Lime Street Blues (26 page)

‘Don’t, Tom.’

He pressed harder and she spluttered, ‘Tom, that hurts!’

There was nothing he could do that would hurt as much as she’d hurt him. A feeling of madness came over him as he straddled her, both his hands around her neck, and squeezed. It was the only way he could keep her for himself, stop the other man from ever touching her again.

She was gagging now, making hoarse, croaking sounds. Her neck felt as thin and delicate as a bird’s in his big, broad hands. ‘I love you, Rose,’ he said, over and over again. ‘I love you.’

At first, he wasn’t conscious of the banging on the door, until he heard his son’s voice. ‘Mum!
Mum!
Are you all right?’ The handle turned and Tom collapsed back on the bed, just as Gerald came rushing in. ‘What’s the matter, Mum?’

Rose was gasping, trying to regain her breath. ‘I just had a horrible nightmare,’ she said hoarsely.

‘Would you like some water, Mum?’

‘I’ll go down and get it myself. Go back to bed, love. I’ll be all right.’

‘Are you sure, Mum?’ Gerald said anxiously.

‘Yes, love. I’m sorry I woke you.’

She was putting on her dressing gown, pushing her feet into slippers. Seconds later, the door closed. Tom heard the bed creak in Gerald’s room, then water run in the kitchen. He lay, staring at the ceiling, and wishing he would die.

Rose curled up in a chair and vowed that never again would she sleep in the bed upstairs with Tom. Max and Jeannie came home from the Cavern where they’d both been playing and went straight to their own beds, unaware their mother was in the parlour.

She didn’t sleep, too terrified to close her eyes in case Tom appeared, armed this time with a knife, giving her no chance to make a noise and alert the children. If it hadn’t been for Gerald, by now she would be dead. She hadn’t thought Tom capable of such violence. ‘I love you,’ he’d kept saying while he was trying to kill her. It was a vile, unnatural way to love someone. She shuddered at the memory.

At seven o’clock, his heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs and she heard him go into the kitchen. She curled even further into the chair, trying to make herself invisible, dreading that he might come in, say something, even apologise for last night. She wouldn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine ever speaking to him again.

Half an hour later, he left. She heard the wheels of the bike creak down the drive and breathed a sigh of relief.

Gerald came down and she went into the kitchen and made his breakfast, though her hands were shaking badly. She broke the yolks on both eggs and recalled how bitterly Mrs Corbett used to complain when she did this. While Gerald ate, she took up tea to Jeannie and Max.

Max looked at the clock and groaned. ‘Oh, Mum! It’s
only quarter to eight. We didn’t get home till nearly two.’

‘I’d like you to drink this, then come downstairs for a minute. Afterwards, you can go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day if you want, so there’s no need to get dressed. I have to tell you something. It won’t take long.’

‘Can’t you tell us tonight?’

‘No, it has to be now.’

Jeannie proved easier to prise out of bed. ‘There’s no need to get dressed,’ Rose said.

‘Mum! Where on earth did you get those bruises on your neck?’ her daughter asked in a shocked voice.

Rose turned up the collar of her dressing gown and didn’t answer. She had forgotten there would be bruises from Tom’s big hands.

When the children were sitting expectantly at the kitchen table, Rose took a deep breath. ‘The thing is,’ she began, ‘I’ve been having an affair and your dad’s found out. We haven’t been getting on in a long time, and I’m afraid I’ve got no alternative but to leave.’

There was a long, astounded pause, before all three spoke together.

‘Is that why you’ve got the bruises?’ Jeannie demanded angrily.

‘An affair!’ Max guffawed. ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘You can’t leave!’ Gerald wailed. ‘Who’ll cook the food and make our beds?’

There was another pause.

‘What bruises?’ Max frowned.

‘They’re on her neck,’ Jeannie informed him. ‘We’ll just have to make our own beds and cook the meals between us,’ she added sensibly, before bursting into tears.

Gerald decided to join her. ‘I don’t want us left on our own with Dad.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said fervently. ‘So very, very sorry.’ She decided to be honest with them, but only to a degree. ‘I was going to leave, but not for a few years, until Gerald was at least sixteen, but I’m afraid your father’s made it impossible for me to stay.’

‘He would!’ Max hadn’t had much time for his father in a long while.

‘You can’t really blame him, love. After all, I was having an affair. Not many men would forgive their wives something like that.’

‘Not many men would beat them black and blue, either.’

