The Leaving Of Liverpool (41 page)

‘Who are you? I was expecting Lev,’ she said.

‘I’m John Zarian. Are you Anne Murray?’ It hardly seemed possible; she looked so young - young enough to be his sister - and was incredibly pretty with black, curly hair just like his own and enormous violet eyes. He’d never seen eyes such a lovely colour before. She wore a plain white frock and white sandals. ‘I’d like to see Anne Murray.’

‘That’s me. What do you want? Who are you?’ She spoke in a whispered hiss and looked so terrified that he wondered if she knew exactly who he was: it made him go hot and cold at the same time.

He took the birth certificate from his pocket and held it in both hands so she could read it. ‘I’m John Zarian,’ he repeated, ‘and it says here that you’re my mother.’

‘I can’t possibly be your mother, or anybody’s mother,’ she said coldly. ‘I’ve never had a child. Where’s Lev? I thought you were Lev.’

‘Levon, my father, is dead. I found this.’ He waved the certificate in front of her eyes. ‘See, it says, “Mother - Anne Murray”.’ He hadn’t had time to wonder what sort of reception he would get. Perhaps there was another Anne Murray. But no, he’d got the right one. This woman, this girl, was his mother, no matter how much she might try to deny it.

‘Lev’s dead?’ Her eyes widened in shock. ‘But he can’t be. He’s in Washington. Oh, he can’t be dead, not Lev.’ She began to cry - loud, heartrending sobs. ‘I can’t live without my darling Lev.’

A black woman appeared, all concerned, and put her arms around the younger one. ‘What’s wrong, honey? Tell Christina what’s the matter.’

‘Lev is dead, Christina.’ It came in a long, drawn-out wail. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Come and sit down, honey, and I’ll make a cup of coffee.’ She beckoned to John. ‘You too, young man. Are you a friend of Mr Zarian’s?’

‘I’m his son.’

The admission shocked Christina. ‘Oh, you poor soul. I reckon you could do with some coffee, too, and a few hugs and kisses wouldn’t come amiss.’ She ushered them both into a palatial room full of pictures and funny-shaped chairs covered with white leather. ‘Anne, honey, this young fellow’s just lost his father. I know you’re upset, but try to spare a thought for him. He’s got more reason to cry than you.’

She left to make the coffee. Her words seemed to have had some effect on Anne, who wiped her nose and said quietly, ‘I’m sorry; you must be devastated. I bet Lev was a wonderful father. How is Tamara taking it?’

‘She’s dead, too. They died in a car crash on their way back from Washington.’

‘Dear God!’ Her tear-stained face was contorted with horror. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Yesterday.’ For the first time, John felt tears come to his eyes. ‘All I’ve got left is you.’

‘You’re wrong.’ She shook her head. ‘I really feel for you, but I assure you I’m not your mother.’ She paused and seemed to cast around for something to say. ‘You can stay here for a while; there’s plenty of room. You’re Lev’s son and I want to help.’

‘It says on my birth certificate “Father Unknown”.”

‘I don’t know anything about that.’ If she shook her head much more it would fall off.

‘It’s strange my family knowing two Anne Murrays.’ He felt anger rise like bile in his throat.

She shrugged. ‘Strange things happen all the time.’

‘As you seem to have known my pop so well, perhaps you can tell me where to find the other Anne Murray?’ Now he was even angrier and put all the sarcasm he could muster into his voice. He knew he was being very rude - his parents would be shocked if they could hear him.

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ she said again, tightening her lips stubbornly.

Christina came in with the coffee. Neither spoke while she put the tray on the table. She looked at them worriedly, but departed without a word. John could tell she wanted to do or say something, but didn’t like to interfere.

Anne pushed a drink in his direction. He didn’t pick it up. ‘What am I going to do?’ he asked. Instead of anger, now there was a wobble in his voice. All of a sudden, he felt like a little boy who wanted his mom. ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ he asked croakily.

‘This way.’ She virtually ran out of the room, as if she wanted to get away from him, for her life to return to normal. He followed, hardly able to walk because he felt so sad and so very alone. She was his mother, yet was determined to deny it. From now on, he knew he would always be alone: he had no one.

‘This is a bathroom.’ She flung open a door in another lobby, this one without mirrors, then disappeared. John entered the room, bolted the door, sat on the pan, and bawled his head off. His sobs were raw and full of pain, like the last cries of a dying animal. He fell face forward on to the floor, curled up in a ball, and willed himself to die.

