‘What’s going on, Jim?’
‘I’m gonna tell you everything.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’
‘No need for any “Oh, Jesus”’; this is a genuine surprise. But if we stand out here all night, we might be struck dead by a firework and we’ll miss our chance. Get in, I’ll explain everything.’
I gently help her lower herself in before settling myself behind the wheel.
‘Oh, love. What’ll the neighbours think?’
I honk the horn – twice – and my poor ma jumps, a strange little yelp escaping her mouth. Off we drive. Sleepy streets lead towards a main road of struggling shops and many chippies, a pub on every corner. Rows of houses scattered amidst derelict warehouses, a disregarded part of the city that yearns for redevelopment. I feel bad calling this place a shit hole. It’s where I grew up, where my dad and my ma did their best, where – despite the negative press and lack of aesthetics – I’ve always been safe, welcome.
‘You’re looking at the dashboard as if it’s some sort of nuclear weapon,’ I laugh.
My ma, the woman who always knows what to say, even at funerals, is silent. The racing seat swallows her and she sits back, her head pressed into the seat, eyes wide, frog-like, as if she’s sat at the top of the Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. I’m going twenty miles an hour and yet her knuckles are white, gripping onto her handbag.
‘Tell me you didn’t steal it,’ she mutters. I notice she’s wearing lipstick, a rosy pink that shimmers on her thin lips. ‘Actually, if you did steal it, tell me the truth.’
I pull over, a little too sharply. We both jolt.
‘Mam. You’re sitting in this car with me. Me. Your son, James Anthony Glover.’
She shoots me a weary look.
‘I’ve never stole anything in me life. You know that.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘Is this something to do with Griffo’s dad?’
Oh, bloody hell. It wasn’t. But now it is.
Turning the ignition, I sigh. ‘I’ll take you home.’
‘Don’t do that.’
‘Well, you don’t seem to wanna let me indulge in surprising you, so …’
‘Oh, don’t be daft. Look at you sulking.’
‘I’m not sulk—’
‘You are. Your chin’s gone all chubby and your lips are pouted.’
‘Stop it.’
‘Look, I’ll shut up. I’ll keep me big mouth zipped.’
‘Nah, forget it.’
‘I most certainly will not forget it.’
‘Eh?’
‘I want me surprise.’
‘You do?’
‘I do.’
‘Oh, bloody hell.’
The tinkle of a piano sounds through the speakers. I turn up the volume and drive onwards. Elton John’s voice serenades us and I catch a glimpse of my ma’s face softening, her eyes closing into a smile.
‘Ooh, I love this one,’ she says, singing her own version of the words to ‘Your Song’. ‘Doesn’t it remind you of our Emma’s wedding?’
I smile. It does. The last time all five Glovers were together in one room, dancing, laughing, alive. The relief it had given my ma when our Emma had announced she would be getting married in Liverpool, bringing her American fella and his folks to her home city, was priceless. It made up for the holy shock of our Lisa eloping to Las bloody Vegas.
We turn onto the Dock road and as much as I want to put my foot down, feel the beauty of the power behind the rev, I remain as cautious as a learner, as sensible as an instructor. We cruise past the Liver Birds, then the Albert Dock floodlit beside the Wheel of Liverpool. Rockets sparkle across the sky, gentle bangs echoing from all around.
‘Your dad would’ve loved this,’ my ma says. ‘He’ll be looking down on us, leaning against them pearly gates, grinning from ear to ear. I can just see it.’
I try to see it, too, but to me, it’s a scene from one of those biblical films from the Seventies, bellowing voices and beards, nothing that resembles something real, something true. I wonder how clear the images of my dad in heaven actually are to my ma, for although a lifelong Catholic, she doesn’t believe in God. Or the church. Or even the Holy Communion she takes each Sunday morning when she goes along with Ethel Barton and her daughter, Yvonne. She goes out of habit, of course, and pretends to believe out of guilt. She regularly admits to both.
‘You hungry?’ I ask.
‘Hungry? It’s almost me bedtime.’
‘You don’t fancy some supper?’
‘You mean like tea and toast?’
The Titanic Hotel is one of the finest on Liverpool’s waterfront, and highly recommended by Griffo’s dad. An old rum warehouse in Stanley Dock shining with redbrick class, it has a vast, grand, and surprisingly cosy industrial feel. The lobby opens out into a spacious, thriving rum bar. Long wooden tables and modern hanging light fixtures surround us as we sit up on high brown leather bar stools.
‘Are you sure you wanna sit here, Mam? There’s a nice couch by the window.’
‘I love sitting at the bar,’ she says, her tiny feet dangling down, swinging. She’s wearing her black shoes with the little white bows on the toes, the ones she bought for my graduation. ‘I always used to make your dad sit on the high stools with me.’
‘Ah. I didn’t know that.’
‘We did go on the odd date, you know. Once or twice, like.’
We order a cocktail each; I decide on a mai tai, my ma a pina colada. Melted ice dribbles onto my t-shirt and it strikes me how scruffy I must look right now. My knees are poking through the rips in my jeans.
‘I mean, look at this place.’ My ma lowers her voice. ‘Who would’ve thought people’d pay to stay somewhere called the Titanic? And it’s confusing ’cause it feels really posh, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t look anything like that ship that Jack and Rose fell in love on. It looks more like a warehouse.’
‘That’s because it is – well, it was – a warehouse.’
‘Can you believe I’m drinking a pina colada?’ she giggles. ‘Wait ’til I tell our Lisa and our Emma about this. They’re phoning home tomorrow night, you know. Isn’t that marvellous?’
I raise my glass. ‘Cheers.’
‘Am I allowed to ask what this is all about yet, love?’
I give a little hum, teasing her. Then, I tell her the whole story. Starting with the phone call that morning in the toll booth to walking into the offices of Mersey Wave 103.4 to sign for my prize.
‘They gave me a free bottle of water,’ I add.
‘You can get free water from the kitchen tap, love.’
‘And then, there it was,’ I say, holding my arm out as if the car’s behind the bar. ‘No red ribbon or anything like I imagined, but I can live with that.’
My ma looks into her pina colada, shrinking into the bar stool’s wide leather back.
‘I’m pleased for you,’ she says, not sounding pleased at all. ‘Just be careful.’
‘I can drive. I’ve driven the bloody van every time Snowy’s moved house.’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean be careful with your luck.’