‘Max! He didn’t beat me. The bruises were – an accident.’ She wished she’d noticed them first and covered them up. She didn’t want to leave with them hating Tom when they had to, somehow, live together from now on.

‘Won’t we ever see you again?’ Gerald sobbed.

‘Oh, love!’ She put her arm around his heaving shoulders and, for a moment, wished she’d never set eyes on Alex Connors. ‘Of course! As soon as I’ve got an address, I’ll ring and let you know. It might be only a few days and you can come and see me – or we can meet in town, have something to eat. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’

Jeannie sniffed and dried her eyes. ‘Will you be living with, you know, the man you’ve been having the affair with?’

Rose felt herself blush. ‘Yes.’

‘Who is it?’ Max asked curiously. He was the least upset of the three. ‘Have we met him?’

She blushed again. ‘It’s Ronnie Connors’ father, Alex.’

Gerald appeared bemused, but the other two stared at her and she could tell they were imagining her and Alex together.

‘He’s very nice,’ Jeannie said eventually.

‘A decent guy.’ Max nodded. ‘Does Ronnie know his dad and my mum are about to set up house together?’

‘No! You mustn’t say anything, Max, until it’s all been sorted out.’ Alex didn’t know she’d decided to leave. He might not be around today to tell, and he mightn’t be prepared to leave his family on the spur of the moment. ‘Look,’ Rose swallowed hard, ‘you’ve all been marvellous about this. I thought you might hate me. But now I’d like Max and Jeannie to go back to bed, and Gerald, please go to school. I don’t want to walk out with you all here, watching. I’d only cry myself to death. I’ve got to write a note for your dad and pack some clothes, and I’d prefer you out of the way.’

Jeannie flung her arms around her mother’s neck. ‘The house won’t be the same without you, Mum.’

‘Please don’t say things like that, Jeannie. I’m already on the verge of tears.’

‘’Bye, Mum.’ Max hurried out of the kitchen and Rose noticed he was badly in need of bigger pyjamas.

Gerald grabbed his satchel and left without a word.

Rose sighed, went into the hall, and picked up the phone. She sat on the bottom stair, nursing it for a while, wondering if Alex had really meant the things he’d said. Was it only to make the affair more exciting that he’d asked her to live with him, knowing she would refuse, ready to call it off if she didn’t? He might be horrified to learn she was about to leave Tom. She visualised him offering a dozen excuses for why they couldn’t be
together – Iris wasn’t well and he couldn’t possibly tell her, not just now; the business needed all his attention; he couldn’t afford somewhere for them to live; could they wait until after Christmas?

His secretary answered the phone. ‘He’s busy right now. Could you call back later? Oh, he’s just come into my office. Who shall I tell him is calling?’

‘Mrs Flowers.’

‘Hold on a moment, Mrs Flowers. He’s gone into his own office.’

‘
Darling!
’ said Alex a few seconds later.

He was coming in an hour to fetch her. Rose raced around the house, throwing things into an ancient suitcase. She packed towels, then returned them to the airing cupboard in case the children needed them. Did the same with the toothpaste, even though there was another tube. In the end, she took only her clothes, her make-up bag, and the few items of jewellery she possessed. As she climbed stairs she had climbed a dozen times a day for more than twenty years, she thought to herself,
I will never do this again
. She would never again comb her hair in front of the parlour mirror, never wash these particular dishes in this particular sink.

When everything was ready and the suitcase packed, she looked for Spencer to give him a final hug, but the cat had gone for his morning stroll over the fields and couldn’t be found. She sat at the table to write to Tom. After last night, she couldn’t bring herself to put ‘Dear Tom’ and just started with ‘Tom’.

She sat for ages staring at this one word, unable to think of another. What did you say to a man who’d almost strangled you a matter of hours before? In the end, she merely wrote, ‘Goodbye, Rose.’ She tucked the
paper behind the clock on the sideboard. It wouldn’t matter if the children read it. It told them nothing.

Outside, a horn sounded. Rose picked up the suitcase and opened the door. Alex was there! She caught her breath, knowing she would remember this moment when she was a very old woman, the moment when she walked away from one life and into another. She entirely forgot about her children when Alex got out of the car and came up the path towards her. He wasn’t quite as handsome as she’d always thought, not quite so tall, not all that young. But he was the man she loved. His face was soft with love and anticipation. He stopped suddenly, put his hands in his pockets, took a deep breath and rocked back on his heels, as if he couldn’t believe that this was really happening.

