The Liverpool Trilogy (22 page)

‘I’m going home now,’ he said. ‘Back to a wife I love beyond the reach of ordinary words. Love’s a little bit more than a roll in the hay. And you’d better find yourself another doctor, because I’m too far away for you, really. I know you’re in the catchment area, but I’d rather you went elsewhere. Stay away from the surgery, away from my family, and definitely out of my reach, you tramp.’

She simply stared at him. It wasn’t over. This time she’d gone off half-cocked, but she wasn’t finished, not by a long chalk. For most of her adult life, she’d been walked on by men. All she’d tried was to better herself, and this article had told her he loved her, albeit only in the throes of passion. He was another user. Fear turned to fury, because the creature represented all who had hurt her, all who had failed to pay, men who had left her diseased, or pregnant, or stranded somewhere with no fare to get home.

Richard Turner jumped to his feet. He retrieved the envelope containing thirty pounds, opened her handbag, took out her purse and counted the other seventy. ‘I don’t pay scum,’ he snapped. ‘This is my money, and I’m keeping it.’ He pushed the squashed notes into a trouser pocket. ‘Shall I give the money to a charity that looks after fallen women? Or perhaps I could spend it on my wife.’

She cleared a clogged throat and found her voice. ‘Get out of my house. Go on. You’re the scum, using women because your wife’s ill. Call yourself a doctor, and you can’t even help your own dying wife? There’s still things I can do about you, Turner. You’ve had sex with a patient, and that’s a fact you’d best not ignore.’

He laughed mirthlessly. ‘And you’ll be believed? Remember, I’ve seen your notes. I don’t even need to read between the lines – your history’s as plain as a pikestaff. Just try it. Just you try it. Because believe me, I’ll be ready for you no matter what. Blow me up to my employers if you wish, because any man would refuse to trust a trollop.’

‘And the neighbours might have seen you coming and going.’

‘Doctor on call?’ he suggested. ‘Come on, you can’t have it all your own way. I found you ill in the street, brought you home, and have been keeping a check on you out of the goodness of my heart.’

‘For an hour and a bloody half?’

‘Like I said, Lexi. Try it.’ He walked out and slammed the front door.

Outside, he found himself shivering like an autumn leaf in the wind. What if there was a DVD? She wouldn’t publish and be damned, because she was already damned, had very probably been rejected by decent society many years ago. If she couldn’t make money out of it, she wouldn’t use it. Even if it did exist. Which it didn’t. How many times had he berated patients for getting into stressful situations? Wasn’t this a case where the motto ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ might be applied? He was a fool, a damned fool, and his heart was beating too fast.

However, he almost ran to his car, sitting for some time in the driver’s seat because he didn’t trust himself on the road. It was as if he had yet again developed some neurological condition that wasn’t a million miles removed from his wife’s MS, because his limbs weren’t steady, and his breathing was uneven. Life was bloody grim, and he couldn’t quite work out how to improve it. Poor Moira. Bloody Lexi hadn’t finished, he was sure of that. Even without her imaginary DVD, she could do damage to Richard and to his family. He had to talk to his wife immediately. If Lexi did go to the authorities, Moira should be warned first.

A shadow on the pavement caught his peripheral attention, then the view from his windscreen disappeared. Yes, here she was with her famous squirty cream and chocolate spread – she wasn’t taking anything lying down, not at the moment, anyway. The road on which he was parked was near the docks and flanked by commercial premises, but people still walked through here. He turned on the engine, flicked the windscreen wiper switch and stared at her when a fan-shaped hole appeared in the mess she was creating. He leaned on the horn, engaged first gear, and leapt forward. For a split second, he didn’t care if he hit her. Anger rushed through his system, and a headache threatened.

Lexi jumped out of the way and folded in an untidy heap on the pavement. He stopped and stared into his rear-view mirror until she stood and walked away. Unused to red-hot temper, he stayed where he was for a few more seconds before driving off in the direction of home. She was alive. ‘You haven’t killed her. Yet,’ he told himself aloud. He had to deal with this, and he couldn’t do it alone. Windscreen washers failed to shift the mess, and he was driving half blind. He needed water and detergent.

