was about to turn it over to the Timothy Vincent Trust.

‘It’s devoid of furniture,’ Lucy said, ‘so you and I are living in the dolls’ house. We bought the shed when the kids were in their mid-teens – somewhere for them to have adventures without parents breathing down their necks. They brewed their own beer in it, rolled joints and grew out of all that by themselves. Sometimes I thought I was too lenient, but they turned out OK, I think.’

‘It’s hardly a shed.’ Moira looked at the pretty little wooden house.

Lucy agreed. ‘It’s a park home. Two bedrooms, dining kitchen, shower room and a nice big living room. Lots of trees behind, and a large garden leading up to Tallows. It’s peaceful.’

Moira muttered something about Bedlam being peaceful after him and his fires. It was lovely here. She was brought down to earth via the lift, and David scooped her up from the chair and carried her into the house. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said as he left the room, muttering to himself about finishing something or other. Lucy went to check the food in the fridge. He had remembered – salmon, wine, salad and potatoes. He was a good lad.

‘How could you leave all this?’ Moira asked. ‘The woods, the garden, that wonderful house and this little fairytale cottage? I’m sure I couldn’t have given it up. It’s absolutely glorious.’

‘It was, and it will be again.’ Lucy put the kettle to boil. ‘I’ll just make sure the beds are—’ She stopped in her tracks for a few seconds. What the heck was he doing? She ran through the living room and opened the front door, then leaned against the jamb while she looked at him. He was a star. He was a one-off. He was a long way past merely wonderful.

David stopped hammering. ‘Sorry. I meant to finish it, but work claimed me, and my own house has been invaded by industrial cleaners who haven’t the slightest idea about how to save research. Fortunately, most of it’s on my laptop, and the stuff in boxes is easy to find, but I tend to scribble on bits of paper and—’ He stood up. ‘What’s funny?’ She seemed to be near to hysteria.

‘You are.’

‘I’m doing my bloody best, madam. No one can do better than his best.’

Lucy’s eyes filled with tears, but she continued to laugh. Only David would take the trouble to build a ramp that would be needed for just a few days. Only David would roll out a long wooden track to make the pushing of a wheelchair over lawn easier for both pusher and pushee. He was vague, brilliant, talented and daft. But mainly, he was almost selfless, because he saw a need and did his utmost to fill it.

‘Louisa? Say what you have to say. I need to get on with this.’

‘I told Moira I’m going to marry you.’

His mouth twitched. He sniffed, nodded, and resumed the hammering.

‘David!’

‘What?’ He stopped banging. ‘Bloody what?’

‘Did you hear me?’

He nodded again while hammering home another nail.

She turned to go back inside, and he leapt to his feet. ‘When did you decide?’ he asked.

‘Oh, about forty years ago.’

‘OK. Thanks for letting me know.’

Inside, Lucy stood near the window and watched him. He was having fun with hammer and nails. He was laughing. After a few seconds, he pulled out a disgraceful handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He was hers.

Moira fell asleep on the sofa. David, who had finished his ramp, led the woman he loved outside. ‘To the woods?’ he asked. ‘Remember how it was all those years ago?’

Lucy remembered. ‘To the woods’ had been her sister’s war cry, delivered with monotonous frequency throughout the long, hot summers of childhood school holidays. Diane’s idea of hide and seek had been eccentric, since the rules had changed daily, and Lucy had never quite managed to keep up. David had experienced some difficulty, though he had always managed not to care. ‘You collected creepy-crawlies,’ she said. ‘In matchboxes and old tins.’

‘I did. Especially those that had committed insecticide. I was looking at ways of preserving the dead, but my chemistry set seemed to dissolve everything, which was a source of great annoyance. I love you.’

‘I know. You loved spiders, too.’

‘Useful creatures, arachnids. They dispose of flies. Why did you tell her before you told me?’

Lucy loved these mixed-up conversations. As owner of a butterfly mind, she understood his quickness of thought only too well. Something came into his head, and he dealt with it immediately. ‘I was afraid that she might still want to bequeath Richard to me. So I hid behind you. Let’s face it, you’re tall enough.’

‘Oh.’

‘But I intended to marry you anyway. After my divorce, naturally.’

‘And if I’d said no?’

They stopped walking. Standing at the edge of Diane’s forest, she took his face in her hands and kissed him. ‘I feel close enough to read your mind. I knew you wouldn’t refuse me.’

‘You can manage me.’

‘Yes.’

‘We shall see about that,’ he said. ‘There are more cards up my sleeve than you’d find in three packs, plus jokers. You won’t manage me, Louisa Buckley. We shall be equal partners in the crime named marriage. However, as pointed out by the eminent Jeffrey Archer, some are more equal than others.’

‘And?’

‘And I am stubborn enough to train you in the arts of wifedom. I shall undo the kitchen chains when I come in from work and, after our meal, I shall fasten you upstairs. It will not be an easy life for you, slave.’

Lucy laughed. She could not think of the past quarter-century as wasted time, as she had been endowed with three wonderful children, but how she longed to be settled with this precious man. From the pocket of her trousers, she took her mobile phone. ‘Interesting messages today,’ she said. ‘About love and stealing moments – shall I read them out? Some are rather risqué – body parts and so forth . . .’

‘Why bother? I sent them.’

‘I thought we needed more than stolen moments.’

He stopped and stared hard at her. ‘My condition has deteriorated of late. There’s little hope of recovery, and no remedial treatment, because at this point I’d probably sell my soul for five minutes with you. And you know that. So why don’t you shut up for once?’ No longer nervous or hesitant, he kissed her and held her firmly.

Lucy relaxed and allowed herself to fall into the moment. He was strong, gentle and in charge. She knew with blinding certainty that he would never hurt her physically or emotionally, that she must never hurt him. They were both vulnerable, both damaged and needful. ‘Where have you been?’ she cried when he released her. ‘Where the hell have you been, little David Vincent, with your spiders and your woodlice?’

‘Alone and in grief,’ he answered. ‘But now I’ve come home.’

‘So have I.’ She pulled herself together and dried her eyes. ‘Right, come on. I have to go to the house for more blankets – I don’t want Moira to be cold in the night. We need to be quick, as I’d like her not to wake alone in a place she doesn’t know well.’

‘And I don’t want to sleep alone,’ he grumbled.

She looked him up and down. He had come a long way in recent weeks. ‘When we get round to exchanging contracts – me, you and caveat emptor – you won’t sleep at all. You’ll be very much awake, sunshine. Unless I decide to spike your cocoa.’ She stalked off ahead of him.

David chuckled. He seemed to be engaged to an extremely lively woman, but she wasn’t going to win every battle. Four decades, he had known her. The in-between years didn’t count, because he and Louisa had never completely lost each other. He closed his eyes and remembered a very tall girl holding the hand of an undersized boy. She had stood between him and bigger lads, had known even then where and how hard to kick the bullies to make them collapse.

He followed her to Tallows. The same female who had dealt with the rough and ready had been stayed by motherhood. Only her offspring had stood between her and Alan. Had she been childless, the killer blow would have been delivered much earlier, and with compound interest. And now she had tracked him down. David grinned. God help the man, because he’d probably finish up filleted, roasted, and served up with an apple in his gob.

She was calling to him. He picked up speed and joined her at the door to the laundry room, which was open. ‘Has anyone been here? From the charity?’ she asked.

‘Just me,’ he answered. ‘And I brought my own tools to make the ramp. I haven’t been inside for days – not since I showed the last lot of committee round.’ He examined the lock. ‘It’s not a break-in.’ Perhaps her husband was inside. ‘Stay here,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll go in.’

But she followed him. In the kitchen, the central table was scattered with the remnants of a meal, and Lucy recognized a scarf flung over the back of a chair. ‘Elizabeth’s here,’ she said happily. ‘She could fill the Albert Hall with her clutter. I’ll go and find her – she may not be decent.’

‘She was hardly that the last time I saw her, Louisa. Theatre in the Park? She wore very little, but she wore it well. You could take some tips from her – she’s you all over again.’

‘David? Do you want me to walk round half naked?’

‘Sometimes. And with an audience of only one.’

She tutted, wagged a finger and left him to his own devices.

Ten minutes later, she returned to the kitchen.

‘Louisa?’ He could see immediately that all was far from well. He got up from his chair, and led her to it. ‘Water?’ he asked when she was seated. ‘Or something stronger?’

‘No. Nothing.’ She cleared her throat and breathed deeply. ‘Get Moira. Bring her here. Please. I can’t say anything until she’s here.’

‘But—’

‘Please, David. Trust me. Just do as I ask.’

He left the house.

Lucy sat alone in a kitchen where she had toiled for years to feed her family. But she didn’t see the dressers, the freezer, her much-loved Aga, failed to notice the lovely Belfast sink she’d had installed last year. Because a picture was printed on the front of her mind, a vision of beauty so perfect that it would have been difficult to describe in mere words. No, it had been a sculpture rather than a painting, something dimensional and recognizable – not one of those great, ugly lumps of stone with two heads and a hole in its belly.

She lowered her eyelids and, in her mind, opened the door to Lizzie’s bedroom again. They were nude and intertwined, limbs threaded loosely through limbs, heads together on a white pillow, her hair spread across fairly good Egyptian cotton, his paler curls masking half her face. Fast asleep, they seemed to breathe in unison, and didn’t stir when the door opened. Lizzie. How often she had explained about her virginity, how loudly she had proclaimed her status! And now she had given herself away to Moira’s son.

But that wasn’t all. Lizzie’s hand, weighed down by one of his arms, rested loosely on the tanned skin of his back. Curled like some exotic flower, it gave out splinters of light, prisms bouncing from a raindrop on a petal. Almost as naked as the day of her birth, Elizabeth Turner wore just two items. In white gold or platinum, a solitaire diamond nestled against a plain circle of similar metal. They were married. Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie . . .

Lucy closed the door and opened her eyes. Simon was a decent man. But Lizzie’s chosen path promised to be fractured and unsettled . . . ‘Now I know how my parents felt,’ she told the empty room. But no, that wasn’t the case, because Simon Turner was not Alan Henshaw. It had been so quick, though. They had known each other for just a few weeks – love at first sight? Would Moira be upset, would Richard rant and rage?

At last, David returned. He entered the house backwards, lifting Moira’s wheelchair carefully over the step. As they came through from the laundry, Lucy smiled hesitantly at her next door neighbour. She would probably deal with the news; her husband was a different fish kettle altogether.

‘Have you got a ghost?’ Moira asked cheerfully while David wheeled her in. ‘I’ve always wanted to be in a haunted house. Are you haunted?’

‘No. But there’s been a development.’

Moira looked round. ‘Lovely kitchen. When did you have it un-fitted?’

‘Last year.’ Lucy glanced at David. ‘I apologize for throwing you out earlier, but I must tell Moira first. No – stay. She had to be here, but you’ll hear about it soon enough, so it might as well be now.’

‘What?’ Moira stared hard at Lucy. ‘He said you were as white as a sheet. You frightened the poor man.’

Lucy squatted in front of the wheelchair and took Moira’s hands in hers. ‘Right. Simon and Lucy are upstairs in bed. Together.’

Moira remained quiet for several seconds. ‘Randy little sod,’ she declared eventually. ‘Sorry.’

Lucy inhaled deeply. ‘She’s wearing a wedding ring. And a rather decent little diamond. They must have booked the registry or wherever practically as soon as they met. I suppose they realized we’d all say it was too early, too quick, so they kept us in the dark.’

Because of her condition, it was quite normal for Moira to tremble and shake in the face of shock. But not one muscle moved involuntarily. With a hand to her mouth, she looked into Lucy’s eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have called him a randy little sod,’ she said quietly. ‘He told me. Not about marriage, but he spoke endlessly on the subject of your daughter. Eliza, he calls her, as he believes she’d be perfect in Pygmalion. I warned him. “You’ll be courting a minstrel,” I said, “and heaven only knows what’s in front of her – even Hollywood, God forbid.” He adores her, Lucy.’

Lucy bowed her head. ‘I’m not angry,’ she said. ‘It’s always been difficult to lose my rag with Lizzie, even though she turns my house into a Steptoe and Son yard. But I’m hurt. She’s always been so open with me.’

David pulled Lucy into a standing position, folding her in his arms where she rested for a while. ‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘Sometimes, young love is so overpowering that it eats away at reason. Their decision to present you with a fait accompli is understandable, because they’re both of age and they might just as well take all the flak in one sitting. We’re going back to the summerhouse. I won’t take no for an answer, because this is the right thing to do. When they notice us, they’ll come to the shed. We must bugger off and leave them their dignity. They’re adults.’

Yes, he was definitely in charge. In lighter, brighter moments, she might steal his thunder, but there was no point in arguing now. David was vague, adorable, intelligent and daft. At times like this, the intelligence won.

Blackpool was OK if you were five years old with a bucket and spade and a burning affection for donkeys. Alan had been dragged to the sanctuary, to a tea dance, and to five sessions of bingo. Trish had to do the driving, because his licence, wherever it was, probably wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on, so he was trapped. He’d been honest with her about the drink driving, and now she had him where she wanted him twenty-four hours a day. It had to be like this, because if he showed his face the mortgage company would have him sliding into court faster than sugar pouring off a shiny shovel. He was a man in hiding.

‘It’s just as well you’re with me,’ she told him sweetly and with monotonous regularity. ‘I’ll make sure you don’t drink.’

It was like being behind bars again. Six million was a hell of a lot of money, but he wasn’t seeing a penny of it. The Blackpool house was nice enough, and Trish looked after him. She looked after him rather too well, and the only time he grabbed for himself was spent in the bathroom. If he went for a walk, she accompanied him; if he wandered into the garden, she was at the window waving and smiling and being so bloody pleasant that he wished . . . wished what? That he was living with Lucy?

‘Coo-ee!’

Here she came again, Trish the kind, Trish the saintly, Trish who wouldn’t leave him alone because she was his guardian. He walked into the house and sat in the dining room, a child summoned from the playground to have his lunch. The self-appointed dinner lady would stay with him and make sure he ate all his greens, all the omega-oil-soaked fish, the special margarine, the bloody garlic, the bloody parsley, skimmed milk in his coffee, an apple and an orange, two fifths of his daily five allotted portions. He was sick to death, and he needed to go somewhere.

‘Is that all right for you, love?’

Love? They were sleeping in the same bed now, but nothing was happening. How many times had he shared a beer and a laugh with the lads at work? How often had they scorned the childless, those without lead in their pencils? And here he was, a flaming eunuch, no desires, no needs, just an eating machine, and he mustn’t forget to take that low dose of aspirin. ‘Very nice, Trish.’ He paused for thought. ‘Erm . . . I was just wondering if you’d drive me to Tallows some time soon.’

‘Your old house in Bolton?’

‘That’s right. She’s not there. I don’t think there’s anybody there, but just in case, I’d like you to stay on the top road. Don’t come near the house, because it might cause trouble.’ He hoped the locks hadn’t been changed. ‘There’s stuff I need – like my dad’s watch and an old brooch that belonged to my grandma.’ His dad had never owned a watch, but there might be a brooch somewhere. What he really needed was cash, and there could well be some of that in the floor safe Lucy didn’t know about. The fact was that he couldn’t remember how much or how little, but he had to give it a go.

‘All right,’ she chirruped. ‘We’ll go this after.’

She was sweet. She was too sweet, like an overdose of powdered saccharine on his morning Weetabix. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You’ve been very good to me.’

‘I’ve been good?’ she cried. ‘That sounds as if you think it’s over.’

Over? Where the heck could he go with no car, next to no money, and nowhere to live? ‘It’s not over. I just need some stuff, and I can’t drive. I know I haven’t been to court, but they’ll have given me a ban because I was well out of it for days, so I must have been miles over the limit. Just in case there’s somebody in the house, I need you to stay out of the way for half an hour, that’s all.’

‘OK,’ she answered brightly. She didn’t feel bright inside, though. There was something wrong with him, and she believed it not to be physical. He was cheesed off, possibly depressed. Deep inside her chest, a bubble of terror threatened to rise to the surface. She managed to quell it, but only just. If he left her . . . If he left her, she might as well be dead.

Alan plodded his way through lunch. She wasn’t stupid. She didn’t need Styles, so she was selling it. Thrown into the deal by Charles Hedouin was a nice farmhouse in the Loire valley, and she’d mithered for that until she’d got her own way, so she was clearly a long way from daft. But on a day-to-day basis, she was boring.

‘Eat your fish,’ she suggested.

He ate some of his fish. He wanted to stand up, throw the plate at her and walk out of the house, but he couldn’t. How the blood and guts had Howie Styles tolerated this woman? Childless and sad, she obviously turned the man in her life into a baby, something to lavish care on, something she could control. He wasn’t used to this. At least Lucy had left him alone to get on with his life. At least she hadn’t watched him swallow every forkful of food.

There must have been two sides to Howie. There was the genius who worked with architects and did as good a job as any of them, then there was the simple man. He’d loved all kinds of dancing, bingo and donkeys. But Alan wasn’t a Howie. And Howie had never retired, hadn’t spent every waking moment with his wife. During his illness, he probably noticed little. But Alan noticed, by God he did. Like a rat in a trap, he could find no way out. Maybe this was his penance, the price he had to pay for treating his wife so appallingly.

‘You’re not happy, are you?’

He swallowed yet more fish. ‘I’m fine,’ he lied. ‘Sorry I can’t . . . you know what I can’t do in bed just yet, but it’s not that. I think I need a bit of a job, something to get me out and about a bit more. An income of my own, some pride, a bit of dignity. I’ve no money in my pocket, Trish. All I do is take, take, take. That’s no good for a bloke.’

She folded her arms. ‘Out and about, you’d find drink. I understand, really I do. When we gave up smoking, Howie and myself, it was murder. Then I went to a site one day and there he was, bold as brass, smoking a rollup in one of the sheds. I already knew, because I could smell the smoke on his clothes. He blamed that on other folk smoking near him, but I knew better. So I made sure I caught him at it.’

She was a good jailer. Alan didn’t know how many years he had left, but the thought of spending the rest of his life in prison was hardly attractive. ‘I need my own money,’ he repeated.

‘Then I’ll employ you. As soon as you’re properly better, you can keep this house in good condition – decorating, putting in a new kitchen and bathroom, keeping up the gardens and helping at the sanctuary. I’ll pay well.’

She wanted to own him, body and soul. He wasn’t too sure about the body, because she showed no sign of wanting sex, but he was her reason for living, her mission, her foundling. Something had to give. Dying of a bad heart and alcohol was a possibility he understood. He had fought it and, with the help of the Welsh sheep-lover, he had won. What had he won? The chance of dying from boredom, that was all.

‘I’ll go and get ready, then,’ she said.

Alan, carrying the remains of his meal, crept into the kitchen and wrapped fish and greens in a paper towel. He buried his guilt under debris in the bin, washed his hands and stared out at the rear garden. She would be at him all the time, helping with the flower beds, supervising his painting, making suggestions, turning his life into a total bloody nightmare. He wasn’t a kid, and he hated Blackpool.

She didn’t even have a cheque book, had no need of one. The accountant paid all household bills, and she took cash from machines in the bank or in the street. He needed her pin. She had it in her personal address book, but it was disguised as a phone number. ‘Howie told me to do that,’ she had told Alan gleefully. ‘I’ve a memory like a sieve, so it was a good idea.’

So. How could he get his hands on that little book? And when would he get the chance to dial every single number until he got the false one? What if it wasn’t a false one? She might have chosen an arrangement of numbers that happened to belong to a phone somewhere on the planet. And the pin would be just part of the number. On top of all that, how long might it take her accountant to realize that she was withdrawing her limit of a thousand every day?

‘Are you ready, love?’ she called from upstairs.

‘Love’ again. She didn’t love him. He was a male version of one of those horrible, scary, pot-faced dolls some women collected; he was something to dress, to pamper, something to display in the passenger seat so that she didn’t look like a woman on her own. His misery was beginning to show, and he knew it. But what could he say? ‘Give us a couple of hundred grand and I’ll bugger off’? He didn’t own even the train fare to get out of Blackpool, and he wasn’t going to steal from her purse, oh no. He needed a lot more than she carried in her handbag.

‘I’m ready now,’ she shouted.

They sat in the car. ‘You’re going to leave me, aren’t you?’

He sighed. ‘All right, I may as well say it, Trish. I like you a lot.’ That was almost a lie, for a kick-off. ‘But I hate Blackpool. It was OK when I was a kid on the sands with Mam and Dad, but I’m not one for dancing and bingo. Why don’t you go to bingo with that Maisie next door?’

Trish frowned. ‘I always went with Howie.’ There was a catch in her throat, and she swallowed hard. ‘We did everything together, went everywhere together. We didn’t need many friends, because we had each other.’

‘But he also worked till he got ill, Trish. It’s different if a man goes to work. Lucy and I made space for each other, and—’

‘And where did that get you? In hospital with alcohol poisoning and a bad heart, while she buggers off with all the money. I’m doing my best. All I care about is keeping you well and off the booze.’

‘I need space,’ he said. ‘I’m not used to being looked after so well. Yes, I was married, but there was no contact. She cooked, saw to the kids, and that was about it. When we spoke it was usually on the phone – I’d ring to say what time I’d be home for a meal. I’m used to the company of men, and I wasn’t afraid of getting dirty. Mixing concrete, fixing windows, guttering, tiling – I’d turn my hand to anything. When I came out of Easterly Grange, I thought I’d never be strong again, but I am. In the house, I’m getting claustrophobia.’ He looked at her. ‘Don’t cry. I won’t leave you, but we have to work something out, because I feel as if I’m going mad.’

Trish nodded and dried her eyes. ‘I can’t be on my own, Alan.’

At last, she had said it. She clung to Alan because she feared isolation. He understood that, appreciated it, because Trish was a frightened little woman, and he, too, had known real fear within the recent past. He remembered only too well lying in the room with barred windows, the pain of withdrawal from his drug of choice, the inability to want to remain in a world that had no place for him. ‘I don’t want to be by myself either, Trish. I just want some space, a job to go to – even if it’s just part time.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to sit down and make a plan. You can’t work while we’re in France, but there must be builders round here that could do with an experienced man for a few months every year. Or we could buy you a partnership.’

‘OK.’ Relief flooded his veins. ‘Thanks, Trish. You’re a little gem.’

On that note, Alan and his gem set off for Tallows.

They had been stark naked for days. The robes they had worn after showers had been used while they were eating in the kitchen, but apart from those occasions they had romped about like a couple of maniacs who had escaped from a naturist club. He was her Adonis, she his Aphrodite, and nothing would spoil this honeymoon.

‘I had a dream,’ Lizzie said. ‘Mums opened the door, stood and looked at us with tears in her eyes, then she just smiled and went away.’

Simon chortled and dug her none too gently in the ribs. ‘Hey, your mother’s gorgeous. My dad fancies her rotten, but she’s hooked herself up to Dr Vincent. We aren’t the only ones following instinct. I look at Lucy, and I understand Dustin Hoffman having it away with Mrs Robinson.’

She hit him with a pillow. ‘Just because you’ve landed a job at Guy’s, don’t start thinking you can have everything you want. You can have me, just me and only me. One foot wrong, and I shall be arranging your funeral.’

Smiling broadly, he tried to look at her dispassionately, but it was no easy task. She was built like her mother, slender, but well-endowed in the upper storey. Lizzie was also intelligent, inventive, funny and uninhibited. And she was his wife. Had any of his friends at the Royal told him he would be married by the middle of September, he would have laughed them out of the building. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he said for the hundredth time.

‘I know. How lucky are you?’

‘Very.’ He dropped back on to the pillow. ‘Come here.’

‘No.’

He laughed. A modern man in his own estimation, he had truly believed that virginity was not significant, yet he had wept alone in a bathroom after their first time. She was passionate. Nothing short of the greatest love would have persuaded her to give herself so freely. As for himself – he had known that first evening when he had tripped over Mum’s Zimmer, a chair and a rug. He had literally fallen for her on sight.

They had eloped half a mile to Waterloo register office, had dragged in a couple of mates from the hospital, and sealed their fate. ‘I didn’t know it would feel like this, Liz. Surrounded by pretty nurses and young female doctors, I thought I knew it all. I knew nothing.’

‘Nor did I. For me, love was something that would grow. I thought it didn’t just happen like it did with us. Are we crackers? Shall we live to regret it? And will you like London?’

‘Whither thou goest, I will go.’

‘Book of Ruth.’

‘Yes. We both know we’ve taken a huge leap, yet people in their thirties and forties do the same and still end up in the divorce courts. It’s a gamble, and nothing to do with age. But I don’t want to live without you. Ever.’

Lizzie blew him a kiss, gathered up her robe and went towards the large bathroom, the one with a power shower big enough for two people. Something stopped her. Through a landing window, she saw the newly laid wooden path that spread all the way down to the distant shed. Was that a ramp leading up to the door of Mums’s little park home?

‘Simon?’

‘Boo.’ He was behind her. ‘What?’

‘We are not alone,’ she whispered. ‘And whoever’s living in the shed may have seen our car.’ The family always parked on the west side. She and Simon had used the east. ‘That’s a ramp, probably for a wheelchair. Who do we know with a wheelchair?’

He inhaled deeply. ‘Quite. OK. What do we do?’

Lizzie pondered. ‘We get clean, then we come clean.’

‘They’ll kill us.’

‘So we die together, martyrs to the cause. Come on, let’s have our shower. And don’t get frisky this time, because I’m not in the mood.’

‘First time for everything,’ he sighed. ‘Is this the beginning of the slippery slope?’

‘Shut up and fetch the shampoo. You’ll find your slippery slope when you stand on Mums’s Imperial Leather soap.’ She shook a fist at him. ‘You know, I can’t tell you how happy I am to have married a total idiot. Heart surgeon? They’re scraping the barrel.’

He turned on the shower, checked the temperature and dragged her in. ‘You’re so easy,’ he whispered between shower-dampened kisses. ‘Not in the mood . . ?’

Carol Makin was in her element. She was staying in a posh gaff overlooking a series of perfectly manicured little parks with a good view of the marina behind those well-kept lawns and beds across the road. The huge Georgian houses had been erected to contain the families and servants of successful merchants who had lived in Liverpool’s glory years. And those years were coming back, because this great, ebullient, brave seaport was soon to be the City of Culture, and things were looking up.

So was she. Well, she wasn’t looking exactly up, but she had her eye pinned to a character who kept to-ing and fro-ing on paths through the neat gardens at the other side of Mersey View. He was a funny-looking bloke with a limp. And he was too casual, as if he had set out not to be noticed. But if he thought he was blending in with the landscape, he was definitely wrong. Who the hell was he? Was he casing the joint? Scarcely fit to be a burglar, he upped and downed from good leg to bad like a marionette with a string missing. No way could he shin up a drainpipe without breaking the other leg and his mother’s heart.

Then she saw Lexi. So did Hopalong Cassidy, because he hit the deck quicker than a bale of cotton dropping from a crane at one of the cargo-landing stages. ‘Blood and guts – he’s a private dickhead,’ she muttered. ‘What the hell is—’ Carol ran to the door, opened it, folded her arms and leaned casually against the jamb. ‘Hiya, Lex,’ she called. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’

Lexi ground to a halt. She couldn’t work out what the hell Carol Makin was doing here at this time of day. As for a cup of tea, she would sooner drink arsenic with the devil. ‘Bog off, you fat cow. I’m looking for me purse and me handbag.’ She turned away and walked off.

As soon as Lexi disappeared, Limpy Dickhead jumped up and followed her. He stood out like a boil on the face of a baby as he lurched along in pursuit of the Litherland whore. Carol went back into the house. This was all the fault of him next door. It needed dealing with.

Lexi was thoroughly cheesed off. Having various kinds of sex with Greasy Bleasdale had been horrible. She’d been with some mingers in her time, but dealing with Greasy in a storeroom between bog rolls and Harpic had definitely been a low point in her career. However, she’d been granted a couple of hours on the computer, and she was ready to start putting Richard’s wife in the picture.

A kerb-crawler stopped and wound down his window. ‘Would you like a lift, love?’

He didn’t look too bad, and the car seemed decent, so she got in beside him. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m Lexi.’ He wasn’t pretty. He had what might be termed a face only a mother could love, but he was offering to take the weight off her feet, and she wasn’t one for refusing favours.

‘Tom Rice. I’ll take you home, shall I?’

She gave him the address. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place him. Perhaps she’d checked him out at her till in the shop, or maybe he lived somewhere close to her.

‘I’ve been for a walk down Mersey View,’ he told her. ‘Lovely, those gardens across from the houses. They own that land, you know. The people on that stretch have to keep the parks in good condition.’

‘Oh.’ That must be where she’d seen him, then.

When they reached her home, she invited him in. He looked clean, at least, and that was more than could be said for Greasy Bleasdale, who was always sweating like a pig, especially when standing near a woman.

‘Give me your number.’ He passed her a pen and a small notebook. ‘We’ll go for a drink one night, eh? Only I’ve sprained my ankle, and I’ve learned my lesson just now pottering about near the marina. Driving’s bad enough. But I’d like to take you out.’ So would Richard Turner, but he’d want to take her out in a different sense . . . He retrieved his notebook. ‘Thanks. I’ll sit here till you’re safely inside. And I’ll phone you when my foot’s better.’

She got out of the car. He would sit and make sure she was safe. Nobody had ever cared enough to think about her wellbeing. Had she met a decent man tonight? Perhaps, at long, long last, she could be with a bloke without money changing hands. He was no beauty, no spring chicken, but he’d treated her like a lady.

He picked up his phone as soon as he was out of her street. As always, he said as little as possible when communicating with a client. ‘Dr Turner? Tom here. Contact has been established.’ He severed the connection immediately. As an ex-policeman, he was only too aware of the level of surveillance that could be achieved these days.

Tom Rice had always approved of working girls, because they saved other women from bother. As long as they kept themselves clean and checked by a doctor, they did more good than harm. He’d served alongside officers who had seemed not too keen to solve a crime when a prostitute had been the victim. It was as if they didn’t matter, as if they were less than human. Poor Lexi. He quite liked her. If he wasn’t being well paid by Richard Turner, he would definitely have been on her side. He’d never liked bloody doctors.

As they neared Bolton, Alan began to feel nervous. He didn’t know why. All he wanted was to enter the house in which he had lived since the death of Lucy’s mother, and there would be nobody at home, since his so-called wife, soon to be ex, had buggered off to bloody Liverpool, and the kids could be just about anywhere in the world. All the same, he imagined pain in his chest, but he told himself that the pain was just a memory, and that he was not about to enter a nest of vipers.

They stopped on Darwen Road. ‘So you want me to wait here, then?’ Trish asked, her voice high and unsteady. She was afraid that he might never come back. She was just the taxi driver, and he was going to make up with his wife and disappear for ever. Panic closed in on her, and her rate of breathing increased. She had never lived alone, couldn’t cope alone, and her terror might frighten Alan off if she let him see the true extent of it.

‘Trish?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’ll be back. There’s no way I’ll be stopping here. My business has gone, she’s sold the plant right down to the last cement mixer, and the project I’d planned is down the pan to pay all the debts she never cleared. As for the house, well, it’s mortgaged from footings to chimney pots.’ The mortgage company would be looking for him. They couldn’t get their money back from Lucy, because she’d never borrowed it in the first place. ‘Oh, and if you do buy me a partnership, it’ll be in your name,’ he said. It would have to be. Any assets he obtained would be taken to repay the money he had borrowed by forging Lucy’s signature. He could very well go to jail for fraud . . .

‘It doesn’t seem right to be just in my name, love. You’ll be doing all the hard work.’

‘I’m bankrupt,’ he said. ‘Anything I earn will have to be cash in hand, or in an account with your name on it.’

‘How much do you owe, Alan? If that wife of yours won’t pay the debts, let me make a clean start for you.’

He swallowed hard. ‘It’s a lot. She cleaned me out by over two mill, but that was company money. The mortgage on the house is for just under half a million. If that was paid, I’d be in the clear. They couldn’t take any more from me, and I wouldn’t go to prison. The two million’s gone for good, but I need the mortgage money to put me right.’

Trish lifted her chin. ‘Prison? No man of mine goes inside. Look, I’ll pay the building society and wipe your name off the bad books. You’ll no longer be bankrupt, and you can start again in our joint names. You’ll be able to hold your head up high again, and all I want is to be Mrs Henshaw. How about that?’

She was buying him. In return, he would have to pay via bingo, tea dances, whist and line-dancing. But she could make everything OK. If she did pay off the loan on Tallows, he’d become visible and viable again, but he’d still be trapped in Trish’s simple, childish idea of life. He couldn’t run and wouldn’t run, because whatever else Trish might be, she was loyal. And he was tired.

He took her hand. ‘Trish Styles, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

She blushed and giggled like a girl. ‘That sounded so old-fashioned.’

‘Then give us an old-fashioned answer, girl.’

‘Yes. Yes, I will marry you.’

Every man had his price, he mused as he sealed the deal with a kiss. And now, with his heart filled with gratitude, he needed to get into the house for a new reason. If he could find enough cash, he would take this good woman to Preston’s of Bolton and buy her the best ring he could afford. Like him, she had known poverty; like him, she had dug her way out of it with the help of her marriage partner. He would take the bingo, the dancing, and even the bloody donkeys, because he was sick of running around, tired of being a wanted man, and fed up with women. This one would be enough. He’d make damned sure she was enough.

She was asking him a question. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Say that again.’

‘Your mortgage company. I’ll start sorting out the payment tomorrow. Find out how much, and I’ll put an end to all your misery.’

It was as if heavy chains had been removed from his limbs. He was still tied – tied to her – but with silk or velvet rather than with base metal. It would be all right. He would make blinking sure of that.

‘Can you just park here for a minute, please?’

David applied the anchors, and the van stopped. ‘What now, missus?’ he asked. ‘I’m doing my best to stop a drama becoming a crisis worthy of discussion at the next G8 conference. Also, poor Moira can’t see back there, and she can scarcely breathe. If any one of those bloody things bursts, we’ll all be talking like Donald Duck – that’s helium, you know.’

Lucy turned and caught a glimpse of Moira, who was giggling like a child. She was holding on to the strings attached to thirty heart-shaped balloons. ‘Good job this wheelchair’s pinned down, or I’d be flying back to the shed. And I’m starving. I’d just about kill for a ham sarnie.’

David tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Look here. If they find out we’re there, and we’re not there, that’ll make them worry, and they’re already worried. But if they find out we’re there and we are there, they’ll cope better.’

Lucy turned to look at her festooned friend. ‘Didn’t Shakespeare have a wonderful way with words?’ Then she awarded full attention to the man she loved. ‘Listen, buster. We’ve stopped because here, on our right, we have a cake shop. I know I can’t get a proper wedding cake at this point, but Sally in there specializes, so she’ll have a little bride and a little groom, and we can stick ’em in any cake.’ She left the van and crossed the road.

Moira cleared her throat. ‘She’s lovely, David.’

‘She’s beyond that,’ he answered. ‘For me, she’s a life-saver. I was buried in work, and she dug me out. She’s beautiful, and she has a heart the size of Brazil. But I can tell you this, Moira. If and when she ever loses her temper, we’d do better if we all moved to a different planet. There are years of anger bottled up, and whoever takes the lid off gets splashed.’

‘It won’t be you. She thinks the sun shines out of your stethoscope. It’ll be my Richard. He’s like a dog after a bitch on heat, and she’s already clobbered him once. Nothing physical. She just stopped him in his tracks when I did my stupid bit of matchmaking.’

‘Good. She’s spoken for.’

Moira was only too happy to hear that. She had realized of late that her other half was not really fit for marriage. He needed too much of his own way, and she had been lenient with him. Lucy believed that her children had been allowed leeway, but that was nothing compared to the way Richard had developed. Was it all the result of MS? She looked through the window. ‘Blood and guts, David – what the hell has she got? Just look at the state of her.’

He looked. His beloved Louisa was staggering across the opposite pavement with a three-tier wedding cake. Was there no end to the woman’s powers of persuasion? He leapt out of the vehicle and ran to offer help. After relieving her of the burden, he chased her back to the van.

‘It’s cardboard,’ he told Moira. ‘Madam was pretending it was heavy.’

Lucy climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I just wanted the sympathy vote,’ she said sweetly. ‘The cake is some kind of plastic, but the icing’s real. And the bottom tier holds a dozen small fancies, so job done.’

There followed a discussion on the subject of concealment. The cake might be covered by a car rug, but Moira’s balloons were a different matter.

‘We’ll just have to ruin the lawn again,’ was Lucy’s decision. ‘Drive round to the back of the shed, and take everything in through the kitchen door. I have no other ideas except, perhaps, we might plead insanity.’

‘I am quite sane, thanks,’ David said, a laugh breaking his words.

‘And I’ve no desire to be so,’ added Moira.

Lucy looked at her other half. He had put his foot down again. The hastily arranged party was his idea, since he believed that Simon and Lizzie needed support rather than criticism. ‘If you seem to be against the marriage, you both seem to be against your children,’ he had advised. ‘Don’t push them away. No fuss, just a few fairy lights and a couple of bottles of champagne.’

It had grown from that. They now carried with them half of Marks & Spencer’s food hall, six bottles of Sainsbury’s on-special-offer pink champagne, the crazy cake with bride and groom on top, and thirty uncontrollable balloons. Short of hiring the Dagenham Girl Pipers and the Luton Boys’ Choir, they had done a thorough job.

Once back in the little wooden bungalow, Moira ate her longed-for sandwich while the other two idiots ran round with plates, fairy lights, silver horseshoes, ice buckets, a false wedding cake and a ghetto blaster. They couldn’t find a wedding march in the small collection of CDs, and Lucy expressed the opinion that neither Floyd Cramer’s ‘On the Rebound’, which was hers, nor her sons’ collection of rappers would be suitable. So she settled for Robbie Williams singing ‘Angels’, because it was beautiful.

Once more, she found herself overruled. ‘Play that one second,’ David told Moira, who was to be in charge of music. ‘But first, I think Ronan Keating’s “When You Say Nothing At All” is more suitable. Here it is. There’s a beautiful sadness in ‘Angels’, and the message in the other one is spot on. It’s about love that needs no words.’

‘You’re special,’ announced Moira. He’d left her with Aerosmith’s ‘I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing’ and ‘How Do I Live’ by LeAnn Rimes. ‘My Richard would have chosen differently, I’m sure.’

‘David’s perfect.’ Lucy took his hand in hers. ‘Not ashamed of his feminine side, are you, darling? He likes Westlife. Few men would admit to that. I never met a more thoughtful and loony human being. And you’re staying, David. You’re in loco parentis on the male side. I can be stubborn, too.’

‘OK. Now. Where are they?’

‘In bed, if I know anything about my son.’ Moira swallowed the last of her sandwich while the other two pretended not to worry. Her choking fits were dramatic and life-threatening, yet she soldiered on. Only days ago, she had been on a diet that was almost liquid, but she was loth to give up her real grub.

When the swallowing was over, Lucy told her that her son would need to educate Lizzie.

‘No!’ Moira’s eyes were wide. ‘In this day and age? Oh well, never mind. He researched the subject when he was about seventeen. Other boys had mucky mags, but he chose the medical route. I bet he could write his own book about female orgasm. They’ll be all right. They’d better be all right, else I’ll kill him myself.’

‘They’re coming. They look great together.’ David backed away from the window. ‘Get your finger on the button, Moira.’

‘Are we still on about female parts?’ she asked innocently.

Lucy heard their footfalls on the ramp. ‘Cue music,’ she whispered. Then the door opened, she saw her daughter and her son-in-law, and she burst into tears. They were beautiful people.

Ten

There was hardly any furniture. Apart from a couple of rugs and a few chairs, the lower storey of Tallows had been stripped of its identity. Lucy wasn’t coming back, then. But someone was living here, and that someone was his daughter, because bits of her were scattered through kitchen and living rooms and even on the staircase. Alan experienced a couple of pangs, as Lizzie was just about the best thing to have happened in this barn of a place. His sons were good lads, but his daughter was special.

For ten or more minutes, he waited and listened. When no one appeared, he returned to the laundry, took a crowbar from behind the dryer, and began to work on the stone-flagged floor. This was where he had kept his stash, emergency money for drinking, gambling, and all other just-in-case occasions that cropped up in the normal run of life. Nowhere near as fit as he had thought, he had difficulty in lifting the slab, but he managed, just about. He dialled the number, opened the floor safe, grabbed what was left, and replaced the flagstone in the nick of time.

‘Who the hell are you?’

Alan clapped a hand to his chest, turned, and saw a tall, blond man in the doorway. ‘I could ask you the same question, because I’ve lived here for over twenty years.’ He shouldn’t have said that. This bloke could be a detective, and Alan needed to stay hidden until Trish had cleared his debts.

‘So you’re Mr Henshaw?’

Alan offered no reply.

‘Simon Turner,’ the young man said. ‘Your daughter’s husband.’

‘What?’

‘Liz and I were married last Wednesday. We told no one, so you’re not the only person left out of the loop.’

Alan staggered and righted himself by leaning against the washing machine. ‘My Lizzie? My little girl?’ The true nature of paternity hit him in that moment. Someone was touching his daughter. Someone had inveigled his way into her heart and into her bed. Had it been one of his lads married, that would have been different. But not his beautiful Lizzie. Her whole life flashed before Alan’s eyes – the child on a beach, running in these gardens, looking at animals in the zoo and at the safari park, spilling ice cream down her clothes, playing Mary in the school nativity at Christmas. ‘You do right by her, or I’ll find you and bloody well kill you.’

Simon nodded thoughtfully. ‘I shan’t steal from her, won’t forge her signature or abuse her in any way. As for you, take care. I’m training in cardio-thoracic surgery, and I can tell you here and now that you need to look after yourself. Open heart procedures are costly and time-consuming, so start respecting your body. For now, just try to calm down. Watch your blood pressure and eat very little saturated fat. Stress is to be avoided, too, so don’t make a rod for your own back by committing any further crimes of fraud.’

Alan gulped audibly. ‘Does my Lizzie know all my sins?’

‘Most of them. But don’t worry, because she’s her mother all over again. They both seem capable of endless forgiveness, though I dare say either or both could be pushed to the edge by lunacy such as yours if it continues. What the bollocks were you thinking of, man?’

It had to be said. ‘I’m an alky. Some days, I didn’t know whether I was coming, going, alive or dead. It’s no excuse, but booze is my master. I still live from one drink to the next, but the difference is that I’m not taking any alcohol. Inside, I’m screaming. But I’m living with somebody who holds me back. And that’s the God’s honest truth.’

They walked into the kitchen and sat one each side of the table.

‘Well, I believe you.’ Simon stared at the vision before him. Alan looked older than his years. Too-rapid weight loss had left him looking rather like a balloon from which half the air had escaped. A man in his forties should have retained some elasticity in his skin, but this one had lived too hard, and he was wrinkled. ‘How’s your liver?’ he asked.

‘Thanks for asking. Some of it’s shoe leather, but some of it works.’

‘It can regenerate up to a point.’

‘I know. Where is she? Did you say your name’s Simon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where’s my Lizzie?’

‘In the shed with both our mothers. Lucy found out about the wedding, and she and . . .’ he decided not to mention David, ‘she and my mother decided to give us a little celebration. In fact, I’ve come to collect some CDs from upstairs, so I’d better be quick.’

Alan lowered his head. ‘I can’t come and see her. It wouldn’t be right. But when the party’s over, tell Lizzie I love her.’ He gulped. The word love had scarcely visited his vocabulary for a long time. ‘And tell Lucy . . . Just tell her I’m sorry.’

‘OK.’ Simon dashed off in search of music while Alan walked into the hall and let himself out through the front door.

He crossed the lane and stared at Tallows for a while. He had been a selfish bastard and was a selfish bastard to this day. He wouldn’t change, because it was too late, and the life he had lived had been too full of resentment. But clouds formed by alcohol had blurred his judgement. At least he was beginning to see himself for what he was. The old maxim about giving and taking was starting to make sense. If Trish Styles paid off his huge debt, the one for which he should be serving time, he would moderate his behaviour.

It was an elegant house. He heard his boys screaming in the woods, saw Lizzie in a mud-spattered party frock, watched them playing, quarrelling, enjoying a game of cricket, scarpering when a window shattered as a ball entered the house. All gone now. Line-dancing was to be the price, together with bingo and cards. He would probably moan about life, but he had to pay Trish back. There was no way in which he might recompense Lucy, but she’d taken her pound of flesh, hadn’t she?

Hiding behind a hedge, he sat down and counted what remained of his fortune. Give or take, it was about two grand. Trish had blue eyes. They were frightened blue eyes. This money would be used to take away a bit of that terror. In some strange way, the caring for and protecting of Trish was also a repayment to Lucy. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he could only do his best. He might rail against donkeys and tea dances, but by God, he would stick to her. Trish wanted stability, but so did he. The fool he had been needed to be left in the past, because he required predictability, a timetable of sorts and freedom from debts and worries.

When he reached Darwen Road, he saw her and waved. Her little face lit up like a child’s at Christmas. He got into the passenger seat. ‘Hiya, kid,’ he said. ‘Well, here I am. Told you I’d be back, what? Come on, let’s have a smile.’

‘Hello, love. Are we going home now?’

He shook his head. ‘No. We’re off to look at sapphires.’

‘Are we?’

‘You can’t be engaged without a ring. Don’t start blubbering, I’m not in the mood. Right. Town. It’s thataway.’

Trish composed herself. ‘Did you find them?’

‘What?’

‘The brooch and the watch.’

Alan slapped his head with the flat of his hand. ‘Doh,’ he uttered in the style of Homer Simpson. ‘See, if I’d been pissed, I would have remembered. Tanked up on whisky, I never forgot a thing. I was daft in other ways, like judgement in the broad sense, but I never forgot little details. My body’s not used yet to being without booze.’ He turned and looked at her. ‘Don’t let me drink, love.’

‘You join AA and I’ll join Al-Anon. We can do it. I know we can.’

‘We can and we will,’ he said. ‘Now, I’ve got a bit of money, and we’re off to the greatest jeweller in the north. Sapphires and diamonds. Then if we’re quick, we’ll be back in Blackpool for your blessed bingo.’ Yes, it was time to pay his dues in full.

There were only five of them at the party, but they managed to produce enough noise to make the place seem full. To be fair, it was full, because thirty large, heart-shaped balloons took up a great deal of space. When the helium-filled intruders became too great a nuisance, the inevitable happened. David was the first to inhale, and the Queen would probably have laughed herself sick had she been privy to his rendition of the national anthem.

Lizzie delivered an ultra-falsetto ‘Amazing Grace’, Moira blessed the company with ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, while Lucy chose to murder ‘Morning Has Broken’. ‘That was bloody awful,’ David announced. ‘I’m not sure I can live with that.’

A silence followed. Lizzie approached her mother. ‘Mums?’

‘It’s not my fault,’ David said. ‘I’m only following orders. She told the world I was going to marry her, and she filled me in only yesterday. Sorry, Louisa.’

Lucy held her head high. ‘I love him,’ she told her daughter. ‘I loved him when I was ten, but he was like a brother. Diane and I used to pray for a little brother, you see. But David’s not a brother any longer. Actually, he is longer, because he was a shrimp of a kid.’

‘So, you were as quick as we were, then.’ Liz grinned and waved a finger. ‘Mother, you can’t possibly be sure in so short a time. I’ll bet that was what you wanted to say to me and Simon.’

Lucy shrugged.

‘Did you open my bedroom door? Did you see us together with no clothes on?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah, it wasn’t a dream.’ Liz turned her attention to David. ‘You’d better look after her, young man. I have raised my mother to a very high standard, and she doesn’t mix with riff-raff. Can you feed and house her? Can you keep her in the manner to which I have allowed her to become accustomed?’

He nodded and mumbled something about industrial cleaners and an oven with a missing door.

‘She’s used to ovens with a full complement of doors. Why industrial cleaners?’

David laughed. ‘Because even the dog was complaining about the squalor.’

‘Where is he?’ Liz asked.

‘Playing with the children next door. He loves kids, but he’s never eaten a whole one.’

Lucy stepped in. She warned her new son-in-law to hide all his clothes, because Liz would wear them when her own were dirty. She told him to employ a cleaner, since Liz’s idea of domestic hygiene was a square foot of visible carpet and a pair of matching socks.

Simon sighed. ‘I know. She already put me in the shabby picture. We’ll be fine. What can I say? Someone has to take her off your hands. You don’t want to be lumbered until she has to be auctioned off on eBay, one previous owner, buyer to collect. You wouldn’t get much unless you threw in a set of pans and a food mixer.’

Moira was happy. She was in the company of family and friends, was pleasantly drunk and, if she could hang about for a few more years, might become a grandma. Liz had declared her intention to live in London, to work only in Britain, probably as a waitress or an office temp, since good actors were ten a penny, and it was time she became minimally domesticated. They were hoping to live in London, since Lizzie’s dream had always been a tall, thin house with a long, narrow walled garden. For the time being, they would use her one-bedroom flat, and yes, she would have to be tidy.

‘My mother’s grinning like an ape,’ commented Simon.

‘She’s expecting.’ Lucy sat next to Moira. ‘She’s expecting a grandchild.’

Lizzie made an explosive sound. ‘Give us a few minutes, Moira.’

Lucy, too, was strangely happy. The young couple looked right together, sounded right, probably were right. There was a kindness in Simon that shone from his eyes – he must have inherited that quality from his mother.

The other reason for Lucy’s contentment sat at the opposite side of the room, confectioner’s custard spilled on his shirt, a silver horseshoe dangling from a ribbon round his neck, while a party hat folded from a page of the Financial Times sat at a rakish angle on his head. He was counting his famous rubber bands. Lucy smiled. He had not grown up. Please God, he never would.

*

Richard was having trouble coming to terms with isolation on the family front. He was in contact with patients and medics on a daily basis, did his house calls, and spoke to reps from pharmaceutical companies, but he remained a needful man. A house without Moira in it was a ship abandoned. His girls were never in, his son had disappeared, and a terrible picture of the future was developing before his eyes.

It didn’t look good. He missed Lucy. The thought of her sleeping next door, with or without David Vincent, was torture. The knowledge that she wasn’t within reach was worse. He loved two women. One had been in his life since the 1970s, the other for a couple of months. Moira was the one who kept his feet within touching distance of the ground, while Lucy had now become a torment who haunted his dreams both day and night. His wife was dying, and the gorgeous female who had bought Stoneyhurst would never be his.

He stepped out of the shower and pulled on a robe. Sometimes he was ashamed of himself; on other occasions, he told himself he was normal, marginally oversexed and very lonely. Moira had always been happy to listen and advise, but her health was deteriorating, and he didn’t want to hurt her any more. Lexi was threatening to do just that, to break the heart of a wife who remained loved at a level that could not be understood by someone Richard thought of as a mere tart. So Tom Rice was trying to keep tabs on her, but he was temporarily out of action due to an ankle injury. Richard trusted Rice and only Rice, so he had to wait for the man’s health to improve.

He dried his hair. Moira had accepted his dalliances with women of sense and social acceptability, but she would never forgive him for Lexi. Had she met the working girl in other circumstances, Moira would have been polite, even supportive, but street women were for other men, those who didn’t give a damn for their own health or for their families’ peace of mind. ‘I bet Moira knows anyway,’ he told the towel. ‘I can’t go on like this. Something in me is going to give.’ Never before had he felt so angry and inadequate. Lexi had to be frightened off. She couldn’t destroy his career, but she might well hasten the death of a woman who deserved a more tranquil life, however short that span might turn out to be.

‘I want to kill the bloody woman,’ he said as he shaved. ‘I’d love to break her scrawny neck. Hurry up, Tom Rice. I need to be told what she’s up to.’ One thing was certain. He wanted to stop the Lexi business before Moira came home. He had only days.

The smell hit him as he descended the stairs to the ground floor. On the doormat, The Times, Moira’s Daily Mail and assorted items of post failed to cover completely the stuff from which the stench emerged. It was dog excrement. Loosely wrapped in the pages of some gaudy magazine, it had spilled across an area of several square feet, and Richard felt his gorge rising. A doctor was used to unpleasant odours – they were part of life, and certainly an element in death – but this was different. It was deliberate, foul and sickening. Had Moira been here, she might have fallen in it. And the stairlift people were coming today, as were patients.

Should anyone trouble to ask in times to come when he had actually snapped, he would surely nominate this moment. A woman of absolutely no significance had done this to upset him, and to damage Moira. Temper rose, underlining his need to vomit. He ran to the downstairs bathroom and relieved himself of bile, since his stomach contained no food. The bitterness of gall was a clear reminder of his hatred for Lexi. All sense of proportion was deserting him as he cleaned up the dog mess in order to open up for morning surgery. It had seemed so small a thing, that brief dalliance with a shop girl. But she was evil. Like many cancers, she needed to be excised for the greater good.

He used almost a full bottle of Domestos, and the area near the door stank of it, but it was an acceptable stench. The bloody woman had even deprived him of his crossword, and he could only hope that nothing of significance had arrived in the mail, most of which was now on fire in the back garden. He scrubbed his hands until the skin glowed before rubbing in an anti-bacterial gel. There would be patients soon, and life had to go on. Up to a point, that was.

Shirley arrived. She mentioned the smell, and he told her he had spilled a sample taken from a patient. ‘Can’t be too careful,’ he said as he walked into his area of work. A secretary entered the scene, the phone began to ring, and Richard stepped into his role. Doctors Shipman and Crippen visited his mind, but he sent them on their way when notes and coffee were delivered to his desk.

He dealt with pregnancy, an irritable bowel, two cases of chronic depression, asthma, and a plethora of coughs and colds. But in his mind he was punishing Lexi, and many patients were surprised because for once he issued sick notes as if they were confetti.

Last of all, he gave an audience to a female who was not on his books.

Carol Makin sat, and the chair groaned in protest. ‘I seen it,’ she announced.

‘You seen – I mean you saw what?’

‘That Litherland Lexi putting something through your door.’

The silence that followed was deafening and long. ‘Oh,’ he managed at last.

‘Listen, doc. You know how people tell you stuff what you can’t tell nobody?’

He processed the sentence before nodding.

‘Me and our Dee has to be like that, because we’ve looked after some famous people, and professionals like yourself. Now, all I know is this – where there’s Litherland Lexi, there’s trouble. If you need me and my daughter to give you a hand, say the word.’

‘Right.’

Carol leaned forward, and the chair complained again. ‘Even her own family doesn’t want nothing to do with her.’ Carol didn’t like Richard much, but he helped the sick, and Lexi helped nobody but herself. ‘So think on,’ she added. ‘We’re next door, and we’ll be looking after your house and Moira when Shirley leaves.’ She stood up.

He imagined that the chair breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you,’ he said carefully. ‘But there’s nothing for you to worry about. She’s mentally ill and beginning to imagine things. They have it on the medical grapevine that she may well be suicidal due to repeated infections of a sexual nature. Even royalty’s had its mad members as a result of syphilis. Now, I haven’t told you any of that. Miss Phillips joined my list, and I sent her to someone better qualified to deal with her particular ailment. She took the rejection badly, because in her head she’s had a close relationship with me. I shall telephone her doctor as soon as you go. Do not approach her. And I am trusting you, Carol.’

‘Right.’

‘I’m supposed to say nothing about people’s illnesses and confidences.’

‘I understand.’ At the door, she turned. ‘What did she put through your door, doc?’

‘Dog dirt.’

‘Filthy bitch.’

He sighed. ‘Remember, Carol. Sick people don’t always know what they’re doing. And I don’t want my wife to know what’s happened while she’s been away. Her heath is precarious enough without any further pressure.’

Outside, Carol stood for a while on the pavement. She looked left, right, to the front and to the rear, but Lexi was nowhere to be seen. Richard Turner was a sly bugger, but Carol would believe him before she’d believe anything out of the mouth of Lexi Phillips. Something had gone on between him and Lexi, and his tongue hung out whenever he saw Lucy, so he wasn’t to be trusted completely, but he was only a bloke, and they understood nothing beyond sex and car maintenance. Yes, this one was a doctor, but he still kept his brains behind his fly and under the bonnet of his precious motor.

She re-entered Lucy’s house. Dee was having five minutes with Heat magazine and a cup of coffee. ‘What’s up?’ she asked her mother.

Carol delivered her tale. ‘There’s something wrong,’ she concluded. ‘That private dickhead was following Lexi – him with the limp what I told you about. Maybe the doc’s telling the truth and she’s away with the mixer, but he’s one of them men you can never be sure of.’

Dee agreed. ‘He’s after sex, Mam. Poor Moira can’t do nothing no more. She’s like our Beryl, all tablets and nappies, but he still wants his oats, eh? Well, he’ll get nothing off Lucy, however hard he sniffs. She’ll be wed by Christmas, I reckon. And depending on where she lives, you could be here running the bed and breakfast. So you can chase Lexi in your spare time if you live here. I couldn’t be bothered with her, to be honest.’

Carol got her cup and sat down. She was glad Moira had gone away, because this Lexi business was pressing. Anybody who posted dog muck through the door of a posh house had to be mad, evil, or both. If this wasn’t nipped in the bud, it could make Moira a lot worse. ‘Shall we go and see her, Dee?’

‘Litherland Lexi?’

‘No, Princess Anne, you daft bat. Of course I mean Lexi. What do you think?’

Dee pondered for a few moments. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘This is our livelihood – you, me, my kids and our Beryl will soon depend on this house and next door. If we get involved and the shit hits the fan, you and me’ll be covered in it. Not him, though. Not Dr Fancypants and his rambunctious hormones. Stay well out of it. I mean that, Mam.’

Carol drained her cup. Dee spoke a lot of sense. She was right: if something untoward got uncovered, it would be best to stay away from any resulting flak. ‘OK, missus. Finish your bathrooms and get home to Beryl. I have to stop here, but I’ll keep meself to meself. He knows where I am if he needs me.’

Moira was having the time of her life. She loved the shed, and declared on several occasions that she’d be happy to spend the rest of her life in it. Further confidences forced on Lucy were less pleasant. Moira was sure that Richard was up to no good, that he had overstepped a mark, and she said that she was enjoying being away from him. ‘Simon and the girls were easy to raise. He’s bloody impossible, and I didn’t realize that until lately. So bloody selfish. He needs a good hiding.’

At first, Lucy didn’t say much on the subject. The me-too speech would not have been suitable, since Moira already knew the extent of Alan’s sins. Lucy was aware also that there was a deep and abiding love between Moira and Richard, and that no amount of sexual straying on his part would diminish that love. ‘Well, we have to go back soon,’ she said after one of Moira’s longer tirades.

‘Not yet. Please, not yet. Just because I’m sometimes in a wheelchair doesn’t mean I have to stay with him. I can liquidate some of my share in the house – equity release, I think it’s called – and put myself away where I don’t have to put up with prostitutes looking for him.’

‘You’re not sure that she was looking for him.’

‘I flaming well am sure.’

Lucy sat down. ‘There are many kinds of love, Moira. And no, I’m not going to deliver a lecture, but I want to remind you. There’s the silly, romantic kind where you stop eating, drift through a dream and wake up either still in love, or decidedly out of it. Then there’s the merely physical that has no roots. Lastly, there’s the one that abides. It’s almost spiritual, and it contains elements of the first two, while being a meeting of minds. You and Richard have that.’

‘Do we?’

‘Absolutely. How many women care enough to look for a second wife? You know none of us lives for ever, so you tried to . . . well, you know what you did. If he fell for someone, he wouldn’t abandon you. In fact, it’s more positive than that, because I’m damned sure he’d do anything and everything to make your life better. He’s having a stairlift fitted, isn’t he? A small thing in a way, but just for you.’

Moira sniffed. ‘He’s been with a prostitute.’

‘He made a mistake. We are all victims of our own frailty.’

‘Are you? Have you slept with him yet?’

Lucy smiled. ‘I have, and we slept. David and I are lucky, because we seem to have what you and Richard have. We rag one another mercilessly, we need each other, and we’re getting him out of his doldrums before starting to jump around like a couple of kids. It’s real.’

‘And the wedding?’

‘Christmas, but I haven’t told him. Then we get the big house done up for sick kids and we have a honeymoon next summer.’

‘But he doesn’t know.’

‘Of course he doesn’t know. He’s too busy curing people and counting rubber bands.’

‘What?’

‘Never mind. I’ll tell you when you’re old enough. For now, I am going to chase your son and my daughter. They can’t leave it to us, love. Richard needs telling, and they are going to do it.’

She left Moira to her own devices and went to the big house. In the kitchen doorway, she ground to a halt. Her daughter, white-faced and clearly tense, was washing dishes. ‘Hell’s bells,’ Lucy exclaimed. ‘Housework? Are you ill?’

Lizzie stuck out her tongue. ‘I have many talents, Mums. It’s just that I have chosen not to employ them until absolutely necessary.’ Her hands slowed. ‘I’m terrified of Simon’s dad.’

Lucy grinned. ‘He’s just a man. Men are tall little boys. Do you want me to come with you? David has the week off, and we’re meant to be out for the day, but he’ll sit with Moira if I ask him to.’

Lizzie shook her head emphatically. ‘No. Richard wants to get into your knickers, so his reaction would be a false one if you’re there. Simon can deal with him. We won’t come back. Is it OK if we use my bedroom at Stoneyhurst? I don’t think I’m up to sharing living space with Dr Turner.’

Lucy stayed to wave them off. Of course they’d be welcome on Mersey View. Who could resist two such beautiful creatures? Simon had to work some notice at the Royal, after which they would travel to London so that he could take up his new post, while Lizzie would return to RADA.

She went upstairs and found that Lizzie’s room had been left in pristine condition. An effort had been made, and that was good enough. ‘I spoiled all three of you,’ she whispered. A thought struck. What if Mike and Paul got serious about Alice and Steph? ‘My life would become hyper-medical,’ Lucy told herself. David, Richard, Simon, Steph and Alice – they could staff their own private hospital.

The mobile rang. At first, she didn’t recognize the sound, until she remembered that David, while in his cups under the famous Financial Times hat, had loaded ‘Amarillo’ as her ring tone. ‘Hello?’

‘Lucy?’ It was Glenys.

‘Yes, Glen. How are you doing?’

‘OK. I finally got hold of Howard Styles’s widow. She wasn’t in Cheshire – she has a second house in Blackpool. I got her on her dead husband’s mobile.’

‘And?’

‘He’s with her. She asked him to put the kettle on, and she used his name. I know Alan’s not an uncommon forename, but I’m guessing it has to be him. They’re going back to Alderley Edge on Thursday. I’ve arranged to meet her in a coffee shop on Friday morning. When she asked why, I told her it was personal and connected to the death of her husband. She knows I’m a lawyer, and she has all my phone numbers.’

‘Thanks, Glen.’

‘Are you up for it? It could get nasty, Lucy.’

‘I have to warn her. It would be subhuman not to. Let’s face it, you should really have got the police, because Alan stole money from a building society. We’re not being cruel.’

‘OK.’

Lucy turned off her phone. Sitting on a chaise, she looked through the landing window. David had arrived with what Moira termed the fasten-me-down van. Dressed in his version of casual clothes, he looked as if he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. Like many Englishmen, he managed to confuse casual with disgraceful. Yet it was in these moments that she loved him most. He was the other half of her, and she wished she’d met him again years ago, wished she’d been there to help when Anne and Tim died. It was time to buy him some decent leisure clothes – if she could get him into a shop, if she could force him to try things on.

Today, they were taking Moira over the Pennines to visit Yorkshire. She had never seen it and, in Lucy’s opinion, no one should go through life without looking at what she called God’s temper tantrum, the wild and wonderful area that she always thought of as unfinished, as if the manufacturer had run out of steam and decided to leave it half done. Tomorrow, Mags Livesey was coming to give them both a new hairdo and a facial. That would cheer Moira no end, because she hadn’t seen a beautician in years.

‘Louisa?’ The cry drifted upstairs.

She laughed quietly. David often used her full handle, the name she had been given, the one her parents insisted on until Father and Grandfather had started the Lucy-Lou game.

‘Coming,’ she called.

They met halfway down the stairs.

‘When?’ he asked.

‘When what?’

‘Bed. Together. You and I.’

He was coming along nicely if she could just ignore the clothes. ‘Soon,’ she promised. ‘Now, what if we decide to take Moira somewhere nice for lunch? They won’t let you in.’

‘Ah.’ He looked down at himself. ‘I forgot. Had some trouble with the van, did a bit of engine-tweaking, and should have changed afterwards.’ He smiled at her. ‘How soon is soon?’

‘Soon. We’ll call at your house on the way and find something decent for you to wear. When Moira’s settled back on Mersey View, I’ll come and stay in your very clean home if you’d prefer there to here.’

‘Next week?’

‘Probably the week after.’

‘Good. That gives me time.’

‘Time? You said there was no time. Didn’t Einstein—’

‘Shut up, Louisa.’

‘OK.’

They walked downstairs together.

‘Why do you need time?’ she asked again.

‘I’m not going to tell you. It’s meant to be a surprise, and I need to get . . .’

‘Get what?’

‘Stuff.’ He turned on her and pulled her roughly into his arms. ‘Not all your own way, Louisa. Never, never all your own way. I love you far, far too much to let you get away with mayhem.’

Yes, she was doing a good job. In warning him that she could manage him, she had thrown down a gauntlet, and he refused to be managed. Underneath the academic, the man survived, and within that man a child endured. Behind the dreadful grief, a flicker of hope had been lit, and it burgeoned now into a flame that warmed him and allowed him to consider coming back to life. He could love again, and she was to be the happy recipient of his affections.

They travelled to his house, and Lucy stayed in the van with Moira while he changed. The place was smart, detached and at the better end of Chorley New Road, within spitting distance of golf club and crematorium.

‘What are you laughing at?’ asked the passenger in the back.

‘Well, he can play golf there in the winter, and warm his hands across the road afterwards.’

‘Lucy?’

‘What?’

‘Did anyone ever tell you your sense of humour’s warped?’

‘Not until recently. I led a very quiet married life.’

‘And now you’re making up for it.’

Lucy turned in her seat. ‘Watch this space, Moira. I’m still warming up. You ain’t seen nothing yet, babe.’

He came out of the house in suit and tie. It was becoming plainer by the minute that he did consultant or mechanic, with no stations in between. ‘I’ve got a catalogue at home,’ Moira said. ‘Get his measurements, and we’ll see what we can do. He’s hopeless, isn’t he?’

‘Delightfully so. Don’t way a word.’

They drove to Yorkshire and had a wonderful day.

Alan knew how Atlas might have felt had someone lifted the world from his shoulders. The sun shone more brightly, sand and sea suddenly became colourful, while even bingo improved, especially when he won a national prize of a hundred grand. His cheque remained in a drawer, as he was still an undischarged bankrupt with a possible prison sentence hanging over his head. ‘I could have bought you a better ring,’ he told Trish. She didn’t know he was a criminal, did she? With luck and a strong following wind, she would never know.

‘I don’t want one.’ She looked at her Ceylon sapphire and diamonds. ‘This is beautiful, we chose it together, and I’m not parting with it. Anyway, come Friday afternoon, you’ll not be bankrupt. The payment will be on its way to the Halifax, and I hope that ex-wife of yours is proud of herself.’

In an untypically honest mood, he was feeling proud of Lucy. She could have sent the cops to the hospital, could have had him locked up by now. The fact that she hadn’t made sure he was in jail meant a great deal to him. She was straight, honest and generous. He couldn’t remember his last real conversation with her, and that fact made him feel terrible. It was a bit late in the day to start developing a conscience, but guilt pursued him every inch of his new life.

Then Trish’s second mobile rang. He watched as her eyes filled with tears, because she hadn’t heard Howie’s ringtone in weeks. She answered it. ‘Hello?’

While listening to the party at the other end, she asked Alan to brew some tea. He stood just inside the kitchen, and his heart sank. She was making arrangements to meet a lawyer on Friday. They were going for coffee at the Boule Miche, a pretentious and overpriced joint in Cheshire named after some famous street in Paris. Napoleon bloody Bonaparte had a lot to answer for, he mused irrelevantly. Friday. The very day on which the money would begin to walk from her account into the Halifax.

He put the kettle on. ‘Who was that?’ he asked when she joined him in the kitchen.

‘A Gloria Benson,’ she answered. ‘Something to do with Howie. She wouldn’t say, not on the phone. Lawyers are like that, aren’t they?’

People who gave false names almost always clung to their real initials. Gloria Benson was Glenys Barlow. Lucy would probably be there. Easterly Grange had given him away, and doctors were supposed not to do that kind of thing. There was no point in asking Trish not to go, because if Glenys had Howie’s phone number, she probably had the address of Styles.

In that moment, the longest three days of Alan’s life began their slow, torturous countdown. There was one option, yet he couldn’t face it. Were he to pre-empt Lucy and her lawyer by telling Trish the full truth, he’d be out on his ear and foraging with the seagulls. And there was always the small chance that Gloria Benson might be the real name of the caller.

‘You’ve gone white,’ Trish told him.

‘Just a headache. I’ll take a couple of painkillers.’ But the real pain would not be shifted, since it was rooted in terror.

A doctor was privy to all kinds of information. No one had sent for Lexi’s notes, though she would need them soon, since she was a type one diabetic. Like most who were condemned to become pincushions twice daily, the woman had seldom mentioned the fact. His practice nurse had noted the condition, and Richard must have signed a repeat prescription, though he had no memory of the occasion. Ah, yes – it was one of those automatics that went to her pharmacist. Even without a prescription, Lexi could obtain insulin from the chemist with whom she was registered.

He read and reread her bulky file, found occasions on which she had been treated for depression, thanked God that her history was in hard copy rather than on a computer. He added his own comments, dating them to accord with the day on which he had struck her from his list. There are some symptoms of depression again, and I feel she should attend a surgery closer to her home. Should she fail to improve mentally, she may become . . . He paused.

If he wrote the word ‘suicidal’, that might be a step too far, and it could attract attention. Yesterday had been dog dirt; today’s gift was a letter printed from a computer and addressed to Moira. It informed her that her husband was sleeping with whores, many of whom were being treated for STIs. She wasn’t giving up, and Moira would be back in a few days.

He stood at the window and looked at the little parks across the way. Footpaths allowed members of the public to walk through the gardens, though they were owned by householders on this side of Mersey View. His patch was a simple lawn with rose beds in it. Moira loved roses. He would have to do something, because anything addressed to Moira was given to her by Shirley. And he wasn’t always available when the post came, since employees of the Royal Mail seemed to adhere to no strict timetable these days.

Murder was a subject about which he had seldom thought. He’d treated a killer, a pleasant man who had eventually been arrested and found guilty of shooting his wife and her lover. On the day of the crime, Richard had sedated the distraught culprit, just an ordinary bloke who had snapped after pretending to find his wife covered in blood.

‘And I snapped over a bit of dog muck.’ No. He had snapped because his poor, sick wife had become a target. She could have just months left. If she got pneumonia again, it could well be weeks. And he would not allow those weeks to become infected by a disorder named Lexi Phillips.

He finished his task, stating that in his opinion she needed a doctor on her doorstep in case the depression grew worse. In his bag, he often carried insulin against the odd occasion on which one of his patients forgot to take the dose. Hyperglycaemia was dangerous, and a doctor needed to be prepared. For the same reason, he carried chocolate and glucose, since a hypo was no fun either, and elderly patients sometimes had nothing sweet in the cupboards. Insulin could be a killer. For a depressive diabetic, it offered an easy enough exit from life.

He phoned Tom Rice. ‘How’s the ankle? Is it? Good, good. Look, things have gone quiet, so send a bill and I’ll give you a bit extra to compensate for loss of business. What? Yes, I’ll let you know if and when I need you again. Bye.’ There. That was another job done. Richard hadn’t wanted a witness appointed by himself to be at the scene of the crime. What crime? Did he have the stomach for it?

Since taking the oath, he had saved many lives. The acutely ill who could not be made safe by him had been passed on to hospitals, but Richard was an excellent diagnostician. He was also human, and he didn’t like all his patients, but he did his best no matter what the circumstances. There had been a handful of mistakes, and he sometimes kicked himself inwardly after managing not quite well enough. This was a different kettle altogether. To kill, to stop someone taking in oxygen, to look into eyes from which all light had been taken deliberately – that was a horrible idea.

A few years earlier, Richard had attended a teenager who had chosen to die at home in the company of his loved ones. After three runs of chemo, there was little hope, and the brave young man had parked himself and his bed in the dining room of a clean but shabby terraced house. The courage of that intelligent, gentle boy had left a mark on Richard’s heart. His ambition had been to join the RAF as a pilot. But, as those blue eyes had closed for the last time, the doctor had become a third parent, and he had wept with the family. They were believers, and the real father had said, ‘Enjoy your flight to heaven, son.’

Was one life more valuable than another? And who was he to preside as judge? A strong opponent of the death penalty, he often decried southern states in America where locals bayed for blood whenever a murder occurred. In his opinion, they were mad Bible-thumpers who carried on as if they were still in wagon trains surrounded by the indigenous population whose land they planned to steal. They were backward, stupid, ill-educated, and he was thinking of joining their ranks.

Did Lexi have a better side to her nature, one to which he might appeal successfully? Could she be bribed? He knew she wanted to own her house and to furnish it better. But if he were to provide her with the means of achieving that, she might very well continue her campaign, because she was obsessed. He had dealt with obsessive behaviours and had passed them along to specialists who had achieved some degree of success, but Lexi was particularly tenacious and disillusioned. She wanted to be a doctor’s wife, and imagined herself living a different life, one to which she felt she was entitled.

He wasn’t a murderer. He couldn’t do it, could he?

Williamson Square was its usual busy self. Children played in a fountain whose jets rose at unpredictable intervals from the ground, and shrieks of delight turned the place into a playground. Pigeons quarrelled over scraps deposited by humanity’s careless lunch hour, and a couple of attractive young people sat on a bench opposite Liverpool’s Playhouse Theatre.

‘Your name could be up there soon,’ Simon suggested.

‘Yes, and you’ll be in London taking advantage of some poor young nurse while I’m at a safe distance.’

‘No I won’t.’

‘Yes, you will.’

‘See?’ he said. ‘We’re already practising for pantomime.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We have to do it. We have to go and tell Dad. We’ve had a lovely tapas lunch, enough coffee to give us both strokes, and now you want to go to the Albert Dock.’

‘I’ve never seen the Albert Dock.’

He shrugged. ‘Just think water, old bricks, and new shops selling silk scarves and prints of both cathedrals. It’ll still be there tomorrow. As for the ferry across to Birkenhead, we can take that any time. You’re procrastinating in a public place. You could get arrested for breach of the peace or behaviour likely to result in a disturbance.’

She delivered a withering glance. ‘He’s your father.’

‘And your father-in-law. We’re in this together, Rocko.’

‘Who the hell’s Rocko?’

Simon sighed. ‘I was being a Chicago gangster.’

‘Don’t give up the day job. Come on, then.’ She looked down at herself. ‘I should have worn something more . . . demure.’

‘Wrong.’ He pulled her to her feet. ‘He appreciates a fit maud.’

Lizzie didn’t need an explanation. Fortunately, nobody had been lumbered with Maud as a forename for about a hundred years. ‘I know he fancies my mother, and he frightens me to death. He’s almost lecherous.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘Do you love me?’

‘Absolutely, unquestionably and for always.’

‘Do you trust me?’

‘See above – same answer. You’re not just my lover, sweetie, you’re my best friend in the world. I just can’t stand your dad. Your mum I could eat on toast – I love her to bits.’

So he set out to explain his father. He asked how Lizzie would feel if sex just stopped, how she might react if she had to change nappies on an adult, the very man to whom she was married. ‘It was never a fragile marriage, darling. He’s not young, but not old enough to give up on life. We’re animals, Eliza. The saintly man who’s with your mother is unusual, but Dad isn’t. He adores Mum, yet he’s staring down a long, dark corridor called loneliness. Sex helps to switch on the lights for a brief period. My mother understands that.’

Lizzie sat down again and looked at a man with a little stall. He was selling tea towels, tablecloths and other items of linen. Behind him, a woman berated her child, while two teenage girls giggled, heads together, as they shared a private joke. A drunk sat on the ground, a precious bottle clutched to his chest.

Two policemen dashed across the square in pursuit of nothing at all. They ground to a halt, spoke to the mother of the naughty child, then to the man selling household fabrics. Heads shook, and the cops gave up chasing the invisible, settling instead for the drunk, as he was the only piece of culpable humanity on the scene. ‘The whole of life in one little square,’ Lizzie commented. ‘Come on, then. Into the lions’ den.’

They drove up the dock road, Lizzie exclaiming over the beauty of stone walls punctuated by little turrets. Narrow-gauge railway lines crossed their route, and Simon tried to illustrate the history of the area. ‘Men queued ten deep for jobs. Starving kids chased wagons for a handful of molasses, and more than a few were run over and killed. It’s been a cruel place, yet it managed to be glorious. It will be again, once the big liners start to dock here. Liverpool’s coming back to life.’

‘Built on the blood of slaves,’ Lizzie said.

‘Yes. I think the first ship sailed in 1699. The Liverpool Merchant picked up over two hundred Africans and deposited them in Barbados. It’s regrettable, yet it happened and carried on happening. But we can’t always pay for the sins of our forebears.’

‘Slaves picked the cotton we spun in Bolton. We’re all guilty.’

‘Yes, we are. Just blame London – I always do. The money men invented the system, while we poor, ragged northerners endured the industrial revolution on their behalf.’

Lizzie looked at him. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Not at all. Although if in doubt blame London is a pretty sound principle.’

‘But you love London.’

‘I love you, and you aren’t all good. If I told your mother what you did last night while I was sitting so innocently . . .’

They both started to laugh. Lizzie could hear the edge of hysteria in the noise she was making, and she hoped that her new husband wasn’t noticing. She knew that he, too, was afraid, but for a different reason. His father was a one hundred per cent northerner. In his mind, Simon had grown up in the north, had been educated by taxpayers in the north, and should practise in the north.

‘He’ll hit the roof,’ she said.

‘Let him. He can probably fly, anyway. Worshipped by so many, he has to be superhuman.’

The rest of the journey was made in silence. Lizzie wished with all her heart that Mums could have been here. She’d always been the anchorman, the roots of the family, the one to whom everyone turned when things looked grim. Except for Dad, of course. He’d never turned to anyone. And where was he, anyway? Another bloody disappearing act by the famous Alan Henshaw. Was he alive, dead, or somewhere in between? Fathers were a damned nuisance.

Simon parked the car. Lizzie, holding on to the thought that fathers were pests, leapt from the vehicle, across the pavement, up steps and into the house. He was reading a newspaper. ‘Hello,’ he said, eyes travelling from her face to her bosom.

‘We’re married,’ she gabbled. ‘We married at Waterloo register office last Wednesday, and I love him. I’ll always love him. And he loves me, and he’s coming to London and working at Guy’s.’

Richard laughed. He was still laughing when his son entered the room.

‘Dad?’

‘She’s a character, son,’ Richard pronounced. ‘How old are you, Lizzie?’

‘Twenty-one in January.’

‘Moira was about that age when we married.’ He folded the newspaper. ‘Hang on, this calls for a toast.’ He left the scene.

‘How did you manage that?’ Simon whispered.

‘I didn’t. My boobs convinced him.’

‘I told you they were a bit good. Mind you, there’ll have to be some improvements if you want to catch up with your mum.’

The cushion fight was still ongoing when Richard returned with champagne in an ice bucket. ‘How long has this marital strife been happening?’ he asked.

Liz stopped long enough to ask whether Richard knew a good lawyer.

‘It’s her,’ shouted Simon. ‘Last night, I was sitting there minding my own business when this woman here, who is a complete stranger to me, crawled across the floor and—’

He had no chance. Lizzie clouted him in the face with a brown suede cushion. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she screamed. ‘Don’t you bloody dare.’

Richard felt tears pricking. He turned to fetch glasses. ‘Give up, Simon,’ he advised. ‘There’s only ever one winner, and its gender isn’t male.’ He poured the bubbly, raised his flute and drank to bride and groom. Then he passed each of them a full glass, sat down and told them about Moira, how they had met, how beautiful she had been, how wonderfully naughty. ‘She was mad,’ he concluded.

Simon offered his sympathies, saying he knew how that felt.

‘You have no idea, son. Picture the scene. We’re in Scotland, and I’m doing a Queen Mother – waders, rod, walking into the water. So I’ve a keep net with beautiful wild salmon thrashing about in it, and your mother puts them back in the river.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she felt sorry for them. Then we went back to the guest house, and she ordered local salmon for dinner. I could have sold them my catch. I could have been a classic hunter-gatherer getting food for my bride. But no. She thought they were too pretty, so she put them back.’ He shook his head. ‘Never expect sense, Simon.’

‘I’m sensible,’ Lizzie protested.

‘You?’ Simon threw up his hands. ‘The washing up was there for two days till I explained about E. coli.’

‘Are you incapable of doing dishes?’ Richard asked his son. ‘Don’t take her for granted. Don’t assume that there are jobs for men and jobs for women. Now, tell me about Guy’s.’

Lizzie breathed a sigh of relief. When the conversation turned medical, she went next door to visit Smokey. Cats were easier than doctors.

Eleven

Ian Wray, the new gardener, was serving his apprenticeship alongside Hal in four gardens attached to the terrace, and in several of the park gardens on the opposite side of the road. He was happy. Hal was Ian’s preferred kind of old-time gardener, the pay was good, his employers seemed OK, and life was beginning to look up after a long spell without sufficient employment. He registered as a working man, paid his dues, and was no longer dependent on the state, which was fine by him.

But there was something wrong with the doctor whose car he had helped to clean. He seemed edgy, and he was giving shorter than normal shrift to anyone who addressed him. His wife was away with the woman next door, and both houses were being run by a pair of strange creatures named Carol and Dee, because Hal’s wife was busy packing in preparation for the retirement move.

When Ian and Hal went into Lucy’s kitchen to eat sandwiches and drink tea, the subject under discussion was the evil nature of Litherland Lexi, which topic sounded rather Agatha Christie to the new man. So the two gardeners ate lunch and made a hasty exit, because listening to the pair of cleaners was a confusing business, whilst flowers were easy, since they didn’t have a lot to say. ‘Come on,’ Hal whispered. ‘Before we get dragged into whatever this is.’

‘Are they always like that?’ Ian asked after their escape. ‘Those two women, I mean.’

‘No,’ came the swift reply. ‘Sometimes they’re worse, because my Shirley’s with them. When she’s part of the mix, it can get a bit like the three witches at the start of Macbeth. Toil and trouble? You’ve seen nothing so far, lad. Give me a plague of greenfly any day.’

Inside the house, Dee and her mother had reached somewhat of an impasse. Dee was all for keeping her head well below the parapet if and when the bullets began to fly, but her mother wanted to wade in, Marigolds, Doc Martens, drain rods and the lot. ‘She was here again last night,’ the big woman said. ‘Another letter through his door. She doesn’t bother with stamps no more. Hard-faced bugger, she is. And Moira’s coming back any minute. I won’t be here to keep an eye on things during the night. Dog dirt and horrible messages? Whatever next? She’s got to be stopped before she does somebody a real mischief.’

‘Moira comes back Friday.’ Dee was fed up to the back teeth, which were not yet accustomed to their new role, the rearmost four having recently been removed. ‘Sorry, Mam, but I’m having nothing to do with it. I love Moira and Lucy, I do, I really do, but you’re going about this all cack-handed, and you’ll do more harm than good if you’re not careful. It’s none of our business, and that’s the top and bottom.’

Carol remained on track, though her words indicated a diversion. ‘But our Beryl’s in a wheelchair.’

Dee’s jaw dropped for a split second. ‘What’s that got to do with the price of fish?’ Dee rephrased the question, because Beryl loved her salmon and trout when they could be afforded. ‘Mother, listen to me. What’s our Beryl being chairbound got to do with him next door, Litherland Lexi and letters? Eh?’

Carol was thoughtful for a few seconds. ‘Look. If he gets one of them letters in his hand, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And if he has his window wide open, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And if he reads that letter aloud to his wife while Lexi’s outside listening, right?’

‘Wrong, Mam. Because Moira’s with Lucy.’

Carol wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. ‘We don’t need Moira, because we’ve got our Beryl. Lexi’ll see a woman in a wheelchair with its back facing the window. She doesn’t know what Moira looks like, does she?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dee sighed.

‘Well, even if she does know what Moira looks like, the wheelchair will be the wrong way round, and she’ll think it’s Moira. So if Moira – I mean Beryl – laughs out loud at the letter, Lexi likely won’t send no more.’

Dee sat down and lit a hand-rolled cigarette. In her opinion, Lexi would carry on doing this that and the other until the cows came home, or until she found a new victim. If the letters stopped, worse might happen. The woman was crazy, and she could get dafter if she thought her letters were the subject of mockery. ‘Leave it, Mam. For a kick-off, Lexi doesn’t come every night. On top of that, the doctor won’t want our whole family knowing what he’s been up to. And you could drive Lexi all the way to mayhem and murder. You know she’s a bad bugger. So stop it. Learn to keep your nose out. I mean it, Mam.’

Carol stared hard at her daughter. Dee was thin, frail-looking, and as strong as a horse. She was also clever and streetwise. ‘I suppose you’re right,’ she admitted with reluctance. ‘But I even feel a bit sorry for him, and you know he’s not my flavour of the month. I mean, we know Lexi, so we expect her to be bad. He’s not used to her type of carryings-on. I know he’s done wrong, but she’s wronger. She’s wronger than anyone I know.’

‘But we’re leaving it, Mother.’

‘Poor Moira.’

‘Mother!’

Mother. That word was a sure sign that Dee was serious. They had to carry on working here, because the van was at death’s door, and these two houses together would be convenient. Also, Lucy wanted someone to run the business from time to time, so the fortunes of the Makin/Baxendale clan looked promising, as long as they kept their noses clean. It was tempting, though. Carol would have dearly loved to get Lexi’s face and push it through the old mangle in the back yard. Along with dolly tub and zinc bath, the geriatric wringer served now as decoration, its top and base covered by greenery and flowers. Lexi wasn’t worth the spoiling of so beloved an article. ‘She wants killing. We should get the health department in to shift her, because she’s vermin.’

Dee stood up and grabbed her tickling stick. She waved it under her mother’s nose. ‘See this? We clean houses, Mam. Let priests, doctors and police deal with the rest, because it’s none of our business. Who do you think we are? MI5? Sometimes, we just have to accept that we can’t do nothing, and this is one of them times.’

‘And they passed by on the other side? Remember that one, Dee?’

‘I do. Good Samaritan. If somebody was lying here battered and bleeding we’d do something about it, because we’re decent people. But this lot’s different. You can make it worse by wading in. So stop paddling and piddle off.’

Carol laughed. Dee was definitely her daughter. ‘All right, babe. But I’ll not stop worrying over that poor Moira.’

That poor Moira was having the time of her life. It all felt like a fairytale: a tiny house, woods, country lanes and rides out in the van. She’d been to Lancashire markets, to the moors, to Yorkshire, but today the world was coming to her. ‘So this woman who’s giving us a bit of glamour was your husband’s girlfriend?’

‘That’s right. He even took her away to Crete not too long ago. She was just the latest in a long string of mistresses.’

‘And you’re not bothered?’

‘Not in the least bit. In fact, she’s been extremely helpful, because she found the disappearing man for me. And now she’s going to make us beautiful.’

Moira looked into a hand-held mirror. ‘Does she do remoulds? Because my tyres seem to have lost a fair bit of their original tread. In fact, I could do with a whole new body. Does she bring a selection? I kid you not, Lucy, if I were a car, you’d keep the number plate and fasten a new vehicle behind it.’

Lucy had learned to laugh at her companion. Some of the statements from Moira might appear to elicit sympathy, but now that Lucy knew her neighbour better, she realized that Moira was just being Moira. ‘We’ve a ramp in the main garage,’ she said helpfully. ‘Mags could jack you up on it, and she could have a good look at your undercarriage. New exhaust, better suspension – who knows?’

‘I’d do better with a catalytic converter and without my husband. I think I’ve gone off him for good this time. He’s getting on my bloody nerves, and I don’t know what to do about him.’

Lucy refused to rise to that one. Having phoned Carol on several occasions, she had endured an earful of Litherland Lexi, dog muck and nasty letters, but she hadn’t said a word to Moira. Richard would have to do the honours. His wife already suspected that he’d used the services of a prostitute, but Richard had to say the words. Until he unburdened himself, Moira would probably remain angry with him. But there was one thing Lucy could say, and she said it. ‘Just before we came here, he told me he wanted to tell you something, but that you were too ill. Remember? You came over all shake, rattle and roll. That was when he started attacking the car and setting fire to rubbish in the back garden. Has he phoned you recently?’

‘Yes.’

‘And did he discuss anything apart from Simon and Lizzie’s marriage?’

‘No.’

It was hopeless. Lucy would have to wait until they were back in Liverpool. But it was all building up inside her, and she needed to stay calm. The urge to batter Richard and to put a stop to the poster of packages and letters made her angry, and anger was an emotion she had sat on for some considerable time. Tomorrow she was to face the widow of Howard Styles, because a parasitic plant had fastened itself to the woman, and Lucy knew how hungry that creeper could get.

Meanwhile, David was getting . . . not exactly desperate, but keen. He was doing things to his house, and Lucy knew that he was doing those things for her. But she had to be one hundred per cent sure of his readiness. The man could employ cleaners, buy new furniture, get his gardens landscaped, but that was all mayonnaise. For almost a decade, he had mourned a wife and a son; for less than three months, he had moved in the direction of Louisa Buckley, a child he remembered and looked back at through rose-tinted lenses. He was a big, strong, beautiful man, but he was vulnerable. ‘As am I,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ Moira was still looking in the mirror and was clearly displeased with what she saw.

‘Nothing. I was just trying to remember the lyrics of a song.’

Moira studied her friend. ‘You worry too much. And you’ve nothing to worry about. Look in the mirror – you don’t need a facelift. I need an everything lift. When are you going to put poor David out of his misery?’

‘Don’t you start. It’s complicated.’

Moira clicked her tongue. ‘Rubbish. Unless you intend to work your way through the Kama Sutra, it’s simple. You just—’

‘Stop being obtuse, love. You know what I mean. He’s still a bit up and down, and—’

‘There you go, then.’

Both women burst out laughing. This was almost a repetition of last night’s discussion, the body of which had been embedded in the vulgarity of women when no men were present. Lucy pulled herself together. ‘He blames himself for not getting Anne’s car checked – he carries a huge weight of guilt.’

‘And for the boy,’ Moira added. ‘Going to India like he did, he’s bound to feel awful. But Lucy, he’s so happy in your company. His love for you will save him, so just get on with it. You are the cure. He needs you, babe. Also, he’s one of the best men I ever met in my whole life.’

‘I know. He’s so special that I can’t believe my luck. I could well turn out to be a disappointment, Moira. I’m no seasoned athlete when it comes to sex.’

Moira shook her head slowly.

‘Well I’m not!’

‘Neither is he,’ Moira declared. ‘Just love him. Just get into bed and hold him and let things happen. Whatever you do, don’t let him slip through your fingers.’ Once again, both women dissolved into laughter that was near-hysterical.

Moira’s turn of phrase might be accidental. On the other hand . . . Lucy doubled over. Even thinking ‘on the other hand’ was torture, since she knew that if she repeated those words, last night’s conversation would begin all over again, and at full volume. Moira Turner had clearly led an interesting and full life before multiple sclerosis had claimed her. She stuck rigidly to her opinion that men were amateurs in the field of vulgarity, and that a roomful of women left to itself became a hotbed of sexual allusions. ‘The men tell the jokes,’ Moira had said. ‘The women live the bloody jokes, because they invented them in the first place. We’re the ones who see the opposite sex in baggy Y-fronts and socks . . .’

‘Straighten your face,’ Moira ordered now. ‘You want to think less and act more before he gets fed up with waiting.’ She sniffed. ‘Daft cow.’

Mags arrived. She ‘coo-eed’ before opening the door. ‘Are we decent? Oh, and I’ve driven my car all over your lawn, Lucy.’ She hauled in some bags. ‘Instruments of torture. And you must be Moira. MS, isn’t it?’

Moira nodded.

‘My Auntie Jessie had that,’ Mags said. ‘Went to Lourdes with some nuns in a big bus.’

‘Cured?’ Moira asked.

Mags shook her head. ‘No, but when they got her out of the water, her wheelchair had come up lovely – new tyres and a complete respray.’

Moira laughed. ‘She’ll do,’ she told Lucy. ‘Mad as a box of frogs, and the old jokes remain the best.’

They were both subjected to facials, Indian head massage, manicures and pedicures, and new hairstyles were to be next on the agenda. Mags was merciless. Lucy found herself staring at the floor on which her tresses were spread. ‘But I’m not sure—’

‘Shut up and be grateful,’ said Mags with mock severity. ‘I’m taking ten years off you.’

‘Oh, she is,’ Moira agreed. ‘When you see it, you’ll drop dead ten years before your time.’ She turned her attention to the beautician. ‘What style do you call that?’ she asked.

‘My own. It’s called Cause Célèbre, though I can’t say it properly. Every applicant for the Styles job had to invent a hairdo. It was a bit scary, because I was in Paris, and they were all jabbering away, but there were a few other English stylists there and they helped me out a bit with the language. I won. I got the cordon rouge et blanc – striped like an old-time barber’s pole – a trip down the Seine with Monsieur Charles, lovely dinner on the boat with champagne and all that, and a visit to somewhere called Versales.’

‘Versailles?’ suggested Lucy.

‘That’s the chap. Dead boring, just a load of old furniture and beds. But best of all, I won a week observing at Tête à Tête. And now, I get Styles.’

‘What’s it like?’ Lucy asked.

Mags, who certainly proved herself to have an eye for detail, launched into her current favourite subject. She described marble columns, sweeping staircases, minstrels’ gallery, swimming pool, rooms for treatments, grounds into which Monsieur intended to extend. ‘It’s massive,’ she concluded.

‘And Mrs Styles?’ Lucy asked.

‘Lovely woman. Mind, she sounds a tough cookie when it comes down to business. The firm paid top whack, and I believe she got a house in France as part of the deal. And yes, Lucy. Before you ask, I think he’s still with her. Blackpool, I believe.’

Lucy said nothing. Tomorrow, she and Glenys Barlow were to meet Trish Styles in a coffee shop. Tomorrow, the woman of Alan’s choice would learn the truth, since Lucy’s conscience refused to allow her to let sleeping dogs lie.

‘You’re done, missus.’

‘Am I bald?’

‘Not quite.’

Lucy stood at the mirror and gasped. ‘I love it,’ she cried after close scrutiny. ‘I look – oh, I don’t know how I look, but the hair’s brilliant. You are one talented woman.’

Moira chuckled. ‘Dr David Vincent’s going to get arrested as a paedophile. Isn’t it a bit like the urchin cut, Mags?’

The beautician agreed. ‘But you need a lot of hair to get the height at the crown and the depth at the back. Now, Lucy.’

‘What?’

‘To keep it like that, go to Herbert every three weeks – four at the outside. He’s the only man with staff who’ll be able to keep up with it. Then watch out all over Liverpool, because Cause Célèbre will be popping up just about everywhere.’ She sighed. ‘I’m famous, Moira.’

‘Oooh! Give us your autograph.’

‘I’ll do better than that. See the black bag over there? It’s full of products, and they all come with instructions. Use them regularly, and you’ll both slow down the ageing process.’ She began to tackle Moira’s hair. ‘Bloody hell. I thought Lucy’s was thick, but you could weave a hearthrug out of this lot. What have you been using? Fertilizer?’

‘Yup. I stand in a bucket of horse poo every night.’

While Moira’s hair was work in progress, Lucy went to make tea and put together a few tasty morsels. Mags was a decent woman who seemed to have escaped unscathed after contact with Alan. Would Trish Styles be as lucky? Or would Alan learn her signature and start emptying her bank accounts? The woman had just lost her husband, for goodness’ sake. Yet the other part of Lucy continued to raise its ugly head. She could simply turn away, walk away and stay away. But she wouldn’t. She knew full well that she was unable to leave the recently widowed Trish to the untender mercies of Alan Henshaw.

The back door opened. ‘Louisa?’

Ah, here came the beloved. ‘Hello, sweetheart. I thought you were off to buy clothes.’

He stood and stared. ‘You look terrific.’

‘Ah, the hair.’ She’d forgotten it. ‘Mags is still here. She’s cutting Moira’s hair now. Then she’ll do our makeup.’

‘You don’t need it.’

‘And you’re very sweet.’ All his reticence was leaving him. The fear of getting involved and losing loved ones was drifting away into the past, and Lucy was delighted with him. But there was always something happening. Tomorrow loomed. There was going to be trouble in Moira’s life, too, because some bit of stuff had fallen off Richard’s plate, and it was rotting all over Mersey View.

‘Why do I need clothes? I found loads when the house was being cleaned.’

‘David.’ Lucy sighed. ‘Costume drama is out, dearest. You need decent, casual clothing. Not shabby junk for odd job work, and not a consultant’s pinstripe with tie and white shirt. Moira will sort you out tomorrow while Glenys and I are in the lions’ den. You need a couple of jumpers, long-sleeved tops, T-shirts and trousers – two or three pairs. And no baggy Y-fronts. Don’t ask why,’ she said when he opened his mouth to speak. ‘It’s a joke. One of Moira’s.’

David continued to look at her. Looking at her was one of his greatest pleasures, but he was having a bit of hormonal trouble, the sort of difficulty he had not endured since his teenage years. Louisa Buckley was driving him mad. She was always busy, was usually surrounded by people, and he was getting just a little tired of waiting. ‘I cannot continue like this,’ he said bluntly.

‘Neither can I. But please, don’t expect too much of me. I may not be any good at it. I’m a bit afraid of doing it badly.’

He raised his hands and shrugged. ‘That makes two of us, then. I’m not exactly versed in the art, am I? So. Tomorrow we go to Alderley Edge, and I buy clothes under the instruction of Moira while you try to warn Trish whatever-her-name-is that your husband’s a bad bugger.’

Lucy sighed. ‘Yes, that’s about the size of it.’

‘I could make a vulgar remark at this point, Louisa.’

‘Too late – I already heard it. Moira and I spent yesterday expressing our basest thoughts. She’s one terrible woman. Come here, lover.’

The way he held her was different, as the fear had gone. His hands roamed, and the kisses were hungry. Lucy was no longer walking on eggshells, because this lovely man had finally put away thoughts of loss.

‘I’m the love of your second life. It will be soon, I promise. And it doesn’t have to be at Tallows, or at your house, or in Liverpool. It’ll happen wherever it happens.’

‘Louisa?’

‘Yes?’

‘How did we spend that night together without making love?’

‘I shall never know the answer to that. Probably because my boys were in the house, and possibly because we weren’t quite ready.’ She returned to the task of making tea. His eyes were boring into her back. Whatever, wherever, it had to be soon. And why should anyone else matter? Why should she continue prim and proper because her sons and her daughter were in the house? ‘Stay with me tomorrow night,’ she suggested.

‘But aren’t Lizzie and Simon there?’

‘Yes. As are Mike and Paul. In a couple of weeks, there will be bed-and-breakfasters, but so what? We’re beyond the age of consent, we’re free people – well, I suppose I am technically married, but to hell with it. Hal put a bolt on my bedroom door, so while people can get from the hall into the kitchen, and from there into the body of my flat, they can’t enter our room.’

Our room. He liked the sound of that. ‘Carol and Dee?’ he asked.

‘Are adults. They are also employees, and they’ve been running a book.’

‘A book on us?’

She laughed at him. ‘They’re now taking bets on the month of our marriage. I got Moira to put fifty quid of my money on December. That should pay for a short honeymoon, then we can have a proper one next summer.’

His grin widened. ‘Is this you managing me again?’

‘Of course.’ She picked up her tray. ‘I make all the minor decisions, but I’ll leave the more important ones to you. Like opening this door for me now so that I can carry the food through.’

He opened the door. She was a minx, and she would continue in the same vein. His Louisa was adorable. But he was determined to smack that bottom, because she deserved chastisement.

Sometimes, Alan felt as if he’d never had the surgery, because the pain in his heart had returned. He was unable to treat it, since his drug of choice was no longer available to him. The resulting introspection was not pleasant, as he was becoming only too well aware of his sins, and depression began to hang over him like a black, rain-bearing cloud. The pain in his heart was not physical; it was the weight of past misdemeanours for which he could never atone and, on top of all that, he seemed to be experiencing genuine affection for Trish.

Did he love her because she was the right woman for him? Or did he love her for volunteering to get him out of severe financial trouble? Tomorrow, the money would begin its travels. Tomorrow, Trish would meet Glenys, who had disguised her name. He dared not ask whether the transfer of funds was going to be swift and electronic, or slowed to a near-stop by the advent of the weekend. Nor did he dare to beg Trish not to go tomorrow, as she would want to know why, and he couldn’t tell her. Had he been able or willing to drink, none of this would have bothered him. The small, niggling details of life had never been obscured by alcohol, but the bigger picture had been for ever rosy or forgettable.

Strangely, after a brief period of impatience, he had grown used to Trish, to dancing, to crown green bowling, donkeys and bingo. She was a good cook, a gentle soul, and she twittered on happily all day like a budgie in a cage. There was comfort in her endless chatter, encouragement in her sunny optimism, security in the certainty that in Blackpool, at least, the days had a pattern.

But they weren’t in Blackpool any more. No longer impressed by the sheer size of Styles, he heard the electronic gates closing behind him and felt that he was imprisoned. Trish was no longer his jailer. This was confinement of his own making. He could blame no one for his situation, because he was its sole architect. There was only one option open to him, but the thought of laying bare his soul, and seeing the disappointment in Trish’s face, horrified him. He was a coward. On top of everything else, he was a yellow-belly.

‘You get to the doctor in the morning. He was pleased with you last time, but I think you’re getting a bit of post-operative depression. I found it on the inter-web. It says you’re always excited when the surgery’s over with, but that a descent into negativism is not uncommon. You’ve descended.’

He had. She was right enough, but this had nothing to do with his open-heart procedure. He was going to be alone, homeless and, as there was nowhere else to go, dependent on Lucy. And on the prison service . . . ‘I’m not a good man,’ he announced quietly.

Trish stood at the kitchen island, rolling pin held aloft. ‘There’s none of us perfect.’

‘I’ve been dishonest in my time.’

She placed her weapon on the work surface. ‘Alan, do you think my Howie got as far as he did by telling all the truth all the time? I mean, he never stole directly, but he didn’t drop his prices when he bought in bulk. To win, he had to be wise, and to be wise, he was forced to be cunning.’

Alan dropped on to the kitchen sofa. ‘I feel better in Blackpool, love.’

‘Aye, well, I dare say we both do. I just have to see this lawyer woman tomorrow, then we’ll go back. Glad you’re settled there, because this place is all but sold. The main thing is to stop you going to jail. You owe money to the biggest building society in the country.’

This was torture. Trish had been nurse, cook, friend and supporter since the day he had escaped from Easterly Grange – she had even organized his exit from the place. After so many weeks in his own room, he had become slightly stir-crazy, and had not appreciated her attempts to help him on the road to recovery. She had fussed and mothered like a clucky hen until he had been tempted to throw food at her, but . . . but she was a good woman, and she meant to save him from real prison, from a long sentence for fraud. Would Glenys prevent Trish from carrying out her promise? ‘I wronged my family,’ he said hesitantly. ‘My wife I treated with contempt. I have two sons I don’t know, and a daughter I loved until she outgrew me. They’ll be getting on with life, glad to be rid of me, all of them.’

‘Alan?’ She stood still, hands covered in flour, pastry spread before her waiting to line a dish. ‘Alan?’

He smiled at her. She was what his father might have termed a grand lass, since she was loyal and faithful. ‘You’ve been a treasure,’ he told her. ‘I’m going for a bit of a walk. They told me to get plenty of gentle exercise.’ He left her standing there, hands floury, pastry still waiting to line the same dish.

Alan had developed a strangely comforting relationship with Damien, the llama from hell. Damien no longer spat at him, which was just as well, since llama spit was more than spit – it was stomach contents. He hand-fed the animal with kitchen scraps before stroking the woolly neck. ‘I’d be better off dead. They’d all do very well without me.’

Damien continued to chew in that strange, side-to-side way, grinding the food for minutes before attempting to swallow.

‘I’ve got the rope, and I’ve found a strong enough tree. You see, Damien, I could be locked up by this time tomorrow. They’ll tell her everything I’ve done, and Trish will leave me to it. Hiding away won’t be easy, because I’ve nowhere to go.’ He swallowed. ‘Except to Lucy. And the Halifax will soon find her. I’m finished, lad.’ Could he use that rope? Could he hell.

He walked back to the house. Trish was twittering, but he explained that he was tired and going up to bed. She berated him for not eating, but he simply switched off and didn’t hear any more. There was nothing he could do, because his number was finally up. No matter what Trish said now, she probably wouldn’t speak to him at all tomorrow.

His dreams were populated by loud men, slamming doors and the quiet voice of Lucy. ‘Guilty,’ she whispered again and again.

‘Wake up!’ Trish was shaking him. ‘You must be having some terrible dreams, Alan.’

‘Yes, I was.’

‘It’ll be this post-operative depression again,’ she said. ‘Stop worrying. Tomorrow, you won’t be a bankrupt any more, and we’ll find a business to buy into. It’s nearly over now, love.’

She was right, of course. It was all over bar the shouting.

Lexi had been a bit hacked off. All the drama had gone out of her life, and she was fed up with Mersey View and its crackpot residents. Just one more thing to be done, and she’d be out of there. It was going to be bright, colourful and difficult to forget, so it would suffice as her swan song. Purple. Yes, that was her signature colour, and it should do very nicely.

Greasy Bleasdale had found out what she’d been doing on the work computer. Because of that, he wanted her to make herself available as and when he needed something to rub up against. But Lexi had her standards, and servicing a sweaty bastard across his desk or in the men’s loo after the shop had closed was definitely outside the terms of her contract with the supermarket chain. And things were getting worse. When she was shelf-stacking, he often crept up behind her to cop a feel. Again, she found this behaviour unacceptable.

She’d been stuck in the back room yesterday cutting cooked and cured meats, and he’d had a go. If she’d been quick enough, she might have grabbed his member and introduced it to the bacon slicer. It would have been a brief acquaintance, but she would have enjoyed every second of it. However, prison for separating a filthy swine from his closest friend was not a good idea. But she had to get out of the job.

And she might just do that, because Tom Rice, the guy with the limp, was interested in her. She’d had to come clean about her past, because he was after her street-wisdom, her knowledge of working girls and their clients. It was something to do with his job, but she wasn’t sure what he did. He’d told her she needed to dress more quietly, and she’d be answering phones for some of the time.

Finally, he phoned and told her the truth. He was a private detective, had been a policeman, knew her history, and wanted a bright, intelligent woman in her thirties to help him. ‘I can only be in one place at a time,’ he said. ‘So whoever gets the job will be split between office and overspill.’

‘Overspill?’

‘When I’ve trained an assistant, he or she will get the cases I’ve no time for.’ He gave her his address. ‘Wednesday, four o’clock, interview. OK?’

OK? It was bloody marvellous. ‘Shall I give my notice in at work?’ she asked.

‘Not yet. I’ve three others to see. Pretend to have a dental appointment on Wednesday, and we’ll take it from there.’

She was excited. She’d be able to disguise herself, buy wigs and posher clothes. Would she get an allowance for clothing? Should she phone him and ask? No. He liked her. He knew all about her past, and he still liked her. And, when it came to finding out stuff about folk, she was A1. Greasy Bleasdale would soon become history.

Richard turned off his mobile phone, since he needed no noisy interruptions. Concentration was necessary. Tonight, he had to focus totally on his dilemma, and on his plan to remedy it.

Without Moira, the house had no soul. Without Moira, he had no soul. The creature from Litherland was continuing in her efforts to discredit him, and his wife would be back tomorrow. He’d promised that he would never use a prostitute, but he had failed to keep his word. Yes, he’d taken up with a supermarket check-out girl and yes, he had been careless, but he hadn’t been aware of Lexi’s past. ‘Someone with a bit of education,’ Moira had always said. ‘Someone who knows about my condition.’ Latterly, she had even sought a life companion who might take the job of wife after Moira’s . . . He couldn’t bear to think the word.

He patted his pockets, thereby reminding himself of Dr David Vincent, saint, protector of sick children, creator of a famous charity, lover of the only other woman Richard truly wanted. The phone was on vibrate only, the stuff he needed was distributed evenly throughout coat and trouser pockets, and it was now or never.

Murder was not to be undertaken lightly. Murder dressed as suicide was even more difficult. Self-disposal was something Moira contemplated almost daily, and he didn’t want the woman he had married to be pushed over the edge by a tart. Lexi’s behaviour was not improving. She didn’t know that Moira was away, so she would believe by now that her letters had resulted in no reaction from either of the Turners, and her campaign might well intensify. Why hadn’t he come clean? Why hadn’t he explained to Moira that he had made a huge mistake?

And why, why, why was he even contemplating this dreadful deed? Wasn’t it rather like taking a neutron bomb to finish off a bluebottle? He could tell Moira – albeit rather late in the day – what she probably knew already, then everything would slowly get back to normal. Except . . . he swallowed. No. Not normal.

The notes. He had photocopied the lot before passing them on to Lexi’s latest doctor, and he had read them all. The woman had been treated for minor burns in 1978. Her scars had healed, but people in the next house had perished. Diabetes type one had been diagnosed within months, and an endocrinologist had commented in writing that the shock of the fire might have contributed to the child’s worsening health. She had gone for counselling, but had been unable to speak about the fire. Had a five-year-old child killed her neighbours? Would she kill him and Moira?

He walked to the window. The girls had returned to Edinburgh for some daft half-marathon involving hospital beds, an old ambulance and a dozen or so off-duty fire fighters. According to Alice, the proceeds were to go towards putting the prof of Anatomy and Physiology out of everyone’s misery once they could find a vet willing to do it. In spite of his misery, Richard smiled as he remembered some of the giddiness displayed by himself and Moira while cavorting with a crowd along the Royal Mile on rag days.

Simon, currently resident next door with his stunning bride, would be deserting the north. Richard was alone. This was how it would be when Moira was no longer attached to the mortal coil. His daughters, both beautiful women, would go wherever their chosen specialty took them, though he had hopes for Steph, since she seemed to be veering towards neurology, and Liverpool was the centre of excellence for that discipline. The centre of excellence could not yet cure Moira, but Steph was determined to work in the field that might, one day, come up with decent remedies for multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy and all the other merciless evils that killed people an inch at a time. ‘I can’t do it,’ he told the window.

Looked at in the cold light of day, the situation seemed ridiculous. He had indulged in sexual activity with a woman of ill repute, though she was no longer working as a prostitute. The idiot woman had demanded marriage, and he had lost his temper with her. Dog excrement and letters were no big deal, and he would probably have taken a chance had he not read the notes. Now, he lived in fear of arson, and this was not the cold light of day. This was the dimming light of a September evening, the harbinger of winter. In weeks, clocks would skip back one hour, and out of the safety of shadows might arrive those whose activities required the blackness of night. Muggers, burglars, car thieves and . . . arsonists.

Perhaps Lexi had played with matches. Perhaps one of her siblings had set fire to the house next door, but he could not erase the notes from his mind. She had been traumatized and reduced to silence. There again, she could have been riding close to hyperglycaemia, but he could not be sure.

The suicide note was written, and he had handled it only with surgical gloves. In his pockets sat more gloves, a syringe, a sharp in a closed plastic carton. The insulin was of the type she used, and he just had to give her an overdose, plant her prints on paper and syringe, and leave the scene. Moira would be safe. ‘Will I be safe? Will I be able to live with this?’ he whispered.

All doctors did a module on psychology. It was useful, as it provided some insight into the workings of the mind, and such knowledge was necessary for a practitioner who dealt with a broad spectrum of human behaviours. Even now, he remembered the lectures on psychopathic disorders. Murderers were special. They had an extra bit of wiring, a circuit that bypassed the usual path along which thought and emotion travelled. Serial killers were amazing, because they had no fuse box, no safety valve that might cut off when the brain went into overdrive. They felt nothing, had no sympathy, no empathy, no love in them.

‘I’m no killer. I have love.’ He also had a package from the local DIY store.

After replacing the insulin in the surgery refrigerator, he put away gloves and sharp, placed the suicide note in the shredder and found a screwdriver. In every room and on every landing he fixed a smoke alarm. If anyone asked why he had bought so many, the reply sat in readiness on the tip of his tongue. His wife could no longer walk any distance, so the household needed to be guarded properly against the danger of fire.

He rolled up his sleeves and finished off work he had started earlier. Outside, he fixed a light that made night into day if and when anyone approached the front door. Let her come. Moira would forgive him. Moira always forgave him.

During their last evening together in the shed, Moira opened up. She talked about early symptoms, double vision, knees that became disobedient, face pain misdiagnosed as neuralgia, total exhaustion, scans and other tests that finally told the truth. ‘He was in a state worse than mine. He closed the surgery on Liverpool Road, moved his work into the house, and started reading. There’s not much he doesn’t know about MS. Underneath the terrible jokes and the manufactured courage, there’s a dreadful fury. He’s angry not with me, but with my illness and with God. The fact that he can do little or nothing to help makes matters worse.’

Lucy stared down into her glass of burgundy. ‘What’s the big deal at the moment, Moira? Because I think he’s on track for some kind of nervous collapse.’

‘Do you?’

Lucy raised her head. ‘I feel as if I know him, you see.

There is an attraction between us, and he’s one of the men I might have loved. Not like David, not a meeting of minds and all the other rubbish that goes with true love. And Richard gets on my nerves, annoys me a lot. But he’s in trouble.’

‘It’s of his own making,’

‘He goes elsewhere for sex.’

‘Yes.’

‘And he confesses his sins to you, because that’s your role in his life now. You’re his mother confessor. You’re his counsellor, psychologist, whatever. The fact is that you have been complicit in his misdeeds.’

‘That’s right.’

‘You even briefed him to choose from the intelligentsia, the better educated, the cream.’ She would say it now. ‘Because you’re a snob, Moira.’ That should do it; that should release some of the anger.

‘Bollocks.’ Two spots of colour appeared on pale cheeks. ‘I want him to find a wife or a good partner, someone who’ll look after him. My illness is life-limiting, and I—’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why control him? He’s old enough to make his own choices.’

‘And daft enough to make the wrong ones.’

‘So? Let him pay the price. It’s his problem and his privilege.’

‘That . . . article hanging round Mersey View is a well-known prostitute.’

‘She’s supermarket staff. Once upon a time, she worked the streets, and she’s a bit of an Amazon when it comes to war. Like Carol, Dee and Shirley, she stands her ground.’ Lucy made no mention of dog dirt and letters. But she had a plan.

When Moira was in bed and all dishes were washed, Lucy took herself and her phone outside. For about half an hour, she sat on a swing and wondered whether she was doing the right thing. Then she decided that she didn’t want to get anyone out of bed to answer the phone, and she pressed the buttons before it got too late. ‘Richard? Yes, ’tis I.’

‘Is Moira all right?’ were his first words. No matter what, no matter who, where or why, he would always love his wife, and Lucy knew that.

‘She’s not bad. Eating solids, walking to the bathroom, needs a bit of help when she gets there. Oh, and she’s speaking English – none of that mixed-up stuff. She’s happy here.’

‘Away from me.’

‘Not at all. Richard, can you get cover for a few days?’

He blustered for several seconds before asking for her reasons.

‘She’s happy here. I’d like her to be happy with you here. Just for a few days. Talk to her in an unfamiliar but pleasant setting. As you well know, this illness of hers affects her emotions, her immune system, and all bodily functions. Sometimes, a new environment can make a difference.’

And it poured from him. Although Lucy knew some of it courtesy of Carol and Dee, she made no attempt to interrupt. As she heard the increasing desperation in his voice, she wanted to offer comfort, but she held herself in check. The bloody woman was possibly capable of arson, though he wasn’t sure, and he was breaking the rule of patient confidentiality by passing on information he had gained from notes. There were now fourteen smoke alarms in the house, while the outside had been fitted with a single light that used enough electricity to power Blackpool during the illuminations season.

‘Richard, why didn’t you tell me before?’ No reply came. ‘Richard?’

‘Because I love you, damn it all.’

‘And you love Moira.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then get a locum. She needs you. She needs you enough to want to hear from your lips all you have just said to me.’

‘It’ll make her ill, Lucy.’

‘And this silence, this distance between you will make her well?’

He delivered the rest of it, serving up a recipe whose components included surgical gloves, insulin, syringe and needle. ‘I can’t do it.’

‘Of course you couldn’t do it. Richard, I’m not a medic. I’m just a nurse who hasn’t practised for years. But I can tell you’re en route for a breakdown, because you’d never have considered murder if you were well. Get a locum, get the hell out of there, and come to Tallows by four tomorrow afternoon.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. Leave butting to the goats. If you love this wonderful woman, do as I ask.’

‘And if Lexi comes here while I’m away?’

‘I’ll be there. Set a thief to catch a thief, and a woman to catch a woman. If I need muscle, I’ll have my sons and David.’ She thought about what she had just said. ‘I’ll have Mike and Paul. David can be the referee.’

He cleared his throat. ‘If David hadn’t come along, you and I—’

‘If’s a big word, Richard. If only’s the story of my life. I’ll see you tomorrow. Four o’clock, behind the house called Tallows.’

Lucy sat for a while after the call had ended. She fastened her cardigan, because the evening air was cool. All around her, leaves were curling and crisping in accordance with the rules of Mother Nature. Soon, they would fall in soft whispers all over the grass, geese would skein their way across the sky, and the earth would lie dormant for five months. The price of beauty was the yearly sight of its death. But it wasn’t death. It was sleep.

Her own winter had lasted for almost twenty years. Marriage to Alan had meant silence, shadows, the loss of self. Even in sunshine, she had felt the chill, and she had stopped looking for rainbows. She remembered that first sight of the river when she had bought the Liverpool house on the spot for cash. It was home. Well, it was one of her homes. Because she and David would have three between them, and that was good. But there had been a rainbow over the Mersey on the day she had taken Stoneyhurst. She had bought a rainbow.

Poor Richard. He was probably right. Had David not happened along, she would probably have become one of his sacrifices. Moira had endured because she filled one of his many needs – she was his mother. But he was mercurial, and sexual partners were dispensable, replaceable. David was a for ever man; he was also the other half of her.

As if on cue, her phone rang. He wanted to say good night from his lonely bed. He was absolutely bogged off about sleeping on his own. Why couldn’t he come to the shed, because he knew how to be quiet, and what time did she need him in the morning for Alderley Edge, and was Glenys going in her own car? And why was Louisa laughing at him?

‘You’re lovely,’ she said. ‘I worked out that we’ll have three homes when we marry – mine, yours and Tallows.’

He snorted. ‘And I’ll lay odds that we’ll never be in the same place at the same time. You are avoiding me.’

‘I’m not. It’s just that stuff keeps happening.’

He sighed in an exaggerated fashion. ‘And will stuff happen tomorrow?’

She thought about that. ‘Possibly. We’re setting a trap. I’ll tell you about it after you’ve bought some decent clothes – bring a fortune, because it’s Alderley Edge – and after I’ve sorted out my husband.’

A pause ensued. ‘Are you creating these circumstances, madam?’

‘No. I just seem to get dragged in.’

‘You will be bloody dragged in when I get hold of you, lady. This is getting ridiculous now. Am I using the wrong deodorant? Would you like me to book myself in for a facelift and body waxing?’

‘No. Come as you are.’ She doubled over with laughter when he decided to go vulgar. Bodily fluids, body parts and ancient curses were thrown into the arena. Then he got silly. He had never been kept in suspenders for so long, nor had he been so consulted. This was the one. This was the lunatic she’d always needed.

Life without drink was different. Until recently, it had been pleasurable, as if some deity had tested Alan’s eyes and given him a pair of good spectacles. Trish was an excellent woman, and even line-dancing was almost fun. He had been in danger of becoming content, and contentment was worth more than happiness, which was a fleeting emotion that was incapable of enduring.

But at this moment in time, Alan needed whisky. He would have sold his soul for a double, his body for a full bottle. And that was the price, of course. If he drank again, he’d be in a box within months. After tomorrow, he could well be in a jail cell, a prisoner of his own past misdemeanours. He couldn’t wipe the slate clean, couldn’t stop tomorrow happening. But he could absent himself . . .

Darkness threatened. The nights were drawing in, and this one might be his last. He threw the rope over a thick bough. Albert Pierrepoint was never around when he was needed, was he? The famous hangman had been renowned for his attention to detail, the carefully planned quick deaths he had provided. Alan would strangle, and it would be slow.

The old garden chair was in place, the rope was ready, and no gardeners came on Friday. Now, he had to go in for cocoa. Tomorrow he could choose between death and jail. In truth, he had already made his decision.

Sleep eluded Moira. Lucy had gone outside and was probably talking to David. They had an excellent relationship and a good chance of enduring the trials of marriage. Marriage could be hard work. Richard was high maintenance, and poor Lucy had already been through one difficult partnership, so it was perhaps as well that she had met someone she could trust.

These few days spent in the company of her friend and neighbour had taught Moira that life without a male partner could be fun. She had missed Richard, of course, had felt the lack of his cutting wit and his physical elegance. He was, she supposed, better looking than David, but perhaps she was prejudiced.

This happy little interlude would end tomorrow. She was going home to a damned fool. She loved a damned fool. She, too, was a damned fool. With this pleasing thought in mind, she finally drifted into sleep.

David lay in splendour, and in splendid isolation. The bedroom was the best of all the beautifully decorated rooms. It was the bridal suite, with its own newly installed bathroom, a four-poster bed and amazing furniture. She would love it when she eventually got round to seeing it. He grinned. Louisa, at forty-five, was reliving the thirties she had missed. She was fun. She was naughty, and he adored her silliness.

Money had been no problem, since his income had sat around gaining interest since . . . yes, he could allow that thought. Since the death of his only child, David had needed little. He ate, paid his bills, and studied his way through every spare moment. But he could see his money now, as he had spent a great deal of it to make a home fit for his beloved.

He clasped his hands on the pillow behind his head. Louisa had been wise. Behind the daftness, she housed a very fine brain. She couldn’t compete with the dead, so she had slowed everything down for his sake. Had he been divorced, she might not have hesitated for this length of time. But Anne, a much-loved ghost, had needed to be laid carefully away, and that had taken over a decade.

‘Thank you, Louisa,’ he whispered. ‘Though I still intend to deal with you.’

Richard Turner packed a bag. Having called in a couple of favours, he was now able to travel to Lancashire in order to . . . Lucy was right: he had to tell Moira everything, up to and including his plan to commit murder. She would understand, because she always did. Lucy did, too. Between the two of them, they formed one perfect female companion. Moira spoiled him and made him laugh, while Lucy could have been, should have been . . .

He shivered. Some thoughts were too delicious to merit more than a few seconds. She would be wasted on that medical equivalent of an anorak, the goodly nerd who did a fair imitation of a train-spotter or a devotee of real ale. He was vague, untidy, dull and very annoying. What on earth was she doing with a rollmop herring when there was caviar to be had?

Caviar? She’d been plain enough, had called him selfish, and she was probably right. And he had been out of order lately. Otherwise, how on earth had he managed to contemplate murder? It was time to open his mouth and let the truth out. Lucy was right. That was her one failing – she was usually right.

Trish was feeling unhappy, and he wouldn’t talk to her. Having tried to pinpoint the start of the awkwardness, she suspected that it had begun when she had announced her intention to meet a lawyer in the Boule Miche coffee shop. She had phoned the lawyer, and had got nowhere. Business was best discussed face to face, Trish had been advised. ‘You’re not drinking your cocoa, love.’

Automatically obedient, he took a sip.

‘What’s the matter with you, Alan?’

He shrugged. ‘Post-op depression, as you say. I’ll take this upstairs and get an early night.’ He left the scene, mug in hand.

No good night kiss, then. Trish took a mouthful of her own cocoa. It didn’t taste right. Nothing tasted, sounded or looked as good as it once had. She loved Alan, but he seemed to be going off her. Even though she was prepared to discharge his bankruptcy, he seemed cold and distant.

What had she done wrong? And look at the size of this kitchen. She couldn’t wait to be out of here and settled somewhere normal. But not alone. Life alone was bigger than this damned house. She was afraid. He was afraid. His fear was almost certainly tied to the woman she was going to meet tomorrow. Well, Trish would wear her five-hundred-pound suit and some good shoes. Power dressing was essential, because she had no idea what she would be facing in that coffee shop.

When she got to bed, he was pretending to be asleep. He’d poured away the cocoa – she could tell from the shape of the stain in his mug. She undressed and lay as stiff as a board beside him. Tomorrow was a big day. She couldn’t work out why, but it was going to be momentous.

Lucy almost jumped out of her skin when her mobile rang. How did she get rid of bloody ‘Amarillo’? Children understood these things, but there was seldom a child to hand when you needed one. By the time she located the offending article, it was well into Sha la la lala lalala, and she was well into desperation. The shed was not soundproof, and Moira could be well awake by now and trying to dance.

It was Richard. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m here.’

‘Where, you soft lad?’

‘Here. Look through the window – I’m outside.’

She opened the door, and he almost fell in. ‘Where is she?’

‘Asleep in there.’ She pointed to the door behind which poor Moira was trying to rest. ‘Try not to wake her – she was a bit wobbly tonight.’

He disappeared. Lucy sat on the sofa and wondered how much dafter the world could get. Her beautiful daughter had married the boy next door after knowing him for five minutes. David was turning into a sex-starved teenager, while Richard had been planning murder. A woman named Lexi was attempting to hasten Moira’s death, Alan had disappeared, and tomorrow a posse was to be formed in order to hunt him down in Alderley Edge, home of the rich, the famous and the stupid. Oh, bugger.

Right. This was it – she’d had enough. Shower cap – don’t spoil the hair – quick swill, towel dry, dress, pick up the keys to Alan’s BMW, write a note for Moira. Stay as long as you like. I’ll call in when I get back from Cheshire tomorrow. Love to both, Lucy xx

It was eleven o’clock. She sat in her husband’s car and saw a half-empty bottle of Johnnie Walker peeping shyly from beneath the passenger seat. ‘Oh, Alan,’ she sighed. ‘If you’d stayed off the sauce and made me a proper partner, I would have found you the bloody money.’

There was a full moon low in the sky, but it was no longer red, because the sun, its partner in crime, was long gone. Ancients had feared the harvest moon, believing it to be bewitched and bleeding. ‘I’m going to Chorley New Road,’ she advised Earth’s single natural satellite. ‘Come with me if you like.’

After crossing through town, she pulled into David’s drive. Someone had done the garden, since the front window, once hidden completely by very tall grass, was fully visible. She took a key from her purse and let herself in, her breathing slowing while she waited for the alarm to sound. Nothing. The red eye in a top corner of the hall winked at her, but no siren followed. He’d forgotten. He was forgetful, and she adored him. Samson pushed a cold, wet nose into her hand before returning to his basket, a lavish, padded item chosen by a master who clearly loved his dog.

She entered the kitchen and switched on the lights. It was all new: bright white units, stainless steel splash-backs, Belfast sink, cooker with seven burners. Lights on kick-boards poured changing colours on to a metallic floor. It was fabulous. The living rooms were also stunning, and he had done all this for her.

Lucy crept up the stairs. Every time a tread creaked, she flinched, but she held on to the hope that his sleeping, like everything else, was done thoroughly.

Oh, God. He had bought her a four-poster and, if her eye was as good as she suspected it to be, it was French and a restored antique. He knew she loved château furniture. She felt like weeping. He was asleep, bedside lamp still burning, a book drooping from his hands. After removing his skew-whiff reading glasses, she relieved him of his book. It was Anne Robinson’s autobiography, so at least he had managed to put down the medical tomes.

In the en suite, which had clearly been a large bedroom in an earlier life, she found a double bath, plus a double shower. He was living in hope, then. Twin washbasins perched boldly on a granite surface above storage cupboards, and the mirror was surrounded by lights so bright that they were judgemental. Naked, she stared at herself, noting every crease, every bulge, oversized breasts that seemed to be moving south for the winter.

‘You have to be brave,’ she mouthed. David was going to be a lights-on man, so he might as well see what he was getting, warts and all. She shivered, pulled on a robe that was still damp from his shower or bath, switched off the bathroom lights and returned to the bedroom.

He was still asleep. She threw off the robe and, with excruciating slowness, peeled back the duvet and slid in beside him.

‘You’re late.’

She almost jumped out of her skin. ‘You sod. I thought you were fast asleep.’

‘Nope.’ He turned towards her. ‘Thank you for fitting me into your busy schedule. Who’s looking after Moira?’

‘Richard. I told him to come.’

‘Excellent. Now, be a good girl and think of England. You can leave the rest to me.’

Twelve

Lucy sat at the kitchen island in David’s suddenly spotless house. She was wearing one of his shirts, plus a pair of sunglasses she’d discovered in the depths of her Tignanello handbag, and she felt stunned. She hadn’t expected him to be so . . . so what? Competent scarcely covered it. Amazing was, perhaps, nearer the mark. But she was absolutely exhausted, and a busy day lay ahead.

She also nursed a vague suspicion that she was sitting outside the head teacher’s office after receiving punishment, and it wasn’t fair, since she’d done nothing wrong. Or maybe last night had been some sort of competition, in which case he’d taken gold. Stamina? The word had been invented for Dr David Vincent. There’d been champagne, too. But champagne didn’t create hangovers, did it? The world was too bright, and he was too flaming cheerful for such an early hour. And, in spite of all the above, she was deliriously happy. She wasn’t going to tell him that, though. Not yet, anyway. Because he, too, was learning how to play the game, and he was cleverer than she was.

‘Why the shades, Louisa?’

‘Flashing bloody lights under your cupboards. And my head’s become a holding cell for the Jerry Springer Show. Please, please, try not to clatter.’

He shrugged, stamped on a black button in a corner, and returned to the task of making breakfast. ‘Lights gone,’ he said, amusement colouring the words. ‘And my kick-board illuminations don’t flash, they come and go. Slowly. Very slowly.’

Samson sat between them, head moving in the direction of each speaker, so that he was doing a fair imitation of a Wimbledon audience.

She knew all about very slowly. ‘You sod,’ she said, not for the first time in recent hours. ‘Are you related to Tchaikovsky? That 1812 thing?’

‘No idea.’

Tchaikovsky had experienced difficulty when it came to endings. The 1812 Overture had about fourteen finales all stitched together like the pieces of some patchwork quilt he’d made out of odds and ends. ‘Any Russians in the family, David? And do you realize what I have to do this morning?’ She patted the dog. The dog was the only sensible person in the room.

‘Erm. Probably no to the first question, then yes to the second.’ He turned. ‘Eggs over-easy or sunny side up, hon?’

‘I don’t do eggs.’

‘Right.’ He went back to the job in hand.

There was a surreal quality to the morning. Here she sat in a blue-and-white striped shirt with a size sixteen collar, and there he stood in a plastic apron with NOTHING TO DECLARE printed across its front. And he had nothing to declare, because he was naked apart from the apron. For a man in his forties, he retained quite pert buttocks. In fact he retained . . . What was he up to now? He seemed to be placing in a basket everything he had prepared. ‘What the f— flipping heck are you doing, David?’ He was holding out one hand in her direction, while the other picked up the basket.

‘Picnic. Come. Come along, do as you are told for a change.’

‘But . . . we’re not dressed for a picnic. We’re not dressed at all.’

‘Come. My house, my garden, my woman. Git yo ass outta here, baby.’ He then addressed his pet. ‘Stay. You can come to Cheshire later. Or you can go next door. I’ll leave you to think about it.’

‘How will you know what he wants?’ Lucy asked.

‘He’ll stand near the car, or he’ll go next door. He’s easy. Which is more than can be said for some extraordinarily difficult people.’

It was very cold in the garden, especially for two people with no shoes, no socks and very little clothing. And it was only seven-thirty, and— Then she saw what he had done for her. It was an almost faithful copy of the tree house from thirty-odd years ago, from those Diane-David-Louisa days when the sun had been brighter, clouds fewer, life fuller of joy. He had rebuilt their childhood.

‘Oh, David.’ She was truly moved, because he had done this himself – she knew he had. ‘What a wonderful surprise this is. The care you must have taken to make it look so much like . . . Oh, bless you, but I can’t climb that ladder. I’m forty-five, darling.’

‘I can climb it. There again, I’m only forty-four. There are blankets in the tree house. It’s worth the effort just to get warm.’

She climbed, reached down to take the basket, sat down and waited for him. It was the same inside, too. Crude seats made from rough wood were topped with old cushions and pillows. On the wall were pinned drawings and paintings of hated teachers, beloved teachers, trees, flowers and houses. Diane’s drawings. ‘You saved everything,’ she said when he was seated beside her. ‘Everything.’

‘Yes – even our cricket scores and a couple of school reports. And the photograph – those two tall girls with a shrimp of a lad – you, me and Di. Take this blanket and wrap up. Don’t be sad. We’re home now, Louisa.’

Lucy imagined him coming back from school on the fateful day when his mother had decided to move out. He had run off to collect his life from the tree house; he had taken Diane and Louisa with him. ‘You’re the last of the great romantics, aren’t you, sweetheart?’

‘I hope not. There must be more of us somewhere.’ He poured coffee and placed a plate of toast on an upturned plastic box. ‘Eat. You’ll feel better.’

She pretended to glare at him. ‘Will I? Three hours’ sleep, I had.’

‘Are you complaining about the quality of my work? And I did overtime for which there’ll be no extra charge. Well? Did I disappoint?’

‘No.’

‘What, then?’

‘I’m bloody knackered.’

A self-satisfied expression appeared on David’s face as he leaned forward and planted a kiss on her nose. For a rusty, middle-aged man, he seemed to have done quite well. The champagne had perhaps been rather too much gilt on the lily . . . Yes, she had a hangover. But there was mischief in her eyes – she was playing a part.

‘It’s a wonder I can walk at all,’ she said.

‘Louisa?’

‘What?’

‘Shut up.’

She shut up for a few moments. In the corner, a pile of Beano and Dandy comics stood alongside exercise books and a tin with a photograph of Buckingham Palace on its lid. Their sweetie box. ‘Is it all real? Are those Diane’s brushes and paints? Is that my copy of Black Beauty?’

‘Yes. Now, tell me about Tchaikovsky. You were indicating that I went on too long last night?’

She said nothing.

‘You were given adequate warning. I said you’d be dealt with. I’ve lost count of the number of times I threatened to stop you in your tracks, lady.’

Wrapped in a rough blanket, she started to laugh. ‘You’re trying to tame me, aren’t you?’

He sniffed meaningfully. ‘Trying, yes. But the anger needs to come out first. You held on to your temper for so long in that moribund marriage – the magma has to escape at some point.’

She thought about that for a few moments.

‘Am I right?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know. Richard’s been my target so far. You won’t ever be that. I know they say you always hurt the one you love, but I can’t imagine that I’d ever really lose it with you.’

‘And Tchaikovsky?’

‘Oh, just confiscate his baton.’

He paused, a fried egg sandwich held just south of his chin.

Lucy, seeing the devilment in his eyes, clouted him and his sandwich with a grubby pillow. ‘You were punishing me, punishing me, punishing me.’ With every ‘punishing’, she delivered a blow. The bloody man was laughing. ‘You’re wicked.’ She screamed. ‘You made me wait and wait, and I’m still aching. Oh, you think you’re so clever, David Vincent.’

And they were children again. It was another of their pillow-and-cushion fights, and they were no longer middle-aged. For a split second, Lucy heard the terrible, high-pitched scream that had been the property of her dead sister. Both out of steam, they sat down again. The whole area was covered in egg, toast and coffee. Now it really did look like the scene of childhood crimes. ‘It will have to be cleaned,’ Lucy said.

‘I can’t do it now,’ he admitted. ‘Meting out your punishment was very hard work. What was his first name?’

‘Who?’

‘Bloody Tchaikovsky.’

‘Fred.’

‘Ah.’

‘Came from Pontefract. His mam and dad invented Pontefract cakes. He ran a chip shop and composed in his spare time.’

David nodded sagely. ‘I thought he worked in Russia?’

‘He did. He was in possession of a very long baton. He could fry cod with one hand, and crack nuts with the other.’

‘Eh?’

‘Nutcracker Suite. Very talented man. Sugar plum fairy.’

‘Was he?’

‘Oh, yes. Great disappointment to his parents. It was illegal in those days, and he could have ended up on that treadmill with poor old Oscar Wilde. “To whom might we bequeath us Pontefract cakes?” his father and mother asked. Simple folk – hence the poor grammar.’

‘Very sad.’

‘Yes, I thought so, too.’

They sat for a while contemplating the tragic fate of the grandchildless makers of liquorice circles. ‘Chopin was Fred.’ David smiled. ‘He was a Pole.’

‘So he wouldn’t need a baton?’

He shrugged. ‘No, but I was concentrating on his Minute Waltz. I think I could manage that one. I mean, why should I hang about making life good for you? A minute sounds just about right to me.’

The fight resumed. Throughout all the silliness, Lucy came to understand what real happiness was. While complaining of tiredness, she felt more alive than she had in years. And it was all because of this wonderful man who had built a tree house for her and in loving memory of Diane.

He ironed the skirt she had worn last night. He was a good ironer. Then he brushed dried egg from her hair, snipping out just one strand where the mess had set like concrete. This precious piece was placed inside his grandfather’s hunter, an item he always carried in a pocket because it kept good time and didn’t need a battery. ‘You’ll do,’ was his expressed final judgement.

She had no intention of sallying in the direction of Alderley Edge with a man in a plastic apron, and she said so. He took her upstairs, flung open a wardrobe door and shouted, ‘Ta-dah.’

‘Heavens above,’ Lucy declared.

‘And I needed no help. But no way was I going to pay Alderley Edge prices. This is my casual and oil-free collection courtesy of Marks and Spencer, Debenham, and a catalogue entitled Man of the Moment.’ He showed her the magazine. ‘This is the underwear section, and please note that I bought no Y-fronts, baggy or otherwise. You may also agree with me that every one of those models has at least one pair of socks stuffed into the underwear.’

‘Jealous?’

‘Do I need to be? Hey! You’re blushing.’

‘Did you take Viagra?’

‘No. And you are still pink.’

‘Get dressed,’ she commanded before leaving the room. Downstairs, she sat grinning like the Cheshire cat. Bugger. They were going to Cheshire. But she continued to smile, because she had done the right thing. Keeping him at arms’ length – well, not quite, but waiting until now – had been a necessity. David could love one hundred per cent, and nothing less would do for him. At last, he had allowed poor Anne to rest.

He entered the room wearing dark trousers, a polo-necked white sweater and a collarless jacket. Circular glasses tinted blue completed the illusion. All right, he did look a bit like John Lennon. Holding a tennis racquet as substitute for a guitar, he began to murder ‘Sergeant Pepper’.

‘Cease immediately.’

He stopped and shrugged. ‘Well, I thought I’d remind you that you’ve come as close as possible to sleeping with John Lennon.’

‘For three hours.’

‘Whatever. Many people have told me I look like him.’

‘They’re right. But that has nothing to do with why I love you. Now, naff off and find something sensible to wear. Dressed like that, you’d be mugged by WAGS in Cheshire, because they’re too daft to remember that John’s dead. Stop messing about.’

‘But I enjoy messing— OK, I’m going.’

Lucy closed her eyes. If this man became any more lovable, she would surely die. She could scarcely bear to think about his wilderness years. She’d had her children, but David had depended for sanity on his work. He was loving life again, because he was loving her.

He came back, this time dressed sensibly but casually in shades of brown.

‘I can’t go on like this,’ she told him. ‘I’m sorry, but I really can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I have to live with you, David. I can manage Tchaikovsky or Chopin – I love classical music and the tree house and the fights and all of it. But I can’t manage being away from you.’

He ignored the urge to hug her, because he didn’t want to crush her white blouse. Today, she needed to be crisp. ‘A solution will be found, madam. Now, we have to go. The dog’s gone next door. He has abandoned us to our fate.’

‘Sensible animal.’

‘Dreading it?’

‘Oh, hell. I wish I could just leave it alone, because it’s none of my business, but Trish Styles is on her own, no kids, just Alan and her money to keep her warm. Glenys will meet us there. She’s going to Manchester Crown Court with an affidavit or something.’ She puffed out her cheeks and blew. ‘That’s supposed to get rid of tension.’

‘I wish you’d told me that last night. I was bloody terrified when you turned up. That’s why I pretended to be asleep. You thought I was confident, huh? Well, I wasn’t.’ He led the way out. ‘I could have puffed and blown into your ear all night instead. We could have been very relaxed by now.’

He opened the door for her. ‘I’ll be outside the café in my car. Any trouble from Mrs Styles, come and get me. I’ll blow in her ear instead.’

Mrs Styles was in a bad way. He’d gone. And she was running, sweating, screaming in a five-hundred-pound suit. This house was a ridiculous size. She’d checked every room upstairs, but he could be in any of a dozen wardrobes. Or in the roof. His things were still here, but he wasn’t. No note. She removed the good shoes and pulled on her wellies. Howie had bought them for her – they were yellow and covered in red flowers.

For the first time in months, she walked across the land at the rear of Styles. Alan had taken a liking to the llama, but he wasn’t with Damien. In the sheds, she moved wood and boxes, called his name, wept a million tears. Then, on her way back to the house, she saw what he had done. A primitive noose dangled from the bough of a tree. Beneath it, an old garden seat waited to be used as a launching pad by a man who clearly intended to take his own life. And hers. Why? She pulled down the rope and carried it with her back to the house.

She didn’t want to live without Alan. He was more than just a partner, he was a piece of continuity, a man who had cared about Howie, who had been there for Trish in her darkest hour. ‘Why?’ she screamed. He wasn’t drinking. He’d been all right until lately, but he’d gone miserable and quiet, and he wanted to die.

She sat on the kitchen sofa and tried to collect her thoughts. Her head was a mess, as was her hair. Mascara stung her eyes, and mud clung to the skirt of a suit that had been a treasured outfit. That woman would be waiting for her down at the Boule Miche. She was a lawyer. Perhaps she’d have some idea of what needed doing in this impossible situation.

But she didn’t want to talk to anyone. He would come back, even if it was just to hang himself. So lawyers could go to hell in a handcart, because she loved Alan, and she would look after him just as she’d looked after Howie. God, she hated this bloody house. She was alone in a blinking mausoleum. A thought struck. Had Alan gone to get drunk before killing himself? Was he intending to die because he couldn’t carry on without his whisky? He knew she wouldn’t live with a drunk, because she’d been very clear on that score.

The phone rang, and she ignored it. When it stopped the screeching, its echo bounced off walls for several seconds. Oh, God. That might have been Alan. She was going to do a 1471 when it rang again, and she snatched it up immediately. It was her accountant. ‘Did you ring a minute ago?’ she asked.

He hadn’t rung earlier, but he wanted to know what was wrong.

And she let it all out, because Eric had been Howie’s pal, and she trusted him. When she’d delivered the tale, he announced his intention to come round within the hour. ‘Thanks, Eric,’ she said. At least she wouldn’t be on her own. She hated being alone, even in Blackpool, and that was a proper house.

Meanwhile, she set out to search the place thoroughly. She looked in every bathroom, in every cupboard and under all the beds. This time, she kept very quiet so that she might hear any movement. He wasn’t here; he had abandoned her because she was ordinary, because she liked ordinary, boring things like bingo and dancing. But would any man kill himself because he hated line-dancing? It was a mystery. She changed her clothes and went downstairs. The woman in the Boule Miche could sod off.

The woman in the Boule Miche was chomping her way through a second Danish. Glenys loved her food, and it showed, as she was one of the unfortunates whose measurements fluctuated in accordance with the status of her willpower. ‘I had no breakfast,’ she told her companion.

Lucy grinned. Her breakfast was all over the tree house, but she didn’t want to complain.

‘You look very smug,’ Glenys remarked.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes? What the bloody hell does yes mean?’

‘Yes, I slept with him, and yes, I didn’t get much sleep.’

The lawyer drained her coffee mug. ‘You little devil. Any good?’

‘Unnervingly so. I thought he’d be tentative, but . . .’ She raised her shoulders. ‘I was wrong. He’s spent thousands on the house, even bought an eighteenth-century four-poster. French. It has a new mattress, of course. We don’t want any foreign bugs.’

Glenys shook her head morosely. ‘I’m going to advertise. Virginity, free to good home, taker collects. What do you think?’

‘You don’t love yourself, Glen. That’s a pretty face, so use it. Go to a gym, eat a bit less, lose thirty pounds and practise on your trainer. Many of those young men who train women offer their services. Then, when you’ve practised, find a husband.’

Glenys thought about that before announcing that she didn’t want anything that lived in. She’d much prefer something that served its purpose before going back to its own flat, house, mother, wife, whatever. Kids she could manage without. They brought with them washing, ironing, cooking and homework, and were not commensurate with a lifestyle that included theatre, restaurant meals and a very good brandy. What she really needed was somebody who’d take her home, tie her up and lecture her in Latin.

‘You’re terrible,’ Lucy said.

‘And you’re an adulterer – technically, at least.’

‘I don’t do technical. I can’t even change a fuse. Oh, I forgot to tell you – Lizzie’s married.’

Glenys’s jaw dropped. ‘You forgot? How can you forget? Is it that cardio-thoracic bod from next door?’

‘Yes. And I think it’ll work, because they’re good friends. And she can change a fuse. It was one of those sudden and beautiful things, yet they act as if they’ve known each other for ever. I think it’s possible to remember someone from the future.’

Glenys tutted. ‘You don’t half talk some crapola, Lucy.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Mrs Styles is very late.’

‘Yes, I noticed that too.’

‘And I think that daft bloke of yours is flattening his nose against the window of a dump where the coffee’s three quid a cup and counting.’

Lucy turned and looked at him. It was clear that she couldn’t take him anywhere, because he had no idea of how to behave. Perhaps he needed a playpen? She beckoned, and he came in. Waitresses and counter staff stood still while he approached. ‘Don’t worry,’ Lucy advised the whole establishment. ‘They let him out just for one day.’

He sat down and winked at a very pretty girl in a frilled apron. ‘Do they let you take your uniform home?’ he asked. ‘Because you could use the apron and the— Ouch.’

‘She doesn’t take the ouch home,’ Lucy said with mock severity while delivering a second slap to his hand. ‘Bring him a cappuccino with sprinkles, dear. And allow me to apologize for my father’s behaviour.’

Glenys fled to the ladies’ room, a hand on her mouth failing to hold back laughter.

‘Is she all right?’ David asked innocently.

‘She just needs somebody to take her home, tie her up and talk to her in Latin.’

‘Oh. That’s OK, then. I can do the Latin, but I’m no good with knots. Anyway, I’m spoken for. Give us a kiss.’

‘I can’t. You’re my father.’

‘Right. Now, where’s Mrs Wotsit?’ He smiled insanely at the girl who brought his coffee. She placed it on the table, withdrew her hand quickly, and dashed away. David took a sip, allowing the moustache deposited by froth to remain on his face. He then asked had the earth moved for Lucy last night, as she wiped his face with her napkin.

‘Yes,’ she snapped.

‘You can’t wait here all day, Louisa.’ He picked up a menu, saw the prices and put it back. ‘Daylight robbery,’ he muttered.

Glenys returned. She greeted David before informing Lucy that she had phoned the house, and there had been no answer. ‘I’ll try the mobile.’ She dialled. ‘Hello? Mrs Styles? It’s Glen— it’s Gloria. Yes, that’s right. I’m waiting in the Boule Miche.’ A long pause followed this introduction.

Glenys frowned. ‘Really? Oh, dear. Shall I visit you at home, then? I may be able to shed a little light on your predicament.’ She tapped the table with her fingers while Trish Styles spoke. ‘Good grief, that’s terrible. Try to calm down. Did you say second on the right? Thanks. I’ll be there shortly.’ She severed the connection. ‘He’s gone walkabout. She was up by eight o’clock, and there’s been no sign of him. The poor woman’s halfway out of her mind. She found a noose hanging from a tree, and a chair nearby. Alan’s the only one who could have put it there.’

David immediately became serious. He had come along as chauffeur and cabaret, because he knew full well that Louisa was taking today seriously, but he could no longer lighten her load by acting the fool. The father of her children had absented himself after preparing a noose, presumably as a tool for suicide. ‘Will he be in a pub, Louisa?’

‘I’ve no idea. Lizzie says he’s stopped drinking, but it’s one day at a time, isn’t it? I’m coming with you, Glenys.’

‘And I’m coming with her.’ He pointed at Lucy before going to pay the bill. A noose? Why would a man kill himself while living with a woman who had millions? Money was important to Alan. David told the girl at the till to keep the change for tips, then followed his two companions into the street.

He tailed Glenys until she found the address. An electric gate slid open, and both cars entered the grounds. They drove at funereal pace until they reached the columned entrance. The place was so grand and sombre that it put one in mind of an impossible ménage à trois comprising a palace, a museum and a crematorium. ‘It’s massive,’ Lucy breathed. ‘Makes Tallows look like a cottage. I’m scared, and I don’t know why.’

‘Stay cool, love. We’ve got to find your old man after Glenys has done the difficult deed. Shall we wait here?’

She pondered. ‘No. I want to be there for Glenys and for Trish. And you can be there for me.’ They left the car and walked hand in hand towards uncharted territory.

Avoiding poor Trish hadn’t been difficult. He’d just walked round the exterior walls of the house, making sure that wherever she was, he wasn’t. He couldn’t face her. Would he be able to face her after the meeting in the Boule Miche? She didn’t go. But the meeting came to her, and Lucy was on the committee. He’d heard her voice, and he was going to hell in a muck wagon; going to prison today. Underneath the calm exterior, Lucy was after revenge.

There was nowhere to run. He wished he’d stayed away from the house, wished he could be with Damien, because he was the only human allowed to embrace the haughty, ill-tempered miniature camel. Were they camels? He’d never bothered to find out. He thought they might be from South America rather than Africa, but he wasn’t sure. But at this moment, he needed to bury his face in that woolly and slightly smelly neck. Damien knew about suffering – it was in his eyes.

Leaving the grounds of Styles was out of the question. First, he would be seen. Second, he had a tenner in his pocket and, for the first time since his op, was completely devoid of hope. He would buy a half-bottle of good whisky if he got out. Not that it mattered. One small binge could make little difference, while going to jail in a state of sobriety was not a good idea.

He sat on the ground and leaned against the building. There was no way out, since Howard Styles had been extraordinarily thorough when it came to security. Wherever Alan went, he would be seen. If he ran full pelt towards the rope, those inside would cut him down in good time. There was only one thing for it. He had to go in and face the music. Not yet, though. No, not just yet.

It took them half an hour to return Trish to a state in which she could absorb and respond to what was being said. At the beginning, she was convinced that Lucy had come to get Alan and take him away, while Dr Vincent intended to section him as insane. ‘He doesn’t drink any more,’ she screamed several times.

‘I’m a cancer doctor,’ David explained, ‘and I—’

‘He hasn’t got cancer. My husband was the one with cancer.’

‘I work with children. Mostly leukaemia.’

‘He’s not a child.’ Trish glared at Glenys. ‘Why did you fetch these people here? I thought you were something to do with Howie’s business, a bit of conveyancing work or something of that nature. False pretences, you used to get in my house. You even changed your name.’

Strangely, it was the wife who managed to comfort her. ‘Glenys thought there was something you should know about Alan. I feel the same. Dr Vincent is my fiancé – he drove me here. In a car, not with a whip,’ she added in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. But the lame joke fell on stony ground. ‘We mean you no harm, honestly. And I haven’t come to get Alan back, dear. We don’t love each other – I’m with this lovely man now. Please, just listen to my lawyer friend here.’

‘I don’t need to know anything about him,’ Trish said, her heart allowing in a crumb of hope. Lucy didn’t want him back. She was engaged to another man, so Alan was still free. ‘I love him no matter what. As long as he doesn’t drink.’

Glenys spread paperwork on the kitchen table. ‘Here’s what we’ve come to show you, Mrs Styles. He stole most of my client’s money, forged her signature, and mortgaged a house that’s been in her family for generations. I’m so sorry to have to give you such bad news, but we are trying to act in your best interests and the facts are there in black and white. These are photocopies for your perusal. He committed fraud on several occasions over the years.’

Trish cast an eye over the items on her table. ‘I thought it might be something like that,’ she said. ‘But he’ll not go to jail, because I’m going to clear his debts.’

‘What?’ Glenys looked at Lucy, then at Trish. ‘The mortgages?’

Lucy leaned across and patted Trish’s hand. ‘The man’s hopeless with money – always was. When I took power of attorney, I sold plant worth a lot more than he knew. With a bit of help from my own estate, I cleared the fraudulent mortgages. That man is the father of my three children, and I couldn’t just sit back and let him go to jail. So the Halifax has no claim on him, and all his commitments have been honoured. If he would call in at Tallows occasionally to pick up his post, he’d know all this.’ She turned to David. ‘Find him, please. None of us wants his neck in a noose.’

David left the house.

‘He’s not bankrupt?’ Trish asked.

‘He’s not. But in a way, it would be better if he were bankrupt, because this could all happen to you. I was married to him, so—’

‘So you let him do it,’ Trish accused her. ‘Well, I won’t. Any new business will be a partnership with me at the steering wheel. You should have stopped him.’

Lucy sighed heavily. ‘Look, my children are all that matters to me. When they were grown, I took command, retrieved my money and left him. By that time he was pickled in whisky and beyond the point at which negotiation could be useful. I chose my way. We all choose our own way, and those of us with children perhaps choose differently.’

‘Sorry,’ said Trish.

‘It’s all right, I know how you feel. I’d go to the ends of the earth for David, but don’t tell him. Look.’ She pointed to the window. ‘Here they come, two fools for the price of one.’

Alan came in first. He stood and stared at the floor.

‘It’s OK,’ Lucy said. ‘No one’s here to hurt you. We came to protect Trish, and I’m sure you know why. Look at me. Look at me, Alan.’

He raised his head. David stood by Alan’s side, two men staring at a solid block of female power.

‘I discharged you, and I thought you would have been told. What about your mobile? Didn’t your lawyers let you know that no fraud charges were coming your way? You’re my children’s dad, for goodness’ sake.’

‘I changed my SIM card. Lizzie has my number, but no one else – apart from Trish.’ He paused. ‘She got married. My little girl married?’

‘Yes.’

David decided to take charge. ‘Right. I gather that you two ladies have done what you came to do? So we should go and leave Alan and Trish to talk. This is their business now, not ours.’

A buzzer sounded. ‘Sorry I’m late, Trish. It’s Eric.’

Glenys jumped up. She knew that voice. ‘Eric Simmons? There have been developments, Eric,’ she told the machine on the wall. ‘Wait there, we’re all coming out now.’

‘My accountant,’ Trish explained.

‘I know him, so I’ll keep him out of your way while you talk. Good luck, anyway.’ Glenys dashed out, leaving behind a very bemused Lucy.

‘We’ll be off, then.’ David took Lucy’s arm.

‘Just a minute,’ Alan called. He blushed, and the words didn’t arrive easily. ‘Thanks, Lucy. I never treated you right, and I wish I could pay you back.’

‘You can. Take good care of Trish if she still wants you. By the way, you look miles better. I know you can beat the booze, Alan. With Trish behind you, anything’s possible. That is one strong little woman. Depend on her.’ She handed him a card. ‘Phone me if you need to – either of you.’

Outside, David leaned casually against the car. ‘You’re quite a sensitive little flower underneath, aren’t you?’

It had been a crazy day thus far, with no time for reflection. But she stood for a moment and felt a moment of pure fear invade her heart. Life was so fragile. If anything happened to him, she would know what he had gone through after the loss of Anne. ‘I love you, little David Vincent, and I couldn’t possibly live without you. Liverpool tonight, I think. Our work is not yet done.’

‘To the bat poles,’ he suggested. ‘We have a city to save.’

In the car, Lucy used her phone. ‘Glenys? What are you up to?’

‘Erm . . . yes, Mr Charnock. I have your file on my desk.’

‘Is he married?’

‘No.’

‘You can’t talk, can you?’

‘No, Mr Charnock.’

‘Is he handsome?’

‘No.’

‘But you like him, and you’ve always liked him.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Bye.’

‘What was all that about?’ David asked.

‘No idea. She thought I was Mr Charnock.’

David decided not to bother asking who Mr Charnock was. He slowed down near the gate and waved at Glenys. She was in the company of a medium-sized man in a grey suit.

Lucy wound down her window. ‘See you, Glen. Bring Mr Simmons to supper soon. Or Mr Charnock . . .’

David drove on. Lucy was up to something. She was usually up to something these days, because she’d been up to nothing for so long. Her next something went under the name of Lexi, and it was going to be quite an eventful evening if said Lexi put in an appearance. The boot of this car was crammed with stuff that would make the evening a very happening time. ‘Where shall we live?’ he asked.

‘Your house and mine. Mine when you’re in Liverpool, yours when you’re in Lancashire. You need me to look after you, and I need you because you can reach high shelves.’

‘And your bed-and-breakfasters?’

‘Carol. She can’t wait to get away from Dee’s kids and Our Beryl. By all accounts, Our Beryl is the devil on wheels. She has the whole of Bootle organized. Everything is in her charge, and she runs the area from her gilded chariot. MS. Like Moira.’

David thought Carol was quite terrifying, though he kept that to himself, because Carol was much loved by Louisa.

‘You’re smiling,’ she said.

‘I’m happy.’

‘Are you, indeed?’

‘Yes indeed. I am indeed.’

‘Oh, right. Don’t worry, I’ll soon put a stop to that.’

David laughed. She would never change. She must never change.

Moira had her husband back. At last, he had told her everything, and she had forgiven him. She was anxious, though. What if the creature burnt down their house? Apart from that piece of disquiet, she was happier than she had been in months. The shaking was minimal and, apart from permanent face pain, she was relatively symptom-free.

They had lit a little gel fire in the wooden house’s living room fireplace. ‘I can smell autumn,’ Moira said. ‘Damp, earthy and a bit sharp. Did you look round Tallows? Isn’t that one fabulous house?’

‘Yes. Where did it get its name?’

She told him about the original owner of the house on Chandler’s Lane. ‘Before paraffin wax and so forth, candles were often made from tallow – animal fat. He bought the whole area – the lane remains unadopted to this day. And a chandler was a candlemaker, so there you have it. But Lucy’s forebears took the house on about a hundred or so years ago, and now Lucy and David are going to use it for his patients.’ She looked round the room. ‘I’ve fallen in love with Lucy’s shed.’

‘It’s cute,’ he said. ‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’

‘Yes, please.’

As he set the kettle to boil, he took in the cosiness of the place and decided that it was like being a child again in a playhouse with his friends. But now he was with just one, and she was the best friend he’d ever known. He found some biscuits and carried the tray through to the living room. She was exactly where he had left her, but she wasn’t . . . she wasn’t right.

Tray, mugs and contents hit the floor, bouncing, crashing and spilling all over the place. She wasn’t breathing. He picked up the phone and dialled 999 with the instrument on speaker, barking out orders and address, making damned sure they knew he was a doctor.

She had not been down for three minutes – he hadn’t left the room for long, and Lucy’s kettle was rapid-boil. Three minutes. A brain that lacked oxygen for any longer was damaged. He found a thready pulse, made sure her mouth was clear, and decided that the Heimlich move was no use, since she had choked on absolutely nothing. He ran back to the kitchen, found a knife and a ballpoint pen, and returned to his wife. After lifting her from the chair and placing her on the floor, he took the pen apart. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered before drawing the knife across her throat. He parted skin and subcutaneous tissue, punctured the cricothyroid membrane, and inserted the outer layer of the pen into her airway.

‘I’ve done a primitive tracheotomy,’ he told the man on the phone. ‘Now, send that bloody ambulance, or I’ll have all your jobs!’

‘On its way, sir.’

Her chest was moving slightly. She hadn’t been eating – this was one of those occasions on which even her own saliva became a threat. The heart was making some effort, and air was going in via the tube, because he could hear it rattling slightly. What now? He was a bloody doctor, and he didn’t know what to do next.

They came eventually. Paramedics worked until she was stable enough to be carried on a stretcher. By the time they were in the ambulance, Richard felt near to collapse. Then he heard them. She’d had an infarction. ‘What?’ he cried. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her heart. Her BP’s fine, and her cholesterol’s a damned sight lower than mine.’

‘Stress and pain,’ said one of the medics. ‘Is it MS?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you did your best. Let’s get her to A and E as quickly as we can.’

The siren wailed. Richard picked up the pen casing with which he had saved his wife’s life. She now had a proper tracheotomy and equipment that announced her status second by second. A heart attack? That wasn’t supposed to happen. Didn’t she suffer enough with the rat-faced, sly, evil-minded disease named multiple sclerosis?

In his mind’s eye, he saw her struggling to walk through the hallway at home, went with her through doors behind which sat occupational therapists, speech therapists, experts in swallowing, people who knew sod all about double incontinence and the dignity it stole from the sufferer. He saw her in Sainsbury’s, a can of low-salt, low-sugar baked beans in a hand, witnessed the involuntary jerk of the limb that sent the same tin flying through the air into the next aisle. He saw her weeping with the pain, watched while she dashed away tears and painted on a smile for him. Just for him. For her husband.

Moira showed no sign of regaining consciousness. They fought long and hard in the hospital, and Richard never left her side. But, after the second heart attack occurred, he pulled himself together. Staff were preparing to shock her yet again, and Richard held up his hand. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s had a happy week and a day that was almost pain-free. I don’t want her to die, but that’s selfish. There are times when she can’t swallow, can’t talk, can’t walk, can scarcely breathe. Tonight, she gave me a history lesson about the house where we were staying. She was as bright as a button today. Let her rest.’

A long pause followed. ‘Are you sure, Dr Turner?’ the main man asked.

‘Am I hell as like! But I’m certain of one important thing. She’ll have no more suffering if you just leave her alone.’

The consultant crossed the room and placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder. ‘Her heart is badly damaged. You’re right. With this trouble on top of MS, she’d be very ill. Even if we did manage to get her back . . . Shall I call it?’

‘Yes.’

The man removed half-moon spectacles and dragged the back of a hand cross his damp forehead. ‘Time of death, eleven thirty-five p.m. Thank you, team.’

One by one, they left the room until only Richard and the consultant remained. Both exhausted, they sank into chairs and stared at each other. ‘GP?’ the specialist asked.

Richard nodded. ‘Yes.’ He paused for a few seconds. ‘She was with me all the way through my student days. When we married, she was the most beautiful woman you could wish to see. Her hair was so long she could almost sit on it. I used to brush it for her. She loved that, said it was nearly as good as sex. Remarkable skin, huge eyes, and a waist so small – she looked breakable. I watched her eroding. I saw her becoming truly breakable. And broken.’

The medic reached out a hand. ‘I’m Guy, by the way. Guy Morris.’

‘Richard.’ They shook hands. ‘Why have they been bombing Iraq when the money could be used to cure stuff?’ Richard asked.

‘Because they can bomb Iraq.’

‘And they can’t cure MS?’

The man raised his hands in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘God knows what they might manage if they concentrated. Day centres for the disabled are being closed or charging huge rates. That keeps the people in wheelchairs tucked away out of sight in their own homes. Their allowances have been slashed mercilessly – who knows how many are dying due to lack of attention and help? As for the diseases, I’ve no idea what’s being done. There’s a lot of begging via TV advertisements, so that says a lot. Charities are all we have left.’

Richard looked at his wife. She wasn’t twitching, wasn’t gasping for breath or talking rubbish. No longer would she need those painkillers that gave her chronic constipation; no longer would he slip her a Valium 5 to calm the shakes while worrying about the same drug further impeding her breathing. ‘She can’t choke now.’

‘No, Richard, but you might. Get counselling. I’m serious – this is a big thing, a monumental happening. It’s my opinion that she would have been dead within weeks, but we’ll never know.’

‘And I must live with never knowing. Yet we do know, Guy. We know her life, however brief, however long, would have been unbearable.’

‘Absolutely.’

Richard stood up. He had to go. Simon, Stephanie and Alice needed to be told that they were motherless. But first, he had to go back to Lucy’s little park home and clean up that last cup of tea that had not been enjoyed by him and Moira.

‘I’m done here, so I’ll drive you,’ Guy offered.

‘I’ll get a taxi.’

‘No, you won’t. Trust me, I’m a doctor.’

Richard smiled grimly. ‘I want her back in Crosby as soon as possible. This is foreign soil for us.’ He kissed the cooling forehead of the woman who had supported him through thick and thin, then followed Guy out of the hospital. He was alone deep inside. There was a hole in the region of his stomach, and it would never be filled. Thirty years of their life together was being wheeled down to the morgue to be placed in a fridge. She didn’t mind the cold. Heat had troubled her, especially since the MS had entered the secondary progressive stage. ‘I don’t know how I’ll manage without her. She might have been a cripple, but she was an amazing one. Very funny, almost mischievous. And all she ever worried about was me. She’d done such a good job on the kids that they turned out great, very focused and positive. Our son married recently, and he’ll be shadowing someone like you, but at Guy’s. With your name, you should be working there.’

The driver said nothing. He knew Richard needed to talk, to vent some of his misery as soon as possible.

‘My girls are at medical school in Edinburgh, one in her first year, the other in her second. Yes, Moira was a brilliant mother.’

At last, Guy Morris spoke. ‘When you wake tomorrow, for the first few seconds, everything will be OK. Then it will crash in on you, so don’t be alone. Things change after the funeral. They don’t heal, they just shift.’

Richard turned to look at the driver. ‘You’ve been through this?’

‘Yes. I lost my wife last year. It’s a long, long process, but life goes on, as they say. I live alone, though one of my wife’s friends does my cooking and housework. She’s a nice woman. I’m working my way up to asking her out for dinner.’

‘And you’re still in counselling?’

‘Yes, but on the other side of it. Now, I listen to people who’ve had a loss. Not easy with my hours, but I always phone them back as soon as possible. It’s a bit like Alcoholics Anonymous – give and take.’

They pulled into the driveway at the west side of Tallows. The back garden was illuminated by lights that came on at dusk and turned off at dawn, and they walked all the way down to the park home. Inside the little wooden house, Richard stood and looked at the mess. Guy picked up the knife and looked at the floor. It had been a clean job, because there was very little blood. He shifted everything while Richard sat and stared at a dead fireplace. The gel pots lasted just a couple of hours, so they had burnt out ages ago. ‘I can’t stay here,’ he said.

‘I have some pills,’ Guy told him. ‘You will take some and sleep. No way are you driving tonight. I shall stay with you and, in the morning, you will not leave here until I’ve filled you up with caffeine.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll go and make a sandwich – I just did a twelve-hour stretch. Phone your children while I’m gone.’

Richard stared at his phone. At this moment, his kids were happy. Simon, in Lucy’s house with his new bride, was ecstatic about life, about Lizzie, about London. Steph and Alice were up in Edinburgh, possibly drunk, probably hanging round with other students, laughing, joking, singing terrible songs. They were young and carefree, and he was about to put a stop to their joie de vivre. But it had to be done.

He would tell Simon first, as he was the oldest. It had to be done, and he mustn’t cry. They had just one parent now, and he must not let them down.

*

Lexi made her way through the darkening streets. She had learned her lesson – flat shoes, dark clothes, don’t talk to anyone, walk at a steady pace. Why was she doing this? Life was looking up, she’d been out for a drink with Tom Rice, and she knew the job was hers. But Richard Turner had got to her. He had pretended to love her before throwing everything in her face. She was common. She was unsuitable. She was on the warpath.

This was her swan song, and it would be colourful. She carried a final letter for his wife, plus a can of purple paint. It was going to be her finest hour.

David made doubly sure that he had disabled the outside light before joining Lucy in the dining room. They sat in twilight, each staring at a bank of small screens loaned to them by the father of a boy with leukaemia in remission. The man was a specialist in domestic and industrial security, but David wasn’t. He’d done his best, and the equipment had been tested by Lucy who had played the fool in front of all three hidden cameras. They seemed to work, and they performed in near-darkness, so the pair crossed their fingers and waited.

‘What time is it?’ Lucy whispered.

‘Five minutes later than the last time you asked,’ he replied.

She sighed. ‘I’m bored.’

‘Oh, diddums. Shut up and keep still.’

Lucy shut up for about three seconds. ‘The front door’s ajar?’

‘Yes.’

A few more seconds limped by. ‘David?’

‘What?’

‘You remember that killer conker you had?’

‘Vaguely.’

‘There was nothing vague about it. It wiped out your whole class and twenty-three of mine and Diane’s. It was a deadly bloody weapon. The Americans and the Russians argued about it.’

‘Right.’

‘Was it concrete?’

‘No.’

She poked him in the ribs. ‘Tell me.’

‘Bog off, Louisa. We all have our trade secrets.’

‘Tell me. Please.’

He pressed her to the floor and lay on top of her. ‘Do you think we’ve time for a bit of Chopin?’

‘No. But if you don’t tell me, I’ll tickle you.’

He kissed her long and hard, then dragged her back into a sitting position. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Here we are, behind a sofa with three television screens. We are positioned thus in order to catch a bad woman. And you want to tickle me, so that will give her warning not to venture into the house and on to Candid Camera, because I’ll be laughing like a drain.’

‘OK. I won’t tickle you.’ They separated. ‘Tell me about the conker, then.’

‘No, Louisa.’

‘Then tell me who stole my wedding ring from the soap dish in the shed.’

‘I claim the Fifth.’

‘You stole it.’

‘I didn’t.’

‘So who did?’

‘Moira. She stole it for me, OK?’

‘All right. I won’t ask about the wedding ring you’re having made specially. Don’t trust one woman to keep a secret from another woman. So, if I let you off about the wedding ring, which is to be a wedding-cum-engagement ring all in one piece, and I don’t know anything about it, tell me about your conker.’

David fought back a force ten gale of laughter. ‘Never ask a man about his conkers. It’s far too personal.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Shut up.’

‘I love you, David. Tell me about the conker.’

He allowed a long sigh to escape. ‘Vinegar, slow heat in the oven, clear nail polish.’

‘You bastard.’

‘That’s me. Hush.’

Camera one showed Lexi outside. She was rattling a can before spraying the wall. David hung on to Lucy. ‘Leave it, hon. She hasn’t done enough yet.’

Camera two saw her pushing the front door inwards. After standing still and listening for a while, she picked up some items from the coat stand shelf, then ventured into the living room. The third camera caught her stealing Moira’s jewellery.

Lucy shot from the dining room like a bullet from a gun. David felt transfixed as he watched his fiancée knocking Litherland Lexi to the floor. She was using her fists, and was probably doing damage that would show. He jumped up in order to intervene and, just as he entered the next-door living room, tripped in near-darkness over a stool that had been kicked into the doorway. Lucy was so engrossed in her revenge that she didn’t notice. David clambered to his feet and switched on the lights. His left knee hurt like hell. ‘Louisa?’

‘What?’

‘Stop. Right now.’

There was something in his voice that cut through the anger like a hot knife in butter. She stopped. Silence reigned for some time. Then Lexi tried to put back the jewellery she had stolen from Moira’s little folding table, and the money she’d lifted from the hall. Lucy came back to life in a split second. Like a trained boxer, she beat her fists into the woman’s chest and stomach. David, in pain and temporarily stunned, could only watch while his Louisa took it all out on this one woman. Lexi had done wrong, but she was in receipt of at least two decades of pent-up fury.

He grabbed the maelstrom and eventually contained it, though he was awarded several powerful blows during this difficult process.

Worn out, Lucy turned in her lover’s restraining arms, and it poured out of her. Language David might have expected from a chain gang flowed from her lips in a steady stream. ‘You’re dead, you whore. There’s another of your sweet letters for Moira, isn’t there? In the hall where you left dog shit, you filthy, diseased bitch.’

The language had improved slightly, thought David as he pushed Lucy into a chair. He inhaled deeply and spoke to Lexi. ‘We have you on TV. We have you with money from the hall, and jewellery from this room. The wonderful woman you tried to destroy is not here. By the way, our cameras work in darkness, so I have you spraying the wall as well as stealing. You’d better bugger off before Louisa gets a second wind.’

‘And you have her beating me up.’ Lexi thrust forward a determined chin.

David was ready for this one. ‘I’m sure a court will take our side, madam. Moira, the poor sick woman to whom you sent all those filthy letters, didn’t deserve any of this. Her husband intercepted every piece of your disgusting literature, so don’t pride yourself on having upset Moira, because we are here to protect her. She’s a bright, intelligent, strong woman, and her friend here was righteously angry with you for the letters, the graffiti we still haven’t seen, the dog dirt and now the thieving. His car isn’t here, so you thought you were safe. You thought he’d mistakenly left the door unlocked. You will never again be safe. We know people who know you.’

‘I’m leaving the room for a mo,’ Lucy announced. ‘It’s OK, I must just wash her off my hands. But first I want to get the letter she wrote to an absentee.’ She pulled away from him and went to retrieve the envelope. She returned, and after opening it she scanned the contents and spoke to Lexi. ‘I would advise lessons in basic English,’ she snapped before handing the paper to David and marching out into the hall.

‘What is the matter with you?’ he asked the cowering woman. ‘Why can’t you get on with your life and leave these people alone?’

‘He said he loved me and liked being with me.’

‘And that’s excuse enough for you to put dog excrement through the front door?’

Lexi hung her head. She was bloody injured, and something wanted doing about this lot here. The woman was a raving lunatic for a start, and this chap was too . . . too posh. ‘I want to go,’ she advised the floor.

He told her what he knew Louisa wanted. The film, including her attack on Lexi, should go to the police. Louisa would take her chances, as this was her first offence – if, indeed, it might be labelled an offence – and she might get a warning, a fine, or a suspended sentence. But Lexi would go to jail, since she already had a record. ‘Her sole aim is to get you locked away so that Moira will be safe.’

‘I’ve got a new job.’ Lexi swallowed painfully.

‘Tough.’

The phone rang. He heard Lucy talking while he glared at the seated offender. A couple of minutes passed before Lucy arrived at the doorway. She was pale, shaking and, at first, unable to speak. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

Lucy opened her mouth, but no words emerged.

‘Louisa?’

At last, the syllables began to limp from her tongue. ‘Simon’s phone’s switched off,’ she managed. ‘They’re out. They were out when we got here, weren’t they? There was no one in my house.’

‘Yes. I expect they’re with some of Simon’s friends from the hospital.’

She slid down the wall and sat where she landed. ‘Richard says we’re not to tell Simon. He wants to do it. We have to wait up till they come back.’

‘OK.’ He scratched his head. ‘And?’

‘She died.’

‘Who died, sweetheart?’

‘Moira did. Tonight.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Last night now, I suppose. That beautiful soul has gone.’

It was David’s turn to go into shock. ‘Did she choke?’ he asked after a few moments had passed.

‘Two heart attacks. Richard was with her. He’s back at the shed, and a doctor’s looking after him. But he wanted to tell Simon first, because he’s the oldest. He asked what we were doing in here, and I said we were getting rid of rubbish.’

Both stared at Lexi, who was weeping. ‘Bugger off before I let my lioness loose again,’ David said quietly. ‘She may be on the floor, but she’s still growling. Even I don’t trust her mood at the moment, and I’m engaged to marry her. Go on – get lost. If you’re very, very lucky, this may be the end of the matter. We’ve things to do, and we haven’t time to waste on you.’

Lexi rushed out.

They sat together on the carpet, sharing a silence that became a partnership, because they held on to each other like a pair of young animals looking for warmth. There was no need for speech, since she knew his thoughts, and he knew hers. A taxi pulled up. Lucy knew it was a cab, because diesel was noisy. ‘Go,’ she whispered. ‘Just tell him to phone his dad. Leave Lizzie with him – he’ll need her.’

Alone, she stared at Moira’s chair with the little shawl draped over the back. On a work table, embroidery silks shared space with pastels, watercolours and a multicoloured quarrel of knitting wools, waiting for the good days when hands were steady and pain was bearable. ‘I’m glad Richard was with you. I’m glad you liked my little play house, and pleased that you enjoyed your week.’

This house would be dead without Moira. She had put up a damned good fight against the ravages of her illness, had been strong, cheerful, stubborn and persistent. The woman had filled the place, not just because of all the equipment she required, but with the breadth of her character, the quirkiness of her personality. ‘I feel as if I knew you all my life, Moira.’

David came back. ‘Your boys are with them. They’ve gone up into the gods.’

‘Did Simon make the call?’

‘I didn’t stay. It was right to leave him with his wife and his peers.’

It was moments like this one that told Lucy why her love for this man was so real and at a depth that would never be reached by mere words. They had laughed and joked about the act of lovemaking, but when it came to abiding love, the man was pure Beethoven. And that, from Lucy, who was a great fan of Ludwig, meant something.

‘We’ll go back shortly,’ he said. ‘If they need us, they’ll find us.’

‘In my bed?’

‘Of course. First I must paint out the B A S T U R D on the front of this house, and I need to shift the surveillance stuff. I think Richard should not have to see any of that.’ He smiled wanly at her. ‘Yes, your bed. Where else would we be of comfort to each other?’

He was right again. Where else should they be?

Christmas

It was cold on the steps. Built from concrete to hold back the Mersey after valuable real estate had fallen into the river, they completed a monochrome picture on this special day when the Christian world celebrated the birth of a holy child.

The dog didn’t mind the cold. Samson leapt about like a puppy, threatening the waves, coming back several times to deposit weed, a dead crab and a condom at the feet of the man who had brought him here. A dull, heavy sky hung low over a boiling river whose chief colours were pewter and darker greys. Even the crests on beating water looked like the aftermath of washday, sepia foam landing rhythmically on the stretch where Vikings had disembarked to claim territory. Blondell had built all the villages – Great Crosby, Little Crosby, Blundellsands and Thornton. ‘I see no ships,’ Richard said before ordering the dog to heel.

It wasn’t his dog. He had borrowed it as an excuse for leaving a house filled by people, coloured lights, gaily wrapped packages and dozens of cards that celebrated a day he didn’t want. Christmas had arrived early this year. Unlike Easter, it wasn’t a movable feast, so he was the one out of step. Again. London. Carpets and kindness. How long had he been back from that place? One day at a time? So many days squashed, forgotten, obliterated.

He turned to look at houses newer than his own. This was Blundellsands; this was the area Blondell had grabbed for himself, and it was valuable. Million-pound residences all in a row, fairy lights everywhere, trees in gardens illuminated by garish décor. What a bloody mess.

No. He was the mess. He could remember way, way back, but recent days, weeks and months had been compressed into a folder marked Bad, and he had disposed of it. ‘They say it’s temporary,’ he told his canine friend. ‘But I think I’ve lost it, old son.’

Samson, who had enjoyed a good upbringing, made a polite little noise in his throat. The house to which he begged to return had been interesting today. Scents of last night’s cooking had hung in the air, and he wanted to taste all that had been promised.

‘OK,’ Richard sighed. ‘It’s all right for you. You don’t have to pretend to be human.’

They began the walk back to Mersey View. Richard didn’t want to face the hopeful smiles, the dinner, his children. Harley Street had been acceptable, because he hadn’t needed to try, since it was just tufted Wilton and politeness and strangers. And expensive. Here was real, and he wasn’t ready for reality.

‘I have insight into my own condition,’ he told Samson. ‘That’s what they said, anyway. In other bloody words, I should pull myself together.’ He liked this dog. Moira had . . . Moira had liked this dog. ‘Let her in, Rich,’ he ordered himself. ‘Go there. Be there. Think about your wife. And for everybody’s sake, grieve, and let go.’

‘He’s out there running round like bloody Heathcliff in a mac.’ Carol Makin folded her arms across a bosom that was overly ample. ‘I’ve gone out of me way for him on Christmas Day, and he’s not here. I’ll kill him when I find him, I will. I’ll bloody crown him with me roasting tin.’

Lucy decided yet again that Carol was an unusual woman. She talked like an overgrown street urchin, yet she had read just about every classic on library shelves. Heathcliff in a mac? That was a very accurate description of Dr Richard Turner, who had stopped being a doctor, had stopped being a father – had stopped being.

‘Shall I go after him?’ David asked. ‘After all, he could be leading my dog astray.’

Paul laughed, though the sound contained little merriment. ‘That dog knows nothing about astray. The trouble with Labradors is they’re too good.’

Carol turned on him. ‘Oh yes? Ho flaming ho and a happy Christmas all round? You should see my rug. Well, you shouldn’t, because it’s in the bin. Pigs in blankets?’ She turned to Lucy. ‘Our Dee done best pork sausages in bacon. Lovely, they were, but the flaming dog made away with half of them. The birds down Bootle is having a lovely Christmas. Don’t talk to me about bloody Labradors. I don’t care if I never see one again in—’

Samson chose this unfortunate moment to enter the house and run to Carol. He loved Carol. She was a foodie, and she often gave him illegal scraps when David wasn’t looking. ‘Hello, pet,’ she said, thereby making herself a total liar. ‘Who’s my lovely boy, then?’

Richard came in. Carol blinked, because she could scarcely bear to look at him. He appeared not to have enjoyed a good wash in twelve months, while his beard was nearly thick enough to accommodate a family of house sparrows. ‘Where’ve you been?’ She was one of the few people he heeded, so she made sure she addressed him loudly and clearly.

‘Beach,’ he said.

‘Sit,’ she ordered. Dog and man sat, the former waiting for food, the latter waiting for nothing.

‘Stay,’ she added before leaving the room.

The dog looked at his borrowed master, and the man looked at the dog.

David smiled to himself. Sometimes, canines went where humanity feared to tread. He grasped his wife’s hand and looked at her twin sons. They sat as still as a pair of statues, because like everyone else they didn’t know quite what to expect from the next few minutes.

Simon and Lizzie slipped into the room. They stood behind Richard’s chair and shared the pregnant pause.

Carol entered bearing a box. She was clearly unamused, as she was cursing under her breath about something or other, but that was not unusual for her. She dumped the box in Richard’s lap. ‘Happy flaming Christmas,’ she spat. ‘I only had it two nights, and that was enough. It’s a bastard.’

Richard opened the box, and everyone’s breath was held. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Did you eat a rug? Where are the sausages?’

Lucy allowed a long sigh of near-relief to escape. David had spoken of traumatized teenagers who communicated through Samson, whose bruised minds healed through Samson. She watched while Richard lifted a miniature Samson from the box. ‘A bastard, eh?’ he said.

David waved the paperwork. ‘He’s a close relative of my dog, and he’s good stock. The Queen’s gun dogs share ancestry with these two. But even good stock chews its way to new teeth, I’m afraid. He’s nine weeks, and he needs one more shot from the vet. Apart from that, he’s good to go.’

Richard lifted the small dog and allowed it to nuzzle his neck. He stroked a satin ear before handing the puppy to Samson. ‘There you are, lad. Train him.’

Carol dashed a few tears from her third chin. Watching the doc deteriorating hadn’t been easy. She’d caught Dee crying her eyes out, and Dee was tough. It had been heartbreaking, mostly because he’d never really mourned. After the funeral, other doctors had taken over the practice, while he’d taken to sitting around doing nothing. The two girls had come down, with permission from their university, to look after Dad, but they’d got nowhere with him. And he was such a good-looking bloke – it was a damned shame. ‘Doc?’ she said, her voice cracking slightly.

‘Yes?’

‘Look after that hound. She would have liked it. Moira would have loved a dog like Samson.’

The room was still and silent. ‘She would,’ he said. ‘You’re right.’

‘And if you look after the dog, it’ll look after you.’

‘Yes.’ He examined the puppy. ‘It’s a boy. I’ll call him Henry. Come along, Henry. You must meet the cat.’

It was as if the world had stopped. Steph and Alice arrived from next door, since everyone was to eat in number 32 Mersey View today. ‘Where is he?’ Alice whispered.

‘Outside with two dogs and a cat,’ replied Lucy.

They all filed into the dining room and stared through the window. The inevitable had happened, and poor little Henry was learning the hard way that cats didn’t negotiate, they dictated. ‘That won’t last,’ said Lucy. ‘Smokey loves dogs.’

And it happened. Richard sat on an old swing and cradled his puppy. Although he was facing away from the house, all inside could tell that he was sobbing, because his back shook.

‘That’s the start,’ David announced. ‘Like Churchill said, God bless him, this isn’t the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’ He placed an arm round his wife’s shoulders. ‘Is Alan definitely coming?’

‘Yes. So is Trish. Tomorrow. That’s step two. But the pup broke the ice.’

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. The dinner went on hold, and even her majesty could wait if necessary, because everyone here had lived through Richard Turner’s hell. The trouble was, most of the populace expected a doctor to be on top of things all the time, but David knew better. He had lived in a dark place himself, and he didn’t want to see Richard enduring a decade of nothingness. David had organized the Harley Street clinic and the dog; he had decided to talk to Alan and to invite him and Trish for Boxing Day. ‘Who’s a clever boy, then?’ Lucy whispered in his ear.

‘Early days, my darling. I’ll go and carve that massive bird before Samson sets his sights on it.’

Lucy went to stand at the back door. She smiled to herself. Richard was drying his tears on a nine-week-old puppy, and that, too, was a very good thing. If a man had no tissues, using a little dog as a handkerchief was thinking outside the box. An inch at a time, he would be dragged kicking and screaming from the container into which he had locked himself. ‘I won’t give up on him, Moira,’ she whispered as a single flake of snow landed at her feet. ‘None of us will.’

