Now who would have their house furnished like that! I ask you! A sofa all across the hall! It’s just like Neighbours – you’ve got all the family sitting on the sofa, and the visitors just barge in the front door, any-old-how and then they all stand and sit, talking away, in the hall. We could have let them film a couple of episodes out in the alley, with the cats, we had three sofas, after all ..... and then they sit on the arms of the easy chairs as well, even grown men, it’s not good for the furniture.
It’s a lovely view though. They rent peoples’ houses specially for these programmes. Now, this house would only do for Coronation Street and they’ve already got theirs all built specially up in Granada Studios. And that Brookside, well, the producer chappie went into the estate agents and bought an entire Close, didn’t he, it was on the radio. The poor receptionist almost had a heart attack. If they ever brought back “Bread,” then they could use here, though I do have a hall, so it might be a bit too posh for them, I suppose. It needs redecorating, I’ve gone off that red tapestry wallpaper. Jimmy says the hall looks like an Indian restaurant. Well, he can paint it all white as soon as the good weather comes. We can borrow the ladders off Mr Duggan before he starts on his outside next Easter.
I was thinking of having my hair done like that, mind you those dangly earrings and that skirt aren’t doing her any favours. And her language! I do wish they didn’t let them swear like that. There’s lots of children watching., it’s no wonder youngsters don’t know what’s right or wrong these days. Oh, I like him. He’s got lovely eyes and he always looks so spruce.
There’s a look of Mr Brennan’s son, Cyril, about him, that works in insurance, he’s got a very good job with the Liver Insurance, promotion after promotion ever since he left school. It’s his car that’s parked outside here now, I hear him go off to work every morning at ten past eight, lovely young man, well, he must be in his forties. It’s a good job I don’t have a car, or he’d have to park his up in the next street, they’d all have to move up by one space. There’s a new programme about offices too, but I don’t understand most of it, it’s far too rude. God help our insurance claims if they’re all carrying on like that, too busy chasing each other round the photocopier to even answer the phones. It’s on a bit too late for me anyway.
Another pot of tea, perhaps? There’s a good murder on next, and we don’t want to miss any of it, do we? Now, I haven’t seen you for quite a while, have I – tell me about yourself.
The End of Father
The postman handed me a large, heavy package at the door. Too heavy to hold in one hand, it had to be put down on the step while I signed the registered post receipt,
“Thanks a lot,” and off he went, back to his van. The parcel was no surprise.
“I hope it’s a nice present” he had said, or something like that and I’d said No, it wasn’t a surprise, it was my father’s ashes, having seen the Liverpool postmark. Giving a specially bright smile to the postman, to cheer him up, I closed the door.
The package was as heavy as, and shaped like, a brick. Opening up all the layers of brown paper and prising apart a layer of cardboard showed a reddish plastic container rather like a plant-pot with a lid. Curiosity went that one bit further and I undid the tape that sealed it. I remembered father in his coffin, the Roman nose still commanding, his large body looming over the silk-lined edge as if ready to jump out at any time. He had been transformed into this heavy block and now, lifting the lid, he had become a mixture of grey, cream and black granules rather like hydroponic plant-growing formula.
There was nowhere suitable in the house to put him/it. Somewhere downstairs, obviously. He had no place in the bedrooms or bathroom and there was no long landing with a linen chest to hide him in. The mantelpieces in the front room and living room were already cluttered with the oddments of the here-and-now, the radio, gas bill, postcards, competition entry-forms, flowers, calendar. The thought of looking at him on a daily basis and having to explain him to friends was definitely not entertainable, but to put him in the outside shed seemed too cruel, so I settled for just under the sink on the quarry tiles that Jenny always rhapsodised about, in between the bleach and the Co-op washing powder. The package nestled in among the detergents in a homely way. It had an aura of humility about it.
The ashes had been under the sink for a couple of weeks before legal appointments up North could be arranged. It was a chance to take his ashes back to Liverpool or Birkenhead. He had worked in the offices of Cammel Laird’s shipyards and had hated every minute of it, but had never had the courage to leave. Now he could rest there, outside the high curved gates, with the shipyard all closed down and no more ships being launched. The posh ladies, with either the wind blowing away their aitches, or their own posh accents, would pronounce
“Ai name this ship Awkshead (or whatever), may Gawd bless er and all oo sail in er” and there would be a wonderful crash of a bottle of champagne across the bows, with all the sirens and foghorns and foremen’s whistles all blasting out at once, before the brass band boomed loudly as the ship slid away full of shipyard workers and foremen in their bowler hats, to apparently disappear over the edge of the world, but in reality only to go into the next dock for a final fitting.
The bit of religious service slipped in had relevance to both sea and land with its line about
“I stagger to and fro like a drunken man,” when we could see the sailors on Lime Street on any Saturday night weaving about, sozzled. There was also a sad reminder about ‘those who had no grave but the sea.’
However , throwing father’s ashes into the River Mersey was too romantic; he had to go just outside the main gates at Cammel Laird’s, all over the cobbles. But fate stepped in at this point and an old back injury flared up, spreading pain at every step. Even turning over in bed was only achieved by holding fast to the edge of the mattress and counting up to three before heaving over. I glided round streets giving the odd shriek of uncontrollable pain.
