Lime Street Blues (17 page)

The date, a Saturday, happened to coincide with Jeannie’s sixteenth birthday. Dr and Mrs Bailey offered to arrange a special birthday-cum-Christmas-cum-celebratory tea party for Jeannie, the Merseysiders, and their relatives, and Benny’s mother, of course, if she cared to come.

‘It’ll only be a buffet meal,’ said Elaine. ‘There wouldn’t be room for everyone to sit down.’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Jeannie said blissfully. She couldn’t think of a better, more satisfactory way of spending her birthday than at the Cavern with a party beforehand.

‘It’s not my sort of thing,’ Tom Flowers growled when Jeannie told him about it.

‘But Dad, it’s only a party.’ She didn’t like the idea of him being left out.

‘I told you, it’s not my sort of thing,’ he said stubbornly.

‘Everyone else’s dad will be there.’ As far as she knew, there’d only be Dr Bailey, but it didn’t hurt to exaggerate.

‘I’m sorry, Jeannie.’

Jeannie gave up. ‘You don’t mind if Mum comes, do you?’

‘These days, your mother does as she pleases. She’s not likely to ask my permission.’ He turned away and went into the garden shed where Mum said his own father had gone to smoke a pipe and where his son now went to sulk.

Rose Flowers conferred with Sadie McDowd next time she came into the Post Office. ‘D’you mind if I go with you and your Rita to this tea party thing? To tell the truth, I’ve hardly been out of Ailsham in the dark. I’d feel odd on the bus on my own.’

‘Of course I don’t mind, Rose.’ Sadie spoke with the confident air of someone who travelled on buses all the time when it was dark. ‘I’ll be glad of the company. Rita’s going straight to the party from work, then she’s off to the Cavern with your Jeannie and the others. Are you buying a new frock?’

‘Yes,’ Rose said impulsively, although, until then, it hadn’t crossed her mind.

Mrs Lucas was another who turned the invitation down. ‘I’ve got nothing to wear,’ she told Benedicta. ‘Anyroad, luv, I don’t talk posh enough and I might use the wrong knife and fork.’

‘Don’t be daft, Mam. It’s a buffet meal and there won’t be knives and forks. I’d love you to come.’

‘I know you would, luv, but I’d feel much happier staying at home and thinking about you enjoying yourself.’ And other things, such as that by this time next year, Benedicta would be working for the Civil Service
and Mrs Lucas would have given up her cleaning jobs altogether. She couldn’t wait.

‘Sweet sixteen!’ Lachlan remarked when he met Jeannie on the stairs. She was on her way up from the kitchen where she’d been getting something to eat and he was on his way down. ‘Old enough to be kissed.’ He smiled and kissed Jeannie chastely on her left cheek, stopped smiling and looked at her seriously for a minute, then kissed the other cheek, not quite so chastely this time. Then he groaned and his face seemed to collapse. ‘Jeannie! I’ve been longing to do this for years, but you seemed so young.’

He slid his arms around Jeannie’s waist and the plate of miniature sausage rolls and vol-au-vents fell with a clatter and everything rolled to the bottom of the stairs while Jeannie Flowers and Lachlan Bailey enjoyed their first proper kiss.

It was a long, soft, sweet kiss, full of youthful exuberance and delight. Halfway through, Jeannie felt the urge to put her arms around Lachlan. Her hands came to rest on the back of his lean neck, his hair threaded through her fingers, and she could feel his heart beating rapidly against her own. A dozen emotions swirled crazily in her breast. She could hardly breathe.

Then a door opened upstairs, there were voices downstairs. The two young people broke away.

‘Who’s been throwing food all over the place?’ Marcia demanded in her piercing voice.

‘Jeannie and I bumped into each other and she dropped the plate,’ Lachlan explained. He gave Jeannie a shy smile. ‘Sit down and I’ll bring you something else to eat.’

‘Oh, dearie me!’ Rose Flowers merely whispered the
words to herself when her daughter came into the Baileys’ parlour. ‘Something’s happened. Something extraordinarily nice.’

If the truth be known, Jeannie looked a touch simple, smiling crookedly at nothing at all. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes star-bright. Rose had an inkling of what the reason might be, a feeling confirmed when Lachlan came in with two plates of food, and more or less threw himself at her daughter’s feet. She felt like crying. He was a lovely young man who would make Jeannie very happy.

Mrs Bailey nudged her husband and dipped her head in the direction of their son. Dr Bailey followed her gaze and they both smiled. Observing this, Rose wished she had a husband with whom she could do the same, but had Tom been there, the young couple would have been subjected to a thunderous look instead. She was even more glad he hadn’t come.

