The Liverpool Trilogy (23 page)

‘Is she the one whose husband is after you?’

‘Richard has no ticket to ride.’

This time, his laugh was louder. ‘Are you being vulgar?’

‘I am.’

‘Thank goodness for that. Go and drink cocoa and give my best to your wonderful neighbour. Moira, I mean.’

‘Bye, David.’

‘Bye.’

Lucy replaced the receiver and sat back, a hand to her mouth. She had no idea why she was covering the broad grin, because there was no one else in the house. The twins were at a barbecue in the next garden with the Turner girls, and Lizzie was still in Manchester. Or was she? Simon Turner had taken a few days off, and he was missing, too . . .

Lucy walked into the hall and glanced through a small pane of glass in her front door. Richard, who had driven away earlier, had returned and was tidying the interior of his car. She opened the door, went out, ignored him and walked up the ramp that covered the Turners’ steps. His face looked thunderous, and she was in no mood for storm.

Moira looked up when Lucy entered the room. ‘Hiya, babe. He’s in a mood. It’s one of those very black ones – he won’t talk to me. Sometimes it’s like living with a delinquent teenager on crack cocaine.’

‘Will he want cocoa?’

Moira shrugged. ‘Make some, take it out to him and if he doesn’t want it he can have a bath in it for all I care.’ She went on to explain that he’d come home in a strange state, and that he wouldn’t talk to her. It wasn’t her fault – she’d done nothing wrong, and he was being a pig.

Lucy wasn’t making cocoa for pigs. She provided a mug for herself, and half a mug for Moira, who didn’t want to be scalded by hot liquid. ‘Talk to him, Lucy,’ she begged.

‘Moira, I don’t do bad moods. I’m having enough trouble as it is with David’s reticence.’

‘No progress, then?’

‘I wouldn’t say that, exactly. It was something Carol said. She’s the one I’m hoping will take over from your Shirley. You’ve met her. I can tell by the grin on your physog that you’ve met her. She has a sister with MS and she’s looking for jobs in houses that are close together, because her van’s a candidate for euthanasia, so it’ll be the bus for her and Dee. I’m hoping they’ll look after both of us.’

‘Oh? And what pearls of wisdom did she deliver?’

‘She said the secret is to let men think they rule, but to do the steering for them. Something like that. So I’m steering him gently, and I think he’s beginning to warm to the idea of having a partner after so many years. But I can’t deal with Richard in a bad mood, love. He’s tossing things around in his car. Bits of paper, books, maps – even the floor mats are out on the pavement.‘

‘Yup. That’s a bad mood, right enough. You just wait till he has a really bad one. He sets fire to things, goes round the house looking for rubbish, has a bonfire, bugger the neighbours.’ She paused. ‘He’s a good man, though.’

‘I do know that. Now, put your cup down, I’ll take your top off and we’ll tackle those knots in your shoulders.’ First, she put Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata on the sound system. Moira often responded well to music.

She started at the base of the skull, smoothing gently over vertebrae that felt as if they were forming extra bone. As Lucy worked down the spine and across the rigid shoulders she applied more pressure, while Moira’s hands and arms jerked about in reaction. After a while, confused and exposed nerves settled to the point where limbs quietened down, and the patient was relaxed and on the brink of sleep. Lucy wouldn’t cry. She covered Moira with a throw, as she wanted not to disturb her by dressing her again. Sometimes, when she tried to help this woman, her heart seemed stretched to breaking point, but she never wept until she got home.

Later, after walking past Richard’s car in which he continued to thrash about like a stranded fish, Lucy entered her own house and indulged the need to cry. It was anger, for the most part. After cancer, diseases such as Parkinson’s, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis were among the cruellest she had ever come across.

He phoned yet again, and he was different this time, on her case right from the start. ‘You’re crying. Why are you crying? Has he touched you? That GP from next door, has he tried anything?’

‘No. I’m all right, David.’

‘Like hell you are.’

She placed the phone on the table and dried her eyes. When she picked up the instrument, it was dead. Her mobile sent out the text signal.
On my way. Love you. David.

That damned fool of a lovely, wonderful man was driving just short of forty miles to reach the woman he . . . loved. He had listened to her crying, and he was travelling miles out of his way. She should stop him. She didn’t want him to act like a father; she planned for him to be her—

‘Lucy?’

