A Liverpool Song (30 page)

Daniel was cooking an omelette. ‘Would you like one?’ he asked.

‘Yes, please.’ He perched on a stool. ‘I smell paint,’ he remarked.

‘I’ve taken more leave,’ Daniel said. ‘So I’m doing the place up a bit. If Helen and the children come back, it will be ready for them. If they don’t come
back, it will be ready for sale. Decorating’s quite therapeutic, I find.’

They tucked into omelettes and side salads. Ian found himself quite impressed by his sister’s errant husband. Therapy had been holistic, and had included psychotherapy, group discussions,
counselling, hypnotherapy and physical exertion, all of which the man had endured without complaint. In fact, Daniel had emerged with muscles, a more relaxed attitude and a determination to get
better involved with life away from work. ‘When am I jumping?’ he asked now.

‘Tomorrow.’

Daniel gulped. ‘Blood and guts,’ he said quietly.

Ian’s mouth twitched. ‘You’ll need the guts, but with luck and no gale-force wind, there’ll be very little blood.’

‘My omelette’s doing back-flips.’ Daniel placed a hand on his stomach before glaring at his new friend. ‘There’s a bit of Kate in you, Ian. You might be quieter
than she is – thank goodness – but I sense mischief.’

‘This, unfortunately, is the truth, as my wife would attest if asked.’

‘Tomorrow, though. Couldn’t you have given me a bit more warning?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because your stomach would have had more time to react, and hospitals are too busy to deal with a galloping ulcer. Look, you won’t be doing a jump. You were told that in the
training sessions. A trainer will jump with you strapped to him. All decision-making will be out of your hands.’

‘Bugger.’

‘Quite. I felt the same on my first drop, thought I was going to wet myself. But Eliza was there on her first time, and I had to keep my dignity. When the chute opened and we went higher
again, I started to enjoy it. Now, I prefer the freefall, but it all takes time. You’ll be fine, I promise.’

‘I know what you’re doing, Ian.’

‘Good. I’m glad somebody does, because I’ve no idea.’

‘You’re helping me to hand control to somebody who isn’t my mother. In a few weeks, I’ll be depending on just me. Eventually, my wife and children may come to depend on
me, too. And the grandson Mother wants doesn’t have to appear. If she carries on tugging at the reins, I tell her to bog the hell off. I’ve already told her what she’s done, but I
don’t want to break her heart completely. She knows she has to back off.’

‘Good, good. There’s no point making her more unhappy than she needs to be. If you want Helen back, though, you must concentrate on her if and when she does return. I know
she’s my sister, but I have to say she’s a work of art. It’s not just the physical perfection – she’s a good person.’

‘Yes.’ Daniel grinned. ‘She’s excellent with scissors and red wine.’

Ian smiled too. ‘We all have our breaking point. Kate cracks up easily. Helen’s slower to boil, but more dangerous when she does.’

‘And you?’

‘I jump out of aeroplanes, mess about in potholes and dig up bits of Roman pottery. My job helps. Winning the slightest concession from the health service is a huge kick. I fight quietly
but concede rarely.’ He stood up. ‘Thanks for the food, and we’ll pick you up at seven in the morning.’

Daniel swallowed audibly. ‘I go early to my doom.’

‘Well, you could always play golf and get hit on the temple by one of those vicious little balls. There are many ways to die. The hardest thing is to live properly. See you
tomorrow.’

And he was gone.

Daniel felt horribly alone. The house was so big, so empty. Helen had always held things together, because she was very much the home-maker. Were she here now, she’d be filling the
dishwasher, tidying the kitchen, preparing the baby for bed, all with just one pair of hands.

And tomorrow, he was to jump from a plane . . .

‘He never listened to me when he was a kid. No matter how loud I shouted, no matter what I tried to bribe him with – no joy. He wasn’t what you’d call
naughty; more like he just couldn’t be bothered because none of us was good enough. Acted like royalty, that lad of yours.’ Eva’s right foot was tapping. She was working her way
towards a momentous declaration, no doubt. ‘Used to get on me bloody wick, he did. It was like talking to a brick wall or me husband or that flaming daft dog of yours. I gave up at the
finish.’

Andrew groaned quietly under his breath. Why wouldn’t she give up now before he exploded? ‘Ian never listened to anybody, as well you know, Eva. He was the same with everyone. As far
as I was concerned, he needed a good talking to about manners. Mary thought he was deaf, wondered if he needed an operation on his tympanic membranes.’

