For the Love of Liverpool Page 11

  ‘Well, let’s hope they can do better pictures than him what done the Moaning Lisa.’

  Max unfolded his large frame and stood up. There was no future in talking sense to the senseless. ‘Stay here, then. I’ll pick you up on the way back to that grotty hotel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard – wait here while I go and do the Latin quarter.’

  Although Trev didn’t share Max’s affection for wandering about, he didn’t relish the idea of being abandoned on alien soil. ‘I’ll come,’ he muttered. ‘But can’t you walk a bit slower?’

  *

  Mrs Bee was having a Holy Day. Once a month, she shut herself in a small room on the ground floor. It reminded her of a coffin, as it had no windows, though air was allowed to circulate via a system installed by Alex’s builders, and coffins probably didn’t have that particular facility. Oh yes, this was Alex Price’s sacred place. And he was in the process of bidding for a lock of a man’s hair to go in it, which fact made Brenda’s skin crawl, because it seemed almost cannibalistic. A dead man’s hair?

  She didn’t give much more than a hoot about John Lennon. He’d been one of the Beatles – so what? Years back, she’d had cockroaches, which were a bit like beetles, but she never bragged about it. Grumbling quietly, she began the ritual according to St Alex, who was as daft as three brushes plus a couple of wet mops where this particular Beatle was concerned. ‘Stick an a where there should be an e, do a bit of yeah, yeah, yeah-ing, then bugger off to America abandoning a wife and a son here. So soft Alex goes and buys all this rubbish, leaving me – leaving Liverpool – to clear your mess.’

  There were songs he’d been writing, drawings he’d done at school, Mathew Street paintings of him, vinyl records, CDs, films, letters, carvings, a banjo he’d used, a jacket, a shirt, a cap. She spoke to a drawing of Lennon’s face made from the titles of his songs – even the glasses were outlined in words. ‘Sorry you got killed, though. You didn’t deserve that, lad. Forty years old. No sense to what happened.’

  She dusted a framed drawing, a caricature of Ringo. Poor Ringo was 90 per cent nose; John Lennon knew how to exaggerate a person’s least prepossessing assets. A framed YOU ARE HERE sign was displayed over the door, so she poked a long-handled feather duster on that. She would clean the glass next month. Lennon and Yoko used YOU ARE HERE wherever they went. ‘You were a character – I’ll give you that much. Losing your mam, then your mate with a brain tumour, wasn’t easy, was it? God keep you. I’ll try to imagine all the people living life in peace. Ta-ra till next month.’ Heaving a sigh of relief, she left the claustrophobic space.

  Over coffee at the kitchen table, she considered, not for the first time, Alex’s fixation with John Lennon. Both had endured loss and disturbance in childhood; both had suffered bereavement and the vagaries of adults who had moved them from one place to another. Alex had lost his parents, his brother and to all intents and purposes his poor sister. John had lost his mother and his nomadic father, and had failed to find his sister, who had been adopted in Liverpool and had lived most of her life just seven miles from the city centre. ‘Twin souls,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Alex and John, John and Alex. What a bloody shame.’

  She was dipping a fourth rich tea finger in her coffee when all hell broke loose. The front doorbell sounded repeatedly, while the knocker crashed in time with the bell. Where was Brian? Oh yes, he’d gone to buy paint and wallpaper for the Boswells’ living room in the annexe. Should she open the door?

  In the hall, she stopped, as did bell and door knocker.

  ‘Alex?’ a man’s voice yelled. ‘Alex, let us in, for God’s sake.’

  She opened the door. ‘Yes?’ Outside, the tallest man she’d ever seen stood with a girl in her early teens, an interesting specimen with multi-coloured hair and a small suitcase. ‘Who are you?’ Brenda asked. ‘Alex has gone up the coast with Kate and the dogs.’

  ‘I’m Pete. This is Kylie, my daughter. We went to the office, but he wasn’t there. The clubs are shut, and the staff can manage the rest of his properties while he has a bit of a honeymoon, I suppose.’ He glanced at his companion. ‘My daughter’s an asylum seeker.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘Bootle.’

  Brenda folded her arms across a flat chest. ‘Does the government have an agreement with Bootle?’

  ‘When will Alex be back? I’m Pete Hargreaves – some call me Powder Puff Pete. I work at Champs sometimes.’