Her husband?

She turned. It was time she started locking her door, because Richard Turner was standing there. ‘What?’ People should knock. People should not come in without invitation when a householder was having a soul-clearing weep. Crying, like going to the loo, should be done in private. She was almost furious, and she didn’t quite understand why. ‘Don’t bring your bad mood in here, because I’ve enough on without your banging about and lighting bonfires. Go away. Tidy your car, or something. I thought you were keeping your distance from me, anyway.’

‘Why are you crying?’

She exploded for the first time in her adult life. ‘Why? Because she’s in the house, stuck there, day in and day out. Because I try to help her with massage, and I know it brings just temporary relief. Because all she thinks about is you, you being settled after she dies, you having some kind of partner who won’t make your life a misery. She is the most selfless person I’ve ever met, and you stay outside rattling about in your car, having a paddy. The kids have been burning burgers out there – why don’t you go and throw a can of petrol on the barbie.’ Tears streamed, and her words were broken by sobs.

‘Lucy, what on earth got you into this state?’

‘You. Your selfishness, your needs, your bloody importance. She’s so ill and so lovely. She deserves better than you, because she is magical and special and all the things you’ll never be. She asked me . . . you know what she asked me, because I heard you tearing her apart afterwards. I put a stop to you, Dr Turner.’

He was becoming angry. First Lexi, now this one, and all he had come for was an
A–Z
of Liverpool so that he might find his way to a chap who used to be a private detective. Lexi would be stopped. But now he was distracted. ‘By telling your children?’

‘They are all I have. Go home. You are getting on my bloody nerves.’

It was clear that she had snapped, and he did the same. It was all suddenly too much for him, and he needed contact. He grabbed her, held her close and kissed her hard on the mouth. ‘I love my wife,’ he said. ‘And you are bloody wonderful, especially when you’re angry.’ Lexi? Who the bloody hell was she? Cod roe, while there was caviar to be tasted?

Lucy blinked stupidly. It occurred to her that this had been her first ever real kiss, that she had enjoyed it, that she wished she hadn’t enjoyed it, and that the curtains were open. Perhaps the children had seen what had just happened. ‘My boys and your girls are out at the back in your garden. Let me go.’

He obeyed and mumbled an apology. She busied herself with stupid things like cushions, newspapers and seed catalogues. ‘You’d better go. Moira isn’t happy, because you’re in a filthy mood, so you’d better talk to her. And I’m expecting David.’

‘Ah.’ He shuffled about uncomfortably. ‘I’ve searched the car, but some kleptomaniac has buggered off with my
A–Z
, and I have to find a street I never heard of. Do you have a copy? Someone I know has moved to West Derby, and I need to find the route to his office.’ He noticed that she was blushing. The embrace had affected her, then, but perhaps she was simply embarrassed. ‘I came home to talk to Moira, and found her too ill, Lucy. I lost my rag with the illness, just as you did.’

Lucy said nothing.
He
had come home because he needed to talk. He needed. It was all about him, just as it had always been about Alan. Alan the developer, Alan the good-for-a-round-down-the-local-pub chap, the hail-fellow-well-met builder, the big man. And here stood his shadow, the best diagnostician in Crosby and Waterloo, a saint with a crippled wife, oh what a shame and isn’t he handsome?

Yet desire still burnt. Two men. She had possibly waited all her adult life for a train to arrive, and now she had a pair. One was the non-stop express, and it was standing here, fully fuelled, lit up and ready to move. The other was on its way. It was a slower train, but its reliability was undeniable. Richard was dangerous. All fast-moving things were hazardous, but therein lay the attraction. The devil in her soul was alive and well, so she threw her neighbour out of the house. The
A–Z
was nonsense, because he could have got directions to wherever by looking in the phone book and finding the name and number of the man he sought. One telephone call, and he could have the bloody route described to him. And what about the Internet? He wasn’t thinking straight. Something had happened, and he needed to talk. Whatever the reason for his wish to confide, Moira was too ill to be upset.

‘I won’t be used,’ she muttered. ‘Not any more. If anyone’s going to be a user, it’s my turn. Oh, and Moira’s, too.’

