Queen of the Mersey (51 page)

‘I can’t help it. I think about it all the time. I cry meself to sleep every night. Will you ever forgive me, luv?’

‘Never!’ Queenie wanted to say. ‘Never, never, never.’ Instead, she said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.’ Her mother sniffed pathetically. ‘I’d feel it hard to forgive someone who’d done to me what I did to you. That’s why I started going to church, to beg God for his forgiveness.’

‘Tell me something, Mother.’

‘What, luv?’

‘If you’d come back and found me living in Glover Street, my arm still twisted, maybe married with a couple of snotty-nosed kids, would you still be sorry for the way you treated me? Or would you feel the same contempt that you did before?’

‘Of course not, luv …’ Agnes paused and Queenie watched as her face gradually became confused. A flush of shame spread over her cheeks. ‘Yes, I would have, Queenie,’ she said in a small voice, ‘because I’m a wicked woman. It was seeing you, so pretty and smart, that brought me to me senses. I couldn’t stand the thought of someone like you remembering the things I’d done to a helpless little girl.’

Next time Queenie visited her mother, she was knitting a pair of uncomfortable looking booties for an African charity supported by the church. ‘Do these look all right to you?’ She held up a misshapen lump of knitting.

‘Not so bad.’

‘I’m trying to make up for me past sins, but I’m not so sure if I’m not committing another sin with these. Some poor baby might end up wearing them.’

‘Perhaps it would be best to buy some. Not Freddy’s, they’re too expensive. T.

J. Hughes’s would be best.’

‘I think you’re right, luv.’ The knitting was discarded with a sigh. ‘I’ll try something else. I’m reading a book to this old lady next door, The Good Earth. I go every night and read a chapter at a time. Last night, we finished off a whole box of Black Magic between us.’

‘She seems to have gone through some sort of miraculous conversion,’ Queenie told Theo that night. ‘I’m pretty sure she’s sincere.’

‘It can happen,’ Theo said serenely. ‘Aren’t you glad you went to see her now?’

‘I suppose I am. I suppose it’s best not to think about your mother with loathing. I’ll never love her, because I’ll never forget the things she’s done, but I can’t loathe her any more. She’s become a different person from the one I used to know.’

Relations continued to improve and there came a time when Queenie was able to think of Agnes Tate as a perfectly normal, civilised human being. She invited her to lunch on Christmas Eve, booking a table well in advance in George Henry Lee’s restaurant, but had to cancel when Laura went into hospital and the baby was stillborn.

‘Of course, it doesn’t matter, luv,’ her mother said warmly when she rang to tell her that lunch was off. ‘You look after your friend. What ward is she in?

I’ll send some flowers. Oh, and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.’

Six months were to pass before Queenie remembered the offer and thought of something her mother could do.

Agnes found the best way to keep Laura amused was to talk. She’d always liked talking, but the trouble was finding someone who’d listen. Laura provided a perfect audience, listening avidly to everything she said, giggling occasionally if it was funny. She seemed to have forgotten they’d once known each other slightly in Glover Street.

As Agnes’s past life wasn’t worth repeating, she invented an entirely new one.

In London, she told Laura, she’d lived in a dead posh hotel and been waited on hand and foot. ‘I must have had a hundred lovers,’ she said nostalgically, as the new life took shape in her mind with such clarity that she began to believe it herself. ‘One was a sheikh, another a jewel thief, one a famous film star.’

Sometimes, Laura’s eyes would glaze, as if she was about to go into one of her trances, so Agnes would talk louder, raising her voice, gruff from the thousands of cigarettes she’d smoked over the years, snapping her thin fingers, even resorting to jumping up and down in order to catch Laura’s attention. It usually worked.

Agnes took Laura for walks on Crosby Sands, firmly linking her arm in case she made a rush for the water. Queenie had pressed upon her the importance of keeping an eye on her charge at all times. ‘If she goes to the lavatory and doesn’t come out in a few minutes, knock on the door. If she doesn’t answer, see what she’s up to. Roddy’s removed the lock because she’s not safe in there on her own.’

She’d been entrusted with the care of Queenie’s best friend and Agnes was determined to impress her daughter. Poor Laura had had a stillborn child and she felt sorry for her, but despite the new life she’d invented, she couldn’t forget that there’d been a time when she’d wished Queenie had been born dead. She wasn’t sure if it was possible to make up for that.