Boxing Day was sharper, clearer. The sun put in an appearance, its rays bouncing from a thin coating of hoar frost that had descended in the night. It was cold. Lucy slipped from the embrace of her husband, pulled on a dressing gown and went to the window. ‘We now have Heathcliff and Henry in a mac,’ she said. ‘Richard’s got his pup peeping out of the collar. Henry can’t be allowed on pavements till he’s had another injection.’ She sighed. ‘And another busy day. Come on, lazybones.’

‘No Chopin this morning?’ he groaned.

‘Not even chopsticks. Did he write that? Shut up and get up, David Vincent.’ She went to have a shower, her mind running through today’s menu and things that still needed to be done. Most of it was ready, but she prided herself on a good table, even when it offered just a buffet. Shirley and Hal had gone to their retirement home, so Ian, the new gardener, was to bring his family, while Carol and Dee were accompanying the formidable Beryl. Dee had refused to fetch her children, had muttered darkly about some things being unfit for human consumption, so Lucy had left it at that.

David joined her. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’m just in the queue, no Chopining about, and definitely no Tchaikovsky. But don’t turn round, or I might get carried away.’

She turned round with deliberate slowness. ‘Bog off,’ she said. ‘I’ve salmon to poach.’

‘I married a poacher? Can’t you buy your salmon from a supermarket like everyone else? Do you have to go out with fishing tackle and—’ A wet sponge hit him in the face.

Lucy left him where he was and pulled on a robe. She fought the urge to laugh, because he was capable of going from sublime to ridiculous and back in a split second. This was what happened when women married spindly little lads who turned out to be the spit of John Lennon, but taller. If he ever stopped being a nuisance, she would be very sad.

It was even colder than yesterday, but it was certainly brighter. Richard walked on sand while delivering a monologue to his new friend. The creature was warm, soft and pretty. He could not remember contact with any other being since . . . since September. It was the heat of one little body that had finally threatened to melt him. It was the trust in brown eyes that made him talk.

He told Henry about the world, the water, the sky. He showed him the steps, flags that forbade swimming, the coastguard station. ‘They rescue human idiots. I shall have to rescue you from Carol, because she’ll take your little deposits a lot more seriously than I do. And that, Henry, is the longest speech I’ve produced since . . . since Moira died.’

No drop of booze had passed his lips today. Last night, in his cups again, he had neglected this little chap and had been forced to pick up several tiny piles of dog dirt. Lucy and David were wise. So was Henry. Intelligence had been inherited from superior Canadian wolves, while prescience, too, appeared to be present. Henry was a wolf. Every dog, no matter what its size or shape, was ninety-nine per cent wolf. This one was a godsend.

‘The drink stopped me feeling. Now, I have to feel. Because people are waiting for me, you see. Friends are caring for my patients, the girls have lost a whole term and, when I was in London, I refused to see my only son. I saw him eventually, but he must have been hurt. They lost their mum. Technically speaking, Henry, a wife is replaceable, but a mum isn’t. I’ve been selfish.’

She wasn’t replaceable. He had no desire for women, no need for anyone. Lucy was still beautiful, but she wasn’t what he wanted. Without Moira . . . ‘Moira’s gone,’ he said.

The puppy bit his chin, which was already fragile after the first shave in days or weeks – Richard couldn’t remember. ‘No biting,’ he said before lowering himself on to a step. The Mersey was happier today. It looked cleaner. This was how life was meant to be – a series of changes, a different backdrop every hour, every moment. And he had to tackle it. He had to deal with it himself, because he knew only too well what drink could do.

The pup was like a mobile hot water bottle. He tried to wriggle out of prison, but the master held him back. ‘Soon,’ he promised. ‘For now, it’s just gardens, Samson – we have to trust to luck there – and that terrible cat. We’ve puppy food at home. Let’s get back. We have to start living.’

All six offspring from the two houses had been sent out for the day. After phoning several people, Simon had found an all-festive-season-come-as-you-are-but-with-bottles party in the digs of one of his ex-colleagues, so they went off happily with cans of lager and bottles of wine. They would be back in a day or two, they assured Lucy and David.

Staff and their families had been and gone, and enough food had been saved to entertain Trish and Alan when they arrived.

Exhausted, Lucy and David cuddled up on the big sofa to watch the recording of yesterday’s Queen’s speech. ‘I’d hate her job,’ said Lucy when the programme ended. ‘Having to be nice to people all the time, never expressing a true opinion, dancing to the tune of a nation, no politics allowed, dress up every day, no privacy.’

‘The Queen Mum had politics.’ David laughed. ‘She was a grand old girl, wasn’t she? She said the best parliament to have was Conservative, but with a very large Labour opposition. Yes, she knew her onions. And her horses.’ They were filling in time, talking just to kill the silence.

The doorbell sounded, and Lucy jumped to her feet. ‘Do I look all right?’

‘You’ve two buttons undone. Anyone would think I’d been interfering with you,’

‘You have been interfering.’

‘Yes, but there’s no need to advertise. And you’d better not tell QE Two. It’s probably high treason or something.’

Lucy opened the door. For the first time in many years, she was pleased to see her first husband.

The front door was ajar, so Alan walked in. Through another door on the right, he saw a man sitting on a chair, a puppy chewing his shoelaces. ‘Richard?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m Alan. Lucy’s first husband. My second wife’s next door, and they’re talking legs off donkeys, so I thought I’d come and introduce myself.’

Richard stared blankly for a few seconds. ‘Sit down. Sorry about the pup. He seems to like you.’

Alan picked up the wriggling mass of black fur. ‘We keep donkeys, Trish and I. Rescued, they are. And Damien – we kept him. He’s my llama. He was supposed to go to Yorkshire, but I thought no, why should we do that to a defenceless animal?’

Richard almost smiled. ‘Would you like a drink?’

Alan shook his head. ‘Teetotal. Have to be. I’m a recovering alky.’

‘Ah. I meant tea or coffee.’

‘No, ta. I’m drowning in the stuff as it is. Two bloody wives in one room? The kettle’s never been off since we arrived.’

Another silence followed, then Alan cut to the chase. He took paperwork from a pocket, showed Richard the state his health had been in. ‘I had this good, quiet wife, and I never appreciated her. And I must have drunk thousands of pounds in whisky.’

For the first time, Richard allowed himself to laugh. He told Alan about Lexi, about the way that quiet, good wife had knocked seven shades out of her. ‘I’ve been quiet myself, so they think I hear nothing. I hear. And Lucy all but killed her. She can be quite fierce, actually. Fortunately, it all stopped short of police, otherwise our quiet Lucy might have got herself a record.’

Alan thought about that before expressing the view that Lucy hadn’t cared enough to be nasty about him and his girlfriends. ‘But she took her money back. Then she kept me out of jail, you know.’

‘They’ve sent you to stop me drinking, haven’t they?’

‘Yup.’

Richard explained that he’d been on a binge, but it was over. He was one of the lucky ones. He could go back to his nightly dose of Scotch intended to help guard against atheroma. ‘My wife died,’ he said. ‘I blacked it all out deliberately, and I used spirits rather than drugs. Inform the Mothers’ Union next door that they don’t need to be concerned.’

Alan told Richard about his weeks in Easterly Grange, the drying out in solitude, the surgery, Trish. Richard spoke about London and how time had become distorted. ‘I reckon I lost two months somewhere along the line.’

‘But you haven’t lost yourself, doc. You can lose your way without going crackers, you know. I was very odd. Drying out’s no bundle of laughs. But I made it. You’ll get through this. My mam used to say if a bad thing doesn’t kill us, it makes us stronger.’

‘Yes.’

When Alan had gone, Richard took his puppy into the garden. He explained at length about defecation and the need to find a place suitable for the results of this activity. ‘I’m a doctor. I have patients. They don’t want to come to a house stinking of pee and poo, do they?’

The dog wagged a pathetic string of a tail. Already, he knew why he was here. This man had food. He would give food to his dog and, in return, the dog had to work. Henry didn’t know what his specific tasks would be, but he was ready to learn. He skipped sideways in an attempt to show his willingness, fell over dinner-plate paws, and rolled about in a way that was undignified, to say the least of it. But he shook himself and pretended that the move had been intentional.

Richard laughed at the canine clown. He laughed till he cried, and he allowed the tears to flow. In time, he would be all right. The girls could go back to Edinburgh, Simon and Lizzie would return to London, and Richard must begin the process of building himself up again. Moira would want him to be well.

As he dried his face on a tissue this time, he noticed a lonely flake of snow on the dog’s dark fur. ‘Moira,’ he said. ‘I will be all right. So will our children, Lucy, her kids and David. You can stop worrying now.’

Mersey View

Ruth Hamilton is the bestselling author of twenty previous novels set in the north-west of England. She was born in Bolton and now lives in Liverpool, and she writes about both places with realistic insight and dramatic imagery.

For more information on Ruth Hamilton
and her books, see her website at:

www.ruth-hamilton.co.uk

Once again, I dedicate this piece to Avril Cain, my very best friend.

Not only does she live very close to the setting of the book, but she also handles multiple sclerosis like a master. Mentally, she outruns every doctor and therapist who tries to talk down to her. She is, as locals put it, sound as a pound.

On days when she can’t walk, she paints and draws; on days when her hands don’t work, she helps me by giving me ideas, characters and locations for my work.

Some aspects of Moira, one of the lead characters herein, are taken from the soul of Avril Cain, who is an example to all of us. Avril’s secret is that she remains young and laughs at the various stupidities of her ailing body.

Av, you know I love you, hon. Linda/Ruthie xx

AUTHOR STATEMENT

To the people of North Liverpool, I apologize for messing about with the map and moving the location of Mersey View to a rather grand promenade of Georgian houses near our marina. Liverpool has been my home for thirty years, so I am now part-Scouser and I hope that allows me a bit of leeway.

Acknowledgements

I thank my family, whose members urge me on and keep me smiling.

Gill and Billy, you know I couldn’t do any of this without you.

Sadly, I say goodbye to my ex-father-in-law, the best man I ever knew.

Fudge, who is enjoying an Indian summer after a near-brush with death, is now Labrador King of Moorside Park, where he manages and chides all dogs and owners.

Treacle, my baby Lab, you have to lose weight, as must I.

For Billy Guy, who walks my dogs and reads every word I write, though not simultaneously.

This book is a celebration of Liverpool’s spirit, her defiance and determination through some terrible years. With respect and pride, I praise a tough generation who managed to remember to laugh.

If I have shifted things round a bit, forgive me. After thirty-one years in my chosen city, I beg some licence. In this place my forebears arrived from Ireland a hundred years ago. They moved inland, but I returned here with my sons in 1979. I have never regretted that journey.

God bless Liverpool, and God help my football team.

Ruthie.

Contents

PART ONE 1939

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

PART TWO 1940

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

PART THREE 1941

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

PART FOUR 1942

Twenty-One

PART ONE
1939

One

‘She’s got one. She’s always had one. Her face might favour a stewed prune some of the time, like, and she’s a cut above us lot, but she’s definitely got one in that there posh front room.’ Nellie Kennedy leaned against the door frame and stared across at number one, Rachel Street. ‘Her mam and dad had it before her, and I’ll swear Henry Brogan picked up the wotsname to be charged up last week.’

‘Wotsname? Do you mean the battery?’

Nellie awarded Kitty Maguire a withering look. Kitty, at the grand old age of twenty-nine, owned very few teeth, a pale grey face, virtually no flesh on her bones, three kids and a husband who could take gold if beer drinking ever became an Olympic sport. ‘I’m not asking her,’ Kitty said. ‘She looks at me as if I should get back under a stone. No, I’m not asking her about nothing. She never talks to nobody.’

‘Neither am I asking her.’ Nellie shook her turbaned head. ‘At a time like this, I think she should come out and tell us what’s been said. It’s like what you’d call a neighbourly duty in my book. She knows we’re all stood here waiting like cheese at fourpence.’

There was only one wireless in the street, and it belonged to her at the end. Her at the end was a spinster of indeterminate years who had stayed at home to care for her parents, a pair of sad, colourless people with not much to say for themselves towards the end of their lives. After running a Scotland Road shop for many years, they had eventually retired, shrunk, and dropped like autumn leaves, but in the middle of winter. Arthur and Sarah Pickavance had shuffled off within days of each other, leaving Miss Pickavance to return to her position as ironer in a Chinese laundry, a situation that appeared to give her airs, as she never got dirty.

Few could understand why she remained in the Scotland Road area, because she wasn’t a Catholic, wasn’t Irish, and wasn’t poor by most standards in these shabby parts. Her clothes were always nice, since she got them done at work, and she had proper furniture with a sofa and matching chairs in the parlour. It wasn’t easy to see into her parlour, as thick lace curtains covered the bottom half of the sash window, while an aspidistra blocked more of the view, but she kept herself nice. And she did have matching furniture. In an area where a proper pair of boots with laces was a novelty, two brown chairs and a brown sofa were wealth indeed. She was supposed to have carpet squares and a real canteen of knives and forks, plus a proper tea set with saucers, cups and plates decorated with red roses and a bit of gold on the rims.

Nellie Kennedy, eyes and ears of the world, had been heard to opine on many occasions that Hilda Pickavance thought she was too good for round here. ‘One of these days she’ll have her nose that far up in the air, she’ll come a cropper under the muck cart, and that’ll be her done.’ But today Nellie wasn’t saying much. Nobody was saying much, because a heavy, if invisible, weight rested on the shoulders of every man and woman in Britain. Eleven o’clock had come and gone; at approximately eleven fifteen, Chamberlain was going to broadcast. This was not a good day for anyone of a nervous disposition.

Rumours were rife, and had been developing with increasing speed for a month or more. The chap who sold newspapers door to door said he’d heard that France was joining the anti-Nazi stance, that Australia, New Zealand and Canada were loading up ships, while America couldn’t make up its mind because it didn’t need to be bothered worrying about Europe. Ernie Bagshaw, who had just one eye and a limp from the Great War, was going about telling anyone who would listen that the Luftwaffe had already carpet-bombed London, so there’d be no broadcast. But no one listened to him, as he was just being his usual cheerful self.

‘My Charlie thinks Hitler’ll win,’ announced Kitty. ‘We’ll all be walking daft and talking German by next year, he says.’

‘Hmmph.’ Nellie’s ‘hmmphs’ were legendary. She didn’t need to use words, because Kitty Maguire knew what was going through her next-door neighbour’s mind. Charlie Maguire was mad and pickled. He was mad enough to have taken a sample of his wife’s urine for testing in order to hide his drinking, and pickled enough to believe the doctor when told he was the first pregnant man in that particular area of Liverpool. Yes, the ‘hmmph’ was adequate, because Charlie definitely wasn’t.

‘We could have let the kids go on Friday,’ Kitty said. ‘Maybe we should have sent them on the trains, Nellie.’ She left unspoken the reason for the corporate if unspoken decision not to send the children on the evacuation trains. Asked to provide a change of clothing, pyjamas or nightdresses and extra underwear, the mothers of Scotland Road were stymied, since few children owned much beyond the rags on their backs. What was more, many from large families carried wildlife about their persons, and a visit to the local bath house would have proved expensive.

But Nellie agreed with Kitty’s statement. All they had were their kids, and Scottie was near enough to the docks to warrant flattening by Hitler’s airborne machines. ‘I know, love,’ she sighed wearily. ‘And if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. But you’re right, because if London cops it, we’ll be next. No way will Liverpool be left out of this lot.’ Nellie was old enough to remember the last bit of bother. It had left her widowed, and the intervening twenty years had been beyond hard. Life was still far from easy, because Nellie shared a house with her daughter, also widowed, and four grandchildren, three of whom were wild, to say the least. Half the time, nobody knew where the lads were, and the other half, Nellie, her daughter and her granddaughter wished they’d leave the house and get up to whatever they got up to when nobody knew where they were, because of the noise.

‘Did you get the horse back to the carters’ yard?’ Kitty asked.

Nellie sighed heavily. ‘Jimmy Leach came for it. I don’t know what our Bertie was thinking of. A carthorse is a bit big to hide in a back yard.’ She shrugged. ‘He was going on for days about wanting a horse, and he took one. Thank God it was docile. But getting to the lav wouldn’t have been easy, not with that great big article tied to me mangle.’ She sighed again. ‘Trying to hide a nineteen-hand carthorse between a tin bath and a mangle. I ask you.’ She shrugged.

‘You have to laugh, though,’ said Kitty.

‘Have you? With what’s going on in Germany, I can’t even manage a smile these days. Ooh, look. I don’t believe it.’ The lace curtain in number one had disappeared, the sash window was being raised, and a wireless had taken the place of the aspidistra. Drawn like bees to pollen, adults and children began to congregate until the small crowd outside number one was at least four deep and two houses wide. No one said a word; even babies sat silently while waiting for their fate to be decided. Hilda Pickavance fiddled with a knob till she found the right station. She turned up the volume as high as it would go, then stood next to the instrument, hands folded, head bowed, as if she waited for Holy Communion. The broadcast begin at eleven thirteen precisely.

And they heard it. No one spoke or moved while the Prime Minister made a brave effort to hide sorrow and bitter disappointment. His little piece of paper, the one that had fluttered in the breeze only months before on cinema screens, was now all but screwed into a ball and deposited in the rubbish cart. ‘This country is at war with Germany.’ He asked for God’s help to be given to the righteous, then went away to do whatever Prime Ministers did at times like this. The crowd emitted a synchronized breath before beginning to disperse. War. Husbands, fathers and brothers would disappear, and some would never return.

It was ridiculous. On a beautiful late summer morning, everybody’s life changed in the space of a few minutes. Even here, where poverty was king, sunlight washed over the houses, birds sang, and fluffy white clouds drifted across a perfect sky. Good weather was one thing that didn’t happen just to the rich. Good weather came from God, and He gave it to all His children.

The stunned silence continued. Although shelters were being built and children moved up and down the country in search of safety, the news remained incredible. Should they have let their kids go, and bugger the shame that accompanied poverty? What now? In every female heart, a little devil prayed for their menfolk to be declared unfit to serve. If they weren’t well enough to be picked for work on the docks, surely they could not be expected to defend their country?

Nellie Kennedy, as tough as old hobnailed boots, began to cry. She sank to the ground, where she was joined by Kitty, her neighbour of several years. No longer young, no longer as resilient as the front she presented, Nellie felt she couldn’t take any more. She’d been on the planet for only fifty-odd years, yet she felt ancient, worn out and unbelievably sad. It was happening again. It wasn’t supposed to happen again.

‘Come on, queen,’ whispered Kitty. ‘Don’t let go. We’ve got to hang on, girl. No point in giving up before we’ve even kicked off, eh?’

The onlookers moved closer, unwashed bodies and dirty clothing removing the earlier freshness of the day. But they soon cleared off, because a wailing sound invaded the area, a noise to which they would need to become accustomed for years to come. They scattered, leaving Nellie and her neighbour on the cobbles.

Hilda Pickavance came into the street to break the habit of a lifetime. ‘Mrs Kennedy,’ she said. ‘Would you come into my house, please? I think the siren’s just for practice. Would you kindly come in too, Mrs Maguire?’

Kitty shook her head and walked away. Much as she would have loved to get a glimpse of the matching furniture, she had to go back home and see what her children were up to. Did they have their gas masks? Was this really just a practice on the sirens?

But Nellie allowed herself to be led away. For the first time ever, she would be able to report properly on the state of Hilda Pickavance’s home. The fear and sadness remained, but she would shortly find distractions.

Nellie Kennedy closed her mouth with an audible snap. The trouble with porcelain dentures was that they were noisy in the event of shock. Blood and stomach pills, this was a lot to take in. First, there was a war on, a fight Britain might never win, because rumour had it that Hitler was more than ready to conquer the whole of Europe. Second, she was drinking tea from a china cup in the presence of a neighbour who was landed bloody gentry. ‘Are you sure?’ she managed at last. ‘Is it not a mistake, like?’ She had a saucer. A real saucer that matched the cup. But she didn’t extend her little finger, because that would have been taking the whole thing too far.

Miss Pickavance inclined her head. ‘My father was cut off without a penny before I was born. My mother didn’t pass muster, you see, because she was a mere cleaner. My uncle felt sorry for my father and sent money. That paid for our little shop – remember the shop?’

‘I do. They were very polite, your mam and dad. And sometimes they let us have stuff on tick when we ran out of bread or something we really needed. We called it the just-about-everything corner, because your dad sold just about everything, didn’t he?’

Hilda Pickavance smiled tentatively. ‘The same uncle died intestate – without a will – and I am his only surviving relative. I found out properly just last week, so I’ve been on to the authorities and they said yes. I can use it for evacuees and farming.’

Nellie, a town girl to the core, shifted in her chair. ‘A farm, though?’

‘Yes, part of the estate is a farm. Livestock and arable, so quite a lot of land. Land is going to be vital, because this country will need to become as self-sufficient as possible.’

‘Eh?’

‘The merchant ships that import food and so forth will come under attack. We shall have to grow our own supplies. Mrs Kennedy, this is a serious business – we need to take children with us. And I shall require someone like you, because I’m unused to children.’

Nellie had been so engrossed that she’d forgotten to study the furniture. Today had been a bit like an old silent movie – well, apart from the sirens. It had walked at a strange pace, jerking about and changing direction without warning. Bright sunlight had birthed hope, then hope had been shattered by the broadcast, now it threatened to bud once again. Would it be shot down in flames? Would this become yet another false promise? ‘What about my Eileen and her brood?’

‘They will come with us. She can clean and cook.’

Nellie blinked rapidly. She would wake up in a minute, surely? Somebody would start shouting that somebody else had pinched his boots and gone out in them, Eileen would be scraping together some sort of breakfast, and the dream would be over. ‘So you are posh, then? We always knew you were different, what with not being Catholic and all that, but are you proper gentry, like?’

Hilda Pickavance laughed, and the sound was rusty. ‘I was born in a room above a shop in town. Until Uncle found us, we lived hand to mouth, so I never considered myself gentry. When he sent the money, we took the shop and bought this little house, and we settled here, because the business was close by. My father was a proud man, and Uncle didn’t find us again. Perhaps he didn’t try, but that’s not important now. We have to deal with what’s going on at the moment. I have land, you have children. We need each other.’

‘And you worked in the laundry?’

‘I loved my job. I was always good at ironing, so I went to work with those lovely Chinese people after our shop closed. Then I had to leave to look after my parents, and when they died I went back. A few weeks ago, I saw a notice in the newspaper, and found out that I’m a woman of substance. Yes, it’s a lot to take in.’

Nellie didn’t know what to say. Hilda Pickavance was not a bit stuck-up, and she was offering safety, yet the part of Nellie that belonged here, in Liverpool, was aching already. ‘I don’t know,’ she managed at last. ‘I’ll have to talk to Eileen and the kids – they’re not babies.’

‘I know what you mean. I have envied you for such a long time.’

‘Envied?’ Nellie paused for a few seconds, incredulity distorting her features. ‘What’s to envy? I clean in the Throstle’s Nest. Me husband’s long dead, our Eileen cleans big houses for peanuts because her fellow died on the docks, and you envy us that? She’s up Blundellsands scrubbing, I’m cleaning sick off the floor in filthy lavatories . . .’ Her voice died of exhaustion.

‘My mother was a cleaner,’ said the woman from number one. ‘What I envy is the fact that you have each other. I am brotherless, sisterless, parentless. I had one uncle, whom I never met, and now I am completely alone in the world. That’s why I want some of you to come. I don’t know you well, but I recognize you. I’m afraid, Mrs Kennedy. To be honest, I’m absolutely terrified of all this – the war, the property, everything.’

This was the morning on which Britain had gone to war, when Hilda Pickavance had shared her wireless with the neighbours, when Nellie Kennedy learned that ‘her from number one’ wasn’t so stuck-up and different after all. ‘Right. What happens next?’ she asked. The woman was shy, that was all. She just wasn’t used to folk.

Hilda’s face was white. ‘Well, I have to go and look at the place. It’s been described to me, of course, and I’ve seen a few photographs, but nothing’s real till you see it properly. Mrs Kennedy, the bombs aren’t real until the body of a child is dug out. I’m sorry to speak so plainly, but—’

‘No, no, you do right. There’s no harm in calling a spade a shovel, no matter what it’s used for. I’m Nellie, by the way, so you can call a Kennedy a Nellie while you’re at it with the spade.’

‘Hilda.’

‘Hello, Hilda. When are you going?’

‘Tomorrow. Come with me.’

‘You what?’

The poor woman’s hands picked at a beautifully laundered handkerchief. ‘I can’t do all this by myself. Had the war not happened, I’d probably have sold all the land and property and bought myself a house somewhere in Liverpool. Liverpool’s all I know. Like you, Nellie, I’ve never lived anywhere else. I have to go and look at my new life.’

Nellie pondered for a while. ‘Where is this place?’

‘North of Bolton.’

Nellie’s mouth made a perfect O before she spoke again. ‘Bolton’s a big town full of factories. It’ll get pancaked, same as here.’

Hilda explained that her legacy was out in the wilds among small villages and hamlets, that Liverpool was in more danger as it was coastal, and gave her opinion that women might well be forced to work. ‘Better to be on a farm than in a munitions factory, Nellie. Put your grandchildren first, and grow potatoes. Well?’

‘Can I go and fetch our Eileen? I can’t make a decision this big on my own. And our Mel’s old enough and clever enough to make up her own mind.’ Nellie sighed. ‘I’ll never work out where she got her brains. Top marks in that test, so she got what they call a scholarship.’ She looked through the window. ‘What the bloody hell’s that soft lot up to? Have you seen this?’

‘I have.’ Hilda smiled, though her eyes remained grim. ‘They’re waiting for the planes, Nellie. God alone knows what they’ve done to Poland since they walked in. I suppose Warsaw will soon be - as you say - pancaked. Probably more like crepes suzette. Flambe, or even cremated. There will be no mercy.’

The visitor gulped audibly. ‘So it won’t be just bridges and railways?’

Hilda shook her head. ‘It will be babies, Nellie. And that’s how it will be here, too. We aren’t ready. If those in government had listened to Winston Churchill, we might have had more weapons and planes. The men who would have built those things will be called up to fight. Women will assemble guns, tanks and planes. Shall we stick to cabbages and onions? Shall we save some children?’

‘God!’

‘Is on our side. Go on. Fetch Eileen.’

Nellie stepped into the street. Eileen was one of those who stood and stared at the sky. The all-clear had sounded, yet half of Rachel Street crowded on the cobbles, every neck tilted back, each pair of eyes scanning the blue for signs of an incoming formation. Nellie whistled. Her whistles, like her ‘hmmphs’, were legendary in the area. Attention was suddenly diverted from heaven to earth. ‘They won’t come today,’ she told them all. ‘It’s Sunday. They’ll be in church praying for Hitler, their new pope.’ She beckoned to her daughter, and led her into the house opposite theirs.

Forced to sit through the tale for a second time, Nellie examined the parlour. It was spotless. Cream-painted walls carried framed prints, and a grandmother clock ticked happily in the corner. Folk had been right about the suite, right about the carpet.

The wireless, now atop a well-polished desk, was still turned on, though at a lower volume. The people of Dublin were burning effigies of Chamberlain in the streets. Churchill had been summoned to the cabinet room. Survivors in Warsaw were reported to be ecstatic – they clearly expected a lot from Britain. British men aged between eighteen and forty-one would be called up in stages, while immediate volunteers would be accepted if medically fit.

When Eileen left to talk to her children, Nellie stayed, because Hilda wanted not to be alone. So she was there when Churchill was made First Lord of the Admiralty, there when reports came of ships signalling, in great joy, ‘Winston is back’. She was there for lunch and for tea, was an ear-witness when King George broadcast to his empire, when the Athenia, with many Americans on board, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. Russia was to remain neutral as part of a pact with Hitler, while Roosevelt insisted that America was not to be involved.

Australia announced its intention to fight, as did New Zealand, the West Indies and Canada. At half past eight, France declared war on Germany.

‘France is in a terrible position, geographically speaking,’ said Hilda.

Nellie agreed. ‘Yes. They’ll be in Hitler’s way, won’t they?’

Hilda nodded. ‘The Germans will just walk in, and then there’ll be nothing more than a thin ribbon of water separating Adolf and us. Imagine how the people of Dover feel, Nellie. It’s only about twenty miles from Calais.’

That was the moment when it all hit home for Nellie. France would no doubt do her best, but she was probably as ill-equipped as England. Twenty miles? Some folk could swim that. That fellow Captain Webb had swum it, for a start. He was on most of the boxes of matches she bought. ‘I think I’d best come with you tomorrow, Hilda. Our Eileen, too, if that’s all right, because it has to be her decision – they’re her kids.’

‘Yes.’

Nellie attempted a smile. ‘Mind you, if there’s horses, Bertie’ll be there in a shot. He pinched one last week from the carters’ yard and brought it home. He’d have tried taking it up to bed with him if we hadn’t noticed it.’ She looked down at work-worn hands. ‘It’s all changed today, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m not a country girl.’

‘Neither am I.’

‘And we’re just looking, aren’t we?’

Hilda nodded her agreement. ‘Looking costs nothing. We’ll leave at one. You’ll have finished work by then?’

‘Yes, and Eileen doesn’t do Mondays, so she’ll be ready.’

Hilda stood up and held out her hand. ‘It’s been a pleasure to meet you at last, Nellie. Tomorrow we’ll see a completely different world, one where the harvest has just come in, children run in free, fresh air, cows wait to be milked, and eggs will be plentiful.’

Nellie shook her neighbour’s hand. ‘You make it sound like a holiday.’

‘I wish. Oh, how I wish.’

Hilda watched while her new-found friend walked across the narrow street and disappeared into a house she shared with five people. Nellie and her daughter slept in the parlour, while the three boys shared the front and larger bedroom, leaving the small rear room for Mel, the brains of the family. The mattress on which Nellie and Eileen slept was probably parked in an upright position behind other furniture during the day. Cleaner than most others, the Kennedy/Watson clan still suffered the effects of overcrowding, but they didn’t smell as badly as some. They managed to get to the public bath house on a fairly regular basis, while Mel bathed when she stayed at a friend’s house in Crosby. Yes, there was Mel. What would she decide to do?

Mel Watson, baptized Amelia Anne after her dead father’s dead mother, was doing her Latin homework. She had fought hard for her place at Merchant Taylors’, because the priest hadn’t liked the idea of her going to a non-Catholic school, and tram fares were hard to come by, but she’d hung on in there. A friend at school had given her a second-hand bike, and that was a great help. It was a long way from Rachel Street to Crosby – a long way in more senses than one – but Mel was a determined girl.

The war had landed downstairs. There was no need for Hitler, since Bertie, Rob and Philip were making enough noise to wake the dead. She put down her pen, walked to the door of her tiny room and opened it. The word ‘farm’ was being repeated, as was ‘Miss Pickavance’ and ‘when do we go?’ It was clear that Mam had decided to evacuate the boys. Sitting on the stairs, she wrapped the skirt of her uniform round her knees. Gran was talking now, was making the boys shut up, so some sense was promised.

‘We’re all going,’ Gran said. ‘The whole of our family, and Miss Pickavance. We’ll be safe, and there’ll be plenty to eat, and—’

‘And horses,’ shrieked Bertie, who was the youngest of the three.

Mel crept back into her room. She stretched out on the bed, hands clasped behind her head. A beautiful child was promising to become a beautiful young woman, and she would get her way. There was a spare room in Gloria Bingley’s house. Gloria Bingley’s father and brother were fond of Mel. Mrs Bingley, too, was fond, but in a very different way. They had given her the bike. They had bought her two dresses and had fed her many times. This might be the very opportunity for which she had waited.

But Mel would miss her family. Pragmatic by nature, she tried to go along with the flow of life, picking up whatever was wanted and available, refusing to worry about her poverty-stricken household, the vagaries of her brothers, the loudness of her grandmother. This was the situation into which she had been born, and she had made the best she could of it.

Her undeniable beauty was a tool she used from time to time. She had inherited her looks from her mother, who had stoically refused to remarry, though she had not been without potential suitors. But, as Eileen repeated with monotonous regularity, she would not wish her three boys on the worst of men, while the best had the sense to stay away. As for Mel’s brain, it was just a fluke. Many clever people came from lowly beginnings, so she wouldn’t be the first urchin to strut the stage with the Cambridge Footlights.

How far were they going? There were no farms round here, though a few of Lord Derby’s existed over towards Rainford and Maghull. It would be further away, in a place where no housing estates had sprung up since the Great War. ‘I don’t want to lose my mother,’ she told a statue of Our Lady. ‘And what if Gloria’s dad and brother want to do more than look at me?’

At thirteen, she knew almost all there was to know about sex. Gender issues were another problem, since her brothers had, from the very start, considered her bike to be fair game because they were boys, while she was a mere female. The matter had been settled by Gran: two beatings with a belt that had belonged to Dad, followed by the acquisition of a chain and padlock. Mel’s bike now lived in the front room, attached to a hook in the wall that had been installed by a docker. It was the only way for a girl to survive in a house that contained members of the so-called superior sex.

Sex itself had similar rules, she supposed. In order for the species to survive, males had been furnished with the urge to invade the female body. Women and girls needed to be clever, because these masculine requirements could be utilized. A pretty face, good legs, a small waist and developing breasts were assets not to be underestimated. When manufactured innocence invaded a sweet smile, dresses, bikes and food became available. Could a bed be attained by the same means? It would be safer, she decided, if she shared a room with Gloria. She didn’t want babies from Gloria’s brother; she wanted Cambridge. School holidays could be spent with the family she didn’t really want to lose, while term time would be a sight easier if she lived in Crosby.

The door opened. ‘Mel?’

‘Come in, Mam.’

Eileen sat on the edge of the lumpy bed. She told her beautiful daughter about Miss Pickavance and the inheritance, about Gran’s intention to shift everyone inland, about the boys’ excitement.

‘I heard it,’ said Mel.

‘Miss Pickavance said that Bolton School might take you because of special circumstances. But it’s about ten miles from where we’re going—’

‘Mam, I’m staying here. Somebody will put me up. Bolton School might be doing the same courses, but differently. And I don’t want to pedal twenty miles a day, do I? There may be some public transport, but petrol’s going to be scarce.’

‘Is it?’

Mel nodded. ‘It’s imported, and the seas won’t be safe with all those U-boats lurking.’

‘Eh?’

‘Submarines. We won’t want to risk them blowing up the oil tankers, so petrol will be rationed, as will all imported stuff. Mam, it’s going to be a nightmare. Please let me find someone who’ll take me in, then I’ll do my best to get to you during the holidays.’

Eileen began to weep softly. ‘I don’t want to lose me girl, do I?’

This was the weak link in Mel’s sensible, I-can-cope-with-anything chain. She adored her mother. No matter what she achieved in life, no matter where she worked, this woman would be with her. ‘You’ll never lose me, and I’ll never lose you till the day one of us dies, Mam.’ She had watched her mother going without so that the children might be better fed. She’d seen her in the same clothes day in, day out, frayed but clean, shoes polished and full of holes. Mam’s beauty was finer now, almost ethereal, because her facial skin had become translucent, allowing miraculous bones to boast loudly of their perfection. From this wonderful woman, Mel had gained life, reasonable health, and the power that accompanied good looks.

‘We’d be safer,’ Eileen said now. ‘But I’d be worried past meself about you, babe. From the moment you were born, you were perfect. Your dad cried when he saw you, said you were the loveliest girl in the world – except for me, of course. But they’ll bomb Crosby, Mel. They will. I know they’ll be aiming for the docks and the ships, but Crosby’s only two minutes away in a plane. How can I leave you?’

‘You’ve the three lads, that’s how and why. On a farm, Bertie can run out his madness, and the other two will learn skills like planting, harvesting, collecting eggs and milking cows. Gran will be better in fresh air. As for bombs – well, they’ll just have to keep out of my way, because I’m going to Cambridge.’

‘How?’

‘When I get there, I’ll work ten nights a week in a pub.’

‘But there aren’t ten in a week.’

‘I’ll soon alter that.’

‘I bet you could, too.’ If her Mel set her mind to something, it suddenly became achievable. ‘All right, love. But when you decide where you’re staying, I want to see the people and the house.’

‘Of course.’

Eileen went downstairs to re-join the rabble. If she had to meet people from Crosby, she’d need clothes. Perhaps Miss Pickavance would lend her something sensible. But would she dare to ask?

In one sense, the day on which war was declared had become the best in Hilda’s life so far. Her parents had been kind, gentle but rather quiet folk. Both avid readers, they had introduced her to books at a tender age, and she still devoted much of her leisure time to reading. The wireless was excellent company when she was dusting and sweeping, but at other times she chose books. She had never been a communicator. At work, her employers, who valued her greatly, spoke Cantonese for the most part, so Hilda’s conversation practice had been sorely neglected. Today, she had broken her duck. Very soon, she would become a comparatively wealthy woman.

But this little house was part of her. She even kept Mother’s last piece of knitting in a bottom cupboard, the needles stopped and crossed in the middle of a row. It had been a cardigan for Father, but it had never been finished, and he would not be needing it now. Yet Hilda couldn’t part with any of it. What was the sense, though? Why should she hang on to a house in a slum, a street that might fall down or be bombed before being selected for demolition? And, if she kept it, would it be burgled and looted in her absence, or might a neighbour look after it? The cleanest people were coming with her, so . . .

‘Calm down,’ she ordered. ‘You are going to look, no more and no less.’ After the war, she might sell – what was it called? Willows. Willows was a large house; then there was Willows Home Farm and a little hamlet labelled Willows End. No, Willows Edge. The place was reputed to be slightly run down, as Uncle had spent most of his time abroad. The solicitor had intimated, as delicately as he could, that Uncle had favoured the company of young men, hence the lack of direct offspring. And Hilda had blushed. She needed to stop blushing and start living.

Mother and Father were together on the mantelpiece. The photograph had been taken a few years ago during a visit to Southport. Hilda smiled at them. Sometimes, she had felt rather de trop in this house, because the love those two had shared had been enough, and they hadn’t needed a child to underline their status. Yes, they had loved her; yes, they could have managed without her. To this day, she felt no resentment, since she had been raised in a stable home, one to which a drunken parent never returned, where silence was normal, and contentment seemed eternal.

It had been a sensible union. God knew there were few of those in these parts. But nothing was eternal. Mother had passed away one Christmas Eve; Father had followed her three days later. The whole of Scotland Road had turned out for the double funeral, since most of them remembered kindness and thoughtfulness. So decent had the Pickavances been that no one had ever gone over the top with a slate. Even after the shop had closed, pennies and threepenny bit had landed on the doormat wrapped in scraps of paper with a name, and a message – Last payment, or I still owe you another 8d.

Now this. What would Mother and Father have done? Had Father outlived Uncle, this problem and its accompanying wealth and responsibility would have been his. There was a farmer, there were farmhands. There was a land agent who collected rents and kept order on the whole estate. Hilda would be their boss. It was all rather daunting, but she didn’t want to shame the memory of the people who had raised her. ‘I’ll try,’ she said to the photograph. ‘God help me,’ she continued as she doused gas mantles in preparation for bed. She picked up her candle and walked to the stairs. This place was all she knew. From tomorrow, life might change, and she was not prepared for that.

Two

‘A woman. A bloody woman!’ Neil Dyson threw his cap onto the kitchen table where it narrowly missed the milk jug. ‘I know I won’t be one of the first to be called up, but I might have to go sooner or later unless the job here’s termed reserved. Jean, you’re the best wife any farmer could want, and I’d trust you with my life, but this is one blinking big farm, and you’ll be answerable to a female from the middle of Liverpool. The only things she’ll grow are her fingernails, and I bet she’d run a mile if she saw a cow or a big boar. She’ll be as soft as putty and as daft as a brush.’

Jean Dyson poured another mug of tea for her rampageous spouse. He was ranting and raving, while she was trying to bake bread and scones. ‘It’s not her fault, Neil. She’s just the last man standing, and she happens to be female. She didn’t turn her uncle into what he was. None of it’s her fault, love. You know I thought the world of Adam Pickavance, but he was never here, was he? If we saw him twice a year, we were doing pretty well. But calm down, for God’s sake. We’ve trouble enough without you aiming for a stroke. And you know how much I hate all the shouting.’

‘Adam Pickavance?’ he snorted. ‘Too busy chasing pretty boys all over the place, he was. He never bothered about us lot, did he? The houses down the Edge need new roofs and all sorts, Willows is slowly rotting away, and who’s going to run this place?’

‘I am.’

‘But you’ll lose most of the hands. The older ones might get left here, and a few of the very young, but anybody eighteen to twenty-five with no children will be off within weeks. You’ll have to register every animal in triplicate, there’ll be no meat to market without the Ministry say-so, and you’ll be—’

‘Oh, give over. It’s not just us. Every family in the country’s going to be in a bit of a mess.’ She raised a hand when he opened his mouth to continue the rant. ‘Neil, just stop it. I don’t want anybody to go, don’t want anybody to fight. You won’t be called up, because you’re turned forty, so stop it. Anyway, all this has to be taken out on Hitler, not me, not Chamberlain, not England. We’re all frightened and in the dark, and it’ll get worse before it gets better. Like I said, it’s everybody from Land’s End to John o’ Groats, but God help them in the south, because they’re nearest to hell. Now, go and stamp about on the land, because I’ve listened enough, and I’ve baking on. My bread doesn’t thrive when somebody’s in a bad mood, and we want to send some decent stuff up to Willows for when she comes on her visit.’

Neil picked up his cap and slammed out of the house. Not for the first time, he wished he could get his hands on enough money to buy this place. His dad had farmed it, and Neil had taken over. He knew every animal, every pleat and fold in the land, every ditch and hedge – a bloody woman? Adam Pickavance had been as much use as a damp squib, but answering to the agent of an absent man was one thing; having a woman in charge would change matters. Or would it? Perhaps she might leave everything in the hands of Keith Greenhalgh, who was a fair man, knowledgeable about the estate, and unlikely to be called up, as he was well into his forties while his occupation could sit nicely under the umbrella labelled essential and reserved.

In the top field, Neil stopped and surveyed a domain he had always considered his own. As far as he could see in any direction, the land belonged to Willows. The hamlet known as Willows Edge nestled in a dip, and all the houses therein were tied to the estate. Keith Greenhalgh had done his best, but the funds left in his care by Adam Pickavance had been insufficient to cover anything beyond bare essentials, and the dwellings were in need of attention. A flaming woman, though . . .

‘Morning, Neil.’

It was the man himself. ‘Keith. I was just thinking about you.’

Keith joined him and both men leaned on a fence. ‘How’s it going?’ the agent asked.

‘As all right as it can go. Conscription hangs over the field hands like a thundercloud, and a Scouse woman’s taking the reins. Couldn’t be better.’

Keith chuckled. ‘Look. I shouldn’t know this, and I shouldn’t be telling you, either, but the old man left a fair sum, didn’t fritter it all away. She might pull us out of ruin.’

It was Neil’s turn to laugh. ‘Oh, aye? And one of my pigs has just floated down tied to a purple parachute. The bloody woman’ll be all lipstick and shoes, because she’s a townie. I guarantee she’ll think more about her perfume than she will about folk. These city women know nowt about owt.’

‘If you want to know what’s in her head, she’s been talking about bringing evacuees from Liverpool, because they live near the docks. Seems quite a sensible type to me, and no spring chicken, or so I’m told.’

Neil shook his head thoughtfully. Down below, in the large hollow that contained Bolton, children were living among factories and smoke, but they weren’t going to be brought up to the tops, were they? Oh no. The place was going to be overrun by Scousers. The invaders would be useless. They would have no idea of husbandry, because the only animals they would have seen were dray horses, and he pictured the hordes in his mind’s eye running through fields and flattening crops. ‘Bloody wild, they are. They pinch what they want, run about barefoot, and—’

‘And that doesn’t happen in Bolton? You’ve not had much to do with the bottom end of Deane Road and Derby Street, then? I have relatives down yon, Neil, and they struggle. Their kids aren’t perfect. Hungry children steal, because when push comes to shove we all would if we stood alongside real hunger. Get off your high horse, lad, before you take a fall.’ He tapped his forehead, then his mouth. ‘Keep that open, and that closed. Until she arrives this afternoon, we’ve no idea what she’s made of. But I can tell you this much for nothing – the owld fellow loved the bones of his brother, and the lady is that brother’s daughter. Open mind, buttoned lips. Think on.’ Keith walked away.

Neil knew that Keith and Jean were right. He was carrying on like a two-year-old in a tantrum, when in reality he was no more than a speck in the cosmos. Everybody mattered. Everybody was the same in the sight of God. Willows Home Farm was no more important than the next, and he had been blessed with a sensible wife. Two daughters, they had. For the first time in his married life, Neil was glad that he had no son.

But behind all these worries at the front of his mind, there was a dark place he scarcely dared to visit. In spite of propaganda in newspapers and on cinema screens, the mood of the country was not good. Hitler was reputed to have thousands of fighter planes, hundreds of bombers. He could wipe out Britain in a day if he so chose. These fields, this pure, green, velvet beauty, could soon belong to a crowd of goose-stepping foreigners, so why worry about a few bloody Scousers? An invasion by Liverpool was infinitely preferable to the other possibility.

Fruit-pickers were busy denuding trees in the orchards. Cows grazed in the distance, and even further away, on higher ground, sheep looked like little flecks of cotton wool against the hillsides. In a place as beautiful and peaceful as this, it was difficult to imagine war. But he remembered war. He had fought in it, had survived, though it had taken many men from these parts. The war to end all wars had been the subtitle of the previous mess. Men had come home after doing the impossible, after climbing over dead comrades in mud-lined trenches, after losing limbs, sight, the ability to breathe . . . Neil nodded. They had come home to grinding poverty, had fought to their last ounce of strength to live in a country that didn’t deserve them. ‘And now we do the same, and we come back to the same. Land of hope and glory my bloody backside. If I go, I’ll be fighting for Jean, Stella and Patty.’

Yet a small corner of Neil’s heart held a picture of a good, quiet man with a stammer, a soul so fine and true that almost every Englishman admired and loved him. His brother, the one with all the airs and the swank, had buggered off with the ugliest woman imaginable, leaving a sibling in poor health to run the family shop. Bertie, now George VI, his wife and daughters, they deserved saving. But even they couldn’t sort out the nitwits at Westminster. Which was just as well, in a way, because the King favoured Halifax, while the country needed Winnie. Chamberlain would have to go. Yes. The cretins in the Commons should have listened. To Churchill.

Right. He had a horse with a limp, a sow with a sore teat, and a wife who was fed up with him. He would walk to the vet’s to ask for a visit on behalf of the first two, and he would find some nice apples for Jean. She made a lovely apple pie, did his Jeanie . . .

A car arrived in Rachel Street. A novelty, it attracted small children like flies until the driver sounded the horn, at which point they dispersed and stood in a jagged line on the opposite pavement, only to shift again when Nellie Kennedy and her daughter emerged from their house.

Hilda Pickavance, who had been waiting for her new friends to put in an appearance, gathered together pieces of shattered nerve and stepped outside. This was all getting a bit too much for her. She was to have a meeting with a Keith Greenhalgh, agent and steward for the estate known as Willows. The only men with whom she’d had contact thus far were her father and her employer at the laundry. She thanked goodness that older children were at school as she placed herself in the front passenger seat, smiling tentatively at the driver, who had left his seat in order to open the door for her. When he had settled her two companions in the rear of the vehicle, the man returned and pulled away.

Cheering children chased them as far as the Rotunda theatre, where they fell away and turned to go home.

‘Miss Pickavance?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m Jay, really John Collins. There was a spate of Johns when I was born, so I got reduced to Jay.’

Hilda couldn’t lay her tongue against one sensible syllable, so Nellie helped her out. ‘My granddaughter’s reduced from Amelia to Mel, and it never done her no harm. She’s at Merchant Taylors’. That’s the best public school, and she won a full scholarship. Very clever girl, our Mel. And beautiful like my Eileen.’

Eileen dug her mother in the ribs. ‘Stop showing off,’ she mouthed. It was always the same with Mam when she met someone for the first time. She said her own name, then waded in over her head with Mel’s success. Her granddaughter was top of the class in most subjects; she was going to Cambridge if a source of money could be found, and she did lovely calliography. Time after time, Eileen had corrected the word to calligraphy, but Nellie was happier with the extra syllable, as it sounded posher. She had quite a collection of home-made words, and she used them deliberately and without mercy.

‘She can sing and all,’ Nellie said now. ‘Voice of an angel.’

‘How would you know?’ Eileen asked. ‘For one thing, you’re tone deaf, and for another, you’re biased. Why don’t you brag about the other three, eh? One of them put Sally Wray’s tea-rose-coloured directoire knickers up a flagpole – I don’t know which of them, but I’ll get to the bottom of it.’

‘Or the top,’ said Hilda, her back shaking with laughter. ‘Flagpole? Top?’

‘Oh, heck,’ groaned Nellie dramatically. ‘You’ve woken a sleeping giant here, Eileen.’ She poked Hilda’s shoulder. ‘Oi, clever clogs. Might be top for flagpole, but it’s bottom for knickers, so hang on to your ha’penny, missus.’

But Eileen ploughed onward. ‘Our Bertie and the horse – that’ll go down in history down Cazneau Street and Scotland Road. I mean, I know he’s only six, but per-lease. Hiding a carthorse between a small tin bath and a bloody mangle? He has to have come from a different planet. If he hadn’t been born at home, I’d swear they’d given me the wrong baby.’

The driver pulled into a kerb, dried his eyes, and swivelled as far as possible in his seat. ‘You two should be on the wireless,’ he moaned.

‘We haven’t got one,’ came Nellie’s quick reply. ‘We had one, like, but it never worked since our Philip stood on it to reach a shelf. He’s been on the wireless, but he fell off.’

Jay drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel. ‘And I suppose when he tried tap dancing, he slipped into the sink? The old ones are always the best, right?’

Nellie pretended to glare at him. ‘This is all we need, a clever bloody Woollyback. You talk slow, but you get there, don’t you, lad?’

He sighed. ‘Look. Getting there’s what it’s about today. We’ve miles to go, and we’ll not get there at all if I can’t see for laughing.’ He pointed to the new boss of Willows. ‘And this lady has business to discuss, but she’ll get yonder all red-eyed and daft if you don’t stop this malar-key. All right?’

Nellie and Eileen shrugged. ‘Please yourself,’ said the former. ‘It’s not every day you get free entertainment thrown in, like, but we’ll shut up.’

They would probably have shut up anyway, because the journey was becoming interesting. They saw decent terraced houses in Lowton, stared at winding gear that took men down into half a dozen pits on the route round the hem of Wigan, knew they were nearing the mills when they noticed tall chimneys ahead.

Jay parked again. ‘And there you have it, ladies. If you look beyond the town, you’ll see hills on three sides. They protect the cotton, keep the damp in, you see. The mills have to be boiling hot and wet, or there’d be a lot of spoilage. No hills on the Manchester side, so it’s more a ladle than a bowl. Anyway, look over to the left a bit, Miss Pickavance. A massive piece of land up yon is yours. Your forefathers toiled for that, just to get out of the town. So, welcome home.’

Hilda was staring at the inheritance of which her beloved father had been deprived.

‘Miss Pickavance?’

‘Yes?’

‘Are you all right?’

‘My parents would have loved to live up there. They had a hard life. Not as hard as some, but . . .’ She put away the rest of the words. ‘Let’s go. I want to get this over and done so that I can go home. Because my thinking will probably start after the meeting.’

They trundled down Derby Street towards town. In shabby alleyways that ran off on each side, there was poverty that mirrored conditions round Scotland Road. Infants ran barefoot, some of them scarcely dressed. The shops on the main road were neglected and tacky, and had very few items on display in their windows. On several corners stood small covens of women in black, ancients who still dressed like Victorians, skirts reaching their ankles, grey shawls covering their blouses. They inhaled snuff from small boxes, or sucked on white clay pipes. Every other building seemed to be a public house. Yes, this bit was home from home for Nellie and Eileen.

In town, Jay pointed out the open market.

‘It’s not open,’ Nellie said. ‘It’s shut.’

‘Open as in the open air, and don’t pretend you didn’t already understand,’ was his reply. ‘It works Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The enclosed market, Market Hall, is down by the side of Woolworth’s.’

‘Right. And where’s this here Willows?’

He pointed. ‘A good ten miles out that way.’

‘Any shops?’ Eileen asked.

‘Well.’ Jay rounded the corner into Bank Street to begin his climb up to the moors. ‘Elsie Openshaw got herself turned into a post office. She had to pass a test for that, but the mail’s not delivered. I collect the stuff for Willows, and Willows Home Farm and some of the tenant farms, but them who live on the Edge collect their own. She sells a few basics like soap and lamp oil. People from the Edge use her more than we do.’

‘Ooh, I wouldn’t like to live on the edge,’ said Nellie. ‘What if we fall off?’

Jay chuckled. ‘It’s just a word, just a name. When the place was first bought, them there cottages were probably on the edge of Willows land, but it’s been expanded since them days.’

‘Not by my uncle, I take it?’

‘No. He . . . er . . . he lived a different life, miss. Nice chap, never upset anybody, but he didn’t care about Willows. So it’s all a bit on the run-down side. I do my best – I’m the jack-of-all-trades, and my wife’s the jill. Funnily enough, Gill’s her name. Gillian when she goes to Buckingham Palace, but— No, she doesn’t go to any palace, I’m pulling your leg. Any road, enjoy the scenery. You’ll miss your river, but you’ll gain the countryside.’

When they crossed the ring road, the climb became slightly more serious. They left behind shops, brick-built houses and signs of movement until they reached a place where there were stone houses on one side, fields on the other. ‘Look at the trees,’ Eileen sighed.

‘Yes. Wood and leaves.’ Nellie was trying hard not to be impressed. ‘What’s behind the long wall?’ she asked.

‘Ora et labore,’ Jay replied. ‘Pray and work. It’s a school for Church of England scholars.’

‘Heathens,’ Nellie sighed. ‘We couldn’t send her there. At least they’re not all Protestants where she is now.’

They took a left fork and soon they were in real countryside. The route was interrupted from time to time by clusters of stone cottages, while the odd farmhouse sat in the distance. Cows and horses peered over hedges as if passing comment on the noise of the internal combustion engine, while bales of hay waited to be taken inside for the winter.

‘This is Willows Edge,’ Jay announced. ‘Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it. The house with GVI and the post box in the wall is Elsie’s. She’s also in charge of making sure nobody shows a light while the war’s on. Elsie seems to be in charge of most things round here. She volunteers herself for anything and everything.’

‘We’ll have to see about that,’ Nellie whispered to her daughter. ‘Nobody organizes me.’

‘Shut up, Mam.’

Jay was now driving up a narrow, unpaved lane. He stopped and pointed out the farm. ‘This is the main farm, also known as Willows Home Farm. You have others, but they are leased out to tenant farmers who pay you rent. The home farm maintains the estate, selling produce, cattle and so forth. Neil Dyson and his wife Jean live there. They have two daughters, Stella and Patty. Neil was born in that house, took over from his dad. Very decent people, do anything for anybody, they would. But he might go sooner or later. Army, I reckon, though he won’t be called up yet, because he’s turned forty.’

At last, Hilda spoke. ‘This is a large leap for an ironer in a Chinese laundry. I seem to be going from a room twelve by twelve to an area that defies measurement. It’s a lot to take in.’ She owned several farms. Why had she not been warned about owning several farms?

Jay inclined his head. ‘Too true. Had things not gone the way they did, you and your mam and dad would have been here already, and you’d be used to it. But you can depend on me and Gill, on Neil and his wife, and on those who don’t get called up. After that, it’ll be all women, anyway. Land Army, so I hear. Mostly females. I’ll have to go soon enough. If Neil gets the call, my Gill will probably move in with Jean, and that will free up the gatehouse for the duration.’

They reached the aforementioned gatehouse, and Eileen sighed. ‘Ooh, that’s lovely, Mam. Built of stone, and leaded windows, too.’ Then her attention was grabbed by the main building. ‘Jesus,’ she breathed. ‘And look at all the willow trees.’

‘There have to be six willows positioned like that,’ Jay said. ‘If anything happens to a tree, we need to get a new one straight away, or the crops will fail and we’ll have no luck with cattle. This is where we breed the county’s best cows and bulls; we win prizes. So we take no chances, and look after the willows. My job would be easier without them, because I cut the lawns, but there you have it. The willows stay.’

‘I like them,’ Hilda said. ‘But I don’t have to look after the grass, and I expect the lawn underneath all those weepers doesn’t thrive.’ She turned in her seat and addressed her neighbours. ‘Your boys could use them a tents or dens.’

‘They like kiddies.’ Jay grinned. ‘I know it’s a load of old wives’ rubbish, but they seem to whisper when children play under the branches. Now, the stables are at the back, between the house and Home Farm, and I reckon come spring we’ll be ploughing with horses. I’ll show you the rotation table, Miss Pickavance. With it being war, we won’t have much left fallow – just enough for the stock. Neil and Keith will keep you in the picture. Fuel for tractors will be rationed, which is why you’ll need to depend on your horses.’

Hilda hadn’t yet met the agent, but her head was already full of stuff that was foreign to her. She tried to imagine how night would be here. There was probably no gas at this distance from town, certainly no electricity. It would be all oil lamps, candles, and wood-burning stoves. Scotland Road was a long way from perfect, but it wasn’t isolated. Scotland Road would be a target for Germans who might drift a short way east; Willows would be attacked only if a pilot needed to offload his bombs in order to retain sufficient fuel to reach home. The odds were in favour of the move.

The house was big, but not massive. Water was heated by a back boiler, and there was an indoor bathroom that served four large enough bedrooms. Downstairs, there were two sitting rooms, one of which was named a morning room, so Nellie immediately christened the larger of the two ‘the afternoon room’. There was also a dining room and a large kitchen. Any decay was not noticed by the three incomers, who were used to conditions infinitely worse than these. ‘I’m scared,’ Hilda whispered to Nellie.

‘Aye, it’s a big thing, isn’t it? A different life, that’s for sure. Safety’s a big bonus, though. But then there’s Mel.’

‘She won’t come.’ It was not a question.

‘Says she’s going to try to get digs in Crosby, somewhere near the school.’

‘I’ll pay,’ said Hilda.

‘No need. She’ll be classed as an evacuee with any luck, so they’ll get paid by the government. Eileen’ll miss her. So will I. And the lads are nothing but trouble. Do you realize what you’re taking on, Hilda?’

Jay had led Eileen outside to look at the stables, so the other two women could now talk in private.

Hilda nodded, a glint in her eye. ‘I know I’m just an ironer, Nellie, but I had a fairly decent education at Miss Millichamp’s academy. I’ll be their teacher to start with, then we’ll look for schools.’

Nellie sighed. ‘So, we’re doing it, then?’

‘I’m not leaving your children to die. You lost a good man in the previous conflict, and I believe poor Eileen’s husband was killed by half a ton of falling cargo. Those boys of yours may be out of hand, but so is every child in Rachel Street. Nellie, I am putting my foot down for once in my life. You’re coming.’

So it seemed to be settled before the agent even put in an appearance.

Nellie and Eileen stayed in the morning room while Hilda had her meeting with Keith Greenhalgh. It lasted just about half an hour, allowing a further half-hour for tea with scones made that morning by Jean Dyson and served very ably by Jay, who made an excellent cup of tea. Afterwards, the visitors were plied with more scones and bread, cabbages, tomatoes, home-grown potatoes, carrots and swedes. ‘Take them home,’ Jay told them. ‘Give your kiddies a taste of food straight from the soil. And here’s some butter from the best cows in Lancashire. You’ll be back,’ he said, winking at Nellie. ‘They’ll all be safer and better fed.’

‘Except for my Mel,’ Eileen sighed.

Nellie, too, was concerned about her granddaughter. She was pretty, far too pretty not to be a worry. Already, men and boys stared at her in the street, and she was much too young to be away from her family. Yet they could not, dared not, interfere with her education. She had been given a chance that was unheard of in the streets that flanked Scotland Road. And there was something about Mel that spoke of determination and single-mindedness. ‘We can’t force her, Eileen. She’s set her heart on Cambridge, and she’ll get there. It would be wrong if Hitler ruined her education.’

‘Yes, but she has to come to us in the holidays.’

‘She will. She might be a high flyer, but she’ll not neglect you, because her mam’s always been her world.’

They began the journey homeward. The days were shortening, and Hilda found herself worrying once again about the countryside and its blackness. Yet she had inherited a beautiful house, an immense acreage, several farms, and the responsibility that went along with all that. The row of houses on the Edge needed to be made waterproof for the winter, as did some parts of the main house. According to Keith Greenhalgh, the home farm was in good order, but Hilda might be responsible for some of the patching up required by the farms occupied by paying tenants. ‘I won’t know where to start,’ she said as they made the easier journey down from the moor.

‘But Keith and I do,’ Jay said. ‘Once you’ve sorted out the money, we can go from there. You won’t need to do much.’

Hilda disagreed. ‘I’m determined to learn,’ she said. ‘I’ve no intention of taking this lightly. I want to know about animals and ploughing and planting and—’

Jay laughed. ‘Hang on, Miss Pickavance, or you’ll have us all out of work before this war kicks off.’

They heard a few sirens as they made their way back to Liverpool. All these practices might well mean that no one would react when real bombardment threatened, because it was a bit like the boy who cried wolf.

The three women had enjoyed a taste of fresh, clean air, and they began to notice how much dirtier town life was. They were sleepy, too, just as they often were after a rare day in Southport. Clean air made a person lively, and liveliness made a person tired. It was probably the way humanity was meant to be, living in freshness, and sleeping well at night.

This time, Jay drove down the dock road, because he had never seen it before. Even so late in the day, men were working hard to unload cargo and bring in for storage as much as they could, especially where foodstuffs were concerned. Sea routes would be threatened for both Royal and merchant navies. Men’s lives could not be risked for the sake of a few bananas and pineapples – even molasses would be scarce, so every effort to stock up was being made. ‘You can’t stop here, Miss Pickavance,’ Jay said. ‘This lot will be a prime target, so you have to move inland. I mean, the Germans would be daft if they didn’t go for these docks.’

‘I know.’ She sighed. She was an heiress. Very suddenly, she had become a person of standing. And she didn’t know how to feel about that. Until now, Hilda had owned nothing beyond household goods and clothing. Money left after the deaths of her parents was salted away against her old age. ‘How many farms are there?’ she asked.

‘Only four, not counting the home farm.’

Only four. Four roofs, four families, four lots of rainwater goods, walls, doors, windows. ‘Tell Keith I want to know everything about the condition of those farmhouses. I’ll need written reports, and I do hope I’m not being a nuisance, Jay. So much to learn, you see.’

What Jay saw was a good woman who took duty seriously, probably too seriously. He grinned. ‘It’ll be a pleasure, Miss Pickavance.’ How far removed she was from the expectations of Neil Dyson. Keith had told Jay about the ‘all lipstick and shoes’ description delivered by the home farm manager. There was little of the Chanel No. 5 about Hilda Pickavance, but there was a fine business head just waiting to become informed. Yes, she would make a good fist of it. If she failed at anything, it wouldn’t be for want of trying.

‘And if you would kindly ask the people in Willows Edge whether they have been approached by the authorities with regard to evacuation, I’d be grateful. At the farms, too, please. As you have seen for yourself, the children in this area are perilously near to a busy dock system.’

‘Certainly.’ He dropped them off, smiling as he watched them distributing fruit and vegetables from the boot of the car. It was a long way home, but for Miss Pickavance the journey would be much, much further. She was, in his opinion, an excellent and genteel woman. Qualities such as hers were much needed in times such as these. Adolf had better hang on to his hat. With people like this about, Britain would not roll over easily.

Mel came downstairs to meet Gran. ‘Where’s Mam?’ she asked.

‘With Miss Pickavance. She’s borrowing clothes so she can go to Crosby and look where you’ll be staying. What have you done with your brothers?’

Mel shrugged. ‘The hellions were not containable, and I have maths homework. They’re probably chasing molasses up the dock road, or stealing from the late shop. What happened, Gran?’

Nellie told her granddaughter about the day’s adventure. She spoke of acres of undulating land, beautiful greens, dry stone walls and pretty little houses, also of stone. Miss Pickavance was an extremely rich woman, and she intended to shelter as many children as possible from these mean streets. Nellie spoke about the willow trees and how they had to be placed, about Jay, their driver, and Keith Greenhalgh, who was the steward, or the agent, or some such fancy thing. ‘It’s out in the wilds, Mel. The sort of place where you could stick one of the poor folk with TB and watch while the disease got blown out of them. There’s horses, pigs, sheep, chickens and goats. Oh, and prize-winning cattle. And orchards, and field after field of veg. It was a lot to take in, because we only stopped a couple of hours. Listen, when your mam comes home in a minute, Miss Pickavance wants a quick word with you.’

‘Right.’ Mel sat down. ‘Gran?’

‘Yes, love?’

‘What’ll happen to our house? This house?’

Nellie parked herself next to her favourite person. ‘We’ll have to let it go.’

‘So . . . I’ll have no home?’

Nellie closed her eyes against the pain that came with war. ‘Your home will be a very grand and proper house north of Bolton. It has a back boiler and its own bathroom, mile after mile of land, a car, horses and tractors. That’s where your mother and I will be, so that’s your new address.’

‘But what about here? I mean, I know my school’s in Crosby, but this is home.’

‘And you’re not ashamed. I know you’re not.’

Mel lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance known to everyone in this house and in several households further afield. ‘Look, Gran. There are girls – and boys for that matter – all over Crosby and Blundellsands who’ve been to prep schools and crammers, and they still didn’t get a place. I’m living proof that a person who doesn’t have her own pony, a grand piano, and a twenty-roomed house on Merrilocks Road can still have the brains, the fire and the belly required to make it all the way up to Oxbridge. I’m a pioneer. And when I’m a don, or whatever, I shall still come back here and show them what can be done.’

Nellie blinked the wetness from her eyes. Mel was one in a million, and she was so proud of this granddaughter that she felt she might burst. ‘But we can’t pay rent on a house we’re not using, love. And you mustn’t live down here. That’s the whole point in what we’re doing – this is going to be a battle zone. Me and your mam are taking the hellions, as you call them, miles away, but we can’t take you, because of the school. You could go to Crosby, which might be a bit safer, but you can’t live here. So you come with us, or it’s Crosby.’

‘Crosby.’

‘There you go, then. Now, get across and see Miss Pickavance, and tell your mam to get back here, because she’s three sons missing.’

Hilda was pleased with herself. She’d found a nice grey suit, a white blouse and a pair of decent shoes for Eileen. Eileen wanted to make an impression, and Hilda understood, since she, too, had lived for many years among grime, destitution and hopelessness. If Mel was going to spend the duration in a doctor’s house, her mother wanted to feel comfortable in the presence of company that probably considered itself to be elevated.

As Eileen left the house, her daughter entered.

‘Well,’ said Hilda while the girl sat down. ‘So you’re going to live in Crosby?’

‘Yes, Miss Pickavance.’

‘Then we can help each other.’

‘Really?’

Hilda expressed the opinion that most raids would happen during the hours of darkness. ‘If you can, and only if it’s safe, try to let me know what’s going on. I shall pay you, of course, but—’

‘I don’t want paying, Miss Pickavance.’

Hilda held up a hand. ‘Stop the nonsense, Mel. All your friends will have spending money, and you won’t.’

The famous chin came up. ‘I shall do a paper round.’

‘I’m sure you will. But come here when you can and look at my house in daylight. Write to me. Tell me about . . . everything.’

‘Even the bad stuff?’

‘Yes, of course.’

From that moment, these two understood one another completely. They shared common sense, intelligence and a terrible hunger for knowledge. Mel was to have a key to Hilda’s house, and she would write a letter each week to let her benefactor know what was happening in Liverpool, and she must write the truth, or as much of the truth as she could discover. ‘I won’t let you down,’ she said. ‘Unless it’s all beyond me.’

‘I know.’ Hilda stood up. ‘So, that’s that.’

Yes, that was that. Nellie, Eileen and her three boys would be living at Willows. Soon, other needful children might be plucked from these streets and from their families, but Hilda was depending on the co-operation of tenant farmers and people who lived at Willows Edge. For now, she had to wait. Like many others, she hoped that Hitler, too, was playing a waiting game.

Three

Eileen looked wonderful. In a slate grey skirt and jacket donated to the cause by Hilda Pickavance, she was elegance personified. Nellie looked at her daughter, saw what might have been, then turned away to attend to her pan of scouse. Eileen should have had a chance in life, because she was beautiful, and the white blouse, good shoes and leather bag served only to underline what had already been there. No fashion house had created the bone structure, the natural poise, the grace of Eileen Watson. She was beautiful inside, too, because she was a good, clever woman who should have received a better education. Well, she was good and clever till she ran out of patience—

‘Mam?’

Nellie stopped stirring the stew. ‘Yes?’

‘How do I look in this lot?’

The older woman adjusted the expression in her eyes. ‘Marvellous, queen.’ She wouldn’t cry, mustn’t cry. ‘I should have done more for you. After all, you were my one and only. I think God looked at you, saw perfection, and decided I’d had enough luck. You should have gone to a good school. I ought to have got you away from here so that you might have had a chance of something better than—’

‘No, Mam. Our Mel will do it all. ‘But . . .’ She sat down. ‘Thirteen, Mam. It’s not just an unlucky number – it’s an awkward age. If this war goes on for four or five years, she’ll be a young woman. And I won’t have been here for her. I know it’s three against one, except it’s not against, but you know what I mean. The boys need me. She needs me. But I have to go with the majority.’

Nellie knew exactly what was going through her daughter’s head. Already a beautiful girl, Mel could become a target for any hungry male, and, with blackouts, bombings and panics, a young female with no family behind her might get into all kinds of trouble. It felt as if they were planning for the protection of three sturdy lads, while leaving a vulnerable, academically gifted girl to the vagaries of chance.

‘Oh, Mam. Could Hitler not have waited a few years?’ Nellie nodded thoughtfully. In the house belonging to the Bingley family, there was a boy the same age as Mel. Gloria Bingley had a twin brother and he, too, would be growing up. A cold sweat played up and down the length of her spine. She remembered her own teenage years, the power of that first surge of hormones. ‘Eileen?’ ‘What?’

‘I’ll take the boys to Willows. You stay and mind Mel.’ Eileen’s jaw dropped for a moment. Had her beloved mother gone mad? Philip, Rob and Bertie were almost beyond retrieval, and they hadn’t yet reached the terrible teen years. Quite frequently, it took all three female members of the household to find them, as they had no sense of time, no sense of much, in fact. They ran for illegal bookies, helped fence stuff stolen from the docks, were involved directly or peripherally with most minor crimes that took place in the Cazneau Street and Scotland Road areas of Liverpool, and were completely out of hand on a regular basis. They were noisy, naughty, disobedient and irreverent. ‘Mam, you can’t do it.’

‘I can and I will. You just watch me. And there’s a fair bit more to Hilda Pickavance than any of us thought.’ There was more to Nellie’s Eileen, too. She’d read all the classics, had educated herself to a high standard . . .

Eileen sighed. ‘This house will be dangerous whether there are two of us or six of us living in it.’

Nellie had thought about that, too. Eileen cleaned for a Miss Morrison in Blundellsands. Miss Morrison was growing frail. With only herself and Mel to care for, Eileen might volunteer to help the elderly lady and take shelter in lieu of pay. Mel could walk to school, and Eileen would be living near to all the houses she cleaned. ‘I know you’re meeting Mel outside Merchants at four o’clock, but that doesn’t stop you going to talk to Miss Morrison first, eh? I mean, you’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain.’

‘But Mam—’

‘But nothing. There are men up at Willows, and there are no docks, no shops, no bookies. I may not know them, but I reckon Jay from the gatehouse, that Neil from Willows Home Farm and Keith will be able to handle our three rogues. Ask yourself this, Eileen. Can you leave her? Can you walk away from that girl?’

‘Oh, Mam. The boys’ll kill you. They’re too much. We should offer them to the government as weaponry.’

‘Look, I’ll have help. They can run wild where there’s no damage to be done. And it’ll be all hands on deck when the show kicks off, because young ones will do the work of men, men who’ll be off fighting the bloody Germans.’

It was a dilemma. Eileen could stay behind with her daughter, and might save that daughter from any potential mishaps. In doing that, she could be signing her own mother’s death warrant, because the three boys were hard to handle. But Mel needed looking after. She was not a parcel to be passed over for the duration, something that could be picked up from Lost Property after the war had run its course. ‘Hilda’s going to run a little school at the big house. How on earth will she cope with our Albert?’ Albert, usually named Bertie, was the one who had stolen the horse.

‘Hilda could just surprise us all yet,’ replied Nellie. ‘She might not have lived our life, but she’s been in these parts for long enough to know what goes on. With a cane, a blackboard and a bit of chalk, she’ll come into her own, I reckon. There’s a streak in her, Eileen. It’s something I’ve seen in our Mel, and I think it’s called bloody-mindedness. Listen to me. Give it a try. If we can’t manage, I’ll let you know. Anyway, you have to speak to Miss Morrison first. Let’s not make the horse jump before we’ve got to the hurdle, eh? Save your energy for later.’

A subdued and thoughtful Eileen Watson found herself wandering the streets of Crosby that afternoon. This, the main village, had wonderful shops, thatched cottages and pleasant, dignified people. She didn’t notice the men who stared at her, failed to realize that she was causing quite a stir in Hilda’s suit, blouse and shoes. But with only two hours to spare before collecting Mel, she set off up Manor Road towards the truly select houses. On St Michael’s Road, she opened a gate, walked up the path, and inserted her key in the door of Miss Morrison’s detached residence.

The old lady was happy but surprised to see her cleaner. ‘Have I got my days wrong again?’ she asked. ‘I think I’m getting worse in the memory department.’

‘No, Miss Morrison.’ Invited to sit, she placed herself opposite her employer and laid before her the problem concerning Mel, the school, evacuation and safety. ‘I’m sure Dr and Mrs Bingley are decent people. I know he’s your doctor, and he’s a nice man. But my Mel’s thirteen and nearly forty in the head. You see, Miss Morrison, she could be seventeen or so when the war’s over. I can’t take her to the middle of Lancashire, because they gave her a scholarship at Merchants, and she needs to see it through. All I want is my children to be safe. If the boys are running about on a farm, I can rest easy. Mel’s different, ahead of her time, very attractive—’

‘Like you, then.’

‘Younger, Miss Morrison. I don’t want her head turned. She can be stubborn. I need to keep hold of her, because her growing up to adulthood has already started.’

Frances Morrison inclined her head. ‘We’ve all been young, dear. Now, I suppose you want somewhere for you and Mel, because we’re all sure that Scotland Road will be less than safe. It’s too near the city and too close to shipping. The answer is yes, since I’m no longer fit to be alone all the time. And a bit of life in the house will do no harm. Take the two bedrooms at the back, dear. Mine is at the front, as you know, and the one next to mine is small.’

Eileen grinned. ‘It’s bigger than the one she has at the moment.’ This was a lovely house. It had electric lighting, a proper cooker, a nice kitchen, gardens, a hall . . . ‘Thank you, Miss Morrison.’

The old lady’s eyes twinkled. ‘Er . . . if you wish to be diplomatic, I don’t mind if you tell the Bingleys that I invited you to stay here. He knows I now need a nurse once a day, so he’ll understand that I don’t wish to be alone at nights. In fact, it won’t be a lie, since you didn’t ask directly.’

Eileen explained that the move could not take place until the boys and her mother had left for the countryside. She made tea and sandwiches for Miss Morrison before going off to meet Mel.

As she reached Liverpool Road, a thought occurred. She hadn’t consulted Mel. The girl was at the age when she considered, quite rightly, that she should have some input in decisions that impacted on her life. Oh dear. Everything had moved along at such a pace today that Eileen had failed to allow herself time for thought. War did this. War made people jump ahead without thinking. Mel was almost a woman. The area in which she lived made for early maturation, because kids who lived in poverty needed to grow physically and mentally in order to survive. Her academic superiority had also added to her development, and she was far wiser and abler than most of her peers.

Yet when Eileen met her daughter outside the gates of Merchants, the news was accepted with joy. Mel would have her mother, her own larger room, and an electric reading lamp. ‘Great,’ she cried. ‘I’ll still be able to visit my friends, but my best friend will be living with me. You, Mam. You’re my best friend.’

It was at times like this that Eileen felt privileged. Mel was grounded. She knew what she wanted, what she needed, what she owed. All around her on a daily basis she saw girls from backgrounds that were rich in money and lifestyle. She displayed no envy and no desire to imitate what she saw. An almost inborn sense of manners, of how to behave in a multiplicity of circumstances, meant that Mel seldom felt out of place. She was already a citizen of the world and, to prove it, she spoke several languages.

Mel smiled at her mother. She had never brought friends home, because she could not imagine them accepting her way of life even though she accepted theirs. Yes, the divide existed, but she would straddle it. A canyon stretching from Liverpool to Cambridge might have been judged impassable by most, but Mel was the brightest girl in her class. She knew it, the school knew it, and her classmates were acutely aware of it. She had tamed the lion named Merchants; Cambridge would be just one more pussy cat. Perhaps a Bengal tigress, but this girl would have it eating out of her hand.

‘Mel?’

‘What?’

‘We still have to go and see the Bingleys, don’t we?’

‘Yes, Mam. We do.’

Gloria wasn’t here, as she had stayed behind for music lessons. Somewhere down the road, the sound of a cat being tortured would be inflicted on other people’s ears, and that was fine in Dr Thomas Bingley’s book. Gloria, like her mother, was an un-pretty plodder. Marianne Bingley’s looks had faded rapidly after marriage, and she was now a mouse, all corrugated brown hair, light brown skin and pale eyes. At least the eyes weren’t brown, but Tom wasn’t the sort of man to be grateful for small mercies. Her cooking was tolerable, but unimaginative, and he thanked whichever deity was in charge that Marie wasn’t learning the violin alongside their daughter.

Two of them today, then. The mother of Mel Watson was easily as beautiful as the child, so he was in doubly responsive mode. Later, he would probably make use of his wife, but in the dark. Until now, the body he had pounded had been a substitute for Mel; now, it might change identity, and he was glad of that, since he hated to think of himself as a paedophile. Marie looked even plainer today, as would any dandelion in a bed of rare orchids.

Marie smiled, just as she always did. She poured tea, handed out sandwiches and cakes, all the time wondering why the hell she stayed. She had been a good match, had brought money into the marriage, and the house on St Andrew’s Road was not mortgaged. But he wasn’t interested in her. Every time Gloria’s friend came to the house, Tom wanted sex. It wasn’t love-making; it was masturbation with a partner.

And now, here came the mother. The accent was there, broadened vowels, confused consonants, participles jumping into places that ought to have been claimed by verbs. She ‘been’ somewhere, she ‘done’ something, yet Tom hung on every syllable, even when a T bore traces of S, when D collided with a different T. As she settled and the nervousness decreased, Eileen Watson’s English improved rapidly. It seemed that she had two tongues; one for the place of her origin, another for the rest of the world. She was well read . . .

Yes, the older of the two guests was a long way removed from stupid. Physically, the woman was ethereal, like some Victorian heroine who had survived a slight decline. Her words cracked the facade, but failed to shatter the image. That such physical perfection should be visited on a product of the slums was sad. It would be of little use unless Eileen Watson chose to sell herself to sailors, Marie thought.

But the daughter . . . Marie’s eyes moved left and settled on the younger wraith. Whenever seated next to this one, poor Gloria looked like a bag of bricks. Not only did she trail in the wake of the creature when it came to physical attributes, but Mel was also an out-and-out winner in the academic stakes. She seemed to float ahead of the work, as if she took extra lessons, yet that could not possibly be the case. But worse by far than all that was the fact that Mel knew what was happening. The mother seemed unaware, but the daughter awarded Tom sly glances and pretty little smiles. Oh yes, she knew how to work the oversexed creature to which Marie had fastened herself.

‘Marie?’

She looked at her husband. ‘Yes?’

‘A fresh pot of tea, perhaps?’

The smile remained in situ. The urge to break the teapot against his skull had to be carefully denied, because Marianne Bingley was a deliberately good wife. She was a good wife into whose bank account went every penny she could salvage from housekeeping. Her running-away money was safe, but she had to wait until her children were grown. Like the obedient soul she portrayed, she asked the visitors whether they might prefer coffee, and would they like a slice of Madeira.

In the kitchen, Marie Bingley splashed cold water on heated cheeks. The girl would not be living here, and that was the good news. But the bad news outweighed it, since both mother and daughter intended to settle for the duration in St Michael’s Road, which was well within walking distance of this house. Miss Frances Morrison’s health would now become of prime concern to Dr Tom Bingley, and Marie’s anger, damped down for so long that it seemed to have turned to black ice, suddenly made her stomach ache.

She returned with fresh tea, watched her husband’s eyes travelling over the bodies of two unbelievably beautiful females. Her digestive system continued in overdrive, and she excused herself rather suddenly. After vomiting in the downstairs half-bathroom, she rinsed the taste from her mouth, washed her husband from her mind. Because this was the day on which the worm would turn. There would be no healthy argument, no true fight. But from this very night, she would move herself into the fourth bedroom. The twins would notice, but the price she had been paying for peace in this house was suddenly too high. ‘He will not touch you again,’ she promised the plain, wholesome face in the mirror. If he wanted relief, he could find it elsewhere.

When the visitors had left, Marie forced herself to be brave before the children returned from music and chess. ‘Say one word, and I shall probably kill you, Tom.’ The tone was even, almost monotonous. She inhaled, closed her eyes against the sight of his shocked face, then allowed it all to pour out of her like more vomit, but without the retching. ‘I’ll be moving into the spare room,’ she said. ‘It has taken me years to work my way up to this, so try listening for once. You almost ate Eileen and Mel Watson while they were here – after undressing them with your eyes, of course. That would have impinged on me, as you would have used me later to relieve yourself of sexual tension. So I advise you to find someone else to tolerate your sad, selfish bedroom activities.’

‘What the hell—’ he attempted to begin.

‘Hell is the right word. You’re hopeless. Now, sleeping arrangements aside, life continues the same. When Gloria and Peter leave, I leave. My father has willed his house to me, so I shall not be homeless in the long term. He will take me in if he’s still alive, and when he dies everything comes to me, so I am safe. Meanwhile, we keep things on an even keel for the children, and for the sake of local society.’

Tom stared at her. In fourteen years of marriage, she had never strung so many words together in one speech. Life had wobbled on its fulcrum, had shifted because of a force he had never before recognized. As a result, he suddenly felt insecure, undermined and slightly afraid. She was his wife, but she was a creature far stronger than the dull, quiet woman with whom he had lived for all this time. ‘I have rights,’ he said.

‘So do I. What happens in our bed isn’t love, isn’t even sex. It’s rape. You come upstairs with your hormones rampaging for Mel Watson. You give me no consideration – not even a kiss, and scarcely a word. I just lie there in pain while you make noises like a sick gorilla. Not one recognizable syllable do you utter. You were never much of a lover, but you have become a bloody rapist. So bugger off and leave me be.’

The door slammed in her wake. She never swore. She always did exactly what was asked or expected of her. The door opened for a split second. ‘Oh, and the girl plays you like a fish on her hook. Stick to the mother, or you’ll be in jail. I’ll put you there myself.’ The door crashed home for a second time.

Tom dropped into his favourite wing chair. What was it his father had said? Something about allowing a woman to win, and about allowing her to know she had won? All the time, Marie had realized that he needed sex whenever stimulated by someone other than her. Well, what did she expect? There was nothing desirable about her. She was frumpy, asexual and boring. Yet he was suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin. Was he useless in bed? Certainly not. He was an attractive man who needed a beautiful woman. Marie was not beautiful, but Eileen Watson certainly was.

The evening meal was even quieter than normal that night. Marie topped up her wine glass three times, leaving too little for her husband, who had to make do with water when his own glass ran dry. He chewed his way through lamb cutlets with mint sauce, carrots and sauté potatoes, and waited for his wife to clear away in preparation for a pudding. But she announced that there would be none tonight, and they had better get used to that, as there was a war on. She would be joining the Women’s Voluntary Service, so people in this house had better buck up, clear up and wash up. After this undecorated announcement, she left the room and went upstairs.

‘Is there something wrong?’ Gloria asked.

Tom had his answer prepared. ‘Your mother hasn’t been sleeping well. She’s going to try the spare room.’

‘But Mel might need that, Daddy.’

‘No. She’ll be staying elsewhere.’

Peter was audibly disappointed. ‘She’s fun,’ he grumbled. ‘I’ll be stuck here with Gloria in excelsis. I was looking forward to having a bit of life in the house for a change.’

Tom studied his children, realizing that he seldom looked closely at them. Gloria, like her mother, promised to be a brownish person with a dumpy, clumsy frame and no outstanding features. Had there been no money in the family, she could never have gone to Merchants Girls, because she would not have gained the marks required in order for one of the few bequeathed bursaries to be awarded to her. The only person in whose company Gloria became animated was Mel Watson, who owned life and brains sufficient for several. Unselfish for a second or two, Tom felt sorry for his daughter. She might have come out of herself had Mel been stationed here for the duration of war.

Peter was a different kettle of fish. He had inherited his father’s brown eyes, yet his hair remained fair. The boy had a well-developed body, clear skin, a handsome face and, like Mel, managed to shine at school. Academically sound and with a good memory for detail, Peter also did well in a variety of sports. This was definitely Tom’s son. Unsure thus far of his goal, the older twin swung between medicine and a fierce desire to play cricket for Lancashire. Tom had explained that the two were not mutually exclusive, so Peter could well do either or both.

It was as if Marie had given birth to one carbon copy of Tom, and one of herself. There was no malice in Gloria, just as there had been none in her mother until today. He shifted in his seat. Had that been malice, or had it been natural anger? He didn’t wish her any harm, but he could no longer manage to want her. Like many of her sex, she was wise and intuitive, and she had worked out that whenever he engaged with her she was just the nearest piece of equipment designed to receive him.

The twins left the room, abandoning their father to sit among the debris of the last supper. He named the event thus because everything would be different from now on. Marie would provide for her family, of that he was in no doubt. But he imagined her in the WVS and knew that she would make a good member of such an organization. Determinedly English, and quietly furious with Germany, she would invest her all in any job required of her. As wife of a well-known doctor, she enjoyed the respect of local people.

He stood up and walked to the window. Again, he wished that he might join up and serve in some field hospital, but that privilege would be denied him, as he had two small afflictions: his feet needed supports under their arches, and he had a perforated left eardrum. A thought occurred. Peter was thirteen; if this show continued for five years, the boy would be conscripted. He had not inherited his father’s flat feet, but his twin sister had. Peter was fit. Peter was going nowhere, Tom decided as he cleared the table. His wife seemed to be on strike.

The kitchen bore a strong relationship to a battle zone. Remnants of high tea shared with Mel Watson and her mother lingered on the drop-down middle section of one of a pair of green cupboards known as kitchenettes. Saucepans, abandoned on the hob of the gas cooker, had traces of the last supper encrusted on their interiors. A grill pan contained congealed lamb fat, while peelings from carrots and potatoes occupied a colander in the sink. This was what she faced each day, and more than once. Marie was a bloody good mother who always gave one hundred per cent of herself.

Tom rolled up his sleeves and set to. He did everything properly, dealing first with glassware and cutlery, changing water for crockery, soaking pans, wiping surfaces.

‘Thank you, Tom.’

He turned. ‘Marie.’ He was a bad man, and she deserved better. ‘Men don’t realize what women cope with until they’re stuck with it,’ he said.

‘I wouldn’t have left the washing up.’

He looked at her; she looked at him. After shifting her clothes from the marital wardrobe and into the spare room, she was hot and sticky and her hair was corkscrewed. Tom, in a flowery apron and damp shirt, brought to mind some henpecked character from a Charlie Chaplin film. They burst out laughing simultaneously. He remembered the girl he had married; she thought about the laughter that had accompanied their courtship. ‘I don’t hate you,’ she said quietly.

‘Same here.’

‘We’ll just have to muddle through, Tom.’

‘Yes. You, me and the armed forces. Life’s rich tapestry, what?’

She nodded and began to dry dishes.

Eileen opened the door. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ she mouthed.

‘Hardly,’ said the policeman who held one struggling boy in each hand.

‘Philip, Rob and Bertie,’ said the second, who was holding on to Rob. ‘Jesus and his mam and dad never turned up, said they were busy. But these three were there. I believe you are the owner of these fine young criminals?’

Eileen stepped aside to allow the representatives of the law into her parlour. There was scarcely room for family in the tiny front room, so by the time the three offenders were lined up in front of the fireplace she and her mother were forced to stand with their backs to the opposite wall, the one to which Mel’s bike was affixed, while the constables had to occupy the window area.

‘What now?’ Nellie asked resignedly. ‘Have they burned down the Liver Buildings, sunk the Isle of Man ferry, or is it something serious like high treason?’

‘There’s a special school opening,’ said one of the men. ‘It’s for young delinquents, and it’s in the middle of Derbyshire. We can kill two – or three – birds with one stone, because it counts as evacuation as well. They won’t be bombed, but they’ll be knocked into shape. God knows they need it.’

‘What have they done now?’ Nellie repeated.

One of the pair delivered the opinion that what these three hadn’t done would make a shorter list. The other attempted a reply. ‘They’ve been running bets for Nobby Costigan, pinching fruit from the Jubilee Stores, and when we finally caught up with them they were trying to work out how to free a barrage balloon from its moorings with a penknife and an axe. The axe is being kept as evidence, but the penknife broke and one of these heroes chucked it in the river.’

‘Why?’ Eileen asked.

Philip answered. ‘Because it was a no-good knife. Couldn’t cut butter.’

Eileen closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Not the knife, soft lad. Why the balloon? Why did you try to free a balloon that’s there to protect our city?’

‘We wanted to see what would happen.’ Bertie swallowed hard after this admission. ‘If it got loose, like, and floated off.’ His voice died of terror.

Nellie sighed deeply and turned her head in the direction of her daughter. ‘Eileen, go and fetch Hilda. She can explain what’s going to happen to these three.’ She glared at the miscreants. They looked like gingerbread men cut from similar shapes in descending sizes. Each had brown hair, blue eyes, angelic features and a devilish attitude painted over by good looks and sweet smiles. Well, Bertie’s would be sweet once his adult front teeth grew in properly.

Their grandmother continued to stare at them while Eileen was away. The three lads were more trouble than a gang of drunken Orangemen at a St Paddy’s day party. They were wild, daft and short of several good hidings. But they weren’t going to any school for delinquents, oh no. They were bad enough already without being taught more tricks by the rest of the criminal fraternity. A couple of years in juvenile jail, and they might well return with violin cases, funny hats and Chicago accents. ‘They’re going where I take them,’ Nellie advised the constables. ‘Not to some training camp for gangsters, thanks all the same.’

The policemen removed their helmets. ‘One thing’s sure, Mrs Kennedy. When Hitler starts playing with his big fireworks, there’ll be looting. A direct hit on a row of houses, and these three would be in like Flynn. They can’t help themselves. Their dad would be ashamed.’

‘There’s nothing worth pinching,’ Nellie told them. ‘Most round here think soap’s a luxury.’

‘That’s not the point. War’s hard enough without having to keep an eye out for the Three Stooges. They need a firm hand.’

Hilda and Eileen squeezed their way into the house. ‘Good evening,’ said the former. ‘I understand that you are on the brink of arresting these three young boys.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t go as far as—’ The first policeman stopped when his mate dug him sharply in the ribs. ‘What?’ he asked, rubbing his side.

‘They and some others have to be removed.’ Policeman number two assumed charge of the situation. ‘Yes, they have to go.’

‘I see.’ Hilda folded her arms. ‘Removed? Like a growth? Or three growths? Over my dead body, young man. They are going to no commune for the unsalvageable.’

Eileen and Nellie looked at each other. As suspected, there was more to Miss Hilda Pickavance than met the immediate eye of any beholder.

‘And you’ll take responsibility?’

‘I shall. They will be in rural Lancashire, and I shall deal with their education. There will be no barrage balloons, no shops and no bookmakers for whom they might run. Their mother has told me of their behaviour. The whole family is deeply ashamed, but you have to understand that these two ladies are widows, and there is no male influence in the boys’ lives.’

‘Which is why they could do with a special school,’ said Number Two.

Number One, still busy holding his ribs, simply nodded.

‘They will be farming,’ Hilda snapped. ‘They will be providing food for the populace. Now, unless you want to place them in a cell tonight – and I advise strongly against that – I suggest you leave us to cope with this matter.’

The three boys watched in awe as the policemen left the scene. Miss Pickavance was absolutely brilliant. They grinned at each other, rejoicing in their good fortune. But their happiness was short-lived. As soon as the uniformed men had disappeared, they got both barrels. Mam would save them, wouldn’t she? For once, Eileen remained rigidly unmoved.

‘Get your night things and go to my house. There is a double bed in the front upstairs room, and you will sleep in it. Tomorrow, you’ll blacklead my grate and clean all windows before and after school. If and when I go out, you will be supervised by your mother or your grandmother. You will eat when we decide, speak when we decide, breathe when allowed. You will go to school, but if you are late coming home, appropriate punishment will ensue.’

‘En-what?’ Six-year-old Bertie was struggling to keep up with all the posh talk.

‘Follow,’ snapped their nice, quiet, well-mannered neighbour. ‘Every moment of your lives until we move to inner Lancashire will be supervised. You are not to be trusted. I am thoroughly ashamed of you.’ She turned on her heel and walked out of the house.

Philip, at eleven, was the oldest of the gang. ‘I’m not going to her house,’ he announced, arms folded defiantly across his chest. ‘I’m not.’

Rob, at nine, was similarly decided, but Bertie, who thought there might be cocoa across the street, ran upstairs to pick up sleepwear made by his mother out of a shirt that had belonged to his beloved father. He picked up similar items that were the property of his brothers before returning to the ground floor. ‘I’ve got your nightshirts,’ he told them.

Nellie fastened her eyes to Philip’s. After a few seconds, the sheer weight of her personality forced him to avert his gaze. She moved on to the middle brother, and he endured her glacial stare for a fraction of a second. Hilda Pickavance had begged Nellie to accompany her into the countryside because she needed help with children. But Hilda could manage better than most, and this evening had proved that. ‘Right,’ she said to the three rapscallions. ‘You can’t be trusted, so your mam and I will take you to Miss Pickavance. It’s that or the police station. Well?’

They chose that. After walking the three across the street, Nellie and Eileen waited until they heard Hilda’s key turning in the lock when the boys had entered the house. ‘Bloody hell,’ Nellie whispered. ‘Talk about hidden talents.’

Eileen waited until they were home. ‘She’s acting.’

‘I know that.’

‘She’s being Miss Millichamp.’

‘Miss Millie who?’

‘Champ. Headmistress at her school. They didn’t believe in caning young ladies, but Hilda said that sometimes she would rather have had the cane. So when you sent me to fetch her, she said she was going to do a Miss Millichamp. Miss Millichamp used to get so deeply disappointed that the girls would be in tears. Psychology, according to Hilda. See, she seems quiet and polite and all that, but underneath, she’s just like the rest of us, only cleverer.’

Mel came downstairs. ‘Armageddon again?’ she asked.

Eileen nodded. ‘Police. Something to do with a pound of apples and a barrage balloon.’

Mel decided not to ask for further clarification. ‘Where are they?’

‘With Miss Millichamp,’ Eileen replied. ‘She looks like Hilda Pickavance, but actually she’s a Miss Millichamp. The cops wanted to send the boys to some sort of special school for bad lads, but Hilda stepped in. Wiped the floor with a couple of constables, then waded in on Rob and Philip. Bertie was all right, being the youngest.’

Mel grinned. ‘Peaceful, isn’t it?’

Nellie raised her head and looked into her granddaughter’s eyes. ‘For some, it’s going to be too peaceful, love. Out there, we have unborns who’ll never see the light of day, babes in prams who won’t live to learn to walk. Loads of old people won’t get the chance to die in their own beds, and every man who ships out of here will be a target.’

‘Sorry, Gran.’

‘In 1918, I never really believed it was over. I was right. They just had a long rest, that’s all. We’ve enjoyed what they call a pause in hostilities, because all our young men were dead or near-dead, so we had to grow a new lot. But as long as men are in charge, Mel, there’ll be war. There’s always some bugger trying to prove he can pee highest, run fastest and beat folk up. Like at school. Only this time, it’s a bigger playground.’ She left the room.

When Mel made to follow, Eileen stopped her. ‘Leave her, girl. She’ll be talking to your granddad. She always does when she’s frightened – she prays to him like he’s a saint.’

‘Oh, Mam.’

‘I know, love. I know.’

Four

Keith Greenhalgh was in the morning room at Willows trying to write to Miss Hilda Pickavance. He forced himself to stop chewing the pen and start shaping words. After all, he couldn’t sit here forever daydreaming about a woman who was, for the present, out of reach. How old was he? Seventeen? No, he was forty-odd and counting, so he’d best get on with things.

Dear Miss Pickavance,

The four tenant farmers have not yet been approached by evacuation authorities, and they are each willing to take two children from Liverpool, preferably older ones, as their wives will be too busy for baby-minding. I am still discussing the situation with cottagers who live in Willows Edge, but there is one house empty, and you may want to bring a family; a mother with young children, perhaps.

He threw down the pen. Elsie Openshaw was being her usual pig-headed self. No, pigs were OK people; crocodile-headed was nearer the mark. Unprepared to accept the undeniable fact that ‘her’ cottage was not her actual property, she was standing firm and refusing to cooperate when it came to the placement of children.

The sight of Elsie Openshaw standing firm was not a pleasant one, as she was a woman of considerable size and, with her arms folded and her face set, looked about as inviting as a midwinter funeral tea. The cheerful flowered apron wrapped round her uncomely form lost any appeal it might have had as soon as it made contact with her body. The metal from which her curlers were made echoed the state of her mind. She was fixed, unbendable, and she intended to ensure that all her neighbours took a similar stance.

Your four tenanted farms are Cedars, Four Oaks, Pear Tree and Holly. So in reality you have five farms rather than four as mentioned in your letter. It occurred to me that I hadn’t told you the names of those places, but your solicitors may well have. All are occupied by decent folk, and you will find them extremely

Yet again, he discarded his pen. The cottages on the Edge were also the property of the woman to whom he was attempting to write. Elsie Openshaw, a widow whose husband had died to escape her, Keith suspected, was allowed to stay on rent-free because of the years of labour her man had put in at Willows Home Farm. Did she not realize that she could be out on her ear if she remained intransigent? ‘I am not afraid of you, you old witch,’ he mumbled. The letter could wait; a more pressing piece of business required his attention. ‘Why is it always me?’ he asked no one at all, since he was alone. It was always him because he was agent and steward, so he had better shape up, buck up and prepare to put her back up.

He pulled on cap and coat, left the house, and began the walk down the lane towards Willows Edge, his own cottage, and the abode of Mrs Elsie Openshaw. She wanted sorting out. Her kids were long fled, yet all three of them sent money for her food and other necessities. If they didn’t send money, she visited them, and they avoided that like the plague. She wasn’t a woman; she was a bloody government.

Elsie had been a tartar all her life, and it was time somebody stood up to her. Keith, a mature, strong man, was not in fear of her. The sudden quickening of his pulse was connected to the business of being slightly older, wasn’t it? No, it wasn’t. He was scared to bloody death, and he had to have a showdown. Showdowns were not in his nature, but they were required occasionally.

For many years, Keith had lived near the harridan. No one ever answered her when she ranted, but everyone in the terrace talked behind her back. Some said it was a pity she’d not died instead of poor Bill, who had been eroded by hard work and nagging to a point where he could take no more. All said she was a nasty old witch, but who would dare to tackle her? He grinned. Something about the group he termed the Liverpool girls promised that life might change. He wished he could speak directly to Nellie Kennedy, ask her to bring a large, loud family to live in the empty cottage. He wished he might speak directly to her daughter, but the reason for that was a mile away from Elsie and her lashing tongue. He paused for a fraction of a second before passing Elsie’s house. He would deal with her in a minute. Yes, he definitely would.

Keith entered his own house first and laid a fire to be lit later if needed. Evening came earlier now, and there was sometimes a chill in the air. Why did he keep seeing her face? Not since the death of his darling Annie Metcalfe of Bromley Cross had he looked with real desire at any woman. Annie’s death, some twenty years earlier, had left a hole in him. She had been stricken with a kind of blood poisoning after suffering a burst appendix, and she had been his soulmate. Her photograph, in faded sepia, still took centre stage on the mantelpiece. They had never married . . .

Her name was Eileen, and she had three sons and one incredibly talented daughter. When alone with Eileen for a few precious seconds during the visit, he had fallen hook, line and sinker for a woman who spoke what was tantamount to a foreign language, who had difficult boys, the eyes of an angel and hair like gossamer silk. She was bloody gorgeous. He did not trust his feelings. This kind of stuff happened in daft books written by daft women for daft women. Yet he was persecuted by visions of her in his bed, his house, his life. He pictured her at the sink, saw himself creeping up behind her to fold her in his arms, pull back her hair, kiss her neck. He was daft. Love at first sight? Not again!

Keith Greenhalgh almost laughed out loud. Women found him handsome; he found women silly or nasty, like the old bat he would be visiting shortly. For sex and companionship, he had enjoyed a ten-year relationship with a childless woman whose husband did not quite satisfy her hunger. It was a good friendship, and there would be little acrimony should a parting of their ways occur. So he wasn’t looking for anything shallow, was not looking for anything at all. It was the same with most aspects of life. ‘Search for a lump hammer, a great huge article you’ve owned for years, and it’s disappeared off the face of the earth. When you don’t want it, you fall over it in the shed doorway,’ he told Annie’s photo.

But Eileen wasn’t a lump hammer; Eileen had heart and soul in her eyes, a delicate, beautiful face, and a body that should be on cinema screens. He was glad she wasn’t on cinema screens . . . What if she already had somebody? No. He’d overheard Nellie saying to Jay that Eileen steered clear because of her boys. Did he have a chance? Did he? He hadn’t ached like this for years. ‘I want her,’ he said aloud. ‘I want a bloody woman I don’t even know. She talks funny, she’s got terrible sons, and I bet she knows as much about estate management and farming as I know about delicate embroidery. I need my head examining.’

However, none of this was useful. He should take a short walk and impose himself on Elsie Openshaw, hag of this parish, self-appointed queen of all she surveyed, miserable old woman with a black heart, a face like a giant plate of stewed tripe, and her husband’s teeth. She didn’t like to waste anything, so she’d taken them from the mouth of a corpse, and had spent several years trying with a marked lack of success to break them in. She was horrible.

She opened her door before he had time to knock. As usual, she had been at the window keeping an eye on her territory. ‘I’m coming in,’ he said, trying not to recoil too obviously when brushing past her hugeness. That was a good name for her. Her Royal Hugeness. It should be patented and hung round her neck with a bit of rope. Or a garrotte. He walked through the small shop, once a parlour, into the kitchen-cum-living room. The house smelled unclean, like rancid butter, dirty cloth and old paper. He turned and faced her. ‘I’m writing to the new owner of the estate,’ he began. ‘I have to give an account of everybody who lives round here.’

‘Oh, aye? The Liverpool woman what’s dad ran off with a cleaner?’

‘Yes.’ He bit back the words ‘at least she cleaned’.

‘And?’ The upper teeth dropped again. For a split second, she looked like something that lived under a bridge to frighten billy goats. She was quick, though. The set was clicked back into position in a fraction of a trice. He’d seen better-looking gargoyles acting as rainwater goods outside mansions and the like.

‘And people want you out. They daren’t say it to your face, and they’ll deny it if you ask, because they fear you. You’re a bully, and your brain’s smaller than your gob. Oh, and if anyone else complains about mail being interfered with, it’ll be the police that provide the transport to shift you. Stop steaming things open. Stop poking about in parcels and putting new string round them. We’re all on to you. Folk aren’t as daft as you want them to be.’

She dropped into a chair, which complained loudly at the sudden assault. ‘Who do you think you’re talking to, Keith Greenhalgh?’

‘You. I’m talking to you. You’re in a rent-free cottage, and we need space for evacuees.’

She almost managed to fold her arms across an upper body the size of Brazil. ‘So to keep me house, I have to take a bloody Scouser in?’

He shook his head. ‘Not likely. I wouldn’t put any child within a mile of you, Elsie Openshaw. Your own couldn’t get away quickly enough. Young Daisy threw herself at that farmhand until he impregnated her. Everyone along here knows that. They know how you treated Bill and the kids, and they know first-hand how you treat your neighbours. If I told them you were leaving, they’d have a bonfire, but the guy would be large and female. Even the blackout wouldn’t stop them celebrating seeing the back of you.’ There, he had done it. A peaceable creature by nature, this was hardly his forte. He wasn’t shaking. There was a chill in the air, that was all.

Her mouth opened and closed, Bill’s teeth shifting nervously in a cavern that threatened to inhale them, but no words emerged. A terrible fear visited her chest. Widows of long-serving farmhands were always housed. Sometimes, they had to share accommodation, but they were never thrown out. ‘Can she change things, just like that?’ she finally managed.

‘She can. So can I. It’s part of my job, Elsie. If any tenant, whether tied or rent-paying, makes life difficult for another or others, he or she will be given notice to leave. It’s in every agreement signed by a resident.’

The woman gulped.

‘Careful. You’ll be having Bill’s dentures for dinner.’ Keith sat down. ‘Two conditions. One, you clean this place up – it stinks. Two, you stop yapping about everything and everybody. Don’t put people off when they think about taking a Liverpool child. Those kiddies live in a huge port, and there’ll be ships, explosives and God alone knows what docked nearby. Sorry. Number three is the one I almost forgot. Leave the post alone, or I’ll have you out of here so fast your curlers’ll catch fire before you reach Willows Lane.’

Elsie struggled to her feet. ‘I’ve just remembered, there’s a letter for you.’ She went off towards the front room, which was now her precious shop.

‘Did you hear all I said?’ he shouted.

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

She returned. ‘Woman’s writing,’ she wheezed. ‘From Liverpool.’

‘Right.’ He stared at her. Was she the full quid, or was she a bent farthing? ‘Elsie?’

‘What?’

‘Did you hear my conditions if you’re going to stay here?’

She nodded, and her several chins wobbled, though not in harmony. It was as if they were fighting for space above a tight collar, and no one was winning. After a few seconds, the layers of blubber reached some sort of agreement and settled down, presumably to negotiate terms of peace. ‘Clean up, shut up, put up, and leave the bloody mail alone,’ she barked.

She was the full quid, then. ‘And stop being nasty to people and about people. Some teeth of your own might be a good idea, and all. Those you took from poor Bill are fit to frighten horses.’

Outside once more, Keith tried to contain his excitement. The writing wasn’t Hilda Pickavance’s. Miss Pickavance used as near as damn it to copperplate. He couldn’t imagine Nellie sitting down to write a shopping list, let alone a letter. It had to be from her. But he left it on the dresser while he brewed tea and lit the fire. Sometimes, a treat tasted sweeter if you had to wait for it. Her lettering on the envelope was clear, though this was not the hand of a formally educated person. Well, he wasn’t educated. Anything he knew had been picked up long after his escape from the confines of school.

He opened the envelope carefully with the help of some obscure item attached to a penknife of many parts, including a tool that had never in its life managed to remove a stone from an equine hoof.

Dear Mr Greenhalgh,

I am writing to let you know that I shall be staying in Liverpool with my daughter, as she is too young to be left for any length of time. It must seem terrible, because my mother will be forced to cope with Philip (11), Robin (9) and Bertie, really Albert (7 if I let him live till Friday).

Please try to put these boys of mine to some sort of work. They are quick learners, but easily led astray, and they were in trouble with the police again very recently. The farms should be ideal, because work in the fields will use up their energy. I hope you aren’t annoyed at my boldness in assuming too much in view of our brief acquaintance . . .

He put down the page and smiled. She might talk oddly, but she was well-read, by gum. That paragraph might have been penned by Austen herself. He hadn’t been wrong; there was something special about Eileen Watson. But she wasn’t coming. Sighing, he picked up the letter again.

our brief acquaintance, but will you please keep an eye on them, on my mother and on Hilda? Goodness, how many eyes does one man have? Also, I beg you to come or send someone whenever possible to bring me and my daughter over to Willows at weekends. I know that cannot happen every Friday, but I should like to spend time with my family. We hope to visit at half-term and at Christmas as long as we can overcome travelling difficulties and find someone to care for Miss Morrison, the lady with whom we shall be lodging.

Travelling difficulties? If he had to steal an armoured vehicle from an army base, he would do it and be damned. And she had written ‘should’ like to spend time with family. So this was the source of Mel’s good brain, then. Like many born in the early years of the twentieth century, Eileen had experienced only a brief and unedifying brush with scholarship, but she had remedied that.

I walked down to the river earlier on. It is very busy. There is urgency in the movement of every man, and no one stops for a crafty smoke like they do when life is normal. Beyond trains and cranes and ships, I saw the sun and wondered why God was allowing it to shine at such a time.

The warehouses are said to be bulging with imports, though we cannot know exactly what, and they are under heavy guard. As well as police, soldiers and sailors are standing watch and many are armed.

As the sun went down, the river was bright red and that made me shiver. I am sure you can guess the reason for my discomfort.

I enclose on another sheet the address of Miss Frances Morrison. She has a telephone and I have included the number in case you need to reach me in a hurry after we have all finished playing musical chairs. Thank you for your kindness. Please keep in touch if you have time, because I shall enjoy reading about my fine, healthy, country bumpkin boys.

Yours sincerely,

Eileen Watson.

Oh, God. He was almost in love. The paper was thin and cheap, so he reused the envelope as protective custodian. ‘She wrote to me, not to Jay. She knew him better, because he did the driving, but she chose me.’ There had been a connection, a mutual attraction. More important, her humour was on show in the letter, and where there was humour, there was intellect. ‘Eileen.’ He tried the name for size and shape, rolled it from his tongue into the empty room. It seemed lonely out there by itself, so he paired it off with his own forename. ‘They’ll have me locked up,’ he advised the crackling fire. ‘I’ll get put away for talking to the fireback. But there’s no cure for this one.’

He stepped out of the kitchen into his back garden, fed his half-dozen friendly and inquisitive hens, picked some rhubarb for a crumble to be shared with the Dysons, and dead-headed a few flowers. A good enough housewife, Keith always helped his neighbours, since cooking for one was uneconomical and no fun. Jean baked his bread, so this tit-for-tat arrangement had been born long before Hitler decided to take over the world.

There was no treatment for this. It had been the same with little Annie Metcalfe of Bromley Cross. Little Annie had retained her full title, even after death, as there had been several Annes born that year, and the need to differentiate between them had birthed extended names. Even now, he could smell the sweet breath of an angel who had died in the sort of agony from which an animal would have been released within hours.

There was no mercy for gentle human souls, was there? He had never been unfaithful to his Annie. What happened between him and Cora Appleyard was mechanical, automatic, almost akin to breathing. He was grateful to her, as was she to him, but there was little or no pillow talk, because their joinings imitated the behaviour of animals. They had a need, and they indulged it. Until now, his heart had been the property of a dead girl.

The letter to Miss Pickavance could wait until morning, but the scribe in him itched to reply to one Mrs Eileen Watson. She had word-painted a picture of blood on the Mersey; he would return the favour by describing the gentle beauty of rural Lancashire, though he would not go over the top. What had she said? Something about not assuming too much after so brief an acquaintance. ‘And I’m sitting here with a daft grin on my face,’ he said. ‘But by heck, I’ll drag that one up the Willows, even if she has to come kicking and screaming.’ God, he was stupid.

Still laughing about the child who would be seven if Eileen allowed him to live until Friday, he toasted bread and scrambled a couple of eggs. A man who lived the country life had to keep his strength up. A cup of tea and a bit of music on the wireless, and he was set for the night. Keith Greenhalgh might be as mad as a frog in a box, but that was normal, since real love made a man crazy. He knew that. Because he’d been here before.

A flabbergasted Jean Dyson closed her mouth with a snap. She didn’t believe what she had just heard, yet she must believe it. Neil had a chance. There was a possibility – even a probability – that his occupation might be judged essential and reserved, because somebody had to show the Land Army what was what, so many of England’s farmers would be kept at home. ‘Why?’ she asked softly. ‘Why volunteer? If you sit it out, you’ll be too old to get called up.’ There was no point in screaming at him. If she shouted, he would go and sit with his cows in the shippon.

‘We got talking, me and Jay, and we decided it’s what we want. There’s no saying we’ll be picked anyway, so don’t start worrying yet. There’s every chance we’ll be psychologically unsuitable, or we won’t get through training for one reason or another. Then, as you said, there’s my age. If I volunteer, I’ll be considered.’

She cleared the table and began to clatter supper pots on the counter. She should have been in bed at least an hour ago, but she’d started knitting and lost track of time. ‘So you’re down the pub playing pat-a-cake with Jay, and you both come home fighter pilots.’ She poured hot water into the washing-up bowl. ‘How drunk did you have to be to get off the ground? I know he’s a daft beggar, but you should—’

‘Stop it, love.’

‘What was your fuel? Guinness or bitter?’

‘Jeanie—’

‘Don’t you Jeanie me.’ She waved a tea towel under his nose. ‘Leave this house voluntarily, Neil Dyson, and you won’t get back in. If you did get called up, you should have the sense to keep your feet planted on the ground. At sea, if the Germans don’t get you, the water will. In the air, you’ll become a ball of fire with two hundred bullets up your rear gunner. The army’s the only lot with a small chance. I knew I’d married a daft so-and-so, but it takes the whole cream cracker, this does.’

‘I’ve been reading, Jean, and—’

‘Then stop bloody reading. You’ve two daughters upstairs. Don’t you want to live for them?’

‘Course I do. I don’t want them raped by invaders either, don’t want them shoved into some prison camp then on to a breeding programme because they look Aryan.’

‘And?’

‘It’ll be fought in the air, Jean. They’ll fly in to bomb, to drop troops, to invade. It’s because of my children that I want to shoot the buggers out of the sky.’ He didn’t say the rest of it, because it would sound too soft and maudlin. In a way he didn’t properly understand, he was keen to fight for the King. George VI had suffered enough through getting lumbered with a job he’d never wanted; now the poor chap had to come over all positive and determined, because a war had arrived to ice the cake for him. ‘I want to serve my country,’ was all Neil allowed himself to say.

‘Oh aye? And growing cabbages and spuds isn’t serving your country? What’s the flaming matter with you? Somebody has to keep the home fires burning and the ovens filled. I’ll be here ripping guts out of chickens and knee-deep in feathers while you go and save the world? Right.’ She tore off her apron. ‘That’s it. You are manager of Willows Home Farm. I am not. I shall take the girls to my mam and dad’s up Bury Road, seeing as they’ve got a couple of spare rooms. You can please your bloody self, but the farm will have no boss.’ She stalked out of the room. After a few seconds, she reappeared briefly. ‘This kitchen is shut due to illness. I am bloody sick of it. The farm is shut, too.’

He waited, tapping his fingers on the table, walking round the room a few times, drinking a small bottle of ale, glancing at headlines in an old newspaper. When the clock told him she’d been gone for twenty minutes, he followed her upstairs, undressed and slipped into the bed. ‘Jeanie?’

‘Bugger off.’

‘Hit me, and I will.’ He dragged her into his arms. ‘Do you think I like the idea of some ugly, sweaty Kraut doing what I’m about to do? Would I want a Nazi general touching you like this, or like this?’

‘Stop it.’

‘You know you want me. You always want me.’

It was no use, she told herself resignedly. She was his happy plaything, and she loved him. When she got her breath back, she dug him in the ribs. ‘Oi, you.’

‘What?’

‘Come back dead, and I’ll kill you.’

‘OK, love. I’ll remember that.’

Jay Collins was rather less fortunate than his partner in drunken crime. He told his wife of his intentions regarding the air force before going out to fill the log basket. When he returned to the house, all the doors and windows were locked, and he was rendered homeless. This new circumstance was disconcerting, as he had enjoyed a roof over his head for all of his thirty-two years, so he waited to see what would happen next. What happened next was extremely damp and uncomfortable, because his wife opened an upper window of the gatehouse and poured a bucket of water on his head. The water was cold, and he moved away in case a repeat performance might be in the script.

‘Gill?’ he spluttered.

‘They won’t take Neil,’ she yelled. ‘He’s well turned forty, and his eyes are funny. In case you haven’t noticed, his arms need to grow longer so that he can read the newspaper properly. But they’ll take you, because you’re nobbut a handyman. Why don’t you wait to be called up? You will be called up, because we’ve no kiddies, but why go now?’

‘Because I want to choose what I do in the war.’

‘Huh.’ The window slammed.

‘Gill?’

Nothing happened.

‘Gill? Let me in.’

Nothing happened again. He considered his options, which were few. The idea of sitting outside and dying of pneumonia didn’t appeal, even though it would make her sorry. He could break in, but she would kill him. Neil kept farmer’s hours, in bed at nine and up and about by five except for one night a week – tonight – when he went to the pub and Jean took over morning duties on the following day. She still had to be up by five, so that was a non-starter. Which left only the boss, who was a man of understanding and discretion, and therefore won hands down.

Jay, feeling a real idiot, jogged down the lane until he reached Willows Edge. He hammered on the door, and was almost overcome by relief when it opened. ‘Thank God,’ he said from the heart.

‘Bloody hell in a handcart,’ the boss exclaimed. ‘Who got you dressed and ready? Neptune? Have you been paddling in Blackpool? Did you take your bucket and spade? Where’s my stick of rock?’

Jay rushed to the fire. ‘Don’t start, Keith. I’m not in the mood. She threw me out. I can’t break windows that are antiques, can I? Get that bloody kettle on, my bones are frozen and my teeth won’t keep still.’

‘This isn’t like Gill. What happened to make her carry on like that?’

‘Me and Neil happened. We were in the Red Lion, because it’s Neil’s night off, and we made a decision. We want to be fighter pilots. And we even went home early, but a man can’t do right for doing wrong as far as Gill’s concerned.’

Keith, doing a pale imitation of a saddened man, put the kettle to boil. ‘On a scale of one to ten, how drunk were you when this decision made itself?’

‘About seventeen. Put it this way – the landlord wouldn’t let us play darts, and we both got lost on the way home, ended up in a cow shed just off Willows Lane. It was Neil’s cow shed, so we got our bearings after that. Nice, aren’t they?’

‘Eh?’

‘Cows. Very comforting. I’d never noticed that before.’

‘Jay?’

‘What?’

‘Sit down and shut up. I’ll find you a towel and some pyjamas.’ Shaking his head slowly, Keith walked up the stairs. Hitler had a lot to answer for, and one of his first victims was downstairs, teeth chattering so hard that they threatened to break. Fighter pilots? Jay couldn’t navigate marriage or his way home, while Neil had no chance. He’d been in the last war, Lancashire Fusiliers, so he’d already trained in the army, and if they did start taking older men they wouldn’t want him as an airborne hero.

Keith came down, throwing a towel and some pyjamas at his visitor before airing his views. ‘Neil and I were both in the Lancs Fusiliers,’ he said. ‘No way will a man our age get to train as a pilot. But you might. And if it’s what you really want, go for it. She’ll calm down. They take it as personal, as if you can’t wait to get away. Gill thinks you don’t love her any more.’

‘I love the bones of that girl.’

‘I know you do. She knows you do. But she’s annoyed.’

Jay stared at his boss. ‘I’d no idea,’ he said sarcastically. ‘I thought she was playing water fights or cleaning windows. I only went out for some wood, and she locked that house down like the Tower of bloody London. If they ever need somebody to mind the Crown Jewels, she’s their man.’

‘Gill’s frightened.’

‘And I’m not? We’re all afeared, Keith. There’ll be folk called up who don’t want to go. Leading them in won’t be easy, because their hearts aren’t going to be in the job. I want to save Britain for the British, and I’ve always wanted to fly.’

‘Pilots will die like bluebottles, lad. Exactly like flies. They’ll fall to earth or into the sea as if they’ve been hit by a giant flyswatter with a machine gun as backup. As soon as you take off in a Spitfire, it’ll be nearer my God to thee in more ways than one.’

‘I know.’

‘So why?’

Jay shrugged. ‘Because I have to.’

A few seconds strolled past. ‘Then go to it. Neil knows he’s too old. He can try lying about his age, but his eyes won’t pass muster. I’ll have a word or three with him tomorrow. Now, dry off and go to bed – back room. I’ve a letter to finish.’

‘Thanks, boss.’

‘One more thing.’

‘Yes?’

Keith pondered for a while. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but get Gill to the doctor’s, will you? I know it’s not supposed to happen for her, but she’s put a bit of weight on, and there’s a little dark mark under both eyes. It may be nothing, but, before you volunteer, get a pregnancy test. Her hormones might be in a mess. I could be wrong, but better safe than sorry, eh? A woman’s body knows it’s pregnant almost from day one, a long time before the brain gets the message. You might find there were two of her chucking water.’

Jay’s jaw moved south. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘Bloody hell is right. Now, stop dripping on my rug. A friend pegged that for me years ago.’ He walked into the kitchen. A sudden desire to weep like a child was drowned by a cup of water. The tea was brewed, and he carried into the front room a pint pot filled with the steaming beverage.

Jay, pyjama-clad, was huddled over the fire. ‘If she is, what shall I do?’

‘Wait till you’ve crossed a bridge or two. If the doc says she’s having a baby, ask how she’ll be, but even a doctor can’t really predict that. If she is carrying, you might want to wait and see for yourself how she is. On the other hand, the thought of becoming a dad could make you even more determined to fight. I don’t have a magic wand, Jay. It’s your life – live it.’

Jay took his pint of tea upstairs. There would be little sleep for him tonight. For a start, the bed was lumpy, and it wasn’t his. And he remained chilled, mostly because he was used to sharing with a warm body. A baby? It was all she wanted. Her motherless state was a huge source of disappointment for Gill Collins. In her opinion, a woman without children was scarcely a woman at all. And she loved kids, was even planning to take an evacuee or two. He hoped she understood what she’d be living with, because if the women were anything to go by, Scouse kids promised to be several handfuls of mischief.

‘Three pages already,’ Keith said aloud. ‘A letter of this length when I hardly know her?’ But he did know her. She’d been in his head, his bed and his dreams for days. He hadn’t been to visit Cora, didn’t need her. There was something distasteful and impolite about using one woman while seeing the face of another. Should he throw in the job, move to Crosby and find work there? No. Because he knew how to woo her, and the key was three boys. If he could tame them and get them to behave sensibly, he might be halfway to winning her.

The chap who drove you here has just arrived wet through to the bone. He’s been half drowned and locked out by his wife, because she doesn’t want him to join the air force. It seems he got drunk with one of the farmers, so drunk that they were both ordered by the landlord not to play darts. They ended up in a shippon and decided to fly. I think they were flying already, because they couldn’t find their way home. I believe navigation will not be a strong point for either of them.

I seem to have overstayed my welcome with this letter, as it will take up your time, but it’s wonderful to be able to indulge in correspondence unconnected to business. Please don’t worry about the boys. I shall make it my goal to ensure that they are occupied and out of trouble. It will be my pleasure to bring you to Willows as often as possible. I may change horses if you have a carter, and I can pick up Nero in exchange for the borrowed horse when I return you to base. There may be a shortage of petrol, so it’ll be back to horses and carts for all of us.

He reread the whole letter, wondering whether he had gone too far in mentioning how pretty she was. It had been the same with Annie, God bless her. One encounter, and he’d been lost. And here he was, twenty years older and wiser, two decades dafter, with a fool in bed upstairs. No matter what went on around him, no matter which piece of work he was tackling, Eileen was there in his mind, right at the front where business should sit. So where was the real fool? Upstairs or here, sweating over a letter?

The answer entered the room. In striped pyjamas and work boots, Jay Collins looked as mad as a spring hare. ‘I’m just . . . er . . . the lav.’ He walked out through the kitchen.

Life, Keith told himself, was weird. One minute he felt like weeping, and the next he was practically doubled over at the sight of his handyman in boots and sleepwear. Was Keith the pregnant one? Were his hormones in turmoil? ‘Perhaps I’m having an early menopause. I must tell the quack about my poor nerves.’

Jay returned. ‘Bloody raining now,’ he muttered as he climbed the stairs.

The rain was the last straw. As mirth rose in his throat, Keith Greenhalgh damped the fire, turned off the lamps and went upstairs. It was time for bed. He had given up on today; it was a hopeless case . . .

Five

‘We could decorate a Christmas tree with that grin of yours, Eileen Watson. It’s all the letters, isn’t it? They’ve been coming through that door by the sackful. I seen you stood there yesterday with a gob on because there was no letter.’ Nellie sighed like a ham on stage. ‘Isn’t love wonderful? Ooh, I can see it now, hand in hand through buttercups and daisies, tossed over the wall by a bull, landing side by side in a cowpat. Lovely.’

Eileen shrugged and changed irons, setting the cool one to heat near the fire, picking up the hotter one and spitting on it to make sure it sizzled. ‘Stop it, Mam. You’re getting on my nerves, so give it a rest. He’s just a nice fellow, a decent man. It’s good to hear about the place where you’ll be staying with our three musketeers. I see that stain came out of our Philip’s shirt.’

‘And you’ve gone red.’

‘So? What are you, counsel for the Crown Persecution? Because that’s what this is, Mam. It’s perse-bloody-cution. Would you rather I went a nice shade of green?’

‘Well, it would suit, seeing as you’re half Irish.’ Nellie wandered off for a brief segue down a different avenue. ‘She’s give you some lovely clothes. Funny, isn’t it? When she wore them, they looked dowdy. You look like a film star in Hilda’s stuff. It’s that figure of yours. She’s straight up and down, but you’re curvy.’’

Eileen continued to iron her children’s clothes. They were lucky, because Miss Pickavance had kitted them out with decent stuff for their evacuation. They had strong boots and good trousers, and they even had pyjamas. Some kids round here slept in their school clothes for weeks on end, no vests, no underpants, no breakfast. She felt guilty about those who wouldn’t get the chance of evacuation, which was why that side of things was being left firmly in Hilda’s court. And Hilda was coming out of herself while searching for candidates, so it was a good thing all round.

‘He’s handsome, I’ll give you that. One of the best-looking blokes I’ve seen in a long time. Lovely head of hair, tanned skin, laughing eyes. And he won’t get called up. About ten years older than you, I reckon, and a Woollyback, but that can’t be helped. There’s always one fly in the ointment, but, taken all round, I dare say he’ll do for you.’

‘Mother!’

Nellie chortled. When Eileen called her Mother, the water was definitely warming up a bit. If she didn’t jump soon, it could boil. Because Nellie’s Eileen had limits. This angel could become a real little virago if pushed an inch too far in the wrong direction. ‘But you like him, though, don’t you? I mean you did take a fancy, I can tell.’

The iron was slammed down onto a couple of roof slates that served to protect a table that was well past redemption. Eileen glared at her mother. ‘Listen. Sherlock. It’s elementary, and I’m Watson. He’s a penfriend. So stick that in your pan and fry it with a couple of onions.’

‘Ooh, look,’ Nellie exclaimed. ‘Our Eileen’s come over all Mae West in a mood.’ She was talking to nobody, as the children were at school, and she and her daughter were the only people in the house. ‘You’ve had a letter today, though. I can tell you’ve had a letter today, because it’s wrote all over your face.’

‘Written.’

‘Eh?’

‘Written all over my face. And it was on paper, actually.’

‘Was it? Actually?’

‘Yes.’ The ironing continued. Today’s was a brilliant one. He’d told her about his childhood down in Bolton, his mam and dad, brothers and sisters, little Annie Metcalfe from Bromley Cross, dead for over twenty years. And he’d sent a parcel this time. Thank God Mam had been out cleaning the Throstle’s Nest, because she would have made a symphony out of it rather than a mere song and dance. Mam was a caution. Mam was happy, because her Eileen might have found a good man. Might have. It was early days.

‘Eileen?’

‘What now?’

‘I know we hardly met him, but he’s lovely.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll take it slow, though?’

‘Course I will. He’s got to meet my boys yet. We could have five farms ruined by Christmas with no help at all from Hitler. Our Bertie can start a war in a shoe box.’ She sniffed. ‘I’ll miss you, though.’

‘Same here, queen. It’ll be like ripping one of me arms off, only this can’t be helped. You have to stay with her. My granddaughter’s special, and I don’t want nobody wiping their feet on her front doormat.’

‘You being vulgar again, Mam?’

‘I am. Anyway, I’m going next door to see Kitty. Charlie went out for a packet of cigs last Friday, and she’s seen neither hide nor hair since. I know she’s used to it, but she’s gone worser with her nerves this last month. Ever since Chamberlain come on the wireless, she’s been like a cat on hot bricks.’

Alone, Eileen dug out her parcel from behind the upended mattress on which she and Mam slept. There was the letter, a photograph of Willows, and a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He was making love to her. From a distance not far short of forty miles, he was caressing her soul. Inside the book, tissue thin enough to be transparent held dried flowers between a dozen or more pages. All her life, Eileen had waited, however unconsciously, for a relationship like this. It was a fairy tale, and she was Cinderella. There was no carriage, no glass slipper, no midnight deadline, but the hero had a gentle heart, humour, and a good brain. It was all too quick, too quick because war loomed.

At the age of thirty-three, this mother of four children had been washed ashore on an island named Hope. Her Lazzer had been a wonderful man, and she was not betraying him. Keith had a memory of a girl he had loved, so they were equal on that score. For the first time, she smiled while thinking of Laz. After baptizing him Lawrence, his family had shortened that to Lawrie, which sounded a bit like the name of a large vehicle, so Eileen and he had made up Lazzer. They’d been happy. To this day, Eileen missed the weight of a man, the power, the loving and whispering. But she’d pledged herself to her children, and three of those children were . . . on the wild side. Keith would straighten them out. It was silly, placing faith in a bloke she hardly knew, and yet . . . He could do it. He would do it. ‘Slow down,’ she muttered.

The scream came at that moment. Eileen shoved her treasures out of sight and ran into the street. Kitty Maguire was lying face down on the pavement, balled fists battering the flags, a blood-curdling sound escaping from her throat. Over her stood Nellie Kennedy and two policemen. Other neighbours came out of their houses, mostly mothers with children too young for school. Eileen interpreted word-shapes on her mother’s lips. Charlie Maguire was dead. A constable advised Eileen that the body had been washed up on Ainsdale beach, just another piece of flotsam tossed about by the Mersey’s unpredictable rips. ‘She’s taken it bad,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘Mind you, he was never sober, so we’re not surprised he’s come to grief. Poor woman.’ He shook his head sadly.

Days later, Eileen remembered how she had thought of herself coming ashore on an island named Hope. While she had been pondering that, Kitty’s husband had been thrown up by the tide, and a whole family had been stranded on a shore entitled Despair. Life took, and life gave. Because on that first day, Hilda Pickavance rode in on her white horse and promised Kitty a cottage in Willows Edge. The true hero of the piece was a quiet woman with a spine of steel, a person who, when blessed with good fortune, insisted on sharing it. Charlie was dead, but his wife and children would be safe.

For several nights, Eileen and Nellie took turns to sit up with Kitty. Weeping continued till the early hours of every morning, after which whoever was on duty dozed fitfully in an uncomfortable chair. Poor old Charlie had been doomed anyway. According to the doctor, his life sentence was always going to be commuted to early release, since his liver was fit only for saddlery and boot-soling, not for cleansing blood. He had been a long way past retrieval, and his illness showed in every corner of the disgusting house he had inhabited. From where she sat, Eileen could hear wildlife in the kitchen. She recalled one of the babies, now grown, being taken to the hospital after eating ‘currants’ from the kitchen floor. That dried fruit had been produced by rodents, and the child had suffered the consequences. The smell in here was almost unbearable.

Cockroaches scuttered about. These creatures, along with mice and silverfish, were frequent visitors in Nellie and Eileen’s house, but Nellie kept on top of them and was merciless when it came to methods of dispatch. Mel had once termed her gran a murderer of mice, but the job had to be done. Poor Kitty had lost hope and energy; perhaps both might be reborn once the funeral was consigned to the pages of recent history.

Eileen closed her eyes. By now, Mam had discovered the letter, the book, the photo and the dried flowers. It didn’t matter. If Mel should ever be on the receiving end of a man’s dedicated attention, Eileen would want to know. Age scarcely came into it, because Eileen was Nellie’s child, just as Mel was Eileen’s.

Kitty woke again. ‘Will I like it up there, Eileen? Do you think we’ll be all right out in the wilds?’

‘I hope so, love. There’ll be fresh air and probably no bombs, so it has to be an improvement.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Yes. So am I.’ Kitty was better off, though she didn’t know it yet. Her husband had been difficult, and occasionally violent, a fact that accounted for several of Kitty’s absent teeth. He had failed to provide, so his young had scarcely thrived, and he would not have been fit for any kind of war service. By falling into the Mersey when drunk as a lord, he had done his wife and children a favour, since they could now be rescued. Hilda Pickavance would not have allowed Charlie into one of her cottages, and Kitty would have continued down the slippery slope for many years to come.

‘I know what you’re thinking. He was no good, and I’m better off.’

Eileen shook her head. ‘He’s better off, Kitty. He suffered. You know he suffered, because you told us about the bleeding. Remember? That was real pain, you see. And when he turned on you or the kids, it was the booze, not him. Part of him was screaming to get well, while the rest of him knew it was too late. Even so, whatever Charlie was, he was yours and you’ll miss him. But my mam will be with you over at Willows. My mam will look after you.’

Kitty stared into a feeble fire. ‘Know what I’m looking forward to, Eileen?’

‘No, what?’

‘Teeth. For the funeral. Proper teeth fitted by Mushy Goldberg. He does a good pair, tops and bottoms, for a couple of quid. People have been so kind.’

Eileen smiled to herself. The locals had gone without their pies and their pints so that Kitty’s blackened stumps could be removed. The gums were currently being given a few days to heal in order to be replaced by some Mushy Goldberg specials in time for Charlie’s big send-off. ‘Try to have a little doze,’ was all she said for the time being.

Morning struggled to be born some time after six. This was going to be the end of Kitty’s first full week as a widow, and Eileen knew from personal experience how hard that would be. She couldn’t eat or prepare food in here, so she crept next door to make tea and toast. Mam was asleep on the parlour floor mattress, the book of sonnets in one hand. She was struggling a bit in coming to terms with Shakespeare, but she had brains enough to give the bard a chance. ‘I’ve been lucky,’ Eileen whispered. ‘We’ve made it this far, you and me, Mam. Yes, I’ve been a lucky girl.’

A sort of polite friendship had developed between Tom and Marie Bingley. She, more relaxed now that she had her own bedroom, threw herself head first into the development from scratch of a local WVS and, when she wasn’t reading government literature and attending meetings, she was knitting khaki socks and telephoning headquarters about bandage sizes and food parcels. She continued to nurture and provide for her family, but cooking and shopping had ceased to be the focus of her life. Marie was needed by the community, and her war work became the core of her existence.

Tom’s spare time was less gainfully employed. He did his duty, helped the sick, tended the dying and the newborn, but he was restless. Then he saw an article in last week’s newspaper, the story of a washed-up body found on a nearby beach. Next to this item was printed a grainy photograph of the widow standing in a street with her neighbour. Even here, in patchy black and white, the neighbour shone. Dear God, Eileen Watson was seriously beautiful.

He showed the paper to his daughter. ‘Where exactly do they live, Gloria?’

‘Rachel Street, number two, I think, so that poor lady whose husband drowned must be number four. It’s quite near the Rotunda theatre, round about where Cazneau Street meets Scotland Road. Why?’

‘It’s just that we know Mel, don’t we? And now that I’ve met her mother, well . . . I thought I might help the bereaved family.’ He watched her smile as it arrived to illuminate a face that seemed to be improving somewhat.

‘That’s a nice thing to do, Daddy. But Mel never takes anyone home. I can’t say she’s ashamed, because she probably isn’t; she’s too . . . organized for that. It’s just that she keeps her two worlds apart, because they wouldn’t mix. Even the poor have their rules.’

‘Rules don’t buy a coffin, Gloria.’

‘No, but some things are bigger than money.’

For a few seconds, Tom looked at his daughter. She was a sensitive soul, then. She would probably grow up to be like her mother, dutiful, correct and capable. No beauty had been promised, yet something was happening. Cheekbones. Yes, they had started to show through disappearing puppy fat. ‘When are they moving to Crosby?’ He attempted to dress the question in casual clothes.

‘Very soon. Miss Morrison’s having their rooms painted. She has a soft spot for Mel’s mother, so she’s trying to get everything nice for them.’

‘Good, good.’ Tom left his daughter to her homework and went into the study. He had to see Eileen Watson. But he owned the grace to feel some shame, since he was considering using a dead man as a stepping stone, and such an intention did not sit comfortably on his conscience.

Marie entered the room, a piece of white paper in her hand. ‘I wonder,’ she began, her tone offhand, ‘whether you might do me a favour, Tom.’

‘If I can, of course I shall.’

The paper was a five-pound note, and she passed it to him. ‘I read that the other day,’ she said, pointing to the newspaper. ‘And I thought we might go down and visit Mrs Watson and her neighbour. But I simply haven’t time today, because there’s a committee meeting early this evening. Please give the poor young widow that money. God knows she’ll need it.’

There was an unfamiliar expression on Marie’s face, a cross between challenge and a sort of triumph. She was telling him that she’d lost the key to her chastity belt, that he could look elsewhere, that she had better things to do, wool to wind, women to organize, a war to win. The balance of power had certainly shifted on this bit of St Andrews Road.

He felt strangely hurt. She was married to a successful, respected, handsome man, but all she offered was politeness and a kind of comradeship. ‘A civilized arrangement’ was what she wanted. After the war, depending on how long it lasted and how old the twins were at the time, she might look for divorce or separation. The disgrace of that would ruin his practice, so he must try to change her mind. At present, that mind was rather like Stonehenge; any change would arrive as a result of centuries of erosion.

She left the room, smiling to herself as soon as the door was closed in her wake. Taking the upper hand was strangely exhilarating. Having been the first to contact the relevant authorities, she was, by default, in charge of the WVS. Although no ranks existed within the service, she was the first to receive an official blouse with that badge on the pocket, red and white, a crown at its top, and W.V.S. embroidered above the words CIVIL DEFENCE and CROSBY.

In accordance with the dictates of its founder, the Women’s Voluntary Service undertook a duty to familiarize locals with the dos and don’ts in case of bomb attack. Members were instructed to hammer home the necessity of keeping light from showing, as well as provide comforts for displaced persons at home and for troops employed in battle. She had a reason to live, a reason all her own. No longer was she just a wife and a mother; she had lists to type, telephone calls to make, women to manage. The war was her saviour.

Then there was home. She had assumed command here, too. By removing herself from the marital bed, Marie had taken charge. This also had been by default in its own way, as she had never fully understood the power of sex. It was something one did in order to procreate, and it was a nuisance. But when it stopped, the male became very odd. Sometimes, he looked almost crazed, eyes shifting from side to side, occasionally fixing on her breasts or her legs. She wasn’t a handsome woman, but the breast and leg departments were adequate. Was he going insane? If that were the case, he could travel the road alone, because she had no intention of losing her own mind.

Anyway, she’d seen all she wanted of the damp patch on the main bedroom ceiling, had wasted more than enough time waiting for him to groan and flail before collapsing on her like a lump of boiled fish. The whole business was moist and rather unwholesome. He needed it, though, especially when a pretty woman or girl had visited. Well, he could manage without her. Men were designed literally to please themselves, and she had just given him unspoken permission to turn his attention to some other female.

So that was that. Now, where had she put the instructions about how best to pack a shoebox with goodies for a soldier? And should Muriel Crabtree be in charge of bandages? Muriel kept horses, and there was usually a whiff of manure about her person . . .

The edge was keener in Liverpool than in Crosby and Blundellsands. People scuttered to and from the docks, humour less audible, faces set in lines that spoke volumes about what was dreaded. Barrage balloons, pretty and silver, bobbed about in the cool evening air. Older men wore the garb of wardens and fire-watchers, while younger males went about their business in a hurry, as most would soon be gone into the hungry maw of Europe. The invisible, silent wind of change howled behind expressionless eyes. Afraid yet determined, this tough, valiant breed prepared to bomb and to be bombed. Grey ships moored in shallow water were being edged out by tugs, as they were sitting too low and in danger of becoming silt-bound. What was their cargo? Why were there so many Royal Navy uniforms about?

They were no doubt loading missiles, and it was all suddenly very real. Tom drove past guns whose huge nostrils pointed skyward as if in immediate readiness to spit rounds of flak at German fighters and bombers. Thousands of sandbags were piled on pavements waiting to be taken to their final resting places. Windows bore criss-crossed tape applied so that glass would not fly too freely once the show began in earnest. Little trains chugged across the road, and a smell akin to cordite danced skittishly on the breeze.

He stopped the car and watched a different world, one that was a mere seven miles from his home. Used to houses with garden gates, a stranger to organized and heavy industry, Tom was cushioned, and he knew it. And he suddenly understood Marie’s obsession with socks and bandages. While the contribution of one small arm of civil defence might seem paltry, it could be vital to a man who bled in a ditch, to another whose extremities were unbearably cold and wet. Little shoeboxes crammed with sweets, biscuits, cigarettes, socks, a scarf and a greeting would mean the world to an injured man in some damp and undermanned field hospital.

He left the docks and drove a short distance inland. No longer wishing to see Eileen, he knocked at the door of number four. But Eileen opened it. He followed her into the kind of hell he had read about, though this was his first real sight of it. The need to stop breathing had to be overcome, though there was very little oxygen in the place. Eileen Watson looked like a diamond set in tin, though Mrs Maguire fitted her surroundings well enough. ‘I’m Dr Bingley,’ he said to the new widow. ‘My wife’s at a civil defence meeting, but she asked me to bring you this. We saw the article in the paper.’ He handed over the five-pound note. ‘We know Mrs Watkins and her daughter, so . . .’ He ran out of words.

Kitty Maguire’s hand shook as she accepted the note. ‘Me teeth,’ she said through tears. ‘God bless you, doc. I’ve never had hold of a fiver before. I can pay for me new teeth so I won’t show me kiddies up.’

He didn’t know what to say, because mind and throat were suddenly dry.

Eileen led him out. ‘She’s not herself,’ she said quietly. ‘All she goes on about is her teeth. Mushy Goldberg took out the bits that were left a few days back, and he’s making her a set of falsies. They’ll be ready in the morning, just before the funeral. We had a collection to pay for them, but she can use that for other essentials. I’m afraid she’s coming out with some odd things.’

‘Shock,’ he managed.

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

They stood on the pavement. He fiddled with his trilby while she stared at her shoes. ‘It’s a bloody mad world,’ he said eventually. ‘And I think it’ll get worse before it gets better.’

‘No doubt. Thanks, anyway.’ She went back to Kitty.

Tom drove home. He knew he couldn’t offer his services as fireman, warden or driver, because he was going to be essential. If a baby was coming, it wouldn’t hang on while he manned a phone in town. Perhaps he might be allowed to roll a few bandages. Perhaps he could learn to knit socks. Whatever he could or couldn’t do, he felt seriously inadequate.

Fortunately, Kitty Maguire had managed by the skin of her few remaining teeth to keep up her insurance payments, so Charlie could have a decent enough send-off. He was in a closed coffin, as the Mersey had done its usual thorough job, but he came home and spent his last night in his own house, as was traditional in Catholic families. The final vigil had to be sat by men. Charlie’s widow went upstairs to bed while three male neighbours occupied the front room and drank Guinness in an effort to make the situation more bearable. This was a filthier than normal house, so alcohol was required to take the edge off things.

They played cards, drank, dozed, played dominoes, dozed again. Even seasoned navigators of Scotland Road life were unused to conditions as bad as Kitty Maguire’s, and they slipped outside occasionally to clear their heads and noses of a stench that defied description. In the mix were dried urine, the droppings of rodents, decaying food and piled-up house dust, all topped by the musty aroma of damp mould. They felt sorry for poor Charlie, whose last night on the earth’s surface had to be spent in so malodorous a place. Yet they all knew that Kitty had tried her best until it all got on top of her, and that the man in the box had not done right by his family. He was a drunk, he was dead and, with the help of Miss Pickavance, Kitty and her three kids might get a fresh start.

When morning came, the men stood by the coffin until Kitty put in an appearance. She shot through the shabby parlour like a bullet from a gun, her expression similar to one visiting the face of a child who expected a decent Christmas. ‘He’s opening up early,’ she told them. ‘Just for me.’ She had scarcely delivered this announcement before she left the house. Three bedraggled children appeared, all dirty, all hungry. One of the neighbours took them home for a slice of bread, a drop of milk and a wash, while another announced his intention to gather borrowed clothes for them.

‘They’ve got clothes,’ he was informed by his companion. ‘Miss Pickavance will bring them across in a bit.’

Charlie couldn’t be left on his own. Even now, dead as a dodo, the poor beggar continued to be a nuisance. The remaining two men stood in the doorway to wait for Kitty to come home. When she finally returned, she had happy eyes, tidy hair and a mouthful of bright, white teeth. While she explained that Mrs Goldberg had done the hair, the two remaining keepers of Charlie’s final vigil stood open-mouthed on the pavement outside number four, their eyes riveted to her mouth. Her words seemed to struggle while being born, because they had to find their way past obstacles that were almost impassable. Her face was bigger, taller, different.

‘I’ve got teeth,’ she said proudly, though with difficulty.

This might have provided a subject for debate had circumstances been different. Because Kitty didn’t have teeth; the teeth had Kitty.

*   *   *

So sorry about your neighbour, Eileen. It’s sad when a man loses his life at such a young age, and tragic for his family. Let’s hope they have a better time when they get to Willows Edge.

Have you noticed how people talk about a ‘very nice funeral’??? I mean, what’s nice about shoving some poor devil in a box under damp earth with worms and moles and God alone knows what else? And afterwards, when you stand in a pub trying to eat a ham sandwich, you realize you can’t because the place stinks of men’s urinals, stale beer and tobacco smoke.

Eileen shook her head and giggled out loud. He was describing the Throstle’s Nest to a T, and yes, people had talked about the nice funeral.

I know it doesn’t seem right, but I have been laughing my head off about Kitty and the teeth. The date will be remarked upon not as the day on which Charlie was buried, but the occasion when the teeth moved in. How I pray your doctor friend will attend to Kitty’s mouth furniture, otherwise I won’t be able to look at her without chuckling when she gets here.

Dr Tom Bingley had been very kind. Not only had he attended church, burial and funeral tea, he had also asked Kitty whether the teeth hurt. Kitty had admitted that talking was difficult, eating impossible, so the good man had invited her to visit a friend in Crosby who specialized in the adjustment of dentures. There would be no charge. Tom hadn’t brought flowers, so this small service would have to suffice in lieu.

Eileen put down her letter and walked to the window. Some of Hilda’s parents’ bits and pieces were being taken by the local carter up to Willows. Hilda, Mam, Philip, Rob and Bertie would leave in a few days, while Eileen and Mel would be bound for Crosby. And he would be there, just round the corner.

It had all seemed so innocent, that meeting in town. He had come to talk to her about the work his wife was doing, had taken her to a headquarters in Liverpool, had asked whether Eileen would consider doing the job, but here, on Scotland Road, just once or twice a week. And she had said yes, and he had kissed her. He was not for her. She’d been plagued by sexual desire for other men, had always managed to escape before indulging her weakness. But this man was powerfully attractive and . . . and she was a damned fool. He was not, not, not for her. Keith was nearer the mark, yet Tom Bingley was a magnet, and she was scrap iron. Difficult. It was the war, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time.

For a few minutes, she was back in the car with him, her open mouth crushed against his, tongues meeting and playing, her body melting under the touch of clever hands. She needed . . . She wanted . . . His warm breath caressed her ear as he used words to praise her body, while his expertise brought her to a state of pleasure for which she had decided never again to search. It was wonderful and terrible, and she was now awakened once more. Had Laz lived, their family would have been huge. ‘He’s not for me,’ she repeated for the hundredth time. She thanked God – if God would listen to so pathetic an argument – that full intercourse had been an impossibility in a motor vehicle. Like many others, Eileen had caught the war disease. Make love while you can, for tomorrow . . .

Then there was Mam. Mam had noticed the glow, had listened to moans in the night while her errant daughter had relived in dreams what had happened to her in the front seat of a doctor’s car. But it wasn’t love; it was sex, and that was different, a sin to be confessed to a priest, except that she couldn’t, because she was ashamed. She needed, wanted . . . Damn the bloody war!

Nellie entered. ‘Daydreaming again? About that Keith one?’

‘No. Just watching Hilda’s stuff being taken. It’s getting real now.’

Something was getting real, Nellie Kennedy mused, and it was nothing to do with a tallboy, a wardrobe and a clock with a brass pendulum. ‘Eileen?’

‘What?’

‘Is it that doctor?’

After a brief pause, the reply was delivered. ‘Yes.’

‘Blood and rabbit innards, he’s a married man. His daughter’s our Mel’s best friend. Have you . . . you know?’

‘No.’

‘But you will?’ So many hurried weddings and unwanted pregnancies. ‘Don’t let Hitler push you into something you’ll regret.’

Eileen bit her lip. ‘I thought I’d be all right. I mean, this isn’t the first time I’ve been tempted, because it’s only human nature, isn’t it? Then I thought some kind of love might happen with Keith, because he’s lovely. But Tom . . . He brings out my best and my worst, Mam.’ She turned and faced her mother. ‘How many people can talk like this to their mams, eh? And who will I turn to when you’ve gone? I mean, he’ll be living yards away from me. His wife’s . . .’

‘What?’

‘Living in a different part of the house. Sleeping on her own, I mean. And I don’t want to repeat what happened in that car. He’s like some kind of master of the art, and he bloody well adores me.’

‘You’re pretty. You’re like one of them Stradiwotsit violins, and he’s a good fiddler, knows how to get the best tune out of you. Listen, girl. You know damned well Lazzer only had to look at you and you fell pregnant. How will you explain a big belly to your daughter, eh? So he’d better be careful what he does with his bow, or he can fiddle off. I’ll kill him.’

‘No, you won’t. And he knows ways of making sure I don’t get a big belly. I understand it’s all physical. I’m not daft. But he thinks she’ll want divorce or separation when the kids are older, and by then I might love him for more than the tunes he plays on my strings. He’s clever. I like clever people.’

‘Eileen—’

‘I’m thirty-three!’

‘So was Jesus, and look what they done to him. I’m going out.’ The door slammed.

The letter was lovely. Keith was lovely. He described early morning frosts, the birth of piglets, geese skeining over the moors, the fresh, cutting air of early evenings. He gave her the crow of a cockerel, communication between cats domestic and feral, a cow seeking the milkmaid who usually tended her, awarding her a flick of the tail, a gentle reminder that hot, painful udders needed relief. He brought her into the barn, where she inhaled the comforting, sweet scent of stored hay. Keith stroked her soul, but Tom had ignited her flesh. And Eileen’s flesh was a force to be reckoned with.

Nellie marched into Crosby like a Valkyrie with a severe headache after a long night on the mead in Valhalla. In the manner of one of those females from Norse mythology, she was here to decide who would die in battle. Dr Tom Bingley didn’t know he was engaged in combat, but she would inform him very soon. After stopping several people, she finally found a woman who was a patient of Dr Bingley. ‘He’s not open till four,’ she said. ‘But there’s a little coffee and tea place next door to his surgery. Just down there on Liverpool Road, it is.’

‘Ta, queen.’

Nellie rattled round in her purse until she found the price of a cuppa. Placing herself in the window, she waited for his car to pull up, thanking God that he didn’t practise from home. That wouldn’t have stopped her, but it would have been awkward. This was about protecting women from scavengers, and Marie Bingley was one of the number who required saving. Nevertheless, Nellie would have gone and done whatever . . . Here he came. She walked out of the cafe and stood, arms akimbo, outside his place of work.

‘Mrs . . . er . . . ?’

‘Kennedy. I’m here about me daughter.’

He blinked a couple of times as if trying to remember where he had seen her before. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Eileen Watson’s mother. You’d best get me in there before the sick start to form a queue, because you’ll be one of them if I get my way, lad.’

‘Oh. Right. Very well.’ He unlocked the door with an unsteady hand before ushering her through the waiting area into the surgery at the rear of the building. He sat down and, with a sweep of his hand, indicated that she should occupy the patients’ seat.

‘No, ta,’ she said. ‘You never know who comes into places like this. I might catch something.’ She waded in at the deep end, scarcely stopping for breath while she berated and insulted him in the age-old way of those who had lived the hard life. The air was stained by words that should never have visited the tongue of a woman, and the diatribe was not delivered quietly.

Then she got to the point of her visit. ‘Now, don’t be getting me mixed up with them who’re all wind and piss, because you’ll be wrong. My girl lost her husband to an accident five or six years back. Since then, she’s kept herself to herself, because she has four kids. And along you come, a married man, an educated bloke, and you want your way with her.’

He folded his arms. ‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Yes. Too bloody right I’m threatening you. If you don’t leave our Eileen alone, you’ll be just a little bit dead. All right? And if I and a few good lads have to go to hell for murder, so be it. Because I’m telling you now, if you get into her knickers, you will find yourself starting a new fashion, a six-inch blade worn just about where your heart would be if you had one. I’m not kidding. Touch her, and you’ll rue the bloody day. You’ll be watched. She’ll be watched. Wait till I tell our Mel about her best pal’s dad, eh?’

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘Wouldn’t I? I am putting the Dockers’ Word out on you, mate. The old lads won’t be called up, and they’re stronger than any mee-mawing quack from Crosby. Don’t be surprised if you wake up dead with a docker’s hook sticking out of your throat.’

‘That would definitely be a hanging offence.’

Nellie laughed, though the noise she created sounded grim. ‘Are you confusing me with somebody who gives a monkey’s arse what happens to you, your daughter, your fancy flaming life? Or to me? See, I’m not impressed by them what think they’re better than us common folk, because us common folk know how to fight wars, how to kill, where to stick the bloody knives, and how to scare seven shades of shite out of Hitler. We’ll be the ones that do that, Dr Bingley. Oh, and in case you’re still not hearing me, I’ll leave you a small deposit just as a sign of goodwill, eh?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Granted.’ She dropped her bag, balled her right fist and thrust it forward with all her might until it made contact with his left cheek. His head shot back and hit the wall. For once, she thanked God for all she had learned during a difficult life that had made her keen-eyed and street-smart. ‘That’s just the start. Leave her alone!’ she screamed before abandoning him to his pain.

He heard the outer door slam, and walked across the surgery to see if anyone had overheard the fracas. The waiting room was empty, and he was grateful that his receptionist was running late yet again. He placed the SURGERY CANCELLED sign in the doorway and shot home a couple of bolts. Anyone who needed urgent treatment would be seen by Dr Clarke, who was just a few yards along the road. Back in his consulting room, he surveyed the damage. By tomorrow, he would have a very black eye; right now, he might be in need of immediate help. The hag had possibly broken his cheekbone.

Six

Neil Dyson, who had been more than slightly drunk on what was now named ‘Flight Night’, had been talked out of his Guinness-fuelled decision to become a fighter pilot. He was too old, too daft, and he returned quickly to the old religion, which was pale ale and darts. He’d served in the last war, he had a good wife who needed a husband in one piece, and two daughters who adored their dad. Drunkenness didn’t suit him, and he intended to live life in a safer mode in future, because his three girls required a sober head of household. Furthermore, he would be wanted at home, because he was the main farmer, and he knew every inch of his acreage better than the back of his own hand.

His companion in lunacy, Jay Collins, adhered loyally to the black stuff, as it seemed to make him just a little stronger while he waited to hear whether the rabbit had died. Men didn’t talk much about pregnancy, as it was the domain of women, but he required an anaesthetic while he sat not talking about it. He’d no idea what a rabbit had to do with any of it, but he seemed not to be in full control of his life any more, because it was all beyond his reach. Between rabbits and Spitfires there was a very large chasm, and he was doing his level best to decide what was going to be his next move.

‘Jay?’ Neil said for the third time from the other side of the table. He was clearly flogging a dead horse and a comatose handyman. Oh, at last. Here came an answer.

‘What?’

Not an answer, then. ‘Gill’s talked a few times to my Jeanie, so I know why you’re wearing a miserable face. You just have to get through it; it’s as simple as that. You look like you’ve lost a quid and found a tanner.’

‘Oh.’

‘No news, then?’

‘No.’

‘Is she being sick of a morning? Is she eating daft stuff like pickles with jam or bacon with treacle?’

‘No.’

‘But the doc said he thought she was probably expecting?’

‘Yes.’

This was yet another thoroughly riveting conversation, thought Neil as he drained his glass. ‘Pint of Guinness, is it?’

‘No.’

‘Are you going to say anything other than yes and no?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bugger.’ Neil went to the bar for a refill. Jay was about as much fun as a rainy Methodist picnic these days. Over in the opposite corner, Keith Greenhalgh was nursing a pint of brown. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he wandered into the pub from time to time just for a bit of company and noise. He should have got wed, because he was a good man and would have made a fine husband. There was a story to him, and rumour had it that he’d never recovered from the death of a fiancée. Damned shame, it was, because the lad needed something to paint a grin on his face.

But Elsie Openshaw was putting about a new tale concerning a very pretty woman who had visited Willows with Miss Pickavance. This woman was writing to Keith, and he was replying on a regular basis. ‘Three or four a week,’ Elsie had said. ‘And they’ve only seen each other once. Too fast, them Liverpool floozies are. She’ll have her feet under his table and her nightie on his pillow before you can say knife.’ Thus had the oracle spoken, though Neil would have preferred to hear the news from the horse’s mouth.

He paid for his pint and carried it to Keith’s table. ‘All right if I sit here?’ he asked. ‘Only Jay’s turned into the strong, silent type and I can’t cope – it’s like talking to the wall. I swear he’s in a world of his own. He needs a foot up his backside, that’s certain sure. There’s hardly one word of sense coming out of his gob.’

Keith inclined his head. ‘Yes, park yourself here by all means. The lad’s worried. That mad Dr Stephenson didn’t need to do a test – I reckon she’s near three months gone, and I’m no doc. It’s as plain as a pikestaff to most of us. All Stephenson needed to do was lay his hands on her abdomen, but no, he had to go for a pee test.’

Neil laughed. ‘My Jeanie says the same. And if Stephenson was sober, Gill’s sample will have gone off for testing in some lab; if he was drunk, it could be anywhere from his back pocket to the medicine cabinet. Jean says she’d rather get the vet any day, because Stephenson doesn’t know whether he’s coming or going. It’s time he stopped practising, cos he’ll never reach perfect this side of Judgement Day.’

Jay, having finally noticed his solitary status, wandered across and joined them. ‘I wondered where you’d gone,’ he complained. ‘I was sat there all by myself like somebody with smallpox. You could have said.’

Neil shook his head sadly. ‘We’re right opposite you. You couldn’t miss us if you’d just try to focus; there’s only three tables in here. But you’re hearing nothing, seeing nothing, and saying next to nowt. You’ve a face like a smacked bum, and it’s getting on my bloody nerves. She’s . . .’ He lowered his voice, as the topic was not going to be suitable for a men’s bar. ‘She’s having a baby. Jean thinks so, Keith thinks so, and Gill knows so. So. Go home and look after her while you can. Be with her, Jay.’

Jay stared down into his drink. ‘I’m thirty-two years old. I’m married to a woman who makes me happy, and she wants a baby. It looks like she’s having one, and I don’t know what to do.’

Keith frowned as if concentrating hard. ‘You’re thirty-three, I think. Boil a lot of water and find piles of towels and clean sheets,’ he said with mock seriousness. ‘Tell her to breathe, pant and push, but not necessarily in that order. Pick the kid up and make sure it’s screaming, slap it if it isn’t, then give it a wash and—’

Jay banged on the table with a fist. ‘I don’t mean that, you daft pair of lummoxes. The war. It’s my war, this one. You lot have had yours, and it’s my turn. If I wait to be called up, I could be shoved in the army. It’s an airman’s war. It’s all going to be happening over our heads, and I want to be there with the boys in blue, not stuck in a ditch with a gun, no ammunition, no cigs and salt beef butties for me tea.’

‘Very deep,’ said Neil. ‘I’ve told you, sit tight and go where you’re sent.’

Keith thought differently. ‘Listen, we’ll look after her. Go and do your pilot training, and we’ll see to Gill. I promise we’ll make sure no harm comes to her or your baby.’

‘If I go off voluntary, she might lose the kiddy. If I sit, wait, and end up in the Fusiliers, my long face could be enough to cause a miscarriage. I can’t win either way.’

‘Don’t let anybody wearing a swastika hear you say that,’ Neil advised. ‘Now, get home and talk to her properly. You’re neither fish nor bloody fowl till you get this lot worked out. And we have to get that house ready for Miss Pickavance and—’

‘I’m gone.’ Jay walked out of the pub, almost colliding in the doorway with Mrs Elsie Openshaw. He blundered out into darkness, his head swimming after only two pints of Ireland’s nectar. He couldn’t carry on like this. That bloody doctor wasn’t worth the bloody ink on his bloody birth certificate, and that was an undeniable bloody fact. Was the rabbit dead, or was it still faffing about doing what rabbits did, which was getting pregnant themselves? The world seemed to be moving away from him. Sometimes, he felt as if he wasn’t really here, as if a thick blanket sat between him and everything else. It was weird. There was something he had to do, and he needed to remember.

He was fed up. If he turned right, he’d be on his way home; if he turned left, he’d be . . . he’d be going for Collie. Andy Crawford, better known as Collie because he always had a sheepdog, knew his onions. Then there was wotsername. Elsie Openshaw. He’d seen her a minute ago, and she’d been completely out of context. That was right, because Elsie had been in the taproom, and women didn’t go in there, as there weren’t many chairs and tables, since serious drinkers imbibed on their feet at the bar. He shoved his head through the door. ‘Mrs Openshaw?’ he shouted.

‘Yes?’

‘Will you stop here with Keith and Neil? I’ll pick you up on me way back.’

‘Your way back from where?’ Keith asked. He turned to Elsie. ‘Wait a minute while I try to get some sense out of him.’

‘You and whose army?’ Neil asked, his face deliberately grim.

Outside once more, Jay took a few deep breaths. He would get this sorted out if it killed him. That blinking doctor should have the sack. He was neither use nor ornament. The uselessness had started years back, and residents of several villages suffered as a result. As for ornaments, Jay had never seen one with such a big, red nose. The man was semi-retired, and he should be in a field with the rest of the worn-out horses who never did any harm.

‘Jay?’

‘Hello again, Keith.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Eh?’

Keith repeated his question.

‘You’re going back in there to look after Mrs Openshaw. I’m going . . . I’m going somewhere.’

‘Where?’

‘Somewhere else.’

The words blood and stone paid a brief visit to Keith’s mind. Jay had shut up shop and was no longer open for business. ‘All right. See you later, then.’ He went back inside and bought Elsie a port and lemon.

‘What’s he up to now?’ Neil Dyson wanted to know. ‘I’ve had better conversations with cows and pigs at the farm. In fact, even the wife makes more sense than Jay.’

‘He’s confused,’ Keith said.

‘Confused?’ Neil took a swig of ale. ‘I’ve seen balls of wool in a straighter state after the cats have been at them. There’s something wrong with yon fellow.’ He slapped some coins on the scarred table. ‘Here, get Elsie another one of whatever that is while we wait for our fighter pilot to make up his mind where he’ll be landing next. Let’s hope he’s packed his bloody parachute.’

Elsie, who had come only to give Keith a letter from Miss Pickavance, was enjoying herself. She was sitting in a pub with free drinks, and she was needed. Keith Greenhalgh hadn’t called in for his mail today, and Elsie, who had recognized the copperplate writing of the new boss, had decided to follow Keith to the pub before going to bed. The message might be important, so she’d wanted to put it in his hand rather than through his letterbox. It was also a chance to eavesdrop, and she could never resist that temptation. And here she sat, on the cusp of something eventful; she could feel it in her bones. Against a background of conversations ranging from tupping through turnips all the way up to a war that didn’t seem to be happening, Elsie waited for the main event.

The curtain rose some fifteen minutes later. Jay’s head appeared once more. ‘Keith, Elsie? Can you follow me, please? Neil, you stop here, or there’ll be too many of us.’

So Neil stayed, while the other two walked out of the pub.

Jay was ready for them. ‘Don’t start,’ he said to Keith. ‘I’m not in the mood. You walk up behind us. Mrs Openshaw can get in the back of Collie’s car with the dog.’ He left unspoken the obvious fact that no one else would fit on the rear seat once Elsie was established as cargo. ‘You may as well set off walking now,’ he advised his boss. ‘You’ll be a witness.’

Keith blinked several times. Life had taken on a surreal edge, and Jay Collins, handyman and occupier of the gatehouse, had appointed himself producer and director of this particular scene. One thing was certain. Gill would hit the roof.

Gill, clad only in her nightdress, was drinking cocoa near the fire when her husband walked in. Her ‘Hello, love’ died during its third syllable when two more people and a dog followed him into the room.

‘Don’t start,’ Jay repeated for the umpteenth time. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

Gill picked up a shawl and covered herself.

‘Lie down on that sofa,’ ordered Elsie. ‘Then I can see what’s what before this man of yours goes mad with worriting. He’s about as much use as a nine-bob note while he’s this way out.’

‘Bugger off,’ was the only reply Gill could manage as she turned on her beloved husband. ‘Listen, you. I know you’re bloody daft, but I don’t need a midwife, and I certainly don’t want a vet. Sorry, Collie,’ she told Andy Crawford. ‘I know it’s not your fault. This stupid article I married needs brain surgery. Have you brought your kit? Do him on the kitchen table. There’s a drill in the shed if you need help to get through his thick skull.’

‘I warned you,’ the vet said. ‘I don’t deal with humans, Jay.’

‘I do,’ Elsie announced. ‘She’s a good two months gone.’ She sidled up to Gill. ‘Just let me put a hand on your belly, love.’

Gill marched across the room and flung herself in a supine position on the sofa. Jay was in a bad mood? Murder sat in her heart while the local blabbermouth prodded her abdomen. ‘Well?’

‘There’s a babby in yon,’ announced Elsie. ‘Collie?’

The vet joined the unqualified midwife. He placed both hands on Gill’s belly and the smile on his face was answer enough. After listening to the sounds of her innards through an instrument usually employed on pigs and cows, he spoke to Gill. ‘You’ll farrow in about seven months, perhaps six,’ he announced. ‘And yes, Stephenson should retire—’

Everything stopped when Keith entered just in time to catch the suddenly legless body of a father-to-be.

Gill sat up. ‘See? See what I mean now, Keith? Bloody fighter pilot? He goes into shock because his wife’s expecting, so how will he manage with half of Germany up his back end?’ She stood up. ‘Put him on here, Keith. Elsie, get brewing tea, will you? Collie, toast some bread. He’s always hungry when he comes round after one of these carryings-on.’

The vet stood over Jay. ‘How often does this happen, Gill? Every day, once a week, or what?’

Jay’s wife pondered for a moment. ‘It happens, then it stops. He has phases. He can’t drink much beer or he goes peculiar, sort of white and shaky, and faints now and again. No pattern to it, except it’s tied up with food and ale. He passed out on our wedding day, showed me up good and proper, and he sometimes loses what I call his thinking-in-a-straight-line if he hasn’t eaten enough.’

‘Does he drink a lot of non-alcoholic stuff?’

Gill nodded vigorously. ‘Water, tea and pop by the gallon. Why?’

Collie reminded everyone that he was not a doctor. ‘But I’m taking him to Bolton Royal tomorrow whether he likes it or not.’ Recent research had discovered that diabetes came in at least two types, and Jay, who was relatively young and on the thin side, seemed to be suffering from type one. Either his body was producing insufficient insulin, or his system was failing to make use of it. ‘He needs looking at.’ And if Collie should be proved right, Jay would not be serving his country in any conventional way.

The eyes opened. ‘What happened?’ Jay asked.

Elsie arrived with tea. ‘Drink this when you sit up,’ she ordered. ‘I’ve put sugar in it. Sometimes they need sugar. His breath smells like pear drops. Oh, yes. I’ve seen it all before.’

‘Be quiet, Elsie,’ Collie urged.

‘What?’ Gill’s antennae were on red alert.

Elsie ignored the vet and motored on, in her element now. ‘Could be suffering from the sugar diabetics,’ the queen bee pronounced. ‘It means injections and a special diet and a review at the hospital from time to time. This’ll be why you think he sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense. They go funny and they smell of pear drops. So it’s not his fault, the way he carries on, love. If it’s diabetes, they do act a bit daft from time to time, and they can’t drink beer.’

Gill swallowed hard. ‘Will he die?’ she asked.

‘We all will,’ was Elsie’s smart reply. ‘But there’s a farmer over Harwood way who’s the same road out, and he copes. It just depends. The food you eat has to balance with the insulin you put into your body. It can be a bit hit and miss at times, but he’ll get there, love. See, there’s a fair whack more to it than the food you put in, because if you work harder than you did yesterday, you’ll burn more off. They always have to carry sugar or sweets or a biscuit. He . . . er . . . he won’t be a fighter pilot, Gill. But I reckon he’ll make a good dad. You’ll have to keep an eye on him, though.’

Jay, who had eaten a bit of toast, decided it was time to speak up. They were all talking as if he wasn’t here, and . . . Yes, sometimes he was here but not here. There was definitely something up, and it needed sorting.

Gill burst into tears, though she laughed through the fear. ‘Look at the cut of him,’ she sobbed. ‘He even steals my big moment when I find out I’m going to be a mam. Elsie, Collie, I’d like you two here at the birth. Not for me, I can manage, I’m sure. But you’ll have to hang about and catch this bugger when he keels over.’ She knelt on the floor and hugged her husband. ‘A baby, Jay. We’ve done it.’

Jay, whose blood was now better balanced, realized that his head was no longer full of Spitfires and Lancasters. There were times when he got fixated and angry, and there were occasions when he forgot the simplest things: a word, a name, a task that ought to have been automatic. ‘I don’t think I should drink black beer,’ he told Gill. ‘It turns me into a fighter pilot.’

She kissed his cheek. ‘We’ll get you right, lad. Me, Collie, Keith and Elsie, we’ll see if somebody can find a spare brain for you.’

Jay blinked. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

‘Nothing,’ she answered. ‘You’re just mad, that’s all. Join the club.’

Keith was by himself, because his usual assistant, one Jay Collins of Willows Gate House, Willows, Near Bolton, had gone to hospital with his wife, the vet and a collie dog. The dog would be left in the car, but Jay and Gill would be examined, one for diabetes, the other for pregnancy. Collie had expressed to Keith the private opinion that Jay would be kept in so that his condition could be monitored. ‘He’s probably got more sugar in him than you’d find in a pound of dolly mixtures,’ the vet had said. ‘And when it burns off, he turns into a rag doll. But don’t sack him, please. We have to look out for each other.’

Keith had no intention of sacking anyone, because Willows folk looked after Willows folk; it was their eleventh commandment. At least he knew now why Jay sometimes lost the plot. Furthermore, the lad shouldn’t be driving the car until he got straightened out, because what Collie termed a hypo could become the cause of death for several people. So Keith had to take over the chauffeuring job as well. He hoped Gill would be all right. She’d waited years to get pregnant, and she needed an easy time.

There were four bedrooms in the big house, all a decent size. Neil’s wife was coming in later, as she had washed bedlinen and towels, but Keith was in charge of furniture. Miss Pickavance, a very thorough type, had sent a rough drawing of the upstairs, so he knew how to allocate each room. The two slightly smaller ones were for herself and Mrs Kennedy, mother of Eileen, grandmother to the three boys. The lads were to occupy the largest front bedroom, while the second biggest was for Eileen and her daughter, who would visit whenever possible.

The beds were built, thank goodness. He and Jay had put them together yesterday, so today was mattresses, sheets and blankets. Wardrobes, dressing tables and drawers were all clean and in place, and a fire would be lit in every room, since the house, long neglected, had not been aired in years. Roofers had begun work on cottages and farms, as the new owner wanted every tenant to be warm and dry this winter. For too long, the estate had been an orchestra with no conductor, but she would tune them up and give out the sheet music. Whatever she undertook, she would throw herself in and do her level best, and Keith had known that after sitting with her for no more than a few minutes.

Apart from the war, life was looking up. But there was one other niggling worry: the timbre of Eileen’s letters had changed slightly. It was almost as if she had placed a sheet of frosted glass over the messages, creating a small distance between herself and him. She wrote a great deal about Crosby and Blundellsands, about the old woman with whom she and Mel would be lodging, and about a family named Bingley. The husband was a doctor, the wife a homely type who ran the local WVS, and both children were pupils at Merchants. Eileen, too, was going to help occasionally with a different arm of the Women’s Voluntary Service, because Tom had introduced her to some committee or other in town. Tom. The name seemed to jump out from the page every time he looked at it. She mentioned him so casually; too casually.

He sat on the bed that would be Eileen and Mel’s. She would sleep here, breathe here, dream here. Would she dream about Tom with the homely wife, the qualifications, the good job? Was she about to offer herself to a married man? If Keith could feel a pang of jealousy at the thought that these windows might have the privilege of misting over with the exhalations from a mouth he needed to kiss, hating Tom Bingley was going to be a very easy task. He was being silly, and he knew it. Eileen Watson was a virtual stranger, yet he was allowing himself to become tangled up in thoughts of her that would probably take him nowhere.

Jean Dyson arrived. She stood in the doorway, hands on hips, mouth set in a grim line. ‘What happened?’ she demanded. ‘And why was my Neil left out of it? He sat in that pub waiting for someone to tell him what the hell was going on, but he never found out, did he?’

Keith rose to his feet. ‘It was Jay’s show, not mine. I wasn’t doing the choreography. Collie Crawford and Elsie Openshaw confirmed that Gill is pregnant, then Elsie decided that Jay has diabetes. So they’re all at the infirmary, dog included, which leaves just you and me to get this place ready. And now you know as much as I do.’

It was Jean’s turn to sit down, though she used the dressing table stool. ‘Bloody hell. No aeroplanes for him, then.’

‘No.’

‘Can he work?’

‘Probably. Whatever happens, I think Miss Pickavance will look after him. She’s not the type to penalize somebody for getting ill. She’s too decent for that.’

‘I hope so. For long enough, it’s been me and Neil at Home Farm, Jay and Gill at the gatehouse, you down on the Edge. Gill’s supposed to be housekeeper when the house is up and running, but can she do it with a passenger? She wasn’t supposed to be able to have kids.’

Keith shrugged. With Jean and Neil, with Gill and Jay, there was no holding back, none of the social awkwardness that often existed between the sexes. Pregnancy and other delicate matters didn’t belong in the public domain but, between friends, all was fair. ‘She could carry well, Jean. Conception was the problem, but she might not have a bad time while she carries. There’s no way of knowing, is there?’

Jean studied her companion for a few moments. ‘I’m amazed you never got wed. You’ve a lovely nature, Keith Greenhalgh, and I reckon some poor girl’s missed out on a happy life.’

‘Set in my ways. A bit of a bore most of the time. I have my breakfast, work, get a snack, do my crossword, work, light a fire, have my tea and read the rest of the paper. Floors get swept twice a week, and I flick a duster round on Sundays, wash the kitchen floor, get—’

‘Give over. You left one thing out.’

‘What?’

She smiled. ‘You read your letters from that young woman me and Neil never saw, the one who came with Miss Pickavance.’

Keith laughed. ‘Just a friend who likes writing. I enjoy writing letters, too.’ He swallowed. ‘In fact, I think she might have met someone in Liverpool, so you can cross that name off the non-existent list.’

‘Aw. I am sorry, lad.’

He was sorry, too, but he mustn’t let it show. He had to check on the kitchen, the woodshed, the coal. There were brass and silver to be polished, crockery to be rinsed of dust, furniture to be rescued from the imprisonment of protective coverings. Normally, he would be working in a supervisory capacity only, but with Jay and Gill at the hospital, he and the home farmer’s wife had been forced to step into their roles. They made up all the beds, and Keith laid a fire in each room. ‘Right,’ he told his companion. ‘And that, as they say, is that. Time for a break, love.’

When they sat down in the kitchen for a well-deserved cup of tea, Jean asked Keith whether he would be taking an evacuee. ‘I might,’ he said. ‘If there’s one on his own. But the three lads up here are going to need a firm hand from what I’ve heard. If any of them starts bother, I’ll move him in with me. Are you getting one?’

‘A girl,’ she said. ‘With already having the two girls, we’re more used to females.’ She stood up. ‘Right, I’ve a meal to do. Will you be eating with us tonight? You’ll be very welcome.’

He shook his head. ‘Thanks, but no. I’ve a few things to do.’

Alone once more, he allowed a long, sad sigh to surface. Thoughts of Eileen had been keeping him going. He couldn’t return to Cora Appleyard for sustenance or relief, because he was fixated. Again. And there was no one with whom he might share his thoughts and fears, since most would see his weakness rather than the strength of his feelings. Should he stop writing to her? Was a clean break less painful than an extended goodbye? And anyway, this foolishness could be part of an overactive imagination. Eileen and Tom might be no more than friends . . .

He went out to talk to the horses. His favourites, the large cart-pullers, were out in the field acting daft. A carthorse at play was a magnificent sight, owning the same silliness as an untrained polo pony but carrying about his person the weight of a small steam engine. The sight of four feathered feet waving in the air while an equine giant rolled in the grass was one to be treasured.

Keith whistled, and they stopped their foolishness to follow him into the yard. Behind them trotted a little palomino. Keith had plans for Pedro. The youngest of Eileen’s boys liked horses, and he would be taught to ride. There was still a chance. If he could tame her sons, he might just get her to look at him again. And life at Willows needed to be as easy as possible for Miss Pickavance, so the management of those children was of prime importance.

He settled the horses and returned to the house, surprised when he found Gill sorting out cupboards and crockery. ‘How did it go?’ he asked. ‘Has Collie gone home?’ He had not expected to see her, but she told him that the ward sister had ordered her home, as Jay needed to settle. ‘I have to take pyjamas and stuff tomorrow, because he’ll need them.’

‘And Collie brought you back?’

‘Yes, he’s gone. He’s a couple of cows need attention over at Pear Tree. And I’m pregnant, and Jay’s having blood tests, but they’re ninety per cent sure it’s diabetes. So that’s his dream of being a pilot finished. He can fly a kite, but that’s about it.’

‘And you’re upset, but you’re hiding it.’

She nodded and carried on wiping saucers. ‘I’m not upset about having a baby, because it’s what I’ve always wanted. It’s Jay. They gave me a booklet, and on one page it warns about heart attacks and blindness while further on it tells a diabetic to carry on as normal. So it’s not just Stephenson that’s mad; it looks like the whole medical profession could do with a fortnight in Blackpool for rest and recuperation.’

‘They’ll be keeping Jay in for a while, then?’

‘Yes. They have to get his food points to balance with his insulin, then try to calculate how much work he does in a day, multiply the points, adjust the insulin accordingly, then go back to the number they first thought of. It’s like some warped game. They’ve no idea what they’re doing, and I’ll have to pick up the pieces when their guesswork goes wrong. I’ll be following him around all day.’

‘I’ll help. You know I’ll do anything I can, Gill. So will Neil and Jean. Do you want to sleep at Home Farm tonight? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.’

‘No, no. I’m all right.’ She wasn’t. She didn’t want to sleep at Jean’s house, but she wasn’t all right. There was the worry about Jay, for a start. Bolton Royal Infirmary seemed not to know whether to starve him or feed him, and she was afraid in case the little one in her belly might never see its dad. But there was a bigger anxiety, and he was standing very near to her. Gill had no idea how or when it had happened, but she seemed to have grown rather too fond of the land agent. She hadn’t fallen in love, because that was a sudden thing; she had slid into it smoothly and easily. Trying to climb out was no use; it was like struggling in quicksand, as she seemed to sink further whenever she attempted to free herself.

‘What is it, Gill?’

‘Tiredness,’ she answered.

‘Then go home and rest. I can finish off here.’

She walked towards the door, stopped and turned. ‘Why did you never marry, Keith?’

He raised his shoulders. Everyone kept asking him the same question. ‘No one would have me? Oh, I love too well, Gill. There was a girl, and she died. Her ghost stayed with me for a very long time, and I’m no spring chicken now. But there’s a lot to be said for living alone. I please myself and only myself. I can get away without shaving at weekends, and no one nags me.’

‘Do I nag Jay?’

‘Yes, of course you do. And Jean nags Neil, because that’s the way it works. Women nag, and men ignore them.’

She loved Jay. She did, she did. This Keith Greenhalgh business was a flash in the pan, no more than that. It was a bit like when she was at school, and Jimmy Schofield held her hand during long multiplication. At the age of twelve, she’d had her wedding planned; she and Jimmy would marry, get a farm and have four children. It was all connected to hormones, and her hormones belonged to the man she’d married. She had to make herself fall in love with Jay all over again.

‘Gill?’

‘It’s all right, Keith. I just got a bit fed up with Jay the super-pilot. Not easy living with someone who doesn’t know whether he’s coming, going, or falling on the floor like a sack of logs. I love him, I’m sure, but it’s been hard wondering which one of him would be coming home.’ She paused. ‘The being in love doesn’t last, does it?’

‘I don’t know. I expect it lasted for me because I turned her into an angel. The dead are always perfect, but we aren’t. You’ve a lot to face up to. There’s a baby coming, and your man’s ill. Don’t stop loving him because he’s less than perfect. Now’s the time for a deep friendship to be formed. When you locked him out that night and he came to me, he was a sick man. We didn’t know that. We thought he was a natural clown who couldn’t hold his drink. He’s your husband, Gill. In sickness and in health, remember?’

She smiled. There were many kinds of love. Red hot desire usually burned itself out, and unless replaced by something more substantial it disappeared like steam pouring upwards into the atmosphere. Romantic love that depended on poetry and posturing was not to be trusted, either. Love needed to come from the mind as well as from the soul. Real love was loyalty, laughter, and conversations in which minds met even though they didn’t necessarily agree.

Gill wasn’t sure what she felt for Keith Greenhalgh, so she decided that it was some kind of combination of all three. She wanted to touch and be touched, might have enjoyed a bit of Wordsworth, and the man was an intelligent communicator when he chose to talk. He was a passing fancy, or so she hoped. She said goodbye and left.

Keith continued to deal with crockery and pans. Something about Gill had moved him. She wasn’t pretty, wasn’t ugly, was a good woman. She had mid-brown hair and blue irises, and the skin beneath her eyes was currently stained like bruising on a peach. Other than that, her complexion was good, her figure pleasing . . . He cleared his throat. She had been talking to him, and beyond the words sat something he neither wanted nor needed.

Kitchen knives and meat cleaver went into a top drawer. Was a meat cleaver suitable company for Philip, Robin and Albert? They had to learn what not to touch, how to behave properly, or their mother would never again give Keith the time of day. ‘God help me,’ he whispered. He couldn’t bear the memory of the expression he’d seen in Gill’s eyes. Nor did he wish to contemplate a life without a chance to be with Eileen.

Should he talk to Gill? What might he tell her? She’d made no declaration, and what was he going to say about a look on her face? Nothing. Gill would need to frame the words, and she wouldn’t, as she was a decent human being with a family to care for. Perhaps if Jay got balanced and a bit more sensible, she would learn to value him again, because he was a good lad underneath the daftness.

Life was hard. Keith locked up Willows and went home for something to eat. Later on, he might go to the pub for a couple of pints. Sometimes, a man needed his comforts.

Seven

There was something terribly wrong. Whatever it was crackled in the air like undischarged lightning, and Mel wished with all her heart that it would show itself in a blaze of temper before going away and leaving in its wake a clearer atmosphere. This was a local war; the real one waited while Hitler entrenched himself in France. Only then would he be capable of bombing the north of England; he could get to London from Germany, but not much further. Yet it would come; oh yes, it would come. This quiet period was not to be trusted, and people should not become complacent, because the planes might already be lined up on the French coast. Meanwhile, the Battle of Rachel Street had begun.

The three lads, whose recent brush with the law was being taken extremely seriously, were sleeping in Miss Pickavance’s house. They were unusually quiet, untypically clean, and they wore a corporate expression that might have sat well on the face of a hunted animal being chased towards unfamiliar territory. But that was not the problem. The awful truth was that Mam was not speaking to Gran, and Gran’s features were set in grim lines that spoke volumes on the subject of disharmony.

They never quarrelled. Occasionally, there would be a small disagreement about the lads and their mischief, about when the family would go to the public bath house, about ordinary, everyday things that niggled and caused small amounts of tension in many households. This was different. This was enormously different. It was enough that her country was waiting with bated breath for the inevitable onslaught by a foreign power; that her mother and grandmother should be daggers drawn was ghastly. Ghastly was the favourite word at school these days; war, uniform and the creatures at the boys’ school were all too, too ghastly, and the vowel had to be a long, tall ‘ah’ rather than a flat Lancashire production.

Mel stretched out on her bed after doing battle with the subjunctive mood in French. She had won, but small victories were suddenly meaningless, because all was far from well on the home front. There’d been an enormous, earth-shaking fight, but Mel had no idea of its subject. She didn’t need to know, yet she wanted all to be well before the imminent parting of ways. ‘It would be ghastly,’ she told the ceiling.

