Lime Street Blues Read online

  ‘You’re late,’ Max grumbled.

  Jeannie glanced at the clock. ‘I’m not. I’m dead on time. What’s the matter? You don’t half look miserable.’ Max rarely looked anything else these days. He was growing, but only slowly, and was still shorter than most boys in his class. But that wasn’t his only problem.

  ‘It’s Dad,’ Max grumbled inevitably. ‘He won’t buy me a guitar. He said he couldn’t afford it, but I know he can.’

  Just as the topic of football had been discarded, so had the longing for a television. Now Max wanted a guitar. Not just wanted one, needed one. It was vital for his continued existence. Lachlan had one, why not him? It wasn’t as if he could do a paper round and save up for one himself. It wasn’t allowed. Nothing was allowed. He had no control over his destiny and might as well be in Walton Jail, or even dead.

  ‘You can’t possibly know what Dad can or can’t afford,’ Jeannie told him severely.

  ‘It so happens that I do.’ Max blushed slightly.

  ‘How?’

  ‘The other day, I was in Mum and Dad’s bedroom and the door to the wardrobe wasn’t shut properly. When I went to close it, I noticed a shoe box inside, behind the clothes. I wondered what was in it, that’s all. I wasn’t being nosy.’ Max paused and continued in a dramatic voice. ‘It was full of ten bob and pound notes. I didn’t count them, but there must have been hundreds.’

  Jeannie didn’t ask what he’d been doing in their parents’ room. She often found him peering into the wardrobe mirror to see if he’d grown any taller. ‘That’s hardly any of our business, Max,’ she said.

  Max flew into a temper. ‘Honestly, sis! You can be a little prig sometimes. Of course it’s our business when we want things and he’s hoarding money like Silas Marner.’

  As with Sonja Henie, she had no idea who Silas Marner was. If the truth be known, she was slightly shocked herself, thinking how much easier life would be for Mum if she had a washing machine and a fridge like lots of other women. As for a television, after watching the Baileys’, she wouldn’t have minded one herself. It was like having your very own little cinema in the house.

  Spring, and the trees in Ailsham were sprinkled with little green buds, like confetti. Tiny shoots thrust their way through the damp black soil and Tom Flowers began to spend more time in his garden. Not that he ever neglected it. Even in winter there was always something that had to be done, but in the spring his heart lifted when he saw familiar plants bursting into life, greeting him like old friends. He turned over the earth in the vegetable patch with a young man’s vigour.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ Max enquired of his mother one Saturday morning when his father was nowhere to be seen. He intended to go on the attack again about the longed for guitar that he wanted more than life itself.

  ‘Out.’ Rose was furiously kneading bread in the kitchen, flour up to her elbows.

  ‘Out where?’

  ‘Never you mind.’ His mother smiled mysteriously. Max lounged around the house, sulking. Without a guitar, he had no idea what to do with himself. Almost two hours later, he heard a car come along Holly Lane. He ignored the sound until he realised that instead of passing the house, the car had stopped outside. It was unlikely to be Dr Bailey bringing Lachlan on an unexpected visit, the engine wasn’t smooth enough. Nevertheless, Max went outside for a look. The car, small and grey, wasn’t just outside the house, but had turned into the drive – and his father was behind the wheel.

  Rose appeared, still smiling, wiping her hands on a tea towel, followed by an astounded Jeannie and an excited Gerald. Spencer the cat strolled behind, only faintly interested.

  ‘Is this ours?’ Gerald squealed.

  Tom climbed out of the car and carefully closed the door. ‘Yes, it’s ours,’ he said gruffly. ‘I just bought it. It’s a Morris Minor, brand new.’

  ‘I didn’t know you could drive, Dad,’ Jeannie exclaimed.

  ‘I used to take Mrs Corbett, the colonel’s mother, shopping before the war. Mind you, that was in a Rolls.’ He fondly patted the bonnet of his own car, just like Dr Bailey. Jeannie wondered if all men looked upon their cars as if they were human.

  ‘Can we go for a ride, Dad?’ Gerald was kicking the tyres until told firmly to stop.