The woman from the new bungalow opposite was just leaving. She waved and shouted, ‘Good morning, Mrs Flowers.’

‘Good morning,’ Rose called, ‘and goodbye,’ she added softly so the woman couldn’t hear.

‘What shall we do?’ Fly asked. ‘Kill him?’

‘Only if we can do it slowly and very painfully,’ said Max.

‘Leave him to me.’ Lachlan looked stern and forbidding.

‘Are you going to kill him for us?’

‘Shut up, Fly.’

They’d just finished their Friday night gig at the Taj Mahal and were preparing to buttonhole Billy Kidd in his office and demand he hand over the money he owed. They’d asked around and discovered he’d been paid at least ten pounds and sometimes as much as twenty for the gigs they’d played all over Liverpool during the last
few years. Yet he’d only given them a quid each! They’d worked it out, added it up, and reckoned they’d been done out of just over a thousand pounds. They’d demand a thousand then tell Billy to get lost.

Lachlan felt he’d let his troops down. He should have noticed before but, like the rest of them, money had always been the last thing on his mind. He thought of the things they could do with a whole thousand; buy their own van, instead of having to borrow the one from the garage where Sean worked which was usually full of dirty engines and spare parts; get better guitars, more powerful amplifiers. The list was endless.

Billy’s face was a mask of injured innocence when Lachlan told him what they knew, that he’d been stealing their money for years.

‘I didn’t
steal
it.’ Billy looked outraged. ‘I invested it in a special account set up in the group’s name. You see,’ he said earnestly, ‘one of these fine days, you’ll want to get married, buy a house, and it means you’ll all have a little nest egg saved.’

‘We’d sooner save our own little nest eggs, thanks all the same,’ Lachlan said coldly. ‘How much is in this account?’

‘I’m not sure.’ Beads of perspiration appeared on Billy’s brow when faced with four pairs of accusing eyes. ‘A few hundred smackeroos, I reckon.’

‘We reckon there should be more than that. Perhaps you could take the money out of the account on Monday. We’ll come on Monday night to collect it.’

‘It’s not the sort of account you can draw money out of at the drop of a hat.’

‘We don’t mind waiting a few days,’ Fly said generously.

‘Running this club, it’s an expensive business.’ The
suspicion of a tear rolled down Billy’s fat cheek. ‘Right now, I’m in a bit of a hole. If I had to empty that account, it would break me. I’ve used it as collateral, see, against a loan. I’d lose the club.
Then
where would you play?’

Max hooted sarcastically. ‘Your logic’s a bit dodgy, Billy. Are we expected to keep the Taj Mahal going so we can play here once a week? When you signed us up, you promised us the earth. Instead, you haven’t done a single thing except pinch our money.’

‘Invest,’ Billy said weakly.

‘Oh, yeah!’ Sean didn’t believe there’d ever been an account. The money had been lost on the horses, as he’d suspected all along. He was glad the truth had come out. Billy had served his purpose and the group could move on.

‘You’re supposed to pay us, not us pay you,’ Fly growled. ‘All you’ve ever cared about is making enough out of us to keep your head above water.’ He looked at the others. ‘I still think we should kill him.’

‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Max, ignoring Billy who, by now, was weeping copiously. ‘I don’t know about you lot, but I’d sooner not have a manager than be stuck with a crook like him.’

‘You signed a contract,’ Billy blubbered.

‘Which you’ve broken,’ Lachlan snapped. ‘Max is right. We’ll have to make do without a manager, but we need someone to take phone calls, else we’ll end up missing gigs.’

Sean thought about offering his dad as manager, but Kevin was too involved with the Flower Girls to find time for another group.

‘My mum’s always in,’ Lachlan said. ‘She won’t mind
taking messages. We’ll get cards printed with our phone number on.’

‘What about me?’ Billy asked pitifully. ‘Won’t you be playing at me club again?’

‘Not unless you hike up your rates considerably, Billy,’ Max told him. ‘We’ll let you have a card and you can give Lachlan’s mum a ring – she’ll let you know when we’re free.’

Jeannie wasn’t prepared to give up her career and take over her mother’s role as her father seemed to expect. ‘We’ll all have to pull together,’ she told him. ‘I’ll do the meals if I’m here, but if I’m not, then someone else will have to do it. The same goes for the washing and the cleaning. We can make our own beds.’