 

Anne closed her bedroom door and put her hands over her ears to shut out the sound. If she allowed herself to acknowledge that he was her son, she would have to acknowledge that other thing that wavered constantly on the brink of her mind and that she always pushed away, convinced that if she let it in she would go completely mad.

But she could still hear the sound of the boy crying and it tore at her heart. He
was
her son, her own flesh and blood - but he was someone else’s flesh and blood, too.

Now there was another sound, banging. Anne removed her hands from her ears. It was Christina knocking on the bathroom door and calling, ‘Come on out, honey. I knew your daddy well and we can talk about him.’

It wasn’t up to Christina to sort out Anne’s problems. ‘Dear God, please help me,’ she whispered as she left the room. ‘I’ll see to him,’ she told Christina, who looked at her oddly and said, ‘The poor young man’s beside himself. I’d’ve gone in, bathroom or no bathroom, but he’s bolted the door. I wish Lizzie was home; she’d know what to do.’

‘
I
know what to do.’ She waited until Christina had gone into the kitchen before sitting on the floor outside the bathroom and tapping on the door. ‘It’s me, Anne.’

The crying stopped. ‘What do you want?’

‘For you to come out.’

‘Why?’ His voice was as deep as a man’s, yet he was only fifteen, still a child inside.

‘Because you can’t stay there for ever; you’ve got to come out sometime.’

‘I want my mom and pop,’ he said in an anguished tone. ‘
I want my mom and pop
.’ He was shouting now, his voice hoarse with rage.

‘But they’re dead, darling.’ She shouldn’t have called him that, but there was a tenderness in her that she hadn’t wanted to convey.

‘
You’re
not dead,’ he said pointedly. ‘Why won’t you admit that you’re my mother?’

Anne began to cry, very softly. She bent her legs, wrapped her arms around them, and hid her head behind her knees. ‘I can’t, I just can’t.’

The door opened and he came out and dropped onto the floor beside her. ‘Why not?’

She lifted her head and looked at him straight in the eyes. She felt dizzy, muzzy, and could hardly think. ‘The Doctor had grey eyes,’ she whispered.

He pounced on the words. ‘Who’s the Doctor?’

‘My father.’ Everything swam - the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the boy’s face, her own hands. She gasped, ‘My father was your father.’ He’d come into her bedroom, laid on top of her, pushed himself inside her. The pain was indescribable. She’d begun to scream . . .

‘Stop!’ Someone was holding her shoulders, shaking her, but it wasn’t the Doctor. The Doctor had been drunk and hadn’t cared about her screams, just continued to pump away inside her until she’d fainted from the pain, the shock, and the horror of it all. No, it was John who was shaking her, tears pouring down his cheeks, while, behind him, Christina waved her arms, looking close to tears herself.

Between them, they carried her to a different bedroom and laid her on a different bed. ‘Lord Almighty, I wish Lizzie was here,’ Christina cried plaintively.

‘It’s all right, she’ll be all right now,’ John said gruffly. ‘Perhaps you could make more coffee.’

‘Right away, son.’ Christina looked only too pleased to have something to do.

‘How do you feel?’ John asked. He was sitting on the bed looking down at her. The child had gone and he was now a man.

‘Awful,’ she said limply. ‘I’m sorry. As if you haven’t had enough to cope with over the last few days without me having hysterics.’

‘I’m sorry, too. I wish I hadn’t come now. I should have waited until I didn’t feel so upset about everything. Mom always said I was too impulsive.’

‘You didn’t have anyone else to turn to, did you?’ Her lips quivered in a reluctant smile. ‘Only me, and I’m useless.’

‘No, you’re not,’ he said stoutly. He hesitated before speaking again. ‘Is it . . . is it OK to ask if you meant what you said - about your father being my father?’

She shuddered. ‘Yes, I meant it.’

‘Golly!’ It seemed an inadequate word to use.

‘Do you mind?’ Not that there was anything she could do about it if he did.

He looked at his shoes and sighed. ‘It isn’t much use minding now, is it?’

‘I was thirteen.’ She could remember that now, but not how many years had passed in between.

