Queen of the Mersey (55 page)

‘’Bye, Sam,’ she shouted. ‘Same to you.’ The front door opened and she thought it was Sam going out, but it must have been someone coming in, because Sam said, ‘Good afternoon, son. Can I help you?’ and a vaguely familiar voice replied, ‘I’m looking for a missing person. Girl by the name of Hester Oliver. I met her at a party and I haven’t been able to find her since.’

Sam laughed heartily. ‘Well, son, you’re in luck. You’ll find the person you’re looking for behind the door to your right. Be careful with her now. She’s me fave person next to me wife.’

The front door closed, her own door opened, and Ned Cunningham came in. ‘Hi, Hes,’ he said, grinning his lovely grin.

‘What do you want?’ she stammered. She couldn’t quite believe he was there. He wore the same jeans, and a different shirt under an incredibly hairy sweater.

‘You, obviously. I thought we could have dinner together, nothing posh, just this veggy restaurant I know.’

‘I don’t finish until half-five.’

‘That’s OK. I’ll wait.’ He sat in a chair.

‘But it’s only half past four!’

‘That gives us an hour to talk.’

‘I haven’t got time to talk,’ she cried. ‘I’ve got work to do.’

‘Then I’ll sit here and keep me mouth shut.’

Hester returned to the letters, but it was impossible to concentrate with Ned Cunningham watching her from the other side of the desk. She couldn’t think, her shorthand had become incomprehensible squiggles, her hands were shaking and her fingers kept hitting the wrong keys. Worst of all, she kept wanting to laugh.

She stopped typing and looked at him. ‘Why are you here?’ she asked.

‘I’ve already told you, Hes.’

‘Yes, but why on earth do you want to go to dinner with me?’

‘Because I like you,’ he said simply. ‘And I got the impression the other night that you liked me.’

‘But I’m thirty-eight, old enough to be your mother!’

‘Strewth, girl! You must have been sexually active at an awful early age. I’m thirty-one.’

She did laugh then. And for some reason, she also wanted to cry. She looked across the desk into his dark brown eyes. They were very gentle and held an expression that caused a strange sensation to flutter through her body, as exquisite as it was unexpected.

And this was only the beginning!

‘Please don’t hurt me, Ned,’ she whispered.

He knew exactly what she meant. ‘I’ll never hurt you, Hes.’ He leaned over the desk and softly kissed her forehead. ‘You’ll always be safe with me.’

On Sunday, she went to see Mary and told her she was going out with Ned Cunningham. If Flora’s heart was to be broken, then the quicker, the better.

Mary looked cross. ‘But our Flora really fancies him, even more so since the party.’

‘He’s a bit too old for her.’

‘Pardon me, but aren’t you a bit too old for him?’

‘I’m seven years older, but that doesn’t matter.’

‘Anyroad,’ Mary said nastily, ‘I went right off him when I discovered he was only a postman. He’s not even a proper writer. All he’s had is a couple of poems published. Me, I couldn’t stand poetry when I was at school.’

‘Thanks, Mary.’

‘What for?’

‘Being so nice about my new boyfriend.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Hes.’ Mary’s face crumpled. ‘The truth is, I’m jealous. I don’t know why, I’ve always been jealous of you. Just look at you! All starry-eyed and your smile’s a mile wide, as if you’ve just won a million quid on the pools.

I’ve never looked like that in me life. And your hair’s all loose. You hardly ever wear it like that. It looks dead pretty.’ She gave Hester’s arm a warm squeeze. ‘I wish you and Ned all the luck in the world.’

Ned Cunningham lived in a tiny terraced house in Townsend Street, Seaforth. The front door opened on to the pavement and there was a small yard at the back. The youngest of six children, his brothers and sisters had all married and now lived in different parts of the country. Both parents were dead. They had lived in the house for almost sixty years, and Ned’s dad, the last to go, had left his son the rent book.

‘It’s all he had to leave,’ Ned said angrily. ‘He worked like a navvy all his life, and all he had to show for it was a bloody rent book and a few odds and ends of crappy furniture.’

Hester wondered what his dad would have thought if he could see his house and furniture now, everything painted in such an extraordinary array of colours; a bright red sideboard with blue drawers and white knobs, green chairs, a purple bed, pink wardrobe. There wasn’t an inch of the house that wasn’t painted; not a ceiling, not a wall, not a door, not even a floor.