  Brenda blinked rapidly. ‘But you have a daughter?’

  He sighed. ‘I’m just a bloke who can sing falsetto and wear frocks. I’m a professional. Married, four kids and a fierce wife who’s hunting for this one. Kylie’s just fourteen, pregnant, and her mam wants to kill her.’

  Brenda widened the door. ‘Come in. You can wait with me in the kitchen.’ She led the way, asking Rainbow Head if she was hungry.

  Pete answered for his eldest. ‘She’s still throwing everything up till the afternoons. Give her a bit of water in case she’s dehydrating.’

  Brenda brought the water. So far, Kylie hadn’t uttered a single syllable. ‘Who’s the daddy, love?’ Brenda asked.

  ‘She won’t say.’

  ‘She will if you’ll stop answering for her.’

  Pete glared at the older female. ‘With a mam like Monica, my kids have to be very careful what they say. She’s bloody dynamite with a very short fuse, is Monica. Ask Alex – he’s seen her when she’s been on one. It’s like Chernobyl – God love them poor souls – but in a Bootle semi. I swear she’s radioactive. She’s decided our Kylie has to have an abortion, so my daughter’s in need of somewhere to stay and some counselling while she makes up her own mind.’

  Brenda was wondering whether Kylie came fully furnished in the brain department when the teenager finally opened her mouth to speak. ‘We only done it once. I told him I was sixteen, see. I thought you couldn’t have a baby if you only done it once.’

  ‘You lied about your age, then.’ The housekeeper wasn’t criticizing, and her tone was calm. ‘You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last.’ She turned to Pete. ‘Me and my Brian have a spare bedroom in the annexe. We’ll look after her, love, I promise.’

  Pete blinked. ‘You’d do that?’

  ‘Course we would. Alex is much the same, as you probably know already. I’ll ask him to sort out doctor visits and counselling.’

  At last, a little colour arrived in the pregnant girl’s cheeks. It clashed with her hair, but it showed that she was bucking up a bit. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘No need to be frightened here, lovely. Nobody’s going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.’

  Pete glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll have to go and tell Monica I’ve put our Kylie out of reach.’ Just as he finished speaking, a car arrived.

  ‘Stop there,’ Brenda ordered. ‘I’ll make sure it’s him and not your missus on the warpath.’ She sniffed. ‘Mind, I’m probably fit for her.’

  At last, Kylie smiled. ‘You’re about the same size as me mam.’

  Brenda tapped the side of her nose. ‘Poison comes in small bottles, sweetheart.’ She left the room.

  Alone with his daughter, Pete held her close. He loved his kids no matter what, and he kissed the top of her very undecided hair. ‘Don’t let anybody drag you down whatever reason they think they have, queen. You fell pregnant while loads of others were lucky or clever, and they got away with it. Now, make sure you decide what you want, yeah?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘I’ll help you. Alex will help you, I know he will.’ He pulled away from her. ‘Why are you blushing?’

  ‘He’s important.’ It wasn’t Alex’s position in society that bothered her; it was his comments in the hospital and how embarrassed she’d felt.

  Alex and Kate arrived, with Brenda bringing up the rear.

  ‘Hello, Kylie.’ Kate shook the girl’s hand. ‘You can stay here with us or with Mr and Mrs Bee. Your mother’s just upset; I’
m sure she’ll calm down in time.’

  ‘She will if I get rid of it,’ was Kylie’s stark reply. She sniffed and continued, ‘See, this is a human being inside me, so it would feel like murder.’

  ‘Catholic?’ Kate asked Pete.

  ‘Yes,’ was his reply. ‘But not so as you’d notice where my wife’s concerned. She’s all about what the neighbours will say and can she get her nets whiter than theirs. When it comes to gardening, she doesn’t mow the grass, she bloody manicures it. Tulips have soft stems and heavy heads, so she ties them to knitting needles or bits of cane. Drives me daft, she does.’

  Alex placed an arm round Kylie’s shoulders. ‘You’ll be fine, love. As long as you like dogs. We have six of them.’

  The girl grinned from ear to ear. ‘Yes, please,’ she managed. ‘And can I have something to eat? I’m starving now.’