Elsewhere in the apartment the phone rang and Christina answered. Seconds later, she popped her head around the door. ‘It’s Bobby Gifford who came yesterday. He’s downstairs and wants to come up.’

‘Tell him to go away, I don’t want to see him.’ She didn’t want to see anybody. Right now, she could hardly remember who Bobby Gifford was.

Christina frowned. ‘Are you sure about that, honey?’

‘I don’t want to see anybody, Christina.’

‘You shouldn’t have shouted at her,’ John said when the woman had gone and could be heard relaying Anne’s message to the desk.

‘I didn’t realize I’d shouted.’ Poor Christina had also had an upsetting day. ‘I’ll apologize later.’

‘Can I use the phone? I need to tell some people, the Iveses, that I’m OK or they’ll be worried.’

‘Of course, there are phones all over the place.’

‘When I come back, I’d like us to talk.’ He paused at the door and looked at her searchingly. ‘You’re more like my sister than my mother.’

‘But I
am
your sister, aren’t I? Your sister
and
your mother.’

 

John told Mrs Ives that he was in Manhattan: ‘I’m staying with one of Pop’s friends, I hope you don’t mind.’ He got the impression that Mrs Ives could well have minded very much, had the circumstances been different. But he’d lost his folks and his rudeness was excused.

When he got back to the bedroom, Anne was fast asleep. He looked at her compassionately. It sure was a weird story. She’d been through a lot but, from now on,
he’d
look after her. Having a husband in California wasn’t much use.

He sat on the bed, watching her, but in a while his eyes began to blink and he lay down beside her and fell asleep.

 

Christina came, wondering why everything had gone so quiet. She’d heard everything, but the only person she’d tell was Lizzie. She smiled with relief when she saw them asleep on the bed: mother and son; sister and brother. Softly, she closed the door and helped herself to a large glass of Mr Blinker’s best whiskey. The last few hours had possibly been the most traumatic of her life.

Chapter 14

Anne wanted John’s parentage kept secret. Because of Herbie, her name had already appeared in the scandal rags. ‘Can you imagine the headlines?’ she said, shivering. ‘“ANNE MURRAY, WIFE OF THE INFAMOUS HERBIE BLINKER, IS RE-UNITED WITH LONG-LOST SON.” There’d be reporters round and they’d insist on having all the horrid details.’ Only Lizzie and Christina were allowed to know, though Ollie and Herbie would have to be told eventually.

Lizzie, who was very nice and very capable, returned with John to Brooklyn to take over the funeral arrangements from Dick Ives. ‘We can’t very well leave it in the hands of strangers,’ she said.

His mom and pop were buried together in Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn, after a Requiem Mass in the old St Patrick’s Cathedral. Hundreds of people turned up: his mother’s friends from Brooklyn, John’s friends from school - school was still out - and his father’s friends from Manhattan. John hadn’t dreamed his pop had been such a popular man - Mom had always made out he was a bit of a failure - but there were other lawyers, the staff from his office, the manager of MacCready’s diner where Pop had always lunched, some of his old clients, people from show business. Lizzie’s husband, Ollie Blinker, came all the way from Los Angeles to say goodbye to his best pal, Levon Zarian.

‘There’ll never be another guy like Lev,’ he said tearfully, and everyone within earshot said, ‘Hear, hear.’

When it was over, John and the Blinkers went back to the apartment on Fifth Avenue. John had been sleeping in Herbie’s room where the closet was full of clothes that he wouldn’t have been seen dead in; flashy suits, loads of white pants, and gaudy sweaters. Blown-up pictures of Anne and Herbie dancing had been stuck to the walls. In his opinion, Herbie looked a bit of a dork, and his hair was too long. Had
he
been given a say, he would have been against Anne marrying him.

It had been established that he would live in the apartment from now on and that the house in Brooklyn would be sold. When Herbie came back - and he only came at Christmas - he could sleep in the room that used to be his sister’s. ‘If he doesn’t like it, he’ll just have to lump it,’ Lizzie said in the funny accent she’d managed to keep after spending over two-thirds of her life in New York. She’d asked Christina to empty the closet and give the clothes to a thrift shop. ‘They’re too old-fashioned for Herbie; he’ll never wear them again,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why he left them behind in the first place. I suppose he thought he’d buy a whole new wardrobe in Los Angeles.’ In future, the closet would be used for John’s clothes, though he doubted if they’d fill a quarter of the space.