The Leaving Of Liverpool (40 page)

Look at the present situation. He’d been looking forward to the lawyers’ conference in Washington, had planned to travel by train with a few lawyer friends who were all staying at the same hotel, anticipated getting slightly drunk each night in the hotel bar, swapping stories and telling jokes. It was only going to be three days and would make an enjoyable break.

Then Tamara had decided she’d like to come. ‘I’ve never been to Washington. I’d love to see the White House.’

‘But what about John?’ Levon pointed out.

‘John can stay with one of his friends. He’s fifteen and will probably have a lovely time.’

At the expense of mine, Levon thought darkly. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Myra Grimaldi, Tamara’s best friend, decided she’d also like to visit Washington with her husband, Art.

‘Art will take us in the car,’ Tamara informed him. ‘It means you’ll save the train fare.’

Levon didn’t give a damn about saving the train fare and he loathed Art Grimaldi more than any other human being on earth. Art was a big man with a big voice who dominated every conversation with his right-wing opinions. Other people weren’t allowed to get a word in. But Lev’s objections to the Grimaldis’ presence were witheringly demolished by a determined Tamara, who was working out a programme of what they would do in Washington. She’d already booked a different hotel where all four of them would stay.

‘Will I be allowed to attend the conference?’ Levon asked sarcastically while he watched her make a list.

‘Of course, Lev, but we can meet outside and have an early dinner. Do you think you could get away for lunch?’

‘No,’ Levon growled.

‘Don’t be so bad-tempered. Anyone would think you didn’t want me to come.’

If only he could tell her! If only he could bring himself to say, ‘I don’t want you to come. I don’t want you to be my wife any more. I don’t want to live in Brooklyn. I want to live with Peggy Perlmann in Manhattan. By the way, Peggy and I have been having an affair for years, ever since we went to Anne’s wedding in Los Angeles.’

But he couldn’t. He was too much of a coward. Not only that, he didn’t want to hurt her. Once, she’d been the love of his life and he couldn’t bring himself to let her down. He tried to insist they went in his car, not Art’s, so at least he’d have some control over events. But apparently Art’s Oldsmobile was bigger, more comfortable, had eight cylinders and, what was more, was only a few months old, far superior to Levon’s ancient Maxwell, of which he’d grown extremely fond.

Art sang at the top of his voice all the way to Washington. Tamara and Myra discussed what they would buy in the shops. Levon sat miserably in the back. Every now and then, Tamara would mouth at him, ‘
Say something
,’ but Levon could think of nothing to say.

The enjoyable break became three days of sheer torture. He would leave the conference and his lawyer friends to find Tamara, Myra and Art waiting for him in the lobby. ‘Ah, here he is,’ Art would boom. ‘The sinner returneth.’ They would go for a meal at an expensive restaurant where only minuscule portions were served, when Levon had been looking forward to steak and fries in a greasy spoon, or heaps of spaghetti somewhere cheap and Italian accompanied by warm, red wine.

But now at last they were on their way home. It was a beautiful day, full of sunshine. Art was singing and driving too fast, the car windows were wide open and the stiff breeze was making Levon’s ears ache. ‘Would you mind closing the windows?’ he asked mildly.

‘The fresh air will do you good, pal.’ Art turned around and gave him a look bordering on contempt. ‘You’re as pale as a fish.’

‘For Christ’s sake, man, look where you’re going!’ Levon yelled, as the car swerved wildly across the road while Art was looking the other way.

Myra screamed, ‘
Art!
’

Tamara flung herself at her husband and he caught her in his arms as the Oldsmobile and the tanker coming directly towards them met head on. Seconds later, both vehicles burst into flames.

 

John Zarian was a handsome young man, almost six feet tall and well built with broad shoulders and perfect limbs. He had a pleasing disposition, was considered quite clever, though more with words than with figures. He played soccer and basketball for his school, where he was very popular with both the boys and the girls.

He’d been staying with his pal, Scott Ives, for the Easter break when the news came of his parents’ deaths in a car crash on their way back from Washington. As Scott’s mother, Angie, told her husband when he came home that night, ‘He took it very well - unnaturally well, in my view. He just said, “Thank you, ma’am, I’d like to go home now.” I said, “Honey, let me come with you,” but he refused, so what could I do but let him go?’