  ‘In a minute. I’d like a cup of tea first.’ Tom’s hands were shaking. Not only had he not driven since Mrs Corbett’s death twelve years ago, but handing over his life’s savings had caused a certain amount of turmoil. He needed to sit down for a while.

  In the warm kitchen, he said, ‘Now I can collect you from the station, but you, Jeannie, must be home by eight and Max by nine. But only two nights a week, mind you. The other nights you must concentrate on your homework.’

  ‘Oh, Dad!’ Jeannie flung her arms around her father’s neck. If she went to the pictures straight from school, she could see the whole programme before catching the train.

  With the car, Tom felt he was retaining control of his children’s lives. Now they were dependent on him for lifts and everyone knew where they stood. There would be no more fights. Also, he quite liked the idea, next time the Baileys came, of saying to the doctor, ‘There’s no need to come and fetch the children. I’ll bring them home.’

  Max was scornful of the new arrangements. He considered them pitiful, just as the car was pitiful beside the Baileys’ Humber Hawk. He would have much preferred a guitar.

  Chapter 4

  While Sean McDowd’s reputation in Ailsham couldn’t have been lower, he was looked upon in an entirely different light at Philip Wallace Secondary Modern. Rita quickly discovered being Sean’s sister was a distinct advantage. Not only that, the McDowds were no longer the only Catholics, and there were plenty of other Irish names; Reillys, Murphys, McThis and O’That.

  Unless somebody from Ailsham bothered to inform them, no one knew that Rita lived in a hovel with a mam who’d let herself go. Not that this was true nowadays anyway. The excursion to Southport had turned out to be something of a tonic for Sadie. She’d begun to take a pride in herself and her surroundings. The house was clean and there were dried leaves – white, like flattened pearls – in the vase Sean had won at the fairground. As well as working as a kitchen assistant at the village school, Sadie also washed dishes in the Oak Tree four nights a week, and the extra money made all the difference, especially as she’d cut down on the ciggies. Along with what they’d earned picking fruit, it enabled Rita to begin her new school with a perfectly adequate uniform, even if it wasn’t new.

  Sadie had found a magazine in the pub with a photograph of a film star called Audrey Hepburn. ‘You’d suit your hair short like that,’ she told Rita. ‘You’ve got a pixie-ish sort of face like her. Would you like me to cut it?’

  ‘Oh, I dunno, Mam. I’ll think about it.’ Later, Rita had examined her very ordinary reflection in the mirror. She gathered her brown hair in one hand and pulled it to the back of her neck. Without hair, her face found its shape – a small, quite perfect oval. She decided to let Mam cut it.

  Once the hair had been cut, washed and dried, Sadie ran her fingers through it. ‘It almost looks a different colour,’ she marvelled. ‘And it feels lovely and thick.’

  Rita had acquired a fringe. Her eyes looked bigger, her neck longer. She was very pleased with her new hair, and even more pleased when, while waiting in Holly Lane for the coach to Philip Wallace on her first day, Jeannie Flowers remarked how nice she looked. Jeannie and Max got off at the station to catch the train to Orrell Park. Sometimes, Sean also got off at the station to go who knew where? A place more interesting than school, Rita supposed.

  For all his truanting, total disinterest in learning anything whatsoever, and his indifference to homework, Sean was one of the most popular boys at Philip Wallace. When a teacher railed at him, somehow it was always the teacher who came off worse, his or her voice rising higher and higher with frustration, while Sean looked bored out of his mind, the words having no effect, and his stock rising even more with the rest of th
e class.

  School uniform was encouraged, but not compulsory, and Sean set a bad example, always dressing in black, adding to his image as a rebel, a hero, the sort of person the other boys would have liked to be, but hadn’t the nerve. As for the girls, they were crazy about the slim young man with dark good looks and smoky blue eyes that gazed sardonically on all around him. Even one or two of the teaching staff nursed a secret, unwilling admiration for Sean McDowd.

