Queen of the Mersey (36 page)

I know, I’ll go to Crosby and see Laura! The schools had broken up last week for the long summer holiday, so Laura would be home. Gus might be there, which would be even better as they got on well. Gus had passed the Eleven-Plus and had gone to Merchant Taylor’s, as Brian Tyler had.

Laura looked taken aback when she opened the door and found Mary on the step.

She was wearing the glasses she’d recently acquired. They had horn-rimmed frames and looked very smart, if a bit stern.

‘Hester’s at work,’ she said when they went into the living room. ‘She’s not on holiday till the week after next, and then Duncan’s taking her to Scotland to meet his parents – it looks as if things are getting serious.’ She must think Mary had got her dates confused and had expected Hester to be there.

‘Actually, I came to see you and Gus.’

‘What a lovely surprise!’ Laura’s smile couldn’t have been warmer. ‘I’m afraid Gus has gone to Formby with some friends; you’ll just have to put up with me.’

She began to pick up the papers and books scattered on the floor. ‘We only finished school on Friday, and I’m already working on next term’s timetable.’

‘I’m sorry to interrupt.’ Mary wasn’t sorry at all, although despite Laura’s warm smile, she sensed she would have preferred to be left alone with the timetable. She sat on the russet velvet settee. The room was very long and had windows both ends. With the pale furniture, the water colours done by an artist friend of Roddy’s on the creamy walls, the bookcases, the flowers in a big vase on the hearth and more flowers visible in the gardens front and back, the sunny room presented a sharp contrast to the Monaghans’ living room in Glover Street.

‘How’s your mum?’ Laura asked politely. ‘She looked awfully tired at the christening. Are the grandchildren wearing her down?’

‘They are a bit, even if she loves having them.’

‘I don’t think children take account of the fact their parents reach an age when they should be taking things easy. Your mum’s sixty-eight, but I don’t think your brothers have noticed. I bet Albert would have put his foot down if he were still around.’

‘I’m sure he would.’ The conversation might have continued in this stiff, rather formal way, had not Mary felt two tears trickle down her cheeks. She sniffed and only just managed to control a sob. ‘I don’t half miss him, me dad.’

‘Mary!’ Laura was beside her on the settee in an instant, full of sympathy. ‘Oh, love! I didn’t realise you were still missing Albert – mind you, in my own way I miss him myself.’

‘He loved me,’ Mary said tremulously. ‘Now there’s no one left who does.’

‘But everybody here loves you, Mary. Me and Roddy, Hester and Gus. And I bet your mum doesn’t love a single one of her grandchildren as much as she loves you.’

‘She doesn’t show it.’

‘Maybe she doesn’t think she needs to, that you just know. Now dry your eyes and I’ll make us some tea. Or would you prefer a cold drink?’

‘Tea would be nice.’

Laura went into the kitchen and had hardly been gone a minute when the doorbell rang. Mary thought she’d make herself useful and went to answer it. She was ever so glad she’d come. Laura had made her feel wanted for a change. She rubbed her cheeks with her hands to get rid of the tears and opened the door.

‘Hello, I didn’t expect to find you here,’ grinned Duncan Maguire. He wore a white open-necked shirt, cotton trousers, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. ‘Excuse the headgear,’ he said, taking the hat off, ‘but I catch the sun easily and my skin turns as bright red as my hair.’

‘You look a bit pink.’ The pink went oddly with his lovely green eyes, guileless eyes, which looked as if they’d never seen anything nasty since the day they’d first opened on to the world.

‘Pink’s okay, it’ll have gone by tonight. Red, and I’ll simmer for days while resembling a creature from outer space. I terrify the children at school.’

‘I’m sure you don’t.’ Mary giggled, loving his broad Scots accent. ‘Laura’s making tea.’

‘Then I’ve come at just the right time.’

Laura was obviously pleased to see him. He’d brought some books she wanted, but had no intention of stopping – except for the tea – because he knew she wanted to get on with the timetable for next term. ‘I thought I’d drive as far as Southport, mooch around a bit, then collect Hester from work.’

‘Why not take Mary with you?’ Laura suggested. ‘She’s feeling a bit down, aren’t you, love? Hester will be pleased when she finds you’ve both come to pick her up.’