‘I’ll go round there. The kid shouldn’t be by himself at a time like this.’ Levon and Dick Ives had been good friends and he felt it was his duty to look after his boy.

There was no reply when he knocked on the door of the Zarians’ house. He walked around the property peering in windows and saw John in Levon’s study. He was kneeling amidst a pile of papers that had been strewn on the floor. Dick rapped on the window. John looked up, startled, and indicated he would open the door.

‘I’m sorry to hear about your mom and pop, son,’ Dick said when he was let in.

‘Thank you, Mr Ives,’ John said stiffly. He was dry-eyed, his face expressionless. Dick reckoned the terrible news hadn’t yet sunk in. He followed the boy into the study.

‘What are you doing?’ he enquired.

‘Looking for papers, insurance papers, stuff like that. They had funeral insurance, Mom told me once. Someone’s got to organize the funeral and there’s only me. This is the drawer where they kept everything; I’ve never looked in it before. Pop said it should all go in a file, but Mom just kept putting things in the drawer. These are my school reports.’ He tossed a brown envelope to one side.

‘I’ll see to the funeral.’ Dick put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed it.

‘Will I need their birth certificates and marriage certificate? I found some things, but they’re in Armenian. ’ He kept picking up papers, reading them briefly, then flinging them into an ever-growing heap. It reminded Dick of how he went outside and chopped wood when something bad happened; it was a way of letting off steam, occupying his mind and his hands while slowly getting used to the bad thing, whatever it may be.

‘I’m not sure. If you do, it won’t be for a day or so yet. Look, son, why not come round to our place and have something to eat? Stay the night. In fact, you can stay with us until the funeral’s over - longer, if you want.’ At only fifteen, the boy was likely to be taken into care until he was old enough to fend for himself. ‘Scott and Connie will be pleased to have you.’ Connie was the Iveses thirteen-year-old daughter and Angie was convinced she was madly in love with John.

‘What’s this?’ John picked up a piece of paper and stared at it.

‘Looks like a birth certificate. Probably yours. Shall we go now, son? Angie’s got the dinner on. I’ll come and look through all this stuff tomorrow, find the funeral insurance. We’ve got to arrange to have the . . . your mom and pop brought home.’ He’d nearly said ‘the bodies.’

John scrambled to his feet. ‘I need to go to the bathroom and look for my bag. I brought it home earlier, but can’t remember where I left it.’

‘I’ll look for the bag while you go to the bathroom.’

As soon as Mr Ives had left the room, John examined the birth certificate. It confirmed his date of birth and his name - but his mother was shown as Anne Murray and his father was ‘Unknown’.

 

John wasn’t sure what thought occupied his mind most during the sleepless night that followed; the fact that his parents were dead or that they weren’t his parents after all. He’d been adopted. He felt angry that they hadn’t told him. The anger helped him cope with the knowledge that his so-called mom and pop were dead. Whatever they’d done or not done, he had loved them with all his heart.

At quarter to four, Scott snoring loudly in the next room, he got up, put on the light, and studied the birth certificate he’d brought with him. It was the real thing, with an official stamp, and had been issued in City Hall. He stared at the name Anne Murray. He remembered his parents had sometimes had arguments over someone called ‘Anne’.

‘
You can’t forget her, can you?
’ Mom had screamed the last time.

‘
You can’t just forget people at will
,’ Pop replied.

Next morning, Mr Ives asked for the key to the Zarians’ house. ‘It’d be best if I made the necessary arrangements from there,’ he said. ‘Then I’ll have any papers to hand that might be needed. Your pop’s office should be informed, his bank. Do you want to come with me, son?’

‘No, thank you,’ John said politely.

Mrs Ives came and gently told him that breakfast was ready. Yesterday, she’d just yelled, ‘Grub’s up!’

John’s appetite had disappeared completely. All he wanted was coffee, which he didn’t normally like. ‘Have you heard of a woman called Anne Murray?’ he asked Mrs Ives when he was on his third cup. Connie stared at him with her eyes full of tears. So far, John hadn’t shed a single tear.