Unfortunately, in the first flush of inheritance, I had booked a secret night in the best hotel in town. This was mother’s influence, as we had often walked past it with bargains of dented tinned peaches or a half pound of broken biscuits from the back of the market. She would sigh, look up at the stately building and tell me about the ballroom chandeliers, the indoor swimming pool, the beauty salon, and how Sir Malcolm Sargeant had chased the chambermaids along the corridors in between conducting the Philharmonic Orchestra in concerts up the road. On Saturday nights we would be walking round the back of the hotel on our way to confession, looking up in wonder at so many glittering lights, like a passenger liner run aground opposite the Pro- Cathedral.
Now I would be staying inside it, with father’s ashes. Packing as few belongings as possible, having to adjust for carrying the heavy container, the train journey was excruciating. However many times I changed position the pain either crept round slowly or stabbed viciously from an unexpected direction. I began to feel nausea from the changing agonies. If sitting on a train was this bad, then taking a ferryboat across to Birkenhead was out of the question.
It had to be done today because tomorrow I had to appear at Aunt Theresa’s as if nothing had happened. That is, without any evidence of father. It would have been assumed that he had been left in the crematorium and just scattered about in general, not that I would be personally toting him round the country or keeping him under the sink.
The stations flew past, already we had reached Wilmslow, past the ghosts of Aunt Doris and her children, Bernard and Dorothy, the white picket fence still there at the station and the green bank where the pathway sloped down. There, exactly, we had all met one summer long ago…a first brush with death. After Uncle Frank had gone to work, we had gone to a field near the river for a picnic and I had gone running wildly into the intense green luscious space, intense emerald grass, only to start to fall, fall into swampy ground, the earth not existing any more underfoot, each effort to bring a foot up more difficult than the last
time, until the mud was up to my knees, although on the surface all was grass, and Aunt Doris was running towards me but unable to work out a safe way to reach me through the treacherous green. Her concern was better than a rope; our eyes met across the space and her feelings reached me here in this sliding instant, this engulfing mess, this gawping ever that was clutching at me to come down, down, and give up all this, with the mocking lustrous green grass all-surrounding.
One foot reached slightly more solid ground. It was as if the unseen hands that had been gripping my heels had given up and now each foothold was back, nearer to solid ground. Aunt Doris and Dorothy reached out their hands, while Bernard, a toddler, stared at the slabs of mud covering my legs, considering it all with dark serious eyes .I was sluiced down with orange juice and dock leaves; invention. But of all the images that stayed of that day, the betraying translucent green of that field remained. Death could be bright green.
It was somewhere out there right now, beyond the train window and that afternoon had dispersed into fragments – Aunt Doris and Uncle Frank dead, Dorothy away, Bernard abroad, the house sold, its orchard destroyed.
The pain in the present was getting worse, like a corset made of knives. Getting out at Lime Street Station, it was a punishment to have to walk along the platform. Each footstep stabbed pain upwards while each rib was jangling separately. The package would have to be got rid of right now. There had to be some way of depositing the ashes somewhere near here. Here in Lime Street Station? I kept on walking, unable to stop as possibilities began to diminish. The ashes would have to go under a train, or under a bench, or behind a wall.
By now I was coming out of the station and could already see St George’s hall and the sweep of traffic round the plateau.
But here, right in front, was a solid cast-iron litter bin labelled “Liverpool Corporation” in gold lettering. Saved. I opened the casket, and not wanting anyone else to get blamed for it, opened the lid and scattered all the ashes into the rubbish, dispersing the container and its lid among the crisp bags, plastic bottles, cigarette packets and indistinguishable mixed residue of a city, there with the winds belting up from the Mersey and near to the arriving and departing.
I staggered round the corner to find a hotel stranded in another era, like an eastern European outpost in the 1950s. Low watt bulbs made the once-stately hall look seedy. The beautiful reception rooms smelled of cheap disinfectant reminiscent of old-folk’s homes. The lifts smelled authentically of piss. There was an impression of threat as if drunken football crowds would appear at any time. Or perhaps it was being used as a film set for a documentary on the Bolshevik Revolution. In the bedroom the pictures were mirror-plated to the wall to foil thieves, the windows safety-locked. Long corridors stretched, door opposite door endlessly. No one about. The ghost of Sir Malcolm Sargeant no-where.
From the room window was a birds-eye view over to where the big old black building of St John’s Market had been. That is where we would have been walking up, mother and me, with the Saturday shopping, and father would have been in The Vines round the corner or off in another side street, in The Grapes.
***
A wet dull Sunday about five years later, and the papers with nothing diverting nor even shocking enough. A day when the ring of a phone has magic. It was Louise.
“I’m cat-sitting round the corner. You can come and watch TV. Fawlty Towers is on.” This would be, without even trying, about the ninth time of seeing any given episode; but it was raining and not a time to be fussy. The cats watched us, disapproving of human ways as they performed intricate ballet manoeuvres, washing their hind legs.