  As the sister of this remarkable young man, Rita found herself very much in demand, particularly by girls. They linked her arm in the playground and questioned her about her brother. What sort of food did he like? What was his favourite colour? Had he already got a girlfriend? Did he prefer blondes, brunettes, or redheads? Rita answered the questions as best as she could, wondering why they wanted such useless information.

  At going home time, a few girls often waited with her for the coach to Ailsham. They didn’t get on, but it gave them a reason for being in the vicinity of Sean McDowd, that is if he’d condescended to grace school with his presence that day. They talked to Rita in loud voices, hoping Sean would notice and give them one of his rare smiles. But Sean was as indifferent to the girls as he was to homework or anything else to do with school.

  In Rita’s second term, she wasn’t the only one who was surprised to find there was a subject in which her brother professed an interest.

  Philip Wallace was a new school, built only four years ago. So far, it wasn’t particularly well thought of. No one went out of their way to send their children there, and the Headmaster, Mr Catchpole, was always looking for ways in which his establishment could acquire a good reputation.

  At assembly one morning, he announced his intention of starting a school orchestra, presuming there were sufficient pupils who could play instruments. Anyone interested should give their name to their class teacher.

  There would be auditions during the dinner hour on Friday.

  Before commencing the first lesson, the teacher asked for names and, as she said later in the staff room, ‘I nearly died when Sean McDowd put up his hand. Apparently, he can play the drums.’

  Sean had never been near a drum kit in his life, but he knew there was one behind the stage in Ailsham Women’s Institute Hall, where concerts and dances were sometimes held.

  On the way home, instead of getting off in Holly Lane, he waited until the coach reached the village, then made his way to the hall, which was in between the Oak Tree where his mother worked at night and the school where she worked by day. It was January and pitch dark. No one noticed the tall, slight figure slope to the rear of the building.

  He entered by simply breaking a window in the gents’ toilet, leaving it open for a quick escape when someone came, which they inevitably would after a time. At first, people might not take much notice, but as soon as a member of the Women’s Institute heard the noise he was about to make and realised the sound was coming from their hall, they’d be there like a shot.

  The kit was full of dust, which didn’t matter, but there were no sticks. Sean cursed and searched for something, anything, that would do in their place. He found a small Union Jack on a thin pole, ripped off the flag, and broke the pole into two over his knee. Better than nothing.

  He sat on a stool behind the array of drums, took a deep breath, and lightly eased his foot down on the bass pedal, then tapped the snare and the tom toms, flicked the cymbals, assessing their individual sounds. Although he’d never touched a set of drums, Sean had played them hundreds of times before inside his head. He smiled in a way no one, not even his mother, had ever witnessed, a slow, dreamy, rapturous smile. At last he was making music.

  Sean had never revealed to a soul that he had his own personal wireless lodged in his brain. He switched it on and off at will. Entire orchestras played just for Sean McDowd. Violins soared, drums thundered, fingers flew over the keys of a grand piano. The sound was magnificent, soul-shattering, triumphant.

  This wasn’t all that Sean listened to while he travelled on the bus to school, sat in class as a teacher’s voice intruded irritatingly in the background, lay in bed at night, wanting to sleep, but unable to resist the Ceilidh band thumping out a jaunty jig or a woman singing a haunting Irish lament. The sound of a lonely flute might wake him next morning, sweet yet sad. Then there were the love songs, plucking at his heartstrings, making him think of Jeannie Flowers. Whenever this happened, his heart would quicken, his pulse would race. One day . . .

  Sometimes, Sean himself was the source of the imaginary music. His own hands wielded the sticks over a set of drums much grander than the one in Ailsham Women’s Institute Hall. His fingers plucked the strings of a guitar, a double bass, caressed a piano’s ivory teeth, and his arm wielded the bow on many a violin or cello.

  He took after his father. ‘He lived and breathed music, did Kevin McDowd. It was in his blood,’ his mother had said on numerous occasions.

  Once he had checked the tone of the drums, Sean began to hum ‘Twelfth Street Rag’. He struck the drums lightly in rhythm with the tune. He did this another half a dozen times, getting the hang of things.

