That Liverpool Girl (20 page)

The neighbours, impressed by Eileen’s dedication to the cause, told her as discreetly as possible that should Miss Morrison lose the fight for life, alternative work and shelter would be arranged for her and Mel. It was in that moment that the woman from Scotland Road became certain that people were good for the most part. But the doctor was still round the corner.

On the day before the move, he arrived. After awarding Eileen the filthiest look in his repertoire, he marched into the ex-dining room to examine his patient. When he returned to the kitchen, where Eileen was preparing an apple pie, his tone was terse. He banged a bottle of medicine on the table. ‘Keep her in a sitting position for the most part. Don’t let her sleep flat, either, as pneumonia would not be a welcome visitor at this point. With the right care, she has a few years’ wear in her yet.’ He then told her that the bottle contained an expectorant designed to clear Miss Morrison’s chest.

‘Right,’ said Eileen, picking up the medicine.

‘One teaspoonful four times a day, don’t miss it. When do you move in?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Then instruct the neighbour who will be here tonight. The medication must be taken. And thank you, by the way.’

‘For what?’

‘For the second attack. At least they knew what they were doing, since they popped my arm back into its socket. It hurt like hell.’

She found no immediate reply. Dockers were tough creatures, and they had clearly gone at least a mile too far. The idea had been to frighten him, not to give him pain, and guilt shot through her like an arrow from a longbow.

‘Nothing to say for yourself, madam?’

‘Nothing. You were warned.’

‘And given a black eye by your delightful mother.’

‘You don’t know her. She stands by her family no matter what the cost to herself and to strangers. As for the other business, there’s a special bond among the dockers of Liverpool, and I’m a docker’s widow. They look after their own. I’m sorry you were hurt, and I mean that, but as I said just now, you were warned.’

The doctor’s bag was placed none too gently on the table, where it disturbed a great deal of flour. Eileen looked down at the resulting mess and opened her mouth to speak, but he was quick. More arrows pierced her body, but this time they brought pleasure. Her response was automatic, and she cursed her own lack of strength.

He released her very suddenly, and she backed away to depend for support on the sink. ‘Bloody hell,’ she breathed.

The same expression with which he had greeted her returned to his features. Without a word, he retrieved his bag and used a cloth to wipe most of the flour from its base. For at least a minute, he stood in silence, eyes fixed on her in a cold, almost forbidding stare.

Eileen shivered. This was a man who was capable of overcoming her with very little effort. She was in danger of losing control, of losing her mother and her job. But Mel would be here sometimes and, when she wasn’t, there was Miss Morrison. Eileen would have to learn to recognize the sound of his engine in order to ensure that she could be safely out of reach or with his patient whenever he came. Because she knew he could win. He knew he could win. And he knew that she knew . . . Silently, she told herself to shut up.

‘I love you,’ he said finally, though his eyes did nothing to back up the brief declaration.

She remained silent. He was the fly in ointment that had promised to be cool and soothing since she had fallen on her feet here, on the border between Crosby and Blundellsands. It wasn’t love. It was unadorned, naked lust. Once indulged, it would require regular feeding until it burned itself out. Even then, the ashes would need to be very cold in order to prevent rebirth of the phoenix.

He read her mind. ‘No, it’s gone beyond the physical. While you pretend to seek a sensible land steward, you want me. You want to wake in my bed, not his. This isn’t over. Even if it ends, it will never be over. You will remember me.’

Eileen found her voice again. ‘I am easily as cunning as my mam. I can tear my clothes and scream rape.’

‘It would kill her.’ Tom nodded in the direction of the dining room. ‘She’s your lifeline. I’ll be back.’ He left the kitchen, called a goodbye to the lady of the house, opened the front door and went. The car started. Only then did Eileen dare to breathe. Her body screamed for him, but her mind was fixed squarely on the welfare of her daughter and on the old lady who needed company, help, food and kindness.