Entering Ned’s house was like entering a fantasy world. It was a fairy-tale house, with spangly cushions on the chairs, gaudy hangings on the wall, silvery shades on the lights.

‘It’s not very restful,’ Hester said when she first went. ‘I mean to write in.’

Ned replied that he found colours restful. ‘The brighter, the better.’ He showed her the back bedroom where he wrote at an old kitchen table – painted, of course, a vivid emerald green. It held a typewriter, even older than the one in Quigley Investigations. Beside it was a heap of loose paper, two or three inches deep.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘That’s me novel,’ he answered, very seriously. ‘I’ve been working on it for years.’

‘I didn’t know you were writing a novel. What’s it called? What’s it about?’

‘I haven’t got a title yet, but it’s about me mam and dad, their mam and dad, me brothers, me sisters, their husbands and their wives, their kids. It’s about me, and any minute now, it’ll be about you too.’

‘It means a lot to you, doesn’t it, the novel?’ She could tell by the way he spoke.

‘Next to you, Hes, it means everything. I was the only Cunningham to go to university. Me mam and dad were dead proud. The others had left home by then and they could have done with the money. I suppose I just want to prove meself worthy of what they did for me. That’s them there, Mam and Dad. It was taken about the time of their Golden Wedding.’ He pointed to a photograph on the table of an elderly couple, unsmiling, staring grimly at the camera. ‘They weren’t used to having their photeys taken. I think they were a bit scared.’

‘They look like another couple I used to know; Vera and Albert,’ Hester said softly. ‘They were wonderful, kindness itself, and so … selfless. They’d have given you their last penny. I loved them very much, but they’re both dead too.’

‘So, it’s not true that only the good die young!’ Ned took her in his arms. ‘I love you, Hes. Shall we go to bed again and I’ll show you how much?’

‘You’ve already shown me,’ Hester breathed. ‘But, yes, I’d like you to show me again.’

She gave herself to him completely, told him everything, could be herself. She knew, just knew, that Ned would never let her down. At first, he and Roddy didn’t get on. Roddy had been a staunch Conservative all his life and Ned was a Socialist. Even the Labour Party wasn’t left enough for him. They met in the lunch hour and argued the whole time. It got quite heated.

‘Is it serious?’ her father asked that night.

‘Yes,’ Hester assured him.

‘I rather hoped you’d do better than a postman,’ he said stiffly.

‘A postman is a quite respectable job, and responsible too. We’d be lost without them. Anyway, Ned’s a writer. That’s what drives him. He’s in the middle of writing a marvellous novel.’

‘Have you read it?’

‘No,’ she conceded. ‘But I’m sure it’s wonderful.’

Her father smiled. ‘I’m glad you have faith in him, darling. Anyway, what does my opinion matter? You’re the one who’s going to marry the chap.’

‘We might not get married, Daddy. We might just live together.’ There’d been a great upheaval in moral values in the sixties. Nowadays, people quite openly lived together, had babies out of wedlock, without too many people turning a hair. Hester was surprised when her father’s face froze in a frown.

‘I’d be very much opposed to that idea, Hester.’ He leaned back in the chair and briefly closed his eyes. ‘I’m not being moralistic, I’d be a hypocrite if I were, but darling, I don’t think I could stand it if something bad happened to you again. I feel …’ He paused. ‘I think “fragile” is the word. I feel fragile, as if the least thing could knock the legs from under me.’

‘Daddy!’ She ran across the room and knelt on the floor beside him. ‘Oh, Daddy!

You’ve had a horrible time. I hate the thought of leaving you.’

He looked at her anxiously. ‘But you will leave, won’t you, darling? I’ll be happy, knowing you’re happy, although I’ll miss you more than words can say.’

‘There’ll be no need for you to miss me. I’ll only be five minutes away in Seaforth.’

‘I wish you were getting married though,’ he said. ‘On reflection, I’d quite like Ned for a son-in-law. I admire people with convictions. I remember Duncan used to agree with every word I said. It got on my nerves rather. Ned doesn’t pretend. What you see is what you get.’

Just to please her father, who’d been through so much, in June, on her thirty-ninth birthday, Hester married Ned Cunningham in a simple, registry office ceremony. It was eighteen years to the day that she would have married Duncan Maguire. She was already two months pregnant.

‘I’ve never seen Hester look so lovely,’ Queenie whispered to Roddy after he’d given his daughter away.

Hester wore a blue crinkly cotton frock with a drawstring neck, loose flowing sleeves, and an ankle-length, three-tiered skirt. There was a wreath of forget-me-nots on her blonde hair that streamed like satin ribbon down her back.