Duncan thought that a great idea. ‘I’d sooner not mooch around on my own. Hey!

We can go on the fairground. Hester hates fairgrounds.’

‘Me, I love fairgrounds,’ Mary cried, though it was something she’d never had an opinion on before. The afternoon was turning out immeasurably better than expected.

Duncan Maguire had found the courage to put his foot down when he’d emerged from St Andrews University, Fife, with a First in English Literature and found his father had already begun to approach schools in the area to arrange a teaching post for his son.

If his father was successful, then there’d be no need to leave home when he started work, just as there’d been no need to leave when he’d gone to St Andrews, which was merely a long bus ride away from the small, isolated community where he lived with his parents and two younger sisters.

He’d been hoping, when he left grammar school with the top marks in his class, ‘perfect university material’ according to the headmaster, that he’d escape then, get a place in Glasgow or Edinburgh, both highly thought of establishments. But his father, a minister in some obscure branch of the Scottish Reformed church, was having none of it. These places were hotbeds of sin, he thundered. What’s more, they took women, and once young people set foot inside their doors, they lost all inhibitions and went completely wild. Not for a moment did he think his son would do the same, but he didn’t want him associating with people who would. ‘Sons and daughters of the devil,’ he roared during one of his own wilder moments. St Andrews would be no different, but Duncan’s association with his fellow students would be minimal as he could come home every night.

At barely eighteen, Duncan felt too intimidated by his overbearing father to protest. What’s more, had he found the nerve, it would have upset his mild, browbeaten mother whom he dearly loved, and who would have been left to bear the brunt of her husband’s anger.

He had spent a miserable four years, missing most of the enjoyable aspects of university life, present only for lectures and the very occasional evening event. The other students looked upon him as a cissie, a judgement with which Duncan was inclined to agree. He left St Andrews at twenty-one, determined to be a cissie no longer, faced his outraged father, and told him he wished to leave home, teach elsewhere, even in a school as far away as England. His mother would be sad, but now he was an adult and couldn’t stay at home for ever.

Each week, he bought The Times Educational Supplement and applied for posts. He was particularly interested in the vacancy in Liverpool. Liverpool was a port and, apart from his mother and sisters, the only thing he would miss when he left Scotland was living within sight of the sea. He was invited for an interview, offered the job, and accepted on the spot. He decided to stay a few days, look for somewhere to live, and found a top-floor flat in The Esplanade, Waterloo, overlooking the Mersey.

Now Duncan had reached the end of his first year as a teacher. It had been a liberating, illuminating year. One of the best things about it was discovering he was quite a likeable chap. People wanted to be his friends, men and women alike. He enjoyed their friendship, became less shy, found he had a sense of humour and could even crack the occasional joke. On a more practical level, he learnt to drive and bought a car, a blue Ford Popular, discovered the theatre, the cinema, jazz clubs, television – his father had refused to have even a wireless in the house – began to drink and smoke, but only in moderation. For a while, there’d been one problem; girls. They frightened him. He had no idea how to treat them and could never tell if they were flirting with him or not. The women friends he made were usually teachers, older than him – Laura was one.

Then, a few months ago, Laura had introduced him to her daughter. Hester was tall and willowy, with soft blue eyes and fair hair that could look like pure gold in a certain light. Quietly spoken, rather withdrawn, she was the loveliest girl Duncan had ever met. They hit it off immediately and had been inseparable ever since. It had even reached the point where he was seriously considering marriage and was waiting for the right moment to propose. In a few weeks, he was taking Hester to meet his parents. His father was bound to disapprove, but at least she wasn’t a Catholic, which would have put her quite beyond the pale.

‘Why are you feeling down?’ he asked Mary, Hester’s friend, when they set off for Southport in the car. At first, Mary, whom he’d met only a few times, had made him nervous; she was too pushy, too loud, wore too much make-up, her clothes were too flamboyant for his taste, but soon he realised it was only because she was very different from Hester, who was so ladylike and demure.

‘It was nothing much. I’m OK now,’ Mary said dismissively.

‘Why aren’t you at work?’

‘Because I work in a shop and shops close on Wednesday afternoons. Hester brought you to see me one Saturday, but you’ve obviously forgotten.’ She sounded a bit annoyed.