She finished her pie, stopping partway through to look at the shape of Tom’s bag in scattered flour. She missed him. He was right; even if this ended, it would never be over. There was little she could do. With Laz, there had existed a potent mix of sex and another kind of love, the sort that brought respect and caring into the arena. But her feelings for Tom stopped when she considered anything other than physical joy. He was wrong for her; there were good men in the world, and she had encountered one of them recently.

She needed to go to church, wanted to confess her sins of thought, word and deed, must get a man of God to pray for her. Yet sometimes she looked up into the wide blue yonder and knew that this little earth was not alone, that space was unlimited, that Darwin was right. Was God there? Whilst Darwin and God did not need to be mutually exclusive, a saying from another man sat in Eileen’s mind. Hadn’t Marx concluded that religion was the opium of the people? Was Catholicism just another fairy tale in which the good survived and the wolf got chopped to bits by the woodcutter? ‘Oh, don’t start with the stupid deep thinking,’ she chided herself quietly. ‘You’ve pots to wash.’

After putting the dishes to soak in the bowl, she sat for a while, her mind wandering unhindered through the old neighbourhood, all those preparations for war and against the threat of invasion. Then there was the other business, the giggling, the groaning in dark alleys where couples grabbed their moments. ‘I swore the disease would never get me,’ she whispered.

Before the declaration, Eileen’s adherence to the moral code hammered into her head by Mam and by school had been total. Then, on a sunny Sunday, things had changed for everyone. ‘But not in my head,’ she said quietly. ‘This is not of my choosing, because it’s animal, pure animal.’ Yes, she understood the girls and boys who fumbled beneath the imposed cloak of darkness.

She moved to the sink and stared unseeing through the window. There would be quick marriages during leaves; there would be unwanted babies. Young mothers and their offspring might be cast out, orphanages could be filled, and she was no wiser than the youthful miscreants. She needed love, needed to be touched, needed sex. There. She had achieved diagnosis. Angry with herself, she took it out on crockery and cutlery. Eileen was vulnerable, and she hated that.

The apple pie finally found its way to the oven. Having a gas cooker was one of the pleasures of life in this house, as was the garden, where autumn had arrived to colour trees red, gold and brown. She could still feel his hands on her body. Daffodil and tulip bulbs needed planting, but the fortnightly gardener would see to all that. And her mouth felt bruised. A piece of ham had produced the basis for pea and ham soup, one of Miss Morrison’s favourites. And the ham would do for sandwiches. She wanted no more babies, since four were enough for anyone, but she needed comfort, closeness, fulfilment, excitement. That was selfish. If she gave in, she would be indulging a need that would be better ignored.

It wasn’t a case of if. It was when. Because she understood with blinding certainty that the mating ritual would continue, and that she would inevitably be worn down, as she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. For the sake of her daughter, Eileen Watson would postpone the event for as long as possible. But it would happen. Wouldn’t it? Or might someone else fill the void in her soul?

It was Saturday. Keith rounded up the three boys and stood them in a line at the bottom of the staircase. The youngest was in a fairly good mood, as he had a pony, but the other two were bored. There was nothing to do. The rest of the evacuees were not yet here and, even when they did arrive, there would be miles and miles of wind-whipped fields between Willows and the other farms. Home Farm was nearby, but the Dysons wouldn’t be taking anyone after all, as their spare bedrooms had been commandeered by Land Army girls.

‘There’s nothing to do,’ moaned Phil for the umpteenth time. ‘No shops, one pub, no trams. It’s like being dead.’

‘How do you know?’ Keith asked. ‘You’ve not been dead. Yet.’

‘Is that a threat?’ the oldest of Eileen’s boys asked.

‘Call it a promise.’ Keith folded his arms. ‘This is the deal. Saturdays, as long as everything here is up and running, I take you to town. You can go to the Lido or the Odeon for a matinee while I shop and so forth. Any thieving, fighting or messing about, and I’ll drop you at the police station myself.’

Bertie declined with thanks. He’d been here only a day, and he was intending to move into the stables for a few hours. ‘Pedro has to know who I am. So I’ll sit with him and read comics.’

