That Liverpool Girl (53 page)

She understood her daughter. She knew now how strong Tom’s magnetism was; at the same time, she saw a very similar quality in Keith. They were different, yet the same. Nellie loved Keith; she also loved Tom in her way. Even at the age of fifty-five, she had weakened slightly at the mention of togas and massage oils. Yes, Eileen had done well to resist.

Peter had not resisted. No longer a virgin, he lay sobbing in the arms of a girl he truly loved. This part of the park, behind the bowling club shed, was usually deserted, so he could weep in comparative privacy.

Mel, feeling unbearably sad, didn’t know what she was. Sister, mother, lover, friend, adviser, priest, psychologist? ‘Are you hurt?’ asked the mother. Sister dried his tears, adviser urged him to compose himself before going home, lover kissed him on the forehead, friend held his hand. The priest prayed, while the psychologist reminded Peter that nothing had changed. Mother just tried not to be shocked, and the friend simply stayed by his side, because she would be around when all the other alter egos had left.

‘It has happened,’ he moaned.

Mel held on to him. ‘Peter, you’re homosexual. What a horrible, cold word that is. It reminds me of something surgical, perhaps for removing growths. Look. Have you been hurt?’

He shook his head.

‘Raped?’

‘Not really.’

Mel blew out her cheeks. Not really? Surely a person knew? Surely there was no space for confusion? ‘Look, soft lad. Were you willing like Barkiss in what was it?
Great Expectations
? No,
David Copperfield
.’

‘Sort of.’

The adviser was running out of patience, though the mother, sister and friend remained sympathetic. ‘Peter?’

‘What?’

‘Tell me about it. Blow your nose first; you look like a tap in want of a washer.’ He didn’t. As ever, he looked good enough for royalty.

‘It was the lad who draws the white lines.’

Mel swallowed hard. ‘He’s got pimples on his neck and he always smells of grass and that chalky paint.’

‘I know.’

‘He probably needs help doing up his shoelaces.’

Peter raised his head. ‘I enjoyed it, and I hate myself. I enjoyed you, too, so am I one of those bisexuals?’

‘The wheel fell off mine,’ Mel said almost absently. ‘Sorry, sorry. Didn’t set out to be flippant, but it does sound like something with handlebars. That means the best and worst of both worlds, Peter. Please don’t make things any more confusing.’

‘You wouldn’t have me even if I was bi.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘No, I wouldn’t. I want an extraordinary career, and a very ordinary home life, preferably with servants. My man will be my man, nobody else’s. But no matter what, I’ll always be your friend.’

Peter pulled away and hugged himself. ‘I can’t do it,’ he whispered, his body rocking to and fro.

‘Can’t do what?’

‘Live it, be it, do it. You want us to move to London and work in law. Right?’

Mel nodded.

‘And you want us to tackle the statute books, stop the persecution of people like me.’

‘Yes.’

‘And when I go to jail? When the big, fancy lawyer doesn’t exist any more because he’s a pervert?’

As usual, she had an answer even for that. ‘You find a nice, educated and lovable man with as much to lose as you have. Pragmatism rules. You buy a London house and make it into two flats. You have parties and occasionally you take a woman to the cinema, the theatre, the ballet. He does the same. No one needs to know that you live and sleep together. Confirmed bachelors, you see. Separate bedrooms, separate wardrobes, separate bathrooms, separate girlfriends.’

He knew his power over the fairer sex. ‘They fall for me.’

‘And you explain that you don’t feel the same and you don’t want commitment. Oh, what’s the matter with you? Invent a dead fiancée. Dad went through twenty years after his Annie died. Where do you keep your imagination, Peter? You’re clever enough. No one need know.’

Very slowly, he raised his head. ‘I’ll know.’

‘And?’

‘Living a lie.’

She jumped up and stood in front of him, hands on hips, eyes blazing.

‘Listen, Twinkletoes. We all do that. We all wear different hats for different situations. When I stand in court and argue for a murderer, how much truth will I be spouting? And will I tell them my truths: that I remember hunger, no coal for the fire, three brothers who stole and ran for bookies? No. Cambridge is the line. After that, it’s Amelia Watson for London, Mel for my friends and family. How big a lie is that? And if I go for politics, I shall be elegant.’