‘Anne Murray? Why, yes. I saw her once on Broadway; she’s a wonderful singer and dancer. I think your pop knew her. It was him who got us the tickets. She married someone, a film star.’ She frowned deeply as she tried to recall the name. ‘I know, it was Herbie Blinker, so she might have gone to live in California, but if she’s still on the stage she could have stayed in New York. Why did you want to know, John?’

‘There was a letter from her back home,’ John improvised, ‘but it didn’t have her address on. I just wondered who she was.’ He was beginning to feel trapped at the Iveses’ house. He was desperate to find Anne Murray, even if it meant going all the way to California. First, though, he’d try to find her in New York, call in all the theatres on Broadway. Someone somewhere must know where she is. It dawned on him that his task might be made much simpler by looking in the telephone directory.

But even that proved difficult. When he asked for the directory, Mrs Ives offered to look the number up for him and he didn’t want her to know it was for Anne Murray. He said he’d changed his mind and fancied a ride on his bike - he could look up the number in the post office - but she asked Scott to go with him, so John changed his mind again. It was no good saying he’d like to go home for a while, because Mr Ives was there.

In the end, he just rode away when no one was looking. It was rude, but he didn’t care. He had something vitally important to do and nothing on earth was going to stop him.

He left his bike with Mrs Engels, who taught history at school. She lived not far from Brooklyn Bridge and let him look at her directory without interference, though remarked she hoped he’d done his Easter homework. John said that he had, which was a lie. She didn’t know about his folks and he didn’t break the news about the accident.

There were loads of Murrays in the telephone directory, six with the initial ‘A’, and no indication as to whether they were male or female. He remembered Mrs Ives had said Anne Murray had married someone called Blinker, so looked up that as well. There was only one, an E. Blinker who lived on Fifth Avenue at 62nd Street.

It wasn’t the right initial, but Fifth Avenue seemed an appropriate address for someone who appeared on Broadway and had a film star for a husband. He supposed the proper thing to do would be ring the number and ask for Anne Murray, but he preferred to come face to face with the woman who might be his mother - if she were there.

He caught the bus across the bridge, then another to 62nd Street. It was a swell day, sunny and warm, and he had to remove his jacket on the bus. The address turned out to be an imposing building with swing doors opposite Central Park. His pop had loved Manhattan and had sometimes taken him to the park on Sundays if Mom hadn’t had something else arranged, usually to do with church or school. His pop had seemed a distant figure, but John had loved him. Had he been allowed more say in things, he reckoned Pop would have taken him to all sorts of places like museums and theatres and movies, the sort of trips that didn’t interest Mom.

He pushed through the swing doors and went inside.

 

Christina was in the kitchen preparing lunch, Lizzie was out for the day, and Anne was waiting for Bobby to return from the offices of the
New York Standard
and say he’d got the job as assistant editor. To pass the time, she was playing pool in Ollie’s den. She was good at pool: Herbie used to get quite cross when she beat him. Sometimes, she would lose just to placate him, but he would guess she’d done it deliberately and be even crosser.

‘There’s no pleasing you,’ she would laugh.

She and Herbie still got on well when they met. In Hollywood, he was forever getting entangled with different women, and a photo of him and the latest woman, usually referred to as a ‘starlet’, would appear in the scandal rags. Sometimes Anne was mentioned as his ‘long-suffering wife’. She didn’t give a damn what Herbie did.

The phone in the den rang. ‘Bobby!’ she cried aloud. The cue slipped and nearly ripped the table. It was the desk downstairs. ‘There’s someone down here to see you, Miss Murray: a Mr Zarian.’

It wasn’t Bobby, but Lev, which was just as good, as she could introduce them to each other. ‘Send him up,’ she said, and put down the phone, wondering why Lev hadn’t been automatically allowed up. Everyone downstairs knew him. Perhaps there was someone new on the desk, though it had sounded like Jimmy who’d worked in the building for ever.

 

The lift stopped and the doors opened on to an oddly shaped lobby lined with mirrors, like something out of a fairground. John was met with a hundred reflections of himself, all at a slightly different angle. He was so dazzled by the assortment of images that he failed to notice the slender, dark-haired girl waiting for him until she spoke.