A man who cried (22 page)

”I’m off then, Dad,” he turned about and putting his hand on his son’s

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cheek, said gently, ”You’ll be all right.” He did not add, ”Remember what I said,” because he felt

there was no need; the less said about it from now on the better.

While the boy was crossing the yard towards the gate the kitchen door opened and Florrie

reappeared, with Hilda behind her. Hilda was putting her coat on and as she made for the

staircase he drew back from the window and waited until her voice called, ”Abel! Abel!”

Slowly he went down the stairs and she greeted him with a flow of words. ”Dad was knocked

down last night, he’s in hospital. Do you think you can manage ? Leave everything to Arthur, I

mean the work; just keep your eye on things.”

Before he had time to reassure her she was exclaiming, ”Oh me bag ! I’ve come out without me

bag,” and turning from him, she dashed back into the house, while he walked slowly across to

where Florrie was standing by the car. After a moment during which they stood looking at each

other, he said, ”I’m sorry about your father.”

”Oh, he’ll survive. But just in case, I thought she should know. ... By the way, she’s told me the

happy news.”

He continued to stare at her waiting for her to add, ”Congratulations,” but what she said was, ”I

wish you all you wish yourself,” and to this he answered, ”I’m afraid that’s too tall an order ever

to come true.”

The next minute Hilda was by his side. ”There now,” she said, ”I’m ready,” and as Florrie went

round the bonnet to the far door of the car Hilda lifted her face up to his, and after a moment’s

hesitation he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

There was a loud revving up and the car started and went out through the wide opening as if

setting off for a race, leaving him standing in the middle of the yard.

Never before, not even when Alice went, had he experienced this feeling of aloneness that was in

him now, for it was bordering on desolation, desolation of both mind and spirit.

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The First Incident 1938

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”Molly, may I come in?”

The young woman turned from the sink, looked towards the door where the boy in the school

blazer was standing, and she said, ”Why, of course. What’s the matter with you ? You don’t

usually ask, what’s the matter with you ?”

As he stepped into the room he looked around the kitchen and in a whisper now he muttered,

’Your mother ?’

”Oh, she isn’t down today, she rarely comes down at the weekends.”

”Oh aye, yes.” He nodded at her.

She was now standing in front of him and, bending forward, she asked softly, ’What’s the matter,

are you ill ?’

”Well” - he turned his head to the side - ”I’ve . . . I’ve been sick, and it... it went down my sleeve.

Look, it’s on the front of my blazer, and Aunt Hilda ’11 go mad if she sees it. Could . . . could I

sponge it down ?”

”What made you sick ?” She was still bent down towards him. ”You been stuffing?”

”No.” He shook his head before saying sheepishly, ”Smokin’.”

”Smoking!” The word came out on a giggle; then their glances meeting, they both started to

laugh further but checked themselves immediately with their hands over their mouths.

”Here, take your coat off,” she said, swinging him round and pulling the blazer from him. ”What

were you smoking, tabs?”

”No ... a pipe.”

”A what!”
Again she was gurgling. ”Where on earth did you get a pipe?”

’Géorgie. Géorgie Armstrong. He’d got these old pipes of his father’s and we were in the hut at

the bottom of the garden. He was all right, he knew how to smoke, and I would have been all

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right an’ all, I think, if it hadn’t been for his mother Jf ,

”She caught you?”

”I say she did. She . . . she came from nowhere.” He pressed his lips together to prevent himself

from laughing again, then went on. ”She didn’t say a word, but she lifted him up by the collar,

and he still had the pipe in his mouth! She got a hold of me next and . . . and -” He now leaned

over the kitchen table and, putting his elbows on it, dropped his face on to his hands in an effort

to suppress his mirth.

”Go on, tell me,” Molly hissed at him.

Straightening up, he turned to her and ended, ”She . . . she put her foot in me backside and I went

sprawling through the door on to me hands and knees. It was then I was sick and . . . and when I

picked meself up I saw her tearing up the garden with Géorgie, and his feet were hardly touching

the ground. The funny part about it was she hadn’t spoken a word.”

