Shelter from the Storm (8 page)

He did to her what Esther Margaret considered extremely disgusting things and she realised why people ought to be married before they did them because it must be very sinful to enjoy anything quite as much as she enjoyed this. Embarrassed, her cheeks burning, wanting to stop him but unable to
find the will to do so, Esther Margaret was almost in tears. Nobody had seen her undressed that she ever remembered, and it was daylight. The curtains were open, and the rain lashed itself against the glass, stotted off the pantry roof. She was already regretting every second. She could not understand why nobody had talked to her about this. She didn’t know what was happening, just that the feelings in her body outweighed everything else. Nothing mattered. It was a complete downfall. She couldn’t help crying.

He kissed her tears and offered to stop but Esther Margaret had forgotten how. She shook her head wordlessly. There were a great many times later when she remembered that he had said did she think that was enough and it was the last chance to say ‘no’ and she wished, even when she knew it wasn’t fair to wish, that he had been as crass as Billy Robson and treated her body like a plaything, but he didn’t. He was cautious, careful, asked her if he was hurting her, treated her as if she were glass. It was impossible to blame anybody who behaved so well, and that left her with nobody to blame but herself and her parents, and since they weren’t there she belaboured them in her mind for what she did not want to feel responsible about.

It hurt, it was uncomfortable, her body went into shock, her mind couldn’t accept what was happening, it was messy and he was more close than anyone had ever been and she was not happy. When it was over he wrapped her up in a blanket and held her near and she listened to the rain beating against the window before she fell asleep.

When she woke up it was the middle of the afternoon and she was hungry. They ate the picnic in bed, giggling, and after that she wanted to be close and this time it was entirely different. She didn’t want to get out of bed for the rest of her life, she didn’t want to leave him, she didn’t ever want her parents to come home, but she knew that they would. Then she was afraid that somebody might see him. It was almost dark when he left. They had to risk it, and even then she clung to him at the outside
door. They had agreed to meet at the bridge the following Sunday, and it was an eternity until then.

Her parents came home and she felt like a different person, older, knowledgeable. She had lied and deceived them and sinned and it was very strange to be that new person. They tried talking to her and she tried talking back but it was nothing to do with her and they seemed strange, so much farther away. Her parents had always been everything in the world to her and now Dryden Cameron mattered more. He was the only person who mattered. She loved him. She knew what love was, how it felt. She wanted to run out of the door all the way to Mrs Clancy’s boarding house and claim him for her own. Her mother questioned her about dinner with the Robsons, having assumed that she had been, and Esther Margaret could see the shocked look on her face when she confessed that she had not. She lied again, said she didn’t feel well, and her mother understood that; sometimes she had pain when she was due to bleed. Thinking no doubt of her father, she did not question her further.

The week went by on slow old legs and it would never be Sunday, Esther Margaret thought. She went dutifully to church though she didn’t hear a thing and it lasted for ever and when it was over there was Sunday dinner to get through and she couldn’t eat.

‘You’re not still unwell, are you?’ her mother asked her when she was leaving the dining room.

‘A little. I think I might go for a walk.’

‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ her mother said. ‘Don’t be too long.’

Esther Margaret’s heart felt like a flag flying in front of her. She tried not to run, she didn’t want to draw attention to herself, but her footsteps quickened. He was waiting and she had to force herself not to grab him. They walked, away from the village and into the country, to a certain barn that Dryden seemed to know, and there they spent the afternoon. She realised that she should get back but the more she should the less she wanted to and she
was in tears long before she reached her house, so when her mother came into the hall, concerned, she said, ‘I’m not a child!’ and ran up the stairs.

After a short time her mother followed her, saying softly as she walked in, ‘You’re not ill, are you?’

‘I’m not ill, no.’

‘Good, because your father has invited the Robsons around tonight.’

‘What?’ Esther Margaret glared at her through her tears. ‘Doesn’t he know that I hate Billy Robson?’

Her mother stared.

‘How can you hate him?’

Esther Margaret’s throat closed so tightly that she couldn’t speak.