Her face was radiant when she kissed her new husband, who was wearing jeans and an embroidered shirt, and whose own face was just as radiant when he kissed his new wife back.

‘Neither have I,’ Roddy muttered.

Queenie took his hand and squeezed it. He looked really wretched. She recalled the dashing Roddy of old, the man who’d wanted to be an architect, but had been stuck in an office selling stocks and shares instead. He’d miss Hester terribly.

Together, they’d kept each other sane. Later, she’d suggest he come to Freddy’s from time to time and they could have lunch.

Mary Maguire remembered her own registry office wedding. It had been a dead miserable affair. Queenie and Mam had been the only guests, whereas today there were a good forty, mostly friends of Ned and a few of his brothers and sisters.

The friends were an untidy lot, dressed like Beatniks. There weren’t many people on Hester’s side, just herself and Queenie, and Roddy, of course, and that detective Hester worked for and his wife. Gus couldn’t come, his wife was expecting another baby any minute.

She was glad Duncan wasn’t there. It was exam time and he couldn’t take the day off. She’d sooner he didn’t see Hester as she was today, so beautiful, looking only half her age. He might start wishing things had gone differently. Very occasionally, Mary wished the same, but then she wouldn’t have had Flora. Flora was the glue that kept them together.

The wedding over, everyone went to the Blundellsands Hotel for a sit-down meal, strictly vegetarian. Roddy had pleaded to pay for something when it seemed as if his daughter’s wedding wasn’t going to cost him a penny.

Queenie and Mary agreed the food was surprisingly nice. ‘And so are the guests,’

Queenie remarked. ‘Nice, that is. There’s none of the backbiting or catty remarks there are at some weddings.’

After the food, came dancing. A rock ’n ’roll group – more friends of Ned – let rip with ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’. Roddy came over and asked Queenie to dance.

‘I’m not sure if this is a quickstep or a foxtrot,’ he said. ‘Shall we experiment with a few steps and find out?’

‘I think it’d be best if we just jigged around on the spot, otherwise we’d look daft, trying to do a proper dance.’

‘I’ll feel daft jigging around on the spot. I already stick out like a sore thumb in this formal suit. Hester said to wear something casual, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to a wedding in jeans and sweatshirt. You fit in perfectly in that frock.’

Queenie was hatless. Her straw-coloured silk frock was plain except for the fluttery cape collar. She didn’t say it was a Nina Ricci and had cost Ł250. ‘I remember talking Theo into buying a consignment of jeans, it was years and years ago now. His cousin in Kythira was wearing them. I’d never seen jeans before.’

She giggled. ‘Not a single pair sold, they ended up in the stock room. Now they’re all the rage. I must ask someone to see if they’re still there. Oh, come on, Roddy!’ she coaxed. ‘Take your jacket off and give jigging around a try.’

Roddy laughed. He was looking much more relaxed, no doubt because he’d drunk an awful lot of wine with the meal. ‘Why didn’t Theo come with you?’ he asked when they were on the floor.

‘He doesn’t feel well. Oh, Roddy. I’m so worried about him,’ she said with a catch in her voice. ‘He’s tired all the time and feels nauseous and has raging headaches. I’m scared there’s something badly wrong.’

He stopped dancing. ‘I’m no good at this. Let’s go downstairs and have a drink at the bar. I’m in need of something stronger than wine.’

‘How long has Theo been like this?’ he asked when they were seated, a glass of whisky in his hand. Queenie had preferred a pot of tea. The bar was empty apart from themselves.

‘A few weeks, a month.’ Queenie shook her head helplessly. ‘He refuses to see a doctor. I think it’s because he’s scared of what they’ll say. He hasn’t been in his office for over a fortnight. People don’t know what to do. Theo insisted on taking all the major decisions himself. The shop’s been going downhill for ages, anyroad. We have fewer and fewer customers every year.’

‘I’m sorry, Queenie.’

‘I don’t know how I’ll live without him,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I shouldn’t have come here and left him, but I couldn’t bear to miss Hester’s wedding.’

‘It’s no use me sitting here assuring you Theo’s bound to get better, because what the hell do I know? But if he doesn’t, Queenie, you’ll be all right.’ It was Roddy’s turn to take her hand and squeeze it. ‘You’re a survivor. Is someone with Theo now?’

‘My mother. She’s seventy-three, a year older than him, but as fit as a fiddle.