A Liverpool Song (51 page)

Bloody interfering, meddlesome women. They rendered him perplexed, and made life unnecessarily complicated. Was he eating enough, shouldn’t he wear a heavier coat while walking on the
beach, when was he due for a prostate examination, were his bowels behaving normally? They’d be checking his teeth next and making sure he wore a vest.

Well, they’d gone too far this time. Should the revolution begin now, at this very moment? Where was Napoleon bloody Bonaparte when he was needed? Even Oliver Cromwell would have been a
diversion, and he’d had warts and no discernible sense of humour whatsoever. Anyway, Andrew rather liked Queen Lilibet. He’d noticed how, while giving out medals and awards to total
strangers, she kept alive the twinkle in her eyes, bless her.

‘Nope. Republicanism’s not my idea of the way forward. I’d better write to Buck House and Number Ten, get some help. The Duke of Edinburgh’s probably my best
bet.’

He sat on the bed. Kate was in on the plot, of that fact there could be no doubt. Anything out of flunter was usually connected to her, Chief Busybody and Chairperson of Organizers Unanimous.
She was probably down the road with the second victim of the latest scheme. ‘I am allowing my daughters to orchestrate my life,’ he said aloud. ‘They’ve no sense of rhythm
– and why am I doing as I’m told? For the sake of a bit of peace? Because there’ll be none. In the words of Bamber Gascoigne, they’ve started, so they’ll finish. They
should be prosecuted for trespassing on me. I’d be better off like Stuart, two blokes in a house, no oestrogen, no unsynchronized premenstrual tension, no tantrums, no moaning or
yackety-yack.’

Through the window, he looked across the green and beyond the erosion fortifications. The river was picking up. Earlier in the day, it had been as calm as an abandoned boating lake or a sheet of
greyish glass, but it was now changing its mind. Andrew knew how it felt. Like the Mersey, he didn’t know whether he was coming or going. He was going. No, he wasn’t. Er . . . he might
be going. ‘God help me, and God help them if I finally lose my rag.’ He knew he was balancing on the very edge of his patience, and that he would push someone else rather than launching
himself into space.

Storm moved the door ajar just far enough to allow the front end of his lofty, muscular body to enter. For a few seconds, he waited to assess the boss’s mood, because he’d seemed a
bit out of sorts just lately. When Andrew nodded, the rest of the dog came in, turned, and pushed the door into its closed position. Storm was in need of male company, which element was in short
supply round here.

He was a fed-up dog. Looking after two mobile little girls was taking its toll. The younger one, who walked on four legs, had some terrible habits, so he placed himself for the moment next to
the pack leader, who would guard him. He was sick to death of fingers poking about in his ears, his eyes and his mouth, and tired of chubby little hands pulling his tail. Like Andrew, he was a bit
fraught and fragile. Life was tough.

‘Hello, Storm. Very clever, these females, what? But I really miss Thora. I even miss the Bolton accent. Thora might have been on my side, but . . .’ But Thora was back in the home
town, where her oldest son and his family took care of her. She’d started to age quite suddenly, and the whole business had broken Eva’s heart. ‘I knew she was older than me,
like, but I never thought she’d end up like that, all arthritic and frail, God love her,’ Andrew’s housekeeper had wailed.

‘None of us knows,’ Andrew told the dog. ‘And Thora’s with loved ones, which is what really matters.’

Loved ones? ‘I’ve four lads,’ Thora used to say, ‘three training to be hooligans like their father, and one nearly normal.’ Eventually, she’d changed
hooligans to fooligans and they’d all turned out fine. The nearly normal one was now managing director of Sanderson’s Intelligent Kitchens, and he was making a fine job of walking in
the footprints of Joseph Sanderson.

‘I miss Dad,’ Andrew told his dog. ‘And Mother. Until they’re gone, we’ve no idea of their true value. By the time we appreciate what we’ve had all our lives,
it’s simply too late.’

Mary. Oh, Mary. When he watched his daughter Kate with Richard, he saw an echo of his own brilliant marriage, an institution built on humour and communication at all levels. But Mary was dead,
had been buried in the back garden for eleven years, and he’d been ordered to get his act together. ‘Pull yourself up, Dad. You’ve just the one life like the rest of us, and you
must make the best you can of it.’ He was outnumbered and overruled; when or why had he allowed this to happen?