Mary parked the pram outside her mother’s house in Glover Street. It wasn’t quite ten o’clock and unusually warm for late September. Seagulls squawked angrily overhead, a sound she’d grown up with and missed now that she lived further inland. The front door was wide open. Flora, eighteen months old, was sitting up in the pram, beaming at everything and everybody. The straps undone, Mary picked up her daughter, not all that easy when you were eight months pregnant, and set her down. Flora ran into the house screaming, ‘Nana, Nana, Nana.’ Mary lumbered after her, and found a strange young woman in the living room, a strange baby crawling madly around the floor, and a familiar one –

Vicky, their Caradoc’s latest – fast asleep in Mam’s arms.

‘Hello, Mary,’ the strange woman said.

‘Hello,’ Mary replied.

‘You don’t recognise me, do you? It’s Tess Kennedy, used to be Nicholls. We went to Caerdovey together, along with our Jimmy and little Pete.’

‘I thought you’d emigrated to Australia?’ Tess had certainly improved over the years. Her once scraggy brown hair was now shoulder-length, thick and straight.

She had on a fashionable linen costume in a dark lilac shade. Even her face looked different, probably because it wasn’t set in the deep scowl that she’d always worn in the past.

‘We did. It must be about ten years ago now. I’m only home because Frank’s mam’s ill and she hasn’t long to go. Frank’s me husband and he comes from Liverpool too. He wanted his mam to see me and the baby before she passes away.’ She smiled fondly at the little bundle of energy racing furiously in circles around the floor, watched by a curious Flora. ‘His name’s Mark, and he’s eleven months old. How old’s yours?’

‘One and a half. She’s called Flora.’

‘She’s a lovely, bonny girl. What lovely coloured hair. Come and sit on me knee a minute, pet?’ Tess held out her arms and Flora went willingly. She adored being petted. ‘I’m expecting another in six months and I’d quite like a girl.

That’s another reason for coming now. I mightn’t have felt up to it later.

When’s yours due?’

‘The end of October.’

‘She’s hoping for a boy, aren’t you, luv?’

‘I don’t really mind, Mam, so long as it’s healthy. How’s your Jimmy and little Pete?’ She’d had her very first crush on Jimmy.

‘Our Jimmy’s doing marvellous,’ Tess enthused. ‘Remember how mad he was on cars?’ The other women nodded. ‘Well, he’s got his own garage and is about to open another for our Pete to manage. Jimmy’s married, by the way, and he’s got two smashing kids, both boys. His wife, Joanna, is a nurse. Do you see much of Queenie Tate these days?’

Tess had only come to boast, Mary realised. Mind you, it was something she’d have done herself given the same circumstances. Queenie had turned her brother down, and Tess wanted her, more than anyone, to know how well he was doing in Australia.

‘We see Queenie all the time,’ Vera replied. ‘She’s done marvellous too. She’s got a dead important job in Freddy’s, that big posh shop in Hanover Street.’

‘Did she ever get married?’

‘Yes,’ Mary lied. ‘Her husband’s awful well off.’

‘If someone will take Vicky, I’ll make us all a sarnie and a cup of tea,’ Vera offered. Tess was still holding Flora, so Mary took Vicky out of Mam’s arms.

‘Your mam’s not looking so well,’ Tess remarked when Vera had gone into the kitchen.

‘Isn’t she?’ Mary was startled. Like all Vera’s children, she imagined her mother would go on for ever.

‘She looks dead tired.’

‘Maybe she didn’t sleep so well last night.’

‘You know,’ Tess said thoughtfully, ‘talking about Caerdovey, I was only thinking, the other day when Frank’s mam was on about the war, that we were dead lucky living there. I hated it at the time, but we always had enough to eat, not like the people back here. And it was a gear place to play. Remember Queenie giving us lessons in the room over your garage? We called it the den.’

Mary had darker memories of the den. ‘It was OK,’ she murmured.

‘I’ve often wondered,’ Tess continued, ‘why you lot disappeared all of a sudden.

One minute you were there, next you were gone. We didn’t see you again until the war was over.’

‘Queenie went into hospital and me mam and Laura thought it best if we stayed nearer home. We all went to Southport.’

‘There were all sorts of rumours after you left.’

‘Rumours?’ Mary frowned. ‘What sort of rumours?’

‘Well, you know that chap, the son of the woman whose house you lived in? I’d never remember his name.’

‘It was Carl, Carl Merton.’