  He could do it! Now it was time to play it properly. Pressing his foot on the pedal, he let rip, as he had done so many times before in his imagination. Sean pounded the drums, tapped them politely, coaxed them, whispered encouragement, bent his head and cocked his ear, half expecting the drum he was beating to talk back and tell him what a grand job he was doing. He felt as if his arms had grown and he no longer had merely two as the sticks thrashed wildly, gently, subtly, slyly over the cheap set of drums that had never known anything like it before.

  People came, as Sean had expected, though the outraged voices in the hall came as a shock. He dropped the sticks, made for the gents, and was halfway across the field behind the hall by the time the secretary of the Women’s Institute and her husband burst into the room behind the stage, to find the cymbals still trembling, a Union Jack destroyed and, later, a window broken in the gents’ toilet.

  ‘Guess who I saw in the Cavern last night?’

  Jeannie shrugged. ‘I dunno, Max. The Queen? Marilyn Monroe? The Archbishop of Canterbury?’

  ‘No, idiot. It was Sean McDowd, of all people.’

  ‘I don’t know why you should sound so surprised. Sean’s just as much right to be there as you.’

  Max had no idea why the sight of Sean had made him feel so uneasy. Perhaps it was because Sean, who was there alone, didn’t dance, didn’t talk, didn’t move from the side of the stage, where he stood very still, unsmiling, watching the Acker Bilk Jazz Band, watching every single movement the musicians made, taking everything in. After a while, Max noticed Sean wasn’t still any more. He had closed his eyes and his foot was tapping, his head nodding slightly. Even the thumbs on his long hands were twitching. Sean was the music. It had taken him over.

  In view of what happened a few weeks later, Max was right to have felt uneasy when he saw Sean McDowd in the Cavern – he’d been there several times since and he didn’t have to leave early to catch a train so his father could pick him up from the station.

  The Flowers and the Baileys had formed their own group, the Merseysiders, with Lachlan on guitar, Jeannie on piano, Elaine wielding a tambourine, and Max playing the mouth organ. At first, Max had thought this dead pathetic, but having practised every spare minute, he’d become quite capable – and it was only till he got a guitar.

  They played in the Baileys’ parlour until the neighbours complained, then in the Flowers’ until their neighbours complained, and transferred to the Flowers’ garden shed, where they were surrounded by seed boxes, tins of paint, and garden tools. Tom’s bike had to be removed to make room. Deprived of a piano, Jeannie lost interest in the music side of things, but not the close proximity of Lachlan Bailey, who was growing taller, broader, and more attractive by the minute. She made do with an old toy xylophone and stayed with the group in the hope that Lachlan would continue to throw her the odd smile, though both
girls considered the whole thing a huge joke, while the boys took it very seriously indeed.

  Lachlan often sang while he played. ‘I ain’t nothing but a hound dog,’ he would holler, doing his best to sound like Elvis Presley, or ‘Love me tender, love me do,’ making odd faces and swivelling his hips around like his idol. The girls found it hard to keep their faces straight, particularly when Lachlan’s voice began to break, covering several octaves, or they were ordered to join in with a ‘tra, la, la’.

  Rose said she thought they sounded very professional. She liked Saturday mornings when Elaine and Lachlan arrived early so they could ‘rehearse’ – for what, she had no idea. She toiled away in the kitchen, a smile on her face, wishing she’d had the opportunity to have such fun when she’d been young.

  Tom Flowers listened while he worked in the garden, wincing every now and then. Still, the youngsters weren’t doing any harm, except to his ears. Spencer, the cat, kept well out of the way.

  It was on such a Saturday morning in May, the Merseysiders were playing and Lachlan was singing ‘Rock Around the Clock’ when the shed door opened and Sean McDowd stepped inside, dressed from head to toe in sinister black.

  ‘Greetings, scholarship boy.’ He nodded at Max. ‘I was passing and wondered what was going on.’

  ‘You’ve got a nerve,’ Max spluttered, but Sean ignored him and addressed Lachlan. ‘You play that thing dead good,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a guitar,’ Lachlan explained, adding, though he wasn’t sure why, ‘I’m not a scholarship boy.’