Lime Street Blues Read online

  Alex turned on to his side, resting his chin on her shoulder, his hand on her stomach. ‘Is it a game to you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rose said truthfully. ‘I don’t know if it’s make believe or real.’ They always pretended they were somewhere else, never Liverpool: a South Sea Island, dancing on the flat golden sands while palm trees swayed gently in the warm breeze; a night club in New York; a London park; a luxury liner on its way to who knows where? Today it had been Paris, on the banks of the Seine.

  ‘It’s real all right.’ Alex kissed her. ‘So real, I’m not sure if I can stand seeing you only once a week for much longer.’

  Neither could Rose. She thought about him every minute of every day, living for Thursdays when they could be together. ‘I think we should just go on playing the game,’ she said nevertheless. ‘I can’t see any alternative.’

  ‘You know the alternative,’ he said gruffly. ‘You’re just not prepared to consider it.’

  Rose shuddered. ‘I couldn’t leave Tom and the children.’ She’d thought about it though.

  ‘The last thing I want to do is hurt Iris and me lads, but there comes a time when you have to put yourself first.’ He had another son, Carl, two years younger than Ronnie.

  ‘Does there? If we were together all the time . . .’ – had she really said that? – ‘. . . the games would have to stop. It would be different,’ she said, indicating the bed, ‘being able to do this every day.’ It would be heaven and she knew it. ‘We’d have to live somewhere, an ordinary house. You’d go to work, I’d make the meals, do the washing.’ For some inexplicable reason, she began to cry because it was what she wanted more than anything in the world, yet it seemed impossible. Too many people would be hurt.

  Alex kissed the tears away. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you too,’ she sobbed. ‘But why do we love each other?’

  ‘We just do. Do we need to know why?’

  ‘Yes. I think you fell in love with me because you’re so unhappy. You’re searching for things, a different life. You’ve always wanted something different. Iris and the boys were never enough. You dress funny and go to clubs, wander round town and pick up women outside cinemas. Having an affair’s right up your street – romantic and dramatic and exciting . . . Oh! How many affairs have you had before?’ she demanded, suspicious now. She’d die if she discovered she wasn’t the first.

  ‘None,’ Alex said flatly. ‘And you’re the one and only woman I’ve ever picked up, though you couldn’t exactly call it picking up when we’d met before. Now listen while I tell you why you fell in love with me.’ Rose curled up against his lean, naked body and listened. ‘Because,’ he began, ‘you married an old man . . .’

  ‘He wasn’t that old!’ she protested.

  ‘OK, so you married a man much older than yourself. You’ve never loved him, but he made you more or less happy. Then your kids started growing up, and all of a sudden it dawned on you what you’ve missed. This!’ He ran his hand over the curve of her hip. ‘And this!’ He kissed her breast. ‘Love and sex. Sex and love. So, one day you pick up this gorgeous guy outside a cinema. He fancies you. You fancy him. After a few weeks, you go to bed together and it’s bloody marvellous.’ His brown eyes creased with wonder. ‘More than marvellous,’ he gasped. ‘Words haven’t been invented to describe it. The thing is, Rose, more or less any decent guy would have done.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ she cried, shocked. ‘I love you!’

  ‘And I love you. We were both ripe for affairs, Rose. But once that fact is put aside, the truth is that we both love each other. I didn’t want it to happen. I didn’t expect it to. It’s a miracle. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’

  Rose was silent. Every word he’d said was true. She had no idea how it had happened that she was able to contemplate leaving her family, her home, everything, for Alex Connors, whom she’d known for only four months, met for merely a few hours every week. As he said, it was a miracle.

  ‘I wish we’d met twenty years ago.’ She sighed.

  ‘Twenty years ago I was in Egypt in the Army.’

  She clutched him fiercely. ‘Thank God you weren’t killed!’

  ‘Perhaps He was saving me for you.’

  ‘How was Clara?’ Tom asked when she got home. He always asked and it always threw her.

