Free The Liverpool Trilogy by Ruth Hamilton Page B

brain, and she planned all this. Not the heart attacks – she wouldn’t harm a flea. But the great denouement was arranged by Mother.’
    Mike allowed a tight smile to visit his face for a second or two. ‘Denouement? Anyone listening might think you were a drama student.’
    She jumped to her feet suddenly. ‘Oh, my God,’ she yelled. ‘I’ve an audition tomorrow, so I can’t come with you. I’ll be in Manchester – Summer Theatre in the Park, which means it will probably be a very wet affair. You see, I need it for my portfolio, real experience. Someone fell ill, and I’m trying for her part. Sorry, mate. I’ll drop you off at the railway station, but I can’t go to see Mother and Paul. The best thing might be for you to go to Chester by train, get your car, then drive to Liverpool. But I can’t come. I have to take every chance. Mums drummed that much into me.’
    ‘Good thing I reminded you then, airhead.’
    She wagged a finger at him. ‘You start telling my mother what to do with her life, and you’ll have me to answer to. I’ll deal with you, I promise, and I won’t be kind. We may have inherited her temperament, but I think I’ve got his temper without the “ament”.’
    ‘Fate worse than death, being dealt with by you, little sis,’ he remarked as he left the room. ‘I promise I’ll be good,’ he called over his shoulder.
    Liz stayed where she was for a while. Tallows was a house that could never have been termed cosy, because it was rather grand. Robbed of much of its furniture, it was about as welcoming as an oversized cold store in the middle of winter – what the heck was Mother going to do with it? It was becoming plain that an ideas woman had sat behind the docile wife, just waiting for the right time, the right chance. ‘Tallows can’t be left to rot,’ Liz whispered. ‘And she’ll know that. She’ll think of something, I know she will.’
    She walked through four huge reception rooms, on to orangery, library, kitchen. By most people’s standards, this was a huge house. The entrance hall alone could have accommodated a sizeable family, and the Henshaw children had taken for granted that games of hide-and-seek were special in their young lives. Paul had once spent the best part of a day in a bedding chest on a landing. He’d been discovered only when he’d come up for air.
    ‘Wonderful house for children,’ she whispered. But was it? Whenever she thought about marriage and a family, she saw herself in a more conventional place, hopefully in London and near to a park in which children could play. She liked tall, thin, London terraced properties with the kitchen in a basement below those tortuous flights of stairs, a walled rear garden, bedrooms on two upper floors above the living rooms.
    After digging in her capacious bag for an elusive bit of paper, she found tomorrow’s instructions. Prostitute, heroin addict. Murder victim. Act one only. Oh, well. If she didn’t survive to act two, there wouldn’t be a lot to do, and the script gave her just a few pages to learn. It was work, and she was determined to have it. In her game, actual employment meant more than any qualification. A curriculum vitae, along with a few photographs, carried a great deal of weight when it came to auditions.
    Upstairs, she found a faded denim skirt of which her parents had never approved. Daddy called it a handkerchief, and had been heard to opine that if the skirt were any shorter, Lizzie would need to wash behind her ears. Mother labelled it a pelmet, so it was eminently suitable for the part. A once-white top that failed completely to cover her midriff was also chosen, along with shoes and boots high enough to require planning permission. She would decide about footwear in the morning.
    Later, Liz lay in bed. Should she go up for the part? What if she got it and Daddy died and she needed to take time off? And shouldn’t she be with him while he was so ill? Her brothers might start persuading