Gran, having disappeared for several hours a few days ago, had returned with bruised knuckles and a visibly altered attitude. Since then, a cloud had settled over Rachel Street. It was heavy, black, and it promised to deliver a storm of enormous proportions, since Mam and Gran seemed unwilling to negotiate a peace treaty.

Mel dared not interfere directly. Born with an innate sense of when to speak and when to hold her tongue, she had the intelligence to stay out of this. Whoever stepped into the field of battle would only make matters worse. Such an intruder might also get burned by the temperature in the arena. Homer’s Iliad screamed for attention, but Mel had bigger and British fish to fry. She had to make something happen while remaining outwardly detached.

The whole neighbourhood was affected. Gran was doing a lot of hmmphing and Mam was walking about with a face like a bad knee, as Gran might have termed it had she been using language. Everyone was due to move in a couple of days, and it would be sad if the two adults in the family parted on bad terms, especially during a war. Not that there’d been many signs of conflict thus far, but men in uniform were marching and driving through Liverpool in their hundreds. This quiet time could not last for much—

Ah. The front door slammed. Mam didn’t make such a noise, even when in a bad mood, so Mel identified the incomer as Gran. Minutes later, her mother came home. Latin could wait, Mel decided. She would visit her brothers and Miss Pickavance, as nothing would happen here unless all potential referees and linesmen had left the field of play. She jumped up, ran downstairs and called out her intention to visit number one.

When Mel entered the house across the street, Miss Pickavance asked a question by raising an eyebrow, and Mel shook her head sadly. There was no progress. Everything was changing: Philip, Rob and Bertie sat at the table doing homework; that, in itself, was a rarity to be treasured. The quiet, gentle woman who was meting out their punishment had proved that she was a force to be reckoned with. Her deep disappointment was far more effective than a stroke from a cane or a cuff round the ear.

Hilda led Mel into her kitchen. ‘It can’t go on,’ she mouthed.

Mel nodded. ‘It won’t,’ she answered in a whisper. ‘Otherwise I’ll knock their heads together.’

They drank tea while the boys giggled in the next room. Mel hoped that Mam hadn’t gone straight upstairs. She slept in the boys’ room now, leaving Gran the luxury of a mattress all her own in the downstairs front room. ‘Fingers crossed,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Hilda. ‘May good sense prevail.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Eileen ordered. ‘Kitty next door’s had enough trouble lately without having to listen to you roaring like a bull at a locked gate.’

The older woman attempted to rein herself in. Her daughter was on the route to perdition, and Nellie was trying to set up a roadblock. ‘He’s married,’ she hissed. ‘You know damned well he’s a married man, because Mel’s his Gloria’s best friend. How can you even think of such a thing? You’re supposed to confess sins of thought, you know.’

‘Can you not play a different tune?’ Eileen folded her arms and tapped an angry toe against the floor. ‘You walk in there and try to take his eye out – did you know he had to be checked for a broken cheekbone? As for putting out the Dockers’ Word . . . I despair. He should sue you.’

Nellie dropped into a chair. ‘You’ve seen him,’ she accused. ‘You’ve met him while you were supposed to be at work.’

‘Course I have. Somebody had to apologize for your behaviour. I saw him the day after you hit him, if you must know. His face was all the colours of the rainbow, and he’d been at the hospital after you punched him.’

Nellie shrugged. ‘At least I told you what I’d done. And he daren’t bloody sue, because it would all come out. As for you, I am ashamed to death. Sleeping with a man who’s a father, a husband and a doctor? What about when you get pregnant, eh? Don’t come running to me with a bastard on board. Then there’s Mel. Do you think nobody’ll notice? You’ll stop her being top of the class, I can tell you that for no money.’ She paused for effect. ‘So you’ve made your mind up to ruin your little girl’s life. Give yourself a pat on the back.’

Eileen inhaled deeply. ‘I will, Mam. Because when I went to see him, I said sorry for what you’d done, and I told him he’d get nowhere with me. What I object to is you trying to be in charge of a thirty-three-year-old woman. I shouldn’t have told you I had any sort of feelings for him. We’ve always been able to talk, you and me. It seems as if I can’t ever tell you anything again.’

Nellie’s lip quivered. ‘Don’t say that, girl. You’re my world. You’re everything to me, Eileen. I just want to keep you safe.’

‘I know. But I promise you here and now that I’ll do nothing to hurt our Mel.’ She paused. ‘And I know well enough that I could come to love a man . . . perhaps a sensible one like Keith Greenhalgh. I’m not a fool, you know. I just have a lonely body. And Keith is very, very special. I had a dream about him last night. It was . . . lively.’ But she mustn’t make the hurry-up mistake, mustn’t develop war fever . . .

When Mel returned from her unscheduled visit, she heard them both weeping. As prearranged, she bounded up the stairs, went into the front room, removed the blackout screen and held a lighted candle near the window. That was the signal for which Miss Pickavance would be waiting. The storm had passed and the air was clearer. It was Germany’s turn now.

The swelling had subsided somewhat, but Tom still looked as if he had gone several rounds with a champion boxer. Mrs Kennedy packed a fair punch, and she was hefty in the verbal department, too. How she had managed to produce a daughter as elegant and dainty as Eileen beggared belief. Even Eileen’s accent had improved, and her tendency to abuse English grammar seemed to be disappearing fast. But she was backing off, was becoming determined to concentrate on Mel, who was her sole reason for remaining in Liverpool. He wanted her more than ever. The war had enlivened her sexuality, and he was prepared to serve her in any way she might require.

He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. A black eye did not sit well on the face of a doctor, whose prime concern was supposed to be the physical integrity of his patients. The official explanation was that he had argued with a door and had come off second best, but he’d seen a few glances that spoke of disbelief.

The door opened. ‘Will you be long?’ Marie asked.

He continued to look in the mirror, though his gaze now travelled past his own image and settled on her. She looked different. There was tousled, carefree and newly styled hair, and a rosy glow on her cheeks. ‘You look well,’ he remarked. The war seemed to be suiting women, then.

Marie nodded, backed out, and closed the door. She crept into the spare bedroom and perched on the edge of a narrow, single bed. He must not be encouraged to find her attractive. She was having a wonderful time, and he was not going to be allowed to spoil it. The business she chose to name rape was now a thing of the past, and she intended to keep it that way. Tom and his pot of petroleum jelly could stay in the master bedroom, thanks very much, because she neither needed nor wanted more children, as she had done her duty by delivering two for the price of one. He wouldn’t come in here. He was too proud a man to chase her in order to have his way.

But . . . Norman had arrived in her life. Norman carried the keys to the church hall in which Marie’s WVS people met several days a week. He was a good Christian man, a widower whose offspring had flown the nest, and he treated Marie with a deference to which she was becoming happily accustomed. Norman had beautiful hands, and he played the piano. He was over fifty, wealthy enough after selling a string of chemist shops, and he was clearly attracted to Marie. For the first time in her life, she felt something that was no stranger to desire. When he touched her arm, she shivered, and her nice, middle-class core prayed that no one noticed.

Marie Bingley now knew that she had never completely loved her husband. The marriage had been a sensible liaison encouraged by both families, since the Bingleys had a clever son but little money, while Marie’s family had given her a dowry sufficient to house their daughter, her gifted husband and the children when they arrived. Tom had been paid to marry a girl who was moneyed, but not pretty. However, she was prettier these days, and the man in the bathroom had noticed that.

Marie had no idea what was happening to her. All she knew was that a day without Norman was cold and empty, that his smile fed her, that his quiet playing on the piano while ‘his’ ladies knitted, chatted and drank tea was soothing and pleasurable. He was of the old school, had been raised by elders who taught him to treat females with near-reverence, and to run the family business sensibly and with the welfare of customers at the forefront of his mind. Norman liked her, enjoyed talking to her about his time in the army, his war, the shops he had supervised.

She heard Tom going downstairs. After claiming the bathroom, Marie soaked in water perfumed by crumbled bath cubes, washed her hair and prepared to deliver a lecture on first aid. Her ladies would be involved in battle once the bombs came and, as the wife of a doctor, Marie was deferred to when medical matters surfaced. She was in charge, and Norman had kindly helped her in the preparation of the lecture.

It wasn’t love, she reassured herself. It was a decent man treating a woman properly. Nevertheless, before leaving the house, she applied to her mouth a discreet shade of lipstick. There was nothing wrong with trying to look her best, was there?

The two rooms were beautiful. Eileen touched an eiderdown, pleased beyond measure when she felt its smooth, silky cover. Her room was mainly green, while Mel’s was in several shades of pink. They each had a wardrobe, a tallboy and a chest of drawers. Eileen’s electric reading lamp had a tasselled shade, as did Mel’s in the other room. Mel also had a real desk with a roll-back top and sections for all her work. There was a bookcase, too, and a good chair on which she would sit to do her homework. After Rachel Street, this was a palace.

Eileen checked the blackout screens, making sure that she understood the mechanisms that held them in place behind the pretty curtains. When both screens were back under the beds, Eileen began to clean the bathroom. Miss Morrison was downstairs enjoying a bowl of home-made soup. The old lady seemed content and a great deal less worried now that she knew she would not be alone throughout the war. Then, just as she was rinsing the washbasin, Eileen heard his voice. ‘How are you today, Miss Morrison?’

She shuddered. There was nowhere to run, and there would never be anywhere to run while she lived in this house. The owner had a heart condition, and was his patient. Mel and Eileen would both be here, and the man downstairs was a bold, needful creature. His idea of courtship was roaming hands and battling tongues. She wanted him, couldn’t lie to herself about that, but all the same he was a creature to be avoided, and avoidance was not an option now. The thought of hiding in a wardrobe allowed her a humorous moment, yet she didn’t even smile. He was here, and he had come for her rather than for Miss Morrison.

When he entered the bathroom, Eileen continued to polish taps. He closed the door, and within seconds his hands were round her waist and travelling north. ‘I told the old dear I’d take you home in the car,’ he whispered.

She turned in his arms. ‘Do you want a matching pair?’ she asked. ‘And I mean black eyes, not my breasts. I nearly lost the love of my mother because of you.’ Desire and anger were a difficult combination. She wanted to kill him, needed to kiss him, and was as confused as a blind man in a maze. But she had known this before, had battled with and beaten several desirable men who had tried to wear her Lazzer’s shoes since his death. Tom Bingley was just another toy she didn’t need.

‘Then learn not to confide in her,’ he suggested.

‘I may confide in the woman downstairs,’ she threatened. ‘And she’s one of the few who can afford to pay your medical bills. She likes Dr Ryan. Dr Ryan’s been here when you’ve been unavailable, and women prefer a female doctor. Miss Morrison wouldn’t approve of your behaviour.’

Tom stepped back. ‘I like a feisty female,’ he said. ‘Though I could take or leave Ryan, I have to say. But you smell of tomorrow, my darling. A magic urchin, you are. So I can’t give you a lift home?’

‘No.’

He stood near the door. ‘This Dockers’ Word,’ he began.

‘Stands indefinitely,’ Eileen snapped. ‘They’ve had to stick together, because the ones who got work had to help the poor buggers that didn’t get chosen. They’re close-knit, welded and bolted together like steel girders. You make a move on me, and they’ll have you.’

‘Bollocks,’ he answered through a smile.

‘They have those, too,’ Eileen advised him. ‘They’re not likely to be afraid of a doctor with a black eye and a toothbrush sticking out of his ear.’

‘Toothbrush?’

She held the weapon aloft. ‘It’s all right, this is an old one, so I won’t be wasting much. I use it to clean round taps. Which ear would you like me to choose? I noticed you have two of them.’

‘The one with a perforated tympanic membrane. That’s spelt with a Y or an I, by the way.’

‘Thanks for improving my education. Now, bugger off.’

He chuckled softly. ‘She made it up, didn’t she? That Dockers’ Word business is a figment of your ma’s fevered imagination. Though I have to say she probably picked up her colourful language on the waterfront. Your mother has a mouth like a sewer.’

Eileen crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘She may be a lot of things, but Nellie Kennedy’s no liar. I’ve known her all my life, and she never lies, never steals. My mother is an honest woman. You’re going to need eyes in the back of your head. Oh, and if you want to mend your ear drum, you can borrow our Mel’s puncture kit.’

His eyes narrowed. This one was a bright little bugger, and she wanted taming. ‘You enjoyed what I did to you, what we did together,’ he said.

‘Like everybody else, I have animal instincts,’ she replied. ‘The difference between you and me is that I can control mine.’

He nodded very slowly. ‘Can you? Can you really?’ He left the room.

Eileen sank slowly onto the lavatory seat. She couldn’t control her limbs, let alone the sensations that rippled through her body whenever he was near. There was a sixth sense, and she was its victim. That extra faculty was nothing to do with looking into the future or talking to spirits. It was a two-way traveller, and very difficult to ignore. He was suffering, too, because his extra sense had met hers halfway across the space that separated them. There were better men than him; there was Keith, for a start. She hadn’t spent enough time with him yet, but he was definitely interesting, because even his letters made her innards melt. ‘Why do I suddenly need a blasted bloke anyway?’ she asked the door.

Tom was telling Miss Morrison that Eileen hadn’t quite finished her work, and that he had more patients to see. For the sick and elderly, he used a different tone, but it was genuine. Tom Bingley was perhaps oversexed, but he actually cared about his patients. Miss Morrison thought the world of him, and he came and went as he chose in this house.

‘He’s not a completely bad man,’ Eileen whispered to herself. ‘But Mel matters a damned sight more than he does.’ There was no turning back now; she and Mel had to move from Rachel Street. Rumours of dogfights over Hastings and other southern towns were rife. She couldn’t give back word to the lady downstairs, couldn’t stay in her own house, was going to be living within reach of Tom for as long as the war lasted. He had in his possession a potion that could guarantee her freedom from pregnancy. It had come from abroad, and very few knew of its existence. Oh, God. She should not be thinking like this.

Having regained the ability to walk properly, she finished her work and went downstairs. A neighbour would come in later to heat thoroughly the meal she had prepared for her precious old lady. Frances Morrison was sweet, partially deaf, and as bright as a new button. She was looking forward to having Mel in her house, as she approved strongly of the public school system. She was a member of the Conservative Party, an ex-headmistress of a small and very exclusive primary school, and she had objected strongly when advised to lower the union flag from its post in her garden.

‘Are you going, dear?’

‘Yes. We’ll move in at the weekend if that’s all right with you.’

‘Good, good. I shall get the chance to converse in French.’

Eileen laughed. In her day, Frances Morrison must have been the subject of gossip, as her bible held a commandment stating that all children should begin a second language by the age of nine. The pupils of Abbeyfield School had entered secondary education with a smattering of French, and they usually outstripped all others in that subject, a fact that was much mentioned in this house.

Eileen bent and left a kiss on a soft, papery cheek. ‘The minute this war’s over, I’ll run your flag up myself. God bless.’

‘And may He bless you, my dear.’

Tom was outside, car parked at the pavement’s edge, his person propped casually against a garden wall. He couldn’t have done a better job had he actually set out to advertise his intentions. ‘Get in,’ he ordered.

‘No.’ Her heart was doing about ninety miles an hour in a built-up area, and there was a war on. Fuel, she told herself irrelevantly, should be saved.

‘Get in, or I shall kiss you now in full view of the inhabitants of St Michael’s Road. My wife will be told, and you will be co-respondent in the ensuing divorce. Come along, hurry before a docker spots me.’

Fuming, yet hungry for him, she placed herself in the passenger seat. He closed her door, walked round the vehicle, then sat next to her. The engine roared as he turned and drove towards the river.

‘You’re wasting petrol and your time,’ she said. ‘You’re also attracting attention with all that noise.’

He slammed on the brakes, and a shard of fear entered her chest, because they were still in a residential area.

‘Damn you.’ The words were forced between clenched teeth. ‘It’s not just about sex any more, is it? I have fallen in love with you, my little urchin. And you are a mere inch from returning the compliment. If I were free, I’d marry you tomorrow.’

‘No, you wouldn’t.’

‘I would. You know I would.’

‘Get me away from all these houses. Now!’

He carried on until he reached a quiet stretch of river before parking again.

She told him straight. ‘I have three sons who can curdle custard just by staring at it for a few seconds. Because we live in a poor area, and because they have no dad, they’re very wild. Only last week, all three were arrested, and there was talk of them going into an institute for young offenders. Instead, I’m sending them with my mother to a farm on the moors outside Bolton. Whoever marries me gets lumbered with them. All three of them. Mel’s no trouble, but Philip, Rob and Bertie are nightmares. You wouldn’t last a week.’

‘I love you, Eileen.’

‘That can soon be killed by three lads who think nothing of stealing, running bets and making enough noise to rip the skin off your rice pudding.’

‘I don’t like rice pudding. Or custard.’

‘Neither do I, but that’s not the point. You know Mel. You can see how she is: clever, polite and kind. They are the exact opposite. But they’re my lads, and they go where I go once we get Hitler sorted out.’

He stared ahead at the grey, angry water. ‘Then we’ll live in the countryside. We can move as soon as you like.’

‘I have to stay with Mel. Mel is my real bit of war work. She’s going to Cambridge if I have to drive her there with a whip, Tom. How do you think she’d cope if you and I were found out? She’d fall behind. Your daughter would lose her best friend, and I’d lose what’s left of my self-respect. Oh, and a Catholic can’t marry a divorced person. It would mean excommunication.’

She could build all the barriers she liked, but he would not give up. ‘I can’t live without you. Wouldn’t it be murder if I popped off?’

‘No. It would be suicide, and that’s a prosecutable offence. If you survived, you’d be charged.’

He laughed mirthlessly. ‘You’re a clever girl.’

‘I read a lot. I don’t resent my daughter, yet I know I would have done well if I’d had her chances. But I didn’t, and that’s that. Then there’s my mother. You’ve met her. You know how she is. As long as she’s alive, she’ll be with me. I’d have gone with her to the country except for Mel. I had to choose, and I picked my daughter, because she’s too beautiful and clever to be left to chance. You must have looked at her yourself, because she’s me all over again. And yes, I know I’m pretty, and false modesty is pointless. If and when I want a man, I’ll find one with no ties and plenty of patience, because he’ll have to put up with the boys and my mother.’

He studied her face hard. ‘And you’ve someone in mind?’

She nodded. ‘But it’s early days. He’s a good man, a hardworking man. Like me, he’s educated himself, and he will help Mam with the boys.’

‘So he’s a farmer?’

Eileen shook her head. ‘No, he isn’t a farmer. He supervises half a dozen farms and a load of houses. That’s the sort of man I’ll go for. He’s also promising to be adorable.’

Tom was angry. Why had he married Marie? Why had he married for money? ‘Then just allow me a little time before you commit to him. I’ll take care of you. Who knows who’ll come out alive when the bombing starts? Let’s grab what we can while we can. I know you want me, Eileen. I could repeat now what I did last time we were in this car, and you’d let me. In fact, you’d encourage me. Am I right?’

‘Yes, but it would be wrong. It’s the war, that’s all. This isn’t real.’

He told her that Tuesday and Thursday nights would be her time to be in Scotland Road at her post. But he had informed the ladies of the WVS that she would be caring for the sick in Crosby, so she wouldn’t be required to go. She could walk instead to the flat above his surgery on Liverpool Road. ‘I’ll be waiting,’ he threatened. ‘A nice fire, double bed, bathroom, small kitchen. We can make toast afterwards and feed each other. I’ll lick the butter from your fingers, Eileen.’

‘Stop it.’

‘Your daughter need never find out.’

But Eileen didn’t believe him. If Mam could notice a glow on her daughter’s skin after a quick fumble in a car, surely Mel would catch a glimpse of the same? ‘It shows,’ she told him. ‘In my face.’

‘You miss lovemaking.’ It was not a question.

‘Of course I do.’ But she’d learned to cope, had never met a man who lit her up quite as readily this one did. ‘We had a good life, Laz and me. We weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but he always worked, didn’t drink, and we were very close. Lovemaking was something we learned together, and it was private and special. That was real love, you see. This isn’t, and it never could be, because I think you’re greedy and . . . unwholesome, I believe the word is. You’ll become a dirty old man who pays for sex.’

He could manage no reply. She was insulting him, yet he could not for one moment doubt her honesty. Eileen said what she felt, and delivered her opinion unadorned by dressing. It was this earthiness that made her so appealing, because her raw, almost visible sexuality was rooted in directness and lack of inhibition.

‘Take me to the tram stop,’ she said now. ‘And my war work will be of my choosing, not yours. I’ll be on my feet, not on my back in your double bed dripping with butter.’

‘Eileen—’

‘No. If you play on my baser side and get me to do what you want, I’ll never forgive you or myself afterwards. Mel comes first. She leaves the rest of her class standing for brains and for beauty, and you know it. Do you really think you’ve a claim on me while she’s parked in the way? Do you?’

Tom lowered his head. To get the better of Eileen, he would need to dispose of Marie, Mel, three boys and Eileen’s mother. Since mass murder was not in his nature, he seemed to have come up against six insurmountable barriers. He took her to the tram stop.

Just weeks earlier, everything Mel and Eileen owned would have fitted into a couple of medium-sized boxes. Now, with clothes, shoes and bags kindly donated by Hilda, the carter would be needed to take their possessions to St Michael’s Road. Eileen, the proud owner of a Singer sewing machine, property of the deceased Mrs Pickavance, planned to make over some items for Mel, who was growing at a rate of knots she described as ghastly. ‘Nothing fits,’ she pretended to complain. ‘And I need a brassiere, Mam. Can you adapt one of yours?’

‘I’ll try when we’ve moved,’ Eileen promised. ‘Go and help your brothers with their homework. It might be half-term before you see them again.’

‘And that is not ghastly.’

‘Mel!’

‘I know, they’re my flesh and blood, and the priests say I have to put up with them. It’s all right for priests in their nice, quiet presbyteries. They don’t have to live with three monsters and half a police force, do they?’

‘Your gran and Hilda will straighten them out.’

‘And your penfriend?’

‘Stop being ghastly, Mel.’

The girl laughed. ‘Ghaaahstly, Mother. You have to get the ah into it.’

‘So it’s not just my Ps and Qs, then? I have to get my Rs right, too?’

‘That sounds rude.’

‘Good. Go and help the poor woman who’s lumbered with the junior branch of the Al Capone fan club.’ Eileen paused. ‘I’ll miss round here, you know. People think Scottie Road’s all bad news, but it’s not. We’ll not find a community like this ever again.’

‘Oh, you will. Just do a burglary and you’ll meet half of this lot in jail.’ Mel left the house before her mother could reply.

Eileen sat for a while waiting for Nellie, who was next door trying to comfort Kitty. Kitty Maguire had decided to panic again about moving, and Nellie was trying to calm her down. The calming down involved tea, brandy and many words of wisdom, and the ensuing period of peace seldom lasted long.

Alone, Eileen looked round the front room of number two. She knew every crack in the plaster, every mark on the walls. Her children had been measured near the outer door, four sets of lines with names near the floor. There they were, step by step, all four of them caught, held still, a pencil drawing a line level with their heads. Two and a half was the significant one, because when doubled, it gave the approximate height of the end product, the adult. Her boys were all going to top six feet, while Mel promised five feet and eight inches, which would be tall for a girl.

The fireplace was small, as was the room. There was always a fire in the kitchen, and when one was required in here Mam would carry through a shovel filled with burning coal and pour it into the little iron basket. Cupboards built in at each side of the chimney breast were battle-scarred, paint that was years old flaking off, two handles missing, one door drunk because of a failed hinge. Eileen and Laz had set up home here, and she would soon close the front door for the final time. He would never come back. Sometimes, in the early days of widowhood when she had heard tuneless whistling in the street, she had imagined . . . But Laz hadn’t been the only bad whistler in these parts, and he had never burst in with his silly ‘da-da’ of a fanfare employed to announce his safe return from Liverpool’s docks.

The docks had killed him. His funeral had been enormous, and few men had sought work on that day, because he’d been a good, well-loved man. Eileen remembered a full church, flowers, and a box near the altar. She would never meet his like again, but Keith Greenhalgh was a fair copy. In fact, he was cleverer than her beloved Laz had been, and—

Nellie came in. ‘Hello, love. All by yourself? She’s a mess next door. When push comes to shove, I’ll not be surprised if she stays here. Eileen? You all right, queen?’

‘No, I’m not. I need help.’

‘Right.’ Nellie sat down near the fireplace. ‘Is it him again?’

Eileen nodded. ‘I’m frightened. Frightened of me.’

Nellie understood. ‘I know. There’s something about him. I saw it meself just before I took the swing at him. What needs doing, then?’

After a lengthy pause, Eileen made her reply. ‘Dockers’ Word. Make it real.’

‘It is real.’

‘Mam? I thought you were kidding.’

Nellie Kennedy folded her arms. ‘You are my life, girl. I spoke to Nobby Costigan, and he rounded up a few of Laz’s mates. The Word’s out.’

Eileen’s jaw dropped for a second or two. ‘I don’t want anybody dead. And I don’t want Laz’s pals in prison. I just need Tom to know it’s real. Like a warning. No real violence. Their faces must be covered by something or other, and it’ll have to be done in the dark. How much will it cost?’

‘Nothing. It’s for Laz.’

‘Right. Can you deal with it?’

‘Consider it done. They’ll scare the living be-Jaysus out of him, as my old gran would have said. He’ll be needing clean underpants and a bodyguard, but you just forget about it. It’ll be a cold day in hell before he lays hands on you again.’

Bertie ran in and started complaining loudly about Miss Pickavance and the five times table. Tables were for eating off, and what had five times to do with that? He was fed up and he wanted to come home. Mel collared him and prepared to drag him back to be reincarcerated at number one. Phil and Rob arrived and helped their sister to return the miscreant to the posh prison where the food was good and a bit of homework was a small price to pay for spare ribs followed by trifle, followed by cheese and biscuits, followed by cocoa.

Nellie puffed out her cheeks. ‘When was life easy, Eileen?’

‘Before my body started screaming out for a selfish man who has the power to make my insides turn to un-set jelly.’

Nellie went to brew tea. Halfway through the exercise, she had a thought. ‘Like I said, it’s this bloody war we’re waiting for, folk getting wed and all sorts. She paused. ‘Why don’t we do turns?’

Turns? What was she talking about? A song and dance act? ‘How do you mean, Mam?’

Nellie appeared in the doorway. ‘Well, if Miss Morrison and your other ladies can put up with me, we can swap every couple of weeks, then Tom Doodah won’t know whether he’s coming or going.’ She grinned impishly. ‘And you can get to know Keith Greenhalgh. If we can get the transport, that is.’

‘Mam, your blood’s worth bottling.’

‘I know. I’m great, aren’t I?’

For October, the weather was good. A slight breeze shifted leaves, causing some to flutter downwards to the ground where they joined close relatives in crisp red and brown heaps. The sun had said goodbye, though a trail of salmon pink and blush red reminded any onlooker that tomorrow would be equally gentle. Time slipped by, and the sky darkened towards an inky blue. Offices and shops, now long closed, stood like sentries ordered to attention. Like the rest of England, Liverpool waited in stillness for the unimaginable to begin.

At approximately eight o’clock, Dr Thomas Bingley left his Liverpool Road surgery. He rummaged in his pocket for keys as he walked round the corner to where his car was parked in a side street. Thoroughfares were no longer lit, while houses, too, were blacked out against the threat of bombardment. He stood for a while to allow his eyes to adjust. After a late evening of catching up with notes, he had to linger in order to allow the pupils to widen and absorb the meagre offerings of late dusk. The drive home would have to be careful, since shaded headlights were almost useless. Fortunately, most people stayed in their houses; only wardens and fire-watchers patrolled streets that would be completely black within minutes.

When he reached the car, he suddenly found himself lying face down on its bonnet, both arms pinned behind his back, severe pain invading his left shoulder. There were two of them. He could hear their heavy, unsynchronized breathing. The second man gripped his neck, the hold vice-like, yet restrained. These were powerful men, and they had him at their mercy. Mercy?

‘Stay away from Eileen Watson,’ one hissed. ‘Go anywhere near her, and you’ll need a sodding wheelchair for the rest of your life. You hearing me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Say again.’

‘Yes.’

The other man spoke. ‘Dockers’ Word. You know about that? See, some people have the Freemasons and all that farting about with handshakes and pinafores, but we have the big boys. Some of us were there when he died. The last word on his lips was her name. That means something. Leave her alone. Dockers’ Word. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

They picked him up and pushed him down again. In that moment, his left shoulder dislocated, and he groaned. Unfazed, one held him down while the other snapped the ball back into its socket. ‘If we have to do this again, you’ll have a broken back. See, when you work on the docks, you learn all about dislocated shoulders and snapped spines. Oh, yes. We’re clever enough, doc. All right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Stay down there and count to fifty. One shout, one scream, and you’ll be wishing you’d never been born.’

Tom heard them as they ran round the corner. His shoulder hurt like hell, but he didn’t count to fifty. Instead, he climbed into the car and wondered how the dickens he was going to get home. He managed to shift the gear stick into second, and he drove at snail’s pace through Crosby. A black eye, now an injured shoulder; was she worth it? Was she?

The terrible truth was yes. She was worth it, and he was a fool.

Eight

Jay Collins came home to the gatehouse after five days. He was rested, lively, and a nuisance. Gill put about the legend that Ward D2 had been approaching the brink of collapse, since her dearly beloved had caused enough trouble to instigate disputes between visitors and staff, cleaners and orderlies, and patients and nurses. The food, he maintained, had been hogwash. Pigs at Neil and Jean’s home farm were better fed, while he’d never had a decent cup of tea during the whole of his time in what he chose to term the torture chamber. He was not going back. If he had to become a pincushion, he would manage on his own, thanks. Oh, and he didn’t like saccharine, so he’d stick to sugarless tea, very strong and with a drop of milk. No porridge. If he saw another dish of this-is-very-good-for-you-but-use-mostly-water, it would be out of the door quicker than dry sand off a shiny shovel.

Gill did her best to keep him in the house for a while until he got used to his insulin and the new diet, but he wasn’t prepared to listen. He knew he couldn’t drink beer, but that wouldn’t stop him getting out and about. He was the estate handyman, for goodness’ sake, and invasion was imminent. The fact that he could not serve in the armed forces had finally been accepted, but he remained determined to do his bit on the estate. ‘I’m going out,’ he called while Gill was upstairs. There were things to do.

Willows was holding its breath not against the Germans’ coming, but against Liverpool’s. The Scousers were on their way, and he had to make sure all hatches were battened down, all doors closed and locked, all windows in good working order with strong catches in place. Liverpool people were tough, so he needed to be several steps ahead.

Keith helped. He was there to assess his employee’s health and to make sure that he fell off no ladders, but he pretended to be assisting rather than acting as monitor. It was not an easy task. Jay, a natural clown, carried on much as before. He was funny, enthusiastic, friendly and difficult to judge when it came to health. When he started tripping over his own feet by accident, Keith was at the ready with barley sugar. ‘Eat it.’

‘I can’t. I’m diabetic.’

‘That’s why you need it. You’ve run out of sugar. The reason you’re not walking properly and not listening to me is that you’re hypoglycaemic.’

‘Big word, that.’

‘It is. So eat it.’

‘Can’t eat a word I don’t know how to say. Hypo who?’

‘Glycaemic. Eat the bloody barley sugar, or it’s back to the bacon factory you’ve complained about for the last three hours.’

‘D2?’ Oh, he remembered that dump, all right. ‘Give us that thing here, because I’ll do just about anything to stay out of that . . . what was it?’

‘Hospital.’ Jay was losing his words. When the sweet had been consumed, Keith delivered yet another lecture. ‘In a minute, you’ll feel great. Remember that, because I won’t be with you all the time. When you start losing words and legs, eat sugar. Right?’

‘Yes. I feel fine now. So the thing that can kill me, which is sugar, is the thing that saves my life?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Mad.’

Jay spent the rest of the day telling everyone he met that sugar could finish him one way or another, though he seemed to be cheerful enough about the whole thing.

Keith went off to report to Gill. Any awkwardness had to be overcome, because he had probably imagined her fondness for him, and life needed to continue as normally as possible in spite of the expected influx of evacuees. His pulse quickened. Eileen would not be here this time, but she’d visit soon. He still wrote and she still replied, though a small degree of reserve lingered in her letters. He would find a way to see her soon. He had the Crosby address and phone number.

Gill was her usual self, bright, sensible and trying to feed up her visitor. Something happened to Lancashire women the moment that band of gold was on their third finger. They fed anything that moved, particularly creatures on two legs. The refusal of an offering could cause great offence, so he made his way through three slices of buttered fruit cake and two cups of tea. There was no particular affection in her face when their eyes met. Yes, he had clearly mistaken her behaviour the other day.

‘So he’s up ladders?’ she asked. ‘You’ve let a loony climb ladders?’

‘Part of the job. I’ve left him with more barley sugars and instructions to eat one if he starts feeling weak or forgetful.’

‘And he’ll forget what you said when he gets a bit hypo. You finish your cake while I walk down to the Edge and make sure he’s all right. No, stay there, Keith. We’ve all got to get used to this.’

Alone, he drained his cup and took the latest missive from Liverpool out of his pocket. She, too, was funny sometimes. And there was no mention of Dr Tom.

So I am going to live in the beautiful house of a headmistress, while my boys are now with Miss Pickavance, who has turned out to be quite a good teacher-cum-jailer. Bertie makes the odd dash for freedom, but he’s always dragged back by the other two, who enjoy Hilda’s cooking and listening to her wireless and gramophone.

Meanwhile, Kitty-next-door, who is supposed to be having the empty house in Willows Edge, keeps throwing all kinds of fits. In spite of lovely new teeth that actually fit after adjustment, plus a second-hand bargain dress and jacket from Paddy’s Market, she doesn’t want to leave the house at all.

She’s never been further down town than the Liver Buildings, hasn’t even been over the water on the ferry. She thinks Birkenhead is a foreign country, while London probably exists on the moon or Mars. She’s also frightened of empty fields and quietness, I think, and she’ll be scared to death of cows and the like. We’re used to horses, because they’re part of our life round here, but I don’t think Kitty’s ever wondered where milk and butter and cheese come from. The Co-op, I suppose.

Mam says Kitty won’t come to Willows, but I hope she does because since her husband fell in the river and died she’s been weird, and a new start might shock her out of her depression. Charlie Maguire was an alcoholic, and she’s better off without him, but she doesn’t know that yet. Her children will thrive well in the fresh air, too, so we’re trying to knock a bit of sense into her – not easy! Aren’t people daft?

That last sentence was from the previous Eileen, the one who wrote from the soles of her feet, no holds barred, a smile or a wry comment in every paragraph. Some decision had been made, and a problem she’d encountered had either reduced in size or been eliminated. She was, he suspected, a complex character, highly intelligent and probably self-educated. He couldn’t wait to see her again, yet he had to wait.

I seem to have inherited a sewing machine, which happy accident means I can cobble together some bits and pieces for Mel. She keeps up well at the school, and she seldom complains, but I know she feels the difference between herself and some of the other girls. They have ponies, new bikes and nice houses, but they don’t have my girl’s looks and brains. Mel’s old-fashioned, and she comes out with some stuff when I ask does she mind being poor. One of her answers was that a Rolls-Royce might drive a girl to Oxbridge, but only exam results could open the doors to a college. I don’t mean she’s cocky, but she does have a clever answer for everything.

It sounds as if my mother and Mrs Openshaw might clash. Mam has been one of the unofficial midwives and layers-out in Scottie Road for twenty-odd years, and she doesn’t care whose business she jumps into. She gets all the gossip from the bag-wash when she goes down with our washing, then I think she adds bits on while she walks home. So if somebody’s had a big baby, like a ten-pounder, it’ll be twelve pounds by the time Mam comes through our door.

He smiled to himself as he pictured Nellie Kennedy pushing an old pram filled with washing through the side streets of Liverpool. She was a character, all right, and she had birthed another character, who had produced yet another. These were his kind of women, because they never gave up. ‘Neither do I, Eileen,’ he said to the three pages. She cared. No one would write all this without holding some kind of interest in the recipient.

Jay came in, face split from ear to ear with an east-to-west grin. ‘I’m the one with diabetes, and she’s the one who stood in a cowpat.’ He looked over his shoulder as a shoeless Gill entered. ‘See? So busy keeping an eye on me, she ends up covered in sh— in shame.’

Keith looked at the pair and wished, hoped, that Gill loved the father of her long-awaited baby. Jay was a jester, but he was a good man who deserved the best. Then Keith caught Gill staring again, damped-down longing in her eyes. Immediately, he jumped to his feet, uttered a quick goodbye and left the house. There was something in Gill’s head, and it was not appropriate. Bugger. He ate quite frequently at the gatehouse, and he enjoyed greatly the company of the couple who lived there.

‘She looks at me the way I look at Eileen,’ he told one of the six willow trees. Had he explained to Miss Pickavance that these weepers liked people, that they thrived on conversation? If the willows did well, stock thrived, crops burgeoned and the orchards bore enormous fruits. ‘What’s the matter with her?’ Pregnant at last, she should be celebrating with her man. Fronds rustled and brushed against him, caressing his face and neck. Eileen’s children would play here. Their noise would feed the willows and, because her blood was in the boys’ veins, she, too, would be providing nourishment.

If Gill felt for Keith what he felt for Eileen, she would be in pain. What could he do? He’d never been married, but estate management involved interaction with many people, and pregnant women were odd. They developed strange likes and dislikes, had mood swings, ate coal and orange peel and, sometimes, went a bit wild.

Was Gill off her rocker? If she was crackers, would she mend straight away after the child’s birth? What if she started with that decline some women went into after confinement? Should he talk to her? He left the trees on which everyone’s welfare supposedly depended, and entered the main house. Tomorrow, he would pick up from Trinity Street station two women, three boys, and assorted small pieces of luggage. The main items had already arrived, but the car would be packed. With Miss Pickavance in the passenger seat, he would need to squeeze into the rear of the car three boys in assorted sizes, and a well-built though not overweight grandmother.

The house looked cosy. Gill and Jean had brought in some of summer’s lingering blooms to brighten and freshen the rooms. Beds had been made, furniture waxed, oil lamps filled, wicks trimmed. He lit fires in every room, opened windows slightly to encourage airing. Tonight, he would sleep here on a camp bed in the kitchen. Willows was too precious to be left while wood and coal burned in grates.

He led the horses from the paddock into their stables, stood in the yard and looked at the stars. There could be frost tonight, because the sky was clear and inky. Tomorrow, the rebirth of Willows would begin under the guidance of a new mistress, one who might take an interest in the welfare of this vast estate and its many inhabitants. She was a good woman. Old Mr Pickavance had not been bad, but his connection to the land of his forebears had been minimal. Yes, there was a war on, yet the ill wind had delivered the promise of a new beginning in which Willows might find itself again.

All Keith needed now was for Gill to settle down with her excellent, well-meaning if chronically sick husband, and for Eileen to visit. He closed the stable doors and went into the kitchen. With a fire in the large grate, it looked homely and welcoming. For many years, this house had been lonely, neglected and unloved. ‘As have I,’ he said just before noticing the PTO at the bottom of Eileen’s third page.

Mam and I have been talking. If we can get transport, she and I will change places from time to time so that I might keep in closer touch with my sons. Mam is very fond of Mel, and they will miss each other if the war lasts. Perhaps you might help by giving some thought to how we can travel the thirty-odd miles to and fro.

Another thought. I beg you to bring Mam next week. Between the two of you, you might manage to get Kitty Maguire out of number four. She is promised a job in the main house with Jay’s wife. She will clean while her kids are having lessons in what my mother calls the afternoon room. Kitty needs my mother. A fresh start would do no harm, either. With her husband dead and her small children running wild, she could easily lose her mind completely here.

Love and best wishes, Eileen.

Hope attacked his heart from two fronts, a pincer movement seeming to squeeze all air from his body. She would be here, and not just for the odd weekend or half-term. And she had written a word that was taken too lightly these days. Love. ‘Don’t love me like a brother or a friend,’ he begged. He had never expected to meet again eyes like Annie’s: honest, beautiful and unafraid.

‘Of course I’ll pick up your neighbour. By the hair, if necessary.’ He made toast and cocoa. Sometimes, life tasted good.

Nellie Kennedy was having a day and a half. Saying goodbye to Rachel Street wasn’t easy; saying goodbye to Kitty Maguire was proving a near impossibility, because the thin woman had fastened herself to Nellie’s clothing. ‘You can’t leave me on me own, Nell. I’ll not manage without you.’

‘If you rip that sleeve, I’ll give you a clout round the ear ’ole. Come with us. Get the kids, pack your bits, and—’

‘I’ve never been away from here. I’ve never been on a train.’

‘I’ll be with you.’ But they wouldn’t all fit in the car at the other end. Someone would have to stay behind at the station in Bolton and wait for the first lot to be delivered to Willows. ‘Next week you’ll be joining us, Kitty.’

‘I daren’t.’

Oh, but she would. Nellie reclaimed ownership of the sleeve, then folded her arms. ‘Three or four days,’ she said. ‘If we don’t come Monday, we’ll be here Tuesday. Kitty, I’ve things to do. I can’t stand here like the bloody Venus de Milo, because I need to use me arms to get the last of our things wrapped up. You’ve got to pull yourself together, queen, or we’ll all be in a mess. Keith Greenhalgh is meeting us, and we have to be on that train.’

‘But your Eileen’s at work. She can’t look after me.’

Nellie looked at the sky as if seeking guidance. Saying ta-ra to Eileen and Mel this morning had been the hardest thing. ‘From tomorrow, Eileen will be in Crosby. Miss Morrison’s health’s gone worse, so our Eileen’s had to give up all her other jobs just to look after the old lady.’ Eileen was to have a small wage and, with food, fuel and shelter already paid for, she’d survive as long as they didn’t get bombed.

‘I can’t be on me own,’ Kitty wailed.

‘There’s a whole street of people here. You won’t be by yourself.’

‘They’re fed up with me. There’s only you cares.’

Nellie was as fed up as everyone else, but kindness had prevented her from giving up on this poor, confused woman. If the odd behaviour went on, Kitty might well find herself in an institution, and her kids would become genuine evacuees like most of the children who had left their parents at the beginning of September. ‘Kitty, you have to get a grip, but not on my best clothes. If you turn up at Willows Edge in this state, and if your children carry on running wild and dirty, nobody will help you. People help those who make an effort.’

‘I can’t.’

‘You bloody can and you bloody will. There’s a nice clean cottage waiting for you. There’s a job. Look, I know what it is to be widowed, and I feel for you. There’s no one else to blame now, is there? It’s just you. Charlie was always pickled, and the behaviour of your young ones was his fault. But I’m telling you now, Kitty, Willows is your only hope. If you don’t take that house, somebody else will. Now, I’m going.’

‘But—’

‘I’m going to save my grandsons. If you don’t mind your kids dying, stop here. If you don’t mind dying yourself and leaving them three little buggers as orphans, stop here. Your future, with a job and Miss Pickavance to teach your babies, is about forty miles away. Liverpool will be flattened. It’s up to you.’

Kitty burst into tears and fled through the front door of her filthy house.

Nellie continued giving away bits of furniture, pots, pans and anything that might be taken over by a new tenant if she didn’t allocate it now. She hung on to two beds and enough bits and pieces for Eileen and Mel. Tonight would be their last in this house. Remaining items would be disposed of tomorrow, and keys would be returned to the landlord’s office.

It was the end of an era. Nothing would be the same after today. New addresses, new friends, new way of life for everyone. But Nellie was determined to walk on, because she could not, would not, remain here. She picked up a few packages, left the house and, after locking the door for the last time, posted her key through the door. Eileen had her own key, and she would get rid of both tomorrow.

Nellie crossed the road to number one. Three shiny-faced angels stood with Miss Pickavance, brown paper parcels clutched to their chests. The older two seemed composed, but poor little Bertie, who had managed to survive past his seventh birthday in spite of his mother’s teasing, was white-faced and clearly frightened. Nellie placed her own packages on the ground before squatting down at his level. ‘Shall I tell him now?’ she asked.

Hilda Pickavance pretended to consider the question. ‘Well, if you must. It was supposed to be a surprise when he gets there, but he seems a little sad.’

‘Don’t want to go,’ Bertie said. ‘Me friends are all here. I like Liverpool. I don’t know why I have to go.’

Nellie blinked back a river. ‘Your own horse, babe. A pony. It’s called Pedro and it’s a palomino. Like a pale gold colour with white mane and tail.’

The child blinked. ‘Has it got big feet?’

‘No. It’s not like the one you pinched, love. This is a proper riding pony, but Neil and Jean Dyson’s girls have grown a little bit tall for it. They live at the home farm, and the youngest’s nearly ten. So Pedro’s yours.’

‘Mine? I don’t have to share?’

‘All yours.’

Bertie didn’t understand not sharing. Even at school, the books were all one between two. At home, first up best dressed had often been the rule, but they were giving him a whole horse. ‘I’d rather have me mam,’ he admitted, ‘but if I can’t have her, a pony’s nearly as good.’

Those words became Nellie’s unspoken mantra as they rode the tram to Liverpool, a train to Manchester, another to Bolton. Keith Greenhalgh picked them up and drove them out of town and up to sweeping stretches of moorland. All three boys stared at what they saw as a void, since there were no shops, theatres, cinemas, trams or crowds.

Nellie sat tight-lipped, because there was a hole in her chest, a space in which she had held Eileen for thirty-three years, Mel for thirteen. Strangely, she kept seeing the Liver Birds, twins that sat and overlooked the waterfront. They had to stay. No Nazi missile could touch them, or the city would crumble. It was just a piece of local folklore, but— Oh, Eileen. Oh, Mel. Then she looked at Bertie and smiled. A pony was nearly as good . . .

At first, Eileen felt rather trapped, because Frances Morrison needed almost full-time care. But three immediate neighbours offered to help so that shopping could be done, and she was promised the odd day or evening off. The doctor was just round the corner, Miss Morrison’s house had a telephone, and . . . and yes, the doctor was just round the corner.

Miss Morrison was a kind and gentle woman whose breeding and education showed without being overpowering. A further surprise came Eileen’s way when she discovered that the people of Crosby and Blundellsands were rather more than all fur coats and no knickers. They spoke well, but they had their feet planted, showed few airs, and were more or less like everyone else except they had better houses and good furniture.

The old lady was now confined to the ground floor. A nurse came in daily to check on her, but the hour-to-hour care was Eileen’s province, and she was determined to make a good fist of it. Three pounds a week, with all necessities already found, meant she was comparatively wealthy. So she helped with the disposal of dining room furniture, and was on hand when the space was turned into a bedroom. Neighbours sold table, chairs, display cabinets and sideboard, while Eileen concentrated on comfort. Wireless and gramophone were moved into the newly established sleeping area, while a firm, low chair was placed near the fire.

The neighbours, impressed by Eileen’s dedication to the cause, told her as discreetly as possible that should Miss Morrison lose the fight for life, alternative work and shelter would be arranged for her and Mel. It was in that moment that the woman from Scotland Road became certain that people were good for the most part. But the doctor was still round the corner.

On the day before the move, he arrived. After awarding Eileen the filthiest look in his repertoire, he marched into the ex-dining room to examine his patient. When he returned to the kitchen, where Eileen was preparing an apple pie, his tone was terse. He banged a bottle of medicine on the table. ‘Keep her in a sitting position for the most part. Don’t let her sleep flat, either, as pneumonia would not be a welcome visitor at this point. With the right care, she has a few years’ wear in her yet.’ He then told her that the bottle contained an expectorant designed to clear Miss Morrison’s chest.

‘Right,’ said Eileen, picking up the medicine.

‘One teaspoonful four times a day, don’t miss it. When do you move in?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Then instruct the neighbour who will be here tonight. The medication must be taken. And thank you, by the way.’

‘For what?’

‘For the second attack. At least they knew what they were doing, since they popped my arm back into its socket. It hurt like hell.’

She found no immediate reply. Dockers were tough creatures, and they had clearly gone at least a mile too far. The idea had been to frighten him, not to give him pain, and guilt shot through her like an arrow from a longbow.

‘Nothing to say for yourself, madam?’

‘Nothing. You were warned.’

‘And given a black eye by your delightful mother.’

‘You don’t know her. She stands by her family no matter what the cost to herself and to strangers. As for the other business, there’s a special bond among the dockers of Liverpool, and I’m a docker’s widow. They look after their own. I’m sorry you were hurt, and I mean that, but as I said just now, you were warned.’

The doctor’s bag was placed none too gently on the table, where it disturbed a great deal of flour. Eileen looked down at the resulting mess and opened her mouth to speak, but he was quick. More arrows pierced her body, but this time they brought pleasure. Her response was automatic, and she cursed her own lack of strength.

He released her very suddenly, and she backed away to depend for support on the sink. ‘Bloody hell,’ she breathed.

The same expression with which he had greeted her returned to his features. Without a word, he retrieved his bag and used a cloth to wipe most of the flour from its base. For at least a minute, he stood in silence, eyes fixed on her in a cold, almost forbidding stare.

Eileen shivered. This was a man who was capable of overcoming her with very little effort. She was in danger of losing control, of losing her mother and her job. But Mel would be here sometimes and, when she wasn’t, there was Miss Morrison. Eileen would have to learn to recognize the sound of his engine in order to ensure that she could be safely out of reach or with his patient whenever he came. Because she knew he could win. He knew he could win. And he knew that she knew . . . Silently, she told herself to shut up.

‘I love you,’ he said finally, though his eyes did nothing to back up the brief declaration.

She remained silent. He was the fly in ointment that had promised to be cool and soothing since she had fallen on her feet here, on the border between Crosby and Blundellsands. It wasn’t love. It was unadorned, naked lust. Once indulged, it would require regular feeding until it burned itself out. Even then, the ashes would need to be very cold in order to prevent rebirth of the phoenix.

He read her mind. ‘No, it’s gone beyond the physical. While you pretend to seek a sensible land steward, you want me. You want to wake in my bed, not his. This isn’t over. Even if it ends, it will never be over. You will remember me.’

Eileen found her voice again. ‘I am easily as cunning as my mam. I can tear my clothes and scream rape.’

‘It would kill her.’ Tom nodded in the direction of the dining room. ‘She’s your lifeline. I’ll be back.’ He left the kitchen, called a goodbye to the lady of the house, opened the front door and went. The car started. Only then did Eileen dare to breathe. Her body screamed for him, but her mind was fixed squarely on the welfare of her daughter and on the old lady who needed company, help, food and kindness.

She finished her pie, stopping partway through to look at the shape of Tom’s bag in scattered flour. She missed him. He was right; even if this ended, it would never be over. There was little she could do. With Laz, there had existed a potent mix of sex and another kind of love, the sort that brought respect and caring into the arena. But her feelings for Tom stopped when she considered anything other than physical joy. He was wrong for her; there were good men in the world, and she had encountered one of them recently.

She needed to go to church, wanted to confess her sins of thought, word and deed, must get a man of God to pray for her. Yet sometimes she looked up into the wide blue yonder and knew that this little earth was not alone, that space was unlimited, that Darwin was right. Was God there? Whilst Darwin and God did not need to be mutually exclusive, a saying from another man sat in Eileen’s mind. Hadn’t Marx concluded that religion was the opium of the people? Was Catholicism just another fairy tale in which the good survived and the wolf got chopped to bits by the woodcutter? ‘Oh, don’t start with the stupid deep thinking,’ she chided herself quietly. ‘You’ve pots to wash.’

After putting the dishes to soak in the bowl, she sat for a while, her mind wandering unhindered through the old neighbourhood, all those preparations for war and against the threat of invasion. Then there was the other business, the giggling, the groaning in dark alleys where couples grabbed their moments. ‘I swore the disease would never get me,’ she whispered.

Before the declaration, Eileen’s adherence to the moral code hammered into her head by Mam and by school had been total. Then, on a sunny Sunday, things had changed for everyone. ‘But not in my head,’ she said quietly. ‘This is not of my choosing, because it’s animal, pure animal.’ Yes, she understood the girls and boys who fumbled beneath the imposed cloak of darkness.

She moved to the sink and stared unseeing through the window. There would be quick marriages during leaves; there would be unwanted babies. Young mothers and their offspring might be cast out, orphanages could be filled, and she was no wiser than the youthful miscreants. She needed love, needed to be touched, needed sex. There. She had achieved diagnosis. Angry with herself, she took it out on crockery and cutlery. Eileen was vulnerable, and she hated that.

The apple pie finally found its way to the oven. Having a gas cooker was one of the pleasures of life in this house, as was the garden, where autumn had arrived to colour trees red, gold and brown. She could still feel his hands on her body. Daffodil and tulip bulbs needed planting, but the fortnightly gardener would see to all that. And her mouth felt bruised. A piece of ham had produced the basis for pea and ham soup, one of Miss Morrison’s favourites. And the ham would do for sandwiches. She wanted no more babies, since four were enough for anyone, but she needed comfort, closeness, fulfilment, excitement. That was selfish. If she gave in, she would be indulging a need that would be better ignored.

It wasn’t a case of if. It was when. Because she understood with blinding certainty that the mating ritual would continue, and that she would inevitably be worn down, as she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. For the sake of her daughter, Eileen Watson would postpone the event for as long as possible. But it would happen. Wouldn’t it? Or might someone else fill the void in her soul?

It was Saturday. Keith rounded up the three boys and stood them in a line at the bottom of the staircase. The youngest was in a fairly good mood, as he had a pony, but the other two were bored. There was nothing to do. The rest of the evacuees were not yet here and, even when they did arrive, there would be miles and miles of wind-whipped fields between Willows and the other farms. Home Farm was nearby, but the Dysons wouldn’t be taking anyone after all, as their spare bedrooms had been commandeered by Land Army girls.

‘There’s nothing to do,’ moaned Phil for the umpteenth time. ‘No shops, one pub, no trams. It’s like being dead.’

‘How do you know?’ Keith asked. ‘You’ve not been dead. Yet.’

‘Is that a threat?’ the oldest of Eileen’s boys asked.

‘Call it a promise.’ Keith folded his arms. ‘This is the deal. Saturdays, as long as everything here is up and running, I take you to town. You can go to the Lido or the Odeon for a matinee while I shop and so forth. Any thieving, fighting or messing about, and I’ll drop you at the police station myself.’

Bertie declined with thanks. He’d been here only a day, and he was intending to move into the stables for a few hours. ‘Pedro has to know who I am. So I’ll sit with him and read comics.’

‘Right.’ Keith studied the other two. Like the young one, they were good-looking, and they gave the impression that butter wouldn’t melt. But he had their measure, as Eileen was very open when it came to describing her sons. What had she written? They look like little angels, but the devil lives in their shoes. ‘One foot, one boot or shoe out of step, lads, and it’ll be the junior prison.’

They glanced at each other. Neither had the slightest intention of tolerating any more of this. They followed Keith out to the car. Today, they would find out the lie of the land. During the coming week, money would be acquired by fair means or foul. After that, Liverpool in all its glory would be waiting for them. They hadn’t said anything to their younger brother. When it came to secrets, Bertie was as much use as a bucket with a large hole in its base.

‘So how do you like your new home?’ Keith asked as he drove down the lane.

‘All right,’ answered Rob.

‘Big,’ Philip added. Having been held prisoner for long enough in Rachel Street, he was not prepared to allow the situation to continue. He and Rob had mates at home, and someone would take them in. War? Apart from a few soldiers and sailors passing through, there’d been no sign of it. It was almost as if some conspiracy were going on, a plan to keep the Kennedy/Watson clan out of circulation for a year or two.

‘Bertie likes the pony.’ Keith began the descent into Bolton. ‘He’s as happy as a sand boy. Perhaps I should look for a couple of horses for you?’

Philip was ready for this offer. ‘We’d rather have bikes,’ he said. ‘Second-hand would do as long as they work.’ Forty miles wasn’t far. If he could get his bearings for the East Lancashire Road, a new route designed and built to connect Liverpool and Manchester, he and Rob could be as good as home. ‘If we had bikes, we could visit the other farms.’

Keith, as yet not fully aware of the dogged determination of his passengers, took what they had said as a positive sign. They were preparing to settle, and that was good enough for him. ‘Forget the picture house for today, then. Let’s go on a bike hunt, get a bit of dinner, then you can have a walk round while I do my own shopping.’

In the rear of the car, two intelligent and calculating boys smiled at each other. The plan was working like a dream.

‘Don’t cry, Mam.’ This was terrible. Until today, Eileen Watson hadn’t been able to remember some details of her husband’s death and the ensuing funeral, but it had all flooded back while she prepared to leave the home she had shared with him. ‘Mam?’

‘Leave me a minute. Go and give Freda Pilkington your gran’s best frying pan and a couple of pillows. I promised. Go on now.’

Alone, Eileen sat halfway up the stairs. She remembered him singing ‘and when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down ’ while taking his children to their beds. He had been a good dad and a wonderful husband. His right hand was callused from the repeated use of his docker’s hook. A powerful man, he never hurt a fly.

In her mind, she opened the door. Three of them stood there, caps in hands, blood on their fingers. A trio of big, burly men stood and cried like babies while she sank to the floor, a very young Bertie clutched to her chest. The men’s faces were clear at last, and she even recalled two of their names. After they left, she became a wooden doll. Time after time, her mother said, ‘You stayed where you were put, so we had to remember to shift you.’

His mates sat the final vigil. They drank beer and used the coffin top as a resting place for their glasses and bottles. That was the right thing to do, because they were including him.

He was a big man, and his coffin filled the front room. She touched the wood. The lid was nailed down, because he was so badly injured. Warm wood. She could feel it now. Inside the warmth, he was probably cold. They walked behind him all the way to St Anthony’s, where he had been baptized and educated. His mother was hysterical. She died three weeks later.

The church was standing room only. Hundreds of people, and the dockers wept again. She’d always remembered that bit, but now she saw the hole. They put her Laz in a great, yawning hole. Worms. Flowers. Philip, Rob and Mel crying, Bertie held in his grandmother’s arms. Eileen hated the sun for daring to show its face. Trams ran, birds sang, children played nearby. It should all stop, but it didn’t. Dinners to make, ships to load and unload, bets to be placed in the ready hands of Nobby Costigan. She wanted to scream, but the priest was here, purple vestments, black biretta, open prayer book.

‘Mam? Mam?’

Without. In the house, in the street, in her heart, she was without him. The space inside her body and soul felt bigger than the grave in which her beloved man had been placed. ‘Hello, love. Did you give Freda the pan?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the pillows?’

‘And the pillows.’

Only now did Eileen realize that she was weeping.

‘Have you remembered all of it, Mam?’

‘I think so. This is where we lived, Mel. This is where I had my babies and where I was when he died.’

‘You’ve let go,’ Mel said. ‘To let go, you had to remember all of it, not just the church bit. My dad was a lovely man, and you hid yourself away for safety’s sake so that you could carry on looking after us. I suppose it was quite sensible in its way.’

‘There’s nothing sensible about making myself go a bit mad. Now, on your bike and go to Miss Morrison’s. I’ll give the keys in, and see you later.’

‘Are you fit to be left?’

Eileen laughed. ‘It’s not me that’s unfit; the real daftness is next door. I have to go and do three rounds with Kitty, because Mam and Keith are coming for her on Monday or Tuesday. I don’t know whether she’s fed the kids. They were as black as sweeps the last time I saw them, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they got taken away from her. I mean, we’ve loads of poor people round here, but she’s in a class of her own when it comes to filth. I bet she’s sold all the funeral clothes. There’s nothing for her here, nothing for any of us. But will she listen?’

‘No,’ they both chorused.

Mel kissed her mother, wheeled her bike into the street, and left her old life behind. With her usual positive attitude, she looked forward, never back. School would be nearer, Mam was going to be safe, while the rest of her family lived beyond the reach of danger.

Eileen pulled herself together. It was time to go. Without another glance at her home, she walked out, locked the door on her past and put both keys in her bag. This was going to be the hardest bit, because Kitty’s decline had worsened since yesterday, when Mam had left for Bolton. Neighbours had been alerted so that the three young ones might be captured, fed, watered and cleaned, but Kitty was the biggest worry. If her mind had gone, Willows Edge would never cope, since they weren’t used to her dirty ways and knew nothing of her history. There was also the probability that, in unfamiliar territory, the woman would panic even more.

But there was no one in the house. The smell was unbelievably bad, and the movements of rodents could be heard even now, in daylight. ‘God help us,’ Eileen whispered. ‘But most of all, help poor Kitty.’

Nine

‘Are you sure you want me to drop you off here? You might need help with her if she digs her heels in.’ Keith stared at the front of a house whose windows had probably not been cleaned since the end of the Great War. The whole street was dark and dingy, but number four was spectacularly scruffy.

Nellie pondered for a few seconds. She studied the place in which she had lived and, after just three days away, found herself wondering how and why the slums were allowed to exist. ‘Right, put it this way, Keith. Most round here have become immune to her house and the state of it. For you, it’d be a shock, and you might catch something. Go and visit our Eileen, because you didn’t give her a definite time to expect you, and I’ll see you back here about three. The neighbours’ll help me round the kids up.’ Nellie paused again. ‘Go and see her, lad. She’ll be as pleased as Punch when you get there.’

‘Thanks.’

She touched his hand for a brief moment. ‘Good luck, love. She likes you. Only she’s been a bit distracted just lately what with one thing and another.’

Keith decided to dive in at the deep end. ‘By a Dr Tom?’

Nellie’s jaw dropped before she had the chance to control it. ‘How do you know about him?’ That bloody doctor got everywhere, or so it seemed. ‘He’s married with twins, and his wife deserves a bloody sight better than him by all accounts.’

He shrugged. ‘When she writes, I read the words she’s left out. Anyway, as you say, he’s married and I’m not.’ He sighed. ‘I know I’ve seen Eileen just once, and for a matter of minutes, but it was the same with Annie, and there’s been no one in between. I’m one of those blokes – it either happens, or it doesn’t. Usually, it doesn’t. I can tell from her letters she’s more than a pretty woman. So I fell headlong.’

She nodded sagely. ‘Yes. With my Eileen, it happened, whatever it turns out to be.’ She wasn’t surprised. Apart from her beauty, Eileen had a lovely nature when she wasn’t riled, and that nature shone in her eyes. ‘Are you sure?’

He chuckled. ‘Aye, and for the first time in over twenty years.’

‘Go and get her, then. I’ve three mucky kids and a crazy mother to find, God and the angels help me.’ She puffed out her cheeks and blew. ‘Oh, I don’t know whether I’m doing right. She’s not all there in her head no more, and Willows Edge might want rid. She doesn’t clean, doesn’t control her kids, can’t be bothered with anything. The last time she got excited was when she bought her new teeth. I mean, Charlie had been dead a week, and she was more bothered about her gob than she was about him and the funeral.’

‘Are you sure you don’t need me?’

‘When you get back to pick us up, I might find a use for you. Three o’clock, then.’ She laughed. ‘If you’re a few minutes late, I’ll understand. Love can’t be hurried.’

‘Stop mocking me, Nellie Kennedy.’

As she stepped out of the car, she blew a perfect, if rather loud, raspberry.

Keith left Nellie and drove off. He stopped at a barber’s on Scotland Road, had a second shave and a haircut, found a couple of little shops, bought a potted plant for Eileen and a little string of beads for Mel. He was a mere five or six miles from Crosby, but it would be a long drive, because he wanted to be with her now.

He travelled a route that ran parallel with the dock road, realizing how close Eileen’s ex-home was to ships and warehouses. Crosby, while further along the coast, was still next to the Mersey. She could be hit. But she would not leave Mel, and refused absolutely to interfere with the girl’s chances of a superior education. Had he been father to a similarly gifted child, he would probably have acted in the same way.

When he found St Michael’s Road, he was pleased to see that it was a good half-mile from the river, though that was no distance at all to an off-course plane with a load to drop before flying home on a teaspoon of fuel. But he had to be positive. She had made her decision, and she would stick to it. These were lovely houses, the sort that lay within reach of doctors, lawyers and business folk with old money and decent incomes. They hadn’t the potential grandeur of Willows, but they sat well beyond the pay packet of an ordinary working man.

He parked, stepped out of the car, then reached in for plant, beads and a brown paper parcel from the back seat. Eileen wouldn’t be offended, would she? She was too down to earth to take umbrage over a few small gifts. As instructed, he walked round to the back of the house and tapped on the kitchen door. Miss Morrison was ill, was downstairs, and she should not be disturbed by the front door bell.

When Eileen opened the door, he almost dropped her plant. ‘God,’ he muttered before he could check himself. ‘You’re more beautiful than I remembered.’

She just laughed. It was clear that she had grown used to such compliments, and she took all in her stride. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Miss Morrison’s having a nap, so I’ll put the kettle on and we can sit and chat. It’s good of you to bring Mam over. Oh, she said on the phone that Jay’s diabetic. That’s a shame. We all like him. He even made Miss Pickavance laugh.’ This was a far better man than Tom Bingley. There would always be Tom Bingleys, but men like Keith were rare. She liked Keith, and liking was important. And she desired him, which was strange, because most women were one-at-a-time people, but she decided not to think about any of that. Keith Greenhalgh was marriage material, while Tom Bingley was a balloon on a stick, bound to burst at some stage.

Like a man in a happy dream, he watched while she moved round her domain. She was elegant, graceful, lovely – too lovely to have come from the slum he had seen earlier. The stork had left a princess in a hovel, and she had thrived in spite of that. Her dress was in a material he thought was named crêpe something-or-other, green, with a square neck and a single imitation teardrop pearl on a black cord at her throat. Her hair was up, and tempting tendrils caressed the nape of her neck. He imagined lifting those curls and kissing the hollow just below her hairline and above the cord that held the pearl. He wished he could afford a real pearl. Even a genuine one would be outshone by this wearer.

She turned suddenly. ‘Scone?’ she asked, trying hard not to laugh again. He was lovely. He reminded her of an overgrown teenage boy who was having trouble coping with the onslaught of puberty. ‘Keith?’ And he was better looking than she remembered. He was certainly more handsome than Dr Ants-in-his-Pants. In fact, he was not far short of bloody gorgeous.

Keith blinked. ‘What?’

‘Do you want a scone with strawberry jam?’

‘Er . . . yes. Please.’

‘Right.’

She brought food and tea on a tray and sat opposite him. ‘I’ve enjoyed your letters,’ she told him.

‘Me, too. I mean I enjoy yours.’

‘Good. How are my boys? The same? Worse? Better?’

Meeting her eyes was difficult, just as it had been all those years ago with Annie. But if he lowered his gaze, he would be staring at her body, and that might be considered bold—

‘Keith?’

‘Oh, yes. They’ve had a job to stop Bertie sleeping with Pedro. He’s learning to groom him, and I’m cobbling together bits and pieces of gear so that I can start teaching him to ride. I like him.’

Eileen smiled sweetly. ‘Don’t be fooled. He’s just a younger version of the other two. How are they?’ She asked again.

Keith swallowed a mouthful of scone; he must not speak with a full mouth. ‘Erm . . . a bit bored. We got them a bike each, because they’re not interested in horses. I made a bargain with them. As long as they behave themselves and if I’m free, they’ll get to the cinema every Saturday afternoon.’

‘And my mother?’

‘I shan’t be taking her to the pictures. She’s still all clever comments, but she gets on very well with Miss Pickavance, so she’ll be all right. She’s capturing Kitty and the wild ones down the road as we speak.’

‘Good.’

The conversation dried. Keith passed the plant and the beads across the table.

‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘You’re a kind man.’

He reached for the parcel. ‘I was . . . I mean after I’d seen about the bikes, I went . . . The boys were wandering about town and . . .’ He gave up trying to talk like an intelligent person and thrust the package across the table. ‘Cloth,’ he managed. ‘Bolton market. You can buy patterns and pin them on the cloth, then you cut round and make a dress.’

Eileen was having more trouble keeping her face straight. This man wasn’t frightening or threatening, but he was adorable. He was carrying on an old-fashioned courtship with letters, poetry and gifts. Pleasing to look at, he possessed an innocence that was rare in modern humankind. He had loved Annie, and Annie had died. Now he thought he had found someone else who fitted his idea of perfection. She opened the parcel. Inside, several yards of cloth had been folded carefully.

‘They were ends,’ he said. ‘Ends of rolls, so I just had to take what was there. That blue will suit you. And the green. They’re definitely fents, but I looked for flaws and couldn’t find any.’

‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘And I make my own patterns. The gold colour will be nice for Mel.’ He was rooting in his pockets. What on earth was he up to?

‘Matching thread,’ he announced, slamming at least a dozen reels on the table. Several rolled off, and they both got down on the floor to retrieve the escaping objects. For a brief second, they came face to face before Keith stood up in a hurry and banged his head on a corner of the table. He was becoming thoroughly annoyed with himself. Always a competent communicator, Keith Greenhalgh had suddenly been reduced to the mental age of three, give or take a year or two.

She was touching him. She was looking at his scalp to see if there was blood. Oh, hell, she was kissing his injury better. And she was lifting his face, and he wondered whether she was going to kiss him properly on the lips.

‘You’re not bleeding,’ she informed him. ‘I think you’ll live.’ And he made ten of Tom Wotsisname. Bingley.

‘Good.’ This single syllable emerged from the throat of a fourteen-year-old whose voice still sought its true level. Well, that was progress, because he’d been an infant just moments earlier. Her face was so dangerously near. ‘I think I love you,’ he said. Had he said it or had he thought it? She was smiling. He had said it, and he was a clown.

‘I know you think you do,’ she replied. ‘And I think I may think the same given time. You’re the best idiot I’ve come across in a while. I collect idiots. My mother was my first.’

He blinked.

‘You know what I mean, Keith. We’re good friends, you and I. That’s the best basis for everything, isn’t it?’

He wasn’t sure about that. Both times, he had fallen without thinking, and friendship hadn’t figured largely in the recipe during the early days. He’d wanted Annie, and now he wanted this one. But it was more than the bed stuff; it was sitting together in the evenings, having a meal, going to the pub, visiting friends, laughing, drinking tea and cursing the government. And it was looking at her, just looking and enjoying what he saw, living with perfection even when it wasn’t perfect, when face cream covered skin, when hair was in curlers, when she was too tired to be pretty. So friendship was necessary, he supposed. ‘I don’t want to be just your friend,’ he said carefully.

‘What do you want, then?’

‘To be with you.’

‘That’s friendship. Sharing things, being in the same house, talking and laughing – that’s the cake before it gets iced. I worked out that people have to be joined at the head as well as by other parts. Laz was my best friend in the world. I missed me bezzie mate most of all, Keith. Fancying somebody isn’t enough.’

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘I was taking friendship for granted – it’s in the letters. I already know you and like you. From that, it was a small step.’

‘And you love me?’

He felt silly, stupid, inadequate. ‘It was the same twenty years ago,’ he said lamely. ‘Since then, there’s been nobody who mattered.’

This man would never hurt her. She would never fear turning away, because he wasn’t going to pounce, threaten, mither . . . Tom did all that. Sometimes, he drove past the house several times in a day, and she often wondered where he was going and whether his journey was really necessary. Petrol was already in short supply and—

‘Eileen?’

‘What?’

‘Is there someone else?’ He could not betray Nellie by mentioning the doctor.

‘No. I can’t fasten myself to anyone because of my three heroes. Bertie’s seven. It’ll be about ten years before I can think about myself. Where we lived, there was no way of containing them. I won’t inflict them on anybody, because they’re hard work.’

‘I agree that they’re hard work. But they can be improved.’

Eileen noted the challenge in his eyes. ‘You think you can tame them?’

‘I can try.’ He stood up. ‘Is it all right if I borrow a little kiss?’

She folded her arms. ‘And how do you pay back?’

‘With a second one.’

Shakespeare’s sonnets, dried flowers, his soul on paper. A flight of geese, the birth of a foal, the mending of a wall; all these he had given to her. Keith Greenhalgh was a tall, broad man, yet he was not intimidating. And she responded to his embrace, just as she had with Tom. Was she becoming a nymphomaniac, a trainee whore? She raised her hands and placed them on the back of his neck, because she didn’t want the kiss to end. Confused was not a strong enough adjective. This was a man she had known forever. ‘You’re adorable,’ she said when the kiss ended. ‘You owe me another one of those.’

Keith paid his dues. He forced his hands not to wander, and was careful not to push his body against hers. Etiquette had to be observed in most areas of life, and he was determined to be polite and controlled. His body had other ideas, but he would deny instinct and go slowly. She was too precious to be used for his own satisfaction.

The doorbell sounded, and Eileen broke away from her delightful visitor. ‘Get that, will you? I’ll make sure Miss Morrison’s all right.’

Keith reclaimed his ability to breathe before going to answer the door. He carried with him a slight smile, because Eileen had treated him like a member of the household – you do this, while I do that.

In the ex-dining room, Eileen found her charge fast asleep. Her hearing was deteriorating along with her heart, so the bell hadn’t disturbed her. Eileen smiled down on the old lady. When awake, this woman could talk all four legs off a table, but peace continued for now.

Not for long. Two people now occupied the kitchen, and one of them was clearly out of order. ‘Mam? What is it? Whatever’s happened?’

‘You tell her,’ Nellie said to Keith.

He had to hurt her. He had to be the one to say the words. ‘Eileen, your next-door neighbour won’t be coming back to Willows with me and your mother, because—’

‘Because she’s dead,’ Nellie said. He shouldn’t have to do the telling, so she needed to be brave.

Eileen dropped into a chair. ‘Kitty?’

Keith nodded.

‘But the kids?’ Eileen grasped her mother’s hand. ‘The kids, Mam?’

Nellie inhaled unsteadily. ‘She suffocated the poor little buggers. I found them.’ She began to rock backwards and forwards. ‘The smell. The terrible smell. I know the house stinks anyway, but this was . . . it was different. The police came. I had to answer questions, then they brought me here.’

‘Kitty?’

‘Was hanging in the back bedroom. All black, she was. The only white bits were her bloody teeth. How I got back downstairs I’ll never know. Just sat on her doorstep and screamed and screamed, I did. The police said it was unusual for a woman to hang herself. They usually swallow poison.’

Keith moved his chair and sat with an arm round Nellie’s shoulders. ‘Come on, love. She wasn’t right. I’ve heard you saying she wasn’t right. Sweetheart, don’t make yourself ill.’ He turned to Eileen. ‘Get Miss Morrison’s doctor. Your mam wants calming down.’

So the rivals met. Tom, forced to attend a woman who had given him a black eye before causing him to be attacked by a pair of dockers, doled out tablets and suggested that Nellie should not travel back to Bolton today, as she needed rest and quiet after the shock. Eileen explained the situation to Miss Morrison, who insisted that Nellie should share Eileen’s double bed, while the young man, whom she had not yet met, could use the small front bedroom, as her larger room was no longer furnished. ‘Terrible,’ the old lady said. ‘The husband barely cold in the grave, and now those poor, poor children. Feed everyone, dear. I shall meet your mother and Mr Greenhalgh later.’

While Eileen put her mother to bed, the two men stood in the kitchen. ‘So, you’re the land agent.’

‘Steward, yes. I’ve worked at Willows for about half my life. And you’re the one whose daughter’s a friend of Mel’s.’

‘Yes.’

Keith wanted to laugh. This situation put him in mind of childhood, when boys lined up to fight the king of the class. Anyone who beat the king took his invisible crown, and assumed the duty to defend it. This meant that a monarch fought every day on his way to school, at playtimes and at dinner time; even the homeward journey at the end of the day wasn’t safe. Once battered to within an inch of his life, he passed on the onerous position to the next lunatic in line. Keith had never been king. In his book, a king was a fool, and Shakespeare had proved that in at least one of his plays.

‘You have her boys?’ Tom asked.

‘Only on Saturdays. Nellie and Miss Pickavance look after them during the week. The youngest is settling; he has his own pony.’

‘Good, good.’

The doctor was clearly waiting for Eileen. He didn’t want to leave her in the company of Keith, who was fully aware of what was going on. The medic was handsome, married, and probably self-absorbed. He didn’t love or respect his wife, and he wanted Eileen Watson. ‘I’m staying tonight,’ Keith said. ‘If Nellie’s better, I’ll drive her home tomorrow.’

Tom lowered his head thoughtfully. ‘Look, I have work to do. Tell Eileen I’ll make sure the Maguires get a decent funeral. There’ll be no difficulty about declaring her of unsound mind, so she should be able to be buried with her husband. I helped then, too.’

Keith offered no reply. Tom Bingley was letting him know that he was already part of Eileen’s life, that he would control events resulting from three murders and one suicide. He was important, educated, middle-class and financially comfortable. And married, though he chose not to mention that fact.

‘I’ll . . . er . . . Tell Eileen I’ll see her later,’ Tom said.

Keith stayed exactly where he was while the doctor turned to leave. He knew with absolute certainty that Dr Bingley would leave his wife and family if Eileen said the word. He also knew that such a creature could never manage Philip and Rob Watson.

‘Young man?’ The voice came from the next room, and Keith tracked it to its source.

‘Help me up, please. Good. Yes, another pillow. Now.’ She smiled. ‘I’m Frances Morrison, and you are Keith Greenhalgh, so we can put the niceties out of the way. Would you make me a cup of tea, dear? Eileen’s with her mother. Oh, and a scone, please. Then you can tell me all about yourself. There are some pills marked two o’clock; she keeps them in the kitchen.’ The smile broadened. ‘This is the first time a man other than a doctor has entered my bedroom. Quite an adventure for me.’

‘Right. Tea and a scone, plus pills. Anything else?’

The old woman stared right through him. ‘She talks about you, enjoys your letters. You’re right for her. For obvious reasons, my doctor isn’t.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I’m not quite as deaf as I pretend to be. And I can walk further than people expect. The lady upstairs who found that poor family today has blacked his eye, I believe. She also set some of Eileen’s dead husband’s friends on him. He’s lucky to be alive, because we have some tough people on the docks.’ She looked him up and down. ‘I have never been married, young man, but I know a good match when I see one. And I see one now.’

Keith laughed.

But Miss Morrison had moved on. ‘They’re the first of Hitler’s Liverpool victims,’ she said. ‘The idea of going to live inland was too frightening, I suppose. Scotland Road has a quality too many of us ignore; it teems with all kinds of life, and humanity prevails. It’s a support system. She couldn’t leave her children, so she took them with her. Get my pills, there’s a good chap.’

In the kitchen, he found Eileen preparing Miss Morrison’s snack. ‘Is your mam asleep?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘The curtain between life and death’s thin, isn’t it? I should have stayed with Kitty.’ Suddenly, she staggered away from the tray she was about to lift. ‘She was already dead when Mel and I came here. I went in her house. The place was empty.’ She threw herself into Keith’s arms. ‘But it wasn’t empty. It had already happened, Keith. Thinking back, I never heard a sound from that place after Mam left for Willows.’

He pushed her into a chair before carrying the tray into Miss Morrison’s room. ‘Do you want this in bed, or shall we put you in the chair? Your pills are in the saucer.’

‘I’ll stay where I am. Go back to her at once.’

Keith carried his precious human burden into the front sitting room and closed the door. On a sofa, he held her until she ran out of tears before kissing her hands, her forehead, her eyes. ‘You did nothing wrong, love. It was nobody’s fault.’ He wished he had the ability to take her pain and feel it for her, as he could not bear the sight of her suffering. She was a giving person, a woman who cared. ‘Kitty can’t suffer any more, Eileen. Her children are no longer poor and deprived. In heaven, they’ll have shining faces.’

‘They were babies. If you caught them and hung on long enough to wash them, they were beautiful. Little Molly was just three. Kitty wasn’t well. There should be more help for people who get ill in their heads.’ She paused. ‘Kiss me on the mouth and let me know I’m alive.’

He followed her order, and she clung to him as if drowning. ‘You’re alive,’ he told her. ‘And while we’re alive, we should stick together and trust each other when it comes to your boys. You and I can manage just about anything.’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, what?’

‘Yes, I believe you, we’re a good team. But there’s a war to be got through when it starts. And Mel will be home in a while.’ She had to tell her daughter. Mam, who had discovered the bodies, should not be forced to relive yet again the scenes she had found in Rachel Street.

Eileen continued to cling to him, and Keith had an idea why. Sudden death often pushed people towards rash behaviour. Many a child was conceived in the aftermath of a funeral, because the bereaved hung on to each other in order to prove that life continued. ‘I’ll tell her if you like.’

‘Why?’

‘Because sometimes news as bad as this comes better from a stranger.’

‘And she’ll remember forever the first time you spoke to her. Meet her, by all means, but don’t be the one who tells her about Kitty and the children.’

Keith knew in that moment that Eileen was considering him as a potential suitor. She had spoken about the war as if she intended to be in his life when the conflict ended; now she was indicating that Mel should have a positive picture of him. ‘Can I be there when you tell her?’

‘Yes. Yes, I want you there, but let me say the words.’

‘All right.’

Through new tears, she smiled at him. ‘You sent me poems.’ ‘Yes.’

‘And letters full of word-pictures.’ ‘Yes.’

‘That’s friendship.’ ‘And more. Believe me, Eileen. It’s a lot more.’

Hilda Pickavance replaced the receiver and walked into the large kitchen. As ever, Philip, Rob and Bertie were reasonably well behaved in her presence. She should have been a teacher, as she would have needed no primitive weapons in order to keep control and hold the interest of her charges; Hilda was a born educator, but no one had noticed. And now she was alone once more with Eileen’s offspring, because their grandmother was being treated for shock.

As gently as possible, Hilda told the boys what had happened in the house next door to theirs.

‘Why?’ Bertie asked. ‘Why has she deaded herself and her kids?’

Mental illness was hard enough to explain to an adult; with children, it was a near-impossible task. ‘She was ill in her head,’ she tried.

‘A headache?’ The youngest boy’s eyes were rounded by astonishment. ‘She deaded her kids—’

‘Killed,’ interrupted Rob.

‘She killed Stephen and Lucy and Molly and herself because of a headache?’

‘Not that sort of ill,’ Philip snapped. ‘She went crackers. The thought of coming to live out here drove her mad.’ It was enough to drive anyone crazy, Philip believed. This dump was hell on earth, and Kitty Maguire had realized that. Sensibly, she had shuffled off before being landed with grass, cows, more grass, pigs, hens, goats, horses, more grass, walls, and a post office that sold paper, envelopes, stamps, matches, lamp oil and candles. Apart from all that there were hills with sheep on them. And a lot of grass.

‘She was afraid,’ Hilda said.

‘She was right to be afraid,’ Philip insisted. ‘Because if me and our Rob have to live here much longer, we’ll be out of our minds too.’ He folded his arms defiantly. ‘It’s horrible here, Miss Pickavance. The only good thing is the food, but we can’t sit eating all day, can we?’

Hilda pursed her lips and thought for a moment. ‘We’ve found you a school. It’s two miles away, and that’s no distance on a bicycle.’

‘Or a horse,’ Bertie cried.

‘It’s a school for older children,’ he was informed. ‘You’ll stay here with me. And when you do go to school, there’ll be no stable for Pedro, so forget that idea. Now, look at me, all of you.’ She waited until all the scuffling and whispering had ceased. ‘You are silly, ungrateful and petulant boys. Not you, Bertie. You are safe here, all three of you. Have you any idea of what is about to happen in Liverpool, especially near the waterfront?’

‘No,’ the older pair chorused.

She continued. ‘Since the reign of King John, Liverpool has been the gateway to the Atlantic. It’s the biggest docks in the world. Weapons and ammunition will be brought there for distribution. Germany will be aware of that, and bombs will be dropped. Do you want to die?’

They shook their heads.

‘I can tell you now, only London will be harder hit than Liverpool. You are here to stay alive. Now, go to your room, because I have things to do.’

When the boys had left, Hilda sat and gazed into the fire. She remembered that thin, almost toothless young woman who had lived across the street, three children clinging to her skirts, two girls, one boy, all dirty and with tangled, curly hair. The husband had come home from time to time, then his brief appearances stopped when he drowned in drink and the River Mersey. Kitty had finally got her teeth, and Dr Bingley had paid for them to be made more comfortable. Dead. All three children dead, the mother hanged in a back bedroom. Horrible.

She missed Nellie. There was something so solid and comforting about the woman, as if she knew everything there was to know about life. But poor Nellie was in shock, so she, too, clearly had her limits. One good thing had come from this dreadful mess. Eileen and Keith were together for a little while. They were well suited. If anything decent were to come from this war, a marriage between those two would be a clear winner. It was a match made in heaven, though hell had to be visited first.

Mel took it badly. Keith watched two beautiful women trying to comfort each other and, after deciding there was little else he could do, took over the cooking. Eileen picked at her meal, Mel made no effort, and Nellie slept through it, though Miss Morrison was complimentary. ‘Not just a pretty face, then, young man. How are they?’

Keith gave the best account he could manage.

‘So no one’s eating?’

‘No.’

‘Put it all in the larder. We can’t waste good food while there’s a war on. I need the pills marked five o’clock, and ask Eileen to come in when she’s in a better state, poor girl.’

While washing dishes, Keith realized how easy it was when a person lived alone: one cup, one plate, a few items of cutlery. Even so, he’d give up his freedom in a flash if Eileen would have him. Perhaps she would have him. After the war, after her youngest had had a few more birthdays, after Mel had gone to Oxford, Cambridge or wherever. Mel was a gorgeous girl, but he wondered whether she would ever match her mother for beauty. He didn’t doubt for one minute that no one could be as beautiful as Eileen. Could he possibly be prejudiced?

Mel went upstairs, Eileen sorted out Miss Morrison, and Keith found a book on the history of Crosby, amazed to discover that there was still a manor house in which the descendants of Blondell the Viking lived, that a person had to be a Catholic to have a cottage in Little Crosby, that any minerals found anywhere on any land reverted to the Blundell family. ‘It’s still feudal,’ he muttered. ‘The only completely Catholic village in England. All that’s changed is the spelling, from Blondell to Blundell. Well, we live and learn.’

Eileen entered the kitchen. ‘They want toast,’ she said. ‘Miss Morrison’s asleep, but Mam and Mel have ordered toast and tea.’ She passed him the toasting fork. ‘You hold that in front of the fire and I’ll find you some bread to stick on the end of it. I wish . . .’ She started to cut the loaf.

‘Wish what?’

‘That you were staying permanently. I feel safe with you here.’

For now, this had to be enough. She wanted him in her life, and he toasted her bread.

Eileen was a bad woman. She was sitting on the stairs holding a lighted candle and wearing no more than a thin nightie, and she knew he was just feet away. What the scouse with pickled beetroot was she thinking of? Was she nursing a vague idea that if she gave herself to Keith, Tom the Torment would disappear in a puff of smoke? No. She wasn’t quite that daft. ‘I’m an honest woman,’ she told the banisters. She had kept herself to herself since the death of Laz, and—

His door opened. ‘Eileen?’ he whispered.

‘What?’

‘Are they all right?’

‘Yes.’

He came to sit next to her.

‘Hello, Julius,’ she said. ‘Or are you et tu Brute?’

‘Keith will do, thanks. Are they asleep?’ He hung on to his sheet. ‘No pyjamas,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t wear them anyway, but I would have brought some with me if I’d known. Are they asleep?’ he repeated.

‘Both doped,’ she told him. ‘Mam had a double dose. It said on the bottle two at night if required.’ He was virtually naked, as was she. ‘And Mel was crying, so I knocked her out, too.’

‘The Crosby poisoner,’ he breathed. ‘And you’re wide awake.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘You’re the same. Why?’

Keith chuckled quietly. ‘Only the guilty answer a question with a question.’

‘I can’t work out what’s the matter with me,’ she said. ‘But it’s as if I’ve known you all my life. A woman I cared about died today, and all I can think about is being with you.’

Yes, here she came, the girl he loved. The honesty that always shone in her eyes was pouring softly from lips he wanted to devour, but he continued to hold on to his sheet. Eileen was capable of naughtiness. This delightful trait, coupled with intelligence and humour, was all he wanted in a wife. ‘I won’t take advantage,’ he declared.

‘No, but I might.’

‘You mustn’t.’

She looked him full in the face. ‘Never tell me what to do or what not to do. I’m contrary. You’ll notice the same stubbornness in my sons, and in my daughter. So.’ She touched his hand. ‘You don’t want me?’

‘Don’t talk daft.’

‘You do want me?’

‘Stupid question.’

‘You’re as bloody-minded as I am.’

‘Yes. I don’t want to face you tomorrow if you have regrets.’

Eileen stood up, climbed the top few stairs and entered the room she was currently sharing with her mother, who snored. She wondered whether Keith snored. If she spent the night with him, she might find out. In the interests of research, a person needed to gain as much information as possible in order to compare and tabulate results. Who was she kidding? She had met her Waterloo and her second husband. The boys would do as they were bloody well told, and that would be an end to their shenanigans. ‘I may be in love,’ she told her sleeping mother. ‘And if you wake, you’ll know where I am.’

Mam didn’t approve of sex outside marriage, but Eileen nursed the suspicion that an exception might be made in this case. Everyone liked Keith. Even Mel, who’d been terribly upset about the Maguire family, had voiced her approval. As for Tom Bingley, he could hang himself out to dry, because his luck was running out fast. Hang himself? She shouldn’t have thought those words, because poor Kitty . . .

In the bathroom, Eileen cleaned her teeth for the second time tonight. She washed her face, combed her hair and walked into his room where she pressed herself ham-actress-fashion across his door. ‘I must tell you something,’ she said in a voice that wasn’t a bad imitation of some Hollywood queen. ‘I have stretch marks.’ She blew out her candle.

A small night light burned on the mantelpiece, and the pair gazed at each other in the glow of its meagre flame.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

‘You can look at them if you like.’

‘Eileen!’

‘What?’

‘Are you sure about this?’

‘Yes. There’s something about you I can’t ignore, as if we’ve met before. And I know you feel the same, so why wait? The worst that can happen is a baby, and we’d cope. Don’t worry, I think I’ve already decided to make an honest man of you, Keith Greenhalgh. I’ll still respect you tomorrow after I’ve had my wicked way.’

‘Come here.’

So for once, Eileen did as she was bidden. She perched on the edge of the bed and on the hemline of sin while he looked at her sternly, as if he were her father. ‘What’s the matter?’ she mouthed softly.

‘Dr Bingley is the matter. And don’t bother asking how I know, because I felt the change in the tone of your letters. Also, he made it perfectly plain today that he regards you as his property. Don’t mess me about, Eileen Watson. You’re beautiful, and you know how I feel about you. But the world is not your oyster. This is a difficult moment for me, and it can’t be easy for you, because you know how beautiful and desirable you are, so rejection’s something you won’t expect. Yes, I love you; no, I won’t share you.’

Eileen stared down at him. He was in even deeper shadow now, since she sat between him and the candlelight. She was angry, mostly with herself.

‘You have to work out whether you want to be a rich man’s mistress, or a working man’s wife.’ He sighed. ‘He stood in that kitchen today and looked at me as if I were rubbish.’

She rose to her feet. ‘You don’t know me at all. There’s been no one since Laz, because I respect myself too much. Tom’s a pain in the neck, but I’m used to that kind of thing. But you?’ She raised both hands in a gesture of despair. ‘I decided, very foolishly, that you were probably right for me.’

‘So go away and lose the probably.’

‘Did you wonder about Tom when you kissed me?’

Keith considered that. ‘No. I thought about this moment, all the time knowing that it shouldn’t happen yet. Courtship takes time. Because of the way I am, love comes suddenly and not often. You’re female.’

‘You noticed.’

‘Yes. Females calculate. If you watch the animal kingdom, the males have to work themselves silly. Their mates think long and hard, because they’re the ones who get invaded and impregnated. Humans are the same. Do your thinking. If you need to sleep with him, get it over with, but don’t try me for size first.’ He paused and smiled. ‘That wasn’t intended to be vulgar.’

For a while, she didn’t know what to say. He was sending her away, and she hadn’t expected that, but, as a Liverpudlian woman, she needed the last word. ‘I wasn’t intending to give you a reference, or marks out of ten for performance. I came here because the probably had begun to disappear. Big mistake, eh?’

‘Eileen?’

‘What?’

‘I love you. I love you too much to lose you by that mistake.’

With that, she was forced to be satisfied. Back in her own room with a snoring mother for company, Eileen spent a sleepless night. How could she meet his eyes in the morning? Why had she placed herself in such an embarrassing position? But that was just pride. The fact was that Tom flaming Bingley was stamping on her life, and nothing this side of death seemed enough to put a stop to him. Keith, an old-fashioned type with Victorian values, was too sensitive for his own good. There was no probably. The probably had died while she’d read his letters, because their minds had met. Which fact didn’t mean they would always agree, but the fights would be fun.

When morning came, she went down to prepare the coddled egg and milky tea that were her patient’s usual breakfast. She carried in the tray, placed it on a bedside table, and found Tom Bingley on her heels. ‘I’m here to see your mother,’ he said. ‘Good morning, Miss Morrison. How are you today?’

But the old woman was concentrating her attention on Eileen, who didn’t seem right. Frances Morrison leapt from her bed with surprising alacrity just as her carer fell in a dead faint. ‘Pick her up. Put her on my bed. See if her heart’s good.’

‘Just exhaustion,’ he said after a brief examination. ‘She probably didn’t get enough sleep.’ He listened to Eileen’s heart. ‘Yes, she’ll be fine. I’ll leave a tonic.’ Had she been kept awake by Keith Greenhalgh?

Frances Morrison had seen and heard enough lately. She had to do something about this situation. ‘Now, I don’t want you to take offence, but in future I’d like to be attended by Dr Ryan. I think you know why.’

‘What? No, I don’t know why. Have I neglected you in some way?’

‘No. You’ve been very attentive, especially since Mrs Watson came to live here. I’m not quite as deaf as I appear to be. Thank you for all you have done, but leave us now. She and I will care for each other, and Dr Ryan can look after both of us. Goodbye, Dr Bingley. I shall get Dr Ryan to look at Mrs Kennedy when she wakes from her drug-induced sleep.’

This conversation drifted into Eileen’s ears as she neared consciousness. She opened one eye and looked at Tom. ‘Hey, you,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘Shut your mouth. There’s a tram coming.’

Frances Morrison turned to face the window. She wanted to laugh, but she mustn’t . . .

Ten

Nellie was complaining about musical beds. She had left her place of rest, and her daughter was now flat out on the same mattress because she hadn’t slept a wink. ‘Never mind,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll go downstairs and get to know Miss Morrison, then you can go and live at Willows. We should get you out of here and away from you-know-who.’

But Eileen was having none of that. ‘I’m not leaving Mel. We’ll take turns, like we said. And I have to think about stuff. When it starts, I’m going to be there, do my bit for my country.’

‘Eh?’

‘The bombs. There’s a war on in case you’ve forgotten. I know people are calling it a dummy war, but it won’t always be this quiet’

Nellie dropped onto the dressing stool. ‘And what good will you be to Mel dead? What good will you be to anyone?’

‘Mam, you can say that about any mother or father. I’m joining the WVS and I’ll do my knitting and stuff here. But when it all kicks off, I’ll be at my post on Scotland Road. It’s not just soldiers and sailors, you know. We all have to fight for our children. Don’t start. I am going to help in this bloody war no matter what you think or say. It’ll be for a couple of hours a week, and Mel can mind Miss Morrison. Go and look after that old lady. She sacked him.’

‘Sacked who?’

‘Dr Thomas Bingley. Tell Keith I want tea, toast, butter, marmalade and something to read. Probably.’

Nellie folded her arms. ‘So you got rid of one, and you’re ordering the other about as if he’s already wed to you? Our Mel’s the same. She changes when there’s men about. Like you, she knows her power, doesn’t she?’

‘Probably,’ Eileen repeated. The probably had to go. Keith had said last night that there couldn’t be any probably, because she had to love him and only him. He had made a takeover bid, and she was sorely tempted, but the war needed to be over first, didn’t it? Did it? At this rate, they wouldn’t get to kick off till about 1950, by which time there’d be no sugar, no petrol, no fruit . . . She couldn’t do without him for that long. Yes, she loved him. Probably. He made her tingle, anyway.

‘Are you listening to me, soft girl? Did what I found yesterday mean nothing? You’ll be as dead as Kitty if you start bloody WVS-ing.’

But Eileen had made up her mind. Everyone was in danger. The whole of society in several countries was being threatened by a jumped-up jackass with a toothbrush under his nose and eyes that seldom blinked. That, she had read somewhere, was a symptom of psychosis, so he was likely to be as mad as a frog in a bin. He was also unforgivably ugly, and she was going to help to save people from the craziness of a man who was rumoured to have lived for a while in Liverpool. ‘Upper Stanhope Street,’ she declared. ‘I bet you never knew about that, eh?’

‘You what?’

‘Hitler lived there until 1913 with his brother Alois and sister-in-law Bridget. She was Irish.’

Nellie made the sign of the cross. ‘God bless us and save us,’ she muttered. ‘We nursed the devil in our bosom, may the angels preserve our souls. That’s terrible.’

Mam was funny. Reared by an illiterate but wise Irish mother, she was full of little sayings and prayers that sounded as if they were issuing from someone born in County Mayo. She’d start singing ‘Faith of our Fathers’ in a minute. ‘Mam, I fainted. Food would be good.’

Nellie stalked out of the room and went downstairs. No sooner had she entered the kitchen than he started his mithering. How was Eileen, was she looking better, did Nellie think she’d be all right, should he take her to the hospital, did she need anything? He went on and on until Nellie told him to shut up, or she would remove his tongue by any means that came to hand. ‘Are you engaged to her or something?’ she asked, the tone trimmed with sarcasm.

‘Probably.’

‘What does probably mean, Keith?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Ask her.’

It had been a difficult time for poor Nellie. She remembered the Sunday on which war had been declared, remembered Kitty comforting her and telling her to bear up. But Kitty had been the one in true need of support. ‘I should have sent her first,’ she mumbled to herself.

‘Eh?’

‘Kitty,’ she snapped. ‘Look. I love the bones of that girl upstairs, but she’s not the centre of the bloody universe.’ She gave him a hard, penetrating look. ‘But she’s the centre of yours, isn’t she?’

He averted his gaze. ‘Yes.’

Nellie sat down. ‘Well, I can tell you this for no money, I would be made up. I would, lad. But let’s get on, shall we? You’ve to make her some toast and take it up. I’ve got to get sense out of that telephone thing and talk to Hilda. We may have to stay another couple of nights and sort out the funeral. In which case, you’ll need to go and buy underclothes. I can manage with our Eileen’s at a pinch, and it is a bloody pinch. So you do the queen’s breakfast while I sort things out with Miss Morrison. Oh, and Madam Butterfly says she’s joining the WVS and going into the bomb zone when it all kicks off.’ She marched off muttering that if it wasn’t one thing it was another, and some people should sleep at night instead of running after men and being too soft in the head to eat a decent breakfast.

When Keith finally got upstairs, Eileen was asleep. He placed the tray on a small table and sat with her. She had fainted due to lack of nourishment, yet he wasn’t happy about waking her. ‘Eileen? Come on, you have to eat.’

She opened one eye. ‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Getting a lecture from your mother.’

‘About what?’

‘Everything.’

‘Right.’ Having been a recipient of such diatribes for most of her life, she found his explanation acceptable. Between bites of toast, she delivered the opinion that Mam took some getting used to, and advised him to develop a degree of deafness. Miss Morrison found the affliction useful, and so would he when they got back to Willows. ‘Miss Morrison sacked Tom Bingley because he was getting on my nerves, not hers. So she’s heard him and me quarrelling, and that’s because she pretends she can’t hear. Just a suggestion.’

‘It won’t stop the doc chasing you,’ Keith said.

‘I know. I’ve had many a hopeful follower since Laz died, and I’ll manage, thanks. All you need is a giant flyswatter, because if you hit them in the fly it upsets them.’

She was better. She was feisty, slightly vulgar, and almost back to normal. ‘Come out with me,’ he begged. ‘Nellie’s getting to know Miss M, and I need to—’

‘I’m not leaving Mam. After what she went through yesterday, she needs me.’

The door swung inward. ‘Get some sleep, then go out with him. Me and Frances is getting along great, ta very much. Anyway, Dr Wotsit’s paid for the funeral, and they can all fit in with Charlie. But the bodies are down the hospital getting looked at. There have to be certificates before they get released. Me and Keith can’t stay here long, because Hilda’s stuck up Willows with them three.’ She looked Keith up and down. ‘If you’re going to marry this one, I hope you know what you’ll be taking on.’

‘Yes,’ he replied lamely.

The arms folded themselves yet again. ‘So? Are you starting courting, then?’

‘Probably,’ they chorused.

Nellie looked at the ceiling, her lips moving in silent prayer. Young people these days were rubbish when it came to decision-making. Eileen should grab this one, because he was house-trained, handsome and willing to have a go with the Terrible Trio. He could even cook, for goodness’ sake. ‘Go out with him,’ she snapped. ‘And thank your lucky stars for the man, because he’s a rare beast.’

‘That’s me told.’ Eileen drained her cup and lay back on the pillows. ‘Get lost, both of you. I’m having a day off.’

Nellie led her chosen son-in-law downstairs, where she delivered another lecture, this time on a subject entitled How to Win the Hand of Eileen Watson. There was a hefty sub-section pertaining to the boys, and a smaller essay on Mel, who liked clever people. ‘Can you play chess?’

He nodded. Getting a word in would have been difficult, so he decided not to try.

‘Cribbage and backgammon?’

Again, he inclined his head.

‘Good, so you’ll be in there with that one. The other three? Oh, bugger. But I think you’re on the right road with Bertie. Phil and Rob were older when their dad died, so they took it bad and started running wild. With me and our Eileen having to work, we couldn’t keep hold of them. She could do with marrying a prison guard, I suppose.’

‘I’ll manage. Don’t forget, I was a sergeant major, and that’s as good as any prison guard, Nellie. She’ll marry me if I have to break her legs.’

‘Don’t do that, love. She’s got great legs.’

‘I noticed.’

Nellie laughed. ‘And she’s a poser. Likes men looking at her, but she’s never looked at them, not till lately. As for our Mel, she’s got brains and street-wisdom, so she already knows how to get attention and how to manipulate idiots. She loves male company, but she’ll flirt with you.’

‘I’ve told you, I’ll cope.’

‘Make sure you do. Take madam to the pictures tonight. There’s that Gone with the Wind one, always makes me think about somebody what’s ate too many sprouts. Withering Heights, or whatever it is, Wizard of Oz, then Boris Wotsisface messing about in the Tower of London. Plenty to choose from. Take her in the back row for a cuddle, she likes a cuddle. And liquorice allsorts. See? Job done.’

Keith loved Nellie’s philosophy. She saw a gap in the market, sucked on her dentures for a second or two, then filled the space. Eileen was aware of her desirability, seemed interested in him, so liquorice allsorts, a good film, a cuddle in the back row, a chance. Mel, on the other hand, was aware and educated, so she would need watching. Whatever, he seemed to have passed the unscheduled interview, and Nellie had appointed him keeper of the keys to some dungeon in which he would be expected to store her grandsons. By default, he was now guardian of Mel’s chastity, and husband-in-waiting for Nellie’s daughter, because Nellie had decided. Scarcely addressed was the rest of the equation, because Nell and Eileen came as a pair, and mother-in-law would definitely be nearby or in the household. If they ever achieved marriage, that was.

Strangely, he didn’t mind any of it. His disposition was inclined towards the let-it-be school of thought, and matriarchy didn’t frighten him. Nellie was a sensible woman underneath the aprons and behind the pot teeth. There was no harm in her, and he adored her daughter. It would all work out, he reassured himself.

They didn’t go to the cinema. Instead, the pair sat in the rear seat of Hilda Pickavance’s car, ate fish and chips, found a rug and cuddled up together under a full moon whose mirror shone in the Mersey behind a row of railings. Their thoughts were shared, though largely unexpressed at first. This angry stretch of water, governed by the Irish Sea and the silver body that currently hung in the sky, was peaceful tonight; scarcely a ripple, no sound, no need to be afraid, not yet. ‘It will happen,’ Keith said at last. ‘Once the Krauts have airstrips in France . . .’

‘Yes. Yes, it will.’

‘Are you frightened, love?’

Eileen nodded. ‘Only a fool could fail to be afraid. It’s too quiet, too eerie. But you can feel it, can’t you? Like when there’s going to be a thunderstorm and you get a headache. Oh yes, they will come here. And they’ll bomb us and burn us, so we’ll bomb and burn them. Even if you leave the people out of it, look at all the wonderful buildings that’ll be lost. Such a waste. War is stupid.’

‘It is. I remember the last lot, and I wish I didn’t.’

The kissing and whispering started, and by half past ten they had begun to explore one another in the exquisite discomfort of a confined space. Among chip papers, and surrounded by the heady perfumes of vinegar and cod, they became aware that the future was deciding for itself. ‘I didn’t need the liquorice allsorts,’ he said. ‘And what happened to probably?’

‘It died in its sleep. Come on, we have to get back. Mam will be wondering where I am.’ How on earth could she have imagined that she was attracted to Tom Bingley? This man had soul, kindness and a generosity of spirit that was rare in humankind. And he was a very desirable property.

‘She’ll think we’ve had sex.’

‘Well, we nearly did.’

He burst out laughing. ‘I’m old enough to be needing a bed for that sort of malarkey. Gone are my days for jumping off wardrobes wearing only a big smile.’

‘Have you really done that?’

‘No, but a man can dream. When we eventually do the deed, I’ll probably have to recuperate for days in a darkened room with a wet cloth over my eyes, because I’ve never done it with a woman I love.’

‘You said probably.’

‘Did I?’

‘Probably. Let’s get back before the Germans come.’

They returned to what Eileen described as chaos on wheels. Miss Morrison, in what she referred to as her chariot, was at the kitchen table with Nellie, and she was normally in bed long before this time. She hadn’t quite mastered the art of steering, and the whole ground floor bore scars from her twisting and turning, particularly in doorways.

Nellie had been weeping. She looked at her daughter and probable son-in-law, and made just a few remarks. ‘Your buttons are wrong, girl. Keith, if you’re going to mess about with bits of me daughter, put them away properly before bringing her home.’ She covered her tear-stained face and shook her head slowly from side to side.

In spite of everything, Miss Morrison had to choke back a giggle. She hadn’t had this much fun since being locked in the school cellar with a caretaker whose jokes had been rather risqué. But this was not an occasion for hilarity. There was trouble afoot, and no one should be laughing, because Nellie was terrified.

‘We’re courting,’ Eileen said.

‘I should think so too, with the bloody state of you. He looks like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards as well. It’s like having a pair of blinking teenagers in the house, both ragged after billing and cooing all over the shop. Eileen, love, they’ve gone missing.’

Eileen looked down at her bosom.

‘Not them, you soft mare. Your two eldest, my grandsons. They’ve buggered off with bread, boiled ham, cheese and two bikes. Oh, and a couple of bottles of dandelion and burdock. The only hope is that they’ve overloaded themselves and won’t get far. And money. They’ve took a few bob.’

Eileen dropped into a chair. ‘In the dark?’

Keith, hands in trouser pockets, was staring at the floor. He’d remembered something. ‘They’ve become very interested in maps just lately,’ he said. ‘I should have known it was too good to be true. They didn’t want a horse, they wanted a bike each. A few times, when there was a clear sky, I caught them staring at the evening sun. So they’ve worked out which way is west, and they’re on their way to Scotland Road.’

‘I’ll kill them,’ Eileen declared.

‘You’ve to find them first,’ sighed Nellie. ‘Miss Pickavance is halfway out of her brainbox. Neil and Jean have taken her and Bertie down to Home Farm, but she can’t stay there in case the two heroes return and there’s nobody in to flay them within an inch of their lives. What next, eh? We don’t need a bloody war, because we’ve already got one. Poor Kitty, now this. Come on, Keith. We’d best get back to Willows.’

But he put his foot down hard. Driving any distance in a blackout was not a good idea. The boys would not be visible at night, and if they had any sense they would have found somewhere sheltered to sleep. And what was the point of going to inland Lancashire when the lads were on their way to Liverpool? ‘Let the police look for them till morning, then Eileen and I will go down the road and find the little devils. From now on, they will work with me and the farmers. Miss Pickavance should not have to put up with my . . . my charges.’

‘What if they get run over and killed?’ Nellie screamed.

‘They won’t,’ Eileen told her. ‘The devil looks after his own.’

Miss Morrison nodded thoughtfully. ‘I always found the complete removal of all privileges to be effective, but that was in a school environment. You are right in your decision to put them to work. Find a farmer or a farmhand you trust, and hand them over. No puddings or treats until they have proved themselves. If they cooperate, open up a small bank account, but don’t allow them access to money unless they have been spectacularly good. Reward decent behaviour and withhold all possibility of reward if they don’t buck up.’

‘Didn’t you teach girls, though?’ Nellie asked.

‘Oh yes, indeed. Girls are more cunning, and they refine their skills at an early age. Boys are difficult, but rather less aware of the action and reaction process. They tend not to think things through very well. So it isn’t difficult to stay one step ahead. Oh, and if you find them in Liverpool, Mr Greenhalgh, bring them here. I should like to meet these fine young men. Eileen? Put me to bed, dear.’

Nellie and Keith were left alone. She looked him up and down. ‘You and our Eileen, you didn’t . . . ?’

‘No, we didn’t. And forget about that till we’ve found Philip and Rob. I’m worried in case the police get them. From what I’ve heard, they’ve come pretty near to being sent away, and we don’t want them in Borstal, do we?’

She sighed heavily. ‘It won’t happen. This country’s full of runaways trying to find their way home from evacuation billets. But you’ve got to catch them, love.’

‘I know. I promise you I’ll get them back. Go to bed.’

But Nellie had no intention of going to bed. She was staying near the phone, and she would be here if the police rolled up with that pair of ragamuffins. Like many women, she displayed fear as if it were anger, and her only consolation was a picture of herself with her hands round Philip’s throat. At eleven, he should have had more sense.

Mel wandered in, balled hands rubbing her eyes. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘It’s like trying to sleep in the middle of a playground.’

Nellie explained, adding a brief remark about Eileen and Keith courting.

‘Good,’ Mel said. ‘I like you, Mr Greenhalgh. I’ll make some cocoa. And don’t worry about that pair, since they’re sure to be noticed. They couldn’t escape from a plate of blancmange, because they’ve only one brain cell between them, and they’ve lent that to Bertie. The youngest has more sense than the two of them put together, but then so has a dead rat. Anyone else for cocoa?’

Midnight found Nellie, Mel, Eileen and Keith sipping hot cocoa at the kitchen table. Tales of the boys’ exploits were bandied about, and Keith found himself suppressing laughter yet again. The humour was an unexpected bonus, and he relished it. The pair had brought home dogs, sacks of molasses, coal, rotted fruit from the back of Paddy’s Market, and half a pig pinched from the yard of a butcher’s shop. ‘What did you do with that?’ Keith asked.

‘We ate it, of course,’ Nellie answered. ‘It was half a pig, it was dead, and it was in our house. It took some chopping up, but we managed.’

‘Double standards.’ Eileen touched his hand. ‘It happens where there’s poverty.’

‘I know,’ he answered. ‘I come from a similar background. I haven’t always lived in the glorious Lancashire countryside. Life’s hard.’

‘It’s what you make it,’ Mel announced with a toss of her head.

‘Drink your cocoa,’ barked her grandmother. ‘And be grateful, Miss Clever Clogs.’

It was dark, it was cold, and they were both fed up, though Philip remained determined to see the mission through. ‘What did it say on that last sign?’ his brother asked.

‘Lowton,’ Philip snapped.

‘Where’s Lowton?’

‘Near Leigh.’

‘Where’s Leigh?’

‘Near Lowton. Now shut up, or I’ll bloody strangle you. We have to find somewhere and wait till morning. That big road to Liverpool’s only a mile or so from here.’ There was a moon. The moon was the reason they were here, because they’d have needed to wait another whole month for light. Everywhere was blacked out, curtains closed, street lamps unlit, most people in bed. Rob wanted to turn round and go back, but Philip was adamant. Hell wasn’t about burning; it was mile after mile of open space, PLEASE CLOSE THE GATE, ill-tempered bulls, chickens scratching, cows lowing to be milked, no shops, no picture house, no human life.

‘She’ll be out of her mind,’ Rob said. ‘Miss Pickavance, I mean.’

‘But we won’t.’ Philip dragged the younger boy down the side of a house. ‘We’re going home. See? An Anderson. We’ll sleep in that tonight, and tomorrow we’ll be back where we belong.’

Rob wasn’t sure where he belonged. All he knew was that he needed food, warmth, and familiar faces. Sitting in a chilled Anderson shelter with dampish blankets was not his idea of fun. Sometimes, they had a fire in their bedroom at Willows, and it was cosy. The food, too, was good, and he didn’t mind digging up potatoes and carrots, because it was great to eat vegetables that had been grown on land belonging to the house.

Philip managed to light a small paraffin stove. ‘Now you can stop moaning,’ he said. ‘And in a few hours we’ll be back where we belong.’

Rob still wasn’t sure where he belonged. He wanted Gran. Gran was a pain in the backside, but he missed her. He’d have preferred Mam, but she was in Blundellsands or somewhere posh with an old lady and Keith Greenhalgh and Gran and Mel, because Kitty-next-door had gone to hell for murder and suicide, and it was all very confusing for a nine-year-old lad who just wanted a mug of hot milk and a warm bed.

But when Philip was asleep, Rob discovered that he hadn’t the courage to go off on his own, as Philip was older and knew where things were. And a two-hour stint on a bike hadn’t been good for the legs, so Rob laid himself down and ached. There was hardly any pop left, and most of the food was in a bit of a mess, as it hadn’t been wrapped properly and things were crumbly and rather mixed up.

Rob stared up at the corrugated container in which he was confined. At Willows, they had a double bed and a single bed, and they took turns. Bertie was funny; he didn’t like sleeping alone. Thinking about his little brother curled up all by himself made Rob tearful. His limbs hurt, his back hurt, his arms ached, and there was a hole in his heart where the life to which he had started to become accustomed no longer sat. What could he do, though? Was there a police station nearby? Would the police take him to that prison for young offenders in Derbyshire? And what about Phil?

At last he fell asleep. When morning came, Phil woke him, and they sneaked back up the side of the house. After just a few minutes, they were sitting on the grass verge of the East Lancashire Road eating crumbs of bread and Lancashire cheese. Although they were nearer to Manchester than to Liverpool, the end was in sight. Behind them, the sun had risen; ahead, their destination awaited their return, and although Rob prayed that they would soon be found, he followed his brother and hoped for the best. It would be an adventure, but surely they would be rescued soon?

‘Come on,’ Phil chided. He guessed that his companion’s heart was no longer in this expedition. ‘I don’t want to eat any more of that muck. When we get to Scotland Road, we’ll find plenty to eat.’

Plenty to eat? Mam had tried her best to make sure there’d been enough, but plenty had started first at Miss Pickavance’s house on Rachel Street, and had continued at Willows. Rob scarcely dared to ask, yet he managed. ‘Plenty? Who’s going to give us plenty, Phil? We don’t belong to anybody now.’

‘Then we’ll pinch it.’

‘And end up at that school for bad lads?’

Phil threw down his bike and took hold of his companion’s clothing in the neck area. ‘Listen, soft girl. If you want to go back, bugger off and see if you can remember the way. I’m going home.’

Rob swallowed. ‘Right.’

‘Are you with me? Because I’m telling you now, I could get there a damned sight faster without you holding me back all the while.’

‘I’m with you.’ There was nowhere else to be. Rob wouldn’t find his way to Willows in a month of Sundays, and they both knew it. So they carried on along a rough footpath that ran parallel with the new road. One way or another, Phil Watson would be home by lunchtime.

Things were changing at a rate of knots in the St Andrew’s Road house. Tom, having been dismissed by Frances Morrison, was no longer able to visit the woman he wanted. Advised by his daughter that Eileen and the Greenhalgh fellow were enjoying each other’s company, he was not in the best of moods. Then there was Marie. She was floating round with her feet about six inches off the ground, and she looked different. In fact, both females in the household looked different. Gloria’s skin had improved, her figure had developed in a matter of weeks, and she suddenly owned visible cheekbones.

Marie’s hair was softer, and it framed a face that seemed to be eliminating pockets of loose flesh at the jaw line. Her eyes appeared larger, waist smaller, legs better than ever. She sang a lot. He listened carefully when she was on the telephone, because she had a special voice for one caller. The business voice was employed for her WVS coven, but a certain person named Norman made her giggle and simper like a young girl. She imagined that she was in love. Tom knew Norman, since the chap had owned a few pharmacies, and he was about as interesting as drying paint, but Marie was clearly impressed by him. He was probably dependable to the point of predictability, and that would please Marie, who wanted life to be the same every day.

Tom no longer felt at home. In fact, he was completely isolated. Marie slept in the spare room, and was not always present at meal times. Never sure where she might be, he spent many evenings alone, and having once visited the hall in which the WVS met and discovered a locked door and no sound of life from within, he guessed that she was often with her new man friend. Peter and Gloria lived more or less upstairs, the former sometimes out playing badminton, the latter learning how to preen in front of a mirror. Life had gone crazy.

Driven by loneliness and boredom, he had eavesdropped not only on his wife but also on his daughter and Mel Watson. ‘Stick them out,’ Mel had ordered. ‘You are going to be gorgeous, girl. Belt as tight as you can bear it, belly in, tits out. If they don’t quite fill the bra, pinch a bit of cotton wool out of your dad’s bag.’

‘That’s cheating.’

‘It’s survival. When you talk to one of the other lot, lower your head a bit and look at him through your eyelashes – no! Not like that; you have to be subtle. Yes, that’s better. They mustn’t know that you know what you’re doing.’

‘But I don’t know what I’m doing,’ poor Gloria had cried.

‘You’ll learn. And don’t let them get close, always have witnesses. Remember, this is all rooted in survival of the species, so you’re working on their weaknesses, which are also their strengths, because they have powerful bodies. To get into a girl’s knickers, some would sell their souls. If you learn to manage them, you’re a winner. Make them want you. It drives them mad, and they start being nice and giving you things.’

Tom smiled to himself. He had given Mel a bike and money for clothes. She understood the game, had probably learned it from her mother. Part of him felt glad that Gloria was showing promise and that Mel had noticed the improvement. But the loss of innocence was sad. Even so, the father in Tom felt a degree of relief, because if Gloria followed Mel’s rules she might keep herself safe, at least.

His marriage was burned out. He would not be the one to leave, since he had nowhere to go apart from the flat above the surgery, but it looked as if Marie might be about to break her word for the first time within his memory. Would she take his children? Of course she would. Perhaps Peter might opt to stay behind, but Gloria would definitely accompany her mother. This was the lowest point in his life so far. And while Eileen Watson existed, Tom Bingley could not look at another woman.

He drove past the house whenever he could, often going well out of his way in order to have a small chance of seeing that wretched female. The knowledge that he hovered on the brink of obsession did not sit comfortably in his mind, because he’d attended his fair share of lectures in psychology, but what could he do? He loved the bloody woman, lusted after her, had no outlet for his frustrations.

It was after midnight when Marie came home. ‘Still up?’ she said brightly.

‘Apparently so. I’m downstairs and awake, so yes, I’m still up.’

Marie removed hat and coat. The man’s sarcasm made her want to shake him, but he was too big for that. But she could shake him in a more permanent way any time she chose. She could leave him, yes, she could and would. ‘I’ve a meeting in Manchester next week. Top brass coming up to teach backward northerners how to cope with the homeless. I shall probably be away overnight.’

‘Right. I expect Boring Norman will be away at the same time?’

Marie was ill-equipped for her husband’s games. Unlike him, she had not gone out looking for Norman, had not chosen him, had not even allowed him a kiss. ‘Don’t make the mistake of judging me by your standards. Norman is a good friend. He plays the piano while we make up parcels and fold slings and knit socks for soldiers. I have been to his house, as have some of the other ladies, and he has cooked for us.’

‘How nice.’ The use of the word ‘ladies’ was typical of Marie. She never got things quite right, always erring on the side of politeness, usually worrying about how things looked, and were they correct, and what would people think? ‘What will the community make of you when I sue for divorce and name Norman as co-respondent?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ she replied quickly. ‘But I would advise caution. Norman’s brother’s a barrister. A slander suit would do you no good at all.’ She walked out.

He suddenly found her almost desirable, yet he remembered only too well the non-responsive creature with whom he had shared a bed for years. What was the point? She was not combustible, had been born without passion at any level. It had taken a declaration of war to enliven her and give her a sense of purpose. Tom shifted in his chair. A doctor had to be careful when it came to putting himself about, so recent experience was minimal, but it occurred to him, not for the first time, that their failure in the bedroom could be his fault.

It wasn’t a comfortable thought. He was a medical man, so he knew more than most about the mechanics of sex. Foreplay? Marie didn’t like it, so he’d stopped bothering with it. She’d been a depository, no more than that. Stimulated by other women, he had used her mercilessly, and he was perilously near to the edge of self-hatred. This couldn’t go on.

Tom Bingley walked upstairs and into his wife’s room. She sat on the edge of a narrow bed, her face tear-stained, hands folded in her lap. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘No more. Because of the children, I won’t scream, but have mercy, I beg you.’

Wearing his doctor face, he sat next to her. ‘It’s all right, dear. I just want to talk. Do you mind talking?’

She shook her head.

‘Did you ever feel anything, Marie? When I touched you, I mean.’

She thought about that. ‘In the early days, before we married, there seemed to be a promise of something, but the only fruit it bore were the twins. The whole business is embarrassing and untidy.’

He agreed. ‘God has a sense of humour, you see. He put all primary sexual organs in the same area as the unpleasant end of our digestive tract. Then some silly ass came down a mountain with rules carved in stone, which were also designed to make us uncomfortable. Popes scream to this day about chastity, yet half the priests are indulging in some sort of activity.’ He paused. ‘Could you consider trying again if I promise to stop when you say so?’

‘It would always be stop.’ Her spine was rigid. ‘Yes, I’m afraid it would always be stop, Tom. It’s something I was born without, I think.’

No one was born without needs and desires. ‘You must have been born with the need for a partner and for children. Even nuns have it, though they dedicate themselves to denying that area of their lives. This Norman – you are fond of him, I can see that. Is it because you think he will never touch you? Do you desire him?’

With excruciating slowness, she turned to look at him. ‘He’s kind to me, Tom. I have been as dutiful as I could manage. I’ve been tolerant, useful, kind, and a fairly good mother. But I shall no longer do as I am told. Once upon a time, I did as I was ordered. Yes, Norman is a comfort. But nothing will come of it, because I know I’m frigid.’

‘You did as you were told when you were a child?’

‘Yes.’

Tom sat as still as stone. ‘Did anything happen to you when you were little?’

‘Can’t remember.’ She began to weep noiselessly.

Gently, he laid her on the bed and placed himself beside her. For the first time in many weeks, they were together. Tom and Marie Bingley, fully clothed and on a narrow bed, clung to one another and cried themselves to sleep.

Freda Pilkington, now the proud owner of two decent pillows and Nellie Kennedy’s best frying pan, was pleased to allow Nellie to use her house. She went out for a stroll with her children and her husband, who was due to report to training camp in a few days. Freda and her toddlers had been allocated the Willows cottage that should have gone to Kitty Maguire. Since poor Kitty and her children were to be buried on the coming Tuesday, Freda had moved up the list.

Next week, a charabanc would pick up and carry to Willows several children from the Scotland Road area. They would travel by train to Trinity Street station in Bolton, then would be collected in the coach and allocated to farmers and villagers for the duration. But two who had already been taken into the safer zone had absented themselves, and Nellie, Eileen and Keith were on the case. Nellie fastened herself to Freda’s window and waited. They would turn up in this, their own street, sooner or later.

Poor Mel had taken a precious day off school in order to mind Miss Morrison, and these two boys were in a chasm of trouble. No longer fearful for their safety, Nellie felt only anger. She looked across at the house in which she had lived with her daughter and grandchildren, then moved her eyes until they rested on Kitty’s place. Behind dirty windows, it awaited fumigation, after which all trace of Kitty and the children would disappear from the planet. Those panes were reminiscent of blind eyes, because Kitty no longer stood there and watched the small slice of life with which she had been familiar.

Among all this sadness and in spite of the dread of war, Nellie’s two older grandsons had taken off without a word to anyone. They seemed to care for no living soul, and they needed a firm hand. Yes, they had run wild since the death of their dad, but Nellie had worked five mornings and three evenings each week, while her daughter’s jobs had spanned four full days, because rent and bills had to be paid, food and clothes cost money, and both women were widows. But this time there was a plan. Thanks to Miss Morrison, the pair of ruffians would soon be too scared to breathe normally. ‘You’ll get your comeuppance,’ Nellie muttered. ‘Then I’ll nail both pairs of bloody feet to the floor.’

The door crashed inward, and Phil was thrown into the house. Behind him, a furious Keith entered. ‘Don’t you ever speak to your mother like that.’

Rob, his head bowed, followed Keith.

‘Where’s Eileen?’ Nellie asked.

‘She’s giving the bikes to kids who’ll appreciate them.’ He picked up the older boy, stood him against a wall and pushed his face to within an inch of Phil’s. ‘In fact, don’t talk to anyone until you’ve rinsed your mouth. What did Eileen do to deserve an odious little toad like you? You are grounded, boy. One wrong word, one dirty look out of you, and I’m the one you answer to. What you want doesn’t matter. Your unhappiness is nothing, because you’re just a small speck at the front of a big painting, and that painting’s a world war. You got taken up yonder so that you won’t get killed by a bomb. You get given a bike, and you run away on it. I can see Rob’s heart wasn’t in all this, so I am holding you fully responsible for the pain your mam and your gran have gone through. Nasty piece of work. Your father would be ashamed.’

Nellie guessed that this was probably the longest speech the quiet man had ever made. For Eileen, he would do anything, or so it would appear.

He spoke to Rob. ‘When I first went up to Willows Edge, I hated it. Like you, I came from an overcrowded street where everyone was poor. It grows on you, Rob. Give it time, son.’ He turned and winked at Nellie. They both knew that Rob would settle, because he liked growing his own food. Rob might become a happy soul, but Phil was more rigid. Phil had suffered when his father died, and it was showing now.

Eileen entered the scene. She stood with her back to the door, arms folded, lips tightened in her pale, tired face. ‘Get the car, Keith,’ she said. ‘I’ll stand guard.’ She moved to allow Keith to leave.

Phil stayed where he had been put, arms folded, face expressionless. For the rest of their short stay in Freda’s house, not a word was spoken. During this weighty, uncomfortable pause, the lad began to understand the enormity of what he had done. According to Keith, three police forces were out searching for the Watson boys. Bolton, Manchester and Liverpool were paying men to search not only for them, but also for other evacuees who had decided that the move from home didn’t suit them. He was eleven. He should have known better. Fear of leaving home was for little boys, not for the likes of him.

Eileen and her mother sat and allowed the quiet to continue. Let him have the chance to reflect on his actions, because the day would get worse for him before it got better.

It got worse.

Phil, the bigger sinner, was locked in Miss Morrison’s old bedroom, which contained one chair and a blanket. Rob, in his mother’s room, found himself well furnished but lonely. Both boys, isolated completely, were given hours during which to contemplate what they had done. Mam and Gran were trying to save them, and the two ingrates had thrown everything back in the faces of those they loved.

A silent, grim-faced Keith served meals on trays, returning only to remove debris before locking doors in his wake. No one spoke to them. In two separate rooms, clouds of foreboding gathered and hung in the air like the threat of thunder. Something was happening downstairs. They heard little, saw nothing, sensed disaster. Rob, flat out under his mother’s eiderdown, rested bones still weary from the endless ride; Phil wondered how old he needed to be to join the army and whether he would get his bicycle back.

The policeman came for them at about six o’clock. He had stripes on his arm, a face like a train crash, and very big feet in very shiny shoes. In the hall, he explained that courts were busy, so juvenile sessions were being convened out of hours in schools, other civic buildings, and occasionally the house of a magistrate. ‘Be truthful, polite and brief,’ the man advised. ‘Your future hangs in the balance. Miss Morrison is a magistrate of long standing.’

Three justices sat at the kitchen table. The one in the middle introduced herself as Miss Morrison, owner of the house in which Philip and Rob had been incarcerated. A public gallery, consisting of Mam, Gran and Keith, was wedged just inside the back door. The witness box, a metal walking frame belonging to Miss Morrison, was situated between a gas cooker and the kitchen sink.

When the two offenders had been sworn in, a list of crimes was read out by the police sergeant. It seemed that Philip and Robin Watson were responsible for all the ills in the world, with the possible exception of diphtheria and a couple of wars. In a moment of reckless clarity, Phil demanded a lawyer. ‘Silence,’ called the magistrate in the middle. ‘These are uncertain times, you are children, and your behaviour is beyond the pale.’

Phil wondered what a pail had to do with anything; it was just a posh bucket when all was said and done. They were now talking about suitable placement, and Derbyshire was mentioned again. Not only was the school for bad boys far away from family, it was far away from anything. He listened while the place was described. The words frying pan and fire paid a brief visit to his consciousness, because life in the Peaks sounded a sight worse than life in the house named Willows.

Mam was employing one of her hard stares, so both boys pleaded guilty. They were taken by the policeman into the hall while their future was decided. Phil, seated on the fourth stair, decided that he didn’t want to go to Derbyshire. Being locked in here had been bad enough; the thought of real captivity was terrifying. ‘We have to go back, Rob, and do as we’re told. Otherwise, we’ll finish up with a load of fifteen-year-olds who’ll beat the you-know-what out of us.’ He glanced at their minder. ‘Glad you think it’s funny. Hey! Put me down, put me down.’

‘There you go.’ The man deposited Phil near the front door. ‘Ever had a hiding from a cop, lad?’

In the kitchen, Frances Morrison was managing to keep a straight face, though the mother and grandmother of the accused had taken a break from the strain of this, their acting debut. The policeman and two magistrates had been borrowed from St Helen’s church drama group, while everyone’s scripts had been provided by Keith, who was also remaining stony-faced. The pair of malcontents would be placed under his charge in more than one way, as he would be their stepfather as well as their warden, and he intended to play both roles with more dignity than was currently being displayed by his future wife and mother-in-law. ‘Stop it,’ he whispered.

Eileen grabbed his hand. How could she have imagined feelings for anyone other than him? ‘We’ll be all right in a minute. It’s Mam. She can sense one of her turns coming on.’

‘Turns? What turns?’

‘Well, if she needs to laugh and can’t, she gets hiccups.’

‘Oh, bugger. Nellie?’

‘What?’ The first hiccup exploded.

‘Go in the shed. Go on. This is too important for you and your turns. They’ll know you’re trying not to laugh. Get out now. Take Miss Morrison’s shawl – try next door. Run any-bloody-where, but no hiccups in here, love.’

Nellie snorted, hiccuped and left.

Eileen’s grip on his hand tightened. ‘I love you,’ she whispered. It was the truth. He was magnificent, and getting to know him would be great.

‘You’d better. I’m taking on the Third Reich single-handed here. In recompense, I may decide to expect your hand, plus the rest of you, in marriage. Eventually. No, forget that. Bugger eventually, I’d rather have soon.’

The court reconvened with the policeman standing between the two accused.

A sentence of two years in a secure juvenile unit was handed down before the magistrates indulged in a whispering session. When all the muttering was over, the boys’ sentences were suspended for eighteen months. Rob didn’t fancy getting suspended, because it sounded rather like Kitty-next-door, but he became reassured when suspension was explained. If he or Philip put one foot wrong within the next year and a half, they would be thrown to the wolves for two whole years.

They were sent to share a single bed in the smallest of the bedrooms while Mr Greenhalgh slept on a downstairs sofa. One of the few good things about being poor was that folk got used to being squashed at night. Their door was not locked, because this was the first test; if they didn’t run, they had a chance of staying out of jail.

Morning found them sitting side by side on the edge of the narrow bed. ‘What we need is something to be interested in,’ Rob declared. ‘I think I like digging things up.’

‘Tell the vicar in Egerton,’ snapped Philip. ‘He’ll take you on in the graveyard.’

Rob drew himself to full seated height. ‘That’s not digging up,’ he said. ‘It’s planting. Soon, I’ll be setting spuds and carrots. Bertie has his pony and the rest of the horses, but what have you got?’

‘Paint,’ came the reply.

‘What?’

‘You heard. Don’t go deaf as well as daft. They said I have to get attached to Mr Collins. He does all the painting and mending, and he’s got something called sugar. That means he falls off ladders. I have to learn painting, mending, and picking him up off the floor. It’s an important position, being deputy handyman. Gardening, too.’ He sighed heavily. He had no experience of paint, mending, gardening or sugar. Unless the odd handful of stolen molasses counted as experience in sugar.

Mel entered the room. ‘Breakfast is served,’ she announced. Fully aware of the previous evening’s charade, she asked about their sentence.

‘We’re suspended for two years,’ Philip replied dolefully. ‘Mr Greenhalgh is in charge of us. And we have a book each. We have to write in it every night about what we’ve done during the day.’ He shrugged. ‘I hope we get a place in that school, wherever it is. School’s going to be a rest.’

Mel went downstairs to report to the chief magistrate. Miss Morrison had been a magistrate in real life, so she was the only kosher member of the previous evening’s shenanigans. ‘They’re terrified,’ Mel announced.

‘Good.’ The old woman attacked her coddled egg. She felt almost healthy, because life had become entertaining at last. There was a great deal to be said for distractions, as they took one’s mind away from one’s ailments. One’s ailments would be set aside for the foreseeable future, because Scotland Road had arrived on the cusp between Crosby and Blundellsands, and Scotland Road was interesting.

‘Do you need anything else, Miss Morrison?’

The woman in the bed grinned. ‘Not immediately, dear. But make sure they visit me before they go. Did I tell you about the time when I was trapped in the cellar with a vulgar caretaker?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, it’s been rather like that all over again. Did they really put someone’s undergarment up a flagpole?’

‘Yes.’

‘And a carthorse in the yard?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘The stolen police dog?’

‘It was nearly a police dog; it was still in training. I don’t know whether it passed its test after being exposed to the company of my family.’

Miss Morrison stared hard at Mel. ‘You know, my dear, you should write all of it in a journal. I have some nice hard-backed notebooks left over from my school. One day, this should be published. Like all good comedies, it sits against a background of great tragedy and deprivation.’

Mel chuckled. ‘It was never a tragedy, Miss Morrison. It was loud, colourful and sometimes hungry, but there’s nothing tragic about the Scottie Roaders. Outside the undertaker’s, there’s a coffin with Hitler’s name on it. The barber’s thinking of changing the name of his shop to It’ll Be All Right When It’s Washed, because that’s what mothers say to their sons when they get a haircut. They’re clever. One day, they’ll be remembered for what they really are.’

‘Which is?’

‘People, Miss Morrison. Special, but just people.’

PART TWO
1940

Eleven

Keith was a hungry man. Tender though never timid, he appeared to be making up for two loveless decades, since he seldom left his wife’s side for weeks following the wedding. After promoting Jay Collins to deputy steward and land agent over the whole Willows estate, he docked his own wages and followed wherever Eileen led. Miss Frances Morrison now had a beautiful house, as he had painted every room. Her old first-floor bedroom belonged to Mr and Mrs Keith Greenhalgh, who took great care of their generous landlady.

Eileen’s second husband was also very funny. Unlike Liverpudlians, he delivered few quick answers, preferring instead to simmer for a while before offering up a killer reply, usually after the subject under discussion had been long abandoned. Stony-faced and quiet-voiced, he could reduce a room to hysteria in seconds. He adored his Eileen, grew fond of Frances Morrison, and spent many hours in battle with Mel over a chessboard.

But his favourite pastime seemed to be kissing. When questioned about the frequency of the attacks, his stock reply was that every man needed a hobby, and it was her fault anyway, since she was far too beautiful for her own good. On one occasion, he wore a sticking plaster over his mouth, though it didn’t last, because Eileen’s giggling became contagious, and he laughed the plaster free. He submitted a written complaint to management, and her reply, delivered on the banks of her beloved river, was verbal. ‘Does all this kissing not make you want the rest of it?’

‘Yes.’

‘So?’ Eyebrows raised and hands on hips, she waited for his answer.

‘I’m good at procrastination.’

‘And I’m not.’

‘I know that.’ He gazed out over the river. ‘Ever had a bank account?’ he enquired.

‘No. The few times I’ve been in a bank, it’s been for Miss Morrison.’

‘The kissing is my deposit. I collect my interest at bedtime.’

A few beats of time slipped by while Eileen contained her laughter and made her face stern. ‘You are one devious and cruel swine, Keith Greenhalgh.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘True. Delicious though, isn’t it?’

‘I’m like a bloody pan left on a low light. Or a slow rice pudding in a lukewarm oven, do not disturb till Christmas.’

Keith awarded her his full attention. ‘You’re no pudding. You’re a diamond-studded rainbow with a pot of gold at each end.’

She wagged a finger. ‘Don’t be coming over all poetry, Keith. I can’t be poetical in the fresh air. Not here. Please don’t start kissing in public places.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ He looked at a beach donated to Crosby and Blundellsands by the Irish Sea, aided and abetted by the Mersey. This was a place where children played each summer, where families sat and watched ships lazing their way towards busy little tugs. ‘I see no ships today,’ he said. Hospital vessels were a too-familiar sight these days, sad, grey things marked with a red cross. ‘Hell will be packed with Germans, so we’d better put our names down for the other place,’ he quipped.

‘It won’t be packed with Germans at all. Just Nazis, and some of them are English.’ She pointed at the mix of sand and mud below. ‘Used to come here with Mam and some of my friends when I was a kid. Stripped down to our knickers, we were all the same. Rich, poor, or in the middle, we all played together. Look at it, Keith. What a bloody mess. They won’t land here. There’s been nobody invading Liverpool since the Vikings, because they’ve all learned the hard way that the natives are fierce.’

Five barrage balloons loitered idly in still air, while on the beach rolls of barbed wire kept company with dragons’ teeth: pyramids of concrete dug in to prevent any vessel from coming ashore. This was Liverpool, and Liverpool was Hitler’s second target, so it had to be guarded. The BBC Home Service mentioned from time to time a raid on a ‘northern port’, and everyone knew that all weaponry and ammunition passed through these docks, that citizens were living in mortal danger, that they would endure till the last brick had fallen and the last man was dead. But for the sake of security, Liverpool was given no identity in bulletins. According to statements from the War Office, spies were everywhere. A person could become paranoid with very little effort.

‘Keith?’

‘What?’

She swallowed. ‘We have to go home.’

He looked at his father’s watch, a battered piece that lived in a jacket pocket. ‘She’ll be all right for a few more minutes. Eh? What’s up with you?’

‘Home, Keith. Your home, so my home, too. Willows Edge, my love.’

‘Erm . . . why?’

‘Don’t kiss me.’

‘I won’t kiss you.’ ‘Promise you won’t kiss me.’ ‘I promise I won’t kiss you.’ ‘You’re going to be a daddy.’ He kissed her.

Hilda Pickavance, owner and mistress of the Willows estate, was a political animal with an inquisitive mind and a tendency to be inwardly critical of all who walked the corridors of power. Far from evangelical and allied to no party, she watched and made written comment on the performances of representatives local and national. In quieter moments, which were relatively few, she looked at her older writings while adding what she could manage about events of the day. Most of her recent essays were on the subject of Eileen’s boys, all three of whom had improved considerably during their year in the wilds.

Everything had changed, and not just because of the war. Down the road, amid the dark, satanic mills, poverty ruled. But the south had basked in glorious affluence until last year; it had hardly been fair.

The decade of duality was finally over. The 1930s, ten years during which Britain had prospered in the south and decayed in the north, had survived Wall Street because of one man, and that man was Neville Chamberlain. Swept aside to make room for Churchill, he was now a creature people remembered as naive. In the minds of the populace, he carried in his hand a crumpled paper signed by a liar, a monster, a nutcase. ‘There was more to Chamberlain than that,’ Hilda muttered to herself. ‘Perhaps he ignored the north, but he saved the Exchequer.’ He had built a wall around the islands, had traded carefully and wisely, had kept the country away from the brink of total perdition. ‘The good is oft interred with their bones,’ she quoted. Shakespeare was usually acutely and painfully correct, even in this day and age.

Jarrow had been horrible, but the fact remained that Victorian factories were already in decline, and manufactured goods were purchasable at lower prices from worldwide sources. A swathe of dire and infected deprivation had spread itself across northern counties, and life had been hell on earth. So they had marched and shown themselves, down at heel, clothes torn and tattered, heads high. ‘We are the same as you,’ that march had screamed. ‘And you are taking not just the cream, but the whole pie. While you eat, our children perish.’ Had anyone listened? Did anyone ever listen?

In the south, arterial roads were laid, houses with front and rear gardens were bought via mortgage by members of the middle class and, more recently, by ordinary working men. For less than a thousand pounds, such a house would have a garage. Factories that looked like exhibition buildings cropped up, and while many northern towns had unemployment of up to 60 per cent of the available workforce, the south was fully utilized except for 3 or 4 per cent who were too ill for work. Commuter rail systems were installed, and the south was very well, thank you.

And here came war. Ill-nourished and exhausted Jarrow marchers fought alongside healthy southerners, and the divide would still be there when the war ended. ‘We need a women’s party. We need to occupy the lobbies and the benches to show these silly little boys how to live creatively.’

The produce of another scribe lay alongside Hilda’s in a drawer of the bureau. Mel Watson had the eyes of an eagle and the ears of an alley cat, and she pulled no punches. The list was enough. Although Mel collected and recorded detail, it was safer to look just at the headings. In July, Altcar searchlight post was eradicated, but they missed Fort Crosby. August saw the battering of Birkenhead on the Wirral, and the first outright fatality was a female domestic servant. Wallasey came next, followed by Liverpool’s dock road and overhead railway.

West Derby received a shower of incendiaries, one of which hit a nursing home. Towards the end of August, just before the wedding of Eileen and Keith at St Anthony’s on Scotland Road, West Derby was pounded by high explosives. From early September to its end, there were sixteen raids on the city, eleven on Birkenhead, nine on Wallasey and four on Crosby. Walton Jail was hit, resulting in the deaths of wardens and prisoners, and, days later, the Argyle Theatre in Birkenhead was demolished and cremated.

There was humour, too. A crazed German fighter pilot fixed his sights on a Liverpool bus. Flying perilously low, he peppered the vehicle with bullets while passengers squeezed under seats. The driver was not amused. He leaned on his horn and ploughed on like a dodgem at the fair until the German got fed up and beggared off. No one was hurt except for a few bruises resulting from the driver’s actions, and the only victim of the airborne lunatic was a fireman’s hat, which got blown off and dented during the episode.

Smiling grimly, Hilda put away the writings and sat on her bed. Several good things had happened, and the best was the marriage between Eileen and Keith. Even an old maid could not fail to be aware of the chemistry between them. Better still, they were the greatest of friends and happy companions, while all four children had begun to respect their stepfather, so the future seemed bright. Except, that was, for the small matter named war.

Someone tapped on the door. ‘Come in,’ she called.

It was Bertie. He was as black as an old pot, a creased forehead betraying him as a thinker, and there was straw in his hair, but that was all par for the course. ‘Hello, Bertie.’

He announced that he now knew what a fetlock was before parking his less than clean person next to Miss Pickavance. ‘Miss?’

‘Yes?’

‘You know like a half-brother what we’re getting?’

‘Or sister. Yes.’

Bertie delivered a loud, damp raspberry. ‘We’ve got Mel, and she’s enough. We don’t want no more girls. Now, I’m not daft. I’m eight now, so I’m not a little ’un any more.’

‘Of course you’re not daft.’

‘I know a half-brother doesn’t mean one arm, one leg, one eye, one ear, one—’

‘Yes, yes. I’m sure you’re aware of all that.’

‘So what does it mean, then?’

Hilda opened her mouth, closed it again. She was a good teacher. She had been offered a place on a twelvemonth course created to bring more educators into the profession during and after wartime. ‘Well, your father was Lazzer. Lawrence was his real name, though. Splendid man.’

‘Yup.’

‘And Eileen’s your mother.’

‘Yup.’

‘Bertie, say yes.’

‘Yup. All right. I mean yes.’

‘So your half-brother or sister will be from the same mother, but a different father, and that will be Keith, who is now your stepfather.’

Bertie took a deep breath. ‘But dads don’t do nothing about a baby. It’s the mam what screams and swears and pushes the new one out of her bum. I know, cos I’ve heard it in our street. And what does “tell him to tie a knot in it” mean? That was what Mrs Pilkington yelled after she throwed him out in the street. He had to sit on the doorstep while she shouted swear words and that. Nearly crying, he was. I sat with him and he said I was a grand lad. Held me hand, he did. I felt sorry for him. Mams can be very fierce people.’

Hilda sighed heavily. Teaching was often a rocky road. ‘Hens lay eggs,’ she said, wondering immediately why she’d said it. What on God’s good earth had she been thinking of?

‘And mams lay eggs?’ the child asked. ‘Do they? I never seen one.’

‘Er . . . in a way, yes, they do lay eggs.’

‘But you don’t boil ’em or fry ’em.’

She smothered a grin. ‘No. Without a strong microscope, you wouldn’t even see them, because they’re very tiny.’

‘Oh.’

She wished she’d never allowed this to start. She was standing on a slippery roof, no ladder, no rope to tie to a chimney, no idea of what to do to save herself . . . ‘Ask your grandmother. She should know more than I do, because she’s been a mother.’

‘I did ask her. She sent me to you. She said you’d know all about it, on account of you’re the teacher, like.’

Oh, God. Nellie’s devilment was on the loose again. Biology. Hilda jumped headlong into a chaos of which she had never before been a victim. ‘The cockerel has to cover the hen and make the other half of the chick. If the hen’s been covered, the egg’s not for boiling, but for hatching.’

‘Cover? What with? A blanket?’

She swallowed. ‘With himself.’

Bertie pulled a piece of straw from his hair and chewed on it thoughtfully. A penny dropped. ‘Is it to do with all that kissing and chasing about and stuff? With people, I mean. Cos I can tell you now my mam’s fedded up with it. She’s happy about the baby, but she keeps hitting Keith with towels and all sorts. Only it’s a game, see? She’s laughing, and you can tell she’s happy. Does that end up with him being a cover like the cockerel? And was my dad my cover?’

She wouldn’t laugh. ‘Broadly speaking, yes, that’s the truth of it.’

‘Oh, right.’ Bertie studied his soggy straw. Then, with that seamlessness known only to the young and precious, he moved on. ‘Why doesn’t it hurt when Pedro gets his shoes nailed on? I wouldn’t want nothing hammered onto my feet.’

Hilda, unaware until this point that she had been holding her breath, allowed her chest to relax. She loved these terrible boys. Bertie was as bright as his sister, though academia was not for him. Robin read hungrily, pouncing on anything connected to the art of arable farming. As for Philip – oh, what a victory. ‘Bertie, get a bath, please. We’ll talk about horseshoes and farriers tomorrow. You smell very horsey.’

‘Better than our Rob,’ the child replied. ‘He stinks of ferti . . . ferti . . . of all kinds of muck, says he’s going into Brussels sprouts next year. Can you imagine anything as daft as that?’ He stalked off, dignity diminished by mud, straw, and a large hole in the seat of his trousers.

A sheepish Nellie put in an appearance. ‘Did you tell him, then?’

‘Of course.’

‘Bloody hell, Hilda.’

‘Quite.’

‘Our Eileen would have told him, but she’s too . . . too head-on. It would have been drawings of willies and women’s personals, and—’

‘Stop it.’ Hilda held up a hand. It occurred to her that she would miss this dear woman, but someone had to stay with Mel and Miss Morrison. ‘Nellie?’

‘What, love?’

‘I want to show you something. And I want you to keep it secret for the time being. I mean that. You mustn’t say a single word.’

‘I promise, I do. I promise on both me bunions.’

‘Oh, I shall miss you, Nellie. And I shall stamp on both your bunions if you let me down. We need to tread softly for a while.’

Nellie bit back a remark about always treading softly near people’s bunions. ‘I’ll be here some weekends and school holidays. There’s somebody with the WVS says she’ll look after the old lady for us. Don’t be sad about me going. Eileen and Keith will take at least one of the lads.’

Hilda, halfway across the bedroom, stopped in her tracks. ‘Of course they must go to their mother if they wish, but that’s a very small house, and . . .’

‘And you love your boys, eh, Hilda?’ In less than a year, Hilda, Neil, Jay and Keith had tamed even the oldest. Philip, a natural handyman, had proved particularly good at painting and decorating. He had also developed a strong affection for Jay Collins, who was not always careful with his diabetes. ‘He’s happy, our Phil. Isn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes.’ The mistress of the house pulled something out from beneath her dressing table. ‘More than happy, Nellie. A lot more.’

Nellie took the pad. It boasted page after page of sketches, some in pencil, others in charcoal, one in black ink. Jay Collins, eyes closed, sat on the ground and leaned for support against the scarred wall of a barn. With his cap worn sideways and his ankles crossed, he slept through his lunch break, an empty butty tin on the cobbles beside him. Nellie could almost hear his snores. Every flaw on the stone-built barn was recorded; even the frayed edge of Jay’s cap was in its place.

Trees seemed to grow and sway, horses wanted to leap from the pages, people were practically walking off the paper. ‘You’re a clever girl, Hilda.’

‘They’re not mine, Nellie. I didn’t do them.’

‘No? Aw, look at this – Gill and Jay’s Maisie asleep in her pram.’

‘Phil did them.’

‘Eh?’

‘They’re Phil’s.’

Nellie pushed the pad away because she didn’t want to mar perfection with tears. ‘He’s a good drawer,’ Eileen had said frequently, and clever Nellie had agreed, offering the opinion that Phil was a full chest of drawers, as he often concealed goods, usually stolen, about his person. Mel was the family genius; Phil was a lazy sod who did as little as possible. ‘It’s been waiting to come out, hasn’t it, Hilda?’

‘Yes.’ She went on to explain that Philip, while tidying the attic, had found Uncle Adam’s pads, pens, chalks and paints. ‘He dug out easel, canvases and paints. You should see what he can do with a palette knife, Nellie. But that’s all under his bed – he doesn’t know I know he took it. He thinks he’s lost this sketch block, so I plan to “find” it and ask him who owns it.’ She paused. ‘Nellie?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t cry. This lot has to go to Manchester. Phil deserves a place in a good school of art. First, he has to know that I know. It has to be me. I am unbiased, since I’m not family.’

A stunned Nellie dried disobedient eyes. So. Eileen had produced a lawyer bound for Cambridge, an artist, a farmer and a soon-to-be expert on horses. What was she carrying now? A brain surgeon? ‘I wish I could be here,’ she moaned. ‘But Eileen has to come back with her husband, bless them. She’ll be safer at Willows Edge. And I’ll be there for our Mel. Doesn’t everything happen at once?’ She scuttered off to her own room where she could weep privately. Her Philip was a Leonardo da Vinnie. Something like that, anyway.

It was a slow and tedious process, and it was clear that Marianne Bingley was occasionally having her patience tested, but she was too stubborn to abandon the project. Coming to after a session was unnerving, because little shards of deliberately buried memories lingered for a while just beyond reach of her consciousness, so she never got the whole picture. Yet she was, for the most part, calm and unafraid, so some good was coming out of the treatment.

Sally Barnes of Rodney Street was a pioneer. A psychologist, she employed hypnosis, and was considered by most medics to be a quack, but Tom believed in her, as she had achieved marked success with those who could afford her fees. She trod softly. Marie needed softly. And it was worth a try, surely? Divorce was messy and expensive. Divorce hurt people, many of whom were children who might well grow up with no belief in love, in endurance, in effort.

Tom watched his wife as she emerged from the consulting rooms. The change in her was remarkable, not to say miraculous. This was a woman lighter of step and of heart, a prettier person, one who was ordered now to sleep with her husband, but never to touch him. He, too, had to keep his distance. Marriage to a victim of abuse would never be easy, but he was doing his bloody best.

After settling in the front passenger seat, she informed him that she had signed an agreement, and Tom could now speak to Sally Barnes.

‘You’re sure, Marie? She’ll be telling me what she’s discovered about you.’

‘Of course. Also, it’s your turn to be a guinea pig. Remember? The treatment’s for both of us. I’ve signed so that she can discuss my progress, but you need help, too.’ She smiled at him. ‘Don’t be a coward.’

He stared through the windscreen for a few moments, the past year running across his mind like a quickened movie. Eileen had rejected him. That beautiful urchin had decided that Dr Tom Bingley was not a nice man. Uncertainty had crept in then, had been underscored with double black lines when she had married the chap from Bolton. ‘Marie?’

‘Yes?’

‘Please tell me I’m not a bad man.’

Whatever Sally Barnes did while Marie was under hypnosis seemed to be working, because she suddenly needed to comfort her husband, but she couldn’t, since contact was forbidden. ‘You aren’t a bad man. Now, get in there and find out what’s what and who’s who, and when the war will be over.’

He laughed. ‘She’s not a blooming fortune-teller.’

‘Isn’t she? Oh goodness, I’ve been coming to the wrong place for months.’

The dull wife had humour. He remembered the timid rabbit, the ‘rape’ victim, the aprons, a well-set table, gravy in a little silver-plated boat. These days, cutlery was piled in a shallow box on the sideboard, fight among yourselves, not enough napkins today because she’s done no washing. No longer apologetic about dried egg and meat-free dishes, she giggled and laughed during tasteless meals, and their twins were happier, too. Gloria was becoming seriously beautiful. Peter continued a star, while their father delivered his collection of near-risqué jokes along with mashed potatoes and home-grown carrots. ‘It would be easy to fall in love with you, Marie Bingley, but it’s forbidden. We must not touch. She is a cruel and heartless woman.’

‘Yes.’

‘What does yes mean, madam?’

‘How the hell should I know? I’m always under the spell of Mesmer when she gets stuff out of me and plants ideas. Ask her. I just know I’m different, that’s all. I’ve changed. Sometimes, I don’t know me.’ Norman didn’t matter any more. Marie wanted her marriage to work.

She was different, all right. Tom leapt from the car and ran up the stone steps of a rather grand Georgian terrace.

He was talking quite normally, asking questions, making comments about his wife; then, suddenly, he woke up. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘What have you done to me, Sally?’

Sally Barnes laughed. ‘You now know all you need to know about that wonderful, sweet woman you married. It’s been deposited in your mind and in hers, and it may surface, may not. From now, we go onward, not backwards.’

‘What use is that?’ he blustered. ‘I need to know her past and the reasons for her problems. Was she abused?’

‘Yes.’

‘By whom?’

The woman lifted her shoulders and raised both hands, palms upward. ‘Tom, I don’t believe in shock therapy. If I did, I’d have handed Marie over to some mouthy psychiatrist, and she’d be lying on a trolley with electrodes on her head. The Marie I found, the inner Marie, remembers everything. She’s a fine woman with a good brain, so just leave it. There are people all over this country whose brains are fit only for serving on toast after too many electro-convulsive sessions, and no one knows how much is too much, so I kept her away from bloody psychiatry. You both know all there is to know. The question you ask about her abuser needs no reply from me, because the answer’s taken root in your head. Shocks may come, though they won’t be electric. Find yourselves.’

‘But I don’t remember—’

‘You will if and when you need to. As will she. I do not use invasive treatments, and it is my belief that you will thrive. No sexual contact. Not just yet.’

Tom narrowed his eyes. ‘And I’m paying you?’

‘Handsomely, and I love you. But not enough to take my knickers off.’

‘Bugger.’

‘Buggery? Only if desperate, and don’t get caught.’

As he left the room, Tom realized that he felt lighter, happier. This had been the case with Marie for months, so there was wisdom in the hypno-psychologist. He sat in the car and studied his wife. The blue coat suited her.

‘Well?’

‘Exactly. She put me under, my dear. While I was not of this world, she probably told me all about you and all about my failings. When I emerged from the trance, I remembered nothing.’

Marie tutted. ‘So, if and when we do remember, we are to contact her, Tom, in case we’re traumatized. We should make sure we remember in the early hours of a cold morning, then we’ll get our money’s worth. And we should be extraordinarily traumatized. We might wear strange clothes and scream in the streets.’ A barrier had been taken down, and she no longer spent time thinking of Norman; instead, she thought of Tom.

‘The neighbours would die of shock.’

She grinned impishly. ‘It would make a change for them. Most have been no further than Southport, and hell could be illuminating.’

Where had she hidden for so many years? Marie had been one of those plain women who, when approaching middle age, reaped the benefit of having been ordinary in youth. She had good skin, pretty eyes and a generous mouth. And he suddenly knew that it was his fault, if fault could ever be the right word. He’d made no effort to coax and coach her, had failed to enliven a girl whose sense of humour seemed to have died. Until now. It wasn’t too late. Madam up-the-stairs Mesmer knew what she was doing, and he saw straight through her. Sex was off the menu. It was off the list so that they would disobey like naughty children. Was Marie ready? Was he ready to be rejected?

‘Let’s go home, Tom.’

He started the car. ‘I love you,’ he said.

‘And I love you, though I have to confess to having wanted to kill you.’

‘That’s normal.’

Her head shot sideways and she stared at him. ‘Rubbish.’

‘Females of all species get bogged off with being imposed upon.’

‘Sexually?’ she asked.

‘And darning.’

Marie went back to studying the comings and goings on Liverpool’s Harley Street. The corners of her mouth twitched while she composed in her mind a picture of a cow with a darning mushroom and an oversized needle. All species? ‘You’re incurable, doc.’

‘Yes. Let’s try to get fish and chips on the way home, eh? I can’t go another six rounds with your vegetable pie. It’s gross.’

‘Darn your own socks, then.’

‘Bloody hell, Marie—’

‘Take me home. Now.’ He took her home.

The next morning found a stark naked doctor sitting on the cushioned seat of a wicker chair near a bedroom window whose curtains and blackouts remained closed. Feeling slightly punch-drunk, he gazed at the form in the bed, a woman with whom he had lived for many years, a woman to whom he had made love just once. The experience had been . . . intense.

She hadn’t told him to stop, hadn’t cried or sighed sadly, but she had fallen asleep very quickly afterwards. And why was he sitting here like a child after a spelling test? Was he waiting for marks out of ten? Did he need a reference, a badge of office to sport on a lapel, I finally managed it? Had he managed it? Apart from one shallow scratch on a shoulder, he had emerged unmarked, so the token bite-back of the tigress hadn’t been employed. Nor had the Vaseline . . . It was progress, surely? Dear God, let it be progress, and don’t allow me to hurt her ever again. That had to become the eleventh commandment: thou shalt not damage thy wife.

She turned over, and he found himself biting the knuckles of a closed right fist. He was perverse, and he knew it, because he’d started desiring her as soon as she had stopped wanting to stay married to him. After failing to catch Eileen Watson, he’d commenced a search for treatment so that Marie might be resurrected for his sake. He was a selfish man.

Marie shot into a sitting position. ‘Tom? Where are you?’

‘I’m here. Switch on that lamp.’

She complied. ‘We shouldn’t have. She said . . . We’ll be in trouble.’

‘So?’ Her hair was tousled, and he found himself thinking of children on Blackpool beach, sand pies, tumbling locks of curly hair, shoes buried somewhere with Dad’s glasses and the Daily Express. ‘You could have told me to stop. I told you to tell me to stop.’

‘She’ll kill us. We weren’t supposed to . . . We had to wait until . . . Don’t you dare laugh. Laugh, and I’ll darn your mouth shut. As the leading light in the WVS, I am a dab hand with needle and wool, so be careful.’

She sounded happy. He wanted her to be happy. ‘You’d have to catch me first. Calm down. She told us not to have sex so that we would. Remember Peter when he was a terrible two? You forbade him to eat his vegetables, so he ate them. Then he ate Gloria’s, yours and some of mine. Simple reverse psychology. You see, the level at which Sally works on us is forever the child. In all of us, that two-year-old thrives and keeps banging its head on the wall of life. It’s petulant, disobedient and bloody-minded. She dug us out, Marie.’

‘Did she?’

He nodded. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No.’

Instinct forced him not to pursue this line of questioning. ‘We have half an hour before reveille. Move over, I’m coming aboard.’

She whispered her worry about screaming and disturbing the twins, and he told her that she could scream into his mouth, and that he would swallow her noise. ‘Why would you scream?’

‘Because something’s happening. Inside me.’

Tom Bingley would never know why he wept in this acutely erotic moment. Perhaps it was the sense of loss, of time wasted, of the pain she had suffered. Guilt settled like a rock in his stomach, and he was unequal to the task of serving her properly. He was useless, stupid, and filled with self-loathing.

‘I can hear her,’ Marie whispered. ‘She told me while I was under what to do if this happened. She’s right. What she tells us comes back when we need it. Clever woman. Don’t cry. I’ll be gentle.’

Tom blinked the saline from his eyes. Reverse psychology, now role reversal. Sally Barnes was worth every penny. And he was the one who screamed.

Mel fixed her gaze on Gloria Bingley. This same Gloria Bingley had been, until recently, a dumpy girl with sepia skin, dull hair and no discernible physical assets. Then she had blossomed. A small part of Mel was envious, because people with darker features were more clearly defined, while blondes lacked edges, since hair drifted into skin without showing a join. Gloria was going to be a stunner. She was also picking up on the academic front, because improved looks gave her confidence in several areas of life. ‘What’s wrong now?’ Mel asked.

‘It’s embarrassing,’ Gloria pronounced. ‘Isn’t it enough to have a brother who calls me Titty-Fal-Lal since I developed? Now I’ve also got parents who’ve gone from stalemate to at-it-like-rabbits. My mother’s an out-and-out trollop, and my dad’s a sex maniac. This is no way for an impressionable girl to live. I’ve been reading a bit of psychology, and the books say we should be nurtured mentally and physically. Well, all the nurturing’s going on upstairs and we don’t get a look-in. Just as well, since I’d hate to watch them at play.’

Mel delivered a raspberry. ‘At least you have a decent brother. All I have are three criminals in the brother department. Mind, I have to say, however begrudgingly, that the hellions have improved. Then there’s Mam, Gran and Keith the Kisser. My mother’s just married the man of her dreams, and it’s a full-blown nightmare. Miss Morrison seems to think it’s hilarious, but I’ve always suspected a bawdy side to her – something to do with a caretaker in a cellar centuries ago – don’t ask. Mam’s pregnant already, and they’ve been married all of five minutes. I could finish up with twenty siblings.’

Gloria hadn’t thought about that side of things. ‘Buggery,’ she spat.

‘Illegal, but buggers don’t produce brats, so that’s something in their favour.’

‘I don’t want any mucky-bummed infants parked in the hall. I keep my bike there when it’s cold or raining. Then there’s the coat stand. Yuk. Mel, what can I do?’

Mel shrugged. ‘If they were dogs, the vet would see to them. But as things stand, all we have is a rumour that Hitler plans to have undesirables neutered. Your mother and father aren’t Jewish, Romany or mentally retarded, so—’

‘My mother can’t count.’

‘Gloria, cling to that thought. If we lose the war, the invaders will have your mother spayed.’ She sighed heavily. ‘What’s come over them? Is the government putting something in the water so that we’ll have another generation to fight for us in twenty years?’

Gloria shrugged. ‘Dad says we’re programmed to cull ourselves. If we don’t kill each other, we have plagues instead. Bubonic, Teutonic—’

‘Titanic, but that was just a few people on a ship. Oh, Gloria. What have we done to deserve this?’

They burst out laughing simultaneously, because they realized that they were talking like parents. Delinquents in their families were from the older generation, and the only sense in two houses, one on St Michael’s Road, the other on St Andrew’s, was the property of two teenage girls and Peter Bingley who, being a mere boy, was not really up to scratch.

After tapping on the back door, said mere boy put in an appearance. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘But I had to get out. They’re drunk in charge of a gramophone. One more run of Ravel’s Bolero and I would have had to turn them in to the law.’

‘See?’ Gloria threw up her hands. ‘Even this ghastly person can’t cope. Now, if you and he were at it, that would be different.’

Peter punched his sister’s arm. ‘Shut up, Fal-Lal. Mel knows I like her.’

‘We shall marry after Cambridge,’ Mel said with mock seriousness. ‘And stop making him blush. He’s too pretty to have a stained face. So. We’re a quorum, the meeting is convened, and there’s nothing we can do. Any other business?’

Gloria insisted that Mel had no real problem, because Eileen and Keith would soon be replaced by her grandmother, who was hardly likely to start running around with a man. ‘We’re stuck with it,’ she grumbled.

‘Would you rather they split up?’ Mel asked. ‘Because people do separate, you know.’

‘Separate?’ shouted Gloria. ‘Separate? We’d need a fireman’s hose to keep our two apart. Where did we go wrong? We brought them up as best we could, didn’t we, bro?’

Peter shook his head. ‘I blame it on saccharine and Pasha. Mum was far better on real sugar, and Dad hates those Turkish cigarettes. But I think we should try to—’

The earthquake happened then. Although the siren had sounded, no one had bothered to go to the Anderson. People were becoming too blasé, too careless. Heinkels were suddenly overhead, that sick phut-phut sound of accompanying fighters making a backbeat for the bombers’ continuous drone. The three youngsters dived under the kitchen table. And they heard it, picked out easily the bomb that bore their names. It whistled happily, the pitch changing as it neared the target. ‘Mam!’ Mel screamed. ‘Get under something.’ She held on to Gloria’s hand. It occurred to her that she hadn’t finished her geography homework, that she might never finish it . . .

It landed eventually. The blast rippled through the house, and Peter threw himself on top of the two girls. Dad had told him about blast victims. They were lifted out unscathed, not a mark, not a drop of blood. But inside, major organs had been battered and broken through being shaken about, and Peter didn’t want that to happen to Fal-Lal or the beautiful one. All air was sucked from the room. With it travelled pots, pans and cutlery, every item following shards of glass from the over-sink window. When air returned, it brought with it dust, bits of plaster and debris that made breathing a near impossibility.

Peter crawled out, stood up, and dragged the two girls to the door. He doused all lights before depositing both in the garden. For a moment, he listened to the disappearing aircraft and watched a blood-red sky. Liverpool was burning. In fact, it was nearer, so it was probably Bootle. Nearer still, a newly released missile was doing its job. It had hit a house in the next avenue, was burning fiercely, and people were screaming. The bomb meant for St Michael’s Road had left a huge crater in the playing fields behind Miss Morrison’s house.

A believer in Christ, Peter bit back a prayer and replaced it with a curse. ‘God damn you for all eternity,’ he whispered. ‘May you rot in pieces.’ He ran into the house. Miss Morrison, dusty but unhurt, demanded a cup of tea. He explained that she might have to wait, because the kitchen needed checking for safety, especially where town gas was concerned.

Upstairs, Eileen and Keith emerged from a huge Victorian wardrobe that looked hearty enough to survive Armageddon. ‘Mel?’ Eileen asked Peter as he entered the room.

‘Outside.’ Peter sat on the floor, his legs suddenly frail. ‘We were in the kitchen and it caught the back-blast from a bomb in the field. The girls are all right, though they might be getting a bit cold. Kitchen’s a mess, and a bungalow at the other side of the playing field took a direct hit. I’ve turned the gas off at the mains just in case, and Miss Morrison wants a cup of tea.’

Keith muttered about a paraffin stove in the shed before going to check on the girls.

‘Are you sure my Mel’s all right, Peter?’

‘I put them in the fresh air. There was dust and stuff all over the place. I was all right. I was fine till now. There was no air, so I put Mel and Gloria on the path. Go and see them, Mrs Watson – I mean Greenhalgh.’

‘I’ll send Keith to help you down the stairs. You’re in shock, love.’

Alone, the fourteen-year-old crawled out to the staircase and finally allowed his tears to break free. He was at a strange place in life, neither man nor boy, a slave to hormonal invasion, insanely in love with Mel, not old enough for that, not young enough to be satisfied with a googly or a six at the crease. And his parents going all doolally wasn’t making life any easier. He knew what they were up to; the whole of St Andrew’s Road probably knew and, while Peter was glad that the separate rooms thing was over, he wondered why they had to keep reminding him that the only fun he could have was solitary, untidy and slightly embarrassing?

‘Peter?’

Through silly, girlish tears, he saw her looming over him. Although a couple of stairs lower, she was standing, and he felt small, mostly because he was sobbing. ‘Mel. There’s grit in my eyes.’

‘Yes.’ She squeezed in next to him and gave him a cuddle. ‘You may have saved our lives.’

‘Doubt it.’ Sometimes, she seemed almost glacial, but this was not one of those times. She cradled his head; he could hear her heartbeat behind the rise and fall of her breasts. ‘Mel . . .’

‘I know. We’re too young, beautiful boy. Just make your way to Cambridge. You’ll be right up there, top of my list after I’ve invented the ten-day week.’

‘The what?’

‘Ignore. It’s a joke between me and Mam. If we told anyone we have feelings for each other, we’d be laughed out of court. My mother would throw an apoplectic fit, and yours would need morphine. Keith and your dad might well be pistols at dawn on the beach or in Sniggery Woods, and the war would become a side issue. Even Gloria doesn’t know how I feel about you. I wasn’t sure myself until recently, because you got on my nerves something shocking till I stopped being thirteen.’

Peter swallowed painfully. It was an audible gulp, and he wished he could bite it back, because it imitated some dire digestive ailment, and he needed to be perfect. ‘Can’t we be together sometimes?’ he managed. He had to know, had to find out about . . . And he loved her – he did!

Mel grinned. ‘Of course we can; there’s a war on, so there’s rationing enough without cutting out all the fun. As a racy girl in the sixth form told me, we can have the overture, two movements and an interval, but no intercourse.’ She was being a clever clogs again, but that was fine, since she was talking to another clever clogs. ‘And no telling Gloria, or I shall remove all privileges with a very sharp knife.’

She was just like her mother, unusual, funny, occasionally inscrutable and chilly, always beautiful. She was so . . . so adult, so clever. He didn’t know what to say to her. Just now, he was a small boy aching into the soft comfort of a female form. Top of the class at school, he was retarded while on the stairs with a princess who had half promised to become his companion in naughtiness and joy. ‘Thanks,’ he achieved finally.

‘What for?’

‘For being you, Mel.’

Eileen found them like that. ‘Has he stopped trembling?’

‘Yes.’ Mel ruffled his hair and sat him up. ‘My hero,’ she said. ‘Covered in dust, but still a hero.’

The three went downstairs. One thing was clear to Eileen; she and Keith could not go back to Willows Edge until the kitchen had been made safe for Miss Morrison and her carers. Help was promised already. A local builder, who had arrived to check damage in several houses, intended to return and pump concrete under the floor. The gas supply was intact, as were water pipes and drains. Miss Morrison had her cup of tea, so all was well with the world for now.

No. All was nearly well. Eileen studied her daughter. Something was going on between her and Peter Bingley. Could Nellie manage this? Mel was clever, the lad was clever, and they were both fourteen. Gifted kids matured early and got into all kinds of scrapes. Mel must remain untouched, because she had a dream that could not include children, not for some considerable time.

The all-clear sounded, and the Bingleys set off for home. Eileen dragged her daughter into the hallway. ‘No,’ she said, a finger wagging an inch from Mel’s nose. ‘Don’t start. Not with him, not with anybody. With a promising future, you don’t want to be throwing yourself away, do you? You could have a baby.’ Eileen remembered her own youth. Raging hormones plagued everyone, not just this younger and slightly more outspoken generation. And Mel, like Eileen, was bold and direct.

‘Not if I don’t get pregnant. Actually, fifteen or sixteen is the ideal age from a physical point of view. Society made it wrong, so too many of us have trouble delivering later in life. But I shall not let you down.’

‘Promise me, sweetheart.’

‘Honestly, I won’t let you down. More to the point, I’ve no intention of letting me down.’ She chuckled. ‘He is delicious, though, isn’t he?’

‘Mel, I—’

‘You’re the motherly one, come in number five. Gloria and Peter are going through a terrible time, because their parents have revived their relationship. They’re living in a den of iniquity. We’ve all heard of Jack the Ripper, now we’ve got Keith the Kisser. Three impressionable young people living in unwholesome atmospheres.’ Mel giggled.

Eileen smiled in spite of herself. ‘There’s nothing unwholesome as long as there’s a marriage certificate and a wedding ring.’

‘And you’ve never been tempted?’

In her head, Eileen heard the voice of Tom Bingley. Even if it ends, it will never be over. And I’ll lick the butter from your fingers. ‘Yes, I’ve been tempted. I always swore I’d tell all of you the truth unless a lie might do some good.’ But the whole truth in this instance? Could she speak about Peter’s father? No. ‘Yes,’ she repeated slowly. ‘I’ve carried the devil with me, and listened to Satan’s whispered promises. But I never gave in.’

Mel sat on the bottom stair. ‘You should write, Mam. While you’re pregnant, do some writing.’

Eileen shrugged. Writing? ‘How can I write when I’m worried about everything and everybody?’

‘Write about being worried about everything and everybody. After the war, as long as we win, people will want to know about what it all meant to real folk. There’ll be medals and speeches, fireworks and flag-waving, pompous figures strutting up and down the Mall. What about cooking for your children, clothing families when everything’s rationed, watching your city burn? What about Kitty? And our two loonies making a break for Liverpool? Mam? Why are you smiling?’

‘Not sure.’ But she was sure. That nice little woman from St Andrew’s Road had her husband back. Dr Tom Bingley had finally learned to count his blessings. The smile faded. ‘Mel, you’re so young. I need to lay this on with a trowel. Stay safe.’

‘I shall. Get back to Keith the Cuddle before he fades away for lack of nourishment.’

Head shaking, Eileen walked out of the hall. Her firstborn had spoken in short sentences before walking properly, had fed herself early, had raced through junior school like the Flying Scotsman, and now seemed to have fitted herself with a forty-horsepower engine. Mel was speeding through life at a terrifying rate, and nothing could be done to halt her, nor would she be slowed. There was always a price to pay when a special child was involved.

Keith found her. ‘Are you all right, darling? Miss Morrison’s on her second cup of tea, this time topped up with a dash of Scotch.’

Eileen sat down on the living room sofa. ‘Mel’s fourteen going on forty, Keith. The trouble with having a daughter like my Amelia Anne is that she leaves you behind. Don’t get me wrong, babe, because I had sexual urges at her age, but I wasn’t so old in the head. She’s after Tom Bingley’s son.’

‘Tonight’s brown-eyed blond?’

‘That’s the chap. They were sitting on the stairs together and . . . oh, God.’

‘Don’t cry, love.’

Eileen dashed the wetness from her cheeks. ‘This is going to sound so daft you’ll want me locked up.’

‘Only if I have visiting privileges.’

She pondered for a while, took time to shunt her thoughts into some kind of order. After that, she needed to find the words. ‘A premonition,’ she said finally. ‘It’s daft, I know. But I looked at them; she had an arm round him and his face was on her chest. They were both covered in muck, but so very beautiful. It was like something done by Michelangelo. And while the sensible side of my mind was horrified, some part of me felt not happy, but all right. As if I could see them sitting like that forever, as if they belong together.’

‘You’re right, you need to see a doctor. Did you have your cod liver oil and malt?’

Eileen tutted. The trouble with men was that they had the imagination of dead reptiles. A woman looked at the sky and saw eternity; a man saw blue and wondered where the nearest pub might be. ‘Vive la bloody difference,’ she muttered.

‘Eh?’

‘Nothing. Just a saying of our Mel’s. Drink your tea, we’ve things to do.’

There was more wrong with Frances Morrison’s house than had met the eye of a builder speculating in the dark after the bombing was over. Several homes had been disturbed, while the old couple in the bungalow had both perished. Work continued during daylight hours, and all available men toiled to stabilize the buildings. Liverpool already had many homeless families, so labourers battled to hang on to as many homes as possible.

A system developed almost of its own accord. While fuel lines and water pipes were checked and restored where necessary, neighbours who were unaffected did the cooking. It finally reached the stage where no one knew whose crockery was whose, so items were piled up until someone ran out of plates or cups and came to reclaim her property. The someone would arrive, find her displaced items, and stop for a chat.

All of this suited Frances Morrison down to the ground. Eileen became make-up artist, dresser and manicurist, while the old woman bucked up no end during this supposedly dark time. She had visitors almost daily. Some had exciting tales to tell, and she lapped them up like a thirsty cat with a bowl of milk. One neighbour spoke about her son who, at sixteen, was already a volunteer fire-fighter. The rules regarding age had been bent, and that young man was happy to stand with two others and hold on to a massive hose through which many pounds of pressure flowed. ‘If they let go, it would kill their comrades.’

A nurse with a badly affected house told tales of women giving birth while buildings collapsed all round them, of people so badly injured that only morphine would do, of the packing of open wounds, of death and tears and fury. She had a fair share of funny stories as well. A man who lost a leg in the Great War lost it all over again. ‘Not a mark on him, but his house was flattened, and he ordered his rescuers to get back in there and find his missing limb. Needless to say, they didn’t.’

If it hadn’t been real before, if the red skies at midnight had not managed to convey the message, news from living, breathing people brought it home. One woman could never stay long, because she had to keep a close eye on her husband, who was yet another victim. ‘Pulling dead children out of debris is one thing, Miss Morrison. But pulling out a piece of a child finished him.’ The poor man had lost his mind. So keen had he been to find the rest of the infant that he had dug himself into a pile of smouldering debris which had almost become his grave. There was a possibility that he might never regain his senses.

The knitting began then. When it came to knitting, Miss Frances Morrison displayed all the dexterity of a small iceberg approaching a miniature Titanic. But Eileen encouraged her before retrieving socks clearly made for giants, dwarfs, or people with deformed feet. Eileen unravelled the disasters, washed the wool to remove the kinks, knitted it again and passed usable items back to the WVS. Convinced that she was contributing to the war effort, the old woman continued with her labours. She was doing no good, but she was occupied, and she did no harm.

Christmas approached. The pregnant Mrs Greenhalgh could only watch and wait while the house was restored to some semblance of order. She had never spent Christmas away from her mother and the boys, and she became anxious.

Keith also watched and hoped. He rolled up his sleeves and worked alongside plumbers and builders, did some carpentry and rubbish-shifting, cooked, made endless cups of tea. But he wanted to send his wife home. He wanted her safe and unafraid, but she flatly refused to travel without him. ‘When I go, I go with you. And when Mam comes here after Christmas, I want this place straight. She’s not young.’

Another fly committed suicide in the ointment. The WVS member who had promised to stay with Miss Morrison over Christmas suddenly left the area. A single woman, she moved to the other side of Liverpool to be with her sister, and Eileen refused to countenance the abandonment of her landlady. ‘Yes, the neighbours would see to her, but I’m not leaving things casual. She’s good to us, and she needs watching.’

‘We can take her with us, love.’

‘No.’ That chin came up. Like her daughter, Eileen had a determined little chin. ‘She’s unfit to travel. We’ll have to stay for Christmas. So will Mel.’

‘But your mother—’

‘Is tougher and younger than Miss Morrison.’ Eileen folded her arms. ‘It can’t be helped. We’ll take their presents over in the New Year.’

But Hitler had other ideas. In December 1940, his Luftwaffe delivered gifts aplenty to the city of Liverpool. And there was no gathering in the city centre at New Year.

Twelve

Weather and more urgent commitments slowed the work on St Michael’s Road. Most small builders spent time after a raid shoring up the salvageable, demolishing the dangerous, boarding up broken windows with sheets of wood, and dealing with immediate daily emergencies first. Frances Morrison was lucky, since Keith had managed to replace the kitchen glazing, but other work remained unfinished, and it was now December. Frost was not the builders’ friend, so the chances of replacing wall ties and completing work on foundations, gables and rainwater goods were remote. Stability had been achieved by shoring up houses with struts, but such measures were supposedly temporary.

Miss Morrison found the whole business rather exciting. ‘It’s like being down the mines,’ she commented on one of her rare expeditions into the garden. ‘They’re all props and struts, you know. What an adventure.’ For a woman with a weak heart, Frances Morrison certainly took war with Germany in her stride. Keith had built a sturdy shelter around the old woman’s bed, and she lived happily in her cage, deliberately oblivious of danger, because she had her heart’s desire. She loved people, her house was full of them, and she growled amiably through the bars at anyone who approached her territory.

While Miss Morrison took her afternoon nap, Eileen’s beloved and mischievous mother was shouting down the telephone. She was in a state. Mam in a state was not to be taken lightly, but at least she wasn’t here in person. Nellie Kennedy’s voice grated at the best of times and now, magnified by microphone, it was enough to shift paint off the walls. ‘I should be with me daughter at Christmas. It’s not right for us to be separated like this when we’ve always been—’

‘Mam?’

‘What?’

‘I’m in Liverpool, and you’re at Willows.’

‘I know that, you soft mare. There’s no need for you to tell me where I am. I seen meself in a mirror not five minutes back. I think it was me, anyway. Unless some bugger’s pinched me blue pinny and me best hairnet.’

‘Stop shouting, you are not in Australia.’ Eileen held the receiver away from her ear. Nellie, aware of the distance between herself and her beloved daughter, was screaming across forty miles. ‘Talk normally, Mam. There’s no need to yell, but thanks for shifting the wax in my ear. I think you’ve blown it all the way across to the other side of my head.’

Nellie lowered her tone. ‘But you have to come for your dinner, Eileen. It’s Christmas, love. Christmas has always been important.’

Eileen blinked moisture from her eyes. It was true. Poverty had never diminished Mam’s joy when the festive season arrived. But this was different. It was a new war, a war unlike its predecessor, because a thousand tons of ironmongery and explosives seemed to drop from the skies with monotonous frequency. ‘There’s a massive fight on, Mam. Very few families will be completely together for Christmas dinner. We’ve nobody at the front or on a ship or in a plane, so be grateful. I can’t just leave Miss Morrison. The neighbours are good, but there’s no one who can stay with her twenty-four hours a day. I want this place declared safe before you come.’

‘Safe? Safe? You’ve been bloody bombed.’ The tone of this statement was accusatory.

‘Yes, we have. Adolf asked for permission, and we agreed to be a target, cos he wanted the practice. I’ll phone you later.’ She turned to her husband once the connection to Nellie was severed. ‘We’re not leaving her.’ She waved a hand in the direction of Frances Morrison’s ground-floor bedroom. ‘I want this place in better shape before we do the permanent swap with Mam. And Miss Morrison can’t travel, so that’s an end to it.’

‘It is indeed. Don’t cry. You know I have to kiss you when you cry. And you know I have trouble stopping kissing when I start.’

Eileen had the same difficulty, because her husband was a fabulous kisser. But she wouldn’t tell him that, since he already knew. ‘Are you a sex maniac?’ she asked pleasantly.

‘Erm . . . not yet. I have to do the written test and a series of practicals. But I’m working my way up to it.’

She wagged a finger at him. ‘Just make sure I’m the practicals. Or you’ll wake up a little bit dead.’

Nellie placed the receiver in its cradle. Her Eileen was in trouble. She was living in a propped-up house, she was pregnant, and she was afraid. Keith was with her, thank God, but what if the Germans came back to Crosby? There was a fort nearby, and there were searchlights waiting to be bombed. ‘Bugger,’ she spat. ‘Staying in a place held together with faith, hope and putty. And pregnant on top of all that.’

‘Nellie?’

She turned. ‘Ah. Hilda. They won’t be coming for Christmas.’ Hilda Pickavance was a clever woman but, in the opinion of Nellie Kennedy, she sometimes lacked a bit of courage. ‘I’ll never understand you leaving our Phil to find his sketchbook and never saying nothing to him. This has been going on for weeks now. What are you scared of? He’s not going to bite your head off, is he?’

Hilda wasn’t scared; she was cautious. ‘He wasn’t ready,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t want to disturb him in case he stopped sketching.’ Phil was a reserved, wild thing. If anyone tried to get too close, he put up shutters and displayed a CLOSED sign. More important, his talent was developing at a rate that wanted neither help nor interference. ‘I am waiting for him to talk to me.’

‘And I’m waiting for me daughter, though she won’t be coming.’

Hilda, lost in her own thoughts, frowned and nodded pensively. ‘When I loosened the pages, I hoped he would believe the one I stole had fallen out accidentally, but he’s been looking for it. That sketch was the only one in ink. Fine detail is his forte.’

Nellie sat down. Hilda had taken the sketch to Bolton for framing. It was meant to be Eileen’s Christmas present, and the artist had no idea about any of it. As far as he was concerned, he had mislaid the ink drawing, and no one knew about his hobby. ‘Where is it?’ she asked.

‘Wrapped and at the back of my wardrobe,’ was Hilda’s reply.

‘We have to get it to Crosby.’

Hilda tutted. ‘How? We’ve no car. Keith and Eileen have it.’

‘I don’t know how, do I? Borrow a couple of bloody donkeys or some roller skates. We’ve still got trains and buses.’

‘They don’t always run to timetable.’

‘Hilda, for God’s sake—’

‘No!’ shouted the usually soft-spoken woman. ‘For Eileen’s sake, we must stay away. Hasn’t she enough trouble without worrying about her mother turning up out of the blue? And Phil needs to be told before we start to give away his work.’

‘That was supposed to be your job. When it comes to painters and the like, I don’t know me Laughing Cavalier from me Whistler’s Mother. Find our Phil, Hilda. Find him now. He has to be told that we’ve had his drawing framed. Go on. I’m off out for an hour. See you later.’ Nellie leapt to her feet, pulled on a coat and rammed a woollen hat almost all the way down to her eyebrows. Hilda Pickavance could manage on her own. Hilda Pickavance should have managed on her own weeks ago, and Nellie was off to visit her friend.