‘Esther Margaret …’ Her mother moved closer. ‘There is no point in you thinking that you will ever have anything whatsoever to do with Joseph Forster. Your father would not allow it. He has bad blood. You could not be happy with someone like that. Be sensible and the adult you think you are and then you will understand. Billy is one of us. He is very fond of you—’

Esther Margaret began to laugh.

‘He’s so fond of me he put his hands on me in the hall.’

‘How can you say such things?’ Her mother faltered. ‘You used to be such a truthful girl. I don’t understand what happened to you. Billy will do well, he has ambition. He will very likely be manager after your father. Don’t you think that would be very nice for all of us?’

Esther Margaret stopped laughing and put her hands to her eyes as the tears fell. And then she faced her mother.

‘Do you think nice is all I want? Do you think nice is all I can hope for?’

‘I think you must learn not to speak in so intemperate a manner. It’s very unbecoming in a young girl.’

Esther Margaret pictured herself in a pile of hay, almost naked, being pleasured by a young man her parents allied with
the Devil. It took all her restraint not to laugh again. Her mother was brisk.

‘Wash your face and comb your hair and then come downstairs. Billy and his parents will be here soon. I won’t have any more of this nonsense,’ she said.

Esther Margaret went to the window. She wondered what Dryden was doing. She knew that he went back to Mrs Clancy’s for something to eat and then he went to the pub. He didn’t have any friends. Was it more lonely for him or was this worse?

*

Dryden stood in his usual place in the Golden Lion. Nobody bothered him. They were used to seeing him there. Nobody spoke except the landlord; quite often he would talk to Dryden if he was not too busy. It was just general chat but Dryden was glad of it. Otherwise there was nothing else to do but go back to his room and watch the darkness for a long time before going to sleep. He wondered whether Tom would come. They were very often on the same shifts so when he went to the pub Tom was almost always there with his friends, Ed and Wes and others. Wes hadn’t knocked him about again since the time Tom had stopped him. In his mind Dryden had created a whole volume of books about Tom, about the childhood they had not had together and all the days since, when Tom was not his friend or his brother. If he thought hard enough he could see them, the world that he had made up, created for himself when Alf and Mary Cameron were his parents and he had lived with them in the house in Prince Row which looked over the pit where they worked. He had a vision in his mind, he knew it wasn’t true but it was there, of Tom on his father’s shoulders being carried high along the row, and then he imagined himself there and Tom running beside Alf, and Mary waiting at home with a fire and the tea ready and the doors to shut the darkness out.

Most precious of all was the reality of that day in the pub, that one golden magical Sunday dinner-time when Tom had put
himself between Dryden and Wes, and even though Dryden had attempted to convince himself a hundred times that Tom must have had some motive other than protection he could not see it. He did not need to protect Wes. Dryden would not have hit Wes in a thousand years, not with all his friends there. He would lie in his bed late at night and remember Tom Cameron’s back; it was the most sacred thing in his life. He was there for ever between the pub wall and his brother’s back and he was safe. It was the first time that he had felt safe in his life, and it was the warmest feeling that he had ever had. He never felt like that about a woman — he just screwed them and despised them for letting him because they liked the look of him — but the way he felt about Tom was the nearest he had ever got to love. He loved Tom so much that just being in the same room in the pub was enough to create a warm glow of happiness. He listened for Tom’s voice constantly, was disappointed when Tom was not there, could sit for hours while Tom and his cronies talked. Tom’s voice was the nearest thing to heaven.

Tom came in. Dryden knew it was him even without moving his eyes. Tom’s footsteps, his way of walking into the pub, were different from anybody else’s. He paused at the door, looking around to see if any of his friends were there, and then he strode across the room with a kind of swaggering confidence that Dryden would have done anything to be able to emulate, and then came up to the bar, sometimes very close. He didn’t ever speak and Dryden didn’t ever look up but he could feel the space between them, the air, as though it held something extra.

‘Wes been in?’

‘Nah,’ the landlord said. ‘Think he’s gone down with summat.’

‘What, like?’

‘Don’t know.’