  Kylie’s dad has gone, thank goodness. I don’t like the thought of an annoying female mosquito arriving to buzz around my man. Those bugs carry all kinds of illnesses in their bites; anyway, I’ve never liked short people – except Mrs Bee. Most of them compensate for lack of stature by making sure they’re heard – I remember my Latin teacher. She was tiny, all mouth and anger, so I swapped her for Greek. Greek was male, tall, dark and handsome.

  I take Kylie upstairs. She tells me she’s grown about six inches since her tenth birthday and that she’s glad she’s not going to be a short-arse like her mam. After bemoaning the lack of breasts, she lets me start her makeover. My blouses look deliberately loose but OK on her, though I’ll need to work on skirts, jeans and shorts. Her hair is no problem to me because I have the shoulder-length blonde wig. Alex loves my real hair, so I’ve stopped covering it since the rest of the loot was recovered from my pa-in-law’s grave.

  After covering the poor girl’s ruined head with a cap, I put the wig on her, and she bursts into tears. ‘I look like a model,’ she sobs.

  She’s right. Kylie has her father’s good looks, just softer, more feminine.

  ‘You’re a beautiful young woman,’ I tell her, ‘and the person who made you pregnant could go to jail, because technically you’re still a child.’

  Her truth pours like magma from a volcano, heated by fear of her mother, the dread of abortion, and concern for the foreign sailor responsible for her condition. ‘We done it stood up,’ she wails. ‘He said stood up meant there’d be no baby.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  She shrugs. ‘His ship sailed weeks ago.’

  I pull her close and hug her while she weeps. Her ship has sailed in many ways; she has a harsh mother, a dad who dresses up and earns his money by pretending to be a woman, and a criminal whose name sounds like Leaf as father to her unborn child. She tells me of the cruelty of classmates who insist that Pete is gay and her mother is a witch. ‘Mam’s not a witch; she’s just house-proud. She always has a duster in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. And my dad isn’t gay at all – he’s a professional entertainer. In a good week, he comes home with a grand or more.’ She sniffs. ‘My mam says I have to kill the baby.’

  There’s more to it than that, but I can’t tell her just now about HIV, chlamydia and all the other diseases that might befall a girl whose virginity has been stolen by a globetrotter. I’m so angry, so bloody furious, that I feel like punching somebody. I tell her I think her father’s wonderful, but I haven’t met her mother, so I’m in no position to judge.

  ‘Mam’s clever,’ she tells me while drying her eyes. ‘Dad says if she’d been educated, she’d be dangerous, but we’ve had one Maggie Thatcher and we don’t need another.’

  Well, I have to agree with that. ‘Now, don’t lock yourself in the house. We all need fresh air, and no one will recognize you once I’ve organized your clothing. Alex won’t let anything happen to you.’

  She nods. ‘My dad thinks the world of him. I’m glad he chose you, though. There’s women at the clubs who fall over one another to get near him. He’s kind as well as handsome.’

  ‘Yes, he is.’ Wondering who those women are, I lead Kylie downstairs to show her off, but Alex is in that huge greenhouse with his honey bees.

  ‘He’s not got them daft clothes on what they wear,’ Kylie remarks.

  ‘He doesn’t need cover, because they don’t sting him,’ I tell her.

  ‘Would they sting me and you?’

  ‘Probably. As you’ve noticed, Alex is special. Ah, look, Kylie, the dogs are in the run.’

  She laughs. ‘God, they’re big.’

  I tell her we like big dogs, because once settled they’re gentler than smaller breeds.

  We watch while he carefully picks bees off his clothing and exits the massive glass building, an edifice that is his contribution towards saving the human race. I smile as I remember one tile in his kitchen that states WITHOUT HONEYBEES, MANKIND IS BUGGERED.

  ‘Whoa,’ he shouts as he comes in, ‘who is this beautiful young lady?’

  Kylie giggles. ‘It’s me – Kylie.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, rubbing his hands together, ‘this calls for a visit to Tweeners. Get in the car, you two.’

  Kylie remains planted near the window.

  ‘Come on,’ Alex urges.

  She shakes her head. ‘It’s in Bootle.’

  He tells her he knows where it is, because he owns the shop’s lease.

  ‘Me mam’s looking for me,’ she whines.

  ‘Kylie, your mother’s looking for a girl who’s been dipping her head in gloss paint—’

  ‘It’s not gloss – it’s proper hair colour,’ she answers quickly.