Carrying a small torch, Nellie made her way down Willows Lane until she reached the Edge. Her decision to make an ally of Elsie Openshaw had been made some months earlier. It had been a case of irresistible force and immovable object; as a team, they were monumental. Elsie was happiest when Nellie was at Willows, and she was currently sad because Eileen was due to return soon with Keith, while Nellie would be needed in Crosby.

‘Open up, queen – it’s only me.’ The door was pulled inward by Elsie. ‘I think God forgot to light the fire tonight,’ Nellie continued. ‘I’m froze right through to the bone. He might be having a few days off with it being near Christmas.’

Elsie opened the door to her pristine shop and greatly improved living quarters. ‘Whatever are you doing out and about at this time? Get yoursen up to my fire. I’ll make you a cuppa and get you a slice of parkin.’

Nellie removed her outer garments and watched the large woman as she bustled about. Elsie was clumsy and prone to accidents, but she was cleaner, and she had new teeth that actually fitted. Some people imagined that she had suffered a 180-point turn in the personality department, but the truth was simpler. She smiled because she had comfortable teeth. A sliver of pain pierced Nellie’s heart. Oh, Kitty, we could have done so much for you and the babies. Like Kitty, Elsie smiled in a bid to display new mouth furniture. And in order to match the smiles she needed to be pleasant, so she was pleasant. Well, for most of the time.

‘There you go, Nellie. Cup of tea and a nice chunk of cake. Right. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, missus?’

Nellie shrugged. ‘I’m not sure.’ She knew the secret now, understood how to keep Elsie onside. The woman was a gossip, so no one ever confided in her. Little by little, Elsie Openshaw had become Nellie Kennedy’s confidante. While helping the woman to clean up house and shop, the visitor had let drop small, unimportant pieces of information about herself, her family and the new owner of the Willows estate. ‘Don’t say a word,’ had always been the final request and, true to her one and only friend, Elsie had kept her mouth shut.

‘You’ve not walked all the way down from yon for nothing in pitch black, Nellie Kennedy. I can tell with your face, any road. With a frown as deep as that, you favour the Town Hall clock just before it strikes midnight.’

‘You’ll miss me,’ Nellie said. ‘When I go back to look after Miss Morrison, I mean.’

‘Course I’ll miss you. I missed bloody toothache when I had them all pulled.’

Nellie chewed thoughtfully. Elsie’s baking was rather hit and miss; the parkin was a definite miss. ‘I could ask Miss Morrison,’ she said. ‘We’d both be working, because, on paper, we could each be responsible for her twelve hours a day.’

‘You what?’

‘After Christmas, come with me to Crosby. I reckon our Eileen’ll be stopping here with Keith and the lads, so I’ll be in Liverpool for the duration.’

‘What about me house and me post office?’

‘Somebody will see to all that.’

Elsie considered her options. She could stay here and be safe, but lonely. Or she might be able to spend a few months or years in Nellie’s company. Yet Liverpool was a mess. The chances of being bombed here, in Willows Edge, were negligible, while the house in which Nellie and her granddaughter would be living had already been shaken right down to its footings. ‘Eh, I don’t know what to say, lass.’

‘Say nothing,’ Nellie advised. ‘The old lady hasn’t been consulted yet, though I do know she loves company. It’s my belief she would have keeled over months ago if she’d been left on her own. Anyway, I’m going to take the lads over to see their mam tomorrow. With luck and a good following wind, we should make it there and back in a day.’

Those words would haunt her for years.

A very rigid version of Philip Watson perched on the end of his bed. Glowing cheeks were the only reaction to Hilda’s opening remarks, because he didn’t know how to feel or what to say. He’d never been any good at anything, had he? Reports from school declared him to be a bold, stubborn boy with no desire to learn, while the cops in the Scotland Road area were seldom surprised by his attempts to pervert the course of justice. ‘They’re just scribbles,’ he murmured eventually. ‘I’m not one of them soft girls who go in for art and stuff.’

Hilda was prepared for that one. ‘All the greats are men, Philip. Michelangelo, da Vinci, Botticelli—’

‘And Watson?’ At last, he grinned. ‘Naw. It’s just something I do when I’m not helping out with Mr Collins. I’ve no bike, I don’t ride horses, so I have to do something.’ He was glad that the school was full. Like many evacuees, the Watson boys were not in full-time education, since Miss Pickavance had been judged good enough to fill the gap. She had their work sent down from the school, and sent it back to be checked from time to time by the head teacher. ‘See, Miss Pickavance, our Bertie’s got Pedro, and our Rob’s up to his eyes in the rotation of crops, so I had to find something to do.’ He stared hard at his hostess. ‘You took it, didn’t you? You took the pad and pretended you hadn’t.’

Hilda nodded.

‘Why?’ he asked.

She took a deep breath. ‘I showed your work to a lecturer from Manchester College of Art. He lives in Bolton, he wants to see more, and he wants to see you.’

Phil concentrated on his breathing for a few seconds. ‘And the ink drawing?’

Hilda laughed. ‘Everyone’s favourite. It’s framed for your mother. Young man, you are incredibly talented. You can make your living through your art. Not yet, not while the war is on, but later. Your eye for detail is amazing.’

‘Why didn’t you say something before?’ he asked after another lengthy pause.

So Hilda explained about waiting until he was ready, about her fear of embarrassing him. There was a new quiet in him, a need for privacy. ‘I felt I had to leave you to it, but now I am absolutely convinced that you are gifted beyond the norm. And you can’t own a gift, Philip. It’s lent to you for your lifetime, but you have to pass on the results to the rest of us. Writers, composers of music, actors and painters – these people share what they have, what they know. Many artists died young and in poverty, because they worked full time on their talent and others reaped the benefit.’

‘So it’s a curse as well as a gift.’

This was another Watson moment. Hilda should have become used to such events, because each of Eileen’s boys had hidden depths. Mel’s were on display, but she was female and unafraid. Boys were so vulnerable and terrified of criticism that they hid their light under any passing bushel. It’s a curse as well as a gift. That a street urchin should have such perception was amazing. ‘I am so proud to know you, Phil, to have been a witness and a friend to you and your brothers. Robin loves the land and knows more than many grown men when it comes to arable farming. Little Bertie’s a natural horseman, while you, dear boy, are an artist.’

Phil blushed. ‘Have you any ink? I used it all.’

‘You have ink. I bought it as one of your Christmas gifts. Do you need it now?’

‘Not really. I can do the Mr Collins asleep sketch any time.’

‘Shall I get it for you to copy? It’s upstairs.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll just do it from memory.’ Tapping his forehead, he grinned broadly. ‘I keep them all in here,’ he explained. ‘Let’s face it, there’s plenty of room. And I can do it better this time. Thanks.’

‘For what?’

‘For pretending not to notice when I pinched all your uncle’s stuff out of the roof. If that hadn’t been there, I might never have found out how much I like drawing and painting.’ He would be a man; he would do what needed doing this very moment. After jumping to his feet, he crossed the room and kissed Miss Pickavance clumsily on the cheek. ‘Thanks,’ he mumbled again. ‘Without you and this place, I might never have found out about myself.’ He left the room at speed.

‘And Hitler,’ she whispered. Had the war not happened, Phil Watson might well have followed his peers to the docks. Even the illest of winds carried some good news. Well, she had done her duty, and it had been a pleasure. The wildest and naughtiest Rachel Street boy had turned out to be the best. ‘Never judge a book by its cover, Hilda,’ she told herself. ‘And never judge a boy by his sins. I wish those two policemen could see his work. As Nellie might say, that would wipe their eyes good and proper.’

With the exception of rickshaws and bicycles, Nellie and her two older grandsons had used almost every form of land transport known to man. They travelled by horse and cart, a train, two buses, one tram and a filthy delivery van. They were now staring at part of their beloved city. Smoke and dust filled the air. Steam struggled through heaps of brick and slate that had, until now, been family homes. Underneath all this, there would be bodies.

‘Bloody hell,’ Nellie breathed. Distance and countryside quiet had made the war almost unreal, because the fortunate residents on the Willows estate heard and saw nothing at all. ‘We don’t know we’re born,’ she whispered. In an effort to keep the boys cheerful, she chivvied them along. ‘Come on, lads. I can’t wait to see your mam’s face when you give her that drawing, Phil.’

Phil stood as if frozen.

‘What are you doing?’ Nellie asked.

‘Remembering.’ His tone was sombre. When he got home – yes, it was home – he would commit to paper what he saw today. Slates slipping and shunting to the edge of a roof; behind them, a hole through which a feeble flame struggled in its search for oxygen. On the pavement, two ragged little boys chewing on bread, their movements automatic, expressions fixed, souls depleted. Everywhere, bricks and roof tiles and shattered glass. Two shocked children breaking bread in a scarred city. What had they lost? Were they brothers? Where was their mother? Somebody would come for them soon, surely? Phil committed their faces to memory. The sky was dirty. Perhaps the sun shone behind layers of bitter smoke. ‘Gran?’

‘What, love?’

‘I’m glad Bertie didn’t come. This would have given him nightmares for weeks. Is Rob all right?’

‘He will be.’ She shouldn’t have come. She was a stupid woman—

‘Mrs Kennedy?’

It was him. It was the doc, the one she had clobbered, the bloke whose arm had been wrenched from its socket by a couple of old dockers. He was offering them a lift to Crosby. Rob was looking a bit green round the gills, while Phil was simply staring, taking it all in. This wasn’t right.

‘It’s a long walk,’ Tom told her. ‘Get in. My wife will have my lunch waiting.’

‘Thanks,’ Rob yelled. He had seen enough. ‘Come on, Gran. I don’t fancy walking seven miles.’

The boys sat in the rear seat, Eileen’s Christmas gift clutched to the artist’s chest. This meant that Nellie had to place herself next to the driver, the very man who had awakened Eileen’s lonely body, who had probably pushed the girl into the arms of Keith Greenhalgh. Mind, the marriage was a good one, so Dr Tom Bingley had merely hastened the inevitable. She studied him. He was as black as a chimney back, and something akin to the colour of blood stained his hands. ‘Where’ve you been?’

‘To hell,’ was his quiet reply. ‘I couldn’t just sit there in Crosby when I could hear what was going on. I’ve been among the dead, the barely alive, the young and the old. You shouldn’t have come back here.’

‘But it’s Christmas.’

‘Yes. The Germans know it’s Christmas, too, Mrs Kennedy. They imagine us sitting round our hearths with the children’s stockings hung and waiting, so they bomb us. The young among us look to the sky for reindeer and a sleigh. Instead, they get Heinkels and tons of shrapnel. I did what I could. We all did what we could. But the people, including the walking wounded, are so unbelievably brave. I dressed the hands of a man who had prised off two fingernails in order to dig out his family, and he felt no pain.’

‘Did he get the family out?’

‘Oh, yes. Except for his wife.’ He swallowed. ‘If that happened to Marie, I don’t know what I’d do, Mrs Kennedy.’

So the rumour was true, then. It had come from Gloria, had been filtered through Mel, then via Eileen. But this was no game of Chinese whispers. He was back with his wife. ‘Good lad,’ she said softly.

‘Is she . . . all right? Eileen, I mean. Is she happy?’ he asked.

‘She is. And expecting.’

‘Good.’ He stopped at a level crossing. ‘Sometimes, we don’t know what we have until we throw it away. Marie needed help, as did I. Tell Eileen I was asking after her.’ He pulled away when the crossing barriers were lifted, drove up Liverpool Road, then stopped suddenly outside his surgery. ‘Stay here for a minute or two, boys. Mrs Kennedy, come and give me a hand.’

She waited while he unlocked the door, then followed him into his surgery. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Are we here for a repeat performance? I can hit your jaw for a change if you like.’ She smiled at him. ‘Pulling your leg,’ she said.

He told her about the town hall, municipal offices, a food warehouse, shops, an hotel, houses, the docks. ‘There are five railway arches down. People were sheltering, and it could take days to get the bodies out. Fires are being dealt with by people who work all day, only to come out again to man trucks and hoses at night. You shouldn’t be here. Last night was the worst so far, and I suspect we’ll be getting repeat performances. I think they got West Derby again, and Waterloo Grain House was fire-bombed and destroyed.’

‘I didn’t know,’ she whispered.

‘You’re supposed not to know, because what the populace knows, the enemy knows. They are among us, Nellie. And that’s not paranoia; it’s a fact.’

She dropped into a chair. ‘If we’d stayed at Willows—’

‘Stop it,’ he ordered. ‘I won’t have you making yourself ill because of this one mistake. What I am saying is that you must take the boys back. Stay here tonight. Keith Greenhalgh and I will put our heads together with regard to petrol. I have an allowance, and I use a bicycle when I can, so I should be able to spare a gallon. And I have patients who might donate some.’ He looked her up and down. ‘But God help you when she opens that door. She has a feisty side, as I’m sure you know.’

Nellie smiled ruefully. ‘Her dad was a quiet man, so she got her temper from me. Keith manages her.’ Keith loved Eileen, and Keith was capable of loving only one hundred per cent, but the doctor didn’t need to know that. Between Eileen and Keith there was a chemistry so powerful that it seemed to colour the air around them. Those long, long kisses they stole when they thought no one was looking, soundless word-shapes mouthed across a room, his hand in her hair, her head on his chest while they listened to the wireless. Tom Bingley had wanted Eileen; Keith Greenhalgh adored her.

‘I promise I’ll take you back tomorrow,’ Tom said.

‘Thanks. And . . .’

‘And what?’

‘Sorry I hit you and put the Word out on you.’

This woman had done the right thing. Eileen had been his for the taking, and it would all have been so wrong. ‘Come on, madam. Those boys probably need feeding, and you’ve a virago to face.’ He wished he had to face . . . No, he couldn’t wish, mustn’t start that all over again!

They stepped outside. While he locked the outer door, Nellie had a quick look round. Everything was standing, no gaps between houses, no dying flames. The Crosby bombs had fallen nearer to the river, and just two houses had been wiped out. She would be living here soon, but she would rather be here now and know that Eileen was safe at Willows. Mel needed looking after, as did Frances Morrison. ‘My daughter won’t let me come back till the house is all right,’ she complained.

Tom laughed. ‘It won’t fall down, believe me. It’ll be months or years before it’s finished properly. Stick to your guns. I’ll take you back to Willows, because all your things are there and the boys need a lift, too. But choose a date and tell her you’re coming back. She and her baby need to be away from here. The house is stable enough, I promise you. While it looks odd, it’s been passed as habitable by the corporation and the fire chief.’

‘All right.’ Nellie sat in the car and turned to her grandsons. ‘Your mam will kick off,’ she advised them.

‘We know,’ said Phil. ‘And we’re not bothered.’

The back door flew inward and Elsie Openshaw stepped in. ‘I’ve fetched you two bottles of Guinness,’ she cried. ‘Good for you and for the babby. How is our Maisie?’ She entered the living room. It was a tip, and Nellie, who sometimes helped Gill, had buggered off to Liverpool with two of her grandsons. The third boy was helping Collie Crawford, because Collie looked after Pedro, and Bertie liked to show his gratitude. When she got back from Crosby or wherever, Nellie would clean up Gill’s mess. Elsie, who was averse to housework anyway, had to open up the shop in half an hour, but she had promised to call in here while Nellie was absent.

Gill Collins wasn’t coping. Like many who wait endless years for an imagined child, Gill found the reality of motherhood disturbing. Several days each month saw her hurtling to Willows Edge or to the main house in search of advice when the baby vomited, when she seemed too hot, too cold, too fretful. And Jay got on his wife’s nerves.

Elsie placed the bottles of stout in a small space on the cluttered table. She hadn’t been a good mother, and she didn’t want to watch Gill failing at this very important job. Oh, well. At least the nappies had been washed, because a dozen or so were hanging as stiff as boards in the freezing cold outside. ‘Shall I fetch your washing in, love?’

‘What?’

‘While you’re feeding her, shall I get the nappies in and put them to dry in here? There’s no breeze. They’ll be frozen solid by teatime.’

‘Oh.’

Elsie waited. ‘Right. I’ll fetch them in and they can thaw out near the fire. Then I’ll make you a bit of tea and toast, eh?’

Gill shifted the infant to her other breast. ‘If you like.’

The old Elsie revived and bridled. Jay was a grand lad. He was on the daft side, very good at acting the rubber pig, but he had a big heart and he loved his wife and child. ‘You want to pull yourself together, missus. Yon man of yours is ill—’

‘So was yours,’ Gill snapped. ‘But you still mithered him till he keeled over. Don’t be lecturing me, Elsie Openshaw. You’ve only gone nice since Nellie came and helped you out in the shop. So think on before you start telling the rest of us how to fettle.’

Elsie had learned from Nellie how to hold her tongue. And this girl wasn’t well. She’d settled down during the pregnancy, but once the baby became a reality Gill started losing her grip. The gatehouse deteriorated into a mess, while Jay, who had special dietary requirements, was abandoned to manage for himself. That might have worked had he not been such a clown, but his diabetes was fast becoming unstable, because he let himself run too low on sugar before noticing that he felt odd. With Phil Watson away, Jay had no help, and he could let himself go all the way to coma if this wasn’t sorted.

While Elsie went to bring in nappies, Gill stared into nothingness. She remembered, just about, imagining herself in love with Keith Greenhalgh. She’d even been upset when he’d married the Liverpool glamour girl, but now she knew the truth. The fact was that she wanted to be married to somebody sensible, and Keith had happened to fit the brief. Jay had been fun at the beginning, but she’d grown up, while he had remained a child. She had two children. One was at her breast, while the other was outside somewhere clowning about up a ladder or on a roof. ‘I can’t worry about both of you, Maisie. There isn’t enough of me to go round, you see. And that was why I thought I wanted Uncle Keith. He’s dependable.’

Elsie came in and began to place ice-stiffened washing on a couple of clothes horses. The nappies would thaw out faster near the fire. ‘Shall I come back after I’ve closed the shop? I can cook something and tidy up a bit in case Nellie doesn’t get home in time.’

‘I’m sorry, Elsie.’

‘Nay, lass. Put your name down for a good skrike. Tears and temper are good as long as you let them out.’

‘He’s driving me mad. Remember when he got tanked up on Guinness and came home a bloody fighter pilot? I half drowned him, but I managed to keep going. Even then, before Maisie, I was wishing I’d wed somebody with a bit of gumption, a gradely chap who didn’t go round acting like somebody let out for a day from the loony bin.’ She placed the child in a pram and fastened her blouse. ‘I’ve a baby to wean. When she starts crawling, I’ll have to watch her. And I have to watch him, him, him.’ Her voice rose with every repetition. ‘I can’t do it. I can’t listen to his stupid jokes any more, can’t watch him playing the fool all the while. He’s a father, and he should act like one.’

Elsie pushed a pile of newspapers from a chair and sat at the littered table. ‘Does he know you feel like this?’

Gill shook her head. ‘He’d stop looking after himself altogether, and he’d die, then that would be my fault. I am so bloody tired, Elsie.’

‘I know, love. Look, I can leave the shop shut and stay with you if you like.’

Gill shook her head. ‘I’m best by myself, thanks all the same. God knows where he’s got to. It’s all the worry. Cleaning up’s beyond me, and I even forget to cook. Sometimes, I can’t remember what happened yesterday, because life’s always the same, like a muddy ball of Plasticine when all the colours have got mixed up together. There’s no order any more. He comes home, the singing, dancing joke of a husband, and I don’t hear him these days, hardly see him till he picks Maisie up.’ She couldn’t let him hold his own daughter. What if he had a hypo? What if he jiggled the child until she vomited? What if he dropped her on her head?

Elsie left the poor young mother with a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits. Feeding a kiddy took a fair lump out of a woman, and Gill needed help. The post office could look after itself for once, because this problem needed a solution. One of the Land Army girls hadn’t taken kindly to field work, but Elsie had a use for her.

At Willows Home Farm, the large woman stopped and reclaimed her breath while preparing to knock on Jean Dyson’s back door. The Land Army girl in question lived in Jean’s house, so the farmer’s wife had to be consulted. Jean opened the door. ‘I thought I heard somebody out here. Get inside before you freeze to the ground. We’d do better if it snowed. Apart from anything else, snow would confuse the Germans, and we’d be that bit warmer, too.’

Elsie sat down in the kitchen and accepted a welcome cup of scalding tea. Words tumbled from her tongue in no particular order, but Jean was good at jigsaws, and she managed to piece together the message after just one repeat. ‘Gill can have her for a few hours a day, and welcome. She’s one of the older ones from a family of eight, so she should be all right with the baby and a bit of tidying up. No good at all on the land, Elsie. It’s like sending a fox to mind the chickens.’

Elsie managed a smile. ‘Nellie says the girl’s nesh.’

‘Nesh? What the hell’s that?’

‘Mardy. Soft. A moaning Minnie.’

‘She’s all of the above. I just hope she does better for Gill than she has for us.’

So it was sorted. Until Neil Dyson walked in with an unconscious man in his arms.

‘You’ve no idea,’ Nellie moaned. ‘When she was fourteen, she fell hook, line and gobstopper for the milkman’s lad. I gave her down the banks for it – I never stopped shouting at her for about four hours. So she moved out. She didn’t go far; she went living with her friend four doors away. For the best part of three weeks, she never spoke to me. Her dad was dead, bless him, so there was just me left to manage Madam. Anyway, she came home because she decided the milkman’s lad was a few sarnies short of a picnic, but she carried on sulking.’

Tom tried not to laugh. Nellie Kennedy was afraid of her own daughter. He had parked the car a few houses away from Miss Morrison’s, because Nellie’s panic had started about halfway up Manor Road. There was some heavy breathing in the rear of the car, too, since both lads were tired and hungry. Eventually, Phil declared that he’d had enough of this malarkey, so he and his brother were off, thanks, and they were grateful for the lift.

Nellie watched them as they walked to the house. ‘The big one’s a Leonardo de . . . Italian bloke, I think. Or a Botticell-something-or-other,’ she announced proudly.

‘Botticelli.’

‘Yes, him and all. I’d best go, eh?’

‘You’ll be all right. She loves you.’

Nellie opened her door. ‘I know that. She loves me enough to kill me.’

‘Good luck,’ he called.

‘Hmmph.’

Tom chuckled to himself when Eileen appeared in the street. She grabbed her mother and dragged her through the front gate just as the doctor’s car shot past at speed. He couldn’t have coped with Eileen Watson as a lover; she was too hot to handle. But God, she was beautiful.

Inside, one angry woman stood at each end of the kitchen table. Between them, Keith occupied a chair at one of the two longer sides, a newspaper spread before him. While they argued for several minutes, he turned pages and pretended not to be there. The boys, having discovered a tin of jam tarts, had gone off to eat these treats while examining bomb holes in the playing field. Miss Morrison parked herself in the hall, wheelchair wedged between front door and coat stand. She liked a good row. Nellie and her daughter were brilliant at rows, since they were loud enough to be heard quite clearly. This one was heating up nicely.

‘You shouldn’t have brought the boys away from Willows. There’s dead bodies and all sorts down there in Liverpool.’

‘I didn’t know that, did I? If nobody tells us nothing, we don’t know nothing, do we?’

Frances Morrison decided not to stand up and argue the case against double negatives. She hadn’t counted them anyway, so Nellie’s nobodies and nothings might have worked out positive . . . Language could be quite mathematical if one thought about it. But she couldn’t care less at the moment, because Keith was stepping into hot water, and Keith was quite effective when it came to the management of his wife. It was rather unfortunate, really, because he often put a full stop before a sentence had ended.

‘Eileen?’ Keith looked first at his father’s watch, then at his beautiful partner. ‘Right, that’s six minutes, and I’m chucking in the towel. Stop it. My newspaper’s curling at the edges, so give over. We all know what’s going to happen, because it’s like a bloody pantomime. You tear strips off your mother, she bounces back and calls you all the names under the sun. She cries, you cry, and all that energy’s been wasted, cos we all end up supping tea anyway.’

‘But she’s fetched two of my lads into a burning city, and—’

‘Stop it,’ he repeated. ‘I’m not having behaviour like this in a house belonging to a woman with a weak heart.’

He had forgotten, just for a moment or two, that he was living in a matriarchy. Lancashire women were strong and bolshie; those who clung to the banks of the Mersey were particularly robust.

‘Spoilsport,’ called Miss Morrison, thereby proving to the only male in the house that even she was his superior, and she was supposed to be polite, since she came from the posher end of the conurbation and had a bad heart. They always bloody won in the end, didn’t they? Though he usually got some sense out of Eileen when they were alone. And horizontal. Oh, God, he mustn’t start laughing. His sweet angel would probably beat him about the head with a wet dishcloth if he kicked off laughing. And the cast iron frying pan was still standing on the hob.

Nellie turned and leaned on the sink, but her shoulders betrayed the fact that she was trying not to chuckle. Eileen stared hard at the man she worshipped. There was amusement in his eyes, and he had not been given permission to be amused. ‘No interest for you this quarter, young man; I don’t care about the size of your deposits.’ His smile melted her heart, and she left the house in order to retrieve her sons before they took a nosedive into a bomb crater.

While marching across the playing field, she wore a daft smile. She was putty in his hands, and she would deal with him later. Or would she? ‘Come on,’ she called. ‘All the explosives have gone, so there’s nothing to laugh at.’

Inside the house, a delicate truce clung desperately to life. When Frances Morrison had been wheeled back to her room, and her lunch had been delivered, five people sat round the kitchen table. At its centre sat a package wrapped in red crêpe paper done up with a festive if rather squashed green ribbon. Phil’s cheeks burned brightly.

‘For me?’ Eileen asked.

Rob nodded. ‘He drawn it,’ he said, a thumb jerking in the direction of his older brother. ‘But Miss Pickavance put it in a frame and wrapped it up, like.’

‘Shut up,’ cried Nellie. ‘Don’t spoil the surprise.’

Eileen opened her gift slowly, her gaze fixed on Phil. He had made whatever this was just for her. The lad had changed. She remembered his scribbles and how he had guarded them, head down, arm shielding the work from prying eyes. Her children were growing up, and the war had stolen precious months, because they could not be together as a family all the time. Phil was twelve, and his head was almost level with Keith’s shoulder. Soon he would be a man, and if she was going to be there to see him grow she would have to leave Mel, who was up to something— ‘Oh,’ she breathed. ‘Oh, Phil. That is wonderful. It’s Jay. Look, Keith; it’s him to a T.’

Phil continued to blush. ‘It’s called Man at Work.’

Eileen shook her head in near-disbelief. He’d always been able to draw, but this was the work of a trained artist. ‘Ink?’ she asked.

‘Yeah. I found it in the roof.’

Keith looked at the drawing. ‘You’ve even got that sideways twitch on his nose – he always goes sideways when he snores. The barn, the yard – I feel as if I’m there. That dandelion seems to be growing while I look at it.’

Nellie broke the spell. She could always be depended on when it came to emotional moments. ‘He’s another Van Cough,’ she announced, ‘what cut his ear off and posted it to some poor bugger instead of a birthday card.’ She knew the words were wrong, but this was her way of making up with her daughter.

Eileen ignored her mother. ‘Has Miss P looked at this?’

Phil nodded. ‘Yes, she’s looked at them all. I’ve done some watercolours, too. And I’ve tried with oils.’

‘And what did she say, Phil?’

‘I have to see somebody about it. Manchester College of Art. She wants to put me in some exhibition gallery after the war.’ He pondered for a moment. ‘I’ve got more in my head now; things I saw today. Because I want to tell the truth in pictures. Like a diary, but sketched.’

‘Bombed houses.’ Nellie folded her arms. ‘He wants to draw the mess in town. You’re right, they shouldn’t have come here.’

‘That’s what I said till my dearly beloved shut me up. Phil, this is magic, son. There’s something about my kids. Every one of them’s talented. But this? Well, I don’t know what to say.’

Keith cleared his throat. ‘That’ll make a nice change.’ He stood up, reached out his right hand and shook Phil’s. ‘You’re a star, lad. If you’ve shut your mother up, you’re a walking miracle, and I thank God you’re here. And . . . well, wherever he is, your dad’ll be proud of you. I’m proud, and I’m only your stepdad.’

Nellie took the boys and the sketch through to the ground-floor bedroom. From the kitchen, Eileen and Keith heard the old lady as she exclaimed over the quality of Phil’s work. ‘Life’s full of surprises,’ said Eileen, her eye on the kitchen clock. ‘Where is she?’

‘Mel? With Gloria, I expect. School holidays – they’ll be trying clothes on.’

But Eileen didn’t agree. There was a glow in the cheeks of her fourteen-year-old daughter, a twinkle in her eyes. ‘I reckon she’s with Peter in Rachel Street, Miss Pickavance’s house. She has a key. They’ll be up to no good.’

Thirteen

‘Jeanie!’ Neil Dyson staggered into Home Farm’s kitchen, the unconscious Jay Collins a dead weight in his arms. ‘He gets heavier with every step, I swear to God. Blankets.’ He placed Jay on the sofa before taking a few deep gulps of oxygen into lungs that had been working overtime for the best part of a mile. ‘Come on, Elsie. There’s nothing new on this earth, nothing you haven’t seen before. Strip him. His clothes are wet through and frozen. We’ve no chance of warming him up till we get these things off him. Towel him dry once he’s bare – there’s some nice rough towels on the pulley. We need to keep his blood on the move.’

Elsie thrust her cup into Neil’s hands. ‘Get yourself outside that tea. You look nearly as bad as he does.’ She glanced at Jay. He was frighteningly still and, she suspected, near to coma. She grabbed towels from the line above the fireplace, put them on the fireguard to warm, then began to peel off the poor young chap’s clothing. There was hardly anything of him. She’d noticed that young ones with diabetes tended to be on the thin side. He needed building up and looking after, but would Gill Collins listen? Would she buggery. It was like trying to talk to a heap of coal in the dark. ‘Come on, lad. Buck up, eh?’ she whispered to the motionless Jay. ‘You’ve got to fettle a bit better than this, son.’

Exhausted, Neil dropped into a chair. ‘Jean, run up to Willows and ask Miss Pickavance to tell the operator we need an ambulance fast. Hypogly-wotsit and hypothermia. Or diabetic, unconscious and very cold’s easier. Go on, love. I’d go myself, but I’m puffed after lugging him up from Four Oaks. I had him in a barrow, but the wheel shaft broke and I had to carry him. Soft bugger must have keeled over and fallen in the horse trough. Ice on the water wasn’t thick enough, so the mad article could have drowned in six inches of wet. I pumped the stuff out of him, and he’s breathing, but not for much longer if we don’t get help.’

Jean screamed for her daughters. ‘Stella? Pat? Bring every sheet, blanket and eiderdown you can manage. Fill some hot water bottles.’ She grabbed hat and coat before running to the big house. Of course, it wasn’t the big house any more, was it? The big house had been pulled down years back and— Why was she thinking about this kind of stuff? Jay Collins lay near-dead, and here she was trying to remember the original sandstone building that had all but fallen down years ago.

And she had bread in the oven, and the kitchen copper was boiling water so that she could do the extra sheets for Land Army girls’ beds. Wasting wood or coal was a sin, especially now. Oh, Gill, why couldn’t you have looked after him just a bit better? You know he’s no idea when it comes to counting points against insulin. ‘Jay,’ she muttered, ‘you’d best pull round, because we don’t want to bury you before we’ve given you a bloody good telling off, you mad bag of bones.’ Fighter pilot? The air force needed Jay like it needed squadrons of blind monkeys. He was lovable, though . . .

Why couldn’t his wife love him? He needed taking in hand, but who had the time these days? Every farmer was up to his ear holes trying to make a hundred acres do the work of a thousand. ‘You’ll pull round, too, Gill Collins, if I have to break every bone in your miserable body. No time to play the wild card, not with a war on. Nervous bloody breakdowns are a luxury we can’t afford till later. Post-natal depression – huh!’

Back at Home Farm, Elsie and Neil were trying to rub some life into the patient’s chilled limbs. Stella and Patty warmed blankets and quilts at the fire, and Elsie piled items on top of Jay until he was almost buried beneath layers of various fabrics. Metal shelves from the oven were wrapped in towels and placed underneath the bundle Jay had become. ‘Faint pulses in both feet,’ announced Elsie. ‘Thank goodness for that.’

‘Why?’ Neil stared at her quizzically before returning to his task.

‘They lose limbs. Diabetics, I mean. He’s lucky, because even at this temperature the blood’s getting through. But he’s still blinking cold, Neil. And I daren’t give him any sugar in case it chokes him. Oh, I wish they’d hurry up with that ambulance. I know we’re a few miles out, but this fellow needs help now. I mean, what more can we do for him?’

‘Is it possible to warm him up too quickly?’ Neil asked. ‘Can we do any damage this way?’

‘I don’t know.’

That was a change, thought Neil. Usually, Elsie knew everything. He went to change his own damp clothes.

Miss Pickavance arrived with Jean. ‘I’ve made a bottle of hot sugar water,’ the older woman said. ‘Just to wet his lips. If any of it does get into his mouth, it will do no harm as long as we don’t overdo it and choke him.’ She knelt on the floor and, with the tip of a finger, began to moisten his lips. He stank of pear drops, and that meant too much insulin, not enough food. ‘Come on, Jay,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t let us down. In a few weeks, you’ll be ratting with Mrs Hourigan’s Jack Russells. Remember? Everyone calls them ’ourigan’s ’orribles? We can’t have the rat-kill without you. The barns will need clearing, and we’ve fencing to mend. We can’t have anything without you to keep us all smiling. You have to get through this, my friend.’

‘She’s upset,’ mouthed Elsie to Jean. ‘Thinks the world of him.’

Neil returned, still pulling a dry jersey over his head. Miss Pickavance was especially fond of Jay, because he never failed to amuse her. And she always calmed him down and made him talk about sensible things like lead for flashings, painting everything green in line with War Office orders, the best wood for replacement fencing. He was almost the son she’d never had.

‘Does Gill know?’ the lady of the manor asked.

‘No,’ Neil replied.

‘She’s not with us,’ opined Elsie. ‘She’s gone AWOL in her head. Well, it needs saying, Neil. No point pussyfooting about. She can’t look after herself at the moment, Miss P. And she loses patience with all his clowning. I came here to ask if I could borrow that Land Army girl, the one who hasn’t took to the job in the fields. I thought she might be put to better use helping with the baby and seeing that Jay eats properly.’

‘That sounds like a good idea,’ said Hilda Pickavance. ‘From what I’ve heard, the girl’s no use where she is. However, back to the point. Jay’s wife needs to be told.’

Nobody moved. Then Neil spoke up. ‘She won’t go with him in the ambulance because she refuses to leave the baby with anyone. And she’ll not take her to the hospital; she thinks Maisie’ll catch something. We’ll tell her. After he’s gone to the hospital. To be honest, I don’t think she’ll notice he’s gone; she’s been shutting him out of her mind for months.’

‘He drives her mad,’ Elsie commented. ‘That’s the top and bottom of it. She got sensible and he stayed daft.’

‘That’s as may be,’ Neil replied. ‘Me and my Jeanie have got on one another’s nerves for many a year, but we don’t turn our backs on each other. Gill’s not well herself. She’s been like a cat on hot bricks ever since that baby was born. I just feel that news like this could tip her further over the edge. She doesn’t say much, so we’ve no idea what’s going on in her head.’

Elsie voiced her agreement that Gill wouldn’t notice Jay’s absence. ‘He’s got to have warmed up a bit by now. Give him another drop of that sugar water, Miss Pickavance. Get us your balaclava, Neil. Even his head’s cold.’

The ambulance people arrived and started all over again with Jay. By the time they had finished with him, he resembled a clean version of something that had been pulled from a pyramid and lifted out of a fancy coffin. ‘Will he be all right?’ Hilda Pickavance asked repeatedly. The men and their nurse assured her that Jay would receive the best treatment available, and invited her to accompany her son to the infirmary.

‘He’s not my son,’ she replied, regret colouring her tone. ‘And I have an evacuee at home, so I must go. I have to fetch him from the vet’s, where he’s been helping out.’

‘Right-o.’ They lifted the patient and his stretcher towards the door.

‘I’ll go with him,’ sighed Neil resignedly. ‘I don’t know how or when I’ll get back, but I’ll try to phone you, Miss Pickavance. Jean, you or Elsie can go over to the gatehouse and tell Gill. She has to be informed. God knows what she might do if he just went missing.’

The door closed behind the patient, his companions and Hilda, who was on her way to pick up Bertie from the vet’s surgery.

Elsie and Jean looked at each other. ‘We get some great jobs,’ Elsie said. ‘We’ll both go. That way, we can share the blame and the grief. And I might stay the night with her. I put a note on my door earlier, but Miss P has Nellie’s key if anyone needs anything. Nellie’s not back, is she? God knows how she’ll carry on over there. People say Liverpool’s took a few batterings.’

‘I don’t know. It’s as if the whole world’s falling to bits, Elsie.’

Once again, they donned their outer clothing before stepping into the unforgiving frost of late December. In three days, it would be Christmas Eve. And poor Jay Collins might not wake to enjoy it.

Tom Bingley knocked gingerly on the back door of Miss Morrison’s house. Having been dismissed by the owner and given a black eye by her latest visitor, he was not expecting the warmest of welcomes, though Nellie Kennedy seemed to understand him better now. Nor was he in a good mood. The proposed encounter promised not to be too happy, because his boy was missing, and he knew who had led him astray. At four o’clock on the afternoon of 21 December 1940 it was already dark. The sirens had sounded, so the Germans were probably planning an early visit, and, although Liverpool was seven miles south, planes could be heard and fires were visible in the distance. Eileen opened the door. ‘Tom? Where is she?’

‘My question exactly,’ was his reply. ‘And where’s my son? Legend led us to believe that he was playing chess with a boy from school, but the boy from school is visiting grandparents with his mother. We checked.’ Peter was a decent boy, and this piece of gross dishonesty would be the fault of Eileen Watson’s daughter. She had her mother’s looks and her mother’s wiles; she could probably ruin his son’s life before it had even started. ‘This is not at all like Peter. We have had no behavioural problems with him until very recently.’

‘Oh.’ She widened the door. ‘Come in. My husband’s just making a pot of tea.’ She must not appear worried. She must not allow herself to think the worst of her daughter. ‘Peter isn’t here,’ she said. ‘We’ve not seen him today.’

‘And your daughter?’

Eileen swallowed. The situation could not be concealed, especially now. It was dark, and the Luftwaffe was getting frisky. ‘We thought she was with Gloria. She said something about wrapping gifts and swapping clothes.’ The enemy didn’t usually arrive two nights in a row. ‘Germany isn’t playing fair,’ she said in a weak attempt to lighten the atmosphere. ‘No warning, not even a postcard.’

He frowned. The woman was prettier than ever. Pregnancy clearly suited her. ‘She is not with Gloria. Marie is almost out of her mind. It was bad enough when the bombs fell here and the wardens wouldn’t let us come round the corner to see if our twins had survived. But this is worse, because neither you nor I know where our children are. One thing is certain: they are together.’

‘Sit down, Tom,’ said Keith. ‘Eileen, tell him what you know.’

Eileen perched on the edge of a ladder-back chair. ‘They’re fourteen going on forty,’ she said. ‘Mel has a key to Miss Pickavance’s house in Rachel Street. She goes down from time to time in daylight, and she writes and tells Miss Pickavance what she sees. Oh, and she keeps the house as clean as she can. It was a promise.’ Her voice died. ‘Dear God,’ she whispered as a thud reached her ears. Often, the wind blew the sound of falling bombs all the way up the coast. ‘I thought I heard a couple earlier on, but that one was a definite.’

‘My son may die because of your daughter.’

‘I could say the same in reverse,’ she said.

‘Oh, stop this.’ Keith slammed the teapot onto its stand. ‘We all know what happened. You fell for Eileen and went a bit crazy; now history seems to be repeating itself in the young ones. You know the strength of such feelings, and you must realize, as a doctor, that young people fall in love at the drop of a hairpin, never mind a hat.’

Tom glared at the man who had once been a rival. His glance roved across to Eileen, and he nodded knowingly. ‘You and your daughter cast spells without knowing what you are doing.’ Eileen was lovely, but she was not a gentlewoman; Marie was infinitely superior to this divine, delectable creature. ‘Your daughter is the one with the key to that house. If they are in Rachel Street, there can be no doubt that she has told Peter about the key. Any sexual activity will have been at her instigation.’

Before Keith could react, Eileen had jumped up and raked her nails down Dr Tom Bingley’s cheek. She remembered. Even if it ends, it will never be over. She hated him. ‘You monster!’ she screamed. ‘I’ll kill you, I will, I will. Mel’s a good girl, too sensible to ruin her future for your precious little mother’s boy of a son. As for him, he’s far too effeminate to be of interest to my daughter. Put him in a frock, and you’d have twin girls.’

Keith lifted his wife and placed her none too gently on the draining board among pans and various utensils. ‘Stay,’ he snapped in the manner of one addressing a dog in training.

She stayed.

Keith mopped at his wife’s handiwork with cotton wool and diluted Dettol. ‘You’ll live,’ he pronounced. ‘Sorry. She gets a bit worked up, I’m afraid, especially when she’s worried.’

Nellie entered the arena. ‘Who did that to him? They’re bombing Liverpool – can you hear it? Where’s our Mel? Are the blackouts all up? Our Phil’s drawing a picture of our Rob. He says it’s the first time Rob’s sat still for five minutes. What’s the matter? Have I missed something? Were you shouting, Eileen? Why are you sitting on the sink? Did you scratch him?’

‘Shut up,’ called Eileen and Keith in unison.

But Nellie wasn’t as easy as her daughter. Keith was running out of draining boards on which he might park his difficult women, and he was busy disinfecting the victim of one of them, so he allowed Nellie the floor. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the doctor. ‘They aren’t easy to handle, but they’re worth the bother. In fact, they can be quite entertaining occasionally.’ Nellie was ranting at Eileen, thereby allowing Keith a private moment with Tom. ‘We’ll go to Liverpool,’ he said quietly. ‘You and me. But first, these two Amazons have to be safe.’ He put away the first aid box.

‘I was down there last night, Keith. It’s a bloody nightmare.’

Keith turned to his pair of malcontents. ‘Right. Under the table; I’m putting the cage on.’

‘I’m not going in no cage,’ Nellie announced.

Eileen hopped down from her perch and ordered her mother to do as she was told. When both women were safe, Keith fetched Phil and Rob from upstairs; they were to spend the evening, and possibly the night, in the back garden Anderson shelter. ‘No messing,’ he told them. ‘Remember, you’re bound over and you could go to that place in Derbyshire if you don’t shape. In fact, I’ll drive you there myself if necessary. With a whip.’

Outside at last, the two men breathed a sigh of relief, though it didn’t last long, because Eileen shot out of the door.

‘I’ll padlock that cage,’ Keith threatened.

‘Don’t get killed,’ she begged, her voice trembling with fear.

‘I won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Get back in there. I love you so much, I’ll crawl home whatever happens. Go on. I’ve a daughter to find, and he has a son to crucify.’ He kissed her. An embarrassed Tom Bingley climbed into his car. The kiss was like something choreographed by an over-enthusiastic Hollywood director. It was lengthy and passionate. But Tom wasn’t jealous. He had a wife in full working order, and Keith was welcome to his lively little bride. Wasn’t he? ‘Is it always like that?’ he asked when Keith was sitting beside him.

‘No,’ Keith answered. ‘Sometimes it’s as boring as the next house. And sometimes Eileen’s in a bad mood. That wasn’t a bad mood; it was the orchestra tuning up. And when Nellie’s in a temper, I live in the shed. As for Eileen, she’s perfect for me. I was a dyed-in-the-wool bachelor who needed livening up a bit. She’s given me plenty to live for, and I’m going to be a dad. What more could a man want?’

Tom began the journey down Liverpool Road. Anyone with a vehicle and sense would have been driving in the opposite direction, but the need to find offspring had blurred the edges of reason. ‘Into the valley of death,’ he said wryly. ‘And if they’re not in that house, they’ll be the proverbial needle and the haystack might well be burning.’

They had eventually decided on law. Anyone overhearing their discussions would think they were listening to eighteen-year-olds. Peter Bingley wanted to become a barrister, and he would ‘prat about in a daft wig and a teacher’s gown’, according to the girl who, in ten years, would be Mel Bingley. She was more interested in the coalface, in people and in the preparation of briefs, but both she and Peter were attracted to criminal law rather than the pedantic and predictable side of legal work. The knowledge that she would do the real job while he ‘pratted’ about was a great source of amusement for both. ‘You do the acting, and I’ll write your scripts,’ she reminded him on a regular basis. ‘I’ll be the brains, and you can be the muscle.’

A small fire flickered in Miss Pickavance’s grate. On the hearthrug, two beautiful children lay, clothes piled on nearby chairs, bodies calmer and appeased after their carefully constructed games. The decision not to indulge in the full act had been taken, and each had pledged to steer clear of such dangerous behaviour until they were much older. Every cell might scream for fulfilment, but such noises would not be heeded, because the future mattered. But Peter was suddenly quiet. He valued Mel, admired her. But . . . But what? He was confused. I love her, I do, I do—

A siren sounded. This was a din they dared not ignore. Like a perfectly oiled machine, they responded immediately, clothes first, then a pre-planned pattern of behaviour. Peter doused the fire with water while Mel removed evidence of their feast: greaseproof paper, a pop bottle and a few slices of mousetrap cheese. ‘Cheddar?’ she said to herself. ‘More like soap.’

‘I think we made a mistake.’ Peter straightened the rug. ‘It was rash to think the Germans would take the night off. They seem to be becoming obsessed with the idea of wiping Liverpool off the face of the earth.’

Both stood still in the middle of the room. It was nowhere near four o’clock, and the first wave was already on its way; a dull drone was just about audible above the sound of running feet. People were clearly rushing towards shelters.

‘We’ll be all right,’ Mel said reassuringly. ‘You know we’ll be fine.’ With the certainty possessed by all young animals, Mel and Peter remained firm in the knowledge that they could not die. Other people would lose their lives, but the youthful, the beautiful and the gifted were untouchable. And they’d already had their bomb in Miss Morrison’s house.

Shielded by love and faith, they walked round the outside of the house, opened the rear gate and took their bikes from the yard. Incendiaries floated gracefully through the evening air, landing almost soundlessly on roofs. By some strange, almost osmotic process, these quiet killers disappeared under slates to start deadly fires. The only hope for anyone in a fire-bombed house lay with fire-watchers, ordinary folk who worked during the day and patrolled a sector at night. Flares and firebombs were useful tools for the Luftwaffe, because they turned night to day and made the destruction of Liverpool much easier.

‘We won’t make it back to Crosby,’ Peter said as they crossed the main road. ‘Let’s find a shelter. If we follow all those people, they’ll lead us to safety.’

‘No, I have to get home. Mam will be worried sick, and she’ll kill me.’

‘Mel, if we don’t take shelter—’

And it happened. The house in which they had so recently lain was sliced off the end of the terrace. Peter threw his companion against a wall and covered her body with his. The noise was deafening. Some instinct informed him that the recessed porch of a shop doorway was nearby, so he edged his way to the right inch by inch, Mel clasped tightly against him. Debris landed on him, and he felt a series of sharp pains in his back. The air was thick and hot. His throat almost screamed for water.

‘Don’t touch my back,’ he whispered loudly into her ear. ‘I have glass in it. Pretty large pieces, I think. So we must stay calm, then I shall bleed more slowly. Well, I think so, anyway. Please don’t worry. And we mustn’t pull the glass out. My dad would tell us not to pull the glass out.’

Reality crashed into Mel’s brain. They weren’t magic. No angel protected them just because they were young and beautiful and clever. Like everyone else, they were flesh, blood and bone; they were vulnerable. ‘Peter, don’t die. Cambridge. Chambers at one of the Inns, me nearby in the city robbing the rich so I can buy their innocence. Professional liars, you and I are going to be.’ She didn’t know what to do. The bomb that had taken Miss Pickavance’s house had been followed by others, and the very building in which she and Peter sheltered could be the next victim. ‘Peter?’

‘Yes. I’m fine, don’t worry.’ He wasn’t fine. He wasn’t yet a paid liar, so he should be telling her the truth. ‘Use the whistle,’ he said. ‘I need attention. Bleeding. I feel a bit faint.’ And confused, though he didn’t admit that. He loved her, but . . . God, he was cold.

Mel took the whistle from her pocket and blew hard. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That must have hurt your ears.’

Tom heard it. Travelling at snail’s pace with windows open, he applied his brake. ‘Get out, Keith. Look along the road and in doorways. They could be anywhere here, or behind the Rotunda theatre. I’m going into Rachel Street.’

‘Number one, the house is,’ said his companion before leaving the vehicle. ‘I’ll blow my whistle if I find them, Tom. Good luck.’

But Tom could not turn into Rachel Street, because the first house was spread across cobbles and two pavements. He began to tremble. His heart kicked into overdrive, and in spite of the cold, sweat beaded his forehead. His boy. His lovely, clever son who wanted to play cricket for his county, who was top of his class in five subjects . . .

Bombs continued to fall nearer to the docks, their real targets. Number one Rachel Street was no longer here. There was a crater, there was rubble and, in the dim light provided by other fires, he saw furniture clinging to what was left of the upper storey. A pale dressing gown, hardly touched by the explosion, fluttered on a door. The side wall of the house had crumbled completely. His boy was under that lot. The girl, a clone of her mother, had enticed Peter to his death. But the boy could be alive even now. Pockets were often created among tumbling masonry, which meant that people could be trapped almost unhurt. But then there was the blast syndrome, and— Oh, poor Marie. She would never recover from this.

Another whistle sounded. On grit-laden air, Keith’s voice floated down Scotland Road. ‘They’re here. Tom, Peter’s here.’

For the rest of his days, Tom Bingley would fail to remember the next couple of minutes, but he must have turned the car round and driven no more than fifty yards. Peter was on his knees, the girl crouched beside him. Blood soaked through the boy’s clothes and stained the hands of Mel’s stepfather.

‘You,’ snapped Tom. ‘You Watson girl, get in the back of the car, young lady. My son will lie on his face, and we shall bend his knees so that he will fit. Take his head in your lap and keep him as still as possible. Pray he does well, because you will answer to me, miss.’

But Mel heard none of his threat. Miracles did happen. She and Peter were special, were meant to live, because the people who had responded to the blast were Peter’s father and her stepfather. She sat in the car and received the precious boy’s head and shoulders on her lap. His father folded Peter’s legs and closed the door. ‘You’d better drive,’ he said to Keith. ‘My limbs are not dependable.’

It was a difficult journey, since the need to reach safety quickly fought with the desire to cause no further damage to the patient. It was pitch dark, and the car’s hooded headlights offered few clues about where road ended and pavement began. But Tom, who had learned the route off by heart, knew when they had arrived. ‘Stop here,’ he said. ‘His best hope is in my office where I have some equipment. The hospitals will be too busy.’

At the surgery, Tom regained sufficient strength to carry the unconscious Peter through to his consulting room. ‘Sweep every bloody thing off this desk,’ he snapped at Keith. ‘Then phone my wife and yours. No. Wait while I think.’ He placed his son face down on the patients’ trolley before hurriedly covering his desk with trays and instruments. ‘Take my car. Take her with you.’ He nodded in Mel’s direction.

‘I’m going nowhere,’ she said.

‘Tell your wife, then pick up Marie.’ Tom faced Mel. ‘You have to go to show Keith where my house is. If you insist, I suppose you may return here.’

They left. Please let the research be right. O negative is thought to be the universal donor, and I need to believe that. Did a German discover it? Clever bastards, the Krauts. He rifled madly through papers on the floor, found the document, scanned it. Yes. For almost two years, O negative had been keeping people alive until their own group had been located. He had to trust that.

Tom cut away his son’s clothing and discovered that no major vessel had been ruptured, though there was considerable damage. Peter needed a transfusion, because a great deal of glass was embedded in his flesh, and an incalculable amount of blood had been lost. Trauma and bleeding were the probable causes of the boy’s failure to wake. First, the shards needed to be removed. This was the most terrifying moment of Tom’s life so far.

Slowly and carefully, he picked out the larger pieces, thanking God that Peter remained unconscious during this process. Having removed all visible foreign bodies and smaller glass fragments, the doctor stopped and watched the bleeding. It was not too bad, though there had probably been a sizeable loss of blood since the bombing.

Determined to succeed, he placed a hypodermic in his own left arm, another in his son’s. With O rhesus negative dripping down a tube into Peter, Tom continued to inspect the wounds. He had to concentrate. Passive blood donors often felt faint, and he was playing two parts, donor and surgeon, so his blood would leave him more quickly due to a faster heartbeat.

One-handed now, he lifted the glass away from his son’s prone form and placed it on a corner of the desk. He checked Peter’s bleeding again, then sat and waited, left arm held aloft so that the transfusion would be effective. One of the wounds remained feisty, and he stuffed it with wadding. Marie would soon be here. Marie would help in the saving of this precious life. Not for the first time of late, he thanked God for his wife’s existence.

When he knew he had reached his limit on the bloodletting front, Tom removed the needle from his arm and placed a plaster on the small wound. This valued boy would live. ‘But don’t wake up yet, son.’ He couldn’t get the suture right, couldn’t hold the needle steady. He had done the right thing, because Peter had needed blood, and Tom was almost sure his red stuff could keep anyone going. ‘I gave too much,’ he said to himself before sinking to the floor.

The door flew open. Keith, Eileen, Marie and Mel entered the room.

‘Oh, my poor darlings.’ Marie rushed to her two boys. The senior one was on the floor. ‘How much?’ she asked. ‘How much have you given him? And aren’t you O? But he’s A like me.’

‘It’s all right. The antigens won’t fight – Rh neg, and it’ll keep him going. I showed you how to suture, didn’t I? About a pint and a half, I think I gave, and it left me too quickly. I was working on him.’

She checked her son’s pulse. ‘You saved him, Tom. Thank goodness you found them, Mr Greenhalgh. Eileen?’

‘Yes?’

‘Hot, sweet tea for the upstanding and floor-sitting. Keith, is it?’

‘Aye, that’s me.’

‘Blood group?’

‘A positive.’

‘Good. Will you give? No bad illnesses, hepatitis, TB, blood disorders?’

‘No.’

‘Will you give?’ she repeated. ‘Because I will be stitching his wounds, so I need to remain intact.’

‘Of course I’ll give. I already donate regularly for the war effort.’

‘Sit on the windowsill and keep your arm up as high as you can. Another pint will suffice. Now. Sutures.’

Like a well-oiled machine, Marie Bingley set up the crude transfusion system, plucked packing and debris out of her son’s wounds, washed them, stitched her baby back together, checked the flow of Keith’s blood, shone a light in his eyes to make sure all was well. ‘Drink your tea,’ she ordered. ‘You need it.’

Tom was picking up. He glared at Mel. ‘It was all your doing,’ he accused her vehemently. ‘Had it not been for you, this would never have happened.’

Marie tutted. ‘Oh, do shut up, dear. He’s been after her for months, and well you know it. Fourteen is like twenty these days. But no babies, Mel. I’ll say the same to this fellow when he comes to. There. He’s all stitched up like an old darned sock.’ Only then did she react. When the last stitch was in, she sat in her husband’s chair and wept like a child.

Eileen joined in. She wasn’t one for allowing anyone to weep without company. She looked at Marie Bingley with respect, because the quiet little woman had proved her worth tonight. Eileen liked her. More than that, she knew she had a friend, as the woman was trying to smile at her.

Mel stepped forward and hovered over Tom, who was sitting up and drinking tea. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say to you. We’re young, but we love each other. We’re probably older in our heads than most people our age.’

‘I shall send him to boarding school,’ he barked.

She shrugged. ‘Send him where you like, because he’ll come straight back.’

‘She’s right, I will.’

‘You said that without moving your lips, Dr Bingley.’ Mel squatted down and stared into the eyes of her beloved Peter. ‘Thank goodness you’re back, you dirty stop-out. You’ve a road map on your back. Very colourful. Keep still, because my dad’s blood’s going in, so don’t waste it.’

Keith grinned. This was the first time he’d been called Dad by any of Eileen’s children.

‘Where does the map go, Mel?’

‘All the way to Cambridge.’

Peter turned his head and looked at his father. ‘We’re like a pair of gloves, Dad. She’s the left-hander, because she’ll be the one voting Labour. She’s still not forgiven Churchill for bombing the French fleet in Oran.’ After this lengthy piece of oratory, he passed out again.

Marie pulled herself together before separating Keith from the recipient of his blood. ‘Thank you so much. Now he’s fit to travel to hospital. We aren’t going to bother the ambulance service; from the sound of the symphony down the road, they’ll be up to their eyes. I shall drive. Eileen, if you and Keith would walk home when he gets steady, we’d be grateful. Mel can come with us. It’s plain now that these two will not be separated.’

Throughout this speech, Tom’s eyes stared directly into Mel’s, and she gazed back at him without fear or embarrassment. He was a doctor, a clever man, a member of polite society. Yet she scarcely blinked, because that unswerving arrogance granted to the young and gifted was alive and well in her soul. He was a man; he was an adult. Yet she was his superior, though she didn’t know why or how. Perhaps she would learn in the future; perhaps she would come to realize that the females of the species were born old, while males sometimes remained forever children. Tom Bingley was vulnerable, and he wore his heart on his sleeve. Mel kept hers hidden . . .

‘What do you mean?’ Gill cast an eye over the two invaders. They seemed very worked up and out of sorts, and that would be Jay the Joker’s fault. A great charmer of women, he could persuade the fairer sex to believe just about anything. She would put their minds at rest immediately. ‘He’s at work. He isn’t in hospital, he’s fixing a sink somewhere and putting shelves up in a pantry. Four Oaks, I think. Anyway, Maisie wants changing and she needs a feed, so I’ve no time for his larking about. He needs to grow up.’

Elsie looked at Jean; Jean looked at Elsie. They would probably have got more sense out of the baby had she been capable of speech. ‘Gill?’ Elsie walked up to the young mother. ‘Look at me. He fell in the trough at Four Oaks and came out soaked to the skin in ice-cold water. He’s got hypothermia, and that’s the top and bottom of it.’

Gill shook her head. ‘No. He gets hypo-something or other, but it’s not thermia. It’s to do with sugar if he doesn’t eat right.’

‘Well, he’s got that on top of the other.’

Gill expressed the opinion that Phil Watson was a good minder, and he wouldn’t allow anything like that to happen to her husband. ‘He’s a grand lad, is that. More sense in his little finger than Jay has in his head. He wouldn’t let anything go wrong, because it’s his job to make sure Jay’s in one piece.’

‘Phil’s in Liverpool,’ Elsie said. ‘Visiting his mam. He, Nellie and Rob set off this morning. Seems they haven’t got back yet.’

Gill Collins blinked, picked up her child and changed the nappy. She wondered what Elsie and Gill were talking about. He was out. He went out every day and came back every day. No matter what, he always came back and made a thorough nuisance of himself. The clock ticked and hiccuped. It was old and slightly unpredictable. Jay was young and very unpredictable, and this clock had been his dad’s. ‘He was eccentric,’ she said to no one in particular.

‘Eh?’ Elsie placed a hand on Gill’s arm. ‘He’s still eccentric,’ she said.

Gill shook her head. ‘No. He’s dead.’

‘Who’s dead? Heck, yon lad’s not dead, love.’ Jean smiled reassuringly. ‘He’s in hospital with hypothermia and trouble with his sugar too, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Gill tutted. ‘He’s in Tonge Cemetery with a nice headstone. Italian marble, it is.’

Jean, thoroughly confused, did what all Lancashire women do when their environment deteriorates – she put the kettle on. When she thought about Fighter Pilot Night, she knew how silly and confusing men were capable of becoming. And when Jay was included in the recipe, there was no chance of anybody’s remaining on an even keel.

Gill continued. ‘After his wife buggered off, he lived over the brush with a woman from Fallowfield. He combed his hair across the big bald spot on his head, so he grew it dead long on one side. Every time the bloody wind blew, he looked like he should have had a frock on, because his hair streamed behind him – it was very, very silly. The clock’s nearly as daft.’

Jean and Elsie busied themselves with cups, saucers, milk and teapot. There seemed to have been a marked deterioration in the mental health of their hostess. According to Gill, Jay had been fixing a sink, but now he was dead and buried. Elsie suddenly stopped what she was doing. She stared ahead at nothing in particular before addressing their neglectful host once more. ‘Gill?’

‘What?’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Jay’s dad, of course. He gave us that clock, and it’s nearly as doolally as he was. He’s been dead a while now. No loss. Her from Fallowfield buggered off with the window cleaner, and that was that. We got the clock and that rocking chair, end of story.’

Elsie was growing tired. She lowered herself into a chair and took a long, hard look at Gill. The girl wasn’t mad; she was simply overloaded. The chattering was a distraction; she probably talked to the child and to herself most of the time. Yes, it was all getting Gill down. One baby might not seem much, but for a woman who had expected to be barren, it was clearly one too many. Gill’s dedication to Maisie, all the watchfulness, all the feeding and holding and worrying, came from guilt. I was the same, Elsie said silently. My kiddies were more burden than joy. She wanted Maisie till Maisie became a reality. But what could be done to help?

Jean Dyson drank her tea before excusing herself. She had daughters and hungry Land Girls to feed. Her husband was at the infirmary with Jay, and the chances of his finding transport home today were remote, so she would have to do his early morning jobs as well as her own. But, as she reminded herself inwardly, Willows folk stood by Willows folk, and Neil was doing what needed to be done, as must she.

Elsie stayed where she was. If she waited until Nellie came back, they could unite and tackle this lot together. But it was Jean who returned unexpectedly, slightly out of breath and with a message. She had met Miss Pickavance, and Nellie was not expected back tonight because Liverpool was being bombed again, a close friend of Mel’s had been hurt, and Miss P’s house in the city no longer existed. ‘She was going on about how she should have saved more photographs and her mother’s knitting. So as if we haven’t got enough with this one here, there’s another fretting in the big house. I swear, Elsie, the world is going to the dogs. And I’ve a meal to cook.’ She left the scene and ran home.

Elsie realized that without Nellie she was just half of something useful. Nellie would have found a way of making Gill Collins listen, whereas Elsie Openshaw didn’t know how to kick off. All those years of banishment were still telling on her; although she was now treated much the same as anyone else, her communication skills remained slightly corroded, despite the fact that Nellie had dragged her back into the realms of humanity. But Nellie wasn’t here. God alone knew when Nellie would be here.

‘Gill?’

‘What?’

‘We’re not joking, you know. Jay is back in hospital.’

The younger woman glanced at the clock. ‘He’ll be home in a minute. Somebody would have told me if he’d been in the hospital.’

Elsie hung on to her temper. ‘We did tell you. Jean told you and I told you. You don’t listen, love. You don’t hear what people are saying to you.’

‘It’s just a joke,’ Gill insisted. ‘Like being a fighter pilot was a joke. He’s always pulling my leg. One of these days, he’ll pull it so hard that the foot on the end of it will kick the teeth out of his stupid gob.’

It was hopeless. It was also time for tea, especially for a woman who was breastfeeding. Elsie set to and made poached eggs on toast. While the two women were eating, Elsie noticed Gill’s eyes wandering from time to time to glance at the clock. ‘It gains, then it loses. That clock’s as much use as a rubber knife, but will he buy a new one? No. There’s an alarm clock upstairs, and I have to go all the way up there to make sure of the time.’

Elsie knew that the young woman was waiting for her husband. He got on her nerves, but he was part of the scenery, and he seemed to have disappeared.

Gill stared at Mr Collins Senior’s clock again. If the old fool’s son was pretending to be in hospital . . . if he was pretending to be in hospital, he would end up in hospital, because his insulin was here in the pantry. ‘Elsie?’

‘What, love?’

‘It’s not a joke, is it?’

Elsie shook her head. ‘Nay, I wouldn’t have shut King George’s post office for a joke. And Neil Dyson wouldn’t have abandoned Home Farm for a joke. He’s stuck down yon at the Royal Infirmary, and he’ll likely not get back till tomorrow. That means Jean and the Land Girls have all to do in the morning and no man to help.’

‘Oh.’

‘You can’t get to the infirmary now, Gill. But you can take the torch and go up to Miss P’s house, ask to use the phone, and the hospital will tell you how he’s going on.’

Gill stood up and blinked a few times. ‘What about Maisie?’

‘I’ll mind her.’

‘Oh.’ The young mother still didn’t move. ‘You were no good with your own kids, were you?’

Again, Elsie sat on her old self. ‘I’ve changed, Gill. We all have to change, you included. She’ll be all right with me. I promise.’

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 . . .

Fourteen

‘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.

‘I’ll keep you warm. Come here.’

But she wasn’t going to cooperate, especially with a quorum plus full committee in the house, and her mother was as good as a three-line whip. She leapt from the bed, grabbed her clothes, made a dash for the bathroom, and locked herself in. Laughing almost uncontrollably, she leaned against the door for support. Was she laughing, or was this hysteria?

He was amazing. So controlled and dead-pan serious, so dependable and strong, he was as mad as a March hare in the bedroom. She laughed again. As mad as a hare with a gun up its nose. He was scratching at the door. Last night had been difficult: young Peter with all that glass in his back, Tom and Marie so upset, Mel determined, almost impudent, and probably sexually active. Eileen was exhausted. Even so, she wanted to hug her idiot husband. The trouble was, he’d turn a hug into a three-ring circus, and breakfast was required.

‘I told you it were grim up north,’ Keith stage-whispered from the landing. He was only trying to keep her happy, she guessed, but there was a door between them. Sometimes – and this was one of those times – she wondered how life would have been had she never met him. Would she have consoled herself by having an affair with Marie’s husband? Would she have given in?

‘Go away,’ she hissed. ‘You are interfering with the balance of my components.’

‘Chance would be a fine thing. Let me in.’

‘No. And I hope you’re wearing something.’

‘I’m not.’

She panicked, opened the door, and he pushed his way into the small room. Triumph written all over his face, he winked at her.

‘You lying toad,’ she accused. He was wearing a shirt and trousers.

He washed her, dried her, dressed her, talking all the time, speaking soft words of love, lust and silliness. There was something strangely erotic about being dressed by a man. She could tell by his quickened breathing that he felt the same. ‘Do I need an oil change?’ she whispered.

‘No.’ That special, satanic glint showed again in his eyes. ‘But I’ll replenish your fuel tank later. Talking of fuel, Dr Bingley’s taking them back to Willows. If we get rid of Mel and wait till Miss Morrison takes her nap this afternoon we’ll be able to . . .’

‘Mel,’ she said sadly. ‘Oh, Mel.’

‘It will be all right. She’s got too much sense to muck up her life. Come on. Breakfast for the mob.’

‘Keith?’

‘What?’

‘I love you so much it hurts.’

‘Don’t worry.’ He grinned broadly. ‘I’ll charge your battery when I get the chance. Soon have you running smoothly.’ He left the room. At the top of the stairs, he stood for a while and smiled to himself. He had managed to capture a wild creature, and she would never eat out of his hand. She suffered no morning sickness, no fools and no nonsense. She carried on whatever the circumstances, loved her children, loved life, loved him. He was a fortunate man.

The bathroom door opened. ‘Are you lurking?’ Eileen asked sweetly.

‘It’s part of the course.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yes. After I pass the sex maniac degree, I may do a masters in dirty old man. All I need is a mac or an army greatcoat.’

Eileen shook her head and wagged a finger. She had eggs and toast to prepare. But he wouldn’t leave her alone. She found herself drawn into yet another of his kisses, one that went on so long that it left her breathless. When she regained her composure, she fixed him with a stare that was meant to be steely. ‘Did you pass kissing?’

‘Oh, yes. Flying colours, A-plus, and a mention in dispatches.’

‘Who did you kiss?’

‘The teacher, of course. I want first class honours. He didn’t seem to mind.’

‘Fair enough. Come on, let’s start the day.’

When Keith entered the kitchen, he stopped dead in the doorway. It was an unfortunate moment, because his wife was draped over one shoulder in a fireman’s lift. It would now be clear to Dr Tom Bingley that Keith Greenhalgh had a habit of lifting women and parking them all over the place, so he followed through by dumping her once again on the draining board. ‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘Stay, and I’ll fetch you a biscuit.’ Wearing an air of false nonchalance, he bid Tom good morning and wondered aloud where the dog food was.

But Tom knew he was witnessing something special. These two were deeply in love, and his heart hurt. Eileen was fun. Marie, God love her, was an amazing and capable woman, but she would never be— He shouldn’t stare at Eileen, mustn’t look at her. Just once. If he could have her just once, he would go to the grave faithful except for that just once.

‘Mam?’ Mel joined the pantomime. ‘This drawing of our Phil’s – I’ve never seen anything better.’ She showed it to Tom. ‘Look, Dr Bingley. Look what my naughty brother did. He wants to draw what’s left of Liverpool, but he has to get back to Willows to look after Jay. This is Jay in the picture.’ While addressing him, she looked him full in the face.

Tom took the work and looked at it.

‘Mam?’

‘What, love?’

‘With all that happened last night, Gran didn’t get the chance to talk to you properly. The hospital kept Jay in. He was poorly because of the cold and low sugar. Gran and the boys have to get back today. Miss Pickavance has been fretting again on the phone to Gran this morning, because on top of Jay being ill she knows her precious little house has been flattened. She’s worried that Gran won’t get back. I think she believes Liverpool’s going to be eradicated.’

Nellie came in. ‘Big word for early morning, Mel. Liverpool is here to stay.’ She had fed Miss Morrison. ‘Just as well I was here,’ she said. ‘All the larking about upstairs. That poor woman could have been waiting till a week on Thursday. Anyway, she’ll be better off with me here come the New Year. I don’t go messing before breakfast. It’s like having a couple of daft kids in the house. Hmmph.’ There. That was the doctor told yet again. If he still had intentions regarding Eileen, he might as well know that she and Keith were blissfully happy. ‘Like a couple of elephants in clogs,’ Nellie added for good measure.

Tom studied Phil’s picture. Well, he pretended to study it, but his inner eye was focused on Eileen and Keith messing about before breakfast. His shoulder ached as he recalled the two dockers and their roughness. Marie would never mess about before breakfast. And Nellie had almost broken his skull. His wife was livelier than she had been, but still dignified. He loved her; he did, but . . . Keith Greenhalgh was a lucky devil.

‘Have you come for us?’ Nellie asked. ‘Because we’re ready when you are, doc. Though my grandsons haven’t had much sleep, bless them.’

He told her he had acquired the petrol, and the car was waiting outside. Phil and Rob came downstairs. Eileen was glad of her seat on the draining board, because the kitchen was becoming rather crowded. Her eyes filled up, since she would not be with Mam and her three boys for Christmas. ‘Don’t forget to take the presents,’ she said, her voice cracking slightly. ‘This house has been declared safe, so we’ll swap soon.’ She placed a hand on her belly. Keith’s child had to be guarded, but so did Mam. And this problem with Mel . . . oh, what a mess. Could she leave Crosby? Could she leave the Mel problem to her mother?

Tom stepped up to the table and addressed Phil. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I know you want to record Liverpool and all her sorrows. Would photographs be any use to you? I have a rather good Swiss camera, and I can go down sometimes during the day and get some pictures for you – architectural damage, people – whatever you want. I develop my own in a darkroom, so it’s no problem if I throw in a few extra negatives.’

The boy’s jaw dropped. ‘Would you do that? Really?’

‘Yes. I don’t mind going out of my way for a special young man.’

Again, Eileen caught her breath. Tom was right; she did have special children. They were all willing to work towards a goal, and the change in the boys was remarkable. What would Keith’s son or daughter be? ‘Thanks, Tom,’ she said. ‘He needs and deserves help.’

Tom went to sit in his car. He’d already taken a load of earache from Gloria, who was decidedly uncomfortable about the situation between Mel and her brother. She had screamed about becoming a wallflower, about her parents’ betrayal of her, about losing her best friend. She wouldn’t listen to reason, refused to believe that Tom and Marie hadn’t known about the situation. For once, Tom would be grateful for the company of Nellie Kennedy. Marie, I do love you, but this one, this Eileen, is . . . unique.

It seemed that Eileen Watson, daughter of the slums, had produced remarkable children. Mel was academically brilliant, the oldest boy seemed in danger of becoming a great artist, while the middle one of the three was said to be preparing to dedicate his life to the soil. Her youngest sounded fun, too. Aged only eight, he couldn’t make his mind up between veterinary science and horsemanship. And in her belly, Eileen now carried an unknown little one to be released within months on an unsuspecting world. Sometimes, class and environment didn’t count; he knew several wealthy and well-placed families whose children were as thick as planks. Even extra tuition didn’t work for many of them.

Mel sailed through everything, sometimes after a minimal amount of studying. Gloria was coming on, as the improvement in her appearance seemed to have given her a boost in other areas, but she would never have a brain as quick as her ex-friend’s. God. There was all that to be dealt with when he got back: Gloria wasn’t speaking to her brother, and had declared her intention never to speak to Mel as long as she lived; Marie was upset and confused, while Tom didn’t know where to start.

Eileen had everything, he supposed. For a start, she had love, and it looked real. Her sex drive was strong, she would be living beyond the reach of bombs, and her offspring were bright. Oh, she was creeping back into his heart, wasn’t she? And he would see her, by heck he would. Photographs for Phil. They might suffer ill treatment in the post, and he could get the petrol from time to time, so the photos could become an excuse. He was not supposed to think about her. He was going to dedicate his life to Marie and the twins. But it would never be over. Even though it had ended, it would never be over.

She was on the path, was kissing her mother and her boys. Her eyes didn’t redden when she wept. No matter what she wore, she shone, and he was going crazy again. Madness was a luxury he could ill afford.

Fifteen

‘He still loves you.’ Keith was brushing her hair. Eileen enjoyed having her hair brushed, and had been known to express the opinion that it was nearly as good as sex and a lot less complicated.

‘Tom wants me. You love me. I know the difference. Anyway, he’s reconciled with his wife, though how she tolerates his selfishness I shall never know.’ Eileen glanced at the alarm clock. ‘It’s almost tablet time, and we’d probably shock our patient to death if we turned up in the nude. One verbally offensive experience in a cellar with a caretaker was not enough to prepare her for naked people.’

‘But we are beautiful naked people,’ he said.

She reminded him that beauty existed in the eye of the beholder. A door slammed. ‘Mel’s back,’ Eileen announced. Like lightning, they threw on clothes, unlocked the bedroom door and moved to the landing. They could hear Mel weeping in her room.

‘I’ll do snack and medicines, and I’ll sit with Miss M for a while,’ Keith volunteered. ‘You have other fish to fry from the sound of things.’

Eileen closed Mel’s door behind her and approached her weeping child. She was a child. At fourteen, she was nowhere near old enough to be experimenting with sex. This was all ridiculous, yet no laughing matter. ‘Mel? Sweetheart? Come on, look at me.’

The girl lifted her head. ‘Gloria hates me; her mother pretends to like me, but she hates me, too. And as for the doctor, he looks at me as if I’m a meal waiting to be devoured once he’s poured the gravy on.’

Eileen told her daughter that no one hated her. ‘You’re too like me, you know, too honest for your own good. Tom Bingley likes pretty things, and you are a pretty thing. He’s no threat. Marie’s a good woman, but she’s frightened. If you get pregnant, both your mothers will be destroyed. As for Gloria, the idea of you sharing secrets with her brother is uncomfortable. She was your confidante, and you were hers. She doesn’t want her brother knowing anything private.’

‘But I wouldn’t.’

‘I know that, you know that, but she doesn’t. This is all happening because you and Peter have stepped beyond your time. You’re the ones out of order, Mel. At fourteen and a half, you should still be playing rounders and hopscotch. He ought to be hanging round with a few lads his own age, football, cricket, skimming pebbles on the river. Now. Tell me what you’ve done with him. You can’t shock me, because I’ve had two husbands, four children, and a mind broader than the Mersey.’

Mel faltered while she described as best she could what had gone on between her and Peter Bingley. Thrown into the cold light of day, the words were meaningless at best, silly and childish at their worst. There was no pleasure in mere speech, no way of bringing to life an experience that had been joyful. It all sounded so stupid, yet Eileen didn’t mock.

‘I’ve been there, Mel. Admittedly, I was older than you are, but I do know what’s going on. Believe me, sweetie, one of these days the messing about you describe won’t be enough. You’ll think once won’t matter. You’ll convince yourself that there are times when pregnancy is impossible. My Bertie shouldn’t have happened, but he did. The little lad who stole a carthorse can’t possibly have done that, because his existence was a supposed impossibility.’

Mel swallowed and dried her eyes. ‘What am I expected to do now, Mam?’

‘Stay away from him.’

‘Mother!’

‘I know, I know. Some men I’ve had to avoid because I desired them. When I met Keith, I knew he was right. At the same time, another man appealed to my baser nature, so I stopped seeing that man. He happens to be married.’

‘You saw him this morning.’

Thrown for a moment, Eileen paused.

‘Peter heard something. It was Dr Bingley, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you wanted to—’

‘Yes. But no longer. Keith is right for me. And I’m thirty-four, Mel, so I have three decades under my belt. You are wading in treacherous waters. Have a baby, and it’s all over. Your ambitions will curl and dry up like a pile of dead leaves. By the time you reach my age, your child could be your age or older. Say you had him or her at fifteen – you’d be only thirty and mother to a hormonal kiddy. Just stop it. I don’t want to upset you, but you know I’m making sense.’

So they sat holding hands, Mel sobbing from time to time, Eileen simply being where she was needed. She would be needed downstairs shortly for Miss Morrison’s bed bath, but Mel was important. The girl had to see sense; for once, the younger should heed the experience of the older. Eileen sighed. The trouble with life was that parents limped through and watched their progeny making mistakes. The parents had made the same mistakes, but the young refused to listen. They had to learn via their own errors. Mel was too pretty; in her day, Eileen had been the prettiest girl in school, so she knew about having her head turned, having the boys look and whisper and wonder who would be first to get under the clothing.

‘I can’t not see him,’ Mel said at last.

‘Then I can’t put a burden like this on my mother’s shoulders. She’s not young enough to make you keep your knickers on. I can’t have her breaking down from worrying over you. Which means I must stay, Keith will lose his job because he won’t leave me, so he’ll have to carry on as a labourer with Liverpool builders. And your grandmother will have to stay permanently at Willows, all so that you and Peter Bingley might be stopped. I shall stop you. I am telling you now, Mel, if I have to tie you up, I will. If I have to break Peter’s legs, I bloody will. I am not having you throw away Cambridge just for a stupid carry-on with a boy.’

‘I love him.’

‘And what is love, Mel? Rolling about on a floor till the bombs come? Being lumbered with a child when you’re just a kid yourself? Watching Peter going off to Cambridge while you stay at home and boil nappies?’

‘So now you hate me too.’

Eileen shrugged. ‘Not at all. I love you, and I know what the word means. I love you enough to make appointments with the head teachers of both schools. I love you enough to ensure your safety. Whatever it takes, Mel. Whatever it takes.’ She kissed her daughter and left the room.

The bombing of Liverpool, though toned down by distance, had kept the boys awake and terrified until after five in the morning. For the first time, the city had endured over twelve hours of intermittent bombardment. Crosby was untouched, but the night had still been frightening for Phil and Rob, who were used now to the quiet of the countryside. Gone was the recklessness that had sent them back to Scotland Road on second-hand bicycles; it had been replaced by a healthy determination to survive and thrive. Although Phil wanted to record the damage, he no longer wanted to live or die among it.

By the time Tom had driven just a few hundred yards, both boys were fast asleep in the back seat.

Nellie glanced sideways at the handsome, well-dressed driver. He still had strong feelings for Eileen, but the girl shouldn’t be around for much longer, which was just as well, because this chap was a selfish and decided creature who was capable of just about anything to achieve his own way. Nellie needed to persuade her daughter to do the swap no matter what Mel was up to. Nellie could deal with Mel. And this fellow would deal with his son, or the dockers would be back. But she wouldn’t talk about that now, since the boys might wake, and it wasn’t their business.

‘What did the Germans get last night?’ she asked. ‘Apart from the street we lived in. I know they hit that, because my friend’s house is gone, and our Mel and your Peter were up to no good inside it.’ She lowered her tone at the end of the sentence.

‘Quite.’ He told her what he knew. The docks had been thoroughly battered yet again, while people in shelters had inhaled the scent of their Christmas dinners being cremated in a nearby covered meat market. A chemical factory in Hanover Street had provided a giant firework display, and an electric power station had been disabled. ‘The fire service saved St George’s Hall, thank goodness. It was heavily fire-bombed. When places like that disappear, people lose heart.’

Nellie delivered her firmly held belief that nothing at all would quench the wrath of Liverpudlians. ‘We don’t need nothing,’ she told him. ‘As long as we have a bite to eat and a cup of tea, we’ll fight. That’s nothing to do with buildings.’ She looked at him again. It was plain that this fellow was no proper Scouser. ‘You’ve no idea, have you? We’re different down there. The Liver Birds would be missed, like, but we can put up with most things. Strong, you see. Not all fur coats and no knickers. My Eileen’s as tough as old boots. She may look like one of Cinderella’s glass slippers, but she’s tanned leather underneath. Keith can manage her, but he’s just about the only man who can. She’s difficult when she wants to be, so he puts her in her place.’

‘On the draining board?’

‘Sometimes, yes. Or in a cage under the table. She’ll never best him, you know. But if anything happened to her, he’d kill.’

He heard the warning, and took heart from it, because it possibly meant that he was in with a chance. Not yet, of course; not while she was carrying a child. Almost seamlessly, he picked up where he had left off. The best-loved Catholic church in Liverpool, Our Lady and St Nicholas, had been gutted. In Anfield, seventy-four had perished in a direct hit on a shelter, while two infirmaries and a school had been bombed. ‘Countless houses. Relentless,’ he concluded. ‘They are bloody determined, because they know we have weaponry on the docks.’

‘How do they know?’ she asked. ‘It’s not the only city with docks.’

‘Spies. English people who support the Nazis.’

Nellie wasn’t having that. ‘Load of rubbish,’ she said. ‘There’s no spies down in real Liverpool. Though in my experience, all men will do anything to get what they want, even if they don’t have a use for it and don’t deserve it. Germans who fly planes and drop bombs are men. They don’t need spies, because they can see everything from up there in the sky once they’ve set fire to a few things. Well, I say men should all be locked up, let women take over for a while. We make things like babies, homes and dinners. Men destroy our work.’

Tom changed the subject, asked how she liked the countryside and would she stay there after the war.

‘I well might. You get used to the quiet after a few months; you even get used to cows, pigs and all that. The air’s so fresh it cuts into your chest, and the people are much the same as anywhere, really. Once you get used to them talking funny, it’s all right. I tell you what, though. I said we’d make Liverpool and back in a day, and I’ll never forget my stupid stubbornness. We might not have got home at all except for you.’

He choked on a chuckle, turned it into a cough. Nellie had a true Scouse accent. If something wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fur. If a woman got a new fur coat, it was a fair coat. Words that ended in ck came out so guttural that they sounded German, vowels were broadened to destruction, and an interpreter would have been useful at times. And here she sat complaining about inner Lancashire’s flattened tones. He wondered how the people of Willows fared when trying to make out what she was saying. She was a character. She had thumped him, but he couldn’t help admiring her.

‘I was needed,’ she continued. ‘The odd job man’s gone odder than ever, in hospital with diabetes and hypo-thermals.’

‘Hypothermia.’

‘Yes, that’s what I said. So poor Elsie’s been stuck with his wife what’s had a baby and gone all peculiar. Started talking to herself, you know.’

‘Whose wife?’

‘Jay. The one in Phil’s drawing. Odd job man. See, he starts smelling of acid tone and—’

‘Acetone.’

Nellie grinned. This one hadn’t yet picked up on the fact that she twisted words deliberately. ‘Yeah, that as well. So our Phil shoves a barley sugar in his mouth and tells him to sit down while his level climbs up again. But our Phil wasn’t there. And I promised, said I’d be back last night, because we’ve no idea up at Willows, you see. I mean, we’ve got Land Army, and you can’t slaughter a pig without a papal blessing and three forms filled in – oh, and you have to grow loads of vegetables – but war? We see nothing up there. So I said I’d be back, but I wasn’t, because we don’t think. I mean we know it’s happening, but it’s not real when you’re as safe as we are. I let them down. I kept Phil away, too.’

‘Not your fault.’

She sniffed. ‘Well, if I’d never come, our Phil would never have come. And if our Phil had never come, Jay wouldn’t have ended up face down in a horse trough with icy water in it. He’s got delicate constitutionals with all this sugar and everything. I mean, he was daft to start with, but he’s gone worse.’

Life was always more complicated once Nellie Kennedy entered the arena. She had a quick mind, an explosive temper, and an advanced sense of humour, but she was not particularly well organized in the verbal department. Yet he sensed that had she been on the receiving end of an education, she might have been dangerous, especially in the field of politics or unions. ‘So he’s in hospital?’

‘Yes. So that meant the post office was closed.’

He was losing the thread again. ‘Oh, I see.’ He didn’t see at all.

‘Because Elsie stayed at the gatehouse and waited to see if Gill got back from hospital last night. She’s not been herself. Gill, I mean, not Elsie. She had to mind the baby, did Elsie, and she’s not fond of kids. And the lamp oil man was coming to make a delivery to the post office. So Freda Pilkington what lived in Rachel Street had to accept the lamp oil for Elsie and put it in the shed. She took Kitty’s place, you see. Kitty what killed her kiddies and hanged herself upstairs. You remember her? All teeth, she was, God rest her.’

‘Yes.’ He had never forgotten poor Kitty with her smelly house, empty eyes, dead husband and no hope. ‘So the house meant for Kitty and her children went to Freda.’

‘Pilkington, yes. Her man’s in the army, and she’s a decent soul, so we brought her here. Right, stop now and have a look.’

He stopped.

‘That’s our Eileen’s house. Well, it’s Keith’s, but this is where they’ll be living. There’s Freda’s, then the one with the post box is Elsie’s. She’s my friend. These cottages are all Home Farm tied. People what live in them work at Home Farm or Willows – that’s the house. Then there’s Four Oaks, Cedars, Pear Tree and Holly farms. They pay rent to Miss Pickavance, cos they’re what’s called tenanted holdings. It was her house down Scottie Road what my granddaughter and your son was messing about in. She lived at number one, then she inherited all this lot.’

‘Fascinating.’ Tom felt as if he had entered some parallel universe where things were nearly the same, but not quite. Apart from his companion’s disjointed meanderings, these rolling hills were beautiful, while people who lived on the Mersey plain led the flatter life, no movement in the land, no dry stone walls, no dales. But he could not countenance a life without the river, so he probably was a true Liverpudlian. ‘So what do you do all day?’ he asked.

‘Every-bloody-thing. See, Miss Pickavance has to be Miss Millichamp.’

‘Yes?’ It was happening again.

‘Miss Millichamp had a hacadamy in Liverpool what Hilda went to when she was a kiddy. Now, this here Miss Millichamp never caned nobody. She just got so saddened over bad behaviour that the kiddies were upset. So Hilda – Miss Pickavance – pretends to be Miss Millichamp and she teaches school for the ones from Liverpool that wouldn’t fit into real school. She does that in the morning in the afternoon room. I help. Because them hard-faced little buggers from Scottie need a thump sometimes, and she won’t give ’em one, so I do it.’

He turned into Willows Lane. ‘You’re a professional thumper, then.’

‘Yeah. And I supervise cleaners in the house, help Elsie in the post office, do a bit for her because she’s too fat to clean right. I bake, do washing, light fires, clean windows – you name it, I do it.’

He asked whether Eileen would be expected to do the same after the change-about, and Nellie answered in the affirmative. Her Eileen didn’t go to bits when pregnant. In fact, she could probably scrub a floor half an hour after giving birth, because she came from good stock. ‘Strong bones, you see. It’s the Irish in us.’

So this was where Eileen would be living with her much-loved husband. There would be no electricity, no gas, no decent plumbing. Lamplight would suit her, as would the shimmering flames from logs on an open fire. There was, no doubt, a thriving black market in meat, there were fresh vegetables, plenty of eggs and an abundance of untainted air. She would thrive here. Yet he hoped she would not become ruddy-cheeked, because her porcelain skin and delicate features were perfect as they were. This was supposed to have stopped. Hypnotherapy was helpful, but not a complete answer. Anyway, the fellow she had married was strong, so was it worth dying just for one chance with Eileen? Did he know the answer to that question?

At the house named Willows, he was introduced to Miss Hilda Pickavance, whom he recognized from Kitty’s funeral, a Jean from Home Farm, a Gill from the gatehouse, a babe in arms called Maisie, also from the gatehouse, several evacuees, and Elsie Openshaw from the post office. She looked far too large for one of those diminutive houses, and she had a great deal to say for herself. The cacophony was deafening. Nellie threw out the evacuees, told Elsie to shut up, sat down and asked for a cup of tea for herself and her chauffeur. ‘The lads are still asleep in the car,’ she said. ‘Right, doc. You tell ’em what’s happening to Liverpool.’

So he was forced to repeat all that he had related to Nellie at the start of their journey. Apart from little Maisie, everyone in the room was quiet. Unimpressed by tales of arson and bombardment, she continued to coo. Her belly was full, so all was well with the world.

‘And you’re going back to all that, Nellie?’ Elsie asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Nellie replied. ‘I mean Crosby’s safe enough. But there’s a bit of family business going on, and Eileen might want to tackle it herself. Only there’s Keith’s job and his house, you know—’

‘Safe,’ pronounced Miss Pickavance. ‘If they have to remain in Crosby, so be it.’

Nellie glared at Tom. None of this would have mattered had he been able to keep his son in order. But she had to admit, however grudgingly, that Mel had probably taken after her mother, who liked and desired close male company. Peter Bingley wasn’t the only spoilt brat in the mix. Nellie had spoilt Eileen, and Eileen had been too easy with Mel. Tom Bingley might be a weak man, but the Kennedy/ Watson clan was far from perfect.

‘I were looking for’ard to that,’ Elsie complained. ‘Goin’ t’ Crosby, seein’ ’ow t’ other ’alf lives.’

Nellie straightened her spine. ‘For’ard? For’ard? Ah mun tell thee now, Elsie, tha were terrified when I asked thee.’

Elsie started to laugh. Nellie’s attempt at Boltonese wasn’t half bad. In fact, she was picking up a gradely way of talking if she’d shape a bit better and concentrate. ‘Tha’s passed th’ exam,’ she roared. Her body shook like a giant jelly. It was clear that she had no ongoing relationship with corsetry. Perhaps she wore it on special occasions, and this occasion was far from special, since rolls of blubber collided all over her very ample body.

Tom thought of Marie and smiled. She had her corsets made by a lady named Mrs Wray, the corsetière extraordinaire of Crosby, Liverpool. Now that Marie was more relaxed, she had made her husband laugh about corsets. ‘No woman can taste true happiness unless she experiences the intense joy of those few moments after her release from whalebone. Freed flesh itches, and scratching is ecstasy.’ Yes, Marie was coming along nicely, and he wished with all his heart that he had never met Eileen Watson.

A young boy entered through the back door. Behind him, a polite, blond-headed pony put his head into the house. ‘Stay,’ ordered the boy. ‘Good boy. I’ll get you a carrot.’

Tom grinned. At least Eileen’s youngest hadn’t placed the animal on a draining board. ‘Are you Bertie?’

‘Yes, I am. Did you bring Gran back?’

‘I did. She has your presents, but you can’t open them before Christmas Day. So you’re the horseman.’

Bertie fed his best friend. ‘Or a vet if I’m clever enough.’ He turned and looked at Tom. ‘Are the Germans knocking Liverpool down?’

‘Some of it, yes. We will rebuild it, son. Nothing will ever make our city lie down completely. Just you remember to say your prayers. That’s all we can do for now.’

Bertie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Gran said on the phone you go down sometimes and rescue people. She says you’re a very brave man who couldn’t go to war because of two left feet and a duff ear.’

Tom found himself laughing. ‘I’m a bit old for war, Bertie. So I do what I can.’ He felt strangely pleased because Nellie had praised him; like a schoolboy who had been given a star for getting his homework right. Hell’s bells, he was a doctor, a diagnostician, a saver of human life. Yet he blushed because a loudmouth with a punch like a heavyweight boxer had expressed approval of him. ‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘Patients to see, things to do.’ He accepted gratefully gifts of four chickens, two dozen eggs, two pounds of butter, some cream and an assortment of vegetables. These items were to be split between his household and Frances Morrison’s for Christmas. When the sleepy boys had been evicted from his car, he waved to the gathered crowd. It was a crowd because Elsie was there, he supposed. He liked her; she was a good laugh.

As he drove away, he looked again at the idyll spread all round him. Even in the dead of winter, the moors were spectacular. Frost lingered to decorate fields and skeletal trees. This was a Christmas card begging to be photographed. He should have brought the camera to make cards for next year. He could have taken shots of the house she’d be living in soon. If she came back here, that was. He could not imagine her walking away from Mel at the moment.

Outside her house in Willows Edge, he stopped the car. These cottages were beautifully built, though probably not much bigger than those in Rachel Street. But they were pretty because they were constructed of stone, had gardens, paths, gates and solid front doors. Yes, this was a long way from slum territory. He had to forget her. He’d scarcely given her a thought throughout the adventure he had shared with his newly resurrected wife. ‘I’m an animal,’ he said aloud. Sometimes, he felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. This was one of those times.

Mel watched Gloria and her mother leaving their house and heading for the village. After hanging around in the cold for twenty minutes, she was not in the best of moods, and her teeth were chattering madly. But she had to see Peter, needed to warn him of her mother’s intentions regarding their schools. Dr Bingley was in Bolton with Gran and the boys, so Peter was finally alone when his mother and sister left to do the shopping. Mel was still walking up the path when he opened the front door. ‘Come in,’ he said. ‘They’ll be back in about an hour.’ He led her through to the dining room, bent to give her a kiss.

But she pulled away from him without understanding her action. ‘How’s your back?’ she asked. Did she love this boy? Did she?

‘Sore. Too sore for fun. And I can’t live like this, Mel. Gloria in excelsis and I have never had a great deal in common, but hatred’s hard to take, especially at Christmas.’ He paused and tapped his fingers on the table. ‘We have to teach them all a lesson.’

So she informed him of her mother’s intention to visit the head teachers of Merchants Girls’ and Boys’ schools. ‘You don’t know what my family’s capable of, Peter. And my mother will do just about anything to keep us apart. She may look all sweetness and light, but she’s powerful. Quiet, yet lethal. I suppose it’s because we’re poor. If I throw my chance away, it will break her heart. She wants all her children to have the best possible chance in life.’

Peter, too, had news to divulge. His sister had already blackened Mel’s name with just about every girl in their year. ‘She’s been phoning everyone except the school cat. You’ll be lonely when term starts,’ he said. ‘She’s told everyone we’re doing it, that we were caught doing it by my dad and your stepfather in a house off Scotland Road. You have no idea how angry she is.’

At one time Mel could not have imagined Gloria in a temper, but she had felt the edge of it very recently, and that edge was honed to perfect sharpness. Isolation, unpleasant though it might be, did not frighten her. But if anything affected her work, she would surely become distraught. There might be whisperings, even ‘accidental’ collisions in corridors, elbows in her ribs. ‘That’s that, then,’ she said. ‘We have to finish.’

‘No.’

‘There’s no other answer.’

‘Really?’ He outlined the plan. They would collect clothes, money and a little food. A friend in Rainford had been taken by his parents to a ski resort in Switzerland. The family would not return to their house until the day before school was due to reopen, and there was always a spare key behind the shed in a pot near the raspberry canes. ‘A short ride up the East Lancashire Road, and we’ll be there.’

‘I can’t do that to my mother, Peter.’

‘Look what she’s willing to do to us,’ was his swift response.

Another valid point fell from Mel’s lips. ‘You’ve got stitches.’

‘Yes, and if they weren’t in my back, I’d snip the buggers out myself. You can do it.’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’

‘Then you don’t love me.’

She heard the petulance, caught a brief glimpse of the child in him, dismissed the thought instantly. She was still capable of being infantile and silly, and he was the same age. ‘I am not taking your stitches out. Your dad will do it in a few days.’

His jaw dropped slightly. ‘What? You are condemning me to Christmas in this house with Gloria the glorious, with a sulking mother and a father who wishes he could touch you the way I did? As for you, how will you feel in the company of a mother who’s willing to betray you to top brass? Well?’

‘My mother’s . . . different. She’s dead straight, that’s all. I can do something about the damage your sister’s causing, and my parents will make sure I get a good Christmas. My mother’s said her piece, and she won’t drone on. Gran’s the droner. My mother’s quiet most of the time.’ And Eileen was happy. It was important to Mel that her mother was happy. ‘I’m not running away with you. I’m not putting Mam through that pain.’ A feeling akin to relief flooded her veins. She probably didn’t love him at all.

They argued back and forth for the better part of the allocated hour, at which time he asked her to leave. And she refused.

‘What?’ he almost screamed. ‘They’ll be back.’ Panic invaded his chest. He needed to talk to Mel, needed time away from here so that he could express himself and his fears to the one person he trusted.

‘Exactly.’

‘And?’

‘And I’m going to be a lawyer.’ She definitely didn’t love him. It was all sex, and sex was a powerful thing. ‘It’s over. You and I are no longer an item.’

‘What?’

The front door opened. Mel rose gracefully from the table, abandoned her erstwhile boyfriend and walked into the hall. ‘Gloria Bingley,’ she said plainly. ‘I am going to see Dr Ryan to ask for an internal examination, which will prove me a virgin and you the biggest fair-weather friend since Judas. You have not only betrayed me; you have also told a massive untruth which is a slander. My name is blackened at school, and I shall see you in court. Or perhaps you would like to settle out of court once I prove my intactness?’ She was glad she’d read that law book of Miss Morrison’s just out of interest. ‘Ask your father to let the moths out of his wallet and give me my start at Cambridge. And your brother can go to hell. He’s a spoilt, whining brat. I’d sooner lie down with the rag-and-bone man.’

Gloria burst into tears and ran upstairs. She should have realized that Clever-Clogs Watson would get the better of her, because the girl never lost an argument. In the debating society, she’d even carried a motion on communism being a good thing for Britain.

Marie stared sadly at Mel. ‘Please, Mel.’

‘Please what, Mrs Bingley? I think it’s time I pleased myself as far as your family’s concerned. You’re married to a dirty old man . . .’ She shouldn’t have said that. ‘And your son’s a weak, spineless waste of space. Gloria broadcast an enormous lie about me and her brother, so can you blame me for asking my doctor to give me written proof of my status?’ She would be the barrister, she decided in that moment. There were few females called to the bar, but she would improve that number by one. Arguing was second nature to her.

‘Mel, you are cruel. Please stop,’ Marie begged again.

But the girl remained in the saddle of a very high horse. ‘Once. Once I allowed him to touch me, because he’s handsome and . . . and desirable. But it was just touching.’ The back door slammed. ‘There he goes. Your little boy has left the house, Mrs Bingley. Perhaps he needs a playpen.’

Marie placed her shopping on the floor. ‘Slander works both ways, you know. Would you like it if Tom took you to court for describing him as a dirty old man?’

Mel tutted. ‘Prove I said it.’

‘There were ear-witnesses.’

Mel shook her head. ‘Family. My witnesses are a couple of dozen girls who have been informed by your daughter that I am misbehaving with your son. No contest. And, being a family doctor, your husband has to remain squeaky clean. Remember the no smoke without fire saying?’

A few seconds of deadlock followed. ‘Wait here, then.’ Marie turned on her heel and walked into the office. Alone in the hall, Mel could hear Gloria sobbing in her room. I didn’t know myself till now. When it comes to making stuff happen, I am in my element. Parliament? High Court? Certainly not Mrs Peter Bingley, that’s for sure.

Marie returned with a cheque and pushed it into Mel’s hand.

‘Ah. Thirty pieces of silver.’ Without looking at the scrap of paper, Mel tore it into tiny flakes that floated like snow down to the parquet floor.

‘That was three hundred pounds!’ Marie gasped. ‘You asked for money.’

‘Three hundred pieces of silver, then. I’m not purchasable, even at that price.’

‘But you said—’

‘I say a lot of things, Mrs Bingley. Now, I am off to see my doctor. You will tell her upstairs to telephone all those she has misinformed. Let her say it was a dare or something of that nature. As for your son – well, I can only wish you the best of luck. If he comes anywhere near me, have your sutures ready.’ She walked out of the house.

Her legs didn’t match any more. Stumbling like a recovering alcoholic who was having a slight relapse, Mel staggered to the end of the road. She had to make a better job of this walking business, because he would be waiting round the corner. Yes, there he was. Peter Bingley was beautiful. He was the sort of creature who might have given Michelangelo’s David a run for his money. Not that statues could run, of course. Why was she having daft thoughts at a time like this when her reputation was in tatters?

She stopped and stared at him. He was across the road, frozen like a rabbit caught in headlights. ‘Stay away from me, Bingley,’ she roared at the top of her voice. Curtains fluttered. Two old ladies on opposite sides of the road ambled to their gates, shawls clutched as protection against the bitter cold. ‘Go home,’ Mel shrieked. ‘Go home to your disgusting sister.’ He ran, and she found herself smiling.

But when she reached her own lodgings, Mel was no longer proud of herself. Gloria was a friend of long standing. She was upset because Mel had not confided in her about Peter, and although her behaviour had been bad, she was probably deeply hurt. It must all be put right. But first, there was an appointment with Dr Ryan.

Tom brought in the food from Home Farm. He made two trips from car to house, because a couple of chickens and all the vegetables took some shifting. ‘Nearly as big as turkeys, those things,’ he said. ‘Where’s Keith? Where’s Mel? And how’s your Miss Morrison?’

‘As excited as a child because she won’t be alone at Christmas. She’s a love. We sit and talk to her every day, but she tires.’ Eileen gave him a cup of tea and a bit of date and walnut cake. ‘To answer your question, Keith’s gone to buy me a collar and lead. That’s what he said, anyway, but really he’ll be looking for my Christmas present. And Mel’s gone to see Dr Ryan to prove she’s a virgin.’

‘What?’ He almost choked. Cakes seemed dry these days, probably due to all the rationing. How lucky were the people who lived out of town . . . ‘To prove she’s a virgin?’

Eileen bit her lip. But it all had to be said. ‘Gloria has been busy on the phone. She’s told the whole class that Mel and Peter have had full sex. It was a nasty lie to tell, Tom.’

‘What?’ He leapt to his feet. Gloria was a sweet girl who wouldn’t damage a fly. He couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Gloria? My Gloria?’

Eileen nodded. ‘Yes, the very same. Sit down and hear me out, Tom. You know I have a temper?’

‘Of course.’ He sat. ‘I explained away the evidence of your most recent assault as something that happened during the retrieval of our children. A falling brick if I remember correctly.’

‘Well, my daughter has a temper, too. She’s gone through your household today like a hot knife cutting butter. Peter is damned to hell, while Marie took the full blast, including the information that my headstrong girl thinks of you as a dirty old man. She regrets saying that, though she has told me on at least one occasion that you look at her in a certain way.’

‘She reminds me of someone.’

‘Yes.’ There would be no nonsense. If she glimpsed the fringe of trouble, he would be out of this house in a trice. ‘My daughter will be derided at school because of Gloria. So Mel made a scene, demanded compensation, bullied your wife into writing a cheque. Madam tore it up and stormed out. She then made another un-pretty scene outside. It involved Peter and she has ended her relationship with him.’

Tom remembered life pre-Eileen. It had been boring, but peaceful. ‘Three generations of angry women; there’s your mother, then you, then Mel. She got more than your beauty. I’m convinced that the brain came from your mother, via you.’

She told him the rest of it. At first Mel wanted to get a solicitor and apply for permission to print in the Crosby newspaper a statement saying that the gossip was malicious and untrue. But a calmer period had ensued, and Mel was missing Gloria already. ‘So I don’t know what to do,’ Eileen concluded. ‘You know what they’re like at this age – up one minute, down the next.’

Gloria hadn’t been like that, but he didn’t say anything. His daughter had been good, perhaps too good. Of the two, Peter was the more unpredictable, and Tom had wondered of late about the boy’s true nature. He was a better than average sportsman and a successful scholar, but there was a gentleness that went a little too far for Tom’s comfort. He dismissed the idea yet again from his mind. Some heterosexuals were gentle, some homosexuals vicious. And some doctors were confused, because Peter had proved his sexuality by messing about with Mel.

‘Tom?’

‘What?’

‘He has to stay away from her.’

The visitor sipped his cooling tea. ‘How far did they go?’

‘About as far as you and I did on one unfortunate occasion.’

He smiled.

‘What’s funny?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’ He could not tell her that the smile was a demonstration of relief about Peter. ‘I suppose we all react differently when we realize that our children are almost adult. One minute it’s a high chair and Farley’s rusks, and the next they’re experimenting with the opposite sex.’

‘We have to get the two girls back together, Tom. Gloria’s a steadying, sensible influence, and Mel keeps her optimistic. And I don’t want Marie hurt. I mean, look at the man she married – isn’t he trouble enough?’ It was her turn to smile.

Mel came in, stopped in her tracks when she saw Tom, recovered quickly, and slammed an envelope on the kitchen table. ‘Virgo intacta,’ she said. ‘And will you tell that daft daughter of yours that she’s the nearest thing I have to a sister? I’m lumbered with three brothers, and she’s stuck with Peter. I can’t manage without her.’ She stalked out.

‘Going to be a barrister now,’ Eileen said.

Tom picked up his trilby. ‘It’s enough to make you pity the criminal fraternity,’ he said sadly before leaving the house.

Alone in the kitchen, Eileen found herself chuckling. He was perfectly correct. Mel would go onward and upward as long as nothing stood in her way. If anything did threaten to impede her progress, she would talk it out of existence. Hilda Pickavance, God bless her, had put away a sum that would support Mel through university. The bank book was to be Mel’s Christmas gift from that lovely woman. If only the damage Gloria had done could be put right . . . ‘What the—?’ Keith had just entered the house. ‘What’s that?’

‘I told you I’d get you a collar and lead.’

She stared hard at him. Once again, he was acting as daft as a brush. ‘But . . . there’s a dog fastened to all that tack.’

‘Is there? I never noticed.’

‘And what’s our landlady going to say?’

Keith grinned. ‘She’s in on the act.’

A diminutive black and white animal wagged a sad string of tail. ‘What make is it?’ Eileen asked.

‘It’s a spoodle, so it might not shed.’

She refused to ask.

‘I made up the spoodle bit. Cross between a spaniel and a poodle, and she was cross, too, that woman. Her poodle passed its exams for dog shows and the spaniel got at her.’

Eileen could resist no longer. She picked up the pup and held it close to her chest. Keith was complaining about the bloody dog getting the best seat in the house, but his wife scarcely listened. ‘Your mummy was got at, babe,’ she said. ‘I know how she must have felt, because I’m got at all the time.’ The little animal was a bundle of soft and silky curls. ‘I never had a dog, Keith.’

‘I know.’

‘Always wanted one.’

‘I know.’

‘Will it be all right with our baby? Will it kill your chickens?’

‘Yes and no. He’s from a farm in Lydiate, and he’s been handled by children since he was five days old. His mother’s very intelligent – all giant poodles are – and his dad’s a spaniel. Spaniels are daft, clever, soft-hearted and loving. He’ll be fine for both my babies – you and the passenger. As for chickens – he’s been pecked to buggery and nothing died.’

‘I love you.’

‘I know.’

‘And if you say “I know” again, I’ll hit you.’

‘I know. What’s for tea, love?’

Sixteen

‘Right.’ Sister Pearson intended to teach Jay Collins a sharp lesson very soon. The man would not listen; therefore, he would not learn. He was refusing some of his food, kept complaining loudly about anything and everything, and was currently making a song and dance about yet another substandard cup of tea. Did he not understand that even a cuppa was part of the intake that would balance injected insulin? How would she get through to him? This primed and prepared audience might help. She sighed heavily. Anything was worth a try, she supposed.

She folded her arms and tapped an irritated foot on the floor. ‘This delightful patient, ladies, is beyond the pale. He’s been driving me perpendicular, the cleaners round the U-bend, and even the doctors are having to see a doctor.’ She glared at Jay. ‘Listen, you. There is nothing wrong with that cup of tea. It’s the same as everyone else’s, and nobody has complained.’

Jay arranged his features to express deep hurt. ‘One look at you, and they daren’t bloody complain. This tastes like somebody’s peed in it.’ He slammed the green cup into its green saucer. ‘Disgusting.’

‘Oh, I see. So you’re used to the taste of urine, are you?’

‘I work on farms. We see, smell and taste all sorts. Can’t be helped, cos muck gets everywhere. Wouldn’t suit you. You’ve got that ants in the pants illness, haven’t you? Always scrubbing your hands – no wonder they’re red. Stick a bit of Vaseline on them. You want to slow down, you do.’

Sylvia Pearson addressed her small entourage of cadets, first years, a second year and, bringing up the rear, a man with a bucket. She didn’t know who he was, but she felt marginally better with a man in tow. If all else failed, he could threaten to hit the impatient patient with said bucket. ‘This is all deliberate and for attention,’ she advised the group. ‘A sure sign of a bored man. He is on the mend after a mere twenty-four hours. Remember, some men are children, and they’re naughty when well.’

‘Yes, sister,’ chorused her minions. The man with the bucket scratched his ear. He had work to do, but he’d been swept up by this crowd somewhere between beds eight and seven. He’d gone with the flow, because the flow had happened to be going in his direction, but he felt a right fool standing here with his second best bucket while the mickey got taken out of the bloke in bed three. This woman certainly went on a fair bit. She was opening her mouth to let the next lot of words see the light of day. He wished she’d hurry up, because it was nearly time for his tea break, and somebody’s mam had sent in a chocolate cake. There’d be very little chocolate and no eggs in it, but it looked a bit like a cake.

‘Why, oh why did you have to get a chronic illness?’ the sister asked. ‘A broken leg, traction, a bit of dysentery – all those things are soon sorted out. But no. You have to develop something that needs surveillance, and you don’t look after yourself. You’ll be doing the hokey-cokey here for years, in, out, in out. And you’ve been told how to manage. You’re even one of the first in this country to test the home hypodermic.’

Jay grinned cheekily. ‘Isn’t she lovely when she’s angry? Did anyone ever tell you, Sis, that behind the evil frown there’s a gorgeous, sensuous woman? The staff, patients and visitors here say you park your broomstick in the bike sheds, but they’re not being fair. And it’s Christmas. You should get treated better at Christmas.’ He was going home. If he had to steal clothes, drug staff, and walk ten miles north, he would be with Gill and Maisie by Christmas Day. In fact, he might seriously consider murder if it would get him away from Bolton Royal Infirmary.

Sister Pearson turned to her group of students. ‘Monitor this one while you can,’ she advised. ‘He’s not the first to cause this kind of bother. On paediatrics, you’ll find similar behaviour in the under tens. The man is emotionally retarded.’

Jay continued unimpressed. ‘So a Christmas kiss is out of the question, then? Or a quick fumble in the linen store?’

She needed to laugh, but she wouldn’t. He would be missed. The man was a nuisance and a troublemaker, but her ward would be as dead as a path lab without him. He was attractive too, and she was sorry about the diabetes. If he carried on in denial, he would age very suddenly, lose his looks, his sparkle, a limb, a kidney, his life. ‘Mr Collins, if you don’t take your illness seriously, Maisie will walk up the aisle without you. In fact, she might even start school with just a mother at home. You don’t want to die, not yet.’

She was being serious, Jay decided. Her tone was softer, and she cared enough to warn him. He felt warned.

Sister Pearson was getting a bit bored with the bucket man. He was like a spectator at some tennis match, head moving from side to side whenever she or Jay spoke. ‘What do you want?’ she asked finally. ‘I wasn’t aware that you were a member of my staff.’

‘Hospital maintenance,’ said Bucket Man. ‘I’m on a job when I can get to it.’

‘Oh?’ She looked him up and down. ‘Why, precisely, are you here?’

‘Precisely, Sister, it’s him.’ The bucket was waved in the direction of the patient. ‘He wants me to take the air out of his pipes. Says he’s an emergency.’

Everyone burst out laughing. Even the poor little cadets in their gingham uniforms had a good giggle.

But Jay didn’t laugh. He fixed Sylvia Pearson with a steely stare. ‘There is nothing more painful than trapped wind. I can’t sleep because of it. He’s come to bleed my pipes.’

The sister wiped her eyes. ‘Radiator?’ she asked.

Jay nodded. ‘Can’t sleep for the gurgling. Why? What did you think I meant?’

She turned and sailed away, a flotilla of minions behind her. Jay chuckled and thanked Joe for coming up from maintenance. But oh, he was fed up. If he stopped causing traffic jams, arguments and heart attacks, there’d be nothing at all to laugh at. He was in a cream room with a green floor. The bedspreads were green, curtains green, face of the man opposite green. ‘Grab your kidney bowl,’ Jay screamed. The walls were two shades of cream, upper pale, lower a shade darker.

All lockers were cream with green tops. The man across the way continued to vomit. Jay pressed his bell. When a nurse appeared, he waved her in the direction of bed four, stomach ulcer, kidney bowl, face like an oversized bunion. Jay had heard of being browned off, but he was definitely greened and creamed off. It was time to go home, surely? He was warm, dry and conscious, so why was he here? They were usually glad to kick folk out at Christmas.

He had to think about himself. There was a right way, and a wrong way. The right way could be tedious, but it might stop the hokey-cokey. It would be necessary to stay at home for a while and trust Phil Watson to do all the jobs in the book Then he would have to start walking, watching himself carefully and being at the ready with sweets. The next step needed to be checking on Phil, walking a bit further and staying out for a bit longer every day. Finally, he could do a few jobs. But he was never going to feel young and free again. As a married man and a father, perhaps he had no right to feel free.

The sister was back. Joe with the bucket did a disappearing act; he’d seen and heard enough of Sister Pearson for one day. ‘Mr Collins?’

‘Yes, Sis?’

‘Your wife’s here to take you home. I’ve given her my condolences, and she seemed to understand perfectly. Normally, we’d keep an eye on you for a few more days, but it’s your baby’s first Christmas.’

Jay leapt from the bed and kissed the sister’s hand. ‘A miracle,’ he cried. ‘I was spark out here a matter of hours ago, and you warmed my cockles, sweetheart. If I wasn’t married, I’d propose.’

‘And I might scare you to death by saying yes.’

‘Promises.’ Gill was walking towards him. Apart from on their wedding day, she had never looked so lovely. He had a wife, he had a daughter, he had a life. These were special, and he must start taking care of all three. ‘Why didn’t you tell me I was going home?’ he asked the sister.

‘Because I wanted to see your face when she came for you. And what I did earlier was staged just for you. Well, except for the man with the bucket. Stop the daftness and stay well. Please, I beg you. Diabetics can have wonderful lives. You just have to be careful, that’s all. No beer.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘Denial is normal in the young, so this is the day you grow up, love. Now, you have to take it all on board, and you will need monitoring. Good luck.’

He took the suitcase from Gill, noticing when he hugged her how tense she was. On closer inspection, her face looked drawn, her eyes sad and dark. He had done this. All his larking about and getting sick had taken its toll on the relatively new mother. What sort of man was he? ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘We’ve got a girl,’ was her reply.

‘Yes, our Maisie.’

‘No, Land Army. Betty. She’s done the house lovely.’

‘I’m glad, sweetheart. I’m glad.’ He claimed his own place in the ward by drawing curtains round his bed. Green curtains, of course. While he dressed, he fixed his mind on the poor girl who was his unfortunate wife. As he skimmed the surface of recent years, he wondered how the hell she’d put up with him. Why do I do it? Is it to ward off sadness? Doctors say diabetes can make you depressed, so maybe my body was telling me I was ill, and I fought it by acting the rubber pig.

Right, he was dressed. Right, he was lucky – bloody lucky. His Gill would always have gone to the ends of the earth to help a person in trouble, while he’d spun round making more grief for her. It had to stop. His pancreas didn’t work properly, so he needed insulin. Food had to be measured to match the insulin, and any work needed to be done slowly, carefully, and in the company of sugar and young Phil.

It didn’t mean there’d be no fun; but she mustn’t get tired. She could start giving Maisie National Dried for a kick-off, because breastfeeding took a lot out of her, especially with a greedy little monkey like Maisie. At almost seven months, the baby was as strong as a carthorse, so she must shape up and wean. Jay would become a good husband. Well, nearly good.

The dog was a natural born lunatic. Shy for the first hour after his arrival at St Michael’s Road, Spoodle soon changed his ways and went through the house like a fine-toothed comb in search of lice. He got into small places, demonstrated an uncontrollable urge to eat coal, chew newspapers, slippers and shoes, and finally settled for the company of Mel, who was fun, because she owned a small, soft rubber ball and he could pick it up with needle-sharp puppy teeth.

Exhausted after chasing Eileen’s Christmas present all over the house, Keith placed himself next to her on the sofa. ‘That Spoodle,’ he moaned. ‘I’m losing the will to live.’

‘I knew we wouldn’t last,’ she said mournfully. ‘It’s all over, isn’t it? He’s chosen Mel over me.’

He drew her close and buried his face in her hair. ‘He’s moving back to Willows with us, Eileen. Spoodle’s going to be a country dog, lots of walks, coming to work with me, playing with the boys.’

‘But Mel will miss him.’

He didn’t say anything. As stepfather, he had to edge his way carefully into the established family. The boys still called him Keith, but Mel had started to use ‘Dad’, and that pleased him no end. Mel, however, was used to bending her mother to her will. She couldn’t manage it with the bigger and more important aspects of life, but she was certainly capable of keeping the dog. But he refused to put his foot down heavily or too soon. Stepparent was the right title, because stepping softly was essential. If he marched in roaring like a lion, he’d get a press similar to Cinderella’s ugly relations, so he kept his counsel.

‘She loves him, Keith.’

‘Yes, she does. Wait till he empties his little tummy and bladder all over her bedroom rug. When he does, you’ll have your dog back.’

Eileen snuggled into her man and closed her eyes. He was definitely the most comfortable seat in the place that had become their living area. Miss Morrison was fast asleep in the next room. She would wake as if in response to an alarm clock when cocoa time arrived. For meals and tablets she was always alert, but for the remainder of the day she talked and slept. As time went on, she talked less frequently and slept more. Dr Ryan said it was natural in a woman of such an age, but Eileen still managed to worry about the old lady.

As predicted by Keith, Mel stalked in with a curly-coated puppy held at arm’s length. ‘He’s sprung a leak,’ she complained. ‘He drips all the time.’

‘They do,’ Keith answered. ‘So would you if you drank a lot and had a bladder the size of a walnut. He needs to go out every few minutes to get an idea of what’s expected of him. To do that, he must live down here. I’ll put paper near the door for during the night and, when he’s older, he’ll have a dog flap in my kitchen at Willows.’ There, it was said. Without crashing through any barriers, Keith had made his point. Spoodle was Eileen’s, and he would continue to be Eileen’s.

Mel gathered up mop, bucket and disinfectant. Muttering darkly about the marking of territory, she made for the door. ‘He doesn’t do stairs,’ she said.

‘Centre of gravity’s different from ours,’ Keith told her. ‘They master that skill within weeks, so keep your bedroom door shut. Once he starts, he’ll eat anything and everything.’

The girl walked out.

Eileen expressed the opinion that Miss Morrison would miss Spoodle. He had chewed the sleeve of her best bed jacket, but she was delighted with him. ‘I think he makes her feel happy because he’s an idiot.’ The couple stared into the fire, dozed and waited for the tinkling of Miss Morrison’s bell. The dog, wedged between them, enjoyed the slumber of the truly innocent. Chewed paper and coal-marked carpets meant nothing to him. He was a perfect dog in a perfect world.

The perfect world was interrupted by a knocking at the back door. Keith went to answer while Eileen lifted her little doggy-baby into her arms. He was gorgeous, and he knew he was gorgeous. He buried his nose in her breast and snored lightly.

‘Eileen?’

It was Tom. ‘Hello. Where’s Keith?’

‘Making tea.’ He bent to stroke the pup, allowed his fingers to stray slightly off course, and noted her sharp intake of breath. Acting as if nothing of note had happened, Tom took a seat nearer to the fire. ‘Just a short walk, and I’m freezing.’

‘Yes.’ She hated her body, despised it because of its reaction. It occurred to her in that moment that women, like men, were capable of wanting more than one partner. The fable about monogamy could never be real. A woman was expected to marry and live happily ever after, her devotion to her husband special and exclusive. She would never betray Keith, but she now knew that she had to be stronger than ever, because Dr Thomas Bingley enlivened her, filled her with desire and wanted her. Being wanted was stimulating. But it was his sin, not hers.

‘How’s Mel?’ he asked.

She shrugged. ‘Well, she hasn’t broken any windows, but she was as angry as I’ve ever seen her. She loves your daughter like a sister.’

‘Love can be quite a nuisance, Eileen.’

‘I’ve never found it so.’

‘Really?’

She shook her head.

‘Lucky you.’ He laughed at the puppy. Spoodle was trying to climb up to his owner’s shoulder, and he kept sliding down. ‘He seems to be practising for the piste.’ His eyes travelled up to meet hers. ‘Though they’re hardly nursery slopes, are they? Not for a tiny dog like that one.’

And she was blushing, damn it all. ‘Stop it.’

‘You want me,’ he mouthed soundlessly.

‘I wanted a big house of my own, but I won’t get one.’

Keith entered with a tea tray and jam tarts. ‘Plum jam, sorry,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t get anything more exotic.’

But Tom was still staring at Eileen. ‘You don’t know, do you? She hasn’t told you.’

She continued to blush. He must not say anything untoward in front of Keith, or Keith would flatten him. Accepting a cup of tea from her husband, she managed to drag her eyes away from Tom. Tea, puppies and jam tarts were ingredients that didn’t make a good recipe, so Keith removed the pup from the mix. He had made a secure run in the garden. It was designed to be Spoodle’s bathroom, and he needed to shiver in it for a few moments.

Alone again with his beautiful prey, Tom continued. ‘When she dies, this house is yours.’

‘What?’ Eileen almost dropped her cup.

‘She has no one else. If you hadn’t come along, it would have gone to an animal shelter. So you have your wish. You shall go to the ball, Cinders.’

Keith came back. ‘Darling,’ she said. ‘Tom says Miss Morrison has left the house to me in her will. I feel uncomfortable. She’s only known me for a couple of years—’

‘No family,’ Tom interjected. ‘Sometimes, these old dears feel happy if they can find someone decent to inherit. She has no family, so why not you? She thinks the world of Mel, and she knows the money would be spent wisely.’

Keith clattered his cup. ‘Is there a reason for your visit?’ He didn’t want the man sitting here discussing Eileen’s future. Doctors, he decided, were intrusive people who fiddled about with detail. They wanted to know what they didn’t need to know. He had met Tom Bingley’s type before.

‘The girls.’ Tom placed his cup on a side table. ‘We have to get them together in a supervised situation, but not at our house. Peter has gone into mourning in a back bedroom, so it would be better here.’

‘They don’t need supervision,’ Keith almost snapped. ‘They’re intelligent girls with a sensitive problem to discuss. Let them get on with it.’

Eileen noticed the dark anger in Tom’s eyes. He clearly didn’t like being taken to task by someone he regarded as his inferior. ‘Send or bring Gloria here,’ she suggested. ‘I shall be here all day tomorrow, and I can supervise if war breaks out. They need their dignity, you know. They aren’t small children. What happened between . . .’ She paused for a second. ‘What happened between your son and our daughter is a delicate subject. No adult should intrude while it’s being discussed.’

Tom noted the ‘our’ and the pause. ‘Right, I shall take myself off. It might be as well if Mel rings and asks Gloria to come. They’re both bereft, but we can only hope for the best. No, no need to stand up. I’ll see myself out.’

Keith remained on his feet. ‘I’m going for the puppy before he freezes to death.’ His tone was as cold as the weather. He didn’t like Tom Bingley. With steely determination, he left them together for a third time. Eileen would see the man off if he tried anything. He stood outside the back door for a few minutes. In the sitting room, he had felt the thickened atmosphere, had caught Tom Bingley almost leering at her. ‘Touch her, and I’ll kill you,’ he muttered.

‘How’s Marie?’ Eileen asked the visitor.

‘Fine. Abused as a child, but she’s coming to terms. Our relationship’s as good as it’s ever going to be.’

She noticed. She noticed the arrogance, the mandatory inclusion of himself in his reply. His wife was in working order and was serving his needs. He offered no information about Marie, who was there to keep house, rear children and, above all, to satisfy his lust. ‘Still with the WVS?’

‘Of course. She likes to do her bit.’

‘We knit.’ Eileen shook her head. ‘Miss Morrison’s knitting is imaginative, so I pull it to bits and make socks with heels.’

‘It’s good that you allow her to feel useful.’ He smiled and left the scene.

At the back door, he came face to face with Keith. ‘Good night,’ he said. ‘That’s a nice puppy.’

‘Yes. Eileen’s always wanted a dog.’ When the door was closed behind the intruder, Keith locked it. Bingley would hear the key turning. It was childish, but he couldn’t resist. The man was locked out, unwanted, unnecessary. And Eileen was waiting for her dog. He walked back into their living room. ‘I agree with you. The man is crazy with desire, and I suppose I can understand that, because so am I. Do you think he’s capable of something nasty, like . . .’

‘Rape? No, never. He loves himself far too much to allow that kind of trouble to affect him. And I’ll never hurt you, so I wouldn’t go to him willingly.’ She felt guilty, as if she had already betrayed a wonderful man. She hadn’t. Her body had gone one way, but her heart and soul remained on track.

‘If he touches you, I’ll kill him.’

‘We’re going home, darling. He won’t be there. And while I have to agree that he’s attractive, I have my man. Good Lord, haven’t I enough with you pouncing and kissing all the time?’

‘Would you like me to stop?’

‘No. It’s the best kind of problem to have. I’m coming to love my place next to the sink, and I like the way you . . .’ She searched for the word. Dominate was wrong. ‘The way you manage me. It’s exciting.’

‘No complaints, then?’

‘You know you’re an excellent lover.’

‘Takes one to know one.’

‘Thank you.’

The mutual admiration society spent the next few minutes discussing Miss Morrison’s will. They wondered how Tom Bingley knew, because the old lady would never have used him as a witness to the document. His attempt to pursue Eileen in this house had not gone down well, and she had even changed her doctor to underline her displeasure.

‘I’m not going to tell her I know,’ Eileen decided. ‘So if she changes her mind, she doesn’t need to feel bad. What I never had, I’ll never miss. Yes, it would be lovely to have a second home over here, but I’d rather she lived a lot longer. She worked hard for years in that school of hers. I read somewhere that we’ll soon have television. She’d love that.’

Spoodle had discovered the fire. It was warm, bright and cheerful. He tried very hard to sit like a proper dog, two legs at the front, two at the back, skimpy little tail supposedly acting as a rudder. His attempt to achieve a level of dignity failed parlously. The tired pup found he had too many feet, and that they were unnecessarily large. They also preferred to line up, a front paw, a back one, then two more in similar order. With a tail that was as much use as a piece of thin string, he fell over sideways, rolled, scrambled to his silly feet and tried again.

Eileen was hysterical; even Keith found tears streaming down his face. This was better than a Charlie Chaplin movie. Like Charlie, Spoodle could not walk in a straight line, was unable to sit in a normal fashion, and didn’t do stairs. Like Charlie, he was going to be eternally forgivable.

The young dog eyed them lugubriously. He scratched an ear to prove his nonchalance, then repeated his trick. Determined to demonstrate to humanity that all he did was carefully planned, he spread himself out on the rug, all four legs stretched, nose in his front paws. Within seconds, he was snoring gently.

Eileen mopped her face. ‘The dog’s a fool,’ she said.

‘Yes. Dry me as well, please. He’s a clown, Eileen. I think he’ll fit in with us very well. Very well indeed.’

Hilda was preparing notes for a history lesson to be given in the New Year. But she couldn’t concentrate on the task. Something was wrong, but she had no real idea what, and she felt seriously silly. Phil, Rob and Bertie were all upstairs and safe. The oldest boy was probably continuing the angry, sweeping charcoal drawing he had begun earlier. So fierce were his strokes that he’d gone through half a box already. Charcoal snapped easily, but so did Phil’s heart. No. There could have been nothing easy about seeing broken shops, crushed homes and haunted people. Scotland Road. Would good old Scottie ever be the same again?

She cast an eye over the plague and the Fire of London before placing the papers in a bureau. It was no use. She couldn’t focus on rats, fleas and Pudding Lane. Perhaps she’d feel better if she joined Nellie in the kitchen.

Nellie was a bit glum. She was sitting at the huge table with a newspaper and a mug of cocoa. Elsie had branched out into firelighters, wooden kindling and news agency. A van came through once a week, so they got a daily and a local paper, both on the same day. Some thinned out women’s magazines completed Nellie’s collection of literature, and she buried herself nightly in lurid tales of love, reports of crimes local and national, and a weekly account of the war’s progress. Sometimes, the two women listened to the wireless in the evenings, but neither felt up to it tonight.

Nellie looked up from her Recipes in Wartime pamphlet. ‘You still prowling about, love? What’s up? Another cup of cocoa, eh? Have you seen my magazines? There’s only about twelve pages. War? Hmmph.’

Hilda Pickavance refused cocoa. ‘I feel strange.’

‘Are you ill?’

‘No, nothing like that. It’s the light outside – the sky. It’s not right.’

Nellie jumped up. ‘Then we must put it right. Come on.’

They both donned hats, coats, scarves and gloves before stepping out into this last cold evening before Christmas Eve. Tomorrow would be all cooking and baking, so they needed to be early in their beds. ‘Did you hear a thud a few minutes ago?’ Hilda asked.

‘I don’t think so. I was raking ashes and damping down for the night in the kitchen. What sort of thud?’

‘A thud, that’s all. Like when a tree gets cut down.’

But Nellie hadn’t heard a thing. ‘It’s red,’ she announced when she looked up. ‘But not for shepherd’s delight, not this late.’

They moved round the house and found the true source of colour. ‘Bloody hell,’ Nellie groaned. ‘It’s Liverpool, isn’t it?’

‘Wrong direction, Nellie. That’s Manchester. And the fires nearer to us are in Bolton.’

They stood very still on Hilda’s high ground and watched a war that had never encroached before. They had seen few planes, had heard no bombs, no sirens. Down there, in a major city and in a huge town, people were dying. ‘I feel sick,’ Nellie said. ‘It’s so real for the poor buggers down there.’

‘There’s something else,’ Hilda whispered. ‘Something nearer.’ She didn’t know what she meant. Hilda Pickavance didn’t believe in sixth sense or any of that nonsense, but her spine tingled and small hairs on her arms were standing to attention. It was the cold, she decided. She had gooseflesh, and it had probably arrived due to a mix of terror and frost.

Nellie stared hard at fires and at a reddened sky. So that was war. She’d been moaning because her magazines were on the thin side, but people not too far away were being maimed and killed. ‘Hilda?’

‘Yes?’

‘What’s the point of war? Why does it have to happen?’

Hilda did her best to explain about Poland, European Jews, the right to defend one’s country, the evils of extreme politics at both ends of the spectrum—

Another stick of bombs hit Manchester. As they landed, they threw up clouds of debris, some of which could well be human flesh and bone. ‘I hate bloody Germans,’ Nellie spat.

‘Bitte?’

Both women turned and saw his outline.

He smiled tentatively. ‘Plane in field,’ he said. ‘No man, no woman die. I stop engine and jump. I am come to stay – prison camp, I care not. For me is finish and Reich has another plane gone. Mine friend, he has done same somewhere else. We are no Nazi.’

‘He’s a bloody German,’ Nellie roared.

With the help of a torch, Hilda gazed into a perfect face, well chiselled and handsome. ‘Yes, Nellie. He’s surrendering. We must take him inside. He has every right to surrender, and we have a duty to treat him well. He is a prisoner of war and a visitor to our country.’

‘Are you sure? I can’t understand a word. We might be killed in our beds. He could be one of them spies.’ She raised her voice as if she were addressing a very deaf person. ‘Have you got a gun?’

‘Nein. And this is not number, is meaning no.’

‘You are in England now. Talk English when you do your words and numbers.’

Hilda forbade herself to smile. This young man’s English was easy to understand, while Nellie’s was variable at best.

They helped him inside, because he had a damaged ankle. ‘You know what I must do now?’ Hilda asked when he was seated by the fire.

He nodded. ‘Danke. I fly no more. I was fighter pilot.’

She spoke to Nellie. ‘Deal with that damper, please. He’s frozen to the bone.’ She left to use the phone.

Nellie refreshed the fire, made him a cup of tea with three sugars, eased the boot off the painful foot and cut away the sock. ‘This will hurt less than pulling,’ she yelled at the top of her voice. ‘It’s not broke.’ She picked up a dead match and snapped it. ‘Not broke,’ she repeated, her head shaking vigorously. While binding his ankle, she suddenly found herself weeping. Nellie wasn’t a regular weeper, so she knew she must be unusually upset, though she couldn’t think why. Yes, she could. He looked about three years older than Phil. This baby had flown planes to protect German bombers.

The young man touched her hair. ‘Thank you, good Frau. The tears of an Englander will clean me. War is bad. Many, many Germans are not wanting this, but we dare not say because of him.’ He placed a finger under his nose to act as moustache, and performed a travesty of the Nazi salute. ‘He is crazy.’

It wasn’t the boy’s fault. The culprit was only the uniform, not the person inside it. No soldier, sailor or airman could be blamed for the sick politics of his country. ‘Your plane didn’t blow up. I didn’t hear you.’

‘Fighter,’ he said. ‘Small plane. I cut engine and jumped. Plane is in field. No explosion, but tell people stay away from it.’

She dried her eyes. ‘Where’s your parachute?’

‘In a . . .’ He sought the right word. ‘Where cows go at night.’

‘In a cowshed? You’ve parked a load of silk where it can get covered in shit?’

He smiled again. ‘I know what shit is meaning. No shit. Is on . . . shelf with chugs.’

‘Chugs?’

He made a pouring movement with his right hand. ‘Chugs.’

‘Jugs, love. They’re jugs.’ She took his hand. ‘Don’t tell nobody else,’ she begged, her words separated by seconds. ‘I can get two wedding dresses out of that – three if the brides are thin.’ She bit her lip. ‘What happens to you now, son?’

‘Questions by Englander army police, prison to end of war.’

‘Bloody shame.’

‘No. They will find me work, and I will be careful. Other prisoners must not know I choose to surrender. My name Heinrich. This in English is Henry. My friend who jump near city of Chester, he is Günter. His plane did explode, but away from buildings. I am hope he is safe. I am hope he find good people like you. So. I am Heinrich Hoffmann, and friend is Günter Friedmann. We are having rear gunners, and they jump when we tell them plane is not work properly. They are not like us; they both believing in Hitler. So. Your name?’

‘Nellie Kennedy, and she’s Hilda Pickavance.’

When Hilda returned, she discovered the hardy perennial named Helen Kennedy holding hands with the enemy. ‘Excuse me,’ she said before leaving the room once more.

‘She come, she go,’ Henry remarked.

She came again with Phil in tow. ‘Draw that,’ she ordered. ‘And when this bloody mess is over, your work will teach people that we were not at odds with the German people. We are fighting the Reich, as is this prisoner of war. The man chose to be here, Phil.’

Phil scanned the scene and committed it to memory. ‘I will,’ he said before marching up to the so-called enemy. ‘Welcome to England. I’m Phil.’

‘Heinrich – Henry in your language. I was in Luftwaffe and I choose to be prisoner in England. My grandfather has small part Jewish blood from his grandfather. If SS find him, he may die in camp.’

They didn’t even knock when they came for Heinrich. The rear door flew inward and revealed two redcaps with rifles ready to fire, and an unarmed civilian policeman.

‘On your knees,’ shouted one of the military policemen.

Nellie released the hand of her new-found friend and marched up to the real invaders. A loaded rifle was pressed against her stomach, but the ferocity of her stare forced the bearer to lower his weapon. ‘I should bloody well think so,’ she roared. ‘This is a private house on British soil. The German lad here crashed his plane on purpose so he could surrender. Harm one hair, and I’ll spread you so far across the newspapers that you’ll look like jam.’

‘Only doing our job, ma’am.’

‘And he’s only surrendering. You’ll find his mate somewhere outside Chester – he’s dumped his plane, too. Their gunners baled out, but they are Nazis. These two pilots should have a bloody medal, never mind flaming guns pointing at them. You want to watch yourselves, you do. Jessie Turnbull’s husband from the Edge went AWOL and finished up in the loony bin. He wasn’t fit to fight, but did you care? Tried to kill himself. His mam lives down yonder, and so does his wife. Yous lot want talking about.’

Leaning on Phil, Heinrich hopped across the room. He held out his hands to be cuffed. ‘God save your King,’ he said.

‘Are you taking the wee-wee?’ the taller redcap asked.

Hilda decided to be in charge. ‘No, he is not. His grandfather is part Jewish, and although this young pilot’s Jewish blood is greatly diluted, he can’t in conscience take part in the war. The top brass had a meeting, or so I’m told, and decided to allow some part-Jews to be Germans. He’ll have been forced to swear an oath. For him, that oath was a lie. I am proud to know him. Our own royal family are part German.’

‘You what?’ The civilian policeman was scratching his head.

In Hilda’s unspoken opinion, some people didn’t deserve an education. ‘When you have done with your questions, you may return him here if you wish. I will vouch for him, and for his friend, should you find him.’

Heinrich nodded. ‘Günter Friedmann near Chester. He does what I do.’

When they had left, Hilda and Nellie sat close to the fire. For over ten minutes, neither spoke. Then Nellie, who had been thinking hard, aired her opinion. ‘He’s just another evacuee, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, dear. That’s exactly what he is. They had better be good to him, that’s all I can say. He was just a boy, Nellie. Their children are killing our children, and vice versa.’

‘Merry blooming Christmas, eh, Hilda?’

‘I think we deserve a small brandy, Nell.’

‘Don’t bother. Just bring the bottle and a couple of straws. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be unconscious after all that.’

Mam had gone all evangelical. Was that the right word? She’d delivered a sermon down the phone this morning, and its title had been ‘Germans Are Not All Bad’. She’d met a German with a face like an angel, he’d ditched his plane on purpose in the middle of a field, and there were several yards of parachute silk, did Eileen want it? Oh, and happy Christmas Eve.

Eileen chuckled and shook her head in mock despair. She remembered lecturing her mother on this very subject, and Nellie Kennedy’s opinion had changed completely. Mam got worse, she really did. She’d been going on about writing to Mr Churchill regarding the attitude displayed by members of the military police. The words still echoed. ‘Police? Bloody police? They couldn’t direct traffic, couldn’t organize a kiddy’s birthday party. Have you got Mr Churchill’s address?’

‘We gave up corresponding for the duration, Mam,’ had been Eileen’s reply. ‘He’s in a bunker somewhere down London way. Oh, and he’s a bit busy these days.’

Spoodle yapped. Twenty-four hours in this house, and he’d already worked out how to get the two-legged to open the back door. His method of egress seemed unique. Having failed thus far to find his centre of gravity, he had fallen off the step a few times and landed on his head. So he shuffled round, allowing his fat little bottom to hit the ground first. Eileen could not believe the cleverness of so young a creature. Seven weeks old, and he knew already when to turn his back on a cruel world.

He waddled off into his pen, did his duty, returned to the back door. Coming back in was not dignified. He scrabbled and struggled until the woman lifted him in. But he would manage it soon; he was nothing if not dogged in his determination. It was all right here, warm, plenty of grub, nice naps on the old lady’s bed. He panted a smile at Eileen and went off in search of trouble.

Right. It was now or never. Keith had gone to help builders who were still propping up a few houses down the road. Mel was upstairs writing about all the bombs that had fallen in the river last night. Keith had heard it from one of the carpenters; last night had been Manchester’s turn for the bigger, nastier bombs. Now, Eileen would go and do what she had always done for her children – her best. She removed her apron and smoothed the front of her best green suit. The blouse, made from remnants bought by Keith from Bolton Market, was a triumph in pale cream. Her face was on, her shoes were polished; she was ready. The skirt’s waistband was a bit tight, but she’d manage.

She went upstairs to inform Mel that she was in temporary charge of Miss Morrison. ‘Sit and talk to her. I’ll be back in time for tablets. Take Spoodle in with you. She likes Spoodle.’

‘Where are you going, Mam?’

‘Last minute shopping,’ was the delivered lie.

‘Have we any food points left? Or any coupons?’

‘A few.’

‘Right.’ Mel jumped up and stated her intention to find the dog. ‘You should have called him Colander instead of Spoodle. And don’t lie, Mam. You’d never go shopping in those clothes. You’re going to see Gloria.’

‘Get yourself downstairs,’ Eileen said. ‘You’re in charge, and I’m off.’

Outside at last, Eileen straightened her hat and strode determinedly towards her goal. There were things that could be sorted out only by a woman, but this time she was going to hire back-up. She needed Marie. His car wasn’t there. ‘Thank goodness for the sick,’ Eileen muttered as she opened the gate.

Marie answered the door. ‘Hello, Eileen.’ At least they were now on first name terms. They often met in shops, and Eileen delivered her knitting to the WVS on a regular basis, so they were in contact quite frequently.

‘Is Gloria in?’

‘Upstairs.’ Marie widened the doorway to allow her visitor to enter. ‘Perhaps you and I should talk first. What a mess this is, and at the so-called festive season, too. Come through, I’ve made you a small Christmas cake. Don’t ask about ingredients, or I might end up in jail.’

They got through the niceties in seconds – the lovely cake, the weather, rationing, bombs, the propping up of houses. Marie took a sip of tea. ‘She’s as miserable as sin up there in her room.’

‘Snap.’

‘And Peter’s no better. Our girls were such good friends, Eileen. I even had a dream that Gloria would pull up her socks and go to university with Mel. They’re so suited, and they could look after each other. Then Peter put a spanner in the works. Oh, I do hope he’s not going to be like—’ She cut herself off abruptly.

‘Like his father?’ Eileen finished on behalf of her hostess.

Marie nodded sadly. After a brief silence, she decided to fill Eileen in about all that had happened in recent months. She had learned about her own past and was now aware of all the facts. An uncle, long dead, had stolen her childhood. Marriage had not suited her, and Tom had been a brute. ‘He wanted you. It was written all over his face that first day – remember? We had Madeira cake?’

Eileen lowered her head for a moment. Denial would be completely inappropriate; this was an intelligent woman who deserved truth. ‘Sorry about your childhood, Marie. And yes. He nearly got me, but I value myself too highly because of my family, mostly my kids. He is a very attractive and desirable man. My opinion is that he’s never been technically unfaithful to you, because he wouldn’t risk his standing in the community. Selfish, isn’t he?’

Marie’s smile was almost radiant. She had found pleasure. She was now using him just as he had used her. ‘I do love him,’ she admitted. ‘But sometimes I don’t like him one bit.’ She hid her blushing cheeks with both hands. ‘Now I’ve learned the mechanics of everything, I enjoy him.’ These words were blurred slightly by her fingers. ‘And I think he’s aware that I’m inwardly critical of his performances. There’s a chance I might start awarding marks out of ten.’

Eileen made a remark about a shoe and a foot, and both women had to stifle their laughter when Marie became rather anatomical and almost vulgar. She had never before enjoyed the kind of bawdy chat so treasured by females when free of their partners. Men were supposed to be the ones with crude minds, while women were expected to be gentle, careful and sweet.

‘. . . so she booked him in at the vet’s.’ Eileen was nearing the end of a ridiculous Scotland Road fable about a man whose body was unusual. ‘Their name comes up, and they go in the surgery. Finally, soft lad sees all the pictures of dogs and cats on the walls, and realizes he’s not in the doctor’s. And she says to him, “Look, either that goes or I go. There isn’t room for three in our bed.”’

‘So what happened?’ Marie asked.

Eileen shrugged. ‘Some say the vet did the job, some say the wife did it with pinking shears – well, she didn’t want his wotsit to fray, did she? I’ve heard he emigrated to Australia, that he joined a freak show, that they got divorced.’

Marie threw her pinafore over her head and howled. Women could do this talking thing. They didn’t need to be propped up in the corner of a taproom, pint of ale in one hand, cigarette in the other. All she and Eileen required was tea and the comfort gained from opening up minds and hearts at a dining table.

Eileen was enjoying herself. She’d seldom had a close personal friend, because, like ugly people, the unusually pretty were to be avoided. Today, she had come to plead for her daughter, and she had gained something for herself. ‘You’ve come on a lot, Marie Bingley. From mouse to lioness is quite a stride.’

‘I have an admirer, too,’ Marie whispered. ‘He’s pleasant, older than God, on the plump side and with beautiful pianist’s hands, but he’s very, very boring. Tom is never that. In fact, he’s probably the most exciting creature I’ve ever known, because I’m never sure. I don’t know where he’s been, what he’s done, who he imagines I am while we’re making love. Since I finished the treatment, I manage not to mind, because I can be selfish. It’s my turn now.’

‘Not before time.’

‘Are you sure? Am I not being terrible?’

Eileen shrugged. ‘No. Like I said, the shoe’s on a different foot.’

‘Don’t start that again. You know where that shoe took us a few minutes ago. If I laugh any more, I’ll need to rearrange some underwear.’

‘Oh, I know what you mean. I once laughed so hard my waters broke. And I wasn’t even pregnant at the time.’

Gloria walked in to gales of laughter. She stood in the doorway, folded her arms and glared at not one but two out-of-order mothers who didn’t care in the least about her tragic life. Her very, very best friend had let her down in the worst sense. Her brother, her twin brother, was an oinker, a pig who had tried to have sex with said very, very best friend. And people thought it was funny?

Marie mopped her eyes. ‘Sorry, darling. I know you’re miserable, but we were just letting our hair down a little. We’re feeling the strain, you see.’

‘Sorry about that.’

Eileen stood up. ‘Right. Coat on, please. You’re coming with me. You have to meet Spoodle, who’s gorgeous, and I’m sure my daughter, also gorgeous but sulking, would love to see you.’

‘Then why didn’t she come here?’

The visitor marshalled her thoughts. ‘She’s looking after Miss Morrison and trying to train Spoodle. I came here to fetch you because you have more sense than Mel does. She might be brainy, but she can be daft.’

Both women held their breath while Gloria chewed thoughtfully on a fingernail. ‘Then you go and change places with her; tell her to come here.’

The mothers looked at each other. ‘Gloria, you will go with Mrs . . . Mrs Greenhalgh. She didn’t need to come here, you know. She could have left us with a completely rotten Christmas. As things are, your brother’s here, and you don’t want him listening while you try to mend a broken fence.’

The girl started to fiddle with her hair. It was a habit repeated whenever she was perturbed. ‘I did a bad thing.’

‘I know,’ chorused Marie and Eileen. ‘Miss Clever Clogs will have an answer to that,’ continued Mel’s mother. ‘God knows she’s got one for everything else. I’m sick to death of getting educated by my own daughter. She’s into silly ancient laws now, Marie. Anyone in Chester can kill anyone from Wales as long as they do it with an arrow at midnight on a Sunday – something like that. Can you imagine shooting straight in pitch black? And why stop at the Welsh, for God’s sake?’

A strange noise emerged from the youngest member of the meeting. Gloria was trying not to laugh. She turned hurriedly and quit the scene.

Marie put a finger to her lips. Like most people, she knew all the sounds belonging to her house, and could identify and explain the slightest creak. Her shoulders relaxed. ‘Getting her coat,’ she mouthed.

‘Now for chapter two,’ came Eileen’s quiet reply.

‘Onward Christian solders. I’ll put your cake in a box.’

Betty was a boon. She was as quiet as the grave, had been in service since leaving school, and seemed able to do the job of a gallon while furnished with just a pint. When asked about her excellent cooking, she replied by saying that she made it up as she went along. Except for Mr Collins’s meals. Mr Collins’s allocated points were pinned to the wall next to the oven, and they became known as Betty’s Bible.

Furthermore, she cared about ‘her’ family, even going so far as to travel to Bolton to collect tins of National Dried for Maisie, who had been drinking her mother dry. She took complete charge of the binding of Gill’s breasts with bandages and, when Gill was tempted to remove these supports, it was Betty who stepped in. Yes, the breasts were hard and sore, but Maisie was fine on powdered milk, and that was going to be an end to it. ‘Time you stopped feeling like a cow wanting milking. I’ve done this for my mother several times. You’ll get through it.’

This was when Gill discovered that quietly spoken words delivered by a taciturn person were more effective than shouted orders. Betty, a plump and rather unattractive female with a Midlands accent, meant business. Aware of her unappealing exterior, she empowered herself in domestic circumstances. Her whys and wherefores were of no importance; she was a godsend and a treasure.

Hilda Pickavance arrived. She had come to check on the progress of ‘her boy’ and was perplexed by his absence.

‘Where is he?’ she asked when the niceties were done.

‘Upstairs,’ Gill replied. ‘He’s doing a jigsaw, brand new, and getting his knickers in a twist because he says half the pieces are missing. Supposed to be relaxing. I think that word’s missing from his dictionary. He can’t rest. And he has to slow down for weeks.’

Hilda went upstairs to have a word or several with him. He was seated at a small table under a window. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Come here, please. Sky, bit of cloud on it, two blobs off-set, and two holes, also off-set.’

Thus the lady of the manor continued her war work. She knitted khaki scarves, which were easier than socks, was involved with the welfare of the Willows community and its evacuees, and did jigsaws with a diabetic young man.

The German boys were being questioned in Manchester. If they satisfied the authorities, they would be moved to Yorkshire. It seemed that several young men had ditched their planes, and they were said to be working happily and with minimal policing in farms all over England’s largest county. One or two of them were becoming friendly with the locals, and there were even tales of budding romance. Heinrich and Günter, too, were Hilda’s war work. Heinrich had arrived uninvited, had stayed for a short while as a dependant, and had left as a friend. It was a confusing life.

She smiled to herself. Never mind. It was Christmas. And she had found Jay’s delinquent piece of sky.

Spoodle became the bridge between the two girls. Gloria fell in love the moment she saw him, and she begged to use the phone long before sitting down to talk to Mel. She told her mother she wanted a spoodle, and that she could get the phone number of the poodle owner from Keith. So that was that. Instinct told Gloria that she could get what she wanted if she struck now.

They climbed the stairs and sat side by side on Mel’s bed. The visitor opened the batting. ‘I’m sorry, Mel.’

‘So am I.’

‘How can I mend what I did?’

Mel expressed the opinion that the mending might be fun. They could start a trend, but they needed to be careful of slander. ‘Then, when enough lies have been told, we do a gullibility chart.’

Gloria pondered before answering. ‘There’s him.’

‘Who?’

‘My brother, of course. Pete the perfect. He’ll be bragging about the things you actually did.’ She paused. ‘What did you actually do?’

Honesty was the only viable policy. ‘Everything but the deed.’

‘Everything?’

‘I think so, though there may be stuff I don’t know about.’

Gloria’s cheeks blazed like a lighthouse in the dark. ‘He’ll brag about that.’

Mel shook her head thoughtfully. ‘He won’t. Because I carry a certain knowledge, a confidence he would hate me to disclose. Don’t ask, Gloria, because I did make a promise.’

Mel closed her eyes for a few seconds, and he was crying like a baby wanting the breast. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what I am,’ he sobbed. ‘I love you, Mel, but there’s something . . .’ He raised his head. ‘Sometimes I think I like boys.’ Mel had cried with him for what had seemed like hours. No matter what, Peter. No matter what, I’ll be here for you.

She opened her eyes and smiled at Gloria, who was in the here and now. ‘It’s enough for you to be sure I know something that could almost run him out of town. I can’t and won’t say anything more to you, but I am going to speak to Peter. This mess wants cleaning up before we go back to school.’

Gloria agreed. ‘But don’t forget to sew up my brother’s mouth.’

‘I won’t forget.’

‘Mel?’

‘What?’

‘Was it . . . nice?’

‘Yes.’ And no more was said. They fell back into friendship as if there had been no rift, and spent the rest of the day at Gloria’s house bullying Tom and Marie until Tom finally crumbled. ‘Get in the bloody car,’ he snapped. ‘I phoned. There’s one left. It’s female and will need to be neutered.’ When his daughter opened her mouth to tell him to make haste before someone else bought the animal, he held up a hand. ‘I’ve reserved the dog for two hours. And you can pick up after it, madam. I see enough of the mucky side of life without cleaning up after half a poodle.’

‘A half-poodle,’ his daughter said. ‘That is the correct term. It’s a whole dog.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ he mumbled between clenched teeth.

Thus it came to pass that Gloria Bingley acquired Pandora, sister to Spoodle. The girls removed the S, I, E and L from spaniel, and added Dora, who had been one of Gloria’s grandmothers. Pandora was reborn, and with her came the one item left after the opening of the box. In legend, Pandora hung on to hope. In reality, this puppy and her brother cemented a friendship that would last a lifetime.

*   *   *

My dear Miss Pickavance,

I think I’d rather like to be a journalist. Interviewing people is great; I seem to have the knack of getting them to talk. It’s important, because so many will become nothing more than statistics once the war ends. The recording of individual statements will make people from Civil Defence real.

Hilda glanced out at the near-dawn of Christmas Day. It was bone-chillingly cold, and stars still twinkled, so there would be no cloud cover for a while. If the evacuees wanted snow, it would not arrive until afternoon, she believed. The Bolton area was famous for heavy falls and drifts, and the Liverpool children were looking forward to a white-out.

For a few precious minutes, Hilda was enjoying solitude in the company of Mel’s letters. The girl wrote weekly, and was producing an intelligent young person’s view of a city at war. Together with her brother’s paintings, perhaps a package might be formed? ‘Stop it,’ she ordered herself sharply. ‘Let them walk first, and allow them to choose their own pace when running begins.’

Her name is Barbara Scott, though she prefers Babs. A casualty nurse, she has seen at close quarters some horrible things. One man arrived in an ambulance, most of him on a stretcher, the right lower leg a separate item poking out of a bucket. He’s doing well, thank goodness. The thing that upset Babs most was a blinded child whose whole family died. Babs’s sister is going to try to adopt the little blind girl.

Sometimes Hilda wished she could be there. But, as she was constantly reminded by Nellie, she had probably saved the lives of over twenty people by bringing them here, and she was managing to educate most of them. A chuckle rose unbidden from her throat. The thefts at Four Oaks had caused some tension, because Liverpool had invaded and was, by default, the whipping boy. The thief, when finally caught through a booby trap, had been a Willows youth. Scousers were no angels, but they were mainly decent. Let Willows put that in its pipe and smoke it.

Shock is a real illness. Some patients don’t start to shake until hours or even days after their experiences. They come in as black as coal; the only white bits are their eyes. Hundreds arrive at once and, in spite of sets of rules, the whole hospital is reduced to chaos, people spilling into wards and corridors and offices. They found a drunk in the women’s toilets. He was quite happy, but locked in for – well, goodness knows how long he was there. They had to break the door down. He was sitting guard over twelve bottles of single malt singing ‘Danny Boy’ and asking had anyone seen his Mary. His Mary is in Anfield Cemetery, but he wasn’t ready to accept, God love him.

Mel’s interviews made everything frighteningly real, because she focused on individuals and their anecdotes, helped them talk, shared their burdens, offered sympathy and, above all, listened. Yes, journalism was a possibility. This was last week’s letter.

The ARP currently has half a million members nationwide, but Churchill wants that number doubled. We may have won the Battle of Britain, but we are still very unsafe. America is our greatest hope; why won’t they come? Yes, I know some are here already, as are many from Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other Commonwealth countries, but we need America to become official. The unofficial Americans tend to be Air Force – they love planes and are technologically advanced, but their President is afraid of unpopularity.

Bob Garnet is ARP. He treated me to a cup of tea in a little hut and said I was a bit young to hear his stories. So I told him I am a Merchants girl working on a project, which is true in a sense. He said they all have an area to patrol, and that they know the people who live in the houses, so they can tell at a glance who’s missing or in a shelter. They dig and dig and bring out bits of people, trying to guess who’s who and what’s what. Sometimes organs end up in buckets and guesswork comes into play, but, as Bob said, there’s a war on.

It’s the children. He can’t carry a dead child without weeping , and he does it openly now, because he’s not the only one. The next worst thing, he says, is the smell of burning flesh. Well, you told me to be open and honest, didn’t you? Bob’s stomach is no longer strong , and his wife worries. They live in a place called Old Roan, somewhere on the way to Aintree.

Sighing, Hilda rose and walked to the window. Two typically angry robins were locked in mid-flight deadly combat. So much for the air force, she said inwardly. Cows had begun lowing in the Home Farm sheds. Cows didn’t have Christmas, unless one counted a few in Bethlehem’s famous stable. Their udders were full, and milking was required. This was just another ordinary day.

Bernie O’Hara got in the wrong queue. He was supposed to be volunteering as a messenger boy, but he found himself with a heavy helmet, leaden boots and a fireman’s uniform. He explained that he wasn’t quite fourteen, but he was told that these are desperate times, and he must get on with it. So he got on with it.

On his first watch, the bells ‘went down’. That’s what they say when the ringing starts. Poor Bernie found himself on a fire engine rattling its way to Millers Bridge. His description to me was, ‘The whole world was on fire, and the flames were really tall. I could see Heinkels in the sky.’

They rolled out hoses and fastened them to hydrants. A real fireman took the hose and made Bernie stand behind him. ‘Hold on,’ he ordered, ‘or we all die. There’s forty to sixty pounds of pressure coming through here in a minute. If we let go, it becomes a giant serpent and kills us all.’

That was just the first battle for Bernie, an ordinary schoolboy. The heat was terrific. They had to cool down other buildings, because brick crumbles at a certain temperature, and some places caught fire just because they overheated. His face was burning. He couldn’t touch it, because he had the hose. So he shuffled a bit, and some of the water came back at him. His uniform was steaming. It was wet through, but the flames heated it. Burning timber flew at him, crackling as it travelled. ‘I know hell now,’ he told me. At fourteen, at my age, he has already seen hell.

The rest of the message was amusing. Hilda found herself chuckling again, because Mel’s palette changed in the blink of an eye, and she used just primary colours when describing her nearest and dearest.

You could cut the atmosphere here with a blunt knife. They are SO in love, and they play all sorts of games. Keith pretends to be dominant, but he’s about as threatening as a high tide at Southport, which, in turn, is as rare as hen’s teeth. When he gets fed up with her misbehaviour, he sits her on the draining board and orders her to stay. They kiss all the time. She says kissing is his main hobby. He is a lovely man and I have started to call him Dad. That pleases him. He says he’s getting her a collar and lead tomorrow for Christmas, and a voucher for ten lessons at dog training school. I don’t think we’ll be having Christmas – it will be more like Kissmas.

Hilda chuckled; she’d been told about Spoodle via the telephone.

Miss Morrison does some pretend sleeping, but she’s really listening to the sounds of love’s young dream. Her level of deafness alters daily; if there’s something interesting going on, she hears it. I spend time with her every day. People her age are like living history books, so valuable. She says she’s staying alive until Hitler’s dead and disposed of and she’s seen television. Nothing would surprise me where Miss Morrison’s concerned. Sometimes I wonder what really went on with that caretaker in the cellar!

Hilda placed the pages with all the others in a drawer. It was Christmas, and there was much to do. Her protégés, spread as they were around farms and cottages, would each receive a stocking from her. This house would be packed to the gills, since Jay, Gill and Maisie were expected, as were Neil, Jean and their daughters. The Land Army girls had all managed to get home for a few days, and that was a relief, or lunchers would have spilled onto the stairs. So it was to be a meal for twelve, though Nellie insisted that she had it all in hand. Thank goodness they lived in the country and kept poultry.

Elsie was expected for afternoon tea, as were Freda Pilkington and her offspring, but the lunch guests would have left by then. As she combed her hair, Hilda Pickavance found herself smiling at the ageing figure in the glass. She was no longer lonely; she had a family at last.

‘Well, this is a good start, I must say.’ Keith joined the weeping Mel on the sofa. ‘Happy Christmas. It’s all going very well so far. Your mother’s in the bath, says she’s staying there till New Year because I bought her some bubbles. Miss Morrison’s had her breakfast courtesy of me, but she said her toast was overdone, and now you’re carrying on all sad. Come on. Tell your stepdad what’s up.’

Mel pushed documents into his hand. ‘It’s too much,’ she wailed.

Keith looked at the bank book and covering letter, explaining that too much was fine in his opinion. ‘Your mam and I got you clothes – good ones, but second-hand. So this too-much present evens things out a bit.’

‘I could buy three houses with that, Dad.’

‘I wouldn’t bother, love. Some soft bugger keeps knocking them down or setting light to them.’ Dad. This gorgeous girl was his daughter. ‘Miss Pickavance loves you, baby. That money will see you through university, because brains are all very well, but they need food, shelter and transport. You’re safe now.’

She grinned. ‘Unless I get bombed.’

Like her mother, Mel was a rainbow when she cried and smiled simultaneously. ‘Get a crowbar, sweetheart, and prise your mam out of that bathroom.’

But no such measure was required, because chaos erupted. Not one but two spoodles shot through the room like bullets from a gun. ‘Did I imagine that?’ Mel asked. ‘Two nutters merged into one?’

He nodded. ‘A ball with eight legs. It rolled that-a-way.’

They sat and listened as the two pups bounded upstairs. They could go up, but they couldn’t come down. ‘That’ll shift your mam,’ predicted Keith as Gloria walked in.

‘Happy Christmas,’ the visitor said grimly. ‘My dad wants a divorce from Pandora, says two daft women in the house are enough, and he and Peter are now outnumbered. They’re crying.’

‘Tom and Peter?’ Keith asked innocently.

‘Spoodle and Pandora.’ Mel dried her eyes. ‘They can’t get down,’ she advised her best friend.

‘We know,’ was Gloria’s reply. ‘We found that out at three o’clock this morning. She’s eaten a doormat and a draught excluder. Yours has started on a leg of the kitchen table.’

‘We know,’ they chorused.

‘You little buggers,’ came a voice from on high. ‘Keith? They’ve got my towel.’

‘You know what?’ Keith rose to his feet. ‘I’m beginning to sympathize with that poodle woman. We are paying for the spaniel’s bad behaviour.’

All three walked upstairs. Eileen, stark naked and laughing, was pulling a large towel to which were attached two pups. She looked at the three new arrivals. ‘You took your time.’

Dumbstruck, Keith noticed the swelling. That was his and hers, a daughter or son in a beautiful container. While the girls retrieved the towel, he simply gazed into his wife’s eyes. He could not remember happiness as intense as this.

Eileen covered herself. ‘Drown them,’ she ordered before retreating to her bedroom. Keith followed, locking the door behind him. She was seated on the bed, a huge pair of scissors in one hand. ‘Why do you have a murder weapon in your bedside cupboard?’ she asked.

‘To cut through all the red tape,’ he answered.

‘What?’

‘Your tarpaulin.’

‘You wouldn’t dare.’

‘Happy Christmas.’ He gave her a white silk gown with matching nightdress. ‘Used to be a German parachute, so if you ever need to jump, you just pull the cord and—’

It was her turn to cut off his words with a kiss. She dragged him back into bed and encouraged nature to take its course. Sometimes, a woman needed to dictate the pace.

Frances Morrison was waiting for them. ‘Thank you for the lovely bedjacket. And the girls asked me to tell you that they’ve taken the spoodles to torment Dr Bingley. Oh, will you make me some toast, Eileen? Your husband should work at a crematorium.’

When they were alone, she patted her bed, and he sat next to her. ‘Does she know, Keith?’

He nodded. ‘Big-Mouth Bingley told her. She was shocked, but you know how she is. Whatever happens, she puts everything to one side and gets on with what needs doing.’

‘I just wanted her to have something of her own – a house, a place.’

‘Yes.’

‘Make her take it when I’m gone. No selling up and giving the money to charity. She’s a lovely woman.’

‘I know.’

She gripped his hand with more power than should have been allotted to a woman so advanced in years. ‘Look after them all, or I shall haunt you.’

They gave her the new toast and another cup of milky tea. Then they left her. ‘It’s time to prepare Christmas dinner,’ Eileen told her.

Alone in her room, content in a house filled with love, Frances drifted on a bright, white cloud of memories. A school bell, the sounds of girls at play, a handsome, vulgar man in a cellar, sweet temptation, one stolen kiss in an office populated by filing cabinets, desks and daffodils. He knew she loved spring flowers. She could not marry a janitor; she should have married him.

Never mind. Onward, onward. Forty-three of her girls had gone on via Merchants to Oxbridge. Educate a boy, and you educate one man; educate a girl, and you enlighten generations. Too tired to call for company, Miss Frances Morrison took a road along which we are all destined to tread. Her last thought was for Spoodle. He could have two bedjackets now.

Marie, in the midst of chaos, snatched at the receiver. ‘Eileen? What? When? Yes, of course I will.’ She paused, a finger pressed against the free ear. ‘Peter’s avoiding us like the plague, so don’t worry about him. Yes, yes. I am so sorry, my dear.’

Two girls and two puppies were running about. Peter was upstairs, stoic in his silence. Tom sat in his little office, an Irish coffee on the desk, an old crossword puzzle spread before him.

‘Where’s Pandora?’ Gloria shouted.

Marie shut herself in the downstairs cloakroom. What the hell did it matter if the sprouts were soggy? The old lady was dead. Were the parsnips in the oven? Did she care? The running and shouting continued. This was her life; she had to live it.

When she reached the office door again, she paused to watch her husband betraying himself. In his arms, he cradled a happy pup. The newcomer he had dismissed as unclean and germ-ridden was licking his face. ‘Who’s my beauty-girl, then?’ He used a silly, talking-to-a-baby voice. ‘Who’s had a permanent wave that went wrong? To hell with the spaniel, I’m your daddy. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.’ He looked up. ‘Marie?’

She entered and closed the door. ‘We have to ask Mel to stay for dinner, Tom. Miss Morrison died.’

He closed his eyes. That wonderful, aggressive, determined suffragette had gone. ‘She was born in 1850,’ he said, his voice unsteady. ‘February next, she would have hit ninety-one. Her brain was as sharp as the best carving knife, and she never missed a trick.’ But she had missed the end of this bloody war, and she hadn’t lived to see television. ‘How are Keith and Eileen?’

Marie shook her head. ‘Not good. They’re not having Christmas, so they want us to keep Mel for a few hours. Peter won’t come down if she’s here.’

He stood up. ‘Leave it with me, love. Time somebody sorted this lot out. You do your parsnips, I’ll deal with Peter.’

He paused on the landing and stood in the oriel bay. From here he could see Miss Morrison’s house – Mrs Greenhalgh’s now. All curtains were closed. Dr Ryan’s bike leaned against a gatepost, and the undertaker’s car was parked nearby. A light had gone out today. That remarkable old woman had fought for women’s franchise, and for an end to segregation in America. That hadn’t happened yet, but she’d tried, had even travelled to the southern states. The slave trade was partly Britain’s fault, and Liverpool had thrived on it. Frances Morrison had battled for a school of her own, for freedom, for the betterment of women.

‘Dad?’

‘Hello, son.’

Peter stood beside his father. ‘Why are you crying?’

‘A patient died. Miss Morrison. Mel doesn’t know, and she’s having Christmas with us, because her parents are busy.’ He dried his eyes. ‘You will go downstairs and be a man. Yes, men cry too. Go. Give your sister and her friend a decent day. Stop feeling bloody sorry for yourself.’

Tom sat in the bay window long after his son had gone downstairs. Puppies ran, two girls laughed and shouted, while the scent of food rose up the stairwell and almost made him gag. ‘Silent Night’ was playing on the wireless. Wasn’t that a German carol? Wasn’t it ‘Stille Nacht’? And did it matter? He remained where he was through ‘Silent Night’ and part of Handel’s Messiah.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. ‘And from us is taken a pearl,’ he mouthed before descending the stairs. He lied to Mel, said they’d begged her mother to allow her to stay with Gloria for a few hours. He carved the bird, told jokes, put food in two tiny bowls for two tiny dogs. The pups ate, looked for more, gave up and passed out near the fire. And the parsnips were slightly underdone.

PART THREE
1941

Seventeen

The second Great Fire of London had happened just three days before New Year. There had been no festive celebrations in Liverpool, but the Luftwaffe had lit up London in the worst way possible. Few in the north knew much about it, but, as ever, Mel Watson could be relied upon to winkle out the truth from any and every available source. As ever, she wrote down all she had learned and posted it to Hilda Pickavance.

Published now in a Liverpool newspaper, Mel and Gloria were two of several teenage pairs across the region who contributed to a small but humorous monthly column entitled ‘A Young Person’s Guide to Survival’. They offered advice on such subjects as the borrowing and lending of clothes, the making over of dresses, and the drawing of straight lines up the backs of mothers’ legs in order to imitate fully fashioned stockings. Hilda chuckled as she read the latest contribution from Mel and her friend.

Keep your hand steady. Mothers are not impressed by zigzag legs, and punishments can vary from no sweets for a month to the terrible job of cleaning out the back garden Anderson.

Mel and Gloria wrote hilarious anecdotes about their families, their friends, and Spoodle and Pandora, the Deadly Duo.

If you are afflicted by a dog, get the priest in and the house blessed. So far, we have lost items of underwear, a scarf and some Latin homework. Nobody told us that dogs eat stair carpet and table legs. As for the homework, why did the teacher laugh? IT WAS TRUE!

Hilda put away her first Great Fire of London lesson for the second time. The first fire had been a good thing to an extent, as it had eradicated plague by cleansing the city of rats and their disease-bearing parasites. But the present deliberate attempt to wipe out the City of London was appalling. Mel and Gloria were getting to know journalists, and journalists gossiped. Although positive propaganda was allowed, the people of Britain were, for the most part, shielded from the absolute truth. It was about morale. No matter what, as few as possible were allowed the full story. ‘I suppose if we do get invaded, the first we’ll know of it is the sound of jackboots pounding in our streets.’ Hilda placed Mel’s newspaper clippings in a folder and took out the latest letter.

My dear Miss Pickavance,

I have to thank you again for my bank account. I know I keep doing it, but you are my saviour, and I can now concentrate on exams. You are wonderfully kind and generous!

The most awful thing happened in London on 29 December, and it has taken me a while to collect information. The event almost defies description, and I doubt we shall ever get the full truth, but an American journalist who is trying to shame his country into helping us witnessed it and sent copies to newspapers everywhere, and I managed to read some of the piece.

‘You would,’ said Hilda to an empty room. Mel’s inquisitiveness would surely land her in trouble sooner or later.

Wave after wave of bombers came over, and each bomb weighed more than five hundred pounds. An incredible fifty tons hit London, and they took out the main telephone exchange, damaged Waterloo, Cannon Street and London Bridge stations, hit shelters and people in the streets. At Moorgate, heat buckled railway lines. A breeze fanned the flames, and then the breeze became a gale. Buildings, some of them five storeys high, crumbled and collapsed, killing fire-fighters and citizens trapped by flames, heat and falling masonry. The true target, St Paul’s, was completely surrounded by fire. Nelson, Wellington and Christopher Wren rest in the vault. Ordinary folk turned up at the cathedral to pray and to help. The dome, which is just lead resting on wooden joists, did catch fire, but amateur fire-fighters managed to extinguish the flames. It has been described as a firestorm, as the second Great Fire of London, and as the hurricane from hell.

A Victorian warehouse containing hundreds of thousands of valuable books was consumed. St Bride’s, designed by Wren, is no more. Fleet Street is flattened, and many homes and places of work are gone. There was no singing in the underground on this occasion. People prayed to die rather than to survive injured, because many are already maimed and disfigured for life as a result of these bombardments. But this was a terrible night, the worst so far. London can’t take much more. Firefighters are dying. Our capital will die, too, if this sort of bombardment is repeated. We have no alternative but to fight back in the same cowardly way, hit Germany and run, hit and run. Terrible.

Countless incendiaries were delivered so that targets would be visible, and it is rumoured that a third wave of bombers was ready to take off from France, but weather stopped it and Hitler was furious. We have lost banks and businesses by the score. They didn’t get St Paul’s. Churchill issued a direct order that St Paul’s must be saved.

Hilda sat on her bed and wept. London belonged to everyone. Buildings designed and erected over hundreds of years had been razed to the ground in a matter of hours. Gone was Britain’s strength as a near-impregnable island, because death arrived airborne these days. Roosevelt’s contribution had been to make both sides promise to play nicely, and not aim for people in the streets, but this was Hitler’s way. He walked into countries after the Luftwaffe had pounded them into submission; now he was attempting the same with England. He was gunning for innocent citizens. ‘So yes, Mel, we have to do the same,’ she whispered sadly. Heinrich and Günter, due to start working on Yorkshire farms, were proof positive that Germans were not all bad. But bombs did not discriminate, and Churchill would be hopping mad.

To be fair, the Americans had helped financially, but oh, how Britain needed their forces now. Hitler would resort to any tactic, however cruel and wild, in his insane search for domination. Nellie’s ‘Why?’, asked on the night when Heinrich had descended from the sky, was unanswerable, because the explanations about Poland and saving one’s country failed to address the basic question. There could be no sensible excuse for behaviour such as this. Germany had to be stopped for the sake of its populace, since the Fatherland was in the hands of lunatics.

Mum and Dad are almost ready to depart. It will be interesting to have Mrs Openshaw here, as she is quite a character, and she will be company for Gran. Fortunately, there’s plenty of room in this place.

Sadness still sits in the house, because we all remember how lovely and funny Miss Morrison was. I claimed her little bell, the one she used to ring when she needed us or wanted company. I mean to treasure it for the rest of my life, since she was so precious.

Mam owns the property now, though probate has to be settled, and she was threatening to charge Gran and Mrs Openshaw rent. It was another joke, of course, one of the many we are forced to endure. I believe that Mrs Pilkington, originally from Rachel Street, is getting her mother over to Willows Edge to look after the children while Mrs Pilkington runs the post office for Mrs Openshaw.

I really do miss our landlady. Mum, Dad and I cleared the room out and Dad put the bed etc. upstairs in the old lady’s original bedroom. We got some second-hand pieces and are now the proud owners of a formal dining room, though the chairs don’t match each other. The sideboard was of poor wood and very plain, but it serves its purpose by housing Miss Morrison’s lovely china. We have kept her easy chair by the fireplace with her favourite shawl draped over the back. Sometimes, I sit in it and talk to her in my head.

There was no Christmas. I spent the day with my friend Gloria and her family, and did not find out until I got home that Miss Morrison had died on Christ’s birthday. We console ourselves with the knowledge that she was happy in our company and that she lived a long and useful life. My mother cried a lot. It was the first time she had helped lay someone out.

The funeral was amazing. Two of her ‘girls’ spoke at the service in St Michael’s C of E church, and it was standing room only. They weren’t girls; they were grandmothers, and it took them the best part of half an hour to read out the accomplishments of Miss Frances Morrison. Although the church was packed, you could have heard a pin drop. My mother spoke, too. I was very proud of her – she even made people laugh about the countless cups of milky tea, the coddled eggs and just-right toast, not too pale, not too dark. Knitting was mentioned, as was the old lady’s tendency to be as deaf as she needed to be according to prevailing circumstances.

Right at the front, a very old man sat in a wheelchair. I spoke to him afterwards as he waited in the porch for his great-nephew to take him home. He was the famous vulgar caretaker. I told him that she had loved him, and he fixed me with the palest blue eyes I have ever seen. In a rusty, dusty voice, he said that she had been the only one for him, but he was from the wrong class. For once, I was lost for words. She never exactly told me that she loved him, but I could see it in her eyes every time she spoke about him. Why do people waste love, Miss Pickavance?

So we approach March, and Mam is more than six months pregnant. My stepfather’s war work in Crosby has been with builders, and he has come to love our city while trying to keep it safe. Our house here is finally stable and free of what Miss Morrison termed pit props. I think Dad pulled a few strings.

Mam and he need to get away. I pray nothing else will happen to keep them here; I also pray for a sister. Can you imagine how life would be if we got yet another boy? Dad is diplomatic, says I’ll need a bridesmaid in a few years, so he wants a girl. I know what he really wants – he wants the birth to be easy and his beloved wife safe and well. The sex of the child is not significant, because he loves Mam so much. So there are one-woman men. One is married to my mother, and another sat in a wheelchair in a church porch in freezing cold. Wasted love? How cruel life is sometimes.

Please, I beg you, look after my mother when she comes back to Willows. She has been well through the pregnancy, and I know Dad loves her to bits, but Gran has always been with her for births in the past, and she will be here looking after me. I begin to feel quite a nuisance. This will be our fifth baby, and I want her and my mother to be safe.

Thank you yet again, Miss Pickavance.

Hoping to see you soon.

Mel x

There were snowdrops outside, and they were fading fast. Hilda counted twenty-seven under her window, and she could see clumps of grey-white, drooping flowers spread round the edges of the lawn. Even in wartime, these preludes to spring caused hope to burgeon in the saddest of hearts. Here and there, premature green swords thrust their first inch above soil. These gladiatorial announcements were a proud statement from daffodils, narcissi and cheerfulness. ‘We’re coming,’ they said. Jay had planted them just about everywhere, including under the grass, so the first mowing could not take place until spring flowers had died off completely.

The boys were safe and behaving well. Rob, buried in his Christmas books about farming, muttered from time to time about turnips not being as easy as people thought, about the impossibility of resting land while there was a flipping war on, about spuds being good for the soil. He had gathered enemies and friends in the animal kingdom, and Bertie was his close ally when it came to ploughing. Those horses were brilliant when tractor fuel ran low. Bertie, too, was amazing, because he talked to the beasts and managed to urge them on till a job was done. But beetles, mice and crows were the enemy, and Rob fought them like a trooper.

Ah, here he came. After tapping on the door, he pushed his smiling face into Hilda’s room. ‘Well, I worked it out,’ he announced. ‘It was simple, really. The animals have to be closer to the farmhouse because they need tending. I’d never looked at it that way. Crops have to be further away.’

‘So will you be arable or mixed, young man?’

‘Mixed. I’m getting used to the animals. Bertie helps. He’s turned out to be a good lad, has our Bertie.’

‘You all have. So has he given up the idea of being a vet?’

‘Too much blood. Me and Bertie want to stay together and rent a farm. He can run a livery while I do the rest. Anyway, Gran says are you coming down, because the food’s going cold.’

‘I’m coming.’ So was Phil. He was walking across the lawn with Mr Marchant, his teacher. Mr Marchant had been known to say that Phil should be the teacher, so great was his talent. Snowdrops were not the only good news. Three boys who had led the wild life were gaining sense and knowledge. As for Mel, the world was her lobster, as Nellie often said with that cynical gleam in her eyes. Nellie was a walking dictionary. She knew all the right words, but preferred her own, and the gleam was the challenge.

‘You coming, then?’ Rob asked.

‘Soon, yes.’

He left the room, muttering this time about soil suitable for carrots, the differences between early and main crop, and the difficulties attached to thin planting.

‘I’ll miss you, Nellie,’ Hilda whispered. That lovely, voluntary Mrs Malaprop would return to Liverpool, and thereby leave a large hole in Hilda’s life. Nellie Kennedy was a one-off, a light in the darkness, a true friend. But life, as people often said these days, had to go on . . .

Women would trek miles in search of supplies. A whiff of orange peel, a glimpse of a banana, a rumour regarding tinned salmon, and they were off like the proverbial bats out of hell. A treasure-huntress was easy to spot; the head was always down, the march brisk, the owner-occupier of the body totally out of reach when it came to conversation or even a brief greeting.

Her purposefulness attracted followers who tried to latch on without being noticed. They noticed each other, of course, though it was quite commonplace for the leader of this route march to remain completely unaware that she was exercising a whole regiment. Unfairness set in when the shop hove into view. It was easily identifiable, as there was usually a queue outside. The ranks put a spurt on and overtook their not-really-commanding officer, often leaving her to bring up the absolute rear.

When the shop door slammed and the CLOSED sign appeared, shoulders drooped and a corporate sigh was offered up by the whole congregation. Somewhere towards the back, a little woman would be on the rampage, spitting, swearing and clobbering people with an empty shopping basket. It was all par for the course, and no one took much notice. This did not happen in Crosby, of course. Crosby was too dignified. Underhand behaviour might elicit a quiet sigh of disgust, animal faeces on a gate and, occasionally, the odd unsigned letter that pulled no punches, but there were no wrestling matches in the streets.

It was after one of these fruitless treks that Eileen was stopped in the main shopping area of Crosby village. Her newly arrived companion was Dr Tom Bingley, who was developing a habit of popping up all over the place, and he was bearing gifts in the form of two tins of salmon and two oranges. ‘For you,’ he said.

She took out her purse to pay.

‘No, Eileen. I get these things from grateful patients.’ Even when pregnant, she shone. Clear eyes, glossy hair with escaping tendrils, perfect skin, slender fingers . . . Oh, he shouldn’t look, shouldn’t be so bloody stupid.

‘Do you?’ She remembered telling his wife that he would do nothing to damage his precious reputation, yet just a year or so earlier, he had threatened to embrace Eileen in public and cause a divorce. She didn’t trust him. He was warming up again, was working on a last desperate plan before she left Crosby for Willows. He was actually panicking. ‘Then I don’t want them. The patients mean your family to have them.’

‘But the baby—’

‘Is my problem, mine and Keith’s. Leave me alone.’

‘I can never do that.’ His voice was low and quite chilling. ‘No matter where you go, it—’

‘Will never be over,’ she finished for him. ‘I am six months pregnant with the child of a man I would die for. He loves me so well and so thoroughly that I have no need, time or energy for anyone else. I am off the market, Tom. Not just rationed and in short supply – I am completely out of stock.’ It was true. Any residual desire for this man had dissipated completely. Did he care at all for his family? Was he aware that his son . . . No, she must not think of it. As the sole keeper of her daughter’s big secret, she needed to tread softly.

‘I love you, and you know it.’

He touched her hand, and she felt nothing apart from skin on skin. Well, almost nothing . . . ‘You love Marie, and she knows it.’

‘And you know I’d leave her for you. It makes no sense to me, either, so I just accept it.’

‘And I’m pregnant.’

‘And I noticed. You carry beautifully.’

‘My baby wants no new visitors calling in.’

Tom hid a smile with his free hand. She called a spade a bloody shovel, didn’t she? What was it about her? Why her? If he put his mind to it, he could surely find a quiet little woman with hidden depths and raging hormones. But he already had that in his newly improved wife. Whenever he thought deeply about Eileen, which he did frequently, he realized that what he loved was her playfulness, her outright silliness. He wanted to park her with cups on a draining board, carry her around like a sack of King Edwards, mess about before breakfast, chase her on the beach.

‘Tom, I have to get home.’

‘I’ll drive you.’

‘You’ve already driven me mad. Go away.’

‘I’ll miss you.’ Even a glimpse of her in the street was pleasure. The thought of Crosby without her was unbearable. Taking photographs to Willows for Phil was not going to be enough, because he could not travel every week just to see Madam. He had already posted three packets. And Phil was living at a different address; he would probably stay there, as there was no room at Keith’s place in Willows Edge. ‘Your husband knows how I feel about you.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he angry?’

She shook her head. ‘He knows there’s no danger of me betraying him.’

‘Yet you’re tempted.’

‘No. I am not. He is enough for me, Tom. We have a very strong bond, and only death could separate us. I was happy with Laz, but this is perfect. So stay out of it, because you are wasting your own time and mine. Oh, and don’t think about killing him, because if anything happens I’ll get the police on to you before you’ve breathed in. Now get out of my way, because I am going home.’

‘You’re furious.’

She made no reply, turned and strode away. With her fingers crossed, she walked over to the opposite pavement and prayed that he would not make a scene. There was madness in him, and not a little desperation. She knew how powerful and confusing love could be, knew the strength of his feelings for her. It hadn’t been like that between her and Keith. Keith had tumbled clumsily into love, but she had eased her way towards him. She had chosen a good man, and had waited months to marry him.

The fool was kerb-crawling up Manor Road.

‘Do you have half an hour to spare, miss? Want to earn a few bob? My place isn’t too far away, and I’ve got some sugar.’

‘What are you after?’ she asked.

‘Just your body.’

‘That’s all right, then.’ Eileen climbed in next to her husband. ‘This baby is huge,’ she complained. ‘I think she’s going to turn up with a full suite of furniture and a gas mask.’

Keith’s mind was still focused on Bingley. ‘I watched you with him,’ he said. ‘He isn’t giving up, is he?’

‘No. He’s behind us.’

Keith sighed and looked in his rear-view mirror. He understood the desperate mind of Tom Bingley, but had their positions been reversed Keith would have walked away. Perhaps in his twenties he might have resorted to unusual methods, but he had grown up. Tom Bingley hadn’t; he was still a lad chasing pots of gold at the ends of rainbows. Dr Bingley’s childishness reminded Keith of Jay . . .

‘We’ll be gone from here soon, Keith. And I look like the side of a house, so I doubt he’ll pursue me.’ You carry beautifully, he had said.

Keith stopped the car and waited until Tom had overtaken him. The fact that he was still in the picture while Eileen was temporarily misshapen carried ominous implications. It was becoming clear that the doctor’s interest went beyond the merely physical; he had fallen hook, line and waders for Eileen and was bent on reeling her in. ‘He loves you, and I can’t blame him.’

She shook her head. ‘He wants me.’

‘While you’re pregnant? While you’re huge with our baby? Sweetheart, he’s crazy about you, and he’s out of control. He may think he’s clever, and he may actually be clever, but he’s as capable as the next man of losing his page in the book. If he slips off the edge of reason, forty miles is no distance for a madman. I’m going to talk to his wife.’