‘We had one of them, but the wheel fell off,’ Eva responded smartly. ‘Anyway, it’s one thing him and Eliza chucking theirselves out of a plane’s back passage, but
Daniel might be suicidal. It’s all wrong. Ian never listened to nobody, but he goes and tells Daniel Pope what to do. Oh, yes, he can dish it out, all right. I mean, I don’t like Pope,
only he shouldn’t be spread like strawberry jam all over some field somewhere. It’s not good.’

‘He won’t be spread like jam of any flavour, Eva. And he isn’t jumping. He’ll be fastened to somebody else who
is
jumping. It’s part of his therapy, making
him trust somebody other than his ma before getting him to trust himself.’

Eva rattled a new feather duster along the mantelpiece. ‘If they said getting in a pool of sharks was therapy, would he have done that?’

‘Getting in a pool of sharks would not be therapy, though I’m sure the sharks would buck up no end and enjoy it.’ Andrew was approaching the hem of his patience. The woman
seemed to get a bee in her bonnet at every conceivable opportunity, and he had to suffer the consequences. ‘Freefalling is supposed to be an exhilarating experience.’

‘So’s a Siberian wind across Scunthorpe, but I’d rather stay away from it, thanks. The world is going mad, especially this flaming family.’ With reverence, she dusted the
chest Andrew had made for the ashes of his parents and his stepfather. ‘You done a good job here, Doc. All three of them back together. I loved your dad. It was a bit of a rum do, your mam
and the other feller, but Joe made the best he could of it. What a wonderful character, eh? You were a great man, Joe Sanderson,’ she told the container. ‘You were loved and treasured,
me old mate.’

The head of the household folded his newspaper and collected Storm from the utility room. To this day, Andrew didn’t like anyone criticizing Mother. She’d been special. What she and
Geoff had shared had been particularly special. ‘Come on, lad,’ he said to his dog, ‘before I strangle her. My hands are itching to get round her throat. She goes too far by a
mile or more. Why do we put up with her?’

Storm, taller than ever and thicker-set, followed his master through the side gate and across to the green. He was a proud, obedient dog, a special dog with a master who cared for him, so he was
on his best behaviour till he reached the sand, where he met a friend, and all good intentions disappeared instantly into the ether. Storm loved women, and was particularly fond of this one. Anya
was seated at the bottom of the concrete steps, a blanket folded beneath her. The animal performed his usual Stormy greeting, face-licking, paw-offering, plus a few soft, throaty woofs, his tail
wagging furiously.

Anya laughed, pushed the fool away, stood and spread her blanket. ‘Sit with me,’ she told Andrew. ‘You, dog, go and play. I love you, but you cheeky. Talk to the
water.’

Storm ran to the river. It was on the ebb, but he was determined to keep up with it.

‘One of these days, he’ll turn up in Belfast,’ Andrew said. He was so aware of her, too aware. Was it because, like Mary, she was small? Or was he finally managing to feel
truly lonely? For some odd reason, the little Polish woman reached his soul. She was warm and friendly, yet unsure, because she was in a foreign country with different customs and a language that
followed no dependable pattern.

‘I visit Sofia in house,’ she said. ‘Helen not happy. Sofia thinks Helen wants go back to Daniel. If she does, Sofia comes home. I not let her go near that man. My Sofia needs
be safe.’

Andrew understood, and yet . . . ‘Helen won’t allow anything to happen to Sofia, Anya. And Daniel has changed. He’s worked so hard to change, because he wants his family
back.’

‘Sofia is my family. I know about family. My daughter, she is everything for me.’

‘Yes, she is.’

‘So she stay with me. We manage.’

He didn’t want to lose her, didn’t want Helen to lose Sofia. ‘There’s a good chance that Helen will take both of you if she goes, and I shall supervise by visiting twice
a week. Please don’t desert us, Anya. Don’t leave us when we’re all just getting to know you.’

She hoped he didn’t notice her sharp intake of breath. Sometimes, she got the idea that he rather liked her; on other occasions, he seemed not to care. He was still missing his wife, and
Anya sympathized with that. Although Jan had been dead for fewer years, she knew that what had happened to Andrew could easily have happened to her. She was in a foreign country, was learning a
terrible language, so she might well have hung on to her husband’s memory as some kind of comfort. The difference was that she was a woman, and women were stronger. Oh, yes. She was a woman,
and she wanted to take care of this lovely man. Why would he look at her? The wife, Mary, had been beautiful like Helen.