On Crosby Road South, he parked and knocked on a door. Explaining that he was a visiting doctor whose parked car had been decorated by delinquent children, he elicited the sympathy of a whole family. Father, mother and two boys came out with buckets and sponges to wash the mess from the screen. They didn’t stop there; after cleaning the glass, the sons mopped and polished the whole vehicle while he sat and drank tea in their living room. There were good people in the world, and he wasn’t one of them at the moment. Being in this place was balm to his wounded soul, because it represented real humanity.

This was proper family life; this was how it had been for him, Moira, Simon, Alice and Stephanie. He left some money for the boys and a business card for the parents. ‘Anything I can do, just phone. I truly appreciate your help.’ He stood up and looked at the gardens. This was a very ordinary, neat council-built house with a through room, but the gardens front and back saved it from the norm. ‘Is that all your work?’ he asked the husband.

‘Yes.’

‘Splendid. You garden for a living?’

‘I do.’

Richard smiled. Something good had come out of something terrible today. ‘In a week or so, telephone me if you need clients. We are about to lose a very good gardener to retirement. He does most of the houses on Mersey View, and some of the parks on the marina side of our road. There should be work for you then.’

Every face in the room lit up. Richard blinked some moisture from his eyes and made a hasty exit. He was, he reassured himself, a decent man. Deep down where it mattered, he knew that he wasn’t a bastard, though many would think badly of him if they knew how he ‘cheated’ on his sick wife. He had never cheated. And now he would turn to her again, because she was his cushion, his soul mate, his best friend.

Having had Velux windows put in the roof at the back of the house, Lucy had created two new rooms for her twins, so she could let five for bed and breakfast. The sixth needed to be kept for Lizzie, who was expected soon, because the park season was over and she wanted to spend time with the beautiful Simon next door. Soon, though, all three would be back at college, and Lucy would be able to concentrate on herself and the business.

Motherhood never ended. That had always been the case, but she had allowed their final years at university to act as a punctuation mark, or even as the end of a chapter. There was no end. She would always be their mother. As for their dad, well . . . Paul and Mike had refused point-blank to visit him. Their excuse was that they didn’t want to upset a man who was recovering from surgery. They were angry; Alan was still their father, but they would always be on Lucy’s side. And although Lucy maintained her status as mother, she could not force them to do her will, since they were adults.

These were adults? God help the world! She tidied up after her boys and checked the small shower room that had been installed between the two bedrooms. Picking up underpants, shirts, jeans and socks, she wondered yet again whether she had raised her children properly. Lizzie lived like the creator of whirlwinds, while the boys were clearly used to having servants pick up after them. Not at college, though. They probably lived as untidily as most students.

The roof space at the front had been boarded and lit so that it could be used as storage for her children’s property. No Velux windows here, because the house had come with a set of rules that precluded such adventures. But she had to provide for her children, probably until they found full-time work after finishing their education, so she had to store their possessions. And she was pleased, was glad of their company. If only they could be a bit tidier, they’d be almost perfect.

Never mind, she told her inner self as she descended flights of stairs. She had started off with seven bedrooms to let, one of which had turned out to be big enough just for linens, and now she had five. And then there was David. Yes, she needed to keep one for him. So that left only four.

Why was she smiling? What was happening in the grey cells behind the eyes? No, much further back than that, and in muddy waters, because she wasn’t sure, couldn’t quite see. Yes, she could. No, she couldn’t. She stopped on a landing to straighten curtains. Yes, no, yes, no – she had a pantomime script running in her head. Downstairs, where she lived, there was a king-size bed in a very grand room. Everywhere looked rather splendid since she and Lizzie had released from prison items that had once graced Tallows. She would do it. She would. One person could never fill a king-size bed, even when said person had a tendency to lie diagonally . . .

‘Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘Bloody well behave, Lucy-Lou.’ Pa had given her that nickname aeons ago. From Lucy-Lou, Lucy had evolved, and her rather upmarket given name had been left for years to rest on its laurels.

Some little devil that had dozed for ages in her soul had come to life of late. Occasionally, she listened to it; sometimes, she told it to bugger off, but she couldn’t kill it. Like Superman, it survived all attacks, all attempts at demolition, because it was . . . it was her youth. She continued down the stairs. Did anyone ever grow up completely?