‘Right.’ Keith studied the other two. Like the young one, they were good-looking, and they gave the impression that butter wouldn’t melt. But he had their measure, as Eileen was very open when it came to describing her sons. What had she written?
They look like little angels, but the devil lives in their shoes.
‘One foot, one boot or shoe out of step, lads, and it’ll be the junior prison.’

They glanced at each other. Neither had the slightest intention of tolerating any more of this. They followed Keith out to the car. Today, they would find out the lie of the land. During the coming week, money would be acquired by fair means or foul. After that, Liverpool in all its glory would be waiting for them. They hadn’t said anything to their younger brother. When it came to secrets, Bertie was as much use as a bucket with a large hole in its base.

‘So how do you like your new home?’ Keith asked as he drove down the lane.

‘All right,’ answered Rob.

‘Big,’ Philip added. Having been held prisoner for long enough in Rachel Street, he was not prepared to allow the situation to continue. He and Rob had mates at home, and someone would take them in. War? Apart from a few soldiers and sailors passing through, there’d been no sign of it. It was almost as if some conspiracy were going on, a plan to keep the Kennedy/Watson clan out of circulation for a year or two.

‘Bertie likes the pony.’ Keith began the descent into Bolton. ‘He’s as happy as a sand boy. Perhaps I should look for a couple of horses for you?’

Philip was ready for this offer. ‘We’d rather have bikes,’ he said. ‘Second-hand would do as long as they work.’ Forty miles wasn’t far. If he could get his bearings for the East Lancashire Road, a new route designed and built to connect Liverpool and Manchester, he and Rob could be as good as home. ‘If we had bikes, we could visit the other farms.’

Keith, as yet not fully aware of the dogged determination of his passengers, took what they had said as a positive sign. They were preparing to settle, and that was good enough for him. ‘Forget the picture house for today, then. Let’s go on a bike hunt, get a bit of dinner, then you can have a walk round while I do my own shopping.’

In the rear of the car, two intelligent and calculating boys smiled at each other. The plan was working like a dream.

‘Don’t cry, Mam.’ This was terrible. Until today, Eileen Watson hadn’t been able to remember some details of her husband’s death and the ensuing funeral, but it had all flooded back while she prepared to leave the home she had shared with him. ‘Mam?’

‘Leave me a minute. Go and give Freda Pilkington your gran’s best frying pan and a couple of pillows. I promised. Go on now.’

Alone, Eileen sat halfway up the stairs. She remembered him singing ‘
and when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down
’ while taking his children to their beds. He had been a good dad and a wonderful husband. His right hand was callosed from the repeated used of his docker’s hook. A powerful man, he never hurt a fly.

In her mind, she opened the door. Three of them stood there, caps in hands, blood on their fingers. A trio of big, burly men stood and cried like babies while she sank to the floor, a very young Bertie clutched to her chest. The men’s faces were clear at last, and she even recalled two of their names. After they left, she became a wooden doll. Time after time, her mother said, ‘You stayed where you were put, so we had to remember to shift you.’

His mates sat the final vigil. They drank beer and used the coffin top as a resting place for their glasses and bottles. That was the right thing to do, because they were including him.

He was a big man, and his coffin filled the front room. She touched the wood. The lid was nailed down, because he was so badly injured. Warm wood. She could feel it now. Inside the warmth, he was probably cold. They walked behind him all the way to St Anthony’s, where he had been baptized and educated. His mother was hysterical. She died three weeks later.

The church was standing room only. Hundreds of people, and the dockers wept again. She’d always remembered that bit, but now she saw the hole. They put her Laz in a great, yawning hole. Worms. Flowers. Philip, Rob and Mel crying, Bertie held in his grandmother’s arms. Eileen hated the sun for daring to show its face. Trams ran, birds sang, children played nearby. It should all stop, but it didn’t. Dinners to make, ships to load and unload, bets to be placed in the ready hands of Nobby Costigan. She wanted to scream, but the priest was here, purple vestments, black biretta, open prayer book.