  ‘Not very well. In fact, Tom, I wondered if you’d mind if I went to stay with her one weekend? Her husband’s going away soon and he’s worried about leaving her on her own. It’d be a little holiday for me. I’ve never had a holiday,’ she reminded him, thinking what a hopeless actress she was. Even to her own ears, it sounded like a lie, but Alex had suggested they try to have a few days away together. They had agreed it would be bliss.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind, no, but leave Clara’s telephone number when you go, ’case there’s an emergency.’

  ‘She isn’t on the phone.’

  Tom’s brow creased. ‘That’s surprising, considering her husband has his own business.’

  Rose attempted to get her wits together before answering. ‘I never said her husband had his own business,’ she said carefully.

  ‘Didn’t you, love?’ He slapped his knee and she jumped. ‘It must have been Mrs Denning, you know, the colonel’s housekeeper. She remembers Clara well. I happened to mention you two had met.’

  Wings of panic began to beat wildly inside Rose’s head. She should have made someone up, not used a real person. Clara Baker might no longer be living in Hoylake. She could be anywhere in the world by now, possibly writing to someone in the village. It hadn’t crossed her mind that Tom would check up on her – she had no doubt that was what he’d done. The panic was replaced by anger. Trust him! He still thought he owned her.

  ‘Then Mrs Denning’s wrong,’ she said in a cool voice. ‘Peter Baker might have had his own business once, but now he’s a teacher. That’s why they moved to Hoylake.’ She was sinking deeper and deeper into a mire of lies, but didn’t care. Perhaps she was doing it deliberately. The deeper she got, the closer the day would come when she would be found out and feel obliged to leave. Then she and Alex would be together for always.

  ‘I’m still surprised they’re not on the phone,’ Tom said.

  It was mid-August when the TV Times announced that Outside the Cavern was being screened on Wednesday, next week. The boys were delirious with excitement. Jeannie rang Marcia and asked what they should do about Benny. ‘You never know, they might show a glimpse of the Flower Girls. We should tell her the programme’s on.’

  ‘To hell with Benny,’ Marcia said crisply. ‘Elaine told me the way she behaved. Anyroad, I bet she hasn’t got a television.’

  ‘She’ll know people who do. Or she could come to your house.’

  ‘Over my dead body. I should forget about Benny if I were you.’

  It was decided that everyone connected with the programme should watch it together and the Baileys’ was the obvious place. On Wednesday night, the living room was arranged like a cinema, with chairs from the waiting room brought up and arranged in rows. The terrible trio, who were quite big by now, bagged the front row, in front of their mother and father and Sadie and Kevin McDowd. Elaine, Fly, Max, Rita, and Sean sat behind, and Marcia and Graham shared the back row with Lachlan and Jeannie. It was a hot, muggy, airless night and the windows were wide open.

  ‘I should have bought ice creams,’ Mrs Bailey remarked. ‘I would have done a roaring trade during the interval.’

  The programme started with shots of Liverpool; the Liver Buildings, St George’s Hall, the Protestant cathedral, still unfinished, then the exterior of the Cavern. Ricky Perry, the young reporter Kevin had spoken to, was outside. ‘This isn’t the only place in Merseyside where rock ’n’ roll thrives, folks. Other clubs are also doing their bit to spread the word. The first club on tonight’s schedule is the Mardi Gras.’

  The camera switched to the interior of the Mardi Gras where five young men they’d never heard of were
playing a strained version of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’, followed by a tuneless composition of their own.

  ‘They’re useless,’ Max shouted.

  The group was heard out in disdainful silence until Ricky Perry reappeared and announced they were now about to visit the Iron Door. A well-known local group, Ian and the Zodiacs, belted out their own foot-tapping versions of two Bill Haley numbers.

  An interval followed and Mrs Bailey went downstairs to put the kettle on, returning just in time for a visit to the Blue Angel and another Liverpool group.

  ‘We must be last,’ Lachlan groaned. He was tightly clutching Jeannie’s hand.

  ‘They always save the best for last,’ Kevin McDowd remarked sagely.

  Ricky Perry was back again. ‘Finally, the Taj Mahal, once, like the Cavern, a venue for great jazz, now converted to great rock ’n’ roll. I wasn’t expecting any surprises when I dropped in at the Taj Mahal, but I certainly got one. A really big, very pleasant surprise.’ He winked. ‘Just watch, folks. You’re in for a treat.’