‘No.’

‘But Eileen—’

‘No,’ she repeated. ‘She’s been through enough. If anyone talks to her, it will be me. She’s been a frightened, lonely girl for as long as she can remember. Men are not her favourite people, so leave her alone.’ Eileen took her husband’s hand. ‘Do you mind if we baptize this one Francesca Helen? We’d use the Helen, but the fancy first name would be for Miss Morrison.’

It was ideal, and he told her so. Her mother was Helen, while his had been Ellen. ‘But we don’t want another Nellie,’ he insisted. ‘One’s enough.’

She agreed. The thought of another Nellie Kennedy caroming her way through life was exhausting. In truth, Eileen was exhausted anyway. Had she walked too far in pursuit of salmon? Had she . . . ‘Keith, we need to get home. Something’s wrong with me.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t feel well.’

Immediately, he set the car in motion. Should he drive quickly or slowly? Neither seemed right, so he went along at thirty. But he didn’t take her home; instead, he drove to Dr Ryan’s surgery. ‘Stay there,’ he ordered before dashing into the building. If Tom bloody Bingley’s mithering had damaged Eileen, the man would be dead in an hour or two. She had to be all right. She mattered more than any baby.

Pandemonium followed. A man who had been waiting to see the doctor about an ingrowing toenail forgot his discomfort and helped Keith carry Eileen through to the surgery, where she was placed on an examination trolley. Keith stayed at the top end and held his wife’s hand while Dr Ryan dealt with the lower department. ‘The plug’s out,’ she announced.

‘What plug?’ the patient demanded.

Dr Ryan smiled at her. ‘This is pregnancy number five, and you don’t know about plugs?’

‘Only in sinks and baths,’ Eileen’s replied. ‘Can’t you shove it back in?’

‘Same principle as sinks and baths, but no, I can’t just shove it back. A plug of mucus wedges in the neck of the womb to protect the pregnancy. If it comes out, premature labour is a distinct possibility. Now, listen to me, Eileen. You aren’t going to like this, but you sure as hell are going to follow my instructions. You will not walk at all. You will take wheat germ and vitamin C. The vitamin C will be in bottles of orange juice – like the ones we give to children, government issue.’

‘Bugger,’ said Eileen quietly. ‘What about going to the lav?’

‘Bedpan.’

‘Shit.’

‘Exactly,’ said the seasoned medic. ‘Keith has to nurse you. You are about twenty-seven weeks. The closer we can get to forty, the better. For meals, you may sit up. Apart from that, you lie flat with your feet raised higher than your head.’

‘How exciting. And how nice for a man who still thinks I’m a goddess. He’ll have to wipe my backside.’

The doctor continued seamlessly. ‘A nurse will come twice a day. You may develop pressure sores on your heels and on your rear, so Keith and the nurse will rub the areas with surgical spirit several times a day. If you get sores, stop the spirit and ask the nurse for cream. Do not attempt to hold back faeces in order to avoid embarrassment. If you try to time bowel movements to coincide with the nurse’s visits, you will harm the baby. The orange juice will keep you regular.’

Eileen closed her eyes. In her opinion, if men had to go through this kind of rubbish, on top of big bellies, exhaustion and pain, the human race would die out in decades. ‘And when my legs seize up?’

‘They will be massaged and exercised gently on a daily basis.’

‘Whoopee.’

‘Don’t get excited,’ advised Elizabeth Ryan, sarcasm tinting the words. ‘We are going to save this baby. Mel needs a sister, and your lovely husband will enjoy being a daddy. So shut up and get on with it.’

The patient opened one eye. ‘It could be a boy.’

‘It’s a girl,’ the doctor replied. ‘Don’t ask how I know, I just do.’ She spoke to Keith. ‘Take no nonsense from her. If anything happens, call me night or day. If I’m not here, someone else will come to you. The main thing is to keep her still.’

‘She has a low boredom threshold, doc.’

‘I think we all know that. Oh, and the move to Bolton is not possible. I know it’s not ideal, but she must stay here in Crosby, in bed, until she has delivered safely.’

For Eileen, this last piece of information proved too much, and she burst into tears. ‘I’ll never get away from him,’ she sobbed. ‘And I’ll be a sitting – well, a lying-down duck when you’re at work and Mel’s at school. He won’t leave me alone. You saw him today. He was standing there again, telling me how much he loves me. I’m too tired for all that rubbish.’

Keith stroked his beloved’s hair and spoke to their doctor. ‘Bingley,’ he snapped.

‘I know. Miss Morrison told me.’

‘He’s just kept her standing on Moor Lane for about ten minutes. Eileen, I will not leave you except for shopping. I may even get someone to stay with you while I’m out for a short time. He can’t be allowed to win, love. We mustn’t be defeated by a man as low as that one. For my war work, I’ll join the ARP and be a warden in the evenings while Mel’s with you.’ He was terrified. He wanted to wrap her in cotton wool and lie with her until the baby was born. He also wanted to kick the living daylights out of a certain doctor who was hurting Eileen.

‘Leave Bingley to me,’ ordered Elizabeth Ryan.

Eileen’s tears dried. ‘What can you do? What can anyone do?’

Elizabeth’s face was grim. At this moment, she was not a doctor; she was a woman fighting for one of her own sex. The woman wanted to kick seven shades of shit out of Tom, but the doctor had to be in charge.

‘What can you do?’ Eileen asked again.

‘I can lose him his job.’ She picked up the phone and gave the operator a number. ‘Marie? Yes, yes, I’m fine. You? Good. That little makeshift ambulance the WVS has, does it have a stretcher? Oh, great. Mrs Greenhalgh is in danger of going into premature labour. I need your ambulance here and two or three big men round at Miss Morrison’s house. Yes. Yes. I want the furniture bringing downstairs again, and the cage round the bed. Thank you. That’s brilliant.’

Keith and Eileen breathed again. For a moment, they had expected Dr Ryan to tell Marie that her husband was out of order.

‘Don’t ask me any more questions about my . . . colleague. Sorry about your dining room, but you’ll have to store it upstairs.’ She glared at the supine patient. ‘You are staying downstairs because I don’t trust you. On the ground floor, you’ll be easier to watch.’

Eileen muttered something about handcuffs and the ill-treatment of innocent women. ‘Miss Morrison was a suffragette,’ she finished.

‘Shut up,’ Keith and the doctor ordered simultaneously.

Eileen shut up. There was a distinct absence of sympathy in the world these days. But she would save Keith’s baby, by heck, she would. He wanted a child, and he would have to work hard to look after her, so he deserved the best child ever.

After listening to the patient’s distended abdomen, Dr Ryan perched on the edge of Eileen’s temporary bed. ‘Right,’ she began.

‘What now? Haven’t you done enough?’

‘Well, there’s just one more thing.’

‘Fire away. And I want a new wireless, one less crackly than the antique we have. And it comes in the cage with me.’

The medic took Eileen’s hand in hers. ‘It’s doubly important that you do everything I’ve told you, Eileen. There are two heartbeats.’

The patient blinked stupidly. ‘Two?’ She forced herself to relax before addressing her beloved. ‘You never do anything by halves, do you? Two puddings, two biscuits, two caramels, two babies. No wonder I look nine months gone already.’ She grinned broadly. ‘I don’t half love you, sweetheart. But you should come with a hazard warning, like dynamite.’

He dropped into a chair. ‘I didn’t know, did I? I didn’t capture two of the buggers and tell them to find an egg each.’

Elizabeth Ryan laughed. ‘They could be identical. If they are, that’s just one little tadpole and one tiny egg. If fault’s the right word, it could be Eileen’s body that went for a walk on the wild side. I’m still putting my bet on the bigger one being a girl.’ She liked these people. They were honest, positive and funny. ‘Eileen, do you have any savings? Sorry to ask, but . . .’

‘We have money,’ Keith said.

‘Then I want you to allow a Mr Barr into your cage. He is the man, a consultant, so his fee will be three or four times mine. I’d like him to keep an eye on you and to be there for the birth in Parkside. It’s run by Augustinian nuns, so it isn’t expensive. You may need a Caesarean section.’

The chin came up. Even lying down, Eileen managed to demonstrate determination. ‘There’s enough bars in that bloody cage without bringing another Barr in. But whatever it takes, Dr Ryan, we save both of these kiddies. Now, where’s that bloody ambulance?’

Nellie was going spare. Her one and only, her precious daughter, was having twins and she’d lost her plug. Nellie, who had been unaware of the existence of uterine plugs, was crying at Hilda Pickavance’s kitchen table. ‘Stands to reason. Pull the plug out of a sink and everything drains away. There’s no chain with a womb plug, no saying “whoops” and shoving it back in and saving what you can. And she’s no good at lying down and keeping still. I’m scared, Hilda. She needs me. And I’m stuck here with the three bloody musketeers.’

‘Then go to her, but go alone. I fear Mrs Openshaw might be a little too much for Eileen given current circumstances.’

Nellie dried her eyes. ‘A big too much, you mean. Oh, I don’t know what to do. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Life settles down, so you get Germans dropping in for tea, an unexploded bomb being exploded down the road, a genius artist in the family, Jay and his diabetes – what next? Creatures from another planet, a plague of frogs?’

Hilda was tired of telling her friend that Willows would not fall down without her. The schoolchildren had settled well, so Nellie’s brand of punishment was seldom required, and Eileen’s three tearaways had turned out brilliantly. But Nellie, whose attitude often embraced a healthy level of cynicism, continued to eye her grandsons with suspicion. They had been thieves, vagabonds and a threat to sanity, and she was waiting for them to kick off again. Leopards didn’t change their spots, and vagabonds usually reverted to type.

‘Nellie?’

‘What?’

‘Jay and Neil are nearby. It’s my belief that the boys are so well settled that you needn’t worry. But if you insist on getting in a state, just remember that we have people here who will help. Go to her, I beg you. Phil, Rob and Bertie are evacuees, and most evacuees don’t have family with them. She needs you. Let me phone Keith. If he sets out now, you’ll be back in Crosby just before dark. Go on. Pack your things.’

‘But—’

‘I mean it, Nellie. If anything happens to Eileen or her babies, you’ll never forgive yourself. I couldn’t live with you if you couldn’t live with yourself. Go.’

Nellie went upstairs to pack her bag. While she was gone, Hilda phoned Keith. He was so grateful that he almost wept. If anyone could keep his Eileen under control, it was Nellie. He had petrol, a neighbour would stay with Eileen, and he would be at Willows in just over an hour.

He replaced the receiver and went into the once more ex-dining room. ‘Your mother’s coming,’ he advised the patient. ‘I’m going for her. Mrs Anderson or Mrs Wrigley will sit with you.’

Eileen eyed him balefully. ‘One condition.’

‘All right.’

‘Mam can be the keeper of the royal bedpan.’

Keith opened the cage door and stood over her. ‘When I said there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, I meant it. But yes, Nellie can be chief bum-wiper. I’m going now to get a babysitter. Don’t move. Oh, and I’m doing the rest of the looking-after bit. Your mother will have enough chores.’

She blinked rapidly, because she’d cried enough for now. This was a man who cared deeply. Every day he did or said something precious; every day he proved himself. ‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘You’re beyond wonderful.’

‘I know.’ He sighed in an exaggerated fashion. ‘And so modest with it. Mr Perfect, that’s me.’

‘Bugger off.’

He kissed her forehead and buggered off.

Elizabeth Ryan was often described as a woman not to be trifled with. She was straight all the way up and all the way down, no discernible waist, no bustline, no hips. During the war, she rode a bicycle whenever possible, because fuel was scarce and because she wanted to stay fit for her favourite pastime, which was golf. In spite of her slender frame, she had donated to the world two attractive, clever children and enough tournament trophies to crowd a mantelpiece. Like the Watson/Kennedy/Greenhalgh women, she was determined, strong and feisty; she was also quietly angry.

When Bingley’s receptionist left, Elizabeth walked into his empty waiting room and tapped on the surgery door.

‘Come.’

She went in. ‘A word or several,’ she said.

Tom looked up. God, what a sight this was. She looked like something that had miraculously survived six months on a desert island, starved body, skin like thin paper, a shadow of moustache threatening the upper lip. ‘Liz,’ he said, rising to his feet.

‘Oh, sit down. You’ll need that chair in a minute, Tom. I have a whole kipper full of bones to pick with you. Eileen Greenhalgh. Do I need to say more?’

He felt the heat in his face. ‘What about her?’

‘Sensible woman, pretty as a picture, decent husband.’ She leaned forward and lowered her tone. ‘While you were declaring undying love for her on Moor Lane, she was almost in labour.’

Tom’s jaw dropped. ‘She should have told me.’

‘She didn’t know. I examined her and found the dislocated operculum. I surely don’t need to remind you of the implications. She now has to lie flat for weeks on end, her husband can’t return to his proper job, and she is terrified. Of you.’

He closed his mouth with an audible click. ‘God,’ he groaned.

‘Now, listen to me, you fool. There are two babies. One is large and reasonably well developed, the other is smaller. Both deserve a chance. By making her stand there while you carried on like a love-sick teenager, you may have cost them their lives. Even the bigger twin needs to stay where she is. The smaller one might not survive anyway – we all know twins do battle before birth, and the weaker one may not make it into the world. All that aside, my patient is taking legal advice, because you have plagued her for well over a year. Should you disobey a court injunction, you would lose everything – your practice, your family, perhaps your liberty and, of course, your precious position in local society. Stay away from her. You know me, Tom. No threat I make is empty.’

He swallowed noisily. ‘I was just . . . talking to her. There’s nothing going on. There never has been anything—’

‘Only because she has your measure.’ She leaned even closer. ‘Miss Morrison knew the lot – Dockers’ Word, Mrs Kennedy’s attack on you. And we all know why those things happened. Eileen doesn’t want you. She wants to go back to Keith’s home and live the country life.’

He gave up. ‘I know.’

‘Then why, Tom?’ Her anger melted. The man was vulnerable.

He steepled his fingers and placed his chin on the apex. ‘It’s ridiculous. I just met her and loved her, fought like hell for my marriage, tried to stay away, told myself it was just sex. But it isn’t. And it isn’t going away, Liz.’

‘Willpower?’

‘Where she’s concerned, I have none.’

‘Then we have a problem.’

They sat in silence for several minutes, at the end of which Tom Bingley conceded defeat. He would not see her again, would not telephone the house, would distance himself from the whole family. The daughters of the two houses were best friends, and Marie had grown close to Eileen, but Tom needed not interfere with any of that.

Liz studied him while he spoke. He was edgy, uncertain and terribly unhappy. She was one of his doctors, and she wasn’t liking what she saw. She asked about sleep pattern and, as she feared, he displayed symptoms of both anxiety and clinical depression. Because he was a medic, he knew the implications, and the expression in his eyes screamed for help. ‘You’re no candidate for electro-convulsive or insulin coma therapy, Tom. Emotionally, you were quite well organized till Eileen came along. The woman in Rodney Street – do you think she could help?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m too tired to try. Eileen has taken me over body and soul.’

‘I can’t move her to that village, and you know why. I’m putting her with Barr, and she’ll deliver in Parkside if she doesn’t miscarry. What the hell am I supposed to do? Prescribe bromide for you?’

Again, he raised his shoulders.

‘Are you still intimate with Marie?’

‘Sometimes, yes.’

‘Bloody hell, man. You spent a fortune—’

‘I spent a fortune to prove I was desirable even to Marie. It’s always been about me, me, me.’

‘You hate you.’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s depression.’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you self-medicated? What’s your poison?’

‘Anything I can get my hands on in the evenings when I’m at home. Spirits, wine, beer if there’s nothing else. The drinking’s not yet out of control, but I’m afraid it may become so. And all because of a little woman from Scotland Road.’

Elizabeth Ryan was at a loss. Here sat a patient with full insight into his condition and its implications. He was intelligent, capable, and a darned good physician. And he had fallen in love. This was not a sin, but she had long recognized that it could become an illness. For most people, the disease righted itself, couples settled down, remained close and were cured. Or they parted, recovered and looked elsewhere. But the unrequited version was potentially deadly. ‘I have a theory that testosterone kills off brain cells,’ she muttered, almost to herself. ‘Women suffer less. I don’t know why, but there it is.’

‘Oh, God.’ He made a pillow with his arms and placed his head on it.

Liz had to make a decision. ‘Tom, I can’t certify you, because you’re sane. You will have to volunteer. I’m naming it nervous exhaustion. We all know you’ve been dashing down to town to help after running two or three surgery sessions a day.’

His head shot up. ‘We’ve lawyers down there who work full office hours before going out to act as firemen. Why am I different?’

‘You just are. I’m going to talk to Marie. There is help. Naturally, I will not mention Eileen Greenhalgh to your wife. But you must go away from here, my friend. Please, allow me to help.’

Tom nodded his agreement. Unless something happened, he might go right under and be unfit for work. Liz Ryan, while not a gentle deliverer of bad news, always knew her onions. He was unbelievably tired, and she saw that. He wasn’t eating properly, was getting very little sleep, and alcoholism lay in his path. But there might be a fork in the road. He couldn’t yet see it, but someone else might spot it and get him to change direction.

‘Tom?’

He looked up and, just for a moment, caught a glimpse of the reason why her handsome husband was so devoted to her. She cared, and her eyes were pretty. ‘What?’

‘You’ll be all right. I promise you. Nil desperandum.’

‘That’s what Eileen calls the coal man. But she altered it slightly to Neil Desperado. He fancies her as well.’

‘Is Neil his name?’

He shook his head. ‘No. See what I mean? She makes it up as she goes along, and she carries every colour of the rainbow in her palette. My head’s full of her. When I wake at five in the morning, she’s there. When I try to fall asleep at night, she’s sitting on a draining board with three cups and a pan. Just a game she plays. With him.’

‘He’s a good man.’

‘I know. This is obsession.’

Outside, Elizabeth dried her eyes. Detachment was vital in a doctor, but she was temporarily defeated. Tom Bingley was not a bad person; he was just a man who had suffered an accident. He was one of those who had fallen in love a little late in life. He had married, children had been born, and the love of his life had fallen into his path when he was over the age of forty. There could be no quick cure; he was already teetering on the edge. Such a bloody shame. Not for the first time in her career, she felt powerless. Broken bodies showed and could often be dealt with. But fractured hearts and souls were beyond her reach. He had to go away.

While Dr Ryan was dealing with one Bingley, Mel had her hands full with another of that clan. In truth, the reverse was nearer the mark, because Peter had handfuls of her. He had pushed her against a massive oak in Coronation Park, and his upper limbs were on the move. She was the only one. He had done his best to stay away thanks to the damage attempted by his sister, but that was all mended and forgotten now, so might they get together again? Secretly, of course. He wanted to prove that he wasn’t homosexual, but Mel had sense enough to know that she could not be part of that process.

‘Mel?’

‘No.’ The syllable emerged loudly and angrily. ‘I can’t live that kind of life. Mam’s pregnant and not at her best, because it’s a big baby and she’s tired.’ While Peter was weak, selfish and terrified.

‘But Mel—’

‘No.’ She pushed him away and battered him with her school satchel. When her arm grew tired, she spoke to him in a quieter tone. ‘Even if our relationship survived until we got to twenty, I couldn’t exist like that. When my mother’s back to normal, it’ll still be impossible. There’s no future for us. I may be a couple of months short of fifteen, but I’ve sense enough to know it couldn’t work. I’d try to change you. I’d worry every time you left the house. In the end, I’d probably murder you, because you worry about no one but yourself.’

He sat on a park bench, and she joined him. ‘Look, Pete. I feel really honoured that you talked to me, that you turned to me. But it wasn’t love, and we both know that. It was mechanics. It was something everyone has to go through.’

‘You said you’d always be there,’ he said petulantly. ‘Me a barrister, you a solicitor, one of the Inns, a house somewhere nice like Wimbledon.’

She turned to face him. ‘Look. I’ve read about it, and it’s against the law. The person who marries you will be a shield. But I will always, always be your friend.’

‘That’s why it has to be you. I can love you. We could be normal, have children, holidays, a good life. I know I can do that with you, and only you.’

Mel wanted to tell him that she wanted much, much more, that a life conducted behind closed doors was not for her. ‘I know a little bit about homosexuality,’ she told him quietly. ‘Miss Pickavance’s uncle was the same, and he kept on the move all the time, always aware that he could be arrested at any point. I can’t be your lace curtain, wouldn’t want to be.’

He stared at the ground. ‘What’s going to happen to me? It’s so . . . lonely. You’re the only one I could tell.’

Mel feared for him. She’d come across the poem written in France by Oscar Wilde after his release from Reading Gaol. Hard labour, hour after hour on a treadmill, just because he was different. ‘The only thing you can do, Peter, is to remain a bachelor, because no woman will be right. We’re not just wives and daughters and mothers; we’re people. When I went through that silly phase I thought I’d pay any price, because you’re so beautiful. Then I got angry when you tried to throw me out of the house – remember? I wiped the floor with your lovely mother. Women aren’t here just for men. That’s all finished. Why did you grab me just now? I’m not what you want.’

He didn’t weep, but his voice was unsteady as he tried to explain his feelings not only to her, but also to himself. He didn’t want to be like this, hadn’t asked to be born an outcast. Concentration was becoming difficult, and he was afraid of falling behind at school. ‘The law exists to strangle people into submission,’ he declared. ‘I’m not sure I want to be a part of that.’

She’d been reading about the subject, of course. ‘Greeks did it. Tribes who’ve scarcely been touched by civilization do it. Lions, porpoises – all kinds of animals behave in a homosexual manner even when opportunities with the opposite sex exist. You have to fight from within. You get to the top of your profession, Peter, then find a way of attacking the law. You walk on the Wilde side – the Oscar Wilde side – but not on a treadmill.’

‘I’m scared, Mel.’

She understood that. ‘I’ll be there,’ she promised. ‘I will never desert you. We’re friends.’

He muttered something about being better off dead, so she clouted him again with her heavy, book-filled bag. ‘Selfish, selfish, selfish,’ she said with every blow. ‘Think about your family. Start talking suicide, and I start talking to your father. You bloody well stay alive. There are other people like you, women as well as men. We have to find them when we’re older. We have to start a secret society, only it can’t be secret, because we’ll need to advertise. A movement. Yes, there has to be a movement. OWLS. Oscar Wilde Liberation Society.’

‘He can’t be liberated, because he’s dead.’

‘Just a bit, yes. True genius never dies. Don’t simply give up. It’s cowardly, and it would kill your parents. And if they found out that I knew why you’d done it, they’d kill me too. Gloria would have my guts for garters, so don’t dare let me down, Peter.’

‘I won’t.’

They walked home, separating when they reached the junction of their two roads. She prepared to carry on in the same direction while he turned off into St Andrew’s Road. For some unfathomable reason, this parting of their ways had significance. Mel stood for a few seconds and watched his progress. She was no longer his guardian, no longer his shelter. Any slight hope that had lingered in him was now removed. And she was the remover.

Eighteen

‘Gran!’ Mel closed the back door, threw down her satchel and wrapped both arms round her much-loved maternal grandmother. ‘Are Mam and Dad off to Willows? Where’s Mrs Openshaw? Oh, it’s lovely to see you.’ The greeting was followed by a big kiss on Nellie’s cheek. ‘I thought you’d never get here. Are the three musketeers all right? And Miss Pickavance? What about Mr Collins and the diabetes?’

‘Later. Let’s take a pew first, love.’ Nellie Kennedy disentangled herself and led her granddaughter to the kitchen table. They sat down, and Nellie gave Mel the full story about Eileen. She had learned over many years that only the truth, the whole truth and nothing approaching decoration would satisfy Mel. ‘So that’s why I’m here, love. Your dad picked me up just before two o’clock, so I’ve not been here long myself. He got one of the neighbours to sit with her while he was out, because he’s treating her like some rare plant. Anyway, it’s this here plug thing, like I said. All she can do is lie there like cheese on toast, only paler and not best pleased. When I got here this afternoon, she was moaning and cursing fit to bust, and she’d been in bed just over three hours. Three hours, Mel. She’s what my mam would have called mortallious troublesome.’

‘Still thirteen weeks to go, Gran? That’s a long time for anyone to be stuck in bed.’

‘Your dad’s been talking about strapping her down at night. He says she’s a wriggler in her sleep. Anyway, it’s a double bed, so he’s going in with her to try to keep her still. He’ll have to sleep during the day while I watch her. We’ll need eyes in the backs of our heads, because she’s always been a fidget.’

Mel folded her arms and stared hard at the head of her family. ‘No we won’t. She’ll carry on complaining about this that these and those, but she won’t lose her baby.’ Mel’s mother had her share of faults, but she believed implicitly in the rights of the unborn.

Nellie had forgotten to mention the other bit of the tale. ‘It’s babies, not baby. She’s having a couple of them. Whether it’s a matching pair or two separates, we don’t know. She never had a minute’s trouble carrying or birthing the four of you, so this must be on account of its being twins.’ She didn’t mention Dr Tom Bingley and his part in today’s drama, though Keith had furnished her with the facts during the journey from Willows.

Mel groaned. ‘It could be two more boys, Gran. Doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘Yes, but we want them alive whatever they are. Keith’s a lovely, special man, Mel. She loves the bones of him. If I’d picked him for her myself, I couldn’t be better pleased. They’re his children, Mel. In his forties and expecting twins, he’ll be setting a lot of store by this pregnancy.’

Mel pondered for a few seconds. Gran was right, because Mam was happier than she’d been in years. It was as if she suddenly had all she wanted. Keith was a wonderful man, and these twins were his first hope of true fatherhood. ‘Is Miss Morrison’s davenport still in there with Mam?’

‘It is.’

‘Right. I’ll do my homework at the davenport, and that’ll give you both a break. If she puts an eyelid wrong, I’ll clout her with the big frying pan.’

‘And that’ll show her how much you love her, eh?’

They were both laughing when the doorbell sounded. Nellie admitted a short man with a Victorian moustache, a large doctor’s bag and wire-rimmed spectacles. He introduced himself as Mr Barr, specialist attached to Mrs Greenhalgh. ‘We’re all attached to her,’ was Nellie’s reply. ‘You’ll find her very lovable, but without much patience when it comes to lying there and doing nothing. She’s behind that second door along.’

He disappeared for the better part of half an hour. While he, Eileen and Keith were closeted in Miss Morrison’s reassembled downstairs bedroom, Mel and Nellie started the task of turning five ounces of minced meat into a cottage pie for four plus dog. This involved many potatoes, a bit of leftover cabbage and a pinch of imagination. ‘It’ll have a bubble and squeak roof, this cottage,’ Mel said.

‘Shut up and keep peeling. There’s folk in London, Liverpool and all over the place who’ll never eat cottage pie again, because they’re dead.’ Nellie paused. ‘That feller’s a long time in there, isn’t he?’

Mel said nothing; she’d been ordered to shut up and peel.

They heard the front door opening and closing before Keith joined them. Both fixed their eyes on him, and he was smiling, a very waggy-tailed Spoodle in his arms.

‘Well?’ Mel breathed.

Keith placed the dog on the floor and crossed his fingers as he joined them at the table. ‘According to that chap, who seems to know his job, she’s not in too bad a state. He’s seen it all before. It’s not uncommon for women to lose that oper-whatever plug thing days or even weeks before the kick-off, but with this being twins Eileen will have to stay in bed. The flat on her back business is a precaution for now, though she should be able to sit up for a few hours soon. We’ve got all his phone numbers, and he will deliver the babies himself. Because they’re . . . what did he say? Disparate, I think. One’s big and one’s small, so he insists on a section in about ten weeks.’

‘Did he mean desperate?’

‘No, Nellie. He meant their sizes don’t match. He says they’re not identical as far as he can tell, and he’s usually right. He didn’t want to poke around too much, but he thinks the neck of her womb’s tight enough for now.’

‘But she mustn’t walk?’

‘That’s right. She’s still calling herself bedpan Bertha.’

Mel dashed to her mother’s side, or almost-side, as she stayed out of the cage.

‘Are you all right, Mam?’

‘Am I buggery. I’ve got to stay flat for a few days, and that means my big baby’s pressing on my little one. It’s all wrong. The poor tiny thing’ll be squashed flat by the other hulking great heavyweight boxer. Seriously, I’m fine, Mel. What will be will be. But when I look in Keith’s eyes, a bit of the shine’s gone. He’s terrified.’

Mel disagreed. ‘He’s fine. As long as you do as you’re told, he’ll carry on being fine.’ She wanted to tell Mam about Peter, about his fears and his confusion, but this wasn’t the best time. She’d always confided in Mam. Well, almost always. The messing about with Peter in Rachel Street had been an exception, but even that had come out in the end. ‘If Miss Morrison hadn’t died, and if we hadn’t got so badly upset about losing her, and if there hadn’t been papers to sign and the will to deal with, you’d have gone to Willows weeks ago. That doctor up there is rubbish, and you’d have lost the babies, Mam. The wind always brings some good, doesn’t it?’ Though the wind had brought no good to London in December . . .

Lying in bed had clearly failed to suppress Eileen’s powers of deduction. ‘Have you been pulled through a hedge backwards, or is this the new haute couture style? You’re crumpled. What happened?’

‘Erm . . . chasing about in the park on our way home.’

Eileen delivered a hard stare. Merchants girls did not chase about in the park on their way home, and she said so. ‘Try again, madam.’

Mel knew she had to tell the truth. There came a point when everybody ran out of imagination, and a certain look in her mother’s eyes often marked the edge of Mel’s territory. ‘Peter,’ she said. ‘Don’t you dare sit up, Mam.’

‘But isn’t he supposed to be the other way?’ The tone was dropped when the last three words were spoken.

‘He is the other way, and you’re the only one who knows apart from me, so say nothing to anyone. But he has plans to fool some poor girl into taking up with him so that he’ll look as if he’s not. Every girl at school wants him. He’s good at sports, clever in the classroom, and he has a gorgeous face. But he’s basically honest. I was the only one he trusted enough to be given the full story. And in his way, he loves me. But I’m not spending time pretending to be his girlfriend. He talks about us getting married and having children. I told him a wife and children are not there to be a safety curtain while he runs round being whatever he needs to be.’

‘Quite right, too,’ Eileen said. ‘And when he goes to prison, the poor woman will be left there having to explain to her kids why their dad’s done a disappearing act. You’re well out of it.’

Mel pondered for a moment. ‘I do care about him. I do think it’s terrible that people like Peter get sent to jail just because they aren’t attracted to the opposite sex. Who are they harming?’

‘Women and children. They get wed, have kids, then bugger off to prison or with another man.’

‘And the law sends them in those directions. It wants changing. It’s going to change – I’m with him on that one.’

‘So it’s like the ten-day week you were going to invent?’

‘No. This one’s doable. Anyway, it’s not your worry. Just concentrate on hanging on to these babies, even if they are going to be boys.’

‘The big one’s a girl, according to Dr Ryan. I wanted to know how she knows, and she said she doesn’t know how she knows, but she knows.’

‘You sound like Gran.’

A huge sigh was followed by, ‘I know. I don’t know how I know, but—’

‘Stop right there, Mam.’

‘But it comes to all of us.’

‘We all end up sounding like Gran?’

Eileen laughed while her daughter left the room. But seriousness returned quickly. Why were her babies threatened? Had Tom Bingley upset her to the point where Keith’s children might be hurt? Yet Mel was right; had Eileen moved to Willows, where the doctor was daft, this might have happened without any persecution by Tom. Had Miss Morrison’s death had an adverse effect, had yesterday’s sardines been all right, was the little baby giving up and trying to get out past the big one? Was the big one healthy? Eileen had known plenty of large people whose health had been less than perfect.

Mel returned. ‘Gloria just phoned, Mam. Her dad’s going away because of nervous exhaustion. Apparently, it’s people who don’t seem nervous or exhausted that get nervous exhaustion. So how does his doctor know he’s got it? I mean if it doesn’t show, how do they know? How does he know?’

Eileen swallowed. ‘You’re sounding like my mother now. It’ll show in his work and in his general behaviour.’ He’s going away because of me. No, she couldn’t say that out loud, could she? He thinks enough of me to stop his life for a while and take himself off. Or had Dr Ryan put him up to this? Elizabeth Ryan could be fierce if she set her mind to it.

‘Gloria’s upset.’

‘She will be; he’s her father.’

‘It’s the war,’ Mel declared. ‘He’s been doing too much. A lot of people are doing too much.’ She carried some books to the davenport. ‘I’m in charge of you while I do homework, so behave: it’s moral philosophy.’

‘Is that religion?’

‘Debatable. Mam?’

‘What?’

‘You know when they sort of got back together again – Dr and Mrs Bingley, I mean.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, it stopped. They’re still in the same bed, but all the giggling’s finished.’

‘Nervous exhaustion.’

Had circumstances been different, Mel might have asked the question, but she didn’t dare. Was Gloria’s dad still carrying a torch for Mel’s mother? Did nervous exhaustion translate into a broken heart? This was not the time for such research, so she stuck with moral philosophy which was, on the whole, much easier.

Marie was not happy. Her husband’s doctor had declared him unfit for work, and he was to be admitted to a private nursing home in Southport. According to Liz Ryan, Tom had been overdoing things for some time, and he needed a long rest in order to recuperate before too much damage occurred.

So this was the reason for his neglect of her, was it? After the treatment in Rodney Street, a honeymoon had ensued, and Marie was now the one who missed being loved. Sometimes, she caught him looking at her with longing in his eyes, though he seldom made an effort in her direction. There was another woman. But no, there couldn’t be. Had he fallen in love with someone, he wouldn’t have been so . . . happy wasn’t the word; he wouldn’t have been so complacent about going off to stay in Southport. According to Tom, Southport was suitable only for retirement, death and seagulls. Thus he had been known to dismiss an elegant and much loved seaside town, and he now intended to reside there for the foreseeable future.

The suitcase was half filled and on the bed when he lost his complacency. He turned the case over and emptied its contents on the quilt. Who the hell did Liz Ryan think she was? Eileen’s threatened miscarriage was nothing to do with him, and he was being forced to enter a low-key psychiatric facility because of it? He sat down. ‘Marie?’

‘What?’

‘I’m not going. She can’t make me go, because I’m not certifiable.’

Marie sat next to him. ‘What’s happening to you . . . to us? We were fine. Do you think more hypnosis would help? We were doing so well, both of us—’

‘No.’ He didn’t want to open up again. He didn’t want to admit to anyone that he was almost completely defeated by love. And how the hell could he love someone attached to a Liverpool accent? And to another man? ‘It wouldn’t help the exhaustion, Marie, but a few weeks off work might. I don’t need to go to Southport. There’s a beach here I can exercise on as long as I don’t fall over a dragon’s tooth and land in the barbed wire. Exercise helps with these symptoms. You’re here. My children are here. There’s a dog I can walk. And have you seen the state of Gloria? She doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going.’

Marie had seen the state of Gloria.

‘I refuse to leave her, so I need to get this sorted out immediately, if not sooner. Back in twenty minutes.’ Tom kissed the top of his wife’s head and walked out. Straightening his spine, he began the short walk to his doctor’s surgery. He was going to see Liz Ryan. She needed to be put straight, and he was the man to do it.

‘I am not and never have been Eileen Greenhalgh’s doctor. You can’t lose me my job. I shall stay away from my surgery as advised, because I admit to being very tired. I’ll rest and exercise until I feel better, then it’ll be back to work. No convalescent home for me, Liz.’ He stood tall at the other side of the desk. Liz, seated, felt small, and she knew that his intention had been to dominate the situation physically, mentally and through sheer dogged determination. He feared no one. She should have remembered that.

She glared at her patient. They both knew she wouldn’t report him; they both knew he was a good doctor who needed respite. ‘Stay away from two things. Liverpool, and Eileen Greenhalgh. You are putting yourself at risk in Liverpool. And you are putting her at risk here. It isn’t love, Tom. It’s obsession.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Liz sighed heavily. He didn’t know how close he was to emotional collapse. People in such a state were often unaware of their true situation. ‘If you go anywhere near that poor woman’s house, I shall make it my personal duty to separate you from medicine. I know she’s never been your patient, and she would have managed you and your idiocy had she not been pregnant. But if her health worsens because of you, I shall report you. So.’ She picked up a pen. ‘A letter witnessed by my lawyer will be delivered to you, and you will sign the delivery sheet. My copy will be kept safe. Go near her after this written warning from your doctor and hers, go near her while an injunction forbids it, and you’ll be in next Christmas’s mincemeat.’

‘There’s no need for all that,’ he blustered.

‘Oh, but there is. She went to pieces earlier in this very room. “He won’t leave me alone” and “I’ll never get away from him” were her words. There is need. Where she is concerned, you are a predator. You are not the Tom Bingley I know. You’re on the verge of emotional collapse and you may lose control of your behaviour.’

‘But I’m not on the verge of anything, Liz.’ Eileen was frightened not of him, but of herself. There was hope.

Liz tapped the table with her pen. Cupid was careless with his arrows. Never in a month of Sundays would she have expected Tom to fall for someone like Eileen Greenhalgh. She was extraordinarily pretty, but she was not Tom Bingley’s type. There again, that was often how it happened. An intelligent and relatively sane man would come across someone who was nothing like his wife, and the arrow went into his chest and stayed there. The same applied to women.

‘Eileen was drawn to me. It didn’t happen in one direction only.’

‘I see.’

‘Do you? Look, I don’t want to shock you, but she wasn’t putty in my hands – she was magma, red hot lava. And I did the right thing, stayed where I was, got help for my frigid wife, carried on working, rescued people and so on. Let no one say I didn’t fight for the status quo.’

The helpless doctor could hear the change in her patient’s tone. Certification was not a possibility, because he wasn’t mad, and other medics wouldn’t support such a drastic step. Liz and Tom had worked in tandem for years, each helping the other when the workload became too great. Because she knew him, she was acutely aware of the changes in him. Other people might not see what she saw. He was utterly sane, miserably so. But the emotional seesaw he rode might tip at any time, and another patient of hers could suffer when he finally snapped. ‘Go away,’ she ordered. ‘And I wasn’t kidding about the law. You will receive a copy soon.’

The look he awarded her might have turned a lesser woman to water, but Liz maintained her solid state. It was going to be just a matter of time; he had better wait until after those babies had been delivered safely, God willing. But what if the births weakened Eileen? What if he started hanging about on the bombed playing field behind Eileen’s house? What if . . . ? There was no point in what iffing. The bloody man had gone anyway.

A few weeks later, Elsie Openshaw arrived in Crosby. She was driven across by Mr Marchant, friend of Miss Pickavance, art tutor to Philip Watson. Elsie had seldom travelled in a car, so she was round-eyed when she reached St Michael’s Road. ‘But . . . I mean . . . there’s all kinds of . . . I saw . . . what the blood and sand have they done to Liverpool?’

‘Oh, that,’ Nellie replied with all the nonchalance she could muster. ‘They’ll not kill this city, Elsie. The folk down there are tougher than shoe leather.’

‘And they all talk funny. They’re neither for’ards nor back’ards.’ Elsie went through to visit the patient. Nellie looked at Keith, Keith looked at Nellie. ‘Can laughing cause a miscarriage?’ he asked.

‘I doubt it. She’s far enough gone, lad. The twins’d be in with a good chance if they got born now.’

Two eavesdroppers stood in the hall. They knew that Elsie was hilarious, and that she was completely unaware of the fact.

Her strident tones, complete with broad, flat vowels, made its way out of Eileen’s retreat. ‘Your wife’s trapped,’ Nellie mouthed. Keith nodded his agreement.

Elsie was in full flood. ‘You do. Just you think on. You do know who I mean. He was there the day you came with Miss Pickavance. His wife’s got a caliper – one leg shorter than t’other. He’s a long, lanky thing with a hernia, called Malcolm. His daughter lives in the Edge near us, lost all her teeth in an accident, got a spiral staircase fitted just to be different. I wouldn’t care – she doesn’t even own the bloody house. Spiral staircase, indeed. She’d have been a sight better cleaning up her doorstep – it’s not seen donkey stone in years, hasn’t that.’

‘Oh, Elsie,’ moaned Eileen. ‘I’m so glad you came. You cheer me up.’

‘Well, I don’t know how, I’m sure. You’re easy suited if you can laugh at Malcolm Bridge and his hernia. Ooh, I nearly forgot. Are we doing lemon, white or pale lilac?’

‘Eh?’ This single syllable from Eileen arrived crippled, as if it needed fitting with a surgical support.

‘Your wool. Matinee jackets and bootees.’

‘Any of those colours will do.’

Elsie lowered her tone, though she remained audible. ‘You’ve done very well after losing your pericoolium.’ She had been at the medical books again. ‘That’s the proper word for it. At least it weren’t play centre previous.’

‘Placenta praevia,’ Nellie mouthed on the other side of the door. ‘She’s worse than me, because most of mine are deliberate.’ They went away for a quick giggle, then returned to sentry duty.

‘No,’ Elsie was saying, ‘no, that’s her cousin. Mind, there’s a tale to her and all. Monica, she’s called. Very thin, lazy eye, gets a squint if she takes her specs off. Lived tally with a bloke from Blackburn with a thumb missing and one of them hanglebar moustaches. He came home early one day and found her in bed with the boss from the Co-op down Halliwell way and a lamplighter. They were playing tries and turns. But no, that’s Monica.’

‘I thought she’d stopped gossiping,’ Nellie whispered.

‘Anything outside the three-mile limit is fair game,’ Keith replied quietly.

‘And doesn’t Elsie know anybody normal and in one piece?’

Keith shrugged and pinned an ear to the door.

‘It were their Vera. Beautiful hair, she had, all waves and curls right down her back.’

‘What about her head?’ the invisible Eileen managed.

Keith and Nellie did another soft-shoe shuffle towards the front door. ‘I can’t take much more,’ Nellie said. They returned.

‘So she leans across the table, all casual, like, sticks a knife in his chest and carries on eating her toast while he bleeds to death. It were her best tablecloth and all, so she whips it off and sticks it in cold water. It’s a bugger to shift, is blood. Then she has a second cuppa, combs her hair, puts her hat and coat on and goes to the police. “I’ve killed him,” she says.’

‘God,’ breathed the patient. ‘Did she hang?’

‘Did she hell as like. When the police doctor stripped her off, Vera were one big bruise. She had twenty-seven broken ribs, cos some were broke twice or three times. Poor girl came a flea’s whisker away from having a punctuated lung. Then there were the burn damage from ropes and fag ends – he used her as an ashtray. Happen he were practising his boy scout knots and all. He were very big in the scouts at one time.’

Keith and Nellie fled to the kitchen. Now they had a war, a pregnancy, a teenage girl and an Elsie to deal with. Oh, and a bigger puppy. Eventually, they ran out of laughter. ‘I suppose it’s only fair.’ Keith set the kettle to boil. ‘They’re overrun with Scousers at Willows, so why shouldn’t Liverpool be blessed with an Elsie?’

Nellie thought about that before answering. ‘She’ll not be used to it. Bangs, thuds, explosions and sirens – all part of our lives now. Nearest she’s come was when they exploded a stray bomb over Affetside way. It was all controlled by the UXB squad. That German lad still writes to Hilda, you know. She reckons he’ll never go home.’

Elsie stood in the doorway. It might have been fairer to say that the doorway framed her, because she filled it. ‘That daughter of yours has a very strange sense of humour, Nellie. She laughs in all the wrong places. But I’ll give her this, she’s saved them babies, God love her. And that dog won’t leave her side, will he? Eeh, it’s a smashing house, is this. I bet it’ll look lovely when it’s done up and painted proper after the war.’ She went on and on, even when the others had stopped listening. ‘It’s nice round here,’ was the last line in her monologue.

Nellie smiled to herself. This was the Elsie she had missed; this was the friend whose eccentricities would see everyone through the war. Elsie wasn’t everybody’s cup of Horniman’s, but she was interesting, and free entertainment was one of the few unrationed items available these days. ‘How long are you staying, Elsie?’

‘Till I’ve counted them babies’ fingers, toes, ear ’oles and eyes.’ She cast a glance over Keith. ‘Aye, they’ll be grand as long as they get their mother’s looks and brains. If they take after you, they’ll just have to do their best, won’t they? Can I have a butty? Or a bit of toast?’

The next few days and weeks would merit a title – ‘Remembering How We Fed Elsie During a War’. Elsie took for granted all the little extras she managed to acquire at Willows. Here, for the first time, she was forced to live with true rationing; here, she began her weight loss programme.

Elsie Openshaw took up walking to fill in the time between meals. It didn’t take her long to realize that her life at home had been one long meal interrupted only by sleep, shoppers, and people wanting the services of the Royal Mail. Spoodle was a good excuse. Reluctant at first to leave Eileen in what he recognized as her hour of need, he had to be dragged along on his lead, and Elsie was just about ready to give up when he finally decided to go with the flow. Humans, he had discovered, always won in the end, so fighting was useless, tiring and a waste of breath.

Each day, they walked a little further until, after a couple of weeks of gradually lengthening journeys, they finally reached Nellie’s beloved river. Immediately, Spoodle pulled so hard that he took the lead with him, leaving Elsie to scream while the dog chased his sister along a beach made narrower by dragons’ teeth and barbed wire.

‘Hello, stranger.’

She turned and studied the man. ‘Oh, it’s you. Spoodle’s buggered off, and now there’s two of him, and they’re in all the muck. See? Over there.’

‘Pandora’s from the same litter. She’ll come back to me, and he’ll follow. How are you? Oh, and the food at Christmas was delicious.’

‘How am I? Bloody starving’s how I am.’ She opened her coat. ‘See this frock? It fitted when I got here. I’m becoming emacicated.’

Tom Bingley didn’t laugh. ‘You look better for the weight loss.’ She did. She would probably be healthier, too. ‘Are you staying with Eileen and Keith?’ he asked, a coating of nonchalance applied to the words.

‘I am. Well, with Nellie, really. But I’m stopping till I see them babies. She’s done well, has Eileen, keeping to her bed like that when she’s not blessed with a patient nature. She can sit up now, like, but she must have been scared when it first kicked off. Any road, Nellie’s mistress of the bedchamber, and I’m the bloody dog walker.’

‘So am I, Elsie. I had to take a break from work. There’s been a lot of pressure and stress. Not just my job, but the raids in town. It’s been a bitter time.’

She wasn’t surprised, and she told him so. The noises at night, bumps and thumps and bangs were enough to send anybody pots for rags. ‘I thought I were going to be dead at first. Nellie explained things to me, but it’s still only seven or eight miles away, so I’m a bit feared, cos we never see nothing up yon where I come from. Best excitement we get is tupping, and Jay Collins falling off a ladder when his sugar’s low. Even that doesn’t happen a lot now.’

‘Diabetic chap?’

‘Aye. Here comes trouble.’ Two filthy little floor mops with legs arrived. The pups were breathless and covered in the muddy sand that gets dredged up by a tidal river. ‘What the blood and dolly mixtures are we supposed to do now?’ Elsie asked.

‘My house,’ Tom replied. ‘Nearer than Nellie’s. A quick rub down for the dogs, pot of tea for us, and a cake of sorts. Marie does her best, but I’ve ordered some chickens, then we can have our own eggs. And I’ve turned over the back garden for vegetables.’

‘Aye, well keep your hens off that lot. Inquisitive little buggers, they are, so watch your veg. And if you fancy a chicken supper, I’ll do the deed for you.’

Tom hadn’t thought that far ahead. Eggs were one thing, murder was another. He swallowed.

‘You make me laugh, you townies,’ said Elsie. ‘It’s all right for the butcher to kill, but you’ll not dirty your hands, eh? And you a doctor, and all.’

They walked back to St Andrew’s Road, a feat for which they deserved medals, since the two pups decided to take up French knitting, and their leads became intertwined in a pattern that might have been pleasing had there been no mud involved. By the time they reached Tom’s house, all four members of the posse were as black as sweeps.

Tom dealt with the spoodles while Elsie cleaned herself up and made tea. But the best laid plans often fell apart in the presence of Pandora and her brother. Within minutes, the whole house was marked. They didn’t like the bath. They didn’t like Lux Flakes, green soap, or human shampoo. They ran muddy, slightly muddy, damp and wet through across beds, rugs, chairs and sofas. They skidded into the kitchen, banged into Elsie’s lisle-stockinged legs, turned, ran on the spot because their feet found no purchase on the slick floor, and were finally returned to the bathroom by an angry Boltonian female. ‘Didn’t you close the door, you daft bugger?’

‘I didn’t think,’ he answered weakly.

‘Out,’ she commanded. ‘Make the tea. And may God have mercy on your soul when the missus gets back.’ But he wasn’t going anywhere. Nothing on earth could persuade him to abandon Elsie to the machinations of two canine lunatics. He sent her away.

The missus, when she returned, thought the situation was hilarious. She staggered through the house with mops and cloths, pausing at the bathroom door to listen to her beleaguered husband. His voice rose above loud splashes and unhappy yelps. ‘There has to be a tranquillizer for dogs,’ he shouted. ‘Put the bloody sponge down. No, we do not eat loofahs or pumice stones.’

Marie slid her body into the room, taking care not to open the door to its full width. Tackling one pup each, they managed the task, but only just. Wet through and laughing, they sat side by side on a flooded floor, clothes sodden, towels dripping, two very wet spoodles shaking water from their curls and up the walls. ‘Bit of a mess,’ she managed, tears dampening further the soggy atmosphere.

Tom pressed a hand against his aching stomach. ‘Can you imagine a Great Dane or an Irish wolfhound?’ he howled.

She hit him with a wet washcloth. ‘Shut up.’

The door opened and Elsie stood in the gap, arms folded, head shaking sadly. A pair of soggy dogs shot past her and down the stairs. ‘Hello, Mrs Bingley. I’ve found some big towels. You two had better sort yourselves out while I look for them two buggers and dry them off. Then I’ll light a fire.’ She wandered off, muttering quietly about daft Scousers, stupid dogs and the bloody muck in the bloody Mersey.

‘That was fun,’ Tom said seriously. ‘Fun is what we lack.’ He stood up, locked the door and made love to his wife in a dirty, waterlogged space alongside the bath. There was a near-stranger downstairs, and their surroundings were rather less than perfect, but it was glorious. Except for one thing. When he reached the point of no return, for one exquisite moment, he thought of Eileen.

*   *   *

Dear all,

I have been remiss. So many letters from Mel, but I find myself quite caught up in life – who said it was quiet, peaceful and/or boring in the country? The new greenhouses have been erected on Willows land, while the planting at Home Farm was achieved in record-breaking time, since Neil Dyson now has an assistant, one Robin Watson – be proud of him, Eileen.

While his greenhouses are primarily for tomatoes, Robin intends to grow exotic flowers after the war. He is tender with blooms, and he says that brides should have more than just roses in their bouquets and sprays. So, like his older brother, he seems to have an artistic eye, though he says he’ll get a female to front the wedding business. At that point, several others jumped on the bandwagon to offer hairdressing, wedding cakes and bridal attire, so perhaps we shall rename the hamlet Weddings Ltd.

But a great deal of my time has been invested in Philip, who blossoms like one of the rare orchids his brother might grow. Mr Marchant and I arranged a show for him, and we sold everything! Yes, even in wartime, he is valued. People who invest in him now will reap the benefit in later life, because Philip’s talent is unique.

Which leaves just Bertie, your baby for the moment, Eileen. That boy can calm a horse from a distance, can break one for riding in under a week, and now has paid work in two stables where staff have gone to war. He rides daily, and is becoming accomplished.

I asked him once about his long-term future. He declared his intention to serve the King at any of the palaces. The King’s horses deserve the best, and he is the self-proclaimed greatest horseman ever born, so there you have it.

The most touching thing happened. When Philip sold his paintings, he gave some of the money to Bertie for riding boots, jodhpurs, coat and hard hat. Bertie, very solemn-faced, took the money and bought the things he needed. As he chose second-hand except for boots, he was able to give back change. ‘For paint and stuff,’ he said. Philip took the change and used it well. They are all good friends, and I believe their move to the country was for the best.

Appreciation of life here is widespread. Many of the other Scotland Roaders have settled well, but their parents have mixed feelings. When they visit their offspring, they often come to me almost wringing their hands because their So-and-So doesn’t fancy going home when the war ends. God alone knows what lies ahead, but I think we are in for fun and games when hostilities cease – as long as we are victorious, of course. Like your three boys, most of the evacuees are at impressionable ages, since country folk took children who were old enough to be useful. They are useful; they are also falling in love with a way of life.

Eileen, I am so glad that you have come this far with your twins. I can scarcely wait for you all to come home. Nellie and Elsie, our two wise women, are missed, as is Keith. By the way, I am learning to drive and have bought a little Austin, so don’t worry about keeping the car. Your need is greater than ours, because you are so near to Liverpool and so close to giving birth, and that vehicle might get you out of all kinds of difficulty.

The six willows are thriving, the land is healthy, and our best bull has been in great demand lately. We are taking no fees. Instead, we get produce, poultry and piglets. The Ministry has accepted the idea for the duration.

Eileen smiled when she reached this point. Black market dealings went on, of course, though Miss Pickavance would never allow such information to stain paper.

Please continue to take care of each other. Don’t worry about the boys. They are well behaved, busy and happy. Oh, and Jay’s diabetes is under control, Gill and Maisie are doing well, and the Dyson family continue to cope with the Land Girls. Beautiful blossom in the orchards; all’s well with the world, or it will be when I see those babies.

Love, Hilda.

Nineteen

Smoke and grit often drifted their way along the Mersey to pay a polite visit to Crosby and Blundellsands. Nellie didn’t want to think about it, but Mel kept everybody informed whether they liked it or not. She was like a walking book of statistics: so many houses flattened in Bootle, so many in Liverpool; the number of dead, gravely injured, walking wounded. Dusty gardens and windowsills were evidence enough, but Mel had to make cement and lay everything on with a trowel. Even Elsie told her to shut up, while Keith usually left the battlefield before it became unbearable.

By the end of April, Eileen was sitting in a chair. Every time she wanted to stand, Keith threatened to send for ten big lads and a crane, because she was heavy, and her centre of gravity seemed to have shifted. ‘She’ll disprove the Newton theory soon,’ he pronounced. ‘At least the bloody dog’s got it right now, but Eileen’s a law unto herself.’

‘She always was,’ Nellie would say before going into detail about her daughter’s wilder days. Tales of truancy, unsuitable boyfriends, and visits to Southport when she should have been in church poured in a seemingly endless stream from the mouth of this adoring mother. ‘If her dad had been alive it would have killed him’ or ‘Her father must have been spinning round the cemetery on roller skates’ were typical of her concluding remarks.

Occasionally, the voice of the accused drifted from the used-to-be-dining room. ‘Shut up, Mam, or I’ll tell Elsie about the time you went three rounds with Bootle Betty and pulled her wig off in Jackson’s chippy’ was one of the many ripostes offered by the expectant mother. She was going into Parkside soon. She was not happy; she was going to be cut open by a man who was five feet tall in his shoes, and she hoped he could reach her babies without a ladder, since she was very tall in the belly area when lying down. She was fed up.

Nellie and Elsie had taken up walking together while Keith minded his wife. They went daily to the beach, calling in at St Andrew’s Road to collect Pandora, and, a few times a week, Tom Bingley came with them. He was working part time; he also went into the city to help in the evenings. Unlike Mel, he produced no information unless asked, thereby proving himself a truly professional man.

Surprisingly, Nellie was becoming very fond of Pandora’s ‘dad’. There was a great deal more to the man than met the naked eye. He talked about the twins with pride in his tone, mentioned his wife frequently, and indulged in lengthy sessions of private thought while gazing out towards the bar, an invisible seam where river became sea. She wondered whether he still longed for Eileen, but was proud of him for maintaining his dignity. In moments while dogs ran free, she frequently glimpsed the edge of his pain when he turned from the Mersey to address his companions. He suffered. Every death, every mutilation stayed with him. The man cared about people, loved Liverpool.

Today, he awarded Elsie Openshaw a broad grin. ‘They won’t know you back at Willows. You must have shed at least three stone.’

The ‘emacicated’ woman laughed. ‘Mel’s took all me clothes in. Eileen couldn’t, cos she’s not allowed to do much. What I want to know is, what happens to all me loose flabby bits?’

He thought about that. ‘Your neck – cover it with a scarf or wear high-necked clothes. My wife has an imitation pearl choker; it’s too big for her. I’ll ask her for it, and you can wear that for posh.’

‘Aw, you’re kind. Isn’t he kind, Nellie?’

For some temporarily obscure reason, Nellie wanted to cry, so she ran off to separate the spoodles from a huge length of seaweed. She’d never had a lad of her own, and wasn’t old enough to be his mother, but he was fast becoming a son. ‘I nearly broke his eye socket,’ she told the pups while trying to relieve them of the slimy brown-green lasso to which they had become emotionally and physically attached. ‘Then I sent the lads in. He’s lovely. So much pain. See, Pandora and loony Spoodle, I know what she saw in him. Ten years younger, and I’d have been tempted meself.’ Tom was hurting badly; he wasn’t ready for patients, wasn’t ready for Liverpool, but even those who battled against the tide had to work while there was a war on. If she and Elsie hung around for much longer, they’d have to work in Crosby for a while, because that was a law imposed by the coalition.

Two seaweedless puppies scampered off in search of more mischief. Nellie turned and saw Tom standing with his arm round Elsie’s shoulder; Elsie was becoming fretful about her wrinkles, and the doctor in him was offering comfort. This was a good man who happened to be a randy bugger and selfish when it came to bodily needs. Clever blokes were like that. They worked hard, played hard and . . . well . . . they needed relief. ‘God forgive me,’ she mumbled. ‘Stood standing here thinking about a man’s private doings. I’m as bad as me mucky-minded daughter.’ Still, she thought as she walked back to her friends, he was exciting.

‘Ah, my other girlfriend,’ he said when Nellie was back in the fold. ‘Let’s go back to my house, see what Marie has to offer by way of food, and we’ll have an orgy.’ He pondered momentarily. ‘No, Elsie can’t have an orgy, because she’s on a diet. That leaves just you and me, Nellie. You look for grapes while I get the togas and massage oils.’

She understood her daughter. She knew now how strong Tom’s magnetism was; at the same time, she saw a very similar quality in Keith. They were different, yet the same. Nellie loved Keith; she also loved Tom in her way. Even at the age of fifty-five, she had weakened slightly at the mention of togas and massage oils. Yes, Eileen had done well to resist.

Peter had not resisted. No longer a virgin, he lay sobbing in the arms of a girl he truly loved. This part of the park, behind the bowling club shed, was usually deserted, so he could weep in comparative privacy.

Mel, feeling unbearably sad, didn’t know what she was. Sister, mother, lover, friend, adviser, priest, psychologist? ‘Are you hurt?’ asked the mother. Sister dried his tears, adviser urged him to compose himself before going home, lover kissed him on the forehead, friend held his hand. The priest prayed, while the psychologist reminded Peter that nothing had changed. Mother just tried not to be shocked, and the friend simply stayed by his side, because she would be around when all the other alter egos had left.

‘It has happened,’ he moaned.

Mel held on to him. ‘Peter, you’re homosexual. What a horrible, cold word that is. It reminds me of something surgical, perhaps for removing growths. Look. Have you been hurt?’

He shook his head.

‘Raped?’

‘Not really.’

Mel blew out her cheeks. Not really? Surely a person knew? Surely there was no space for confusion? ‘Look, soft lad. Were you willing like Barkiss in what was it? Great Expectations? No, David Copperfield.’

‘Sort of.’

The adviser was running out of patience, though the mother, sister and friend remained sympathetic. ‘Peter?’

‘What?’

‘Tell me about it. Blow your nose first; you look like a tap in want of a washer.’ He didn’t. As ever, he looked good enough for royalty.

‘It was the lad who draws the white lines.’

Mel swallowed hard. ‘He’s got pimples on his neck and he always smells of grass and that chalky paint.’

‘I know.’

‘He probably needs help doing up his shoelaces.’

Peter raised his head. ‘I enjoyed it, and I hate myself. I enjoyed you, too, so am I one of those bisexuals?’

‘The wheel fell off mine,’ Mel said almost absently. ‘Sorry, sorry. Didn’t set out to be flippant, but it does sound like something with handlebars. That means the best and worst of both worlds, Peter. Please don’t make things any more confusing.’

‘You wouldn’t have me even if I was bi.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘No, I wouldn’t. I want an extraordinary career, and a very ordinary home life, preferably with servants. My man will be my man, nobody else’s. But no matter what, I’ll always be your friend.’

Peter pulled away and hugged himself. ‘I can’t do it,’ he whispered, his body rocking to and fro.

‘Can’t do what?’

‘Live it, be it, do it. You want us to move to London and work in law. Right?’

Mel nodded.

‘And you want us to tackle the statute books, stop the persecution of people like me.’

‘Yes.’

‘And when I go to jail? When the big, fancy lawyer doesn’t exist any more because he’s a pervert?’

As usual, she had an answer even for that. ‘You find a nice, educated and lovable man with as much to lose as you have. Pragmatism rules. You buy a London house and make it into two flats. You have parties and occasionally you take a woman to the cinema, the theatre, the ballet. He does the same. No one needs to know that you live and sleep together. Confirmed bachelors, you see. Separate bedrooms, separate wardrobes, separate bathrooms, separate girlfriends.’

He knew his power over the fairer sex. ‘They fall for me.’

‘And you explain that you don’t feel the same and you don’t want commitment. Oh, what’s the matter with you? Invent a dead fiancée. Dad went through twenty years after his Annie died. Where do you keep your imagination, Peter? You’re clever enough. No one need know.’

Very slowly, he raised his head. ‘I’ll know.’

‘And?’

‘Living a lie.’

She jumped up and stood in front of him, hands on hips, eyes blazing.

‘Listen, Twinkletoes. We all do that. We all wear different hats for different situations. When I stand in court and argue for a murderer, how much truth will I be spouting? And will I tell them my truths: that I remember hunger, no coal for the fire, three brothers who stole and ran for bookies? No. Cambridge is the line. After that, it’s Amelia Watson for London, Mel for my friends and family. How big a lie is that? And if I go for politics, I shall be elegant.’

‘You’re already that.’

‘That’s the point – I’m not. I have manufactured me. I’m a lie.’

She didn’t understand, Peter decided. There was a huge difference between her lies and his. No. She did understand, and now she was saying so. What she meant was that his lie must become a habit, a part of life to which he could become inured, because it was an elemental necessity when it came to survival.

‘It’s too deep,’ he said. ‘Sexuality defines us at a level that’s essential – of our essence. People hate queers.’

A part of Mel wanted to shake him till his bones fell apart and rattled. But that was the Eileen-and-Nellie side of her, the bit that reacted in an instant and flew off the handle. In the depths of her soul, she knew what he meant. On an earlier occasion, he had outlined his reasons for giving up the idea of medicine. A doctor was always vulnerable, and would definitely lose his licence if discovered to be different. A lawyer might just get away with it.

Getting away with it. Peter shook his head slowly. He would have to live the life of a liar, a man who denied his own heart and soul, who lived in shadow, who dared not be completely visible. Getting away with it. Did he want that? With so large an untruth, he would be painting himself into a corner from which there could be no exit. Always, there would be a chance of footprints.

‘I don’t hate you. I don’t hate queers.’

‘You’re not people; you’re Mel.’ He gazed at her. ‘If I grow out of this, if I turn out to be a woman’s man after all, will you have me?’

‘No.’ That sounded cruel, she decided. ‘You’ve become a brother. And we both have a long way to go. Four years until university, more years of study, finding a job, somewhere to live. And a war, by the way. Our lives will change. One way or another, you’ll get past this. Only the stupid get caught – I learned that much from Scotland Road.’

He was tired. There was at least one High Court judge behind bars, and that man was not the only clever one doing time because of love. Unnatural love, the world termed it. How could anything be deemed unnatural when it was part of the mind and soul of the person who contained it? Isolation was the only answer. Becoming his own jailer was the sole solution.

‘Did you feel love for the line-painter?’

‘No. It was mechanics, like you said about us. Love would make it amazing.’

‘Be careful, then.’

They wandered homewards. Once again, Mel experienced a strange feeling when Peter turned left into St Andrew’s Road. Something was happening. He was walking away again, and she was troubled. She had experienced this before, yet now an extra element deepened her discomfort. He disappeared through the gateway of the family home; a cold hand gripped Mel’s heart and tried to squeeze the life out of her.

Why couldn’t things be simpler? Why couldn’t he be normal? She smiled at herself; Peter was one of the most normal people in her life, and she needed to get a move on. She had to finish an article about ten ways to cook a potato; Gloria had done her bit. It was Mel’s turn to keep the young of Liverpool cheerful. Strangely, she wrote her funniest pieces when she was sad. Tonight, her writing would be hilarious.

Nothing had changed; Keith still adored her, even now when she had all the charm of a beached whale, plus swollen ankles she hadn’t seen for weeks and a temperament as unpredictable as the weather. He’d threatened more than once to sit her on the draining board, though he had voiced sincere worries about denting her kitchen. When she’d begged for a ride in the car, he had told her he wasn’t allowing her to break the springs, and overloading a vehicle took too much petrol, so she could stay where she was.

A bond that could have been weakened by enforced containment had been forged even closer. Eileen was learning the rudiments of chess; Keith was tackling Scouse. They argued in the usual way, with humour and love balancing the scales, and the kissing didn’t stop. Both missed the act of love; both accepted the rule for the sake of their unborn children. ‘Anyway, you’d roll off Mount Ararat,’ she often said cheerfully, patting her swollen abdomen. ‘And if I sat on you, you’d be circumcised by accident.’

Every day, he talked to his children. The little one was Frankie, a boy who would be baptized alongside his sister in St Anthony’s church on Scotland Road, because Keith had promised before marriage that any offspring would be placed in the jaws of Rome. ‘You see, Frankie, Helen’s taken up all the room. This is good practice for when it comes to wardrobes. Women have ninety per cent of the space, while you’ll get the bottom right-hand corner and half a drawer in the tallboy.’

Helen, Keith’s most beautiful girl, was told to slow down a bit, because her brother, confined to the bargain basement, was having to make do with all kinds of cheap stuff, while she got the cream of the crop. He taught them the theory of relativity; Nellie was their grandmother, Eileen and Keith were their parents, while Einstein was just a scientist, and didn’t count. They had three brothers and a sister; they had a spoodle, two houses, two gardens and sixteen chickens.

‘You’ll have them daft before they’re born,’ Eileen told him.

‘This family has standards. We do daft. We do nothing else but daft. How many pairs of knickers?’ He was packing her bag for Parkside.

‘Twelve.’

‘How long will you be away?’

‘Five feet five inches, same as I am now.’

‘Eileen!’

‘I am staying with my children until both can come home. I want four cotton nighties, my towelling robe, and my Christmas nightdress and negligent, as Mam calls it. I don’t know why she does it. She knows the right words.’

‘Yes, she does. Toiletries?’

‘They’re in my little blue bag. I hid the best soap and tooth powder so that Mel wouldn’t use them.’

‘Books?’

‘I don’t care.’ She didn’t. Caring about the birth of twins and surviving surgery took most of her thinking. ‘Not War and Peace. I don’t like it, and I’ll not be away long enough to read the first chapter. I have tried, but it’s a boring book. The baby clothes are in the tartan holdall.’

Keith sighed quietly. Waiting rooms and patients’ sitting rooms at Parkside had been given over to casualty as part of the war effort. He would have to stay outside in the car while his wonderful Eileen was being cut open, while his children got lifted out from the warm, dark space they knew into a bright, noisy, war-torn world. Although he had begged and pleaded to go into theatre scrubbed and gowned, no one would heed his request. Fathers didn’t count, it seemed. Fathers took their pleasure, left women pregnant, then disappeared on a ferry to somewhere exotic, like the Isle of Man.

‘Keith?’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got you a ticket.’

‘Eh?’ Still on the way to the Isle of Man, he scratched his head.

‘Mr Barr fixed it. You can sit in a corner away from me and all the cutlery and, once the babies are wiped down, you’ll be the first real person to hold them.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll be asleep behind a screen. They’ll both be laid on me for a minute so they’ll know their mother’s scent, then they’ll meet their dad. Mr Barr says dads should be involved. Quite modern for an old bloke, he is. Sometimes, when it’s a normal birth, he lets the father cut the cord. Not all men can face it, but it’s a significant moment and a privilege that shouldn’t be withheld.’

He gulped. ‘I’ll be there? I’ll be with you?’

‘Yes.’

He gulped. ‘Did I ever tell you you’re wonderful?’

‘No, never.’

He opened the cage and joined her in bed, winding his body round his wife and two children. Now an expert at these particular logistics, he wondered whether he would need to relearn the art of lying in a straight line. ‘You’re wonderful.’

‘And you’re crying, soft lad. You know, I took you on trust, because I hadn’t known you for long, but I wanted you. It was a bit like remembering tomorrow, and that’s silly. “He’s the one,” I kept saying internally. I’m glad I took that chance. Are you?’

‘I’m glad you took the chance, yes. But I was absolutely certain. I don’t take chances. You were my future; you still are. And they’re going to cut you open—’

‘Oh, shut up, Keith.’ She didn’t want him to know her terror. ‘These two are so near the surface – you could cut them out with a butter knife. But the docs won’t let you watch the procedure, as they call it. You leave them to their knives and forks, keep your mouth shut and your mask on.’

Keith the kisser was alive and well. His embrace reminded her that she continued a woman, that her body still belonged to her in spite of a couple of temporary non-paying guests who seemed to have claimed rights of residency. ‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered when he released her. ‘It will be fine. In fact, once these two are freed from jail, there’ll be no peace. It’s all nappies and bottles. They don’t encourage breastfeeding after a section, and there will be two of them. There will. Both move, I promise you. And we’ll be exhausted. Kids are a mixed blessing.’ But she was better placed now. There’d be no running wild in an overcrowded community, no police, no bookies.

‘Mrs Bingley’s given you a lovely present. It’s a very posh twin pram.’

‘Oh.’

‘It looks new. I think she’s cleaned it to within an inch of its life, and she’s put sheets and blankets in it, too. Sweetheart, be gracious.’ He waited for a response. ‘You and Marie are good friends, aren’t you? She visits you, and you get on.’

‘Yes.’

‘So what’s the matter?’

It was stupid, and she knew it was stupid, but she didn’t want anything of Tom’s, didn’t like the idea of placing her twins in the pram that had contained his children. ‘Nothing’s the matter. We can afford our own pram.’ It was hard enough having to listen to Elsie and Mam talking in the next room about Tom Bingley, often singing his praises. Mam was two-faced.

‘Eileen?’

‘I know, I know. My motto is accept anything but blows. Raggy little Rose, someone else’s clothes, begging on the corner for anything but blows.’ She smiled. ‘I’m not that person any more. I’m Queen Eileen. And it’s nothing to do with money or owning a house. I married a king. Get your guards to keep him away from me.’

‘There’s an injunction, love.’

‘For the duration of the pregnancy, yes.’ She would be at her most vulnerable in Parkside. The injunction would be useless the minute the twins left the womb. He was a doctor. He might have patients in the little Catholic hospital. Her family could not be by her side all the time, and a medic had the right to enter Parkside in the middle of the night if he so chose. There was no danger of his hurting her physically, but he might well upset her.

Why? Why could she be upset? Because she felt sorry for him, and pity was closely related to love. Behind the predator was a man, an ordinary, well-educated man. She knew he could have made her laugh; she knew that had he not been married, she would have been forced into a quandary. The two men, so far apart on the surface, had a great deal in common. In spite of all that, the certainty that she had married the right one remained firm. But she needed to stay away from Mr Might-have-been. The imbalance of hormones didn’t help, and a woman recently delivered of a child was extra emotional.

Keith seemed to read her thoughts. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be living in the car.’

‘You have to eat.’

He tutted. ‘We’ve a cupboard full of National Dried. I’ll make myself some bottles.’

‘Bathroom?’ she asked.

‘I’ve got nappies.’

It was in moments like this that Eileen realized the depth of her love for her husband. A sensible, organized man, he still managed to retain a lunacy that was essential as far as she was concerned. ‘Getting a wash?’

‘I’ll stand naked in the rain.’

‘The penguins will die of shock.’

‘Naw. They’ll hang on to their rosaries and pray for a repeat performance.’

‘I love a confident man.’

‘And I love you.’ He proceeded to deteriorate into the gibbering idiot who spouted lovey-dovey nonsense mixed with lewd terms concerning what he would do to her once she got back to normal.

‘But we haven’t got a trampoline, Keith.’

‘I’ll make one. And a hammock. You just have to approach these matters scientifically.’

‘Right,’ she said.

He awarded her one of the more dazzling of his smiles. ‘And after that, if we’re still breathing, we’ll have chips.’

‘Not ribbon spuds?’

‘God, no.’ Because of Mel’s research into ten different ways to cook potatoes, they had been plied with heaps of ribbons. The offerings would have been acceptable if the girl had heated the fat to a reasonable temperature. ‘We’ll stick to the chippy,’ he said. ‘By the way, who’s Bootle Betty and why did she wear a wig?’

‘You don’t want to know . . .’

Marie was in a mood. Marie didn’t have many moods, so Tom was perturbed. When the children had left for school, he remained at the breakfast table, arms folded while he watched her. She was scurrying. She never scurried unless something had gone wrong at the WVS. And she wouldn’t look at him.

He untangled his arms and pretended to read a very slim newspaper until she left the morning room. From the kitchen, the sound of dishes being murdered floated on air heavier than lead. He was in no hurry unless the phone rang, because he was on call this morning, with just an afternoon surgery today.

Marie washed everything so cruelly that she thought glaze and silver plate might peel off. Men? Bloody men? She had taken enough, she was leaving him, she wanted to kill him. All that messing about for nothing in Rodney Street, all that soul-baring, had been a waste of time.

‘What’s the matter?’ he called.

‘Shut up!’

Shut up? Three words, he had spoken. Just three. She was the one making all the noise. ‘Marie?’

She entered the arena, hands soapy, a tea towel worn casually over the left shoulder, curls tumbling into her eyes. ‘Not Marie,’ she announced before blowing upwards in an attempt to achieve clearer sight. But disobedient tendrils returned to their encampment of choice. ‘Eileen,’ she screamed.

‘What?’

‘It’s not a what, it’s a who.’

‘And?’

‘And we made love, you fell asleep, I went to the bathroom.’

‘I am with you so far.’

‘No, you’re not!’ She hit him with the tea towel. ‘I’m lying there after visiting the bathroom, feeling glad that your depression’s getting better and we’re together, then thinking about what I need to do today, and you’re talking to her in your sleep.’

‘Oh.’

‘You love her,’ Marie accused, white-hot fire behind the words.

Tom stared hard at her. ‘There’s a difference between love and sexual attraction. It’s window shopping. Men do it all the time.’

‘In bed? Talking to your urchin in your sleep? “It will never be over”? What the hell is the matter with you? She’s going into Parkside tomorrow, and I’m visiting her at home before she leaves, so—’

‘Don’t say anything to the poor woman, please.’

She swiped him again with the damp towel. ‘I’m not the stupid one here. She’s pregnant, and I won’t hurt her. But you set one foot inside that hospital or in her house, and you’ll find all your belongings on the pavement outside my gate. Because it is my gate, my garden, my house. I bloody paid for it in more ways than one, you cheating bastard.’ She was proud of herself; her vocabulary was growing daily.

‘Be reasonable.’

‘I’m not the unreasonable one, either. Not stupid, not unreasonable. You’re using me and seeing her. I’m moving back into the spare room. Why are you smiling?’

‘Because you’re beautiful. A mess, but beautiful.’

She didn’t know what to say. Furthermore, she wasn’t given the chance to organize her thoughts, because he swept her up and threw her over his shoulder. She beat him with both fists, but he carried on up the stairs and threw her onto the bed, ripping at her clothes until she was naked apart from her tea towel.

Tom was kinder to his own garments. Every time she tried to escape, he pushed her back where she belonged. If Keith Greenhalgh could manage this, so could he. ‘Stay exactly where you are,’ he ordered. When he joined her on the bed, the fighting continued. Between blows, he managed to whisper in her ear.

‘Filthy words,’ she answered, slapping his face.

‘Have a few more.’ He started to whisper again.

It happened. While he tortured her tiring body, Marie lost all her anger, only to replace it with impatience. ‘Please,’ she moaned.

‘Please what? According to you, I please only myself.’

‘Stop tormenting me.’

‘Ah. I see. Which is the greater torment? This, or this?’

She grabbed his wandering hand. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Say the word, the one you didn’t like when I used it.’

She whimpered. ‘I can’t.’

‘Then I’m going downstairs.’

So she said it. Loudly.

‘Hang on,’ he said gravely. ‘The neighbours will hear, and they’ll start forming a queue.’ At last, he had defeated the lady in her. He was sorry, desperately sorry, that he couldn’t control his dreams. The depression was lifting, and he would soon be back at the surgery full time, so everything was in order, except for Eileen bloody Greenhalgh. Tom immediately devoted himself to making life happier for his wife, and perhaps made rather too good a job of it, because she was saying the forbidden word. Repeatedly.

He collapsed on her and regained the ability to breathe sensibly. ‘That was good,’ came his understatement.

‘We must fight more often, Tom.’

‘Marie?’

‘What?’

‘Will you clean the blood off my back?’

‘But I didn’t scratch you . . . did I?’

He nodded. ‘We finally found the tigress in you. Once or twice in your life, you have an experience so intense that you fight back. The divide between pleasure and pain is very fine, isn’t it?’

‘I thought I was going to die,’ she admitted.

While she went to the first aid box, he turned and stared at the wall. Loving two women wasn’t easy. Loving Eileen was impossible, because he hadn’t seen her for weeks, wasn’t allowed to see her. Loving Marie was a gentler business altogether, though the past half-hour had been lively.

She returned, still naked, lint, cotton wool and ointment wrapped in her now notorious tea towel. ‘Perhaps I should thank Eileen,’ she said wryly.

‘Don’t bother. She’ll be gone soon, and she’s only in my subconscious. You’re my wife.’

‘God help me.’ She cleaned his back.

The news travelled up-country to the very few, those top brasses unacquainted with anyone working in the media, anyone with a second cousin twice removed who had a friend in the media, anyone descended from a long-dead ancestor who had ever written for a newspaper. It was top secret, though the news leaked here and there. Hitler, whose camp housed a few spies for England, was to change his prime target. Poor old London might get a bit of a rest, since the city of Liverpool was now top of the list on der Führer’s agenda.

The common people got no warning, because little could be done at such short notice, and it was possibly only another rumour anyway. A few more big guns arrived at the docks, barrage balloons were made secure, and members of the Home Guard marched up and down the beaches for an hour or so every morning.

Elsie and Nellie were not best pleased, since Spoodle and Pandora had a marked tendency to become involved with feet, and they were kicked aside more than once. Nellie wasn’t having that. She dressed down the whole parade, praying loudly that England would never need to depend for survival on fools, geriatrics, and people who kick puppies. ‘You’ll have to stop now, anyway,’ she roared. ‘You’ve two at the back what need crutches, and that one on his own a mile behind wants a wheelchair.’

Elsie dug her friend in her ribs. ‘Give over, Nell. It’s not their fault.’

Nellie was uneasy. Something was changing, and she couldn’t work it out. It was a bit like the night when Heinrich had dropped out of the heavens at Willows. ‘The sky was the wrong colour,’ she whispered to herself.

‘You what?’

‘Nothing.’ This day was the wrong shade of grey. Under a flawless blue sky, Nellie Kennedy saw only the dull monotony of gun metal. She shivered.

‘Are you getting a chill, Nell?’

‘No.’ She wasn’t cold at all. But somebody somewhere had just walked over a million graves.

Twenty

THURSDAY

‘So this is it, then.’ A terrified Keith held on to his wife’s hand while Sister Mary Dominic hung on to him. This was definitely it. Eileen was going to disappear behind a screen with Mr Barr, an anaesthetist, and several Augustinian penguins. ‘Are you feeling all right? Are you ready for it, sweetheart?’ he asked, panic trimming the words. She was on a trolley. She was wearing a stupid gown that was open all down her back. And apart from the enormous bump, his Eileen looked like a frightened little girl about to have her tonsils out.

‘Let me go now, sweetheart,’ Eileen begged quietly. ‘This is the theatre door.’ He was going to start. In her very bones, she knew he was going to kick off and score an own goal. ‘Don’t you be making a show of me,’ she warned. ‘Make a show of me, and I’ll suspend your membership. And no, I’m not talking about a hammock. So think on and pull yourself together. Sister? Tell him. Tell him I’ve got no choice, because he sure as eggs won’t listen to me.’

Mary Dominic, all four feet and ten Irish inches of her, tore Keith’s hand from Eileen’s. She glared at him while pinning a small, silver-coloured medal to his shirt. ‘That is the Immaculate Conception,’ she advised him sternly, ‘to whom I shall be praying. However, my prayers to Our Lady will be delivered via St Jude, as I shall pray also to him. He’s the patron saint of hopeless cases. And I have never, in all my born days, seen a case more hopeless than you.’

Keith fixed the tiny nun with steely eyes. ‘This woman is my life.’

‘This woman is a crowd. There are three of her. We need to read the Riot Act in order to achieve dispersal.’ She pushed the trolley through the first set of doors. ‘There’s your chair, Mr Greenhalgh. Use it.’

‘But—’

‘No buts. You are now in theatre. Mr Barr has allowed you in. I, however, would never have let you through the outer doors. Now listen to me. When I wedge open the inner doors, which are transparent, by the way, you will hear and see all you need to hear and see. Now shut up before I find sutures and sew up your speaking equipment good and proper, but. I’ll be with you in a tick. Do not follow me. I have a black belt in liturgy.’

He couldn’t see a thing. He could hear them all greeting his wife, but his view was a cream-painted wall with a crucifix on it. ‘I’ll be waiting, Eileen,’ he shouted. ‘I love you.’

She had been whisked away, but her guard returned and sat next to Keith. ‘There we go now, son. Even this difficult bit isn’t difficult, as it lasts just a few minutes. Will we have a bet? I say two girls. If I lose, you may keep my medal. If you lose, I’ll take from you a pound for Africa.’

‘I thought Africa would cost more than a quid; a fiver, at least.’

‘Very funny. The money’s for starving babies.’

‘Right.’

She laughed. ‘Now shut your mouth and open your ears. The second she goes under, the babies will be out. We don’t want the anaesthetic getting to them. So. What are they? Come on with you, get the bet placed before the race begins.’

‘One of each,’ he replied.

She prayed.

Within two or three minutes, the first cry arrived. ‘Thanks be to God,’ Mary Dominic muttered.

A second pair of lungs proclaimed loudly that they’d been all right in there, and why had they been disturbed? ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, bless this earthly family and stop the tears of the blithering idiot next to me.’ She turned to him. ‘You haven’t even seen them yet. What use are you going to be if you can’t turn the tap off?’

‘Will they bring them to me?’

‘And give the poor little souls another shock at the sight of you? Pull your mask up. I shall bring them in a few minutes. They need to be with Mammy for a while after they’re weighed, measured and tested, then I’ll get them for you. Straighten your face, you’ve a forehead like a ploughed field.’

‘Will Eileen be all right?’

‘She’ll be grand. Irish, strong as a horse, stubborn as a mule and fast as a flea. She told me earlier about the draining board for when she’s naughty. You’ve a great way of dealing with the besom, so. Ah, you’ll all be lovely, and that’s for certain sure.’

After what seemed like hours, Mary Dominic went and fetched the babies. ‘Keep your medal,’ were her first words. ‘One of each, you lucky boy. I’ll still take the pound for black babies, but.’

‘They’re the same size,’ Keith managed finally.

The nun nodded. ‘He’s cunning. He hid bits of himself all over the show; I think he must have had a cupboard. Six pounds, he is. The little girl is over seven, but it’s not as much difference as we suspected. Aren’t they beautiful? Caesars often are, you know, because they’re lifted from one bed to another, no struggle to be endured. Will you stop weeping. See? You have me at it now.’ She sniffed and dried her eyes on a handkerchief.

Keith couldn’t take his eyes off his children. Perfect features in miniature, downy blond hair, five delightful little toes on one kicked-free foot. ‘The day I married your mam was the best of my life so far. Till now. Hello, Francesca Helen. Hello, Francis Keith. We’d a few discussions about your names, but you’re Helen and Frankie. I’m your dad. Your mam’s unconscious, probably been on the Guinness again, the dirty stop-out, and this little lady is a nun. She’s a bride of Christ, and she nags. Like your gran.’

Mary Dominic sniffed. ‘Are you Catholic?’

‘No. But I married one, so I go to church with her most Sundays when she’s not confined to barracks, walk her to the altar, take a blessing instead of Communion bread. She has her doubts, but she hangs in there. A priest’s been bringing Communion to the house.’

Mary Dominic aired the opinion that a person without doubts was a person without a brain. ‘You are with God, Mr Greenhalgh. You’ll be a wonderful father. And they’ve the first of May for a birthday, which is the start of the month of Mary, who is fastened to your clothing. I want a pound for Africa.’

‘I’ll give you two.’

‘Good lad.’

Keith carried on weeping when his children were moved to the nursery. Mr Barr emerged, congratulated the tear-stained new father and told him that Eileen would sleep for a while. ‘She did well to go those extra weeks, Mr Greenhalgh. Oh, and the sisterhood’s had a little meeting. They’re putting a camp bed in your wife’s room, because they know you won’t go home. And you’re to get to the office and phone Eileen’s mother and her daughter, put them out of their misery.’

Keith shook the great man’s hand. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

Nellie, Elsie and Mel had a party courtesy of Crawford’s Cream Crackers, some mousetrap cheese, and two bottles of sparkling wine left by Miss Morrison. ‘She would have loved this day,’ said Mel, who was inebriated for the first time in her life. ‘She always said the house needed children. I miss her. I miss my mam. I miss my Keith-dad. I even miss my brothers. It’s coming to something when you miss your brothers,’ she told Elsie.

Nellie entered. ‘Right, that’s all at Willows informed.’ She glared at Mel. ‘How many glasses of that have you had, madam? Because you’re drunk. Your eyes are all over the place like glass marbles.’

‘One glass,’ replied Mel. ‘Only one.’

‘Two, she’s had.’ Elsie apologized to Mel. ‘Sorry, love, but you don’t want to be ill.’

They stayed up late mostly because of Nellie’s excitement, partly because she wanted to keep an eye on her oldest grandchild, who might be sick in her bed after taking drink, who might die as a result of inhalation, who was already fast asleep in an armchair.

The doors to hell opened fractionally at about eleven o’clock. Sirens screamed. People in the city sighed, put their kettles on, made tea, lifted children from their beds, carried them and tea-filled billy-cans to shelters before yet another raid. In Crosby and Blundellsands, few people bothered to move. It was just one more night, just a gesture so that folk would remember that Hitler and his forces were keeping an eye on the city and its environs. But doctors, nurses, firemen and ambulance drivers left the cosiness of bed or armchair and began the drive from outer to inner Liverpool. Nellie, Elsie and Mel went into Eileen’s cage. But they heard and felt the assault, and were still awake when the all-clear sounded at one in the morning. ‘My God,’ Nellie sighed. ‘That felt like they meant it.’

In Parkside, which was nearer by three miles to Liverpool, a new mother was disobeying the nuns. With a pillow under each arm, she supported her babies, cupped their heads and put them to her breasts.

‘You’ll have pain. You’ve been cut,’ declared Mary Dominic.

‘She’s made her mind up,’ Keith said.

‘I’ve made my mind up,’ came the echo.

‘The feeding of a child pulls at the womb,’ insisted the tiny Irishwoman. ‘You’ve been cut.’

Eileen raised her eyes to heaven. ‘Saints preserve me,’ she muttered. ‘I know I’ve been cut, Sister Mary Dominic. My belly probably looks as if it’s been thrown together by a blind tailor – I don’t know, because I can’t see it. This milk is my children’s birthright. It’s the best thing on God’s earth for them, it’s free, and I am full of vitamins. Even a couple of weeks at the breast will help them.’

A siren sounded. The nun took a whistle from her pocket and blew hard.

Eileen smiled. Her twins were clearly not of a nervous disposition, since they simply lifted up their arms in response to the blast. ‘They’re not deaf,’ she said as they continued to suckle. Mary Dominic apologized. She was in charge of blackouts, and the whistle served as warning to all the other sisters.

Keith went outside for a few minutes. He heard them long before he saw them, and he knew immediately that this show was not the same as previous incursions. Antiaircraft fire was deafening; those three miles nearer to town made a lot of difference. Incendiaries floated down in their hundreds, the resulting fires acting as beacons for the pilots above. Bombs vomiting from underbellies of Heinkels exploded all over the city; there must have been fifty or more planes. Then God’s heavens opened, and the Germans eased off. In spite of the rain, Liverpool burned.

Inside again when the planes had gone, Keith eavesdropped at Mother Superior’s door. She was whispering to her sisters. There had been a hundred or more incidents in the city, none in Bootle, some on the Wirral. He heard the words Cazneau Street, North Market, Batty’s dairy, and the names of many other shops in the city. ‘But, as far as I can tell, we are receiving no casualties here tonight, thanks be to God,’ was Mother Benedict’s final statement. Keith’s flesh crawled. This was the start of something new.

He cuddled his son while Eileen cooed over Helen. ‘That was noisy,’ she said, stroking her daughter’s cap of silky hair.

‘We’re nearer,’ Keith said.

‘I know we’re nearer, love. It felt different. There were a lot of them, too.’

Each bomb they dropped was estimated to weigh an enormous amount, but Keith wasn’t going to tell his wife that, not when she’d just had surgery, not while she had six children to worry about.

‘Take us home,’ she ordered.

‘Don’t talk daft, sweetheart.’

‘And when they come back and kill us all? We’re only about four miles from the edge of Liverpool.’

‘And you’ve got stitches, and you were in theatre just a few hours ago having two babies removed.’

‘We’ll have more than bloody stitches if we get a direct hit. Mr Barr can see me at home, and Dr Ryan will look after me.’

‘No.’

She tilted her head to one side. ‘That sounded very firm and decided.’

‘Because it was,’ he said. ‘Look, I know they’re fine, but they’re still slightly premature. They’ve to go back to the nursery in a minute, because they’re due for being stared at. That Sister Agatha never sleeps, or so I’m told. I hear she doesn’t even blink in case she misses something. You’ve done right by the twins so far. Just a few more days, darling. Please.’

Eileen sniffed. He knew she melted when he used that word. Nobody in Scotland Road ever said it; darling was for film stars. And for her, of course. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But don’t go blaming me if we’re all killed.’

‘I won’t.’ He returned to the task of examining his son’s hands. They had dimples instead of knuckles, but Frankie had a hell of a grip for a newborn. ‘He’ll be good for the tug of war team.’

Eileen snorted. She had married a madman.

FRIDAY

My dear Aunt Hilda,

Your adopted niece is under the caged kitchen table with mattress, pillow, blankets and Spoodle, so please excuse the untidy writing. I am rather squashed, and Miss Morrison’s precious Victorian writing slope doesn’t quite fit at a decent angle in my small shelter, so I can only hope that this letter is legible. The dog is no help. Chewing the end of the pen while I write is his idea of audience participation, but what can I do? I am trapped, but safe, I hope.

With the head teacher’s permission, I had the morning off. Dad picked up Gran and me, and took us to Parkside. Mam is very well indeed, and calling all the shots. She clearly got back to what’s laughingly called normal in a very short space of time. My lovely stepfather is besotted with the babies – we all are. According to Mam, little Helen is the image of me, God help her. Frankie is gorgeous. When someone holds him, he cuddles into the person, and he seems not to care who picks him up. Helen is more choosy; she prefers her parents. But they are so delightful. They took me back to my childhood, because I wanted to dress them up like I did my dolls.

Despite warnings about stitches and pain, my dearly beloved mother insists on breastfeeding. Sister Mary Dominic, nominated by Mam as the dwarf prison guard, is very funny. Under five feet in height, she buzzes around like a bee in a flower and gets under everyone’s feet and on everyone’s nerves. She stings, too, when she puts her mind to it. Dad has found the kitchen, and he has threatened to put Sister MD on the draining board or in the sluice room with all the bedpans. She giggles when he says such things. Were she not a nun, I’d swear she flirts with him.

I tried to phone you earlier, but our lines are out of order, and I’m unsure about when we’ll be reconnected. There is no point in writing anything other than truth, so I must tell you that our city took some hard knocks last night and, as I write, it’s happening again. With my parents and the twins currently in a building a few miles nearer to Liverpool than we are, I can only worry. Germany has altered its strategy. The bombers are coming in from many directions to circle the docks and the city before dropping firebombs followed by very high explosives. Even with a full moon, they still dropped incendiaries. Three or four planes flew over this house about an hour ago. Elsie resorted to praying – even borrowed Gran’s rosary, and she isn’t a Catholic.

My dear, sweet aunt, I know that hamlets have no churches, so please take as many people as you can to Bromley Cross, Harwood or Affetside – anywhere with a church. It doesn’t have to be Catholic. All prayers are needed now, because I fear we are ear-witnesses to a blitzkrieg, which translates as lightning war. London has already suffered this, as have other towns and cities. Pray for Liverpool, I beg you.

Love, as always, Mel xxx

She pushed the writing slope out of the shelter, laid herself down, cuddled Spoodle and courted sleep. But the boom of anti-aircraft guns kept her awake, as did the slight shivering of the land on which the house did its best to stand. It was like a hundred aftershocks following an earthquake; would it ever end? After four hours, the all-clear sounded.

Sighing, Mel drifted towards sleep, Spoodle relocated at her feet. Four hours. How much damage might have been done in that time? Tomorrow would tell, tomorrow would . . . At last, she slept.

SATURDAY 3 MAY 1941

The terrible news drifted up the coast along with debris, ash, soot and bombed-out people looking for billets. By about noon, rumour and fact were finally becoming separable. Because of a bright full moon, incendiaries had been rather de trop except when cloud had drifted across the main source of light. Providence had clearly been on the side of the Germans last night, but the city stumbled on.

Bootle, a village nearer than Crosby to Liverpool, had taken a hammering. Flour mills, timber yards, factories, warehouses, shops, houses and arterial roads had been eradicated. Homeless and disorientated people wandered the streets long after sunrise, some carrying a chair, a picture, a cushion – sad little bits and pieces collected from a place they had loved. They searched not only for somewhere to settle their bones, but also for family members, some of whom would never be seen again.

Emergency services in Bootle could not get through the rubble on Southport Road, Stanley Road, Balliol and Knowsley roads. Vehicles were abandoned while teams struggled on foot to reach mounds under which people were buried. Alive or dead, when lifted out, they were covered in the crumbled debris of shelters or of the homes that had provided a lifelong refuge. Nowhere was safe any longer; no one could be certain of seeing tomorrow.

In the city, the Dock Board building had been hit, while the White Star Shipping Line offices were badly affected by fire. The central repository of the diocese of Liverpool was in ruins, and many valuable books, tracts and records had disappeared in the flames. St Michael’s Anglican church was damaged beyond repair, as were many houses and small businesses. All day long, fires smouldered. Rescuers and clearance teams did their best, but behind every hearty word of encouragement, every slap on the back, the dread remained. Tonight would be the same. The strutting, power-crazed leaders of Germany intended to crush a proud city. Liverpool was not especially big, but it boasted the largest docks in the world, and the docks were the real target.

But what the Luftwaffe might never see if the planes flew too quickly or too high was visible all over Liverpool on this Saturday. Cleared pavements bore painted words: HA, YOU MISSED ME, THIS SHOP IS CLOSED PENDING ALTERATIONS, HITLER BLEW UP OUR LAV, and ME MA SAYS YOU OWE HER SOME NEW TEETH AND A TEAPOT. An old Jewish man used luminous paint to execute a massive Star of David in the middle of a road on which all buildings had been flattened. ‘Mazel tov, mate,’ called a passing Irish docker. Like their Cockney cousins, this lot never gave up.

Young lads risked life and limb to climb onto ruins already bombed, tying strips of white sheeting to bits of chimneys and gutters in the hope of drawing attention to the already destroyed. With any luck, these derelict piles might get hit again. The number 16 appeared here and there as a reminder to the enemy that this number of German bombers had been shot down last night by the RAF. Ebullient on the outside, determined to the bone, Scousers were intelligent enough to recognize the might of the enemy. But they weren’t going to run away, because this was their city. An old sailors’ tale intimated that residents of Liverpool lived with their backs to the city, their eyes on the sea. But sneak behind their backs, and one way or another they would have your blood. They had pride by the ton; they also owned an anger that was measurable on no man-made scale. And to balance all of the above, they were humorous, cheeky and quick.

On the wireless, the clipped, correct BBC announcer spoke of damage to a northern port. Even the royal family didn’t talk as daft as that. It was like listening to a foreigner, an alien who wasn’t qualified to talk about Liverpool, about England, about the planet. Elsie blamed tight underwear. ‘They all talk as if they’ve been neutralized,’ she said. ‘Their dangly bits is squashed.’

Nellie almost choked on her tea. ‘Do you want to go home, love?’

Elsie bridled. ‘For one, I still haven’t seen them babies, and for two, it’s my war now. No.’ The arms continued tightly folded. ‘I’m going nowhere till Hitler’s been dealt with. Shouldn’t be difficult; they say he’s only got one dangly bit.’ She picked up a carving knife. ‘Let me at him.’

‘Who are we killing now?’ asked Mel as she led Spoodle into the kitchen.

‘Hitler.’ Elsie’s tone was fierce.

‘That’s all right, then. I’m posting a letter, then going to Sniggery Woods with Gloria and Pandora.’ She didn’t want to be near the river, didn’t want to look left in case she saw what she couldn’t bear to see in her city. She left the two older women to their job of putting the world to rights over a pot of tea and a rack of toast.

Outside, an unfamiliar smell hung in the air. It was a bit like the morning after bonfire night, but heavier. Mel rushed round to St Andrew’s Road, waited while Gloria found her dog, and had a word with Dr Bingley. Yes, the twins were born, Mam was safe, and Dad was sleeping on a camp bed when he wasn’t chasing nuns. ‘At least one has fallen in love with him. He parked her in front of a statue of the Sacred Heart last night because she keeps telling Mam to stop breastfeeding.’

‘Because of the section?’

Mel nodded. ‘Caesar mothers aren’t supposed to feed. She won’t listen, so we must hope for the best. But Sister Mary Dominic will carry on shouting haematoma, and Mam will carry on ignoring her. Mrs Bingley’s going to visit today with Elsie.’

His wife would be welcome, but he couldn’t go. Keith Greenhalgh was standing, sitting or lying on guard, and Tom was the enemy. He was also tired, since Liverpool had been lively and deathly last night. The general opinion was that tonight would be the same, so he needed a rest.

The girls walked to the woods, releasing a pair of enthusiastic dogs as soon as they reached the path leading to the trees. Two bundles of black and white curls disappeared in a trice. They loved this place, which housed squirrels, rabbits and, on occasion, Boy Scouts cooking sausages. Today, the dogs’ behaviour was different. They returned to the girls and whined, clearly asking to be followed.

Gloria and Mel found Peter hanging from a tree, movement in his legs proclaiming him to be alive. Without a word, Mel pushed her hand into his pocket, withdrew a jack-knife, climbed upward from bough to bough and severed the thin rope with one cut while Gloria took his weight. Brother and sister crashed to earth; Mel jumped out of the tree.

‘Why?’ sobbed Gloria. ‘What’s the matter with you; what the hell did you think you were doing?’

‘Wrong rope,’ Mel scolded. ‘Washing line’s not up to the job, and part of it was up the side of your face, stupid. You couldn’t hang a picture on a nail, even with a spirit level.’ She was scared to death. She could not imagine life without Peter. But she wasn’t going to baby him – oh, no. The need to hug and comfort him had to be denied, since she could not allow him to continue in self-destructive mode.

Gloria, shocked and terrified, stopped weeping. ‘Mel? This is serious.’

It didn’t look serious. A very attractive boy, spread-eagled on the ground, was being drowned by two spoodles. Wagging happily, they circled him, washing his face, neck and hands, chewing on his hair and breathing heavily into his ears.

Mel folded her arms and tapped a foot. ‘You selfish, spoilt wastrel. Your mother lives in a house filled with drugs, and she might be tempted to follow you into the hereafter when you break her heart. Your sister would be bereft, while your father, a man only just out of depression, could well slip all the way back to a mental hospital.’

He started to cry.

‘Why?’ Gloria screamed again.

Seconds ticked by. ‘Will you tell her, or shall I?’ Mel demanded. ‘Because you owe her an answer.’

‘Tell me what?’ Gloria asked, her voice calmer.

Peter said nothing.

‘Right.’ Mel sat on the stump of a lightning tree that had been struck down years earlier. ‘This isn’t the first sign of your brother’s cowardice, my friend. When we had all that kerfuffle about him and me, he was trying to be my boyfriend so that no one would guess the truth. He used me as a shield. After we’d . . . been together, he confessed all. Your twin prefers boys, and he’s too weak to stay alive and fight for his own rights and for the rights of other people like himself. I had the feeling that he might try something dramatic.’ She recalled the occasions on which she’d watched him walk away, remembered an icy hand tracing a line down her backbone.

Gloria blinked rapidly. ‘He’s queer?’

Mel nodded. ‘He’s terrified of jail, and I understand that. We had a plan. He, I and other open-minded people were going to change the world. But soft lad here can’t cope.’ She stood up. ‘I’m going home. I’ve had enough of him.’

Gloria’s jaw dropped. ‘You’re leaving me here? With him? But what if he goes and . . . what am I supposed to do with him?’

‘He’s your bloody brother. Why the hell would I want to keep company with somebody who’s contemplating suicide? It’s a mortal sin, for a start.’

Gloria, knowing that Mel didn’t believe in mortal sin, realized that her best friend was using reverse psychology. It wasn’t a bad idea. It might not be a particularly good one either, but Gloria could think of nothing better. ‘Hang on while I get this rope, Mel. I’ll come with you.’ She gathered up Peter’s washing line.

‘Stop,’ Peter begged.

‘It speaks.’ Mel glared at him. ‘Well?’

‘Don’t tell them.’

Borrowing her friend’s supposed strength, Gloria approached her twin. ‘I’m not telling anybody anything. Just thank God you made such a pig’s ear of it that your neck’s not too noticeably marked.’ Still shaking, she held her ground. ‘I’m not going to break anyone’s heart for you. Do it yourself when you’re ready.’ She began to walk away, turning after a few steps. ‘It’s not your fault, by the way. You can’t help the way you’re made.’

He lay still. It’s not your fault. It’s the way you’re made. Females were always full of glib answers. While I’m all shit and self-pity. Why him, though? Why had he come out queer? Apart from the boy who painted lines for lawn tennis and rugby, Peter knew no one in this situation. His parents were normal, as was his sister, but . . .

In his head, Mel spoke. You’re just a different kind of normal, she had said weeks earlier. He sat up. There was a war on, and his contribution so far had been worrying about his precious reputation, his own safety, his future, his exit from a world that could not be forced to love him. It was all me, me, me.

Of course, she’d provided an answer to that, as well. We’re all selfish. It’s an age thing. We go spotty, disobedient and daft. But most of all, we go selfish. Oh, how he loved her. How could he— ‘Get on with it,’ he hissed between gritted teeth.

Peter Bingley got on with it. He mounted his bike and rode the seven miles. The sky was dark with smoke. People ran when they could, walked round rubble when they had to, dug with shovels and with bare hands, every one of them searching for life below the piles, shouting, shining torches into blackness and debris.

In the heart of Liverpool, Peter dug with the best of them, lifting out injured and dead, young and old, male and female, dogs, cats and a little trembling rabbit. On the end of a rope ten times stronger than the one he had used this morning, he was lowered into a cellar where he found an intact and silent little girl. When they pulled him and the child out, tears streamed and made a clean path down his filthy cheeks. A warden led him away to a shed and forced him to sit and drink sweet tea. ‘Yer all right, lad. You done well. That kiddy was shocked into silence. She could have starved down there. She’s the only one left, because her mam and her brothers were killed, and her dad’s out there somewhere on a ship.’

‘What a bloody mess this is,’ Peter managed.

‘You talk nice, son.’

‘Posh school. Crosby. Merchants.’

‘Well, bloody good luck to you, that’s what I say. What you going to be, like?’

‘A lawyer.’

‘Good. You can start by suing the Dock Board for us. We want the death penalty.’

‘Fine.’ He left the hut and worked for another four hours. As he rode home, his legs could scarcely turn the pedals. Yet he felt . . . good. Because on that third day in May, Peter Bingley grew up. Oh, and he acquired a baby rabbit.

Wabbit was just about old enough for solid food, though he chose to try suckling. Pandora, who took a fancy to the black and white intruder, accepted the circumstance without too much fuss. ‘They match,’ Tom said sleepily. ‘Same colours. And she may produce milk – stranger things have happened.’

Today’s human hero, cleaner after a bath, slept soundly in a rocking chair.

‘I’m proud of Peter,’ Marie said. ‘Somebody took a photograph of him. He could be in the paper. That reminds me, Tom. Did you post the last lot to Phil Watson?’

‘I did.’

Marie continued to smile benignly on her sleeping son. He had saved a little girl and a sweet rabbit. ‘God bless him,’ she sighed.

Gloria simply sat and held her twin brother’s hand. They had been born together, raised together, and as a pair they would face the war, his secret problem, and whatever else lay on the stony road ahead. ‘That sweet rabbit is eating its way through Dad’s shoelace,’ she said.

But Dad, too, was asleep.

‘I’ll try to make him stay at home tonight. He’s so tired.’ Marie moved the shoes. Tom did too much. He could not or would not unload his mental burdens when he got home, refusing point-blank to discuss the war work he was not supposed to do, since he had been instructed to stay at home for his patients’ sake. In his head, he carried the weight of some terrible scenes. Time after time, he left a locum on call so that he could do battle for the city of Liverpool. She had two heroes now, husband and son.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, Gloria?’

‘The Pendleburys kept rabbits. They may have a hutch.’

Marie beamed. ‘Telephone them, dear.’

‘No line, Mum. They’ve fixed most of Liverpool Road, so Dad’s locum has a phone at the practice, but we’re still out of order.’

‘Oh yes, I forgot. Would you go along and ask about a hutch?’

Gloria walked along silent roads. It was as if this cusp that divided Crosby from Blundellsands held its breath, no sound, no movement, no life. They were waiting to be bombed. She thought about the truly threatened a few miles down the road. Saturdays were almost as holy as Sundays in Liverpool. Me mam and me dad came, as did our Auntie Flo with her new feller from the gasworks, Uncle Fred with our Steve, our ’arry and our Edna, what was just out of jail for shoplifting what she never done, and it never rained but it poured, eh?

Floors of landing houses were scrubbed early on Saturday mornings. Even in wet weather, landing house kids were thrown out while the job was done. They could be picked out at a glance, shivering in shop doorways, walking to the swimming baths with rolled-up towels whose original colours were long forgotten, or kicking a ball, or fighting in a tangle of limbs.

That was their culture, the rhythm they had invented, their own music, their own passion. Mel had often been heard to mutter, ‘It’ll be the poor who suffer most. They’re the ones I’ll be batting for; not as a lawyer, but as a politician.’ Mel was right. They were sure as hell suffering now. Extended families were forced to separate, because houses were gone, and people were becoming careful and wary. Saturday family gatherings were few and far between. A whole way of life had been stolen.

Mr Pendlebury promised to bring a hutch later on. ‘Go home, Gloria. The Bosch are getting confident, and I shouldn’t put it past them to arrive in daylight. They’ve been doing that for months down south.’

She walked home. Soon, all windows would be blacked out, all doors closed. This wasn’t living; it was an existence, no more. Many children had never seen a banana, an orange, a pineapple. Food was so scarce that hunger was a constant companion. Hemlines had ascended to knee level in a bid to save cloth. The cotton mills were concentrating on calico for shrouds, a thought that made Gloria shiver.

She wasn’t to know yet that this was the day on which all levels of the Divine Comedy would be visible. The descending circles of Dante’s Inferno would be displayed, all the way from its seething rim down into the deepest realms of torment. But Wabbit would have a hutch, a surrogate mother, some greens, and a carrot. For now, that was Gloria’s sole concern.

For the people of Liverpool, Lewis’s department store was sacrosanct.

Blackler’s was high on the list, too, so the loss by fire of these two large emporia would be bemoaned for some considerable time to come. All seven storeys of Lewis’s were destroyed, while Blackler’s, already seriously lacking in windows, was also burned to death. Among the shop’s contents, ten thousand pounds’ worth of fully fashioned silk stockings had recently been delivered, and they melted alongside everything else in the building. This crime alone would be judged massive in the opinion of the city’s already angry women.

Tom heard about these events, but he was on the dock road with several people who had been seriously hurt in a collision involving four vehicles. In truth, no one needed telling about the fires; even from the edge of the city, the devastation was visible. More news arrived. The William Brown Library had been eradicated along with the music section, and every book had been consumed by flames.

Tom placed two dead children on the pavement. They could wait there until an ambulance came. Minutes earlier, they had probably been sleeping in the car, but they would never wake again. His stomach rumbled angrily, though he could not have eaten to save his life. Dead children had always been the worst part of his job. He patched up a couple of adults, stepped back when ambulances arrived. At least three more were dead, but he could now leave them in safe, respectful hands. Because something was developing in the area of Huskisson Dock Two, and as he ran along the road his eyes remained riveted to the sight.

At about a quarter past eleven, a burning barrage balloon had freed itself from its moorings and floated gracefully past Tom, the ambulances, the suffering and the dead. It landed, after a few pirouettes, on the deck of SS Malakand and became entangled with the rigging.

‘Oh, bugger,’ said a nearby dock worker. ‘That ship’s packed with explosives.’ After a further fifteen minutes the fire had been extinguished by the crew, but here came the Germans. They dropped firebombs and high explosives onto dock buildings, and burning debris fell on the steamer, igniting it from stem to stern. The order to abandon ship could be heard above anti-aircraft fire and falling bombs.

There was nothing Tom could do but wait while the crew obeyed the captain’s orders. Many stayed on the quayside and fought to scuttle their ship, but she refused go down. He was probably wasting his time, so he backtracked into the city. The wind was up, the water mains had been blasted out of existence, and fire-fighters stood with dry hoses, many of the men in tears. Tom touched the arm of the nearest. ‘Can I do anything?’

The man allowed a hysterical laugh to leave his dry throat. ‘No. They’ve even burned Sammie, and all the fish boiled to death.’

‘The museum?’ Tom enquired.

‘What sodding museum? We haven’t got no museum no more. Even Sammie, poor little Sammie. All the kids loved him.’

Tom blinked. Sammie the seal had been everyone’s favourite. ‘I want to hit somebody,’ he whispered.

The fireman pointed to a colleague. ‘Hit him,’ he suggested. ‘He’s an Everton supporter.’

Fire raged and closed in on the city centre from all sides. And still a few loiterers circled, great iron birds spewing bombs, hatred and flame on a dry, windswept city. Over six hundred incidents had been counted by the time SS Malakand blew in the early hours. She scattered herself just about everywhere within miles of her mooring, yet only four people died, two of them a civilian couple on their way home via the dock road.

Tom, exhausted by lack of sleep and food, decided to call it a night. The all-clear had sounded, the city was a blazing wreck, and he had worked non-stop for five hours. The damage was unbelievable, yet it was only too real. A total lack of water due to bombed mains, coupled with a skittish wind, had taken away the core of Liverpool. But not its heart, never its heart. The pulse was in the people, in their intelligence, their humour – Hit him, he’s an Everton supporter. Even while they wept, even when their clothes were almost on fire, that cheeky, confident banter floated to the surface. ‘God help them all,’ he muttered as he stepped into his car.

Forced to follow a tortuous route in near-darkness, he could only hope that the moon would continue to offer some glimmer of light. Roads that led directly to Crosby were not easily reachable; every few minutes, Tom had to negotiate a way past rubble, craters, abandoned vehicles. Mel’s voice, mingled with Gloria’s laughter, echoed in the sad, dulled chambers of his mind. I miss Wagner, she had said. But it seems unpatriotic to listen to music favoured by a psychopath. I shan’t give up Beethoven, though, not even for England. And Pandora’s eating one of your mother’s best shoes . . . Mel summed up what he meant, what he felt about the people of this city. She was strong, passionate, smart and down to earth. As was her mother.

He stopped the car and closed his eyes. This going home business was too complicated for an exhausted man. While he nodded, the moon played hide-and-seek behind cloud or smoke, and as he neared sleep Tom didn’t hear the ominous rumble, didn’t see the nearby wall of a house peel away from its foundations. He and his car were buried; and the moon came out to play once more.

SUNDAY

Eileen, who resembled a question mark when standing, was now allowed to walk a few paces. According to Sister Mary Dominic, this would keep her blood on the move. ‘We don’t want to be having an embolism now, do we?’

‘You can please yourself,’ was Eileen’s reply. ‘I am not having one; a bag of chips with plenty of vinegar will do me, ta.’

‘And you’d be straighter if you let us put the twins on the bottle. You’ve stitches, there could be adhesions—’

‘Give over,’ Keith advised. ‘She does what she does, and nothing shifts her.’

‘I’m learning that. She’s a madam, a bold girl.’

Eileen stood still. ‘Shut up, both of you. Wasn’t there enough noise in the night? You’ve half a ship planted in your rockery for a start. I’m telling you now, we’re going home. I mean, look at us, six o’clock in the blinking morning, three hours’ sleep. Sister, go away. I’ve had enough. And no, I haven’t said me morning prayers.’ Eileen’s mood was real; she wasn’t acting up on this occasion. Liverpool was gone. With a sky as red as last night’s, the whole of the centre must have been destroyed.

The nun left the room, and Keith followed with towel, toothbrush and shaving equipment. The wing was full of women, of course, so his shower had to happen at the crack of dawn. But in the corridor, Mary Dominic stopped him. ‘We’ve a . . . what you might call a situation, son. Away to the office. No one can hear us down there. You’ll be all right for one day without the ablutions.’

A bemused Keith followed his new friend into the den of Mother Superior; Mother Superior, a fierce lady who always avoided him as if he were a pile of dog muck, was out, and Keith breathed a sigh of relief.

His little pal almost disappeared from view when she sat in Mother’s chair. She moved a few things on the desk before speaking. ‘Keith, you know how we closed down public rooms here and upstairs as our bit of war work?’

He nodded.

‘Well, we used just upstairs at first. We tried not to affect maternity, but upstairs got busy, so we had to bite the bullet and use every room we had. You see, those who come here are in need of a priest or a vicar – we don’t mind which. Very few walk out. This must not be told to any of the new mothers.’

‘So they’re dying?’

She sighed. ‘We sometimes manage the odd miracle, because surgeons do their best in the theatres above. But, for the most part, our patients leave by a back door in a hearse and in the night. That’s just to spare our mothers and babies. With this little lot down here at the start of their lives, it seems wrong to have the dead in the same building, but we have a Christian duty. Now, pin back your ears, this isn’t going to be easy . . .’

Bad news travels fast, and truth hurts.

On Sunday, the fourth day in May, the whole Merseyside area of West Lancashire was in mourning. Many of the dead were still under rubble, as were several living souls. Even where fires had burned themselves out, the fabric of crumbled buildings remained hot, sometimes too hot to touch.

This time, the BBC named the city. This time, nothing could be hidden, though the media did not go into too much detail. The most moving moments came when Manchester arrived in all kinds of vehicles, and when North Wales emptied itself into the centre of Liverpool. People cared, and that mattered. A pair of proud Liver Birds supervised a city that was no longer there, a city to which non-residents had come to help clear up.

It would have been easier to count the few buildings that remained, and most of those were singed. The cultural area was destroyed. The overhead railway, known locally as the Dockers’ Umbrella, was a tangle of metal. Wool and tobacco warehouses were no more, and Post Office engineers laboured with miles of wire, since the telephone exchange had been eliminated. Oil and fat works continued to burn, and the destruction of Inland Revenue premises was the only occurrence that gave rise to subdued laughter. Unfortunately, an employee ventured inside and found all records intact in a fire-proofed strong room. Fortunately, his excitement was so great that he ran out to spread the good news, forgetting to close the doors behind him. The strong room was burned out, and all records were lost.

Into the city cycled Peter Bingley with his father’s camera. Dad hadn’t come home, so Peter had expected to find a mess, but this was . . . this was murder on a vast scale. Temper rose like vomit in his throat, and he was forced to breathe through his mouth in order to still his stomach. There were no church steeples, no bell towers, and very few shops remained. Oxygen was lacking, too. Where was Dad? How could he find him in the midst of such devastation? Taking photographs was no easy task, as his hands shook. But Phil Watson had to record this in his paintings. ‘And I’m giving up German,’ Peter muttered under his breath.

All punctuation marks, all points of reference had been removed. Where was he? Paradise Street, Lord Street, St John Street, Canning Place – all burned out of existence. The words ‘Turn left at Lewis’s’ would not be used for some time to come. ‘We’ll get you,’ he told a murky sky. ‘By God, you’re finished.’

He started to search for his father. He found bodies, injured people, bits of people, blackened, charred figures that had once been people – one of those might easily have been Dad. After an hour or so, he became an automaton. Amidst the Welsh, the Mancunians and the people of Liverpool, he was just another silent worker. Occasionally, someone would shout, ‘Anybody in there?’ Apart from that and shifting rubble, there was little sound, not even birdsong.

He went to the warden who was minding Dad’s camera.

‘All right, son?’

‘I have to go home, because my father’s missing and Mum’s frantic.’

‘You get yourself away and back to school tomorrow. We’re going to need brains like yours soon enough.’

‘Be safe,’ Peter ordered. ‘And it’s been a pleasure to talk to you.’

The man smiled through layers of soot. ‘They done us good and proper this time. Trial by fire, eh?’

‘Indeed.’

‘Ta-ra, then, lad.’

‘Liverpool will be back.’ Peter picked up the camera. ‘Because the Liver Birds are still here. As long as they stay where they are, there’ll always be a Liverpool. It’s the law.’

‘And you’re the lawyer.’

‘Something like that.’ He set off homeward.

Elsie ran in and placed herself opposite Nellie at the kitchen table. ‘Buggering bastards,’ were her first words.

‘You what?’

‘They’ve done that place with the daft name – Bootle, is it? It’s not there any more. And all the shops in Liverpool and the libraries and museums and art galleries and docks and—’

‘Slow down,’ Nellie ordered.

‘Toffee factory, Bootle town hall, Scott’s Bakeries and twelve WVS dead with a direct hit. Oh, and some hospital called Mill Road Infirmary—’

‘Elsie!’

‘What?’

‘You’ll be having a stroke. Begin at the start.’

Elsie inhaled deeply. ‘Right. You know her with the funny legs lower down?’

‘You mean her ankles?’

Elsie groaned. ‘Lower down the road. You know who I mean. Her pins don’t seem to like each other; they stay apart. The lads could use her as goalposts at a football match. Frizzy hair, blue mac with a hood, had to get her wedding ring cut off with roomy-tied arthuritis.’

‘That’s Alice.’

‘Right. Well her husband’s high up in the Home Guard, and he came home skriking his eyes out. That big bang were a ship blowing up. It took Hodgkinson’s Dock with it.’

‘Huskisson.’

‘Aye well, I were near enough. He’s come back with all these tales. There’s nowt left, Nellie. We have to get Eileen and the babies home. Telephone them and . . . oh, I forgot. No phones.’

Nellie stood up. ‘It’s too far for either of us to walk, and I can’t get hold of Keith to ask him to come and get us. No. We just have to wait.’

‘She’s got bunions and all.’

‘Who has?’

‘Her with the legs lower down . . .’

Keith pushed the wheelchair out of the lift. He and Eileen were greeted by Mary Dominic, a doctor and a priest. This was the floor on which the dying breathed their last. It stank of disinfectant and fear.

‘Stay with me,’ Eileen begged her husband. ‘Don’t leave me. Promise.’ She was trembling like a dry leaf in an October wind.

‘I promise.’

The priest took charge of Eileen and her chair; the other three followed at a slight distance. When she reached the bedside in a single room, Father Murray stayed with her, while the rest stood back near the door. Although the moment was meant to be private, Eileen wanted witnesses. And she ached, because she had to say goodbye to a man who wanted her and only her. He had refused to see Marie or his children; he was suffering multiple organ malfunction, and would soon drift into a final sleep.

Mary Dominic whispered in Keith’s ear. ‘’Tis a terrible thing to ask of a newly delivered mother.’

Keith lowered his head by many inches. ‘Shut up, Sis. It has to be done.’

Tom’s head was swathed in bandages. Gaps had been created for mouth, nose and eyes. Eileen sat and waited for him to speak.

‘You came,’ he said eventually.

‘Of course I came. You knew I’d come.’

‘You’ve left him?’ The eyes glared at her.

‘Yes.’ That wasn’t a lie, because she’d left Keith at the door. ‘What about Marie?’

Feeble fingers pulled at a sheet. ‘Who?’

Again, Mary Dominic whispered to Keith. ‘That’ll be his kidneys. The brain often goes odd when kidneys are affected.’

‘He remembers my Eileen well enough.’

‘Be brave, but.’

Tom asked about where they would live, and Eileen told him about two cottages knocked into one; that, too, was the truth. Miss Pickavance was making a lovely home for the family, an enormous kitchen across the back, two living rooms, three bedrooms and a bathroom. ‘The doctor at Willows is rubbish, and he’s being forced to retire after accidentally overdosing some poor old girl to death. You can take his job.’

‘Do you love me?’

Eileen glanced at the priest, who simply nodded. ‘I love you,’ she said.

‘And when I get out of here, you’ll be waiting?’

‘Oh, yes. I’ll wait for you.’

Tom sighed. ‘We’ve always known, haven’t we? Right from the very start.’ He drifted, spoke to people who weren’t there, shouted orders as if he were in town saving the injured. Suddenly, his eyes opened. ‘It will never be over,’ he said, the words spoken clearly.

‘You’re right,’ she told him. ‘This is for ever.’

He fitted then, jerking about so violently that the doctor and Father Murray had to hold him down. A trickle of blood emerged from a corner of his mouth. The convulsion did not run its course, but stopped abruptly, because Dr Tom Bingley was no more. Eileen hung on to his hand. ‘God be with you, Tom.’ Tears streamed down her face. She turned to Father Murray. ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.’

The priest put an arm across her shoulders. ‘My child, the lies you just told are your passport to heaven. Sometimes, there’s a fine line between good and bad. He died in happiness. You helped him over and away from a broken body. God bless you.’

There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. Even the doctor was blowing his nose while the priest performed the last rites on a man who had not been Catholic.

‘There are more lies to be told,’ the little nun announced. ‘Mother and I will go to Mrs Bingley and pretend we didn’t know who he was with all the bandages applied in the ambulance; also that he died without regaining consciousness. Sometimes a small sin is necessary for the greater good. Take her back down, Keith. She’s done enough hard work for today.’

PART FOUR
1942

Twenty-One

A nun playing French cricket on Hilda Pickavance’s huge front lawn was a sight few could resist. With her long black skirt hoisted up to knee level, the godmother of Frankie and Helen Greenhalgh belted the ball and ran like the wind. She had turned out to be a brilliant godmother, because she wasn’t all rosary beads, children’s prayer books and holy pictures; she loved the babies, saw them whenever she could, played with them and sang to them.

Guiding Keith, her best friend outside the convent, through the portals of Rome had been a source of great joy for her, though Keith had been forced to manufacture time for just himself and the priest. Asking a cleric about sexual behaviour had been no walk in the park; had Mary Dominic been present, the questions could not have been asked.

Father Murray had been impressively unfazed. ‘You love the woman. But at her rate of reproduction, you could end up with a football team, plus a long bench filled by reserves. Go with the all-forgiving God to Father Flint in Bolton when you leave me behind, continue these lessons, heed your conscience, and keep that lovely wife of yours happy. Remember, the lies she told to a dying man were a great kindness. Need I say more about sin and humanity?’

Also on the lawn at Willows on this bright July day, Mel, Gloria and Peter tried to play a game whose rules changed by the minute. Mel confronted the good sister, of course. ‘You’re not playing properly, Sister Domino.’ Domino was the nun’s predictable nickname.

‘Away with your bother, you bold child. I caught that ball.’

‘You didn’t. You threw your body at it, then fiddled about till you had it in your hand.’

Eileen, who watched her elder daughter fighting a losing battle, had finally let go. Her gorgeous daughter was now a very welcome cuckoo in the Bingley nest, because Gloria needed her, as did Marie and Peter. All four Watson offspring had turned out well balanced, industrious and amusing. Almost by accident, the boys had found themselves; as for Mel, she had always been focused. Nothing further would happen between Mel and Peter, since the poor lad had his own cross to bear.

Eileen watched the hilarious game. Mary Dominic contested every decision and continued to play unfairly. Stella and Patty, daughters of Neil and Jean from Willows Home Farm, were clearly bemused. They had no idea when it came to dealing with an unscrupulous Irish–Augustinian penguin. So they played the game and said little. Eileen nudged her husband. ‘Your girlfriend’s a lying, cheating cow.’

‘I know. I must own every starving village in Africa, because she cons me all the time.’

‘Not difficult.’

He hit his much-loved partner with a cushion.

On the other side of the lawn, Nellie and Elsie were making plans. They lived together now behind the post office, and they wanted extra space to make a tea room. When the war was over, they were going to expand. ‘Mind you keep that weight off,’ Nellie insisted. ‘If we’re expanding into scones and cakes, I might have to stick a plaster over your gob, or you’ll be the expanding one.’

As ever, Elsie had an answer. ‘You do scones and teas while I sell local produce. I hope you’re right about advertising. I hope people come.’

‘Your teeth are loose. They’re clacking away like castanets.’

‘Shut up.’ Nothing changed; they still fought like cat and dog, still respected each other.

Phil Watson, who had been caught out on his first run, promoted himself to the level of umpire. The nun was cheating. What the hell was he supposed to do about a dishonest bride of Christ? He did nothing. Walking away from the game, he sat and picked up a sketch pad. It was a picture worth recording; the Yanks were here, God love them, and civilians had begun to relax a little. He laughed. The spoodles, having grown bored with the back garden, shot into the scene, and Pandora got the ball and ran off with it. ‘That’ll put a stop to her,’ Phil said sotto voce. Nevertheless, his sketch retained its title: Sins of Domino.

Eileen and Keith’s fourteen-month-old twins staggered about behind curtains kindly donated by thriving willow trees. Keith had given up on the hammock idea, so he sat with his wife on a rug. He was going to invent a double swing, upholstered, of course. ‘I could cover it in waterproof material,’ he announced apropos of nothing at all.

‘What?’ his precious wife enquired.

‘The double swing.’

‘Right.’ Eileen decided to leave him to his inventions. So far, nothing useful had been produced, but inventing was his hobby, and she had banished him to the shed with his diagrams and tools. She didn’t want her toddlers becoming acquainted with saws and screwdrivers.

Across the grass, Marie Bingley had returned from a solitary walk and was chatting to Nellie and Elsie. Miss Pickavance sat nearer to the house with her four stalwarts. Over the duration, she had grown close to Jay, Gill, Neil and Jean. Little Maisie Collins darted about in a pink tutu, a tiara and wings. She was being a fairy with a magic wand today; tomorrow, she might well be a cowboy – Maisie did not discriminate.

‘Where’s the rest of our brood?’ Keith asked.

The sun was making Eileen sleepy. ‘Well, Bertie will be with a horse somewhere, and Rob’s bought a soil-testing kit. I can’t imagine soil taking exams, but there you have it.’

Keith stretched out on the blanket, dragging his wife with him.

‘There’s a nun present,’ she said. ‘Don’t start with the kissing, and watch the twins – I’m having forty winks.’

He whispered in her ear. ‘Sister MD would lift her skirt higher for me.’

‘Behave yourself.’

‘She loves me. She wants me. I can see it in her eyes.’

‘Then she’s as daft as I am.’

With his gaze fixed on Frankie and Helen, he asked the question for the first time since the event. ‘Did you have feelings for him, darling?’

‘Yes, I did.’ She paused, saw that final fit, watched and listened while Mother Superior lied to Marie. She remembered the touch of his hand, the sound of his voice, those eyes blazing out through the gap in the bandages. ‘But you are my breath, and you know it. Without you, I’d be half of nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Absolutely. He was brave, Keith. He had spirit, and I’m glad I knew him. But he wasn’t for me, sweetie. I admired his cheek and his courage.’

‘God, yes. He died for Liverpool, for England.’

‘And behind all the bluster and the elegant doctor with his posh suits and shoes, he was very like you. He started off wanting my body, then he fell in love. But I didn’t love him, you see. I fell in love postally. Is postally a word?’

Keith laughed heartily. ‘Did you keep all my letters?’

‘Of course. And you kept mine, because I found them in the dresser. We must read them aloud sometime. Yes, the postman led me astray.’ She fell asleep.

He stared down at her, thanking God for bringing him to his senses. She had become a mother again, and his love had shifted for a while. Awe had replaced desire, and he had treated her like something delicate and priceless created by Fabergé. For some reason best known to womankind, Eileen had found the whole business hilarious. In the end, she had forced herself on him. Once recovered from sexual assault, he and she had returned to normal, or for what passed for normal between him and his beloved spouse.

Asleep, she was an angel; awake, she was exciting, unpredictable, passionate and crazy; this was definitely his kind of girl. She still spent the odd five minutes on a draining board . . .

Frankie and Helen gravitated towards their beloved Dada, curling at his feet and falling asleep in an instant. One by one, the Watsons joined them, Mel hot from running, Bertie in his riding gear, Phil with pad and charcoal, Rob moaning about acid and alkaline. Always welcome in several homes, the sons of Eileen and Lazzer slept where they landed. Nellie and Elsie made space when required. The boys had bedrooms in Willows, and there was a spare room in the newly renovated Greenhalgh double cottage. If the place got full, the dining room had a folding bed. But no matter where they rested their heads, these three boys always had Sunday lunch with Mam and Keith. It was a law they obeyed joyfully, because they had the best parents available to humanity.

The St Michael’s Road house in Crosby was closed and shuttered. Eileen would make up her mind about it after the war, when it could be returned to its former pristine glory, black woodwork and white walls. Mel and Peter were no longer a worry; they were forging ahead at school, outstripping all comers, aiming for the stars. Gloria, too, had bucked up, and she promised to be a pretty and clever woman. All was well, Keith reminded himself. The Americans were not only strong in number, they were also fresh, not yet fatigued by battle.

Eileen woke, while the rest of the various groups stopped talking. Mary Dominic made herself decent, and all awaited the arrival of a vehicle that rumbled its way up Willows Lane. No one present had ever before been so close to an American Jeep. Major Joseph L. Chalmers jumped out and waved his driver off to park the vehicle closer to the house. He ran to Marie, picking her up and spinning until she was dizzy. Marie ignored his rank; he was her GI Joe.

He placed her on the grass, awarded her a huge kiss, then beamed at the pure Englishness of the scene. ‘Beautiful,’ he said. Marie steadied herself, led him round and introduced him to those he had not already met. He spotted the Watson/Greenhalgh clan and said, ‘There’s the girl who introduced us, Marie. That Liverpool girl. My sisters will blame her when I stay here with you and try to become the English gentleman. If your country will have me, that is.’

‘Of course they’ll have you. There she is, Joe. There’s our Mel.’

But Amelia Anne Watson was having one of her moments. She walked behind the screen provided by the largest weeping willow. With her vision of the world fractured by trailing branches, she peered out at the people she loved, at an environment she had come to enjoy. Everything was so green and fresh, so untouched by hostility. This was how life should, could and would be. Even Peter was calm here in the bosom of Lancashire’s rolling generosity. He had settled into his own uncertainty, had decided to wait until the light dawned and pointed out his true way home. ‘I’m happy,’ she said to herself. ‘Everyone here is happy.’

While she watched, the tree whispered to her. Magical trees, beautiful gardens, contentment. Willows was filled with wonderful people, and she was a lucky girl. Well, she would be when the war ended, when clothes came off ration, when Gran stopped moaning about the shortage of tea, when sweets were more plentiful, when . . . She laughed. A few flies in the ointment? No matter. The willows were healthy, the land was fruitful, and an American Jeep was parked on the drive.

Mel stretched out in the shade, closed her eyes and dreamt of a better future. And the willow continued its whispering.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I welcome into my life

Wayne Brookes (editor) and

Ryan Child (Wayne’s assistant),

both fabulous people.

Thanks for all the help, boys.

Oh, and the laughs.

I dedicate this work to Daryl Whiting of New Gloucester, Maine, USA.

Daryl, sweetheart, never has the good fight been fought with better equilibrium, more humour, so much patience.

Readers, I beg your support for cancer research. This scourge must be eradicated.

Ruthie

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Home From Home

One

Through a gap in the buildings across the road, a short stretch of the Mersey was visible. On the waterfront, things were back to normal, more or less. Cranes appeared skeletal against a sky lit by an enthusiastic full moon, their metallic limbs stilled for now, because tomorrow was the Sabbath. The repairing of docks had begun almost before end-of-war rejoicing had ended, since the coming and going of ships kept Liverpool alive.

But up the road and further inland, areas of Bootle and the rest of the city waited to be rebuilt by a country impoverished by war. Piles of bricks and bags of sand and cement remained the backdrop of many people’s lives. It would happen, though. Eventually, the reconstruction of the community would be complete.

The building behind Paddy still retained the old sign, Lights of Liverpool, since it had once housed a factory that had made electric light fittings and lamps, but it had been closed down. Eventually, Paddy had taken it over as a place where hungry dock workers could be fed, and where Irish people could meet at the weekends. It had several nicknames including Scouse Alley and the Blarney, but Paddy still called it Lights when it was used for a function. And today had been a function, all right.

Paddy leaned against a wall and lit a cigarette. Out of several thousand Bootle houses, only forty had remained safe and steady at the final ceasefire. Roads had been repaired, and houses had been built, but in the year of our Lord 1958, some families remained in prefabs. ‘And the Catholics wait the longest time.’ Was this paranoia? Of course it was; some Catholics were properly housed, others were not, and Paddy’s family happened to fall into the latter group.

Behind Paddy, the wedding ceilidh was in full swing. Irish folk music crashed out of an open front door and into nearby streets, as did the whoops and cries of five dozen guests whose behaviour was deteriorating with every Guinness, every tot of whiskey. The fighting hadn’t started yet, but two people had disappeared off the face of the earth, and those two were bride and groom. They couldn’t have gone far, since Reen’s shoes had four-inch heels, while the groom was no more sensibly shod in his built-up brothel creepers.

Paddy, acting as security, loitered near the front doorway and fingered a whistle. When things got totally out of hand, a football referee’s equipment was as good as anything if help was needed. Ah. Here came young Seamus. ‘What is it now?’ Paddy asked.

The unwilling pageboy, resplendent in a food-streaked white satin suit, shoved an item into the doorkeeper’s hand. ‘Our Reen’s took her knickers off,’ the child said gravely, his accent pure Scouse. ‘They were under the table with my stupid hat. They made me wear a stupid hat.’ He would never, ever forgive the world for that stupid hat. His sister Reen was the chief culprit, of course, but surely some other member of the family could have saved him from such dire humiliation?

‘Yes,’ Paddy replied with sympathy. ‘But you took it off in church, so you did. And that was the most important part of today. It’s all over now, but. You need never wear the thing again.’

The little lad almost growled. ‘It’s on a lot of the photos. I kept taking it off, like, but people were always shoving it back on me head. Why won’t people leave people alone, Gran? All me life, I’ll be the lad in the hat. Mam will show loads of photos round the prefabs when I’m older. I look dead soft in that white satin thing.’

‘You’ll live it down. And the prefabs will be gone once our houses are rebuilt, so no bother. Away inside and tell your mammy that your sister is now Nicholas.’

The lad scratched his head. Then the penny dropped. ‘Oh. Knickerless.’

‘That’s the chap.’

He turned to walk away, still muttering under his breath about daft hats and frilly knickers. His own blood relative had forced him to dress up like something out of a pantomime. Liking Reen after this terrible day was going to take a degree of effort. He should have lost the blooming hat, should have put it where it might have been trampled underfoot till it fell apart. In fact, if he’d pinched a box of matches, he could have cremated the bloody thing.

‘Seamus?’ He was a beautiful child from a beautiful family, and Paddy was prejudiced, of course. But oh, he was gorgeous, and no mistake. Blue eyes, blond hair, good Irish skin.

‘What?’

‘You’ll be grand, so. I’ll see can I arrange the wedding album with as few photos of your daft hat as I can manage. Just leave it all to me. I’ll sort it as best I can, I promise.’

‘Thanks, Gran.’ He studied her for a few seconds. Patricia Maria Conchita Sebando Riley O’Neil owned Scouse Alley. She also appeared to own the supposedly temporary Stanley Square and all who lived there, though some people railed against her air of authority. The green rectangle, bordered by a tarmac path and twelve prefabricated bungalows, had been organized by the borough to house some of Bootle’s many displaced families.

‘Did I grow a second head?’ she asked. ‘You’re staring at me like I came down in one of those saucer things.’

Seamus grinned. He was proud of his grandmother. Paddy O’Neil held her drink as well as any man, and she was an excellent doorman. She could spot a gatecrasher from twenty paces, and had been known to lift two at a time towards the exit. ‘You make everything right, Gran,’ he told her. She was his star, his saint, his everything.

Paddy placed the whistle in a pocket. After patting her grandson on his Brylcreemed head, she walked towards the storage shed. Although this structure was made of thick metal, she could hear them, and they were at it like rabbits. ‘Maureen?’ she yelled, heavy emphasis on the second syllable. ‘Get yourself out here this minute if not sooner.’ There were two Maureens, and this one was usually named Reen. Both Maureens were mortallious troublesome, and the younger one would know she was in the doghouse, because she’d been given her full title on this occasion.

The sudden silence was deafening. ‘I have your knickers, madam. When the creature you married went under the top table, he was after more than the dropped spoon, so he was. You are a disgrace to your family. No need for you to laugh at my Irish-speak, Jimmy Irons. The day I start losing my accent is the same day I’ll start being a bit dead.’ She waited. ‘Right, now. Will I blow this whistle and get you a bigger audience?’

The door opened. A dishevelled bride did her best to conceal the groom, who was having trouble with his drainpipe trousers. Paddy wondered how he might feel in years to come when children looked at the wedding album. The photographs would be black and white, but the long-line, velvet-collared coat, the DA hair with the heavy quiff at the front, shoes with two-inch crêpe soles, black string tie – these could all become talking points. As for Reen . . . well . . .

‘Gran?’

‘What?’

The bride swallowed. ‘Can you sneak us in the back way so we can have a bit of a wash in the toilets?’

‘A bit of a wash?’ Paddy looked her up and down. ‘Reen, it’s fumigating you need. Hair like a bird’s nest, cascara all over your face – yes, I know, it’s mascara . . .’ The dress, which had started the day like stiffened net curtains from a hundred windows, was now limp and soiled. One bra strap had escaped its mooring rings, so young Maureen was now one up, one down, a bit like the house in which Paddy had started life in the old country. ‘The cake’s cut, so away home, the pair of ye.’

Jimmy stepped forward. ‘We waited till we were wed, Gran.’

Gran tapped a foot. Who with any sense would get married in a bright blue suit with shocking pink socks and a quiff that tumbled further down his face with every passing hour? Paddy knew for a fact that he used rollers and setting lotion in the front of his hair. Had Reen married a big girl’s blouse? ‘Then why didn’t you start the shenanigans on your way back down the aisle? Or on the church steps? Once you’d signed the heathen English papers, you were married in the eyes of the state.’

She looked them up and down. ‘And what a state this is. Just look at the cut of bride and groom, like tinkers at the Appleby horse fair. Away with the both of you. I’ll tell your mother you turned an ankle in one of those daft shoes, may God forgive my lying tongue. Go on. At least have the comfort of a bed before you start making babies.’ She sighed and shook her head; they were young, full of hope, and had a great deal to learn while navigating the stepping stones of real life.

Jimmy glared at his grandmother-in-law. Built like a brick outhouse without being actually fat, she was unsinkable, unreasonable, unforgiving. And yet . . . and yet there was a kindness in her. ‘We don’t want no babies yet.’ His accent was treacle-thick Scouse, but at least he was Catholic. ‘We want some time to ourselves first.’

‘You’ll have what God sends to you, so be thankful and keep its arse clean and its stomach filled. Marriage is more than slapping and tickling, so think on. It’s a pledge for life, better or worse.’

Think on? Jimmy was thinking on. He and his new wife had to live in a tiny space with Paddy and Kevin O’Neil. The design of Bootle’s prefabs meant that the bedrooms shared a wall, and he would be inhibited. Friday, Saturday and Sunday could be all right, because on those nights Scouse Alley became Lights Irish club, nicknamed the Blarney, and Paddy would be out of the house. But would those evenings be free, or would his mother-in-law from next door pay a visit with Seamus, her last resident child?

Paddy cleared her throat. ‘Look, I saved this for you as the best present. The O’Garas have a brand new little semidetached off Southport Road, just finished, it is. I got the rent book for you, so you’re to have their prefab in a few days. Your furniture will be a bit of a hotch-potch, but beggars and choosers are miles apart—’ She was silenced when the two of them grabbed and hugged her until she could scarcely breathe. ‘Let me be,’ she gasped. ‘I’ll be glad to be rid of the pair of you, so.’ She glared at Jimmy. ‘Nobody wears those daft suits any more. Only the young gangs dress so stupidly, and here’s you making a show of my granddaughter.’

He smiled at her. She was all sound and echo, and there wasn’t a bad bone in her body. ‘Thanks, Gran,’ he said. ‘Your blood’s worth bottling.’

They left hand in hand to continue their marital business in Paddy’s temporarily empty house. ‘God go with you,’ the Irishwoman whispered as the couple disappeared round a corner. They were decent kids. Daft, but decent. And the daftness would be eroded soon enough, because life would move in on them. ‘Hang on to your silliness,’ she mouthed. ‘And hang on to each other, because this is a cold, bold world.’

She lit a second cigarette and sat on a tea chest in the shed. Well over fifty years, she’d been in Liverpool. But if she closed her eyes, she was back in Ireland in that little one up, one down house, white with a black door, stuck in the middle of nowhere, miles of green in every direction. She saw cows and chickens, geese and pigs. It was a wondrous place, pretty, with an orchard full of apple trees, a secret stable where lived two supposedly matchless Arab stallions, and Ganga’s rickety sheds where stills bubbled and gurgled, and roofs and walls went missing in puffs of smoke from time to time. The isolation had been total. She just remembered when the house had been packed to the rafters with chattering people at the table, but most had disappeared over to England by the time Paddy was taking real notice.

There’d been no school, and not a solitary book in the house. Ganga slept downstairs near the fire, while the boys had a couple of mattresses at the other end of the same room. Upstairs, a curtain separated Muth and Da from the girl children, so no one had ever been in doubt about the creation of babies. How had they managed when the house had been fuller? Paddy had no idea. Perhaps some had slept in barns and unexploded huts? Ah yes, that row of caravans. Many had slept in those.

Ganga had been a sore trial, mostly because he blew up sheds with monotonous frequency. His life had been devoted to the perfecting of poteen, though he’d never really achieved that. He sold enough of it, sometimes taking off with the horse and cart for weeks at a time, only to return and cause further explosions all over the place. Paddy giggled. She remembered him with no moustache, half a moustache, one eyebrow, smoke rising from his flat cap. It was poteen money that had got everyone out of Ireland. It was poteen that caused all the explosions, but Ganga had blamed the spuds. Spuds, he had declared with every disaster, were not as stable as they used to be. The stud fees had been welcome, too . . . Paddy shook her head sadly, though a smile visited her lips. She had loved him . . .

But Ganga had died there, in that little white house miles from anywhere, a jug of home-brewed cider by his chair, a ticket for Liverpool in his pocket. All his adult children and their families were established in England, and he had intended to join them. But when Micky Malone, the nearest neighbour, travelled twenty miles to pick up Ganga’s cows and horses, he had found a corpse, three rebuilt sheds full of alcohol, a couple of stills, and some distressed cattle. He tended the cows, led away the aged horses, buried Ganga, took the stills and all they had produced, then sent a message with money to the oldest of the male emigrants.

Paddy drew on her Woodbine. Micky Malone had been an honest man, but when the money had been divided between all the Rileys, the sum for each of them had been paltry. When everything was sorted out, Paddy had received a pearl rosary from her dead ganga. The pearls hadn’t been real, of course. Muth and Daddy, now deceased, had done their best, God love them. They were buried in English soil, but in a Catholic cemetery. Paddy missed them every day of her life. Both had been immensely clever, yet neither had ever learned to read.

But Paddy had mastered the art. In her late teens, Paddy – known then as Patricia – had been handed over to Liverpool nuns. Unable to read or write, she had been placed with five-year-olds and, because of her skill with arithmetic, was nominated as a junior teacher in that area; in return, she was taught to read within months, and was then moved out into society to keep company with her peers. ‘I shone,’ she whispered now. ‘But to what end?’ There had been no chance of further education. The Cross and Passionist sisters had taken her, a young adult, out of the goodness of their hearts, but Paddy had wanted to be a qualified teacher.

‘No chance,’ she mumbled. ‘But you won’t moan, Paddy O’Neil. You’ve a good man, a precious daughter and lovely grandchildren.’ Even while alone, she made no mention of her sons. She didn’t want to think about them. They had followed her brothers into the gaping maw of England’s capital of culture, government and crime. More recently, Maureen’s lads had made the same journey. Six of them gone, two from each generation. Were they all in gangs? No, she wasn’t thinking of them, refused to. Invitations to the wedding had been ignored, and— ‘Stop it,’ she snapped aloud. Not thinking about them did as much damage as thinking about them.

The lovely grandchild returned covered in even more food and without the dreaded hat. He was worried. She could tell he was worried, because he was shifting his weight from foot to foot. ‘Gran?’

‘Would you ever consider the possibility of standing on both feet? You’ll have me dizzy.’

‘I counted, but I think she’s gone and hid some near the wall.’ The child bit his lip and stilled his lower limbs. He meandered on, throwing into the arena knickers, hat and his cheating mother. There were only seven bottles on the table, but there might be six or more hidden and she’d started singing. ‘I was busy with knickers, so I couldn’t watch her, could I?’

‘God,’ Paddy breathed. Maureen was a lovely girl, but she had a singing voice that might have persuaded the Titanic to accept its fate. ‘What’s she murdering this time?’

‘Cockles and mussels alive, alive oh.’

‘Bugger.’

‘That’s what Granda said.’

‘And she’s up?’

Seamus nodded. ‘She’s up.’

‘On the table?’

‘On a chair.’

Paddy delivered a sigh of relief. A chair was easy to deal with.

‘The chair’s on the table, and Mam’s on the chair, Gran.’

She gasped, as if retrieving that mistaken sigh. ‘Jaysus, she’ll be the death of me, Seamus. Your mother’s a lovely woman, but . . .’

There was a rule connected to Maureen, daughter of Paddy, mother to Seamus, to the bride and to a pair of sons who had moved south. She would go weeks and months without drinking, then an occasion would occur, and she needed a counter. Once appointed, the counter was in charge of keeping an eye on the intake. Twelve small bottles of Guinness constituted the limit. Once the twelfth empty hit the table, Maureen was handed over by the counter to Gran, who took her home.

‘Could be more than thirteen, Gran.’

She bridled. ‘Oh yes? And what’s your eejit grandfather doing?’

Seamus swallowed audibly. ‘First aid, I think.’

‘Holy Mother. So it’s kicked off?’

The child nodded.

It was chaos. Or, as Paddy described it, Bedlam with custard. Chairs had taken to the air, curses flew, while small heaps of people on the floor tried to beat the living daylights out of each other. Maureen, apparently oblivious to the situation she had caused, was balanced precariously on a chair, and the chair was far from steady on its table. The ceilidh band had escaped with its drums, Irish pipes and fiddles, while a clutch of emerald-clad young female dancers huddled in the kitchen doorway. The room, long and narrow when disguised as Scouse Alley, had partitions peeled back to make an L shape, and only the kitchen was separate and behind real walls.

Paddy risked her unstable daughter’s safety, blew her whistle, and the scene became still life. Maureen, trying hard to balance, stopped inflicting grievous bodily harm on Molly Malone. ‘Thomas Walsh?’ Paddy yelled. ‘Get your stupid wife – my stupid daughter – down from the perch. Any higher and she’ll be having a word with St Peter.’ She waited until Maureen was back on terra firma. ‘Take her home, Tom.’

‘But you’re the only one she’ll—’

‘Away with your burden. Time you learned to control the mother of your children. Knock her out if you have to, as we ran out of chloroform.’

A few people giggled, and Paddy’s right foot began a solo tap dance. ‘Do you know what this place is?’ she screamed. She delivered the answer to her own question in a lowered tone, because it fell into total silence. ‘Yes, we have a licence for weekends, but our first duty is to the dockers. This is a teetotal establishment to which anyone of any creed or colour may come for his lunch instead of going to the pub. Right?’

The congregation murmured.

‘So now, fewer dockers meet their maker or a surgeon in the afternoons. That is our primary function, to keep safe and sober our men. Tomorrow, after Mass, the committee gets its hands dirty and Scouse Alley clean.’ Very slowly, she scanned the room with narrowed eyes. ‘Do you know what Orange Lodgers say about an Irish Catholic wedding? Oh, yes. They call it a fight with chairs, a blessing and rosary beads. I want this place spotless by noon tomorrow.’

She stood her ground while family and guests began their attempt to clear the mess. Most of them were drunk enough to need a map to find their own feet, but she let them struggle on for a while. Even the priest was crawling round in trifle, bits of sausage roll and lumps of wedding cake. He was an old soak anyway, and Paddy was glad to see that he’d finally found his true level in life.

With arms folded, Paddy maintained her stance. She knew how they talked about her, what they said when she got ‘uppity’. Liver Bird Number Three was one of her titles. Some reckoned she was the one that had taken flight, that she had come down to earth to watch over lesser beings and keep them on their toes. Others had her down as Irish mafia, as an avenging angel from the dark side, as a big-mouthed biddy from Mayo. Till they needed something, that was. Oh, everything changed when they ran out of money, because Paddy O’Neil was no shark, and she treated people well when it came to finance.

When her gaze lit on her husband, she allowed herself a tight smile. He was one of her better decisions. From a family of fifteen children whose mother had died after delivering one final baby, he had made sure that his wife had not been weighed down by a rugby team. All their married life, he had kept a calendar, and Paddy had given birth only three times. Kev was a good man, the best.

Her eyes slid sideways to today’s best man, another Teddy-boy idiot in electric socks, crêpe-soled shoes, and trousers that looked as if they’d been painted on. He was spark out on the lino, his carefully cultivated quiff sweeping the floor in its now collapsed state. The world had gone mad.

Girls were as bad, if not worse. Those who couldn’t afford stiff, multi-layered net underskirts made their own waist-slips from cheap material with wire threaded through the hem. Occasionally such behaviour led to disaster, because a girl would sit on the wire, and the front of her hoop would shoot upwards to reveal stockings, suspenders and knickers. Boys celebrated such catastrophes, but many a girl stayed indoors for weeks after so humiliating an occurrence. Yes, they were all stark raving bonkers, and parents were mystified.

Maureen was being dragged out by her husband. Her parting shot was aimed at ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’, but she missed by a mile, as usual. Tomorrow, she would be sober; tomorrow, she would make no attempt to sing. The impulse to murder music arrived only with the thirteenth Guinness.

But tonight, Maureen had taken only six drinks, because tonight she needed to be sober. Remembering how to act drunk had been difficult. It was as if the booze altered every atom of her body and mind; she changed into a different person. ‘Let me go,’ she advised her supportive husband. ‘I touched hardly a drop. Michael and Finbar are back.’

Tom Walsh ground to a halt. ‘You what?’

‘I’m sober.’

‘And I’m the pope. What about Michael and Finbar? Why didn’t they come to the wedding? Their sister’s got married just today—’

‘They couldn’t,’ she snapped. ‘God knows who’s on their tails.’

Tom swallowed hard and processed his thoughts. ‘You let the wedding go ahead when you knew it could have been any or all of us? Who is it this time? The bloody Krays, the Bow Boys, the Spitalfields so-called sodding Soldiers?’ Furious now, he grabbed his wife’s shoulders and shook her. ‘Is it the Greeks?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whimpered.

‘But you do know all them London bastards go for family. We could have been blown up. You took our lives into your hands—’ His jaw dropped as she took something from her handbag. ‘Who the buggering bollocks gave you that? Is it loaded?’

‘Course it is. What use would it be without bullets? Fin gave it me. They’re hiding with Ernie Avago. Well, they’re in his mam’s bedroom, God rest her soul.’ She returned the gun to its resting place.

Tom groaned. Ernie’s mother would be spinning in her grave. ‘I’ll kill the bloody pair of them,’ he said. ‘My sons are criminals. I suppose Seamus’ll join them in a few years.’

‘He won’t. My Seamie’s a good lad.’

‘So were Fin and Michael till they went and found the uncles down the East End of blinking London. Come on, let’s sit in the shed for a minute, because my legs don’t know whether it’s Tuesday or dinner time.’

They had scarcely opened the shed door when it happened. A large, black car slid almost noiselessly to the front of Scouse Alley. Two men emerged with machine guns. It was unreal. The shiny vehicle reflected moonlight, as did the weapons in the criminals’ hands. It was real. Tom pushed his wife into the shed, then hid himself behind the partially open door.

He grabbed his wife’s bag, pulled out the gun and, with just two bullets, shot the intruders in their heads. He’d been a good sniper, though never with a weapon as small as this one. It was unreal again. But the car door opened once more, and that was very real. Tom felled the third man with professional accuracy; his time in the Lancashire Fusiliers had not been wasted. His knees buckled and he sank to the floor. It was all too bloody real. Never since the war had he killed. Trained for weeks in a firing range, Tom had become an asset to his regiment. He had medals. He had medals for his chest, and British civilian blood on his hands. Yet those machine guns would have killed everyone in the hall. He had saved many lives, but he felt sick to the core.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ his sobbing wife prayed.

The doors of the main building slammed shut, and lights were turned off. That would be Paddy’s doing. Tom’s mother-in-law was always on the ball, and she was following well-sharpened instincts. ‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered Maureen. ‘There could be a second car. I’ll be with you, so don’t worry.’ He dug in her bag and found spare bullets.

No second car arrived. When half an hour had disappeared into eternity’s backlog, Tom left the shed and knocked on the door of Scouse Alley. ‘It’s only me,’ he stage-whispered. He entered a silent room lit only by the small red ends of thirty or more cigarettes.

‘What happened?’ Paddy demanded. When her son-in-law had supplied the quiet answer, she walked to the door and stepped outside. Three bodies. No visible witnesses. She thanked God for the moon before fetching Maureen from the shed. ‘Not a word,’ she threatened. Inside, she told the audience that an old car could have backfired, but they must all stay where they were just in case something was about to kick off, since it might have been gunfire. Then she shone her torch and picked out Kev and two relatively sober and trustworthy men. Tom led them out. Three nearly sober men, three dead gangsters, three machine guns. Everything was coming in threes. Guns, ammunition, a car and three bodies had to disappear before daybreak. And Paddy’s two eejit grandsons were at the back of it. She would rip the truth out of them even if it took a scalpel to do it.

People were getting restless. ‘Look,’ she told them.

‘We can’t look – it’s too bloody dark,’ replied a disembodied voice.

‘Listen, then, Smarty Pants. Very, very quietly, let’s sing “Faith of Our Fathers” in thanksgiving for a lovely wedding on a lovely day. The bride and groom are gone, but the rest of us must stay here until we find out what’s afoot outside.’ She switched on a few of the lights.

So they sang in an almost whisper the battle hymn of all Catholics: ‘Faith of our fathers living still, in spite of dungeon, fire and sword . . .’

Paddy nudged Maureen, who was crippled by near-hysteria. ‘When we don’t want you singing, you fire on all cylinders. Come on, now. Fa-aith of our fa-a-ther-ers, holy faith, we will be true to thee till death. We will be true to thee till death.’ Three dead. Three corpses, three semi-automatic guns, one huge car in front of Scouse Alley. Fortunately, all the blinds were closed, so no one could glance out at the horrible scene. She did, though. Tom was swilling blood off the paths. In the moonlight, it looked black, like thick oil. The car and the bodies were gone, and Kev was searching the ground with a flashlight. She thanked God that ‘Faith of Our Fathers’ was such a long and repetitive hymn.

‘Paddy?’

‘What?’

‘Can we go now?’

‘Just stack the chairs, then leave through the kitchens. I want to see none of you at the front in case that was a gun firing. We’re not far from bonded warehouses, and some Saturday nighters might have a thirst and no sense. Go on with you. Maureen, pull yourself together and take your son home. Walk with the men. Tom will be back soon, I promise.’

Maureen blinked stupidly, like a woman trying not to wake on a workday morning. ‘He killed—’

‘Shut up. Shut your mouth before I find a padlock for it. He did what he had to do. He saved my life, yours, Seamus’s. Your husband’s a good man, and well you know it. This was never murder.’

‘But Mam—’

‘I’ve changed me mind. Stay here with me. I don’t want you strolling along and letting your brains pour out through that colander you call a skull. I can’t trust you not to talk out of the holes in your head, especially the one gaping above the jaw.’

The scraping and stacking of chairs drowned the women’s words. Paddy warned her daughter again. ‘Not a syllable in front of Seamus. And you’d be best off saying nothing when your daughter manages to separate herself from the Teddy boy she married.’

‘I’m scared, Mam.’

‘And I’m not?’

They were alone at last when Tom came in. ‘Done and dusted,’ he mouthed. ‘Maureen, your gun’s in Davy Jones’s locker. Car burned well away from here, petrol tank exploded, everyone of ours safe.’

‘And the bodies?’ Paddy kept an eye on Seamus, who was picking debris from the floor. ‘Well?’

‘Cremated in the car.’

Paddy, still strong as a horse, suddenly felt her age. A woman in her early sixties should not be needing to worry about delinquent brothers, sons and grandsons. Michael and Fin had gone south to look for work, and they had probably found it with their uncles and great-uncles. Paddy’s brothers, too old now to carry weight in the East End, had passed their unstable crowns to her sons. Those sons, in their forties, were now training their own children and poor Maureen’s boys.

‘Mam?’

‘Leave me alone a minute, so, Maureen.’ She walked into the huge rear kitchen and leaned on the sink. Descended as she was from a determined Irish clan and from shipwrecked Armada-ists way back in time, Paddy had a temper fit to strip paint. It was bubbling now in her throat like heartburn after too hefty a meal. ‘Ganga,’ she whispered. ‘Ganga, Daddy, Muth, I’ve let you down. I’m sorry, so sorry.’ She hadn’t been the oldest in her section of the huge family, but she’d been the oldest girl – hence her Irish/Spanish name. In the mother country, women kept the men on a path as straight and narrow as possible. But she’d let her brothers go, and they had married southern Protestants. ‘And look at the result,’ she spat softly.

Her sisters were probably fine. They would have married within the church and were doubtless scattered hither and thither throughout the north of England. A few of the lads were said to be decent and hardworking, so she could be proud of most of the original immigrants. But her brothers Peter and Callum had gone to the bad, and the result had turned life upside down tonight. In her head, she carried a picture of what might have been. She saw Scouse Alley, currently Lights, filled with crumpled bodies, blood and flesh everywhere, no movement, just the odd groan from those who hadn’t died immediately.

‘Gran?’

She dried angry eyes. ‘Seamus, hello.’

‘Don’t cry, Gran.’

She squatted down and held his shoulders. ‘Promise me, lad. Promise me you’ll never go to London.’

‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘They could send me anywhere.’

Paddy swallowed. ‘Who could?’

‘The army. I want to be a crack shot like my dad.’

A knife pierced her heart. ‘Why would you want to be a sniper, son?’

He shrugged. ‘I just do.’

It would be all right, she consoled herself. Last week, he’d wanted to be a train driver, and she remembered from months ago his determination to be a fireman or a bobby. He would grow out of the army idea, had to grow out of it. ‘Go home with your daddy, sweetheart. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Alone except for Maureen in the hall, Paddy began to focus on Finbar and Michael, Maureen’s older boys. Poor old Ernie Avago was lumbered with them. They had brought hell to Liverpool, to their own family, to a lovely old retired dock worker who hadn’t a clue about his lodgers’ true nature. What was his real name, now? Ernie had been christened Avago by his fellow dockers, because whenever he encountered a man with a difficult task, he always said, ‘’Ere, lad. Let me ’ave a go.’ Avago. He would help anybody, would Ernie. And now, he was nursing in his generous heart two devils from the depths of hell.

Maureen entered the kitchen. ‘Mam?’

‘Did you calm down at all?’

‘A bit.’

‘Right, well make sure it’s a big bit by morning. I want to go and save Ernie Avago. I can’t have him full of bullet holes courtesy of the Kray twins.’

Maureen hung her head.

‘Well? What are you hiding from me, madam? All your life you’ve been unable to lie to me.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘And? Lift your head this minute.’

Slowly, the younger woman raised her chin and faced her angry mother. ‘Fin and Michael are with the Spits, I think.’

‘The Spitalfields Soldiers? Are you sure? Not the Bow Boys?’

Maureen shrugged. ‘They’ve stolen something from somebody, and that somebody sent our visitors to get it back or whatever.’

‘Whatever? Whatever’s whatever?’

‘Blood. They would have shot my sons or members of the wedding party until they got the truth. Fin and Michael must have mentioned the wedding. Each gang has spies in the others. So whatever the Spits know, the Bows, the Krays and the Greeks also know.’

‘So who did we kill and cremate?’

Maureen had no idea.

‘And you knew this might happen today? How could you let the wedding go on if you knew what could arrive here?’

‘Reen would have been heartbroken if I’d stopped her big day.’

‘Heartbroken is better than dead.’

Maureen straightened her shoulders and stuck out her chin. ‘Always so sodding sure, aren’t you, Mother? I stayed sober and did what I could. We can’t all be like you, patron saint of the righteous. Just stay out of my way, because you are getting on my bloody nerves. I’ll deal with this.’ She paused. ‘My husband and I will deal with it. Keep out of our business.’

Paddy sat on a stool. It hadn’t been easy, any of it. For a start, there was a whole dynasty to think about, and she didn’t know half their names. Muth, Daddy, Paddy and her siblings had been the last to be shipped out of Ireland, and all the others seemed to have been gone for years. Muth had been a useful sort of person in the house, and Paddy had pulled her weight on the land, as had her father, brothers and sisters, so they had been kept on until Ganga had saved that final pile of cash. ‘Just me, now,’ he had declared. ‘And I’ll be grand, so. In a few months I’ll be with you. Micky Malone’s missus will do me a bit of baking, and I’ll be down to the ferry boat quicker than a bull at a cow, so I will.’

With her head in her hands, Paddy placed her elbows on the huge wooden drainer next to the sink. Ganga had died in the old country. Muth hadn’t thrived. Liverpool had crushed her with its crowds, its noise, its busy-ness. At the beginning of the Great War, she had taken to her bed and faded away. After a short period of mourning, Paddy’s generation began to disperse, marry and move to various parts of England. ‘Including London,’ Paddy whispered. ‘To hell with London and its gangs.’ But she should know where her siblings and their offspring were. Too busy working, too busy establishing Kev’s stall on Paddy’s Market, the business that had provided the funds for Scouse Alley.

She’d married Kev, and had borne three children. Her brothers, Peter and Callum, were lost for ever. Her sons, Martin and Jack, were similarly doomed. No God would ever forgive the deeds performed by members of those East End gangs. Paddy had learned about her brothers only when two more generations had joined them. The situation had been further clarified by newspaper accounts. Reading about her own son in jail for GBH, seeing his photograph on the front page . . . Oh, God. That a child of hers could beat halfway to death an old jeweller who refused to pay protection money . . . ‘Stop this,’ she told herself.

Maureen was still here, but two of her sons had followed Uncles Peter, Callum, Martin and Jack to hell. Reen had married today, and Seamus had moaned about his white satin cap. ‘I’m glad you weren’t with us, Daddy.’ Paddy’s father had followed Muth to heaven within a year, and Paddy felt glad that he hadn’t survived to a great age to see the performance here tonight.

What next? Maureen and her husband Tom might well be in danger. Their sons Finbar and Michael were definitely as safe as if standing in quicksand, while poor little Seamus, Maureen’s precious afterthought, must be protected at all costs. And what if the London lot knew about other members of the clan? They lived all over the place, and Paddy hoped they were, for the most part, decent and honourable folk doing jobs, raising families, living the ordinary, acceptable life.

She raised her head and looked round the huge room. No matter what, cauldrons of scouse must be ready by Monday lunch time, soda bread must be prepared, with tea or cocoa to finish. For the first time in many a year, Paddy wished she’d stayed in Ireland. She had never been one to look back in anguish, to complain about the English, to mourn the loss of a prettier, greener home. Children got educated here, got jobs, got on in life. She had good company, shops, a business to run.

Maureen. Ah, she would calm down quickly enough, because she’d never manage without her mother. Paddy and Maureen were close, and this was a serious problem, far too tangled and dangerous for Maureen and Tom to handle. But who could manage the unmanageable? Where to start, where to go, what to say?

Oh, God. It was complicated. They had to find out what had been stolen from whom and by whom. Three men, whose provenance remained a mystery because they were dead, would be missed within hours or days. Were they from London? Were they northerners hired by the big boys down south? Would more come to look for the disappeared ones and should a weapon be acquired for Tom? How long did it take for an old woman to go mad in a big kitchen with only her thoughts for company?

No matter what they’d done, Fin and Michael were family. ‘I suppose that’s how Mrs Kray reasons with herself,’ Paddy said out loud. ‘She ignores what they do, yet she’s reputed to stand up for women everywhere. No, no, I can’t go to her for help. Low profile, Paddy,’ she told herself.

‘Talking to the walls again, love?’

She jumped, a hand pressed to her chest. ‘I thought you’d gone home, Kev.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve been wandering round in circles outside, kept meeting meself on the way back. No, Paddy. I’ll go nowhere without you at a time like this.’ He sat on another of the stools and rolled a cigarette. ‘What the blood and sand are we going to do about this little lot?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’ Paddy raised her shoulders. ‘I’ve had the sack from me daughter. She says she’ll manage.’

Kev sputtered on trapped hysteria. ‘Our grandsons, Pads.’

‘I know.’

‘And our sons.’

‘And my brothers, yes, yes, I know. Three generations of heroes. But we have to sit tight and see what happens. However, no matter what Maureen says, we go to Ernie Avago’s tomorrow even if it means missing Mass.’ She sighed deeply and rose to her feet. ‘Come on, lover boy. Let’s go and listen to the eejit grandson-in-law beating the hell out of our spare bed.’

‘Paddy, he’s a good lad.’

‘I know, I know. Just leave me something to laugh at, would you?’

They locked up. Kev stepped away from the door, but Paddy stayed where she was.

‘Pads?’

She inhaled deeply. ‘You know when you’re thinking about something, and something else moves into your head? And the second something has nothing at all to do with the first something? I was thinking about the second something earlier on, but it jumped through a hoop in the middle of my new first something. I wonder do I have dementia?’

Kev shook his head. It was a good job he understood Irish. ‘No, love. If you’ve got dementia, God help the rest of us – you’re the clearest thinker for miles. What is it?’

‘Caravans.’

‘Come again?’

‘That’s how they did it. When there were too many of us in the house, I mean. There was a big stone-built barn with one of the long sides missing. That’s where they slept, I suppose. In painted wagons. We used to play in the last one. I think there were four or five of them at one time, then all but one were gone, as were uncles, aunties and so forth. We stayed for years, as I already told you many a time. Ganga minded us well, you know. Strong man. Survived the worst potato blight when he was young, brought his family through some bad times.’

Kev waited for her to reach the end of the path she was currently treading.

‘The aunties and uncles will be dead by now, but I’ve cousins out there somewhere. And second cousins, too.’

‘Are you starting a gang of your own, Pads?’

She tutted. ‘No, but there’s safety in numbers. We must advertise.’

‘Under lost and found?’

She clouted him with her handbag. ‘Under personal messages, you dope.’ She paused. ‘Tom did wrong in the eyes of the law, but right in the cause of justice and for the sake of family. We would all have been dead. Now, that’s the sort of strength Ganga had. Never a penny to his name, too busy sending everyone over to England.’ She leaned on the door. ‘And no one could read or write. They were supposed to stay in Liverpool and in an Irish community where they might be found by word of mouth. But they didn’t. Their kids grew up, married and sallied forth. I’ve had tales from hereabouts, so I know roughly where they are, but I need to look for them.’

‘Why, Paddy?’

‘No idea. Let’s get home.’

I saw them, saw what they did. Set fire to a car with three people in it. But I was busy myself, and I’ve plenty to hide. Cheap tart this time, just a nylon scarf and a pair of poxy earrings, probably Woolworth’s best. ‘Will you step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly . . .’

Two

The natives were becoming restless again. Smithdown Road, always a hive of activity at weekends, had slipped with the rest of the country into a chaos made for teenagers, by teenagers, no adults allowed. Grown men could be seen standing in shop doorways scratching their heads and wondering, not always silently, why they’d bothered to fight in the second war. ‘Keep your bloody creepy shoes off my door,’ yelled many a shopkeeper while washing his paintwork. Teddy boys swaggered along swinging heavy chains. These lads were noisy, greasy, ill-dressed, ill-mannered, up to their quiffs in testosterone and determined to impregnate anything that moved.

There had been a shift, a slight rocking of the planet’s axis, because youth had grabbed life by the throat without warning. There was a silent synchronicity at the start. With no obvious discussion on the subject, they had suddenly appeared, males as gaudy imitations of Edwardians, females in wide skirts that hung to mid-calf. These were signals; from now on, older people would be forced to heed the requirements of the young. Curfews imposed by parents didn’t always work. There was new music, a new order that was decidedly disordered. Earth had tilted, and nothing would ever be the same again.

On Saturdays, girls promenaded on one side of the road, boys on the other. Someone with a whimsical turn of phrase had christened the occasion the ‘Saturday Prom’, and the title had stuck. It was colourful. Females with cash or indulgent parents displayed stiff net underskirts in many shades, and almost everyone was a bottle blonde. Several had hair from which all natural texture had been stripped by frequent applications of peroxide, while their faces looked as if they’d been plastered on with small trowels and finished off with miniature paintbrushes.

Parents might laugh at or rail against such displays, but for young females, this was serious business. They were Dianas, goddesses of the hunt. Although they presented themselves as prey, they were, in truth, the seekers of victims. Their traps were baited, their antennae set on red alert, and their radar was in tiptop condition. Scarcely aware of their goal, these fine, nubile time-bombs were in charge. They needed a boyfriend, a fiancé, then a husband. It was the law. Young women who were not engaged by the age of twenty-one were destined for the shelf. Spinsterhood was dreaded, and the idea of further education never entered their heads; it was marriage or nothing, and nobody wanted nothing.

Dresses in glazed cotton were the order of the day for girls, while boys wore their silly uniforms: long-line jackets in bright colours, thick-soled shoes, tight trousers, dazzling socks and ties like bootlaces. But an uneasiness had descended of late, because fashions were changing, and no one was sure what was supposed to come next. It was time to alter clothes and attitude again, but the new formula was still in its development stage, probably somewhere south of Watford.

Teenagers of the fifties had grabbed their chance by inserting punctuation marks in time, by taking hold of the nowhere years and using them to their own advantage. No longer did they dress as their parents dressed; no longer did they follow family patterns when it came to work. Choice was theirs; they would make up their own minds. Teenagers were a force to be reckoned with; they were challenging the mores of their elders. And their elders were bemused, to say the least of it.

‘Why?’ Theresa Compton stood in the window of the launderette. Her husband, too disabled for full-time or strenuous work, sat behind her on one of the customers’ benches. He had wiped down all the machines while Tess washed the floor. The place stank of Dettol, because Saturday evening was the big clean-up time.

‘Mad, isn’t it?’ he replied. ‘What happened, eh?’

She shook her head. The war had been over for thirteen years, and things had started to look up, but the kids had gone strange. It had all seemed to happen overnight. As recently as 1955, young people had left school on a Friday, had started work the next Monday. They followed dads to the docks, mothers to the dry-cleaning company, to the biscuit factory, to shops and offices.

But now, they seemed to have developed a disease that started with a blinding rash that covered their whole bodies. Most were too young for employment, but several of the older ones rushed away from work at the weekend and donned this strange clothing. ‘I wonder what me mam would have said about this lot?’ Tess’s mother, dead for several years, had been an Irish immigrant with no time at all for change. She’d worked hard, worshipped faithfully, died in her sleep. ‘I’ll bet she’d have clouted our Sean and our Anne-Marie. I reckon these daft swine wear their coats long to hide the splits in their tight trousers. As for Anne-Marie – she has to squash her skirts to get through a doorway.’

She moved closer to the window. Sean wasn’t visible, but Anne-Marie was acting all coy and daft in the company of a Protestant in a pea-green coat with the compulsory black velvet collar, and electric blue socks peering cheekily from under the hems of abbreviated trousers. ‘Their trousers are too short,’ Tess complained. Pea-Green had crossed the road to be with Anne-Marie, who was only fifteen. He’d better keep his hands to himself, or he’d be in serious trouble.

‘That’s to show off their socks,’ Don answered. ‘They look like they’ve all escaped from some bloody circus.’

‘Don’t swear,’ Tess said almost absently. She turned round. ‘Did you go and have a look at that carpet I told you about?’

‘I did,’ he answered. ‘And it’s horrible.’

Tess bridled. By no means a large woman, she seemed to swell when annoyed. ‘But it’s all the rage, Don. Are you sure you looked at the right one? Skaters’ Trails, it’s called. Everybody’s buying it.’

‘Everybody’s buying shocking pink socks and sticky-out underskirts, but we’re not. Mind, you’re only too right in a way. They’re all at it, Tess, not just the kids. Furniture with daft, splayed-out legs, convex mirrors that act like something out of a Blackpool fun house – everybody looks distorted in one of them. What’s the point of a mirror like that, eh? There’s nothing solid any more. And that carpet you’re on about is as ugly as sin. They even had what they called a coffee table. It was curved upwards at each end, looked as if it might take off any minute. Hideous. Made of plastic supposed to look like wood, but it didn’t.’

‘You’ve no taste, that’s your problem.’

‘I have. Utility’s good enough for me. And there’s nothing wrong with that Axminster square up there.’ He waved a hand towards the ceiling. ‘It’s a nice flat. We don’t need carpets.’

Tess held her tongue. The second bedroom had been divided into two smaller rooms for the kids, and they were growing. She wanted a house, planned on letting the flat and continuing to supervise the launderette while Don went into estate agency in the empty shop next door.

She sighed. Menlove Avenue wasn’t far, yet it seemed a million miles from this busy road. An ambitious woman, Tess had always pictured herself in a nice semi-detached with gardens, on a tree-lined avenue, among posh neighbours and with a washing machine in the kitchen rather than in a shop beneath their living quarters. The car was paid for, the launderette practically ran itself, and there was money enough for a deposit on a house and for Don’s estate agency. Well, she thought there was . . .

But she had just one problem: she hadn’t yet advised her husband that he was going to be an estate agent. It was a nice, clean, elegant job. All he needed was a desk, a telephone, adverts in the evening paper and someone to do the running about for him. Oh, and houses. Yes, he would need a few of those.

She looked at him. He was a good dad, a decent enough husband, a man with a total lack of enthusiasm when it came to betterment of self. Injured at Dunkirk, he had been rendered unfit to work in the building trade, but he knew enough about the business to recognize a decent house for sale. He should handle the elegant end of the market. She was thinking the word ‘elegant’ all the time, wasn’t she? But a semi on Menlove Avenue was so important. It was her goal, all she wanted, all she thought about.

‘What are you cooking now?’ he asked.

‘Nothing.’ It was probably because of Mam and Dad, God rest them. They’d slept in a gypsy caravan in a barn, children crammed together at the warmer end, the two adults near the door. Yes, there had been a door, but it never fitted properly. Tess shivered. She remembered meals at a huge table inside the white house, an occasional bath in front of a roaring fire, the scent of apples fermenting their way towards cider, sounds like gunfire when a still decided to give up its dead in huts dedicated to the manufacture of illegal spirits. The ganga man had sent everyone to England and, because no one could read or write, everyone had eventually lost touch with everyone else. ‘I want us all safe,’ she said quietly.

‘We are safe.’

‘I want to own a house,’ she said.

‘And I want a new knee, but I’m not likely to get one, am I?’

‘You can drive. You’ve got your blessed car. What have I got? What have we as a family got? A rented flat and ten washing machines. I want a house, Don, a house of our own.’

He groaned. ‘Menlove Avenue beckoning again? Look, I can’t go out to work full-time and pay a mortgage.’

‘Yes, you can,’ she snapped. ‘You can rent next door and help folk sell their houses. Our Sean can be your assistant. It’s a clean job, a damned sight better than the one he’s got now, all motor oil and filthy nails. Have you seen the state of him when he gets home?’

Don’s mouth hung open.

‘Shut your gob; there’s a tram coming.’

He snapped his teeth together. ‘I’d need real money to put next door right. I doubt it’s seen a paintbrush this century.’

Tess turned and faced him properly. ‘There’s two ways to go about it. You can set yourself up, or you can work for Maitland and Corby. They want to open smaller branches in what they call the suburbs. We can make an appointment with them any time. There’s a basic wage, gas, electric and phone paid for by them, and you get a percentage of everything you sell.’

Don didn’t like the sound of it.

Tess didn’t like the sound of whatever was happening outside. She dashed to the door and stared wide-eyed at the scene in the middle of the road. Dozens of teenagers on massive motorbikes had driven up between the Teddy boys and their wide-skirted female counterparts on the opposite pavement. The leader held up a hand, and all the bikes stopped. He cast an eye over the multicoloured locals. ‘Look,’ he shouted, mockery decorating the word. ‘Still back in the Dark Ages.’

Drainpipe-trousered lads became round-shouldered as if trying to disappear altogether. Even their chains lost sheen and hung limply from hands that didn’t know what to do with themselves.

Don stood behind his wife. ‘Rockers,’ he whispered.

‘More like crackers, you mean.’

‘Their leathers must have cost more than a month’s wages,’ Don continued. ‘As for the bikes – they’ll be on the never-never.’

The Rockers were laughing at the out-of-touch Teds, while pillion passengers, mostly female, dismounted and poked fun at the Smithdown Road girls. Rockers’ chicks wore jeans and boots, denim or leather jackets, gloves and roll-necked jumpers. Even on a summer evening, riding was a chilly business.

‘So this is what comes next,’ Tess muttered.

‘Half of it,’ Don told her. ‘The rest are Mods. They ride scooters and wear army greatcoats, and they want peace. That means ban the bomb, Aldermaston and making love instead of war.’

‘I don’t like the idea of that,’ Tess pronounced.

Don kept his counsel. She wouldn’t like the idea of the retort he bit back, would she? When she’d wanted a baby, she’d found a way of making love to a man who could take no weight on one of his knees. She’d been gentle, tender and loving, but it had been just a means to an end. Two children, one of each, and she was finished with all that. Occasionally, very rarely, he managed a pleasant moment when she turned her back on him in bed, but the love had gone out of her. She was allowing him a favour for old times’ sake, no more than that. He was a beggar at the queen’s table, and the humiliation was killing him. There had to be an end to this unsavoury situation, and he must speak up soon; in fact, he should do it now.

‘We have to get away from here,’ she said.

Don continued to hold his tongue, because once he started, it would all tumble like Niagara.

‘I know it’s not far, but it’s far enough. I can’t see this bike lot roaring up and down a nice residential road with trees and grass verges, can you? Bay windows, too. I’ve always wanted bay windows.’ She looked him full in the face. ‘Don?’

He turned and limped back through the door, his hand shaking on the stick that aided his walking. His children were important to him, and he’d planned to drift on until they were on their own roads, no walking stick required to assist them along the way. Why couldn’t she stop meddling? She was meant to have been satisfied with her launderette and her flat, but nothing would stay her determination to keep up with the Joneses she hadn’t even met.

She came in. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

His kids were outside but nearby. They were wearing the wrong clothes, articles that had been crossed off the lists of many teenagers twelve months back. He half expected Anne-Marie to fly into the shop at any moment; she had jeans and blouses upstairs. ‘Leave me alone, Tess,’ he said.

She folded her arms and stood in front of machine number seven. He looked almost as sad as he’d been after Dunkirk, defeated, heartbroken and completely wrecked. Uneasily, she shifted her weight from foot to foot. At the start of the war, she’d already been pregnant with Sean, but she had needed him for Anne-Marie . . . Yet he’d never complained, and he still managed sometimes to make it happen . . . He didn’t understand her, had never understood what went on inside her head, the memories, the fears, the need not to get pregnant again . . .

Don looked his wife full in the face. When had she last kissed him? When had she placed a hand on his thigh, an arm across his shoulders, her head on his chest? Why did he have to make love without seeing her face? Love? There was virtually nothing left in him, either, apart from this fierce, protective affection for the children. Yet the cold, hard woman with whom he had lived for twenty-odd years was still the best-looking in Liverpool. Her face, with its almost heart-shaped beauty spot on the right cheekbone, was perfect. He wanted her, but he was no animal.

He took a deep breath. ‘I’m here for the kids,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll go when they go. I don’t want to buy a house with you, live with you, eat with you. If we had another room here, I’d be sleeping in it.’ There. He had said most of it. Yet he derived little relief from opening his mouth and speaking his truth. He felt terrible, as if he had trodden on a small creature with no means of defending itself. Because she couldn’t help being what she was. Why she was what she was – that was another matter altogether, and not quite a mystery.

Tess closed her mouth so quickly and inaccurately that she bit her tongue.

‘I’m still a man,’ he reminded her as gently as possible. ‘I might walk like a ruptured duck, but I’m all there apart from that. We’ve lived a lie since our Anne-Marie was born. Everybody managed without all sorts while you worked and saved for this business – and all power to you – well done. But you never asked what I wanted. When you go to the chippy, you always fetch me a steak pudding. I might fancy cod once in a while, but you don’t ask. In your mind, I’m just a steak pudding, a body at the table, a man whose stiff knee holds you back. It’s no way to live, Tess.’ This wasn’t living; it was an existence, no more.

She felt as if the world had shifted sideways on its axis. ‘Where will you go?’ she asked, her voice cracking.

‘I’ve somewhere to go. It’s a bit late for you to start worrying about my welfare, isn’t it? I got married where you told me, when you told me, let my kiddies go to RC schools. When I came back from war early and less than perfect, I realized I’d got more affection out of the ancient mariner who brought me back in his leaky boat than I’ve ever had from you.’ He was being cruel, yet he couldn’t stop the words pouring like hot magma from a tear in the earth’s crust.

Tess stared at the floor, wished it would open up and swallow her. The expression on his face, or rather the lack of expression, made her sick, ashamed and . . . and alone. She was suddenly terrified. Anne-Marie would leave school in a few weeks, and she wanted to go in for hairdressing. Apprentices and improvers worked long hours. Sean was doing mechanics in a garage, and he was already talking about getting a flat with a couple of mates. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she begged, hating herself before the words were out. She couldn’t be left, mustn’t be left.

He stared hard at her before answering. ‘You left me years ago, Tess. I’ve read that many books, I’m an almost-walking encyclopedia. Invasion by Danes, Romans, Saxons, I’m your man. I know most poets, the workings of the internal combustion engine, how to build a bloody dry-stone wall, how to make a patchwork quilt. Dickens, Mark Twain, even Geoffrey flaming Chaucer; I’ve digested the lot. And all the time, you’ve followed your road and dragged this bloody cripple along at the back of you.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

Don smiled, though his eyes remained cold. ‘Oh, yes, you’re sorry. Sorry you won’t get a three-bedroom semi with gardens, horrible carpets and a fly-away coffee table. I’ve no intention of becoming an estate agent. There’s very few houses for sale, anyway, because we’re still rebuilding what Hitler bombed. No, I’m quite happy manning the phone six mornings a week at Braithwaites, ta. It may not pay much, but a builders’ merchants is right for me with my experience.’

That was the point at which Tess suffered her first ever panic attack. It closed in without warning or mercy, removing light from the room, air from her lungs, strength from her limbs. Something hot yet chilling coursed through her veins, while her heart went into overdrive, fluttering and jumping about behind her ribs like a bat in an unfamiliar cave. She was cold to the bone. She was in a caravan on a winter’s night, the only warmth available the body heat of her siblings, at least one of which number still wet the bed almost every night.

Don, believing she was having a tantrum of some kind, lowered his chin and drifted back in dream time. 1936. She’d had hair like ripe corn, eyes of the clearest, brightest blue, a neat little figure, and a mind as clear as a bell even then. Her family, with whom Tess had no longer lived, had been dragged into the equation by a local nun who’d learned of the banns. Prejudiced beyond measure, the tribe had fought Tess’s determination to enter a mixed marriage, albeit within the Catholic Church. Priests, teachers and even a bishop had been dragged into the ring, but Tess had remained unmoved. She told everyone that she would live in sin, so she finally achieved permission to marry. Don should have known then. From a relatively affluent family, he had been a good catch. But his father’s premature death and his mother’s second marriage to a wastrel had put paid to Tess’s hopes before her marriage to Don was two years old. Then the war, then the knee, then the steak puddings . . .