‘You’re already that.’

‘That’s the point – I’m not. I have manufactured me. I’m a lie.’

She didn’t understand, Peter decided. There was a huge difference between her lies and his. No. She did understand, and now she was saying so. What she meant was that his lie must become a habit, a part of life to which he could become inured, because it was an elemental necessity when it came to survival.

‘It’s too deep,’ he said. ‘Sexuality defines us at a level that’s essential – of our essence. People hate queers.’

A part of Mel wanted to shake him till his bones fell apart and rattled. But that was the Eileen-and-Nellie side of her, the bit that reacted in an instant and flew off the handle. In the depths of her soul, she knew what he meant. On an earlier occasion, he had outlined his reasons for giving up the idea of medicine. A doctor was always vulnerable, and would definitely lose his licence if discovered to be different. A lawyer might just get away with it.

Getting away with it. Peter shook his head slowly. He would have to live the life of a liar, a man who denied his own heart and soul, who lived in shadow, who dared not be completely visible. Getting away with it. Did he want that? With so large an untruth, he would be painting himself into a corner from which there could be no exit. Always, there would be a chance of footprints.

‘I don’t hate you. I don’t hate queers.’

‘You’re not people; you’re Mel.’ He gazed at her. ‘If I grow out of this, if I turn out to be a woman’s man after all, will you have me?’

‘No.’ That sounded cruel, she decided. ‘You’ve become a brother. And we both have a long way to go. Four years until university, more years of study, finding a job, somewhere to live. And a war, by the way. Our lives will change. One way or another, you’ll get past this. Only the stupid get caught – I learned that much from Scotland Road.’

He was tired. There was at least one High Court judge behind bars, and that man was not the only clever one doing time because of love. Unnatural love, the world termed it. How could anything be deemed unnatural when it was part of the mind and soul of the person who contained it? Isolation was the only answer. Becoming his own jailer was the sole solution.

‘Did you feel love for the line-painter?’

‘No. It was mechanics, like you said about us. Love would make it amazing.’

‘Be careful, then.’

They wandered homewards. Once again, Mel experienced a strange feeling when Peter turned left into St Andrew’s Road. Something was happening. He was walking away again, and she was troubled. She had experienced this before, yet now an extra element deepened her discomfort. He disappeared through the gateway of the family home; a cold hand gripped Mel’s heart and tried to squeeze the life out of her.

Why couldn’t things be simpler? Why couldn’t he be normal? She smiled at herself; Peter was one of the most normal people in her life, and she needed to get a move on. She had to finish an article about ten ways to cook a potato; Gloria had done her bit. It was Mel’s turn to keep the young of Liverpool cheerful. Strangely, she wrote her funniest pieces when she was sad. Tonight, her writing would be hilarious.

Nothing had changed; Keith still adored her, even now when she had all the charm of a beached whale, plus swollen ankles she hadn’t seen for weeks and a temperament as unpredictable as the weather. He’d threatened more than once to sit her on the draining board, though he had voiced sincere worries about denting her kitchen. When she’d begged for a ride in the car, he had told her he wasn’t allowing her to break the springs, and overloading a vehicle took too much petrol, so she could stay where she was.

A bond that could have been weakened by enforced containment had been forged even closer. Eileen was learning the rudiments of chess; Keith was tackling Scouse. They argued in the usual way, with humour and love balancing the scales, and the kissing didn’t stop. Both missed the act of love; both accepted the rule for the sake of their unborn children. ‘Anyway, you’d roll off Mount Ararat,’ she often said cheerfully, patting her swollen abdomen. ‘And if I sat on you, you’d be circumcised by accident.’

Every day, he talked to his children. The little one was Frankie, a boy who would be baptized alongside his sister in St Anthony’s church on Scotland Road, because Keith had promised before marriage that any offspring would be placed in the jaws of Rome. ‘You see, Frankie, Helen’s taken up all the room. This is good practice for when it comes to wardrobes. Women have ninety per cent of the space, while you’ll get the bottom right-hand corner and half a drawer in the tallboy.’