The laughter was getting a hold of them again, they looked into each other’s face until, in an

effort to smother his guffawing, he fell against her, and when his arms went about her she

remained utterly still for a moment; then she held his shaking body to her and let her own

laughter mingle with his.

Even when his laughter subsided he didn’t move away from her, not until a voice coming from

above seemed to cleave them apart like a knife.

”Molly! Molly!”

Molly went to the door that led into the hall and from there she called, ”Yes?”

”What’s going on down there ?”

”Nothing, Mother.”

”Come up here.”

”I’m seeing to the dinner; I’ll be up in a minute.” She turned now and closed the door none too

gently, then coming back into the kitchen, she said, ”I’d better press your coat, you can’t put it on wet.”

”Oh, it’ll be all right.” He was whispering again.

She took no heed of him, but brought out the ironing board from a cupboard, together with an

iron, switched it on, then smoothed the blazer out while waiting for the iron to heat.

Dick sat looking at her, at the girl who had been his friend for years but who, during the last year or so, had somehow slipped

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away from him while becoming a young woman.

He watched her wet her finger on her tongue and apply it to the iron; then happening to look at

him she paused and said, ”You’re miles away again. What are you thinking about?”

”I ... I wasn’t miles away, I was thinking about you.”

”Oh.”

”It’s just struck me that you’re very like Aunt Florrie.”

”Oh now! Now!” She made a soft deriding noise. ”Your Aunt Florrie isn’t only the smartest

dressed woman in the town she’s the best looking too, if I’m any judge.”

”Well . . . well, I wasn’t meaning your face, I ... I was meaning your figure like.”

”Oh thank you. Thank you.”

”Aw, I didn’t mean it that way. You’re all right.”

”Up to here you mean ?” She held the back of her hand under her chin.

And yes, that’s what he did mean ’cos she didn’t look a bit like Aunt Florrie. Her black hair was

as straight as a die and all other young women’s hair seemed to be frizzy or wavy. And she

hadn’t any colour in her face; sallow, he supposed, was the word for her skin. But she had nice

eyes; they were long-shaped with heavy lids. He remembered his dad once remarking about her

eyes and saying they were beautiful, and his Aunt Hilda had added it was a pity the rest of her

face didn’t come up to them, which he thought wasn’t very nice. But then his Aunt Hilda often

said things that weren’t very nice; more so of late. Faintly he could remember a time when she

had, so to speak, been all over him. Still, she was all right, was Aunt Hilda; and she was a good

cook.

To make up for his apparent tactlessness he now said, ”Dad once said you had lovely eyes.”

”Did he?”
” .’,’.

”YeS.” .’;;.. ’

”But there, your dad is a very kind man.”

”Yes, I suppose he is.” He nodded at her and she made that little sound in her throat again; then

whipping up the blazer from the ironing board, she threw it towards him, saying, ”Get it on. And

the next time you want to smoke, try a tab.”

”I don’t think I’ll try anything again.”

As he buttoned up his blazer he went towards the door, sayHi

ing, ”Ta, Molly. That’s saved me a wigging. Ta-rah.”

”Ta-rah.” She placed a hand between his shoulder blades and pushed him through the door, and

he turned and laughed at her before scampering along by the side of the house, then across the

meadow and through the broken fence boundary, round by the garden outhouses, through the

narrow cut between the garage and the bicycle shed, and so into the yard.

Arthur was at the petrol pump seeing to a customer. This recalled to his mind that it was Arthur’s

Saturday on, which meant that his dad would be free. The thought gave a lift to his spirits and he

dashed up the yard towards the kitchen door, but slowed down to a walk before reaching it.