‘We shall see,’ she replied. ‘But the man Daniel I do not like.’

Andrew watched his dog trying to turn the tide. Storm didn’t appreciate the Mersey when it was coming, but hated it more when it was going. Fortunately, the dog stayed in shallow water
and, thus far, had met no sinking sand. ‘Daniel has been through rigorous treatments,’ he said quietly. ‘An overprotective and domineering mother made him what he was. When they
managed to reach back into his youth, the life he lived was so inhibiting, so bad for him.’

‘I am not bad and overprotecting,’ she replied.

‘She’s your child, Anya, yet she is not. Sofia is a young woman now, and needs to make her own way in the world. To keep them, we must let go.’

‘So it is wrong I say don’t go back to Neston, to him and that great big house?’

‘It’s what we Brits call a grey area. The decision should be hers. Helen is helping with Sofia’s education, firstly with the translators’ course, then later the
qualification for teaching English as a foreign language. Sofia has much to lose.’

‘If he touch her, I kill him, and this I promise.’

‘If he touches her, there’ll be a queue of people wanting to kill him. And you’ll all be standing behind me.’ He paused. ‘He’s jumping out of an aeroplane
somewhere in Staffordshire today.’

Anya’s head whipped sideways. ‘Why?’

‘Part of his treatment. As a child, he had to do everything in secret, or his mother would start a row. Cheating on Helen was an extension of that. Now, he’s literally taking his
life and putting it into the hands of a free-faller. So far, Daniel has been a naughty boy. He’s now becoming a man. Anya, there is a parachute.’

‘
Powodzenia
.’

‘What?’

‘Good luck he will need.’

‘We all need that. We wake every day and jump into life hoping our parachute will open. And there’s no map, Anya. We arrive as babies in the world with no instructions and no
manufacturer’s guarantee. Each day’s a blank page, and we make our own roads with no idea of what we’ll meet. Nobody’s a perfect cartographer.’

‘Is meaning?’

‘Map-maker. When we wake, we’re never truly sure of how the day will be. And much of the time, our activities are in the hands of other people who—’

‘Who have no map.’

‘Exactly.’

‘We make map when we can.’

‘Yes.’

She loved the way he talked and listened, because he never seemed to mind stopping to explain. This silly language had virtually no rules. Hole and whole, sew, so and sow, not and knot, through
and threw, no and know, new and knew, all the same, all different. ‘Thank you for explain, Andrew. Many peoples angry when I not understand, but my Polish language easier. English not easy
for learn, not for me.’

‘English is difficult because we stole words from all over the world. Come on, let’s go home and get something warm to drink. I just hope Eva’s stopped complaining, because
she’s hovering on the brink of my hit list.’

‘Hit list is?’

He drew a finger across his throat.

‘Ah, yes. I am understand. Eva is noisy lady, good in heart.’

A soggy Storm joined them as they made their way up the steps, across the green and round to the back of the house. Andrew explained that the dog was not allowed near Eva’s parquet.

‘Floor is Eva’s, baby Cassie is Eva’s, you are Eva’s.’ She laughed.

‘We let her think these things, but we know the truth. Eva collects articles and people. She’s bossy and controlling but, as you say, kind underneath all that. It’s her way,
it’s how she was raised.’ Why was he defending the dragon?

Anya went into the downstairs bathroom. While washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror. ‘You don’t know everything, lovely man.’ Eva had made a friend of Anya.
They went to bingo together where, to use a phrase of Eva’s, Anya made ‘a right pig’s ear of keeping up’, and Eva had endowed Anya with a piece of knowledge that was
onerous. ‘I wish she had not told me about this thing and those peoples.’

She dried her hands and tidied her hair. ‘I think he likes me. I hope he likes me.’ Anya Jasinski told herself that she was being silly. Perhaps Andrew had many friends and
didn’t want a lover or a wife. Perhaps Eva’s information about . . . about the other business was mistaken. No. There was something there, something unusual.

She sighed. Did he know deep down, had he noticed? Or would it all come as a shock? Why did life have to be so difficult, so complicated?

With an unsteady hand, she reapplied lipstick. No, he didn’t know what Eva knew. Had he realized, things would have been different. And he was definitely unaware, because Mary had made
sure of that. Mary had loved him enough to guard him from a huge truth. He was easy to love.