  ‘And you’re a beautiful blonde now, so get in the car.’

  She follows me out while Alex goes up to change in case he’s covered in bee shit. ‘Is he always like this?’ she asks.

  I sit with her in the rear seat. ‘I’m afraid so,’ I tell her with mock seriousness. ‘When it comes to men, I usually get rid of mine when they start thinking for themselves, but I’m afraid this one’s a keeper.’

  For a reason neither of us understands, we explode with laughter.

  Alex returns to find a pair of hysterical females in the back of his car. ‘What’s so hilarious?’ he asks, but we are laughing too much to speak.

  Wisely, my darling does not pursue the matter. He sticks the car in Drive and pulls away towards the main gates. Adjusting the rear-view mirror, he sends me a wink. He’s pleased with me because I’ve helped Kylie, and I’m ridiculously pleased because he’s pleased. In some ways, I haven’t matured since being in Greek class with that gorgeous specimen whose name I can’t recall. Not that it matters, because we called him Zorba anyway . . .

  As the Mercedes turned out of the unadopted lane on which Alex Price had been allowed to build his house, a short woman hid behind a hedge. His wife was beautiful. ‘But so am I – and why is the wife in the back of the car?’ Ah, there was somebody with her, a young girl with blonde hair . . .

  ‘Where did I go wrong?’ Chillex ran like a well-oiled machine because of her, Amber Simpson . . . and the wife’s hair was now dark, so what the hell was going on? Had Katherine Price been wearing wigs after chemo? Was she playing the sympathy card in order to entrap him? And who the hell had planted so-called steroids in the club? Might it have been Martina Nelson, manager of Checkmate? She came to keep fit and chill out in the sofa area, hanging round for hours in case Alex put in an appearance.

  Amber looked down at patches of damp on her clothing. The club was shut, but she wasn’t going to allow the situation to outdo her, because maintaining her level of fitness was vital. The fat girl from schooldays was now a perfect specimen: toned muscle, long blonde hair with highlights lifting the colour, good skin and amazing legs. She had run all the way from town just to catch a glimpse of him, though she told herself that she was simply exercising.

  The car disappeared. She knew she should admit defeat gracefully because he was married, but what was marriage these days? It was a piece of paper signed by two people, and it
could be torn in half by a divorce court. ‘He still wouldn’t look at me.’ Somewhere inside herself, she was still the fat girl who went home from school alone every afternoon. Once she reached the safety of her bedroom, she found her friends – crisps, Mars bars and fizzy pop.

  Amber Simpson could never return to those secret feasts. While focused on Alex, she’d had a reason to keep herself on track . . . On track? She remembered coming off the rails when she’d reached sixteen, hiding food, pushing it round her plate, going dizzy on the stairs; living on water, the odd bit of salad and daily laxatives.

  She turned to jog back to town. Mum had found her passed out on the floor of her bedroom. They’d sent her to a place hundreds of miles from home – just outside Brighton. In that food prison, she’d been taught how to eat, how to mix with her peers, how to stay slim without anorexia. And she’d never looked back. After becoming a personal trainer, she’d found the confidence to apply for a job at Chillex and had won her place.

  When the manager resigned to take a position on ocean-going liners, Amber had accepted his post. Alex had smiled at her during the interview. He’d asked her what was the most important part of the job, and she’d given the right answer. ‘People,’ she’d replied. ‘They need to be at ease with the staff and with themselves. Many who come in have body issues, some real, some imagined. They must be helped to feel safe.’ Oh yes, she had known what Chillex was all about, hadn’t she?

  And now he was married to a southerner who spoke with a gobful of plums, all correct and beautifully dressed. No interview for her, of course. Oh no, she’d been elected Director of Design or something like that. It was nepotism, nothing more, nothing less. Chillex was perfect; Chillex didn’t need a bloody Londoner to improve it.

  She jogged down Wood Street and cut through to Back Bold Street. Chillex remained closed, though the police had finished searching it. The ‘steroids’, once analysed, had turned out to be concentrated vitamin capsules, not a trace of steroid in the mix. Amber grinned; it had been a win for her when she’d heard the news. However, she remained suspended on full pay, because Lord and Master Alex Price had decreed that no club would open until he knew the truth about the dead boy in Cheers.