A Liverpool Song (39 page)

They were young, healthy and full of hope. They went to the sea, splashed about among rocks, found crabs, collected shells and pebbles, made love in woods while smaller mortals rustled in nearby
foliage. They lay in inky blackness and stared up at a sky in which a million stars came out to look at them. They had candyfloss, ice cream, and other delights that took them back to
childhood.

‘We have to be grown-ups when we get home,’ Mary said on their last night in Cornwall.

Andrew disagreed completely. ‘No, no. At work, perhaps. But at home, we can go with Wilfred Owen, forever children, hand in hand. The sea is rising and the world is sand.’

‘What does that mean, Drew?’

‘No idea. I pinched it off Geoff; it’s his mantra. But it sounds impressive. A bit soggy, what with the sea rising, but very clever. I’ll look it up when we get
home.’

The problem had been contained successfully for several years in the chaos room before spreading small tentacles across other parts of the house. Geoff was an untidy soul, and
Emily had known that right from the very beginning when he’d taken her to his home and made love to her for the first time. She closed her eyes for a moment, saw his flat with the desk shoved
against the window, nowhere to sit because books and papers occupied every bit of furniture. Not the bed, though. Oh, he’d known that she needed him . . .
Come back to me, please, my
darling man.
Always, he’d been different, special and rather eccentric. But . . .

This was different, and she became disturbed, then tense, finally landing at the edge of panic and despair just before Andrew’s marriage to the lovely Mary. But everything had to look
right for Andrew and his bride, so she said nothing, simply returning to Geoff ’s messy room all the clutter he was spreading through communal areas. Keeping up with him was difficult, but
she managed, more or less, to hide from other people the various overspills her man was creating.

Several hidden items began to turn up in very odd places. She found pages torn from medical books, certain words ringed by coloured inks. Childhood cancers in particular found space in his socks
and pants drawer, while a three-page treatise on the subject of cerebral palsy appeared in a leather pouch right at the bottom of a dirty-linen hamper. And she stood there holding this in her hand,
hearing him telling her that she would go to him willingly for sex. ‘Come to me. I love you,’ he had said.
Oh, Geoff, Geoff, where are you, where did you go? What’s happening
to us?
They’d been happy, so happy. Was this a punishment because she’d abandoned Joseph? ‘Then punish me, not him,’ she muttered.

Quite often, a saved column from a journal ended in a jagged tear halfway through a sentence, while his notes in margins made little sense. ‘He’s a doctor,’ she told herself
often. ‘They can’t write properly, since that seems to come with the territory. They take exams in how to write illegibly.’ He couldn’t be ill. Wouldn’t someone at his
work have noticed? But she knew only too well that the person closest to a patient usually saw symptoms first, and she was very close to her sweet, precious man. They still made love. He still read
to her, wrote for her, made breakfast on Sundays, fed the cat. No, the cat had gone, had moved upstairs with Andrew. So many changes, some glaring, others so subtle as to be scarcely noticeable,
except to Emily.

When Andrew and Mary were settled in the flat after their return from Cornwall, and when Mary’s parents had left Liverpool, Emily asked her husband to come across and see her while Geoff
was still at the children’s hospital. For many years her closest and dearest friend, Joseph had been trusted with any information she chose to impart. While waiting for him to come, she hoped
he wouldn’t find her ridiculous, because her lover was still fine when it came to verbal expression. It was just . . . just things. And sometimes, an expression approaching confusion in his
eyes.

‘What’s the matter?’ Joe asked as soon as he arrived. ‘You look worried halfway to hell.’ She was pale, as white as a bleached sheet. ‘Come on, kid, tell our
Joe.’

And it poured. ‘There’s something very wrong with Geoff.’ Just those few newborn words took a little of the dead weight from her shoulders. ‘Toodles has moved upstairs to
live in the flat with Andrew and Mary. Cats know things, Joseph, and she’s a particularly clever old soul.’ She then told Joseph about the bits of printed articles found in strange
places, Geoff’s tendency to shut himself in his messy room for hours on end, his new habit of examining carefully every forkful of food before allowing it to enter his mouth.
‘He’s not Geoff any more. I found his new socks in the bread bin. And he keeps buying pens. He must have at least fifty. Joseph, he’s just odd.’