Get his act together? He had five piano pupils, four of whom were good; he’d played yet again for Cancer Research his oft-adapted Overture to an Overture, his own nocturnes, and a
polonaise he’d recently finished for Anya. Then the song. ‘A Liverpool Song’ had since been purchased for a quartet of tenors and was to be released as a single next Christmas.
His act was very together.

‘Surgeon, carpenter, composer, lyricist, pianist, teacher, father, granddad, OBE,’ he said, counting on his fingers. ‘What more do they want of me, Storm? If I’m number
one at the end of the year, we’ll buy an island, lad. We’ll come back from time to time to visit the old homestead and Mary, but just imagine the peace if we go all Outer Hebridean.
Think of the fishing, eh? And the walks with no one watching us from a window. I know what happens. They spy on me and Anya. I know they go on about us sharing a rug and a cup.’

Storm grunted; he had come to understand when an intelligent answer was required of him.

Helen tapped at the door. ‘You decent in there, Dad?’

‘No.’

She came in anyway. ‘You look wonderful,’ she whispered. Dressed up, her dad was extraordinarily handsome. ‘Prince Charming,’ she added. ‘Any woman would be proud
to be seen with you.’

‘I don’t feel like Prince Charming. Migraine, lots of zigzag lines tracking across my eyes, and a slight throb in the left temple,’ he lied. Mendacity was becoming essential in
this household. ‘I’m fit for nothing,’ he said in order to emphasize his statement.

‘Never mind. You don’t need to drive, because you’re going in a taxi.’

‘Am I? Can’t I curl up in a chair with a good book instead?’

‘You can’t read with a migraine. You’re going.’

Oh, she was quick. ‘Why?’

‘Because I say so, Kate says so, even Ian says so.’ She folded her arms; this action underlined the fact that she was in no mood for a change of mind.

He gazed at her for several seconds. When had their positions been reversed? Was this some over-repeated sitcom rejected by the Beeb and put out by one of the inferior commercial stations?
‘And Eva?’ he asked sharply. ‘What about Madame Parquet?’

‘Eva started it.’

He tried to look surprised, but failed completely. Eva had been in charge of everything for as long as Andrew could remember. The sun rose because she ordered it, rain fell when she needed it,
buses ran on time because she wrote the schedule, the tide ebbed and flowed in accordance with her timetable.

‘I feel henpecked,’ he grumbled.

‘We learned from our mother. And from Eva, of course.’

Astounded, he bent his head and gave her the under-the-eyebrows look, which was his version of folded arms. ‘Your mother did not henpeck me.’

‘That’s how clever she was. She kept your machinery so well oiled that you didn’t know she was in charge of your gearbox.’

Andrew blinked a few times before turning his head and staring into the depths of an increasingly agitated river. Anger bubbled in his throat like heartburn. ‘Go away,’ he said.
‘I am about to change my clothes and take Storm for a walk. You and the rest of your coven can bugger off and tell everyone concerned that I have changed my mind and will not be eating out
tonight.’

‘But what about all the—’

‘Out. Get out. It’s time you found somewhere to live, too. I want my life back, my own bloody life. I am sick of women. Even the dog wants a bit of peace and quiet.’

Helen slammed the door in her wake and ran down the stairs. He heard her talking on the phone. Everything would grind to a halt within minutes, though the women’s tongues would carry on
clacking, no doubt. Kate and Helen, encouraged by Eva, would sulk. Anya might be slightly hurt, and Sofia could well come out in sympathy, but he’d had enough. Like water on a stone, they had
dripped on him, wearing him down with looks, words and heavy sighs. Knowing Anya as well as he did, he guessed that she wouldn’t have enjoyed being dragged from pillar to post by younger
people. ‘She’ll be on my side,’ he said quietly. ‘She has to be, since she’s the only sensible person I know apart from you, Storm.’

Helen finished on the phone. He heard her walking across Eva’s famous parquet and into the dining room, where she and her daughters had lived for many moons. Never before had he spoken so
harshly to her or to his other children. But they were planning his existence, cajoling, suggesting, pulling, pushing, and he’d reached the end of his rope. And he needed his rope in case he
decided to strangle somebody.

He changed his clothes before picking up his mobile phone. ‘Anya?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is Kate there?’

‘Upstairs with Sofia, yes. Angry, both of them, but Kate is being loud. I cover my ears before.’

‘Right. You bring the rug, I’ll bring the coffee. We do this our way.’

‘Good,’ she replied. ‘I can wear clothe not so tight. There is no room for food in this cockertail dress.’

‘Cocktail.’

‘Yes. I am come in taxi, you are wait.’