  Everyone gasped when the Flower Girls appeared on screen halfway through ‘Be Bop a Lula’.

  Kevin jumped to his feet, waving his arms. ‘Jaysus! If it isn’t me wee girls!’

  ‘Shurrup.’ Sadie yanked him back on to the chair.

  It was a strange experience, watching herself play the piano. Jeannie hadn’t realised that her entire body jiggled in time to the music, that for most of the time she was half off the seat, and her feet, not just her hands, were never still.

  Rita’s voice seemed too powerful to come from her tiny, waif-like body. There was something fascinating about the way she remained quite still, like Sean, when she sang, even during the fast numbers.

  We’re good, Jeannie thought. Marcia and Benny moved perfectly together, though Benny was a little bit wooden. Marcia’s body was more attuned to the music and it showed. She was clearly enjoying every minute.

  The song finished, the audience applauded. Rita began to sing ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’. Now the camera zoomed in on Rita’s face, Jeannie’s hands, someone’s feet – Marcia or Benny’s. It moved slowly backwards until the four girls filled the screen, until the backs of the rapt audience came into view.

  More applause, louder this time. A voice over – Ricky Perry’s – ‘Now, how does this song grab you, folks?’ and the Flower Girls were still there, and Rita was singing ‘Moon Under Water’.

  Jeannie was getting anxious. The girls had had more exposure than any other group. There wasn’t much time left for the Merseysiders.

  Ricky Perry came back, saying incredibly flattering things about the new girl group, wondering if they’d start a trend, while the finishing titles slowly moved up the screen. No one in the Baileys’ living room spoke until the producer’s name appeared and it became obvious the programme was over.

  ‘They didn’t show us, ’ said Lachlan in an appalled voice.

  Early next afternoon, Billy Kidd unlocked the door of the Taj Mahal and found Kevin McDowd sitting on his stairs.

  ‘How did you get there?’ he gasped. He’d been seriously narked the night before when his group, the Merseysiders, had been sidelined by McDowd’s wee girls.

  ‘The cleaner let me in,’ Kevin snarled. ‘Did it not cross your moronic mind that there’d be a crumb of response from last night’s programme and your club’s the only place people could contact? The phone in your office has been ringing all morning, but I couldn’t answer it because the cleaner refused to leave the key. She’d have thrown me out altogether, except she didn’t have the strength.’ The phone rang again. ‘Answer it, man,’ Kevin said curtly. ‘It’s probably Hollywood, wanting me girls to make a film.’

  Billy discovered a sense of urgency and raced up the two flights of stairs. His club would benefit from any subsequent publicity, even if his group didn’t. The phone stopped the minute the door was unlocked. Kevin stared at the instrument, willing it to ring again. It did. A club in Manchester wanted to book the Flower Girls for a gig on Saturday.

  ‘We’ll be there,’ Kevin promised recklessly. He called Jeannie and demanded she alert Marcia and Benny. ‘Tell them to come to the barn tonight straight after work.’ Rita would have to take tomorrow and Saturday off, pretend to be sick. The girls hadn’t performed together for almost a month. They’d need the next few days to get back into shape and learn a couple of the new songs he’d written. He’d scarcely replaced the receiver when the phone rang again, and continued to do so for the remainder of the afternoon. People wanted to book gigs, arrange interviews, take the girls’ photos. Most importantly of all, M&M called, a record company, requesting that they come for an audition in London on Monday next. A recording contract might be on the cards.

  ‘Let us know what time you’ll be arriving, and there’ll be a car waiting at Euston station.’

  ‘I will indeed.’ Kevin was beginning to feel more than a little drunk. Never, in his wildest dreams, had he expected such an outcome. It was too bad about the Merseysiders, but he had no doubt they’d make it someday.

  Marcia was easily found. She was working in a florists, and when Jeannie called and told her about the urgent need to prepare for the gig on Saturday, she left on the spot.

  ‘The manager will be annoyed, but his breath smells,’ she said, as if this was sufficient reason to leave the man in the lurch.

