A Liverpool Song (47 page)

‘Emily? World of your own again?’

‘Sorry.’

‘No need to apologize to me, queen. We all loved him. I didn’t know him well, but I liked what I saw. Thanks to Mary, he signed the adoption papers for our Lucy, you know, and gave
us a reference. So did Doc.’

Emily smiled. ‘Put the kettle on. As Thora would say, I’m fair clemmed.’

‘Gob like the bottom of a bird cage?’

‘That’s the one.’ As Eva clattered in the kitchen, Emily sat and folded her arms while the next slice of time peeled away.
Soon. Make it soon, Geoff
.

As in life, Emily Sanderson was calm and dignified in death. She simply slipped away in the night, a gentle smile of acceptance on her face, a curl of Geoff ’s hair wound
round her ring finger.

Yet her death was far from quiet. Three o’clock in the morning found Joseph seated on her bed, an arm across the body of his beloved and wonderful wife. They did not share a bedroom, yet
he knew the moment of her passing, as he had woken suddenly and thoroughly, no yawning, no stretching, no cursing the sound of an alarm clock’s raucous bell. He sobbed, and he didn’t
hold back. Into Emily’s pretty bedroom he poured years of grief, self-loathing and frustration.

What happened tonight had been real, as real as his love for Emily, as real as every day spent in the design shop, in warehouses, in the knowledge that he would see her and eat with her at the
end of a working day. And now he felt the drift of a light hand across his shoulder. Geoff was here, in this house, in this bedroom.

‘Sorry, Joe,’ he had said earlier, just as Joe had opened his eyes. ‘It’s her time. I’ve come for her.’

‘Thanks for waking me and telling me, lad,’ Joe said now. ‘Look after our angel. I’ll put her ashes with yours. Let heaven know how good she is.’

A floorboard creaked the message that they had gone. ‘Forever children, hand in hand.’ Geoff and Andrew both loved that piece. Joseph wept.

She wasn’t here any more. Her body was just the building that had housed her, and she had vacated it, no lights on, no fire burning, no cups of tea, no buttered scones. Joe kissed her
forehead, which still retained the warmth of life. There was a void in his chest, a space where his heart had lived, where she had lived. He had to get Andrew, as Andrew would never forgive him if
he waited until sunrise.

Those poor children. Katie, now five and at school, came home every day and taught Helen all she had learned. Helen, at three, was reading. Ian, one year old and of a serious disposition,
listened to all that was said. They would miss Grandma. Emily had been the only one who could calm Katie’s occasional tantrums. Ian, young as he was, had adored the quiet lady who’d
rocked him to sleep. Poor Eva would be bereft. And Thora. Oh yes, Thora would be here later today once Joe had phoned her.

Andrew. The boy, now a man, had always adored his mother. He had been her life’s work, her treasure and her pride. Overture to an Overture. Andrew had written that while still a child
after questioning his mother about childbirth. ‘Oh, Emily,’ Joe whispered. There were words to it now, and Andrew had named a section of it ‘A Liverpool Song’ – it was
about Mary, of course.

‘I’ll have to shift myself,’ he advised his dead wife. ‘Phone the doctor, get Andrew, start learning to live without you.’ He blew his nose, stood up, and a chest
of drawers caught his eye. A scarf of Thora’s hung out of the top section. Had that been there earlier? Did he care?

After phoning Andrew and the doctor, Joe sat on the stairs, Toodles the second in his arms. He’d made a room in the roof with a large dormer window that overlooked the bay. A powerful
telescope enabled him to look at the stars and to map their placement by reading books on astronomy. Emily had loved all that. He’d explained to her that light from those faraway suns took so
long to reach the earth that some of them weren’t there any more. ‘Light years away,’ he whispered to an empty house. ‘Like you are now, my lovely girl.’

Where had she gone? Was it all mixed up with the space–time continuum? Was she still a part of the universe? Geoff certainly was, because he’d been here, he’d spoken and . . .
and he’d pulled Thora’s scarf out of that drawer. Emily would never have left the scarf hanging from a drawer. Geoff would, though. Given half a chance, Geoff could mess up a room in
ten seconds.

Andrew fell in at the door. ‘Dad? Is she in her room?’

Joe nodded. The cat ran out through the front door.

‘I can check her, but I can’t issue a certificate. Is the doctor coming?’

‘Yes.’