Helen, Keith’s most beautiful girl, was told to slow down a bit, because her brother, confined to the bargain basement, was having to make do with all kinds of cheap stuff, while she got the cream of the crop. He taught them the theory of relativity; Nellie was their grandmother, Eileen and Keith were their parents, while Einstein was just a scientist, and didn’t count. They had three brothers and a sister; they had a spoodle, two houses, two gardens and sixteen chickens.

‘You’ll have them daft before they’re born,’ Eileen told him.

‘This family has standards. We do daft. We do nothing else but daft. How many pairs of knickers?’ He was packing her bag for Parkside.

‘Twelve.’

‘How long will you be away?’

‘Five feet five inches, same as I am now.’

‘Eileen!’

‘I am staying with my children until both can come home. I want four cotton nighties, my towelling robe, and my Christmas nightdress and negligent, as Mam calls it. I don’t know why she does it. She knows the right words.’

‘Yes, she does. Toiletries?’

‘They’re in my little blue bag. I hid the best soap and tooth powder so that Mel wouldn’t use them.’

‘Books?’

‘I don’t care.’ She didn’t. Caring about the birth of twins and surviving surgery took most of her thinking. ‘Not
War and Peace
. I don’t like it, and I’ll not be away long enough to read the first chapter. I have tried, but it’s a boring book. The baby clothes are in the tartan holdall.’

Keith sighed quietly. Waiting rooms and patients’ sitting rooms at Parkside had been given over to casualty as part of the war effort. He would have to stay outside in the car while his wonderful Eileen was being cut open, while his children got lifted out from the warm, dark space they knew into a bright, noisy, war-torn world. Although he had begged and pleaded to go into theatre scrubbed and gowned, no one would heed his request. Fathers didn’t count, it seemed. Fathers took their pleasure, left women pregnant, then disappeared on a ferry to somewhere exotic, like the Isle of Man.

‘Keith?’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got you a ticket.’

‘Eh?’ Still on the way to the Isle of Man, he scratched his head.

‘Mr Barr fixed it. You can sit in a corner away from me and all the cutlery and, once the babies are wiped down, you’ll be the first real person to hold them.’

‘What?’

‘I’ll be asleep behind a screen. They’ll both be laid on me for a minute so they’ll know their mother’s scent, then they’ll meet their dad. Mr Barr says dads should be involved. Quite modern for an old bloke, he is. Sometimes, when it’s a normal birth, he lets the father cut the cord. Not all men can face it, but it’s a significant moment and a privilege that shouldn’t be withheld.’

He gulped. ‘I’ll be there? I’ll be with you?’

‘Yes.’

He gulped. ‘Did I ever tell you you’re wonderful?’

‘No, never.’

He opened the cage and joined her in bed, winding his body round his wife and two children. Now an expert at these particular logistics, he wondered whether he would need to relearn the art of lying in a straight line. ‘You’re wonderful.’

‘And you’re crying, soft lad. You know, I took you on trust, because I hadn’t known you for long, but I wanted you. It was a bit like remembering tomorrow, and that’s silly. “He’s the one,” I kept saying internally. I’m glad I took that chance. Are you?’

‘I’m glad you took the chance, yes. But I was absolutely certain. I don’t take chances. You were my future; you still are. And they’re going to cut you open—’

‘Oh, shut up, Keith.’ She didn’t want him to know her terror. ‘These two are so near the surface – you could cut them out with a butter knife. But the docs won’t let you watch the procedure, as they call it. You leave them to their knives and forks, keep your mouth shut and your mask on.’

Keith the kisser was alive and well. His embrace reminded her that she continued a woman, that her body still belonged to her in spite of a couple of temporary non-paying guests who seemed to have claimed rights of residency. ‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered when he released her. ‘It will be fine. In fact, once these two are freed from jail, there’ll be no peace. It’s all nappies and bottles. They don’t encourage breastfeeding after a section, and there will be two of them. There will. Both move, I promise you. And we’ll be exhausted. Kids are a mixed blessing.’ But she was better placed now. There’d be no running wild in an overcrowded community, no police, no bookies.