can see I’ll have to take myself up there at the first opportunity,’ he said obediently.
‘Quite right!’ Lucy applauded. ‘Make sure you do!’
While Lucy and Ben chatted, Mary thought it amazing how well they got on together. But then, right from the start, she had felt comfortable with him. Maybe it was because he was older than her? Ben was so easy and natural, it would be hard not to feel at home in his company.
‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ With her engaging manner and interesting tales, Lucy had commandeered him, though he hoped that he and Mary would make up for lost time together later.
‘Go ahead, young man. Ask away.’
‘Well, I was just thinking … if you were so happy in Liverpool, why would you ever want to leave?’
Suddenly the air was thick with silence, and Ben immediately wished he had never asked. But then his hostess answered and her manner was curiously sombre. ‘Life sometimes gives us problems that we aren’t equipped to deal with. So we run away … like the cowards we are.’
Ben was mortified. ‘Oh look, I’m sorry. I seem to have opened up old wounds.’ She had that same look about her that he had seen in the churchyard; a look of resignation, a sadness that was almost tangible.
Lucy, too, was mortified, for she had let them both see through her armour, and now she was afraid. ‘It’s all right,’ she assured him hurriedly. ‘I did love Liverpool. I still do, but I can’t go back.’ Her voice stiffened. ‘I could never go back.’
Mary had never heard her mother talk in that way, and it worried her. From a child, she had known there was something in her mother’s past that played strongly on her mind. Her own memories were unreliable; her early childhood often seemed tantalisingly out of reach. With Ben having opened a door to which she herself had never had access, secrets might come out and at last she would know what it was that haunted her mother so.
Turning to Ben she confessed, ‘You’re not the only one never to have seen the Mersey. I was born in Liverpool yet I can’t recall anything about it.’ She glanced at Lucy. ‘Time and again, I’ve offered to go back with Mother, but we never have, and now I’m beginning to think we never will.’
Lucy smiled. ‘Oh, you’ll see Liverpool,’ she promised. ‘Maybe not with me, but you’ll go down the Mersey and know the wonder that I knew as a young woman. Curiosity will get the better of you and one day, you will go back, I’m sure of it.’
Mary asked her outright. ‘And if I really wanted you to come with me, would you?’
Lucy shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’ In spite of her mother’s emphatic answer, Mary felt she might yet uncover the truth; until her hopes were dashed with Lucy’s firm reply.
‘Because I’m too old now. Travelling tires me, as you well know.’ She laughed as she told Ben, ‘We went to London on the train. Dear me! What a trial. All that climbing in and out, up and down. You wouldn’t believe the traffic in the streets there, and folks rushing about as though it was the end of the world … It was all too much for me.’ Sighing, she finished, ‘No, my travelling days are well and truly at an end.’
With dinner over, they retired to the cosy sitting room. Here, although the hour was growing late, they chatted on; among other things they talked of the introduction in America of the first colour television. ‘The mind boggles!’ Lucy declared. ‘Colour television, indeed! Whatever next?’ She herself thought the wireless was sufficient – why would you need one of those big, ugly television sets?
Mostly they talked about the grave illness of King George. ‘He has been a good King,’ Ben said. ‘He’ll be sadly missed.’
Mary had her say and it was this. ‘You’re right. He will be missed, but his daughter Elizabeth will make a wonderful Queen.’ And without hesitation, the other two readily agreed.
‘Right!’ After tapping on the door, Elsie showed her face. ‘I’ll be off now. I’ve washed the dinner things and cleared them away. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Thank you, Elsie.’ Lucy was fond of that dear woman. ‘Off you go and put your feet up.’
Elsie chuckled. ‘Hmh! Chance would be a fine thing.’
Mary excused herself and saw Elsie out. When she returned to the sitting room, she saw how tired her mother seemed. ‘I think it’s time you went to bed,’ she said affectionately.
‘Nonsense!’ Lucy was bone-tired, though she would never admit it. ‘I’m getting to know our new friend,’ she said. ‘The more I learn about him, the more I like him.’
Ben laughed. ‘I’m flattered,’ he told her, ‘but I have to agree with your daughter, and then there’s that business of you falling and hurting yourself in the churchyard. It’s been a long, heavy day and no one would blame you if you wanted to rest now.’
He had noticed how every now and then she would close her eyes and relax into the chair, and occasionally she would fitfully rub her hands together, as though fighting some inner demon.
‘I see!’ Looking from one to the other, Lucy smiled wickedly. ‘Trying to get rid of the old biddy so the two of you can be alone – is that it?’ Mary smiled, but in fact, she had been concerned about her mother these past months. She seemed to have grown frail, and less mobile, though she would not hear of seeing a specialist.
Changing the subject completely, Lucy told Mary, ‘I think I’m ready for a nice cup of tea. What about you, Ben?’
‘Sounds good to me, thank you,’ he said, swallowing a yawn. It was high time he was in bed, too. The animals would be waiting to be fed at dawn.
‘Go on, then! Get the kettle on, Mary, before we all die of thirst, and don’t bring the teapot, there’s a good girl … too much fuss and ceremony. Just pour three cups, that’ll do.’
Frustrated at her mother’s insistence on referring to her as ‘child’ or ‘girl’, Mary groaned. ‘All right, Mother, I’m on my way.’ Turning to Ben she confirmed, ‘One sugar and a little milk, isn’t it?’ She had remembered when Elsie brought him tea earlier.
‘That’s it, yes. Thank you.’ He was surprised and pleased that she’d remembered.
‘There you are!’ Lucy chipped in. ‘Already she knows how you like your tea. That’s the sign of a good wife, wouldn’t you say, Ben?’
‘I’d say your daughter has a good memory,’ he answered, and that was as far as he would go.
No sooner had Mary departed for the kitchen than Lucy was quizzing him again. ‘You do like her, don’t you?’
He had got used to her directness and thought it refreshing, but now and then she would ask a question that took him off guard. ‘I do like her, yes.’ What else could he say, when he had been drawn to Mary as to no other woman since his divorce.
Lucy seemed to be reading his thoughts. ‘I know I can be impertinent, and I know what you must think of me, but I do worry for my daughter, and when I see how well the two of you get on, I can’t help but wonder if she’s found her man at last …’ Her voice trailed away and her eyes slowly closed.
For a moment Ben thought she had fallen asleep, but then she suddenly straightened herself up in the chair and asked him another question. ‘Do you think you’ll ever get back with your ex-wife?’
Ben shook his head. ‘It was a long and messy business, and now it’s over, and so is our relationship.’
‘And the girl?’
‘You mean Abbie, my daughter?’
‘Yes. How does she feel about you and her mother splitting up?’
To Ben, the question was like a stab below