Programmes can switch without your noticing. Just look away from Manuel for one second, and it’s knee-deep into an architectural survey.
And here he was. Father. Well, his last known resting place. A panoramic sweep of the camera across the façade of St George’s Hall, and to be able to cover the entire view of the long building and the surrounding plateau, the camera was at the top of the station steps, and there, for a second, the cast-iron rubbish bin stood triumphant, the words “Liverpool Corporation” clearly visible to all the world.
The Man Who Went Further Away
Hugh sat awkwardly at the late breakfast table, the children already at school. “I can’t do it, you know, Rhona. I can’t just go into the front room and write a stunning novel again. Or even a standard one,” he added dejectedly. She pushed the jar of marmalade towards him, her latest recipe including slices of lime, which gave it an extra sharp tang.
Morning after morning their breakfast had been improved and intensified. The muesli was carefully combined from special ingredients – there was a year’s worth stored in the kitchen cupboards, boxes and jars of it. Their bread was wholewheat, thick and gritty. Short of making their own butter in a churn, Rhona had constructed a breakfast table full of bouncy goodness. Now even the marmalade was part of this complex table arrangement, but Hugh became daily more dull and less inspired.
It was now half-past nine. If he started on the Guardian crossword, the day would be ruined. Lunchtime would slide magically into evening and Rhona would get the blame if no word-covered pages had appeared before the boys were being put into the bath at half-past seven.
“How do you think we pay the mortgage, dear?” Hugh grumbled, “If I don’t produce more of the damn stuff, we’ll be repossessed.” He ruffled a heap of papers. Rhona cleared the breakfast dishes away cheerfully, wondering if Hugh was provoking this very disaster in order to have something to write about. “If only I had a room to write in. Virginia Woolf was right,” he peeved.
“But I thought that was for women only, dear. Men have always had rooms, studies . Yes, it’s women she was on about. You’ve got a room,” Rhona said matter-of-factly, “You’ve got the front room. It’s your study already, really, the boys never go into it and I only nip in now and again to titivate it a bit.” She stopped, looking at a straggling honeysuckle bush outside the kitchen window. “Why don’t you go out for a walk? Wait a minute, I’ve got it. Just get dressed up properly as though you were going out to work, with a briefcase and all, and just walk round the block and come back in, as if you were actually coming to work in an office. Don’t even speak to me, as if the place was empty. I can put an electric kettle in there and all the coffee stuff. What do you think?”
Hugh pulled a face, thinking hard. He looked like a puzzled child.
“Mmm. It’ll save money on renting a room. All right, I’ll try it. Feel a bit of a fool though, but it’ll be a healthy start to the day. O.K. No time like the present.” Rooting out an old briefcase from the hall cupboard, he pulled on a jacket and went out, the front door clattering behind him.
The street was quiet – all the children had already gone to school. Shops were stacking their mid-morning deliveries on the pavements. A dog here and there trotted along on its own. Soon even that stray freedom would disappear if the council made new anti-dog rules. An ordinary semi-suburban street, he kidded himself. More gentrification here and there – newly painted front doors, brass letterboxes and ceramic number plaques – showed up the original residents, with their tatty front gardens, peeling plaster, missing railings and their overflowing bins. By now no-one knew what was the proper day for putting out rubbish, so refuse was put out daily, even nightly, with extra at weekends.
Hugh wandered round the block and let himself back into the house. He found a little of this game was already effective – the house was beginning to change – he noticed small cracks down the side of the fireplace, scratches on the skirting board, looking round like an estate agent. He managed to plot out as far as chapter five, which was a great improvement on last week, even though he had no idea what was going to happen next. Hugh had never been able to write a synopsis of a proposed novel, he never had a clue; intelligent bumbling saw him through, though he would never have admitted this in any interview.
“I’ll try it for a while. It’ll help to keep the weight down
. But I absolutely refuse to go jogging, you know that. So naff.”
“Well it is, in this district,” Rhona commented, “You could end up in Lavender Hill. Keep to the edges of the Common like everyone else. I’m off to meet the boys now.” She had complicated arrangements with other parents – after school playing in other children’s houses meant mothers having to tolerate each other too, with reciprocal visits. Hugh had kept apart from this complex world and had managed never to have met any of the other parents so far.
The new arrangement worked. Hugh felt he was becoming more aware of his own neighbourhood and even becoming a neighbour himself. To stop the routine becoming boring he began to choose other streets and back streets to wander along. This was a freedom he had not known since childhood, that slow after-school wander back home, kicking bits of bricks or stones or empty cans.
He stood on the top step. Suspicion of spring air in a warmish gust of February wind. To go up the street past the dilapidated newsagents, or go down the street and past the long row of Victorian houses? He began to walk towards the mainroad, enjoying the change of scenery. Nosiness was his job, after all – how else could he write the next outstanding novel? Each day these decisions became more beguiling.
Hadn’t there been a wartime propaganda film called “London Belongs to Me”? Now he knew that feeling. The walking part of his morning became his thinking time. For every problem in his book, an incident in the streets would erupt and give an extra twist, an unlooked-for gift.