‘I didn’t forget you,’ Duncan said hastily, ‘just the shop. Nobody could forget you,’ he added in the hope of making amends. It seemed to work.

‘Oh!’ She preened herself. ‘That’s all right, then.’ She wriggled comfortably in the seat. ‘It must be nice having a boyfriend with a car.’

‘It can be very useful,’ he replied, thinking about the times he’d kissed Hester in the back. Kissing was as far as they’d got, though recently he’d felt a strong urge to go further, but was worried Hester wouldn’t like it. She’d had boyfriends before, but Duncan would have sworn on his father’s well-thumbed Bible that they’d got no further than he had. Mind you, even Hester’s limited experience with men was greater than his with women.

Mary explained she was between boyfriends at the moment and he asked what had happened to the chap who’d been with her at the christening?

‘I dumped him,’ she said briskly. ‘I didn’t like the way he kept tut-tutting at the kids, the noise they made.’

‘I thoroughly enjoyed that christening.’ He’d never come across a family like the Monaghans before and thought them great fun. And it had felt very daring, attending a Catholic church. He smiled. He was going to the dogs, just as his father had threatened he would in Papist Liverpool.

They arrived in Southport and he parked the car on the front, close to the fairground. Mary said she felt like a drink, so they stopped at a refreshment stall and she had a chocolate milk shake and he had orangeade.

‘What do you want to go on first?’ he asked when they reached the crowded fairground.

‘Anything! Anything daring and dangerous.’

‘You’re a girl after my own heart,’ he said, but wished he hadn’t when she gave him a sly, come hither look. She had chocolate on her mouth from the drink –

she’d spooned the thick mixture out of the bottom of the glass with the straw –

and he didn’t know whether or not to tell her. ‘What about the big wheel? Is that daring and dangerous enough?’

‘It’ll do for now.’ She seized his hand and began to drag him towards it. On the wheel, her screams got shriller and shriller the higher they climbed. When every seat was full and it began to turn full circle, quite fast, she clung to his arm, which he found irritating.

She clung to his arm on the waltzer and the figure eight, in the ghost train and on a fiendish ride called the corkscrew, which actually turned upside down several times on its descent. On the way, her red flouncy skirt blew up, entirely covering her face, exposing a pair of plump, shapely legs and white, lace-trimmed panties. He tried, but couldn’t stop himself from staring. He’d never seen a girl’s legs above the knees before, except his sisters’, a long time ago.

It might have been this delectable sight that made Duncan decide he quite liked Mary and was very much enjoying her company. She was only behaving the way girls were supposed to behave at fairgrounds and he no longer minded. In fact, he was feeling quite exhilarated, almost drunk. ‘Come on, let’s have another go,’ he cried when they’d spent five minutes getting their breath back after suffering the tortures of the corkscrew. This time it was him who took Mary’s hand.

Afterwards, they caught the train to the end of the mile-long pier, then walked back, pausing only for a drink when Mary claimed to be thirsty again. She ordered another chocolate milk shake and this time Duncan had the same. It was delicious.

‘Now you’ve got more chocolate on your mouth,’ he said when she went through the ritual of trying to pick the dregs with the straw.

‘Whereabouts?’

‘In the corners, like whiskers.’

Instead of using a hankie, she stuck out her tongue, and he watched, fascinated, as it wriggled, like a little pink worm, in an unsatisfactory attempt to remove the chocolate. ‘Here, let me do it for you.’ He wiped the corners of her mouth with his hankie, and noticed how red and full her lips were. He felt the desire to kiss them.

‘Thank you, Duncan,’ she said demurely. ‘You know, we must do this again sometime.’

A warning bell rang in Duncan’s ear, but he ignored it. What harm was he doing?

It wasn’t as if he was engaged to Hester. It was a pity he hadn’t gone out with loads of girls before settling on just one. Playing the field, it was called. It was just that he and Hester had seemed so perfect for each other – still were.

‘We could meet next Wednesday after you’ve finished work,’ he said, his heart somersaulting in his chest, almost hoping Mary would refuse and his conscience would be left clear. Yet pretty soon there would be no going back with Hester, not that he wanted there to be, but it would mean he’d never again have the opportunity of going out with a girl like Mary. Again he told himself he wasn’t doing any harm. Just one date, that was all, and she would be out of his system.