‘Indeed. I are wait.’

She paused. ‘You talk wrong, making fun to me – of me.’

‘Yes.’ Anya understood. In spite of some small language difficulties, she never failed to get what he really meant. She was a treasure. Sometimes, she altered his heartbeat.
Sometimes, things needed to be left alone to develop at their own pace, with or without arrhythmia.

‘OK, Andrew.’

He sighed. ‘It isn’t that I don’t want to take you for a meal; it’s just the kids pulling on our reins all the time as if we’re a couple of horses. I can’t
escape Helen, you see. My house is no longer mine.’

‘This, Andrew, I am know. I suffer, too. The dress tight under arms and kills me.’

He grinned. ‘Don’t die on me, Anya. You’re my sole ally in a field full of landmines.’

‘Ally is?’

‘Friend.’

‘This I am be. You wrote for me polonaise, yes.’

He cut the connection and sat in the window on Mary’s chaise longue. Dad had re-covered it for her. ‘I’m not good at letting go, Storm. Mother was the same, and Dad seemed to
have caught the infection. Thora, Dad, Mother, grandparents . . . Mary. I’m an intelligent man, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Woof.’

‘Gifted, too.’

‘Arf.’

‘And modest with it. But I’m stubborn. I won’t be told, refuse to be pushed, and they learned none of this orchestration from Mary. With Mary, it was tit for tat. I’d get
one over on her, and she’d return the favour. I tarred and feathered her once, you know. And she let me, because she’d abandoned me in ladies’ underwear at George Henry
Lee’s, took the car and left me to get home by train. Mind, I used black treacle instead of tar, and we were finding pillow feathers in here for months afterwards.’ He paused. ‘I
even found a couple in her wardrobe after she’d . . . died. They’re over there in that little cloisonné pot with a snip of her hair. She had hair like dark silk until the second
lot of chemo. It came through as white silk after that.’

Storm laid his head on the master’s knee. He was a dog who always looked sad, so his morose demeanour was eminently suitable for this occasion.

‘Come on, boy, let’s get back to what’s laughingly called normal. Coffee, the steps and Anya.’ He donned a sweater, picked up his Sunday best and hurled it onto the
four-poster where it settled in a creased, uncared-for heap.

Storm led the way. He knew where his lead was kept; he also knew he didn’t need it, but the master always wanted it these days in case something went wrong. Oh well, the boss was the best
judge, Storm supposed, although everyone was aware that Andrew’s dog never bit a human, never fought with another animal. Even the wilful Toodles Two slept in Storm’s bed, usually
alongside the dog, sometimes instead of him.

Helen was in the kitchen. ‘Sorry, Dad,’ she said quietly. ‘We should have left you alone – Anya, too.’

‘I’m sorry, too. My temper seems to shorten with age, though I must insist on being left alone to make my way through the wilderness. Yes, I like Anya and yes, she likes me. But you
shouldn’t be putting ice under our feet and forcing us to move so fast that we lose purchase on terra firma. You’re doing more harm than good, because Anya and I appreciate the simple
life.’

‘Sorry,’ she said again.

‘But the rest of it – I’m not throwing you out. That was my vicious side – thank goodness I don’t drive down that road too often. This was and is your home, your
place of safety.’ He filled the kettle. ‘Pass the cafetière, please. I’m on coffee, Anya’s on the rug.’

Helen burst out laughing. ‘That sounded terrible.’

‘And it was completely intentional. I am still alive, dear, and my dotage is many years in the future. You, Kate, Eva and Sofia must stop being my mothers. I don’t need a mother.
There is a possibility that I shall, in time, require a wife, but that’s all down to me and some poor woman, who may be Anya. But consider this. We can all fight and defeat or negotiate with
humans we see and hear, but who can win against a ghost? This is still Mary’s house, and she’s buried in the garden. I won’t leave Rosewood. How can anyone argue with and overcome
a dead woman?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Exactly. Read
Rebecca
. And don’t pursue a cause until you’ve worked out all possible repercussions. Anya and I are good friends. We shall continue at our own pace.
Because it’s no one’s business, just hers and mine.’

Andrew left the house with the dog, an unnecessary lead and his flask. Anya hadn’t yet arrived, so he threw driftwood for Storm while sitting on the steps. Like him, Anya was stubborn. She
would have gone for the meal, but she hadn’t wanted to. He’d given her the key, and she was out of a prison created by his two daughters and her own girl, Sofia. And Eva; he must never
forget Eva, because her input had probably been substantial.