Tess loved Tess. She guarded herself against return to the conditions of a childhood that had been impoverished, uncertain and pugnacious. When it came to food and clothing, it had been child against child, and may the best urchin win. A smaller than average girl, she had suffered, so she wanted a warm nest and plenty of space and nourishment. These were her rights, and he had been the one with the duty to furnish her with such requirements. But he had failed by losing his father, his father’s money, and the use of one of his hinge joints. She never expressed concern about the pain caused by a shattered patella, by the mangling of connective tissue, by the worsening of everything when arthritis moved in.

‘Don?’ she managed.

‘What?’

She was hyperventilating. ‘Get somebody. Heart attack.’

He leapt to his feet, grabbed the stick and made for the door.

With two fingers in his mouth, he delivered a whistle shrill enough to shatter good lead crystal. The leader of the newly arrived Rockers was by his side in an instant. ‘What’s up? Can we do something?’

‘Get the doc, please. Black front door halfway down the block opposite this one, tell him Tess Compton’s collapsed. She’s on the floor.’

There followed a flurry of activity involving Anne-Marie and Pea-Green, Sean and a couple of friends, the doctor, and the leader of the leather-clad invaders. ‘Panic attack,’ announced Dr Byrne eventually. ‘Get me a paper bag and clear this room.’

The leader of the bike pack ushered everyone but Don and the doctor into the street while Tess blew into the brown bag. Gradually, colour returned to her cheeks and she managed to shift until she rested against a washing machine. Panic attack? She’d been inches from death, and her whole life had run through her head like a fox chasing chickens. ‘Pain in my chest,’ she breathed before returning the paper bag to its designated place. After a few more breaths, she spoke again. ‘Living here’s not doing my health any good,’ she announced, her tone rapidly approaching normal. ‘I think I’m allergic to all these detergents.’

Don shook his head almost imperceptibly. Even now, she was fighting her corner. ‘I meant what I said, Tess.’ He gave his attention to the medic. ‘She wants a house on Menlove Avenue, and I’m putting my good foot down. Just because I’m a cripple, she thinks I’ll give her anything she wants. Tess is a bit old for tantrums, but she does her best when she needs to put on a performance.’ Molly performed. She sang and played the ukulele, and she didn’t moan or mither.

Stephen Byrne placed himself next to Don on the bench. ‘What your wife just experienced is very, very real. Something’s knocked her sideways. It might be an event in her past, or a recent shock—’

But Don had released a fury he had suffocated for years, and he could scarcely help himself. ‘House on Menlove Avenue, doc. Oh, and I have to be an estate agent with our Sean, who gets his hands dirty in his present job, the job he chose because it suits him. I said no to all of it, and you might as well know that this marriage has been over for going on fifteen years. When the kids leave, I leave. I’m not telling them that, but she might. Because, you see, our Tess here is the most selfish creature I’ve ever met. She thought I would inherit my dad’s building firm, but she got disappointed. She thought she’d married a strapping man, but she got disappointed. And to give her her due, she has worked damned hard to get where she is.’ He paused. ‘Where she is, you see. I’m just a steak pudding and mushy peas.’ He smiled tightly. ‘You can ignore that last bit.’

Dr Byrne was lost for words.

Tess found several. Don had never appreciated her. She couldn’t be on her own, would never manage by herself. This panic had happened because she couldn’t cope with his threats to leave her all alone after twenty years of marriage. Yes, thought Don, she was doing well considering she’d emerged just moments earlier from a panic attack.

‘Well, you’re all right now.’ Don stood up and made for the door.

‘Where are you going?’ his wife demanded.

‘Out to see a mate. Later on, it’ll be a pie, a pint, and a few games of arrows. Even a bloke with one knee can enjoy darts.’ He couldn’t say any more, because for some reason, he felt perilously close to tears. Even now, after all he’d been through, there was something about her that made him sad, needful, angry, heartbroken.

‘See?’ screamed Tess. ‘He’s the selfish one, and it’s—’

Don slammed the door, stepped onto the pavement and faced his beloved children. Self-loathing was already diluting his anger; he could not have stayed in the launderette without continuing to rant.

‘Is she all right?’ Anne-Marie asked anxiously. ‘What happened? Is it her heart? She said it was her heart.’

Don shook his head. ‘No. She just got upset about something and lost her breath. Go in and look after her when Dr Byrne’s finished.’ He got into his car and drove away. As soon as he was alone he began to tremble, and he pulled into a side street at the earliest opportunity. Never before had he faced up to her. She was bright, but not bright enough to react to the sarcastic comments with which he sometimes peppered his longer chunks of oratory. ‘She probably doesn’t listen,’ he told the handbrake as he applied it. But he couldn’t have drifted along in her wake this time. No. He’d been forced to become a tugboat heaving and hauling HMS Tess into dock, because she would have sold him down the river this time. ‘You’re thinking in metaphors, Don,’ he said aloud. ‘And she can’t help it. Just remember that.’

But his memories went their own way. Her laughter, clear as a mountain stream running over smoothed stones, her beautiful face, her hands, those wonderful legs. Where had she gone? What had she become, and was he to blame? ‘Stop it,’ he snapped aloud.

Anne-Marie would have loved to move to Menlove Avenue, because a much-admired rebel named Lennon lived there. A pupil at Quarry Bank School, he had formed the Quarry Men, and they played at local fetes and fairs, usually with a bevy of girls cheering them on. But Anne-Marie had enough boyfriends. There was Pea-Green, for a start, and the lead rider of the newly arrived Rockers seemed to have taken a shine to Don’s pretty daughter. She looked like her mother but, so far, she seemed not to have inherited Tess’s selfish streak. Anne-Marie was as engrossed in fashion and music as the next teenager, but she had heart.

‘Do you have a heart, Don Compton?’ Did he? If he had feelings for anybody other than his children, they were all for Molly Braithwaite, widow of the deceased Matthew. And therein lay the twist in the tale, because he might move on to enjoy all the benefits of Matt Braithwaite’s legacy, while Tess, who had married for money, would continue to miss out. He cleared his throat. A part of him understood Tess, because she’d had a bugger of a childhood, and she was a frightened woman. But he couldn’t stay outwardly compliant any longer. His wife was frigid in his company, and he needed to get out of the refrigerator, longed to sit near a cosy fire with Molly and her mad dogs.

Molly was a big woman with a smile that sometimes put the sun to shame, and a laugh that was infectious. She would never match Tess for looks, but Don had learned the hard way that beauty was indeed skin deep, and that a pretty face could hide a cruel heart. Oh, Molly. He grinned stupidly and shook his head. Brown eyes, brown hair, a few strands of grey claiming space above her ears. She dyed it. When he’d asked about the colour, she had shrugged. ‘Shit brown like the rest of me head. More gravy?’ They had looked into the sauce boat, noticed the colour and howled in near-hysteria.

Her house, separated from the business by a couple of acres, was like herself – big and beautiful. She made a man of him in and out of bed, gave him much to be pleased about, including interesting, often inedible meals, and affection. Yes, she adored him. And the increased speed of his heartbeat whenever he approached his place of work reminded him that he, too, was standing perilously close to the brink of love.

He closed his eyes. Was Madam Tess planning to play up? Would she sing to the gallery, to the kids, to the doctor? The man had declared her panic attack to be real . . . ‘I’ll get a book from the library,’ he whispered. Well, if he could become an expert in car maintenance and dry-stonewalling, psychiatry or psychology should be a walk in the park. Panic attacks. Increased adrenalin, the doc had said. Pure fear. What if she went crazy? Could he leave her if she finished up on drugs and all kinds of therapy? What sort of man would behave in such a way?

Well, sitting here would shell no peas, as Molly might have put it. She would be half expecting him, though she seldom demanded a move up the list. He worked alongside her every morning apart from Sunday, and most lunch times were spent in her company, as were several evenings when he was supposed to be playing darts. Sometimes, he felt as if he might be betraying his children, but they were almost grown, and he’d done his best. As a disabled father, he had brought them through their early years while Tess had struggled to save for her own business. He had done his job, and he kept reminding himself of that fact.

Molly had no children. She and Matt had tried for years, but she’d finally settled for a couple of occasionally mad retrievers and some tropical fish. The fish made her sleepy, the dogs kept her awake, nobody criticized her and, taken all round, she thought she was better off with animals. Her one reservation was Sam, who had been expelled from dog school for eating equipment and trying to have sex with a miniature poodle, but she managed to forgive him. She managed to forgive everyone and everything, because she was in love with life.

The dogs greeted Don when he stepped out of the car. They understood his unsteadiness and always made room for him. Molly waved from the doorway. She was losing weight. ‘You look good,’ he called.

She embraced him and led him inside. ‘Well, I’ve given up the slimming club,’ she announced. ‘Seven and six a week to be told off in front of everybody like a kid that’s never done its homework? Sod that for a game of hopscotch. So I pinched a diet book and I’m doing it meself. She must have been coining it, that Glenda one. Come in. I’ve finished the lessons in acupuncture. All the needles are ready, and you’ve won first prize.’

Don shook his head wearily. In the past couple of years, she’d done massage, which was lovely, cake decorating, which was rather hit and miss, and now she’d been messing about with some Chinese chap and a pile of fine needles. She was ordering him to get his kit off.

‘Bloody hell, Molly. Give me a break, will you? I’ve had a terrible day, and you’re kicking off with designs on my body.’

She blew a raspberry. ‘Listen, cheerful. I’m only halfway through tattooing, so my designs are a bit limited, just butterflies and birds. No, I’m going to stick pins in you, see if we can get that knee a bit looser.’ She studied him for a few seconds. ‘What’s happened? Does she know about me?’

‘No.’

‘What, then? Sit down; you look like you’ve gone eight rounds with a pro boxer. Will I get you a brandy? Cup of tea? Some crayons and a colouring book?’

‘Shut up, Moll. No. First, promise me you’re not studying to be a tattoo artist.’

‘Joke,’ she said before shutting up while he told her the lot. Rockers, bikes, Menlove Avenue and estate agency were all delivered wrapped in Skaters’ Trails carpet while she sat quietly and listened. ‘So,’ Don concluded, ‘she went and had a panic attack. I didn’t notice at first, then, when I did notice, I thought she was putting it on, but Dr Byrne said it was genuine. She’s scared. I told her I’ll be leaving her when Sean and Anne-Marie have gone – if not before. Terrified of being on her own, she is. And to be honest, I’ve never been sure about her nerves. At least my bad knee’s visible because of the way I walk. What’s wrong with her could well be in her head, and we’ve no bandages or calipers for that.’

Moll watched his face and shared his pain. ‘And you drove off before the doctor left?’

‘I did. I was in such a bloody mood, I had to park away from the road until I stopped shaking.’

‘Not nice, Don.’

‘I know that.’

She touched his hand. ‘I’ve seen her, you know. I got dressed up in all me muck and took a load of washing there. She’s pretty.’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘So you want me for me money, eh?’

‘Of course.’

Molly threw her head back and guffawed. She had a laugh only slightly lighter in weight than that of a dock worker, and her whole body shook. Well, the bits that weren’t encased in an over-enthusiastic all-in-one girdle shook. She was his oxygen, his entertainment, his comfort. ‘I love you, Moll.’ There. He had finally said it.

That put a stop to her merriment. She wanted this man, but not at any price. ‘Don, I don’t care if we live tally, cos we don’t need certificates except for proof of insanity. But I do care what happens to her. If Tess’s price is a house on Menlove Avenue, a bit of carpet and a bent mirror, she can have all that. I’ve two hundred thousand doing nothing, and a business I’ll flog as soon as I feel like it. She can keep her launderette, live on her tree-lined avenue and have new furniture if she wants it. We’re off to Harley Street, you and I. There’s a chap who does knees with metal and plastic or something. He can use putty for all I care, as long as we can get that leg a bit better.’

He blinked back a reservoir of emotion. Chalk and cheese? No. Molly was solid gold, while Tess was steel, shiny, cold and heartless. She was also frightened halfway to death, because she needed scaffolding all round to preserve her air of normality. ‘She wouldn’t take it off you, love.’

‘No, but she’d grab it from you and bite your hand off at the wrist.’

‘I haven’t got it, have I?’

Molly sucked in some air and delivered a shrill whistle. ‘Then get it, you mad bugger. What happens to men’s imaginations, eh? A policy. You took out a policy years ago and never told her about it. Or you’ve won the pools – whatever it takes. You want to live with me, she wants to move to Menlove Avenue, so that’s what has to happen. With my money, but sod it.’

‘And when she finds out I’m living with my dead boss’s wife?’

‘Leave her to me. I’ve buried bigger dragons than your Tess, mate. Look how many builders I deal with on a daily basis. Cheeky bastards, most of them, but if they don’t toe the line, they can beggar off to Mike Merryfield’s dump. Cut price? He couldn’t trim his toenails, never mind his prices. The government will deal with him, because we’re still technically in a period of austerity as far as building’s concerned.’

That was another thing about Molly: she knew her onions, her cement and her bricks. Judging from some of the offerings delivered to table during her Italian period, she confused the three occasionally. But she was an experimental cook, and life was never dull. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he promised. ‘The kids are still there, so I should have time.’ Whichever way he looked at it, he was going to be a bought man. Still, if he had to be someone’s property, he would choose Molly any day. ‘And thanks, Molly. It’s really generous of you.’

She beamed at him. ‘I’ll be getting the better deal. I’d swap a house on any avenue for you. Now. How do you feel about rainbow trout?’

‘Are they found at the end of a rainbow with leprechaun’s gold?’

‘No, they’re found at the wet fish shop, and they cost quids.’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll give them a go, but don’t forget the brown sauce.’

‘Heathen,’ she hissed before making for the kitchen.

Don sat with her children, Sam and Uke. Uke had won his name by breaking Molly’s ukulele as soon as he entered the house for the first time. Molly had a George Formby party piece that she sometimes performed in local hostelries, and the ukulele was a vital prop. So she’d bought another one, forgiven Uke and carried on as before.

They were grand dogs, lively, gentle and caring. Don would have loved to get the kids a dog, but they’d never lived anywhere suitable. Perhaps Menlove Avenue would be suitable, though he couldn’t see himself depending on Tess to look after a puppy. There was too little love in her.

‘What am I going to do?’ he asked Uke, who always pushed his way to the front in a queue of canines, even if the queue consisted of just one pair.

No answer came, of course. ‘Molly?’ Don called.

A flustered face pushed its way through a serving hatch. ‘What?’ she snapped with mock anger. ‘I’m still tickling me trout here.’

‘Are they alive?’

‘Well, they’re very fresh.’ She paused. ‘How do I know when they’re cooked?’ she asked.

‘When they stop flapping about.’

She thought about that one for a few seconds. ‘Do I cut their heads off? Because they’re staring at me. I feel like I’m stood in the dock on a murder charge. What did you want, anyway?’

‘Only to say I meant it.’

‘Meant what?’

He put a hand to his mouth. ‘Bugger. Can’t remember.’

‘You love me.’

‘That’s the one,’ he said.

She disappeared, and a few swear words accompanied by the smell of burnt fish and a clattering of implements travelled through from the kitchen. The head reappeared. ‘Don?’

‘What?’

‘Will you go down the chippy?’

He managed to suppress his laughter. ‘What about the trout, love?’

She shook her head gravely. ‘Cremated. I’ve sent flowers. They said family only, but I thought a little bunch of freesias would do no harm.’

And it was all compressed into those few minutes and seconds. He loved Molly because she didn’t mind being laughed at, because she courted attention with her ukulele and her Formby songs, because she liked to learn and have a go, even with acupuncture and rainbow trout. She was alive, funny, generous, as mad as a frog in a bin, and beautiful. Lovely eyes, soft skin, open mind.

They ate cod and chips from vinegar-soaked paper, watched an old film on Molly’s television, played tiddly-winks and fought over which was a tiddle and which was a wink. Dogs joined in the fun, made off with the tools of the game and left two adults spread out on the carpet.

‘You’ll have to help me up, Molly.’

‘I know. You’re a bloody liability. Tell you what, you stay where you are and I’ll build a cage round you so you can’t go home. I’ll put Sam and Uke in with you so you won’t be lonely. Hey.’

‘What?’

She pushed the next words out of a corner of her mouth. ‘They’re staring at me funny.’

‘You what? Who?’

‘Me fish. Don’t look now, they’re watching. It’s the trout. They’ll never forgive me for the trout.’

‘They never saw the bloody trout.’

‘But they have ways, Don. Look at that angel fish—’

‘You told me not to.’

‘Why do they call them angel fish? Delinquents, they are. That one there’s a bastard. They know I murdered trout.’

‘But we sat here and ate cod—’

‘Anonymous cod. Cod with no heads.’ She stood up and helped him to his feet. ‘I’ve committed fishslaughter,’ she said.

‘Moll?’

‘What?’

‘Shut up and get a bloody head doctor. I’d better go before she smells a rat. If she smells a rat, I’ll decapitate it and get done for ratslaughter. That way, you won’t be on your own in court.’

She clung to him. ‘Don’t let her drive you any madder than you already are. No matter what she does or says, stay cool, not angry.’

‘I’ll try.’

He drove from the edge of Woolton to Smithdown Road, his foot easing off the accelerator as he neared his destination. The kids would be in bed. Tess might be in bed, or she might be waiting with one of her prepared diatribes. He wasn’t in the mood. He’d never been in the mood for lectures, but what could he do? Tess would have her pound of flesh, wouldn’t she?

He climbed the stairs to the flat, his leg throbbing fiercely. She would have put his name down for gardening in her new house, he supposed. Gardening? A potted plant was his limit. Cutting lawns and trimming hedges lay well outside his restricted range of abilities.

Ah, she was trying a different tack. For a woman approaching forty, Tess Compton was in excellent shape. She was wearing an almost transparent nightdress, her face was made up, and she had spread herself out like Marilyn Monroe on the sofa. His immediate reaction was born in hope, hope that his children were asleep. But he couldn’t look at her, since she was so annoyingly beautiful. God, he wanted her. What sort of animal was he?

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘Well what? Wishing well, artesian well, well done? It’s too late, Tess. You’re beautiful, but there’s no point. You go to bed, and I’ll have the sofa. Sean and Anne-Marie will think it’s because of my knee. We can’t fill in the missing pieces of our jigsaw. It’s not about sex; it’s about respect, fun, talking. You look stunning, and you always did, but lovemaking was always the payment you made for something you wanted, like Anne-Marie. So thanks, but no, thanks.’ To get her own way, Tess was prepared to act the whore.

She shot up like a rocket on bonfire night. ‘So you won’t try?’

‘I’ve tried long enough. Now, listen to me for a change.’ He swallowed nervously. ‘A while back, I took out a policy, and it will mature soon. That will get you your house. Anne-Marie will probably go with you, because she’s Quarry Men mad, and one of them lives along that avenue. Sean will do whatever he wants.’ He held up a hand when she opened her mouth to speak. ‘I’ve not finished. You say nothing to the kids until we’ve found the right house. When they learn about everything, it will be from both of us. Together. For once, think about them, not about you.’

She stood up, turned away, and walked into the bedroom.

Don lingered for a while at the living room window. Last order stragglers meandered homeward, some whistling, some singing out of tune. One maniac had fallen in love with a lamp post and was whispering sweet nothings into its corporation-green paintwork. A late bus trundled by, a tangle of multicoloured youths fighting on its upper deck. Rainbow. Rainbow trout. ‘That angel fish hates the bloody sight of me.’ Burnt supper, down to the village for fish and chips twice, plenty of vinegar. An ordinary woman who still worked in spite of her wealth, who still spoke like a native, who sounded just like George Formby when doing her bit at the pub. ‘Turned out nice again.’ Yes, she was a mimic. She was a giver. It was time to make things happen; it was time to move on.

Leather’s hard to sew, but I managed to cobble together a close-fitting mask with eye holes, a space for my nose, a gap for my mouth. Buggeration, this one was a fighter. I didn’t give her enough chloroform before sticking her in the sidecar. She’s in some woods up a side road off the A580. Scratch marks on my arms. Must wear closer-fitting clothes.

I’ll be all right for a while now . . .

Three

There is a nowhere place, a morning twilight that hangs between night and day, between sleep and wakefulness, and its nature is cruel, because it shelters us for so brief a time from recent miseries. When sense returns, memories pierce consciousness like shards of glass cutting through bone and tissue, embedding themselves in a heart that felt repaired just moments earlier. It refuses to be managed, eliminated or curtailed, as its nature is elemental and buried in the id of every human creature.

Life was getting no easier. Today, Roisin Allen sat bolt upright in the bed, reality crashing into her chest, heart racing like a lorry down a cul-de-sac, impact inevitable, petrified, waiting for the grinding of gears, the scream of brakes, the stench of burning rubber. She was both victim and perpetrator, since she was the one who must mend herself, and she could not stop her own machinery.

What would Phil have said? ‘Pull yourself together, you’ve kids to mind.’ Or, ‘You can’t stand still; you have to move on with life.’ Oh, Phil, how shall I carry on without you, and why didn’t I treat you better? No, I didn’t want more children, but we could have— Well, I could have held you and loved you when you needed that.

Guilt was the worst part. Within moments of waking, every cross word she had uttered, every dirty look she had delivered, came back to her on a vivid Technicolor screen, sound included, in her weary head. He had called her his Rose, his Rosie. Roisin, pronounced Rosheen, was a beautiful but unusual label, so most people named her Rosh. In the mornings, he had nominated her Dozy Rosie, because she’d been a reluctant riser.

Phil had been dead for three weeks, and Rosh Allen continued to suffer these early morning symptoms. She slept next to a bolster that was not him, but fooled her when she shifted during slumber, giving her false security, false hope. Drugs sent her into unconsciousness, but they hung over her like black rain clouds, and she seldom woke properly until after lunch time. Mother had moved in, of course. She had taken over the children, the cleaning, cooking, washing and ironing. Mother, usually Mam, in her late fifties, could not carry on like this for ever. An amazing little woman, Anna Riley coped with whatever life threw in her direction. I continue selfish, Phil. My poor mother is weighed down by it all, and I know I should be—

The bedroom door crashed into an item of furniture. ‘Why ever do you keep the chest of drawers just there? Every morning the same, and I nearly lose your breakfast. We’ve eggs scrambled all the way to glory and back just now.’ The tray was dumped unceremoniously on a bedside table. ‘Get yourself on the outside of that lot, then out from under the blankets.’ Anna paused. ‘I’ve given up me house, so. The keys go back this afternoon.’ She sighed. ‘Some of us have to make the decision to get on with life, you see. We can’t all go Shakespearean and lie round like Desdemona in a fit with her leg up. ’

‘I haven’t got my leg up.’ The woman in the bed glared hard at her mother.

‘Neither did Desdemona, but she’d every right to, poor soul. Anyway, like I said, I’ve given up me house.’

‘Right.’

‘And it’s grateful they were, because a family can take it now. I was rattling about like the last pill in the bottle. When you’re better, I shall find myself a sitting bedroom not too far away from you.’

‘A bed-sitting room, you mean.’

‘Perhaps I do. But we have to get Winston and Lucy-Furr. You must come and help me. I have a vehicle for their transportation, but cats can be troublesome, as you are quite possibly already aware.’

Rosh groaned. Troublesome? Her mother’s cats were from the dark side. Their behaviour was criminal; had they been human, they would have been in Walton Jail. There had been four of them, but two had gone off to ruin wallpaper and furniture in cat afterlife; however, the two worst had managed to survive the busy stretch that was College Road. And now Anna intended to bring them to the relative peace of Lawton Road in Waterloo, Liverpool North. ‘I don’t want them.’ Rosh would rather have mumps or scarlet fever.

Anna made no reply. Her daughter had spoken, had referred to something other than her grief. This was progress indeed. An inch at a time, Anna’s precious Roisin was going to be dragged back to life.

‘Mam?’

‘What?’

‘Does Winnie still talk all the time?’

‘He does. He comes home and delivers a lecture, especially if there’s rain about. Blames me for the weather, so he does. And every time, I have to show him it’s raining at the front of the house as well as the back. Or vice versa. Always, he demands tangible proof. The boy’s a fool, but handsome enough for a ginger tom. You’ll grow used to them, I promise.’

‘I shall get a very large dog,’ Rosh threatened. She cast an eye over her scattered breakfast. Winston was not the naughtier of the two felines. Lucy-Furr, pronounced Lucifer, had definitely been booted like the first fallen angel out of heaven by God the Father, who would have needed the assistance of God the Son, with God the Holy Ghost riding shotgun. Lucy destroyed things. She did it secretly, frequently and thoroughly. ‘I noticed extra holes in your funeral mantilla. She even ruined a sacred item.’

Anna sniffed. Back to the funeral. Again. ‘I’ve sold all me furniture as well,’ she said. ‘So we’ve money to live on until you get back to work. We need just a small new bed for me in the box room. Stuff in there will go into your roof. But you see, Roisin, when you work, you won’t be here for the kiddies when they get out of school. You could be gone already when they leave in a morning. I’ve taken a couple of evening jobs to help out—’

‘Mam, you’re doing enough.’

Anna sat on the edge of her daughter’s bed. ‘Now, you just listen to me, young lady. Phil Allen was one of the best, but he’s gone, God bless him and have mercy on his good, brave soul. I’m still here and not in bad health. We muck in. We’re Irish, so we do what needs doing for the greater good within the family. I know you don’t want me here for ever, but I know also that you love me. Now, don’t start crying again, or we’ll need a boat. Eat. We’re going for me cats.’

Alone, Rosh did her best with the scrambled eggs and toast. Mother was right about the chest of drawers too near the door; perhaps the room was due for a change. And she must take Phil’s clothes down to church for the poor. Yes, Mother was right yet again; it was time to make an effort. Mother was almost always right; that was the most annoying thing about her.

Phil had given Mam the name ‘Mother’. She deserved the full title, he had said. Anna Riley was small in stature, huge in soul. Had Rosh needed any proof at all, these past weeks would have provided it. Until the funeral and after that sad occasion, Mam had kept house all day, had sat all night with her daughter, seldom sleeping in her chair, always ready to respond to the moans of a child in another room. And she was right, because a young widow needed to work, while children wanted minding. Energy would have to be found, as would the urge to re-enter the workplace. None of it was going to be easy.

‘Roisin?’

Here came Mam again, door crashing inward once more.

‘Open it.’ She held out an envelope and waited while her daughter released its contents.

Tears surfaced quickly. It was a postal order for twelve pounds from Phil’s workmates at Wilkinson Engineering. ‘Aren’t people good?’ she said. ‘We’ll get your bed with this.’

Anna produced a second envelope, manila, with a little window on the front. ‘And this arrived along with that one.’ She held it out. ‘There.’

‘Oh, heck.’ Rosh dried her eyes on the bed sheet. ‘I don’t like brown letters. You know I hate them. You do it.’ Phil had always dealt with such items. The idea of being responsible for all the workings of a household held no appeal for Rosh. Going back to a full-time job would be enough without all the bills and the budgeting.

Seating herself in a small rocking chair by the window, Anna opened the envelope. She had learned to read in her thirties, and she was proud of how quickly her eye could cover a page. ‘May the saints preserve us,’ she exclaimed. ‘What a man that was. He was a pearl.’

‘Mam?’

‘Thought of everyone but himself, didn’t he? I mind the time when he came to me and said—’

‘Mam!’

‘No, he called me Mother, so he said that, then went on to—’

‘Mam!’

‘Oh, sorry. It’s from an insurance firm in Manchester. Your man kept his payments up, God bless him. They’re waiting just now on the coroner’s confirmation of the report. But when they have that for their files, and when death by accident is official, you will get ten thousand pounds. Had he died naturally, it would have been just three. But because it was a road accident, well – there you go.’

Rosh’s jaw dropped. Just three? That was enough to buy two houses and a car. But ten? Philomena could carry on with piano lessons, the old instrument downstairs could be tuned properly or replaced, while Kieran might realize his dream of becoming a doctor. As for Alice – well – she could just be happy. Little was expected of poor Alice, who had been late to crawl and walk, who still seemed to have difficulty reading and writing . . . ‘Thank you, Phil,’ she said aloud.

‘Amen to that.’ Anna waved the letter. ‘And this is a sign, Roisin. You don’t need to rush out to work, don’t need to—’

‘Oh, but I do. That nest egg is for my babies, Mother. I can get a tutor for Alice, someone who can get her learning. Kieran needs books, and Philly could use a new piano.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m coming with you. For the cats.’

Inwardly, Anna thanked the saints with all her heart. Money had never held a high position on her daughter’s agenda, but the policy had made her think about a future, about the children, even about the cats from Satan. It would all take time, but life was about to be reclaimed by the beautiful Roisin Allen, God help her. Because men noticed her, and there was no Phil to guard her now.

Half an hour later, two women could be seen walking the short distance from College Road to Lawton Road. The smaller pushed a coach-built pram, while the taller held down a tied-on sheet of glass under which two cats spat and scratched with great ferocity. ‘What would they have been like if you’d never had them neutered?’ she asked.

‘There would have been more of them,’ was Anna Riley’s smart response. ‘They’ve no rules about incest. Heathens, they are. Hell will be full of them, so it will.’

‘They keep managing to scratch me at the edges of the glass,’ Rosh complained. ‘They’ve claws like needles.’

‘Well, don’t let go of that glass, whatever. I know it’s tied on with the rope, but it shifts and slides, so hang on to it. These cats are all I have of your father now. I mind the day when he brought all four into the kitchen. They were half drowned, and we had to feed them through a little glass dropper with a squeezy bit of rubber on the end. Ah, his neck was scratched to bits when he fetched them into the house, bless him. Two dead now, and just the angels from Hades to remind me of a very fine man.’ She sighed. ‘We were both fortunate in the husband department, Rosh.’

‘There are no angels in hell, Mam.’

Anna winked. ‘Just wait. Just you wait and see.’

They buttered the cats’ paws and sat watching while the pair of miscreants licked avidly at their gilded pads. Lucy-Furr, after studying her new surroundings for a while, jumped on Rosh’s lap and curled into a ball.

‘Good heavens,’ Rosh said.

‘She’s comforting you. She knows you’re in pain.’

‘Rubbish.’

‘You’ll learn, missy. Oh yes, you will learn. Cats have more than one personality, you see. Like the facets of a diamond, they throw out all kinds of light.’

‘You mean they’re insane?’

Anna chuckled. ‘They very well might be. But it’s our kind of craziness, so they could be Irish.’ She glanced at the clock. ‘See, I’ll go now and get the older two from the library and Alice from her friend’s house. You peel spuds and carrots, and I’ll pick up some cutlets on the way home.’

So Rosh was left with two schizophrenics of the feline persuasion. She topped a carrot, and the green-fringed end shot across the table and landed near the cooker. Winston was on it within a split second. He batted it at Lucy-Furr, and she tried to eat it. Her male counterpart, taking offence at this offside behaviour, became referee and dashed across the room. In a blurred ball of fur, half ginger tom, half black queen, they rolled round the kitchen at a fair rate of knots. Their language was coarse; Rosh knew immediately that they were swearing in Cat-ese.

To confuse the issue further, she threw a few more carrot tops into the field of play. Madness of the very finest quality ensued. Lucy grabbed two tops and sat on them. Winston picked up a third, held on to its green bits and waved it about under his nose. The female, infuriated by this uppity boy-cat type of behaviour, displayed confusion that put Rosh in mind of Alice, her younger daughter. It was clear that Lucy-Furr had no idea what to do next. If she stood up and went for him, she would reveal her hidden carrot tops. If she allowed him to carry on tormenting her, he would continue to feel superior. So she meowed at Rosh, who picked her up, removed the treasures and placed them in a pocket.

The wrestling match continued. Lucy leapt from Rosh’s arms, and pandemonium resumed. They were funny. But potatoes and carrots needed peeling, and the cats would have to get on with life. ‘Just leave my walls and chairs alone,’ warned the head of the household. ‘No plucking, no picking, or you’ll end up Manx, because I’ll cut your tails off. In fact, I’ll have your whiskers, too.’

Her heart lurched slightly. She had gone five or more minutes without thinking about Phil. Guilt and hunger combined to make her stomach ache. How shallow she was, how uncaring. She didn’t want cats, yet she had allowed them to distract her to the point where she had forgotten the love of her life. You liked carrots, didn’t you? And lamb cutlets, though you always said a man-sized belly needed about twelve of the buggers to feel even half full. And mint sauce. We often had lamb at Christmas because you loved it with mint sauce and roasties and parsnips . . . oh, Phil. Come home, sweetheart.

‘Mum’s crying again.’ Thirteen-year-old Kieran had entered the kitchen before his two sisters. They stood behind him, Philly with a protective arm across Alice’s shoulder. Alice was five, and she couldn’t stand change. She needed the same routine every day: socks, underclothes, blouse and skirt laid out in that order on the landing ottoman. Shoes, highly polished, had to be placed on the floor near the landing window. Her cardigan or jumper must be folded and left downstairs on the hall stand, with her coat hanging to the right of it, little satchel under the coat. Philly, at twelve, often opined that Alice said little because she couldn’t be bothered with niceties.

‘I’m not crying,’ Rosh lied. ‘I’ve laughed till the tears came.’ She dried her face on a cuff. ‘Mother, your cats have had me helpless. They ran off with bits of carrot, and we nearly had World War Three.’

The two older children smiled, but Alice displayed no emotion.

Rosh continued with her peeling, hoping against hope that Alice would react. Since Phil’s death, the little one’s patterns of behaviour hadn’t altered; they had stopped completely. A huge part of Alice’s backdrop had disappeared. Her father, knowing that his baby was special, had treated her like a little princess. She had almost listened to him. In his presence, she had carried on in her own little world, a place from which she had occasionally paid a visit to the here and now. It was almost as if the child had stopped existing since the loss of Daddy.

But, as the saying went, where there was life, there was hope. And here came Alice with one of her precious habits. She picked up carrots and put them in the cream colander, potatoes in the silver-coloured pan. This had been one of her chosen jobs since she’d been able to reach the table top. She was a strange child. Ten steps to the garden gate. Her legs were growing, but she continued to need that decade of paces from door to pavement. Rosh had explained about longer legs, but that idea involved development, which was change, and Alice did change at her own speed, and usually not at all.

‘Twenty-seven in there,’ the child said, a finger pointing at carrots cut lengthwise. ‘And twenty-three in here. Spuds.’ She stalked out of the room. The occupants of the kitchen stood open-mouthed, listening while Alice hung up her jacket. ‘Alice hook,’ she said. Then she started to laugh. It was a rusty noise, as if it needed a squirt of oil. ‘Stoppy, stoppy,’ the child yelled.

Rosh crept to the doorway, her right arm held out to order the rest to stay where they were. Alice could count beyond the ten paces, and she could do it quickly. Rosh had noticed on several occasions the child’s lips moving while vegetables were transferred – for how long had she been counting? Since babyhood, this youngest one had ‘talked’ to her inner self, but was she absorbing knowledge, was she learning? If she was learning, then someone, somewhere, was getting through to her.

The newly widowed mother stopped in the doorway and watched the scene in the hall.

It was Winston. Sunlight, split by a crystal figurine in a window, deposited spots of colour all over the walls. Rosh held her breath. Phil had bought her the crystal angel after the birth of Alice. He was here. She could almost feel him breathing next to her. Winston, too, was here; so was every colour of the spectrum.

Mother’s male cat was determined, arrogant, but far from elegant. To describe him as overweight would have been a kindness, since he was roughly the size of a three-month-old St Bernard. He leapt up the walls, tried to capture and eat a bit of green, a drop of orange, a slice of blue. His tail wagged more furiously with each failed attempt, and Alice was helpless on the floor. Here was a child who noticed just three or four objects in her own room, who failed to hear the honk of a vehicle’s horn, who seldom responded when her name was called. This was a miracle, and Phil had made it happen. He had returned to look after Alice. She would be all right.

The cat gave up his fruitless fight. He landed badly, rose to his feet, shook himself and twitched his tail twice, as if sending a vulgar signal to the audience. They could bugger off out of it, because he didn’t care.

Alice stood up, walked past the cat and up the stairs. She would doubtless position herself on her bed with Teddo. Teddo, a one-eyed bear passed down by Rosh to Philomena, by Philly to Alice, was the little girl’s constant indoor friend. Rosh remembered sewing on a new eye, an item Alice had removed immediately. Teddo had one eye, and that was law.

Rosh returned to the kitchen and related what she had seen. ‘It has to be Hans Asperger’s illness,’ she told her captive audience. ‘Leo Kanner’s paper was about the truly autistic. We can find a window into Alice. A real autistic would not have laughed like that. Well, from what I’ve read, I mean.’

Anna placed her shopping basket on the table. ‘Mrs Green said Alice and Beth were playing swap dollies, but there was no talking.’

‘She’ll improve,’ Rosh insisted. ‘She spoke just now, didn’t she?’ There was no point in mentioning her own certainty about Phil’s presence in the hall. Such declarations would serve only to upset Philly and Kieran. The latter had assumed the role of man of the house, and it was he who had gone to the doctor to ask about the papers on autism.

‘Both Austrians,’ he said now. ‘As was Hitler, I believe.’

Anna blessed herself hurriedly. ‘Wipe the name from your lips, Kieran. Think of what he did to the Jews, and to Liverpool.’

‘They’re very advanced medically,’ the boy replied. ‘Kanner discovered autism in 1943, and Asperger wrote his paper in ’44. They leave us standing when it comes to medical research.’

Anna began to prepare the meat and boil water for the vegetables. The two older children abandoned the kitchen and went up to their rooms. Rosh left the meal in the capable hands of her mother; she was going to spy on Alice. But someone knocked at the front door and distracted her. She knew who it would be; she also knew that he would have seen her through the frosted glass in the door. ‘I wonder if I can get heavier frosting?’ she asked of no one, since she was alone in the hall. Yes. It was Roy Baxter. He had deposited a basket at one side of the step, and was on his way back to the gate.

‘Oi,’ she shouted.

He stopped and turned. ‘Sorry. I just left a few things from my allotment – onions, spuds and stuff. Oh, and a bunch of flowers. From the allotment. I didn’t buy them . . .’

He hadn’t changed. A tongue-tied lad had become an awkward man. Did he really think he had a chance because Phil was dead? No. He was just being kind, she supposed. ‘Thank you, Roy. Please don’t worry about us. We’ll be all right, I’m sure.’

He opened his mouth, delivered no more words, raised his cap and turned away. Stumbling over something or other, he crossed the road at a pace that was uneven, to say the least. Why was he such a damned fool? She’d turned him down fifteen years back, had chosen Phil Allen, and that should have been an end to it. It wasn’t his fault that the Allens had moved into Lawton Road during the war. Phil’s job had been listed as essential, because he’d been in charge of a unit at Wilkinson Engineering that made stuff too special to mention. The Official Secrets Act had been involved, and rumour had it that Phil and his friends had been involved in the manufacture of electronic equipment that had played a part in code-breaking, though no one was sure.

Roy’s reason for non-participation in the battlefield was less glamorous, of course. He’d broken a leg during a football lesson at school, and had lost an inch of bone after surgery performed months later because the limb had refused to mend. So he’d sat the war out with Mum and Dad, had tried to ignore the people across the road, had never married. He needed a lift in his left shoe, would always be a cripple, and she would never look at him. No one would look at him.

Dad was waiting, of course. The usual sneer was in place as he addressed his son. ‘She’ll not glance at your side of the road in a million years, so I don’t know why you bother. Knocked you back the first time, married a man with a good trade, so what would she want with you now?’

Occasionally – no, frequently – Roy felt like killing his dad. Every time the bully had beaten Mum, Roy had wanted to kill him. She’d died relatively young, of course.

‘Look at the state of you.’ Joseph Baxter threw back his head and laughed. ‘No guts, no sense, one leg.’

Roy stood his ground on both legs. Normally, he would have been upstairs or in the kitchen by now, but this time he seemed to be glued to the floor. And he’d been so excited yesterday, as his boss had promoted him, and he’d felt proud of himself. The war had been good to him, because a shortage of manpower had allowed him to progress and, after years of dogged determination and exams, he was now an articled clerk. He knew the law; he knew if he hit his dad, he would end up on the wrong side of a locked gate.

‘Well?’

‘The moustache looks daft with your lip curled. Oh, I knew I had something to tell you. I’m fully articled now, with an improved salary, so I’ll be looking for a place in town, somewhere nearer to my work. Just a room, of course. I may come home at weekends.’ Because this was his home. He’d made sure of that, hadn’t he?

‘You what?’

‘Unless you’re going deaf, you heard me. While Mum was here, you belittled her and beat her up. Now you throw all your nastiness in my direction. I’m not violent by nature, and I may be disadvantaged because of my leg, but I’m thirty years younger than you. Watch your mouth, or I might just split it open and lose you even more of those rotting teeth.’ Roy blinked. Had he really said all that, or had his imagination gone into a higher gear?

Joseph, who had always refused to be reduced to Joe, had a ready answer; he usually had a ready answer. ‘You’ll not manage on your own,’ he said, the tone not quite steady.

‘I think the boot’s on another foot, Joseph.’

‘Joseph? Who are you to be calling me Joseph? I’m your father, for God’s—’

‘No. You’re no father to me. Mum told me. She married you and pretended I was yours. She wanted to comfort me from her deathbed, so she told me the truth.’ Roy was making it up as he went along and yes, he knew he was being vengeful. ‘You are no one’s father. How many times have you said there’s no lead in my pencil, eh? Well, listen to me for once. Your pencil’s never been sharp; neither has your brain.’

‘You bastard.’

‘Exactly. I’d rather be a bastard, as it happens.’ It was happening. After all these quiet years, Roy was shaving off his pound of flesh. Today, he had made the longest speech ever. And he still couldn’t walk away, because his father was looking unwell. Or could he bugger off and let the mad beggar take his chances?

The older man’s face was grey. He seemed to be experiencing difficulty with his breathing and, after a few seconds of increasing discomfort, he sank to the floor.

Roy stared blankly at him; was he dying? Was there justice in the world after all? But Roy’s nature forbade him to stand and watch anyone struggle for breath. He pushed himself to move, returning as quickly as possible to the house outside which he had so recently left a basket.

Rosh answered the door. ‘Ah, Roy,’ she breathed wearily. What the hell did he want now?

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But will you ask Mrs Riley to sit with my dad? He’s collapsed, and I need to go up to the phone box.’ Without another word, he walked through the gate and turned towards College Road.

Rosh gathered her thoughts. Alice was sitting at the kitchen table with Mother. Alice had to grow used to living with her grandmother. So, after advising Anna of the situation, Rosh crossed the road herself and entered the Baxter house through its open front door. He was unconscious near the fireplace. He had a thready pulse and colourless skin, and his breathing was shallow. The place wasn’t untidy, but neither was it clean. There was something about a house without a woman; it acquired a film, as if the very air it contained was opaque.

A collection of law books sat on a shelf. Beneath them on a small table, a photograph of Roy’s dead mother kept company with a radio. The fireplace was Victorian, the sideboard and gateleg table Utility, the hearthrug maroon. It was a dingy, lifeless room; there was no love in it, nor one pretty item. Two battered armchairs in worn leather flanked the rug. The walls were mottled brown and cream with patches of damp here and there. She didn’t want to look at him.

When she did look, she saw no improvement in the health of the creature on the floor. Rosh knew what he was, what he had been to his wife. He’d been her jailor, her abuser, her enemy. Roy had struggled to get home from work at lunch time, because Joseph seldom fed his cancer-stricken wife, and none of the neighbours dared go near in case he was in. In the end, Roy had put her in hospital, as he could not keep his promise to let her die at home.

‘You killed her as sure as if you’d taken an axe to her. Is it your turn now? My Phil died just weeks back. Roy came to the funeral, but you couldn’t be bothered, thank God. Because my Phil hated you, and that wasn’t in his nature. He was a good man. Your son’s a good man, but you—’

‘Hello again, Rosh.’

She hadn’t heard Roy re-entering his house. ‘Sorry,’ she said quietly.

‘Not your fault. I turned on him for the first time ever. Just words. I didn’t hit him, but I wanted to. I just told him what I thought of him.’

‘About time, too.’

Roy gazed at the man on the rug. ‘I said I wasn’t his son, that I was a bastard. Told him my mum said that to me on her deathbed. That did it, I think. He took a funny turn and collapsed. This damned article hurt my mother over and over again. There was . . . there was rape, too. I know the law wouldn’t have accepted it, because she was his wife, but . . .’ He raised his shoulders for a moment. ‘But I heard it, lived with it, was too terrified to do or say anything. I thought he might kill me, her, or both of us.’

‘I saw her bruises, Roy. Many people saw them.’

An ambulance arrived. Joseph Baxter was given oxygen and placed on a stretcher. ‘You can come with him,’ one of the men said.

‘No, thanks. I want nothing to do with him.’

The older of the pair frowned. ‘But . . . er . . . aren’t you his son?’

Roy shook his head. ‘He brought me up, beat me up, beat my mother. Shove him in a bin somewhere, because he’s one evil bugger. Just get bloody rid.’

When the vehicle left the street with its bells clanging, Roy allowed a sigh of relief to escape. ‘Sorry you had to witness all that. But while I can, while I’m angry enough, I want to show you something else, another symptom of his evil. It’s important that someone sees what he used to do. I know you’re in mourning, but you’re just about the only person I trust enough to . . . It’s embarrassing and shaming, yet I have to do it.’

She followed him upstairs to his father’s room. The stair carpet was threadbare and filthy, though an open door framed a sparkling bathroom. Roy probably cleaned that, she guessed. Everything needed a lick of paint. The banister felt greasy under her palm.

Roy stopped on the landing. ‘His room’s a disgrace, but I can assure you that mine isn’t. Take my word for it.’

He led her into the squalid front bedroom. It stank of long-stored dirty washing, of mould, damp and dust. From the wardrobe, he dragged a small chest and threw open its lid. ‘There you go, Rosh. That’s what he is and was.’

It was filled with implements and weapons. She saw handcuffs, leather whips and belts, rope, a wooden article shaped like . . . ‘Good God.’ She slapped a hand to her mouth. ‘That thing there – is the stain blood?’

‘It is. My mother’s blood. She died of cancer of the cervix. It was discovered too late, and it spread. But yes, he used that thing on her. Made it himself, I think, and he used too little sandpaper. She must have been full of splinters.’

Rosh took several deep breaths. ‘Why did you stay after she died?’

Roy smiled sadly. ‘To watch him. To make sure he hurt no more women. I suppose it’s a kind of penance, my way of apologizing to my poor mother. Then all of a sudden, I’d had enough today. It just boiled over. In fact, I wish I’d said more. I suppose the hospital will want me to take a case in – pyjamas, dressing gown, soap and so forth. When they unpack it, they’ll find a selection of the things he used to torture Mum. I’ll put a little note in – These are the toys he used on his poor wife. Perhaps that will make them let him die.’ He closed the lid of the chest. ‘I need him to be dead.’

‘Roy—’

‘No, I’ve had enough, Rosh. I’m angry with me, because I should have stuck a knife in him ages ago. She used to cry in my arms, and I did nothing, nothing, nothing.’

‘You’d have hanged or got a life term.’

‘She was my mother!’

‘Yes, she was. And if you’d committed murder, she would have blamed herself just as you blame yourself now. She could have left here when you were little, taken you with her.’

‘He would have found us. You’ll never understand his power, Rosh. You didn’t live here. The man’s not right.’ He tapped his forehead with a finger.

They returned to the front living room. After a few minutes of silence, Rosh went to make tea. Like the rest of the house, the Baxter kitchen was in reasonable condition, though rather less than clean. Light was diminished by a cloudy window, and the room’s contents were in a far from sensible order. She dug round and found the necessary items, discovered that her hands were shaking after the shock she’d received upstairs. ‘Roy?’

‘Yes?’

‘He is your father, isn’t he?’

A few seconds elapsed before the answer arrived from the next room. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

She stilled her trembling fingers and brewed the tea. Love thy neighbour as thyself? Joseph Baxter wanted roasting alive on a spit with a rod of steel right through his body. Poor Roy. She carried the tray into the living room. ‘Isn’t your real name Roylston?’ she asked.

‘It was my mother’s maiden name, but we shortened it to Roy. He sometimes uses the full Roylston, because he thinks it annoys me. But what angers me more is his breathing. I’d rather it stopped.’

Rosh scarcely knew what to say. She had just suffered a massive loss, and here sat a man who prayed for the permanent removal of his father. It was difficult for her to understand, because she had adored her dad and had never stopped missing him. It was sad that Roy hadn’t really had parents. His mother had been beaten into the ground by his father, and the result was this hatred. ‘Don’t let it consume you,’ she said.

‘Too late, Rosh. The love I had for my mother was massive, but this is bigger. I feel like I’ve exploded.’

She had to get back to her mother and the children, but she didn’t want to leave him. With the way Alice was, Rosh was reluctant to introduce another new face, so inviting him to the evening meal was not a possibility. Yet he scarcely seemed fit to be abandoned. ‘I’ll get home now,’ she said, ‘but I’ll come back later just to make sure you’re all right.’

‘You’re very kind. No need for you to put yourself out, though, because I’m sure I’ll be better shortly.’

She stood for a few moments and watched him. In her opinion, he was becoming calm – too calm. It was as if he had removed himself in the direction of an alternative universe, because this one had been unkind to him. The fury of recent minutes had left him; it seemed that everything had left him, because he scarcely moved, while his cup of tea had been ignored apart from the odd sip. ‘Roy?’

‘What?’

‘You won’t do anything daft, will you?’

He blinked. ‘Such as?’

‘I don’t know.’

Roy managed a slight smile. ‘Make a list and submit it to management. I’m management. And I’ll tick off the daft things one by one. No, I’m not going to kill myself. Neither am I going to let him back in here. Ever since he signed papers that put me in charge of paying the rent, this is my house. It’s mine because I don’t pay rent any longer; I pay a mortgage.’

Rosh swallowed. ‘Where will he go?’

‘It’s a pity they closed the workhouses,’ was his reply. ‘Let the state look after him. I can’t do it any longer, Rosh. Apart from school and work, I’ve been in the company of this mad man all my life. Most of Waterloo knows what he is. And half of Crosby. Go home to your kiddies and your mother, Rosh. Alice might start thinking you’ve disappeared for ever like— Sorry.’

‘It’s not a problem. Phil’s dead, and I have to face facts.’

‘He was a good lad. One of the best.’

‘Thanks. I’ll . . . er . . . I’ll see you soon.’ She left him to his thoughts.

Outside, a posse of women bearing gifts had gathered. Rosh was assaulted by a barrage of questions, some of which she answered. No, Roy hadn’t gone in the ambulance. Yes, he was in, though he seemed to want to be left to himself. No, she hadn’t seen him eating anything. Yes, she was sure he’d appreciate dishes of food left in the porch. When asked about ‘that evil old bastard’, Rosh offered no reply save her opinion that he had suffered a heart attack.

Mother was waiting, of course. She jumped up as soon as her daughter entered the best room. This was an area for adults only, as there was a middle room that served for Sunday dining, piano, children and homework. ‘How is he?’ Anna demanded.

‘Which one?’

‘Either or both – I don’t mind.’

Rosh sank into an easy chair. ‘Well, Roy was angry, then quiet. He refused to accompany his dad in the ambulance, ranted a bit, got mad with himself for not saving his mother some grief. He showed me stuff I could never describe to you in a million years, instruments of torture that had been used by the old man on his wife. And Roy swears that Joseph Baxter will never set foot in that house again. I think it was some sort of heart attack, by the way.’

Anna tutted and shook her head slowly. ‘Glory be. All this terrible stuff going on under your nose, and you never get a whiff of it.’

Rosh was used to her mother’s odd statements. She was also used to the grim determination with which Anna Riley hung on to her Irish accent. ‘There was never a smell, Mother. Mrs Baxter was a clean woman. We saw some bruises on her, though, if you think back. And now the house does want a damned good clean. Roy tries his best, but there was more than a whiff in the old man’s room.’

Anna nodded sadly. ‘Aye, we did see bruises, bless her. But tell me, how will he keep that festering owld rat out of the house? Hasn’t Mr Baxter lived there since Adam got chucked out of Eden?’

Rosh explained that the rent book had been transferred into Roy’s name. ‘And then he bought the house, Mother. He’s got a mortgage. Oh, my God!’

‘What?’

Rosh stood up and gazed across the street. ‘He’s in his dad’s room – look. And he’s throwing everything out of the window into the front garden.’

‘Looks like he means it, then, Rosh.’

The younger woman dashed outside. ‘Roy?’ she called. ‘You’re ruining your geraniums.’

He stopped for a few moments. ‘Is this on the daft list?’ he asked.

It wasn’t. She knew it, he knew it, and each was aware that the other knew it. She shook her head. ‘What’s the plan?’ she called.

‘Decorating.’ Roy returned to his task.

‘He’s wiping him out,’ Rosh told her mother a few minutes later. ‘Painting and wallpapering over him, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Roy will not manage that,’ Anna replied. ‘The man needs to be dead.’ She paused. ‘I know we shouldn’t question God, but I sometimes wonder why the good die young, and old sinners like Joseph Baxter survive.’

‘I know, Mother.’

Anna grinned. ‘And Alice can write her name.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Something’s clicked. She’s in bed with Teddo, two cats and some crayons. Does it matter if she draws on the wall?’

Rosh shot from the room and crept upstairs. In damped-down illumination provided by a night light, she saw her beautiful baby, Winston and Lucy as good as gold at the foot of the bed and, on the wall, a perfect drawing of Frank Smith’s butcher shop. Even the rainwater goods were there, as was the drop-down awning blind that served to keep sunlight away from the window display.

Alice was finally claiming her place among the living. And, while her mother wept tears of joy, Alice smiled in her sleep.

See, I’m fine with most of them. They come in the shop with their kids, a quarter of dolly mixtures and a Woman’s Weekly, pay the papers, ask am I all right. It’s not all women; it’s the ones with a certain look in their eyes, as if they think they’re too good for the rest of us. It’s the beautiful ones. My mother was beautiful . . .

Four

A funeral took place at about five thirty in the morning on the day after the wedding. The sun was urging a weary eye over a misty horizon, and starlings were tuning up in the orchestra pit, while a lone blackbird, who seemed to have elected himself maestro, shouted orders from the roof of Jackson’s bakery. If he wanted crumbs, he was in for a long wait, because Sunday was the bakery’s single day off. Emily Jackson did her wedding and birthday cake icing on Sundays and, unless a major accident occurred, Sunday was a crumb-free zone.

Paddy was sole witness when her adorable, precious grandson emerged at snail’s pace from the side entrance of the prefab next door. He looked left, then right, before stepping out onto the path with a huge knife and a bundle that was wrapped poorly in a crumpled mass of newspaper. A man on a mission, he frowned determinedly, and the end of his tongue expressed a high level of concentration as it poked from a corner of his mouth.

Paddy failed to control a wide grin. Seamus closed the door with untypically meticulous care, turned, and dropped the hat. It slid out of its newspaper coffin and fell at his feet, though the despised satin suit remained where it was. She started to laugh aloud when he forgot himself and jumped on the hat with both feet. Why on God’s good earth was she laughing? She had to face up to Seamus’s older brothers in a few hours, had to save the life of poor old Ernie Avago, make sure that Lights of Liverpool was returned to a condition fit for its other incarnation, Scouse Alley, and find room in her head for worry about three dead men and three live machine guns. And here she stood doubled over with glee as she watched the shenanigans of a focused and very angry young man. And he had better not cut himself with that knife, since life promised to be hard enough without visits to hospitals and the like.

Seamus was cutting a square sod of lawn from the tiny rear garden. He lifted it and placed it to one side before getting to work with a spade. There was no ceremony, no prayer, no dignity. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust? He wanted rid; that was all.

The lad stuffed the offending items into the hole, filled it with soil, replaced the turf, and jumped once again on the dearly un-beloved after making sure that the piece of green fitted perfectly. No hymns, no words of wisdom, no goodbye. There. The deed was done. An unsavoury memory had been put to rest, so the world of Seamus Walsh had improved. Of course, there was no marker, no monument, no floral tribute. Instead, a sweaty, pink-faced boy looked down critically at his work. He placed the spade against the wall of a little shed, glanced up and caught sight of his grandmother.

She waved at him and put a finger to her lips, thereby indicating that his secret was safe. They both knew that he wasn’t completely out of the woods, of course. Should another wedding be planned, boys of a certain size might be sent along to try on the suit, and they’d need a shovel to get it. But Seamus had done what he’d needed to do, and the fury and hatred were buried in a shallow grave behind Maureen’s house. Maureen had trouble enough on her plate today; she and her husband would doubtless be involved in the business with Michael and Finbar, but there was also the problem with Maureen herself, who lost her rag at the drop of a hat. What a temper she had—

‘Hello, love.’

Paddy jumped, a hand pressed against her chest. ‘You’ll be having me with a heart attack, creeping about like a burglar, or a prima ballerina with no shoes on.’

‘It’s true I’ve got no shoes on. But me tutu and me tights want a wash, so I’ve stuck to me pyjamas. And I am stuck, bloody wet through. It’s baking in here, love. This place is that hot in summer, we’re cooked to medium rare. Stick the kettle on, Pads. Me nerves feel as if they’ve been back and forth across Wally Ainsworth’s bacon slicer ever since last night. Even me eyelashes ache, and I’ve got pain in teeth I lost years back.’

‘I know, I know.’ She set the kettle to boil on the hob. ‘Kev, I’ve got a really bad feeling, so.’

‘I’ve got two,’ he replied. ‘Finbar and Michael.’

She nodded. ‘And don’t forget the Kray twins and company limited, Dimitri Wotsisname and his Athenian dancers, to mention but a few.’

‘Oh, yes.’ He leaned against the sink. ‘Why were you laughing a few minutes ago?’

She told him.

And he told her. ‘That pageboy suit’s on a half-promise to the church. You know they keep wedding stuff for poor folk who can’t afford it.’

‘Shotgun marriages, you mean. Don’t worry. I’ll do a Burke and Hare on the suit.’ She scalded the pot. ‘I’ll disinter it, mend it, wash it, and pass it on.’ She pondered briefly on the subject of Seamus’s older brothers. They wouldn’t have buried the suit; they would have sold it. Even at the ages of six and eight, that pair had fixed their eyes on money. They were the same today. Cash was king whatever its provenance. Perhaps they would change? Perhaps they would stay away from London. And, of course, there remained the danger that others would follow the three dead in search of the two lads. Oh, God, it didn’t bear thinking about.

The long-married couple sat at the minute kitchen table, each with a pint pot of scalding tea. Maureen and her daughter, the newly wed Reen, had been heard to opine that Paddy and Kevin could win prizes for tea-drinking. They never touched coffee. Coffee was for folk who didn’t mind murdering their own taste buds and, since England was a free country, such odd souls were within their rights to fry their tongues with the chicory mixture that currently passed for that drink.

‘I wonder what’s going on?’ Kevin asked. ‘Down at Ernie’s, I mean.’

Paddy shrugged. ‘I know this much for sure, my love. It may be roasting in this house, but my lower vertebrae are frozen solid. Can’t get a move out of them. In those very bones, I feel some bad news coming.’

Kev delivered the opinion that his wife’s bones were behind the times by several hours, since the bad news had already arrived yesterday. ‘I’ll bet you any money poor Tom’s out of his mind next door. It’s one thing sniping during a war, another matter altogether on the streets of Bootle with a little gun pinched from your wife’s handbag. What was she thinking of, Paddy? Letting the wedding go on like that when she knew her sons were in trouble?’

She shrugged. ‘Well, when I approached that subject, she told me to mind my own business. It is my business. Your stall, Scouse Alley and Lights keep this family going. And we could all have been killed by those London gangsters. She said she and Tom would manage without us, but I must express serious doubt. I bet you she’ll be here by nine o’clock, bless her. It isn’t every day your husband has to shoot three murderers, so I understand her lack of patience with me. I can be annoying. I even annoy myself sometimes.’

Their second pint was taken into the living room. Paddy lit her first cigarette of the day while Kevin went to make toast. She looked round her home and wondered what these walls would say if they could speak. Martin and Jack, the two sons of whom she seldom made mention, had lived here for a while with their sister, Maureen. Maureen was now next door. The lads had been reasonably well behaved once grown, had done well on National Service with the army, but London had beckoned, and that was that.

Paddy remembered digging Maureen out of her little terraced house, scrabbling in dirt and bricks, fighting to save her daughter and the grandchildren from beneath rubble and dust. Safe now. Hitler had failed to destroy the family, but six members of it had brought grief to the house. Well, to this prefab and the one next door. Her spine remained frozen. The only one left was the lovely afterthought, Maureen’s Seamus. ‘Dear God, keep him safe,’ she begged under her breath. ‘Think of something else,’ she commanded. Her mind seemed to have a mind of its own, and that was silly.

Ah yes. How proud she had been of this little place. It had a built-in cooker and a refrigerator. She could make her own ice. Shivering, she remembered a rumour about a London madman who hired himself out to the big boys. He specialized in disposal, freezing bodies of murdered folk, jointing them, and feeding the parts into some kind of crushing machine. Freezing made the whole thing less messy. After that, he gave the resulting sludge to pigs. And people ate the pigs. Cannibals by proxy. Why couldn’t she think of something halfway decent, for goodness’ sake? If her brain didn’t kick in soon, her usual quickness of thought would be no more than a pleasant memory.

She had nice furniture, decent carpets, pretty bits and pieces bought by her husband at Christmas time and on her birthdays. The rug was Axminster, and her china cabinet displayed some handsome bits of Royal Doulton and good lead crystal. Kevin dealt in decent second-hand clothing from a stall on Paddy’s Market. He’d even invented a fold-away changing room with a cheval mirror so that prospective purchasers could try on clothes. He was a good lad. Every weekday, at lunch time, he left the stall in the hands of another trader, came down to Scouse Alley in his van, and served tea and cocoa. He ate the same stew each time with a side serving of pickled beetroot or red cabbage. She must think of the good, only of the good. Because madness lay—

‘Here you are, love.’ He handed her a rack of toast. ‘Best butter to put hairs on your chest.’

She smiled at him. ‘You’re still the greatest man I know, Kevin O’Neil. You know, I was thinking. We should start doing meat and potato pies and Lancashire hotpot. Scouse every day gets a bit boring.’

He took a sip of tea. ‘I’m the lucky one,’ he advised her. ‘I was the man who picked you up when you fell over in the street that day.’

Paddy managed another smile. ‘Your hands were all over me.’

Kev shrugged. ‘I’ve always believed in making the most of situations. My ma taught me that before she died, bless her. She made the most by dying. Fifteen kids? The old bastard should have been neutered. But no. He found another daft Irishwoman and remarried within months.’ The clock began the slow crawl towards seven. ‘Paddy, my darling, we know there’s trouble afoot. Neither of us has slept a wink, what with all this, plus Romeo and Juliet clarting about at the other side of a very thin wall. We have to stay calm. No matter what happens later on, we take it square and straight, no shouting, no tears, no anger. Your brothers and our sons may be lost to us, but perhaps we can save our grandsons.’

Paddy stared into her cup. ‘They’ve seen the big life, the clever life, Kev. They’ve also learned that the same life is of little value, because they’ll have witnessed killings and might even have performed executions.’ She raised her eyes. ‘Look at it, my love. If they stay in Liverpool, they may well form a dynasty of their own. I’d rather place them in the hands of the police than let them ruin another city.’

Kev nodded thoughtfully. Ernie Avago was an early riser. Always up with the lark, he had a way with flowers; he also grew his own veg at the back of the house. After his first cuppa, Ernie’s primary job in decent weather was the inspection of his garden. ‘We’ll get washed and dressed, Pads. I’m not sitting here another two hours waiting for my daughter’s permission to go hither and yon. We’ll be there before madam. And I’m sending Ernie for a couple of weeks in Blackpool while we work out what’s what.’

Paddy’s eyes widened. ‘What’s what? What about his whippet and the budgies?’

‘Not forgetting the ferrets.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘That dog eats furniture. As for ferrets – no. They bite.’

‘Paddy!’

‘Oh, all right. I know he has to be safe.’ She marched off to the bathroom. The dawn chorus had pulled in all the extras, non-professionals and substitutes, and the resulting cacophony had woken love’s young dream in the back bedroom. Reen seemed to be enjoying herself, and her grandmother was pleased about that. Too many marriages failed due to mechanical difficulties, and there was no way of correcting problems by fitting a new battery or having an oil change at a garage round the corner. The human body was a mysterious article.

There was an old woman in the mirror again. The face was pleasant enough, but lived in. Kev still loved her, and that was what mattered. He, too, bore the marks of time, yet they still clung together like children lost at sea. What if he died? She’d never cope; if she went first, he’d be completely lost. ‘Have a wash, you stupid old crone. Hang about much longer and you’ll have the cows home.’

Back in her bedroom, Paddy closed her ears to the noise next door. She lit a night light in a blue glass container and placed it below a statue of the Immaculate Conception. ‘Intercede, Blessed Mother.’ She then recited from memory, ‘Wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord.’ These gifts from the Holy Ghost arrived when a Catholic was confirmed, and Paddy needed them reinforced today. She often used the Virgin Mary as messenger; everyone listened to Mary, though Jesus had been a bit snappy with her when she’d told Him off for preaching in the temple at the age of twelve. Mind, twelve was a difficult age, and the lad had been half human after all. ‘Oh, pull yourself together, Patricia. This is going to be one very long day.’

Kev had a shave followed by a lick and a promise. There was no point in attending to detail, since Scouse Alley wanted cleaning while half a dozen helpers peeled spuds and carrots for tomorrow. None of them knew the recipe, because Paddy had her secrets, and one of them was her scouse. She had taken the Norwegian dish and injected a bit of the Irish into it; she also used a combination of herbs known only to herself. The women of Bootle and the rest of Liverpool had tried, but no one could get the full list out of her.

Oh, well. He would get a bath later, as a lot of dirty stuff needed shifting first. Finbar and Michael. Old Ernie Avago. Wedding wreckage. Above all, he needed to look after his own wife, because he knew she was terrified.

They travelled in the van and left it in an alley behind Ernie’s house. It was better this way; they wanted to attract no attention during this very early morning visit. As expected by Kev, the old man was out in the relative cool of morning. He didn’t exist in a tin box that held in yesterday’s heat during summer, yesterday’s cold in winter, so he lived the more temperate and sensible life when it came to weather. Nevertheless, he always wore a hat, because the sun was not just a friend; it was also a deadly enemy. A slender whippet, older now, lay in a basket under the ferrets’ cage.

The visitors entered the garden. The smell of roses was almost overpowering, and Ernie was dead-heading some of his prize-winning bushes.

Paddy was the first to address him. ‘Ernie? Still got the ten-gallon hat, I see. You look great, but.’

He half closed aged eyes and peered at her. ‘Paddy? Oh, I am pleased to see you.’ He gazed over her shoulder. ‘Kev. Well, we’d have nearly a full set if the lads had stayed.’

Paddy’s stomach lurched. ‘They’ve gone already?’

Ernie nodded. ‘It was after two in the morning by the time they scarpered. It looked to me like the boys were waiting for the car, because though they climbed the stairs, they never went to sleep. I was restless meself, what with the heat and me not being used to visitors. At my age, you don’t need a lot of sleep. So I saw it coming with its headlights on, though they were switched off when it got here. I saw Fin and Mike jumping into it. And they were gone, just like that.’ He tried to click his fingers, remembered the arthritis and gave up.

‘Where?’ Kev asked. ‘Where’ve they buggered off to, Ernie? They weren’t here more than a few hours.’

The old chap shrugged stiffly. ‘No idea. They never said nothing about it. But they spent ages writing letters. One left an envelope for his mam and dad, and the other wrote to you two. Oh, and they left me ten quid. Nice lads.’ He paused for a few seconds. ‘But what’s the matter, Kev? They were jumpy as a couple of fleas the whole day and most of the evening – couldn’t eat a crumb. Every time there was a noise in the street, they went white and sat down.’

Kevin answered. ‘No idea what’s going on. But we need to get you somewhere safe for a couple of weeks. Blackpool, I thought. You might enjoy a fortnight on the sands.’

Ernie laughed. ‘Look, I can’t travel – I’m an old cripple, as you can see for yourselves. Even a short journey would kill me. Neighbours do the shopping and cleaning, then me granddaughter does the laundry and the ironing, cooks some meals and washes the pots. I can’t be buggering off to Blackpool. Here’s where I have to stay, but thanks for the offer, it’s appreciated. You still living in that sardine tin?’

‘We are,’ the pair chorused.

‘Oh well. Come in for a cuppa, and read your letter. You can take your Maureen’s with you, give it to her when you get back home. Nice to have visitors.’

Kev patted his wife’s shoulder. ‘Do you want to read it first?’

She shook her head. ‘Together. We do this together.’

Ernie Avago was asleep within minutes. He drank his tea, then slipped into that happy place so well deserved by those who have spent decades toiling and sweating for a pittance. A child of the Victorian era, the dock worker had to be approaching eighty. There were no budgies. Paddy gazed down at the old man. His dog was on its last legs, his birds were dead, and she had no idea about the state of the ferrets, as they were to be avoided at all costs. ‘Life gets taken away a bit at a time,’ she said, mostly to herself. ‘It’s not just the big bang at the end; it’s all the bits that drop off beforehand.’ She knew he wouldn’t replace his dog when it left him. She knew he was preparing for his own departure. ‘Cruel world,’ she muttered.

‘He’s Ernie Simpson,’ Kev whispered. ‘See, here it is on an envelope. All these years, and we never knew.’ The man’s bed was under the stairs, and a commode stood close by. Bless him; he was not fit to travel. ‘He has to be all right, Pads. One of the best blokes ever. I hope he just slips away when his time comes.’

But Paddy had picked up another letter, one addressed to herself and Granda. Her hand tingled like pins and needles. It was as if the contents tried to reach her via some osmotic process, so she passed the problem to her husband. It was a problem. Bad news had travelled up her arm and into her chest. ‘Jesus mercy, Mary help,’ she mumbled. She didn’t want him to open it, but he must.

‘Sit down,’ he said gravely after tearing open the envelope and reading the first couple of lines. ‘Now, I want you to try to stay calm. Sit down, Paddy,’ he said again.

She sat. They were supposed to be doing this together, but she couldn’t quite manage to look. There was a dead weight in her stomach; this morning’s toast seemed to have turned to lead.

Kevin reached for her hand. ‘Your brother Peter died of a heart attack,’ he said carefully. ‘But Callum was removed.’

Paddy swallowed. ‘Removed to where?’

Kev scanned another line. ‘Probably Epping Forest.’

Her face blanched. ‘They were older than me,’ she whispered. ‘I was just the oldest girl. So somebody murdered my big brother? He was too old to be a real threat to anyone.’

‘I’m so sorry, love.’

She closed her eyes and travelled back once more in time and space, saw Callum running through trees in the orchard back at Ganga’s house. Callum liked trees, loved to climb and hide. He was now buried under trees. There was nothing she could do but accept the news square and straight, as Kev had termed it. Then she heard an unfamiliar sound; her husband was weeping. Paddy’s eyelids raised themselves quickly. ‘Kev? Kevin?’ His head was in his hands. ‘Martin and Jack?’ she asked softly. ‘Our sons, Kevin? Are they . . . ?’

He nodded.

‘Both of them?’

Again, he inclined his head.

An invisible knife pierced her abdomen. Martin was ripping his way into the world, and what a world it had been. In a cellar dwelling with a filthy, ancient midwife as sole company, Paddy had birthed her son. The almost exclusively Irish slum had teemed with unwashed bodies, wildlife and the stench of effluent. And Kevin had got them out.

John, usually named Jack, had been born into better circumstances. Their home had become a flat in Sefton Park, a place whose non-resident owner refused to give space to Irish immigrants. So Paddy had kept her mouth shut for the most part, while Kev, a first generation Scouser born of Dublin parents, had been forced to do all the talking. And he’d worked so hard, had got them out again . . .

‘Paddy?’

She snapped out of her reverie. ‘Removed?’

‘Yes.’

She inhaled a deep, shuddering breath. ‘So Finbar and Michael are next on the list?’

‘It would seem so, yes.’ He dried his eyes. ‘Our sons are in Epping Forest, too. They got above themselves, tried to start their own business. Business? Beating up shopkeepers and pub landlords who won’t pay protection? It seems they were all in on the plan. Or perhaps the older ones were removed as a warning to these two boys.’

‘They were still our sons and my brothers, Kev.’ Peter and Callum, Martin and Jack, three murders and one natural death. Or had Peter died of fear?

‘I know who they were, love.’

‘If Finbar and Michael had never gone to London with the boxing club—’

‘I know that, too.’

‘They’d never have been sought out by their elders. Do they say where they are?’ Inside, she burned. Was it fury, was it grief? She was unable to separate the two emotions. She wanted to kill; at the same time, she needed to weep a river of tears. Whatever Martin and Jack had become, they had been her babies, hers and Kev’s.

He swallowed audibly. ‘I don’t know what it says further down. Like you, I’m busy mourning two sons. We should go home, love. We’ll read the whole thing together, then deal with poor Maureen and Tom. Remember, she has two sons missing and two brothers dead. And you know how she is.’

They left Ernie Avago-Simpson asleep in his chair. Outside, they were assailed yet again by the deep, cloying fragrance owned only by roses. Some of the blooms were so dark in colour that they appeared almost black. Ernie had worked for years on the dark side, but only in his garden. His search for a black or navy rose had occupied his whole retirement. ‘Keep him safe,’ Paddy ordered the Almighty. She was beyond begging, beyond prayer. It was time the big boss got told what to do, because He had clearly been getting it all wrong. Was anger with God forgivable? Why, why was He allowing all those terrible things to happen to people who tried their very best in this vale of tears?

In the van, she asked Kevin not to start the engine. She wanted to arrive home prepared, because Maureen would probably throw a fit, and full knowledge was the best armour. ‘Let’s see it now,’ she said. ‘Because I’d sooner know what’s what before facing Maureen.’ She took the letter and read it aloud, omitting only the first few lines. That was the bit she and Kev already knew about, and it was, she hoped, the heaviest part.

We feel guilty, because we were approached by others who wanted to work a few patches. It’s not as if the new firm was standing on anyone’s toes – Ronnie and Reggie don’t work that part of London, the Spits weren’t interested, the Bow Boys told us to please ourselves, and we got no sense out of the Greeks as per usual. Then Uncle Peter died suddenly, but at least he had a funeral. Representatives of all the firms were there, so imagine our shock when Uncle Callum disappeared. It wasn’t his fault. He knew nothing about the new firm, so he was killed as a warning to us.

We got an anonymous note to say stop the big ideas, then our uncles Martin and Jack weren’t around any more. Evidence was put on our doorstep with the milk. I don’t want to upset you even more by telling you what it was, but we knew they were dead. That left just me and Mike. I don’t need to tell you that we’re in big trouble. We’re leaving Ernie’s soon. Our women are coming up north for us. No one knows our girls – at least we hope they don’t. But we have to disappear, as I’m sure you will understand by now.

Gran and Granda, we’re so sad about the uncles, and we don’t know who did all that. But we know who didn’t do it. The Kray twins’ lot are not guilty of the killings. We thought they’d come for us when we saw their car outside the flat, but they hadn’t. Reg gave us money and told us to get the hell out of London pronto. This means we’re protected by them, but God knows what they might expect in return. We don’t know whether we’ll ever be safe, and we shouldn’t have come anywhere near Bootle, but we just gave the girls Ernie’s address in a hurry before we got the train. Even if the old man hadn’t been here any more, we could have waited in the alley at the back. Tell him thanks, by the way. He was very good to us not just now, but all our lives.

Mam’s already upset, so we didn’t tell her the really bad news when we saw her for a few minutes. We gave a kid a few bob and told him to fetch her to the alley. She went mad because of Reen’s wedding. With all the trouble down south, we’d forgotten about it. Mike’s writing to her now. We may have been followed. The trouble with London gangs is you don’t know who to trust. But we trust the Krays. I know they can be vicious and they won’t improve with age, but they’re on our side.

So sorry to bring all this mess to Liverpool. By the time you get this, we’ll be long gone. Give our love to Reen and tell her to be happy. Sorry again.

Fin xxx

Both occupants of the car sat in silence for a while. Paddy, who had scarcely acknowledged the existence of her brothers, who had seldom spoken of her sons, felt close to breaking point. She had always expressed the belief that work kept a person going, that the ordinary, everyday routine helped to keep folk sane. The idea of cooking and clattering about in Scouse Alley’s kitchen did not appeal. Her usual stand-in was Maureen, her last remaining child. Even Maureen didn’t have the complete recipe. On those rare occasions when Paddy became ill, her daughter was given a packet of herbs and told to do her best, but Maureen’s best was unlikely to be achievable today.

Kev broke into his wife’s thoughts yet again. ‘Give me the herbs, and I’ll make it. I know it won’t be like yours, but I’ve done it before a couple of times and nobody complained.’

‘How do you do that? How do you climb inside my head?’

‘Practice.’

She sighed heavily. ‘You can help, but I want things to look normal. Our son-in-law killed three men last night, and I refuse to endanger him.’ A thought struck. ‘And we may have to give up the faith. Because we’d need to tell what we know in Confession. Anything withheld could be sacrilege, and we know about killings. A priest can’t intercede for murder or manslaughter until or unless the police are involved. The same with theft. Restitution or a donation to charity is required for theft before a blessing can be given.’

Kev agreed up to a point. Outsiders believed that Roman Catholics could do as they liked and get their souls cleansed every week. This was far from the truth. The bigger sins against society needed to be dealt with by society before absolution could be granted, yet he and Paddy could not hand Tom over to the law. ‘But we didn’t commit murder, Pads. Neither did Tom, because he saved many lives. If there is a sin, it’s his to tell. Ask our priest without actually telling him—’

‘Give it up, Kev. If you asked that one his name, he’d need to look for his birth certificate. He’s more pickled than a jar of silverskin onions. I’ll find a sober priest in another church.’

They drove home slowly, as if they didn’t really want to go there. Both blinked back tears; both wondered whether they might have failed Martin and Jack. Had they worked too hard at making a living and climbing the steep rungs of the housing ladder? Had their sons suffered as a result? Maureen had turned out well, but girls were sturdier and more resilient than boys. And even Maureen had her limits. There was the terrible singing when she was in drink; there was also a temper hot enough to boil falling snow before it reached the ground. Paddy voiced her one positive thought. ‘Seamus won’t go to London, because he’ll have no one there.’

Kevin agreed. ‘As long as he doesn’t grow up looking for the people who killed his uncles and caused his brothers to disappear. But there’s twelve years between him and Reen, and more between him and the lads, so he’s like a different generation from Finbar and Michael.’ He parked the van. ‘Right. Now, we break our hearts again while breaking our daughter’s heart.’ He mopped his brow with a handkerchief. ‘I’m getting a bit past it, you know. Stuff like this gives people heart attacks.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ came the swift reply. ‘My boys were scarcely in their twenties when they went south for a look at London life. I knew I’d lost them years ago, God rest their troubled souls. My grandsons are alive and safe, I trust. The other dead ones are my brothers, older than you, older than me. Sixty-five isn’t that old. Don’t die, or I’ll kill you.’

He held her hand. ‘A pearl beyond price,’ he said. ‘Come on. Let’s get it over with.’

It was hell. Maureen ranted, raved, tore down curtains, smashed ornaments, clouted her poor husband, broke dishes and threw a frying pan through the kitchen window. Fortunately, Seamus had popped out for the News of the World and a Vimto ice lolly, so the worst was over when he returned with a rather soggy newspaper. ‘Me lolly melted,’ he said. ‘See? I was reading this about a burnt-out car in the sand dunes, three bodies in it. It was near Southport. It’s in the paper, Dad.’ He looked round. ‘What happened here?’ he asked.

Kev was good at thinking on his feet. ‘Now, you’re a clever boy reading like that. Give me the paper. Remember we told you your mam’s at a funny age?’

The child nodded. ‘Is she on a maddy?’

‘She is definitely out of sorts.’ Out of her mind would have been nearer the mark. ‘Come on, we’ll go fishing.’ He took the boy next door. If Reen and Jimmy were at it again, he would put a stop to it. Seamus’s innocence must be preserved at all costs.

So Paddy was left once again with the fruits of her daughter’s fury. She’d always been at a funny age, this one. Maureen’s temper was swift, hot and soon dispersed. It had occurred to Paddy that Maureen should have been involved in demolition, so quickly did she destroy a room. ‘Get her a cup of tea, Tom,’ she said. ‘If you’ve any cups left. If not, she can make do with a jam jar, a bucket – whatever.’ She eyed her wild daughter. ‘Have you finished now? Is the tantrum over – can we call the dogs off and tell the coastguard to stand down? Because you’re not the only one in grief. Is the devil out of you?’

‘Yes. I want me boys.’

‘And I can’t ever have mine, Maureen. My brothers and my sons, all gangsters, all dead. Your sons are alive and with their girlfriends. When you’ve stopped destroying your home, read properly the letter they left for you. I have things to do, a business to clean and run.’

‘Don’t leave me, Mam.’

Paddy held her unpredictable, feisty child. ‘You’ve got Tom.’

‘He killed those men,’ Maureen sobbed.

Paddy withdrew her physical support. ‘You were the one with the gun in the bag. Tom did what came naturally to him. Now, you just listen for once instead of feeling sorry for yourself. Had Tom not acted as swiftly as he did, you’d have no son to fetch that silly newspaper. Seamus wouldn’t be fishing with your dad; he’d be on a slab in the morgue, and he’d be full of holes. Would that be your preference? Should Tom have allowed that to happen instead of ridding the world of a few more gangsters?’

Maureen shook her head. ‘I’m just confused and frightened.’

‘You’re also missing a kitchen window, and half a tea set. It’s time to put your temper to bed once and for all. You indulge yourself, kicking off like that. There’s a seven-year-old boy living in the house, and he’s better behaved than you are. Your carryings-on could force him to leave home early, just as his brothers did. You can’t possibly expect him to be content living here with you and your moods.’

A very silent Tom entered the room and pushed a mug of tea into his wife’s hand. The younger woman rallied. ‘Are you saying it’s my fault that Finbar and Michael went away?’

‘No more than I’m asking whether Martin and Jack were driven away by me. But think about it. Seamus was angry enough already because of the satin suit and hat. Then he comes home with the newspaper and finds his house wrecked by his own mother. And has it not occurred to you that the police might be on their way? I know none of the wedding party will betray us, but are we completely sure that no stranger saw what went on? Well?’

Maureen dropped into a chair. ‘I didn’t think—’

‘And there’s the answer. You react like an animal when it senses danger. Now, I’m off to my work, because we have to carry on as normal. I believe that kitchen window of yours has been broken more times than a bowl of new-laid eggs. Tom still keeps the right size of glass in the shed, so get him to replace it before the bobbies turn up. As for the rest, shift the breakages and put your furniture in the middle of this room. You’re decorating. I mean it, Maureen.’

‘All right.’

‘And stop these eejit tantrums. What you’re short of is a good hiding, madam. Oh, and remember, when you get time, read that letter again. Have Tom with you when you do. No kicking off.’

There was no van, because Kev had taken Seamus out of the war zone for a few hours. It was quite a walk from inner Bootle to the edge of the Mersey, but Paddy had done it before. On this occasion, however, she was not exactly full of energy. Her brothers were dead. That alone was enough to knock her sideways, but her sons? Those two little lads had learned to read at her knee. How proud she had been of her ability to teach them that vital art. Reading was the key to all else. It opened doors to history, geography, science . . .

As soon as they were at school, they’d started bullying. Nothing major at first, but they learned in time how to terrify, subdue, dominate. Any teacher who tried to control them suffered, and they excelled at boxing. Michael and Finbar had travelled a similar path with the noble art, though they hadn’t been quite as naughty as their uncles.

Martin and Jack, one at each end of the pram, barely twelve months between them. That had been Kev’s idea. He’d wanted her to get it all over with while she was young enough to cope. Maureen had been born in a proper house, and Kev had been right, because his wife had managed. Their love life had, of necessity, become inventive, and he had stuck to that calendar like glue, as three children were enough for any marriage. Like all good Catholics, he had refused to employ real contraception. He was one in a million.

The sons of that man in a million now lay in Epping Forest. The only decoration for their graves would arrive in the form of autumn leaves. She mustn’t cry. She needed to arrive in Scouse Alley’s kitchen full of life, advice and complaints about people not tidying as they went along, about carrots being cut too thick or too thin, about the wedding, Seamus’s suit, the drunken celebrant, Maureen’s singing, the fights . . .

But. No mention could be made of blood lying black in moonlight, of bodies, guns, a car. It occurred to her for a brief second that Tom had meted out the family’s revenge; three dead for three dead, since Peter had died naturally. Or had he? Had terror stopped his heart? Whatever, she must stop thinking like a gangster.

She rounded a corner and saw her newest baby, Scouse Alley. There was no sign of police, no sign of trouble. Walking up the path, she checked for bloodstains, found nothing. Turning, she gazed down at the river and the street that led to it. Nothing. She hoped the car had burned thoroughly, because there might have been a scrap of paper bearing names and addresses. ‘Worrying like this will have you crackers,’ she whispered. And had the invaders from London known about Ernie, they would have bypassed the wedding and gone for their real targets.

Ernie Avago-Simpson seemed to have no idea of what yesterday’s visitors were involved with. She hoped that no surviving piece of evidence in that car would leave even the smallest clue, but beyond that there lay deeper disquiet. Who in London knew where the three dead men had been going? Had Finbar and Michael been careful? Had anyone else been given Ernie’s whereabouts? With the incident spread all over Maureen’s rag of a newspaper, the whole country would doubtless be aware of the cremated corpses. So who was safe? Those three had known where the wedding reception was to be held . . .

She entered the kitchen by a rear door and met with a barrage of questions. Had she heard the news? Wasn’t it terrible? Three teacups and one dead man. The number three again. ‘Minnie?’ she asked wearily. ‘Can I have it from you?’

Minnie Walker did the talking. Ernie Avago’s granddaughter had found him dead in his chair not half an hour back. He had a smile on his face, but the aged whippet wasn’t happy. The old man had a couple of male visitors yesterday afternoon, but his Christine had found a warm pot and three unwashed teacups today. So someone had been there early this morning.

Paddy placed herself on a stool. ‘It was me and Kev,’ she said, her voice shaky. ‘Ernie was fine, so he was. We went a few times before Mass on a Sunday, and I usually remembered to wash up, but I was in a hurry today.’ They hadn’t visited him in months. Lie upon lie. Venal sins, but piling up like layers of paint over a huge blemish that would break through again and again. ‘He was asleep when we left him, God bless and save his good soul. Messing about with his roses when we got there.’ Another death. How many more?

Another walk ensued. After pushing her package of herbs into Minnie’s hands, Paddy cut through back streets in order to catch Ernie’s Christine. If Christine knew the identities of yesterday’s visitors . . . Lying was bloody hard work. A good liar needed a good memory, and Paddy’s powers of recall were not what they had been. Then there were the teacups – what if Christine wanted the police to check her dad’s cup for poison? There wasn’t a phone box on Ernie’s street . . . ‘Please, God, please.’

But she needn’t have worried. Christine stepped out of her husband’s embrace and into Paddy’s. ‘Mrs Moss said you’d been. She saw you with him in the garden. Bless you and Kevin.’

Ernie was still warm. He’d always been warm, generous, open-hearted. Christine and Alan, her husband, had laid him on his bed. Paddy stroked the wiry, grey hair. She was saying goodbye to several people, and Ernie was the only one she would ever reach, so this poor, innocent man represented them all. ‘Is the priest coming?’ she asked. ‘Ernie should still have the Unction, because I’m sure his spirit is standing at the back door looking at roses.’

The answer from Alan was affirmative.

Christine mopped her face with a tea towel. ‘Who visited him yesterday?’ she asked. ‘Two young men, we were told.’

Paddy, who felt sick with relief, light-headed through exhaustion, managed a slight shrug of her shoulders. ‘You know how your grandfather was, Chrissie. His door was always open, and he had friends of all ages. They might have been ferret-fanciers, rose-growers – whatever. Will I have a quick look round for clues? Because if we can find them, they might want to be at the funeral.’

So while Extreme Unction was delivered by a priest, Paddy got the freedom of the house. After making sure that nothing of her grandsons remained, she re-entered the kitchen. The priest had gone. ‘No idea who his visitors were,’ she told Christine’s husband. ‘But they’ll perhaps read the announcement in the newspaper.’

‘Thanks,’ Christine said absently. She was sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘He has oil on his head.’

‘Leave it be.’ Paddy stood by the grieving woman. ‘It’s holy oil.’

‘It’ll be a big funeral.’ Alan sniffed back all emotion. Grown men didn’t cry.

But Paddy did. She finally opened her mouth and released a sound that was almost primeval. Like a sad, wounded wolf baying at an unresponsive moon, she mourned her brothers, her sons, and this man who had represented all that was good, all that was disappearing with Ernie’s generation. She, a child of the later Victoria years, had done a poor job of keeping in touch with her wider family, of rearing her boys to be decent. As for today’s youngsters – she disapproved wholeheartedly. Some people, somewhere, had got it all wrong. And she was one of those people.

‘Paddy?’

She pulled herself together, though it took some effort. ‘I’d better get home.’ Her breathing wasn’t right, so the words were born fractured.

She was forced into a chair and given a glass of brandy. Alan went off to borrow a car. He would be back to take Paddy home once he’d dealt with the doctor and the undertaker.

Chrissie patted her companion’s hand. ‘I never expected you to be as upset as that,’ she remarked.

Paddy sipped her brandy. ‘I’m tired,’ she admitted finally. ‘The wedding and so forth. I’ll be better shortly, but.’

She didn’t remember much after that. The brandy seeped into her blood, and she began to nod off. Alan helped her to the car, and she returned to an empty house. In the overheated living room, she slept on a sofa. Reen and Jimmy had probably gone to look at the O’Garas’ prefab, and Kev was . . . somewhere. He was with Seamus.

Paddy slept for six whole hours.

People don’t bother with me, yet I could have been something of a wit. I went home one day to the Dingle hovel, and Edie next door told me that Dad had gone out. ‘Pour some more petrol on him,’ I told her smartly. I was only about nine at the time. Another evening when he was following me home, a man asked me, ‘Is that your dad?’ So I told him no, I was just looking after him till the appropriate authorities found him a place. But I didn’t become a comedian, did I? Instead, I’m a street cleaner. I clear away the human rubbish. Oh, and I work in a shop.

Five

Tess was about to put her foot down and, when she did place it on the floor, it would be cushioned by Skaters’ Trails. The carpet had become a symbol, a physical expression of her depression and frustration. Don didn’t want to live, eat or sleep with her; he had the money to buy her a house on Menlove Avenue, and he was prepared to spend it to be rid of her. Hating him should have been easy, but she couldn’t quite manage it. How easy life would be if she could detest him. But she could annoy him, oh yes. What she failed to work out was her reason for needing to upset him. He held all the trump cards, and he might well withdraw his offer of a house if she stepped too far away from the oche.

She was still pretty. Her reflection in every shop window she passed proved that point. Men looked at her. They saw beauty, yet knew nothing of her mindset, her secrets. For behind the handsome facade, a disconcerting thought niggled. She was not a loving wife, had never been a satisfactory one. And she’d been stupid enough to believe that he would stay in the marriage because of his leg.

Don was a good-looking man. Lately, she had begun to view him differently, and the limp gave him character. Everyone liked him. Leader of a local pub’s championship darts team, he was greeted with smiles and waves every time he walked out of the launderette and into the street. His popularity had been earned because he was a decent man and a good player of darts. Don deserved to be treated well.

Tess, on the other hand, was seldom spoken to. She could sometimes be a bit cool when customers asked for change to dispense a cup of detergent or to work a machine. They should have sorted all that before dragging their dirty washing through the streets. I am already a bitter old woman, she told her inner self while walking to the carpet shop. And the kids love him more than they love me, because he raised them while I was busy filling daily needs and saving towards freedom. Freedom? Customers can’t even remember to bring the right change or a packet of soap powder . . . And now, he’s going to abandon us, and the children will hit the roof, since it’s all my fault. But even though I might well be leaving the flat, I’m still going to have this carpet. The carpet had become a matter of principle.

But a husband was a prerequisite. Widowhood carried with it a degree of dignity, but widowhood was impossible to arrange without committing a mortal sin, and she didn’t want him dead anyway. Divorce, for a Catholic, was supposedly impossible. It was also an admission to the world that a woman had failed, that she had been placed in the reject bucket. Do not touch, do not feed this animal. Tess dreaded the shame of it. Those who had suffered her terse replies in the launderette would gossip. They’d say she deserved it, had pretended to be a cut above and no wonder poor Don had left the scene, bless him with his bad knee.

‘I’ll have the grey,’ she told the shopkeeper. Red was such a common colour, and grey was the only available alternative. She gave him the address of the flat and asked him to measure and fit before lunch time tomorrow. When Don came home from work, he would see her statement; whether or not she stayed in the flat, the carpet would be a fait accompli. Axminster square, indeed. Everyone had fully fitted these days, because polished floorboards or lino edging were very pre-war. Even if the flat was to be let, a new carpet was required.

The kids knew there was something wrong. Their father was sleeping on the sofa, which was doing his knee no good at all, while Sean had been heard to deliver the quiet opinion that his mother’s face looked like a squeezed lemon. But neither Don nor Tess had spoken to them yet about the planned separation. Would they suffer? Well, they weren’t babies any more, and this world was full of hard knocks . . .

She sat with a cup of stewed tea in a small café that could not be listed as having seen better days, since it had always been scruffy. But Tess needed space to think, and there was plenty of that in this oily hole. The flat no longer felt welcoming, the launderette was noisy, the streets were too busy. She was the only customer here. Even the cup stank of rancid fat, while the table was chipped and marked by the scratched initials of today’s young. The decadent establishment was soon to change hands and become a milk bar with a juke box and non-alcoholic drinks for a generation of nomads.

They wandered. They came home from work, ate in a hurry, then beggared off to places they would never discuss. Sean was a quick wash man, but Anne-Marie took hours to get ready. She was now apprenticed to Dolly Pearson, a hairdresser from . . . from Menlove Avenue. The hairdressing shop was a Smithdown Road lock-up. Dolly was divorced, and was looked upon as damaged goods, though she seemed not to care. Was that the answer, then? A hard shell, a layer of nonchalance, a permanent smile and a permanent wave always well set with a fringe on the forehead?

Sean was old enough for pubs, but Anne-Marie wasn’t. She was, however, old enough to spend her leisure time riding pillion behind a man who had renamed himself Marx. His real name, Mark Wells, was clearly not good enough. Mark, as Tess insisted on calling him, was something of an oddity, since he was a quiet Christian of sorts with a loud motorbike. He’d brought the doctor, had ushered everyone out of the launderette while Tess had sat stupidly with a paper bag. Mark voted Labour . . . Still, he’d got rid of Pea-Green, which was surely a good thing?

Oh, she couldn’t drink this tea. Was it tea? It smelled like something that should go straight down the toilet without the need for processing by a digestive tract. But it was her ticket to silence, so Tess remained where she was. Mark. He was doing accountancy, seemed decent enough apart from motorbike and leathers, and he knew John Lennon. Anne-Marie had been a devotee of the Quarry Men for at least three months, so perhaps Mark was merely the key to a golden gate? Children were so secretive these days.

Anne-Marie would favour a move to Menlove Avenue. To be near her hero, the girl would probably move to the moon. Sean was different. For a start, he was male and not particularly communicative. Anne-Marie, now under the influence of a male, was slightly less talkative these days. Men were the deciders, the breadwinners, the leaders. But not in Tess’s household. Her husband had returned damaged by his very brief war. Because of his disability and periods spent in hospitals, Tess had taken the reins, and she had held on to them tightly.

Look what you’ve done today, she chided herself silently. Should she cancel the carpet? Should she take the policy money and move to Menlove? Answers on a postcard, Tess. No matter what, you’ve lost him. So. Do you want to be abandoned on Smithdown Road or on Menlove Avenue? Answers, as already stated, on a postcard to . . . I am definitely going strange. If I don’t buck up. I might well find myself in a padded room strapped down in a straitjacket, and that’s not my style.

A degree of intelligence prevailed. While the greasy tea cooled, Tess Compton found some of her senses. On Smith-down Road, Don’s abandonment of his family would be noticed immediately, and she would be stuck in that flat with boisterous women and noisy washing machines below. On Menlove Avenue, fewer people would comment at the start, and she would own a house. It was time to talk to the children. It was time to take the money and to plan a graceful exit.

Tess Compton left the café. She returned to the carpet shop and cancelled the order, offering as reasons the fact that her husband hated Skaters’ Trails, and the almost-lie that they had decided to move from the flat. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised. ‘I’d no idea about his plan to buy a house. It was meant to be a surprise.’

She walked homeward, though she passed the launderette and carried on all the way up to Menlove Avenue. There were two for sale at this end, both stating Apply within. So she applied within. Each house had separate living and dining rooms, a decent hall, three bedrooms and a bathroom. The kitchen was small in one, extended in the other. There were gardens front and back. The extended house had a slightly smaller rear garden because of the improved kitchen, but the owner was leaving carpets and curtains at no extra cost, and the front sitting room had Skaters’ Trails, the grey version, of course. Surely this had to be an omen?

Tess sat down there and then in ‘her’ new kitchen and wrote a contract of sorts. She left a small cheque as deposit, returnable should a survey find fault. Meanwhile, the For Sale sign must be removed. And that was that. She stood in the front garden and admired the house. It was beautiful, newly painted in black and white, while Anne-Marie’s hero lived diagonally opposite. Also, this was a good address, since Woolton was, for many people, a statement of arrival. Don worked just outside Woolton, so the children would be able to see him . . .

She looked up and down the avenue, her heartbeat suddenly louder and erratic. Lots of trees, houses well cared for, several cars and . . . And he had another woman. This sudden realisation arrived like a punch in the solar plexus. Why did I never turn to face him when he was ready in the bed? Why was I stupid enough to make him use me in that way? Even a prostitute would serve him better. I am a cold country, and he has gone somewhere with a warmer climate. How stupid am I? Men need relief and release – my mother warned me about that. Who is she?

Joy about her semi-detached paradise evaporated. How much did she have left after that deposit? Was there enough to pay Injun Joe, the private detective? But there was really no point, because she couldn’t apply for a divorce. Still riveted to the spot, she worked on her breathing. A panic attack threatened. Sometimes, she had one because of worrying about having one. And she couldn’t have one here, not on Menlove Avenue. People here owned new cars and Skaters’ Trails, bay windows, even an oriel in the smallest bedroom, and decent net curtains. Some had gone as far as Venetian blinds and pretend shutters on outside walls . . .

No, she couldn’t have a panic in this place. It was a coffee morning area, a cheese and wine evening location, a keep-your-garden-nice avenue. She managed her breathing before walking back towards home. You did well, Tess. A person looking for a house is expected to stand and stare at neighbouring buildings. But keep taking the pills, woman.

No. She couldn’t apply for divorce, but he might. Wasn’t there a get-out-of-jail card after seven years of separation? If there was, she wouldn’t contest it, because she was being bought out, wasn’t she? It was a house, a house, my wifedom for a house. That was Shakespeare’s King Richard, she seemed to remember from school, but his had been a kingdom and a horse.

The only other way to get a quick divorce was via Injun Joe and his photos. Joey Dodds had earned his nickname in childhood, because he’d always chosen to be an Indian rather than a cowboy. Now, he’d decided to be a private detective, and he earned most of his money by catching people in flagrante and in seedy hotels. Well, Don would find no evidence of that behaviour from her, though she could get it from him and his partner in adultery. Because there had to be another woman. But was proof required? The truth was that no matter what, a Catholic remained married. Even if Don had the marriage terminated after seven years, she would not be free to marry again. She would never do that, anyway. Once was enough for any woman with a degree of common sense.

Yet if she looked at it another way, knowledge was power. She wanted the extended-kitchen house, so she needed to move fast. If she knew the identity of his mistress, she might be able to apply pressure and negotiate for some new furniture and a washing machine. It was September, and she didn’t want to spend another winter in that flat if she could help it.

Even so, there was a huge void where her stomach had been, because she was losing a massive thing – her status. She was going back on the shelf, would be considered soiled goods, a reject, even a danger. A pretty divorcee was to be avoided in case she made a move towards someone else’s husband. It worked the other way round, too, as many men didn’t want their wives to associate with a female who might lead them astray. Did they think separation was a communicable disease?

She’d never been inside Injun Joe’s wigwam. It was above a tobacconist shop, and was reputed to have totem poles, feathered head-dresses and, on the walls, pictures of native Americans. That was where Joe’s flamboyance began and ended. Access to his office was through a rear yard, and he was the soul of discretion. Dolly Pearson was reputed to have used him, though no one was completely sure.

Tess lingered outside the wool shop. At this time of year, she had used to start on her children’s winter knits, but they were beyond the winter knit stage. Should she make one for Don? No, he’d think she was trying to get round him. Was she thinking of arranging another attempt to get round him? Seduction had failed, so she couldn’t imagine a cable knit making any difference. But she went inside, picked up a pattern and some blue double-knit wool. It would emphasise her startling, bright blue eyes. Tess would begin to knit for herself and live for herself, since the kids would leave sooner or later.

She entered the launderette where four women were doing their weekly wash. ‘I’ll be upstairs, ladies. If you need change for something or other, just ring the bell. Oh, and you’ll have a tea and coffee machine soon. I ordered it about a week ago. I think it even serves cocoa or drinking chocolate of some sort.’ She then delivered a beaming smile before climbing the stairs. The expressions on those four faces had been priceless.

Becoming nice was not going to be easy. ‘We’ll have to work at it, won’t we?’ she asked her shepherd’s pie before leaving it next to the oven. It would be heated through for tonight’s meal, and the children would remain at the table this time, because they needed to be told properly and by both parents. Menlove Avenue. She kept saying the name in her head. She needed to continue excited.

Sitting near the window, she began to cast on the bluebell-coloured wool for her new sweater. No one could have everything. There was even space for a small breakfast table in that kitchen. A house was nearly everything, and a husband was not absolutely essential. And the gardens were neat and simple. It was her pride that was giving her pain, and pride was expensive. She might assume the air of the grievously wounded, one whose man had been whisked away by a younger woman. That would work with other single females, she supposed as she began the first row of ribbing.

He was on the stairs. Her insides trembled slightly, and her knitting picked up speed when the door opened.

Don glanced at her. It was clear that she had a plan, because her back was ramrod straight, and she was occupied by something that didn’t require too much concentration. Tess was a poser, though she seemed happily oblivious to that fact. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

Tess bit her lip; he thought he knew her so well. Perhaps this was a demonstration of familiarity breeding contempt. ‘I found a house,’ she replied. ‘On Menlove. This end, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘And I put down a deposit out of my own money. She’s leaving carpets and curtains, so that’ll save a few bob. Do you want to look at it? We could go together.’

‘That won’t be necessary. How much is it with its carpets and curtains?’

‘And light fittings,’ she added. ‘I forgot about them.’

‘How much?’ Don repeated.

‘Nineteen hundred. It’s got a nice new kitchen. There’s another house for eighteen, but that has a tiny kitchen and no soft furnishings included.’

‘Or light fittings?’

He was making fun of her. ‘Or light fittings,’ she answered obediently.

‘OK. Write the address down, and I’ll get it looked at. Is your deposit returnable if there’s anything wrong?’

‘Naturally.’ She changed needles. Did he think she’d arrived in the last shower of rain? He knew only too well that she was a damned good businesswoman, that she’d fought every inch of the way to make a decent home. Everything here was hers, right down to table mats and cruet. For a minute or so, she stopped knitting and wrote down the details of the house. ‘There you are. She’ll have taken down the For Sale sign.’

Don picked up the sheet of paper. ‘What are you making?’ he asked.

God! Surely he wasn’t attempting to start a conversation? ‘A jumper for me,’ she replied. ‘Isn’t the wool a lovely colour? It matches my eyes.’ Pick that gauntlet up, she said in her head. You’ll find no one with eyes prettier than mine.

Don’s thoughts ran on similar lines. Tess was the best-looking woman for miles. Her eyes were stunning, as was her body, while her legs stopped many a man at work. Builders, glaziers, window cleaners and coalmen showered her with attention, but she’d ceased to notice. Had she ever noticed?

Tess turned her temper down to simmer level. The other woman needed to be left out of the recipe until the deeds of that house were parked in the vault of her bank. He was staring at her. She couldn’t be sure of his expression without looking directly at him, but he wanted her. All men wanted her. Even Anne-Marie’s Rocker gave her the eye from time to time.

‘Tess?’

‘What?’

He paused for a while. ‘The sofa’s killing me.’

She didn’t hesitate. ‘Then come back to bed. I’ll have the sofa.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Did he see? Did he really? ‘I have to use the sofa if you use the bed, or we’ll be giving mixed messages to Sean and Anne-Marie.’ The welt of her knitting needed at least another inch. ‘It’s time to talk to them, Don. We should do it tonight after the meal.’

He had no idea why he was suddenly prevaricating. He didn’t love her, did he? And even if he looked at it from a pragmatic viewpoint, Molly was paying for the house. Without Molly, there would be no move, no change . . . He was being bought, as was Tess. For under two thousand pounds, Molly would become his owner; for the same sum, Tess would get the house. What was the matter with him? Molly was a joy to be with, while this one was . . . she was a challenge. A part of him of which he was less than proud still wanted to tame his legal wife. Just once, he needed to make her scream with joy. But she wouldn’t. She couldn’t relax, was incapable of physical excitement— Good God, he still desired this cold, calculating woman.

‘Shepherd’s pie,’ she said apropos of nothing at all. ‘A bit of salad on the side, I thought. Weather’s still just about warm enough for salad.’

Don almost grinned. He was thinking about sex while she concerned herself with lettuce and tomatoes. That was probably the case in most households. Men pondered the wonder of orgasm while women knitted and made sure the family was adequately fed. Molly wasn’t brilliant with food, but she was great in bed. And on the floor. And in the car. ‘Tess?’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you ever have a climax?’

She was studying her pattern. ‘No,’ she said eventually. She would not be ruffled; no matter what Don said or did, she would be ruffle-free. But the flame under her temper was suddenly burning at a slightly higher temperature. She must not allow the mixture to bubble; it needed ice.

‘You pretended.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

She shrugged and swapped her needles again. ‘It seemed the polite thing to do.’

‘Then you turned your back on me and allowed me to help myself.’

At last, she put down the work and looked him squarely in the face. ‘I’m sorry. Anyway, it’s too late now, isn’t it? You’ve made your decision. I was frightened before getting used to the idea.’ In that moment, she realized that she did want the house more than she wanted this place and him. ‘I suppose you could move with us if you wanted to.’

He couldn’t. He couldn’t take Molly’s money and abandon her. There was no real endowment policy, and there was no turning back, because Molly was the pretend policy. No. He was having doubts about radical change, about losing his children, this road, familiar faces and places. ‘I don’t want to talk to them tonight,’ he said carefully. ‘I’d rather wait until we know your house is steady. I know you need to get a house at this end of the avenue, because you’ll have to be near the launderette. But there’s no point getting Anne-Marie all excited about living on John Lennon’s street if it all falls through.’

It wasn’t a street, it was an avenue, but she must not correct him. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Whatever you like. Now that you mention it, that would be better. The house is near his, by the way. I wonder if it’s wise to take her there, because those boys attract some wild ones. She’s daft enough without getting involved with a rampageous fan club.’ Hold on, she advised herself. Don’t erupt, or you’ll destroy this lovely new wool. Do what you always do; sit on your temper. In all these years, he’s never seen you in full flood.

A sliver of sunlight pierced the window and illuminated her hair. Like molten gold, it glowed, providing a halo above a perfect face. Even now, she fed something in him. Yes, she was selfish, careless and unforgiving, but the Irish in her kept her young. Tess was like poetry. She sat there on her own page of life, but if you looked closely, she was a piece of art. There was elegance in her movements, in her stillness, in everything she did or didn’t do. ‘Tess, I did love you.’

She raised her chin, and the halo moved so that it was behind her whole head. And suddenly, the fuel that fed her temper leaked and engulfed her. ‘You don’t even know me; you never did know me.’ In a trice, she was gas mark nine, and she was shouting. ‘I am a determined protector of myself and of my children. You weren’t there. You didn’t lie cold in a wooden caravan, didn’t starve for three days in a row, didn’t see your daddy drunk every other night on cider and poteen. You never saw your mammy all bloody with a baby hanging out of her. You weren’t there,’ she screamed. ‘You didn’t help bury that little dead thing in the orchard. I was four years old with a baby’s corpse in my arms, and I didn’t know whether it was a boy or a girl. It wasn’t even a person, just a doll in a dirty towel in a cardboard box in a hole in the ground. I swore even then, at the age of four, that my children would thrive.’

Don blinked stupidly. There was fire in her, and he could hear it now. But she’d kept it all inside, the fear, the memories, the need to save her own two from anything approaching deprivation. ‘I knew your family was poor, but I’d no idea that you’d been through so much.’

‘I don’t advertise,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t parade my past and serve it up with custard. It’s not because of shame; it’s because I will not cry. I will never again be broken by life, by you, by that lot out there on the streets, by tramps who offer an apple if I’ll take my knickers off.’ She stood up. ‘Fortunately, we had apples of our own, and we often lived on them, so I hung on to my knickers. Do not ever assume that you know me, Don Compton. But I’ll allow you this much. Should you or anyone harm my kids, I will kill. And bugger the panic attacks.’ She stormed off into the bedroom.

Don shook his head in near-incredulity. He believed what she said, but he had never heard her swear until now. As her anger had grown, the slightly Scouse accent had shifted nearer to southern Irish, and her eyes had blazed like blue flame in a winter fire. This was the source of her panics, then. She would never have peace, would for ever look over her shoulder to see if her monsters were closing in. And every monster had been a man.

Could he leave her? Could he really walk out on a woman whose children were almost ready to fly the nest? She wasn’t right, wasn’t fit to be alone. Dr Byrne had broached the subject of some kind of electrical therapy, but she wasn’t bad enough for that, surely? Don didn’t know her? He now had insight enough to understand that nothing would ever be enough to fill the hole created by an almost total lack of childhood. I’ll give you an apple if you take your knickers off. Small wonder she was frigid if her little body had been judged at the price of a Cox’s red.

Her father had dried himself out, though he’d certainly been a drunk when young, and he’d slipped back into the habit after a few dry years. And her mother had been in no condition to protect, care for and feed the ever-expanding family. So the child had become her own parent, and no one would ever break through to the Tess inside.

He left the building in as much of a hurry as his old injury would allow. Tess wasn’t the crazy one; he was. It was becoming clear that there were several psychological mechanisms over which he had little or no control. Was everyone the same, or did he need locking up? No one could keep two women. One was enough bother for any man. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

The car made the decision for him. It took him in the direction of a female who was eight years his senior, who was wife, friend, sister and mother all in the one package. Molly was the only person in whom he could confide without worrying about gossip and the trouble it caused. However, the weight of the parcel he needed to deliver might just break her back. He was probably about to lose her. But he didn’t want to see Anne-Marie stuck at home with an ailing mother who couldn’t be left; wasn’t prepared to place a heavy burden on the shoulders of either of his children.

Oh, Molly. She was slimmer these days, quicker off the mark in a chase, especially when running from a disabled man. Her latest decision was that she would remain a poor cook, since the serving up of the inedible would help her reach her goal of nine stone, as long as people ignored her when she begged for fish and chips.

He parked in a lane that led to her house. She would be home by this time, since most business was done in the mornings. Almost absently, he rubbed the knee. Driving affected him and sometimes caused pain, but the bigger discomfort was in his soul today. God, he was tired. He leaned a weary head on the steering wheel. This day promised to continue unhappy, as he would be disappointing both his women. Could he live without Moll? Could he live with a furious Tess who was about to lose a big kitchen, fitted carpets, good curtains and some light-shades? A mortgage? Who would allow him one, and how could he keep up payments? Yet the trimmings Tess had found on Menlove Avenue were what she needed. They were scaffolding, distractions, dressings for a fevered mind. When the novelty wore off, she would probably drift once again in the direction of discontent.

For the first time, Don entered Molly’s domain in dread. He wasn’t afraid of her, but he didn’t want to see her upset. And the shredded remains of his feelings for Tess kept snagging the wheels on his train of thought. Then there were the kids to think about . . .

Molly sat him down and gave him a cup of hot, sweet tea. ‘Now, Don Compton. You’ve a face on you that might win a knobbly knee competition at Blackpool, but it doesn’t match me décor. These days, men get picked to fit in with the furniture, so buck up. What happened? Is somebody ill?’

He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes for a few seconds. ‘Oh, Molly,’ he managed finally. ‘I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. She’s found her house and left a deposit, but she’s fit for nothing. She boiled over this afternoon, and we both got burnt. In all the years I’ve known her, she’s never lost her temper, not completely. If she gets the house and moves, she’ll be happy till the kids disappear, then the electric shock treatment might become a reality. And I don’t want my daughter giving up her apprenticeship to look after Tess.’ He sighed before taking a few sips of tea.

‘What do you mean by boiled over? Are you talking about an accident with the milk pan?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Well, it erupted that way, as if the stuff inside her had found a crack in an outside layer, and she went up like a rocket. At first, I thought she was talking a load of nonsense, but she wasn’t. She said I didn’t know her, I’d never known her. But when she finally started to come out with it – and I know there’s a lot more – it was bloody heartbreaking. She’d nobody as a kid, Moll. They were starving hungry and cold at night. She . . . oh, my God.’ He was weeping.

‘Don? Sweetheart?’

‘Buried a dead baby. She was four, Moll.’

‘Hell’s bloody bells. Who killed it?’ Molly asked.

‘Born dead. That’s just the start. I can’t leave her. I can’t come here and live with you, because she’s still full of that stuff, and someone has to be there to listen and make sure she takes her pills. I don’t want her in a mental hospital or stuck with nurses drifting in and out of the house night and day. She’s the mother of my kids, after all. And I’m not going to let anything spoil their future.’ He paused and took Molly’s hand. ‘So we’ll have to stay in the flat, my love. I just can’t leave her. I can’t be happy here with you while I’m waiting for a phone call to say she’s strung herself up or taken an overdose.’

She squeezed his fingers. ‘You don’t know me, either, do you? There’s a cheque on that sideboard made payable to you. It’s for three grand, and that’ll cover the cost of a semi on her favourite avenue.’

‘But Molly—’

‘But nothing. I’m a rich woman by most standards, so I’ve no price, Don. You move with her. I’m quite happy with things as they are, and I’ve nobody to put in my will, have I? Get her settled and sorted, but don’t forsake me. You can’t just walk away from Tess, lad. You’d get no respect from me if you did.’ She stood up. ‘Now, I’ve a bit of ham salad lingering in the back of me Frigidaire. It’s been looking at me funny all day, and I’m sure it’s going to ask for its old-age pension if I don’t shape. Do you want a bit of pickled beetroot with it?’

She was priceless. Pickled beetroot, a large cheque, ham salad, all the same to her.

In the kitchen, Molly rattled about and heaved a secret sigh of relief. She loved the bones of the man, but she’d found herself a bit unsettled of late. It was nice having a younger chap who came and made her laugh, yet she prized her independence. Everything would have to change if and when he moved in. Could she let him see her ready for bed, night cream pushed into wrinkles, hair in a net to keep it grease-free, Sam and Uke on the bed, a Georgette Heyer propped on that little reading slope? And the reading glasses sliding down her nose?

Molly prided herself on her sense of fair play. She’d been angry with Don when he’d left his wife on the day of the big panic attack, so she would probably be scared to death if he abandoned altogether a woman who might become suicidal. It sounded as if Tess had guarded so fiercely the child inside herself that she had failed to mature emotionally.

Then there was the other point, already considered. Molly wouldn’t be able to mooch around in a towelling robe for hours on a Sunday morning. Her experimental cooking, which had been a source of hilarity thus far, would surely cease to be funny once Don became a permanent fixture. She needed to do a course in scrambled eggs on toast before inflicting her culinary disasters on any man. Matt hadn’t minded, because he’d loved to cook, and many meals had been eaten in restaurants.

Also, that poor woman deserved her new house. Don didn’t sleep with his wife, so he would still be coming here for an hour or two of light relief, doggy company and a bit of a sing-song with accompaniment on the ukulele.

Meanwhile, Don sat with his head in his hands. Had he been completely honest with Molly? Somewhere, deep inside himself, a small flicker of love for Tess tried hard not to be extinguished. And he remembered from moments earlier that brief yet recognizable expression of relief in Molly’s eyes. She wasn’t ready. And three thousand pounds was so small a sum in her book. He had to accept it. Tess needed the move; Molly needed time to collect her thoughts and wave goodbye to aloneness. She wasn’t lonely, since she always found somewhere to go, a pub to sing in, a friend to lunch with, a course to take in the evenings. He was doing no wrong.

In the dining room, he found the cheque resting beside his plate. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered.

Molly speared a slice of beetroot. ‘It’ll all work out,’ she said. ‘You and I do very well as we are.’

He managed a smile. ‘I need two thousand, not three.’

‘Furniture,’ she replied smartly. ‘And a better car. That bloody thing sounds like it’s got whooping cough or a bad case of diphtheria. And look at me now. Beetroot vinegar all down me new blouse. Twenty-nine and eleven in the sale, that cost.’

Don relaxed slightly. A thirty-bob blouse, a cheque for three thousand – all of similar value according to Molly. He needed to go and face the shepherd’s pie, wanted to make sure that Tess said nothing to the children, but he couldn’t just pick up the money and run. A degree of discomfort continued to plague him. The part of him over which he seemed to have little control wanted to stay with his family, needed to care for Tess, even win her affection. He shivered. Someone was stepping on his grave, and that someone was Don Compton.

Worse was to come. The dogs were outside, and he and Molly had the freedom of the house. While they played on the floor, the face above his changed for a split second, and he saw Tess with a halo blazing behind her head. Bloody hell. If this state of confusion carried on, he would end up in the hospital with his poor wife.

He drove home with the cheque hidden in his breast pocket. Tomorrow, it would go into the bank, and Tess would have no clue about its point of origin. It was from an insurance company, and he must try to shake off the embarrassment he felt while in the company of this small piece of paper.

She didn’t ask where he’d been when he finally entered the flat. He could scarcely remember the last time she’d asked certain questions. But he volunteered a part of the truth. ‘I went to see Molly. Her books weren’t balancing.’

Still knitting rapidly, Tess advised him that his meal, minus salad, was in the oven and would be dry. ‘I didn’t say anything to Sean or Anne-Marie.’ And she wasn’t going to start worrying about Molly Braithwaite, since Molly was a fat frump with no style whatsoever. She was Don’s employer, no more than that.

‘Your knitting’s grown,’ Don commented. Life was becoming stranger, as he now felt almost shy in the presence of his wife. ‘At that rate, you’ll have it finished by the weekend.’ He took another mouthful of shepherd’s pie. Tess was a good cook, and the meal’s time in the oven had made a pleasant crust on top of the mash. ‘The money came,’ he added casually. ‘The house will be in your name, and I’ll move in with you if that’s all right.’

She remained silent.

‘Two single beds,’ he added. ‘I need a firm mattress.’

‘All right.’

And ‘all right’ was as far as she got for the moment. He waited, but no further comment was made. She was one bloody infuriating, selfish cow. So why did he feel like an unworthy teenager at the feet of a local beauty queen? She’d been hard enough to catch the first time round, and his sex life had been rationed almost as harshly as food during the war. He was mad. He was the one in need of bloody psychiatry. ‘I can’t leave you.’ There. He’d said it.

She stared hard at him. ‘I’m not insane if that’s what’s worrying you.’

Don gritted his teeth. No, but I very well may be, was his silent reply. ‘I can’t leave you,’ he repeated. ‘Because somewhere, in a well-hidden part of my stupid self, the love is still there.’

Tess raised her head. If there was ever to be a truthful moment, it had to come now. ‘That’s a debt I can’t repay properly. But I’d miss you, Don. I’ve grown used to you.’

He sighed. People got used to bunions, he supposed. And toothache. Any repeated pain became part and parcel of existence. ‘We’ll go and look at it together tomorrow,’ he promised.

She continued to stare at him. ‘You weren’t going to bother.’

‘I wasn’t going to move in.’

‘So what’s changed?’

‘I can’t leave you,’ he said yet again.

And she smiled. Molly’s smile lit up a room; Tess’s illuminated eternity. ‘You won’t like it,’ she told him.

‘Why?’

‘Skaters’ Trails.’

The man who loved two women began to laugh uncontrollably. ‘How do you manage to get your own way every time?’ he gasped.

She didn’t even continue to smile. ‘Because I’m beautiful.’ She stated the fact baldly. ‘But, you know, I may be wrong in this instance.’

Don stopped laughing. ‘No. You’re beautiful.’

‘I know that. I mean the carpet. It is a bit busy. And common. We don’t want to be the same as all the rest, do we?’

He wondered whether she was using the royal ‘we’, as she seldom spoke about them as a couple. ‘How many rooms have Skaters’ blinking Trails?’

‘Just the one.’

He decided to press her. ‘Can I change it?’

‘Of course. It’s your house.’

Recently, she had begun to forget what he had just said. ‘It will be in your name.’

‘Both names,’ was her reply. ‘Because we’ll both be leaving it to Sean and Anne-Marie. Your money, your savings, our house.’

She was now being untypically fair. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Where are the kids?’

Tess shrugged. ‘She’ll be with Karl Marx on his bike, and he’ll be up to his ears in oil doing a foreigner for a friend. I miss them. Not as they are now, but as they used to be, all shining faces and spelling tests. I felt right. Everything felt right then.’

She was talking to him. He had to answer. ‘That’s because you were doing what you swore you’d do all those years ago. When that terrible thing happened, and not even a funeral, you buried a bit of yourself, love. Living like that, being hungry and cold, made you determined to give your own a decent chance.’

She nodded thoughtfully. ‘But I had to work, Don. And you raised them, taught them to read and spell and count. I missed a lot of that.’

‘Blame Hitler.’

‘Oh, I do, I do.’

That was the moment when he realized why she was ill. She’d lost her own childhood, and she’d missed a lot of theirs. Her one pledge before God had been broken, and his leg was to blame. ‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘Why? Did you shoot yourself in the knee?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Then don’t be sorry. None of this is your fault.’

Later, when Sean and Anne-Marie were asleep, Don had a quiet bath. Once dry and shaved, he crept into the bedroom and slipped under the covers. ‘It’s all right,’ he whispered. ‘I won’t be taking advantage. It’s just the leg, Tess.’ Feeling her tension, he began to stroke her hair until she settled.

She sniffed.

‘Are you crying?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Once upon a time, the most beautiful princess in the world was born by mistake in a little wooden hut. She knew she was a princess, because she had a birthmark on her cheek, a beauty spot given only to people of true blue blood. She moved with all the pride and grace of royalty, and—’

‘And finished up in a launderette on Smithdown Road,’ she said.

Don tutted. ‘No. On Menlove Avenue with leaded lights in the windows and a horrible carpet on the floor.’

‘Shut up.’

‘But a prince with a limp tore up the carpet and bought a blue one to match her knitting and her eyes.’

Tess blinked wetness from her eyes; she would not cry.

‘And they lived almost happily together.’ He lifted her hair and buried his nose in the nape of her neck. So sweet, the scent of this woman’s flesh. ‘Except for motor bikes, oil on their son’s feet and separate beds.’

‘Go to sleep, Gordon.’

He hated his full name. ‘Call me that again, and I’ll tickle you.’

‘And I’ll have your head cut off by the royal axe man.’

‘Fair enough.’ He went to sleep.

See, the streets need cleaning. Some women get some men in a pile of trouble, and I’m here to balance the scales. I don’t know why it has to be my bloody job, but my mother was lovely. I thought she could do no wrong till she scarpered. I can’t be doing with liars. Who said ‘to thine own self be true’? Well, I’m being true to mine own self. Cleaning up, clearing out the trash, letting the sun shine through the rain . . .

Six

Rosh had finally achieved the impossible; she was now in a place where waking, while still painful, was no longer soul-shattering. She had learned to accept a day without Phil, then another, then the next. Some days were sad, others were bearable, while several were satisfying and almost happy. Which was just as well, because Christmas was approaching fast, and the season had always been special. Phil had made it so and, having lost a wonderful father, the three children deserved an extra-special time this year. There was money, though Rosh intended to hang on to most of it. With three children to educate and send forth into the world, she needed that nest egg. But she planned to use some to brighten their lives.

So the wind of change had started to travel through the Allen household, and Rosh intended it to freshen every room. It was more of a breeze than a gale, since the loss of a father as wonderful as Phil had left a massive hole, and speed might have seemed disrespectful. But Rosh would improve the lives of Phil’s children, would keep them occupied and as happy as possible. Kieran’s bedroom next, she decided, then Mother’s.

The girls’ bedroom was going to be difficult, because Alice didn’t often do change, but she’d seemed happy enough while watching alterations in Rosh’s bedroom. Perhaps she might be persuaded? Kieran could work on Alice, get her to choose colours and wallpaper. Fortunately, Philly was easy to please. Immersed in music, she didn’t notice the trimmings around her. The only time she complained was if lighting was too poor for her to read her sheets when learning a new piece. Her intention was to become a songwriter, as someone had to lead the world out of its ‘silly’ rock and roll era.

Rosh sat up in bed and looked round the room. It was pretty and very feminine. Everything had moved. Bed, wardrobe, dressing table and chests of drawers had found new positions in life, while her husband’s clothes and shoes had gone to the poor. Newly painted and papered, the room was completely different. This was no longer the nest in which Rosh had lain with her husband. It had all been changed as quietly as possible by Rosh, Anna and an odd-job man called Eric.

Rosh grinned broadly. Eric Holt had since become a bit of a pest, as he had taken a shine to Anna, and the situation was fast moving towards the hilarious edge of the spectrum. Kieran and Philly made many comments about Gran’s new boyfriend, his height, his slender stature, his worn-out cap. Kieran had been heard to offer the opinion that Mr Holt needed a ladder to reach the skirting boards. Gran often chased Rosh and Phil’s older progeny with a broom, a fish slice, a rolling pin, or anything else that came to hand. If they carried on with the torment, she would kill them.

Mother was still living here, of course. Determined as a Jack Russell down a rabbit hole, Anna Riley continued perpetuum mobile, hyper-alert and full of love. On weekday evenings, she cleaned a couple of offices on Liverpool Road, and she refused to give up her indispendence. This word she had concocted from two others – independence and indispensability, and the Allen household was used to that. Kieran had even put forward the concept of an Anna Riley Dictionary, a DIY volume created for the Irish, the adventurous and the totally daft, but his grandmother was not offended. Years after immigration, she still clung fiercely to her Irish accent. She was grateful to Liverpool, as were many Irish folk, but she had been made in Mayo, and Mayo was printed all the way through her body like Blackpool in a stick of rock.

‘You’d be prouder of me now,’ Rosh told the wedding photograph. ‘I’ll probably go back to work after the New Year. They’ll have a good Christmas, love – Mother and I will make sure. But we’ll miss you so much. It just won’t be the same, Phil, but I’ll try my hardest.’

Phil had always made a drama out of carving on Christmas Day. When Kieran and Philly had been small, their dad had pretended to choose between them and the meat on the table. So a chase round the house with a fork-wielding father had been normal. ‘I only want to see if you’re cooked. Just a little prod with the fork,’ he would yell as his children fled upstairs screaming happily. He’d never done it with Alice, who had been born after a gap of seven years. Alice, when she did take something on board, treated it literally, and she might have been terrified.

The door glided inward and revealed a huge orange cat. Winston had learned how to open doors. Well, some doors. Those that opened towards him remained a mystery thus far, though he was working on the mechanics of the problem. Sometimes, he entered while still hanging from the handle, but this was always done with a complete lack of grace, as the action rendered him wide-eyed, yowling and shaky. This time, he’d remembered to let go. He looked businesslike, tail ramrod straight and stiff, eyes on Rosh, who was the reason for his intrusion. He had come bearing messages, and was doing what Anna always termed a briefcase job.

‘Hello, Winnie.’

‘Meow.’

‘What?’

‘Meee-ow.’

‘Is she?’

‘Mew.’

I am talking to a bloody cat here. Worse than that, I understand what he’s saying. This is definitely not normal. I am definitely not normal. I wonder if there’s a place for me in a nice, quiet rest home for the terminally bewildered? Are there other people like me, crazy and aware of it?

‘MEEE-OW.’

‘Is she dressed?’

‘Mew.’

Under the dedicated supervision of Winston, Rosh pulled on her dressing gown and walked past the cat onto the landing where she found Alice dressed, but gazing quizzically at her shoes. They were shiny-clean, yet Alice found them unacceptable. As the child studied her footwear, a frown creased her face.

‘Alice?’

‘Hmm, no.’

Well, that was a promising start. Rosh noticed that the left shoe was where the right should have been, and vice versa. While the little girl could complete a jigsaw in minutes, she remained stumped by ordinary, everyday difficulties like shoes, odd socks, the wrong spoon, a piece of meat in her mashed potato.

‘Change over,’ Alice said before swapping the shoes’ positions. A huge smile decorated her pretty little face.

These were the Christmas gifts Rosh relished. Already, she had detailed drawings of buildings, and sums on paper. All twenty-six letters of the alphabet sat in a pile on Alice’s little bedroom table, the same twenty-six on the wall, and Alice could match them. There was a brain, a good brain, but it was behind glass possibly frosted by Aspergers. Rosh was determined to break that glass if it took her a lifetime. ‘Hello, Alice.’

No reply, but the shoes were the right way round on the child’s feet. And that was Rosh’s newest Christmas present, delivered prematurely, but valued all the more for that very reason. Alice knew right from left; she was also displaying symptoms of knowing right from wrong, so the show was making its hesitant way towards the road at last.

The biggest gift had been offered by the school, where Rosh had been shown a sketch of the Victorian building, all false castellation, arched windows and scarred brick. Alice had produced this from memory one wet playtime, but it wasn’t the main prize. Although the child appeared not to listen in class, her sum book was full of ticks. ‘She’s bright enough,’ the teacher had said. ‘And we’re getting help. For two hours a week, her communication skills will be worked on. Oh, and she does better if she brings her teddy bear to school.’

‘She talks to him,’ Rosh had said. ‘And the cats. We have two, and the ginger tom seems to look after her.’

That was when she learned that Alice might need a familiar item with her for some time to come. ‘Hopefully, Mrs Allen, the articles will get smaller and less noticeable. But Aspergers children often need to cling to something or other. With luck, hard work and a good following wind, she’ll be playing with the others within a year or two. I’ve had to allow the rest to bring in a toy, because I don’t want Alice to stand out for the wrong reasons. But she is special. All your children are. Kieran will go a long way whatever he chooses to do, and Philly will continue with music, I expect.’

‘They had a clever dad.’

‘And a good mother. Never forget that.’

She had learned something else that day. Alice’s condition was thought not to be curable, though the behaviour it produced could be improved in certain cases to a point where it might be virtually unnoticeable. In certain cases. Alice wasn’t a case, she was a human child with talent, likes, dislikes, needs, and even some naughtiness. The naughtiness was the item in which Rosh invested most hope. The child reacted. In order to react, she needed to have been involved, however peripherally, in a situation near to her. And she was definitely relating to her big brother and to her older sister.

Winston was having a wash. Alice, all bright and clean in her school clothes, watched him. ‘Clean your teeth,’ she told him before going downstairs.

A mental picture of Winnie and a toothbrush made Rosh giggle. She didn’t want to think about toothpaste. Winston and a tube of extruded white dental cream might prove a lethal combination.

Breakfast had begun. Alice had her egg, her special spoon, the statutory battalion of six soldiers, and a cup of milky tea. The older two were eating Gran’s special porridge with thick cream and a soupçon of golden syrup, while Rosh and Anna had toast.

Anna was in full flood with one of her thousands of tales about life in Mayo. ‘So Patricia – she was your granddad’s sister, and some called her Paddy – had one of her daring and unusual ideas. Sure they were only babies at the time, but they had a problem to solve. She thought if they hid their ganga’s clothes and work boots, he would stay in the house and there’d be no more explosions in the sheds. None of them had many clothes to spare, so this seemed sensible enough. Well, Holy Mother on a Friday, he hit the roof in temper. There he was in long underwear with the flap at the back, and an old shirt from before the turn of some long-ago century, and he ranted and raved like a madman.’

‘So what did they do?’ Philly asked.

Anna laughed. ‘Your granddad and his sister ran for the hills, but got tired after a few minutes. When they came back, there was Ganga in a woman’s frock and coat, old wellington boots on his feet, going about his brewing as if nothing had happened. Ah, he sounded wonderful, God rest his bones.’ She nodded for a few seconds. ‘I wonder could we find Patricia? She was with the last lot of Rileys to come over, you know. If she’s still in Liverpool, it shouldn’t be too hard. I’d like to meet her. She was my husband’s favourite sister, backbone of steel, heart of gold.’

‘Weren’t they all supposed to stay together?’ Kieran asked.

Anna shook her head sadly. ‘Some went away for work, some married and moved, and I believe a few crossed the ocean for Canada and America. Then the ganga died, so no one was in charge. Lovely big family like that, all split up without thought, without . . .’

Rosh put a hand on her mother’s. Only Rosh could hear the pain. ‘All right, Mam.’ At times like this, the name Mother seemed a bit formal. Rosh was Anna’s sole surviving child. Miscarriages, stillbirths and neo-natal deaths had left the poor little woman devastated. She had one healthy, strapping girl, and all the rest were . . . ‘Eat your egg, Alice, there’s a good girl,’ Anna said, her voice less than steady.

‘You’ve four,’ Rosh told her mother. ‘Me and these three of mine.’

Alice chewed on a buttered soldier. ‘And Winston and Lucy. Six.’

‘What about Teddo?’ Rosh asked.

She was awarded a withering glance. ‘Teddo not walking, not talking,’ came the reply from a child who lived on the edge of autism.

‘Cats don’t talk,’ was Kieran’s offering.

‘Meow,’ Alice said. Thus she achieved the last word. Breakfast was over, and she went to clean her teeth.

A disobedient tear wandered down the older woman’s cheek. ‘Well, that’s us told, but. Didn’t I always say she’d come right? That child arrived in the world old and in a very bad mood. When she was born, she gave me the dirtiest look I ever got in me whole life. It was as if she knew me already, knew what a nuisance I am.’

‘Impossible,’ commented Kieran the scientist. ‘No one can be born knowing what a nuisance you are. That’s something that grows on a person like warts. I was at least four before I worked you out, Gran.’

Rosh squashed a grin. ‘Go on now. Teeth, then you take Alice to school, Philly. Make sure you hand her over to someone sensible, preferably a teacher.’

The older children left the room.

Someone knocked at the door. Immediately, the whole of Anna’s little body stiffened. ‘I’m out. No, I’m dead, and you’re waiting for the undertaker to fit me with a nice wooden jacket. Or I’ve emigrated to be with our Dan in Philly-delphi-o. London? Christmas shopping? North Pole, South Pole, up the pole?’

‘Oh, Mother.’

It was too late, anyway. A mischievous light shone in Kieran’s eyes as he delivered Mr Eric Holt to the women in the kitchen. Mr Eric Holt was slightly taller than Anna. The famous cap twisted in his hands as he addressed the two women. ‘Sorry. If I’d known you weren’t dressed, Mrs Allen, I wouldn’t have . . . er . . . Mrs Riley, I didn’t—’

‘We’re going now,’ Kieran shouted from the hall.

Rosh went to see her children off. When she closed the front door, she noticed a deafening silence throughout the whole ground floor. He was probably still standing there, torturing the cap in work-worn hands. Well, Mother had to deal with her suitor, so Rosh ran upstairs to dress herself.

She took her time. Underneath all the bluster and harsh words, Anna Riley was as soft as putty. It would take her a while to tell him to bugger off, because she never set out to hurt people. Or perhaps it wouldn’t take long, because this time Anna Riley was like a coiled spring; one touch, and she could jump. Such behaviour might be unexpected, but Mother’s unpredictability was predictable. She seldom behaved quite as people thought she might.

Meanwhile, Anna was sitting at the table with her jaw almost on the plate. ‘Why ever on God’s good earth did he ask you, Eric? What in the name of mercy did you do to deserve such a request? I’m shocked right through to the middle of meself. Roy seems to be such a sensible man. Mind, we’ve not seen him in quite a while.’

The visitor shrugged slim shoulders. ‘I was only having a quick look at me Brussels, thinking I could bring some home soon and give them out to people for Christmas. I say looking, but it was still nearly dark. And Roy has the plot next to mine, and he walks over bold as brass and asks me. Well, no. He wasn’t as bold as brass. In fact, he was a bit strange, like a puppet talking all on one note, no expression in his voice.’ Eric sighed and rubbed his chin. ‘He was odd, as if he was in shock. It’s good money he’s offering, as good as any wage from factory work, but my stomach turned over.’

‘I’ll make a pot of tea. Stay where you are while I think on things.’

She rattled about and thought on things. The thing she concentrated on mostly lived across the street. It had survived a massive heart attack and was now in need of care. ‘Why you, though?’ she asked again.

‘I was there. Anybody with any sense was still at breakfast, but Roy often goes to the allotment before work, and I’ve not much else to do unless somebody has an odd job for me. I’m not one for lingering in bed half the day. It’s a life wasted, that kind of carry-on.’

Anna mashed the tea and brought it to the table. ‘Let that brew,’ she advised. ‘Joseph Baxter needs a trained nurse.’

Eric swallowed nervously. ‘Roy won’t let any woman near him. It was a bit . . . a bit embarrassing, really, because he told me some terrible stuff about what his dad had done to his mum. Then he asked me to let him know soon, and off he buggered. I stood there for that long, I was near froze to the spot. In fact, when I started to walk home, one of me wellies was stuck in the ice.’

This man was a pest, yet Anna loved his Scouse humour. ‘But I still have to ask you again, Eric – why you in particular?’

‘Ambulance driver, Liverpool 1942.’

‘And what’s that to do with the price of fish? I answered phones two nights a week through the war, but that doesn’t make me a telephone engineer. Does he think changing gear and steering in a straight line makes you fit for a nursing career?’

‘Me and the crew saved a couple of lives, and I don’t mind washing folk and popping in to see if they’re comfortable, but him? I’d sooner look after a rattlesnake.’ Eric accepted a cup of tea. ‘I’m ready for that. In fact, I’m probably ready for morphine.’ He took a mouthful of the cup that cheers as long as you haven’t just been asked to look after a monster. ‘I needed that tea, Mrs Riley.’

‘Anna.’

‘All right. Anna.’

She sat opposite him once more. ‘What’s your problem? Just tell him no, you can’t because you’ve jobs to do.’

‘I can’t. Poor lad’s had it rough all his life, what with the leg, his mam dying young, and being left in the company of that bloody – excuse me – bastard of a father. It’s just twelve noon till six, weekdays only. I can still get to my plot in the mornings and at weekends.’

‘And you’ll be a rich man, so. But money’s not everything. Look. My Roisin’s a friend of Roy’s. Let her find out what state the old man’s in. Or go and take a look yourself.’

‘I’m a coward, aren’t I?’

‘No. Oh, dear me, no. He’s a special kind of bad. Let Rosh get to know exactly what’s involved. I know this much – Roy swore he’d never have him back in the house. Roy owns the place, you see. But he’s too soft-hearted to see even that bad swine on the streets. The lad will have no peace till Joseph Baxter’s six feet under.’

Eric gazed into his cup. ‘Well, I’m stopping short of murder, I can tell you that for no money.’ He paused for a few seconds. ‘What am I going to do all day stuck in a house? What if somebody wants a window fixed or a door shaved? I could be decorating for decent folk. And if I’m not there to do the jobs, people will find somebody else. I like going in different houses and gardens. I like wandering about. Stuck in there with him? I’d be crackers in a week.’

Rosh came in. ‘Crackers in a week? My mother could drive you there in ten minutes, and you’d need no petrol.’

So Eric had to go through the tale all over again.

‘You’re not doing it,’ Rosh said. ‘Leave it with me. I’ll talk to Roy tonight. The money may be good, but if you lose all your customers, you’ll be worse off in the long run.’ She studied the visitor. It was clear that he felt less than a man, that he didn’t want a woman putting things right for him. ‘Roy knows me well, Eric. Phil and he were friends at school together, so we go back a long way.’

‘And I’ve grown veg next to him for years. I was just that gobsmacked this morning, I didn’t know what to say. Look at the size of me. I’m fit enough for me age, but I don’t fancy heaving Joseph Baxter about. And I should have said that; I should have just told him no.’

Anna managed to hold back a nervous giggle. Eric Holt looked as if an autumn breeze might knock him over. ‘Look, Rosh won’t make a show of you. She’ll ask how things are going, then he’ll mention you, and she’ll tell him you have a lot of work. After all, you might have told us you had a queue of jobs when you were here doing the bedroom.’

Still glum, Eric stirred his second cuppa. ‘I just want the ordinary life. Three pints on a Friday, you know what I mean? Then two or three hours a day on me plot or in me little shed on the allotment, read the papers on a Sunday, do a few jobs for people, fish and chips on me way home.’

Anna finally laughed. ‘The ordinary life? Whatever’s that when it’s at home? I lost the best man in the world, and ended up here with this lot and two cats from the dark side. Mind, Winston’s helping Alice with her asparagus.’

Rosh refused to react immediately. Anna knew the true name of her granddaughter’s possible disability, but she had to make light of it, partly because she tried not to believe in it, mostly because she pretended that Alice was in a bad mood that had lasted years rather than hours.

‘She has Aspergers,’ Rosh explained for Eric’s sake. ‘Lives in a world of her own, not keen on talking to people.’

‘Alice? Your littlest?’

Rosh nodded. ‘She doesn’t communicate well.’

Eric’s eyes were wide. ‘She didn’t shut up while I was here one afternoon. I thought I’d never get finished. We did colours, the alphabet, Teddo One-Eye, being a tree, hair-brushing and would I teach her to whistle.’

‘When was that?’ Rosh asked.

‘You were hoovering, I think. Being a tree’s hard on the arms – I nearly charged you extra.’

‘You see?’ Anna was triumphant. ‘I told you – she’s just in a very bad mood with us. She should have been born in Buckingham Palace to a classy family. We are a great disappointment.’ She collected crockery and began to-ing and fro-ing between table and sink.

Eric was on his feet and starting to murder his hat all over again.

‘She prefers men,’ Rosh said quietly. ‘She was always with her dad, because she was his princess. And she tries to hang on to Kieran. Can it be as simple as that?’

No one replied.

Rosh led Eric to the front door. ‘I’ll be tactful,’ she said. ‘My mother doesn’t do tact. She’s like a double-decker bus stuck in a narrow alley, all noise and no progress.’

He cleared his throat. ‘She’s a good woman.’

‘She is. Erm . . . she likes the cinema. Romantic films with happy endings.’

‘Right.’ He rammed the abused cap onto his head and walked homeward.

Rosh turned and stopped immediately. Her mother was right behind her.

‘She likes the cinema,’ Anna said quietly, her tone coloured by mimicry. ‘What the heck do you think you’re up to, Roisin? Are you trying to pair me off with yon fellow?’

‘No.’

‘Then why ask him to take me out?’

‘Because Alice needs him.’

Anna folded her arms and stretched her spine; sometimes, a woman wanted to be taller than she really was. ‘Alice needs a man. She seems to like a deeper voice, though Kieran’s is still lightweight. You go and find a man. Eric’s a confirmed bachelor in his sixties. We’re short of a man about your age. You don’t have to marry him, for goodness’ sake, but . . .’

‘I don’t want one.’

‘Neither do I. So. What do we do?’

Rosh shrugged. ‘Share Eric?’

At this point, both women collapsed against the walls. Rosh used a foot to slam shut the front door and watched as her mother slid down to the floor like a frail maiden in a silent movie. Rosh joined her on the rug. But there was no silence to be had, because they both howled and beat the walls with their hands, the floor with their heels.

‘We want locking up,’ Anna finally managed. All Rosh’s life, mother and daughter had experienced shared lunacy. ‘And how would we divide him?’

‘Half a pint each,’ Rosh suggested.

‘And . . . oh, my Lord . . . and three pints on a Friday. Isn’t that . . . oh, save me . . . isn’t that what he said?’

Rosh nodded. ‘Fish and chips on the way home.’

‘Cheap.’

They pulled themselves together with difficulty and started on the day’s chores. Anna boiled ham, skimmed off the salt and set it to roast in the oven. She then tackled beds and upstairs dusting.

Rosh ironed, mended, sewed on loose buttons and thought about her husband. She’d been thirteen when he’d first asked what she was doing tonight, and, until she was fifteen, she’d delivered the same answer. Whatever she was doing would not involve him, was none of his business, and why didn’t he move on – Lancaster was nice, or so she’d heard. Sometimes, for the sake of variety, she chose a different location. Madrid, Blackpool, Rome, Venice – the poor lad was urged to relocate in many widespread places.

But Philip Allen had been immovable. Little notes pushed into her hand on the way home, a couple of buttercups and a tired dandelion presented with a flourish as she had neared the house, Valentine cards and, worst (or best) of all, Phil loves Rosh painted on the remaining wall of a bombed house. In purple. Everyone who travelled by bus to Liverpool saw that garish message.

She put down the blouse she was working on. Had he emerged from work thirty seconds earlier or later on that fateful day, the van would have missed him. She would have been ten thousand poorer, but what was money compared to the love of her life, the children’s hero?

A little face insinuated itself round the door. ‘Stop it.’

‘Stop what?’

‘Thinking about . . . things. Depressing yourself.’

Rosh sighed despairingly. ‘How do you know what I’m thinking?’

‘I’m your mother.’

Rosh looked up at the ceiling before fixing her gaze on Mother. ‘Placing a body in a box in the ground is not about laying to rest. It’s about getting rid of matter that will only decay. The putting to rest happens in here.’ She tapped her forehead with a finger. ‘And I’m getting there. I’ve reached the stage where it’s thinking rather than just feeling. So don’t interfere. I have to get through this my way and without those sleeping pills. And with no help whatsoever from you.’

Anna withdrew. There were times when a mother didn’t know best, and this was one of those rare occasions. Watching Rosh suffer had been Purgatory for Anna. A widow herself, she knew exactly how her daughter had felt, but that hadn’t helped. Each person had to learn for him or herself, no short cuts, no assisted passage, just a one-way ticket to despair, the return fare waiting until the mourner was ready to pick it up.

Rosh picked up her older daughter’s blouse. Phil had been so proud of Philly. She was an excellent musician, though no one had managed to work out the source of her gift. Gift. Ah, yes, the dining room would need to be locked and the curtains closed, since the new piano would never fit down the chimney, so Santa had made special arrangements. That tale was for Alice only, of course.

Kieran was to have a brand new bicycle, while Alice’s main present was a dolls’ house, fully furnished and with lots of little ‘people’ to be placed here and there. Those two could be kept in Roy’s house, but the piano had to be locked away like a criminal until Christmas Day. In fact, all the gifts could stay here, in the out-of-bounds dining room. She hadn’t seen much of Roy recently; perhaps he wanted to keep himself to himself for the time being. Should she stay away? Would he want a visitor?

Anna returned. She was good at returning. ‘I’ll see to the children while you get ready to go across to Roy’s.’

‘He doesn’t come home till just before six. Anyway, I’m ready enough.’ The penny dropped. ‘Ah, you want me to look nice for him. Shall I wear my tiara and a full-length evening gown? Do I propose?’

Anna wagged a finger. ‘Now you know how it feels when you try to sell me on to Eric Holt. She likes the cinema, indeed. Go easy on Roy, but. He’s one of the most unfortunate men I ever knew. If anyone ever deserved help, he does. Anyway, I’ve been thinking.’

‘Don’t go straining yourself, Mother.’

‘We can do it. We make an extra plate of lunch and take it across. One stays till three o’clock, the other till six. I’ll give up me evening job, and I’ll be the one staying till six, because you’ll want to be here when the kids come home. You won’t need to go back to work, and there’s neither of us afraid of him. What do you think?’

‘No good. Roy doesn’t want women in the house.’

‘We’re not women; sure we’re banshees or viragos or whatever. One bad word out of him, and I’ll have him chained up like a mad dog. Who’s afraid of a man whose ticker’s on its last tock?’

‘Mother, the job ends when he dies. It has a limited future.’

‘Then I’ll do it by meself.’

‘Oh, will you now? And what if he has a paddy? What if he kicks off and clobbers you with his walking stick? And you’re going to give him the bed bath?’

It was clear that Anna had given no thought to ablutions. ‘Ah, no.’ She shook her head. ‘I draw the line at the waist. Just see what Roy says – you’ve nothing to lose. Now, let’s get tidied up so the three urchins can come along and untidy us all over again. Women, you know, are just pack animals. Carry and place, lift and lower, pick up and drop. Who picks us up when we drop? Another woman, that’s who.’

Rosh grinned behind a hand. Mother would have made a fabulous suffragette, but even London wasn’t bad enough to deserve Anna Riley. However, she had to admit to herself that Anna Riley was magnificent. That so small a body should contain so huge a personality was miraculous.

The children came home. As predicted by their grandmother, Kieran and Philly left a trail of stuff in their wake. Alice didn’t. She hung up her coat and satchel before going upstairs with Teddo in search of Winston. According to experts, obsessive behaviour was part of the syndrome. ‘Syndrome?’ Anna whispered. ‘People are stupid.’

She was ready for the Terrible Two. ‘Pick up every piece of yourselves, feet included, and return this house to the state it was in before you arrived. Alice has cleared up after herself, but you two are throwing in our faces all the work we did today. Your mother’s not a servant, so buck up and pick up.’

They bucked up and picked up. Now she would have another go at Rosh. ‘Wear that nice petrel blue skirt. Cheer him up a bit.’

‘Torment him, you mean. I’m not the sort that plagues decent folk. If he wants a wife, he can look elsewhere. Now, unless you want me to go across in curlers and headscarf, shut up. In fact, shut up anyway, because you’re getting on my nerves in a big way.’

When the meal was finished, Anna put on her coat in preparation for going to work. ‘Philly will look after Alice when you go to see Roy.’

‘No, Alice can come with me.’

Anna stopped getting ready. ‘That innocent child is not going into Joseph Baxter’s house, Rosh. I know we’ve seen nothing of him lately and he’s likely confined to his bed, but he still has a mouth like a sewer, I expect. No. I shall stay here and miss my work.’

‘And lose your job.’

‘So? It’s mine to lose.’ She paused. ‘Stay there, Muhammad, while I fetch the mountain. Send the children upstairs, and take Roy into the kitchen. We want this sorted out for poor Eric’s sake. And for Roy, of course.’

Rosh folded her arms. ‘Listen, you. For once, shut your mouth and use your ears. This . . . conversation has to take place on his territory.’

‘With Alice listening? You don’t know how much she takes in, do you? So, Miss Clever Clogs, you go alone and I’ll go late to my work. The place is locked, and I’m the one with a key, so I’ll go into the offices when you return.’

It was turning into another three ring circus. But the younger woman had to admit that her mother was right, as usual. No one knew how much of life Alice took on board, and Rosh shouldn’t need to hide behind an infant, shouldn’t be afraid of anyone or anything. But she hadn’t spoken to Roy for ages, and she felt . . . shy. After all that fetching and carrying vegetables from his allotment, Roy had made himself scarce. Perhaps he didn’t want to see anyone.

‘Go,’ Anna urged. ‘I don’t want to be cleaning ashtrays and desks till midnight.’

‘I feel daft. I feel as if I’m pushing myself in where I’m not wanted.’

Anna kept her counsel. The day Roy Baxter stopped wanting Rosh, Anna would eat her best church hat, veil and hatpin included. It was far too soon for Rosh to be thinking of a second husband, but there was a lot to be said for a man friend. Men knew about screwdrivers, electricity and bicycles. They could reach things on high shelves, drive cars, dig gardens and mend most household appliances. For such reasons, a man should be kept on one side until needed. And Roy grew vegetables . . .

‘I’m going,’ Rosh said.

‘Good. More fuss than an Orange Day parade with King Billy falling off his horse into a sea of good Catholics. Away with you. My grandchildren and I have homework to do.’

Rosh pulled on a cardigan and crossed the street. What was she supposed to say? Though it was more a case of what not to say, because Eric Holt’s dignity must be preserved at all costs.

Roy opened the door. ‘Oh,’ he said.

‘That’s a good start.’ She waited. ‘Am I to stay on the doorstep? If so, would you pass me a coat or a blanket?’

‘Erm. Come in, Rosh. I’m just finishing his bed bath. Go through and sit. I’ll make a cuppa in a few minutes.’

She entered the hall, turning right for the living room. It was beautiful. Clean fireplace, new three-piece suite, new carpet square, new paint and wallpaper. Roy’s mother’s china was on display in a glass-fronted cabinet, and her photograph sat on top of the same piece. A beautiful mirror almost covered the chimney breast, while decent prints hung in groups in the recesses. On the wall opposite the fireplace, a friendly pendulum clock ticked softly.

He’d done the kitchen, too. It sparkled. He’d fitted new cupboards, a nice sink, a central table with place mats and good, solid dining chairs. The room looked so big. The airer, on a pulley in front of the chimney breast, was used now not for drying washing, but for hanging copper-bottomed pans from butchers’ hooks. Roy had made a huge statement; this was his house, his décor, his idea of pleasant living. She went back to the living room and sat.

He entered. ‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Roy, this is beautiful. All your own work, I take it?’

‘Yes. I may have a crippled leg, but I can still do most things. Eric Holt helped a bit. Tea?’ The eleventh commandment in Liverpool was that visitors drank tea. If they weren’t offered tea, they were business folk, and that was a different game altogether.

In the kitchen, Roy leaned for support against the sink. He hadn’t seen her for a while, but nothing had changed. For over twenty years he had loved the woman, and she still made his heart and his leg ache. The latter gave him pain as if reminding him that he wasn’t whole, wasn’t perfect, didn’t come up to scratch in the presence of the beloved.

‘Can I help?’ she called.

‘No, thanks. Everything’s rearranged, so I need to look for stuff.’ He found a tray, cups with matching saucers, sugar bowl, milk jug, teapot, spoons.

‘Where’ve you gone?’ The less than melodious demand floated down the stairwell.

‘Ignore him,’ Roy shouted. ‘He can dry himself.’ He entered eventually bearing tea and biscuits. ‘You be mother,’ he suggested, ‘while I go and see to the one above. He is killing me.’

‘How is he?’ Rosh asked politely.

‘As bad as Satan, but twice as ugly.’ Roy left the room.

Upstairs, he finished attending to the man in the bed.

‘Who’s downstairs?’ Baxter Senior asked.

‘None of your business. My house, my life, my company. You’re a lodger till I can find somewhere to dump you. Now, shut up while I have a cup of tea.’

‘It’s a woman. Little beads of sweat on your forehead, Roylston. If I could walk a bit better without losing my breath, I’d come down and have a look at her.’

‘Feel free. Watch the carpet on the fourth stair down, you might break your neck.’

‘You’d like that.’

Roy hung the towel on the clothes horse. ‘I haven’t decorated the hall, stairs and landing yet, so feel free to make a mess. Now. I am going down to drink tea with a friend.’

With a friend. Roy looked at his image in the bathroom mirror. He wasn’t ugly. Dark brown hair, plenty of it, dark brown eyes, and he was tall enough, though a bit shorter on the bad leg. With a friend. Phil Allen had been his mate, but Phil’s wife was Roy’s goddess. She was like a jewel in a shop window; unattainable, but looking cost nothing. Not true. Looking had cost him his whole heart and his whole life. Now he was doing up the house to sell, because he could no longer bear to live near Rosh.

She smiled at him when he returned. ‘Still a nasty old nuisance, then?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s taking full advantage of the order to rest, but I fear he’ll be messing up my decorating any day now. Still, I can’t keep him out of my hair for ever, can I?’

‘I suppose not.’ Rosh handed him a cup of tea. For her part, most of the expected awkwardness seemed to have dissipated. The gifts of fruit, vegetables and flowers had ceased to arrive, and she felt settled, almost at home in his company. This was hardly surprising, as they’d known each other since their early years. He was a safe place and a nice man.

‘So,’ he said. ‘Are you here for a particular reason?’

‘Er . . . no. Just to see how you are, really.’ She paused fractionally. ‘I was going to ask you to look after the children’s Christmas gifts, but there’s no need. Philly’s having a new piano, so we’ll have to lock the dining room until Christmas morning, and I’ll keep everything in there.’

‘Oh. Right.’

He picked up the plate of biscuits. ‘The custard creams are quite good.’

Rosh took one. ‘Thanks, Phil.’

Roy’s hand froze in mid-air for a split second. Phil? Did she realize she’d called him Phil? And how did he feel about that? On the one hand, she was clearly contented and safe in his presence, yet he wasn’t Phil, didn’t want to be Phil. But she seemed so relaxed, so at ease.

‘How are you managing?’ she was asking now.

He explained about giving the patient breakfast, leaving flasks of tea and soup with a sandwich for lunch, making the evening meal after work. ‘Weekends are hell,’ he said, ‘but I’ve asked Eric Holt to come in at twelve and see to him on weekdays. He can peel veg and start cooking for when I get back at six.’

So here came Rosh’s chance. ‘Eric’s got loads of work on, Roy. When he did my bedroom, he was saying he had too many jobs. So I thought Mother and I could do it.’

Roy closed his mouth with an audible snap. ‘No bloody way. I’ll advertise.’

‘But Roy—’

‘No. It’s my mess, so let me deal with it. You know how he was with my mam. And you can smile, plead, beg all you like, but no way am I leaving you or your mother with a cruel article like that thing. You don’t know him. I hope you never do get to know him.’

Rosh realized that argument would be futile. Even if she came up with something sensible, Roy was dug in deeply enough to form part of the foundations of a new building. Still, she had to try. ‘Norma Shuttle,’ she pronounced after a ten-second gap. ‘Lives at the St Johns Road end, built like a battleship. In fact, Phil said the Navy was using her as a model for an unsinkable carrier.’

He covered a smile with his cup. Sometimes, he forgot the fun side of her. Women as beautiful as this one seldom displayed humour, because they were usually too busy messing with their hair or peering into a handbag mirror. ‘So you mean that tall, round woman with a face like a fit?’

Rosh nodded. ‘She could hold him down with one hand and clean the house with the other. In fact, when a dray horse was resting, they used her instead. She’s pulled more gallons of ale than any barmaid. The other horses made her an honorary member at the brewery stable; she had her own stall and nosebag, plus Guinness in her trough.’

‘Sounds very attractive.’

‘If you like gargoyles, she is.’

‘I already have a gargoyle.’

Rosh nodded pensively. ‘What about Christmas?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘We’ve not had Christmas since Mum died.’

‘Come to us,’ she begged on a sudden whim. ‘I’ll plate a dinner up for him, and you can carry it across. But whether or not he’s well enough, don’t bring him anywhere near my house.’

Roy considered the offer. ‘Alice doesn’t like new people.’

‘You’re not exactly new. And she’s not exactly in charge. I’m the boss.’

‘Yes. I can see that.’ Roy turned his head slightly. ‘He’s listening at the top of the stairs. Can’t walk to the bathroom, has to have a commode and a bed bath, but he’s managed to get to the landing.’

‘I can’t hear anything,’ Rosh said.

‘Ah, but I’m wired differently. Like the blokes who find water in a drought, I always know where he is.’

Within seconds, they both knew where he was. The stairs delivered their visitor to a new location just inside the front door. He screamed. It sounded as if he managed to hit every single step during the fall. And two people remained seated through many ticks of the friendly clock; they were riveted by shock to their chairs.

Rumour spreads faster than measles round here. Joseph Baxter’s in a bad way, possibly clobbered by his son. Well, I won’t blame Roy Baxter. His old man’s a right bastard from what I’ve heard in the shop while pretending to dust the tobacco jars. I hope he bloody dies. I know what it is to have rotten parents . . .

Seven

The desk sergeant was fed up all the way to his wisdom teeth, one of which was severely impacted. ‘Madam,’ he said, manufactured patience etched into both syllables, ‘you cannot carry on like this.’

‘Oh, she can,’ said the younger of the two women. ‘You should see her when the Orange march is on. You know the row of women who line the route, skirts over their heads, bottoms facing Prince Billy? Well, my mother makes their emerald-green knickers.’

He sighed heavily. Some days were easy. Some days had burglars, thieves and pickpockets. Even drunken fights were simple to deal with when compared to Mrs Anna Riley. The man in the interview room was only being questioned, for God’s sake. ‘Sit down, please,’ he begged.

‘Mrs Roisin Allen?’ called a disembodied voice. ‘Interview room two, please.’ The name Roisin came through as dried fruit.

Anna stared at the desk sergeant. ‘You said that without moving your lips. And her name is pronounced Rosheen, nothing to do with raisins.’ She then turned to her daughter. ‘Go in and tell them what happened. I’m away for a few minutes, but I’ll be back with reinforcements.’ She approached the desk. ‘Never underguesstimate the power of the people. Especially when some of us are Irish.’ She shot out of the police station while Rosh made her way into the bowels of the building. It was dark, unfriendly, and it smelled of fear and human waste. She experienced a strong urge to run home for a bath.

‘Come in, come in,’ suggested a friendly female officer from the doorway of Interview Two. ‘I’m Constable Lewis, and this is Inspector Clarke.’

Rosh followed the constable into the room. It was cream and green, and the man seated at the table was in plain clothes. ‘Is he really a policeman?’ she asked. ‘He looks like the man from the Prudential, same moustache, same disappointed face.’ The table was scarred. Perhaps it had been involved in the Second World War. She was offered a cigarette, and she refused with thanks. ‘They kill budgies,’ she said seriously. ‘Our Bluey never smoked as such, but I think he was a second-hand addict. So we all stopped.’ Rosh was nervous. It wasn’t every week she was forced to step over a dead neighbour.

‘Sit down, please,’ the inspector said after casting a meaningful glance in the direction of his partner in crime. ‘Full name?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Roisin – that’s R-O-I-S-I-N – Carlita Maria Conchita Sebando Riley Allen.’

The inspector stared hard at his victim. ‘You taking the wee-wee?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Not at all. You see, way back to the time of another Queen Elizabeth, the English were no better than pirates. Some of the Armada ships got hunted down and stranded in southern Ireland, and the sailors stayed and married Irish women. The oldest daughter got landed with Irish and Spanish names. Even when my father’s family relocated to a different Irish county, then to England, the tradition continued, or so I was led to understand.’

The man passed a sheet of paper across the table. ‘Write it there, please.’

She wrote it and handed it back. ‘There you go. You have to lisp on the Spanish S. One of the kings lisped, so everybody joined in to keep him company and save him from feeling daft.’

Again, the man’s eyes slid sideways. They seemed to have a right one here.

The questioning began. Had she been in the company of Mr Roy Baxter yesterday evening? Yes, she had. What had been the purpose of her visit? To make sure he was all right. Why might he not be all right? Because he worked full-time in town, had a bad leg, and was looking after his father, a heart attack victim. Had Mr Roy Baxter seemed well? Yes, Mr Roy Baxter had seemed well. He’d even been decorating and cleaning up. Had she seen Mr Joseph Baxter? No. Well, yes, but only after his accident.

‘You were there when Mr Joseph Baxter fell?’

‘I was.’

The man put down his pen. ‘You are aware that he supposedly died instantly of a broken neck?’

‘I am now, yes. But at the time, I just jumped over him and ran to the phone box.’

‘Where you nine-nine-nined?’

Rosh nodded. ‘I asked for an ambulance, although when they questioned me on the phone, I didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. When I got back to the house, I could tell he was dead. His neck and head looked wrong.’

‘Do you think the body had been moved at all? Was it possible that he was only stunned and that his neck was broken deliberately after you had left the house?’

Rosh glared at the representatives of law and order. ‘No. I passed a neighbour. You’ve interviewed Mimi Atkinson. She arrived at Roy’s seconds after I left. The door was wide open, because I was in a bit of a hurry. Had anyone been breaking anyone’s neck, Mimi would have seen it. The only thing that got broken deliberately was the record for the two-hundred-yard sprint to the phone box. I should be in the Olympics. Anyway, when I jumped over him to get out to the phone, I didn’t see his top half. I was so scared, you see.’

A few beats of time passed. ‘You were scared, Mrs . . . er . . . Allen?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Too much death around me. My dad five years ago, my husband in a traffic accident a few months back.’

‘Very sorry, Mrs Allen.’

‘Thank you.’

The man undid the top button of his shirt and loosened his tie. ‘Some of the questions I need to ask are not pleasant.’

‘Fire away. I’m no liar.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Did Mr Baxter push his father?’

‘No. He did not.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Unless he can be in two places at once. We were seated opposite each other in the parlour when the old man fell. Also, Roy’s the cleanest-living man I know. Roy Baxter couldn’t hurt a flea.’

The inspector cleared his throat. ‘He hated his father. The neighbours told us that.’

‘We all hated his father, God forgive us. He was a nasty piece of work.’

Once again, time passed sluggishly. ‘Did you push him?’

‘No. I wouldn’t dirty my hands. Now, listen to me, please. Roy heard him moving about and thought he might have been listening to us at the top of the stairs. Which went to prove that he could have got himself to the bathroom instead of using a commode and demanding bed baths. Then he fell.’

A glance passed between the inspector and the female constable. ‘Mrs Allen,’ the policewoman began, ‘do you see a great deal of Roy Baxter?’

The situation was ridiculous, and Rosh could not help herself. ‘No, he’s always fully clothed. And this is stupid. Roy was my husband’s best friend. We are not lovers. And if your questions get any dafter, you can fetch me a lawyer from Roy’s firm.’

‘You haven’t been charged with anything,’ the woman said.

‘You are questioning my character, and I don’t like that. Roy didn’t kill anyone, and I didn’t kill anyone. We have been friends for about twenty years. In case you haven’t noticed – which wouldn’t surprise me in the least – Roy has a bad limp. He’s not steady enough on his leg to break anybody’s neck. His hip’s been affected by the way he’s forced to walk – don’t you people notice anything? He’s not supple. Phil and I looked after him at school while others mocked him.’ She leaned forward. ‘Should Roy and I decide to become a couple, we’ll be sure to send the two of you invitations to the wedding, but don’t start holding your breath in anticipation.’

The two officers rose to their feet. ‘Thank you,’ said the male half of the inquisition. ‘If we need you again, we’ll let you know.’

As Rosh emerged from Interview Two, Roy came out of One. She followed him into the desk sergeant’s area where Mother was having another go at the poor man. Through the half-open door, the sounds of an uninhibited and unrehearsed choir attacked the ears of everyone in the station.

‘Our neighbours,’ Anna said when she was close enough to shout in her daughter’s ear. ‘I fetched them to make a stand for Roy. But they all know different songs, so they’re all singing different songs.’ She walked to the door and opened it wide. The noise stopped. ‘They don’t appreciate good music in here, people. Away to your homes, as these policemen are threatening to read the Riot Act.’

Outside, Rosh clung to Roy’s arm. ‘You all right?’

‘They believe me now, though they started asking had I finished him off while you were at the phone box. But you left the front door wide open, and Mimi Atkinson was passing, so she’s witness to the fact that I didn’t break his neck. You hadn’t even reached the first corner when Mimi got there, so I hadn’t time for murder. Anyway, there would have been different marks on his body. So, how did you go on?’

She shrugged. ‘I think we’re in the clear. Our stories probably matched, but not too closely, not as if they were rehearsed. Mother says they’re doing a post-mortem at the hospital, because they think he was already dead before his neck broke. Heart attack, probably.’

‘Thanks for being there, Rosh.’

‘I’ll always be there. Phil and I were there for you, and you were there for us. Nothing’s changed, except we’re missing Phil. You come to us for Christmas and New Year, if you can put up with Mother, that is.’

‘She’s magnificent, Rosh. I’ve never met anyone like her.’

‘Aren’t you the lucky one?’

Anna joined them on the walk home. She was quieter, but she muttered under her breath about the stupidity of the police, the freezing cold, the price of capons, turkeys and bacon, the need to get to work tonight, since she hadn’t as good an excuse as she’d had yesterday.

‘Mother?’

‘What?’

‘Shut up.’

Several of the neighbours approached them, some stopping to shake Roy’s hand. In spite of all the interruptions, the three eventually reached Lawton Road and entered the Allen house. Roy walked in without hesitation. His own place was the scene of a sudden, violent death, and he would be sleeping on Rosh’s sofa until further notice. He picked up a small case containing the few personal belongings he had been allowed to remove from his bedroom across the road.

In Rosh’s bathroom, he stared at his reflection in a mirror above the washbasin. He heard his long-dead mother telling him he looked like nobody owned him. It was true. Numbed to the bone, he didn’t know how to feel. There was no joy, no relief, no sadness. He was empty. But he could manage a shave, surely? The face in the glass looked like that of a tramp who hadn’t bathed in a month.

He was halfway through soaping his face when a small person arrived by his side. She carried with her a wooden duckboard, and she placed this next to him before climbing on to its surface. ‘Hello, Alice,’ he said.

The child took the brush from him and slathered white froth all over her cheeks, chin and neck. ‘Ready, steady, go,’ she told him. ‘Do it.’

While he used the razor, Alice employed the handle of her toothbrush. Every time he flicked his harvest into the bowl, she followed suit. ‘Not on clothes,’ she ordered. They shared a towel to wipe their faces before Alice returned the duckboard to its rightful place beside the bath. ‘All done,’ she said.

‘All done,’ he repeated.

She disappeared, only to come back immediately with Winston. The animal was so big that he should have carried the child. ‘Winston,’ she explained breathlessly. ‘He is good for me; Gran says that.’ She dropped the cat, who seemed displeased. After two flicks of an angry tail, he left the scene, followed by Alice.

Roy crammed all his stuff into his toiletries bag. His eyes stung, and he scarcely knew why. ‘Oh, Phil,’ he mumbled. For some reason beyond his comprehension, the death of his father prompted the mourning of Phil, his best friend. Alice had played her part, of course.

He managed to reach the front downstairs room without any further encounters. Ready to burst into tears, he sat on the sofa and tried to compose himself. A few seconds passed before he realized that he was not alone. Ah, it was the wild, invisible one, the dark destroyer, the killer of birds. Purring like the engine of a small car, Lucy-Furr joined him, rubbing her side along his left arm. This cat was reputed to deal with grief. On her first day in the Allen house, she had comforted Rosh.

He didn’t cry. Instead, he sat with the knowledgeable cat, stroking jet-coloured fur and listening to her expression of contentment.

Rosh entered with a cup of tea. ‘Ah, there she is. I’ve been looking for her. She owes me a pair of stockings in sandalwood, Marks and Spencer. And one of Alice’s headbands seems to have gone for a walk.’

‘Alice had a shave with me,’ he said.

Rosh dropped into an armchair. ‘She used to do that with her dad.’

‘I guessed as much. And she talked to me.’

‘Yes. She even talks to me now. And there’s a bit of cheek in her these days. She’s been using my make-up, staggering round in heels, pinching the perfume Phil bought me. That’s why I think she’s nearer normal than she used to be. It’s supposed to be incurable, but Alice has a good brain, and she’s not completely locked inside herself. She’ll surprise us all.’

Roy drank his tea. If he stayed at Rosh’s for much longer, Alice might get used to him. There was something about the little girl that tugged hard at his heartstrings. There was something about the little girl’s mother, too . . .

‘What’s the matter, Roy?’

She could read him like an open book. Phil had often complained about her ability to know what he was thinking, where he’d been, what he’d done. ‘My wife is psychic,’ he used to say.

‘Roy?’

‘I think I should stay somewhere else. Alice seems to be getting used to me. Who will she shave with when I’ve gone?’

‘My mother? She does have a healthy moustache. No, I’m joking. While Alice hates change, I’ve noticed just lately that she’s beginning to adjust more quickly. When Phil died, she looked for him all the time. Then she stopped. She’ll hang on to Kieran, and she’ll survive, Roy. Why don’t you start thinking about yourself for a change? Plan a holiday, finish the house, buy a record player and listen to music.’

Was it going to be that simple? A week alone in Paris or Rome, a lifetime alone with Mozart and Beethoven, Jerry Lee Lewis for a bit of light relief? ‘I feel numb,’ he said.

‘You lost your dad. Whatever he was, the man was your father.’

Roy cleared his throat. ‘When you came to the house and I went upstairs to him . . . well . . . I told him to feel free to fall down the stairs. It was as if I summoned demons and wished it on him. Yes, I know what he was and yes, I’ve long wanted him gone, but—’

‘Stop this. Stop it now, Roy Baxter. Remember what he did to your mother. Remember the broken child that poor woman became. He wouldn’t even feed her when she was on her deathbed. And if Mother and I come to the funeral, it will be to support you. Until the police let you back in your house, you stay here. That’s an order.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She stood up. ‘There’s a meal on the table in the kitchen. We put it in the oven on a low light before going to the police station. You’d better eat before our queen bee decides to come through and spoon-feed you. If you think I’m tough, you should see her when she’s riled.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And stop saying that.’

‘Yes, Rosh.’

She glared at him. ‘Get in that kitchen now. You’ve a funeral to plan. My mother’s good at funerals. She’s in her element when picking hymns.’

In that moment, Roy made a decision. He wouldn’t sell the house. He couldn’t sell the house. He had to be near Rosh and her family; he had to carry on with the old pain in his heart.

As the months had drifted by, the newspapers had ceased to print reports about three dead men, a burnt-out car and the efforts of police to find the perpetrators. Presses raged on instead about the effects of thalidomide, de Gaulle being elected President of France, Prime Minister Macmillan opening the first of Britain’s motorways. Three fewer London racketeers might well be a source of relief for the country’s police. London’s East End, caught now in the grip of several feuding gangs, was no longer a place in which to begin a new business; the protection game was being run by hard players whose eyes were beginning to fix on the West End, too.

When Christmas loomed on the horizon, Scouse Alley began preparations for an annual event to which many lone pensioners were invited. Each year, women helpers cooked poultry at home, while the rest of the meal was prepared on site, in the large kitchen. Even young Seamus and his friends played a part by setting tables and making paper chains. This was the business’s way of repaying the regulars; the dockers who ate here chose the old people who would be fed, while Paddy O’Neil paid not just for the meals, but also for coaches in which the diners would be transported from their homes to Scouse Alley, and returned to their own firesides once the meal was over.

Maureen was late again. So fraught was she these days that little was expected when it came to timekeeping. She dragged her mother to the outer door. ‘Can’t find him,’ she whispered. ‘And I don’t know how much longer I can carry on, because he’s driving me mad. I’ll be as bad as him any day now. I think mental illness is catching, because I’m all of a tremble.’

Paddy, Kevin, Maureen and the stalwarts who had helped on that fateful wedding night had begun to relax slightly, but Maureen’s Tom had entered a state worse than Russia. He sat for much of the time in his chair, though he no longer rested. Instead, he rocked back and forth, sometimes muttering under his breath, often falling into an exhausted sleep after the constant movement. He ate seldom, refused to communicate, and was fast becoming a problem that could not be contained for much longer, since he had started to wander off from time to time. He had lost his job, his family life and his mind.

Paddy touched her daughter’s arm. ‘I blame all our lads for getting involved down in London. It’s not Tom’s fault, and thank God your boys gave you the gun. I thought I’d never have to say such words, but I must, because your man saved us all. And look how he’s repaid for his heroism.’

‘Well, he’s not here at the moment,’ Maureen said. ‘I’ve found him a few times near the shed. He . . . he killed them from there. I suppose it’s what you might call the scene of the crime.’

Paddy tutted. ‘Finding Seamus full of bullets would have been a crime. I mean, what was Tom supposed to do? Let them kill every person at the wedding? He’s lost his ability to reason with himself, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ Maureen nodded furiously. ‘And if I can’t find him, I can’t help him get his brain back, can I?’

‘You’re exhausted, but.’ Paddy glanced furtively over her shoulder. ‘Do you think he’s running round telling folk what he’s done?’

‘He doesn’t talk.’

‘He doesn’t talk to us, but he may talk when we’re not there, and we’ve no way of knowing, because we aren’t there.’

‘True, though you’re talking Irish again. Have you enough help here? And can you keep an eye on Seamus?’

‘Yes, yes. You go.’ The diners were beginning to arrive for their small glass of sherry. The pattern was always the same; sherry, soup, main course with wine or beer, followed by Christmas pudding and a tot of brandy before they went home. It was a tradition Paddy had no intention of neglecting. But it was beginning to look as if Tom, her well-loved son-in-law, might get everyone in trouble very soon. ‘Did he see the Christmas cards?’ she asked.

‘I showed them to him, but I don’t know whether he actually saw them. I’m worn out, Mam.’

‘Find him and get a doctor. This has to be dealt with.’

‘And if he tells the doctor what happened on our Reen’s wedding day?’

Paddy shrugged. ‘Doctors take that hippo-critical vow, don’t they? Like priests, they can’t say a word.’ Internally, Paddy was still struggling with the Christmas cards, two from Michael, two from Finbar. The stamps had been franked in a town not far from Liverpool—

‘I think you’re wanted, Mam.’

‘Yes. Good luck, so.’ Paddy pinned a radiant smile to the lower half of her face. She greeted new people, took care not to ask after those who had failed to arrive. Ernie Avago wasn’t here, of course. Ernie, God rest his bones, had been one of the very best.

The Christmas king and queen were chosen and given crowns and white-trimmed scarlet cloaks. These were the two whose birthdays fell closest to Christmas, and they took their place at the centre of one of the large tables. A pianist played soft music, soup arrived, and the party was under way.

When the meal was over, a small choir came to sing for the diners. These children had been plucked from the ranks of a local Catholic school, and they sounded like angels. Paddy stood for a while and gazed at the scene. In this room, the vulnerable smiled, sang and clapped. These were the bookends of life, the overture and the finale. How well they treated each other; how each group rejoiced in the company of the other. She wanted to weep, but she wouldn’t. Paddy and Kevin O’Neil were the backbone of the family, a family that had lost four members, while two others were at large and possibly not too far away. Emotion was best hidden. Only at home did Paddy and Kevin weep and support each other.

She offered up a silent prayer for her sons and her brothers, attaching a postscript for Finbar and Michael, her grandsons. Maureen also got a mention, because Maureen was going through hell. Her brothers and uncles were dead, two of her sons were missing, and her husband was showing few signs of returning to the real world. Poor Maureen and Seamus were about to have a very sad Christmas. ‘And God help our Tom,’ she concluded.

He’d seemed to be all right at first. Never comfortable about what he had been forced to do, Tom Walsh had pushed it all to the back of his mind, where it had festered, grown caustic and burned its way through to his consciousness. No matter what anyone said, he insisted that he was a murderer. Lately, he didn’t even listen properly, and he never replied.

But Paddy could do nothing about any of it. As daylight began to fade, she waved off the coaches before joining in the big clean-up. While they scrubbed, Paddy and her helpers found two lower jaw dentures, six pairs of spectacles, three gloves, all odd, a scarf, a wallet and four purses. ‘All we’re short of is five gold rings and a partridge in a pear tree,’ she told the company. The collection was about par for the course, and all items were locked away securely. Next week, dock workers would arrive with descriptions of missing items, and all would be returned.

Meanwhile, Maureen was trudging her way through the streets of Liverpool. By no means the biggest city in England, it seemed sizeable on one of the last shopping days before Christmas, especially when a searcher went into every pub and every alleyway. She fought her way past many bodies, sometimes separating man from wife or mother from child, so high was her level of anxiety.

Exhausted beyond measure, she gave up and went to look for a bus. He would probably be at home when she finally got back, since his inner compass still seemed to be in working order. Oh, God. How was she going to get through to him? It was like trying to communicate with someone who had suddenly lost the ability to see, hear or feel. And her feet were giving her hell.

Then she spotted him. He stood where thousands of Liverpudlians had lingered over the years, arms on the railings, eyes staring out to the steely grey and angry river. He was at the Pier Head. How many had come here for a good think, for a bit of space away from family, for a place in which problems might be thought through without interruption by spouse or by children? Often, there would be up to a dozen or so gazing out at the river and towards the Irish Sea.

Maureen held back. There was something different about him. And it wasn’t just that he wasn’t rocking in that blinking chair. She couldn’t see his face, yet she knew he had changed. Was he worse, was he better? Was he thinking about jumping into that seething mass of water?

A man close by was talking to Tom. What were they discussing? Maureen’s heart jumped before picking up speed. Surely Tom wouldn’t unburden himself to a stranger? The unknown man displayed a limp when he moved, and one of his feet was in a built-up shoe. Oh, God, please don’t let my Tom place himself in the hands of the law. Why can’t he talk to me? I’m his bloody wife, you know. Sometimes, I wonder whose side you’re on, God. Just lately, you’re not looking after us.

The two men were shaking hands, and Tom was talking. So you can talk to him, but not to me, eh? Wait till I get you home, you great big bundle of washing. Because that’s what you’ve become, just a pile of shirts to be laundered and ironed. As a husband, you’re as much use as a guard dog with dentures. Right. Time I sorted you out. Mentally, she pushed up her sleeves and prepared for battle.

The stranger limped away a few seconds before Maureen’s arrival at the railings. She stood in silence next to Tom for a while.

‘Oh. Hello, love,’ he said.

That was an improvement, she decided. Three words. It wasn’t much, but she had to be thankful for small mercies. ‘Never mind “Hello, love”. I should be at Scouse Alley helping me mother. That place’ll be like a bloody pigsty by now, and I should be pulling me weight. But no. I have to traipse all over town looking for you. I’ve had more words out of our Seamus these past weeks. Where’ve you been?’

‘Confession,’ he replied. ‘And to see Greenhalgh.’

‘Who has confessions on a Saturday?’

‘A few churches do. But I knocked at the presbytery and spoke face to face, didn’t go in the box.’ He shook his head thoughtfully. ‘I can’t even remember the name of the church. Might be St Columba’s. It got bombed and rebuilt.’

‘Right.’ She waited.

‘Anyway, I’ve got absolution. Special circumstances. We both finished up crying, me and the priest. He said I’m a good family man with a conscience and told me to think about David and Goliath.’

‘Right.’ Maureen’s heart slowed to nearly normal.

‘You keep saying right.’

‘Do I? And you’ve been saying bugger all for weeks. It’s been me, just me talking. The only punctuation I got was from our Seamus, and he doesn’t always make full sense. Imagine what he’s gone through. Me as well. It’s been no bowl of cherries.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I should hope so.’ She paused. ‘Him with the game leg. What were you saying to him? And who is he?’

Tom moved his head and stared out at the Mersey once more. ‘Roy. Found me nearly crying in my beer. Good bloke. He just sat there for a while in the pub before asking what he could do to help. So I told him to take me to a church that was nowhere near Bootle. He waited for me at the presbytery, then we came back here after a cup of coffee in Maggie Moore’s caff. I told him I felt better, and he was glad.’

‘Good. Are we going home now?’

‘In a bit. Roy opened up and talked to me about his dad dying. He’d told his dad to die, and he did die. The dad was a bad man, but Roy felt as if he’d made it happen. The police thought Roy had pushed him down the stairs or broken his neck after an accidental fall, but that was all rubbish. There’s this young widow he loves, and he hurts when he sees her, hurts when he doesn’t see her.’ Tom turned and looked at his long-suffering wife. ‘And that was when I felt lucky, because I got my girl.’

Maureen blushed. At her age, she was in no fit state for blushing; it didn’t suit her one bit. For a start, it made her look drunk. The singing was not the only result of her infrequent over-indulgence in the Guinness, since she also had a tendency to become flushed and somewhat luminous in the facial department. Tom had been known to declare in the past that they never needed a torch, because they just followed his wife’s nose when she’d been on a bender. ‘I got my girl,’ he repeated. ‘And if this was wartime, you’d need a blackout blind for that face. You’ve lit up like a Christmas tree.’

For answer, she clouted him with her handbag. He was well and safe, and that was all she needed to know. ‘Don’t go thinking anybody’s missed you while you went for your walk on the dark side. And don’t go thinking anybody’s going to make a fuss of you, because you need a job for a kick-off.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘You what? Do you think money grows on trees?’

Tom shook his head. ‘I told you I went to see Greenhalgh. Roy came there with me, too. Sound as a pound, that lad. Anyway, they’re giving me the new Bootle Co-op when they’ve finished modernizing and fitting it. He said I was due for promotion anyway. I’m going to be the manager. It suits, because I have to build myself up first, and I don’t start work for a couple of months. Course, he knew I’d been ill, but he thinks it was a chest infection that refused to shift. I have had that bad cough, so it wasn’t much of a lie.’

‘And all you needed was confession?’

He shrugged. ‘I’m not out of the woods yet, sweetheart. But yes, confession works. Forgiveness from a man of God is good liquor. One day at a time, eh? And we got Christmas cards from the boys.’

‘So did Mam and Dad. Theirs came a couple of days later.’ She looked at him quizzically. ‘You noticed, then? You heard and saw?’

‘Yes.’

Again, she swiped his arm with the bag. ‘Why didn’t you answer me?’

‘Because I didn’t want you to see a grown man cry. I couldn’t talk about anything. Just give me a chance, Maureen. I feel as if somebody’s waved a magic wand, but the miracle might not last.’

It would last, she decided when they climbed on the bus. She would make sure it bloody well lasted. The vehicle was packed with people and Christmas shopping, so she and Tom had to stand. They hung on to leather straps provided for that purpose. His right hand sought her left and clung to her until they reached their stop.

When they alighted, he got the third blow from her handbag. ‘What’s that about?’ he asked.