  ‘Is it a personal call?’ the woman on the switchboard enquired when Jeannie phoned the Inland Revenue in Water Street and asked to speak to Miss Benedicta Lucas.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m afraid staff aren’t allowed personal calls. Sorry.’

  Jeannie went into the garden and found her mother in a deck chair staring into space. She explained she was about to go to Bootle. ‘Benny said she wanted nothing to do with us again, but she probably didn’t mean it. She’ll be thrilled with the news. I’ll tell her mum if she’s in and I’ll leave a note for Benny in case she’s not. I’ll write it now, just in case. Gosh! I wish it weren’t so hot.’

  ‘Tell Benny what, love?’ her mother asked absently.

  ‘About the gig on Saturday. Kevin McDowd rang. Remember? It’s all because of that programme last night.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ The blue eyes lit up, as if she’d only just become aware her daughter was there. ‘You were wonderful, love. I’m ever so proud.’

  ‘Are you all right, Mum?’ Jeannie asked worriedly. Her mother might be physically present, but lately her mind seemed to be miles away. She was becoming increasingly forgetful.

  ‘I’m fine, Jeannie. Absolutely fine.’ The radiant smile that followed should have been enough to convince anyone that Rose Flowers couldn’t possibly have been better. Yet it only worried Jeannie more. She wrote a note for Benny and, while waiting for the bus, wondered what possible reason her mother could have for looking so ecstatically happy.

  She decided not to let it bother her. There were enough unhappy people to worry about at the moment – the Merseysiders. Fly Fleming and Sean McDowd seemed quite laid back about things, but Lachlan and Max were desolate. They’d expected last night to be a turning point in their careers.

  ‘That was a total wash-out,’ Max had groaned when his dazed brain was able to accept the fact that Outside the Cavern had ended and the Merseysiders hadn’t even been given a mention.

  ‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d have been on and not us,’ a jubilant Marcia pointed out.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to be on. It should have been us.’

  ‘Who says?’ Marcia argued. ‘That Ricky Perry chap obviously decided we were the best.’

  Mrs Bailey thought tempers would be calmed with a cup of tea and insisted Marcia help. ‘You’re only making things worse, dear.’

  Lachlan was gazing moodily at his feet, no longer holding Jeannie’s hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘Not as sorry as I am,’ he said bitterly. ‘D’you know what, Jeannie? I’m jealous, jealous of my own girlfriend.’


  ‘That’s only natural,’ she said soothingly.

  ‘Would you have been jealous if it had been the other way around?’

  ‘No, but only because I didn’t expect they’d show us.’ If she was Lachlan, she’d be spitting tacks. It had been a tremendous thrill seeing the Flower Girls on national television. She wouldn’t have missed it for the world, even though it had made the man she loved intensely miserable. It would have been best if they’d shared the time, then everybody would have been happy.

  In Grenville Street, two boys in swimming trunks were playing on their bikes, and an elderly lady sunbathed sleepily on her doorstep. After knocking twice on the Lucases’ front door and receiving no response, Jeannie slipped the note through the letter box and made her way home. Her fingers were itching to get back to the piano, sadly neglected during the summer holidays.

  Mrs Lucas crept into the hall and picked up the folded piece of paper. She’d recognised her daughter’s friend when she peeked through the parlour curtains, but hadn’t opened the door. She’d smelt danger. And she’d been right to, she thought, when she read the neatly written message.

  Dear Benny,

  You may not know this, but the Flower Girls were on television last night. As a result, we’ve been offered a gig in Manchester on Saturday. We’re meeting in the barn tonight; come as soon as you possibly can. We have to rehearse like mad over the next few days.

  See you later, Benny.

  Jeannie.

  Mrs Lucas felt her blood run cold. Benedicta was nicely settled in her important job, bringing home good money. That singing thing she’d been involved with had terrified her mother. It wasn’t what ordinary people did and she’d been too ashamed to mention it to a soul. Now, she told everyone she met that her Benedicta worked for the Civil Service and was studying for qualifications.

  She read the letter again. ‘We have to rehearse like mad over the next few days.’ Tomorrow was Friday, Benedicta was due in work, and Mrs Lucas wasn’t quite sure which she would put first – singing or her job!