She wouldn’t phone or text David when he was driving, because he was a one-thing-at-a-time person, and he shouldn’t be distracted while on the road. It was too late to stop him now, she decided. But he could help. Yes, yes, he could. She dashed next door and pushed Richard out of the way. His wife was awake once more. ‘Moira?’

‘Yes?’

‘Any hospital appointments this week? Dentist, therapist for breathing and swallowing, chiropodist, prayer meeting, or, perhaps, another sordid afternoon with your lover in Blundellsands?’

Moira pretended to think. ‘No. I’m clear now until the next wife-swapping evening. I’m giving line-dancing, bell-ringing and aerobics a miss this week.’

‘Then come to Tallows. The house itself is scarcely furnished, but there’s a terrific orangery and a summerhouse complete with every mod con. Loads of land, woods, brooks – let’s see the good weather out together. He can have his paddies and his bonfires without bothering you.’

‘He is still in the room,’ Richard announced.

‘Did someone speak?’ Lucy turned and winked at him. ‘Hello, honey,’ she purred with exaggerated bonhomie.

He blushed to the roots of his hair and left the scene. In the surgery, he sat and swivelled in his chair. They were laughing at him, and he was trying hard not to be bothered. Two things helped. If he thought carefully, he could swear he remembered seeing pleasure in her eyes for a moment after that spontaneous embrace. And the ‘Hello, honey’ had been double-edged, half mockery, half come-on. He would bed her by Christmas. But first, Lexi must be dealt with.

*

They were pleased with him. He had survived the surgery, his weight was down, and the cholesterol reading had been halved. No more butter, no more cheese, no more beer. And Howie Styles was dead, God rest him. The funeral was out of the way, but Trish wasn’t. She visited Alan almost every day, and was turning out to be eminently suitable for him. Because her husband had been dead long before his actual demise, she didn’t grieve as much as some might have expected. And she had a friend; she had Alan.

But he needed to be clever. To get what he wanted, it would be necessary for him to absent himself completely from his past life. He didn’t want Lizzie turning up to put both feet in it. The decree nisi was through and, in a matter of weeks, the divorce would be final. While the boys had never visited, Alan’s daughter came from time to time, and she even had the address of the private convalescent home to which he should be moving. So it was now or never.

Trish was twittering on about low-fat cheese and bacon that was treated so that most of the fat was removed. He liked her twittering. Lucy had never done that. Latterly, his soon-to-be-ex-wife had delivered very few words, though she had spoken often enough on the phone to their sons and daughter. ‘Trish?’

‘Yes, love?’

‘Do you have a spare room?’

Her face lit up. ‘Only about ten or eleven. Howie built us a grand house, because the builder’s place has to be an advertisement, yes?’

He nodded. ‘I’ve been straight with you, Trish. Lucy’s got everything, because I really did think I was going to die. And who am I to take property from kids with leukaemia?’

‘What do you want to do, Alan?’ Anticipation and excitement burgeoned in her heart. She didn’t want to be alone, had never been alone. With no children and few family members to turn to, she had been dreaming of living with Alan, and he was making it so easy, bless him.

He breathed deeply. ‘I’ve been in here so long that I’m becoming institutionalized. Can I stay with you for a while? And can you sneak me out of here today? I don’t want all the questions and the lies I’d have to tell. Will you help me?’

Too emotional for words, Trish nodded her consent. It was settled. She and Alan would disappear to Alderley Edge, and they would live happily ever after. It might be all skimmed milk and sugar substitutes, but she would get recipes, special omega spreads and porridge. It would be a life. She would have a life, and so would he.

A very different David arrived just before half past ten. He was led in by a pleased dog, who made a beeline for the cat. The animals circled one another, the usual sniffing, licking and paw-tapping forming the larger part of their happy greeting.

‘Why were you crying?’ demanded the human guest. ‘Come on – you’d better tell me.’

Lucy looked at him with new eyes. His hair stuck up all over the place, lending him the air of a startled hedgehog frozen in someone’s headlights on full beam. There was something very wrong with his shirt, since one of the buttons was fastened into the hole above, thereby forming a bubbled effect which left the hem out of line. Baggy corduroys meant that even if he stood to attention, the trousers would probably remain at ease. But his shabby appearance was not what made the difference. She went for the light, humorous touch while she worked out what had changed in the man. ‘Who got you ready?’ she asked. ‘Because they didn’t even tuck your shirt in.’