^, He opened the door and stepped quietly into the familiar brightness, then looked towards the

dinner table in surprise. He had fully expected to see his dad and Aunt Hilda sitting there and had

been prepared for her demanding, ”Where have you been till this time?” However, he had no

sooner closed the kitchen door behind him than he was given evidence of where his father and

his step-mother were, and the tone of their voices brought a slump to his shoulders and his chin

drooping towards his chest. They were at it again, at least his Aunt Hilda was at it again. It didn’t take much to set her going.

He tiptoed towards the far door and cocked his head to the side. His father was saying, ”I got

more when I was a hand. And why can’t it be a joint account, I’m supposed to be a partner, aren’t

I? Partner? Huh!”

”There’s money there if you want it; I’ve never kept you short.”

”What are you talking about, money if I want it ? You have every penny docketed that comes

into the place. You attend to. those books there as you do to your Bible.”

”Abel! Now I’m warning you.”

”Well, you can stop warning me and come to an arrangement, a fair arrangement. . . . My name

was to go up on the board, wasn’t it ? What happened to that ? I’ve doubled the business in the

yard in the last five years but to all intents and purposes I might as well still be the hand; in fact, to you I’m still the hand, aren’t I?”

”Don’t be ridiculous ! I’ve given you everything you’ve asked for.”

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”What did you say, Hilda, you’ve given me everything I’ve asked for?”

”I’m not going to stand here wasting my time talking to you.”

As Dick prepared to jump back his father’s voice checked him as it did Hilda’s, and in his mind’s

eye he knew that his dad had hold of her. Then his voice came deep and angry sounding. ”What

have you ever really given me, Hilda ? A new suit a year, rigged the boy out for school, four

square meals a day. Oh, I’ll grant you that. And yet that too has a selfish side because you like

nothing better than stuffin’ your face. . . . No, you don’t ! You’ll just stay and listen; for once

you’ll listen to me.”

This was followed by a silence in which Dick drew in a deep breath, then endeavoured to hold it

in case he should cough. But when his father spoke again it was about something different,

something personal, which embarrassed him, so much so that what he heard quickened his

breathing and brought out a sweat on the back of his neck. He shut his mind to the first spate of

words, then found his eyes widening and his ears seeming to stretch to take in the flood of words

his father was pouring out, words he knew that were connected with . . . that other thing, the

thing that Géorgie Armstrong knew all about, the thing that he said happened between his mother

and father. That’s what his dad was talking about now. . . .

”So far and no further. You didn’t like it, did you? Came as a shock to you, is what you said. You

were made for old Maxwell. God! what a pity he had to go. He supplied all you needed, didn’t

he, nursed you, cuddled you, petted you; and with him there was no ripening, was there ? All he

needed was a little girl at night and a business-woman during the day, and you fitted his picture

perfectly. Well, I’m no Mr Maxwell. I don’t want any little girl to play with, nor do I want a boss

woman over me during the day, I want a fair deal. I’ve put a lot of hard work into your business

your business, do you hear ? - because you wouldn’t let me start one of my own. That was in the

plans to begin with. Oh yes, but it was soon put aside, wasn’t it ? I had to have nothing of my

own. I had to depend upon you, hadn’t I ? I was still the fellow from the road. Oh yes, I was.

Shake your head as much as you like, Hilda. I was still the fellow from the road and I still am,

isn’t that so. I catch you looking at me sometimes as if you’re wondering why you took me on.”

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Dick now turned his chin tightly into his ffoulder as he heard a scuffling; then Hilda’s voice

came from the room yelling, ”Yes! you’re right in part, but I didn’t think at the time what I was

taking on. You’ve made me think about it since though, because you act deep. I know no more

about you now than on the day we were married. As for me not giving you anything, what have

you given me, I ask you ? You accuse Mr Maxwell of treating me as a little girl. Well, things

might have been different if you had treated me with a little of his gentleness instead of always

wanting to satisfy your lust. You should have married someone like our Florrie, she could have

satisfied all your needs. Oh yes, she would have satisfied all your needs.”

There was a short silence before his father’s voice came to him again ; and now his eyebrows