‘Holding me hand on the bus. People must have thought we’re having an affair, because husbands and wives don’t hold hands.’

He grinned for the first time in weeks. ‘Did any of them on the bus know you?’

‘Some might have.’

‘And if they knew you, they’d know me, and they’d know we’re married. If they didn’t know us, who cares?’

‘I care. It’s not natural. Married people don’t even talk to one another on a night out.’

‘Sad,’ he said before dragging her into his arms. Although the daylight was meagre and few people were out and about, she battered him yet again with her bag. He was a good kisser, but she was still going to kill him later. He probably thought he was on a promise, and he could think again. He was a great kisser, though . . .

It started with the rose bowl. A squat item in mottled pink glass, it was topped by a circle of wire with holes to help arrangements of short-stemmed blooms to remain stable. For several days following the move to Menlove Avenue, the article popped up all over the place. It travelled from landing windowsill to kitchen, to front living room, to dining room, to the main bedroom, to Anne-Marie’s domain.

Don told himself it was nothing to worry about. Tess had always been fussy. She could go through half a dozen books of wallpaper samples without finding anything good enough for her. But when it came to the carpet . . .

He stood in the doorway, his jaw dropping, forehead creased in a frown, hands employed to steady himself by pushing against the jamb. A dart of pure terror pierced his chest. ‘Tess?’ he managed eventually. On her hands and knees, she looked over a shoulder and smiled at him. ‘I thought if I started in the bay and worked backwards, I wouldn’t end up painted into a corner.’

‘What are you doing, love?’

‘Painting them out. You don’t like them; I don’t like them any more. So they’re going. No skaters’ trails, just all grey.’

Don swallowed hard. St Faith’s Infants’ School was still in a state of recovery from deep trauma. Tess, in charge of costumes and props, had accidentally locked everything in the wrong storage cupboard. Alongside the manger, kings’ crowns and angels’ wings, three terrified children had been entombed. They had suffered nightmares ever since getting out of jail. Tess wasn’t right.

Meals were strange. They were also served at some very odd times. Don’s mother’s rose bowl was currently on display in the centre of the front lawn alongside a frying pan and two tins of marrowfat peas. She wasn’t just unhappy; she was absolutely crackers. ‘Tess?’

‘What?’

‘You don’t paint carpets. You take them up and buy new ones.’

‘Waste of money,’ was her reply.

There were times in life when a person didn’t know what to do. This was one of those times. ‘The paint will come off the carpet, Tess. It might never dry properly, because it’s meant for wood, not wool. You can’t carry on like this.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like what?’ he repeated. ‘Like locking kids in cupboards, cutting up your best curtains for King Herod’s cloak, painting carpets, putting tinned veg on the lawn—’

‘What?’

‘You’ve two tins of marrowfats, a frying pan and my mam’s rose bowl out there.’

‘Stop fussing over nothing,’ she insisted. ‘Anyway, I must get on.’

He watched her getting on. There was no point in trying to count, but there had to be more than a few thousand trails on a carpet of this size. Although the background was grey, the trails were multicoloured, and she was painting over each one with a fine brush dipped in the contents of a tin marked Charcoal.

Three weeks, they had lived here. Sean, who had been on the brink of leaving their previous home for a place of his own, seemed to be settling. Anne-Marie, with a new bedroom fit for a princess, was deliriously enchanted. When she wasn’t dressing up, washing her hair or painting her face, she was walking casually up and down the avenue outside John Lennon’s house. So determined was her blasé demeanour that she stuck out like a Blackpool tram on Southport beach. But Don’s daughter’s madness was temporary and hormonal; Tess’s was in a class of its own.

He walked into the kitchen. Her dilemma had started here. There were eighteen cupboards and five drawers. This over-abundance of storage space had gone to Tess’s head, and she had spent four days and a mint of money filling up every nook and cranny. There was now enough flour to furnish a bakery, the shoe-cleaning equipment kept company with tinned vegetables and fruit, while one large unit at ground level was packed with fresh, ironed linen and a baited mousetrap. She needed a doctor. She needed a lie-down in a darkened room with a cold cloth on her forehead.

Where were the kids? Why were they always there when you didn’t want them, and out of sight the minute they were needed? Don returned to the hall and opened the front door. John Lennon was cross-legged in his oriel bay, guitar across his chest, lips moving, quiff tumbling into his eyes. There was no sign of Anne-Marie, no sign of any worshippers just now. The lone Quarry Man, oblivious to anything beyond his music, carried on with admirable dedication. If the lad would just put down the guitar and take up something sensible like plumbing, he would probably go far.

Anne-Marie had a second string to her bow these days. She was wont to visit Allerton, where she had discovered the home of one Paul McCartney. Paul, more conventionally pretty than his friend, had the sort of face that would collapse suddenly. He looked younger than his years, whereas Lennon seemed older, but John’s bone structure would serve him better. According to Tess, that was. According to Tess before she went doolally.

And she was very probably continuing to paint the carpet. ‘Why am I standing here thinking about a skiffle band? I’ve a wife gone mental in there.’ He picked up frying pan, tins and rose bowl. It had all started so innocently. Failing to find a permanent home for an ornament was normal. But Tess had gone berserk. Dr Byrne had come up with some daft idea about post-partum depression having turned to psychosis, but Anne-Marie was fifteen, Sean was eighteen, and Tess hadn’t seemed particularly odd after the births of her children.

Don stood in the doorway with peas, rose bowl and frying pan. The lad in the window across the road saluted him comically, and Don returned the favour with a tin of peas. Yes, Lennon was probably all right, guitar or no guitar. He lived with an aunt who seemed very straitlaced, but at least there were no pans or peas on the front lawn.

Tess was waiting for him in the hall. ‘Waste of time,’ she told him. ‘You were right, but I thought it was worth a go – that carpet’s nearly new. The dye didn’t take.’

‘Dye?’

‘Charcoal. But I think it’s more for clothes and stuff. Or chair covers and cushions.’

A shard of hope pierced Don’s heart. He still loved her. He loved two women. Molly was real, down to earth, a great laugh. This selfish piece of work he continued to adore. ‘Will the meal be on time tonight?’ he asked.

Tess shook a finger at him. ‘Listen, Desperate Don. I’ve been a bit mithered in case you haven’t noticed. A house of this class takes some living up to. I’m still theming the rooms.’

He had no real idea about what theming was, but he didn’t bother to ask for enlightenment. One worry went up the chimney with the rest of the smoke: she had used dye, not paint, on the carpet. And, for a few seconds, he hid the other concerns behind more immediate problems. Would Molly want the house back? Could he really give up the generous physical warmth offered by her; was he about to return and worship at the beautiful feet of his beautiful, cold wife? Separate beds—

‘Don?’

‘What?’

‘Will you teach me to drive?’

She had locked three children in a store cupboard for two hours. Her cooking was moving in the direction of Molly’s, her timekeeping was hardly Greenwich, and he still wondered about marrowfat peas, a frying pan and a rose bowl. Put her behind a wheel? He’d need to find somebody to walk in front with a red flag. Oh, and a suit of armour. ‘Why do you want to learn?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure. A job of some kind, I suppose. When I let the flat above the shop, the tenant will look after the business. Littlewoods Pools wants people to pick up coupons from corner shops on Saturday mornings. Johnson the cleaners needs collection points for dry-cleaning. That’s to stop launderettes like ours installing dry-cleaning machines. I don’t want one. I don’t want people keeling over from breathing carbon tetrachloride, not in our shop.’

Don blinked. She’d been reading again. ‘Carbon who?’

‘Tetrachloride. It stinks. You can go unconscious just like that.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘Even in frost and snow, you have to drive with the windows open unless you want to wake up on a slab. Newly dry-cleaned items in a confined space can be deadly.’

There was nothing wrong with her, he decided. She was eccentric, no more than that. She wanted a posh house because she’d spent her infancy in a freezing, uncomfortable gypsy caravan. Depression arrived when she became fearful of returning to penury. ‘Tess?’

‘Yes? I’m going down the chippy. What would you like, Mr Steak Pudding?’

‘Steak pudding and peas.’

She stared hard at him. ‘Did you mention peas before?’

‘Two tins,’ he answered.

‘Squirrels,’ she said as she pulled on a coat. ‘See? You still want steak pudding. I didn’t need to ask.’

‘I like a choice.’ Squirrels? Oh, God. What was she on about now? What the hell was the connection between bushy-tailed rodents and two family-sized tins of Batchelor’s marrowfats?

‘Did you want to ask me something, Don? Only I don’t relish the idea of being in a big queue at the chip shop.’

‘No.’ He’d been about to ask her whether she still had any feelings for him, but it didn’t seem right now, not with squirrels as part of the equation. The equation.

She left the house. Don set plates to warm in the oven. Equation? What the hell was he up to? Was he trying to work out her state of mind and heart before deciding which woman to keep, which to let go? If the first one was broken, would he move on to the other one, who was older but in working order? It was a bit like measuring one car against another: best transmission, best engine, best bodywork. He was the selfish one; he was the bloke behaving like a spoilt child who had to get his own way.

Sean and Anne-Marie arrived together. Don told them their meal would be here shortly, and they ran upstairs. Elvis Presley roared from the Dansette in Anne-Marie’s room, doors slammed, water ran. They were home.

He set the table: knives, forks, salt and malt vinegar. Why was there a mousetrap in the clean linen cupboard? Was this enough to make him run away into the ample bosom of a woman with a ukulele, two dogs and some tropical fish? ‘I am not a good man,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not being fair.’ He owed Molly. Yet his love for Tess had burgeoned anew over recent weeks. ‘I want to have fun with my own wife,’ he mumbled. ‘I want to communicate with her.’ And he should never have taken Molly’s money.

Tess came in. She was all smiles, paper bundles and dandelion and burdock. ‘What’s up with your face?’ she asked.

‘Why is there a mousetrap in with all the towels and tablecloths?’

‘Don’t answer a question with a question. You’re not an Aquarian.’

Don scratched his head. ‘You what?’

‘Aquarians answer questions with questions. They’re geniuses. It said so in Woman’s Realm.’ She straightened her spine. ‘I am Aquarius. I’ll have a new carpet for my birthday in three weeks . . .’ Her voice died. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

He shook his head sadly. ‘I think I love my wife.’

A corner of Tess’s mouth twitched. ‘Warm your feet before getting in my bed,’ she ordered. ‘And don’t expect full service till I feel more settled.’ She sniffed. A bitter wind had made her nose wet. ‘I’ve gone . . . different.’

‘Yes, we noticed.’

‘No, you didn’t,’ she whispered. ‘Early menopause. What would you know about that sort of thing?’

A curtain seemed to move at the front of Don’s mind. She hadn’t wanted more children. She was Catholic. Precautions were sinful . . . Bloody religion. Not for the first time, he cursed the rod made by humanity for its own back. Holy Moses? He should have left the bloody tablets where they were instead of taking two between meals.

‘Sit,’ she said. ‘Eat,’ she ordered.

‘Did you mean it?’ he asked. ‘About warming my feet first?’

‘Shut up, the children are coming.’

‘Tess?’

‘Be quiet.’

They rolled in, the son almost clean, the daughter shining like a new pin.

Tess folded her arms. ‘You,’ she said to Anne-Marie, ‘can get back up the stairs and turn that din off.’

‘But it’s Elvis,’ the girl cried.

Don cleared his throat. ‘John Lennon waved at me today.’

‘No!’ Anne-Marie dropped into a chair, ignored her mother and stared at her dad. ‘When?’

Elvis ground to a blessed halt upstairs. ‘About half an hour ago,’ Don said. ‘Bit of a wink with it, too.’

‘And what did you do?’

‘Waved back. Nearly took my eye out with a tin of peas.’

Anne-Marie blinked. ‘Why a tin of peas, Dad?’

‘Oh, shut up and eat,’ Tess ordered.

They shut up and ate.

That’s another one less, then. Working girl, the sort that spreads disease. Trouble is, a courting couple decided to park nearby, and I couldn’t bury the corpse. So it’s been all over the papers, locals and nationals, and the cops are worrying about the rest who’ve disappeared. On top of that, my boss is ill. If he dies, what’ll happen to me? For ages I’ve worked in that shop. Oh, and I’m a maniac. Unspeakable things have been done to ‘that poor girl’s body’. Don’t make me laugh, Mr Editor; unspeakable things have been done to and by her for years . . .

Eight

Seamus had a book. It was a valued possession, not for general consumption by common folk, not available to be borrowed, glanced at or even breathed on. He guarded it fiercely, kept it under boxes and short planks of wood, visited it only when sure that nobody was looking, and he absorbed it like a bear sucking honey from a comb. He always carried a torch, of course, because it was dark in the shelter. For the first time in his life, the son of Maureen and Tom Walsh was learning happily from a book. It was brilliant, informative, and it would change the lives of everyone in the family. The lad had plans that would reshape the world, and he was keeping every card close to his chest, because no one could be trusted.

Wearing the air of a man who had just discovered a whole new continent, Seamus developed a frown and a habit of walking or standing with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘Thinks he’s Prince Philip,’ Paddy had been heard to opine. ‘Gone big-headed. We’ll be having to get his school caps made specially to fit if he carries on so. He’s cogitating, so he is. We must watch him.’

The Thoughtful One kept his book in the reasonably dry Anderson in his sister Reen’s back garden, because Reen never went in there. Andersons reminded folk of the bad times when Germany flattened Bootle, and few people wanted to think about the war. The shelters were now used for storage of gardening tools and bicycles, though children sometimes played in them when it rained. This metal shed had become Seamus’s library, but it held just the one slim volume. He never corrupted the shelter with homework. Oh, no, this was too precious a place for multiplication, division and catechism, because it was an area set aside for real and useful learning.

Reen and her husband had no children yet, and they lived in the O’Gara prefab, since the O’Garas now had a proper house with an upstairs. The boy’s relationship with his sister had improved, though he wouldn’t look properly at the wedding album. There were three pictures of him and the horrible hat, and that was three too many in his opinion. Even the bride giggled when she looked at the images of her little brother. Perhaps the poor imitation of a sailor’s headgear had been a stride too far, but she wouldn’t throw the photos away. Perhaps she had a plan for when Seamus was older. She would show them to his friends, and he’d be doomed to a lifetime of Hello, sailor. ‘And I’ll kill her,’ he muttered frequently. ‘Making a show of me in front of all them people.’

The young hero in Seamus’s special book was Harry Burdon Jr, PI, and its author was American. Seamus didn’t want Mam, Dad, Gran or Grandpa to see the book, because it was the source of the lad’s grand ambitions, and adults should not be allowed to encroach on a boy’s ideas. Grownups never approved. All they did was moan about difficulties, because they hadn’t the imagination to do anything about anything. Why they didn’t attempt what he was about to try he could not work out. There might have been a row, he thought. Perhaps Gran had laid into some people with that sharp tongue of hers and they had run away. He wasn’t running away. Oh, no. Seamus Walsh was on a mission, and nothing would persuade him to abandon it. Though if Gran found out, he’d possibly end up in the scouse with the rest of the cheaper cuts.

Harry Burdon was a private detective. He was Junior because his dad had the same name, and Junior’s dad was a policeman in New York. Seamus did not have the advantages of Junior, as there were no coppers in the family, but the Harry Burdon Junior Private Investigator story had become his textbook. Nothing was impossible. Young Harry had found kidnappers, thieves and shoplifters, so he was definitely role model material.

However, Junior had further help, some of it of questionable quality. His assistant, Beanpole, was a long, thin person who did everything wrong, though he sometimes got it right by accident. Beanpole was probably in the book to make people laugh, but it would be nice to have someone to talk to in real life. The trouble with real life was that school friends and young neighbours were soft. Seamus failed to find one who might just own the staying power. The task he planned to undertake was massive, and he didn’t want any babies clinging to his apron strings.

Burdon Junior also got tips from his unsuspecting dad. It did not occur to Seamus that a seasoned New York cop should notice that his son was carrying on like Sherlock Holmes with a tall, thin Watson either by his side or stuck head first in an oil drum somewhere.

Tom Walsh was a good dad, but he was educated to know about spuds, butter, tea, sugar and divi points, because he ran the new Bootle Co-op. Seamus couldn’t discuss his complicated secret with his parents. World war would break out, and folk were still waiting for houses after the last lot. And they would stop him, of course. Grown-ups were spectacularly successful when it came to putting a damper on ideas. They got tired, he supposed. Anybody really old, like over the age of thirty, was bound to have started to wear out a bit. They had too much to think about, what with Scouse Alley, weekend events, the market and the Co-op. So it was up to him, because he hadn’t yet begun to crumble under the weight of adulthood. He was young, strong, and ready to become a hero; he was clever, resourceful, and quick.

Clues regarding the case in hand were few and far between, so Seamus stuck to the Harry Burdon school of thought. Unlike Beanpole, Seamus would not end up screaming in a bed of nettles, or hanging upside down from a tree in some innocent person’s back yard. He would not break the wrong windows, had no intention of being sent to reform school, to Borstal, to prison. No. He was merely going where no adult in his sphere would dare to tread; he intended to find his brothers.

You gotta take what you have and use it, Harry-in-the-book would say to his clumsy, idiotic friend. And if you ain’t got nothing, you look at possibilities and number them in order of merit. All notes in code, remember. Gear up. Army pocket knife, a good length of strong rope, food and water, as much money as you can scrape. Good luck to you, Beanpole.

After a great deal of begging and pleading by Seamus, the knife had arrived at Christmas. It boasted every attachment apart from a kitchen sink, and Seamus was unsure regarding the usefulness of many of its components. There was a thing to take the caps off bottles, the blade, a horse’s hoof doodah, and loads of other stuff that looked as though it had been copied in miniature from a medieval torture chamber.

Rope. Stealing thick stuff from the docks might have caused mayhem, and it was too heavy to carry. In view of these problems, Seamus had taken an alternative route, and several prefabs on Stanley Square were now bereft of clothes lines. Clothes line might not be the strongest of rope, but it was better than nothing. He was doing his best, although his only support lay between the covers of a book, so nothing was easy. Discussion was an unaffordable luxury, and that was that.

But the largest part of Seamus’s plot was rooted in a lie so huge as to be frightening. It was Easter, 1959. Some of the boys in his class were about to go camping with teachers for five whole days in the mountains of North Wales. Mam had signed the permission paper and had given her youngest son enough money to cover the expedition, and he had stolen it after tearing up the permission paper. This was the most wicked thing he had done in his whole life, and he was avoiding Confession until it was all over. He’d probably get five thousand Our Fathers, a bucketful of Hail Marys, and a few Glory Bes thrown in for good measure.

There was, of course, a distinct danger in the scheme. If Mam met any of the other parents or children, she might learn that her beloved son was not going camping. But, as Harry Junior might have said, If you don’t take a chance from time to time, you ain’t getting nowhere.

Well, Seamus was going somewhere. Nobody else in his family owned the guts, but he had no yellow streak painted down his spine. Eavesdropping, a skill he had perfected during the second reading of chapter one, had taught him that the whole family missed Finbar and Michael. Letters, relieved of envelopes and with no address provided by their senders, had informed him that his brothers were married and that each had a child. ‘I’m an uncle,’ he whispered proudly before hiding his book. ‘They have taken my unclehood away.’ One of the kids was only a girl, but that couldn’t be helped.

He left his private bunker, dropping to hands and knees to make use of cover provided by the privet hedge. Harry Burdon was virtually invisible. He blended. Because he blended, he could go anywhere in that vast city without being noticed. But Seamus couldn’t. Everyone round here knew everyone, and they certainly knew Seamus.

Reen and Jimmy were at work, but Seamus needed to shield himself from the prying eyes of neighbours. Gossip was an almost full-time occupation in these parts. He could hear his grandmother now. No better than she should be. And did you see the heels on the shoes? She’ll be needing an oxygen mask if she goes any higher up. Silver nail polish, too. I tell you she’s on the way to Lime Street with a mattress on her back. Yes, Gran was a gossip of professional standard, but there were many others of her ilk in these parts.

Safer now, he stood up and walked towards home. There were photographs of Fin and Mike somewhere in the prefab. Seamus hadn’t seen them and didn’t know where they were kept, but he’d listened to his parents talking. Because Tom Walsh had been a substitute manager as, when and where required, he had filled in gaps created by managers’ holidays all over the place. ‘Rainford, near St Helens,’ he had declared to his wife, little realizing that his son was in the hall hanging on every word. ‘I recognized the shops in the background. It’s a village. East Lancs Road, turn right for St Helens, left for Rainford. A few tenanted farms – Lord Derby owns the land – and the village is pretty. Stone cottages, nice church, a few shops and at least four pubs. They could be in worse places, Maureen.’

And that had been it. But it was something. Seamus had found the village on a map, and had learned the route. ‘I could do it with my eyes closed,’ he declared quietly as he walked homeward. But he was going to need his eyes open, as he would be on his bike. Mum and Dad wouldn’t miss the bike; it was kept in their Anderson shelter. ‘My whole life’s in Andersons,’ Seamus mumbled as he sauntered up the path to his own prefab.

It was half-day closing at the Co-op, and Maureen had taken a couple of hours off between catering at Scouse Alley and helping her dad on the market. Even now, after more than a quarter century of marriage, she and Tom liked to steal time to spend together.

Maureen’s lips were pursed as she watched her son dragging his raincoat along the path. ‘He’s up to something,’ she advised her husband. ‘He’s not one for concentrating unless it’s football or cricket. Look at him. Like Loony Lenny from Linacre Lane, doesn’t know whether he’s coming, going, or on the big wheel at the fair. I get worried when our Seamus is thinking, because nothing good ever comes of it. He shouldn’t think. His brain gets overcrowded and his cheeks burn. Looks like a candidate for that spontaneous human combustion.’

Tom joined his wife. Their one resident child was standing in the middle of the path counting. On his fingers. ‘Counting,’ Tom said. ‘What the heck is he counting?’

‘Not prayers,’ replied Maureen grimly. ‘Definitely nothing holy, I can guarantee it. It might be to do with them wedding photos of him in his hat. There’s only three in the book, but he hates them.’

Tom laughed. ‘He certainly does.’

‘But Tom, he wouldn’t spoil his sister’s wedding album, would he?’

‘He would. Remember how he buried the whole suit plus hat? Your mother had to dig everything up for the church. That blinking hat put him in a bad mood for months. And it was a stupid hat. I was surprised when he didn’t stick it in the bin before the kick-off. I mean, even some of the grown-ups were calling him Popeye.’

‘It was his only sister’s wedding day and—’ Maureen stopped abruptly. ‘Sorry, love. I never meant to make you remember things from that time. Sorry.’

Tom cleared his throat. ‘I’ll not forget it in a hurry, girl, but I’m all right with it now. That lad of ours out there could have been in his grave if I hadn’t . . . if I hadn’t done what I did. Knowing they were gunning for our other two doesn’t help, does it? We can’t visit, they can’t come and see us, and—’ He cut off the rest of his words when the front door opened.

‘Seamus?’

‘Yes, Mam?’

‘Come here, son. Immediately, if not sooner. And I don’t want just your head floating round the edge of the door; bring the rest of you as well.’

One hundred per cent of Seamus entered the room. Although he knew it was a dead giveaway, he allowed his weight to swing slightly from foot to foot. His mother’s face, when displaying disappointment or anger, made him sway about a bit, but he kept movement to a minimum. She might be on to him. She might have met someone at Scouse Alley or at the market, and that someone could have marked him as a cheat and a liar who mistreated his own parents, and wasn’t to be trusted, and wasn’t going with school to Wales—

‘What’s the matter with you?’ she asked. ‘You look like you’re sickening for something. And you can’t go camping in the damp and cold if you’re not well.’

Seamus allowed a sigh of relief to emerge quietly. If she’d been told he wasn’t going camping, she would have come out with it straight away.

‘We’ll see how you are in the morning. If you’re all right, your dad will run you to school in his car.’ She was proud of the better car. She wanted everybody at school to know that Seamus’s dad was moving up in the world.

‘No,’ the lad exclaimed quickly – rather too quickly. ‘No, not the car.’

‘But you’ll have your rucksack and first day meals and the little tent. They’re borrowing that to keep tinned food in, aren’t they?’

‘Mam, we’ve been told to practise walking with the weight on our backs. And I don’t want people thinking I’m still a baby. I’d be the only one.’ He glanced at the clock. He still needed to get the bike out and hide it somewhere between home and wherever. ‘Please don’t give me a lift, Dad. Don’t make a show of me in front of everybody.’

Maureen sat down and folded her arms. ‘You are up to something,’ she said.

‘Me?’

‘Well, I’m not talking to your father, am I? And you’re the only other person here now that Reen’s married and . . .’ Her voice died.

‘And my brothers have gone,’ the child concluded for her. ‘They don’t visit, and we don’t visit them. So I take the blame for everything. I bet it’s my fault if it rains. Well, I didn’t make everybody leave home, did I? It wasn’t my fault that we were overcrowded and Reen had to sleep at Gran’s and my brothers had to sleep in the living room. They left here to try and get some space to live in.’

Maureen sniffed. They’d gone to make fast, dirty money in London, and she couldn’t tell their young brother that. But she could put his mind at rest regarding overcrowding. ‘We’ve had to wait for a house because we want to be near your Gran and your sister. We don’t want to be spread out all over the place on Hitler’s say-so, do we? Well, our new places will be ready in a few months. I suppose my mam will be pig in the middle, then she can pin her ear to the walls and find out what we’re all up to.’ She sniffed again. ‘And you are up to no good.’

Seamus had trouble when it came to adopting Harry Burdon’s innocent look. Harry never blushed, but Seamus had inherited his mother’s expertise when it came to changing colour. Harry didn’t sway when questioned, but Seamus did. ‘Mam, I’m going away for five days tomorrow. I have to learn to put a big tent up with all them poles and pegs, make fire with something called a flint, use a compass, and warm enough beans on the fire for fourteen boys and three teachers. It’s a lot to take in.’

Tom grinned. ‘Especially when you don’t listen to any of those teachers. And if you’re living on beans, God help Wales. You’ll have all the Welsh running over into England. Well, I hope they don’t bring their sheep. I don’t fancy waking up to baa-ing every morning. Your mam’s bad enough, because she’s not a morning person.’

In spite of her husband’s attempt to lighten the atmosphere, Maureen remained on high alert. With her older sons in hiding and her only daughter wed, she had every intention of hanging on to her youngest for as long as possible. There was something wrong. He reminded her of one of those desert lizards. Their feet got burnt in the sand, so they stood on two while the other pair cooled, and those reptiles were . . . what was it? Perpetuum mobile. That was Latin for not being able to keep still, and the mobile was pronounced mobil-ay. Her son was perpetuum whatever when lying. ‘What are you not telling me?’ she asked. ‘Come on, out with it. You know I always get to the bottom of things.’

‘Nothing.’ Seamus felt renewed heat in his cheeks.

Maureen glanced through the window. ‘Have you had anything to do with the mysterious disappearance of three washing lines from these prefabs?’

‘No,’ the child shouted. ‘It’s always me. It was probably me that bombed Dresden and Hiroshima.’ This was what Harry Burdon called fighting fire with fire. ‘I’m the one to blame for everything just because I’m the only one of the family here.’ At last, he was in his stride. ‘Well, I never crossed the border into Poland, didn’t blow up ships, and what would I want with clothes lines? That’ll be some girls wanting rope for long skipping.’ Long skipping had a girl at each end turning, and five or six running in and out of the rope. Sometimes, there were two ropes turning in opposite directions. Oh, yes. Seamus was a born private investigator, because he missed nothing.

‘Don’t start getting clever with me, lad,’ she said.

‘Oh. So I’m clever now, am I? You never said that when you were helping me with my geography homework.’

‘That’s enough.’ Tom’s tone was ominously quiet. ‘Don’t ever talk to your mam like that. She’s not here for you to wipe your feet on or to sharpen the edge of your temper. Oh, and she’s my wife, by the way. I expect people to treat her with respect.’

Seamus hung his head. It was now or never. He knew full well that telling his parents immediately would take more courage than he had. Keeping quiet and going through with the plan was the easier option, so was he a coward after all? What he intended to do was naughty, because he’d told lies and stolen money. But it was also good, since nobody else seemed to have the courage to face Finbar and Michael. Why, though? What had happened for a wedge of such a size to be driven through so close a family? Everyone quarrelled, of course, but Gran always said that it was the Irish in them, the paddy-whack, as she sometimes called it.

‘What’s he thinking about now?’ Maureen asked.

‘No idea,’ was her husband’s reply.

Seamus shook his head slowly. He was in the room, yet they talked about him as if he’d left. He would go now, though he needed to say something first. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘It’s just this camping business. More to it than I thought.’ That wasn’t a lie, because he would be camping in his little one-man tent a few miles up the East Lancs. The only camping he’d ever done had taken place here, in the garden, and he’d come inside for his meals. With his head still bowed, the youngest member of the Walsh family left the room. Tomorrow morning, he would become a man.

Maureen sighed. ‘Well, me dad’s not getting any younger, Tom. I’d best get up the road and help him. I’ve had enough of me mother for one day. Two stones of spuds she sent back this morning. Not good enough. She was in a right mood, face like a Dock Road crash between two lorries and a train. Blamed me because I put the order in.’ She looked at her husband, who seemed preoccupied. ‘Oi.’

‘What?’

‘Are you turning weird on me? Because if you think I’m going to drag me legs and the rest of me round Liverpool looking for you, you can think a-bloody-gain.’

‘No, nothing like that. I’m going up Waterloo tonight to visit Roy.’ He paused. ‘Come with me. Your mam’ll keep an eye on me-laddo.’

Maureen blinked a few times. ‘Is Roy expecting me?’

‘He’s asked to meet you. He’s lonely, love. Never been married, a bad leg, madly in love with a widow across the road who’s called R-O-I-S-I-N, pronounced Rosheen, answers to Rosh. And he was good to me that day – remember? Got me to Confession, propped me up all the way to Greenhalgh’s office where I got the best job going.’

‘I’ve nothing to wear,’ she said.

‘Nothing to wear? Nothing to wear? Seven hangers, I’ve got in that wardrobe. You’ve more clothes than your dad sells in a year on Paddy’s Market.’ He paused for thought. ‘Your navy suit, polka dot blouse with the bow at the neck, and new navy shoes from Freeman, Hardy and Willis.’

He always noticed her clothes, complimented her on her hair, told her when he liked her perfume or a new lipstick. It was one of his many good traits, and Maureen knew she was a fortunate woman. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll do an hour for me dad, then I’ll come home and get ready. Roy’ll forget all about the widow once he’s seen me in the fighting gear.’

‘You’re not available,’ Tom said, smacking her playfully on her behind. ‘And when our Seamus is away, we can have another honeymoon.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me. Now, bugger off.’

She buggered off.

Tom settled down with a newspaper over his face. Within minutes, he was asleep, and his son was on the prowl.

Leaving out the chair on which his father rested, Seamus searched the rest of the upholstered furniture for trapped coins. He found a florin, two half-crowns and some copper. That was the better part of eight shillings, and he wasn’t stealing, because he was allowed to keep what he found under cushions. Usually, he was lucky if he acquired a few pennies, so this was a good haul. Was it also an omen, a sign that he was doing the right thing?

He sat and listened to his dad’s gentle snoring. Everything about Tom Walsh was gentle. Even when angry, he held himself back, refusing to let rip at the person who’d annoyed him. And that, as Mam repeated frequently, was why Dad had got on at the Co-op. He could work out dividends at amazing speed, was good to his staff and excellent with customers. ‘Your dad’s a man,’ she said regularly. ‘And there aren’t a lot about these days.’

Seamus had stolen the camping money from Mam and from this wonderful dad who had won special medals for bravery during the war. Dad was a crack shot, a hero, a man who always did the right thing. He’d been ill for a while, a bit strange in his head, but he was back to normal now. Guilt burned through Seamus like summer lightning striking his core. If he got found out, would Dad become ill again?

Harry Burdon Jr didn’t have problems like these. No one worried about where he was or what he was doing. Even when he went missing overnight, his behaviour wasn’t criticized. But it was a book, just a book. Harry Burdon wasn’t real. His mother wasn’t real. She didn’t have to peel pounds and pounds of spuds every day, didn’t stand over hot pans, didn’t feed sweaty dock workers bowl after bowl of scouse. Harry Burdon’s dad didn’t have to tally dividends, add up huge sums of money, take it to the bank, order food for the whole of Bootle on a weekly basis, make sure fresh veg got delivered every other day, because . . . because those people in the book weren’t real. There was no policeman father, no lawyer mother. All there was . . . It was a bloke called Richard something or other. He had a typewriter and a desk, and he sat there churning out Harry Burdon books, drinking whiskey and beer, probably, and smoking cigarettes.

Seamus walked across the room and peeled the newspaper off his dad’s face. ‘Are you awake?’

‘Well, I am now.’ Tom yawned and moved into a more upright position. ‘All right, lad. Out with it. We’re not daft, you know, me and your mam.’

It tumbled from the boy’s mouth in a rather less than sensible order. ‘I just wanted to find them, Dad. So I was never going camping. Well, I was, but on me own. Then . . . well, I looked at you and Mam, and I started thinking. I stole the school camp money and told lies. I read your private letters. But they’re me brothers, Dad.’

Tom felt a bit choked, but he dared not weep, not in Seamus’s company. He organized his thoughts as quickly as possible, marshalling facts into rank and file, picking up a couple of white-ish lies en route. Some of the truth needed to come out, since Seamus was a long way from stupid. ‘There’s a very good reason why things are as they are, son. Because of accidents that happened in London, Finbar and Michael have to lie low. They got in with – worked with – some bad people. For safety’s sake, they stay away from us, and we stay away from them. It probably won’t be for ever, but that’s how it is at the moment. Thanks for telling me. If you’d found them, you might have done more harm than good.’

Seamus blinked rapidly. ‘You think they’re in Rainford.’

‘I believe so, yes.’ Tom smiled at his youngest child. ‘You’re eight now, lad. Old enough to know right from wrong, also decent enough to come clean. I’ll tell your mother, so make yourself scarce and put the money you took on the mantelpiece. You just leave her to me.’

Seamus went away and sat on his bed. He had three clothes lines to return, and he had been stupid. This expedition was to have been the greatest adventure in his life so far. And his parents wanted something called a honeymoon, so he had better get on the right side of Gran.

Stanley Square wasn’t the same any more. People kept moving out, leaving behind the single-storey buildings that had housed them since the war. Empty prefabs looked sad and blind, with no movement, no light shining through windows in the evenings. ‘We’ll be out of here soon,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m going to meet Gran,’ he called as he walked through the hall.

‘Right,’ Tom replied. ‘But keep away from your mother. I’ll not vouch for her behaviour if you tell her what you told me. I can deal with her. Coming to me first was the best way.’

‘Good luck, Dad.’ Seamus closed the door and began the walk to Scouse Alley. He tried not to think, but failed to suppress the workings of his brain. Gran had to be on his side. Gran was always on his side. He could stay in Gran’s house till Mam calmed down, which could be some time between midsummer and next Christmas. She was a good mam, and Seamus loved her to bits, but once she got on her high horse she was, as Dad put it, a bugger to shift.

By the time her grandson arrived, Paddy was locking up. She glanced sideways at him while retrieving the key, then did a quick double-take and gave him all her attention. ‘And who are you?’ she asked. ‘I’ve a grandson in a mould similar to yours, though he doesn’t wear his face in his boots.’

‘Don’t, Gran.’ And he told her. It was much easier talking to her, which was weird, because he and she were like two slices of bread, components of a sandwich with his parents as filling. ‘So I told me dad.’

‘But not your mam?’

He shook his head. ‘Dad said he’s dealing with her, because he knows how. Till she drinks too much. You’re better with her when she has a load of Guinnesses. And I stole money and clothes lines.’

‘You’ll be in jail for ever, then?’

‘No. But when they thought I was going camping with school, Dad said a few times they could have a honeymoon, so can I stay at yours?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Gran?’

‘Yes?’

‘What’s a honeymoon?’

Paddy hid a smile. ‘Well, it’s a holiday for grown-ups, but not for children. It doesn’t mean they don’t love the bones of you, because they do, but would you like your mam and dad there while you’re playing with your friends?’

Seamus shook his head.

‘Same thing, you see. They want some time to themselves.’ Paddy was pleased. Her daughter’s marriage was a solid one, but everybody needed a break from children in order to feed a flame often starved by day-to-day drudgery.

‘Gran?’

She sighed. The Spanish Inquisition was clearly still in progress. ‘What?’

‘Well, Dad said about bad people in London. Did they kill my uncles Peter and Callum and Martin and Jack?’

‘Possibly.’ Sometimes, Paddy ached in the place against which she had held her sons. She missed her brothers, of course, but the loss of a child to whom a woman had given birth was a pain beyond measure. ‘We mustn’t talk to anyone about any of it. Your brothers, their wives and children, all must be kept safe. We, too, need to be careful.’ She shuddered. ‘Seamus, should ever a man drive slowly beside you, and open his car window to ask questions, don’t answer. I’m not joking now.’

‘All right, Gran. And I’ll put the ropes on people’s doorsteps after dark.’ He pondered. ‘But two of the prefabs on that side are empty.’

‘Then leave all the ropes at the occupied one. And don’t be worrying about Confession, because a sin you nearly committed doesn’t count.’

They turned into Stanley Square, noticing immediately that all was not well. Paddy wouldn’t have been surprised if her daughter’s voice could be heard near the Liver Building down at the waterfront.

‘Gran?’

‘Run to the market and tell your granddad to pack up and come home. Tell him I said. Go on, because your dad can’t hold her back for much longer.’

Seamus ran like the wind. With Mam in a mood as bad as this one, he needed to be on a different planet. Maureen didn’t hit kids except for a bit of a slap or a flick with a towel, but she was a screamer, and Seamus couldn’t be doing with screamers. The only thing worse than Mam’s yelling was her singing, and the lad all but flew in the direction of the market.

Paddy strode across the mound of grass that covered the centre of the square and met her furious daughter in the middle. Doors in several of the occupied prefabs opened; people abandoned wirelesses, gramophones and even the odd television set, because fights on the green were often better entertainment than anything available via electricity.

Tom used his arms to encircle his wife’s waist. ‘Stop showing yourself up,’ he stage-whispered. ‘And you won’t kill him, because you love him, and I’ll stop you laying a finger on him anyway—’

‘It’s her,’ Maureen shouted, ‘the best gran in the world. Gives him anything he asks for, dotes on him. He was going to go and find my other—’ Maureen staggered back and stood on her husband’s feet. Shocked, she put a hand to a cheek burning after a flat-handed blow from Paddy.

‘Not a word of that while you’re out here putting on a show,’ Paddy whispered. ‘Seamus is a child, but you’re not, and here you are, ready to give away your sons just because the lad was anxious about his brothers and ready to seek them out. Now shut up. Some round here would love to gossip about me. They owe me money and want to see me brought down.’

Maureen’s mouth made a perfect O. Her mother had just cracked her across the face with a strong, calloused hand. ‘You hit me,’ she spat.

‘I’ll do it again, but, if you don’t shut up and get yourself back inside. Watching you having a fit of the hystericals will keep that lot happy till the cows decide to come home. Away with you. Come on, away from the few neighbours we have left.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do, Mother. My son stole from me. My son. And I know you’ll stick up for him, because you—’ She was lifted up by her husband and, with limbs scraping the air in the manner of an upside-down beetle, she was heaved across the grass into her home, where she found herself dumped unceremoniously in the hallway.

Mother and husband stared down at the personification of human anger on the floor. ‘Ridiculous,’ said Tom. ‘He’s a boy. Boys do stupid things. At his age, I was pinching anything that wasn’t tied down, nailed down, glued down or rooted. He misses his brothers, love. And he entered a magic world where he could find them and bring them back.’

Maureen closed her eyes and leaned against a wall. ‘I lost two uncles and two brothers to the East End of bloody London. Now, I’ve two grandkids I can’t even visit, because all the boys in this family turn out bad. So when I see Seamus doing wrong and causing bother, I think it’ll be him next. What if he had found his brothers? What if his brothers, once dug out of hiding, decided to go back and work with Ronnie and Reggie Kray? What if Seamus joined them in ten years, eh? Just another unmarked grave in Epping Forest.’

Paddy understood her daughter full well, but there was no sense in this destructive way of thinking. ‘I’m going to put this right,’ she said. ‘I’ll be visiting London.’

Maureen and Tom stared open-mouthed at the grandmother of their children. ‘What?’

‘I shall write to the Krays. They helped get our boys back up here, gave them money, wished them good luck.’

‘I’m coming with you, then,’ Tom said.

But Paddy shook her head. ‘No. This will be two women in a room, two women with troublesome boys. Those twins will do anything for their mother, anything at all. Martin told me that, God rest his soul.’

Maureen closed her mouth with an audible snap. ‘And what will you ask for, Mam?’

‘For my family to be safe.’

Tom sighed and turned away, and the women followed him into the living room. In the age-old stance of a man lecturing his family, he stood with his back to the fire, feet planted apart, one hand pushing hair from his face. ‘You could cause deaths,’ he said softly.

‘I know that.’ Paddy paused for several seconds. ‘One night last summer, you were forced to protect your family. You became ill, then came to terms with what had happened. Whichever group is after Finbar and Michael, we know it’s not the Krays.’

‘So?’ Maureen sat and folded her arms as if protecting herself from what she was hearing.

‘If their mother asks them, they will deal with it. I shall also suggest that my grandsons be chased away if they ever return to London.’ Paddy closed her eyes. London, like the moon, was there. It lingered beyond the bounds of imagination, was not as visible as the world’s silver companion which came and went on a monthly basis. London was on the Pathé News at the cinema. Nelson balanced on a tall column in some square or other – Trafalgar? There was Hyde Park where daft folk stood on orange boxes and ranted on about politics, religion and what have you, while the queen lived in an un-pretty palace big enough for forty-five married couples with kids, plus guests and lodgers.

The strangest thing about this Bootle family was that Tom knew where to stop with Paddy, whereas her daughter just barged on and on until the tears came. ‘You are not going to London on your own, Mam.’

Paddy shrugged. ‘I am. I’m going on my own, by myself, with nobody. And I won’t even tell you when. No way am I arriving with what they call an enterage.’

‘Entourage,’ Tom offered, wishing immediately that he could bite back the word. The expression on his mother-in-law’s face was sculpted to kill. But he wasn’t going to apologize. ‘I’ll just fetch our Seamus,’ he said rather lamely.

‘No, you won’t,’ snapped the angry Irishwoman. ‘He’s stopping with me and his granddad while you have a honeymoon.’ She nodded. ‘Yes, he hears everything. We all know there’s no privacy in these tin boxes. No matter what, there’s always some clever so-and-so can see you, hear you or smell you.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Have some time off work and calm yourself down. Honeymoon?’ She tutted. ‘It’ll be more like the Battle of the Bulge.’

When Paddy had left, Tom studied his wife. No way was he going to take her to Waterloo tonight. To say she was in a bad mood would have been similar to stating that the sun was slightly warm. ‘There’s steam coming out of your nose,’ he said.

‘There’ll be blood pouring out of yours in a minute if you don’t bugger off. Go and see your friend. I’ll have a bath and listen to the wireless.’ She flounced out of the living room.

Tom sat for a while, scarcely realizing that he was engaged in a countdown. Then it happened. He strode down the hall and into the bathroom. Maureen cried like a child, wholeheartedly and with great enthusiasm for the job. Even when her face was screwed up like a sheet of paper in a bin, she remained beautiful. The presence of children and in-laws often stopped the cure, but the couple were alone this time. Roy would be expecting him, but Maureen was, as ever, top of Tom’s list of priorities.

He marched away to bolt the outer doors, then lifted his soggy spouse, carried her to the living room and medicated her. She lay in his arms afterwards. ‘You’re all wet, Tom.’

‘I know. So are you.’

She kissed him. ‘Why does that always work?’

Tom shrugged. ‘Releases tension. I suppose we’re lucky. Some women can’t abide it. You’ve always been an easy little tart.’

‘I’ll bite your ears, Thomas Walsh.’

‘Really? Then we’ll be forced to deal once again with matters arising therefrom—’

‘Braggart.’

‘Matters arising,’ he repeated, ‘and I have to go to Roy’s house. You coming?’

‘No. I’ll go to bed and wait for you.’

‘Oh?’

‘Matters arising.’

He watched as his wife walked away. There were little white indentations on her belly where unborn children had stretched her out of shape, and the flesh on her thighs was no longer firm, but she was gorgeous. Her beauty lay in the fact that she didn’t make herself precious, didn’t concentrate on faults resulting from the natural process of ageing. ‘A whole week of you all to myself,’ he told her.

Maureen stood in the doorway. ‘Depends,’ she replied.

‘On what?’

She shrugged. ‘New milkman. Haven’t tried him out yet. Oh, and you have to stop Mam going to London. She’s not ready for London.’

Tom laughed. ‘I wonder if London’s ready for her?’

‘Oh, I’m going to warm my bath up and start again. Tell Roy hello from me, but I’m out of order due to matters what arose. And on your way back, you can fetch me cod, chips and peas.’

Tom sighed. He would sleep with the smell of malt vinegar, would wake to the same aroma mingling delicately with the odour of cooled fat. There would be newsprint on sheets, escaped chips in the bed, bits of batter adhering lovingly to parts of his person. But it didn’t matter, because she was his girl.

As he drove towards Waterloo, he thought about Roy. Roy loved a woman across the road. He busied himself with work and his allotment, enjoyed decorating and improving the house, yet every waking moment he thought of this Rosh woman, the widow of his best friend. He spoke of her with reverence, and repeatedly expressed the opinion that she would never look at him because he was substandard in the walking department.

‘What’s a bloody game leg at the end of the day?’ Tom asked the windscreen. ‘He’s good-looking, has a smart job, grows his own veg and flowers – what the bloody hell does she want? Gregory flaming Peck?’

He parked the car. Roy was waiting for him at the gate. A neat, proud little garden showed off its residents, early cheerfulness and the gladiatorial threats of daffodils preparing to show their colours. ‘Hello, there,’ said Tom.

‘I’d given you up.’

Tom shrugged. ‘Listen, with my family, you never know whether you’re fish, fowl or faggots from the cheap end of the market. We had a situation.’

‘Oh. Everything all right now?’

Tom cleared his head of Maureen, the sight of her, the sound of sobs slowing with every move he made. ‘It was our youngest threatening to leave home for a while. I had to stay and calm my wife down – she gets upset. Maureen sends her apologies, by the way. She says she’ll meet you when she’s in a better frame of mind and not in the bath.’

Roy laughed. ‘Unusual things, women. I’ve sometimes wondered whether we’re the same species as them. We’ve one at the bottom of Lawton Road who collects operations. I’m not joking. She looks in medical books, finds an illness she fancies and works on it. Come in.’

Tom hung up his coat in the small hallway. ‘You’ve done a good job in here, Roy. Glad you kept the original mouldings and so forth. So. What’s the operation woman working on now?’

‘As far as I know, it’s ingrowing toenails. She’s wearing her sister’s shoes – too small for her – and binding her feet at night. If she gets this operation, it’ll be number twenty, then she’s retiring. The thing is, the hospitals are cottoning on at last. She’s had her appendix out twice.’

Tom blinked.

‘I know, I know,’ Roy sighed. ‘But she came over all acute one day, and off she went in a bell-clanger. Turned out to be wind. They rooted round in her belly for a few minutes, but all they found was methane. She stunk out the theatre and three corridors. There was talk of issuing gas masks, and the water board dug up the drains . . .’

Tom held up a hand. ‘Enough. I come from a mad Irish family, so I get plenty of this at home.’

Roy, acting in the mode of estate agent, led his ‘client’ through the house. In spite of his difficult leg, he had turned the place into a miniature palace. ‘I hadn’t the heart when he was alive.’ There was no need to nominate the ‘he’, since Tom already knew about Roy’s worthless, cruel father. ‘But once he’d gone, I noticed what a pretty little house I had. Dirty, untidy, but attractive, it begged to be restored.’

‘For her?’

Roy shook his head. ‘For me. Though I suppose showing her what I can do did no harm. No, she’ll never live here. If – and that’s a big word – anything came of our so-called relationship, we’d sell both houses and get a bigger one. She has three children, two cats and a mother.’

Tom tutted. ‘I have a mother-in-law. She’s a great woman, but she could talk the legs off a grand piano. Good-hearted, she is, only she’s always right. When she’s totally wrong, she’s righter than ever. Now. What’s that lovely smell coming from your kitchen? I could eat a bald man on a butty, I’m telling you.’

They dined on a fruity curry served with coconut, sliced banana and home-made pickle. ‘By, that was good,’ Tom declared when he’d finished off everything apart from the pattern on the plate. ‘A lot nicer than a bald man on a sarnie. The last time I had one of them, he was all gristle.’

They ate very English apple tart and drank coffee in the front living room. Tom noticed that Roy placed himself in a chair angled to get the best view of the house opposite. ‘Is she in?’ Tom asked.

Roy shook his head. ‘Isle of Man while the schools are on Easter break. She’ll— I mean they’ll be back in a couple of days.’

Tom took a sip of coffee. ‘You’re in pain, aren’t you? Like I was when you found me down at the Pier Head. Come on, lad, you can’t go breaking your heart over the impossible. She’ll either come round, or she won’t. Do you want to be sitting here when you’re eighty wondering if she’ll have you? Wouldn’t you be better off looking for a life elsewhere? Selling up and moving on?’

‘I can’t. In case she needs me. I help with the kids sometimes, and I do stuff round the house for her.’

‘You sound like a servant.’

Roy shrugged. ‘I’d rather serve her than be master of anybody else. Over twenty years, I’ve felt like this. When she chose Phil, I grinned and bore it, but he’s dead now, and . . . and . . . well—’

‘You’d like to take his place.’

‘Not really. Nobody could ever take his place. I just want her. Mad, isn’t it?’

Tom was no longer sure. The idea of life without his Maureen was horrible, but he’d been with her for a long time . . . Yes, he’d been lucky. He took a photograph from his wallet and handed it to his companion. ‘There’s my trouble and strife,’ he said. ‘And I wouldn’t part with her for all the riches in the world. Roy? Roy?’

‘I’ll . . . er . . . just a minute.’

Roy staggered to the bureau, opened a drawer and pulled out a photograph. ‘Here. Have a look at that.’

Tom looked. ‘But it’s—’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘Roy, they could be twins, except mine’s a good few years older than yours.’

‘Yes.’

Each man stared at a picture of the other’s beloved.

‘We all have a double, or so they say,’ Tom said.

Roy cleared his throat. ‘And they’re not exactly the same. The mouths and eyes are slightly different, but look at the hairlines, the cheekbones.’

‘I know. It’s uncanny. We could swap photos, and we’d hardly know the difference except for the clothes and the backgrounds. You’ve good taste, Roy.’

There seemed to be little left to say. Both men sat and stared at the walls for a few minutes, each aware of the other’s inexplicable discomfort. Tom picked up the photograph of Maureen. ‘She wants fish and chips,’ he said quietly. ‘If I go now, I’ll avoid the rush after the pubs close.’

On his way back to Bootle, he found himself strangely close to tears. Tonight, he had eaten in the house of a grand chap who loved the spitting image of Maureen. As he waited for fish, chips and peas, Tom counted his blessings once again. ‘Plenty of vinegar, please. My wife loves her vinegar.’ And I love my wife, his inner voice said. Between us, me and Maureen will get Roy and Rosh together.

He drove the rest of the way to Stanley Square. Maureen and Rosh had to meet.

Well, I’m really done for now. Old Mr Bailey’s gone, and his wife wants the shop shutting for a while as a mark of respect? Respect? He loved his tobaccos and his customers, liked chatting to other pipe-smokers about all the different flavours. Respect should mean keeping the place running, but no. She’s a woman. Women are daft.

Nine

The house on Menlove Avenue was a huge part of Tess’s dream come true. It was pretty, solid, cosy, and it was hers. Housewifery was her main skill and chief employment, but she was spreading her wings, working, making a difference.

Another possession about which she rejoiced was her driving licence, that cute little red book with her name and address printed inside. It didn’t record the fact that she had passed first time with scarcely any effort on her part, but that didn’t really matter. Well aware of what she’d achieved, she made sure that most people within her sphere were aware of that particular truth. Tess knew of women who had failed five, six or seven times, so she held her head high every time she opened the door of her Morris. The van was not a thing of beauty, but she was in control of it, and that was what counted. Tess now considered herself to be a woman of substance, and that attitude was demonstrated in her demeanour. It was very much a case of Look out world, here I come.

She had two jobs, neither of them connected to the Smithdown Road launderette. The tenant in the flat above took care of the business, and she seemed a decent body, grateful for cheap accommodation and a wage. So Tess was free at last and could make her money as she wished. Containment on Smithdown Road had never suited her, and she felt as if she had been released from prison after a long sentence. They were a proper family in a proper house, and Tess had finally reached her main goal.

On Saturday mornings, Tess wove her way round Liverpool, stopping at various small agencies, usually newspaper shops, to pick up football pools coupons and cash, all of which had to be delivered to Littlewoods long before matches kicked off. There was paperwork involved, and Mark rode shotgun, as he put it, so that he could add up and fill in forms while she drove. Tess was beginning to be impressed by her daughter’s boyfriend. He wore leathers, had a loud, huge motorbike and a decent shirt-and-tie job during the week. He also hung in patiently while Anne-Marie flaunted herself in front of the Quarry Men, seemed not to mind while the wayward child chased after the Lennon boy, Paul McCartney and anyone else with a guitar or a drumstick.

‘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.’

‘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?

Anne-Marie, looking for all the world like an infant teacher with a non-cooperative pupil, tut-tutted her displeasure. ‘Dad, one of these days you’ll have to stop worrying, or you’ll get measured for the wooden overcoat. You fret too much. Cool it, Daddy-oh.’

So he cooled it. On this pleasant summer evening, he drove to Otterspool Prom and watched the world go by. Ships, their size diminished by distance, glided silently across the horizon. Perhaps Liverpool sailors stood on deck, their eyes fixed on the Liver Birds. Soon, busy small tugs would start to bob about like little rubber ducks in a big bath. They would fuss and chunter until they got their bigger sister moving in more or less the right direction.

Courting couples walked by, while a pair of pensioners on a bench shared a crossword and a bag of butties. A child kicked a ball, fell about laughing when his dad failed to stop it. ‘Goal,’ he screamed. Don hadn’t played football with Sean, because Dunkirk had put paid to that.

He was stalling, wasn’t he? Procrastination, thief of time and all that. He hoped Tess was asleep. If she woke and he wasn’t there, would she be afraid and lonely? He remembered how thoroughly he had hated her, but perhaps dislike as strong as that was the reverse side of true love. She used to enjoy concerts, didn’t she? And the cinema, even the theatre. He recalled her standing up with Anne-Marie during a pantomime, ‘He’s behind you.’ Oh, he had to start taking her out again. Life was more than work and worry; there had to be some fun as well.

Molly was expecting him. They were meant to be going to a pub, but he didn’t feel up to it. If she was intending to perform her George Formby, she would go anyway, because she didn’t like letting folk down. Neither did he; the thought of her being upset gave him pain in his stomach. Molly had done so much for him, so much for Tess, that she deserved better treatment, yet he could not love two women. Nor could he go through the motions with Molly just to ensure that Tess kept the house and the stability she drew from its existence.

He climbed back into the car and rubbed his troubled knee. Hanging round here wasn’t any comfort, because he knew he was avoiding the issue, and that wasn’t in his nature. Hiding away in the physical sense wasn’t easy, not with a limp as pronounced as his. Socially, he’d always enjoyed a game of darts, a pie and a pint, and a chinwag, though he didn’t have close male friends. Molly had been the centre of his universe for so long that he couldn’t imagine life without her. But she was his employer as well as his mistress, and he was likely to lose a job he loved. Job, house, his wife’s sanity, all were threatened while she lay in hospital recovering from major surgery.

Molly was waiting for him. ‘You all right, love?’ The question was coated with concern. ‘You look a bit off-colour to me. Get yourself some brewer’s yeast. My mother swore by it.’

Don patted the dogs, gave Molly a peck on the cheek and sat down. He had to offload the first part quickly. ‘Tess collapsed in a pool of blood today, Moll. I found her when I got back from . . . from here. She was rushed off in an ambulance and they operated on her this afternoon. Woman’s trouble.’

Molly sat next to him. ‘Why aren’t you with her?’ Her tone had become accusatory. ‘She shouldn’t be on her own at a time like this. Whatever are you thinking of? That poor girl.’

He groaned. ‘She’s unconscious, so we were told to stay at home. I just went and stood on Otterspool Prom staring at the water. I don’t fancy the pub. I don’t fancy much, if I’m honest.’

Molly bent and pushed her ukulele case out of view. She was going nowhere, because she was needed here. For some months, she had felt him distancing himself from her. She, in her turn, had been holding back, because she wanted the playing field to be level. Although she loved him, he in no way matched her deceased husband, the love of her life. There were other men who liked her, but . . . but she would miss Don if he left her.

‘Were you meant to be playing tonight?’ Don asked.

‘It’s optional, because I’m not actually booked. It’s not a birthday or an anniversary, so I needn’t go. Anyway, I’m thinking about your Tess. This is shocking news. Oh, I do hope she’ll be all right.’

‘Yes, me too.’ Suddenly tired, he leaned his head on the back of the sofa. ‘I can’t go on, Mo. It’s as if I’m running at top speed just to stand still. There’s no sense to life, no meaning. I keep missing stuff. My little girl’s turned herself into a woman while I wasn’t looking, my lad can brew tea, now Tess is dragged down by fibroids and some fancy illness that causes internal bleeding. Where’ve I been while life’s kept happening, Moll?’

She closed her eyes. ‘Not here. Not all the time, anyway.’

Don sighed. ‘It’s not so much where I’ve been physically. It’s in my head, as if I went home today and the film ran faster before grinding to a halt. And there she was, blood everywhere, carrots and peas on the table, steak in the oven, her floor all stained. She loves that floor.’

Molly knew that her time had come. Not for one moment did she resent her erstwhile lover’s decision, since she knew that nothing lasted. With her husband gone, and her lack of children, she understood full well how disappointing life could be.

Don continued. ‘It took a long time to change the first reel, Molly. You changed it. Once she was in that house, she was safe, you see. It ran more smoothly once I found the reasons for her daft behaviour.’

The words crept from her throat to the front of her mouth. ‘You still love her, don’t you, Don?’

He hesitated briefly. ‘Yes. Yes, I’m afraid I do. But that doesn’t mean I never loved you. There was a time, as you well know, when I could hardly stand the sight of her. But she’s changed. The house changed her, safety changed her. And now . . .’ His voice died of exhaustion.

Molly stood up. ‘And now what? What? You think I’ll grab it off her? What do you take me for, Don Compton? That house is for your kids and it’s legally yours. When you and Tess keel over, it’ll be worth enough to buy them each a house, even if they’re in a terrace. Your job’s safe, and we can still have our lunches. There is no price to pay. You don’t really know me, do you?’

An old saying coursed through Don’s mind. Friends may become lovers, but lovers never friends. ‘It’s always felt like taking charity,’ he mumbled.

‘Pride,’ Molly declared, ‘is worth nowt a pound, as my old Manchester granny used to say. I’ve no kids. I’ve given you a house to leave to yours.’ She bit her lip to stop the tears before they flowed. ‘Without you, I would have stayed in this mausoleum and let the business down the road go to the devil. When he died and . . .’ She swallowed and began again. ‘When Matt died, you ran everything single-handedly and saved me from ruin. So I saved Tess. No way will I take anything back. I couldn’t anyway, because it’s not mine. And I’ll be all right. We can have our lunch at the pub or here, do our paperwork, go our separate ways and it’ll all be OK.’

He knew that the words were choking her. Don was no prize, but he was all Molly had clung to since her husband died. Furthermore, he was sure that she would weep after he had gone tonight, because this was a huge house for one woman and two dogs. ‘You need a smaller place with a large garden. Get yourself a plot of land and an architect. Let’s face it, you’ve access to all materials at cost, and you know some bloody good builders. Fresh start, new furniture – it worked for Tess. But no Skaters’ Trails.’

She laughed, yet the sound was hollow. ‘Look after her, lad. And take time off when you need it. It’ll be all right. I’m sure she’ll be out of there in no time and driving you mad with her panelling and her wallpaper—’

‘And her squirrels. She loves them, you know.’

‘Yes, you told me.’ He often talked about Tess these days. Molly felt cold, as if an icy hand had fastened its grip round her heart. She remembered the sensation; she’d known it in the weeks after her husband’s death. It was loneliness. It was also the realization that she needed a companion, because she was like one pea in an otherwise empty pod. ‘I’ll build a bungalow,’ she announced after a pause. ‘Four bedrooms, a couple of bathrooms, orangery, indoor swimming pool and land for the dogs. You’re right, it’s time I treated myself a bit better. Thanks for everything, Don.’

When he left, he felt as if he had cut the throat of a kitten. Molly had claws and teeth, but underneath the strength sat a weakened woman.

The house on Menlove Avenue was dark and empty. In the bedroom, Don caught a whiff of Tess’s Je Reviens, a powdery, flowery and sickly kind of smell. But it was posh, so Tess loved it. He would steer her gently towards Chanel, a more solid, adult aroma. God, this was funny. Was he turning into some sort of expert in the area of women’s cosmetics?

He sat down. Tonight a wonderful, amazing woman had been hurt. He had done the hurting, and she had shown the bravery. Another lay in hospital with some of her insides missing. And here was her bed, a single bed, separated from his by a substantial chest of drawers. Well, that would all change for a start. Both kids had old beds, so these could be their new ones, because he intended to make a nest for himself and Tess. All rules would be broken; to hell with pastels and beige, because this would be a boudoir.

Don laid himself flat on his own divan. A bit of red, a gilt-framed mirror, good sheets with a high-count cotton thread, dressing table, new hairbrush, comb and hand mirror all to match. Manicure set with mother-of-pearl handles, a jewellery box, telephone extension so that she wouldn’t have to run downstairs to answer the phone, some pretty nightdresses and peignoirs. What the hell was a peignoir? He didn’t know, but the word was in his head, and she was having at least one.

Sleep closed in on him like a sturdy door being slammed in his face. One minute he was awake, while the next found him in a long corridor. The further he walked, the longer it grew. Through glass doors, he saw women in hospital beds, but none of them looked like Tess. Time after time, he strode past Molly. She was singing about cleaning windows; if he didn’t look at her, she was George Formby.

‘Don?’

Ah, he had found Tess. She was small. Did the removal of a womb plus bits and bobs make a woman shrink? Or was she travelling backwards in time? Would she become a little girl in a wooden caravan, too many siblings and not enough blankets, no toys, no teacher to help her learn to read?

As he entered deeper sleep, the dreams stopped.

Morning found him fully clothed and on top of his eiderdown. Disorientated for a few seconds, he blinked stupidly till his brain kicked in. Downstairs, he came across another pile of occupied clothing, a bundle of denim and leather on the sofa. Someone else had slept where he’d dropped. ‘Mark?’

‘Go away.’ A tousled head raised itself. ‘Sorry, Mr Compton. I thought I was at home. I couldn’t be bothered going back. We were there till ten, with my mother fussing round Anne-Marie with food, did she fancy a bit of soup, what about scrambled eggs or toast and marmalade. We were both driven daft. So we cleared off and played cards with Sean.’

‘I thought he went to the pub,’ Don said.

‘None of us could settle. Anyway, we kept the noise down in here, because the car was on the driveway and you were in bed.’ He sat up. ‘Never sleep in leathers; I smell like an overdone turkey complete with burnt plumage and giblets.’

Don and Tess both liked this lad. He was an eccentric mixture of city commuter and mad Rocker. According to Anne-Marie, Mark’s chapter of bikers didn’t fight. They had become the peacemakers, and their insignia was Churchill’s victory sign. ‘Victory over what?’ Don asked now, indicating the badge.

‘Over the atom bomb. They have to stop making them. Did you ever see the Japanese photograph of a man’s shadow? He evaporated completely, every bit of him was removed, but his shadow’s permanently burnt into the step where he was sitting. It’s a reminder for all of us that we shouldn’t play with those toys.’

Not for the first time of late, Don reminded himself that there was more to this generation than immediately met the eye. They knew what needed doing, what needed changing, and they were certainly ready to challenge government. It wasn’t just riding about on scooters or motorbikes; they had an agenda, they were educated and a power to be recognized. ‘Where do you work?’ Don asked.

Mark stood up and stretched. ‘Family firm. Do you know what I love most about that baby daughter of yours?’

‘No.’

‘She’s not impressed by a sandstone mansion on the Wirral. She likes me for me, for who I am. Did she ever mention my wealthy family? No? That’s because she’d rather listen to the Quarry Men, make eyes at Lennon and have a good time. My parents adore her. Anyway, this isn’t getting the baby bathed. You have an Ascot, don’t you? Constant hot water?’

Don blinked stupidly again. ‘Er . . . yes.’

Mark announced his intention to make breakfast for everyone before becoming the first baby in the bath. ‘I’ll drag them out of bed, Mr Compton. They see their mother today, so we want them smart.’

Don stayed where he was and allowed Mark to organize the household. Every day, something new. No, it was more like every hour – Tess in hospital, lonely Molly planning a bungalow, Mark suddenly rich, a new bedroom to be arranged, Anne-Marie’s boyfriend making breakfast. ‘Get well, Tess,’ he whispered. He was going to need her. She might have been rather wobbly of late, but she had a certain way of thinking round a problem before aiming at the core. She was clever; should have been better educated. ‘There are no problems,’ he muttered. Even so, he needed her, didn’t he? Breakfast smelled delicious.

Anne-Marie stumbled down the stairs. Mark dragged her to the table, slapped a full English in front of her, and told her she looked like a panda.

‘I fell asleep before taking my make-up off,’ she informed him.

Mark shrugged. ‘You still look like a panda.’

The panda observed its plate. It didn’t like mushrooms, fried bread or black pudding. The offending items were removed, and Panda-Marie played with the remaining egg and bacon.

Sean ate everything apart from the glaze on his plate, while Don watched these three marvellous people closely. Sean was always hungry, but he worked hard, had an instinct for motors and a liking for beer and company. Anne-Marie was brilliant, another worker with a capacity for fun. She did look like a panda, and she didn’t care, because she would see her mother today.

‘Eat up, Mr C,’ the chef ordered.

Don did as he was told.

By visiting time, they were all clean-ish and almost respectable. Panda was looking human, her boyfriend had lost his overnight beard, and most of the oil had been scraped from Sean’s fingernails. Don was wearing his best suit. Tess deserved the best suit.

But as they entered the ward, he noticed an open door. His eyes travelled into the tiny, single bedroom. His Tess was in the bed, white-faced and unconscious. Was she so ill that she needed to be isolated because she required so much attention? This room was very near the sister’s office.

A hand rested on Don’s arm. ‘It’s all right, Mr Compton. We’ve all noticed the similarity. Come and see your wife; she’s doing very well.’

He staggered on. The children were already at their mother’s bedside, and they stepped aside for him. She looked great. Anaemia had been chased away by transfusions, and she could no longer bleed internally, because the offending aggressors had been removed. ‘Hello, love,’ he said.

Anne-Marie, busy placing nightdresses, underwear and toiletries in her mother’s locker, was dangerously near to tears of happiness. Mark ordered her to calm down, as he was not prepared to be seen in the company of a panda for a second time that day.

Anne-Marie straightened, turned, and faced him. ‘Listen, king of the road,’ she said. ‘Pandas look cute, but they kill. So watch it, or I’ll squeeze the living daylights out of you.’

Tess groaned. ‘Shut up. It hurts when I laugh.’

Don glanced over his shoulder. The door to the single room was closed. Tess noticed the direction of his gaze.

‘She does look like me, then. Everybody’s been saying so. Even you think she looks like me. Well, her name’s Rosh, and rumour has it that some less than human creature’s interfered with her. There’s been a little Irishwoman leaping about in the corridor shouting gibberish, and their neighbour’s been arrested. So they say, anyway. Poor girl was in theatre during the night.’

Sean wandered off to look through a different window. Mark, in search of a vase for Tess’s flowers, was chatting to a pretty nurse. Anne-Marie marched in his direction, pulled him away from the girl and muttered to him, a finger wagging under his nose.

‘Just like you,’ Don said. Then he bent, placed his head on the pillow and whispered, telling Tess about the planned boudoir and all that would happen within its walls.

When he sat up, she was staring into his eyes. ‘Promises,’ she said.

He smiled. It was enough.

Ten

Rosh had kept her promise about seeking work, though she could afford to be choosy, since she had the windfall from Phil’s policy. Not that she intended to depend on it, but she did have the luxury of time in which to make up her mind about the future. She was head of the household now, though her mother thought differently. But Anna Riley had always imagined herself to be in charge no matter what the circumstance, and argument was futile.

Rosh’s main aim was to use the money to educate her children to cope in a cruel world, and a plan to make them safe was taking root in her mind. But first, there was something she particularly wanted to do, something that had needed doing for seven years, at least. She was doing it for her annoying, wonderful mother, who would take care of house and children while Rosh made a living. Since Phil’s death, Anna Riley had become the core of the family, almost by default, but Rosh needed to be the breadwinner.

Accordingly, Anna’s daughter had travelled by bus to Collingford’s Dye Works and was interviewed in a small office by a short man with spectacles and a permanent frown. The furrows changed shape when he spoke, and Rosh found her attention glued to the ever-mobile patterns flitting above thick, silver eyebrows. His glasses were a poor fit, as were his teeth. He was flanked by two women, one of whom looked about ninety, while the other, all nail polish and lipstick, seemed very much aware of the competition Rosh might become. While the latter sized up the candidate’s clothing and pretty face, the other two fired questions at a pace that few machine guns might match.

Was she a good ironer? What about folding and packing? Did she have experience of invisible darning and garment finishing? Would she be willing to work in the dry-cleaning department? Was she quick to learn, because there was an art to most of the jobs in the dye works. How did she feel about manning the reception desk and telephones? Would she be flexible enough to learn several disciplines and fill in when workers were ill?

Outwardly unfazed, Rosh looked from one to the other. It was clear that they had been impressed by her letter of application and that they wanted her to work here. Well, she had something to say, but it would keep. And she intended to lay it on with a trowel if necessary. A bone to pick? A bone? She had a butcher’s yard full of bones, plus a row of skeletons and enough ham shanks for a month’s worth of pea and ham soup.

The four of them walked through hats and gloves, through pressing and ironing, finishing, invisible darning and mending, dyeing, dry-cleaning, uncollected items due to be sold, button-matching and packing. The dry-cleaning area stank of chemicals, while the pressing room was scarcely visible through clouds of steam. This place was massive; it looked as if it had been here for ever, like Ayers Rock or the Grand Canyon. People who worked here probably needed a map for their first month or so. Without directions, they might end up lost or mummified in some dry, dark corner.

The older woman sang the praises of social amenities which included keep fit classes, football and netball matches, rounders, cricket, dances, and the occasional trip to Southport or Blackpool. ‘You’d be pushed to find a better employer than Collingford,’ she concluded, an expression of pride making her younger for a few seconds. ‘We look after our employees, and their well-being is our number one concern at all times.’

Rosh coughed politely into her handkerchief. The workers would need days out after working in this place, because the chemicals seemed to close in, as if threatening to choke a person. Not since the war’s end had she thought of gas masks as useful items. She shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t have allowed them to approve of her. They were keen; had they not been keen, this walkabout would not have happened. Perhaps they even had big plans for her, a grand future with a thousand or more a year plus benefits. She felt nauseous, but she had travelled here for a purpose, and she was yet to claim her pound of flesh.

When the tour was over, they returned to the office, where the two females peeled away and walked towards whatever they usually did.

The man poked at his glasses. In dire need of adjustment, they slid down his nose with monotonous frequency. ‘You seem very suitable,’ he told Rosh. ‘Intelligent, probably quick to learn, personable. We have several openings at the present time, and you could go far if you worked hard.’ He smiled benignly, and the spectacles’ nose piece took off like a careless skier down a very steep slope.

Rosh should not, could not like him, no matter how amusing his mannerisms were. ‘Oh, I am a hard worker,’ she answered readily. ‘I can turn my hand to most things. I got that from my mother, I think. To this day, she’s an industrious woman. We’re all very proud of her.’

Clearly not listening to her, he shuffled some papers. ‘Then we’ll start you off in ironing.’

Rosh folded her arms. ‘Will you, now?’

‘Er . . . would you prefer some other area?’

For answer, Rosh shook her head. ‘I don’t think I would, no. You see, Mr . . . what was your name? Oh, it doesn’t matter at all. I am Catholic.’

He sputtered. Rosh half expected a set of false teeth to land on his desk, because every S he formed came out as a whistle. ‘But that rule was removed years ago,’ he managed eventually. ‘We no longer adhere to . . . to the principles of . . . no, not principles. Er . . . things change, usually for the better. I can assure you, Mrs . . . er . . . Allen, everything is very different now. Race and creed are not considered. We have two black men in packing, and several Chinese in various areas.’

‘No Catholics need apply,’ said the applicant who was no longer applying. ‘So my mother couldn’t work here.’ She stood up. ‘I came here for one reason only. I came to shoot you down on behalf of every family who suffered because of your firm’s prejudice. I am very prejudiced against prejudice. Oh, you’ve custard on your tie. Take it through to that smelly place and get it dry-cleaned.’

He was still fighting with his specs and scrutinizing his tie when the door slammed behind Rosh. The cheek of that woman! He’d better warn the night watch, because she might just find a load of Luddites or Fenians and set fire to the whole caboodle. She was pretty, yes. And there was a look of the Irish about her, the soft, gentle facade that often hid a core of steel.

Rosh stood outside and surveyed an exterior that put her in mind of a cotton mill. About seventy windows stared down at her, and this was just one side of the building. A square tower that reached higher than the main structure was also heavily endowed with glass. A row of vans advertising Collingford the Dyers waited for their loads. She did not belong here. If her mother hadn’t been fit for this pile of masonry, the business was unsuitable for Rosh. Well, she’d accomplished what she’d set out to do.

So. What else did Liverpool have to offer? Biscuit factory, sugar works, jam makers, the sausage place. But who was she kidding? This kick-back on behalf of Liverpool’s Catholics had been her sole reason for venturing this far away from her base in Waterloo. She had a job offer, and she would accept the position today. It was practically on the doorstep, an interesting shop on College Road, and she had promised to give her answer by five o’clock. And she was meeting Roy soon, as he was going to help her make a decision.

Someone touched Rosh’s arm. She turned and was surprised to see that Lipstick and Nail Polish was standing behind her. ‘What happened?’ asked the glamour girl. ‘Did he not give you a job? I was sure he would.’

‘He tried,’ was Rosh’s answer. ‘But I decided not to bother accepting it.’

‘Oh.’ The young woman bit down on a peach-coloured lower lip. ‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because it stinks. I don’t want to walk round smelling like some chemistry lab. Oh, I don’t know. I feel daft now. It’s just that my mother needed work some years ago, and they wouldn’t even let her apply because she’s a Catholic. And I wanted to let them know what they’d done to her.’

Rosh’s companion nodded. ‘I could see that our Mr Collingford liked you. So did his mother.’

Rosh’s hand flew up to her face. ‘You mean he was . . . She was . . . I thought they were just managers.‘

‘They’re Collingfords, yes. He’s a widower, and she’s his mother. And the no Catholics thing wasn’t their idea. It came from his older brother. They fought it, but they couldn’t shift him an inch. He was nasty, and the older he got, the nastier he became. But it was just him.’

Rosh swallowed. Never again would she speak her mind to strangers. Had she listened, she might have heard their names. Roisin Allen could be blacklisted all over Liverpool after this, so she’d better dash back home and grab the job that was on offer. ‘I have to go,’ she gasped before fleeing round the corner. A voice followed her.

‘I’m a Collingford, too. He’s my dad.’

Rosh sat on the Waterloo-bound bus. How many times had she told her own mother to keep her thoughts to herself until she was in possession of all the facts? And here sat Anna Riley’s adviser, hands shaking as she searched for her fare, cheeks glowing partly because the day was hot, mostly because she had been nasty to people who probably didn’t deserve it. She was a sad, hopeless case who could use a sizeable dose of her own medicine. The sins of a deceased older brother should never be blamed on a younger. Oh, she shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have spoken with only half a brain.

She alighted from the vehicle and stood on College Road. Mam was coming out of the greengrocer’s. Backwards, of course. A great if somewhat confusing conversationalist, Anna Riley took every opportunity to share her opinions with the world at large and now, addressing a customer or a trapped shopkeeper, she was making sure her words were registering until the very last moment. She had been known to cause a huge human backlog in Woolworth’s, because the girl behind the counter had been Irish, engaging, and cousin to a man who had been friend of a friend of a woman who had gone to Dublin and who had come to no good at all.

Rosh crossed the road. ‘What are you up to now?’

A startled Anna put a hand on her heart. ‘Jaysus, you’ll be the death of me, creeping up like that.’ She inhaled deeply, as if trying to illustrate the size of the damage done to her by a dreadful daughter. ‘He’s only gone and got the mumps, hasn’t he? I said to Janet in the shop, which grown man goes out and comes back with the mumps? Mumps is something children have, like chicken pox and measles.’

‘Mother! What a load of twaddle. You can’t blame a man for having a disease. He didn’t do it deliberately.’

‘Don’t be cheeky. If you’re going to come over all attitude and righteousness, I’m off home to sort out the dinner.’

‘I don’t think he went out and chose mumps, Mam. He didn’t go into a shop and buy it, did he? I can’t imagine anybody looking at the shelves and saying he’d have half a pound of mumps and some mint imperials.’

It finally dawned on Anna that her daughter was looking very well groomed. ‘And where’ve you been in all the posh? Did you forget your tiara and the three rows of pearls?’

‘No. I went after a job at the Collingford dye place. They were very impressed with me. I got the distinct impression that they’d want me running the place within a fortnight. Mind, I might have exaggerated slightly in my letter of application.’

Anna placed her burdens on the floor. ‘You never went there of all places. Haven’t I always told you to keep away after what they did to our fellow countrymen? No Catholics? It was the Irish they objected to, because a man from the Church of Ireland got the knock-back as well.’

Rosh nodded. ‘Well, I went. They took me into a little room for an interview. There were three of them. I even got the guided tour—’

‘So, they had you marked for possible management?’

‘I don’t know, Mam. But they wanted to start me off in ironing, so I could see that they were looking for someone to learn the business from the bottom. Anyway, I knocked them back about the no Catholic thing. But I was wrong.’

‘You? Wrong? Did the sun turn blue?’

The younger woman smiled briefly. ‘They were Collingfords, all three of them. And it wasn’t their fault. They’d fought for that stupid rule to be changed, but the older Collingford insisted on it till the day he died. I was hitting the wrong people. I hate myself at the moment, because I didn’t even realize who I was talking to.’

‘Ah, forget about it. You’ll be better off here in newspapers and tobacco. I can walk down any time I like and have a chat with you.’

Rosh thought about that. The concept of Anna at loose in a corner shop was not attractive. Mr Bailey had always kept a couple of chairs in the place so that customers could sit and chat. Perhaps the season of chair-burning was about to occur. Though Rosh had other plans, too . . .

‘It’s a shame he died, but. Mr Bailey was a good man, so he was. And you’ll be working for his widow, a grand soul with a house near the water. Are you going to tell her you’ll accept the job? I saw her walking along not five minutes ago. See? That’s her motor car parked outside the butcher’s.’

Rosh nodded, turned to walk away, then turned again. ‘Who’s got the mumps?’ she asked rather tardily.

Anna picked up her purchases. ‘Mary Henderson’s chap. They live above the greengrocery. Protestant, of course. He never could stand children, even when he was one himself.’

It occurred to Rosh in that moment that her mother’s jokes about non-Catholics were as full of prejudice as the Collingfords’ sad history.

Anna rolled on smoothly. ‘She’s Catholic, and we all know what that means. So he goes and gets the mumps, and the mumps travel downstairs to his underneath regions, and his legs are up in stirrups to relieve the pain in his private bits, and he’ll come out of it infertile. So she’ll never have a child, will she? The primary purpose of marriage is procreation.’

‘You sound like a catechism.’ Rosh shook her head. What was the point? ‘One of these days, you’ll cut your own throat with your tongue. You’re talking stupid, and you know it. So why go about making bother? Leave all that to people like Hitler and the IRA.’

‘I’m joking,’ Anna yelled. ‘Did you hear me? This was a joke.’

‘Well, I’m not laughing. I hurt an old man today, and his mother. She looked to be in her nineties. And his daughter chased after me and told me the truth about her uncle. One of these days, some sick-to-the-back-teeth non-Catholic will chase after you, but with a cricket bat. Just stop being such a damned nuisance, Mother.’

Mother. Anna knew she was in trouble whenever she was awarded that title. ‘Oh, go and get your job.’ She marched off in the direction of home and peace. Some people didn’t realize how lucky they were to have a mother who did all the housework, the shopping, most of the cooking, who looked after grandchildren and . . . Ah. Here came Eric. He’d be happy to carry the bags for her.

Rosh had slipped into a little café and ordered two cups of coffee. Roy was never late. He had booked time off work to help her with a monumental decision, because she had two choices. Mrs Bailey didn’t want the shop. It had been her husband’s pet project, and he was dead, so its usefulness was minimal. An investor had expressed interest, and Rosh could work for him, but there was an alternative about which she had spoken only to Roy. She had been given first option. The shop was hers for the taking, stock included, for a very reasonable sum. Phil’s insurance policy had paid off the mortgage on the house, so Rosh would own two buildings outright if she took this further step, and she needed Roy’s advice and support.

He arrived. ‘This place gets dingier by the day,’ was his greeting. ‘Are we safe drinking their coffee?’

‘Be an adventurer,’ she advised. ‘Take a walk on the dark side. If we drop dead, we’ll take that as a sign that we needn’t look at Mr Bailey’s shop after all.’

He sipped, swallowed, shuddered, then pushed cup and saucer to the centre of the table. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘How did Mrs Bailey get on with the powers that be? What did they say about the rest of it?’

‘Fine,’ Rosh said. ‘The plans are not out of date, so I can open a little café round the side of the shop. Let’s hope my coffee’s a sight better than this muck. So. I’ll have to employ women to bake at home, at least one waitress, and somebody to run the shop from two to six. I’m hoping Mr Bailey’s assistant will carry on doing the morning shift, sorting out newspaper deliveries and dealing with tobacco. The new café will be my baby.’ She paused. ‘Is it a good investment, Roy? Am I doing the right thing?’

‘I think so, yes. And I’ll keep your books tidy. Right. Shall we go? I’m not prepared to drink any more of that muddy stuff.’

They left their table and their coffee, but no tip. Gratuities, like respect, needed to be earned. They lingered outside and looked at Rosh’s future domain, which was diagonally opposite the greasy building they had just left. She would scarcely need to shine in order to keep in the shade the café she had just left. ‘Roy?’

‘What?’

‘Thanks for being here for me. You’re very good, and I’m grateful.’

‘It’s OK.’ He would have gone to the ends of the earth for her, but he kept quiet.

‘Since I lost Phil, you’ve been a godsend. For my children, for my mother—’

‘I love them all,’ he said. ‘Even the terrible cats.’

‘My mother is worse than Winston and Lucy-Furr.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but I wouldn’t like a world without her in it.’

Rosh suddenly felt shy and silly. She’d always known, hadn’t she? So why did she feel like a fifteen-year-old on a first date? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already noticed him, yet he had been like wallpaper, a backdrop against which life was played out. But since the death of his father, Roy had emerged from his shell, and he was admirable. She mustn’t think like this. Her business head should be forced to take over, while her heart needed to be in cold storage – she’d only been widowed for just about a year, for goodness’ sake.

Mrs Bailey was in the shop, which had been open infrequently in recent weeks. She was seated in one of her husband’s chairs when Rosh and Roy walked in. ‘He loved this place.’ Her tone was sad. ‘Anyway, I must get rid of it. I’ve decided to sell up completely and go to Australia where our son lives. That house was big with two of us in it. It’s like living in some sort of echo chamber now; I can hear my own footsteps bouncing off the walls, as if someone’s following me.’

‘I know,’ Rosh said. Even with Mam and the children, those first weeks without Phil had been as empty as a freshly dug grave.

‘I’m sure you do know, dear. So, have you thought about it?’

‘Oh, yes. I’ve thought about little else. And I’d like to work for myself. Roy considers it a good investment, so yes, please. I’m happy with the price, and very happy that the plans for a café are still in date.’

‘That’s settled, then.’ Mrs Bailey rose gracefully from her chair. ‘The legal and financial side will take a few weeks.’

‘It will be cash,’ Rosh told her. ‘No mortgage.’ How proud of Phil she felt in that moment. He had left her and his children comfortably provided for, and now it was up to her to capitalize on his foresight. This was her business, her own place. She shook the older woman’s gloved hand. ‘May we look round for half an hour?’ she begged. ‘We’ll bring the keys back later.’

But Mrs Bailey’s instincts told her to trust this young woman. ‘Keep them. You’ll want to be in and out to take measurements. Oh, and get a surveyor. I wish you good fortune, Mrs Allen. You deserve it. I’ll talk to Mr Cuttle, make sure he knows what happening.’ She left the scene, leaving in her wake a waft of expensive perfume.

Rosh looked at the dozens of jars of tobacco, old newspapers still on display, sweets, chocolate, out-of-date magazines. She was troubled not by any of this, but by the man who was her companion. He’d always been there. Through senior school, he, she and Phil had been the three amigos; as adults, they had been neighbours and now, in widowhood, Rosh couldn’t imagine coping without him. But it wasn’t enough, was it? The numbness that had punished her after Phil’s death had faded away, and the Allens were managing quite well, thank you. But he was here. And he loved her.

She swallowed a sigh. Did she want his love? Would she ever return it?

Roy left her side and went to measure up the intended café. Rosh was tense, and he decided that the cause of her discomfort was the size of the decision she had just made. Very few women went into business alone. She had bought a going concern, but she also had plans to extend and expand. Rosh had guts; but he had always known that. He ached less these days; he seemed to have settled into the role of escort, but how would he feel if she met someone else? Murderous and heartbroken, he decided.

‘I’m not going the traditional gingham route,’ she said as she entered the room a minute or two later. ‘Floor-length covers in a dark colour, replaceable white cloths on top. The menu will be small at first, but top quality. I’ll get a hatch to the kitchen cut in the wall for when we become a bit more adventurous; might as well get all the mucky jobs done before we set off.’

‘I can make cakes and pies,’ he said.

Roy reminded her time after time not to be surprised. Rendered lame by football and poor surgery, he managed. No. Managed was not the right word, because Roy overcame. His house was a miniature palace, and he’d had very little help from Eric Holt while the transformation was being accomplished. ‘Yes, I’ve eaten your stuff often enough. It’s good. A man of many talents, eh? And you’re blushing.’ She had to treat him as she had always treated him. But . . . Oh, she should pull herself together. He was Roy, an old friend, and he’d always been attractive. ‘You did the house up, you can cook – what else?’

‘I grow my own produce, of course. You enjoy it.’

‘Oh, yes. Mr All-Rounder, eh?’ Once again, she was shy and had trouble meeting his steady gaze. Something was happening, and she didn’t know what it was. To find out what it was, she needed to be alone, and the only ‘alone’ time she got was in her bedroom. ‘I have to go and tell my mother what I’ve done.’ ‘Alone’ time would be postponed until much later, it seemed.

‘Yes. I’ll stay out of that if you don’t mind.’

‘Coward.’

‘I know,’ he sighed. ‘And I suppose I’ll never live it down. You won’t let me live it down, will you? Even at school while you protected me, the pair of you made fun of me.’ He tried to sound hurt, but failed.

‘You loved it,’ was her answer. ‘Now, get back to work before you lose your job.’

She watched as he walked down to the bus stop. He was tired. The limp worsened when he did too much, and he often did too much for her. She owed him. Was this pity, gratitude, sisterly affection, friendship, love? Life was about to become complicated. Music exams, psychological assessment for Alice, a business to build. Roy would want to be involved with all those things. And Mam’s voice echoed: ‘Snap him up before he gets taken off the market by some woman more sensible than you. He thinks the sun shines out of your ears, and you treat him like a servant. And he was reared Catholic, because his mother was Catholic. That heathen father of his didn’t count when he was alive, so he’s worth nothing dead.’

Rosh continued to stare at him. There had been Phil, only Phil, and Phil had been the for ever person. Nothing was ever going to separate them, yet all it had taken . . . She wiped her eyes. All it had taken was ten seconds in time, a careless driver, a beloved man who had stepped out too soon or too late. And that man was her man, father of her children and the love of her life.

After revisiting the shop for half an hour and working out the stock cupboard, she had timed the stroll home. It took under ten minutes, and that was reassuring. Thoughts of bus and train rides to and from work had not been happy ones. Rosh didn’t realize that she was being followed, that a man with whom she would soon be in uncomfortably close contact was shadowing her every step. With her head full of maroon table drapes and lace-edged tablecloths, she had little time to notice much else, especially when maroon-and-white striped curtains entered the equation. She was a businesswoman, and businesswomen had much to prove in this male-dominated world.

Anna was still feisty and quick on her feet when her daughter walked in. She bounced about slapping things on the kitchen table, all the while muttering under her breath about people who always knew best. Was it not enough that she’d five to feed without being accosted in the street? She wasn’t sure that joking about a non-Catholic with mumps was a hanging offence. All this was said to herself; Rosh might as well have been just another brick in the wall. Eric, who had clearly heard the whole tale during the walk from College Road, excused himself and exited via the back door.

Rosh repaired to her room to take off the good suit. It didn’t hurt this time. She remembered the day they’d chosen it, remembered her husband’s pride shining in his eyes each time she’d tried on an outfit. ‘I’m nearly all right now,’ she told her reflection. ‘Except for her down there and him over the road.’ Her down there was still slamming doors; him over the road wasn’t over the road, because he was on his way back to work, bless him.

She pulled on a flowered day dress, combed her hair and sat on the bed.

Pity was akin to love, but was this pity? Roy was a rather fine man, handsome, hard-working, personable. As for the limp, it was part of who he was, who he had been since childhood. She was sorry about the limp, as it gave him pain, but she didn’t mind it. ‘We’re probably meant to take care of each other. The kids like him, Mam thinks the sun rises out of him, and I . . . I don’t know, do I? Send me a sign, Phil.’

When Rosh reached the ground floor, Mam was on a slightly lower light. Still simmering, but not ready to boil over like a neglected milk pan. ‘Sit down, Mam.’

‘Why? I’m learning a new recipe called beef strong enough.’

The younger woman fought a smile. ‘You can’t cook that until you see the whites of your diners’ eyes. And it’s stroganoff. If you want soured cream, put a bit of lemon in, and don’t forget the nutmeg.’

Anna sniffed and sat down. ‘Well? What more do you have to say for yourself, besom?’

‘Don’t fuss. I’ve something important to say.’

‘Oh yes? Is this you telling me to leave?’

‘No. Whatever happens, your home will always be with me. This is me telling you that you’ll be needed more than ever.’

‘Oh, I see. No rest for the wicked, then.’

‘No rest for any of us, Mam.’ Rosh paused. ‘Now, don’t go off at the deep end, because you might just drown at last. Look, I don’t want to leave Phil’s money sitting in a bank making bits of interest. I want to use some of it to build a family business, something for the kids to fall back on, sell, or whatever.’

Anna nodded.

‘So I’ve bought the shop, and it comes with plans for a café at the back. There’s a chap called Clive Cuttle who used to do the six till two shift in the shop, and Mrs Bailey’s asking him to come back. The two till six in the evening will be covered by somebody else, because I’ll be running the other side of the business.’

‘On your own?’

‘No. At first, everything will be literally home-made. The kitchen will be big enough to cook in, but for a while I’m going to buy pies and cakes made by housewives round here. We have to get the food to the shop, so I start driving lessons next Monday, one lesson a day for two weeks including Sundays after Mass. If I fail, I’ll try again.’ Rosh looked at her mother. ‘What’s the matter now?’

Anna was fanning her face with a hand. ‘I can’t speak.’

‘Why? What the plucked chicken’s up with you? Please tell me what stopped you talking, because I’d love to know how to make you shut up at will.’

Anna dried her eyes. ‘I’m proud of you. I am. Is there a refrigerator?’

‘Yes, and I’m getting one for here as well. You and I will make scones and fancies fresh every day. So, very simple to start with, but all beautifully presented with good cutlery and crockery. No gingham. I was going to call it No Gingham, but I changed my mind. It’s Home from Home.’

‘Nice.’ The older woman blew her nose. ‘It’s so exciting and so brave. Home from Home is just perfect. Are you excited, Rosh?’

‘I am. A bit scared as well, but I feel like a kiddy on Christmas Day. Now, before you get cracking with your beef strong enough, I want you to write a list of everybody who won the best cake or pie prize at the church and the school. Roy’s already on the list; his short pastry is second to none.’

‘That lad loves you, Roisin.’

‘I know.’

‘And you don’t love him?’

‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’

Anna raised both arms in a gesture of despair. ‘You’ve gone all undecided, so. What’s the craic? Did you get a sudden visitation from your guardian angel, or are you doing all this as a bet?’

Rosh blew a loud, wet raspberry in the direction of her mother. ‘I’m trying to be truthful, trying not to open my mouth unless I’m absolutely sure. Upsetting those people earlier—’

‘Has upset you. I’ll give this a week. By the time you’re driven daft – literally – by learning to drive, you’ll be back to your usual gobby self. Now, will I curdle the cream by adding lemon to it, or will I put the cream in with the meat before squirting the lemon?’

‘Please yourself. The children won’t eat it anyway.’

‘Just as well,’ said Anna smartly. ‘There’s enough just for you, me and Roy. The kids are having a bit of yellow fish with a poached egg.’

Rosh’s heart skipped a beat; Roy was coming to dinner. It wasn’t love. Love was a blinding moment that led its victim all the way through life until . . . Well whatever it was, it wasn’t like this. Roy was growing on her like mistletoe on a host tree. Not true, because he gave more than he took. He was not a parasite. The kids loved him. Did she?

Anna chose to eat in the kitchen with the children. ‘I’ll keep an eye out here,’ she yelled to Rosh and Roy from the doorway. ‘Alice has decided she won’t eat anything yellow. Don’t ask; her mind works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform.’

‘Has your mother gone Biblical?’ Roy whispered.

‘I don’t know. Was that from the Bible?’

He shrugged; he didn’t know, either.

Rosh decided to cut to the chase. ‘This is her way of matchmaking,’ she said. ‘Next time, there’ll be wine, flowers, crêpes suzette and fingerbowls. She’s made up her mind, and there’s nothing I can do about that.’

Roy swallowed nervously. ‘And?’ he achieved eventually.

‘And what? She’s my mother, a law unto herself.’

‘Rosh?’

‘What?’

Roy paused for a few seconds. ‘Is there a chance for me?’

‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘Eat your dinner. This beef strong enough’s no good cold.’ There were tears in his eyes; she couldn’t bear to look at the tears in case they brimmed over. ‘You’re a patient man. Continue patient, please, because I’m not ready.’ Love was a blinding moment . . . The ‘yes’ had been automatic, almost sight-impaired. It had come from her mouth, not from her brain . . .

The doorbell sounded, and Rosh thanked it for its timely intervention. But her relief was short-lived, because Lipstick and Nail Polish stood on the step behind a bunch of flowers almost as big as the kitchen. ‘For your mother,’ she said. ‘Dad’s sorry.’

‘So am I.’ Rosh took the flowers and placed them in the hall before stepping out to the car at the kerbside. ‘Mr Collingford . . .’ He really should invest in some new glasses. ‘I am so sorry,’ she continued. ‘I shouldn’t have . . . I bought a shop this afternoon.’ She was babbling, and she knew it.

‘What sort of shop?’

Rosh blinked stupidly. ‘Sweets, tobacco, newspapers . . .’

‘On the ground floor?’ he asked.

‘Yes, of course.’

He nodded, causing his spectacles to perform a tap dance on the bridge of his nose. ‘We need to talk, Mrs Allen. But I must leave you now. I shall see you here on Tuesday afternoon at two o’clock. Is that a suitable time?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

Lipstick and Nails climbed into the driver’s seat, gave a little wave, then took off quickly.

Rosh closed her mouth with a snap. What an odd day this had been. She’d had the interview, said her piece, discovered that she’d cursed the wrong people, bought a business, chosen a colour scheme for the café. And she’d given a half-yes to a not-quite proposal of marriage. ‘A lifetime lived in a day,’ she whispered as she rescued the flowers.

Anna was rendered speechless, and that was another novelty. An apology from a Collingford? She gathered all the vases in the house and began the business of containing the multitude of blooms and spreading joy and happy comment all over the place. But her tone changed when she reached the dining room. ‘What’s wrong with your food?’ she demanded.

‘Nothing,’ Roy replied. ‘We got talking, then the Collingfords came to the door.’

‘Talking?’ A white vase was plonked in the centre of the dining table. Tall flowers prevented Rosh and Roy from seeing each other, which was just as well, as they were perilously close to hysterical laughter. The situation was surreal.

‘And you were talking about what?’

‘Maroon-and-white striped curtains.’ Rosh kept her voice as sombre as she could manage. ‘For the café.’

‘That is a cartload of my eye and Betty Martin,’ announced Anna.

‘Who is this Betty Martin?’ Roy asked innocently.

‘She is just a saying,’ Anna snapped. ‘And I can tell from your faces that you weren’t talking about anything maroon and white.’

Roy nodded. ‘You’re right, of course. It was royal blue and cream.’

Anna stormed out.

Rosh moved the vase. ‘Coffee at your house, I think, sir. We can’t have a conversation without Big Ears poking a lughole in. Oh, and you’re on coffee and listening, and I’m on talking.’

Across the road in Roy’s house, they drank his excellent coffee and listened to a concert on the Home Service. Coming here had probably been a mistake, Rosh mused. Whilst her mother was a nuisance, she was also a distraction, as were the children. What a day this had been. ‘Roy?’

‘Yes?’

‘When you asked if you had a chance with me, what did you mean? What exactly do you want from me?’

His gaze remained steady. ‘Just to be with you. You know full well how I feel, how I’ve always felt. I think Phil knew, too. A day when I don’t see you is empty. Just be quiet for a minute and listen to this bit. Close your eyes and allow Beethoven to touch your soul.’

She obeyed until the movement ended.

‘Beethoven says it all, Rosh. His father was a cruel man, or so I’ve heard. The torture and the passion are in all his symphonies. What I feel for you is in there, too. Because words are not enough.’

Roy had been reborn with his father’s death. He had become louder, livelier and a great deal more optimistic. Because these improvements showed in all areas of his life, he now acted as the glue that held his legal offices together, the one man who knew where everyone else should be at any given moment of any day. Rosh was turning into the shy one, she reminded herself now. Always a gutsy woman, she found herself very aware of him, of the changes in him, and she was suddenly quieter. Why? What was happening? ‘You’re supposed to be listening,’ she reminded him with mock severity.

‘And you’re supposed to be doing the talking.’

For once in her life, she was almost stumped. It had been her idea to escape to his house, to leave behind Mam and the children, since everybody valued Roy, and Rosh’s mother in particular had taken on the role of matchmaker. ‘My mother has us married off already,’ she began carefully.

‘I noticed,’ he said.

‘There’s been just Phil for me, you see.’

Roy had lived in Phil’s shadow for what seemed like an eternity. ‘No woman has lasted more than a fortnight, Rosh. I seem to have a low boredom threshold. Oh, and we’re not young any more.’

She bridled slightly. ‘Speak for yourself. I’m thirty plus a bit, and that bit is negotiable. On a good day, I’m thirty-one; today, I was thirty-twelve, because I hurt some people.’ She paused. ‘Am I hurting you?’

‘Not at the moment, no.’ And he told her about his pain.

During the litany that followed, Rosh remained motionless. He hurt when she walked away from him and when she approached him. A table between them grew to the size of Everest, while his bed was the loneliest place on the planet. ‘I’m obsessed,’ he admitted finally.

She agreed with that. ‘Yes, you’re a lunatic. We definitely know each other well enough. But we need to make time for us away from here. And be aware, she’ll be watching. There’s no sense in trying to hide anything, because there’ll be gossip no matter what we do.’

‘I know. But I disagree with you; there’s no need for any courtship ritual.’

Yet again, Rosh had no idea what to say.

‘We already know each other completely,’ he whispered.

Rosh inhaled deeply. ‘Not quite completely. So we go directly to bed without collecting two hundred pounds? Like jail in Monopoly?’

He laughed. ‘I didn’t say that. Though it is just about the only thing we haven’t done together. Perhaps you’re right. We need to get away from this area and learn to be together without the past dogging our heels. And out of reach of your mother’s sharp eyes and ears.’

‘She doesn’t need a special mention in dispatches. She’s a constant, a permanent fixture. Even if we do come through, Roy, she stays.’

He chuckled. ‘Poor Eric. He’s got new teeth, new trousers – even a new cap. He loved his old cap, you know. And she still makes his life a total bloody misery. What?’

But Rosh had curled into a ball of agony. Strange, how laughter could make a person ache so much. After a few seconds, she managed to catch her breath. ‘He came round on Thursday, and she was cleaning cupboards. So she handed everything over to him, sat down, and read his paper.’

‘Cheeky mare,’ grinned Roy.

‘I’ve not finished. Neither had she. She examined his cupboards, said his work wasn’t good enough, and made him do it all again.’ Rosh dried her eyes. ‘But she has knitted him a lovely cardigan. He told me privately that it itches something terrible on the back of his neck, but he has to wear it, and I mustn’t say anything. Oh, it’s a shame.’

‘I know how he feels.’

‘You know how he feels? When did you last scrub cupboards for me?’

‘But I would if you asked me.’

‘Yes, you probably would. Tragic, isn’t it?’

‘Not particularly. I love you, and I won’t allow you to have dirty cupboards.’ After this statement, he crossed the room, sat next to her and pulled her into his arms. ‘Stop me at any time,’ he said seriously. ‘Like the ice cream man – stop me and buy one.’

She didn’t stop him. Sensations long forgotten returned within seconds, and she pressed him closer to her by encircling his neck with her arms. For her, the embrace became urgent, almost desperate, yet he went carefully, almost with reverence. His hands on her clothed body simply rested on her softness, and she had her answer. This was meant. It had been organized by someone or something outside the two of them. Phil?

Breathless, they parted and reclaimed their share of oxygen.

‘What were you selling?’ Rosh asked. ‘Stop me and buy one?’

‘Me. I was selling me.’

‘You’re priceless,’ she told him.

He looked at the clock. ‘Eight minutes.’

‘What?’

‘Our first kiss lasted eight minutes.’

Rosh clobbered him with a cushion. ‘You timed it?’

Between blows, he pleaded innocence. He’d just happened to glance at the clock when crossing the room. No, no, he hadn’t timed it, but might she stop hitting him so that they could try to beat their record?

She threw down her weapon. ‘I’m off home,’ she announced. ‘I’m not stopping here to become a plaything for a bloke with a stopwatch. No, I’ll wait for the real ice cream man, thanks.’

‘Coward,’ he cried.

‘Shut up, you’ll have the neighbours in.’ She struck a pose, hand on thrust-out hip, mouth chewing non-existent gum. ‘How much? How much will you pay for my time, mister? I’m good on the flat, not bad over the jumps, and I’m experienced in dressage.’

‘Three-day eventing?’ he asked.

‘You couldn’t afford me for three days, love. I doubt you could afford me for three hours – we’ve Norwegian ships in, you know.’

‘One hour, then?’ he begged.

She nodded, removed the pretend chewing gum and stuck it to his windowsill. For the first time in ages, she was playing a game that could have only one result. ‘Follow me,’ she commanded. ‘And you’ll never last an hour with Lola, sailor.’

‘Who’s Lola?’

Lola arrived home at nine thirty. The children were in bed, thank goodness, but Hawk-Eye remained lively; Rosh, wondering how she might escape upstairs to erase all signs of Lola, could hear Anna clattering pots in the kitchen. Oh, God. The prodigal daughter closed her eyes and leaned against the front door. Twenty questions. Any minute now, torture would begin.

It began. ‘What time do you call this?’

Rosh didn’t open her eyes. ‘Lola,’ she replied.

‘What?’

‘I call it Lola.’

The smaller, older woman dragged her daughter into the dining room. ‘Well, I must say—’

‘No, you mustn’t.’

But silence was not an option in Anna’s book. ‘I must say you look as if you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’

‘You should see the other fellow, Mam. Battered, he is.’ Again, she closed her eyes as if the lids would provide some armour against the inevitable onslaught.

A short pause served only to announce the advent of Anna’s next paragraph, which allowed little room for punctuation. ‘You didn’t . . . you haven’t been and . . . Rosh, whatever will you say in Confession? You know it’s a mortal sin outside marriage. You’ll be giving the priest a heart attack, so you will. And such a good girl, you were. I have never expected this sort of behaviour from you, but. Howandever, I’ll give you the chance to explain yourself.’

Rosh pleaded the fifth amendment.

‘That’s for Americans, Roisin.’

‘Lola’s probably a Yank. She’s very modern.’

Anna glared sternly at the sinner. ‘So you decided to try before you buy?’

Rosh opened her eyes. ‘Mother? That’s rather vulgar coming from such a good Catholic woman.’

Anna tapped a foot. ‘Well?’

‘I did. I tried before I bought, and I’m glad. I’ve always felt something for him, but I wasn’t sure about the intimate side of things. We’ll probably be marrying once I get the café on its feet.’

‘Oh. Oh, Jesus.’ Anna ran back to the kitchen.

Rosh lingered by the dining-room door. Mam would be weeping under a tea towel. Whenever anything of huge emotional moment occurred, it was run, find a tea towel or similar covering, sit, weep and moan. Yes, a moan emerged. ‘It’ll be all right, Mam,’ she called.

‘I know, I know. Oh, and God knows that’s a fine young man.’ Snivelling was duly resumed.

Rosh puffed out her cheeks and blew. This was Beecher’s Brook cleared with no injuries. ‘And I can love again,’ she whispered. ‘It’s allowed. Thank you, Phil. It isn’t goodbye. It will never be goodbye.’ She sat at the table on whose surface two portions of beef strong enough with rice had been allowed to congeal. Had they eaten, she and Roy might have been too weighted down for what followed . . .

He was lovely. She wanted to go back and sleep with him, wake with him, listen to a bit more of Beethoven’s Sixth. Roy was a true romantic without being soppy or silly. He took charge but didn’t dominate, was kind, considerate, yet very masculine, and she loved him. Rosh was alive again; she had never fully realized how important the love of a good man could be. ‘Mam?’

‘What?’

‘Cocoa would be nice.’

A loud sniff was followed by, ‘What did your last slave die of?’

‘Lost the will to live and went into a decline. Last seen trudging over the mountains into Yorkshire.’

‘But that’s enemy territory, Rosh.’

They drank their cocoa in the front room.

Neither noticed the man across the road. As night spread its black umbrella across clouded skies, the two women chatted happily about a dress suitable for a second marriage, about bridesmaids, hats and flowers, a venue good enough for the wedding breakfast.

‘I’ll make the girls’ dresses,’ Anna promised. ‘But you and I are going haughty culture.’

‘We’d need an allotment.’

‘Eh?’

‘For horticulture.’

‘All right, haute couture. You know I know what I mean. I know you know I know what I mean. I know—’

‘Shut up, Mother.’

Clive Cuttle remained motionless, eyes fixed on the most beautiful woman in Liverpool. He didn’t like women. He hated women. The good-looking ones were the worst. He still remembered her, all light and happiness, long, chestnut hair, a laugh like tinkling bells, pretty face, heady perfume, perfect smile.

He woke one day and she was gone. At the age of eight, he had been abandoned to the streets of the Dingle, a drunken, abusive father his only companion in a house that had become filthy. And she never came back. Sometimes people fed him, but there were occasions when nothing was available, and he had stolen from shops, waste bins and houses.

At school, no one would play with him. He stank to high heaven, and that fact had prompted him to take clothes from washing lines and shops. Shoes had been a problem, as they were seldom displayed in pairs, and residential areas had become hunting grounds for footwear. Money for the public baths had prompted further exploration, and he had, of necessity, grown bolder and rather reckless in his mission to remain alive and acceptable.

Until he’d been caught, of course. That final beating had put him in hospital and his father in jail. Children’s homes. The joy of three square meals, a bath every night, clean clothes and outings to zoos and seaside towns. The misery when he discovered he had no social skills, no way of knowing how to converse or play with his peers. An outcast. An outcast because of her, because of Mam.

Women were a curse. His mission was to clean up the streets, just as he’d cleaned up himself. So over there in that house sat a candidate ideal for cleansing. He had no intention of working for her. If she disappeared, old Ma Bailey would sell the business to a bloke who would leave Clive Cuttle in charge. Rosh Allen was a marked woman.

Eleven

Cleansings are never easy. I keep telling myself to hunt on foreign soil, but I take no notice of me, never have. Liverpool isn’t very far away, or I could get to the Wirral, Wales, St Helens, Warrington, yet it doesn’t work that way, does it? They aren’t hunted, sought out and chosen by me. No. They arrive. They arrive and challenge me simply by being there. Some don’t even need to talk to me; I can tell from the attitude, from facial expressions, from the way they walk. She’s the one. Why? Why not the one standing next to her, or the other across the road? What’s so special?

Dad, may he rot in hell, always said Mam was a whore. Seems he got word about her selling favours down in London. Good looks make women bad, he said. Dad turned evil into an art form, but only after Mam had gone.

Well, I am like my father, blast him, and these women send me to the dark side. It’s like an illness. Yes, they make me sick. My hell is here and now, on earth in the year 1959. They got cocky since the war, the females of the species. They knock home a couple of rivets, build a bomb, throw an aeroplane together and whoa! They suddenly own the world. Not my bloody world, though. I didn’t fight my way through North Africa to come home and be owned by a woman.

Oh, yes, there she is in a house paid for by the death of her man. Dangerous. Too close to me, to my home and my job. With each one, I’ve taken another step nearer to arrest and trial. Roisin Allen has friends and family; this is no stray bitch wandering the Dock Road looking for customers. She has a mother, some children, a man friend just across the road. And I shouldn’t be bringing trouble to Waterloo, should I? Mind, I’ve got away with plenty up to now, and they weren’t all at a great distance.

The last one I did was from a large family. Where did I bury her? Why can’t I remember all the big things I’ve done? When I’m at home and I get the stuff out of their boxes, when I touch their clothing and bits of jewellery, all the details come back to me so clearly. The terror in the eyes before the chloroform hits, the cutting, the strangling, that wonderful sense of peace when it’s all over. They’re all different, you see. Yet I can only live through it properly when I hold their belongings. Those items aren’t so much trophies as aides-memoires. Cheap perfumes, waxy red lipsticks, the scent of fear, the odour of blood as it trickles, seeps, pools and clots. I keep pieces of their lives and, via those tokens, I relive my triumphs.

And here’s my next. Old Bailey dying like that hasn’t helped. Old Bailey. That’s where they try murderers, isn’t it? Worked at that shop for years, I have. Just the two of us, and we rubbed along quite nicely. Now this. Mrs Bailey’s delighted about a café. It’ll be all net curtains, frills and fancies. Mrs Allen. I’ve walked up and down Lawton Road a few times today. She’s a friend of that bloke with a limp; he used to buy a paper in the morning on his way to the bus stop.

Funny. I hardly noticed Mrs Allen till Mrs Bailey told me I’m to be offered an extra ten bob a day because of what the new boss calls my unsocial hours. I like those hours, early morning, no one about, air fresher before mankind starts to soil it with all the comings and goings, chimneys spouting smoke, buses pumping out poison. Lady bloody Bountiful offered me a bribe I didn’t need. And in the hours that followed, I saw how beautiful she is, almost as lovely as Mam used to be. Mrs Allen arrived. Oh yes, she pulled into my station and I applied the brakes.

I watched her during today and this evening. And him, the limping clown who probably follows her everywhere when he’s not at work, his eyes never leaving her, his body aching because he’s wanting a taste of her. Straight away, I would know when they’ve had each other. She’s already blushing, and he’s looking anxious, hoping she won’t say no. She won’t say no. I only need a glimpse to know all about them. I’m like that. I know people. Young widows are always on the lookout for the next victim. You’ll never get her, Roy Baxter, not when I’ve finished with her, because she’ll be as dead as a coffin nail.

The day my father died in Walton Jail, I cried like a baby. Not because I missed him, but because I never got to kill him. That last beating left me different, no use with a woman. The doc says it’s probably psychological, but I know I’m not a man. Don’t know where my mother is, whether she’s alive or dead, can’t get her, can’t punish her. My old man’s dead of natural causes, but there was nothing natural about the way he beat me for trying to stay clean. Jack the Ripper? I’m Clive the Cleaver. Never used a cleaver, but you know what I mean; it has a ring to it.

I’ve got all the cuttings in my flat. Some earrings, a chain with a cross dangling from it, beads, underwear covered in blood. I’m not as evil as Jack the Ripper, since I don’t remove body parts, but I cut them up inside to leave them as messed up as I am. Yes, I kill them. Even with the mask, you never know, one of them might recognize me and tell the cops. Perhaps I should try to keep this one alive and useless to men . . . No. She has to go.

If she buggers off out of it, Mrs Bailey will go back to the number she first thought of, the bloke with a chain of small shops. I’ll be left in charge, my own business to all intents and purposes, and a wage big enough to afford a car— Hang on. Something’s happening in the house.

Ah. Mrs Allen’s mother’s bedroom light’s on, and she’s closing the curtains. Her light’s out now. Mother in bed, kids in bed, no sign of life in the limper’s house. I’ve got my mask, the chloroform, a handkerchief. I’ll just nip down the side, see if her kitchen light’s on. She’ll be found. I’ve no way of shifting her, no transport, no spade. My bike’s at home with its sidecar. But for a reason I can almost fathom for once, it has to be now and it has to be her. Before the paperwork on the shop’s done, I’ll do her.

Anna’s neglected beef strong enough was fast becoming a distant memory, so Roy had decided to go for fish and chips, since he and Rosh were both hungry after their exertions. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face. If it hadn’t been for his leg, he might have danced up Lawton Road and along College Road to George’s Chippy. The off-licence was open, so he might buy a nice bottle of wine on his way back home. Home. She was going to marry him, and he would be part of a family at last. Lola had gone home, but Rosh would be hungry.

He glanced at Rosh’s shop. Soon it would be up and running, smart little café round the side, staff continuing to run the sweets, tobacco and newsagency part of the business. He was so proud and so in love that he wanted to shout, to wake the world and enlighten mankind. But no, he was going for chips. He wiped the grin from his face and joined the queue. Act sensible, he warned himself inwardly. Don’t show yourself up. More to the point, don’t show Rosh up.

To redirect his thoughts further, he engaged in a conversation whose subject seemed, at first, to be of little interest to him. But no. Everyone should be paying heed, because the matter under discussion was missing girls and one corpse. There was probably a serial killer on the streets of West Lancashire, and he needed to be found before more girls disappeared. Women had been warned not to go out alone at night, to lock doors and send for police if any suspicious behaviour was noticed.

A fat woman in a red coat was airing her views loudly. ‘See, they were mostly prostitutes and the like, them that’s disappeared. But Susie Crawford weren’t. Him next door to me’s a copper, and he said they found all sorts inside her. You know. In her private bits.’ The last two words were mouthed soundlessly, their sole accompaniment the sound of bubbling chip fat. ‘I’d call him an animal, but there’s no animal as bad as what he is.’

‘Terrible,’ said Roy. ‘I wonder if he’s finished?’

The red coat shrugged. ‘Him next door to me what’s a copper says they don’t finish till they get caught. Or till they die. It’s as if they can’t stop themselves, you see. Somebody should stick a knife through him. Not the copper; I mean the queer feller. He wants burying ten feet down under a ton of concrete.’

Roy nodded. ‘So they think all the missing girls died at the hands of the same chap who killed Susie . . . ?’

‘Crawford, her name was. Nothing to do with biscuits, not rich. Student teacher, she was. Lived round the corner from me sister in West Derby, lovely girl, magic with kids.’ Red Coat sniffed. ‘Just stick him in a room with Susie’s mam. She’ll bend his bloody membership card for him. She’s that mad with grief, I bet she’s got the death certificate filled in except for his name. Wanders about looking for motorbikes and sidecars, she does. A young couple seen one near where Susie’s body got found.’

Motorbike and sidecar? No. Plenty of people had those. But he was an odd-looking fellow, that Clive Cuttle. He seemed to look at people without seeing them. He knew his tobaccos, all right, but he wasn’t really customer-friendly. A bright stripe of pure terror painted its way from the base of Roy’s spine right up into his skull. He didn’t know why. Something was out of context, out of place. Something was usually attached to a motorbike and sidecar. On foot. Clive Cuttle had walked up and down Lawton Road several times. Was he there now? Didn’t he like the idea of working for a woman? ‘Er . . .’ He ran, leaving the door to close itself behind him.

Running with a limp wasn’t easy. And what would Rosh say when he turned up for no good reason? She didn’t know he’d gone for chips, did she? The motorbike-and-sidecar man wouldn’t choose her; she was a decent woman, not a prostitute. But Susie Crawford had been a normal girl, a student. Rosh was buying the shop. Damn this leg; damn football; damn the hospital that had done just about everything wrong.

He had a key to Rosh’s front door. Where was it? Right-hand trouser pocket? No, it was in the breast pocket inside his jacket, and his fingers curled tightly round the metal once he had it in his hand. He left his boots outside, because the bad leg had a tendency to stumble its noisy way through life. With only socks, he missed the lift in his footwear, but he had no option. If he was wrong, he’d look a right idiot.

‘Bugger,’ he whispered. He was going to walk – no, creep – with no surprise chips, no fish, no shoes, no dignity, and no mushy peas, all because Clive Cuttle was a miserable-looking man with a motorbike and a surly manner. Silently, the door swung inward, and Roy thanked the saints that he’d remembered to oil it a few days ago. If he was wrong, if she was just sitting there with or without Anna, he’d ask if he could borrow some cocoa, and say his shoes had started to hurt.

A sickly smell mingled with a different odour, one Roy didn’t recognize as the metallic stench of newly spilt blood. Anna stood halfway up the stairs in a long blue nightdress. Roy put a finger to his lips and shook his head. Something was wrong. In an otherwise heavy silence, some small sounds emerged from the kitchen.

For as long as he lived, Roy would never account completely for the next two or three minutes. Blood. Rosh on the floor naked from the waist down. Man in a mask pushing, pushing things . . . broken glass. Green glass. Shards being thrust into—

Carving knife. Man dragged off beloved on floor. Black mask. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Man on linoleum, knocked out by me. Knife through neck into floorboards, its thrust so violent that evil now impaled. How strong an angry cripple can become. I hear the red-coated woman in the chippy saying that someone should stick a knife through him. ‘Stay away, Anna.’ Cover Rosh. Small bottle labelled chloroform on floor. Cloth nearby. Handkerchief, I think. Tick-tock, tick-tock. ‘Go upstairs, Anna. The kids mustn’t see . . .’

He heard her climbing the treads. Remove the mask. Clive Cuttle. No breath, no heartbeat, no more. Rosh breathing and bleeding. Phone. Must get phones put in our houses. They thought I broke Dad’s neck, but I broke this man’s instead. Do not touch her. Do not remove anything from her. It will cut again on its way out.

He had to get out, had to get to the phone box.

Phone. Three nines. Police and ambulance. ‘I killed him. He was killing her. Like the others, I suppose. Come quickly, she’s bleeding to death. No sirens, please. Her children are in bed.’

A blur of frantic activity. Rosh taken to hospital, Anna with her. Pretty young policewoman to sit here in case kids wake. Body carried out eventually. I killed him. Now I know how Tom Walsh felt when he deliberately scooped the scum off the water at that wedding party. His wife looks like Rosh. But Rosh is the more beautiful of the two.

They are taking me to the police station. I don’t care. As long as they save my Rosh, I don’t give a tuppenny damn. Do policewomen know about children’s breakfasts? Will she know about Alice? Alice throws a right wobble if she’s given the wrong stuff. Phil, make sure Rosh gets through this. Talk to the Big Man upstairs, tell Him she’s needed and wanted . . .

Thus Roisin Allen and her mother came to be at the Women’s Hospital where Tess Compton lay in recovery. Remarks were passed among the staff, while Don Compton, who was very busy working on a boudoir for his wife, wondered about these almost identical twins. Well, not twins, because his Tess was a few years older than Mrs Allen, but this Roisin was a very near copy. It was like seeing double. Surely there wasn’t a second bundle of trouble like the one he’d married? There sat Tess, every inch the angel, every ounce the naughty child. She was lovely.

‘I’ve brought your knitting, pet,’ he said after kissing the top of her head.

‘So I’ve to work myself to death in here as well? No rest for the wicked, is that the case?’

‘Leave it till you’re more comfortable, then.’ He sat. ‘The woman in the side ward who had the operation a couple of nights ago – has she come round yet? Is she any better?’

‘Did you bring the rest of the wool? No. I think they’re keeping her like that deliberately. They want her asleep while she heals a bit.’ She lowered her tone. ‘She’s been hurt in a terrible way, Don. They were hours sticking her back together, so I’ve heard. That was one total madman. Kidnapping girls and women and killing them seems to have been his hobby. I’m glad he’s dead.’

‘Was she raped?’

She nodded. ‘But not in the usual way.’ Tess dropped her voice even further. ‘They say he used broken glass and a vegetable knife. Police reckon he’s that serial killer – I bet all those missing girls are buried except for the one where he got disturbed. Anyway, he’s a goner as well. Mrs Allen’s man friend killed him, and he got arrested. Who’d arrest somebody for killing a killer? But he must still be inside, because she’s had no visitors except her mother and an old man called Eric. It’s a terrible business altogether.’

‘Kids?’ he asked.

‘Three. Two girls, one boy. Neighbours are helping to look after them, because their grandmother’s here most of the time. These stitches are tightening up, Don. I feel as if I’ve been in a hot wash and my seams shrank. But I had a walk today, poked my head in to see how she was doing. No change. But I’ll tell you what – she could be my sister. I’ll knit you a winter woolly when I’ve done this cardigan.’

Don tried not to laugh. Tess still had a butterfly mind, flower to flower, one subject to another, no warning, no application for permission—

‘Don?’

‘What?’

‘I asked what colour you’d like.’

‘Brown.’

She sighed. ‘I want to come home.’

‘You can’t. I’m decorating. And I’m doing your round for Johnson’s. Mark’s collecting the football pools on his bike. I’m terrified in case anything blows away, but Anne-Marie’s got Saturday mornings off because you’re in here, and she rides pillion. They both have security bags practically padlocked to the insides of their leather jackets.’

Tess’s arms folded themselves, while her expression was extra sober. ‘So you let her have a leather jacket?’

He nodded in mock shame. ‘I did.’

Tess tutted. ‘Leather jackets are like tattoos – they’re for the lower echelons.’

‘The what?’

‘The uneducated.’

She would never change fully, but he no longer wanted her to change in every area. ‘Mark’s educated,’ he said. ‘As for tattoos – yes – I’d kill her myself. I was bad enough when she got her ears pierced.’

‘I know you were.’ She chuckled, then placed a hand on her healing scar. ‘Don’t make me laugh, it hurts. Go on home to this bordello you’re making for me.’

‘Boudoir.’

‘Yes, that as well. I don’t want anything vulgar.’

‘Right, Miss. Is detention over now?’

‘It is.’

He kissed her. In a way that truly mattered, she had managed, albeit by accident, one radical move away from her past. There could be no more babies, no more danger of her upsetting Rome by making love for its own sake. ‘I love you, Mrs Compton,’ he said.

She tilted her head to one side. She knew he melted when she tilted her head to one side. ‘Who was she, Don?’

He didn’t hesitate. ‘Just Molly.’

‘Fat Molly?’

‘Yes, fat Molly.’

‘All right. Make sure it doesn’t happen again. Go on. Get on the end of a paintbrush and make the bedroom nice for me.’

Don stepped away. He’d thought she would throw a tantrum, but she’d taken it quite well. Didn’t she love him enough to mind what he did and with whom? Then he saw her expression. She was smiling at him. Perhaps the operation, the threat of death, had made her mature a little?

‘They’re not feeding me,’ she complained. ‘Bring me some custard creams, a pasty from Wetherton’s, a packet of crisps and a bottle of ice-cream soda.’

‘But they said—’

‘And a quarter of liquorice allsorts.’

He sat down again. ‘Look, love. You’ve half a mile of stitches down below, and that’s just on the outside. Inside, every layer’s stitched with stuff that melts away, so you can’t go packing the food in. They explained this. You’ll get wind. That’s why they’re cutting down on your food.’

The smile remained. ‘You want me in your bed?’

‘I do.’

‘Then I’ll settle for the pasty.’

‘I’m not bringing you a pasty.’

‘Half a pasty.’

‘No.’ She hadn’t grown up. She would never grow up. The forever child from a wooden caravan in a barn was still here. Hunger was something she hated and dreaded above all else. The whole Compton family was a well-fed unit, and even the wildlife in the front and rear gardens was pleasantly plump. Tess was reliving a deprived youth because she was desperately hungry. ‘I’ll think of something,’ he promised.

‘You’re a good man.’

‘Glad you noticed. Glad I noticed how scared you are of having nothing to eat and too many children.’ He nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, it’s time we got to know each other. We need a few meaningful talks, love.’

A group of people entered the ward, shepherded in by the sister.

‘Collingfords,’ Tess pronounced. ‘Look at the flowers. You could fill a small graveyard with that lot. They’re at war with Johnson’s, but they’ll never win. Johnson the Dyers and Cleaners are the cream. Which is why I work for them.’

‘Of course.’

Tess folded her arms again. ‘Mrs Allen’s mother’s a very small but very loud lady. I’ve talked to her – well, listened to her when I got as far as the corridor. She says her sleeping beauty’s just bought a shop, and I’ll bet you a pound to a penny the Collingfords are setting up a collection service. They’ll be looking for a base in Waterloo, and I reckon she’s been chosen.’

‘You know it all, don’t you, Tess?’

She nodded. ‘I wasn’t behind the door when they gave out brains. A meat pasty, not cheese and onion. I don’t like their cheese and onion.’

The Collingfords disappeared into the side ward.

Don awarded Madam his full attention again. ‘No pasties, our kid. You’ll swell up, and your bowels will press on your operation. A couple of butties is my final offer, no negotiation. And you have one bite, then wrap it up again in the greaseproof.’

She stared bleakly at her bedcover. ‘If we found anything, we had to hide it. If somebody suspected that you had found something, you got beaten till you told them where it was.’

‘This is different, Tess.’

‘But the hunger feels the same.’ She looked up at him. ‘I had arms like twigs, Don. With a little hammer, you could have got a tune out of my ribs. I’ve dug up raw potatoes and eaten them. She said I look like her.’

He scratched his head. ‘Who said?’

‘I wish you’d listen for once. Mrs Allen’s mother said I look like Mrs Allen.’

‘Right.’ He would never keep up with her, would he? Her mind shot all over the place like spilled mercury, fragments breaking away to travel in many directions. She should wear a warning sign, I am quicksilver, so that the populace might be warned before dipping in.

‘Don?’

‘What?’

‘Are you still working for her?’

‘Eh? Oh . . . not just now. I’ve got time off for bad behaviour.’

‘Will you go back?’

‘I don’t know. I might man Injun Joe’s phones while he goes out sleuthing. And I can help you with your jobs, stop Mark looking at you all soft while you’re football pooling. I think our Anne-Marie’s just an excuse so he can be near you.’

Tess sighed in the manner of a ham actor. ‘I can’t help being beautiful, can I?’

‘No, you can’t.’

The ensuing silence was shattered by a blood-curdling scream and the sound of nurses’ feet pounding in the direction of the little side ward. The Collingfords emerged and were shunted into the corridor.

‘Blood and Sahara,’ Tess muttered. ‘I thought she’d wake up a bit at a time, not like a train screeching through a tunnel. Go and see if she’s all right. Go on.’

Don stayed where he was. ‘What? Everybody but the pope’s in that little room. It’ll be worse than the Saturday crush at the Odeon. Anyway, it’s none of our business, is it?’

‘She looks like me.’

‘And?’

‘Ask the Collingfords – if they’re still here.’

‘I don’t know the bloody Collingfords, do I?’

‘But you can ask is she all right, offer them a cup of tea, seeing as that nurse who fancies you gave you the freedom of the kitchen. Yes, Lucy. I’ve seen her looking at you like a starved cat staring in the fish pond.’

In the end, he did as he was told and approached a very sad man in the corridor. His two women companions seemed to have deserted him. ‘She wanted someone called Roy,’ the sad man said. ‘But Roy’s in hospital, too. The police doctor said he wasn’t fit to be let home, so he’s had to be . . . well . . . certified. When Mrs Allen’s mother told her he’d been certified . . .’ His voice died.

‘I’m sorry,’ Don said lamely. ‘The whole ward heard the scream and they’re all worried. Can I get you a cup of tea? They’ve a few biscuits in the kitchen, too.’

‘No thanks. My daughter’s gone to bring the car a little nearer, and my mother’s in the ladies’ room. We came just to bring flowers, because we were due to meet for a business discussion, and we found out about this terrible attack.’

‘And she woke?’

The man nodded, then adjusted a pair of very mobile spectacles. ‘She asked for this Roy. Her mother said he was in hospital, and poor Mrs Allen screamed. I hope she hasn’t damaged herself further. I think she believed that Roy had been hurt by the man who hurt her, but that’s not the case.’

‘So she knows he’s not hurt?’

The glasses slipped again. ‘The truth’s bad, too. Telling her he’s judged insane hasn’t done any good. She’s trying to get out of bed to go off and find him. Ah. Here come my ladies. Thanks for talking to me, Mr . . . er?’

‘Compton. Don Compton.’ He stood and watched while three sad people walked away. It was a frightening world. But he had to go back and report his findings to the wife. If he didn’t, he would be paying in pasties and paint for some considerable time to come.

The scenery had changed dramatically, suddenly, and more than once. There had been a kitchen, a brutalized woman – his woman – then a police station. She had followed him to the police station. A corner-of-the-eye job, Rosh lay on the floor of the interview room, only to disappear when Roy moved his head to get a fuller view of her.

He had been in this place before to answer questions about his dad. Someone mentioned that. ‘Where is Rosh?’ he asked. ‘Is she in the other room?’ But he knew she wasn’t in the other room, because she kept coming and going on the floor here, didn’t she? Then there was him, Clive bloody Cuttle with his cutlery – Cuttle and cutlery? What an appropriate name the monster had. He was appearing and disappearing in a corner. His item of cutlery was a sharp, vicious vegetable knife.

They told him Rosh was in the Women’s Hospital in Liverpool.

‘I killed him,’ he said. ‘But I keep seeing him.’

They knew Roy had killed him, and they said so. ‘He’s not here. He’s on a slab somewhere.’

‘What’s he doing over there in that corner?’ Roy asked. There was a huge carving knife through the man’s neck, and it had stuck in the wall behind him. But when Roy turned to look, the apparition did a disappearing act.

They brought tea. And more tea. ‘I went for chips,’ he told them.

So they brought him chips.

‘I don’t want them,’ he said. ‘I want the real Rosh, not the one who keeps coming and going. And that thing in the corner’s back, too.’ He was strangely calm. ‘Green glass.’ What came in green bottles? Was it wine?

‘Yes, we know, lad.’

More of them arrived. Solid, real, clothed in navy blue. Whispering. Why were they whispering? They had news. ‘Is she dead?’ Roy shouted.

A young one entered; he was wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. A weeping policeman? Was he real? Yes. No light passed through him. ‘She’s alive,’ a constable answered.

Handkerchief. ‘It was on the floor,’ Roy announced. ‘And the stuff smelled sweet, the stuff he used to make her sleep. He had a handkerchief.’

‘We know.’ The man who spoke had three stripes on his sleeve and very sad eyes. ‘These officers here found things in his flat, Mr Baxter. As you can see, my lads are upset about what they discovered. Shoeboxes with names on. Those names and the contents of the boxes were the property of missing women. You stopped him. You wiped out a one-man plague.’

‘Is she dead?’

‘No. They’re mending her. She’s young and healthy and they can get plenty of blood into her. Your Rosh is in the best place, son. Good nurses, brilliant doctors – it’s second to none.’

Roy’s eyes moved sideways, though his head remained still. ‘Why is he still hanging on the wall like one of the ten green bottles? He used a green bottle, you know . . . And why is Rosh on the floor here?’

‘Because you can’t get what you saw out of your head. And you can’t forget what you were forced to do.’ The pavement outside the police station was three-deep in photographers. The nationals were arriving, too, since this broken man was a hero. ‘It’s not murder, Mr Baxter; it’s rodent control.’

‘I’m a Catholic.’

‘So am I, but I’ve shed no tears when somebody I arrested went to the gallows. Cuttle would have killed her. You stopped him, and you stopped him killing somebody else after Mrs Allen.’

‘So she’s not dead?’

‘She’s not dead.’

‘How do you know she’s not dead?’

‘Because they told me they’d every hope of getting all the glass removed and of making her whole again. They’ll sedate her for a few days to keep her still and numb the pain.’

They were alone now, just Roy and the sergeant, plus transparent figures that seemed to come and go as and when the urge overcame them. ‘They aren’t real, you know,’ Roy said. ‘As long as I know they’re not real, I’m all right. Right?’

‘Er . . . yeah, I’d say so.’

The see-through figure in the corner raised two fingers in a lewd gesture. Roy shot out of his chair and ran towards Clive Cuttle. Real or not, he needed ten shades of waste matter knocking out of him.

When the police doctor entered, Roy’s knuckles were bleeding.

‘What’s that wall ever done to you?’ the new arrival asked. So Roy clouted him as well.

Dragged by the sergeant back to his seat, Roy fought to regain a level of steady breathing. The one-eyed medic sat next to the sergeant’s empty chair. ‘Keep hold of him,’ the doctor recommended. ‘I’ll have a shiner tomorrow, and I don’t want another.’

The heroic killer of Clive Cuttle was asked questions about the date, the year, the Prime Minister, Rosh and her children, their address, his address.

‘What are you writing?’ Roy demanded.

‘About your state of mind,’ was the reply.

‘State of mind? State of bloody mind? I haven’t got one. I’ve a mind, but not a state of.’

‘Then why did you hit me?’

‘Perhaps you’ve a face only a mother could love. Or I’m having a nervous breakdown – how the hell should I know? You’re the doctor.’

‘And you’re not aggressive by nature, are you?’

Roy shrugged. ‘I suppose not. But I killed him. I knifed him so hard, he was pinned to the floor. I can still see him over there in that corner.’

The doctor sat back. This was no psychotic; Roy was a man who had been driven to the edge and beyond. ‘Every normal person, Mr Baxter, including you, me and the sergeant, is capable of killing under certain circumstances. Cuttle’s final victim is the woman you love, I take it?’

Roy nodded. ‘Even if it hadn’t been her, what he was doing sickened me.’

‘And you’re having a bloody awful reaction. You need a rest. Peace, quiet and relaxation. Will you go hospital voluntarily?’

‘No. I want to be with Rosh.’

‘You can’t be with her. She’s in a hospital for women only. Look, I’ll be straight with you. The images you’ve seen in this room tonight are created by your brain. It’s acting like a cinema projector, and this is, I hope, a temporary situation. But I can’t let you wander off, you see. I can’t allow you to pick up pieces until you’ve put down the burdens you’re carrying now.’ A suicide attempt could not be ruled out; if Rosh Allen died, this man would make sure he joined her.

‘The kids need me. She’s not dead, is she?’

‘She’s alive, Mr Baxter. Look at me. Look me in my one eye. If you go home and carry on seeing Cuttle, how many more people will you punch? For your own safety and for the sake of others, you must go to Whiston tonight. You’ll be assessed, helped, then sent home to look after the people close to you.’

DIARY OF ROY BAXTER, PSYCHIATRIC UNIT WARD 6, WHISTON HOSPITAL.

Drs Fisher and Thorne, you said this would be a good idea. It is almost winter, and my section has run out long ago, but I remain voluntarily. Looking back on all that’s happened, things got too much for me. Leaving aside (as if I ever could) the incident with Cuttle, life was already catching up with me. More responsibility at work, chasing round to be there for Rosh and her family, the leap from despair to hope, the supersonic dash from hope to joy – as I said, all these things were too much for me.

I can say now for the first time that excellent news can be as wearing as bad news. That looks so silly written down, yet it’s true, and I am ordered to be truthful in this journal. My father’s nastiness and my mother’s goodness are on display now, as is the need for a family, for Phil’s family. When Rosh promised herself to me, I was overwhelmed and weakened in a way that remains to this day beyond my comprehension.

My darling comes to see me regularly. Alice broke through whatever her barrier was, and she’s now as normal and terrible as the next child. Philly is piano soloist with a youth orchestra, while Kieran is heavily into biology and other sciences. Anna, my wonderful soon-to-be mother-in-law declared her intention to starve the two girls so that their bridesmaid dresses will fit. Rosh has healed. The first few visits she made in a wheelchair, then she progressed to crutches, then a walking stick.

At first, she was very pale, frighteningly so. What do you want me to say here, docs? That I was terrified of losing her because she looked so fragile, that Cuttle came back and mocked me, that what wasn’t there became more real than actuality? All right, I’ll say it. I’ve said it. Yes, I remember my one night in the bounce-off-the-rubber-walls room, and he never returned after that, because I killed him all over again in my head.

I’ve become institutionalized. And I’ve made some decisions. I’ll let you know my conclusions very soon, because I don’t want to here. I’m not ungrateful, and I shall miss Stuart writing advanced maths problems all over the walls, Louisa and the ten-foot scarf she won’t cast off the needles, Ellen with her Bible and Chris with his flying saucers and his belief that we all arrived here in spaceships thousands of years back – there may be something in his hypothesis. Above all, I shall miss the two of you.

Christmas soon, then 1960. In these months, you have turned me round and shown me that I have much to offer and much to live for. I still admit that I would have chosen not to live if Rosh had died. You were right. I needed this space away from everything, needed to grow stronger with your help. But I can also say now that I did the right thing and I am not a murderer. Oh, and I don’t believe in ghosts any more, not the Clive Cuttle type, anyway.

More later.

Anna’s arms were folded tight across her bosom. ‘Anyone would think a king was coming to dinner. Don’t forget the little ermine cape, now. You look like a Christmas tree dressed by Alice. Remember? She hung so many ornaments on one side that it fainted.’

‘Shut up, Mother.’

‘As for when he’s home to stay – well, I don’t agree with your plans.’

‘I’m not leaving him on his own overnight.’

‘Then we’d best find out when he’s coming out of the hospital, and get the wedding booked for that day.’

Rosh continued to apply mascara. If her mother didn’t shut up soon, there would be another episode in this house. Roy couldn’t come home and face a wedding on his first day. He had saved her life and had paid for it by falling apart. She owed him everything, and he’d already won her heart on the very night that . . . just before it happened. An involuntary shiver passed through her body.

‘And you might not be fit yet for . . . messing about.’

Sometimes, just sometimes, Rosh felt like crowning her mother with the cast-iron frying pan. ‘Take the three of them to the cinema like you promised. I’ll not have him mithered.’ The kids had taken some comments and questions at school and in the neighbourhood. There was no way of shutting them up, not after what they’d been through, and they might just push Roy over the edge again. Especially Alice, who now talked at the speed of an express train. The press had been tethered; even now, reporters were forbidden to waylay the young Allens, but plenty of local people had kept the fires burning.

‘If it wasn’t for the shop, I’d move,’ Rosh announced. ‘It has to be just the two of us tonight, Mam. Shall I drop you off at the cinema?’

Anna shook her head. ‘A walk will do us good. Go on. Go and fetch him.’ She was so proud of this beautiful daughter. Like most strong Irish girls, she had healed at a miraculous pace. After the initial shock about Roy’s condition, Rosh had shunted her thoughts into some kind of order and resumed her focus. Having progressed weeks later to a walking stick, she had passed her driving test in a month before turning her attention to something she called pelvic floor. Pelvic floor involved little yelps of pain, a lot of determination and a screwed-up face, but she persevered.

‘As soon as Roy’s home, we’ll get that shop started up,’ Rosh said. ‘I’ll employ temporary help until Roy’s ready.’

‘Ready for what?’

‘Ready to work there.’

Anna dropped into a chair. ‘He’s got a good job, Roisin. Very highly thought of in legal circles, that man of yours. And you’ll have him selling newspapers and tobacco?’

‘I am not letting him out of my sight, Mam.’

‘Don’t you know that people shouldn’t be together twenty-four hours a day?’

Rosh awarded her mother a withering glance. ‘I’ve managed it with you when I was a child and when we lost Phil. If I can tolerate you—’

‘It’s not you I’m concerned about, madam. It’s him. You’ll drive him mad.’

‘He’s visited mad already and wasn’t too keen on it. Anyway, he can make up his own mind. The leg’s no better, and he’s as thin as a peeled rake, so I shall be looking after him as best I can.’

‘Hmmph.’

‘Same to you.’

‘We’ll be off, then.’ Anna went to capture the grandchildren.

Rosh blotted her lipstick. Roy hadn’t been here since the death of Clive Cuttle. ‘Worse for you, my love, because I was out of it, unfeeling as a stone, and you had to take a life. And you already felt guilty because of wishing your father dead.’ She was bringing him back to this house, to the scene of the . . . the incident. Would he ‘see’ Cuttle in the kitchen? Would the breakdown recur, would he suffer?

She pulled on a coat. November shivers were something she could do without. Should she change her mind and allow a member of staff to come with him? No. She and Roy needed to talk in private.

‘I can’t do without him much longer. He’s the only man alive I can love the way I loved Phil.’

‘I know.’

Rosh turned. ‘Can’t even talk to myself, can I?’

‘Not while I’m around, no.’

Rosh kissed her children, told them she hoped they would enjoy the film, made sure they were dressed warmly, then found her keys. The little van purchased for the shop was making its first long journey tonight. Whiston wasn’t far away on a map, but it was a stretch for a woman who’d driven just locally until now.

When she reached the grim, grey place, he was seated on a chair in the central corridor. So thin, he was, and there were streaks in his hair where the colour was fading. But this served only to make him more attractive, and she ran to greet him with her arms widened to receive him. ‘Handsome devil,’ she whispered after kissing him.

He was quiet. Leaving this place had not been easy on the few occasions when he’d been taken out shopping for a couple of hours. But this was different. He was with his sweetheart, his princess, his backbone. Yes, he was going to a place that had been bad for a while, though its longer history was cloaked in happiness. He would be all right.

She set off back towards home. ‘You’ll be all right,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts.

The smile was audible in his reply. ‘I know. As long as I have you, as long as I’m with you, whatever happens, I shall always be all right. Don’t worry about me.’ Rosh had been through the real hell, yet he had managed to crack up and make a spectacle of himself. A hero? Heroes didn’t come apart at the seams and allow the terror to show.

Rosh was very worried. Should they eat in her house, the place in which he’d put an end to the evil predator Clive Cuttle? Or should they go across to the house in which he’d seldom been happy since the death of his poor mother?

‘And how are you?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I’m great. The café’s done, but with just sixteen covers until I open the kitchen and expand the menu. I’m a driver, as you can see, and the children are wonderful. Alice is still different, has to carry an article from home wherever she goes, but she’s top of her class with an adult reading age. Philly’s on the up with her music, and Kieran’s always attached to a book, mostly medical.’

‘Your mother?’

‘A pain in the bum, so normal, I’d say. She started a campaign about dog dirt, so some neighbour or other collected piles of cat poo and deposited the lot outside our front door. That put a stop to her. Then she joined the Labour Party. I feel ever so sorry for them. If anybody can spoil their chances locally and nationally, it’s my mother.’ She was prattling nervously, and she knew it.

A rusty laugh emerged from the passenger’s throat.

‘I’ve not finished.’

‘I know that, sweetheart. Don’t ever alter.’

She blinked. Driving in darkness with eyes filled with tears was not a good plan. ‘So what did she do? She ragged all the Tory posters off shop windows and the like, painted Hitler moustaches on the candidate’s stiff upper lip and, where she could, pulled Conservative leaflets out of letterboxes and replaced them with Labour.’

‘Was she admonished?’

‘Oh, yes. But she says all’s fair in love, war and politics. I hope you know what you’re taking on, lad.’

He knew what he was taking on. He remembered a precious child having a shave with him, another playing the Moonlight Sonata until he wept, a third engaging him in a discussion about the nervous system and which parts of the brain were in charge of various functions. A family. And this delicious woman in his arms and in his heart. Well, they were all in his heart, Anna included. ‘How are you physically?’ he asked.

‘Improving. I couldn’t run a mile, but I’m a lot better.’

‘So am I. I’ve decided to be home for Christmas.’

‘Good.’

The conversation continued in slightly stilted fits and starts until they reached Lawton Road. This was a big step over a small distance, and they both knew it. But Roy climbed out of his seat, walked round the van, and opened the door for Rosh. ‘Come on, Twinkletoes. Scene of the crime and all that. Let’s get it over with.’

Inside, he took her coat and hung it with his on the hall stand. Without a word, he walked into the kitchen and stood open-mouthed at the view. A new, bigger table covered the place where Rosh had lain, while a large refrigerator eliminated the spot where Cuttle’s life had ended. The flooring was new, as were sink, cooker, cupboards and shelves.

Rosh was behind him. ‘I thought change would be a good thing. Mr Collingford from the dye works is going to use the upstairs level at the shop for his dry-cleaning. For now, it’ll be a collection and delivery place, but he might bring machines in, and we’ll get more rent. I bought this new kitchen with the retainer he paid. Nice man, decent family. They visited me in the Women’s, you know. Brought enough flowers to open a florist shop.’

‘This is lovely,’ Roy said. ‘And when you sell this and I sell my place, we can buy somewhere with a garden for the children and the cats.’

‘All in good time. I think we need to think—’

He kissed her to stop her thinking about thinking. His right hand travelled over the nape of her neck and up into that abundance of hair. It was a hard kiss, hungry, determined; it was the embrace of a decided man. When it ended, he spoke to her. ‘The future can wait. By its very nature, it must wait. After all that’s happened, I need to get back into my stride – my limp – at my own pace. The same applies to you, but without the limp. We’ll marry when we’re ready, and I’ll have the pleasure of helping Phil’s children on their way through life. If you’ll have me. Am I enough?’

‘Oh, yes. You’re enough.’

He was ravenous in more ways than one. ‘As long as it’s not beef strong enough.’

‘Nothing so posh, I’m afraid. It’s a stew type of thing where you just throw things in and hope for a good result. But there’s cobbler on top. Like dumplings, but lighter and nicer. Shall we take our chances?’

He nodded.

Although she had set the dining-room table, they sat in the kitchen, in the very room in which he had ended Clive Cuttle’s reign of terror, commenting on the meal with its scone cobbler topping. He had finally overcome the trauma, had dismissed the nightmares and the visions.

They went across the road for coffee, Rosh carrying a pint of milk, since none had been delivered to Roy’s house for months. Eager to keep him to herself on this first occasion, she was determined to save him from her children’s joy. If Alice saw him, she would enter one of her states of rapture, yap, yap, yap, isn’t everything wonderful, and when are you getting married? But he saw them from the window, watched as they entered the hall and switched on the lights. ‘They’ve grown,’ he commented.

‘Yes, they do that. It’s a habit they develop during babyhood, and they seem unable to break it until they reach twenty or so. The bridesmaids’ clothes will have to be re-invented because . . .’ Because he’d been away for months, yet she could hardly say that. But Mother, being Mother, had found material in a sale and had motored on with her sewing despite the fact that no date had been fixed.

He turned. ‘But you do love me? You aren’t marrying me out of gratitude or pity?’

‘Yes and no. Yes, I love you squillions, and no, there’s no pity. Some gratitude, no pity. All right? Will I do?’

‘I’ve loved you, Roisin Allen, since you were fourteen. Perhaps even earlier. I remember being impressed because you were only a girl, but you could pick up worms and caterpillars. And you had silky hair. That such a pretty thing would lift up a beetle and count its legs was brilliant.’

‘I’m a treasure,’ she said. ‘There’s no better word for me, is there? Shall we get you back to the asylum?’

But they didn’t get the chance. Alice arrived first. ‘We saw the lamps switched on in your house.’ She stretched out her arms and claimed him. ‘I missed you. I never had a shave.’

Philly and Kieran were on their sister’s heels. They greeted him in a quieter way, but their beaming smiles said so much more.

Anna pushed her way in. ‘I came out of the bathroom, down the stairs, and there they were – gone. Completely disappeared. Can’t even answer the call of nature, can I? I trust you’re well, Roy?’

Alice wouldn’t let go.

Anna tutted. ‘Looks like the poor man’s become attached to something or other. Alice, put him down.’

The little girl frowned. ‘I haven’t picked him up. He’s too heavy for me. You know he’s too heavy.’

‘And she’s giving me the dirty looks again, Roisin.’

‘She’s a realist, Mother.’

‘Is she now? Well I wish she’d take a realistic look at the benefits of broccoli. She used to eat it, didn’t she? Now she has to have her dinner without trees, and—’ Anna turned. ‘What the blood and bone is all this?’

Rosh understood immediately. Some neighbour or other had been promised payment if he or she contacted the press. ‘Let’s get it over with,’ she suggested to her fiancé. ‘There’ll be plenty of flashes, because it’s dark, but better now, when you’re going to escape back to Whiston for a while. Come along, nine-day wonder.’

They faced and dealt with a barrage of questions, were photographed as a group, and as a couple, then had to accept more questions. When would they marry, had she healed completely, how had he been treated during his breakdown, were the children happy about their soon-to-be stepfather, what did Anna think about the hero and about her daughter’s second marriage?

When Roy was asked for details about the killing of Clive Cuttle, Rosh stepped forward. ‘Wonderful,’ she declared. ‘You finally display your true colours, and you’re about as sensitive as a box of cabbages. There’s no more to be said, but any further harassment you will pay for. We are determined to protect each other’s well-being, and you have already been warned about speaking to or in the presence of my children. I am tempted to say something very rude, two words about sex and travel, but my children are with me just now.’

Anna spoke up. Anna would always speak up. ‘Away with you now, you no-good pack of rats. See the doors open all down this road? Just a click of my fingers, and every one of your cameras will suffer accidental but fatal damage. So bog off.’

The rats dispersed.

Rosh watched as ten or more cars left the road. She imagined the headlines – Hero Returns to the Bosom of his New Family, Killer of a Killer Allowed Home from Mental Ward. She’d allowed the children to be photographed because it was inevitable, and she needed to control the vermin. But no more. They’d had their pound of flesh, and if they were still hungry they could feed off the bones of some other innocent souls.

‘Our wedding will be soon and in secret,’ Roy whispered into her ear. ‘Two witnesses, the kids and your mother.’ Inside, he picked one letter out of a pile created by Anna, who had been in charge of mail to the empty house. He kissed all members of his future family, led them out, and climbed into Rosh’s car. Unable to tell the children that he would be their new stepdad even sooner than they thought, he simply waved at them as the vehicle pulled away. Anna, too, needed to be kept in the dark, since she had a leaky mouth when it came to gossip. But he loved her. No one who knew Anna Riley could fail to love her. ‘Rosh?’

‘Yes, love?’

‘Remember when you were in the Women’s?’

‘I doubt I’ll ever forget it, babe.’

‘Well, there was a Tess there, Tess Compton. ‘Your mother talked to me about her. She was in for a hysterectomy.’

‘The one who looked a bit like me? Her husband was a grand chap, or so Mam said. With a limp.’

‘I see. Only your mother told me when she visited me in Whiston that he got his at Dunkirk.’

‘Right. And?’

He swallowed. ‘I think there are three of you.’

‘Three? Three of me? How the heck did that come about?’ She parked the car and stared at him. ‘What are you talking about? I am a one-off.’

‘This letter’s from Tom.’

Rosh let out a long sigh that was almost a whistle. ‘Tess Compton’s Tom?’

‘No. Tess has a Gordon shortened to Don.’

‘With a limp?’

‘Yes, with a limp. Tom hasn’t got a limp.’

‘Well, thank goodness for some better news at last.’

Roy’s mouth twitched. ‘He’s got a Maureen instead.’

‘Oh, I am pleased.’

Roy could contain himself no longer. He burst out laughing and doubled over with the pain of it. When had he last had a good old belly laugh? With tremendous difficulty, he composed himself. ‘There are three women who look like sisters. Well, really, there are more. Only we don’t know where a lot of them are. And they might not all look like you. But another older two from the previous generation—’

‘Oh, give up, Roy. You lost me with the abbreviated Gordon and his abbreviated leg. Have you been taking your tablets?’

‘I don’t have them any more.’

‘Well, get some for me. I think I’m going to need them.’

Twelve

‘He won’t know where we are.’ Maureen’s Tom was carrying the umpteenth cardboard box into their new house. He’d passed a few remarks about always having wanted to be a dray horse, a pack mule or a slave, but nobody took any heed. Roy had been on his mind for weeks. ‘I’ll have to go and see him. I wrote when he was in Whiston Hospital and got no reply, so then I sent a letter to his home address, but we’ve moved now and there’s nobody left in any of the prefabs to—’ He stopped and surveyed the state of his son, who seemed to be legs only for the time being. ‘Seamus, put that dolly tub down before you do yourself or somebody else a mischief.’

Seamus, who had elected himself chief of an elite Martian force invading Earth, dumped his spaceship. He hadn’t banged into anything, had he? And Mam had a new Hoover twin-tub with rubber wringers, so she didn’t need the dolly and posser any more. Everything always had to be so serious. Even Reen, his married sister, was in a bad mood because of moving house. They’d waited ages for these three-in-a-row homes, and they still weren’t satisfied. Taken all round, remaining a child seemed a jolly good idea, because children were the only people capable of making the best of a situation. Imagination was what the adults lacked.

Maureen, in her oldest clothes and with a headscarf transformed into a turban, faced her husband. ‘Do you have plans to stay alive today? You and our Reen and her Jimmy have to help my mam as well. It’s three households moving all at the same time. This is a very important day for all of us. So concentrate and stop moaning. You can think about Roy tomorrow. There’s loads of stuff to carry, and some of it’s heavy.’

‘I know all about heavy lifting,’ he answered. ‘It’s called moving a mountain. It was bad enough shifting your mother’s furniture every time she wanted a change in the prefab, like about once a week.’

‘Me dad’s too old for messing about with wardrobes. We don’t want him ending up with a hernia. He’s aged a lot just lately.’

Paddy had that effect on people, Tom thought, though he kept the opinion to himself. Folk deteriorated quickly in Paddy’s company. With Maureen in a mood, Paddy in a paddy and Seamus now head-first in a tea chest, this was hardly the time for clever quips. But Roy Baxter was in all the papers, as were Roisin Allen and her children. Roy was a hero. Even before the killing of Clive Cuttle, Roy had been Tom’s hero.

‘Seamus, get out of that box before I nail a lid on it,’ Maureen snapped.

‘He saved my life as well as hers,’ Tom said, shifting a chair to one side of the fireplace. ‘And you’ve seen her photograph in the papers. You know she has to be a Riley. She’s the spitting image of—’

‘Who has to be a Riley?’ Seamus emerged from his coffin.

‘Shut up,’ chorused his parents.

‘Can I have a—‘

‘No, you can’t.’ Again, the response arrived in perfect unison. They hadn’t even waited to see what he wanted, had they? He might have needed a plaster for a cut, an aspirin for a headache, an ambulance to save his life. But he didn’t matter, because he wasn’t a chair or a box of bedlinen. He stood in the front doorway. It was an all right street, he supposed. No air raid shelter for secrets, but there again, there was no war, was there? Or was there? There wasn’t much peace, that was certain.

Moving house seemed to put everybody in a bad mood. Seamus alone was making the most of the experience. Reen kept moaning because she hadn’t enough furniture for a two-and-a-half-bedroom house with bathroom plus downstairs lav, Jimmy was fed up because Reen was moaning, Seamus’s parents were at loggerheads about photos in the papers, while Gran kept screaming at Granddad because his legs couldn’t keep up with her tongue. Nothing could keep up with Gran’s tongue. Even a huge jet engine would have its work cut out to catch up with her.

The lad went out to explore his new setting. As he passed his older sister’s house, her voice echoed. ‘I want a dining suite. That’s a dining room, so it stands to sense we should have a . . .’ Seamus ran away before she added anything else to her list. Some folk were never satisfied. Building was still ongoing at the other end of the street, and it all looked very interesting. There was a cement mixer. If he wore his best smile, they might let him have a bit of a go with that.

Inside, Maureen faced her beloved opponent, who was showing signs of flagging. She didn’t want the poor soul breaking down again. ‘Sweetheart, he’s a good man. What Roy Baxter did for you that day when you were so ill speaks for itself. And you know why he went to bits, because killing anybody, gangsters and serial killers included, can never create happy or even . . . or even acceptable memories. He followed in your footsteps, Tom. Like you, the poor beggar had no choice. He fell apart, but you’ll see him soon. For now, can we get on with this move? Even though we’re in November, I shan’t be lighting a fire till later, because this is hard, warm work.’

‘It’s certainly that, all right.’ Tom went next door to check on the elders and borrow a screwdriver while Maureen sorted out her new kitchen. He found Paddy sitting on the stairs in her hat, coat, gloves, scarf and fur-lined winter boots, the ubiquitous black shopping bag by her side. ‘You all right?’ he asked. ‘You look wrapped up ready to move into an igloo with Eskimos and a fish supper.’

She nodded. ‘Me old bones is froze stiff. Kevin’s gone for more stuff. And you can tell Maureen and Reen that we’ll have plenty of help later, because some dock workers are coming along – I’ve just now had word. But for a bit of a minute, I need to talk to you about something important.’

It was one of those hardly rare enough moments when Tom felt he should have signed the Official Secrets Act; she was about to give him information he didn’t need, didn’t want, and couldn’t pass on in some sort of attempt to share the burden. ‘Right,’ was all he managed to say. There was an almost indefinable edge to her tone, which confirmed his belief that she was about to impart knowledge he would be ordered to keep to himself. It wasn’t fair. Why him? Why not some other poor bugger for a change?

‘Tom, if I do something that you might call out of character, will you tell them I’m all right?’

‘No, I won’t do anything of the kind.’

‘But Tom, you’ve always been the one to back me up when—’

‘No. Tell your husband. I’m fed up with being your storage box. It’s not as if I got democratically elected. What am I supposed to be? Some sort of chief whip put there to keep order on the back benches? And we’re hardly a quorum, just the two of us.’

‘I can’t tell Kev.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’d go into a purple fit with yellow spots. He would find a way of putting a stop to me, I know he would. You might all think I’m in charge, but once he puts his foot down, well . . .’ The last word hung in the air, and she made no attempt to add to it.

Tom, knowing full well what was on her mind, maintained his stance. ‘Then I’m with my father-in-law. If he wouldn’t want you to do whatever it is you’re going to do, then I wouldn’t want you to do it.’

She nodded, a grim smile on her lips. ‘You’re picking up on the Irish way of expressing yourself. And I know that you know what I’m talking about.’

‘I don’t.’ He did. Of course he did. Every adult in the family knew, though they never spoke about it.

‘Well, then. We’ll leave it there, shall we? See, I know you’re a grand chap. When I do what has to be done, it will be noticed. Deal with it. And don’t let me down, Tom.’

He’d forgotten what he’d come for, and had to root about in the memory department. Women were truly gifted when it came to the messing up of a fellow’s mind. You went to borrow something or other, only to return with a head filled with rubbish, and often without the article you’d gone for. ‘Screwdriver,’ he exclaimed triumphantly.

‘Same to you.’

‘Have you got one?’

‘Mantelpiece, front room, next to the clock. Why do you need it?’

Tom jerked a thumb in the direction of next door. ‘Your daughter has a screw loose.’

‘I see. I think I was already aware of that, thank you.’

‘On a cupboard door.’

Paddy chuckled. ‘Then she has more than one screw loose.’ When he turned to leave, she called after him. ‘Don’t say anything to her. Don’t tell anyone.’

He turned in the front doorway. ‘How can I tell anybody something I don’t know? Do I lead her to believe that her mother’s told me a secret and I don’t know what it is? You’ll have me as daft as the rest of you.’

Paddy shrugged. ‘Please yourself. Whatever, I’m doing it, and I’m doing it alone.’

Tom fled before she could reveal any more of her plan. Months earlier, she had announced her intentions, but she’d said nothing of late. He guessed that she’d been waiting for the move from prefab to house before embarking on her mission. That there was sense in her argument could not have been denied then; nor could it be denied now. London gangsters seldom hurt or killed women. Unless some poor soul got in the line of fire, no female would be hurt. Even among the bad boys, there existed a code of sorts.

‘Where’ve you been?’ Maureen snapped. ‘Three-course lunch and a pint, was it?’

Talk about frying pan and fire! He was stuck between a cauldron and the Liverpool Blitz. ‘I had to look for it. Get out of my way while I fix the hinge properly. Builders? They couldn’t make a sandcastle in Blackpool.’

Maureen gazed round her new home. It was all right, she supposed, though it needed a bit of colour. ‘When can we paint and decorate?’ she asked. ‘I fancy a nice shade of mauve in the kitchen.’

‘Three months.’

Maureen’s jaw dropped. ‘Three months? Three months living with this dirty pink stuff all the way through?’

‘It’ll go lighter as it dries.’

Maureen was further appalled. ‘You mean we’re living in a damp house? More to the point, are you telling me that my mam and dad are living in a damp house?’

Tom descended to terra firma. He slammed down the screwdriver and awarded his wife a laboured smile. ‘Right. Go and get the removals men again, pack up here, tell your mother and our Reen to pack up, and we’ll go back to our prefabs. All right?’

‘No. I don’t want to live in a tin hut either.’

‘A tent?’ he suggested.

‘No.’

‘The Park Lane in London?’ He wagged a finger under his wife’s nose. ‘Now, think on before chucking stuff. I kept the right sized window glass down yonder for the prefab, but I’ve nothing for here, so don’t go throwing the pans.’

She glared at him. ‘When was the last time I threw things?’

‘When Seamus took the school camp money to run away and find his brothers.’ Tom looked round. ‘He’s disappeared again, hasn’t he? No flaming wonder, with his mam and dad going at it hammer and tongs. Maureen, this is a fresh start in a new house. Don’t quarrel with me. Don’t turn into your mother, queen of all she surveys, controller, nuisance—’

‘There are kids round here who wouldn’t eat except for Mam lending families a few bob.’ Maureen calmed herself. ‘But she’s up to something. I can feel it. I can almost hear it crackling in her head like a wireless not tuned in properly.’

Tom recognized his chance, but said nothing. If he started a war between mother and daughter, it could take a document far more complicated than the Treaty of Versailles to straighten things out. With three houses stuck together in the terrace, any argument would spread like plague before becoming the subject of gossip throughout the whole neighbourhood.

The rest of the day passed without incident. Dockers arrived, beds were carried upstairs effortlessly, as were wardrobes and chests of drawers. Seamus returned, muddy and frowning. When asked how his circumstances had deteriorated so terribly, he made no reply, but was heard muttering under his breath about poor drainage at this side of Bootle, and he wasn’t going to be a builder when he left school.

Maureen placed him on the stairs and went to light a fire. ‘Don’t move,’ she called while balancing coals on newspaper and firewood. ‘Don’t even think about moving; don’t think at all. In fact, don’t even breathe deeply, cos this is a new house. The water will be hot enough for a bath once this fire gets going.’

Seamus sat on the uncarpeted stairs and thought about not thinking. But thinking about not thinking was thinking, wasn’t it? How could a person not think? Even asleep, he thought about things. That was called dreaming. The trouble with adults was that they had all the authority but no sense. ‘Straighten your face before the wind changes.’ ‘Don’t swallow chewing gum, because it’ll wrap itself round your heart and kill you.’ Where were their brains? On holiday somewhere? He was fed up.

Mam arrived with a paper poke containing chips. ‘There you go, my lad. From the chippy. After your bath, I’ll do you a nice fried egg butty. That’s if I can work out the flame-throwing monster in the kitchen. Then you’ve got that great big bedroom all to yourself, a lot bigger than in the prefab. We can’t decorate till the plaster’s gone off properly, but when we do, it’ll be red and white for Liverpool FC, eh?’

The nice thing about mams was that they kept you right. You got cooked meals, clean clothes with no creases, and your hair looked at every week for nits. They tucked you in, helped with homework and saved up for a television set. Dads were OK, too. They mended bikes, built go-carts out of pram wheels and wooden boxes, took you on the ferry or for a kick-about with a football. So life wasn’t all mud and tellings-off. It was a mixed bag with a fried egg butty for supper. Oh, well. The chips were good, but his hands were filthy . . .

Don’s head couldn’t rid itself of a picture of Molly floating round in that big house all by herself. Was she still going out George Formbying? Was she eating properly, was she happy, had she found someone to talk to? She and Matt had been so close, so wrapped up in each other. After his death, poor Molly had fallen apart until Don had entered the picture. Had he not become close to her, the business might have died of neglect and— Oh, what a mess. He’d caused more trouble than enough, hadn’t he?

He felt as guilty as Cain, as original sin, as Lucifer, the fallen angel who turned his back on glory before moving south to create hell. Molly had her lovable dogs, some tropical fish, her temperamental cookery and her money, but what she really needed was human company. Could he be that? Just that? Why was life so bloody complicated? Why couldn’t a man and a woman remain friends when an affair ended? Humans were an odd lot.

Tess mumbled in her sleep. She often did that, and he found himself almost praying that she wasn’t stuck in that apparently endless nightmare about the caravan, the hunger, the bed-wetters. For how long had he cursed her selfishness? Why hadn’t he remembered her beginnings? More to the point, why hadn’t she trusted him enough to explain to him about her fear of more pregnancies? He couldn’t have got life any more wrong if he’d tried. Was he some sort of Jonah?

Because Tess was no cold fish. Recovered at last from the surgery, she often instigated lovemaking, and he quickly realized that she had been denying herself as well as him, and that she, too, had suffered. Had he been a Catholic, he might have understood, but he’d promised only that any children would be reared as Catholics, no more than that. Perhaps he understood at last the Roman disapproval of mixed marriage.

He loved her. She wore him out with her butterfly mind, her sudden enthusiasms and her squirrels, but he wouldn’t swap her for all the tea in China. Squizzles, she called her pets these days. The Lennon boy had donated the word free of charge. The pretty little rodents now ate out of Tess’s hands. She wore gloves, because the buggers had teeth like razors.

Molly. There had been no phone calls, no meetings, no work. She had ordered him to stay away until Tess was well, and Tess was well. She was so well that Don was sometimes exhausted by her; his marriage had travelled at the speed of sound from famine to feast. He was happy to be tired, yet miserable about poor Molly. Today, he would visit her. The business was up for sale, but it needed to be in good order, and he should make sure that it was, that the books were clean and that no custom had been lost. She must not miss out; this could well be his last chance to be of service to her.

Tess reached for him. ‘Bad dream,’ she said. ‘Just hold me.’

‘With pleasure.’ He was at his most contented when his face was in her hair, when her head tucked itself into his neck. This was the wife he had almost lost, and he had no intention of misplacing her again. But Molly mattered. Molly had been good to him in many ways, and this was a debt of honour that demanded to be paid. He had to tell her that his concern for her remained, that she was by no means forgotten.

When Anne-Marie and Sean had left for work, Don advised Tess of his intentions. She was melting fat for her bird lollipops. ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said, her tone nonchalant. ‘I’d quite like a little outing.’

Don shuddered and sat down rather suddenly at the kitchen table. ‘You can’t do that, love. I have to talk business with her, look at the books and so forth. It wouldn’t be right in a business meeting.’ Molly was a sensible woman, but Tess remained capable of creating a stir if her feathers got ruffled.

‘I’ll be very quiet,’ she promised. ‘Like a little mouse, but without all the squeaking. You will scarcely know I’m there.’

‘You will be quiet, because you won’t be there.’

She turned from the cooker and looked at him. Little strands of hair framed a face any artist would be pleased to commit to canvas. ‘I’m not letting you out of my sight, Don Compton. I’ve been lonely for too long. She’ll want you back, I know she will.’ After a pause, she continued, ‘You’re handsome and good and kind. She’ll be missing you.’

Two lonely women, both of them his own fault. ‘I’m not going to the house, Tess. I can’t go to the house, because I’d have trouble tearing myself away from the dogs. Anyway, she’ll be at work.’

‘Then so will I.’ She turned off the burner and mixed hot fat with birdseed and bits of bacon.

‘You don’t trust me,’ he accused her.

‘I don’t trust her, either. She shouldn’t have messed about with somebody else’s husband. She’s a . . . a lowlife.’

Don hung his head. Molly was nothing of the kind. She was isolated, and he knew how that felt. ‘You took it so well when I told you.’

‘I was too busy worrying about stitches and thanking God that I’d come out of the slaughterhouse alive. Now. As soon as I’ve got this lot in their moulds, we’re going. If you leave before I’ve finished, I’ll follow in my van. So stick that in your pipe and blow bubbles out of it. My mind is made up.’

Don decided in that moment that honesty wasn’t always the best policy. He would have done better with a lie, a tale about meeting Injun Joe in connection with a job, or a story concerning the planning of darts matches. When truth hurt, it was best left to one side like a bit of jetsam that might float away on the tide of life. ‘All right,’ he said after a lengthy pause. ‘But no trouble.’

‘Fair enough.’ She went upstairs to make herself beautiful while Don sat and tried to read his newspaper. This promised to be an interesting morning. He would be unable to talk privately with Molly, and that was a grave disappointment, since he wanted to make sure she was all right. Doing the books under Tess’s gaze might prove difficult, and he wished he’d kept his stupid mouth shut. But the damage was done, and her highness was upstairs making herself inappropriately smart. This time, she would be applying war paint. He allowed himself a tight smile. Tess would look wonderful in a potato sack, and she knew it.

Madam returned gowned and crowned, a very straight spine adding further to her regal appearance. The crown was a hat with a tiny veil that covered none of her face and precious little of the golden blonde hair. A matching suit fitted so well that it looked tailor-made to show off wonderful calves and ankles, while the ensemble was completed with good shoes, good bag and kid leather gloves. As was the way with many women, she planned to make her non-spoken statement via the outdoing of the perceived opponent by leaving her behind in the area of fashion and general appearance.

‘You look wonderful,’ he said.

‘I know.’

She knew. And she wasn’t shy about her beauty, wasn’t prone to dismissing her looks as unimportant as most females did. An undersized child had blossomed into a stunningly attractive woman. ‘You may have gone a bit over the top for a builders’ merchant’s yard, love.’

‘Yes, perhaps. But that’ll be because we’re going on somewhere when your business at the yard is over.’

‘Like Windsor Castle?’

‘No. Like a posh restaurant in town.’

He couldn’t tell Tess how much she owed to Molly. If she were to learn how he had come by this house, God alone knew how she might react. ‘She’s a good person, Tess.’

‘Good women don’t mess about with someone else’s husband.’

Don sighed. ‘You and I weren’t happy, love. I didn’t know you were ill and that messed-up hormones were making you worse and giving you panic attacks. Molly was company more than anything else. She was alone, and I was alone.’

‘But you weren’t going to stay with me, were you, Don?’

After a quick shuffling of his thoughts, he came up with a reply. ‘She didn’t know that. She thought we were moving as a family, because she knew I loved you. I didn’t realize it then, but she did. In fact, she was always on your side, always asking after you and telling me to get back home. She’s good, Tess. Even good people sometimes do wrong.’

Tess sniffed and tapped a toe two or three times. ‘All right, Romeo. I’ll give you twenty minutes’ travelling time – that’s ten each way – and half an hour to say goodbye and check her books. So it’s fifty minutes. Out of the goodness of my heart, I’ll stretch it to an hour. One hour. When you get back, I want you booted and suited, then you can take me somewhere plush for lunch. I’m still in here, you know.’ She placed a hand on her chest. ‘Inside, there’s still a hungry infant who turned into a silly, selfish woman. And I want four courses.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Including sorbet.’

‘Who?’

‘It’s a palate cleanser.’

Don nodded. ‘Can’t you just take your toothbrush?’

For answer, she clouted him with the best handbag. ‘Get gone. And don’t let me down, or your privileges will be curtailed.’

‘Oh. Do I get a general anaesthetic?’

‘No. You’ll feel the pain and enjoy it.’

He folded his paper and rose to his feet. ‘Ah. Now we enter the sado-masochistic phase, eh? Can I tie you to the bed and talk to you in Greek?’ He kissed her very fiercely.

When she regained the ability to absorb oxygen, she hit him once more with her bag. ‘You’ve ruined my make-up,’ she accused him.

‘That’s all right, then. You’ve won an hour to put it right.’ He left.

Tess smiled to herself. He wouldn’t walk out on her. Mind, there was a clause in the marriage ceremony, a piece that contained the words ‘till death us do part’. Nobody got out of here alive. The smile faded. He couldn’t die before she did. She had to go first. Oh well, she needed to sort out her face. People with smudged lipstick couldn’t enter a place that served sorbet.

Meanwhile, Don followed a familiar route to the place where he had worked for over ten years. Although Molly understood that their close relationship was over, she surely deserved a visit, an update and another thank you. Oh. An Under Offer notice had been pasted over the For Sale sign. He got out of the car and saw that the gates were padlocked. What now?

He looked at his watch. She Who Needed To Be In Charge had imposed a limit, but he had to get to Molly’s house. There was no anger in him; being annoyed by Tess was no longer allowed. Few people in life escaped undamaged, but some were more damaged than others. Inside Tess’s core dwelt an unloved child who would never be satisfied.

Molly wasn’t at the house, and there was no barking. A Sold sign stretched diagonally across the estate agent’s board informed Don that he was probably trespassing. Pressing his nose against the living-room window, he discovered that the tropical fish had been removed. She would never have left without letting him know, surely?

The answer? He knew exactly where it lay. Instead of using his key to the front door, he walked down the side of the house to the huge back garden. And there it was, in a flower bed well away from the house. A gardening glove that seemed to have been dropped accidentally lay on frozen soil. With difficulty, he eased his already cold fingers into the icy item before using it as protection while reaching into a holly bush. And there he found the black box inside which he and Molly had occasionally left messages for each other whenever plans went awry.

Firstly, there was a folded note for him – no name, no address, just a small piece of lined paper with a few words scribbled on it. Lots of luck to you, D. Every good wish for the future. Be happy. The other letter can be read by anyone, even T. Bye, my love. M xxx

Don carried the sealed envelope back to the car. His name was written on the front. As he sat staring at it, a dart of sadness pierced his heart. It was possible to love two women simultaneously. Molly had been his anchor, his best friend. He could still hear her laughter, remember the smell of a disastrous moussaka, fumes from which might have been used against an enemy in the event of war. Somewhere far away, tucked in the back of his head, he heard the strumming of a ukulele and her ‘turned out nice again’ voice delivering a rendition of ‘My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock’.

Would he never see her again? Never was a long time to be without a best friend. But there was Tess, his re-enlivened wife, and he absolutely adored her. The extra layer in Molly’s make-up was probably connected to her age, because she had babied him. Where was she? Where the bloody hell had she gone with the wonderful dogs and the satanic angel fish?

He checked his watch. Unless he wanted to run into extra time, he’d better get this read, since the referee was waiting for him. Waiting for him. When they’d lived above the launderette, she’d taken little interest in his whereabouts. He could have been in Timbuktu for all she’d cared. He’d been steak pudding and peas, no more than that. Now, like most other wives, she wanted to know the location of her man.

But no. He didn’t need to open the envelope here in the car, because the extra little scrap of paper, now discarded in the dustbin, had reassured him. Even Tess could read this letter without taking umbrage. They might read it together, then. But as he drove away from the past, from an area of his life that had contained love, kindness and consideration, he felt a great hole widening in his chest. No Molly, no daft dogs, no hum from the filter in the fish tank. He remembered the trout. They’re staring at me. Do I cut their heads off? That had been followed by another trip to the chip shop. Molly. A mistake a minute, a laugh a minute. But no man could have two mistresses, and he had to be satisfied with his lot. Nothing on the planet would ever persuade him to abandon his Tess.

When he reached home, Tess had changed her clothes and was kneeling on the kitchen floor, her head in the gas oven.

‘No need for that,’ Don said. ‘There’s a whole river down the road if you want to commit suicide. A kitchen’s no place for a corpse, even one as pretty as yours would be.’

She emerged with a smudge of dark grease on the end of her nose. ‘Listen, bird-brain of Britain. You did the Sunday dinner, right?’

He fought laughter. No one with a smudge like that one could expect to be taken seriously. ‘I did.’

‘It was lamb, right?’

‘It was.’

‘Lamb spits,’ she pronounced.

He considered that for a moment. ‘Actually, it was dead at the time. If it had been prone to temper tantrums, the inclination would have died with the rest of it. And anyway, it was just the one leg.’

Tess scrambled to her feet. ‘You should have wiped down before the oven went cold.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Then after wiping down, put the cloth in the sink with bleach diluted in hot water.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

She awarded him one of the more sudden of her army of smiles. ‘You’re back early.’

‘I am. And you’ve had a change of clothes.’

‘Change of mind,’ she answered quickly. ‘I rang a few restaurants, and nobody serves sorbet. That was definitely a sorbet suit. I was far too well dressed to live the sorbet-less life. We’ll have to go to London.’

‘No problem. But will they sell steak pudding and peas?’

‘How was she?’

‘She’s gone, love.’

‘And no.’

‘No what?’ He scratched his head in the manner of Stan Laurel.

‘They won’t serve steak pudding.’ She caught sight of herself in a mirror above the kitchen table. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked crossly.

‘Because you look cute, and because I thought I might sell you on to Billy Smart’s circus next time it hits town. They could do with a glamorous clown.’

She rubbed away the offending mark. ‘What do you mean, “She’s gone”, anyway?’

‘She’s gone. As in not there, no sign, no sound, business under offer and house sold.’

Tess sat down. ‘Without letting you know?’

Don nodded. Seated opposite her, he placed the unopened letter in the centre of the tablecloth. ‘I found this.’

‘Oh. What is it?’

After repeating his Stan Laurel imitation, he offered his opinion in the matter. ‘From where I’m sitting, I’d say it’s an envelope.’

‘Don’t get clever with me, Don Compton. It doesn’t suit you.’

‘OK.’

Two pairs of eyes were glued to the white oblong next to the cruet set. ‘Open it, then,’ Tess ordered. ‘It’s addressed to you, not me.’

He tore back the flap and withdrew the contents. ‘Cheque for a grand there,’ he said. ‘Severance, I expect.’

She shook her head. ‘Payment for services rendered, if you want my opinion.’

‘I’m no gigolo,’ he said.

Tess swallowed nervously before turning pink. ‘Well, I think you’re good at it.’

‘At what?’

She paused for several seconds. ‘Managing a business, of course.’

But he knew what she meant and was disproportionately pleased. He unfolded the letter and read it aloud.

Dear Don,

I owe you so much, and nothing could compensate for the way you saved the business after I lost my beloved Matt. However, I trust that the enclosed will help replace your car and buy something for the house. I also hope Tess is better, because she had a tough time with that terrible illness.

A lot has happened since I last saw you. I was doing a wedding for an older couple, childhood sweethearts who met up again after both were widowed. It was so romantic. They love George Formby songs, so I was at it for over an hour, until I got hoarse.

At the same event, I met a man called Henry, which he doesn’t like, so he goes by Hal. He plays the piano. We started talking during a break, and we got on really well. He’s not after my money, because he has plenty of his own and, like me, he plays and sings mostly for the fun of it.

Anyway, to cut a short story even shorter, we started spending time together. He lives in a huge flat over his music shop in town – he sells instruments, records, sheet music and so forth. By the way, he thinks John Lennon and his group could go far.

It turned out that he was selling up, like me. He wants to retire to Cornwall, and we’ve been looking at bungalows down there. We’ve both sold more or less everything, and we’re moving to Cornwall and renting until we find a nice place to buy there or in Devon. I know you’d like him, Don. He even does all the cooking, which cuts out the danger of food poisoning, so we dovetail very well, because he can’t iron to save his life!

I gave my tropical watery friends to a young man who loves them, so the angel-devils and the others will be cared for. Saying goodbye to Matt’s house wasn’t easy, but we must all look to the future however long or short it’s going to be. The good thing is that both Hal and I feel as if we’ve known each other all our lives.

The business has been bought by a Chester firm called Williamson and Co. Ltd. I have recommended you to them in case you feel like carrying on once Tess is back to normal. I managed the books – hang the bunting out immediately – and Mr Williamson was quite impressed by the turnover. They want to reopen as soon as the paperwork’s done, so they may contact you in the near future.

Tell Tess and your children I wish them the best of everything.

Yours sincerely, Molly.

‘So she’s definitely gone?’ Tess asked. ‘That isn’t some sort of code saying meet me outside Lewis’s and we’ll book a room nearby?’

Don shook his head.

‘I bet there’ll be somewhere in Chester.’

‘What?’

‘Somewhere in Chester with sorbet.’

She was at it again. Her mind leapt about with all the senseless agility of a newborn lamb. Ah, yes. Lamb. ‘What about the oven?’ he asked.

‘You’re doing it.’

‘With my knee, that would be difficult.’

‘That means I’ll have to do it. Put the kettle on and make a cuppa. Then you can take the money to the bank; it’ll do for our Anne-Marie’s wedding. Have you seen the price of wedding gowns lately? Some are twenty quid. Twenty pounds for something that gets worn once. And you can’t get even a decent finger buffet under twelve shillings a head. There’ll be no sorbet for that, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Don closed his mouth with a snap. ‘She’s not seventeen yet, Tess.’

‘I know that. And I was married at that age.’ Her head disappeared into the oven again.

She was right, as usual. Anne-Marie was growing out of her parents’ arms and into the embrace of Mark, her wealthy yet down-to-earth boyfriend. Even John Lennon had been dismissed as ordinary, and her outings to Allerton for a glimpse of Paul McCartney had stopped. The couple went to stock car racing and speedway in Manchester, enjoyed films and concerts, and were members of a local jazz club where they listened to both modern and traditional bands. ‘Are they engaged?’ Don asked.

Tess emerged from the cavern, banging her head on the way out. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do. What did you say?’

‘Are they engaged?’

She stood up. The old blouse was ruined, as was the wire wool with which she’d been scrubbing at grease and grit before wiping the oven down with a tea towel. ‘I wonder if we should spend that money getting your knee sorted? Then you can do this job sometimes.’ Even her hair was filthy. ‘I don’t think they are,’ she added.

This time, Don had managed to keep up with his wife. Their daughter was not engaged. Yet. ‘You’re in a state worse than Woolworth’s on Christmas Eve. Come on, let’s get you bathed.’

‘What about your knee?’

‘I’m not wasting money cleaning up after Hitler. I’d rather rub my wife down with a damp cloth.’

She nodded. ‘Yes, and you kneel to do it.’

‘Do I?’

‘And there’s no cloth. You never use a cloth or a sponge.’

He nodded sagely. ‘My hands do just as good a job.’

‘And then I get dragged off to the black and red bordello you made for me.’

‘Boudoir. I must finish it, must put that mirror on the ceiling. Don’t blush. You’re dripping grease all over the place.’

Tess folded her arms. She was definitely not having a mirror on the ceiling. Did he realize what people might think if they walked in? ‘We could have a party, and they might leave their coats on the bed. It’s already colourful.’

He sniffed meaningfully. ‘It works for me.’

Tess closed her eyes, tutted and shook her head. ‘No mirror. You go within a hundred yards of a mirror, and I’ll make sure you have seven years’ bad luck even if you don’t break it.’

‘Get up the stairs.’

‘No.’

‘Are you taking advantage of a Dunkirk hero?’ The electricity was still there. It was the same as it had been twenty years ago, before Sean, well before Anne-Marie. He was the luckiest man in the world. How many marriages resurrected themselves after so long a drought? It was as if little sparks of blue fire flashed in her eyes as she challenged him. ‘Choose your weapon,’ he suggested.

She picked up a sad, superannuated dish towel, the very one with which she had wiped down the oven after the scrubbing. ‘This’ll do for me,’ she said, her chin tilting in defiance. ‘Choose yours.’

He grinned. ‘You’re already familiar with my weapon of choice.’

‘Vulgar man.’ She stalked past him and clomped noisily upstairs.

Don sat for a while with Molly’s letter and the cheque. Perhaps he should see a specialist about his knee. Molly had wanted that. It was unlikely that anyone could make him walk without the limp, but the pain was tiring, especially at this time of year.

The bath was filling. A slow smile spread its width across Don’s face. In a bottom drawer of the chest in the hall, Sean’s water pistol rested. The lad still used it in summer, usually in an effort to drown his dratted little sister. ‘I’ll use warm water,’ Don whispered. ‘Cold would be cruel.’ He fetched the item and filled it at the kitchen sink. ‘Second weapon of choice, you come with me. Let’s prove to her that the bathroom ain’t big enough for the both of us.’

Christmas threatened. Shop windows were all lit up, dressed trees glittered in almost every parlour, while the faces of many women wore a slightly worried expression. Was a turkey twenty-five minutes a pound, or was it twenty? Some gave up altogether and went for a couple of chickens. They understood chickens; twenty minutes a pound, then twenty minutes extra at the end. Problem solved. Right, so how many were coming for dinner, and who hated sprouts? Would the royal icing on the cake be the death of Auntie Ivy’s dentures, and would Granddad repeat last year’s performance and swallow a sixpence from the pudding? Oh well, at least all the presents were wrapped and ready.