She was dead, of course. Andrew held the hands that had soothed his brow during measles, painted him with calamine when he’d had chickenpox, tied his laces when he’d been at nursery.
She had never lost her temper, never reached the rim of patience.

He couldn’t have stood up if he’d tried. There was no strength in him; he felt like someone suffering from a severe neurological problem. Mother had always been there. Even since his
marriage, Andrew had seen her almost every day. Dad. How would he cope? After Geoff ’s death, Joe had stepped up to the plate, not as a lover, but as a friend, carer and brother. Perhaps he
would bury himself in work? Ah. Joe was on the phone. He was speaking to Thora at four o’clock in the morning. Yes, Thora had been close to Mother.

‘If Andrew will stay with Emily, I’ll come now,’ Joseph said. ‘It’ll give me something to do apart from skriking my eyes out. All right, love. About an hour, yes.
Go and pack a bag.’

Andrew agreed to stay while Joe went to Bolton.

The doctor arrived, moccasin slippers on his feet, pyjama bottoms peeping out from the hems of his trousers, a cardigan thrown over the pyjama jacket. ‘They’ll want a post-mortem,
Andrew.’

‘I know.’

‘Your dad found her?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did she call out for him? I know they didn’t share a room.’

The cat was scratching at the front door. Andrew delivered a look designed to rivet his fellow medic to the wall. ‘They shared a bond of deep friendship and love. If she’d had
toothache, he would have felt it before she did. Do your bloody PM. The root is grief caused by the loss of her lover. It isn’t suicide, and it isn’t murder.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know. Doing your job and all that rubbish. Get Mother taken away, please. Dad’s gone to fetch her best friend from back home. I don’t want Thora any more upset than she
needs to be.’

Half an hour later, Mother was gone. Her warmth, kindness, beauty and generosity were now confined to the pages of a history book that would never be written. Long, slender fingers flying over
piano keys, the expression on her face whenever Geoff had entered a room, their warmish arguments about the meaning of Wilfred Owen’s poetry, her gentleness, that sweet smile, her love. He
would miss her love. Yes, he adored Mary with all his heart and soul, but his history with Mother was lifelong. It was as if every drop of his blood had descended to his feet.

He managed to get to the hall and phoned Mary. He knew she’d be awake and waiting. ‘Post-mortem,’ he told her. ‘Dad knew the minute she’d died. He’s gone for
Thora. Thora’s been a good friend to both of them.’

‘Come home, Drew. I’ll put all the lights on so that your dad will come here.’

He explained that he needed to sit for a while, but he’d be home soon. Back in Mother’s bedroom, he noticed the shape of her head on the pillow. On the back of the door hung her
dressing gown, deep pink with a hood. Matching slippers stood side by side beneath her dressing table. A stray hair remained in the nacre-backed brush. ‘Oh, Mother, I love you.’ There
was a photograph of a beautiful young woman with a baby son in her arms. ‘We freeze bits of it and stick it in pretty frames, but where does the rest of it go?’ He picked up the
article. ‘You and I, Mother. You and I. And fixed moments behind cold glass are all I have left. What’s Dad going to do without you?’

There was a list somewhere of aunts and uncles he had met briefly at his grandparents’ house and at funerals. He would need to phone them all. Stuart would come, of course, as would Thora
and people from Dad’s work. There was something else, but he couldn’t remember what. The something else swamped him when he picked up a photograph of Geoff. Yes, he had to cry. It was
important to grieve immediately instead of saving it up until it became too large to handle. Bereavement unreleased could cause damage, and he allowed his heartbreak full rein, because the child in
him needed to scream for his mother. It was nature’s plan. Toodles was wailing.

‘Stop the car, Joe.’

He pulled in at the next lay-by.

‘Are you sure?’ Thora asked.

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘See, I can tell somebody like you, Thora. The young ones these days would laugh me out of court, so keep my secret. He woke me, said it was her time and that
he’d come to get her. Only I might have heard that in a dream, but . . . But no. It was real. It happened.’ He dried his eyes yet again.

Thora released a relieving sigh. ‘You’re not wrong and you’re not going daft. And no, she would never have left her room untidy. A scarf sticking out of a drawer would have
offended her sense of order. She was a very particular woman. My scarf would be Geoff ’s doing, and I’m telling you now, it’s not his first offence. He was telling you to come and
get me.’ She paused and remembered what had happened before Emily’s release from hell.