Relations between her and Tom had reached rock bottom. Rose resented being made to feel guilty for going to a party – their own daughter’s sixteenth birthday party – to which they’d both been invited. Did he expect her not to go either? Didn’t he feel guilty for staying at home?

He hadn’t said anything, but she could tell he didn’t like her new frock. It was a perfectly ordinary, entirely respectable frock. But it was grey. Until recently, he’d always chosen her clothes and preferred her in light, pastel colours – flowery colours, because she was his flower, his very own rose. Well, now she was a grey flower and he’d just have to like it or lump it. It was up to him.

‘You know,’ said Mr Connors, the keyboard player’s
father, ‘if Max hadn’t told me otherwise, I’d have taken you for his big sister, not his mum.’

Rose had no idea how to answer. She’d never flirted in her life and had no small talk. ‘I had Max when I was eighteen,’ she said eventually. It seemed a very dull, too sensible reply. She was probably supposed to tell him he looked young enough to be Ronnie’s brother, which wouldn’t exactly have been a lie. He was a handsome man, clean cut, with boyish good looks. His eyes were brown and she thought they looked a trifle sad. He was oddly dressed in a tan shirt and trousers with a yellow tie. She wondered what it would be like to be married to a man the same age as herself.

‘Are you going to the Cavern later to see Max play?’ he enquired.

‘Oh, no,’ Rose stammered. ‘I don’t think Max would like that. He’d feel embarrassed. And my husband will be expecting me home long before then.’

Mr Connors gave an impertinent grin. ‘I don’t blame him. So would I, if I was married to you.’ This was an awful thing to say when the rather nice Mrs Connors was only across the room, deep in conversation with Sadie McDowd.

‘Are you going, to the Cavern, that is?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Our Ronnie’s dead nervous, playing there for the first time. If he’s not watched, he’ll have too much to drink. They don’t sell alcohol, but he can always buy his own and take it with him.’ They both glanced at Ronnie, who was innocently drinking orange squash.

‘Oh,’ Rose said inadequately. ‘I hope my Max doesn’t drink too much.’

‘I’ve never seen anything other than Coca Cola pass your son’s lips, Mrs Flowers – can I call you Rose? I’m Alex, by the way.’

Rose gulped. ‘Er, yes.’

‘They’re very well-behaved, the group, considering all the temptations that come their way.’

‘What sort of temptations?’ Rose asked, alarmed.

‘Well, drink’s one, the other’s girls. Girls by the dozen, throwing themselves at the lads whenever they play, hanging round afterwards offering – well, you know.’ He winked.

‘Excuse me.’ Rose stumbled out of the room and made her way to the big, old-fashioned bathroom. She sat on the edge of the bath, breathing deeply. Why, it seemed only yesterday that she’d led Max by the hand to school on his first day. Coupled with the sight of Jeannie, clearly in the throes of first love, it almost made her wish she hadn’t come to the party and had stayed at home with Tom.

Almost.

The Merseysiders left at half past six in the van, followed not long afterwards by the girls, who caught the bus, accompanied by Marcia and her boyfriend, Graham. As it was Saturday, there’d be a queue and they wanted to be sure they’d get in. Alex Connors took his wife home, then drove into town.

Rose and Sadie stayed at the Baileys’ for another hour. ‘So we can drink to our sons’ success,’ said Dr Bailey, producing a bottle of wine. ‘I didn’t want to get it out while the boys were here. I understand Ronnie has a weakness for drink.’

‘Only because he’s scared, poor boy,’ Mrs Bailey remarked. ‘Did you see the way his hands were shaking? I think his father pushes him too hard.’

‘Parents!’ Dr Bailey made a face. ‘If they’re not
stopping their kids from doing the things they want, they’re forcing them to do the things they don’t!’

The Cavern was the same as always – hot, smelly, packed, buzzing with excitement. Three groups were playing that night and the Merseysiders were second on the bill.

‘Piggy in the middle,’ Marcia shrieked, before thankfully disappearing with the besotted Graham.

‘No one knows what he sees in her,’ Benny explained to Rita McDowd. ‘She’s got a voice like a foghorn.’ Benny had taken Rita under her wing. It was nice not to be the odd one out for a change. Rita seemed easily impressed, listening wide-eyed while Benny boasted of her previous visits to the club. ‘I’ve been here loads of times, and to other clubs too.’

The first group had come on to the stage. ‘This lot aren’t very good,’ Benny hissed. ‘I’ve seen them before.’

Rita responded with a little nod. It was hard to believe that she was sixteen and actually worked as a waitress in Owen Owen’s. She didn’t look much more than twelve in her plain brown frock with a Fair Isle cardy over. Her blue eyes were huge in her little, peaked face, and she spoke in just a whisper. All she had going for her, Benny thought disparagingly, was the fact she was the sister of Sean McDowd, with whom Benny had been madly in love since the minute she’d set eyes on him.