Joe took a sip of tea. ‘At least they were new socks. Better than dirty ones in a bread bin, I suppose. But Em, what about his job if he’s losing the plot? I mean, he carries a lot
of responsibility, and he’s accountable if anything goes wrong with his work.’ Geoff loved his job, loved kids, too. If he lost his position, would the poor man cope?

‘I know. Believe me, I’ve been worried sick. One mistake could cost a child’s life. But I can’t talk to his bosses about it. What if I’m wrong? He’s always
been a bit of an absent-minded professor. That’s why he’s had a special room for his books and his junk. He knows we don’t want rubbish all over the house, especially when people
come to look at the kitchens and the furniture you’ve made.’

Joe stood up and began to pace back and forth. ‘I know some people think we’re mad, the three of us, but I’m fond of the daft bugger. Still beats me at chess, so the
intellect’s right enough. What do we do, love? Where do we start? I mean, I’m just as lost as you are on this one. But we need help. Where from, though? Where do we go to talk about
something as serious as this, Em?’

She started to cry. ‘I think we probably pay a visit to our GP. Luckily, we’re all with the same practice. But I shan’t know how to deal with Geoff. What if it’s a brain
tumour, Joseph?’

‘Oh, Emily.’ He held her for the first time in years. She was weeping for another man, but Joe was her refuge. ‘I’m here. I’ll always be here for both of you. Tell
you what, stick an extra plate on the table and I’ll come back for my evening meal and see what I think.’

Emily dried her eyes. ‘You can’t tell there’s anything wrong if you’re talking or listening to him. It’s just this putting bits and pieces in wrong places and
buying stuff he doesn’t need, like all the pens and lots of new socks. Will you be here while I tell him what he’s doing? If I pluck up enough courage to tell him what he’s doing,
that is.’

‘You know I will.’ He waited until she was calmer before returning to his own house across the street. Geoff was still in his forties, and men in their forties didn’t get
senile dementia, did they? But there were cancers in his family, which fact had caused Geoff to render himself sterile . . . Bloody hell. Geoff, being a doctor, had little time for the breed.
According to him, general practitioners made more mistakes than the government, and he seldom visited the surgery.

He wouldn’t go to the doc, that was the problem. He would simply put his foot down and apply the brakes. The man was impossible when it came to his own health, and there was no shifting
him. As far as Joe, Emily and Andrew were concerned, both Doctors Cawley were good folk. The father had lengthy experience, while the son was still close to his books and up to date with new
developments. They were an ideal combination. But Geoff’s opinion was very different from theirs.

What then? What about when Geoff refused to see a doctor? Get him certified, have him dragged away to the asylum? Poor Emily. She was going to have her work cut out with the problem, that much
was certain. He wondered whether Geoff had begun to move things about in the hospitals, but there was no way of finding out without endangering the man’s position. The more Joe thought, the
more confused he became, because he kept hitting brick walls.

He sat at the table and scratched his head. There was no set-in-stone method of telling a bloke that he might be going crackers. Emily would probably find a way of framing the message, because
she was close to the man and very good with words. Even so, it would be no walk in the park. And if poor Geoff was losing the plot, he would need looking after, and who was free to do that job?
Paid help would be needed, and Geoff would hate that, too.

Well, it was best to keep quiet for now, best if just he and Emily knew. There was no point in dragging Andrew and Mary into it at this juncture. Perhaps Geoff had an explanation for his
behaviour. ‘Don’t jump the gun, Joe. Read your newspaper and play it cool, as the kids say.’ He made a pot of tea, but he couldn’t settle to read his paper, couldn’t
face the crossword. The custom-built dining table screamed for a bit of beeswax, yet Joe couldn’t bestir himself. And he had some paperwork to do, but that, too, would have to wait.

He bathed, had a shave, and changed into clean but casual clothes. Going across for a meal in shirt and tie might seem a bit funereal. He allowed himself a tight smile. Andrew’s stag night
had been one to remember, all right. Mary was funny. She awaited the promised reprisal with dread, because they were both tinkers when it came to practical jokes. They were great together. Joe was
glad that his son had found a good, happy, hard-working girl.