The landlord gave Tom his first drink without being asked, and while Tom downed it he poured another. Dryden watched. Tom took the second and then turned around with his back to
the bar and complained mildly as he looked around, ‘There’s nebody in, Fred, man.’

‘Aye, I’m sorry like,’ the landlord said with fine sarcasm.

Tom grinned. Then he turned to Dryden.

‘What are you looking at?’ he said flatly.

Dryden moved back into the corner, into the shadows.

‘I’m speaking to you!’

‘Nothing.’

‘Don’t start on him, Tom,’ the landlord said tiredly.

‘Miserable snivelling little bastard!’ Tom jeered.

The landlord looked at Dryden.

‘Drink your drink and get out,’ he said.

Dryden had almost reached the door when somebody stuck a foot out and he went sprawling across the floor.

‘Get up,’ Tom said, and Dryden could feel the injustice of it hit his brain. He got carefully to his feet, and when Tom came over Dryden turned around and floored him. He made a good job of it too; it took three punches, Tom was so big, but he managed it, as if all the strength in him had gone into his hands. Tom lay there for a few moments as though he couldn’t believe it and then he got slowly to his feet, watching. Dryden couldn’t breathe. And then suddenly Tom began to laugh. Dryden couldn’t believe it. He would have gone but Tom put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him.

‘Howay man,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’

There is a theory that each man has a single perfect moment in his life and that when he dies that moment goes on for all eternity, and when Tom Cameron put his hand on his half-brother’s shoulder Dryden’s life was changed for ever. Nobody had ever touched him like that. The only time Mr Harmer had touched him was to punish him. The only women Dryden had known were those who wanted something from him. Beyond that there was nothing. This was the first time that anybody had touched him in affection. He was entranced. It got better. Tom put that arm around him and walked him back to the bar
and they stayed there, talking and drinking, and it was perfection.

By three o’clock they had drunk so much that Dryden had lost count, and Tom was insisting on Dryden going home with him for dinner. This seemed like a good idea. They hadn’t far to go, just up the bank and across the road and through the passage, coming out into Tom’s yard at the end of it. A good smell was coming out of Tom’s house, the door was open, the fire was burning brightly, and the dinner, like a miracle, was upon the table.

It seemed to Dryden that Vinia was a different person. She was a lot skinnier for one thing, which didn’t suit her. She had been a bonny lass and wasn’t any longer. Her face was white and pinched and her eyes were guarded. She didn’t say anything. It was just as if Dryden came every Sunday for dinner, whereas in fact it was the first time he had been invited anywhere. It was such a contrast to the Sundays he remembered the last time he had been in anybody’s house, when he was twelve. Sundays had been filled with church, twice, Sunday school, once, bible-reading in between and food that was only memorable for being scant and badly cooked. In the summer the house was hot and musty and in winter it was freezing. He had never seen a house like Tom’s with a huge fire and platefuls of good food, and in spite of the fact that he was there it made him feel more left out than ever for all those years of nothing better than Mrs Clancy’s boarding house. Surely he deserved better than that.

Dryden had not experienced a woman like Vinia, who ran about after them, refilling plates and topping up beer. After he had been there for an hour, and Tom had finished his meal and lain down upon the settee and gone to sleep, Dryden’s greatest fear in life was that he would not be asked back. Vinia went in and out of the pantry, clearing up and washing up. She didn’t look at him or speak to him and Dryden felt that he ought to go. He didn’t know what to say to her. The only woman in a house he had had anything to do with was Mrs Harmer, who quoted
the Bible a lot and made him eat burned porridge. Vinia was another world to him. He made himself go to the pantry door. It was fairly dark in there, nothing but a tiny window and a flagged floor and the sink and her. She wore a neat black dress. There was something about her. Dryden didn’t know what it was, something he almost remembered, and then she turned around, frowning, and he didn’t know what to say. She was not pretty like Esther Margaret nor horrible in a birdlike, beaky way as Mrs Harmer had been. She was neat, the opposite of Mrs Clancy, no spilled food down her front. The black dress had a little white collar and her hair was pulled back without a single curl, each strand perfectly held.