Tess lowered her voice so Vera couldn’t hear. ‘Apparently, it was well-known in Caerdovey that he had a thing about young girls, that he’d actually raped a couple, but got away with it. Some people thought he’d been at Queenie and she went into hospital because she’d had a miscarriage when she fell out the den.’

‘That’s daft!’ Mary said, annoyed. ‘It was because she broke her arm.’

‘Whatever.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyroad, everyone was glad that he died. He deserved it, they said.’

‘Carl Merton’s dead?’

‘He died the same night Queenie went into hospital. Only landed on his head, didn’t he, and was killed instantly? I’m surprised you didn’t already know that, Mary.’

Mam and Tess must have thought she was mad, the way she suddenly remembered she’d made an appointment at the doctor’s for Flora to have an injection.

‘What’s the injection for?’ Tess wanted to know.

Mary made a wild guess. ‘Typhoid fever.’

Tess also wanted to know if they could meet again. ‘Give us a ring some time.

Mam’ll give you the number,’ Mary shouted as she hurried down the hall as fast as an eight-month-pregnant woman could, clutching Flora’s hand.

She hurried all the way to Marsh Lane station, slightly faster now that she had the pram to hold on to. Flora squealed with delight at this unexpected treat.

When she got off at Crosby, she hurried again in the direction of the Olivers’

house.

Hester opened the door and her jaw dropped in amazement when she saw who it was.

She wore a smart black dress and her hair was smoothed back into a bun. Mary was shocked by how pale her face was, how dull her eyes. ‘What do you want?’ Hester asked shortly.

‘To speak to you. It’s important. I’ll just get Flora out the pram first.’

‘I’m not interested in anything you might have to say, no matter how important.’

She didn’t move aside to let Mary in and looked about to close the door.

‘Please, Hes. I’ve got to talk to someone, and I can’t possibly tell Du— I mean anyone else.’

‘I know who you’re married to, Mary. You can say his name.’

‘Can I come in a minute? I need to sit down. I’ve been walking too fast for someone in my condition.’

‘Only a minute,’ Hester said grudgingly. ‘I’ve got loads to do before I go to work.’

‘Mam said you’d got a job on Freddy’s toy counter. How’s your mam, Hes?’

‘She’s asleep at the moment, but she’s been a little better since Agnes started coming. Agnes goads her into doing things. I think I’m too gentle with her.’ A wistful smile touched Hester’s lips when Mary carried Flora past and the little girl made a grab for her nose.

‘What is it that’s so important?’ she asked when they were inside. ‘To tell the truth, I never expected to see you in this house again.’

‘I’ve just been to see me mam,’ Mary said, sinking on to the settee and setting Flora on the floor with a rag doll. ‘Tess Nicholls was there – Jimmy’s sister, remember? She’s married now, with a little boy.’

‘I thought the Nicholls lived in Australia?’

‘They do. Tess has come back for some reason. Oh, Hes, she said a terrible thing.’ She repeated, word for word, what Tess had said, finishing with, ‘We killed him, Hes. We killed Carl Merton.’

‘Oh, my God!’ It hadn’t seemed possible for Hester’s face to look any paler, but it did. ‘You took one foot, and I took the other …’

‘And we tipped him over the edge. According to Tess, he landed on his head. It means we’re murderers, Hes.’

The two women were silent for a while, then Hester said angrily, ‘Did you have to come and tell me? Couldn’t you have kept it to yourself? As if I didn’t have enough troubles at the moment, without something like this on top.’

‘I just didn’t think. I had to talk to someone and there was only you.’

‘That’s the trouble with you, Mary. You never think. You just go ahead and do exactly what you want without any regard for other people’s feelings.’

Flora was fed up being ignored. She threw the doll at Hester and it landed on her lap. Hester picked it up and gravely gave it back. ‘Here you are, darling.’

‘Tank you,’ Flora said politely, and proceeded to chew the doll.

‘I’m sorry, Hes,’ Mary said humbly. ‘Sorry about everything. Anyroad, as regards Carl Merton, we did the world a favour. Tess said he’d already raped two other girls. Everyone in Caerdovey thought he deserved to die.’

‘Yes, but it wasn’t our job to act as judge and jury.’

‘Say if we’d let him pull Queenie into the den. What d’you think he would have done to her?’

‘We’ll never know. Do you think he raped her?’ Hester said slowly. ‘Remember I told you about waking up, weeks before, and he was in our bedroom?’

‘I remember. Do you think Queenie really had a miscarriage?’