Lucy Henshaw, really Buckley, looked at herself in a mirror. At forty-five, a woman was wiser than she had been, but some splinters of those teenage years remained. The need for adventure, for closeness with another human, for a real future – all these requirements and hopes lived on behind an older face, beneath a heart whose beat was still capable of altering at the sight of a certain man. Or men.

David would not need a room for very long, because—

The phone rang. It was a fancy item that delivered several ringtones, and this was his. ‘Hello, David.’ He was doing two things at once again. She could tell when he was multi-tasking, because he became quieter and even more vague than usual. Men were like that. Women, who were used to simultaneous demands, had evolved differently. ‘Put the book down, or the pen, or whatever it is you’re fiddling with.’

‘Sorry, ma’am. How are you?’

‘About the same as I was when you last spoke to me. Three-quarters of an hour ago.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Sorry. It was fifty minutes.’

‘Ah.’

She waited. ‘How’s Samson?’ she asked after counting past ten.

‘Fine.’

Lucy sighed. She remembered the ‘Would you consider going out with me?’, the bungled kiss, the holding of her hand while Lizzie had died so brilliantly in the park. He was a beautiful soul, kind to the core, almost as messy as a small boy, serious to the point of obsession when it came to his work. David was not perfect, yet his imperfections were the very qualities that made him lovable. Lovable. ‘Why did you call?’ she asked.

‘To hear your voice.’

OK. That was a fairly good answer. Obvious, but acceptable. He missed her. ‘You miss me,’ she accused him.

‘Well, of course I do.’

It was like pulling teeth. He was as much use as a grilled kipper when it came to small talk. It was hard enough to pin him down when he was here in the flesh, but on the phone there was no chance of eye contact, no opportunity to skewer him to a chair and make him talk. ‘Hopeless,’ she said. ‘Absolutely hopeless.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes.’ This could work in her favour, too, she decided. If he wanted to hide behind the phone, she would play the same game. ‘Your room is still ready. Any time you have to work at this end of the East Lancashire Road, you and Samson can stay here.’ She paused and bit her lip before continuing. ‘But what do we do with the dog when you claim your rightful place?’

‘What?’

Doctors were not as bright as they used to be. They seemed to need a picture painting every time something different or new was suggested. Unless it was medical, she supposed. Even then, they wanted diagrams. She crossed her fingers and closed her eyes. ‘When you move into my room.’

‘He can stay with your cat who thinks he’s a dog.’

Lucy almost punched the air in triumph, though she managed to contain herself. How quickly the answer had come. It was clear that he, too, had a little devil resident in his psyche. ‘You just put more than six words together, David. Are you less afraid of me these days?’

‘I was never afraid of you.’

‘Really? Were you afraid of yourself?’

‘Of us,’ he said calmly. ‘Strong chemistry. If it doesn’t work, we’ll lose a good friendship. You see, Louisa, chemistry isn’t always stable. It can burn brightly and briefly, it can maintain its own life, turn to poison, or disappear into the ozone. It can also explode.’

Lucy found herself smiling again. ‘You’re still an all-or-nothing boy, still the little lad who tried to clear the brook on a rope that was too short and almost drowned.’

‘Ah, but I knew you’d save me.’

‘Hang on to that thought, man.’

‘And let go of the rope?’

‘Of course. But not until the twins and Lizzie are out of the way. There’s still a little of the prude in me.’ She lowered her tone until she was almost whispering. ‘We began, you and I, at Tallows. We were children there. Perhaps we need a tryst, an afternoon in my room in the old house. The place needs decontaminating, anyway.’

He laughed. ‘And what am I? A bloody anti-bacterial detergent?’

‘I’ll let you know the answer to that when I’ve wiped the floor with you.’

‘You’re too quick for me, Louisa Buckley.’

‘I always was.’

A few seconds passed. ‘Louisa?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is it real?’

‘That’s what we have to find out. You can’t bungee without jumping. Oh, but that’s a rope you can’t let go, because they harness you to it. Worthwhile things always involve risk. Anyway, I’m going now to visit Moira for cocoa. What an exciting life I lead.’