It struck her that Jeannie and Lachlan seemed pretty close tonight. She’d noticed at the party the way they had gazed at each other with sickly expressions on their faces. Since they’d arrived at the Cavern, Jeannie had hardly spoken and looked as if she was coming down with the plague or something.

Jeannie definitely wasn’t herself that night. She felt as if
the contents of a feather pillow had come loose inside her stomach and were being blown crazily about.

Lachlan had kissed her!

And she’d kissed him back!

The Merseysiders were around somewhere, probably guarding their gear while they waited to go on. Every now and then, Lachlan would appear and kneel beside her chair. ‘Are you all right, Jeannie?’ he would ask in a strange, cracked voice.

‘Yes,’ Jeannie would reply in a similarly strange voice. Or ‘Yes, Lachlan. I’m fine,’ which she undoubtedly was, though it was a pretty peculiar sort of fine. Perhaps tumultuously fine, or turbulently fine would be better.

She couldn’t wait for the tall, handsome figure to come on to the stage – Lachlan, with his clean-cut good looks and crisp dark hair.
He’s mine
, she would say to herself.

People were getting up, moving about. The first part of the programme had come to an end, but she hadn’t heard a note. Elaine spoke to her from somewhere very far away.

‘Mm,’ Jeannie said dreamily.

‘I said, would you like a Coke?’ Elaine looked amused for some reason.

‘Please.’

There was a commotion through one of the arches. A man shouted, ‘Oh, God, no!’ But Jeannie hardly heard. Nor did she hear when her brother approached and began to gabble something in her ear. It wasn’t until Lachlan’s name was mentioned that she came to.

‘Lachlan’s doing what?’ she demanded.

‘Him and Fly are trying to keep Mr Connors away from Ronnie in case he kills him.’

‘Why?’

‘Bloody hell, Jeannie, you haven’t listened to a word I’ve said,’ groaned a wildly exasperated Max. ‘Ronnie’s completely plastered. He’s been lacing his cordial with gin ever since the party – we found the bottle in his pocket. Now he’s gone completely berserk and said he wants no more to do with the group. He claims it was all his dad’s idea and he can’t take any more. Then he collapsed in a heap, and that’s when Mr Connors tried to kill him.’

Jeannie couldn’t understand why Max was telling her this and why he was looking at her so pleadingly. ‘We’re in a hole, Jeannie,’ he said tearfully. ‘Only for tonight. All our numbers, apart from one, have been arranged around the keyboard. Anywhere else, we’d try and muddle through. We’ve done it before. It’s not the first time Ronnie’s had too much to drink. But not tonight, Jeannie, not at the Cavern.’

‘Oh, Max! What are you going to do?’

‘Jeannie!’ Max put his hand on her arm and shook it urgently. ‘
Please listen!
Time’s short and we need you in place of Ronnie. You know all the numbers, you’ve played them at home. I’ve heard you. It’ll be a piece of cake.’

‘
What?
’ Jeannie screamed.

‘A piece of cake,’ Max insisted.

‘I couldn’t possibly, Max.’ Jeannie was shocked to the core at the idea. ‘I’d be too nervous. I’ve never performed in public before, and please don’t say it’ll be a piece of cake again, because it won’t be.’

Max sighed. ‘I told Lachlan you wouldn’t do it. He thought you’d never let us down.’

‘I’m not letting you down.’ She thoroughly disapproved of people who let other people down.

‘How else would you describe it, Jeannie? This is our first gig at the Cavern and we’ll sound like shit.’

‘I’ve never played an electric piano before.’

‘It’s exactly the same as a normal piano, ’cept it’s plugged in and the keyboard’s smaller.’

‘My hands are trembling, Max.’ So was her voice. ‘We all feel like that before a gig,’ Max said kindly. ‘It goes away when you start to play.’

‘Honest?’

‘Honest.’

‘Did Lachlan really believe I wouldn’t let you down?’

‘Yes. C’mon, Jeannie. We’re on in a minute.’ He took her hand and led her across the floor of the crowded, sweaty Cavern. The short journey was to change Jeannie’s life for ever.

At first, she wasn’t just nervous, more like terrified out of her wits. Her hands still shook and she didn’t feel confident she was playing the right keys, though it sounded all right so she must be. The first number was a Chubby Checker song, ‘Pony Time’, followed by ‘Travellin’ Man’ and a rock ’n’ roll version of ‘Mack the Knife’. From across the stage, Max signalled when she was due to launch into a solo.