He sat down and sighed sadly. The tea was cool and stewed, but he couldn’t be bothered with a new brew. Hang on. That book of Andrew’s was somewhere in the sideboard under
tablecloths. He rooted about, dragged it out and looked for something he’d skimmed before. Ah, here it was. In 1906, Alois Alzheimer had treated a patient with . . . No, it was further down
underneath all the waffle. Only at autopsy was his patient’s behaviour explained. Her brain had shrunk. It had bits missing, bits that governed memory, speech, coordination. Oh, bugger. It
couldn’t be that, mustn’t be that.

He turned the page. The cause was a build-up of deposits on brain cells and some fibrous developments inside cells that eventually led to total dependence and death. He threw the book across the
room. Research was being done, but there was, as yet, no sensible treatment for the condition. Poor Em. Poor Geoff. Was he aware of the changes in his own behaviour? One sentence in the thrown book
stuck in Joe’s mind. ‘Alzheimer’s cripples not just the sufferer, but whole families. A patient can live for many years . . .’ He’d forgotten the rest, didn’t
want to bloody remember it.

In a way, a brain tumour might be preferable, because there could be a chance of surgery and improvement, but this other thing . . . Geoff would lose his job, and Em would need to give up hers.
Andrew and Mary, in the flat above Em and Geoff, might well be dragged in for stepfather-sitting duties. ‘So will I,’ he said aloud. ‘If it’s that bloody disease.’

Praying for somebody to have a brain tumour seemed strange, but Joe had a word with a god of whose existence he was not entirely sure. ‘Let it be something mendable,’ he begged,
‘or she won’t survive.’ Emily would never bear the loss of Geoff. She bruised easily on the inside, so something as huge as Geoff ’s death could finish her off
altogether.

He went across the road for his meal. Geoff greeted him in the usual way – ‘Anyone for chess?’ – while Emily carried on cooking in the kitchen. Joe knew that she was
hanging on to every spoken word, because the rattling of utensils became quieter.

‘We’ll eat first, eh, Geoff?’ Joe sat down. ‘What’s on the menu tonight?’

‘Fish pie. Our missus does a grand fish pie.’ Geoff placed himself in the chair opposite Joe’s. ‘And how are the kitchens coming along? Hardly a day passes without me
seeing one of your trucks on the road.’

‘Fine, thanks. Fleets of lorries all over the place, a lot of blokes with jobs, and that has to be a good thing. We’re opening in the Midlands and the south soon.’ He paused.
‘What about all your sick kiddies?’

‘Always a worry,’ was the reply. ‘We can only do our best, but we win some and lose some. Fortunately, we win more than we lose.’

Nothing in Geoff’s verbal or body language betrayed him. Had the situation involved anyone other than Emily, Joe would be planning to question what had been said. The proof of the pudding
was in the fish pie. She was right; the man did examine food before eating it.

Braver with Joseph at the table, Emily spoke up. ‘Am I poisoning you, Geoff?’

He froze, fork halfway between plate and mouth. ‘What?’

‘You study your fork as if it’s loaded with arsenic.’

‘Oh, sorry. I’m testing my blood, trying to assess the effects of various quantities of various foods on my sodium and potassium levels. I write down what’s in the meal, and
try to judge the amount I’ve eaten, the weight of fish, potato, asparagus and so forth. Because I believe some severe illnesses are triggered by imbalance in the blood.’

‘So you’re a guinea pig?’

‘I am. Well, I can hardly practise on my patients. A couple of my colleagues are testing themselves, too.’

‘Are you endangering your health?’ Emily asked.

Joe simply listened. So far, it all made perfect sense to him.

‘No,’ Geoff said, ‘because we seem to stay pretty level whatever we eat. But it may teach us something when compared to the blood of our patients. It’s a good idea to
find the normal in order to treat the abnormal. I think it may be too broad a field, yet it’s worth a go.’

Emily couldn’t eat. ‘Geoff, look at me.’ She put down her cutlery.

He looked at her. ‘What now?’

So she told him about the socks, the pens, the notes hidden all over the place, the mess spilling out from his chaos room. ‘You’ve changed,’ she concluded.

‘But you know I’ve always been absent-minded. I lose pens all the time. I do research and hope to publish one day. I walk about with stuff in my hands, put it down and lose it.
It’s not intentional, and I’m sorry.’

She looked at Joe as if begging him to speak.

He spoke. ‘Put her mind at rest, Geoff. Go and see the doctor, tell him you’re more forgetful than you used to be, and just get yourself checked.’