Joe waited patiently for the rest of it.

She told him about the bourbon packaging, the sound of his voice when he woke her, movement in the curtains. ‘He helped me to deal with her. He helped us to get her out of that terrible
place, Joe. I told him to go away, because she would have talked to him, and she might have got herself in trouble again. I felt him leave. He must have stayed away till now.’

‘Aye. I reckon you’re right. A floorboard creaked, and I knew then I was on my own. Funny thing is, there are no creaky floorboards in the whole house. I replaced them, and a lot of
joists, too, when I made the two bungalows into one. It means . . . I suppose it means there’s life after death.’

‘It does. Now, Joe, I’ll keep your secret and you keep mine.’ She placed a finger on her lips for a second. ‘That way, we’ll both stay out of the mental
hospital.’

They continued their journey in silence and at speed, since the roads remained empty. Life was empty. She’d been a quiet woman, but Emily, constant, true and honest, had affected and
improved the world for all who had known her. Thora couldn’t imagine Joe without her.

They reached the coastal road. ‘Thora?’

‘What?’

‘Can you stay a while, like for a few weeks till I learn to live by myself?’

‘Course I will. I’ll have to nip back for a birthday party, but you can come with me if you like. Look, the lights are on in Andrew’s house. Let’s call in, shall
we?’

They found the couple clinging together on a sofa in the drawing room.

‘Is your mother on her own?’ Joe asked.

‘They took her,’ Mary answered for her husband. ‘There has to be a coroner’s inquest because it was a sudden death. Drew can’t stop shaking. He’s swallowed a
tablet that should calm him down soon. Hello, Thora. Take over while I make some cocoa.’

So Thora held her best friend’s son while he shivered his way through shock and grief. She wished she could tell him about Geoff, but, having made a pact with Joe, she had to stand by her
word. ‘Come on, lad. You know how she loved you. You were her world.’

‘Geoff was her world,’ Andrew managed. ‘But he had to accept me, and I him, or they’d never have got together. So yes, I was important to her. So was Dad.’

‘That’s all so true,’ Thora said.

‘If there’s any justice, they’re together now,’ Joe said. ‘Thora’s going to stay with me and help with arrangements.’

The sad foursome drank their cocoa. No one wanted toast or a biscuit. The soft, gentle heartbeat behind all their lives had been stilled. But the sun rose, birds fussed and children woke. As the
old adage had it, life went on, though the sun, temporarily ashamed of his splendour, had the grace to hide his glory behind a cloud.

The dressings applied by time mended much of the pain, though scars didn’t disappear completely. The sense of loss remained, as Emily had been loved and appreciated by
all who had known her. That such a quiet, tender person could leave so huge a fissure in the geology of their planet was a lesson; she had been strong and powerful behind that serene facade.

Emily had died of a coronary occlusion caused by advanced arterial disease, so no one went to prison. Andrew was slowest to heal, because the loss of his mother cut a huge swathe through his
history, slashing into an area in which he had been rooted, since Mother had always been there. Letting go of the past and facing life without Mother was hard, so he threw himself headlong into his
work and was quiet at home for a while.

When Mary finally got through to him, he told her the lot; not just the facts, the dates, the sequence of events, but also the mutual love that had sustained him and Emily through difficult
times. ‘I’ll be all right now,’ he said to her after some months of mourning. And he was all right. As long as he had Mary, he would be fine. Every man needed scaffolding at some
stage, and Andrew’s outer support was a feisty little woman with attitude and enough guts for a whole army of soldiers.

Time ticked on regardless of circumstance. By 1980, Katie was completing her first year of secondary education, Helen was studying for her entrance exam, and Ian, at eight years of age, was also
at the prep school. Like Katie, he scarcely needed school, as he seemed to have been born crammed with knowledge. The trio appeared to have arrived ambitious and hard-working. Andrew and Mary were
truly blessed.

Toodles Two changed gear and became a movable feast. Her territory covered the hundred or so yards that stretched between the bungalow and Rosewood, and it embraced several houses en route, the
coastal green and, in better weather, the top step of the erosion barrier. Picnics could be tasty, as could the pickings from residences as select as these. She knew how to manipulate people; a
straight tail quivering slightly at the end, the sideways approach, two or three little feed-me mews, a lengthy purr. Life was good for a cat in the summer of her life.