When the women stopped worrying, the men took over. Christmas Eve found every shop crammed with white-faced males who tried to buy perfume they’d never heard of, underwear without looking at it, or scarves. Scarves were for those who had failed the first two fences. They were safe, as were slippers, books, and manicure sets.

Roy didn’t take a safe route. Having sold his story to the most notorious of Sunday newspapers, he no longer felt persecuted, since he had made the decision to be exposed, but with a degree of control. Yes, people stopped him in the streets and yes, he put them off politely. But the quiet, invisible wedding was not going to happen, because Rosh’s daughters wanted the dressing up, bells ringing, a party afterwards. When it came to her honeymoon attire, he dealt with it head-on. Armed with a list of his beloved’s measurements, he entered the dragons’ den and bought whatever took his fancy. And quite a number of flimsy items managed to take his fancy. How he had changed!

On another expedition and with all his girls in tow, he bought rich cream silk taffeta for the bride, the same material in sky blue for her daughters, a good suit for Kieran, and a mid-blue jersey silk for Anna. It would be a grand wedding.

Kieran was not interested in shopping, so he had stayed at home reading about the nervous system.

‘I hope the suit fits him,’ said Anna when all five sat down for lunch in a café. ‘And I’m cutting out no frocks till the first banns are read. Two good dresses, these two grew out of while Roy was away. I shall sell them. Alice, eat your soup. It’s all right, you can start when you’re ready. Say grace in your head – God won’t mind.’

‘I know,’ Alice replied. She was starting to put her foot down, especially where Gran was concerned. But now she awarded attention to her partner-in-shaving and future stepfather. ‘You’ve seen Mam’s material,’ she pronounced with gravitas. ‘Isn’t that unlucky?’

‘Only when it’s a frock,’ he replied, the sober tone matching hers.

‘I’ve seen the pattern,’ the child continued. ‘But it won’t be quite like that, because at the top, where the—’

‘Quiet, love,’ Rosh begged.

Alice grinned. ‘I was going to tell him lies,’ she giggled. ‘I was thinking of purple sequins and red bows.’

‘You’re a terrible child, and thank goodness for that. Asparagus, my behind. See? See? Would you ever take a look at the expression on her face? She never liked me, and it shows.’

‘Aspergers, not asparagus, Mother.’

‘I know.’

Roy continued to sit on his secrets; not literally, as he would have broken them. He had bought everyone a watch. The notoriously naughty newspaper had ‘purchased’ the wedding, and he was using the money for his lovely females. Photographers and journalists would be there, and Roy imagined the headlines. Serial Killer’s Surviving Victim Marries Her Hero, and A Happy Ending to a Tragic Tale. He and Rosh had decided not to care. The two older children knew what had happened to their mam; even Alice understood enough. And they all loved Roy, though he never pretended to be their dad, and he’d made sure that they always remembered Phil.

He bit into a sausage roll. It seemed to have no personality whatsoever, no sausage, and a bit of flaky that was more air than pastry. He returned it to the counter and demanded a replacement. A year ago, he couldn’t have done that, but his fiancée had given him backbone, pride and strength.

The manager was summoned. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

Roy lifted up the delicacy in question, put it to his eye and said, ‘I can still see you. This roll may have enjoyed a passing relationship with sausage meat, but they never married.’

The boss folded his arms. ‘How do I know you haven’t took the meat out and ate it?’

‘Because I say so.’

‘Right.’ There followed a lengthy pause. ‘You’re him, aren’t you?’

Roy shuffled a bit in order to redistribute his weight.

‘You’re him what closed the book on that murdering bastard. They found all the bodies cos of you, too.’

Nobody moved, and silence reigned. Roy didn’t need to look over his shoulder, because he got reactions like this at least twice a week.

The manager carried on. ‘Fancy him writing on them boxes. All the details about when and where, the soft olly. It said he seen people setting fire to that car with three men in it, too, but that led to a dead end.’ He grinned, pleased by his own untutored genius. ‘Do you get it? Dead end, like?’ He was now displaying teeth like a picket fence that wanted a coat of paint. ‘Proud of you, lad.’ He placed six sausage rolls in a bag. ‘Any time, son. Don’t pass by. You come in for a free dinner whenever you like.’

The subsequent applause resulted in the swift departure of Roy and his family. Except for Alice, who ran back inside to deliver a curtsey.

Anna grabbed her attention-seeking granddaughter. She was taking the two girls to a matinee at the Odeon. ‘Stop showing us up, you little besom. Come on, or the best seats will be filled by the time we get there.’ She marched off, one hand gripping Alice’s. Philly shrugged, waved goodbye and followed the others.

Roy and Rosh looked forward to a couple of hours of privacy. They sat in her van where she changed her shoes before starting the engine.

‘Rosh?’

‘What?’

He cleared his throat. ‘Remember that time I said there were three of you?’

‘Yes. And?’

‘I’ve been writing to Tom. Haven’t seen him, because they’ve not long moved house and he’s pushed for time with running the Co-op as well, but he’s convinced that his mother-in-law is your mother’s sister-in-law.’

‘Eh?’

‘Tom’s mother-in-law was a Riley till she married an O’Neil.’

‘Right.’

‘And your dad was a Riley.’

‘Common enough surname.’

‘And Tom’s mother-in-law, Paddy, has a name like yours, but with a Conchita instead of a Carlita. Spanish names – a string of them. Then, when you were in hospital after the . . . trouble, and while I was in the loony bin, there was that hysterectomy that looked just like you.’

‘I look nothing like a hysterectomy, Roy.’

‘I’m just repeating your mother’s words. Anyway, your mam was too worried about you to bother about who was whose second cousin twice removed, or whatever, but another patient told her this Tess woman lives on Menlove Avenue. I don’t know what she was before she became a Compton, but she’s supposed to be the spit of you, only older.’

Rosh pondered the subject. ‘So my dead dad was this Paddy’s brother?’ Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel. ‘Liverpool was full of us. The granda sent everybody to Liverpool and told them to find each other and stick together. My mam told me that. But saving up for tickets was a long job, Dad used to say. So they came in fits and starts, moved to where there was work, and that was the end of the clan. Mam says she thinks some emigrated abroad, so—’ She shrugged. ‘Can we leave this till after the wedding? That’ll be enough emotion for me without bringing the long lost into it.’

Roy, completely alone in the world for much of his life, could not understand his fiancée’s reluctance to make contact with her extended family. He remarked on it now, and waited for her reply.

‘Dad used to call them the wild bunch. No education, no manners, no idea of how to behave. My mam says she heard some had gone completely to the bad, but she’s not really sure. As for me – well, I’ve managed this far without them, and I’d rather not rock the boat.’ She awarded him a smile. ‘Let’s go and look at Home from Home.’ The shop was up and running thanks to a man who knew his tobaccos, and his daughter, who did the half-shift. Loyal customers were back, and many newspapers were delivered daily to houses in the area.

Roy knew better than to pursue the subject. Once Rosh made up her mind, it would be easier to shift Gibraltar with a washing line than to get her to revise her position. Their love life had been interesting for some time, because he’d been terrified about her insides. So she’d battered him with a pillow; it had taken two days to get rid of the feathers. She was back to normal in the female department. No, that wasn’t true; she was back to glorious.

They stopped on College Road and walked up the side to her domain. It was beautiful, classy without being showy – just like its owner. The kitchen had been fitted, and cooking would commence one week into the new year. 1960. How time flew for a happy man.

‘When’s the wedding?’ he asked.

‘March.’

‘I can’t. I have a limp.’

In the absence of pillows, Rosh clouted him with a tea towel. Sometimes, this man could be hilariously annoying.

Thirteen

On a bright, icy January morning in 1960, Seamus, recovering from a severe head cold, was off school, and he was mooching and rooting. These two verbal participles had been introduced by his grandmother; mooching meant wandering about aimlessly, while rooting referred to his tendency to put his hands, eyes and ears where they didn’t belong. Well, he was bored, and boredom wasn’t right for a lad with a good rate of recovery from illness and an inquisitive mind. There was no conversation to be overheard, so he had to indulge in rooting. Anyway, what did they expect? Did they think he’d sit quietly in a corner with a poetry book? Perhaps he could take up knitting or crochet?

He was alone. Dad was out at work, busy being the manager of a big Co-op, while Mam’s day was split between Scouse Alley and Paddy’s Market. She helped her mother until after lunch, then gave the rest of the day to her father on his good quality second-hand clothing stall. Reen and Jimmy were both at work, and Seamus was fed up. There was nothing of interest in his own house, nothing exciting in Reen’s, so he ended up in Gran’s place. Downstairs was all holy statues under domes of glass, last year’s straw cross saved from Palm Sunday, rosary beads hanging next to the fireplace and, most treasured of all, a framed Papal Blessing centre-stage on the chimney breast. Upstairs was a bit more entertaining; upstairs sometimes housed secrets.

He wasn’t supposed to go upstairs unless he was sleeping here, but he was drawn like a piece of base metal to the magnetic powers of Gran’s boxes. There were four of them, originally made to contain new shoes, now utilized to guard letters, photographs, birth, marriage and death certificates, curls of baby hair, insurance policies and the like. There was knowledge to be gleaned; if the adults wouldn’t talk, papers might.

Oh, yes. Gran’s house, positioned between the homes of her daughter and granddaughter, was tremendously interesting on the upper floor. He could look at the photographs, some sepia, some in faded black and white, with the most peculiar-looking people frozen for ever on paper. One of the photos had been focused on the doorway of a Liverpool cellar dwelling, and its subject was a woman standing on flags at the top of steps, a swollen belly advertising pregnancy. Another, taken from further away, showed a water pump in the middle of the same yard. The woman in the doorway was probably Gran, and the pump provided water for thirty or forty families, many of whose members lived in windowless, underground rooms. It had been a difficult life, and Gran seldom referred to it these days.

But Liverpool had cleaned itself up since then. In a sense, even Germany had done it a favour, because the living conditions of many had improved no end after the war. Mind, Seamus did miss the prefab, because it had owned a garden. The paved yard here was rubbish. Dad had promised to clear it, get topsoil and plant grass, but it would always be small.

Seamus replaced the box, opened a drawer, and found photos of his older brothers, Michael and Finbar. They were hiding in Rainford, a village a few miles up the East Lancashire Road. This was all because of some trouble in London, the details of which were unclear to Seamus, although his eavesdropping skills were second to none. Nobody spoke about it, so there was nothing to hear. But, at last, he had found something to see. There was a letter from a man in London. He seemed to be chairman of an Irish club, and he was volunteering to take Gran, who was referred to as Mrs O’Neil, to the Kray house.

What was a Kray house? Was it like a public house, a terraced house, a mansion? It was probably a mansion, because London people were rich, and they walked about with their noses in the air. ‘I bet that’s where the saying comes from,’ Seamus said quietly. ‘If you walk about with your nose up, pride does come before a fall.’

The girl who’d played Mary in the school nativity play last month had been too proud of herself. With her head held high, she had taken a tumble over the hem of her frock. Her nose was bloodied and her dignity lay truly shattered, yet worse was to come. She landed on Jesus, partially hidden and, as yet, unborn, and the Messiah had been decapitated.

Seamus giggled. Even now, he could hear her bawling in the wings. ‘The doll’s head came off, Mam. I shown meself up. No. I’m not going back. I’m not. They’ll all be laughing at me.’ Oh, yes. There were worse things than having to wear a silly suit at Reen’s wedding. Especially now, when at least four other lads had been forced to wear the resurrected bits and pieces. So. The nativity play had been abandoned, and a happy carol concert had filled the gap.

He sighed heavily. Now, when the path of life seemed smoother, Gran was going to London. Yes. Here was a coach ticket and a letter. The vehicle would leave Liverpool at midnight and, after several comfort stops, would arrive at Victoria Coach Station early the following morning. The date on the ticket was for next week, and nobody had said a word.

Mam would turn loony. Gran had been the first to go down with the cold, and it had left her with a cough that seemed reluctant to say goodbye. Bronchial, she called it. She should not be setting off to London with bronchial. He would have to tell Mam, but when?

‘Oh, God.’ He sank onto the bed. If he ran to Mam too early, there would be an absolute nightmare of a week, because neither would give in to the other. ‘I have to be clever,’ he whispered. ‘I have to wake Mam in the night and say I saw Gran leaving with a big bag, then Mam can follow her. Let’s hope there are some tickets left.’

It might all go horribly wrong, yet he could think of no alternative. If he talked to Dad, there’d be trouble, and Dad might open up to Mam. When it came to keeping secrets, his sister Reen was like a colander – full of holes. But Gran had been so ill, and she shouldn’t even think about London; it was hundreds of miles away, like some foreign country. They didn’t even speak English. He’d seen films with Londoners in them, and they talked in something called Cockney, which was rubbish.

But there was no other way. If there had to be trouble, it should happen on neutral territory and well away from home. The idea of Mam and Gran going at it hammer and tongs even for a day wasn’t pleasant. A whole week? ‘What if they get the same bus, cause a riot and the coach crashes?’ he asked the room. ‘What if they never come back? It’ll be my fault for not doing anything about it. I can’t win, can I?’

Whatever a Kray house was, it didn’t matter. Gran’s secret journey, one she wouldn’t normally choose to make, had nothing to do with sightseeing. She couldn’t care less about Buckingham Palace and Big Ben and mansions. No. All she worried about was family, because too many had gone into the bowels of London, never to be seen again. Who was still in London? Nobody. But two brothers were in hiding – probably as a result of having been in London. This proposed expedition was likely to be their fault. Oh, what could he do, what should he do?

With his brain spinning at a high rate of knots, Seamus replaced Gran’s property, making sure that everything was as he had found it, with the ticket underneath the letter. It was time to go next door, since either Mam or Dad would call in to feed him and build up the fire. He wasn’t allowed near the fire, which wasn’t his fault. So he’d set light to some toast weeks ago – didn’t everyone make a mistake sometimes?

Still, at least it was warm in his own house. Finding out Gran’s secret had been an exhausting experience. Seamus curled into a fireside chair and fell asleep.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Baxter. I don’t want you blaming me when you get out of step with legal procedure. And there’ll be homework on top of everything else, because they can’t do without you, but how can you be a legal secretary after tea with Alice chattering, Philly doing her piano practice, and Kieran mithering about the human reproductive process? I wish he’d hurry up and get on to neurology or whatever. You’ll have all that going on around you.’

‘I shall be fine.’

‘Oh. Shall you, indeed? So you’ll be in a hot kitchen all day, then stuck to a typewriter every evening? Are you some kind of superman?’

They sat together on his sofa in his house. He was selling the place furnished all the way from beds and wardrobes to cutlery and cruet; it was going lock, stock and carpets to a young couple who were absolutely delighted. Due to be married in March, Roy would move into Rosh’s house while the other newly-weds would move into his place.

It was all dovetailing beautifully as long as Anna stayed out of it. Roisin’s mother, who was showing signs of buckling under pressure, was not exactly glowing with the joys of spring. Rosh had taken her dress material out of the house for two reasons. First, she didn’t want Roy to get a glimpse of work in progress. Second, her poor mother had enough on her hands with bridesmaids’ dresses and her own outfit. ‘Mam’s cracking up again. To use her own famous words, she’s mortallious troublesome. Philly says if she gets pricked once more with a pin, she’s running away to London, taking up the oboe properly and busking in underground stations. Alice says she’ll go with her sister and play drums and tambourine.’

‘And Kieran?’

Rosh shrugged. ‘Well, he’s not being fitted for a frock, is he? And he’s not what you might call musical. I’m a bit worried, though, because since he took up human reproduction there’s every danger that we – you and I – might come under the heading of practical demonstrations. We could well have a spy in our midst.’

‘Bugger.’

She laughed. ‘No, just ordinary sex.’

There had been nothing ordinary about it, Roy mused. He’d been terrified of hurting her after all she’d been through, though she’d certainly tried to hammer home the fact that she was Irish, tough, a quick healer, ready, willing and able. It had taken a while, but he had finally coped. Which was just as well, as she had threatened not to marry him, since she was fast becoming a recycled virgin. There was no one in the world like her. Even now, in the wake of the Clive Cuttle business, she remained unafraid. He had dreaded going with her to the shop, yet she hadn’t turned a hair.

‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.

‘You.’

She placed her head on his shoulder. ‘Tell you what, kid. They loved your cottage pie today. One bloke did an Oliver Twist, brought his plate back and asked for more.’

Roy chuckled. ‘Did you make him pay?’

‘Course I did. We’re not a charity.’

‘But whatever, we look after your mother, because that’s not charity.’

‘Of course we look after her. She thinks it’s the other way round, of course, and that she looks after us.’

‘Take the girls and their dresses to your dressmaker. Anna’s showing the strain, love.’

‘What?’ Rosh sat bolt upright. ‘I know she’s not young, but she’ll go mental if I do that. She’ll take it as criticism, you know she will. There’ll be weeping and gnashing of teeth, moaning about nursing homes, scrap heaps and lack of appreciation.’

But he had an answer to that. The wedding cake was made and ready for decoration. ‘Let her do it. I’ve got it in three tins, and I keep prodding it with a knitting needle and pouring in brandy, but I’ve no idea when it comes to icing and marzipan. She can do a lot of that sitting down, Rosh. Anyway, mothers don’t last for ever. Let her be in a bad mood. At least she’s still with us.’

Rosh knew how dreadfully Roy had missed his mother. She’d done her best to talk him out of the guilt he felt. According to her fiancé, his father had been as bad as Cuttle, though his body count was lower. Baxter Senior had sent his wife to an early grave, and Baxter Junior, who had seen and heard much suffering, had done nothing about it.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Rosh said yet again.

‘I should have poisoned his tea.’

‘And put yourself at his level? At Cuttle’s level?’

Roy shook his head. ‘Poisoning would have been much kinder than Cuttle, and a hundred times less nasty than the way my old man treated my mother. She was a wonderful woman, and so is Anna, but in a different way.’

It was Rosh’s turn to laugh. There could be no two women as unalike as Roy’s mother and hers. Roy’s mother had received bruises both mental and physical, while Anna had inflicted damage, mostly with words and attitude. ‘My father was the saint in our house,’ she said. ‘Mam was sort of corrosive. Is that the right word? Or is it erosive? She wore everybody down till she got her own way. It’s taken years, but she’s got the Collingfords on her side at last.’

‘I thought you were handling the dry-cleaning stuff.’

‘Well yes, and he’s paying rent to me. But Mam will come down on a Thursday and check that the tickets match the tabs. It makes her feel as if she won, because they gave her a job in the end. They’ll be paying her a wage, you see. So that’s a victory for her.’

‘Marvellous. Give us a kiss.’

‘Hello?’ Anna’s voice crashed through the letterbox.

‘Beer and pork scratchings,’ Roy exclaimed. ‘We all know she reads minds, but there are a couple of gardens, two pavements and a road between her and us.’

‘Never underestimate my mother.’ Rosh went to open the front door.

Anna joined them in the front room. ‘Now don’t start,’ was her opening salvo. ‘I’ve been to the doctor’s and got a diagonal nose is. All right, diagnosis. Arthritis in me hands. That’s why I keep impaling your daughters on pins. So will you please ask your dressmaker to deal with the girls’ dresses and my suit? Oh, and I’ve found somebody to decorate the cake. Is that all right?’

‘For goodness’ sake, Mam. You should have said something about the pain. Did you get some pills?’

‘I did, but I don’t like the looks of them. Purple, they are. A very lurid shade of purple. They’re in a drawer, Morecambed.’

Roy scratched his head.

Rosh translated for him. ‘The pills are a last resort. She nominated Morecambe as the same. So anything Morecambed in our house is there only in case nothing else works.’

‘What’s wrong with Morecambe?’ Roy asked.

Rosh sighed. ‘Torrential rain the day she visited. She’s got it into her head that Morecambe will be washed into the bay any day now. Last resort she’ll consider visiting, because it’s going to be flooded. In my opinion, my mother’s decision to stay away is good news for Morecambe.’ She was trying to make light of the situation, but she knew that her mother must have been in great discomfort if she’d visited the doctor. Doctors were for cowards and layabouts. Yes, they were yet another Morecambe. She turned to Anna. ‘You know we love you. Whatever, you’ll be looked after.’

Anna tutted. It had taken time for her to pluck up the courage to confess her failing. ‘It’s not sympathy I’m after, Roisin. And I’ll not be giving up using my hands, since they’re the only pair I happen to have just now. It was all the cutting out and tacking that did for me.’

Rosh disagreed. ‘You’ve been a workhorse all your life, Mam. Phil had so much respect for you – remember? He always called you Mother. What you have to know now is that you can rest sometimes. Slowing down isn’t a sin. Roy and I can cope with meals, and I’ll go part-time when I’ve found a couple of dependable girls for the café. Start thinking about yourself.’

Anna folded her arms. ‘Well, I have been thinking. I’ve a great big cleaning-up job to do, and it can’t be left.’

‘And what’s that?’ Roy asked. ‘Can we help you?’

‘It’s the rubbish in the kitchen. I’m going to shift it, and not before time.’

It was Rosh’s turn to look puzzled. There was no rubbish in the kitchen. It sometimes looked like a war zone after all six of them had eaten, but that was easily sorted out. ‘My kitchen’s not messy,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve always kept a clean house – with your help, of course.’

‘It’s not your mess, not the kids’, not Roy’s. It’s mine. I shall take it away the day you get married. I’ll bring it back from time to time, and I’ll try to stop it standing there, twisting its cap in its hands.’

‘Mam?’

Anna took a very deep breath. ‘My name is Mrs Holt. Well, somebody has to look after him, so. We didn’t want to steal any of your thunder, so we did it quietly. Yes, for once, I was quiet. We’ll be living at his house after your wedding, but if I stay out all night before then, I’ll be just at the bottom of the road with my husband. Ah, he’s a lovely man, but. So don’t be worrying about me, because Eric can do all the fretting from now on.’

Rosh burst into tears.

Anna wriggled herself into the space next to her daughter on the sofa. ‘See? You’ve the both of us here now, me and Roy like bookends propping you up. So why are you keening? Are you not happy for me?’

Rosh nodded. Of course she was happy. All she wanted was for Mam to be content and safe. But the happiness was mixed with a selfish sadness, a childish emotion that bubbled up and spilled out down her face. This was her mam, and her mam was meant to stay. Why did she want to go getting married at this stage in her life?

Once again, Anna read her daughter’s mind. ‘Marriage isn’t there just for young folk, you know. We’re put on this earth by the good Lord to look after each other. Eric needs me, and I need him, somebody of my own generation. He’s a good man. There’s not a bad ounce in him. Though he has come out of his shell, and he tries to tame me.’ She sniffed. ‘He won’t win.’

Rosh raised her head. ‘The children will miss you. Alice doesn’t like too much change—’

‘Neither do you, madam. I’m doing nothing wrong, am I? Sweetheart, I need no permissions. The last time I looked, you were my daughter, and God knows I love the bones of you, but I’m not dead, Roisin. So we know where we stand. Until the day I die, I’ll be here for you. All of you. I’m worried, but.’

Rosh dabbed at her damp cheeks. ‘Why?’

‘Kieran. Have you seen his reading matter just now? Naked people and private parts. Last time I saw him, he had his nose in some woman’s perjacker.’

‘Per-what-er?’ Roy’s eyebrows had travelled north and were almost hidden by his hair.

Rosh sniffed. ‘Her word for female parts. Goodness knows where she found it.’ She turned to face her mother. ‘They’re only drawings, Mam. It’s not as if they’re photographs of real folk. He’s studying.’

Anna stood up. ‘Studying, is it? And what if a priest happens to call? Or a pair of nuns? Can you imagine that, now? We’d be needing smelling salts. There’s Alice at an impressionable age, Philly trying to concentrate on her piano, and he leaves the darned book open at a page showing a man’s wotsit in a state of doo-dah.’

Roy fled the scene as quickly as botched surgery would allow. In the kitchen, he wept into a tea towel; he couldn’t let the laughter out of his mouth, so it took a route via tear ducts down his cheeks. Yes, he was getting a wonderful, vibrant wife, but the rest of the bunch might be termed interesting, at least. Wasn’t eccentric nearer the mark? Life would never be dull.

‘You should make him study upstairs,’ Anna was saying now.

‘And make a big fuss of it? I’m glad he’s such an open book.’

Roy swallowed another chuckle. Open books were the basis of Anna’s argument. There wasn’t going to be a minute of normality, was there? He’d moved from the dry, dusty atmosphere of the law into a kitchen where he did what he loved best – cooking. He’d be leaving the peace and deadly silence of this house to move into relative chaos across the road; he would share a life and a bed with the woman he adored, while Anna’s house was going to be very near. Eric would be henpecked, of course.

‘Come out of that kitchen immediately, if not sooner,’ Anna ordered.

He thought about that. It was his house, his bloody kitchen, yet she still ordered him about. He was being henpecked, never mind poor old Eric. Like a naughty schoolboy, he returned to the front room. ‘You rang, ma’am?’

‘Don’t you get cocky with me, Roy Baxter. I knew you when you were snotty-nosed and covered in mud. You make sure you look after my girls and my boy. And if he carries on looking at those books, put your foot down. The good foot, not the other. Tell him to study that kind of thing in private.’

Roy nodded soberly. ‘Privates in private, then.’

Anna looked at her daughter. ‘Do you ever feel like hitting Roy?’

Rosh nodded. ‘But only in private, and never in the pri—’

‘That’ll do.’ Anna marched out of the house, slamming the door in her wake.

The two remaining adults howled like children. It was the sort of laughter that gives rise to pain and tears. ‘Where did you find her?’ Roy managed. ‘Under a witch’s broomstick?’

Anna shrugged and dried her eyes yet again. ‘She’s elemental. She’s like earth, wind, fire and water. My mother just is. She’s probably the result of a mating between a Titan and a Valkyrie. And I’ll bet you any money the Titan suffered more during the encounter.’

‘Rosh?’ He pulled her close. ‘Let’s give them a surprise party in the café.’

‘Why?’

‘Celebrate their wedding.’

She frowned. ‘Are you sure they said you were all right in your head when you left Whiston?’

‘Listen, you,’ he answered. ‘I have a certificate to say I’m sane. Have you?’

‘No. But I can tell you this much: my mother doesn’t like surprises. You already know that.’

‘Pretend Mr Collingford wants to see her at the shop. Then she’ll get all dressed up like a Christmas tree. We’ll let Eric in on the secret. Though if he owns a suit, I’ve never seen it.’

‘Course he has a suit. Must have. Can you see my mother marrying somebody in a flat cap and overalls covered in paint and sawdust? But listen to me properly, Roy. We’ll just have champagne, lemonade for the kids, and a wedding cake. If she’d wanted a shindig, she would have had one, believe me.’

They went upstairs. Conversation seemed easier when they lay down together. Anna would not come back; the closing of curtains informed her that shenanigans were ongoing.

But on this occasion, there were no immediate shenanigans. Like a long-married couple they lay, spoons in a drawer, his mouth in her hair near the left ear. ‘Irish stew,’ he said. ‘With beetroot and red cabbage. Apple crumble and custard. A few finger things like vols-au-vent, some crudités, a bowl of punch. Dips and—’

‘Shut up. I’m sick unto death of menus. My whole life is menus, both work and home. I know you do the cooking in the café, but we all bake at night, and I decide what’s what and who’s which and why.’

‘She’s your mother. We should do something.’

‘Eric would spill beetroot-coloured vinegar down his shirt.’ She wriggled backwards, could not have been closer without sharing his skin.

Roy smiled as sleep claimed her. Sometimes, his happiness became almost too big to be contained, and this was one such occasion. He couldn’t laugh, couldn’t cry or speak, because his precious girl was asleep in his arms. So he thought about her, remembered her.

The bullies. She and Phil had dealt with them. Phil left bruises; she gathered handfuls of hair, torn clothing, books. Blood under her nails, screams, threats and curses pouring from her throat, no pause for breath, no thought for self. Goal shooter in the first netball team, top scorer at archery, top scorer in the secret, hormone-fuelled dreams of every boy in Upper School. His Amazon, quieter now, yet more powerful than ever.

‘Touch him again and your head will be so far up your arse, you’ll be dining on your own shit.’ That line from Phil, of course. Even in a fight, even bloody and breathless, Rosh had managed to retain a degree of dignity. Roy had loved her then, and he loved her now so much that it hurt, as if it wouldn’t fit in the space he had inside.

Best man day. Their wedding, his purgatory. Long white dress, she wore. Simple, almost unadorned, just a whisper of lace at the throat. Phil, strong and handsome, no stupid leg, no ill-tempered father mocking him, dragging him down. Roy would look after her now; daily, he reminded Phil of that, hoped that his huge spirit approved of the new liaison.

She turned in his arms. ‘Love me,’ she commanded.

‘It will be my pleasure, ma’am.’

‘And mine. You’d best make sure of that.’

Roy leaned over his captive audience. ‘Would you like to see the wine list? Or a selection of my crudités?’

‘No, just the pudding trolley, thanks.’ Then she kissed him very fiercely.

‘See?’ he said when he managed to escape. ‘I knew you were hungry.’

Tess Compton sat in front of her dressing-table mirror. ‘I’ve got lines,’ she complained. ‘I’m getting old. Crows’ feet? I look as if I’ve been attacked by a full-grown eagle.’

Don managed to contain a bubble of laughter. With hands clasped behind his head, he sat propped up by pillows while watching his almost brand new beloved as she patted cream into the offending areas. ‘I hope you’re not going all greasy during the day as well. When I grabbed you last night, you nearly shot out of my arms all the way up to the ceiling.’

She turned. ‘Don’t exaggerate. Anyway, this is day cream. It’s very thin, and it gets completely absorbed.’

He was completely absorbed. He felt he might be quite happy to watch her for the rest of the day. ‘There’s an oil slick on your pillow case,’ he stated boldly. His mind wandered into the past, where he could never have made fun of her, where she had been a sour, bitter, old-before-her-time woman, an automaton. Underneath all those confused hormones, Tess had been there all along. ‘You’re lovely,’ he told her. ‘I wouldn’t swap you for a quarter of Horniman’s. Maybe I might for half a pound of my favourite tea, but—’

‘Oh, shut up. I’ve got lines.’

‘You’ve got lines? You should try living with you. My lines have got lines. I’m like a map of the London underground railway. If you want the Bakerloo line, it runs all the way up to my hair.’ In ham actor fashion, he exhaled sadly. ‘My wife doesn’t understand me.’ God, she was beautiful. ‘You’re getting ready for Mark,’ he pretended to accuse her. ‘Flaunting yourself in front of your only daughter’s only boyfriend. It’s the same every Saturday.’

‘And you’re off to see Injun Joe, so don’t forget your headdress and peace pipe.’

He smiled to himself as she got dressed. Until relatively recently, he’d never seen her unclothed or even in underwear. There was something undeniably moving about watching an attractive woman while she donned clothing. It was a form of ritual, filled with little moves and habits she had probably developed since she was a teenager.

During the early years of wedlock, she’d been shy about her body; then the dreaded hormone imbalance had kicked in, and they had both begun to exist in nightmares. ‘Tess?’

‘What now?’

He allowed a few beats of time to pass. ‘Did you marry me for my dad’s bit of money?’

She grinned. ‘It was taken into consideration, and you know why.’

‘Oh, yes. I do now.’

‘But, in so far as I was capable of loving at that time, I loved and valued you, Don. Whatever was wrong inside me must have started to affect me when Anne-Marie was a little girl. I was never the cold, calculating bitch I seemed to be. Sometimes, I heard myself and was shocked. Then, that day in the launderette, the first panic attack. Fortunately, I had only two that floored me completely.’

‘After which, we got the literally bloody day.’

She pulled on a stocking and rolled it up a shapely leg. ‘The day that saved us. I thank God for fibroids, cysts and all the other alien growths I carried for years. I thank Him often for giving me back to me, because those invaders owned Tess Compton for a very long time.’

Don chuckled. ‘Now I own you.’

‘In your dreams, lad. This is 1960. In case you haven’t noticed, women took over in 1939 and got a bit feisty. We’ve been in charge ever since, but we allow men to believe they still have power. Just watch this space, Tarzan. Twenty years from now, we Janes will be running the country from the front instead of leading from behind.’

‘Oo-er. I’m terrified.’

‘So you should be. Because when a woman tells you to jump, there’ll be hurdles of varying heights. I’ll fetch you a cup of tea before Mark gets here.’ She blew him a kiss before leaving the room.

He shook his head and wriggled down under the covers. His Tess was strong now, as was the other one. The other one, in her single room at the top end of Tess’s ward, was also strong. Her ordeal had hit headlines both local and national but, according to the press, she’d gone on to open a shop and a café up in Waterloo. And there were more of them – Tess was well aware of that. A long-dead Irishman had saved to send them to England, and they had come across the Irish Sea a few at a time. Don’s wife, filled to the brim with terrible memories, had walked away from her siblings as soon as possible. For that, she should not be blamed.

He rolled to the other side of the bed and breathed her in. To his knowledge, she had made no attempt to reconnect with her family. They’d be different now, older, separated from each other by marriage and workplaces. The bigger, healthier ones who had deprived a small thin child of food, who had beaten her and screamed at her, no longer existed. That animal-like behaviour would have ceased by now, surely? Their life had been so wild that the survival of the fittest had been unwritten and unspoken law.

Anyway, he must shift himself. Injun Joe had become fed up with a series of temporary assistants, and today he would probably offer Don the job of office manager, which was just a posh term for someone who answered phones and lined up appointments. Joe was a great local character, a man who wanted all European invaders removed from America, because it belonged to the natives. After the clearance, buffalo would be reintroduced, and the indigenous population could go back to the way they used to be, tribe fighting tribe, hunting parties arguing about which was whose buffalo, and a jolly time could be had by all who managed to hang on to their scalps.

‘Daft,’ Don said as he dressed. ‘Still, it takes all sorts, I suppose.’

A cup of tea, followed by his wife, entered the room. ‘Make sure you eat before going to see soft lad. If you ask me, Joe’s as mad as a flea in a tin.’

‘Well, he’s good at his job.’

‘Job? Taking photos of cheating husbands?’

‘And wives,’ he reminded her. ‘Takes two to join a St Bernard’s waltz and change partners after a certain number of steps.’

Tess blushed. ‘I wouldn’t swap you.’

‘Not for a ton of Horniman’s?’

She hesitated. ‘Make it Typhoo, and you’re on.’

And she was gone. Since losing some of her innards, she had moved on from a moderate, ladylike pace to greased lightning. Grease. Night cream, day cream, all-over-after-a-bath cream, foot cream to ward off the horrors of hard skin, eye cream, hand cream – everything but ice cream.

Oh well. Time to get down Smithdown Road to Joe’s place. Because Joe was about to become master and servant all in the one body. Joe Dodds, Injun Joe, the man of many disguises, was going to round up the Riley clan and drive them out of hiding. With a whip, if necessary. It was time.

Seamus had heard the term ‘in two minds’, but he was in several. He adored Gran. She was his hero for most of the time, but she was naughty. He couldn’t tell her not to go to London, because she was his senior, and anyway, he’d be forced to admit to mooching and going in drawers upstairs in her house while he was supposed to be ill. He might have to confess his sins to somebody, but it wouldn’t be Gran.

Mam would erupt if he talked to her. World War Two and the Blitzkrieg in Bootle might pale into insignificance compared to the wrath of Mrs Maureen Walsh. She had been known to start, choreograph and play an active part in battles on the green in the centre of Stanley Square where they had lived in their prefab, so Mam had to be left out of all calculations.

Reen, his sister, was simply daft. All she went on about these days was wanting a baby and dining-room furniture, not necessarily in that order. She’d be no good with babies, because she kept losing things, putting them down somewhere or other, then running round her house shouting, ‘Where did I leave the whatever?’ The whatever varied in size from a key to a basket filled with washing, so Seamus didn’t fancy a baby’s chances unless it cried all the time. Which it would. Anybody with Reen for a mother would cry all the time.

This left Seamus’s grandfather, a grand chap who was slowing down noticeably these days. He wasn’t ill; he was just hesitant. And he was worried about Gran, because his noisy, beloved wife had a terrible cough that was proving difficult to shift.

Oh, bugger. Seamus wasn’t supposed to even think that word, but this was a terrible situation, and a boy lost control when life tied itself in knots with very little warning. But the conclusion had to be reached even if he walked towards it with leaden legs. It had to be Dad. Something had happened to Dad a couple of years back, and Dad had suffered from nerves; would that happen again? Oh, this was too much responsibility for Seamus. He wasn’t even a grown-up. He couldn’t carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Could an adult bear the load?

There were priests, of course, but they knew nothing about complications. They could reel off the rules, but hadn’t the ability to understand that sometimes those commandments and laws had to be bent a bit. It was a lack of creativity again. Most of the adults Seamus knew didn’t own the sense required to work out difficult answers to complicated questions, so how was a mere child expected to manage? Teachers were the worst; unless it was long division, gifts of the Holy Ghost, or the Battle of Hastings, their knowledge wouldn’t fill the back of a stamp.

This was Saturday. The Co-op shut at half past twelve, but Dad often stayed behind to fill in order sheets and clear his desk of paperwork. Yes, this was Saturday and, on Thursday, Gran would be on the midnight coach to London. The Krays were gangsters. Seamus had found that out by asking at the local branch library. And this knowledge had pushed the lad right to the edge. He had to talk to someone, and the someone needed to be Dad.

Mam and Gran were out preparing Lights for a coming-of-age party. They had to transform Scouse Alley into a nightclub with a licence for drink, so at least they were out of the way. It was noon. Time to start walking towards the Co-op. Oh, God. Could he? Should he? Of course he should. If Gran ended up dead, killed by gangsters, it would be his fault for saying nothing. He was going to get into trouble whatever happened or didn’t happen, so he might as well be in trouble with a live gran rather than a dead one.

In spite of dawdling, Seamus reached the Co-op before the last customers had completed their shopping. He sat on the wall and waited until his dad appeared at the door and ushered out the stragglers. ‘Dad?’

‘Hello, son. Here.’ Tom threw half a crown which Seamus caught deftly. He needed no instructions. He was to go to the Fat Ladies’ Chippy and buy fish, chips and peas, which he and his dad would share. The favourite times in his life thus far had been Dad days. He loved going out with Granddad, loved all his family, but sharing a meal with Dad was Seamus’s idea of bliss. Well, it would be bliss if he didn’t have to spoil it all with . . . By the time he got back, Dad’s staff had all gone home, so there were just the two of them.

They sat at Tom’s desk in the office and ate from the paper with their fingers.

‘What’s the matter?’ Tom asked.

Seamus shrugged. He didn’t know where to start.

‘I can tell there’s something bothering you. I’ve eaten more than my fair share of these chips already.’

Seamus opened his mouth. ‘It’s a funny name for a chip shop. They’re fat, and they don’t care, do they?’

‘It’s called marketing, Seamus. They turn a negative into a positive and sell more chips.’

‘Right.’

Tom studied his son. The lad couldn’t sit still at the best of times, but he was a bag of nerves today. ‘I haven’t much to do here this afternoon, so I’m ready when you are.’ He paused, waited for a reply, got none. ‘You’d best get on with it, because your mam and your gran are going to need help down yonder.’

Seamus swallowed audibly. ‘It’s bad. If I tell you, there’ll be trouble. And if I don’t tell you . . . well . . . I have to tell you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Thursday midnight, Gran’s getting on a coach in town and travelling to London. She’s got a ticket hidden with pictures of our Michael and our Finbar in that big chest of drawers in her bedroom. If you tell Mam, there’ll be murder. They’ll be like two cats in a dustbin.’ His shoulders dropped slightly as the tension left his body. Dad was in charge now.

Tom stopped eating. ‘How the blood and sand did you find out?’

‘Mooching and rooting when I was off school. I didn’t know what to do or who to tell. Gran – well – she’d hit the roof. Mam would start on Gran, then they’d both hit the roof. Granddad’s a bit old, Reen’s daft—’

‘So that leaves me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Hell’s bells.’

‘I know,’ Seamus said. ‘But with me having an imagination, I’ve got an idea. Will you listen to it, Dad?’

‘Course I will. All contributions received with gratitude, son.’

So the plan poured from Seamus’s troubled mind and into a room in which the aroma of cured bacon flitches mingled with the heavenly scent of ground coffee.

Silence ruled for several seconds. ‘You’re quite a clever boy, aren’t you?’ Tom asked.

Seamus nodded. ‘See, if you tell Mam before Thursday, you’ll be stymied. She’ll go for Gran’s throat, and that’ll mean war. So you have to get Friday and Saturday off work, and pack some of Mam’s stuff and yours without her noticing. That won’t be easy. I’ll help if I can.’

Tom’s fingers drummed on the desk behind which he sat. ‘So, suitcase in the boot, take your mam out to the pictures, then for a meal—’

‘Yes, and make sure it’s gone eleven before you leave the restaurant.’

‘Which gives me just about an hour to tell your mother and calm her down. Then we follow the coach.’

‘Yes. Because if you bought tickets and rode on the same bus, there’d be murder on a moving vehicle.’

Tom blew out his cheeks and exhaled. ‘Like the Orient Express. Then we get to Victoria Coach Station and wait for a man to pick her up. And we follow him—’

‘To the Kray house, yes.’

Tom couldn’t eat any more. Three shots from a tiny gun, three bodies, three machine guns, three helpers when it came to disposal, three months in his own silent, crazy world. Roy helping him. Roy with the girlfriend who looked like Maureen, the girlfriend who’d almost died at the hands of a serial rapist and murderer. He hadn’t visited Roy for ages, because life was packed to the brim with work and with helping his mother-in-law at Scouse Alley. Scouse Alley, scene of his crime.

‘Dad?’

Tom pulled himself together. ‘You’ll have to stay with your granddad or our Reen.’

‘I’m not stopping with her. Jimmy got her some secondhand furniture, but all she goes on about is wanting new. It’s either that or babies. She’s like a record with the needle stuck. Anyway, Granddad will need me. Because you can’t tell him, either. He’s going to be upset when you all go – if you do it my way. So he will definitely need me.’

It occurred to Tom in that moment that he had an extraordinary son. The poor boy must have lived with his ill-gotten knowledge for several days, and he’d taken it upon himself to find a feasible solution. ‘I’ll have to do what you’ve done, Seamus. I’ll have to think. But it seems as if you’ve worked out the only sensible solution. Let’s just hope I can keep that coach in sight for two hundred miles.’

Seamus nodded. ‘It stops a few times at all-night cafés. If you have to leave the car, be careful in case Gran notices you. Take food. If you need the lav, be extra careful, or you could come face to face with her. It won’t be easy, Dad.’

‘I know. And another thing I know is that I’m proud of you. No, you shouldn’t be rooting in Gran’s bedroom, but on this occasion, I’m glad you did. And thanks for working it out, son.’ He wrapped the cooled food and took it to an outside bin. It was a bitterly cold day. By Thursday, life might well become hotter than hell.

On the same Saturday, Don Compton walked into Injun Joe’s tepee. In reality, it was an office, but it was made smaller today by a rack from which hung many of Joe’s disguises. Three overalls covered in paint, mud and oil were separated from the rest at one end of the rail. Cleaner items, including suits, shirts and ties, were arranged at the opposite end of the metal rod.

A table against one wall was covered in wigs and hats. ‘Heck, Joe. What’s this? A fancy-dress hire shop?’

Joe raised a hand. ‘How,’ he said gravely.

Don removed his hat and sat down. The walls were covered in feathered headdresses, photographs of people termed Red Indians, lengths of cloth hand-woven by the same people, wise sayings translated into English, hundreds of peace pipes and some paintings produced by Navajos. ‘How,’ he replied eventually. ‘Is that what I say when I answer the phone? How?’

‘No. We work as white men.’

‘And speak with forked tongue?’

Joe laughed. ‘You taking the urine?’

‘No. Why are all these clothes here?’

‘Your missus will collect them Monday for cleaning. The rest are still in the walk-in wardrobe. I often disguise myself when following people for clients. Sometimes I’m a window cleaner, sometimes a painter – whatever, I try to blend. So, are you ready to start?’

‘I am. But you know what you said about training me up for field work?’

‘Yes?’

Don studied the man across the desk. He had what might be best described as a lived-in face with a big nose, big ears, skin like tanned leather and thinning hair scraped back in a ponytail. He spent a month of every summer with natives, moving round American settlements in a hired car. No wonder he looked weather-beaten.

‘Yes?’ Joe repeated.

‘I’ve got a limp from Dunkirk. I’d get noticed if I followed somebody.’

Joe shook his head. ‘No. People would never suspect a man with a limp. It’s called a double bluff. If they think they’re being followed, and if they catch sight of you, no way will they believe anybody in their right mind would send somebody with a limp. So not only are they being watched, they’re being watched by a man they’ll dismiss immediately from their thoughts. After a few minutes, they won’t even see you. Then, when you come back and tell me where and when, I take over.’

‘Right.’ It was all as clear as mud, but Don had to go along with it. ‘I want to hire you,’ he said.

Joe’s eyebrows travelled up his lined forehead. ‘Divorce?’

‘No. Quite the opposite, if I’m honest.’

‘So you’re looking for somebody else’s wife or husband? Because I know you’re still with Tess.’

‘I’m looking for a lot of wives. And brothers, uncles, nieces, second cousins, first cousins, cousins twice removed—’

Joe held up a hand and stopped the flood. ‘Right, that’s it. This calls for a stiff drink. Will you join me in a single malt?’

‘Would we both fit in the glass?’

Joe stood up. ‘If I leave out the ice, we might just manage.’ He poured two hefty measures and passed one to his new recruit. ‘Cheers. Start again, please.’

Don passed an envelope across the desk. ‘It’s all in there. Rileys. Started coming over early this century – many will be second or third generation by now. Somewhere in County Mayo originally. And don’t tell Tess. I don’t want her to know what I’m up to. She had an unhappy childhood, and she’s never let it go. There’s one in Waterloo, I think. She survived Clive Cuttle’s final attack.’

Joe stood up and paced about in the narrow space between desk and window. ‘I remember that. Glad he got killed. But if Tess doesn’t want to see her family, why—’

‘Because they’ll be different now. To get rid of her past, to stop the nightmares, she needs to see them as they are now. It’s all written down in the envelope. Some slept in gypsy caravans. There was an orchard, there were horses. The old man made poteen and sold it all over the place. Some will remember that, and younger members of the family will have been told the stories.’

‘Are they all in the Liverpool area?’

‘No idea. Some may have emigrated to America, Canada, Australia—’

‘Hang on. Are you suggesting I go abroad?’

Don reassured him. ‘Just find as many local ones as you can.’

So it was all agreed. Don would take a cut in pay, and Joe would find Tess’s missing links. Not all of them. But, with luck, enough to put an end to many years’ disturbed sleep. She deserved some peace, didn’t she? Between them, they polished off half the bottle. And it was a twelve-year-old single malt Scotch . . .

Fourteen

‘Where the blooming heck have you been till this time? It’s gone seven o’clock. Ten hours? Who works a ten-hour day? I’ve been worried sick.’ Tess could see the pain etched into her husband’s face. He was pale, too. Don wasn’t one who allowed his hurts to show, because whatever he went through nothing could ever be as bad as Dunkirk, where he’d been among the luckier men. One of the many good things about Tess’s husband was his refusal to sulk. This was pain, real pain, and it was upsetting her.

‘I’m all right,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t fuss.’ She worried about him. He mattered to her. Even in a state of exhaustion, he managed to experience a dart of elation. Tess was a beautiful woman with a frightened heart. For better, for worse, and for all points between, she was his. ‘I’m just tired out, love.’

‘Have you been walking on that leg?’ she asked. He looked terrible, and she hated seeing him in such a state. Injun Joe should have more sense than to run her Don into the ground like this. Already disabled by war, he needed more damage as much as he needed smallpox.

Don achieved a tight smile. What did she expect him to do with that leg? ‘Legs are for walking on, Tess, and I’ve only the one pair. And I can’t leave the bad one at home. My other leg might be quite lonely without its twin. How would I screw it back on again, anyway? I’ve a feeling it got cross-threaded way back in 1940 when I hit the ground so hard that I dented the beach and nearly caused an earthquake—’

‘Stop the clever talk, Gordon Compton. Your dinner was nearly in the squizzles, because the greedy little beggars will eat just about anything. And our Sean’s wearing that hungry look he collects at work every day. I had to tell him no when he asked if he could eat yours, so he’s upstairs with two salmon sandwiches and a plate of jam tarts. I sometimes wonder whether that lad has a tapeworm. Sit.’ She pointed to Don’s usual place. ‘And don’t moan at me if it’s gone a bit claggy in the oven. Wait till I see Injun Joe – I’ll crown him with one of his totems, and I shan’t tell you where I’ll stick his peace pipe, because I’m a lady.’

He sat. It occurred to him that the lady no longer existed in the bedroom, and he was very pleased about that. He glanced down at claggy gravy. Claggy was a word she’d picked up from her mother way back. Did she remember her mother and dad? Would she know any of her brothers and sisters if she passed them in the street? Would she even want to know them? Tess was such a complicated soul. She’d always been difficult, but he understood her at last. He should have tried harder and earlier, because she was a woman worth knowing.

A ‘ta-ra’ was followed by the slamming of the front door. Sean must have eaten his fill at last.

‘And your eyes look funny,’ Tess said as she left the kitchen.

Alone, he stared bleakly at a couple of chops that looked as if they’d seen better days about a hundred years ago. He didn’t know whether to eat them, or to have a go at soling his shoes with them. God, he was tired. His eyes looked funny? So would hers if she’d been forced to endure what he’d been through. Anne-Marie followed her brother. Thank goodness for that; there’d be no rock and roll pouring down the stairs this evening. A diet of Elvis Presley and Bill Haley was probably worse than these blinking chops. If he didn’t shape, Don would fall unconscious right here in the kitchen, his face resting on two pieces of dead sheep. In fact, if Tess pegged him out on a clothes line, he might sleep a full eight hours.

Injun Joe was . . . enthusiastic and in disgustingly rude health. Within a matter of days, he had located every male Riley from Liverpool, the Wirral, Chester and Warrington. There were dozens of them. Each real candidate unearthed and visited today knew another whose surname changed when she married a man called . . . What had been his name now? Endless phone calls, ages spent poring over electoral registers and baptismal records – it was hard work.

Those located were checked thoroughly regarding a white house with a black door, exploding sheds, an open-fronted barn with four gypsy caravans parked side by side, orchards, potato fields, valuable horses and a granddad who was said to have died with a ticket for Liverpool in a pocket. It had been a bloody long hell of a day, but thank God for Tess’s memory and her ability to describe her childhood home.

House calls. Always children in the mix, sometimes a gran who remembered vividly being in Mayo, often a parent whose dead progenitor had spoken about the wild days. So many tales, so much vivid description. From time to time, they weren’t the right Rileys, and those occasions were easier, because there was no calling over the shoulder, ‘Mary, come and tell about the day when the granda caught on fire and you all beat him half to death with rugs and blankets.’ Endless cups of tea, pieces of cake, slices of buttered soda bread, the odd tot of Irish whiskey. In the end, Don had become an automaton, nodding and shaking his head as appropriate, grateful for the journeys in Joe’s car from one Riley address to the next. If he’d heard that name one more time, he might have ended up in a mental hospital with rubber walls.

He pushed away his plate. He felt as if he would never eat another meal in his life. This Irish lot seemed to be of the feast-or-starve school of thought, as most Rileys had gone from nothing to plenty, and they shared their plenty with visitors, all but nailing them to their chairs until they’d consumed a variety of offerings. Eating was compulsory; the refusal of food and drink constituted an insult against the cook of each establishment. Insult the provider of sustenance, and you annoyed a whole family, so going with the flow had been their only option. That was another thing about Injun Joe – he clearly had a bottomless appetite.

Tess returned. ‘I’m sorry, love. Are you ill?’

Don shook his weary head. ‘Just weary-worn. I’ve been learning my new trade in case he wants me out on field work.’

She tutted. ‘You’re not fit for field work. Did he not give you a tractor?’

Knowing that his wife was being deliberately daft, he shook his head sadly. ‘They’re not used to agricultural doings down the Dingle and in Sefton Park. We were looking for somebody who’s gone missing. I mean, most of the time, I’ll be in the office taking details and booking appointments, but Joe says I need to know what the business is about. He’s quite right, I suppose.’

Tess sat opposite what was left of her poor husband. ‘Who’s gone missing?’ she asked.

And he wanted to tell her that she was the missing person, that he and Joe had been searching for her huge clan. At this rate, they’d need to book St George’s Hall for the reunion. ‘Erm . . . a bloke with three kiddies and a young wife. He went to the shop for bread and milk last week, never came back.’

‘I wonder why he did that?’ she pondered aloud.

‘His wife’s a mitherer. He was probably escaping from prison.’

Tess pursed her lips. ‘Are you saying I’m a mitherer, Don Compton?’

‘I wouldn’t dare. You’d only batter me with the nearest weapon, and there are too many knives and rolling pins in this kitchen for my liking.’

She jumped to her feet. ‘Right, let me have five minutes. I’ll run you a nice, hot bath, then I’ll give you a massage.’

Alone again, Don closed his eyes. So many of them. Siobans, Oonaghs, scores of Marys, several Theresas, Maureens, Kathleens, Eileens. There were half a dozen Josephs, a few Johns, some Jacks, one Malachi, a Finn, a shedload of Michaels – was it time to stop? Padraigs, then the English version, Patrick, and some fellows who knew other folk who’d married Rileys and moved on to America. A Jean and a Joan were twins in Canada, while a Stella had gone to Australia on the ten-pound ticket and now owned thousands of sheep. Though according to the tale-teller, she was having a bit of trouble with rabbits and a giant kangaroo . . . Oh, how he needed sleep.

He kept telling his mind to stop, but it wouldn’t be quiet. Had he opened a can of worms, or had he found a way of bringing peace to Tess’s haunted nights? Joe had kept all the details; Don didn’t want any written evidence in his house. No more was expected of him. The boss would do the rest alone; there were people in West Derby, Bootle and Waterloo, but Don had done his bit. The Waterloo people included Tess’s double, the one who had survived that terrible Cuttle fellow.

He was sore. The walking had hurt, as had the reading of fading parish registers. ‘I’d better get my eyes tested.’ He glanced down at his dinner. Little bits of lamb fat were creating white globules in the gravy. Don felt sick. Would this day ever end? He ached all over his body – even his hair felt sore. That was daft. Nobody had sore hair, because it died as soon as it struggled through the skin. With his body aching from top to toe, he slumped in the chair and closed his eyes.

‘Don?’

This time, his smile was real. The nasty, selfish wife had disappeared, had been replaced by a piece of magic by which he was fast becoming totally bewitched. She often bathed him. Some instinct born of ancestors who had been forced to self-medicate had come through in her engineering, and she owned miracle hands. His leg, a limb that had suffered the cruel ministrations of qualified doctors, had never been hurt by the new Tess. She knew how to handle it; in fact, she knew how to manage the rest of him, too. ‘Coming,’ he called. Oh yes, he would place himself in her hands any day of the week, because she owned a great gift. For her and only for her, he would climb the Everest that the staircase had suddenly become.

He lay in the roll-top bath while Tess massaged his head. She wasn’t gentle, wasn’t harsh, since she seemed to know exactly how much pressure to apply in order to lower his level of tension. Gradually, he relaxed until he courted the edge of sleep while she began on his neck and shoulders. Even the pain in his beleaguered leg lessened as he gave himself up to the power of her fingers.

The leg would remain untouched until the rest of him was dried, powdered, and on the bed. The leg didn’t get powdered, since she used oil on it. She was wonderful. Tess could do this job professionally, perhaps even as therapy within the health service, but she was happy with her dry-cleaning round, her football pools, the family and her famous birds and squizzles. She’d settled. Yet he had been sure for so many years that she would never be satisfied with her lot.

In the beautiful bedroom, she worked on his leg. Although shrapnel had blown his knee to smithereens, Tess was aware of referred pain. It took several paths, and she traced each one, smoothing out knots in tissues, finally arriving at the injured joint. ‘Don?’

‘What, love?’

‘You know they’ve moved?’

‘Who’s moved?’

‘The bits of metal and stuff.’

‘Shrapnel.’

‘Yes. They’re trying to get out. It’s as if your knee finally recognizes them as foreign bodies. We’ve money saved. Rodney Street or Harley Street – let’s pay someone to have a look. Let’s beat the queues and go to the front for a change. It’s time somebody examined it to see can they get the pieces out.’

Ah, there was her bit of Irish. Just occasionally, her words arrived rearranged by habits collected in childhood, during the hungry time when her siblings had stolen her food, when she had been cold in bed.

‘Don?’

‘What?’

‘Shall we go private?’

‘On one condition.’

‘Oh?’

‘Lock the door and lie down with me.’

‘But you’re tired.’

‘That’ll be why I’m on the bed, then.’ For some beautiful things, a man was never too tired.

Seamus was like a flea trying to choose between two dogs. He couldn’t seem to keep still. Fortunately, his mother was out quite often, though when she did clap eyes on her son, she voiced the opinion that there was something up with him. ‘What is the matter?’ she asked after tea on Wednesday. ‘Come on. You know I’ll get it out of you before bedtime.’

‘Nothing’s the matter,’ he lied, nose pointing downwards to his shoes.

‘Look at me.’

He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want to look at her because he and Dad shared a secret of gigantic proportions. ‘What?’ he asked sullenly.

‘What? What?’ Her hands were on her hips. ‘You’re bright red. Have you got a temperature?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Then you’re hiding something from me. Like when you were going off to find your big brothers and we thought you’d be camping with school. I can always tell. That’s one thing in life you can be sure of, Seamus: I always know when you’re hiding something.’ It was true. The lad was completely transparent, and Maureen thanked God for that. Had her two older sons been as easy to read, she might have managed to keep them away from the corrupting element of London’s East End and its boxing clubs.

He shuffled about a bit. Mam was the one person who made him shuffle more than Gran did. And she had a temper. Gran had been heard to declare that their Maureen’s temper could rip the skin off a rice pudding from a distance of forty paces. Then an idea lit up his mind. Pauline Critchley. Yes, he would tell her about Pauline. ‘Mam?’

‘What?’ Her arms were folded.

‘Pauline Critchley says she loves me.’ Well, at least it was a truth. ‘She kissed me.’

‘Where?’

‘Behind the air raid shelter on the playing field.’

‘That’s a terrible place to be kissed.’

He nodded. ‘Makes me nervous. I never know when she’s going to jump on me. I’m not safe. I’m going to need eyes in the back of my head. She says we’re getting married and having two children, one of each kind.’

Maureen straightened her face as best she could. ‘Did she kiss you on your cheek or on your lips? That was my question.’

‘Cheek,’ he answered. ‘And I got into trouble because I hit her. See, the way I look at it, if a person kisses you when you’re not expecting it, that is doing an assault. So I clouted her.’

‘Where? And don’t say behind the air raid shelter.’

‘In her stomach. And she goes running off to old Vera screaming and shouting and—’

‘Old who?’

‘Sister Veronica. The tall one with a face like a very wrinkled prune. I got a hundred lines. So that’ll be why I’ve gone all red, cos I am in a very bad mood.’

‘Right. Are you sure that’s all?’

‘Is it not enough?’ he asked. What did Mam want? Jam and whipped cream on top? ‘Mam, I don’t want to be kissed by Pauline Critchley. She’s got warts. When she grows up, she’ll get a black cat and a broomstick and hairs growing out of them. Her warts, I mean.’ Seamlessly, he carried on. ‘Is it all right if I go to Mark Tattersall’s house? He got a new train set for his birthday and he said—’

‘Off you go, then.’

‘Thanks, Mam.’ He left at speed, slamming the front door in his wake.

Maureen sank into a chair. Everybody was a bit odd. No, not quite everybody. Mam was vague and in slow motion, but she’d been quite ill with bronchitis. She kept staring through the windows at Scouse Alley, as if expecting ghosts to walk towards her. Three ghosts? Was Mam waiting to be haunted by the men dispatched by her son-in-law?

Dad wasn’t quite up to scratch, but he was probably reacting to his wife’s altered behaviour. He’d had a few bad nights, too, what with looking after Mam and being kept awake by her hacking cough. Reen and Jimmy were OK to the point of boring, as there had been no changes in their department. God love her, but there was no real evidence of life in their Reen. She had a new dining suite ordered, but there was no sign of pregnancy. At least she only had one subject to complain about now.

Then there was Tom. Like Seamus, he was a bit jumpy, though he didn’t hop from foot to foot. Tom’s unease displayed itself in words, or in the lack of them. She couldn’t allow him to slide back into depression, so she’d agreed to go out with him tomorrow night. And she’d picked up a lovely dress and full-length coat from Dad’s stall, completely unworn and with all the shop tags still attached. It was a deep pink. She had to think about accessories. Yes, that would keep her occupied for half an hour.

Seamus was not at Mark Tattersall’s house; no, he was freezing to death in the old prefab. He’d hung on to a key, and he came back from time to time just to remember stuff. Voices from the past seemed to echo like his footfalls in the empty space. All that remained here were shapes where pictures had hung. When he played his torch over the walls, he could pick out where the calendar had been, where photographs of himself, Reen, Finbar and Michael had occupied space for many years. They were like echoes, too, but he saw rather than heard them.

Sister Olivia had told Seamus that he had a clever way with words, and that he might be a writer when he grew up. Or perhaps he could become a journalist. No. He wanted to drive trains or buses. Or he could join the RAF and learn to fly planes. But first he had to survive some very difficult days that would include a small irritation named Pauline Critchley.

He lit a fire, and the smoke blew back at him. Mam would go mad if she saw him now, playing with fire in a house where he had no place. But he could think here, because no one was watching. He remembered Reen and her dolls, recalled being punished for drawing a Hitler moustache on a thing she’d named Emily. Fifteen years old at the time, yet Reen had hung on to those nasty, staring things with pot faces, posh clothes and real hair. Emily stood up on her own unless one of Seamus’s cars knocked her over. Yes. He nodded; his cars had knocked the doll off its feet repeatedly. More punishment. It was his fault, because Reen’s dolls were kept on shelves, and he used to lift them down and use them as targets. His family had endured its troubles, and he had contributed to their pain.

Now this. Gran was going off to foreign parts tomorrow night, and his parents were intending to follow her. Well, Dad was, but Mam didn’t know yet. Gran had looked troubled when informed that she and Granddad would be looking after Seamus, but she hadn’t been able to say anything. Because once poor Granddad nodded off, she would be away to catch the London coach in Liverpool. All hell would be let loose. A missing mam would take the place of Reen’s complaint about dining-room furniture, while poor Granddad was going to be confused and hurt.

He crept nearer to the fire and closed his eyes. In his head, he heard them all. Mam, after a night containing too many Guinnesses, screaming when her head was dunked in a sink filled with cold water, Gran berating her drunken daughter, Dad grumbling as he stood over his toolbox in preparation for dealing with breakages, Reen weeping because Mam had shown her up, neighbours grouping outside for a glimpse of the fun. Saturday Night Theatre, the locals had labelled Mam’s falls from grace.

Dad making kites. He had made one for his son, then one for each child in Stanley Square. He was like that, Dad. He helped anybody and everybody as long as he could manage financially and time-wise. Kids came to him with broken bikes or broken hearts, and Tom Walsh dealt as best he could with every problem presented to him. Poor Dad. A two-hundred-mile drive with a shrieking wife in the passenger seat wasn’t going to be pleasant.

In this very room, Seamus had listened while the Cooperative Society had been explained to him. In a way, the customers owned the shops and they shared in dividends at the year’s end. ‘That’s why, as manager, I get no perks, because we all share. It makes sense, especially for poor people.’ Dad was a good man, a brilliant man. And he had to go to London to stop Gran getting hurt while she did something about getting Michael and Finbar back.

Seamus had found out all he could about the Kray twins. They were good at boxing, and they had an older brother named Charlie, and a nice mam called Violet. Reggie was in prison, Ronnie was at home. Did Gran know that? In spite of all their misdeeds, the two men were capable of acts of great kindness, while their mother was honoured by them at all times. Would Mrs Kray like Gran? Would Mr Ronald Kray like her? After all, Gran could be a bit sharp at times.

The thing about Irish women was that they came in two sorts. Perhaps he was guilty of over-simplification, but he was only a kid. There were the loud ones like Gran, and they showed you up all over the place. Then there were the quiet ones. They went to Mass every day and kept a bowl of holy water just inside their front doors. Every time they went in or out, they blessed themselves against the evil world they were about to enter, or to sanctify the home to which they had just returned. They wore mantillas, dark clothes and flat shoes, and always carried big prayer books with holy pictures used as bookmarks.

Nuns were the same. If they were loud, they tended not to use canes or straps, because they could shout you down; the quiet ones were more dangerous, as they said little and let their weapons do the talking. Given a choice, Seamus would opt for the loud ones every time.

Gran was a loud one. He hoped with all his young heart that she wouldn’t shout at Mrs Kray. According to Seamus’s small amount of research, nobody shouted at Mrs Kray, because her lads wouldn’t allow it. But sometimes Gran couldn’t help herself. She climbed on her high horse and stayed there until she fell off exhausted, or until she became bored.

However, the Kray household seemed to be on the side of Finbar and Michael. Months ago, Seamus had eavesdropped on a whispered conversation from which he had gleaned this fact. The Krays had helped Finbar and Michael escape from London. All he could do now was hope for the best. By tomorrow night, he’d be in Gran’s back bedroom, Gran would be on her way to London, and so would Mam and Dad. ‘I’ll be looking after Granddad when it should be the other way round,’ he told the space around him. Oh well. There was nothing he could do, so he had best go home.

This was home, yet it wasn’t. ‘I miss you,’ he told the little house.

He doused the fire, switched off his torch and walked into the kitchen, inserting the key into the back door. No light was needed to enable him to perform that small action, as he knew this place even in darkness. And he suddenly realized that this might well be the last time he would come here. The awareness of life’s transience, a concept that had taunted every poet down the ages, suddenly hit him. There were no certainties. Nothing stood still. Soon, there would be no prefabs.

In the end, Rosh decided to have the celebration at home. She couldn’t just sit back and fail to celebrate the wedding of Mam and her new husband. So she recruited the residents of Lawton Road and cobbled together a plot that might just work with some luck and a good following wind.

When Anna and Eric were dressed and ready, they were sent to the café for a meeting with the Collingfords about dry-cleaning and the possibility of opening a functioning unit with all necessary machinery in the rooms above café and shop. As soon as they had left, a mad flurry ensued; neighbours arrived with food and decorations while Roy, Rosh and the children ran upstairs to don their best clothes.

By the time all five were ready, the ground floor of the house had been transformed. There were fairy lights on the walls, and plates of food with a wedding cake at the centre on the table. A huge sign wishing the couple well was hanging over the piano where Philly had sorted out music ready to play. Alice, pretty in yellow, wore a crown she’d saved from Christmas, while Kieran stood in the hallway ready to warn everyone as soon as he saw Gran and Eric returning. Rosh looked at him for a few moments. He was almost adult, and she ached as she realized that he was all but ready to move on in the world. Her son would be a great doctor, she knew it. Wherever Phil was, he would be proud of their boy.

The kitchen was a drinker’s paradise, with three or four types of beer and several wines, white, red and rosé. It was going to be a great night apart from one small fly in the ointment. Anna didn’t like surprises.

Neighbours rushed about applying finishing touches, while Roy simply stood and stared at his fiancée. God, she was beautiful. The dress, dove grey and deceptively simple, showed off every line, every curve of her body. She had no idea, had she? Or had she? There was a little devil at the core of Roy’s intended; she possibly knew that the eyes of all the men were on her.

‘They’re coming.’ This stage-whisper came from Kieran. With the rest of the neighbours jostling for space, he squeezed his way into the kitchen. ‘Quiet,’ he ordered before switching off the lights. Rosh and Roy waited in the doorway.

When Anna arrived, she failed to notice that her daughter had changed into her finery. ‘They’ve given us over a hundred pounds’ worth of china. For a wedding present. Who told them we were married?’

Rosh offered no reply. Roy coughed in an attempt to cover up a giggle from the darkened kitchen.

Anna rolled on. ‘Bone china. Can you see this fellow here with his little finger sticking out while he drinks tea? And if he put a bigger finger through the cup handle, he’d need goose grease to get it out. Or surgery.’ She peered at her beloved Roisin. ‘You’re up to something.’

‘She’s always up to something,’ Roy replied. ‘In fact, the whole road’s been up to something. I tried, Anna, but there was no holding them back.’

Light suddenly flooded the house while Philly played a wedding march. The Collingfords arrived with a dozen bottles of champagne. Mother Collingford wedged herself into a corner chair with her own bottle of bubbly and a glass, and there she remained for the duration. Alice, who had a fondness for her elders, kept the old lady fed and entertained. Had Alice not taken it upon herself to supervise and feed her, the poor woman would probably have suffered alcohol poisoning.

Wedding presents were opened and exclaimed upon. Anna looked at a pretty figurine before turning to her husband. ‘Don’t hang your cap on this,’ she warned, ‘or I’ll hang you on my line.’

For the first time ever in public, Eric swiped back. ‘Listen, you. That’s my house, and what’s mine is yours, but as I said before, that doesn’t make you the boss.’

Neighbours within earshot froze for a few seconds. They knew Anna Riley of old, and she wasn’t one to allow anyone else the last word. But it seemed that she had finally met her match, because she simply laughed and blew Eric a kiss. The party revived, and Philly began to play a medley of wartime ballads.

Under the cover of the inevitable sing-song, Roy and Rosh slipped into the hall where they found an extremely odd-looking man. Rosh picked up the wedding gift she had wrapped so carefully for Mam and Eric, but she kept her eyes fixed on the intruder. ‘Yes? Can we help you?’

‘Well, I seem to have come to the right place at the wrong time.’

‘We’re in the middle of a party,’ Rosh said. What a strange way for a grown man to dress. He wore a Stetson, a fringed jacket and denim jeans. He dressed very adventurously for a person so clearly on the brink of middle age.

‘But it’s the right place, because you are the spitting image of Tess Compton.’

Rosh dropped her package and thanked goodness that she’d bought bedlinens instead of glass or porcelain. ‘The hysterectomy,’ she replied almost without thinking. ‘I was in a single room because of . . . because of what happened.’

He held out his hand. ‘Joe Dodds. Private detective looking for Rileys and anyone related to Rileys. You are one hundred per cent Riley.’

She shook the proffered hand. ‘Fifty per cent only. My mother was an O’Connor, then a Riley, now a Holt. I was a Riley, then an Allen, soon to be a Baxter. Mam and I are working our way through the alphabet. This is Roy Baxter, my current intended.’

Joe’s mouth twitched. Of one thing he was certain: they were all characters. ‘So your dad’s dead, I take it?’

‘He is. And this is my mother’s wedding reception. Let’s go across the road, because she doesn’t do surprises. The party’s enough – she couldn’t be doing with much more excitement.’

As soon as they had settled in his front room, Roy spoke. ‘There’s a Tom,’ he said. ‘His wife’s Maureen, and she’s an older version of my Rosh. Tom has a job at the Co-op. His ma-in-law feeds dock workers during the week and runs an Irish club some evenings.’

Joe burst out laughing. ‘Oh yes. That’ll be Paddy. She’s a star turn. Took over an old building that used to be owned by Lights – they made lampshades and the like. Paddy added a section on, turned it into an L-shaped building, but she keeps the newer bit partitioned off while she feeds dockers. So Lights is its evening name, and they call it Scouse Alley during the weekdays. Maureen is Paddy’s daughter, and she married Tom. Yes, I’ve met them.’

Rosh was taking it all in. ‘Then Paddy must be my mother’s sister-in-law.’

Again, Joe laughed. ‘I couldn’t possibly make a family tree. I think you’ll all have to work on that after the reunion. We’ve decided to hold it at Lights some time in late spring or early summer. Are you game for that?’

‘As long as it doesn’t interfere with our wedding. Don’t do anything before the middle of April. We’re having a honeymoon down south, probably Cornwall.’

‘Right you are.’ With a flourish, he handed her something. ‘My card.’

Rosh looked at it. ‘Injun Joe?’

‘That’s me, ma’am. I’m an honorary member of two tribes, and blood brother to several native Americans.’

‘How exciting,’ she exclaimed. ‘So you go and live with them sometimes?’

‘I intend to retire there. It’s a life worth living and, of course, my wife’s there. Daughter of a chief, no less. We have two children and wonderful neighbours. Most of my income goes to my family. Anyway, I must let you get back to your party.’

Roy and Rosh waved him off.

Across the road, Anna was waiting at the door. ‘Who on God’s good earth was that? Looked like he’d stepped out of a silent movie.’

‘It’s Hiawatha, I think,’ Rosh mused aloud. ‘Or was Hiawatha a woman?’

Roy wasn’t sure, and he said so.

But Anna was too excited to listen. ‘We’re going on a train and a boat,’ she announced proudly. ‘Isle of Wight, where the old queen died. Mr Collingford has a house there, so he’s lending it to me and Eric for our honeymoon. They’ve got servants.’

Rosh tried to imagine Mam with servants, though the exercise was a complete failure. For Anna Holt, the kitchen was her natural habitat. Servants? They might well be sent packing with little spotty red handkerchiefs on sticks over their shoulders, plus instructions about never darkening certain doors again. The Collingfords could lose their staff. ‘That’s lovely, Mam,’ she said. ‘I believe the Isle of Wight’s a pretty place.’ God help the Isle of Wight. Was it big enough for her mother’s personality?

‘And thank you, Roisin,’ Anna continued. ‘We’ve really enjoyed ourselves. I’m that proud of our Philly – she’s been playing something called rack man enough. It was very fiddly, but her fingers flew like butterflies over the keys. A gentle touch, she has. Of course, she’ll have got that from me, so.’

‘It was Rachmaninoff,’ said a voice from behind her. The words came from Eric, of course. ‘As for the gentle touch . . .’ The invisible man sighed heavily.

‘Isn’t that what I was after saying? Rack man enough?’ She stood back to allow Roy and Rosh to enter the house. ‘And Alice all settled – she never had asparagus syndrome, did she?’

Rosh shook her head in despair. Mam still refused to employ the real word. And the reason? It was the Irish choice, this marked tendency to make light of frightening situations, the decision to laugh in order to stem the tears. It was a strange form of bravery, yet it was courageous in its way. While Anna feared for her younger granddaughter’s welfare, she refused to show it. ‘She probably hasn’t got asparagus, Mam.’

Wicked eyes fixed on Rosh. ‘Are you taking the wotsit out of me, Roisin Allen?’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it. And I’m glad you enjoyed your party.’

The expression on the older woman’s face softened. ‘You’re a good girl, and you’ve a good man alongside of you.’

‘I know. So have you, Mam.’

‘Ah, he’s manageable.’

Eric winked at his new daughter. ‘That’s what she thinks. She knows the rules, Rosh. Stay off my allotment, let me read the paper in peace and leave me to have a lie-in on a Saturday. I love her, but she’ll not walk over me.’

Anna bit her lip and looked at the ceiling.

Rosh kept her face straight. Something had happened to Mam, and this man seemed to be the one who had interfered with her determination to retain the throne. ‘Be happy,’ ordered Roy.

Anna and Eric walked away.

Rosh took her good man’s hands in hers. She wasn’t forgetting Phil. She could never forget that wonderful husband. There were things about him that she’d always remember – like the way he tilted his head when pretending to tell her off, his beautiful smile and his terrible toast. It was always either anaemic or black as hell. ‘I’ll never be sorry I married him, and I’ll never be pleased that he died,’ she said before pausing for thought. ‘But I’m glad I have you. Do you understand? Do you know you’re very special to me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t get too cocky, though.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Or I’ll deal with you.’

‘Right.’

She stared at him. ‘Are you laughing at me, Baxter?’

‘I wouldn’t bloody dare.’

He was laughing at her. He was laughing at her inside, where it didn’t show. Because of the party, she couldn’t do anything. Yet. ‘Just you wait,’ she mumbled before leaving him where he was.

Roy chuckled. Would it be a wet dishcloth across the head? Or might certain privileges be withdrawn? Worse still, would she set her mother on him? A black cat wove itself round his ankles. This dark character already felt sorry for him. ‘Oh, Lucy-Furry,’ he whispered. ‘You know, don’t you?’ It was going to be the dishcloth again.

Seamus was now a cat on bricks so hot that they must have been manufactured in hell. She was going. She was going tonight, but he felt sure in his bones that she would be leaving a note for Granddad. According to Mam, her parents’ marriage was the best ever, so there had to be a note.

A stair creaked. Her suitcase was under the stairs, brown with scarred corners, an old belt strapped round its middle in case the jumpy bits snapped open again. Blackpool. Out of the house by nine in the morning, cruet threepence a week, baths to be booked a day in advance, and don’t come back into the house before half past five, because the evening meal began at a quarter to six. A big woman in flowered aprons and navy carpet-slippers, overfed on her own importance, face twitching when the smallest suitcase burst open and Gran’s unmentionables deposited themselves in the lobby. The key was lost, so a belt of Granddad’s was promoted to a new position as guardian of Gran’s bloomers.

Another creak. Seamus wrapped a pillow round his head, willing his grandfather to stay asleep. New houses shouldn’t creak, should they? Dad had explained about timbers expanding and contracting in response to temperature fluctuations, but somebody should have found a cure by now. They – whoever they were – had dealt with diphtheria and were on their way with smallpox, so surely a creak could be eliminated? It wasn’t much to ask.

He replaced his pillow. Even the silence seemed loud. There was probably no such thing as complete silence, anyway, what with cats and dogs fooling about, and drunks on their way home from a night on the ale. Granddad was snoring. Sometimes, he woke himself with a very loud snore, but he’d better not do that tonight.

Seamus wasn’t sure about God. Being unsure about God was probably a sin, but only if there was a God. So just in case there was a God, he apologized for being uncertain and begged for Granddad to stay asleep. The longer he slept, the further away Gran would be, and what she was doing probably needed doing. Finbar and Michael would want to come for a visit and bring their children, even if one was only a girl.

It was possible to leave the house without slamming the front door. All you needed was to keep the key in the Yale, hold it turned to the open position, then allow the lock to slide home with barely a click. She’d gone. She must have gone, because the London coach was due to leave in half an hour, and it was quite a walk to town.

Then there was Mam and Dad to think about. They’d been to a play or a concert, then on to a restaurant. Oh, God. If there was a God. Mam and Dad would be closing in on Gran now. She knew their car; she knew them. And how would Mam take the news that she was about to follow the London coach all the way to – where was it? Victoria, that was it. It wasn’t a train station; it was a bus depot. He needed sleep, because tomorrow was a school day, so he stretched out and counted rabbits because sheep were boring. And it was already tomorrow. And Granddad would hit the roof.

Fifteen

Tom couldn’t say anything in the restaurant until the meal was over and he’d taken a discreet indigestion tablet. Eating hadn’t been easy, though he’d managed a bit of soup and an omelette, while Maureen had consumed enough to keep the average carthorse going for a fortnight. He had steered his lovely wife away from Guinness, but she’d managed two glasses of red wine with her steak, and a healthy flush was beginning to stain her cheeks. It wasn’t just the black stuff, then. She was probably capable of getting inebriated on just about anything – with the possible exception of dandelion and burdock or household bleach.

‘Drink your coffee, love,’ he suggested. ‘We need to be off soon.’ He was off already, he told himself inwardly. He was right off his head for even considering this London business. It could even turn out to be dangerous, and he wasn’t armed this time; neither was his wife. Daniel entering the lion’s den must have felt almost as scared.

Sometimes, Tom imagined that he had never truly regained his sanity, and this was one of those occasions. Only the mad would jump into choppy waters without a lifebelt. One of his eyelids suddenly developed a twitch, and he hoped it wouldn’t be noticed. She never missed stuff like that, never missed much when he came to think. Like her mother, his wife was becoming Eyes and Ears of the World, though compared to Paddy this one here was a mere apprentice, still wet behind the lovely little ears.

Maureen was taking her time, savouring every moment, every last drop of the cream that had accompanied her lemon meringue pie, every mouthful of coffee. But she clearly remembered where she was, since she refrained from licking the pudding dish. He had to smile in spite of the situation. This wife of his certainly liked to taste life, preferably in large chunks.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘A few minutes won’t make much difference. Seamus is next door with Mam and Dad, so he’s safe enough. Let’s hope they are, because he’s been like a cat on hot bricks this past week.’ She looked round the restaurant. It was definitely the poshest place she’d ever eaten in; in fact, it was probably the most expensive restaurant in the whole of Liverpool. Her new suit looked wonderful, so she was as well dressed as any other woman, and probably prettier than most.

Sighing happily, she sat back. Oh, she could get used to this, all right. She might work in Scouse Alley and on Paddy’s Market, but she could hold her own in any company. That was one of the benefits granted to beautiful people. ‘Why do you keep looking at your watch, Tom?’ He was beginning to remind her of their youngest son, all fidgeting and anxious glances. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘What with you and our Seamus, it’s been like a circus in our house. I nearly sent for a safety net last night in case I hit the roof, because you were both getting on my nerves. Come on, you. Out with it. And your eyelid’s twitching a bit.’

Could he tell her in here, or should he wait till they were in the car? In the car, she might clatter him with her bag, and they could well be too late to follow the London coach if she required restraining. This upmarket place was almost empty, but they might be thrown out and banned for life if she kicked off in here. And if police were summoned . . . Yet he was desperate, so he waded in because there was no time to test the water. ‘We’re not going home tonight,’ he said quietly. ‘And I’m warning you just once – any loud noise out of you, Maureen, and I’m going through that door on my own. Do you understand?’

She didn’t understand, but she nodded.

‘We’re driving to London in about twenty minutes, so get used to the idea.’

Her jaw dropped for a split second. ‘In the dark?’

‘In the dark. The coach just off Lime Street leaves at midnight, and we have to be on its tail. Don’t start. One false move out of you, and I will definitely go on my own. I’m taking no nonsense this time. Whatever you want to do, I’m off to London.’

‘On the coach?’

‘In the car.’

‘But why do you—‘

‘No buts, girl. For once in your life, just do as you’re told. I’ve no time for questions and mithering. It’s like when you had to . . .’ He looked round and decided that the other late-night diners were far enough away. ‘Like when you had to give me the gun at the wedding. It was an executive decision I felt forced to make. Now, I’ve paid the bill and left a tip, so let’s be having you.’

She blinked stupidly. ‘What’s the coach station got to do with it?’

‘Your mother.’

‘Eh?’ Maureen’s voice raised itself.

‘Don’t shout,’ he said sternly. ‘Your mother’s going to London overnight. A man from some Irish club’s meeting the bus in the morning and taking her to see Mrs Kray somewhere in the East End.’

Seconds ticked by. ‘Why?’ she asked eventually.

‘To get our two sons out of whatever difficulty caused our Reen’s wedding to turn into a bloodbath. The Krays are on our side. Your mam’s trying to get some help so our lads can come out of hiding. They can’t spend the rest of their lives keeping a low profile, and your mam knows that.’

She folded her arms. ‘She’s been ill. Look, you can drive round to Lime Street and drag her off the coach. Her chest isn’t right, and she shouldn’t be taking all this on herself, should she? I mean, she could end up with double pneumonia, and that’ll do nobody any good, will it? She could end up in hospital for weeks, and we don’t want that.’

‘No,’ he answered. ‘We don’t want that. She may need looking after tomorrow when she gets where she’s going. That’s why you’ll be paying a visit to the Kray house with her. I’ve a feeling it’ll be something like a mothers’ meeting, so I’ll stay in the car. Come on. I’ve put a few things in the boot in case you and your mam decide to sleep over.’

Maureen rose to her feet. Surely this was some kind of dream? She needed to wake up and push herself back to normal. ‘Why don’t I just travel on the coach with her?’

‘You think she’d allow that? Look, she’d go mad, you know she would. Paddy will put herself in danger, but she wouldn’t want you doing the same. She would get off the bus and bugger off home. Then she’d go through it all again, and we might not manage to stop her or keep up with her. But when we get to London tomorrow, it’ll be too late for her to kick off.’

‘Oh, my God. I can’t believe all this has gone on behind my back and—’

‘Go to the ladies’ room,’ he ordered. ‘It may be a while before we get another chance. I’m off to the men’s. We’ve a long night in front of us. That coach makes more stops than the bus to Southport.’

When they met up again, Maureen was toe-tapping in the open porch. The weather wasn’t good, and her breath hung on the air each time she exhaled. What if it snowed? Worse still, what if they hit frozen fog? He’d packed her bag without telling her. How long had he known about Mam and London? Who’d told him? Why hadn’t he told her? It was her mother, after all.

As he approached the double doors that led to the exterior, Tom noticed the foot. The foot was not a good sign; toe-tapping had been known to act as harbinger for handbag-swinging, words that should never see the light of day even on a dark night, and broken windows. If she broke this lot of glass, it might cost hundreds to replace. But she didn’t have a cast-iron frying pan, so the chances of smashed panes were minimal. He, however, might get a thick ear, and he didn’t fancy driving through the night in pain. She needed dealing with immediately, before she got completely out of hand.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked before Tom could frame a single word.

‘I’ll tell you in the car once we get behind the coach. Until then, button it, Maureen. I mean it. You start lashing out with words or handbag, and I’ll dump you in a ditch. You’ve had all your own way for long enough. Anyway, I’m giving up being a battered husband. This is for Finbar and Michael, so if you don’t care about your sons, bugger off home now and I’ll go by myself.’ His heart was beating like a drum in a marching band.

‘Who do you think you’re talking to, Tom Walsh?’

He gazed up and down the street. ‘Well, seeing as you’re the only one here, I must be talking to you. Unless the invisible man’s joined us. If he has, tell him to come back later, because I can’t see him at the moment.’

‘Don’t try to be clever,’ she snapped.

Right, that was it. ‘I don’t have to try.’ The words were forced through Tom’s gritted teeth. ‘I work for a nationwide company, and I’m about to join the board as Manager Representative. I can forecast trends, order correctly to the last ounce, predict what’ll be the next individual big seller, and take the rug out from under any salesman who tries to pull the wool over Co-op eyes. So trying isn’t necessary. Trying is what you are, because you’d try the patience of angels, saints, and the bar staff at the Eagle and Child, who are noted for their tolerant attitude.’

Maureen’s jaw dropped again, so she snapped it shut. She was beginning to realize that the gentle soul she’d married was fast approaching the end of his tether.

‘Come on,’ he ordered before walking away.

She staggered behind him on heels that weren’t easy. If she’d known about London, she’d have brought something more sensible to change into, but nobody ever told her anything, did they? And he wouldn’t have brought her make-up. Very few men understood the value of war paint when it came to unusual situations.

Tom was mulling over a different unusual situation. Roy from Waterloo, who had helped Tom climb out of a pit named despair, had turned out to be almost a relative. Injun Joe and a chap named Don were trying to round up the Rileys. There was one here right behind Tom, a part-Riley of the female persuasion, and Riley women weren’t easy. He wondered whether Injun Joe might have bitten off more than he could either chew or smoke in his peace pipe, because Maureen, whom Tom loved dearly, was a difficult little besom who spoke with forked tongue. If the others were anything like Maureen and Paddy, Injun Joe was going to need all his warriors and a bit of curare to dip his arrows in.

‘Tom?’

He stopped and turned. ‘What?’

‘Help me. These shoes are awkward.’

She was a beautiful besom. Paddy, who was a tall, well-built woman, had been a stunner in her time, and her daughter, slighter of frame, was another pretty one. ‘Come on, love,’ he urged. ‘Take your shoes off and I’ll carry you to the car.’ He would carry her for the rest of his life if necessary. Nothing was ever perfect, but Maureen was still the woman of his dreams.

Another nightmare that might register on the Richter scale. Tess was fighting her way out of the involuntary paralysis that is a companion to real sleep. Her voice was returning to her. ‘It’s mine,’ she muttered. ‘Give it back, give it back.’

Don reached up for the cord and switched on an overhead light. She started beating him with curled fists, and her eyes were slightly open. ‘Come on, my beautiful girl,’ he whispered. ‘Get past this. What about your squirrels and your birds? Who’ll look after them if you’re too tired in the morning?’ He gripped her flailing arms before planting a demanding kiss on her parted lips. It worked. She knew he was here; she knew she was not alone.

Eyelids fluttered before raising themselves fully. When her arms were freed, she wrapped them round him. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Dear God, I’m getting worse. I shouldn’t be hitting you. It’s not your fault.’

She was getting worse. ‘Tess, it seems the safer we are, with us all working now and a nice house to live in, the more you have to lose. And because you’re asleep, you can’t reason with yourself, and I should understand better than most. Many’s the night I’ve been on that beach with dead mates in bits spread all round me.’

‘I know.’

He planted a chaste, matrimonial kiss on her forehead. ‘Baby, we have to pull you out of it. Bugger my knee, because this is more important.’

‘Oh yes? Are you sure?’

He nodded. ‘I’ll nip down and do us both a mug of cocoa, eh? No falling asleep before I get back.’ He peeled back the covers and stood up. ‘Read your magazine. There’s an article about Skaters’ Trails carpet being the worst thing invented since original sin. It’ll remind you about your good taste.’

‘Oh, shut up, Gordon.’

‘Don’t you “Gordon” me, or I’ll tan that pretty little bum.’

She plumped her pillows and leaned against them. ‘Promises,’ she snapped.

In the kitchen, Don made the half-milk half-water cocoa. While it was heating, he noticed the mousetrap on the floor. It wasn’t the old one, the one that killed small rodents; this was a cage with a lump of cheese inside. It was designed so that the animal would be trapped, but not hurt. Smiling to himself, he shook his head slowly. She was a character, all right. The woman who had been a nightmare was now a dream, but her dreams were nightmares. Twin tears travelled down his face. The bad was rooted deeply within her, so a long shovel would be required to dig it out.

The doctor, while unwilling to discuss too thoroughly the ills of another patient, had spoken in general terms about childhood trauma and the effect it might have in later years. Hunger and physical abuse could leave a soul bruised for a lifetime, but treatment was available. Should a patient require private care, he would gladly write a letter of introduction to a Rodney Street therapist.

So, if it was to be a straight choice between a difficult knee and the mending of Tess – well, there was no contest. Physical pain was a nuisance, but he could go on a waiting list and take his turn. No, he was not prepared to jump a queue for himself while Tess was in such dire need. There were people who would listen to her, strangers schooled in the art of counselling. She needed a friendly ear attached to someone dispassionate, a professional who knew how to extract the terrors and deal with them.

He carried the cocoa upstairs on a little tray. She was sitting bolt upright, hands clasped round raised knees. ‘Don?’

‘What? Here’s your cocoa.’

‘Thanks.’ She took her mug. ‘You know what?’

‘Me? I don’t know anything, love. Thick as a brick, me.’

‘I’m serious. You know how selfish children are? Remember our Sean pinching Anne-Marie’s banana when he already had his own?’

‘I suppose so. She was as bad, though. They both grabbed what they could and when they could.’

‘Exactly.’ She paused. ‘They were hungry, too.’

‘Listen, sweetheart. Our kids were well fed and well enough upholstered to be a couple of armchairs.’

She shook her head. ‘Not them. I mean my brothers and sisters back in Ireland all those years ago. See, a kiddy is centred inside itself. Boy or girl, it knows pain and hunger and running about for no reason at all. Like squizzles. Just little animals. Truth is, I wouldn’t know or care what the others had to eat. I concentrated on me.’

Don sipped his cocoa. ‘Survival instinct.’ She was analysing herself; at the same time, she was taking under consideration the needs of other family members. Was this the beginning of the end? Could she talk herself out of a dilemma that had lasted for so many years?

‘I was the easiest target.’ For minutes, she sat and said nothing. Then, finally, she wondered aloud where they all were. How carefully she had avoided mentioning them until now. ‘They won’t have crossed oceans,’ she said quietly. ‘We were all sick coming across from Ireland. None of us had sea legs. I had no legs at all, so I lay on deck trying to muster the strength to jump overboard and have done with it.’

‘Might they go on aeroplanes?’ Don suggested.

Tess shrugged. ‘Where we lived, I think we’d only just caught up with the invention of the wheel. I can’t see our lot putting their lives in the care of a big metal tube in the sky. They’ll be around. Somewhere.’ She sighed. ‘I bet they’d go mad if somebody stole from their kids. I bet they’ve forgotten what they did to me.’

‘Then your parents should have guarded you, baby.’

She laughed, though the sound arrived hollow. ‘He was always drunk, and she was worn out by his other hobby, which was sex. They’re long dead now, both of them. He drank his way to the grave. For Mammy, his death was probably a blessed release because of her nerves. He used her as a punch bag later on in life, because booze had probably deprived him of the ability to perform in bed, so he found other outlets for his aggression. She suffered. By God, she suffered until he got pushed through the gates of hell. By which time, she was a shadow. I expect she never recovered.’

Don decided to remain silent. She seemed to be getting somewhere without any help.

‘I ran when I was fifteen. Last day at school, I just packed my few bits and pieces and fled. Sent a letter to my mother, which someone would have needed to read to her. I put no address, and I got a job in a shoe shop, shared a bedsit with a girl called Paula. We slept top to toe in a single bed, but I’d never felt so free. When you met me, I was under-manager in that shop, and I had my own rooms, if you remember.’

Don drained his mug. She’d scarcely touched hers.

‘Our kids were grown when I really fell in love with you, Don. Then when I lost my insides, I knew I didn’t have to be like my mother, with loads of kids and no food. I could enjoy . . . things. I probably did have strong feelings for you, but I couldn’t show them. And the business of being a Catholic . . . well, you know how irritating that can be.’

He waited.

‘I saw Mammy’s death notice in the paper. Forgiving myself for not going to the funeral is something I’ve never managed. I suppose she had a few peaceful years without him, but I bet she remained a frightened woman. I never even visited her. How would we feel if our kids left home and never came to see us?’

‘With or without Elvis?’ he asked.

‘Oh, Don.’

‘I know and I’m sorry. Forget Elvis. I love our children and would hate to lose them.’ He paused. ‘Would you like to find your family, Tess? Do you feel ready for that?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Should he tell her? Could he tell her that Operation Riley was already under way, and that some of those discovered were her siblings? No. It would be better to present her with a fait accompli down at Scouse Alley. The decent people he had met bore no resemblance to the hungry children who had denied the existence of their little sister. ‘It might cure you,’ he suggested.

‘Let me work my way up to it, love. Come on, lights out. Let’s try to get some sleep.’

Another person suffering severe sleep deprivation was Seamus Walsh. After a doze that lasted minutes, he suffered a rude awakening. Granddad had surfaced. It was probably Gran’s medicine time, and the habit seemed to be proving hard to break. He must have found the note, because he was up and down the stairs like a yo-yo with a long string. The coach would be leaving soon, surely? And why was Granddad grunting and groaning? Something unusual was happening, and the something unusual was climbing the stairs yet again. Seamus felt as if his heart might stop at any minute.

Kevin O’Neil stood in the doorway. ‘Get dressed,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not waking our Reen, so you’ll be coming with me. We have to follow the London coach. It’s nearly time for it to set off, so don’t be dawdling and messing about.’

‘No, we don’t need to do that.’ The child squinted when light flooded the room. Electricity seemed a lot brighter than it used to be.

‘What do you mean? Come on, don’t sit there blinking as if you’re innocent. I thought you’d been a bit weird lately. What do you know? What haven’t you told me?’

The boy bit his lower lip. ‘Mam and Dad are following the coach.’ He groaned under his breath. When was he going to learn what not to say?

Kevin folded his arms. ‘You what? You knew your gran was going to London, and you said nowt? And with her chest the way it’s been? Well, we’ve no time to be picking bones, but you’ll be a bloody skeleton when we come home. Get in that van. I’ve put a mattress and bedding in the back, so crawl in and stay there with your head down. I’m posting a note through our Reen’s door.’ He left the scene.

Seamus kept his pyjamas on, piling on top the clothes he had been wearing earlier. With his outdoor coat over an arm, he went out to meet his Armageddon, which had suddenly taken on the shape of his grandfather. But Granddad was already scraping a bit of ice off his windscreen. ‘Get in,’ he hissed. ‘And shut the door properly. I don’t want you to shoot out somewhere outside Birmingham, because I need a word when we get back. You’re in trouble, lad. Very big trouble.’

When was he not in trouble? He could remember very few days on which he’d scraped through without being accused of something or other. So what was the difference? It would have been more remarkable had he not been in some kind of grief, then somebody might tell him for once that they were impressed by how good he’d been.

To give them their due, the remarks on his much improved school report had given rise to kisses – which he could have done without – book tokens, three quid in change and a kit for a Spitfire off their Reen. He was clever. He knew he was clever because even old Vera with the prune face had said so, while Sister Beetroot – really Beatrice – had declared that his compositions were good enough to enter in national competitions. He had a good imagination. Yes, he had a good imagination, and he was shut in the back of an old van with two blankets, an eiderdown, an old army greatcoat and some skirts and blouses intended for the Paddy’s Market stall. Oh, yes. As Gran might have said, it was a hard life as long as you didn’t weaken.

He couldn’t see anything. There were two little windows in the van’s rear doors, and they afforded a brief glimpse of the lit-up Liver Birds, though nothing else of interest was visible. Then the van stopped.

Kevin called over his shoulder. ‘I can see your mam and dad’s car skulking up the alley. And your gran’s on the coach.’ He tapped the steering wheel. ‘I don’t know whether to go and drag her off. Lie down. Did I tell you you could sit up?’

‘No, Granddad.’

‘Then lie down.’

‘Yes, Granddad.’

‘You taking the wee-wee, Seamus?’

‘No, Granddad.’

Kevin almost exploded. ‘Now look what you’ve made me do. The coach is pulling out. I could have got her if you hadn’t taken my mind off things.’

Seamus closed his eyes. No matter what, no matter when, no matter where or which, the ills of this world would always be placed at his feet. If somebody dropped another atom bomb on the Far East or started an avalanche in the Swiss Alps, it would be down to Seamus Walsh of Prescott Street, Bootle, Liverpool, Lancashire. Should an earthquake swallow up Buckingham Palace, he’d be the one in the Tower.

‘Your dad’s following the coach, and I’m following your dad.’

So who was daft? Seamus pondered this for a few minutes. Sensible people would sort this out. Oh well, he might as well hang for a sheep. ‘Granddad?’

‘Go to sleep.’

‘I was just thinking.’

‘God help us.’ Kevin changed gear.

Seamus continued. ‘When the coach does one of its stops, Mam and Dad should lock their car and come with us. You’d have two drivers and you could take turns. That saves petrol. Mam could have a sleep with me, then you could swap with her and have a rest while Dad drives. They can lock their car, and pick it up on the way back. It makes sense.’

For an idiot, Seamus did make a lot of sense. Kevin grinned to himself. Seamus had taken after his dad for brains, though his mam wasn’t exactly backward at coming forward, was she? ‘We’ll see, lad. Now get your head down and try for forty winks. This is going to be a long night.’

Rosh turned over. She wasn’t ready to wake up, because she’d been having a lovely dream about being on the English Riviera in springtime with Roy. There were palm trees, some exotic-looking flowers starting to bud, and clotted cream teas stolen by this county from Devonshire, its next-door neighbour. She and Roy had a bridal suite with four-poster bed, a full bathroom including shower and bidet, and a bedroom balcony that overlooked a bay populated by fishing boats. Tomorrow, they would hire a boat and crew to take them out for—

But she couldn’t get back to sleep. She couldn’t get back to sleep because some fool was hammering hell out of the front door. Bleary-eyed, she blinked till the luminous dial on the alarm clock made sense. It was ten past midnight.

She got up and peered through the curtains, but she couldn’t see anything, since the intruder was shielded by the open porch. Though she did notice that Roy’s lights were being switched on. He watched over her and the children constantly. Right from the beginning of their courtship, he had taken on the job of caretaker, a sort of lieutenant to the absent Phil. He was lovely. Rosh pulled on a dressing gown and opened a sash window. She bent down and placed her mouth at the two-inch gap she’d created.

‘Who is it? If you wake my children, you’ll be a bit dead, and don’t expect a decent funeral, because you’ll go in the Mersey, burial at sea.’

Her mother stepped back onto the path. ‘It’s me,’ she said unnecessarily.

‘I can see it’s you because of the street lamp. Stop hammering. Even poor Roy’s awake – look across the way. You’ve probably woken everybody at this end.’

Anna, muttering under her breath, stepped into the porch once more.

Rosh went down and opened the door. She was not in the best of moods. ‘Where’s your key? I hope you haven’t lost it.’

‘I thought it was in me pocket, so I did. But this is the key to his house.’

Rosh blinked stupidly. ‘You mean your house. It’s your home as well as his, isn’t it?’

Anna sniffed and stalked into her daughter’s hall. She was carrying two lidded baskets. ‘It will be, because I’ll make sure of it. May God forgive me, but I’m in a fight and with no intention of losing. He’s taken a step too far.’

‘God has?’

‘Eric has.’

‘I see.’

‘No, you don’t. I’m banned from the allotment, and no one knows more than I do about arable farming on any scale whatsoever. He interferes with my cooking and cleaning, won’t let me help with decorating, says I’ve to leave the garden alone. As for the Isle of Wight – well . . .’

‘Well what?’

‘He kept going into a huddle with the gardener, something to do with raspberry canes, a south-facing aspect, and growing orchids in a greenhouse. But there was more to it than that. A lot more. I was absolutely disgusted. Honeymoon? He spent more time with his new best friend.’

‘There was more to what, Mam?’

‘Him and the gardener.’

Rosh staggered back. ‘You’re not telling me Eric’s bilateral?’

‘You what?’

‘Is he queer?’

It was Anna’s turn to lean for support on a wall. ‘Oh, give it up, Roisin. He’s no more homo sapiens than your Roy.’

‘You mean homosex—’

‘I know what I mean. Don’t be telling me what I mean, because you’re as bad as I am, asking is he bifocal. Oh no, this is another matter altogether, one that means war. So I need troops. That’s why I’m here just now, because he’s already starting to fix battens to the wall.’

Roy fell in at the front door. ‘What’s happening? Is Eric all right?’

Anna nodded. ‘Just now, he is. Whether he’ll continue so is very much a matter of opinion.’

Rosh shrugged and stared at her intended. He bore a marked resemblance to an unmade bed that had recently housed several small children and a couple of dogs. In his current condition, no way would he look right in a bridal suite complete with four-poster, its own bathroom containing shower and bidet, plus an off-the-bedroom balcony overlooking a Cornish fishing village. ‘Who got you ready?’ she asked. ‘Is it a fancy dress do?’

Roy knew when to ignore his beloved. ‘What’s happening?’ he asked again. ‘Come on, say something rational, Anna.’

‘He’s happening.’ Anna jerked a thumb over her shoulder. ‘Holt. The creature I married, otherwise known as my biggest mistake so far.’

Roy sighed. His mouth felt like the bottom of a bird cage, and he desperately needed a cup of tea. ‘Fight among yourselves,’ he said. ‘I’m putting the kettle on.’

Anna watched as he walked away. ‘He might look better with a kettle on,’ she declared. ‘It would cover his hair up, I suppose. I’ll sleep on the sofa.’ She walked into the front room.

Rosh followed her mother. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked.

‘Oh, so now I’m not welcome in me own daughter’s house.’

‘Don’t be silly, Mam.’

‘Silly? Silly, is it? I’ll tell you what silly is. Silly is two grown men dressed like God knows what poking about in beehives while the creatures were asleep for the winter. There was no need to go dressing up, because you never see a bee till summer.’

She sat down. ‘In fact, Eric got very excited about everyone but the queen being dead and the females working themselves to the grave for just six weeks every year. So he comes back from the Isle of Wight wanting to keep bees on his allotment for cross-pollination purposes or some such thing. The allotment bosses said no, and there’s no room outside the back of the house, so he’s building a pigeon loft against my kitchen wall instead. Pigeons. Rats with wings. He can’t have bees, so he wants pigeons. Good job we came home after three days, or we might have ended up with a zoo.’

Rosh tutted. ‘Those rats with wings got medals after the war, Mam. If it wasn’t for domesticated pigeons, we would have lost even more men.’

Anna grunted. ‘And where would a bird pin a medal? Anyway, that’s as may be, but I don’t want pigeon droppings on my washing. They don’t care where they do it, you know. So I’m not having it. I won’t have it. I will not put up with it.’

Roy came in with mugs of tea. ‘What’s the score?’ he asked.

‘Several direct hits from varying heights,’ was Rosh’s response. ‘Eric wants to keep pigeons, and Mam’s making him choose between her and his feathered friends.’

Anna took a sip of tea. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘He can choose between life or death for his precious birds, because I’m here for my cats. If he wants his pigeons to live, he’d be better leaving them exactly where they are, un-purchased.’

Roy rubbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘You can’t take the cats, Anna.’

‘And who are you to be telling me what I can and can’t take?’

‘Alice’s nearly-stepfather,’ he replied. ‘That child was a worry for Rosh and Phil, and the cats have been part of her improvement. Functionally, she’s up to scratch on the social level, though she’s still a bit quiet occasionally. But her work’s brilliant, and she’s a fantastic artist. Are you going to take Winston away when you know Alice tells him all her problems? And Lucy-Furr, who curls up every night with your youngest grandchild – will you take that bit of comfort, too?’

Anna blinked. She hadn’t thought this through properly. ‘We could share them.’

‘They’d be straight back here as soon as your back was turned,’ Rosh pronounced. ‘Cats belong to a place; these two have chosen my children, too. I know Lucy’s a pest, but we love her. You mustn’t do it, Mam. Anyway, they could get run over dashing from house to house.’

Anna sighed. ‘All right, then. I need new cats. You see, that nice little man who came a-courting thinks he can best me.’

‘But he loves you, Mam.’

‘I know he loves me. And he also fights me in his quiet way. It’s like a continuous joke that isn’t even funny.’ She swallowed. ‘Well, I hate to say this, Roisin, but he’s cleverer than I am.’

Roy placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder. ‘You took the mickey out of him good and proper for ages before the wedding, love. He’s just keeping one step ahead, that’s all. I’ve noticed he holds you back in company when you try to show him up. Anna, why can’t you see he’s playing you at your own game?’

‘I don’t mind the game, Roy. But I can’t bear the losing. Do you mind back to the times he just stood there twisting his cap because I made him nervous?’

‘I do,’ Roy answered, his face in serious mode.

‘So he marries me, then takes that as permission to do as he pleases.’

‘Does he hit you?’ Rosh asked.

‘Is there a knife in his back? No, it’s not that. It’s the way he pretended to be such a nice man.’

‘He is a nice man,’ Rosh insisted. ‘He’s just not the docile fool you thought you were getting.’

‘I’m the fool,’ Anna cried. ‘I let him make me the fool. All that tippytoeing round me so I’d marry him, all that pretending to be helpless.’

‘Mam, he would have sold his soul to marry you.’

‘Then why doesn’t he treat me better?’

A glance passed between Rosh and Roy; both knew that Rosh would have to say the next line. ‘You mean why doesn’t he lie down and let you walk all over him? Perhaps you go too far, Mam. Phil had your measure. He respected you as a strong, determined woman, but he saw through all your games. Roy does, too. Roy takes the edge of your tongue often enough and doesn’t rise to the bait, but one day he might.’ She glanced at him, and was pleased to see that he continued to wear a grave expression.

It was plain that Anna failed to see where she’d gone wrong. Her first husband had seemed content enough even though she’d managed to produce just one living child. He’d been a bit untidy, and she’d told him off once or twice about that . . . No, she had to be truthful to herself. She’d nagged a bit. She’d raised her voice on several occasions.

‘Mam?’

‘Be quiet, I’m thinking.’ She was thinking it was too late for her to change. Even her humour had a sharp edge, but she was Irish, wasn’t she? The Irish were quick to laugh, quick to cry, quick to lose temper. It was just that Eric had seemed so docile . . . ‘I never tried to fool him, did I?’

‘No,’ said Rosh. ‘You had him scrubbing cupboards, sweeping paths, painting ceilings. And he’s put his foot down not on the rung of a ladder, but where you’ll trip over it. Yet he’s not a bad man. He loves you, but he wants a partnership, not a mistress and slave arrangement.’

At this point, Eric Holt entered the theatre of war. Unlike Roy, he had made a bit of an effort and was reasonably tidy. ‘Hello, Rosh. Hello, Roy.’ He looked at his bride. ‘Hello, love.’

Anna angled herself differently so that she was facing the fireplace. She didn’t want to look at him.

Eric looked at the other occupants of the room. ‘I haven’t got her permission to be here, you see. It was her bloody-mindedness that attracted me, but it’s hard to live with.’

Anna glanced over her shoulder. ‘That’s right. Talk about me as if I’m not here.’ Having made her views known, she turned her back on the trio once more.

The slow, plodding Eric seemed to have disappeared. ‘You turned away from us, so you’re not here,’ he said before continuing to speak to her daughter. ‘I can’t take an interest in anything before sitting through the statutory conference. She’s rearranged all the kitchen cupboards, moved all the furniture in the living room, and tidied me wardrobe. Tidied? I can’t find anything when I need it. She’s thrown out half of me gardening clothes.’

Rosh winked at her stepfather before employing her next weapon. ‘Well, that’s the way she is. You knew what you were taking on, so don’t moan. That’s my mother, and she’s a good woman who doesn’t want pigeon doings all over her tablecloths.’ She sighed dramatically. ‘Oh, I can’t see this working, can you, Roy?’

Roy agreed. ‘No, she’ll have to come home. Leave her with us, Eric. We’re used to her.’

Eric played the game. ‘Fair enough. I suppose you know best. She even shortened the honeymoon because she didn’t like the servants. I got on OK with the gardener, but we shared interests, you see. Anna kept looking for dust and saying the cook couldn’t cook. So we came back.’

‘And was that when you started wondering?’ Rosh asked innocently. ‘Whether you’d done the right thing?’

‘That’s right.’

Rosh winked again. ‘Speaking for myself, I don’t think you’re man enough for her. Even if she wants to come back to you, we’ll stop her. But it’s your fault. She hasn’t changed at all, yet you have. No, you’ll never manage her, and you should have realized that from the start. You shouldn’t marry someone and then decide to change them.’

Eric coughed. ‘You’re right,’ he said mournfully.

Anna jumped up. ‘Hey, that’s my husband you’re criticizing. Leave him alone, but.’

Eric hung his head. ‘They’re right, Anna.’

‘But we always . . .’ She blushed. ‘We make up afterwards, don’t we?’

Roy squatted down and studied a mark on the wallpaper. ‘Lucy’s been at it again.’ His voice trembled slightly with subdued laughter. Anna was like a child in many ways. When something was removed, she wanted it back, though that didn’t mean she would treat it with anything approaching respect.

‘What about your pigeons, then?’ Rosh asked.

‘It’s a trellis I’m building for honeysuckle,’ he answered. ‘I told her it was for pigeons to pay her back for getting rid of my grey cardigan.’

‘Cardigan?’ Anna shrieked. ‘It was a cardi gone, cos there were more holes than wool. You were a walking moth factory. I considered hanging a bell round your neck to warn folk to avoid you.’

Eric chuckled.

‘See?’ Anna stood and waved a hand in his direction. ‘Mockery.’

‘Mam, he’s not—’

‘And don’t interfere in private matters again, Roisin.’ She used the raised hand to push her husband into the hall. ‘We need no advice,’ she threw over her shoulder before slamming the front door.

Roy was doubled over in pain on the floor. Rosh dropped into an armchair. ‘What happened then?’ she asked. ‘Did she or did she not come knocking on my door?’

The only response managed by the heap on the rug was a howl of laughter.

‘Some flaming use you are, Roy. The slightest thing, and you crack up like a raw egg. She brought cat baskets. She called him for everything. She wanted Lucy and Winston to kill his pigeons.’

‘Which he isn’t getting,’ Roy managed.

‘They’re like a flaming pantomime.’

‘Ugly sisters?’

‘Something like that. Go home. You look like something that fell off a flitting.’

‘What?’

‘An expression of my mother’s. A flitting’s done at midnight because the rent’s not been paid. A horse and cart arrives, and everything’s thrown on the back, family included. They have to be quick, so stuff and people fall off.’

‘Right.’ He sighed. ‘So glad I asked.’ He looked at his reflection in the mirror. ‘You’re right, of course. I look as if I fell off a moving vehicle.’

‘Naturally,’ she said.

‘Just like your mother.’ He donated a perfunctory kiss and went home. Some people didn’t appreciate other people . . .

Sixteen

‘Have you written the full number plate down? It won’t be the only coach bound for London Victoria, you know. When we get to a comfort stop, we’ll need to be sure which bus is ours. We’d be in a right mess if we ended up following the wrong one. You can’t be too careful with these things.’

Maureen sighed heavily and stuck her tongue out sideways. He didn’t notice, anyway. If she’d stripped off and walked in front of his car with a red flag, she would have been no more than an obstacle in his path. ‘You sounded very much like a Co-op manager just then, Tom. Or some old schoolteacher. For the forty-seventh time, yes, I have written the number plate down. It’s here in my purse as safe as houses, your honour.’

‘Are you sure you did it right?’

‘Are you sure you don’t want a clout with this handbag?’

‘Are you sure you don’t want to spend the night in a ditch?’

Maureen gritted her teeth. Tom was hunched over the steering wheel like a hungry, toothless old man hovering hopefully above a plate of food that threatened to defeat his dentures. He’d maintained that attitude throughout Lancashire and Cheshire, and was continuing through Staffordshire with his nose perilously near to the windscreen. She found herself hoping there would be no sudden stops, because he’d get thrown through the window and die under the wheels of his own car. Even without ice, braking might be treacherous, and she fingered the rosary in her pocket while praying for black ice and freezing fog to keep their distance. Getting to London alive would be preferable to the alternative, she told her Maker.

At last, the vehicle between Tom’s and the coach turned left. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ he said. ‘I can see what’s what now. I thought that chap was going to be with us for ever.’

Maureen tutted. ‘The coach driver will notice you’re following him all the way. He might phone the police. Say there’s somebody rich on the coach, he might think we were planning a kidnap and looking for a chance to hold somebody to ransom for thousands. If we get arrested, who’ll help Mam then, eh?’

‘Bloody hell, Maureen.’

‘What?’

Tom snorted. ‘Don’t talk so daft. Rich people don’t go on the overnight bus to London; they don’t need to. First class train compartment for them, or even a hired plane.’

Mam was on the rear seat of the coach. If she turned round, she might see them, so Tom had to keep some distance, and Maureen understood that. Although the roads were quiet, it was dark, frosty and unsafe, and the coach didn’t move quickly enough to be a great worry. ‘Will they stop soon?’ she asked. ‘I need a wee.’

‘There’s a bucket in the boot,’ was his terse reply.

‘There’s a which in the what?’ Incredulity lifted the tone of her voice.

‘You heard me. When we get to Stoke, your mother might go into the café and rest rooms, so it’s a bucket in the car if you can manage it, or squat behind a wall or a bush where you can’t be seen. Other than that, cross your legs till we reach London, because that’s the only option you’ll have left. Don’t wet my car.’

Maureen was flabbergasted. ‘And if I get a bit peckish, what happens then?’

Tom groaned. She’d not long ago eaten half the contents of a restaurant’s fridge, so why should she suffer hunger? Like their youngest son, she was a gannet. ‘There’s a flask of soup, a flask of tea, some sandwiches and half an apple pie in the boot. Oh, and some butterscotch toffees bought specially for you.’

Maureen shook her head in disbelief. ‘I hope they’re not in the bucket.’

‘They are in the bucket,’ he replied calmly. ‘Because it’s brand new, and nobody’s peed in it yet. Before anybody pees in it, I shall remove the food and the flasks.’ In certain situations, a Riley woman could drive a man so far round the bend he’d think he’d been flushed down the drains of Bootle. ‘You are annoying me, love. I have to concentrate, and I can’t do that if you mither.’

What did he think a wife was for? Even a decorative female had certain functions to perform, and holding a husband in check was one of them. Except for her, the prefab would have been full of bike and car bits, as might their new house become if she didn’t watch him. She fed him well, brought money home, kept his clothing washed and pressed. And she tried to keep him happy-ish, because she dreaded the return of the black time when he’d disappeared inside himself. The trouble was, she loved him too well. ‘Tom?’

‘What now?’

‘I’m sorry for moaning.’

‘It’s all right. I’m used to it.’

‘But Tom?’

‘Yes?’

‘Remember those old films they sometimes showed as specials? Keystone Kops?’

‘Oh yes, I like them.’

‘All chasing one another and messing about and falling over folk with the music quickening up all the while?’

‘Right. Where’s all this leading?’

‘To us, Tom. This is like Keystone Kops, except there’s no music. I think me dad’s behind us. He’s following us following me mam. Don’t do anything daft, because it’s too icy, but I’m sure it’s him. I wonder what he’s done with our Seamus?’

Fortunately, the coach turned at this point, leading them into a large parking area containing many lorries and several coaches. A sizeable cafeteria was advertised as Open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was clearly there to serve those who kept the economy moving quickly by driving goods and people in all directions. ‘You try and have a word with your dad while I watch the coach,’ Tom said. ‘Keep yourself as well hidden as you can.’

They stopped. Tom kept his eyes riveted to the single-decker on which his mother-in-law was travelling. He saw her getting off, watched as she approached the transport café. Paddy was a tall, strong woman, yet she suddenly seemed small as she ambled along like an aged person. She wasn’t well. This excursion wasn’t doing anyone a lot of good, but his mother-in-law was likely to be suffering the most. She’d probably booked her ticket before becoming ill, and she’d stuck to her plans in an attempt not to overcomplicate matters, but she should have waited. God help her, she had to be all right. Paddy could be a difficult woman, but he loved her to bits. At times like this, which had been mercifully few, he realized how much he cared for his in-laws.

Maureen shot out of the car and cursed the high-heeled shoes again. The ground was frozen and rough, so she struggled until she reached her father’s van. He opened the door. ‘Quiet,’ he said. ‘Our Seamus is asleep behind me.’

‘I’m not,’ piped a voice from the rear.

‘If I say you’re asleep, you’re asleep.’ Kevin gave his attention to Maureen. ‘I didn’t want to wake our Reen. She can’t look after him properly anyway. I found a note from your mam, got the truth out of this young beggar of yours, and here I am. Seamus and your husband cooked this plot up: theatre, posh meal, then follow that coach.’

‘No,’ yelled the supposedly sleeping one. ‘It was all my idea, cos I knew Mam would go mad, and you’d go mad, too, so neither of you could be told till the very last minute. Me dad’s the only person I can trust because he doesn’t drink Guinness, doesn’t smash windows, doesn’t tell me off for every little thing—’

‘Shut up,’ chorused the two adults.

‘He’s had another idea,’ Kevin said. ‘Lock your car and get in here. You could have a lie down with Seamus on the mattress in the back, and Tom and I could take turns with the driving. I suppose it makes sense. I mean, we’re on your tail, you’re stuck to a bus, and I’m stuck with him.’ He jerked a thumb in Seamus’s direction.

The boy peered over the parapet created by his grandfather’s shoulder. ‘I have a lot of ideas if people would only listen. Old Vera and Beetroot both say I have a future in some kind of—’

‘If you want any future at all, you’ll sit quiet,’ Kevin said. ‘Maureen, go and ask Tom how he feels about leaving his car here. We can pick it up on the way back. I’m sure we won’t stay long down yonder.’ He hoped they wouldn’t; he didn’t want Seamus to see the posh end of town. If soft lad caught sight of Buckingham Palace and Westminster, he might well get ideas above his station, and bloody London had swallowed more than enough of the family already.

‘Me feet’s killing me in these shoes, Dad. You go.’

Seamus shot up again. ‘Let me go,’ he suggested. ‘I’m smaller, so I can hide better. Dad listens to me. I don’t drink Guinness and break windows.’

‘No, you just tell lies,’ Maureen snapped.

‘I don’t tell lies.’

‘That’s a lie for a start,’ his mother accused him. ‘All right, you go. But be quick. Your gran’s gone inside for a cuppa, so make sure she doesn’t see you. Remember, she has eyes in the back of her head.’

Seamus needed to be a shadow. That was it – he’d be The Shadow and write adventure books. He opened the rear door as narrowly as possible and slipped out onto cold, uneven ground. Members of the Mafia to the left of him, the New York City police to the right, four precincts plus two important fellows covered in braid and medals and whatnots. He avoided crossfire by bending low next to Granddad’s van. Light blazed from the speakeasy, but it was a hundred yards away. The FBI would be here in minutes. It was time to consult his assistants.

‘Hunter One,’ he whispered into his hand. ‘Hunter One, maintain position. I repeat, position to be maintained. I’m going in at once. Alone. God bless America. Over and out.’

‘Have you seen this daft boy of yours?’ Kevin managed to contain his laughter.

Maureen, in the van’s passenger seat, had grown used to her son and she said so. ‘He’s on a secret mission for Sunray Major. Sunray Major is deeper than MI5, MI6 and MI7 point three. No one’s ever seen him.’

‘I’m not surprised. Who’s Seamus talking to?’

‘Oh, that’ll be Hunter One.’

‘Who the blood and liver pills is that?’

‘He’ll be Captain Overlord’s assistant.’

Kevin left some space before asking, ‘And who the hell’s Captain Overlord when he’s eaten his porridge?’

‘Our Seamus. We listen to this every night, me and Tom. It’s better than the Light Programme. A few nights ago, he saved the whole country from a plague sent over from Germany in a box of liquorice allsorts. Mind, he didn’t do it on his own; he had Hunter One and Sunray Major on his torch. He uses the torch because it has a built-in walkie-talkie.’

‘But it hasn’t—’ A smile broadened Kevin’s face. ‘Bless him,’ he said softly.

‘He’s clever, Dad. Underneath, I’m so proud of him I could sing, and that would empty this car park in ten seconds. But he’s still a lying little toad. Though lovable with it . . .’

Seamus continued along his perilous route. All around him, vehicles were peppered with bullet holes. Scar-Face and his boys were determined to reach the speakeasy, and the cops were equally determined to wipe out the Mafia. A semi-automatic machine gun ack-acked in the background, and Captain Overlord crouched lower, since he had to stay alive until he could hand over control to federal agents.

‘What are you doing here?’

Still absorbed in the game, Seamus froze.

‘Seamus?’

Ah, it was Dad. ‘I’m coming for you, cos Mam’s shoes are killing her. I was bending down so that Gran wouldn’t see me. Granddad woke up, you see. He was in a very bad mood, and he shoved a mattress and stuff in the back and made me come with him, because he’d found Gran’s note about London. So I said it was all right, cos you and Mam were following the coach, but he just went mad because we hadn’t told him.’ He folded his arms. ‘The trouble with this family is you daren’t tell the truth. Lock your car, Dad. We can pick it up on the way back. You can share driving the van.’

‘Seamus, you’re always one step ahead.’

‘I know. I wish you lot would grow up and listen to me.’

Tom shook his head in disbelief. Life seemed to get weirder by the minute. ‘All right. I suppose that makes some sort of sense, two drivers and one car.’ He opened the boot.

‘Course it will make sense. It was my idea. Dad?’

‘What?’

‘Why have you brought that bucket?’

Tom managed not to snarl. ‘Never you mind.’ He’d heard enough about buckets to last him a lifetime. He paused suddenly. ‘What if the van breaks down? See, if one of us breaks down, we’ll have a spare vehicle. Come on, let’s get your mam. We need the van and the car as well, son.’

Once again, Tom found himself carrying Maureen back to the car. She was at war with her shoes, with the slippery earth, with her dad for being daft enough to follow them, with her husband for not having the sense to pack some flat shoes, with Mam for kick-starting all this bother, with— She was dumped with minimal ceremony in the passenger seat of her husband’s car.

He walked round the vehicle and slid in behind the wheel. ‘Stop whingeing, or I’ll swap you for Seamus. I’m sorry I forgot the flat shoes, sorry you may have to pee in a bucket, sorry I couldn’t arrange better weather. And it would have been nicer if we could all have travelled together, but if your dad breaks down, he’ll have us to turn to, and vice versa.’

Maureen mumbled under her breath. The girls at Scouse Alley wouldn’t know how to cope without any supervision, and there was no way of letting anyone know that she and Mam would both be missing. And they’d just branched out into Lancashire hotpot, shepherd’s pie, meat and potato under a lid of shortcrust pastry, or pasties and chips occasionally. And here she was, with her young son, mother, dad and husband, all of them going into the dens of London’s East End gangs, which wasn’t much to look forward to. Seamus would miss another day of school, and he’d already had time off with his cold. But she might see Finbar and Michael again, plus her grandchildren. She was young for grandmotherhood, but she’d manage.

‘Stop wittering,’ Tom said. He usually didn’t mind the wittering; like the radio, it was an accompaniment to everyday life. But on a journey like this one, he needed a bloody rest. At home, he could walk into another room, but here? God, he wished he’d left her at home, high heels, pink suit and all.

There was another stop outside Birmingham. England’s second city was just a cluster of lights down the road, and Maureen was not impressed. ‘They talk funny,’ she said. ‘And it doesn’t look up to much, does it?’

‘Bigger than Liverpool,’ was Tom’s reply.

‘They still talk funny.’

Tom raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. In the opinion of many, the Scouse accent was not exactly music to the ears.

She opened the door.

‘Where are you off to?’ Tom asked.

Maureen reached into the back of the car and pulled out a tartan rug. ‘I’m going to the ladies’ room, then I’m getting me mam. She’ll travel to London in the back of this car – or in the van – wrapped up and warm. We’ll carry on following the coach, and she’ll meet her Irishman as planned. This time, I’m making an executive decision. Being a bloke doesn’t mean you’re the only executive in the car. She’s my blinking mother, and this is about my blinking sons. So you button it, baby. It’s your turn to do as you’re told, just for a change.’

What was the flaming point? For a few seconds, Tom watched his wife stumbling about in heels high enough to present a danger to low-flying aircraft. She could end up with a sprained or broken ankle at this rate. He followed her yet again, carried her yet again. When they reached the coach, he propped her up next to a nearby wall. ‘Stay,’ he snapped.

‘Don’t use that tone of . . .’ She was too late; he was approaching the coach driver.

Fortunately, the driver was one hundred per cent Scouse with an agreeable attitude and an accent thicker than Tate and Lyle’s treacle. ‘No problem,’ the young man was saying. ‘I remember it, cos it has a belt holding it shut, like. Follow me and give us an ’and, mate. Yeah, you’d best take her if she’s ill.’

So Mate followed Brian, who issued a condensed version of his life on his way to the back of the coach. He was twenty-seven, worked nights to keep away from the wife who got on his nerves, his mam was in hospital with all the worry and a stomach ulcer, and his dad, a waste of space and oxygen, was dead through drink.

While luggage was deposited on the tarmac, Brian gave birth to twins – little sods – a whippet, and some koi carp in his back garden. He never voted Tory, liked a flutter on the ’orses and the ’ounds, thought the Queen Mother was great, and couldn’t be in a house where cabbage had been cooked.

By the time Paddy’s case had been recovered and the rest replaced in the boot, Tom knew everything there was to know about bypassing lecky meters to make the bill smaller, feeding a family of four for two weeks with a sack of spuds, four dozen eggs, some beans and a few loaves, and where to get a decent imitation of a road fund licence. The one thing Tom didn’t know was whether he was coming or going. The remark he’d made about Jesus feeding the five thousand fell on stony ground, as did a few suitcases, though Brian remained unperturbed.

He shook Mate’s hand. ‘Thanks for the interestin’ conversation,’ he said. ‘Lonely life, drivin’. I hope your mam’s soon better.’

Tom, slightly dazed, returned to his propped-up wife. Without words or ceremony, he replaced her in his car before marching off to find Paddy. This was going to be one of those moments, like had he been good enough to marry their Maureen and was he a real Catholic boy? Paddy was not only the eyes and ears of her world; she was also the voice.

Then he saw her. He’d seen her earlier today – well, it was yesterday now – and she’d seemed all right. But a suddenly old female walked towards him, her face grey and drawn, her eyes ringed with darkness, her forehead lined and worried. She was alone, contained inside a head that wouldn’t stop thinking, and he remembered that, by God, he did. This poor woman was in a place he had visited, and he must help her out.

As soon as she noticed him, she stood stock still. ‘Tom?’ Relief flooded her body, making her so weak that she lurched towards him, her legs unable to bear her weight. ‘Tom! Oh, Tom. Thank God it’s you.’ Only then did she realize how frightened she was. Big, brave Paddy who ran Scouse Alley, who threw grown men out of Lights, was reduced to a helpless fool.

He grabbed her and placed the car rug across her shoulders. ‘We’re all here, love. Me, Maureen, Seamus and Dad. We couldn’t let you do this on your own. Don’t cry. Don’t let them see how tired and worried you are. Remember, Finbar and Michael are our sons, so we should be involved in getting them back.’

She sniffed back wetness created by cold air and emotion. ‘I’m just so tired, so completely worn out.’ She couldn’t be bothered to ask how they’d discovered her plan and why they were here. Nothing mattered now. With her family around her, she could cope with just about anything. Tom led her across the car park to Kevin’s van. Kevin, having taken one look at his wife, came at her with medicine bottle and spoon. ‘Here, love. You forgot it.’

Seamus joined Tom while Gran was helped into the back of the van. Even the child was quiet because he could see that she wasn’t quite herself. He walked with his dad back to the car, where he climbed into the rear seat. This was one time when he decided to keep his mouth nearly shut, because the less Mam knew, the better.

‘She’s with your dad,’ Tom said.

‘I know, I’ve been watching. Is she all right?’

‘Just tired,’ Seamus said helpfully. ‘She can rest stretched out in the van.’

Paddy, prone on the mattress in the rear of her husband’s vehicle, fell asleep almost immediately. In her dream, she saw her brothers and her sons, all four lost to the London gangster and boxing communities. But her grandsons were alive and well, as were her great-grandchildren. The trouble with having strong and combative boys was that they started with boxing clubs, went to London, and . . .

Groaning, she rolled over and pulled the covers up to her chin. She reached out for Finbar and Michael, for their wives and children, but they were dragged away by an invisible hand. Her arms weren’t long enough to grab them from the jaws of criminality. It couldn’t happen again, mustn’t be allowed to . . .

The woman smiled and poured tea into delicate china cups on a tray. ‘Call me Violet, dear. Now, I know all about troublesome boys, because I’ve three of my own. Turn your back for a minute, and they’re either knocking somebody about in a boxing ring or, worse still, bare-knuckle fighting. And they don’t look after themselves properly, do they? What rubbish would they eat if we weren’t here to feed them?’

Paddy tried to answer, but the woman rattled on. She had a lovely smile and was possessed of a kindness that was real. She was also strong and overflowing with love for her twins. ‘Charlie’s a lovely chap,’ she said. ‘He’s my eldest. But my twins is special. You just know, don’t you, dear? That moment when you hold them for the first time, you just know these things. Instinct, you see.’

Paddy took the line of least resistance and continued to listen. ‘Men?’ The lady of the house chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Best left out of it altogether, my love. Oh yes, we have to remember them ladies that threw themselves under horses and tied themselves to railings and got force-fed in clink. Only when this country’s run by women will we get any sense.’

The sleeping Paddy moaned. Didn’t Violet understand that her children were now grown and members of the gender she dismissed as stupid and dangerous? Had she no true perception of the crimes that were being perpetrated out there on the streets of the East End? Or had she simply turned her back on reality; was this woman living in a parallel universe?

Ronnie Kray came in. The smile he donated didn’t reach his eyes. There was something cold in his stare, as cold as the unidentifiable and unquantifiable Epping Forest graves. Yet when he looked at Violet, his whole demeanour softened. It was clear to Paddy that whatever else Ronald was guilty of, he adored his mother.

‘My Ronnie misses his twin, don’t you, dear? They hate being separated. Reggie’s away for a while, isn’t he?’

Ron nodded. ‘A little holiday,’ he said. Paddy knew they meant prison. He turned his attention to the visitor. ‘It’ll be all right, missus. I’ll sort it. Tell the boys not to worry about a thing, but they’re better out of London.’

Sort it? Would sorting it mean further death and destruction? The man wasn’t dressed for killing. His suit was very posh, probably bespoke, with bright red silk lining the jacket. There was money here, so perhaps he would use some of it to ensure her grandsons’ safety. No. She wasn’t like the adorable Violet Kray. Paddy O’Neil was sure that the payment for the freedom of her grandchildren was likely to involve a few corpses. She shivered.

He beamed at her when she thanked him. But he still had flat, empty eyes. Fear continued to shudder its silent way through every fibre of her being. Tom, her much-loved son-in-law, had killed, and he’d been hollow-eyed for months, but this was different. Some inner instinct told Paddy that Violet’s Ronnie had always been . . . well . . . odd and possibly dangerous. Yet there was something endearing about him. He was gentlemanlike in the presence of older women, so there was a level of respect rooted deeply beneath all the negative stuff.

Ah yes, the present. She rooted round in her bag for Violet’s gift. It was a framed print of Liverpool’s waterfront. Violet’s smile was a hundred per cent genuine. ‘I bet it looked nothing like this after the Germans had rearranged it. But it’s lovely now, eh?’

Paddy tried to tell her that the Liver Building and most of its stalwart companions had survived with very little damage, but her throat seemed paralysed when it came to delivering a speech of any length. In return, she was given a photograph of Violet’s boys. All beautifully dressed, Charlie in the middle, Ronnie with what looked like a huge boa constrictor draped across his shoulders. The snake looked settled; its eyes were reminiscent of those of its owner.

He was saying something about liking snakes, about a person knowing where he was with a python. ‘If he doesn’t like you, you’re dead,’ he said. ‘If he doesn’t like you, you’re dead. ‘If he doesn’t like you—’

‘Paddy!’

She woke with a start. ‘What?’

‘You’re dreaming and shouting.’

‘Am I? It’s a wonder I can sleep at all in this boneshaker.’ She was still tired, but she wasn’t afraid any more. And Mrs Kray’s blue-and-white front-room wallpaper was beautiful.

At last, the journey ended. Paddy’s Irishman, who had expected just one woman, was typically unfazed by the increased head count. Like most Irish folk, he liked plenty of company, and he took them for a good breakfast in a café not far away. After booking them into a small hotel, he left and promised to return that afternoon. ‘Then I’ll take you to see Mrs Kray,’ he told Paddy.

‘And we’ll follow you,’ Tom said. ‘Maureen can go in the house with her.’

Atypically, Paddy said nothing. She knew exactly what was going to happen, because God had sent her the dream. How did she know? She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew.

‘Mam?’

Paddy looked at her daughter in the crumpled pink suit. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, her voice unusually quiet. ‘I felt so ill and tired last night, but look at me now. Sometimes, I forget to remember how much I need all of you. The best moment in my whole life was when I saw our lovely Tom walking towards me. Now, we should all rest and get changed later.’ She paused. ‘This is a big day for all of us, especially for Finbar and Michael.’

Seamus stood at the window of the room he was sharing with Mam and Dad. So this was London? It was just like Liverpool: buses, houses, shops and people. ‘Where’s the soldiers in daft hats?’ he asked. ‘And the soldiers stood in boxes? They can’t talk to you, and if you pull faces they’re not allowed to laugh.’

Paddy opened the door. She was on her way to the next room, where Kevin was already asleep. ‘Seamus, this is a big, bad city with a lot of good people and beautiful places in it. I tell you this now for your own good. It killed two of your great-uncles and two of your uncles. It’s put your brothers in a difficult situation. Let the soldiers in daft hats stay where they are, horses and all. The royals are a long, long way from here.’ She left the room.

Kevin opened one eye. ‘You all right, queen?’

‘I am,’ she replied. Queen? Hadn’t she just told Seamus that royalty was miles away? Oh well, never mind – at least she was smiling. Her chest and mind were both clearer, and she felt better than she had in weeks. Taken all round, it was going to be a great day.

‘Why wouldn’t she let me go in with her?’ Maureen, reasonably well kitted out in her navy suit, felt like a bridesmaid who hadn’t been allowed to accompany the bride up the aisle. Not that the house looked up to much. It was yellow, for a start. Why the heck would anybody build rows of terraces that looked as if they had liver disease?

Tom worked hard at remaining patient; after many hours in a confined space with his wife for company, he needed the forbearance of Jesus Himself. ‘This is the bit she has to do on her own, love. She needs us here, within reach, but she doesn’t want to upset the family. Mrs Kray expected one visitor, so she’s got one visitor. Now, give it a rest, will you? I’m going on no more long journeys with you, Maureen. Can you not sit still?’ Tom glanced over his shoulder at Kevin and Seamus, who was clearly bored. He wanted to see soldiers and Buckingham Palace, but he was stuck somewhere with a daft name, Bethnal Green. There was nothing green about it.

‘There’s another fidget here in the back,’ Kevin said. ‘Like a cat on hot bricks. If he doesn’t slow down, we’ll need to get him checked for St Vitus’s dance. Or he may just have ants in his pants. Again.’

Seamus puffed out his cheeks and blew hard. He wanted to see Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus, Westminster Cathedral, the palace. There were big shops, bigger than anything in Liverpool, but here he sat outside a boring yellow house in a boring yellow street—

‘Seamus!’ Maureen snapped.

‘What?’

‘Stop breathing.’

‘I can’t. If I stop breathing, I’ll die. Beetroot says oxygen is a requirement if we’re going to sustain life.’

‘Sister Beatrice, you mean. I’m not talking about ordinary breathing, but the huffing and puffing is getting on my nerves.’

Well, she was getting on Dad’s nerves, but at least Seamus was fast learning the benefits of near-silence.

They all stared at the door through which Paddy had disappeared some forty minutes earlier. A huge black car sat outside the house. Inside, Paddy would be thanking the Krays for helping Finbar and Michael to get out of London. ‘What will it cost?’ Maureen mused aloud. She kept the rest of her thoughts to herself. Would Mam find out the names of the three dead? Would the men killed on Reen’s wedding day become real people with widows and children?

‘It won’t cost anything,’ Kevin replied.

‘I wasn’t meaning money.’ Maureen found her rosary. At times like this, the only help available came from a different dimension.

Tom watched his wife while she closed her eyes and began to move her lips through a Pater, ten Aves and a Gloria. His own prayer was, as usual, less conventional; he simply begged the Lord to bring home his boys and make his family whole again.

The door opened. Paddy emerged with a man and a woman in her wake. The Krays waved at the people in the car; Seamus waved back. Violet crossed the road, and Tom opened his window. She told them it had been lovely to meet Paddy, and invited them all to come in next time.

Then it was Ronnie’s turn. ‘Any time you want a holiday in London, let us know and we’ll fix it for you.’

As they drove away, Paddy began to cry. Wedged in the back seat between Seamus and Kevin, she didn’t really have enough space when it came to sobbing. After a couple of minutes, when the Kray street was behind them, Tom parked again. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

Paddy shook her head. ‘Back to the hotel,’ she achieved finally. ‘Book another night and we’ll travel home Sunday, after Mass. There’s a Catholic church nearby. If ever God wanted a visit from us, this is the occasion.’

Seamus kept quiet. Now was not the time to start going on about soldiers who appeared to live in standing-up coffins outside the palace.

When they reached their hotel, they all piled into the room occupied by Maureen, Tom and Seamus. The extra bed meant extra seating. A maid brought up tea and sandwiches, and everyone waited for Paddy to speak. Still clearly distraught, she described the dream she’d had in the van. ‘Everything was right except for the wallpaper and the photograph of Violet’s sons. But even so, Ronnie was talking about getting a snake. And until three weeks ago, the wallpaper had been blue and white, so—’

‘Great,’ cried Seamus. ‘Can I have a snake?’

‘No, you can’t,’ came the answer from four adult throats.

Seamus sighed. The Shadow might have had a python to play with between chapters. He could imagine himself sitting at a typewriter with a cold-blooded friend keeping watch.

‘But after breakfast in the morning, Seamus, you’ll get your precious tour of London. I’ll book a car to take you and your dad to see the sights. It will have to be quick, because daylight hours are short and we need to get back to Liverpool the next day after Mass.’

The lad wanted to kiss Gran, but he restrained himself. There was no point in complaining about kisses if he started to dole them out. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He would see London after all.

‘What upset you, love?’ Kevin asked his wife.

Paddy scarcely knew where to find the words. ‘Seeing a good, kind man with something wrong in his eyes,’ she answered eventually. ‘Reggie wasn’t there. They said he was away, and I think they meant prison. Ronnie’s generous, kind and helpful. I know in my bones he would never hurt a woman, a child or an elderly man. He’d be the first one there if I needed to cross a busy road. He’d never see a child without food or something to play with, and he worships Violet.’

‘So what’s the but?’ Maureen asked.

‘Gangs,’ came the reply. ‘Rivalry. There’s a great, gaping maw that swallowed my brothers and my sons. But Finbar and Michael will soon be safe, because Violet ordered it.’

‘And your dream?’ Kevin asked.

‘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.

Seventeen

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.

‘Some have more than one,’ Don replied. ‘The rich might have several to match different rooms.’

‘These are buckets you can’t see, Gordon. Oh, I wish you’d behave and listen. Did you read in the paper that Molly got married?’

Here she went again, off at a delightful tangent. It was up to him to guide her back to the path. ‘I did. She used to sell buckets, now I come to think. Builders’ buckets. Great big buckets for great big builders, they were.’

Tess stared through the window. A squizzle was pinching bird food again. Sometimes, the creatures you loved could be very annoying. There wasn’t much bird food left, as she stopped feeding everything in spring, yet squizzles still knocked at the door, didn’t they? Birds adapted. But squizzles and Tess weren’t good at change. Hungry little rodents, squirrels were, so she understood them very well. Even when they weren’t hungry, they wanted food to save for later. How well she remembered that. ‘Little thieves,’ she said quietly. ‘Poor birds hardly get a look-in.’

‘Buckets?’ he reminded her.

‘Some are bigger than others,’ she said.

He bit back a quip about a child’s seaside bucket and spade.

‘They fill up,’ she continued. ‘A big bucket fills more slowly than a little bucket even if the stuff that fills it pours at the same rate.’

Don was with her so far.

‘People with little buckets have to empty them more often to make room. When a bucket overflows, a person can go to pieces. I have to keep emptying my bucket by forgiving myself. So we’re paying fifteen quid an hour for him to ask me how full my invisible bucket is. Daft. It’s my opinion that he should see a psychiatrist.’

‘Put your coat on.’

She stared at him aghast. ‘The children will be home soon. I’ve chops to grill and the vegetables want peeling and—’

‘They aren’t children, love. Sean wears more oil than a tanker carries, and Anne-Marie can cook. They’ve both got legs, so they can walk to the chippy. Now, they’re a couple of bucketfuls you can empty immediately. They aren’t babies any more. With luck and good management, they’ll be making you some more babies in a few years. You’ll be a lovely granny.’

‘Shut up. I’m a young woman.’

‘A beautiful young woman,’ he said.

What was he after, she wondered while ordering him to write a note for the offspring. It wasn’t sex, because he didn’t lead up to that with fuss and compliments. That was their own little world, their private kingdom. Once in the boudoir he had created for her, they became different people.

No, he was planning something, and she guessed that he had already begun the spadework. She would arrive at the Riley reunion hog-tied and in a wheelbarrow if necessary. And she trusted him to know what was good for her; despite her own doubts, she knew he was probably right. He was usually right, often annoyingly so.

Obedient in coat and gloves, she stood in the front-room doorway. ‘Where are we going?’ she demanded.

‘Out.’

‘Gordon!’ She stamped a size five foot. ‘Where to?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ll let the car decide. Let’s have a mystery tour, eh?’

The car chose Southport. The sedate, Victorian resort was so in control of itself that even holidaymakers were quiet in the summer.

But this was not summer, and the days were still short. Don parked on the coastal road while the sun put himself to bed. ‘You see?’ He took her hand. ‘The sun’s gone. And look what he’s left behind just to remind us that he was here today. Colours. And with him goes today, and the colours fade until this day becomes yesterday. He’ll be back tomorrow, and we’ll call that today. All new. Every day is new.’

‘Could be cloudy.’

‘But the sun will still be there, love, supervising everything. We have to carry on into tomorrow; it’s what we do – we follow the sun’s sense of order. And soon, very soon, you can take hold of one special day, an important occasion. You can walk up to them and ask why they took your bloody dinner, and how dare they remain alive when they starved you halfway to death. Empty your bucket on their heads. Do unto others what they have done unto you. Steal their sausage rolls and ask how they like it. Better still, throw their food on the floor and jump on it.’ He grinned impishly.

‘I couldn’t do that.’

He shrugged. ‘Then I’ll do it for you.’

‘No!’

‘So your bucketful of crap is never going to land on their heads?’

‘Language, Don.’

She often used a few choice words in the throes of passion, but he decided not to mention that fact. A man had to take his pleasure where he could. ‘You were starved by your brothers and sisters. Don’t tell me off for swearing, but this is your chance to kick seven shades of shit out of them.’

A short silence followed. ‘But they were children, too. They were probably as hungry as I was.’

‘Then it’s your chance to forgive them. In my opinion, forgiveness would leave your bucket bone dry. It’s facing them at all that’s your problem, because you walked out and left them to it. They had to look after your mother. So a lot of it’s guilt mixed up with the anger. You do know I met some of them the day I went out with Joe?’

Tess nodded.

‘Decent people, ordinary people.’

‘Yes.’

‘We didn’t let anyone know who I was or where you were, because I told Joe just as much as he needed to know. Tess?’

‘What?’

‘The knife sharpener – remember him? That’s one of your brothers. Luckily, he didn’t recognize me.’

‘So Jack the Knife’s my brother?’

‘He is. There’s at least one builder, a postman, a greengrocer, two hairdressers—’

‘And a partridge in a pear tree?’

‘We never found one of those. But you’ve at least two nephews at university.’ He waited for a response, but none came.

‘Tess, there were times, you see, when I felt I’d never have made it without our Ian. I know I don’t see him often with the hours he works and him living in Chester, but knowing my brother’s somewhere is enough. You need to make them real, sweetheart. They’re there, they exist, they’re people. Whether or not you see them, they’re part of you. Whether or not you like them, the fact is—’

‘Shut up, Gordon. The fact is that if you carry on carrying on, I’ll walk home.’

‘Good luck with that – it’s well over fifteen miles, so it would take you till next Tuesday. Behave yourself. I’m treating you to a meal.’

‘I’m not dressed.’

Don laughed. ‘If you weren’t dressed, we could fulfil a dream of mine. Sex in the sand dunes.’

‘Too cold,’ was her quick response. ‘You’d shrivel like a roll-mop herring.’ Tess, when tottering on the brink of coarseness, was a delight. ‘And sand is hard,’ she added.

‘How do you know that?’

She turned to face him. ‘Picnics. And it gets in your sandwiches. Three bites of a ham sarnie, and you feel as if you’ve been to a sadistic dentist.’ She nodded. ‘It gets everywhere. Everywhere.’

He mused aloud about restaurants, wondered if anyone served roll-mop herrings, until she dug him in the ribs. ‘Take me home. We’ll call at the chip shop and you can keep your herrings.’

‘One condition, Tess.’

‘I’ll go, I’ll go. Just stop mithering on at me. Take me home, and I promise I’ll go.’

His face was a picture of manufactured innocence. ‘Go? Go where?’

‘The Riley reunion. I’ll be good, and I’ll go, and I won’t kill anybody.’

‘Oh, right. Fair enough, I suppose, though what I really meant was . . . oh, never mind.’

‘What’s the matter with you now, Don?’

‘That wasn’t my condition. I’ll take you home if you’ll follow me to the kasbah.’

‘You what?’

‘The sand dunes.’

She pulled his ear. Hard. Well, it was no more than he deserved.

The letter, spread out and almost untouched, sat on the kitchen table between Mr and Mrs Roy Baxter. Rosh stared at it as if in possession of manufacturing specifications for the Holy Grail, terrified of touching it, fearful for its integrity, doubting its very existence. How on earth had her mother managed this?

‘So it all happened while we were on our honeymoon.’ This statement from Roy was surplus to requirements.

‘I don’t know how to feel,’ Rosh said. ‘This is my baby, and she’s too young. But I’m so proud of her I could burst, but I . . .’

‘You can’t hold her back.’

‘Yes, I know. It means . . .’ She rose and walked to the window. Out there, her children had played, had learned to tolerate each other, to interact with visiting playmates, and to bear the inevitable tumbles that accompanied early years. ‘It means she knows how good she is. It means I lose her too soon and too suddenly. It means my mother took her to London for the interview without telling me. Where the hell is Marylebone Road, anyway?’

Roy glanced at the letter. ‘Northwest London.’

‘Oh, well, that makes everything so much clearer, doesn’t it? Then there’s the vicar. I can understand her turning down the idea of a place with one of the tutors, and I know she wouldn’t want the room offered by those nuns, but a vicar? She’ll be living with a Protestant, a Cromwellian, one of Henry the Eighth’s lot. No better than heathens.’

Roy puffed out his cheeks and blew. ‘Catholics have to start making room. The same applies to Protestants. It’s as if everybody goes through life reading just the one book from cover to cover. A second book with a different opinion does no harm. Look, Rosh, I don’t want to argue, but you don’t own Philly, and she doesn’t own her gift, because it has to be shared. If Shakespeare had buried his pen, if Turner had decided to paint his bedroom instead, if Beethoven had decided to be a sailor or a butcher – what then?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t care. I wasn’t their mother, was I?’

‘A child like Philly needs input while she’s young enough. She absorbs things so quickly – remember the viola?’

Rosh sank into an old rocking chair that used to be Anna’s. She missed her mother, but not enough to want her back. One newly-wed couple in a house was quite enough, thank you very much. ‘I’m frightened, Roy.’

‘I know you are, love. I’m not exactly on the edge of my seat with joy. But she won’t be the only youngster at the Royal Academy. There are other prodigies. And she’ll still go to ordinary lessons as well.’

Rosh felt as if some giant had ripped out her heart and used a hammer to batter it. Kieran would go relatively soon; he had worked out that Edinburgh was the best seat of learning for doctors, though because he was English and without doctors in the family he was mildly worried about his perceived suitability. Alice? Who knew? She was an all-rounder who kept her distance even now, preferring the company of older people to that of her peers. But a series of assessments had ruled out any form of autism, so she was within the bounds of normality, whatever they were.

Roy sought a change of subject. ‘This reunion? Are we going?’

‘Of course we’re going; they’re my father’s family. And when the time comes, we’re on puddings. I got a letter from that Injun Joe person. He said all culinary offerings of the sweet variety would be welcome, but the Scouse Alley people are doing the savoury side of the buffet. So apple tarts, custard tarts, fancies, maids of honour – the usual mixed bag. It’ll be a riot. Some daft young beggar’s booked a rock band, then there’s a ceilidh, some Irish dancers—’

‘And Philly.’

Rosh shrugged. ‘She’ll play if the piano’s good enough. That’s if they have a piano. No, let her be a child, let her meet other people her own age. Maybe she’ll see a future up here and decide to stay. I mean, what if she’s not up to scratch for the Royal flaming Academy? She might not make it as a concert pianist. How will she feel if she isn’t better than the best? And how do we know this vicar won’t try to convert her once he’s got her in that church of his?’

Roy wasn’t about to repeat himself. If Philly could make a living via music, the thing she loved most, that would be enough, surely? She didn’t need to be a concert performer; her main aim for now was to progress to a church organ with several manuals, dozens of stops, many pedals and a life of its own till reined in by a maestro. The vicar’s church had a great organ, but Rosh didn’t want her daughter learning anything at all in a Church of England establishment. ‘Rosh, there are evil priests and nasty nuns. There are also some bloody good vicars and some marvellous atheists. It’s about music, not about a view of God. She can go to war with a real monster in that church. The organ’s no piano, no walk in the park. But she wants to get to grips with it.’

‘She is too young for London. They’ll keep the place till she’s eighteen, surely? If she wants to mess about with a church organ, she can find one in Liverpool.’ Rosh left the room.

Roy sat with his head in his hands. Because he had the advantage of a slight distance between himself and Rosh’s children, he was able to view them not quite dispassionately, but sensibly. He had never been an outsider, even when Phil had been alive, yet the qualities of these young people were not clouded in his mind. Alice was going to terrify everybody, because her brain, scarcely apparent while everyone treated her as the baby, would burst forth like a dandelion clock in the wind once the other children had left home. She would make an excellent teacher, he decided.

Kieran, now, was a different bag of tricks. Apparently totally focused on a future in the medical profession, he remained open to suggestion and receptive to all learning. Through Roy, he had explored law, particularly the criminal aspect. Fiercely opposed to capital punishment and aware of several innocents who had hanged, he rather fancied the idea of defence work. He liked having Roy around, because he had been buried beneath the weight of females since the death of his father, and Roy seemed to understand him.

This left Philomena. Strange that Rosh and Phil should have chosen to name a girl Philly after her father. Philly resembled neither of the other two. She was quiet, naturally refined, and completely engrossed in music. In other subjects she performed adequately, but music was her soul. With a borrowed viola, she had progressed in weeks from delivering sounds reminiscent of a cat in agony to playing her own compositions. She performed well on clarinet and oboe, but keyboards were her main passion. And something in the girl’s eyes informed the world that yes, she would go all the way to the top. Thus far, she lacked the arrogance of the self-absorbed diva, yet she would probably gain it later in life. The love demanded by genius came not from a partner, but from a crowd that kept its distance. In fact, broken relationships often formed a trail of debris behind those owned by an audience, the public, the world.

Roy raised his head. Did she have that special quality, the rogue element that separated the few from the many? And why was he, a mere stepfather, so engrossed in his wife’s children? Couldn’t he sit back like most incomers did, let their mother do the work and the worrying? No, he couldn’t, because Phil and Rosh had been his best friends since school, and he loved her. Her troubles were his troubles, yet hers would always be the final decision.

He followed in her footsteps to their bedroom. She was crying. ‘I can’t let go yet, Roy. The fault’s in me.’

He stood behind her, hands on her shoulders, his eyes fixed on her face in the dressing-table mirror. ‘We have to go and meet the vicar. And we need to see this Royal Academy place. She’s old enough in her head, Rosh.’

‘But I’m not.’

‘No mother’s ever ready to let go. If she’d turned thirty and was about to walk to the altar, you wouldn’t judge any man fit to deserve her. It’s never a good time.’

‘You want her to go?’

‘No, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t. She’ll be with others of her own age, other musically gifted kids. Rosh?’

‘What?’

‘Are you going to take a dangerous chance here? If she doesn’t forgive you, can you ever forgive yourself?’

The tears dried. She hadn’t looked at it from that viewpoint. Because of her nature, Philly hadn’t leapt for joy when the offer had arrived. For a girl in her teens, she was very much in charge of her emotions. ‘I think she cried herself dry when Phil died, Roy. Then she turned to my mother, because I was in a state . . .’

‘And after that, she minded Alice,’ Roy said quietly. ‘I am not criticizing you, babe. You were bloody devastated. She grew up very fast, because she’s like you, sense of duty and all that. And Kieran changed, Alice changed – we all changed. But if you put a stop to her now, she might finally react. Or, if you want to look at it a different way, we can sell the shop, the café and this house. We can all go to London. Your mother and Mr Collingford can sort out his upstairs dry-cleaning business.’

Her jaw dropped for a split second. Uproot the other two as well? ‘Kieran’s at a critical age, and as for Alice—’

‘Kieran has brains enough for Harrow,’ Roy said. ‘He’ll survive no matter what. Alice is young and would settle eventually, don’t let her fool you. Houses are expensive, so we’d probably need to get a flat, but—’

‘And uprooting everyone is the answer? Oh, no.’

‘It’s an interesting city, Rosh.’

‘The Lake District’s interesting, but we’re not going to live there, either.’ She knew the ball was in her court. When it came to decisions like this one, the ultimate responsibility would always be hers. What would Phil have said? How would he have reacted? Rosh closed her eyes and concentrated. ‘First, we talk to her,’ she said at last. ‘It’s her life.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then, if she’s determined to go, we make an appointment with the Academy, then with the vicar. She’ll need permission from the bishop to attend a non-Catholic college and to live in a vicarage.’

‘Where does that come in the list that gave Moses a hernia?’

‘It’s a law of our Church.’

He nodded. ‘Oh, yes. Do you know why? They want our money in their collection plates. “Contribute to the support of our pastors”? That means don’t encourage other Christian faiths, don’t try to see a different viewpoint, go through life with sand in your eyes, no ecumenical movement, no space for thought, no thought for education. Well. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a definite case of no permission required.’

‘Is your sermon finished?’ she asked. ‘Send the plate round, because I think I’ve a bent halfpenny somewhere and a couple of shirt buttons.’

He laughed at her.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I know what you mean. You’ll be a lovely dad.’

He grinned. ‘Alice loves me.’

‘They all do.’ It was too soon to tell him that she thought she had a little foreigner on board, one that might arrive with Made in Cornwall stamped on its rear end. Roy deserved to have a child of his own, but she knew it wouldn’t be easy for her. The delivery of Alice had been difficult and, since Cuttle’s attack, internal scarring might interfere with the birthing process. Caesarean section?

‘What are you thinking about now?’ he asked.

‘Not much,’ she replied. Which was true enough. An invisible bundle of cells wasn’t much. Was it?

The weeks flew by like a wind off the Irish Sea, and the big occasion was upon them. Maureen rolled up her sleeves and marched through the living room. ‘I’ll kill him,’ she pronounced. ‘I’ll wring his flaming neck.’

Tom lowered his newspaper. ‘You said that yesterday, but he’s still walking about somewhere. What’s he done this time?’

‘What’s he done? What’s he done?’

‘That was the question, love. Do I get an answer?’

She continued to the front door and threw it open. ‘Seamus?’ she yelled. The first syllable emerged on a note towards the middle of the scale, but the ‘mus’ was thrown high into the air like a pigeon being released from confinement. Each child knew the call of his or her mother. Seamus, probably on the run, failed to put in an appearance.

‘Maureen?’

‘Five. He’s buggered off with five Cornish pasties. I’m up to my eyes in sausage rolls and vols-au-vent, and he’s nicking stuff faster than I can cook it. We might as well have a prayer meeting instead of a reunion, because there’ll be nothing to eat. It’ll be known as the day of the starving Rileys.’

This was Tom’s afternoon off. The Co-op closed at lunch time on Saturdays, and he came home for rest and relaxation. Some chance of that in the current climate. Should cooking while moaning become an international sport, his Maureen would be on the winners’ podium with the best. Some of the baking was going on at Scouse Alley, but Maureen and her mother were working from home. It was all right for Kevin. He’d escaped to Paddy’s Market, and good luck to him.

‘He can’t eat five himself,’ she said now.

‘How much are you prepared to bet on that?’ Tom asked. ‘Anyway, you’ve got him all wrong this time, missus.’

‘Have I?’

‘Oh, yes. I gave him and four friends a pasty each, and they’re decorating. You know he’s good at that, because he does the room up every Christmas for the pensioners. So in future, before you kill him, ask me first.’

Maureen blinked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because you weren’t here. You were next door having a row with your mother. These houses may be well built, but I reckon they could hear the two of you in Glasgow and London. I got every word through the party wall.’ He raised the newspaper and continued reading while his dearly beloved flounced off back to her baking.

At the kitchen table, Maureen lit a rare cigarette. The argument with Mam had been about Reen. Maureen’s only daughter, who had never been the sharpest knife in the drawer, was failing in the pregnancy stakes. All her friends had babies, and Maureen had discovered a stash of baby clothes and equipment in Reen’s spare bedroom. If the girl wasn’t held back, there’d soon be a cot, pram and high chair with no baby to occupy them. Poor Reen. She was truly broody, and her sadness showed in the way she moved, the way she failed to hold up her head, the way she talked to the floor. It was almost as if she couldn’t face people because she was infertile, abnormal, less than a woman.

Maureen dashed away a tear almost angrily. Special classes for reading, extra arithmetic homework, Finbar and Michael having to protect their sister from the taunts of her peers – little Reen had never been lucky. She now had a good job in a factory canteen, where she had risen from the ranks to hold the post of deputy manager. Her skills had been picked up from her mother and grandmother, sometimes at home, often in Scouse Alley. She was capable of calculating the amount and cost of food required, yet she couldn’t have managed long division even had her life depended on it.

Maureen’s idea of tackling the problem was to go via the medical route, but Paddy disagreed. ‘If the good Lord wanted her to have babies, she’d have them. She can scarcely take care of herself and the house, Maureen. She loses interest. I wouldn’t trust her not to forget the child, leave it at the shops, and come home wondering what she’d mislaid.’

From there, it had all gone downhill. Both women had stuck to their guns, and both were frazzled from cooking for endless hours. Maureen insisted that her daughter had every right to children, and that an investigation into the couple’s breeding equipment would do no harm.

Paddy, however, was not convinced. In her loudly expressed opinion, this was God’s way of telling the family that the girl should not be a mother, since she would not be an adequate one. ‘What if her slowness of mind gets passed on?’ Paddy had screamed. ‘And the eejit she married isn’t up to much, is he? All he’s bothered about is Liverpool Football Club and beer. Leave things alone, Maureen.’

It was stalemate. Fortunately, Reen and Jimmy had gone out for the day, so they had heard none of this.

Tom stood in the doorway. ‘Come on, love. We’ve got this big do tomorrow, and your mother’s talking rubbish. We’ll do all we can for Reen and Jimmy. They may not be a pair of clever clogs, but you saw how they were in Rainford with Finbar’s Beth and Michael’s Patrick.’

Maureen’s face brightened. Her two older sons had decided to stay in Rainford, where they had a huge window-cleaning round and a pair of ancient stone cottages side by side with pretty rear gardens and beautiful interiors. In a way, they were like dolls’ houses, especially when her tall sons entered by ducking under door lintels. The properties, already over two hundred years old, had been built for the Earl of Derby’s farm workers, all of whom must have been no taller than five and a half feet.

‘Maureen?’

‘I heard you, love. I was just thinking about our boys and their families. It’s nice where they are, isn’t it? Thank goodness for Mrs Kray, eh?’

‘And for your mother. Don’t forget her part in it. She’s different from us, and a lot older. Her faith begins and ends with the Catholic Church and that makes her difficult. Look at it another way, though. By setting off on her own to London in poor health, she proved she cares. But in this case, I’m with you. I think our Reen would find her feet as a mother. It would be the making of her.’ He paused for a few heartbeats. ‘Go and make friends with your mam. Go on. We’ve a big day tomorrow.’

The phone rang. Unused to the new intruder, both jumped. ‘Bloody hell,’ Maureen breathed, one hand pressed to her chest.

Tom went to deal with the offending instrument. ‘Hello?’

He was quiet for several seconds. ‘You what? Can you say that again, please?’

Maureen waited impatiently while whoever it was repeated whatever they’d already said.

He covered the mouthpiece. ‘It’s Maggie from Scouse Alley. She says the place is full of nuns.’

‘What does she mean?’

‘What do you mean, Mags?’ He listened before covering the mouthpiece once more. ‘She says there’s two of them, but it feels like a crowd.’

‘It would do,’ Maureen replied. ‘Ask what they’re doing.’

‘What are they up to? . . . Right . . . right, I see.’

‘Well?’ Maureen’s hands were on her hips.

Tom shrugged. ‘Mags says they’re putting signs up.’

‘What signs?’ She started with the foot-tapping business. Nuns had no right to put signs up in Scouse Alley. ‘If it’s the Sermon on the Mount, they can take it down again.’

Tom smiled. ‘Oh, hello, Seamus. You what? OK. Well done, lad. Yes, yes, I’ll tell your mother.’ He replaced the receiver.

‘What’s going on now?’ Maureen demanded.

‘He says nuns can do curly writing. So they’ve made two signs, one for the door and one for inside. The door one says Riley Reunion, and the inside one says Bless This Family. Seamus asked them to do the signs in curly writing.’ He walked towards her. ‘All’s well, you see.’

With the wind fast abandoning her sails, Maureen sank. Fortunately she landed in a chair. ‘Well,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘it just goes to show there’s more to that little monkey than meets the eye.’

‘There must be, love. He’s got what he refers to as a pair of penguins decorating the room. Maggie was frightened to death. For her, seeing a nun’s like walking under a ladder – bad luck. Let’s hope her roast beef survives the shock.’

Maureen began to laugh.

‘What’s funny?’ her husband asked. His flies were fastened, he wasn’t wearing bits of lavatory paper after a disastrous shave, and he wasn’t making funny faces.

She pulled herself together. ‘Bless this family? I’d better go and see my mother. You can’t have a family with no mam.’

Rosh cuddled up to her man. Asleep, he was lovely, because he had disgracefully long eyelashes that almost rested on his cheeks. In fact, if she took the curl out of them, they probably would . . .

‘Oi,’ he shouted after his rude awakening. ‘What are you doing now, madam? Trying to poke my eyes out?’

‘Just messing about,’ she answered. ‘Are you properly awake?’

‘I am. Blind, but awake. You want me to make tea, don’t you? You want a poor old crippled man, blind in one eye, to struggle down the stairs without waking the Three Musketeers, make tea, let it brew, pour it into cups, and—’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re cruel.’

‘I am.’

He went. On Sundays, he always did morning tea. This was a special Sunday, because Rosh was about to mix with members of her extended family, as were the children and Anna. He was looking forward to meeting Tom again, and Rosh could scarcely wait to see Maureen.

Roy chuckled to himself. Never in his existence had he experienced such contentment. The house he had sold was happy at last, too, because it contained newly-weds who were expecting their first child. Taken all round, life was good. With his tea tray, he went back upstairs.

Rosh was brushing her hair at the dressing table. ‘Now, Baxter,’ she said. ‘About . . . things. I’m mended enough for the making of babies, but not enough for squeezing them out.’ She swivelled round. ‘You’re going to be Daddy to a Caesarean section.’

Items on the tray wobbled a bit, so he placed it on the bed. ‘Erm . . .’ Had he heard right?

‘Sit down, Bax,’ she ordered.

He perched on the edge of the bed. ‘I brought your tea.’

‘Yes.’

‘And your hair’s like a halo.’ What a stupid thing to say.

Rosh grinned impishly. ‘You’ve gone white. Don’t go showing me up by fainting in front of my relatives.’

Roy swallowed. ‘A baby?’

‘That’s what humans usually have.’

‘My baby.’

‘No, it’s the milkman’s. Well, I think it’s the milkman’s.’

He had always been sure that he would never have a child of his own. But here he was, married to the most beautiful woman he’d ever known, and she was— ‘They have to cut you open?’

She nodded.

‘Because of Cuttle?’

‘Scar tissue or something. Yes. Forget about him. All that matters is this baby.’ She stared hard at him. ‘I’ll be all right. Oh, for God’s sake, you can stop dripping tears. I’m not turning up with you all red-eyed, either. Red eyes, white face – all we need is a bit of blue and we can call you Reunion Jack.’ She sat next to him and drew him close. ‘Don’t make me start crying, or we’ll be going nowhere.’

‘Isn’t three enough?’ he managed.

‘I’m being given a fourth. Don’t worry. Some poor women go through this half a dozen times and right into their forties. Four’s a nice even number. I’ll miss Philly, but I reckon Alice will step up to the plate.’ She paused. ‘We’ve done the right thing, haven’t we? The vicar’s lovely, and he has a nice family.’

‘And a big organ.’ Roy groaned when she dug him in the ribs.

‘The Academy people talked posh, but they were all right too,’ she added.

‘They were keen to get her, as well.’ Roy rubbed the elbowed rib. ‘A baby,’ he sighed. ‘I’m going to be a dad. I thought I’d never be a dad.’

‘Wear your best suit today,’ she ordered. ‘And a tie. You can take it off if others do. Just the tie, I mean. And,’ she wagged a finger, ‘no stupid, Cheshire cat grin . . .’

He kissed her. It was by far the best way to stop her nagging. Oh, but he was one lucky man. Another long-abandoned dream was going to come true.

Don stood at the top of the stairs. ‘Anne-Marie?’

‘What, Dad?’

‘Help. I need help. Come and deal with her, because I’ve given up.’ Tess had tried on so many outfits that the bed and all other surfaces in the room were draped as if ready for decent burial. Naturally, she had gone back to the number she’d first thought of, a beautiful blue suit that matched her eyes perfectly, but there was no telling which way she’d jump next.

‘Don’t leave me, Don,’ Tess shouted. ‘I need your input.’

His input? His bloody input? Twenty-five guineas he’d spent on the blue suit, not to mention shoes, gloves and bag. She’d been after a hat as well till he’d put his foot down hard. They were going down towards the Dock Road, not to Royal Ascot or Buckingham Palace. The way she was carrying on, the reunion would be over before they got there.

‘What shall I do?’ Anne-Marie asked.

‘Panic,’ he replied. ‘That’s what I’m doing.’

‘I refuse to panic,’ was Anne-Marie’s haughty response.

Tess appeared. She shut the bedroom door and looked her husband up and down. ‘What’s all the noise for?’ she asked innocently. ‘I hope everybody’s ready. We don’t want to be late, do we?’ Without another word, she led her family downstairs. Pulling on her gloves, she wondered again what all the to-do had been about. After all, it was just a fuss about nothing.

Nevertheless, when they reached Scouse Alley and Don helped her out of the car, she hung on to his hand. From the other side of an open door, rock music poured. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she whispered.

‘I won’t.’

Anne-Marie was already halfway across the parking area. ‘It’s the Quarry Men!’ She dragged Mark inside.

‘Remember your breathing, Tess,’ Don whispered. He was glad Sean hadn’t come. Sean was under a 1939 MG with no intention of shifting till he’d got the beggar moving. Sean was more sensitive than he appeared, and he hated to see his mother in a state. ‘Don’t hold your breath, or you’ll end up hyperventilating and in a panic. They’re just people. You even know one of the guys in the band. When they stop playing, you must go and talk to him.’

‘I can’t go in.’

‘You can go in. I’ll bloody carry you in if I have to.’

‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’

It was chaos. The only bit of organization was the work of Injun Joe, who was standing at a table marked Photographs etc., and there was a lot of et cetera. People were adding snaps, wedding pictures, portraits of men in uniform, scraps of paper marked with addresses and phone numbers, and other bits of memorabilia. From the extension pounded the music of John Lennon and his pals, and all the young had been drawn round the corner like iron filings responding to the positive side of a magnet.

Don could feel his wife trembling on his arm. Then, apparently out of nowhere, two more Tesses strode towards them. One was older than his own Tess, while the other was several years younger. The latter was Cuttle’s victim, the poor soul who’d been in hospital with Tess. And they simply drew her away from him. One minute she’d been a shaking wreck; the next, she was engaged in animated conversation with two women who had introduced themselves to him very briefly. One was Roisin Baxter, while the other was Maureen Walsh. Don picked up a sausage roll and wandered towards the music.

Lennon was singing, and he wasn’t bad. Perhaps he’d do all right without serving an apprenticeship for a trade. Mark and Anne-Marie danced energetically, as did the offspring of other Rileys. The Quarry Men finished their set and began packing up their gear. Anne-Marie sidled up to her dad. ‘You thought he should go and be a plumber? John Lennon a plumber? Just you wait and see, Daddy-oh.’ She returned to her boyfriend, who was being scrutinized by several other teenage girls.

Don shook his head. Daddy-oh? Not again – he was sick of that title.

Then it kicked off, and the young were not responsible. A row broke out near the centre of the longer arm of Scouse Alley. ‘She didn’t,’ a man yelled. ‘She went over to Derry and married a Protestant.’

‘She did not!’ shouted another. ‘Finished up in Dublin, married English, but he was Catholic, and they farmed in Suffolk when they came over. I should know, she was my sister. They had a Suffolk Punch stud, and—’

Another man chimed in. ‘Your sister? She was anybody’s for a drop of gin.’ He was the recipient of the first blow.

‘There’s your Suffolk Punch,’ cried the pugilist.

Maureen’s older sons dragged the men apart. Finbar and Michael were big men, both trained boxers, and they soon put a stop to the fracas.

Paddy grabbed the microphone. ‘I’m ashamed of yous,’ she announced. ‘Brawling in front of children. I am Paddy O’Neil, and you are inside my property. It will take me two minutes, no more, to turn this place dry. Then we’ll see do you fight without grape or grain in you. Maureen – easy on the Guinness.’

People shuffled uncomfortably. They had come to meet their kin, and a few of their kin were scarcely civilized.

Paddy continued. ‘Those who know people who arrived here drunk, get them out. Now.’ She waited while the sober offloaded the inebriates. There were several scuffles in the doorway, so Finbar and Michael stood guard. Paddy waded on. ‘I am Irish myself, as you can no doubt tell. My mother married a Riley. We have, here in Liverpool, some grand Irish folk. But we also have those soaked in alcohol and nostalgia, always keening for home, their true address somewhere at the bottom of the Irish Sea, because they know and love home, depend on England and curse England. Well, let me tell you now that my family was a poor one, and most of us are glad we crossed the water. This is home. Liverpool is home.’

Don felt his jaw drop. Tess was borrowing the microphone! ‘I was a Riley,’ she said clearly. ‘Slept in a caravan with seven others, plus my mother and father. We sometimes ate in the ganga’s white house. I am Theresa Marianne. My oldest sister was Concepta Maria Conchita – can’t remember the rest of it. If my brothers and sisters are here, hello to you.’ She handed back the mike.

Don lowered his head and blinked away some wetness. So frightened, so slow to move when getting dressed, so shaky out there in the car park. Unpredictable? Even a word as big as that was not sufficient to cover the glorious, beautiful woman he had married. Her two clones clapped when Tess was picked up and carried away by a brother she might never have recognized had he not sharpened knives on his wheel just outside the Smithdown Road launderette. Jack the Knife took her to meet the rest of her family.

But for the most part, the three ‘sisters’ spent time in each other’s company. Some invisible yet irresistible hand steered the three husbands into a corner. Tom and Roy had already met, though neither mentioned the original occasion. It would go to the grave with them, since both were honourable men.

Roisin’s Roy was the first to speak up. ‘I never know which way she’ll jump,’ he said happily. ‘Every day’s a new chapter, and it doesn’t necessarily join up with any previous text.’

Don nodded. ‘Tess tried on so many dresses this morning, you’d have thought she had shares in Lewis’s. She collects squirrels. Not like stamps, she doesn’t have them in the house, but she feeds them and talks to them. There’s one called Alex who knocks on the bloody kitchen door. If I open it, he scarpers, but he begs from her. She can’t resist them. Or birds. It’s like a flaming wildlife sanctuary.’

Tom chuckled. ‘Small fry, your two,’ he said. ‘Mine’s the best girl in the world, but she has a gob on her like the Mersey Tunnel. And she breaks things. Temper? Give me a leaky boat on a stormy sea any day. Safer.’ He nodded. ‘But I wouldn’t swap her for all the gold in Fort Knox.’

A proud Roy pointed out his stepchildren. Alice held an old lady captive and captivated in a corner. ‘That’ll be our teacher, I reckon. Kieran’s probably for medicine, possibly for law. But Philly, the beautiful blonde, has won a place at the Royal Academy. She’s a great pianist.’ But he didn’t mention the unborn, because that would be Rosh’s job when the time came.

‘I’ve just my daughter here,’ Don said. ‘She’s over there with her boyfriend. My lad’s mending a car. What about you, Tom?’

Tom pointed to Seamus, who was half hidden under a table. ‘There’s my youngest,’ he said, ‘up to his eyes in jelly and custard. The big fellows on the door are mine, too. And my daughter’s over near that long table studying her shoes.’ Poor Reen. There were babies and children everywhere, living reminders of her own failure to produce. Her husband was drinking himself towards coma, while she lacked the confidence to mix with strangers.

Anna and Paddy found one another, of course. They were sisters-in-law, since Anna had been married to one of Paddy’s brothers, one who had never gone to London to involve himself with gangsters. The two got on like a house on fire, as did their husbands. The rest milled about, men clapping men on shoulders, women weeping when they discovered the long lost, people lining up for the ceilidh.

The ceilidh was insane. Most seemed to own left feet only, and no two people knew the same dance steps, so corns and bunions were shown little respect. At the end, there was just a pile on the floor, the whole lot screaming with laughter.

Don, still in the company of his fellow sufferers, saw the blue suit among all the carnage. If twenty-five guineas had gone to pieces, that sight made his spending sensible. She was dancing with Jack the Knife, her lookalikes, and several others to whom she was probably sister, aunt or cousin.

This had been a good day.

Home From Home

The Irish Sea was frisky, to say the least. But on this occasion Tess felt no sickness, no urge to jump into the water to end it all. Paddy and Don both looked rather green, yet Tess maintained her dignity, even managing the occasional smile when she noticed the condition of her stalwart companions. They had taken her home; now, they were bringing her home.

She closed her eyes. In the middle of nowhere, a hotel had sprung up. Its name was the Middle of Nowhere, a title expressed in English and in its Gaelic equivalent on exterior signs. The Middle of Nowhere was crammed with people, Irish, English and American. Words and drink flowed, singing broke out, an accordion played while a young woman performed a less than steady version of a jig. Midsummer in the back of beyond was certainly lively.

The place was packed; its last two rooms had gone to Paddy and to Don and Tess. They breakfasted next morning on porridge topped with thick cream and a touch of orange liqueur. Then they walked the slow walk, travelled on a pilgrimage back in time to a white house with a front door that had been black.

The roof had caved in, and the weather-battered door had lost most of its paint. Through a broken, filthy window, they caught sight of the ganga’s chair, which rested in its old place, though rain had done its damage over the decades. Here and there, bits of the poteen sheds hung on, while the orchard, running wild, was dense with untended foliage.

‘Are you all right, Tess?’ Don asked.

She opened her eyes. He’d asked the same question when they’d reached the open-fronted barn.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said in both times.

There were no caravans. Stables had rotted, arable fields lay fallow, cattle from various surrounding farms wandered and grazed where they chose. But the most remarkable thing about the place was its pure beauty. The abandoned white house said something about Ireland’s regeneration, as did the hotel down the road. At last, people had begun to value the middle of nowhere, because the middle of nowhere mattered in this madly busy world.

But above all, there was the greenness. Yellow-greens, blue-greens, moss greens, emeralds, St Augustine’s school-uniform bottle greens, shiny greens and dull ones, light fern greens. Green upon green upon green. Endless. ‘So unashamedly lovely,’ Tess said. ‘It celebrates itself. My squizzles would love the orchard.’

And she didn’t want to leave.

Paddy, drying her eyes after the sight of her old home, said she didn’t know about the state of things and how to get proof, but this was Riley land, and she would see what could be done to mend things, make a holiday home where the family could come and stay in turns.

And Tess still didn’t want to leave. She found the field from which she’d dug potatoes and turnips to eat raw, stared at the spot where her caravan had stood, remembered the older ones stealing her food. But none of that mattered any more, because this was her place . . . well, one of her places. Calm, so calm. She even went to find the grave of the little stillborn, and it was there, marked by a cross on the trunk of a tree whose canopy shaded one who had never breathed. ‘Sleep well,’ she told her brother or sister.

‘Tess?’

She opened her eyes. ‘Yes, Paddy?’

‘Don’s being sick over the side somewhere.’

Tess smiled. ‘Then he’ll know how we felt coming over the first time. I wanted to die.’

‘You’re talking in your sleep, but.’

‘I’m not sleeping, I’m thinking. Look after Don.’ Tess closed her eyes again, and was immediately back in Mayo.

They walked back to the hotel and rested on their beds for several hours. Well, they were supposed to rest, though Don was kept awake by his wife’s ceaseless chatter. But Tess knew that her man was happy because she’d finally faced her demons.

After lunch, they had another little walk, but not in the direction of the white house. It was then that Tess realized that there was something going on. Paddy and Don kept looking at each other, then at their watches. ‘What are you two cooking?’ she asked.

‘Soda bread,’ came the terse reply from Paddy.

A small man rode towards them on a donkey. He stopped. ‘A Riley,’ he said, pointing at Tess. ‘Sure, they threw up these pretty little fillies for generations.’ He grinned, baring a total absence of teeth apart from a lone ranger at the front. ‘Would ye have a drop of petrol on ye?’

It was the party of three’s turn to grin.

‘Because I’ve tried everything else on this lazy article.’ The animal resumed walking. ‘Did I tell you to go?’ the man yelled. ‘I never even put you into first gear . . .’ His voice faded as the animal picked up a bit of speed.

‘Old Ireland alongside the new.’ Don pointed towards their hotel. ‘You know, girls, I have a sneaking hope that the old won’t die out altogether.’

‘Ah, it won’t,’ Paddy promised.

They rested on their beds before dinner, and during wakeful moments Tess thought about the changes in their lives since that first gathering. Everyone met once a month at Lights. A family tree of sorts had been constructed, and she was reconciled with her siblings. The Three Musketeers, Don, Tom and Roy, enjoyed nights out together, as did their musketeeresses. There were family dinners, outings, birthday parties, weddings. She belonged. She belonged with Don and the children; she belonged with the Rileys, too.

No more nightmares. No longer were the bottoms of wardrobes filled with tinned food. She almost missed the fear of poverty and hunger, which was silly. It appeared that even the worst parts of life were woven into a person’s background, and that was stupid. She turned to the bright side. Reen was pregnant at last. For Paddy’s sake, and for Reen, Tess was glad, though the father-to-be didn’t look up to much.

They woke, made themselves ready for supper, then went downstairs for a drink before their meal. They were accosted by their hostess, a bustling, busy little woman with the broadest smile on earth, which this evening was just one expression of many mixed emotions. ‘You see. I said to Vinnie – didn’t I, Vin—’ She turned, but her husband had done a disappearing act. ‘Would you ever look at that, now? There he is – gone. Don’t you find, ladies, that whenever they’re needed, they’re never in the place where they should be?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Paddy said gravely. ‘It’s the disappearing act of the lesser-spotted human male.’

The landlady shook her head. ‘Well, yours back in Liverpool might be lesser spotted, but mine’s covered in freckles even in places the sun should never have visited. It’s the O’Malleys, you see.’

Paddy didn’t see, and she said so.

‘Well, here’s the thing. There I go, rattling on, and you with no idea of any of it. The O’Malley clan booked tables in the dining room, special occasion, and Vinnie, God mind his soul, forgot to mention it, so I’ll kill him later. Don’t want blood on good Irish linen, so. You’re in the annexe. I think it’s called an orangery, though I don’t know why, for I never managed to grow as much as a hyacinth in there.’

They followed her through to the annexe, a huge glass room with blinds at all the windows. The sun had gone on its westward journey, so the blinds were not closed, and the beauty of the countryside was all around them. A long table groaned under the weight of food, and a poster hung from the ceiling. Eat your fill, Tess. From your brothers and sisters.

‘There,’ smiled the landlady. ‘All paid for by your family over to Liverpool. God bless, and I hope you enjoy.’ She surveyed the table. ‘I expect you’ll never shift it all, but.’

Tess laughed. She laughed then, in that glorious country, and she laughed now, on her way home.

‘Tess?’ Paddy touched her shoulder. ‘Your man’s stopped heaving for the while, but I want you to come and look. Come away with you now.’

The ferry busied itself over the bar where sea became river. ‘Look at that now,’ Paddy commanded. ‘Sure, it’s a different beauty, but it remains a lovely, welcoming sight, does it not?’

Tess agreed. That famous waterfront hove into view, its huge buildings made smaller by distance. They were home. The ferry chugged its way towards dock, bringing them nearer to their goal with every passing minute.

‘And here we have it,’ Paddy said. ‘The lights of Liverpool. We’re home.’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank above all Wayne Brookes who gave me my wings, who appreciates my poetry and makes me laugh.

Camilla Elworthy for bearing with my Franglais.

Louise Buckley who is getting used to me; I’m not easy to digest.

Avril Cain for research into local industries and their placement.

Liverpool just for being here with a rich, fascinating history.

Fudge, one, two, three, four, tail at the back makes five, good boy. It was time to go, sweetheart.

Hello, Blazer – God help me. He’s half French mastiff (Hooch) half Lab and completely confused. He understands neither English nor French, so I use German. He doesn’t understand that, either.

Readers – you’re the main reason for what I do. Thank you. Ruthie.

Ruth Hamilton is the bestselling author of numerous novels, including Mulligan’s Yard, The Judge’s Daughter, The Reading Room, Mersey View, That Liverpool Girl and Lights of Liverpool. She has become one of the north-west of England’s most popular writers. She was born in Bolton, which is the setting for many of her novels, and has spent most of her life in Lancashire. She now lives in Liverpool.

By Ruth Hamilton

A Whisper to the Living

With Love From Ma Maguire

Nest of Sorrows

Billy London’s Girls

Spinning Jenny

The September Starlings

A Crooked Mile

Paradise Lane

The Bells of Scotland Road

The Dream Sellers

The Corner House

Miss Honoria West

Mulligan’s Yard

Saturday’s Child

Matthew & Son

Chandler’s Green

The Bell House

Dorothy’s War

A Parallel Life

Sugar and Spice

The Judges Daughter

The Reading Room

Mersey View

That Liverpool Girl

Lights of Liverpool

A Liverpool Song

Mersey View first published 2010 by Macmillan

That Liverpool Girl first published 2011 by Macmillan

Lights of Liverpool first published 2012 by Macmillan

This electronic omnibus published 2013 by Pan Books

an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

Basingstoke and Oxford

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www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-0-230-77281-6

Copyright © Ruth Hamilton 2010, 2011, 2012

The right of Ruth Hamilton to be identified as the author of these works has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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